What stampede meant at this moment was a monster pack in a crash course to the labs. Vegis didn’t know what was going to happen other than a large amount of damage to the walls and lots of gunfire. Vegis through V1 asked what he should do and was just told to hide. Vegis grabbed Boreal and Mitra while running out the door to head down to the basement. The clones hid in the little closet spaces in the hubs. Vegis saw Drake in the basement biting the nail of his thumb. “Draaake, do you know what’s going on? Vegis hasn’t told me what is happening.”(Mitra) “A stampede is happening. But it should have been detected sooner and it shouldn't have been happening at all. The migration cycle says that they should be happening in the next month, not now.”(Drake) “Are you saying it slipped the sensors and mana detection of all the towers and only the lab’s more powerful detection magic could see them?”(Vegis) Drake nodded and was going to continue but was interrupted by a loud boom and the ground rumbling.
Vegis listened through the clones and realized that it was a multiple large flocks of many flying things from different species and a large number of mutants were attacking the walls, guards, and turrets. The reinforced concrete of the walls started to crack as the beast crashed into the hubs. The windows were opened to allow the guards to shoot outside, blood splattering the guards as all the gunfire didn’t stop them from crashing into the windows. Every once and a while, a small creature would manage to not crash and get inside the hub and wreck havoc on the guards from behind. The northeast Hub was the one hit the hardest due to its smaller numbers. Vegis commanded V2 to walk out of the closet it was in and help them shoot the enemies.
Vegis looked for a chair to sit down in the increasingly crowded basement. Guards were mainly huddled around the entrance and spread out to keep the others calm down. There were some other staff, like a bartender, a few janitors, and a repairmen. The rest was all the pencil pushers and higher ups. Most of them were sitting nervously, staring at the ceiling as though waiting for it to creak open. A loud bang, rumbling, and the sound of yelling could occasionally be heard which made most of the people in the basement have the blood in their face drain a little each time it happened.
Vegis had to command the other 2 clones in waiting to help the guards since the glass to the door for their closet was starting to break and was already covered in blood. V1 was at the safest hub in the southeast corner. It was hit with the most animals but contained less mutants than the other hubs. With the already large amount of guards here and them having gear that leans towards crowd control, this corner hasn't suffered a fatal injury but the more people were injured in this corner and there wasn’t much time or resources to fix them all. The east hub was having difficulty due to being slammed with mostly mutants but their stronger gear allowed them to push them back. When mutants gather, something is made that repels other animals so they don't have to deal with as many critters as the other hubs. There were only 3 individuals with fatal injuries but they had the resources to keep them alive and well by the end of the night. The northeast hub was being held on by glue and dreams since 2 were dead, 5 have been fatally injured, and the rest had an increasing amount of injuries that was slowly limiting their combat capabilities.
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There were only a small number of guards in this corner since based on previous stampedes and importance of the area, not much happens in this area. This time was different and the stampede had sent a balanced amount of mutants and animals this way but these were the smarter individuals in the horde. Most of them knew how to dodge and do evasive maneuvers, making hitting them before they got to the wall nearly impossible. V2 was the only uninjured personnel since his skin was strengthened but since it was only an individual and wasn’t very smart.
The only things it could do was shoot and block blows. Eventually, the guns it was using all broke due to the beasts crashing into his hands and damaging the weapons. Everytime V2 replaced them, something would die to either knock the guns out of his hands or destroy them. V2 went through 4 pairs of weapons before Vegis told the clone to just use its hand. Vegis focused on enhancing its strength so its punches and grabs would actually do proper damage. V2 managed to attract most of the attention of the mutants since they couldn’t pierce V2’s skin. This ends up with V2 having to run outside and run to the east hub for help. It couldn't make it because it got dogpiled about a quarter of the way to the east hub.
Vegis couldn’t do anything to stop this so Mitra stepped in. She sent a pulse of mana through their connections which caused a pulse of fire around V2, turning all the mutants into ash. Vegis turned to her with a shocked expression and asked, “How did you do this?” but only got a short, “Just can”. Before he could continue questioning, Vegis could feel that part of the wall near them fell and then felt the ground starting to rumble.
