Per 
“Oh hell no!” Agent Adams exclaimed as she read the files in her inbox. Each one looked dumber than the last. She called her superiors.
“Hello?”
“You can not be serious!” Adams screamed before the director could say anything. “We are not seriously recruiting these guys to Alpha-9! You are not wasting my time with these x-men wannabe cream of the crap!”
“Yes, we are serious. Mobile Task Force Xi-1964 found a batch of SCP-2923 that got released to the public. They were collected and contained, but a few were consumed by civilians first. These individuals proved to be more stable than the D-class we tested the previous batch on, and they might have potential.”
“To be part of Last Hope?” Adams completed the thought. “I read over these profiles, these are losers that ate novelty protein bars and now they have abilities they don’t know what to do with.”
“And you will teach them what to do with them. How about the SCP-2806 instance?”
Adams groaned. “He looks pretty basic. He doesn’t look bad, but he doesn’t look great either. I say send him straight to Site-64 with the rest of the SCP-2806 and let them deal with him.”
“We found him fighting other anomalies, so Skywalker Protocol seems like a waste of potential.”
“So, we’re just going to let any amputee rich enough to afford Anderson’s prosthetics to join our superhero squad?” Adams griped. “Should we let Maxwell, Carter, and Dark know so they can add it to their sales pitch? ‘If you’re dumb enough to get dismembered you can join a Foundation Mobile Task Force.’”
“For the last time, Alpha-9 is not the superhero squad! And we’re not recruiting all of the SCP-2806 instances, just the ones who had enough martial arts training to fight three opponents at once, and anomalous ones at that. Besides, we gave him the choice of this or standard procedure. He chose not to lose his arm and his memory.”
Adams sighed. “I’m really not getting out of this am I?”
“No, not any more than any of them are. Listen, we all know these are not great, but we can’t undo what’s been done to them so if we don’t use them, they go straight into containment or get terminated. After consulting with the researchers, it’s been decided that this experiment is worthwhile.”
“Experiment?” Adams echoed. “Are you saying these are basically volunteer D-class?”
“They are listed as E-class personnel because they have already been exposed to the anomalous effects. But yes, in effect, they are the D-class of Alpha-9. Your job is to make them worthy of standing shoulder to shoulder with SCP-105.”
“You mean as opposed to being fodder for SCP-076?” Adams reiterated. “Because that’s what they look like, the batch he took out because we gave him a team that was unworthy. Just because he isn’t around to kill them doesn’t mean they won’t get killed.”
“Please, Adams, we already had this conversation with O5 before we even sent them to you. The decision is final. Now please go greet your new recruits.” A dial tone signaled the conversation was over.
Adams hung up phone and went to go meet her new burdens. They looked even worse than the files said. The first one was kind of scrawny and wearing a track suit. He looked like he was ready for an Olympic track event and twitching like he had the energy to do all of them at once. He was tied to weights which she realized were the only thing keeping him in place. “E-29231, you ate a Machmellow and now you have super speed.”
E-29231 nodded so vigorously he looked like his head was going to fall off. “YESICANGOHEREANDTHEREANDBACKAGAINBEFOREYOUKNWITZOOMZOOMZOOMLIKELIGHTNING!”
Adams silenced him with a finger to his mouth. “Okay, Zippy, no talking, and no coffee.” She moved on to the next one. This one looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger, only bigger, and he was only wearing shorts because apparently it was the only clothing that could be found to fit him. “E-29234, you ate Peanut Brawler Crunch and now you have super strength.”
“Bash!” E-29234 said while making a fist with one hand and punching the other.
“Is that a bad impression or are you really that dumb?” Adams asked.
E-29234 smiled, laughed, nodded and repeated “Bash!”
Adams looked back at the notes in the files. “It seems that the increased muscle mass requires increased blood flow, but since you didn’t have the blood to meet the demand, your brain got the short end of the stick and oxygen deprivation lead to brain damage.”
Again, E-29234, smiled, laughed, nodded and repeated “Bash!”
“Pleasure to meet you too.” Adams was still unimpressed as she moved on to the next, who was wearing a full body rubber suit. “E-29238, you ate Electric Lemonade. I didn’t see that one in the original file, but apparently it gave you the ability to generate electricity like an eel. The fetish suit is a safety precaution until you can learn to control it.”
E-29238 nodded and sighed audibly through his breathing apparatus but had nothing to say.
“Not comfortable is it? Maybe we’ll think about that next time we eat something without carefully reading the warning label, eh Sparky?” Adams looked at the remainder, all wearing orange jumpsuits typical of D-class. The next guy looked pretty normal, although in very good shape. “E-292313, well, you seem interesting at least compared to the rest of these guys. You got a mystery flavor we made running four bars through the Clockworks on fine. The other three were put in storage, and you came out perfect in every way. So now you’re Superman.”
E-292313 posed. “You like?”
“Don’t let it go to your head, look at your competition.” Adams, still unimpressed moved on to the next one, a teenager who looked like he was picked last in gym class. “E-292312 your anomalous abilities are..” She couldn’t believe what she was reading, she had gotten so disgusted with the others she hadn’t even read this one until now. “You’ve got to be kidding me? Is this for real? You’re actually this guy?”
The scared boy nodded nervously, unable to speak.
Adams looked him dead in the eye. “That’s right, don’t say anything, I especially don’t want to hear about any tragic back story involving your uncle nor do I want to even hear the words, ‘radioactive’ ‘bite’ ‘sense’ ‘friendly’ or any of the other buzzwords you can imagine. We are not doing that do you understand me?”
“None of those things are even me.” The boy squeaked.
“I said I don’t want to hear it!” Adams put her hand up to his face with an energy that said they were done. Finally, she moved on to the last one. This guy was the absolute picture of average. It was hard to imagine he had anything to offer the Foundation. As she glared at him, he twitched slightly, and fibers emerged through his skin on his left arm and wove themselves into a tight and surprisingly thin Kevlar glove. She reached down and pulled up his sleeve to see how far it went up; to his elbow just like the file said. “E-280621, you have a Gyrfalcon prosthetic that enhances your strength and shifts into armor mode when you get nervous. Helpful in a pinch maybe, but you will need to get that under control unless you want that tell to give you away in the field.”
“My name is Armand Brach and I think I am in the wrong place.”
“No, you’re in the right place, though I can understand why you would not want to be here.” Adams replied. She walked back in front of the group. “As you have probably been able to figure out, you are here because you have special abilities, powers you may call them. I know it seemed like a good idea when you ate those bars and now you think you’re special heroes. But what you need to understand is that your abilities don’t mean squat here. You are joining an elite team to handle the most bizarre situations you can imagine, and most of it is actually handled by normal people. In fact, you were all brought in by normal staff who have seen weirder than you on a daily basis. This team you are joining is known as Mobile Task Force Alpha-9 Last Hope. This team utilizes anomalies that have been determined suitable for deployment in the field, and we call them Last Hope because we use them when normal people can’t get the job done. The members we already have, the ones we built this team around, honestly, each one of them is more promising than all of you combined. You are the bottom of the barrel, and in my opinion we are only giving you a chance because what we normally do with people like you is put you in a cell, study you, and leave you there for the rest of your lives so you don’t bother anybody, which is mostly the plan for you guys but it’s expensive to feed you so we want you to earn your keep. My point is, this isn’t because we like you, it isn’t because we believe in you, it’s because we think we can use you and you will be used until you are not useful anymore. So unless you want to go in a hole and never see the light of day again, you will do what I say and prove your worth. Do you all understand?”
The men looked like they had all been taken down a notch, none of them had the will to speak up.
Adams set the files down. “Okay, let’s get started. First I want all of you to demonstrate what you’ve got on me.”
E-292313 laughed. “Aren’t you afraid we’re going to hurt you?”
Adams gave him a look that should have even worn down his superhuman frame. “Remember when I said you’re joining a team of the most elite in this organization? How I said they were better than you? I’m one of those people. I’m not even the best, and if you can’t handle me, you’re not making it on this team at all. Now prove yourself.”
E-292313 got mad and threw a punch. Adams blocked it by grabbing it with one hand. He looked to be twice her size and yet he was the one struggling to move his arm forward. He threw another punch with his other hand and she blocked that one just as easily. He attempted a few kicks and she blocked with her legs without even breaking her gaze on his face. He tried to head butt her and she countered at the last moment, knocking him back like he hit a solid brick wall. As his hands slipped from her fists, she gave him a gut punch and he folded like a chair. Adams shook her head, “Pathetic.”
As she turned away from him, E-29234 attempted the exact same approach as E-292313, presumably he thought his bigger size would make a difference, but the only difference it made was the louder thud when he hit the ground.
“Who’s next? How about you Zippy?” She removed the restraints from E-29231 and made a gesture with her hand and he was also on the ground. It took a moment for the remaining guys to figure out that she had anticipated where he was going to move and had thrown a pre-emptive attack and he was stupid enough to walk right into it.
Adams looked at the last three. “Let’s see, you two seem boring, let’s try Sparky here.” E-29238 removed his gloves and his hands crackled with electricity. He lunged at her trying to make contact, she dodged, spun around him, grabbed his arm where the rubber still protected, and stuck him in the back, knocking him to the ground.
Adams turned to the last two. “That leaves Babyface and the cyborg. I bet I could take both of you at once.”
It seemed like both were going to go at once, but Armand stood still while the kid took his shot. His pace was very different from the others, he seemed to move fast, but then slowed down and pulled back at the last second. Adams tried to counter but his feint dodged her. His movements became rather erratic as he reached out and pulled back before making contact repeatedly. He tried to move around her and smiled as his plan seemed to be working, but then his expression changed as she turned with him and reached out and he suddenly realized the plan was backfiring. He had been excreting a sticky substance all over her but she had anticipated and used it against him, wrapping him in his own trap before he could finish wrapping her. After throwing him to the ground next to the others, she pulled out a bottle of hand sanitizer and sprayed herself.
Adams turned to Armand. “Just you and me.”
Armand panicked for a second, then took a deep breath, the glove retracted beneath the skin. He shifted into a stance with his right foot straight forward, his left foot perpendicular behind spread shoulder width apart. He tucked his left hand behind his back and gestured with his right hand for Adams to come at him.
“Really?” Adams was impressed by his bravado and his stance. “You want to play it like that?”
“Straight offense clearly didn’t work for the others.” Armand said without breaking form. “Why make the same mistake? I’m going on defense and seeing how long I can hold out this way.”
“So, you are learning?” Adams was actually impressed, he wasn’t as stupid as he looked. “Okay, let’s go.”
She matched his stance and threw her first punch. He blocked and countered, shifted his stance accordingly to maintain balance, and continued the fight. They alternated between punches and kicks and blocked each other in perfect sync. It was like a dance and it actually was, they shifted into capoeira fluidly from Isshin-ryu karate. She wasn’t even quite sure how he had managed that transition or how he had managed to manipulate her into moving the way he wanted, but it occurred to her that he was taking control of the situation and that was even more dangerous than his anomaly. She quickly tried to think if there was anything in his file that would explain this, but his only anomaly was his arm and this wasn’t a part of it, he was just a well trained and skilled fighter and she had underestimated him. She had managed to think about all of this and match him blow for blow until she saw the fibers emerge on his arm as he was about to connect with another punch, and she realized this was the strike he was intending to finish her with. She put everything into blocking this strike, grabbing it with both hands and redirecting all that force away from her. His momentum caused him to flip over her and fall almost as hard as all the others. He landed on his back and the wind was knocked out of him in an audible gasp.
Adams looked down at him. “That was impressive, you lasted longer than the other five combined. But like I said, you still have to work on that tell. How did you get that good?”
“Wasn’t it in that file?” Armand asked. “I was training to compete in mixed martial arts. I finally got my first big match and made the mistake of pushing it too hard in training. I tried water resistance training and fell in with a group that took it hardcore out in the ocean, and a shark bit my arm off. Only days away from big break and it was all over. I still try to keep in fighting shape, but it’s not fair for me to compete, either they have the advantage, or I do. With this arm, it’s hard to know what I can do anymore, where I fit in. The last group I was with was crazy, but I least they made me feel like I belonged.”
For the first time all day, Adams softened up. “Maybe we can find a place for you here too.” She turned to the others who were all regaining consciousness. “In fact, I think I may be able to work with all of you. Yeah, you screwed up today, but that’s because you’re relying too much on your powers. You have an abundance of confidence that it’s going to make all the difference, and it would in normal circumstances. But these are not normal circumstances, you are going to face things far more powerful, and some are going to be as prepared as I am to take you down. Your abilities, your potential, it got you in the door. But going forward, you must learn how to use your abilities in clever ways, or you will fail. In this world you are now like babies just learning to crawl and I need to teach you how to walk and to run before we can put you out in the field. I think you all should know, this is the second time this organization has attempted to make use of assets like you. The first time was such a disaster all of them died, all but two. One of them is the leader we built the new team around and if you last long enough you will meet her.”
“What about the other survivor?” Armand asked.
Adams paused. “He’s why the others died. He killed them. All of them. With his bare hands. And they were all just like you. You won’t meet him, but we used him because there were worse things we needed him to deal with. They are the ones you will be facing. So, unless you want to end up like them, I need you to take this seriously. This isn’t like the comics or the movies. You are not heroes. We are monsters that must protect the world from worse monsters. This wasn’t about breaking you, this was about preparing you for the things that will break you. Whatever got you here, it’s nothing compared to what will come next. Now go get lunch, you may have to sleep in cells at night, but being part of this team comes with the perk of getting to use common facilities during the day. Just don’t abuse your privileges or they will be revoked.”
The six rookies went to the cafeteria. There was a pretty good selection, staff at this site were treated good. They found an empty table and sat down. They noticed they were getting a lot of weird looks from everyone. For the most part they assumed this was because of the big guy and the one in the rubber suit, but they realized it wasn’t just those two. Everybody knew that if they were together, they were all part of the same unit and that made them a special group that needed special attention.
Eventually somebody had the guts to say it. “Hey Skippies, how do you like it here so far?”
“Excuse me?” Armand decided to do the talking before one of his cohorts said something stupid. “Why are you calling us Skippies?”
“Skip.” The staffer reiterated. “Short for S C P, Special Containment Procedure. All the anomalies are identified that way, so we just call them Skips. Of course, you wouldn’t know that, you’re new here. Usually they stay contained, but it is pretty special for Skips like you to be out an about, so we are all going to be a little curious. So how did you all end up here?”
“Mostly we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Armand replied.
The staffer nodded. “That sounds about right. Pretty much everybody falls into that category. But what about those two?” He gestured to the obvious ones. The big guy was stuffing his face with a helping of every meat they had available. Sparky had a more sensible food selection, but had to partially remove his mask to eat.
Armand thought about how to answer. “I know I may be new here, but my guess is you know better than to ask a question like that. Especially the big guy, I don’t think you want to be on his bad side. Isn’t that right Tiny?” He turned and addressed the last part to E-29234.
“BASH!” He replied spitting a mouthful of half-chewed turducken at the staffer.
The staffer wiped his face. “Sorry to bother you. I’m sure whatever they want you for is important enough. Keep up the good work Skippy Squad.” With that he turned back from their table and left them to finish their lunch.
Armand turned to focus on the rest of his team. “So, the problem we had this morning was we let her divide and conquer, we need to work as a team, and to work as a team, we need to know each other a little better. I think we got a handle on everybody else, but the kid is still a mystery. It seems like you can produce some sticky substance, is that right?”
“Spider Sticky Strawberry.” The kid admitted sheepishly. “That’s the flavor I ate, and I can produce something like spider silk. It seems to come out of my sweat glands. It’s not so bad, I can control it pretty well, it allows me to climb walls because it’s sticky and I can produce strands of it like silly string, but I can’t shoot it, I actually have to touch something to start the strand and then I just pull it from there.”
There was an awkward silence as everybody let it sink in, and then they all laughed. All but the kid. As the laughter died down, Armand tried to get back to business. “Now I get why Adams hated you so much! Are you telling me you’re actually…”
The kid cut him off with surprising energy. “Please don’t say it! Yes, she’s right, I didn’t think it through. I thought it was just a joke I had no idea this was going to happen.” He looked like he was about to cry.
“Are you gonna cry?” Armand asked.
“No.” The kid said unconvincingly, clearly fighting back tears.
“Because it’s okay if you want to cry, we all do.” Armand said. “Do you think Sparky likes it in that rubber suit? It’s tight, it’s hot, and it probably chafes. And Tiny over there, I bet he really misses when he had a vocabulary of more than one word. And Zippy, when was the last time you blinked?”
“IBLINKALLTHETIMEITISJUSTSOFASTYOUCANNOTSEEIT!” Zippy replied.
“Yeah, don’t you miss when you only felt this way after an espresso?” Armand asked and Zippy nodded vigorously. Zippy turned to E-292313. “You got lucky though, it seems.”
He shook his head. “Not so much. Unlike you guys I didn’t really have any choice in the matter. I got this from an experiment, and I was part of the experiment because I was D-class. We’re really at the bottom of the ladder here at the Foundation. My life was over before I got the powers, they dragged me in for experiments and because of the luck of the draw, or however they assign us, I got to be the one that got this. I got lucky, there are worse assignments.”
“What kind of place is this Foundation anyway?” Armand asked. “What kind of experiments are they doing?”
E-292313 sighed and made a few other noises with his mouth while he hesitated to answer the question. “They are studying the things that shouldn’t exist, and yet do. And I mean, really weird shit. Adams wasn’t kidding about how we haven’t even seen the tip of the iceberg. I’ve heard stories and that’s just from the ones that survived.”
“Seriously, how many people die here?” Armand asked.
“When I went in for this, they told me that had an older batch of these bars.” E-292313 explained. “All of them died. Last one to eat Peanut Brawler Crunch swelled up so big so fast his skin ripped apart and he bled out. The last guy that tried Machmallow moved so fast he ran straight into a wall at such high velocity he exploded over the whole room.”
“What the actual fuck?” Armand was astonished.
“That’s nothing.” E-292313 laughed. “There’s also a big ass lizard that they can’t kill and they tried everything, including some little girl who apparently kills anyone who’s around her for more than ten minutes, but the two of them became best friends. And the story she told us about the last Skippy Squad, well, I don’t know anybody from those days, it was way longer than any D-class lasts, but the story got passed down from the ones who were. The whole thing involved Able, like the guy from the Bible, and I mean the same guy. Apparently he came back from the dead after being murdered by his brother and has been on a revenge streak ever since killing anyone who gets in his way, and he could pull swords out of thin air. Every time he got killed, his body would reform in this weird tomb all on its own and he’d come back and try killing everyone again. But one time he asked about the guy that had usually killed him, said he missed that guy because he was a worthy challenge, and somebody had the brilliant idea of trying to direct him at other dangerous things. For a while he was killing everything for the Foundation, everything that they couldn’t contain or got in their way. They actually gave him a team of guys like us to be his back up. Then one day he had enough, got tired of the team, or whatever, nobody really knows for sure, but he just turned and killed everybody. Just pulled some blades out of thin air and sliced all of them up. Then they blew him up and locked his regenerator crypt somewhere he couldn’t reach anyone.”
“I don’t know whether to be more scared of Able or the fact that there were things worse than him.” Armand was still in awe. “But the point here is we’re all fucked, so if you feel like crying go ahead, we get it.”
The kid seemed to be calming down. “Actually, I feel better. I mean that’s all scary, but knowing I’m not going through it alone makes it not so bad.”
“You do realize we can’t protect you, right?” E-292313 asked.
“Oh yeah, I totally get that.” The kid laughed. “I just feel better knowing I’m not the only one who got screwed.”
Lunchtime was over and they went back to see Agent Adams in the training area. Armand took the lead. “Okay, we’re ready to try again, but this time we’re coming at you together.”
“Really?” Agent Adams replied. “Half an hour and you guys are a team? This should be good. Okay, show me what you got.”
The two strong guys attacked at once, and of course Adams parried both of them expertly. But while she was busy blocking them, Sparky tried a sneak attack from behind. Adams noticed him at the last moment and managed to dodge him and redirect the attack at the two big guys. Adams thought she had the advantage but then noticed her feet were stuck. She looked around saw Zippy holding the kid. The other three had only been a distraction while these two trapped her. That meant Armand was coming to finish the fight. She turned and saw him coming from an angle she was going to have a hard time blocking from. He lifted his left hand and it shifted to armor mode, and she knew to put everything she had into blocking that blow. But then at the last second, Armand pulled his punch and threw a right-handed punch. Adams tried to shift her weight to block this attack, but it was too late, he clocked her hard enough to knock her out of her boots.
Adams picked herself up and dusted herself off. Despite how hard she had been hit, she didn’t appear to be hurt, or at least she was covering the pain well. “Well done, you learned a lot for your first day. Tomorrow I’ll have to bring some back up so we can be more evenly matched. By the way, Nice job with the feint Armand.”
“Thank you.” Armand replied to Agent Adams. “I figured out that if I can’t hide my tell, I can use it to my advantage to distract my opponents from my real attacks. It’s less efficient, but You work with what you got.”
Agent Adams actually cracked a smile for the first time all day. “Wow, you actually can learn. I am impressed. That actually is the point. You see, here at the Foundation, most things don’t work the way we want them to, so to get anything useful, we have to figure out how to make the most use of the good points and work around the bad points, mostly the latter. Now that you proved yourself against me, it’s time to do some individualized training. For the rest of the day E-29234 and E-292313 will spar, E-29231 and E-292312 will be running an obstacle course so I can test the kid’s agility against Zippy’s raw speed, E-29238 will be practicing with some electricity conducting weapons so we can see the best way to channel his electricity, and E-280621 you will be doing yoga. You have demonstrated you have pretty good skill, your weakness is that your anomaly is too visible, since it seems to be related to stress, you need to learn a degree of control so you can move actively without triggering the unnecessary transformation. Okay, let’s get started!” Adams clapped and directed them to their training areas.
By the end of the day, thy were all sore and it took the last of their energy to get to their cells and flop on their beds. Adams knew how to work her trainees to the very last. It was Armand’s last thought as he fell asleep that he realized this was part of the point, they were supposed to be contained and if she wore them out too much to escape that would make that job easier. He actually did not care, the day was hard, but he felt alive. He always had a fighting spirit, that’s what got him here. Part of him had the fantasy of fighting monsters and he was disappointed that there were no monsters to fight, but now he was finally getting the chance to live his dream. It kind of sucked that he had to be kept like a prisoner, it would have been better if he could have been recruited under better circumstances, but he was looking forward to the opportunities the future would hold. Hell, even a chance to spar with his teammates would be enough to make it worth getting up in the morning. Something didn’t quite sit right about Adams though, she wasn’t like other women. No, not just women, she was an inhuman anomaly.
The next thing Armand knew there were alarms going off. He had fallen asleep for a while, but he had been so tired he didn’t even dream, he had just faded from thoughts about the day and his next brain activity was the announcement of a security breach.
“Attention all personnel, SCP-682 and SCP-053 have breached containment. No unauthorized personnel are to engage SCP-053 under any circumstances, if you encounter it, retreat to a safe location immediately. All combat personnel will attempt to re-contain SCP-682, all non-combat personnel are to remain in lockdown until the breach has been resolved.”
As the message repeated, Armand noticed his cell unlocked. A security guard was letting the team out and handing them tactical gear. “You heard the message, combat personnel, that’s you guys. We need all hands-on deck for this one, including Alpha-9.”
“But we haven’t finished training.” Armand pointed out. “Where is Agent Adams?”
“She’ll catch up later, in the meantime, consider this on-the-job training.” The security guard replied. Armand recognized he was the one who had been talking to them in the cafeteria earlier. He seemed so much more professional now. “We’re fighting SCP-682, and this is a big one, one of our biggest. Nickname is the Hard-To-Kill Reptile, simple name but very true, we have tried every way we can think of to kill it, both anomalous and non-anomalous, the best we can do is keep it in a vat of acid and that just slows it down, but every now and then he pulls his shit together and escapes, so we have to figure out a way to put it back.” He cocked his gun and ran toward where the Skip was. The others followed him.
Armand had been putting on his tactical gear, but as the tension triggered his arm, the glove from the gear he was given wouldn’t fit that hand. The others were getting out of sight, he threw the glove on the ground and headed out.
As they stepped outside, they couldn’t believe what they were seeing. It looked like a dinosaur, but the kind from a horror movie, one that wasn’t meant to be scientifically accurate as much as just terrifying. The combat personnel were shooting at it and it was jumping around to try avoiding the shots and even the hits didn’t seem to be having any effect other than just pissing it off. It had some holes in its hide, bones were showing, blood was flowing but it didn’t seem to be slowing down at all.
“BASH!” E-29234 ran into the fight and tried to wrestle with the monster.
“Hold your fire!” The security guard shouted. “Let Alpha-9 engage the Skip, reload, and prepare to back them up when he shakes them off.” All of the security guards followed directions, within a minute they all had their guns trained on the lizard, but nobody was firing yet, they were waiting for Alpha-9 to take their turn.
E-29231 ran in next, less force but making up for it with speed, he hit fast which meant high force and high quantity.
“That tickles.” The lizard said.
“It talks?” Armand exclaimed.
In the moment of surprise at its verbal capabilities, the lizard whipped its tail to repel Zippy, but the bigger guy was harder to push off. E-292313 and Armand moved in to assist their teammate, throwing themselves at the beast and using brute strength to try to wear him down. They knew they weren’t going to add much, but they didn’t need to, they were just the distraction, the real work was going to be done by Sparky and the kid. First, the kid was weaving in between everyone else and wrapping the lizard in his webs. This part took longer than expected, the lizard was strong and fierce, breaking most of the strands as they were being woven around it, and the residual acid was dissolving it. However, they kept at it and eventually they managed to accumulate enough goo to immobilize it. Of course, none of them were brave enough to take the mouth and its claws were starting to poke through so they needed to finish him off, so Sparky came in to give it a stunning shock.
“Clear!” Sparky shouted as he came in for the finishing blow. In a flash of blue light, it was over, the lizard stopped moving.
After an awkward pause, the security guards cheered. “All right everybody, move in, we need to get this thing back in the vat before it wakes up.” The guards moved in to transport the lizard back to containment.
Then the strands started getting cut from the lizard. “Wait, what are you doing?” The security guard they were familiar with spoke and approached the ones cutting the lizard free. “Why are you cutting it free? We aren’t taking any chances until it gets back in the vat.”
Those were the last words he spoke as a spear impaled him. “Karal-ba!”
Everyone else dispersed and pulled away from the lizard, all but two, who were holding spears. One was crouched in a fighting stance with his spear dripping in the blood of the security guard. The other was holding his spear up in an authoritarian manner. “We, the Children of the Scarlet King, reclaim the souls and rightful vessels of the children. In his unholy name we demand you yield them unto us!”
“Code red! Fall back!”
The more aggressive spear wielder started to advance on the guards. “Karal-ba, leave them for now, we are to wait for Toth-ner so we can evacuate! The reunion is more important than your rage!”
“Nothing is more important than my rage! My rage is my purpose! My rage is everything!” The one identified as Karal-ba started to attack everyone. Zippy ran in to try to help, but somehow the spear-wielder anticipated him and used his momentum to allow him to impale himself. “Who’s next?”
“Bash!” E-29234 charged in to fight and avenge his fallen comrade, with E-292313 right behind him. The big guy took a few blows, but his size seemed to absorb the hits and he kept going. Again, he was just the distraction, E-29234 used the opportunity to snatch the spear and take down the wielder.
“Good job!” Armand cheered on his comrade.
E-292313 turned with a disturbing expression on his face. “Karal-ba!”
Armand realized things just got worse. “Shit! Retreat!” Armand started to run and dragged Sparky and the kid with him.
“What about the big guy?” The kid asked.
“He’ll catch up.” Armand answered. “Besides, do you think the three of us could move him anyway?”
“Good point.” The kid conceded and turned to full speed with the other two.
They ran through the halls, presently empty since everyone was at the fight or hiding themselves. This made sense, which was why it came as such a surprise when they came across a little girl. “Have you seen my doggie?”
Sparky approached the girl. “Hey kid, what are you doing out here all by yourself?”
“She’s not alone.” They turned to look at the voice and saw another spear wielder.
Sparky realized he couldn’t touch the spear, but he figured he might still have a chance of incapacitating the wielder. He pulled off his gloves and gave a shock to the wielder. The jolt was so strong and unexpected that she threw the spear aside. He grabbed the little girl by the hand to lead her away.
They started running again but then suddenly Sparky slowed down.
“What’s wrong?” Armand asked him.
“It’s the girl.” Sparky answered. “She’s slowing me down, she’s dead weight. We need to get rid of her.” His voice was growing more aggressive with each word.
“I think you’re over-reacting.” Armand tried to talk his comrade down.
“No, she’s not right.” Sparky replied his voice sounding more agitated and threatening. “You don’t understand, she needs to DIE!”
“No, stop, don’t!” Armand cried.
But it didn’t matter, Sparky was preparing to electrocute the kid, but as his hand got close, he suddenly collapsed. The little girl didn’t seem at all affected by any of this. Armand started to feel something, and it hit him that this girl was an SCP. Of course, SCP-053, the announcement said not to engage. He still didn’t understand the nature of this anomaly, but he knew he needed to get away from this one.
Sticky boy walked up. Armand was about to warn him when he noticed that he was holding the spear. He must have caught it when the previous wielder threw it when he got shocked. “There you are the others are waiting for us.”
Armand got so scared his arm went stiff. Just then someone appeared wearing a black suit with red piping and a matching helmet. Judging by the form in the skin-tight suit, it was clearly female. She grabbed Armand by the hand and dragged him away.
As they ran, they found E-29234, his body was lying on the ground looking like he rotted corpse, but he had just been alive minutes ago, there was no way he could have decomposed that much.
“Leave him.” The woman said dragging Armand away from both the corpse and the enemy behind them. The voice sounded familiar. “In here.” She tucked him in a room. “Are you okay? Any spear wounds? Any desire to kill that little girl?”
“No, I’m okay.” Armand replied. “I did kind of feel like killing that girl for a second, I think, I’m not quite sure.”
“But you don’t want to go back and kill her now, right?” The woman asked, holding him tight.
Armand paused. “No, I don’t. But why?”
“Because that’s her anomaly.” The woman said while removing her helmet, revealing it was Agent Adams. “SCP-053, Anyone who gets near her wants to kill her, but if you try to act on it you die instead. As for the spears they are a completely different matter. They take possession of whoever touches them, and any cuts infect you with a deadly disease, so even the slightest wound is fatal.”
“Is that what happened to Bash?” Armand asked.
Adams nodded. “Yeah, but as far as we know only one is that fast. And it’s the most aggressive one too. Shit!”
“How many of them are there?” Armand asked.
“Seven.” Adams answered. “Why? How many have you seen here?”
“There were two back with the lizard.” Armand answered. “And I think the girl was a third.”
Adams eyes went wide. “Shit! The kid was holding the spear which means we lost him, and we lost Sparky and the big guy. What’s the rest of Alpha-9?”
Armand shook his head. “Big guy was actually the last one standing. Zippy got impaled and Captain Skippy made the mistake of taking the spear. At the time it seemed like a solid strategy to use their own weapon against them. In his defense, nobody gave us a heads up about the spears possessing people.”
“That’s because nobody is supposed to know they are even here.” Adams said. “They are among the most highly classified objects we have. And there is a reason, the more of them there are in one place the more dangerous they become. Which begs the question who figured out there was more than one here?” Adams had a look of shock on her face as she realized something. “God damn it!”
“What?” Armand asked.
“We have six of the seven contained.” Adams said. “But one got away when they were first retrieved. We had time to learn about the six we have and keep them on lockdown, but that last one…anyone who has a spear is compelled to obtain the others, and that one, as far as we know is still in the possession of the Cult that laid claim to them.”
“The Children of the Scarlet King?” Armand asked.
Adams head spun so fast it looked like it was going to fly off her shoulders. “Where did you hear that?”
“The first guy holding the spear claimed the lizard and the spears.” Armand answered. “He said he represented the Children of the Scarlet King.”
“Well, we are fucked royally.” Adams said. “This is the sort of thing Alpha-9 exists for, but when the staff that is present manages to die or get turned, we may not be the answer the Foundation needs. But we are the only answer we’ve got, so we have to think of something.”
She got up, put her helmet back on and lead Armand out. They made their way back to the area where the fight happened.
The kid and the girl were just arriving. Karal-ba had made a blood bath of the security guards, at least the ones that hadn’t already run away. The third spear wielder was just waiting stoically for the last to join them. When the girl saw the lizard she ran up to it and shrieked “Doggie!”
The spear wielders began to arrange the spears around the lizard. Adams signaled Armand. “We gotta move in now.” They ran for the group, with Armand aiming for the apparent leader. The kid raised his spear and there was a glow. Something didn’t seem right, but Armand couldn’t tell exactly what. With a bang the kid dropped to the ground, Adams had shot him. At the same moment, Armand took a shot at E-292313 with a gun he had picked up off a security guard, and since the fool had come straight at him, he was just a big target that pretty much walked into the bullet. The last spear wielder ran toward the other spears, and as they got close the air got distorted between the spears and then suddenly, he disappeared along with his spear. Just before he vanished, Adams caught a glimpse of his face, she gasped. “Montauk.”
The fight was over, Adams called in reinforcements to clean up and put the SCPs back into containment. Adams pulled Armand aside to debrief him while the rest of the site staff took care of everything else. They went over all the events of the night.
"Did we really have to kil them?" Armand asked. "There was really no choice? No way to save them?"
Adams shook her head. "Once you touch a spear it's over. Even the kid, if he had the one I thought he had, he was about to do something very dangerous. I had to save you, and myself, and everyone else here. He was a lost cause, I couldn't let him hurt anyone else."
As they were finishing up, Armand had a bold request to make. “Get me the files on these skips Adams. And don’t leave anything out. I don’t care about security clearance, that went out the window when I was attacked by these guys. If I have to fight for you, I need to know what I’m fighting for and what I’m fighting against.”
Adams nodded. “I’ll try to get what I can get for you, although you will probably be limited to what you aready saw. But this means you agree to be a part of Alpha-9. There’s definitely no going back.”
“There’s always Skywalker Protocol, right?” Armand said. “That’s what they told me the other option was, lose my arm and my memory. But before I let you do that, first I need to know what I’m giving up. But that one guy saw my face, so maybe it’s already too late.”
Several days later, Adams went to check up on Armand who had been locked up in an office doing research. “So, do you have any more questions?”
“Just one.” Armand replied. “I kind of went down the rabbit hole with some ancient lore and mythology, but there’s just one thing I still need to know that might be the key.”
Adams was surprised he remained as cool and collected as any researcher even thogh he had just been going over some of the most disturbing files the Foundation had. This guy might make a good field agent yet. “What’s your question?”
“I found something about A’habbat, the seventh bride of the Scarlet King. She seemed to be the only one who stood against him and I found this one obscure piece of ‘scripture’ for lack of a better term, that mentioned a unique power she had.” Armand looked up from the paper to look Adams straight in the eye. “Do we have a pictomancer?”
