'Hayley' remained silent even as Isaac desperately tried to call out to her, but she then gently crouched down with one knee on the ground. Gently pressing the fingers of her left hand onto his forehead, the distorted voice told him, "The presence identified as Hayley Summerland is unresponsive, but secured. You are advised to remain calm. Proceeding with bio-organic recovery." The sludge covering her left hand and forearm crawled away from her skin and moved onto Isaac's body, gently slithering around like a living body lotion. Isaac would feel as if his own flesh was moving around, giving him something akin to a tickle around his injuries as 'Hayley' was actually repaying him for saving Hayley from Nigel's attack.

The sensation of his skin crawling, literally, underneath the sludge was weird, for lack of a better term. However, once the sludge was removed, Isaac looks down to find that the burns were gone, not even a scar remaining. Incredible, he thinks as he looks back up at 'Hayley.' "So, if you're not Hayley," he says to the strange woman in his friends' body, "then who are you?"

"I do not have an affixed term or name to my identity. My primary directive is to protect this bio-organic body and the operator by any means necessary. The foundations of my powers are shared with Hayley Summerland, but lack of external necessity has left the operator with insufficient data on basic usage," she replied with a robotic precision and lack of emotional hint within her words. "Nigel Howeland's assault and what appeared to be accumulation of neural stress have triggered the permanent deletion of my dormancy state, upon which I was able to assume direct control of this bio-organic body."

"Uh-huh..." Isaac says slowly, barely understanding a word of what she said. "So, you're saying that you woke up, sensing that Hayley was in danger," he summarizes before rising to his feet. Smiling at the thing borrowing Hayley's body, Isaac holds his hand out for her to shake, saying, "Well, thanks. If it weren't for you, both of us would've been killed."

'Hayley' stood up and looked at Isaac's outstretched hand. "I cannot accept your symbolism of cooperation. You and another figure identified as Vincent are categorized as high risk presences and there was an existing record of Vincent putting the operator under imminent termination. I currently lack sufficient data about you and Vincent to alter my database for the present time. I will maintain my primary directive until there is sufficient information to trigger a hypothetical major update. Until such event occurred, you and Vincent are designated as high-risk individuals and I shall keep you both under strict surveillance. Be advised that the operator may act on her own directives and her observation will differ significantly, but I will override her directives should either of you prove to be a legitimate threat."

As if sensing something, she briefly closed her eyes, then opened them and looked at Isaac. "Hayley Summerland has regained consciousness. Releasing vital control and initiating observation state." Without warning, her body fell limp to the ground as the black sludge poured into her shadow and disappeared as if it had never existed. What was left was Hayley's body, pristine without physical injuries and as naked as the day she was born.

Instinctively, Isaac reaches forward and catches Hayley before she can hit the ground, although his face immediately turns bright red as he looks at her naked form. Wrenching his eyes away from her body, he cradles his unconscious friend in his arms while Vincent, surprisingly, remains silent, even though there was a naked woman in his counterpart's arms. After retrieving the groceries, which somehow managed to survive both fights, Isaac turns around and begins carrying Hayley back to her home, thanking his luck that the rain had forced all sensible people indoors.

When Hayley actually stirred and opened her eyes, she found herself on her bed inside her bedroom with no memory on how she got back home in the first place. "Ngh... What happened?" she groaned and sat up, trying to make sense of what had happened to her and why her mind felt like a big blank canvas. "I... went out to get some groceries with Isaac, then went home, then..." Mulling silently for a while, her eyes widened when she remembered what happened before she lost consciousness. "Isaac!!" she screamed in panic and barged out of the door to look for her friend, not caring about herself.

Isaac had been sleeping peacefully when Hayley suddenly screamed for him. Bolting out of bed, he runs out of his room and nearly runs the blonde woman over. Immediately, he wraps his arms around her, pulling her into a tight embrace, as he says, "It's alright, Hayley, I'm fine. We're all fine." He holds her for a few more seconds before he pulls away, keeping his hands on her shoulders, and, looking into her steely-blue eyes, asks, "Are you okay?"

"Y-Yeah, I think..." Hayley replied, breathing heavily as her heart raced with fear and worry. "Isaac, we're back... We're actually back home... and we're still alive! How did we get here? Where's that posh jackass?!" she asked, looking at her familiar kitchen. The fact that she could feel Isaac's skin and his own frame holding her still convinced her that she wasn't imagining things. "Did he hurt you? I'm sorry I tried to step in... I shouldn't have done that and put you through so much danger. Still, my head feels empty and I can't recall anything after I passed out. What happened?"

Looking down at Hayley, Isaac realizes that the person he spoke to didn't even bother filling Hayley in on what happened. Sighing, he pulls his friend into another hug and says, "I'll tell you later, okay?" Pulling away, he adds, "For now, I'll go ahead and make breakfast. You've been out for three days, so I'm sure you're hungry." How much are you gonna tell her? Vincent asks. As much as she wants to know, Isaac replies. She deserves that much.

"Three days?! Are you fucking serious?" Hayley's jaw went slack with disbelief and she dragged herself to the table, groaning and sighing. "Man, that bastard must have hit me really hard for me to start seeing things, then black out for three days..." Glancing into the fridge, she was mildly surprised to see it full with the things they bought. I'm surprised those items are unharmed... Looking at Isaac as he worked in the kitchen, she paused for a moment before asking, "Hey... Did anything happen while I was out for the last three days?"

Isaac pauses in what he was doing to think, only to say moments later, "Not really. The most exciting thing that happened while you were passed out was the mail getting here. That's about it." Soon, he had made a simple breakfast of eggs, bacon, and pancakes, which he sets on the table before taking a seat. Before he starts eating, however, he turns to Hayley and asks, "You really don't remember anything?"

Shaking her head, Hayley placed one hand on her temple and replied, "I'm gonna sound like someone on crack... I could remember feeling so frustrated, furious and, oddly enough, in a lot of pain. The last thing I remembered before blacking out was looking at the place where that bastard ambushed us. I saw you and the jackass, but it's almost as if I was looking at you two from a helicopter, kinda like I'm up in the air or something. And then, something... black came right out in front of me, covered my eyes and I'm out like a light."

Isaac nods slowly, hearing Hayley's description of what happened. He then takes a deep breath and says, "Hayley...what I'm about to tell you may sound completely ridiculous, but it's completely true..." That said, he begins relating to his friend what had happened three days ago, including her transformation, Nigel's, and that strange voice that came out of her mouth. Once he was finished with his story, he looks at his food, waiting for her reaction, hoping that she believed him on one hand, but also that she didn't.

By the time Isaac was done filling her in on what had happened, she was blinking in a mix of shock, horror and fascination. "Wait, wait, wait! So you're telling me... that I somehow went ballistics, started turning up like a possessed bitch, then went batshit insane on that bastard, forcing him to hightail it when he also went nuts and reached a stalemate..." Biting her lip, she looked at him again, a part of her hoping that he was just pulling her leg and another part of her giddy with the prospect of her actually being able to finally go toe-to-toe with other powerful people. "I'm not hearing things, right? That shit really went down, didn't it?"

Looking back at Hayley, Isaac nods, saying, "Yeah, it really happened. In all honesty, it was pretty frightening, especially when you grew those wings and horns. But, after that, when that other you came out, was probably the most terrifying. That other self of yours seemed like she could've torn Nigel's arms off, even in that beast form, without a second thought. And the way she spoke was pretty chilling, too."

"Really?" Hayley had never bested someone like Nigel before, so to hear what happened to him was quite surprising, at the very least. "How chilling was she? What sort of person is this 'other me' anyway? From what you've told me, she sounds like a complete, mechanical nutcase. To be fair, I wouldn't want to go against her either, if what you told me about her was correct." A thought then popped up inside her head. "Say, how come you're still alive? Did she do something to you or that brainless friend of yours?"

Brainless?! Vincent cries indignantly, making Isaac chuckle a bit before saying, "She told me that she didn't have enough information on me and Vincent and that she was gonna keep an eye on us as long as we remain a threat to you. Before that, she healed me and, after passing along that message, she said that you regained consciousness and then vanished. You have no idea how hard it was to keep Vincent at bay once he realized the, uh...state you were in while I carried you back." I still think you're an idiot for not trying anything, Vincent mutters.

Hayley frowned with suspicion. If Vincent was involved, it had to be something bad, or compromising at the very least. She had a feeling that Isaac wouldn't do anything indecent, but the same couldn't be said about his psychopathic other personality. "What do you mean? Am I injured when you brought me back?" she asked, then quickly added, "I'm not accusing you of anything, mind you. I don't think I've thanked you for dragging my useless ass back home and the groceries too, from the looks of it. I'm surprised they survive that battle."

"Yeah, I was surprised, too, " Isaac immediately says with a nervous chuckle, taking the first chance he could to change the subject. "I thought for sure they'd have been destroyed, but it looks like luck was on our side, huh?" Looking back at his food, which was still untouched, he says, "You know, when Nigel first showed up, I didn't worry once about my safety. Honestly, I think I only fought him to keep you safe. Hell, if it weren't for me, Vincent wouldn't have intercepted that fire blast..."