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| Advent: Plunge into Bedlam Chapters 1-4 Posted by: Razgriz Draterra at 05-16-2014 02:36 AM, Last Modified 05-22-2014 16:36 PM |
This is my first time posting in the BookShelf. I hope that the formatting will be ok.
"This is the beginning of a new arc. Zero is taken out of his comfort zone as the leader of the most powerful peacekeeping military power in the galaxy and is dumped into a new world, forced to adapt quickly while trying to hold onto his old principles. The only thing compelling him to live on is his current emergency objective, but how long would that really last? Under his straight complexion, he is slowly losing purpose, losing all control to a demon... Until he finds someone worth fighting for, to bring him back anew--"
Chapter 1: The Mission
Spec Ops missions were supposed to go smoothly, especially for one man who has done them for over 2,000 years, right? Yeah, sure...
Six planets sat in a secluded star system orbiting a yellow sun, surrounded by a nebulous cloud of orange and purple stardust. The only thing keeping the star system from suffocating on the gas was the sun's own solar wind. It felt stuffy inside of this cloud, but at the same time, it had an open feeling, like a large sandbox that a kid could play in. A solitary, meteor blasted, green moon swung around into view, and loomed in the shadow of the system's only life bearing planet. The habitable planet's dark side was speckled with sparse city lights, spider webbing out and showing off the night life of the natives below. This was Lo-Kass.
"Jooooom!"
A brilliant flash sparked above the moon! Welcome to the Ratana system, celestial body Alpha IVa: The moon of Lo-Kass. One Zero Alliance dropship had arrived unannounced on extremely paramount, yet secretive business.
"Cloaking now!" yelled the copilot of the dropship. A deafening screeching emanated from the ship's cloaking generators and it was veiled in a cloaking shield. The entire view outside of the cockpit windows and the subsequent passenger portholes was totally black, but only for a moment. The pilot deployed a tiny sensor the size of a pencil to poke through the cloaking shield to see out. The cockpit glass lit up with a 3D wireframe model of the actual moon that the pilots had just glimpsed moments ago.
"We made a clean slip in! Proceeding with op!" hollered the pilot over his shoulder. He was yelling to five troopers waiting in the hold. Four of those troopers were from Iota Squad, one of the many elite commando squads of the Zero Alliance. They were superior to the quintillions of regular clone troopers in every way. Higher thought, higher training, everything one could think of. All four of these particular professionals were sitting in their seats listening to their own individual music choices in preparation for their upcoming mission. They were best buddies with each other, always elbowing each other at lame jokes, giving each other high fives, and even hugs in times of hardship.
They were almost human.
Some peoples look upon clones such as these to be lifeless husks, only invented to do someone's bidding, but these "husks" understood what it meant to live life, even if that life means to serve others. Anyone who called them a husk or a robot to their face, any clone's face, would probably be slapped silly. They had feelings. They deserved respect.
The fifth trooper lounging in a chair facing the rear ramp was the man with the plan, the man who started it all, the man who probably was the real robot, Zero.
This physically twenty year old human male was the 2,000 year old protector of the galaxy. He was chosen to be the protector, a job that never gets old for him and a job that will never end. Usually, a leader who is heading the largest army in the galaxy would be behind a desk all day, but he created more clones for that. He gets ordered around by his own command, but he allows that to keep himself from getting bored. He performs better at the front lines anyway, by providing tactical judgment and an inspiring presence.
About fifteen minutes ago, Zero was sitting in his personal fighter. Its engines were running idle while landed at a spaceport on Terra, his homeworld. A red light on his control panel signaled that was receiving a priority message. "Zero," said a fully confident and serious voice. It was similar to his own, yet it had a distinct low-key tone to it. "The Special Project Intelligence drone that you sent to Lo-Kass has confirmed the presence of a Space Pirate laboratory in the north pole."
"Well, thank the Lo-Kass government for tipping us off, but this is not good. Can't have them on planets with no space worthy vessels," said Zero.
"Indeed. The pirates are being less careful with where they set up."
"What are they up to?"
"We only know a little bit. The pirates are primarily experimenting with dimensional portals. We do not know what they're planning or how they got the tech, but we cannot allow them to start thinking with portals."
Zero smirked at the comment. He let the informant continue.
"Pirate activity has been going down for the past two weeks. The SPI says that they all seem to be disappearing into the third level, so we suspect that they have been doing some traveling through the portal." The commander on the other side of the radio interrupted himself to let out a really deep sigh. "And they are working on a virus that totally modifies the DNA of any living creature. They are creating full blown bioweapons."
Before this point, Zero had his feet kicked up on the dash of his control panel. Now, he was flailing about and he scratched his dash with his metal boot as he slid it off! "WHAT!?!" he yelled so loud that the clone commander flinched because of the sheer volume. "No! That's why they set up on an inhabited planet! Frakkers want test subjects."
"I think you're right, sir."
"Can't mess with people's DNA..." muttered Zero. "What's the plan?"
The commander perked up a little. "Spec ops. You're invited. A dropship aboard Ragnarock station is ready to go. Iota Squad is waiting as well. Please meet them there and immediately leave for Lo-Kass. Your mission is a stealth mission. First things first: You are to avoid detection by the Lo-Kassians because the government does not want to expose its general public to aliens just yet. Next, AWACS jammers are intercepting and sending back false communications to the pirate laboratory, so we'll be listening for when you blow up their comm tower. That'll be your extraction request. Careful, it'll trigger a lockdown, just like every other pirate base we've busted. Once nobody can get out, it should be easy to track down the pirates and then destroy their equipment."
"Got it. Anything else?"
"We'll move in an AWACS to pick you up and salvage cool crap. Standard procedure."
"Roger, standard procedure. I'm Oscar Mike. I'll report back when I get the AWACS. I only hope that this will be easy in and easy out, nothing more."
Back aboard the dropship, Zero was hunched over his own legs, admiring the many scratches and blast shots on his armor. Its dark grey metal and faded blue trimmings was iconic for him. Many other clones chose to run with a similar color scheme, but none of them had anything as battered looking as his. His helmet, looking like none other, sat upon his head. This was his face to many people. In a word, it was "imposing." In description, it was the most terrifying, brutish sight any creature would ever see with its glowing green half-octagonal eyes, the sunken cheek bones, the angular nose piece, and the blue, faded arrow on the head making it look like it was frowning. The intimidating characteristics it had were in stark contrast to the usual bland, rounded helmets and T-shaped visors every other clone had. That was his face and nobody could look at it without having to glance away on occasion.
Within that dreary headwear, the man within couldn't help but feel that something was off already. Dealing with bioweapons. It was alien. It was unorthodox. What if there were already some scary monsters running about? What would happen then? If any of them got loose, it could rummage throughout the planet and wreck ecosystems or cities. Terrible creatures, bioweapons were.
Still, he tried to keep his cool. "Easy as pie," he muttered to himself.
The main planet was coming into view with its cities drawn out like shattered glass on the wireframe HUD. The pilot jammed the throttle to the wall to boost around to the sunny side of the planet. A new data box appeared on the windows as well as a marker above the north pole as they approached to a point in space above the pirate base. The dropship flew down towards it, just touching the edge of the planet's atmosphere. Its gravity drives kept it from falling straight down.
"Pop the hatch," said Zero. The commandos jumped right up before the pilot could open the hatch to check their suits' seals and gear. The rear ramp finally opened and revealed... nothing! The cloaking shield was still active.
Everything seemed to be in working order, so they all walked over and lined the rim of the ramp and crouched down to peak over in partial expectation to at least a little something below.
Four squares on Zero's HUD, indicating his squadmates, lit up green meaning that they were ready to fall. The commandos looked at each other and then at Zero standing in the center. He gave a slight nod and made his move. He grabbed the edge of the ramp and then slid under it to hang upside down. With a powerful kick, he pushed off of the bottom of the ramp and sped away into the black.
The other commandos simply tumbled out. As soon as they passed through the cloaking field, their visors dimmed to reduce the blinding whiteness of the snow and ice below. A little ways ahead, Zero had assumed the sky dive position so that the other clones could catch up. The commandos spread out their arms and legs and slowed down to match speed with him.
Zero couldn't help but have a huge grin on his face. He had done this so many times before, but he loved jumping at extreme altitudes. He felt as free as a rock! With nothing to hold him back, he slung his arms out wide and played with the rushing wind. It was too bad that it would only last as long until he hit the ground without a parachute.
That's right, without a chute! At 500 feet above the snow, the squad righted themselves so that they could land feet first. Each one of them made a tremendous impact with dirt and snow flying up everywhere. Five little craters were made, but they were all ok. Zero's and the Commandos' suits had been augmented with gravity drives that acted as inertial dampeners to alleviate any extreme G-forces.
Zero landed crouched and removed a particular handle that was sticking out of his back on the right side. This was a "weapons handle." Using nanites, it could construct any weapon designed by Zero Alliance engineers. This time it spawned a standard ZA assault rifle, which was a blocky yet angular looking gun. He swept the area with it as did the other commandos with their own assortment of guns.
They had arrived under a light blizzard on the side of a mountain with the sun hidden from view. It was dark and snowing which disrupted visibility. As soon as they were sure the immediate area was secure, Zero cracked up. "Hehehehe HHEEEEE! I love it when we do that!"
"Hah! Got that right, sir," commented a commando. His voice was a little more higher pitched and scraggly. His name was Cracks after the word "firecracker" and for the occasional joke he would crack. He was their demolitions man and sported the standard dull grey color armor with red highlights. "Damn...That was quite a fall. Haven't done one of those in a while."
"Right," said the squad leader, Oma, in a commanding, yet soft voice. It sounded nearly like Zero's own voice. His name was short for Omicron. This one sported a mostly blue armor. "What are your orders, sir?"
"Ok then. We're south east of the base. It is just down the slope on the other side. Move out."
"Yes sir. Squad up! Move!"
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Chapter 2: Initial Infiltration
The five climbed up and over the rocky face of the small mountain they landed behind. At the peak, they could peer down upon the Space Pirate base. It was a little difficult to see the camouflaged buildings through the snow and ice. The team switched to their thermal visors to get a better picture. The buildings were painted purple in their visors while the surrounding background was nearly pitch black. There weren't any patrols outside, probably because of the freezing temperatures. They couldn't blame them. It was probably cold enough to freeze spit in mid-air. Yet there was one faint heat source coming from a tower-like structure. The outline of the tower revealed a dish on top, angled towards the dark, cloudy heavens. "Sir, we should put a charge on that," said Cracks.
"Right. Cracks, you're up" said Zero. "Coast is clear, so let's move in. You guys find the entrance. Slice in the door quietly when you find it. I'll stand by Cracks."
All four of them dashed ahead using suit thrusters and jumped off of the peak of the mountain. Their incredible speed carried them over more than a football field's length and placed them just short of the fence of the compound. Each one jumped again activated their suits' flight systems to give them a nudge forward over the fence. The comm tower was straight ahead with lots of open ground between them. The rest of the squad fanned out while Zero and Cracks dashed away towards the tall tower. Cracks jumped in mid-dash at the tower and when he hit the side, he kicked off of it and then drifted back towards it thanks to his gravity drive. He repeated his kick climb to the top and latched on using nanite hooks on the surface of his armor. For the final touch, he reached around his back to grab a block of NB-1, Nanite Bomb One, a bomb constructed out of nanites which practically gave him an unlimited amount of explosives and an adjustable yield. He dialed the yield to 500 pounds of TNT and set it for mental remote detonation as he stuck it under the dish. He looked down and saw Zero giving him the thumbs up and waiving his other hand towards his team waiting in front of an adjacent building. His nanite claws let up a little and he slid quickly down to the ground where he met with Zero to rejoin the other commandos.
"Door unlocked," said a commando in a German accent. This one's name was Cortex, or Cor for short. He handled all of the technical problems. His armor was a lighter blue than the leader's and Zero's. "And guess who came out to greet us!"
Hovering in his black gloved hand was a little tennis ball sized drone with a large camera. It floated off of the hand and over to Zero. "He-hey! The SPI drone!" he exclaimed. A message box appeared on his HUD with the question, "receive map data?" with a yes or no option. Zero blinked at "yes" and the drone uploaded a map it had generated. The first level of the facility was displayed to him in a 2D top-down view with rooms labeled with various descriptive names. He switched to 3D mode and saw the full three floors. The first floor was where they were. It just included basic habitats and the command center. The second floor was bioweapons research, and the third floor at the very bottom was the dimensional portals lab. Some hallways there were flashing white, signaling that nothing beyond that point had been explored yet. It was probably too difficult for it to explore down there without being detected. That meant heavy resistance down below.
Zero closed the map and it shrunk into the top-right corner of his HUD. He grabbed the drone and put it in his pocket dimension pouch that he kept on his left hip. "Alright guys," he said. "Let's move in and hold off on blowing the tower. Get behind their lines before we let them know we're here." He wasted no time in beginning his insertion. He stepped through the opened door and immediately to his left was a ladder. He stepped over the gap in the floor and grabbed onto the ladder and prepared for descent.
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Chapter 3: Something's Not Right
The commando team was able to successfully sneak to the door leading into the bio lab control center. In fact, it had been a little too easy. They hadn't seen any sensors, patrols, or drones of any kind, but they were sure that they had to be in this base somewhere.
"I don't like the looks of this," said an Australian accented commando. This was the fourth and last team member. He was named Razor after his aggressive tendencies. He sported a dark green colored armor, almost suitable to be swamp camo.
They approached the locked door that was confirmed to be the bio lab. Zero eyed the door and blinked a few times thinking about what to do. He looked back and saw his commandos waiting, two of them pointing their guns down the dim, orange lighted hallway in case anyone came from behind. If he wanted to hold off alerting the rest of the base to their presence for as long as possible, another hack on the door would let them in quietly and ambush anyone on the inside before any alarms sounded. "Get a slice in on that door," ordered Zero.
Cortex holstered his weapon handle into his back and slid over to the door's panel to begin hacking. The network behind the panel showed up in holograph form above his left arm. Zero held his gun at the ready and mentally instructed his suit to release a slight dose of adrenaline so that time would seem to slow down around him. He felt chills go down his spine as his body accepted the drug to quicken his reflexes.
"Door open," said the clone finally as he restored his weapon again.
"Go," said Zero.
They took a single step forward and the doors opened wide! Zero immediately chose his first target..! Which was a cute monkey in a cage that chattered and greeted them.
"...What?" the leader managed to flatly say.
"Umm- I was expecting to kill someone," commented Razor.
"What does the manual say about 'how to kill defenseless animals?" joked Cracks.
Omicron tried silencing them. "Quiet you two. Something's not ri-" but before he could finish, he was quickly cut off by a sudden cackling coming from the hacked control panel. Blue lightning arced from it and onto the walls and floor. The entire hallway became an electrified!
Zero's eyes went HUGE and he gritted his teeth! He glanced up and saw his shield indicator getting wasted! "Nonono!" he chanted as he tried to get away. "Shields down!" he yelled. He was a little mad that his shields were down, but he was certain that his suit could discharge the electricity, but his confidence was smashed as the floors sparked and sent a new surge of energy into their armor. They all screamed in unison as their suits overloaded and they all went down, out cold.
Zero awoke to several annoying alarms. He could have sworn that this was a dream. There was no way in hell that electricity could penetrate his suit's electrical countermeasures. In fact, he held great pride for his engineers for designing shock suppression systems that would negate these effects. After 2,000 years in service and having been shocked by worse weapons, this was the first time that this had ever happened. He had to be in a dream state. He was sure of it. But what he wasn't sure of was how he entered this dream state. Or perhaps he had dozed off in his fighter on Terra where he could have sworn that he received word from Command about this pirate base.
He grumbled loudly in clear annoyance at his inability to wake up from this dream. His entire body felt like it was on fire. He didn't feel ready to open his eyes quite yet, so he identified the three alarms blaring in his ears. One told him that his shields were down. Another said that his suit had been breached. He considered himself lucky to at least be alive at the hands of the pirates, but the third alarm almost made him wish that he wasn't. The third notified him that something was infecting his body and his medical nanites were unable to destroy the foreign contaminant. He had never felt this genuinely scared in many years. There was almost no contingency plan for something like this. Medical nanites were supposed to be unstoppable.
He attempted to bolt upright, but he found that he was restrained to a table. It was almost inconceivable to not be able to break free considering his augmented strength. Pirate scientists noticed his struggle and one of them walked over to hover over Zero's head. The pirate knocked on the visor and said "ahhhh," in a slightly hissing voice. "My my, how the tables haves turned. You are just in time to see your friend off as he takes a little trip into our newfound base on the other side of this portal. The others are waiting there, in the new universe. You shall be reunited soon." He put on a sinister smile, or what could be interpreted as a smile considering his ugly, no jaw mug.
Zero was able to tilt his head forward to look down his nose. Sure enough, there was an active portal. It looked like a white whirlpool of white light whirling around inside of a metal ring. Directly in front of it was one remaining commando, Cracks, who was restrained on another table. The table suddenly accelerated towards the ring and passed through the light. It was embarrassing to see his clones captured like this, and especially embarrassing for himself. Zero thrashed and flexed and did everything he could to break free, but the restraints were somehow stronger than even his power armor's motors.
His table started sliding to the right to line up with the portal. "You know," said the mad scientist. "It is entirely coincidence that you fell into our trap. After establishing our first portal to a universe with some interesting test subjects, we decided that we should move there, to get away from your annoyances. Most of our personnel, as you may have noticed, have already moved there. Our brilliant plan is to..."
Zero just had to think for a moment 'oh my God this guy is about to monologue. If only I could reach for some weapon...'
"The electrical trap," he continued, "was really a precaution in case we really did have intruders. We never expected anyone, but alas, here you are! This has given me the opportunity to infect each one of you with my special little virus! It is so fascinating. So far, we have never tried it out on any complex life form. You will all be the first! In fact, I will send a message to my Cell Leader on how successful..."
Boom! There it was in Zero's mind! 'Send a message!' He remembered the explosives on the communications tower! Detonating the explosives was the only thing that he could do in his current predicament. He wasted no time in mentally ordering the explosives to detonate. A slight crunching sound resounded from above. "I blew the tower," he grumbled over his external speakers. Alarms within the base started blaring with impunity. There were enough defining alarms to give anyone a migraine.
"You fool!" Cried the pirate! "Now the portal will close any moment now! We must hurry! We wouldn't want you to be escaping somehow, now would we?" The scientist pressed a button on the table and then he himself ran quickly into the portal, but just before he entered, it wavered a little. Its wispy pattern turned jagged for a moment as he passed through. Zero had no idea what that meant, but it seemed as if he was about to find out soon.
The rest of the pirate scientists and some troopers ran through the portal without any complications. The table holding Zero started accelerating, but the portal wavered one more time. The lower half of the portal collapsed entirely! Zero screamed as he passed through the upper half. The restraints lost their tension and he flew forward off of them. He hit what seemed like solid ground, but he was definitely inside of the portal in a dark void. He looked back behind him and saw the light of where he had just came through. He reached out towards it and made an effort to get back, but it felt like he was getting sucked away, and the light was quickly swallowing itself up. The experience felt like something out of a nightmare. So close, yet so far and no hope of waking up. Before he could even blink, he was flung out of the strange dimension and was sent sliding across a jagged and rocky floor. He yelled as he saw the ground grind past his visor and as sparks flew off of his armor.
After his short slide, he picked his face out of the dirt and looked up. "FRAK!" he yelled. The portal was nowhere to be seen, nor did this look to be like a Space Pirate holding cell. He immediately grabbed his weapon and flipped onto his back to scan for any hostile pirates, but he didn't see anyone. He was so confused.
Lights from in between his armor plates light up so he could get a better look at where he was. A quick glance around told him that he was inside of a small cave with a domed ceiling high enough to stand up comfortably in. Zero let his head clunk into the floor again, but his warning alarms were still playing. "Stop it!" he yelled. He grabbed the sides of his helmet and shoved it forward into the far wall. He turned back over to push himself up, but instead, he rested his cheek on the floor and closed his eyes. For several long moments, he rested there, panting a little. He listened intently for anything, but there was nothing. The cold and damp floor felt good on his face, more than he would admit. He breathed in deeply and let the quietness of the cave overcome him. All of the noise had stopped and the action had come to a close. The peace was comforting. Quiet drops of water from another chamber echoed in from behind him and he enjoyed listening to it. He personally loved caves for the isolation and coolness they provided.
But one trivial thing tugged at his mind. When the scientist went through, the portal seemed to malfunction just like when he went through. Where was the scientist? Did he make it to the second pirate base?
A quick opening of his eyes answered that question. "Oh," he said and he shut his eyes quickly again. The scientist was there alright. Well, part of him. He was mostly embedded in the ground except for his head and upper chest. A very violent portal ride indeed. It was a little freaky for him to be stuck in the rocks, but it'd work. "Not quite buried six feet under" joked Zero. "Or are we?" He was happy that that monstrosity was dead, but he had no idea where he was.
He assessed his own situation. The scientist had said that the portal lead to a different universe. This meant that Zero could not call for help unless there just happened to be another Zero Alliance in this universe. If not, he could severely jury rig his radio for cross-dimension communications. It's been done before and Cortex could help with that. Secondly, he needed to find his friends, his commandos, before he could get help with rigging his radio. And thirdly, which he just remembered and surprised him, he was infected with some sort of virus.
He shook his head and wondered what could possibly happen. It scared the crap out of him. He involuntarily shuddered at the thought of changing into something like a blob or maybe a killer monster. He quickly disengaged his suit. His entire armor set dissolved and was compressed into a pocket dimension inside of his equipment pouch on his hip. He was left with that box, his knife, and his .50 caliber bullpup railpistol that he cherished, and his forest green flight suit that almost looked like an old US Air Force flight suit from the 21st century. Of all things, his suit glowed in the dark on command. It was a silly gimmick, but so were the lights under the plating of his armor. He pulled out a lantern from his pocket dimension pouch for extra light and turned it on. He then stripped out of his remaining flight suit to check himself carefully for any physical changes. As far as he knew, there was nothing out of the ordinary save for a few light red patches on his legs, arms, and some places on his sides that blended in with his skin around the edges. He was certain that those were burn marks, but electrical burns weren't usually this simple. Electrical burns were hardly burns at all. They were more like areas where the flesh had been gouged out and blackened and rotted. Maybe his nanites were able to patch it up quick before they started to be overrun by the virus, and any pain that the burns may have been causing was being blocked by more medical nanites in his brain.
Zero put his flight suit back on and did some repairs to his armor after he brought it out of his pouch again. Spare repair nanites fixed the small puncture in the neck of his suit where the pirate injected the virus while Zero replaced a fried circuit required for his shields. He stuck his helmet back on to check statuses and all that could be heard anymore was that ominous third alarm. He silenced it and said "I know...we'll see what happens." He also glanced at a different warning message that he had overlooked. Shock Suppression Failure. "Screw you," he said.
Alone in a dark cave with nary an idea of where to start searching for his friends, he reengaged his armor and went on a reverse spelunking adventure in order to find the cave exit, or if he needed to, to make his own.
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Chapter 4: Where Am I?
After just ten minutes of exploring the cave, Zero grew tired of his mindless meandering. His radar could not find the exit, but it could at least tell him that he was inside of a mountain. He followed his map, searching for any thin walls he could blast through. He had found one and was already making his way there. It was forty five feet thick and was made up of dirt and loose rock. It was too dangerous to blast out, so he decided to make things fancy and use a high intensity beam to melt his way through. Once he arrived at the point, pointed his right fist towards the wall. Nanites spilled out from all of the openings in his armor plates and enveloped his right forearm to create an arm cannon. For a job like this, he feared that the cannon might drain his suit's batteries and be out of luck until they recharged. Even in the 41st century, if you wanted to have big beams, you needed big batteries.
Only a minute later, Zero had burned completely through to the other side. It was as bright as day outside. As he climbed up the red hot hole to the surface, he noted that here was not a cloud in the sky. The snow on top of his mountain glistened in the sunlight. He was indeed on the side of a steep snowy mountain about 7,000 feet up. It was a decent "nose bleed" altitude.
At first, Zero could have sworn that he was somewhere near where the original pirate base was considering the snow, but down below was thick, dark green forestry full of pine trees with a light morning mist floating above it. If he was back on Lo-Kass, all of that would have been a desolate ice field where nothing could live. He used his zoom function on his visor and surveyed the land above the treetops. There wasn't much to see, but he did spot something shiny in the distance. He zoomed in more and more to 100 times his normal vision range and spotted a ray of the sun bouncing off of a tall building. He perceived the horizon some more and spotted even more buildings. A high tech city could clearly be seen. "Ahhh, civilization at last." He prayed for their hospitality and was getting ready to dash down the mountain side when his forearms arms suddenly exploded into a burning sensation. He cried out and quickly disengaged the arm parts of his armor and rolled up his sleeves. He grabbed his right arm and started massaging it. It felt a little scratchy to his left hand. He flipped over both of his arms to look at them. Both had red burn marks, but they looked a bit redder in the sunlight than when he first looked at them. The burning sensation was getting unbearable and he drove his arms into a bank of snow to see what that would do. His arms started to get cold, but it didn't really help the burning. In fact, he shouldn't have needed to try to console himself for the pain. His nanites should have taken care of blocking the pain, but they weren't working anymore apparently. Zero ran a full diagnostic on his internal nanites through his HUD and learned that they were no longer responding to any changes in his system and were shut down, pending natural bodily purging. He could only speculate that the nanites had strained themselves too much after having been shocked. "What the frak," he said.
He had to get help now. A hospital might have some answers for him. Zero dashed forward off of the mountain and fell a ways until he made contact with the snow again. His flight systems made him as light as a feather as he glided across the surface, all the way down through the forest and into the city. Surely help would be there waiting for him with open arms... or not.
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