Acting Commander Adder assisted one of his soldiers back to his feet and dusted him off before he cleaned his gear and checked his equipment. "Combat with this creature is unavoidable for me but it might not be so late for my team to escape this bull and continue the objective maybe?" He thought to himself while on his way to assist another. The mysterious slate grey skeletal creature held a beaming grin on his skull head. "Powerful and potentially exciting meals." Said the deviously grinning entity. Benson walked a few steps backwards. "I thought we were facing viruses and a few human threats— not this nightmare fuel, Commander!" He shouted before he felt that his heart rate had begun to significantly increase. A squadron member with a burgundy goatee displayed a smirk on his face. "Commander Adder has this creature's life in his hands, we have no worries." Said the soldier with confidence in his tone. Squadron commander Adder tossed his hand out behind him. "He has some source of power that I'm unfamiliar with actually, so run— keep leaving and continue our objective or return to the surface and inform the president's clean up task force about this place after my death." He responded after stepping closer towards the sentient skeleton in front of him and his soldiers. Soldier Reyes' shattered heart through his distraught eyes. "You've gone four years undefeated, sir, and you believe that one of Barbossa's rejects is capable of breaking the record?" He asked aloud with his voice slightly trembling. The slate gray skeletal enemy released a ferocious roar that began to become more of a screech. "Thistle has grown bored of his delicious meal's yapping." Said the mysterious skeletal monstrosity. Benson alongside other soldiers present with them and the commander covered their ears as they rang. "Telepathy, definitely, as well— could this unfamiliar source of power give numerous abilities and it's body and mind can handle numerous like this?!" He questioned within his thoughts while he recovered from the ringing effect. The soldiers began panicking when each had the realization they were unable to move.
Annette Patrick groaned as she struggled to move her feet from where she stood. "Sir, we're unable to follow orders, he's got us stuck!" Said the growling brunette, followed by other soldiers under his authority. Commander Adder weakened his stance yet kept his gaze fixed on Thistle, to shatter the hold that the creature's energy had on his team. "I told you all to leave now and leave this up to me so exit like I told you all!" He shouted while extending his arm as the lemon chiffon energy's glow that surrounded him intensified. The soldiers in his squadron felt Thistle's grasp on them removed. When they were freed, his orders were carried out with zero gestures of gratitude prior and the soldiers fled the way they had entered. Thistle generated flesh on his lips to smile before generating flesh on his left arm which fell off into round portions that splattered on the laboratories' ground until that same arm was bone again. The portions of splattered flesh then formed themselves into dozens stacked with dozens of identical clones of each other that stood next to him parallel to the dozens of soldiers next to Commander Adder.
The skeletal monstrosity clapped excitedly. "Thistle has found a beautifully entertaining and spectacularly fair deal for you, humans. Thistle proposes if you are able to escape these weaklings I've birthed then you'll deserve to live until you encounter another horror that's lurking within this underground collection of abominations. Be killed or captured because of them and they'll retrieve your corpse or flesh for my next meal!" He forced into each of the soldiers' thoughts which irked each of them as they fled down the corridor. Benson continued sprinting for his life in last place and as the last to leave his commander's hip, turning into uncertain corridors, hitting every corner yet he continued hearing the screeching and roaring of Thistle's humanoid clones stomping with each step behind him and each made them sound closer to him. Thistle and Adder stared into each other's unblinking gazes while they circled the other, filling the silence with their footsteps firmly stomping into the laboratory floor. The commander of the infiltrating squadron whistled. "Another exciting moment for me. Four entire years with hundreds of encounters. Eleven minutes away from another slaying like I've promised you I'd be dedicated to, Chancellor, or eleven minutes away from reuniting with you in the land distant from the soil of Sashigyenna." He said to himself, until he whistled a second time and shut his hand.
The glow from the commander's Lemon chiffon essence and his skeletal adversary's slate grey essence clashed while the gargantuan and soldier charged at the other. Benson unloaded his operation issued sidearm into a few of the clones of the grey skeletal monster that created them. Each bullet managed to knock the clones off of their feet but he would soon realize that he didn't have enough for every and continued sprinting in the effort of catching up with the dozen of other soldiers who fled. A clone that happened to be faster than the others caught up to Benson and successfully tackled him but the chubby cheeked brawn refused to be floored. The ravenous, drooling clone overpowered him eventually in their tussle then held his arms like they were super glued to the ground, close enough for the chubby cheeked red-headed brawny soldier to feel its breath on the left side of his face.
After the breath reached his left eye, Benson heard blamming from a nearby firearm and felt the weight of the clone lifted off of his body. The chubby cheeked brawny soldier laid where he was wrestled down after being saved and offered assistance from his savior. The heavy accented engineer was taken aback after he accepted her hand. "Does that spot hurt— you?" She questioned with a softer and slower voice than usual. Benson had opened his left eye slowly as he felt pain while doing so. "I can't see out of this eye, Annette, what did it do to me?!" He shouted with a panicked tone.
Alec held tightly onto his loved one appareled in gray as he had wrapped his arm around his neck and lifted his weight. "You're feeling like you'll recover from that, right, Dare?!" He asked him with a worried tone to his voice. Derek gently pointed towards a door in the corridor he was being carried downwards. "I'm going to be fine, Alec— this is actually something but not the worst condition I've been in and you know it." He replied with strain and his exhaustion heard in his voice. Alec fixed his gaze towards the door Derek pointed towards but hesitated to begin walking toward it. "I know and don't care because you recovered then, I need to know where we are, I need answers, like why are you pointing towards the ominously opened door without saying a word about it?" He replied with his worry fading and a curiosity replacing it. Derek coughed and glanced upwards. "Humming. I hear a child humming so I'm asking for us to check it out but it's just incredibly low in volume." He answered his cautious loved one.
Alec stared at the door way much longer than briefly. "We have nowhere else to go in this weird hell with wolf men so we have no other choice, I guess." He replied with a whispery and fearful tone. Alec carried Derek toward the entrance but stopped just before stepping through the doorway in, instead, he peeked in carefully. "You've got to slow it down— you're running on empty now." The duo heard from inside the room from what appeared differently to both of them. It was followed by humming. The stranger flipped away from the duo following a terrified shriek. "There's no reason to sneak up on somebody so rudely— announce yourselves properly next time, goons!" The stranger shouted with an upset tone. Derek scratched the back of his head. "We could but that'd still have you wet yourself." He said underneath his breath.
The stranger formed a pleasant grin on their face before the youthful Wiley and Youthful Willaims sons replied with faces of confusion. Alec tapped Derek's rib. "We apologize, we were just being careful after being chased by a couple of ferocious furry men— and you wouldn't happen to be able to fill us in on maybe what this place is, would you so kindly?" He questioned the lonesome unfamiliar face. The stranger nodded quietly. "But first— I can read that you're the kind to talk sweet when you're dang near crapping your pants and that's hilarious!" They shouted while cracking up.
The duo's confused expression worsened before Derek's became blank before being sat down and resting off of his feet. Alec began slouching slightly while shaking his head. "I guess so, whatever!" He replied with an irked tone and expression to match. The ominous lonesome stranger's mood shifted so suddenly to the duo that it took them aback. "Perez laboratories. Owned by an organization of essence studies through man, artifact or world. It began as that, it truly began with the intention of understanding the energy." They informed the duo while journeying to a corpse in heavy gear before the sight of more appeared to them in the light lacking room.
Alec and Derek lightly and heavily gasped as they simultaneously stepped further from it. Derek clenched his fists tightly. "What in Grantso's surprise happened to these people?!" He questioned with high volume. The ominous stranger checked the pulses of the corpse nearby them. "Working for men playing God with a primordial force beyond them. Got what was coming to him. Succumbed to wounds given by the monstrosities their big gun's brilliant underlings captured and experimented on. This is the world that you live in." They replied with an apathetic voice. Alec toyed with the strings on his heroic identity's attire. "Time to stop ignoring the elephant— who and what are you, i-I mean what are you doing here?!" He questioned with a lowered voice. The stranger's face displayed their own confusion and a brief expression of reflection. "Grantso's turmoil— I'm just a humble waitperson these days for an insatiable appetite and that's all I'll say about myself." They answered his question with a much more composed tone. Alec's eyes briefly widened before he shut them. "I won't ask who or what you're serving, give you my word on that." He replied before rubbing the chin of his helmet softly. The stranger tilted their head briefly. "You two are exhausted but I am very aware of who the two of you are— surviving this lab is going to be the challenge of your lives but I enjoyed the brief yap. I'll make it easier in return. A flight of stairs further left down the long hall which will take you up or down floors up to floor five and the final floor but under this floor, number four, is where hell lies. A map of the entire laboratory exists on this floor further right. There are scattered individuals to save if you care enough but finding your way out of this laboratory is reasonable and wise, Junior heroes." They informed the duo, before nodding their head with composure. Alec put his hands together and pursed his lips. "It sounds like you're getting ready to be on your way but we want to thank you for the information, waitperson-person because we truly do appreciate it." He responded before rushing to check on Derek. The self-proclaimed waitperson halted the two with their own ominous energy, freezing the duo in place. "The lower the mercenaries and company's special unit who were these men went, the higher their pay was decided. Do not find a way to the 20th floor down here if you value your existence very much." The stranger advised after vanishing and leaving their voice disembodied. Derek gained enough strength to pick himself off the ground. "Down here. That'll be the closest to normalcy down here, Allie." He repeated, suspected and tone conveyed that he expected. Alec softly began rubbing his helmet's chin once again.