Johann Martin Fischer

It was supposed to be so easy. Just stay in the van and keep your distance from the 2M’s. Staying in the van? Check. Keeping distance from the 2M’s? Why did his part of the plan have to go wrong?

He wasn’t even in the line of sight of the warehouse chain link fences. Did the 2M’s have patrols this far out? We really should have scoped this place out more.

A pickup truck with a gun mounted on the back had turned the corner and started approaching their van. It’s called a technical. Some Adumbrae warlord in Australia was infamous for using them. Johann couldn’t remember their name. While Adumbrae like the 2M’s probably didn’t have access to tanks, that didn’t mean they couldn’t retrofit any of the vehicles of their own. The technical in front of them may have been a tank. The gun on the backside of the truck was huge!

A burly man operated the gun. All Johann had was his handgun. How was he supposed to deal with that? Maybe hide?

Yes, that was it. Everything around here was abandoned. Maybe they might be left alone after that.

Johann quickly turned the ignition key off. Ducking, Johann’s hand trembled on his handgun. He had some training before at the police station he worked at, but he’d never been forced to use it like this. Even when he’d been helping Myra and the others, he wasn’t by himself. He had the other artificial Corebrings with him. But now, Johann had to defend himself and Reo.

Johann heard the technical roll up to the van before screeching to a halt.

Footsteps soon followed. Why did they leave the technical?

“Hey, do you think we scrapped this van?” a male voice asked in the distance. Johann could see some light seep into the van.

“Dunno. We scrapped everything else in the area,” another male voice responded. “I don’t remember this van being here. Although, there are a lot of cars and trucks we’ve scrapped.”

“Come on, maybe there’s a bunch of cash in this one,” the other voice said. “We’ll split the difference 50/50. Just promise to not tell the boss.”

“Hey! You better save some money for me too!” another male voice yelled.

“Fine, we’ll split it amongst us three,” the first male voice called out. “I should turn this dumb radio off.”

“I’ll shoot you with this big gun if you do!” the third male voice challenged.

“Yeah yeah, whatever Tom,” the first male voice said.

So there were at least 3 of the 2Ms outside. One of them was still at the truck manning the gun. The other two had gotten out. Tom was the name of the guy operating the gun. How could he use this? Is any of this useful? Nothing! All of this was useless!

A loud bang rang through the walls of the van. Johann’s hand trembled more.

“Fuck, this thing’s still locked!” the first male voice cried out. The sound of footsteps got further away from the car. What was going on? Were they going to leave?

“Who’d you think left stuff here?” the second male voice asked.

“I hope it’s some rich dude who left all of his stuff here,” the first male voice said.

“It better not be one of the Adumbrae,” the second male voice said.

“I doubt they would care anyway,” the first male voice said. “Anyways, this brick should do it.”

Crap. They came back. Okay. Think.

What could Johann do here? Well it was dark, and they didn’t know he was here, so he had the element of surprise. When they break into the van, he’ll have a couple of moments to use his gun. The gunman in the back of the technical might start shooting at him, but he’ll have no driver.

A plan formulated in his mind. It was the riskiest thing ever. And he also had to make sure to protect Reo too. Would there be an issue? No. He should be fine back there. Hopefully, he stayed asleep during the plan. Waking up now would be the worst possible outcome.

“Hey, maybe we should check what’s inside before chucking a brick at the window,” the second male voice said. “Wouldn’t want to ruin anything fancy.” Crap. Of course, they would check the car before trying to break in. What kind of robber wouldn’t do that?

“Right, I keep forgetting about that,” the first male voice said.

“You are way too happy to destroy stuff,” the second male voice said.

“Part of the job description, am I right?” the first male voice jokingly said.

“You better not be destroying anything of value!” Tom yelled through the radio.

“For the love of… ugh. Tom, just stay focused on watching the road,” the second male voice said.

Two clicks were followed by two beams of light shining through the windows. Crap. Okay change of plans.

Johann got up and saw two masked men outside the front of the van. They both took a step back as he quickly fired two shots at each of them, shattering the glass windows. Their bodies quickly dropped to the ground with the brick making a large thunk sound.

Johann turned the ignition key. “Come on, come on.”

The technical was straight across from him. The gunman quickly began turning his gun around.

“Just go!” Johann yelled as he slammed the gas. The van lurched forward and Johann heard something collide at the back of the van. Fuck. Reo wasn’t seatbelted. No time for that. Hopefully, he was fine.

Johann quickly drove past the front of the technical as a couple of explosion sounds boomed through the air. The van rocked and the sound of wind rushing in could be heard. Fuck. Were they hit?

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Johann took a quick peek at the backside mirror. A huge hole came out of the van's right side, with the left side receiving a deformation.

I guess it was a good thing Reo wasn’t wearing seatbelts. His head would have been blown right off.

Johann turned some roads, hopefully putting distance between him and the gunman. He put the van into park and sighed in relief. The gunman wasn’t able to chase him down since Johann since he had no driver anymore.

“Ow,” a voice said behind Johann. “Where the fuck am I?”

“Reo!” Johann cried out, turning to look at Reo. “You’re alive!”

“Ugh, yeah?” he replied as he rubbed his head. “Wait a minute. What the fuck happened to the van?”

“We were being shot at,” Johann said.

“With a fucking tank???!!” Reo asked.

“Not exactly… more like a truck with a gun,” Johann explained. “A big gun.”

“May as well be a tank,” Reo said. That wasn’t really right. But Reo kept talking before Johann could correct him.

“Well I’m glad I didn’t have seatbelts on,” Reo said. “Take that Myra! You called it stupidity when I said I shouldn’t be strapped down. But it turns out I’m the smarter one.”

“I think it’s more of luck than anything,” Johann said.

“Just make sure to back me up man when we see her,” Reo said. I’ll let you two argue like a married couple. I’m going to stay out of this.

“So how is Myra?” Johann asked.

“I dunno, we got separated,” Reo said.

“Separated?!”

“There was this creepy black hallway with red light on the edges,” Reo started to explain. “And then all of a sudden giant blocks started falling from the ceiling, separating the group. Emcee, Blank, and I all got stuck together.” Reo continued the story of how he ‘valiantly’ saved the other boys from clay soldiers. Blank was apparently cowering in a corner while Emcee lobbed fireballs randomly. Johann had no idea how much of his story was exaggerated.

And then, Reo, or rather Oberon got out of range of them. Sadly, Blubber couldn’t be too far from Oberon otherwise the connection between them would be broken.

A creeping fear crawled into Johann’s mind. What if one of the girls was harmed? They might be stronger than the boys in their group, but what if they fought somebody super strong? The thought sent shivers down Johann’s body.

Okay. Calm down. Deen, or Pythia had future sight. Surely she would be the most fine out of all of them. Then there was Myra and Erind. Barb and Synchron. The two strongest Corebrings in their group. Normal bullets wouldn’t stop them.

“Are you okay?” Reo asked. “Did my story freak you out?”

“No,” Johann shook his head. “Just worried about the girls. Let’s check the cameras in the warehouses.”

Johann quickly turned on the monitors on top of the dashboard. He had already hacked into the 2M’s security system. It was surprisingly weak for a secret organization.

“Damn techno-wizard,” Reo said, leaning over the chair. “You already hacked in?”

“Yep, through the terminal on the left monitor,” Johann said.

“With just that?” Reo asked. “No fancy stuff?”

“You mean a GUI?” Johann replied. “That’s just in the movies. Besides, it took me at least 15 minutes to hack in. Not used to this setup at all.”

“Okay, I’m going to assume you didn’t mean anything sexual with ‘gooey’,” Reo replied. What?

“Um, yeah,” Johann said as he began cycling the cameras. Eventually, they found the group on the left monitor. They were rescuing some of the kidnapped civilians.

“Whew,” Johann sighed. “They’re safe.”

“What the fuck is that?” Reo pointed to the middle monitor. A giant wolf creature covered in green goo could be seen. Wait a minute. It seemed similar to the giant wolf mutants that attacked the giant statue Adumbrae. But it seemed bigger. The creature began leaving the sight of the camera.

“Should we warn them?” Johann asked.

“Definitely.”

Johann pulled out his phone but then saw another concerning thing on the middle monitor. As the giant wolf creature left, a blue drone could be seen hovering in the corner of the room.

Fuck. That was a BID drone. They were so going to raze this place to the ground.

“Blank, this is HQ,” Johann said. “You’ve got to go, the BID is coming!”

“Thanks HQ!” Blank quickly replied. He’d always been the odd one out of this group, so it was nice to get a codename.

“The BID?” Reo asked. “That’s a BID drone? Fuck.”

To make matters worse, the sound of vehicles moving could be heard in the distance. Several technicals and eighteen-wheelers came into view.

“Holy shit!” Reo exclaimed. “We are so fucked right now.”

But none of the trucks came after them. Huh? They seemed to be going far away from the warehouses as quickly as possible.

Did the 2M’s know the BID was going to raid them?

Astrid Estrella

Today was a terrible day for the 2Ms. The bandits that had been attacking their transports and some of their minor bases decided to attack Astrid’s base. To make matters worse, the giant werewolf Adumbrae that fought Stella was in the middle of their base destroying everything.

Astrid stared in disbelief at one of the monitors on her desk as she watched the creature rapidly devour everything it could.

“Unfortunately, Stella will not be able to assist you,” Big Marcy said. While his face wasn’t visible on any of the monitors, his voice still came through the speakers. Astrid’s desk had two keyboards and four monitors. Having two pairs of arms two to type sure was nice.

“Hey Mommy, Mr. Bird can see a blue object coming,” Zoe said next to her. “It looks like a small airplane.”

Shoot. Was that a BID drone? What other blue objects are there?

“Should I tell everyone here to retreat then?” Astrid asked Big Marcy.

“Indeed,” Big Marcy said.

Astrid pulled out her radio. “This is Astrid. Pack up everything that you can onto the trucks as quickly as possible. I’ll give more info on the radio soon.”

“We’re leaving Mommy?” Zoe asked next to her.

“Yes, it isn’t safe here Zoe,” Astrid told her, grabbing Zoe’s left hand with her lower right hand.

“What’s wrong with the airplane Mommy?” Zoe asked.

“The airplane will bring some dangerous people,” Astrid told her.

“Like bad people?”

“...Yes,” Astrid hesitated.

Ever since she was little, Astrid was told that Adumbrae were the bad guys.

After her husband, Dirus died, Astrid had to be both a mother and work two jobs. All of their savings went into trying to make sure Dirus stayed alive. Without any savings, her two jobs were just barely enough to make it through life. Unfortunately, luck was not on her side. When driving Zoe to school one day, they crashed into a drunk driver.

When Big Marcy offered to save her and Zoe the crash, Astrid had to accept. They didn’t have any money and Astrid couldn’t lose Zoe. They couldn’t afford to pay for prosthetics to repair their broken limbs.

Apparently the man behind Big Marcy, the Supplier, was interested in trying to turn children into Adumbrae. They hadn’t had much success. Of course everyone knew that children couldn’t become Adumbrae. Astrid wasn’t familiar with the science part to know why.

But it didn’t matter. All that mattered was the she and her precious Zoe were still alive and well off.

Astrid hugged Zoe with her lower right arm and stroked her black hair with her upper right arm. Her upper left arm held a phone to her ear. One of the 2M’s grunts, Nettle, was driving the truck.

“It appears that the bandits are trying to rescue some of of the contestants,” Big Marcy said over the line. Big Marcy still had access to the cameras in her base. “Are they trying to play the hero? Perhaps we could use that…”

The contestants were used at the Eve to feed the mutants. Astrid was first very appalled to see the fights there. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. But now, those events were just a blur to her.

Originally, she felt sad for the contestants. But her will to live overcame that. As well as the will to protect Zoe. In order to prevent the Adumbrae from taking control, they had to eat the brains of the mutants.

“We cannot afford to lose this many contestants,” Big Marcy said. “We only have enough for next week’s event at the other warehouses. Additionally, some will need to be turned into mutants to make up for the loses that occurred here.”

Shoot. What would happen if they ran out of mutants? Astrid didn’t want to become a mindless monster. She could severely hurt Zoe. And the thought of that tore Astrid apart.

“I have a plan to get them back,” Big Marcy told her.

Get them back?

“Do you understand the plan?” Big Marcy asked her after explaining his plan.

“Yes,” Astrid said. She wasn’t going to lose control of her mind. Everything was going to be fine.