Corruption

The humanoid robot started to arise; its body was twisted and distorted like a dislocated doll. Hino looks over at the hole he made with his laced arrow.

'It's gone...' His expressions tighten, and his brows focus on the demon before him; he couldn't believe this was possible.

All the agents stop celebrating. The silence was overwhelmed by the metal clashing within; the metal moved like it was breathing, like it was a creature with a heart.

"Everyone, pull your guns back out and aim at it!" Hino's orders go rampart into the sky; nobody dared to move; the fear stirred in them was far too overwhelming for one to bear.

Lucy in the control room gives a little sigh, "He still needs training after all." Telling the control room to link her to all the earpieces, she takes command once more.

A connection between her and the agents was made.

"Did you not hear him? How dare my own agents be afraid of a singular robot?" The disappointment in her voice was clear. The agents started looking around, noticing how fearless and fierce Hino was in the face of a new threat, their eyes wandering and darting to each other, making them quite embarrassed of their positions.

With a swift action, all the agents pull out their guns, aiming at the humanoid robot that had limped over with its dirtied metal exterior; the hole was converging and twisting around, waiting like a pulse.

Lucy once again decides this was enough. "Fire at three, one, two, three!" Her orders echo into each of their ears, sending down a shiver that far surpassed the fear of the mechanical robot coming back from the dead.

bang

The guns set ablaze from all angles, bullets rain into the robot, making holes beyond repair at every angle of the robot. There were over a hundred damaged parts in its mechanical form; its body starts to disintegrate down and immediately evaporates into the air.

'I doubt that's the end... It didn't die but rather disassembled itself. Hino scans the area, noticing a little metallic, worm-like creature digging underneath the earth's surface, disappearing into the safety of the deep ground.

Immediately assessing the risk, he orders a retreat: "Everyone get to the metal sheet of Shilo now!" His orders confused the agents, thinking they won.

Lucy, on the other hand, thinks deeper on why Hino suggests such a weird course of action. "Zoom into the death of that robot for me." The operator next to her starts clicking away, and on the big screen in front of her, the replay of the death was played.

Her eyes wander around trying to notice any slight discrepancies between a normal death other than the evaporation; her eyes focus on the ground where she spots that same mechanical worm burying itself down.

She turns desperate. "All agents get to the metal sheet of Shilo!" The loud yell stunned them, but without stopping, they all started moving and driving towards the metal sheet, with Hino already ahead.

His eyes turn back as he looks at them following his lead; the loud sound of crunching breaks into him. Agents collapse, seemingly limp, next to him; around him, he alone with just a mere tenth of the original size stayed alive. His eyes wander down to a nearby agent, noticing the assembly of multiple worms which snapped the neck of the agent.

Hino's legs land on the metal sheet within the wall. 'It can't bury when I stand here, but with the remaining forces we got... It might be impossible to win.' His eyes darted over at the other agents joining him, standing at the metal sheet of Shilo embraced by its warm surface.

Instantly rushing to a feared agent, he snatches the earpiece from his ear, causing a little scrape; despite the hurt agent, he didn't dare to rebuke.

He turns on the microphone, somehow unsure but working. "Minister, this thing..." He gets cut off.

"I know. I'm going to try and send help if possible, but all the agents with you are all you got – around 8 left." She starts squeezing the chair in front of her.

Hino awaits the worms moves; they could regenerate, bury themselves and many other things he wasn't aware of yet. This was even beyond K4's construction capabilities.

'The bodies are twitching. Is it trying to use them for its own goals?' His eyes dart over past the breached wall at the frozen bodies and cars that lay dormant from the massacre. They slowly twitch like if coming alive. Just like the humanoid robot from before, they are distorted and twisted with the occasional crunching sound.

"Beware, it's using the bodies of your agents as hosts for its use; don't treat them like your own." Lucy cuts off the connection, afraid of what more she will hear: the unbreakable fate of her own men, the men she was in charge of now being used to fight a mere teenager and the remaining forces.

'Did she really cut herself off? After thinking I might have a chance at help here, his frustration was evident, but it didn't matter; the corpses rose artificially, glaring down at the remaining soldiers like prey of the day.

They slowly walk past the breached wall, giving an intimidating aura as they slowly devour the safety they felt from before; their mere slow walk was a sentiment of what might happen if they don't survive this.

'This might not be so bad after all.' His thoughts quickly change their pacing as they start leaning over like dead people begging for quick death; they run faster and faster. Without time to think further, Hino takes out an arrow, shooting the approaching dead agents.

All the other agents also start firing their guns, beaming down the horde of agents in a matter of seconds. They all collapse on the metal sheet, causing the mechanical worms to shatter as they try to recompose themselves together; they re-enter the bodies and take control once more.

It was a neverending cycle of killing and revival; no one would come out alive at the end of this. Even Hino, who started being low on arrows due to the uses he needed, the agents, on the other hand, started running out of ammo, and the worms didn't stop coming.

"We all must retreat further back." All the men with hino started running faster away; the sheet, however, was too much, just too wide to cover in such a short time, and the worms gained distance over time, starting to get closer, making them just as dead.

Hino taps the earpiece. "Minister, I hear helicopters; where are you?" Desperation flooded him with an incentive of fear seeping into him.

He looks up, darting around for any sign of helicopters, but they seem to be ignoring them, the pilots almost invisible to their worries from below despite the dire situation.

"Minister?" confusion riddles around after getting no reply; in the distance there was a single SUV approaching the agents, who now started to fall behind; from the eight, only now a matter of five remain as the horde catches up; Hino, on the other hand, has no plans of getting caught and rushes towards the approaching SUV.

When the SUV reached his vicinity, it stopped, Lucy stepping out of the SUV and instantly grabbing Hino into the backseat and starting to drive off with little notice; the engine roared in the inner silence they bathed in. There was an eerie pact between them, like they both knew something.

Lucy speaks up. "Shilo is starting to get overrun with these worms like you fought... they even took control of the HQ; that meatball spat them out before your friend took it out."

"That's not possible..."

Lucy turns back. "It is now; we have a safe house repairing your friend currently too."

"Repairing!" His voice jolts at her just like his body leaning towards her.

Lucy sighs. "She fell off the skyscraper; her body shattered like glass and became nothing more than fragments. The mind is intact, but the body needs repairs."

'Repairs her? That's impossible. This might be worse than I thought that this wasn't as bad as it was before.

The SUV pulls into the city centre. The shattered area was hard to navigate, and the occasional worm-corrupted bodies started to hit the SUV. As the SUV pulls in towards the HQ, the ground elevates, revealing a tunnel before shutting back up.

"Let's discuss our plan." Lucy parks the SUV in the garage.