I turned tail, and ran, smirking at the little pun I made in my head just now. I had a tail now, but couldn't share any of the jokes that I had because, well, I was Mute. I sprinted down the bridge with the tank shells exploding the bridge behind my feet, and I jumped off just in time as the ground underneath exploded, then the bridge groaned and collapsed. I mean getting shot with a tank shell would certainly be a quick death, but I did not want that to happen, so I dashed into the trees and made my way around, towards the tank.

The machine gunner automatically started to shoot at me as soon as the tank realized that I was going too fast for it's main turret, but I just put a bullet in their head before they could even get a few more seconds out of the gatling gun. I stopped behind the tank for a second before taking a grenade from my belt and climbing the top of the tank. The hatch had been closed as soon as they saw that their gunner had been killed, so it was going to be a little harder than just throwing the grenade in through the top, unless I wanted to take the chance of opening it myself, so I thought of another approach. The grenade was still active in my hand, and I could either go underneath and try and get it into the bottom hatch, or I could set it in their air intake vents and see if that does anything, or I could go with the riskier option and throw it through the turret.

I mean it was open, and the easiest to get to, so I just grabbed my hat, something that I had gotten from killing the other hostiles, and put it on the front of the turret. They mistook it as my just like I wanted them to, but the resulting boom was deafening, and I covered my ears best I could and shook my head to get rid of the white noise. Then I climbed down to the bottom front of the turret and I reached up and slipped the grenade in through the turret. Then I jumped from the tank and ran a safe distance before bending down and rubbing my head just as the grenade, and the tank, went up in flames.

Ow, I thought as I rubbed my ears. Once I was recovered enough I used one of those health packs and the ring stopped immediately. Then I went into the forest and climbed a tree while I waited for the next stage to start, stupid tank. I looked up to where the sky told me everything about this simulation.

Player Name: Umbra
Status: Hard Mode (wave 10/10)
Kills: 342 (300 headshots, 42 body/explosives kills)
Total Damage taken: 25% (of total health value)
Healing Items: 24 (Used: 1)

Wave Coming soon

It didn't even give me the heads-up of when more enemies were coming, but that made sense, there was never a warning for an ambush or a sudden arrival of reinforcements most of the time. I stayed up in the tree looking around, and then I saw flashes in the sky, and then some along the lower part of the highway, and I guessed there were more in the forest, but I didn't see where they were. I checked my guns and reloaded what I could, and then I saw why there were flashes in the distance

They had helicopters now! Really. A pair of attack helicopters just after a tank, that didn't seem fair. My fifty caliber bullets on the other hand didn't seem to care as they exploded from my gun and tore through their cockpit's windows. Blew apart the pilot's heads and making the helicopters spin out of control and crash to the ground, exploding dramatically.

I smiled and climbed down from the tree, the implant for my missing eye, and my new body deigned for hunting really helped me make my way around in the forest. I was a ghost, to them at least. I mean I was shooting one in the back one moment, and then another the next. They were either too confused or shocked to know what had happened or what to do about it. So when they started to shoot, it was just randomly, and a desperate spray of bullets through the forest. I just continued to pick them off one by one, not paying much mind to the bullets flying around me.

I did get hit once during this, surprisingly it was only one bullet though, and it had gone straight through my shoulder. It had been the last hostile left in that wave getting that one stupid lucky shot to hopefully turn the tide for the rest. I just shot their arms, shoulders, and knees making them drop their weapons and fall to the ground in pain. Then I stepped up to them and bared my teeth in anger as I shot them in the face. The surprise and sudden hate when they saw me as only a single person was slightly amusing and slightly annoying.

I ran into problems during the fifth wave, when the hostiles were getting too frequent and coming in bigger and bigger groups. I dealt with them best I could, aiming to go after the helicopters first, and then the tanks and cars. Then dealing with the soldiers before dealing with the tanks. I was running through the forest when a rocket suddenly exploded behind me.

I used a healing pack immediately but was still blasted onto my face. I got a few more hits before being shot or tussled enough times to make me need to use up the rest of my health packs. Sadly the hostiles had adapted, and the blades of a helicopter sounded above me before I even had the chance to get a few meters and their guns were already discharging metal.

Let me tell you, the bullets of a helicopter's gunners going through armor and flesh was something that I did not want to feel again. Then, for good measure or just out of anger maybe, the three tanks of this level decided to shoot at my kneeling, hole riddled body with their turrets. The environment changed back to the metal room and there was a ding behind me.

The elevator doors were open once again, and waiting. I shook my head to clear the thoughts and phantom pain, gathered my weapons, and tossed aside the hole riddled vest, something I didn't understand. Why would the vest be damaged if it was all just a simulation? I stepped into the elevator and had just pushed the button for the top floor when something vibrated in my pants. I reached into the back pocket of my pants and saw that the clear card thing for my room had lit up. Displaying the information from the simulation I had just finished. I reached the top and stepped out, looking through it on the way to the lockers.

It seemed that I had gone further than any other solo or group that had also done that setting, and while there were different environments for the stage that I had selected. The one that I did, called Apocalypse, was actually the hardest mode for anyone to play in. The highest ranked person usually ended the game around the start of the harder waves, and few had managed to get past wave five of the harder waves before them or their team were riddled with holes. I was up there above everyone with seemingly unbelievable status compared to others.

Player Name: Umbra
Furthest Reached: Apocolypse Mode (Wave 5)
Kills: 635 (Headshots: 528, Non-headshot kills: 107)
Average Damage Taken: 30%
Total Damage taken: 257%
Heals Used: 28
Items Accumulated: 197
Credits Earned: 596

I checked the time and saw that it was seven in the morning; that had only taken two hours, it felt like longer. I exited the screen and put the thing back in my back pocket before going to the armory lockers, checking my weapons, cleaning them, and putting them in the locker before shutting and locking them inside. Then I walked out of the armory and back through all of the other areas till I got to my room. Where I took another shower, as I was sweaty and a little tired from all of that, so I took a quick shower and then got back into my bed for another hour or two.

When I woke back up it was eight thirty, and there was light clearly coming through the window now. I got out of bed and made my way through the halls, I usually had to go through the cafeteria to get to the gyms and the shooting range. When I got into the cafeteria there was a bunch of Furs chattering about something, but I disregarded it and went over to the line to get food.

They were serving Eggs, Bacon, Grits, Sausage, Pancakes, and every other thing that could possibly be thought of for a breakfast food. I still hadn't seen any chicken or pig mixed people so maybe it was just some types of mammals like wolves, deer, tigers, panthers, other big cats, foxes, and maybe goats. I didn't know, but I didn't want to think about it further as I grabbed a tray and went up to the servers. First it was a female Panther serving eggs and bacon, then it was a male Wolf with blue stripes along his black fur and snout serving grits and sausage. I stopped there, not bothering to get any pancakes, waffles, or anything else.

I turned around and looked for an empty table, and I was reminded of my middle school and some of my high school years again. Me being the out of place new kid with no friends and no one to look up to. When I did find an empty table I made my way over to it. I caught what most of the conversations were about.

"Did you get the notification..."

"How could someone poss..."

"We need to grab them before..."

And a couple of other things among different groups and species, it seemed that there was a common trend, apparently something really important happened last night, and everyone was notified about it. I tried to eat in peace, but these new ears would just catch everything, and there was too much noise to try and block it out.

I stood up and walked over to the trash, I had eaten my sausage, bacon, and part of my eggs before the noise had gotten to be too much. I shook off my tray and put it on the cart next to the trash bin for the lunch people to take care of, and then I headed to my room. It was getting near nine fifteen already as I made my way to my room.

I scanned the ID card thing and stepped inside, I apparently didn't need my key as there was a sort of sensor next to the door that automatically scanned my ID card in my back pocket and opened my door for me. I stepped inside quietly and gently closed the door behind me leaning against it for a second to steady myself. Then I remembered that I had no clothes to buy. I wondered if this place had a store in it as well.

I exited the room and wandered the hallways till I found one that I hadn't been down before. I carefully went down it, looking for a room of clothes somewhere. At the end of the hallway there was a strip of places down the left and right hallways. I didn't see a clothings store on either side but there was a library.

I decided that that would be the second best place to go if I were to figure out where I was ad how to get back to my team in the empire. It took a little bit to find, but I got there eventually, and I was amazed on how big the library was. It looked so much bigger inside than it did on the outside. I tried to find the name of the library, but there no such thing anywhere, so I just went through the shelves looking for books about history. Looking around for what kind of place I was in, if I could even find where I was, and maybe even a way to get back quickly.

Time flew by as I learned as much as I could about this place, which was nothing, nothing at all that was helpful. There were no books that explained a place like this, so I moved to marking them on the map based on descriptions and pictures of map locations that the books had inside of them already. I found everything that I could and put it on a spare map, including places, monuments, the border between the western and the eastern parts of New America, as these people called it.

I found what I guessed were possible locations of different races: Scale areas, what waters Seers might be in and where they may be located, possible Flyer locations, and forests that clans or gatherings of Unnaturals may have been in, and what kinds. At least there was something to go off of, now I needed to figure out where I was.