As Isaac and Chrysalis rode the Tram towards the Hydroponics Deck they did something different this time around, they kept their helmets up and didn't bother disengaging them like they did in the past, because they were nearing the source of the poisoned air and didn't want to succumb to the toxin. At the same time they remained silent, as they were thinking about the fact that Mercer had created a Necromorph that could regenerate from the most lethal of wounds and would have hunted them across the ship if they hadn't frozen it in the manner that they had. Isaac considered how Chrysalis had acted around the hunter, how terrified she must have been considering how peaceful her home world, and knew that she was only putting on a brave face for him and the others, while deep inside she had to be absolutely terrified of everything she was seeing. He was fortunate that his companion hadn't broken down yet, that she was holding up as well as she was, and smiled as he focused on the next task they had to complete before Kendra found them a way off the Ishimura.
Chrysalis, on the other hand, simply held her hands out a tiny bit and stared at them, because while part of her mind was worried and terrified of what she had seen so far, the other part of her mind was wondering why she hadn't felt even the slightest ping of hunger. She wasn't referring to the human aspect that her body had been inflicted with after walking through the mirror, a gift from Discord she assumed, but rather she was referring to the fact that she hadn't needed to feed on anyone's love since she arrived in this part of the universe. That worried her, because that was what a changeling needed to feed on in order to survive and to grow stronger, but it appeared that, in order to prevent her from returning with the power of a god, Discord changed her innate powers just to mess with her. She could still feel her power to feed on love, but she couldn't feel her old hunger, which only made her silently curse Discord's name as she finally rested her head on the wall behind her.
Despite the situation that she was in, where she was apparently more human than she originally believed she was, she would find a way to increase her magical power and fulfill her goal, but she would focus on that after she, Isaac, Kendra, and Hammond got off this damned ship.
When the Tram arrived at the Hydroponics Deck a few moments later, and the duo made sure that their weapons were at the ready, they walked off the Tram and immediately spotted an audio log resting nearby, to which Chrysalis pulled it over to them so they could listen to it without fear of enemies coming for them. This one was from Elizabeth Cross, who said that they were working close to maximum capacity, all of the flora were healthy, and they had a surplus of supplies from what she and the others on the deck created. A few seconds passed before they learned that the captain issued a no-fly order, meaning that none of the surplus could be given to the struggling colony that was on Aegis VII, but the duo knew that it was in an effort to save the Ishimura. Elizabeth was clearly against such an order, since she and the others knew that the colony was in trouble, but from what this audio log said it appeared that she hadn't done anything against the order... yet anyway.
Once the audio log was over the duo remained standing there for a few more seconds, to see if Kendra would contact them, but when it was clear that they were alone for the moment they sighed and moved forward, to which they headed into the hallway on the left of the station and followed it. As they walked down the hallway both of them noticed that the bathroom on their right had a couple of bodies resting on the ground, all of which were surrounded by blood, to which they moved forward and ignored what they had just seen. At the end of the short hallway they found an elevator that would take them up to the Grow Decks, to which they entered the elevator and rode it up to their next destination, though once it came to a stop they walked out into a waiting room... which had some plants in a glass container that would allow them to grow with the systems that were inside the container, along with a schematic for Contact Energy.
As the watering cycle stared for the plants, and they walked through the door that was to their right, both of them smiled when they noticed someone familiar resting on the floor in front of the glass container that they were heading towards at the moment... because they had found Hammond and it appeared that he was still breathing.
"Hammond!" Isaac and Chrysalis said, to which they rushed towards their commander and made sure that their eyes weren't deceiving them, though they had to be careful when Hammond lifted his Pulse Rifle for a few seconds... only to relax his arm when he noticed who was standing in front of him.
"Isaac... Chrysalis... Good to see that you two are in one piece..." Hammond replied, though at the same time his tone suggested that he was suffering from the effects of the poisoned air, which the two of them were countering by keeping their helmets on, "Don't take... your helmets off... the air's rotten... I got a look... at it... it's huge... you won't believe it... shut itself in Food Storage. The crew that was on this deck... I think they're what's poisoning the air. They've been transformed... I saw one of them, bloated and swollen. They're poison factories... we need to take them out while we can still breathe..."
Not even a few seconds later, after Hammond attempted to get back up and fell backwards a bit, a smaller video feed from Kendra appeared in front of the commander, though both Isaac and Chrysalis waited in case she had something to tell them before they got started on cleaning up this mess.
"Hammond! I thought you were dead!" Kendra exclaimed, though while she may not have liked Hammond all that much, which was the mutual feeling he had towards her, she did sound glad to see that their commander was alive, despite what was around them at the moment, "You need to get to cleaner air. You're not going to be able to help either Isaac or Chrysalis in your current condition. Guys, he's telling the truth about there being something really big inside the Food Storage, but I can't get a good scan on whatever it is... but I can tell you that the monitor readings are off the scale. Please, be careful."
When the connection was severed Chrysalis offered to help Hammond down to the Tram area, where the air wasn't too bad and that he would have the opportunity to take the Tram somewhere with cleaner air, but their commander waved her off and indicated that she had a job to do. Chrysalis was a little hurt that the first time she actually offered to lend someone her hoof, or hand as it were, that she was rejected, but she understood that she and Isaac had a job to complete and nodded her head. The two of them then approached the door that would allow them to access the Security Station section of this deck, which was where the store, the air controls, and the door to Food Storage was located, while at the same time Kendra informed them that they would have to deal with the poisonous pods before they could even access Food Storage... and the Leviathan for that matter.
One thing that Chrysalis noticed, and pointed out to Isaac, was that all the glass containers in this chamber contained that organic growth, meaning that the Leviathan had either killed the plants or had devoured them when it started growing to the massive size that everyone was reporting... though as they walked through the door on the left of the main entrance they heard Kendra state that she still didn't trust Hammond. Chrysalis, on the other hand, was beginning to wonder why their friend was being so quick to damn their commander every time they were away from him, and likely cut off from his communications, to which she decided to be careful, in case Kendra was the one they needed to be worried about. At the moment, however, they needed Kendra's assistance and there was no use arguing with her, so they simply remained quite as they opened the door in front of them and walked into a chemical containment area that had some pipes that spewed small bursts of whatever chemical was inside the containers... to they carefully made their way across the room that they were in and headed towards the other side of the room, where a cargo lift was located.
Along the way Isaac opened two of the three doors that were on their left and found nothing useful in the first room, though the second contained a Bench that they might need in the future, before they climbed onto the lift and rode it up to the level above them. When they reached the upper level they spotted a slasher guarding the door they needed to walk through, so Isaac simply dismembered the Necromorph before the two of them entered the main chamber they had been searching for, which was where Chrysalis stared at the large number of devices and areas where the crew had been growing food and making sure the systems were operational. At the same time, however, the duo heard the sound of their enemies starting to emerge from their hiding places, meaning that they had a limited amount of time before they would be attacked by the horde of Necromorphs that called this place home.
Instead of moving out into the area in front of them, where all of the Necromorphs would be able to see them instantly, Isaac and Chrysalis moved to the right side of the room and started moving along in, intending to see just how many enemies they had to contend with while also looking for any of the transformed crew that Hammond told them about. It wasn't long before they were attacked by something, as a lurker emerged from it's hiding spot and started moving towards them, though while Chrysalis used her magic to slow it down Isaac used his Plasma Cutter to shear off it's tentacles, killing it in seconds. That was followed by two more Necromorphs, another lurker and a slasher, coming their way, though while Isaac killed the lurker in the more traditional method Chrysalis froze the lurker in a block of ice before shattering the entire thing, which brought a smile to her face.
Unfortunately after taking out those enemies more lurkers and slashers started to converge on their location, which was something that both Isaac and Chrysalis had been expecting the moment they started firing at their opponents, but that didn't stop them from carefully making their way forward. When they did take out the group of attackers, however, silence seemed to reign for a few moments, allowing them some time to find out where the poison carriers were located, before more Necromorphs entered the area. Chrysalis assumed that either the Marker or Mercer had the vast majority of the Necromorphs gathered on this deck, to prevent them from stopping the spread of the poison or killing the Leviathan, but at the same time she and Isaac used the instances of peace to look around the area as they searched for their targets, before having to fight again.
What put things in their favor was when they opened the door to the small building that was opposite the main entrance and found one of the poison factory Necromorphs resting inside it... where Chrysalis held her spare hand towards it and ignited the poor person, burning the entirety of the transformed person until it was a charred husk.
Isaac thought that it was a little extreme, since he could have easily set an explosive canister next to it and blew it to pieces, but he and Chrysalis agreed that all of the poison factories needed to be taken care of, so they could deal with their true target. With this part of their task taken care of the duo left the small building they had entered and returned to the main chamber, where they started the search for the second poison factory, as neither of them had any idea how many of them there were left on this deck. Sure enough more lurkers and slashers were waiting for the duo, to which they cut and blasted their way across the chamber until they came to another small building that they had access to, as most of the other small buildings were locked to them. When they walked inside Isaac immediately spotted the poison factory to their right, to which he opened fire on it until it crumbled to the floor and the room was filled with normal air once more, before they walked outside again.
This time around they found a pregnant Necromorph waiting outside the small building they had been in, though as it rushed towards them Isaac loosed a Stasis blast at it and slowed it down, allowing him and Chrysalis to dismember the creature before it dropped to the floor... to which the duo walked over to the middle of the chamber, where a cargo lift was located, and rode it up to the second floor, while ignoring the third floor for the moment. The two of them then walked towards the right wall and headed through the door, though while Chrysalis found a poison filled room Isaac seemed to be in a trance for a few seconds before stating that he was okay. As Isaac grabbed an explosive canister Chrysalis headed towards the door in front of them, where she found the poison factory to her left and backed away from it, allowing Isaac the clear shot of blowing the entire thing to pieces... while at the same time restoring the quality of air to this room as well.
Before they could depart from the room, however, two infectors dropped down from the ceiling and moved towards them, to which Chrysalis pinned hers to the ground with her bone blades before shooting the Necromorph to pieces, leaving Isaac to blast his target apart... though once that was done they finally exited the room and began searching for the next poison factory.
They walked to the left side of the main chamber and opened the door in front of them, where they moved through the short hallway and passed through another door, though behind that one they finally encountered another new type of Necromorph. This one appeared to stand at the same height as a slasher did, but instead of using bladed arms to kill it's targets this one carried a yellow sack that contained some sort of goo inside it, though instead of letting it get any closed Chrysalis targeted the sack and fired at it for a second, causing the sack to explode. The resulting explosion took out the new foe as well, indicating that this was better saved for when there were multiple enemies around one of them, meaning that they could use the exploders to take out large groups of enemies if they were successful.
At the end of the hallway four more exploders started to shuffle towards them, but now that the duo knew their weakness they simply fired at the yellow sacks and watched them all explode, to which they collected all the ammunition that they could before following the path once more.
The door at the end of the hallway brought them to an area that didn't have gravity, making Chrysalis wonder why the heck this was even a part of the Hydroponics Deck in the first place, before they walked out into the Zero-G area and began looking for the way forward. Fortunately the way forward was easy to find, as all they had to do was love a grate out of the way and jump into the next room, while at the same time avoiding the spikes that had been put up on many of the metallic sections of the flooring and walls, which was another thing that Chrysalis would question at a later date. This time around Chrysalis dealt with the two lurkers that wanted a piece of them, giving Isaac the time to open the next grate without being interrupted, though once it was open she killed her foes before heading into the next part of the area with her companion.
From there it was a simple matter of taking out the lone lurker that was waiting for them, jumping into the area what would return them to normal gravity, and passed through the door to the Air Filtration Room... though as they passed through the second door Chrysalis noticed that the room they were in had flames on the level that was below them, and that the path forward seemed to involve going down there and running through a course of some kind. As they walked to their right, however, they encountered an audio log from Elizabeth Cross that said she was trying to contact Temple about something, but couldn't because of the ship wide medical alert. Unfortunately there wasn't much for them to go on, as it stopped it's recording moments later, to which they focused on their current task and stared at the power tube that was preventing the door from opening. Chrysalis recalled what happened at the beginning of their venture, after Isaac had first picked up the Plasma Cutter, and knew what to do, to which Isaac blasted the tube apart and opened the way forward... though he followed that up with another shot through the flames.
Chrysalis discovered that while one of the larger tubes was using the flames to 'purify the air', or whatever they were designed to do, some metallic flaps opened and revealed the tube behind it, which meant that Isaac opened the door between tubes so they could move onward. Since this was a much more dangerous venture Chrysalis used her magic and summoned a barrier around the two of them, a moveable one that would protect them from the majority of the flames, but since she knew she had a limit she made sure to use it when they were between tubes. That gave Isaac the chance to shoot out the next tube and return to her before they endured the flames, to which they would walk forward again until they came out of the final tube... which was followed by Isaac obliterating the poison factory that they had been walking towards the entire time.
Once the poison factory was taken care of they rode the cargo lift to the top level again and made their way into the security room that overlooked the three tubes, where Chrysalis found another Power Node that either of them could use in the future... though from there they headed to a short hallway behind the cargo lift and used the elevator to descend back down to the Grow Chamber. As the elevator descended, however, the computerized voice declared that there was a ten kiloton mass detected in Food Storage, telling Chrysalis that the Leviathan had to be much larger than what everyone else had told her and Isaac about. A few moments later, when they exited the elevator they were assaulted by two lurkers and a pregnant Necromorph, both of which the duo knew how to take out, though as they fought their new enemies they headed back towards the main door of this area so they could leave and find out if they had killed all of the poison factories... or if there were some more out there.
Before they left the area, however, Chrysalis turned around and headed back towards the lift that they had taken to reach the second level, where she input the command and headed towards the third level, the one closest to the ceiling, to see if there was anything useful up there. What she found was some ammunition, a med pack that had been contained in one of the crates, and a ruby semiconductor, which she and Isaac could sell for some credits when they returned to the store. With those items in hand she returned to the cargo lift and rode it back down towards the level that Isaac was on, where she was surprised by the sheer fact that the Necromorphs had departed from this area, as if the two of them had claimed this area from their foes. At the same time, however, Chrysalis suspected that their enemies might have moved into the other wing of this deck, or they could have vacated to another deck entirely, which would have been the more desirable option of the two... but she knew that they would know what happened in the next few minutes, since they were so close to where the Security Station and the air controls were located.
It was an uneventful journey back to the Security Station, save for some of the vents exploding as a slasher tore them to pieces as he followed the duo, before they arrived at their destination and found out that there were a grand total of eight poison factories on this deck, meaning that Isaac and Chrysalis were only halfway done with the first phase of this mission. The second phase was giving Kendra's poison to the Leviathan and seeing if it killed it, but before they could do that the two of them had to hunt down the remaining four poison factories that rested in the other wing of the Hydroponics Deck. Instead of leaving to hunt down their remaining targets immediately, like Kendra and Hammond were expecting them to do, both Isaac and Chrysalis accessed the store and sold off the useless pieces of ammunition that they had acquired so far, along with the semiconductor. With their funds greater than what they were when they reached this deck, after making sure that they had the essentials, both Isaac and Chrysalis purchased a few Power Nodes from the store... prompting them to make a quick return to the Bench they had passed by earlier.
This time around Isaac made sure to put some of his nodes into his RIG, so that way he could survive for longer like Chrysalis could, while at the same time Chrysalis put some upgrades into her Pulse Rifle, increasing the capacity it had and it's damage. Her reasoning was that the poison might only weaken the Leviathan and she wanted her weapon to be at the ready for when they attacked the creature, but she was seriously hoping that she was wrong on this matter and was only over preparing for what was coming next. At the very least if they didn't have to fight the massive Leviathan, and could move on, the upgrades would make themselves useful against the other creatures that were still on the Ishimura, allowing her to mow through her enemies faster, since they were bound to get tougher in the future. Truthfully, she still didn't think that she needed to upgrade her weapon, since she had access to magic, but because she had a limited amount of mana to use at the moment she couldn't just burn through all of it, like she did when she fought Celestia.
Her best course of action was to keep pace with Isaac and his weaponry, so that way they could stay on the same level throughout the rest of their mission, while picking and choosing when to use her magic... though she had the strangest feeling that she was going to need her power in the near future, but for what she had absolutely no idea.