Horrorific

Author: Seth


"This is the real world. Curiosity still kills the cat, but satisfaction never brings it back. Sometimes, if the cat's particularly unlucky, it doesn't die.

There were places that were creepy, and then there were place that were creepy, and unfortunately for the members of Trifecta the underground complex they were prowling through definitely fell under the latter category.

"I've got a really, really bad feeling about this…" Blitz muttered nervously, fingering his quarterstaff as he peered suspiciously at the shadows being thrown across the walls by the blazing flame in Inferno's palm.

"Well that makes two of us." Aurora grunted in response. "That doesn't change the fact that we need this job." Water swirled erratically around the roujin's arms, the small sparks of electricity that coursed through the clear liquid at random betraying just how nervous the young mercenary was.

"I still don't like this." Blitz grumbled, jumping as a particularly energetic shadow danced across the wall to his left. "Short, simple job with a massive payout and next to no information on it; this whole thing smells like one gigantic trap." The blonde panthryan edged closer to his companions. "Either that or we're being used as guinea pigs."

"'Knowing of the presence of a trap is the first step in avoiding it'." Inferno quoted calmly, sweeping the fire in his hand back and forth, illuminating the steeply declining staircase they were descending. "As much as we might dislike it, we've already taken this job and we're already here. There's little to be gained by backing out now, and if it indeed turns out we're being used then we probably have as much to fear from our contractors as from anything we might find down here. I'm sure they have little use for loose ends who abandoned the task at hand."  He re-adjusted his grip on the dagger in his right hand. Poor lighting did not good shooting conditions make. "We have options as long as we have some worth in their eyes, best simply prepare for all possibilities." The grey-eyed tsumejin scanned the approaching bottom of the claustrophobic stairwell with a sniper's eye. "Both for here and outside."

Blitz growled in frustrated annoyance. "I feel like a rat in a trap." He bit his bottom lip worriedly. "Like I know that something bad's going to happen and there's nothing I can do about it."

All three mercenaries stopped dead as they reached the bottom of the staircase, Aurora breathing in sharply and Blitz letting loose a muffled oath. The scene before them, bathed in the dancing half-light of fire, was surreal and unsettling. A pair of thick, steel double doors stood in front of them, or what used to be steel doors. One of the large metal rectangles was hanging off its hinges at a crazy angle, bent almost in half. The other one was little better, with large dents covering every inch of its surface and a gaping hole where the handle used to be. On closer inspection the hole looked to have been torn out of the door.

Of equally disturbing concern were the walls which, now that they had stopped and took a closer look, proved to be covered in deep gouges, seemingly at random. Gouges which stopped inexplicably at the very first step leading out of the underground bunker, sometimes mid-scratch.

"I rest my case." Blitz crossed his arms. "It's not worth it, I don't care what we're getting paid, or what kind of enemies we're going to make." He looked perturbedly at the space between stair and floor where a foot-deep scar in the wall stopped. "Something's wrong with this place. Something's wrong and if we go any further I just know we're going to find out what it is." The blue-eyed boy knelt down and fingered the furrow, taking note of point where it cut off. The scratch stopped, leaving a perfectly flat space where the stair hit floor, almost as if someone had removed the section of wall that had originally held to rest of the gouged mortar and replace it with new rock.

Aurora narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean you 'know'?"

Blitz shook his head oddly. "Well I don't actually 'know', but I've got this feeling." He rubbed his arms uncomfortably, leaning his staff against the wall. "And it's not just because this place is in that forest either, though that's part of it. I'm getting that feeling, the same one I got before we ran into that 'dragon', and if you want me to be honest it's scaring the hell out of me." He shook his hands, trying to get them to stop trembling.

Aurora's face looked pensive, her eyes stormy with worried thoughts. She turned and raised a questioning eyebrow at Inferno, who after a moment's deliberation frowned and nodded a grudging assent. Aurora sighed.

"We're going in." The roujin stated softly but firmly. "No, don't start," she cut off Blitz's protest before he could even get a sound out of his throat. "You said it yourself; you're getting the same feeling. If that means what we think it does, then we'd end up coming back here anyways, and we've got no idea what we might lose by trying to avoid it."

"Fine." Blitz grunted, his body language stating quite obviously that he was still very much against the idea. "Just don't say that I didn't tell you so." He roughly grabbed his staff from the wall.

Infinitely more cautious than before, the trio snuck through the ruined doors into the empty corridor beyond. The corridor was more spacious than the entrance stairwell, but in contrast it was equally as trashed as the double doors they had just left behind. Dents pockmarked every metallic wall, fighting for dominance with the deep scratches that had also been torn into the steel, leaving little pieces of metal jutting outwards and scraps of steel littering the floor. Along with the brutal disfigurement of the surroundings there was also extensive fire damage, with soot caking every surface and areas where the wall had started to melt.

The farther they went down the deserted hallways, picking past innumerable bits of rubble, the worse and more varied the damage got. Five minutes into their paranoid infiltration they began coming across bloodstains, faded and crumbling which still did little to mask the sheer volume of ichor that had once coated the walls and floor. Soon signs of water damage started appearing as the bloodstains suddenly stopped, washed away years ago by some fluid, and rust eating into the metal around them.

"This silence is starting to get to me." Blitz said, his voice hushed with creeping fear. Both Aurora and Inferno jumped as they skirted potholes in the rusted floor. Evidently he wasn't the only one.

"Me too." Aurora admitted, her voice equally quiet. "It's like there's nothing here, but if that's true, why didn't they simply come themselves?" She mumbled nervously, thinking of the cloaked individual that had offered them the job.

A crunching sound resounded reverberated deafeningly throughout the corridor, and this time all three of the jumped. Inferno, who'd taken point for the duration of the mission due to being the trio's light source, lifted up his foot cautiously.

Glass. He'd stepped on a shard of glass.

Raising his hand a little higher he let the sphere of fire licking his palm cast its light farther down the hall. A thousand points of light twinkled back at him as uncountable shards of glass were caught in the flickering light.

"This place is going to give me a heart attack." Blitz joked weakly as they started to uncomfortably crunch their way down the hall. "I can't tell what's worse, the silence, or being attacked." The panthryan's shaky voice made it perfectly clear that he considered the prospect of being ambushed in these cramped corridors equally unappealing. "I'm starting to wish that whatever's down here would come out and attack us or something, al-" He cut off abruptly as the words jumped back down his throat. "What in the world…?"

He hadn't been to only one who was shocked. The trio had squeezed past another ruined door, only to stop as they were confronted by gigantic room, filled with rows upon rows tubes, some whole but most shattered.

"What the hell is this!?" Blitz breathed as he stumbled carefully into the immense chamber.

"… Test tubes. They're test tubes." Inferno whispered, taking in the whole scene with unbelieving eyes as he caught up to Blitz. "Eerie."

"'Something wrong', huh?" Aurora muttered as she walked slowly up to one of the few whole tubes that remained in the giant room, leaning forward and peering into the green depths of the liquid it held. A sharp intake of breath could be heard throughout the test tube chamber. "Inferno, Blitz, get over here. You need to see this." The roujin hissed urgently.

The sound of cracking glass echoed in an unearthly symphony as the Aurora's two companions hurried over to her.

"You find something, Bean" Blitz asked, taking some comfort from the familiar nickname. "What is it?"

Aurora just pointed at the tube.

Shooting Aurora a questioning look, Blitz turned to the tube and peered into it. A moment later he recoiled as if bitten.

"There's something in there!" He exclaimed. "A… girl. Wait a second," the panthryan leaned forward for a closer look. "She looks like…"

"That girl from the Jericho Army." Aurora nodded. "More importantly, I think I just realized who they both remind me of."

Inferno and Blitz both turned to look at the blue-haired roujin who nodded upwards. Following her gaze, the two boys saw a enourmous symbol that dominated the chamber's roof. Raising his hand, inferno flared the sphere of flame, throwing the symbol into sharp contrast.

"Isn't that-?" Blitz began before a look of understanding dawned on his face, followed quickly by dread as he quickly looked between the symbol and the tube. "You mean… That is… They are…? No, you've got to be shitting me, this isn't… So in the forest?"

Inferno let the light of his fire die down. "You know the legends just as well as we do." He said, having reached the same conclusion as his partners. "It's one of the powers they attributed to her. One of her most celebrated ones."

"Yeah, but they're legends!" Blitz argued half-heartedly. "They aren't supposed to-"

"Who are you?"

The tiny voice that rang out behind the trio cut Blitz off mid-sentence more effectively than if he'd been gagged. Turning slowly, the three of the came face to face with an almost exact replica of the girl that was suspended in the tube behind them.

"Get away from my sister," The small blue haired girl demanded, her green, slitted eyes narrowing. "Get away from her, you don't belong here!" The girl took a menacing step forward, the rustle of her ratty brown shift drowned out by the crackle of electricity as wild lines of power erupted into existence around her hand. "Only my family is allowed here! This is our home, we won't let anyone take it form us!" Her mouth split open in a snarling rictus. "You aren't fa…mily?"

She paused, the electricity around her hand whining before abruptly dying out. At the same time Blitz winced and gripped a hand to his chest.

"You… you aren't my sister…?" The girl half asked, half said, staring at Blitz. "You aren't… but you are…" Her eyes started to widen. "That means…" The small clone started giggling, a high, keening giggle as a demented grin started to spread across her face. "It's spreading, our family is spreading!" The giggles turned to mad laughter that shook the entire room.

'Our family?' Inferno mouthed questioningly to Aurora and Blitz, keeping a wary eye on the insane child in front of him.

Neither the panthryan nor the roujin answered his silent question. They didn't need to. Out of the gloom, figures started appearing. Tens, maybe even hundreds of girls came forward, some young like the one that had snuck up on them, others looked to be in their twenties, and even others in their thirties, but they were all unmistakably the same person. Before they knew it, the members of Trifecta were surrounded on all sides by blue haired clones.

The tiny girl that had first confronted them stepped forward again, though this time in a manner that would have been considered friendly, were it not for the expression of deranged joy on her face. Stopping in front of Blitz, she threw out her arms and shouted in a roar that was taken up an all sides.

"COUSIN!!!"