After walking calmly out of the cage they fired upon us using my RNA manipulation, the walls aren’t even disturbed. I used my powers of using the nucleus to stop transcription and translation to change location and density. I used shell shock’s fast reflexes to tell where every bullet would have hit. 
Every one of them except four passed through. I caught four harmlessly in my body. They eventually ran out of ammo. And I said to them, "I have four bullets how many points do you guys want to wager that I hit you four with no problem with them?" 
I got the bullets to travel inside my body and pushed them out softly into my palm as I chased them. 
I tried my other form and it does not work in the physical realm only the mental realm. I caught up with them with no issues and they tried to fight me off four against one and I had no fun at all slamming their own bullet into their skulls. 
I walked to a patched hole in the ground and begin to explore looking for shell shock’s revenge. 
I found night shifts barracks and found the soldiers on the main floor. The clock in the hall says 2800 they would not be arriving at their post, our empty cell for another 6 hours. 
Using my RNA manipulation, I squeeze under the door and stand over their bed. I say in my head to shell shock. I’m joining you for the show shortly. I think you will get a kick out of the way I dispose of them. 
I put my hand on one’s forehead and release my personal nightmare tonic into his nose and mouth keeping my hand on his head I can see vividly what he is dreaming. 
It’s bright and the sun is out. He gets up from his bed. And shell shock is with me in a tight sphere. 
"Hey, man move over!" 
"Stop pushing! You think it’s easy even letting you join! This is as big as I could get the bubble." 
" what happens if we are not in the bubble? 
"We can interact, but if we are in here when he dies we die too. So stop shoving!" 
The guy looks like he is starting his day the roommate is not here, though. He begins to brush his teeth and looking at his reflection in the mirror the background changes instead of being a closed wooden wardrobe it turns into an open room. 
The reflection taps loudly on the glass and it catches his attention. He stops brushing his teeth with a foamy mouth and just looks on as he pulls out gas cans and makes a distinct path from slow burning fuel. He takes a gun and fires at him the bullet ricochet off the glass and hits the wall behind him. 
The soldier decided he wanted no part of this and rinsing the toothpaste out of his mouth with water. 
The reflection fires off round after round after round until his pistol runs out and clicks repeatedly indicating there’s no more ammo. 
The reflection screams and tosses the pistol and the heat ignites the gas, "GIVE ME YOUR FUCKING HAND!" 
the soldier stands there stunned shaking his head scared "no, no". 
The reflection stands back igniting himself in the fire. Then walks back igniting more paths. "That wasn’t a request." 
The soldier tries to run but his door won’t open as the surrounding changes into no more locker and flames seem to erupt from nowhere behind him just like the reflection was duplicated. He goes back to the mirror where the reflection is almost melted muscle is starting to come off the bone. 
The reflection scratches the glass using his bone and just screeches loudly. 
The soldier catches fire. And drops to the floor and rolls around screaming because it hurts and by doing so spreading the fire in his room. The reflection has turned completely black the fire in the reflection is still not quite out. 
The soldier is completely engulfed in flames. And shell shock asks me, "can I try him now?" 
"Please don’t. He’s on fire in the physical world. You don’t need to get burned in either world." 
"How about when he dies?" 
"I don’t see any harm but only one bite. We don’t have much time. So I will need control again." 
"That’s fine I wanna try cooked human. I only had it raw." 
"Whatever dude." 
All around us turns black and we return to the mental plane. And Shell Shock goes to the edge of the plane in the middle. 
Returning shortly after. "Turns out during the weeks I was in the box my cooked meal was human. I took a few bites, though. You’re up." 
I walk into the hole and take physical control. The soldier was burnt to a crisp and had numerous bite marks taken out of his arms, stomach, and chest. 
I walk to his roommate put my hand on his forehead and release my tonic again. It goes into his nostrils and I can feel a smile on the inside. I get back to Shellshock and we get ready to see this guy’s nightmare. 
Everything just appears from the black we are in his room with both soldiers sleeping calmly. I get to look at the alarm clock by his head. It’s night outside the window. I hear a creaking and the wardrobe at the foot of the soldier we want to kill begins to open slowly. 
He wakes up suddenly and his beady eyes look at the clock 29:59 he then rolls over. Then the door creaks open more and hits the edge of the wardrobe with a soft wooden bang. 
He sits up all the way. And a very bony arm emerges. He says, "identify yourself!" 
She doesn’t say a word as more of her is revealed, a decrepit old woman with curly frail hair smiles and she is missing teeth as she steps down from inside the wardrobe. 
She violently cracks her neck and is no longer on the ground levitating just above the ground. 
He gets out of bed and starts to walk to her, "ok ma’am I don’t know how you got lost but let’s get you back to your husband." 
She screeches loudly and lands towards him rapidly approaching him puts her arm back and we see her nails grow rapidly as she approaches. 
She thrusts her nails into his chest cavity causing 4 deep gashes. 
Everything goes dark. 
Everything just appears from the black we are in his room with both soldiers sleeping calmly. I get to look at the alarm clock by his head. It’s night outside the window. I hear a creaking and the wardrobe at the foot of the soldier we want to kill begins to open slowly. 
He wakes up suddenly and his beady eyes look at the clock 29:59 he then rolls over. Then the door creaks open more and hit the edge of the wardrobe with a soft wooden bang. 
He sits up all the way. And a very boney arm emerges. He says, "identify yourself!" 
She doesn’t say a word as more of her is revealed, a decrepit old woman with curly frail hair smiles and she is missing teeth as she steps down from inside the wardrobe. 
She violently cracks her neck and is no longer on the ground levitating just above the ground. 
He gets out of bed and starts to walk to her, "ok ma’am I don’t know how you got lost but let’s get you back to your husband." 
She screeches loudly and lands towards him rapidly approaching him puts her arm back and we see her nails grow rapidly as she approaches. 
She thrusts her nails into his chest cavity. Causing four deep gashes 
Everything goes dark. 
Everything just appears from the black we are in his room with both soldiers sleeping calmly. I get to look at the alarm clock by his head. It’s night outside the window. I hear a creaking and the wardrobe at the foot of the soldier we want to kill begins to open slowly. 
He wakes up suddenly and his beady eyes look at the clock 29:59 he then rolls over. Then the door creaks open more and hit the edge of the wardrobe with a soft wooden bang. 
He sits up all the way. And a very boney arm emerges. He says, "identify yourself!" 
She doesn’t say a word as more of her is revealed, a decrepit old woman with curly frail hair smiles and she is missing teeth as she steps down from inside the wardrobe. 
She violently cracks her neck and is no longer on the ground levitating just above the ground. 
He gets out of bed and starts to walk to her, "ok miss I don’t know how you got lost but let’s get you back to your husband." 
She screeches loudly and lands towards him rapidly approaching him puts her arm back and we see her nails grow rapidly as she approaches. 
She thrusts her nails into his chest cavity. 
Everything goes dark. 
Everything just appears from the black we are in his room with both soldiers sleeping calmly. I get to look at the alarm clock by his head. It’s night outside the window. I hear a creaking and the wardrobe at the foot of the soldier we want to kill begins to open slowly. 
He wakes up suddenly and his beady eyes look at the clock 29:59 he then rolls over. Then the door creaks open more and hit the edge of the wardrobe with a soft wooden bang. 
He sits up all the way. And a very boney arm emerges. He says, "identify yourself!" 
She doesn’t say a word as more of her is revealed, a decrepit old woman with curly frail hair smiles and she is missing teeth as she steps down from inside the wardrobe. 
She violently cracks her neck and is no longer on the ground levitating just above the ground. 
He gets out of bed and starts to walk to her, "ok miss I don’t know how you got lost but let’s get you back to your husband." 
She screeches loudly and lands towards him rapidly approaching him puts her arm back and we see her nails grow rapidly as she approaches. 
She thrusts her nails into his chest cavity. 
Everything goes dark. 
Everything just appears from nowhere. Shell shock, "this is taking forever not even a minute has passed and we already know what’s gonna happen. Can we just end this?" 
"Yeah, I’ll be right back." 
"Wait I’m still hungry." 
"Stupid. Whatever. Go ahead" 
Shell Shock goes away and then comes back. "Hey man, you’ll never guess what time it is out there." 
"What time is it?" 
"29:59!" 
"Wow, time basically stood still for this one. Weird." 
"Well let us go to the next one, find out what the next dream is and how long it takes."\ 
I walk away from him and to take over the physical vessel. At least he did something smart and clever, he made the dream real with the body and did the same as the old lady except he didn’t stop with just the one gash, he had to have done it at least 30 times and apparently tired of using his hand and then deluged him with a broken bottle of W.W. glass was everywhere. 
I calmly walk to the door and open it, I make my way to the next floor up to see about finding the next two guards. I get stopped at the next floor, "What business do you have here prince?" He salutes me by getting on one knee and raising one hand at a 45-degree angle. I continue about my business walking away from him flinging more tonic at him, I get him in the shirt but it just flows up into his mouth and nose. I know he’ll be dead in a few minutes. 

I’m looking for Root and Sanchez, at the very end of the hall I find their room, I just get myself right under the door. They have their beds head to head and their wardrobes on the other side of the room. I put the alarm on the floor and put my hand on both their foreheads and release more tonic. I hear a voice inside my head, "how’s this going to work?" 
"I don’t know, I guess they will have the same nightmare" 
"This ought to be cool then." 
I get myself into the bubble. We open up to a very large plane it’s just past sunset with 100’s of men in front of Master Sergeant Root everyone is in formation in front of him he announces them, "My Brothers in arms. I know many of you outrank me. I was chosen by Bōkun to lead this charge on the Virginians today as the leader of Battalion A. I thank you for your cooperation. Now I want there to be separation to storm the place in north south and east of their fortress. 10-second intervals going to north south east separating as such. Now is there any questions?" One soldier somewhere in the middle raises their hand. "Yes soldier, I can’t see your name I’m sorry." 
He starts bobbing his hand up and down at a rhythm. His starts to shake in a twist. The soldiers to his left and right also start matching his movements. Now three soldiers lean back and march in place touching the chests of the soldiers behind them. And those soldiers slide between the legs of the original three dancing soldiers and all six are now marching in place. Spinning around counter-clockwise twice to the left and touching pointing straight out with their hands tapping the cheek of the soldier’s stage left. Then all eight soldiers are spinning counter clockwise and kick out the knees of the soldiers to their right. All ten soldiers go to a knee and start acting like they are swimming the breast stroke. 
"Hey, this might be weird to ask but what are you doing? What was your question?" 
Silence from the soldiers as they continue to do what they do. Most of them keep swimming but the four on the ends go up and big to appear that they are walking down stairs as they are breaking formation. A shadow emits from the swimmers going to meet the remainder of the group. The set down just one the other side of each side of the formation. And with both hands puts their hand on the soldiers. Shadow starts taking hold of all the ones that are dancing and all movements are matched and the infectious dancing continues. The ones in the middle fall to the grass and begin kicking their way between soldiers knocking them down as they go back and they begin to swim on their backs in the grass as well. The shadow begins to grow. 

The soldiers now standing make a rope out of the shadows and twirl them around as they spin clockwise on their left leg and counter clockwise on their right leg depending on where they are in formation. When they release these rope the ones that are roped in are now doing the same. Then the entire formation who is infected punches to the left and to the right. We now see where Private First Class Berles is and he just ignores formation and walks straight forward to Root. And says to him, "What is this?" 
Root responds to him, "I have no idea." 
"Hey check it out, that’s everyone but us." 
"Yeah, and now what." The plane becomes desolate and dry with a purple haze around as the shadow grows beneath everyone engulfing the land turning everything to rocks instead of grass and trees. All the soldiers stop moving at once and just slouch all the way over almost touching their toes in a lazy fashion. The original soldier stands up suddenly and his head changes shape to flatten from jaw to head. Ears elongate and point straight up. He begins to change coloration as he strips off his armor to become completely naked. His nose elongates and the space between his lower jaw and nose dissipate. I can see he is in extreme pain as the rest of his face changes to keep the new face, his body becomes overly muscular while still retaining that human form. Nostrils go to the outside of the nose and his K-9’s grow to be more than an inch longer than before. The hair on his head grows to become longer than his body. 

Berles cries out, "What is that?" 
"That is the enemy, they alter the DNA of their soldiers to give them the ability to have super hearing, smell and can see in the dark as well as the light." 
The enemy soldier begins to climb an invisible set of stairs by walking forwards and backward repeatedly getting 10-15 meters up. And howls at the top of his lungs. The other soldiers retch back and howl in response as they begin to change shape as well. 
Berles asks, "how fucked are we?" 
"You got your pistol right?" 
"Yeah." 
"Well so do I, we both only need one bullet each." 
Berles and Root begin to empty out all but the one bullet in the chamber. Shellshock sprints towards Berles and snatches the pistol from him and all the bullets from the ground. 
Roots says to him, "I don’t know who that was or where they disappeared to but I’m not giving you this one bullet, you fucked." 
In around the Alpha begins to send their new Battalion to us every 3 steps a new soldier is starting their march towards Berles and Root. When the very first soldier leaps Root pulls the trigger against himself killing him instantly. He throws the dead body back into the formation where most of the soldiers are waiting for their turn to advance. 
The Alpha raises his right arm suddenly stopping suddenly at the elbow and wrist and all soldiers to his right go into a dead sprint. Then he raises his left arm suddenly stopping at the elbow and wrist and all the soldiers to his left go into a dead sprint they are biting him and the shadow is engulfing Berles. As blood is squeezed out of him from dull K-9’s he screams in agony. 
Shellshock and I decide we are satisfied and go back to the mental realm then I jump to the physical vessel. Only to realize there was a very loud alarm going off.   

Next Chapter: Chapter 28: Checking out the damages: Bōkun: May 20, 4997