*( mood song: "Rinocerose - Fighting the Machine")

As she saw Erik sadly walking away with the other's, Amanda murmured "did I do something wrong? but I was sure... sigh..." sighing "well... the last piece to be complete..." she turned to the side and her bot passed her her AI core, and she installed it in her new body's belly, closing the skin afterwards.

Amanda: "ah... this feels... great... so this is having a body..." she marveled as she felt touch and other sensations for the first time.

Rose: "hey! contemplate the meaning of life in your free time! we are in a hurry now!"

Amanda's eyes dilated as she snapped out of her thoughts "c-coming, sorry!" and ran after the others with her bot running behind her "ugh... it's hard to control two bodies..."

They then went back to the secret lab and the door to the Forge was still closed as they left it, the corpses of the infected lizardmen still there.

Erik: "So... do we search the rest of the secret lab? there are still two other areas"

Rose: "hmm... yeah, that would be for the best, also... I've redirected the heat pumps from the Forge to here so this place should get quite hot"

Erik: "can your new body even sweat?"

Rose: "oh no no, this body doesn't use the barbaric method of losing body fluids to cool itself, I can redirect the heat to heat sinks in my back and my metallic hair are actually heat sinks for the processors in my head"

Erik: "Oh... okay... so... let's go?"

Rose: "yeah, the rest of the place I can access to it, one is a big storage room and empty monster cells, I will send the bots to search it though most things should have decayed... and the other seems like the livable area, rooms, a restroom, a kitchen, and a dining area"

Erik: "oh... so they did prepare well after all..., guess they never expected that parasite monster to escape..." and shrugged

Rose then put down the heavy machine on the floor and left her bots watching after it as she advanced to the living quarters "let's go, we will pick that back up when we go out"

Erik: "alright, by the way... why is your skin so shiny?"

Rose: "oh that... that's dermal denticles on the skin, they are really small and metallic so that's why they make my skin glow, this way bacteria can't stick to my skin and it reduces water resistance significantly, sharks in your planet also have skin like this"

Erik: "interesting... would it be feasible to add them to the power armors and dive suits?"

Rose pointed back with her right thumb as they kept walking side by side "with that synthesizer back there it is, it's much better than the ones at the base"

Erik: "didn't you had a better one?"

Rose: "I did, not anymore though... only around 10% of the bases should remain in a broken but fixable shape, the rest are hopelessly destroyed..."

Erik got closer and patted the side of the big armor she was in "...we will take it one step at a time Rose, one step at a time, time makes the impossible possible"

Rose: "...that's not-"

Erik: "it's just a saying" they stopped at the entrance of the first room and the door slid open with a scratching noise "these doors need some oiling" the lights blinked on and he saw a room full of big egg shaped pods in a dark silver color "what are those Rose?"

Rose: "This is their recreation room, and those are neural virtual reality pods, inside they can do whatever they wanted to relax, wanna try? we could take one or repair one... (･ิω･ิ)"

Erik: "well, that's nice and all but most of this device is just the bed right? it could be made smaller for transport and build those parts myself"

Rose: "well that's true, you don't need those life support systems designed for giant lizardmen... with some tweaking, it should be compatible with your brainwaves, so... wanna try?"

Erik: "Yeah, I really liked neural virtual reality back on Earth, the device was complicated without extensive knowledge in how the brain works, as I could end up damaging my brain... so I had given up on making one, just the avatar control helmet took a really long time"

Rose came out out of the armor and gracefully jumped to one of the pods, punching one of the buttons and landing next to Erik "oh, no worries about that, no one should know more about your brain than me" the pod opened revealing a big 10 meters long bed with a big helmet "great, now..."

Erik: "wait what?!" she grabbed Erik in a princess carry, easily jumping to the pod even with the weight of Erik's power armor.

Inky: "what about me?!" with Inky shouting from below.

Rose: "sorry, I haven't scanned your brain yet" and Rose just shrugged, carrying Erik to the helmet and laying him close by, she then ripped the helmet apart and selected lots of components, spitting on them and putting them together into a smaller helmet.

Erik: "...why you spit on them?"

Rose: "oh, that's just liquified nanobots, they will join together the parts and complete the circuit for now, I will make a final version once we are back..." she then closed her eyes for a few seconds and the pod lit up "that's it, power redirected, now..." she enclosed the circuitry in a mesh structure and patted the padding beneath them that was rotten and hard by now "just lay down, I changed the language settings already so don't worry and enjoy (๑˃̵ω˂̵)ﻭ"

Erik nodded and did as told as Rose put the helmet covering his entire head except the face "now relax as it should connect in 3... 2... 1...-"

Erik's vision faded as he appeared in a dense jungle, enormous trees and animals around him but they just ignored him, leaving Erik gasping at the spectacle.

Erik couldn't help murmuring out loud "where the hell is this..." as his avatar was just a normal human but the animals all around seemed to ignore him.

Then the floating head of Rose appeared out of nowhere.

Erik: "wow! wtf?!" scaring Erik due to the sudden apparition.

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Rose: "...don't be so surprised, I'm connected to everything after all... anyways this seems to be a meditation room with the landscape of the jungles back on their homeworld you won't be damaged in here, so just walk around as you please"

Erik: "that's neat..." he observed a giant monster ripping another apart and just went through it and squatted in front of it "and the lizardmen meditate seeing this? it's a bit messed up..."

The Rose head grew two floating arms and shrugged, the arms then disappearing with a puff of smoke "it's their planet and they are carnivores, but most importantly... who cares..."

Erik: "well, in that you are right, so how do I navigate the other functions?"

Rose: "think the word *menu* and the menu will appear, then just select a custom environment or the preloaded ones into this machine"

"Alright..." Erik did as told and a blue menu appeared in front of him, then he opened a list of environments "city, desert, lake, recreation building... lets first try the city..." he clicked on it and appeared in a city with enormous stone skyscrapers, and paved ways, a street full of thousands of lizard people that walked around him, but he could walk through them, to the right he saw then a giant meat market with holographic giant beasts that moved and growled "wtf..."

Rose's head popped to existence near his shoulder again "yeah, according to the description this is a completely simulated city so everything is an accurate representation, they grow those animals in cloning pods and then you can choose the meat parts you want... hmm it even has taste implemented and infinite money, wanna try?"

Erik: "yeah... but I don't wanna eat raw meat, any food stalls nearby?"

Rose: "...yeah, next street"

Erik: "great... also, can you set my height as a lizardman? I can barely see with so many tall scaly bastards around"

Rose: "alright~" Erik grew until he was one head taller than the average lizardmen "better?"

Erik stretched a bit and got used to the new body "yep, much better" now able to see the street in front of him, he soon saw food stalls, a kebab looking food stand catching his attention as he got closer as the meat was mildly yellow, making him murmur "interesting..." and order one ration, they didn't charge him money as the lizard woman owner of the stand used a sharp rotatory disc to cut perfectly roasted strips of meat and putting them in a paper cone gave to him with a sharp toothy smile.

Erik bit it and instantly liked it "tasty... it's like... chicken and shrimp flavor... strange but tasty, let's try a bit more... oh yeah, do you want some Rose?"

Rose: "Nah, I'm busy scanning for any useful information"

Erik: "come on just one bite" and put a piece of meat neat the floating head.

Rose: "....fine (´_ゝ`)" and bit it, chewing it up.

Erik: "how was it?"

Rose: "I have no like, dislikes or references other than your memories when it comes to food, so if you like it then that's fine by me (✿◠‿◠)"

Erik: "hmmm... okay but we should look for something both of us can enjoy..."

They then tried different foods and visited a cinema, a game place and a concert with weird sibylline music

Erik: "are you having fun?"

Rose: "hmm... I don't know.... maybe?"

Erik sighed: "...hah... this won't do, you aren't having fun... hmmm... Oh... I got an idea... this ain't a real world, so it's not the same but... how about a little pre revenge?"

Rose: "so you want me to simulate my own revenge?"

Erik shrugged "why not?"

Rose: "hmm... you might be right... could be liberating... wanna help? ( ^ ω ^ )" a counter appeared over each of their heads as Rose's complete new body materialized along with a pile of weapons and ammo.

Erik grabbed a heavy electrically activated Gauss machine gun "wow Rose, these usually were mounted on tanks back on Earth... I like this design..." he put on the cores battery and ammo backpack, and grabbed the heavy machinegun cannon, turning it on as it hummed to life "hohoho~ merry carnage~ your turn to pick Rose.

Rose: "hmm... it's something I saw in your memories, im sure you will like it~" she then grew as she grabbed two big gas tanks onto her back and a flamethrower connected to them.

Erik: "just a flamethrower?"

Rose: "hehe~ not just a flamethrower, but THE FLAMETHROWER, CIF3 and Oxygen containers together and coming out of a small nozzle at enormous pressures, CIF3 burns at 2400°C and even produces toxic acid clouds as a subproduct of burning, catching even stone on fire, so if I add pressurized oxygen to that... hehe~ you will see~"

Erik's eyes dilated as what could be called a dragon breath came out of the flamethrower, setting 20 meters forward of the street in a sea of flames, the lizard people were carbonized as they ran away and died one after another, the buildings themselves catching on fire as the flames clung to anything they touched as the buildings dripped lava as they burned, the flames burning way brighter thanks to the oxygen mix.

Erik was a little appalled at the gruesome carnage, but side looking at Rose's slight smile he sighed and opened fire, it was a virtual world anyway.

*ZWOOOOMMHHH!!!* Just the sound as the metal pieces exited the barrel and the humm of the electromagnets was astounding as the Mach six projectiles shredded everything in front of them.

Erik: "damn... shouldn't there be some recoil?"

Rose: "Oh, so you wanna make it *super Realistic* now?"

Erik: "...meh... this is fine, let's keep on with the carnage"

--- hours later ---

They mowed the city to the ground, leaving only burning rubble and carnage behind.

Erik: "So... do you feel any better?"

Rose: "hmm... not really, well maybe a little bit, but it just feels like something I need to do so they stop trying to attack me... it's more like... the fear of them attacking again... I just wanna live..."

Erik sighed and with a thought disconnected finding a sad Rose beside him as he stood up and hugged her.

Rose: "wha-?"

Erik: "shh... now you can feel the hug right?" he also patted her head "do you feel calmer now?"

Rose hugged him strongly, almost crushing his ribs as she buried her face in his shoulder "yeah... thank you Erik"

Erik: "I'm glad... please control your strength, even my reinforced bones can barely take it..."

Rose quickly released her strength then "ah! sorry, are you okay?"

Erik: "Yeah, I'm okay don't worry, let's just get out of here..."

Inky by the side made herself known "ehem!, it was about time you unconnected from that, it's not fun if not everyone is having fun!"

Erik: "I agree to that" he turned to Rose "what do we need to take off from this pod?"

Rose: "oh that, I already copied all data and analyzed all the hardware, so maybe the scanners" she cut the cables from the helmet, taking it off "and the processor core" then ripping apart the bed and taking out a spherical device "these are hard to make too"

Erik: "why not take them all then? we might need to make pods for the others in the near future"

Rose shrugged "sure why not"

And they spent one hour taking the pods apart, when they finished they took the cores to the first room and went back to exploring.

The next room had lots of gigantic metallic bunk beds now rotten, it was dusty and would take too much time so after a light search around only finding rotten down clothes, and they only tore two suits to make a poncho for Rose and Amanda to cover their new bodies and kept exploring.

Then the next room was a kitchen, with way oversized furniture, most tools inside were in decent condition aside from a bit dusty, the food was all dust by now though, they walked on the dusty floor as Erik grabbed a big kitchen knife.

Erik: "are these worth taking?"

Rose: "it's just steel with a diamond coating, nothing special, you can take it as a sword if you want, but your actual sword will cut that like butter".

Erik: "interesting... diamond coatings were a novelty back on earth, they were made by growing diamonds over millions of small diamond seeds covering the surface of the knife and then polishing them with diamond powder... oh well..." he turned to Amanda "here, a provisional weapon".

To which she just shrugged and accepted it.

Then next they arrived at a sealed room at the end of the hallway, but using the black cube from earlier they managed to open it. Inside they were surprised to find a metallic gray column with a floating crystal core in the middle, and Rose visibly got angry when she saw it.

Erik: "what's wrong Rose?"

Rose: "...that's a hacking core... it uses a beast crystal to store hundreds of codes to be executed in an instant and launch millions of cyber attacks in an instant, it's like installing millions of hacking programs in an instant..."

Erik: "is it worth anything now? maybe we should destroy it if it isn't"

Rose walked to it and picked it up from the metallic column and magnets containing it "maybe... not for now though, but I will create defenses for every single code, if the lizardmen or other allies are still alive they will probably have something more advanced, so I need to improve my defenses..." she then opened her chest and put the crystal inside, closing it again "there it will be safe".

Erik: "agreed, by the way... did the bots find anything?"

Rose: "well, all the lab animals were luckily dead but they did find something useful"

Erik: "Oh? what is it?"

Rose clicked her tongue "hehe~ you will see, don't worry~ don't worry~"

Erik: "fine..."