Pandemia Rise of the Paramecia

Sector 4: The Accident

However, even with the changed his physical body he was still mentally exhausted. This was evident as Echo continued to sleep for another week thereafter. Then one day in early July as we were doing our daily housekeeping and eating breakfast; Echo just kinda walks into the kitchen. When he came in, he walked up to the cover grabbed a bowl and spoon from it and placed it on the table. Then he walked to the pantry grabbed a box of cereal and the milk from the fridge and placed those on the table. After which he sat down and prepared himself a bowl of cereal and milk.

After a few minutes of sitting down eating, he looked up and noticed that we were sitting there staring at him in disbelief. To which he said, "what's wrong with you guys you look as though you've never seen a Ruffian eat cereal in milk before?"

"Echo, that isn't even the problem here or the reason we're looking at you so funny," I said thoroughly confused.

"Oh, well what seems to be the problem then? After Matilda there gave me that shot yesterday, I slept like a baby and it felt great. I haven't slept like that in years although my strength isn't completely back or what it used to be. Still, though it feels good to be alive!" Echo said joyously.

"Yesterday? Uh, Echo you have been asleep for almost a year since that day. Did you not know that?" said Lady Vice in a shocked voice.

"Ah Okay. That explains your panic faces," He said as he finished his bowl of cereal. As he reached for the box to get some more, he stopped in mid-reach and thought about what was just said. Then his hand dropped to the table and on his face was the saddest look I have ever seen.

"To be honest. I don't know if to say thank you or if I should just start crying. After all, I'm alive because of you guys and my late fiancé. I understand it's been a while. Please forgive my behaviour to the news presented before me. I'm .... I'm just," he said as he started to cry.

We all get it around him to hug him and make him feel better. To which he replied, "I'm so happy to be alive right now!" For the rest of that day, it was a joyous victory for us. Rather than work, we celebrated the rest of the day eating and drinking and enjoying each other's company.

However, the next day we were back to business. We started to mass-produce the purple fluid that Matilda made. And as for its name, I think it was called Sizzurp. After we finished synthesizing it, we would put it in usable syringes for immediate use. At the same time, Codex was busy helping Echo rebuild his ship.

The process of producing the Sizzurp will take about five more months to complete and make a large enough amount to have ready to use. However, Echo's ship on the other hand was another story. The ship was far from ready as we still couldn't get the warp drive to function properly with the phase shift engine from his original ship. The phase shift engine was the device that he said would allow him to return to his own dimension or at least that's what he told us. Since we couldn't validate what he said or knew whether or not it was true we still sent some engineers to help him as they would be able to help construct everything and get the systems aligned.

During this period of construction and testing, we brought Echo once more for another examination. This of course was to make sure that he was completely okay. There were no traces of the mutagen left in him when we checked him. However, as it turns out the Sizzurp seems to only be effective as long as the victim hasn't completely been corrupted and is still alive. When we tested on some of the captured corrupted tissue it had little to almost no effect on it.

After another month, we managed to get his ship up and running again. Not only that, but all the systems seemed to be working in tandem like it was supposed to. Unfortunately, this is where the good news ends.

"Hey everyone, the engineers said everything is working properly so how 'bout we fire this baby up and see if it's working? You guys have done so much for me and I want all of you here for this occasion of starting up my new spaceship," said Echo with glee.

"Well, that's excellent. Personally, I'm interested in that ship if not anything else in here!" Laughed Codex as he continued, "That phase shift engine was a pain to get working again. Not only that for some reason it just wouldn't sync with the warp drive."

"That may be but somehow you guys managed to get the damn thing running again," said Lady Vice to Codex as if cheering him on.

"Don't go getting your hopes up yet. We still need to start it up first and see if the thing can even leave let alone fly," said Matilda as she walked into the dock upset.

"Why so grumpy first thing in the morning Matilda? Is this not a joyous occasion? Besides, we are off today for this very reason," said Issiac.

"It's because it's the morning I'm upset. It's freaking 5:00 AM! We don't even get up this early for work normally!" she replied angrily.

"Well look at the bright side after he leaves you can sleep for the rest of the day. Besides, he'd be sad if you were not here to see him off," I said calmly trying to ease her anger.

"Uh, true enough. Considering all that we've gone through," she said exhaling loudly before continuing to speak. "With stunning beauty and brains such as mine, not present, it could hardly be called a sendoff now, couldn't it? I will forgive this intrusion to my daily routine just this once."

Everyone looked at her and just rolled their eyes. Echo on the other hand started laughing instead. We all just kind of turned and looked at him and then he said, "I love how energetic and lively you all are. Man, I'm really going to miss you all. But enough of that let's get this party started!"

We all cheered because Echo could finally go home even if he weren't completely successful, he would at least be able to stop people and creatures from turning into corrupted. As to how he was going to defeat the corrupted back on his homeworld, we weren't sure.

We all watched from the docking Bay as Echo started up his ship. At first, all was going well. Quickly we went up to the control room to open the hangar bay of the space station. As he pulled out, he activated his phase shift engine and as he did the ship started glowing a fluorescent purple and green colour.

He then pulled around outside the hangar and over the video com, he said, "Well everything seems to be in order. The warp drive is ready to be engaged and that purple and green colour that's glowing on the outside of my ship indicates that the phase shift engine is running properly. I should be able to leave now. All I have to do is –"

                        Error ...... Error ...... Error

                        Phase Shift Engine Connection Error

                        Cannot Connect to Host

                        Cannot Connect to Host

                        Default Setup Initialized

"Uh, guys somethings wrong with the ship here it's not responding!" Echo shouted.

"Quickly power it down and get it back in the hangar!" said Issiac loudly. To which echo quickly landed the ship and turned it off. After which the ship stopped glowing and Echo climbed out extremely disappointed.

"Dang it! Everything was great what happened? All the systems checked everything ran as normal, we were so close." Echo said infuriated at the situation.

All five of us and the engineers ran to meet up with him in the hangar bay. The engineers went to see about the ship, and we went to go check on Echo who was extremely pissed off. After a few minutes, we were able to calm him down, but the piece was short-lived as we heard the engineers shouting to us. One of the engineers ran up to us and said, "So quick question you did shut down the engine, warp drive and the phase shift engine, completely right? Because we've got a huge problem over here."

echo replied, "Yes, I shut down Phase shift engine and the warp drive first then the ship and then cut the power. why?"

The worried engineer continued, "because the system is ......" However, before he could finish what he was saying the space station's alarm system went off.

                        Warning! ....... Warning!

                        Paradoxal Distortion Detected!

                        Wormhole Detected in Proximity of Station Engaging Emergency Protocols

I hate when it does that....

                        Warning! ....... Warning!

                        Emergency Protocols Are Now in Effect!

                        Warning! ....... Warning!

                        Emergency Protocols Are Now in Effect!

Immediately after the space station's alarm system started going off, we heard another voice coming from echo spaceship. As we looked in its direction, we could see all the engineers racing to get away from it.

                        Connection Has Been Reestablished......

                        Phase Shift Engine Engaged!

                        Activating Warp Drive System!

"What the bloody hell is going on?" shouted Matilda. "Why is everything going off at once? Last time I checked this is not how a sendoff is supposed to work."

The engineer replied, "The phase shift engine never shut down completely and somehow beforehand it seems we didn't notice that it had been damaged. There is a huge c***k in the middle and it cause it to malfunction. Since it didn't shut down properly, it has been force attempting to reconnect to some foreign system; so much so that it is ripping a hole in spacetime."

"How could you guys not have noticed something so significant! Wait, don't tell me that it's creating a ---" said Lady Vice scared.

"I'm afraid so. That so-called wormhole that's picking up is sitting in our dock. we need to get that ship out of here now!" shouted one of the engineers.

"That's a great idea, but how do we do that with the entire system in lockdown? We can't even open the hangar doors," I said fervently.

Just then as we were talking, Echo's ship started glowing a bright red fluorescent colour as it rose from the ground on its own and now hovering above us in the hangar.

"Welp! I hate to be the one to say this, but we have two possible outcomes for this," said Codex briefly.

"Oh yeah! Well what the hell are they!" said an angry Matilda. "Do you care to enlighten us to our situation?"

Codex ignoring her continued, "Well the way I see it the two options are like this. The first one is the most likely possibility; we all die in an implosion of a black hole opening up in the middle of the space station."

"Okay as fun as that option sounds, we'll leave that as a last resort. What is the other option?" said Issiac hopefully.

To which Codex replied, "The other one is that we get thrown somewhere random in space getting split up in the process. Our space stations either damaged or destroyed somewhere unknown and we still managed to die somehow after that."

"Well I don't like either option to be honest," said Lady Vice peeved. "Personally, I still have much to live for and I would love to see it come to fruition."

"Then, I suggest we all get in an airship quickly and get the heck outta here!" I suggested quickly.

"Don't worry about the hangar doors; I'll blast them open for us," said Echo fervently.

We then looked around and found one of the old cargo anti raid ships. Everyone then climbed into the ship as it was the only one large enough to contain everyone. And as a bonus, the ship was also equipped with a defence system and weapons. Echo quickly took to the helm and started up the ship immediately. Once the ship was airborne, he blasted through the hangar doors and flew straight through.

We flew as far as we could to get away from the station. As we watched we could see the whole station starting to glow a strange red colour as it started folding in on itself. Soon after the station completely vanished. For a while, it was peaceful as it seemed to be over. However, that wasn't the case. A huge gravitational force started pulling the ship back towards where the space station once was. And unfortunately, as this was a cargo ship and its engines weren't strong enough; we couldn't escape the force of the pull.

As we got closer and closer to the centre of the gravitational force, we could see echoes ship still floating there intact with that fluorescent red colour glowing around it. Then for a moment, everything around us turns completely black outside the ship. All we could see was echo ship in front of us. Then echo ship started glowing white and we could hear the computer aboard it as if it were on loudspeaker say:

                        Connection to Tachyon Planet Reestablished!

                        Connecting to Negative Recon Towers ......

                        Connection Established!

                        Engaging Warp Systems!

                        Target! Negative Dimension ...... Planet Pandemia

                        Homebound Beacon Found! Beginning Warp!

After that, a bright light flashes before us. To which all we heard before we passed out was Echo saying, "Hold on tight everybody we're about to work between dimensions! I wanted you guys to see my home, but this is not how I wanted it to happen. Hold on tight and pray we survive!"