"Boom!!!"
With the sound of an explosion, a dragon of dust rushed out from the doorway, covering the few people behind the cover with dust and mud mixed with rainwater on their bodies.
A sign from somewhere was also blown to the front of Su Ming, with only the word "Lab" remaining on the fragment.
"It seems Falcone didn't clean up after moving in, his New Rome isn't as clean as Ancient Rome," Cindy observed as the dust settled, patting the dirt off her body: "But this does feel a bit like archaeology."
"Are you sure his men took Director Gordon down this road? It doesn't look like it," Su Ming raised his pistol, peering into the research facility from the outside, seeing only a sea of red through his goggles.
"I'm not sure, because I didn't find any footprints today, maybe there's another entrance in the junkyard," Cindy took a few steps forward, leaned on the doorframe, and the debris on the ground crunched under her feet.
The night vision function of the helmet had always been handy, but peering inside from the entrance showed nothing but trash, as if untouched since the evacuation, with burnt documents and broken typewriters, everything that could be destroyed had been destroyed.
"Alright, this is definitely the right place."
He knew this was likely Vico Vali's luck at play. She wanted to record the news segment Su Ming promised her, so destiny brought them here.
Without thinking, taking this path would definitely involve enough fights for her to edit into a "news feature film." And in such weird circumstances, if they tried to find another route, they'd surely fail, that's the power of luck.
She wanted an anti-toxic mask, she could casually find it in the Bat Cave; she felt short of money, and she found gold.
Vico seemed like an uncontrollable causality law weapon, a double-edged sword that Su Ming found himself burdened by at times.
Yet he had to leverage her luck; Su Ming felt his luck wasn't great, being thrown from his apartment facing gunfire in Gotham, and the world was on the brink of destruction—a truly unfortunate fate.
With her, if anything unexpected occurred, and things became overwhelming, the mystical might just save lives. She could be a good luck charm until they found Briss, the girl of destiny, who would be even more effective than Vico, and decisions could be based on the situation then.
Now, Su Ming just hoped the monsters inside weren't too numerous.
"We're going in, you protect them," Su Ming holstered his gun, drawing the long knife from his back, ready to enter the research facility.
Cindy quickly extended a finger, pressing against his armored chest, shaking her head while nudging him back, drawing dual blades from behind her to enter first.
What a joke, letting a man scout the path would leave her without any dignity in the future.
Su Ming shrugged, since she wanted to lead, he would bring up the rear; it was just a few steps difference anyway.
Both had night vision systems in their helmets, the dim indoor environment posed no challenge, while the other three had to rely on the camera's lighting to see their surroundings.
The power supply here was normal, but the lighting system on the first floor was damaged, the lighting electrical box and wires dangled limply from the wall like a dead animal with its insides exposed.
Barbara felt like a typhoon had swept through, and under the camera's lens light, she saw that almost everything was shattered.
Gotham's history fragmented before their eyes, a place like this shouldn't exist in Gotham.
Vico had started recording, instructing Pete to capture the environment as material, without starting any commentary.
This was the first layer of the underground research facility, theoretically safer, but given the situation, Su Ming felt something probably came up from below.
At this moment, Cindy, scouting ahead, swung her weapon, a flash of cold steel in the air slicing through a black shadow that flew towards her, splitting it in two and dropping to the ground.
The thing wasn't completely dead, still writhing on the ground; Cindy looked down, seeing a black maggot about the size of a palm.
"What the hell is this?" she stomped the writhing thing into a pulp.
"Looks like an oversized maggot," Su Ming had seen the little thing too; it was just a byproduct of the gene experiments.
"I'm starting to hate this place."
Cindy wiped her blade on the remnants of a nearby desk, with some jelly-like green viscera wrapped around the blade's back, then continued advancing, as insects occasionally leapt out of the darkness towards them.
"We need to find a route further down, through the experiment area, to the dormitory section," Su Ming said after slicing an insect himself, speaking to Cindy.
"There's a passage 200 meters at eleven o'clock," Cindy glanced up, experience and equipment immediately guiding her judgment.
The group started moving in that direction; as they advanced, the road teemed with more and more black insects, and Cindy switched to using a shotgun to increase their progress.
These creatures seemed endless, uncountable in the darkness, better to hurry through.
The closer they got to the passage, the denser the monsters became, proving her judgment correct; they had escaped from the experiment area, and that's the path leading there.
However, it also meant a containment failure; the mad scientists wouldn't play with such small beings alone.
Under the protection of the two, they successfully reached the door, which opened with a gentle push.
A black shadow suddenly swooped down from the ceiling beyond, pouncing on Cindy, attacking with claws and teeth, making metallic clashing sounds.
Nevertheless, Cindy wouldn't panic; a world-class mercenary had faced countless sudden situations. She promptly withdrew her blade, stabbing it directly into its head, piercing through the eye socket out the back, with a 'crunch' of the skull breaking.
The carcass dropped to the ground.
This thing resembled a hairless monkey or gorilla, with thick shell-like crusts growing at the joints, like wearing a crab shell.
It was probably a leech-hunting creature, but chose the wrong prey this time.
Cindy simply cut off its head, so even if it had self-healing abilities, it would take time, giving them a chance to pass.
"Now what's this, a Beetle Monkey? Celestial Ox Ape?" Cindy picked up the bizarre creature's head, its teeth growing sideways like an insect's.
"Who knows, probably only a lab specimen number, but I guess it might have been human before," Su Ming said calmly, leading the other three through the door.
Cindy shrugged and continued to pave the way. Knowing it was a military experiment, there were naturally human subjects as primate samples; why else use monkeys?
"That's human?" Barbara was shocked; aside from some human-like facial features, there was no guessing it had been human.
"A guess," Su Ming closed the door behind them, glancing at the carcass once more.
Barbara was speechless, feeling a bit sorrowful, and once again sensing human madness—a tendency towards self-destruction always shadowing humanity.
Vico nodded; it aligned with her theories about Deathstroke's origins. She promptly jotted it down in her notebook, while instructing Pete to film the creature on the ground...whatever it was, a big close-up first, then shots of its corpse in its entirety.
She reckoned after audiences watched this special episode, they'd surely go wild and fall in love with her.