Its day 6. One day remaining before the....
Guess that is no longer necessary.
Covie opened her eyes. Her system is booting up. She slowly raised her body. Yesterday, she had been working on something in her room. She had accidentally fell into sleep mode due to the low batteries.
Covie slowly levitated into the air. Her head is a little dizzy. She flew to the living room. She took a hyper gem and recharged using it.
"Battery: 100% fully charged."
A pleasure feeling flooded Covie's body. She sighed in relief. She floated to the CI survivors room to ensure she is OK.
She checked the time, its 8 in the morning. She slowly floated to Rhea's room and gave it 3 gentle taps.
But when she finished tapping, the door slowly creak opened itself. The door isn't locked, nor was it closed.
Covie blinked, she flew around the hut.
"Rhea? Rhea, where are you?"
Covie flew to the living room.
"Master, have you seen Rhea ar....."
Covie paused. She slowly turned her head to look at a empty room of the hut. She slowly lowered her head, and sighed before wrapping her arms around her tiny little body.
She then noticed the entrance of the hut is opened. She slowly floated to it and peeked out of it. A ray of sunshine shone on her screen, reflecting sunlight and make her glow. She flew out of the hut and looked around. Then, she heard noises.
"Yes, yes, keep going! You're almost there! One minute! One minute! Come on!"
The sound comes from the giant hole. Covie hovered to the hole.
She saw Rhea.
Kneeling down, staring at one of the gap between boulders. Muttering. She floated to her.
"Nice! 1 minute and a half! You're doing it!"
Rhea is staring at a stop watch while kneeling next to the gap. Albur is in there, with his face red and a robot arm at the right side of his body. He is lifting it up, a meter above the ground.
"Come on....I trained 2 hours..... for this!"
The stopwatch ticked and ticked. Finally, it hit 2 minutes.
Albur exclaimed in exhaustion and fell onto the floor. Panting.
"God.....I'm sorry, Rhea.....I can't..... it'll too tiring."
"No, you did it. 2 minutes!"
Albur's eyes opened wide. Rhea showed him the stop watch screen. Albur cheered, but sounds very tired.
"No way...."
Rhea smiled and put a lollipop in her mouth.
"Seems like you successfully made it. Now, we're moving on to 2 meters above the ground."
Albur's face instantly changed. He stared directly into Rhea's eyes.
"For real....?
Rhea shrugged. But then, she noticed Covie is next to her.
"Oh hey, Covie. Morning."
"Good day..." her voice is strangely soft and less-energetic.
Albur lied on the floor and raised his left hand, and sneezed.
"Morning, Covie..." he sounds exhausted.
Covie turned to the other gap between boulders where she can see Mysty. She is still asleep. Havoc is sitting on her shoulder, rainbow colored virus substances covered her ears, acting like ear plugs. Havoc noticed Covie, he used the virus substances to form hands and waved at her. She waved back.
Suddenly, Mysty begun moving her body. Havoc removed the earplugs from her ears. Mysty's hand slowly lifted. She rubbed her eyes and slowly opened them. She looked around her, and then noticed Havoc sitting on her shoulder.
"Howdy, howdy."
"Morning, Mysty." said Covie.
Mysty slowly stood up. She then notice Albur's vest is on her. She quickly took it off. Her face turned red, Havoc is just quietly laughing by himself.
"No wonder it feels less chilly..."
Rhea stood up and sighed. She looked at the time, and stared at the tumor wall. Sun light can penetrate the wall, a good time to move on.
"I think it's time to head to the next core."
Albur sat up, he lifted the arm and stood up. Rhea reached out to him to help him get the arm off. She could see he struggled less than previously. She removed the arm from him. Albur nearly fell backwards because he kept applying strength to lift the robot arm.
Albur then took a bottle of water and took a sip. Slowly cooling himself down after the 2 hour training.
Mysty slowly walked towards Albur, Albur noticed she's awake.
"Oh, morning Mysty....."
"Hi, morning...."
Mysty handed Albur his vest, Albur blinked, he smiled and took it. She picked Havoc up and handed him to Albur as well. Albur noticed Mysty is not looking very comfortable. She is rubbing her neck with one of her hands.
"Alright, so with you all awake, shall we start moving on?" asked Rhea.
"Oh, uh, yeah, yeah, sure...." murmured Mysty.
Suddenly, Rhea's walkie talkie buzzed. Rhea pressed the button on it.
"Hello?"
Rhea walked away. Covie looked at her leaving, then turned to the gap.
"I'll....go grab stuffs you guys would need."
"We already got food and water, why would we need other stuff?"
"Just see for yourself once I get them here."
Covie floated back to the hut.
Albur turned his head to Mysty, she turned away as soon she notice Albur is watching her. Albur is a little confused.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing..."
"If you have any problems just say it, don't have to keep it or face it alone."
"Its nothing, really, don't get bothered by it."
"Ok then...."
Covie returned to the gap. She slowly opened the gap further. The boulder suddenly sliding scared her. She pushed a first aid kit and a metal case containing a hyper gem into the underground structure. She also pushed 2 sleeping bags in as well.
"This first aid kit could help if you guys are hurt. Since there's a huge chance you guys can't come up so often to let me heal you guys. The other R.E.C.O.V.E.R engines could help, but the dense virus energy down there would probably destroy them in seconds. Sorry, they are only glitch proof."
Albur picked them up and put them into his telescopic bag. Mysty took a nutrient capsule and swallowed it. Covie then turned to Rhea, who had her eyebrows pulled together, frowning.
"What do you mean the portal cannot open? What about other stuffs? Quantum tunneling? Particle transfer?"
Rhea listened for another few more minutes.
"Infection.....look, this is urgent! We literally have 2 humans trapped underground! We need the cranes to be here as soon as possible!"
Then came silence.
"Wha- Clust.....is there still no way we can prevent his sorcery powers?"
Covie looked at Rhea, then at the crew.
"Ugh....well then.....how long will the portal be stable? Like we can just shrink the cranes to mini size and...."
Rhea put her hand at her hip.
"Oh yeah...they are too heavy.....right. Right now I will guide them to the cores inside there. Please, just, use whatever things that can quicken it. Albur is down to one arm."
Rhea looked at the floor. And gently nodded.
"Copy that."
Rhea put down the walkie talkie. Covie stared at her. She turned to her and slowly walked to the gap.
"Hey uh, guys, I got some bad news."
"We heard it."
Rhea sighed.
"We have to reach the core in meantime. That is our only option."
Rhea also pushed the energy detector into the underground structure through the small gap.
"In case you guys need it."
Albur put his rufle on the floor and took te energy detector, before putting it into the telescopic bag.
Albur looked at Mysty. She sighed, and cocked her twin pistols. Albur looked at the deeper parts of the underground structure. He strapped his rifle at his back and put the sheath of the shadow blade at his hip. Mysty took the telescopic bag and carried it with her.
"Let's go."
Rhea took the area scanning device from her battle bot suit. It took a few minutes to completely analyze the whole underground structure. Rhea spotted the 2 cores.
"I'll guide you guys where to go. Remember, always keep us posted through the walkie talkie. Alright?"
"You said that plenty of times."
Albur and Mysty faced towards the deep pitch black parts of the underground structure. They took a deep breath, and exhaled.
"Come on."
Mysty nodded.
"Good luck guys, be safe down there." Said Covie.
Albur nodded. He started walking forward. Mysty followed up.
The silhouette of the 2 of them begun fading away as the further they entered the car park.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
At the other side of the hole. A figure emerged from the building ruins.
Siwel.
It dragged an unfinished virus lifeform corpse with it. It walked to the hole. And knelt down on all fours. It stared at the boulders that locked each other in place. It thinks that this is where the loud noise came from.
It sniffed the ground. Trying to pick up scent of any potential preys. It then tried to remove a boulder from the hole. But when it moved one of the boulders, the other boulder next to it slid. The boulders fell into the underground structure. Siwel accidentally slipped and fell into the underground structure as well.
It tried to climb back up, but its strength collapsed the weakened boundary area of the hole. It fell into the hole. Part of the ground fell off and filled up the hole.
The place where Siwel fell in completely collapsed. Thank goodness the other boulders didn't slide and cause a chain reaction. Siwel was buried. Nearly crushed.
The air returned to silence again.