Splitting Up

Once they had all taken the elevator down to the bottom, the Demon Busters stood for a moment to put together their plan.

"Alright, so we're going to go down this way to check out this section where the plague is being manufactured," Halcen said. "You guys go look into this separate section and see what's going on over there," he said to Grey. "Once we're done, we'll meet back up here to get out of this place."

"Okay," Grey said, "sounds like a plan."

Jin chimed in, "According to the map, these sections are pretty big and they'll probably take some time to traverse. So don't start getting any unrealistic expectations that this is going to be a quick job. There will probably be quite a bit more resistance the further we go in as well, so be prepared." He handed Fein a map of the sector they were about to enter. "Keep yourselves coordinated."

"Ugh," Fein said, "You worry too much."

"Because you have a tendency of getting in trouble. And this time I won't be there to talk you out of it. So be careful."

"Fine." Fein looked down to Shira. "You mind Jin and Halcen, alright. You gotta keep them from walking into any traps."

Shira huffed in agreement and smiled.

"Keep an eye on them," Bo said to Kazuki.

"Oh, we'll be fine. You worry about yourselves."

"Alright, everyone good?"

"Yeah, let's do this."

They all split up and began going down separate halls with their groups.

Halcen's group continued on down the hall toward another door. Just how many doors are in this fucking place? Halcen thought to himself. You'd think they'd at least have some semblance of a concept of space saving. Like, this all must have cost lot of money being down here in the first place. So why spend so much extra money just to add additional empty space? What's the point?

They kept moving down the hall until they reached another door. There was a prep room on the other side. The place was sparkling white and there were boxes of gloves and facemasks sitting around. There were lab coats and hazmat suits hanging up on the walls. There were also lines of sinks to wash their hands and tools. There was a table in the middle of the room full of sanitizing solutions and cleaning supplies.

"What is this place?" Mal asked.

"It's where doctors get clean and ready for procedures. They get as clean as they can and get protective gear on." Jin answered.

"What kind of procedures do they have going on in this place?"

"Well creating a live virus is dangerous work. They probably have a lot of dangerous tasks. So, they try to be as protected as they can."

"So, people could get hurt just from working on it?" Mal asked.

"Even worse, work like this can be fatal."

"Jeez, what a world."

"Yeah, but there's nobody here," Halcen said, "so let's move on to the next room." He pushed them across the room toward the door there and opened it, leading them into another hall.

As they went down this hall, it took a right and put them in front of another door.

They went through this door as well and were trying to be cautious. But again, there seemed to be no one inside. The walls were the same blank white. There was lab equipment everywhere. There were what seemed to be tiny rooms inside of this one up against the walls. They had giant glass walls around then and inside were giant gloves that one could put on from this side. There were tables filled with microscopes and computers and paper everywhere. They had beakers and beakers full of chemicals that seemed to be left out. The whole place was loaded with scientific equipment.

"What is this place?" Halcen asked.

"It's where they actually created the virus," Jin said. "All this equipment is meant for biological containment. Safe ways to take care of harmful materials."

"So why isn't anybody actually here working on it?" Kazuki asked.

"Because they've already completed it," Jin said. "They had what they needed from here."

"Fuck, so there's not going to be anybody in here?" Halcen asked.

"Probably not at least in the places where they were working on it."

"We can't just give up," Mal said. "We have to press on and find out more."

"If it's already been released, what else is there to find here?" Kazuki asked.

"Well, there's got to be some kind of information on how to stop it," Jin said. "Scientists don't just create things without countermeasures for their own creations."

"You think they created an antidote or something?" Halcen asked.

"Well think about it. In this place, underground. There's not a lot of room for stopping the spread if it accidentally got out and turned on the people down here. So, the first thing I would do once I'd successfully created the virus was make an antidote."

"Well let's hope these guys are as smart as you," Halcen said.

"Let's hope not," Jin said.

Grey and his group continued down their hall and were forced to turn right and head toward the door at the end. They went through.

The inside looked like another warehouse, but seemingly much smaller than the first one. They were on top of another metal grated floor. To their right, again, was a set of stairs to the lower floor. This room, too, was poorly lit as the first one. But it wasn't a big deal because the stairs were not so deep, so they could still see the bottom with relative ease. Ahead, forward across the left side of the room, the platform continued all the way down to the end of the room. There was a door on the far side. But they could see light coming from a window on the wall to their left.

"Let's go check it out," Grey said.

Fein sniffed the air. "There're definitely people in there. Just a few. We should be able to handle them."

"Sounds good," Grey said. "Let's go."

They snuck down towards the window, Grey moving cautiously. He peered over the edge and inside. There were three men in there. They all had on plain grey jumpsuits. They were standing in close formation to each other. One of them had his back to the window and the other two were standing on the opposite side of him. All three of them were conversing.

Grey looked back to the others. "We need to be fast. Take them down quickly."

"Got it," Bo said.

Grey swiftly raced past the window, showing himself.

"Who's th-"

The man was cut off by Grey throwing a punch into him and throwing him across the room and into the wall. A gross crunching sound came from his wrecked body.

"Oh, shit!" one of the other men exclaimed.

BANG!

Bo fired a single shot of his pistol that hit one of the guys in the head. He fell down to the ground before he even knew what had hit him.

Jory rushed for the other man and began pulling his sword.

Fein shot past him. He swung a single claw upward into the last man's jaw.

He looked at Fein, gurgling. He couldn't think, must less make any sounds.

Fein yanked his arm down, spraying blood all over the floor, and the man fell to the ground.

"I was gonna take him out!" Jory shouted.

"You were too slow," Fein said, shrugging.

"That's not fair! I had him."

"Jory, stop whining," Bo said. "You'll get the next one."

"Not likely," Jory said, angered.

"You got a problem?" Fein growled, walking up to Jory. He was only a little taller than Jory, but Fein was much stronger and they both knew it.

"Yeah, I do!" Jory said, trying to match Fein without fear. His anger was swelling up.

"Well why don't you go run and cry to Halcen about it? Maybe he'll protect you."

Jory's face twitched. It hit home.

"We all know you can't contribute shit to this team, but Halcen dotes on you anyway. But even he's starting to get sick of you, isn't he? He's constantly gotta come to your rescue and always pull you out of the fire. Time and time again, but now he's getting tired of it." Then he lowered his voice to almost a whisper. "Why are you even here?"

Jory snapped and threw a punch at Fein's face.

Fein took a quick step to his left, grabbed Jory's arm, yanked the kid down to the ground on his face, and kneeled down on his back. "Didn't work out well for you, did it?"

"GET OFF ME!" Jory yelled.

"Fein," Grey said. "That's enough."

Fein looked up at Grey. "Alright, alright." He stood up off Jory.

The kid tried to scramble up.

Bo reached out his hand to help.

Jory just gave him a look of anger and stood up by himself.

"Saved by grandpa this time," Fein said under his breath.

"Why you!" Jory went swinging at Fein again, but Bo grabbed him.

"ENOUGH!" Grey shouted. His voice boomed inside the little room and echoed outside to the small warehouse.

Everyone froze. They stared at Grey in fear.

"This is not the time to be fighting amongst ourselves," he said. "We're here for a reason. We have a job to do, and we're going to do it. I don't want to hear you kids bickering for the rest of the mission."

"Yes, sir," Jory said in shame.

"Understood," Bo said.

"Okay," Fein said, with a lump in his throat. As strong as Fein was, even he knew better than to press Grey. That man had gone up against a Shichibukai and an Admiral in the short time they had been traveling together. Fein's strongest opponent he'd been able to even remotely go toe to toe with was Halcen, and Halcen was never a match for Grey, even on his best day. So, he listened.

"Alright, so, let's figure out what's going on in this room," Grey said.

Fein and Bo began taking a look around.

"Well, let's check out these desks," Bo said.

There were indeed three desks scattered about the room. None of them had any computers on them or anything, but there were some papers. There was also a workbench and a huge tool cabinet. It looked to be a maintenance office.

They began rummaging through the papers.

"It looks like standard maintenance paperwork," Fein said. "Nothing special."

"Nothing useful?" Grey asked.

"Not particular- waaaaaaiiit."

"What?"

"Well, it looks like there's been a request to fix a hole."

"And that's helpful, how?"

"It's…" Fein took out the map Jin had given him. He laid out the blueprint and began looking back and forth between the paper and the map. "There's a gaping hole, here," he pointed at the map. "This is almost all the way at the end of this section of the structure. A wall seems to have collapsed into some sort of underground cave or natural tunnel."

"So how does that help us?"

"Well, it means if anything happens and we get overwhelmed or something like that, we can escape through there. So, we should just keep it in mind."

"We still have to meet back up with Halcen at the elevator when we're done here," Grey said.

"Yeah, but this is just in case that's not an option anymore," Fein said. "Like if somebody suddenly blows up these tunnels down here."

"Okay. Fair enough," Grey said. "Alright, we need to keep moving. We don't have time to mess around here."

They collected themselves and stepped out of the maintenance room. There were no extra doors or anything of the like inside the room, so they headed for the door down the metal walkway on the far side of the room.

"So, what do you think they even keep in this warehouse?" Fein asked. "We never got a chance to really figure it out with the last one."

"I don't think it really matters," Grey said.

"Probably more maintenance equipment," Bo stated simply. And that was the end of the conversation.

They went through the door to find…

"Oh, surprise! It's another hallway!" Bo said, annoyed. "What the hell is with this place?"

"It doesn't make sense," Jory said.

"We don't need it to make sense," Grey said. "We just need to find out what's going on here."

"But you don't think they could be related?" Fein asked, as they continued walking.

"How so?"

"Well like, what if what we're trying to find here is somehow connected to the hallways? Like what if they're intentionally put in here for the reason that they're used to, oh I don't know, break things up?"

"Break what things up?"

"Like whatever we're trying to find down here. Maybe, like the plague they're developing, it's something dangerous, and they're using massive hallways as sort of dividers between them?"

"That's dumb," Bo said.

"No way!" Jory protested.

"Yeah I don't see it," Grey said.

Fein was beginning to get irritated. Each little thing was starting to annoy him more and more. "Whatever," he said low to himself. Why did Halcen put me alone with all of these idiots?

They turned right at a corner and continued down till they found another door.

Grey was about to push through it, but Fein put his hand on Grey's arm. Grey looked back to Fein, who shook his head.

Fein stood there, not frozen, but focused. His olfactory senses were telling him something. "There're people in there, a lot of them," he said. He took a moment to collect all the information. "There are… seven people inside… and gunpowder."

"People with guns?" Grey asked.

"That's typically what gunpowder is used for, yes," Fein said sarcastically.

"So, be careful?" Grey asked.

"I would."

"Alright," Grey said. He pushed up against the door and opened it carefully and slowly as possible.

There were seven people inside, walking around a large open room. Four of them were wearing lab coats and the other three were dressed in the same orange jackets as the team that had ambushed the crew earlier. They were the only ones carrying any weapons, carrying the same rifles as the rest of their team had. The others were seemingly unarmed. There were computers and other technological equipment all over the room. There was a great big screen on the far side of the room also built into the wall with giant machines built into the walls covered in switches and knobs on both sides.

"What is happening here?" Grey asked lowly to himself. He stepped through the door and hid behind a large table that was holding up a bunch of equipment.

Fein stepped inside, trying to avoid notice. He knelt down next to Grey.

Grey groaned slightly. "This is very uncomfortable. At my age, all this sneaking around isn't any good on your body. My knees are killing me."

The other two came through the door after them and Jory closed it carefully behind them.

"What do we have here?" Jory asked.

"Three guys with guns," Bo said, "Four without. They appear to be scientists."

"So, we can finally find out what's going on here."

"Hopefully."

"What's the plan?" Bo asked Grey.

"We're gonna hit them hard and fast. If we can take out these three guards first, we can hit the others without much worry." He looked around. "Jory, you take this one up here," he said motioning to the guard defending the right side of the room alone. He was the closest to their position. "Bo, you take out that guy on the far end." And "Fein, you take the one in the middle."

"Got it."

"What about you?" Jory asked the old man.

"I'm gonna sit here and let you guys put in some work for once," Grey said.

"Oh, sarcasm. Didn't know you could do that," Bo jested.

"Alright, enough. Now go."

Jory began slowly moving away from the table. He was crouched down so as not to attract attention.

Fein dashed from table to table, across the room, quick enough not to be seen.

Bo readied his pistol.

Jory was behind the guard now. He drew his blade. The slight noise it made caught the guard's attention.

"Huh?" He turned around quickly.

Jory shoved the blade through the man's chest, surprising him. He grunted and stared at Jory with shock and dismay. He tried to breathe but couldn't muster it.

Someone screamed.

Everyone drew their attention to the boy with the sword in the guard on the far side of the room. His body fell to the ground, and began to bleed out on the floor.

Jory was the perfect distraction for Fein. The guard in the middle turned to see what was going on. He raised his rifle.

Fein grabbed the man by the head and twisted it quickly, breaking his neck with a crunching sound. His body fell to the ground with a thud.

Bo leant over the table and aimed his pistol. His guard stood awestruck at the two men that had just taken down his comrades. He shook in place, trying to get up the nerve to point his gun. He never saw the bullet coming.

BANG!

The bullet hit the man dead in the back of the house and protruded out the front. He too fell to the ground.

The rest of the scientists in the room started freaking out. Everything had happened in such a small moment.

"What do you think you're doing?!" one of the men shouted.

"We're taking over," Fein said. "There's new management in town."

Bo and Grey joined the others on the floor.

"Alright, let's kill these guys and move on," Bo said.

"Whoa!" Fein said.

"What's wrong?" Grey asked.

"Shouldn't we question these guys at least?" Fein asked. "I mean, they're working on the project that we're here to find out about."

"Why? We didn't question any of other guys. You didn't seem to mind us killing them all."

"That's because it was very unlikely they had any information we needed. They were just grunts. These guys actually know what's going on here."

"Can't you just find out from these computers?" Grey asked.

"Well, yeah, probably. But firsthand knowledge is always better. Besides, we don't know how much or how little information I'd actually be able to access."

"Let's just kill them, for God's sake," Bo said, complaining.

"God, you people," Fein said. "You are forcing me to be the voice of reason and that is not a good look for me. Okay, so just… okay?!"

"Coming from the guy who's always picking fights?"

"Not when it matters, damn. We need information, not dead people."

"Fine, make it quick," Grey said.

"Ugh," Fein groaned. "Alright." He turned around and started walking around the room. There were four people in lab coats. Three men and a woman. Fein walked over to one of the men. "What are you guys doing down here?"

"Like I'd tell you," the man spat.

"Listen man, if you don't want to die, you better start talking."

"Go to Hell!" Then he actually spat in Fein's face.

"Oh shit," Bo laughed.

Fein was furious. His face twitched. He wiped his face with his sleeve. "Okay… I'll meet you there." Then he shoved his claws into the man's stomach.

The woman screamed.

He pulled his bloody hand from the man and watched as his dead body fell to the ground. "NOW! I just want answers! I don't want to do this the hard way, but I will if I have to. This is very simple. I'm going to answer some basic questions, and you're going to answer me."

He walked over to the woman. "What are you doing here?"

"Si-simulations," she stuttered. She was terrified.

"For what?"

"We're not told exactly."

"FOR WHAT?!"

"Biological compounds."

"What are you doing with them?"

"Trying to create living tissue."

"To do what with?"

"We don't know," she cried.

Fein wandered over to one of the other two men. "What are you trying to do here?"

"Making weapons, obviously," the man said, upfront. "She may want to act like she doesn't know because we're encouraged not to ask questions, but it's obvious what's happening here. We're trying to create living weapons."

"How so?"

"Well, we take non-living DNA, twist it and turn it into living tissue. We're using this technology to create weapons. That's the whole reason we're here."

"And what are you doing with these simulations of living weapons."

"Well once we've found the correct formula, we take it to production."

"How close are you?"

"Well, depending on which variant you want. We've had a bunch of failures, but our newest one is one the verge of success. The simulation seems stable, so we're putting it into physical testing. We're sure this one is going to work."

"And that's here? In this base?"

"Yes, all of our experiments are produced in house."

"Thank you, you've been very helpful," Fein said.

"Now, can we go?"

"No. Now you can die." Fein slashed the man's throat.

The man grabbed his own throat immediately, and tried to hold his blood in, but Fein's attack was too deep. It leaked from the spaces between his fingers. He looked down at the dripping blood and fell down on the ground.

"You bastard!" the other man yelled. He rushed Fein in a desperate attempt at self-defense.

"Bad move." Fein dodged the man and wrapped his arm around the man's neck and began to squeezed until he suffocated to death. Fein dropped his body.

The woman fell to the ground and began crying. "Please… You wouldn't kill a helpless woman, would you?"

Fein walked over to her. "Sorry baby doll. Equality's a bitch. You made your choice. You don't get out of this nightmare just because you got tits. You're just as responsible for this mess as all the others. Bye!" Fein kicked in her head, killing her in one blow.

"Shit," Bo said. "Why couldn't we have just done that earlier?"

"Because we needed information," Fein enunciated the words to Bo like he was an idiot. "Just killing everyone without asking questions makes it harder to find out what's going on. And now we know. These guys are building living weapons."

"Yeah, okay, but what do we do with that information? What did they mean exactly? How does that work?

"We're about to find out."