Chapter 20: Chapter 19

Aranea pierced the stone wall of the elevator shaft with her claws, pulling herself up, jumping two floors up, before hooking herself up in the same way and positioning herself for a further jump.

The smell of blood and shit was driving her mad. Despite the fact that there were no dead bodies in the elevator or elevator shaft itself, people died, while trying to pry open the doors of the elevator. Almost on each floor, there were bullet holes in the elevator doors, covered with red. Aranea knew what was on the other side, yet she tried to distract herself from such thoughts.

Annie moved above, covering four floors with a single leap, landing on the opposite side of closed elevator doors. The eyes of Aranea widened as she sensed the smell of attackers behind the door.

"Move!" she shouted, jumping up. What was wrong with Annie? How could she keep falling into traps? She should have smelled the Numbers long before they could ever hope to get a drop on her!

She threw away all thoughts, as doors were riddled with bullets, as Numbers tried to kill Annie. The wolf hag allowed herself to fall down a floor, as Aranea jumped past her. Aranea's paws found the shardgun on her back, and the claws on her toes pierced the stone surface of the wall. She forced herself to stand on a wall, quickly taking aim at the door and firing two shots. Shards tore fist-sized holes in closed doors, spearing people behind them. Wind moved past Aranea as she cocked her head to the side, trying to sense if anyone was still alive. Wet steps on a floor! Her hands threw up the weapon when Annie jumped close, pushing the shardgun aside.

"Wait. Barefoot steps." With these words, the wolf hag jumped toward the doors, tearing them down under her weight as if they were made of straw.

The corridor behind the doors was a scene from a nightmare. A pool of blood covered the floor, mixed with waste from the released bowels of the dead. Rows of dead people lie on the floor near the doors of an elevator, people were desperately trying to hide or escape from attackers when death reached them. Dead Numbers were laying on top of several bodies, their hands still gripping the weapons. One tried to reach the grenades on the belt but bled out before he could explode himself.

A single patient, whose eyes were mad with horror and fear, was standing in the corridor, dressed in a hospital robe, his bare feet were covered with blood all the way to his knees. His head was bandaged so tightly that one eye could not see, left arm was riddled with bullet holes.

"Just kill me already." Half whined, half spat man, desperately trying not to look scared as he backed off from Annie, "I am tired of hiding from you, blasted monsters…"

"Lucendra, we have a survivor on the fifth floor. In need of medical help. Get to my current coordinates and escort the survivor back onto the ground floor." Annie said out loud, establishing a connection with her warrior below, ignoring the words of man.

"Wait… Are you the rescue team?" The man fell on his knees, his strength was leaving him, "Forget about me, there are some people hiding on this floor. I just went out, when…"

"Lucendra, a new update. We have survivors. After you finish treating the wounds of the injured survivor, escort them all to the ground floor. Annie turned away from the man, jumping back into the elevator shaft.

Aranea put the shardgun behind her back with trembling paws. She could have killed the patient! Not could, she would have killed him, if…

Doors on the floor above opened and a figure in black armor showed up, aiming a missile launcher down. Before either Aranea or Annie could do anything, hands wrapped around the head of the number, breaking the neck and throwing the dead body back into the corridor.

"Clear!" Markus said, waving his hand as Annie silently jumped above him.

"Thanks." Aranea snapped from her shock and jumped above. Markus nodded to her in response before grabbing air once more, turning into air. Below, the warrior from Annie's pack was busy climbing up the elevator shaft. Aranea swallowed nervous drool and hurried after Annie, promising herself to be more careful in future. She was foolish to assume that all civilians in this place were dead.

As they reached the top floor, Annie crashed through doors once again, coming face to face with a group of Numbers in a tight corridor. Indicators showed that Svetlana’s ID tag was in a nearby room.

"Aranea. Proceed with the rescue. " Annie said in a strange, guttural voice. Her words sounded weird, as if she was having trouble speaking, almost like she had forgotten how to speak all of a sudden. The wolf hag moved forward, her shoulders hunched and her torso slid toward the floor. While enemies raised their weapons, her claws nearly reached the floor.

The sound of growling filled the corridor, and Annie charged forward, causing the foes to twitch in a surprise before jumping into the corridor. Annie had many flaws, but in battle she was usually calm. Here, however, she was an incarnate of fury, she resembled more of a shaman than a warrior who honed her skills for years. The knives were forgotten in their sheaths, the pistol left in the holster. Instead, the claws of the wolf hag spoke. Annie slashed across the bellies of her first two opponents, her claws slicing through the muscles, flesh and reaching the bones, splitting them up like the branches of a withered tree. Her kick sent the head of the third Number into the ceiling. Bullets hit her, harmlessly crashing against armor. One of the numbers aimed a laser rifle at the wolf hag, but stopped as in a single, blinding thrust of her claws, Annie split both the weapon and the head behind the scope of the weapon into two parts. Annie moved forward in a storm of fury, tearing and killing foes in her path, turning the bodies of dead people underneath her toes into blood paste.

Unwilling to linger any longer, Aranea crushed into the door of the room from which the signal was coming from. The door was locked, but Aranea simply tore it away with a twist of her wrist. She stepped inside, noticing a pile of clothes in the center of a room and two Numbers near the window at the far end. Foes turned, lifting rifles, and Aranea was on them purely on instinct. Confusion and uncertainty filled her head. They have been had. She threw away her thoughts as her claws pierced the face masks of the Numbers, rendering flesh and piercing bones behind them. Allowing twitching bodies to fall from her claws, she walked toward clothes and searched them, finding the uniform of Svetlana among the pile of clothes, along with Svetlana’s ID.

"Shit," Aranea said out loud, slapping herself across the snout. She felt the moving air, "Enough of this. Markus?"

"Here." The young Regulator appeared out of thin air. He looked at clothes and nodded, understanding.

"Prepare yourself, we descend back and move to regroup with others. Aranea to the underground team The ID upstairs was just a dud to lure us away. Your status?"

"We are facing increasing resistance from the… Shit, just die already!" Leila responded, and Aranea switched the vision of her helmet to the cameras on Kate’s armor to see what was going on.

The team downstairs were stalled by enemy resistance before the doors that led to the morgue. The room was filled with dead and dying numbers. The Numbers used everything in their desperate attempt to halt the assault of the combined forces of Reclaimers and Resistance. Grenades, energy weapons, rifles. Their stubborn refusal to back down was taking its toll, as the numbers attempted to kill at least one person in a berserker rage. The numbers ignored even the most grievous wounds for the sake of taking a shot at the enemy. One wolfkin from Leila’s pack lay dead, his chest pierced with a single shot from an energy rifle when a Number pretended to be dead in the chaos of battle in order to get a shot. Leila turned the head of the foe into a red mist with a single stomp. Two of the Soultakers' soldiers were also killed, and one of the Regulators was injured. The number advanced on the injured regulator, and Kate froze for a split second, her arms shaking when she looked at the injured regulator. She snapped out of her trance just a moment before the foe could shoot. A single shot from her shardgun pierced the side of the foe in black armor, breaking his ribs, liquidating his organs and sending Number all the way across the room into the wall. The limp body slid on the ground, leaving a blood trace as Kate hesitated briefly before she joined Kaleb in running to help the injured Regulator.

"Where is she?" Aranea turned the image of Kate’s cameras in order to look at the approaching Annie. The blood of the wolf hag's foes turned her armor crimson, Annie was looking around the room nervously.

"Not here. They merely left her ID here." The wolf hag threw clothes to Annie. The same low growl came from the mouth of Annie, as she tore the uniform asunder, turning away as her claws twitched nervously, producing sparks.

"Wolf hags," Lucendra called on the communicator, "We have just received a call that Olesya is on her way here…"

"What for? Unless she can fly, we will finish here long before she arrives." Annie almost spat the words, still growling lightly, "Aranea, after me, we…"

"I am sorry wolf hag, but there was also something weird… It looked like that someone was listening to our communications when we were sending updates to the command."

"Numbers?" Aranea quickly asked.

"Impossible to say, yet the sensors caught something. Shortly after the command was informed, something began to flow to our location." Confusion was in the voice of wolfkin. She sent images from the terminal, which showed that something truly massive was concentrating around the hospital underground. It was as if some liquid was gathering from all around the city to a singular point, moving through sewage tunnels. Drones, positioned in sewage tunnels in parts of the city that were under the control of Reclaimers, reported that the sheer mass of this strange "something" was big enough to fill entire tunnels. Yet drones failed to capture this phenomenon on cameras, as they suffered malfunctions soon after encountering the "mass", as officers in headquarters started to call this strange thing.

"Flow, you say? Maybe the sewage system was damaged in battle and now water fills the area below us, thus crashing these useless drones against walls of tunnels?" Annie snapped out of anger for a moment.

"With all due respect, wolf hag, Sly and I both handled the assembly of drones before. No way a simple water flow can take them down, not even a full hit across the wall would overload drones’ optical zoom fast enough for drones to not be able to record the "mass"." Lucendra said in a somewhat insulted voice. Aranea could hear the groans and voices of the people, the warrior found the civilians it seemed.

"Got it. Keep us up to date and inform the captain Ivar about this development." Aranea quickly said, standing up. She wanted nothing more than to slam Annie against the wall, so she would stop and think! She forcibly calmed herself, gesturing Markus to follow after them. Right now, all of them need to work together to…

To achieve what exactly? Aranea asked herself in her mind. They were sent to retake the hospital, yet almost everyone here was dead. They failed, no matter how you look at it. We can at least have retribution. No, shut up. We saved someone, this should be enough. Move on and maybe you can save someone else. Aranea calmed herself, switching off to Kate’s cameras once again, while jumping down the elevator shaft.

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The group that went to the basement finally broke through the doors that led to the morgue. The room inside no longer resembled a cold storage for deceased people. Now it was hot, as cooling systems were put out of operation when three vehicles burst from the floor, crashing into walls and damaging the ceiling. Each vehicle resembled a metal square box moving on caterpillar track with a long drill protruding from the front of the vehicle, a drill larger than the vehicle itself. The doors of the vehicles were open, these were the troop carriers that brought attackers to the hospital. The walls of the room were smashed, making the room bigger than it was supposed to be. The only thing that kept the ceiling from falling were the massive drills of vehicles. Half ruined sewage tunnels could be seen in gaps of the broken floor.

A group of people, no less than fifty, were forced to stand on their knees before vehicles, their ankles and wrists tied with ropes that cut deep into their skin. Some of them were patients, there were even some doctors and soldiers from the guard duty. Some were so weak that they lay on their side limply, barely breathing. One of the doctors demanded to be released so he could at least preserve the lives of prisoners. Numbers ignored his demands. Few cubs were crying. Rows of soldiers in black armor stood before prisoners, ready to give up their lives, just to buy precious time to…

To do what? This whole operation makes no sense, Numbers are supposed to be a small g… Aranea’s stopped herself, seeing the answer through the cameras in Kate's armor.

An iron X-shaped construction was placed behind prisoners, several massive projectors that were emanating light were placed behind it. Svetlana was strapped to it, her mouth was gagged with ropes, while one of the numbers was holding a device that resembled an oversized camera before her. Four men stood nearby, one was a frail looking old man in a brown business suit. His black leather boots lacked any shoelaces, he was holding an expensive looking walking stick made of wood in his withered hand. His oversized head resembled an egg because of its shape. He was bald, with a long, white beard that reached the floor. In his free hand, he was holding a strange display, smiling with a toothless mouth as he looked at some numbers on it. A metal table stood near him, a single syringe was flying in the air, held suspended in the air by some unknown technology. Fluids of various colors were coiling around the syringe, slowly merging into a mixture of a single color. Another figure was of massive shape, easily rivaling wolf hags in size. The figure was wrapped in a grey cloak that covered it from head to toes. Another man was a smiling blonde man with the figure of an athlete. He was wearing an anti-heat suit of poor quality, torn in several places. Gloves from the suit were missing, as were the hood and mask. The long blonde hair of a man reached all the way to his shoulders, and his blue eyes widened in pleasure when he saw how the numbers opened fire at reclaimers and soldiers of the resistance. Slowly, step by step, the soldiers made their way into the room, hiding behind rubble as they were met with fire.

"Greetings!" The blonde man spread his hands wide, ignoring bullets that hit the wall behind him, his clear voice was easily loud enough for him to be heard even despite the chaos of battle, "Greetings one and all! We are welcoming you all to our modest carnival of death and rebirth. Get ready, for you are about to witness some of the most glorious things of all! You have already seen death on a way here, now comes the miracle of rebirth! The rebirth of our dearest brother, Six! Feast your eyes on…"

"Enough of this foolishness, Twelve," The old man stopped him with disgust in his voice, "It is sickening enough that Six will be reborn in the body of a genetic reject. At least show respect to the Creator and do not speak with these freaks. Eight. Remove the interlopers!"

The last of four men stepped forward. He had a lean and tall build, a single golden earring was in his left ear. He was dressed in a black military camouflage uniform without gloves or a helmet. The collar of black cloth that came from underneath his bullet proof body armor reached all the way to his jaw. Knee pads were on his legs.

"Do we need any more flesh for test subjects, Five?" The man asked in a bored voice, as he looked at how the numbers were being massacred before him.

"No need, we found the candidate already. Kill to your heart's content, just ensure that we will not be bothered. We need but a few more minutes, before the merging is complete." The old man replied, nodding at the syringe on the metal table next to him and watching the fluids combine. Eight nodded, running one hand across his short black hair. He hit his gold earring with a finger, producing a melodic sound.

And then he leaped into action, charging past the other numbers, weaving around tightly placed bodies like a ghost, not even one crashing into his allies. He charged into the fray, dodging around bullets.

His first move beheaded the wolfkin before him. One moment she was crouching among her fellow soldiers, firing at the numbers in front of her. The next moment, Eight was before her, a single chop with his hand pierced through the collar of her armor, slicing her head away clean. The male near her pointed his weapon at the number, but his head was crushed when Eight jumped in the air and kicked down. Two regulators were sliced in two as Eight landed, his open palms went through the armor and bodies underneath them as if he was slicing butter using a knife. Not once did a bored expression leave his face, even as he looked around for the next victims. In span of two heartbeats, he ended four lives. With his next move, he finished off a soultaker, simply pushing his hand through the chest of the foe.

It was then that Aranea saw something strange, just as she was running down as fast as she could. The palm of Eight, covered with blood and the remains of organs, was gleaming slightly under the light that was coming from the projectors. Upon closer view from the cameras, Aranea understood that a metal covered his palm.

He pulled his hand free just in time to catch the bullet fired by Cat. He looked at the bullet, locked between his index and middle fingers with minor interest, before turning to the soultaker. Eight’s head moved, as if he wanted to crack his neck, but instead he jumped from the place, covering a distance of ten steps in a single leap. Cat fired with both pistols, but Eight simply backhanded both bullets with his left hand and lifted his right arm up, as if it was the blade of an executioner. As his legs touched the ground, his arm, just like a blade, went down, accompanied by the sound of whip cracking. Cat barely dodged the hit, her cloak sliced in two as the arm of Eight crashed past her, breaking the stone in the floor. Number lifted his leg, ready to move again, when the features of his face changed to surprise for the first time. Kate sneaked up on him, kicking him in the side hard enough to send him back a few steps. Claws on her leg were unleashed, leaving five holes in the body armor of Eight, right below his ribs. Kate shot back with her shardgun, but Eight had already turned to face her, ducking low to avoid shards. As he stood up, not a hint of pain was on his face, only disgust. The left hand of Eight moved up, hitting the gold earring a single time, banishing the frown from his face.

"Begone." He simply said, moving so fast that the cameras on Kate’s armor failed to catch his movement. Aranea only saw the blinding line as Eight moved toward Kate.

And then she saw his surprised face once again, as his left arm missed the mark. Kate moved to the side, true, but compared to the speed of her foe, she was standing still. Eight, clearly still trying to process his failure, moved his left arm in a horizontal swing. And once more, Kate had just enough time to dodge before the living guillotine hit her.

"Now!" Kate shouted, and Eight flew away from her as shards hit him in the chest. His body went limp as his armor on his chest was pierced, the impact from the shot sent him back to the rows of Numbers. His toes touched the ground, stopping the fall of his body just a few inches from the ground, as he balanced himself in a bending backward position.

"I was afraid that you lacked the time to look at the radar." Kaleb said to Kate, reloading his weapon.

"I can always sense when you are around, Kal. "Ain't no devices needed," Kate replied smugly, "let's dust him and..."

The body of Eight jerked, straightening himself up and theatrically cleaning any existing dust from his shoulders. Despite the holes in his clothes, not a single drop of blood was coming from them. He hit his gold earring twice, making melodious sounds with each tap. With each hit, the frown on his face was slowly replaced with a forced smile.

"Useless effort in the end, but an impressive display of power nonetheless. But I am privy to some of the best medical technologies available in Iterna, meager damage like this is nothing to me. And I already figured you out as well. Your luck," He stretched the last word, while smiling with thin lips. Despite his smile, veins visibly popped beneath his brows. He stretched his shoulders, and the cloth of his camouflage uniform got torn in several places, as muscles underneath bulged all of a sudden, "Is about to run off."

Kaleb and Kate fired again, and the hands of Eight moved in a circle like motion, catching every single shard that was sent at him.

"I said it was useless!" Eight shouted, sending shards at Kaleb. The soldier moved to the wall and shards hit all around him, making a nearly perfect copy of his shape around him, missing him by the hair. Eight moved forward, his left arm raised for the thrust, "And now you die!"

With this shout, he stopped near Kate, blocking another bullet from Cat with his right hand. The number stopped his momentum perfectly, without missing a step.

"Faster." Aranea said to herself, charging forward, out-speeding even surprised Annie. As she leapt across the ground, the stone cracked beneath her feet.

The arm of Eight moved toward Kate's chest, like a spear looking for a heart. Kaleb screamed warning, but this time the warrior no longer had time to dodge. Nor Eight missed. His hand moved in a thrust with such speed that blood from the dead soldier fell away, showing gleaming metal covering skin. His fingers changed, they became more elongated, the fingers themselves were now reminiscent of blades. For a moment, the sound of whipcrack ran across the room, silencing the deafening sound of gunfire around the fighters.

And then stopped, when Aranea closed her paw across Eight’s wrist.

"You are a shite oracle, murderer. Go sell your soul to the spirits for proper gift." The claws of Aranea hit the temple of the surprised Eight. His body jerked backwards, and steel grew on the side of his head, protecting him just enough from being killed. Yet this time, blood came from his slashed metal skin.

Aranea refused to let him go. With her left paw, still locked around Eight’s wrist, she pushed him back to herself, kicking Number in the nuts. This act produced the ringing sound of metal slamming against metal and had no desirable effect. Eight pressed his legs together, holding the leg of Aranea in place, as he threw off her hold on his arm with just a minor twist. As if they were whips, his hands moved forward, aiming to decapitate the wolf hag.

Aranea simply hit him in the jaw with an uppercut, moving her arm past his head with her punch and closing her fist around his left ear. Before he could react, she slammed her second hand into his chest, sending the number away from her. Her attacks caused another ringing sound, claws scratched against the metal skin of Eight, barely scratching him. Whatever he was made of was tough.

"You have all done wonderfully," Aranea said to Kaleb and Kate, nodding to Cat in thanks. Annie crashed in the room behind her and Aranea smiled underneath her helmet, feeling much more secure, "Now everyone, please stay alive. Time to finish this, rescue hostages and survive. I refuse to let anyone else to die here."

"All I see before myself is a couple more dead genetic rejects," Eight twitched his shoulders again, and the clothes on his back came apart, giving way to growing muscles underneath. His fingers joined together, becoming blades. The tips of his boots got torn as hooked claws came from them, biting deep into the stone floor. The lean build of her foe was gone, now he resembled a bodybuilder instead. Underneath his still normal skin on his neck, his muscles looked like ropes. Blood stopped running from his scratched temple as metal disappeared, returning the black skin back, "Choice is not yours to make. The time of your life has passed. The time for you to die is at hand…"

He stopped as he raised his left hand to his left ear, to tap on his earring once again. Only his ears was missing, and Aranea smiled underneath her helmet, showing him the flesh in her left hand. Ear, with a golden earring in it. A blood vessel popped in the eye of Number, as he looked at Aranea with a hate-filled gaze.

"Ha! Good one, girl!" Aranea's smile faded as she heard voices close by. Something wrapped around her, lifting her body in the air before slamming her into the floor with enough force to make stone cracked. The wolf hag expected a follow-up strike, but Annie was already near her, slashing a blonde man with her knife. The knife, which could cut through metal, failed to cut through the skin of a man. A slice of Annie pushed the skin of Number deep into his face, making his features distorted, yet not a single drop of blood came from him as he darted back like a snake, fingers on his hands looked like a gust of thin ropes made of chewing gum. Twelve stopped near Eight, dropping the missing ear into the open palm of Eight. Eight simply put his ear into a pocket of his belt, while Twelve loudly sucked air, restoring the features of his face. His fingers inflated like a balloon, becoming shorter and returning to their original size.

"Who asked you to step in, double digit?" Eight asked in annoyance.

"Don’t be so greedy, single digit. I am about to show you that number means jack shit." Twelve giggled, preparing to leap at Annie.

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