"What is that?" Marissa asked, horrified.
B-64 knew the answer. He had seen them before, though he couldn't remember where. The creatures called The Puppets. He gazed upon the tv screen, an expressionless visage forming onto his visor, a blank face.
The Puppets crawled out from the Obelisk, their cold and dead hands scratching and clawing to get out. Their arms were a dilated blue, dead flesh peeling off of their bodies as they attempted to gnaw and chew their way out.
Mason looked around frantically for his phone. He didn't remember where he placed it. He needed to find it, he needed to make sure his parents were all right. His heart quickened with each passing second that he hadn't found it.
Finally, he found the phone against the kitchen counter. He hastily input his password and pushed hard against the call app. Once it loaded, he pushed his mother's number, putting the phone up against his ear and listened closely.
It rang. One. Two. Three. The seconds ticked by slowly.
Finally, he heard something, "Mom! Are you-"
"Hi! This is Sabrina, leave a message." Mason felt his heart sink.
B-64 lifted a green claw at the tv screen and motioned hastily, and Mason turned to look at the screen. The Puppets had managed to get out of the Obelisk, and began to rip and tear their way through the town.
"How far away is Nyxel?" Axel asked, eyes trained on the tv screen. Those things, they were not like anything he had ever seen. They looked dead, or like empty husks of some race that began to decay.
"Seven miles." Mason said, sitting down on one of the chairs. His voice was monotone and hoarse. He was scared of what happened, and the more he looked at the creatures running through the town through the recorder, the more he felt his heart sink.
B-64 quickly looked around for anything to write on, but there was nothing. Thinking quickly, B-64 rebooted his expression layer for his Visor, allowing him to put anything on it, meaning that he could put words, not just his facial expression.
Axel noticed first that words appeared on the visor. 'We have to leave now." They read. The little green pixelated letters dragged across the entirety of the visor. Axel quickly relayed what B-64 had displayed to his friends.
"Now? But-"
B-64 huffed loudly, sounding much like a rusty and squeaky hinge on a door. Mason stared blankly at the floor, holding onto the clueless hand of Hannah, who was swinging her legs as she massaged her hand, unaware of everything.
"Call your parents." Mason said, monotone. He brought his head up, emotionless. He didn't want to believe that anything happened to them, or his sister, but he knew that they were not answering the phone when they had it on them at all times, especially his sister... Well, he knew what most likely happened.
Marissa nodded, quickly fishing her phone from her pocket. Axel did the same, although much slower than Marissa.
The ring of both phones drowned out the quiet hum that came from B-64's chest, something that B-64 was trying desperately to quiet.
Marissa was the first to put down her phone, looking somewhat distraught. Axel soon came after, looking on the verge of a breakdown. "She... She uhh, she left to go to the women's club meet up in town." Marissa said, pushing her phone into her pocket and sniffled.
Axel didn't want to say anything. Maybe the fact that they hadn't answered was a fluke? Maybe they forgot their phones? He couldn't believe it, so, he decided to just not believe that anything had happened.
B-64 finally hit his metallic chest hard with his claws clenched tightly, putting an end to whatever started to hum. It was time to go.
He quickly reorganized his visors field, allowing his thoughts to form as English words on it, "We need to leave. They will be here soon."
Mason stood up and glanced at the TV. If what happened did cause his parents to... No, he couldn't think that. If they had to leave, then he was going to leave. He had his little sister to protect.
"Let's go."
All of them hastily got into the other car that Mason's father owned, a small greenish black car that somehow managed to fit them all in. Mason quickly turned it on, and with a glance to the back seat and to Hannah, quickly departed from their house.
He took a sharp turn left on his way out, knowing that the closest town might be at the very least twenty miles in that direction. In their panicked state of mind, they forgot a vital thing. They had nowhere to go.
Mason swerved with the road, taking each one with the level of experience equivalent to that of a somewhat competent driver. He had his little sister in the car, there was no singular way he was going to let anything happen to her.
Axel had repeatedly tried to call his parents in the span of three minutes, but to no avail. Marissa was sitting still, not in shock, but disbelief. She wondered, what exactly was happening?
It could all boil down to some prank, or maybe her mother and father simply forgot their phones? She convinced herself of that. Maybe they lost their phones. They could still be alive.
But the farther away from Mason's house, and the farther away from the town they got, the more she grew accustomed to what happened. They all did.
Mason clenched the steering wheel harshly, digging his fingernails into it. B-64 was in the passenger seat beside him, visor completely blank.
Nothing about what was happening made any sort of sense to B-64. Why would The Council send The Puppets to earth? The Puppets where to only be used for planets undergoing rebellion, or to those that had significant risk of fighting against The Council, not some plants that had very little capabilities in space.
It had been so long since he saw anything like that, and in truth, B-64 wasn't sure if he had ever seen The Puppets in action. He had the memories of them, but they were not his. Just another memory shared between the B-Series captains in order for the to know things.
Maybe, the council had finally noticed his absence and had sent The Puppets to subjugate the planet in order to find him? B-64 quickly shot that idea down, though it was still somewhat plausible.
He knew he wasn't important enough to have an entire unliving army sent after to capture and bring him back home, but it was a thought that held some meaning to him.
He was currently looking for the source of the humming coming from inside him. He had never experienced anything like that before, but he needed to know, since his diagnostics didn't tell him anything.
He found that his scanner was slightly damaged, but again, it didn't tell him much. He kept looking deeper, eventually finding that through a series of errors that came from his Red-Boson Energy Generator leaking caused several lines of code to alter, resulting in several vital systems that were used to simulate his sigh, hearing, and even consciousness to fail to some degree.
He would've been notified about this by his own personal system, but that also was affected by the errors. He would be terrified, but he wasn't. His systems had managed to repair themselves just like his flesh, or how he couldn't repair his generator.
Lines of code could be replaced with a series of commands enacted by his body, and they were. The humming came from the generator itself, using some of the excess energy to replace the damaged code and to be able to run properly.
By the time he was done with his diagnostics check, They had nearly arrived at the next town over.
But B-64 knew something was wrong. He could feel the same cold, lifeless chill creep up his back. They all felt something whizzing through the air, even though they couldn't see it.
B-64 acted instinctively, shattering the glass window on the passenger side door and activating his hard-light shield. The hard blue light spread just in time to deflect what seemed to be a spear from puncturing the car door.
Mason swerved as he saw it, but it was too late. Another spear was thrown from the other side, hitting the side of the car with an almost explosive punch, throwing the car with its own momentum into the side of one of the hills.
They all braced for impact as the car slammed against the hell, throwing them all against the side of the car. A deep purple hue took over the entire vehicle, seemingly lifting the thing into the air.
They all felt weightless as it did so, but instantly felt momentum as the car was launched into the trees, nearly cracking the car in half as it slammed against one of the old oaks. The car stayed suspended in the air as they all fell from the now decimated side and onto the ground, Marissa covering the fall for Hannah.
Axel landed onto one of the large sharp stones that perforated that part of the woods, stabbing the piece into his side and drawing blood. Mason landed, back first, against an upturned log and felt something break.
Marissa shielded Hannah against herself as she fell against the hard forest floor, landing against her arm and nearly snapping it.B-64 landed hard against another one of the stones, but being almost purely made out of metal, got right back up.
He brandished his dagger and stood in front of the group, shield ready.
Three dark figures walked forward, and although they were in broad daylight, and completely exposed to the bright light, they were completely enveloped in shadow.
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Ok, to be completely truthful, I don't like how this one turned out. The whole ending scene... It doesn't seem "Action-y" enough, but that could just be me, or it could not be just me. I also feel like the descriptions here were lacking in quality, and I feel like there was no emotional lead nor really any sort of substance here. Again, that could just be me.
Either way, I finally finished this chapter and am glad I did. Sorry for the long wait, but I have some things going on here.
I hope you enjoyed how this turned out, but I will say this, the next chapter will be here soon, and I do mean soon, not this week and a half stuff anymore.
Thanks for reading!
~ Candle