Everything was growing dark, more ominous and infinite the further down she fell. Vexis was unable to save herself, her wings were gone, the Nova energy was non-existent in this realm, the walls were too far apart to grab onto. The infinite sea of black was ever-expanding beneath her, splatters of crimson colored the sky far above. All was silent, except for a quiet humming sound playing in the distance. The sound was annoying, but strangely hypnotic. Each time the humming grew louder in tone, the sky would start dripping it's crimson coloring into the dark shaft, raining blood. Vexis tried desperately to move at all, but found herself completely paralyzed.
The sound suddenly stopped, and everything remained still. Everything, even time itself was stuck in place. Vexis couldn't even really tell which way was up or down anymore, all was frozen.
The loud explosions of gunfire woke Vexis up in a hurry, she looked around frantically for the cause of the sound. However, all was fine. She found herself inside a hotel room of sorts, although it was hard to see much detail in the darkness of 3:45AM. Xenon could be seen across the way on the sofa, it looked like he just got woken up as well. Vexis didn't even have to speak up about what she was wondering; they both could tell what the other was thinking.
She gradually pulled herself out of bed, heading towards the window inside the nearby wall. The cloudy glass revealed that they were quite high up from the ground, the streets below seemed fairly empty. Vexis rubbed her eyes sleepily, trying to make her vision more clear. Still nothing.
The dark angel turned around to face Xenon again, a questioning look on her face, "Hey, did you just hear tha-" Just as she spoke, another flurry of gunshots sounded off in the city below. Vexis immediately unfolded her wings and broke through the window, glass shards and feathers all fell out into the sidewalk 17 stories below. Several groups of people -all armed with weapons- were looking rather lost, as if they didn't know what was going on either, while many others lay dead on the pavement.
Vexis let herself drop down closer to the ground, to get a better view. She began to hear the same buzzing that was in her dream off in the distance, and it was growing louder by the moment. Vexis' mind felt as if it were getting foggy inside, all thoughts that filled her brain were instantly dismissed into oblivion. She could barely recognize the sound of guns being shot once more, but everything was so distant to her. Was she even flying anymore? Sounds...loud sounds. Darkness...light, street lights. Cold breeze...warmth on her shoulder. Vexis glanced down at her shoulder where it felt warm, Xenon had grabbed onto her and seemed a bit freaked out for whatever reason, as if something was wrong. Xenon was trying to say something, but his words just kind of echoed in the background with every other noise.
"What? I can't hear you...speak up a little!" She could see him trying to be louder, but only mere echos came.
A searing pain suddenly jabbed into Vexis' side, one of the bullets managed to get her. Why was everything so sluggish? Or better yet; why was she in particular so out of it while the rest of the world seemed to be on haste?
Things started to pick up in pace again once Xenon forced her to start moving again. Vexis fell flat on her back against the roof of a building, Xenon landed a little more gracefully at the edge of the roof seconds later.
Vexis noticed that everything was becoming a bit more clear again, and also realized that the sound had grown much quieter. Was that noise causing her mind to act this way? The loud clashing of metal sounded off behind her, Vexis immediately whipped around to see the small group of androids that just landed to join them. Each of the robots were identical to the ones that Layla sent to go with Vexis and Xenon, even down to the Axion 'A' logo printed on their foreheads. The robot in the front of the formation stepped closer to Vexis, a thin beam of red light scaled up her arm as it scanned the bar-code tattoo that she had.
The other two androids left once the leader identified Vexis and Xenon as allies, the third remained where it was. The robot turned around after a moment, revealing a small monitor in it's back (which just looked plain creepy).
Vexis stood up and stepped a bit closer to the android, her eyes fixated on the blinking screen.
Layla's usually angry face appeared in the screen, looking as if she were about to bite someone's head off and spit it back out at them half-chewed. "What are you two still doing in Neo Ethiamn? It's idiotic to stay in the city while a population-reduction cycle is going on! And here I thought we gave you some tiny speck intelligence..."
Xenon suddenly shoved Vexis out of the way, his expression angered. "You mean to say that you people are causing this!? This slaughter-fest is your doing?"
Layla just stared blankly through her monitor, expressing just how careless she was of this matter. "Of coarse, we do this once every three months to reduce the population number. It's all to save money and resources, it's getting more difficult to provide certain needs like nourishment as it is. And if the population continues to grow, then the more important individuals such as myself shall have to live in a much less desirable environment."
Vexis was surprised to see Xenon's reaction to this, a certain feistiness and temper seemed to awaken within him. She knew that anger very well, for she felt that way about almost anything or anyone that dared to get in her way.
"How are you doing this? I mean, what's causing these people to heartlessly murder each other?" Vexis asked, just in time to block out Xenon's endless ranting from earshot.
"Simple, really, don't you hear that buzzing sound off in the distance? It triggers certain reactions in people subconsciously by affecting the brain's thinking patterns. And we can program what reactions we want it to start, and the sound will adjust itself to fit the task. The whole concept is about manipulating people through sound waves, took a while to develop this mechanism, but I think it's worth it." Layla explained, clearly enjoying the destruction she could cause. "Anyway, you two need to leave right away, these PatrolBots will escort you out of the city."
The screen grew dark then, and the robot turned around to face them again, it's freaky red scanner-bar pulsing with light. "Please follow to the entrance of city." It instructed in it's obviously computerized voice, although where the sound was coming from was the next question, considering it didn't even have a mouth (nor a face).
"You expect us to obey after doing this!?" Xenon exclaimed, pointing down to the blood-coated sidewalk. "Well, I for one am not going!"
However, the robot did not tolerate disobedience so patiently. Within mere seconds, the PatrolBot was able to adapt it's right forearm into a wicked looking blade, electricity danced across the surface to add extra pain and torture, and held it against Xenon's throat. "Please follow to the entrance of city." It repeated, although, if robots could sound annoyed, this one did.
Vexis didn't dare interfere with the robot, for it had more than just one arm and one weapon. Instead, she did as it asked, and flew on her own to the entrance where a group of androids awaited.
The PatrolBot's blade pressed even closer to the N-A's flesh as he refused to answer to it, although, after a moment the robot withdrew. Which, in this case, was not a good thing. Instead of keeping the blade, the robot now had a series of guns aimed towards it's victim. "Do as instructed, or face the consequences."
Yet another robot clumsily landed on the rooftop next to Xenon, and this one didn't even bother warning the N-A, it just grabbed onto him and took off.
During the uncomfortable flight, Xenon could have sworn that he saw something lurking in the shadows below, perhaps not even human.
~~~~
The shadow-man crept low to the ground, stalking his prey from a distance. His pitch-black skin and hair serving as a good disguise, only his yellow eyes would reveal his presence. "I've found them, should I attack now or continue to trail after them?" He asked into the earpiece on the side of his head, waiting patiently for a reply.
"Just keep following for now, with all those Bots around it'd be nearly impossible." Responded the woman from the other end.
"Alright, but the sooner they're gone, the better." He slowly got up from his hiding place, and phased through the nearest wall, like a ghost. Off to track down Axion's latest nightmares.
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