All at once, light burst out from all around the parking lot, surrounding Jack and Yumiel. Armed men were arriving from every direction, taking control of the parking area and pointing their weapons at Yumiel and Jack.
Yumiel still had her senses open, yet she hadn't detected them — which meant they had already been there beforehand, waiting for an ambush.
Jack and Yumiel raised their hands, given the large number of soldiers encircling them.
The soldiers slowly closed in on them. Jack whispered to Yumiel: « how many ? »
« Around 50, maybe more. »
« I might have a way to get us out of here, but I need three bodies and some time. »
Yumiel clicked her tongue against her palate — « Tsk ! » — before answering Jack: « Ok, I don't really have a choice. On my signal, you run back the way we came. »
Yumiel's daggers were still circling over her head. She kept her senses open just in case. Meanwhile, the team that had been pursuing them through the airlock had just arrived, opening the door they'd passed through.
One of the men who'd just crossed the door grabbed his radio. « Central, this is Beta 2, target trapped. »
Yumiel analyzed the people entering through the door — six agents holding formation. They had taken a defensive stance, guarding the door.
The soldier making his report approached Yumiel and Jack, along with others. Yet he still stayed about ten meters away from them. Probably an officer, he grabbed a megaphone.
« You are requested to surrender. Any resistance, of any kind, will be judged as aggression. And we will be forced to shoot you down. »
Yumiel smiled before shouting at the top of her lungs:
« YOU THINK YOU CAN SCARE ME WITH YOUR LITTLE TOYS, COME TALK TO ME FACE TO FACE ! »
The soldiers exchanged glances, then the man holding the megaphone stepped forward. Yumiel whispered to Jack: « Get ready. »
The man with the megaphone approached Yumiel. Once he was less than ten meters from her, he stopped about two meters away.
« Officer, I presume, » said Yumiel.
« Major, commander of the squad you're looking at. Now that I've come all the way to you, I order you to surrender and drop those blades floating above you. »
« You're someone, huh — coming this close to me. Aren't you afraid? »
The major drew his gun, aiming it at Yumiel.
« Any attempt to stall will be perceived as a threat, and I will have to eliminate you! Final warning. »
Yumiel was very perplexed — it was the first time she had faced trained individuals. She didn't know how to react to the authority the major radiated, so she improvised.
« I think there's been a mistake. Don't you know who we are? We work with Kate. Mrs. Kate — we're here to stop monsters that were spotted inside the station. »
Yumiel still had her senses open, analyzing each soldier. She was just waiting for them to lower their guard so she could break through. The major signaled a soldier who pulled out a radio.
« We'll ask Mrs. Kate. I repeat — any movement, no matter what it is, will be taken as a threat. »
Suddenly the radio crackled before picking up a signal with a woman's voice. Yumiel had trouble hearing the conversation. Shortly after, a soldier brought the radio, turned the volume to maximum, and placed it in front of Yumiel.
« Good evening, Mr. Kate, you are ? »
Yumiel recognized Kate's voice but hesitated to answer. In the end, she had no choice.
« Good evening, Mr. Kate, Kate, it's Yumiel. »
Yumiel opened her senses to the maximum. She was already a bit exhausted from having kept them open all this time, but at full power she estimated she could last four minutes at most.
Yet, while she expected a disastrous outcome, Kate answered positively.
« Yumiel, yes — perfect timing, I needed to speak with you. To all agents: escort Miss Yumiel to the usual meeting point. »
The agents relaxed. Yumiel saw her chance. It wasn't that she refused to join Kate or anything, but being tied to the government didn't appeal to her — and this could very well be another trap.
The agents communicated between themselves by radio, relaying the new order. Yumiel took advantage of the moment, sending her five daggers to pierce five agents near the door. With her senses at maximum she could control the daggers with extreme precision, striking their throats or hearts to kill them instantly. Only one agent remained at the door. Everyone was shocked — Jack included.
« NOW YOU IDIOT ! »
Jack bolted forward, Yumiel running alongside him and pulling her daggers back to her. Jack leapt onto the door, grabbing the last agent by the throat and dragging him to the other side of the doorway. Yumiel grabbed two corpses plus a few bullets stuck in her body before passing through the door and forming her daggers into a crystal wall, blocking the entrance.
Jack killed the soldier he had grabbed. Yumiel drained the blood from one of the bodies to recover from her mental fatigue, then threw both corpses behind her toward Jack.
« Now you have everything, so move. »
« I'll be as fast as possible, you're about to see one of my new forms! Haha. »
The gunfire intensified on the door, destroying it, but Yumiel's wall completely blocked the entrance to the airlock. No bullet could pass through it. Yumiel saved her strength by lowering her senses from their maximum, keeping them just open enough in case.
« What do you mean, a new form? »
Jack began merging with the bodies. « Well yeah, a new form — I gave names to the forms I can take. The tank, the one you saw at the cemetery, then the ant, the spider, and Asura. I hesitated with Ashura, but I prefer Asura. »
The agents stopped firing at Yumiel's wall, realizing they wouldn't get through. Yumiel understood they were switching to explosives.
« Jack, now is really the time to stop talking and move your big ass. »
Yumiel watched Jack's fusion process — she had never really looked at it. And now she regretted it.
The flesh vibrated, stretched, then began to flow as if it remembered being liquid before becoming solid. Under his skin, the muscle masses stretched, split apart, then recombined with other absorbed tissues; the men's legs began merging.
To do this, the fusion developed behind him, modifying his spine, pushing it, stretching it. The vertebral column extended, splitting into several bony branches that spread like growing roots. Around them, the flesh from the other bodies gathered, twisted, swelled. It was no longer a back, but an organic mass — a living bulge forming a kind of abdomen.
From that growth, the six legs of the men and his own were grafted. Everything fused together, and slowly the shape of a man-spider was being born.
« That's really disgusting — I wish I'd never seen that! »
Jack could still speak despite all the changes to his body: « I understand. It's definitely the most hideous form. »
The break was short — agents were arriving on the other side of the airlock. Yumiel could hear them thanks to her senses. She opened her senses to the maximum, took the 1 L of blood in her flask, and created a second wall in front of Jack.
« Now Jack, time really matters! »
Both teams of agents fired grenade launchers at Yumiel's walls, creating small holes and cracks. Yumiel simply controlled the destroyed blood — now liquid again — bringing it back to the damaged spots and recrystallizing it.
Destroyed crystallized blood simply turned back into liquid blood; she only had to recrystallize it. She could repeat the action as many times as needed, but it required tremendous concentration. Especially since she wasn't maintaining one wall but two.
The agents continued firing grenade launchers. Yumiel repeated the process, repairing the walls each time, feeling her limits getting closer.
« Jack, yo— » she didn't have time to finish. Jack was standing on his eight legs with a massive abdomen extending from behind, the legs attached to it. He was much taller now, almost touching the ceiling of the airlock.
« I'm ready, Yumiel — climb on my back… well, on my abdomen. »
It disgusted Yumiel, but she had no other choice. She climbed onto Jack's abdomen, which looked more like a spider than a human now.
« So what's the plan now? » Jack asked.
Yumiel kept repairing the walls constantly while thinking.
« We're not running. I'm going to remove the airlock wall, we'll rush them, kill them, then set a trap for the others. »
Jack said nothing. He understood Yumiel needed concentration to control both her senses and her blood. He simply waited for the wall to vanish.
The agents fired grenade launchers again. Yumiel decrystallized the airlock wall — which became liquid blood — and instantly turned it into five daggers. She didn't even bother repairing the wall leading to the parking lot. At the same time, Jack charged the six agents at a staggering speed, running along the walls to dodge bullets. He even ran across the ceiling, forcing Yumiel to cling to him.
Yumiel threw her five daggers at the agents, though she had trouble seeing because Jack was running wildly through the airlock, spinning and tossing her around. She still managed to kill two before Jack got close enough to crush the rest with his legs and arms, flattening them like pancakes.
« And now? » Jack said.
Yumiel threw herself onto a corpse, absorbing its blood to recover from her mental fatigue.
« Now hmm, I do have an idea. »
Yumiel pulled a drop of her own blood and mixed it with all the blood in the airlock, turning it into her blood so she could control it. Then she returned to the stairs with Jack, destroyed the wall leading to the parking lot — which became a pool of blood — and finally shaped her five daggers into a wall in front of the airlock entrance.
« But I don't get it — we just went back and you only moved your wall. »
« Ahah, you'll see. But I have no idea if I'll be able to control this much at once, so be ready. »
Jack nodded. Yumiel waited with her senses open at maximum. About fifteen seconds later, agents began entering the airlock, eventually reaching the wall Yumiel had placed in front of the stairs.
Yumiel's wall was crystalline — if someone got close enough, they could see through it, which they did. Yumiel waved at them from the other side.
With her senses at maximum, she sensed everything, yet somehow it felt less overwhelming than before, showing once again she was getting stronger. There were about six agents, likely a squad.
She waited for one additional squad to join them before triggering her plan. Once twelve were inside, she executed it, recreating the wall leading to the parking lot.
The agents were trapped in the airlock. Now the complicated part of her plan began. The entire airlock was covered in blood she had converted into her own, allowing her to control it — but maintaining two walls, totaling 2 liters, had already pushed her close to her limit.
Controlling more was too much, so she attempted to make spikes erupt to impale the agents. Concentrating as hard as she could, tiny spikes rose from the floor. She felt her mind hitting a limit, like she was facing an immense wall.
Trying to push through, Yumiel slipped into her inner world for a moment. There she saw a colossal wall — impossibly tall. Yet she began climbing it, only managing a hundred meters before falling back down.
However, during that fall, she felt her mind free. She returned to the present moment, feeling lighter. She didn't hesitate — spikes erupted from the floor, impaling the agents. Yet in her mind she was still falling, finally crashing against the ground, which made Yumiel faint, losing consciousness.
For Jack, right beside her, everything happened very fast. He saw Yumiel concentrate, impale the agents, then collapse unconscious — and in the next instant, the crystal walls and spikes turned back into blood. Jack was left alone in the middle of the airlock with Yumiel lying unconscious beside him.