The seasoned Chosen Survivor has been called upon by higher forces, warning him that the world is once again under threat. Months later, he and the trusty Precursor suit AI, find themselves within a strange new world built of code, the genesis simul...
Post 36: Emerging into the real world, Locke was shocked to find himself completely submerged in a fluid he could not describe, nor identify. Strings of tek material were hooked to his fingertips, and from the back of his head stretched another one. His eyes frantically moved around, as he tried to take note of where he was, and how he could get out of the cramped biopod he was stuck in. That was when a familiar voice with an Australian accent called to him, from the other side of the see-through glass of the pod. "Hello?~ Hellooo? Wake up, survivor! Don't panic, ol' HLN-A's got ya!"
As she said so, the biopod seemed to react, various clicking noises being emitted before the wall of glass before Locke split apart, and he and all the fluids within were dumped onto the floor below. Locke groaned as this happened, a sense of sickness hitting him as soon as the various strings of machinery hooked up to him had been detached. He coughed, cleared his throat, then coughed again in a fit. "We did it, we escaped the genesis simulation! Welcome to the real world! As expected, the other survivors are still stuck in the simulation, but we're free!"
Following the AI with weak footsteps, Locke made his way over to another biopod, akin to all the other ones that lined the walls of the room. There were countless of them, rotating after a set amount of time. He wrapped his arms around himself, trying to keep his body warm as he had been wearing nothing but underwear whilst inside his biopod. As he approached another pod that HLN-A had situated herself by, he came to realize why she had done so. Within the pod, rested a pink-haired woman, – Jay! In a fit of distress, HLN-A explained that as she had suspected, the element was indeed coming from outside the simulation, entering it from the real world, and as she babbled on, Locke watched on as corrupted tendrils and tumors grew across the woman's body, the same way it had done on his face inside the simulation.
"That's not good," Locke mumbled to himself. "We need to find TK, so we can stop the corruption before it spreads any further. HLN-A, figure out where we are." Locke commanded as he stepped away from Jay's biopod, walking through a doorframe leading into a brightly lit hallway. The room was filled with large tek containment units, kind of similar to lockers.
"Uhm Yeah well this is where I tell you the bad news!" HLN-A awkwardly announced, chuckling softly as her little 'ears' twisted downwards. "So I emerged from the simulation with a bit of a head start, and I can very much confirm...TK's not here. At least not in this room with us! However, I was able to prepare something as you were waking up!"
Locke was listening closely as she explained this, but his eyes were captivated by something else. The ceiling was made up of a set of windows, giving him an unmatched view of the stars above. Locke glared up into the sky at the beautiful nighttime, seeing as he had emerged from the simulated world while it was nighttime. Meanwhile, his little robotic companion proudly hovered over one of the large box-like structures within the room, hitting it gently with her fins. Smoke poured from the inside of the container, as it opened itself up, a set of holograms being projected from the inside of the doors.
Locke's attention returned to the AI, but the next second, he stood there wide-eyed looking at the contents of the TEK-locker. Inside, stood a TEK suit, unlike anything he had ever seen before. Sure, he hadn't really seen many kinds of TEK suits besides his own, and the make-shift ones the other survivors were able to make with the resources they had at hand in the simulation, but this suit of armor that stood before him was indescribable. With a sleeker design than the precursor suit, the armor sported a more professional design, appearing more so as a piece of military equipment rather than what one would typically call "armor".
"A Terran Federation TEK suit! I hope this one will fit you, out of the six in this room, this is the only one with the XXL tag, hehe-"
The survivor for a moment shook his head. Not at the remark HLN-A had made about his size, but rather what she said before that. Terran Federation? As in the extinct superpower that fell alongside the earth, centuries ago? Locke overlooked what she had said until he spotted the familiar logo painted onto the visor of the helmet he grabbed hold of. He couldn't believe it. He twisted and turned on the helmet, on the back, 'FAF' was spelled in bold letters. Federation Armed Forces.
As he turned it back around and glared into the visor of the helmet, his eyes met his own reflection. Two perfectly blue glowing eyes stared back at him. The corruption, it was gone! The AIs had been right, his physical body had healed exponentially, and the entire scar that was once there had been patched up, and was now barely visible. His biopod had been able to cure the corruption that had entered his body, all that time ago. Locke was quick to put a hand on his face, rubbing his cheeks and chin when he saw the beardless face he had not seen since prior of Helena Walker coming to him in a vision to inform him of Genesis. It was safe to say, the chosen survivor was spooked.
With no choice left, and TK nowhere to be seen, Locke donned the Federation tek suit. As he balled his hand into a fist, he could feel its immense power surge through the armor, as the lights all over the TEK plating shone brighter than anything he had ever seen before. "Now that you're even firmer than you were before, we should be ready to deal with the task at hand! Buuut I have more bad news, and I'm not sure you're going to like to find out where we are right now..." HLN-A went on to explain, but that is when things took a turn for the worse faster than either of the two could react to it.
The floor they stood on shook vigorously as the rooms around them turned red, all the previously blue lights flashing a deep and dark crimson hue as blast doors covered up the sky-view windows in the ceiling. Locke barely had time to react as the floor of the biopod room he had been in burst open! Pieces of metal flew everywhere, smashing some of the biopods and the people within them. From it, arose a sight that filled the survivor with immense dread, for the first time in so long did he feel true fear and horror. A large, slimy tendril, identical to a tentacle ascended from the dark depths below, and an inhuman roar echoed throughout the building they were in. This was just all too familiar to him.
"ROCKWELL!" Locke screamed, as his stance quickly changed, but before he could swoop out of its way, the purple spotted tentacle flew at him, twirling itself around his body and grasping him with deathly strength. Again and again, he slammed his fists into the monstrous tendril, but to no avail. In response, it smashed the survivor up against a wall, before it swung him into the ground, caving in the surfaces of the room, and leaving Locke unresponsive.
"Oh FUCK!" HLN-A exclaimed as the survivor was swiftly dragged down into the darkness the tentacle had emerged from...
-TO BE CONTINUED-
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
