Darian remained locked with his eyes on the picture before Lily reminded everyone of something. "Hey Darian, shouldn't we show Rusty the things we found in the old tower?" she asked. Hearing that, Darian realized that when he arrived, he hadn't told Rusty about the feather, the quartz data storage, or the weird red ash.
"What did you find inside that tower in Yalemba?" Rusty remembered that they told him about when they entered the tower, but they had been so fast that they hadn't even explained everything to him.
Darian slowly left the phone on his bed and began to search in the backpack next to him. "It should be…" he whispered while searching inside the backpack, suddenly, he found something that Rusty had to analyze.
"For now, let's start with this," said Darian as he gave the old syringe to Rusty, who slowly took it in his hands. Rusty began to watch the syringe before putting it inside his body. "It's a weird ash; do you have any ideas?" asked Darian as he kept searching for stuff inside his backpack.
Rusty analyzed it for less than five seconds, then answered immediately. "It's simple; this is the blood of someone," said he, as the syringe slowly went out of his body and Liro took it in his hands.
Darian, hearing the word blood, immediately thought about the White Wing project and if the blood might be related to it. "Do you think it can still be analyzed?" asked Darian. Rusty answered without any hesitation, "No, too many years have passed; sadly, this is useless."
Liro, hearing that, left the syringe on the table. "Darian, we have many other things." Darian nodded his head and grabbed the feather. "What about this other one?" Rusty grabbed the feather and put it inside of him again.
This process took more seconds than the last one, and Darian immediately realized something. 'Wait… I need to tell Rusty not to talk about the black feather!' thought Darian, as he immediately grabbed the phone in his hands and began typing to Rusty: 'While you explain it, don't mention anything related to the black feather, pleaseeeee,' wrote Darian with his phone.
The others were too distracted by the sight of Rusty analyzing, so they didn't even notice Darian typing on the phone. 'Let's hope he sees it…' he hoped. The moment Rusty finished analyzing the feather, he looked for one moment at Darian and Darian received a text: 'Alright, Master,' said the text. Darian's expression changed and became happier.
"So?" asked Liro, extremely curious to know what Rusty had just discovered.
"Mhmm, I don't think it belongs to any animal," said Rusty while creating the projection of the DNA analyzed from this feather. Vane, Liro, and Lily watched it surprised, as they had never seen anything like this. Darian began to inspect it together with Rusty.
"Maybe it's from some human?" asked Lily. Both Darian and Rusty shook their heads. "Impossible, there are no correlations…" While Darian looked at this white feather, he discovered the thing that he was hoping for the most: the similarities with the black one.
'Wait…' he thought. Suddenly, Rusty removed the DNA projection. "I'll study it whenever I have time; I want to make a better study of it," said Rusty. The moment he finished speaking, Darian received another text from him: 'This feather is more related than you think; I'll explain to you later.' After Darian read the text, he nodded his head.
"Well, if this is everything, I'll return to do what I was doin—" Rusty was turning around when Liro interrupted him. "Hey Darian, didn't we have that memory too?" asked he. Darian thought for a bit before answering. "Wait, yeah!" he shouted as he launched himself on the bed again to search in his backpack.
From there, he grabbed both a USB disk and the quartz data storage. "Can you study these?" asked Darian while he gave both memories to Rusty, who only took the quartz data storage. Darian looked confused as to why he didn't take the USB too.
"It doesn't matter how powerful the USB is; too much time has passed, everything is lost," said Rusty while he began to analyze only the quartz memory. "Well…" said Darian while looking at the USB which had the shape of a lion, "At least the shape is great," said he, as he left the USB on his desk.
"It contains a video," said Rusty almost immediately. "Only this?" asked Liro, hoping that there would be something more.
"I'm sure it is more than enough… you can show it to everyone, right?" asked Darian. Rusty, without hesitation, answered immediately. "Sit down…" said he with a totally different voice that made everyone worried. All of them sat down on the bed and Rusty turned off the light so that it could be seen better.
He positioned himself in front of the others and began to show the video. The video had a beautiful quality and could be seen without any problem, but the first thing that everyone noticed wasn't the quality, but the person on the screen and his condition.
His whole body was full of scratches; he was missing an eye and his right arm. You could see that he didn't have any strength left in his body and was slowly dying; everything around him was full of blood. Everyone immediately recognized the room; it was the one with all the servers.
"To whoever is listening to this video…" he began. His voice was extremely painful, and you could easily understand that he would die in a few minutes.
"He's here and he is killing us all…" As the person spoke, many screams of pain could be heard; everyone imagined that these people were being brutally killed.
"WE TRIED TO SPEAK WITH HIM, BUT HE SAID THAT WE WERE THE ONES WHO RUINED HIS PLANS…" shouted the person. The screams were getting closer; it felt like this mysterious person was getting closer.
"Cough, cough…" The person coughed up some blood that ended up on the camera. Seeing that, Liro and Lily felt more scared than before, while Darian and Vane were both shaking in fear and in curiosity. Liro couldn't watch the video as another injury opened on the person's body, so he closed his eyes in fear.
"After that, he didn't answer anymore; he didn't understand what his plans were… cough, cough." The person coughed up more blood, but now it was no longer on the camera; the blood was splattered on the wall next to him. Many screams could still be heard from the video.
"He has come for our experiment… I can feel it." Suddenly, the corpse of a lifeless person was launched right behind the person on the screen. "DON'T TRUST THE PERSON WITH—" Suddenly, the video was cut off and the last thing that could be seen was the explosion of the person. With that, the video ended brutally.
The moment Rusty stopped streaming the video, everyone was speechless. Rusty slowly turned on the light, only to see everyone's face in terror.
"Wha-what… WHAT WAS THAT!" shouted Liro in fear. The moment he opened his eyes again, the only thing he saw was the explosion of the head of the person speaking.
Lily's body was shaking in fear. She didn't know how to feel; she remained speechless while looking down at the floor.
"What was that creature?" The only ones who could speak were Vane and Darian. "I don't know… but it was killing everyone brutally…" said Darian. "DON'T REMIND ME OF IT!!" shouted Liro, scared, as the image of the head exploding popped up in his mind again.
"He said something about a person with…" Lily tried to speak, even though she felt like the temperature had reached below zero.
"The video was cut the moment he spoke…" whispered Vane, trying to remember if he saw something important in the video that could help him discover the identity of that creature, but nothing was coming to his mind.
"D-Do you guys think it was the creature of the White Wing project?" asked Liro in complete fear. Now he was feeling less scared, as you could see that he removed his hands from his eyes and was trying to catch his breath.
Everyone thought about it for a bit before answering. "I don't think so…" said Darian. "He said that the mysterious person came for their experiment…" added Vane.
"In the video, there wasn't anything that could help us discover the identity of the killer… right, Rusty?" asked Lily. As she understood that Rusty could see and analyze it without any problem, like he had done with the feather, she decided to ask him.
Rusty thought for a bit before answering. "I'll check it immediately… but I'm sure that nothing could be seen," said Rusty as he slowly walked outside the house, leaving the others speechless.
Darian glanced behind, as he wanted to reach Rusty to ask him about the feather, and noticed that everyone was lost in their thoughts. "Everyone, don't worry; we will be alright," said Darian while positioning one of his hands over Liro and Lily's shoulders, who were the most scared ones.
"Right…" said Liro, trying to convince himself of it. Lily simply didn't answer. "Vane, can I leave them to you? I want to see if Rusty discovered something more important…" Vane raised his thumb. "I'll try to reassure them, don't worry."
"Thanks, Vane," said Darian as he rushed out of the house with Snowy on his shoulder.
"Snowy… I want to know what you think about it." Darian sometimes moved his eyes to check Snowy's expression, only to see him with his eyes locked on the screen and with his usual expression.
Now Snowy didn't answer, it felt like he had remained stuck in the same expression as before. "Dammit…" whispered Darian as he reached Rusty, who was clearly waiting for him.
"See this, Master." Rusty created two projections of two similar DNA sequences. Darian recognized them immediately; it was the one of the feather they had just seen. "Is the other one from the black feather?" he asked, trying to remember the similarities he had seen before.
"Exactly," answered Rusty.
"But that's impossible… they don't have any diffe… difference… wait." Darian remained shocked the moment he noticed something extremely important. "They are moving in two different directions…" Darian noticed that every molecule on the projection was moving in the exact same opposite direction as the one in the other projection.
"This shouldn't be possible… how…" Darian remained confused at the sight of that, not being able to find an actual answer. "It feels like they are the opposite of the other," said Rusty.
"Exactly… so they were related after all…" said Darian while looking at the DNA, his eyes not moving away.
"Do you think they come from the same person?" asked Darian, trying to find a solution to this impossible problem.
Rusty shook his head. "I'm sure that they come from two different creatures," answered he.
"Then who are these creatures…" whispered Darian, trying to find a solution. While he was thinking, Rusty removed the DNA projection and spoke. "The one with the black feather is definitely the one killing everyone in the video." Rusty created the projection of the video once again, but it wasn't at the start, but rather at the end.
Darian, hearing that, jumped, startled. "What do you mean?" Knowing that Rusty never said impossible things and that he only spoke when he was sure of something, he was feeling really scared.
"Look at this last frame." Rusty stopped the video at the exact last millisecond. Something falling down in front of the camera could be seen for a moment. Darian tried to watch with all his focus and realized something. "That's… that's the black feather…" he said, scared. He couldn't believe his eyes; the black feather was exactly in front of the camera, even if it was almost impossible to see. In fact, without the help of Rusty, they would have never been able to spot it.
"If my calculations are correct, that creature was there in the tower 500 years ago too." The moment Rusty began to speak, Darian was lost in his thoughts.
"Then this creature is over 500 years old, or what?" he asked, confused. Rusty nodded his head. "Then why did I find this feather… why me…" said Darian as he fell on his knees.
"This goes beyond my knowledge, Master. Are you sure you haven't found anything else in Therya related to these feathers?" asked Rusty. Darian shook his head while returning to his feet.
"Now that I think about it… I've never checked the roof where I found the feather for the first time," he whispered. "Whenever you have time… you should definitely go and check," said Rusty.
Darian, who still couldn't believe what he had just seen, thought only one thing: 'It's possible that it wasn't the only feather…' Darian came to the conclusion that if he wanted to find other black feathers, he had to check the roof of his room in Therya.
"Once we're back… I'll go and check." With that, Darian immediately walked away. He didn't want to lose any time; he wanted to reach the rocket fast and then immediately return to Therya.
"Hey Master, wait…" Rusty called to Darian as he noticed something weird in his body temperature. But the moment he called back to him, Darian was already lost in his thoughts and didn't answer, simply walking toward the house.