Marco faded in and out of consciousness, his feet dragged behind him as the two suited men carried him from under his armpits. With his gaze low, he could see that he had been throwing up all over the gown as he was being dragged. Dr. Aubert was following behind the two while typing something in his tablet, Lyle behind her with his hands in his pockets.
He looked up as they quickly ushered him to a room, laying him on what he thought was his bed, feeling the sheets in both of his palms. The light straight overhead lowered as his vision slowly turned completely white before nothing.
Darkness. no, what he thought was darkness. No matter how far he looked, the direction he faced, the way he turned his head, emptiness. The one thing he knew is he could feel his legs tucked against his stomach.
An eternity in a moment, a brief period in what felt like forever, he sat in this strange void. He didn't feel a need to rationalize where he was, instead it was peaceful in a way.
From the dark came a thick blue fog that enveloped him. He could see as dots of all sort of colors coalesced around him. In every direction he could see, it was as if thousands of little stars shifted around, combining with gas clouds to form galaxies. Supernovas flashed and gamma rays shot everywhere before it was all quickly enveloped in a thick purple mist.
It was bright, extremely so. Marco brought his arm up to cover his eyes, he was surprised to see that he was in his usual uniform. He brought his arm down, his vision adjusting as he used his left hand to feel his right. Wearing his usual gloves, his fingertips white, it was hard, not soft like his left, like plastic. He looked at his arbiter, he grabbed his glove and began to pull it off. He felt something bash the back of his knees.
He was on his knees now, looking up. Three much taller people stood before him. All of them were suited up in deep blue suits that were lined with thick silver strings. White cloth formed floral patterns over their suits like a Matador's suit of light. The one in the middle seemed to have a more feminine figure than the two on the right, the other main difference being that she had what looked like an officer's cap like one you would see in a history book. It was lined with the same material, an insignia that looked like a pi symbol from the angle which Marco could see. The two on the sides having hair that seemed more like thick pieces of a veil which flowed and floated despite the lack of wind.
"Is he ready?" The one in the middle spoke, their voice sounded like multiple voices, the same sound as the dream he had with his mom. He squinted his eyes trying to get a look at their face, but it was obscured by some thick black material.
The one on the left had a club on his hand which Marco assumed he used to bring him down. They pressed it against his face, pushing it up and back revealing his neck. The one on the right squatted in front of him and grabbed him by the jaw, moving it side to side. Their glove was cold, Marco felt as the stuck their thumb in his mouth and inspected the inside. Finding nothing, they reached down and took a hold of his suit which they tore open in one motion.
Through all this, Marco was motionless, though he could see everything from his point of view like he had a 360 degree camera he was looking through. The majority of what he saw was the pure fuchsia that enveloped the totality of his sight aside from the three figures.
There was a "second of silence." The person kept their index finger on the spot which the needle was stuck in. They raised their finger and spoke enthusiastically. "He's ready!"
The one with the hat smacked the back of their head with their hand, squatted next to Marco while caressing his right side waist, prodding it with their fingers. They all turned to Marco and spoke clearly in a singular woman's voice.
"Not yet."
He felt a deep stab in his chest, loud sirens blared from outside the room as he sat up. "PUT IT ON!" Screamed Lyle who tossed him his uniform in his general direction. He looked down at himself, a needle stabbed straight into his chest, the two men backed off while he pulled a needle out of himself.
Marco suited up quick, the only difference from his usual outfit was his lack of underwear. He felt boosted up, in less than two minutes he was already fully dressed. He buttoned his his shirts, slipped on his boots and walked through the door. Lyle was already fully dressed.
The two of them ran down the long, long winding hallways. At some point, they came to a dead end. A loud siren that sounded like a bomb alert blasted outside, Marco looked around to see pretty much no movement in the area. "What the hell are we doing? Where is everybody?!" Marco asked loudly, his voice occasionally drowned out by the inner alarms as well.
Lyle snapped his fingers multiple times as he stared at the wall while bouncing his leg. He looked at Marco right after he asked, looking him up and down. "Void surge, High magnitude, you ready?" Despite his choice of words, Lyle was awfully calm.
Huge could mean anything, an army of D-class, a large number of C class, a squadron of B or as little as one or two A class ones. If Lyle was called, it was definitely on the upper end of the danger metric.
The walls slid open. The sky was a shiny orange which was sliced through with what looked like a planetary ring running diagonally through the sky. They were high up on a mountain and he looked down to see a farm colony. Quickly moving purple dots dashed back and forth as the sound of gunfire echoed up the mount.
"Arm up, let's roll." Lyle summoned his gun, adjusted his white suit and slid down the steep end of the hill. Marco summoned his own, not really sure of what his limit was. He looked down at his left hand, the container of his last resort.
He jumped down, his short hair flowed with the wind as he slide behind Lyle who was about 20 feet under him. The two of them arrived at less of a slant and quickly sprinted, their pace picking up slowly before they had come down to the farmland level.
Dust was quickly kicking up everywhere as they ran between a wheat and cornfield. They could hear the partial shouting of other handlers in the vicinity. From the bushes, a C class altered jumped out in front of them.
Tall and Lanky, it held the corpse of a dead farmer in it's hand. It's body was almost tubular, not more than 7 feet tall with a seeming lack of shoulders. It craned it's head slowly, the instant it's bright white eyes scanned over the two of them it leaped with it's claws extended forward.
Marco took aim, shooting it straight down the middle, With a brief whirr, the cannon lit up and fired with a strength similar to that of his rifle form. One clean hole straight through.
"Good, keep moving." Without a moment's hesitation, they ran past the farmer's body. A casualty that would sadly be reported later down the line. The two moved on to find their next adversary.