Chapter 41
Disagreement
The Underground Bunker
Half an hour before Alex and Cynthia made it to the main hangar
Silence fills the command room on BF7 as the lieutenant colonel stands at the end of the long table situated at the center of the room. Meanwhile the captains and majors are situated around the table on either side of it.
Eventually, the lieutenant colonel says, "It's clear that we won't be able to take the soldiers who don't have symbionts with us..."
"Right," Major Vaugns mutters, "that'd just be driving lambs to the slaughter."
All of the officers in the room nod their heads in agreement.
"Then it's decided." The lieutenant colonel says while crossing his arms. "I will bring all of the symbiont hosts except for Captain Harker up to fight the monsters in the hangar. If I had to try estimating their strength, then I'd put them both somewhere between a Tier 3 and a Tier 4 symbiont host. Hopefully by now they'll have weakened each other, but even if they haven't, then we will still have to deal with things as they come."
While the others are muttering their agreements to the man's words, the lieutenant colonel can't help but think, 'It's unfortunate that this base doesn't have a Tier 4 symbiont host. Otherwise this wouldn't be an issue.'
After the officers fall silent again, Artorius nods his head and looks around the gathered captains, only to pause as he realizes that there are two less than there should be.
"Where are Captains Jackson and Isabella Fell?" he asks, his eyes narrowing slightly in the process. The other captains and the majors all look around in confusion before Captain Andrew immediately frowns and mutters, "Oh no..."
The lieutenant colonel hears and turns to him to ask, "What's wrong, Captain Andrew?"
Captain Andrew salutes the man and says, "This is just speculation and what I've observed, but Captains Jackson Fell and Isabella Fell were both constantly sending suspicious glances towards Second Lieutenant North. And from what I've heard, they've been rather open about their distaste for your decision to let him go free."
This statement has some of the other captains muttering about the captain attempting to frame the other captains, meanwhile other captains begin muttering their own agreements with Andrew's statement.
The lieutenant colonel slaps a hand on the table, breaking off a part of it in the process as he states, "Silence," immediately getting the captains to shut up. Following that, he turns to look at Captain Summers and says, "Go find the captains and their men," before looking at the majors and asking, "Do you two know anything about this?" as she rushes out of the room.
Major Vaugns glances at Major Carter before looking at the lieutenant colonel again and saying, "I did in fact see Captains Isabella and Jackson sending suspicious glances towards the second lieutenant." The other major then steps forward and says, "I didn't see any of that, but I have heard that the captains openly despised your acceptance of him."
The captains who had accused Captain Andrew of slander frown slightly at that, but this time most of them aren't frowning at Captain Andrew, but instead the two missing captains. But a couple of the captains in particular do continue to glare at Captain Andrew, showcasing their own stance on Alex's acceptance.
"If that's the case..." the lieutenant colonel mutters, only to turn his head to the door when it bursts open and Captain Summers reenters the room while declaring, "Some of the lower ranking officers saw Captains Jackson and Isabella, along with their squads all leaving BF7, going up the stairs with their gear equipped!"
"Fuck!" Captain Andrew swears while slamming his own hand on the table and breaking it just like the lieutenant colonel did, and the majority of the other captains share his sentiment, along with both of the majors. Meanwhile the lieutenant colonel can be seen glaring across the room and out the open door at the stairwell.
Captain Andrew suddenly rushes out of the room before anyone can stop him and heads towards the stairs.
"Captain Andr-" Major Carter begins to shout, only to cut off as the lieutenant colonel raises his hand to stop him.
"Let him go," he says with a scowl on his face. "In fact, Captain Summers, you go with him. The rest of us will deal with the monsters upstairs."
This decision surprises the soldiers, but they all salute after just a couple of seconds before Captain Summers rushes off after Captain Andrew.
Alexander North
Cynthia and I continue running through the hall until we make it to the large doors to the hangar, which are located near the regular doors. But before we even get close to the regular doors, I call out, "Stop!"
She stops right away and turns to look at me to find me staring at the door, where I find over a dozen heat signatures on the other side.
"There are over a dozen creatures with heat signatures on the other side of the door," I tell her in a whisper. "And they're all human shaped and sized, so they're not the large frozen ones."
Before Cynthia can say anything, we both hear shouting from the other side of the door, followed by the sounds of fighting.
The two of us share a glance before rushing over to the regular door, only to stop right outside of it as we hear a man – whose voice I recognize – shout, "Stop this bullshit and get back to the others already!"
"Captain Andrew...?" I mutter in confusion, my hand pausing next to the doorknob. I glance at Cynthia to find her looking surprised.
What's he doing here? And who is he fighting?
Deciding not to waste any time in case he's in danger, I open the door to reveal the vast hangar with four people fighting in the center, along with over a dozen other people standing on the sides to watch. But the four people at the center don't seem to be going all out despite their fight.
"Those are the two that were sending me dirty looks before," I whisper to Cynthia while pointing at the two as we step into the room with none of the soldiers inside noticing us yet.
She immediately begins to glare at the two I pointed out.
"You know you're gonna be court marshalled for your actions, right?" the captain I recognize as captain Summers shouts right as she clashes blades with one of the two enemy captains. But the captain just glares at her
and says, "I find it unlikely that I'd be court marshaled for killing a monster."
"Second Lieutenant Alexander North is not a monster, and the higher ups in the military have already confirmed this," Captain Andrews shouts at him while trying to push the other enemy captain's blade back with his own. "So you will be punished. Even merely for what you've already done, without even finding him yet!"
Looks like they are trying to go after me after all.
Chapter 42
Conflict
Alexander North
"Are they stupid?" Cynthia mutters without taking her scowling gaze away from the opposing captains, catching the attention of all four captains in the process.
The four jump back, separating from each other as they and the opposing captains' squads focus on us. Neither of the opposing captains look happy at what Cynthia had just said. And since her crest is too damaged to see, they can't tell who she is to know that it would be a terrible idea to attack her.
But before they ask who she is, they all seem to notice me, and they're immediately distracted.
"Terminal," I mutter as quietly as I can so that they can't hear me, "record the following events through my eyes and ears."
A confirmation notice flashes across my eyes before the two captains both raise their blades in my direction before immediately rushing towards me, only for one of them – the woman – to be blocked by Captain Andrew who was watching them the moment he saw me and Cynthia enter the hangar. But the other one flies straight past, towards me.
I raise my own sword to block her, letting our blades clash in midair with a loud noise of metal on metal that seems to shock both the captain and all of his soldiers.
"You monster!" he shouts, the visor on his helmet going up to reveal his glaring face. "You and your kind are a threat to humanity as a whole, and I will not tolerate having a thing like you in the military!"
I can't help but raise an eyebrow at that as I state rather plainly, "So if I'm hearing you correctly, you decided that your decision is more important than the Triad's decision and your commanding officer's decision?"
The man's face tenses up, but I suddenly hear Andrew's tense voice from his place where he's still fighting the other captain, "And you also
decided to abandon the ones you were supposed to protect, abandon your orders, and bring your squads with you to directly oppose those decisions?"
Just as expected, the idiot doesn't back down and instead just grits his teeth and says, "The higher ups will understand."
"I honestly can't tell if you just have a grudge against Alex and are taking advantage of this to attack him, or if you really are an idiot," Cynthia mutters from the side while drawing her sword and stepping closer to me and the man, only for several of the two captains' squad members to begin rushing over here to block her.
"Shut up, you bitch!" the man finally explodes, putting even more strength into his sword arm and beginning to push me back a little. "I will not sit here and-" I cut him off by suddenly letting go of my sword and backing away, making him lose his balance and begin to fall forward with his excessive use of strength, sending my blade clattering to the ground in the process. While he's falling, I sidestep out of the way and send my foot straight into the side of the man's kneecap.
"Damnit!" he shouts as he falls to the ground. But as the trained soldier that he is, he doesn't stay there long and immediately makes it back to his feet, albeit with a limp.
Yeah, looks like I was right. It's a lot harder to fight a symbiont host than one of those frozen ones. Even the stronger frozen ones. But if the symbiont host is distracted by his own anger... then that makes things simpler.
I draw out both of my knives with a forwards grip before brandishing them in front of me and shouting at Cynthia, "Let me deal with the imbecile. You deal with anyone who tries to interrupt."
Although that was also for whoever that other captain is. But whether she listens to me or not is another thing entirely, considering that she outranks me.
The captain in front of me whose name I still don't know seals up the visor on his helmet again – likely due to it being too cold to have it open – before rushing over to me with his sword still in hand, leaving my own to lie on the ground beneath his feet. And this time, I redirect his sword with one of my knives, only for him to let go of the sword with one of his hands and reach out to grab my other knife hand with his own.
I grimace as he yanks on my knife hand, pulling me off balance and allowing his sword to strike me on my waist as I end up missing the sword
with my free knife hand. But since he was only using one hand, the blade doesn't manage to pierce my armor and just leaves me with some bruising that I sense healing up right away.
"Keep underestimating me and you'll-" he begins, but I suddenly pull my head back and ram it into his own, sending him sprawling onto the ground and cutting his words off. I then raise my head, the wound on my forehead from ramming it into his own healing in an instant. And after a brief second, I move forward with my knives before slamming them both downwards into his hands, impaling them both to the ground as he lets out a shout of pain.
I stomp on his stomach now that he's immobilized before looking up around us to see that everyone had stopped fighting to stare at us at some point.
Guess they weren't expecting me to win.
My balance suddenly wobbles as the man lets out a shout and literally drags his hands through the knives, cutting straight through them in the process. He then raises both bleeding hands up to grab me and slam me into the ground to his side before then grabbing my own knives and stabbing them into my arms.
"Shit," I curse, but the man's hands begin to freeze over as my own blood covers them through the holes in his glove, making him scream loudly while backing off of me. I yank the knives out of my arms, letting the wounds heal as I toss one of the knives straight at his throat, ending his life.
Only for me to feel something hit me in the head right after, knocking me to the ground as a woman screams in rage. But it doesn't knock me out and I even feel it begin healing as I turn my head to see the other captain absolutely livid and trying to brush past everyone to reach me.
The two captains on my side take advantage of this though and quickly rush in to capture her, pinning her to the ground in the process.
Meanwhile the squad members of both squads are frozen stiff. Looks like this is over.
Chapter 43
Instinctual Hunt
Alexander North
A few seconds pass in silence as I reach behind my head to feel the pale bluish-red blood leaking from the back of it, only to shake my head and begin standing up with a slight sway after also feeling it beginning to heal. But by the time I reach my feet, the wound stops healing, and the dizziness in my head remains. Following that, an alert appears flashing over my eyes from my terminal along with a slight nausea.
/ Alert \
User's energy levels have emptied out. Any further injuries will not be healed until energy is resupplied.
Recommendation: Absorb more energy or eat the symbiont in front of you.
\End of Alert/
My eyebrows jump up at that last part and I can't help but glance at the dead captain next to me.
Eat the... symbiont? What the fuck?
A loud roar suddenly echoes down the hall towards us from the direction of the main hangar, followed by the walls beginning to shake, snapping everyone out of their stupor. All of the soldiers from the dead and captured captains' squads immediately begin to run away, leaving the hangar and rushing down the hall in the opposite direction of the main hangar. Meanwhile the two captains simply knock out the other enemy captain who is still glaring at me before throwing her over Captain Andrew's shoulder.
"Looks like the fight over there is starting," Captain Summers says with a glance towards the wall closest to the main hangar, only to look towards me and narrow her eyes as she asks, "did you have to kill him? You're gonna likely be court ma-"
I cut her off by stating out loud, "Terminal, you may stop recording."
She closes her mouth instantly at that, stares at me for a few seconds, then just nods her head without another word.
That recording of him attacking me and continuing to attack me even after being pinned down, along with his blatant admission should all be plenty to clear me of any issues for killing him. Although I get the feeling being court marshalled is the last of anyone's problems right now, considering that no one is gonna care at the moment, even if they could hear about it in the first place.
It's nice to have assurance just in case.
A loud explosion suddenly rings out, followed by an even louder crashing sound as a certain worm monster explodes through a newly- formed hole in the wall to smash straight into the other side of the hangar, clearing a path through the aircraft in the process. Then the monster that I saw before – the large one that honestly looks a little bit like a mix between one of those brutes, which I've named draugr at this point, and one of the wendigos – flies straight through the hole after it with its hand still raised and the organic vine-like substances sticking out of its chest wrapping the arm.
"Run!" I shout, mostly at Cynthia and Captain Andrews, before running off towards the entrance. And once I make it, I turn around to find the others not far behind. But just seconds later, a powerful wave of ice bursts out from the frozen one with the symbiont – who I'm just gonna call a frozen symbiont – and begins to freeze everything in the hangar.
"Damnit!" I swear before jumping forwards and grabbing Cynthia by the hand and physically throwing her back into the hallway, then repeating the process with Captain Andrew right as the wave hits us. Fortunately for me, my resistance to the cold seems to help me as the wave only knocks me away into the hallway while freezing the side of my armor closest to the frozen one. But Captain Summers isn't as lucky, nor is the unconscious captain that was on Captain Andrew's shoulder before I tossed him to safety, who are now both frozen solid and losing body heat by the second.
I grit my teeth at the loss of Captain Summers as I try to move, only to find my armor too stiff to move due to the armor on my backside being frozen solid.
That's not good.
Then I feel someone picking me up and carrying me away back in the direction of the main hangar. And when I tilt my head to see who it is, I find it being Captain Andrew, with Cynthia running alongside us.
"Uh, captain..." I mutter, my voice beginning to slur ever so slightly as my nausea and dizziness grows worse.
I don't hear his response though, as I begin to feel my consciousness fade away from being held upside down while having all of the wounds I had taken from being sent flying by the ice and the battle.
The last thing I do hear is the sound of voices coming from back in the third hangar, along with a faint growl building up from my throat.
The hallway
Captain Andrew looks down and asks, "What's wrong?" after hearing Alex begin speaking, only to cut off with a slur. But he doesn't stop until he begins to hear growling coming from Alex. "Alex?"
This gets Cynthia's attention as she stops as well and turns around while asking, "Is something wrong?"
The captain sends her a concerned look while setting Alex on the ground face up, revealing his face to them both, along with the glowing blue light beginning to shine from his eyes at a much brighter degree than beforehand.
"I don't know," he says before turning back to Alex right as a spark of reddish-blue electricity zaps him from the back of Alex's head and an alert appears in his vision.
/ Alert \
The user Second Lieutenant Alexander North has lost consciousness due to their injuries and lack of energy.
The combination of these three factors – losing consciousness while being injured and without any energy to heal the injuries with – have caused the user to enter an instinctual state driving him to do whatever it takes to receive the energy needed to heal himself. However, amongst these energy sources are symbionts.
Therefore, user is warned to move away from user Second Lieutenant Alexander North immediately.
\End of Alert/
"Scratch that. It's bad. So bad that if I don't go now, he's going to begin hunting me," he says, just to immediately jump back and begin running to the main hangar while calling out to her, "Keep him safe and away from any captains or higher! And when he regains consciousness, tell him that I went to go find the other members of our squad!"
Cynthia openly gapes at him through her helmet before turning to Alex as his eyes begin to glow brighter and he starts growling louder while getting up, completely ignoring the frozen armor and causing parts of it to shatter in the process.
"Well, shit," she mutters.
Chapter 44
New Instincts
The hallway
Cynthia reaches for the handle of her sword, only to pause as she realizes that she can't exactly overpower Alex and she doesn't want to hurt him either. But luckily for her, Alex simply ignores her as he stands up and runs off straight past the entrance to the main hangar.
"Hey, wait up!" Cynthia shouts while chasing after him.
Thanks to Alex's inhuman body though, he is a lot faster than her now. So he gets far ahead of her before stopping at the sight of a wendigo, to which he immediately jumps at and begins to tear apart with his claws and teeth without even giving it a chance to finish walking through the door it was passing through. He then absorbs its energy and moves on to find more prey, all while Cynthia is trying very hard to catch up.
"Please, just-" Cynthia says, pausing as she sees the wendigo corpse before trying harder to catch up and finishing, "Slow down!"
Alex ignores her as he suddenly beelines it for a particular room and smashes open the door, just to turn around and begin running down the hall again, leaving Cynthia looking confused. But once she makes it to the room and looks inside, she immediately understands after seeing the civilians and soldiers that they had separated from before cowering in the room.
"Don't mind us," she casually says and quietly closes the door, just to continue chasing after Alex again. Meanwhile the people in the room just share confused and frightened glances with each other now that they're left on their own again.
Eventually, after killing three more frozen ones and absorbing their energy, with his wounds slowly healing over the hunt, Alex finally begins to slow down until he stops entirely, collapsing on the floor unconscious. It then takes Cynthia several seconds to catch up, and when she does she lets out a sigh and picks him up with a grunt.
"Just as reckless as always..." she mutters before glancing behind her at the trail of pale bluish-red blood Alex had brought along with them. "Messy too."
After that, she looks around for a suitably secure room and enters it, closing the door behind her after setting Alex down with a breath of relief.
'Guess I'll be sitting here for a bit,' she thinks to herself as she pushes a large crate to block the door before sitting next to Alex.
Alexander North
The first thing I feel when I regain my consciousness is a brief, splitting headache that fades away as soon as I realize it's there.
I let out a low groan, causing something next to me to begin shifting, followed by the sound of Cynthia's voice, "You're finally awake?"
My eyes shoot open as I remember what had happened, but that turns out to be a bad idea as they begin to sting and I have to close them again. But I slowly inch them open after that bit by bit, until I find myself sitting on the ground shoulder to shoulder with Cynthia in the middle of a storage room for food and supplies.
"Wh-" I begin, only to cough as I realize how dry my throat is. "What.. happened..?"
Cynthia looks at me before getting up and stretching, making me wonder just how long we were sitting there. She then says, "When you lost consciousness, your body sort of went on a killing spree for anything with that energy inside of the monsters. But after you got enough to heal, you just sort of conked out."
I stare at her in silence.
That's not good.
"Terminal, I thought you stated that my changes didn't have anything
mental amongst them outside of the instincts?" I ask out loud, my throat having recovered in the time I was staring at her.
/ Notice \
Answer to User's Query – User is correct, the changes have made no mental influences outside of your base instincts.
\End of Notice/
I frown at that, only for a creeping thought to enter my mind, making me ask, "Terminal, were my previous actions instinctual? And if they were, then are there any other drastic changes to my instincts that I should know about?"
A few seconds pass in silence before the terminal answers.
/ Notice \
Answer to User's first Query – User is correct. User will instinctually do whatever it takes to survive that user can do while unconscious when
unconscious and injured without any energy to use in regeneration. This does not include making detailed plans or doing anything outside of what a wild animal could do.
Answer to User's second Query – User has already learned about all of their instinctual changes other than this newly found one.
\End of Notice/
I narrow my eyes at the terminal.
Well that's... both good and bad I guess. I have no control over what I do, so what my body thinks might save me might just make my situation worse. But it might also save me.
Either way, it would be best to avoid falling unconscious while out of energy.
"It should be fine," I tell Cynthia in response to the curious look she's sending me before climbing a little wobbly to my feet, only to steady myself with Cynthia's help rather quickly. I then walk over to the crate blocking the door, just to pause and glance at Cynthia as I ask, "By the way, what happened to the large monsters? And what about my captain?"
She reaches down to grab her helmet from the floor and puts it back on – why it was off in the first place considering how cold she must be is beyond me – before looking at me and answering, "The other monsters were still fighting the last time I saw, but while we were running, I thought I'd heard the base commander's voice coming from the third hangar. So the base commander and the other captains might've joined in their battle."
Interesting. "And my captain?" I repeat while moving the crate away from the door.
"He said something about you hunting him if he stayed close and then said to tell you that he'd be looking for the rest of your squad to make sure they're okay," she says as she walks up to me, stopping next to the door.
Okay, that's good.
I turn to the door and say, "Let's go then."
Chapter 45
Escape
Alexander North
By the time we take two steps out of the storage room, we find ourselves stopping due to the shaking of what feels like the entire base, along with cracks beginning to form on the ceiling.
I share a glance with Cynthia before we both burst into a sprint down the hall towards the main hangar. And on the way, we end up finding the civilians and soldiers that we had separated from a little while ago rushing out of a different storage room.
For some reason they each send me frightened gazes, but I ignore them as we run.
Once we make it to the main hangar though, the shaking of the walls grows stronger, and the reason why becomes quickly evident.
We all stop at the entrance to the main hangar before looking between the wrecked hallway, where a cave-in apparently happened due to the shaking, and the main hangar, which once again has the two large frozen ones fighting in it. Although this time, the lieutenant colonel along with three captains who are fighting along with him, with each of them covered in injuries all over their bodies, just like the large frozen ones themselves.
None of them have any weapons on them, and the officers' armor is all but destroyed at this point as well. It's to the point that I have trouble seeing them surviving even if they were to win the battle. But at the same time, the frozen ones look to be in even worse condition.
I narrow my eyes before frowning.
"Second lieutenant!" I hear a familiar voice shout, attracting my attention towards the command center, where I see Captain Andrew along with my squad. Or at least, everyone in my squad except for Robert.
"Glad to see you're alright, sir!" I shout back at him while keeping an eye on the fight right as the lieutenant colonel rushes at the worm with his fist raised while letting out a loud shout. Meanwhile, the three captains
move around the frozen symbiont in what looks to be an attempt to herd it towards the worm on the other side of the lieutenant colonel. "Did the civilians and other soldiers in the bunker already evacuate?"
The captain nods his head as he runs down the stairs and says, "Yes, they did. But everyone here," he pauses with a quick nod of his head behind himself, "decided to wait for you until the last minute."
So, everyone but Robert.
I guess that's to be expected.
"Roger that," I respond before looking at the tunnel that the worm had
dug that should connect to the third hangar, making it the only clear path to the stairwell. "The hallway seems to have caved in, so it looks like we're stuck going through the tunnel."
The captain and the others catch up to me right as I finish, following which he nods, and we all begin heading off towards the tunnel in a hurry. But before we can get anywhere near close to the tunnel, the large body of the frozen symbiont suddenly goes flying straight in front of us, making an imprint in the way and freezing everything around it.
"Hurry up!" I hear one of the fighting captains shout as the three rush past us as well and begin trying to stall the monster for us to make it past them.
I give them a salute in thanks while rushing past them again towards the tunnel, stopping only after we reach it to make sure along with the captain that everyone made it.
"Go!" I hear the lieutenant colonel shout while holding onto the large worm. "Get out of here before we can't hold them back anymore!"
Damn it, is he trying to sacrifice himself?!
I feel the captain pulling on my arm, making me start running alongside him and the others back into the tunnel, leaving behind the fighting frozen ones and symbiont hosts.
Let's just hope that those are the only powerful frozen ones around here.
As we run through the tunnel, it gets noticeably darker and darker until a certain point where it just stops growing darker, making me let out a sigh of relief.
If it had kept getting darker, then I wouldn't be able to see at all.
Actually, now that I think about it... why are we able to see at all inside of this building when there's no light?
I stop walking at that thought before looking down and thinking about it.
Could it be because of the lights given off by the frozen ones and shards? Or what?
A few seconds later, I feel someone walk into me before immediately apologizing. And when I turn around, I find Cynthia and the others seemingly having trouble seeing.
"Am I the only one who can see?" I ask out of curiosity.
"Probably," Cynthia answers in a tone that would suggest her not being happy with that fact. But immediately after her answer, Captain Andrew says, "I can see well enough."
Hmm, looks like I'm not the only one then. Of course a symbiont host has better night vision than a regular human.
My thoughts are interrupted at the sound of something moving across the ground, so I turn around again to see some small versions of that large worm frozen one crawling across the walls, floor, and even the ceiling of the tunnel towards from around a bend in the tunnel. And surprisingly, they don't seem to have any energy in them, considering their lack of blue glo-
One of them suddenly falls from the ceiling, exposing a faint blue glow from its underside before quickly turning over to cover it again once it lands.
A couple of the others exclaim in surprise while everyone begins drawing their weapons, but I'm left using my claws again due to the loss of my sword, which was apparently destroyed by the frozen symbiont during our escape. Along with my knives.
I grimace at that thought, but I quickly focus on the worms as more of them begin to jump down from the ceiling.
"Watch out, there are a bunch of smaller versions of the large worm here on the floor, walls, and ceiling," I warn the others while raising my clawed hands to a ready position.
I just hope they don't have some sort of surprise for me. But I wouldn't be surprised if they do.
And as if responding to my thoughts, the closest worm to me suddenly opens its mouth and spits out a pale blue glob that makes me shout, "Dodge!" while moving out of the way, letting it fly straight past me, and straight past the ones behind me as they react to my shout and move to land
on the floor of the tunnel. It then begins sizzling as if made of acid or something while also somehow freezing the area around it.
Okay, that's just unfair. Acid and ice? Seriously?