The Forest

On our way into KRAKEN headquarters, Locke got taken by the wires the Newborn had summoned. I never knew him that well, but... well. It wasn't a pretty sight.

Jenn seemed freaked out, more than I've ever seen her before, but she kept going. Robin was with us, and she seemed just as tense.

I think Robin was starting to feel... I don't know. Irrational. Panicked. Overwhelmed. Long story short, someone from AMU dropped a strange dagger made of wood on our way into the basement of KRAKEN's compound.

Robin tried stabbing the Newborn with the dagger. The Newborn stopped shifting around and consuming everything. It just howled, and then it started to sprout horrible, thorny roots from where Robin had stabbed it. The Newborn's wires started growing fragile and snapping, the ones that hadn't already been crushed by the roots, anyways.

Naturally, we all turned tail and ran as fast as we could. We got outside to see that the roots were quickly overtaking the tower, causing it to crumble and grow crooked, destroying everything the Newborn had made of it in the Newborn's brief time in our reality.

Seattle is just gone, by the way. The Forest has basically overtaken the entire city. It's gone wild overnight, like a Ghibli movie on a bad trip.

Jenn says the guys over at STAB are looking into it, but obviously we're not. It's not like we have the money for hazmat suits, and even if we did, there's not much reason to think they'd help against whatever that plant is. I'm almost surprised STAB is sending anyone in themselves, but I guess they've got enough people on the payroll for some of them to be expendable.

I know that got dark, but these are dark times. An entire city is gone because of my friend.

But I don't know how much of it was her fault. We were all under stress back in Seattle. It was a chaotic mess back there.

We were stressed. Now we're just scared.

The raid

Alright, that was... interesting.

I'm alive. That's point one. I'm alive, Leo's alive, Robin's alive, Jenn's alive. We're all doing about as well as could be reasonably expected. Probably better. But that's just us. It's not true of everyone.

First of all, we ended up having to team up with AMU. That was Jenn's idea. Well, technically Jenn asked AMU what they were doing there, and when it became clear that AMU was trying to stop KRAKEN like we were, she suggested the two groups team up. At that point, we were joined by AMU forces, those being three squads of what they called Martyrs. Those were the same types of people as the ones who had raided the ARC base back before Leo and I joined. They were also the non-KRAKEN people Jenn had reported seeing at Solville, the place KRAKEN had hidden the books they stole from AMU.

Boy, that's a lot of acronyms.

Anyways, after that, one of the AMU cars was sent in. I think it was armored or reinforced somehow, because even after KRAKEN started firing at it, it just plowed through. KRAKEN decided to get serious and brought out a helicopter. Where the hell did they get a helicopter?

One way or another, a lightning bolt struck the helicopter out of nowhere, causing it to crash into a Martyr with an omega symbol on his hoodie. He didn't survive.

We did what we could, but it wasn't enough.

We heard a rumble from the earth. Tendrils of metal and flesh and bone erupted from the building.

We had failed. I had failed. I should've done more to help, but it was too late by then.

The Newborn had arrived. The golden age had come.