The BEEP BEEP BEEP of the warning alert sounded continuously, interspersed with the BLARE BLARE BLARE of an alarm.
The sound wasn’t just audible inside the research lab; it could be heard in other parts of the base as well.
Lex Cross watched Leigh Atwood from the shadows, a grim look on his face.
There were no superpower fluctuations, yet a familiar energy signature remained. ’It’s as if she intentionally let her energy leak out for me to detect.’
"Flora, we have to leave here immediately." Lex Cross materialized from the darkness, startling the researchers and superpower users in the room.
Everyone on the base knew who Lex Cross was. If it hadn’t been for him and his group, many of them would never have escaped the old capital, Argent, to start the safe new lives they now lived here.
Right after Lex Cross materialized, Micah and Annelise Locke also revealed themselves. The researchers were less concerned about Micah; he was a normal human, after all. Even though they had previously kept him locked in a cage, creating a conflict between them, all of that could be put aside in this life-or-death situation. Getting out alive was what mattered most.
Even as they watched with some alarm while Annelise Locke’s enormous snake tail slithered past them, they weren’t nearly as frightened as they might have been.
Micah and a few researchers found the room’s switches and the main control console, but after fiddling and tinkering for what felt like an eternity, they still couldn’t open the heavy door.
The oxygen in the air was thinning and the temperature was plummeting. A few researchers were the first to succumb, collapsing into unconsciousness. Although the seven superpower users looked like they were still holding on, their trembling bodies and pale faces told Flora Bloom that they wouldn’t last much longer either.
In contrast, Flora Bloom and her companions, including Micah and Mervin Warren, seemed completely unaffected by the changes inside the room.
Staying inside a little longer wouldn’t have been a problem, but then Flora Bloom caught the scent of gunpowder.
She grabbed one of the superpower users and shouted, "Did the Thorne family plant explosives in here?"
Lex Cross stood before the door, black energy surging as he focused it into an attack. But the door gave him a strange feeling. His superpower and strength were completely useless against it.
"There’s something strange about this door," Lex Cross said, frowning at it. ’Something from the Star Nation shouldn’t exist on Earth.’ On top of that, the woman from before—Leigh Atwood—had given him a feeling that was both familiar and alien. A vague unease settled over him.
’Looks like I’ll have to resort to some special measures,’ he thought.
Flora Bloom sized up the door for a moment, then grabbed Lex Cross just as he was about to unleash a major attack. She glanced at the unconscious researchers, then moved closer to the few superpower users who were now shivering violently from the cold.
At this point, Flora Bloom’s sudden approach didn’t even alarm them. What did snap them to their senses was this: one moment, the small group was shivering in the lab, waiting to die; the next, all seven of them had appeared simultaneously in an unfamiliar space.
Once those seven were taken care of, Flora Bloom summoned a black-furred, three-eyed gorilla.
"Three-Eyes, blast this door! Keep blasting until it’s open!"
When Lex Cross saw it was Three-Eyes, he retreated to Flora Bloom’s side. "Flora, there’s something strange about that Leigh Atwood."
Flora Bloom asked quizzically, "What’s strange?"
"I’m not entirely sure yet. I’ll tell you when I figure it out. But you have to promise me you’ll let me handle this. Stay out of it."
Flora Bloom was baffled. "Why? This whole thing seems to be because of Cynthia. It has nothing to do with you!"
Three-Eyes’s third eye had already opened and was beginning to blast the door. The same door that Lex Cross had been helpless against now showed cracks after three of Three-Eyes’s blasts.
"Three-Eyes, keep going! Smash it open!"
The door shattered on Three-Eyes’s fourth blast. Flora Bloom picked up a fragment of the door and placed it in her pocket dimension, only to find that the moment it entered, it dissolved into energy and was absorbed.
While recalling Three-Eyes, Flora Bloom scooped up all the remaining fragments of the door and tossed them into her pocket dimension.
After being absorbed by the dimension, the fragments all transformed into Spiritual Energy, which then dispersed to every corner of the space.
"Go!" Lex Cross’s black energy enveloped Flora Bloom and the rest of her group.
Flora Bloom, Micah, Mervin Warren, and Luna Thorne had barely stepped out of the research lab before they vanished from the crowd of superpower users waiting outside. The four of them made for their prearranged rendezvous point outside the Argent base.
Meanwhile, The Crown Prince and Civet had already vanished into the night. Their mission was to go to Robin Grant’s home and retrieve the still-unconscious Gavin Todd and the heartbroken old man himself, so they could all regroup.
Outside the Argent base, beyond an open field, lay a sprawling area of old, low-slung houses. Before the apocalypse, this would have been considered the outskirts. Though the dwellings were short, each cluster was surrounded by fields belonging to that household. Between the houses ran narrow country paths, impassable for vehicles.
The paths were difficult to traverse, so narrow that only one person could pass at a time.
Flora Bloom and her companions were the first to arrive at a cluster of low-slung houses tucked away at the very back of the area. It was surrounded by eight large fields, with only a single narrow path providing access.
When Flora Bloom and the others arrived, Five rushed out to meet them. He seemed to be welcoming them, but his face was etched with a strange, suppressed sadness.
"Flora, come quick! You have to see Cynthia Grant..."
Flora Bloom broke into an anxious run, taking several quick steps down the path. At five months pregnant, she found that any significant exertion now left her winded.
It wasn’t that she thought it would harm the baby, but a mother’s heart is always filled with a certain unexplainable apprehension.
The low-slung house consisted of ten rooms. Five led Flora Bloom into one with a red door, where Cynthia Grant was lying on a coir-fiber bed in an inner room.
Cynthia Grant’s normally healthy skin would intermittently flash green, sometimes even sprouting rows of sharp, inverted thorns.
Not only that, but the area from her neck up was beginning to turn red, and small, red, petal-like fleshy growths were sprouting along the sides of her face.
She looked exactly like a mature Little Piranha Flower.
It was only then that Flora Bloom realized the Little Piranha Flower, which had been psychically linked to Cynthia Grant, was gone. Her current physical transformation almost certainly meant the research lab had gotten their hands on the flower and that whatever they’d done to Cynthia was connected to it.
Flora Bloom poured a large amount of spiritual water into Cynthia Grant’s mouth. Although it suppressed her skin from turning the color of plant vines, it couldn’t reverse the other changes.
For the first time, Flora Bloom felt utterly powerless about a situation unfolding right beside her.
Having drunk a good amount of the spiritual water, Cynthia Grant gradually began to stir as the others entered the room.
Not only did she awaken, but she seemed completely oblivious to the changes in her own body. She came to just like any normal person, as if nothing was wrong at all.
"Flora?"
Cynthia Grant sat up and swung her legs off the bed, standing up. "Why is everyone here? Hey... where are we?"
Cynthia Grant scanned the room, seeing a mix of familiar and unfamiliar faces. After a moment of recollection, her expression suddenly fell. She sat back down on the edge of the bed, her gaze turning vacant.
Flora Bloom knew she was remembering how her own father had sold her to the research lab to be a test subject.
Whether in love or kinship, one only truly knows the depths of sorrow when hurt and betrayed. It was a pain that others could not truly comprehend, like a person drinking water who alone knows its temperature. But Flora Bloom, having had similar experiences, understood Cynthia Grant completely.