Daemon Impact Chapter 2

 

Chapter 2

The door led out into an open hallway. They were standing at the end with a wall to their left. As she looked down the hallway to her right, she could see a dozen open doors evenly spaced on both sides. As they quickly made their way down the hallway, a glance into a few of the rooms showed that each were exactly the same as the one they had been in, with cryopods being the sole occupants of each room. The hallway ended with a large double door. Both men stopped before the door, and signaled for her to stop as well. Anri stepped to the left side of the door and grabbed the door handle. He turned to Marcus and held three fingers up. He then counted down, 3-2-1, and jerked the door open. As the door opened, Marcus quickly entered and scanned the room with his weapon. 

"Clear!" Marcus called out. Anri then motioned for her to pass through the door as he held it open. When both of them passed through, the door closed automatically behind them. The room they had found themselves in was extremely large. Rows and rows of tables with chairs were lined up through the middle of the room. As she looked around, the room was unmistakably a cafeteria. Lining the wall to their right were food bars for a buffet. In the corner to her left was a window, in which she could see a sink and an industrial dishwasher. A small distance from this window was another set of double doors without handles, which presumably led to the kitchen. Halfway down the room were another set of double doors to the left and right side, and one final set at the far end from where they were standing. The three of them quickly made their way down the middle in between the rows of tables. They kept moving until a loud crash came from the left-hand door. Both men stopped and trained their weapons on the door. A moment later something smashed into the door from the other side with such force as to cause cracks to form in the wall surrounding it. She felt fear rise up in her stomach at the sight. Whatever was on the other side of the door must be what caused the attitude change in the men. Another short moment passed, and something crashed into the door again. This time it completely ripped the door off the hinges and landed in the room on top of the debris. What she saw standing on the remains of the door could only be called a monster.

It appeared to be a dog, except about twice as big. Its gnarled, rustic-red fur gave it a feral look. She could see razor sharp claws and fangs on full display. But it was the eyes that made it monstrous. Its eyes were wide open, as it stared at her with red eyes. The same exact red color she had seen in the two men's eyes earlier. As she processed the creature's appearance, gunshots suddenly rung out. Both men had fired a burst at the creature. When the bullets hit their target, a blue substance exploded out from the contact points. With a cry, the creature recoiled backwards and fell over dead. Suddenly two more red blurs jumped through the doorway at frightening speed. Another round of bursts from the men's rifles connected to each blur in midair, and the two creatures fell to the ground slain. 

"They got down here this quickly?" Anri asked aloud. Suddenly the door on the far end slammed open, and three people burst into the room running...is what she first thought. There were two men and one woman. Their skin was a sickly gray, and their hair color was the same rustic-red as the dogs. The clothes they were wearing were filthy and rotting in places. Once again, the main feature of these creatures were their eyes. The same red color and wide eyed stare as the dogs from a moment ago. They ran towards the three with a speed that seemed superhuman. Both men quickly turned and unleashed more bursts of gunfire. Directs hits to their foreheads caused all three to fall over backwards before they could reach the the men. Both men quickly ejected their rifles' magazines and retrieved fresh magazines from a pouch on their waist behind them. When they reloaded their weapons, she went to ask the obvious question.

"Wha-"

"Monsters. That's all you need to know right now." Anri's curt response cut off her question. 

"We have to keep moving before more come." They continued moving towards the door the creatures came from. It too must have had a self-closing mechanism, as it was closed again. When they drew close to the door, a faint thudding noise could be heard from somewhere behind the door. The thuds were quickly getting louder and louder, and soon she could feel the floor shake with each thud.

"MOVE!" Anri quickly grabbed her and dove to the right. As she hit the floor, a massive crashing sound came from the door. From her position, she could barely make out the blur of the door and connecting wall go flying past where they had just been standing, and crash into the wall from where they had entered. She looked up and saw Marcus standing up on the left side of the room, clearly diving in the opposite direction from Anri and her. At the same time, she saw the new monstrosity that had crashed into the room.

Calling those dogs "monsters" seemed silly to her now. This thing was truly monstrous. Its sheer size sent waves of fear throughout her body. It resembled a bear, but much larger than a fully grown bear would be. Standing on all fours, its razor sharp claws made scratch marks in the floor. Its mouth was opened, revealing two large fangs surrounded by several smaller incisors. Its rustic-red fur and wide open red eyes implied some sort of connection to the creatures that came before, but there was no time to ponder that. It stared directly at her before releasing a roar that shook the room. Suddenly gunshots rang out and she could see them impact against the beast's head with their blue explosions. 

"I GOT THIS GO!" Marcus shouted as he unleashed more bursts of gunfire against the beast. Anri grabbed her hand and started running towards the right-hand door, nearly dragging her behind him.

"Wait, what about-"

"He'll be fine! We'll just hold him back!" Anri cut her off again. She didn't dare look back at the sounds of fighting as they ran through the final door left in the room. This door led to another hallway with more open doors on both sides. A glance showed beds, dressers and desks in each room. Some kind of dormitory perhaps? They kept running and about halfway down, they turned left into another hallway. More doors with the same layout as before lined this hallway, and at the far end was another double door. They burst through this door and stopped when they entered this new room. It was a fairly large room with a red carpet running through the center. Two rows of pillars decorated each side of this carpet. The pillars and carpet led the way to a staircase where the only other double door in the room sat at the top. The door had been broken open and all throughout the room, red eyes stared at the two newcomers as they had burst in. Many humanoid creatures and a few dog creatures littered the room. She couldn't tell how many there were, but it was more than a dozen. 

"No way, were they waiting here!?" Anri exclaimed in surprise. He then pushed her to the side.

"Stay here and don't move!" Anri ordered. He then ran towards the creatures with incredible speed. With his rifle raised, he released bursts of gunfire against the creatures. A few were hit by the bursts and fell, while the rest began advancing towards him. He continued firing, dropping many of the humanoid ones before they could get close. But there were so many and he couldn't keep all of them at bay. One finally managed to approach him from the right and took a swipe at him. He dodged to his left, placing his back to one of the pillars and shooting a dog that was approaching. She was shocked by him recklessly charging the creatures before, but it made sense to her now. These creatures were unarmed. Sure the giant one posed a threat, but these ones couldn't do anything to Anri with his armor! He was keeping their attention on him so he could keep her safe!  As she came to this realization, another humanoid approached Anri and took a swipe. He ducked the blow, and the creature's hand hit the pillar behind him...and did not stop. The creature slapped the bottom of the pillar completely off, and the rubble flew and struck another group of creatures, crushing them instantly. Seeing this, she realized just how much of a threat these creatures posed. Even Anri's armor may not be able to protect him from a blow like that.

Dodging this blow, he countered with another burst to the head of his attacker. Three more approached him, and the one in front took a swipe. Anri dodged behind it, countering with another burst to the head. But his dodge left him directly in between the other two. One saw an opportunity and attacked the man. Before its strike could hit him, Anri dodged once more. The creature's attack continued where Anri had previously been standing, and struck its companion who had been standing behind the man. The creature's body was destroyed from the blow with a sickening squelch.  Another burst to the head and the three creatures had been dispatched. Anri then lowered his rifle, drew his pistol and dispatched three more creatures with three perfectly aimed headshots. His rifle must have run out of ammo, and with the creatures approaching, he had no time to load a new magazine. At this point most of the room had been cleared, with only 2 dogs and a humanoid in front of Anri. The fighting had brought the man to the center of the room. The humanoid attacked Anri, and he once again dodged and countered with a shot to the head. A dog suddenly jumped at him and he dodged the creature. As he raised his pistol and let off another shot into the beast's head, the second dog lunged at him and swiped with its claws. Strangely the dog had approached at an angle, so its swipe missed the man completely, but hit his pistol directly. The force of the attack caused the pistol to shatter into many pieces. The beast landed, turned and lunged at the man again. The man drew his knife from its holster and caught the beast by its neck in midair. He slammed the creature into the ground and plunged the knife into the creature's brain. With a cry the last creature in the room had been killed. 

Or so she had thought. She suddenly noticed red eyes staring at her from the closest pillar to her left and one a few pillars down from her right. Two more humanoids had been hiding behind the pillars while the man fought the others. As soon as she realized both had their wide eyes staring at her, they both took off at unnatural speed towards her.

"What!?" Anri cried as he spun around and saw the creatures running towards her. He began to run towards her as well. Raising his left had behind his head, he threw his knife towards the creature that was now only a few feet away from her. She couldn't see it spinning through the air, but it lodged itself perfect into the creature's head. The momentum sent the creature flying into the wall. That was one taken care of, but the one on the right was closing in. With his rifle empty, his pistol destroyed and his knife now lodged into another creature's head, the man was unarmed. He would not be able to do anything to stop the creature from where he was. She looked up as the creature finally reached her and brought its arm down...

What happened next was so fast, she was unsure of what had actually transpired. As the creature's hand approached her head, she saw a blur of brown metal as it positioned itself between her and the hand. Then she heard a metallic crunching sound and a loud hiss as the attack landed on the man's helmet. The man's whole body followed the creature's arm as it started to fall to his left. However before he fell, he stopped suddenly. Then with incredible speed his body rebounded to his right and he launched a punch towards the creature's head with his left hand. With a splat sound, the creature's head was knocked clean off its body from the force of the man's punch. Blood splattered from the impact covering the mans fist. A few moments passed as she could hear herself and the man breathing heavily. The right side of his helmet was caved in and partially disconnected from the rest of his armor. Anri slowly stood up, released the rest of his helmet from his armor, and removed the helmet. As he turned to look at her, he had blood flowing down the right side of his face.

"Are you ok?" He asked her.

"I should be asking you that!" She yelled at him. He touched the top of his head where the blood was flowing from. 

"It's shallow so I'll be fine." Saying this, he then reloaded his rifle and retrieved his knife. He motioned for her to follow him. 

"There's a place we can hunker down right beyond those doors. We can lay low while help arrives." They made their way past all the corpses that were now littering the room. As they approached the staircase, a sudden roar coming from behind stopped them in their tracks. Turning around, they saw nothing that could have produced the noise. Suddenly something came crashing through the wall to their right, plowing through pillars and embedding itself in the wall to their left. Slumped in a crater in the wall was...Marcus! His armor was heavily damaged, and his helmet was hissing as air was escaping from it. She understood that no one could have survived an impact like that. Marcus was dead. More crashing noises followed from the right, and the massive beast emerged into the room.  Patches of fur were now missing and its left eye was blacked out, but it did not seem to have slowed down from earlier as it trained its sights on the last two living beings in the room. 

"Run up the stairs and hide in the big room to the left!" Anri yelled as he ran forward to confront the monster.  He fired a few bursts, but the bullets were unable to pierce its hide. The creature raised its right paw and slammed it down towards the man. Anri jumped to the right dodging the paw as it cracked the ground where he had been standing. The same paw then suddenly shot diagonally towards Anri. 

"AAAAAAAHHHH" The man screamed as its paw connected with his side and sent the man flying backwards through multiple pillars and landing facedown on the ground far to her right. With the two men out of the way, the creature turned towards her. She turned to run, but tripped on some rubble that had fallen behind her when Anri crashed through the pillars. Turning around, she watched as the beast slowly approached; its red eyes drawing her into despair. She was gonna die here. Not knowing who she was, why she was here, or even what this creature that will kill her is. When the beast reached her, it opened its mouth and prepared to lunge... 

A burst of gunfire suddenly rang out and small blue explosions erupted from inside the beast's left cheek. It roared in pain, recoiling from the sudden attack. Both she and the beast turned to where the gunfire had come from to see...Marcus with his helmet off and his rifle raised! The monster stared at Marcus with hatred in its one remaining eye. It crouched low ready to lunge at the man in the wall.

"I hope you didn't think we were both done!" Marcus shouted. As he said this, a pillar came swinging towards the beast from its blind side. The force of the impact caused the creature to be knocked onto its right side. She turned her head to see Anri holding half of a pillar as if it were an extremely long bat. It seemed to barely weigh anything to him.

"RAAAAAAAAH!" Raising it over his head, he brought the pillar straight down onto the creature's belly. The pillar smashed into pieces from the impact, and the beast let out a roar of pain. Both Anri and Marcus then drew their knives and moved towards the creature at speeds that made them nothing more than blurs to her eyes. When they reached the creature, both men came at an angle and slashed the belly of the beast, causing an X shaped wound to appear. Another roar of pain erupted from the beast, but neither men were done. Both men quickly raised their rifles and unleashed multiple bursts into the beast's wound. With each burst that exploded into its belly the creature roared in pain until it fell quiet and stopped moving all together. Seeing their foe defeated,  both men turned and started walking back towards her. As they drew close, the beast suddenly jumped back to its feet turned towards the three of them, and lunged. Both men spun around as its large fangs approached the three of them. Anri quickly raised his right arm and Marcus raised his left. With a sickening shunk sound, both their forearms were pierced by the beast's fangs. Both men quickly placed their matching foot onto the bottom of the creature's mouth and slowed it's lunge before it reached her, stopping a few feet in front of her. 

"Marko!"

"Right!" Both men reached down and grabbed the cylindrical object they wore on their waists. Squeezing the grip in the center caused the objects to glow blue. Then in perfect synch, both men tossed the objects down the creatures throat, ripped the fangs impaling their arms out of the beast's mouth, kicked the bottom of its mouth with such force as to cause it to recoil backwards, and then turned and grabbed her, hiding to the right of the staircase. A moment passed and two blue explosions came from the beast's stomach, ripping apart its torso. With a final wail, the beast finally fell to the floor dead. The men slowly stood up, with their arms still impaled by the fangs.

"You...ok? Anri asked between heavy breaths.

"I'm...fine...how about...you?" Marcus replied.

"Not gonna lie...I've been...better." Anri responded.

"Of course...how are you...holding up?" Marcus turned to her. She couldn't reply. These men just performed superhuman feats in front of her like they were nothing. 

"Yeah...not surprised...you'd be shocked...after all that." Marcus helped her to her feet and the three started walking towards the front of the staircase. But they had only taken a few steps before both men stopped.

"Oh you have to be kidding me!" Marcus shouted. In the opening where the beast had thrown Marcus through, there were countless creatures emerging into the room. A sea of red eyes stared at the three of them.

"Anri, take her and go, I'll hold them back!"

"Sorry, I took a few bad hits. You'll have to take her while I hold them off."

"No good. I hit that wall really hard. Honestly it's a miracle I'm still standing now." 

"Then she'll have to go ahead while we both hold them off." Anri turned to her.

"Remember, it's the room directly to the left past that door. Just stay in there until help arrives."

"I can't leave you two here!" She cried out.

"Do you want to stay here and die!?" Anri shouted at her. When he saw her recoil, he took a deep breath.

"Look, the most important thing is to survive. Forget about us, and live." Anri turned to Marcus

"On the count of three we rush them while she escapes." Anri took a step forward.

"Sounds good to me." Marcus stood next to him and both men got ready to rush the horde approaching them.

"One-" Suddenly a chorus of gunfire erupted from above them, tearing into the horde in front of them. Both men sighed a breath of relief as they all turned to look at the top of the staircase. From the opening where the door was, a dozen people, about half male and half female, were firing upon the creatures down below. They were wearing armor similar to Anri and Marcus, but were noticeably thicker and bulkier. On their shoulders was an insignia of a Red Sword with a single red stripe underneath. The weapons they held were much larger than the two men's and they had far more equipment attached to their armor. After about a minute, there was no movement from where the creatures emerged from. The soldiers (what else could they be?) descended the staircase and stood with their weapons trained at the gaping hole, waiting for any more creatures to emerge. As the trio walked forward, another armored individual came walking down the stairs. The figure was unmistakably female, and she was wearing the heavy variant of the armor. The sole difference is she had a gold Star insignia sandwiched between two gold stripes on her armor's shoulders. 

"Captain!" Seeing this woman, both men stood at attention and saluted with their good arms. 

"At ease. You boys alright?" The Captain asked the two.

"A bit worse for wear, but we're still breathing ma'am." Marcus replied as both men looked down at the fangs still embedded in their arms. 

"The medical team will be here shortly to fix you two up. Now who do we have here?" 

"A girl we found deep in the facility. She has amnesia." Anri reported.

"I see." Taking a moment to digest this information, the captain reached under her helmet and released it from her armor. As air hissed from the bottom, she lifted it off her head revealing her face. Her skin had a rich black tone, but was noticeably aged compared to the two men. She was most likely in her early 40's. Her hair was black and cut in the same manner as the men. Not really coming as a surprise anymore, her eyes were the same red color she had seen countless times today. The Captain knelt down before her and looked her in the eyes while smiling sweetly.

"Hello, my name is Adaeh Meyer. I'm the leader of the group these two belong to. You poor thing. You must be scared out of your mind after what you've been through. Don't worry, you're safe now sweetie." As she heard this she felt reassured. Suddenly, her body began to feel very heavy. As she started to sway, Adaeh reached forward and held her steady. Adaeh said something to her, but she couldn't make out what. Her vision became blurry and she felt her eyelids start to close. The world then turned black as she closed her eyes.

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They were near the entrance to the facility. Soldiers from Medical Unit 2 had escorted Sakai and Etel ahead to inspect their injuries. She stayed with the collapsed girl while another medic looked her over. After completing her diagnosis, the soldier reported there were no major injuries and the child had only collapsed from exhaustion. Relieved at this news, she gave the medic orders to relay to the support team and sent her on her way. Gently lifting the child up, she carried the girl up the stairs and towards the entrance. She passed multiple different soldiers from the Combat Unit, who all stopped and saluted their Captain, before hurrying off to hunt down the rest of their quarry. Reaching the entrance, she laid the child on a nearby bench. She took a seat on a nearby bench, and watched the child sleep as soldiers ran past her carrying out their duties. A pair of foot steps approaching her caused her to look up.

"Captain!" Sakai was there saluting her with his off hand. His armor had been removed, and he was wearing the under suit. His right arm and face was bandaged up, as was his torso on his right side. He seemed to be a bit shaky on his legs, but she could tell he was still in good shape.

"At ease. What was the Medical Unit's diagnosis?" She asked him, curious about Etel's condtion seeing as he wasn't here.

"I took a bit of a beating on my right side, but miraculously nothing broken. The wound on our arms will heal in a week's time. Marcus however suffered a pretty major back injury. The Medical Unit insisted on taking him back to the freighter for a complete medical analysis. Didn't want to risk him having a spinal injury." She took in this news. Most of the Recon Unit are now in recovery, including the First Commander. 

"I see. Etel's and your injuries are my fault. I shouldn't have approved this mission. I've failed both of you." She replied.

"That's not true and Marko would say the same if he were here!" Sakai exclaimed.

"You had no way of knowing the Daemons would swarm after we entered. Or that they would rush inside the facility instead of engaging the Combat Unit! On any other circumstance, this mission would have been perfectly safe with just the two of us!" The Second Commander was defending her, but it's the Captain's responsibility when missions go wrong. 

"Speaking of the Daemons, I wanted to talk to you about them." Sakai's tone became deathly serious.

"What about them?"

"Their behavior has been erratic ever since we entered the facility. Or rather, ever since we woke her up from her pod." Anri looked at the girl.

"First they gather in a swarm out of nowhere, and then rush into the facility. For what? Three people? That doesn't make any sense!"

"It is indeed strange behavior, but nothing to suggest that they were acting with purpose." She replied, anticipating where he was going with this."

"True, however there were multiple instances where they behaved strangely. First they came at us from to two different directions, giving us only one escape route and splitting us up."

"A coincidence most likely."

"I don't think so, cuz that route only had one path laid out, and that room was filled with Daemons who were just sitting there doing nothing until we arrived there."

"That is probably a coincidence too."  

"Again, I don't think so. While I was fighting the Daemons, they weren't coming at me at full strength. They seemed to move slowly so they could lure me to the center of the room. Then when I had run out of ammo in my rifle, a class 2 specifically targeted my sidearm and destroyed it. Don't tell me that's a coincidence, because it had a clear shot at me that it ignored." She paused after hearing this. That is strange behavior. Daemons wouldn't aim specifically for weapons, they'd blindly attack the wielder. If it was a stray attack that'd be one thing, but Sakai seems convinced it was intentional. She knew Sakai, he was not the kind of person who would exaggerate about events. If he said the Daemon specifically attacked his weapon, that must have been what happened.

"There's more. After my sidearm was destroyed, two class 1's emerged from hiding and began running full speed at her. None of the Daemons were moving that speed until these two, and not even against me, a clear and present danger that needed to be eliminated! They had their sights set on the girl. Lastly, that class 3 faked its death so it could get one last chance at the girl. I'm telling you, the Daemons were acting strange." This information was concerning. The Daemons were simple beings not capable of thought, so the idea of them using tactics was outrageous. But again Sakai is insistent on this, so she must believe events played out as he described. The two fell silent until they were approached by another soldier. This one was wearing a hazmat suit with the Supply Unit's yellow Flag insignia on the shoulders. 

"Captain, Second Commander!" He saluted the two.

"I brought the child sized suit you asked for." He handed a smaller version of the hazmat suit to her, and after saluting the two again, left to return to the freighter.

"We can discuss this later, for now we need to get her to safety." She told Anri as they both turned to the sleeping girl next to them.