As soon as Foxy's hand touched the metallic handle, his hackles rose and he felt immediate alarm.
The door was blown back, taking him with it towards the other side of the room where he slammed into the wall of monitors, several sparks flying overhead. He dropped to the ground with the heavy door on top of him before he pushed it off, feeling the footsteps of a large machine in front of him as he looked towards the demolished doorway. A large animatronic was standing tall, much like one of the bulls from the street, however it had no suit covering it, and was instead a hulk of an endoskeleton. From the looks of the damage done to the doorway, he had nothing on the beast in strength, considering that the frame itself was ripped out of the wall, with cinder blocks scattered across the floor, some even crushed.
He quickly scrambled to his feet as it started rushing towards him, eventually stumbling out of the way as it slammed into the wall. The beast caved it in slightly, but not enough to demolish it, as the fox stood up and ran towards the hole in the wall in came through, hearing it turn around and rush towards him. He quickly looked behind him with the ASR pointing towards it, letting loose a few shots which didn't seem to slow it at all, but the damage was visible as synthetic blood leaked onto the floor. He dove to the side through the demolished doorway, watching as it crashed into the white wall on the other side of the hallway. The wall caved much like the previous one, vaguely resembling a child manipulating paper and balling it up. He could barely manage to keep on his feet, as he found himself scrambling up once more before sprinting down the hallway, slinging the rifle around his body in the process as heavy footsteps sounded out rampantly once again.
"Not today, you son of a bitch," Foxy mumbled to himself as he came across a desk, much like that of a receptionist's. He dove over it, bringing a monitor and several papers falling with him as he went towards the door behind it, which led towards another hallway. This one seemed much more secure, which would have worked had he not sent the place into chaos just a few minutes ago. The hulking endoskeleton followed swiftly, pursuing him much like a wolf pack on a sickly Elk, but he was no sickly Elk. He was a fox with a cunning spirit, and several clever solutions.
Foxy grinned as he dove out of the way of a heavy, vault-like, metal door which the beast barged through, before he saw the most beautiful thing since his vixen; inside was weapons galore! A machine gun like the ones from the roof was sitting on a crate, which he instinctively ran towards and picked up, soon aiming towards the robot who was now walking towards him again. This time it was much slower from highly probable fatigue. Foxy squeezed the trigger…
...Only for him to realize he had no idea how to use the firearm, nevertheless, load it and operate it.
Clickclickclickclickclickcli-
The beast swiftly pulled back its arm and swept him away into a large shelf filled with guns, which promptly fell atop him. He knew that something had broken from the hit, and that he'd be in for a serious headache later, but he couldn't complain just yet- he had to grit his teeth and stand back up. He quickly picked up a shotgun before scrambling towards a large counter which had several drawers, digging through them just to find shells before hitting gold; a pack of twelve-gauge slugs. He grabbed the box of sixteen or so shells and quickly dove out of the way of the arm that came down, crushing the counter and drawers with the single hit and a metallic screech. In the middle of it all, the fox opened the box and started loading the shells, only loading six before he dropped the box across the floor from tripping over another rifle. He cursed at himself, but it would have to do for now as he rolled out of the way of another swing from his adversary. He cocked the shotgun with an overdriven force before turning over and letting it loose in the animatronic's face, watching a good chunk get blown away before he chambered the next shell, the spent casing falling just beside him on the floor before he aimed for the right shoulder's joint socket, firing once again and watching the arm loosen up, held by the several weaker hydraulics that had controlled the movement.
He crawled back as it stumbled rearward, soon managing to pull himself up on a plastic roller-cart that held several tools and weapon parts before he ran towards the thing while it's back was turned. The vulpine leapt forward like a madman before landing, holding the shotgun with his left hand before switching to his blade in his right and embedding it in the endoskeleton's shoulder, behind where the collarbone would be on a human, slicing through several wires and hollow lines that ran the synthetic blood through the body. The robot fell forward as it went off-balance, allowing Foxy to stand up properly before stabbing into the backplate of the torso, prying it off with fierce brutality before stuffing the barrel of the shotgun into the gap and letting loose another chunk of metal. He switched back to his hand and racked the slide while he fired with his left, decimating the main portion of the internal system of the robot as synthetic blood leaked out everywhere and was smeared across his arms and face.
He let out a breathy sigh of relief as he stumbled off the animatronic and collapsed to his knees.
'What in the fuck was that?'
Sadly, the vulpine couldn't dwell on it as he crawled to his feet and pulled out his ASR once again, pressing his mask further against his face. Foxy continued out of the armory, not seeing the need in grabbing another weapon at the moment. One part of him argued it was because he had the ASR, the other because he didn't want to tote the extra weight. He managed to stroll through the halls, past the desk, and then went the opposite direction he came from, before he noticed the sounds of shouting and footsteps ahead. By the occasional words he could hear, they weren't anything near friendly. He quickly moved to the side as he saw them coming, going to the left through another hallway to avoid them as they swept the area, looking for the 'intruder' they had been called in about.
"AS-2-7 and 2-8, take point on the hallway while the rest of us sweep the rest to the right," the commanding animatronic called out to the other grunt, who promptly crouched down beside the wall, keeping his sights on the other end of the hallway while six soldiers, the squad leader included, started walking down two hallways to their right, quickly clearing several rooms in search for anyone or anything, except not finding anything.
"AS-2, this is AS-1, what's the situation?"
The squad leader, who was now in a dark room they had just cleared, seemed to loosen up for a second as he rested his rifle against his shoulder before responding to his radio.
"This is AS-2, we've found nothing so far on the eastern side of the building, how's it looking outside?"
"We've managed to cut off this section of the city and silence anyone that could've said something, but this is a major blow to the experiment and reclamation process. We may have to recall the entire northern section of the city-"
The sound of a body dropping to the floor caused the squad leader to turn around swiftly, aiming at a desk which was just in front of where his squadmate was just standing, he told the others to regroup on him in the hallway, and that he'd seen something, before calling out for the missing squad member.
"Cam, don't fuck with me right now. Come out." He started to make his way around the desk to find a clue on where the missing android had gone, but as he got around, he saw Cam, throat sliced open with synthetic blood pooling on the floor as he noticed the dog's comm-piece was missing. "Squad-"
He didn't manage to say anything else as a red hand wrapped around his muzzle and he felt a blade penetrate just beside the endospine, soon spearing through his chest where he could see synthetic blood dribble down the end of it, the assailant slowly placing him on the floor after withdrawing the blade from his back, giving him a clear view of the masked face of a vulpine. The muzzle was painted a crimson red, circling the eyes as well, while the rest of the mask was unseen from the darkness of a hood, except for two bright yellow eyes which shining onto his face. He could also see a distinct laceration across the mask as well, one across the left side of the muzzle.
He looked closer, seeing the rage in his eyes, and that the fox knew everything that was said over the comm line, about silencing the people, he now knew the scale of the 'experiment' around him, and he was livid. Though, on his face, he was perfectly emotionless, soon standing up after the light drained from the dog's eyes and waited for the squad to regroup in the hallway, watching as they all continued back to the original two who had held point, only to find that the squad leader wasn't there, but they never got the chance to mention it. Foxy aimed his ASR at the lights, and shot every single one in the vicinity above them with deadly precision. He let it flop back against his torso, held on by the sling around his body, as he rushed forward with his bladed arm, eyeing one of the lone troops that were just outside the main group. He quickly charged into the man, not only winding and picking him up as he rushed forward but stabbing him straight through the chest and throwing him down before he crouched down just out of sight as they zeroed in rail-mounted flashlights on the dead android's corpse.
They shouted their threats, belaying the true fear they felt as they realized just how dangerous a foe he was without even seeing him, some of them had heard from reports of soldiers just before he infiltrated the base that it was the vulpine from the reports who'd came out of nowhere to the city, showing a fierce combative capability while defending some vixen he'd arrived with. Most of them hadn't ever seen the actual reports of his combat and fights, but they heard from the commanders the stories, and right now, they were living in it.
'Living' might not be the right word, though.
Footsteps broke the silence behind them as they all spun around, seeing only the red tail of a fox as he rushed down a hallway which they moved to see down, only to hear and see nothing else. They could hear the clinking of magazines in their vests as they moved around, showing the thin silence they just encountered, but he was hunting them on another scale, hearing each breath they'd make as he came around again, this time breaking through their center and swiping his blade across two of their throats before biting down on another's shoulder, throwing him in between himself and the other soldiers as they unloaded into their dead squad member, only for him to throw down the dead body as the rifles clicked and he ran off into the dark again.
Their squad which once totaled eight members was now down to a measly three, and the masked face they saw was one they'd remember.
"AS-1, this is AS-2-5, the target has engaged us, and we've lost over half the squad, we're pulling out." Fear laced the voice of the poor mutt who uttered it, and Foxy could taste it as he silently stalked them from the shadows, following them closely, but not enough they could ever feel it on top of them.
"AS-2-5, we're sending a team in to pull you out, hold tigh-" The man on the other side was cut off by the sound of shrieking as Foxy jumped onto the front man, swiftly gouging his right eye out and slicing his cheek's open before running off again, leaving the poor android to lie in agony.
His squad members left him behind in their own sprint towards the exit again, causing Foxy to let out a booming chuckle as he watched them.
"Cowards! The lot of ye!" He was heard from everywhere to them as his accent sung through the darkness.
They continued running while shouting obscenities into the darkness, soon coming up into another section where they could finally see again, giving them a sense of hope as they ran through the light and basked in the fact he'd no longer be able to hide from them, that they could manage to fight on even ground, however, they didn't account for the fact they never reloaded.
The vulpine quickly ran out the darkness towards them, listening to the clicks of their rifles as he sliced at the right one's leg, nearly amputating it before knocking the rifle out the hands of the left one, soon sending a left hook into the left one's jaw before kicking the chest of the right one, sending him down to the floor. Swiftly, he used his blade and sliced the left one's throat as it tried to regain its bearings, falling quickly beside the final one who was silenced by the vulpine who quickly stabbed the blade straight through his head, nearly pinning him to the floor.
Over the comm-piece he'd stolen off the dead soldier from earlier, he could hear the other team trying to reach out to the massacred squad.
His face was once again emotionless, switching to his hand as he pulled out the ASR and let the empty magazine drop to the floor, soon loading a fresh one as he racked the bolt and continued forward.
In his mind, a torrent of emotions was swirling up as his eyes brightened in intensity, and all he could think about was one simple fact.
'They'd kill hundreds of innocent people just to cover this up…'
He wasn't going to let them get away with this. No matter the scale of the problem caused by them, he was about to kill every single one of them.
Just outside the compound, several gunshots rang out from the surrounding buildings, each one signaling the nearing silence that would be thrown over the northern area in an attempt to prevent the truth of the island from leaking out everywhere. In the center of it was the compound which was currently surrounded by company-controlled androids, usually used to deal with smaller issues like contraband and other stuff like that in the system. But right now, they were forced to help capture or execute the android which had infiltrated the main survey station for the northern side of the island, bringing in vehicles which would've usually seemed out of place, but there was now no one to see them as some of the 'soldiers' carried bodies from buildings to the center of roads where they'd pile them up in preparation for disposal.
Though, the infiltrator was giving them a tough time, seeing as he had given the current commander of the AS-1 team a hell of a time for his platoon, wiping out a quarter of it already. The platoon's last three teams were regrouped just outside the complex once again, discussing their current situation.
"The fucker took out the entirety of the second assault squad?" The question was asked by one of the 'rookies' to the platoon, and his face was a mix of shock and amazement.
"Who in the hell could manage that?" No matter how hard the Lieutenant tried to hush them, they kept asking questions.
"Listen, shut up already, what happened to the second squad doesn't matter. Right now, we need to get in there and kill the fucker before he escapes. The heads are already threatening to make us into useless machines if we don't fix it, and if we don't fix it, they pull code zero."
"..."
A grim silence hung overhead as the platoon leader mentioned it. None of them would ever openly discuss it, but if it was required, code zero would have the company bring in their newest combat designs to wipe the entire island; them included.
"I don't think they would do that just yet, they've spent so much into this experiment, it just wouldn't make sense."
"Lieutenant!"
The voice drew them out of their conversation to see a cheetah running towards them, and an urgent look on his face.
"Yes?"
"Corporate has given the go-ahead for use of one of their experimental recallers. It's already been activated."
Awe shown on the Lieutenant's face, they'd all heard about them, about what they could do and their purpose. Meant for the reclamation project which would have them infiltrate the island and locate a missing prototype before bringing it out, the issue being that it was attached to an extremely dangerous subject, and the target itself was also most likely hostile.
"Fuck yeah," One of the rookies shouted, throwing his fist up with some pride showing as grins appeared on their faces, even the Lieutenant.
"Well, if that fucker thought he could kill us that easily, he has another thing coming," The Lieutenant chuckled as they all prepared to gear up again. Unknown to them, however, was that the vulpine was listening in as they all spoke, hearing almost everything that was said.
"Yeah, right back at you," Foxy muttered to himself as he searched for the power. He came up with the idea that if he cut the power, then they'd have to rely on flashlights to see him, meaning he could thin their numbers from inside before making his escape.
After a couple of minutes of walking, he found a more industrial-looking room, from a janitor's closet, which he went into and found a ladder leading downwards into what he assumed was most likely a basement. He climbed down, eventually stepping down into a labyrinth of pipes, cords, and beams that ran electricity, water, and most likely supported the building's infrastructure. The vulpine swiftly maneuvered through, following the wires until they grew in number in a certain direction, for what felt like hours, until he eventually found the breaker to the building. He looked at the breakers, then to the kill switch for the building, eventually deciding that he might as well just pull the plug.
In seconds, the building went dark. The tunnels he was walking through had the emergency lights cut on as the generators activated. The lights themselves weren't very bright, either. So, it didn't actually help much. But the generators were also down there with him, just to his left, so he cut them as well.
The sounds of the building powering down was bliss to the vulpine, but he didn't realize the hell he'd just set himself in store for...
/
It was about ten minutes after he cut the power, he'd managed to get out of the tunnels and trek through the hallways towards another section of the building. This one seemed more like a warehouse area, showing off a large variety of crates which probably housed more surveying equipment.
He felt… off…
There was an odd feeling surging around within him like anxiety, much like when something stalks you, but he didn't show fear or even have any. He instead prepared himself for anything that could pop out at him in the meantime as he tried to go towards the entrance again. Currently, two large shelves scaled all the way to the thirty-foot tall roof, barely allowing any space between the crates and the metal. He couldn't see past the shelves either due to not only the crates but from the darkness. Unlike his larger counterpart, Jason, he wasn't made with night vision. He was instead forced to rely on his senses to scan the area around him as he pushed forward, and he wasn't afraid either way.
At least, that's what he thought until he saw something unsettling in front of him…
More so horrifying…
In front of him was the little girl he'd spent so many months remembering, shed so many tears over, and suffered several nights alone without a wink of sleep.
He could see the blonde hair coming just short of her shoulders, a black shirt on with star and a phrase he couldn't quite make out…
The only thing she was missing was her smile…
Foxy quickly did a double-take, seeing her still there as his breath started to grow erratic.
'This isn't real.'
Try as he might to convince himself, the girl stood there proving otherwise, completely silent and motionless.
"Foxy?"
The voice was somewhat distorted, not like compression or such, more like after having a tune play out in your mind and not being able to remember the exact keys and notes.
Subconsciously his hackles rose, showing he was completely on edge, except this time it was fear, and he'd be damned if he wasn't a coward at the sight. He couldn't take it as he went to take some steps back, only to realize he was frozen, but then it started moving towards him.
Through the limited light he had from the small lights there were that simply wouldn't shut off in the warehouse, he noticed something off.
'The shadows.'
He noticed the frame of the little girl and the shadows didn't match, and the closer they got the more distorted the space above it became, showing an extremely lithe frame which resembled a disassembled endoskeleton, to the left of it he saw the shadow of an elongated blade which was held slightly back and was suddenly thrust-
'Duck.'
Instinct took over as he ducked underneath the blade, watching reality warp in his very eyes as the girl was gone and a shadowy robot appeared. It's face was simply non-existent, and the same could be said for its body as it simply disappeared back into the shadows. He continued with his duck, diving sideways as he watched the concrete underneath his previous spot shatter and the robot appear again. He quickly stood up, rushing towards the door as it disappeared into the darkness again.
Suddenly, he saw a blade jet out in front of him, nicking his arm with a loud shing as he leaned out the way, only to see the robot now at the side of the shelf trying to clothesline him with its blade, which seemingly deformed into a hand as it stayed locked on him.
He continued running, going through the doors and into another hallway where he now saw the entrance again, this time lined with soldiers who all shined their lights onto him as he dove to the side, noticing the robot now to his left again trying to slice him, the light from the soldier's betraying the camouflage, which, as he got a closer look, seemed more like a paranormal shadow.
'What the fuck is this thing?'
"It's the fox!"
He didn't get to rest as he quickly scrambled out the way of gunfire, watching as the robot simply disappeared from view and seemingly existence as the bullets passed through where they both were.
"God damn it," He muttered to himself as he looked just beside the concrete block which acted as a pillar to support the roof, seeing as the soldiers simply unloaded towards the hallway.
Foxy leaped into action, however, going past their lights faster than they could turn, soon moving towards the androids toward the outer perimeter of the group, repeating his steps from earlier, except slicing their belly open and essentially gutting them. He saw the robot appear in front of him, causing him to stop in place as it swung at him again, making him dive left underneath the blade again as it came around and sliced off one of the android soldier's heads in a single swift move. This time, however, they also saw the thing and got confused as well while he continued to avoid the robot, continuously trying to stay in the shadows out of the way of the soldier's lights, using pillars and the occasional piece of furniture to evade it.
'Worry about the thing later, clear the soldiers first.'
Priorities straightened, he began picking off the soldiers, one-by-one as the robot even unintentionally clipped a few more of them, amputating limbs in a fierce swing from a rather lithe arm. As the group thinned out, they fell back, running from the chaos caused by both Foxy and the robot as they dueled around the room, the former mostly evading, running, and hiding from the latter.
"Leave him to the recaller," He heard one of the soldiers shout from over the comm that he'd stolen.
"A recaller, huh," Foxy grunted to himself as he became blade-locked with the robot, soon kicking it away as it seemingly disappeared again, this time not coming back immediately.
Over the chatter of the comm, Foxy could tell none of the androids from in here had ever seen it, most of them probably only heard about it. He ignored it, for the most part, realizing he'd need to figure out a way to evade the recaller or destroy it before getting out of here.
"We're going to blow the support beams, fuck this place," One of the squad leaders shouted, the platoon leader agreeing with him as well, Foxy quickly realizing he'd need to get out of here, quickly at that.
He searched one of the corpses of dead robots, before revealing a belt of grenades. It had about four in total which was honestly a lot, but he'd need it if he wanted to get out of here. After fastening it around his waist, he sprinted through the halls to find a way out, but as he did, he quickly stopped as the recaller once again engaged him. This time he simply blocked the blade and spun it around, pulling up the ASR with his left hand and letting loose a few rounds towards its chest which seemed to do something. It quickly disengaged and disappeared, leaving a few traces of synthetic blood on the ground which didn't lead anywhere aside from the few drops that did.
"What the fuck is this thing?" His questions went unanswered as he continued onward, the harassment never-ending as he continued to fight back the robot before it disappeared. He found a stairwell that lead upwards, causing him to climb it for a second before he got hit to the side of the face.
In a split second, he was thrown around quickly and violently, even getting sliced across the chest as the recaller reappeared in front of him. The vulpine swiftly recovered, rushing towards it and tackling it from the waist before tossing it to the floor where it rolled over it's back and landed on its feet once again, watching him closely.
'Come at me, you son of a-'
An explosion rocked the facility as both he and the recaller fell to the ground, him more so considering the recaller was already on all-fours.
"The building should be unstable enough to collapse in on them-" The soldier was cut off as another explosion sounded off, more violent than the last as a chain reaction sounded off all around him.
"You hit the fuel line, we need to get out of here ASAP."
"Mother fuckers…" Foxy groaned as he climbed to his feet, noticing that some of the ceiling tiles had collapsed around him, but now he needed to get out of here. "Where did that thing go?"
He looked around quickly as the building began to crumble around him, shaking every moment or so violently enough to nearly send him off balance, the stairs behind him that lead to the bottom floor falling as well.
'I was planning on going up, anyway.'
Smoke started to fill the air as he continued upwards, meaning he needed to hurry, but that didn't help as he finally came out into one hall from the stairwell, but something charged him from his side and shoved him to the ground, causing him to hit the floor with a hard thud before he quickly pulled his arm back and thrust several times toward its torso, hearing a violent screech of metal as he pulled it back to see the recaller scrambling away from him, but not before he kicked it as hard as he could from the position, causing it to hit the wall and give him enough time to stand up.
An orange glow started to radiate from the stairwell, showing a shadowy mist surrounding the robot much like the mist Jason's eye would leak out. It quickly stood up and tried to get into a shadow, only to fail as the fire's light engulfed the room.
"Gotcha now, bastard!"
He tried to rush at it since it couldn't hide, but it instead disappeared from view in a black mist, leaving a trail around him which he followed quickly to parry a strike from it. He backed up, watching as it rushed towards him with the shadowy blade and swing it down at him, which he swiftly blocked with his own blade, only for another one to form from its other arm which sliced at his stomach, attempting to gut him. Thankfully, he pulled his torso back enough to avoid certain death and proceeded to back up further while moving towards the second stairwell on the other side of the hall.
The recaller did it once again, seemingly teleporting to his side to which he'd quickly move out the way and swing back, only to be blocked by it.
From his current engagements, he's learned that head-to-head combat was impossible with it, but it was weaker physically in terms of brute strength but was able to not need it with its inhuman speed. All Foxy knew was that he was in a losing battle, having been sliced several times so far and nearly gutted, twice.
He unhooked a grenade, pulling the pin and throwing it just behind the robot which grew distracted by the bomb, as he swiftly ran towards the stairs and climbed the stairs, falling up them as well before it went off. Fragments and debris from the walls and such was sent flying into the wall beside him as he took a minute to catch his breath.
"Is it dead?" The question was left unanswered as he never heard anything from the hallway, but the growing orange light and the heat coming from the hall made him quickly hop-to, moving up the stairs and to the roof quickly, setting that a portion of it had collapsed on the front side, towards where they had the guns mounted to shoot at him in the building across the way which was now utterly unrecognizable. Behind him, the stairs collapsed in on itself, sealing the way he came in. He took a shaky breath as he stepped towards the edge, watching how the street was an inferno, dead androids lit to a crisp as the pipes that ran under the street were blown up, sending a hellfire red line up and down it, seemingly separating the two sides. Several buildings surrounding him were ablaze, if anyone was left inside them, he prayed for a quick, painless death.
Debris crumbled behind him as he heard a metallic clang, sending him into a spiral as the damned recaller once again climbed from the ashes of the building to come after him, the shadows barely able to cover the bare metal as it did so. It eventually managed to stand, the metal was covered with soot, and he could hear the creak as it moved. It was definitely on its last legs, and he still didn't think he could take it head-on…
He grit his teeth once more, raising his arm-mounted blade towards the machine as it stood simply. His mask was cracked from the left eye down, but still attached to his face, his upper chest pouring synthetic blood from a slice that went from the top right to the bottom left. His fur could be seen through a hole in the left sleeve of his coat, the oily liquid dripping from his hand as it leaked down as well.
'Let's dance.'