Explore the world, one post at a time
saving for when ao3 returns.
“Cory!” Dr. Patience said in his incredibly high pitched voice that Cory did not want to hear at 9AM on a Tuesday. “You’re late for your training!”
“Ugh… I’ve been a Private for like a month now, why do I still need to do training?” Cory complained as he leaned on one of the lab tables near a metal safe.
“Because you know basically nothing about Skips after a whole month of being here!” Patience scolded. “Thankfully for both of us this next one is-”
Nikole suddenly barged into the room. “It’s me I’m here, chaperoning again cause Triana’s on a… meeting,” Nikole cleared her throat. “What are we lookin’ at this time, Doc?”
“That’s… what I was getting to,” The Doctor sighed as he opened up the crate, shoved his hands in and placed the two person, sneaker wearing Llama costume on the ground.
“It’s… a Llama costume,” Cory deadpanned. “I think I know why this one isn’t dangerous,”
Doc pinched his glasses. “It’s a lot more than that, anyone who enters the costume will believe that they are Larry the Loving Llama,”
“Oh I guess that’s-
“To the point where they die of dehydration in the suit,” Nikole smirked, having successfully annoyed the Scientist. “Probably should’ve told him that too,”
“I was getting to that!”
“Oh… that’s a lot less cool,”
Dr. Patience sighed again. “Admittedly, yes; we’re still gonna have a couple of D Class demonstrate it,”
“We really don’t treat D Class well here, huh?”
“Eh, they’re all murderers, or arsonists, or forum trolls,” Nikole shrugged. “They get fed better in The Foundation than they woulda in prison anyway,”
Cory looked down and puffed out his lips. “I guess…”
The two D Class walked in, neither was exactly the most scrupulous looking man; in fact one looked like he had just exited a knife fight like 15 minutes ago.
“Alright, for this test I need you two to enter this Llama costume,” Patience smiled. “That is all,”
“This is humiliating,” Mr. Knife Face said as he put on the legs.
“Yeah well, you beat your wife to death with a 2 by 4,” Nikole stared at the D Class.
“Alright, fair,”
Eventually, the two D Class entered the two person’d costume… it sat limp for a short moment and then instantly shot to life; standing up on all fours like a real Llama!
“Well hey there y’all; I’m Larry, Larry the looooooooooooving Llama!” It cheered.
A big smile grew on Cory’s face, no one else’s though. “Wow! I changed my mind this is really cool!”
“I haven’t,” Nikole leaned on one of the tables as she took a swig from her flask.
The Llama jumped in front of Nikole, the shock caused her to drop her flask and spill the contents in the floor “Woah there pal, don’tcha know that drinking is bad for you?” He looked at the multicoloured puddle produced from the flask. “Especially whatever that is…”
“What I do with my time doesn’t concern ya!” She grumbled as she picked up the flask.
Dr. Patience cleared his throat, interrupted the possible argument. “What can you do, Larry?”
“I’m glad you asked random old man! I can dance, I can sing, and I can play all kinds of pranks!”
“Pranks!?” Cory yelped in excitement. “Wait… what if we pranked called Triana right now?”
“Now that sounds like fun!”
“That doesn’t seem like a-”
“Hell yeah!” Nikole cheered as she tossed her phone to Larry. “Do it now, c’mon!”
Triana, the soon to be prankee was sitting inside of a relatively nice cafe across from her girlfriend, wearing the nicest clothes she had (Consisting of an old leather jacket, an old band shirt that she borrowed from Lara and some slacks) as her phone rang.
“Hello?” She exited her lovey dovey conversation with Lara as she put her phone to her ear. “Nikole, you there?”
“Hey, is your refrigerator running?” The Llama asked.
“Wh- Who is this? Who the-”
“Is your refrigerator running,”
“I should kick your fucking ass right now,” Triana gritted her teeth. “Who is this?”
“...Well then you better catch it!” The Llama, along with Cory and Nikole laughed as he hung up.
“Nikole? Nikole you little… ughh…” Triana sighed as Lara walked over to her and put a hand on her shoulder.
“You good, Tri?”
The Lieutenant Sighed. “Yeah, just a prank call,”
“Ugh… coworkers amirite?” Lara shrugged, Triana sighed again; more of a joyful sigh as she looked at her hoodie wearing girlfriend, probably also the nicest thing she had.
“Difference is that my coworker’s lives are in my hands,”
“I’m mission control, Tri, how do you think I feel?” The two women chuckled as Lara went back to sitting; a waiter walked up to the two of them. She had long black hair and brown eyes with somewhat large bags. “Hey, what do you want?”
“Uh… fucken er…”
“Two burgers, one side of fries,” Triana interrupted, then smirked at Lara as the waiter wrote down their order and left.
Lara crossed her arms and pouted. “I would’ve gotten it eventually,”
“Suuure,” Triana rolled her eyes.
“Kinda sucks that we gotta go straight back to work after this,” Lara complained. “I mean shit, we need a vacation at some point!”
“We only get one vacation and it’s-
“Retirement, yeah…” Lara rolled her eyes and chuckled. “God, you sound like The General, dude,”
“I’m back, here’s your food, bye” The waitress placed the plates on the table then left as Triana handed her the money.
“Speaking of The General,” Lara said, a mouthful of fries in her mouth so Triana could barely understand her. “When do you think he’s gonna make us do another mission?”
“Tomorrow, it’s one of the less dangerous ones thankfully,” Triana gave a thumbs up. “Didn’t give me much more information though,”
“Well that’s helpful…” Lara looked down. “Also speaking of uh… not giving information when are we gonna tell everyone else about… us?”
Triana looked Lara in the eyes, the first time she had looked this serious in awhile. The Lieutenant cleared her throat as she finished chewing her food. “S-Soon, I promise this time,”
“Please do, I-I suck at lying you know that more than anyone,”
“Yeah, I just don’t want it to get in the way of any missions, honey,” Triana mumbled.
Lara sighed. “Fair, fair; I just think they deserve to know, Tri,”
“I do to…” Triana stood up and tiptoed over to her girlfriend; planting a quick peck on her cheek. “Love you,”
“Eh, l-love you too,” Lara turned beet red. “I suddenly c-can’t wait to go back to base now… heh,”
“Oh, you dirty little,”
saving for when ao3 returns.
“Alright, come in, all of you,” The General said as the crew poured into his office. “Got another mission for the lot of you. Site-06 experienced a large containment breach; you’re being sent in to protect the Detective we have going there to gather evidence,” Triana raised an eyebrow “A detective? I haven’t worked with one of those in awhile,” “I know, she’ll be waitin’ for you outside,” The General cleared his throat. “Her life is your number one priority, do not let her die,” “Yes sir!” Triana saluted.
The crew moved outside of the base towards a helicopter, they saw a woman with scraggly black hair tied into a ponytail; she wore rather casual clothes compared to the rest of them with just brown jacket, black skirt and red tie. She yawned as the team. walked towards her “You must be the Task Force sent to protect me… O’Connor,” “Triana, if you don’t mind me asking what exactly are you investigating at this site?” Triana asked as the crew got into the helicopter. “I’ll be investigating how the breach occurred, to get any information on who might’ve caused it,”
“Alright, when we land there we need to be as careful as possible,” Triana ordered. “Site-06 houses mostly Safe Skips,” “They house 939 there, don’t they?” Hooper asked. “Yeah, a couple of them too!” Scott stretched his arms to indicate the sheet amount of 939’s “Yes, we’ll need to be as quiet as possible; they’re blind, but they can hear insanely well,” Triana warned. “No screwing about, alright Cory?” “When have I ever screwed around?” “Well… never actually,” Triana hmm’d. “Still, you can never be sure with Privates,” Cory and Nikole chuckled, Triana menacingly cleared her throat. “Like that,” “Sorry LT…” The Helicopter eventually landed in front of the completely abandoned site, the normally bright white walls looked dark grey. “Jeez, this place sucks,” Cory simplified. Hooper felt a shiver go up his spine at the sight of the place. “You can say that again,” “Jeez, this place sucks,” “I- nevermind,” “So, O’Connor,” Triana looked over to the woman they were escorting as the MTF gathered around the front of the Site. “What are your current theories as to who caused this breach?” “Hmm…” The Detective looked deep in thought for a moment. “Nothing concrete yet. The Chaos Insurgency is too bold to wait for a breach, but the Serpent’s Hand isn’t bold enough to try something like this,” Nikole smirked at the Lieutenant “Yeah she probably needs to find more evidence before accusing whatever group… y’know like a detective does?” “Well maybe you could help her by letting her know about how the Insurgency would’ve handled this, you have plenty of experience,” Triana snarked back. “Already told ya, they’re not the stealthy kind,” Nikole rolled her eyes. “Sure…” Triana cleared her throat. “Alright Bluejay; keep tabs on the group escorting O’Connor,” “Will do,” “Great, Nikole will stand watch out here while the rest of us escort O’Connor around, am I understood?” She stared down the older woman. “Jeez, fine,” Nikole raised her hands in surrender. “You go have fun on your little adventure,” “We will!” Cory smiled. “If we don’t get eaten, that is,” Scott chuckled. “...We won’t,”
The five people entered the dilapidated building, walking into a main hall equally as grungy as the outside of the facility. “Alright Detective, any locations of Interest?” “I’d start with the comms room, see if any outside contact had been made with any other GOIs,” O’Connor said tiredly as the team escorted her there. “Bluejay, any detected hostiles?” “No ma’am, I’ll inform you of… whatever inevitably comes up,”
O’Connor and the gang entered the dingy communications room, filled with racks of servers all of which were off due to the lack of power. “Hm… can’t continue my investigation like this,” “Bluejay, can you hack into the-” Lara interrupted “The Facility’s Emergency Power? Duh, it’s my job. I’m surprised it hasn’t been used up yet though…” Lara mused. “Just gotta guess the password real quick,” O’Connor quirked an eyebrow at that, but went to go investigate the communication servers anyway. “So… when did this breach happen?” Cory looked around the hallway as he stood guard near the door to the server room. “Last week from what I heard; everythin’ was goin’ fine and then suddenly it all went to Hell,” “It’s unfortunate, we lost a lot of good Scientists here too…” Triana's face scrunched up in more anger than usual, but went back to normal pretty quickly. “And a lot of valuable Skips got damaged,” “Ain’t this the place or Site-16 that had the Infinite Pizza Box?” Scott smiled at the thought, then frowned because the breach probably meant it wouldn’t be found for awhile. “Infinite… what now?” Cory perked up like a pitbull in a room full of toddlers. “No, Cory, it’s in a different site,” Triana said through gritted teeth, occasionally glancing as Scott as she spoke “Aww…” “Alright, done with this area,” O’Connor said as she walked out of the server room. “No one had contacted anyone outside of the Site,” Triana sighed. “Hmm, that makes it… way harder to figure out who did this,” “Actually it implies that the breach was caused by someone working for The Foundation,” O’Connor corrected. “Or that whatever group did this has a lot of contacts within the Foundation… interesting,” She mused. “So you’re saying some kinda conspiracy’s made its way into The Foundation?” Hooper looked at the Detective in disbelief. The Detective shook her head “No… not yet at least; I’d need far more evidendence to make an accusation like that. Speaking of which I’ll be heading to the Site Director’s office next then we’ll be leaving,” “Good, this place gives me the creep-”
“Hello, is anyone out there? Hello?” “Guys, there’s surviv-” “Cory wait!” Hooper warned. “That’s SCP 939, it mimics the voices of its victims to lure in prey,” “Really?” “Unfortunately yes, we’ll also need to be far quieter; they can’t see but can hear very well,” Triana explained. “Hooper and I will follow O’Connor, you two will scope out the facility and make sure that SCP 939 is kept away,” “Sure thing dude!” “Yes ma’am!” Triana, Hooper and O’Connor went forward towards the Office while Scott and Cory moved right, staying quiet and moving slow as to not alert the creature they were walking towards of their presence.
“Alright man, we got flashbangs on us,” Scott whispered at the Camera faced Private. “These things got skin that’s sensitive to light,” “Really? That’s great!” Cory said, his relief at these things having a weakness being just a tad too loud, loud enough that he instantly covered his mouth. “Dude, shut up!” “I-I’m lost, please help me,” Another voice, this one was feminine… and closer. The two MTF tip toed behind a wall, Scott quickly typed into his radio’s screen. FIERI: 939 is close to us dunno if theres more than one. LT: Good, keep them as far away from us as possible.
The creature screamed, exactly like the woman who’s voice it had just used. Cory and Scott managed to get a peek at it. A large red reptile, with no eyes, spikes coming out of its back and tail, but what spooked Cory the most was the claws that looked like they could tear through metal with ease. “Fuck, run Cor!” Scott yelped as the creature began to chase them. They ran and ran through the twisting hallways of the site, hearing the screaming creature getting closer and closer to them. Cory screeched as he ran "Scott, what do we do?" “I *huff* got a plan,” The rotund man heaved. “Cover your ears!” The two MTF did just that as Scott launched a flashbang into the Reptile’s face, it let out a small yelp, and then a far louder one as- BANG
Despite the ear covering, Cory and Scott still felt their ears ringing like hell. “Augh, is it gone?” Cory groaned. “I think so, Man, shoulda scared it off for now,” Scott held his head. As Cory stumbled around, he got a glimpse at the end of the Hallway and at “UNI!” “Who?” The black dog-person at the end of the hall noticed Cory’s presence, smirked and then began to run down the halls of the Facility; the instance of 939 following closely behind. “Detective got everything she needed, you guys can head back to the front of the facility now… like right now,” Lara said over the radio “Crap, Scott you go; I gotta chase this guy down!” Cory began to run towards the dog with his gun in hand. Scott looked stunned for a minute, before tapping his microphone. “Cory spotted a member of the Serpent’s Hand, pursuing as we speak!" “Change of plans then, back him up Scott!” Triana ordered. “Hell yeah!”
Cory chased the dog into a dead end hallway. “Alright, nowhere to run now, Evil Uni,” Cory held up his gun. Evil Uni frowned “Evil? You’re the who nearly burnt this poor little guy!” The Reptile covered the part of its body where its face would be. “He tried to kill me!” Cory shouted. “Anyways, why did you cause this breach? So many lost lives for what?” The dog shrugged “We didn’t cause this, it just so happens to be a… lucky coincidence that I’m here,” “That is so totally a lie, I’m not gonna let you get away with hurting any more people,” “Ironic coming from a Jailor…” Evil Uni chuckled as he subtly reached into his pocket. “Gonna have to leave you here for now, get back to me if you ever wanna work for the good guys,” “You-” Cory suddenly broke into a coughing fit as black smoke filled the room. Evil Uni and the SCP were gone just as Scott arrived. “Dude, where did he go?” “I- I dunno he just… vanished,” “Shit,” Scott grumbled. “Well, that was a bust, let’s get you outta here dude,” “Yeah, let’s,” Cory groaned as he slowly walked out of the facility, leaning on Scott as he coughed from the smoke.
Triana ran up to him almost the instant he had stepped foot on grass. “Cory, did you manage to capture the Serpent’s Hand agent?” “No, but I managed to talk to him a little,” Triana grunted. “Dammit,” “What’d he say?” O’Connor quietly called out from behind the Lieutenant. “Ah, well he said that the Serpent’s Hand didn’t cause this breach… he’s probably ly-” “Interesting…” O’Connor mused. “My findings in the Site Director’s Office indicate that a large amount of money was embezzled from this site into something,” The detective began to pace around the area as the helicopter arrived to pick them up. “Whoever caused this has agents deep inside The Foundation, I’d watch your backs if I was you,”
saving for when ao3 returns.
“Alpha Strike, report to Professor Otis’ office immediately, I repeat, report to Otis’ office immediately!”
The PA system interrupted the overall good day that Cory (and by extension the rest of the gang, no one really liked Otis)
“I just started eating,” Scott sighed, looking down.
“Yeah, I need to finish third lunch!” Cory pouted.
“Doesn’t matter now, let’s head off everyone,” Triana said as she left the common room, the rest of the team trailed behind her as they all made their way to Otis’ office.
“This is gonna suck…” Lara grumbled.
Alpha Strike walked into the rather bare office, grouping up directly in front of the desk where Otis was sitting behind; tapping his desk nervously and squinting at the MTF when they all entered.
“Ah, hello the six of you,” Otis breathed out. “I know we haven’t been on… the best terms recently, but I need you to put that behind you,”
“We will, sir,” Triana sighed. “Right everyone?”
The rest of Alpha Strike half-heartedly nodded, or mumbled a form of the word “yes”.
Otis nodded too. “Good, I have a personal mission for you,” Otis placed a blue key on the table.
“Is that-”
“Yes it’s SCP 860!” Otis interrupted Hooper as he began to speak. “I am asking you to explore the dimension created by the key. Take the Micro HID Gun with you,”
“Why? I thought we got everything we needed from there awhile ago,” Scott turned his head curiously.
Otis sighed roughly. “We are seeing if there is any way to stun the creature within it, no more questions. Get to it,”
Cory raised his hand. “But-”
“Get to it!”
Cory sighed, Alpha Strike left the office as quickly as they had entered.
---
“Why is he so friggin’ mean…” Cory pouted, Hooper patted him on the back a little.
“Don’t feel too bad, he’s a dick to most’a us,” The Corporal reassured.
“He’s also sending us on a suicide mission,” Nikole said. “There’s that,”
Triana looked around her crew. “Yeah, this mission into 860-1 seems sketchy at best, and an assassination attempt at worse,”
“Eh, we’ll get through it,” Scott shrugged. “They actually put in the suggestions I made for the Micro HID Thingy, so it should be actually stable this time,”
“Hopefully, you’re the only guy who’s fun around here,” Nikole chuckled as she hit him on the back.
Cory pouted harder. “I’m fun!”
“Fun to laugh at, yeah,” Nikole chuckled before “Ow!”
Hooper jabbed her in the side.
“Jeez, fine I get it,”
The trip to the door that 860 opened didn’t take much longer, not factoring in the still relatively short wait to get the Micro HID into Scott’s hands.
---
Every member of Alpha Strike was standing in front of the door. Lara was sitting over a laptop.
“Alright, let’s head on in, get this over with,” Triana said as she put the key in the hole, opening the door. She lead each members of her team into the door ending with her-
“Hey, Tri,”
“Yeah honey?” Triana turned around to look at Lara.
The blue haired woman’s face scrunched into one of concern. “Stay safe in there, I know someone who was apart of the initial containment for this thing and it wasn’t pretty,”
“I will, Lara,” Triana nodded. “I love you,”
“Love you too, Tri,”
---
The team walked on into a large, dense forest. They found themselves in a large, dense forest with trees a hundred times taller than them. They found themselves on a dirt path stretching out in front of them.
“Alright, getting out of here shouldn’t be too hard,” Lara said. “Just move forward until you find another door,”
“Thanks Bluejay,” Triana said. “You heard her, let’s get moving, be on high alert so we don’t get jumped,”
“Yes ma’am!” Scott said as he readied the large gun in his hand.
Cory shivered and counted the twigs on the floor as the team began to move through the dark forest. The whole ordeal reminded him of the shadow guy incident, Micro HID that may or may not work this time included.
The team continued to walk through the path until they got to a fork in the roads.
Triana tapped her earpiece. “We’re at a crossroads, Bluejay, left or-”
“Right,” Lara affirmed. “This someone went right and escaped, so you probably will too,”
“Thanks,” Triana smiled. “You heard her, let’s go right,”
“Roger that!” Hooper affirmed.
“No, seriously who is Roger?”
The team quickly turned around to stare judgmentally at Cory, then turned around just as quickly to walk on the left path. The cobblestones were starting to make the anxious camera faced man’s feet hurt.
“Jeez, when’s this gonna be over? I wanna go home,” Cory mumbled.
“We all do, you just need to suck it up for now- AGH!”
Triana screeched as something pounced from the trees. A big cat made of purple wood with flesh sticking out of the cracks, and glowing yellow eyes that bored into Triana’s as it began to claw at her: chest, stomach and arms.
Triana groaned in pain as she began to kick the thing, Scott began to charge up the Micro as Nikole ran over to force the thing off.
“Dude, move I’m about to-”
“Give it a minute!” Nikole yelled as hit the Skip repeatedly on the back, it began to scream in pain too as it waved a claw at the Sergeant; Nikole managed only a scratch on her upper chest.
Triana grabbed the thing’s other arm and slammed it to the floor as she kicked herself to her feet.
“SCOTT, NOW!”
“I’m doing it!”
FWEEEEEEEEEEEEE
The creature writhed and writhed, like a cat restrained in barbed wire. Triana’s hold was firm, adrenaline was to thank for that, however.
“FUCK!” Triana shouted when the thing bit her arm, the pain forced her muscular arm off of the creature who jumped into the forest just us
BZZZZT
A patch of burnt, dead grass between the two women, and the complete lack of the creature. Leaves rustled as everyone slowly calmed down from the encounter.
“Goddammit!” Triana yelled raising her hand as- “Ow!”
Rest for awhile, LT, you look pretty fucked up,” Hooper patted Triana on the back, then quickly stopped doing that cause it made Triana wince.
“What happened? What the fuck happened, is everyone okay, hello? Hello?” Lara panicked over the radio, her voice filled with shrill anxiety.
“I-I’m… fine,” Triana winced. “We need to-”
“You literally just got attacked,” Nikole winced too as she covered the scratch on her chest. “We’ll patch this up, and we’ll keep moving, but you gotta stay behind us,”
“I-I shit…” Triana trailed off. “I guess we’ll have to rest, ack up here for a bit,”
Lara could be heard breathing in and out, desperately trying to calm herself down. “Tri, Tri are you alright?”
“I just got attacked, I-I’ll be fine, honey, just breathe,” Triana reassured, her voice shaky from the bleeding that Hooper had begun to patch up using some gauze.
“Okay, okay, that’s much better alright,” Lara let out a huge breath. “I mean, you being attacked is bad, but you’re still speaking, so it’s not too bad?”
“Skip dinked ya up bad, huh?” Hooper mumbled to himself as he wrapped up the bite mark.
“Oh jeez really? I uh… shit shit shit,” Lara mumbled.
“Hoop, quit giving Lara a heart attack,” Nikole sighed as she quickly patched up her own wound. “I’ll go get blondie to unfreeze-”
“I’m fine,” Cory mumbled. “Let’s just uh… get this done as soon as possible,”
“Agreed,” Triana grimaced as she slowly got up from the floor, Hooper quickly offered his shoulder as support.
“You really alright, Cory? You look a bit shaken up is all,” Hooper asked, concern evident in his soft tone.
“Yeah, I’m just shaken up,” Cory let out a breath. “Ready to keep going,”
“That’s good,” Scott smiled as he carried the Micro. “Anyways, for some good news this thing still has another charge, we might still be able to catch this thing,”
“Alright that’s good, we’ll need a way to lure that thing out though,” Triana said. “It’s skiddish, so we’ll fuck need a way to keep it occupied,”
“Before you ask… no, I am not being bait for-”
“I’ll do it,” Nikole interrupted Cory as she raised her hand. “It’ll wanna go after me anyway, got the feeling it’s pissy with me after we showed it its place,”
Triana let out a wheezy chuckle. “Makes sense to me, let’s get to it,”
Cory breathed a sigh of relief, he (probably) wasn’t gonna get scratched by this weird cat thingy!
---
Nikole stood in the middle of a patch of the forest, everyone else was out of sight. She lightly moved the bandage around her upper chest to let the smell of blood enter the air.
“Come outta here you weird cat thing, you don’t have the balls!” Nikole mumbled after she took a swig from her flask, an extremely important part of the plan according to her.
Rrrrrrrr…
Growling, it was in the woods… lying in wait for the perfect chance to pounce.
The prey was practically presenting itself to it, it was almost too good to be true for the creature. The intruder would be annihilated and the rest would leave; all it needed to do was pounced-
BZZZZZZT
It roared in midair as it fell to the ground, electric pain throughout its whole body.
“Wooooo!” Scott cheered as he lowered the Gun. “We gottem!”
“Don’t celebrate too soon, now we gotta carry it out,” Hooper said. “Lara, tell the higher ups that we incapacitated the Skip,”
“Will do, Hoop,” Lara said. “Just get out of there ASAP, I-I’m not super comfy with Tri being in there is all,”
“I’ll live, honey,” Triana sighed. “Just a couple days in the medical wing is all,”
“Hopefully,” Lara chuckled uncomfortably.
“Woooooooooo! We’re the fucken’ winners tonight!” Nikole waved her arms as she stepped around the forest.
“Welp, everyone’s either injured or drunk, you gotta help me carry this thing, Cory,” Hooper said with his hands wrapped around the wrist of the creature.
“Do I have to?” Cory puffed his cheeks.
“Well, considerin’ that Triana’s too injured, and Nik’s too drunk… I’m kinda your boss,” Hooper chuckled. “So yeah, you have to,”
“Ugh, I should’ve stayed in accounting…” Cory pouted as he lazily stomped his way over to the incapacitated creature.
saving for when ao3 returns.
“Alright, are we all ready for our first mission as Alpha Strike?” Triana said to the rest of her team, all of which (Excluding Lara, obviously) were in the same helicopter as her. All wearing the, in Cory’s humble opinion far better looking green uniforms, including the bullet proof vest with each individual soldier’s insignia posted on their chest.
“I’ve been ready since we got back to base,” Hooper chuckled.
“Course I’ve been ready, these uniforms are sick!” Scott laughed.
“Yeah,” Cory nodded. “I look really good in green,”
Nikole didn’t speak, she just kinda crossed her arms and waited to land, uninterested as ever.
“Good enough, we’ll be attempting to recontain SCP-280. Use the flashlights provided to you to move it into an area that can inhibit it’s movement,” Lara cleared her throat. “Scott, you will use the experimental Micro HID Canon to stun it for a longer period of time,”
“Sounds good LT!” Scott chuckled.
“Glad you’re confident, cause we’re landing soon; everyone else ready?”
Everyone else affirmed, pulling out the flashlights, the brightness on them was enough to blind someone, and hopefully to do whatever it was supposed to do to this Skip. Admittedly Cory wasn’t paying much attention when Triana was explaining what it was. He didn’t have much time to ask anyway as they were landing in a forest. A forest with tall, dark trees that made the ground appear nearly black. Cory felt a small shiver go up his spine as he looked at it.
“Whaddaya scared, Cory?” Hooper slapped the man on the back, Scott and Nikole both chuckled.
“N-No! Maybe…” Cory mumbled as he held out his flashlight like a gun, sweat dripping down his forehead.
“You’ll be fine, Cory,” Triana reassured. “I’ve gotten you out of worse,”
Nikole cleared her throat. “We’ve gotten him through worse,”
“Yes, yes, let’s get moving now,” Triana tapped her headset. “Any signs of the Skip, Bluejay?”
“Flying a drone above the area now, I’ll let you know when I see it,”
“So uh… what’s this thing look like?” Cory asked as the team of 5 began to walk through the forest.
“Cory, were you listening during the briefing?” Triana sounded somehow both defeated and like she had the pent up frustration to tear down one of these trees.
“Uh…”
“It’s a pair of white eyes and some shadowy stuff!” Scott interrupted. “If you see some white eyes just flash your light at it so I can zap ‘em!” Scott chuckled as he slowly lifted up the incredibly heavy looking railgun.
“Thanks Scott!”
“Y’want help with that?” Hooper asked.
“I’m a big guy, I can carry it dude,” Scott chuckled reassuringly.
Nikole chuckled too. “True on that first part,” The two chuckled together.
Cory silently counted the trees in front of him, and glanced to the ground and the drone above him as his team walked through the forest, flashing their lights around the forest to see, the sound of bats above him kept him on edge as he-
Woosh
Wooshing sounds, wooshing sounds, wooshing sounds. Cory felt his blood go cold, the rest of the team felt it too, though to a lesser extent.
“Behind you, behind you, I can see it!” Lara exclaimed, the whole team turned around and flashed their lights at the pair of white pinpricks like eyes, held within a pitch black smoke within the illuminated part of the forest.
“We got it, Scott, now!” Triana ordered, Scott smiled widely as the canon slowly charged up, electricity surrounding the barrel as the shadowy creature was practically immobile from the amount of light on it, the charging sure was taking awhile though, the creature began to slowly move back.
“What’s taking so long?” Nikole shouted.
“I-It’s not firin-”
POOM
The gun exploded, a good chunk of the forest was shrouded in blinding white light. Every single MTF was launched onto the ground, they all groaned in pain as the light subsided, and the creature was gone.
“Alpha Strike, Alpha- fuck it, guys what happened?” Lara yelped over the radio. “My drone’s disabled, what did you do?”
“We *cough* we’re fine,” Triana said as she slowly got up. “The-”
“Oh shit!” Scott shouted, clicking on his flashlight only to notice that it wouldn’t turn on, no matter what he did. He took out the battery from the back which had completely exploded.
“The fucken’ gun exploded!” Nikole shouted, sounding as defeated as she did panicked. “And it blew up all the batteries, and now we’re gonna fucken’ die cause that fucken’ Kraut couldn’t bother to-”
“Nikole, calm the fuck down,” Triana calmly spoke over the older woman, hiding her own panic as Nikole let out a sigh of anger “The Micro HID Cannon didn’t fire properly, the batteries for our flashlights have been destroyed alongside the…” Triana looked at the cannon to assess the damages, only the part of the gun holding the energy core was damaged, the core, and the casing around it exploded and charred.
“Tri, the what?”
“The Canon’s core exploded,”
“Okay, okay it’s not as bad as I thought,” Lara breathed in and out. “Holy shit that was bad, there should be extra batteries and a spare core at the helicopter,”
“Great, Scott can you repair the Micro HID Cannon?”
“That’s uh…” Scott was breathing in and out to calm himself down. “Like, my entire job; hopefully I can,”
Hooper had seemingly calmed down pretty quickly. “What about us?”
Cory completely zoned out, utter panic on his features as he stood like a deer in headlights; not paying attention to a word of what Triana was saying as the blinding light and the events leading up to it flashed in his mind-
“Cory!” Triana shouted.
“Agh! What? What is it?”
“I- we’re going back to the helicopter to get batteries,” Triana explained. “Move!”
“Yes ma’am,”
The five ran through the forest, attempting to ignore the fwooshing around them, or the smoke in the corner of their eyes, or the white pinpricks they’d see alongside it, or the-
“Agh, it’s got me!”
Cory turned towards Scott being attacked, held down by the smokey creature. Panic set into him as the rest of his team desperately clicked their flashlights to no effect.
“Fuck fuck!” Triana yelled.
“No, nononononono!” Cory slapped the side of his head in panic, desperately trying to calm himself down-
FLICK
A light shone onto the shadow man, he slowly moved away from the Armorer, covering its eyes as it slowly backed away.
“Holy shit,” Scott was breathing heavily, panic and exhaustion evident in his voice. “You save me, man,”
“I… did?” The panic hadn’t worn off yet, Cory was still counting the trees he could see.
“Your eye er… lens is glowing, Cory,” Hooper announced.
“Yeah, forgot you had a camera for a face for a minute there,”
“Oh my God, I… saved you!” A huge smile grew on Cory’s face, he hadn’t failed somone, he hadn’t failed someone!
“This is great!” Lara sounded just as excited. “Now all Scott has to do is repair the Micro and we can go back to base,”
“Yeah Cory, you saved this mission,” Triana patted him on the back. “And Scott’s life,”
“Enough talkin, we’re burnin’ daylight here,” Hooper said.
“Of course, let’s get moving; someone guide Cory through the forest,” Triana ordered
Hooper grabbed Cory by the wrist and gently led him out of the forest, Cory felt his heartrate speed up (from the adrenaline of saving Scott’s life, of course)
Back at the helicopter, sooner than Cory thought they’d be. The shadow creature was long gone.
“Scott, get repairing the Micro HID Cannon,” Triana ordered, handing the man the glowing blue mass, encased in steel cage.
“On it, I’ll try to see what went wrong with it,” Scott said as he crouched down with the broken gun, a toolbox and welding equipment. He quickly got to work putting the core into place and welding the outer shell together.
Cory turned around, his lens light shining onto the man.
“Do you know how to turn that off?” Nikole asked.
“Uh… lemme just,” He slapped the side of his head again, the light turned off. “...I do!”
“Great, I’ll have this done in a jiffy!” Scott smiled under the welding mask. “Also I’m pretty sure I know what was wrong with it; the steel holding the energy core wasn’t thick enough,”
“What?” Triana sounded pissed, most than she usually did. “That is… incredibly irresponsible of The Foundation to give us a faulty prototype,”
“Hey, big Tri, standin’ up to The Foundation n’ all that,” Nikole chuckled.
Triana nodded. “I’ll be having a talk with the higher ups after this… especially Otis,”
“Right, it is his prototype,” Hooper said.
“That guy gives me the creeps,” Nikole shuddered at the thought of the Professor. “He’s just-”
“It’s back!” Cory shouted as he slapped the side of his head, the shadow creature that began to bolt towards him had been stopped in its tracks. “Gotcha!”
“Shit, are repairs finished, Scott?”
“All done, ready to lock n’ load!” Scott laughed semi-maniacal as he aimed the massive gun at the creature, it began to rev up and rev up, the tip of the barrel glowing blue before-
BZZZZZZZZZZT
The beam, a light blue combination of electricity and light hit the shadow, sending the smoky mist to the floor, completely incapacitated; a first for any recontainment op.
“Hell yeah!” Triana raised her hands in celebration, the rest of the team followed suit, Cory continuing to stare down the creature.
“From that I assume that shadow boy is dealt with,” Lara chuckled over the comms.
“You bet your ass it is, never doubted you Cory!” Nikole patted the man on the back.
“You said we were gonna die like 10 minutes ago,”
“I was jokin… let’s get this thing in the helicopter and go home,”
And so they did, Alpha Strike’s first mission was a stunning success, even with the mild hiccups it had.
---
Professor Otis sat in his office, tapping his fingers uncomfortably on the paperwork sitting on the table in front of him, he groaned as he readjusted his hat, his tie, every part of his clothes until-
“Professor Otis, what the hell?” Triana burst open the door, putting her hands on the desk. The man jumped a little in his seat as she entered.
“Lieutenant, what are you doing here?” Otis asked, a look of offense and annoyance in his eyes. “I am incredibly busy-”
“I don’t care,” Triana deadpanned. “You gave my team a faulty prototype, I would’ve liked to know about the fuel container’s faults beforehand,”
“We didn’t know, we-”
“Then you should’ve tested it more, your incompetence nearly jeopardised the entire mission,”
“Are you here to insult me, or are you here to talk about something useful?” The man sounded angrier. “As Alpha Strike you should understand that your job entails more risks than the average Mobile Task Force,”
“I understand, but I would like for unnecessary risks to be removed from the equation,”
“And I did what I could, anything else like this and I will have you court martialed,” A small smirk formed on his face for a second before going back to his normal scowl.
Triana grumbled. “I hope for your job that you did, I’ll be going now, Professor,”
Triana left the room.
“Good riddance,” Otis grumbled under his breath.
Saving this for when Ao3 comes back up
The team was sitting in the auditorium, General Flooper, and a man with short, well kept black hair in a nice suit complete with a bowler hat were standing upon the stage.
“This is Professor Otis, he’s a long time veteran of the European branch of The Foundation,” Flooper explained. “He’s here to assist us with the fixing of the recent breaches,”
“Danke, General,” The man stepped forward, talking quietly into the microphone. “I am… developing a weapon to more easily deal with the Skips without damaging them,”
Nikole whispered to the blonde to her side. “I heard of this thing ‘round the water cooler,”
“Shut up!” Triana whisper yelled at the older woman, who crossed her arms grumpily.
“Thank you, Otis; please give him a warm welcome to the Facility,” Flooper said. “A prototype of this weapon will be present in our return to UnLondon; head to the helicopter now, troops,”
And so there the team was, getting into a helicopter that soon began to fly from the US to England preparing to land at UnLondon again.
“Alright, we know that the Serpent’s Hand is in there; we’ll easily be able to surround them and force them to surrender,” Triana said
“Finally, somethin’ easy,” Nikole smirked.
Cory shifted in his seat a little. “I’m still pretty unsure about going back there… y’know cause that… guy I won’t mention kinda kidnapped me,”
“You were fine, right Cory?” Hooper asked, mostly jokingly with the smallest hint of concern.
Cory shuddered. “You wouldn’t believe the things I saw in there…”
“It was an empty room, and the… guy didn’t even try to stop Bigfoot from saving you,” Nikole rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, well it was still sucky!” Cory crossed his arms.
The helicopter landed in front of the entrance to the Skip shortly after; they quickly entered back into the gloomy city streets they had spent an unfortunate amount of time in.
“Alright, you all know exactly where the Serpent’s Hand base is, place is already surrounded we’re just here to make sure it stays that way,” Lara said over the radio. “Should be an easy mission,”
“Have all instances of SCP-1678 within this area been neutralised?” Triana asked.
“Pretty much, unless you really stray away from the group, *ahem* Nikole and Tri,”
“Wasn’t our fault these three ran in the wrong direction,” Nikole groaned.
“Yeah, Bluejay; we’re the ones that ended up actually finding anything,”
Despite the fact they couldn’t see her, the team could feel Lara rolling her eyes. “You still nearly got yourselves killed, I don’t wanna hear it,” She cleared her throat. “Anyways, just stick together, and uh… Tri,” Her tone got far more serious.
“Yeah Blue… yeah Honey?”
“Stay safe, alright? Losing comms kinda caused me a bit of a panic attack…” Lara chuckled uncomfortably.
Nikole smirked to herself as Triana also chuckled uncomfortably. “I will, don’t worry,”
“Phew… that goes for the rest of you, I know the autism makes it hard to tell, but I do actually like you guys,”
“I thought you only liked Triana,” Scott smirked… then got jabbed in the stomach by Triana.
Lara paused. “Shut up… moment’s over, just go to the place where all the other MTF are,”
Cory pouted. “Awww…”
“There’ll be more moments, Cory,” Hooper patted the man on the back.
“HALT, CRIMINAL!” The entire team all aimed at the alleyway where the now all too familiar sound of the Bobbies’ yelling came from, the two Officers began to rush them before-
BZZZT
A beautiful, yet terrifying blast of light and electricity came from behind the Bobbies; sending both of the Skips falling to the ground completely stunned.
The six stood there, equally stunned as the twitching mummified men on the ground.
“You’re welcome,” The MTF that fired the futuristic gun; closer to small canon than any gun the other MTF had seen. “This thing has been real good at dealing with these coppers,”
“Thanks…” Triana looked at the insignia on the soldier’s chest. “Sergeant, what are your orders?”
“We’re patrollin’, a lot less scary recently,”
Scott was ogling the gun. “Goddamn, how does that thing work?”
“I uh… don’t know, you probably shouldn’t be looking that close at it, sir,”
“Nah, I’m a Weapon’s Expert,” Scott confidently said. “I gotta get my hands on one of these,”
“You can just like… ask the General on your next mission,”
“What happens when it hits a person?”
“Let’s never find out, Scott,” Triana heaved a bit as she pulled the big guy away from the gun. “Let’s get back to the mission,”
“Aww…” Scott looked down for a minute, before going back to following Triana walking towards the Radio Tower in the distance.
“If it helps at all, I also wanna disassemble it,” Nikole patted the guy in the back.
“You prolly wanna try to put it in that flask o’ yours,” Hooper added, Lara chuckled over the radio.
Nikole pouted. “I mean you’re right, but like… that’s just kinda rude,”
---
“Doc, doc, doc!” A Serpent’s Hand member yelled as he ran to the basement of the tower, Evil Uni sat near the bottom.
“Jesus, settle down,” The dog man tried to wave the grunt’s fear away, spinning around on an office chair to face him. “What’s wrong?”
“The Foundation! Th-they have us surrounded!”
Duni sat there for a moment, pondering in thought. “Nothing to worry about, we’ll be out of here in no time,”
“How? They have the-”
Duni hit a button and opened up a secret hatch, leading to a submarine underwater.
“Impressed? We stole this bad boy from The Foundation,” Duni invited the man in. “This will only be a minor setback in our plans,”
---
“This feels… too easy,” Cory shuddered, counting the streetlamps in his head as his team got to the outside of the tower.
“That’s a good thing, Cory,” Triana turned to face the Private.
“These Serpent’s Hand guys are super crafty, we aren’t just gonna be able to get them out of there,” Cory said. “We gotta go in there,”
“We don’t have the authorisation; we need to wait until reinforcements arrive,” Triana ordered.
Hooper butted in. “Yeah, Cory; we shouldn’t go in ‘till we got more people to back us up,”
“Oh, screw that,” Cory ran towards the front door. “I’m not gonna let these guys kill any more people,” He bolted into the building as fast as he could.
“CORY!” Triana reached out to him.
“Holy shit, the kid did it… whatever that was,” Nikole looked at the door with a mix of pride and shock.
“So are we goin’ in after him?” Scott asked.
“No,” Lara sighed. “We’d need to wait for reinforcements to do anything,”
“Goddammit,” Hooper sighed. “I’ll go after him,”
“Wha?”
“Don’t worry about it LT, I just gotta do this; we’ll be safe,”
“Hooper, I am ordering you to-”
“And I’m refusin’, see ya soon Lieutenant,” Hooper ran into the building.
---
Cory instantly noticed the lack of Serpent’s Hand members, not even a single grunt was in there-
“Cory!”
“Agh!” Cory jumped backwards as he heard the familiar Southern accent of his friend. “Hoop? I thought you were staying behind,”
“You’re gonna need backup, Cory,” Hooper explained as he helped Cory get up from the floor. “No one’s in here,”
Cory looked lost in thought for a moment… “The basement! What if they have like… a submarine in there!”
“Cory, that sounds like a trauma response… and like a real bad idea,”
Cory lead Hooper by his wrist to the basement. “You just gotta trust me, Hoop!”
Cory and Hooper looked into the basement, seeing the secret hatch which lead to the secret room with the-
“Submarine!” Cory whispered to the Corporal.
“How are we gonna get on?”
Cory’s eyes looked over a large crate, he then looked Hooper in the eyes.
“Cory-”
“It’s our only choice, Hoop,” Cory smiled.
They shoved themselves into the crate soon after, probably the absolute worst fit considering that they were two grown men; they soon heard two people walk towards them and pick up the crate.
“God, this thing is way heavier than I thought,”
“What do they got in here, bricks?”
“Anomalies?”
“Anomalous bricks?”
The men’s conversation finished as they dumped the box on the cold metal floor; the two waited until all the sounds of chatter, and walking were far away enough; they quickly opened up the box and stood up in the cramped metal storage room of the submarine; shiny yet dark and with dozens boxes stacked utop each other.
“I’ll be damned, Cory, that actually worked,” Hooper whispered.
Cory scoffed. “Of course it did, now we gotta… uh…”
“Did you seriously not think this far ahead?”
Cory looked down. “Maybe… I uh… didn’t think we’d get this far,”
“Goddam-”
“Halt Jailers, put your hands up!” The shout from the two Serpent’s Hand grunts caused the two men to comply.
“Aw crap,”
The black dog man sauntered in looking as smug as ever he eyed up Cory with a smirk on his face. “There you are, finally deciding to defect to the good side, huh?”
“Never!”
The dog sighed. “Pity, thought you and… whoever this is finally grew a conscious-”
RUMBLE
“I- what the hell is going on over there?” Duni shouted over in the general direction of the cockpit, his voice sounding more shaken than before considering the sheer force of the rumbling. Cory nearly vomited from the motion sickness.
“Something is swimming around us, Doc! Like a big ass snake,”
“Y-You don’t mean… oh fuck… oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck,” The Dog began to pace around the room, the two grunts to his side looked at him in concern as did Cory and Hooper.
“What’s goin’ on?” Hooper shouted.
“What’s going on is that we’re gonna die here; that was the Leviathan,” Duni’s voice shrank to a size even smaller than before as the man continued to pace.
Hooper quirked an eyebrow. “SCP-169?”
“I suppose that’s what you jailers call it,”
“I thought the Serpent’s Hand wanted to harness the power of all anomalies, why don’t you-”
“Fucking what?” The dog, through the haze of fear still managed to sound genuinely offended. “How much bullshit have you been fed?”
RUMBLE
The rumbling of the ship made nearly everyone fall over alongside some boxes that Cory and Hooper quickly rolled out of the way of.
“It don’t matter right now if we all end up at the bottom of the Ocean, we gotta-”
RUMBLE
This was the last rumble, the last thing Cory remembered before everything went black.