The elevator doors opened to an entirely new floor, a place resembling a lab with multiple rooms, separated by glass walls. Above, a purple alarm gave light to the dim place as the lights flickered in intervals, desperately trying to stay alive.

As they stepped outside, the immediate smell of death and blood filled their noses.

Callan noticed that many of the glass barriers have been shattered, with medical apparatus and devices scattered across the floor. The lights flickered rapidly, desperately trying to stay alive.

“For an extra precaution.” Behind them, Irene locked the elevator, preventing it from moving anywhere.

“Until the threat has been cleared, the elevator will not be accessible.” She explained. Callan gulped in fear, being in a new place and no longer having an exit.

Soon, they went further into the place, glass shards crackled with each step as they passed by the many rooms. Filled to the brim with computers, tablets, whiteboards, and any devices they may use to study things.

“They really do love their technology.” Oliver remarked, focused on the overturned monitors and cracked tablets laying on the floor.

But the smell of death soon filled their nostrils as they stumbled upon corpses of operatives. Inside the rooms or in the hallways, all killed in different ways. Tossed through glass barriers or simply beaten to death by the mutants.

The place gave Callan an eerie feeling, silent and dim, only well lit up for a split second as the lights flickered back to life temporarily.

“We housed the mutants further into this floor. It all happened too quickly.” She paused, looking at her interface, displaying a map of the place.

“Our security on them was not as high, we expected the durability of the barriers could handle their supposed strength. But I suppose it far exceeded our expectations.” She sighed.

“We lost many operatives in such a short time, approximately sixty three operatives and twenty thirty two superiors.” As they went on, they stumbled upon a corpse in particular, missing an arm with its head resting on the ground in a puddle of blood.

Without speaking, the woman stepped forward, raising her scanner on the body’s face.

“Superior Perin.” She uttered.

“A valuable asset to the division. I can only hope we may bounce back from the death toll here.” Irene coldly responded. Without another word, they continued down the hall.

“Where are they anyway?” Clara wondered, looking around with her sword in hand.

“The floor is rather long, they may be anywhere at this rate. Fortunately control managed to shut any possible exit, from vents to elevators.” Irene replied.

As they went on, the corpses and destruction of the rooms became more apparent, with even parts of the floor demolished and blood staining many sections of the walls.

A loud bang from above stopped the team in their tracks, following my something scraping against metal.

“Seems it’s in the vents.” Irene raised her gun upward as the sounds continued, as if it was slowly creeping around.

Four loud booms echoed out into the room, with Irene firing towards whatever was above. Almost immediately after, a loud ear piercing cry followed.

The sound of metal being ripped and torn apart followed, as the ceiling above came undone. A large mutant fell from the ceiling, with large chunks of its body gone.

Just like what Irene said, the armor was all gone, only leaving a large unarmored thing. Callan noticed its body was riddled in fresh cuts, and its hands were covered in dark red blood.

“How many did we capture again?” Oliver asked, worried.

“About seven or so.” Irene replied.

Suddenly, shrills and cries echoed further into the floor from both sides.

Everyone took out their weapons, trying to look as hard into the dimness of the floor.

Callan was on edge, clenching his sword with all the strength he could, unsure of where they were coming from, surrounded by the corpses of operatives, torn apart or tossed around.

The shouts became louder and louder, rapidly approaching the team.

One of the mutants appeared through the dark, and before he could react, it grabbed onto Callan and threw him to another room. He slammed to screens on the wall, bringing him to a daze. In front of him, his team tried dodging the mutant. Unlike before, it seemed to have become far faster, almost agile.

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Irene raised her revolver, but before she could pull the trigger, a large hand grabbed onto her from the vent, dragging her up. Leaving the team on their own.

Callan stood up from the ground, running forward towards the mutant. He ducked below its arm as it swung around, he slashed at the leg of the beast, bringing it to a knee. Before he could deliver another strike, it grabbed Callan, starting to squish him.

But his arm was free, the mutant raised him up, Callan began swinging his sword at the now unarmored arm, hacking at it like tree bark.

As its hands grew tighter, with breathing becoming harder and harder, Callan swung his blade one more time.

He felt the grip loosen almost immediately, falling to the ground and gasping for air as the large arm fell to the ground.

The mutant found itself assaulted from all sides as the rest of Callan’s team attacked the beast, starting to chop its limbs off, killing it for good.

Soon, the beast fell to the ground, finally dead. Its head, arms, and legs were all chopped off.

Clara pulled Callan from the ground, patting him on the back.

“Now that was something right there.”

The moment of peace was broken by the roar of other mutants. Behind Callan, a pair of other mutants ran towards them, catching the team off guard.

Oliver was slammed to the side, colliding with monitors and desks. After a moment, the team immediately rushed to attack the pair.

“Focus on dismembering its limbs!” Enzo ordered, the pair thrashed around, attempting to grab or hit any of the members.

With a loud roar, one of the mutants grabbed a heavy desk from a room next to it, using it like a makeshift club.

The mutant swung ferociously at the team, further demolishing the rooms around it.

“Callan, use that bag of yours and get Oliver, we’ll try to handle this.” Enzo ordered.

Callan ran towards Oliver, dodging and moving around the mutants and jumping through a broken glass barrier.

Oliver groaned out in pain, half buried in apparatus and broken pieces of desk and screen glass.

Callan hurriedly looked around in the bag, seeing a few green syringes he could use.

‘These ones stop pain right? I guess I can use more of em right now.’ Taking out a green syringe from the bag, he jabbed it into Oliver’s back. Nothing happened for a few seconds.

His eyes opened wide immediately, getting up from the ground and grabbing onto his sword, completely different from earlier.

“Thanks a bunch Callan.” Oliver thanked him. Looking back at the mutants, he noticed that both mutants were split away from one another, fighting in different rooms. But as he observed, he noticed Clara was beneath one of the mutants, seemingly heavily injured as blood came out of her mouth. The mutant raised the desk over its head.

‘No- Not again!’ Without a thought, Callan rushed towards the mutant. He managed to land on its back, and began stabbing at the abomination, trying to distract it long enough as it began shouting in pain, dropping the desk and trying to grab at Callan.

Continuing his flurry of slashes and attacks, Enzo ended the fight, slashing the beast’s head clean off along with other limbs of its body.

On the ground, he looked at Callan with a smile.

“You seem to have improved greatly after a few operations. Perhaps a promotion is closer for you than expected.” After speaking though, he ran to the other mutant, quickly ambushing it from behind, cutting off its legs and decapitating it.

“At least Director gear is enough to kill these things…” Enzo muttered, looking down at the dead mutant.

Above, they could hear something shuffling around the vents. They raised their weapons up, awaiting something to come out. The same distinct sound of metal being cut apart could be heard, followed by the ceiling breaking. But a mutant didn’t come out.

“Approximately three mutants were eliminated in the ventilation system.” She commented, covered in blood and flesh.

“Ah, Leader Irene.” Enzo spoke up. Irene walked forward, noticing the dead mutant bodies.

“Approximately six have been killed so far…That leaves one…” She turned around.

“It is most likely further into the lab, let us move.” The team started rushing through the hall.

“Finally.” The team had arrived at the end of the hall, a room with a broken down gate stood in front of them. Multiple corpses lay in front of the gate, leaning to the side or resting on the floor.

But inside, they could hear something moving around.

“The final one seems to still be inside. I’ll try to liquidate it quickly.” Irene walked forward from the group, walking past her dead comrades without a hint of remorse for their death.

Once inside, the room was lit up by four loud gunshots. She emerged shortly after, her revolver barrel smoking profusely.

“Target terminated, the clearing is over now. We may exit the floor.”