The island had some small semblance of wildlife as well, these little chipmunk looking rodents that lived in the trees that Green was told NOT to eat, because Wolf had brought three weeks' worth of MREs. For those of you who don't know what an MRE is, I'm sorry because you are missing out.

  The term MRE means Meal Ready to Eat, now some people think that means you can just up and eat out of it but THAT's where your wrong, usually it needs to be heated up first depending on what food is in the MRE, right now the entire crew had what looked like Beef lo mien in a light sauce, so yea that's going on the hot plate on the generator for a bit before I do anything with that.

  "This tastes like hot donkey piss." Grumbled Singleton as he ate from our ration pile like the ungrateful ass that he is.

  "What did you bring to the table then, Cheese boy? If it's any better let us know." Wolf huffed, and I could understand why. These MREs were all we'd had to eat usually back at Trigram. I know there was other food around now and I had free reign of it, but there was something about the return to routine that made us all feel...right.

  Singleton huffed, reached into his bag and pulled out a sub sandwich, "I have makings for days, you guys have fun with your slop!"

  "Thanks! We will!" Giggled Love as she happily slurped up some noodles, either purposefully ignoring the snark or letting it whoosh blissfully over her cute blonde head, I envy her sometimes.

  It was then that Green whispered in my head, "Someone's coming up that ridge."

  I leapt up off the ground and drew one of my swords, looking around, I saw them.

  Three kids our age staring at us far away on the other side of the beach at their own campsite...which didn't make sense being that we hadn't seen them when we got here.

  Two I didn't recognize, were a boy covered in fur with sharp talons where his fingers should have been and a girl with two extra arms.

  The third one was one I'd never forget, his grin haunts my dreams to this day.

  It was that black slime monster.

  The one that killed Ripper.

  The entire group was wearing those Trigram jumpsuits, they were unmistakable.

  "GUYS!"

  Wolf stood up first and she saw it too, she angrily pulled out her gun, cocked it, and leveled it in their direction.

  Edge swelled up and pulled out his glue gun and Love got up shakily, her fists clenched and her face bright red.

  "Love...love get behind me..." Green called to her, all too aware what was going through her head, "Love NO!"

  "YOU KILLED MY BROTHER!" She shouted across the sand in what was supposed to be a threatening tone, but the sad frail breaks her voice takes on when she's in tears ruins the effect. the three at the other end began to exchange looks of "Did you do that?" In a fashion that would have been comical if it had been anyone else.

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  She began to stomp across the sand towards the other group, her fists clenched, murder in her eyes.

  Wolf wordlessly followed her, along with Edge and eventually Green.

  This was as personal as it got, Green even kept me from doing or saying anything, they were all so focused that they barely noticed the two others pulling guns.

  "Ah ah ah." Chuckled the girl, who seemed to be in charge, pointing 4 handguns in our direction, "Not so fast, Friends."

  Edge scoffed, "Friends my ass! You're team Beta! And he's the last living member of Team Alpha! I thought you'd been sanctioned?"

  The Girl huffed, "Sanctioned obviously doesn't mean what you think it means, smart one. We're here to obtain an asset that Houska stole...and it's in there." She points to the Box.

  Edge raised an eyebrow, "you want...in? What's in there that could possibly be of interest to you?"

  The girl sneered, "None of your business kid, we just want you to open the front door."

  Edge laughed, not sarcastically, but with genuine humor in his voice, "you don't want in there."

  Green piped up, "What's in there, Edge?"

  Edge shrugged, "I was told this is where they put what they can't kill, not something I'd want to plunder."

  The girl looked at the boy just in time for the boy to get shot right between the eyes by who I assumed was Singleton, he fell over and the girl dropped her gun to scream, and then Edge shot a glob of adhesive directly into her mouth, she staggered back and hit a tree, clutching at her throat and sliding down it, convulsing as the glob turned solid, cutting off her air supply.

  It was a solid ten seconds later that we realized that the bastard we'd come over to kill was gone.

  A black trail of stained sand lead from the camp off towards the building, Love gave chase, turning a corner around a rocky cliff face giving the rest of us little choice but to follow.

  We were getting closer and closer when I heard love shout, just out of sight, "DIE!"

  Then there was a resounding earth-shattering sound like wrenching metal, followed by a clang and a scream from Love herself, "DAMMIT!"

  We rounded the corner to see Love lying on her back in the sand holding her shoulder, her arm bent at an odd angle. In front of her was a massive hole in the metal building, it seems that she hit it directly on some sort of brittle weld seam, sand was now leaking from the beach into the cavity of the building that we could see was MUCH deeper than it appeared from the outside, that slimy fucker had planned this!

  "My arm...' she whimpered as she struggled to move but it seemed as if her body glove had tensed up too much, "I'm sorry..."

  I rushed forward to help her sit up but a noise came from the hole that made me stop and raise my sword, it was the sound of skittering, like a metal roach climbing up a metal wall, the sound was metallic but the pattern gave me the shivers, which is why I compare it to a roach, because if you've ever heard a roach moving around you know what I mean. "Guys, form up I think something's coming."

  True to my words, a large mechanical SOMETHING clawed its way into the air! It had 8 limbs placed randomly around its ramshackle body, some of them not even touching the ground as it scuttled into the light, its body was a mishmash of metal and exposed wiring, either this thing was made sloppily by someone very smart or whoever made it barely had a grasp of technology,

  Green and I both let out a panicked squeak as it grabbed Love, then immediately began to move back towards the hole. Green lunged forward, swinging our sword with a savage yell without even thinking that swords can't cut through metal unless there's a ton of force behind them, the sword plinked off the metal shell, but I managed to kick the thing over, as it fell it released Love.

  Edge and Wolf grabbed Love and Singleton ran over as the monstrosity flailed, "holy shit what did you do!?"

  Before Green could answer, more metallic sounds were heard as several similar robots rushed out and grabbed hold of me! I was unable to move, and the claws of the creatures dug into our flesh!

  Green retreated once more from the pain as I saw Singleton rushing the others to the boat with more robots in hot pursuit, Love screaming over his shoulder for me, as the machines dragged me back, I heard Singleton say " Thanks to your overreaction, the defenses have activated! we need reinforcements! He'll be fine for now, let's go!"

  "That bastard." Whispered Green as one of the claws wrung my wrist, severing several nerves and making me drop my sword!

  "No..." I choke as they drag me back into the hole, as the deadly unfeeling claws change position suddenly, tearing holes in my shoulder and side, causing me to bleed BADLY!

  Everything went black.