Chap 115: Teeeeee

The monster leaped to one side, but Zod’s blast tore a hole in its abdomen. When its feet hit the ground some distance away, the wound was already half-sealed. Dark skin slid down like melting cream, covering the hole completely.

Zod gritted his teeth and fired another blast. The monster dodged again and dashed toward them. That beast!

Pointless long-range attacks—they needed to get close to kill something like that. Kie stepped in front of Zod, cutting him off from the monster’s trapped glare. He dismissed one sword, gripping the other tightly. Blue flames raced from his hands down to the tip of his blade as he glared at the abominable sight.

“Cover me while I slice its head!” he blurted, pushing off the ground and leaving a crack in the concrete beneath his feet.

Miko sprang behind Kie before the rest of the team could react. The monster shot two elongated darts from its lower body, but they didn’t reach Kie’s feet. Sparks flew as his energy sword scraped the concrete, signaling to Miko that he was the one to take the head.

A red and black blur streaked past Kie’s face—the monster’s long arm had been sliced off by Miko. It began to retract the shortened appendage back into itself. Kie stamped his foot, launching into a high leap toward the monster’s head.

Zod, behind Kie, dropped to his knees and slid along the ground, raising a hand to send a blast that tore a hole in the monster’s torso.

The monster’s body jerked violently, ripples spreading outward from the impact. It couldn’t strike with spikes for a full second—just enough time for the Sentinels.

Tee and Saeda acted instantly. Positioned on the wings of the formation with Zod and Kie at the center, they leaned back and slid toward the monster’s legs. Saeda’s sword glowed with blue light, and Tee’s bare blade produced a similar effect. They swung at the legs.

Their angled strikes pushed the monster’s lower legs back. Gravity quickly acted on the heavyweight above, and the beast jolted, beginning to topple onto its back.

Kie, hovering a foot from the monster’s face, angled his sword and thrust it forward.

“Die, you freak!”

His blade sliced through the monster’s brain. A wave of Ultramana energy burst forth, ripping through the air. The shockwave cut into surrounding walls and drilled miles deep like a laser. The sonic force reached the high glass ceiling, and cracks raced to fill every space.

Tee and Saeda stopped sliding across the ground and rolled onto their fronts. They pushed against the floor but didn’t have time to rise. A loud crash forced them to look up. Black slush filled a large crack in the wall—it was the top half of the monster’s head.

Kie’s spiked boot hit the ground as the rest of the monster’s body crashed and rolled a great distance, smacking into a grilled wall. His black hair fell over his face, hiding his eyes, while his chest rose and fell with each blast of air from his nostrils.

Only the smooth ground separated Tee from Saeda, so she heard her clearly.

“Remember the story he told us… where he jumped on a trooper’s back to throw a death-ball into a XenoSapian’s mouth?”

“Yeah,” Tee replied under her breath.

Saeda nodded, her brows knitting. “He wasn’t exaggerating.”

Tee stood and brushed invisible dust off herself and Saeda’s words. Of course, Kie wasn’t exaggerating. Who else would pull off something so audacious if not an MG-off wannabe?

She looked up at the sword, its blue glow fading at the edge. With the brain destroyed, so was the Xenogene. The brain was to it what a beating heart was to a human.

Flashes of Jack’s decapitated head and the one crushed into a wall forced her to blink painfully. Her heart pounded louder than her inner voice.

She remembered the plan Kie had told her while resting on her lap in the windy fields. He was going to kill every Xeno-victim once he gained the power… Though he said it as a joke, she didn’t believe him.

She looked away from Kie’s sword and gritted her teeth. She wanted to see him try laying a hand on her first. Plus, whatever demon she could unleash might give him a real challenge. Her lips stretched into an evil smirk but shrank, remembering she needed to be dead for that to happen.

Miko’s sharp clap echoed off the far walls of the empty hallway. “Yeah! One down, one more to go.” She looked up at the dull blue sky through the cracked glass ceiling. “Maybe when we make it back to the beach, we can set up our tents and spend the night…”

Miko’s words passed through Kie’s left ear and out the right. He glanced at the splattered monster’s body flattening into goo. How was he going to measure that with his sword to prove his rank to Tee? Dammit!

The host body inside the XenoSapian had long been consumed, though it hadn’t been alive for long. The stronger the virus, the greater its greed. That host had been in its fifties, and they were lucky it had only survived for a few hours. But unknown terrors still lurked deep within the sewer systems—creatures that would put that monster to shame.

“Nice,” said Zod, checking his limbs. Everything was intact, no blood gushing from anywhere. “That ended more pleasantly than I thought.”

Saeda dragged her feet toward Kie, following the others. A faint roar echoed from the direction they’d come. The five Sentinels bolted out of the grand hallway and found themselves on the ground floor of a mall.

The open space above revealed several levels of dark, broken floors. They doubted the monster would be higher up—the stairways and elevators were likely sealed off. Around them were vendor stalls closed off by walls and metal grille shutters.

Some of the few remaining lights flickered on and off, giving the place the perfect horror-movie atmosphere. Ceiling monitors switched to night mode, showing live footage from security cameras. The Sentinels could see themselves walking on the screens—but none showed a dark creature lurking over the white-tiled floor.

Tee ran with her teammates, swapping her foresight in and out. She needed to see ahead, but with her teammates nearby, the risk was less. Still, the image of the crushed XenoSapian head embedded in the wall kept flashing before her eyes until she blinked it away—just in time to hear a rusty squeak echo along the corridor. It sounded like a grille being forced open somewhere on their level.

“This way!” Kie shouted, sprinting ahead.

Tee took one step to follow, but the dim corridors suddenly tilted sideways, twisting into spinning circles. She stopped and blinked—then saw the floor still again. A shiver ran over her, locking her in place.

“Teeeeee…” came a whisper from behind.

Her ears twitched. She turned her head slightly, then froze. A dark figure loomed in the far corner of her vision, making her heart jump. But XenoSapians couldn’t speak—so what could be behind her? The tingling along her back told her something was there, and dark clouds filled her mind.

Her teammates turned a corner ahead and vanished from sight.

“Teeeeee…”

That time the voice was clearer. It belonged to only one person—and it made her heart flutter. She spun around to see him, only to furrow her brows, knowing it couldn’t be.

Pain shot through her entire body when she saw him standing several feet away. Her trembling eyes locked onto Jack.

His shaggy blond hair began turning black, a reminder that he couldn’t be real. His dull blue eyes stared at her through the gloom, unblinking.

Jack’s pale lips stretched slowly. When she saw his tar-black teeth, a spike of terror stabbed her heart. Freck! She stumbled back, gripping both sword handles tight.

“It’s time,” he said.

“What…? Time for—”

She never finished. A painful heartbeat thundered through her chest, blurring her vision. Her knees buckled from the shock, and she gasped for air, clutching at her shirt. The veins in her neck throbbed as her body convulsed.

Another heartbeat roared in her ears. She shut her eyes against the exploding pain, pressing her right palm to the ground to keep from collapsing face-first.

Then came a loud, tearing rip—from her back.

Kie stopped running when he saw a dead end ahead, and the rest of his team did the same. He glanced behind and over his teammates’ heads, searching the corridors. When he counted only three heads, he blinked in confusion.

“Where’s Tee?” he asked, pulling up his holo-map.

Zod, Saeda, and Miko turned and noticed her absence. The holo-map showed Tee in one place, unmoving. Without waiting for anyone to speak, Kie dashed toward her.

Jack had flashed into Tee’s mind. Each heartbeat sent exploding pain through every nerve in her body. Through the cracks in her eyes, she tried to keep them open but saw darkness crawling over everything. Soon, everything turned pitch black, and the pain felt like her eyeballs were rolling back into her skull. She had to shut her eyes and focus all her energy on resisting the pain that threatened to rip her apart.

Kie and his teammates rounded the last corner to see Tee on her knees in the center of a four-way intersection. His teammates’ attention immediately shifted to a XenoSapian stepping past the left wall toward her.

Kie hated taking his eyes off Tee, who trembled with her head bowed. But the mission wasn’t over.

He ran at the monster, missing the moment black tentacles ripped from her back and were pulled back in an instant. Zod, who had paused to recharge a blast, saw it.

A spike ran through Zod’s heart as Tee leaned slowly to one side and fell flat to the ground.

The XenoSapian no longer sensed the brain-consuming fragrance of its prey. It stopped and, sensing only the three fast-moving prey, inhaled sharply before bolting toward them.

Zod snapped out of his frozen stare and rushed to Tee. His eyes caught the bleeding wound on her back where the black tentacles had struck. Those dark appendages were clearly a mutation of the XenoSapians—at least that was one thing he’d learned from movies.

No, it couldn’t be. The XenoSapian must have struck her with its elongated appendage in the blink he missed. Yes, that had to be it.

Relief flooded Zod’s chest as he dropped to his knees and pulled Tee onto his thighs.

He lifted one eyelid, and his heart sank—her eye was completely black.

“Ah!” he shouted, pushing her off and shuffling back. “Crap, crap, crap.”

Shaking, he clenched his teeth and looked away, swearing that the night was getting to him.

When Kie’s loud voice settled in his ears, he glimpsed his teammates standing around the monster’s body. He checked Tee’s eyes again—normal that time. He exhaled in relief.

Time passed as he stared at her. Soon, she was being carried away on a levitating stretcher to the medics.

The high-pitched screams and darkness ended when Tee forced her eyes open. She drew a deep breath, becoming aware of every inch of her body lying on the soft bed. The high ceiling filled her vision. She remembered the darkness crawling over everything, turning pitch black—and the pain…

Were those memories from a nightmare? Somehow they felt familiar, though she couldn’t place why. She had no illness, and since she was alive, it couldn’t have been a mutation.

Kie smiled. “You’re awake.”

Tee blushed, relieved to wake and find him waiting.