With his eyes closed, the only thing he could think about was the creature that was ahead. It slowly dragged it's body towards them, he had to find a way to do something with his power.
Hamzah whispered into his duplex. "I know you have secrets my friend. What you choose to do with them dictates who you are."
It had never crossed Marco's mind in the last few days that his new found power might be seen as problematic. He thought back to the night Tyson escaped, seeing the bodies of his dead comrades. He didn't really care for them, but he did feel a certain well of sadness deep within. However, he did not seem to understand where this feeling was rooted, he dug deeper as he closed his eyes while tightening his grip on his left. Marco back to the day the altered appeared before him.
His mother was on that ship, the entire crew was dead and only the altered survived. Or so he thought. As he stared into that thing's eyes, he didn't feel fear. He was frozen due to the situation of course, but in the altered's eyes it did not feel like he could see malice. Not like with the situation he currently faced, where the enemy's gaze only helped to boost his adrenaline.
He came back to his original thought, feeling almost angry at himself. It was always a fact that he glossed over even when telling other people the story. There was no body to recover so he didn't even feel it worthwhile to attend her funeral and instead continued with his studies even though the academy offered him time off for mourning. It was always in his best interest to push forward.
He clutched his fist, feeling a strange warmth run down the back of his hand. He opened his hand, in which was a purple sword.
Barely befitting it's name, it was short in length and thick. The blade was purple, the material looking almost like a crystal speckled with shiny dust inside. The handguard was pitch black and perfectly straight, running through a dark blue handle by the width of the sword. It was incredibly light. He stood up and spun it with his hand, waving it freely in the air.
"Marco, where the hell did you get that?" Bodhi asked, Marco turned to him and pointed his blade at him, "pretty sick, huh?"
"Now's not the time for games. What do you plan on doing with that?" A loud boom echoed through the room as the altered crashed into the hallway. He turned to it, aiming the sword from Bodhi to the large altered that turned it's head and arm towards them.
He raised the weapon to the right side of his head, pointing it backwards at eye level. His right hand was lowered to his left hip, taking a stance to slice with the sword while bending his knees.
"Cutting that thing open." He hurled over the boulder and sprinted through the cave, covering the entirety of the distance between him and the altered. Marco pivoted with his right foot, slightly turning his body as to give the sword more swing.
It was like time had stopped for him, he looked down at the monster who's attention was still not fixated on him, instead staring at the small group of heads ahead that had guns trained on him. In that same moment, Marco felt something puncture his right side.
He was thrown back a bit of a distance away as a loud explosion rang overhead. He quickly looked up to see one of the rods had smashed into the roof at the angle he was at. He looked down at himself on his right abdomen, seeing his suit ripped at the spot he was shot through. A clear liquid seeped from where the patch for his large injury was. "Marco are you okay?" Lyle's voice came through the duplex.
Before he could give an answer, Marco looked up. A large black hand was in his face, he could see through it's fingers the face of the altered who now seemed to have a very thin smiling mouth. It smashed into his face, slamming the back of his head into the floor.
"Marco, no!" Yelled Bodhi who also jumped over the boulder, running in his direction. The altered turned his sight to Bodhi, firing off the missiles from it's hand. He ducked and weaved past the projectiles, making his way to Marco who was still being crushed.
It let out a loud shriek, resounding it's voice through the entire tunnel. It lifted it's hand, on it's palm was Marco who had stabbed his sword into the monster's palm. He hung on and flipped upside down. "Not today!" he yelled.
The monster tried to slam down again, but Marco jumped away just in time. He barreled down to the altered like a torpedo. With his closeness to it, he swung the sword.
The monster tried firing at him, Marco moved his head away, the rod slicing into his shoulder at no more than skin level. He used all his strength to retract his arm and bring the blade down with all the force he could. He aimed for right under where it's face was.
The cut was clean, smooth like butter. He assumed it would be similar to how he cut through the steel doors in port Arturo and his gamble was right.
Bodhi caught up at this point, parrying away the altered's hand that approached Marco's back. It shrieked in what seemed like pain, bringing the hand it used to try and hit them to it's neck. It gripped on tight to the wound and started pulling.
Marco and Bodhi were both almost by the action. They could see as it ripped further and further down before it blew up. Marco was now alone in the cave.
It was all the same, The monster holding on to it's wound while tugging hard at it, but it had stopped dead in it's tracks. It's white eyes looking down straight at Marco.
He turned to where the group should be, all the guns that peeked over the boulders in the entrance now gone. He heard a loud slow clap behind him.
He pivoted again, turning around quickly and swinging his sword. It clinked, hitting nothing but stopping mid air as if he had clashed with something. On top of the altered he could now see a man.
Wearing a long coat and a tricorn hat, his body was covered with head to toe in thick clothing, like slightly baggy pants and combat boots. His face was covered with a tight scarf that covered everything down from his eyes. His clothes were similar in color in color to the trio he had seen in his dream before he woke up in the hospital bed.
Instead of floral designs, his coat was covered in what looked more like deep pitch black roots. He jumped down from the monster, landing in front of Marco who was now immobile.
Marco tried to hold on tightly to it, but the man took his sword effortlessly from him. The man looked at it and spoke in a thick deep voice with an Austrian accent. "You move much quicker than we expected." He swung it around effortlessly as well, getting a feel for the handle.
"Do you believe you are ready?" Asked the man, while reaching into his pocket. Marco was facing towards the monster while the man stood behind him. His sword snapped back into existence, he turned around and sliced through the air quickly.
Bodhi caught it with his metal right arm, it dug slightly into the steel before he pulled Marco pulled it away. "What the hell are you doing? What is that look on your face?"
Marco hadn't noticed it but he was smiling widely, his face was almost maniacal, his mustache was warm and crusty, he felt it with the back of his hand to find bits of crusted up blood. Lyle came up from behind him and kicked him to his knees, stomping on his back and pushing Marco's head to the floor.
"What was that last bit about, huh?" Marco realized he wasn't laying on the floor, instead, on the mangled body of the altered that was coming to them. He tried standing up but was pushed down again, his sword vanished into thin air.
"Are you good now?" Asked Lyle who had his foot on his spine as he pulled Marco's hand up back. Marco nodded, with a sigh, he let him go. He stood up and looked behind him, there were scattered altered corpses all around the main huge one. He turned to Bodhi and asked "What the hell happened?"
"As the creature began to open the... wound? You took it as an opportunity to dive into it's body, it thrashed and rattle relentlessly the wound grew and bodies started to fall out, very quickly it turned into a massacre." He kicked one of the bodies on the ground. "They all had clean cuts that split them in half in one way or another. The creature kept flailing it's body around before you sliced an even bigger opening over the top of it's head." He pointed at the now deflated carapace of the creature. "Whatever that thing was doing... eating them... seems like it made it grow in size."
The handlers were all looking around, he watched to the back of the tunnel as a few of them had begun to try and find a way to get out. "How long was I out?" "Out?" Marco asked and Lyle replied. "My bad, how long was I in?" Lyle looked around, "20 seconds."
In 20 seconds he had killed what was counted to by about 15 B class altered, while not a huge amount, in that short amount of time, the only way is if he went on a rampage while he was inside. He didn't remember such a thing, the only thing in his mind was the cloaked man who was with him.
"I believe no one else saw it." He could hear Hamzah through his duplex. "They were yelling about the black mist again, but I could sense a third in your vicinity, but only for an instant." Marco looked at the ceiling where the monster had blasted, he looked down at his injury. The bandage felt extremely tight now.
He opened up the top part of his suit completely leaving him shirtless. He tugged at the bandage that closed off the gaping injury. Ripping it off, he could see it had completely closed up. Not like scabs or anything, but like the whole section was replaced with new skin and flesh. It looked like it had been run through scolding hot water, but it was healthy nonetheless.
Lyle crouched in front of him, feeling the new patch between his index and his thumb. "Dr. Aubert will like to hear about this." Marco looked at Bodhi, he had a slight frown to his face, he couldn't tell exactly why.