Logbook #037 - The Backup

"Damonica, over. This is pilot Crimson. We are nearby your LZ. Shall we take a break by there?" As Crimson was talking on a walkie-talkie to Damonica. Her other two partner's Flare and Frost waited by for their captain's orders.

"Ugh...Sure." Damonica replies after pressing the reply button. As she yawned audibly, she shuffled about before reading something from somewhere. "Have you guys taken care of Rampage yet? We still have to recover him from his Infected State."

"Oh ugh yeah." Crimson stuttered as she felt a little off. "Goyang-I, the medic visited him earlier for a check-up after Captain Shanina placed down a signal transmitter for his coordinates. He is probably being treated now as the whole problem is going on outside."

"Is it? I am quite surprised really. I didn't expect Rampe to survive and still be, rather, human. I heard you were a childhood from his. What do you think?" Damonica asks in a rather curious yet exhausted tone.

"...." As silence filled the radio with static, a sigh was sounded as Crimson replies back. "Not in a good mood to talk about that. I do feel bad for him but as per our jobs, we can only do our parts before moving on."

"I see." Damonica chuckles as she releases her reply comm before thinking of something up. "I will take a rest and wait for on-call for general and the others. You may come here if you wish."

"Roger, coming over," Crimson replies before turning off her radio.

...

In a musky scent that lingered around the room, the five lasses circled about on a meeting table as they sat on very hard and sturdy metal chairs. As they sat quietly, they listened in on the so-called navigator of the team as she grunts about as she points her finger on a map that she placed on a whiteboard a few steps from them.

In the dim lights, they watched her explanations closely as they secretly took notes of further problems that can be solved if they report them as soon as possible. As the navigator explains, Bridgette peered to her side as she noticed a mildly rotten corpse nearby her smelling of old carcasses and strong ammonia.

("Goddamit, it reeks. Sacre Bleu'") she swore under her breath as she acts as normal as possible.

"Is something the matter?" The navigator asks as she notices Bridgette's fidgeting about.

"...." Bridgette stays quiet as she shakes her head. Being in fear they may be caught, the five of them secretly reached behind their backs to hold onto their handguns as they watched closely.

"I guess you are just twitching again. You may need to visit our medic later. Sorry about that, Private." The Axis Navigator replies as she then continues her explanation.

Seeing a few tabs being placed on the main German Branch of Continuum, they realized this was a plan of infiltration. The hostages that were kept here are just for the sake of turning them into their corruption tanks. Most of the hostages consisted of ex-soldiers, a few of the embassy's staffs and a war veteran which quite intrigued Chau-Min when she heard of a recent rumour.

As they listened till the end, The Axis Navigator then excuses herself as the lower class of this so-called axis platoon as the five then discuss to each other in private after the door shuts.

"So, what's the plan Captain?" Chau-Min asks Captain Shanina as turns her head to her.

"Simple, three of us head to assassinate all of this Axis to recover the base and the other two, well recover the hostages and any potential guardians. Watch out for the wandering Infected and don't make any loud noises." As Captain Shanina explains, she then gets up and looks through the blinds of a shattered window as she sees the Axis Navigator walking down the hallway pretty far away.

"It's clear..." She mumbles as the other four prepare themselves.

Reloading their rifles and activating their guardian weapons if they do have them available, they then nod to Shanina before excusing themselves through the many corridors that exist.

As they turned on their specific earpieces, they gave reports of what they found or who they spotted that could be posted as a threat or friend.

Captain Shanina on the other hand delayed her walk as she then walks out of the door slowly and slithers about the long hallway.

As she tip-toed about, she felt an utter presence in the vicinity. Thinking, it was an Infected or an Axis, she readied her handgun by her holster as her cloak hid it from being seen.

Breathing slowly, she held on her other free hand her whip, in a ready position of being whipped.

A whisper could be heard as subtle sounds of rhythmical steps could be heard before Captain Shanina felt a gush of wind hit her before she was turned around and greeted with a choke-hold.

As she was dragged back, she held her struggle as her cloak was suddenly pushed back, causing her to reveal her fresh and quite healthy face and hair. Mumbling as she tried to gasp for air, she was suddenly released.

"Cough cough...ugh." Shanina grunts as she coughs and inhales deeply and as softly as possible.

Peering up, she notices two healthy humans dressed in very similar office attire, looked at her as they made a surprised look.

In German, the lady on the left who was slightly greyed and quite dark in her skin tone was trapped in a suit which was slightly ripped as her toolbelt had some strange assortments of handmade weapons of sorts spoke to her. "Wait, you're friendly? Why are you dressed like those Axis earlier."

Holding onto her earpiece, Captain Shanina temporarily turns off her translator. "Yes, I am friendly. Are you two part of the hostages, the navigator was warning the others about?"

"Shh, they can hear us." The person on the right whispered as she crouches and points to the pair of legs that stumbled about like twigs of sticks.

Nodding slowly, the lady crouches down as her partner whispered, as she notices Shanina nowhere in sight. Looking left and right, she notices a strange black wisp glowing behind the Infected as suddenly a figure appears.

With the whip in a hold of chocking, Shanina ties about the throat before dragging and muttering a chant. As she did, the whip glowed a dark green before disintegrating the Infected to ashes. "..." With a sigh, she then pulls back her whip and circles it back to her free arm.

"You are a guardian user..." The war veteran asks as she stands back up again as she held her back in care. "Are you one of those Continuum people?"

"Yeah, I am. The name is Captain Shanina Leutenegger, part of Echelon 0, Platoon Armaments of Continuum UK." Shanina replies as she looks at them. "Who are you two?"

"...I am Dr Augustine, this is my partner, Miss Winona." The partner next to the dark lady replies as she smiled a little. "We were supposed to be here for collecting something a few days ago but instead, the Infected came and ruined everything."

"I see. Then how are the Axis involved?" Shanina asks as she looks through the shattered door as she sees the light flickering from the distance in the hallway. Closing the curtains, she then carries a chair before hooking it under a door-knob.

"After the Infected trapped us here with their strange behaviours, we all decided to camp out in the Filing Room of the embassy. After some time, the axis just barged in here, perhaps through lucky hoicking and decided to hostage up the civilians.

" We did fight through a few of them but they barely got to catch us up since we hid here." Miss Winona explains as she flips through the pages in a small leather diary.

"Sorry, Miss Winona doesn't speak good German." The doctor replies as she whispers the words into her ears.

"You can just speak English if you want. Or you are native language if you don't understand. I got an earpiece to translate languages I don't know." Shanina explains in English as she points to her earpiece attached to her earlobe like an earring.

"Oh great, that's better." Miss Winona laughs softly as she pockets her book. "I only explained as much as I could. We need to save the hostages before their nutcase of a medic injects them with the virus capsules."

"Virus capsules? That's new." Shanina explains as she immediately turns on the walkie-talkie and reports to the others. Holding her hand to Miss Winona and the doctor, she finishes her report before continuing to listen. "How did you hear about it?"

"One of the packaging staffs told me. They said it was in one of the luggage they were searching through. The carrier was unknown as she was probably not caught from camera footage but it could have been a disguised Axis. I think they were the ones that caused the whole outbreak for these past few days. The Doctor explains as she guides Winosa towards a spare chair that was laying free.

"Ahh, that makes more sense. Alright, you two take care. My pilot and a few soldiers are outside in your care. You can either extract yourselves if you so feel safe or you can just stay here and wait for me and my men to come back." Shanina explains as she heads to another door, before opening it slowly and looking through its gaps.

Nothing, emptiness. Though a few lights dimmed and the dripping of blood from the sides of rotting corpses.

"We will feel comfortable here, do your best Captain." Winona smiles before gesturing to the Doctor to stop holding onto her as she sits down.

Snickering, Shanina then turns back on her translator before continuing her sneaky business through the many corridors and hallways. As she silently shoots down an Infected one by one, she hid as quickly as possible when she notices a passing by axis soldier.

Wondering if it was one of her own or if it is an actual soldier, she holsters back her handgun before reaching her hands towards them before dragging them to a corner.

Pulling back the cloak of the soldier, she notices a rotting body of a person as she grunts and does not move. thinking it was one of her own, she stopped and looks at her before mumbling in her grunting language. "What was that for? Are you crazy, or are you searching for an escapee? Shall I notify the others?"

"No no..." Shanina grunts as she felt the stinky musk that came out of the half corpses body. "I am just thinking of getting myself one of those guardian weapons the others are using. My one has already stopped working."

She lied as she lets her "partner" go, thinking she could trust this rather young zombie, she tried her chances as she saw her jeans held a set of keys.

The partner picking herself up before holstering her rifle, she nods before pulling off the key from her jean's ring. "Are you serious? You could have just stopped, pat my shoulder and asked. You didn't need all those actions to be done, you know."

Plucking the key off her ring, she then hands a spare key to Shanina before walking away, grunting. "You can keep the key. I got extras. Go down from the stairs behind you and head to the door with a sign "Filing Room". There are also humans there so be careful if they try to fight back. Selina wants them fresh, as so she says. "

Walking away, and making sure she is far away as possible, Shanina then activates her walkie-talkie before reporting the other two involved in saving the hostage on how she has an advantage in freeing the hostages.

"Also, there is this woman named Selina with them. I think it is the medic The Navigator was talking about. Perhaps, Bridgette can pretend to still be twitching and take her down."

"I guess I could try as long as she doesn't inject my neck with anything dangerous," Bridgette replies as she stood next to Shanina and pats her back with a smile. "No worries, I found Captain. Fox, you can come back here. I am the other side of the place where you saw those two ladies."

"On it..." As a cheeky voice replies before a soft sound of bell jingles could be heard before a clean sound of a piercing gunshot echoed through the hallway.

A muffled scream, a sound metallic jingles could be heard before Shin-ae hops over the two and lands gracefully. "I found a set of keys and a wandering soldier so I decided to finish her."

"So basically that was all for nothing." Shanina facepalms as she realizes she should have just called Shin-ae in the first place.

"Alright, let's go. Remember Infected, The Axis Medic and also the axis soldiers, make sure they don't notice our presence. The blood that is stanching us and the cloaks are temporary, so try to be as blended as possible." Shanina reports to the two as she slowly walks down the flight of stairs.

Handgun ready and cloaked attired again, she watches the surrounding carefully, as she inspects every available room that comes in their way.

As silent as possible, they took down whatever neared them which are accurately considered an enemy before reaching a locked and closed-door which was painted in white and blue, also with a small bloodstain of red on its door.

A sign appeared over the door as it was nailed to the cement walls, etched in business letters "Aktenraum" which stood for Filing Room.

"This is the place..." Shanina mumbles as she pulls out the key from her pocket. Sliding the key into the door, she then unlocks it before pushing the door away.

With sounds of mumbles and cheeped out grunts, the many faces that stood in shock as they notice the three beings enter were in total fear.

A few had secretly a gift prepared but before they were able to do that, they relaxed after noticing Shanina and her other two partners pull down their cloaks with their way of a smile.

One of the staffs got up and started whispering in German to her partner before looking at them. "Have you seen Miss Winosa and Doctor Augustine, they were supposed to call for help and free us?"

"It's fine, I saw them," Shanina replies in german after turning off her translator. "They were the ones that called us." A small white lie to give the others some back-up of hope. "We are Continuum, we are here to help you out."

"Ohh great!" A staff cheered as she got up only for her partner to gesture her to silence immediately as the three felt a strange presence wandering towards them.

"Oh, so it seems someone called back-up, how interesting." The voice called out to them as a strange verbal tic kept happening from time to time. "Nice to meet you, I am Selina."

Speaking between German and Axis, Shanina realised who they were listening to behind their backs were the medic the navigator told them about.

Being able to speak German, they realized, she was a strong one, a possible captain of the German Axis.

"Nuh-uh-uh...Before you think of turning back, try to think what would happen to you and the pitiful people here." The medic cheekily asked as she waltzed slowly to the side of Shin-ae.

"Ooh, a guardian. How impressive. Quite a tail you have there, those magnificent ears, I wonder how they work once I catch hold of them."

With a sense of sudden electricity coursing through the aura of Shin-ae, she suddenly felt heavy and moaned in pain as she dropped to the floor, wimping. "Ahhhh.....It ..hurts..." She grunts in pain as she felt the shock happening over and over again.

Like the dog suffering after being stabbed, her legs and hands shake rhythmically back and forth as if trying to wake up from some sort of paralyzing nightmare.

"Hahaha, scream more. The sound of madness is lovely. It seems my Electro-Therapy seems to be working, great! Now, how about you two, are you going to listen to me or would you like the taste of Medicine?"

"What do you want?" Bridgette mumbles in a slight angry yet calm tone.

"Well, tell me. Where are my comrades? You may have fooled my navigator and the other soldiers but it won't work on me. I saw it since the beginning. My guardian told me that."

Selina replies in Axis as she notices them wearing earpieces that glowed a slight pink in hue.

"Your guardian? You mean the one you tortured till corruption." One of the staff members screamed as she tried to let out her last laugh.

"Hey, you are just a helpless nobody. Fighting for the soldiers, are we?" Selina asked as she tilts her head as she smiles widely, her jaw being rather crooked and her cheeks rotten away, you could see her full sets of teeth and the jaw bones that were hanging about the back of her skull.

In fear, she shuffled back as the medic laughs crazily before twitching and having a verbal tic and a small fit which made herself paralyzed for a few seconds.

Realizing that she had a flaw in her, Shanina stayed quiet as she then raises her hands and drops her handgun.

Pretending to surrender herself. "I surrender. Just tell me what to do." Shanina says in a mimicked tone of the last laughing staff member.

"Ooh, given up already. How swell for just a teenager like you. Fine. Drag this whimpering lady here, tie her up and chuck her with the rest. After that, tell your friends outside to hand in my comrades and redeem themselves."

As the medic commanded, she held her fist as she charged some electricity, watching Shanina dragging the aching Shin-ae to the others, she then takes out her spare handcuffs before latching them onto the wrists of her.

Walking towards the medic, she then looks at Bridgette before walking away, with a wink, she then heads to do whatever the medic said.

"I am going now..." Shanina mumbles as she secretly presses a signal transmitter of emergency on her toolbelt.