EPISODE 2

Sieghart tried not to groan internally. Leading large groups of people on the verge of stupid groupthink was frustrating, just because he didn’t have proper tangible proof didn’t mean they weren’t in some sort of danger. It was worse when he was incompetent at leading people, or being properly social, but he pushed onwards.

A person in a beige suit, with glasses and a red tie asked him with a skeptical look, “And how...did you come across this information.”

“I watch the news. There are also reports from lesser known stations about what companies, like the one we’re in, are upto.” Sieghart bluffed slightly, “Tell me you don’t think we’re in danger in the least.”

“We aren’t, because none of us are tied up, there haven’t been any ransoms made or anything.” While he did have a point there.

“Except for the TV man, and the fact that everyone here woke up without our memories of arriving? Or that no one has ever heard of Oscorp?”

They didn’t look very moved, if anything that believed me less even if Sieghart was on point, it was still too ridiculous. No one even bothered to check. Sieghart tried not to think about how his shorter stature, coupled with his young face didn’t help his view.

Sieghart believed it was likely because they were civilians and none of them looked to have any combat or any life-and-death training at all. So they wouldn’t really have instincts for this thing, simply brushing it off as weird.

Sieghart stopped for a second and tried to regroup his thoughts, he didn’t really have visible proof but that didn’t mean he was wrong, and even with his paranoia. But if they were inside a death game or in danger, there wouldn’t be time to find ‘their proof’ to show their great scientific minds that they were in danger.

‘Okay, maybe I was getting annoyed that I was wrong. Wait, no that’s a good thing, being wrong is good. But it was likely that wasn’t the case here.’

“Regardless of all of this,” Giving up on the death match argument, which Sieghart was starting to see seemed implausible the longer he thought about it, even if a TV man just walked in telling them that exact thing, “We have to be careful as we live, I checked the phones and they don’t seem to be working. It’s best we don’t get caught trespassing.”

Somehow they accepted it and decided to leave as fast as possible to get on with their lives.

Strangely enough he was used to waking up in strange places thanks to dad's 'Training', he didn't think that was the case here. Things weren't adding up, there was no way this situation was normal. From the training he had learnt to scan his surroundings and felt something off.

Couldn't pinpoint what was making that feeling, but it didn't matter if it was best to trust his instincts on this matter they rarely lead me astray. There was a fire axe behind a glass case and thought best to take it with him, might need a weapon later, 'Better Overkill than killed'. Covered his fist with his jacket and broke the glass quietly, extracting it gently.

They walked as one into the dark hallway. The facility quieter than a graveyard, he could hear the silence. All the lights off with.

How would a death game work out here? Was this just a role-playing serial killer? Or an actual escaped experiment?

Would the 'experiment', as they termed, have bulletproof armour? Death games usually had the players at a serious disadvantage, from what Sieghart remembered from the genre.

Alternatively, if this was real. How did the experiment get loose in the first place? Did some wack-job scientist work late into the night and fall asleep, and accidentally hit the release button? He really didn’t want to die because someone hadn’t bought some coffee to keep themselves awake.

Sieghart had already instinctively convinced himself of the possibility he was in another universe, trying to fight common sense that couldn't accept it rationally.

Sometimes he wished he could deduce like Sherlock Holmes, then he'd be able to actually back up the instinct properly. Like 'Hey, this company building hasn't been refurbished in the past six months, there are signs of constant normal company employee behavioral patterns, and this piece of land hasn't been moved in the past 20 years or something. So this company had popped up specifically for this death game, let's jump out the window!'

Gazed into the flickering abyss as the lights they turned on stayed on briefly before failing playing havoc on our fears.

There were too many Marvel villains to count from that were experiments. Hell even Captain America was one. The mission made it sound like it was murderous. Oscorp was a clue likely a spidey villain which wasn't much when the dude had fought everyone in Marvel ever. The experiment could be a Green Goblin, either as a parody and some killer wearing Goblin's costume might walk down the hallways with an axe and riot gear, or the person might come after them in an actual glider, throwing bombs at them.

Not to mention the crazy number of animal themed mutations.

If it was the later then there was no chance of winning since almost all of his villains were already stronger than Spidey who could easily lift thousands of kilograms.

Sieghart tried not to groan, 'I would take on the Joker over an escaped experiment any day, especially since they could never be beat with a gun or a good RPG to the face.'

He just kept hoping that if this did become dangerous at least it would be kept to a human level. Because the more he thought about it, the more he realized this axe was going to be useless if he faced something like that.

Sieghart didn’t know whether to talk or not because if something dangerous truly was out there… he couldn’t stop his hands from shaking at the thought of actually facing someone that powerful. Walking down this moonlight hallway with the shadows covering the floor, scared him more than he wanted to admit. Worried he was going to be jumping at his own shadow if this kept up.

'Please be nothing, please tell me I'm nothing but a tin-foil nutjob.'

“So, does anyone have a gun, or some sort of weapon?”

Everyone jumped slightly startled by the noise, even if he kept it just barely above silence. No one responded, he just sighed and kept going, “Not even a taser? Ladies? Pepper Spray?"

They all looked like they wanted to strangle him. Okay that might've been an exaggeration but he wasn't being invited into anyone's house that's for sure. Sieghart felt his heart subside, annoying people was very therapeutic for him but he didn't like crossing the line. It was unfortunate that none of them had anything resembling a weapon.

A loud bang echoed throughout the building.

In the dark silence, it sounded like an explosion. The lack of fire and destruction told them otherwise. Getting fed up one of the businessmen walked forward impatiently, his shoes clacking loudly.

Sieghart said, "Err, maybe walk a bit quieter?" as he shifted his eyes around and kept a grip on the fire axe.

The impatient businessman said, "I don’t have time for this. I have a meeting tomorrow. This farce is taking up too much time. I need to find the exit and leave this place before we get arrested and thrown in jail. Honestly would’ve written all of this off as a bad dream if it wasn’t for the smell."

"Smell?"

Business said annoyed, "Yes, it smells like when snakes shed their skin. If I didn’t know any better, I would say a large snake had escaped-"

At that point Sieghart stopped listening. There was perhaps one villain that stood out as one of the many Dr. Jekyll and Hyde copy cats of the series. The Lizard. A seven-foot-tall humanoid reptile that was deadly as it was intelligent depending on what version they were looking at. The fact this was Oscorp and the fact the mission parameter had used to term ‘escaped experiment’ it was probably safe to say it was probably Curt Conner who was experimenting late into the night and because he had either been sleep deprived, drunk or completely sober and sane, which was worse, had done the stupid thing by testing it on himself.

He was usually taken down by the mercury level dropping below 0 or our friendly neighborhood hero cured him with an antidote. Before he turned again and killed a bunch of people...again. Ignoring Spideys stupidity, none of them would survive against that monster. Everything exceeded anything a normal human was capable of, the only weakness they could exploit was the cold. This wasn't the land of Maple Syrup and Polar Bears.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Assuming of course the Marvel theory was true. If it was less fantastical likely a genetically modified anaconda or Komodo Dragon would be the worst case scenario, which while not impossible to deal with people would still die. Assuming of course it was this theory.

He knew that if he tried to get people to listen to him they wouldn't believe him and would stop taking his opinions seriously when he didn't believe it himself, the only proof he had supporting him was that floating translucent window he wasn't entirely sure he hadn't hallucinated and even that could be replicated by a floating mirror and magic tricks.

Even if Sieghart explained who they were likely to face and given the context it was likely it was The Lizard. He couldn't ask someone if they had a floating window beside him, he believed that people were ignoring their own windows since no one had mentioned anything about having one.

Then again he was just operating under the assumption that this was real and he would rather be paranoid and cautious than risk actually facing all this without preparing himself beforehand. He honestly wanted to be wrong, the text window, those two men, and the fact he had no memory of being kidnapped or any actual smell of chemicals being used on him made it hard to think otherwise. He also hadn’t found any cameras that showed they were being spied on. His extensive knowledge of hidden cameras, he bitterly remembered, all learned from his military-esque dad.

Sieghart suddenly stopped when he noticed something on the side of the wall. His face went pale.

"What's wrong?" Sieghart heard someone whisper.

"Try not to freak out," Sieghart played it out, "but I think we have a large reptile on the loose." Fitting both possibilities. Even though…

He swallowed as he looked at the claw marks going from the bottom of the wall to the top made by something that had an absurd amount of strength and was incredibly tall.

'It was the Lizard, damn it.'

Unsurprisingly, they looked on in disbelief.

"Something the size of a… Komodo Dragon judging by the claw marks, they were most likely using them for experiments."

Showing them the marks had them believe me.

For an instant.

They muttered something about kids with overactive imaginations trying to belay the fact that a large animal might crawl out of the darkness and devour them.

That same annoying businessman clicked his teeth, "special effects."

"You really want to die, don't you?"

He became agitated, "we're not under any danger you're being incredibly stupid kid. Why and how did this all come about? It's full of contradictions! Large lizards on the loose coincidentally in a large company late at night where just happened to wake up!? It's stupid and you need to wake up kid!"

"Stop shouting," Sieghart whispered fiercely, "Even if you don't know what about getting caught trespassing."

"I don't care!" He then stormed off. The group glanced at him, one even apologized before trying to explain but Sieghart stopped him.

The kind older man told him, "Don't take it to heart, he's likely worried about that meeting he keeps going on about. I know I was nervous about my first job interview."

They walked away and Sieghart sighed and went to follow when he noticed the light in one of the labs was on. He called out to them about this but they continued walking wanting to get out as quickly as possible. Sieghart decided there was no more wasting time and opened the door, it was curious to why this room had its light on when the rest of the building had the lights closed.

Their footsteps faded as he closed the door, he heard the sound of a digital clock breaking the sudden silence, and found it to his right reading 4:57. Almost an hour or three 'till daylight which by then all the office workers would be in the building and they would have to explain themselves or be trying to survive the lizard alongside them. It wasn’t like he knew exactly how strong the lizard was this time around, he knew for certain it would outclass them, but how to beat something stronger, faster and somewhat likely to be smarter was the question.

He almost gave up hope shifting through the files when he found a few that sounded like he was on the right track. Access cards left lying around and research papers for bio-weaponry, something about plants. A few that talked about animals, one paper was about how the Spiders had been a success and the Mammal family was coming along nicely. Did that mean Peter hadn't been bit yet or was this simply coincidental? There was also a map directory-

Sieghart heard a faint scream from down the hall.

The sound bounced off the walls making it hard to tell where it was coming from, so Sieghart stopped and listened carefully. The screaming increased in pitch, others joined her.

He burst out of the room making sure he held the axe in hand as he turned to the right and sprinted down the hall. 'I swear if something…'

He pounded down the monochromatic hallway, not having the time to check his footing he was suddenly airborne having slipped and landed in it, likely liquid as he kept sliding on his back. He slid to a stop in front of the room just as the screams died.

He knew it was what he didn’t want it to be.

On shaky legs he got up and found his pants dripping. He held up the liquid in the moonlight and found it shining red.

He compartmentalized just to function right at that second. The feeling of horror didn't care and gripped his heart.

He’d seen horror movies before. This was stupid beyond belief. What could he do anyway against a ton of muscle and scales?

Before he could even think to move gunfire erupted inside the room.

Why hadn't the veterans attacked sooner-they were using the group as bait!

Sieghart, not considering for a moment Jack and Reaper were killing them decided he'd likely get in the way and took cover in case he got hit by a stray bullet. Several explosions went off and a hiss that he had heard anacondas make in zoos. He could’ve imagined it but it sounded like it had been in pain.

All he knew was that he had to find somewhere else to hide, those guys clearly weren't anyone's allies to anyone but themselves. There was no way he was going to be able to kill that monster or help any of them.

He wasn't strong enough or fast enough he needed a weapon.

Sieghart didn't have any more time to waste; he simply ran towards the room with the most amount of primary colour symbols telling him to stay out of the room and he swiped the card he had taken from the rooms earlier.

These cards let him open the door without worry luckily for him there weren't any fingerprint scanners or anything complicated like that.

He burst into the room thinking it was empty when he was flipped onto his back and the ceiling was his foreground.

There were two guns pointed right at his face with his arm stepped on The Voice a deep tall person with arms really massive held him in a vice grip asking him

“Who are you?”

Sieghart couldn't really answer from where he was but man is too strong for him to get out of his grip. 'Seriously, it was like this guy trained using logs as weights.'

"Sieghart and I don't mean you guys any harm but there's a giant lizard outside trying to kill us. So maybe barricade the door?"

"..." They silently conversed.

"Going to give you points for blocking my vision so I can't see your face with the guns. Great fear tactic but it really doesn't work on me, anyone else sure. What is this about?"

The lab coat was wrapped around sieg Hearts head as he was pushed against the chair and tied to it

"Seriously. Listen we don't have time for this."

"We definitely have time for this, my son just died from the giant green scaled monster. I need to know if you know anything about him." His voice grieving with pain. "Tell me what you know."

"Well, nothing."

Sieghart heard the noise of one of the tables being destroyed which was impressive considering how sturdy they were being able to hold up to a number of people easily.

"That woman in white called it her husband. Are you with them?" His voice emotionally strained bordering on desperation. Sieghart realized his captor wasn't really antagonistic and was trying to vent his frustrations.

"No? Why on earth would you think that?" Even still he was just a random person. Not the person to interrogate. This felt incredibly random.

The Voice who hadn't spoken up and had been quiet this entire time said, "You have the card scanner. But looking at it, it doesn't belong to you."

"Found it in one of the rooms."

She hummed, her voice changed directions towards the taller man, "Thors, this isn't the way to handle this. And he's clearly not involved."

There was some silence as Sieghart digested what she had said, 'Was this The Avengers? But I don't ever remember Thor having a son.'

There was some rustling before the hood on his face was released.

He stood up rubbing his wrists to look at the two people standing there. It wasn't a blonde dude with a magic hammer and the female wasn't anyone he recognized.

The man was ridiculously tall over 6ft likely, and had long black curly hair pulled into a ponytail. A blue overcoat hung open down to his knees as he wore really worn material. Like some who lived in the mountains his entire life. He had a sword strapped to his back. He was covered in blood and his expression hellish.

This wasn't Thor of Marvel.

The woman also wasn't anyone he recognized either her blood red Shaggy hair coiling around her shoulders. A portion of it was in a ponytail, she wore an unblemished cardigan, skirt, black leggings and combat boots. In her hands were two large black and white magnums. The sight was so odd he took a second look.

"So who are you guys?"

"Thors of… Norway."

"Ako Fujimaru at your service." She bowed.

"Thors? Fujimaru?"

Just then the building rocked as something exploded and they heard nothing more.

"What the hell is happening?"

"Don't know but I'm going to find out," said Ako. She took a quick glance at Thors who's entire demeanor changed. His face, a demon's.

Sieghart picked up his fire axe before they burst out into the hallway.

Plaster from the ceiling was falling down as the entire Place seemed to be crumbling from the aftershocks of an earthquake.

What they found seemed to be worse, the entire front end of the building was in Ruins. The entire building was a sort of giant crescent-shaped Moon; the middle part was obliterated to the point where you could practically see the other side.

The three were ten meters from the devastation. Everything was crumbling down, light fixtures were sparking, water was flowing, gas was leaking

"This was not how I left it..." said sieghart.

They heard a hiss and down below on the courtyard something green with glowing yellow cat eyes. It was fighting either Jack or Reaper.

"The beast." Thors grit his teeth, Ako looked concerned and incredibly guilty, likely from not being able to save his son especially if she was who I thought she was.

They heard a loud teenage Shout Sieghart thought it might have been a "No!"

Then he heard a Thwipp. And a long line attached itself to the building. Both Ako and Sieghart looked at each other with wide eyes.

"Was tha-that…

"Spider-Man," Sieghart finished.

The spandex wearing red black and blue smashed into something on the ground and the two realized it was the lizard.

They smashed back into the Lobby on the ground floor of the building and started wrecking stuff up we could hear from way up here on the 10th floor.

He had originally been running from this entire area from what the lizard was doing now that the entire area was destroyed it made him wonder if he had been here would he have been...

Sieghart couldn't see any signs of the other veteran or even… he tried not to think about what the lizard had done to the others.

He felt like a coward now that he thought about it. Before he knew it Thors had ran on ahead and jumped off the ledge of the destroyed floor, for a moment the two both thought he was about to kill herself, before she landed on to the next floor bounding down with ridiculous Grace and Agility.

From what he could tell Thors was just a regular human. It was beyond impressive and borderline insane.

That shook Ako from her initial shock and she yelled at Sieghart, "Hide!"

Leaving him behind as he watched her jump down with supernatural abilities and agility greater than Thors.

He looked at his axe and the devastation around him. He wasn't cut out for this.