"So, what did they say?" Sawyer says to Richard as they, along with Jericho, wait in the vehicle parking lot outside of the facility main building.
"Oh, pretty much that my mental anomaly caused my body to shut off whatever it is that blocks people from getting denser muscles after a certain point. And like how people could lift some hella' heavy shit but their brain forces them to not be able to coz' the aftermath would be brutal." Richard replies, hoping he's relaying the facts correctly.
"What about your enhanced senses? We saw a demonstration of it when we fought the Ent Stimulus."
Richard shrugs.
"Ent Stimulus?" Jericho, who hadn't been paying much attention until now turns to Sawyer slightly confused.
"Yes. They've identified the cryptid that chased us through the fog."
Jericho nods and mutters "Right." before going back to looking around.
A couple of men wearing dark blue janitor uniforms come out of the facility walking next to a small cargo carrier vehicle and stop in front of an aircraft. One of them recognises Sawyer who's standing nearby and calls out to him.
"Hey, mind giving us a hand?"
Sawyer, Richard and Jericho come over to help them load the boxes into the aircraft.
"Where's all this headed?" Sawyer asks the man who called him over.
"Equipment for the guys at temp facility 3B and 4B. Seems like they're pretty busy lately." The man replies.
As Jericho and Richard help move the boxes, one of the men notices how Richard lifts the heavy metal boxes with ease, "Woah, motherfucker's strong."
Once most of the metal boxes were loaded into the aircraft, the man who knew Sawyer turned to him, "Thanks, we've got it from here. Besides, the director's probably wanting to talk to you."
Sawyer raises an eyebrow, "How would you know?"
The man points past Sawyer, who turns around to see Director Campbell walking towards them accompanied by his masked bodyguard. The man gives a small wave before loading the final luggage into the aircraft and closing the hatch.
"Director." Sawyer turns around to face Campbell.
Unit 24 follow Director Campbell inside the facility as he explains the situation.
"A nearby warehouse has become infested with a cryptid. You'll be leaving in half an hour, the owner company of the warehouse asks that it be dealt with by tonight."
Sawyer nods, "Do they know about the cryptid?"
"No, I presume the Informants gave the company a story that will give you enough time to get rid of the cryptid."
"Informants?" Richard's confused reply gives the director a segue to explain.
"The informants are non - combatants who are the first to respond to an anomaly sighting. Their job is to find cryptids around the country and report it back to us. They'll explain the situation when you get there. I'll see you back here soon."
A facility driver escorts them to the warehouse at the edge of the city, they park close to the warehouse and exit the car. By the time they got there, the sun was already setting. Two people in black leather coats approached them, one was a short, older, balding man who shouted, "There you bastards are! Thought we'd be waiting all night for someone to take care of the shit in there."
"We made our way here as soon as it was reported." Sawyer replies, with a straight face - not taking the man's complaints seriously.
"I know you…" says the other informant, a tall dark skinned woman with a calm demeanour contrary to her partner. She looks at Sawyer as she says this, specifically at his scar. "The soldier with the scar, oh and the sword. It's definitely you." She peeps around his back with an intrigued expression to check if her description was right, sure enough Sawyer had the sword sheathed on his back as usual.
"Someone's famous." Mutters Richard.
The older man claps his hands together, raising his voice to talk to unit 24. "Alright, so we've told the warehouse managers that a runaway inmate is hiding in there and possibly has a hostage. Now it's possible that one of the workers there has went inside and become a victim of our scary friend…"
The informant is cut off by Jericho, "Scary friend?"
"Ah, yes, the cryptid. In this, uh… general area a large bear sillouette has been sighted, and judging by its invasive nature… well as you know most cryptids avoid being spotted and hunt lone individuals but sometimes they'll wander about it places like abandoned buildings, tunnels and such."
The tall lady next to the man clears her throat. "Get to the point, please."
"Oh, yes." The informant man continues. "This cryptid is most likely the Gluttony bear also knows as "The Gumberoo", its idea was spread by lumberjacks who saw it in the early 2000s but no pictures have been taken of it so it's just regarded as an old folk tale like many real cryptids. It's described as a large bear with a humanistic face and big grin. Also it's reported to have no fur on its body, as for behaviour… no idea, sorry."
"That's good enough, we're going in now." Sawyer walks towards the garage entrance of the warehouse, Richard and Jericho following right behind him.
The short balding man turns to the tall woman, "Hey, shouldn't they have sent more than three guys. What's inside doesn't seem like a joke. Surely your facility ain't understaffed."
"The man with the scar… Lailee says he's a one man army."
"Oh woooow, big shot huh? And where's Lailee getting this info, she a fan of the guy?" The short man makes a mocking shocked hand motion.
The woman laughs at his attitude, "I suppose she is. But seriously, he's something else. You'll see for yourself eventually, Creek."
"You two catch all of that?" Sawyer asks the two as they follow behind him."
"Yeah". Jericho says."
"Eh, the guy talks to much. All the info I need is if I can kill it or not." Richard says, taking out his fire axe that was attached to his belt.
Jericho prepares his rifle, ensuring it's loaded and turns to Richard, "You seem too excited to fight another cryptid, considering the shit that we saw only a couple of days ago."
"Yeah, maybe I am." Richard grins to himself. "I know it's fucked up but there's a certain thrill to this."
Jericho doesn't have any words for Richard's excitement, sighing at his reasoning and going in front of the garage door where Sawyer's standing. "Can't go through the front entrance, help me out. Slowly, minimise noise."
Jericho helps Sawyer slightly lift the garage door up, making enough space for them to crouch under and walk inside. After all three of them are inside the large warehouse, they reclose the garage door, shutting off the light come from street lamps outside.
Sawyer and Jericho put on night vision goggles that they had clipped to their belts. Looking at Richard, Sawyer asks, "Did you not bring one from the car?"
"I'll be fine, it'd just be a bother to wear."
Sawyer glares at him for a moment, before Jericho chimes, "He's right, fucker's superhuman."
They walk through the warehouse, past several rows of giant container crates and the occasional bundle of left behind equipment.
"This is Sawyer Ambrose with unit 24, the time is 20:41. We're about to engage with a cryptid known as "The Gumberoo" inside Wallscale's storage warehouse. Over."
Jericho walks behind the other two, making sure they're not met with a unpleasant surprise attack - he scans the area with his rifle up. Unsheathing his sword, Sawyer leads the group.
"How do you usually find a cryptid?" Richard asks him.
"Unless there's any context clues, just scower the general area."
With a nod and a "right", Richard acknowledges Sawyer's expert response, though in his head he's thinking "yeah, no shit, man."
A small light above flickers, making them look up for a second before realising it's nothing - except Richard, who's slightly wondered off and found something.
"Got your context clues right here, Sawyer…"
Sawyer and Jericho realise Richard's walked off behind a container crate, and go to see what he's discovered.
The sight made both of them take a step back.
"Fuck me…" Jericho says as he takes it in.
A dead body of one of the warehouse workers slumped over next to a container. A chunk of lower abdomen ripped out, most likely by teeth.
And a large print on his chest, Richard hesitantly moves his shirt out of the way to reveal it, the swelling caused by the worker behind pushed against the container before he was killed.
"I thought they said something about a bear…this just looks like a giant dudes hand print, without the pinky and thumb." Richard says as he kneels down and examines the dead man.
"A bear - like cryptid, not an actual bear. So what the informants said about somebody going in before we arrived was true." Sawyer explains.
Taking a closer looks at the corpse, Jericho turns to Sawyer, "His blood hasn't dried yet, I'd say he died around half an hour ago."
Sawyer nods in agreement, "Hopefully the cryptid's still here."
"We'll have to collect the corpse once we've neutralised the threat, we can't let others see the body with the way it's been mutilated."
"There's signs of a struggle here." Jericho says as he looks around the area. Knocked over ladders and boxes litter the area, Jericho continues walking in that same direction and finds a ladder that leads to a railing platform that circles the warehouse. A small drop of blood lingered on the ladder's handle.
Noticing it too, Sawyer makes his way to Jericho. Looking up at the platform, he says to Jericho, "Go up, check for anything else. If you find anything call us up via radio."
Jericho nods and climbs the ladder, leaving the other two on ground floor. He walks on the railing slowly, attempting to minimise noise from his feet hitting the steel bars, so the noise that followed soon couldn't possibly have been Jericho.
A loud crashing of steel pipes occurred nearby.
"What happened up there?!" Sawyer yells into his transciever mic as he and Richard run into an open area and look around.
Jericho's reply through the radio was instant, "That wasn't me!"
"Hey, it's coming!" Richard shouts out as he desperately looks around.
"How do you know?!" Sawyer says to him.
They both ready their weapons, their eyes scattering in each direction… but nothing appeared in front of them.
"You sure it's coming?! Richard!"
"I'm sure! It should be right… above us!!!"