Albur opened his eyes, his ears are ringing, his vision is blurred. He sat up and found his glasses are missing. He touched the floor, trying to search for it. But strangely, the floor felt soft, and wet. At last he found his glasses and put them on. When he can see clearly, he was shocked by his surroundings. He is inside something, a huge structure. The walls are purple and black and are squirming. He looked around him, the crew is lying on the floor, unconscious. Albur quickly turned to them and shook them gently.
After a while, Mysty opened her eyes, and later Johnson, Covie and Rhea. They groaned as they sat up.
"Are you guys OK?"
"Yeah....."
"Somewhat..."
Covie get back into good condition and flew up before healing everyone with her healing beam. Everyone stood up, looking around them.
"What the....."
"What is this place?"
The crew looked around the environment. Confused.
"Is this...that same purple substance Cluster fired into the sky?" Asked Mysty.
"Prob...." murmured Albur.
Johnson looked around him, he activated the scanner and scanned the walls.
"The analysis showed these are AC-23 virus components. " he said.
The crew touched the wall, it is slimy, slippery and damp.
Rhea took out her walkie talkie.
"This is agent Rhea, HQ, do you copy?"
The walkie talkie only had static noises.
"This is agent Rhea! HQ! Do you copy? I repeat! Do you copy? "
Still no answer. Rhea tried many times, yet nothing came out from the walkie talkie.
"Damn it....."
Albur reloaded his rifle and fired Virus Corruption at the walls. But the walls just devoured the bullets, like throwing rocks into mud.
Albur was confused, he then punched the wall, but his hands sank into the wall. Mysty immediately ran over to pull him out, preventing his hand from getting eaten.
The crew looked around the environment closely again. The area still seems to be Xectar City, towering buildings still stand but were all covered by purple liquid.
Rhea fired her rockets at the walls, which was devoured as expected. Rhea grunted in annoyance.
"Do you guys have any way to contact UTD outside this place?" She asked.
The crew shook their head. Albur tried using Disabling Shot on the wall but nothing happened when the shots lands. Johnson vanished into the digital world, only to come back immediately.
"The walls were blocked in the digital world as well. There is no way out."
The crew sighed. Suddenly, Rhea's walkie talkie buzzed. She quickly answered it.
"HQ? HQ? This is agent Rhea! Do you copy?"
The crew gathered around Rhea, waiting for the walkie talkie to respond. Then, a distorted voice is heard.
"Ag.....gg.....agent...R...h....rhea....aa...do.....y.y...you.....co.....copy?" It was Rale's voice.
"This is agent Rhea. I heard you director!"
Then, after a while, the distorted sound slowly stabilised.
"This is the director! Agent Rhea! Can you hear me?"
"Director Towelestone! I can hear you clearly! Sir, what is happening now?"
The crew focused listening to the walkie talkie.
"Are you all alright? Anyone injured? God we had been trying to contact you all for hours."
"No sir, everyone is safe and sound."
Rale sighed through the walkie talkie.
"Great, I assume you all notice you are surrounded by purple substances. "
"Yes, they all resembles the AC-23 virus. What's with this thing though?"
"From the outside it looks like a tumor. It showed to h.....ha...hav..v..v...." the signal became weak.
"Director? Director!"
The walkie talkie returned back to normal.
"My apologies, the signal is very weak. Anyway this tumor covered a large portion of Xectar City, and it is showed to be growing and growing."
"Can you find a way to get us out of here?"
"Unfortunately we haven't found a way to open a portal to lead you all out. Every type of contact was cut out, we are only able to communicate with you all using t....th...hhh....e....e.."
The signal weakened again. Johnson was irritated by it.
"he....very specialised device to bypass the virus blockage. It won't last long so we will be giving you all important information so listen carefully. "
The signal weakened once again.
"We are trying to open a portal to transfer you some resources, the portal is very weak so it won't be enough to fit a fully grown human. But...th....r.....oper...gas...has.....co.ce..core....."
"Director?"
The walkie talkie died, the voice vanished, not even statics could be heard. Rhea knocked the walkie talkie, but nothing happened.
"Curse it..."
The crew stared at each other, not knowing what to do.
Then after a couple of minutes, suddenly, a portal opened behind them. It is a very tiny and weak portal that is flickering and unstable. Then, a box was pushed put from the portal, after a while, it vanished.
The crew walked towards the box. They opened it, then, the box glowed, 2 pillars thrusted from the box. The crew backed away out of fear. The pillars stopped after reaching 2.5 meters and showed 4 buttons. The first button has a picture of a weird medal like thing, the second one has the image of a bottle of water, the third showed the symbol of food and the last showed the symbol of electricity,
"What are some of these things?"
Mysty searched the box, and found a digital tablet in there. She picked it up, it is a tablet written with words.
This is the resource box, unfortunately this will be your resources for now until we could open another weak portal. The resources we provided are 5 virtual hazmat suits, 50 bags of nutrient capsules, 400 bottles of 1 liter water, a few bags of lollipops, an energy provider and 2 hyper gems.
The virtual hazmat suits is used by attaching it onto your body and activate the button. It is used to prevent wounds to contact with anything in the tumor to prevent any infection. The water and nutrient capsules will be your food for now. For the energy provider we gave it specially for Mr. Albur Filix. The energy provider have 5 slots of high energy. Which can be used to awaken Harry's Virus for the strong powers, but there are only 5 so use them wisely, since we don't know when will we open another portal. The hyper gems will be your power source for now. Although they can be used to awaken the flash drive's power but it is highly not recommended for its unstable high energy nature.
Researchers found that the tumor is made out of pure energy of the AC-23 virus. The tumor is shown to be slowly expanding and devouring the planet. There are 5 cores that supplied energy to it. And calculations showed it will keep growing new cores every week, so your job is to destroy all the cores and prevent it from growing, the energy detector in the energy storage can help you find them. Also, we found there are a few not evacuated survivors in the tumor other than you all. If possible, save them as well. We will try our best to supply food through opening portals and dealing with the tumor. But also beware, virus lifeforms are detected roaming the area. Be careful. And good luck.
The words of the tablet ended there.
Albur pressed the button the resembles a medal like thing. Then, 5 medal like objects appeared in front of them.
"Is this the virtual hazmat suit the tablet is talking about?"
"I guess so."
The crew took the medals and attached them onto their shirt. They pressed the button and activated the suit. It formed a layer of barrier that surrounded their body.
"It feels strange...." murmured Covie.
Albur took the energy provider and attached it onto his rifle.
Johnson grabbed the energy detector from the energy storage from the box. He activated the detector and scanned the whole area. There are 5 places with extremely high energy, each one is scattered across the tumor, very very far away from each other. The crew sighed heavily, Rhea stared at them in confusion.
"I spent 3 months trying to forget this trauma and it came back to me." sighed Albur.
"I'm sick and tired of this...." Johnson reloaded his minigun.
"Let's just get going, complaining help with nothing." said Mysty.
Rhea scoffed and poked Johnson's head.
"This is the legendary crew that fought the mythical Commander Glitch? This is ridiculous." she mocked.
"Shut up female, no one asked for it." said Johnson.
Rhea and Johnson glared at each other and looked away.
"Thank goodness they don't argue like how you and Johnson did." said Mysty.
Albur looked at Mysty.
"Hey..."
"Kidding."
Johnson took out the energy detector. He studied it for a while, and pressed a series of buttons. Then, the screen on the energy detector enlarged into a hologram, showing the point of the high energy sources.
"Well, guess this will be our life for now. The Glitch Wipeout Crew, on action!"
"Wait hold on a second, you? You all consider this anger issue cyborg your captain?"
Albur and Mysty looked at each other and nodded.
"Obviously." said Covie.
Rhea burst out a laughter. Johnson is getting angrier and angrier.
"Hey.....John....calm down....." Albur took a few steps towards Johnson.
Johnson walked towards Rhea, each step cracked the ground.
"That.....is not...anger issues..." he muttered in anger.
Rhea crossed her arms.
"Then what emotion is this now? Fear? Sadness? Joy?"
The word emotion triggered the memory of Johnson. All those memories came back to bite him, but this time he forgot them quickly.
"Say that again one more time?"
Rhea scoffed.
"...that again one more time."
Johnson crashed out, he threw the energy detector on the floor and aimed his minigun at Rhea before firing it. Albur immediately rushed over and tried to stop him. Rhea blocked the bullets by simply using her arm,