Chapter 218 - 218 - Dominance

Ten minutes ago,

Tian and Hary exhaled in relief as the rat went away. But it was squeaking and crying too much.

"Come on," Hary tugged at the researcher's clothes.

"No, let him stay. It's calling its friends. They are going to come after us, Prisitsky try and see if you can crawl up there," Tian whispered to him.

"Shaft is too narrow. If I try to climb up I will be stuck," he mumbled.

"Then wait in there. We'll deal with the others and be right back,"

The thudding footsteps of the giant rat were getting close.

Hary got prepared this time. He took out a bazzoka from the weapons bag and a few grenades. "Let's get this started,"

They both charged out of the chamber at the huge pink creature.

It was slightly surprised by it. It let out a loud squeak.

While its mouth was open, Hary shot his bazooka right in.

"go, go go..." they both ran to a further corner and hid behind one of the turnings.

"bazooka, what if the shaft collapses?" Tian slapped the back of his head.

"I hope it doesn't," Hary mumbled softly.

But to his surprise, the explosive did not go off.

"What the hell.." he glanced out but a huge pink nose was right in front of his face. Chewing on the explosive with interest. "Oh shit!"

They both ran and ran after that. Through smaller passageways, they dashed through.

While running Tian stumbled on something and the torchlight fell down. she bent down to take it.

"Leave it be," harry dragged her away.

From then on they ran through pitch darkness.

Suddenly, both of them stumbled on something and fell into a depth.

Hary urgently held Tian in his arms and coated with a layer of his metal all over her exposed parts. Because....

Twenty or so zombies pulled at their arms and legs.

"Hary cover yourself with the metal blanket," she hurriedly shouted. a huge ball of flame circled inside the hole. The zombies all screeched loudly.

*********

Yue moved into a smaller narrower shaft but suddenly he froze.

He smelled the dirty stench of burning corpses in here.

"Prisitsky, stay here."

Silently they crept into the pathway Trexa led them. It was similar to a maze and the holes went narrower.

Suddenly Trexa popped her head out and slightly squeaked.

Yue glanced down. She was pointing at something excitedly.

He hurriedly ran in that direction. Holding the fire out, he noticed a huge hole in the ground.

"Yue? God, why did you come in here,?" Tian whisper shouted from the inside.

Yue showed the light inside. Tian was standing there with Hary and below them; there was a huge bundle of corpses. "What is this?"

"A food reserve," Prisitsky happily came closer. "they were planning on keeping them safe until they got hungry. Most likely for the queen,"

Yue gently tapped on the wall of the well-like structure. It was sturdy. "Tian try to climb it? do you want me to toss a dagger or anything sharp?"

"no, no, we have weapons. It took time to take care of these zombies," she panted softly, patting Hary's shoulders. "Give me your shirt,"

Hary removed his coat and his t-shirt to give her his inner shirt.

Tian wound it on corpses' hands and set it on fire. a foul stench spread inside the well.

Yue grimaced slightly. "How does it look down there? Is the walls sturdy there as well?"

Tian nodded. "Yeah it is," she took two axes from inside her bag and started to slowly climb up by stabbing the walls.

Sand tickled every time she did so, but the walls held tight.

When she got close to the mouth of the well, Yue and fan xui pulled her up.

"Catch," Tian tossed the axes down.

Hary swiftly followed behind her stabbing at the same spots she did. A foot up suddenly he felt something tug at his legs.

He glanced down. Half burned zombie grabbed onto his legs. Its whole body had melted away by the flame but this one's' torso was spared.

He tried to kick it away but… he lost his grip.

Unsteady he collapsed down.

A zombie caught hold of his arm and bite into it. he sliced through it with the axe.

Panting, he peered at the bite mark. "Fuck.... fuck." He tore his clothes and hurriedly tied it tightly over his biceps cutting off the blood flow.

"Everything okay down there," Tian shouted from above.

"Yep."

After doing so he climbed up as fast as he can.

Yue pulled him up as well. "What's wrong? You look pale..."

Hary let out a small smile. 'I can't believe I'm doing this... we'll all I gotta do is try,' he pulled the clean ax on his right hand and chopped his arm off. Blood splashed everywhere. The pain was unimaginable. Tears rolled down his eyes silently.

"Hary! !!!!!" Yue and everyone ran to him and tried to hold a clean piece of cloth over the wound tightly. "why did you.."

He was groaning, hugging his amputated arm.

"I got bit..." he groaned.... "I think this will work"

"You idiot! Idiot! That's what Trexa is for!" he hurriedly took her out of his pockets with his blood-soaked hands.

Trexa worriedly looked at his finger. "Squeak"

"Baba is not hurt baby. Look at his wounds. Can you do something?" he held her close to his bleeding arm.

Trexa sniffed it slightly and looked at the wound. She placed her paw on it once and suddenly shook her head.

"You can't? But you can do it, right? You've done it before with baba. Can you do that for this brother?"

Trexa shook her head even more vigorously and pointed to something.

"Yue look," Fan Xui carefully removed the cloth from his wound. The bleeding had stopped and a weird silvery liquid was flowing out. As it came out it started to harden into the shape of a human bone.

Tian removed the cloth tied to his biceps and watched. The liquid metal flowed out faster and slowly it started to form muscles and veins.

"Fascinating!" Prisitsky squatted close to him and gently tapped the metal.

"Hey!" Yue pulled him away.

"It's rock hard metal! Wow, your body is compensating for the lack of body parts with this human synthesized metal allow. This is amazing... this is more than amazing!"

Hary rolled onto the ground all of a sudden.

"Hary!" Tian pulled him over his lap.

Yue got the flame close. Hary's face was very pale. "he lost a lot of blood. Maybe that metallic thing is also like blood... he's losing energy fast," he searched through his various pockets and found a small sachet of electrolyte his mother had packed.

He swiftly mixed it with a water bottle in his pocket. "Give this to him. Don't let him go unconscious."

Hary chuckled softly. "Why would I...I'm fine..." he tiredly glanced at him.

"Yeah you will," Yue and Tian helped him spoon-feed the electrolyte.

"Can we even do a blood transfusion with him?" Tian worriedly looked at Yue.

"I don't know, I have no clue. I've only met one guy with this ability and he did not talk much."

The metallic arms soon looked like normal arms with muscles and skin layers coating it.

Hary panted softly. "wow, cool," he slowly moved his finger. "they work, that's awesome. i got lucky i guess"

Tian held him up.

Yue suddenly slapped his shoulders. "You idiot! Why did you do that! you could have asked us for suggestions! Why did you do this! She is here for that reason!" he pointed to Trexa in anger.

"Yue," Tian held his arms subtly glancing at Prisitsky.

Yue sighed loudly. "It's.. I don't care about all that. All I want is to keep you guys safe! I am very well prepared to take care of Trexa!"

Hary glanced at the ground with a guilty look. "sorry..."

Yue gritted his teeth and stood up. "Well let's get going them. Our jeep is back there. We'll take all our stuff and I also left a rope there." he tried his best to distract himself from the uncontrollable anger he felt at that moment.

Fan Xui gently held his hand and squeezed it.

Yue nodded. "I'm okay.... Hary, can you stand up?" he squatted down with his back to him. "get on, I'll carry you. Tian, take care of Prisitsky. We'll go up there and search for the two other cars. We still need technicians to repair the reservoir,"

"You think they are still out there?" Prisitsky suddenly whispered. "I mean if it was me I would have run back to my settlement,"

Yue sighed. There was a high chance that the two other jeeps returned to the base but... he needed to hold on to that hope that maybe..maybe that they will be out there.

On the way, they silently hid in a corner. The naked mole-rat sniffed and angrily squeaked in their direction loudly.

Trexa came out of his pockets and squeaked loudly.

The mole rat looked confused for a second. It's wrinkled face scrunched up even more. "squeak?"

Trexa loudly squeaked once again. She then glanced at Yue and gestured for him to go.

Yue placed Trexa carefully in his pockets. With his sword in hand, he slowly crept out.

The others followed after him.

The mole rat did not make a move on them. Whatever Trexa said to it the mole rats seemed to fear them slightly.

When they were all out of the hiding spot, the rat curried away back into the other chamber.

"eeep, that was dominance! It was absolute dominance!" Prisitsky happily shouted. "Yue, your rat is amazing. With just a shout it scared away from the huge naked mole-rat. I've seen it on record before but this is the first time I witnessed it right before my eyes. your rat is awesome!"

Trexa stood on her hind limb with her chest puffed up.

"I'm still not giving her up for scientific testing,"

"That's mean. You killed so many rats heartlessly. I'm just going to draw some blood maybe test a few things."

"It's different. Trexa is family. Those rats are not. If you want I can capture a bamboo rat for you. You can do anything you want with it,"

"Nope, I'm a Trexa fan. I don't want any other rat,"

Yue slightly regretted taking Trexa on the trip. Her ability was not exposed but she had gathered unwanted attention from this crazy man.

"I'm telling you this again.. If you touch her, your head will roll to the ground the next second. You better not have any bad ideas,"