DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ANY OF THE SERIES/COVER ART INVOLVED IN THIS STORY.
A RESPONSE TO THE GUEST: To the guest who asked why Siren seems so weak, here's my answer; Siren's has not been "nerfed", but the enemies have been "buffed". The Evolved in Academy City are the elite, the best, the most evolved of the group. No pun intended. They've been given unique samples of DNA that have helped them progress as fighters. That's why they fight so evenly with him. Rika is a Phase Three Orion Super Soldier, and if you've played Prototype 2, the Phase Two could pose a legit threat to Heller in the beginning, even if it was a little less powerful. Using that logic, one can assume that a Phase Three Orion Super Soldier would be on par with a Prototype. Finally, Ares has Siren's memories, and shares a unique connection to Alex Mercer. How Ares got so powerful has yet to be explained, but as the story has made obvious, he's superior to Siren at the moment. To restate all this; Siren's not weaker, rather, the enemies have become stronger.
Chapter 26
The Hunt Begins
Mikoto covered her nose, coughing slightly at the stench. "How can you, "she paused as she went into a coughing fit, "stand this?!"
Siren shrugged in response. "I'm used to it."
Mikoto shuddered. "Ignoring the stench, I still don't like this; there've only been three Infected in here since we got here. There should be much more than this."
"Agreed," Siren replied, stepping over the corpse of a middle-aged man. He and Mikoto currently walked through a dimly lit hallway with dozens of corpses littering the area. The smell of the dead, coupled with the smell of the viruses that infected the bodies, created a strong, suffocating smell—one that Mikoto couldn't seem to stand.
Mikoro and Siren both jumped as a door to their left was flung open, a lone Infected stumbling through. The creature's head was swollen to nearly twice the normal size, flaps of skin covering the eyes.
Mikoto's face twisted in disgust as the Infected shuffled forward. She lifted her hand, shooting a bolt of electricity at the creature's head, killing it instantly.
"To think, that thing was once a person," she muttered.
"Best not to focus on things like that. Remember, those things aren't people anymore; they're driven by a virus and their only goal—"
"I know, I know. I'm not hesitating when it comes to putting them down. I'm just…just disgusted with the people that spread the viruses in Academy City in the first place."
Siren nodded slowly. "And that's why we're trying to kill them," he muttered. "Come on, let's keep moving." They continued walking for another minute or so, stepping over corpses and occasionally pushing aside fallen walls or other debris.
"Do you really think one of the Evolved could be here?" Mikoto asked.
"This building looks like it's been hit harder by the virus. No other building in this area had so much viral matter growing on its walls. This could be a complete coincidence, or it could actually lead to something. Either way, none of the others have spotted any of the Evolved yet, so we might as well check this area."
Mikoto sighed. "I seriously hate how elusive they are; it's nearly impossible to find them quickly!"
"They'd have been dead by now if they were easy to catch; remember they've—watch your head—they've been at war with Blackwatch since the start, and back then, they were probably outnumbered a hundred to one."
"Respectable," Mikoto grunted. "But annoying," she finished while taking a wide step to avoid stepping on the lower body of what was once a man. The two continued their walk through the empty building, noting the distinct lack of Infected. A building like this would have served as a perfect lair for a large group of Infected, and yet they were all missing.
The most likely explanation was that they were once here, but ended up leaving for whatever reason. Of course, the Infected usually shamble mindlessly about. For them to leave on their own would have meant that the Evolved had issued some sort of order.
Siren stopped as he felt it; the floor beneath his right foot seemed to sink in a little as he stepped on it. His head snapped to the floor with speed that might have damaged a normal human neck. Mikoto looked to him in confusion.
"What's—"
He held up a hand to silence her, concentrating on the ground beneath him. He reached out with his foot, stepping in that same area, trying to feel the point in the floor where his foot had sunk in slightly.
There!
He put a little more weight on his right foot, watching as the floor sunk in further. Mikoto watched him with a curious expression on her face.
Frowning, he lifted his foot up and stomped down on the floor, crushing it beneath him. Bending down, he brushed away the pieces of the floor still present and found himself staring at a single tendril that had grown out of the ground. If anything, it looked like a red, pulsating root as it reached out of the ground, only to reach back in a few inches away.
He reached out, grabbing the tentacle and giving it a yank, watching as part of it came loose. Yanking again, he watched as more of the tentacle gave way. Again and again he yanked, until the end of the tendril came out of the ground. Part of it was still in, but the other part had been removed, leaving behind an oddly shaped hole.
"Man, this thing grew through the building's foundation and broke off part of the floor," Mikoto said from behind him. "How much force can these…things apply to a surface?"
Siren shrugged. "I have no idea to be honest, I—" He stopped as he heard it; a noise coming from the hole left behind by the tentacle he had just pulled from the ground.
"Wait," he began, drawing Mikoto's attention. "I hear something."
Mikoto immediately stiffened, bending her knees and preparing to fight. Siren stood still, eyes darting about as he attempted to focus on the sound he heard.
He could just faintly make it out; a low, haunting sound. Bending over, he brought his ear to the hole that was left behind by the tentacle, listening intently for the noise. From this position, he could hear it more clearly, and to his surprise, it sounded like…
"The Infected."
Mikoto blinked. "What?"
"It's the Infected. I can hear voices, but in the form of low, drawn out moans. Humans don't make noises like that just because, and I can hear many of them. It's got to be the Infected."
"Can you tell how many?"
He shook his head. "The noise is faint; it was sheer luck that we found it." He reached out, putting his hand into the hole in the ground. He willed a tendril to extend from his index finger, slowly reaching deeper and deeper into the ground.
For almost a minute, he felt around with the tendril, slowly making his way down until he felt something unusual.
"The air down there just got colder."
Mikoro blinked. "Colder? What do you mean 'colder'?"
"Colder as in it's not as hot anymore. On top of that, I can move the tendril freely now." He began moving the tendril around, feeling for whatever could be there. However, he felt nothing. His eyes widened.
"There's some kind of…cave down there or something."
"How can you tell?"
"The air must have gotten colder because the tendril I reached out with came out through the other end of this hole. On top of that, I'm feeling around with it, and there's open space—a large one. There's got to be something down there."
Mikoto's eyes widened in realization. "The Infected are going underground."
Siren narrowed his eyes. "No wonder there's so few of them up here in the buildings; they went down below."
"What do you think they're doing down there? Why would the Evolved send Infected underground?"
"I have no clue. For all we know, they're just trying to hide the Infected for an ambush, or this might not belong to the Evolved at all."
"Wait, what?"
He turned to her, a serious expression on his face. "Remember that Leader Hydra? It attacked the Evolved and me. There's a chance that there's someone else out here that can control the Infected, and this could be their base of operations."
Mikoto frowned. "If it's that worm thing, shouldn't we call the others for support?"
"We could, but if it isn't the Leader Hydra, we'd only end up wasting everyone's time…no, no I take that back. One can never be too cautious. We'll call the others." He retracted the tendril as fast as he could, rising to his full height as it retracted entirely. He nodded toward Mikoto. "Call Kuroko and tell her to teleport as close as she can get to this place. We'll come out and lead her to it. Oh, and make sure she brings Rika along; now's the chance for her to start proving herself."
Mikoto nodded.
*Page Break*
"So…how're we supposed to get down there?" asked Kuroko. She, along with Siren, Rika, and Mikoto stood over the hole that Siren had heard the noises coming from.
"There's got to be an entrance somewhere around here. The Infected got there somehow, didn't they?" Siren replied.
"You do realize that the entrance could be on the other side of the city, don't you?" Rika asked.
"Making the entrance far away would have been pointless. If someone stumbled upon it, they'd still eventually find the Infected below the ground. Putting the entrance far away would just mean the Evolved would have had to work harder to create a longer tunnel to the place they wanted to keep the Infected," Siren explained. "If for whatever reason, the entrance isn't here or we simply can't find it, we can always drop some explosives down the hole and create our own entrance, but that would undoubtedly alert whatever's down there."
He began turning around, looking for any signs of an entrance. "We should spread out, but not too far. Mikoto will check in one area, I'll search another, but Kuroko, you need to stay with Rika. You know, to—"
"Yes, I know why I have to stay close to her."
"Alright then, everyone's good to go? Give a shout if you find something. Start…screaming or something if you're in trouble."
The others nodded and the group began walking off in different directions, searching for what might lead them to the Infected hiding out underground.
*Page Break*
Mikoto grunted as her foot got caught between two metal poles that had been bent and twisted by what she could only assume was the hand of an Infected. Slowly pulling her foot our, she continued on, searching the ground for a secret entrance—or a regular entrance—that could have led to the Infected.
She was still disgusted by the heavy stench that hung in the air, but pushed her discomfort aside as she walked. Complaining about the smell would distract her, and the last thing she needed was to be bitten or scratched by an Infected.
Stepping over yet another corpse, she found herself walking into what looked like a very large waiting room. She wasn't sure what purpose this building served prior to the outbreak, but it seemed to have belonged to some sort of company.
Overturned desks and chairs littered the room, but there was more than enough space to walk freely. Mikoto made her way forward, closely observing the room. Like in every other room, this one held corpses.
Mikoto gritted her teeth as she saw more of them; more people who had been killed by the outbreak. Not long ago, her life was normal—or as normal as a Level 5 esper's life could be. She'd go to the store, talk to her friends, go to school, but all that changed when those Evolved showed up.
Those damned monsters destroyed everything.
She felt her anger rising as she thought about everything that the Evolved had stolen. She wasn't the only one to lose something; many people lost friends, family, homes, many had simply lost their lives.
Fists clenching, Mikoto had to force herself to calm down as lightning danced around her body. However, she was never good with controlling her anger, so the lightning continued to whirl around her, spreading quickly.
After a few seconds, she finally calmed down to the point when the lightning slowly faded. Letting out a heavy sigh, she continued her search, looking for anything that would indicate—
She heard something.
Somewhere in front of her, she could hear the sounds of someone shuffling around and bumping into objects. Mikoto immediately got into a combat stance and slowly inched forward. She knew that it was possible that the noise was from one of the others, but she was positive that it was one of the Infected.
Eventually, she reached a corner and poked her head around it. As she expected, an Infected was mindlessly walking toward a…hole.
Her eyes widened. There, in the floor, was a hole large enough for a car to fit into.
Huh, guess it wasn't a 'secret' entrance.
She moved around the corner, lighting sparking around her. Before she called the others, she wanted to take care of the Infected that was walking to the hole.
The Infected, still bumping into objects and shoving them aside paid her no mind as it moved toward the hole. Mikoto brought her hand up, her palm facing the creature. The sound of the electrical power building up in her hand must have drawn the creature's attention because its head slowly twisted until the Infected was staring at Mikoto.
She was met with a pair of milky white eyes that showed no sign of recognition or emotion. Mikoto narrowed her eyes and fired the beam of electricity. If anything, she was putting this…atrocity out of its twisted existence.
What she didn't expect however, was for the creature to leap out of the way, landing heavily on its feet, its unfocused eyes staring right through her. Mikoto blinked, confusion written across her face. Her confusion was quickly replaced with surprise as the Infected pounced forward, its hands transforming into Claws.
Mikoto rolled out of the way, firing two more blasts at the Infected. The creature only barely managed to dodge the blasts, and threw itself at her once more. Mikoto grunted as the Infected, moving too fast for her to fire an accurate shot, tackled her.
The two went tumbling to the floor, rolling around as they struggled with each other. Her instincts kicking in, Mikoto released deadly amounts of electricity into the Infected, watching as the creature jerked back, its mouth open, but no sound coming out.
The Infected stopped struggling almost instantly and went limp over her body. Mikoto grunted as she shoved the creature off, being careful to avoid cutting herself on its Claws.
As she threw the limp body off, she slowly rose to her feet, brushing herself off. She spared a glance at the Infected before reaching for her phone. She dialed Kuroko, wanting to tell her that she had found the entrance, or what she thought to be the entrance.
Mikoto waited for the call to get through, and before long, she heard a very familiar voice on the other end of the line.
"Hello?"
"Kuroko, it's me. I think I've found the entrance to the underground—GAH!"
Mikoto was flung off her feet as a hand swung around from her right and connected with her chest. Her phone flew from her fingertips as the air was brutally forced from her lungs.
She landed on her back only a few feet from the massive hole in the ground, desperately gasping for breath. Looking up, she quickly noticed another Infected—one without Claws—rushing at her as fast as it could. Mikoto bent over as the creature threw a clumsy punch at her, watching as it tumbled over her and straight into the entrance to the underground lair. However, as it fell over the edge, its hand shot out, grabbing Mikoto by the leg.
Before she could react, gravity dragged both of them into the hole. Suddenly, Mikoto was tumbling and rolling through a dark, spiraling tunnel, her only company being the Infected that was desperately trying to kill her.
*Page Break*
"Onee-sama? Onee-sama?!" Kuroko shouted into her phone when she heard Mikoto's cry. Next to her, Rika was turning to her with a wide-eyed look.
"What's going on?!"
"We're getting Siren and finding Onee-sama!" Kuroko dialed Siren's number, but to her annoyance, the call didn't get through. "Damn it! We've—"
She was cut off as her phone went off, indicating someone was calling her. Looking down, she saw that it was Siren. She quickly picked up the phone, Siren's voice instantly coming through.
"Kuroko! I heard screaming and Mikoto's not picking up! I called you, but I think you called me at the same time! What's going on?!"
"I don't know! Onee-sama called and said that she found the entrance to the underground lair thing but before she could tell me where it was, I heard her scream and I think I heard fighting!"
"Shit," Siren replied. "I was close enough to hear where her voice was coming from, so I have a small idea as to where she might be. I'm going to start smashing through walls; follow the sound until you get to me. Hopefully I will have found the entrance's location and we can begin looking for Mikoto from there."
"No don't! You'll bring the whole building down on—"
"The building will be fine! The viral matter is reinforcing its structure and breaking a few walls probably wouldn't have toppled it anyway."
"Fine, fine! Just go!"
Siren hung up, and almost instantly, Rika and Kuroko were greeted with the sound of something demolishing the walls. "What the?! What is that?" Rika asked.
"It's Siren. He heard Mikoto and is ripping his way through the walls so that we can find and follow him. Come on!"
They both began moving forward, following the sounds of Siren destroying walls and anything else that he needed to in order to get to the entrance.
Come on Onee-sama, don't die on us now!
*Page Break*
Mikoto and the Infected finally came crashing out the other end of the entrance in a tangle of arms and legs. Mikoto managed to recover first, using her feet to push the Infected off.
She jumped to her feet as fast as she could, but was disoriented and dizzy from falling down such a long tunnel. The world twisted and warped around her, making it difficult to focus on the Infected as it dragged itself to its feet.
She suddenly became aware of the noises around her, and they made her blood run cold.
Moaning.
As her vision slowly began returning to normal, Mikoto saw them. Hundreds of them scattered throughout the large room, each and every one of them watching her.
The Infected.
She tried to maintain a combat stance, but her legs were still shaky from the fall down the tunnel. To her surprise, the Infected hadn't moved yet. They just stood there, watching her as if they were in some sort of trance.
Mikoto couldn't even begin to understand why they hadn't attacked her, but—
Crapcrapcrapdodge!
Mikoto barely managed to move out of the way as the Infected that had attacked her earlier lunged forward, its jaws open as it tried to bite her. She stepped back, instinctively firing a blasé of electricity that connected with the Infected's chest, sending it flying into a group of more of the creatures.
Oddly enough, the others made no attempt at getting out of the way and just stood there as the Infected she shot slammed into them, knocking several of them into the floor.
She watched the group, waiting for them to attack, but none of them did. The Infected that she had shot was laying face first in the ground, its body giving the occasional twitch from her lightning, but other than that, it was still.
The other Infected still hadn't moved, opting to watch her with blank expressions on their mutated faces. Mikoto hesitantly looked around, waiting to see if any of them would attack her. For several minutes, she stood there, waiting for something to happen.
When nothing did, Mikoto did something she was sure she'd regret; she approached a group of Infected. They made no move to do anything to her, so she slowly inched closer and closer until she was within arm's reach of one of them.
She reached out with her hand, waving it in front of the creature's face. Its eyes followed her movements, but it did nothing about them. Mikoto was speechless. She had no idea how to react to this situation; attacking them might set these creatures off, and if she could, she'd prefer to avoid a fight until she wasn't disoriented and outnumbered a couple hundred to one. Weak as they may be, these creatures' bodies were still overflowing with REDLIGHT, BLACKLIGHT, or a mixture of the two, and Mikoto didn't want them infecting her as well.
Not wanting to push her luck—or test this twist of fate—Mikoto backed off, keeping an eye on the Infected in front of her. Since she wasn't in a state of panic at being surrounded anymore, she was able to get a good look at the room she was in. It was a large room with a ceiling that was far, far above their heads. She wondered what this room was used for prior to the outbreak, but pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind for now.
The walls looked like they had once been grey, but viral matter covered the majority of the room, making it seem a blood red, rather than its original color scheme. She could see vents with working fans under them lining the floor in the middle of the room where a massive red tendril grew from the floor into the ceiling. The hole she and the Infected had tumbled through was actually in the wall, which was probably the reason why she didn't die when she fell out of it; a fall from the ceiling here could have broken her bones, and if she landed on her head, it might have been the end of her.
She frowned. While the entrance was a painful one to get through, it was possible to survive. Had the tunnel leading to the room been purposefully made in such a manner where it twisted and turned to prevent one form falling directly through? She assumed that the Infected could survive a direct fall from the building above to this room, but what she assumed and what was true could be two very different things.
Suddenly, something was flung out of the entrance through which she and the Infected had tumbled through. Whirling around, Mikoto was greeted with the sight of Siren dragging himself to his feet, groaning in what seemed to be more annoyance than pain.
Not a second later, Rika came crashing through as well, landing on her back with a grunt. The girl pulled herself to her feet, shaking her head. With her mask off, Mikoto got a clear view of the girl's surprised expression when she saw all the Infected in the room that currently stared at her and Siren.
Siren's eyes were wide in shock, and he quickly formed his Claws, but just before he could strike, Mikoto moved forward, calling out to him. "Wait!"
Siren and Rika both snapped to attention and turned to Mikoto. "Mikoto?" Siren asked. "You're alive! Did anything infect you?" he shot a stream of questions at her as she walked toward her, but Mikoto held up a hand to stop him. "I'm fine, but look!" She pointed to the Infected around them.
Siren looked around, eyes narrowing. "Mikoto," he asked quickly. "Can you fight? How much—"
"Don't you notice something unusual?" Mikoto asked him, drawing his attention back to her. He blinked and looked around once more. Frowning he turned back to her, opening his mouth, but before he could speak, Rika voiced her observation.
"They're not attacking," she said, eyes widening. Siren looked between Rika, Mikoto, and the Infected, realization overtaking his features. "What the? What's wrong with them?"
"I have no clue. They haven't bothered me in the slightest since I got here. The only one that gave me trouble was the one that managed to get the jump on me while I was talking to Kuroko at the top end of the entrance."
Rika turned to Siren at the mention of Kuroko. "Hey, weren't you gonna call—"
Siren was already grabbing his phone, dialing who Mikoto could only assume was Kuroko. After a few seconds, Kuroko must have picked up because Siren began talking. "Hey, we found Mikoto. She's alive and healthy; just a few cuts and bruises." He paused for a second and held the phone away from his mouth, turning to Mikoto. "How'd you get those cuts?"
"Huh? Oh, I tumbled down the tunnel and must have gotten scratches along the way. I'm not infected or anything."
Siren nodded before bringing the phone closer to his mouth. "She says she got them while falling through the tunnel. According to her, she's not infected." A pause. "No, don't. Tumbling through the tunnel could cause you serious damage. Mikoto seems to have gotten extremely lucky, and Rika and I are far more durable than you. Plus, we have healing factors." Another pause. This time, it was accompanied by an eye roll. "Kuroko, I'm capable of understand the situation we're in. Yes, I'll keep her alive, don't worry." He let out a low chuckle. "Nice to know you have such faith in me. Stay up top and teleport to us if—oh wait. You can't teleport down here yet. Crap. Fine, stay up top and cover the entrance. If Ares gets there, teleport somewhere safe and call us to warn us."
He pulled the phone away from his ear, hanging up and muttering something about teleporting limitations. "Alright, we've got some choices to make. Rika and I talked to Kuroko prior to this and decided that if you were in good condition, which we doubted, you, Rika, and I would explore this place. You seem to be fine, but the choice here is yours; do you want to go with Rika and me to scout this place out or do you want us to carry you back up through the tunnel?"
It took Mikoto less than a second to respond. "I'll stay. Besides," she said, gesturing to the Infected around them. "I've gotta know what's up with these Infected. This doesn't seem natural." She paused for a second, thinking about her previous statement. "Well, ok, none of this is really 'natural', but you get what I'm saying; the Infected aren't attacking, which is completely unnatural compared to what we've seen of them so far."
"Well, I'm good to go," Rika began. "You two ready to check the place out?"
Siren nodded then looked to Mikoto—who was grinning and allowing lightning to flash around her as she slammed her fist into her palm. "Let's do this," she said excitedly.
Siren and Rika both nodded before turning around and looking around the room. It wasn't long before Siren spotted a platform at the far end of the room with a set of stairs leading up to it.
"That seems like the only other way out of this room besides the tunnel we came through." He jerked his chin towards the platform. "Any objections?"
When it was clear that neither Rika nor Mikoto had any reason to take a different route, the trio began walking towards the platform, still wary of the Infected surrounding them.
"Have you ever seen anything like this?" Mikoto asked Siren. The silver-haired teen shook his head in response. "Never. I've never encountered a group of Infected this…calm before."
Mikoto turned to Rika. "What about you? You were one of Blackwatch's experiments; have you ever encountered something like this?"
Rika shook her head. "This is new to me too."
They walked in silence from then on, quickly reaching the platform and walking up the stairs. The platform led to a large, dark hallway that was large enough for a bus to fit through.
Siren was the first to walk in, glancing around before waving Mikoto and Rika over. "Hey," Rika began. "Can't you detect Infected, or something? Why not use that to see if there's anything of interest around here?"
Siren shook his head. "Infected Vision doesn't allow me to see through walls, and Thermal Vision can only detect heat signatures through thin surfaces. The walls here are several times too thick for me to be able to actually find anything."
Rika frowned. "Crap. Thought we had something there."
They continued walking until they came to a point where the hallway split off into two directions—one left and one right. "Should we split up or something?" Mikoto asked.
Siren and Rika both shook their heads. "We're already outnumbered, and while the Infected back there didn't attack us, it doesn't guarantee that everything down here is as calm. Splitting up will only get us picked off one by one," Rika explained.
Mikoto shrugged and decided to ask the obvious question. "So…which way?"
This time, she was met with silence as Siren and Rika both looked in separate directions, wondering which path would be best. Siren walked over to the path that led right and looked down into the darkness. Mikoto could tell he was activating one of his powers because tentacles writhed around him for a second before settling. He turned towards them, and Mikoto noticed his eyes were now a bright, glowing gold color.
He turned and walked to the hallway that led left and looked down, searching for something. "I don't see any Infected signatures besides Rika and I. Both hallways seem empty, so I guess we just choose at random."
"Fine, then right it is," Rika said while turning and walking down the right hallway. Siren and Mikoto shared a look before they both shrugged and walked after Rika, Siren's Infected Vision visibly deactivating as tentacles writhed around him and his eyes lost their golden glow.
The walk wasn't very eventful—on the contrary, it was dead silent for a while. "This is way too peaceful. The Infected back there didn't just wander in here; someone or something must have brought them for a reason. There's got to be something more to this," Rika said from in front of them.
"Agreed. We're bound to find something down here, informative or not."
"I'd hope it's informative," muttered Mikoto. "That tunnel isn't exactly a water slide, and falling through it was far from fun."
"Be thankful you're alive. Imagine how humiliating it would be if the world remembered you, Misaka Mikoto, as the Level 5 esper who died because she tripped and fell," Siren replied.
"Guys…"
"Hey! I didn't trip! That Infected attacked me and caught me off guard!"
"Guys!" Rika hissed under her breath. "What is that?"
Siren and Mikoto immediately turned to Rika, tense expressions on their faces. "What?" asked Siren.
"The noise! Listen!"
Siren and Mikoto remained quite as they tried to listen. "You're right…there's something down here."
"Wha? Ugh! I hate not having super hearing! I can't hear anything," Mikoto complained.
"It sounds like growling and snorting. It's something…big. Much larger than the Infected we saw back there."
Siren's and Rika's eyes narrowed. "Hunters," they said simultaneously.
"This way," Rika said as she began jogging forward. Siren jogged after her, followed by Mikoto. It wasn't long before the three rounded a corner and were presented with the sight of another room—nearly identical to the one before. There were Infected scattered all over the room too, the only real difference between this room and the last being that this one held Hunters as well as the lesser Infected.
Said Hunters looked different from the average pink, elephant-sized gorilla things that had plagued Academy City. These creatures had massive white bones growing out of their backs and shoulders. They were larger than the average Hunter, but not quite as large as the Leader Hunters.
They were walking around, eating the other Infected, but without any recognizable pattern. It seemed that they ate whenever it pleased them, and the lesser Infected didn't fight back in any way.
"So…new Hunters," Mikoto commented. "Or, is this a common thing?"
Siren and Rika both shook their heads. "I haven't actually seen Hunters like these before. This is getting weirder by the second," Rika replied.
"I'm starting to question how unusual any one thing can become. Come on; let's see what we can find."
As the three walked into the room and into plain sight, Mikoto stopped. "Wait, what if these guys aren't—"
A Hunter caught sight of them and instantly let out a loud roar as it charged them. The noise caught the attention of the other Hunters, and less than a second later, every Hunter in the room—all four of them—were charging at the trio.
"Scatter!" Siren yelled as the three jumped away from each other just as the first Hunter came crashing through.
Mikoto fired a stream of electricity at the ground and propelled herself further away as the other Hunters closed in. Siren glided closer to the Hunters, landing on his feet and immediately sprinting forward, Claws forming on his arms.
Rika sprinted forward the moment her feet hit the ground as well, fists raised over her head as she brought her hands down on the head of the Hunter that had reached them first. Siren pounced on the nearest Hunter and began shredding its head with his Claws, while Mikoto fired a blast of electricity from each hand, catching the remaining two Hunters in the head and chest.
Said Hunters stumbled back a little but managed to push forward for a second. However, their advance was halted as Mikoto fire more electrical strikes at them, forcing the two beasts to back up.
Over to the side, Rika was flipping the Hunter she attacked over her head and slamming it headfirst into the ground. "This is too easy! These guys are even weaker than the regular Hunters!" she called.
"Don't let your guard down!" Siren screamed from his position atop the Hunter as he decapitated it. Mikoto pumped a little more power into her lightning, and found that it blasted through the remaining two Hunters with far less ease than usual.
"Huh…" She turned to Rika, a smug look on her face. "And you were so worried! Hah!"
Rika frowned. "I was not worried, I was aware."
Mikoto's response was to grin widely at the other girl, causing Rika's frown to deepen.
"Come on, let's keep moving," Rika said as she walked closer. "Strange-looking Hunters, Infected that have lost their will to fight; who knows what else could still be hiding down here?"
"Hang on a sec," Siren began. "I want to consume some of these Infected to see if there's anything useful that can be pulled from them."
The lesser Infected still hadn't attacked the trio. They merely watched with blank expression, devoid of worry, fear, and everything else.
Siren walked over to the nearest Infected, picking it up by the throat and consuming it in the blink of an eye. Clearly unsatisfied, he moved on, grabbing another Infected and repeating the process.
Rika and Mikoto silently watched, waiting for the local sapient virus to finish his meal. It was then that an irritated voice echoed from the hallway that they had come through.
"—eating our Hunters! Fucking ridiculous!"
"Calm down, Grevin. We've got more than enough for now, and the Leader Hydra can be dealt with in time. Besides, it never went out of its way to eat the Hunters. It went after the ones that chased it after it tried to escape."
Mikoto, Siren, and Rika stood frozen, unsure of what to do as two figures walked into the room. The taller of the two was wearing a Blackwatch uniform, while the shorter wore a black sleeveless shirt and a pair of what looked like some sort of black military pants. A black facemask that started beneath his shirt covered the lower half of his face, and white bandages covered his arm from the fingers to the elbow.
As the two walked in, they became aware that they weren't alone and turned to look in surprise at the trio who currently occupied the room with them.
A moment of silence passed before Siren, Rika, and Mikoto all jumped back, all shouting out the same word.
"Evolved!"
Explanations/Clarifications
Kuroko Not Teleporting: It's been quite a while since I've seen Kuroko in action, but I believe she can't teleport to places that she hasn't been to before. The wiki says that "one disadvantage of her power is that she has to concentrate on where she, the object(s), and/or person she holds will be teleported to…" Common sense would tell you that she would have had to have seen the place she wishes to teleport to, so not seeing the underground lair would mean she can't teleport there. If I'm wrong, tell me so that I can release a notice in this chapter explaining that this story will stray slightly from Kuroko's canon abilities.
Rika Showing Up On Infected Vision: So, if you caught it, Rika showed up as an Infected when Siren used Infected Vision. The reason for this is that, in this story, the Orion Phase Three Super Soldier is powered by BLACKLIGHT DNA gathered during the outbreak in New York. Rika isn't technically an Infected, but a girl that was turned into a Super Soldier through the use of the virus. Just thought that I'd clarify that for people who may not be familiar with [Prototype].