Chapter 14:
Days since infection: 1
With her mission crystal clear, Shadow stalker got out of Piggot's office. She was briefed long before panacea joined them, but Piggot allowed her to stay around for a while so she could learn a bit more about what she would be facing soon.
Her plaything was either dead or running around the city spreading a mortal disease, and she was saddle with the task to find and capture her. Of course, she wasn't going to do it out of pure respect for the rules and the command chain. During their investigation, some PRT agents found a diary where Hebert was keeping record of her life as a misfit, and Piggot was using it as leverage to control her. If that information was used, she would be sent to the detention center and her little brother would be left alone with their mother. The bright side was that, if she managed to capture Hebert, she would no longer have to worry about being a ward. Her so desired liberation was finally within her hand's reach and the only thing she had to do was beat Hebert just one more time. After her task was completed, she would be able to step out of the wards with her vigilante records cleaned.
Outside of the office was Miss Militia, ignorant of what was happening inside of her body. "Get inside, they are waiting for you," she said before heading for the closed window. Miss Militia was infected and Shadow Stalker wasn't planning to stay for too long in the same room as her, just in case.
After landing while in her shadow form, Sophia headed for Winslow, the twilight's shadows hiding her movement from the sight of the bystanders. She was supposed to meet with Emma that night and bring her along to her patrol, but part of her deal with Piggot included keeping it a secret from everyone, so she sent her a short message.
Until she managed to find Hebert, Sophia would be exempt from fulfilling any of her other duties, so she was out of the patrol schedule and would not be required to expend useless hours watching security cameras feedback back in the main PRT building. She would probably play with her for a couple of days, once she found her, before handing her over. It was going to be her last task as a ward anyway, so she would take the most out of it while she still could.
The first part of her mission was to determine whether it was her or someone else. According to the first known witnesses, she was first seen in the school, but there were also the remains of a possible murder and a missing person, who could also be the actual parahuman or just another link of the chain.
When she finally arrived to the school, its boundaries were already surrounded by PRT clowns who had already assembled their white big top. Observing them for a while, she rapidly found the pattern of their patrol's route and easily slipped in.
Once on the school grounds, no guards were in sight but, just to be safe, she kept her shadow form active and acted cautiously. Approaching a window, Sophia peeked inside. There was no one in the hallway, so she slipped through.
Quite sure there was no one around, she relaxed a tad, turned her power off and switched on her flashlight. The last shift was apparently already done with their tasks, so she took her time to properly search for any missed clue while trying to stay out of the security cameras' sight. The strange bloody garden which was vigorously flourishing next to the main gate was probably the place where the security guard died. Its vine alike thick stalks covered one of the walls and most of the blood-tainted floor, but there were no other signs that could help her to determine if her prey were the actual Hebert or if she were just one of its victims. According to the report she was given, the only trace they found of the possible murder was the blood itself, and that was already too twisted to provide any further information. Heading for the place where she last saw Taylor, Sophia hoped to have better luck there.
At first sight, the locker's doors seemed to be closed but, as soon as she tried to open it, the door gave way easily. The creaking hinges were already falling apart, so the door fell to the floor as soon as Sophia let go. Somehow she managed to avoid the echoing metallic sound by stopping its fall with her foot. Almost all of the presents they left for Hebert inside of the locker were gone alongside with most of her other stuff, but right there she found the first clue. The door was slightly deformed outwards around the middle with what could be the shape of a hand. Hebert got out of the locker using enough brute force to break the lock and damage its hinges. That meant she had powers, but there could still be another parahuman involved.
She was about to leave, to try to find any trail to follow, when a soft creak attracted her attention. It was coming from under her. Kneeling down, she pushed the door away. Sophia moved her gloved hand over the floor and, after feeling it for a bit, she noticed that it was uneven. There were bulging thin lines resembling the veins of a leaf expanding under her and a low electrical charge, that was slowly pulsating within it.
As soon as she noticed the process accelerated and, rising from under the floor, a red net wrapped around her, giving Sophia barely half a second to react. Activating her shadow state, it went straight through her, but the experience was incredibly painful. Luckily for her, the inherent speed of the flesh net was what actually saved her. By the time the pain registered in her brain and her power deactivated, she was already out of it, but carrying some painful cuts on the parts of her body that didn't made it in time.
Sophia was still laying over the floor in agony, surrounded by complete darkness, when she felt a caressing touch over her feet. It was warm and soft, touching her directly through her boots. The excruciating pain that she was feeling slowly receded with every new stroke from the unknown entity.
When the pain was almost gone and she felt able to move her body again, Sophia rolled a bit in the opposite direction of the thing touching her and sat up, resting against the opposite row of lockers. Two new things were decorating the hallway. One was a pulsating empty monstrous cocoon, the other some kind of otherworldly thing.
The cocoon, which was shinning with a dim red light, maybe because of the flashlight trapped inside, was probably part of the lobby's garden, which was obviously making its way into the building structure. The electrical charge that was running through it was already dissipating and the whole thing was slowly unfolding, allowing her torch to shine white again, with the bits of floor it had grown under remaining over its middle point alongside with the flashlight. It was much like a carnivorous plant snap trap, but bigger.
Inside of Hebert's locker was the other thing. I twas some kind of tentacled monster, but I wasn't trying to get outside of its container. Instead, it was caressing the nearby lockers with it's colorful appendages, which stood out on comparison with it's dark main body.
She was still trying to fully recover from the traumatic experience when a distant voice startled her. It was coming from the thing inside of the locker.
"...got… ...here..." the distant voice said.
Discreetly, Sophia reached for her crossbow. If it wanted a part of her, it would get it, or that's what she thought, since the numbness she felt all over her body was making the weapon hard to handle.
For a while nothing happened, but then there was a blinding flickery of white light coming from the thing's body. That's when she understood it. It wasn't a creature, but some kind of portal to elsewhere. Through the aperture she was able to see what looked like some kind of concrete building which had just been lit and hear someone's closing footsteps.
When she finally managed to adjust her grip on the weapon and aim it in the general direction of the portal, a heavily armored soldier appeared.
"Reporting from the main gate," she heard the masculine voice say "there is… something. I request backup."
When the light mounted on his assault rifle was turn on and pointed toward the opening, Shadow Stalker knew that something was wrong. The combination of blindness from the light pointed at her and the sudden static noise coming from her earbud made her lost her focus for a fraction of a second, but enough to make her strengthen her grip on the crossbow, firing it.
The bolt flew straight throw the portal, which closed slow enough to allow the pained scream from the man on the other side to reach her ears. Already in a state of confusion, the scream make her shift into her breaker state once more, just to see the gate open once again in front of her eyes.
"...yes,*gasp* I don't know why but… it's here again! I need *huf* reinforcements now!" after a second he added "Say again… …Negative… …I'm not going to… ...but… ...roger."
With the bolt stuck on his thigh, the man limped forward, but Sophia had already took advantage of the precious previous seconds to move away from his line of sight. The first thing to get through the portal was the canon of the rifle. It moved to touch the edges, poking them softly at first, but harder on each new try. There was coming no sound out of it, but the weapon would come to a sudden stop the instant it approached too much to the border. Deeming it safe enough, the soldier began to cautiously cross the fissure. Step by step, he got into the other side just enough to found himself on the wrong side of a crossbow. The tip of the bolt scratching against his helmet even before he managed to completely get in the dark hallway.
"Who are you," Shadow Stalker asked with an intimidation voice tone, the mask she was wearing bestowing a void echo to it. Her nervousness from before, gone.
"This is a private property," the soldier answered, "you better drop your weapon before the rest of the squad arrives."
"Really? Because you are using tinker-tech inside of an out of limits quarantined zone. Besides, I do not recognize your uniform. As far as I know you guys could be responsible of what is going on here, so you are going to answer my questions, but first, drop your weapon."
"*Ha ha ha*, You surely don't realize what position you are in kid," he retorted, the security with which he was talking telling her that he wasn't afraid of the old school weapon "You better take that..." But the feeling of a metallic boot kicking him in the stomach took his masquerade to an end.
The unexpected strength behind the kid made him bend over, taking half a step forward. The instant he was completely in the school side of the gate, the sound of an exploding bulb was heard from the other side and the gap in reality began to close once again. Taking advantage of his extensive training, the soldier overcame the pain and made a fast motion with his leg, trying to prevent the portal from closing a second time.
For an instant, Sophia didn't knew if she should be mad because of the lost or just laugh about what she had just witnessed. The man's plan to prevent the portal from closing ended up with a fleshy thud, followed by silence and then a high pitched scream. With nothing to stop his rotation from his well though kick, his body kept rotating for a bit, splattering blood around from his recently amputated limb, just to make him fall on his backside over a somewhat cushioned surface. The very second that the man's but made contact with it, Sophia saw the electric charge reappear, bringing anew life to the meaty floor.
The newly reformed bud was shinning with the light from both, the rifle and Sophia flashlight, making the contorted figure of a broken man visible through the layer of flesh. A few more cracks were heard, the man's bones slowly breaking. After a couple of seconds, his pained screams were muffle by the liquid that was flooding the inside of his prison.
She was still trying to figure out what to do when distant footsteps began to echo through the school hallway. Suddenly, the hallway's lights came to life and the grossness of the scene before her became evident.