A/N: Hey guys! Hope everyone's ready for the next chapter in Max and Chloe's epic adventure. Because I'm honestly getting more and more excited the further this story goes. It makes me super giddy to write this story, and I think it could make a really good spin-off story for those who chose the "Sacrifice Arcadia Bay" ending of the first Life is Strange game. Now, let's delve into the recap and the new chapter! Enjoy!
Previously on Life is Abominable...
Max and Chloe have just landed at their first destination of their Chinese vacation, Shanghai. While trying to locate their hotel, the duo meet teenage Yi deliver newspapers for one of her many temp jobs to help her raise money to travel all across Asia like her father who has long since passed would have wanted. As her way of showing her gratitude, Yi invites Max and Chloe to stay with her and her family to avoid spending a lot of money on their pricey hotel. While up on the apartment roof, they see a convoy of helicopters carrying a metal cargo box fly above them and start hovering over a large compound that appears heavily guarded. After taking a picture, Max decides to go track down the building and discover what's in the box, as she believes it may be what is causing her visions...
Shanghai, China. 9:37 AM
Max, Chloe, and Yi had just exited the apartment building and were exchanging goodbyes until they met up later tonight.
"So, what is it you're hoping to find at that building exactly?" Yi asked, curious as to what Max wanted to find the compound for.
"We're not sure yet. But that's what I'm hoping to find out" Max answered. Max and Chloe both knew without discussing it between themselves that they couldn't tell Yi or anyone else about the visions. If they did, she'd think they were crazy and possibly throw them out of their temporary residence.
"Well, okay. I'll leave you guys to it. I better get going. See you tonight!" Yi said as she began running down the street to her next temp job of the day. Max and Chloe waved her goodbye and good luck before they began walking across the street.
"So what's the plan, Mad Max?" asked Chloe.
"First, we find this compound. Then we discover whatever's inside that box and maybe get some answers as to why it's causing me to have this visions without me using my rewind" Max explained.
"Sounds like a plan. But we're going to have to ask directions if we're going to get there" Chloe pointed out. She knew Chloe was right, the place they were looking for was someplace they had no idea where it was, and she had a feeling nobody else would know where it is either.
"Yeah, but how? I doubt anyone's going to know what we're talking about" Max said.
"You still got that photo you took? Show them the photo and ask if they know what it is and where we can find it" said Chloe, giving her something helpful she could use. Max then pulled out the Polaroid she took of the convoy flying over the building out of her pocket and stared at it as they were walking. As they were now passing by a basketball court that rested in between two large apartment complexes, the two heard dribbling and looked to the ground to see a basketball landing by their feet.
"What the?" Chloe asked as she picked it up.
"Looks like somebody must have dropped it" Max said while taking her eyes from the photo and onto Chloe holding onto the ball and began to twirl it on her index finger like a pro basketball player.
"Chloe, I had no idea you could do that" said Max in amazement.
"I learned how to do a lot of things after you left Arcadia Bay. One of them was basketball, I used to play with Rachel a lot in the park" Chloe explained as she tossed the ball up into the air and bounced it off her elbow and onto her knee. The two then noticed a young nine year old boy with messy black hair and braces on his teeth, and dressed like a player on a kids basketball team approached them.
"Hey, you're pretty good at that" he told Chloe.
"Thanks. I had a lot of practice" the blue-haired girl replied before tossing the ball back at the boy.
"Cool hair. I wanted to dye mine green once, but my mom won't let me" the boy said, changing the subject to Chloe's blue hair with purple roots at the top.
"My mom freaked out a bit when she saw it at first too. But eventually she got used to it. What's your name, kid?" asked Chloe.
"I'm Peng. Who're you guys?" Peng said introducing himself.
"Name's Chloe Price, this is my gal-pal Max Caulfield. We're here on vacation from Los Angeles" Chloe said. Max just waved with a small smile instead of speaking.
"Los Angeles, that's pretty far away. I hear it's a pretty big and cool city too" Peng told them.
"It's beautiful too" Max added before she walked up to Peng and showed him her photo.
"Hey, we're looking for this building right here. Do you happen to know what is is or where we could find it?" asked Max. Peng just shook his head after staring at the photo for a while and handed it back to Max.
"Sorry, can't really say that I have. I'm not really supposed to wander the city all by myself" said Peng.
"Well, what are you doing here alone then?" asked Chloe.
"I usually hang around here since it's close to my apartment building across the street. Hey, you guys wanna shoot some hoops? Play a few matches?" Peng asked excitedly. Max was about to politely decline but Chloe stepped forward and cracked her knuckles.
"Max here ain't a big player. But me... I'll take ya on, no problem" Chloe said as she held her arms out to her sides with a playful smirk on her face. Peng then began dribbling the ball and ran to the court with Chloe following closely behind him. Max then took out her Spectra camera and took some photos of Peng and Chloe playing. Some of the photos were of Chloe playing defense with Peng dribbling in front of her, Peng making a perfect basket, and Peng trying to swipe the ball away from Chloe. After the photos were taken, Max swapped out the film pack for a new one and called out to Chloe.
"Hey Chloe. You can keep playing with Peng, I'm gonna see if anyone else knows where that compound is!" Max shouted.
"Don't take too long alright? The fun's just getting started!" Chloe shouted back before continuing her game with Peng. Max then walked away from the court and further down the sidewalk to continue her search.
Now Max was alone. She had gone around showing the photo to many other people but they said they didn't recognize it, or they just didn't understand English. Max felt like her quest was going nowhere now, and that it was pointless asking anybody else. She then spotted a group of teenagers about Yi's age walking down the sidewalk towards her in a group. There were about six of them in total, three guys and three girls. One of them who was wearing a dark blue wool vest over a blue and dark red plaid pattern shirt as well as black jeans and very expensive looking shoes approached her.
"Oh, well hello there. Haven't seen you around these parts" he said in a flirtatious manner. Max had a deadpan look on her face as she replied to the teenage boy's unwanted flirting.
"I'm here on vacation. And sorry, but you're not my type" said Max before she reached into her bag to take out the photo of the convoy over the building again. The boy continued his flirtatious approaches.
"Names Jin, what is a lovely lady like yourself called?" asked Jin.
"Max. And I just said you're not my type" she said before holding up the Polaroid up to him.
"Can you please tell me if you know where this place is and what it is?" asked Max with her deadpan look still plastered on her face.
"Oh yeah. I know that place, it's owned by Burnish Industries" said Jin after he looked at the picture for only a minute and a half.
"Burnish Industries? Never heard of it" Max said as Jin handed her back the photo. One of the girls in Jin's group walked up to her and began talking.
"It's a mega-corporation owned by the famous explorer himself. He's seen everything humanity has dreamed of seeing" she told her.
"Wow, that sounds really cool. I'm going to have to do some reading about him. Do you know where it is?" Max asked her before letting her see the photo she took.
"I saw some helicopters drop something off there earlier. It's fifteen blocks up the street, and then you take a right and then you stop after walking about six blocks in that direction" the girl told her.
"Thank you so much" said Max, grateful that now she was going to see what was really going on with that building. Jin tried to make another flirtatious approach on Max, but all that got him was a stomp on his foot by Max's before she walked away. Jin began freaking out and pulled a toothbrush out his back pocket to clean up where Max's foot stomped on his shoe. Max swore she could hear Jin calling those shoes his "Babies" as he was scrubbing the print left by Max's converse off.
"And I thought Victoria Chase was a diva" Max said to herself as she kept on walking. She chuckled at how much Jin reminded her of her old snooty classmate Victoria back from her days at Blackwell Academy. She kept walking the fifteen blocks north like she was told, and counted each block she past to make sure she wouldn't take the wrong turn when it came up. After she had passed the fourteenth block and cross the street to get to the fifteenth, Max looked to the right and saw the Burnish Industries compound.
"Bingo. Now all I gotta do's turn here and walk an extra six blocks" Max whispered to herself as she waited for the cars on the street to pass so it would be safe for her to cross. After crossing, Max continued to walk and count the blocks down as she passed them. Once she finally came up on the sixth one, she found herself at the compound entrance. There was a large stone slab at the very front that said "Burnish Industries Research Facility" in big letters that were carved into it, as well as the address on the very bottom.
"Hmm, that could be useful next time I wanna find this place. Would save me the trouble of constantly asking for directions all the time" Max thought to herself as she pulled out her Polaroid camera again and took a photo of the slab with the building name and address on it. After taking the photo out the camera, and shook it to speed the development process, she began staring at the sky above the building and saw the convoy carrying the metal cargo box was still there, only is was preparing to land as it wasn't so high up in the sky like it was before.
"Guess they don't want to damage whatever's in that thing" Max said as she kept staring. As she noticed that the box was being dropped off in the back, she began walking further down the sidewalk and turning left until she was in the back, spying as the box was being dropped off from the safety of a nearby bush. The helicopters then dropped the box safely on a large concrete clearing right behind the loading bay of the building before they ended up flying away to somewhere else. What Max saw next shocked her, the redheaded woman with the glasses from her visions had just walked out the doors of the loading bay, dressed in a lab coat and carrying a clipboard in the crook of her arm.
"Right on time as it was supposed to. Not bad, boys. Not bad at all" she said in that British accent that Max recognized from the vision. Max then noticed that some of the fencing was loose, creating a perfect door so she could enter and get a closer look. Max then crept in between the metal wiring and managed to sneak as quietly as possible to the other end of the large cargo box. Now Max had her back against the metal wall of the box and kept peeking her head out from the side as often as she could without being noticed to get a more close-up look on the woman.
"Wait, when I described what this lady looked like to Chloe she looked a bit disturbed. Does she know who she is?" asked Max before taking out her camera, turning off the flash, and managing to get a photo of the woman. After shaking the photo and putting it in her pocket, Max noticed a parked armored truck and managed to sneak over to it without being noticed.
"Come on everyone, hurry it up! Mr. Burnish has no time for your dillydallying and neither do I! So move it!" the woman shouted at the doorway behind her. Four armed guards dressed in uniforms similar to what SWAT officers would wear during a very hazardous case exited the building holding large staffs with electric fork-ends at the tops and began pointing them at the cargo container.
"What's with the weapons? What's so dangerous about whatever's in that thing?" Max asked to herself. She got her camera ready again, ready to take a photo of whatever was about to be taken out of the giant metal crate. Max could feel her heartbeat accelerate as she watched them open up the door, she had never been more nervous about taking a photo in her life before, so this moment was indeed a first for her.
"Alright you big beast, get your fluffy white butt out of there!" the biggest and buffest goon shouted as he entered the box and eventually began walking backwards as the cargo began to exit the crate. Max couldn't believe her eyes, it was a big white-haired, ape-like creature with beautiful sapphire blue eyes and an underbite that was visible from it's lower row of teeth visible on the bottom of it's gray-skinned face. Max also saw that it looked very scared for it's life while being tugged out by the giant shackles on it's wrists.
"Oh my God. That's the creature from my visions" Max whispered as she stared at the scared creature. Max could feel tears stain her eyes as one of the guards poked the creature's rear end with the electric end of his staff and making it cry out in pain and move forward and further away from the storage box he was kept in. Max could also see tears glistening in the beast's blue eyes, and they began to slowly fall down his face as he stared in fright at the guards.
"Don't worry. They're NOT going to get away with this" Max whispered to herself as if she was speaking directly to the creature. She then held the camera up and peeked her eye right through the viewfinder of her Polaroid and took the perfect photo, capturing the creature being abused by it's human captors perfectly. After the photo was taken, Max hid away from the woman and the armed guards.
"Phew, that was close. I'm so glad they didn't see me" Max thought to herself while shaking the photo a few times and placing it in her camera bag along with her Spectra before she was able to sneak back behind the metal box. She swore she could have heard the woman say she heard something coming from the truck and demand one of the guards check it out, she figured the sound of her Polaroid taking the picture and then spitting out the image she had just captured caught their attention. Max peeked her head out and watched as two guards dropped their staffs and took up two large guns as they approached the vehicle. After a few seconds, they walked back and picked the staffs up off the ground.
"Nobody's there, Dr. Zara" said one of the guards.
"Could have sworn I heard something. Oh well. Let's get this thing safely inside. There's a holding cell already set up for it in the detention area. Be careful though" Dr. Zara calmly ordered. Max then felt her heartbeat start to calm down before she began to tip-toe back to the fence where she entered and crawled back through the loose fencing wires.
"That was so close. I've got to tell Chloe everything" Max said before she began running back to the basketball courts, where she hoped Chloe still was, still shooting hoops with Peng.
Peng began to ran as fast as he could while dribbling the ball towards the hoop. Chloe had a focused look on her face as she watched Peng go faster and faster. She then got down on one knee and locked her hands together through her fingers. Peng then let one foot land inside of Chloe's locked hands and she tossed him high into the air so he could make a perfect air-dunk. Chloe then caught Peng in her arms and placed him atop her shoulders.
"And he makes one amazing dunk. The crowd's going crazy, just at the moment of the buzzer too! Peng's won the national championship!" Chloe belted out like a professional sports announcer while Peng was basking in the pretend glory.
"Ahh! Ahh!" Peng whispered out loud, pretending to be his own crowd as he held up two peace-signs in the air. Chloe laughed a little bit before setting Peng down on the ground on his feet.
"You're a pretty cool kid, Peng. I love how committed you are to this basketball thing" Chloe complimented.
"Thanks, Chloe. It's my dream to be a basketball superstar. One day I'm gonna travel the world and play at stadiums all across different cities" Peng told her. Chloe smiled at how much Peng reminded her of Rachel Amber. They both wanted to travel the world and become famous, and they were both so free-spirited and friendly.
"You know, Peng. You remind me of an old friend of mine. You'd be surprised how alike the two of you are" the blue-hair girl said.
"Really? Did they wanna be a basketball player too?" Peng asked, making Chloe lightly chuckle at the question.
"Nah, she played every now and again with me but her real passion was acting and modeling. We were gonna start a new life together in California and eventually the whole world. But... something happened, and I never saw her again" Chloe said with a somber look on her face as she crossed her arms against her chest and twirled the tip of her left boot on the concrete.
"Oh, I'm really sorry to hear that" said Peng, feeling slightly guilty he brought up what was considered a bad memory for his new friend.
"Eventually, Max came back and she began to pick up the pieces. We rekindled our friendship and eventually left for Los Angeles. We both knew it's what Rachel would have wanted" Chloe explained, her smile returning for a brief moment. The two of them then heard rapid breathing and turned their heads to the court entrance to see Max running towards them and looking like she was out of breath.
"Speak of the devil. You find that place?" asked Chloe as she placed her hand on Max's shoulder.
"Chloe... I... I saw so much. It all makes sense now. I have so much to tell you" Max replied sounding distressed and tired at the same time. Chloe could tell Max saw something absolutely awful from the fact her eyes still had fresh tears glistening her eyes.
"Is something wrong, Max? You look really scared" Peng asked, concerned for Chloe's friend.
"Yeah, yeah I'm alright, Peng. It's just, something I really need to talk with Chloe about" Max replied before wiping her eyes dry with her arm. Chloe then looked down at Peng and then back at Max before speaking.
"Okay, we're gonna talk about this. But first we should make sure Peng gets back home safely" Chloe told her. Max nodded in agreement before looking to Peng.
"Peng, where did you say your apartment complex was again?" asked Max.
"Right down the street. You can actually see it from right down that crosswalk" Peng said pointing to the apartment building Yi lived in.
"Oh, cool. We're actually staying there for a while with our new friend, Yi" Chloe told him, which made Peng's face light up.
"You know Yi? She lives a floor right above me and my cousin" Peng told the two.
"That is so cool, Peng. You wanna walk back with us? We were just heading there anyways" Max offered.
"Okay" Peng simply replied and the three began walking back to the apartment building together. Max knew after Peng was dropped off, she and Chloe were going to have a very serious conversation about the things she just saw, and what they were going to do about them.
A/N: DING! Chapter completed! Whoo, so much as happened. Now we've finally gotten to meet, Peng, Jin, and most important of all... EVEREST! Yay! Next chapter, Max explains what she saw at the compound to Chloe and how the yeti may be the cause of her recent visions. Much more will come along with the events to come in the next update. Please review, thanks!