Crossover Escape: Gotta be more than Lucky to survive

1.11 Keeping in or out

[Holly: That’s a lot of fence.]

[Tails: Couple of contestants showed up to ask about it. The guards say it is to protect the WIC base and keep out the ‘Underworld’ attackers.]

[Holly: By that they mean the Faceless Masks? The same Faceless Masks that the inside area is literally crawling with at the moment?]

[Rӓv: That’s just your imagination.]

[Holly: Right. We’ll so far there hasn’t been anything odd standing out about the interactions between the Faceless Masks and the participants or the WIC people yet.]

[Ghost: Desmond put a group of three down in two minutes.] Luca tilted his head to the side at that information. The only way he’d found to take the Faceless Masks out of commission was to tie them up. Doubtful that he’s just hitting harder. Filing that bit of information away to scrutinise later Luca turned back to his captives.

Luca divested them of their masks and took a good look at there faces. [Lucky: Rӓv run facial recognition.] They looked completely unfamiliar to Luca somewhat unfortunate, but not really surprising. Luca only kept track of his potential TacWar opponents if he hadn’t met someone. He had a good head for faces so he remembered people he met but since this lot didn’t fit either of those categories, their faces didn’t really give him any more information.

[Rӓv: Nothing.] Luca nodded not terribly surprised at least with Rӓv’s program the scan was fast.

“I won’t ask unreasonable questions about who you are, I already know what you’re attempting to do so I don’t suppose you’d tell me why you want to stop the contest?” the three froze in there attempts to get free. Just as well, the vines weren’t designed to manage such weight and they where not tied to hang people for a long period. Not to mention Luca expected someone to come looking for them soon.

“You greedy fool you have no comprehension about what you’re doing.” Luca considered looking around to see if he’d changed places due to the echo of the three voices.

“True, so how about an explanation?” Luca was willing to plead ignorance if it got him some answers.

“The box cannot be opened. Nothing but tragedy awaits.”

[Rӓv: Could they be anymore cryptic?]

[Tails: Probably.]

“Which box?” the three immediately turned silent when Luca pushed for more information. No matter what Luca asked after that they said nothing. Not like we can back out so no point in resorting to forceful means. With a shrug Luca turned and faded back into the forest. Behind him he heard growing shouts and then more voices added to the three. He heard a group as they crashed through undergrowth after him and rolled his eyes. With a light jump and twist Luca settled amongst the branches. He waited as the group passed by beneath him before he moved at a right angle to their path and started back towards the WIC compound.

When Luca reached the edge of the trees it was just in time to see a black orb encroaching on the sun.

[Tails: Anyone read about an eclipse today?]

[Holly: No. there were no solar eclipses expected this entire year. I like astrology and keep track.] Luca nodded to himself he didn’t pay particular attention to that sort of thing but news about eclipses was normally all over the media it was basically impossible to miss.

[Ghosts: Space watchers slipping on job. Disappointed.jpg.] Luca slid down from the tree and headed into the corn field. I seriously hope its that simple.

[Lucky: Everyone head straight to the WIC compound we’ve already seen that the Faceless Masks are good at operating in the dark. We are not used to fighting in this environment and there isn’t much else to be learned. Better to get in a building and a more familiar battle ground.] They might have been fine if it had been a fully wooded area that was familiar, but corn fields and unknown roads were too open with too little visibility.

[Rӓv: Tails and I are almost back at the main building. After the fence went up, we checked the bus and came straight back.] Immediately after Rӓv’s message an image of the bus appeared. Lying on its side in a field of crushed corn it looked like an innocuous accident save for the three metre square dent in the middle of the bus’s side.

[Tails: The bus had rights to fall over, just not sure what it was hit with. There are no obvious indications apart form the size of the dent.]

[Holly: That sort of dent should be from the bus hitting something like a tree or maybe a car running into it. Except we know neither of those things happened. Ghost and I are almost back we’re following Zeno’s group in.]

Luca checked the team markers on the map and sighed. He was the farthest out, it seemed the rest of the group would have no problems. A shiver worked its way down Luca’s spine as he got an uncomfortable chill in the centre of his shoulder blades. Reflexively Luca rolled forward coming up in a slight crouch as he sidled through the corn. The watched feeling faded but a tremor passed through the ground under his feat in time with a resounding thud.

Luca had been planning to move out onto the road but changed his mind. While the corn field wasn’t great cover it was better than no cover. He had thought that the watched feeling was because a Faceless Mask had found a higher position and spotted him but that should have led to shouting. The area was silent. Luca hoped the thump was just an accident that caused some large object to fall over.

Thump. Thump. The ground trembled again at Luca staggered. Yeah, that doesn’t seem like a falling object. Luca increased his pace as much as he could while remaining in a half crouch.

Thump. Thump. More prepared the next time Luca stabilised himself and avoided nocking into another stalk of corn. Corn may we never meet again. Also shouldn’t an eclipse end faster than this?

The sound of a car snagged Luca’s attention and he adjusted his angle so that he could just barely see the road. Driving down the road was a Ute. What should have been a canopied back was instead a weld mesh box. Inside the box were three little known TacWar participants. Luca recognised them in passing from the airport but could not place them from any particular competition.

As the Ute passed Luca noticed that all three people in the back where injured and one of them was shaking the bars and shouting.

“What the… if we want to not… its our choice… no agreement… you can’t just imp… sue you.” Luca only heard bits and pieces of the shouting over the rattle of the vehicle, but it was enough to tell a very bad story. Particularly considering the Ute in question was sporting WIC emblems and was driven by suits.

Thump. Thump. “Roar.” The ear grating noise sounded like a cross between a wolf’s howl, a bear’s roar, and a lion’s snarl. Suffice to say it was bone chilling. Not sticking around to see what the source of that is. Hopefully its just some prank recording. Luca didn’t have high hopes considering the current circumstance as that would make no sense, but a guy could dream.

Luca reached the end of the cornfield and was faced with a lot of empty ground between him and the buildings. It might not have been so bad except the ground was completely empty, not a soul in sight. In fact Luca couldn’t even see the Ute that should have arrived before him.

The map display said that the others where all in the large building directly across from him. So he should just be able to walk straight out and across. As Luca contemplated that option two men and a women came out of the side building and headed toward the large building.

Thump. Thump. “Roar.” Right after the dreadful noise stopped what little light remained vanished and even the night vision enhancement on Luca’s glasses showed nothing but blackness. The sounds grew closer, and a wash of hot mist washed through the corn rattling the storks.

A piercing scream rent the air and was then abruptly cut off. Then as if someone had flipped a switch the light returned. The eclipse ending as suddenly as it had started. Luca looked at the twisted storks of corn that barely left any coverage for him. Then he looked at the ground in front which showed massive cracks spreading out for several points. Finally he looked at the once again empty ground. No sign of the three people at all.

[Rӓv: Lucky? Lucky? I can see your outside are you coming in?] Luca took a last long look around and then jogged quickly across the clearing and into the large building just as Rӓv opened the door.

“Did you hear that?” Luca asked as the door closed.

“Hear what? The sound proofing of this building is good. I didn’t hear anything over your coms either.” Rӓv gave Luca a puzzled look as she led the way inside. Luca shook his head in response not like he could explain now, he didn’t see anything and beyond the damage it wasn’t clear what the cause was. He’d set Rӓv on looking for evidence later. As they moved up to the second floor Luca looked out the window and stopped in his steps. The cracks in the ground had vanished and aside from a few pieces of scattered corn the field looked untouched.