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As promised, the new chapter. This update is to answer your questions regarding loose ends from previous chapters, next update will feature our friends in the Protectorate and will finally reveal the fate of Marie as the Gladius Project falls into Protectorate custody. Thanks for reading, and I hope you continue to enjoy the story!

The fat brown worm slithered through the walls of Site 42. Initially drawn to the darkness of the walls and heat of the elecrical wiring, and narrowly avoiding being fried by a loose connector, the worm slithered on. It was driven by little more than fear and instinct. Survive and reproduce. Continue the existence of the Hive. However, as it understood, it had no Hive. No Queen. No host. Well, there had been a host.

A strong bull, not that the worm could have told one host from another before it had assumed control of Jeffrey Grant's brain. It had tasted clarity and understanding, thought processes that it could never have comprehended without its host. However, it knew that to stay attatched to its host's brain was death. It saw with Jeffrey's eyes, it heard with Jeffrey's remaining ear. From its briefest experience with coherent thought, it knew that staying attatched to its host was death. So it unwound itself from Jeffrey Grant's brainstem, and slithered out the way it came.

The worm tasted Jeffrey's fear of the otter, and knew it had to escape. Luckily for it, the good doctor had been distracted by a brown bear and the smell of blood. Specimen 437 had slithered out of the bull's ear, where it made for the darkest place in the room. It had hid under the operating table, a machine rooted into the floor and too heavy for Dr. Tepid to do more than frantically tilt her head down to look under it. Unfortunately for Specimen 437, Dr. Tepid did not give it the chance to infest her, but the otter did not manage to discover 437's hiding spot. Once Dr. Tepid had retreated out of the room, 437 had wiggled its way further under the mechanical operating table and slithered its way down the electrical cables and into the floor. From there, in the darkness of the walls and floors of the Facility, 437 slithered on. It had no idea where it was going, or what it was going to do. All it knew was that it had survived, and it needed a host. It stayed close to the comfortable heat of the electrical cables, crawling and crawling and crawling. It crawled until it happened to catch a familiar scent. Another worm.

Specimen 437 had no eyes to tell that this other worm was white instead of brown like him, but that did not stop the two from coiling around each other. The white worm was thinner, longer, but that did not matter to either one. Both worms were fueled by mirrored instinct: divide, and grow.

The white worm and the brown worm exchanged sperm, culminating in both annelids laying there spent in a pool of white slime. They would curl up and die like that, but both drones had served their purpose: divide and grow. Their bodies would become bloated as the eggs absorbed their parents for nutrients. Inside the eggs, the DNA of both worms would mix into something more... The simple drones did not know it, but they had founded a new Hive.

****

Earlier...

Cesar Ramos fingered the trigger of his silver plated Glock 17 as he watched Father Addam disappear into the red light. A chill creeped up his spine as the deathly silence washed over him. Father Addam was gone to confront the false prophet, and Cesar was left to guard the elevator.

The striped skunk felt his heart quicken as the savage snarls of Guiding Light thralls ran out. Father Addam had disappeared to deal with the Prophet, but it seemed there were thralls still to deal with. Luckily, the priest's macabre ministrations had dimmed the red light enough to where Cesar could see. He saw the eviscerated thralls round the corner down the hall. They looked at him with eyeless sockets caked with dried blood. They gave a savage growl before sprinting at him.

"In nomine Patris." he whispered, then squeezed the trigger. He watched it happen in slow motion. The adrenaline in his system caused Cesar to watch the proceedings like he was staring through water. The slide of the gun slowly kicked back, the flare of the muzzle shined forth against the red light, and the gun slowly rocked against his hand. Cesar was used to the recoil, his muscles conditioned to hold the gun steady. Down the sights on top of the pistol, Cesar Ramos watched the head of a corpse explode in a shower of gore.

"Et Filii." BLAM. "Et Spiritus Sancti." BLAM. BLAM. BLAM.

His nerves were steeled in the armor of his faith, Cesar did not flinch as he gunned down the thralls of the Guiding Light. The red light that illuminated the hallways flickered, and started to darken. He heard more snarls and quickened footsteps as more thralls rounded the corner. Father Addam's antics were riling up the thralls it seemed. Whether the priest had found the false Prophet, Cesar could not tell, but he was willing to say that it was a safe bet.

Robbed of the siren's call of the blinding red light, thralls usually became agitated and aggressive. The spotted skunk heard the click of an empty chamber, then dropped his magazine. Fluidly, he reloaded his holy sword, took aim, and continued to fire without allowing his adversaries to close the distance. Funneled into the hallway, the thralls could not flank him. Compared to his other encounters with the Guiding Light, Cesar thought the situation easy. Well under control. The lioness girl rounded the corner after the other thralls. She was different, she wasn't snarling, only smiling. Somehow, Cesar found that to be even more unnerving. The spotted skunk trained his weapon on her, covered in blood as she was. One of the first things he noticed about her was that she had not had her eyes removed yet. For an instant, Cesar thought that there might be hope to save her. That was, until he saw the blood and sexual fluid dripping from her exposed sex. Her clothes had been ripped and torn to expose her to the world, and Cesar felt a twinge of buried desire in the disgust he felt for the ravaged creature before him. She had been pretty, which made it seem the more tragic. She lurched toward him with a blissful smile, clinging to the walls for support as if her legs were only barely functional. "I ask you..." she said softly,

"Are your eyes open yet?" Cesar shook his head sadly, raising his gun up to point at the lioness. "Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out..." He placed his finger on the trigger. "I tell you the truth; whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life." the spotted skunk said.

The lioness was corrupted, he knew. She was not a mindless thrall, so the kill was not easy. Sarah Frost had been corrupted in a far crueler way. She would succumb to the light in her mind's eye eventually, they always did. However, she had not been fully converted yet. Somewhere deep inside her brain, Sarah Frost was still alive. Cesar knew this, and so he kept praying as the lioness inched closer, trying to armor himself in his faith.

Still, no matter how he looked at it, pity stayed his hand. "Father, I pray according to your will that you do not desire anyone to perish and I believe that she will be saved." He clicked the hammer of his pistol back, his hand trembling. He spoke aloud, trying to steady his nerves. "I claim this soul for the kingdom of God and I thank you for her salvation. In Jesus' name I pray." Cesar Ramos took one last look into Sarah Frost's eyes, and started to squeeze the trigger. "Ame-"

The red light around them flashed blindingly before the entire floor was blanketed in darkness. Cesar's nerves got the better of him, and he instinctively fired his weapon. He heard the sound of Sarah Frost's screaming before the sound was cut short. Cesar was confused at first, the lioness should not have been able to scream if he'd hit his mark.

The spotted skunk fished around his jacket for a small flashlight and then shined the beam down the hallway. The extinguishing of the red light marked the end of the nearby Prophet. He shined his light to the body of the lioness, which lay face down on the ground. He gave the body a cursory glance before realizing that she was still breathing. He'd missed his shot. He trained his pistol over the limp body of the lion girl, but stayed his hand. The threat was neutralized. The Facility could take her into custody, and his hands would remain clean.

Cesar Ramos sighed exhaustedly, the adrenaline leaving his system. "God's Will be done."

****

"And you're SURE they cleaned up every one?" Tabetha asked the vampire bat expectantly. Julian rolled his eyes wearily, "Yes, yes yes. How many times do I have to say it? Fucking christ, they cleaned them up!"

Tabetha had been so livid with Julian that she'd shot him in the head three times, then made him clean it up. Then she'd stationed him to monitor the clean-up crew assigned to destroy the white worms that had crawled away from the racoon girl's body. Julian did not pay attention. Tabetha had not really expected the vampire bat to do anything to help, but given that he still had exposed brain matter from being shot, the panther girl thought that it might cut an intimidating stature to motivate the clean up crews to do their job quickly. The last thing she needed was an infestation.

The pantheress continued to glare at Julian. Her golden eye boring into his annoyed expression with all of her fury, but even Tabetha's stone cold gaze could not faze Julian. "Julian," she said. This was the first time she'd had a chance to talk to him relatively calmly. "Your security girl..." "Yeeeeeees?" Julian answered smugly.

"Why didn't you just kill her?" Tabetha said intensely. Not that she was the bloodthirsty kind, but Julian did the girl no kindness by allowing his classified blood to heal her. Somewhere buried beneath the woman she had learned to be, there was a twinge of emotion. Guilt, sympathy... empathy? It was something Tabetha had learned to forget, but still it lie dormant within her. The leopard girl had been saved, it seemed Julian was a universal donor. As soon as the vampire bat's blood had made contact with the security girl's open wound, it had bonded to her. Julian's blood started to heal her at his own accelerated rate, and she was all but breathing normally by the time the medical team came to collect her.

"Because I figured that if I saved her life she might be more inclined to motorboat my face." Julian said with a toothy grin. The vein in Tabetha's temple twitched. "Julian..." "What? A guy gets lonely."

Tabetha reached for her gun again, but before she could reach it, Julian was perched on top of her desk with her wrist in his hand. "You've done enough shooting for one day, Tabby." The pantheress bared her teeth at the vampire bat, who held his face inches away from her own. "Let go of me, Julian." she commanded.

The vampire bat hesitated, then released his master. "Fine." He stepped his feet down off of Tabetha's desk, but remained leaned over the mahogany furniture to look Tabetha in her multi-colored eyes. "I'm bored, Tabetha. You let the snake fuck the scum to death and I haven't eaten anyone in three months." Tabetha's anger gave way to annoyance. "I've explained that to you. It is getting harder and harder to justify why you are not in containment, Specimen Zero."

"Because I've been in service to your family for generations! I am older than this entire sham of an organization!" Julian said with no attempt to hide his indignation. "You don't have to tell ME that you stupid bat!" Tabetha's voice rose to match Julian's. "But if we are to do our job, we must adhere to the rules of this place. The rules my father put down when he founded this Facility! But it is hard to convince the others that you are under control when you are so goddamn disobedient! And now you've gone and corrupted one of our security members! Do you have ANY idea how much of a headache it is going to be to keep you out of a containment cell!?" Julian scoffed. "Let them try." "NO! Julian!" Tabetha growled, "You can't just kill anyone anymore. There are r-"

"I KNOW! Your fucking rules tighten every day, making my leash that much shorter, Jasmine." Julain yelled. "I make no apologies for what I did. I stopped yet another attempt at killing you. That's my job. That's why I'm here. To make sure you stay alive long enough to continue your family line! You want me to stop making your life complicated? Then get pregnant. Squeeze out a little Tabby kitten and you'll be free to eat a whole cake full of worm eggs, or whatever new way to kill you that your coworkers come up with, and I'll go on protecting your darling child." Julian huffed.

Tabetha had no counter, she merely shook with rage as she listened to the vampire bat's beratement. "And you know what else?" Julian said. Tabetha reached up to pinch the bridge of her nose, then pushed her glasses up to her face. She took a deep breath, then interlocked her fingers. She leaned back into her chair, and looked at Julian once more. She'd given up being angry. Arguing with Julian was like arguing with a wall. "What, Julian?" she said resignedly.

Julian was used to the pantheress doing that. Tabetha had a breaking point, and she'd just reached it. Julian knew that she wasn't really listening, but that had never stopped him from talking before. "Maybe if you took the stick out of your ass for two seconds you'd make a friend. Hell! Maybe you'd find a guy who you wouldn't mind bending over for. 'Cause at this point, I'M ready to throw you a mercy fuck." Julian backed away from the desk, still glaring at the pantheress. "You need something to unclench that diamond-crushing asshole of yours, Tabetha. I'm serious." Julian reached the door, "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go see if I can read my new toy's mind yet."

The door to Tabetha's office slammed shut. The pantheress heaved a sigh of relief at the calm quiet. Julian's attitude was not surprising. He'd never had much respect for authority, even Tabetha's. Sure, he was her protector, but his tongue was never guarded. Julian always spoke his mind, even when perhaps he shouldn't. Tabetha mulled over his words, not entirely unused to his oppinions.

Julian was always telling her that she needed to have sex, he purported that it would ease her stress and make her happier ,though Tabetha wasn't exactly sure if the vampire bat was being honest. Julian had said it himself, his servitude toward her ended once she had a child. Then the vampire bat would take over guardianship of the infant. He would drink her child's blood, just as he had hers, and he would owe her no more allegiance.

Some part of Tabetha hoped that Julian would remember her with as much reverence as he did her father, but it seemed the way things were going the vampire bat would only remember her as the bitch panther who needed a good fucking. Tabetha then found herself thinking back to her first time...

She had been fifteen. Young and naive. He was a suave business lemur who worked for an associate of her father. He was twenty, and while his boss was visiting to talk business with her father, Louis would take walks with her through the gardens. He would make her laugh and listen to her thoughts. She grew fond of him. They grew closer, and Tabetha found herself holding his hand. Leaning slightly against him when they sat on the garden bench to watch the fountain. His hair had always impressed her. A youthful grey that was soft as downy and smelled of lavender, citrus, and mint. She'd lost her virginity to him, and they never spoke again. She never considered it rape, just a mistake. He'd come back from a business meeting with whiskey on his breath. He stumbled into her room when the other men had retired to their beds in the guest rooms. His words weren't as sweet then. Not that he was being uncouth, his inebriation merely robbed him of his poetic musings. It was the first time she'd heard him curse when he looked at her hungrily and said, "I want to fuck you."

She let him. She was enamored with the feeling of being wanted. It had been harmless flirting and mild teasing until that point. There was something... carnal, about the lemur not hiding his desires behind a mask of civility. She'd decided that she was going to give him what he wanted. He was an animal in need, and she was going to quench his desire with her body. To be needed, she had been drunk off the feeling.

She quietly took his hand and led him into her room. He'd pushed her onto the bed, and she leaned back to let him on top of her. He started to take off her clothes, and she offered no resistance.

It was not quite how she envisioned her first time, nothing like she'd read in the magazines. But she knew that she liked him, and she knew he liked her. Was it the next step of their relationship? She'd hoped so. She remembered the smell of whiskey, the giddy excitement as she watched him undress. She felt a rush of excitement as she saw his penis for the first time, her heart fluttering at the tabboo they were about to break. She supposed it was partially her fault. Her mind was awash with romanticized expectations, but as soon as he guided himself into her and started clumsily thrusting. She wrapped her arms around his neck to hug him close, but as she gazed into his unfocused eyes... she felt nothing.

There was a minimal physical pleasure mixed with a minimal physical pain, but they were motes of feeling in a deep pit of disappointment. A drunken lemur between her legs, her clothes carelessly tossed on her floor. There were no fireworks, no music, no nothing.

She'd expected sex to be intimate, skin grazing against skin. Her mind was awash with the thought of whispered "I love yous", gazing into his eyes, and realizing that they were sharing a special bond only meant for lovers. Instead, the smell of sex and the sight of her own splayed ankles were all that greeted her. She found no magic in the unfocused eyes of the grunting lemur. He finished inside her after what seemed like an eternity of fumbling. He'd smiled at her, eyes half-lidded. She did not smile back.

She rememered him asking her how her first time was, and joking that he hoped he didn't disappoint. She did not respond. She lay there in the darkness, unmoving, staring up at the pink paint of her ceiling. The lemur had not noticed her lack of response, and instead slipped off to snore on her bed. Tabetha rose, dressed herself, and went to sit in her father's study. She sat there all night, thinking about the experience, before the butler found her the next morning. She confided what had happened to him, and was taken to the pharmacy for a morning after pill. She never spoke of the incident again.

Indeed, she never saw Louis again after that. She made excuses to be away whenever he'd come around. Tabetha had lost much interest in sex after that. Of course, things had been complicated by the few years later after her home was invaded by the mercenary soldiers who gunned down most of her estate. The pantheress had more or less resigned herself to a life without sex. Tabetha shook her head as her mind reached the end of its musings about the past.

"Tch." she scoffed to the silent office around her. Sex wasn't so great. Why everyone made such a big deal with it was just an annoyance. Besides, she couldn't afford to be that vulnerable, not when people were trying to kill her. And Julian was wrong, besides. She had friends, didn't she? Tabetha had survived thanks to the risky effort put forth by Dr. Abercrombe. Granted, he fused an experimental graft from one of the freaks to her face, but he said he only did that because he cared.

And then there was Matthews. He may be an annoying stoner who was too smart for his own good, but Tabetha liked to think that he was harmless. Try as she might, she could not find any reason to hate Matthews like she did her other coworkers. Miles had a good heart, a rare gem to find in Facility employ, and though Tabetha did not care for his recreational choices, she decided that smoking marijuana on clock hours was preferrable to turning feeders into serum-addled sex slaves.

The pantheress heaved another sigh before rising from her chair. Maybe Julian wasn't all wrong, though. Tabetha decided it had been far too long since she had a break, and decided she might like to spend some time in the company of someone who didn't want to kill her.