Old Betty, the junker buggy, drives down a concrete road with Gregory, Kelsey, Mai and Saige inside. As this happens, the car is getting chased by two flying demon birds, and one of them bashes the side of the car.

  Mai tries shooting the car’s top turret, from her passenger seat, while aiming at the demon birds.

  Suddenly, the car hits a bump and everyone gets bounced up in their seat for a second. “Keep it steady Gregory!”, shouts Mai. “I’m trying!”, shouts Gregory. Mai then finishes shooting down the demon bird that rammed them earlier. She then aims and shoots down the second demon bird as well, right before it was about to ram the side of the vehicle. “Phew, got them.”, says Mai. “Remember not to let up yet.”, says Gregory. They keep driving down the road.

  Eventually they reach a road leading over a wide sewer pipe opening. “Okay, here we are.”, says Gregory. “Really, looks like we’re in the middle of nowhere important”, says Saige. “This isn’t Outpost 0, this is the checkpoint we park at as we walk up to Outpost 0.”, says Gregory as he gets out the vehicle. Kelsey then opens the door and hops out while feeling energized. She then crouches forward and balls up her fists infront of her chest while saying, “Well I’m ready to kill some demons!”. “Yes, let’s get ready to kill demons.”, says Gregory with a less energized front. Gregory then places a hand on his robotic wrist and it shifts forward to become a blaster. But although Gregory is ready, he has a worried look on his face, as if he believes everything could go south.

  “What's the plan this time?”, says Mai toward Gregory. “We have to head to the remaining sectors we haven’t seen this time and scan them.”, says Gregory. “But no plan?”, asks Mai. “The plan is we take the usual way and Saige is our backup.”, says Gregory. Gregory and Mai just look at Saige as Saige looks back at the two of them. Gregory then sighs and says, “Hope you come in handy.”. “Uhh.”, responds Saige. “Now to the actual route. There’s an underground route that leads inside the fortress known as Outpost 0. We’ll take that route in.”, says Gregory. “Oh, okay.”, says Kelsey. “We travel together and no splitting off.”, says Gregory. “Alright.”, says Kelsey. “Gotchya.”, says Saige. “And no fighting unless necessary. We’ll sneak around.”, says Gregory.

  “Aww.”, says Kelsey as she hunched forward with her arms dangling down. “Hey! ..No “aw”s, this is the best chance we have t survive this. Alright, let’s go.”, says Gregory as he snaps to a serious aggravated tone. Gregory then walks off to the side of the road and slides down a short hill then briefly stomps through murky water until he touches the sewer pipe under the road. “Here is how we get in”, says Gregory. “Aw gross”, says Kelsey. “We have to crawl through a sewer line?”, asks Saige. “It”s our only way in. You just have to deal with it guys.”, says Mai, right before sliding down the hill herself. “Hey weren’t you the one to complain about getting demon-bear blood on your clothes and now you’re okay with this?”, asks Saige. “It’s the only safe route in, what do you want me to say, Saige?”, says Mai with a stern look toward him. Saige’s eyes then widen in surprise. “Fine.”, says Saige as he slides down the hill too.

  In due time, the four of them are walking through the sewer line. “Man it stinks in here”, says Saige. “Be quiet. We don’t want them to detect us.”, says Gregory. Eventually they then reach a ladder to the side, leading up to a hatch. “Here we are. Now what you’re about to see may look horrifying so brace yourselves.”, says Gregory. Gregory climbs up the ladder first, as the others climb up behind him. He then lifts the hatch, sticks out his head and looks around, then when he sees it’s clear he climbs out of the hole to end up on grassy ground. Mai then comes out next, followed by Saige, and then Kelsey. Saige and Kelsey then look around in horror as they see red walling made out of a combination of red brick and red t-posed human bodies with gaping open mouths and no eyes. As the ceiling appears to be 10 meters high.

  “What the hell is this?”, says Saige. “The remains of the town people who lived here. Their bodies help partly make up the walls of this place we call Outpost 0”. “This is too much.”, says Kelsey. “I know.”, says Gregory. “But let’s not waste too much time. We have to scan this place out. Mai.”, says Gregory. Mai reveals her wrist device she had on since they came over in Old Betty. “Right”, says Mai.

  The group walks forward out of the room, then they weave around a corner and hide from a group of flying demon birds. The demon birds pass by without ever noticing them. Gregory, Kelsey, Mai and Saige continue walking throughout the place, until they reach an open room. Mai then stands with her wrist pointed out and a holographic grid projects out of the device and scans the room. “So what’s the point of this?”, asks Saige. “To get an advantage when we return with more units to take over the outpost and clear it out.”, says Gregory. Mai then finishes scanning. “Okay, let’s keep moving.”, says Mai.

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  Through a gradual progress, Gregory, Mai, Kelsey and Saige make it from room-to-room scanning the inner structure. Along the way, Saige then asks a question, “Hey how come this place is mostly empty?”. Kelsey, not paying attention, continues to look at the walls, while being creeped out by them. “And how come the walls are like this?”, asks Kelsey. “The defense is mainly outside. Inside these corridors the demon birds hardly have a reason to be inside, since they expect people to not have been able to get in, in the first place. As for the walls, like I said, you’re looking at the remains of the people that last lived in the town that stood here. Their bodies were encased inside a special red resin of Hellish origin, and it’s what demon structures are mainly built from. Also another thing...”, says Gregory, right before freezing up.

  Five demon birds then enter the room the group is in, right infront of the group. “Intruders!!”, says the middle demon bird. “We need to stop them now! Before they tell the others! Or else we’ll really be in trouble!”, says Gregory. The demon birds stop to shoot at them, with red laser blasters. Meanwhile, one demon bird leaves to alert the others. “I got that one!”, says Saige. Saige then runs after the bird from a distance and briefly grows horns and a tail while shifting to run on all fours.

  “A-Another demon!?”, one of the demon birds shouts. Saige then dodges blaster fire, jumps and grips two of the flying demon birds by the necks, while landing on the fleeing one’s backside. He then strangles the two demon birds in his arms until they turn unconscious and then he downward kicks on the fleeing demon bird’s head. As all three demon birds get dropped to the ground, Saige then turns back his head at the remaining two.

  Gregory, Kelsey and Mai just look onward as Saige takes care of the remaining two in a vicious manor. After finishing, Saige walks back to Gregory, Kelsey and Mai, while rolling his shoulder in a stretch. “That was.. good. Nice job, Saige.”, says Gregory in surprise. “Yeah. You’re welcome.”, says Saige. “Let’s continue on.”, says Gregory. They then go on scanning from room-to-room and they even manage to scan a courtyard with a red statue in the middle, and the red statue is a female half-humanoid half-bird person, with bird wings outstretched on her back. “Whoa, who’s that?”, asks Saige.

  “I think that’s a statue of Queen Melas. A demon general from the war, who preferred to be called, “a queen”, amongst her under serving subjects. She also looks half human half demon, but don’t be fooled, she’s all demon.”, says Gregory. “Odd they’d have a statue of her here.”, says Saige as he puts his arms behind his head. “Yes. Odd. Let’s keep going.”, says Gregory.

  They continue to scan from room-to-room, then they sneak up on one room, but then hide behind a door frame to the room. “What the-...”, says Saige before getting his mouth covered by Gregory’s hand. “Shh. That’s the queen of this keep.”, whispers Gregory. They see Queen Melas, with blue feathering, red skin and horns talking to a demon bird guard. “This is the queen’s main quarters, it’s best we skip scanning this room.”, whispers Gregory.

  They then begin to head away from the room with Gregory leading the way. “But didn’t you say we need to scan al-”, asks Saige, right before getting cut off by Gregory. “She’s a Demon General serving under Azrael. She must be the reason why there’s so much demon birds here, because it’s her territory. We originally thought Azrael may be hiding here too, but after going through these scans, we may be wrong. What we need to do is report this pronto to General Richter so we can devise a strategy moving forward.”, says Gregory. “Shouldn’t we kill her though?”, asks Saige. “With better preparation, yes, but not right now. After gathering this knowledge, we need to leave.”, says Gregory.

  “So we’re finished scanning?”, asks Kelsey. “I’d say we’ve scanned enough.”, says Gregory. “Oh good, cause this place has been giving me the creeps. Uh, I mean, nothing scares me.”, says Kelsey. “Smooth.”, says Saige. The group continue to make their way back. “Well that was mostly uneventful.”, says Saige. “Sometimes, you just gotta be glad to live to fight another da-”, says Gregory, right before stopping himself and looking ahead to see a swarm of demon birds blocking the way where those demon bird bodies were that Saige took out earlier.

  “They’re blocking our only way out.”, says Gregory. “CAAW! Intruders!”, says one of the demon birds. Gregory, Kelsey, Mai and Saige then go behind cover on each side of the archway leading into the room. “Saige, we’ll shoot, you think you can handle them?”, asks Gregory. Saige makes an irritated face, while cracking his knuckles and growing his horns and tail out. “Sure.”, says Saige.

  Saige then runs out of cover and fights, jumping up and spinning sideways while tackling down multiple demon birds, making them land and feel sore from their wounds. Saige then runs back-and-forth on all fours, booting, kicking and scratching them back until they’re all knocked out. Then he grows his claws for the final one and slashes it’s head off. And with that, Saige deals with them all.

  Saige then stands up in the mess of bodies and turns his head back to the archway. “The way’s cleared guys.”, says Saige, but there’s just silence as no one responds back. “Guys...?”, asks Saige. He then walks back to the archway to check it out and sees Gregory, Kelsey and Mai are just gone. “Where’d ya go?”, says Saige.