"I finally found you!" Neo and Charlotte hear a very familiar voice as the rubble subsides and they see a huge panther they love and are all too familiar with.
"Adora! Haco!" exclaims Charlotte happily, letting go of Neo's arm.
Neo sighs in relief, relaxing as he smiles at them.
"Haco," says Adora.
Haco moves her tail towards Neo.
"Get on, quick," instructs Adora.
Neo gets on Haco's tail and holds on as she moves them up and drops them on her back. They sit straight and look up after getting dropped, finding Adora still in her wheelchair. But she is tightly strapped onto it, and in turn, the chair is strapped onto Haco.
"What lunacy!" giggles Charlotte.
"Says you! Where is the rest of you, sis?" asks Adora, smiling at her.
"We were heading to grab the rest of me before we got gobbled up by a whale," says Charlotte, laughing.
"Are you in any pain?" questions Adora.
"No, I'm fine,"
"It's something the Female One did to her, I think!" chimes in Neo, noticing that the flowers have bloomed around him on Haco.
"Great! From what you said, it seems that you know where the rest of you is. You still do?" Adora asks, raising an eyebrow.
. . .
Neo reluctantly takes out his compass and looks at it.
"What's that?" she asks.
"A gift I got from someone for free!"
"Do you even know if it works?" asks Adora
Neo lifts his hand and points in a direction, "The rest of her body is in that direction,"
Adora looks at Neo and they lock eyes.
She smiles.
"Great! That's the direction of the property Arcat is fighting to conquer. Maybe it's hidden somewhere in the property," remarks Adora, looking in the direction he is pointing, then down at the tunnel they are in.
"This tunnel system is what he must have used to sneak the explosives into the properties," she muses, "Anyway, no time to waste! We must get moving fast. I don't know how long Arcat can hold the line on his own,"
"Strap Charlotte onto me and you grab the leash, let's get going!" commands Adora.
Neo heads towards Adora and does what she says, but once he is done . . . he freezes, and just stares at her face.
. . .
"N─"
"Neo?"
"Neo!" he hears a voice scream at him, and he snaps back.
"Are you alright?" asks Adora as a single tear falls down his face from his right eye without him noticing.
"Yeah! I am alright, I am sorry," says Neo, turning around immediately and heading towards the leash as he wipes the tear away gently with his left hand.
. . .
He must have been thorough a lot . . . both of them . . .
Adora looks at Charlotte's severed head grinning at her from ear to ear and she smiles back at her.
"Arcat is going to give me hell for disobeying orders and coming out to get you guys . . ." she murmurs quietly.
"Wouldn't be your first time doing so!" remarks Charlotte sarcastically, smiling gently at her.
"Yeah . . . well, my husband is very easy-going on me, so I won't be getting an earful from him about sneaking into this mission as much as I'll get from Arcat about this,"
Neo grabs the leash and gives the ready sign.
"Haco," says Adora and Haco turns around, jumping up high towards the light.
"How is everything going? How did you find us?" asks Charlotte.
". . . Arcat had captured ten of the twelve total properties, and there were two left. While planning on how to take the last two properties, a huge attack was launched suddenly by Zahtan with a bunch of robots, and a bunch of properties including the one I was on, got sneak attacked by explosives from an entire underground system we had no idea existed," explains Adora, looking at Neo and pausing for a second.
"Arcat reacted fast and started fighting the entire army off by himself. I tried to call you but there was no response. Neither was One who were supposed to protect you, responding. So, I assumed the worst. I used the points to buy a tracking device for you guys, but the signal was jammed," she continues, shifting her eyes to check the sides.
"Until you got out of the jammed area, and despite him telling me not to . . . here I am," says Adora, looking down at Haco's smooth fur.
"Here we are," she corrects.
"Anyway, Arcat should be pushing back and getting close to the proper─"
Whizz! Crack!
A bullet hell flies past them from underneath as Haco lands from her jump, but she blocks it all with her body. Up ahead is an army of what look like tank-like robots that vary in shapes and sizes amongst the trees of the forest.
"We must be almost there . . . Neo, hold on tight!" instructs Adora.
"Haco!" she commands and Haco responds with a growl.
She roars loudly as she stares down at the army between her and the property.
"Scorched Earth," says Adora.
Haco looks down and opens her mouth, steam starting to emerge from her mouth and the sounds of sizzling and boiling add to the bullet sounds in the air.
Woosh!
A flame thrower launches from her mouth, scorching everything ahead.
She then prepares herself, her strong muscles contracting and tensing up. The air blows strongly and the earth beneath her crumbles as she jumps ahead and keeps the flamethrower going, incinerating everything beneath on a wide scale, the biome changing completely.
"There it is," exclaims Charlotte with a big smile on her face as she sees the property ahead and gets filled with hope and excitement.
But there is still an entire army in the way.
Falling down with a powerful crash that sends everything flying around, Haco closes her mouth.
She breathes flames right after, destroying almost the entire army standing in front of the property, and making efficient work of them.
Standing up . . . Haco's sharp eyes see Zahtan standing atop one of the towers of the property.
He's smoking his cigar with his left hand, and he looks at a device he is holding in his right hand, it has two buttons on it, and he presses one.
A huge hologram screen showing Zahtan's face pops up, he takes a puff of his cigar and presses the same button again.
Next to his hologram appears another one, this one showing a body locked in a capsule. It is being by a mechanical hand . . . above the void.
Charlotte's face goes white.
The wind howls, blowing by Zahtan's hair as he takes a puff from his cigar.
Haco growls angrily and takes one step forward.
"Easy girl," murmurs Adora, and Haco freezes in place.
Zahtan breathes out.
"Give me all the properties and let me win the game, or I launch her body somewhere far away into the void and it will never be found again," he says, looking down at his nails.
"If you approach, I'll take that as a no, and I'll launch her body. If you go away, we can continue negotiations later and her body stays safe," he continues, taking another puff.
"No, no, no, no!" cries Charlotte, starting to panic as her breathing gets heavier by the second.
Neo lets go of the leash and rushes towards her, cupping her face gently.
"Charlotte! Charlotte, stay with me, I need you to focus on my voice!" he says, and Charlotte looks at him.
"It's alright, it's alright. The pilots can search and find your body if he launches it," he assures her.
"Oh, and by the way, the capsule can go invisible even with the light from the pilot's planes. They can never see it. The only way they can find it by chance is if it physically hits them. And what are the chances of that happening? Hahaha!" smiles Zahtan, laughing softly.
"Crap . . . I thought he would have an answer to that but hoped he didn't," whispers Adora, clenching her two fingers.
Charlotte starts to stress more because of his response, "Why, why, why?!"
"It will be alright, Charlotte. He is just bluffing," says Neo, not knowing what else to say.
He grits his teeth and turns his head to look at Zahtan, his left eye starting to show a hint of gold, but he suppresses it and keeps on thinking about what to do.
"There is still hope," says Adora.
"What? How?" asks Neo.
". . . Haco is fast enough to reach him before he reaches the buttons . . ."
"From this great distance, are you sure?"
". . . About 75 percent. I never had her go this far before, she only ever shows her full strength with my husband . . . so, I don't know if I should make the command to back off and regroup or . . . "
"Please, please, please, please!" urges Charlotte, "Please make the command, Adora. I can't trust that he will give me my body back regardless of what you do!"
. . . Damn . . . did we misunderstand? Does he not care about Charlotte at all? Why the guards? Why follow her to Castle gates? Would he actually dispose of her body? Is she of no value for him? It doesn't make sense . . .
Adora looks at Charlotte who is in tears now.
". . . Please . . ." she hears as time seems to move in slow motion.
She looks at the screen, seeing Zahtan looking down at something, appearing bored.
. . .
"Getting low on patience here, decide already," drawls Zahtan, looking at a compass he holding which is off screen.
. . .
"Haco . . . strike!" commands Adora.
All of Haco's senses become laser focused on one thing, Zahtan's head. The world goes dark around her. Right now, she sees nothing but her prey.
Her powerful muscles contract again as she prepares to make one large, swift, and clean pounce
Her mouth releases steam.
5
4
3
2
Bam!
. . .
Adora's vision starts to go sideways and Neo grabs Charlotte and holds on as Haco falls down to the side.