Chapter 17: Tempest
(Author's Note: This chapter kicks the story into high gear. Tempest turns the cinematic clock forward twenty-minutes and levels the playing field, in a bad way. Really bad. To get the idea for the background, imagine a large hospital in the middle of a city, in the dead of the night. Then add in ominous shadows, drawing closer and closer toward the oasis of light…
It's good to be back.)
General Hospital, 2 A.M.:
Quiet noise. It's not a contradiction; noise is unwanted, distracting sounds that make little sense. Quiet means quiet.
In the hospital, there's plenty of quiet noise. The light beeps of machines keeping track of breath rates and pulses, the mumbling chatter of doctors, the clack of clipboards being hung on pegs. The hissing of air hoses, the buzzing of overhead fluorescent lights. Every now and then, an announcement over the PA like 'Paging doctor so and so' cuts through the noise to be understandable... but since 99.99 of the people in the hospital are not doctor so and so, it becomes meaningless noise to them.
Still, the quiet is almost tangible. There's a kind of unpleasant silence in the air... serious matters are afoot in a hospital. Life and death are matters of daily concern. The mild beeping of machines is intimidating to visitors, since you don't want to make sounds above that level for fear of drowning out some little beep which translates to 'help needed immediately.'
No matter how comfortable the beds are, no matter how many pillows are behind your head or how clean the sheets are, it's impossible to be comfortable there. The visitor chairs are padded leather, but if you're sitting at someone's bedside, you will not be comfortable. It's not a place where emotional comfort is available in vast amounts.
In this quietly noisy atmosphere, Jiazheng was lying down. Not resting, not sleeping, just lying down.
He'd been lying down in this bed for close to twenty-four hours now, but nobody was sure if he was awake or asleep.
Tubes fed fresh blood into his arms after the previous day's blood loss. Nutrients and fluids were piped in by a rubber tube coiled around and taped against his arm, ending in a needle-like rubber tube up a vein. Bandages covered Jiazheng's chest and stomach, also lining his neck thick enough to resemble a plaster neck brace from afar. They had stopped showing signs of red seepage hours ago, and now were simply there to aid in the clotting processes.
There were two sections in the 'Nursery', one for the sleeping inhabitants and the other for the visitors. This was specially for the new process cryogenic regeneration: Once a patient was in, he was in for a long time. It took a while to put a patient on ice, and a while to resuscitate him, but in the meantime they could heal weeks of bed rest in days.
It was a creepy place, all right: Nothing but rows and rows of coffins, each of then trailing a dozen cables and wires leading to a central unit that dispensed whatever unholy crap they pumped into these things. Technicians usually sat at scanning stations around the edge of the room, watching the sleepers' biometric readings for the signs of necrosis the way housewives watched soap operas. Nobody talked: All you heard was the pinging of the scanners, and the hum of the machinery.
That wasn't the worst part, though. Each coffin had a window, a faceplate so you could look in and see how the sleeper was doing, mummified in his pool of suspension fluid. Chan had looked in on Jiazheng's. The swordsman's eyes had been left open, and he knew, just knew that Jiazheng was seeing something that real live people ought not to see.
A month or so with your eyes open, staring, unblinking. The thought still gave Chan nightmares.
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They'd never told him about the dreams.
It'd seemed so simple, during training: Close your eyes, concentrate. Reach deep within yourself to that 'perfect place'…And come round five hours later, spiritual batteries fully recharged. The part in between was a bit spooky, though: The visions and all that biofeedback crap. He'd come out of the trance momentarily disorientated, unsure of where, when or even who he was.
The worst part, of course, was that he never knew he was dreaming. He went under knowing what was about to happen, calm and cool, but somehow the process of slipping away peeled the thought from his mind, so that when it started, everything seemed real. Afterward, when he awoke screaming, starting out from his trance, the knowledge returned again.
Only a dream…
"Only."
The dreams were always the same, yet always different. They were built around confinement, conflict, torment, torture, and always, horrendous pain. The setting always changed, though. A torture cell. Solitary confinement. A horde of rabid devil rats. A car wreck.
It didn't take a shrink to figure out that his subconscious really didn't like this shit.
Chan shook off the last of his dream (A particularly sadistic one, where slavering zombies had eaten him alive) rose from seiza position, letting dim light filter in through half-lidded eyelids. Lying in his coffin- uh, 'cradle', as the medical staff called it, Jiazheng seemingly already dead, just waiting to be buried. As always, Jiazheng's sword was leaning against the glass, radiating wave after wave of intense cold. Looking at it, Chan hesitated, remembering-
"I'm sorry sir, but your friend...well..."
The doctor shifted uneasily. What he was about to say clashing with, apparently, every instinct he learned in med school and a basic honesty he couldn't squelch.
"You might want to bring in a...a..." he coughed. "Spiritualist."
"What? You really think...there's something MAGICAL wrong with him?" Chan asked, voice calm and composed.
The doctor winced at the word "magic" and said hastily "No no! Of course not! But ah, to be truthful..."
"You don't know why he's in a coma?"
"It's not just that." He fiddled with a chart. "His possessions are-they're actually a bit...it's odd but... that SWORD of his. It always seems to find its way back to his room no matter WHERE we put it! And it's so cold...of course I really wouldn't recommend moving him from the hospital but perhaps asking a priest to come in...Just in case..."
The damn sword. It hadn't been with him when they'd brought him in; It'd just turned up during the night. And now, it was impossible to separate him from it.
Chan took a deep breath, hoisting himself from the hard couch provided for those who wanted to look in on the patients. Looking left and right, making sure that there wasn't anyone else in the room, Chan checked his watch. 2 A.M. : The perfect time for some extracurricular activity.
Now, this was a specialized branch, meant for dealing specifically for dealing with people who required serious rejuvenation…And fast. They used state-of-the-art equipment, particularly sleeper cradles and really intensive regimes of drugs and treatments speed up the healing rate, meaning that patients often came out in several weeks, tops.
Yes, it was expensive. Damn expensive. But worth it.
Chan looked at the steel-and-glass cradle holding Jiazheng's body. The kid looked peaceful: Another irony. Everything appeared to be functioning properly, the techs busy with their routine, trying to finish up before heading off for some sleep. He grimaced, trying not to let that image occupy his thoughts.
A voice in his ear made Chan jump. "Worried, Chan? That's not like you."
The mage whipped around, forcing a smile and a light voice. "Morning, Karmen. How ya doing?"
"Have you seen Ryan around today?" Karmen asked, fiddling with her ponytail. Dressed in street clothes, she looked nervous, on edge: Considering that the former Cartel Team was now on the run, it was understandable. She was already taking a risk turning up at the hospital albeit and unavoidable one: Someone had to keep an eye on the proceedings, to prevent someone from setting up an 'accident'.
"I'm fine," Chan answered irritably. "Thanks for asking."
Karmen's voice dripped with sarcasm. "I am sorry, Chan. Didn't mean to bruise your tender feelings. I thought we knew each other well enough to dispense with meaningless platitudes." She softened a bit, actually looking sympathetic. "I know exactly how you feel when you've just come out."
Chan sighed. "Sorry, Karmen. It was a bad one. No, I haven't seen Ryan anywhere today…In fact, I haven't seen him much at all." Ryan spent much of his time online or outside now, on some personal project. Well, at least he was looking happier than usual…
Her detachment wavered.
"If you do, let him know I need to see him, will you?"
"Of course." He paused. "Not going to party?"
"No. Something's not right…I'm calling in Yiming and Claire. For support."
"What's up?"
"Not sure. Just wanted to warn you, though. Keep your eyes open."
He looked at her, puzzled. "Why? What for?"
Karmen shook her head. "There's a…No, don't worry about that. Look, I've got a bad feeling about today. A very bad feeling."
Chan nodded, a grim expression painting his face. Karmen wasn't easily spooked when it came to vibes, and she had a rep for accurate hints about things to come. "'kay. Thanks."
"Look after yourself, Chan."
"You too, Karmen."
She smiled, a mirthless grimace. "Rely on it."
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Inside the hospital, an orderly picked up a telephone, dialing a number unlisted on any hospital's directories.
"Five minutes."
A voice on the other end of the line answered, "Done."
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Just outside, ablack van pulled up on the pavement, right in front of the building. Another followed.
The doors opened, and three men got out of the cars and walked into the building, hands concealed under long black dusters. Mirrorshades shielded their faces, the wire of a short-range transmitter protruding from their ears. They looked like radio-controlled toys, aerials waving overhead as they walked, heedless of the cold.
In the lobby, one man walked straight up to the security desk, stationed at a T where the east and west corridors met. Behind the desk were two elevator doors.
"Name, please?" The security guard asked.
The new arrival drew an automatic Beeman P-08 with a long webbed silencer from under his coat and slammed it across the guard's forehead. The crack of the blow echoed through the empty marble-floored hallway. The guard slumped forward, unconscious, his head split and bleeding. He lookedas if he were napping, fast asleep across the counter.
The other men checked both corridors as the indicators above elevator doors spun downward. One bell rang as the elevator reached the lobby level. The two men froze in their tracks, their guns poised to shoot.
The door opened and a couple, obviously visitors, got out. The woman was dressed in a blue dress, eyes swollen and red. She sniffed once, bravely, before seeing the guard bleeding his post.
"Darryl-sama," she whispered, clutching the arm of the man with her.
It was all she had time to say before she too was clubbed across the skull. Reflexively, her mouth opened and closed like a fish's as her legs buckled beneath her.
Her companion wasted no time on sympathy. He plucked her convulsive fingers off her sleeve and bolted for the front door and nearly made it to the rubber mat at the entrance before one of the men caught up with him, pounding him to the floor with powerful blows to the head.
The entire altercation had taken less than a minute: Swift, quiet, and deadly. Oozing professionalism, the point man ducked into the elevator, leaving his two teammates to cover the entrance. There was the sound of many, many engines as more vehicles drove onto the scene.
The assault on the hospital had begun.
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The door to the Archives was locked. Chan looked up and down the corridor, but no-one was around. Technicians had installed cameras all around the floor, but they weren't running yet: The monitors had yet to be replaced.
Typical.
He centered his thoughts, clamping the flow of mental chatter shut. Concentrating., Chan dug his fingers into the cracks of the universe-
-And vanished. There was a moment of extreme cold as Chan warped through the door, body lightening and scattering. There was an unpleasant sensation of dissipation, and a moment's panic that he might just disintegrate completely…
…But his form held. It always did.
He rematerialized inside, passing through the wooden door with a peculiar sensation that stung his face, and left his insides feeling…weird. Shivering, the magician conjured a small sphere of witchfire to illuminate the place, leaving it floating above his open palm.
Once inside, Chan ignored the shelves of paper files and went straight to the computer system, hoping that they hadn't changed the password in the two days since he'd stolen it. He thought about Ogion, the thing he'd become and the helpless fury it ignited within him. He thought about Alvin, dead now and lost to Oblivion forever. The memories wrapped him like an acid blanket, comforting in their scalding intensity.
The computer was a pathetic obstacle, and Chan was going to break through it, find out who was responsible for their misery. Linked to the central network, he could, in theory, search for the presence of any recovering NESTS operatives, find them and crucify them.
He took a purposeful step forward-
A metallic creak grabbed his attention. Chan spun, realizing that someone else had beaten him here.
"Being naughty, Chan?"
There was a ripple, then a shimmer in the air as a shape took form. Despite the dimness, Chan easily recognized the speaker…Ryan, Adept extraordinaire.
The magician bristled. "No, of course not. I was…That is…Hey, what the hell are you doing in here, Ryan?"
"Ah, stow it." Ryan flashed a smug grin, instantly annoying Chan. "I'm not telling anyone you were in here. Trying the computer?"
"Yeah."
"There's no point bothering with that computer, anyway. It's just got dull crap on it…form letters, templates, holiday notes and all that secretarial bullshit."
Chan sighed, the anger evaporating like mist.
"Crap."
The lights crackled, and the booting computer winked out. The hard disk ground to an extremely unhealthy-sounding halt, prompting Chan to give Ryan a suspicious stare.
"Are you playing games?"
"Nope." He shook his head, sounding serious for the first time.
Chan shrugged. "That's okay. Must've been a spike in the mains."
Ryan, however, looked worried. "That computer is running off an uninterrupted power feed. I felt it earlier."
"You mean it crashed."
"They don't crash like that. Something's wrong."
"Like a virus, you mean?"
"Possibly, but the machine was still booting up. Something screwy's happening in the electronics."
The first hints of shapeless fear pried at the edges of Chan's attention, but he fought them down. He peered at Ryan nervously. "It's just admin, right? The wards are gonna be okay?"
"Different circuits…" Ryan trailed off. "Do you hear something?"
Chan listened for several seconds, but couldn't make out anything unusual.
"There. Did you hear that?"
He shook his head, concerned. "Maybe it's the party…"
"Not unless they're dancing to gunshots," Ryan said, heading quickly for the door. "Come on, Chan."
"Where're we going?"
"Where do you think? To find out what's going on."
Ryan was about to open the door when the lock clicked loud, a hidden deadbolt sliding into place. More doors clicked in the hallway.
"It's lockdown! They're locking the hospital down!"
The Mage Cannon left its holster, charging up with a rising whine. Chan leveled the gun at the door, chambering an explosive round.
"Stand back."
CRUMP.
The door exploded off its hinges, huge slab of wood shattered into a mist of gobbets and whirling fragments. They burst through the rain of coarse material, already running. The wail of alarms filled the corridors, dueling klaxons battling for attention. The chatter of automatic gunfire echoed everywhere from the wards upstairs to the surrounding labs. Ryan cursed savagely, starting toward the sound. Hesitating, looking back for a moment, Chan followed.
The lab-tech area consisted of a large open-plan room with a ring of surrounding labs housing more than thirty techs and scientists at any one time. Desks and computer terminals nested in little clusters, punctuated by bland plants, water-coolers and filing cabinets.
Today, it was a slaughterhouse. An orderly- a small, vaguely familiar man in a white smock- stalked round the enclosure, armed with a SMG Chan recognized as something security carried. A least a dozen people around him were dead or dying, horribly shot up. Blood pumped from wounds, soaking through clothes or spurting from torn, ragged holes in faces and necks-
-The smell mingled horribly with the inescapable stench of anesthetic and cleaning fluid that made Chan want to retch. His head swam, gut twisting with nausea and horror.
The remaining techs cowered behind any cover they could find- desks, chairs, cabinets, workstations…Even each other. Some had tried escaping through the glass doors, their crumpled bodies testimony to their failed attempts. The gunman closed in on a small knot of people off to one side, weapon at the ready, barely noticing the entrance of the Awakened.
Suddenly, the alarms whined and died, lights replaced with dim red emergency lighting. Ryan growled and walked toward a couple of people hiding behind a desk, entering the maze of glass walls. He ignited in midstep, blue wreaths of lightning bursting from his flesh.
Chan left Ryan to it. He didn't need to stop and think to summon the fury, sheer outrage at the senseless carnage alone electrifying him. The gunman spun to face him, even as Chan got off his first spell.
A tangible wall of force snapped into existence directly ahead of him, just in time to take the impact from the first burst of gunfire. Chan's magical missile hit the man like a sledgehammer, hurling his body into a pile of chairs. The SMG clattered to the ground, rotating like a child's spinner in a game. The mage took a step forward, bent to pick it up-
-A furious wall of noise smashed into him from behind, driving sound spikes into his back. It was a screech of concentrated insanity, a whirlwind of howling, snarling pain. It tore into him like fangs, shredding his essence. It was the dream again, the zombies carving scraps off his bones in an impossible frenzy of cannibalistic gluttony-
Thought fled. Only the agony of the mad shriek bit into him. Chan felt his soul eroding, mote by agonizing mote, blown away on the whirling storm, flensing spirit from flesh. He tried to fight, to lash out, but there was only the pain- and deep, deep down, a peculiar sense of relief…
The world flashed blue, and the wailing stopped, replaced by a hoarse but harmless scream. He was on all fours, fighting for breath, coughing and choking. There was another flash, and Chan realized it was the same color as Ryan's bolts. Time passed- Days, months, eons- and then, the pain was gone.
Ryan was bending over him, obviously concerned. "You all right, dude?"
"N-no." Chan got up, feeling a thousand years older. There wasn't a mark on him; the attack had shredded his soul, not his flesh. "I think…I think I'll live, though. What the hell was that?"
"I don't know. There were two of them…Coming through the wall, the fuckin' wall- I got the drop on one, blasted him. By that time, the second one had you. I blasted him while he was concentrating on you, but he split too."
The world was still spinning crazily, an off-balance merry-go-round in a house of mirrors. Still trying to reassemble his shattered thoughts, Chan braced himself against a wall, remembering how to breathe. Across the room, fear had given way to shocked panic: People were flooding out the room in a free flow of unhinged terror, shoving and trampling each other in their rush to get away.
"What? Who?"
Through the wall?
"Monsters." The Adept was white-faced, pale. "A whole heap of the fucking things. Real ugly ones, made out of knotted bundles of slimy rope, with these horrible funnel mouths on the ends of long trunks. Claws everywhere. Chan, they weren't human! What the hell were they?!"
"NESTS," Chan rasped, more messed up than he'd thought. "It has to be them, Ryan. Nothing else made sense."
A horrible thought struck him.
"Jiazheng. The cradles…We have to defend the cradles!"
"I don't see any more goons popping out of the woodwork."
"Not here. In the rest of the building…Look at the lights."
Ryan flinched, startled. "All right, we'd better get there…fast. Can you walk?"
After a momentary bout of clumsiness, the world felt slightly firmer again as healing magic did its work, shoring up the remnants of Chan's defenses. "I think so."
"Good." There was a dull thump from somewhere else in the building, a low, heavy sound that shook the ground. Ryan looked even more nervous now, dancing from foot to foot. "Can you run?"
Chan eyed him, uncertain.
"That was an explosion."
"Oh, shit."
Ryan looked back. "Sorry, buddy. Meet me back there."
He vanished, teleporting away in a spray of water. Chan dashed for the door, tottering slightly on wobbly legs. The fury was back, hotter and harder than ever, and this time seasoned with a big pinch of pure fear. He sprinted through the office and down the corridor, trying to force himself to run faster.
Jiazheng. Yeah, his body was shielded by several inches of reinforced steel, but Chan didn't know how long it was going to take to thaw him out. An hour? Two? Thirty minutes would be too long. Turning a corner as fast as his still-shaky legs allowed, he made a conscious effort to steel his will, thinking about how much he owed the kid. A fresh strength flowed into Chan as he pulled himself together, shoring up his own belief-
-He stopped dead. The corridor led to the cryogenics ward, ten yards away- The doors, however, were broken and twisted within the doorframe, barely large enough for him to squeeze through.
"He's not dead yet," Chan breathed, repeating it like a mantra. Beyond the ruined doors, someone cried out in pain. Sucking in a deep breath he didn't need, then sighed heavily and stepped into the room openly, shaking his head.
It was bad. Something, or rather someone (judging from the bits of human remains scattered about the room), had detonated in here. Chan stood in the blast's epicenter, judging by the scorching on the ground. Three sleepers were very dead- gaping wounds where their innards seeped out, shrapnel wounds cut to the bone, limbs scattered across the room.
Jiazheng was lucky, (and miraculously awake) though his cries of pain would claim otherwise. The explosion was far enough away from him that it merely flung his cradle up against the wall, shattering it and pitching him out. His neck bled and one leg was bent up sideways at a bad angle, but he was alive. The medical staff, however, was all dead, riddled with a generous helping of bullet holes.
"You stupid bastard," Karmen said, standing up from behind a chair. She looked angry, upset, dangerous, clothes and face scorched and sooty. "Quiet never means safe. Never. I could've had you before you'd even known what happened."
"What did happen, Karmen?" Chan kept his voice patient and sympathetic.
"She'd already killed the support teams when I got here," she said, almost muttering in shock. "Took out the doctors, the nurses, the patients…She was about to slot Jiazheng too. I managed to drag her off, but whoever was riding her jumped out. I dispersed just in time but she…exploded…"
"Who?"
"The nametag said 'Eiko.'."
"Eiko Shinguuji? The nurse?"
Karmen nodded.
Jiazheng managed to get to his feet, braced himself against a wall. The sword was propped against his leg, as if contact could help the regeneration process.
"Thank God they were already taking me out of the coffin. Otherwise…"
Of course. Chan could've slapped himself for being so stupid: The treatment plan he'd bought included a daily anti-necrosis treatment, where doctors brought the subject out for the battery of exercises and drugs, preventing both muscle wasting and atrophy. They'd started the revivification process just in time, then.
Another unpleasant thought made itself known, slicing through the fog of fear that'd drowned his brain.
"More passengers."
Both looked at him. "More?"
"A tech in the labs…He was one of them too."
Karmen looked truly horrified now. "Please, God…Don't tell me it's happening everywhere else?"
Chan returned the question with an unhappy, miserable stare. "Sorry, Karmen. I think they're everywhere."
"We've got to save-" She paused, uncertainty washing over her face.
A floating sphere of flickering electricity drifted through the walls. Chan and Karmen sprang back warily, while Jiazheng held his breath, clutching his only weapon. Ryan appeared in a burst of water, coalescing out of air and vapor.
The swordsman exhaled, pushing all the fear out of the moment. "Jesus, Ryan. You scared the hell out of me."
Ryan ignored the comment, shaking himself like a dog. He looked over at the three of them.
"It's over. We have to leave now."
Chan narrowed his eyes, puzzled. "What's happening?"
"Everyone's dead…Security's totally destroyed. There're corpses everywhere, and those damn things dragging their souls out of their bodies…" He broke off, shuddered. "I'm telling you, it's over. We have to get out of here. They're all over the place."
Karmen growled, something inhuman in her tine. Jiazheng just stared in confusion and disbelief.
"Who? You ain't making any sense, dude."
"You mean 'what'," Chan cut in. He drew the Mage Cannon, snapping the safety off in a smooth motion. "You've been out of the loop too long, Jiazheng. Ryan? Tell him."
"We mean demons, all right? Things that aren't human. Understand? One almost got Chan just outside-"
"My leg," Jiazheng said, almost whimpering.
"Oh shit, Jiazheng. I'm sorry. Maybe you'll get lucky. They might leave this room alone-"
No way. "We're taking him with us." No way was he leaving another friend behind. No way in hell. Chan looked at Jiazheng's leg, sucked in a breath. It wasn't really broken…Just twisted out of alignment. He didn't have any idea how to fix it, though.
"Uh…"
Karmen pushed him aside, crouched down.
"I can pull that straight, immobilize it or something. It'll hurt like hell, but it's your only shot at staying intact."
Jiazheng grimaced.
"Do it."
"Right." The girl took hold of the limb, twisted it back with an audible click. Jiazheng's face went white, as he bit down a scream, managing to cut it down to a pained whimper. Ryan opened his mouth to say something-
-And reality itself fractured.
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Scent. Faint. Taste the air. Somewhere? Near?
Crouch low. Sniff carpet. Yes. Scent. Lick lips. Blood taste. Growl, growl. Look. Looking. Door. Go through door. Scent? Scent? Voice. Person. People. Meat. Not care. Not enemy. Sniff. Listen. Nothing. Look. Nothing. Strangers. Empty things. Vibrating. Ignore. Door. Through door. Enemy. Where? Where? Sniff. Taste. There. Faint. Hate. Follow. Follow. Follow.
Long ago, sun. Long ago, air. Pain. Enemy.
Scent. Up. Follow trail. Stronger now. Very close. Listen. Sounds. Voices. Listen. Move closer. Move slot. Quiet. Sniff air. Taste air. Scent. Yes. Voice. Yes. Enemy. Lick lips. Growl. Taste blood. Closer. Closer. Look. Look. People. Voices. Enemy. Enemy. Yes. Howl. Run.
Now.
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One moment ago, Chan was standing up, half-turning to leave, to walk out of the room.
The next-
-And then Chan felt a terrible weight slam into him, an overwhelming smell of wet fur and rotting meat. Then he was down, under a stinking mass of barely-real flesh, a nightmare made real, a raver, a destroyer. It was a skinned dog, the largest fucking hellhound he'd ever seen. It was a gigantic abomination glistening like an oil slick, seething internally as it moved. Six feet high, jaws opening sideways, lined with row after row of mismatched fangs, closing now around his neck-
There was a sudden hiss, the noise of ripping silk. The air blurred. Suddenly, the jaws fell away, and the monster rolled off him, severed head tilting back, burning as it fell.
Jiazheng held his pose for an instant-sword out. He reversed the blade and sheathed it, sliding it slowly back into its scabbard.
Karmen and Ryan were helping Chan up, dragging him away from the corpse. Chan was trembling now, shaking, all of the day's earlier agony rising in his throat to strangle him.
"They've breached the room! RUN!"
"-The hell was that thing? First monsters, now-"
They were out of time. Ticktock.
He was on his feet again, in full, panicked flight. Behind them was the horrible noise of the sheet-metal shutters being torn apart like tin, shredded from without by- Claws? Sharp enough to slice steel?
"Damnit, Karmen! I eat too much for this!"
"And that's my fault? How?"
"Chan! Cast a haste spell or something!"
"Yeah, right. Feet! Go faster! Hey, look…It's working!!!"
They tore out the remaining exit, an odd procession of four fugitives running hell-for-leather away from…? None made the horror-movie mistake of turning around, though. From was always important. To could take care of itself.
Usually.
There was an eerie surreality in that mad run. A terrible sound rolled through row after row of thawing pods. Fists and palms beat at coffin hoods. Wailing. Gurgling.
The sleepers were waking, their frigid bodies sore with hibernation sickness, trapped in their caskets. No doctors or technicians to unlock their cradles, to sluice their organs with warming fluids or inject stimulants or massage paralyzed extremities.
Thanks to the massive drain on the power grid, several dozen near-terminal patients were being roused early, without the necessary preparations. Chan had no doubt they would all suffocate in minutes. There was a central control room two stories up, where someone could disengage the locks and at least free them all. But what was the point? Without the resuscitation teams, they would fail and perish.
But why, damnit? The question was still there. Why was the point of this? Oh, massed killings weren't unique in themselves, considering the world they lived in, but there had to be a point, above and beyond the deaths themselves.
The screaming, the pounding…God. Chan would never forget that. A hundred frantic souls waking up to agonizing death.
Damn Ignis. Damn him to hell and back.
"The door! Shut the door!"
Obediently, Ryan shoved the double-doors shut. Arcane streamers of light sank into the lock, the metal running and fusing at the touch.
"That should hold them."
Yeah, Chan thought bitterly. About long enough for a leaf to fall.
They skidded into a branch in the passage, losing themselves in the maze of twisting corridors and forking routes.
He'd heard that most people, when presented with a choice, instinctively chose the direction of their primary hand. Considering his crappy luck, Chan wasn't even about to make that mistake.
Left it was, then. Corridor, corridor…Staircase?
"-Ah, to hell with…"
Chan took the stairs three at a time, going way, way too fast. Halfway through, his feet left the ground entirely as something cannoned into his legs, sending him rolling down in a clattering ball of ordinance, weapons and curses.
THUD
They hit the ground about a meter lower than Chan had expected, and he could've sworn he heard his shoulder snap on impact. Ryan, of course, was completely unharmed.
"Yo!"
"Weren't you ahead of me? Where's Jiazheng?"
"With Karmen!"
"Where's Karmen?"
"I don't know!"
"What's the point of making-"
DING
There was a noise as the elevator at the far end of the hall chimed softly.
Chan looked up. Ryan was already in motion.
Time slowed.
The doors opened.
Things started to happen very, very fast.
K' awoke.
He awoke to much pain.
Dimly, he was aware of a rumbling detonation that shook his hospital bed, jarring him painfully awake from a deep, dreamless sleep…
…Wait, what was he doing here, anyway?
He looked down, eyes falling on the large bandage drawn across his chest. Despite the thick layers of gauze, the pink of blood dotted the fabric, a splotch that slowly widened.
Oh yeah, he remembered now. They'd attacked this…base? Lab?...something. A fight. More men, with more guns than they'd expected. A burst of frightening rage. Fire everywhere.
And a janitor with a broken-off mop handle, stabbing him in the chest while he was busy throttling the life from a hapless guard…
He wanted to laugh. The little bastard had hurt him when trained professionals hadn't. If that wasn't funny, he didn't know what was.
"K'! You have to wake up, pal!"
"Unnnhh…Maxima?"
"Yeah, it's me. Up for a journey, K'?"
The Canadian cyborg was busy disconnecting K' from the medical apparatus, shutting off the IV drip, removing electrodes, shuting off the plasma bottle. He lifted K' easily, draping him over one massive shoulder.
"What…"
"Dunno. The hospital's under attack. One moment everything's fine, then the next…Boom, people running around. Screaming."
K' shook his head, opening his mouth to say something, to try to find out more, when a terrible, furious sound filled the room, echoing in violent waves from somewhere in the building. Somewhere close.
"Rrrraaagghhh-"
K' felt his blood turn to ice. Maxima's eyes went wide, his skin paling.
"What was that?"
"That what I was telling you," he gasped out. "We need your fire, old buddy. You ready for some burning?"
K' ignited his fist with a thought, a smoldering red enveloping his left hand like an aura. He was groggy, light-headed: Yet, the part that made him unbeatable was taking over, broadcasting threat updates and flooding his system with adrenaline.
"Right now, I'll burn half of Tokyo to get out of here. Let's get going."
Karmen never saw the trap before it was too late.
One moment she was running along smoothly, just getting into her stride. The next, the ceiling shattered, and a man crashed down from the floor above. She could just make out his sickly white blur of a face, the hairless, sloping skill- and suddenly, Karmen knew that he was a monster, a killer with black-gloved fists, each as large as a human head-
It was Yiming on a bad day, a steroid-pumped walking abortion. A familiar face, with a preacher's smile and a killer's eyes-
Without so much as a wince of pain or effort, the monster swayed to a stand, blocking the hall, raising his giant hands…
-And with a mighty swing, he crashed his fists through the air, his long arms whipping just in front of her as Karmen sprang back. The momentum was enough for both of his huge hands to plunge into the wall across from where he'd leaned. The impact buried his fists, his arms stuck in the wood and plaster halfway to his elbows.
Me, could've been ME-
Karmen moved, sprinting past the giant man. She flew past him, her right arm actually brushing against the heavy cloak, as he jerked his hands free. Unlike Yiming, this one had white hair, she noted. White hair, armor, yet still fast, too fast-
Ohshitohshitohshitohshit-
He almost got her anyway, with reflexes faster than fast: As some sixth sense told Karmen to leap, she heard the screech of not-flesh fingers raking across the metal shutters, saw that he'd brought one mighty arm up, slashing through the air where she'd been only a second ago. The bastard meant to disembowel her-
"Dominion Strike!!!"
And it was gone, just like that, sent flying by Jiazheng's supersonic charge. He hadn't drawn his sword: There was no time and less space to employ it. Instead, the swordsman rammed the hilt right into the man's forehead, imparting all the momentum of a V-8 engine.
The killer hurtled back into the wall, striking and hitting with the noise of a bull in a china shop. Jiazheng cancelled his momentum, spun the sheathed katana neatly in one hand.
"Okay," he said. "I…"
He paused.
The man was grinning. That was a bad sign.
His hand came round, and it had the bench in it.
"I…" Jiazheng started again, and then decided on a sudden impulse to duck.
The bench sailed overhead like a battering ram and struck the windows, cracking the supposedly bulletproof plexiglass. With no space to maneuver, the rebound almost got Jiazheng: He rolled aside, nearly crushed as the steel seats crashed down where he'd standing. It hit Karmen and smashed her flat, to a muffled cry of pain.
Now this was bad. Everything else had just been playing, compared to this.
"You have a sword, hero." The huge man's voice was like an iceberg: Slow, lumbering, but cold. Deathly cold. "I suggest you draw it."
Up close, the man was even more impressive: He wore black powered armor, all graceful spikes and flowing metal that gave him the appearance of a monstrous crab. His bare arms were corded muscle and twisting veins of purple against flesh.
A face seemingly grafted onto a steel-hard skull sloped in to meet a sharp nose, with black eyes like pits straight to the evil that had spawned this unnatural creature. The fingers pointed at Jiazheng were long, powerful, tipped in pointed caps of the same black metal as that armor.
Jiazheng knew he was about to die.
He drew the black sword. It left the scabbard with a long, protracted hiss, like the noise a serpent made before striking. The smooth, deadly feel of the hilt against his sweaty palms gave him confidence: The weapon felt warm, eager even, literally throbbing in his grasp. Against this foe, he was going to need it.
For such a big man, his opponent could move fast. He glided toward Jiazheng on silent feet, and the duel began.
From the first, it clear that the man was playing with him, pushing only hard enough to see what he could do. It was quick feet and luck kept Jiazheng alive in the first few seconds, as much as it was skill. The killer struck with the force of a tsunami, with even his most extended strikes delivered with enough impact to drive Jiazheng to his knees. A claw-like finger sliced his cheek to the bone, a stinging trench just under his eye. He felt the warm dampness spreading down his face, from a cut so clean he felt no pain, only a warm buzzing-
Well, this is it, Jiazheng thought, slicing through the next movement of the practice kata. He was panting now, sweat soaking his flapping shirt. The half-healed wound on his chest burned with liquid fire, another distraction to ignore.
If he didn't concentrate, he was really going to die.
Surprise replaced confidence in the man's eyes, quickly fading to concentration. Jiazheng's sword seemed to unfold like a fan, a blurring ghost-image of steel slicing the air in front of him. He attacked, all-out, every movement of his blade an attempt to finish the battle. Slowly but surely, the massive man retreated, step-by-step, still parrying with the armored inserts over hands and bulging muscles. His height was a disadvantage: The man had to bend to strike at Jiazheng, like a mounted rider trying to trample infantry. Yet his sheer endurance kept him going, despite the long series of blows Jiazheng managed.
"Enough."
Hellfire flared.
There was a deafening roar as flames leapt at him, even as Jiazheng hit the ground.
The fireball hurtled past Jiazheng and hit the large plate-glass window, which billowed outward in a shower of a million shards under the force of the explosion. Huge shock waves of heat, noise and air pressure reverberated around the room, sweeping a couple of chairs, a filing cabinet and a table out of the window.
Grinning evilly, the man raised a hand, aiming right at Jiazheng's face. There was an odd sensation of suction as flames gathered at that open palm, coalescing to form a red-hot ball of white flames…
Jiazheng was completely at a loss for what to do next.
"Look," Jiazheng said in a stern voice. But he wasn't certain how far saying things like 'look' was necessarily going to get him, and time was not on his side. What the hell, he thought, you're only young once…
-------------
Karmen woke up just as the man threw the fireball, woke up with a pounding headache and a pain in her side. Her first thought was that she'd been shot-But as she opened her eyes, and the tableau in front of her swam into focus, she remembered.
He threw the bench, I think- And then…
No. A name came to mind, the name of the armored terror menacing Jiazheng.
"Krizalid!!!"
Krizalid's head snapped round as Karmen yelled his name, as she felt the small derringer she always carried slide into her hand. The huge man had so much contempt in his gaze: It was as if he expected her to run away, or to surrender. Anything but for her to raise the gun and to fire.
The first shot rang out. Krizalid's left eye exploded, a burst of inky fluid splattering his wretched, inhuman face. The man did scream then, the first noise she'd heard from him, a cry of ultimate agony. But then he swung, wildly, a huge fist smashing Jiazheng right in the ribs. The swordsman let out an oof as his breath left his lungs, even as his ribs crumpled like twigs under the impact. He went down with an awful finality, eyes rolling back in his head as he toppled.
Krizalid took one-two powerful strides, halving the distance as Karmen aimed, determined to make the last shot count. She had a way out, a way they didn't know about, and her only regret was that she hadn't packed more bullets. One shot left, and she had to try for the other eye…
The second round punched into his chest with a wet hiss, between the seams in his armor. White smoke curled up.
Enough. It had to be enough.
As Krizalid started his lurching run, Karmen opened a gateway, revealing the roiling tempest of Oblivion beyond. Her mind snagged Jiazheng as solidly as any physical grip, as she willed them into nothingness, warped them out of the hell the hospital had become.
Cold.
Terrible cold.
Karmen felt a momentary chill as the darkness at the base of her spine erupted, and the world rolled up and crumpled like a Venetian blind.
---------------
Chan remembered in slow motion.
There'd been a man in the elevator: A creepy Agent-type, complete with wrap-around mirrorshades. He'd already drawn his weapon, and was raising it a fraction of a second before Chan did.
But he didn't have magic on his side.
Fireballs the size of fists struck the man, hammer-blows to the chest and shoulder. Screaming in Japanese, he exploded, his arm pinwheeling out of the small chamber and thudding into a nauseated Ryan. Chan wasn't even touched: The blood splattered the invisible wall inches from his face, dribbling down the side of the barrier.
"Well, that's that."
"Yeah. Ryan, take his handgun, okay?"
"Do I have to?" Ryan sounded almost plaintive, looking with disgust at the detached limb still twitching at his feet.
"Do it."
There was a sick squelching noise as the Adept pulled the Beeman free, handling it gingerly. He let the arm fall free, wincing as it rolled lifelessly across the smooth tiles, smearing blood across the surface. "Aw, that's sick. Chan, could you-"
"N-uh. I'm not touching that…You're on your own, Ryan."
Ryan sighed, stuffed the gun into the waistband of his pants.
"All right…The dark deed you requested is done. Can we get out of here now?"
"Hey, be my guest." Chan stepped into the elevator, his duster trailing in the pool of bodily fluids that used to be human. Trying very hard not to throw up, he toed the remains aside, clamping a hand over his face. "Just…Get in the lift…"
His voice trailed off. Take the lift down, right into whoever was still on the ground floor…
…Damn.
There was a rumble from above, and dust drifted down from the ceiling. Footsteps sounded on the stairs-Big, heavy footsteps, the kind that told of a stride meant to stop only by collision with something of equal mass…Say, a mountain.
It was coming this way.
Silence.
When Chan heard the footsteps coming down the stairs, and as he snapped the Mage Cannon up, what he saw actually made him freeze. In the second it took him to really see who it was, his vengeful fury blew away like so much, replaced with absolute bone-chilling awe.
The…thing was shrieking, its head thrown back, the brutal, gurgling scream like the voice of hell in the moving dark. It had been a man, once- Arms and legs, shreds of black armor still hanging from its hulking body- but it was changing as it bellowed its rage, and Chan could only stare.
Its face was melting, like hot wax, like a movie effect. Its bare chest was puffed and bloated with its endless scream as one massive hand tore armor away, gouging at something embedded in that heroic torso. Sizzling, foul white smoke curled up from both skull and body, smoldering from inflamed and greedy skin-
White phosphorous. Someone had shot the man with white phosphorous, and he was going mad with pain. The horrific figure lurched forward, clutching its face with one hand stained with its own blood, yet still with enough lucidity to know it was not confronting friends.
As Chan raised the Mage Cannon, he saw that the wound on its chest had stopped burning, that his flesh was eating the tiny entrance hole. The huge man drew in another breath to scream again-
-And Chan squeezed the trigger in denial, a denial of that tormented creature's existence.
KA-BLAMMMM
A bolt of coherent light leapt from the barrel, and a new wound blossomed in Krizalid's chest, cutting off the man's screams…But that was all it did. The one remaining eye angled toward Chan, that head with the ridiculous shock of white hair tilting.
"Yoouuuuuu…" The word was a guttural hiss, a confirmation and a promise all at once. "Bastarrrdddddd…"
"Oh, shit," Ryan mumbled. Chan'd almost forgotten his presence. "We're dead."
"Shoot, damnit! Shoot!"
The Adept's gun joined in the roar of gunfire, a throatier but less powerful sound. He backed toward the elevator as he fired a mix of shots at Krizalid: He had no idea where a shot was gonna stop something so massive, so Ryan just fired at anything he could.
Yet Krizalid kept walking, like a furious colossus, one that simply refused to die. The bullets hammered him, the Mage Cannon bolts connected both high and low, and the white phosphorous in both face and torso kept burning with a fury even water couldn't quench. (Author's Note: Yes, white phosphorus can burn underwater. Ouch.)
Both boys gave ground faster and faster, still firing, hitting what would've been kill shots on any other man. A least the smoking monster was slow, powerful but unable to really move-
Krizalid bent at the waist, shaking off two more shots that glanced off his shoulder pads. He bent at the waist, bent his knees-
And pushed off in a dynamic lunge that tore gouges in the floor, propelling him forward at a full run. A wordless snarl escaped his throat as he rushed at the pathetic creatures that had dared to attack him.
Ryan blasted again and again with the Beeman, but Chan didn't spare a glance to see how he was faring. Three more shots and he was out of ammo…
KA-BLAM
KA-BLAM
KA-BLAM
All three bolts hit the monster right in the torso, boring a hole just above his heart. He lost track of the shots, unable to believe that it could still be coming, less than twenty feet away as missiles hot enough to melt steel punctured Krizalid's massive chest…
…The gun clicked empty, even as Krizalid stopped in his thundering tracks, swaying from side to side like a tall tree in a strong wind. Without taking his shocked gaze from the reeling giant, Chan grabbed another clip from his trenchcoat, fumbling through the motions of reloading.
RAAAARRKKKK-clickclickclick
Ryan's gun clattered to the ground as the Adept tossed the empty weapon aside. He set his feet, ready to leap and strike, to force himself toattack the looming apparition. He hesitated as Chan held up a hand, even as their nemesis tottered closer.
When Krizalid was ten feet away, Chan aimed the reloaded Mage Cannon at the man's skull, closed one eye. Power channeled down his hands, rushing through the circuit to his weapon. Azure streamers of magic sank into the runes that had been etched into the firearm, rimming them with cerulean illumination.
He pulled the trigger.
The Mage Cannon thundered with a force that nearly shattered his wrist. There was a sudden, soundless concussion as a jet of something not quite fire, not quite lightning struck Krizalid like a word from the mouth of God. The impact snapped the big man's head back, to the point where Ryan could hear neck bones snapping. Then, like the recipient of a Muhammad Ali knockout blow, the towering creature slumped to his right, falling heavily against one smoke-blackened wall and sagging there. Not crumpling, but not moving either.
"Is he…"
Ryan let the sentence trail off. Chan nodded: He'd seen Krizalid turn his head at the last moment, watched the light in his eyes go out. The man dead- Even if he wasn't, their battle with the terrible mystery he'd been was finally over.
Chan bit his lower lip, staring at the still impossibly standing, leaning creature.
"Uh, Chan…Don't do that, man. Bad vibes, dude."
"Just a second."
He took a cautious step forward.
Then another.
And another-
-And Krizalid's eyes opened. Without a word, he swung his hand. The blow caught Chan in the stomach. There was a whooshing sound, like a bellows deflating, and then a harsh screech as Chan's defenses finally gave way. The force of the blow sent him into the elevator in a heap some ten feet away, a wet soggy splatter as flesh slapped into the metal wall.
Krizalid never noticed. Not even glancing at his disabled foe, he swayed to his feet, face as blank as a medium communicating with the dead. He raised one wrecking-ball fist, poised to crush-
"Hey! Eat this, you asshole!!!"
Ryan had lifted the fire extinguisher from its place on the wall. Now he pointed the spout at Krizalid, ripping the safety pin loose. White foam geysered out, a jet of freezing mist. The Adept hosed Krizalid down with a generous blast of oxygen killer, the sheer volume of thick, choking foam overwhelming the big man. Even worse, it began to set, hardening quickly to a substance with the consistency of concrete. Barely able to see through the billowing whiteness, Ryan directed the hose over everything, dousing the corridor liberally with smoke. There was a series of short, sharp coughs from within the cloud- All humans had to breathe, after all.
With a last, spluttering cough, the extinguisher gave up the ghost. Ryan let go off the handle and backed into the elevator, slapping desperately at the 'Door Close' switch. Please, please let it work, he prayed, all-too-aware that his countermeasure wasn't going to work much longer-
To make it this far and then die because of a slow elevator…He couldn't accept that. He'd been through too much.
There was a scream, the sound a demon cry, like the dying screams of a thousand damned souls. Ryan hit the control marked down one last time, dropping down to grab something from the floor. With another roar-scream, Krizalid burst from the fog, picking up speed with each staggering step, the doors closing slowly, the terrible creature almost flying now-
-And Ryan had the Mage Cannon in his hands, pumped a shot, and squeezed. The blast hit Krizalid's barrel chest, knocking him back-
…With a final-sounding crunch, the doors closed.
WHAM.
The car actually rocked, as Ryan realized that Krizalid had rammed the doors, and that he was surely a demon straight from hell. Chan's gun had four rounds left, and the Adept raised the Mage Cannon, wondering if this was the end. But then (miracle of miracles), there was a grinding noise as machinery activated, and the lift began its slow descent.
They were going down, down, away from the monster that lurked above.
-------------
The elevator's small chamber was filled with the smooth, tranquil hum of gears and electricity. The sound was oddly soothing to raw nerves, like a soft lullaby or mood music. Chan, jaw clenched against the pain, was propped up against the steel walls, feeling an odd sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach as the lift continued its journey at a snail's pace.
Blood seeped through the fingers of his hand, pressed against the right side of his chest.
"Chan? Hang in there, dude."
"I'm-okay," Chan gasped, and although his face was pale, his eyes clouded with suffering, Ryan believed him. It undoubtedly hurt like a son of a bitch, but blunt impact wouldn't- shouldn't kill him. "Gimme my gun back."
He tossed it to Chan, and the mage caught it with his remaining hand, resting it on his leg. It was filled with normal bullets this time, not quartz chips, which was good. Chan couldn't concentrate through the pain, couldn't summon up the focus needed to light a candle.
"What…Which level are we on?"
"Level fifteen, and falling. I figured that even the big dude can't know where we're going."
"And where are we going?"
Can't go to the first floor. They'll know-
"Basement One. That's the carpark…I figure we can 'jack a car, drive outta here."
Chan'd been exhausted before, but the relentless pain of his injuries were sending him to some delirious personal hell he'd never imagined could exist. His thoughts came in spiraling, uneasy bursts that he couldn't seem to sort through, at least not to any reasonable clarity. Oh, he knew what had to be done: Ride the elevator down, steal a vehicle, try to heal…But his senses were too overloaded to allow him to think more than a bit at a time.
It was almost over. That was something he could latch onto, the only constant in his muddled mind.
Ryan watched as Chan crumpled, the dark splotch in his side spreading yet further. This was bad: The dude didn't have enough juice left to keep himself going. The Adept didn't particularly relish the idea of dragging his unconscious ass along…
A short, sharp jolt of electricity flared.
"OW!!! What the fuck?!"
"Just trying to wake you up a little, dude. Don't fall asleep: Sleep and die. I'll do whatever I need to keep you awake."
The rest of the ride passed in tense, gloomy silence. The cool filtered air smelled like fire and disease, even as both Awakened scanned the shadows, afraid of what lurked beyond their cage…
…Ryan couldn't wait to get out of here.
--------------
This time they were going to nail the bastard to the wall. That's all there was to it. Nail it to the wall and watch it bleed sin, watch it struggle like a caged rat before they blew it back to hell. Best yet, they were going to get paid for doing a job that any of them would've given an arm for.
The lights inside the hospital had dimmed twenty minutes ago, leaving Tero Hikoshi and his four companions in near-darkness, except for the crimson glow of their Kirlian goggles. There was plenty of breathing room inside the building, despite the walls that boxed them in on four sides, but the nagging claustrophobia refused to settle itself inside Tero's gut.
He always laughed when he saw himself in a mirror before launching an operation. Tero and his fellow operatives wore nigh-identical black riot gear, complete with bulletproof vests, knee-high combat boots, and teal helmets with the NESTS logo emblazoned on the sides. Some days, he felt like this was all a bad joke. Right now, he wished it was.
The small submachine gun he clutched and the steeled look in his eyes told the truth. Beneath the bells and trinkets, this was a vicious job.
"Is this thing working? Why isn't this goddamn thing working?" said Sora, a skinny man in identical riot gear.
Slap. Slap. Slap. Click.
With the annoyed snap of his head into the wall, the goggles latched into place and started to warm up.
Tero snorted. "Yeah, keep smacking. As if that'll help-"
"Shut up." Sora finally got the set of the Kirlian-feed goggles down over his eyes properly. Miraculously, the indicator lights started blinking, and the backlight in the display finally powered up. "Kami-sama! About time, too."
Tero hated those goggles. It was like watching the world through a set of cardboard tubes, and when they started to break down, the first thing to go was always the real-time imaging. This left the goggles lagging behind what you were actually seeing by one or two seconds…Hell, he'd seen a three-second lag in the early models. That kind of crap could get you killed, even on a good day.
Today was not a good day.
It was a bug hunt: Find the EE (Enhanced Entity), kill/capture the EE, have a cigarette, try to go to sleep without nightmares about the face you just splattered over some expensive interior design. All part of a day's work at NESTS Cartel.
But this EE had killed before, and it was going to do it again. The critters didn't have to kill too many operatives before NESTS blacklisted them, and sent in wetwork teams as a contribution the 'greater good'. Tero's team had crept in through the back of the building after setting up the explosive packets, while the long knives and the shatterbrains- The Eidolons and the 'reprogrammed' EE's respectively- went in through the walls.
Tero was taking point-man position. He wove his way through the jumble, letting the others follow suit. His earpiece receiver fed him a steady stream of garble and noise, instructions being relayed from the Field Coordinator to the operatives on-site, with liberal unintelligible interference cutting through.
"Bra… static …come around to the central… static …roger, nothing to repor… static …continue your sweep, watch those stair… static …"
"Fucking equipment," he thought, not for his first time or fortieth. He gave his headset a futile whack.
They aren't receiving. Let's go out to the lobby…
There, Lin took them.
--------------
Lin faded into the shadows out of habit, careful to avoid notice. His hunters were good men, well-trained and alert. They were taut, cool and calculating as they swept the room…Yet no-one had ever managed to penetrate the Ninpo taught by his clan, the ancient art of concealment known only to them.
Upside down, clinging to the ceiling, Lin relaxed slightly, confident that the darkness and his state would provide sufficient cover. Calmly, he tensed for action, knowing that they would never have a chance to touch him.
-Then he heard the lead officer bark "Goggles." Each man reached for the rig on his head, the lenses swinging into position. They weren't thermal, or light-gathering or anything Lin had ever seen. An unholy red glow outlined each man's eye sockets. It gave their faces a skeletal appearance, suddenly bringing to mind images of the walking dead.
He heard the leader start, a sharp hiss of indrawn breath. And then Lin realized…
They were looking right at him.
The officer released his grip on the MP-5 and drew the Sig. The pistol's bark was an exclamation point punctuating the rattle of automatic gunfire, even as Lin moved. Skittering across the ceiling like a four-legged spider, juking past streams of automatic gunfire, he rolled off the surface onto the wall, seemingly ricocheting right off like a pinball propelled from a cannon.
The ninja had eight stingers, two on each hand, one on the inside of each wrist, and one on the spur of each boot. As he descended, Lin's leg swung down and caught the leader in the throat.
The venom he'd picked wasn't necessarily a poison per se. It was the vasoactive protein mosquitoes used to keep blood flowing during a puncture. Only, instead of the minute quantity you'd get from a mosquito bite, Lin pumped in half a cup. It hit Tero's bloodstream in a wave, opening every vessel wide. His face went bright red, then white as all the blood pooled down in his feet, and then he passed out.
Lin hurdled the fallen body like a surfer, leaping the twenty feet down the hall at the next man while he was still drawing breath to shout. If he'd wanted, Lin could've slammed into him with bone-crushing force. Yet, Lin still preferred subtlety, so he crossed simply hit the man in the throat with both stingers.
His feet had touched- Gently as a fly landing- on the opposite sides of the corridor, and like a fly's feet they held Lin up as he pumped a different insect's venom into the operative's neck. The effect swelled the affected tissue, giving him instant buboses in his neck the size of softballs. They closed off his windpipe, silencing him and then smothering him as he started to choke.
The others were still firing. Lin hoisted the suffocating guard high, just in time to take a full-auto spray of 9mm bullets through the chest. The ninja let him go, heaving the sudden corpse towards his former comrades. To their credit, they reacted fast, shifting to fire from different angles.
But not fast enough. One man, raising his SMG to fire, caught Lin's ankle stinger in the head. Spider venom this time, five times the amount needed to kill. Lin dropped to the ground, handling the transfer from wall to floor as smoothly as drawing breath. Cloaked in shadow, lit by the fiery light of malfunctioning Kirlian goggles, Lin was the last person any assault force would've wanted to encounter in a dark hospital late at night.
Eloquently, he raised an eyebrow, though the remaining operatives probably couldn't see it in the poor light. They simply regarded him with stark terror, frozen expressions of fear apparent even through their goggles. Lin faked a step forward. They flinched. Really, what kind of bottom-of-the-barrel assassins was NESTS hiring?
"Well, gentlemen?"
He charged, kicking off against the walls, flipping through the air to avoid the bullets they sent speeding toward him. Lin reached a bench, bounced off it, and swung down, stingers leading as he fell. The smell of bitter almonds filled the air as cyanide rushed into his victim's body, the man spamsing and thrashing at the virulent overdose.
A flash of pain burst against Lin's arm. His reactions had got his body out of the way, but the shot had still winged him, passing clean through flesh and out the other side. The muscle was bruised, and Lin felt the bone crack.
That was unforgivable. His old master would've punished him for that, and for good reason too.
No one had got a lucky shot against Lin for a decade. His charge turned into a furiously acrobatic rush, rife with backflips and spinning somersaults. The last operative emptied the magazine of the SMG, but Lin saw every shot coming and simply swatted them away. The man's eyes were defiant, lips drawn back into a snarl. Dropping his SMG, he pulled a combat knife from his waist.
"Defiant to the end," Lin spoke, almost with pity. "What must they do to your soul to make you so blind?"
The man didn't answer. Perhaps he was too afraid to. Perhaps he just refused to answer someone who stood so sternly against everything NESTS stood for.
Lin nodded, and tore out his throat.
------------------
The lift came to a shuddering stop, followed by a cheerful-sounding ring as the bell sounded. Telling them that it was time to go. Reflexively, Ryan cringed at the noise, looking round as if he expected hordes of armed goombas to descend on them at any moment.
There was nothing. The carpark was silent and still, empty except for the many deserted cars parked across the area. Chan limped out of the elevator, feeling very tired and very, very old. He swung the Mage Cannon left and right, sending the barrel dancing across the vehicles surrounding him.
"Seems clear to me. Can't see anyone, anything-"
Wait.
There was a noise, a low rumble as something huge and heavy began to move. The duo exchanged glances. The underground carpark was large, a labyrinth construct large enough for several people to conceal themselves. The light was flickering, inconsistent: Bare bulbs cast a chill fluorescent light down on the grey plateau, a washed-out and faded illumination that merely made the shadows look…Dirty. The concrete room was at least fifty feet below ground, the floors a mess of circuitry and wires crudely slapped together. Listening to the static hum of electricity was like listening to a choir of dead monks.
"Did you hear that?"
"What was it?"
"I don't know."
Ryan let off a nervous cough, rubbing his hands together against the cold. The atmosphere of the place was starting to affect him, too. For a moment, he could've sworn he saw things in the corners, formless, amorphous creations dreamed out in ruined minds…
He clamped down on those thoughts. However, he couldn't shut down his imagination, which was happily kicking over the furniture and terrifying the inhabitants of his mind. After this, Ryan was going to get a week's worth of sleep. Even if it killed him.
"There's plenty of time to sleep when you're dead," Chan rasped. "No-one wakes you up, though."
"I didn't say anything."
"Oh? I thought you did."
Now Ryan was starting to get creeped out. There was occult, and then there was occult, ya know? Idly, he wondered if the place was really cold, after all. Still rubbing his hands together, the Adept took another step forward, eyes darting back and forth.
"Okay. I'll 'jack' a car, then we'll get outta here. Just give me a second, 'kay?"
No answer. Chan had a thousand-yard stare on his face, completely distracted, gazing intently at something only he could see…
It was cold in here. Ryan's breath started fogging the air in front of his face as he exhaled, gripped by a sudden chill. Strange…He hadn't felt the temperature drop. Movement caught his eye, so brief that he thought he'd imagined it. A sinuous, winding motion in the umbral blots of darkness, conjuring images of something vast and terrible looming above them.
"Oh SHIT!!! Chan, look out!!!"
Ryan's voice felt oddly muffled, echoing weirdly in the dimensions of the carpark. It was more than that, he realized in an amazing flash of clarity: Voices were whispering…Small, tinny voices creeping like parasites, sometimes whispering things Ryan could understand, sometimes not. What he could understand, he wished he hadn't.
This was it. Game over.
Chan jerked, startled. The air was suddenly charged with magic, as he started casting a spell-
-Then he vanished, swallowed into the folds of shadow that had suddenly stretched to envelope him. The mage started to scream, one of his desperate, grasping hands the last things to vanish. For a moment, Ryan caught a glimpse of his face, pale and filled with a look of utter terror-
There was the screech of tires, and the abrupt bark of gunfire. Bullets tore through air and formless ether from just behind him with noisy sonic booms, loud, pointless bangs that hurt the ears. A red Kuruma had tore out from some yet-unseen corner, the windows rolled down, and the driver firing, one hand still on the steering wheel-
Samuel?!
"MOVE!!!" The Oracle roared the words in a voice of undeniable command. Ryan felt his knees buckle of their own volition, as Samuel raked the spectre with another rolling volley of gunfire. Holes appeared in the swirling darkness, little fires which quickly went out as the phantom currents which churned that turbulent mass swallowed them. Inky black ichor pooled to the ground, with a noise like the sliver of a scream…
A sliver of a scream. Ryan didn't even want to imagine where he'd thought of a phrase like that.
Bright yellow eyes flared, wedges of lemon floating suspended in midair. Another disturbance was expanding from somewhere within, even as more bullets ripped into it. The whispers were full-out screams now, an ungodly clamor that had no place in a sane world. He couldn't tell if it was Chan or the creature that was screaming-
"MALORIUS ARCANUM!!!"
Suddenly, the world went purple-and-green, careening wildly from one end of the color spectrum to the other. The blackness split straight down the centre, shrinking away from a flash of white at its very core. Ryan inhaled, a single deep breath, and plunged forward at top speed, snagging Chan's trenchcoat in his hands before the darkness could advance again.
There was a click-click-click as Samuel's gun fell silent. The man swore, revving his car's engine, trying to reload one-handed before the spectre could recover.
Chan was hurting in every conceivable way, blood smeared all over his face and pants. He looked as if he'd jumped into a blender, and just barely made it out alive. He still held the Mage Cannon in a death grip. No matter what happened to him, Chan just couldn't seem to bear to put the damn thing down. More importantly, he wasn't screaming as much now as he'd been a few seconds ago.
Ryan knew some First Aid, but fuck, this was Fourth or Fifth Aid, the kind of thing they teach to a trauma surgeon, not a guy who'd slept through his NPCC classes. There was blood everywhere, bone poking out, the smell of scorched flesh like incense…
"You're gonna be all right, buddy, just keep your ass together!" He was telling his teammate, trying to keep his voice as calm as possible. "Keep up that noise, and it's gonna go for you again!!!"
Samuel wasn't much help.
"Come on!" He yelled, still firing, to much noise and little evident effect. The Spectre wasn't moving, wasn't doing anything, it was just floating near the ceiling, watching them all…
No, something was holding it still. Ryan squinted, making out the translucent outline of a sleek mechanical figure, shimmering like a heat mirage, forming a barrier between both sides-
-The Emperor. Chan's Stand.
Then Ryan's back scraped against the side door of the car, and he was fumbling for the handle, not daring to take his eyes off the floating nightmare. Sigla was sliding off the Emperor's chrome flesh, forming growing curtains of words that curved toward the spectre, as real as flames or chains. Yet the Stand seemed half-formed, weakening, merely a projected image that weakened with every passing second.
"What the hell are you waiting for?"
Samuel hit the 'Open' button, trying to train his handgun on the blurry, incoherent monster at the same time. He heard a loud grunt as Ryan literally fell into the car, dragging Chan's body in after him. Straining, the Adept swung the door shut, muttering something to himself about "Been down that road…Down that road…"
Finally.
The Oracle's foot shoved pedal to the metal, and the little car surged forward as the engine revved mightily. They were off, tires spinning, Samuel's white-knuckled grip on the wheel never weakening as he muscled it through an illegal turn. The Kuruma scraped three cars on the way out, sacrificing safety for more speed. It rocketed across the carpark, spun crazily to the left, clipped a pillar, and drove forward for the exit.
Behind them, there was a screech as tentacles of darkness whipped out from the core of the creature and tore the Emperor apart. Chan let out a final, horrible wail as the Stand shattered and was consumed, wounds erupting across his lacerated arms and legs. Desperately trying to staunch his own injuries, Ryan started: There were bite-marks on Chan's limbs, as if he'd been assaulted by a swarm of tiny, biting monsters. His friend wasn't just here, in the car with them…He was also back there, being shredded by some nameless thing wallowing in a seething hatred for all life.
"We're going to die." Chan's voice was dreadfully calm. "We're going to die here, and Oblivion will eat our souls."
"Shut him up," Samuel snapped, the words clipped and sharp. He maneuvered the car toward the toll booth and the exit, building up speed. "And get your seatbelts on!!"
"What-"
The engine was whining now, sounding like a small animal in pain. Ryan felt his eyeballs being pressed back into his skull from the acceleration, a slow, relentless pressure like a huge fist holding him down. The oily feel of magic filled the air, limning everything in a shimmering glow. A single symbol formed itself from nothingness, three interlocking circles just ahead of them-
In the moment before they passed through, Chan recognized it for what it was.
"That's a hast-"
The car accelerated to near lightspeed, moving three, four, eight times as fast, rushing forward with the momentum of a bullet train. There was a blur of motion as the roof ripped off and tore like paper, hurled away by the wind's swash to smash halfway through a parked motorcycle. Almost simultaneously, every window cracked, then shattered, sucked out into the moiling chaos of the miniature tornado surrounding them.
At first, the only trace the Kuruma left of its passage was a dancing trail of sparks right down the white line in the centre of the carpark. But as it tore past parked cars, it started to leave further evidence: A spume of shattered blue safety glass spraying out in parallel vanes as the windows and windshields of the cars blew out of their frames, spraying into the air like rooster tails behind a speedboat.
Anyone watching would've seen a powerful linear disturbance, like a cosmic ray fired through a cloud chamber. By the force of its passage, it left behind a shockwave, a spreading cone of distortion that was a hundred times larger than the dark source at its apex. The yellow barrier fastened to the toll booth disintegrated before the Kuruma ever reached it, fragmented pieces forming just another portion of the debris swirling in its wake.
The car left the underground parking lot at several thousand kilometers an hour, ripping past the black Hummers parked around the scene. Two agents didn't get out of the way in time and were promptly splattered like overripe grapes, flayed alive by the many, many sharp objects swirling through the air.
Then the Kuruma was gone, rapidly shrinking to a small dot on the horizon. Northbound.
-------------------
Elsewhere, Jiazheng opened his eyes. The first thing that he noticed was the smell: An amalgam of rotted food, paper products and general garbage. He was sprawled across several bags, the contents feeling soft, squishy and utterly foul to the touch. Plastic rustled as he sat up, vaguely wondering what'd happened to him.
Karmen was sitting on a garbage can, ironically one of the cleanest spots of the area. She turned her head to face him as the swordsman sat up, dusting trash off his clothes.
"Ah. You're awake."
"Yeah. Where…Where are we? What happened?"
The last he remembered was the big guy playing the congo on his kidneys, followed by an impact with not-soft things…Nah, there was something before that, an ice-cold flash, then the wrenching feeling of flight-
"I Storm-wended us out of that place, as far away as I could. It was a blind jump, anything to escape Krizalid…"
Krizalid.
"That thing has a name?"
The girl hesitated, just for a moment.
"Yes. In fact, the Cartel Team used to be directly under his command. But that's neither here nor there. We're outside the hospital now: I've just been waiting for you to wake up."
"Ryan? Chan?"
Silently, Karmen shook her head. "Nothing. As far as I know, they're still in there…" She pointed.
The hospital was battered and scorched, smoke pouring out of the windows. Little figures ran around the base of the building, black Hummers like toy cars at this distance. Suddenly, impossibly, a series of explosions racked the stricken building. It erupted in a huge gout of flame stabbing skyward, like a hand clawing at the sky. A ball of fire rolled up out of the wreckage, wrapped in greasy black smoke.
"Fuck." Jiazheng couldn't keep the awe or horror from his voice. Burning wreckage pattered down as secondary explosions wracked the structure, ripping through the torn hospital. Even the huge sign fell to the ground in a hail of sparks and glass, shards gushing out the building and down the front steps.
He stood, feeling lighter somehow. "Oh, God…All those people…"
"I'm sorry, Jiazheng," Karmen said, as gently as she could. "But we have to go."
The pair hurried away from the burning, gutted wreckage behind them. "Do you think the other guys made it out in time?"
"Who knows? Time will tell."
----------------
Halfway across the city, Ryan watched the hospital burn. They'd driven out just in time, moments before the explosions brought everything down on their heads. Chan was leaning against their car, face grey and weary with fatigue, not looking away from the carnage. In the driver's seat, Samuel regarded the explosions with an almost solemn air, his eyes hidden by the reflective glasses he wore.
For a long time, no-one spoke.
"We have to find the others," Samuel spoke. His voice was tight, controlled, the only real thing in a world gone mad.
"No shit," Chan replied, grasping onto the objective like the lifeline it was.
"No shit," Samuel agreed. "Because this is just the beginning. There's a whole storm of shit headed our way, and we're not ready…"
"None of us are."