X-File Eve Part 6 A Parasite Eve/X-Files Crossover fic By: M.H. Torringjan Well, I'm almost finished with this fanfic! I decided to split the last part up because it was getting so long (about 22 pages). Now, I'm going to be jumping into some major exposition in this chapter, and it might seem kind of off the wall to some of you. Just stick with me, and I'll try to make it make sense in the end. I doubt that I'm too far out of line for that to happen. The way I see it, if you're going to do something, go all out with it. That's really all I've got to say about this chapter. Enjoy! November 25, 2001 Harden Facility, East wing Harden Florida, 4:53 a.m. Scully and Doggett stepped off of the elevator on the second floor of the compound, their pockets stuffed with documents of information for Aya. "Doggett, I think that before we go to find Agent Brea, we should check this other elevator to see if we can find anything else," Scully said. "That's a good idea..." Doggett said, trailing off. He had noticed something strange about the room they were in a moment before she had said anything. The screaming ANMC's from outside were gone. That could mean two things. Either the ANMC's had lost interest and gone away, which Doggett doubted, or- "Look out!" Scully exclaimed, jumping to the left and shooting her assault rifle behind Doggett. Doggett jumped out of the way and landed in a crouch, ready to act. He turned and addressed the Stalker that had been behind him. He pumped off a few shots along with Scully, dropping the creature in its place. And usually, if there was one, there were more. Doggett turned and watched the walls and floor for any movement. He didn't notice the ceiling, though, where another Stalker appeared above Scully and dropped onto her head. Doggett turned at Scully's cry of pain, dropped his gun and ran to help her. He grabbed the ANMC on the body, tore it from Scully's scalp, and threw it to the ground a few feet away. He took Scully's gun and used it on the ANMC before it could recover. As Scully took out a small recovery pack, Doggett retrieved his gun. He pulled his GPS from his pocket to check the status of the room, and it was apparently empty. "So, you were saying?" Doggett asked as Scully stood up. "Oh, nothing," Scully sighed. "Let's just take that other elevator." The two stepped on the third elevator and pressed the button to descend the shaft. The elevator, instead of smoothly gliding downward, jolted downwards, shaking the whole way. Scully held onto the hand-bars to steady herself in anticipation of a rough stop at the bottom. When the elevator shuddered to a stop at its resting place, Scully and Doggett stepped off into a large room filled with crates and machinery. "What's this place?" Scully asked, semi-rhetorically. "It looks like some kind of storage facility," Doggett replied. Scully walked to the nearest pile of crates and checked the registration card on the bottom one. "It doesn't say what it is," she reported. "Well, I guess there's only one way to find out what's inside," Doggett said, picking up a nearby crowbar. He plunged the metal between the planks and began to pry, receiving the sound of wood cracking as the sides of the box came undone gradually. After a few minutes of prying, the end came off of the box and landed on the floor with a loud clank. Inside the box, there were large bags of agricultural supplies. "Maybe they were sent to the wrong place," he responded to Scully's quizzical look. Scully took the crowbar from Doggett and went to a different pile of crates. She began prying at the bottom crate and removed the side of another crate, as had Doggett. Inside that one, she found packets of food- stuffs, ready-to-eat. In the back of the room, there was a set of lights on across the ceiling, illuminating what appeared to be a contained area in the back of the room. She had heard a movement in that area. "Doggett, back there," she whispered, motioning towards the source of the sound she had heard. Both of them left their crates, readied their guns, and moved quietly towards the back of the room. They rounded the corner of the crate where Scully had heard the sound and waved their gun in its general direction. A human scream came from the end of the pair of barrels. "Please, don't shoot me!" said the high, human voice. The person on the other end of it held his hands over his head in surrender. On the ground beside him, there was a small handgun, loaded. "We hadn't planned on it," Doggett replied. "After all, you're not one of those creatures. Now, the question remains, who *are* you?" "I don't know why I should tell you anything," the man said. "We're with the FBI, and we're here to help you," Scully said. "You aren't with our group, so you're not helping anything," the man replied, dropping his hands to his side. "I'd imagine there's nothing that can help us at this point." "What do you mean? You worked here?" Doggett asked, keeping his sights trained on the man. "Well, no one else would be trapped here, would they?" the man replied. "They wouldn't make it past the security system we've got set up around here. And even if they did, they'd have to contend with the ANMC's, the Golem soldiers, and the enhanced-mitochondria patient gone mad." "Seems like from what we've seen around here, Azra took care of the security himself," Doggett commented. "So, you know his name?" the man said. "We've been looking around for a while, and we ran across him earlier," Scully replied. "And he didn't kill you?!" the man gasped, clearly amazed. "He almost did," Scully said. "There's another agent here, a specialist in this kind of case." "Let me guess, MIST?" the man said. "Doesn't surprise me one bit." "What do you mean?" Scully asked. "MIST was organized for this very purpose, to clean up in case we mess up," the man said. "Of course, they don't know that. They really think they're a legitimate organization, but they're just a precautionary measure so that we can continue our work." Scully and Doggett stared, amazed, at the man. "Who are you?" Scully asked again. "I'm just a researcher, doing government-funded projects. No one special," the man replied. "What's your name?" Scully asked, clarifying what she wanted to know. "If you insist on knowing, I'm Jonathan Brandburg," the man replied. "Do you know anything about the objectives of your projects here?" Doggett asked. "Of course, we all did," Jonathan replied. "The company that was receiving the funding had to let us know what we were getting into"- he chuckled ironically to himself, "Well, most of what we were getting into, anyway." "What was going on at this plant?" Scully asked. "I guess you've heard all about the sinister government plot to turn the whole population into ANMC's, right?" Jonathan said. "Think whatever you want. That's what we're doing. As in any society, there needs to be a controlling factor, so we produce and train the candidates here and in the other facilities across the nation. After the candidates turn the populace into ANMC's, they take control of the resultant masses and direct them as is appropriate. Every one of the facilities is supposed to output one of these candidates, and the one that's best suited to the job is retained. The other specimens are disposed of appropriately. At every facility, one trait of the candidate is manipulated to observe how the results are effected. At this particular facility, we were assigned to change the subject's sex from female to male." "What purpose could that serve?" Scully asked. "Well, after the Dry Field incident, someone came up with the idea that the reason for the lack of cooperation in their subject was linked to the emotional traits of females. This same person thought that it might be a good idea for us to try a male, since the innate emotions of males might be more suited to our purposes. Apparently, they were a bit too right this time. The subject's natural aggression was somehow amplified, and he rebelled against our control, intent on taking the project to fruition on his own," Jonathan explained. "And how is it you survived this massacre?" Doggett asked. "Let's just say I've played a few good games of hide and seek," Jonathan replied. "With that tiny thing?" Doggett asked skeptically, motioning towards the handgun that still rested on the ground beside Brandburg. "What, you think I'm one of those shape-shifting bastards?" "There are shape-shifting bastards?" Doggett shot back. "You haven't even seen the half of it," Jonathan said. "We've seen enough of it to send you and everyone else involved to jail for a long time," Doggett threatened. "You say it as if everyone else isn't already dead. Besides, we've got protection from on high," Jonathan replied. "I hope you're not referring to any deities, cause that's not going to do you any good against a judge," Doggett said. "You wish it'd be that easy!" Jonathan replied. "Doggett, I don't think we're going to get anywhere with him at the moment," Scully said. "We should just get moving to try and find Agent Brea." "Agent Brea?!" Jonathan exclaimed. "You recognize the name?" Doggett asked. "You mean, they sent her out here for this?!" Jonathan exclaimed again. "Damn! That's the one thing that we don't need!" "What do you mean?" Scully asked. "She's the only one who can stop the program in its tracks, with her mutated mitochondria," Jonathan explained. "And here, we thought we were going to get the kill," Doggett commented sarcastically. "Let's go, Scully." He turned to head for the elevator again. "You're too late to do anything about it," Jonathan commented as they walked away. "Enjoy your life as ANMC's, you parasites!" Doggett and Scully pressed the button on the elevator to head back up to the second floor, en route to the first floor. Aya ran down the winding corridors that lead towards where she felt Azra waiting for her to meet him. She still wasn't quite sure what to do if she was going to save Azra. The thought slowed her pace to a walk. She had to stop him, but there was no way that she was going to leave him to die as some hopped- up NMC. She just couldn't think of anything that would leave him alive while neutralizing his mitochondria. Perhaps she could develop a plan or something. She looked down at her wrist-watch. It had been a couple of hours since she had last checked in at HQ. She somehow knew that Azra would wait for her where he was, so she probably had time to check in with Rupert and tell them the situation. She ducked into the first room on her left, the rampaged office that Scully and Doggett had been in earlier and shifted some papers aside to find the phone, hoping that it wasn't too badly damaged. It was still in one piece, which seemed a good sign to her. She picked up the receiver and heard a dial- tone. Grinning slightly, she dialed the number for the office. Behind her, she heard Agent Mulder enter the room. "Hey, I told you to wait for me," Mulder insisted. Aya signaled for him to wait a moment as the phone rang a couple of times. Finally, someone picked up on the other end. "Please state your business," Jodie's voice said "Jodie, it's me," Aya said. "Oh, Aya! It's you! That was quick. Have you worked out the problems down there yet?" Jodie asked. "Just the beginning. I need to speak to Kunihiko," Aya said. "What? Okay, I'll get him," Jodie said, setting the phone to hold momentarily. Aya frowned as soothing music drifted across the phone lines, a remnant of when real people called the phones of the office. Since they had made it a private line for agents, though, they had no need for it. She had no idea why they had left it on there for so long. The phone line picked up again as Rupert finally got Jodie's message. "Aya, what do you need?" he asked. "Maeda, we've got a major incident going down here," Aya exclaimed. "They were using this facility like the one in Dry Field, to raise a clone of me, like Eve." "Another Eve?" Maeda repeated, obviously caught off-guard by the tone of his voice. "Yes, except this one's a boy. His name's Azra, and he's much stronger than Eve was," Aya continued. "The major problem here is that he used his mitochondria too much! He lost control and turned into something like Eve from New York!" "A male Eve?!" Maeda exclaimed, his voice changing to shock. "Aya, you've got to do something about him! You can't let him get loose in the general populace, or all hell will break loose! It'll be worse than New York was!" "I know, but I don't want to kill Azra in the process," Aya replied somberly. "Do you have any ideas of what I can do to keep him safe?" A moment of silence ensued on the other end of the line as Maeda obviously sat, or stood, for that matter, in thought. "You said that this boy is similar to the Eve from Dry Field, right? That means that he should have cells identical to yours, except for the mitochondria." "And that little Y chromosome thingy," Aya responded impatiently. "Yes, but we obviously don't have time to split hairs over a chromosome or two," Maeda replied. "You don't have the scientific know-how or time to fix the problem. I can think of one solution-" "Okay!" Aya replied hastily. "BUT, there is a problem with it. We can use this idea, and the boy may turn back to normal. Conversely, he may melt into a puddle of cells," Maeda finished his sentence. Aya paused. That sounded a bit of a false dichotomy, but Maeda usually wasn't wrong about these things. The only thing she could think of to do was hear him out and take his suggestion along just in case she couldn't do anything for him any other way. Always got to have a Plan B. "What's the plan?" she asked Maeda. "Remember in New York when I gave you the bullets containing your cells to disrupt the Ultimate Being's own mitochondria?" Maeda asked. "Yeah," Aya replied. "This works along the same lines," Maeda replied. "If you take hollow- tipped bullets and load samples of your cells into the tips, say, blood cells, you can use them in the same way. Your cells may interact with his as they did on the Ultimate Being. On the other hand, they may go the other way because your cells are so similar, sort of pulling his cells under control again and changing them back to normal. I remember seeing during the battle with Eve that you turned into a flaming being with wings, similar to Eve's final form. You hurt her badly, and then turned back to normal. I think this may be because of a strong controlling force that your cells had developed over the mitochondria, so that when you asked them to act abnormally for you, you could regain control of your body afterwards. Perhaps if you influence some of that force over Azra's cells, he can regain control on his own." Aya contemplated what he had said. She remembered letting her mitochondria run freely for brief moments multiple times in New York, actually. She had thought at the time that she had hallucinated the whole experience, but later had realized that it had really happened. They had helped her to survive the juggernaut that was Eve and the Ultimate Being. She had been able to bring them under control because of the frequent, subconscious use of her powers during her hunt for Eve. Azra didn't have that ability yet, probably, not because of his inexperience, but because of his lack of strength that came from his youth. "I'll try it," Aya said. "I hope you're right, Kunihiko." "I do, too," Maeda replied. "Can you get Rupert for me?" Aya asked. Mulder was impatiently tapping his feet behind her. "Sure, just a minute," Maeda said. The elevator music returned to the line as he ran to Rupert's office. All Aya could do was roll her eyes. She'd have to remind them to change that, if not take it off. A moment later, Rupert picked up the phone abruptly. "Aya? What's Maeda babbling on about?" Rupert asked. She explained the situation and the proposed solution. "And there's another FBI agent here, named Mulder," Aya said. "Yeah, that name was mentioned in the report on Scully and Doggett from earlier. He was declared missing in action during a case until he turned up halfway dead a few months later. I guess you've got another babysitting job, eh?" Rupert asked. "He's going to have to fend for himself while I take care of Azra," Aya replied. "If Scully and Doggett are waiting where I told them to, he was looking for them." "They're still all right?" Rupert asked. "Yeah, they're doing fine. After our little run-in with Azra, they were feeling a bit run-down, but they should be fine by now," Aya replied. "By the way, how about that military assistance?" "There should be a deployment of the marines with air force reinforcement arriving soon," Rupert replied. "Try to take care of Azra before then. There's no way to know if they're the real marines or if they're working for someone else." "All right," Aya said. "Rupert-" "I know what you're going to ask for already, and it'll be tough. I already got you Eve. I don't know if you can have two. Besides, you can't take in every mitochondria carrier you find," Rupert replied. "I know, Rupert. I just want to try and do something for these children. I almost feel like they're mine," Aya said. "Well, I guess so," Rupert said. "Look, I'll see what I can do for you. Just do one thing for me. I know you can do it, so it's less of an order than it is an encouragement. I want you to survive, partner. You won't be able to see what I've done for you if you die before you collect." "All right, thanks, partner," Aya replied, smiling. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a kid to save." "Take care. Bye," Rupert said, hanging up. Aya returned her end of the line to the receiver and turned to Agent Mulder. "Follow me, please, I may need some help," Aya said as she walked past him, through the door. "You need *my* help? Hold it, I thought you were the one in charge here," Mulder said, his calm exterior not betraying the slight tinge of nervousness produced by the statement. "Don't worry, it's nothing really important. I just may need you to help me take some blood," Aya said. "Blood? Dammit, I'm a freelance FBI agent, not a doctor," Mulder replied sarcastically, half to himself. The pair walked down the hallway to the armory and Aya approached the BP machine. She pressed the buttons to get a box of hollow-tipped 9mm bullets and purchased an M93R. That was the same model as her old gun, the one she had ended up using in New York. It seemed rather fitting. Besides, that was the only good gun that was available for 9mm bullets. Aya lead him down the hallway to the lab where she had found the security information earlier. She had remembered seeing medical equipment in the room when she wasn't busy fighting off the divers. She picked up the rolling chair from the floor and set it down beside the examination table on the far side of the room. A small amount of searching produced sterile syringes, which she placed on the table beside where she was going to sit. "Now, I need you to take a syringe full of my blood for me," Aya said. "I've never been able to use a needle on myself very well." She knew it was silly to be afraid of doing something wrong with a little needle when her mitochondria acted as they did, but she just couldn't help herself. After all, she was only slightly more than human. "All right, if you insist," Mulder said, picking up the syringe. He swabbed on the spot on the insides of her elbows where he always had blood taken in physicals. He wasn't sure if that was the right place to do it, but it was all he knew to do. The blood pulsed under the soft spot of her skin, where Mulder pricked her. He didn't move the plunger at all before blood began to ooze slowly into the syringe. "That was quick. Your blood pressure must be high. I could work on that tension with a massage," Mulder suggested. "I'm sure I'll survive without it," Aya replied blandly. "Your funeral. How much do you need?" Mulder asked, grinning. Aya looked over at the filling syringe to watch the level. When it reached nearly the top of the syringe, Aya said, "That should be plenty." Mulder removed the needle and replaced it with a cotton swab. "No need," Aya said, removing the swab. She had used her mitochondria to heal the prick and begin replenishing her blood cells, just so that she didn't start feeling woozy at a critical moment. She reached in her jacket pocket and pulled out the hollow-tipped bullets that she had just bought. "Now, I'm going to insert my blood into the tips of these bullets and hope that they work like they're supposed to," Aya said. "You know, I'd really like to know what's going on here," Mulder said. As Aya was unscrewing the tip of the first bullet to load, the door opened. Aya gave a start and turned towards the door, her M4A1 at the ready. Scully and Doggett walked through the door, their own weapons at the ready. "Mulder?!" Scully exclaimed on seeing her partner standing beside Aya. "Hi, Scully, nice to see you, too," Mulder said, grinning smugly. "So, you really do know this guy?" Aya asked. "Yes, he's my partner," Scully replied, staring Mulder down firmly. "And he's supposed to be taking care of my son right now." "Don't worry about it, Scully! I've left him in the best of care!" Mulder said. "Who'd you leave him with?" she asked. If her eyes were daggers, Mulder would be dead by now. "Oh, just some fully responsible, completely free friends," Mulder said. "You don't mean-" Scully sighed, recognition sinking in. "Yeah, them," Mulder said. The crying issuing from the child reached a frantic peak. "Frohike, stop that! You're hurting him!" Byers exclaimed. Frohike had just tried giving it a bottle and held it too tightly in the baby's mouth. In the background, loud hard rock echoed through the room. "God, Byers, I don't know why you said we would take him off of Mulder's hands!" Langly exclaimed. "You know how well we do with babies!" "I didn't volunteer us for anything!" Byers said. "Mulder just told me we were taking the kid while he went off looking for Scully!" "Guys, why don't we just call Yves? She does well with kids," Jimmy said from the old, flattened couch in the corner of the room. "Can we ever reach Yves? She's too busy toppling middle-east governments to keep a regular phone number!" Frohike exclaimed. The baby sounded to start crying harder, if that was possible. "What's its problem now?!" Langly yelled over the racket. "I don't think he likes Iron Maiden, Langly!" Byers exclaimed. "Could you turn down the music?!" "He's got no taste, then!" Langly yelled back. "Besides, I work better with music! How am I supposed to get any dirt on this case for Mulder if I can't concentrate?!" "You know, he *has* already left!" Frohike exclaimed. "He'll do all the dirt-gathering from here!" "Well, we still need something for our cover story! I was going to use that case!" Langly exclaimed. "Fine! Do whatever you need! I'm going to find someplace to quiet this kid down!" Frohike exclaimed, exiting the basement with William in tow. Suddenly, the room seemed much quieter, even with Iron Maiden rocking away over the speakers. "Don't worry. They said they've had a bit of experience with kids," Mulder said. "They're probably giving him his early-morning bottle as we speak!" "But how did you find us! I didn't tell you a thing about where we were!" Scully said. "I just got the Gunmen to track the signal of your cell-phone while I made that call yesterday," Mulder said. "It's easy when your friends regularly hack into government databases." "You shouldn't have left my son with those guys. We really don't need you here with Agent Brea," Scully said. "Oh, Scully, do I detect a hint of jealousy?" Mulder asked jokingly. "No, it's just that we don't need you here, and it's extremely dangerous," Scully said. "If I can just cut in here," Aya said, looking up from her work, "This guy just saved my life against Azra, so I think it's a good thing he was here." She had almost an entire clip full of the special bullets ready as she looked back down to her work. "Well, in that case, thank you for coming. Now, go home," Scully said. "You should know better than that, Scully," Mulder replied. "I'm not going anywhere until we get to the bottom of this." "Skinner won't like it that you're getting in our way," Doggett said. "And I could care less. I don't work for him anymore, so he can't tell me what to do," Mulder said. "So, until I decide differently, I'm going to find the truth about this case, along with you." "Hold it, Mulder. 'The truth?' Don't tell me you think that this is tied to the aliens," Scully sighed. "Well, I hadn't thought about it. I already know about the New York incident, but this could be a different matter. I guess we'll find out, won't we?" Mulder said. "Trust me, Agent Mulder, this has nothing to do with aliens," Aya said. "How can you be sure?" he asked. "Mutating humans into mindless killing machines? Strange radiation burns from out of thin air? A shape-shifting child trying to smash you to bits?" "I can be sure because I'm the cause of it all," Aya replied levelly. "And no, I'd rather not explain it. Your partner can do that well enough, I'd say." Mulder looked to Scully for the information, but she shook her head. "Later. Agent Brea, we found some information downstairs that might be helpful." "What have you got?" Aya asked, not looking up from the last bullets in the box. "We found some security videos of Azra and the stuff they did round here," Doggett said. "Seems that they were training Azra to be the controlling force of the populace once they were changed to these creatures. Only problem is that they trained him too hard, so he's afraid of the ANMC's." "That must be why he backed off earlier instead of killing us," Aya commented. "What?" Doggett asked. Aya explained what had happened after Doggett and Scully had blacked out in the encounter with Azra. "Well, thanks for helping us out back there." "Why would I leave you to die? The only ones I want dead are what's trying to kill me," Aya replied. "Did you find out anything else?" "We found this list," Scully said, taking the piece of paper from her pocket to hand to Aya. "We aren't sure, but we think it may be a list of the other facilities across the nation." Aya glanced down the list of cities and numbers. "Any idea what these numbers beside the cities are?" "No, sorry," Scully replied. "We're just guessing about the cities, too." "That's all right. We'll look into it later," Aya said. "What happened to Azra?" Doggett asked. He would have expected her to be chasing him still, the way she had gone off earlier. "He's mutated into a creature whose purpose is creating a perfect mitochondrial being hell-bent on destroying humanity," Aya replied. "And he wasn't before?" Doggett asked. "Before, he was just a human with controllable mitochondria that gave him power," Aya said. "Now, he's lost the control that he had on the mitochondria. His power's taken a major boost, and I'd expect that he isn't thinking straight." "He was thinking straight before?" Scully asked. "As far as his human teaching was concerned, yes. Now, his mitochondria have even taken control of his thoughts. His mind is no longer his own," Aya said solemnly. "What are we going to do about it?" Doggett asked. "*We* are going to do nothing," Aya said. "If you get anywhere near him, you'll be burnt to a crisp or melted or something like that. I'll take it from here." "We've already told you, we're sticking with this to the end," Doggett said. "And I'm telling you that you can't stick with it from here out," Aya said. She looked up at the others, reluctance showing in her eyes. "Please, don't make me do anything forceful to keep you safe." Scully looked back at Aya, her mind working quickly. "All right, we won't follow you. We'll be waiting outside for you." "I'll be out as quickly as I can," Aya replied. The group of four exited the room, and Aya turned down the hallway towards the place where she sensed Azra's energy. Scully, Mulder, and Doggett turned the opposite way and began heading towards the exit. Doggett glanced down at his GPS to find the quickest and safest way out. Oddly enough, the entire floor was clear, according to the tracking mechanism. "Hey, Scully, take a look at this," Doggett commented. Scully glanced over at the GPS and Mulder looked over questioningly. "Maybe we cleaned the floor out," Scully said. "What's that?" Mulder asked. "It lets us know where any of the creatures are," Scully replied. Doggett pressed the button to change the floor displayed. The floor below them was empty, as well. "Now, I know we didn't clean that out," Doggett said. "No, we didn't," Scully replied. "Where could the ANMC's have gone?" "Well, that's hardly our problem right now," Doggett said. "We can look into it later. Right now, I guess we should be clearing out for the fireworks." The three agents made their way to the main hallway and stopped to check their supplies. "How many medicine packs do we have?" Scully asked. "We've got three small ones still," Doggett replied. "I'm all right for ammunition," Scully said. "I've got plenty, too," Doggett said. He demonstratively pulled out two boxes of rifle rounds. "Plenty? That's enough to set you for a couple of weeks!" Mulder commented off-hand. "How many of these things have you gone against so far?" Doggett asked. "Only a few," Mulder said. "Then you have no idea. How much do you have?" Doggett said. "I've got a box left." "We'll get you another box, just in case," Scully said. She walked into the armory and purchased a box of bullets, which she handed to Mulder. "Now, let's get moving." They walked through the door to the entrance corridor and pushed the hatch open that lead to the cave outside. Doggett checked his GPS again for the area outside, and blood red slashed across the entire map as the sensor data loaded. "There's ANMC's all over the place out here," Doggett said. "Where at exactly?" Scully asked. "The entire area," Doggett replied. "We're surrounded." "ANMC's in the entire area? If these were made out of people like Flash said, how did they get so many people?! There couldn't have been that many working in this compound!" Scully exclaimed. "Azra said that the military had already tried taking the base back twice," Doggett said. "Maybe he took all of those people, instead of killing them, and made them into ANMC's." "That's going to be a lot of ANMC's to fight off," Scully said. "We've just got to last until Agent Brea finishes with her mission," Mulder said. "Maybe she'll have an idea." "Well, until then, we need to find a safe place to-" Doggett began. He was cut off, though, by the squeal of a Stalker that materialized on the back wall of the cave. As it began to crawl towards the group, Doggett drew up his weapon and fired on the creature. A couple of shots landed on its back, knocking it to the ground, paralyzed. "A safe place to wait," Doggett finished. As the words crossed his lips, the whole back wall began rippling and a mob of Stalkers appeared, their eyes trained on the trio of agents. "That's not good," Mulder said. The Stalkers all ran towards the agents at the same time, a wave of orange and black crossing awkwardly over the dirt. All three began frantically firing into the crowd of Stalkers, trying to drop as many as they could before the group reached them. The frantic screams of injured Stalkers echoed down the cave towards the entrance. They didn't go unnoticed, either. The walls around the agents rippled as more Stalkers prepared to appear all along the cave walls. "We can't take them all!" Scully exclaimed. "Let's get out of here!" Scully, Doggett, and Mulder ran towards the entrance, blindly firing shots behind them to keep the Stalkers at a safe distance. They emerged from the cave and Doggett threw a pair of flares into the middle of the crowd. The bright flash dazed most of the Stalkers, stopping them in their tracks. "Let's get in the forest! Maybe we can lose them in the swamp!" Doggett yelled. Mulder was the first to make the tree-line only to find a group of Scavengers, smaller than the group of Stalkers, hopping towards them. "Not that way!" Mulder exclaimed, firing a couple of shots at the Scavengers. Doggett glanced around the clearing, looking for a way they could go. To their left, a pack of snakes was crawling from the forest towards them. "Snakes don't usually travel in packs, do they?" he asked, making sure. "Not usually," Mulder replied. The snakes were followed by a pair of what appeared to be mutated alligators. "He can get to animals, too?!" Mulder exclaimed. "I guess so!" Scully replied. "There's no way out!" Mulder exclaimed. A pair of Scavengers broke through in the pause of Mulder's shots and clamped their jaws down on his right arm. He screamed in pain and threw the ANMC off into the nearest tree. Close behind that group was a pair of tentacle ANMC's. "How could the kid's control have reached so far?!" Doggett exclaimed. "I don't know, now let's think of something!" Mulder exclaimed. "It's a bit hard to think when you've got homicidal mutated things trying to bite your head off!" Scully exclaimed. In the cave, the Scavengers were recovering from the flare and started to make their way onto the battlefield. "Let's get on top of the plateau!" Mulder suggested, pointing out the path up the side of the hill. All three of the agents ran to the path and started up it, occasionally turning to fire shots at the oncoming army of ANMC's and NMC's. At the top of the hill, they ran to the center of the plateau for a strategic advantage. "How can Azra control so many things at once?!" Doggett repeated his question from the bottom of the hill. "Agent Brea *did* say that his power had gotten a boost from this transformation," Scully said. A buzzing sound began to come from below the lip of the plateau. The three agents turned to the direction that the sound was coming from, aiming their weapons at the increasingly loud buzz. A large pair of wings on an equally large body appeared over the edge and flew towards them quickly. The agents fired at will, dropping the mutant in a moment. "What is that one?" Doggett asked. Scully walked to it and bent down to examine it quickly before it started melting. "It looks like it used to be a mosquito," she replied. "It looks like it could suck a cow dry in ten seconds flat," Mulder commented. "And it wouldn't do us much good, either," Doggett replied. The sound of the approaching army making their way up the side of the hill, ignoring the path, got louder, putting the agents on guard again. They moved back to the center of the plateau and took aim as the first wave made its way over the lip, moving towards them. End Part 6