Emilia Lyon’s funeral happened at a remote facility used for incinerating bio and electronic wastes, but to John Lyon, it was nothing more than a secret fancy cremation site for her body.

He stood before her coffin, his face sober. He had taken great preparations for that day, the facility had to be prepared for their arrival 24/7. The transportation of Emilia’s coffin had to be done in complete secrecy using only his own trustworthy people.

He sighed, he will do all that he can so that the world doesn’t know of her existence so that it won’t try to take her away from him, like it did Lia. Sorry, darling, I have failed as a husband and now, as a father, I hope that you can forgive-

“Dad!”. His thoughts were interrupted by the furious Sophie Lyon. Following her were the rest of the Lyon household.

“Sis, don’t be so rushed, I’m sure father will explain to us in time.” Lucas Lyon said, the youngest of the lot.

“How can I not be rushed, Lucas? We had a sister! One that we've never known for her entire 18 years of life. Dad, how could you have done such horrible things? Locking her in for her whole life, and now that she had passed away, you would burn her at this remote place?”.

Unable to control her raging anger, she continued. “I’ve heard a rumor for so long that I can no longer ignore it. Is it true, dad, that the reason why you had genetically modified us was so that you could full fill your goal, the one that the supposedly summoned hero had?”.

“Sophie!” she visibly shrunk at John’s harsh rebuke. “I’m sorry” the heartfelt words pierced the long silenced that ensued.

“I’m sorry that I had failed my duties as a father, I love her just as I loved Lia and I had no intention of letting her suffer the fate of her mother”, he solemnly declared.

“So you just lock her up in her cage, never to be seen again in daylight?” was Sophie’s loud inquiry, her tone almost hysterical.

“Do you know why I had to genetically modify you to increase your combat abilities? It had nothing to do with the goal I had in mind. It was because of your own safety. As you know, the goal that I’m following will have so big an impact on Varius that many forces are against it. No matter how many guards I hire to protect you, It wouldn’t be enough, you know the despicable acts they can commit.” Explained John.

“Why then, did you still decided it was a good idea to have us?”. John blinked, the taciturn Lucas had never spoken with him so direct and bitter, it was almost a conviction rather than a question.

“I was originally against the idea, but I relented as your mother had insisted many times. Please do not misunderstand, there is nothing in this world that means more to me than you and Emilia.

“It is because of your and Emilia’s safety that made me pursue my goal, don’t ever forget that”. While it is not loud, his clear, calm and almost passionate voice sounded throughout the large room.

“Would you ever tell me what this fancy goal of yours is?” Sighed Sophie.

“You know why I couldn’t, I can't guaranty that you won’t try to make harmful decisions that would only harm yourselves”.

The family discussion continued until they wanted to see Emilia’s body for the last time, only to open up to an empty coffin.

##

“So she was alive after all these years huh, I thought we had killed her along with her mother”. “What do you mean, we? That was done by the top brass, not by you mooks !”. Various whispers buzzed around Ellowyn, waking her from the long slumber.

Peeking through her closed eyelids, she noticed that she was on an examination table, with various monitors, all of which indicated that she was deceased. Various people were standing around her, oblivious of her awakening.

She was startled as some of them were wearing what seemed to be reinforced jackets and various weapons such as mechanical knives, guns, and other unrecognized tools were strapped to their belts and backs. Some of them had spiky mohawks while most of them had numerous tattoos on their body.

Where am I? Who are these people? Have I been kidnapped? As she was getting more and more hysterical, two screens materialized. One gave her information regarding her location using GPS and other unknown methods and putting that inside a visual map, the other was matched their faces with the system’s internal database. Had she more free time, her inner nerd would have spent days fiddling with this robust game-like system. She dismissed the map because according to the memories of her other self in this world, the fact that she was locked in most of the time prevented her from locating herself even when she had a map.

The identifying screen reported of an illegal mercenary group called the Snake Eye, she had often heard of them being in the gossip of the maids, they had often been hired to attack and harass various places owned by her family. Knowing the situation doesn’t calm her down at all, it was clear she had been captured by this group, possibly for ransom.

Why would they do so when I was supposedly dead? Perhaps they brought her here to open her up to research, or for all she knew about the advanced technology of that world, specifically in body reanimation, they might as well modify and revive her as a zombie to have her attack her family herself, something often seen in the novels that she had read. Sometimes, she would see on TV the lunatic act of some deluded and desperate people reanimating their dead loved ones

Calm down! Thought the shaken Ellowyn as she tries to control her nonexistent heart rate.

Inject sedatives into the bloodstream to induce calmness?

No! She would rather not have her emotions controlled by a system written by a certain crazy programmer. Oh wait, maybe this system can help me sneak away from this place. She began to inquire about escape routes.

Warning, blood circulation not stabilized and may lose pressure upon strenuous physical activities, muscle atrophy level is above recommended limit, signs of fatigue and oxygen deprivation across several bodily systems...

She sighed frustratedly, reading the list of problems spanning several pages. There was no chance she will be able to escape with such a frail body. She suspected her current body condition was far worse than when she was before her first “death”.

Keeping her eyes slightly open, she began her reanalysis of the situation, there was an L-shaped device sitting on a table 3 to 4 feet away, information regarding it appeared before she got the chance to inquire.

It was a common handgun model used for personal defense, there were various knobs and switches and a small screen, the system showed each interface’s function, shot intensity, temperature, fire rate, and other misc info, the system even showed animations for reloading, aiming and tips such as overheating when shooting at short intervals.

Am I a moving Wikapedia? Was her poor humor attempt to calm down, there was one strange looking barrel with various warning icons near the group of men. It seemed to be made of some type of combustibles.

She inquired whether or not shooting the barrels will detonate them but the system gave no response. It appears there is a limit to how much the system can comprehend me, she concluded. Shouts erupted after one of them had seen her head moving and peeking.

“Look! She’s moving, I thought she was supposed to be dead!” One of them shouted.

“You idiot, she is, look at the monitors, how can she be alive with no heart rate? Lay off the crack man.” The others dismissed it and went back to their chatting. However, seeing her discoverer wasn’t very convinced when he began walking towards her, every step sent a shocking jolt of terror as she silently feigned death.

To run, or not to run? she silently considered. She can stay and let them inspect her, there was a good chance she could still pretend to be dead, but her thoughts were stopped cold.

“You guys wouldn’t mind if I rough her up a little, right? Since she is dead and all”. He leered as her face paled by a few shades.

Looks like it’s impossible to not take action huh, here goes nothing. She desperately thought.

Warning, based on the situation context, predicted actions are potentially dangerous, injecting adrenaline into bloodstream

Bewildered with the system which had somehow understood the riskiness of her choice, she did not oppose it since for the moment it was a blessing rather than a curse. She would have to adjust it as soon as she finds time, however, as the continuous mind reading was very unsettling.

More shouts broke out when some of them brought beer to celebrate her capture, the main group started moving away from the barrel.

Perfect. Overtaken by dizziness and lightheaded she stumbled her way to the table with the handgun, making various noises and colliding with it as she picked up the gun.

Everything froze as all the gazes in the room turned towards her.

“I guess that sly John had drugged her so that her heart halted beating temporarily, maybe he was trying to get rid of her and we had just helped him!” One of the men mused.

“Whatever, Bob, aren’t you worried that she got your gun?” Asked a bald guy.

“Don’t worry, it's a custom model, even if she somehow managed to turn it on, there’s no way the little wench can get pass the fingerprint scanner”. Smirked Bob.

Oh shit, fingerprint scanner? She had never expected such security measure to be on something as trivial as a handgun. Because of the disorientation when her artificial blood circulation tries to fight the gravity shift, she was taking longer than expected to turn the gun on, even with the system’s guidance. She almost yelled in pain when the tip of her index finger became scolding hot.

Unable to access equipment with electronic signal, changing fingertips to generic for bypassing scanner

It sure is convenient being a hero huh. She mused as her fingertips felt hot.

Blood drained from the surrounding people’s faces as the gun activated.

“Activate your shields and grab her!”. A flicker of lights flashed in the shape of spheres, surrounding each of the men with reinforced jackets.

She hadn’t expected such sci-fi defensive measures, but even that wouldn’t change her current plan of action.

“She’s aiming at the fuel cells!” Screamed one of the men. “Damn it, Is she trying to kill us all?” Came the hopeless voice of another.

“Girl, do you not know what happens if you shoot a fully charged fuel cell with an energy blast? Shouldn’t they teach those in schools? You’ll not only blow us up but the whole fucking building!” Bob’s expression turned dark as he scowled.

The whole building? she gasped, she would vaporize at such force!

Estimated explosion force: ~12kN, Temperature: 700 F, current highest shield output is 20kN and 800F, expected survival rate: 99%

Activate shield at highest output, emphasize stealthiness, she thought dazedly, still gawking.

Increased activation time due to reduced light emission, est 15 seconds

A very faint membrane of light embraced her. I need to stall for 15 seconds.

The first rule of stalling is to ask the villain of his evil plans. She recited in her mind. “What are you going to do with me if I don’t shoot this thing?” She asked, feigning a shaken, scared voice.

“Oh nothing, little miss. This is just a misunderstanding, you see, your dad hired us to take you to your family reunion, you were sleeping and we didn’t want to wake you up”. Bob said, giving her a gentle smile. It took all she had to not roll her eyes at his blatant lie.

“So, how’s it going?” asked the nervous Ellowyn with a strained, awkward tone as she kept her gun aimed at the barrel. You idiot. That’s something you would ask your friends, not when you’re trying to stall a cliché gang of mercenaries! She tried to scold her socially awkward self.

The accidental tactic had worked, however, everyone was frozen on the spot as no one knew how to respond to such an awkward situation.

“Has she a few nuts loose?” The incredulous Bob exclaimed, breaking the stiff silence.

“500 credits say she won’t dare to pull that trigger, you want to live right, girl?” asked the bald man.

“You’re right, I won’t die because this world has so much to live for!” she answered with determination. To prevent them from interrupting her shot, she decreased the distance by slowly walking towards her target. According to her memories of reading the books brought in secretly by her handlers, this world had genetically modified humans - demihumans, flying bikes, holograms as displays and a ton of other goodies, just the mention of them had already given her serious nerdgasm, there was absolutely no way that she would die then. She scowled as one of them threw a cube towards the barrel, it then activated and deployed a portable barrier.

“Let’s see if you can shoot through that!” Bob gave a devilish smirk.

Ellowyn Lyon smiled sadistically as she began running towards the fuel cell.

“Holy Fuck! Stop that crazy bitch!” Screamed the hysterical Bob as he and everyone else started shooting at the mad running figure. Most shots missed while the few accurate ones were deflected by an invisible field.

Disable shield generation stealth, there was no reason to hide her shield now that bullets are bouncing off of it. Everyone squinted at the sphere shaped globe of light surrounding her, shining as bright as the sun.

In the midst of the chaos, a light smile bloomed on Ellowyn’s face as the anger she felt earlier started to dissipate.

Then everything exploded.