Back in present,

Los Angeles...

The surveillance room had a record of heat signatures in their database of all of the soldiers who had been assigned a field mission by the syndicate, Kellie quickly performed a scan on Nathan's order and within a minute it was obvious that the man in the swamps was indeed Arnold.

"That fcking idiot!" Nina cursed loudly and slammed her fists on the table in front of her, shaking the entire screen on which the live feed of the swamps was being broadcasted, "Why isn't he calling out his summons to help him!"

Nathan, Nicole, Nina and over two dozen people were present inside the surveillance room at that moment, all of these people were the ones Nathan and the family deeply trusted excluding Kellie who was a new recruit.

Nathan was asking questions to Kellie but she didn't have any answers. While all this was happening Nicole was silently watching the feed blaming herself for this situation and Nina... was a complete mess. She was on the verge of tears but quickly got a hold over herself, she wanted to help the guy who had became so important to her but at the same, she knew she couldn't do anything to help him other than pray for his safety. She had never felt so useless in her entire life like she was at the moment, but she knew Nicole was feeling a lot worse.

After Nathan was done asking questions to Kellie, he stepped out of the surveillance room. He was clueless as to why Arnold would do something so careless and irresponsible, he wasn't a kid anymore! He was sure that Arnold knew it very well that the swamps were even more dangerous once the sun went down because he was the one who provided that information to them and yet he went ahead and did exactly what he had strictly recommended the others not to.

But it wasn't the time to think why Arnold did what he did. Right now Nathan needed to make sure that Arnold was not in danger. If something happened to him it would break Nina.

But there was no legal way of doing so. The syndicate had prohibited anyone from entering the swamps and only gave permission to Arnold and Nina go there to 'investigate', but even in that case, they had to inform the syndicate first.

The syndicate only agreed to the arrangement after Nathan reminded them of the favours the Black Family had done for them and now he didn't have any card to influence their decision.

He could've hosted a meeting with the remaining heads of the syndicate and try to persuade them into sending an armada to save one man, but it was unlikely that they'd agree to that.

Yes, Arnold's creationist abilities were important for them but it wasn't like he was the last remaining creationist in the country and thus could be considered 'expendable' rather than sending in a force in danger for the sake of one irresponsible man and if Nathan was in their shoes, he knew, he would've done the same thing, but he wasn't.

Even in the rare case that they agreed to save him, the decision-making process would be long and could even take days for them to come to an agreement but by then it might be too late for him. Seeing no other way around, he called the Section Chief of zone 1, the zone nearest to the swamps and the only zone (apart from zone 4) that was led by a member of the Black Family, Azyriah.

"Yes sir!" Azyriah's voice came from the other side of the communicator.

"I'm sorry for troubling you at this hour," Nathan continued, "but the family needs your help."

"Tell me what to do and it'll be done."

Nathan took a deep breath before saying anything as he knew what he was going to ask her to do could potentially lose her position, "It's an off the record rescue mission. Your task is to rescue Arnold from the swamps. I'll se-"

"ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?" Azyriah roared so loudly that even the ones inside the surveillance room could faintly hear her.

"Try not to be loud and hear me out first." Nathan calmly replied, "Arnold went there for some field research for something important but there he got ambushed by a company of lizardmen while he was there and since you're the one nearest to him, I'm asking for your help."

"Okay, but if he was on an official mission then shouldn't the syndicate organise a rescue mission and not an off the record one?"

"The syndicate had decided that he's... expendable, but I don't agree." Nathan lied right at her face but it didn't take Azyriah much time to figure it out Nathan was never a good liar in her eyes.

"It's fine if you don't wanna tell me, and I'm not gonna pry about it either," Azyriah shook her head, "Send me his accurate location and I'll see what I can do, after all, it's the least I can do for him after he saved my life all those years ago."

"I'm in your debt-"

"Don't get too happy." she cut Nathan off, "I won't be putting my men in danger for my sake, but even if it comes to worse... I won't back out of saving him. Rest assured, either we both would come back from the swamp together... or we both would die there saving each other's asses."

Nathan had been expecting Azyriah to say something like that. She was one of those who didn't like to be indebted to anyone regardless of who it was but also wouldn't endanger the safety of the others for that.

Right when Nathan was going to say something, a loud gasping noise came from the inside the surveillance room, followed by loud cheering.

"I'll provide you with the necessary information soon!" Nathan quickly disconnected the call and rushed inside the room, "What the hell are you all cheering for?"

Everyone looked at Nathan with a smile on their faces but no one says anything, only Nina pointed towards the big screen, her eyes filled with tears.

Fearing the worst Nathan made his way towards the screen and stood next to her, looking carefully at the screen.

"That son of a gun..."

That was all Nathan managed to mumble when he saw the heat signatures of the monsters around Arnold were disappearing one after another. Within a minute he had already killed around 30 to 40 monsters and the number kept increasing rapidly, everyone was shocked and confused...

'How is it even possible...'