Now that Afton had a good idea of where he was, and where everything else should be, he quickly starts headed to the next floor... One thing he was still unsure about however was the location of Doctor Usanagi... He had noticed one thing though, this place had a Cybernetics laboratory down on the second floor, which he where he'd start looking.
He passes by the staircase just as a group of Supermutants run past chasing some screaming scientists... Afton just shakes his head and descends the stairs, ending up in a darker-looking floor compared to the previous one... Either they were trying to save energy, or the experiments down here required limited light exposure? Afton wasn't sure, and the database hadn't illuminated anything on the subject... Perhaps information on specific research was on a separate system?
Afton heads directly for the Cybernetics lab and is quickly able to find it after memorizing the general locations stated on the database. It didn't look like much though, a reinforced door with an observation window that allowed you to view the experiments going on within. There were also two NCR troopers guarding the entrance, most likely just jailers to prevent Usanagi's escape.
Through the observation window, he could see Usanagi installing some sort of Cybernetic implant into... A strange creature... It was thin with grey skin, and a gaunt-looking figure. Its bones were clearly visible, along with the implants that were clearly pronounced through the skin...
Its face was... Well. Not a face. All it had were two completely white eyes and a mouth completely stripped clean of flesh... No lips were present, only a gaping maw with many deadly looking dagger-like teeth... "The hell is the mouth of Sauron doing here?" Afton whispers to himself as he examines it, wondering how strong it was compared to Mr X.
"Whelp, here goes nothing. please not more spores, please not more spores." he whispers to himself in hopes of not accidentally unleashing another world-ending monster.
He walks up to the two troopers guarding the doors before slamming their heads together hard enough to mulch their skulls and brains into soup. He then throws a hard kick at the door, completely knocking it off of its hinges before walking in.
"Yo, Doc, you mind if I come without an appointment? Or should I come back later?" he asks as he takes his helmet off.
"Afton?... It's about time! How long have I been trapped here helping these monsters with their sick experiments!?" she exclaims while prodding him in his armoured chest.
"I-er... What? Shouldn't you be grateful that I'm saving you or something, like, princess style?" he retorts in confusion.
"I was only captured because of you in the first place!"
Afton shrugs at her anger, "I didn't know they would do that, and we made a fair trade. It wasn't as if you didn't know how dangerous shit involving me is."
"Fair trade? Most would call that extortion... Sexual extortion!" she retorts with crossed arms.
Afton scoffs, "Hey, you're the one who asked, I only give you the price. You didn't exactly object to it either!" he states but shakes his head once he remembers where he is, "Look, we can argue about this later once we've escaped this place... Before that though, what the fuck is that thing." he gestures at the creature she had been operating on.
"I don't know, one of the many creatures the people down here have made... There are hundreds of them all stored on the third floor, and they've made me install Cybernetic implants in most of them." she gravely states.
Afton scratches his head with frown, "And how strong do you think they are? Are they as dangerous as, say, the spores?"
She shakes her head at his question, "They are artificial creatures with no ability to procreate, they are not a threat to the world. But. They are definitely a threat to us... I once saw one tear a troopers arms off with sheer strength alone!"
"Uh huh... So, like, Supermutant level?" he asks and she nods, getting a relieved sigh out of him.
"What?" she asks, finding his behaviour strange.
He just smiles mirthfully, "We'll be fine. I did bring an army of Supermutants when I invaded this place... Hey, do you know where Macka Bree is?" he suddenly asks, ignoring her indignant sputtering.
She nods, "He's either in his room, the surveillance room, or his laboratory... Considering the racket you've made upstairs, I'd say either of the latter two." she explains.
He nods and puts his helmet back on, "Follow me, I'll leave you with Marcus while I see to Macka... I hope you haven't got anything against Supermutants." he says as he begins dragging her to the staircase where Marcus should be arriving soon enough. But, not before slitting the throat of the creature she had just been operating on...
After depositing the incredibly worried-looking Usanagi with Marcus, Afton descends the stairs headed to the third floor. The further down the steps he walks, the darker the place actually becomes... Once he reaches the bottom, he finds himself in a completely pitch black hallway...
The only reason he was able to see anything was due to the night vision of his helmet... Unfortunately, he'd not bothered to have such a thing installed in the Supermutants gear, making it incredibly impractical for them to actually come down here...
Still, he'd bet that the Nightkin would charge down here anyway... Those guys were fuckin' crazy.
*Grrroooowwwll!*
...
Afton glances around to look for the origin of the sound, but doesn't see anything in the hallway... "Yeah, not creepy at all... Fuck, there's going to be face huggers down here or something, isn't there?" he mutters to himself as he slowly walks through the place.
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Afton creeps through the dark hallway cautiously with his Ultra-Chainsword at the ready, though, not yet ignited to prevent drawing attention. The sound of skittering and something moving somewhere keeps him on edge as he walks, yet he hadn't spotted anything at all...
A shutter door sits on the left side of the hallway ajar, the metal door halfway closed, leaving the door at around knee-level... Afton drops to a knee and takes a peek inside... And comes face to face with the blank-eyed star of a bearded man!
"Wah!" Afton exclaims as he falls backwards, shocked at the sudden jumpscare!
...
Fortunately, there wasn't any eldritch creature chasing him, nor was the man on the other side getting up and moving like a zombie... Why would his movement make him a zombie? Well... The large puddle of dark red liquid the head was lying in made it rather obvious that he was deceased... Plus those blank eyes and Afton was sure something had murdered the man...
He shakes his head as he gets up, "Nyx, are your proximity sensors picking anything up?"
"Negative." she dutifully reports.
"You sure there's nothing on the other side of this door?" he asks again, not wanting to get jumped by a Xenomorph... Sure his danger sense would help him out, but he'd rather not be in the situation in the first place.
"No movement has been detected since we arrived to this floor, Sir."
...
He slowly nods to himself and bends over, gripping the bottom of the door with one arm while readying his Chainsword in the other.
"Haup!" he grunts as he forces the door up and crumples the metal rim to prevent it from descending again.
Once the room is revealed Afton is easily able to see the end that befell the corpse... The upper body was completely fine, but everything below the belly button has been... Torn apart. To say the least... Examining the wounds closer, he spots that the wounds seem to have been inflicted by many clawed digits, similar to the ones the creature Usanagi was operating on had.
There was a long winding red trail of blood where the lower body looks to have been taken... Afton cautiously follows it, but feels as if he was about to walk into a dragons nest... No, wrong game... A Deathclaw nest.
The room itself seemed to be some sort of laboratory, fitted with an observation room, operating room, and a bedroom? Most likely for overnight supervision judging by the projects this place was researching.
The trail of blood led through the observation room and into the bedroom... Afton pokes his head through and quickly spots where the trails leads... A vent... The metal grating of the vent had been torn apart and blood smeared around its rim, as well as under it on the wall where the corpse's lower body had been pulled.
"Great... 'They're in the walls'." he mutters, quoting a movie he vaguely remembered... If that was even the right quote...
Shaking his head he leaves the room and enters back into the hallway, he could have tried to strip out of his armour and crawl through the vents, but that was probably a very stupid idea... And so elected to just continue as he had been, though, this time much more wary of the air vents.
He passes by a couple more rooms but upon further investigation, they hold nothing aside from a few blood splatters... Obviously whatever had been hunting in this place had already cleared out the people working down here.
Soon enough though, Afton finally reaches the end of the hallway where a large metal door sat... Blood was literally pooling from underneath it, so it was fairly obvious that this was his intended destination... Hopefully, Macka wouldn't be dead inside, otherwise, he'd have come down here for nothing.
He fingers the button next to the door and it gives a click... But doesn't actually open the door...
*Crash!*
The air vents behind him suddenly explode from their fixtures, and Afton is greeted by the sight of many... Grey mutants? Creepers? Test subjects? Whatever they were called, hundreds of them were flying out of the vents and crawling towards him, trapping him against the door and the exit... Seems as if this was a planned ambush...?
Afton ignites his Ultra-Chainsword but doesn't charge the enemy... Instead, turning around and cutting an X into the door before slamming his shoulder into it.
*CRRAAASH!!*
The weakened metal door isn't strong enough to withstand his attack, and cracks open like a can as he forces himself through it. Once inside the room, he uses his wrist shield to block the new entrance he'd made, stopping the creatures from reaching him as he examines the place.
It seems to be the place where they were keeping the creatures... Cages dotted the walls, each filled with blood stains, food scraps, bones, and other disgusting things. There were also a couple more Test subjects skittering around the place, but none were trying to attack him like the others yet...
*Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap.*
Afton looks over and spots a man giving an irritating slow clap at the end of the room. He was tall with powerful muscles that looked as if they were building from his clothing... He wore a stained doctors coat, he looked young with black hair, black eyes, and reading glasses. The thing Afton immediately noticed however was the fact he remained unmolested from the creatures skittering around him.
"Well, you managed to get through the door without dying. Mark me impressed, Afton." he drawls in a typical troupey villain's tone.
Afton just continues maintaining the shield blocking the door while quietly observing the man, "... Yeah, wasn't all that hard... I guess I have you to think for the warm invitation, Macka?"
Hope you bois liked the chap, if I missed anything please let me know. Thanks!
Also, thanks to my patrons for their support :
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