User blog:Redknight910/WWYD SpyCrab, Plants in Deep Shades of Purple

Seeing how quickly the two environments are spreading, I don't make for the stairs, like most people. I grab Dolly, and go looking for John. He's busy packing some things in his office. When he sees us he tries to hide his panic.

"Ahem, what are you doing? You two should be evacuating, like everyone else. I know I am."

"We can't outrun this." I tell him, bringing that panic back to the surface.

"Well, we're definitely not going to outrun it standing here, are we?!" He tries to push passed me, but I grab his arm.

"We're not going to last two minutes down there on the ground with those... things."

"Then what the bloody hell do you suggest, Al? There's not that much food in here, and I'm not living off of snacks and mice for the rest of my life!" I grab his shoulder and give him a hard look. It seems to help him calm down.

"I'm going to the roof. Our best bet is an aerial rescue. We go on the ground, we die in minutes, we go up to the roof, we get at least a few hours to make our peace." He was silent for a few minutes, before nodding.

"Alright, jsut let me get something from my safe." He ran to the large painting on his wall, pulled it down and opened a combination safe. Inside were two handguns, two bags of magazines for them, and another three bags of cash.

"What the hell?" Dolly asks, looking more than a little surprised.

"What can I say? I wanted to be ready if anyone tried to invade the office, Al, catch!" He throws me one of the guns, which I barely manage to catch.

"Alright, we'll take the stairs, since I don't really want to be waiting here for the elevator." I turn to Dolly and find her staring at something with a horrified expression. Turning to follow her gaze I can see the water cooler shaking and turning a deep purple.

Before I can make a sound the plastic bottle explodes, a glob of purple water jiggling around.

"What the fuck?" John mutters, before the slime shoots towards us. We all scream and dive out of the way. If the way it rots the wooden desk where it lands is any indication, it was a good move.

"Fucking run!" I shout, getting to my feet and heading for the stairwell. Dolly overtakes me and ascends the stairs with lightning speed. All I can hear beneath me is screaming and... and an ungodly rumbling. I put it to the back of my mind, making it to the next floor and waiting for John to catch up. He's only a few steps behind me, and when he reaches the end of the flight falls over, ducking under a slime. I scream in surprise and open fire, putting a few bullets into it and splattering it against the walls.

"Thanks." John puffs, starting on the next flight of stairs. I look back and pale at what I see. The splattered globs of slime are reforming into a few smaller slimes. What the fuck even is this stuff? I bolt up the stairs, catching up to John and thankfully outrunning the slimes.

As we approach the last few floors we hear screaming. Looking up Dollly's backed against the railing, her tail lashing at something. Rushing to help her we reach the top of the stairs, and our eyes widen at what she's fighting. It looks like a chunk of rotten flesh that grew an eye and teeth. John shoots this time, two shots splattering the chunk against the wall.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">Dolly's shaking and still staring out the door, eyes wide. I grab her and help her out of the building. We barricade the door with some tools that were being used to renovate the air con system. Then we look out over the city. Everywhere things are being corrupted by the encroaching plagues.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">Red and purple slimes roam the ground, some large enough to swallow people whole, others latching on to arms and legs, then letting other monsters finish the job. Some of the things look like they could have been human, once, but now their faces cover their whole torso, and they have no skin. There are more of those chunks of flesh flying through the streets, some of the largest even spit globs of something at people.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"What on earth is going on...." Dolly whimpers, before breaking down and throwing herself at me, crying.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"I don't know. But do you really think they're going to be looking for survivours in this mess?" John asks, looking at me.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Well, would you rather be down there, right in the thick of it?" I spot a car driving through, crashing through some of the creatures, before a giant worm covered in eyes breaks through the ground, and straight through the car, throwing it into the building it proceeds to chew through.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"We're dead." Dolly mutters, falling down on her tail. "We're all dead. What... why, how did this even happen?" She begins crying again, and John sighs.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Much as I hate to say it, she's got a point. Might as well just jump and end it quickly." Looking out over the buildings, it's bovious others have the same thought. Two men jump, but before they can hit the ground, they're swarmed by those chunks, getting torn to pieces. Not one part of them hits the ground.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">That's when we hear it. A sound I'd been hoping to hear from the moment we hit the roof. A helicopter. Looking around I see the chopper, flying around from foortop to rooftop. There are two or three of them, each with gunners shooting anyhting that gets to close. Then I hear the door creaking. Turning around I'm just fast enough to spot slime oozing around the hinges, before the door colapses, five purple slimes oozing out. John lifts his gun to start shooting, but I hold his arm down.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"You shoot them, they multiply. Just let them fly off the edge." He looks at me like I'm mad, but doesn't try to shoot them. All of the slimes start to shudder, coiling up on themselves. "Jump!" We all jump to the side, and the five slimes leap straight off the edge of the building. We smile at each other, until we hear flapping wings. Turning around I can't believe my eyes. One of the slimes grew fucking wings!

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"That's fucking cheating!" John shouts, unloading a few rounds into the slime. The wings disintegrated, and it returned to falling to the pavement, where it splattered comepletely. The stains didn't even jiggle. A few tense minutes later a helicopter landed next to us, ushering us on. I let Dolly and John get on first, and just as I went to step on myself, I felt a rumbling. Lifting my foot off the ground I turned to see what was going on, and almost fainted at the sight. A giant, no, colossal worm erupted from one of the skycrapers. It must have gone two hundred meters into the air above it before it came tumbling back down in a terrifying arch. When it's head burrowed into the ground hundreds of meters below it's tail was still emerging from the collapsing building.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"We have confirmation on target. Let fly." One of the gunners shouted over the blades of the helicopter. A moment later five jets came screaming over the horizon, letting loose machine gun and missile fire before strafing around. Every impact point left holes in the worm, and where the missiles struck it comepletely broke away, leaving a shower of what looked like scales and glowing purple material. The detatched segments of the worm didn't just start flailing though, they shudderd and thrashed before the wound site split, revealing a new head.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Attack ineffective, repeat, ineffective! Pulling out and preparing operation Purple Mist." The jets turned and flew back the way they'd come. We followed them, not making another stop. As we left the town we passed a large bomber being escorted by the jets. A few minutes later there was a nuclear explosion. None of us could believe what we had witnessed.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">We flew in silence until we reached a large compound, several dozen survivors being led inside. We landed and were approached by six men, four soldiers and two men who I could only assume were scientists.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Please, come with us for debriefing and a medical exam." One of the scientists shouted over the dying helicopter engine. The four soldiers surrounded us and led us inside.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">Almost a hundred people were milling about inside, waiting nervously for what was about to come.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">A man in formal military dress stepped up onto an improvised stage, clearing his throat and silencing everyone.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"At 0230 this morning, a breach in a private genetics lab unleashed two unstable strains of Demonic Energy enchanced plantlife. One purple, hereby dubbed the Corrupt strain, and one red, dubbed Crimson. We are working with the monster council of the eastern world to create a counter to this. So far, progress is slow, but a promising strain has been created, classified as the Hallowed strain." He gives the crowd a few moments to let this sink in before continuing.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"We are also taking in recruits for an offsenive project classified New Terra. This will require grueling physical training, mental fortification training, and accepting the use of experimental genetics procedures. For this reason only those between the age of eighteen and twenty four are eligable.If you wish to sign up, proceed to the western hanger. If not, follow your escorts to temporary living quarters until we can find new homes for you." With that he stepped down from the stage and people started calling for groups to follow them. Me and John started making our way to one of the escorts, but I noticed Dolly was just standing there, staring at the floor.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"You okay, Dolls?" I asked, putting a hand on her shoulder.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"This... this thing. This horrible, terrifying thing. It's made with DE. That means... that means it came from us." I catch where her mind's going with this, and give her a gentle shake.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"This isn't your fault. It was a private genetics lab, who knows what kind of sick fucks were running the show there? You can't blame yourself for this." She gives me a look, and a small smile.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Thanks. I'm going to volunteer." Me and John are taken aback by the claim.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"You're what?!" John shouts, getting some attention.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"This came from DE. If I can do something to fix this, then I will." Her eyes take on that steely look she gets when she's dead set on doing something. I sigh and drop my head.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Well, I can't let you do this alone. How about you John?" He looks between us, blinking like he's trying to get the idea out of his head. When neither of us change our stance, he sighs.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Fine. I'll come with you." He then mumbles "we're all gonna die" under his breath.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">We make our way to the hanger with maybe five other people, two of which are monsters, a jinko and a centaur. When we arrive there are a few dozen scientists running around, checking charts and preparing needles. When they see us approaching two hand their tasks off to the others and come up to us.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"So, you're the volunteers for New Terra?" We nod, and the two take us into a small building.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Okay. First off, once you step through the door behind me, there is no going back. You complete this project and go on the offensive, or you die. Those are your only options. Are we clear?" None of us leave, and the man nods, gesturing to his assistant.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Open the door." They do so, letting us through. We'er led down a narrow corridor, sloping down into the earth, and eventually step into a massive chamber. Inside looks like someone combined a boot camp and a genetics lab. There's soldiers drilling across various obstacle courses, others waiting in line at a few sim rooms, and yet more that look like they're being hijacked by mindflayers.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Dr. Onaka." One of the scientists calls, and an inari with five tails approaches us.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Ah, so you're the volunteers. Please, follow me." She leads us into a small building inside the enclosure. It has no windows, no lights, and seems to be soundproof. The only light comes from a holographic table.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"So, the general may have been a little light on the details of the plagues." She taps some buttons and a map appears, with purple and red splotches slowly spreading out.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"This is a satellite image of the outbreaks, as you can see, it is rapidly spreading throughout the country. We don't believe oceans will be a hindrance. In fact, we fear they may even enhance the spread of the strains." She taps some more buttons and two images appear. One is a brain with dozens of eyes buzzing around it. The other is the worm, with a note that reads 1-1.5km.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"These are what we are reffering to as Node Beasts. They control the plague around them. As it spreads, more will arise to control the larger territory. We have successfully destroyed two so far." She points to the worm. "This NB is classified as the Eater of Worlds. And if left unchecked I fear that name will only become more appropriate as time goes on. This one" she points to the brain "is being called the Brain of Cthulu, after the monster in fiction whose presence was enough to drive all around him mad. It has a very similar effect, enthralling those unprepared for it, before devouring them."

<p style="font-weight:normal;">She brings up an image of a canister containing blue liquid. "This is the current design of the Hallowed Serum. We hope to have it tested and ready for use by the time you have completed your training." She looks over us, a smile on her face. "I'm glad you all chose to fight this menace." With that we're led back out and given our first round of enhancers.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">What follows is many months of physical and mental training, including the induction into the art of energy manipulation, aka magic. Dolly proves to be quite talented at it. We're given genetic enhancers over the course of our training, making us essentially super soldiers. By the time we're ready for deployment the Hallow project is finished and successful at both restoring low-intensity corruption and crimson infection, and at not only halting, but also driving back blighted terrain. Before we've finished training it's been deployed to as much of the infected borders as possible. There are still gaps in the coverage, but they're quickly closing.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">We're also given a portable dispersal unit, designated the Clentaminator. We make our first deployment in three days. Dolly's magical talents have shone in the trials, and my skill with a rifle has proven hard to match with our group. We are the first wave of the Terra Corps, and we'll take the fight to the real monsters out there.