As Vikta finishes getting his other boot on, he tells Echo, “Go back to the corner. I don’t want to risk you getting hit by gunfire. It’s going to get brutal and bloody in a moment. Come on, now. Move your ass out of the way.”

Vikta grabs a gauss rifle from the desk and gently pushes Echo to the side as he crouches down on the left side of the doorway. Placing his right knee on the ground and his left foot in front of him, Vikta then rests his left elbow on his left leg. His right arm remains relaxed at his side as he places the barrel of the gauss rifle in the square hole with his left hand. From this position, Vikta looked as if he would be able to fire the titanium slugs down the corridor and have a perfect field of view from all angles.

Andrea walked over to the lantern, picked it up, and then walked over to Echo. Andrea says, “Turn this off when I tell you to.”

As Andrea hands the lantern over to Echo, she swiftly moves to the desk and grabs the other gauss rifle. Kneeling down on the right side of the doorway and placing the barrel of her weapon in the other slot, she mirrors the stance of Vikta on the other side. Together as one, they look down the scopes of their guns. Neither of them can see anything in the dark corridor of the shelter.

Everyone is still. Everything is silent. Not even the sound of the raging storm can be heard. For an extreme amount of time, nothing happens. No gunfire. No explosions. Pure… Uncomfortable… Silence…

A small whistle can be heard increasing in volume. It becomes accompanied by a set of whistles which all get increasingly louder until the sound is almost painful. The whistles all cut out at once, and a series of loud snaps shake the air.

Andrea and Vikta both look at each other confused. Andrea asks, “Are they not breaching the corridor through the hatch?”

Vikta retains a neutral expression, “No. They're breaching the rooms in the hallway. Cover the doorways.”

Andrea and Vikta both shift their stances to angle more towards each other. Andrea on the right side of the door aimed her rifle at the doors on the left of the hallway. Vikta on the left side aimed towards the doors of the right side of the hall. Both of them froze and tensed up. The hairs on their necks could be seen standing up.

Andrea snapped at Echo in a harsh whisper, “Turn it off! Now!”

Echo swiftly clicked off the lantern in his hands. Everything was dropped into complete darkness, shrouding everyone. No one moved. Only their heavy nervous breathing could be heard. As the silence grew heavier and the darkness became more uncomfortable, Andrea whispered, “Now?”

Vikta shushed Andrea, “Just wait…”

The sounds of feet shuffling across concrete echo from the corridor.

Vikta whispers, “NOW!”

Andrea and Vikta both flip buttons on the flashlight attachments connected to the barrel of their gauss rifles. The corridor was lit with a blindingly bright pair of strobe lights which flashed brilliantly several times per second. Numerous soldiers in jet black uniforms were illuminated from within the corridor. Each one was wearing what seemed to be black ceramic plated suits which allowed for flexible movement and encased the entire body. They each had a thick black helmet which covered their face with a matte black face shielding, likely made from the same material as the EBON mat, but in a different form.

All of the soldiers were forced to shield their eyes from the blinding light as they were using night vision goggles built into their helmets to see in the dark corridor. Bright lights are the enemy of night vision as it causes a bright flare of light on the display of the goggles, effectively blinding the soldiers. This moment of blindness would only last for a moment though as the goggles immediately attempt to turn off the display to protect the eyes of the soldiers. This is a standard safety protocol for night vision goggles. Even though the screen turning off protects the user of the goggles from being blinded by the light, it does force them to use different tactics for sight as the night vision becomes useless in the bright light. However, using their eyes in the painful strobe lights made bright spots appear in their vision, and effectively blinded them anyways. Without their night vision, the soldiers began stumbling around blindly in the shelter corridor.

As the armed force reeled in surprise from the blinding strobes and their night vision became useless, Vikta and Andrea opened fire upon the soldiers. Multiple rounds of titanium slugs silently exited the barrels of the gauss rifles every second. The only sound to indicate that the weapons were effectively firing were the whistles and pings of the titanium slugs flying and striking their targets. With the slugs leaving the barrel at such a high velocity caused by the electromagnetic coils, each slug tore through at least two soldiers at a time. The men at the front were riddled with holes and red gore before dropping to the ground, dead on impact. The soldiers behind the men in front were still caught off guard but managed to raise their weapons before also falling dead in a hail of gunfire.

The soldiers in the back managed to begin returning fire towards the panic room doorway before being hit at least once. No soldier was left unscathed. If a round missed, it would bounce off of the walls and hit anyone from behind. Multiple shots of rebounded buckyballs struck the surface of the EBON mat, warping its surface and safely catching the rounds of ammunition, protecting the Sullivans from harm. A series of shock slugs also hit the EBON mat as well, embedding into the surface with thick needles and delivering multiple blue sparks to the surface of the mat. Titanium buckyballs bounced all around the room like a pinball machine from hell. At the end of it all, the floor of the corridor was slick with blood, bodies, and titanium slugs. Nothing moved any longer. All of the soldiers lay dead in the corridor. The bright strobes from Andrea’s and Vikta’s flashlights illuminate the bloody mess in harsh bright flashes.

Vikta looks over to Andrea and says, “It isn’t over yet. They’re regrouping.”

The hatch above the ladder explodes and slams into the floor of the corridor with a devastating bang, crushing bodies, armor, and bones. A splash of red paints the lower walls of the hallway as the blown hatch slams into the pool of blood. A colossal and imposing figure falls down the hatch, landing upon the circular piece of scrap metal and further throwing up specks of red in the harsh light of the strobes.

The reptilian Skera was covered from head to toe in elegant blue scales. His cobalt scales shone brightly, and specks of light bounced off its brilliant surface. Standing two and a half meters tall, the Skera’s horned head almost touched the ceiling. The horns were located on the back of his elongated skull and pointed directly backward with no curve. Each horn was about a quarter meter in length and coated in gray ebony bone. The snout of the Skera resembled that of a raptor’s, and his mouth is lined with thick rows of serrated teeth. Small colorful blue feathers fill in the top of his head and along his spine. His hands consisted of three long claws arranged like that of a hawk’s, with three claws pointed upwards and one downwards. The single digit pointed downwards acted as a thumb while the other three were for grasping items and prey. The Skera’s feet were arranged the same way. However, these massive claws are attached to thick muscular legs. The knees of the Skera are buckled inwards, indicating two knee joints for each leg.

Lazarus is covered from his shoulders to his toes in a black metal plated suit that shifted smoothly with his motions. He is wearing a long black hooded cape tied to a collar around his neck. Slung along his sides is what seems to be a pistol on one side and on the other is a Medieval Earth style long sword with an odd ancient pagan hilt design. In the center of the metal pommel of the handle is a carved pentagram with a skull in the center. The pistol on his other hip seems to be a small version of a gauss rifle but holds the titanium slugs in a 21st-century clip design. It is immediately apparent upon seeing the Skera commander that this large reptile had a taste for artifacts from Earth, which was over 2.5 million light-years away.

Lazarus does not bother to draw his weapons and holds his position. He stands at the end of the corridor, patiently waiting. After a few moments without any movement, Lazarus huffs out a growl as he waits for an imminent attack, “Come on, bastard. Do it. I know you want to, Vikta.”

Vikta’s voice grows nervous as he begins to shout at the Skera instead of firing his weapon, “Give it up, Lazarus! You’re outmatched! You’ll lose more than it’s worth trying to bring us in alive.”

Lazarus makes a few clicking noises with his mouth before speaking with loud grunts, “You are so very mistaken. You have no chance of escape. You will submit and surrender immediately, or I’ll make sure to keep my promise to crush your fucking throats. Don’t test my patience, humans. Drop your weapons and come out now!”

Vikta yells out to the imposingly large Skera commander once again, “We’ll do no such thing! Leave us in peace, and I may let you live!”

Andrea harshly whispers over at Vikta with a snappy pissed off expression, “You idiot! What the fuck are you doing just talking with him!? Shoot him already. You have a shot! He needs to die after what he’s done to our family!”

Vikta’s voice shakes as he talks without taking his eyes off of Lazarus, “Something isn’t right. He hasn’t made a move since he got down here. He’s too confident. I was expecting him to rush us already.”

A deep rage fills Lazarus, and he shows off his serrated teeth as he talks. Growing angrier with every passing second, Lazarus shouts, “You overstep your bounds begging me to leave in peace. There will not be any peace for you. You’ve made your choice, and I have made mine. You just slaughtered innocent men who were only following my orders! Those were some of my best soldiers, you fucking bastard!! AND YOU EXPECT ME TO LEAVE YOU IN PEACE!!??”

Lazarus growls once again before throwing his arms up across his chest in an X-pattern with his clawed palms facing to the left and right. Lazarus charges down the corridor with extraordinary speed. His movement is so sudden that the Sullivans are caught off guard. Red specks of blood are flown into the air and left in his wake as he hurtles towards the panic room. Andrea and Vikta fired their weapons in a futile attempt to stop the charging beast. The rounds strike an invisible force in front of Lazarus, reflect at an odd angle to the side, and bounce off of the walls around him. Each time a slug strikes the invisible force in front of him a small purple spark of light illuminates from under the Skera’s cape.

Before more than a few slugs were slung down the corridor, Lazarus reached the doorway with blazing speed and breached the room with a swift kick to the EBON mat that was so intense, neither Andrea or Vikta was able to move out of the way in time. Both of them were flung to the side as the EBON mat flew across the room and smashed all of the monitors on the desk. Glass from the monitors was tossed sideways and littered the ground as buckyballs fell off the table and struck the ground with a metallic ring as they bounced.

Andrea and Vikta lay upon their sides in the room and Echo was still in the corner, trembling in terror. The bright strobes from the flashlights on the weapons had not gone off and now illuminated the inside of the panic room with rapid flashes of light as the weapons lay on the concrete floor. Echo was struck silent with terror as the reptilian Skera called Lazarus grabbed his mother and father by the throats as they lay on the ground, picked them up, and choke slammed them both back down into the ground. As their bodies struck the ground with a heavy thud, Lazarus growled and screeched. With bloodlust in his icy blue eyes, he snaps his attention up to Echo in the corner, and his pupils dilate. Showing his serrated teeth, Lazarus turns his attention back to his new captives.

Lazarus snarls at Andrea with long hisses, “What’s this? You’ve been breeding, eh? I’m completely astonished that you’d fuck such a cold-hearted monster, Andrea! I’m disappointed, to say the least.”

Vikta gurgles through his crushed throat, “Leave… Them… Alone!”

Lazarus hisses once again, clutches Vikta’s throat, and swiftly bangs his head against the pavement, “I was talking, bastard. Don’t interrupt me. Anyways, you are the property of my employer, including the boy. But you already knew this, didn’t you? He was better off not being born. Such a shame.”

Echo panics and attempts to scramble to his feet. Before Echo can get to his feet and bolt for the door, a whooshing sound snaps as the Skera’s tail whips through the air to wrap itself around Echo’s throat. Echo flails around wildly as he’s violently thrown to the floor from the force of the tail striking him in the neck and tugging down hard. Without lifting Echo off of the ground, Lazarus drags him by his neck over to Andrea’s side. Echo struggles hard to free himself from the chokehold but to no avail. He begins to choke and can’t breathe. Gasping with large mouthfuls of air, Echo can’t get any air in or out of his throat and quickly starts to turn blue. The strength of Lazarus’ tail is too much for Echo to handle. Echo gives up and begins to whimper and cry as he gasps for air while being drug across the floor.

Lazarus chuckles at the sadistic pain he’s causing to the young man. Echo gasps and reclaims some air as Lazarus finishes dragging him across the floor and loosens his grip. Echo’s color starts to return to his face as he’s able to breathe again. All three of the Sullivans stare up into the eyes of their captor. All of them were being held down under the pure strength and weight of Lazarus the Skera.

Lazarus shakes his head from side to side as he talks, “You should have killed me when you had the chance, Vikta. I wanted to feel what it’s like to be betrayed again by someone that I once called my friend.”