Rats in City Hall Chapter 2

By Matthew Lawson

Daniel looked out of the car window, waiting for Aya and Baker to come out. They'd been there for two hours now. What the hell was taking them so long? He had Ben to come home to, surely they wouldn't take this long just to talk?
Daniel opened the door, and stepped out of the car. He walked up to the front door, and tried to open them. But he couldn't.
That's weird, why are they locked, City Hall's not even closed.
He realised his answer when he saw a mutilated body lying in the middle of the lobby. What was worse was that he realized that something was eating it! It was a rat, but it certainly didn't as hell look like one. It was deformed, with skin hanging away. Shit, that must be one of the things Aya told me about.
Daniel pulled out his own gun, a Colt Double Eagle, and fired at the creature with three rounds, shattering the glass. The thing stopped eating, and then died.
Daniel smashed the remaining glass with his gun, and stepped through the now open doorway. He heard shots of gunfire emanating from the corridor to his left, and pointed his gun…..
…..only to find Aya and some other guy firing away at a number of those rodents. Daniel saw a rat coming towards away from behind, and fired a round into it's eye, killing it.

Aya turned round and saw Daniel. She had killed off the last rat with her gun, and saw a freshly dead rat right behind her. She guessed Daniel must have got the last kill.
"Daniel! Am I glad to see you."
"What the hell happened here? Who's that guy with you?"
"This is Michael Callighan, one of the President's bodyguards. He's here to help me. A whole pack of mito-rats are attacking the council in the main hall, and we need to flush them out and remove them."
"I'll help." Daniel said, hoping that Aya would agree.
"No!" Daniel's heart sank. Aya continued, "Since you blasted a hole in the door, that's your responsibility. Michael and I will clean up the hall. You can phone the police for backup, and guard the door till it arrives."
"Shit," Daniel muttered as Aya and Callighan ran down the corridor, "Why do I get stuck with all the boring jobs?"
Daniel picked up the phone, and dialled his Precinct number.

Aya and Michael ran down the corridors, gunning any rodent that they found. When the corridor split into two side corridors, they stopped, wondering which way to go.
"Maybe we should split up," said Callighan, "We can do the cleanup quicker."
"You sure?" Aya was worried, "We won't be able to back each other up if we do."
"Hopefully, we've cleaned out most of the rats, it should be easy enough to take the rest down. Here. I got a couple of radio communicators. We can keep in contact with each other if we find anything important."
"Well, alright. Just be careful, these things are a lot more vicious than you know."
They split up, Aya taking the left corridor, Callighan taking the right.

Aya stepped quietly through the corridor, her parasite senses under constant alert. She kept walking, making sure that there were no more surprise attacks. Her senses detected something, and she turned. One of the rats was running down the corridor towards her, bloodlust in it's eyes. Aya charged up the bullet in her chamber with energy, and fired an energy bolt straight into it's head, which exploded into a fountain of blood. Recovering from her subsequent dizziness, Aya noticed that the gun was now empty. She picked up a clip from her pocket, and noticed it was the last one. She had only 15 more rounds left, not enough to take care of the rats. She had to find more weaponry.
Aya walked down the corridor, seeing mutilated bodies of human beings everywhere. She thought How the hell were there so many?

Michael Callighan was quick to assess dangerous situations. He was careful to note how many enemies there were, their abilities, and what fighting options there were. He was a former marine after all, pretty good one too if it wasn't for the fact that he got injured in a mission in Bosnia.
So when he saw about twnty rats staring at him down the hallway, and slowly made their approach, he thought of the best tactical situation.
Run!
The rats were chasing him down the corridor. He retreated, looking back to fire sprays of bullets in order to take out some of their numbers. The rats just kept on coming.
He knew that he was running out of ammo, the clip in the already firing gun was the last one. Turning down a side corridor, he discovered a dead security guard with a shotgun, a Beretta 686 essential, and rolled over it, picking it up. There was still some ammo in it, and he noticed the dead man had a few shells still on him. Using up the remaining rounds of his machine gun, he threw it down, and brought up the shotgun with his other hand. "Die, you bastards!!" He fired round after round into the rats, each one dying from the spraying shells. One of the rats fired a fireball at Callighan, which narrowly missed him, although he was surprised at this ability. The surprise delayed him for the rat to leap at him, at which he stuck the barrel of the shotgun down it's throat, and pulled the trigger. The rat's backside exploded, with the released shells killing another. Finally, the last one was dead. Michael noticed he had used up all the rounds in the gun. If he had stopped to reload.....
He dismissed that thought, was glad he was still alive, and continued on his way.

Aya spotted a door that said 'Weapons Room - Authorized personnel only'. she noticced that the door whas slightly open, despite the ID card lock next to it. Aya stepped into the room, hoping to get some more weaponry. She got more than she bargained for when she looked into the room behind the door. Two rats, both as mutated as each other.
Mating!
Aya saw this disgusting act as the rats mated until the male collapsed. The female, five seconds after the ritual, immediately laid on it's side, and gave birth to a family of 3.
Aya stared in wonder as the children grew rapidly into full size adults.
Damn you Eve.
Aya decided this family to be killed now, as she burst through the door, and fired all of her remaining rounds into the family, who all died. Aya noticed that the mother and father still had smiles.
Aya muttered, "Okay, that's....just about the worst thing I've ever seen. Guess they'd died in ecstacy."
Aya found a nothing but a Colt AR-15, the civillian semi-automatic rifle version of the M-16, and a number of clips, each one containing about 20 rounds. Leaving her Colt Mark IV behind, she turned a corner, and stepped carefully down the corridor, gun pointed forward. She heard a faint sound behind the door. Opening the door, she looked up....
.....and saw a huge rat in the room, more than five times as big as the normal rats. She picked up her radio.

Michael wasn't as slow as Aya, he was working his way upstairs. He had picked up some more shotgun rounds from corpses along the way, and thanks to his 686, had cleared the way of any rats he found. He then heared his radio beep. Aya was trying to contact him.
"Whats up?"
"I think I'm gonna need your help. I'm in a room with a very large rat......."
"I'll be down in about fifteen minutes"
No answer.
"Aya?"
Still no answer. "Dammit!" He ran down the corridor towards the stairs, to where Aya was, and realised that she didn't tell her.

The radio was knocked of her hand by the huge rat, falling down a hole which Aya saw to the left of her. It must have been where the rats came in. But she had no time to think about that, the beast was already upon her. Ducking to avoid a swipe, Aya fired a round to the rat's underside, which didn't stop him, but enraged him. He turned his tail, a huge ball of fire was released at Aya, knocking her backwards, her Parasite powers sheilding her from death. She leapt to the side, avoiding a hand crush into the wall, where it left a huge dent. Firing more rifle rounds into the belly, she ran round the rodent, making sure that she avoided the rat's attacks.
Thinking that now was the time, she cast her Liberate attack again, turning into the figure that killed all the rats in the entrance to the main chamber. The morphed Aya struck at the creature nine times before she reverted back to her original form. Feeling dizzy, she looked at the rat, and gasped in shock when she saw that the rat had still survived, although it was weakened. It swiped a downward claw at Aya, who, still dizzy, jumped back in order to avoid it, but the claw tore into her shirt, ripping it and her bra underneath, leaving Aya bare from the waist up, leaving a few scratches to where the rat had attacked.
Aya needed to kill the creature quickly, there was littl time. The thing had probably called for reinforcements already. She looked for her an opening to the rat's head. When she knew her parasite energy had reached maximum level, she avoided the rat's attacks. Finally, she saw an opening, and pointed hergun at the rat's head.
Aya charged up her parasite energy into the bullet in her rifle's chamber.
"Say hello to the rest of your family!"
She fired. The energy blast tore through the head of the mutation, leaving a gaping hole in it's head, and a burnt mark in the ceiling. Finally, it's head exploded, and it fell.
Aya put both her arms against her face, to prevent the gushing blood from blinding her. she looked at the dead creature, and saw a number of rats enter the room. It's leader had died, they had to retreat. They retreated to the bottom of the hole, and disappeared down the sewers. Aya collapsed to the floor, tired by her fight.


Michael looked through the doorway where the noise was coming from, and saw the dead rat lying on the ground, a pool of blood where it's head should be. He then turned and looked at Aya, and stared at her half naked body. Although the blood had covered up Aya's breasts, he still looked away, blushing, and handed his jacket to her.
"Thanks."
Aya put the jacket on, covering her body, and pulled herself up, with her rifle as a support.
Aya and Michael walked down the corridor, guns in hand.
"Suppose this will be a good story to tell your girlfriend."
"Naaaa, she'd just chew me out for putting myself in a dangerous situation."
Aya smiled as they walked to the lobby, where Daniel, Baker, the President, and a number of cops were waiting.
The president was the one to speak first. "Well done you two."
"Thank you sir."
Baker who was talking to Aya held a thumbs up. Aya smuled, then suddenly looked serious, remembering what she saw in the gun room.
"Sir, I...."
"Mr President!" A man ran to the president, looking worried, "We just recieved news. Miami was hit by two mutated dogs resembling Aya's description of Sheeva.
Fortunately, police managed to kill the threat before they could destroy anything, but a number of people were killed."
"Damn, they're leaving New York and heading to other cities. How the hell can they amass such numbers?"
"Mr. President, I can reveal why." Aya said. She proceeded to explain everything she saw in the weapons room, including the speed at which the female rat managed to give birth so quickly. The President looked shocked.
"Hmmmm, we need a specialised unit to deal with this situation. Captain Baker, How would you like a career change? I would like you to be Commander of this unit.
Leadership skills and your personal experience of these mutations"
Baker, who had appeared listening to Aya's story, thought about it for a second, then spoke, "On one condition. That Aya is the team leader of the unit, Daniel my second-in-command. I would also like Michael Callighan a member of the unit as well. We could use his skills."
"You've got it. Thank you."
As the President and Commander Baker left to discuss the new unit, and Michael left to get to his girlfriend to tell her the news, Daniel spoke to Aya as they were about to head back the station. "I guess Eve was right, we do now have a natural enemy."
"Don't worry, we'll survive. After all, we're only human."
Daniel and Aya got into their seats and went back, leaving the police and ambulance services to clean up City Hall.

The End.

Matthew Lawson's Fanfiction