"Everyone! Over here! Doctors are you two able to go out without my help?"
Within the now locked down building is Carlo Simmons who is currently assisting the doctors to go to the evacuation room.
"Yes Mr. Simmons. The moment me and Dr. Angelo and I turn right here, we will enter the evacuation room. It's beast proof and can even hold itself against a lord rank."
Carlo nods and says.
"Good! Sit tight there and wait until the facility's problem is contained."
Dr. Claire nods while Dr. Angelo is stuck in his own mind, seemingly angry at something or someone.
"That vermin... Grrr... I will rip its head apart once I find him..."
Carlo ignores the grievances Dr. Angelo is currently spouting and goes to leave.
Once gone from the doctors, Carlo immediately turns to a right hallway that's leading to a different part of the lab.
Now where is that room...
----------------------------------------
Elizabeth what the hell are you doing?!
While the whole facility was evacuating, Elizabeth saved the lives of the many scientists and staff that were left behind but... She also killed 4 escaped test subjects...
Plunder...
Verb.
To steal goods from (a place or person), typically using force and in a time of war or civil disorder.
Stealing company property.
Elizabeth looks at the 4 beautiful white cores inside her clothing.
Check!
Using force.
Elizabeth remembers killing those test subjects.
Check!
Time of disorder and panic.
Elizabeth looks around and sees the burning parts of the building and constantly blaring alarms.
Check!
Yep, this is Plunder.
Noooooooo!
Elizabeth screams on the inside as she let her greed take over her common decency. She allowed herself to take from the company without their consent.
Wait! They don't know about the cores! So it's not stealing right?
Ahh, the common dilemma of a first time thief. They always try to rationalize themselves.
Elizabeth gives up at this point. She knows she's doing something illegal...
While sighing, Elizabeth starts to move and go to other parts of the building to look for other people and possibly help them.
She ignores the blaring sound of the alarms everywhere.
She also ignores the throbbing pain in her arms since the usage of mortal charge and mortal fist drained her strength and stamina considerably, especially now that she's using strength too strong for her current body.
Elizabeth reaches a part of the building she's not familiar with and starts to look around for other people.
Once she's done, she realizes she's alone.
"Maybe... I should start absorbing a core... There are other beasts here that might be more powerful than those I killed. And the thief... I doubt it managed to escape, so it's probably waiting around the facility."
Elizabeth mulls over whether she should absorb a core now or later.
Eventually she remembers the dangers of this area and the enemies she currently has.
I'm sorry, I need to become stronger.
Elizabeth finds a secluded area and takes out a core.
She plays around it in her hands.
"...it's... beautiful"
Even touching it sends sparks of energy inside her body, livening her core.
She recalls the instructions set upon her by her master and she starts to absorb the core.
The core's pristine exterior suddenly cracks as a small amount of energy starts to seep out, infusing itself into Elizabeth's body.
*Crack*
The core starts to crack even more, releasing more power.
The core then explodes.
Energy suddenly releases itself all over Elizabeth, overshadowing her whole body but the energy's release suddenly stops as they all get sucked back into Elizabeth.
Elizabeth sucks in air as all the energy goes into her pores. She circulates all the energy throughout her body and back to her core.
Every vein and every muscle of Elizabeth is now infused with greater energy and power compared to before.
Elizabeth opens her eyes and it momentarily glows golden before returning to its original abyssal dark color.
Elizabeth breaths out and power from her muscles and body flexes as she enjoys her new strength.
"4th level of physique tempering..."
This time no mucus or disgusting liquid comes out of Elizabeth's body and her body ache disappeared.
Elizabeth stands up and calculates just how much energy she needs to reach the 5th level but was disappointed to find that she'd at least need 7 more physique tempering beast cores.
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This meant she needed to kill 7 more evobeasts bringing the total to 10 cores.
She gripped her fist and made an approximation of her own strength.
A minute later, she realizes that she can easily lift 1100 kg, release a punch of the same strength and release a kick of 1400 kg. Her running speed managed to reach 60 kph.
Great! My strength is greater than a mob level meta human! A few more levels and I can slowly even go further normal meta humans.
With Elizabeth's current strength, she's just a few levels weaker than the required minimum for signing up to take a hero program. Fortunately, Elizabeth's current speed already surpasses the speed of normal meta humans.
Once I reach the 5th level of physique tempering, I can try out joining the hero program.
Standing up, Elizabeth starts to go further in the building looking for more unfortunate staff members.
*Click*
*Click*
*Click*
The sound of a tough object hitting another tough object starts to reverberate all over the building where Elizabeth is.
Frowning, she looks around looking for the source of noise.
Elizabeth finds herself in the middle of a hallway and when she turns around, she sees a car sized ant.
She sees the ant clicking its mandibles.
"..."
The ant seems to stare at Elizabeth with a hungry look.
"Oh... Well I can try out my new strength then. Without using my mortal charge ability."
The ant and Elizabeth stares at each other, preparing to charge at any moment.
Then it happens.
Elizabeth moves forward with great speed jumping up, catching the ant by surprise.
The ant then spews greenish liquid.
Elizabeth manages to dodge but the liquid hits the metal wall, quickly melting it.
Elizabeth ignores it for now and lands behind the creature.
Elizabeth launches a powerful kick behind the ant and it flies with great speed towards a wall.
*Crash!*
Debris flies everywhere as the ant destroys a large portion of the wall.
Metal pipes hidden inside the wall suddenly spring loose as the ant tries to stand up.
Elizabeth marvels at her new strength and grabs a metal pipe that got dislodged from the wall.
This unfortunate ant is a mob rank evobeast and while it is stronger than a normal meta human, it is no match for Elizabeth's skill and increased strength.
The ant manages to stand up and turn around but it is too slow. Elizabeth already charged forward and immediately stabbed the ant's brain with the metal pipe.
It drops down, dead.
Elizabeth then continues to do the process of solidifying the core and then extracting it.
A few minutes later she removes the core.
*gasp*
Elizabeth's heart suddenly stops as she hears a person's gasp besides her.
Looking to the hallway, she sees a very burly and suspicious looking man... With a bunch of files and papers in his hands.
----------------------------------------
Hidden from the building's main rooms, a young and charismatic man is currently walking towards a room that caused all the building's commotion.
"The archives."
Carlo Simmons stares at the metal plate on top of the room which says 'Archives'.
He notices the open door and frowns.
Someone else took a copy of the files which means, he might have an enemy in the future.
Going inside, he notices that the archives is an extremely large room with rows and rows of bookshelves and computers.
Smiling, Carlo Simmons rummages within his clothes, taking out a small device which he throws deep into the room.
The small metal object stops then suddenly opens, releasing a powerful but controlled burst of electromagnetic pulse which shuts down the archive's security systems but not the computer systems.
Once the security systems were shut down, Carlo goes in with a USB and starts plugging it in computers which starts to take files and delete the copies of the company.
He also starts to take the files in the bookshelves, storing them in a miniaturized space within a ring on his left hand.
Unfortunately some of the files are missing but Carlo is satisfied enough to get the smaller files which will still help his company.
Once he got all the important files left and deleted the company's copies, he goes to leave.
Truly unfortunate, these people are unfortunate to have been gifted with such luck only to be taken from them.
Carlo then smiles with his eyes closed. It was a smile that seemed very deep and showed many meanings.
When Carlo goes to leave the archives he eventually reaches a hallway.
Immediately he hears a small gasp from deeper in the hallway.
To his surpise he sees two unlikely individuals.
A very burly man holding papers that he assumes to be the important files and a very bloody looking Elizabeth with a white core in her hand which Carlo saw she took from the giant beast embedded onto the wall.
----------------------------------------
Elizabeth suddenly looks afraid but her serious composure returns as she sees Carlo. Suddenly she notices the storing ring in his left hand which wasn't there earlier.
Her eyes suddenly go sharp as she notices how Carlo looks at her and the burly man.
I guess I wasn't the only one who took advantage of the situation. I can't assume yet... I still need to make sure.
Before Elizabeth could say anything, Carlo shouts.
"MY GODDESS! I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR YOU!"
The burly man suddenly bolts.
Carlo and Elizabeth suddenly go quiet as they react immediately, chasing the man.
Elizabeth is twice as fast as Carlo and she notices that Carlo wasn't a strong meta human.
But Carlo didn't seem afraid as he continued to pace with Elizabeth.
Elizabeth notices that Carlo was wearing speed enhancers below his body thus allowing him to keep up with Elizabeth's speed.
While running, Carlo speaks with enthusiasm and elated energy.
"My goddess! I've been looking for you! The doctors asked me to save you!"
Not believing for one bit, Elizabeth ignores him and continues chasing the man.
The man while running notices that he is slower than Elizabeth, so he starts opening a bag he brought with him.
He pulls out a small round ball and throws it towards Elizabeth and Carlo.
Elizabeth notices and immediately warns Carlo.
"Carlo! Be careful!"
Carlo simply nods and takes out an object from his storing ring.
It was a storing ring!
Carlo then throws the obect which collides onto the other object. Which creates a projected psychic forcefield.
*Bang!*
An explosion occurs inside the forcefield shaking the hallway but the two are unaffected and they continue running towards the man.
Elizabeth's face goes bright as she realizes that Carlo just used a state of the art weapon!
Her mouth opens to speak and ask about it but she clamps it close.
No! I'm the pretend rightful daughter of the Rielle family! I already have weapons like this! Huhuhuhu
Carlo suddenly notices the teary eyed Elizabeth and is supposed to ask, but Elizabeth, to appease her own petty desires, screams.
"You shouldn't plunder!"
Carlo raises an eyebrow then realizes that Elizabeth found him out.
"Tsk... Let's talk about it once we catch the thief!"
The man who was running takes out a sleek looking pistol from his bag and shoots.
It projects psychic energy that goes towards Elizabeth and Carlo.
The duo dodges with quick precision.
Elizabeth is fast enough to predict and dodge the bullets while Carlo dodges with machine assisted speed.
"Just die already!"
The man throws a grenade onto the two once more but Elizabeth who predicted it launched forward and kicked the grenade quickly to the front of the man.
*Boom!*
The pathway in front of the man explodes as he is pushed back to Elizabeth and Carlo.
He hits the ground in pain as the explosion would've turned his guts into mush if he wasn't a meta human.
He tries to stand up but sees that Elizabeth and Carlo is currently in front of him.
"Stay down if you know what's good for you"
The man suddenly quakes as he realizes that he might have failed.
He can't fail.
'I can't fail!'
The man immediately stands up and attacks Elizabeth.
Elizabeth knew that would happen and quickly used her strength and punched the man with quickness straight in the face.
"Geuhhh"
The man makes a horrible sound as he falls unconscious.
"Amazing! You truly are an amazing woman!"
Carlo praises the object of his admiration but it merits nothing except a cold look from Elizabeth.
"Those files retu-"
"Wait. Why not split it?"
Carlo smiles.
"Split the files?"
"I'm sure the Rielle family would appreciate the new information. It could lead to a brand new age of genius and prosperity."
Elizabeth quiets down waiting for Carlo to continue.
"Imagine artificial meta humans! I know for a fact that the Rielle family hates humans."
Elizabeth's face goes grim as her family's dirt is fully apparent to other organizations.
"Why would you offer this to me Simmons"
Carlo smiles.
"I am fond of making powerful allies and... It would be very easy to convince your father for your hand in marriage."
Elizabeth waves that off and grunts.
"Ughhh, shut up Simmons. We will return those files."
Carlo looks despondent as he knows Elizabeth is adamant about this.
'I don't want make an enemy of her. She's so perfect'
Sighing, Carlo says "Okay... We'll return the files I took but I have a condition"
Elizabeth chuckles.
"Heroes don't negotiate with thieves"
Carlo frowns.
"What about a friend then?"
Elizabeth smiles and nods.
"What's this condition?"
Carlo smiles brightly.
"You must go with me on a date!"
"This is plunder!"