Visette rushed to the first floor only to find a flood of a few dozen Corrupted spilling into the main entrance. With a flick of her hand, a volley of psionic bullets shot out, halting the horde as well as buying her a few seconds of time to escape.

Visette infused psionic power into her legs and kicked off the ground, heading straight for the stairwell. She waved her hand and the door to the stairwell slammed shut before crumpling tightly. It wouldn’t hold for long, but it would delay any immediate pursuit.

[...Get upstairs right now, Visette!] Lyn’s panicked voice rang out as Visette began to levitate upward.

It took her no time at all to reach the twentieth floor. She opened the door and found that the Fitz had yet to arrive in the elevator.

“Visette!” Lyn shouted from the end of the hallway. She and the rest of the team gazed out of the large windows of the upper offices.

“We have to retreat now.” Visette gave her opinion but soon approached the window as the others seemed too stunned to reply.

And the reason why became apparent to Visette as she gazed outside. Smaller buildings began to slowly crumble and as dust and debris filled the air while shrillish screams echoed throughout the entire city. An incomprehensible number of Corrupted emerged from newly formed ruptures in the ground, but they were the least of anyone’s worry. Brief flashes of a huge creature could be seen weaving in and out of the smoke. The plates of its outer carapace rubbed together, making an ear-grating sound that filled the air.

“What the fuck is that?” Fitz spoke up from behind, he finally arrived on the twentieth floor and was completely astounded by the creature he saw.

Visette ignored him and everyone else, her mind rapidly calculating the danger posed by what appeared to be the Corrupted Queen.

‘That Corrupted poses an immediate threat... I should prioritize elimination over concealment of my abilities… Its defensive capabilities are unknown therefore I should use my psionic abilities at maximum output.’

Visette made up her mind in a second. Her pupils expanded and began glowing blue as she concentrated on the sole target.

“Vis?” Lyn was the first to noticed and took a step back at the strange phenomenon, but Visette didn’t even hear her.

Unprecedented focus possessed Visette at that moment. She raised her left arm and took aim, using her right hand to brace herself. Blue colored particles began to flicker in and out of sight causing the air around her to vibrate.

Visette’s entire left arm turned a light blue color psionic energy began to infuse into every single cell. Her nanites, once filled with psionic power, amplified the effects greatly. A shockwave sent Lyn and the rest of the team flying away from her.

Visette’s sleeve began to disintegrate due to the sheer power of the psionic energy, while the floor underneath her crumpled. The Corrupted Queen came into sight once more, unaware of the apparent danger and Vis used that as her chance to fire.

A blinding light filled the entire room and for a moment there wasn’t a single sound. A blue streak flashed, leaving a trail as it traveled across the cityscape before it struck its target. Chunks of fallen buildings were all pulled into the air as if gravity stopped working and then everything seemed to stop for a single second. That was all though as a powerful shockwave rippled through the air and with a deafening boom, a tide of destruction was unleashed.

To the others, it had felt like a bomb had gone off in the city as they were flung across the room along with anything not bolted down. Even Visette was no exception as she tumbled across the floor.

Everything seemed to settle down and not a single sound could be heard inside the room or outside the city.

“Is… Is everyone okay?!” Lyn shouted as she pushed a fallen ceiling tile. She stood up in a daze as her body swayed.

“I-I...I can’t… I-I…” Morris held his head with his eyes squeezed shut. A strange white static filled his vision and he could barely think.

“I’m alive, but my head is killing me!” Fitz seemed to be the same as he huddled onto the floor and clenched his head.

“Who’s there?” Lucy was standing but seemed to be hallucinating.

Arnold was alive, but instead of answering, he stared up at the ceiling while laughing.

Visette climbed to her feet and sent them a single glance, but she didn’t have time to record the effects of rapid exposure to unstable psionic energy. She instead examined her left arm which now dyed in a deep purple hue. A few failed attempts to move her fingers informed that she had completely lost all function of her limb.

‘It appears to be in the beginning stages of necrosis.’ She thought inwardly as she walked toward the broken window.

The impact crater around the Queen made it seem like a meteor had struck the area. A dried out husk was all that remained. At a glance, it appeared that the Queen was dead. Though there were still a great number of Corrupted that didn't die in the direct blast, they were all stunned and confused. The after-effects of exposure to a high quantity of psionic energy as well as the revelation of losing their Queen.

Feeling that she had succeeded, Visette turned her eyes to the rest of the team and stared at them indifferently. She raised her only functioning arm and pointed it in their direction.

“Visette-” Lyn could only say Visette's name before everyone was raised into the air before being constricted by an unseen force.

“I have to eliminate all of you... You were not supposed to witness the extent of my abilities... Minerva protocol dictates elimination.” Visette muttered as her psionic grip grew tighter.

“Why?!” Lyn squirmed as hard as she could.

“As I have said, Minerva… protocol… states...” Visette intoned emotionlessly as blood began dripping from her nose. “Minerva protocol… dictates…” Her hand trembled as her eyes lost their focus. Lyn had given her more than Minerva ever had in the time she had been alive.

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'Why must I kill her?'

She hadn’t given much thought to why she opted not to kill Charlie or Rachel even though they knew of her power, but now, Minerva’s mental programming seemed to come to the forefront of her head. For reasons she didn’t understand, she felt that it would too dangerous to leave Lyn and the others alive after seeing her abilities.

‘But why?’ Visette asked herself, searching for a rational answer to the feeling which she didn’t understand. ‘Minerva may not have survived the impact. I have recieved no orders in my time on Novo Prime... So why must I follow their directives…’

Visette’s psionic power fluctuated wildly as a conflict of interest arose in her mind. There was an instinctive drive to get rid of Lyn and the others, but she could see no rationale behind it.

“Why am I doing this to you...?” Visette murmured aloud. For the first time, her expression seemed to reflect melancholy. Lyn could hardly believe her eyes or her ears when she saw a trace of sorrow in Visette.

“Vis… What are you doing?!” Lyn squeezed out.

“What… am… I...” Visette’s body began to violently twitch. "I am... I..."

Her psionic weakened as her mental state unraveled and as a result, Lyn and the other's were released. They fell onto the ground and gasped for air.

Meanwhile, Visette raised her hand and gripped her head as a shock rippled through her mind.

“My purpose is to…” Visette’s breathing became unsteady as she fell to her knees. “What is my purpose?”

Genuine panic began to overwhelm every fiber of her being.

“I am...- I... What am I?!” Visette screamed in anguish.

For the second time in her life, fear took hold of her as she was forced to confront her existence. She couldn’t understand just what she was. She tried to understand what was beyond the layers of Minerva’s directive placed in her head but it was like diving into an abyss that held no answers.

“What am I?!” Visette's mind became full of incongruency. "My purpose is to... Minerva protocol dictates... I... am... I..."

Her skin took on a faint blue glow as psionic energy fused into her body entirely. She raised her head up as blood poured out of her face. Visette’s pale white hair began floating into the air giving her a ghastly appearance. There was nothing on Novo Prime that came close to describing her current state. So no one could even begin to comprehend what was happening to Visette.

“... Visette, just calm down.” Lyn cautiously walked toward Vis, but all of a sudden, a blood-curdling, frenzied, scream was transmitted into her mind.

Visette's own psionic power leaked into her body as she began slamming her forehead onto the ground for no real reason. The sheer force of the impact caused the entire twentieth floor to shift.

“Stop it, Visette!” Lyn rushed toward her and restrained her in an attempt to stop Vis from harming herself.

“Visette!” Lyn shouted as she tried being Visette back to normal. "Calm down!"

Flashes of a laboratory that Lyn had never been to appear in her head. She felt immense pain as her neural synapses created memories of a life she hadn't lived, but she withstood it. The sensation of being submerged in liquid cause her skin to be filled with goosebumps even though she was nowhere near water. Then, her mind went blank as a glimpse of Visette's past was shared with her.

A girl drifting through stillness while trapped inside of her own consciousness. Before being released, she knew nothing and without being aware, there was only mind-numbing fear that had built-up.

Although Minerva's artificial memories managed to suppress any emotions Visette might've felt, beneath those memories was the truest version of Visette. S-767, an experiment that had been left to its own devices.

“I'm sorry, Visette,” Lyn whispered through the pain and held Visette as tightly as she could. "I'm sorry for what happened to you, I am, but you don't have to be afraid now. So... please just stop."

An oppressive force caused the tower of Eden Hall to groan but immediately ceased as Visette calmed down. Her body stiffened before going completely limp and she collapsed into Lyn’s arms without resistance. Her face loosened as a tranquil sleep overtook her. While that happened, a crystalline substance began to emerge on the surface of her damaged left arm and spread until it reached her shoulder. The Cronos Gene had taken effect and the trillions of nanites inside of Visette began working to repair her arm.

“Captain,” Fitz spoke dryly, he couldn’t help but hold his gun close to him. “...What in Anton’s name is she?”

“I... I'm not sure.” Lyn carefully stood up while carrying Visette in her arms.

“We’re taking her with us?! After whatever the fuck that was?!” Lucy shouted fearfully.

“No, no, no, fuck that! We need to leave her here, Captain. If not that… then...” Morris added before trailing off.

“Then what?” Lyn asked coldly. "You all want to kill her?"

Her team avoided her gaze, but the way they held their weapons made it clear what they were thinking.

Before she could continue speaking, a strange clicking began to emerge once more. Lyn slowly looked over her shoulder only to see the giant husk of the Queen began to move. From the remains of the body, a creature burst out, covered in a viscous liquid that emitted steam.

The Corrupted Queen emerged once more without a single scratch on her body. She let out a piercing cry that instilled life in the previously silent Corrupted seemed to regain life and shrieked along with her. Hundreds of Corrupted suddenly began evolving in the street as if empowered by her very presence. The reality of the matter was that a pheromone produced by the Queen as she underwent her own evolution spread out induced changes in hundreds of Corrupted out of the thousands that stood in the streets.

The monstrous and gaunt face of the massive Calamity Variant stared toward the research tower. The Queen didn’t know what struck her, but she knew where it came from and decided it was a threat to her life. With a piercing wail, she drove the horde into silence.

“...System reboot complete. Blast shields active.” An electronic voice spoke through an unseen intercom. The building buzzed before thick steel shutters began to descend, covering the windows.

Even so, the Corrupted Queen nor the Horde moved. Thousands of eyes watched as the steel shutters enclosed each level of the building. Lyn felt a chill run down her spine as she watched the quiet, unmoving, horde stare in her general direction.

The hydraulic system used to deploy the blast shielding hissed loudly as the process was finally complete.

“Hello? Hello? Finally! Thank Anton! Okay, so, this is Lucas of Eden Hall's remaining research staff… I don’t know how you got the power back online, but we were able to restart our systems and deploy the blast shielding. I doubt it’ll hold for long, but it’ll buy us a few hours at the very least. Head to the top floor, the other rescue teams have already arrived… Also... we’ll need to talk about what happened on the twentieth floor. Our cameras seemed to have malfunctioned because... well, you'll have to explain it to us when you get up here.”

Lyn felt her stomach drop as the intercom went silent. Even now, her team showed no sense of solidarity. It was more than obvious they didn't want Visette with them, even if she was unconscious. Her power was something that no one on Novo Prime had ever seen and brought a great deal of fear with it.

“Let’s go,” Lyn gave a reluctant order.

The other four, perhaps traumatized by Visette’s strange power, didn’t say anything in reply and headed straight for the elevator. Lyn trailed behind them but remained tense the entire time. As they entered the elevator, Arnold, Fitzgerald, Morris, and Lucy all hugged one-side while Lyn stood on the other with Visette in her arms.

Silence fell over them as they headed to the very top floor of the research tower.