HELLO HELLO! EVERYBODY! Its Epideme here! Oh yes, I bet you'd thought I'd gone for good; sadly no. ;) I'm sorry this chapter took a long time but i have been busy, and unfortunately that isn't going to change. I will get these chapters to you, but I regrettably cant say when. and that is a promise :) I hope you enjoy this EIGHT THOUSAND WORD chapter!

Additional: Hmm, oh yeah! if any of you see fit to offer an idea, please don't hesitate I'm open to suggestions for filler chapters later on :)

Disclaimer: I own nothing except my characters. Other canon characters and stuff are owned by their respective companies.

-Chapter Four-

-Escape-

The heavy steel doors to the surveillance room of facility 2's level 5 reactor did a good job of muffling the sepulchral moaning and furious hammering from the entity's that lurked outside, but the screams were still ringing in Vincent's ears as he stared up at the curious ochre yellow dragon.

"Who the fuck are you!?"

For a few moments Vincent said nothing, just breathed heavily trying to regain himself; peering up past the gun barrel at the stern, slightly mad, unblinking gaze that was etched on what could only be Kelmore's face.

"K-Kelmore!?"

The yellow dragon blinked and tilted his head quizzically, large indigo eyes looked questioningly at the bio-luminescent dragon in tattered clothing at his feet whose voice was extremely familiar.

The gun fell away to Kelmore's side as he went to offer his other arm to the dragon on the floor.

Vincent willingly accepted the help, flipping over off of his back before getting onto his knees and swinging his arm up to meet Kelmore's before he was heaved off of the ground as easily as a bag of feathers.

Vincent spent a second marvelling at Kelmore's newfound strength before he recoiled slightly as Kelmore moved his head uncomfortably close to his own; staring into his eyes and at his face like he was something amazing, which is when Vincent noticed that his scales definitely gave off a small amount of light, he also noticed how different Kelmore looked; his deep indigo eyes were the same, but his face and body consisted of ochre yellow scales, highlighted by a silvery white underbelly, his horns; that consisted of several jagged angular horns that turned off at random directions at their ends, six of them in total; it made him look like a mad draconic scientist, which is pretty much what Kelmore is at the moment; he also had a small stubby horn that curved downward off of the bottom of his lower jaw and white plate-scales that went from the top of his head to the end of his nose.

Vincent also noticed that Kelmore in this new draconic form looked extraordinarily strong, he guessed that the Omvenefix in his system must have had an effect on the metamorphosis, vastly magnifying his strength, maybe some other aspects; Vincent thought back to the mtm lab and how mangled the door and teleporter frame were.

The room was very dimly lit, there were no lights on inside the room as such; just a small amount of red emergency lighting coming in through an observational screen that ran along the side of the room to Vincent's right.

But as he looked at the yellow dragons face, which was now staring at his horns, he noticed faint amounts of ghostly white light highlighting the edges of Kelmore's scaly, angular face, and in a way, Vincent thought that being glow in the dark was cool, but there were far too many other things to worry about, like the fact that he and Kelmore were dragons, and the fact that Kelmore was alive.

Kelmore casually took a couple of steps back; he looked like he was admiring a strange piece of work he'd finished from a distance before he finally decided to say something;

"Vincent?! Is that really you? Damn you look even uglier than before!" Kelmore laughed, casually turning to face a bulky computer console that ran the width of the room, just underneath the window; obviously to control the nuclear reactor housed in the containment chamber; there was also something placed on another console on the other side of the room opposite the window; it was too dark to make out every detail from here as the light from the reactor room was dim and red; but it looked long and mechanical with a lot of exposed wiring

For a moment Vincent didn't know what to say, he was dumbstruck. He had nearly died, three times in the space of about an hour, he had become a dragon as well as Kelmore, who, either didn't care about what was happening or was doing a damn good job of hiding it. "Is… is that all you have to say!" Vincent snapped, moving closer to Kelmore.

"Well should I say anything else? I just saved your life, a thank you wouldn't go amiss…"

"Well yeah, thank you but maybe you could explain to me how you're still alive, and why your even here!"

I could ask you to explain the same to me Vincent" Kelmore suggested slyly, tapping away at a keyboard with eyes on a screen

Don't change the subject onto me Kelmore, you need to stop doing what you're doing and talk to me; tell me what you did to piss my father off to the point where he was going to kill you!" Vincent shouted

There was an uncomfortable silence for a few moments, broken only by the now, increasing in volume, groans and thumps emanating from the heavy metal doors.

Kelmore turned away from the console to face Vincent and gave him a fake, derogative laugh.

"What are you talking about Vincent I…"

"Don't even try it Kelmore, I saw what my father did; I was there" Vincent was getting more and more annoyed at Kelmore every time the guy opened his mouth, he better come up with some answers soon.

Kelmore turned to face the console again and there was another long silence, uncomfortably long

"When I didn't turn up for our deadline I assume you used your temporary clearance to look for me?" Kelmore asked, eyes still on the screen.

"You would assume correctly" Vincent stated, moving over to a swivel chair that had fallen onto its side from the facility's turbulence, standing it up and taking a seat to catch his breath; he had to take time to thread his tail through the small space at the back of the chair but eventually he was in a comfortable position.

Kelmore remained silent for a couple of seconds before quietly but subtly stating;

"Vincent your father is a madman."

"What? What do you mean? Vincent leant forward; angry but intrigued.

"We had a slight… misunderstanding" Kelmore said, exaggerating the last word, stopping his work to throw in a hand gesture that suggested uncertainty.

Vincent had taken enough of Kelmore's crap, he could no longer stand the man's attitude toward the current situation, Vincent had known Kelmore for a long time and he wasn't the type of person that suppressed his feelings or thoughts, if he was scared or put off by the situation at all he would have showed it, and if he thought you were wrong you wouldn't hear the end of it. Point being Kelmore was either a psycho or he was hiding something.

Vincent violently stood up from his chair, knocking it over a second time. "A SLIGHT MISUNDERSTANDING!?" Vincent yelled "fucking hell Kelmore! Look around you! I have nearly died three times in the last hour! I don't think that this situation, could possibly be more fucked! I mean, WER'E FUCKING DRAGONS!" Vincent could feel the heat in his face rise as he saw Kelmore's only mildly surprised face. "Dragons! Walking talking dragons, on two legs! With sodding wings, and tails! The entire bloody red-zone, or at least part of it is totally fucked, it's not even in the same place; were on the top of a sodding mountain right now!"

Kelmore gave a small snort at the thought of the facility being on a mountain, which was fair enough if he hadn't seen outside, the floor of the facility was surprisingly flat and even, not at an angle like you would expect If it landed on the side of a mountain, plus the prefabricated tunnel segments were built extremely sturdily so only in places where the strain was too massive did they bend, snap and fall apart, but Vincent ignored the condescending note and continued regardless.

"So you tell me Kelmore, what this 'SLIGHT' misunderstanding was about, and how in the hell all this" Vincent spun his clawed hand round, gesturing to everything "happened…"

Silence once more; there were more groans and distorted screams at the door now, and it was making Vincent more uneasy by the second.

Whilst waiting for Kelmore's reply Vincent crept towards the door, fearing it would burst open any second, letting in angry flesh ripping hordes and god knows what else.

Vincent thought for a second what the awful things down here were and what effect they would have on the indigenous population of wherever he and Kelmore were now, he also took a moment to think what else was actually down here; not every lab had to be filled with violent abominations born from the twisted curiosity of facility 2's workforce, but he was distracted from these thoughts as a huge, deep and angry scream emanated from behind the door, followed by a loud clang and crunch as part of the door buckled.

Vincent jumped back, even Kelmore stopped what he was doing to look at the door; there was now a large dent coming from the reinforced steel door about five inches outward and with the diameter of a dinner plate.

Vincent turned to face Kelmore, who was now looking worried too.

"Uh… Kelmore? That door's going to hold right?"

"Umm, maybe?" Kelmore replied, eye twitching turning quickly back to the console.

No more loud bangs followed, the crunch that followed the door buckling must have been the bones of the attacker shattering from the force of the blow.

"You still haven't answered my question Kelmore…"

"look Vincent, I don't know how we got here, I'm just as puzzled as you, the last thing I remember was being dragged into your arrogant father's lab then I woke up here as a dragon, I busted out of that asshole's lab and wondered around for a little bit"

Kelmore had stopped to grab a chair, clearly a little worn out and pissed off that he was wasting time telling this story.

"it was dark, the place was a mess, and it was unnaturally quiet; I didn't see anybody for quite a while, and when I did, well…" he looked at the door, the things still scraping and clawing to get in

"Yeah, what the hell are those exactly?" Vincent asked, shifting slightly away from the door

"Really? You want to do this now?" Kelmore sighed, greatly emphasizing that he had far more important things to be doing

"Yes! Those things nearly fucking killed me you asshole!"

Kelmore rolled his eyes; "they are failed Omvenetin test subjects…"

"Omvenetin?! You told me facility one condemned its use!"

"Well yes but if you'd have let me finish my sentence you would know that your father, being the idiot that he is, convinced the director that the hosts of this new drug could be effectively weaponised"

"And were they?" Vincent questioned, in a tone that suggested he was going to regret the answer.

"Go outside and find out for yourself" Kelmore said sarcastically; "no they didn't work, Edward had us screw around with the drug a bit more but all that happened is that it killed them outright, there wasn't even time to test the new super soldiers, they just convulsed and died, we ended up with lab store rooms full of them!"

"But if they're dead… how can they be outside" Vincent asked, looking at the door with a mix of fear and slight, morbid curiosity.

"I don't have a clue, but if they're already dead you can bet that they'll be a lot more resilient than they were before." Kelmore paused, going back to the console. "Anyway, where was I, ah yes, the subjects gave me some trouble but I gave them the slip, heard the alarm go, navigated here, ran into some more trouble along the way, pretty sure I gave it the slip, now I'm here wasting time talking to you." Kelmore finally finished.

Vincent had gotten over the initial shock of nearly being torn apart by angry freaks, but what shocked him, what made him doubt his friend; is that Kelmore had lied to him about the Omvenefix test subjects, saying the project had been discontinued, that the reserves of the drug and its sources had been destroyed. It made Vincent wonder what else he had been lied to about; he was one clearance level below Kelmore so obviously Kelmore couldn't share all of what he did in the red zone, but most of the time when Vincent asked out of curiosity he'd gotten little bits of what he thought to be truthful information.

'Perhaps I'm wrong' are the three words which popped into Vincent's head, as he looked at the dragon focused Wholly on trying to rectify a problem; of which Vincent planned to make himself aware of shortly.

However despite the interesting yet frightening information that Kelmore had brought to the table, it was clear to Vincent that he was avoiding the main question, but he decided to push it anyway.

"You still haven't told me what the misunderstanding was about" Vincent stated angrily, eyebrows creased in frustration

Kelmore turned around to reply, However before he could open his mouth, the array of keypads and monitors that he had been working at for a while made a high pitch beep and flashed red; a very long string of profanities erupted from Kelmore's mouth; it was his turn to snap.

"Look you imbecile! It doesn't matter, I know you have a lot of questions and so do I, but we just don't have the time to discuss it, there's a good fucking reason I'm in the reactor's control room, it might have crossed your particularly dense mind but this is going to be the shittiest of shit storm's if I can't manage to override the failsafe or remove the reactors control rods and get it back online!"

Kelmore paused and Vincent walked to the viewing window, still slightly angry at Kelmore but even more shocked at what he just heard, he looked down into the reactor unit, the place was a total mess. Corners of the tall chamber had literally exploded outward leaving pre-fabbed steel plates twisted up and outward, and in their place were rocky outcroppings decorated with various fauna.

"Shit, has that pressure vessel ruptured?!" Vincent asked panicky.

He had pressed his snout up to the glass and directed his gaze towards the centre of the dimly lit reactor room, the main reactor unit had thankfully not been smashed by the awe – worthy turbulence that had claimed the rest of the facility, but one of the pressure vessels that was submerged in the water had been snapped completely off, and had somehow made its way so that it was now resting against the side of the vessels raised water bath at the centre of the room; on closer inspection Vincent noticed several tiny little mettle cylinders had spilled from the vessel; the enriched U-235. The removal of the vessel had left a twisted, snapped control rod dangling above the submersion tank; the rest of the pressure vessels were thankfully in their correct place, fully submerged but with control rods fully integrated, preventing the water from being heated to a sufficient level.

"Unfortunately half of the control rod that was meant to be inside that pressure vessel; well, see for yourself…"

Vincent had seen for himself, and after saying this Kelmore grabbed the nearest chair and slumped in it. He let out a large exasperated sigh before taking a 360 degree spin. Before slamming his hands down on the console and swearing.

"Ok, are we safe in here? From the radiation I mean, not the, obvious..." Vincent queried, glancing at the door.

"Yes, this glass is lead-lined and so is the wall. But I can't get in there and fix it, the radiation would kill me in about a minute; well maybe longer, I'm not sure about these new bodies we have." Kelmore replied, absentmindedly twiddling the tip of his horn.

Vincent took his face away from the glass and glanced at one of the monitors, in bold print flashing on screen were the words: ERROR CANNOT EXTRACT CONTROL RODS; PLEASE USE MANUAL EXTRACTION CONTROLS IN CHAMBER.

Vincent sighed, and went over to the large airlock door next to the viewing window, peered through the tiny glass screen and said quietly;

"No chance of using those manual controls then, those hazmat suits look pretty torn up"

This was true, inside the small, bright decontamination chamber, the hazmat suits that usually should have been stored properly in the lockers lining the side wall were sprawled messily all over the floor; most of them looked completely shredded and Vincent found himself wondering how that happened, after all, there was no debris in the room that could have damaged the suits, there was nothing for them to tear on either.

Vincent came away from the big door and the room that only raised more questions than answers; and saw Kelmore in the same chair, except now he was typing away, obviously trying to further rectify this awful problem they were both in, either unaware of the question Vincent asked or ignoring it because it was rhetorical. Regardless, Vincent joined Kelmore in sitting down, and peered wistfully through the window.

Vincent was shattered, the changes that had happened to him had taken their toll and now he was exhausted. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, trying to relax as best he could in the awkward little chair.

He managed to stay relaxed for a few seconds too; listening to the sounds of the soft moans and thumps coupled with Kelmore's obsessive typing, however Vincent realised something curious, the stinging in his leg was just gone, he couldn't feel any pain down there at all aside from the residual aching of metamorphosis.

An audible 'hmm' from Vincent, distracted Kelmore and he turned to see what the fuss was about, he saw that the, still, unusual dragon was fussing over the torn folds of his jeans to get at his leg for some reason.

"Are, you ok Vincent?" Kelmore asked, more curious than concerned.

"Huh? Oh, uh, yeah it's just that I cut my leg on something earlier, but it's…" Vincent stopped in his tracks when he lifted a fold of cloth to see that the deep cut in his inner leg was just gone, there was just very fine, luminous white scales made dull by a strange, slightly translucent, light grey, mercury looking substance, and his boxers; which, thankfully had remained intact.

"I don't see a cut; but Lonsdale huh? Interesting." Kelmore laughed, turning back to the monitor, making it plain to Vincent that he thought nothing of the plainly odd fact that Vincent's leg had healed completely, and that his blood was no longer red, but a strange light grey non glowing substance that looked like non-metallic mercury.

"what's wrong with Lonsdale you pervert" Vincent joked, the discussion with Kelmore would have to wait till later, assuming if they got out of here alive that is. "Anyway, have you made any more progress?"

In reply, Kelmore simply gave a hopeful look and raised his finger to indicate waiting, Vincent thought it looked bizarre when a dragon was doing it, but he watched anyway as Kelmore leaned forward to flip a few switches and type some commands before pressing a big green button. Vincent then proceeded to watch, mildly amused as Kelmore swore loudly and sunk his entire hand, which was quite large, into the nearest monitor, receiving a nasty looking shock that, curiously, didn't send him flying backward.

"Fuck that hurt!" Kelmore shouted, nursing his hand.

"What did you think would happen?!" Vincent laughed "But I'm assuming you have good cause; what's the problem" Vincent asked knowing he wouldn't like the answer.

"I've just exhausted every option we had short of sacrificing one of us to sort this shit out. Our only option now is either to explore this wreckage of a facility in an attempt to find some sort of protection against radiation in one of the labs, or, we run the fuck away" Kelmore finished, pointing toward the door that didn't have things scraping at it.

"Well I'm not being a hero, let's get the hell out of here" Vincent said standing up, "before anything els…" Vincent stopped mid-sentence however as the sound of something large and mechanical was coming closer and closer to the aforementioned door.

Once the heavy metallic stomps that nearly shook the room had stopped, the sound of ominous mechanical whirring and hydraulic hisses were now clearly audible from the other side of the steel wall. The thing, whatever it was, was standing right outside the door.

There was a long pause, as the fact of being stuck in perhaps the most dangerous place available, sandwiched between a group of insane abominations and a large metal thing, dawned on Vincent and Kelmore.

"Uh… Kelmore, what was that?"

"Oh, I guess I didn't give it the slip."

It was like the angry thing outside had heard him; As soon as Kelmore had finished speaking, a noisy, angry sounding, synthetic tone was emitted from the now clearly undesirable thing 'standing' outside, there was a pause, before quiet beeping noises could be heard from the other side of the door.

"What the hell do you mean, didn't give it the slip!" Vincent said slowly backing further from the door; afraid.

Instead of answering Kelmore just lunged as fast as he could toward the door yelling "get down Vincent!" Vincent quickly and regrettably painfully dropped to the floor, just as he noticed that the light above the steel entryway had flashed green; the door slowly opened and through the crack Vincent could see; standing outside, was an incredibly large exo-power suit.

The crack in the door became wider and Kelmore was at the controls now, screaming obscenities at the fiddly keypad. The abnormally large suit of exo-power armour moved incredibly quickly for something of its size; it turned slightly and attempted to force the door open some more with its clunky but agile arm; which also sported a chain gun mounted on its upper wrist.

It was desperately trying to orientate the deadly tool in Kelmore's general area, who had now glimpsed the chain gun and was now silent either in fear or concentration; he had managed to initiate the locking procedure for the door; but the hydraulically enhanced strength of the mechanical suit was overpowering the door, Kelmore from the looks of him was working furiously trying to override the doors safety margins in order to overpower the doors closing mechanism, but Vincent didn't see much after that as the chain gun spun up and fired, the deafening roar of the weapon forced Vincent to cover his ears and face the floor; thankfully there was no scream from Kelmore who hadn't been hit, but Vincent could hear the breaking of glass followed by a loud sound of metal on metal and a pressure build up from the door straining to close and sheer the things arm off.

The roaring gunfire stopped and there was a loud clang, followed by a dull thud as the exo-suits arm was crushed until the hand and chain gun were torn away because of their own weight; falling to the floor.

Vincent lifted his head off of the cold floor, ears ringing loudly. He felt a little disorientated but managed to shake his head a few times to pull himself back together as he stood up, he looked over at Kelmore who was staring in shock at the viewing window, which was just utterly trashed.

"Crap…" Vincent whispered, he could now feel a slight prickling sensation on his skin. He glanced at the dismembered arm which now had a pool of dark red surrounding it.

"There was a person in there? What was that!?"

There was a loud sound of metal against metal and a sizable dent appeared in the door, whoever was in there clearly wasn't going to let having their arm sheared off stop them from getting inside.

"We… we have to get the hell out here…" Kelmore replied off topic, focusing more on the window than on the dent in the door

"Normal exo-power suits don't look like that! What is that?" Vincent demanded, slightly scared at a patch of the door that was now glowing red, probably from a powerful plasma-cutting torch.

No reply came from the now swearing Kelmore, who was currently looking under the console, wings and tail comically flailing about as the dragon tried unsuccessfully to find something. Vincent was about to ask but backed up as the cutting torch finally bored its way through the door and started moving slowly upwards, it was coupled with a bright flash and Vincent had to shield his eyes from the light that hurt his retinas.

He turned around to Kelmore and shouted over the noisy clangs of the something hitting the door. "What are you looking for?!"

There was a thump as Kelmore banged his head on the underside of the console as he tried to come out and stand up. "AH! There it is!"; the light in this room was dim and red, but the ominous bluish hue emanating from the plasma cutter enabled Kelmore to find what he was looking for; the strange device with exposed wiring that had captured Vincent's attention for a brief moment when he first entered the viewing area, it was resting on an unlit section of monitor on the other side of the room. Whatever it was it looked heavy, as even Kelmore let out a heaving sigh as he picked the device up.

Vincent however was getting tired of asking and walked over to Kelmore and punched him in the shoulder; "what's trying to kill us, why it is here and what the fuck is that!" Vincent shouted, gesturing to the device Kelmore was carrying."

"Well, when I said I gave it the slip, I guess I didn't"

"What?! Yeah but what exactly IS It!?" Vincent snapped

"One of the experimental exo-suit operators, clearly when all this shit went down he couldn't get out of the labs in time. I found him still in the weapon mounting harness when I got there, which is also where I got this from!" Kelmore finished happily, brandishing the heavy looking, now partly glowing thing.

Vincent's eyes were drawn to the weapon like thing; it looked like something that belonged in a science fiction film, a two metre long masterpiece of metal framework, wires and ominously glowing chambers of an unstable dark-reddish substance. It didn't look too heavy but Kelmore was having a slightly hard time lugging it about; there was also a warped section of metal framework on the underside of the device. Vincent reckoned that the tool had originally belonged to the exo-suit that was currently trying to ruin everyone's day.

Seeing Vincent's awe-imbued stare, Kelmore laughed, "hah; I thought you'd like it; this, Vincent is called the SF-PCL, I'll explain what that sweet little acronym later when we're not being slowly killed by radiation…" Kelmore explained, swiftly moving towards the other door with the freakish lurching abominations outside, "… all you need to know is that it shoots electromagnetic capsules of ionised argon; plasma. Guaranteed to just ruin anything you point it at." Kelmore finished turning to smile manically at Vincent, which was damn creepy with a mouth full of razor like teeth.

Vincent decided to pipe up as Kelmore started tapping the door controls, blissfully unaware that the plasma torch was two thirds of the way done.

"Are you serious? Plasma? That's awesome!" Vincent stated, eager to see what the weapon was capable of doing, "anyway what the plan? He said moving to the opposite side of the door frame.

"I'm going… no you're going, to open this door whilst I stand back and blow the crap out of anything that's moving behind it."

"What why me!" Vincent defended

"Do you know how to work this thing?"

"No… wait do you know how to work it?!"

This statement was met by a degrading snort and smug reply of; "of course…" there was a pause before Kelmore furthered under his breath: "how hard can it be…"

Vincent shook his head and swore under his breath, before swiftly moving to the door controls as Kelmore got into position; cutting torch now three quarters of the way done.

Vincent gave Kelmore one final look of uncertainty and said "that does, actually work right?" looking at the heavy, two handed, plasma dealing weapon in the mad draconic scientists hands.

Kelmore grinned at Vincent before altering his hold on the device and pressing a button close to the manual firing switch. The dark reddish glow became more intense and the weapon shook, making a noise that sounded like heavy metal crossed with theta binaural beats. Vincent took that as a good sign. He closed his eyes and hit the door release button before falling back into the corner against the heavy blast door into the reactor chamber. This was it. Vincent had been through a lot of shit in the last hour but this took the cake; he had never been so scared in his life until this big shitty event came along and ruined everything, he hit the floor hard; gave a small gasp of pain as he fell awkwardly on his wings and he prayed that Kelmore knew what he was doing, but Vincent nearly completely forgot about the pain however when one of the many things that was outside stumbled clumsily through the now opened door.

Vincent's heart stopped and a sense of panic spread through his body paralyzing him, similar to what happened earlier but much worse. The thing was truly hideous; if Vincent were standing up it would have been roughly the same height as him, but what freaked him out the most was the full body, abominable transition from dead, rotting human tissue to grey, draconic scaly skin that didn't look so dead, in fact it looked strangely 'fresh'. It was like the thing had as well metamorphosed into a dragon but not completely, and the results were shocking.

Its face though was on an entirely different level; the left half of it was hideously deformed and claimed by severe atrophy, with awful looking skin that was stretched and torn and rotten, decorated by an empty eye socket that was where the cheek on that side of the face should have been. The other side, the draconic side looked like some kind of awful tumorous mutation that sort of grew out the top and right side of its head; like someone had taken the skin from one side of the face and pulled it all to the other side. The things snout was just a mess of twisted bone and sharp teeth, it had lost its lower jaw completely, leaving a terribly misaligned row of human teeth and some dragon teeth, with a long forked tongue hanging out of the mangled hole like some kind of freakish bookmark; Its horns were not a pretty sight, the bone from the skull had exploded outward resulting in short stubby protrusions all over the right side of the failed test subjects head, some even went down the neck and came out of the shoulder, the overall effect of this on Vincent being; giving him nightmares for the rest of the month. Unless there was something nastier waiting to file in through the door

It looked slowly at Vincent with a singly empty, milky grey eye and made a low pitch angry gurgling sound; right before there was a loud bang and a white hot metal canister, roughly the size of a large deodorant can launched from Kelmore's direction collided with the side of the things face, there was an initial crumple which further ruined its demeanour, before there was an electronic beep followed up by an explosion of darkish red and white hot metal fragments, one of which hit Vincent's arm, the pain was extraordinary as the metal disintegrated a tatter of his shirt and melted through his scales, infusing itself with him.

The damaging effect of the blast however was instantaneous, the things head, and a large portion of its upper torso including its left arm were immediately sublimated into a mixture of plasma and evaporated flesh and bone, before quickly condensing into a white hot goo that set the lurching freak alight as it, along with most of the things insides poured onto the floor, quickly cooling.

It was beautiful and horrific at the same time. The plasma didn't last long however, it quickly dissipated into the air surrounding it after about two seconds, but it didn't have any trouble rendering the Omvenetin subject incredibly dead, and filling the air with a tangy metallic smell along with the smell of cooked meat and rot.

Vincent tried tucking himself into a ball to reduce his surface area and the risk of incoming metal fragments as several more loud bangs emanated from Kelmore's direction, and over the bangs, singing pain and the screams of the damned Vincent could make out the Germans insane laughter.

One of the capsules clipped the side of the door opposite Vincent and immediately exploded, obliterating the door controls and around four foot of the wall around it; Vincent felt the heat from this one and was thankful that he didn't have any eyebrows to lose as they would have been singed off.

Vincent then took a look behind Kelmore; he wasn't even sure that there was anything 'alive' out there anymore because there was no screams or anything coming through what was left of the door, but Vincent now saw that the plasma cutter was, much to his dismay, very nearly finished, he yelled and yelled at Kelmore to stop, and eventually he did stop, but only once he was satisfied by the amount of the floor he had destroyed.

"Are you done? Come on we need to get the hell out of here!" Vincent yelled, slightly deafened by the thunderous cacophony of destruction he had just witnessed

Kelmore, who just stood there stunned for a moment simply replied "that was… beautiful!" before getting Vincent's full attention and throwing him his sidearm, clearly confident of his new favourite toy "here, you'll need this more than I will".

Vincent barely managed to catch the gun with his big clumsy clawed hands before ejecting the magazine to check how much ammunition he had. Seven rounds in total; plus one in the chamber, he slid the mag back in and hoped that it would do some damage to the monstrosities that now owned the facility. "Thanks, come on let's get the hell out of here…" Vincent said, shoving the G17 handgun into what was left of his trouser pocket, glancing at the shattered viewing window and hoping that not a large amount of lasting damage had been done

Kelmore hastily agreed before dropping the SF-PCL on the floor and once again going under the desk like console, he quickly came back up with a backpack and threw it gently at Vincent, who easily caught the larger target.

However Vincent saw that the plasma cutter had now made full circle and headed to what was left of the other door, it was essentially a melted mess of steel with now red-hot glowing goo clinging to some of the outcroppings, the smell was awful but Vincent coped and rested his hand on a 'clean' piece of door. Vincent tried to sling the backpack over his shoulder and put it on properly, but then realised his set of wings would be in the way, so he twisted one of the slings around the wrist of his bad arm to compensate, it hurt when he moved it but he wanted his good arm for shooting.

Kelmore had quickened his pace when he saw that the plasma cutter had now stopped, he swore aloud and dived for the plasma cannon as the first of the heavy salvo of bangs on the outlined piece of steel door hit, Vincent noted how it was like the thing had punched through a piece of wet tissue: half of the slab of steel the exo-suit had cut out was bent outwards nearly ninety degrees, it was making short work of the door and Vincent decided to leave, not really caring about Kelmore anymore; the idiot was still fumbling trying to pick up his new toy.

Vincent leapt over the chunks of gore, and large melted holes that decorated the pre-fabricated corridors floor, taking care not to step in the puddles of hot necrotic sludge which was hard because the stuff was spattered almost everywhere, but thankfully a lot of it had drained away through the newly created potholes, Vincent tried not to look at it all the while trying to keep the contents of his stomach; he sprinted to the end of the dark corridor with his heart pounding.

It was no time at all before Kelmore caught up to him, having a hard time lugging the cumbersome framework of wiring and metal around, shredded lab coat billowing behind him.

"You Left me you…"

"Oh shut up and run!" Vincent yelled turning quickly to get a glimpse behind them; the armless goliath of a suit was powering down the corridor towards them, causing the odd series of sparks as it collided with parts of the wall clumsily. This was the first time Vincent could see the thing properly, and it was a bloody scary sight; twice the height of Kelmore with incredibly thick armour that; apart from the joints, was virtually seamless. Vincent thought it was just sheer luck that the door had managed to clamp one of the suits joints because there was no way any amount of door or small arms fire was going to get through that armour, the only other visible weak point he could see was a grape-sized camera lens. He also thought it incredible that it was actually gaining on them, it could barely fit in the corridor.

Vincent noticed blood still dripping from the things arm and was thankful that it didn't have a chain gun any more, it did, however, have a very large, powerful looking hand either built for lifting or crushing, it didn't matter; the prospect of it coming into contact with him filled Vincent with adrenaline and made him run faster, he turned to Kelmore and yelled through pants of exhaustion and loud metallic stomp's of the angry Mk-IV exo-suit. "Why the hell can't you just obliterate it with that weapon of yours?!"

"ITS *pant* COOLING DOWN!" Kelmore screamed in reply.

"You crazy nutter, you went so overkill! *pant* They were all dead after the first five shots!"

"HEY DON'T JUDGE ME!"

The two stopped arguing and reached the end of the corridor and were about to take a turn that would have lead them to the tram room past the MTM lab but their path was blocked by a shambling mass of Omvenetin test subjects, Vincent nearly ran head on into them if it weren't for Kelmore painfully grabbing his wing and pulling him back, they took the other route which was thankfully a long stretch of uninhabited corridor lined with lab entrances.

Vincent thanked Kelmore and turned once again to see behind him, sacrificing his pace to satisfy his curiosity, it was carnage; thankfully the exo-suit was no longer following them, as it had its path blocked by an angry horde of freaks. That it was currently ripping apart. Vincent had no sympathy for things that had repeatedly tried to end his life but he looked away anyway because it was quite gruesome, he instead focused on getting out of here alive.

This begged the question of where they were actually going; the sounds of death behind them were growing quieter as they turned another corner, and so Vincent decided to slow his pace a little to catch his breath, eventually coming to a stop altogether close to an entrance of an unlit lab.

Kelmore stopped too when he realised Vincent was no longer behind him, he was about four metres in front and was in much better shape than Vincent who was breathing heavily.

"You okay Vincent?" Kelmore asked, a little concerned for his friends wellbeing

"NO I am NOT okay!" Vincent yelled angrily, pausing shortly afterwards to stem the inevitable flow of tears from the traumas he'd just been through, now that the threat of imminent danger was gone he had calmed down and realised the gravity of the situation. "I've lost count of how many times I have nearly died in the last hour! My dad's a murdering lying prick and I just want to go home! We're not even human anymore!"

Vincent sniffed tearfully and slumped against the steel door, only to yelp and stand straight back up again as something screamed and hit the door on the other side; Vincent moved to the other side of the corridor and said nothing.

There was an awkward pause from Kelmore before he walked over to his colleague and place a clawed hand on his shoulder. "we'll get through this Vincent, we just need to get out of this hellish place and… well I don't know, see what's around I guess, try and find some kind of civilisation if there Is any…" Kelmore paused before looking cautiously behind Vincent down the dimly lit hallway, "come on, we need to keep moving; the suit will be able to track us" he finished before starting to move further down the corridor.

Vincent wondered how the suit could track them, but then he realised he didn't care, he just wanted to get out. He sighed before rubbing his burned shoulder to ease the pain and followed Kelmore.

The two had been walking briskly for a while down the dark hallways; there was the odd light but most of the power had been re-routed to other more important areas, they had to make do without a torch as well as trying to be as quiet as possible so as to not attract any more unwanted attention, they wanted to get as far away from the mental killing machine and anything else as quickly as possible.

They came to another junction before Kelmore decided to pop another emergency supply cache, either feeling peckish or that they genuinely needed more supplies, the plasma cannon making a loud clang as Kelmore dropped it to activate the opening sequence.

"You should treat that thing more carefully Kelmore" Vincent said before opening the rucksack and taking out a bottle of water.

He took a swig and was about to put the lid back on when he realised that at the T-junction he was currently standing at; he could see that to both to his left and right, the pre-fabricated corridors were sloping down a little bit, it wasn't very noticeable in the total darkness, but thanks to his luminescent skin he could see there was definitely a gradient. He put the thoughts aside as well as the bottle of water as Kelmore had finally opened the cache; there was a hissing noise as the metal panel slid forward and across as air quickly entered the storage space.

"Chuck us the bag Vincent" Kelmore asked

Vincent did so, and as Kelmore was stuffing the bag with rations, more water and other things, he decided to ask the yellow dragon a question "how are you so calm through all this Kelmore?"

Kelmore paused what he was doing for a few seconds before answering "well we would have died had I been panicked at the reactor room, we would have died if I was to panicked to use the SF-PCL; you would have died if I was too slow on the uptake to pull you away from those Omvenetin subjects, I'm calm because if I wasn't we would be dead simple as that." He finished, shoving the backpack firmly into Vincent's chest

Vincent contemplated how blunt of an answer this was, and shook his head; something was different about Kelmore, but worrying about that would have to wait.

Kelmore picked up the heavy experimental weapon and headed to the junction, Vincent noticed that he had taken a G17 handgun for himself as well, but he was distracted yet again as he followed Kelmore into the new stretch of corridor, as a deep, long, angry gurgling scream was emanated from their left; both heads turned, and there, standing at the end of the dark sloped corridor, was a figure; at first Vincent thought it was just a single failed Omvenetin subject, a shambling abomination. But when it started sprint; no, leap, in Vincent's direction, he had a change of heart and started running down the other slope of corridor.

Kelmore too had started to run and was ominously quiet, not even panting but solely concentrated on running as fast as he could, Vincent was falling slightly behind and he noticed that Kelmore hadn't thought of pulling his gun out and the plasma cannon still looked like it was cooling down, so Vincent decided to grab his out of his pocket; Kelmore must of noticed as he hastily told Vincent "Don't just run, That wouldn't make a damn dent"

Vincent heard the slight fear in Kelmore's voice "what the hell is that!?" he asked, looking behind him, he still couldn't make it out clearly but whatever it was, it was slightly taller than Kelmore, it also didn't look humanoid at all, apparently this thing had fully metamorphosed as well, except it was eight foot of sharp teeth and sinuous muscle with claws and wings.

Kelmore had rounded a corner with Vincent close behind, but he still tried to reply; "well earlier you saw the failed Omvenetin subjects, this is one before we applied Edwards tinkering methods!" he yelled.

Vincent rounded the corner and noticed something odd, the floor seemed to slope more and more, it was a gradual increase, but it definitely got steeper, it was a strange feeling. Vincent then also noticed that the thing chasing them was apparently quite heavy, as with each might footstep t was like the entire hallway bended and flexed.

Then suddenly something dawned on Vincent that sent a chill through his spine; if they were on a table top mountain, and the length of prefabricated hallway with adjoining rooms was sloping down and flexing as the heavy footfalls of the creature hit the floor, then that could only really mean one thing.

Vincent sprinted as fast as he could away from the creature before yelling at Kelmore to get his attention; they needed to turn round, they needed to go back, but before Vincent could even open his mouth, A extremely loud noise reverberated through the hallway, as Vincent looked around he could see metal plates further up the corridor from where they came, buckling and almost peeling away from the floor and ceiling, moonlight broke through as a seam in between the prefabricated segments of hallway opened up, small amounts of rainwater splashing onto the floor. Vincent fell backwards as the first gut-wrenching movement of the hallway happened; he looked up and saw that he was nearly at a forty five degree angle to the other part of safe corridor, but his vision was obscured as he started to slide quicker and quicker to the end of the hallway.

He hit the steel wall hard, and winced as heard something crack in his wings, but pain would have to wait, as Vincent's heart stopped when he saw the sinuous hulking behemoth approaching the end of the good part of corridor, Vincent realised that right now they were in equilibrium, perhaps their section of the facility had fallen as far as it could and hit something which halted its descent temporarily, or maybe the prefabricated steel plates had buckled as far as they could; but Vincent still realised that the addition of the things weight could change that.

It was at the end of the hallway now; Vincent had no idea where Kelmore was, but he gave a small yelp as it leapt the gap with ease. The failed super soldier landed heavily; too heavily.

Vincent saw the confused look on its face when the chunk of facility yet again gave a gut wrenching movement causing it to fall on its ass, Vincent heard the sound of shearing metal and breaking glass as one of the steel plates narrowly missed him and smashed through a lab window, and was then gifted with a sheer sense of vertigo as the section of level five fell, now completely free from the rest of the facility, falling down to the dense jungle canopy below.

Vincent grabbed hold of the closest thing which turned out to be part of the broken window frame, he felt the jagged glass slicing into his fingers and screamed in pain, there was an almighty crash and Vincent, yet again, blacked out.

Well I hope that was worth the weight hehe, I took a guess that you guys/gals would be into that sort of science fictiony stuff with, ha, y'know, this being a science fiction genre and all ;)

OH! and I will congratulate the first person in the opening of every chapter I post of this book henceforth, who can correctly guess what the acronym'SF-PCL' stands for. GET THINKING

;)

And apologies for any obvious mistakes aha, as per the usual

XP