*Yawns.*
Last night was great. Lizzie seemed happy for the rest of the night after she left Zander. She seems... free.
We slept together again and she's smiling...
"You awake?"
She softly opens her eyes...
"Yeah. I wanna stay like this a little longer before they separate us again today."
So we are training again after all. It seems like we'll be training in a bunch of different ways according to each of their personalities.
.......
After a while, Lizzie gets up and dressed. I get into my suit and get everything together.
Oh right! My knife! I need help putting it back in my storage. Wait... Where is my knife?
"Hey, Lizzie."
She comes out of the bathroom wearing tight sports apparel...
"What do you need, Nathaniel?"
"Uhm. Er... Oh, right! My knife. Have you seen it anywhere?"
"It should be in your storage."
"I may have got it out while I was home."
"Dumbass! Where did ya put it then?"
"I put it on my shelf. I don't see it anywhere."
"Just spawn it then."
I do my motion and-
"..."
Nothing happened.
Okay, let's try this again.
Nothing!
I'm starting to panic. What happened to it?!
"Nathaniel... Oh no... You... You didn't bring it with you to the fight, did you?"
"That's right! I never put it up, to begin with! I never handed it to anybody though."
"Fuck, Nathaniel! How'd you let this happen?!"
I stare blankly. I'm sort of frozen, unsure of how significant the problem is...
"Come follow me, Dumbass."
She takes me out of the room and straight out the front door. She seems pissed... Is it that bad?
.......
We finally make it to this huge headquarters and head straight toward the back. A couple of guards try to stop us but, Lizzie pulls me in and keeps walking till we finally arrived.
There is this black steel door and Lizzie barges in! There are guards pointing guns at us in every direction! General is sitting at this big table with that girl I first met here, standing by the General's side... Mallory was her name!
"Lizzie, why are we here!"
"Shush Nathaniel. Let me do the talking."
"Z719! What is the meaning of this intervention?! This is the second offense-"
"Ahh, that's enough Mallory."
She looks offended at first but soon fixes herself...
"Y-Yes, sir!"
"However, Lizzie, you can't keep barging in whenever you feel like it. You're lucky these guards having shot you yet."
"Sir, Z237 might currently have his Identification stolen!"
"I'm sorry, what!"
"We believe his Signature knife was stolen when P160 took him to the Venibora."
General sighs...
"Mallory."
"Yes, sir?"
"Go track Z237's Identification. Figure out this situation and get them back to the Warriors."
"Yes, sir! This way you two!"
We follow her out of the building. We go around the entire area until we make it to this bunker.
As we walk in, I see tons of flashing lights and computers all around us. There is one huge monitor in the middle; it's the size of the wall! It has a map of the entire united states and a bunch of red dots appearing then disappearing. This must be the main computer General was talking about. Those red dots must be the selected people.
We proceed to a room off to the side. Mallory puts her hand on this metal plate. It starts scanning with a red beam just like the door did at the Warriors barracks. We walk inside and it's full of more computers. There are other sorts of technology that I'm unsure as to what they are or what they do.
"Z237, come here."
"Yes, ma'am-Gah!"
She grabs my arms and pulls them to this metal plate. The screen next to the plate goes off with errors.
"Hmm? So it doesn't register you. However."
"..."
"What's the deal? We knew his identity was taken, so what's up?"
She stays silent and Lizzie starts to become more pissed.
"Hey, what's the problem with you?!"
"I'm sorry... Somethings off is all."
She starts typing on the computer. None of it is words just letters and numbers combined. Oh! I notice she types Z237. The monitor shows a layout of the base. It zooms into a specific spot on the map...
"Right there is the identity thief. In the violet barracks!"
She rushes out of the building calling for backup through her endoskeleton.
...
We walk to the barracks and wander around for a while until we finally make it to this shady hallway of the building. There are a ton of these guards crowded here.
Mallory tells us to stay back while she investigates the situation.
"Nathaniel, make sure you don't let this happen again. The darker side of this place can be a horrific place. You were lucky to only have your identity stolen and still be alive. Losing your identity is still really horrible here and could get you arrested and killed. But, considering the alternatives... Again, just don't let it happen."
"Yeah... Sorry-"
"Nathaniel? Is that you?"
"James?"
I see James jogging toward Lizzie and me. He slows down as he gets closer to us...
"Hey! What are you two doing here? Is everything okay?"
"Nathaniel got his identification stolen. We tracked them and this is where it took us."
"Oh no... Lizzie."
"Yes, what is it, James?"
"There have been sightings of Pozhar burning corpses after freak accidents had killed them... Anyway, I heard there was another mishap here. People are saying it's Pozhar."
"You don't think that-"
James nods for yes.
"..."
"What is a Pozhar?"
"It's a person, Nathaniel."
"..."
"So, this Pozhar guy, if he has my identification?"
"..."
"You'll be fine, okay? We won't let anything happen to you. Mallory and plenty of guards are here to get your identity back and protect you... So it'll be fine."
Yeah, she's right-
"Ahh!"
I hear a horrifying scream come from the crowd of guards. Two guards come out of the group pulling a woman out. She's resisting, screaming, and pouring tears. She starts swinging fists when she gets out of their grip.
Lizzie grabs my hand and pulls me into the group of guards.
Woah! We get to the front, James close behind, and there is this blue force field keeping anyone from going in. Inside there are six or seven burning corpses and two people. A man and a woman. That guy... I-I recognize him... Riveck!
With him is this woman. She's wearing a strange skin suit armor. Normally the ones I've seen are all a dark blue or even like a dark grey but, hers... Hers is all white with a weird black symbol over her, erm, over the left side of her chest. Her hair is short and definitely dyed white. She looks about my age and I'd say about five feet tall. Her skin is very pale and her eyes... weird. Her eyes have a strong glowing yellow color to them. It's mesmerizing.
They are cornered against the wall so they have no other direction to run. The girl is sitting on this tall cubed section that's extended out of the wall. Riveck is pacing around, left to right.
"Hey, Lizzie. Y'know her?"
"That's... That's Pozhar."
"Pozhar's a woman?!"
Shit!
Something flew from the inside of the force field and stuck through the steel flooring in front of me.
"My knife?"
I grab the bayonet from the floor and sure enough, it's mine. As I look back up she's walking to the edge of the barrier and looks me in the eyes. She looks back at Riveck and nods. She looks back toward me and tilts her head a bit as though she's confused. She raises her hand to the barrier...
"You're... Zsen?"
I hesitate before reacting but, refuse to tell her anything...
"You're so young. Not what I expected at all... Why does it have to be you?"
She says with disappointment. Riveck steps up...
"Come on... It's time."
She looks at him then back to me...
"Be careful. The flames, they beckon you."
She crouches next to one of the burning corpses...
"Get too close, it'll consume you."
She puts her hand out toward the corpse. Her hand catches flame in an instant, not going any further than her wrist!
"Just as they have everyone else."
She gets up and turns around. They both start walking...
"You may catch ablaze, but all fires can be contained... Don't be like everyone else... Farewell, Zsen."
Woah! Riveck waves his hand and creates a portal! He looks at me with disgust as Pozhar walks through the portal. Then he follows right after.
Everyone disperses as the force field fades. Mallory grabs me.
"You have your knife?"
"Yeah it's-"
She pulls me out as Lizzie and James follow...
.......
We make it back to the bunker. Mallory heads into the room we were previously in and tells us to stay outside...
"Nathaniel?"
"Yeah, Lizzie?"
"What did she say to you?"
"I'm not too sure. She recognized me as Zsen. She could've been at Venibora. I used that as my fighter name."
"Dumbass, she obviously was! She had your knife."
"Right."
"What were you doing at Venibora?!"
"Pico took him there. Why are you even here James?"
"I'm his friend. I'm trying to make sure everything's alright."
"Go away you fucking asshole! He's with me, he'll be fine!"
"Lizzie, what's wrong with him staying with us?"
Lizzie looks at me with a furious look.
"She's right Nathan. I have no permission to be around here regardless. You are safe with her. I'll see you later."
James walks out.
"Lizzie, that was wrong."
"Don't fall for his shit. He's not such a great person like he wants you to believe. We have more pressing matters to be concerned with right now. So what exactly did she tell you?"
I proceed to tell Lizzie everything word for word.
...
"Hmm."
"She was just saying shit like that to be cool or something, right? Or maybe she's trying to inspire people toward chaos or something!"
"..."
"She never talked before, Nathaniel."
"Oh."
"You know about my past, how all my partners died after a few missions?"
"Yeah... I know."
"Well, she has the same history... It's gotten to the point where she's no longer assigned a partner anymore."
"Damn. So she's with the Destiny Division."
"No. She's with the Special Forces Unit. She never got ranks because she never communicated with anyone. She has a horrible reputation because of how weird she is. She's never killed anyone but, she burns the bodies around her. Nobody knows why. She',s been arrested so many times but, never sent to jail because she's never done anything wrong. Eventually, they told her she isn't allowed to burn bodies anymore. Ever since that she hasn't been caught on camera or in person burning the bodies. Without the evidence they can't arrest her but, she's always around when they burn."
"..."
Mallory gets out and grabs my arm. She takes me into the room and tells me to hold still.
"Ack!"
Fuck! She impales my arm with a long five-inch needle! It's a sharp pain at first, but it dies down a bit. I feel the endoskeleton in my body vibrating...
"What I'm doing now is making sure no virus goes through your system as we reconnect your knife back to you. If anything gets in, someone could quite literally control you. So we must be careful with this procedure."
Damn. I see why this was so serious now... I'm lucky to be in the position I'm in. To be more close with the Warriors and the General than most others. I would've been dead without them.
.......
We head back to the barracks and I'm told to head toward Pico's room.
"Hey, Nathaniel! What are you doing here?"
"Hey, Lyra."
We greet each other with a warm hug.
"Where is Pico? I have to start training."
I ask her with a smile.
"Oh, he is doing service hours for his punishment."
"I thought he already did his punishment."
"Yeah, he had to fight to keep his rank. He also has to do community service hours when he's not training you or on a mission. He also losses ten percent of his units and it's permanently on his record. He's serving for three frozen months."
"So what do I do?"
"I'll take you to him. We are supposed to go out on a mission soon, but I've been ready for a while so I have time to kill."
"Oh. What's the mission? What's it like?"
She grabs a few things and we start heading out.
"We have to go check out this area reported to have Corrupted. It's kinda just something you get used to."
"Oh! Why aren't y'all being more urgent about this? Shouldn't you guys be rushing to take care of them?"
"Nathaniel. You don't realize how many times we've done this. I also don't think you realize how many Corrupted there are."
"Uhm... It's still pretty serious, isn't it?"
"Look, we contain them all in one area, right. Occasionally, they break out or they come from their realm into a random location. They're spotted on our monitored computers and we send out to a squad to handle it. Usually, the beast roams cluelessly around that area, but we have Operators for every squad to keep track of the Corrupted and its activity. Operators find out how many Corrupted there are and where they are located every moment."
"What's your point?"
She growls toward me...
"Besides the fact that you need to know this, I'm also explaining how we know it's not serious enough to rush the job. It's a level ten Corrupted so we should all go but, it's in a wooded area, miles away from any civilization or homes. So, in case something happens here and some of us need to stay, we have a good hour to prep up for the mission."
"Yeah, I guess... Sorry. I was just worried about the people y'know."
"Yeah. We know what we are doing Nathaniel. We aren't monsters, we won't let people die even if it costs us our lives. Hell, the system has worked for centuries."
"Centuries?! Seriously?"
"Well... Yeah. I mean It also wasn't as bad back then but we've contained it for so long, so."
"How do you know?"
"I was curious so I found their library and read about the history here. It's not hard to do. The very first General was the General of the United States army. His parents were murdered by Corrupted."
"Wait, is that Corrupted... Claw?"
"That's only a theory. He joined the military and worked his way up till eventually, he proposed the idea to have a secret army to hold them back... Slowly this Corruption started to appear all around the world once we were able to contain it. They try to find new openings and well, essentially, it's become what it is today. The world working together has advanced our technology so much but, the government is always so fucked and they always want to be the strongest country... Ughh, whatever. Our General right now is the fourteenth General. He's also the first to be General with a time freeze. So he has been here the longest of any General."
.......
"Ah, amigo! You finally arrive! Let's get outa here already. I am sick of the place."
"Oh, hey! I didn't realize we were even here yet."
We're at a front office desk and I'm not so sure what kind of punishment he's getting here, but it doesn't matter to me I guess...
"Okay guys, I gotta go. Pico, no more illegal shit, okay? We aren't trying to kill him, just train him."
"Si, si. I gotcha."
Pico looks at me...
"Sorry, amigo. I didn't mean for it to go down that way, ya feel?"
"It's all good. What are we doing today?"
"Ahh. I have special something for the day. Come with me."