Down with the Ship

The moment Shion and Chizuru's feet hit the deck, the two dove behind two massive transport crates in the center of the craft. As an armed guard walked past, Shion plucked them out of the aisle and with a decisive snap broke their neck. She hid the body behind the crates and she and Chizuru began to move towards the ship's cabin.

Shion peered around the corner and waved her hand in a forward motion to Chizuru who advanced, staying low and leaning close to the side of the crate. She repeated the same signal to Shion and the two staggered their way to a door that they assumed led to the ship's interior. 

They crouched on either side until the door opened. Shion grabbed the door and stopped it from closing, while Chizuru  covered the guards mouth and stabbed them a few times between the ribs before lowering them to the floor. Behind the door they encountered a brightly lit corridor that led to the lower levels of the ship's interior. 

The two hurried down the narrow corridor as there was no way to escape if confronted in either  direction. With no cover of any kind they would be sitting ducks if they kingered there. Just before they reached the bottom of the stairs, Shion peaked around the corner and saw three armed men standing guard. 

"FUCK", Shion mouthed. She showed Chizuru three fingers. Chizuru went straight for two of the blades that were attached to her thigh. She made eye contact with Shion and they understood the plan without the need for words. That was the level of understanding that two battle hardened veterans had with each other.

Shion peaked around the corner, and waited for two of the guards to turn around then counted on her fingers, 1, 2, 3. Chizuru jumped into the aisle striking the guard closest to her at the base of his skull, and hit another guard in the throat. As the second knife was landing Shion punched the remaining guard's helmet causing a fist shaped dent in it. He went limp as blood flowed out of the sides of his helmet.

Shion peaked around the next two corners and when she saw no one whispered to Chizuru, "I find the situation odd. I haven't heard a single person talk or yell or anything but grunt since the initial ambush. Not even these guards were speaking to each other. What kind of guards don't shoot the shit together? Plus, the stealth tech makes me feel like these are not American soldiers."

Chizuru raised one eyebrow as she walked to the first body and removed its helmet, "Skinhead with Ouroboros," she opened its mouth, "yup, missing a tongue".

Shion did the same to the other bodies. All had the same qualities. Shion muttered "Holy fuck. If all these soldiers are like this, just how many people has the church done this to?"

Chizuru chimed in, "These guys have also been acting weird. Like their movements and reactions are a bit delayed from that of a normal person."

Shion's brow furrowed, "Maybe their neurolinks were hacked. I'll check." 

Shion double taped behind the right ear then behind the left. No activation. There was a small bump behind the ear, but it didn't tell them anything. Shion put her hand out and Chizuru instantly knew what she needed and passed her a blade. Shion cut out the bump revealing a small microchip. She had never seen anything quite like it before. It was non-complex when compared to something like a neurolink, but still complex enough to leave both the intelligence officers baffled. 

Shion and Chizuru harvested the other two and decided to take them in to be analyzed. With the communication jammers active there was no way to tell central that the attack was not, in fact, Western. Hopefully New Japan didn't take this as a declaration of war. 

The new primary objective of the officers was to locate the communication jammer and notify the Capitol of their discovery. Despite the two paths, Chizuru and Shion decided to stay together. It made distracting and then taking out soldiers easier and more efficient and gave them an excuse toPlusalone together. Plus,  the whole ship had a creepy vibe to it, like that of a ghost ship. After an intense game of rock paper scissors, the two headed down the path to the right. 

As the two walked down the deserted path, they came upon rows and rows of bunk beds. All the beds appeared freshly made with no personal belongings of any kind to be seen all the bedside photo frames were empty.This told Shion that people did not live here but that the ship must have been recently boarded. That left her with the question of where so many of these mutilated soldiers could have been hiding.

At the end of the hall, there was another half set of stairs leading down further into the hull. From the top of the stairs, an eerie, green light could be seen that made a shudder go down Chizuru's spine. Hands on their weapons the two descended into this creepy space.

At the bottom of the stairs, the green light was revealed to be emanating from a large tank with what appeared to be a completely naked grown man inside of it. Something about the man reminded her of her father, Adam. Maybe it was the shape of his eyes and his forehead. It was hard to tell, but it gave Shion an eerie feeling. Shion leaned in closer to the tank. Suddenly, the man opened his eyes revealing greenish brown eyes, before banging on the tank. Shion jumped back into Chizuru and the two fell back on their butts. 

"That scared the shit out of me. I've only ever seen babies or body parts in containers like this," Shion said while blowing out a long breath. She got back to her feet and read the plaque at the bottom of the tank, "Adam 217". Now that things had calmed down, the two looked around the laboratory, one of the missing machines from the tenth floor was sitting on the counter. Shion said nothing about the files she stole or the one she found named 'Project Adam,' but she was sure they were related to her father after seeing the big man in the tank.

Barrels of the raw materials used to make DMT were also sitting in one corner. A giant control panel with thick metal cables running to the tank sat in the center of the room. Chizuru pressed a few buttons on the keyboard and a loud fan powered on. The loud whir was accompanied by a draining sound. When the two looked up, the fluid level in the tank began to slowly get lower. Chizuru frantically tried pushing the same buttons she had just pressed, but nothing happened.

"Ah shit, I didn't mean to do anything, I promise. Help me! That thing creeps the fuck out of me Shion."

"Worst case scenario I'll kill it. Look at the screen. 'Remote tank drainage protocol initiated', that means it wasn't your fault."

The two anxiously watched as all the fluid drained from the tank. The naked man laid limp on the bottom of the tank while a loud fan hummed as the man's full body was blown dry. With a hiss of air, and a puff of steam, the seal of the canister was broken and the man slid limply onto the floor. 

After a few seconds and no movement from the man, Shion with a sweating Chizuru clutching her back, approached the man and poked him with the hilt of her club. No response. Shion then bent over and was about to touch the man's bald head when he let out a huge gasp and grabbed Shion's forearm with enough strength to crack the bone.

Shion let out a scream and ripped her arm away with all her force while flinging herself back, knocking Chizuru backwards. The nanites began repairing Shion's arm immediately and by the time the man swung a punch at Shion it was already healed. The missed swing struck the computer and obliterated it. The man, almost growling, was swinging wildly, the two barely dodging his swings. His fists burst through the hull several times and an altitude loss alarm began to sound as the man continued punching holes in the walls.

After the man's rampage he looked up at Shion and grunted, "Kana?"

When Shion didn't answer he pressed his fingers into his eyes and began swinging wildly again. Shion was barely able to keep up with him, narrowly avoiding a hit to the jaw but losing her footing. 

As the man's fist flew towards her face again, Chizuru yelled out, "Shion, no!"

Shion closed her eyes and braced for the impact, but it didn't come. The man stopped his fist just inches from her face. "Shion?" the man said between raspy breaths.  A slight smile started to form across his face as one arm, then the other hit the floor, and Chizuru's blade struck him a final time in the throat. As the man lay dying, Chizuru pulled Shion by the arm towards the upper floors. With the crash of the ship imminent, they needed to find a way to escape before they hit the ground. Shion gave one last look over her shoulder at the man before grabbing Chizuru's hand and running with her towards the deck.