The sword was blown straight out of Grega's hands, while a bright light lit up the whole corridor, and tip-first burrowed into the concrete wall a few inches from where Sheppard was standing frozen by the events seen in front of his eyes. As soon as Sheppard realised he had escaped death by mere inches, he let out a scream while he slid with his back against the wall down into a sitting position. The light that originated from Avengers hand slowly diminished and the corridor darkened up again.
“What the hell was that?” thought Grega to himself as he quickly jumped backwards evading the incoming slashes launched at him by his white-eyed opponent.
“Now that I have your attention.” Avenger stood up straight “ I would like to know the meaning of your attack.”
“Its quite simple.” the swordsman grabbed his sword by the hilt and took it out of the wall as if it had been stuck in butter “You are a dangerous entity. Your existence brings nothing but death. I normally don't take on such jobs since assassination is really not my style, but since I'll be eliminating the bringer of death from this world, I made an exception for a higher fee.”
Avengers eyes started to glow brighter and brighter after hearing those words out of the swordsman's mouth. The scientists that were following Avenger were almost frozen with fear began to shiver as a strange feeling of power was in the air similar to the presence of a strong electrical source. They all started to back off into the data-storage area where Heckler was working on stopping the transfer. Ned also grabbed Sheppard by the shoulder hinting that they should get out of the area.
Avenger turned his hands into fists as they started to glow from the inside out, as if he had been holding strong lights in his palms, rays of light escaping through the areas between his fingers the light started to get intenser and intenser until the fists opened and gave way to two blindingly bright balls of light that shot directly at Grega, who managed to dodge the first one, but was hit by the second one directly into the chest sending him flying backwards into a 10 inch metal door, throwing the door along with himself into a wide room with lots of computers and broken vats.
“Man that was one hell of a hit” Grega stood up only to fall to his knees and cough up some blood.
Avenger walked through the door again holding two swords, one in each of his hands “It's time to end this.”
As he walked up to Grega, who was still on his knees, he first used his left sword to ram it through Grega's leg nailing him to the floor, and the right one to stab him through the chest, melting a hole through his chest plate and body. A scream echoed through the corridors of the facility, and as the swords disappeared again Grega stopped screaming and just fell to the floor face down.
“I will not be beaten by the likes of you” said Avenger as he simply turned round and started to walk away from the motionless swordsman, who's blood was pouring out of both wounds. “You shall die slowly here lying in your own blood.”
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Avenger walked out of the room back into the corridor where Ned was still covering Sheppard.
“You should put that gun down.” Avenger looked at Ned who was pointing his gun at him “You will be dead before the bullet leaves it!”
“I did it sir!” Heckler was running towards Avengers location followed by the rest of the scientists. “The data transfer is interrupted and the self destruct is halted for now. But we only have about 30 minutes before by blocks become inactive.”
“Good can we start the elevators now?” Avenger smiled a bit hearing the news.
“Not yet....... we still don't have any power. Someone must go to the backup generator room and manually turn it on so we can reroute the power to the elevators.” said Heckler as he distributed special night vision goggles to everyone in the group.
“I see. How close is the backup generator?”
“Its in the opposite direction of the power circuit where I need to reroute the power” said Heckler.
“I'll go to the generator” Sheppard stood up from behind Ned regaining some of his courage “Ned can you come with me in case I meet any trouble?”
“Right behind you.” Ned returned his gun to its position at his side “Right well meet up with you guys as soon as we switch on the power. So Heckler be ready to push the button as soon as you get the juice.”
“It'll be more than pushing a button but you got it”
Ned and Sheppard left for the generator room through the corridor on the right while Avenger, Heckler and the scientists went straight towards the power circuit for the elevator. Meanwhile in the room to the back right Grega gathered enough strength to reach into his pockets and bring out a syringe which he injected into his neck before passing out.
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Sheppard and Ned were making their way down a dark corridor where bodies of dead staff members were scattered round the floor as well as bodies of the escaped unsuccessful “Ares” specimens. The stench of blood and raw flesh was so strong in the air that Sheppard had to stop a bit and catch his breath, but Ned reminded him that the time was running out. As they continued down the path a scream was heard along with a *thumb* of a fallen body, while Ned quickly pulled out the gun Sheppard noticed a head like object roll past their feet in the darkness. Before he could react and scream, Ned had already fired off six shots from his handgun into a silhouette, that quickly disappeared.
“Was that......”
“Yes. Lucky it ran away instead of attacking us.” Ned came to his breath as he reloaded the gun “We need to be extremely careful. We know for a fact that at least one of those things is down here.”
They made a few steps forward when a hand suddenly grabbed Sheppard on the shoulder.
“Doctor...” said the figure behind Sheppard who screamed as soon as he felt the hand touch him.
He slowly turned round wondering why he wasn't killed yet while Ned quickly pointed his gun right between the two shiny red eyes glowing in the darkness, almost pulling the trigger when he heard the voice.
“Wait it's me Ares.” hearing that Sheppard and Ned relaxed a bit.
“I woke up and headed back down through the maintenance passages. I had to kill three of my brethren on the way though.” Ares's voice had a saddened tone while talking “I never thought they really were this mad. After that I heard a loud bang and hurried down here where i saw you two going down this hallway.”
“Yes we need to turn on the backup generator manually so Heckler can reroute the power to the elevator, but we are running out of time.”
“I'll help you get there. I sense two of my brothers are near.”
Both Ned and Ares prepared as a couple of glowing red eyes appeared in the corridor.
“The one on the left seems to be heavily wounded.” said Ares as he charged towards the one on the right.
“Must be the one I shot earlier, he probably also had some wounds from the fight in this corridor. Kinda figures heed go for help.” Ned charged forward with the gun pointed at the specimen.
Ares grabbed his failed predecessor be the head smashing it straight down into the floor, while Ned followed up and body slammed him against the wall quickly pushing his gun against his head and shooting off eight more rounds into the monsters head, while Ares was kicked back into the wall by the other specimen. Ned quickly turned round only to be grabbed by the neck and thrown back into the wall. Suddenly the specimen screamed and hit Sheppard, who managed to quickly sneak up and insert an injection into his back, on the head snapping his neck.
“John!” both Ned and Ares screamed as the failed experiment collapsed to the floor.
“DAMN!” Ned fell to his knees.
“We must hurry time is running short and the generator is right up ahead.” reminded Ares.
They quickly ran to the door at the end of the corridor where the sign said *Generator Room*.
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Avenger ahead with Heckler next to him talking about how to escape the lab and the rest of the scientists behind them, the group slowly progressed towards the engineering part of the bottom floor. They heard a couple of screams every now and then but haven't met any specimens yet.
“We need to take a left here.” said Heckler pointing to a metal door that was shut tight.
Avenger extended his hand and formed a blade, the corridor lit up as he sliced cleanly through the centre of the door, before the sword and with it the light both disappeared.
“Strange how there is not a single body here, even though there is blood.” hinted one of the scientists in the group.
“The blood must have flown in from the last corridor” quickly interrupter a colleague.
“That only means we are safe here right?” continued another. The rest of them started arguing about that fact.
“Shut up you morons do you want them to hear us?” interrupted Heckler when suddenly a scream in the group was heard.
One of the scientists fell to the floor, head separating on impact, while glowing red eyes appeared on both their sides. They attacked at the same time, and while Avenger was killing of the group on their left the group on the right started to slaughter the scientists one by one. Screams and roars echoing, with the sounds of bodies falling to the floor was heard through the corridors, with flashes of light every couple of milliseconds revealing the massacre. When finally all the experiments were killed only four people remained standing.
“Joe, Mark!” said Heckler to the two scientists that collapsed to their knees during the horror they have seen “SNAP OUT OF IT!”
Avenger quickly kicked in the two halves of the door, giving way to the red light of the corridor behind it “Quickly move. More of them are on the way.”
Removing their goggles, the group continued through the door into the corridor that had a functioning emergency lighting system. The area was dry and well ventilated but that was only a small gesture as they laid eyes on the mountain of corpses tossed to the side behind the door.
“So this is where they put them all.” said Avenger as he followed the scientists through the door.
Heckler and his colleagues needed a moment to digest the image they have just witnessed, but they continued as soon as they did. They soon reached a door where the sign *Main Circuit* was displayed next to it stuck on the wall.
“Great its in here” said one of the two scientists as they both ran to the door.
“WAIT!” screamed Avenger, but he was to late to stop the happening.
The door busted open and two more red eyed humanoids jumped out killing the scientists by tearing their heads off. Heckler screamed as Avenger quickly formed two swords and sliced the specimens in two, while still frustrated that the was to late to do anything.
Heckler fell to his knees crying from the scene “How could this have happened”
“As you said. A computer malfunction. Now get your act together and set up everything to reroute the power!” Avengers face turned towards Heckler “I SAID NOW!”
Heckler embraced himself on the nearby wall still looking at the lifeless bodies of his fellow workers as he stood up and walked into the room, followed by Avenger.
“....an....ear....e......” the sound from the radio in the redly lit room was heard, but not understandable.
Heckler quickly ran to the receiver and calibrated the frequency “Can you repeat the last broadcast please?”
“Roger that doc.” Heckler was relieved to hear the voice of Ned through the radio “We are in the generator room. Power should be on line in 10 seconds. Over.”
“I roger that Ned, you and Sheppard head back as quickly as possible once it turns on. We are running out of time.” Heckler said with a shaking and half crying voice.
“Sorry doc but Sheppard was killed while killing one of them” Ned paused a bit “He injected some sort of chemical into it and got killed right after.”
Hecklers breath stood still for a while ”I see. You.... You said 'WE' are you with any other survivors?”
“Well we met up with Ares just before Sheppard got killed. Right now its just the two of us here.” Ned stopped a while to look at an instrument that read *Power control 100% ready* “Aright you got the juice, now get the elevator working. We are heading towards the elevator and well meet you there.”
Avenger stepped to the door looking down the hallway “20 of them are on their way. You need to hurry up before the others sniff us out to.” he said as he made another sword and charged towards the incoming specimens.
The lights of turned back on as the power started flowing and Heckler quickly began to reroute power from the backup generator into the elevator systems.
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*ring ring* *ring ring*
“My head hurts. A phone?”
Grega slowly opened his eyes looking round him, only able to see blured shapes of his surroundings.
“Everything is kinda blurry. And why is it so bright?”
He slowly regained his eyesight and noticed his sword lying next to him in the same pool of blood he had been lying in himself. The lights were all turned back on and the stench of all the corpses in the outside corridor was present in the room.
“Looks like they got the power back on line.”
*ring ring* *ring ring*
“Oh the phone”
*beep*
“Hello.”
“Where have you been? We've been trying to reach you for the last 10 minutes!”
“Sorry bout that. Was kinda out cold.” Grega got to his feet “The target has some surprising moves. But don't worry everything is still going like planned.”
“If you screw this up I swear you will not find a safe place to hide on this planet. Not even under the smallest rock!”
*The caller hang up*
Grega examined his body noticing the hole in the armour and his healed wounds “Man that could have killed me.”
He took his sword from the floor and put it back to where it normally was strapped to his back. Walking out of the room he noticed another red-eyed specimen, only this one was dressed in a dark brown suit instead of black with the number '01' on the left side of his chest clothing. As soon as the specimen saw the swordsman it launched forward trying to grab Grega by the neck, but got its head cut off instead.
“Lousy beasts. If this really is the next generation special superhuman soldier then this whole place is a waste of time.”
Moving down the corridor into the direction the scientists ran off earlier he eventually came to the door where the sign read *data-storage area*. It was a big room with about 60 supercomputers working constantly and a console interface right behind the door.
“What's this?” he wondered as he reached the interface “It says data transfer protocol temporarily disabled. Backup protocol activation in 5 minutes. Well what ever.“
He took a disc out of his pocket and inserted it into the interface, which started to change all sorts of protocol files and ended up by disabling the transfer block.
“There that should have changed the destination server to the one of my client.”
*ring ring*
“Hello”
“We see that the data has started to be transferred to our server. We suggest you get out of there. As soon as the transfer finishes the self destruct sequence will initiate destroying all evidence. You have about 5 minutes before the transfer is finished. But first destroy the disc we gave you.”
The caller hung up again as Grega removed the disc and destroyed it.
“What are you doing?”
Grega turned round to see Ned aiming for him with his gun.
“Step away from that console!”
“I wouldn't point that thing at me if I was you.” the swordsman grinned while slowly moving away from the interface.
“Wait...” Ned realised who it was he was talking to “Y....You were supposed to be...”
“Dead?” interrupted Grega.
“I.... I saw you get stabbed through the chest!”
“Indeed that really hurt to you know.”
“H....How?”
“Well since I don't like when someone points a gun at me and I'm going to kill you anyway. I might as well tell you. I borrowed those strange injections from the doc on our way down here.”
“WHAT!” the last words Ned was able to speak before his hand was chopped off.
A loud scream followed as Grega mercilessly turned a full circle and cut off his Neds head as well.
“You bastard!” Ares screamed running down the hallway towards where his companion had fallen, but he was easily evaded by Grega who cut him in half with a horizontal slash.
“You may be a success, but you are still weak.”
Grega hurried down the corridor towards the circuit room and then the elevator area. The corridors were by now really reeking from all the bodies, and cause the ventilation system in the area was shut down the stench had no way to escape. Before he could reach the elevator area, he was cut off by two more of the specimens in brown uniforms, only they had the numbers '00' and '02' on their jacket.
“More of you guys?” Grega reached for his sword, but noticed they were faster than the last one.
Barely evading the punches, he rolled backwards taking his sword from his back mid roll. The eyes of the specimens began glowing stronger and the colour changed from dark read to blood red. Their speed increased and they were almost as fast as the swordsman, who was desperately trying to evade the incoming punches and trying to make a slash connect.
“Damn I wouldn't have problems if it was just one of them, but if its two its like the speed is two times faster.”
They all fought for position like that for about a minute when one of the specimens made the mistake of accidentally pushing forward to much, which have Grega the chance to cut off his hand and with quick slash through the air send a wave of light splitting the other one into two. While both pieces fell to the floor the swordsman quickly made a turn ramming the sword through the chest of the leftover specimen and then removed it by cutting through the chest and head upwards. As blood flowed through the air of the two killed specimens a sound was heard over the speaker system.
“Data transfer complete! Self destruct sequence initiated! Building will self destruct in 20 minutes! Repeat building will self destruct in 20 minutes!”
Grega looked to the left noticing a grenade still attached to the belt of one of the guards bodies.
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Avenger and Heckler reached the corridor from the elevator area just in time to see the doors of the elevator close with Grega inside. The light started to move as Heckler ran forward in order to call the other elevator, but he didn't notice the grenade that Grega had placed below one of the corpses in front of the door and when the scientist reached the door, he nudged the corpse making the grenade explode. Heckler flew backwards, his body torn to pieces, his arm landing at Avengers feet, one of his legs at the left side of the two brown suited specimens.
“And so he dies as well.” said Avenger as he made his way to the blown up elevator shaft.
Entering the shaft he noticed the elevator was only one floor above him, so he climbed up and made a hole into the bottom of the elevator, so he could get in and use it. He pressed the button to get to the top of the complex and once the destination was reached the door opened up and Avenger walked into what looked like a big garage. It was made totally out of a rocky material resembling concrete, but according to Heckler, as he talked to Avenger earlier, it was about twice as hard, there were also a few specially designed snow trucks parked as well as motorized sleds all bearing the Gentech logo on them and in the middle a single person stood.
“Took you long enough.” Grega propelled himself forward with his sword ready for a horizontal slash, but was bocked by one of avengers light blades.
“That wont work” the swordsman's sword began to glow and the sword of light was sucked into it giving free way for Grega to attack, unfortunately his opponent managed to evade the attack backwards and started to charge a ball of bright energy in his hand again.
Same as last time he shoot the ball but Grega did not try to evade, instead he stood motionless as the ball hit him. The explosion from the impact threw smoke into the air, and when it settled down, Avenger saw it: a shield made out of energy that seemed like it was light itself, it protected the swordsman and the area behind it from any damage while the area in front of it resembled a partial crater. Avenger launched forward punching directly into the shield shattering it on impact and hitting Grega directly in the face, sending him back hitting a snow truck and falling to the ground.
“How the hell did you do that.” Grega stood up and continued “That shield is impenetrable!”
“Maybe for others, but not for me.” Avenger grinned as the announcement started again.
“Warning self destruction of the complex will commence in 15 minutes. All personnel evacuate the area within a one kilometer radius.”
The two remained standing for a while just looking at each other and then launched towards one another.
“Repeat: Self destruction of the complex will commence in 15 minutes. All personnel evacuate the area within a one kilometer radius.”