Righto! I'm so sorry for the long wait in updating. I hit a little bit of writer's block for a while, but no worries! I haven't abandoned this story! It shall go on! :D Once again, a big thank you to everyone who's been reading, reviewing, favoriting, and alerting! You guys are awesome!
DISCLAIMER: Everything belongs to Visceral Games and EA.
Isaac was surprised to find that something he didn't think would scare him ended up making him jump out of his skin. "Isaac," game-Nicole suddenly piped up out of nowhere in a video log, "Make us whole again."
"God, damn it," Isaac gasped once the adrenaline rushing through his veins began to wear off, "Sorry, Nicole. You scared me there for a minute."
"It's okay," his girlfriend replied, "What does 'Make Us Whole Again' even mean, anyway?"
"You got me," Isaac replied, watching as his air meter began to count down.
"Careful, Mr. Clarke," Kyne warned, "You won't be able to breathe soon."
"Not unless I kill another Wheezer," the engineer said in response as he found the Wheezer responsible for this and killed it, cleaning the air in the room once again.
Boom! Suddenly, out of nowhere, two Infectors popped out a vent, causing everyone in the room to jump. "Aww, shit!" Kendra cursed, "That's not supposed to be part of your workload, Isaac!"
"It is now!" Isaac quipped as he engaged his game-character in quick time events that would kill the Infectors instantly if he succeeded, which he did, thank God. Once that was over, he turned around and left the room, going through the door on the opposite end of the catwalk and saving at the closest Save Point.
Uhhh! Nyah, nyah! "What the fuck?" Hammond cursed under his breath.
"I see something yellow," Temple whispered as an unfamiliar Necromorph came into view.
"The hell?" Isaac also whispered, and when the Necromorph got close to him, he saw what it was all about.
"YAHHH!" the monster screeched, raising the bright, yellow pod that was on the end of its arm and slamming into game-Isaac, knocking him back a few feet.
"Did that Necromorph just kill itself, too?" Kyne asked in shock.
"Just exploded right in front of us," Elizabeth responded, "An Exploder!"
"If only all the Necromorphs could just explode like that," Isaac muttered, "To save me the effort."
"No way!" Kendra piped up, grinning, "That's your job!"
"Among other things." Nicole just frowned in sympathy.
"Entering zero-gravity," a voice announced in the next area, and for the next few minutes, Isaac silently made himself jump from point to point as he killed the floating Lurkers all around him.
"I wonder if I'm still slumped in that hallway," Hammond wondered out loud, "I can't believe the game made me so weak!"
"You know what to do," Mercer told him, handing him the list.
"Ahh, right," Hammond replied, "I almost forgot about that. Thanks for coming up with the idea in the first place."
Mercer smirked. "Someone had to do it."
"Well, thanks," Isaac thanked him.
Once he was finished in the zero-gravity area, he entered another room, where a whoosh greeted his game character out of nowhere. "Warning: Air filtration system still active. Entering the filtration tubes is extremely hazardous."
"Shit," the engineer cursed, "Look at that!"
"Knowing this game," Nicole replied, "You'll probably have to go through there."
"I better not die, either," Isaac joked as he picked up another audio log.
"Elizabeth!" Hammond cried, pointing at the screen.
"Hello? Hello! Security! Thank god. This is Dr. Cross, in Hydroponics. I'm trying to locate Second Engineer Jacob Temple! I can't get through to Engineering! Of course I know there's a ship-wide medical alert! That's why I'm trying to locate him! No, we're safe for now. But the tram is down, and we can't reach the escape pods. Hello? Hello?"
"Aww, you're looking for me?" Temple cooed as he hugged his girlfriend.
"Of course!" Elizabeth answered, "At least the game got that right!"
"You know what would be funny?" Hammond said to them, "If you two and Isaac ended up meeting up somewhere in the game."
"That would be sick!" Temple exclaimed, and Mercer gave him a look.
"Hey, Mercer," Isaac began as he made his game counterpart take the elevator down to the burning tubes, "Why don't you and Temple like each other? Is it because…?" Nope, he thought to himself, I better not go there.
"I'd prefer not to talk about it," Mercer answered.
Temple kicked back in his seat and just shrugged, opting not to ruin the positive atmosphere with his opinions on Unitology and the people that believed in it. That was for another day. "You are so much like your game character," everyone heard Mercer whisper under his breath, but nobody commented on it. Isaac wouldn't admit it to the others, but the doctor was right: Jacob Temple's character was the only one who was even remotely anything like his real life self.
Getting through the burning tubes was no joke, and after taking quite a bit of damage, Isaac managed to keep himself alive, which was a miracle.
The familiar wheezing of the last Wheezer in the West Grow Chamber reached everyone's ears, and once game-Isaac finally killed it, everyone cheered. "Hooray!" they cried, lifting their drinks and snack bowls into the air.
"Thank God the West Grow Chamber is finally clean," Isaac sighed in relief.
"Yeah, but there's still the whole East Grow Chamber," Kyne pointed out, and everyone groaned.
"Way to ruin the good mood, Terrence," Hammond muttered to himself.
"Sorry, Mr. Hammond," Kyne apologized, "But wouldn't it be better to cheer after we've cleaned the whole deck?"
"I guess so."
"AHHHHHHHHH!"
"Aww, crap!" Isaac groaned as he opened the door leading to the East Grow Chamber to find a Mature Guardian at the end of the hallway, "I thought we were done with these instant-kill Necromorphs."
"Never," Nicole teased, "Just don't get too close to them. Remember?"
Isaac instantly had a flashback to watching his game character get decapitated back in chapter five. "Oh, I remember," he assured her.
After a few minutes, he finally managed to get rid of the Guardian and the pods that it was shooting out of its stomach, even though the battle ended up eating a lot of game-Isaac's ammo. "Sorry, guys," he apologized, "I have to go back to the Store."
"By all means," Kendra said, gesturing to the screen, "Take care of business."
Once he was finished at the Store, game-Isaac went to the Bench in one of the side rooms, where he upgraded his Pulse Rifle, Plasma Cutter, Line Gun, and Ripper that he had gotten a few chapters ago. "Time to keep going," he said to the others as he opened the next door.
"Whoa, shit!" everyone gasped as the Slasher standing on the other side grabbed game-Isaac in a quick time event.
"Damn," Isaac cursed, "I was not expecting that."
"Expect the unexpected, Mr. Clarke," Kyne advised sagely, holding up a finger.
Everyone turned to stare at him. "Do you always have to be so wise, Terrence?" Mercer joked.
"One of us has to be," Kyne answered, "And my character seems to fit the bill."
"Your character killed Matthius," Temple reminded him. Kyne didn't say anything, but he pouted slightly as everyone turned back to the television screen again. Now, game-Isaac was making his way up to the actual East Grow Chamber itself.
"Vegetative anomalies detected in the East Grow Chamber."
"Yeah, yeah, we know," Hammond teased, "Let's just get a move on."
But when game-Isaac entered the East Grow Chamber, he noticed that it looked very different from the West Grow Chamber. There was little to no plant life here, and Elizabeth couldn't find anything to say in response. Neither could Nicole.
Boom! "Hazardous anomaly detected. Quarantine activated."
"Oh, God," Isaac petitioned, "I hope that's not what I think it is."
ROAR! "Oh, no it is!" Kendra cried, "A Brute!"
"Brute?" Temple and Elizabeth asked in confusion.
"Oh yeah, you guys never saw the Brutes before," Nicole remembered, "Here's one now. We fought two back in chapter four."
"God, that thing is huge!" Elizabeth gasped as the Brute roared and plowed towards game-Isaac, who quickly used Stasis in order to start shooting at its weak spots.
"Never thought we would see any of these again," Kendra mused as this time, Isaac took more damage than he had before.
"Don't die, Isaac!" Nicole shouted.
"I'll try not to!" Isaac replied as he soon found he had run out of Stasis and health packs.
"Then again…" Isaac added quietly as he was forced to watch the Brute grab his game character.
"Aww, hell no," Temple groaned, "What's happening?"
The Brute roared as game-Isaac attempted to crawl away from the hulking Necromorph, but the Brute was quicker. It used both hands to grab Isaac's game character on both ends, and with a few chomps, it bit his head off. "Aww, fuck!" Isaac cursed, but the torture did not end there.
The Brute roared again, using its strength to rip game-Isaac's body in half as if he were made of play dough. "HOLY SHIT!" everyone screamed, covering his or her eyes as the brute continued its assault until game-Isaac was completely dismembered. When that was over, the Brute cheered triumphantly as it gazed into the camera at the player.
"AHH!" Nicole cried, clinging onto Isaac, "Isaac, for the love of God, please don't ever get killed by a Brute again!"