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The group around Zane ran after the two soldiers as they followed the map to the control room. An explosion was heard in the distance as Zane stopped and looked back with a worried expression on his face.

"You can make it Zane," Zero put a hand on his shoulder.

"Don't stop!" The Lieutenant shouted to keep the group going.

They were walking when another tremor shook the ground and they stumbled.

"What was that?" asked the second soldier, who looked a little younger than his comrade.

"Are we too late?" Zane asked.

"No, that was the same shock as before," Nathan analysed.

"Come on, we're almost there!" The first soldier ordered in an energetic voice.

The walls cracked and groaned as they ran down the corridors. The new team leader, Lieutenant Fenon, paid no attention to the walls. His priority was to get to the control room quickly and get the civilians trapped in the bunker out.

He also did not want to waste the other group's efforts to stop the Colossus, so he encouraged the group around him even more. "There should be another set of stairs ahead."

"Another set of stairs?" Zane wondered.

"The control room is at the entrance, between the hospital and the bunker itself," the second soldier replied out of breath.

They continued on as the stairs came into view in the distance.

"We're there!" The lieutenant said as he finally saw the target in the distance.

BUNKER was written in bold letters in an illuminated display above the reinforced frame of the passage leading to the stairs. The light strips on the floor and the words following the arrows also indicated the proximity of the bunker and the control room.

Unlike the rest of the electronics, the display remained stable because it was powered by an independent power source.

"Now we can evacuate the civilians immediately, right?" Zane asked happily, feeling the first ray of hope in a long time.

"Exactly!" Zero replied.

Arriving at the basement exit, the younger of the two soldiers immediately checked the panel in the wall while the lieutenant explained how to proceed.

"Once we are in the control room, we will contact the guards who will be helping us with the evacuation," he began. "They need to know that we're going to unlock the doors. As soon as that is done, we unlock them and go into the bunker ourselves and lead the civilians through the evacuation, along with the other people in charge of the bunker," he explained hectically.

"How's it going?" He asked the soldier who was using his PDA to access the data from the bunker on the panel.

"The system has locked the doors, they really can't be opened from the outside," he reported. "All the cameras are out. There is also some structural damage, but nothing serious. I'm not getting any data from some of the corridors though. "

"What?" The Lieutenant wondered and went to the panel himself.

The panel showed a detailed map of the bunker. Some of the corridors were coloured red, which meant that no data was available from those corridors. Signals such as video or audio were no longer reaching the panel.

"These are all corridors coming from the Academy..." the lieutenant noted.

"Another corridor is gone!" The soldier reported.

"Why is that?" Zero asked.

"It's lost power."

"What's going on?" The lieutenant wondered as a sound immediately brought him back.

There were footsteps in the distance, soft at first, then louder. They were so deep inside the hospital that the noise from outside could not reach them, making the footsteps all the more distinct. Then a message came over the group's headsets.

"We couldn't stop it..." someone coughed. "Run away...!"

"Captain!" The lieutenant shouted into the communicator. "Captain, please come!" He repeated, hoping for a sign of life.

Everyone stared intently into the darkness of the corridor while the footsteps grew louder. Asagi hid behind Zero who stood protectively in front of her. Nathan and Zane both formed magical circles in preparation for an immediate attack.

The soldier at the control panel frantically pressed a few buttons while the lieutenant aimed his weapon at the corridor where the footsteps grew louder.

"How much longer?" He asked impatiently.

"I'm almost there!" The soldier replied frantically.

Then the flickering lights illuminated the colossus emerging from the side corridor. He was still wearing the black cloak that covered his entire body. The lower part of the cloak, however, was a little torn and seemed to have sunk a little. Still, as far as could be seen through the cloak, it seemed to be unharmed.

The colossus stomped towards them. "Stop him!" The lieutenant shouted as he aimed his rifle at the colossus.

"Zane, wait! I'll start!" Nathan stopped Zane who was about to attack and replied with a nod.

Nathan immediately began firing his spell into the corridor. It created another huge fountain of water that rushed towards the colossus, trying to bring it down again. But this time it was different.

With a mechanical sound, the colossus stamped and dug its legs into the ground. At the same time, it brought its arms forward and crossed them in a defensive position. Leaning forward slightly, he stood against the fountain of water that was rushing towards him.

The fountain struck the colossus and the resistance of his body caused the water to splash past him on all sides.

Zane and his friends were in shock. Before, the fountain had thrown the Colossus back, but now nothing happened. It stood still in the middle of the well. What the group did not notice was that despite its resistance, the Colossus had been pushed back a little.

"Zane, as soon as I stop, it's your turn!" Nathan said, holding up his spell as sweat ran down his forehead.

"OK!" Zane replied, raising his arm with the prepared rune in the direction of the corridor and creating another rune on top of the other.

The fountain crashed to the ground and Nathan immediately shouted "Now!

"Aero! Glacies!" Zane shot his spell out of the circle. Accelerated by the Aero Element, bright white-blue particles shot out of the circle in front of his hand.

Everything the particles touched instantly froze. When they reached the wet colossus that was about to start moving again, it froze in a fraction of a second. The water, blown back by the wind of the spell, had frozen into sharp ice crystals.

The colossus stood motionless in the passage. A thick layer of ice had frozen it in place.

"Is it over?" Zane asked, no longer convinced of his spells.

"It seems so ..." Zero assumed, nervously waiting for the Colossus to move. "But let's wait and see ..."

"Done!" the soldier at the panel suddenly shouted enthusiastically. "I restored the door control!"

"That's great!" Zane replied happily. "Now we can save everyone!"

"I don't want to dampen your excitement, but something's moving!" Nathan shouted suddenly and Zane looked back at the colossus.

Small fragments of ice were beginning to peel away from the outer layer of ice surrounding the colossus. There was a snap, a crack, and then the ice surrounding the colossus' upper body cracked.

"Shit!" Zane swore.

"Is that a super soldier? What's going on here?" complained the soldier at the control panel, looking at the scene in front of him in disbelief.

"Quick to the bunker!" The lieutenant ordered and sent them into the stairwell with a gesture of his hand.

Zero and Asagi were the first to arrive there. "What about that thing?"

"It won't get through the security door," the lieutenant pushed Zero into the stairwell. "Come on now!" He urged Nathan and Zane, who were still staring at the colossus trying to free itself from the ice.

Since the water from Nathan's attack had spread over the ground and the colossus had previously rammed its legs into the ground, it now had trouble freeing itself because a thick layer of ice had formed around its lower body.

Zane and Nathan looked back at the lieutenant, behind whom Asagi and Zero were already standing. "Shouldn't we...?"

"No time for that, let's go now!" The lieutenant ordered again.

"He's right Zane," Nathan patted him on the shoulder as he started to follow Zero and the others.

There was a splintering sound. Zane and Nathan turned to see the colossus hit the lump of ice that surrounded it with its arms. The next thing they knew, the ice was splintering and the colossus was pulling out one of its legs.

"Come on! The lieutenant shouted as Zane and Nathan ran towards him. Another splintering sound was heard as the Colossus completely freed itself from its frozen prison.

Immediately, the colossus began to move towards the group with quick steps. Zane and Nathan had just slipped under the bunker entrance gate when the colossus was halfway behind them.

"Close the door!" The lieutenant yelled as the colossus closed in.

The soldier frantically pressed his PDA and a heavy steel door came crashing down from above, closing the bunker entrance with a thud.

In the next instant there was another loud bang and everyone jumped. In an attempt to ram the door, the colossus had slammed his shoulder into the steel door first, but it barely moved.

"Don't worry, it won't get through, it's a fire door," the lieutenant said as the colossus banged on the door.

After several attempts, the colossus seemed to have given up and silence returned to the bunker entrance where they had taken cover.

"He's gone," Nathan heard from the door.

A sigh of relief crossed the room as the lieutenant straightened. "OK, let's move on."

"What about the Captain?" Zane asked.

"Our job is to open the bunker doors," he avoided the question.

Zane lowered his eyes when Asagi protested, "But ..."

"They are trained soldiers, they can do it."

"If we hurry, we might be able to evacuate them as well," Nathan tried to lighten the mood.

"Right, sitting here won't get us anywhere," Zane stood up as well.

"Come on then," Zero straightened up and the lieutenant nodded.

The group around Zane continued down the stairs, floor by floor. Unlike the hospital, the stairs were illuminated and the lights worked perfectly here. On the walls were guidelines for civilians and law enforcement to follow in case of an emergency. A drawn map of the bunker outlined the layout, departments and escape routes, while coloured stripes on the wall and floor led civilians to the appropriate sections of the bunker.

"This is the entrance," the lieutenant remarked as they reached the end of the stairs, where they found themselves in a large room. From this room there were three corridors, one leading directly to the bunker entrance and the other two to other entrances.

"We're almost there," the lieutenant ran ahead into the first corridor.

The large room served as a gathering point before the long corridor was used for orderly entry into the bunker. At the end of the corridor the group was greeted by an airlock, a heavy steel door like the one at the entrance to the bunker. The lights on the scanners had gone out and the lock looked deserted.

"There should be soldiers stationed here..." the lieutenant said as they approached the control room to the right of the lock.

There was a light on in the control room, but it was quiet. The Lieutenant pulled his ID card through the panel on the door, which opened with a hydraulic sound. Black dust immediately poured out.

"Is it possible..." the lieutenant whispered as the colour drained from his face.

The floor was full of dust and small crystals, but there were also shell casings underneath. Bullet holes were visible in several places on the wall and some of the control panels had also been hit by bullets. Blood was running down one wall and one of the soldiers was lying underneath it, a gash across his torso.

"What happened here?" Zane wondered as he walked through the dust.

"Don't look, Asagi!" Zero turned to her and shielded her from the sight.

Meanwhile, they had covered the dead soldier with a makeshift blanket they had found in one of the cupboards. The other soldier was already standing at the main panel of the control room.

"What just happened here?" Zane repeated his question from earlier in disbelief.

"There seems to have been a fight," Nathan replied, looking around the room.

"The dead soldier has traces of an infection," Zero added, making the situation even clearer.

No one dared to say out loud what everyone was thinking.

"It seems ... the outbreak has reached the bunker ...", the lieutenant broke the silence.

The reaction was muted, only Zane questioned it.

"I thought the bunker was protected from radiation?"

"It is, we passed the radiation shield in the stairwell earlier..."

"But why? The people should have been safe!" Zane refused to accept the situation.

"Zane ..." Asagi looked at him and suffered with him.

"Zane," Zero tried to calm him down.

"But all the effort was in vain! Tyler who holds the position outside and the captain who ..." Zane gritted his teeth.

"We don't know that ..." Zero tried to continue.

"But how did the radiation get into the bunker in the first place?" Nathan tried to find out.

"The hospital has partially collapsed. Could it be that the radiation shielding was damaged?" Zero tried to answer.

 "It's possible, yes, but I doubt it ..." the lieutenant said. "Or maybe ..." he turned his gaze to Zero.

 "Maybe?" Nathan asked.