Hatching

Two days has passed since the match has taken place. Beliz, Rad, and the team of researchers have been monitoring and recording as though

Ajax has been sent to mandatory bed rest to recover from the battle. Beliz apologized multiple times to him for landing Ajax in the medical wing of the facility. Rad just responded with a laugh and patted him on the back and congratulated him on his one-sided victory.

If one were to see Ajax in the medical wing, they would see him strapped towards the bed as he has tried multiple times to escape under the common excuse that "He's fine". Both his eyes are blackened with bruises and his nose swollen to the size of a lemon making him unable to breath normally. His liver and kidneys are fine given the brutal beating that, bruised at the most but in the end still functional. His ribs are covered with hairline fractures, not severe enough to have a stint to hold the bones in place, but hurts to breath.

Beliz checked in after seeing that Ajax landed in the medical wing, he is not a cruel man, a sadistic one, there's a difference. Upon seeing him Beliz apologized many times over. The only responsive that he got from Ajax was a laugh that sounded like a wheeze.

Beliz took this as "all is good" from Ajax and continued his vigil of watching Titania in the observation room.

"Today marks the second day of observation." Beliz typed as he stands in front of the window. He places a hand on the glass, he feels the its coldness taking away the heat of his hand. He gazes at Titania, somewhat. In the center of the room is a brown, porous cocoon-like structure with many tendrils attaching itself to the corners to the room.

He had seen the video footage of the events that lead up to Titania being in the observation room. His heart pounded in his chest watching him wail in pain as the boils begin to crawl onto his skin. His eyes watered seeing Titania bang his arms on the door begging for help of any kind, a call for any savior to save him from his perdition.

It was painful to see a close friend of his in such pain and unable to ease his agony. Or what's left of his friend anyways.

And who was that on the phone? That enigma of a phone call? Beliz tried getting a recording of the phone call and got nothing but mumbled garbage noise. Beliz chalked it up to an error in the facility seeing that the rotary phone started to spark and destroy itself.

***

In a neatly organized office room sat a man at his desk staring at one monitor with a landline phone in his hand pressed to his ear, twirling the cable in his fingers. In the office room there are aromatic plants that release a gentle smell from their vibrant flowers. Each flower a color in and outside of the rainbow.

There was one plant that was different from the others, it was a bonsai tree, a pine tree to be specific. The branches and trunk twisted and distorted into a beautiful shape frozen in time. Sap leaked from its bark, making it sticky to the touch.

The man at the desk was Lithale, his face covered in a barrage of colorful pigments around his lips, cheeks, and eyes that made him appear like an ethereal beauty.

He may have tampered with Titania's body a bit, but not enough to affect him... right?

"Sh*t," he said, "I forgot he speaks a human language."

He stared at the monitor for a while longer and saw what happened to Titania after Lithale's tampering.

"Fu*k"

***

"No significant physical developments have happened so far, however there has been a development regarding data," Beliz continues to type, maintain his stare at Titania in the cocoon, "We have discovered that the growth process of the infection is similar to that of a caterpillar's. Just how a caterpillar transforms into a goo in its cocoon which later hatches into a butterfly so does Titania as well, just in a different way."

Beliz didn't know how to properly put what he saw into words, but that's why he has a team of researchers to help him.

He walked away from the glass and went to some of the research workers and check their data, what they are trying to do is predict the time of when he will "hatch" by comparing the data to the first time he hatched.

Rad was sitting in the back of the room on a little stool watching everyone do their work. He knew that he and his son was of no help to the research station other than reporting to their superiors and even then Beliz can do that himself. The only reason why he was there is to prevent him from lying on the reports.

He has tried to offer help to Beliz before but just ends up confused and risking altering data, so he does his best to be the emotional support of the facility. Notably, he gets along like a house on fire with the security staff.

Rad got up from his stool and went to Beliz. "So, uh, any new developments," Rad asked Beliz, the truth is that he is getting bored with doing nothing.

"No there is nothing new so far-" Beliz said before he heard all of the recording machines in the room go on the fritz.

Like before when Titania first appeared in the world, the brown porous mass started spraying spores everywhere, creating a thick smoke of deadly spore. The tendrils anchoring the mass-like cocoon started swing in wild abandon, as though to protect itself from enemies from all directions.

Beliz and Rad rushed to the window of the observation room.