Death

by tmb1112

Death is a Quirk that can only kill. A perfect Quirk for a villain, but what if the boy who manifested that power just wanted to be a hero? Enrolling in U.A. might not be enough when all your Quirk can do is kill people. Follow Zach Sazaki from his first day in Class A on a story that spans years, as he learns to be a hero, finds out more about his Quirk, and too much to summarize!

105. Chapter 105

Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia

Chapter 105:

Lereoux

"We don't fight heroes," Zach said, cupping a hand to his ear and speaking in a low voice off to the side of the dark room he was in. There were some boats propped against the wall on Zach's left side and one hanging by the ceiling from some ropes in the boathouse in northern France. "Just keep leading them around in a loop. We only need twenty minutes or so, then break off."

"I could get you more time-"

"What did I just say?" Zach asked in a lower voice.

"I wouldn't hurt them. Just have Quicksand do her thing-"

"I don't need more time. We want them to come here anyway, now just do what I say." Zach ended the connection and he let out a deep breath. Just listen. Am I not commanding enough? When I say stuff does it sound like I'm putting it up for debate? Zach shook his head and then he walked out into the room that was illuminated only in the middle by a swinging lamp with a chair beneath it getting more lit up and then dimmer as the light swung back and forth.

There were a couple of unconscious villains laying around the floor in the darkness, yet there were less of them in there than when the man in charge was first put on the chair. He did not see where his men had gone, and when he started shouting about it, the figures wearing all black around him had not said a word. He was still shouting at them all, and the figures around the room stayed silent. The truth was that they were talking to each other in quiet voices each could hear inside their helmets, but to their conscious prisoner they were being a bunch of "creepy assholes" who he yelled at mostly in French but English whenever he really wanted them to hear him cursing them out.

"Mark," Zach started, and one of the twenty dark figures in the room walked up to him as they entered the most illuminated part below the swinging light. Zach stared at the man in front of him on the chair and he had to scrunch his face up for a second just from the look of him. He's oozing. It's fucking gross. Zach's eyes darkened more and he glared at the fat French guy who sweat more and made more pus and sweaty ooze come out of the large quivering pores of his body. "Ask him again what the Syndicate is doing."

Mark questioned the villain in French, so that nothing was lost in translation with what they wanted to know. Villains had pretended before not to understand at first only to start babbling in English when they got scared enough. Some kept pretending though through it, and they did not have time to play the long game at the moment with heroes closing in. Mark stepped closer to the chair, and he grimaced as the villain before him continued to be obstinate and just cursed at him again.

"We know you have something big going on," Mark said in a low, menacing voice to the villain. He lifted up his right hand and removed his own glove, and then Mark took out a knife and made a small slit on the skin below his thumb near his palm. Zach glanced towards him hesitantly out the corner of his eyes, and Mark continued while a thin line of blood pulled out of his hand. "I can remove all the blood from your body with the smallest slit, like this," Mark leaned forward and he made a quick slash across the back of the villain's left hand he tried pulling away but could not strapped to the chair as he was.

"This is going a little far."

"I'm not comfortable with this."

"Everyone shut up."

"No they're right."

"Mark won't do it," Death said, calming everyone around him with his assured voice. He wouldn't blood bend for torture, but threatening to blood bend, that's a different story. Zach pressed his right hand into his chest, and his body started slowly covering in dark wisps which made the villain in front of him spin his way. Zach's arms were back down at his sides, as he had done this while the villain was solely focused on Mark. Thin black wisps started seeping out of Zach's clothes that he was focusing to keep his aura hidden below. It was easier with clothes made of bone material that made it impossible to see his bones through them anyway, but his aura was so strong that he only managed to make it come out slowly for a few seconds before just allowing the dark veil to spread over his whole body.

"Let me just kill him already," Zach said, his voice coming out deep and scratchy, and terrifying the villain who apparently understood everything he just said. "If he doesn't give up anything, then I'm doing it."

"I-I," the fat villain with lumps on his face, flabs on his arms and legs, and oozing sweat coming out all over his body tried scrambling for something to say. He pursed his lips though, and then he pulled his head back and looked at the two in front of him in so much fear as they prepared to either drain him of his blood or cover him in that horrifying darkness. "I can't tell you!" He yelled. Some disappointed looks formed around the room as this had really seemed like the breaking point for their villain. Mark's expression started getting disappointed too, but his helmet hid that look so the villain had no idea he was in the clear.

Zach did not just cover him in some Death to knock him out like the rest of the small group of high-profile villains they discovered. He looked closer at the man's face as rage spread across it, and frustration too, and he yelled in French, "What are you doing?! You really think, you're doing a thing?! Stopping guys like us, when the real monsters out there are the ones who turn people into people like me! The ones who made me look like this!" He turned towards the figure who had only spoken English to him, and he yelled at the scary dark figure stepping closer to him, "It wasn't my fault! I never wanted to be like this! A villain. It was the ones who turned me into this monster," he struggled in his binds and some sweat flew off of his disgusting flabs revealing warts and pus bubbles between the fat flaps.

"He was probably born like that," La Brava muttered on the side of the room, lifting her gaze from the tablet she had up tracking the two vehicles of their comrades not at the boathouse. She looked back down quickly to continue tracking, and Darling looked to her right for a second down at the tablet in La Brava's hands to check the status of the others herself.

"You weren't born like this?" Mark questioned the man in front of him after Zach asked him to do so quietly in their helmets.

"No! I was- you saw my Quirk! It has nothing to do with, with why I'm-" the man ground his teeth and pulled his fat lips apart in anger. "I was experimented on! While you vigilantes fight low level drug dealers like me, trying to make your difference, the real shit goes on in labs run by governments. They're the ones who are really evil! You fools. I escaped, but there is nowhere for a man like me, hunted by the government, to go when…"

"Low level drug dealers," as if. He's trying to hide and protect his own comrades and interests, but that doesn't mean what he's saying is a lie. Zach looked carefully at the man who could have used anything to try and get them not to torture or kill him. Why go with this? It sounds like a conspiracy, and there had to have been other things he could have done besides join the Syndicate. Whatever the Syndicate's up to, we're not going to figure it out from him. He sounds to hate the ones who experimented on him though, like there's genuine hatred there. Might as well. Zach stepped closer to the chair and leaned his head down fast right in front of the man's.

The villain froze mid-anti-government-rant with his mouth open, and Zach was careful not to breathe out too hard or his black breath would hit the man in the face and knock him out. He kept his face a short distance and then growled in a scratchy, angry voice, "You say you escaped?" Zach asked, and the man started nodding his head with a terrified look as he stared at the pitch black mass of a head before him. Zach did not see a lying expression as the villain nodded his head in terror, and so he growled, "Where is this place?"

---

Scotland

"This is a waste of our time," Gentle said, looking ahead towards Zach but stopping where he was in the dying forest. The trees were already sparsely scattered, and with all the leaves almost gone from the branches they did not have much cover in the woods. Gentle stood out between two oaks with a frown on his face behind his visor, and he looked ahead towards the front of the group of six where Zach turned to look back towards him. "We know the Syndicate is planning something dastardly. And we have many leads we could be following-"

"We're just going to check it out," Zach said, frowning back towards Gentle past the four between them. He stayed crouched behind a tree himself while looking towards the tall man standing in the open without a care in the world. Zach stood up straighter and said in a lower voice, "I think he was telling the truth-"

"Sorry, sir," Yuri started behind Zach on his left. "I have to agree with-"

"Enough," Zach said, cutting him off before they could start an argument here. The Eastern European man behind Zach looked at him in surprise, but Zach turned away from the others and straight forward again. "One of our leads is in Wales. We'll meet up with La Brava and Darling's team as soon as we check things out here. If there is human testing being done by the British government out here-"

"Then what?" Gentle questioned.

"They wouldn't," Wreck'd added. The man closest to Gentle on his left side with his back up against a tree trunk looked towards the older but shorter man. He was the only British member of the Army of Death, and Zach brought him along with his team. Wreck'd looked ahead towards Zach and to the boy who was frowning more at all this argument behind him, "You really think my government is doing stuff like that? Fraux was lying."

We'll see in a second, Zach started forward through the forest again. He had on his full black costume, and he moved from tree to tree in the direction of the coordinates Rebel had plugged into their helmets. "Access, you there?" Zach asked in a soft voice while continuing to speed his way through the dying woods. Sticks cracked under his feet as did brown leaves, though he was trying to choose his steps carefully to make the least amount of noise.

"Yeah sir," Access replied. Back on the helicopter they flew in on, Access had a laptop on his knees and checked back in with Zach. The American who once teamed up with the Army of Death as Anonymous 4, or Whoreslayer42, for the invasion of Saudi Arabia had fully joined a few weeks after once he had met Death face to face. The black haired eighteen year old had his legs kicked up on a box he pulled out from below his seat, and the helicopter was covered in a forest camo tarp which actually made it stick out almost as much considering the trees around the clearing were not green in the first place. The teen in the parked chopper reached to his right and grabbed a can of energy drink that he took a few sips out of before wiping his mouth and continuing to type on his laptop. "You're nearing the grid we narrowed it down to. Can you see the fields yet?"

Zach was nearing the thinnest part of the forest, and he replied quietly, "Yes." We saw open land from the air already. It's not a sure indicator that Fraux wasn't lying, since he didn't say anything about the forest at all, but the fact that there is a field up here means it's worth it to check out. Most of Scotland is fields like this though… Zach frowned and he headed to the edge of the tree-line that was also higher in elevation than the fields out in front of him.

A man ran up to the tree on Zach's left and stacked up on it. He had on all black just like Zach and the others except for Gentle who had some purple too, but the man on Zach's left carried a large black shield on his back that stretched across both his shoulder-blades before narrowing down below his waist. On the center of the shield that covered his back was a white skull and crossbones with a cross shape made out of the bones instead of an X. Exodus looked to Death and nodded at him once before poking out like the leader was doing to look far out over the fields.

Pastor stared towards the cross on Exodus' shield and he ran up and stacked behind the larger man who he used to think shared his beliefs. Pastor spotted where Exodus kept looking after gazing out in the fields though, and he frowned a bit at the man's long looks towards their leader. The older man with grayish-black hair under his helmet who had 'MORTE' written down his back in Italian shook off the feeling he had and he looked out through his visor into the fields beyond. Yuri jogged up slower on Zach's right, and Gentle and Wreck'd came up last as the ones who least believed anything was going to come from this.

Gentle frowned deeper towards Zach's back and stopped farther out from the edge of the woods. He reached up to his helmet and decided to check in with La Brava, again. Zach glanced back for a moment and grimaced as he saw Wreck'd not even with his hands on his weapon, and Gentle in the middle of a call. He turned back forward and tried shaking his annoyance, Gentle lost a lot of comrades while I was in America. He knows as much as I do how dangerous this is… so him not even paying attention really means he thinks this is a waste of time. He thinks La Brava's out in danger without him as backup, and we're far enough out that it would be rough getting me down to revive her quickly. Or just far enough that he can't help her easily… Why do I believe Fraux though?

Zach's eyes shifted over a windmill, to a different kind of building that looked to be filled with grain or something. Next to the grain silo was a water tower, and Zach looked past it towards a stream with some small bridges over them. One of the bridges was for driving on, and there was a winding dirt path going over that bridge and then up the hill to the right of it. He looked towards that hill, and he turned the other way thinking about the maps they had used on the way there. That way would lead back to a main highway. It's pretty far off, but where does that road lead? What's at the top of the hill? Could be nothing. Could be a secret government base that experiments on villains, or just on regular people who… It sounds stupid. Unbelievable, to normal people at least. But I could see it.

Zach turned to the right and he started darting down the edge of the forest in the direction of the hill. He could see some of the trees moving up in elevation over there too, and he wanted a better vantage point over everything around here. Fraux was not exact, but before they had knocked him out and left him for the French heroes on their way, they had gotten some specifics out of him about what he had been rambling about. Exodus and Pastor ran after Zach quickly, Yuri glanced back for a second only to motion with his head after the other three when the two behind him looked reluctant to keep up with this like it was a mission.

"Have to go. I will stop him from wasting our time and meet with you very soon, my dear," Gentle tapped a button on the side of his helmet and he started after Zach in a jog with Wreck'd at his side.

"Why would my government be turning people into, whatever Fraux was?" Wreck'd asked while lifting a hand like it was ridiculous. Gentle shook his head as he did not have an answer to that question. "He said the other experiments they were doing there were just as crazy, and he only escaped because he could stop his own heart. But if this place was so secret, you would think they would incinerate his body or something if they thought him dead-"

"I do not know," Gentle said, cutting off the British man who was talking like they were friends agreeing on the same subject. Gentle had had an annoyed expression on his face the entire time though, which he realized Wreck'd was not seeing because of his helmet. La Brava, do keep them from doing anything rash while we are not there. It is only reconnaissance when Sazaki is not around. Do not get too close.

"Sir, would you like me to scout out ahead?" Exodus questioned while running up on Zach's right side.

Zach glanced to his right at the muscular man who asked him that in such a respectful and serious tone. Hearing that tone actually made Zach frown more though. The way everyone was treating this as a side mission that was unimportant, made him feel like he was going to lose some of Exodus' respect when this turned out to be a bust like the rest of them thought. "No," Zach said, keeping serious himself and just continuing to run forward and slightly uphill. He glanced to the left while darting between trees again, and he spotted a roof of a building over the crest of the hill they were rising. What's that building? Farm house? Oh it's big. Could be… Zach's eyes lit up more after the initial glance, and he slowed down and came to a stop behind the next tree.

Exodus ran past him and stopped at the next one, while Pastor stopped behind Zach on his other side. They stared out towards a hill and past it to a building that they could only see the second floor of and the very top of what they assumed was the first considering the gentle slant of the land on the other side of the hill's crest. Yuri slowed down a bit as he spotted a large white building that seemed a bit out of the ordinary on the field, then he sped up and put a hand up on the butt of his rifle over his shoulder as he finally got a bit serious.

That could be anything, Wreck'd thought, though a bead of sweat did form on the side of his face as he saw the building Zach just mentioned in their helmets about.

Gentle sighed and gained a more serious look on his face while jogging up to Zach's side. He lifted his head up and looked over towards the building, and he frowned as he knew there was no way they were going to be getting out of there as quickly as he wanted now. "Let us go check it out then," Gentle suggested, looking down at the boy who spun to him and frowned as he could tell Gentle still did not think much was going on here. "There is no point observing a building that may very well be a factory, a processing plant for animals-"

"Or it could be a government testing site," Zach muttered in annoyance. "Is it really that hard to believe?"

"Not at all," Gentle replied. Wreck'd looked over towards him in surprise as he thought the older man had agreed with what he was saying before. "But if that is so, what is it you plan to do?" Zach froze and he kept staring towards Gentle though in a bit more confusion this time. "You cannot simply hand over government workers to their government for arrest. Is your plan to massacre all involved if this is a site of human testing?"

"No," Zach said, shaking his head once at Gentle's harshly worded question. "But there's a reason they keep things like this quiet. Even if it is run by the government," Zach looked back towards the building in the distance, and he frowned deeply before looking around the forest and spotted a side on the far side of the hill with more trees. He motioned towards it and then started down the tree-line again, trying to keep cover while getting a better angle at the mysterious building. He spoke louder so it came through the six headsets of his team there in Scotland with him, "I believe Wreck'd is right when he says the government wouldn't do stuff like what Fraux described. Yet what if it's only a small part? Or what if the government official Fraux saw was just a single corrupt guy, putting funds in here? Maybe it is a whole section of the government, but only as a worst case do I see the whole government involved in this. If something like this existed, they'd need to keep it between as few people as possible, because there aren't enough horrible people who would allow experiments on people to go on without telling the media, or a higher up in the government."

Wreck'd's eyes were wide for most of what Zach was saying, then his fists started clenching at his sides as the boy was making sense. If they really are testing on people, I can't let that go on. Not here. That's not something I ever imagined, could happen in my home. He sped up and ran past Yuri and Pastor so he was closer to Zach, and he said in a low voice to his leader, "Death, if we find something in there, I know we have to report them to someone. I know you want to, but-"

"But you think it'll ruin people's faith in the government if we do?" Zach asked, glancing to his right and back at Wreck'd who froze with his mouth open. "I know," Zach muttered. "I've been thinking about it. We'll have to figure it out once we're in there though. And we don't have to tell the press, we could leave it up to your government to clean up the mess… if they really were oblivious to what was going on."

"If, anything really is happening in there," Yuri reminded from the back of the group. "Just saying," he added as a couple of them glanced back at him. "We still have no idea what we're running up to."

"Assume it's a human experiment facility," Zach said. He said it in a low voice and added while Yuri's expression started hardening, "Assume the worst, and we won't be surprised by anything when we get in there. Luckily, I do not think heroes would know about something like this-"

"And if they do?" Pastor questioned. "What then?"

"I'll let you know if we can break the second rule," Zach replied. "Depending on what we see in there, I might not consider them heroes anymore…"

---

A squad of six dark figures crouched just past some trees to the east of a two-story white building sticking out of a grassy field in Scotland. They had gone around the hill and darted their ways over to another, more sparsely, wooden area. They had to go farther away from the building though to be in that area, and they moved out towards some large rolled-up hay bales that were large enough to give them cover from anyone who may be looking their way from the building.

Zach was behind the bale closer to the building of the two on the field nearest the building, which was still over a hundred meters away. He zoomed in inside his high-tech helmet though, and he focused on the second floor of the building covered in windows just like the first. He could see into the building through those windows, and he frowned as his eyes shifted down to the first floor and through the windows where he just saw some movement. There were a couple of cars parked outside of the building, though there was a closed garage door in front of the driveway on the side of it closer to their hay bales.

"Doesn't really look like a 'secret facility,'" Yuri muttered sarcastically over at the bale with Gentle and Pastor. He looked through the windows and then sighed and put his back against the hay bale again, "We're way too out in the open right now."

Gentle examined the building closely himself for a few more moments, then he shook his head and zoomed back out to a normal setting. "Death," he began, glancing over at the other hay bale. Zach did not turn his way, and Gentle continued towards his back, "We have taken a look. You can see inside. Either this is not the building, and we should continue looking around for a bit longer, or there never was a facility in the first place."

"It does not look to be holding government secrets," Exodus agreed. He turned to his left and Zach though, and he got down on one knee behind the hay bale before asking, "Do you think that the exterior appearance could be a disguise for more hidden rooms inside?"

"Maybe," Zach replied. He grimaced as he did not sound too sure of himself, and he turned to Exodus who he hoped would not take that unsure tone to heart. He treats me like this important General, and I'm definitely letting him down right here. I need to come up with a decision and stop being so indecisive. Is Gentle right? This place looks fine. Zach leaned back out behind the bale and crouched while zooming in on individual windows to look through them. What is this place for? There's no way they'd be doing secret testing stuff just out on a farm with windows clear to- Zach's eyes bulged and started shaking, and his breath caught in his throat as he saw a man inside the window he was looking towards.

The guy was wearing a white coat, and he was sprinting towards the window. The man reached to the bottom of the window and was fumbling with something, and Zach ignored the voices in his head of his comrades who continued talking about leaving or what this place could be. Zach just stared at the man wearing glasses who had a smear of blood on the right side of his face. The man turned his head sideways to look behind him, and Zach started breathing again with a gasp at the terrified look on the man's face as he spun back and slammed his hands into the glass. "What the…" Zach whispered, as the man's hands opened up and his left palm pressed a bloody handprint to the glass.

"Do you see something?" Exodus questioned.

"There's nothing here," Wreck'd started.

The man opened his mouth and let out a scream while slamming his hands into the glass again, but the glass did not break nor even get cracked. The man turned around and he pressed his back into the glass, then he turned and he sprinted away. Zach spotted a quick movement of something else on the other side of the window, then nothing through the glass for a few seconds. "There was a man on the second floor, third window to the right from the left corner-" Zach's comrades started focusing in on that window, and Zach's voice cut off while they were looking over, while a splash of red slammed into the glass next to the handprint already there. No one said a word as blood dripped down the glass and went right over the print.

They all just stared in silence towards the building, and then Yuri whispered in his first language, "The fuck?"

Gentle stared towards the bloody window with his eyes wide. He finally focused intensely on what was going on, and he pushed thoughts of La Brava and the others from his mind for a moment. "This is not, what we were looking for," Gentle started.

Yuri glanced next to him at the slender figure in black and purple who had a dark tone in his voice at what he just said. Yuri gulped, then he added in a hopeful voice, "Maybe it's a slaughterhouse? We're in farmland, and there could be animals-"

"It was a man," Zach repeated. Yuri turned back towards Death, then to the building again, then he shook his head to calm himself down a bit. Zach took a deep breath and then he stood up from behind the hay bale. Could he still be alive? What if this was not actually what Fraux said? A man was just killed trying to escape that building, though he looked like a, doctor? Scientist? Researcher? What is that building? Zach started towards the building, "Access, we're going to check it out."

Gentle shook his head and then got up from behind the cover to move forward with Zach. Exodus was already moving up, and Wreck'd stopped staring towards the building in shock to follow along too. Yuri took another deep breath before getting out of his crouched position, then he turned next to him and looked at Pastor whose helmet was locked straight onto the window he had looked to before the splash of blood. "You alright, man?" Yuri asked, his accent coming through thick as he was a bit unnerved from what just happened.

"I do not like this," Pastor replied. "Not at all. This place is…" The former priest's voice trailed off, and Yuri tried not to start sweating too bad at the man's ominous statement. Pastor stood up and followed after the others as he saw Death look back towards them for a moment.

"Everyone stay calm. We're moving in. We'll go in through the garage. Access, I'll attach one of your panels. Can you get it open without any security going off?"

"Depends on the system. I'll be able to tell though once you attach it," Access took another big chug out of his energy drink until it was empty, then he tossed it to the side and leaned towards his laptop screen as this was getting intense. "Careful guys."

Yuri walked after Zach and the others, but he kept his head on a swivel at the back of the group. He held his assault rifle in his hands, and he aimed around the field but did not see anyone around him. Exodus kept his hands free, but he occasionally checked the shorter figure in front of him to see how he should be acting. Zach was moving slowly towards the white building, and he was carefully looking out for any security measures that might be in place. No sirens were going off though as they approached. No one was running out of the building with guns in their hands. They were just approaching without any cover, and yet nothing was happening. A government facility would have guards right? Measures to stop stuff like this from happening, right?

Zach slowed down near the left corner of the building, looking over towards the garage doors for a second and then back at the front. He looked up to the second floor and a window still with red all over the inside of it. What the hell happened in there? Is someone going to clean that window? Is that a testing room or something?! "Something's in there," Zach whispered, and he sprinted towards the building and got up against the wall so nothing could see him from inside. They were so close already that the rest of them were able to run up and get against the building in a few seconds.

"What was it?"

"Did you get a good look?"

"I looked in," Yuri said after stacking against the wall. He had been farthest back so he had looked up at the bloody window as he ran after the others. "Someone was smearing the blood around, looked like they were cleaning it, maybe."

"Did you see what they looked like?" Zach asked, as all he had seen was movement before making his order and sprinting to the edge of the facility.

"Too blocked by the blood. I could check," Yuri offered, and he crouched to the floor and started flattening out. Zach nodded his head towards the man who slowly squished his body down to the ground and then slid back out from the building's edge and into the grass. A dark form sliding over the grass would be noticeable, but it was better than one of them walking out there and Yuri could make himself the smallest of the group. Yuri slid his flat body away from the building and his eyes rose up on top of his flat circular form. "Well," he began quietly, his voice a bit higher pitched than a second ago. Some of them thought it was because he flattened himself, but he started unflattening from the floor and continued in a higher pitched, nervous tone, "They were not, cleaning… Death, look."

Zach moved away from the building and he looked up at the third window from the left. He stared up at it, to see blood smeared about almost the entire frame, yet gaps where the blood was not as thick from the person who had been smearing. Pastor stepped away as did the others up against the wall, and his hearts were speeding up faster and faster while his eyes opened huge like the others around him. Exodus turned his head to the right and asked the older man and former priest, "What does it mean?"

'G O D' was smeared on the glass. There was a cross on the window too, smeared clear in the blood, only the part where the line crossed it horizontally was farther towards the bottom of the vertical line as if the cross was drawn upside-down. "I, do not know," Pastor began. Yuri darted his eyes over at the man who had been saying something ominous a minute ago, and who he really wished had an answer for them right now. "But, I do believe, this is something we must investigate."

"Sure about that?" Yuri wondered. "Positive, that's the best move here?"

"Yuri," Zach began.

"I know… I know," Yuri said, nodding his head and calming himself down again. "It's just, freaking me out."

"Yeah," Zach said in a low voice. "Me too."

"What are you guys looking at?" Access wondered, wishing there were some helmet cams so he could see what the others were staring at. Zach opened his mouth to answer, then the man in the helicopter opened his eyes wide and said, "Holy shit- get to cover!"

"What?" Gentle asked, spinning his head around.

"It's too late, there's no cover here," Zach said. He looked back towards the hay bales, then he looked down the dirt road that wound a bit but was on a flat enough surface that whoever was in that car heading their direction could definitely see them. Zach lifted a hand to his head and tapped on a voice modulator, and a couple of the others did the same though Gentle and Pastor did not.

Zach glanced towards Pastor who was stuck staring at the window and said, "Pastor, turn around. Everyone, set up in front of the building." Zach started running over towards the front doors, and his team ran with him while Access started speaking fast into their helmets.

"…are called 'The Red Team.' Hero names-"

"I know of them," Wreck'd started.

"Quiet. Access, what are their abilities?" Zach asked rapidly, shutting up Wreck'd and making his support speak faster at the same time.

"Three members. Titan: Quirk- Object Enlargement. Sandlot: Quirk- Sand Swimmer. Dryout: Quirk- Dryout."

"What does Sand Swimmer do?" Yuri asked, while crouching down on Gentle's right side while the taller man made a wall with his Elasticity in the air in front of them.

Exodus removed his shield from his back, though he left his spear on it strapped to his heavy black armor. He slammed the thinner part of the black shield down on the ground in front of him and kept a hand inside the loop on the back of it. He rested his other hand on top of the shield with his fingers curled down in his black glove onto the front of the shield with a skull and cross-bones on it.

Pastor was slowest to move into a formation that Zach quickly started creating while Access gave them support information. "He can move freely through thin particles like sand, his Quirk works great with Dryout who can give him a lot more to move around in. Looks like they're a pretty famous team from what I'm looking up. They're ranked the eighth best team in the UK. Titan was 12th on Britain's leaderboard last time they updated."

The red and white vehicle driving down the road slowed when it was fifty meters away on the dirt path. The six Army of Death members stared through the windshield, and Zach glared straight at the driver whose picture appeared on the right corner of his visor when Access was just talking. He stared into Titan's eyes and saw the hero glaring his direction with an intense look steadier than his comrade in the passenger seat's and the look of the man leaning forward between the chairs. Do they know what goes on in here? What does go on in here? What the fuck killed that man?! Is, is it one of the test subjects? Did they break out and are fighting the experimenters? Or was that just a test- no. If they have that many windows, it's supposed to be to make this place look ordinary. This is all worst case scenario, but, but if it's really- One thing at a time.

The doors of the hero team's car opened up. The three heroes stepped out of their vehicle, and Titan started walking forward. One of the two behind him who had on big gray gloves covering his abnormally large hands started saying something to his comrade and team leader, but Titan just kept walking forward. He shoved his hands down into small pouches at his sides, and Zach glared intensely towards the hero he was already the most wary of. If he throws small stuff at us and makes it larger, gonna be hard to dodge. Does it increase the mass or just the size? How heavy? "Everyone stay close to the building," Zach said in a dark, modulated voice that made his voice sound much deeper. After he said it though, he started moving forward and past Gentle and Exodus he had farthest forward on the dirt road.

"Hey," Zach called out, his voice booming and deep as it came out of his modulator. He had on the knives, the sword hilts sticking out over his shoulders, and the katana on the back of his waist that made the three heroes recognize him, even if he was shorter than what they had seen before.

"Hey?" Most people there thought on both sides.

I don't want to fight these heroes. Why are they here though? They looked surprised to see us, so they probably weren't called in because we were seen. Do they know what's going on here? Or, are they here because of what's happening right now? Zach had a lot of questions, and he really needed them not to start attacking him before he had the chance to ask anything. Here goes nothing, Zach thought. "Do you work here?" Zach called to them.

What the fuck is going on? Sandlot thought. He stood on the right side of Titan, and a few feet back with his hands clenched in fists at his sides to keep from shaking. He had been in the back seat of their team's car, and he had suggested they call in for backup before getting out, only for Titan to tell them to pull it together and take charge with him. This is why we were called?! Why is this happening?! Sandlot had on a sand-colored costume from head to toe that covered his arms and legs, pulled tightly to his body to minimize resistance in the ground he could swim through if it was spread out enough. "Dryout, you going to start your thing?"

"Titan?" Dryout asked. The man with huge gloves on his four-fingered hands glanced at their leader who was glaring down the road at a figure they had all heard a lot about. "We should call in backup now. They're not doing anything, and we have them cornered it looks like…" Dryout looked at the building behind the group, wondering why they were outside and did not retreat in but instead set up defensive positions outside the front doors. Dryout wondered for a moment what they were doing outside, then he wondered why they were at this place in the first place, and then it finally hit him as his gaze shifted up the building behind the group of six he had been so focused on. "Hold on, what even is this place?"

Titan's glare straight at Zach shifted a bit finally as he heard that tone in the voice of the man on his left. The muscular man at six and a half feet tall loosened his hands on the special weapons in his pouches, shifting his gaze above the shorter enemy he had glared at so intensely through his blue mask. And Titan's eyes shifted to the left side of the building, his eyes opened huge behind the holes of his mask, then they narrowed down and glared back towards the black shield the man behind Death on his left had. On the shield was a skull, and behind it was a cross of bones, which seemed oddly coincidental to the cross smeared in the bloody window on the second floor of the building behind them.

All the lights in the building cut off behind the group of six, and Yuri darted his eyes to the side and turned his head a bit. He gulped while looking back at the building which just got a lot darker inside yet was still pretty visible from the exterior with light going in through the windows. "What are you doing here?!" Titan shouted towards the group, and he stomped forward and rose his arms with his fists clenched in front of him in a fighting stance. Zach glared at his fists, He just pulled out his weapons. They're small in his grasp, but they could be anything.

Zach repeated what he just thought aloud in his helmet softer to his comrades. A couple of seconds after the lights cut off in the building behind them, red lights turned on as a generator kicked in. Dim emergency lights turned on, and the red ones cast everything inside in a dark red glow that contrasted a lot with the outside sunny day. Zach stared closely at Titan as the heroes looked behind him, and he saw a bit of confusion even spread on Titan's face for a second. Zach called out in a deep modulated voice, "We have reason to believe there is human experimentation going on here."

"Huh?" Dryout muttered. Wait, does that- make… It makes more sense than what we heard.

"Why are you in our country?" Titan asked, his tone darker as he took another step forward down the dirt road. He ignored what he just heard from the dark figure, his eyes darted back to the bloody window he saw, then to the building behind the group that had gone dark a few seconds ago. They have other comrades here. Already inside. "What are you doing in there? What have you done-"

"We haven't gone inside yet," Zach replied. Titan froze, and Zach continued towards the man, "Now let me ask you something. Why are you here? It wasn't because of us, right?"

"Yeah it was," Sandlot whispered slowly. Then his eyes started to widen and he lowered them to the dirt road for a second. "You have to help us. Please! They're- We need your help!" It was so vague. What was the man talking about? I, assumed it was them when I saw them.

"They haven't gone in?" Dryout wondered aloud in a soft voice. "Titan, you see that window?"

"I saw it," Titan replied.

"They, don't know what's going on here," Gentle began in a slow way. "However, if they have called for backup then we must be going."

Zach frowned but he started to think that was a good idea. What is in this building though?! I want to know. I also, really don't. Think. What's going on here?

"Whatever is going on here," Titan began, and he started glaring more intensely at the figures before the building again. "They are-"

Zach was starting to tense up too. He opened his mouth and began, "Guys, we should-"

Thud

Titan stopped talking, because he saw the doors behind the group of six suddenly shake. The group closer to the building heard something slam into the doors behind them, and most of them turned around though Zach kept facing the heroes. Gentle snapped his head to the side and then looked back forward quickly, but the heroes he looked out towards were staring towards the doors behind them too. Thud thud thud… The doors shook a few more times, and then there was silence on the other side of them.

Zach turned. He turned around and moved back between Exodus and Gentle, "Watch the heroes."

"Titan, what's happening?" Sandlot whispered in confusion and increasing anxiety. The British man with a sand-colored beanie on top of his head started sweating when the figures they were facing off against mostly turned back to the building. The ones farther towards the doors were backing away from it too, making it even more ominous to the heroes who were still partly convinced that these dark soldiers knew what was going on here.

Zach stopped between Pastor and Yuri, and he stared straight at the doors in front of him that were no longer shaking. He stared at the white double doors, and he watched as a steel handle on the outside started jiggling. "Hello?" Zach asked. His voice was dark and menacing in its modulated tone, but he was not going to turn it off. After he asked his greeting though, the door handle stopped shaking. "Who are you?" Zach asked. "Are you alright?"

"Death, they're coming," Gentle warned. "And even if they don't know what's going on-"

"We don't fight heroes," Zach cut him off. He turned his head and looked back to call out to Titan who he saw heading down the dirt road cautiously and with both his allies moving together with him. Zach opened his mouth Crash! The doors behind him broke open and flew so hard out that the handles dented into the walls on the sides of the entrance. Zach started spinning back and whipped out a pair of knives at the same time. He dove to his right and flicked a knife at the thing he saw flying at him through that open doorway.

A small creature only two and a half feet tall flew at where Zach was just standing. It shot between Yuri and Pastor who pulled away while turning in their weapons. Pastor's eyes widened and he dropped flat to the ground, because while Yuri spun inwards the man was also pulling the trigger of his rifle.

"Stop firing!" Zach shouted at his scared comrade who shot up the creature that Zach did not know the origin of. It could be- Zach started thinking, then his eyes opened wide, because the small creature that Yuri had fired at was spinning around in a speedy blur that made it hard to see. It stopped spinning though as it started dropping to the floor, and the six figures in all black (and a bit of purple) around it stared with wide eyes at the human-like face on the short being. "Are you human?!" Zach shouted, while pulling out another knife in his right hand and getting up to his feet.

The creature hit down while Zach was standing, and then its legs started spinning around like a tornado of brown beneath its furry body. It rose up its claws that were dyed with red, and it held them out to its sides before its torso started spinning around too in a blur. The doors had flown open so hard that the insides of them were facing out now while the outsides were pressed into the walls next to the entrance, and the insides of the doors were covered in scratches.

"What is that thing?!" Sandlot called out in panic from down the road where he took a step backwards. His eyes darted from the figures in all black who started attacking it, back to the large white building that the creature had just come out of.

"We have reason to believe there is human experimentation going on here." "Are you human?!" Titan glared towards the creature that Death just shouted at. "Change of plans," he said, and the two British men behind him looked in at their team leader.

"Is this the thing that killed that guy?!" Yuri shouted over at Death while backing away fast, putting his rifle down since his leader had ordered it.

"Maybe," Zach said, as this did seem like the kind of blur he had spotted through the window on the second floor. A dart of his eyes through his peripheral vision showed him inside the facility that just had its doors blasted open, and he stared down a long hallway with open doors on the sides leading into the rooms visible from outside through the windows. The hall went farther back than the walls he could see from outside though, but he had to leave that for a bit later as he also caught sight of charging heroes in the other side of his peripheral vision.

"Gentle, stall them," Zach ordered, because he could not focus on the heroes either with this spinning blur of death in front of them. "Wreck'd, blast him."

"Got it," Wreck'd replied. He cupped his hands in front of his visor and yelled, "BLAST!"

Yuri jumped away on the other side of the spiraling blur. Even with Wreck'd putting his hands in front of his visor to focus the attack, the visible trembling of the air between his helmet and the spinning brown blur expanded the farther from his mouth it got after that shout. The blur started speeding after Yuri, but it changed directions and cut to the right, then to the left and it slammed right into the side of the building before dragging alongside it and shredding through the outer paint job of the wall. Sparks flew out of the wall as the claws dug through the exterior though, and Zach narrowed his eyes as he saw solid steel on the other side of the paint, then he snapped his head to the right where the spinning blur slowed down and the small creature shook its head around to reorient itself. Its vision that had broken apart so everything around him was lifted at different levels and overlapping started to reset, and it turned its head back towards the group of dark figures looking its way.

The creature started to spin again, then it snapped its head up and stopped spinning to jump backwards in an agile way, dodging the huge rock about to fall down on it. As it jumped backwards though, another shadow appeared over it that got much larger each second as it lowered to the ground. The brown furry creature snapped its humanoid face up and stared at a rock growing in size from a boulder to a much larger boulder over thirty feet tall and twenty wide. The end of the boulder slammed into the building and cracked a few windows, while the other end of it was far enough out from the building that it left a clear path for the creature to take. It started spinning around again, only for dust to start rising up around it faster and faster so the being inside started coughing up dirt and dust.

All the grass between the two rocks started drying out. In a line all the way up to the three heroes attacking the creatures, the ground started to break apart thinner and thinner. One of the heroes dove forward and it looked like he had dove straight into water as it even splashed up around him like he was displacing it with his body. He dove down farther and swam through, then he reached up and dragged the legs of the figure that had stopped to start coughing up dust and dirt. Sandlot ripped down into the broken apart ground, burying the monstrous form down to its head. Then he let go fast and pushed himself away from the creature that started spinning its legs underground in the dusty dirt. Sandlot swam up through the sand behind the creature he had pulled down, and he slammed his right sand-colored boot into the back of the figure's head.

"They're pretty good," Yuri said, mentioning it towards Zach in a cautious tone.

"Stop getting nervous," Zach said. Yuri's eyes widened, and Zach added, "I don't want you shooting anyone, Yuri. Can I trust you to be cool?"

"Yeah, sorry," Yuri replied quickly.

"Should we really leave this up to them?" Exodus questioned Gentle who had let them go by instead of stopping them like Zach had told him to. Exodus had thought of arguing against it, but he could see now that Gentle saw before he did who the heroes were coming after. Exodus looked towards Zach and added, "They could be harmed."

I want to knock that thing out, but is it a person? Is it- is he just going crazy right now? I need to ask it- Him! Some questions. Zach started towards the heroes who were all moving in on the creature half buried beneath the ground with Sandlot's foot pressing down on its left temple to keep it in the floor.

"Don't come any closer," Sandlot called over to the dark figures he spotted coming around the smaller of the rocks closer to the front doors.

"We just want to find out what's happening here," Zach replied, though he did slow down and then stop with his guys stopping behind him. He turned to the right where Titan was heading over with Dryout, both of them keeping close eyes on him too. "Don't you?" Zach asked.

Titan frowned at him which showed through the mouth hole of his blue mask. He glared at the shorter man with such a deep voice that was clearly distorted through his helmet. Then he turned back to the furry creature that's face was pointed towards him the way Sandlot was stepping on it. The ground was not that easy to move through either, as much as Sandlot made it seem like a piece of cake. Dryout put his huge hands back on the ground too and he started filling it back up with water. The grass did not regrow, but the floor did solidify more to better trap the crazy creature they were trying to ascertain the origin of.

"Sandlot, you alright?" Dryout asked towards his comrade. He spotted the man stepping on their furry friend reaching to his right hand and rubbing his palm.

Sandlot nodded and clenched his right fist tightly, ignoring the pain from when the villain's legs started spinning suddenly below-ground and cut through his hand. "All good here," he replied, though he did press his foot down harder at the feeling of that pain.

"Do you understand me?" Titan asked, stepping up closer to Sandlot and then crouching down to stare into the face of the furry creature below Sandlot's foot. The beast snarled at him, and Sandlot pressed down harder which made the thing's face cover in fear. Titan grimaced angrily as that face he was looking at definitely looked human, and the creature seemingly had a Quirk too which meant it was more than likely a person he was staring at. He turned his head and looked towards the front figure of the Army of Death members, "Why are you here?"

"I already told you," Zach replied without hesitation. "But, you haven't answered me. Why are you?" This doesn't make sense. Is he really confused at what's going on? Zach stared carefully at the heroes. They don't seem too disturbed even if they're realizing that's a person. That is, a person I think. Then again, they're pro heroes. Good under pressure. Better than Yuri at least. I should take his gun away, trigger-happy idiot. He almost shot Pastor right there. At least Pastor saw it coming.

Dryout glanced towards Titan who frowned and turned back to their captured enemy. Then the man with disproportionately large gray hands looked back at the Army of Death and said, "We received a distressed call from someone who works here. Said it was an emergency and that we needed to come immediately. We're the closest agency, so-"

"Dryout," Titan said, standing up and stopping his comrade from saying anything else. He turned towards the Army of Death members, then he turned and looked at the building in front of him. Whatever's going on here, is bigger than I imagined. This is not the time to be taking matters into our own hands, and it certainly is not the time to be talking to them. Titan turned his back to the figure Sandlot continued pressing his boot down on, and the team leader said while starting back towards their car, "I'm going to call this in. Something big is happening here, and we need-"

"I don't think you should do that," Zach said.

Titan froze where he was, and his eyes got a lot darker while his teeth clenched in anger. He was giving them a chance. What was happening was seriously making him angry, so angry that he decided the Army of Death had a reason to have come here themselves. Titan turned and glared at the figure who just countered him though, when he was speaking loud enough to make it obvious to their group that he wanted them gone. "You want me to capture you too then," he said, turning his body and glaring at the dark figures in an intense way that had half of them getting nervous. Exodus gripped his shield tighter but kept a calm look on his face, but Zach just frowned deeply at the hero from behind his visor.

"What are you doing?" Gentle asked quietly. "This is our chance to leave this to the heroes and-"

"I'm not too familiar with this country," Zach began loudly, cutting off his comrade speaking only into his helmet and making his deep voice reach everyone outside. "But do people usually call hero agencies directly?" Dryout's face got very dark, and a bead of sweat started rolling down the left side of his face. Titan stared into the dark visor of the figure speaking to him, and then his eyes shifted back to the white building behind Death again. Zach continued as he saw the hero's reaction, "I'll take it that's a no. Yet, the people here who called for help, called you directly, right?"

"What are you talking about?" Yuri whispered.

Pastor's eyes opened wide as he stared at their leader's back, then he turned himself to the big white building, then back over to the heroes. I see.

Gentle's eyes widened too for a minute though he just grit his teeth in anger as what Zach was starting to say made sense to him too. This is getting worse by the second, Gentle thought, a very ominous feeling filling him.

Zach had already had that feeling though. "Where are the cops?" Zach asked. "Why did you three come alone?" He paused and then continued in a lower voice while glancing back at the building himself, "I heard, that this was a government human experimentation facility." The three heroes in the vicinity started grinding their teeth at the sound of that, but then their eyes started growing huge as the dark figure continued to them. "Maybe the reason whoever called you, called you instead of just dialing for the police, is because they wanted someone to save them. Maybe, they knew calling the police wouldn't get heroes sent here… but a clean-up crew. Keep everything swept under the rug."

"You're making it out as a conspiracy-"

"There are way too many coincidences at this point," Zach replied without turning towards Titan. I didn't want to believe it, but this… this is bad. They're not countering me on how there aren't any cops coming. Did whoever call them ask them not to say anything? Were they specific that it be just those three? Is anyone even alive in there anymore, or did that thing kill them all? Zach stared back towards the open doors and into a dimly lit hallway that got darker and more red-tinted deeper in it. This is way too suspicious, how much it seems like a conspiracy.

"Why call you directly? Why not just call the police if some monster was tearing up the place? And where did that monster come from? How did this building get to be out here in the middle of Scotland, with no one noticing? What even is this place?" Zach turned his head and looked towards Titan who was looking over him and at the building himself. "Do you know? Do you know what's in here?" Titan ground his teeth but he shook his head. This time it was not Death he was getting angry at, and his eyes narrowed so much at the facility with white walls that he could see thick steel inside of where the monster had torn up through it a minute ago.

"I don't know," Titan replied. "But to say, it's a government facility… Even if that's true, then I will deal with it myself. I'll get to the bottom of it once I've called in-"

"How do you know who you call won't be a part of it?" Zach asked, and he took a step towards Titan with his eyes wide behind his visor. You're too trusting. "How do you know, whatever's going on in here will actually be stopped?" Titan started getting angrier and glaring down at the dark figure again, but Zach took another step his way and shouted, "They'll send someone in to 'check it out' and they'll clean up everything and make some excuse for what was happening here. Or at least they could! And you'd never know if it was the truth or not, but it would be what they told you!" Zach clenched his fists at his sides, and then he turned and glared back at the white building again, "But I want the truth. I want to see it with my own eyes, before anyone has a chance to cover it up."

"God."

Sandlot lowered his eyes down, and his face covered in sweat at what he thought he just heard below him. It was whispered, yet from a creature that did not appear capable of speech until that moment, it was a terrifying first word to hear. "Guys," Sandlot started, his voice nervous as he spoke up. Dryout turned back towards him after staring towards Death with his eyes wide, and he lowered his gaze down before stumbling backwards three steps at the sight of the creature's face. Sandlot took his foot off the creature's head and jumped far off to safety himself, then he walked around carefully to get a better look at the face of the furry creature who did not move his head still pressed sideways into the floor.

"Oh my God," Wreck'd muttered, and he found himself gagging in his helmet and having to look away.

Titan turned from Death who looked that way himself. Titan and Zach stared at the bubbling face of the furry creature, blood coming out of its eyes, foam drooling from its mouth as its face twitched around like crazy. Its foaming mouth curled up at the corners though, and it shot its bloodshot eyes open huge while letting out a scream, "GOD! I made it! There is freedom above! If only," its voice started getting scratchy and bubbly as the foam splashing out its mouth filled with red. "If only, you could see it- but I know you will- ack gag ack, when you cleanse… GOD! God! God…"

Foam poured out of the short man's mouth, and his eyes popped in a moment that made everyone looking his way wince or turn away. None of them were expecting the sudden pop of his eyeballs, and Wreck'd had just looked back up so he could not hold it in with a gag this time. "Oh gross dude," Yuri muttered, and Wreck'd had to lift his hands and yank off his helmet. Zach did not even scold him for taking it off in front of heroes, ones from his own country no less. None of the heroes were looking towards their fellow Brit anyway.

"Shit," Wreck'd muttered, while holding his helmet to the side and looking down into it. He wiped his mouth and then reached into his helmet to start cleaning it out, though he grimaced and wound up just clipping it on his side as wiping his visor at this point would just smear puke over it instead of actually cleaning it.

Zach glanced at Wreck'd who gave him an apologetic look, then he looked around at the others and then back to the white building himself. We need to find out. Stuff like this sounds impossible. It sounds like a conspiracy, probably because anyone who ever discovers stuff like this decides not to dig. They call the cops, and the cops tell their superiors, and someone is probably involved with whoever is in charge of something like this. What is this?!

Pastor stared towards the short figure who had shouted out for God as his dying words. He started walking over towards him, and since Sandlot had backed up towards Dryout there was no reason to not let him go up to the creature now. The heroes glanced over and watched as the man in all black got down on one knee next to the corpse, and started to say a prayer, before closing the still-open eyelids of the monster.

"Tell me," Zach began, looking back towards Titan who turned from the religious man and to Death himself. "How much do you trust your government?"

Titan glared straight back at him, and the muscular man said, "I've never doubted it."

"Then there's no reason not to check it out, right?" Zach asked. "If you believe there are no secrets in there. If you think this is just some… really, I have no idea what I could imagine this building being. There are no signs. The disguise is so inconspicuous, it's just a white building in the middle of nowhere. Where there are creepy monsters…" I don't want to go in there. Why am I trying to convince everyone? No. No! I'm scared, but that doesn't mean I can stop. That doesn't mean I can just, ignore what I think is going on in there. What I believe would be covered up if we left this to heroes!

I never doubted, where I received my orders from. What is this place though? And why, were we called directly? Why didn't I inform the police, when they asked us specifically to come? Titan looked back from the building to the dark visor of the leader of the Army of Death. It's because I knew something strange was afoot. Human experimentation though… It's unthinkable in our time. Whatever is going on in there though, if the government does have a hand in it, they will not want whatever happened here to become public. And for that reason, I must know the truth myself. Even if it means working- they are terrorists. We labeled them as terrorists, for helping where they were not allowed. And for their brutality… Titan's eyes shifted over to the man who just stood up next to their deceased creature, the one who had closed its popped eye sockets to make it look a bit more peaceful.

Titan grimaced and then said, "I cannot allow you to go in there… without us."

Sandlot looked over towards Titan and he shook his head slowly as he seriously dislike the sound of that idea. Dryout nodded though next to his comrade, and Sandlot frowned at his acceptance before accepting it himself with a long sigh.

Good. Anything I find in there would just be considered lies if we tried bringing it out to the press or something. No matter how much evidence, it would have been claimed as falsified by the terrorists in the Army of Death. Zach nodded seriously towards Titan after a few seconds of making it seem like he was dealing with Titan's declaration of coming along. "Alright," Zach said. "Let's see what's inside."

Yuri looked back towards the open doors of the white building and he took in a deep breath. Everyone's a bit nervous. At least I didn't puke in my helmet. Glad I looked away before that though. He thought about how he had turned back and saw a disgusting sight on the creature's face, but at least he did not have to see those eyes actually explode because of how he had taken his eyes off it to check on the heroes.

Working with heroes. It is a pain, knowing they may betray us "for the greater good." "No one trust them," Gentle warned. "This Titan will take any chance he thinks he has to arrest every last one of us."

"I'll keep you posted on if other heroes… or if a clean-up crew, starts heading to your position. Everything looks clear around you guys right now though-"

"How about next time someone's coming, tell us before they're a few seconds from seeing us?" Zach said in a low voice. "And get Rebel to help you out. Call him up and let him know what's going on so far."

Access frowned back on the helicopter, but after a second's pause he got some sweat on his face and responded, "Roger that." He thought about the day he had finally met Death after trying to get in on the Army of Death since Saudi Arabia. He had planned on going by Whoreslayer42 up until Death walked up to him, and he had picked Access on the spot when Death asked him what he wanted his name to be. He still thought that Death probably would have told him to leave if he had stuck with his original plan, and he shook his head while calling up Rebel on his laptop. He's even younger than me, and he still freaks me the f out!

"What's up? Regrettin' your mistake yet?"

"Nope. Death told me to call you, though I could handle this on my-"

"If he wants my help, then ya' can't," Rebel replied, leaning forward in his chair that he was relaxing in with his hands locked behind his head. "Gimme the deet's."

Access shook his head and rolled his eyes. And I can't even understand you half the time. "Turns out that human testing thing, might be panning out."

"Really?" Rebel asked, and he scooted his chair in and started typing fast on his keyboard. "Yo Zach-"

"Death," Zach growled, sounding seriously angry as Rebel started talking to him.

Rebel froze and his eyes opened huge. "Oh shit, my bad. There people around who-"

"Just, be quiet," Zach said. Rebel started getting a more annoyed look on his face, but Zach continued, "Get in contact with the others and put them on standby to come reinforce us. We're moving in along with the British heroes on The Red Team. Get satellite surveillance and help Access-"

"Yeah, I got it. There really human testing going on? Those Brits don't seem like the types-"

"Rebel," Zach said, his voice stern and his eyes getting darker in his visor. I can't keep doing this. Everyone second guessing me, Rebel talking constantly, my guys shooting around like crazy. I need more control. Something is going to go wrong if I don't get my shit together. Like right here, I need his help and I'm wasting fucking time. "Just do it." Zach cut off the comms and then turned to Titan who stood next to him in the doorway of the building. "We should split up," Zach said louder, though Titan had heard some of the conversation at least from Death's end of the call.

"You've got satellites, huh?" Titan questioned, ignoring what the figure next to him just said for a moment.

"Are you focused? People are dying," Zach glared through his visor at the man almost a foot taller than him who got a bit of a surprised look before frowning. Zach could not tell if that frown was at him or the man frowning at himself, but he turned around anyway and looked at the group behind him. There were nine of them in total, and Zach said, "My guys are all connected over comms. If you three aren't too scared of us, we should split into three groups of three. It's a big building."

"I agree," Titan said. As much as we've heard bad shit about you guys, I don't think you're doing all this to kill a couple of heroes. "I'm with you though," Titan said, looking straight at Death.

Zach nodded his head, then he turned towards Exodus and motioned forward. "Exodus with me. We'll go straight. G, go left with Pastor. Yuri and Wreck'd head to the right through there," Zach rose his right arm and pointed his outstretched hand towards an open doorway with some scratch marks and blood on the side of it. The hallway was lit up from the light pouring in from outside, but that meant the rooms off the sides and farther down the hall looked all the darker with the change in light volume.

Exodus walked forward and he rose up his right hand though, creating a small orb of white light over his palm. Titan looked at the big man his size who stepped up and right past him with that sphere of white on one hand, his shield still grabbed in his other hand as he took point. Gentle nodded towards Zach after a moment, and he decided not to say anything under his breath about 'G' to the boy who was trying to hide their identities with that. The man in a purple cape turned to the left and started to the door to the side of the building he had been looking through the first floor windows of from up close, and the room looked the same from inside once he entered.

Pastor looked to his left while walking to the door, and the priest with 'MORTE' written down his back stared at the British heroes for a moment. Titan looked back and said, "Stay on your toes, keep in contact with their help."

Dryout nodded and then turned to Pastor and walked towards him. Sandlot grimaced deeply and then looked to his right at the other two who turned back to him. Wreck'd could see this hero was the most hesitant of the three who joined them, and he looked at the man carefully for a second before smiling. "Come on. Let's go see if the rumors pan out. I'm still hoping it's a big misunderstanding." Wreck'd had his helmet pinned down on his waist, and he smiled at the older British man by only a couple of years.

Yuri shook his head as he could see what Wreck'd was doing, and he muttered under his breath, "Leave me with a couple of Limeys why don't you?"

Access chuckled back at the helicopter, but the others were all a lot more focused on what they were doing. Even Yuri did not smile himself after making the half-hearted joke, and he rose up his rifle though in a calmer way than earlier as he was more prepared now for what he thought they might find in here. He moved into the doorway on the right side of the hall, then he reached down the barrel of his gun and turned on a flashlight below the barrel. Gentle rose up a flashlight of his own in the left side of the building, and Exodus waved his right hand out to push the small white sphere farther ahead of him.

Exodus' blue irises glowed white inside his helmet, and the sphere floating away from him dipped down a bit so it would not hit the top of a doorway into a stairwell up. "Titan," Zach started as they both walked after Exodus together. "Can I ask you something?"

Titan frowned but he nodded his head after a second, "What?"

"If we find out, certain individuals knew about this place-"

"We still don't know what this place is," Titan cut him off before he could continue with that question. He glared to his right at the shorter figure who turned his head a bit and looked back through his visor into the eyeholes of Titan's steel blue mask. "And you don't know what it is either, yet you came here because you had what? A hunch?"

"Someone told me they escaped from here," Zach replied, turning his head back forward and continuing after Exodus. Titan stared at him with wide eyes for a second, then they narrowed again as Death continued, "They said this place disfigured them. Turned them into a monster. I thought the villain could be blowing smoke, but I followed the lead anyway."

"So you think our government is experimenting on villains?" Titan questioned.

"Maybe," Zach replied softly, his voice barely coming out modulated through his helmet. "I couldn't tell what he told me was truth, what were lies. But if everything he said was true, even just about his own experience, then I need to know what you'll do if we discover human experiments in here. If we find out, these experiments are being funded, by the people whose orders you follow-"

"The only orders I follow," Titan started. "Are the ones I believe in. Justice, is not decided by the government. It is the government's job to uphold and carry it out however. If we have failed in that duty, then as a public servant it is my job to correct that."

He'll correct it. I don't know what that means, but he sounds serious. He's pissed, because he's starting to believe it's a possibility. That's good. We can get out of here as soon as we give up the information. Zach nodded at Titan in agreement and respect, then he turned forward and pulled out a knife and held it sideways in front of his chest as they stepped onto the second floor. It was as dark on the second floor as the first, however it felt even darker as a cloud had just passed in front of the sun outside and caused the fields the building was in to get shadowed over.

Down on the first floor Sandlot spun in shock to the man on his right as they both followed after Yuri. "You're kidding. Trisbane?"

"Yeah," Wreck'd replied, lifting an eyebrow at the man on his left who just asked.

Sandlot pushed down on his beanie and leaned his head back with a laugh. Wreck'd had a British accent so he had asked where the soldier in all black was from, and Sandlot started grinning and said after his laugh, "I'm from Fillman Park. Just down-"

"No!" Wreck'd's eyes opened huge.

Yuri rolled his eyes ahead of the two. Am I the only one actually searching for something? "Stay alert," he said, looking back and saying it through his helmet loudly at the two British guys behind him.

They got more intense looks on their faces again so Yuri turned away. After their group's point man turned though, Wreck'd looked out the corners of his eyes and said, "I went to Oxbridge High Hero Academy."

Sandlot's eyes got as big as they had a minute ago when Wreck'd first said 'Trisbane.' The pro hero looked at the man next to him who was as tall as him but with short black hair instead of wavy sand-colored hair over his head. "Same," Sandlot said. "What year did you-"

"Couple years after you," Wreck'd said, showing he already knew Sandlot had gone there. He really was surprised about the hero's hometown though, but he added, "We were two years apart actually. Never met you while we went there together, but after your debut I wished we had."

"Yeah, me too," Sandlot said, though his tone got a bit darker there. "What happened?"

"I dropped out," Wreck'd replied, and he shifted his focus around the room with a more serious look on his face. "Couldn't afford it anymore," he said with a shrug, and then he walked over to a computer on a desk that had a cracked screen and keyboard. The mouse was still looking fine next to it, and he tried seeing if the monitor worked a couple times only to give up and let go of the mouse he moved around a bit. The room they were in was trashed, and Wreck'd started to wonder how they did not notice the state of things inside while they were making their way around the building.

Sandlot frowned at the back of his fellow countryman who was acting all serious and looking around in an intense way for clues. "Do you think joining the Army of Death makes you a hero?" Sandlot questioned. The younger man in front of him started frowning deeper and he ignored the question for a second. He froze though as the man behind him continued, "Because you couldn't make it as a hero here, so you decided-"

"I couldn't afford it," Wreck'd repeated. "I could have made it-"

"There are safety nets in place for aspiring heroes who can't-"

"I couldn't afford it, because my parents were killed by villains." Wreck'd turned around and he glared into Sandlot's eyes. "And even though the government knew where the villains had gone after they killed my mother, and my father, and twelve other people, they didn't do a thing. Because there was no extradition from the country they had fled to, so they just told me, 'There's nothing we can do.'" Wreck'd glared into the hero's eyes harder which made the man in all tan clothes lean back a bit at that look and what Wreck'd had said. "That's, why I joined Death. He wouldn't have let something so stupid stop him from getting justice."

Wreck'd looked back forward and his fists clenched so much harder at his sides. "I had thought, that the government might have been in the right. Because they always follow the rules. They have to. I even came to terms with it after joining… but if this, if this shit is run at all by those fuckers who wouldn't break the rules for my parents. For getting justice. If they'd break the rules, to do whatever the fuck they're doing here," Wreck'd loosened his fists a bit as Yuri glanced back over his shoulder at him. "Someone needs to pay for that. Someone, has to take responsibility for what's going on here."

Yeah, and what the hell would that even be? Yuri wondered to himself, though despite his skepticism he was angrier now than he had been since coming on this mission. His hands tightened on his rifle, and he glared around at the computers closest to him. "Hey Rebel, you on?"

"You can talk to me too," Access started.

"I'm here," Rebel cut in, annoying the man on the helicopter who frowned as he was ignored.

I should have gone in too, Access thought. After Switzerland I thought Death had me as a combatant. I don't want to just be the secondary support guy when we're doing so much good-

Yuri continued, "I'm going to plug in a couple of the transfer drives to some of these computers. Most of them look pretty messed up, but if you-"

"Everyone," Gentle said, his voice filling all their helmets or just earpieces for Access, Rebel, and Wreck'd. They all froze where they were. On the floor above, Titan looked back and forth between the other two wondering what made them freeze up so suddenly. Zach stood from the right arm he found near a bloody window and just stared at the smeared glass in front of him while listening to his comrade. "Please make your way over to us. We, have found something." Gentle's voice was hesitant, and after he finished he cut off the comms and just stared straight ahead with a dark look on his face.

Dryout lifted his big hands up behind his head and he rubbed them both on top of his scalp. He messed up his dark hair and closed his eyes tightly for a second. Why? Why does this have to be a thing?

Pastor sat down on an overturned desk close to the open doors Gentle and Dryout were staring through from closer up. He sat on the edge of the desk, and Gentle glanced back at him only for the older man and former priest to lift a hand telling Gentle it was fine. Gentle turned away, and Pastor lowered his head down and pressed his helmet's visor into his hand. He closed his eyes, and in his head he watched in green-tinted vision a hand going through his comrade's chest, ripping out a heart and crushing it. He clenched his eyes tighter, and he saw the eyes of that tortured man outside exploding. He watched as blood splattered on the window upstairs, and then he saw the inside of the elevator that he had been staring at in silence on his own which had caused Dryout and Gentle to come over to him.

Pastor had waved Gentle off, but the man with a bushy mustache hidden behind his dark purple visor shifted his gaze back after pretending to look away. I do not feel good about this situation. The Russian's trigger happy, the Brit is throwing up and taking off his helmet, and the priest can't handle it anymore. Those three aren't cut out for this. Not like a pro, Gentle glanced next to him at Dryout who turned back when he saw that turn of his head. "They on their way?" Dryout asked.

Gentle nodded once at him and then they both looked back into the open elevator in front of them. The door tried closing again and then opened back up because of the body in the way the motion sensor detected. It was one of three bodies, or so they thought, inside the elevator full of scratch marks on the walls and a hole on the ceiling. Blood was splattered everywhere, and they could not tell for sure if it was only three bodies, but there were at least three heads among the carnage in the elevator.

Zach's group reached the room the same time as the closer team that had been only on the other side of the same floor. They all jogged across the room that did not look as damaged as the other half of the building's first floor, though there was a blood trail that the six running towards their comrades noticed they started stepping in. "The rest of the building seems empty," Zach began while moving up to Gentle's side. He looked into the elevator and grimaced, a mild reaction compared to all the others around him except for Exodus.

"It was likely that spinning furry man who did all of this," Exodus stated. "The scratch marks in this elevator as well as other areas throughout the building all match those made outside in our initial confrontation." Zach nodded his head in agreement, while looking at similar scratch marks on the walls of the elevator. Those scratches all had blood filling them with long drips sliding down below them. There were two women in the elevator from what Zach could tell, and a man with red skin he thought, though he was hoping the guy actually did have red skin and it was not just blood coating his entire body.

"Pastor, could you," Zach began. He looked towards the man who shook his head fast and stood back up. He wanted to ask if the man was alright, but Pastor stepped forward strongly and Zach just continued, "Could you get them out of there? I want to have a look inside."

"I could," Exodus began.

"No," Zach started, looking at the large man on his left and shaking his head.

"Apologies, Death," Exodus said with a short bow of his head.

Pastor looked at the man who had just offered to clean up instead of him. He looked back at the bodies, then to Zach, and he lowered his gaze down as he realized why their leader was designating this to him. Pastor stepped forward and into the elevator, and he dropped down to his right knee before pressing both hands down on the ground below him. He took in a deep breath and started, "Take them, O' Lord…" Pastor started whispering, while the blood on the floor beneath his hands, the bodies around him, even shreds of clothes or some loose debris started getting sucked towards his hands.

Zach, Exodus, and Gentle backed away from the elevator they were the closest to as the red man's body half out of it started pulling the other way and squeezing down below Pastor's hands. Titan and Dryout each stepped back as they felt small tugs on the front of them too. "What are you going to do with them?" Dryout asked.

Titan frowned but did not speak out against what he was seeing. He thought about the power he had seen from the bigger man who Death had stopped from dealing with the clean-up himself. He also thought about the respect the "Pastor" had shown to their murderous friend back outside, and he said, "Dryout, it's fine. Trust them for now." Dryout looked back at Titan with his eyebrows lifted for a moment, but then he just nodded his head and turned back to the elevator that Pastor stood up in and lowered his hands that were clean of a speck of dirt let alone any blood or guts.

"If you want to go deal with it now," Zach started to Pastor.

"Later," Pastor said, looking back at Zach and nodding his head to show he was fine.

"Alright then," Zach said, and he stepped forward and into the elevator. He stepped inside and looked around, while Pastor moved a bit to the side and looked up at the ceiling himself. Titan stepped back to the edge of the elevator, closer this time as there was no body in the way. Zach looked up through the hole in the elevator, Did those three try escaping, only for the experiment to burrow through the ceiling? So the tests went on up on the second floor.

Zach looked to the panel on the right side of the inside of the elevator doors. He stared at it, and he felt a pit in his chest. Zach stepped towards the panel, and Titan moved into the doorway as it seemed like Death might be trying to make the elevator go somewhere. "What are you…" Titan stopped while leaning more in, and he took another step inside and then looked down at the panel himself.

Gentle and Dryout stepped inside, and then Exodus lifted his arm before all the others could move into an elevator starting to get cramped. Exodus lowered his muscular arm a moment later, but the others behind him did not want to try going inside now after that. Gentle stared at the panel where there were five buttons: two lines of two white ones and a red button above them with a phone symbol on it, and above the buttons was a speaker made up of lots of tiny little holes. The bottom two buttons were the 'open doors' and 'close doors' buttons with their white arrow symbols pointing away or in towards each other. The two buttons over them had 1 and 2 on them. It looked like a normal elevator panel, only there was a big vertical sheet of steel below them that looked like there might be a fuse box inside… except that panel was broken off the wall a bit so the bottom of it was slid to the side diagonally, revealing a button at the very bottom of the sheet that was barely uncovered.

None of them liked how far down that button was. The fact that there was a 'B' on it told them what they were looking at, but the number they could see next to the 'B' made all of them hesitant to move the panel. Zach reached forward his right hand though, and he grabbed the panel and pulled back towards himself to just tear it off the wall instead of sliding it away. He ripped it off, and he dropped it to the floor. Looks of dread covered Dryout and Titan's expressions for those outside the elevator to see. Pastor took a step back and he leaned against a cracked railing inside the elevator that he had to grab with both hands to steady himself. The button they had partially seen was not 'B1' as some of them had hoped with as much optimism as they could muster.

B16, Zach thought as he looked at the button on the bottom of the single-file line of buttons going down below the 'open doors' arrows. He slowly rose his gaze up those buttons, and then he turned his head to the side and looked at Gentle. "I was wrong," Zach said. Gentle turned towards the deep voice that just spooked him enough to flinch. He looked into Zach's dark visor, and the boy on the other side of it with huge eyes said in a lower voice, "This place is huge. We shouldn't be doing this right now. Not with this team."

"What is it?" Yuri asked, and he stepped forward, ignoring Exodus who turned towards him which did make a nervous bead of sweat form on his face. He felt a bit smug that he was able to just walk right past Exodus and into the elevator though, but then he turned to the panel the rest of them were staring at and dropped his jaw. "Sixteen fucking basements?"

"What did he just say?" Access whispered, dropping his feet from the box he had them propped up on.

Titan lowered his gaze to the floor. He turned his chin down and stared at the floor beneath his feet, as he suddenly realized that the elevator shaft he was in went very, very far down. How?

Wreck'd took a step back from the elevator, and he lifted both hands up to his head and ran them through his hair. "This is nuts. Absolutely… Death, what do we do?"

"Let's call in-" Zach began, then he frowned as Titan turned and glared at him. "Do you really think this is still just some coincidence?" Zach asked. He leaned towards the bigger man, "Or did I come here and build a super fucking mega-lab into your country?"

"I don't want you bringing any more of your terrorists here," Titan responded. He glared into the dark visor and said, "Whatever's going on here, doesn't excuse what you do. What you've done."

"Guys, this isn't the time," Dryout tried to break it up, lifting his big hands up between the two leaning towards each other.

Gentle glared at Titan and he said, "Why don't we leave it up to them then?" He lifted his left palm like it sounded reasonable to him. "Let them call in reinforcements to deal with this. I am sure they will uncover many secrets in those basements without our help."

Zach glared towards Gentle now instead of Titan. Sandlot had started nodding a bit in agreement with the man wearing some dark purple, though he was still deep in thought about what the British soldier in the Army of Death said to him. Sandlot's eyes widened a lot though as Death scolded in an angry voice, "Some people don't catch your sarcasm in English, Gentle." Gentle's eyes widened behind his visor as Zach said his name instead of trying to hide it with 'G' again. Titan had heard that name before, and he shifted his gaze slowly back to Death with his eyes widening behind his mask. He thought on what Death, whose identity he was starting to guess, just said though again. Zach continued, "But I know you wouldn't really be suggesting leaving them, when you think they'd be killed by whatever reinforcements they call."

"You are paranoid," Titan started, and Zach turned back towards him with a more frustrated look not that it was visible through his visor. "Paranoid, and you underestimate us. And our abilities. I would contact other heroes who I trust first before doing anything."

"And why do you trust them?" Zach asked.

Titan opened his mouth, and then he froze. He thought about who he just considered this person in front of him was. He knew that whatever he answered with, if this really was the teen he thought it was, the response would not matter. "I still trust people," Titan said, glaring harder into the visor of the boy before him. "And I trust my comrades and government more than I trust you terrorists-"

"My people are incorruptible," Zach growled, leaning back towards Titan. This time Dryout did not lift his hands to keep them apart, but instead started to tighten up his fists. Sandlot's eyes opened wide as he saw this confrontation beginning, and his eyes darted around him in panic as he saw a couple of helmets shift towards him for a moment. It suddenly felt like three sets of eyes were on him no matter where the dark soldiers were facing. "You don't understand that, and you'll get yourselves killed here if this isn't just some villain base. And really, have you ever seen anything like this before? Can any villains really do something like this?! Can you imagine what's beneath us right now?"

"I can!" Titan shouted back at the boy in front of him, his fists clenching at his own sides tighter now.

"Careful now," Rebel warned from across the Atlantic. "Don't want to start fighting in an elevator. You are above a sixteen floor drop, right?"

Pastor pushed off of the railing and he started lowering his hands down for the sharp crosses at his sides. His right hand wrapped around one that doubled as a tazer. His eyes narrowed through his visor at Dryout's back, while the hero himself shifted his eyes to the corner of his vision and kept that soldier in his peripheral as he had not forgotten about him as much as he was pretending he had.

Chhhh Everyone in the elevator and outside it stopped what they were doing. Thoughts about trying to convince their counterparts or fight them all cut off. The five in the elevator turned towards the panel of buttons. Yuri leaned into the doorway he had pulled back from after checking the panel, and he stepped inside while the others outside of it moved towards the door themselves. They all stared towards the speaker on the panel above the top call button that started blinking red.

"Hello? Please, someone has to help us. Is anyone up there?"

Zach reached up and pressed the blinking button with the phone symbol on it. "Hello? We're here to-"

"Oh my God," the voice on the other side started in terror.

Titan grabbed Death by the right shoulder and pushed him to the side. "You're terrifying them," Titan growled in anger. Zach glared at the man, but he held up his arm to stop Exodus who was making threatening movements that had the other two heroes tensing. "This is Titan," Titan began while pressing the red button now. "I was called to save-"

"Titan?!" The man's voice came back over the speaker and shouted in so much relief. "Oh God, what was that voice I heard? I thought they had come to get rid of us!"

"Who?" Titan asked.

There was silence over the other side for a few seconds, some nervous panting and murmuring. "This is, really Titan right?" A woman's voice asked.

"All of The Red Team is here," Titan said. "Sandlot and Dryout are with me." He paused and glanced back at Death, then he continued while turning to the speaker, "Where are you? We can come and help you-"

"You'll have to unlock the elevator first," the man's voice that spoke first cut back in. He sounded relieved but also scared and panicked at the same time. "And please hurry."

"How do we unlock the elevator?" Titan questioned. "And what is this place? Why are there so many basements? What goes on here-"

"Just shut up and come help us!" The man shouted, making Titan lean back at the frantic yell.

"I can't do it. I have to keep running!"

"No! We're getting out of here!"

"Please, send the elevator down to B13! Just get us out of here!"

B13? They're all the way down there? Zach grimaced nervously while looking at the panel.

"Take the hard-drives with you!"

"I'm out of here!"

"Wait! Wa- Damn it," the man who spoke first cursed as a door slammed in the background. He started again as the only voice now on the other side of the speaker, "Titan, you have to hold down on both the button to open the doors and the one to close them, at the same time. Hold them for ten seconds to unlock the elevator. Whatever bastards last took it up locked us all down here."

Titan frowned and he lowered his gaze down to the floor for a moment. He turned to his left and looked at Death, then he turned to the speaker and kept his finger on the button, "I'm not doing a thing, until you tell me what this place is. Are there human experiments going on down-"

"YES!" The man roared through the speaker. "Now get us out of here! NOW!"

"You admit, that you have been performing human experiments against the Jaydye Convention-"

"Listen to me," the man on the other side hissed, his voice cutting through the speaker in a menacing but terrified way. "You have to unlock the elevator and send it down here. Please! The test subjects, they're out of control!"

"We can see that up here," Dryout snapped towards the speaker. "Everyone in the building is dead, killed by one of your- what the fuck have you been doing to them-"

"Ahhhhh-" A recognizable female scream pierced in the distant background of the speaker, and the man they were speaking to took in a sharp intake of breath.

"I'll tell you whatever you want to know!" The man speaking to them shouted in panic. "Please! The experiments are killing everyone, and soon I'll be-" CRASH

"Oh doctorrrrr…" Everyone on the first floor of the building lost their breath at the sound of that voice. The sing-song but deep tone, and the pure bloodthirst in it was unmaskable.

"Oh my God. 23? Stay back! Help me!"

"Hahaha, HEHEHE AACKAKAKYAAA!"

"PLEASE! NO! AHH AHHGGSSJSG!" SClurch! Crunch splssh ch- "Ugh, ack, aggh, wait- wait! WA-" DOOF-spplt.

…

Yuri stared at the floor below him and realized, I've never been more scared in my entire life.

Oh fuck this. Wreck'd gulped as he looked around and did not see anyone else looking like they were about to turn and just run away. His right foot still slid backwards even without seeing anyone else about to run away with him.

Access was suddenly very, very glad he had been left behind at the helicopter. Rebel almost wanted to joke to him, 'Bet you're regretting this now,' but he held off on it.

It sounded horrific, brutal, and it was terrifying. The sound of a man getting murdered, and the noises that they could only imagine what they meant. The final thud definitely sounded like something getting smashed down, and then a splat. The image was stuck in their minds. Zach's breathing was steady though as he stared at the speaker in front of him. He stared at the speaker, and he listened to the heavy breathing he could hear on the other side of it. The others in the elevator realized what they were hearing as they held their own heavy breaths, only for the heavy breathing coming through the speaker to cut off itself a couple seconds later.

And then the scary voice of whatever just killed the man they were talking to, asked, "Hello?"

---

A/N So... has anyone ever played Outlast?