Alex – Heart Of The Vanguard

Jinx: "You know for a big, expensive secret base, it's very bland."

Wrex: "It's only the back door I guess, no dignitaries would pass through this way normally."

Me: "Yeah, exactly that. The route we've come in is for maintenance access only, that's why security was so basic. If we had come in through the front door along with Hammer, it'd be wall to wall with military and hardware." I replied, calling up the information on our route on one side of my HUD as we jogged or cantered our way down hall after hall. The halls were much like the ones we first ventured after passing under the turbine field or making our way between the security check points - bland, concrete surfaces left, right and center and basic lighting.

Jinx: "I hope the others are all ok then. But couldn't any diver team just come in the same way we did?"

Crystal: "There were multiple motion sensors, cameras and open door alarms that either Alex or myself disabled upon our entry. An infiltration team as you suggested wouldn't have the means to break such security without having a sophisticated A.I. that could hack into their network." She announced from Ember's armour.

Me: "Or be part computer, like me."

We carried on through more corridors, finding the odd goon squad and putting them down quick. Finally we came to a doorway, some small blast door looking deal which I remotely hacked as soon as I got close to the panel. The door opened into a large area and although we were tucked away in a sort of alcove, the area beyond was quite scenic. An actual, real grass area to either side of us, divided by a smaller path leading from this door to the main perpendicular, larger path. The main path actually had a stainless steel and glass constructed guard rail over some kind of drop beyond. The ceiling didn't look like a ceiling, it looked like the actual blue daylight sky, with the odd white fluffy cloud passing over, though it wasn't real, just an image. We ventured further in in awe, Ember being the only one it seemed not distracted by the scenery.

Jinx: "I don't remember this place looking so attractive."

Me: "Remember, this is the staff areas up here, we never saw this bit."

Ember: "It certainly didn't look this good when I left it last. Come on we can sightsee later..." She led us on cutting over the grass area in the direction of a bridge, "...Where was Skylen located, Alex?" I jogged up beside her as she stepped on to a bridge that spanned the expanse and met a similar path and layout on the opposite end.

Me: "There..." I pointed out over the man made valley below us to the far end of the valley, where it looked like stepped layers of offices rose up from bottom to top of the valley. "...There's a board room. 3 levels up from the top of the valley. He hadn't left there in hours when I checked earlier."

Jinx: "Whoa... Are those the cells we were held in?" She asked looking over the edge of the bridge to the valley below.

Me: "Yeah... That's them." I replied looking down myself and seeing thousands of the white egg shaped cells that lined each side of the slightly curved valley.

Jinx: "There's so many!"

Before I could say anything more on the subject, unwanted company interrupted us. 

"Traitors!" The phrase was hissed in Draconian tongue from behind us and left, from the direction we had come from, I hadn't been watching the motion tracker... Idiot... Our first Dragon opposition we've come across since entering the base had come into play. Rounding the corner of the bridge just a few metres back from us, were a pair of familiar looking greyish silver armoured SkyTech Dragons clattering their metallic covered feet on to the bridge, then another 2 rounded the corner behind them as well. All 4 in a defensive, 'ready to pounce', slight squat with gradual steps, like a cat, edging closer to pounce on a mouse.

Jinx raised her arm, but 42 grabbed it and forced it down,

42: "Remember what Alex said, save the converted if you can."

Sarah: "Back up, back up." this was said unnecessarily, as we were all back stepping further along the bridge.

Ember: "They're a threat, we should just kill them."

Me: "No! They're as innocent in this as all of us. If we can free them they won't attack."

42: "That looks like the same armour they stuffed me in."

Me: "Indeed. Careful guys, their suits are not as advanced as ours, but they enhance speed and strength a substantial amount and can take a few hits." The armoured SkyTech made their way gradually and menacingly towards us.

Ember: "Well we had better do something, they'll attack any moment!"

Me: "I know! I'm thinking... Fury, we'll have to pounce them, then use the signal and-"

Wrex: "Company coming from behind as well!" A goon squad were making their way over from the opposite side of the bridge, bringing their rifles up as soon as they sighted us.

Me: "Down Wrex!" Wrex darted in front of the closest of our team, that being Ember, as soon as bullets started ripping this way.

42: "Stuck between a rock and a hard place!"

Me: "Wrex, Jinx, 42, Sarah! Get on the Dragons, Ember and I wil-" A loud plasma jet screeched past underneath us, drowning out the gun fire, it didn't sound normal, it sounded just like that, a screech, a screeching jet engine.

Ember: "I know those jets!..." An armoured figure, which looked very much like ripped off Jarvie tech, but it was jagged, yet aerodynamic. The suit also had glowing orange emitting from under a few of the Silver/grey armour panels. A bit of a darker grey than the armours we'd seen so far, such as the Dragons, closing in on foot on the bridge to our left.

The biggest difference was the wings. They were chunky and a bit larger in size than the average Dragon's. The screeching plasma jets we heard were attached to the wings, one on the end of each bone or 'rib' that supported the membranes, that's 4 per side! The other thing was they weren't natural membranes, nor just covered with elasticated armour like ours, they were bulky, thick... And we were about to find out why... The armour now banked around, almost on dime, back towards us, I doubt even I could pull off a turn like that at those speeds.  

Ember: "... WYVERN!!!" She screamed with rage and hatred.

His voice then broke over an open channel as he screeched back through the valley towards us.

Wyvern: "Infiltrators spotted, got them in my sights. You might be underground already, but you're not buried enough yet." He came almost to a halt in mid air as he finished his last line, wings spread wide, jets supporting him in midair. The chunky membranes opened lots of little hexagonal hatches, from which launched dozens, actually hundreds of balls of plasma, but these arced, left smoke trails, whistled and sizzled as they flew towards us. Ember was already leaping off the bridge and jetting at the Wyvern, the last thing I saw before the bridge essentially detonated around us as the plasma hit was Ember tackling him in mid air.

The next thing I knew, we were falling amongst concrete and metal, time slowed as I gathered my bearings. Sarah, Jinx and 42 were either already recovering and jetting off or orienting themselves in mid air to do so. So where was Wrex?! My head spun around as I fell amongst the debris, looking for him. There he was... without power, he was unable pull away from a tumbling section of bridge. I belted towards him, but by the time I got to in front of him, there was no escaping.

We, and the section of bridge and debris, hit the bottom of the valley with a mighty crash.

...

Wrex: "Alex?! Baby talk to me! Are you alright?!..." My eyes opened to see Wrex, hovering over me as I lay on my back. I opened my faceplates with a groan, as I partially sat up. "...phew... I thought I lost you." He stated, shoulders slumping, relieved, and sat back slightly to give me a bit of space.

Me: "You aint getting rid of me that easy..." I said with a slight smile, "...What happened?" I asked as I looked around... We seemed to be trapped in a ball of broken up concrete.

Wrex: "I couldn't escape the falling bridge, you saved me, you saved us, put up this like purple ball of energy around us. It only disappeared a few seconds before you came back around."

Me: "A shield? I don't remember doing that before."

Wrex: "A self defence mechanism that you just didn't know you had? Maybe?"

Me: "It can only be. Come on, we need to get out of here. Find our way back up and find the children." I raised my hand up, used my telekinetic powers, tried to force the concrete above us up to create an opening. It moved to start with, however, it quickly crumpled down lower towards us.

Me: "Shit!..." I exclaimed with strain, now using before hands to emphasise my powers to hold it in place to try and not let it all crush us, "... there's too much above us. Need to find another way, quickly!"

Wrex: "There's daylight! Over here!" He scurried behind me and started pulling chunks of concrete out the way as fast as he could. With a quick wave of my hand, I blew a hole in the debris where he was digging, large enough for us to get through.

Me: "Go!" Wrex scurried and scraped through the hole and I twisted myself around slightly more so that my head was aimed for the hole. Then I fired the jets on my legs, just for a moment, long enough to fire myself out of the hole and screech to a halt, the debris crumpled and smashed down where I was laying a second before.

Wrex: "You alright?" He asked, pulling me up from the floor.

Me: "Yeah. All good. Thanks... Well, we're not getting out that way..." I said looking up at the roof. The section of bridge we rode in on, had punctured a hole in the bottom of the valley, we had dropped through and concrete rubble had piled in on top, filling in the hole. "...Oh no." I added as I looked around where we were.

Wrex: "What?..." He looked around as well, "...What are these?" He asked eyeing up the box shaped cells that lined either side of this wide hall we were standing in the middle of.

Me: "Breeding cells."

Wrex: "Oh... Sarah mentioned these. The thought of it horrified her. And you-? It happened here, didn't it?"

Me: "Um-hmm." I replied, forcing back the memories, though looking into one of the nearby cells wasn't helping. In each cell was a lone female, each was frightened and hiding in a corner of their cell. We started moving up the line of cells.

Sarah: "Alex?! Alex come in! I've got your readings! Can you hear me? Is Wrex ok?! We're on our way to dig you out! Hold on!" Her voice crackled through on the coms.

Me: "We're both fine Sarah, thanks, we're not buried. We've been knocked through to the next level down, we'll find a work around. What's the situation up there?"

Sarah: "We're ok, and that's me, Jinx and 42 but we've lost contact with Ember, she took on that 'Wyvern' guy, then we lost sight of them. Can't get her back on coms and lost signal with her suit - I hope she's ok."

Me: "I thought you didn't like her?"

Sarah: "We haven't gotten on recently I'll admit, but she's one of my oldest friends, I owe her too much."

Me: "We'll find her Sarah. Right now we need to rendezvous at that board room."

Sarah: "We'll get there as soon as we can. We had to vacate the valley after you fell, it got waayy too busy."

Me: "Understood, stay safe."

Sarah: "You too, Sarah out."

I looked around at all the seemingly pregnant females. Up 'til now, I don't think I had seen a pregnant Dragon. But based on how big I got, which wasn't very compared to a Human pregnancy, these Dragonesses must have been a couple of months down the line. Their normally sleek undercarriage seemed to bulge down and out sideways ever so slightly, not drastically, but enough to notice. Each looked similar to the last as we passed, all at varying stages of pregnancy.

Me: "We'll have to leave them for now, we'll come back to free them later. In here, they're saf- *Gasp*." I came to an abrupt halt in front of one of the cells, suddenly enough that Wrex walked into the back of me.

Wrex: "Oof... What is it? What's wrong?" I stood frozen, looking into the cell on my left. This seemed to be the only cell we'd seen so far with a male Dragon contained inside. But I knew him. He back stepped toward the rear of the cell as I stepped up and leant against the glass.

Me: "It's him."

Wrex: " 'Him'?"

Me: "Sam."

Wrex: "Sam? The one that-"

Me: "Aah! Tss!..." I hinted to him not to finish that sentence. "...It wasn't his fault."

Wrex: "What he put you through-"

Me: "In a way, he opened my eyes. It might have been wrong but he was pushed to do it. Had it not had happened, I might not have even considered you. So I'm not going to hold it against him Wrex. He's a friend, I thought they killed him, so I'm just glad he's still alive." I flicked out my right arm blade, ignited it with plasma and pierced it through the glass. Sam leapt right back into a corner, clearly frightened and threatened by me plunging my blade through the front of the cell, then dragging the blade around to make a 'me' sized opening, the cut out falling and smashing.

Sam: "Stay away!" He hissed and growled as I slinked through the opening.

Me: "Easy, I'm a friend. I'm Alex, do you remember me?..." He stiffened up more so and started baring his teeth as I stepped closer,  "...Alex? D-24?"

Wrex: "Alex? Are you sure?"

Me: "A hundred percent. They obviously reset his chip... I have an idea." I recalled an image, the reflection I saw of myself as the Dragoness before I became the hybrid that I am. In the same way I put a Human disguise on, I converted my image to show my past self, in a cloud of red and purple, I reappeared in front of him, dropping to all fours. It felt weird to be looking down a snout again.

Me: "Remember me now? I promised I'd get us out of here and here I am." His face relaxed slightly, turning to slight confusion.

Sam: "What kind of trick is this?!"

Me: "Magic. And if you come closer, I can show you." I stated while stepping closer once more. I just needed to get close enough to signal his chip to switch off.

Sam: "No! Get back!" He demanded backing up as much as possible as I raised one hand towards him. Sam then smacked my hand with claws extended, causing slight sparks as he scratched my armoured hand hidden below the image 

'Ok, enough, I don't have time for this.' I dropped my image and slammed my faceplates shut as I leapt at him, we collided and rolled around on the floor of the cell as each of us fought for control of the situation. He scratched at me, tried to bite my armour, even whipped his tail blades around and tried slicing at me, all of which caused little to no damage of course.

Wrex: "Need help?!"

Me: "Nope, ARGH!, I got him!" I managed to spin him onto the floor, pin his head on it's side with my hand - close enough. And after a couple of seconds, he went rigid in a squeal of pain, then fell limp and silent. With an exhale of relief I got off of him and sat beside him.

Me: "That wasn't easy. Tryna turn off the chip without hurting him." Sam started groaning and stirring moments later.

Sam: "Uughh... You're not Alex... You can't be!" He sat up in front of me, screwing his face up and holding his head with one hand, I opened the face plates again now that it was safe and my face wasn't likely to get clawed off.

Me: "I came back to get you out, as I promised. Are you ok?"

Sam: "My head is throbbing but I'm ok. But you don't look like I remember you."

Me: "It's a loong story, it'll have to wait until later. What are you doing down here?"

Same: "After we got separated they put me down here, I heard them say that because of my involvement with you, I was too much of a risk to put me with the general population."

Me: "So they just kept you down here as a prisoner? Like in isolation?"

Sam: "Erm... No..." He replied sheepishly, "...they made me forget everything again, I didn't know who I was and... It's... It's embarrassing."

Me: "What? What happened?"

Sam: "Well, I only had one order... 'Mate'."

Me: "Ohh..."

Sam: "Yeah... They moved all the women down here a few weeks ago, I heard them say they need numbers. But there's only a few guys kept down here full time including me. The other males are brought down a couple of times a day for about a week or so... Then it's like speed dating, without the niceties... I dread to think how many kids are mine *Gasp* Oh no, I even fucked D09! Oh god!..." He buried his head into his hands, "...I feel horrible!"

Me: "Oh dear..." I grimaced, I was starting to feel awkward for him, "...So D09 is here and alive as well?"

Wrex: "You said their files all read deceased?" He asked me directly.

Sam: "They changed our designations, but yeah, she is, and probably pregnant again."

Me: "They must have done it because they knew we might be looking at their systems, to let us believe they were dead so we wouldn't come here."

Wrex: "This facility is so fucked up."

Me: "It's certainly soon to be once I'm through with it. Speaking of children, come on, we need to save ours still." I said turning back to Wrex.

Sam: "You have children too?! Oh god, please don't say they're mine too!"

Me: "Noo... They're ours..." I gestured between Wrex and myself, "...Don't worry. But we need to go save them, stay here, but I promise we'll come back and get you all out, ok?"

Sam: "Do you have to leave me again?" He asked, actually sounding worried I wouldn't return.

Me: "Yeah, I mean it, we'll be back, very soon. We need to kick the arses of Skylen and his girlfriend."

(-Cryoshell)