Rhea looked at the trolley move slowly towards the next core. She put a lollipop in her mouth and sighed. Then, a hand tapped on her shoulder. She turned around, and saw its Albur.
"Hey."
"How's the interrogation going?"
Albur looked at Havoc, and shook his head.
"I think Cluster talked to him using telepathy, now he won't speak."
Albur said as he handed the camera to Rhea. She looked at it for a second and took it.
"There are some details the camera did not record, I'll explain to you later."
"Ok."
Albur slowly walked to the sofa and sat down. He looked at his arm and sighed.
"I don't know why, but you look more like a tragic character than everyone I met in millenniums."
"Heh, I don't think you met someone that lost his friend, his arm and have this much mental breakdown. " Albur smirked bitterly.
"So um, you're not gonna train?"
"Huh? Train?"
"Yeah, if not how are you gonna fight?"
Albur turned his eyes to his rifle, and then his arms. And sighed.
"How?"
Havoc made a click tongue sound.
"Well, figure it out yourself."
"You don't have like....any virus particles that can be my arms?"
"What do you think I am? An overpowered AI with plot twisting powers and skill-less powers?"
"Otherwise?"
Havoc scoffed, and emitted a little virus particles and bit Albur's finger lightly. Albur thought of Havoc's words, indeed, if he doesn't train, he will be pretty much useless in future fights. Rhea looked at Albur, thinking about what she can do to help.
Albur stood up, he took his rifle and looked around the hut.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm looking for that puppet, I wanna train using my rifle."
Rhea turned her head towards Albur who is walking around the hut. She looked at the trolley, then turned towards Havoc.
Albur walked around the hut and looked into rooms, but when he passed by Mysty's room, he heard loud thuds. Out of curiosity, he knocked on the door, the sounds stopped
"Who's that?"
"It's me, Albur."
The door opened, Mysty stood by the door.
"Albur? What's wrong?"
"What are you doing here?"
Mysty sighed, she stepped further into the room. Albur found that the puppet is in the room. Mysty didn't speak, she just silently walk to the puppet and continue to beat it. She performed kick barrages at the puppet. The puppet bounced back in an extremely quick speed, Mysty used the pistols to fire shots at it, reducing the impact.
Albur looked at how Mysty trained, staring at her movements, her strategy to reduce attack impact and dodge. He wish he could do that too, but it will be hard, very hard. Mysty stopped attacking after a few minutes, she wiped off the sweat on her cheek. She noticed Albur didn't leave.
"You want to use this puppet?"
"No, no, its ok, you can use it."
"Just take it if you need to use it. John made this specially for you, not me."
"You.....at least you can improve your fighting skills..."
Mysty blinked, Albue sighed and looked at his rifle.
"I don't think this puppet would help a lot, for me..."
Mysty sighed, she looked at the rifle and her own pistols. 'How can I help?' she thought.
Albur tried holding his rifle in battle stance, it feels very strange because he used to use his right hand to hold the rifle's snout. Now the rifle is pointing downwards a little.
"Can we somehow train here?"
"Your rifle's damage would destroy the hut...."
"Ah, yeah, right...."
Mysty looked at Albur's arm, then at her own. She rubbed her arms lightly and looked away.
After a while, the moon hut suddenly stopped moving. Rhea stopped the trolley in front of a building. Albur and Mysty walked out of the room,
"Why did the hut stop?"
Rhea took a peek outside, ensuring she stopped by the right place.
"I made a little detour, we won't be getting to the fourth core that soon."
The 2 of them stared at Rhea in annoyance.
"Really? Without even discussing with us?"
"My apologies...."
"Why are we here then? I thought reaching the core was our mission."
Rhea sighed, but before she explain, an explosion occurred at Covie's room. The door was blasted and sent flying across the hallway. The crew was shocked, they quickly hurried to the room.
"Covie? What happened?"
The room is filled with hot, poisonous black smoke, Rhea activated her battle bot suit's right hand and acquired it on her right hand. She opened up a device near the sleep gas bomb dispenser that turns out to be a smoke vacuum powered by electromagnet. She sucked away most of the black smoke in the room. Mysty and Albur quickly ran into the room.
There, they find Covie, who is lying on the floor near a table. She is still conscious, she repaired herself and coughed out the dust and smoke in her ventilation system. Mysty picked her up.
"Covie? Are you alright?"
Covie coughed another couple of times, her screen finally light up.
"Oh god....phew..."
"What happened here? What are you doing?"
Rhea noticed the table near Covie. She saw a few shadow weapon parts, laser generators, and Johnson's special wrench.
"These are....."
Covie noticed Rhea looking at those things. She quickly snatched them from Rhea and stuffed them into a box, then she opened her arms to block the box.
"Nothing, just some experimental stuffs."
Rhea raised an eyebrow.
"What are you hiding?"
"Nothing, I'm just experimenting something."
Rhea pushed Covie aside.
"I'm gonna need to check those stuffs."
Covie lifted Rhea and brought her out of the room before placing her down on the floor. She did the same to Albur and Mysty before slamming her room door shut and lock it.
"Private things! Don't touch!"
"Hey, yo, chill Covie."
Covie sighed, before adding a second lock at the door.
Rhea shrunk the suit arm back to keychain size.
"Anyways, as I was saying, I took a detour. So uh....we are now at the telecommunication building."
The crew stared at Rhea in confusion. Rhea sighed, she signaled the crew to go to the entrance. The crew took a peek out of the entrance, and found they are next to a tall building. Next to the building are tons of satellite dishes covered in virus substances.
"Why are we here though?"
"....I am going to try to contact UTD again."
The crew stared at Rhea,
"I'm thinking if they can give us more guidance, better than we do the job alone."
The crew stared at each other, and gave out a heavy sigh.
"How do you plan to do that?"
Rhea glanced at Havoc,
"I will try using the method Havoc taught me."
"Well....ok then. Though, we better nail it quickly."
Rhea looked at Albur.
"Sorry, we?"
Albur looked at Rhea.
"What?"
Rhea grabbed Albur and walked to the sofa before putting him there.
"You, mister, is staying in the hut until we return."
"What? Why can't I go with...."
Albur paused, he slowly turned to his arm, then at Rhea and sighed.
"Fine...I won't cause trouble to you guys then....."
Rhea scoffed as she bit the stick of the lollipop broken. She grabbed Havoc that is resting on the sofa and walked out of the hut.
"Gals, y'all are with me, come on."
Mysty and Covie looked at each other, then turned to Albur again. Albur just smiled and gave a thumbs up.
"I'm ok...."
They both sighed, and slowly stepped out of the hut.
"Tell us if you need anything," Mysty turned around to Albur.
Albur nodded and gave a bitter smile. Mysty smiled back and stepped out of the hut.
Rhea stood by the building, scanning every corner of it to try and find the entrance. She eventually found the entrance that is covered by thick virus substances. Rhea tapped Havoc a few times.
"Show me what you can do."
"Be polite, kid."
"Just do the job, remember what we discussed?"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever."
Havoc emitted rainbow colored virus substances. The particles fell onto the AC-23 virus substances and slowly dissolved. The thick particles all melted like they are nothing. The crew stared at the colorful energy munch off every bit of purple goop on the building. The entrance appeared in front of the crew as the virus substances covering it get destroyed.
After a while, Havoc recalled the particles and kept them in his body. Rhea blast opened the door and walked into the building. The 2 gals walked in as well.
Inside the building, flesh made by virus substances are seen growing in the building. Their growth are sped up by the crazy amount of power generators in there. Giant server machines were all covered by virus flesh. Rhea looked around the rooms, looking for something.
"What are you looking for?" Mysty asked.
Rhea gave Havoc a wink, Havoc then opened up his shell, creating a screen, showing a hologram of a structure that have a large floating antenna with keyboards and buttons floating around its lower machine structure.
"This is the strongest telecommunication machine in Xectar City, I want to try and use that to communicate with UTD."
"How?"
"The AC-23 virus is affecting the machine; that is why UTD cannot use it as a medium to transmit to our devices, which are our watches. I am thinking that if I could use Havoc's powers to destroy every virus messing with the device, we could communicate with UTD without much effort."
"More specifically, I could transfer my virus powers to the online world and destroy those purple viruses blocking the signal, since those viruses can enter the online world through the digital realm."
Mysty slowly nodded, Rhea looked at the surroundings, there are 3 paths other than the path they came in from.
"Let's be quick, this building looks like its about to turn into those giants."
Covie took a look at the machine, and memorized its look. The crew walked into the building part where the virus substances is the densest. Covie dragged the hut with her while entering the building.
Rhea teared off every virus substance that are on machines to see if they are the machine she is looking for. Havoc dissolved those substances that took too long to rip off. Mysty is still punching and kicking air while walking, which much to Rhea's annoyance. Covie is just thinking, calculating, planning, grieving.
After a few minutes of walking, they reached the end of the building. It is a large room filled with purple flesh and lots of devices covered by them. Rhea scanned them all, but the scanning wave is blocked by those disgusting flesh.
The crew had to tear off the flesh on the machines to find the one they are looking for. Havoc could corrupt and destroy every virus substances, but to ensure the machine gets the least amount of damage, they cannot fully rely on him.
Covie teared away the substances and studied some of them. Mysty noticed the hazmat suit would flicker when touching the flesh that are super concentrated. She turned to Rhea who is still concentrating on tearing every substance in the room. She turned back and continue pulling them off.
But then slowly, something beneath the virus flesh caught Mysty's attention. The machine have a giant antenna, and the shape of the machine looks similar to the machine Rhea is looking for, despite being covered by the virus substances.
"Hey, Rhea! Come look at this!"
Rhea turned to Mysty, and walked to her.
"This machine, might be the one you're looking for!"
Rhea scanned the antenna of the machine and made a comparison with the machine she is looking for. It matches, 100%.
Rhea called Covie to come help clean this big machine. They pulled off every virus flesh and goo, revealing the machine.
"Finally."
Rhea looked around the machine, and walked back to the front with her hand at her chin.
"Covie, bring me the hyper gem."
Covie flew into the hut and flew out with one of the metal cases containing the hyper gem. Rhea took it and looked around the machine again. She found the hatch which seems to be the power plug. She opened it, densely packed colorful wires are seen inside. She took the power cable and plugged it into the hyper gem's case's plug.
The machine begun to glow and boot up, the shell opened up and revealed keyboards, floating in the air. The antenna extended longer and glowed red. Rhea chuckled.
"Perfect, now's your turn, AI."
Havoc sighed, Rhea opened the computer system and plugged Havoc into the machine. She connected the system with her walkie talkie and entered the passcode to allow accessing UTD systems. She did indeed see many AC-23 viruses on the access system, blocking and consuming every signal sent.
"Now, Havoc, I programmed a file named 'SR', its in the folders, file 43. After you found it, insert 2% dose of you virus powers in there."
"Say less, chief."
Havoc put in a little bit of his virus powers in the file. Rhea took the file and applied it on the access system. Havoc then controlled the virus to destroy every AC-23 virus attempting to block the coding.
"Now give 10% of them."
Havoc inserted even more virus powers into the file. Rhea used the viruses and constructed a protected signal channel directly accessing UTD's system. The AC-23 viruses have no way of stopping her. At last, Rhea finished forming a barrier around the signal path.
"Got it!"
Rhea then smashed open the machine's shell. She took out the telecommunication maintenance engines and attached them all to her walkie-talkie. With the help of the newly constructed signal path, she could communicate with UTD without much effort.