Chương 148: 4.44 - Everett (Emcee)/ Reo Hinode (Oberon)

Everett (Emcee)"Ma'am, are you alright?" Emcee hurried to a middle-aged woman who fell on the floor of the subway station, papers from her briefcase scattered like confetti. He shielded her from the stampeding masses that didn't care if they'd trample someone in their haste to save themselves.

"Can you stand up?" Her answer was a groan of pain. She didn't trip because of the water from the activated fire sprinklers as he had assumed. It was the tendrils from a multi-eyeballed bulbous creature several feet away that had wrapped around her legs, their coating of tiny spikes sinking into her skin and drawing blood.

"That thing's still alive?" Emcee had fried the monster's beachball-sized body a few moments ago, but it seemed he mistakenly thought it dead. Its branching tentacles grabbed burnt monster carcasses as well as people running past it, drawing them to its body to feed on them and heal itself.

"This isn't good." He tore the fleshy limbs binding the woman and helped her up.

"Your wounds. Can you still run?"

"Thank you so—Oh my god!" the woman exclaimed. The black ski mask he wore didn't exactly present a good impression on people.

"Please don't rob me!"

"I'm not going to—" Emcee started to say, but she recoiled from him and limped to the stairs, trying to keep up with the crowd jostling her.

"—hurt you," he finished.

"Ah, never mind." Hopefully, she could ride the train; he doubted she'd get far trudging down the tunnels with her injuries. The rumbling told him the next one had arrived. The noises of people fighting to get on the train echoed up the stairs. It didn't sound like they were helping each other down there. Desperate people being desperate. Nothing he could do about that.

"But I can do something about you." He glared at the eyeball monster. Ignoring the pain that gnawed his stomach, he focused more of his power on the monster's body. He needed to put it down for good. Despite lacking a visible mouth, the monster shrieked in pain as it began to smolder. It released the people it captured—they all ran past without batting an eye at him.

Patches of the diarrhea-colored membrane that covered the monster's body blackened from the extreme heat; it crackled like pork skin roasted in the oven. The bubbles burst, and the foul black blood that came out boiled and evaporated. Small flames sprouted all over the eyeball monster's body, growing until it became a bonfire that reached the ceiling. A shower from the fire sprinkler right above tried to beat back the flames. Emcee kept the heat going. The monster withered amid the blaze and steam.

And Emcee fell to his knees. Bitter bile and salty blood rose from the back of his throat. He clamped his mouth shut, but the bloody vomit still forced its way out his nose and the sides of his mouth, drenching the front of his mask. His stomach was empty—it might not even be there anymore. The sandwich he bought from a hotdog stand for lunch didn't last long as fuel.

When he left his apartment this morning, he didn't know he'd be forced to use his power to the fullest so he just ate a bowl of oatmeal with his cup of coffee. He and Reo were supposed to be on a boring and uneventful reconnaissance mission. He didn't even bring an emergency energy bar to snack on. Big mistake.

"Need to hold on…" he groaned. It felt like piranhas in a feeding frenzy were chewing his innards.

"Save people, urgh, and wait for Deen." He inhaled deeply, enduring the pain, waiting for his regeneration to patch him up. With the smoke clearing, the sprinklers putting out the small fires he caused, he saw that the people had managed to get to the train platform downstairs. He was all alone. Not exactly alone. Monstrous corpses littered the wet floor, most of them burnt to a crisp, several riddled with bullets. There were also dead humans, their bodies more numerous than the monsters.

Emcee's heart ached at the number of people that didn't make it to the train platform. The wide tunnel staircase that descended from the street level was coated yellow and red. Dozens of PCM members probably clogged the stairs in their confusion to escape and got feasted on by the monsters. There were also those not wearing any of the protesters' yellow—average La Esperanza citizens going about their day, trying to keep up normalcy during unrest in the city, but instead meeting their untimely end.

The monsters that were shot—those were the handiwork of the cops and a few National Guardsmen who were somehow in this area instead of their post around the hospital. They tried to hold back the monsters aiming for the survivors below. When Emcee arrived, all that was left of these brave guys were their half-eaten bodies and dismembered limbs. If not for them, then the train platform would've been overrun. Now, it was on him to hold the line. This was the first time he had seen so much death.

Was this also the first time he fought to save others? Their battles with the 2Ms' men, disrupting their operations—that saved people, right? Or so he'd like to think. And he had saved his teammates on several occasions during their missions too. This was different. He felt like he was a hero. If he let these monsters get past him, many innocent people would die.

Reo, who was in a summoning trance inside a small room full of dusty electronics downstairs, would also be in trouble— I guess I should continue calling him Oberon. They were still on a mission after all. Although what exactly was their mission now? Mission not to die? Emcee had a grimace on his face as he shuffled to a nearby headless body. He recalled all the persuading he did to get Obe to summon Blubber.

Obe was going to be pissed that he was here instead of standing guard outside the door of the electrical room as he promised. But he couldn't freely fight in that cramped train platform. He'd just be a danger to the people there. The moment Blubber zipped away to look for Deen, Emcee also left his post. Better head off the monsters as they came down. He'd just apologize later… when they all got out of this alive. I'm sure Obe will understand.

Emcee bent down, angling himself away from the view of the security camera he spotted earlier and removed his dirty mask. He wiped his mouth with his shirt as he examined the body in front of him. The sight of the mangled corpse didn't affect him anymore. The smell of dried vomit and blood around his mouth did make him want to puke again. There was going to be plenty more puking later if he continued to use his power. Not that he had much of a choice. Just relying on brute superstrength to fight was going nowhere.

Their enemies were no Adumbrae. Yet, in some ways, they were more annoying to deal with. He didn't know how to quickly kill them. Even if he removed their heads, they just kept going. And they were also eating each other to recover, with some merging and turning to new monsters. He had to use his power and barbecue these monsters to quickly get rid of them wholesale. Blubber could also quickly shred them to scraps of flesh. If it was just escaping from this mess, there would've been no problem.

He could easily do it without using his power. However, every second these bastards roamed freely meant more innocent people were going to die. After uttering a quick apology and prayer for the dead guy, he tore large swathes off his sports jacket and wrapped it around his head, fashioning a sort of full head mask. The ground rumbled again. The next train. They were lucky the monsters hadn't penetrated down the next subway station at Hollister Street. The ground continued to slightly shake.

The train should've already stopped. A large group of people came down the stairs from the streets above. They were screaming, shoving each other in their panic. It wasn't them causing the small quake. A man-sized pincher claw like that of a lobster's appeared and grabbed at the panicked pack. The last person pushed the others out of the way and ended up getting caught. The owner of the claw forced its way down the subway station's stairs.

A massive head with a decaying human face crying in anguish emerged, filling up the whole tunnel staircase. Its giant centipede body followed. Emcee clenched his teeth. He couldn't do anything to help the one who was caught. There was a decision to be made here. And he chose to start gathering heat inside the monster's head, focusing his entire attention on it instead of trying to save individuals. Sorry, for all the people that were going to die here. The priority was to kill this monster.

If it reached the train platform… Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. Just then, from the corner of his eyes that were focused on frying the colossal monster, he noticed the person caught in between the monster's claws throw something red into its gaping mouth. As if that person still surviving wasn't enough of a surprise, he then pried open the claws and escaped the monster's grip.

"Is that…?" Emcee whispered. A woman, not a man. Her covered face threw him off at first. Now that he had a good look at her, a couple layers of clothes, including a loose hoodie, wouldn't stop him from recognizing her figure; he had spent so much time staring at it than he'd be comfortable to admit in court. He swam against the current of fleeing people, yelling, "Deen!" One of the monster's eyes exploded. Deen expertly avoided the waves of black blood that gushed forth.

A flash of red flew out the deflating eyeball and then burrowed into the other.

"Blubber!" Emcee called out. If that was Blubber, then this was certainly Deen. Oberon found her. Good job! The monster thrashed in pain. The tunnel staircase was collapsing. Emcee held his arms open. Deen was running towards him. Their eyes met. It was her wondrous pale grey eyes that seemed to shine like diamonds.

"It's really you!" he said. She ducked under his expectant arms and tugged at the back of his shirt, pulling him along.

"Run!" A stack of bricks dislodged from the ceiling by all the shaking fell where he stood a split-second before. He stared at them as he ran backward, dragged by Deen. He kind of wished those bricks fell on him and gave him amnesia so he'd forget about that embarrassing attempt at a hug. Reo Hinode (Oberon)"Remind me again why we're running to the hospital and not away from it?" Reo Hinode yelled at the backs of Everett and Deen.

"We were there earlier, and I can say that it's a sucky place to be." The two continued running. This was the fifth time he asked them the same question, and, by now, he was just pestering them with it because they were all heading to their deaths. He and Everett already had a good thing going with their genius plan to escape via the subway; the dumb monsters were focused on their human buffet aboveground. But then Everett ruined it with his whole protect-the-subway-so-others-can-escape bullshit.

And now, it was Deen's turn to cook up something to get them killed. After the three of them met up, Deen explained how she got there. She was hanging out at city hall because of some political fancy pants event with her sister when she saw some suspicious people who joined the protesters rallying on the streets. Her story wasn't clear, but one thing led to another and she trailed them all the way to Marshall Avenue.

Reo couldn't understand how she just suddenly decided to follow some random guys for several blocks just because of a 'feeling'. If it were him, even if there was concrete evidence of Adumbrae shenanigans, he wouldn't be bothered to move his ass. It turned out that Deen's stupid 'feeling' was right—those suspicious people she followed were connected to the 2Ms. She overheard their plans for another attack like what happened to Erind's condo to trigger a seeding outbreak.

Reo argued that shit like that didn't just happen. Many terrorist groups in the past tried to use all sorts of terror attacks to cause seeding outbreaks, and nothing came of it. Just because people were stressed and scared didn't mean one of them would answer the Adumbrae toll-free hotline. Deen countered that the suspicious experiments with the hospital patients were supposedly the special ingredient of the 2Ms' recipe that could make this work. And that was how she forced them to go back to the hospital.

To be fair, she didn't actually force them to follow her. They did have a vote. A vote that was more of a sham than the presidential elections. Deen was obviously up for it. That meant the lovestruck Everett would be too. Reo tried to guilt-trip Everett into siding with him, bringing up the broken promise of guarding the electrical room door. Normally, that would be enough to persuade Everett; not this time. It was dick over friendship now.

He knew Everett went upstairs mainly to wait for Deen, and he begrudgingly couldn't blame him. The power of boner was too strong. Those two idiots tag-teamed to pressure Reo for a unanimous vote with their talks of bravery and not being a coward in the face of death. There was a huge difference between being a coward and not wanting to die. Any sane person knew that. Unfortunately, Reo was stuck with two insane people who thought otherwise.

And he just couldn't live with himself if he let the two of them go and be suicidal heroes. Someone had to be the voice of reason accompanying them.

"Okay, you guys don't want to answer me," Reo said.

"That's fine, that's fine. Cool, cool, cool. How about answering this? Why us?" Deen turned to look back at him.

"We need to stop—""No, we don't. I mean, yeah, these fuckers wanting to start a seeding outbreak need to be stopped. But like, why us? We know jackshit how to stop them."

"We'll figure it out when we get there," Everett said.

"We have to adjust. We adapt—""We're over our fucking heads here!" he loudly said, almost screeching as his frustrations got to him.

"Some people are over there!" Deen totally ignored him, pointing at a tall building coming up the next block. Through the glass windows, they could see many of the employees gathered on the upper floors. Those people managed to block the stairs or something because no monsters were partying with them.

"They're safe," said Reo.

"Go, go, they don't need saving. We can't stop and help everyone."

"But—""You were talking big on focusing on objectives? Let's do that now. Haul ass to the hospital so we can stop something we don't know anything about." Reo was up to here with these two idiots. It wasn't the last time they wanted to start a side quest of saving this or that person they passed along the way. He got the arduous task— phew, I'm using big boy words now, that was how stressed he was—of keeping them on track. And he was the one who didn't want to do this in the first place!

Some dumbfuckery going on here. He wasn't some heartless bastard. They passed many dead people, and he felt for them. He really did. The loss of life was sad. Nonetheless, he also didn't want to end up as a dead guy. It was a normal human feeling to be scared of dying. And he was happy he still had normal human feelings though his body was no longer normal.

The fact that he was going in the direction of danger while being scared shitless made him proud of himself, and at the same time, he wanted to punch himself for being a dumbass.

"Where did all the monsters go?" Everett said as they approached the hospital. He slowed down, cautiously looking around.

"There were tons of them around here," said Reo. They had a hard time escaping this place earlier. To him, it seemed this area had the highest concentration of monsters.

"No dead bodies of monsters or humans. That's weird."

"They probably moved away after eating everything, including the corpses of their fellow monsters. I've seen them do it."

"Yeah, could be." Reo shrugged.

"Maybe they're all at the hospital now."

"We should hurry—""These black puddles…" Deen stopped next to a small pool of black liquid, about a couple of feet wide, in the middle of the sidewalk. She bent down to get a closer look. Of course, Everett had to stop too.

"What's wrong?"

"So many of these puddles. Here, the street, and it just continues. I wonder what this is."

"That's just monster blood." Reo scrunched his nose.

"I don't have a full mental link of senses with Blubber like I do with Sneak, but I can vaguely remember their smell and taste. Fucking disgusting, man."

"This doesn't smell bad," Everett said.

"Doesn't smell like anything."

"The hell? Don't smell that." He pointed at the wall beside them.

"Look, red human blood." He pointed at the black puddle.

"Black monster blood."

"Veneer." Or that was what Reo assumed Deen said because she spoke barely above a whisper.

"Huh?"

"Nothing," she said, standing up and dusting her knees.

"Let's go to the hospital." They hid in a small alley right across the street from the hospital to survey the place. There were no soldiers, no protesters, no people whatsoever. There were also no dead bodies like before, just the weird black puddles. But there were monsters. They were inside EFU Medical Center. Many hospital windows had splashes of red. A number of them were broken. Through these openings, they saw monsters chasing humans. A person jumped from the fifth floor.

"Oh my god," Deen gasped.

"You don't have to see that," Everett said, reaching to cover her eyes. Before he could touch her, she pushed him away and acted as if nothing happened. Reo snorted as he tried to stop his laughter. Everett's eyes widened in surprise, then he glared at Reo, who just gave him a smirk in return.

"Uh…I'll try to call Dario again," said Everett. He had to fill the embarrassing silence with something.

"You guys can, uh, think of a plan."

"We can continue what we're doing and rush inside without plan," Reo sarcastically remarked.

"It's done us good so far."

"Veneer isn't inside?"

"Who?" he asked Deen.

"Nothing," she shortly answered.

"Just, um, maybe my imagin—""Dario!" Everett exclaimed from behind them.

"Guys, he finally picked up. Dario, you see what's going on in the news? There's a—" LUB DUB Reo was certain all three of them felt it. It was like the reality itself was shaken by a heartbeat. He swore he saw double for a moment as if everything shifted and went back in place. Just like standing right next to huge woofers during a rave, his heartbeat synchronized with that beat. His heart thumped so hard that one time he was worried he was having a heart attack. A sense of dread filled his heart...

something was coming. Something he didn't want to meet. LUB DUB – LUB DUB – LUB DUB The world warped, his vision swirled. Deen beside him was on all fours, coughing intensely like she was trying to expel her lungs. No sound. She was spitting out blood, but he couldn't hear anything. He could only feel warm liquid flowing from his ears down the sides of his neck. Reo tried to bend down to help Deen, but a sharp pain in his chest stopped him. It was as if someone drove a red-hot metal spike deep into him.

He also dropped to the floor. He tore his shirt open and scratched at the almond-sized artificial Core on his sternum. It was throbbing. And with each pulse, a shock jolted his muscles. LUB DUB – LUB DUB – LUB DUB It's here. He thought that inside his head. Why did he think of that? What was here? He looked up at the hospital. His vision was still out of focus. There was a large explosion at the side of the tallest building. No sound reached his ears. Out of the building, a large hand the size of a car reached out.