The bug pauses its examination, considering Vector's question. What in particular grabbed their interest?
"We haven't seen metal like this," they explain.
Most metal to them appeared dark, dull. Most of the materials made by humans looked dark and dull- and to be frank, humans themselves were gray and spotted beasts, lacking a lot of the bright patterns of the other creatures on the planet- save the few that had been infected in some way.
"It looks transparent to us," they say, "We can hardly see it until you use it. Then, it looks dark."
Not the intended effect. But clearly this was meant to deceive human eyes.
He only says it to annoy what was obviously a stealth operative. Truth be told, he had figured from the jump someone was here. Something had just...seemed off. Some kind of crackle in the air. Hadn't expected a real-life cloaking field, though, Jesus. How long, exactly has the Guild had access to that?
He's been poking around here ever since he was deemed no risk to wander the facilities on his own. His arm is...still mangled, but the severity of it has drastically receded. New flesh was growing over gaps and bones were starting to grow back towards a proper arm shape.
Words Yume had spoken to herself like a mantra her entire 7 years of exile. Escaping from Haos' cradle in the chaos caused by those two BSAA agents was a miracle in and of itself. She'd felt her connection to Carla severed long before it, and was acting on final orders.
Burn society to the ground, release Haos upon the world.
Derek would see his precious "order" crumble under her genius, all she had to do was pull the trigger.
But the men the BSAA sent proved to be nearly impossible to kill... She cursed her small and frail frame- Even enhanced by the C virus as it was, she was no match.
So she ran, and took the younger agents gun with her after he willingly infected himself with the enhanced strain. He would die here with Haos, with their great work. She was just putting a perfectly good gun to use.
7 years on, she now finds herself at the precipice of destiny. Reunited with her precious Carla and some other surviving J'avo in Texas, and staring down a celestial event the likes of which she'd never even fathomed possible. As worldly as she was in her human years, she'd never witnessed something so beautifully deadly.
A tri-tailed comet arcing over a total lunar eclipse... and the comet making a rogue turn in the atmosphere to come colliding to earth as an asteroid.
This was a cataclysm in the making. They had thirty minutes to slay their quarry and escape, and the outlook was grim... But Yume had built her entire afterlife on gambling great odds. The fact she lived un-mutated this long was a miracle in and of itself.
Carla speaks
"We likely won't survive this, you're free to escape, but I'm staying to finish the fight."
And the answer is unanimous.
"On your mark, Commander."
I followed you into Hell before, my beloved, and I'll be damned if I go back on my word. I will see your quarry dead.
The sugar cane field is set alight in a brilliant display as Erie, the Napad, throws a grenade into the center of the field. The numerous Plaga hiding within screech and die as the fire starts to spread, creating a perfect battlefield for a final confrontation with the now mutated Oliver Ward- a Televangelist infected with a dominant strain of Plaga. They had targeted him in the sugar mill before, and the hope was to take him out there with unrelenting force, but his near death stirred the parasite within, and mutated him into a gargantuan spider that proceeded to roam right back to its nest: The Faithpoint Chapel.
Their approach is covered by the screeching and roars of the zombie civil war happening outside (C-zombies vs. Ganado) and the room-shaking humming within the chapel originating from Olivers gargantuan form...
And then all hell breaks loose as Oliver orders his flock to attack.
The ragtag group of 6 versus hundreds of mutated Plagas.
The battle raged quickly, the Plagas dropping to the 6 J'avos superior resistance, speed and strength. Things quickly became dire as the smaller plagas spiders came out of the woodwork, trying to infect the J'avo with the self same parasite, and most did not succeed, being swatted out of the air or caught by the flames of Carlas Incendiary grenades. They made short work of the bigger lumbering mutations, and were even joined by multiple C-zombies from outside- Including an El Gigante class giant that the group had somehow managed to infect prior to the final confrontation, who immediately went to work fighting Olivers gargantuan form.
Things quickly turned in their favor... Yume was forced to move from her sniper perch, and was forced into the fray, quickly being mobbed by Plagas spiders. Her small frame made it easy to dodge, but one clever creature managed to land on her back, and she screeched as she felt it's tendrils dig past her suit and into the skin beneath.
Time stood still for her as the realization kicked in- She was going to become one of them if she didn't do something drastic.
"You WILL NOT TAKE ME."
She grabs the spiders foreleg, and fighting against it's attempt to control her, she made her way over to Olivers titan form, grabbing onto it as well and finally reaching up to use the backpack she had become so accustomed to wearing- A device that would end her life, and leave her to be born anew.
Wires with needles erupt from the backpack, and stab right into her neck, slitting her throat, and causing a massive scene. Her body catches fire, and she becomes cocooned in the telltale chrysalid, taking the spider with her and halting Olivers movement for a short time... And then it cracks.
And with an ear-piercing roar, she emerges from the cocoon, reborn as a Strelac.
Carla goes down, and she's quick to barrel through the chaos to her commanders side, putting her on her back and immediately turning to Oliver, sinking her powerful jaws into the titans foreleg and ripping mutated flesh from mutated bone. Damascus, a Centipede-like mutation, burrows into the titans skin and proceeds to wreak havoc upon its internal systems, Vortex, an Ubivisto, runs along Olivers carapace, dragging their chainsaw arm through its tough hide and ripping it apart as they go. Ebajalg, a hive of Gnedzo, uses their shell to claw, rip and tear into Olivers already bleeding flesh, and Erie does what he does best- Smashing his fists into whatever soft spot he can reach.
Yume joins in the carnage with a brand new arsenal- Acid spit to melt flesh, and firing shards of bone from her newly acquired frills.
The entire chapel is shaking from the asteroids imminent arrival, and Olivers death throes scatter the group. Yume is thrown backwards, but digs her newly acquired claws into the rotted wood, her only objective in that moment to guard Carla until she came too- And she does, just in time to notice a cache of weapons that had gotten knocked loose from the wall.
Picking up a rocket launcher, she's quick to deliver the final blow into Olivers eye in an explosive finish.
The spider finally stops moving, and they don't even have a moment to collect themselves in the aftermath. Carla climbs upon Yumes back as if she's a mount, and gives a final order.
"Survive, and make your way back to me if you wish, but above all- SURVIVE."
And the group scatters to the winds. Damascus burrows into the earth as far and as fast as she can, and Vortex follows after her. Erie goes straight into the river, following it until he reaches the gulf of mexico. Yume carries Carla out into the yard, where she commandeers one of Olivers supercars. Bringing Ebajalg- Now outside of their shell- with her into the car, they all speed off away from Silo as fast as their wheels and feet will carry them.
Yume falls far behind the speed of the car, but she's fast enough to escape. Because of C's nature, she'll always know where Carla is, and she follows that signal all the way to Atlanta, GA. Cloaking herself in chromatophores and rendering herself perfectly invisible, she's careful to avoid bumping into humans, eventually making her way to an old Hotel. The car is there, and Carla is higher up, which means they all made it out safely. She can also sense the child that they had saved as well, meaning they retrieved her from the merchants intern.
Good...
She can rest in this back alley behind the hotel, the danger has passed.
Silo is no more, but the Plagas hunt was successful. Life will be strange, but as long as Carla lives, she'll always be there at her side.
Loyal handmaiden, descending into hell to be reborn twice- as a demon, then a monster- all to serve her beloved commander.
@stealthkills said: “what is this stuff, do you know?”
(send hunk)
“No fucking clue.”
He kicked at the sea-foam, garbage, and sand. Polyps were growing from the collection of refuse, looking like little clear eggs without embryos. The little spheres wiggled, one popped on his boot spewing thick, clear fluid into the sea and he frowned, sinking back into the knee deep ocean and pulling their anchor up on the boat.
“Potential to be infected. Possible vector for fomites. Reminds me of salmon spawn. Checked the local sales- antihistamines are gone. Looks like a T-outbreak and doesn’t feel like it. Give it a week.”
They say that Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. At least when it comes to romance and the like. But what about when a woman who lived and breathed violence was turned on with her team of equally -- if not more-so -- violent individuals? Well, they weren’t very happy to say the least.
“Putain de bordel de merde,” Lupo growled to herself. She ejected the clip from her assault rifle and eyed what remained, silently counting in her head what she had left for extra mags. The count wasn’t reassuring by any means, but she could luckily pick up mags from some dead idiot if they found them.
The clip was slid back into place as she looked up into the sky, cheek flexing as she clenched her teeth. Somehow they were going to survive getting out of this fucking city on their own; their evac wasn’t coming and she’d already informed Command that they could go fuck themselves for abandoning them. Lupo silenced the brief dissent that had risen up among her team, but she suspected it wouldn’t be the last she heard of it. She was the only one working for Umbrella for solely the money, after all.
“You look like you have something to say, mon petit monstre,” she murmured to Vector, using her favourite pet name for him. Generally Lupo kept to callsigns in the field, but this wasn’t exactly normal circumstances as they took a moment to breathe - hydrating, snacking, and patching up anyone needing it.
The white numbers on the digital clock projected themselves against the back spackled wall of Eric's family ranch house. He was a stocky guy, and muscled. From the new land deal the Arklays struck with the government, Eric just so happened to grab twenty more workable acres.
All and all, he was the kind of guy The Big Boss himself got along with. Quiet fellow, a specialist on a few really intricate topics, and always remembered his friends. He sat drinking a beer on the front porch with Hunk and Hawk while she and Vector pretended to be reasonable people in his living room and wait for them to finish talking about "the escapee".
The escapee was a horse nicknamed by avid racing fans "Sleipnir". It was a huge breeding stud whose racing days made Eric the money he had today in Kentucky. The animal been retired for years, but he still made them money passing his genes down to the highest bidders.
Sleipnir had gotten loose, and before Carla could even ask why this was something they were dealing with, Eric showed them a few of the buck racks they'd found this season. Attached to malformed skulls, they weren't mounted in the barn as much as they were collected. Bone tumors and horns grew out of the sockets and between the cancerous looking horns.
"It's been happening for years," she heard from the porch. Crickets and cicadas were trilling.
"It's the T-Virus. It must have found a vector locally," she murmured in the low light to Vector. Their television was re-running old public broadcast programs.
