SuperSoldier (SI-OC/MCU) ENG

41: Invasion

41: Invasion

A yellow beam shot out, opening a hole through a small mountain of rubble, then a tiny figure followed, crawling out with disorientation.

"Cough! Cough!" Janet coughed, struggling to clear the dust from her lungs. With her hands on her knees, she carefully looked around—her training room had almost completely collapsed, and if she hadn't reacted as quickly as she did, she knew she would have ended up buried alive... if she was lucky.

"What the hell happened?" she wondered, a trace of fear still present, her hands trembling slightly. But she didn't have much time to process the feeling of almost dying, as another tremor, followed by the sound of gunfire and screams, made her realize that this was not the result of an accident or natural disaster.

'It's an attack.' With that realization, her body couldn't help but freeze for a moment.

What was she supposed to do? As a former civilian, her first instinct was to run and hide. But she wasn't a civilian anymore, was she? She had been preparing to go to the front lines almost without rest. She had asked to join the war, and though she didn't feel ready, she knew she had to step forward now, or all her efforts so far would have been for nothing.

'First, let's find out what's happening.' John should already be fighting somewhere along with Raven. If she was fast, she could reach them and help before they solved the problem themselves.

With that in mind, she turned her gaze to one of the holes created by the collapse, from where the nearest sounds were coming. Without hesitating any longer, she jumped, propelling her tiny body three meters into the air.

One of the greatest advantages of her ability to shrink was that, somehow, she retained her strength and endurance despite being several times smaller.

At first glance, that might not seem like much, but when you go from weighing 50 kilos to weighing 5 milligrams, the change in how you move is more than noticeable.

With quick and agile leaps, Janet began running through the base's hallways, her expression growing darker with every step.

There were not only more collapses,—bodies upon bodies of soldiers and non-combat personnel lay sprawled in pools of their own blood. She had to look away multiple times because, very rarely, was a body still whole.

'This is a massacre.' Everything was happening too fast, and she didn't have to search too long to understand why.

"Grrrgh!"

A group of soldiers huddled together, panic written all over their faces as they fired nonstop. Behind them, some of S.W.O.R.D.'s scientists had taken cover. In front of them, a creature—both eerily familiar and disturbingly strange—advanced, barely affected by the dozen or so bullets that struck its naked body.

Its form, like all others of its kind, was humanoid at the base but with obvious deformities. Where there should have been only two arms, there were instead eight—four on each side. Its legs, on the other hand, were thinner than they should have been, almost withered, forcing it to crawl along the ground using its hands like some kind of grotesque spider.

It didn't seem to have any extra weaponry beyond the metal helmet on its head, but that didn't make it any less terrifying to behold.

Janet's pupils shrank as she took in the sight. Swallowing hard, she felt a small shiver run down her spine.

'No! Don't just stand there staring!'

Overcoming her momentary fear, Janet gritted her teeth and raised both arms. A yellow light flashed from her palms, and in an instant, a concentrated beam shot out, striking the monster's side with enough force to dent a tank.