When emerging from an extended period of stasis, it is inevitable that the subject will experience some confusion. While the body may become active quickly, the mind trails behind quite a bit.
There have been many recorded cases of soldiers placed in stasis for medical reasons subsequently rampaging through hospitals as their warrior instincts took hold. These cases only occurred during the early years of stasis technology, of course -- it is now common practice to employ a sedative regimen before releasing a subject from stasis.
Either way, without a reasonable mind, the amount of damage a subject can do is generally limited to their immediate surroundings. It would take an extraordinary warrior indeed to do any more than that based solely on their reflexes.
"The Effects of Extended Stasis on the Vulnerable Consciousness", Dr. Lorna Williams
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Skipper flew through the air.
Huh. It seemed he was under attack. Fancy that.
The slightest grin formed on his lips as he fired a Heartbeat Shotgun behind him through his back, canceling out his momentum and allowing him to easily drop to the floor. The gore of their midnight visitor dripped sloppily from his ruined shirt, and he wiped it clean with a disgusted expression.
Nothing save for viscera and burnt fabric remained of the cloaked figure who had knocked on the door. No doubt they had been some kind of decoy, meant to draw him in close and then explode. Not the enemy -- just a weapon they were using. Another attack would be coming, and soon.
Well, it would take more than that to bother him.
The door to the bathroom swung open, and Ruth ran out, already wearing her Skeletal Set over her pajamas. The toothbrush she'd been using was still clutched in her hand, and her head snapped through the scene, taking in every detail like she was a machine.
"We under attack?" she snarled, voice muffled by her mask, tossing the toothbrush back over her shoulder.
"Looks like it," Skipper nodded, emerald Aether sparking around him. "Go get the others. Best we --"
Bang.
The wall next to him exploded in a shower of concrete and wallpaper as an Aether-infused gunshot tore through it. In the span of a second, a cloud of dust colonised the bedroom, forcing Skipper to raise a hand to shield his vision.
The lenses of Ruth's mask offered her more protection, however, and she quickly leapt across the room -- landing protectively in front of Skipper.
She couldn't have timed it worse.
As soon as she landed, a humanoid figure sprinted through the smoke, making a beeline towards Ruth and Skipper. It was another cloaked man, like the one who had originally knocked at the door, and the automatic jerkiness of his movements suggested some kind of Aether control.
It was only when Ruth lunged towards the man, claws drawn, that Skipper realised she didn't know the source of the original explosion.
"Ruth!" he cried, grasping for her arm. "Wait!"
It was too late. Whether Ruth didn't hear him, or was simply already committed to the attack, she slashed at the enemy with both her claws. One swipe severed the attacker's head from their body, sending it flying off into the corner of the room -- and the second, for good measure, impaled their heart, the corpse slumping over against Ruth as motion ceased.
Skipper gulped. He'd expected another explosion, but had Ruth killed it quickly enough to prevent that?
Ruth glanced back over her shoulder at him, and began saying something. She did not finish.
As before, the explosion that tore apart the corpse on Ruth's claw was deafening. Fire and gore bloomed from the corpse Ruth was holding, instantly sending her flying. From that point-blank range, it was more than strong enough to send her zooming up into the ceiling like a bullet from a gun. She slammed into it with such force that Skipper was sure she'd have broken something, and as she fell back to the floor her armour flickered off her body.
She was out cold.
Skipper stood over her, but did not kneel to check her condition. That would be what the enemy was waiting for. His gaze drifted through the smoke surrounding him, trying to catch any signs of it shifting or flowing with the enemy's movement. He couldn't see a thing: whoever this was, they were good.
The situation was as follows, then:
They'd been attacked either by a single enemy who could either control many puppets, or a group of enemies that considered themselves individually expendable. That enemy was capable of exploding like bombs, with enough force to severely debilitate upon a direct hit. If there was a main enemy controlling these puppets, they were good enough that Skipper couldn't sense their presence at all.
And, of course, the most important thing. The attack wasn't over yet.
The logical move for him would be to wake Dragan and Bruno, bring them into the fight, and use superior numbers to prevail. The rooms were soundproofed, so Skipper would have to break into the next room himself to do it. But from the way they'd conducted this attack, this opponent obviously wasn't stupid: they'd be anticipating that.
Maybe they planned on finishing off Ruth while he headed to the next room. Needless to say, he couldn't allow that.
The next best way for him to alert Dragan and Bruno would be for him to send out an Aether ping. They'd respond to that quickly, but that didn't come without risks, either. Sending out his Aether in a ping meant there would be a split-second where he'd be unprotected: and an enemy like this would definitely take advantage of that opening.
Still, he wasn't exactly drowning in options. Skipper tensed his body, preparing himself to dodge whenever he saw the attack coming. He'd have to rely on his natural reflexes here.
One deep breath in, and…
The ping went out.
Skipper threw himself down to the ground, the shotgun blast that had been fired at him scraping through his hair and scalp. He felt warm blood on his head, like a metallic shampoo, but from the fact he was still conscious he knew that it must have been a glancing blow.
He felt two responses from his ping: Dragan and Bruno. Their adversary must have been actively cloaking their Aether, but that didn't mean they'd gone undetected. They'd fired that blast, after all, giving him a sense of direction.
Skipper raised a glowing green arm, blood dribbling down his forehead and between his eyes. He glanced down at Ruth's prone body.
Not to mention… they'd given him so much to get payback for.
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Helga Malwarian staggered to her feet, stumbling in the stark light of the laboratory, eyes bleary as she peered at her surroundings.
Dr. Cloud audibly swallowed, going to take a step back -- only for a shove from Muzazi to keep him firmly in place. He had no doubt that this place was outfitted with security systems sufficient to reduce them all to carbon. He wouldn't give the mad scientist any chance to activate them.
"Helga," Muzazi called out to the woman. "We cannot linger here. Clothe yourself and we shall escape."
Helga glanced in his direction, but there was no light of understanding in her eyes. She did not answer.
"Agent Malwarian?" Muzazi muttered.
In the corner, Olga bit her lip worriedly, scarf retracting to coil protectively behind her like a serpent.
"Careful," Mila Green suddenly spoke up. "Being in stasis for so long… it can take a while to come out of it -- mentally, I mean. Don't startle her."
Cloud shot her a glare. "Don't give them advice," he hissed -- but Green ignored him.
Muzazi stepped forward slightly, pushing Cloud along to keep him within reach. Splash. As the sound of his footsteps in the water echoed throughout the chamber, Helga looked up at him, her gaze cloudy.
"Agent Malwarian," Muzazi repeated carefully. "I've come here with your colleagues. I understand this situation may be confusing for you, but if you simply calm down and come with me, I'm certain we can --"
A blur of movement, and a split-second flicker of crimson Aether.
It was reflex rather than intellect that allowed Muzazi to dodge the lightning-fast jab of Helga's fist, throwing himself to the side and transitioning into a roll next to Olga. Dr. Cloud wasn't so lucky.
The punch struck him right in the nose -- all of Helga Malwarian's Aether flooding into her knuckles at the very instant of impact. The resultant impact caved his face in, his eyes popping out their sockets from the pressure and dangling from their optic nerves like twin pendulums. Unidentifiable pink meat leaked from both his ears.
A hollow gargle somehow still escaped his throat as he collapsed to the floor, but it was clear to anyone watching that his death was already imminent. Green in particular stared down at him, her face pale, her legs shaking.
Helga staggered backwards as she pulled her fist back in, but Muzazi could see from the tension of her muscles that she was still ready to attack. Clearly, Dr. Cloud hadn't been an Aether-user -- he'd been entirely unprotected -- but Atoy Muzazi could still see attacks like that doing damage to him as well.
"Agent Malwarian!" he barked, drawing his black blade. "Calm down! I do not wish to fight you!"
It was the wrong thing to say.
Helga leapt at him with a flare of red erupting from the soles of her feet, spinning on her heel as she landed and employing a ruthless roundhouse kick. Muzazi raised his sword at the very last instant, blocking the blow, but the impact was still such that he had to reinforce his own legs to prevent himself from being blown away.
This woman used Aether in an unusual fashion, but it was a technique Muzazi was vaguely familiar with. When fighting, she would use the entirety of her Aether only at the moment of impact, across the smallest area possible -- a risky strategy when it came to defence, yet with it she was able to employ consistently devastating attacks.
The alternation between enhanced and mundane actions lent her movements an unusual tempo, as well -- suddenly speeding up and slowing down in the manner of a stop motion videograph.
Her fists came at him in a rush of devastating blows, each accompanied by a red shadow of Aether. Muzazi blocked each with his sword, but he was forced to step back from the pressure, and he could see cracks slowly forming over the surface of his weapon. It wouldn't last much longer.
"Olga!" he roared, the vibrations of the attacks shaking his arms. "Restrain her!"
The girl had hesitated for a moment, but quickly leapt back into action at his call. Her scarf separated into eight flat tendrils, each lunging towards Helga from behind with the obvious intention to bind her in place.
Even in a delirious haze, however, Helga saw the attack coming.
She spun on the spot again as the tendrils closed in, kicking out with an Aether-flashing leg -- and using it to quickly wrap them into a single length of fabric, which she then stomped down on to keep in place.
Muzazi wasn't going to just watch that, though.
He tossed his damaged weapon high up into the air -- Helga's natural instinct to follow it with her eyes formed an effective distraction. Then he charged in upon her, fists raised, sending one right towards her face in what would surely be a devastating jawbreaker.
Helga went to leap out the way, and so he missed her face, but Muzazi still felt one of her fingers snap as his Aether-infused punch struck her in the hand. That contact was all he needed.
White Aether crackled.
The thruster that formed on Helga's left index finger was powerful, dragging her back by the hand and slamming her against the wall with a resounding clunk. The push of it, still flaring out from the damaged digit, was more than enough to keep her fixed in place. Green, not far away, backed away, her hands over her mouth as she looked down at Cloud's ruined corpse.
Olga's scarf, now free, writhed in the air as the eight tendrils reconstituted themselves into a single length. Muzazi caught his sword as it came back down, and glanced towards her. "We'll want to render her unconscious," he panted. "We can't be fighting her the whole way ba --"
Pain.
Something slammed into his throat with incredible speed, and as it did he felt the creak of something inside his body very nearly breaking. A hollow gasp escaped his mouth, and his sword slipped from his fingers. Slowly, he looked down.
There, sticking out of his throat, was Helga Malwarian's finger.
It had been torn off at the knuckle, blood still dribbling from the stump -- and the thruster Muzazi had placed on it was still flaring, driving it deeper and deeper into his body. Without hesitation, Helga must have ripped it off and hurled it back at him. Could something like that really be done by reflex?
Muzazi cancelled the thruster, and yet the finger did not drop to the floor. It was in far too deep for that. He became dimly aware that he was unable to breathe.
His vision became blurry, like he was straining to see the world through a pool of stagnant water. His hearing became muffled, as if soft and subtle hands had been slapped over his ears. His legs collapsed underneath him like hollow matchsticks.
The last thing he heard before succumbing to the dark was Mila Green screaming.
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Aether ping.
Dragan Hadrien's eyes snapped open, and he jumped out of his bed. Immediately, his eyes locked onto Bruno's, who was sitting up from his position on the couch with identical speed. Some pink and kitschy videograph cartoon was dancing across the screen in front of him -- Serena's doing, no doubt -- but his expression couldn't have been more serious.
"Next door?" Dragan asked.
Bruno nodded. There was no need for more than that. Dragan charged at the door, throwing it open and running into the hallway -- and immediately he could see what had happened.
The carpet and wall of the hallway was drenched in blood and rotting gore, some of it even dripping from the ceiling -- and worse than that, the door to Skipper and Ruth's room appeared to have been blasted off its hinges. The Aether ping had come from inside there.
No time to waste panicking.
Electric blue Aether coursed through Dragan's body, his eyes glowing brightly as he ran towards the other room, Bruno following next to him. It was those same eyes, though, that gave Dragan cause to hesitate for just a moment, halfway down the corridor.
Because he saw them.
All around them, hovering through the air, subtly buzzing, were flies. That in and of itself wouldn't be unusual, given the mess… but they didn't seem interested in it at all. In sheer defiance of their insect instincts, not one of those flies was going anywhere near the human soup available.
Something was wrong.
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Deep in the smoke and dust, Jamie Pot silently grinned to himself.
Land of the Dead.
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There were nearly sixty flies in the corridor with them -- and as one, those sixty flies suddenly shone with Aether like tiny green stars. Dragan held a hand up, shielding his eyes from the sudden light.
…and when he moved his hand away from his face again, his heart nearly leapt out of his chest.
Each and every fly had been replaced with a walking human corpse.
And each and every corpse was now charging at him.