3: Test Mission

            The dimness of the holding facility, and the clockwork of the nutrient delivery keeping the Tyrants within maintained between tests and assignments—such was the creature’s existence for a time. Once per twenty-four hours the lab techs would return, and twice in that time the suit and an armed guard or two would step in, select between two and three individual Tyrants, and several hours later return them. Once more there was an incident where one bioweapon did not return—the one that wheezed and mumbled constantly. None of the humans had offered any explanation for this, or mentioned deployment of this creature. The Tyrant otherwise did not have any particular explanation in mind either.

            Then, one day, it would find out the other possibility. The suit and two armed guards shoved the door open as routine, and after a few seconds he pointed out two Tyrants at random:

            “T-047 and T-099, follow us. Oh…” The glare of the man’s shades leveled towards the newest Tyrant, and the man’s jaw offset as if considering something, “And T-00. You’re going to be tested now. Up, come on.”

            The creature stood, stepping in line with the other two B.O.W.s following the Umbrella agent through the grimy, industrial halls, sensing the tension of the two guards that fell in behind it. Its oversized heart valves began to thump harder preemptively, intuition telling it that it must be ready for combat. This was a test. A test of… the bioweapon didn’t know. It assumed something physical. It understood physical.

            The three Tyrants and their nervous chaperones entered someplace new—very different. The pervading rust and sterilizer smells faded here, replaced by a faint but sharp odor T-00 was unfamiliar with. Its boot set down on something dry and flimsy, crushing it with a distinctive noise that drew its attention for a moment. It withdrew the boot, discovering the pulverized remains of a fallen deciduous leaf. The “chamber” was not a chamber—it was outside.

            “Attention, Tyrants!” The suit faced them with a much louder voice, and the three creatures straightened up and stared by reflex. “You will be given multiple orders for this mission. Do not return to this point until all objectives are completed.”

            If the Tyrants knew how to nod, respond, anything of the sort, none of them did so. T-00 did not attempt to exercise its atrophied vocal cords, unsure if standing out in this moment was a good idea.

            The suit pulled out a five by seven photograph and held it upright for viewing. “Somewhere on the exterior of this island is this man. Joseph Rader. He is a traitor to Umbrella who has been in unauthorized contact with a rival regarding our confidential projects, and on his person is a file folder which contains documents he is not authorized to possess. If he does not have this folder, he will have hidden it somewhere close by. Your primary objective is to recover this folder. You will all fail if it is destroyed or irrecoverable.

            “Your secondary objective is to kill the traitor. It doesn’t matter how. Return to this entrance when all orders are fulfilled.”

            The suit put away the photo, snapping the two other Tyrants’ focus away from him and staring glassily over the foggy and sparsely-vegetated landscape. T-00 blinked once, peering out as well. In the short distance it could see, it made out not only scruffy clumps of small trees but a few low, squat buildings. The fog was a problem. Not the only problem—the thought nagged it: How could the suited man be sure the target was only outside? Joseph Rader must have worked here. He would know the layout, and the places where guards or staff rarely went. He could be indoors—but it had been told to track a target only outdoors.

            Was it… even allowed to go indoors? Would it be disobeying these orders if it did? If it killed its target in spite of this discrepancy, would it matter?

            While T-00 had been wrestling with this, T-047 and T-099 had surged off into the billowing sea mists, crashing through a clump of already-battered saplings in a beeline for the majority of open land in the complex. One of the guards nudged the other.

            “Uhh… What’s up with this new one? Is it defective..?”

            “Dunno. It’s the first of the new ones.”

            “Wasn’t the idea of those to make ‘em smarter?” The guard grunted, “Th’ big idiot’s just standing there…”

            The bioweapon leaned to glance over its shoulder at the speaker, the mere notion that it understood when it was being called stupid shutting the guard up with a frantic backstep. It had decided now. It would follow the mission as-given, until it could not. At a determined power-walk, it cut around the obstructing thickets and followed its fellow Tyrants’ progress at a slight interception angle.

------

            The Tyrant strode on, unstoppably, for nearly an hour with all its senses trained onto the slightest movement, the faintest sound, that broke through the fogbank enveloping the “testing ground”. There was no sign of any humans on foot, though by the gravel trackways that the B.O.W. occasionally crossed there had been activity until very recently. Perhaps the Sheena Island workers had been told to clear out while Tyrants were roaming. That did not make sense to T-00; its orders were to kill only Joseph Rader, and the retrieve only the file folder on him. But perhaps the precaution made sense to Umbrella. This was a test, after all, and they could not know that the odds of this Tyrant trampling interfering civilians on the way to its target was slim.

            Not zero, but slim.

            It passed under a tall, rough-barked conifer, obliterating several fallen cones as it came to a rest to scan around. The faint whupp-whupp-whupp of a helicopter buzzing overhead was the only unusual sound. The creature’s pinprick pupils glinted in the shadows, seeking out any hint that something aside from itself had passed through this way on two legs.

            There, tangled amidst a mat of dried grass, something small and white caught its eye. The ground shook as it went over and stooped to recover it. A few ragged threads from a frayed piece of labcoat nylon had been left snagged on a dead sprig of briar. The direction was leading away from one of the low hangar buildings. Nowhere that any lab personnel should be heading. It could be the target. The bioweapon’s heavy boots flattened grass and turf, but as speedy as its gait was it took care to not run over any fallen branches or other loud, destructible debris. The target could be close by. No sense in providing him with advanced warning of its relentless approach.

            The trail led to a rock formation. Tall and craggy, small holes pocked its surface and low shrubs ringed the base of it. T-00 could hear rushing water, crashing in a rhythmic pattern, somewhere on the other side of it—cliffsides running right up to the sea. The Tyrant paced along the perimeter of it, calculating that it would be very unlikely for a fleeing researcher to climb their way up. Not without leaving many traces on the dark, rough footholds (what few existed). The pock-marked holes dotting the slope made the creature suspect there may be another way around—or more accurately under, or through.

            T-00 pressed a gloved palm flat against a broad, flat section of the stone, tilting its head towards one of the small holes. A sea cave was possible, and a problem. If it found a way in and the target heard it coming, there could be many different alternate exits. If the only routes inside were too small for its wide frame, then it would definitely be heard as it made the passages larger. The B.O.W. leaned closer to a new, larger hole in the rock face that a faint flow of air was coming from, holding its breath. Listening hard.

            Past the muffled drumming of seawater on the shore, an echoey curse word made its way to its ears. The bioweapon’s pale eyes widened—in triumph at first.

            Following the voice was a resounding crash, the sound of rock being splintered under abnormally strong fists. It suddenly occurred to T-00 that there was a very good reason for the target to be running through brambles, and for cursing. Another of the Tyrants was here, trying to gain entry into the hiding place and abandoning stealth. Tearing its way through some small entrance.

            If the bioweapon knew how to frown, it would have done so. This was… not an effective strategy. It had lost the element of surprise.

            The bioweapon tracked the direction that the cursing, crushing and smashing were moving in, and hastened to cut around the side of the cliff face. The target fleeing this way could be a hint at where a better entry point was hidden. Soon it could no longer simply stomp through the brush and fallen rubble for the rugged boulders piled in the way, so instead T-00 hauled itself over on all fours until its next lunge dropped it down through open air. The gap was an open pit that widened out into the hidden cavern.

            There was a terrified yelp as it landed on its feet, one palm splayed out to diffuse some of the tremendous force of the fall. Barely fazed, the bioweapon stood up and stared intensely down at the panting, mud-stained figure scrabbling backwards away from it. It kept a laser-like focus on his face until it recognized the features.

            The target.

            Kill.

            The new Tyrant’s heavy pace picked up, eagerly to start with. All it had to do was kill this unarmed human. Though, was that not… much too easy?

            A fierce stinging sensation seared over its cheek, along with a force that knocked its head slightly askew. It slowed for a half-second, blinking once as the pain vanished and it noted that the target had unholstered a large pistol in his panicked crawling. Whatever the weapon was, it was of a beefy caliber to make a Tyrant hesitate for even a moment. Perhaps less easy. Though nothing as simple as a bullet would be able to stop such a being permanently. Still very easy.

            The file it was after did not seem as easy. It could tell immediately the man was not carrying anything aside from his firearm and several liters of pouring sweat. The shake of the ground as the Tyrant took another swift step closer broke Joseph Rader’s nerve—the gun’s barrel shivering and unable to aim.

            “What the fuck do you want from me?” he shrieked as T-00’s shadow fell across the pathetic shape huddling on the ground. It halted, intrigued but its face still too immobile to convey this to the frantic scientist, “What did I do?! I ain’t done anything, I swear! I don’t deserve two Tyrants! Look, look—I’ll do whatever the boss wants! Anything!”

            The Tyrant leaned over even more, gigantic shoulders hunching up higher and making its silhouette even more huge. Despite this scare tactic, it also cocked its head slowly to one side and kept up its leer. Waiting.

            “W—w—whoa, okay—look—” the man pressed himself closer to the ground and squelched the muddy layer over the rocks, not sure what to make of this new Tyrant behavior. The gun clattered against the rocks, “This is so outta nowhere… I-I-I didn’t do anything wrong, I think… I—” Joseph froze, eyes bulging in a sudden horrific realization, “Is… this about those papers?! Oh God, oh Christ, I-I—”

            T-00 did not have the chance to extract any further information. The Tyrant designated T-099 had burst through a narrow passageway behind where the target was groveling, dislodging stone fragments and spraying them out over the chamber as it continued its pursuit. Several sharp chips shot into T-00’s face—most bouncing off but one lodging very annoyingly into its right brow; the sheer unexpectedness of the damage stunned it for a second. In that second, Joseph Rader had scooped up his pistol and made a desperate dive in between T-00’s legs, easily scrambling through the plentiful room and clawing to his feet in a bid towards another low tunnel. And T-099 had lunged after him.

            The younger Tyrant was nearly bowled over, only avoiding this by clamping its huge hands over its overzealous comrade’s wrists and skidding backwards into the chamber wall. T-00 managed a low grunt and rushed to disentangle itself; it breathed a deep hiss, not quite strong enough in the voice department to properly growl a reproach, and shoved the other away in annoyance. Could the other bioweapon not observe that their target had nearly just given away their primary objective?

            Stupid… Stupid! T-00 quite suddenly jolted upright, its hearts hammering and flooding each muscular limb with a new sort of heat—but even worse its skull felt like it was flaring with molten metal. Anger. Rage, even. It had never been angry before. It did not like it. It had to move, must do something. So its first expression of this fresh emotive experience was to turn on its heel and throw itself after the fleeing target. A shoulder tucked low, slamming into low-hanging stalactites which choked the tunnel’s entrance, battered the thin chunks of limestone with such force that their shapes burst apart like icicles, and in a few clawing motions it pressed its way further into the aperture, grabbing and wrenching more of the formations free from the low ceiling.

            It was going to close on him. The next stalactite flew apart under T-00’s following savage left hook and its fragments showered over the fleeing man’s back, making him flinch. Almost had him.

            A burst of daylight shot into the hypersensitive, reflective retinas of the Tyrant as Rader scrabbled up over the rocky lip of this exit to the cave, leaving it blindly sweeping out with an open hand and missing him. The small boulder in the broad palm’s path was rocked back into a new resting spot, cracked down the center as the creature pulled the strength of the crushing grip it had prepared. A powerful hiss of breath blasted out of its nostrils and between its teeth. It was really starting to comprehend the emotion that humans called “resentment”…

            Not far into the blaring sunrays still half-blinding it a series of four large-caliber shots rang out, close enough the ting of ricochets and the splt! of one round hitting something hard yet fleshy were perceptible. T-00 grabbed the sides of the narrow hole the tunnel had opened into and squeezed itself up into the open. Joseph had staggered back, planting himself flat against a tree trunk opposite the trenchcoat-clad figure of Tyrant T-047; this Tyrant had placed a palm up to the bruised, bloody side of its jaw, glaring at the human which had done the damage with a brow that just barely spasmed down into a frown. With a crack, it relocated its jaw and began lumbering towards its cornered prey with fists balling up. This specimen, whether through longer experience or natural advantage, had no trouble in emitting a deep, rasping snarl.

            Kill! Kill!

            T-00 remembered the all-important file folder. Where had the target put it? If in the cave systems, then it could take hours to scour all of the nooks and crannies to find it. If not… they may fail the primary objective.

            It also remembered how T-020 had never returned to the holding chamber after such a mission. Jolting, stinging sensations lanced from its twin hearts up its neck and down its spine, and somehow its innate sense of danger was awakened by this, urging it to do what was required to be sure the file wasn’t lost.

            T-047 was a few meters from Joseph Rader, who was still unloading his clip into its face and neck, shrugging off the splinters of lead and copper blowing apart on its Kevlar-like skin. A thin trickle of blood had it pinching shut one eye, but the other stayed rooted on the man as it wound up for a skull-shattering blow.

            Rader let out a strangled yelp as a giant hand wrapped around the back of his collar and yanked him aside. The tree behind him became the unfortunate victim to a full-force Tyrant punch, and sent wood fragments out in a sphere of destruction. T-047 gurgled in confusion, rounding on T-00 where it stood with the pitiful flailing human in its vicelike grip, brow twitching to try and form a cheated expression. The newer Tyrant could not fathom how unobservant its peer was being, but it did not have any quick way of either chastising it or to forewarn it of the chain of dominoes its own attack had set off. As the other Tyrant’s features twisted further in a mix of annoyance and determination and it started to step forward to reclaim the man from its rival, the solid trunk of the obliterated tree finished its earthward descent. It thudded bone-breakingly directly on top of T-047, and with a rasp of pain it was stopped in its tracks and sprawled in a twisted posture on the layer of rock and pine needles—a hulking thirty-foot section of conifer pinning it for the moment.

            “Ack—gh—!” The new Tyrant turned its attention back to its flailing captive—perfectly able to breathe, but shocked-through with the agony of being lifted by the cervical spine, entire body weight dangling. It lowered the human just enough that his toes brushed the dirt, offsetting this nasty sensation. “Gh—gah—! P-pl—You’re not… killin’ me?” The man choked, gasping as he met the creature’s insistent stare. “Wh-wh—you… you ain’t a Tyrant. Tyrants don’t…”

            T-00 tried in that moment to figure out how humans and some fellow B.O.W.s cinched up their brow areas at will so fiercely. It had no way to know how well it had mimicked the movement, but it had paired the glare it aimed Rader’s way with a few inches of elevation from the ground. The frail figure choked, struggled, and grasped at its heavy forearms to alleviate the pressure.

            “N-n-no, urk! Please—I’ll give you whatever..!” he gasped, “—! —the papers! Is that why they sent you? I’ll get them—please—just—erk!”

            Now this was more like it. The Tyrant communicated its agreement as only it could: By dropping the man unceremoniously to his feet. Rader’s knees buckled under the unexpected freedom and he tumbled back onto his rear. Understandably, the human was in a hurry to crawl back upright, gawping at the mass of bio-engineered muscle looming over him with its unnatural milky-white eyes trained on his bedraggled face. “W-w… o-okay, okay! Just don’t kill me—over here—” The human was half-crazed with panic, which only made his climb out of the stoniest part of the landscape even more painfully slow. T-00 shadowed his every step and fumbling heave over piled boulders, keeping a close eye on its target. After a short while, Rader half-collapsed against a weathered telecommunications pole mixed in among the ragged trees.

            “H-here, it’s here… I th-think,” the Tyrant examined the pole. Close to the base of it was a half-rusted panel box, probably for maintenance. The scientist hauled himself back to his feet and struggled to pry the access door open—until an impatient leather-clad hand reached past his head and popped it open with no effort. The metallic skreee! Echoed across the foggy wastes of the island. “There—you got what you want! I swear, I only made the copy for backup! You’ll tell the boss that? Will you? Please—it was just a mistake—I’m no traitor!”

            T-00 heard every word, but paid the pleading man collapsed again by its boots no mind as it scrutinized the contents of the box. Most of it was a ratsnest of wires and fuses—but tucked against the side was a rolled-up packet of documents. It presumed the file folder previously containing them had been too wide and inflexible to fit inside among the circuitry. No matter: This was the primary objective, only lacking that superficial covering. It reached into the narrow space, thumb and forefinger just fitting around the packed wires and tugging gently to retrieve the delicate item…

            And there was a cacophonous rumble. Drawing closer, closer, the rumble became two sets of distinctive thuds and crashes—the crescendo coming in the form of one of the other Tyrants shoulder-ramming one of the smaller boulders aside and storming into view. It was followed by the other—head still slicked with its own viscous, nearly-black blood and embedded all over its leather-draped shoulders with splinters, but otherwise not any worse for wear. The two locked onto the scientist crouched in T-00’s shadow and in almost perfect unison uttered a guttural growl and an annoyed, wheezy breath.

            As T-00 calmly tucked the roll of papers into its Limiter outer pocket, it tensed by combat reflex as it heard the click of the target drawing his pistol. It twisted around; Joseph Rader was aiming towards the other Tyrants, but… not at either of them. Between them—towards the base of the boulderfield strewn below the sea cliffs.

            “Go to hell, you stupid fuckers—” The human’s tone hissed with renewed confidence and he unloaded three more rounds before the gun began to loudly click. One of the Tyrants had taken a charging stride when the bullets punctured their mark—a suspiciously rectangular grayish object nested amongst the rocks right behind them.

            Time slowed. T-00 heard a low fizzle. With a flash, the heap of rock and earth and bases of trees blew open and all three bioweapons were rocked by the powerful explosion. The newest of them was lucky it was furthest away; the shockwave staggered it backwards, the sheer weight of its back slamming into the pole’s electrical box crushing the weak metal flat. T-047 was much less lucky; it was closest, and already sluggish from the regenerating damage, so when the rocky hillside burst apart it was hammered with yet another toppling tree, then a shower of hundred-pound hunks of stone which all knocked it flat on its face. T-099 was only a step ahead and shared this treatment, an especially massive dislodged boulder striking it on the head and shoulders with a sickening whack and sending it stumbling sideways and down to its hands and knees. It clenched one eye shut against the sheet of fluids running down from the divot in its skull, hissing to itself through its teeth as it was forced to stay down and recover.

            T-00 shook off the dizziness quickly, but there was not much time before the Tyrants were all handed an even worse turn of luck. Pushing back against the pole to regain its balance, the creature stared in wide-eyed confusion as the cliff face above their position was pieced apart by gravity, vibrations rattling through the ground far more terrible than those caused by a hunting bioweapon but utterly silent. Dozens of tons of exposed bedrock cut loose of its anchoring from the structural damage caused by the bomb. T-047 had time to lever itself up onto one elbow and roll the tree off before the nightmarish avalanche barreled over it and T-099. The latter’s teeth bared as it opened its mouth—but still no sound reached the newest Tyrant. A truck-sized slab of the cliff bounced end over end against the pieces which had buried its cohorts before finally coming to a stop directly over the pole… and the bioweapon. The intense pressure of the megalith settling over it from toes to abdomen threw it flat on its back, all the air whooshing from its lungs. Its kneecaps creaked and ribs strained ominously.

            Well.

            This did not feel good. T-00 braced with every fiber of mutant muscle in its body to hold off any further damage and caught its breath. Thick fingers wedged under the edge of the rock, and after a moment of building up as much force as possible in the awkward position the Tyrant gave a calculated heave. The obstruction flipped aside, landing on the now downed telecommunications pole and snapping it in two.

            As it stood, its gaze swept over the mess and desolation of cliff rubble that had crushed and trapped the other two Tyrants. A dull ringing had started up in its ears, and it took a moment to shake its head—as if trying to shake the irritating whine off. The explosion. Ah. It had been so close that the blast had ruptured its eardrums—which were apparently the last part of it to swiftly stitch back together. After a few seconds, the distant noise of the ocean faded back in, as did the heavy tread and crunch of small bits of gravel underfoot as it rounded on the direction it had last seen its target fleeing. Rader had also been much too close to his own explosive trap—and Rader was no biomutant. He would never hear it coming. If it was possible for the Tyrant to be more motivated to finish its mission, then it was fully expressing the new eagerness. T-00 was very upset. Its mass thundered through the fog-wreathed hinterland as it abandoned the more measured, calculated stride for a full forty mile per hour sprint. If the extremely unlucky Umbrella traitor was able to hear at all, it would have sounded like a freight train was bearing down on him through the brush.

------

            Joseph Rader was mumbling and moaning, barely able to do more than shamble awkwardly towards the far-too-distant shape of the Sheena Island plant building he normally would be working out of. When the Tyrant next caught sight of him, the man’s left ear had a long stream of scarlet blood issuing from it, and he was grabbing onto the low branches of scruffy trees in order to stay upright. Even deafened by his own acts, Rader felt the tremors through the ground of biologically engineered doom closing in, and shot one wide-eyed look of horror over his shoulder shortly before a giant hand enveloped his neck from chin to collarbone, throat-to-nape. The Tyrant was clean and efficient—with one blood-chilling pop it was left standing with its former target hanging limply like a marionette with cut strings. A wave of calm washed over the bioweapon; it had succeeded, and all that remained was to return to where it had begun, evidence of completed mission in-hand.

            When it arrived at the guarded door into the holding complex the surprise on the suited Umbrella agent’s face was visible even beyond the dark shades. The two armed guards let off having a tense, hurried conversation through a portable radio and stepped back as the Tyrant strolled over and dumped Rader’s corpse to the ground. It turned its outwardly impassive stare over to the highest ranked of the humans, waiting on the verdict.

            “Huh,” the man checked his watch before looking the large figure up and down with renewed awe, “I was worried for a minute there when that blast went off, but it looks like this prototype’s a little wilier than even our notorious Mr. Rader.” The man’s shades glinted as he looked at the nasty angle that the body’s neck was in and frowned. “Now, about that file folder?”

            T-00 silently retrieved the now very creased and flattened roll of documents from its large front pocket, handing it over to the man. After taking a very, very long minute to unroll and straighten the packet enough to inspect its contents, the Tyrant’s eerie pale eyes widened in satisfaction as the suit nodded.

            “Excellent. It’ll be a bitch to get these flat enough to go back in the archives, but I can hardly blame you for that. Excellent work, T-00.”

            The praise was interrupted by a heavy crash and rustling from the half-destroyed thicket close by, and both humans and bioweapon turned to see what was pushing its way into their midst. It was T-099—though it had clearly not finished its latest regeneration cycle from the way it limped and bore the obvious signs of an arm hanging with weakness. It had to have come directly back, delayed only by the Herculean effort of digging itself from underneath half a hillside. This Tyrant took in the presence of its younger companion, then the dead man on the ground, then the suit with papers in hand before it huffed and tried to pull itself together into some semblance of a standard “awaiting orders” posture.

            The suit’s lip curled up in an expression that T-00 knew was not a smile, but did not know what else it could be. The man snapped his fingers sharply before pointing to the wounded Tyrant: “Cheh. What a joke, especially for one of these things. You’dve been better off staying down like your buddy.” The Tyrant’s only response was a slight tilt of its head, aware it was being scolded and insulted but being baffled as to why. “Right. T-00! New orders for you!”

            The younger Tyrant twisted to meet the man’s shades in rapt attention. New orders. It flexed its fingers open and shut in readiness.

            “Kill that defective unit. The suited man was definitely grinning, “Now. Kill it, T-00.”

            The bioweapon froze up, its mind chugging to process what it had heard. Kill the… “defective unit”..? What met such a description? Surely he didn’t mean T-099—the other Tyrant was already fusing together all the damaged bones and knitting together the bruised and battered muscles from its attempts on the test run. It would be completely fit once again in about forty more seconds, just as it would if T-00 had been unlucky enough to be in its position. It blinked, its eyeline shooting towards its fellow Tyrant and back to the suit, as if to ask the question its vocal capacity wasn’t fit to put out.

            “Go on. Kill it, T-00,” the suit growled, one hand slipping into one of his jacket pockets, “Unless you’re defective yourself, and can’t understand basic orders anymore? Hm?”

            The Tyrant blinked, then faced T-099. This one didn’t appear to have put together what exactly was going to befall it in a few short moments—T-099 still stood, at ease and occasionally blinking out of exhaustion, at no point even meeting its immediate descendant’s gaze. It wasn’t defective, of course, and it seemed to know it. T-00 knew it. But somehow the man giving the orders didn’t..?

            “Don’t stall, Tyrant. You’ve got a good shot now, if you take it.” The suit sighed. His hand shifted inside his pocket. “You know what, you’re new. I’ll give you a pass since you’ve done so well. Now pay attention, this’ll be a learning experience…”

            Its shoulders bunched, and while it was still trying to figure out why it watched as its right fist flitted out and connected with a hideous THLK! against the other bioweapon’s jaw. T-099 was just as taken off-guard as it was, and staggered back until it was caught against the straining grip of the abused saplings behind it. It hadn’t… what?

            Again, a dull pulse ran through its back and its legs began to push itself along towards the dazed T-099. Something was hijacking its nerves. Primitively, but whatever thoughts or feelings it had to resist were not enough to do much more than make the forced movements rougher, less skilled. Slow. As it was closing on the other Tyrant it realized that “slow” and “rough” were not going to leave it unscathed, and it relented to the puppeteering’s push, bringing up a palm to grab the fist that the confused, older Tyrant had reflexively aimed at its attacker. A meeting of two colossal forces resulted, T-099’s other hand shooting up and grabbing at the top of T-00’s head, trying to yank it forward and break its neck as if it were something far more fragile in build. In reply, T-00’s free hand slugged it again underhanded, landing a direct hit over the sternum and causing a hiccup in the creature’s strength. A flurry of titanic movement followed as the two, locked together, forced each other around the small impromptu arena. The armed guards had thrown themselves aside, and the suit had flattened himself to the wall as far from the struggle as he could.

            T-00’s knee launched into T-099’s gut, doubling the other over and giving the newer Tyrant the opportunity it needed. With frantic energy it clawed with its full power into the other’s exposed back, fingers latching around its spinal column and giving a hard wrench. T-099 went limp and uttered a snarl, it’s mouth bubbling with mutant blood, and it fell down with a few spasms of its legs before T-00 swiftly ended the battle and the dilemma in a boot to its skull. Dazedly, the new Tyrant loosened its fingers; the bloody portion of vertebrae and viscera fell atop its former owner.

            Umbrella had made it kill.

            No.

            Umbrella had made it to kill. It was made to kill. But here it was made to kill. Its gaze scanned back over the ruined, leaking body of its fellow Tyrant under its feet; this did not… make sense. T-099 had use. It would have regenerated. It was… a functional Tyrant. It was new. It was healthy. It was good? It was… like T-00.

            “I knew you had it in you,” the suit said with a stuffy chuckle, the hand retreating from his pocket and instead adjusting his dark shades. “Good job. That will be a good mark on your record for sure.”

            Straightening, with one hand still held out unpleasantly due to the thick blood still dripping from it, T-00 allowed its handlers to lead it back to the holding chamber. It almost missed their brief pause outside a decontamination lab, even though a lab tech had come out and wiped the offending glove clean with a strongly-scented antiseptic cloth. Soon enough it was led into its “home”—staring over the two long rows of tightly-packed Tyrants all turning to look it in the eye; its back twitching up like a threatened dogs’ at how similar so many of them were to the one which would not be returning here again.