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12

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"That's not possible." Jeremie heard the stunned surprise in his own voice. "How can it still be going without the connection to XANA? How can that be if it's still…"

He trailed off suddenly. The elevator door opened and a disheveled Odd and Ulrich came up, just in time to see the look of horror on Jeremie's face.

"Sissi, what did you say it was leaving all over?"

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"Moss. Lots of it, lots of wet moss." Sissi winced as the door crumpled further in, realizing suddenly that it was about to give way.

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"Moss. Mon Dieu. Moss. That's it." Jeremie slumped in his chair.

Odd and Ulrich looked at each other, then at Jeremie. Odd spoke up first. "What is it?"

"That's why the data stream was all one direction." Jeremie replied, his voice an odd mix of awe, respect, and terror. "XANA wasn't possessing anything. He wasn't trying to take anything over. He was dumping information into a living organism." He looked up at them. "Because it's not a spectre, and it's not a XANA robot, or anything else. It's a living, breathing monster that he's created. And because he was just dumping everything into it but not possessing it, the monster doesn't need XANA. It already has all the information it could ever need. It's its own living being, with motivations and thoughts pre-programmed into its very DNA."

Aelita's voice came from the computer, just as horrified. "You're saying…that XANA biologically engineered a life form…and turned it into a monster with it's own free will…"

"…and now it's been turned it loose on our world. Here in the factory."

A suddenly, enormous, loud roar exploded through hallways of the factory, echoing and making everyone jump.

Sissi's scream came from the Jeremie's phone; Odd was charging up the access ladder toward the upper factory before his girlfriend's words had even finished.

"HELP! It's after me!"

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The boiler door had been almost about to give. Without any other choice, Sissi had scrabbled for something on the floor and had found a hunk of pipe. She'd wheeled back and thrown the metal chunk at the beast, and it had hit home with a wet sick plop. The beast had roared and swung around, and those terrible amber eyes had spotted her. Without waiting, she'd taken off running, even as it's loudest roar yet seemed to shake the entire factory as the enormous creature launched into a lumbering running charge after her.

She swung around another corner, running for a staircase. She barely cleared the top when she heard a crash from below and risked a glance back; the thing had swung a thick arm down and crumpled the metal stairs like they were tin foil.

She took off running again; behind her came a thick wet thud; the monster had leapt from the lower floor to hers, roaring as it came after her again. The sound was terrible, like tigers and elephants and stags and people were being held underwater and screaming as they were drowned, and it echoed like the creature's throat was hanging in tattered strings, making the sound even worse.

Sissi came around another corner, kicking off from the wall for more speed; seconds later, she heard the beast slam into the wall where she'd just been with a sickening squish, before it bellowed angrily again and continued the chase. She spared a look at her map again, turning another corner and grabbing hold of a ladder, climbing it quickly; suddenly the creature was below her, sweeping a huge arm up. Something wet and disgustingly mushy grabbed at her foot; she kicked and her shoe popped off in the creature's grasp. It roared again in disappointment as she climbed quickly out of reach. She came up from the ladder and turned another corner, and suddenly she was back in the huge main room of the factory.

Odd was running toward her from the direction of the elevator, an open hatch behind him. At first he looked relieved to see her, but then his eyes went to terror. "SISSI, LOOK OUT!"

Sissi didn't even stop, ducking with her hands clasped over her head as she ran, feeling a strong gust rattle her as one of the creature's arms swung overhead, and wet moss drippings flecked the back of her neck; it had nearly caught up to her despite everything.

Odd ran past her, a long thick pipe in his hand; she heard the wet thud of it hitting the beast as it roared, its pursuit cut off. She waited until she was a few more yards away, before turning to look back.

It was her first good look at the monster, now that it was in the light. It towered at least eight feet tall. Its shape was humanoid, but only vaguely. It had two broad trunk-like legs ending in flat squished stumps, and two similar pillar-like arms; these ended in three fuzzy thick fingers each. The arms and legs were attached to a huge, hunchback-like body with broad shoulders and a hulking torso. The whole body was coated in thick moss, though long wet strands of it hung down from the torso. And in the center of the torso, a head jutted out; it was draped with long thick strands of moss and weeds, like a strange, wild old man with green baldness on top and overgrown soaked hair hanging down each side of the head, strands hanging down from the front of the face like a twisted wispy yet soaked beard. The amber eyes stared out from the face angrily, and when the creature roared, the strands in front of it's mouth parted, revealing an open black pit that stretched far wider than it should have.

The elevator came back up behind her, and as it opened, Ulrich and Jeremie and Aelita stepped out, all three doing a double take on seeing the monster.

Odd yelled from near the creature toward his friends. "Go back!" He swung the pipe at it again, but this time the beast grabbed it and lifted Odd off the ground by it, holding up to it's face and peering out at him. Odd paled, suddenly getting the feeling he saw recognition in the creature's eyes.

Then it roared and it's mouth opened disturbingly wide, and he realized he was about to be eaten alive.

"YOU PUT MY BOYFRIEND DOWN!" A stone brick suddenly slammed into the creature's head and it recoiled, roaring angrily and dropping Odd, who rolled away quickly. Sissi already had another brick in hand, leaning back and throwing it again; this one caught the creature right where its temple would be, and it recoiled again, tumbling backward roaring in pain and anger.

The others came up behind Sissi, Odd moving in front of her protectively. Ulrich stared at the beast, taking a combat stance, though the look on his face showed he clearly thought it wouldn't get him far. "Alright, so how do we stop this thing?"

Odd shuddered as the beast tried to right itself. "I don't know. But it knew me. It took a good long look at me, and it recognized me, right before he unhinged his jaw like the skeleton from Creepy Freaks and tried to chow down on me!"

"That's what XANA was doing then." Jeremie said, looking on like he still had trouble believing what he was seeing. "He probably marked us in its genetic makeup as either prey or predators, so it would specifically go after us."

"So how do we bring it down?" Sissi asked, her bravado starting to falter a bit as the creature got back to its stumps, shaking it's shaggy head.

"Brute force won't do it." Odd added. "It doesn't like getting hit with things, but I don't think we have anything big enough to actually do lasting damage."

Aelita frowned. "It's a plant right? Mostly?"

"Yeah, it's probably almost entirely moss." Jeremie replied. Then abruptly he looked at Aelita and both hit the conclusion, speaking at the same time.

"Does anyone have a lighter?"

Before anyone could respond, the beast charged again, and they all scattered. It rushed across the room with lumbering strides, slamming with both fists into the spot where they'd been standing. Jeremie and Aelita ran to one side, Ulrich another, as Odd yanked Sissi aside as well. They quickly had the beast surrounded, for all the good it did; it swung around, trying to pick a target, roaring angrily.

"Jeremie, none of us smoke! We're too young for that!" Odd called out. "We won't have a lighter!"

Aelita pulled Jeremie's head down as the creature swung overhead. "Then we'll need to start a fire some other way!" She yelled back. "We need to make sparks, and a torch!"

Ulrich ducked as the creature swung at him. "Odd, you and Sissi find something for a torch! We'll keep him distracted!"

Odd quickly pulled Sissi away from the circle as Jeremie and Aelita and Ulrich spread out around the beast, yelling at it at intervals, trying to keep it confused and unfocused.

Sissi quickly began to dig around in the materials around the sides of the factory room, trying to find anything to use. "It's all stone over here, no metal!"

"Here! I got a rod here!" Odd held it aloft, skinny but long and sturdy. "We need some cloth for it!"

Sissi began to dig again through the stuff, but the only cloth was pinned under huge boxes or stretched over them in huge sheets, far too big to use. "There's nothing good enough here!" She stopped, suddenly looking down and realizing how hard the floor felt; with the shoe she'd lost to the beast, her sock was exposed.

She bit her lip for a second; she really liked these pink socks. But the next minute, she'd yanked her other shoe off and started yanking at her socks.

Odd came up to her with the pole as she worked at getting them off. "What are you doing?"

"Getting cloth." She yanked the last long sock off, leaving herself barefoot, before grabbing the orphaned sneaker and starting to pull the laces out of it. A moment later, she grabbed the end of the pole and was wrapping the socks around it tightly, before entwining the shoelaces over it again and again to tie it on tightly. "Okay, now we need to light it on fire."

From over toward the fight, there came a loud yelping grunt; Jeremie had been a bit slow to duck, and the monster had walloped him over the head thickly, sending him crashing to the floor, unconscious. Aelita screamed Jeremie's name and tried to rush to him, but the beast swung at her and she had to jump back again, yelling to Jeremie again. Ulrich was trying to distract it, but it was moving toward the downed target, reaching out for him.

Suddenly there was a loud female yell from above, and Sissi looked up just in time to see Yumi's black-clad form swinging wildly on one of the chains. The creature looked up at the noise, just in time for Yumi to firmly and wetly plant both booted feet right into it's face with momentum, sending it reeling back away from Jeremie roaring in pain again. Aelita slipped under it's flailing arm as it went down and ran to her boyfriend, trying to pull him up off the ground to carry him away as Yumi landed and Ulrich moved to back her up.

"Come on!" Odd said, grabbing Sissi's attention back, and she tore her eyes from the fight, looking around.

Finally she pointed at a bent metal rod. "Grab that!"

Odd grabbed the rod. "Okay, now what!"

Sissi laid the base torch on the ground, drawing an imaginary line with her foot and motioning to Odd. "It's like science class with Ms. Hertz! Remember when she took the flint and struck it along brick?"

"Yeah, but this thing isn't flint!"

"Doesn't matter, if you swing and scratch it against the concrete enough, it should hopefully make sparks!" She pointed at the line she'd 'drawn'. "Swing the pole along that so you're aiming at the torch, so the sparks shoot that way!"

Odd looked doubtful, but he nodded. "Alright, stand back!" Sissi quickly pulled back, as Odd swung the rod back over his shoulder, then swung it down. It scraped along the concrete, but nothing happened.

"Keep trying!" Sissi urged, looking back at the fight. Aelita had gotten Jeremie's unconscious form away from the fight, and now she was running back toward it, grabbing up a cinderblock as she went.

Odd swung the rod back and brought it down again. This time it left a small scratched streak on the concrete. "Dammit!"

"Again!"

Odd swung it down again. A single spark shot out where the rod scraped the pavement, but it overshot the torch. He didn't wait for Sissi's prompting, swinging again, and again, and again. Each time there was a little fleck of light, a little more sparking. One spark hit the torch and fizzled out suddenly.

Odd didn't let up, swinging again and again, until he was clearly beginning to tire. Finally, he yelled loudly and struck once more; this time, a shower of small sparks shot out, half a dozen landing on the sock and glowing. Sissi quickly got down and steadied herself, blowing gently on the embers, and they began to catch. Another breath, and they suddenly grasped the cloth and the torch took light, the flames quickly spreading around the socks into a good flickering burn.

Sissi picked it up, careful to keep the flames away from herself, holding it out as she yelled. "Ulrich! Yumi! Aelita! We've got it lit!"

The three turned back to look at her; as they did, so too did the beast. It's roaring ceased as it's eyes looked at the flickering flame, and Sissi felt the sudden notion that it's monstrous rampage had crashed into a solid wall of primal instinctual fear. A second later, the beast let out a strange strangled bellow and charged, crashing past the others and bodily knocking Yumi aside as it went, charging away as she hit the floor hard. Ulrich yelled to Yumi and ran to her, as the beast suddenly made an almost impossible leap, bounding from the floor up toward the ledge at the entrance to the factory.

"It's trying to escape!" Aelita yelled. "Don't let it get out! If it gets into the city, we'll never be able to stop it!"

Sissi turned on her heel, rushing past Odd as he called out to her. She charged up the stairs and up to the landing, the long torch flaming in her hands. The monster had hammered through the factory doors above, and she charged out after it into the bright sunlight.

It was only a few yards ahead, lumbering wildly across the bridge. Sissi couldn't take the time to think, blood pounding in her ears and adrenaline taking hold. Without any other choice, she rushed forward, pulled her arm back, and threw the long pole of the torch like a javelin.

The creature had made it halfway to freedom before the fire-wrapped projectile speared its back and turned it into a flailing inferno. It screamed and roared and whined, and Sissi suddenly felt herself being torn back to realization, watching as the creature tried to slap at the spreading flames, only spreading them further, it's terrible roars becoming pained, terrified shrieks and whimpers as the fire consumed it. It collapsed to the pavement, rolling and writhing, and she suddenly had to look away, falling to her knees and clamping her hands over her ears, trying to block out the sounds of the creature dying. She squeezed her eyes closed and just held her ears tight, muting the world around her, trying not to think about what she'd just done.

After what felt like forever, she felt a hand on her shoulder, and another gently moving her left hand away from her ear. She tensed, but opened an eye and glanced, seeing that it was Odd. She slowly pulled her other hand away from her ear; she only heard silence now. No birds, no cars, just a small breeze. Odd was kneeling next to her. He looked past her across the bridge, and winced.

Sissi began to turn her head toward the creature's remains.

Odd spoke up quickly. "Don't look."

Sissi hesitated, but couldn't help it, and she looked.

Then she ran to the side of the bridge, and emptied her lunch and breakfast over the side.

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