Chapter 25: Down the Rabbit Hole.
"Left Side! Left side, it's coming in from above! Whisper, watch out!" Aiden yelled, firing off a volley and making the attacker evade, Whisper gracefully spun out of the way at the last second, firing three shots into the back of its head as it missed her by inches, the huge black body slid forward and slammed into the glass with a dull thud and a solid smack.
"Fuck, that was close!" Aiden yelled as he swung his rifle back around as Macha speared one with her tail and sent it screeching through the air with a flick, a sudden impact to his back sent Aiden sprawling and sent a burst of starlight through his vision, well, through his non cybernetic eye, he managed to spin over just in time to jam his metallic fist into the creature's mouth before it was able to find his face or neck to bite, the creature bit down so hard on the dense metal that its huge teeth cracked and splintered in its mouth, using the fist to lever open its jaw, Aiden rotated his cybernetic hand through 180 degrees and grabbed its lower jaw and tore it from its face with a shower of blackened blood and gore.
Pushing its head back his arm was able to easily punch clean through its skull, making a fist sized hole through the face of the infected male chimpanzee, he threw it off and retrieved his weapon just in time to see one of the large creatures jump on to T'Shara's back and his heart leapt into his throat as he saw it open its vicious mouth to take a bite of her exposed dreads, but, as he lifted his weapon to shoot it, T'Shara, using her considerable martial arts skill and strength, flipped the creature over her back and grabbed it by the foot, then proceeded to use the screeching creature as an undead club to beat another one, "Note to self, never ever forget our anniversery," Aiden said to himself quietly as he watched her reduce both chimps to a bloody pulp in a few swings.
T'Shara turned to look at him, "The comms are on, my love," she growled, using her spear, she launched it at a rather large orangutan that had lumbered down from the light rafters and was now nailed to the wall, Aiden flushed bright red and T'Shara spun past him and stroked his face on the way past, leaving a bloody smear in the shape of her claw prints on his cheek, "I love this color on you, my male," she growled.
'She can even flirt in the middle of a fucking firefight,' he thought to himself, though this time not out loud, Macha charged past him and used her huge claws to take another chimp's head clean off with a single swing, 'I can still hear you, my love, and our huntress is right, that is a beautiful color on you," she said, and Aiden snorted.
"I'm going to need to talk with you two about privacy at some point," he grumbled, turning and firing a three shot volley at a chimp that was running along the rafters to drop down on T'Sall who was using his plasma casters, as he saw the plasma trails he looked up and let two shots fly into the creature, which fell screeching before he finished it off with a thrust of his wrist blades through its skull.
T'Sall's plasma casters flew in a circle around him, providing him a defensive screen, a sudden scream from his right made Aiden turn and he saw Donny trying desperately to crawl away from what looked like an infected gorilla, "Holy shit, that thing is huge!" he exclaimed as he brought his PIMP up and began firing at its back as he couldn't draw a bead on its head as it was lumbering, unfortunately, it didn't even flinch at the plasma burning holes through it and, with incredible animal swiftness, it lunged forward and grabbed Donny's leg, pulling the screaming terrified man into an upside down hold as he kicked and struggled to break free.
Aiden's PIMP blew a series of golf ball sized holes through it's bicep and forearm as he tried to break it's grip on the terrified man, but it was T'Sall's plasma casters that really saved the day, one of the floating silver ovals blew the gorrilla's right arm off at the elbow, causing Donny to land on his head and then try to craw away blindly with the gorrilia's hand still clamped around his ankle, trailing a blood trail behind him.
There was a flash right next to him and a squeaky loud pop that covered Aiden in a shower of gore and furry chunks, flinching away he turned and saw a small chimp that was now cut in half and he turned to see Whisper with her rifle drawn, pound for pound, this thing was by far the most powerful that the Spirits possessed, being rated to take down armoured vehicles, 20mm was a serious round.
Another screech from directly above him caused him to look up just in time to see the black shape drop on him knocking him off his feet, he slammed down hard on his back and just managed to block the incoming lunge from years of martial arts training that hard wired his muscles to react before his brain.
It worked but only just as the chimp straddling him was incredibly swift and strong, it also looked like pure nightmare fuel, huge chunks of fur and skin were missing, exposing white bone under it, half of its entire face seemed to be missing, but not its eyes, so he had a half skull half demon monkey looking at him with an expression of raw hunger, it lunged forwards with his glistening blood and saliva cover teeth flashing and Aiden just managed to dodge the bite which slammed into his shoulder armor, bringing up his cybernetic arm, he got it against the side of the creature's skull and deployed one of his arm's many tricks, a small pod that was oval in shape popped up and fired a small plasma charge at point blank range through it's skull.
The charge was only a pistol caliber, but at this range it was more than enough to blow out the chimp's head and it slumped onto him, forcing him to stare into it's cold dead eyes, "Fuck, that was close, I fucking hate monkeys," he said, throwing the surprisingly heavy creature off him, more of the creatures were coming from the rafters above them and he could see a flurry of fast moving shadows bounding around, "Everyone form up! Don't let them get between us!" he yelled jumping to his feet and grabbing the still shell shocked Donny by his collar and dragging him into a protective circle formed by them all.
The circle fired in all directions as the screeching abominations ran all around them, sometimes charging right at them, others trying to get around them, T'Sell's flying plasma casters were a serious boon as were both he and T'Shara's smart discs, unfortunately, they only saw the big one's, none of them saw the small ones in the group till it was too late.
A sudden screech from behind him made Aiden spin on his axis just in time to see what appeared to a nightmare formed cascaras monkey had dropped onto Donny's head and was in the process of biting a truly huge chunk of flesh out of his face before he was able to tear it off and throw it clear of him, leaving a large chunk of flesh missing from his face and a flap of skin bouncing with his movements, it also poured bright crimson blood down his face, coating both his neck and his white lab suit.
The young man screamed a nerve shattering scream reserved for the damned and dying, his hands went instantly to the wound and tried in vein to hold the flap of skin back in place but it was already too late, not only was the damage done but his fate was sealed.
"I'm infected!" he screamed, and the fear and hard edge of panic surged through Donny's voice, Aiden saw it in an instant, from the wound site in his cheek, a spider web of black veins began to spread along his face and the man began to convulse, it appeared that being bitten in the face or neck was an instant death sentence, spreading the infection directly to the brain in a matter of seconds, in less than a minute, the man's eyes went milky, like someone was pouring white paint into water behind them and his jaw went slack, opening and closing like a demonic gold fish as the virus took hold and ate away at his higher brain functions, "Nnnnnnhggggghhhhhh!" was all the sound he made during the transformation, and also the last one he ever made.
While everyone stood watching in utter morbid fascination and horror, Whisper stepped forward placed her pistol directly against his temple and fired a single shot that snapped his head to the side and ended his life.
The shot snapped everyone out of their stupor, "New tangos! Watch out for the little ones!" Aiden yelled, clambering back to his feet and sweeping the rafters with his cybernetic eye, it instantly picked out three more of them darting about, "Got three up here!" he called, hefting his rifle and firing at them.
"Two over here," T'Sall called, doing the same.
"Another two over here!" T'Shara yelled.
"Four over here" Macha called.
"Three...make that two," Whisper said, firing in the middle of her sentence and turning the demonic monkey inside out, one leapt, screeching at Macha, but her tail was a lot faster, turning the monkey in a kebab before throwing its corpse at the next one, which knocked it off balance long enough for her to hit it with her claws.
Aiden stitched one clean in half with a zipper of fire, causing it to fall and land on another that was running right at T'Shara who, with almighty kick that would have definitely got her onto the interspecies all female rugby team, kicked the pair straight through the reinforced glass of one of the labs, killing it instantly by forcing its skull to come clean out of it's undead tail hole.
It took ten more minutes of running, screeching and shooting, but the group finally brought down the last of the monkeys and now the place looked like an utter warzone, there were smoking bullet holes and broken glass everywhere, not to mention monkey corpses, chimps, gorillas and pieces of them were strewn everywhere, in short, the place now looked like a fresh hell.
"Jesus H Christ on a fucking pogo stick, and I thought bloody normal zombies were bad, I now have a whole new hatred of monkeys," Aiden said, looking around before his eyes locked onto the fresh corpse of poor Donny the lab tech.
"His soul has passed on," T'Sall said, looking at him through his hunting mask.
"Than I'd say he's the lucky one right now," Aiden said, looking at the hell all around them, there were a few nods of agreement,
"They must have been using the monkey's to test the viruses and other things on, people just never fucking learn, do they?" T'Shara said, and Aiden nodded in agreement.
"Alright people, we have enough on our plate to stand around dwelling on this, let's get up to that server room and see what we can get, I'd rather like to get out of this place, well, actually, I'd like to blow it to kingdom come, but I'll take what I can get" Aiden said, pointing up, everyone fell in and the group moved off, passing through between the labs, they all glanced at the lab that had been reserved for the development of this foul weapon, Aiden knew that they were all hoping not to have to go in there, if at all possible.
A narrow metal stairway lead them up to the control and security room, the red name tag opened the door and allowed them to enter, a huge bank of still live cameras filled up the rear room that they entered, "Macha you and Inferno start checking these cameras, see if you can find us another way out of this place, or other survivors, the rest of us will try and crack the main frame and see what intel we can pull," Aiden said, and the two Spirit's nodded, both grabbing swivel chairs and taking a bank each they got to work.
Whisper, T'Sall, and Aiden moved through the square room and into the main control room, this room was filled with server banks filled with crystal hard drives and flashing lights, there were a bank of six terminals on the other side that looked like they'd been shot at, four of them were filled with bullet holes, this was true of five of the seven server banks too.
"Looks like someone tried to get rid of the evidence," Aiden said, pointing with his rifle barrel at the damaged computers.
"Yeah, and someone put a stop to it, plus got themselves shot in the process," T'Sall said, pointing behind a desk, both Whisper and Aiden leaned over to look and found a male and a female human both dead, sprawled out on the floor, a line of bullets stitched up the white skinned female's body and a single heart shot had taken out the male.
"My guess is the female was trying to destroy the evidence and the male tried to stop her by shooting her, she was still able to get off a shot on him, and a damn good one at that," Whisper said, analysing the scene, she always did have an incredible eye for detail.
"I concur with you, lady Whisper, I believe the female must be a high ranking member of the Weyland Yutani corporation, when the outbreak occured they must have known it would be a huge diplomatic and criminal incident so they probably decided to try and destroy the records to prevent discovery, but thankfully they didn't get them all, ok, I will take this terminal, Reaper, you take that one, lady Whisper, as you are easily the best shot in this room would you watch our backs while we work?" T'Sall asked, and Aiden could swear that he saw Whisper blush under her fur and through her helmet, but she nodded silently, T'Sall patted her shoulder, "Thank you, I feel safer with you at my back," T'Sall said, this time he definitely heard a little eep noise come from her.
"Alright, T'Sall, you take that one and I'll take this one, route everything you find through my portable relay and our transmitter will route a copy of what we find directly to the Guardian Core, via our ship," Aiden said, T'Sall nodded and pulled a small device from his wrist and clipped it to the terminal he chose.
"You Spirits aren't the only ones with tricks up your sleeve you know, this device was designed by our engineers to crack any level of encryption, its one of the best..." T'Sall began to say proudly, and Aiden looked at his wrist comp as it bleeped.
"I'm in," he said, and T'Sall's head snapped around so fast his dreads actually made a crack noise.
"What!? How is that possible! You haven't even touched the terminal!" he exclaimed, and Aiden grinned.
"You guys are good, Spike is better, your guys might be among the best warriors this universe has to offer, but we have the best hacker in the universe, you know, this guy not only walked out of a prison when they finally managed to catch him but erased his entire criminal history and reprogrammed the entire prison security system, giving it a massive upgrade, from inside his cell with a phone he swiped off one of the guards, the second this detected a closed network it began cycling the encryption with god only knows how many different algorithms, I honestly have no idea how the thing does it, but this thing right here slices through computer networks like your wrist blades go through paper," he said.
Even through his mask, Aiden could tell that T'Sall was impressed with the Spirit tech, suddenly, his own wrist comp bleeped and he looked down, "I'm in as well, looks like this Weyland Yutani encryption ain't up to much," he said.
The pair started going through the files, both using enhanced search programs to scan the data banks for intel referencing the virus, at the same time both uploading everything they could from the servers to the Spirit's ship, which would be reviewed, and, for security, and to prevent any kind of cover up being implanted by Weyland-Yutani, it would be sent to every major intelligence service like the Guardian Core, the Halkrath, Section five, everyone would have a copy to prevent them from denying this.
"Hang on, I think I've got it! There's something buried under a ton of encryption here, ok, Spike, let's see how good you really are," Aiden said, noticing what appeared to be a ghost drive of some kind, Spike's programs got to work on it and, as soon as they cracked it, Aiden's eyes went wide, "Oh my god! Please don't be true, please tell me that they weren't this fucking stupid!" Aiden said as his high speed reading skill took over and he began reading what they had done, and his heart froze.
"What?" T'Sall asked, leaning over to look at Aiden's screen.
"By the great and wise Paya! Are they out of their pauking minds!?" he exclaimed upon reading what Aiden pointed out to him, the file detailed exactly what had occured, a mysterious benefactor had approached the company with a great idea for a bio weapon that was set to make them an absolute fortune as a weapon like nukes used to be, a bio weapon that could affect any species and had zero natural immunity, not only a virus but a genetic recombiner that would decimate any world it was released on, but it was based on Engineer technology, apparently the benefactor had provided them with samples of something referred to as, 'Liquid Death,' a substance so virulent that it was almost impossible to stop, it was well documented that this stuff was responsible for the Xenomorphs, they had began combining it with all forms of DNA from all known sentient species to make it far more effective at operating on any world and recombining it and reverse engineering it, and, apparently, they'd succeeded.
It also gave it the ability to not only infect any of the known sentient species but any that they shared a genome with, for example, Felenis share a huge amount of their DNA with non sentient feline races so all of those could become infected as well, same with humans and the now very dead apes covering the lab below them.
But now, rather than birth Xenomorphs, the virus had been re-engineered to reanimate dead flesh and to control the newly awakened dead, they'd apparently got that by combining in some kind of fungus from Earth, a parasitic form that took control of the brain functions of it's host, in this case, giving it an insatiable hunger which acted to spread the infection as the creatures attacked and bit their quarry, infecting them as well, a perfect weapon.
But it wasn't the only line of development that they were engaged in, as he was studying, Aiden noticed another file list, one that was marked Xeno, and he felt curious, but when he clicked it and opened the files he was presented with pictures and reports that left him shaking with a rage so intense he needed to release it or he would literally explode, without saying a word, he rose from his seat and walked over to a metal support beam and, with a shout so intense but not loud, he punched clean through it.
Macha nearly jumped out of her hide and she came over quickly to his side, "My love, what is wrong!?" she exclaimed, placing a hand on his shoulder to turn him around, but, as she did, it was her that got swept to an incredibly tight and protective embrace.
"I will never let anyone hurt you again, Macha, I swear it before every god that's listening, no one will lay a hand on your hide that you don't want there, if they do, they will die screaming, this I swear," he said in a quiet and barely controlled voice.
Macha was touched, but surprised at his sudden over protectiveness, she turned her head to see what he'd found, as did Whisper from the doorway, and T'Sall, even Inferno popped her head in, and they all saw what Aiden had seen.
"Bastards! Utter bastards! I will make them pay for this, just see if I don't! I'm sending this to the Guardian Core! When my Great Patriach and Great Matriach see this outrage they will want vengeance for those Xeno's that live among us and enrich our lives with their presence, they will hunt those Weyland-Yutani bastards to the edge of existence itself, finally, we have the evidence we need to sink those bastards!" T'Sall snarled, using his wrist comp to direct the transmission of the files and to mark them a priority transmission for the attention of his clan leaders.
Inferno came in and enveloped Macha and Aiden in her large solid arms, "I will protect you, both of you," she purred softly, and, with a guiding hand, she guided Macha back into the security room to continue searching the footage for anything useful, like either a way out or the identity of this mysterious agent of chaos.
"T'Sall came to Aiden and placed a hand on his shoulder and Aiden looked at the tall hybrid, "We'll get these bastards for this, brother, I swear it to you, we'll make them pay in blood for what they have done," he said coldly, Aiden blew out a hot breath, taking some of his rage with it, and he nodded.
"That we will, brother, that we will," he said, and he patted the Dream Warrior's hand, before they both went back to what they were doing, it took them a few hours but eventually they had everything they needed to sink Weyland Yutani for good, everything had been sent to the Queen Bee, who would bounce it to everyone, but, more than that, they also had a lead on the agent of chaos, thanks to their resident Xeno queen who, while cross checking the cameras against the first activation of the alarms, managed to get some pretty good images of the perpetrators, there were three of them, a human female who appeared to be their cell leader, a male Scalathor and a male Yautja.
"Awesome, this is what we need, now we just need a way to back trace their movements and to see if they made it off world or if they're still here," T'Sall said, looking at the large image that Macha had up on screen, the only one out of the entire footage that showed their faces, the trio had been ultra careful to hide themselves from the cameras and using Yautja clocking tech they had hidden from the cameras while entering the labs and stealing the finished product before intentionally releasing it by injecting one of the doctors on the project with a hypo spray filled with it.
They'd also broken one of the containment door locks on their rapid exit in the confusion, the breach had allowed the newly infected to escape into the main labs and thus had begun the beginning of the end, it was during this that Macha had also found Tyler's desperate run to release her and give her her freedom, setting in motion the train of events that lead her to being back in this place, but this time, not with one true love of her very own, but two true and pure loves for her to cherish and protect, but she couldn't help but offer a silent prayer to her name sake goddess for his immortal soul, suddenly that velvet like voice whispered in the back of her mind, "Worry not, young one, he is safe and happy, walking in eternal paradise with his loved ones, his actions and kindness to you won him my favor, but it was his sacrifice to protect an innocent life that won him and his loved one's their place in immortal paradise, he walks the fields of my realm with his loved ones at his side, and will do so forever, eternally happy and safe," the goddess, Macha, whispered in her mind, Macha felt herself smile and a warm glow came over her heart, he was at peace.
"Now we need a way to track these fuckers through the city, back trace their steps and trace them forwards, we need to know if they got off world before the lockdown, or if they're still here in hiding somewhere," T'Sall said.
"My money says they're long gone, they must have had an escape plan, if their goal was to get this stuff off world then they would have had a ship in orbit, or a smaller one on the ground, we just need to figure out which, and see if we can get the reg details, I'll bet more than a few ships managed to get off world before everything locked down and the air defences grounded everything in quarantine, but we need to be sure and we need to figure out where they've gone, if they have this weapon with them and they mass produced it, which we have to assume is their long term goal, they could destroy life in the universe as we know it," Aiden said, and T'Sall nodded in agreement.
"We need to get everyone on this, and I do mean everyone, we need to get all the special forces in the universe on this, not just the Spirits or the Guardian Core, but everyone, this could be the break the Guardians have been searching for, we've long thought that the creeping darkness had a base somewhere for something like this, we've hunted down and destroyed every one we've found, but they'd been nothing but small case training camps and staging areas, for something like this you'd need something large scale, with resources, it could be their planning a large scale attack or planning on starting a new intergalactic war," he said, and Aiden nodded.
"We've got to get off this world with everyone we can and fucking glass it, not a single trace of this vile filth can be allowed to survive," he said, and everyone nodded.
"Agreed, alright, first thing, we need to get out of this place and back to the surface, but we could really do without the undead Xeno's chasing us," T'Sall said, and Inferno pointed at the screen next to her.
"I might have found a way, there appears to be an underground entrance to the subway, it must be how they funneled the workers to and from the place without arousing the attention of the authorities, being able to build all this without being detected is pretty damn impressive, they must have had help, corrupt officials or something, given enough time, we could find a paper trial, but for now we could use it to slip out of this place undetected and what's lucky for us is there seems to be a connection from the labs here," she said, pointing to what appeared to be an image of a platform.
"Alright people, we're going to do one last sweep of the labs and see if there is anything we can use to help us out, from what I read, bio weapons weren't the only thing being developed here, the advanced weapons Weyland Yutani are famous for building are being researched here as well, might give us an edge, and I'm sure Tank would love to get his mitts on some next gen stuff," Aiden said.
"As would the engineers of my clan," T'Sall said in agreement, so the group formed up and descended back into the labs below to begin their search.
The group split up, looking around the advanced weapon labs, but staying well away from any lab bearing the biohazard symbol, turns out there was plenty to find too, these guys hadn't just been playing with nano tech, they'd been experimenting with Yautja tech as well, Inferno came out of one of the labs supporting a set of bright red wrist blade vambraces, "Check these out, Reaper, laser wrist blades! They can cut through anything!" she said, sounding impressed as she fired them up and four large blades made of high powered lasers contained within a stasis field like those light swords he kept hearing about sprung out of each unit giving her the appearence of having four large red claws on each hand.
Aiden nodded and couldn't help but smile at how giddy T'Shara looked as she showed off her new toys, an image of taking her at a shopping trip and watcher her trying on outfits at the mall flashed into his head, it was a very warm and fuzzy feeling, it was instantly replaced by one of her in a gun shop.
T'Sall appeared only moments later carrying a set in green, "Gotta agree, these are pretty nice," he said, lighting his up as well.
"Hey guys, check this out! Adaptive armor!" Macha said, and they all turned to see probably the most terrifying sight they had ever seen, a fully armoured Xeno queen.
Her entire body was covered in what appeared to be an a kind of flexible metal plate that looked like dragon scale in the way that it over lapped in thousands of small diamond shaped plates, her face now looked like she was wearing a Yautja hunting mask but it was her claws and tail that really set off her new look, her tail now looked like a battle spear with spiked sides and her claws were huge.
"Damn, even though I love you, that is still fucking scary," he said, looking her up and down, Macha reached up and tapped what appeared to be a collar of some kind, it kind of reminded Aiden of a small dog collar complete with a little silver tag like object mounted on the front.
"They must have had multiple nano projects running at once, I recognise this stuff, it's nano adaptive armor, that there is a nano forge, it produces and controls a nanite swarm that are programed to do one job, in this case, make armor for the wearer, clever," T'Sall said, nodding in approval.
Aiden nodded, "Keep it, my love, it has been a worry to me your pretty hide being exposed the way it is, as tough and fierce as you are I still worry, at least in that those undead fuckers can't bite you, and it should keep you safe from your undead kin as well," he said, and Macha smiled, reaching down and ruffling his hair.
"I love the way you worry about me, my human," she purred.
"Hey, what's that you got there, lady Whisper?" T'Sall asked, seeing the feline carrying something like looked like a small pipe, she looked up at him and smiled before twisting it, the pipe instantly began to move around, extending to four times its length and expanding into something shaped like a rifle.
"They call it a beam projector rifle, apparently it uses highly focused laser energy to send a bolt like projectile down a flat trajectory up to two miles, not sure of it's power output as the read up was pretty vague, but it could be worth taking as it's a lot smaller and lighter than my gun, so I think I'll bring it along, would be handy to have a back up weapon besides my pistol," she said.
T'Sall nodded, "Smart and beautiful, glad you're on our side" he said, and Aiden couldn't help but smile as he saw her tail turn into a propeller as her embarassment at the compliment got the better of her, both Macha and Inferno saw it too and, before she could run away again, Macha moved behind her and placed a set of heavy hands on her slender shoulders.
"She is deeply flattered you think so, and she also thinks that green is definitely your color, she thinks it would really bring out your eyes," Macha said as Whisper's mouth dropped open inside her helmet.
"T-T-That's private!" she exclaimed, and Macha grinned.
"Not from me, or from him, trust me when I say the truth sets you free, little one, T'Sall is a gentleman and he would have never said a word, but he sees you as easily as I can, he might not stroll through your thoughts, but that's because he's awaiting your permission, he doesn't have to, you know, that's the mark of a true keeper right there, so, stop lying to yourself and stop hiding, in this place you might die tomorrow, or even today, wouldn't you prefer to do so with a clean conscience and to be able to stand before your deity with your chest puffed out in pride so you can say to them, I did my best to live the gift you gave me to it's fullest?" Macha said.
"Hey now, you don't need to push her, lady Whisper can make her own choices and decisions, she knows how I feel about her, I doubt I could have made myself any clearer, if she chooses not to reciprocate my feelings that is fine, it is her choice to make, I would never put pressure on her, I was simply paying her a compliment is all," T'Sall said indignantly to Macha, obviously trying to defend the embarassed Whisper, but Macha just smiled at Whisper.
"See what I mean? Only a true gentleman defends a lady's honor like that, even against himself, technically, I should know, got one myself," Macha said, and Whisper looked at her and then nodded.
"She's right, T'Sall, you don't need to defend me from the truth, or at all, I'm quite capable of defending myself, thank you very much," she said in her quiet voice, but it was full of menace, and he looked at her in surprise, and it was obvious to everyone the disappointment in his stance too as his shoulders slumped, Aiden was utterly surprised, he hadn't expected her to reject him so cruelly.
"I understand, very well, as you wish, lady Whisper, I shall leave you be, please excuse me," he said, turning away to leave and Aiden went to turn on Whisper, granted, if she wasn't ready for a relationship or anything that was obviously her choice, but she didn't need to kick the guy in the nuts for doing what he thought was right, but he saw Macha shaking her head at him when she saw him turn with anger flashing in his eyes and he looked at her in confusion.
Whisper pressed a button at the back of her neck and strode forwards, "No, I don't believe you do, T'Sall," she said, and he turned to find her right behind him, which obviously came as a surprise, it was obvious his disappointment at being shot down so harshly had compromised his senses, so when Whisper leaned up and, with surprising strength that only someone who had never fought hand to hand with a Felenis would underestimate, grabbed his collar with one hand, pulling him off balance and yanked his hunting mask off with the other before, as his mandibles flared in utter surprise and to cry out, she jammed her head between them, tucking her ears back flat against her skull and planting a kiss right on his inner mouth.
To say both T'Sall and Aiden watching were caught off guard and surprised was an understatement, especially when Whisper seized hold of T'Sall's dreads and pulled his head down further and held him in the kiss, when she finally pulled her tongue from his mouth and let him pull his head back from hers she was smiling devilishly, "I said you didn't need to, I didn't say that I don't want you to, or don't utterly love that you do, Macha was right, you are a true gentleman and, from what I've seen of the universe, that's really bloody rare and so someone like you is a treasure that deserves to have his heart guarded by someone who is worthy of it, if you think that is me I'd be only too happy to accept, no female will get within two miles of you from now on, and I'm sorry I flaked out on you when you told me, it kinda came out of the blue and I'm, errr, incredibly bad at this stuff, it scared me, I've never had someone confess to me before, especially someone like you, but if you still want me, then I accept you," she said, and T'Sall looked utterly taken aback.
"S-S-Someone like me?" he asked, obviously confused, and Whisper nodded and drooped her ears slightly.
"Someone with such an obviously pure heart, someone who so obviously deserves a lot better than me, if it's Felenis you like, I know a million of my kind who would literally cut off their own tail to have a guy like you on their arm, someone who's just so nice and good," Whisper said quietly, and T'Sall smiled and lowered his head again, seeing as she hadn't actually let go of either his collar or his dreads yet.
"Don't need a million, just one, one perfect one, and I have her right here, right now, and please, don't cut your tail off, I really like it where it is," he said softly, making her smile and blush under her fur, he opened his mandibles and, with tenderness and supreme care, he stroked her furry face with his mandibles before gripping her face and pulling her in for a tight kiss.
Macha gave Aiden a 'Told you so' look and smiled, he laughed and shook his head, "Alright, love birds, plenty of time for that later, let's get geared up and get moving, alright everyone, shopping trip is over, we got a tunnel to walk," Aiden called, slowly, the group tore itself away from the Santa's workshop and began moving again.
The platform and train station was directly underneath the labs so access was pretty straight forward, and, with the doors easy to open thanks to their little deck of ID cards, the team spilled out onto the white platform in a star shape, Macha was again wearing her newly acquired armor and looked supremely fierce as they moved down the platform and onto the underground rails, but they'd only gone a few yards down the tunnel when they heard a truly haunting noise echoing towards them from somewhere up ahead, it sounded like screaming.