They went in during the middle of the night. They got past security and cameras with Mirror’s help. 

The building they chose was the center Dr. Heissman frequented the most. Through quiet maneuvering, they arrived in the main computer room. Within five minutes, the computer room personnel were unconscious.

The interceptors observed that the tested individuals were either taken through a red door or sent back home. The defeated slumps made it obvious they were labeled as non-immune. 

The ones taken into the red door never came out. 

It was less than an hour before Synthesis said, “I’m in.” They made quick work of uploading the bug. It took five minutes.

Once completed, they made a quick dash out of the control room, but ran straight into a girl being dragged by two security guards. 

Bluestar cursed under her breath, “So much for keeping this under the radar!” 

Synthesis, reminded of his own daughter back home, jumped in quickly. 

He slammed the first guard into a concrete wall using his suit’s telekinetic energy, leaving a spiderweb of cracks, and simultaneously executed a brutal headbutt to the second one. 

The guard's rifle fired wildly from his grasp as he crumpled, the shot hitting a reinforced door's emergency release panel. 

With a heavy hiss, the door slid open, and a metallic, deformed Jawal—a cyborg Jawal—exited. The creature lunged across the floor towards the girl. 

Maya heard a gunshot as she was waiting for her testing results in the adjacent room. Though still in pain from her earlier fight, she couldn’t resist running to the source of the sound. A gunshot meant someone could be hurt, and deep down she wanted to redeem herself for her earlier failure.

A young Mexican woman entered the room quickly.

Seeing the girl in danger, she rushed forward, shouting a warning, only to be caught by a stray swipe from another Jawal that appeared out of nowhere. Its claw raked across her chest before she could dodge it. Thrown into a wall, the woman fell into a heap seconds later.

Nearby, the cyborg Jawal in a blur of motion, bit hard on the girl’s forearm before anyone could intervene.

Things are going downhill, fast. Bluestar thought. Protocol demanded that they finish off the two females that were infected. 

Then something strange happened. A high, metallic whine started from the cyborg Jawal as its jaw clamped down on the girl.

A shimmering, purple smoke rose out of nowhere and surrounded her and the abomination. 

Purpleheart, who was closest to the beast, rolled out of the way quickly. Her suit's sensors warned her that the smoke was dangerous.

Paired with her panicked scream, the cloud instantly began to centralize on the beast, appearing to infect it from the inside out. 

It shook vehemently, letting go of the bleeding girl. Then it exploded. The girl screamed again in horror, somehow understanding that the terrifying occurrence was her doing. She fainted abruptly after. 

“We should dip.” The purple-armored interceptor said. 

Synthesis saw that the fainted girl was still breathing but not turned, so he grabbed her quickly. The other girl, he noticed with sadness, was lying still. 

Dead.

“Let’s go.” Mirror said solemnly. The other slain Jawal were piled into a corner and evaporated with his energy beam. The amount of energy it took for his suit to bend photons meant he could no longer manipulate light once he used the weapon until he recharged. 

It was a last resort for emergencies. Since they couldn't call a clean-up crew, evaporating the corpses was the safest option.

“What gives?” Synthesis asked, referring to the assortment of jewels Purpleheart held when the corpses were being eradicated. 

She pulled out a couple wallets from her other hand. “Don't worry your clever little head! I'm just taking these so we can identify any victims.”

Bluestar who was only a few feet away, raised an unseen brow. As a popstar who took acting lessons, she knew the difference between someone telling the truth and a lie. 

Changing the topic, the purple interceptor said, “Right, my turn to shine. Follow my lead.” Snapping her fingers for dramatic effect, a cosmic purple rift in space large enough for them to walk through appeared. They vacated the property in seconds, the girl in Synthesis' arms, and the other woman left for dead.