[Red Unit Perspective]
Thirty minutes later. A subterranean bunker hidden beneath a decommissioned poultry farm in rural Maryland.
The plaque above the heavy steel door read: Avian & Mammalian Research Division, Vought Agriculture.
Pop.
The Red Unit materialized in the center of the main holding pen.
The room was a cacophony of bizarre noises. Rows upon rows of reinforced steel cages lined the walls.
Red Four reached out with his mind into the control room.
Through the viewing window, Red One watched the eight scientists in white coats suddenly stop moving. They stood up from their desks in unison.
One of the scientists walked calmly to the emergency glass break station, pulled out a heavy fire axe and systematically, without a shred of emotion, buried the axe into the skulls of his seven colleagues.
When the last one fell, the scientist turned the axe around, placed the handle on the floor and drove his own eye socket onto the blade.
They fanned out.
The animals were a testament to Edgar's desperation to test Compound V without the legal hurdles of human trials.
Red Three walked past a cage holding a golden retriever. The dog snarled, its jaw unhinging to reveal rows of razor sharp teeth. It barked and a volley of bone spikes shot from its mouth.
Red Three raised a hand. The air in front of him froze into a solid shield of ice, the bone spikes shattering harmlessly against it. He dropped the temperature inside the cage to absolute zero. The dog froze mid snarl.
Red Two stood in front of a large aviary. Inside, a flock of ordinary looking sheep were floating in the air, bleating in confusion, bouncing off the ceiling.
Red Two touched the steel mesh of the cage. He teleported the flock of sheep ten feet straight down.
The sheep materialized directly inside the solid concrete floor of the bunker, fusing instantly with the stone.
Red One approached a reinforced plexiglass tank. Inside was a massive guinea pig, the size of a bulldog, its muscles bulging grotesquely under its fur.
It threw itself against the glass, spider webbing the reinforced polymer with a single headbutt.
Red One punched the glass, shattering it entirely. The super powered guinea pig lunged, its jaws snapping shut on Red One's armored forearm.
The animal's teeth shattered against the carbon nanotube plating.
Red One grabbed the rodent by the scruff of its neck, squeezed his fist and crushed its spine. He tossed the limp body into the corner.
"Was that a flying pig?" Red Two asked over the comms, watching a winged piglet crash into a wall.
"Negative," Red One replied. "Target was a heavily mutated rodent."
Red Five shrank down, leaping through the bars of a terrarium to engage a swarm of telekinetic spiders, his tiny armored fists smashing them into paste against the glass.
In five minutes, the menagerie of horrors was silenced.
Red Two and Red Four went to work, teleporting the data servers and the specialized veterinary medical equipment into the dimensional inventory, leaving nothing but blood stained cages.
Red One dropped the thermite canister.
"Timer set. Jump."
Pop.
The animal testing facility burned.
[Red Unit Perspective]
Deep beneath the manicured campus of Godolkin University lay a facility known only as "The Woods."
It was a prison. A laboratory. And a slaughterhouse.
Pop.
The Red Unit appeared inside the main security hub, bypassing the heavy blast doors and the biometric scanners above ground.
The dozen heavily armed Vought security contractors sitting at the monitors didn't even have time to shout. Red Four's psychic wave hit them like a physical blow. Their eyes glazed over.
"Lock the blast doors. Disable the alarms. Then, draw your sidearms," Red Four commanded.
The guards moved in synchronized obedience. They locked down the facility, sealing themselves inside. They drew their pistols, placing the barrels beneath their own chins.
"Fire."
A dozen gunshots rang out in unison, the sound muffled by the thick concrete walls. Blood sprayed across the glowing monitors.
Red Five shrank to the size of a bullet. He sprinted out of the hub and down the corridor, disappearing under the door of the central laboratory.
Inside the lab, five scientists were desperately trying to figure out why the security feeds had just gone dead.
Red Five launched himself from the floor, aiming for the ear canal of the lead researcher.
He flew inside the man's head and expanded to the size of a golf ball, instantly rupturing the brain case and blowing the top of the man's skull off.
He shrank back down, dropping to the floor and repeated the process.
Pop.
Crunch.
Pop.
Crunch.
In thirty seconds, the lab was painted red. Red Five resized, standing amidst the carnage.
Red One, Two, Three and Four walked into the main cell block.
It was a sterile corridor lined with heavy steel doors with small viewing windows.
This was where Vought kept the young Supes they deemed too dangerous, too uncontrollable or simply too useful for experimentation to let them live in the light.
They separated, moving down the cell block like the four horsemen.
Red One stopped at the first door. The placard read: Akilah Prendes.
He grabbed the handle and tore the heavy steel door from the wall, tossing it into the corridor. Inside, a terrified young woman backed into the corner.
Red One stepped in, placed a hand on her chest and crushed her heart with a single pulse of strength.
Red Three opened the next door. Amuy Perron. He simply exhaled into the room, a breath of absolute zero that flash froze the boy as he slept.
They moved down the line, a mechanical rhythm of death.
Andy. Crushed by Red One.
Betsy. Teleported into the ceiling by Red Two.
Cam Christie. Brain deactivated by Red Four.
Red Three stepped in front of a cell labeled Glowing Eyes Supe. The boy inside tried to fire a beam of concentrated light from his eyes.
Red Three froze the moisture in the boy's corneas, shattering his eyes before freezing his brain.
Bald Supe. Dead.
Bleeding Ears Supe. Dead.
Electric Supe. Dead.
Red One tore open a door labeled Greg Gilmore. The boy inside tried to turn his skin to steel. Red One punched him, his Tier 1 Strength shattering the steel skin and the fragile bones beneath it.
Ingrid Kim. Dead.
Kerri Wylie. Dead.
Lauren Currie. Dead.
They continued the march.
Maria Lepone. Dead.
Monique Arsenault. Dead.
Rich. Dead.
Susan Jones. Dead.
Red One crushed the Shredded Shirt Supe.
Red Three froze the Sweaty Supe.
Thanh Do. Dead.
Toni Wong. Dead.
The cell block was silent. Twenty two lives, twenty two tragedies of Vought's ambition, snuffed out in less than ten minutes.
They reconvened in the central lab.
Red Two and Red Four went to work.
The virus research, the genetic sequencing data, the behavioral conditioning tools, the culmination of Brink's and Cardosa's life's work… all vanished into the dimensional inventory.
Red Four linked with the central mainframe, pulling the data directly into his drive and wiping the servers clean, overwriting decades of research with corrupted code.
Red One dropped the final thermite canister.
"Sixty seconds."
They linked hands.
Pop.
The Red Unit vanished from The Woods.
Behind them, beneath the pristine lawns of Godolkin University, the fire began to burn.
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