Stepping through the various floors as if stepping down the stair case, Jon's body dropped like a falling angel. His entire body is filled to the brim with energy that parts of it has faded in and out of existence while the rest had become opaque at times. The robots set on each of the individual floors looked on to him as he passed, but none of them made a move towards him.
At last, he found himself at the lowest floor where there is once again a massive opening which looked like a sort of lecture hall with rows of seats arranged and a stage positioned near the front of the floor.
On the stage stood a pair of sentry robots, each one built with incredible detail and moved with a uniquely human patterns. There are strands of metallic wires that functioned as artificial muscles all over the body of the robot as pulses of energy traveled up and down the body as if they are nerve impulses. Each of the individual sentries are also built with a slightly different purpose, with one painted in dark purple being more heavily armored with more aggressively looking weapons in its hand while the one painted in bright yellow had a smoother build on the outside.
What's even weirder is how Jon can feel a sort of aura around those pair of sentry robots.
Typically, strong beings in this world gives off a sense of aura, as each of the individual superpowers tend to violate the laws of conventional scientific knowledge to various degrees. The stronger the individual, the stronger the degree of violation and hence the stronger the aura it gives out.
That was the best explanation of the aura anyway, and it seemed to fail when it comes to the pair of sentry robots in front of Jon.
The one in purple looked at him as he dropped down through the ceiling, accompanied with dusts, dirt and whatever building material he plowed through on his way down. It's mouth moved and Patty's voice came through.
'I have been waiting for you.' She said, as the pair of robots turned erect and activated, purple and yellow lights glowing in their eyes respectively.
'And I have come here.' Jon replied, 'are you interested to talk, or do you want to fight?'
'Don't give me the bullshit.' She said angrily, 'you are in no position to sound smug.'
Purple raised its right hand high up before twisting around its right wrist as tiny projectiles were fired outwards. Yellow did the same as tens of projectiles jetted out from their robotic bodies. Jon scanned the trajectories in each and everyone of them and quickly realized that none of the projectiles are flying towards him. Instead, each of the pyramid shaped mini-rockets found their way in the various edges of the lecture hall and on the stage.
Then, as all of the projectiles were slammed into the floors and walls, they turned on simultaneously, creating a strong electromagnetic field around the area.
If those projectiles are not directly attacking Jon, then they must be used to set up for follow up attacks. Jon thought, as he took a deep breath, 'You are not in any of those robots, are you?'
'You are worried about me now?' Patty shot back, and Jon looked directly forward at the pair of robots, still in side of his Escalation 2 state.
'Yes I am.'
There was a long silence before the robots moved again.
Purple vanished from the stage and reappeared behind Jon and slammed its fist into his back.
Caught out by its unthinkable speed, Jon fell face first into the rows of seats and rammed through multiple rows at the same time, sending a few of the chairs flying in the air.
Then, Purple followed up with a kick, bringing Jon high up into the air while Yellow reached out with both of its hands and locked Jon down in place with a tracking beam and Purple constituted a gigantic hammer on his hand.
Red, Blue and Green are moving at a much higher level than the normal robots, but Purple and Yellow are beyond comparison even for them! Jon thought, as he immediately realized the exponential jumps of power from level to level. He genuinely didn't expect measly robots to match him in his strength inside of his Escalation 2 state, and yet Patty had proven him wrong again.
A shadow loomed over him as Purple leaped high in the air with its body growing larger and larger in size and the hammer becoming now three meters in radius at its head. If that landed on Jon, even he wouldn't know if his durability is enough.
With rockets pushing out from the various parts of Purple's body, it slammed the hammer down.
The head is moving so fast that a shock wave quickly formed around it as the air particles are compressed and heated from the speed and power of the swing alone.
Turning his body in mid air to face the upcoming attack, Jon send his fist forward to match it.
'FIST OF THE BLACK DWARF!'
Whirls of black energy radiated outwards from his knuckles before they were reformed into a black sphere around the Jon's hands. Then, the Black Swarf created by Jon's Cosmic Empowerment slammed into the surface of the hammer.
A loud flash of light filled the entire room upon impact before the thundering sound of the explosion came an instant later. The shock wave from the clash completely flattened whatever seats are remaining and torn through the flooring of the stage, causing it to collapse.
Cracks formed along the walls of the floor as dusts rained down from the ceiling. After the blinding light, Jon pulled back his strike and looked on at the robot in front of him. Purple's right arm appeared completely destroyed by the attack as Jon can now clearly see the metallic tendons beyond the strands of muscle. The hammer that it created had been vaporized and smoke rose from parts of the arm as the electronics underneath are completely thrashed under the impact.
A yellow bubble surrounded Purple's body as it floated in the air, and Jon looked back to see Yellow projecting the bubble of protection around it. Clouds of drones flowed out from a compartment from Purple's chest as the reparation process began right away, starting with the restoration of the controlling electronics and then the re-connection of the artificial muscles.
'Patty! You created all of this, why do you want them all to go to waste on me?' Jon asked, his voice echoing in the room, though the damaged environment all around doesn't make for the greatest echo chamber anymore, 'I don't want to fight you. I just wanted to talk to you about the Red Blob! I know it is a progression of the Red Compound that directly lead to Hannah's death....that's why I am here!'
'You talked as if you can just brush away the past...' Patty said, commanding Purple to attack Jon immediately after the reparation process has completed. Yellow continued supporting the combat from afar, working with the projectiles that the both of them laid down to continuously slow down Jon's movements and speed up Purple's, 'yet you don't know whatever happened in the past drives the future!'
As Purple encircled around Jon once more, he is now facing the robot with all of this attention. The robot looked visibly slower than before and Jon quickly spotted a few of the destroyed projectiles that were fired off earlier.
So that's what the electromagnetic field was for...Jon thought, as he dodged the upcoming array of attacks from Purple and freed himself away from the grasp of Yellow. Then, he charged downwards and flew around the room, destroying each of the individual projectiles as if he was slapping mosquito against the wall one by one.
Both Purple and Yellow moved to chase after him, but neither can catch up to him, as their speeds became slower and slower in comparison with each of the individual pyramid shaped projectiles destroyed.
Then, as Jon got to the last one, he suddenly turned around in mid air, creating a shock wave behind his feet thanks to the sudden detour, conjured up a pair of Fist of the Black Dwarf inside of his hand and sends it towards the pursuing robots.
They had no way to attack at this close a range, and their forward momentum is already charging at Jon. As their faces got closer and closer towards him, he caught a glance of the facial features of the robots and opened his mouth in shock.
Purple had a similar facial outline to that of Jon with his long hair from back then, and Yellow looked distinctively like Hannah!
Pulling his punch at the last minute, Jon instead dashed through the gap in between Yellow and Purple.
'What is the meaning of this!' He asked, landing on the ground and turning around to face the pair of robots, 'what...why....just what is happening!'
The door to the backstage was opened and Patty stepped through at last. Her hair is tied back in a pony tail and she is wearing a black piloting suit with control pads all around her body with goggles replacing her usual look in the eye wear.
Raising the goggles so she can see Jon with her own two eyes, she started walking towards him.
Then, Jon dashed in front of her and stopped merely inches away.
'Patty....I...'
Patty's fist found Jon square in the jaw, though the amount of force in the punch is barely registered by him due to the padding on her glove.
'Do you have any idea what I have gone through....' She said through gritted teeth, her voice low and trembling, 'you...'
'Patty.....' There are so many things Jon wanted to say to her, and yet he doesn't quite know how to put everything into words. That's when he started to think about what Patty said...what exactly did Patty go through?
The last of the trio from Jon's University days...how exactly did she grief?
Looking around at the destruction Jon caused to Patty's headquarters, he suddenly had no more urge to fight. Not against one of his oldest friends...not against her.
'Patty....what was the answer that you wanted from me?' Jon asked, and Patty made a gesture commanding Purple and Yellow to land right besides her.
'This.' Patty said, pointing towards Jon's chest as his body remained in Escalation 2, parts of it fading in and out of existence with the rest opaque and black.
'You had all of this power that you hid from us, and you are telling me there were nothing you could have done to save Hannah?'