Chapter 30

Megumi woke up the next morning with a fire and passion like no other.

She had a lead, finally after three years she finally had a lead on what happened to the element, one that couldn't possibly lead to a dead end. Megumi furrowed her eyebrows as she got ready for the day, moving on autopilot as she replayed different scenarios in her head over and over.

-

After she had finished talking with Ana the night before, Megumi went home and looked through all the pictures, articles, and videos she could find on the accident, just to confirm she wasn't crazy. Megumi's heart pounded as she found, without a shadow of a doubt, that there was only one body left in the room, and all she had to do now was find evidence of the man going into the room before Dr. Basils death, then she would finally have her guy.

Just as she was about to close out of the files open on her laptop, Megumi noticed something. She was looking at official security photos taken from the security cameras before and after the tragedy, and she had been so absorbed in finding an evidence of a second body, she completely missed something in the far right corner of the image. She was staring at an overhead view of the laboratory Dr. Basil was in. The before was five hours prior, which showed Dr. Basil hunched over the table holding her head, and the second showed thirty minutes after the building had been cleared.

But that wasn't all.

Megumi's eyes kept flittering to the top right corner, something was off about the image and she couldn't place what, nor why her attention kept being drawn to it. She zoomed in. It was just a small shelf, nothing too out of the ordinary- but when she really studied the images, she noticed that there was a small green and brown book that was just barley sticking out of the shelf in the first image, and in the second image; it was gone.

Megumi rubbed a hand over her face, trying to contain her nerves. Anything could have happened in that room, Dr. Basil- or even someone else could've moved the book during the five hours before the accident...

Megumi shook her head. That wasn't right... Dr. Basil was clearly already in pain five hours prior, and if someone had gone in the room, they would have seen her and called for medical attention, which never happened so Megumi could assume that no one else had been in that room aside from Dr. Basil.

'And the mysterious man..' Megumi reminded herself.

Megumi went back to brainstorming. There was no way anything that happened to Dr. Basil could've destroyed that book, she had already seen the books Dr. Pickett had, which were all relatively in tact aside from some weathering on the cover, and the missing pages. Megumi's eyebrows furrowed further, there was no way any accident could have taken out specific pages from a notebook that conveniently held vital information about Barium- it didn't take anymore convincing for Megumi to write off that the disappearing book was stolen along with the element and pages.

But if those had all been stolen, what else was missing?

What Megumi needed was the security footage from that day, she needed to see his face, she needed something...

Megumi had spent hours analyzing the photos, finding that multiple other objects had gone missing; a small flask full of black liquid, more papers that were on the floor in the before image, Dr. Basil's laptop, and a filing cabinet had been pulled open, which told Megumi that there was no doubt some documents had been stolen as well.

How had no one noticed this before? Had no one looked at these images? There was a global manhunt going on for whoever stole this element and nobody had even looked at the remaining evidence? The pieces were already laid out, they just needed to be put together...

Megumi let out a breath and rubbed her hand over her face, leaning back against her bed frame, glancing at the time on her laptop, mentally slapping herself when she saw it was almost four in the morning. She finally closed out of all the tabs and attempted to fall asleep, pictures and questions still whizzing around her mind.

-

Megumi found herself on a bus going to the laboratory, blinking herself out of a trance as she recounted the events for the fifth time. She pulled a small notebook out of her sling bag, flipping to the pages she had been writing on before, trying to make sense of her hardly comprehensible hand writing, reading through what her game plan was for today.

First and foremost, she needed to get as much information about this mysterious man as possible. Megumi nodded to herself. This seemed like it would be the easiest part of her plan, granted she would have to find someone who was in the accident, and get the information out of them naturally, which wasn't exactly Megumi's strong suit.

Second- or if the first plan didn't work- she would need to somehow get the security footage from the day of the accident and hopefully get a name and a face, possibly run it through the facility's security system- Megumi thought this one was unlikely- and find a way to track him down and convince him to hand over the element, or destroy it.

Megumi furrowed her eyebrows, her body aimlessly swaying along with the movement of the bus, clenching her fists tighter in her lap.

What would she even do with the element? The whole purpose of finding it was so it could be destroyed, and since that was the original goal there would be no need for her to even take it from this man, she just needed to convince him to destroy it if he hadn't already. Then she would report to Margret that the element was destroyed and bring back powerless fragments as proof. The world would be safe, the man would be safe, and most importantly, Megumi could move on to the next part of her plan, which would involve a bit more heroes than Psycha.

Megumi leaned her head back against her seat, flipping her notebook shut and putting it back in her bag. The second phase depended entirely on one- more supers being created, which Megumi was sure would happen, and two- them wanting to become heroes, which was a whole different ball game. Ana only agreed because she didn't want to live in fear of Margret when she had the power to do something about it, others might not be as crazy...

The bus jerked again as the driver pulled up to another bus stop, which Megumi needed to get off at. She collected her things and hurried off, eager to start the day.

--

Ana found herself back in the robotics laboratory during her lunch break, this time joined by Tiffany, who wasn't as thrilled as she was.

"Was there really no other time we could've met with them?!" Tiffany had hissed when they were walking down the long hallway to the fifth lab. Ana had rolled her eyes but didn't respond as the two walked down, clutching her bag to her chest, her hero costume inside. "Rob and Sanchi just want to see how it held up, can't have my gear falling apart on me, that'd be embarrassing!" Ana whispered back.

So now the two were sitting on one of the tables as Rob and Sanchi looked over Ana's costume, occasionally asking her questions on how well it performed, which eventually turned into the four of them discussing her fight with Hail Storm.

"It was such a breath of fresh air that this clown was finally getting a taste of his own medicine and then the police just let him go!" Sanchi seethed. Rob and Tiffany were right there with her. "So glad my tax dollars are contributing to absolutely nothing..." Rob muttered.

Ana had already gotten her frustration out of her system with Stephanie, so now she just felt bad.

"Come on guys, they're just doing their best with what they've got..." Ana cringed. "They had no way to really stop him from using his powers so of course he was going to get away, the most he probably felt from all of that was just a couple of blows against his ego.."

The three of them stared at her, unamused, until Sanchi broke the silence with a sigh.

"You're way too nice Ana..." She said. "If it were me, I'd go right down to the police station and call them all a bunch of lousy HALF WIT-" Rob put a hand on his girlfriend's shoulder to get her to calm down before saying, "You're technically right Ana, but Zalic's been in power for over two years now, and they don't have any way to combat the villains. It's not like they don't have the money or the technology to do so, they just haven't done it yet." Rob shrugged.

"But how do we know that?" Ana questioned, slumping forward slightly.

"Because Ana," Tiffany chimed in, "If the police- or anybody really- was trying to find a way to stop Zalic and her minions, they would have told the general public by now so that nobody would need to worry. But they've stayed radio silent ever since the first time they've tried to storm her lab which sends a message to both the villains and the public that they're scared. And as we all can tell, the villains have clearly taken their silence as a go ahead to do whatever they want."

And pursed her lips as she took in Tiffany's words.

"The government's basically turned a blind eye to Zalic, and the public is getting more and more restless especially with you out there now as a self proclaimed hero. After what you did yesterday, the public is going to want the government to make sure you're protected, and there's even some talk online about the military making super soldiers again." Rob added.

"Because that worked out sooo well the last time." Sanchi said rolling her eyes.

Ana sighed. "There's still a long way to go I guess, who knows how many more supers are going to get created by the time there's even technology to contain the villains. And more importantly," A chill ran down Ana's spine. "If they do manage to find a way to successfully contain the villains.. who's to say they won't use that technology to control the heroes?"

--

Nathan was acting strange.

Well, stranger than usual, Megumi thought.

He wasn't quite as talkative as he was on the first day they met, while Megumi was thankful for this, it was slightly off putting with the amount of side glances he kept sending her way.

Dr. Pickett was acting the same as usual. They had told the duo that they would be working on finding links between creatine and increased white blood cells, which Nathan found interesting enough to stop giving Megumi the side eye. After a few hours of this, Megumi asked if they could go around the facility, since they hadn't really had an official tour since being overwhelmed by the discovery of the left over barium experiments.

Dr. Pickett agreed, stating that it would be important if the two were going to continue interning there for them to understand the layout of the building. Now it was Megumi's turn to give Nathan the side eye, but he was clearly excited about the idea of touring the building as well, since he seemed to go back to his normal preppy self.

The trio made their way down a long white hallway, passing by multiple identical looking labs, all incredibly large and spacious with dozens of large computers and machines, each arranged in a way to suite whichever type of study was being conducted inside of them. They passed a smart water fountain that Nathan spent an embarrassingly long time trying to figure out, but Megumi decided not to say anything as Dr. Pickett bashfully showed him how it worked, because deep down she knew she had no idea how to work it.

Dr. Pickett brought the duo up to the seventh floor, not telling them why despite their- mostly Nathan's- constant questions about why they were going up there.

This floor wasn't like the others. It was cold, and had an unwelcoming aura surrounding it, as if walking into a graveyard on a chilly night in the fall season, and was eerily quiet. So quiet that even Nathan was unnerved by it, Megumi swore she could hear the pounding of his heart.

She looked down. Huh. She thought. Maybe it was hers.

Dr. Pickett was still silent in front of them, back and shoulders tense as they walked, their footsteps loud against the silent atmosphere. Megumi felt her breath become rugged, as if she had just run ten blocks, her chest heavy with constrictions that increased the more steps they took down this daunting hallway.

There were no other people on this floor. The white walls somehow looked grey against the dingy lighting, and with every step Megumi swore they started to slowly adapt a green hue. It was only then Megumi noticed the floor, and in that moment she really wished she hadn't. It was pitch black, blacker than any black she had ever seen. Megumi narrowed her eyes as she suddenly felt incredibly sick. The black tile under her feet seemed to move and slosh like oil, distorting her reflection like a funhouse mirror, with each new tile came a new twisted expression that for some reason filled her stomach with dread.

Speaking of tiles, they were so dark and contorted that she couldn't tell where one tile stopped and another one began, and much like the color on the walls, the inky black tiles also began to take on a bright green hue, like there was a bright fluorescent light shining on it; though when Megumi looked up, she couldn't see anything.

Megumi's eyes quickly darted from left to right quickly taking in the fact that there were zero lights illuminating this floor.

Megumi brought her attention to the abandoned laboratories. There were still plenty of machines and equipment in them. They didn't look old or outdated, in fact some of them looked relatively new. She couldn't make out much other than the machines from where she was walking, so Megumi put her focus back on the rest of the hallway, noticing that Dr. Pickett had began approaching a door towards the middle of the floor.

Megumi noticed something odd about the walls and tiles around this room.

Unlike the pitch black tiles that were on the rest of the floor, the tiles around this room were a bright pristine white, but they didn't cut off evenly as if it was intentional, or someone had decided to go for a different set of tiles for this particular room... No. The white was an anomaly on the floor. Like a bleach spot or spilled milk. The color change started just where the last room had ended, the tile erratically changing from the dark black to a slight greyish brown, then a pure white. Megumi looked up the walls where the discoloration started and noticed a similar pattern with the walls.

Every other area of this floor- this facility- had bright white walls, yet this one, this one was a pale green, and much like the floor, it didn't look intentional. Megumi peered closer at the walls. The paint had air pockets in it, like it had started boiling after the top was mostly dry. She slowly reached out a hand to touch the paint. It was warm. Megumi rubbed her fingers along it, enamored by the texture.

It didn't feel like any texture she could recognize.

The wall was rough, the areas where some bubbles had popped felt sharp like broken glass, and as Megumi walked further along the wall, she saw dark splotches that looked out of place against the otherwise smooth texture of the rest of the building.

It was then that she saw it.

The other doors in the facility were a dark chocolate brown, with small silver plaques adorned on them. This door, however, was a shade of yellow that seemed to scream at her. The color was so ethereal and intense Megumi actually felt herself flinch as she looked at it. The silver plaque was a dingy bronze, and upon slowly inching closer to the door Megumi saw that it read; 7107 testing lab.

Nathan was the first to speak.

"What is this place?"

Dr. Pickett had a faraway look on their face as they slowly reached for the door handle, their fingers delicately brushing the wooden door.

"This was the last place we saw Dr. Basil."