Reinforcements continued pouring into the room, but not a single one came back out; the moment they entered, loud gunshots would ring out briefly before abruptly cutting off, followed by the terrifying, echoing sounds of something being snapped or torn apart.
"Help... help... gyaaaaaah!"
"Snap."
A sudden silence fell over the room once again, until another line of soldiers stepped inside. Meanwhile, the walls in the interior were red, not from the flashing alarms, but from the blood splattered across them. Severed limbs and the corpses of soldiers lay scattered over a pool of blood that was almost indistinguishable from the thick red liquid from the capsules.
"Chomp... chomp."
Clyde and Casca, still in their combat forms, were busy biting into and tearing meat from the severed body parts and internal organs they had gathered. "Haaah," the mouthpieces of their masks opened, venting white steam and revealing rows of terrifying, sharp black teeth drenched in blood.
"Thump... thump... thump."
The two turned toward the far capsule, which remained tightly sealed as something knocked from the inside. Clyde and Casca stood up and walked over to the massive capsule, large enough to hold two humans inside.
"Thump."
A palm pressed flat against the glass, making Clyde and Casca flinch slightly in surprise.
"Let’s free Corie," Clyde said.
"Okay, Big Brother," Casca replied.
But before they could make a move, a holographic screen showing static noise suddenly opened in front of them,
["Go... don’t free it... inside is an enemy... go... save... Corie."]
"Huh?"
Clyde and Casca looked back at the capsule, glancing upward, only now realizing that the container in front of them was far taller than their own. "Thud," a hand slammed against the glass, and as they took a closer look, the hand pressed against the surface was roughly 12 inches tall and 7 inches wide; Clyde glanced down at his own palm, which was far smaller than the hand on the glass.
Then, "blam!" Clyde and Casca jumped in shock as the figure of a giant emerged, a female giant roughly 13.5 feet tall. Though beautiful, her face looked distinctively human with a more elongated, slender shape; her muscular body was covered in cracked, skin-like textures that looked like clothing despite her being naked, and she had long blonde hair. The female giant appeared unconscious, or perhaps exhausted from thrashing around.
Multiple cables were attached to her body, and that was the last thing visible before her form slumped, sinking back into the thick red fluid and disappearing from sight,
"Okay... that capsule isn’t Corie... it’s the giant they call a Nephilim," Clyde said, communicating telepathically with Casca.
"If that’s the case... where is Corie?" Casca asked back telepathically.
["Giant... robot... hurry... hurry... Corie."]
Hearing Celes’s broken words, the two dashed out of the room. As they ran down the emergency-lit red hallway, where the alarms were no longer sounding, Clyde caught a glimpse of their hunger status: both he and Casca had 0% hunger, and their status bars had turned green.
Then, a holographic screen appeared, displaying the layout of the facility, with a blinking dot marking an expansive area on the blueprint.
Noticing the blinking dot marking their destination, Clyde and Casca sprinted toward the target while the humming melody resonated in their heads. When they arrived before a massive set of sturdy, tightly sealed steel doors standing nearly six meters or 19.7 feet tall, Clyde and Casca checked the blueprint on the screen again,
"It’s here, Big Brother," Casca said.
"Yeah... let me break this door down," Clyde replied.
"I’ll help," Casca added.
Clyde spread his arms, and the wings previously folded against his back unfolded wide, displaying two eyes on the right and two on the left. The six eyes on his wings fired red beams that merged with the lasers from his own eyes, forming a massive beam that struck the steel door before them. The six laser beams merged into one, melting the steel door and rendering it brittle, allowing Casca to whip her tail and tear through the melted doorway. After carving out a large hole, the two stepped inside and froze instantly.
They were standing inside a colossal hangar. Before them stood a giant humanoid robot roughly 197 feet tall, featuring a sturdy yet sleek build, a semi-circular head with two yellow eyes, and a single straight horn on its forehead. Its body was encased in armor integrated directly into its frame, looking powerful and imposing. While Clyde stood mesmerized by the giant mech, the kind typically seen only in super robot anime or giant monster movies, now standing right before his eyes, Casca pulled on his hand,
"Look at its chest, Big Brother!" Casca yelled, pointing upward.
Clyde looked toward the robot’s chest core, and sure enough, half the body of a human figure was embedded there with arms outstretched and cables wrapped tightly around both limbs.
"Let’s go, Casca," Clyde said.
"Okay, Big Brother," Casca replied.
Clyde unfolded his wings once more and took off into the air, wrapping an arm around Casca’s waist. After landing on a steel mezzanine maintenance bridge right in front of the robot’s chest, where the round core was located, the two were taken aback. Embedded there was the figure of an unconscious, naked girl with gray, scaly lizard-like skin, her lower body swallowed inside a core made of millions of black cables, her arms extended and bound within the core by wires. The core appeared open, its cover hanging from a hook beside it.
Clyde stepped forward, hovering as he brushed aside the girl’s hair that had fallen over her face. "Gasp!" Clyde and Casca both gasped in shock as Clyde pulled back her hair,
"Corie!" Casca yelled.
"We have to free her," Clyde said.
Without a second thought, Clyde thrust his hands into the mesh of core cables and yanked them out, repeating the action until almost all the wires were gone. He then reached inside and found a set of iron pipes framing Corie’s lower body; "crack," he pried the iron cage open with his hands and pulled Corie’s body free. Holding Corie in his arms, Clyde could clearly see her face, the spitting image of Casca, in her weakened state.
Suddenly, a holographic screen opened right before Clyde, Casca, and the unconscious Corie. Clyde read the text displayed in front of Corie’s face,
[Subject serial number : C – 0213 – Loveland Frogman joined frame network confirmed.]
[Status : Unconscious.]
[Abilities : Tongue Investigation, Frog hands and feet, Autotomy Regeneration.]
[Perks : Super strength, high jump, immune to all poison and disease.]
[Skills installed : Peak Martial Arts Mastery, Crusher Leap Kick.]
[Hunger : [Progress bar 100%] Danger.]
[Stamina : [Progress bar 0%] Danger.]
[Regeneration : [Progress bar 0%] status : not healthy.]
[Force wake up? [Yes] [No]]
Clyde floated down beside Casca, and Casca immediately embraced her twin sister before looking up at Clyde, who was holding Corie,
"Should we wake her up, Big Brother?" Casca asked.
Before Clyde could answer, the static holographic screen appeared once again in front of Clyde and Casca,
["Don’t... hungry... eat... then wake... her... simulation."]
The voice faded once more, but hearing Celes’s broken message, Clyde understood her meaning immediately. He recalled how panicked, terrified, and overwhelmed by conflicting emotions he had felt when he first woke up from the simulation, trying desperately not to go on a rampage,
"Let’s not wake her up just yet... Right now, she’s still inside the simulation. We’ll wait until she wakes up on her own... or until Celes sends her a message inside... What matters now is returning to the room from earlier, grabbing a few pieces of meat, and stuffing them right down her throat even if she’s still passed out," Clyde said.
"Hmm... okay, Big Brother, I understand... Hang in there a little longer, Corie," Casca said, gently stroking her twin’s forehead.
Clyde unfurled his wings, and Casca wrapped her arms around his waist from the front while Clyde held Corie in his arms. They descended in front of the torn steel doors and ran out, heading back to the room where they had first awakened.