"Where is the target's location!?"

"Last seen on level twelve, C-unit was engaged-!"

"C-unit, respond! Respond!"

"Ksssh Argh! Ah! Aaa—kssshhh movi—up—vl!"

"Shit! Where is A-unit!?"

"Level twenty-two protecting the vice president!"

"Contact! Bogey on level—argh!"

"Oh my Go-!"

"Where is it!? Where is it!?"

"—go—a—elp—!"

"Where is it!?"

"Bogey spotted heading up the elevators on level fifteen!"

"Freeze the elevators!"

"It's not using the elevators!"

"Bogey spotted on level sixteen! It's heading right up towards you!"

Mr. Takehata stood with his unit, backs against the walls. He signaled his men and they moved quickly towards the elevator shaft.

They had been hearing the storm of bullets move up floor by floor for the last two hour-long minutes. He didn't understand what was happening, or why. He had simply been in the break room, drinking the cheap provided coffee, thinking about asking that secretary on the ground floor, who was probably now dead, to go on a date again, even if she kept sheepishly refusing him.

Then just like that alarms started piercing the air with their shrill cry and every unit in the building had been mobilized. He never knew why this kind of company needed as much security detail as it did but he never questioned. No sooner had him and his six men gotten into position hell opened up and threw some kind of demon at them. The hail of bullets hadn't stopped since. And this, thing, hadn't even slowed down. He really wished he was holding more than his small semi-automatic handgun; he felt like he was a kid with a popgun about to be mauled by a bear. A mean bear with an attitude problem.

He and his men fanned out along the opening of the hallway straight across from the elevator on level nineteen, no one actually entered into the hallway. When nothing moved a few men entered in, guns pointed at the door before moving to either side of it. They could hear nothing coming from the elevator shaft and looked back to Takehata for instructions.

"Where is the bogey now!?" he spoke, the small piece on his collar catching his voice, and the response came directly into his ear.

"Last seen in the elevators on level seventeen heading up!"

"You three go cover the other elevator," the three men nodded and ran down the hall, guns pointed at the door before turning left and disappearing from view. He was left in his spot with Akechi, the young man who had only been a part of this unit for three weeks. He was remarkably calm for being so new. Well, as calm as the other seasoned members were. Everyone was nervous, tense, sweating bullets, looking at other men and seeing mirrors of their own frightened face. It was eerily quiet. He could hear the breathing of the men down the hall. He swallowed hard, dark eyes glued to the door, gun pointed around the corner. There was no sound.

The elevator pinged and everyone flinched, but the door did not open, the light at the top was lit on level six.

"Oh shit!" there were death cries and gun fire at the other elevator. Takehata began running down the hallway as the men at the other door turned and began firing. Both men simply exploded in a blaze of blue fire, one just a half-second after the other. He tried to stop, his shoes causing him to slide several inches forward, and he swung his arms for balance before ducking behind a large decorative pot filled with giant bamboo.

Akechi, who had followed him down, stopped much more gracefully and opened then dashed into a room, shutting the door silently behind him. Takehata wished he had thought of that. He shifted, edging slowly to try to see beyond the pot. He gasped and began to hyperventilate before holding his breath, tightly biting his lip. A… thing stepped into view, looking at the scattered remains of the two men on the floor. It was huge, a full two-heads taller than Takehata, and twice as wide, nothing but muscle under the sparse rusty armor it wore. Its skin was reptilian, colored a sickly green with bruise-colored splotches, but its body was human. Three small canons were mounted on its back over its shoulders, parting long black dreadlocked hair; at least Takehata thought it was hair.

It wore a mask, a red spiked mask with grey eyes.

Takehata felt his fingers slip against the plastic of his gun, and his body was desperate for air. The alien turned towards the elevator and unleashed two sets of double-bladed gauntlet weapons and tore easily through the metal door. It kicked the weakened metal in as Takehata took aim for the middle of its back. It jumped in and began climbing up the sheer wall of the elevator shaft, just as a bullet sparked next to its shoulder. It didn't stop. It didn't even flinch.

"Shit!" Takehata scrambled up, smacking the door, "it's heading up come on!"

The two men made way to the stairs, looking up the several flights as they began heading up without hesitation. Takehata guessed that the other elevator shaft had been blocked by the elevator itself, and that tearing through his men was the path of least resistance to continue its rampage. This thing was moving with purpose, but Takehata couldn't imagine what. It was an alien, capable of space travel, what would it possibly want from a company like Yutani?

He was out of breath but ready for action once he reached the top floor. With the speed it was moving it would have been here long before they arrived. They heard gunfire and headed its way. Slamming against the corner he looked past and saw A-unit surrounding the door of vice president Himura's office, firing relentlessly in one direction. With a roar the thing jumped right into their midst, glowing green blood flowing out of bullet holes in its body. It didn't even feel them as it tore through the men like rice paper.

Neither Takehata or Akechi could risk firing into the fray, they might hit one of the other men. It wouldn't have made a difference either way. There weren't any men left alive after a few seconds. The creature then turned to its right and, without any pause, literally kicked in the door like it was nothing. Wood splintered as more shots fired through the door and the walls. Takehata aided by creating perpendicular fire, Akechi following suit, causing the creature to flee down a specific hallway. But then it rippled and was gone. Takehata stopped dead, staring at where the thing had been, breathing heavily. The rest of the gunfire ceased also, and it was dead quiet for a moment.

"Don't shoot don't shoot!" called Takehata as he and Akechi moved to enter the room. A bunch of guns were trained on him and his partner but they didn't fire. Beyond them he could see the vice president, standing up behind his desk, several monitors all turned towards him, wild eyes looking around at the two new men.

"Where is it?" the defenseless man asked in a shaky whisper.

The wall to Takehata's left suddenly blew outwards, taking out nearly half of the group inside. The alien jumped through the destruction, wrist blades out and making short work of the other half. Takehata shielded his face and ran away from the explosion, crashing into a wall behind a feature waterfall and turning his back to the hard surface, his shoulders and hair soaked. He blinked through water dripping into his eyes and saw the creature as it threw a spear through his partner. The young man fell dead on his back sliding a foot from the force.

He watched through the distortion the water created as the monster turned towards the vice president, who was pressed back against his pure-glass wall overlooking the city. The creature reached forward, taking the monitors in his hand and turning them to look at the screens, then crashed them onto the desk, and threw the remains of the furniture out of his way, advancing on the helpless man.

The vice president suddenly produced a weapon from his coat, a small gun of some sort that looked alien in its own design, aiming for the creature.

"Take one more step and I shoot!" he warned. The alien stopped, tilting its head, dreadlocks tapping against his shoulder.

"This is one of yours, or copied from one, you see that, don't you?" the vice president's voice was like venom as he spoke, shifting the weapon in his hands, training it on the center of the creature's mass. It didn't move, making a low rattling noise as it shifted its weight, seizing up the threat that the vice president posed to him. The business man swallowed visible, then hissed, "yeah, you know what this can do, You've got three of them," Himura hissed, leaning away from the glass and stepping forward. The alien wasn't intimidated, "let's see how you like it."

The creature lifted its hand, causing both men to flinch, and made an oddly human gesture. It was pointing. It was pointing at the window. Takehata leveled his gun on the creature and moved back out to the middle of the floor, getting drenched again by the waterfall. He spread his feet and squared his shoulders, the beam of his laser dead center with the creature's back. He froze as he saw a shimmer behind the window. The vice president slowly turned to look over his shoulder, just as the shimmer rippled and faded away, revealing an elegantly curved ship, vaguely knife-shaped, facing the window.

Blood suddenly splattered against the glass, obscuring Himura's reflection. The monster had his wrist blades all the way through the vice president who convulsed, blood pouring out of his mouth. It lifted him from the ground, the blood beading off the metal cleanly. The alien took the gun out of the dying man's hand and brought him closer. In a deep growl, the alien's voice came from behind its mask, speaking in broken Japanese.

"Made you look."

The alien thrust his arm forward, sending Himura through the glass and off its blades in one movement. Takehata yelled and opened fire on the monster as it swung its blades and streaked blood along the floor. The bullets never missed, but it barely flinched, looking back at Takehata as passive as if he was throwing pebbles at it. Then it turned and charged towards the broken window, jumping the distance between the building and the ship, landing in an open hatch and walking into the darkness as calmly as it pleased.

The door closed behind the monster and Takehata ran to the glass, hair dripping into his face, wind tossing his clothes, watching the ship turn and begin flying away. He lowered his gun, the action wide open, watching it sail silently away like an owl. Then from above him, a ball of blue fire shot from the rooftop and impacted the ship, causing it to buckle and dip dangerously low into the city before it pointed up at a steep angle and shot into the atmosphere, trailing dark smoke.

"What the hell?" Takehata leaned forward, trying to look up to see what had shot at the other ship, then looked down, at the small spot on the sidewalk that had been vice president Himura.

"We found an alien device on floor eleven!" came a yell in his ear and he turned, gathering a new gun from a fallen comrade and checking its ammunition.

"I have one here as well," Takehata said, looking at the spear sticking out of Akechi's chest, closing the young man's eyes.

"Is it also beeping?"

"What?"

The sound was like thunder as the building exploded from its center, but just as quickly everything suddenly began to implode, sucking towards the center, tearing up and vanishing in a whirling vortex. The upper and lower levels disintegrated into dust and were pulled down into a small black sphere. The sound was like a hurricane as it consumed everything. It ate pieces of the surrounding buildings into its insatiable gullet. Then it shrunk down into nothingness and was gone. Around it, the sounds of many sirens could be heard converging on the missing building, and a single helicopter flew by overhead.