Emergency Mode

Ren put the mask on, completely blocking his eyesight. Ren heard Mr. Sandler cock the assualt rifle, ready to fire.

"Damnit, I'm not even fully healed and we're going again?"

BANG!

The bullet caught Ren right in the throat.

Ren instictively covered his throat with his hand, blood spilling everywhere.

"Fuck! I can't breathe! What is this bastard playing at?!"

The bullets kept slamming into him, one after another. One into his stomach, another into his right calf, his chest, right shoulder... They starting coming in so fast he couldn't even tell which was the last part to get punctured. He tried slowly to stand back up, while trying to concentrate everything on his hearing.

"FUCK! At this rate, I'm going to die, the core doesn't have time to heal me!!" Ren began to fall into misery and hopelessness unable to breathe.

"NO! This isn't the time to feel sorry for myself." Ren turned his hopelessness into absolute hatred.

He started to feel very weak as blood was spilling out of his body. "I must SURVIVE!"

All of the sudden a voice sounded off in his head.

"Warning! Warning! Host's life is in danger, emergency mode will be activated!"

Ren felt an immense surge of energy as his body began to move on its own. His body stood up and slowly began to walk forward, dodging every bullet as he went, his vision still completely black.

"What the hell!" thought Mr. Sandler as he watched Ren dodge bullets while walking towards him. "Something changed, he's completely different now!" Ms. Croft noticed the difference as well as she watched Ren.

Then, for a split second, Ren disappeared, then reappeared right in front of the barrel of the Assault rifle. Mr. Sandler instinctively pulled the trigger, but as the bullet exited the chamber, Ren moved his head to the left, dodging the bullet, and then proceeded, grabbing the barrel of the gun and twisting it out of Mr. Sandler's hands with his left hand and his right fist rocketed towards Mr. Sandler's face.

Ren had absolutely no idea what was happening and before he knew it, he felt the floor underneath him. He was face down, but regained control as the surging energy left him and felt his arm twisted in pain behind his back. Mr. Sandler was on top of him, holding him down. Mr. Sandler then proceeded to handcuff him and then pull him off the ground.

"Get this prick out of my sight!" growled Mr. Sandler.

Ms. Croft responded right away, leading Ren out of the room and headed towards Ren's room.

"Holy shit!" thought Mr. Sandler as sweat ran down his forehead and blood trickled down from a scratch on his cheek. "That kid gave off the most viscious bloodlust I had ever experienced just then! If I didn't react any faster than I did, I would have been the one that ended up on the ground!"

Mr. Sandler looked at the cracked ground he had slamed Ren down onto, then shifted his gaze to the spot Ren had shot from. Left in the floor was a small crater.

Ms. Croft unlocked and guided Ren through the door into his room. She then helped him lay down onto one of the couches.

Ren layed there motionless, with his white mask still on. The mask was now cracked where both eyes would be. The right crack went almost all the way down to the jaw.

Ms. Croft lifted the mask off of Ren's face to reveal Ren was fast asleep. Ms. Croft smiled. "That was quick."

Ren slept for an entire three days after that. "This must be the side effect of that emergency mode," concluded Ren. Ren's body was completely healed, although his head was still fuzy.

After taking a quick shower, Ren noticed that he was a bit taller now, and his upper body was a bit more built than before, not much, but noticable.

Ren picked up his phone and called Ms. Croft to tell her he was headed to the food court.

When he arrived at the food court in the East building, he immediately scanned the room for Alex. He missed him, and wanted to find out how he was doing. He didn't have any luck in finding him, so he grabbed some food and sat down at an empty table.

After finishing his food he decided to wait a while in order to see if Alex would happen to drop by.

As he was waiting, he noticed that his senses where greatly heightened. He could hear everyone's conversation, smell each individual meal, and it even looked as if people were moving in slow motion. He then noticed that some of the conversation's were about him.

"Do you think that's him?"

"The one with 100% compatiblity? I don't know."

"Its gotta be, he has those green eyes."

"Did you hear about what he did the other day?"

"Yeah, that's insane! He's hot too!"

Ren thought he was going to go crazy, but just then, a very beautiful girl with blond hair pulled up into a loose bun, blue eyes, and great figure appeared before him. "Damn, this girl looks fine."

"Is it ok if I sit here?" she asked.

"Of course," replied Ren.

She sat down with her food and opened her water bottle.

"Did you finish eating?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm just hoping to meet someone."

"Oh." She looked a bit concerned. "By the way, my name is Marissa Channing, yours?"

"Ren Lennon."

"Who are you waiting for?"

"A friend, his name is Alex. Not to long ago, we were training partners."

"Oh ok." She seemed to relax after that. "Are you the one they are talking about in the rumours?"

"I guess so."

"So you really dodged bullets blind folded and disarmed Mr. Sandler?"

"Yeah, how do you know Mr. Sandler?"

"Mr. Sandler is Rank 2 here, as well as the the Head Trainer. Who doesn't know about him?"

"So how did a pretty girl like you end up here?"

Marissa blushed, but her expression saddened. "I was taken here after my family was killed. They threatened to kill my friends if I didn't cooperate."

Ren's expression darkened as he relived the memory of his friends trying to get him out of the gas, and the moment he read the information he was looking for in the file.

"I see, so you have a core as well I take it." guessed Ren.

"Actually, no. I'm one of the few ability users here. They probably thought I would be useful to their cause. You see, I can teleport."

"So that's how she appeared in front of me without me being able to sense her," marveled Ren as he smiled at her. She blushed again.

Alex walked into the food court and Ren caught him in the corner of his eye. "Hey Alex! Over here!" called Ren.

Alex had a huge smile on his face, teeth and all, as he headed over to meet up with Ren.