Deletion Postponed

[Albert Wesker]

The last thing he remembered was giving his last message to Megaman, so that Baryl would know his fate, before he had sacrificed himself to destroy the Cybeast. Even as he had voluntarily overloaded his core programming to self-destruct, he could feel the program Wily had installed to destroy himself and Iris if they ever tried to merge again activating. Even if he had had second thoughts about following through with his plan, he wouldn't have been able to back out. He would have had seconds, maybe, before he was destroyed anyway. So he might as well have put his last moments to good use.

And as the Cybeast's core soul programming was destroyed by the explosion, Colonel's awareness faded, and he knew for certain he was deleted.

It was of course, quite a shock, then, when he was suddenly made aware of one very important fact. He might have been destroyed, but he was still very much aware. Confused and disoriented by the damage he had sustained from his self-destruction, but aware. He couldn't move, which he expected after his ordeal, but the expanse of blackness his vision was filled with was more concerning. With his movement locked as it was, he couldn't even look around to see if he was just in some strange void, or if his vision programming had been damaged in some way.

He blinked once to try and clear his vision, or at least he thought he did. But he was rewarded with the sight of something all the same. It looked like a shadow, if shadows were white. And it was wearing a very distinct, broad grin as its featureless face stared, presumably, at him. Colonel tried to speak up, and voice his uncertainty, to try and ask if he really had been deleted and if this was some sort of strange cyber-limbo...but he found that either his speech programming was damaged, or he simply couldn't talk. It was as if the words just wouldn't form, not that he could have moved his mouth to speak them anyway.

Then the shadow, or....whatever it was spoke. And what it said didn't make much sense to Colonel's exhausted mind, but he made note of it and kept track of the words as best he could to think about later. Something...something about a place called the Omniverse, and how Colonel had been brought there, because he interested this....thing that called itself Omni. There were some kind of rules...something about wishes? The soldier navi tried to bend more of his focus to the task of keeping up with the words being spoken.

A strange orb of glimmering color was presented to him, and instinctively he made a move to reach out and take it...but of course he still couldn't move. It reminded him faintly of Order Points...but only very distantly. The being that called itself Omni went on, explaining what the strange orb of swirling color was, and what it could apparently do. And the way it was described made it seem very important to this place. This...Omniverse?

Omni went on, explaining more about the nature and use of Omnilium, and that there were others in this place, and how Colonel should not fear death. That was enough to get a figurative spark to jump in his mind and his awareness snapped into focus. Don't fear death? That was absurd! Even for a NetNavi, deletion was a morbid fear. Data backups were all well and good, but they couldn't keep track of what had been experienced and done since the last backup. Three days without a backup before suffering a deletion was still three days of experiences missed out on once your data was restored...

His momentary confusion was brushed aside just in time for the being called Omni to apparently finish speaking, and vanish. The darkness of the strange void faded, as if a curtain was lifted, and Colonel found himself standing in a blank expanse of white. The orb of Omnilium which Omni had offered to him still hung in the air, and Colonel finally reached out to take it, and as soon as he took hold of it, it broke apart, flowing up around his arm and into his body.

He turned his hand up, staring at his palm in a mixture of confusion and awe. He was....still alive, it would seem. He was apparently not in his home, anymore, but he was alive. It was a shock to take in, but it wasn't as if he wasn't grateful for it.

He would just have to make the most of this second chance.

[Albert Wesker]

Lowering his hand back to his side, Colonel turned his attention first to himself as a whole, making sure he was undamaged. He surveyed himself with a cursory examination, such as he could, finding no obvious damage or wounds on his person. As a matter of fact, he seemed remarkably whole and undamaged. Given his state after his battle with the Cybeast and before his self-destruction, that was more than a little surprising. But he wasn't going to argue with it one bit. Any damage would be difficult to repair on his own, without the date-restoring effects of a skilled operator or a rest in his PET.

With his self-examination of his external components done, he turned his thoughts inward, running a basic diagnostic, the same sort often run after programming and customization. It came back clean as far as system errors or damage was concerned, but it did return an alarming number of errors in his combat parameters. Several of his combat functions were either inaccessible or outright missing or corrupted. That was enough to get him to furrow his brow in a displeased scowl. While his basic combat routines were unaffected, and he still had access to the vast majority of his skill and much of his strength, without his higher combat functions and weapons, he would be overall a much less capable fighter.

Going back to basics was all well and good, but Colonel's "basics" were his entire arsenal. He'd had his entire programming and combat system since day one, barring minor customizations and upgrades he had developed over years of service. It was quite a sudden shock to be parted from so much of his combat strength, but...he would adapt. Perhaps he could find ways to recover his lost and damaged combat data to restore his full operating strength. But for now, it would perhaps be best to turn his focus to where, exactly, he was.

Turning his gaze outward, the soldier navi surveyed his surroundings. It was nothing but an empty white void, with no visible light source but appearing sufficiently well-lit to not impede vision in any way. Strange. Dotted on the horizon at regular intervals were what looked to be some sort of architecture. From this distance he couldn't make out details, but they looked to be archways of some sort. It might be worth further investigating. But the most immediately noticeable thing was the fountain very near his position, just a few short steps from where he currently stood, in fact.

He approached it, looking into the water at his reflection. Its design reminded him of the cyberwater source that had been used to purify Megaman when he had almost been taken over by the Cybeast. It was almost like someone was mocking him.

Turning away from the water with a shake of his head, Colonel returned his eyes to the horizon. Time to get a move on and leave this blank void, since it didn't appear that anything else was going to happen from just standing around. He took a moment to briefly guess at the distance, and frowned. "Walking all that way would take a few hours..." he mumbled, giving voice to his thoughts. There had to be a quicker way...not that he really had anywhere to be in any sort of hurry.

He briefly thought back to just a short minute ago, to what Omni had said about the strange, glowing Omnilium substance. "With it, anything I desire can be mine, huh..." His face took on a serious cast, bending his mind to thinking about what he could use to cut the travel time on intervening distance between himself and the horizon. After several moments, he settled on a cybercar. Basing it on the cybertrains run by Mr. Progs in various sectors of the Net, he mentally constructed a single-person craft in his mind, hoping it would function as well as he envisioned it. Taking the words from Omni to heart, he found that the process of creating the vehicle was simple enough, if time-consuming.

And in short order, a growing bubble of Omnilium appeared before him, and several minutes later faded, growing transparent, then fading entirely, and revealing the vehicle he had created.

Well...it sure looked servicable enough. Time to see if it actually worked.

[Albert Wesker]

Without hesitation or worry for what might happen if it didn't work as intended, Colon stepped up onto the platform of the contraption he had created. It was a simple affair, five feet square with powerful thruster and stabilizer systems on the bottom, giving it the look of a levitating platform more than anything. A singular pillar, rising up at the "front" edge of the platform, bore a depression in the approximate shape of a human hand, which Colonel shortly placed his left hand against.

Without the wireless transmission abilities of a Mr. Prog, he had needed to find some other way to interface with the craft. And in mere seconds he was rewarded with success, a shallow border, barely a foot high, rising about the edges of the platform, and the entire affair giving off a faint vibration and hum of ignition as it lifted off the ground, resting comfortably a handful of inches in the air. Colonel gave only the faintest nod of approval, glad the design was functional, before he bent his mind to the controls, and the craft slowly inched forward.

It took a moment to gain his bearings on the controls, but soon enough he was moving along at a respectable rate of speed. It wasn't comparable to the speed of the cyber-trains on the Net, but it was much faster than Colonel could ever hope to go on foot.

And in short order, after the passage of several long and silent minutes, he had left the strange fountain behind, and was nearing the distant structures he had seen on the horizon. And as he drew nearer, he came to the realization that the one he was headed toward seemed to be constantly emitting a thick cloud of smoke. That was a minor worry, but there was every chance it would be a concern he could cope with, and so his course did not stray.

Several further silent minutes brought him ever closer to the structure, which he soon identified as indeed being an archway of some sort. And within a further handful of minutes, he reached it and drew to a halt before it.

He surveyed it briefly, his expression never changing, before he directed his gaze to look through it. For only a handful of seconds did his gaze remain fixed upon it before he directed his makeshift vehicle to proceed through it.