The corridor outside the exploded chamber was a scene of devastation. Twisted metal, shattered equipment, and the lingering smell of burnt energy filled the air. We lay sprawled against the wall, dazed and disoriented by the force of the blast. The ringing in my ears was slowly fading, replaced by a heavy, oppressive silence.
Nightshade was the first to her feet, her movements stiff but determined. She checked on Maya and Nova, who were groaning but conscious. I pushed myself up, my body aching, a strange hollowness settling in my chest. The echoes of the trapped children, the fading reflection of my younger self, lingered in my mind like a phantom pain.
『Harem Streamer System: Threat level neutralized. Host sustained minor physical trauma. Emotional distress levels: Significant. Recommendation: Engage in comforting activities. (Comforting activity suggestions: Watching cat videos, eating ice cream, receiving a gentle head scratch.)』
"Cat videos?" I muttered, the absurdity of the suggestion a stark contrast to the devastation around us. "Yeah, that'll fix everything."
Glitch's voice crackled in our earpieces, filled with a mixture of relief and concern. "Guys? What happened? The energy readings went completely off the scale!"
"It's… over," Nightshade said, her voice flat. "Thorne is down. The Core Unit… it's gone."
"What about the others?" Glitch asked hesitantly. "The other… subjects?"
A heavy silence descended upon us. The explosion had been immense, all-encompassing. The chances of anyone surviving within the Core Unit seemed impossibly slim.
"We don't know," I finally managed to say, the words feeling like lead in my mouth. "There was… an overload. An explosion."
The weight of that unknown hung heavy in the air. We had stopped Thorne, prevented his "Final Stage," but at what cost? Had we inadvertently destroyed the very people he had experimented on?
Maya pushed herself to a sitting position, her face grim. "We need to secure this facility. Make sure Thorne can't cause any more damage."
Nova, still looking shaken, nodded in agreement. Her ethereal glow seemed dimmer than usual, as if the sheer negativity of the situation had dampened her light.
As we cautiously made our way back to the ravaged chamber, the extent of the destruction became horrifyingly clear. The Core Unit was gone, reduced to twisted remnants of metal and scorched earth. The air still hummed with residual energy, a ghostly reminder of the power it had contained. There was no sign of the trapped figures, only the lingering scent of burnt energy and shattered dreams.
A wave of guilt washed over me. I had felt their pain, their desperate longing for release. Had my actions, the empathic severance, contributed to their destruction? The thought was a cold knot in my stomach.
"We need to find any data Thorne might have left behind," Nightshade said, her voice firm despite the grim surroundings. "Anything that can tell us more about Project Chimera and those… subjects."
We spent the next few hours meticulously searching the ruined facility, Glitch remotely accessing any surviving computer systems. We found fragmented research notes, schematics, and video logs, painting a disturbing picture of Thorne's twisted experiments. He had been obsessed with unlocking and amplifying latent human potential, using children as his unwilling test subjects, their unique abilities harnessed and contained within the Core Unit.
The younger version of me… the logs indicated I had been "Subject Omega," possessing an unusually strong ability to absorb and channel energy. Thorne had seen me as the key to his grand design.
The logs also hinted at other subjects, each with their own unique abilities – telekinesis, elemental manipulation, even rudimentary psychic powers. They had been trapped within the Core Unit for years, their potential amplified but their lives stolen.
There was no mention of a way to safely extract them, only Thorne's increasingly manic notes about the impending "Final Stage." It seemed his ambition had blinded him to the inherent dangers of his experiments.
As dawn began to break, casting a pale light through the shattered windows of the industrial complex, we finally gathered what little information we could. Thorne was unconscious and secured. The Core Unit was destroyed. But the fate of the other subjects remained a haunting question mark.
We left the ravaged facility, the weight of our grim discovery heavy on our shoulders. The silence in the car ride back to the archive was thick with unspoken thoughts and lingering sorrow. We had stopped a madman, but the echoes of his victims, the fractured reflections of stolen lives, would undoubtedly linger. My accidental life as a super-powered individual had just taken another dark and deeply personal turn. The victory felt like ashes in my mouth.