CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE, one of us

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"Douglas," Chase huffed as he, Adam, Emilia and Bree entered the common area. The four mentors have been searching through the academy, trying to find Leo, but he was nowhere to be seen. "have you seen Leo? He's late for training."

"Why don't you just call him?" Douglas asked.

Adam groaned. "Too much work." He said before shrugging his shoulders. "Let's just kick him out of the academy."

Emilia quickly whacked his arm before they went over to the console and Chase began to dial Leo's number for a video call. After a few seconds, the boy popped up on the screen, smiling brightly at his family. "Hello."

They furrowed their eyebrows at the screen when they recognised where he was. "Leo, what are you doing back in Mission Creek?" Chase was the first to ask. "You're supposed to be here for training."

"Sorry, I had to pop back and deal with a little situation. Janelle missed me." Leo explained to everyone. "You ladies can be so needy."

Bree arched a brow. "She threatened to break up with you, didn't she?" The girl presumed, causing the smile on his face to falter, knowing just how right she was.

"It was implied." He awkwardly admitted, which made the girls roll their eyes, amused, before the door bell rang from Leo's side of the call, and he immediately shrieked. "She's here!" And then he hung up the phone.

A scoff escaped Chase's lips as he shook his head and threw his hand forward, gesturing to the call they had with Leo. "Can you believe him?" Chase asked. "Skipping his training to hang out with a girl?"

Emilia tilted her head, stepping around Adam to stand next to Chase. She was just about to ask if he realised what he just said, but Adam piped up, responding to him. "You might understand it one day if you actually have one."

The couple turned their heads simultaneously to look at Adam, and arched a brow. "Uhh... you do remember that I'm not single, right?" Chase told his brother who pulled a face, appearing puzzled by what he just said.

"Huh?" Adam shook his head. "What happened?"

Emilia chuckled softly, looking over at Chase who gestured over to the banshee, pointing her out to him. "I asked Emilia to be my girlfriend." The boy reminded Adam. He studied the facial expression his brother was wearing, trying to see if whatever he was saying was coming back to him.

"Oh. Congratulations!" Adam beamed and patted Chase on the shoulder as he glanced between the couple.

Emilia wore an awkward smile on her face as she bobbed her head. "Almost two years ago."

"Oh." Adam widened his eyes at the reminder he was given before trying to conceal the wince that wanted to graze his lips with a smile. "Well, you lasted that long! I'm so proud of you guys."

"Thanks, Adam." Emilia laughed slightly, sending him a kind smile before flicking her eyes over his shoulder to look at Bree who appeared amused at what just happened.

"And for your information—" Chase began to say, pointing a finger in his brother's direction, "later today, I will be online gaming with FrizzyBizzy21. And there's at least a fifty percent chance that's a female!"

"Yeah..." Bree shook her head, "no, there's not."

Her words instantly wiped the smirk off his face, though before he could respond, everyone heard the hydra-loop arrive. They all turned around as the doors opened, but the team definitely weren't expecting to see Krane's first bionic soldier, S-1.

Douglas immediately screamed, pointing over to the young girl. "It's her!" He yelled, rushing back to hide behind Emilia who furrowed her brows at him.

The students joined their mentors in getting into a fighting stance, thinking a fight was about to be initiated. However, Adam chose to approach the girl, being the only one that didn't recognise who she was. "Hey, you look familiar. Do I know you from somewhere?"

The girl looked like she was about to speak, when Chase interrupted her. "Adam, that's S-1. Krane's lead soldier. She tried to destroy us."

"Oh, yeah." Adam turned back to S-1 and leaned down to whisper: "What do you say we finish the job and get out of here?"

"Adam!" Emilia reprimanded.

"What are you doing here?" Chase was the first to ask the question the team all wanted to know.

"I figured since this is the Bionic Academy, you're the only people who might be able to help." She explained. "Something's wrong with me."

"Yeah," A scoff escaped Bree's lips, with her arms crossed over her chest, "we already know that, Psycho Sally. You tried to crush Leo and take us all out."

The girl's brows pinched together in confusion at Bree's words, not remembering anything like that happening. "I'm sorry. I don't know what you're talking about."

"Of course she doesn't." Douglas interjected and stepped out from behind Emilia before pointing a finger in S-1's direction. "She's a blank slate, just like the rest of the soldiers were."

Emilia stared at the girl, confused. "Why weren't you rounded up with everyone else?"

S-1 simply shrugged. "All I know is that I woke up in a field and this family found me and took me in." She summarised. "And when they discovered I was bionic, they freaked out, so I ran away and I've been hiding ever since."

"I don't believe her." Bree commented, however, Emilia looked hesitant. She didn't see what had happened to the others when Adam found them the day after the battle, as she was in the hospital at that time, but from what she was told, the girl's explanation was making sense. Albeit, that wasn't stopping her from being cautious.

"Well, why would she lie?" Douglas rhetorically asked. "Krane's no longer controlling her mind with the Triton App, so she has no reason to be evil."

"Oh, yeah." Chase raised a brow at his father and was to quick to remind him. "Well that's what we thought about Sebastian, too." He turned around and looked at all the students. "And we all know what happened there."

Adam sighed irritably. "We get it. He broke your heart. Let it go."

Emilia exhaled and scratched her forehead for a second before S-1 spoke up again. "Look, if you don't believe me, remove my chip. Then there's no way I can hurt you." She suggested.

As S-1 turned to pull her hair away from the back of her neck, Douglas grabbed the chip extractor from underneath the console before approaching the girl and he removed her chip. "All clear." He confirmed, before motioning towards something on the back of her neck and advised: "But you might want to have that mole checked out."

Chase took the chip extractor from Douglas and nodded, addressing S-1. "All right, now that we know you're telling the truth, what exactly is wrong with you?"

The girl followed the team over to the console. "I keep having flashbacks about a guy named Victor Krane." She mentioned, furrowing her eyebrows at the name.

Douglas scoffed. "You're preachin' to the choir, sister."

"Hold on." Emilia interrupted, looking befuddled about something. "I thought when the Triton app deactivated, it would've erased all of her memory. So, how can she still remember Krane?"

"It must be a glitch." Douglas reckoned before he flicked his eyes towards S-1 to ask her: "What else do you remember?"

"He said if anything bad ever happened to him, something just as bad would happen to me."

"Oh," Douglas rolled his eyes, "I wouldn't worry about that. That was just the metal in his face talking."

S-1 scrunched her brows at him, before shaking her head and turned to face the mentors. "Look," She sighed, "every time I get a flashback, I get a terrible headache. I'm really scared and I don't have anyone else to turn to. Please, help me figure out what's going on."

Bree contemplated for a moment and turned her head to look at her brothers and Emilia. "What do we do?"

Chase shared a look with Emilia, the two of them thinking the same thing before Chase faced his siblings to share his thoughts. "I think we should help her."

"Okay," Adam conceded, "but when she crushes your heart like Sebastian, don't come crying to me."

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"All right, almost done with the tests." Chase had just informed S-1 as the team were now standing in the training area. They had to move rooms to have more space for the test.

Emilia turned her head to look at S-1, expressing her concerns for the girl when she asked through a soft and gentle tone: "How are you holding up?"

"Eh, pretty good." Adam answered instead of S-1, before he shrugged and made a gesture with his hand. "Probably gonna need a snack around two."

The tablet then beeped, pulling Chase's attention away from his brother when he turned to look at the device. "Douglas, check this out."

Douglas approached when Chase called him over, and he followed the boy's gaze down at the tablet, humming to himself when he figured out. "Looks like the Triton App left a virus hidden in her bionic infrastructure."

"You mean like a virus where I have a bowl of chicken noodle soup and I'm all better?" A small smile grazed across S-1's lips as she tried to hide the apprehension behind it.

Chase silently scoffed at her assumption. "More like a virus that'll cause you to explode and look like a chicken soup." He chuckled, and Emilia's eyes widened at his words. She glanced towards S-1, just in time to witness her face dropping at what Chase just shared. "What?!" The girl let out, causing the boy's expression to falter as Emilia whacked her boyfriend on the arm. "Ow—!" His hand flew to the spot on his arm where Emilia had slapped him, and he stammered nervously, trying to recover from his mistake. "Uh, but... who knows? Chicken soup could work."

Chase shifted his gaze to Emilia who pulled a face and shook her head as she stepped away, leaving a baffled Chase before he shrugged and followed after her.

Douglas stepped forward, looking like he had just remembered something. "When I showed Krane the Triton App, he did ask me to build in a Doomsday virus. But, I refused." He made sure to tell them.

"Thank you," Bree clapped her hands together as she continued to respond sarcastically, "Douglas. That totally makes up for the other 500 times you tried to take us out."

"Technically, it was 522." Douglas corrected with a grin on his face. "You just didn't see me hidden in the shadows."

Emilia grimaced, as did Adam and Bree, however Chase, who appeared to be more focused on what Douglas mentioned previously, brought back the sensitive subject. "Krane must have done it on his own. And if he did it to the Triton App, then that means..." Almost as if he realised, he looked over at the students on the other side of the room and scanned them, using his bionic eye. Though as it turns out, it unfortunately detected a virus in the students. Chase gasped lightly and turned back to his team to inform them on the news: "The other students have it too."

"It all makes sense." Douglas figured. "Krane was an egomaniac. If he wasn't around to control his own creations, he wanted to make sure no one else could."

"According to this," Chase gestured to the tablet he was holding, "anyone who had the Triton App will self-destruct in ten hours. That means that everyone here is—"

"A ticking time bomb." S-1 interrupted him.

Bree quickly approached the couple, panicking as she opened her mouth to yell out: "All the bionic students are gonna die?!" Not realising how loud her voice was until afterwards, causing Emilia to smack her hand over Bree's mouth.

Chase shushed his sister, but it was unfortunately too late as the students in the room had dropped what they were doing and looked their way.

Emilia carefully pulled her hand away from Bree who pursed her lips. She raised a finger in the air and pointed out the obvious: "Probably shouldn't have said that so loudly."

The banshee arched a brow. "You think?"

Adam smiled and raised his hand up as he faced the students. "Nice knowing all of you! You guys should start your goodbyes." He advised them all before turning to the group. "I'm gonna go grab a tarp and a poncho." Adam went to leave the room but Bree was quick to stop him.

"Oh, no." Chase began to panic again. "This may be worse than I thought."

"Oh, you're right." His brother nodded. "I should probably grab goggles, too." Adam turned to walk out the room again, but Bree stopped him for the second time.

"No, wait." Chase placed two of his fingers to his temple and scanned his siblings with his bionic eye. "Just as I thought. We also had the Triton App, so we're set to self-destruct, too."

"What?" Emilia whispered as she slowly brought her hands up to clutch Chase's bicep.

"Adam... I'll take a poncho."

"Wa— Wait a second." Chase interjected, gaining the team's attention. He directed his eyes over to his girlfriend who stood beside him, clinging onto his arm. "What about Emilia?"

The Hunter girl furrowed her eyebrows when she was mentioned, and shrugged lightly because she had absolutely no idea if she had the Triton App or not, so everyone turned to Douglas, hoping for answers since he had made an alliance with the girl's father before.

"Well... ummm, from what I remember," Douglas thought back to his villain days, when he worked with Nick in order to get their children back who lived with Donald Davenport. "your father never mentioned anything about you having a Triton App... but then again, he could've been lying. So, it wouldn't hurt to check."

Chase closed his eyes and sighed, slightly pulling away from Emilia and faced her, so he could do his bionic eye scan. A moment later, Chase let out a breath of relief at what he found out. "Emilia's okay. There's no virus." He shared, and wrapped his arm around Emilia's shoulder before pulling her in closer and he kissed her on the top of her head, muttering to himself: "Thank God."

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Emilia stood in the common area with the rest of the group, wearing headphones over her head so she could listen to music to try and calm herself down and block out any banshee premonitions, while Douglas and Chase tried to come up with a plan to prevent any of it from happening. "Okay, I scanned S-1's chip and mirrored the Doomsday virus timer." Douglas stressed. "Only eight hours left 'till you guys... show the world what you're made of."

A groan fell from S-1's lips as she stepped back all of a sudden, putting her head in her hands. "My head! It hurts!"

"I know," Chase scoffed lightly, putting the tablet back on the console, "his jokes are awful."

Douglas walked over to stand on the other side of S-1. "She's having another flashback."

S-1 seethed through the pain. "I'm starting to see Krane again. It's dark, he's angry—"

Douglas suddenly interrupted her. "Run towards the light! It's your only hope!"

Chase pulled a face at the man's outburst, as did Emilia, when Douglas' loud cry had gained her attention. Bewildered, she lifted one side of the headphones off her ear slightly, so she could hear what was going on as Chase turned to S-1. "Is he saying anything about the Doomsday virus?"

"No." The girl sighed heavily, dropping her hand from her head. "Someone used the last of the battery acid and didn't replace it."

"Well, it wasn't me." Douglas awkwardly pointed out.

Chase's eyes were filled with worry. "There has to be a way to access the virus and disable it." The boy continued to stress as S-1 stepped away from them for a moment.

"Good luck with that." Douglas replied, stepping closer to Chase as Emilia pulled her headphones down, keeping them wrapped around the back of her neck while she joined in on the conversation, trying to see if she could help them out somehow. "He buried it in so many layers of encryption, it would take months to crack it."

"Well, do you think there's a chance he ever gave her the code?" Emilia wondered.

"I know one way we can find out." Douglas said and gestured behind him at S-1. "When patients lose their memories, sometimes doctors try to recover them by re-enacting scenes from their past. If we can do that with S-1, maybe we can trigger the memories we need."

Chase's eyes lit up for the first time since they all received the news about the virus. "Yes! That's brilliant!"

"I know! I said it!"

"Let's get to work." Chase sighed, turning to face the console. "Whatever's locked in that girl's head is the only thing that's gonna save all of us."

Emilia exhaled deeply and turned away from the two. Reaching for her headphones that were still around her neck, she went to put them back over her ears when a voice stopped her. At that point, none of them realised that the hydra-loop doors opened after it arrived back at the academy, and Leo stepped out of it. "You!"

"Me?" Emilia spun around on her heel, dropping her headphones back in its original place, around the back of her neck. Her brows pinched together in confusion, quickly making the assumption that her best friend was accusing her of something for whatever reason. "What did I—"

Not recognising the Dooley boy, S-1 instantly got into a fighting stance. "Who are you?"

The banshee's eyes shifted between S-1 and Leo, finally noticing her friend's attention was on the former bionic soldier and not her. "Oh." She put on an awkward smile and murmured under her breath, "Of course."

Leo stared at the girl, fuming with anger. "Maybe this'll remind you!"

"Leo, no!" Chase exclaimed, stepping forward to try and stop him, but he was too late. The Dooley boy had already raised his arm forward, firing a laser sphere at S-1 that knocked her to the floor.

Douglas, Chase and Emilia rushed over to check on S-1, and Leo watched them, puzzled. Though you couldn't exactly blame him as for one — the team plus the students prepared for a fight when they saw S-1 arrive to the island earlier that day, and two, Leo was completely unaware of the fact that everyone that had the Triton App, including his siblings and the students, had the Doomsday virus inside of them and currently had just under eight hours left to live. "What do you mean, no? I just saved your butts."

"No, you didn't!" Chase snapped, looking over at him. "You just dug our graves."

Many minutes have now passed, and the timer on the monitor now stated that they had seven hours remaining. In Addition, S-1 was still unconscious because of what Leo had done and everybody was still crowded around her, desperately wishing for the girl to wake up.

Douglas was fanning her with a magazine. "Come on, wake up, wake up!"

"So I leave for one afternoon and now everyone has hours to live?" Leo recapped what he was just told. "Why didn't you call me?"

"Oh, I'm sorry." Chase tilted his head, his words spoken in a sarcastic manner as he glared at his brother figure. "I've been a little busy trying to find ways not to blow up!"

Leo shook his head. "I'm sorry, but that's simply not good enough."

"She is still out of it." Douglas snapped, standing up before he turned to face him. "Leo, how could you attack her?"

"Look, with everyone around here flip-flopping between good and bad, it's hard to keep track. I have to stop myself from taking you out 5 times a day." Leo defended himself.

"Guys. Focus!" Emilia tried to tell them.

Chase nodded, leaving his girlfriend with S-1 as he approached Leo and Douglas. "Emilia's right. We have to find a way to revive S-1 before every bionic person here explodes!" At that, his phone vibrated, making Chase pull it out his pocket and grit his teeth. "Not now, FrizzyBizzy, not now!"

Chase put his phone back in his pocket as Emilia walked over and her and Douglas were pulled to the side by Leo. "Just to be clear, since we didn't have the Triton App, we're good, right?"

"Yeah." Douglas nodded, looking nervous. "In a few hours, the three of us could literally be the last ones standing." He glanced back at the bionic students and Chase who were crowded around S-1, before he turned back to Leo and Emilia and lowered his voice. "Probably best to keep that to ourselves."

Douglas and Leo quickly fist-bumped each other, causing Emilia to glare at them. Fortunately, S-1 finally began to stir, which caught their attention when Chase shouted: "She's waking up!"

Emilia went to walk over as Chase started to help S-1 sit up. But, when Leo screamed, she suddenly jumped back when a laser sphere went flying past her and hit S-1 once again, knocking her out. Leo grimaced, noticing everyone staring back at him for what he did. "Did you say 'she's waking up' or 'she has a knife?' Cause I'm just saying, those two sound very similar." Flicking his eyes towards his best friend, Leo let out a shriek when he saw the expression on her face and began storming over to him. He jumped back, letting Douglas step in front of the banshee to refrain her from hitting the boy.

"Hey, hey— take a breath, okay?" Douglas' voice was surprisingly soft when he spoke to the brown haired girl. "Why don't you put your headphones back on and listen to Taylor Swift?" He advised, knowing the situation was stressing the banshee out like it was for everybody else.

Emilia eventually backed off, making a face at the man as she placed her headphones back over her head with a pout on her lips. "Okay..."

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"She's awake." Chase informed everyone after he noticed S-1 begin to gain consciousness. Quickly, Douglas wrapped his arms around Leo to prevent him from making the same mistake again. "Don't even think about it." Douglas told him.

A couple of the students helped Chase bring S-1 up to her feet, making Emilia press pause on her music and take her headphones off, hearing Leo apologise. "Sorry I took you out. Twice."

"Yeah, well, at least you didn't use your bionics full-strength."

"Yeah," The boy smiled awkwardly at S-1, "that's right. I always dial it back for the ladies." He let out a chuckle and pulled a face when he looked away, letting Chase guide her over to sit down on a stool. "We think we found a way to stimulate your memories by acting out some scenes from your past with Krane." He explained.

"We're hoping that when he gave you the Doomsday virus, he told you how to deactivate it. So, we're gonna re-enact that moment." Douglas told the girl. "I'm gonna play Krane and Chase will play you."

"Hold on." Chase stopped Douglas, furrowing his brows at him. "How come you get to play Krane?"

"Because I knew him better than anybody." The man defended, before looking down at S-1 with a grin on his face. "Plus, I do a spot-on impression. I used to kill at our dinner parties." He chuckled before his happy expression was replaced with a frown. "And then he'd threaten to kill me."

"Well, I'm definitely not gonna play S-1." Chase insisted before noticing the look he received from the girl. "No offence."

"Why not?" Douglas argued with him. "Too much stretch for you to reach that level of macho?" He stopped laughing as soon as he saw S-1 glare up at him. "No offence."

"Oh, my God," Emilia groaned loudly at the boys bickering with each other as she approached the console. "you guys have such problems. I feel so terrible for you!"

"Emilia's right—"

"Like always." She pointed out, interrupting Leo who was about to elaborate on the reason why his friend interrupted their argument.

"Anyway...!" Leo shot the brunette a look, telling her not to chime in again, when he was agreeing with her. "We don't have time to argue." He told the two before turning to Chase. "But just for the record, I do think you'd make a great S-1. You wanna borrow one of the girls' boots? You can stuff some paper in there so they fit—"

"Can we just do this?!" Chase snapped at him and Leo widened his eyes.

Douglas nodded, standing beside S-1. "You're on an operating table in Krane's lab." He started the re-enactment and clapped his hands, looking at Chase as he gestured over to the console, telling him to lay down on it. Emilia cleared her throat, pulling her phone out her pocket before going to her camera and she started recording. "It's dark. You're terrified. The madman approaches." The Davenport man turned around and stuck a string of foil across his cheek to represent the wire that appeared on the right side of Krane's face when he implanted himself with bionics. Douglas then turned back to face everyone as he continued his dramatic imitation of Krane and chuckled evilly before approaching the console where Chase was laying. "I'm Victor Krane, and I want to take over the world." He continued to laugh evilly. "I also told Douglas I'd take him on a vacation to the Florida Keys— never happened!" He quickly nudged Chase, indicating it was his time to speak in the re-enactment. "Now you."

Chase sat up and cleared his throat. "Oh, no! Mr. Krane!" He let out in a falsetto voice, attempting to imitate S-1. Leo stood beside Emilia, the two of them pulling similar faces, almost flabbergasted by this performance. "Please don't give me, S-1, that bad, bad virus!" Douglas quickly shoved him back down on the console.

Emilia clicked the button to stop the video as Leo pursed his lips before he crouched down to be at S-1's level. "I don't suppose this is helping you remember anything."

"No." S-1 shook her head at Leo. "But it is making me hope that when I do blow up, I take these two out with me." Douglas and Chase looked back at her for that comment, causing her to add on in a mocking way. "No offence."

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Two minutes. That's how much time they had left and the team unfortunately still hadn't managed to come up with a good plan that would succeed in deactivating the Doomsday virus.

Chase approached Douglas. "Role playing didn't work, decrypting the virus didn't work, I'm out of options!" He panicked, making Leo take Emilia's headphones and put them over her head for her to carry on listening to her music and block out the sound of her boyfriend stressing. Considering how today has gone on, he was surprised to have heard that she hadn't screamed yet.

"Hey," Adam tapped his brother on the shoulder, after walking into the room with Bree. "guys, any progress?"

Douglas looked back at the two siblings who had just arrived and groaned. "Oh, great, more mess to clean up!"

"This is useless!" Chase spoke in frustration, and turned to his brother and sister. "There's no fix."

"What do you mean there's no fix?" Adam asked in worry. "I'm not having Krane's virus take me out. I'd rather have one of you guys do it."

Douglas looked over at the boy. "Oh, Adam, that's ridiculous."

But Chase widened his eyes when he realised his brother had a point. "No. He's right."

"Okay," Douglas nodded and turned away, "if you say so." He pulled out a hammer before raising it towards the siblings, causing Chase to flinch.

Emilia widened her eyes, seeming to have caught what Douglas was going to do, even though she couldn't hear much because of the music that was playing in her ears until she pressed pause on her phone. "Aaaah!" Emilia rushed over and grabbed the hammer out of Douglas' hand. "Give me that, you bonehead!"

After Emilia put the hammer away and out of the man's reach, Chase spoke up. "I know what to do. A virus needs a carrier and without the carrier, the virus dies."

"So, what are you saying?" S-1 asked, as her and the students stood closer to the mentors so they could hear Chase's explanation.

"We need to trick the virus into thinking we're dead."

Adam gasped loudly. "Good idea. We'll be ghosts. Bree, go get the sheets. I'll cut out the eye holes."

Everyone looked at him oddly, though ignoring his suggestion since Chase just turned to face the other way and elaborated on the fact. "If we give ourselves our own Doomsday virus, it'll shut down our bionic infrastructures."

Bree pursed her lips and nodded. "Great plan, Chase, except you forgot one little thing: we'll be dead."

"Only temporarily." Chase responded. "We can control our own virus. As long as Douglas starts uninstalling it right after it takes effect, none of us will actually die."

"So our lives depend on this guy?" S-1 questioned with her finger pointed in Douglas' direction, and the team nodded. "And we're all okay with that?"

"The plan's too risky. We're not doin' it!" Douglas snapped and walked off, with Chase rushing after him.

"We only have two minutes left! What else are we gonna do?" Chase asked, trying to prove his point that this is the only good plan they've got and if they want to survive this Doomsday virus, they had no other choice.

"There has to be another way!" Douglas insisted before suddenly snapping his fingers when he got an idea. "I have a firewall program on my laptop. If the codes match, it could block the virus. I'll be right back!" He then ran out of the common area before any of them got a chance to respond.

Chase sighed deeply. "We don't have time to wait. We have to install our own Doomsday virus." He announced, before stepping away to call out to all the students in the room. "Attention, everyone! I'm about to wirelessly install a lethal virus into your chips. But I'm doing it to save you, and if for some reason it doesn't work, well, you can all forget about last night's homework."

Emilia and Leo approached him quickly. "Chase, what are you doing? Don't you need Douglas to bring everyone back?" Leo reminded him.

"No, we have you and Lia."

"Pardon?" Emilia blinked, wanting to know if she heard him right as she pulled her headphones off her neck.

"Who 'you'? Me 'you'?" Leo asked.

"Yes, you." Chase bobbed his head at him. "Look, guys, don't worry. As soon as I send the virus to all of our chips, I'll tell you both exactly how to uninstall it."

Leo closed his eyes for a second. "Fine." His eyes glanced over Chase's shoulder and landed on the timer, noticing how much time they now had left, making him and Emilia panic. "But we only have thirty seconds left. Hurry!"

"Okay." Chase ran over to the console with Emilia and Leo behind him. He pressed a few buttons to install the virus in everybody's chips. "Okay, the virus is installed. Emilia, Leo, all you have to do is—" Chase cut himself off, and his hands slipped off his girlfriend's shoulders when he, along with everyone else bar Emilia and Leo, collapsed to the ground.

"No. No. No. No. No!" Emilia whimpered slightly, putting her headphones down on the console and dashed over to her boyfriend to kneel down next to him and she gripped his shirt. "You don't get to die on me now, Chase Davenport!"

"No. No. No! No. No. No." Leo stared at everyone in utter shock and stepped over a couple of them as Douglas finally returned with his laptop. "No! No!"

Douglas stopped abruptly when he saw that one of the students were in his way, and that's when he realised that all of them had collapsed. "What did you do?!" He screamed towards Emilia and Leo.

"It wasn't us! It was Chase!" Leo screamed back at him. "I told him not to install the virus, but he did it anyway!" He stumbled over to the man and grabbed his shoulders. "He is trouble, that one— trouble!" His left arm flew back, pointing over at his best friend. "Emilia, you should think—"

Douglas cut him off and shoved him out the way, groaning in frustration. "Get out of the way!" He rushed towards the console and put his laptop on it before rapidly typing into the console. "Krane's Doomsday virus, deactivated. Now I'll just have to uninstall Chase's. Come on, come on..."

Douglas looked around, unsure of what to do as nobody seemed to be gaining consciousness. Leo appeared to be wondering the same thing. "Why isn't anyone waking up?"

"I don't know." Douglas answered, which didn't help anybody, especially Emilia.

"What do you mean you don't know?!" The girl's stress level was practically popping off the charts due to how much her heart was pounding in this situation.

"Yeah," Leo bobbed his head, "they can't go much longer without oxygen!" He raised his voice at the man, making Douglas turn to him and tug on his shirt, shaking him roughly. "It's not my virus! I'm doing my best!"

"Ayyy," Emilia quickly pried Douglas' hands off Leo before slapping the man on the back of his head. "Great job, genius." She motioned towards the console and grit her teeth. "Chase's virus is still active because you forgot to hit enter!"

"Oh." Douglas realised. "Well, I probably didn't hit it because I was busy doing—"

"Hit! It!" Leo screamed at him, making Douglas finally click the button.

"Come on, come on!"

It took a few moments before Emilia heard Chase gasp and shoot up from the floor, with the others following him a second later. Emilia, Douglas and Leo sighed in relief before the former darted over to her boyfriend. She knelt down beside the boy, yet to have uttered a word as she wrapped her arms around his neck, causing his hands to meet with her back.

"Hey... I'm okay." Chase mumbled into her hair, wanting to reassure her that he was fine. And as it looks like, so was everyone else. Emilia smiled softly, pulling away from him after a few seconds before helping him off the floor. "I love you." He whispered and wrapped his arms around Emilia's neck before leaning down to kiss her softly on the lips.

"I love you too." Emilia replied before the couple turned their heads over to S-1 who looked very relieved to see herself and the others standing back on their feet. "We're alive!"

"And no one blew up." Bree chimed in, but just as she said that, a loud popping sound echoed from the training area, which alarmed everyone.

"The students in the training area!"

"No!" The team exclaimed, dashing into the next room before they all stopped when they spotted Adam standing in the middle of the training area, starting to pop the balloons that filled the whole room.

"Adam, what are you doing?" Bree asked.

He looked back at everyone with a beaming smile on his face. "Trying to make you think students were popping." Adam answered. "Well, don't just stand there. Help me pop!"

Emilia shrugged. "Eh, why not?" Everyone began to join Adam in popping the balloons, but Chase who sighed, raising his hands in the air to call out to them. "Okay. All right, listen up!" They had all stopped what they were doing for a moment to look over at Chase. "I know we're all having fun celebrating being alive and stuff, but your homework is due tomorrow."

Bree laughed softly. "Only you could make being brought back to life a buzz-kill." She turned away from him and used the balloon as a volleyball to pass it over to Emilia so she could pop it. Chase shrugged before joining in on the fun.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

"I've got the tarp." Douglas sighed out, looking at the group of teenagers who were sat together in the common area. He gestured behind him, "I'm gonna go blow somethin' up." He told them and turned around before leaving the room.

"Well," Chase stood up from his stool and looked around at everybody, "I'm happy to say we're all virus-free."

The students standing in the back cheered at the news, while the others had smiles on their faces, unlike Adam who grimaced. "Speak for yourself. I caught something nasty. That is the last time I buy used balloons."

"Yeah..." Bree shook her head, "no, it's not."

Adam chuckled before walking away with Chase, Bree and Emilia, leaving Leo alone as S-1 walked up to him. "So, does this mean we can finally put our past behind us?"

"I guess." Leo hesitantly nodded. "But just in case you decide to get all evil again, I'm rockin' a bionic leg now." He lifted his leg up and dropped it on the console with a loud clank!

S-1 started laughing at him. "I'm sorry. I want to be intimidated by you, but I just can't."

Leo pulled a face and brought his leg back down to the floor. "Look... let's just make a fresh start and see where it goes from there."

"Deal." S-1 nodded. "I'm just glad I'm not getting those flashbacks anymore."

"Hey!" Adam came sprinting back into the room and looked at S-1 and Leo. "Guys, look, I found two more." He held up two green balloons before blowing them up with his nostrils.

"Hang around here long enough and you'll have plenty of other horrifying memories to replace 'em with."

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

author's notes!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!

here's to 2025!

here's a new chapter to this book which i hope you enjoyed reading! i love you all!! <33