Zvezda hovered up close to Eva, with a creepy little smile on her face. Eva backed away, pixels flying from her hands. She didn’t want to pixelate. She didn’t want to fight. But what was Zvezda planning on doing to her?

The vacant-eyed girl placed a hand on Eva’s shoulder. A sharp crackle filled the air, and a pain like no other filled Eva. She glitched uncontrollably, lifted up off the ground, suspended by Zvezda’s strange power. Her own agonized screams seemed to tear through her ears. Hungry, blazing energy invaded her every cell, burned each layer of her one by one, ransacking every last atom of her being in search of any possible excuse to end her life.

Eventually the pain subsided, and Eva crumpled to the floor. Hot tears dripped down her cheeks.

“She is not infected,” Zvezda reported, smiling dreamily. She clearly enjoyed this little demonstration of her abilities.

“Good,” Ceno nodded curtly. He turned his back on Eva, who was gasping weakly on the floor, struggling to recover her wits. “Now, what should we do with her? Send her back to the Initiative as a peace offering?”

Suddenly, the dark walls of the room flashed red, and a piercing alarm sounded. Ceno clamped his hands over his ears.

“He’s here!” the man shouted, no longer cold and smug. “He found us!”

A tumbling rush of hideous red pixels poured into the room, forming disjointed, jagged red strings of light that reached out for the Digitized like gnarled electric fingers. The degraded pixels swirled and collected around an imposing figure, a powerful silhouette that strode so casually into the room, as if entirely oblivious to the pandemonium unfolding.

Zvezda’s dreamy look was replaced with a ferocious glower, and she sent a shockwave of energy blasting toward the silhouette. The silhouette’s pixels collected around the shockwave and devoured it alive, dissipating it well before it could do any damage. Tendrils of light wrapped around Eva’s captors, jerking them off their feet. They fell to the ground, incapacitated, their bodies rebelling against them and turning to code. A searing heat stole the breath from Eva’s lungs, and she stood there untouched amid the chaos, gaping in astonishment at what she was seeing. She could hardly believe her eyes.

The red pixels dissipated, and the jagged lights faded. Without wasting any time, the dark silhouette rushed to Eva’s side, pulling her onto her feet.

“There isn’t much time,” he spoke. Eva shivered at the familiar sound of the stranger’s gentle voice. It was him. Her mysterious rescuer. The Shadow Virus. Eva stared at his dark armor, marked by that one silvery symbol. She stared at the black mask covering most of his face, revealing only one of his intense amber eyes. He did look rather like a villain, she realized. 

“Come on,” he said. He took her by the arm and began to drag her from the room. She glanced back toward the Digitized trio who’d abducted her. They were starting to recover from the attack. She watched Ceno force himself onto his hands and knees, shouting profanities at the Shadow Virus as his body continued to shudder and quake, bleeding pixels in all directions.

“Wait!” Eva yelped, jerking her arm out of the insistent grip of the Shadow Virus. A pixel darted from her hand. When it wandered too close to the man’s sizzling red aura, it disintegrated into a distorted mess. “You… you’re—”

“I’ll answer any questions you have, I swear. We just need to get out of here first,” he cut her off, grabbing her by the hand, attempting to lead her down a long, dark hallway. She could only vaguely recall being dragged down that same hallway by Ceno and Iyanna less than an hour ago.

Eva did not move. “No! They told me you’re infected with some kind of virus! They’re saying you want to destroy entire cities! Why would I go anywhere with you?!”

The Shadow Virus sighed. “I was afraid of that. I swear, I’ll explain everything. But first…”

Eva wasn’t even listening. She was too busy debating with herself, unable to decide whether to resort to unleashing her full power to get away from him. She wanted — no, needed — to escape this situation and figure things out for herself. But would it be worth it?

The Shadow Virus’s one visible eye studied Eva. He sighed with resignation. “Nothing I say will convince you to come with me?”

He gently placed his finger upon Eva’s temple, and with a flash of red light, she fell to the ground, unconscious. The Shadow Virus gathered her up in his arms, and silently carried her from the building.