How To Fix a Zero Sanity Doctor

Chapter 3 - Reunion with Reunion

They walked through an endless corridor, a maze-like partition of staircases and pathways. Each step the group took echoed loudly off the vast expansiveness of the surrounding dull colored walls. Each break they took was filled with the deafening sound of a machine humming, one that seemed to originate from all around them.

"The rendezvous point should be just up ahead," Dobermann called up from afar. She was leading the group up front while Amiya stayed vigilantly by his side. Too closely in fact. But he couldn't complain, not with his lack of remembrance.

Their relationship, what could it have been?

Dobermann was scouting the area up ahead, the exit to whatever underground system they were in, with another guard, when he noticed something strange. A small glint of light appeared, one that wasn't easily noticeable and could have been attributed to light reflecting off glass or something metallic. Yet his instincts told him otherwise.

"Dobermann, get back! It's a trap!" he called out without hesitation.

With the reflexes of a trained, veteran combatant, Dobermann immediately took a leap back, assuming a battle stance. The guard with her was not so lucky.

"Shit!" he screamed as he was pelted with multiple arrows.

So he was right. The shape of a reflection depends on the object's surface. In this case, the timing of the reflection suited perfectly with Dobermann crossing out into the open and the crossbowmen aiming his weapon. The shape didn't tell much, the light being too far and too small, but the size did. It narrowed down the options to the source being the metal head of an arrow.

Honestly, he was surprised his head could compute this much information at once and come to the correct conclusion so quickly. Was he some sort of genius before he got amnesia?

From above, countless masked men in white cloaks dropped down.

"We're falling back, cover me!" Dobermann ordered. She struggled to drag the downed guard with her as the Reunion members surged forward.

"Snipers!" Amiya called out urgently. They opened fire, suppressing the oncoming Reunion forces. In response, the Reunion snipers returned fire.

"Dokutah?" Amiya asked, noticing his lack of a reaction. "Are you alright?"

He gave Amiya a quick nod in response. Then, he took a deep breath, and yelled out an order. "Dobermann, leave the guard!"

"Doctor!?" A confused Dobermann shouted back in response. Still, she was not one to disobey orders from her superior as much as it went against her morals. Dropping the guard, she nimbly dashed back to cover.

"Dokutah!?" Amiya also cried out in tandem, just as shocked as Dobermann.

"No time to explain, just follow me!"

He led the squad to a thin, dark corridor. They passed numerous of these on the way to the exit. Where they led to, nobody knew. But the shadowy corridor would make for a good escape and choke-point.

"Defenders, take the rear!" he ordered, taking control of the situation. Two operators in heavy, bulky armor stepped forward, side by side, shoulder to shoulder. It was all the deployment space available in the cramped space. "Shields up!"

They obeyed without hesitation. Just in time too, as Reunion soldiers came in from the left and the right, firing volley after volley of arrows.

So his suspicions were not unfounded. There was a reason Reunion exposed themselves so quickly rather than waiting for all of them to get out in the open. They had a squad flanking from behind and were aiming to use the classic pincer technique to wipe them out. Fortunately, they didn't anticipate us scurrying down these dark corridors.