In The Pentagon within The Capitol, there was a top-secret executive meeting that included the men of the highest authority in the country taking place. One of the men in suits stood up and walked to the front of the room, where he began to address everyone.

"Firstly, thank you for approving this meeting request on such short notice," he said with a nervous expression on his face.

Quickly taking a moment to clear his throat, he continued, "It has been confirmed that the events of the environmental frenzy yesterday were not caused by any of our biological weapons testing labs. In the board meeting earlier this morning, we came to the conclusion that whatever is responsible was caused either by the insurgents or our foreign enemies.

"The flora in the northeastern wards is dying at an incredible rate, especially around 108, where not even little strands of grass remain. Most of the more minuscule fauna has already died out, bugs, and smaller mammals and reptilians within several hundred miles of the ward have been wiped out completely, whereas larger animals have, for the most part, only seem to have been triggered into a frenzy."

He took a brief moment to pause and observe the reactions of the men seated, and then continued, "Furthermore, this all occurred following what we are now dubbing as 'the disturbance', around 11 am yesterday, the entire populace across the world reported a sudden feeling of fear and repulsion, this phenomenon was reported by people from every country, and by everyone in this room."

As he quickly peaked at them to gauge their reactions, he noticed nobody seemed to want to interject, so he continued, "To summarise the effects of this phenomenon, it caused the mass devastation of flora, the wipeout of billions of animals and sent the entire animal kingdom into a frenzy world.

"We don't know what caused this. However, whatever it is, it is something far beyond our comprehension, as none of our projects have come even close to achieving anything like this, and all signs of responsibility point toward 108."

After concluding his presentation, he glanced nervously at the men seated at the table and asked, "Any questions?"

From the back of the table, a voice snarked, "So what you are telling us is that the insurgents have biological weapons to which the power of which is on an unimaginable scale?"

"Impossible!" interjected another voice from across the table.

They were about to go at it again, the presenter sighed and gulped nervously. In recent weeks, tensions and emotions were at an all-time high as everyone was on edge.

"You would like to say that, wouldn't you? If you weren't so incompetent, we wouldn't be in this shitshow!" he immediately snapped back with a snort.

"Enough!" finally, the voice of authority had spoken. He slammed down his fist on the table and stood up before continuing, "I will call for another board meeting with my advisors included later tonight. You are all dismissed."

As everyone got up to leave after being dismissed. The voice authority took the lead and left first, followed by two other suited men to his sides. When they arrived at his side, he spoke, "Organise a meeting. I want all of my commanders and advisors there. I don't care what it takes; get it done."

"Yes, sir."

Similar meetings, including high-profile authoritative figures, were taking place all around the world as governments scrambled to address the unique situation.

-

I took a tram to the west side and made my way to the abandoned industrial plants. This place was off-limits but would sometimes be used for shelter by the destitute, that was, of course, until the authorities would come through and chase everyone out.

A high barbwire fence surrounded the vast industrial area. Different kinds of abandoned industrial plants, warehouses, and other buildings extended far off into the distance.

After jumping the wire fence, I made my way deep into the area as I passed through the high rising complexes and eventually found an area with several kilometres of flat asphalt ground to the side of one of the plants.

The area seemed to be abandoned entirely, and as far as I was concerned, I hadn't seen anyone here since crossing over the high barb wires to get into this place.

The events of yesterday were still livid in my mind. After seeing the state that Arielle was in, I lost control of my body again. It was similar to the awakening yet still very different. I didn't blackout as I did the first time.

Instead, it was more like I had connected to something. I lost sense of myself and everything around me, I only felt a strong internal rumbling, and then moments later, it stopped, and I came back to my senses with the feeling of the connection.

I couldn't figure it out. It felt like it was an extension of me. It felt so familiar, yet so foreign. I tried to make sense of it all last night to no avail. No matter what I did, nothing happened.

After some consideration, I decided the best thing for me to do now was to find any changes that happened due to the connection, and see if I could access it, as well as become more familiar with the previous changes as a result of the awakening.

I would not test the regeneration. I had conducted some minor testing by causing minor cuts to different parts of my body last night and found that it would regenerate instantly like the first time it happened. I knew that I could instantly heal light flesh wounds and injured ligaments, but that was the entire scope of what I knew so far.

It would be too dangerous to do more testing on it. I did not know whether my regeneration would stop just working or if I did something that I couldn't heal with my regeneration, I would be screwed.

I imagined myself arriving in the gates of hell to be asked, "So how did you die?" and I replied, "I killed myself trying to test my body's regeneration," and burst out into laughter. It helped distract me from the intensity of my situation.

I took off my jacket to reveal the protective suit and the two guns I received from TJ. I was determined to wipe CHNS off the face of the earth after what they did to Arielle yesterday and sent Bryan to order what I thought I would need, but now after receiving a warning from TJ, our situation had changed again.

I would have to rethink what my priorities are and what I would do next, but I would leave it until I met up with Bryan and Arielle later.

For now, I would spend the rest of the afternoon on my testing, so I took off the protective suit laced with the guns and tossed it on the ground with my jacket, and got to it.

-

Several hours later, I was drenched in perspiration as I fell down onto the ground. I sat with my arms atop my knees in a crouched position, beaming gleefully as I struggled to contain my laughter in between my deep huffs.

From what I could tell so far, the two awakenings had enhanced my physical strength and body structure, I couldn't exactly figure out the scope of my new physical strength, but I thought that it was at least several magnitudes greater than before.

With my enhanced body structure, I was able to run up to 3 and a half times faster than before, and I had at least 5 times as much stamina as before.

I couldn't tell if part of this was due to the connection event that occurred yesterday as I was not able to properly test my limits on the morning of the first awakening, either way, the thought that I had finally gotten my hands on some power made me beam stupidly.

The only letdown was that I still couldn't figure out the connection no matter what I did, although I had a feeling that I would be able to grasp it in due time.

Although it would take me a while to get fully used to my new abilities, I was determined to keep going. Still, I had to be careful so as not to reveal any of this in public.

I shouldn't let anyone other than Bryan and Arielle find out about my newfound abilities. I wanted to inform them properly, but I still wasn't sure how to approach the topic, so I decided to leave it for later.

Arielle would be discharged from the hospital in about an hour, so I left the industrial complexes and boarded the tram to get to them.