*** Needless to say, this was meant to be up forever and a decade ago. A lot's been happening lately guys, I'm really sorry, but I assure you, I am going to finish this story. That being said, I have to say "Thank You" again to Jam-Man265. You rock. ;) Anyways, here's chapter 3. Enjoy~***

Chapter 3

A long while later, Marco forced an exhale as if to push the weight that had settled into his chest out of his body, then clapped his hand endearingly onto Fio's small shoulder. Shaken out of her daze by his touch, she blinked and shook her head, then lowered her gaze in a small nod and turned away from the cadaver in the dirt. As he watched her small gesture, a touch of sadness slipped into his thoughts and he frowned. She had always been too gentle for this kind of job – at least in his opinion. However, rather than allow himself to go down that path, he hardened his expression and smiled faintly at his subordinate, giving her shoulder a brief, reassuring squeeze before they turned to walk away. After a few guided steps, Marco let his hand fall from her shoulder and began running his hands over the multitude of pockets that covered his uniform in search for his communicator. It was time to radio in the news that Morden was finished. He patted himself down, noting somewhere in the back of his mind just how much dirt had accumulated on his uniform as clouds of the stuff puffed noticeably off his combat vest. He couldn't help but chuckle – he could really use a bath.

While he searched, Fio shuffled quietly at his side, her frame swaying slightly as her thoughts gradually drifted back to the incidents that were now little more than a dark splotch in her memories. For a moment, she let her mind wander through the hazy mess before reaching up and roughly clapping her hands on her cheeks, yanking her attention back to the present. Now was not the time to be letting her past consume her – Morden may be dead, but the work of S.P.A.R.R.O.W.S and the resistance was far from over, and she'd be damned if she let old memories ruin her focus. Scolding herself briefly in her head, she forced her darker thoughts back into their hiding places and reminded herself that not everything was bad. She had, after all, met her current teammates because of this war, and she wouldn't give that up for the world.

After bringing her mind back into the present and refocusing herself, she lifted her head and casually surveyed her surroundings again. The battle was long over, and she already knew that the risk of danger was minimal, but training dictated that she scan her environment anyways, just in case. She ran her eyes over the tree line in front of her, focusing on the shadowed gaps between the trunks and branches in search of anything abnormal when her eyes passed over the Commander. He walked a couple paces ahead of her, fumbling about with his bulky military radio, which he had successfully located in a worn down pouch at his hip. She grinned and tilted her head to the side in amusement as she watched Marco thump the radio against the palm of his hand in frustration. It had probably been damaged sometime during the previous battle, after one of the countless times an explosive attack had landed him face first in the dirt. He muttered something ridiculously obscene under his breath and smacked it again with more force, then grinned widely with satisfaction as the black box finally hissed to life. As Fio watched from her spot behind him, he quickly raised the dusty device to his mouth and identified himself to HQ, then began forwarding their mission details to the operator on the other end, relaying the events that had just taken place and explaining with obvious exhaustion and subtle pride that the war criminal Morden was indeed dead. She let loose a small, content sigh and broke into a jog to close the gap between herself and the Commander.

After a few minutes of talking back and forth, Marco quickly wrapped up his direct and concise talk with HQ and was in the middle of slipping his radio back into the well-worn pouch at his hip when all of a sudden, it dawned on him. It was finally over. He paused mid-action and stared off into space for a second, an indescribable feeling of relief washing over his tired frame like a bucket of cool water. Field protocol aside, he would have leapt and shouted with victory if he hadn't been so close to collapsing right then and there. So instead, he settled with a warm, internal smile and a mental note to crash in his quarters as soon as his boots hit the ground back at base. He sighed and felt his muscles loosen almost instantly at the thought of a solid night's sleep without the weight of the world resting on what felt like only his shoulders. Granted, he knew that was far from the case, but somewhere in the back of his mind he couldn't help but feel personally responsible for everything that had happened in the past. He'd followed and sometimes led friends and comrades into battles, and not all of them had ended in victory. Some had been easy, others were suicide missions. And while he wasn't always the only officer present or even the one leading the operation, he always found himself burdened by the guilt of survival once the dust had finally settled. Those who had fallen had been allies, partners, brothers, sisters – friends. The corner of his eye twitched as he thought of this while he walked, brow slightly furrowed as he eyed the tree line ahead of him.

As he walked, he noticed Fio shuffling wordlessly beside him out of the corner of his eye, and a tiny huff of relief escaped his lips. While it was true that she looked just about as worn down as he was, he couldn't help but appreciate the simple fact that she was there, walking alongside him after a job well done. After having lost more people than he cared to think about, his heart felt at ease knowing she was alive and going to be just fine. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he stopped to consider this oddly ironic thought. Fio, the small girl who dreamt of peace and baked beautifully decorated cakes in her spare time, was the one standing by his side right now. She had survived it all – the first deployment, her first encounter with Morden, their trips though booby-trapped catacombs and confrontations with unimaginably massive monsters, both biological and artificial. She had done it. She'd survived.

Upon this realization, Marco felt a wide smile spread across his face. While he had to admit that he'd thought her assignment to be…questionable…at first, the girl had more than proven herself in the line of fire. Eri had also been a mild concern back then too, but she had quickly proven that she was not to be underestimated. She and Tarma were truly two of a kind – it was like they thrived on the front lines. Fio, however, had not left such a strong impression, and the fact that she was there walking beside him as they left Morden's corpse rotting in the dirt filled him with an immense sense of pride. With that feeling on his mind, he turned to express this pride and gratitude for her aid when suddenly an unnatural movement caught his attention out of the corner of his eye.

His reaction was instantaneous. The smile vanished in a heartbeat and he immediately stopped and stared, muscles tense in alarm as his eyes flicked rapidly across the open field. A split second later, when his eyes had instinctively tracked the movement and focused on the only peculiar, moving thing in the area, Marco felt his breathing hitch. He blinked, squinted, even stared harder in an attempt to disprove what he was seeing, but when all attempts failed, he felt an icy chill shoot from the nape of his neck to the base of his spine.

It was Morden.

Morden's body was…moving. Not in the normal way a human body should be expected to move though…no, Morden's should-be corpse was writhing in the dirt, bending in ways that should have been either agonizing or physically impossible. Marco felt his blood run cold. What's going on here? What was that? Morden was dead, this wasn't-couldn't be- happening. His glanced briefly at Fio to his left and found her to be suspended in an equally confused state of shock, fear creeping onto her face as she watched the unnatural convulsions continue. She trembled, her eyes fastened on the writhing corpse on the ground. They both visibly flinched when a sickening crack came from the body as one of its arms was wrenched from its socket and took a few unsteady steps back. Had they not been so disturbed by the physical distortions and paid closer attention, they might have noticed the more alarming abnormalities in Morden's appearance – areas of flesh that were bulging out in odd places and shifting underneath the dead man's skin, giving the semblance of a creature struggling inside a sack.

Without warning, Morden's body suddenly thrashed backwards causing the corpse's upper half to be thrown violently as if someone had seized Morden's hair and wrenched his head back towards the base of his spine. Marco and Fio leapt back instinctively as another nauseating crunch came from the cadaver, its muscles and bones straining against their natural limitations as the body continued to flex and bend backwards over itself. Then, abruptly, the corpse thrashed again and mercilessly threw Morden face-first into the dirt. The duo, still paralyzed by utter confusion, could do nothing but watch silently as the body shuddered and eerily rose up halfway, causing Morden's head to loll back over his obviously snapped neck before whipping forward. His dead mouth fell open and a slick, grey mass appeared, oozing up from his throat and pressing against his yellowed teeth before slowly sliding out of his mouth, giving the dead man the image of an extremely sickly person quite literally puking his guts out. Fio felt bile rise from her stomach and fought the urge to vomit. The body in front of her shivered and regurgitated more of the grey mass, and after several nauseatingly unnatural heaves, the blob of flesh had been almost completely evacuated. Then, with only a small portion of the mass oozing from its mouth, Morden's body collapsed in the dirt and lay still as if nothing had happened.

It took several moments of breathless silence, but Marco was finally able to recover. Moving slowly and with extreme caution, he slid one boot forward and inched closer to the grey mass that had been expelled from Morden's corpse. In the moment, it felt as if time itself had slowed to a crawl, and as he slowly shifted closer, he noticed that he had already pulled his handgun from its holster and was gripping the weapon with such force that his hand was throbbing in pain. He swallowed hard and shot Fio a glance. She stood behind him, still stunned with a look of alarm and borderline sickness etched onto her face. Grinding his teeth in tense frustration, he silently turned and forced his body to move again, shifting closer to her and positioning himself between his subordinate and the unknown grey lump. It was clear that neither of them knew what was going on, but that sure as hell didn't mean he'd let his guard down. She was his responsibility, and in that stunned condition, she was more vulnerable than a target down range. So, he took a deep breath, steeled his nerves, and forced his attention back to the thing lying on the ground. Whatever it was, he didn't like it, but rules dictated he had to be thorough – make sure it wasn't a threat before they could do anything else. Otherwise, the consequences could be dire.

He took another small step forward and aimed his handgun at the blob, sliding his finger over the trigger-he'd be taking no chances. Once he figured he was close enough, he stopped and began to observe the thing from where he was. It was then that he noticed several things about the grey mass. It wasn't just a blob of something that looked like jelly. No, this thing looked more like a creature. He cautiously leaned forward for a closer look. Its grey color had hidden the details of its appearance from a distance, but up close Marco could make out what looked like hardened ridges along the curves of what he guessed was the creature's head. Eye sockets? He tilted his head a bit and looked lower. The grey blob wasn't just a solid mass. It actually separated into a tangled mess of rounded appendages that resembled tentacles, which seemed to be coated in a clear fluid. Some of the tentacles were still lying inside Morden's open mouth. Marco resisted the urge to gag. This pale monstrosity had emerged from inside Morden somehow. Could it have been a parasite? Had Morden been sick? Regardless, this creature that looked similar to a squid-jellyfish fusion didn't appear threatening at all…it wasn't moving. But it was too large to be anything he could ignore, and it didn't look like anything he'd ever seen before. He slid another foot closer until he was close enough to the entity to notice another set of new features. Bending down on one knee, he noted that while the skin had appeared smooth from a distance, the entire creature was covered in some kind of clear ooze, perhaps a bodily excretion of some sort. The "true" skin underneath the slime was wrinkled and resembled worn down leather, except far less attractive. More like a moldy raisin than something you'd want to buy from a furniture store.

Whatever it was, he had most definitely never seen anything like it, and the fact that it had just been puked out of Morden's corpse made it all the more disturbing. Marco frowned. He'd have to radio this in. Any new developments like this meant the rebellion had missed something, and that almost always meant trouble. He lowered his weapon and stood back up, making the final judgment that the thing posed no immediate threat. Turning around to face Fio, he found her still stuck in a state of shock. He sighed, walked over, and gently touched her shoulder.

"Hey," he said quietly, "you alright?"

Fio's eyes, still a little wide with traces of panic, met Marco's, and she nodded slowly.

"I-I don't….what just happened..?" Fio murmured, the strain to calm herself pushing through her words, "Marco, what is that..?"

Marco shook his head and slid his hand off her shoulder. "I don't know, but I don't like it. I need to radio this in, so keep an eye out," he said firmly as he reached again for his radio.

They had been so close – so close to the end. Why the sudden bullshit now? Marco furrowed his brow and began trying to reach HQ, unenthusiastically reminding himself that it really didn't matter. He had a job to do, regardless of how tired or fed up he was, and right now was not the time to be griping about it. He sighed heavily, regaining his internal composure, and turned to look back at Fio, who was watching him carefully, waiting for the rest of her orders. He paused and skimmed over the entire area with his eyes, indicating that he wanted her to recheck their surroundings and confirm that the area was secure. Understanding his gesture, she nodded stiffly and started towards the outer perimeter of the woods lining the battlefield. It would take a while since the area was large, but she'd be sure to cover as much ground as possible. The fact that their Intel had overlooked – or rather missed – something so significant was not an error to take lightly. Besides, a simple task such as this would prove to be helpful to her. She had lost her composure a little too easily, and freezing up in a situation like that was the last thing that needed to happen. She frowned to herself in heavy disappointment and moved a little faster towards the tree line, now determined to make up for lost professionalism by following her orders to a tee. Meanwhile, behind her, Marco's worn down radio finally hissed to life in his hand and he raised it to his mouth, preparing to transmit the new information back to the base.

That was when it happened.

It struck so quickly that Marco had no time to react, and by the time his startled yell had reached Fio's ears, it was far too late.

While the Commander and his subordinate had been focused on other things, they had not been paying attention to the mass of discolored flesh on the ground. In their distraction, they failed to notice the creature shift again, then steadily rise from its spot next to the fake Morden's body and stand itself upright on the now writhing mess of tentacles. The creature, resembling some odd kind of "land jellyfish", was much faster than its appearance would have suggested, and once on its feet, it quickly yanked a strange weapon from inside the forest of wriggling tentacles beneath it, took aim at the Commander, and fired.

The weapon in the creature's hand looked like nothing short of a handgun with a futuristic twist, except it didn't fire bullets or any form of physical projectile. Instead, three luminous rings, green in color and held in shape by some unknown force, were discharged from the muzzle and shot directly towards the Commander's feet, where a small section of each ring opened for a brief instant to slip around the unsuspecting man's ankles. In the blink of an eye, they shot up the length of his body and came to a stop around his chest, where they promptly tightened and bound the man where he stood.

Marco didn't even have time to reach for a weapon. By the time he had even realized what was going on, the rings were already in place, steadily squeezing the life out of him. Suddenly unable to move and rushed by an unforeseen wave of panic, he tensed and instinctively fought against the foreign restraints, which stubbornly – and predictably – refused to yield. He twisted and thrashed, gasping curse words and dropping the hissing radio in the process, which fell and hit the ground with an audible crack, where it instantly fell silent. His heart thundered in his chest as an inner rush of chaos punched through his already scattering thoughts – What in the hell was going on, where did these rings come from?! Gritting his teeth, he bent and wrenched wildly to his left, forehead scrunched in desperate concentration until he stumbled backwards a few steps, struggling miserably to keep his balance. It was only when he jerked sideways in a horrible attempt to keep from collapsing that he finally noticed the creature standing on its feet beside Morden's shriveling corpse, and his eyes widened in fear.

It only took a second – one single, breathless moment when he stopped fighting the cinch of the rings, for the situation to grow exponentially worse. The rings, as if sensing a weakened resistance, immediately constricted around his chest and crushed his lungs, digging painfully into his skin. Marco's eyes widened even further and he coughed and gasped for air, falling roughly to his knees. Whatever the rings were made of was beginning to burn his flesh, and the sustained pain was making his struggle all the more difficult. But being the seasoned man of war that he was, however, he bit down on his tongue and clamped his eyes shut, fighting against the rising pain and the increasing urge to cry out in agony.

At the same time as his losing battle, somewhere in the back of his mind he recognized the sound of rapid footfalls approaching from his right and cracked open a strained eye to see Fio racing back towards him, a look of horror washed over her face. The green rings around his chest, sensing yet another brief pause in movement, suddenly squeezed a little tighter and forced even more air from his lungs. Marco doubled over in the dirt, mouth falling open in a breathless gasp of shock as he felt one of his ribs give way to the strain with a sickening crack. Even from a distance, Fio could see his pain, and she broke into a reckless sprint towards him as he lay coiled up on the ground. As she got closer, he continued to twist and fight as much as his rapidly fading strength would allow until finally, the grim futility of his resistance finally settled in, and he slowly went still. The rings responded in no time and tightened until they could no longer move without the danger of crushing their victim, and Marco was forced to awkwardly straighten his upper half in the dirt for fear of breaking a few ribs if he did not accommodate their clutch. His breathing now shallow and obviously strained, he somehow managed to roll onto his side to face Fio and give her a look that made her stomach lurch as she skidded to a halt a small distance away. She could see it in his eyes, the message was clear as day – he was giving her the order to stand down.

His eyes rolled back in his head a little and he turned to look away, the slight oxygen deprivation combined with his burnt out strength making the world swim unsteadily around him. It was clear now, albeit too late for his realization to do him any good. He had misjudged the situation. The creature had been a threat the moment it had revealed itself, and because of his poor decisions and oversight, he was now at the mercy of the enemy. He swallowed thickly and closed his eyes, accepting his own defeat with as much dignity as he could muster. He didn't want Fio to suffer whatever fate this thing had in store for him, so he issued the only order that he thought could save her. It was too late for him now, and as he heard her come to a sliding halt about fifteen yards away, he couldn't help but feel grateful for the fact that she was never one to disobey orders. He had seen far too many soldiers charge into certain death in some poor attempt to save a brother in arms and the last thing he wanted was for her to up the tally by one.

It wasn't until after a brief moment of deafening silence that his thoughts were suddenly interrupted and he felt an odd tug on his waist. At first he didn't bother to move, figuring it would be wise to just lie still, but then the tug happened again, stronger this time, and he noticed that he was slowly beginning to slide across the dirt against his back. The rings were dragging him backwards towards the creature. Marco's eyes flashed open as he realized this, and he couldn't help but physically tense in weary resistance as he was yanked into an upright sitting position and pulled across the dusty earth towards his captor's feet.

It was a pointless struggle, he already knew that, and yet somehow, some irrational part of him still wanted to put up a fight, to resist. Fundamental survival, he thought in the back of his mind. Pointless now. Marco could do nothing but helplessly wait for whatever came next as the green rings tugged him closer to the hideous grey being. It had been standing there, silently watching him struggle for his freedom the entire time, no doubt having already been certain of its successful capture the moment its rings had first ascended around the Commander's body. The rush of adrenaline the man had been riding was completely drained, and a deep feeling of hopelessness was slowly creeping its way into in his chest the closer he got to the creature's slimy tentacles. Then, as his body began to close the last bit of distance between the creature and himself, he looked up at the sky as if to search for some last vestige of hope or peace. Instead, what he saw almost stopped his breathing completely.

Something massive was descending towards them from directly above their heads. It was unlike anything he'd ever seen. As it grew closer, a ring of rotating lights closer to the ship's bottom came into view, and a small, rounded hatch on the belly of the craft slid open, leaking a shaft of eerie green light onto the ground just behind the creature. Marco's mind went blank. This was all too strange, first a hostile grey blob and now this? The ship he was seeing didn't even look normal – it was rounded and perfectly smooth. Egg-shaped, almost. And no military vessel he had ever seen had moved like that. Unless…. In the back of his mind, he subconsciously began making connections, and just as he slid to a stop at the creature's feet, it dawned on him. The ship floating just above their heads…it looked almost like a…a…it couldn't be. But before he could even gather his scrambling thoughts, however, he heard a loud shout coming from the air space just above and tilted his head back a little further, peering up into the clouds as the ship continued to descend. First a bare leg appeared, kicking wildly against the ship's metallic hull. Then another leg, a torso – all bare, with the exception of a pair of striped underpants, then finally, a face. Marco felt his shallow breathing hitch.

Morden. It was Morden – the real Morden – strapped, no chained to the side of the aircraft, screaming his head off and fighting wildly against his own restraints. Marco felt his blood run cold as yet another disturbing piece of the puzzle fell into place, and as the green light from above slowly crept forward across his hunched shoulders, he shot a glance over to Fio, who was now staring dumbfounded at the war criminal hood ornament that cried terrified from his position above.

Fio couldn't believe her eyes. While she had readied herself some time ago to foolishly bum rush the creature (against her orders), the sudden look of elevated shock on Marco's face had caused her to temporarily lose focus and cast her eyes skyward. What she saw there blew away any thoughts she had about making a last-ditch move to save the Commander, and as the disturbingly alien ship slowly descended from the sky, she found herself squeezing the grip of her revolver, her trembling fingers easily expressing the shell-shocked anxiety that her brain simply could not. The ship…not only was it quite clearly unidentifiable, it was also sporting the worst possible "decoration" that she could think of. As the man she had been sent to capture kicked and screamed incoherently from the alien craft's side, her racing thoughts went steadily blank and her grip on her handgun weakened.

She could do nothing but watch. The ship's bottom moved over the Commander and his captor, and the grey creature slithered backwards into the hazy light and slowly began to rise, its tentacles lifting silently off the dusty ground as it ascended into the craft's belly. Fio felt her jaw slacken and fall open a bit as the creature disappeared into the ship, then suddenly shot a look of realization and panic towards Marco, who had already lowered his gaze to level with hers before the ship above slide forward a bit and the green light washed over his battered frame. A moment of tense silence passed between the two of them, and then the dreadfully predictable happened – Marco also began to rise, the heels of his combat boots dragging backwards across the dirt as his torso was lifted from the ground and he was pulled upwards towards the waiting craft's open hatch. It all happened too fast, there were too many strange things going on for either of them to form a solid thought, and as the top of his head began to disappear into the belly of the ship, Marco suddenly opened his mouth as if to shout something, but the rest of him quickly vanished into the craft and the hatch slammed closed, sealing him in before the ship ascended back into the sky and shot away.

And just like that, she was alone now. The field fell silent, and inside her own head, she screamed at herself to move, give chase, do something…but the better part of her already knew better. She was grounded, and the Commander was gone, captured by an unknown enemy. Her knees almost started to wobble – an old signature mark of her own growing anxiety. She bit her lip, tried to move again, but the tension in her chest was growing stronger, and all she wanted to do was scream. Run after the ship, call in air support, shoot the damn spaceship down, but it would all be for naught. She had no idea what she was up against. Nobody did. Her left leg began to give, and she slid a foot forward to stabilize herself. One second of mental silence passed, then a second, and a third. It felt like watching the second hand on a clock tick by, counting the seconds before her inner panic made her snap. Just before the full rush of unprecedented hysteria could set in, however, she was suddenly interrupted when a soldier clad in Rebel Army fatigues rushed past her and screamed something desperate up at the sky, waving his arm and jabbing the muzzle of his rifle up towards the clouds. She blinked slowly and stared with a blank expression, still frozen in place as another soldier bolted past her, then another, and another. They all stood, quite clearly not caring about her presence as they pointed up at the sky and yelled, looking out in the direction that the alien craft had vanished in. Were they looking for the ship…?

Suddenly, one of them turned around and looked straight at her. He paused for a moment, locking eyes with her hesitantly before rushing over, weapon slung around his back in an unspoken ceasefire, and grabbing hold of her upper arm, giving her a forceful shake.

"Hey! HEY!"

She blinked, then finally snapped out of her blank-faced stupor and stared back at him, awareness now vaguely present in her eyes.

"Wha..What…?"

The man's grip tightened and he squared his jaw, his heavy brow now furrowed in marked intent and…resolve?

"Come, we don't have much time. We're going after them."

Before she could even open her mouth to ask any questions, he turned and rushed past her, abruptly leading her away from the open field where his fellow Rebels stood and back towards the metal platform where she and Marco had shot down the false Morden's helicopter. She stumbled along behind him, his wide strides setting her pace off just a bit as he rounded the first metal column and practically dragged her towards a larger cluster of platforms, all surrounding-

"Rockets…?!" Fio exclaimed, her eyes now scanning over the towering pieces of machinery that were quickly firing up, one after another.

The soldier didn't bother to respond, only tugged her over to the nearest platform where another Rebel soldier stood waiting, waving his arm widely in a gesture to quickly get a move on. No questions being asked and no explanations being given, Fio found herself being shoved unceremoniously towards the first launching platform then rushed up a flight of makeshift steel stairs, the soldier at the top yelling something about a common enemy down at her as she ran instinctively towards the open door on the rocket's side. Her confusion must've been showing on her face as plain as day, but with each passing second of logical consideration she found herself beginning to care less and less – for now, it seemed, there really was a common enemy. These men wanted their (corrupted) leader back, and she wanted her Commander, plain and simple. Side differences and immediate rationale aside, she wouldn't get another chance like this. These men were already prepared for a launch into space, meaning that they knew something that she probably did not, and just before she stepped into the waiting rocket, she saw hundreds of other men, other Rebel soldiers piling into the rockets adjacent to her own. Past differences aside, this operation was a common cause now, and she knew what she had to do.