VH3 Story: Arc 1 - Chasing Ghosts

Symphony of Ruin Pt.2

The crew makes their way through the subway tunnels, and eventually it leads them down to a secret door carved into the walls of the shaft. Duke has told them that Watchman is staying outside the subway to notify them of any possible intruders, and won't be accompanying them on their way down. This means that whatever lies ahead of them is largely unknown to Kibo and Ogrin; yet, the other three's expressions start to turn more and more grim as they descend into the dimly lit stairwell.

Finally, Doc speaks up and breaks the silence. "Hey Duke...you don't think the monster is going to where I think it is...?"

"I really hope not." The old soldier replies bitterly.

Kibo doesn't know what the two are talking about, but from the sound of it, it's anything but good news. They reach the end of the stairs, and before them is a metal gate busted down via brute force. Whoever, or whatever did this is strong enough to tear any normal man apart.

D.A's eyes widen in horror, and she slowly approaches the gate. "No...it can't be..."

"I knew it...ever since we lost contact..." Doc begins, but doesn't finish his sentence.

"But why, why did it come here...?"

Ogrin walks up to Duke. "Wanna fill us in here?"

For once, Duke seems to be at a loss of words, it takes him a few moments before replying to Ogrin. "So...you know how we told you two about how we lost contact with one of our laboratories?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, You see...as the Info Bureau, we are the ones that are supposed to know everything from the inside out." Duke considers his next words. "But...in reality, we were never informed about it going under...or rather, no one was aware that anything was out of place until the laboratory started missing weekly reports."

"What...? What are you trying to imply?" Ogrin stares at the old soldier, distraught.

"We had to specifically look into it to realize that we lost contact. Meaning, had none of us suspected something wrong was going on, we would've never known it's gone." Duke reaches his conclusion. "Which would imply that our lab was not attacked under normal circumstances, and that someone didn't want anyone to know about it."

"So I was right, there is a cover-up." D.A curses under her breath. "And these claw marks on the gate...no doubt the work of our big buddy."

"This facility holds most of our research materials. You should know that the VCC gathers vampiric materials to conduct experiments on them for the betterment of society. Now that we know this is the lab that got hit, we can send our superiors our findings. As for why we were given no intel on both the lab going and which one it was...that'll require more investigation." Duke turns and mutters to himself. "This is going to seriously impact our research."

Ogrin butts in. "So what, this some sort of terrorist attack? The people that did this couldn't have possibly done it for fun could they?"

Kibo looks at Ogrin. "Do you think it's the Masato guy, Ogrin?"

Ogrin just shrugs.

"A mere criminal like him can not have possibly pulled off something like this. Even though we can link a past...event to him, we don't think he has the capability to destroy an entire lab and its vast security force." Duke shoots Doc a glance, who nods and starts attempting to get a signal for the laptop. "However... we can't eliminate his possible involvement in all this."

The group moves in through the deformed gates, and cautiously makes their way through the entrance loading zone.

Doc shakes his head, and puts the laptop back into his backpack. "It's no good, there's no signal down here."