Exercise II: Neutralize The Rabid Ursid

Agent Eleven felt the pressure building to save the people as he noticed the screams that grew more intense but dropped in number.

He can tell he's getting closer to the screams and roars and readies his pistol for whatever threat reveals itself.

As the screams go quiet, he only hears a large animal grunting intensely.

Agent Eleven gets closer to the source of the sound and sees the hide of a large animal, without seeing the whole thing he could tell, "(Looks like an ursid. Can't distinguish the species. Definitely modified.)"

The agent pulls his pistol and grappling hook.

He gets around the bear to see it using its jaws to dig into the ground nearby. A headshot wasn't an option. Instead, the agent lets off a few shots into the bear's side. They penetrate deeply.

"(Nowhere near as tough as that beetle's shell as anticipated. This will be quick.)"

The bear turned toward the agent and let out a savage roar.

The wind tore the agent's suit and even began cutting his face before he began shielding himself with his arms. The bear's roar intensified, and the agent was flung backwards into a tree.

"(What the hell? A roar that can cut people?!)"

The agent saw the bear charging him during his recovery, but wasn't worried. He shot the grappling hook into one of the nearby trees to make a quick escape. The bear turned its head to trace his movements up above and went to the tree with murderous intent.

The bear stood up on its hindlegs and hit the tree with both of its massive paws. The tree instantly cracked and threw the agent off balance who was preparing and shot at the bear's face.

The bear leaned backwards on its hindlegs and dropped all its weight forward at once into the tree. This time, the tree leaned to the side and forced the agent to begin planning his escape.

"(I know what to do this time.)"

The agent holstered his pistol and grappled to another tree as his current tree was beginning to fall. He reached into another pouch, grabbed a small grenade, and landed on the wide tree branch waiting for the bear to chase him again.

The agent activated the grenade, waited a moment, and then dropped it as the bear charged the tree.

The bear charged to the tree and lunged forward, trying to take out the tree on the first strike.

As the bear stood to slam into the tree, the grenade dropped right in front of its face and exploded. The tree cracked and shook from the impact and was close to toppling over.

As the smoke cleared from the grenade, Agent Eleven could see the bear's face was disfigured and squirting a small stream of blood but the creature's rage didn't subside.

It used its final moments to continue clawing at the tree and roared up the trunk of the tree toward the agent.

As Agent Eleven tried to aim his grappling hook, the roar picked him up off of the branch and forced him to grab onto a nearby branch to not begin free falling to the ground.

The agent swung back to the tree and then quickly jumped to a neighboring tree with his pistol drawn.

"Time to put an end to this little exercise…" the agent whispers to himself, exhaling and steadying his hand for the next stage of his attack.

The bear, hemorrhaging from its skull and fatigued, sluggishly looked up toward the agent. It stood on its hind legs and took in a deep breath for a roar.

PFT! PFT! PFT!

The bear was hit three times with armor piercing rounds.

The other half of the bear's skull was blown away. It was dealt lethal blows to the neck and chest as Agent Eleven rained down shots.

The creature lost balance swinging its paws in defiance, attempting to rip apart anything it could. It was evident that the bear was already dead and its body was attacking fueled by adrenaline alone.

The corpse fell backwards as it swung its paw in the air and threw itself off balance. While on the ground, it still moved its paws with subtle jerking movements until it suddenly stiffened and began glowing.

"(Ursid neutralized.)" Agent Eleven said as he holstered his pistol and observed his quarry.

Like the golden beetle before, this creature began slowly disintegrating. The agent immediately noted that this creature generated green lights instead of gold lights like the golden beetle.

As the creature disappeared, it left a gem in its place just like the golden beetle. The agent presses a button on his grappling hook which changes the shape of the claw.

He shot it at the gemstone, and pressed a button to pull the curious object toward him. The agent placed the gemstone, black with milky red stripes, into the same pouch with the amber gemstone.

The confusion of new variables and the agent's own curiosity were hindering his ability to stay on task.

Agent Eleven remembered the top priority: The few sources of information that can help his mission are potentially in danger.

The agent tapped his invisible spectacles and scanned the surrounding area from his vantage point.

"(Indents in the grass. A few people. I see the ursid's tracks as well. They stayed together. Looks like that burrow I saw earlier was where they gathered. Time to move.)"

Agent Eleven shot his grappling hook at a far away tree and rappelled down near the burrow.

"Hello?! Anyone there?! Identify yourself!"

The agent repeats himself in three different languages. He calculated that it would cast a wide net over the majority of the continents and narrow down his location based on the victim's response language.

He could only hear a faint, soft voice trying to yell out in language completely unknown to him, "(Female voice. Different language than the zombies. Sounds like a different language family altogether. More variables is exactly what I needed.)"

The frustrated agent pulled a few small sticks from his tool belt and bent them. A loud cracking sound was heard when he began to shake the sticks to make them glow a bright light.

He threw one down into the hole and he heard a weak gasp in response.

He dropped into the small hole and saw it went much deeper than he thought. There were three people comfortably in the hole, "(Two males. One female. The males are in bad shape. The female is also heavily injured. I'm not sure I have enough supplies.)"

The woman said something to the agent who simply waved his hands and made his way toward the injured men.

The injured woman began to search through a bag she had on her person.

The agent dropped another stick at his feet. He also threw one toward the woman who yelled and pushed herself away from the foreign light.

The agent shook his head and sighed, he grabbed one of the sticks and waved it around, "Look! It's harmless!"

The woman reached her hand out for the radiant artifact and realized it wasn't hot at all. She grabbed it confidently and used it to help search through her bag.

Agent Eleven was relieved she wasn't a complete simpleton and retrieved his briefcase, making it visible.

The woman gasped and began searching through her bag more fervently, going so far as to dump her belongings out of it.

The agent reaches inside and pulls out a black metal can.

He shakes it and sprays the men's wounds.

The agent looks at the woman using the light and shuffling through herbs, flowers, and trinkets like a beggar through garbage. He shook his head imagining what she could be up to. He donned a pair of rubber gloves from his briefcase and a medical mask.

He ripped portions of the men's clothing to make them tourniquets. The agent made use of the belt one of them wore.

"(They have pretty deep wounds, but the nanites should be able to cauterize them and infuse their remaining cells with nutrients before any permanent damage is done. They'll be okay wi-)"

"That's an item box!" The woman suddenly yelled.

"Is that what you backwater people call a briefcase? And why didn't you speak before?! What kind of idi-" Agent Eleven was in the middle of venting his frustration at the woman when he was suddenly surprised.

Upon looking toward the woman's illuminated face, she was easily one of the most beautiful women he had ever se-

"(What's going on with her ears?!)"

The agent looked back at the men he just operated on and saw they had normal ears. He was relieved he hadn't used resources on an enemy.

The agent drew a knife from his bandolier and startled the woman.

"You're an elf! You're the ones who interfere with our equipment when we were exploring the ice caps! Now you're melting them and are trying to flood all of humanity!"

"(Three was right! Operation: North Pole is a go!)"