Requiem of the Broken

Chapter 20: The Depths

"What the hell is wrong with this place?!" thought Ochako, completely baffled.

She had been wandering in the depths of the base for the better part of a half-hour and every time she thought she was making progress she always wound up back where she had started. This marked the third time it had happened and now she was sure there was something far more sinister at work than just her just having the worst sense of direction possible.

She thought for a few seconds before reaching into a pack pocket and withdrawing several small glowrods. She went to the entrance of what she guessed had been a lab, activated one of the rods, and tossed it onto the ground. Then she started her trek through the halls again.

She kept going until she ran into the T-junction and dropped on at the left-hand pathway. She passed several rooms that she knew were once offices from exploring them earlier and got to the four-way intersection. The left lead to more offices, the center went towards more labs, and the right held more offices and supposedly the way to the elevator and stairs. She had tried that way once already and despite every intersection having signs, hadn't managed to locate the exit. The place was also larger than she had expected. It must have been a major lab for the league and it was likely where a lot of missing material from other facilities was sent. She wasn't sure if she was on the lowest floor or not, but if she was as deep as she suspected, then she was probably on the lowest or second-lowest floor. Which meant the stockpiles were probably located on the upper floors. She'd have to keep an eye out when she got out of here for storerooms.

The hallway had been a straight shot for the last minute, and her mind had drifted, so she gave a start when she found herself back at the lab entrance with her glowrod on the floor. She stared at it open-mouthed when she heard in the distance a distinct metal on metal grating sound. She spun around and she felt a bead of sweat roll down her neck. The place had been dead silent up till now and she'd be lying if she said it wasn't a bit creepy. She waited for a moment and then she heard another faint scraping noise. Another two minutes passed in silence until she started moving down the corridor. She kept her gravity armor up at maximum as she went, floating off the ground slightly so as to avoid any undue noise. She floated like a wraith down the hallway, keeping her eyes peeled for any slight noise. As she got near the four-way intersection, she noticed a section of the ceiling hanging down, connected by a few cables and wire. It hung down enough that someone could hide behind it if they pressed themselves to the ceiling. She grinned and floated up to the ceiling and using used the hanging piece of ceiling panel to wait.  a hanging ceiling panel waited. She could just barely see around the panel into the intersection and thought it likely whoever or whatever had made the noise would come through the intersection eventually.

She wasn't disappointed. Eventually, she heard the noise of footsteps on the floor and she tensed. The footsteps came from the pathway to the right, where she didn't have a clear view. The footsteps came closer and she heard them stop just before entering the intersection. She heard a whisper of movement, like cloth rubbing up against something then she felt something slam into her side. She jerked backward and landed on the floor, only to feel more objects impact her armor and be deflected. She looked up and saw whatever it was, was already on her. She saw some object speeding towards her head and she instinctually shot a hand forward. Using her gravity armor she allowed the object to hit her forearm and let her armor guide the attack away from her and then spun into the creature slamming her left elbow into it. Or tried to anyway, the creature ducked her attack and then jumped backward a fair distance, sliding across the ground and resting in a crouch.

Now that some distance had been made, she could see her assailant clearly and felt herself freeze in shock. Just in front of her, was a human figure, clad in armor plating, holding a wakizashi, and with two burning red eyes staring back at her, equally surprised.