As the cryptid with a body resembling organs floated around Lex, it crumpled into small pieces that then dispersed into dust.
"Something's happened. Jericho, do you copy?" Sawyer's voice echoes through the receiver.
Looking down at the floor of the warehouse, Lex and Jericho see that the newly appeared cryptid now identified by Lex as the Berezovsky Miracle was now laying on the ground with its head ripped off. The target of the mission, the Gumbero, was damaged by the tears the Berezovsky Miracle had made in it, but was slowly healing and now looking for the soldiers.
"I hoped that would work. That was one of my best, fuuuuck." Lex rubs his temple seeing the headless cryptid's body disappear into ashes.
The now - healed Gumberoo crawls towards the railings, its legs slithering up the platform towards Lex and Jericho.
"Watch out up there!" Sawyer yells. The impact of the cryptid grabbing onto the railings shakes them. Pulling out a semi - automatic handgun from the holster on his belt, Lex backs up and unloads a portion of his magazine onto the cryptid.
"Sturdy motherfucker…" Lex side - eyes Jericho, "Help me keep this thing back!"
The tension from being targeted by the monster causes Jericho to hesitate to aim his rifle, though soon shots are fired by both of the men on the railing and the cryptid's advance is temporarily halted.
Upon noticing Jericho and the other man being pursued by the cryptid, Richard dashes to a container - climbing on top of it and with one big leap he jumps at the cryptid, preparing a forceful swing with his axe while airborne. His back muscles tighten up as he violently whizzes through the air and swings his axe into the neck of the cryptid.
Both of them come crashing down onto the ground. The Gumberoo quickly regains its footing, but just as it lifts its head a flicker of a man appears in front of it. A knife is driven into its eye, causing it to be erratic as it tries to find who did it. It turns around, locking its eye onto Sawyer - who had just now ran past it after getting a good hit in with the knife.
Sawyer fires a volley of bullets, steady in his stance and ready to face off with the hard - skinned monster. Its face twists towards him, charging at him with each leg seeming to try to move faster than the others, and following the expected reaction from the cryptid, Sawyer slides behind a wall of crates right before the moment of impact - the Gumberoo's disproportionate fright of a face closing in became a signal reflex for Sawyer to avoid having his head mangled off.
However, unlike an animal - the Gumberoo did not stumble after missing a charge, instead it warped around the corner without losing momentum, chasing Sawyer as if he had a big red tracking signal on him.
The stimulation from being so close to the human that its after causes its quivering grin to twist across its face - the cryptid feels a sense of sweet depraved revenge directed at Sawyer - the man who had stabbed its eye out.
Simply seething to kill him.
However, when it opens its jaw, the only thing that enters is an unknown glass vial - though, the cryptid doesn't know that. It has no clue as to what entered its body just now - however it has already entered into its throat.
Without warning, the Gumbero stops in its tracks and begins to violently shake. Opening its jaw to the point of it looking unhinged, it attempted to throw up whatever it had swallowed - but it was too late.
The glass shatters inside its body. The Gumberoo appears to be being destroyed from the inside, its flesh bulging outwards as if something inside it is trying to get out. The grotesque scene doesn't last very long, as whatever was tearing it from the inside stops and the Gumberoo is eventually left a messy mutilated corpse.
"Oh my god…" Jericho walks past the dead cryptid, though still weary of it, to rejoin the others.
Sawyer snaps his head from the sight of the monster's corpse to look at Lex, "What happened?"
"Sucker ate one of my amalgams." Lex answers, taking out another glass vial to hold up and shake. The vial contained what appeared to be chunks of dead skin and small pieces of flesh, whichever cryptid it belonged to was a mystery.
"Ate a cryptid? There was nothing there."
"True. Not until after it ate the vial. You're lucky I have good aim, you were getting cornered."
Lex had not only concluded their death battle with the Gumberoo, but also demonstrated a dangerous phenomenon - Amalgam Recreation.
The ability to "revive" a cryptid from pieces of its body by triggering it to completely regenerate from a reaction to either the user's brain waves or the vibrations of their heart pumping. The connection of the cryptid's parts to the heart or brain via a metal rod as done by Lex earlier is what triggers the process of Amalgam recreation.
The previously appeared cryptids - the floating organ - looking fish thing, known as the "Compass", as well as the "Berezovsky Miracle" were both created by Lex. However, cryptids summoned by Amalgam recreation only last a short time, and end up crumbling back into ashes.
"This is Sawyer Ambrose with unit 24. The time is 23:40 and we have neutralised the confirmed Medper, codename: "Gumberoo." Sawyer announces once again into his transceiver - protocol - and is immediately answered by the cleanup unit that has been on standby outside with the informants.
His reply is delivered to him swiftly, "Understood." A man affirms through the radio. "Entering the building now."
The garage doors of the warehouse are just then opened from the outside, followed by several soldiers from the facility coming in with equipment to take the Gumberoo's corpse back with them.
As the cleaner unit makes their way past unit 24, Richard, slightly dazed, turns to Lex.
"Uh, so which cryptid did that to it?" He says, pointing at the obliterated Gumberoo.
"You don't wanna know, believe me."
Lighting a cigarette with the lighter from his pocket, Lex starts to leave the warehouse. However, he is stopped by Sawyer, who approaches him rather unhappily.
"Can I help you, commander?" Lex says without turning to face Sawyer, his insincerity glaringly obvious..
"Yeah, you can. Why wasn't I informed you'd be joining us in the middle of a mission?"
"Oh, it looked like you were all busy in here, didn't wanna interrupt." Lex holds back his snarkiness to avoid sounding overly sarcastic.
"Is that why you came in through the roof? Did the informants not fill you in as to what's going on?"
"The people outside? Nah, the woman brought me here, I think Dawn was her name."
"Dawn?" Sawyer thinks to himself why Dawn didn't contact him as soon as Lex arrived. "No matter. You work for me now, that means you report to me, understood?"
"Right. I work for you on con-di-tions. If you have an issue with how I've operated today, leave a complaint with whoever manages you, yeah?"
Lex walks away, leaving to who-knows-where. Though, Sawyer keeps his composure and sticks around until their ride back to Facility:null arrives. What he doesn't understand is why Director Campbell would send such a disorderly outsider with an unknown background and even more vague motives to join unit 24. How Lex had performed amalgam recreation on the spot, it intrigued Sawyer yet confused him. A show of a man being able to command cryptids, surely with a complex explanation on how it all came to be possible. He thought to himself that it would certainly be useful in taking down other cryptids considering the small number of unit members he had - using anomalies in a mission to minimise soldiers needed, therefore decreasing casualties - but on the other hand, Sawyer felt an oncoming feeling of instability and chaos to come.
Though, Sawyer would soon find out that this is just the beginning of it all.
"You alright?" Walking out of the warehouse, Jericho notices Richard still standing there - not injured, but something was wrong with him. Richard's vision goes blurry, and a strange static only familiar to him fills his ears. He lifts his arm to reach out to grab his head, but stops midway and decides to shake it off.
"Yeah, all good." Richard takes one quick glance back into the warehouse before following Jericho outside.
"Dawn." Upon returning back to the facility, Sawyer finds and approaches Dawn Hill - the manager of communications for unit 24.
"Oh Sawyer, welcome back. Seems like tonight went well." Dawn gives him a small tired smile when she sees him.
"Why wasn't I informed about the new member of my unit coming in mid-mission?"
"Huh? I expected him to contact you if he chose to make a move. He had a radio. Honestly Sawyer, I don't know what kind of man the director has employed to join you. He's not a registered employee at the facility."
"I'd like to speak to him as soon as possible." Sawyer's tone isn't necessarily angry, however he does feel he's owed an explanation from Director Campbell about Lex.
"I'll see if I can arrange that." She answers, but it isn't long until she speaks up again.
"Oh, and Sawyer, there was something I ne-" Dawn's words are abruptly cut off by an alarm going off throughout the entire facility.
Facility employees rush around them, as Sawyer looks around confused. "What's going on?" He looks at Dawn, who's equally as confused.
Sawyer grabs one of the guards rushing past him to inquire about the situation, "Hey, can you tell me what's going on."
The guard recognises Sawyer, immediately stopping in his hurry and engaging in quick conversation with him, "Ambrose." The guard says. "There's been a breach, looks like it was purposeful. A lead researcher was killed."
Sawyer and Dawn both react to his report with distress. Dawn questions him further, "The cryptid, do you know where it is right now?"
The guard shakes his head, "Everybody's gathering in underground layer 2, but we were told to report to the south entrance of the ground floor in case the cryptid tries to leave."
"It could be anywhere." Sawyer says, turning around.
Dawn takes a few steps in front of him, "I'm gonna go find the director, scour the facility and keep your radio on - I'll let you know if I find out anything else about what's going on."
"Got it." With that, Sawyer runs off.
Having now separated from Dawn, Sawyer runs around the facility checking any places where a cryptid might've gone after escaping - or rather, being released - fully prepared to face it on his own. The members of unit 24 weren't available of course - with Lex having disappeared right after their recent mission, Jericho had too gone home having clocked out of his shift, and Richard most likely resting somewhere in his quarters. Though the fact that Richard is in the facility while all this is going on makes Sawyer bet he'll see him sooner or later.
He takes the stairs down to underground layer 1 - the holding level for regular cryptids. Running through the hallways and scanning various rooms, Sawyer eventually reaches the power generator area. It was long with several generators and other such machines that powered the facility on both sides of the hall, and a railing bridge over a wide gap with pipes covering it going from the entrance to the far end of the area where the emergency exit stairs were.
Sawyer sees a figure running over the railing, and when he comes closer it notices him and stops.
But what he finds was not an "it" - not a cryptid on the loose, but a girl. A young woman with long blonde hair, in her early 20s, covered only by miscellaneous white cloth and a terrified look on her face. Her whole body is shaking from fear.