Tatata!! Tatata.....
Guns blazed as multiple loud explosions burst outwards, rattling Henry’s ears. He dove low, scrambling under a car, seeking shelter from the onslaught above.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck…”
He cursed under his breath, his hand gripping tight on his weapon.
A PR6 Anti-Freak assault rifle. One of the most efficient state-of-the-art weapons commonly used by the Aeloria Military. Unlike standard Anti-Freak weapons—even most military-grade ones released to the public—these guns were manufactured five years ago using Flux material in their construction.
Every soldier in the Military carried one.
And Henry was no different.
This weapon was enough to do damage on most Fluxes, however the ones he now face, where an unusual exception.
"I need to get there quick, but fuck I am running out of ammo, then again, it doesn't seem to be doing me much good either way.
"Should I just drop it..? This thing is quite heavy...
"No, it's still better than nothing at all... I am almost there either way... I just have to keep moving forward, I can't let my teammates' sacrifice be for nothing, I owe that to them at least."
Henry was with two of his company mates—Corporal Reyes and Private Kline—until he wasn't.
Both men lay dead in the open just meters away, their bodies shredded by the relentless onslaught.
He had watched it happen in the span of a heartbeat, already low on resources, while being tired from the relentless attack, these men held the front perimeter of the gate alongside several others, for two hours before they were overwhelmed by the enemy attack, a result of which their base was invaded and destroyed.
They fought till their last breath, even if their weapons only delayed them at best.
Till eventually the last few included were pushed back.
Now only he remains, as he watched the horrific sight play out vividly before his eyes.
He watched one of the creatures wearing a dead soldier form look down at Kline who was now ripped in half, it looked for a long time till eventually a change occurred.
The Mimick disregarded its current form, turning into Kline, before it went along its own way, going deeper in the facility.
One of many of these fuckers, they had no fixed face, but they all behave the same.
Each having insane healing capabilities.
Even a shot to the head does not keep them down for long.
Now Henry was alone as he watched the large group that overwhelmed them earlier kept advancing deeper into the facility, as he lay flat on his belly under the overturned car, his heart hammering as the ground shook.
The Mimicks were everywhere, and they kept changing.
Some had taken the forms of F12... also known as the Reavers, hulking, four-armed brutes whose skin hardened to create extremely durable external diamond armor, shrugging off PR6 rounds like rain dropping on slabs of iron.
Others became F47 or Wraiths, they marched forward with murderous intent, yet there was purpose in their actions, it was looking for something.
Henry watched many of them phasing through solid metal walls even through the bursts of black smoke before rematerializing, his eye perched on their sharp red claws that could sliced through body armor like paper.
And many of them took this form, as they cluster together through the fortified walls, breaching multiple gates at once, behind each one was different Flux, living entities or powerful supernatural objects.
Yet they ignored all, and copied the forms of many of them, taking their capabilities alongside their shapes.
But the troubling Mimicks are the ones bombing out the halls, killing any soldier that was still alive from above, saving precious time for searching instead of Killing.
These Mimicks shifted into an armada of F90s, better known as Drifters, massive bird-like Fluxes that were at least 5 meters in length, as such they had a giant wingspans that was wide enough to blot out the sky from above.
Their feathers weren't feathers at all—they were living charges. Every time one drifted lazily to the ground, it detonated with a force that dwarfed a standard grenade, turning concrete into shrapnel storms and flipping their attack vehicles like toys.
One of those Drifters had been the reason why Henry dove under one of them in the first place.
A single feather had brushed the hood above him seconds ago. The explosion had lifted the entire vehicle off its wheels and slammed it back down, nearly crushing him.
He could still hear the screams of the 4th Company echoing through the facility corridors. The soldiers and staff were suffering badly—overwhelmed, outmatched, and dying in droves. Every time the defenders dropped a Mimick, the thing simply dissolved into black sludge and reformed seconds later, faster than before, wearing stolen faces and stolen powers.
Due to this their magazines were running dry.
Reinforcements were nowhere in sight.
But all hope was not lost, Henry knew he had one chance to even the playing field, or at least save the remaining life of his soldier still alive if any.
Gritting his teeth, he crawled out from under the wreckage on elbows and knees, his PR6 clutched tight against his chest.
The command center was two buildings over, maybe three hundred meters through the kill zone.
If he escaped this building through the nearest exit he could get outside again, and send an SOS signal to the main base in Sector 1.
He was determined to survive and save the lives of his comrade's, he broke into a low sprint, weaving between the burning hall and the corpses of his comrades in the base along the way.
He managed to remain out of sight for the most part.
Till eventually he was downstairs, his eye met the exit just ahead.
"There."
His boots thud hard on the ground as he kept sprinting.
"I'm almost outside, I can even see the building to center from here."
Henry said with a hopeful smile, but just as he exited the door, he heard a voice to the left of him.
"Oh my, one manage to escape, well this is good news either way."
"Ha!?"
Henry eyes open as he looked at the source of the voice.
The strange figure moved with calm, deliberate slowness, his hands in the pockets of his tattered black coat.
And he wasn't alone behind him, an army of Mimicks each in a different form follow heed, now daring to go past him, always staying atleast two meter behind him at all times.
And for the one already deployed and at the front, they stopped at the sound of his voice.
The Mimicks parted around him like water around stone, clearing a perfect corridor through the chaos.
His long, bone-white hair drifted as if stirred by an unseen wind, and his pale face showed no emotion at all.
As he walks closer, his path clear, they bow their heads in reverence, in respect for his station.
"...Who the hell are you!?"
Henry asked, point his riffle in his direction.
But the man didn't answer.
Desperate and afraid.
Henry release fire upon the mysterious man, the energy infuse bullets went faster than sound, each travelling at mach-10.
And despite that, the moment they landed, it bounced off his skin, and all the kinetic energy within them was absorbed in the man's body.
Henry's eyes opened in shock as his assault came to a horrifying halt, yet his rifle stayed halfway up, as he now walked back fair.
Desperate to live, he kept firing, yet, the results remain the same.
The man tilted his head slightly, studying him the way a scientist might study a mildly interesting insect.
"Are you done?"
He asked calmly, but Henry did not answer.
He was too shocked to form words in that moment.
But the man kept on talking, as he asked.
"Do you know where the key is?"
He asked, his voice quiet and strangely polite amid the gunfire and explosions.
Henry blinked, his chest heaving, confusion cutting through the adrenaline.
"What? What the fuck are you talking about? Who the hell are you? Why are you even attacking us?"
The man considered this for a moment, his eyes narrowing in thought. Then he gave a small, almost disappointed sigh.
"You people have it. ᛗ0|ᚻ§ᚱ's words are never wrong, so where is it?"
Henry couldn't make out the name of the person or thing he was taking order from, just hearing it made him hold his head in agony as he backed up a couple step, however he replied saying.
"...I don't know what you want, but if you think you will get away with this, then you fucks are delusional, even if help doesn't come, our death will be avenge, an attack on one brother is no different than waging war on all brothers you heretical thing."
"Ahh, you humans are really annoying, I am asking a simple question yet you reply to me using pointless words... Your language is so basic so it isn't a problem with understanding what I am saying hmm... ahh, maybe you will know what I am talking about if I use the term you human gave it. What was the identifier again, hmm, ahh yeah that right, tell me human, where is F645. The Whispering Mirror, I came here for the lost relic you stole from our church years ago... Now give it to me this instant."
Henry's mind spun as the words hit him.
'The Whispering Mirror? F645?'
'...What the hell do these monsters want with that thing?'
He questioned himself, but received no answer.
He had only seen and known of it existence of the mirror through the classified files all workers read to better educate themselves on the items in the facility to better guard them.
This one in particular was one he learned about during his first briefing as newbie soldier.
It was described as a jagged stone mirror, with runes that glowed orange, in terms of oddity, getting too close to it will make one start to hear voices that supposedly whispered shit no one could understand.
And if one takes heed to the voices, they become entranced by the Mirror, and then they fall to its will seemingly being controlled by it.
For that reason it was locked away deep in the sixth vault, behind layers gaian barriers and power suppression fields.
To him and many here it was just another weird object they were told to guard and to never ask questions about.
Only getting the bare minimum information about the object itself, atleast the information needed to properly guard it.
And base on what Henry knew at the time about it, it made him wonder as to why the fuck was this white-haired freak throwing an entire army of Mimicks at the facility for it?
The man watched Henry's face carefully. A small, knowing smile crept across his pale lips.
"It would seem he does know."
He said softly, almost amused.
"So tell me, soldier — where is it?"
Henry let out a long, tired sigh at the question.
And the rifle suddenly felt too heavy in his hands. He looked at the chaos around him — the smoke, the bodies, the Mimicks still shifting forms in the distance, alongside the ones surrounding him — and gave a small, bitter laugh.
"This is actually where I die, huh?"
He had no family waiting for him back home.
No parents, no wife, or no kids. The only brothers he had ever known were the ones who fought beside him — Reyes, Kline, and all the rest.
They had all been raised the same way, pulled into the Youth Corp as kids and taught one simple truth: duty isn't finished until death.
There was no way out of this fucked situation, and Henry knew this.
The white-haired man waited, patient for his answer. Getting more annoyed by his Silent as he finally shouted.
"HEY HUMAN, ARE YOU DEAF, I AM TALKING TO YOU... SPEAK NOW OR DIE."
Hearing this Henry laugh and said.
"Ok."
"Finally."
The white hair man said, finally happy for once, or that was what he felt like for the first four seconds, but that happiness soon turn to immense frustration as Henry did something the stranger never expected.
He opened his hand and let the PR6 drop to the floor with a loud clatter. Slowly, he placed his right palm flat over the Aeloria crest on his chest plate.
As he said with a sad smile, but a firm and prideful tone as he practically shouts and says.
"Glory to Aeloria."
Then he bit down hard on the suicide tooth at the back of his jaw.
The tooth, fragile to a certain level of force crack, and the sensors inside activate as rapid beeping sound could be heard and a loud explosion went off as the micro-charge inside Henry's head went off with a wet crack, and his head exploded in a spray of red bloody mist.
The body crumpled instantly, his helmet rolling away across the blood-slick concrete.
The white-haired man's eyes widened. For the first time, real irritation flashed across his face.
"Why do humans have to be so fucking difficult?"
He muttered under his breath.
But it didn't stop him.
He stepped forward, crouched beside the headless corpse, and pressed two fingers to what was left of the neck.
His body rippled like heat over asphalt.
Bones shifted, skin darkened, and his eyes burned with green colored Flux energy.
His lower half became green smoke, as marking spread across his body, his head went on fire, as his skin burns away leaving nothing behind but a burning skull that float above it severed neck.
He became what was known as a psychopomp.
A type of Flux that can speak with the dead and even manipulate the soul's of the departed.
Now floating just above the dead body, he thrust his hand straight into Henry's chest. Black tendrils of power sank deep and seized the fading soul before it could slip away.
"...Devour I must…
He said in a deep, scratchy tone.
And in the next instant he devoured Henry's soul whole.
As a result of that, all of Henrys life memories slammed into him all at once — training yards, cold barracks, late-night briefings, the exact location of the sealed vault, the access codes, every corridor and containment prison between here and the relic.
All secrets that he now had, were also now his to share.
"I found it."
The stranger said with pure delight in his creepy voice.
Then his form changes, becoming transparent as a weird blue aura forms around him, alongside a weird hood made from weird supernatural material formed around his body, and only his red eyes can be seen from the dark hood.
But he also carry a pair of two monsterous red claws, as he floats off the ground, the white hair man became a Wraith, and using the power of he flick into a ghost like state as he quickly began to phase straight through the reinforced wall ahead in his path, slipping between atoms like a ghost.
He drifted past row after row of containment cells, ignoring the howling Fluxes and sealed supernatural objects inside each one.
To him, only one of them mattered.
All but one was irrelevant in his eyes.
At the end of the final corridor he solidified back into his human shape, bone-white hair settling around his shoulders, with clear skin, before he stood before the object in question.
A large full-body mirror waited in the center of the vault, framed in jagged black stones, where strange runes spiraled around its edges, pulsing with a faint orange glow.
He stared at his own reflection for a long moment through it, feeling his power suddenly increasing for some reason, then smiled — it was clear he was satisfied with what stand before him.
"I finally found the key to the other worlds."
He whispered.
"And it won't be long before the first Storm begins at last."
The man said with his hands touching the cold glass.
"And with it, our return inevitable."
RUMBLE... BOOOM!!...
"GAASSPP!"
Nier grasp as he arise from his bed, his hands still on his head.
"Ahhh... Wh-what the hell was that all about?"
He asked as he rub his eyes now, taking the cold from his eyes, and the first thing that greeted him was pouring sound of hard rain that beat on his roof.
"Damn it, it's raining again.... What's up with the ongoing weather changes lately. It was raining really hard this afternoon too when I brought Marcy and Bella home. I know Sector 7 rains alot but this too frequent now."
Nier said out aloud, as he was awaken by the loud sound of lighting and thunder in the sky.
But yet again he felt a horrific pain hit his brain, as head began hurt and his ears began to ring.
"Ahh… These damn headaches again.... Fuck, that dream though, it felt so real, like I was there in the very moment... What the hell even was happening?"
He asked but no answer came, one eye opening wide with wonder and annoyance.
"Ugh, It's the same feeling I get when I was living the live memories of the past of my long dead ancestors, but in this case I was living the memories of that Henry guy, then my point of view change when I start living from the perspective of that weird white hair man after Henry's death.... Was that pheraphs a vision.... Maybe one from the past... Or maybe it's from the future... Ahhh I really need to talk to Mnemosyne about this. I can feel it deep down in my soul that was a vision of sorts. However, is it just random nonsense...or is it pheraphs something deeper at play here?"
Nier said as he got up, but he felt something soft and hard in the palm of his hands.
"Ha....
"...Ohhh... I forgot I decided to lie down beside you after I made Tanya and Imani took care of the new members of the cult that Jeffrey brought earlier today... But it seems your still unconscious ha... Yeah I can see why, Kaly beating your ass aside, today's has been a very long day. I must have fell asleep, wait ohhh shit what time is it!?"
Nier panicked, as he just remembered he was leaving for Corpse Mountain tonight, and needed to reach there at eight-o-clock on the dot.
As he looked at sleeping Bella, his hand groping one her massive boobs by accident.
But at the same time, Lisa Manifest before him, and said.
"At ease Master, I am aware of your schedule... You still have an hour and half before the first trial starts... It is currently six thirty."
"Ohhh Lisa hey…
"Greetings master, I take it you are well rested for tonight."
"Yeah I am confident, mmmmh... Me aside though how is Tanya and Imani doing?"
"Well it would seem Jeffrey has corrupt the mind of his family, and friend's alongside a couple strangers as well... This is big step from just the members in the family at the moment. Tanya is basically keeping them company, those cultist seem infatuated with her."
"Well she is Kaly Avatar, it's only fitting I guess."
"Also, you have a guess."
"Melody I presume!?"
"Yes Master, she came thirty minutes back, of course Tanya is keeping the cultist away from her, while Imani is currently talking to her at the moment."
"Ohh so she is still downstairs?"
"Yes."
"That's good to know, I will go greet her now then."
With that Nier got up from his bed, and stretch his body a bit before walking downstairs to meet Melody.