After work shift is over, the crew is back at Albur and Mysty's house. This whole afternoon they did nothing but stare at Johnson researching on that piece of flesh of the creature. After a few minutes, Johnson sighed and incinerated the flesh.
"What results have you got?" asked Albur.
"That monster isn't something normal, my research found that it contains some sort of virus.....it rewrites codes of objects as well as rearrange organs when it parasitize an organism and take full control over the body." explained Johnson.
"It seems to be infectious right?" asked Mysty
"Correct."
The slot 3 of Albur's rifle moved a little.
Albur felt something strange, he took out his rifle and inspected it, trying to figure out what is the strange feel.
"Do you guys think....Commander Glitch is back?" murmured Covie.
"One, Commander Glitch is already dead, his core brain is destroyed for good and those splinter things do nothing like this. Second, even if it was Commander Glitch, this type of glitch mutating stuff is not his style. Plus, this isn't glitch energy, it's something very different."
The crew met eyes.
"We might need to prepare for another stupid disaster."
Albur then remembered something, he went to his desks and searched the messy files. He then took out a card, it is the same card Rhea 'gave' them last time they were invited to join UTD.
"Why do we need that for?"
Albur looked at the card,
"If we are facing another disaster, is it better to face it alone or....." he murmured.
Mysty immediately understood what he is talking about. Johnson seemed irritated by the words.
"There's no way, we just rejected the offer didn't we?"
"Remember the time she said 'in case you have a change in mind'?"
Albur stared at the card.
"Looks like we still have to go through another trauma."
"We. Already. Rejected them."
"But this time, there's another disaster coming again right? Why not we....."
"We. Are not. Joining them!"
"Then what do we do?"
"We'll just wait for the government to give whatever evacuation order or anything. I don't want to see anything like the previous infection again!"
"Guys guys calm down, we can discuss about this! Don't argue again you two!"
The crew looked at each other, the silence went on for 10 minutes.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The next day, Albur's car is seen driving ,it then stopped by a street. The crew hopped off the car, right before them is a gym.
"There's no way she want us to meet her here." scoffed Johnson.
"Come on Johns...John, we all discussed about it."
"I know, I know."
"You are still that persuasive." murmured Mysty, looking at Albur.
The crew entered the gym, they walked to the reception room. There is a robot doing work on a computer. Albur walked to the robot.
"Um, hello?"
The robot looked at Albur.
"Anything I can help you sir? Do you wanna buy a membership for this gym?"
"Yeah, uh, no thanks, I am here to look for someone, it'll be quick, only 10 minutes."
The robot stared at Albur for a few seconds. It then typed on the computer and pressed a button. It formed 4 cards written '10 minutes pass' and handed to Albur.
"Hope you have a nice day. Mr Filix." said the robot.
"Woah, wait, even CIs could recognize me now?"
"Huh, can't you recognize who I am? You met me a hundred times, I'm that reception robot from Chumps TV station."
"Wait what? You moved here?"
"Yeah, I got a better employee benefit here."
"Albur could you hurry up?" asked Mysty.
"Oh, yeah, right, sorry." Albur grabbed the 4 cards.
"Chat to you later."
Albur gave the rest of the crew the cards. They met with the coach and asked for Rhea's whereabout. He pointed that Rhea is in a specialized gym room training. The crew walked to the room, and knocked on the door. Suddenly, the door was slammed open by an unknown energy force, slightly damaging the door. Covie quickly fixed it. The crew walked into the room, Rhea is in the middle of a training session. Doing pull ups with two 50 kg bracelets, three 100 kg dumbbells on her back and two 100 kg dumbbells strapped on her feet. Rhea noticed the crew is in the room, she looked at her watch.
"Right on time, pretty impressive. I thought you all will be late." said Rhea in a mocking tone.
Johnson was irritated upon hearing Rhea's words. Albur and Mysty looked at each other and rolled their eyes.
"So, why change your mind? I thought you all said you wanna heal from trauma, why come look for trauma?"
"Doesn't matter ok? We accept the recruitment." said Albur.
"Huh, Director Towelestone is gonna be super happy. He had been so stressed lately due to the glitch stuffs lately."
Rhea stopped with the training. She put down every weight on her and dried her body.
"What kind of sick bastard do pull ups with 600 kilograms of weight on her?" asked Johnson.
"What is it? You can't do that?" Rhea mocked Johnson.
Johnson glared at her. Rhea just chuckled and put a lollipop in her mouth.
"So, all 4 of you are joining us."
"Yes."
"Splendid."
Rhea then reached to her pocket, she took out a small keychain that have a giant red button on it.
"What is this?" asked Mysty.
"Y'all's car can't get to UTD's headquarters, mine could."
Rhea pressed the button. The keychain then glowed and started enlarging. It then reformed and turned into the giant battle bot they saw earlier. The crew gulped and broke a sweat.
"What?"
"Nothing."
The slot 3 of Albur's rifle moved a little.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
At the UTD headquarters, Rale is sitting at his desk, swamped by the work on hand. Then, there is a knock on his door. Rale pressed a button on his desk which opened the door. Rhea walked into the room.
"Agent Rhea? Why are you here?"
"What? Can't I come back to work after the 3 day suspension from duty?"
"Of course you could, but why are you here to meet me?"
"Ah, we have 4 new members joining UTD."
"Then take them to the onboard section! Can't you see how busy I am?!"
"Well those 4 aren't normal people. You would definitely want them in the organization."
Rale groaned and put his hand on his forehead.
"Who? Why?"
Rhea made a come in signal. Then, the Glitch Wipeout Crew entered the room. Rale's eyes immediately brighten, he stood up from his seat.
"The Glitch Wipeout Crew? Why.....didn't you all rejected the recruitment previously?"
The crew all stared at Albur, and smiled awkwardly (except for Johnson). Albur rolled his eyes.
"We.....heard of there is another potential disaster that is about to happen. So, we would wanna team up with UTD to help stopping it."
"But, didn't you all say you wanna heal from what trauma?"
"Why waste capability and run when we could help saving the world?"
Rale stayed silent for a while. Then he smiled and walked towards Albur.
"We are very happy to have you all to join us." Rale offered his hand for a hand shake. Albur looked at the crew, everyone nodded. Albur smiled and shook Rale's hand.
"Please do point out how could we help."
"Right, but uh, would you mind if we do a little research with you all?"
Albur raised an eyebrow. The rest of the crew were also confused.