Crossover Chapter 2, There Springs an Entity
Crane was wounded rather badly when the other agents arrived at her side. Bleeding heavily from her nose and her mouth, her eyes had rolled into the back of her head as she began to seize up. Rhea and Phoenix immediately went to work on stabilizing her, while Sparrow and Snow got to work on fixing her up. Tiger, who was out of place amongst the agents doing triage, paced around the perimeter with his weapon drawn, nose and ears twitching at the same time. He readied his weapon and aimed into the darkness that surrounded their campsite at every angle. Didn’t matter that the majority were leaves and some small creatures; that thing could still be out there.
After nearly a quarter of an hour of intensive field surgery on Crane, the agents stepped back and made sure that the finishing touches were done. Crane was breathing regularly, though she was sleeping right now, and most of the blood was gone at this point. Rhea wiped off her hands on a wet rag, with Sparrow, Phoenix, and Snow doing likewise. All of them helped to lift Crane up and set her down in some bedrolls to rest for the moment, and regain enough energy to hopefully regain her powers back. Snow drew upon the moisture in the air to fill up a random bucket with cool water in order to make sure that there would be a cool rag to rest on Crane’s head.
The other’s assembled around the campfire, and all looked wary and tired. Tiger still gripped the rifle in one hand while Phoenix lit and created small wavering flames over his index finger and watched them sputter out over time. For several minutes, the agents of the Bureaucracy sat like this, and seemingly waited for something to happen, for someone else to break the silence. Tiger was the first to do so. “So… what do we do at this point?”
Sparrow shrugged. “I can’t really say. I don’t know about you, but I am not eager at all to be heading out into the jungle after that. Whatever that thing was, it’s waiting for us out there at this point, since Crane could not hurl it further than the island itself… which means that, like I said, that creature is still here on the island, and no doubt coming after us with its little friends. I'm advocating a complete withdrawal from the island."
Phoenix spoke up, slowly drawing out the words. “We cannot simply abandon our mission, Sparrow. We must do what is necessary and we have to recover whatever it is we were sent here for. For all we know, that creature could be pursuing the same thing, and may try to leverage it against the Bureaucracy. Did that occur to you at all, Sparrow?”
The other man bowed his head in defeat at that point, and Tiger looked on while stroking his rifle gently. “We may have to give Crane a direct ichor transfusion; she will need it to recover her powers before we can move out and try to find the device once more, before that creature tries to come back here and kill us. I know that all of you would rather not spend another second in this place then we have to, and I feel the same, but we have to finish up our mission first.”
The others around the campfire nodded one by one, and gripped their weapons in their hands. They did not leave their positions from around the campfire until dawn, almost.
Breakfast was sparse that morning. Congee with dried fish bits in it, with the remaining supply of coffee that they had brought with them, cooked over a fire that was covered for the most part, to prevent the light and the smoke from being seen at a distance. Crane was awake and having had received a substantial ichor transfusion the night before, and sat around the fire exchanging talk with the other members of the team. Tiger was itching to leave, but Crane was the one that they were waiting on to recover, and granted, it had been barely seven and a half hours since Crane had started her recovery.
By 0900 hours, the sun was already climbing high in the sky, but low rumbles of thunder could be heard in the sky. The air was thick and humid, making breathing somewhat difficult for the team. As a precaution against what might be lurking out in the woods and the forests around the island, Tiger elected to keep all of them together instead of splitting the party. Everyone readily agreed to the decision, as they stood a better chance of fighting the Unidentified Supernatural Being off utilizing combined arms.
The walk through the forests was hard and difficult; the foliage was thick and vicious. Tiger kept tapping his foot all the while whenever they would stop to remove a thorn the size of someone’s index finger from their leg. Rhea attempted to use the emergency radio to contact the base on Satsuma, but there was nothing but static. By the sixth time, most of the agents had given up on getting anything out of the radio, which meant that were all starting to feel a little bit more hopeless as time went on and they struggled onwards towards their mysterious destination.
For the most part, the agents were silent during the hike, with only a few muttered words and comments thrown around here and there; most of them did not have the energy to say much of anything, mostly because of the sleepless night that they had had before, and the fact that they were on high alert for the sounds of that creature coming for them through the forests and through the woods. Even today, not a whole lot of wildlife could be seen or heard moving through the forest, but they were there all the same, even if they could not be observed directly. With the trees and the leaves whispering as winds brushed up against them and low booms of thunder echoed in the distance, it was rather unearthly, ethereal almost in the regard that there was almost nothing besides them making noise. Maybe the chattel would have been quieter if they had been in the same situation.
An almost supernatural air hung over the rain forest as the agents trekked through it.
Finally, about two hours after sun had reached its zenith in the sky,
the agents found exactly what they were looking for.
“What is it?” Sparrow asked wondrously.
“A submarine,” Tiger said. “A nuclear submarine.”
“So this is what we were sent to fetch,” Snow said quietly. “Hope that it was worth it.”
The great metallic beast lay in a half-submerged state in a tiny inlet into the island, laying horizontally into the watery position that was too small for it to fit in their comfortably. A massive conning tower rose up out of the center of the great construct, a faded and torn flag attached to the tower, and laying there, as if waiting for a breeze to flutter it. Long and cylindrical, it was a massive thing, nearly three hundred meters long, and was not an ordinary submarine by the looks of it; indeed, it looked experimental, and nothing like what the agents had been expecting if Satsuma base had told them that they were coming for a submarine.
Over the course of the next ten minutes, the agents of the Bureaucracy slowly made their way down to the submarine to get a better look.
All of the agents could not help but wonder how the massive behemoth that had been seemingly plucked from the waters was slung into this tiny little inlet, and they ran their hands along the smooth metal sides of the construct, touching the steel with their fingertips.
The flag, upon closer inspection, was an odd thing. A circle of thirteen white stars on a field of navy blue in one quarter of the flag, the top left, with the rest being shifting red and white stripes, could not be identified by any one of the agents; it was as foreign as the submarine itself. Rhea recognized the flag, but thought to herself that it was absurd and impossible considering that the nation in question didn't even possess the means to produce such machines at the time that flag was in usage. She said nothing though. This was an incredible find after all. It was a strange indeed, but it was up to the Department of Mysteries to sleuth into such anomalies, not field agents like themselves.
“Crane, do your thing, and let us hope that it works so that we can return to base,” Tiger and the other agents stepped aside to let Crane pass forward to the giant steel monster, slitting open her palms as she did so, preparing to work her ichor gift.
She pressed both of her palms against the smooth metal exterior of the submarine, and tilted her head back. Nothing happened at first, but then a ripple of power flowed through the air, bending the light around the submersible. With a flash, the great metal behemoth was displaced from time and space, and hurtled away to the location that Crane had picked and visualized in her own mind. Crane stepped away, wrapped her palms back up in bandages and walked back towards the group, grinning as she did so. All of them had smiles on their faces right now as they retreated into the woods above the inlet where the submarine had been.
Making camp up on the ridge, they tried the radio several times over the next hour; waiting for word to be sent from the Bureaucracy agents at the port in southern China to inform them of the arrival of the OOPART. Minutes ticked by and some of the smiles turned to frowns and worried expressions as no response came. What had gone wrong. Word soon came just when they were about to put the radio up. A burst of static, followed by several loud screeching sounds, which soon quieted and gave way to the voice of what sounded like a very tired man. “Matou Party, New Guinea, do you hear me, over?”
Tiger snatched up the radio receiver, and clicked the button, talking into it. “Yes, we are here, what seems to be the problem, Satsuma Base? We sent the package to you about an hour ago at this point. We didn’t happen to drop that thing on top of a civilian junk, did we?”
"Under different circumstances, that might have been a joke." The man speaking to all of them made a rasping sound before continuing. “We got your package alright. It exploded as soon as it made contact with the shell over the area! Half of the docking bay is gone at this point and dozens of civilians are injured. We are claiming it is the work of Jewish insurgents, but the point is, whatever you sent us, it was stopped by the barrier before it got in here. What the hell did you send us anyways?”
Tiger had to snap out of his shock before responding. “We transported some sort of submarine back to base for you to examine… that’s what we were apparently sent here for, and that’s what we found out. But before that, we encountered a USB.”
“Why didn't you notify us sooner? What were its distinguishing traits?”
“It was some sort of shadowy creature, we can’t identify it, we don’t know what it is.
Crane's ichor gift managed to send it away for a time being.”
“Where is it right now?”
Tiger paused before responding, and a look of horror spread across his face, and the face of every other agent grouped around him. “The creature… the creature… is still here, on the island with us.”
A chill of laughter sounded over the radio. “What was that? Agents, report!” The agent on the other side sounded distraught and apparently was trying to battle whatever was over on the other side for talking space, but it was not working as a disembodied voice took complete control of the airwaves and spoke to them.
“Hello, agents of the Celestial Bureaucracy, if that is what you call yourselves… my, my, my!! No matter about that… I know where you are now. You see, that submarine that you transported out was from another one of my favorite worlds, and when you tried to take it with your grubby little hands, it… exploded!" it cackled with glee. " Lots of dead bodies floating in the harbor, and I wish I could… consume them like I have so many others. If it weren't for that strong barrier you had there, at least. Even I couldn't get through, if i tried. Still," he added. "Once out of your happy place, you're easy prey, only a little better than regular humans." More laughter and the screeching of the radio resumed and stopped as the creature said more.
“When you foolish demons sent that thing out of the domain that I have established here on the island, you also rather broadcast your position to me and to my adjutants… now I have to say, your pathetic lack wits failed to take that into account when you did what you did, both Harry and Terry are coming for you, to rend your flesh from your bones and to press you into service for the Dark Legions!” Cackling strings of laughter, from what sounded like thousands of voices and people, echoing out and staggered apart from each other. “You cannot stop me, you cannot fight me, and you cannot best me. I will find out where you are, I will discover where you are hiding, and I will burn you, commune your flesh with the dust… and let you be consumed by fires.”
“But first, here are my adjutants to deal with you.”
A crackling sound could be heard closing in on their six, and all of the agents snapped their heads towards it. A tall, looming shadow stood over Phoenix, with the whitest grin imaginable, as it stretched out its hand over the larger man’s face, and grasped, its fingers spreading and latching onto his face. Snow reacted quickly, pressing his hands together as he summoned a swarm of water to do his bidding. A thin, razor sharp blade of water that would have sliced through solid bedrock was deflected upwards from some sort of force field, sending the moisture high into the sky.
Rhea leaped up to move towards Phoenix to help him, but the other shadow was behind her. With red eyes gleaming, and long nails made out of steel it appeared to be, it shoved the appendages through the woman’s neck, sending a fountain of black demon blood raining and pattering out onto the forest floor. Sparrow and Tiger had sprung into action, but the creature’s eyes glowed briefly, its nails contracted and then expanded rapidly, decapitating the agent and spreading her blood all over the leaves, as her head rolled onto the ground. Two rifles out, locked and loaded almost instantly, delivered a wall of gunfire through the air, as the rounds ripped into the creature. An entire clip was expended from both rounds onto the creature, the creature's own black blood drooling lazily out of the wounds that it had, but it smiled only wider and marched forward slowly to deal with the two agents of the Celestial Bureaucracy.
Tiger drew the exorcist’s sword out, and sliced forward into the neck of the creature. It sunk deep into the formless shadowy flesh and mists that surrounded the creature, while the creature shrieked out, its eyes filling with blood that poured out in copious amounts. Sparrow drove his own sword into the gut of the creature, and then kicked it deeper inwards, while using his lightning to shock the creature. With the swords acting as conduits, blue and white lightning lanced into the creature to electrify it, and blasted it clear off the side of the cliff, and spiraling down into the inlet.
Snow and Crane in the meanwhile had been battling the thing that gripped Phoenix’s face, and were having zero luck. The fingers of the creature only tightened the more that they tried to do, and both Crane’s teleportation and Snow’s waterworks could not do anything to stop it. Shouldering the both of them aside with a flaying knife in one hand, Tiger ripped the flesh on his right forearm down nearly to his elbow, and watched as the steel claws lanced out of his flesh on his knuckles.
The creature’s eyes widened, while its smile seemed to do the opposite. Tiger drove the claws into the creature’s gut, savoring the look of pain and hatred that it gave him, and stabbed again and again and again and again and again and again and again, hot black blood sliding onto his hands. The other demon's blood called out to him, urging him to spiral into depravity and accept his infernal nature its totality, bubbling and kissing at his bloodstream as it seeped into his wounds, but he paid no mind to it, and concentrated only on the suffering that the creature that he was facing experienced.
Crane pulled Tiger back when he showed no signs of letting up, and both Snow and Sparrow took his place. Water was shot at the creature by Snow, and with the jet of water showering the creature, Sparrow used his lightning to deliver a massive charge into the creature, enough charge that would have killed all the fish in a lake five miles across. The creature was hurled back into the tree behind it, slumping forward, and Snow hooked his exorcists’ sword around the creature’s neck, decapitating it. It still writhed.
“Phoenix!” Crane went immediately to Phoenix, but the man was too far gone. The creature had melted his face off of his body.
“Won’t these damn things ever die?” Sparrow said exasperated.
As if in response, the body of the being that had attacked Phoenix reached out with one arm and plucked his head up off of the ground. Setting it on backwards, the body smashed it down as the sound of flesh being torn and broken could be heard. Slowly, like an owl, its head rotated around so it’s eyes and smile feasted upon the members of the gathering. “No, not really.”
The creature that had been blasted off of the ridge materialized next to it as dark particles formed around in the air off to the left of the leaning being. Both the red and the blue were here at this point, and both of their smiles were heinous to behold. “We can kill the rest of you just as easily… just die already, and join us!”
Tiger took up a second exorcist sword and pointed it at both of the creatures, both his and their blood mixing together on top of his flesh. “I’ll kill you both before that happens.”
“Let’s see how you do that.” A voice from behind spoke quietly.
All of the agents turned around at that, and looked dead into the melted face of Phoenix only… it was taking shape, shape of the only remaining creature not here at the moment. The skin sloughed off, showing the bone beneath, and then the shadows formed around the bone, and shifted, materializing. Muscle and bone, cartilage and ligaments, strained and cracked in places, and finally settled into place as the shadows formed around it. “In the halls of dark, where the shadows lie, a voice calls out and begins to cry…” the creature that had once been Phoenix said in a sing song voice as its eyes took color. They were and dark and bloody orange.
And from his corpse sprung an entity, breaking off and forming out of shifting shadows and darkness, grinning like a cat, with pale yellow lantern eyes, its grin a maw of white and black, of blood and gore. “Did all of you miss me so much? Well here I am, aren’t you going to welcome me?”
Tiger tried to react, but the yellow eyed creature grabbed both of his arms and smashed into his face with its head. “Now, now, let’s not get too hasty shall we? We don’t want to continue the killing spree when there is so much that I want to talk to all of you about!”
A pulse of energy from the eyes that Tiger looked into, those pale yellow lantern eyes of hell, and he passed out, slumping forward as he did so.
)
I can't wait! *franticly reads the whole story up to now* 
