ACT I - PART I

THE RED SKY OF TOWN

In a small office up a torn skyscraper, an ornamented door with a grayscale scheme faded on one of the still stable walls. The door opened revealing nothing more than darkness from which would emerge The Painter. Humanoid, with green feathers throughout its body structure, its outfit consisting of a dark gray tunic with a white horizontal line in the middle and a dark gray beret on its vaguely avian head.

 

The Painter looked around at its surroundings, ruined and worn by the passage of time as well as some other deliberate damage, loose papers strewn about, clothes scattered as if whoever had been here before was desperately trying to get rid of them, overturned furniture here and there. It looked to its right and saw a strange yet desolate view, an urban metropolis whose buildings showed clear signs of destruction, wear and tear, similar to that of the office in which it was located.

 

A blood-red sky loomed over the landscape, decorated by a yellowish-white sun. It was noon and the light was as strong as ever, the temperature understandably hot for a city in the height of summer. The enigmatic creature proceeds to wander around the ruined office, most of its surfaces covered with papers and newspapers. Front page articles with titles like “THE END IS NEAR”, “ENTIRE CITY UNDER MARTIAL LAW”, “OUR CITY’S SWEET ANGEL… ACTUALLY A DEMON?”, “MULTIPLE DEATHS AND DISAPPEARANCES, THE ANGEL CONTINUES HER RAMPAGE”.

 

The Painter kept wandering through the interior office until it eventually found an emergency door, blocked by a pile of furniture, as if whoever stacked it was desperate to prevent anyone from entering. The Painter, without any hesitation, pulls out its weapon, a rather large paintbrush, with a handle so thick that only its wing-like hands would be able to grasp it properly. Then, it immediately makes a violent vertical slashing motion, spreading an ink-like substance across the stacked furniture. Soon enough, this substance would activate, slicing the stack in half... Or more accurately, erasing the space that was once stained, creating a space for it to squeeze into and reach the door.

 

After descending 15 floors, The Painter reached the ground floor of the building, way more ruined than the office it first appeared in. Broken glass and loose clothes were scattered around, most if not all the available flower pots were tipped and broken, and most of the furniture had signs of brutal impact.

 

The Painter blatantly ignored this as it left the building, finding out afterwards that the streets weren’t much cleaner either. Cars were parked around in no particular order or symmetry along with more dusty clothes scattered around like rubbish, all exposed to the bright red light of the sky. The Painter’s seamless wandering eventually led it to what seemed to be the city’s main park. A volcano with a strange building on top could be seen in the distance. The trees looked corroded and patches of burnt grass decorated most of the floor in a polka-dot-like fashion.

 

The Painter detected a figure in the distance, it looked clearly humanoid, but not clearly enough to see any of its features. Could this be “THE ANGEL” these papers have mentioned? There was only one way to find out. The Painter, without a thought, proceeded to walk towards the figure, each step making its features more visible. It had orange curly hair, arranged in a big, bun-like ponytail. Its clothes were yellow, shiny like gold, with traces of black underneath.

 

The strangest detail however, it had a hand bigger than the other. Any details about its face could not be seen, since it had its back turned, and even if it didn’t, The Painter wouldn’t have been able to see its face anyway, because once it got close enough, the figure rapidly turned its back and punched The Painter with its apparently overgrown hand. 

 

Inevitably, the impact of the entity’s fist was strong enough to make The Painter black out, only to wake up hours later inside of what looked like a cell. Said “cell” contained the necessary elements to be considered humane: A bed, a side-table, a toilet and a sink. The Painter was still wearing its clothing, but its brush was nowhere to be found.

 

“About freaking time!” Exclaimed a young, female voice. It came from the figure The Painter saw earlier, revealing to be a young girl who, judging by her face structure, was of adolescent age. Her eyes were covered by a black set of goggles with pink lenses, her cheeks were decorated with freckles and her expression looked annoyed.

 

“You almost gave me a heart attack out there, you bird thing!” She shouted. “And somehow resisted my SOPHISTICATED POWER GLOVE! It usually blows the bad guys' heads to pieces!”

 

The Painter stares directly at the machine that covered the girl’s left hand, it was indeed a glove, a big, metallic glove the same color as her suit. “What? Are you scared? Well you should be! I wouldn’t have to be doing this in the first place if your head wasn’t so stupidly hard! In fact, you should be RELIEVED that The Mayor ordered me to bring you here, because I could have EASILY-”

 

Another voice comes from the intercom implemented in her left glove, interrupting the girl’s rant, “SUBJECT X21 ‘PRINCESS MORBUCKS’, REPORT TO MY OFFICE IMMEDIATELY. BRING SUBJECT X98.”

 

“Man…” Morbucks sighs with annoyance, “Hurry up, mallard!” The duo proceeded to leave The Painter’s designated cell and go towards the elevator at the end of the hallway.

 

“So, where do you come from anyway?” Princess asked, more out of boredom than genuine curiosity, “All we know from you is that you are some bird thing disguised as an artist and with a magic brush, the least you could do is speak.”

 

But The Painter stood silent, with a penetrating, expressionless face. 

 

“Ugh, you’re SO boring…” the ginger huffed, “... And what is taking this elevator to come down!? There are only 32 floors in this damn thing! Daddy used to own a 75-floor building with an elevator that was way faster!” Princess was losing the little patience she already had, but before she could continue making a fuss, the elevator finally arrived, opening its doors.

 

“FINALLY!” She boomed.

 

As the elevator made its way to The Mayor’s floor, the duo could see the subterranean complex through the implemented window of the elevator; it was a rather depressing view. The structure was made of concrete in its entirety, with some metallic parts that composed most of the machinery needed to travel around. As far as it could be seen, there should be at least 100 people just within that visible space, making one wonder about how big it could actually be.

 

The only sound heard during this short journey, besides the subtle rumble of the machinery that lifted the metallic box, was the incessant tapping of Morbucks’ boot-wearing foot, it was clear she wasn’t enjoying any of this.

 

As soon as the elevator reached the intended floor, a “ding” sound played from within its speakers. The doors opened to a dark hallway, fancy lamps firmly stuck to the ceiling, illuminating the dark red walls and the velvet-red carpet. It fairly looked like a suite rather than a government office. At the end of the hallway, there were two dark red doors, both with a golden handle and a plaque that read “MAYOR”, engraved in fancy lettering.

 

“Let’s see what this hag wants…,” Princess muttered as she opened both doors towards The Mayor’s office. Its walls had the same dark color as the hallway, along with the same red carpet that covered the floor. The place was filled to the brim with file cabinets, full as well with files. A desk rested at the bottom center of the room, on top of it laid a desktop computer, a small cactus, a cup with the words “BEST GIRL” painted on it, a frame with a photograph of an elderly man, wearing a monocle and a purple suit, and last but not least, a golden plaque with the name “MAYOR BELLUM” engraved on it.

 

Behind the desk, there’s an office chair, on which the assumed Mayor was sitting. The person in question was currently looking at the window, the bright red light from outside invaded the otherwise dark room. At that moment, all that could be appreciated was a pile of curly orange hair and hints of a white shirt.

 

Less impatiently than earlier, Princess loudly cleared her throat, with the intent of calling the lady’s attention. The figure sitting turned around and revealed to be a woman, with tan-like skin, thick crimson lips and with orange curly hair covering her eyes. Her outfit consisted of a white collared shirt complemented with a red necktie, her legs covered with a set of red pants, both clothes being held by a black belt with a golden buckle. A pair of bracelets rested on each of her arms and, around her neck, a golden pendant could be observed. 

 

In spite of her eyes not being shown, the overall look on The Mayor’s face screamed seriousness in all the terms available in any thesaurus. The Mayor stood up, still looking at the duo, intimidating yet classy. Princess couldn’t help but swallow saliva, after all, the woman in front of her was indeed really tall, barely below the 7’ mark.

 

The Painter, however, was not reacting at all. The Mayor walked around the desk and stopped right in front of them, yet The Painter didn’t seem to flinch. The Mayor crouched down and brought her face closer to the avian’s, yet no reaction came from it. Princess, on the other end, was trying to maintain her composure by looking away.

 

“Fearless… Stoic… Looking dead inside… Seems apt,” The Mayor confirmed in a severe tone as she stood up once more. Princess let out a sigh in annoyed relief. “Very well then, your mission will be the following,” The Mayor cleared her throat before continuing.

 

“2 days ago, we discovered a sample of a chemical our team designated as ‘The Dimensional Compound’ within the ruins of a house located at ‘107 Pokey Oaks South’. Yesterday, Subjects X7-1 to 5, otherwise known as ‘The Gangreen Gang’, were declared M.I.A after not reporting activity 18 hours after the task was assigned. Your mission will consist of reporting the current state of said subjects and, if possible, retrieve a sample of ‘The Dimensional Compound’ for further investigation. The safest available route should be through the former subway rail system.”

 

A deafening silence invaded the room. 

 

“Any questions?” Bellum inquired, with no response from anyone. “Great then, good luck.” Both The Painter and Princess left The Mayor’s office without saying a word, and kept it like that until they descended to the so-called “former subway”. The only thing stopping them from going further was a rust-filled metal door, which clearly hasn’t been opened in a long while.

 

“Hey, green bird, check this out”, said Morbucks before suddenly punching fiercely through the door with her self-proclaimed “power glove”.

 

Once again, not even a peep came from The Painter’s beak, and Princess, despite knowing it would hurt her ego, didn’t complain this time, at last she acknowledged the futility of trying to make it talk. That awkward feeling never stopped, not even after getting halfway through the murky and stinky tunnel.

 

The avian and the ginger walked for a while, no words spoken, no distractions, just a darkness barely disturbed by the light of Princess’s right glove while checking the subway map on the other. The Painter was merely following her lead. Eventually, they reached the station closest to their destination, a hint of the red light from the sky could be seen reflected on the unkempt tile floor. 

 

“Hey, Mayor, Princess and… bird thing here. We’ve reached the exit, and by the way, you should do something with the entrance G6, I had to tear it down. Over.”

 

“Continue heading south on the surface route. We’ll address the damage to the entrance later. Over.” The communication device answered back.

 

The duo walks up to the surface, with the sky as red as earlier, and the wind blowing eerily. A suburb could be seen from the distance they were at, a rectangular white house stood out from the others. Nothing of interest could’ve been said about how long they took to walk from where they were to right there, but surely it was quite the long walk.

 

By the time they got to their destination, the sun was heading towards the west without setting yet. The house at which both had arrived was nothing less than imposing. A square-shaped residence with a single hole on the upper left part. On the right side, there was a garage whose door appeared sealed, on the left side, a partially destroyed section, revealing what used to be a kitchen.

 

“Y’know, I’ve heard so many things about the man who used to live here”, Princess began. “His last name was Utonium, and was some sort of scientist, at least that’s what Bellum told me.”

 

“She said he was a sweet man, although sometimes clumsy and really, really absent-minded…”, Princess continued while they entered the house, the red door was halfway open. The inside of the house was surprisingly organized, but the signs of time were clear at first glance, most if not all the furniture, from the living room to the partially destroyed kitchen was covered with thick layers of dust.

 

“She mentioned something about a secret laboratory, the place where he made… IT”, the emphasis on that last word reeked of contempt as it escaped from Princess’s mouth. “... Anyway, if you have any sort of grey matter inside that emotionless skull, then you better go check upstairs immediately, I’ll check around here.” Ordered Princess as she turned around to see The Painter directly to its eyes.

 

The Painter, once again, didn’t say a single word, and robotically climbed the staircase. On this section of the house there were three relevant doors. The first one led to a bathroom, which was surprisingly clean and dust free, almost as if someone had used it recently.

 

The second one led to a room, as pink as it was empty. A light-pink rug covered the entirety of the floor, with red stains scattered around. To the right, a pristine white comforter could be seen, with only one white pillow at the center, leaning on a wooden white bed frame. On the left side of the bed, there was a desk on which laid a toy phone that has seen better days, further to the left, there was the hole they saw earlier. In front of the bed, at the other side of the room, there was a vanity desk, the only thing laying on it was a yellow rubber duck.

 

Behind the third door was another bedroom, way darker and way dustier than the rest of the interior of the residence. The Painter’s exploration through this specific room was more short-lived than the others, since nothing of interest could be found other than a framed photograph depicting two entities.

 

On the left side of the picture was a little girl with an expressionless face, long white hair partially tied back in a ponytail, leaving enough hair to form a thick pair of tufts that somehow resembled horns and a pair of long-pointy sideburns. A large red band could be seen between the ponytail and her head. The little girl's outfit consisted of a dress as white as her hair, interrupted by a black horizontal strip and black shoes. Her eyes were huge, with pastel red, blue and green irises, divided into three sections on each eye. On the right was a grown man with a square face and black eyes, smiling tenderly as he embraced the little girl.

 

At the bottom of the framework, there was a plaque on which could be read: ”BIANCA UTONIUM”, below, it read “My Best Creation”.

 

The penetrating look on the girl’s eyes put The Painter into a sort of trance, despite its lack of mind. The Painter kept looking at the frame photo, not noticing the strange hand that was crawling out from below the dusty bed at its left.

 

Meanwhile, Princess was checking around the lower part of the house, the dust was flowing around the air, which, along with the partially destroyed furniture, made the place look way more dreary than any other she saw in her short life. Morbucks wandered around the abandoned-looking halls until she noticed a suspiciously convenient group of letters on one of the doors. These letters were burned into the wood of the door, and spelt “LEAVE” in a rather menacing tone.

 

“How convenient…”, thought Morbucks as she walked closer to that door.

 

The redhead put her hand on the knob only to find out it was locked, not only that but, when looking closer, she saw that the sides of the door were somehow melted and fused with the frame. There was no denying that the door was, in fact, sealed. 

 

However, that was not a problem for Morbucks so, rapidly, she swung her armored hand towards the door, blowing it away towards the assumed laboratory. Some seconds passed before a foul smell invaded the redheaded warrior’s nostrils, a smell that was bringing her to the edge of vomit. Princess had fought against this urge while she descended the flight of stairs and searched for a switch to turn the lights on.

Back at the dusty bedroom, the hand from below the bed managed to grab one of The Painter’s avian legs. The Painter, of course, immediately noticed this, and without hesitation, backed away, the hand was still gripping to its leg as the body it belonged to was dragged out of that narrow space. It looked like a human, but with strange deformities, the most notorious one was its sickly green skin, along with a set of long, protruding eyes.

 

Both beings began to struggle with each other, the deformed entity was in a severely apanicked state, trying to choke The Painter with its hands. The Painter, still not showing emotion, was flailing its feathered arms in an attempt to reach the entity’s face, a mix between raspberries and blunt force impacts was the main source of sound on this conundrum.

The Painter was about to pass out until the sound of an explosive-like impact alerted both. The green thing stopped choking The Painter and tried to hide below the bed once again, but The Painter managed to grab it from its white uniform and dragged it along its side, much to its chagrin.

 

The Painter, alongside its new “friend”, went down to the first floor, only to find a hole on where used to be a door. The Painter went through that hole and descended to a dimly lit room, with multiple machines of unknown purpose and instruments associated with chemistry. The room was, in lack of more appropriate terms, unkempt. There were stains everywhere, with broken glass and spare metallic parts scattered around in some areas. 

 

The Painter noticed a figure on one of the corners, it was Morbucks, blowing chunks. The feathered creature touched the redhead’s shoulder to call her attention, an action that was answered with a frightened yelp.

 

“D-d-dude! D-don’t (hurl!) scare me like that!” Chided Princess, while trying to resist the urge to puke. “B-by the way, how are you not sick!?” She asked, this time out of genuine concern. “And no, I don’t know where this smell comes from!” Morbucks added while she began vomiting again. The Painter threw the green skinned entity at her side while it began wandering around the room for the so-called “Dimensional Compound”.

 

As she was regaining composure, Princess noticed the entity beside her at the same time a palm was softly patting her back. Due to the tension of the moment, her vision was partially blurred, in a moment of deluded confusion, she murmured: “D-d-daddy? Is that you?”

 

When her vision became clear enough and figured out who was the creature that was trying to help her, her face turned into an expression of annoyance. “Oh, it’s you…” She stood up and backed away from the entity as she turned on her communicator, the green-skinned humanoid was looking at her, strangely intrigued.

 

“Hey Mayor, Morbucks here. The bird seems to have found Grubber- I mean, ‘Subject X7-3’, still unsure about the whereabouts of the others. We’re still trying to find the compound. Over.” 

 

But the communicator was only emitting static.

 

“Just what I needed, this stupid place has no signal!” Exclaimed Princess in frustration, “AND WHAT’S UP WITH THAT SMELL!?” She shouted angrily as she punched one of the laboratory’s walls with her armored hand. The impact shaked the room a bit, causing some things to fall off their respective furniture.

 

On its ongoing search, The Painter noticed a peculiar recipient in one of the overhead cabinets, containing a strange, black substance. Unfortunately, the cabinet was high enough for the recipient to be out of reach just for a bit. The Painter was about to jump towards it before the impact of Princess’ armored fist on the wall made the glass vessel fall on its feathered hand.

 

The impact of Morbuck’s punch was enough for the affected wall to fall off, revealing a secret room. The dim light that emanated from the laboratory's worn lights wasn’t enough to illuminate the newly discovered area, so Morbucks recurred to her flashlight. 

 

This was a decision she immediately regretted, as what was revealed made her urge to vomit return with full force, while Grubber was standing there in shock, a single tear flowing from one of his eye sockets. 

 

Piles and piles of corpses in different states of decomposition, awkwardly piled up like useless meat. All of them had either a hole in the chest or the head burned beyond recognition. One of these piles consisted of the remaining subjects X7-1, 2, 4 and 5 respectively. On the ceiling, which was made of basic concrete, the word "UNWORTHY" was written in huge red letters.

 

The Painter, once again, puts its hand on Morbucks’s shoulder, this time only receiving a glance that could only be defined as a mix between melancholic and terrified. The Painter gave her the glass recipient with the compound.

 

“We must get the hell out of here, and quickly,” said the redhead, still quite shocked. 

 

The group proceeded to walk towards the stairs that would lead them to the main floor, until Princess stopped, so did her teammates. Grubber didn’t know why they all had stopped, and didn’t seem willing to ask about it. Then, a faint sound could be heard, a sound both Princess and the remaining Gangreen Gang member immediately recognized and turned their faces into expressions of fear.

 

“THE ANGEL's here…” whispered Morbucks, in an attempt to not call the entity’s attention. Quickly but with caution, she turned off the laboratory’s lights, in hopes of not getting caught.

 

“Stand still, make no sound,” whispered Morbucks once again, ordering her teammates to follow her instructions. Suddenly, a figure appeared upstairs behind the hole, its facial features were unidentifiable due to the contrast in light, but it was definitely similar to the little girl in the framed photo. However, this girl was definitely taller, she looked proportionally similar to a teenager.

 

The girl at the top of the staircase, previously dubbed by Morbucks as "THE ANGEL", didn’t bother to go through the hole, instead, she left. Soon after, Princess was checking her device in search of a quick escape route, as long as it was near the house and safe enough, no matter the cost or diffculty. She eventually found out the quickest route was through the sewer system, accessible through a manhole just in front of the house. "It's better than running a losing race all the way to the subway, I guess," she thought to herself.

 

Seconds later, a faint sound of water flowing being heard by the group, it was the most convenient call for action. So, without further ado, the group went on cautiously towards and throughout the main floor, looking at every possible angle, stopping at any possible corner or sudden sound, just in case THE ANGEL came back down.

The tension was at its peak as the group reached the main door, which was half open. They had to make sure to not make any sound. As soon as they managed to open the door at its fullest, the same recognisable sound was heard just behind them. THE ANGEL had caught them red handed. 

 

However, before anyone could do anything, The Painter sucker-punched THE ANGEL right at her stomach, which temporarily stunned her, writhing on the floor. This surprise attack gave both Grubber and Princess enough time to escape.

 
And while Princess was lifting the manhole in front of the house, THE ANGEL had already recovered from The Painter's blow. As she was about to fly towards the other two, The Painter grabbed her by one of her legs and fiercely threw her towards one of the walls of the living room.

 

Silence was all that could be heard after that.

 

The Painter, being somehow reminded of his main mission, proceeded to approach THE ANGEL, which seemed unconscious. When the avian got close enough, THE ANGEL opened her eyes.

 

The last thing The Painter saw was a pair of multicolored eyes, staring at it with pure hatred, just before having its face melted by THE ANGEL's heat vision.

 

[REDACTED AND SUMMARIZED] Incident Report - ██

Date Logged: 2012-██-██

Presiding Officer: Mayor S. Bellum.

Participating Agents: 

• Subject X21 - Alias: “Princess Morbucks”

• Subject X98 - Alias: ██████████████████

Mission Objectives: 

• Retrieve a viable sample of Subject X00 (“The Dimensional Compound”) - Status: Success

• Gather intelligence regarding the location of Subjects X7-1 through X7-5 ("The Gangreen Gang") - Status: Success

[Abridged] Description of events by hour: 

1600 Hours: 

Subjects X21 and X98 are assigned the described mission.

1700 Hours: 

Subject X21 and X98 are caught on camera at Entrance G6. Subject X21 makes use of X21-A (“Power Glove”) to get through. Immediate repair is required.

1800 Hours: 

First transmission received from Subject X21:

X21: “Hey, Mayor, Princess and… bird thing here. We’ve reached the exit, and by the way, you should do something with the entrance G6—I had to tear it down. Over.”

Mayor S.Bellum: “Continue heading south on the surface route. We’ll address the damage to the entrance later. Over.” 

2000 Hours: A second transmission from Subject X21 is received but is heavily degraded, likely due to environmental interference. Most of the message is unintelligible. No response could be issued.

X21: Hey Mayor… Morbucks here. [Unintelligible]… ‘Subject X7-3’, still unsure about… [Unintelligible]… the compound. Over.

2200 Hours

Subject X21 returns to base with both Subject X00 and Subject X7-3 in custody. Subject X98 is not present.

Post-Mission Analysis

In accordance with Protocol 62-O, a debriefing was conducted with Subject X21. During the interview, it was revealed that both agents encountered Subject X01, codename: "THE ANGEL". The nature of the engagement remains classified, but the objective was completed with only partial team extraction.

Subject X98 has been officially designated as Missing In Action (M.I.A.).

As of this report, the scientific division is conducting an extensive analysis of Subject X00. Early hopes are that findings may aid in the formulation of a termination strategy for Subject X01.

At 0200 Hours of 2012-██-██, an additional anomaly was noted by Subject X21: an unaccounted "egg-like object" was discovered within Subject X98’s assigned containment cell. The implications of this find are unknown. Investigation is pending.