Vermilion

Chapter 2

After about a 45-minute drive Arena finally let out a breath of relief. Stepping into the familiar run-down lab was a home away from a no longer existent home. Dr. Francesca was a general practitioner when the world went to hell. The monsters had just started appearing out of holes, dropping from the sky, swimming out of the ocean. No one understood why or what was happening.

Before the Hell Days, there were lots of run-down buildings, facilities that weren't taken care of, just general trash no one used. Now, every doctor had to set up in large warehouses. Dr. Francesca was trained as an emergency physician to handle the mass amount of people coming in. Lots of people wouldn't even make it to the warehouse clinics before being slaughtered. 

"Arena, arm please." Dr. Francesca strapped the cuff around Arena's forearm. Leaning back on the couch Arena observed Dr. Francesca taking notes. Putting slime in tubes and shoving them into a machine.

"I think that was your fastest kill yet." Nathan sat down next to Arena on the couch. "Maybe the nastiest too."

Arena snorted, "It has nothing on the Green Hell. I couldn't get the gunk out of my hair for weeks."

"Well, that one I haven't seen before except once." Dr. Francesca said while she observed Arena's vitals, "All normal, nothing I can see that makes you different from anyone in this room yet." She turned to face the two on the couch. "I don't think the monster you just fought even has a name yet."

"Let's see if the news has footage of it yet!" Alex jumped up and clicked on the TV across the room.

Art looked at Alex, "We were the only ones in that field. How do you expect them to have captured footage of it?" 

"Well, we also heard helicopters and other people approaching so, someone had to see something, right?"

The five of them all turned to look at the TV. Channel 8 news was covering a story where the headline read ' New Monster fight footage from our infamous blue warrior' an audible groan went through the room.

"Turn it up Alex, we can't hear it." Nathaniel signed to her.

"Oh sorry, thought it was my hearing aid." Turning up the TV volume everyone leaned forward to listen.

"-eeking out these monsters has proven a challenge with our unknown new warriors taking down at least one a day. We have identified four for sure. Each wearing a different suit: Black, Pink, Green, and of course our personal hero Blue." Arena rolled her eyes at the newscaster as she continued to listen in. "From day one, our Blue Warrior has been with us. Here's a clip from the first few days."

On-screen were pieces of videos stitched together. The war zones that were once parks, schools, or even cities were reduced to nothing but people trying to get out of the wreckage. Mothers in the streets crying for their families. Children wandering around looking for food. Blue appeared at the end of these clips always a helping hand out, always there when all the pieces needed to be picked up.

"What a jerk." Arena muttered to herself. Art lightly grabbed her shoulder from over the couch. Arena put her hand on top of his and felt the warmth of his palm radiate throw her long-sleeve shirt. She relaxed a little at the physical contact, but her gaze was still locked on the screen in front of her.

"Those scenes give me chills every time. We have made a lot of progress since the first Hell beast appeared. Why do you think that is Chad." The newscaster, Joan, didn't have one hair out of place from the brown bun sitting atop her head. Her enthusiasm and fake cheer did nothing to cover up the fear in her eyes.

"Well Joan, I would definitely say our warriors at work haven't been the only people doing the work." He flashed a grin. "Our governments have been hard at work to continue making state of the line weapons to continue battling these beasts."

Nathaniel threw his chips at the TV. " What a bunch of lying puppets! They haven't done anything but try to hunt down the quote-unquote 'Armored Warriors' and make our lives difficult."

" They're doing everything they can to not cause panic." Athena spun around and said, "God knows how dangerous panic was in the first few weeks."

"We just had to run from them after you were cleaning up their mess!" Nathaniel retorted back, throwing his hands in the air. Arena jumped up and turned all the way to him.

 "We don't know if it's their mess! Or why it's happening! We've had this argument a million times can we please jus-"

"Hello, is someone here? We need help." A voice echoed into the back room of the upper floor.

Dr. Francesca shot up from her seat at the front of the lab. "Be quiet, don't come out." She whispered at everyone, "Hello, I'll be right with you, sign-in on the sheet." She yelled as she ran out the door and shut it behind her.

Everyone looked around at each other. The air was still tense with the unfinished fight that just occurred.

"Alright, I'm taking a walk to cool down." Arena slapped her hands on her thighs and stood up. Throwing on a black and gold hoodie she stepped out into the cool evening. Without another glance, she walked out the backdoor to the staircase.

"So is no one is going to tell her that we got the footage to show her off or...." Alex looked at the two men who just looked done with the day. "Okay, well then I'm going to order food under Frans name then."

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Next update will be out by Tuesday for Chapter 3 :)