Johnson fired his robot claw using grapple hook mode and ascended to the roof of the room. Rhea flew up there using the rockets beneath her foot and Covie grabbed Albur and Mysty and flew up.
When they reached roof, they noticed a huge chunk of purple substances sticking on the wall. The large chunk sent out fibrous purple roots that caused the room's corruption. Albur fired a disabling shot at the substance and Johnson peeled a huge piece off the chunk. Surprisingly, there is a hallway in there. Johnson was confused and shocked.
"Is this thing originally here when the factory is built in the first place?"
The crew looked into the chunk of purple substances. They are all confused why is there a hallway in a wall that have no visible entrance other than this chunk of purple substances. Johnson glanced at those digusting looking substances and vanished into the digital world. But after a few seconds he is back.
"What the..." he murmured.
"What's wrong?" Asked Mysty.
"I can't go into this place in the digital world...."
"What do you mean by that?" Asked Albur.
Johnson vanished again, and reappeared again.
"This place is similiar to the walls of the tumor, it have very thick layers of the virus molecules even in the digital world. If I bring myself to the digital world in there I will surely get stuck there forever."
"What, why would this place have that wall though?"
"Must be because this place is near a core and is heavily corrupted."
The crew slowly stepped into the hallway, ths hallway have soft floors, wet air and squirms time to time. At the end of the hallway are two paths. One is a short path that leads to a dead end after turning left, and on the wall of the dead end, sits the core. A purple squirming ball with black stripes and glows faint light.
"Ah, yes, found the core."
Rhea took out her keychain size battle bot and turned it back to normal size. She cracked her knuckles and prepared to break the core. But then, little cracks appeared when the battle bot makes sudden movements. Rhea stood carefully to not collapse this whole place.
Albur stretched his limbs and yawned. Johnson watched Rhea punching and tearing the core, while staring at her other weapons in confusion. Mysty and Covie looked around, then, Mysty remembered there is a second path of this hallway. Out of curiosity she walked back to the fork of the road and walked into the second path. Covie followed her too.
As the 2 walked deeper into the hallway, it got tighter and more narrow, until the path led to a square hole. There is a ladder at the wall of the hole, leading to a dark abyss.
"Why is the structure here so weird and quirky?" Asked Covie.
"I guess we could only find the answer when UTD fully researched the tumor."
Mysty crouched and looked down into the hole. A cold breeze ran down her spine.
"Do you think I should yell? "
"What?"
"You know, to check if there's any survivors down there. Survivors like to hide in weird spaces to hide from monsters."
"Uh.... not sure about that, but, yeah.....go ahead."
Mysty looked down at the hole, and yelled.
"Hello?!"
The voice echoed, the 2 stood near the hole and waited for a response.
Seconds passed, not a single word is heard.
"Welp, seems like there's no one down there."
Mysty stood up. Covie rolled her eyes and the 2 begun to walk back.
"Hello! Is someone there?!"
Mysty and Covie froze, they slowly turned back to look at the ladder. Then another unintelligible voice came out from the ladder.
"Covie? You.... heard that?"
"Loud.....and clear...."
The 2 met eyes, and quickly hurried back to the location of the core. When they got there, Rhea is seen using the flamethrower attached on the battle bot's left thumb to burn the core. Albur and Johnson stood behind her.
"Guys! Guys! We heard something!"
Albur and Johnson turned to the two.
"What?"
"A voice, sounds like a survivor..."
Albur and Johnson's eyes opened wide, they stared at each other. Rhea heard Mysty's words and turned around.
"A survivor?"
"In this place?"
"Yeah, come, follow us."
Mysty and Covie ran back to that path, Albur and Johnson followed up. Rhea looked at the core, she burned it even harder and finished it with a kick, the core then shrunk and shrunk while leaking purple liquid, the whole hallway shook and the purple substances dried up and stopped glowing. She closed the flamethrower and caught up to the crew.
They stood by the ladder, Mysty shone her flashlight at the ladder, but it hardly brightened up anything.
"Visibility falls out pretty quickly, this think must be really really deep."
"What's with that formal language."
"None of your business."
Albur looked at the ladder, and held onto one of the flat plates. The plate immediately collapsed once Albur gripped onto it. The parts fell into the deep abyss, and the falling sounds were only heard after 15 seconds.
"You sure there is someone down there? You're not hearing Covie or us or you're hearing things?"
"No, I am sure I...."
"Hello!"
A feminine voice came out from the abyss, everyone slowly turned their head to the ladder, they all heard it.
"There really is a survivor down there!"
"Damn it, we have to save her immediately, this place have high amount of AC-23 virus in the air."
Rhea quickly took out the area scanning device.
"Covie, let down your arms, I'm going down to take her out." Albur reloaded his rifle and took a few steps forward.
"You can't go down there alone, let me come with you." said Mysty.
"That place looks dangerous, let me go instead." Johnson stopped Mysty. The others was surprised by Johnson's words.
"Huh, doesn't look like your style, John. You aren't like this during the first infection." said Albur.
"Say no more, I'll go."
Mysty and Albur met eyes, and smiled. Johnson held onto his minigun and pulled the reload trigger.
Covie made her arms long and strapped it on Johnson and Albur's waist. Albur slowly gripped onto the edge of the hole, and signaled Covie to slowly let down her arms. Covie slowly let Albur down the hole. Then, when Albur touched the ground, Covie slowly let Johnson down into the hole.
When Johnson reached the ground, Covie let go both of her arms. Albur and Johnson looked at each other, and nodded.
"Testing 1,2,3, John, can you hear me? Do you copy?" Rhea's voice came out from Johnson's walkie talkie.
"Heard you." Johnson replied in a dried emotionless tone.
Albur smiled at Johnson, he smirked and held onto his minigun.
Albur opened the flashlight on his watch, but the light flickers and appears darker than last time.
Johnson activated his flashlight, his screen emitted a beam of bright light, it nearly made Albur go blind.
"Man, don't open a light source that bright in front of someone!"
"My bad."
The 2 looked at their surroundings. The area is extremely tight and narrow compared to the previous one Albur and Mysty explored. It is also crawled with fibrous substances but this time the space is pretty clean and less rocky.
"Survivors sure know where to hide, this place doesn't seem to be an ideal hunting ground for those virus lifeforms."
"Say less, let's go get that survivor out."
"What do you guys see down there?"
"Same like the previous area, but way tighter, and more smoother."
Johnson peeled off a few fibrous substances and scanned the walls they attached on.
"These fibrous things seems to be eating the walls."
"My apologies, eating?"
"Like, they are destroying the walls bit by bit instead of weakening them, it may be absorbing energies from it."
"If that's the case, it explains why there are so many underground structures that shouldn't exist."
"But some structures are laid out like a deliberately designed corridor, that doesn't make sense if it was pure consuming the structure." said Albur.
"Well then I guess next time we save survivors from this kind of place we gotta bring a camera down there."
"For what? Give the footage to who? UTD?"
"Otherwise?"
"Ok."
Albur signaled Johnson to follow him, Johnson walked by Albur's side.
"Any signs of lifeforms down here?" Albur asked Rhea through the walkie talkie.
"Nothing, not from what I can see, but there seems to be only one sign of life down there other than the 2 of you. "
"Must be the survivor."
The 2 walked down the narrow path and kept yelling to find the survivor. But since Rhea could spot where the survivor is, they could just follow Rhea's instructions to find the survivor. The walls of the path are mostly dried up due to the core being destroyed.
"All sides are clear, the reading points that you guys gotta go to the right."
Albur and Johnson turned right, but then, they saw something that made their jaw fell on the ground, they saw red stains on the floor, too red to be paint. Its like there was a slaughter down here.
"Now this is bad..."
"Is the survivor still gonna be alright? This is a lot of....."
"Try yelling again."
Albur yelled,
"Hello! Is anyone there?"
Then, a muffled yell is heard across the room.
"Seems like the survivor is still able to talk."
"Quick, we have not much time."
Johnson and Albur hurried towards the source of the sound. When they got there, they saw a large area, with 3 paths. One at the left, one at the front, and another at the right.
"Rhea, we saw 3 paths leading to different directions, what now?"
"Uh....the reading shows.....wait....."
"What's wrong?"
"CONTACT! 9 o'clock!"
Albur and Johnson quickly turned to their right and shone the lights before raising their weapons. Then, they saw something, a humanoid figure, standing at the dark path, both hands up.
"No! No! I need help! I am stuck here! Don't fire at me!" A feminine voice is heard from the figure.
Albur lowered his weapons,
"Ma'am? Are you the one who yelled for help?"
"Correct! Correct! Please! I need help! I wanna go out!"
"Relax, relax, we're here to help, we.....saw lots of blood outside, are you....."
"Wait, Albur." Johnson interrupted Albur.
"What?"
"Hey female, is the life signs in front of us far from us or very close?"
"Why? It's....not considered near...."
Johnson looked at that figure.
"Ma'am, please step out of the path."
"My leg is hurt! I couldn't hold on no more...."
Johnson looked confused, Albur was confused by Johnson's actions.
"Uh...John, Albur..."
"Yes?"
"The energy readings.....of the life sign is abnormally high."
Johnson and Albur looked at that figure, they slowly backing away.
"Why are you going away? Please, I need help!"
The figure started to walk to them, but, that's where they saw something strange. The humanoid figure isn't walking like a normal human, it is more like crawling on 3, even a 4 year old toddler know very well that isn't limping.
Then, the figure's voice became distorted and slowly turned into a growl, it is way larger than a human being. Albur and Johnson backed even more.
"That's not a survivor....." muttered Johnson.
"What?"
"....there's no way that's A XXXXXXX SURVIVOR!" yelled Johnson.
"Open fire!" Yelled Albur.
Albur and Johnson fired their weapons. The figure started charging towards them whilist roaring, the bullets did no significant damage.
Albur fired Hyper Blast followed by Virus Corruption but they did little damage. Johnson fired energy bullets from the claw but they did the same effect. The 2 backed off the place where the space is extremely tight and narrow, fighting won't have much advantage.
"AWWWW SNAP!"
"Run! Bucko! RUN!"
"Albur! John! Do you copy? Speak! What do you see? What's going on?"
The 2 turned around and started running. The figure, or monster's roar across the whole area, distorted and cut-off voices are also heard from it.
"Albur! John! What is going on?!"
They kept running and running. Albur quickly pressed his walkie talkie.
"Rhea! This is an emergency! There's a monster down here! Let Covie send down her arms! Quick! Its IMMEDIATE!" Albur yelled.
Johnson pressed his claw that made a screen with many buttons. He quickly swiped through it.
"What are you doing?!"
"I'm looking for my digital world pistol! I'm gonna send this BASTARD to the digital world and let it get stuck there!"
Johnson found the button and pressed it, the digital world pistol appeared on his claw. But then, the monster leaped, it grabbed Johnson and pinned him to the ground.
"No! Johnson!"
The monster roared and prepared to bite Johnson. He tried to slice its limbs, but its limbs are way too tough. Johnson could only brace its mouth using his minigun.
Albur activated slot 3 and charged up. He then fired a stronger Virus Corruption. It hit the monster, and made it let go of Johnson. Albur quickly helped Johnson up and they continued to run. It last, they reached the ladder at the hole. Covie's arms are already there, standing by.
Albur and Johnson quickly rushed to her arms and tied it at their waist and pulled it gently.
"This is Albur! I'm here! Pull us out!"
"This is John! Same here!"
The arms quickly retracted, bringing both of the up. The monster ran to them, scratching on the ground and walls. It tried to use the ladder, but it was torn off the moment it tried to climb it. The 2 of them squeezed through the tiny square hole and reached the surface.
At the surface, the worried sick gals are standing in front of the hole. Albur and Johnson panted as the two of them were pulled up to the ground, Covie unwrapped her arms and let them return to her.
"Are you two ok? Are you hurt?"
"No...phew.....wait....let me catch a break...." Albur panted and coughed.
Rhea looked at Johnson who was panting too.
"What did you guys saw down there?"
"A...monster....bullets don't deal much damage to it...." Johnson said while panting, almost about to throw up.
But then, suddenly, a giant purple hand grabbed Johnson's leg. It was the monster, it climbed all the way up by using its claws. It screeched and pulled Johnson to it. Johnson quickly clenched himself on the ground using his claw. The crew was shocked.
"What the.....xxxx! Help! XXXX!"
Covie quickly rushed to pull Johnson. Mysty also went to do the same. Albur kicked the monster's face and fired Hyper Blasts. The monster roared as another hand of it rose and smashed the wall next to Johnson, making it collapse. The walls and the floor begun cracking and the whole room shook.
Albur fired more Hyper Blasts but his rifle was jammed by the overheat. Mysty ran towards the monster and fired her taser but did nothing. The monster roared and snarled as it pulled even harder.
"Rhea! Help!" Yelled Albur.
Johnson kept trying to slice the monster, but its skin is too tough. Its claws slashed Johnson's claw, which made the button screen malfunction to and spat out many things of his that can be seen on the button screen. The monster kept struggled to pull Johnson down, and roared like thunderstorms.
"Xxxx! Help! Do something! ITS PULLING OFF MY XXXXX LEG!"
Rhea aimed her rocket launchers at the monster, but then, she saw something. She saw the whole factory cracking and she hesitated to fire.
"Rhea! What are you doing! Come help!"
"Guys! Do something! I DON'T WANNA DIE!" Johnson yelled.
Rhea looked at her rockets, and clenched her fists hard.
She then pushed Albur, Mysty and Covie away, and grabbed the monster's arm.
"I'm sorry..."
Rhea unleashed a flash bomb. The bright light blinded the whole crew as well as the monster. But just as Albur recovered from the flash. A huge explosion occurred, the whole place exploded. The crew was sent flying.