It wasn’t very long till they were attacked.
They reached the end of the hallway that’d been immediately past the door, and turned right onto another dilapidated hallway with an elevator at its end.
“No way,” Andre had said when the elevator came into view. “Where do you reckon that goes?”
“If I had to guess, I’d say up would take us somewhere into Bridge’s mansion,” Nightman answered.
“And down?” Chloe asked.
“Where the trouble is.”
“Good.” Andre continued forward. “Trouble’s what we’re here for.”
They were halfway through the second hallway when the elevator doors dinged and then slid open. Out of the elevator charged five of the Helmets, all five of them blistering down the hallway, coming right for Chloe and the others, snarling furiously as they did.
“He knows we’re here!” Chloe yelled, before going on the back foot, leaning back to avoid a swipe one of the Helmets took at her.
A second launched itself at a wall and propelled itself right off it, straight at her. Jin was there in an instant, catching the Helmet by its head, holding it up in one hand, while it kicked and clawed at her. She winced at the Helmet’s attacks then hurled the Helmet into a wall, before charging into it and hastily yanking the helmet off.
A boy, brown-skinned with eyes glazed over was behind the helmet. The boy slumped to the ground at once, whitened eyes regaining some color before falling shut. Jin frowned at the boy for a moment. Her ears twitched.
“He’s alive,” she said.
Chloe dodged a blow from another of the Helmets, and ducked as it charged at her. She spun at once, catching the Helmet in the face with a well-delivered kick that sent it staggering into a wall. She charged at the Helmet immediately, held her elbow to its neck, pinning it to the wall. Rapidly, she got the helmet off and tossed it aside.
A blue-eyed girl slumped to the ground.
Nightman, to avoid hurting the kids behind the helmets had stowed his shotgun away, and was shooting with a pistol that fired off pulse blasts rather than bullets, each blast enough to disorient the Helmets enough for the others to pounce. All the while, he remained nimble on his feet, darting around to avoid getting targeted by the feral Helmets.
It took little more than ten minutes until all five Helmets had been taken care off, with five children left unconscious on the ground once the helmets had been taken off of them. Jin went around, stomping on the Helmets, shattering them.
Andre crouched by one, picking it up and examining its interior curiously. “Huh,” he said, raising one eyebrow over the other. “That’s interesting,” he remarked, before tossing the helmet to Nightman who caught it perfectly. “Hold on to that for me, would you?”
“You want to keep this?” Nightman queried.
“Could study it back at Capital,” Andre said. “Judging from what it looks like, I’m guessing there’s a module somewhere in here that’s transmitting waves to the helmet, telling the kids what to do or more precisely, shutting off the parts of their brains telling them what not to do. Just making them completely feral. Could be reworked into something useful back at Capital.”
“You mean a weapon,” Chloe said, taking the helmet from Nightman, while staring straight at Andre. “We’re not here to help Capital acquire something like this. You’re talking about mind control, hell, erasure. This could be slapped on to any one of us.”
She tossed the helmet to Jin who caught it with both hands and crushed it immediately, before tossing what was left of it to the ground. Andre flinched slightly as the helmet hit the ground then sighed.
“Alright then.” He shrugged. “Guess you’re right. Let’s keep going now, shall we?”
“What about the kids?” Chloe asked, gesturing to the unconscious kids sprawled on the floor of the hallway now.
“They should be fine here,” Nightman said. “I’d take them and go but there’s bound to be more inside and more work to be done. We finish our task here then get all the kids out.”
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“Come on,” Andre said, continuing ahead toward the elevator. Chloe, Jin and Nightman all followed, throwing glances at the unconscious kids as they went. The kids had sustained bruises from the encounter but already, Chloe could see their cuts healing, bruises fading. They were healing a lot faster than Chloe herself could.
They were almost at the elevator when Chloe heard rather rapid footsteps from behind. She spun around and received a staggering blow to the face at once, her vision swimming as she stumbled backward, collapsing into Jin’s arms.
She heard a snarl, followed by the sound of Nightman’s shotgun going off. She blinked hard and turned then to see Kaia in front of Nightman, his shotgun bent now at an odd angle. She yanked the shotgun free from his grip, and spun around to face Andre who’d been going at her. She slammed the shotgun across Andre’s face, knocking him to the ground. Nightman reached behind him, grabbed an odd prong-like device that buzzed as he hit a button and fired off dangerous electric sparks. He prepared to attack Kaia with it but before he could, she’d spun again. She caught him in the head with the shotgun. He crumpled at once and she grabbed the prong before it could hit the ground. She pushed the button, examined it as the sparks flew from its tip, and smiled manically.
Andre started to rise but Kaia turned to him, jabbed the prong at the back of his neck. A roar escaped him as he convulsed. A moment later, he was unconscious, smoke issuing from the back of his neck.
She turned then, glaring in Chloe and Jin’s direction, eyes wild. “You know, you should really do a better job making sure samples of your blood aren’t lying around,” she said, letting an empty vial drop to the ground.
Aiden.
Kaia’s hand, which had been severed and left outside the door to Bridge’s facility was with her now. Somehow, it was reattached to her but not entirely. It was limp. Chloe could see signs of the healing still underway, blood vessels and nerves and bones slowly reconnecting as the body attempted to knit itself back together.
“It’ll be your head this time,” Jin promised, letting out a low, feral growl. Chloe saw her nails harden, ready to slice through flesh and bone.
“And to think I tried to be nice about this whole thing.” Kaia sighed in disappointment, before turning a dial on the prong in her hand. She turned it all the way up to the max before flashing Jin a daring smile.
Jin snorted. “Cute.”
And then she charged forward. The two of them went at each other, speed sending out gusts of wind in the hallway. Jin swung first. Kaia dodged the blow, and the fist slammed into wall instead, sending a crack spiderwebbing through it. Around them, the lights flickered.
Kaia swung a blow, catching Jin in the face but Jin barely budged under the weight of the strike, sending forth another jab that Kaia dodged. Kaia attacked then with the prong, but Jin parried it carefully and slammed an elbow into Kaia’s face, staggering her backward and sending blood streaming from her nose.
Kaia paused to wipe the blood from her nose but Jin wasn’t interested in allowing any breaks. She charged again. This time, Chloe joined in, fully refocused after being caught out by the earlier strike.
The two of them went at Kaia together, flanking her and throwing jabs from either side. Kaia dodged and weaved between blow after blow, but would occasionally get caught out by Jin who was a lot faster and a lot more feral with how she attacked. All the while, Kaia would attempt jabs at them with the prong, prompting them both to duck beneath it and remain on their feet, switching positions every few seconds.
It wasn’t long until Kaia got caught out.
WHAM!
A punch from Jin connected with her face, sending her staggering sideways, eyes lolling to the back of her head. Chloe struck immediately from the other side, a well delivered blow aimed at her chest, the impact taking out a rib or two.
Jin slammed another fist into Kaia’s face, knocking her back toward Chloe, who landed yet another blow.
On and on this went, Chloe and Jin in perfect symphony, landing blow after blow while Kaia swayed between them, eyes permanently at the back of her head, tongue stretching out of her mouth in a manner that made her look insane.
One blow from Jin sent blood spraying out of Kaia’s mouth. Another from Chloe worsened the stream of blood from her nose.
Chloe had been about to land a consecutive strike when suddenly, Kaia’s hands moved, almost instinctively. She flipped the prong from one hand to the other and without hesitation, jabbed it straight at Jin’s throat.
Jin’s eyes went unbelievably wide as soon as the prong made contact, fingers twitching at her side. The scream came a little slower, like there’d been some sort of input lag, and she dropped to her knees at once.
“NO!” Chloe screamed, before attempting to strike at Kaia and seize the prong from her.
Kaia shrugged Chloe off, slammed an elbow into her nose with enough force to drop Chloe to one knee. The prong hit Chloe next, and an impossible current ravaged its way through her body, her vision going white as agony dulled everything else.
She knew she was screaming but it wasn’t until the pain halted that she heard herself. Her vision returned, albeit blurry, darkening at the edges. She saw Jin on the ground, prong pressed right to her forehead. She convulsed intensely under the current.
Chloe attempted to reach toward her but she couldn’t. The mere thought of movement caused her to spasm uncontrollably.
And so she watched, helplessly, as Kaia despite being bloodied and beaten beyond recognition still stood somehow and mustered enough strength to drag Jin by her hair. She watched Kaia drag her all the way toward the elevator at the end of the hall, watched her jab the prong at Jin as she started to move again, watched as the elevator’s doors started to slide shut.
And she heard Jin’s whisper.
“Chloe. Help me. Please.”
Then her vision went black.