Chapter 11 - 11 - Escape (Part 2)

After collecting themselves from the shock, all the guards slowly made their way towards the cloud of smoke that was now at the end of the hall. All having their respective weapons at the ready as they went to check if their target has been successfully eliminated. Reaching a moderate distance from the still settling dust the group stopped and waited for the smoke to clear to increase visibility, continuing to stay alert so as to not be caught off-guard.

Whilst they waited for a few moments, they began to lower their weapons due to them noticing no signs of movement from within the thick smoke, causing them to believe that their target had been taken care of. This belief was promptly shattered as a large viral black tendril burst through the dust and swiftly grabbed the guards closest to it, pulling him inside the mist with little effort. The rest of the group screamed in fright, firing the weapons frantically towards the dark, thick veil of dust in front of them. The sounds of flesh and bone being audibly mangled invaded the ears of all the guards as the screams of their kidnapped, forefront brethren were quickly cut off.

Promptly after the scream of the guards dissipated, Lucien quickly escaped the shrouding smoke and rushed at the still distraught group of guards. His right arm now in the form of an elongated blade with a visibly serrated edge from the forearm down.

"This is impossible! H-how is this monster still alive?!"

"S-shut it, just continue firing! If that thing catches you, you will end up just like Jack!"

"DIE you abomination!"

What the guards had failed to notice when Lucien was hit by the explosive projective, was that before the imminent contact was made, he had hastily put forward his viral right arm as it quickly spread out into the form of a black shield formed from the same viscous liquid. The surface of the shield was reinforced, hardened through the help of the previously absorbed mass, protecting him from the majority of the blast's destructive power. Although he was still greatly damaged by the sheer force of the explosion, being slammed into the steel walls at high speed, causing him to take refuge in the forming cloud of smoke momentarily while his body struggled to heal itself.

Returning to the current events, Lucien was now cutting through the herd of guards that continued to endlessly pour in from all corners. Managing them in the dozens as he attempted to make his way towards a more open-spaced area. What escaped the view of the youth was the fact that the guards were slowly leading him into a specific area of the facility, a room holding much greater space than the rather thin halls of the structure.

Eventually running by a dark room with the guards in tow, Lucien continued to move forward without hesitation, entering the place and turning around to face the incoming stream of guards that were supposed to be following him.

To his intrigue, however, he watched as the door was quickly being closed by them, prompting him to stand confused, not understanding that he had just led himself into their trap. With a bright flash of light, the room quickly lit up, revealing his current location.

Within what looked like to be a massive, empty storage room, Lucien glowed as countless red spots appeared across his body simultaneously, immediately drawing his attention to the hundreds of guards that were already stationed inside pre-aiming at his position.

For a meager moment silence ruled throughout the room. The entity realized what he had walked into, but sadly, it was too late. Before he could react, a single shout came from somewhere behind him. A rough, hoarse voice yelled a singular command, prompting the beginning of the end of his little escapade.

"FIRE!"

Before he could fully register the situation, he was fired upon by all weapons that resided in the enclosed room, causing him to quickly attempt to dodge as many of the incoming projectiles as possible. He was running around, using all sorts of bizarre inhumane manner of movements, twisting and contorting his body in order to avoid getting hit. Though his strategy worked for a small percentage of the projectiles, he would still be hit by several with every step he took.

Whilst he ran around dodging the bullets, he would also dice, and mutilate as many soldiers as he could using his heavily modified viral right limb as a variety of weapons, changing from a long blade to tendrils or to a shield if the need came based on the distance of his targets.

This process of killing and running went on for an undefined amount of time, with new guards coming in to replace those that were lost. There was no end to the number of enemies he had to face. The director's orders were absolute, he was to be put down at all costs.

Realizing that no matter how many he killed, the numbers were quickly replenished, and the bombardment of gunfire was slowly increasing instead of being culled much to the entity's dismay, fatigue had begun to settle in due to him having no means of replenishing his rapidly declining vitality.

His movements gradually turned slower than they were before, his rate of dispatching the guards dropped as well. This caused him to be slowly being surrounded, all he could resort to was focusing all of his remaining energy into his left arm and using it to create a dome-like shield over his skin that rapidly expanded to cover his entire body, forming a temporary barrier made out of the black viscous liquid between him and the unceasing hail of bullets.

Quickly reaching his breaking point, Lucien was growing desperate, the regeneration of his wounds was slowing in their pace to his rapidly depleting reserves to fuel his trait. A hint of fear relating to his inescapable death slowly crept up on him. As all the guards continued to advance up on Lucien, they failed to notice a disturbance in the movement around them. A disturbance that immediately began to affect them.

On the floor, the walls and even the ceiling of the storage room, a cloud of green gas began to sneakily leak in from the ventilation systems. Though it went unnoticed at first, many of the guards began to notice that a lot of them were being incapacitated rather quickly.

"W-what is going on?!" One cried out when his partner suddenly fell to the ground with an audible thump. Startled by the noise, several others looked around, just-now noticing that their numbers were rapidly declining.

"Look! At the walls!" Another pointed to the closest ventilation grid as a barely visible green gaseous substance was being poured into the enclosed space.

"What on Earth?! Who turned on the failsafe system?!" Just now noticing the guards, several of them cried out in fright.

The remaining guards held their fire as they soon realized that the facility's poisonous gas had been released into the storage room, causing them to panic as they turned towards the exits and rushed to bang on the doors. Sadly, to their dismay, all the doors were sealed shut as part of the failsafe protocol. There was no means to unlock them until the process was completed.

Behind the door, at the other side, listening to the pleading wails of the guards, Dr. Frida could be seen grinning viciously from ear to ear whilst looking at the blinking red 'ALERT' sign on her tablet. Obviously, she was the source of the sudden activation of the facility's 'Gas Out' protocol, slowly killing the occupants within the room.

Although her current knowledge of the entity wasn't anything substantial, she placed her trust in the creature's incredible showcase of regenerative trait that seemed to be living in some form of parasitic relationship within his subject and that it would make sure that the boy would survive despite the deadly threat of the gas.

Soon enough, the sounds of the guards trying to escape came to an ominous end, the room now being completely silent and devoid of all life except for one at its center. Lucien being the only one being left alive within the storage quickly realized the sudden end to the gunfire that once threatened to end him.

Undoing his protective dome of shield, he appeared from it looking incredibly thin compared to not too long ago, his mass being burned throughout the fight and subsequently leaving him in a considerably weakened state.

Although he survived, he wasn't far off from the rest that threatened his life. The entity used all of his powers and means to survive even going as far as to put a heavy strain on the boy's mind. He was barely being kept alive at this point.

He wanted to replenish at least a sliver of his depleted reserves but realizing that the threat to his life was growing the longer he stayed in this god-forsaken building, he turned around and jumped to the closest and widest ventilation shaft. With his last bits of strength, he tore the metal grid bar cover opening a path towards hopeful freedom.

Before Lucien crawled into the dark, metal shaft, he turned around and looked at the thick doors for a single moment. Looking sternly at the metal barrier barring sight to the one on the other side, he sighed, turning around and crawling into it and vanishing from sight.. He was wondering just who could have assisted his escape from his certain demise. Just who did he owe his life to in this place where he had no allies?