-Gassy-

My eyes study the area carefully before I find the red marks on the walls from where the last Hidden had escaped. Feeling a bit grossed out, I raise my hand towards the blood and save a small sample into the tiny bottle. Pocketing the bottle I look around for any other places with red but the single place was the only place I remember seeing it. Diction ordered me to collect as many samples as I can for the researchers at the last minute when I got here. When Ze found everything he used Nanners blood, and now the continued research is using Chilled's blood samples, but they aren't finding shit so they must have figured they find something using a variety of samples. Looking back at the rest of the base... it's a big mess. Bullet holes are all over the walls as result from soldiers who just panicked and shot at the sight of a blur. Even though we have the cure already they're still studying them, looking for any weaknesses and such. It seems like an excuse to keep the researchers busy and believe they're doing something.

"Gassy," a voice calls out, distracting me. I turn back towards Ohm, seeming a bit nervous in the battlefield just stepping around everything. Ohm is always a top quality soldier but at the same time he has his weaknesses, usually wandering off or abandoning his teammates and such. Causing too much trouble in the battle and such just messing around and playing around. Right now he seems pretty serious though, in the face of seeing what could eventually happen to our own base.

"What's up Ohm?"

"Minx was hurt." I blink in surprise and turn away from whatever I was doing and allow him to lead me to where Minx is. "There are more Hidden still around, she's not the only one around. They're only attacking when they see someone alone," Ohm explains and I nod, a bit surprised I wasn't attacked considering I was alone for quite a while already. Following Ohm I notice plenty of hurt people around, some dead bodies that I'd prefer not to look at. "Should we...." I glance towards Ohm and sigh, patting his shoulder when I notice his nervousness about the entire situation, which isn't surprising considering these are our own friends.

"We're evacuating the entire base," I say, confirming his thoughts. The people around look to me immediately, many disliking the idea already but... "It's too late for this base. They've already taken over. We need to learn when to admit defeat. We can't win every battle," I explain and immediately the people around us all turn away, admitting to the defeat that is clear. Ohm stares at me for a while, seeming to dislike the idea but sighs and nods, motioning me to Minx who is sitting on the ground grasping onto her knee with blood stained at her pants. "I'll call for some more back up, Diction will send more guys here to help evacuate. First we need to get everyone out of the building where there are a lot more sneaky corners and holes the Hidden can hide. We'll get everyone out to the field," I explain, loud enough so other nearby soldiers can hear who are still capable of moving on their own, then moving and helping others move out.

"What about the things at this base?" Ohm asks, seeming hesitant to abandon an entire base, making it become another abandoned building like the Hidden seem to have a liking towards. I stare at him for an extra second before looking at the rest of the building around and the injured people all on the ground and leaning against the wall. This place used to be a home to a lively base just like mine, but it was destroyed so easily, it makes me worried if the Hidden will try to do this more often, get to each base one by one until they own every base surrounding IRIS. Sighing I scratch the back of my neck and close my eyes, feeling a lot of responsibility lying on me right now, what to do with these people and this base. Their captain is in no way shape or form to provide leadership, so I'll just have to make sure they're all taken care of.

"Stick with me, we'll go scavenge and see if there's any important information and files on base to take before abandoning it. We have no choice if we want all these guys to get helped as soon as possible. Minx, I can trust you to look over it all?" I ask, causing the injured woman to wince and glance up to me and despite the pain she smiles and holds her hand out. Taking the small hand she gets up and immediately stumbled forward into my arms. I glance around looking for something to stabilize her but Ohm hurries to get a large stick from outside and Minx leans with the aid of the supporting stick.

"I'll do my best until the others show up. Watch out, they can be crawling everywhere," Minx says and I nod, motioning for Ohm to follow me after sending Diction the text explaining things. Of course we can wage war on these guys here but that'd also mean sacrificing all of the lives here that can be saved. Ohm follows closely behind me as I force a door open, surprisingly rough to open showing a large room with many tables scattered around. This must be their mess hall, there won't be anything specially interesting in here. Ohm walks past me, going deeper into the room while I observe the entire room very carefully and when I find there being no strange blurs or anything of the sort I slowly follow Ohm as he picks up a small tray on  table. 

"We were doing so well too," Ohm mutters and I wince in a bit of guilt despite none of this being my fault at all. He's right, we were making such advances on the Hidden from raiding their bases to finding the cure but after we got a lot farther it's as if it just lessened their lead for a bit and now we're on equal terms, despite them having much less people on their side. We have so many people but one Hidden can take out ten of us if they're some skilled Hidden. After everything that happened it feels like we're fighting some sort of supernatural force, and maybe that's why Ze and Chilled were the turning points of this war. They basically gave us all hope and belief that the Hidden weren't a supernatural abomination, but instead, they were just regular humans with a scientific and completely explainable mutation to them that we can fight against. Maybe that's why Diction got more researchers to begin with, because they give us all hope that we may actually stand a chance and can understand them.

Suddenly a noise of something falling onto the ground alerts me and I immediately point my shotgun towards the small tray that falls to the ground at the opposite side of the room. The tray is suddenly blown into smithereens when Ohm freaks out and shoots at it. Rolling my eyes, I pat his shoulder as I pass by him and he just frowns in embarrassment and follows after me as I find a different exit from the mess hall. The hallway is empty, previously having a bit of people hanging around which means Minx is getting to work at least, while Ohm and I haven't progressed at all to find anything helpful. Cautiously watching my every step I finally find a room that seems to be of use and slowly open the door and step aside, allowing Ohm to push forward and immediately I flinch when I hear the loud gun shots from Ohm. Is he freaking out again? I take a step forward and immediately wince and step back when an invisible force pushes past Ohm and directly in front of me. Without hesitation I shoot the creature down, causing it to wriggle on the floor before sizzling and evaporating into the air. I watch it silently before turning away and notice Ohm staring at the dead body with a strange gaze. I ignore it and walk past him and into the computer room.

"Look through the smaller ones. I'll try to get everything off here and delete it," I explain to Ohm who silently nods and slowly gets to work on the other computers. I glance up to him curiously, for a man who has killed many Hidden before he seemed to react a bit strangely. Whatever, it's not like Ohm is a good liar, he's terrible in missions when it's important and people always manage to see through him. I'm still a bit paranoid about the fact that there is another traitor on base, someone who had been there from when Nanners and I worked there and were traitors as well, working with the Hidden. Taking out a flash drive that had been here, likely a possession of the Hidden I just murdered, and wipe the system. I pocket the flash drive before looking up to Ohm who is half way through the computers while I open the door and look around cautiously.

"Hey, Ohm, do you by any chance have a C4 or any other type of explosive on you?" I ask and Ohm blinks, seeming confused but shakes his head. Of course, this was supposed to be a simple helping out mission, nothing too serious and yet it's turning out to be a lot more intense than it should have been.

"I have a couple of grenades I thought might have been helpful, if you want those," Ohm offers and I nod, accepting the two grenades he tosses towards me from his position working through the computers. Staring at the two grenades, I slip them onto my belt and glance back towards Ohm.

"I'll be right back. Don't forget to watch your back in case a Hidden comes in here," I warn and he nods as I leave the room and hurry through the halls before opening the door I was looking for, similarly structured to my own base. A smaller version of IRIS with much less security, it was like a small exercise the Hidden were doing before attacking us, and the thought of that makes me feel sick. I search around and find the important files all messily bunched up into folders. I grab onto a random folder and toss it onto the desk before opening it randomly and looking around the different files ranging from the soldier profiles to mission details. Taking out a random file I stare at the expressionless male on the picture before tossing the entire folder onto the space before the drawers and prepare the grenade to be thrown in with the files. We should have back ups of all of these on the database anyways, and if not, it'll be in the flash drive in my pocket. 

I stay outside of the room, waiting as I hear the three consecutive explosions and slowly open the door, faced with a wall of smoke causing me to go into a coughing fit and turn around from the explosion. The room is definitely destroyed though, any file the Hidden could have hoped to have retrieved is now missing. Suddenly I feel a cold wind pass by me and I immediately turn around and watch as the blur tumbles down to the floor. There was a Hidden in that room I just destroyed, I wonder why they didn't make a single move towards me. Suddenly it leaps towards me but I quickly step aside and shoot at the blur but somehow it doesn't make contact, which is surprising considering it was right in front of me. Maybe I'm not as good at my job as I thought it was. Well it's fucking bullshit in the first place since they're all completely invisible. The being jumps away, making an escape as I continue trying to shoot, never making contact. I stare for a moment longer before turning back and meeting up with Ohm again.

"Everyone's out here?" I ask Minx as we rejoin with the big team, many soldiers all out on the grass, including their captain who has looked dead ever since I took control. She's probably traumatized now, her base is destroyed and has no hope to be recovered, at least at this rate. "You should rest, that must have hurt," I mention, motioning towards her leg and she immediately nods and sits down on the grass as well. 

"Everyone I found. You guys didn't get hurt? Impressive," Minx notes, her eyes looking between Ohm and me, completely healthy unlike the rest of the soldiers around. A roar of an engine disrupts us and we all look sighing in relief as the familiar base trucks come riding out and brake before the big group. Sark climbs out of one of the trucks and looks to me with a smile.

"Everyone's here in this group? We're going to divide these guys into the other nearby bases," Sark explains and I nod, watching the people as they're all being helped up despite the pain. My eyes wander off from them and towards the sky beyond everyone and the distant tree line. The sun is rising, the pitch black sky from earlier now becoming slowly more illuminated but definitely getting brighter. "Ride with 04 if you wanna go back to the right base. Hey, Gassy, are you even listening?" I shake my head silently causing Sark to roll  his eyes and turns away from me to order the rest of the guys. My eyes remain glued to the sky before shaking my head and focusing again. I wonder how Ze is doing, wherever he is. Heaven or Hell, or maybe even alive, hell if I know. I just hope he's doing well, unlike me as I stand here surrounded by my own injured comrades.

-Ze-

Small strings of light are escaping the broken blinds and the carpet is torn with red splatters randomly spread throughout the room. The drawers are wide open with several shirts fallen in front of the dresser and the bed... I wouldn't even think about sleeping anywhere near the thing. The curtains are moving as a result of the cold drift the wind is creating despite recently being a completely enclosed room designed to be keeping the insides warm a as opposed to the outside cold. Now it's freezing inside, every broken piece of furniture and cloth now emitting cold from having been under the cold for so long. My hand grazes against the rough sheets on the bed and without a second thought I flip the mattress over and underneath it's just as expected, a small journal. I pick up the small book, small enough to fit in my palm, but before anybody else can see it I stuff it in my back pocket and stare at the metal frame underneath the mattress. Moving along I head towards the blinds in front of the curtain and lift up the thin blinds to reveal the light and few trees outside with plenty of people wandering outside. I jump when a sudden cold pressure is put onto my shoulders but relax when I turn to see the source.

"Steven, you'll get cold like this. Wear my jacket," Leo says and I just nod and shove my arms into the sleeves of the large over sized jacket. I stand still for a few moments before taking off the jacket and returning it to the older man.

"I'll be fine. It's too hard to move in that thing," I answer simply and he just chuckles and shrugs. I watch out the window, a huge crack in the middle of the window making it so I can see those outside perfectly with the lack of any glass. "When are we leaving?"

"Already getting bored? I thought this playground would entertain you," Leo pouts and feigns a look of hurt but when he sees I'm not buying it he just laughs and shrugs, looking away from me completely. "No, no, don't look at me so coldly. I know, no place would entertain you. Just bare with it for a few more moments, I wanted to show you someplace other than the ordinary. Didn't you think it was at least interesting while it lasted?" I stay silent and look away from him and step away from the window.

"I don't know. I'll look around more," I answer and exit the room, entering the large hall again with dead bodies scattered around in different areas. Ignoring the bodies I step through the hall and open random doors, finding them to be exactly like the first and uninteresting. This place is structured strangely, it has a countless amount of bedrooms and many people live here, it makes me wonder why this place is here and necessary. But I know if I ask where I am it'll only make me mad at myself for being so oblivious to things they all seem to find as common sense. I found that a lot in the beginning, and slowly I've gotten a grasp on the world around me but I don't understand why I didn't have that "common sense" to begin with like everyone else had. It upsets me that I'm slower at understanding everything, what made it so I don't know about anybody I work with or anything about other places besides the one I reside in?

"Leonardo, is this the pet you've been keeping?" I flinch at the sudden voice and turn around towards the source, as does Leo who had been walking closely behind me. Leo laughs and nods, wrapping an arm around me and bringing me closer to his side. I blankly stare at the two men who seem to be evaluating me as though I'm some sort of animal, like everyone I meet besides Leo does really.

"Yep, isn't he cute? He can see you too, he's making that face acknowledging it's you here," Leo explains and the older man laughs and nods, looking at me with a strange sort of look, a nasty look that makes me feel like ripping the man's throat out. Well, maybe not, but I don't like the look he's giving me at all.

"He really is a poor brainwashed tool, is he not?" he murmurs seeming thoughtful at my own existence. I look away from the older men, having enough with them and continuing my way down the hallway. Ignoring them seems to have amused them, laughing behind me as if it's the funniest joke they've ever heard. To some extent I know that they all see me as some sort of weapon of tool to use. I'm not so idiotic I haven't taken in all the hints they all usually throw at me being brainwashed, I've realized there is something wrong with my existence being here, colluding with them. But, thing is, I know the moment they discover I already know more than they would allow and for a second believe I'll betray them, they will murder me. Suddenly a door near me bursts open causing me to flinch and step back and immediately jump away when the mad man fires in all random directions with his single pistol. So there was still someone living here after all. Glancing back at the other three that had been standing at a distance they all watch me carefully, as if a test appeared in front of them. Sighing, I grab a hold of the man's shoulder and lift my hands to his head. And with hardly any effort his neck snaps under my grasp causing the man to completely silence and fall to the ground.

"Sorry honey, thought we got rid of them all for you," Leo calls out with an amused smile like always. I roll my eyes and stare at the body on the floor. They meant to keep him alive just to see if when they allowed me to travel the house if I'd allow him to continue living or get rid of him when I encounter him. Looking around I open another random door and find a completely white room on the other side. Curious, I enter the room and glance around, broken glass and bullet holes are all over the place with strange fluids spilled onto the floor. I wonder... what was this place used for?

"Alright Steven, it's time to go," Leo calls out to me and I immediately retreat the room, glad to just leave the horrid sight of bodies and blood everywhere. I find Leo in he distance motioning for me to go to him as if I really am his pet. Internally I roll my eyes but in reality I hurry towards him much to his satisfaction. He stated at me for a moment longer before walking forward with some sort of interest on me.

"There are some Hidden coming from America today. They're bringing something interesting," Leo comments seeming as if he's sharing a secret with me.

"And what does that have to do with me?"

"Oh I dunno, it might interest you as well, it might not at all. I'm more interested to see if it interests you." I raise an eyebrow towards him but ignore it, sighing. This guy is always up to something, sometimes I wonder if he's on the Hidden's side with the amount of things he keeps from them. One including me, how I even came to be is one of the secrets he refuses to tell anyone, including me. Everyone at first seemed to know about me and were all amazed at how I was, for some reason I never bothered to look into. There's some sort of secret behind him that he's keeping that seems to involve me, it makes me curious. If he found out I was curious though I wouldn't doubt he'd murder me on the spot. For some reason he's intent on having me play as his loyal toy who listens to him blindly, and if for a split second I were to seem to become a bit rebellious he would do something to make sure it doesn't happen again. 

"How has you training been with the captain from the other day?" Leo suddenly asks and I frown, remembering the day when he just pulled me aside from my usual just relaxing and forced me to go to that man and do as he ordered. 

"It was... fine. I improved," I mutter and suddenly I flinch as Leo's arms come around me and I feel the laughter cause his chest to vibrate against me.

"You really don't like to listen to others. Don't worry, it's momentary. Before I know you'll be fine on your own," Leo explains, messing with my hair forcefully before turning away from me and motioning for me to continue to follow him. "You never know when some bastards are going to come and try to snatch you away. Trust me, it's happened before."