System rebooting....
Reboot successful.
Shutting down foreign language mode.
Activating cooling device.
Body temperature: 36 degree Celsius
Cooling device deactivating.
Booting up...
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Rhea slowly opened her eyelids. She sees a ceiling. She moved her hand a little, and realized she is on a bed. She opened her eyes, she turned to her left. Her battle bot is turned back into keychain size and is resting on the floor next to the bed. Then, she turned to her right, Havoc is staring at her, dead in the eyes. Rhea flinched,
"Bonjour."
"Wh....Havoc?"
"Hola."
"What?"
"Assalamualaikum."
"What are you talking about?"
"你好."
"Speak English!"
"Ah great, you're back to normal."
Havoc then turned to the door.
"Albur! Albur! Come! Rhea is normal now!"
After a while, Albur opened the door. He stared at Rhea for a while, and sighed. He came in and closed the door.
"Finally back to normal eh?"
"Wh...what happened?"
"You malfunctioned just now, your computer half head started saying lots of stuff, and even switch language. "
Rhea blinked, and lied back on the bed.
"I see...must be because of the overheat..."
Albur walked to a pail sitting in the corner of the room. He wetted a cloth using the water in the pail and squeezed it to make it slightly dry. He put the cloth on Rhea's body and wiped around her arm.
"Finally, you cooled down."
Albur sighed in relief as he put the cloth on a table near the bed.
"Bro, you just fainted in a middle of nowhere. Albur, Mysty and Covie had to carry you into the hut while you are still glowing bright red!"
Rhea touched her forehead, and sighed.
"My apologies."
Albur stared at Havoc for a second, and picked him up. Rhea slowly sat up, she leaned back on the wall.
"Now, you rest, ok? Covie healed most of your injuries made by the burn and pulled muscles. You should be good after a while. "
Albur stood up and prepared to walk out. Rhea looked at her hands, and looked at Albur.
"Why do you help me?"
Albur stopped, and sighed.
"What a stupid question, we are a team."
"No, why do you help me? I thought you....."
Albur smirked.
"I didn't forgive you FYI, I never. Plus, you killed him, yet you couldn't kill that monster."
Albur gripped onto Havoc, Havoc could feel he is crushed, he starting shrieking quietly.
"That makes his death worthless....I just helped you because I don't want to be seen as cold blooded."
Albur walked out of the room. Rhea looked down at her hands, she remembered the monster's roar, and Johnson's yell for help. She groaned, and leaned back on the wall.
"What have I done?"
Albur walked out of the moon hut. Mysty and Covie are standing outside. Covie is healing Mysty's burnt hand, the healing beam healed the injuries and turned her hand back to normal.
"There you go. "
"Thanks."
Mysty and Covie noticed Albur, they turned to him.
"How's Rhea?"
"She's fine."
They both nodded gently, Albur looked at Mysty's hand.
"You alright?"
"Yeah, I am."
"Still couldn't believe you are the one that withstood....."
"I know, you said that already. "
Albur smirked. He took out the energy detector. He pressed the buttons, it showed the core is tens of meters away from them, pretty near. Albur looked at his watch, it is already 6:30 p.m.
"We don't have much time until sunset, let's make this snappy."
Mysty and Covie nodded.
Covie set the trolley to auto mode and let it follow them. The crew continued the walk, again. They don't have much time, the surroundings will be very dangerous once night fell. The energy detector took them to another place near the edge of Xectar City.
After a few minutes, they reached an area. It is fenced and lots of signs such as biohazard, strictly no entry, and radioactive. The crew easily destroyed the fences using their weapons. Around this area, the energy readings spiked, the core is around here.
They walked into the area, guns cocked, fists tightened.
"Hey, you guys are strangely quiet."
"Not now, Havoc."
"(sighs) Still thinking about Johnson?"
"You don't understand, Havoc, didn't you see? Rhea bombed Johnson and entity, and now the entity is still alive. What does that make Johnson's sacrifice?"
"Worthless."
"EXACTLY!"
"Albur, calm down....."
Albur exclaimed in frustration and sighed heavily.
"That monster is horrifying as well, it can even mimic human voices flawlessly...." muttered Covie.
"He is even wearing Johnson's robot shell..."
"I really wanna kill that bastard....that smells like sewers...."
Albur kept muttering until he accidentally tripped and fell, Mysty quickly help him up.
"Watch where your going, gee."
Albur stood up, groaning. He looked at what he stepped on, and he was terrified. It is a human skull, wearing an explosive proof helmet, a word 'Epsilon' is seen at the back of the helmet.
"What the...."
Mysty looked around the area, then, she was completely shocked. In front of them is a huge white building. Near the building, more skulls and skeletons are scattered around the building. All of them have helmets and they hold laser rifles.
"Why are there so many skeletons here?"
Covie looked at one of the helmets, and scanned it.
"These look like the helmets in the equipment room of UTD."
Covie programmed the trolley to stay outside. The crew walked to the building, the door is locked with the reflection wall. Albur disabled it using Disabling Shot and bust open the door. But then, he tripped again.
"What the....why are there so many....."
He looked behind him, but what he saw terrified him again. Its a dead body. Mysty and Covie stepped in, and they were also shocked. Albur looked into the building, even more dead bodies are seen, with lots of blood trails on the floor. The whole room is filled with the smell of rotting bodies.
"Man, there is a slaughter here?"
Mysty looked at the walls, there is seemingly a logo on the wall, covered by blood stains. She scraped off the dried blood stains, and saw the word, 'C. Virus Research Laboratory'.
"Huh?"
Albur and Covie continued to follow the directions given by the energy detector. Mysty quickly caught up to them.
The 3 of them walked around the building, they even found a mop left on the floor that is pure red. Strangely, there are only the dead bodies of the UTD agents, in a place that looks like a laboratory, there are no bodies of scientists.
Shattered glasses are everywhere on the floor, virus substances are also seen in deeper parts of the building. Some of the dead bodies of the agents are seen squirming, Albur shot the squirming bodies before they turn into virus lifeforms.
The reached closer and closer to the core which they could tell by the more damp, wetter and squirming surroundings.
"Is this place the place the AC-23 virus was made?" Mysty looked at the structure of the building and asked.
"How do you know?"
"There is a word on the wall of the entrance written C. Virus Research Laboratory."
"Must be the lab Rale said was raided."
The crew reached a corridor with 2 rooms at their left and right. Suddenly, the energy detector's antenna pointed at Albur's left, whilst beeping rapidly.
"Welp, looks like we found the next core."
Albur turned to the room at his left. He turned the door knob, but the door was jammed. Albur used his rifle to blast the door, but when the metal door exploded and shattered, they found that the room was blocked with a thick wall of virus substances.
Albur charged Virus Corruption to its max power and fired at the substances. The corruption slowly melted the virus substances. The crew stepped into room, the room is huge, the whole room is covered with virus substances, the floor is soft, its like stepping on a bounce house.
"Ugh...disgusting....."
The crew split up and went to look for the core. Mysty looked at the tables in the room. Virus substances covered parts of them. Mysty found a few files on the table. She picked them up, the file flickers due to the corruption of the substances.
She looked at the words, they are reports of numerous computer viruses.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Report made in eleventh of January Year 8165
Virus TG-14
Characteristics: Yellow in color. Subject will cover whole systems and turn them faulty. When materialized, it will cause organisms and objects to be weakened.
Status: Abandoned and destroyed.
Reason: Required significantly longer time than projected to develop.
Report made in twenty first of October Year 8165
Virus OQ-62
Characteristics: Pink in color. Subject will instantly destroy systems when entering them. Overdose usage would cause device to be destroyed too. Never been materialized as the virus instantly destroys said device.
Status: Abandoned and destroyed.
Reason: Destruction level exceeded acceptable standards.
Report made in seventh of March Year 8166
Virus BP- 47
Characteristics: Blue in color. Jam systems and create blockage when materialized
Status: Concealed and deactivated for future researches.
Eleventh of September Year 8166
Virus XK- 30
Characteristics: Green in color.
Status: Stolen, later retrieved but Virus mostly damaged. Abandoned
Report made in First of April Year 8167
Virus AC-23
Characteristics: Purple in color. Able to rewrite codes in systems and take control of them. Never materialized.
Status: Concealed for future research.
Report made in ninth of April
Virus AC-23
Virus shown to be the only Virus that survived glitch infections. Reactivated for further research.
Report made in First of July
Virus shown to have higher capabilities than others. Experiments are conducted one by one.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Mysty want to see what are the experiments, but the virus substances corrupted the experiments file reports, making them unintelligible.
She wondered what is the goal of this research laboratory. Use these virus for safety problems? No, they aren't safe at all. For military uses? No, Earth had been in peace for a while, no country conflicts, no alien invasion. Mysty looked at the files in total confusion.
Albur looked through the drawers and tables. Covie pulled off chunks of virus substances. Finally, after Covie pulled off a huge chunk of virus substance on the wall, she found a round glowing virus substance, which is the core.
"Guys! I found it!"
Albur and Mysty turned to Covie, they quickly walk to her. Albur pointed the energy detector at the core, the readings spiked.
"Yes, this is it."
Albur aimed and fired his rifle at the core, though the core is very tough. Mysty helped Albur attack the core by firing her pistol at the core. Covie also helped tear the core to make it break. After a few minute of attacking, the core finally shrunk while leaking purple liquid, the whole room shook and the virus substances dried up and stopped glowing.
The crew sighed in relief, Albur's watch emitted a beep sound.
"7:p.m. Sun setting."