Shadows Of Doom

Chapter 5: Friends 4 Ever

(Yes, the title is spelled that way on purpose.)

Po tilted her head. "What do you mean?"

"That robot as- I mean, that robot never mentioned anything about the yeti, the one in the caves, or the one in the maze that we ran into during the war, so it's possible he could know the maze one? But he's dead and should stay dead." Walten said simply before seeing Dip try to comfort Tink a little by taking him to explore that machine. It seems like Tink was still trying to take all of it in.

Dip patted his friend's back before facing the machine. "Hey Guardian, what does this do...?"

"Oh, that's the new food source for us. It makes artificial snacks that aren't custard because we can't really tell if that darn stuff is still infected or not. Plus, we destroyed it all." Walten replied.

Laa shivered a little, facing the wall, thinking The Guardian was there. "I'd prefer not to eat it after the whole mess you told us about."

Po snorted and made Laa face Walten this time. "I think you have glasses under your eye lids."

"No, cause then I'd see." Laa commented, her vision still incredibly blurry before directing her attention to the white blurry thing in her sight AKA The Guardian. "How am I gonna see again...?"

"Well, it's likely your vision will slowly adjust over time?" Walten suggested. "I'm not too sure myself...Speaking of, are you ok? I wanna make sure the cure didn't have any side effects."

Laa and Po nodded. "Yeah, I think we're fine."

The Guardian sighed in relief and then smiled. 'This isn't how I wanted to meet them, but I hope I can become their friend...I promise you guys. I'm not letting ANYONE hurt you again. You were my friends for a reason.' The Guardian thought before seeing the whole gang surrounding the food machine. He chuckled and walked over to help them out.

It would surely take a while for them to accept them into their crowd of friendship, but maybe one day, he wouldn't have to imagine that day.

Meanwhile...

Miles watched through his mask as Lenny led soldiers to readying the next two subjects of the cure. He was almost disgusted by the infected ones they hadn't killed yet.

One was brown and his fur was dried with blood and dirt. He had a rather giant body, not as big as Tink's former hulkish one, but still pretty huge. What was odd is that the brown cave creature had a giant tendril on his right arm, one that would resemble a claw if it wasn't just a plain old tentacle. Finally, the creepiest thing about the creature was that his jaw was broken and one of his glowing eyes was looking downwards, as if it no longer worked.

The other was the monster Connor and The Guardian encountered in a maze during an infected custard hunt. It was skinny and covered in dried up, but bright orange fur. Unlike the cave monster, his face was gray and his eyes were completely black, a void of nothing but emptiness. They had no other trait that would separate them from a Phantom Newborn other than the fact that they were taller and had an arrow antenna.

Lenny then watched as the creatures were put into the testing chamber, but not released from their restraints. He saw Miles and walked over. "This process is going pretty well, huh?"

"Yeah. I guess Richard was wrong. That crazy guy owes me five bucks." Miles joked.

Lenny laughed a little before sighing at the mention of Richard. Richard wasn't really an enemy, but he wasn't a friend either. He was the captain of a military force and took a team to an old abandoned fortress to respond to a distress call that was a trap and his entire army including his trusted friend Finn were murdered in cold blood. However, when another military officer named Dutch came to rescue him, Richard shot him and was deemed insane and 'no longer on their side'.

The former captain's eye was now black and he kept on telling everyone who encountered his cell that: 'The Infection won't stop and that the shadow of doom was near'.

"Hey, I know you like to joke, so here's a non-joke for ya: That guy's crazy. Whatever the hell he said was just some poltergeist bullshit." Miles said.

Lenny laughed a little and then nodded. "Yeah, true. Welp, good luck with those things. I'm going somewhere I won't die."

"Gee, thanks for the encouragement." Miles said, rolling his eyes underneath his mask before facing the scientists. "Alright, do it."

They nodded and then prepared soldiers with the cure incased in tranquilizer darts. They then opened the doors and marched inside, ready to face the worst.

That's when Anne rushed in, panting heavily. "RUN!" She called out, grabbing a rifle from Miles.

Miles shook his head, very confused. "Anne, what's going on?!"

"THAT's what's going on!!" She screamed, pointing to many soldiers firing their weapons at a large infected monster, who dodged the bullets and threw a table onto them.

The creature's fur color was cyan, looking like it was as cold as ice itself. It also had minor parts of his body that was covered in snow white fur, like a yeti or something. Like the orange maze creature, its eyes were black. Finally, it had no antenna, but the back of his head had fur shaped like a bunch of icicles.

"Shit!!" Miles screamed, taking out a pistol and firing at the creature.

The creature roared, but was shot in the knee and fell onto the ground, holding and covering its injured knee. Anne quickly took action and was about to fire until a tendril stopped her rilfe from firing at the yeti creature.

It was the brown cave creature, but the cure seemed to work on him, since although his jaw and eye were still broken, he was no longer hulkish and just looked like a normal tubby again with a simple broken jaw.

"Huh?" Anne pulled away her rifle. "Listen, I may not know you, but this thing's out for blood!"

Miles loaded his pistol again. "Exactly. Which is why we have to shoot its undead brain out!"

"Wait! It's only out for blood cause of what he did to him!" A voice exclaimed, who turned out to actually be the orange maze creature, but the cure had also worked on him. The orange creature turned to the yeti and walked over along with the cave one.

The yeti growled and slashed his claws at him, but they both dodged.

"What did they do to you...?" The orange one mumbled before seeing a scientist grab a syringe with the cure and hand it to him.

"Use this." He said and then stepped back.

The orange one gulped, knowing that the yeti was afraid of needles since he knew both the cave creature and yeti from his past. So, he slowly walked over and then quickly injected the syringe and pushed down, putting the liquid into his body.

The yeti roared and tried to charge until it fell to its knees and then shrinked back to its original size, his claws becoming smaller.

The cave creature smiled, or at least tried too and hugged the unconscious yeti creature.

That's when the orange maze creature smiled at both Miles and Anne. "Sorry for that. I just can't let you hurt my best friends." He then turned to the cave monster. "Hey Claw? You ready?"

'Claw' nodded and then followed the orange maze creature out, with the cured yeti creature in his arms.

Both Miles and Anne looked at each other. Anne smiled a little. "I guess that worked out..."

"...I'll be at the landing pad for more New Borns that we didn't kill."