The Syren Conspiracy (For Floozer)

[Archangel99]

She manages to take the arm off the one flailing around with one arm, and another off the one without a head. The soldiers take care of the rest, mowing down the two monsters before turning to the remaining three. One leaps forward, bowling over one of the soldiers, who manages to slice its arm off with a plasma knife before rolling with it and firing down onto its remaining arm. The other monsters shriek and charge at the soldiers, only to be mowed down again now that the soldiers knew how to kill them. 

 

[Floozer]

Olivia rises to her feet and looks around at the carnage. "Well fuck me! Went through all the damn trouble of making this vile substance only to deal with things that don't need a fucking head to function!"

 

[Archangel99]

"Done it plenty of times already..." She hears Alex mutter. They're all panting, the adrenaline still pumping through their systems. "Fuck... We lost Gran, Kobe, and Kate..." A soldier murmurs. Another punches the wall hard. "On the upside, the lieutenants definitely need a head to function!" Pyro says. "Yeah. And I'm going to tear it right from their shoulders." Alex growls, the soldiers nodding along with him. "Let's just hurry to the barracks. Anyone wounded?" Brynn asks. "Me..." A weak groan issues from one of the soldiers, who has a rent in his armor that's bleeding far too much. Warren immediately rushes over and starts patching him up, injecting him with a sedative to knock him out. "He needs proper medical attention. ASAP." He says, looking at Brynn, who sighs. "We're going to have to go past the barracks and armoury, Warren. I doubt he's going to make it..." She murmurs. Warren looks down at the soldier, up at Brynn, then down at the soldier again before picking him up, draping one arm down his side while the other holds the soldier up across his back. "Then I'll go alone." He growls. Alex steps in front of him. "Don't be stupid. We'll get past them. Don't worry. In fact, we'll head straight for the med lab. We can deal with the subordinates later." He says, glaring at Brynn. "Fine. Then we're moving to the med lab." She says, hefting her gun and walking down the hall, the soldiers falling into step beside and in front of her. 


[Gotta sleep.]

 

[Floozer]

"Not really a hitch to the plan Brynn, just taking step 2 before step 1. It all falls together in the end." She adjusts her rifle and falls in line. 

 

[Archangel99]

She sighs and nods, leading the way again. They pass an empty room, and then slowly cross the barracks, their eyes on the door. But, their luck doesn't last long. A few metres after crossing the barracks, there is a sudden loud clanging from the ventilation shaft above them, and the grate suddenly falls off. All weapons are immediately trained upon the dark hole. For a few seconds, nothing happens, then, something leaps out of the ventilation shaft, too fast for them to see, and bowls a soldier over. There is a scream and a tearing of metal as something fleshy stabs down into the soldier's chest, before it leaps up onto the ceiling and hangs there upside down. From what Olivia can see, with this particular monster, its lower limbs had been twisted and fused to form one powerful limb that could propel the creature quite far with a single jump. Its ribcage is torn open, the bones bent forwards, easily able to penetrate the thing that was jumped on. Its arms are overly long and lanky, the large claws easily allowing it to grip the ceiling. 


It shrieks again, and this time, leaps straight for Olivia!

 

[Floozer]

"Son of a bitch!" She throws herself off to the side while drawing her revolver. 

 

[Archangel99]

It goes past her, but not before the claws leave three long, deep scratches in her right arm. Alex growls and draws his swords and charges. This seems to catch the thing by surprise, and that surprise costs it a head. Literally. With one clean swing, Alex severs the head neatly from its shoulders. The body and tail suddenly start twitching violently, and Alex is hit a glancing blow to the side of his head by the flailing tail. He swings again, and this time manages to slice off the sharp tip of its tail. Then, with a powerful cleave, he cuts the creature in half, at the same time slicing off one of its arms. With a gurgle, the creature collapses. He immediately rushes over to Olivia. "You okay? We need a medic!" He says, calling back over his shoulder. Warren steps forward again. "Show me your arm." He says. 

 

[Floozer]

She grits her teeth and sits up, holding her arm out "Fucker got me deep... shit... now my suit has fucking holes in it! That is going to cost a fortune to fix...." 

 

[Archangel99]

"What's more important is the now, and this is going to need stitches. I'm gonna do it right here, so please bear with the pain." He takes out a needle and thread, bandages, a bottle of disinfectant, and some anaesthesia. "Now, this is going to hurt." He says matter of factly, pouring a bit of disinfectant directly into each scratch on Olivia's arm, sending burning sensations throughout the whole arm. 

 

[Floozer]

She lets out a high pitches squeal sound through clenched teeth and rams her head into Alex's shoulder rather forcefully, tears stinging the edges of her eyes while her free hand squeezes Alex with surprising force. 

 

[Archangel99]

He squeezes her back, whispering comforting nothings into her ear as he rubs her back, careful to avoid her arm. After a few minutes of agonising pain, the burn fades to a dull ache. "Alright. Time for the anaesthesia..." Warren mutters, sticking her just below the bottom scratch with a needle full of clear yellow liquid. The pain redices to the point that it's just a minor irritation, and then he takes out the needle and thread. "Just gonna sting a bit..." He murmurs, starting to sew up the wounds. 


Distracted as they are, they don't notice a white, fleshy, bat-like creature drop out of the ventilation shaft, and land on the dead soldier... 

 

[Floozer]

She relaxes her jaw and pulls her face out of Alex, a fine line of sweat on her forehead. She looks around the room before looking at the body and noticing the bat thing. "Oh fuck that!" She raises her revolver full of paralyze darts and fires off two shots.

 

[Archangel99]

The first shot misses, but the second hits. Unfortunately, it falls forward, impaling the skull of the dead soldier with the prongs on its "mouth". The soldier's body starts to convulse, before loud ripping sounds are heard as the skin tears and the bones and muscles underneath twist to morph into something else entirely. In a few minutes, an armoured monster stands up, and lets out a piercing howl, leaping at the nearest soldier, who screams and fires into its gut, the shots doing nothing to slow down the monster. It rams its claw through the soldier's skull, and with a twitch and a spurt of blood, the soldier's body goes still before falling to the floor. The monster turns to them and roars again, leaping at another soldier. This one takes a step to the side, firing at the monster's leg and blowing it clean off. It flops to the floor, shrieks, and then gies down under a hail of bullets from the remaining soldiers, some of which Olivia can hear crying openly as they shoot their ex-comrade's limbs off. With a gurgle, the body goes still, and some of the soldiers fall to their knees weeping while the rest just stand there in shock. 


One of the soldiers goes over to the bat-like creature and kicks it. It doesn't move. Then, he takes out a plasma knife and stabs it in the head before dragging the body over so that everyone can get a better look at it. 


The creature has is white, fleshy, and looks like a bat, with two prongs on the front of it's head from which a reddish-yellow fluid issues. The bones on the tips of its wings are probably what used to be normal human hands. Its back is ridged, indicating that the spine had probably twisted itself or broken itself in half to form the ridges. 





"We... Need to watch out for these things..." Warren mutters. "Behead the bodies..." Alex murmurs. "What!?" A soldier yells, glaring at him. "You heard me. If they don't have a vector through which they can infect a body, our own people won't be coming back to slaughter us! Cut their heads off!" Alex yells back. The soldier looks like he wants to say something rude, but realises the wisdom in his words and pulls out a plasma knife, going back to the site of their original assault. Within ten minutes, he's back with five heads, which he dumps at Alex's feet. "Happy now? You sick bastard..." The soldier says, staggering away. Olivia notices his hands shaking. Alex glances down at the heads with a sad look before turning to Olivia and hugging her. 

 

[Floozer]

She gives him a tender squeeze and whispers sweet nothings into his ear before stepping up to the solider "No... he isn't happy, just like you aren't happy. So why don't you stop hating him for doing what needs to be done, and start hating these creatures for making it necessary." She steps back and looks over the soldiers "You all signed up for this! You knew it wouldn't be easy! We have already lost so many friends and allies... but turning on ourselves isn't going to help! We all have to stand together now more than ever! The sick bastards behind this will pay... I promise you that... but only if we keep working together." 

 

[Archangel99]

The soldiers are quiet for a minute, then the one who yelled at Alex mutters, "Sorry..." Alex nods to him and slings his rifle back over his shoulder. "Come on. We'd best keep moving." Brynn says, looking around nervously. The other soldiers nod and ready their weapons, checking magazines and ammo before following her. They make it to the med bay, and Brynn pauses before opening the door. 


The room is empty, save for one hooded figure sitting at an examination table. It seems to be examining its nails. "Ah! I was wonder when you would get here!" It says cheerily, looking up at them. Olivia can see it has a somewhat feminine face, and a flat chest with a somewhat curvy butt. An androgyne, if she had to guess. The figure hops off the table and stands with its hands on its hips. In the light, Olivia can see that what she thought were nails, are actually steel tipped claws. Its face, now that she can see it, is set with dark purple irises, and blue sclera. Thin lips are set into pale white skin, like porcelain, and topped with a delicate Roman nose. It would be cute, except for the fact that something about this person seemed entirely off... 


"Michel..." Alex mutters. Faster than she can blink, he throws a red paintball at him. It splatters across his chest, and Michel looks down. "Not cool, Alex. I just got these clothes washed... But! Is that how you greet an old friend?" Michel says, spreading his arms and wiggling his fingers. "Friend? All I see is a traitorous dead man walking." Alex growls. "Now now. Didn't your mother ever teach you not to poke fun at your hosts?" Michel says scornfully. Alex's mouth twists in an unpleasant line. 


"Enough of this bullshit!" A soldier says, stepping forward to fire at Michel. Michel's eyes flick to him before narrowing, and his fingers wiggle in the air. "Wait- no!" Alex yells, but he is too late. The soldier suddenly stiffens. Then, his body just crumbles into a pile of neatly sliced bones, flesh, and blood. "Fuck!" Alex growls, glaring at Michel. "Nanofiber razor wire. Pretty cool, isn't it? Can slice through armour and flesh like it's cheese!" Michel says, smiling and wiggling his fingers. Olivia can now see a sort of silvery thread dancing around his fingers. This person was definitely a lot more dangerous than he looked... 

 

[Floozer]

Red paint... the command to kill. She slowly moves her hand and clicks her belt, slowly fading out of normal vision before moving over to the side of the room. She stops and lifts her rifle up, taking aim at this michel person. With her aim steady, she squeezes the trigger, sending a daylight dart at the marked person. 

 

[Archangel99]

It hits him in the neck, and with a scream of pain, he rips it out and swings his fingers in her general direction. She feels the razor wires cut deep into her leg, and then the effects hit. The screaming is continuous. "I can't see! What have you done to me you stupid bitch!? I'll kill you!" He screams, clawing at his eyes. He falls to the floor, screaming and convulsing as the effects of the dart take over, destroying his body from the inside. Within a minute and a half, he is dead, the med lab quiet once more. 

 

[Floozer]

Her cloak falls off and she takes a knee, the razor wire still in her leg "FUCKING FUCKER FUCK! A little help over here!" Again she grits her teeth, looking at the new hole in her suit. "Gonna end up naked at this rate." 

 

[Archangel99]

"I doubt anyone would be complaining..." Alex says, a tiny comforting smile on his face as he suddenly appears by her side. He slowly pulls the torn cloth to the side to expose the wound. "Okay... Damn... This went in deep. Right to the bone... Warren, get your butt over here!" He says. Warren, after setting down the injured soldier on a metal table, grabs a medkit from the wall and hurries over. "Alright. Hold it. I need to get the wire out first." He says, grabbing a pair of scissors. He carefully snips the torn part of her suit off, then, very carefully, hooks his scissor blades around a wire and slowly pulls it out centimetre by centimetre. He does the same for the remaining nine wires too. The pain is agonising without the anaesthetic, and the pain rips through her every time he pulls out a bit of the wire. After he's done, he quickly pulls out a tube of some sort of gel from the medkit he got from the wall, and applies it over her wounds. The wounds slowly start to knit back together. "Alright... No moving for at least an hour. Doctor's orders!" He says, winking, before running off to attend to the other injured. 

 

[Floozer]

Her fingers nearly dig into Alex's skin as she hold onto him for dear life, pain coursing through her body before she falls onto her ass and pants. "Fucking.... hell...." She grabs Alex and pulls him closer "You... chop... head off.... mince meat... please." She nods at the corpse on the floor.

 

[Archangel99]

"Gladly." He murmurs, pulling out one of his electro blades. He walks over to the corpse, and with a neat swing, decapitates it. He suddenly sticks his blade through the face, then flicks it up into the air, his hand moving in a blur. Blood spatters the wall as the head falls to the floor in a pile of flesh. He walks back over to Olivia and kisses her cheek before carefully picking her up and walking over to a bed, gently setting her down. 

 

[Floozer]

She grunts as her body is moved once again and sighs when she is laid down "This entire place is fucked Alex... All this trouble and we have only gotten one of these bastards down. I guess this confirms it though... they are honestly traitors..." 

 

[Archangel99]

He pulls up a chair and sits next to her, his hand resting on hers. "Yeah. I could tell something was off the moment we walked in here. But to do this... And by the way, did you notice something strange about the monsters?" He asks, looking at her. She can tell he already knows the answer. 

 

[Floozer]

"Something strange about the monsters? Alex, they are nothing but strange!" She chuckles softly and squeezes his hand "What did you have in mind specifically?" 

 

[Archangel99]

"Apart from the obvious." He says, smiling a bit and rolling his eyes before turning serious again. "Their clothes... They were all OT uniforms..." He murmurs. 

 

[Floozer]

"That is not really strange Alex. These guys are sick and lawless. Using their own underlings as test subjects seems exactly like something they would do. Turn the grunts and workers into monsters so only the high ups can even think." 

 

[Archangel99]

"Makes me wonder why they even turned to OT..." Alex murmurs, bending down to kiss her cheek. Brynn and Pyro walk over and sit down on the other side of her bed. "Hey Liv. How ya doing?" Pyro asks, her tail rubbing her cheek opposite Alex's kiss. "That was really brave, Olivia. What you did back there. You saved a lot of lives." Brynn says, smiling and laying her hand on top of Olivia's other hand. 

 

[Floozer]

She looks around at them and suddenly blows a raspberry at them all. "Geeze guys! I'm just resting, not dieing of old age!" she slaps at their hands with her good arm "I just did as I talked to Alex about. Red paint means lethal kill and that moron wasn't paying attention to me since I was in the back of the crowd." 

 

[Archangel99]

"We were just being concerned!" Pyro says, blowing a raspberry right back as Alex and Brynn chuckle. "Wait. You guys had planned this from the start?" Brynn asks, looking between them. Alex nods. "Yeah. The plan was that I'd throw a red or blue paintball at them. Red for death, blue for life." He says. "I see..." Brynn murmurs. "So are you planning to spare anyone?" Brynn asks. "I... Doubt it. I suppose Cinnara is the leader, so she'll be spared. As for the others... I don't know. Most probably not." Alex says, his voice hard. 

 

[Floozer]

"I figured that Alex should have the call here since they were his comrades. I still feel like a third party person right now... so I will just act as his tool of judgement. Either horrible, body rending death or horribly demeaning capture. Either way you hack it... they won't be happy campers. "She pulls her revolver out again and reloads the paralyze darts.