Hello! Here's another update, and Thanks again to Cornova for permitting me to write this, as well as proof-reading it.
High Command was drinking and Alexander didn't know what to do. It set off every alarm in his head, watching her gulp it down like it was from a small pond within an ocean of sand. It didn't fit the formality of the High Command- they didn't so much as sniffle during transmissions- so he squirmed as she finished off the bottle. She looked at it as if it had insulted her by running dry before dropping it, the shattering glass loud in the transmission. The sudden realization that it was dead silent on her end was interrupted when she pulled out another bottle from thin air and cracked it open. If she noticed his discomfort she didn't care enough to stop herself before she finished off the bottle within a few swallows.
She had hardly spoken since the transmission began, instead opting to listen as Alexander quickly explained his situation. She had seemed bored at the beginning, showing no emotion when she learned about Chief and the condition Connor was in. He had almost managed to pull out the flash drive when she had walked away from the screen. She just... walked away.
Now she was back with booze, and she was still uninterested.
It took him a moment, but Alexander realized with a start that he still had his helmet on. That was why she was acting strange, he had forgotten the simplest formality! He ripped his helmet off and tucked under his arm, all the while trying not to piss his pants just thinking about the punishments he could receive for such an infraction.
High Command broke her attention from the bottle and choked on her beverage when she got a good look at his face. Alexander jumped a foot in the air at the suddenness of it and fidgeted more as she recovered, shrinking as she leaned closer to the screen.
"What in the actual hell happened to your face?"
"I-um, wha..." Alexander sputtered, reaching up to feel his cheek to understand what she meant.
"No, God no! Don't touch it! Do you want me to get sick?"
It was Kara that saved Alexander from having a meltdown right then and there. "He was burned in the plane crash that was previously reported, ma'am, and has since received multiple injuries that he has listed to you already."
Scratch that, he nearly went into hysterics when High Command's face contorted into a scowl. Kara had just sassed her, of all people. The person with the power to order their termination.
"What in the [explicit redacted] did you just call me? You orange little f-"
The entire screen shook and High Command nearly fell over as things on the desk toppled and fell. Things started breaking off-screen and a cloud of dust blurred out the footage for a moment. The shaking on the screen stopped but the sounds of things breaking continued for a couple more seconds before fading; the following silence made Alexander morbidly curious about what was happening on her side.
There were no alarms or panicked voices, not even when the lights flickered and illuminated the room. High Command coughed and waved the dust away from her face; the anger that had been written on her face had slipped away and was replaced with a sullen, taut expression.
"High Command?"
The woman trailed her fingers through her hair before she pulled a keyboard closer and started typing.
"Alexander," The grunt stiffened. Never, Never, were personal names used. He was about to be terminated, wasn't he? "why did you pursue the Op after losing your entire detail?"
Alexander swallowed and shakily showed her the ARK. "I believe that this would get me an extraction... Will it?"
He said the last part with hesitation- he didn't have the rank to ask questions. Yet, out of anybody to ask, it would be her to give him the most likely possibility. High Command was looking at something on her screen and had stopped typing
"You've spent most of your life with us. Your work has benefited us greatly, why were you..." High Command whispered to herself. She read silently before looking directly at Alexander. "You don't know, do you?"
"Evidently, no." Kara deadpanned. She noticed Alexander's blood pressure spike but she wasn't going to play the guessing game with High Command. Not anymore. "Do you care to inform us?"
High Command didn't bite back. The woman looked tired and beaten, but what stopped Kara short was the despair that crossed her face as she broke. A facade that fooled both of them fell as she slumped against her desk and covered her eyes. Short, ragged breathing filtered through the speakers for a moment as she tried to collect herself.
"We passed the brink of a Code Black cataclysm twenty minutes ago."
There were three codes: white, grey, and black. Code White meant that only specific parts of the world were severely damaged by the incident, but on a global scale, the world was relatively unharmed and recovered quickly. A Code Grey meant that large parts of the globe were affected, and recovery would take time. The damage would be moderate, but survivable. The world would adapt and go back to what it was before. A Code Black was a different story. The entire planet would be severely damaged by the cataclysm and there would be no chance for the world to return to what it was before. Civilization as a whole would be threatened with annihilation, and if it were to survive the entire planet would have to rebuild.
It would become the beginning of a new era.
Understandably, Alexander began to tremble. Kara didn't know what state of mind he was in anymore, he kept switching from reality to fantasy, but for a moment it looked like he was back with her.
"Pokemon have begun to attack cities around the world. We thought it was isolated at first, but then the reports started flooding in; we're seeing total losses in some places." Highs Command wiped something out of the corner of her eye just as the camera shook again. "We've tried to stop it, but too much is happening at once and we were exposed. There's even- we actually have images of Legendary pokemon beginning to congregate on levels we've never seen before!"
High Command clenched her fists. "Alpha thought it was the beginning of a war. He was right... he was [explicit redacted] right, okay? When the rest of us finally realized it this place became a madhouse. All of the Commanders locked themselves in the emergency bunker and wouldn't let anyone in. When the damn psychics showed up to knock down our door they ordered the guards to terminate everyone up top, no exceptions."
"But Alpha had an emergency plan." She whispered. High Command looked desperate all of a sudden. "This-this place was never meant to be breached, but he had an emergency plan in case it was. He poisoned everyone down here, destroyed our data archives after he found a suitable base that he trusted would survive this. He knew I didn't know enough to be a risk, so when he took his dose he gave me a list of instructions to follow. I've done it all! There's not one [explicit redacted] thing down here for those psychics to get their hands on! No brain, no brawn, no tech, nothing!"
Tears started flowing down her face and High Command slammed her fists into the desk. "I had plans! Why was it me that had to do this and not some security guard! I-I... He promoted me to Alpha! He promoted me to lead this organization just for me to [explicit redacted] destroy it! I wanted to[explicit redacted] live, but I have to die if it means protecting this miserable [explicit redacted] planet!"
Alexander wanted to curl up in a ball and hide. He was a captive audience that was supposed to remain neutral, even if he had just learned that his entire life had just been destroyed.
He didn't think of it until later, but High Command had been calling for a reason. She had the weight of the world on her shoulders at that moment- it's fate rested in her hands. She was expected to take it and run. This was her vent, her last wish. Trapped in a metal tomb with the bodies of her allies, her only desire was to be known so she didn't blink out of existence unnoticed. She needed a hand to hold in her last moments.
The video flickered and High Command seemed to freeze for a second. "No no no no no no." She whispered furiously. Her hands went back to the keyboard and suddenly little envelope icons started appearing in the corner of Alexander's screen.
"Alexander, if you want to retire and just leave this [explicit redacted] nightmare behind, your exit slip was just sent to you. If the organization survives they'll never bother you again. I-*static*- functional bases within th-*static*- avoid Melemele's mili-*static*-..."
The rest of the video flickered until Alexander couldn't hear anything above the static. After a couple of minutes of waiting for it to return the feed cut, leaving him to stare at his reflection, and what had distracted High Command. He realized in his haste to remove his helmet he had accidentally exposed the burned part of his face. Carefully the grunt reached up and readjusted the bandage before slipping his helmet back over his head.
Alpha. He corrected himself and immediately felt a dizzy spell come over him. High Command were mere drones compared to the Alpha. Forget High Command's power to terminate individuals without question; Alpha could start a war just for entertainment value.
The mail icon flashed again and drew Alexander's attention; he started browsing through the files that had been sent to him after a moment of hesitation. The first one contained the retirement form already signed and awaiting his own signature. His stomach cramped thinking about it. He skipped over it and found himself reading the final official message from HQ:
"To all surviving personnel that is reading this, cease all travel unless it isn't in your best interest. A Code Black cataclysm has been announced, and if you are not on base yet and are in contact with them do only what is instructed by your local base. You must have constant contact with your base at all times, and do not cease contact until you are retrieved. Disregard any and all contact from HQ, this channel, or radio silent bases in the future as they have effectively been deemed as compromised. Only local search and rescue missions are possible from here on out. If you are just receiving this: An unknown event of global proportions unfolded six hours, eleven minutes, and seventeen seconds ago and has since disrupted every settlement on record. Research is no longer ongoing as to how this phenomenon occurred and has been determined that it is unrelated to any other organization. If you have surviving pokemon that have not killed you: Treat them well. Widespread reports of coordinated pokemon assaults are spreading and losses of personnel/civilian/pokemon lives have been skyrocketing as time progresses. You will need them to survive. Find a secure location. It should be heavily fortified and armed. Do not leave that location once you have contacted the nearest operational installation unless instructed. Be prepared for anything, many nations are already on the verge of war/collapse and the threat of nuclear fallout is rising. You will not be marked as a class-A civilian if these standards are not met. Class A civilians are no longer to be terminated immediately, unless instructed otherwise or with your best judgment on the character of that civilian. Use your best judgment with your contact with civilians, do not allow word of the company to slip or a refugee crisis will emerge. You are expected to survive so do whatever it takes to achieve that goal. All prior restrictions have been lifted in an attempt to minimize losses, so no punishments will be issued for violations of even tier one infractions unless it is reckless and endangers personnel. You will not receive any more updates from this line. If you do: Disregard it. HQ has fallen. Do not allow your whereabouts to be compromised by responding. Our last request is to please keep a record of what you witness daily so that you can at least have information of value for other agents if you are to perish. Have the pass code be something only other Agents can know so that sensitive information won't fall in the wrong hands. Do not lose hope, we can survive this catastrophe if we work hard enough. There is still a chance for prosperity."
Alexander leaned heavily on the desk as his knees threatened to give out. With trembling hands he continued through the emails, nearly all of them blank. The last couple files surprised him though, actually contained packages of satellite images that depicted the Company's worst fears:
An aerial view of a desert with a blinding pinprick of light at its center- a Code Black purge.
A gaping hole that stretched for miles, captioned by the name of a former city
Goldenrod City, surrounded by hundreds of red dots representing what one could assume were abnormally large concentrations of wild pokemon.
Three Company units in the midst of being overwhelmed in an unlabeled region.
An underwater photo of the Guardian of the sea itself, seemingly traveling in the same direction as hundreds of other smaller pokemon also present in the photo.
Kara was mute as she looked through the data they were sent. This was bad, this was very bad. It was exactly what she had thought it would be, but it had been confirmed.
Hopefully, Alexander would listen.
The moment she decided to turn her sensors back to Alexander her hopes were dashed. The scowl on his face was deep but it was his stiff movements that gave away that he wasn't with her. He was a marionette; his actions were strung up and dictated by only what existed in his mind. She felt the tremors working up his arms as he gingerly turned off the monitor and the way he forced his breathing into a steady pace. The fire that existed in his eyes was extinguished; the smoke rising from the ashes had clouded them until they had glossed over. It was as if he wasn't even seeing anymore.
Then her paranoid human was moving at a speed that caught her off guard. He scooped a roll of electrical tape off the ground and with a sweeping hand cleared the desk of everything that had remained. He started removing the magazines in his belt and stacked them neatly in a corner before discharging the one already in his weapon. He stretched out a length of tape and began wrapping it around two clips with their feeds at opposite ends of each other, effectively tying them together for faster access. He did this with the rest of his mags and quickly replaced them in his belt.
"Kara, can you download all the files the company has here?"
Orders had always been orders for the Plasma Pokemon. They held the weight of mountains and were not to be disobeyed or questioned. You did what you were told and nothing would happen. Out of all the agents she had been assigned to it was Alexander who was nice about them, but they where orders none the less. His demands were only wrapped up and placed behind polite questions and gentle tones that could deceive any creature. With the buzz of the power still flowing through every aspect of her essence- even despite her injury- Kara felt strong enough to challenge that order. She didn't have to put up with them anymore. She was free, but he didn't think so.
The bitterness of the thought shocked her. Where did that come from?
The helmet tilted up a couple of degrees and Kara's attention was drawn to Alexander's worried face. The same face he made whenever she encountered a serious computer virus or malware and had to sit in stasis to recover. He wasn't a deceiver. He really shouldn't worry about her, but that was in his nature.
"Are you okay?"
"Of course I am, why do you ask?" Kara sounded impatient to mask her thoughts and Alexander bought it. He continued to work on the handgun now, doing the same work with the mags as with his MP90. He spoke quietly after he finished, his brow furrowed.
"You zapped me."
Had she? The history Kara had with electrocuting Alexander wasn't nice. He had to be thinking that he did something to irritate her, and with growing dread, she wondered if she had done it when he had ordered- asked her for the downloads. A pang of guilt swept through her and the plasma pokemon began the downloads without any more stray thoughts. There was countless hours of field research and classified government files detailing ultra space flooded into storage and she had to resist the sudden urge to read through them.
Kara couldn't help but want to protect what information she could. There was so much she didn't know, and the more she learned the more satisfied she felt. It all had value regardless of its contents: classified files, pictures, public records. If it came down to it some of the information could get them places. She didn't know enough about the region to get an accurate estimate on the survival chances of the government, but these files could buy them protection or at least a path forward once things settled.
Alexander mistook Kara's silence as fury as he finished packing away the drive and handgun into various parts of his suit. His little expedition had been a Farfetch'd hunt the entire time.
Heh. That was a good one. Not that Kara was in the mood to hear about it, but he'd have to use that later.
Alexander's mood shifted slightly before the floor trembled. He felt Kara's current flow becoming unsteady, not unlike an AC current, and grimaced as he became the conductor between the transceiver and the floor. "Kara listen-I'm going, alright? Just let me finish up here."
"Please hurry up." She responded nervously. A faint chill that ran up Alexander's back as he used the desk to reach the sprinkler system in the room, causing him to hesitate before he took the thin pipe in both hands and jumped. His weight tore the pipe from its fasteners and the system collapsed as it snapped and proceeded to douse the entire room in water. As he hit the ground he went into a roll, avoiding the electrical discharge as the water fried the server racks and wiped any remaining Company property off the face of the Earth.
With no trace of the Company remaining, Alexander passed Agent Shifter's corpse. The Ariados would take care of the body, so he didn't stop to worry.
The door didn't greet him on the way back through, its programming went with the rest of the property. The lights were back, flickering every once in a while as the facility struggled to maintain power.
"There's a fire in the generator room," Kara explained as Alexander ran through the hallways. The building wasn't doing too well, he noticed. Parts of the walls had buckled from an unknown force, and more than one door led into a decimated workspace. "It appears that an explosion somewhere in the testing facilities caused it. A couple of soldiers were sent there at one point to contain it, but they stopped communicating with the rest of their squad a while ago. The fires are still active, so it is likely that they were ambushed trying to stop it."
A flight of stairs took him upwards where the floor was just as bad as the walls supporting it. Long bursts of gunfire erupted within the complex and Alexander slowed as they echoed down his hallway. Before he could take another step the lights flickered and dimmed considerably. The interface switched over to the advanced vision before the human could be completely blinded and began to paint the hallways black and white.
As his vision was returned to him a white patch of static started to form along the wall ahead of him. Alexander had a moment of confusion- static meant smoke, fog, or any other highly visible airborne substance- before a spindly pair of legs began to stretch out of it. The rest of the Ariados slowly followed until it was free of the Shadow Sneak, which dissipated quickly after. The arachnid trembled slightly as it recovered from using the move and its baleful expression was visible as it eyed the lights that had made the move so strenuous. It looked in the direction of the gunfire and turned towards it, completely missing the human yards away as its attention fell back to the lights. Shards of glass fell as the spider began to shoot Poison Sting into the lights, bringing the hallway into the darkness.
Alexander's curiosity cost him as the spider then used the move again, fazing through the wall and out of sight before he could stop it. "What the hell?" He whispered, almost moving forward before the whole wall began to fill with static as more of the Long Leg Pokemon began to breach the facility.
Four were followed by eight, then sixteen. The hallway was quickly swarming with them and their collective hissing permeated the air. Alexander's heart crawled up his throat as he took half a step back before he could stop himself. His boot crushed some glass and a startled pair of eyes turned in his direction, having heard it over the rest of his buddies. The lone human felt Kara's spiking pulse and realized that she was about to try and throw herself at the entire crowd to buy him time. He wasn't going to let her.
Ariados were a soft pokemon. Bug types were generally soft and easy to squash in a battle; it was the reason why so many professional trainers avoided them, but Ariados was especially pathetic. Their boost in power didn't change that. They were all grouped together in a cramped space with no place to escape when Alexander opened fire. Their bodies didn't have enough resistance to stop the bullets so each round passed through unhindered and into the unlucky creature directly behind them, decimating their numbers. It became a killing corridor, and the suddenness of it sent the survivors into a panic as they were blindsided.
There was a conflicting feeling working up in Alexander's chest as he watched the destruction he was creating. He didn't like killing. He didn't, but with these pokemon- their screams as they died- it began to feel like a fire was burning in his chest. It burned out the fear he had felt moments before and in its stead perverse amusement developed. Their fear only fed that fire as Alexander finally ran out of ammunition. The agent took the energy in his chest and threw himself into a roll as the pokemon retaliated, a few needles pinged off Alexander's suit as he rolled into an open doorway and out of their line of sight.
A hole the size of a grapefruit was blasted through the steel wall beside him, and Alexander barely felt Kara's electrical discharge as she panicked while he threw himself to the ground. His armor was the only thing to prevent the following shrapnel from skewering him as more holes were punched through the wall. He fumbled to flip the magazine as a white orb trailing green energy passed through the crippling barrier and obliterated the tile floor a foot from his head. With an inaudible click, he slammed the mag into position and racked a round as the wall began to break apart from the assault.
More Pin Missiles were going through unobstructed and Alexander had to retreat further into the room and behind some desks. Part of the ceiling collapsed as the wall gave way and crumbled. The power in the room died as a transformer that was in the ceiling came crashing down and flattened the desk that the agent was hiding behind. He jerked and fell backward, firing into the unit before he even realized it wasn't attacking him. Another white orb missed him by a hair's width and the agent flattened himself against the device. He quickly held his weapon over the top of it and blindly sprayed for a couple of seconds before he pulled back, tapping his helmet a couple of times.
"Kara, do you have a reading on how many are left!?"
"The power's out, so no." Alexander knew that tone: she was pissed at him. She was scared too because she did know how many were still after him, and they were all coming at him at once.
Static began to manifest in the corner of the room so he fired on it prematurely. A solitary corpse came tumbling out and with his attention distracted a string of web came shooting out of the darkness and stuck to his MP90. It was ripped out of his grasp, but being disarmed wasn't the worst part as the strap caught his neck and nearly collapsed his windpipe as he was yanked sideways and out of cover.
Alexander kicked and blindly groped with one hand for something to slow his speed while his other went for the newly acquired sidearm. The pressure on his throat magnified and he made a startled sound as he struggled with gripping the pistol. His hand finally found it and he tore it free, only for a surge of electricity to nearly paralyze him as Kara ejected herself from the transceiver.
Kara sounded like a fire alarm mashed together with an ambulance siren. Whatever she said wasn't translated by the transceiver, but the unyielding rage and hatred behind it burned through the language barrier. Alexander's pulse raced as something spread to every fiber of his being, and quite abruptly the Ariados that had been dragging him stopped. A warning popped up in the interface describing an electrical hazard and a bright arch of light flashed across the colorless landscape almost immediately after, followed by a deafening boom.
The pressure on his neck ceased completely and Alexander heard the sound of gore splattering against surfaces. An Ariados didn't give him any time to breathe and immediately set upon him with teeth and claws that raked across his armor as it tried to keep him down. For its troubles, it was given a hard knee to its underside and an even harder headbutt to the face as its prey fought back with everything it had. Something cold and hard pressed against its sternum before it erupted, a ball of metal penetrated through its organs and exploding out its back and into the ceiling above.
Alexander shoved the cadaver aside and opened fire on the first threat he saw. Another bolt of electricity shot through the air and fried an attacker that had been situated directly behind him; Kara was still watching his back even though she had her own issues.
A bolt of Night Shade grazed her as she sped around the room and Kara smashed into a wall, not seeing the attack coming in time. The energy that she had been gifted was starting to ebb away as she slowly raised and dodged a slurry of Pin Missiles. The first fight had been what cost her the most, the cut that was oozing her life force had been a mere graze from a lucky Toucannon. Fighting with that injury was slowing her down. Alexander had been right, it was going to kill her if she didn't stop, but she couldn't- not with him in danger.
Focusing, the Plasma pokemon became a blur before seemingly splitting in two, her clone zipping one way while she took a different path. With the focus on her divided Kara began to build up energy for a Shockwave, wincing as some of it crackled along her wounds. Her clone did the same but a Psychic attack crushed it. If she had more time, Kara could have emitted a stronger shockwave. What she produced didn't obliterate everything in its path, but the bolts were more than enough to launch everything that wasn't bolted down across the room, including a few of their attackers.
A wave of fatigue overtook her then. The corners of her vision blurred and Kara felt her pulse increasing as she narrowly dodged another attack. She couldn't slow down, not now.
Another Pin Missile streaked by, but this time Kara was too close to it when it detonated. The pressurized air threw her off balance as she passed through it, so she couldn't stop in time before she slammed into a file cabinet.
It was startling to feel the textures of the world, to say the least. Kara spent most of her time in programs and wires; there wasn't anything for her to do outside of those domains. Even her training was done in the virtual world, which was proven to be as effective as conventional training if done right.
Being exposed to this experience by having metal crammed into your face ruined it a little. Kara struggled to rise only for something to smash into her side and throw her, yet again, into another wall. Her vision blurred only for crimson to replace it as an Ariados loomed over her. Its eyes took on a bluish hue and intense pressure began to surround her. She lost the ability to speak as pain shot throughout her form and made her see error codes. She wouldn't cry out, she wouldn't give it what it wanted.
It stopped. She wasn't being crushed anymore and Kara shuddered as she held in a scream. The blurriness in her vision didn't go away and she felt something gently slide under her and carefully lift her up. She knew who it was even before her vision could return, and she almost smiled as she let her mind go blank.
Alexander had to manually put Kara back in the transceiver. She couldn't even find the strength to activate the speakers to talk to him, and tears were threatening to spill down his face as he finally sealed the device and put it in stasis. She had never been in that condition before, not while she was with him. It was him that was supposed to be hurt, not her. She was the strong one, the one that always got him out of trouble. This was her role to protect her partner, not his.
He didn't recall how he got from point A to B. Point A was halfway across the room, where he had been snagged up. From there to where he was standing there were seven mangled bugs, the one that dared to harm Kara currently twitched as its body received broken thoughts from the receptors within its mangled head. Alexander kicked aside the chair he had used on it and quickly reclaimed his discarded guns, then his kukri. Whatever had taken control of him between those two points had been feral; rage wasn't a good enough word to describe it.
It was still there, an emotion burning worse than any other moment he had experienced today, but it was turning against him. This was his fault. She would be fine if he hadn't done this. Alexander struggled to bury the thoughts. He would hate himself later when they were not in danger.
He walked around the remnants of the room and exited through the space that had been a wall. The submachine gun was held firm as he turned the corner and quickly scanned the gore-pasted hallway. Nothing was presently alive so the agent moved swiftly until he came across a set of double doors. The gunfire he was after was on the other side, but now he could hear panicked orders and voices.
Alexander realized as he reached for the handle that his armor was covered in blood. His hand slowed as he examined his arm and a smirk crossed his face as he firmly twisted the handle. In his mind, what was happening on the other side of the doors was the last thing that should have been happening.
The room looked like it was a staff lounge meant to overlook the beautiful scenery. Large picture windows took up the furthest wall, all of which had been shot out over the duration of the conflict. A kitchenette was filled with a substantial amount of the wounded, protected by heavy furniture and a half wall. The rest of the room was filled with the dead and the soldiers that still wanted to keep breathing.
Alexander opening the door had to have been a trigger for everything to go wrong at once.
As he did the lights flickered once before glowing brightly as power surged for the last time. Half the lights blew at that moment and the other half simply blinked out of existence, leaving the room in darkness save for the dull glow of the receding sun flooding through the windows. The floodlights outside died and the shadows surged forward unhindered, and with it a dull crimson tide.
The soldiers manning the windows scattered in every direction. The cowards ignored the screaming of their commander and darted out of every exit they could find, some barreling past Alexander without a second of thought. The foolish that didn't abandon the windows immediately became the first to fall as a vicious onslaught of String Shot dragged them through the very windows they pledged to defend, their screams cut short by the bloodlust of their murderers. The few that stayed away from the windows and didn't flee quickly discovered that they didn't have enough ammunition as Ariados began to swarm in from the windows, then the corners and ventilation. The commander was struck from above as web shot down, hit his shoulder, and then dragged him straight to his death in the ventilation.
Most of the wounded could do nothing but scream. The soldiers that were lucid and still had a firearm did their best to fend off the arachnids before they were overwhelmed. A stretcher with a heavily bandaged man who didn't seem to understand what was happening around him was swarmed by the soldiers that didn't flee or immediately die as they defended him. Two grabbed the stretcher at both ends and picked him up as they gave up their position, leaving the rest of the injured as they ran through the doors that Alexander held open.
An Ariados managed to grab ahold of one soldier protecting the man before he could make it. The rest of his squad didn't so much as look back as he was dragged off and swarmed; the same happening to the wounded that had been abandoned.
There was nothing he could do, Alexander realized. It was happening too fast. He made to slam the doors shut, but as he did the picture windows suddenly glowed bright orange; Due to his vision, he didn't see it.
Whatever happened made the entire swarm collectively scream in rage, and moments later the doors shuddered from dozens of impacts. Alexander took it as his time to bolt- his footsteps loud, and fast. He followed the group of survivors down a hallway he had not explored and slowed as they came across a door. The soldiers kicking it off its hinges and as soon as it came down half the group stormed inside while the other half started to move the stretcher again.
"Move it!"
The voice was from the radio, Alexander noted as he stumbled up a new staircase behind them. Someone started screaming further inside the facility. Before it was cut off they were already on the roof.
The furthest ahead made their way to a landing pad, taking defensive positions around it. Flares were lit to keep the darkness at bay and guns started barking at the Ariados that had made their way up to them.
There was a dull thumping sound off in the distance, but its source couldn't be seen through a rising plume of smoke. Alexander dared to get a closer look and the source of the fire became clear. It was a burning truck, parked in the middle of the yard. Fire spread out from the pyre in thin lines, snaking across the lawn and into dense shrubs along the now toppled electric fence. The rising smoke as things started to burn was driving the Ariados away- their main force was now cut in half.
There was total silence on top of the roof as the thumping developed into something more defined. Chuf-Chuf-Chuf-Chuf...
The helo parted the smoke and for a brief moment, its windows glowed in the light of the fires. Alexander's brow lowed as it kept emerging from the smokescreen, and he noted with a start that it was a Chinook.
Their savior circled around once, mounted weapons firing into the side of the building to clear off the Ariados. The rear of the aircraft was soon hovering overhead, and the loading ramp began to open as it descended.
The arrival of their evac came with a cost as their attention lapsed. A soldier started shouting over the din as another beside him jerked and collapsed, a Poison Sting lodged in his chest. He opened fire on the assailant only for a strand of silk to strike his leg and rip him off the pad. Alexander didn't wait and tried his best to pick off targets, only for another spine to strike his chest from the shadows. The Ariados were hiding and taking their time picking off the humans while they were in the open.
The stretcher was passing Alexander when the man at the rear was struck by a lethal barb, spilling his charge onto the landing pad as he collapsed. The soldier at the front dropped his end of the stretcher and looked between his fallen comrade and the man, who had started to yell something incomprehensible over the beating rotors. The hesitation in his eyes died as Alexander reached down and scooped up the legs. With his moral fight over, the soldier grabbed the man around the shoulders and helped drag him up the rest of the ramp.
The pitch of the rotors suddenly increased and Alexander felt the floor tilt. The rear of the aircraft began to slide along the launch pad before the rest of the soldiers could board; the closest was the only to notice and broke into a sprint to catch up, abandoning their positions in a mad dash to not be left behind. A shower of sparks glowed in their panicked eyes as two leaped into safety before the helicopter slipped off the pad, its engines beginning to scream as they rocketed skyward.
A volley of attacks crossed the space where they had been moments before, some striking and obliterating the side of the building. Sharp pings could be heard as a few weaker attacks stuck the aircraft, only for a small portion of the side to explode as a Pin Missile struck home. Alexander spun at the sound and was startled to realize that the fuselage wasn't empty by any means, the Chinook was occupied by dozens of soldiers and stretchers already.
Most of them were layered in grime and dust, but that couldn't hide the variety of injuries each one sported. Small cuts to burns to bruises, they adorned the soldiers from a fight Alexander had no intel on. He could almost see the panic in the air as they did everything they could to get out of there, most were using whatever weapon they had to try and drive the Ariados swarm away.
Alexander turned back and regretted looking it as soon as he did. The landing pad was a patch of white in an ocean of red, and the few souls that had not fallen were back to back as they used the last of their ammunition. He could see exactly when they ran dry, and over the sounds of the engines and the swarm, he could swear he heard their screams as they fell under a blanket of crimson bodies.
The facility slowly shrank and fell out of sight, and only when it had did Alexander begin to sway. He reached out and grasped the side of the fuselage tightly, sinking to his knees as the loading ramp slowly cut off his vision of the darkened trees below him, and the bleeding skies above.
In that moment something seemed to erupt in the agent's mind; the fear, panic, and grief that was in the air grew until it was overpowering. His heart was pounding as he looked around slowly, and his scalp prickled as something unexplainable happened to him. There wasn't time to think about it as another migraine came on and threatened to split his head open. He winced and cursed, trying to nurse his head as the noise around him aided in tearing his mind apart.
Something passed by the closest window and was just enough to distract him from his pain. With shaky hands Alexander dragged himself onto a seat and peered out. They passed another skyscraper, then another, and he realized that they were in Hau'oli City. Flashing red and blue was at nearly every street corner, the only signs of life on the streets below. Fires still raged, their smoke illuminated by the lights of the city.
There was a powerless skyscraper that loomed well above the rest of the buildings, a dark spire on the horizon. There were large holes in the building, and the colors of the fading sunset were glowing brilliantly through it.
The scene was familiar and Alexander leaned closer, his brows scrunched together in open curiosity. His pupils dilated to the point where his brown irides were no longer visible, and his heart stopped as his reality shattered.
The thirty-third SABER simulation had been a war-torn city. Alexander found himself there, stumbling as he went from a steel floor to desert sands. Terror seeped from the agent and he fell backward in a hysteric fit, the sand gritty and course against his skin as he scrambled away from the looming skyline. The sun had been setting, and a building at the edge of the horizon glowed from where a rocket had blown a hole through its center. The two building looked exactly the same.
Alexander knew how this ended. He closed his eyes and felt an immediate pressure threaten to cram him further into the sands. He clenched his fists tightly and pried his eyes open. There was a second sun blooming over the city, so bright that he could feel his skin burning already. The energy was expanding, swallowing the city and everything in it. The sands around him were crackling and turning to glass, his clothes began to catch fire as heat baked him on the spot.
One of the many purposes of this simulation had been to teach Alexander that there was a reason why the company had their hands in the nuclear trade. If they didn't, something like this could happen.
They had let him know what it felt like to be baked by a nuclear blast. He had been given the rare opportunity to know what it felt like to die by fire, so Alexander screamed, losing all form of coherent thought as it happened again. It was first his clothes to burn away, then his skin. His eyesight was taken as he charred, and he screamed until his vocal cords burned away, too. The wave of pressurized air was supposed to be the end of the simulation, finally killing him and releasing him from the pain.
When it hit, all the stimulation Alexander felt ended. The pain was cut short, the sounds were muted. A blanket of darkness fell over him and smothered what little consciousness he had left, but the one thing he noticed as his mind blanked was how he couldn't see the ceiling of the SABER laboratory.
Tell me, how am I doing? Is there something I need to work on, like making things clearer or adding more dialogue? Reviews are how I improve, after all.