章 25: Shouldn't Be Happening
S3bastian, John, and Felix creep along the research department hallways.
They opted to avoid detection from patrolling Omnics to keep from unnecessary fights.
John sees a chance to investigate something and tells the others to stay behind in the room while he went alone.
"Psst." Felix hears from close behind him.
He turns towards the stranger with the cat mask that accompanies Bioshock.
He was really weird, but if he had power like Bioshock, he didn't care how weird he was.
Inching closer, S3bastian says, "Between me and you, I don't trust that guy. He's giving me omnic vibes."
"He's been my partner for years. I would have noticed if he was an omnic." Felix replies.
"Oh yeah? Don't you find it suspicious that he just somehow is sneaking off by himself knowing we're supposed to stick together. That's what an omnic would do." S3bastian says condescendingly.
Felix ignores S3bastian, turning around to look for John.
But then he starts to think about what S3bastian said.
'Why did what he say make some sense?'
John appears back, ducking into the room and closing the door behind me.
The three sit in silence while staring at John waiting for him to say something.
"Well?" Felix breaks the silence.
"Well, what?" John retorts.
"What'd you investigate, human." S3bastian asks.
"Oh, it turned out to be nothing." John causally says.
Felix turns towards S3bastian, who winks forgetting he's wearing a mask.
They continue to search each room as Felix reflects more and more on Johns past actions.
'He does pour his milk before he does the cereal. I'm sure only an omnic would get it backwards like that.'
They come to the main research lab, where AIs were being developed.
John starts to carefully try to pick the lock, but a kick from S3bastian sends the door off the hinges.
They walk in to find three tables with an eight-foot tall omnic, with a machine gun on its back laying on the table.
Seeing the mysterious new omnic on the table, Felix and John move forward to investigate while S3bastian hangs back.
He begins to take pictures of the room and send them to Abigale.
John steps forward and reaches out a hand to touch the omnic on the table.
It's once vacant eye, flickers red, turning on, as it grabs John's hand.
He screams, pulling out his Glock and firing on the new omnic.
The bullet deflects off the omnics chest and back into John's head, as he slumps down, dead.
Felix stands there in shock as S3bastian's attention snaps to the awakened omnic.
On the other tables, the other omnics eyes flicker to life as well as they begin to stand up.
They aim their built-in arm guns at the stunned Felix and at the last second, S3bastian grabs Felix as a torrent of bullets fly past where he once was.
Using his own body to block the bullets, S3bastian carries Felix out of the lab.
He doesn't stop running until they get to the elevator where he puts Felix down, who grunts in pain.
Felix falls to the floor as blood starts trickling down his leg.
S3bastian sees this and falls to his knees in despair.
With shaking hands, he grabs Felixs head and cradles it.
While rubbing his hair S3bastian asks, "Do you have any family."
"Yeah, a wife and two kids." Felix replies.
"Don't worry, I'll take care of them like they were my own." S3bastian says.
"But I'm not dead, I only got shot in the leg." Felix says confused.
"And now I have to put you out of your misery."
S3bastian says while gently lifting Felixs head to stare into his eyes.
Swatting S3bastians hands away from his head he replies in annoyance, "That's a horse and we don't even do that anymore."
S3bastian puts his finger to Felixs mouth, shushing him.
"Don't make this harder for me. Look at the wall and I'll make this quick."
The elevator doors open and S3bastian jumps up, seeing the lobby is in shambles as the remaining volunteers struggling against the onslaught of omnics.
The makeshift barricade they've made against the door with anything they've found in the lobby consisting of tables, chairs and even vending machines have given them a moments rest but things look grim.
Their repeated calls for backup go ignored on the radio.
As S3bastain carries the injured Felix out of the elevator, he is confronted by survivors requesting his assistance against this new threat.
Ignoring them he communes with a new third party.
"Spec Groundhog this is Supreme Overlord, do you copy?"
"Is that my radio name? Can I change it?" Abigale asks.
"Negative. I need to know what those omnics are, over."
"I got your pictures. They are the Bastion Siege Automaton Unit E54. They were created by SST Laboratories, by Torbjorn Lindholms design.
According to this, they possess configuration capabilities, immune to small caliber gunfire, and can self-repair."
S3bastian takes in this information and looks around as he calculates.
He turns quiet as he processes a solution but doesn't like the answer.
"Contact Alpha Brat and get him here immediately."
--------------------------------
"You killed him!" Lydia screams with tears coming down her face.
"I was trying to paralyze him, I didn't mean to kill him." I say trying to defend myself.
"He's right, you have to be working with them. And I trusted you to help you set this all up, so we could die here." She says.
"You guys are being unreasonable with all your assumptions. You heard how I was against him, how could I be on their side?" I try to reason.
She shakes her head, "It was a trick, set up to make us believe otherwise."
I watch her eyes dart to his gun near her.
"Don't." I say but she lunges for the gun.
Instead of trying to stop her, I pull one of my special weapons I've been keeping on my side.
I place a black metal disk on my arm and as I pass electricity through it, small metal poles extend out of each side of the disk making it resemble a compass.
The poles spark with electricity before light blue energy forms a diamond with the disk being at the center.
She pauses for a moment, stunned at what I've just done before aiming her gun at me.
Our Mexican standoff lasts for seconds that feel like forever until a voice comes through my helmet.
"Alpha Brat this is.... Spec Groundhog. Supreme Overlord requires you in the lobby immediately."
Ignoring the ridiculous names only S3bastian could have made I decide I need to get downstairs as S3bastian, and I are the only ones who could push back what I knew were Bastion units tearing through our lines.
"Listen, how about we do this. Good people are dying while we stand up here doing nothing. We need to go downstairs and push back the omnics while we still have the people and afterwards, I'll turn myself in."
While still making the gun at me, she replies, " How can I know you'll turn yourself in?"
"It's not like you have a choice. I'm the only way we survive this, so we need to leave now."
She takes a second to contemplate before lowering her gun.
As I power down my shield and rush to the elevator she says, "I'm telling everyone what you did though. You won't escape justice for what you did."
I ignore her and remain quiet as I mediate to clear my mind of accidentally killing an innocent man.
I intentionally don't listen to any thoughts as I know they'll make me feel guilty and I have no time for that right now.
The elevator doors ding open, and I see only 20 people left all in the lobby holding up a barrier constantly swaying from what I assumed was a wave of bastions just outside.
I spot S3bastian and rush to him, as Lydia goes to Felix.
"Tell me you have a solution to getting us out of here."
"I do." As he tells me the plan, my face grows grimmer.
"Are you sure it's the only way?" I ask. To which he only nods.
I refused to believe it was the only way, but I could come up with no better plan.
With S3bastians plan running through my mind I look at the various faces left in the lobby.
"Sorry." I mumble quietly before I shout.
"Listen everyone, our only way of escaping is making it to the vans. Between us and that are omnics created for war.
I have a bomb that's lethal to omnics, but it takes a minute to charge. We need to hold for a minute then when the bomb goes off, we make a run for the vans."
Any protests with the plan go ignored as the barrier violently shakes, knocking some who were holding it down.
Me and S3bastian move to the front as everyone falls back, using whatever cover they can.
I place my second special weapon, an EMP on the ground and press the red button.
It interfered with anything that operated on electricity, with the exception of S3bastian as his upgrades made him immune along with the special container of my battery on my back.
All guns are trained on the barricade as someone starts praying rapidly.
The barricade burst, as stomping of something heavy can be heard as the glow of multiple rectangles red eyes cut through the dust.
As soon as the first Bastion walks through the barricade, everyone opens fire on them.
Bullets riddle the Bastion as it continues it march forward as other Bastions begin to climb through the hole in the barricade as well.
The first Bastion finally falls after tanking so many bullets.
Everyone then has to reload as they mistakenly used all their ammo on the first Bastion.
Four Bastions spread out forming a line before opening fire on us.
I raise my shield and bullets strike it falling to the floor.
Someone behind me finishes reloading and tries to fire through my barrier but his bullet also stops and falls to the floor.
I refuse to meet his confused gaze as I embarrassingly remember how I struggled to figure out a something that never occurred to me.
How did Rienhardt's shield know which bullets to block, and which bullets came from his allies?
I turn to S3bastian. "Go crazy."
He shouts, "FINALLY!" As a submachine gun barrel sprout from each of his wrists.
He aims his gun at me, and I realize he's trying to shoot me but can't because of the fail safes.
"Them you ass."
"Oh." Then turns his weapons on the Bastions as I drop my shield.
He aims for their "head" as his bullets tear through their eye making them collapse on the ground below.
He moves out of the way as the people behind him start to fire on the next set of Bastions.
They only manage to down two before they raise their guns and start firing back at us.
The bullets tear through three of us before my own teammates stop firing and allow me to come shield for them.
I knew from how inefficient this method was, it was only a matter of time for we were over run with Bastions.
With my free hand, I lift my gun from my side.
Dropping my barrier, I shoot an EMP grenade at the Bastions feet, that hits seven of them.
Taking advantage of this moment, we light them up with bullets.
The Bastions who were unaffected return fire and some shouts of people getting shot can be heard as we manage to scrap the seven incapacitated Bastions.
As more Bastions stream in, I glance at the bomb to see only 15 seconds have passed.
Thinking this is the longest minute, I open fire on the Bastions as they take the time to reload.
S3bastian is having the time of his life, laughing as he shouts his killstreak.
As were actually holding our ground, a ding behind us goes unheard over the sound of gunshots.
Five Bastions clank behind us from the elevator.
Someone notices the Bastions and with fear shouts, "Behind us!"
All heads turn in time to see two of the Bastions configure into turret form.
My breath catches as I think at how stupid I was to not realize that there could be Bastions in the building itself and not just the omnium.
Making a last second decision, I drop to the floor as the sound of thunder drones on from the other side of the hallway.
All other noises are drowned out as a torrent of bullets tear through anyone not quick enough to get down.
On the ground, my breathing becomes labored as a guy falls next to me, with his blood splattering on my face.
I look around and see another guy convulsing as bullets pelt through him.
Closing my eyes, I instinctively mediate to calm down.
As my breathing steady's and my mind clears, I enter the Galvanic State.
Grabbing my assault rifle, I aim an EMP grenade at the Bastions in torrent form and shoot.
It stuns them long enough for me to shoot down the other three and form a ball of electricity in my hand which chains lighting between the two turrets, shorting them out.
I check and see that I only have one more EMP grenade before I'm completely out, with only five of us not injured.
Looking at the time, I see that 35 seconds have passed.
I hear the second elevator start to climb, meaning more Bastions are coming from behind us.
I needed to buy us some time until the EMP bomb cleared a way out for us.
Swinging around, I see another wave of Bastions coming through the hole in the barricade and start blasting each Bastion down as they appear.
S3bastian jumps up, brushing the dust off his suit before saying.
"You've only witnessed a mere fraction of my power. BEHOLD YOUR SUPREME OVERLORD."
The submachine guns on his hand retract as a new assault rifle forms on his right hand with a magazine coming out of his arm.
Using his left hand to prop up his arm, he begins blasting the barricade as well, pushing the Bastions further back until they can't even climb in without getting gunned down.
I look at the bomb and notice that we only have a couple of seconds now.
Pushing forward, I grab the bomb as we head towards the hole in the barricade.
Daring a peek out, I see waves of Bastions, extending all the way back to the omnium and continuing to come out.
Seeing this all doubt in S3bastians plan leaves me, as I toss the EMP bomb out the barricade.
A blinding light flashes seconds later, as a dome of dark blue lightning sparks off all the way into the parking lot and to the omnium.
The lights in the lobby shut off, the elevator freezes, and the red light in the Bastions eye flickers off as they crash to the ground.
Without hesitation, I take off running towards the vans with S3bastian close behind.
Hearing another set of footsteps, I turn and see Lydia running after us, but she's not as fast.
Still looking back, I spy the survivors peek their head out the barricade slowly.
They inspect an incapacitated Bastion, kicking it and seeing no response, they begin to cheer, celebrating amongst themselves at their victory.
Shaking my head at their idiocy, I continue running towards the van.
Almost there, I begin to notice movement on the downed Bastion units.
Their hand gets replaced by a tool that sparks wherever it touches on their body.
After a couple of seconds, the red light returns to their eye, and they begin to rise.
Panicking, the survivors finally realize their mistake and start running in different directions, but it won't matter.
We make it to the van, and S3bastian slides into the driver seat as I look back and see Lydia has fallen behind a good distance away from us.
The Bastions behind her turn around, and she starts to panic, actually falling down.
An entire row turns into turrets and I lift up my assault rifle and launch a grenade at them.
It stuns them and Lydia notices as she smiles in appreciation as she starts to get up.
Her smile fades, as S3bastian hits the reverse backing away from the Bastions.
As he turns, I leave the Galvanic State as I think about S3bastians plan.
There was little chance that anyone but us was going to make it out alive and we tried to give them a chance.
As we drive away from Omnica Corporation we hear gunshots in the distance but I don't look back.
He continues driving until we leave the state of California. Only then does he turn to me and asks,
"Where are we even going?"
"Toronto." I say taking off my helmet as I get comfortable enough to sleep.
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I can't express with words, the struggle I went through today. Let's just say, I'm not going to have any problems sleeping tonight.
Enjoy the long chapter today and I see I have at least 4 hours layover time in between flights so I might work on a chapter then.
Don't worry guys, if something happens to me while on vacation, I leave my story in the capable hands of my 12-year-old cousin who is a Genji fan and plays him at a bronze level.
P.S. I barely glossed over this chapter so I'm sure it's filled with errors.
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