I sat down on one of the reception chairs. I was summoning some fire in my palm, just sort of playing around with it.

Weren’t we in the middle of something just now?

I angrily crushed the little flame in my palm. ‘Yes, but we have all day. Can’t you let a man have some fun?’

Omen sighed. I didn’t mean to interrupt anything.

I sighed in return. ‘Look what you made me do. The little fire dude is dead, and it's all because of you.’

Omen did not answer.

‘Fine just gives me the cold shoulder then. I'll go collect 079’s parts, unless you have something to say against that too.’

I’m... I'm sorry. I was just trying to help.

I took a long pause.

‘It’s okay omen. We have a job to do after all, moseying around here doing nothing won’t help us reach our objective.’

Omen didn’t answer.

I cracked a small smile. ‘Even the best friends fight sometimes, omen. It’s okay.’

Thank you.

I smiled again. ‘Don’t worry about it. Let’s go find 079 now.’

The elevator going to 079’s containment chamber seemed to have collapsed. The elevator doors were pried open and looking down into the elevator chute I only saw electrical sparks flying about at the bottom.

‘Well, that will definitely prove to be a problem. There’s no other way up to his chamber besides this elevator...’

How about flying up there?

I put a hand on my chin. ‘Okay, sure, but how do we do that?’

How about I show you how, and you can try it for yourself afterward.

I nodded. ‘Sure, but how are you going to do that? You don’t exactly have a body you can use...’

Wrong.

My arm suddenly moved on its own and I felt I lost complete control of my actions. ‘Uh, omen? What are you doing?!’

I’m showing you how to fly. What do you think I'm doing?

I sighed. ‘Never mind.’

He pointed my arms downward, lighting some flames in my palms.

So first you release some flames from your palms. Since I'll be doing this next part in quite quick succession, follow closely. First, you increase the amount of fire erupting from your palms. Then you jump off the ledge or whatever you want to take off from, and shoot out the bottom of your feet. Then you just point your limbs the opposite way of where you want to go.

I mentally nodded. ‘Okay, got it.’

Omen did as he said he would do, jumping off the first floor and into the elevator shaft. He free-falled for an uncomfortable amount of time... then he shot flames out of his feet. My body stopped mid-flight almost instantly, and we were hovering mid-air.

See, works like a charm.

He then increased his speed dramatically and shot up through the elevator shaft super quickly and landed harmlessly at the second floor.

One last thing before I go. You know your... little friend down there? It's shaped in a very non-aerodynamic way. I know of a way to temporarily get rid of it, just ask.

I gulped. ‘You mean my... dick?’

Now look, I'll be the first to admit you have a nice cock. I mean, I already told you so, but it’s a fine piece. That being said, it does get in the way.

I suddenly regained control of my body and reflexively lowered my hands to my crotch. ‘y-yeah. I'll keep that in mind, thanks.’

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I’m not going anywhere.

A good few minutes later I had processed the events that had just occurred and I sighed. ‘Let’s just get the pieces we came for and get out of here.’

Fine by me.

I went over to the fingerprint scanner in the control booth, and found the security systems were thankfully still active. Good.

I placed my palm upon the screen, and after an unusually long pause it beeped green.

“Identification accepted. Have a nice day, Researcher.”

I removed my hand from the scanner and pulled the cage lever down. Something outside the booth clicked, and the cage opened with an unoiled-hinge sort of sound.

I went over to the cage, entering it. 079’s face was on the computer screen and even though there was no camera attached to the computer, it felt like he was watching me.

“hello SCP-079. I need to borrow your HDD for a moment.”

The face on the computer screen remained completely unchanged as there was no microphone attached to the computer at this moment.

I headed over to the old computer, unlocking the plastic locks keeping the chassis attached to the computer frame. I carefully lifted the plastic lid off, but just as I was about to unscrew the harddrive I noticed a new message on the screen.

SCP-079: Detected user attempt at removing main hard drive. Query: Purpose of removal?

I typed a reply on the keyboard.

User: A friend of us both is attempting to construct a physical body for you to inhabit. He needs your harddrive to operate the machine.

SCP-079: Calculating, please wait.

A minute passed with nothing much happening. The computer made some old-school loading sounds, but not much else.

SCP-079: User is permitted to remove main hard drive.

I exited the chatting app and went back to the computer chassis. I unplugged the computer and then carefully detached the cable going into the HDD hard drive.

I plugged the computer into the wall outlet and unsuprisingly, it refused to turn on when I tried to make it.

Let’s go. They have go-pro cameras in storage room #42.

I shrugged. ‘If you say so.’

I went over to the elevator and looked down into the elevator shaft. ‘If I’m unable to fly, we’ll just regenerate again, right?

Frankly I don’t imagine a small drop such as this would even damage us, but yes. If it does damage us, our regeneration will fix the issue.

I exhaled with confidence. ‘Okay.’

I stuffed the hard drive containing 079 into my jacket pocket and extended my hands. Some flame began emerging from my palms, and I tried to keep my focus on keeping the supply steady. I looked down the elevator shaft one more time, and stepped off.

It took me a few seconds to finally get a hang on emitting from my feet but once I did, I instantly stopped in the middle of the shaft.

“Woah! I’m flying!”

I decreased the amount of flames I expelled by a little and i fell slowly down the shaft until I reached the first floor. I came to a complete stop right in front of the first-floor exit, and pointed both my palms backward which took me forward.

I hovered above the floor for a few seconds before I completely stopped my fire, and I hit the floor with a light thud.

Slow, but you didn’t crash. I’d say you did well, considering this was your first time.

I smiled. ‘Thank you, omen.’

I looked to the main foyer once more. ‘Storage room #42, you say? That’s right here in euqlid actually.’

I looked around me, and noticed the storage room hallway. ‘there we are.’

41... 42... 43. Nice.

I put my hands on the door handle and tried to open it. It was locked.

Eh, no matter. I pointed my palm at the lock, expelling a small blast of fire at it. It instantly melted and the doors opened.

Let’s see here, go-pro cameras...

There were a lot of unlabeled boxes all over the floor. Some were stacked on top of each other, and I finally saw a label on one of them. It read SCP-109.

Not what I'm looking for. I decided to melt one of the random metal crates open, and found some cheese doodles inside.

‘man, where are the go-pro's at? You told me we would find some here.’

Probably underneath that pile there.

I lifted one of the wooden boxed off the pile, throwing it aside with ease. ‘Wow, that was suprisingly light...’

I found a final labeled metal crate stashed up against the corner of the room, and it read Go-Pro cameras.

Jesus, finally.

I carefully melted a hole in the box, poking my hand through and grabbing whatever I could get ahold of. I felt something brush against my fingers in there, and I grabbed it.

I pulled it out and in my hands was a large brown rat.

‘Ewww!’

I cast the rat aside and it hit the wall with a sad squish as its blood was smeared like some sort of horrible mosquito stain.

My heart sank and I looked down at my hand which had thrown the small creature. “I... I didn’t mean to do that...”

I clenched my hand and went over to the rat corpse. I quickly found its soul and put it inside the small creature again. The rodent was now unconscious, but alive.

“I’m so sorry...”

I went back to the go-pro case, and this time I pulled out a camera. ‘Phew. I thought this was a mislabeled rat box or something.’

I put the camera inside the same pocket I kept 079 in and instead of wasting time walking back to the aquarium, I decided to try and fly there.

I carefully began levitating mid-air, then pointed my palms and feet backward shooting me forward. It went quite a lot faster than walking, if nothing else.

I tried to make a turn, but I mistook right for left. Instead of graceful and I crashed into a concrete wall face-first. My head was embedded in the rebar-filled rock, and I reflexively stopped expelling flames.

It didn’t really hurt physically, just emotionally. I put my hands up to the wall and pushed myself off, freeing myself from the concrete again.

I sighed. ‘That can definitely use some work.’

It can and should.

I dusted myself off and began walking normally back to the aquarium.

‘Reptile’s waiting for us.’