Deletion Postponed

[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.