CH72: THEY WANT THE LAB RAT
[!!WARNING!!]
[Weather Conditions Growing Unstable. Seek shelter now.]
Grim, Gene, Ace, and basically everyone in the desert with an advanced form of a computer system got this notification that warned of a dangerous, disastrous dust storm that was only a few minutes away from them.
Even from the city, one could see a violent bright cloud of orange brushing against the ground with orange lightning rumbling and spiraling inside. Faint sounds of violent winds could also be felt as strong gushes of wind increased intensely overtime.
Ace, who was trying to catch some sleep, was rudely awakened by his system's nagging voice and red light constantly beeping in his eyes. With his eyes still heavy with sleep and his mind still in shock from the rude wake up alarm, Ace slowly and suddenly realized how lethal the storm was, as his system made it out to be.
'System—perform a scan for me, please.'
[!!ERROR!!]
[Here's the 'catch' as explained earlier. Some things can be scanned and others cannot. Since you were in the biome earlier, I was able to scan but since you've never been in a dust storm, experienced one, or taken the time to learn of it, a scan cannot be made.]
[Solution!: Get inside a building or hide underground.]
"COME ON, EVERYBODY MOVE!!"
"WE HAVEN'T MUCH TIME. LET'S GO."
Ace peered down from whence he stood and saw a multitude of folks running to three specific locations that looked like the entrances to old subways. By the entrances were men and women, each dressed in leather, as they led the people into the tunnels. One interesting thing he noticed about them were their impressively styled weapons, either mounted on their backs or in their grasps; the different types of beasts they rode on, and the glowing colors radiating from their chests and their weapons.
'Could their weapons be the same as these?' Ace wondered while he peeped at his crystal sword and pair of gauntlets.
"HEY YOU!!," A voice, so loud and grand, barked at him, nearly making him jump in fright. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING THERE? GET DOWN HERE, RIGHT NOW!! A STORM'S HEADING OUR WAY!!"
"IN A MINUTE!!" Ace replied and quickly concealed his precious weapons. Once done, he slowly made his way through the unfinished floors of the building. Suddenly, from the corner of his eyes, he saw orange hair belonging to a female moving through the crowd.
The boy's heart begun beating rapidly as he run to the edge of the building. "HEY!!" He shouted, but the orange-haired female didn't seem to respond.
"BOY, WILL YOU GET YOUR BUTT DOWN HERE, NOW!!" The same man from earlier shouted at Ace, this time increasing the depth and loud tone in his voice. As much as Ace wanted to just jump straight down to where the orange-haired person was, he didn't wish to draw anymore attention to himself than he already did. And besides….
[Your bloodlust grows.]
'WHAT!! I thought I already fed.'
[You didn't feed, you snacked. Your lust wasn't quenched and therefore, you'll grow hungrier with each passing second.]
[ETA: 5:00 minutes.]
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"Colonel Gene. Our monitors are sensing a storm not to far behind us." One of the pilots spoke.
"We'll we be able to move through it?" Gene asked. "We'll we take any damage while going through? I mean, it's just a simple dust storm."
"Negative, Sir. Those gas deposits didn't only change the biology of humans and animals, but they also changed the planet's natural environment, biomes, and even weather conditions. This isn't the same storms we were used to in training.
"What do you suggest we do at the moment?"
"It's wise we set camp for now. Moving any further will cause us huge losses we can't afford at the moment. In the interim, I have informed the nearby military academies about the possibility of war breaking out. We'll have to go off course for a while to regroup with them before attacking."
"Attacking?" Gene said. "What do you mean, attacking? We're just going on a rescue mission. We're not ready for war yet, not in these conditions."
"It's not my orders, Sir," The pilot replied. "There's a superior who gave us orders once we made communication with them. It's been decided with the other military personnel. We're looking at a war that's going to break down the Granian forces and send them back to where they came from."
"Impossible," Gene slammed his foot in rage. "We have a man and children in need of our rescuing. If we can't rush to their aid, we'll have failed as a race. Who knows what sort of weird experiments they'd to them…"
"Or have already done." Another pilot muttered under his voice but Gene was able to hear it. He gazed upon the second pilot and asked, "What makes you so sure of yourself?"
"Those things have been here for months and haven't attacked, invaded, or wiped out cities as we thought they would and yet we're getting cases about missing people every single day. I definitely know it's them taking humans as their prisoners or lab rats. As for why they're still here, it might be that one of their lab rats escaped." The pilot earned himself suspicious gazes from everyone after speaking his mind. Though it was just a simple theory of his, he had no idea how right he was, and neither did the others.
"This could be a possibility, Sir," He continued. "Just look at it this way. These beings have the power to change our planet with simple gas, imagine what would happen if they decided to use their full power on us. The only reason they're here is because they are either trying to recapture their lab rat or, they're looking for something else. Whatever it is, we have to find it before they do."
"You're right," Gene replied. "But we're not going to be able to do that unless we rescue Luke and the others. They obviously know what these aliens want and I bet it has something to do with these two." Gene replied while replaying the ransom video Grim had sent out to the entire planet. "We'll split into two in the morning. Two will regroup with the others while the other two will head to the city and find the boy before the aliens do, understood?"
"Sir, yes Sir!!"