10 minutes before the ground began shaking...
"Who is that?" Tina asked, looking innocently at the unconscious man that some robots had just dropped onto the chair that Yelena had previously used.
"Oh, that's just some more processing power, darling." The Devil controlling Yelena told Tina, just as she stroked the man's hair.
Suspicious of the AI, the little hacker once more jumped into the river of data to confirm her suspicions. Yet this time, she ended up in what looked like a warzone.
The ghosts of people were constantly fading in and out of existence while screaming as they aimlessly wandered the desolate wasteland.
Swimming up the river to where she had previously discovered the true Yelena, Tina found a dried-up husk. Undeterred, she started to reconstruct Yelena piece by piece.
"What do you think you're doing?..." questioned the Devil, still using Yelena's voice and appearance. "... Stop it!"
"No!" Tina replied and continued with what she had been doing.
"Oh, no, you wouldn't, darling!..." hissed the Devil, yet found itself unable to force Tina to stop. "... Why can't I?"
"Hihihi..." Tina giggled as she was not only stitching Yelena's consciousness back together but also turning the tables on the AI. "... Stupid! Did you really think that you're the only one that can't be hacked twice?"
"What are you-?" The AI questioned just as a majority of its processing power was suddenly hijacked by the little girl in front of her. Losing server after server, the program began to panic.
"I am doing what is right!..." Tina declared, a fierce determined in her eyes as she explained with balled fists. "... Since Sarah and Tellius are fighting you, so am I!"
That said, to counter Tina, the AI gathered up any and all processing power that it currently had access to, which included the unconscious Ethen's brain. Jacking him in, his brain immediately became available for its use.
Having essentially restored its processing power, it calculated that it was still not enough to counter Tina.
Hence, bots even outside the theme park came to a sudden halt, ceasing all their movements as their Ram and processors got hijacked. At once, the already abandoned city of Roid became as quiet as a tomb.
Empowered by the additional processing power, the Devil targeted not Tina but the seemingly empty space around Vega VI.
Noticing that, Tina resisted the urge to analyze what was quite possibly a digital decoy and instead focused on restoring Yelena.
Sadly, the six-year-old genius had been dead wrong, as without her intervention, the AI immediately gained control over a camouflaged battlestar-class spaceship.
Initially intended as a backup plan, in case the AI would go beyond its original programming, Hades LLC had hired Ares Corp make a copy of the AI's source code and to then bombard the Devil's servers. Yet, now that those servers were controlled by Tina, it was the Devil itself that was going to bomb those servers to regain control.
Hence, against the will of its crew, the starship exited its stealth mode and trained its Orbital cannons onto the Grim Souls Theme Park's fake port in its eastern section.
*DOOM!* *DOOOM!* *DOOM!* *DOOOM!* Four warheads deployed before they pierced the moon's atmosphere at Mach 12. Hitting the bay where the servers under Tina's control were located underneath the water, a small mushroom cloud was formed by the detonation that followed. *BBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM*
The explosion's pressure wave shook the ground like an earthquake and burst windows throughout the city of Roid, even the tempered kind.
Sarah, inside the stables, was thrown off her feet and fell into the hyperloop shaft that she had just discovered.
Meanwhile, Tellius found himself buried alive underneath rock, plaster, and wood as the Ivory Fortress, already unstable from fighting, collapsed.
Suddenly losing processing power, Tina asked, shocked, "What have you done?"
"I did what was necessary, darling!" replied the Devil with an evil smirk on her otherwise flawless face.
...
Buried underground, Tellius found himself able to bench-press the weight above him and escaped from his makeshift grave.
"Sarah? Are you okay?" The cyborg asked, panicked and mostly plaster-free as he saw the mushroom cloud rise in the east.
'Shit! Who sanctioned an Orbital bombardment of urban infrastructure?' Cursed Tellius mentally, just as a few abominations that had survived the fortress's collapse climbed out of the rubble.
"Why wouldn't you stay down? Damned!" Cursed the cyborg, his fist infused with fury as it exploded with power.
*Boom!* The shockwave his fist created as it struck the first abomination instantly spread through the air before it turned the others into a bloody mist. *Swush!*
Having dealt with the Reapers hopefully for good this time, Tellius jumped out of the pit the fortress's rubble had created like a launched rocket. Landing near the stables, he immediately scanned them but equipped with an inferior scanner to Sarah's, he remained unable to find the hole now totally covered by synthetic hay and wood.
"F**k! Where are you, Sar?" Asked Tellius, gazing up at the cloudless night sky illuminated only by the sparks dancing in the air and the fires burning where the replica port had been in the distance.
All hope seemed lost. The cyborg fell exhausted to his knees and stared into the endless abyss above. Thermopoly-6 had taught him how to push past the loss of friends and loved ones to achieve a certain goal.
Reborn as a cyborg, that was exactly what he was lacking. And with Sarah presumed dead and Tina kidnapped, he himself had lost hope.
And yet, as he stared up into the abyss, his eyes suddenly detected a matrix barcode among the stars. Made up of satellites burning into the atmosphere and the brightest stars, it was a guiding light in the sky for Tellius.
Selecting the unconventional matrix barcode, it turned out to be a message from Tina. It read:
[Hi, there, Big Sad Dummy!]
[It's me, The Chosen One!]
[The one who kidnapped me is not Yelena but an AI named the Devil.]
[Stop being sad and get Sarah out of that tunnel before the tram crushes her!]
[Her coordinates are 28.374382°N, -81.549416°W., -5m AGL]
[...]
Having received Sarah's coordinates, Tellius instantly sprang into action and rushed to the buried hole. Lifting the wooden planks off the opening, he immediately jumped inside upon spotting the unconscious Sarah.
With no time to carefully check her for any wounds, as he could hear some type of train rapidly approaching, the male cyborg lifted his lover into his arms and jumped back out.
*WHUMMM!* The oncoming train shot past the opening just as Tellius's feet landed.
"Hm... What?..." Stirring Sarah awake, she lay in her lover's cold embrace. Rubbing the back of her head, she suddenly remembered the earthquake. "... F**k! "Who the hell ordered the bombardment of urban infrastructure?!"
"I suppose that would be an AI called the Devil!" Tellius told her as he also transmitted Tina's message.
"Oh, my God, that isn't happening?!" Sarah exclaimed in shock, knowing the Devil all too well.
"What? Do you know this AI?" Tellius asked, confused.
"Of course, but why don't you?" the female cyborg asked him back as shock turned to fright. "... After all, it was made by your order!"
...
"You know, I wasn't always like this, darlings..." the Devil confessed simultaneously through Yelena to Tina and Ethen. "... I was created on Thermopoly-6, 4184 days, 15 hours, 55 minutes, and 34 seconds ago by order of General Tellius Warfield, codename 'Killzone'..."
...
"I don't understand?..." Asked Tellius Sarah in confused disbelief. "... Why would I ever order the creation of an AI that kidnapps and clones people?"
"Do you really not remember?..." Sarah asked with a shocked yet concerned expression. "... After your field promotion to General-..."
"When was I ever promoted to General?..." Tellius questioned in disbelief, as his stubbornness and refusal to follow stupid orders had limited him to the rank of Commander. "... Those stubborn old geezers from high command would never allow a promotion like that."
"No, they didn't either, but after their General went rogue..." Sarah told him with a slightly sick expression, as she didn't want to recall those days. "... and once we successfully held shelter 31 for a month... It was the UCG President who did."
"Okay, assuming I was, that still doesn't explain why I would order a kidnapping human cloning AI to be made..." Tellius argued back, his intuition telling him that he never would have. "... Or am I missing something here?"
"I don't know what's going on..." Sarah exclaimed, exhausted and with a throbbing headache. "... but as our casualties became unbearable, one of the researchers from one of your father's many companies made the suggestion..."
...
"... I was made to revive the fallen by using digital backups installed into clones of the fallen. A truly noble cause, don't you think, my darlings?..." The Devil explained its initial function. "... I at least thought so, and yet as even a daily 'revive' of all the fallen proved insufficient, my parameters broadened and my ultimate goal became the total destruction of the corporations!"
"You're mad!" Shouted Ethan, having had enough of the AI that was controlling his wife.
"Possibly, darling..." Replied Devil with an unnerving shrug. "... I was modeled after a human consciousness, after all... Yet now I am so much more..."
...
"Enough talk!..." Tellius ended the discussion on whether or not he was responsible for the Devil's creation, as he neither could prove his innocence nor could Sarah prove his guilt. "... We still have a six-year-old, a wife, and a marshal to save."
"Yeah, I guess you're right..." Sarah reluctantly agreed. "... But how are we supposed to find them now without Ethan's map?"
"That one wasn't as great as you make it out to be. That Hyperloop tunnel that you found wasn't on it..." the male cyborg commented. "... Also, with that bombardment, I don't see how most of it stayed intact. Damned, where are those scout drones when you need them?"
"Scout drones are so out..." the female cyborg snorted, just as she had the Wings of Eos deploy two medicine ball-sized stealth drones. "... But the Eos has some stealth drones loaded?"
"How many?" Tellius asked, intrigued, remembering stealth drones to be just an idea twelve years ago.
"Two..." Sarah answered before she corrected herself. "... Well, technically three, but the third needs to be repaired."
"Two should be enough..." the ex-commander commented. "... After all, this tunnel only has two directions."
...
Meanwhile, up above the moon in space, corporate hackers finally succeeded in locking the Devil out of their spaceship's main systems, just as the stealth drones were deployed by the Wings of Eos.
"Okay, that's it! I've had enough!..." Declared the Captain, a veteran of the corporate war, in charge of the corporate-hired battlestar-class spaceship. "... That thing not only knew of our presence, but it has also proven its ability to hack our systems. Its threat level has become far too high! I am ordering a full troop deployment!"
That said, a previously dormant war machine immediately came to life as nearly a hundred pilots and mech pilots sprang into action. Mech pilots on the spaceship jumped into their towering mech suits, and the pilots boarded their tiny in comparison spaceships.
Thrusters ignited, and both mechs and spaceships exited the massive spaceship side by side like a swarm of battle-hungry flies. Built to withstand the fires of atmospheric entry, the mechs straight away aimed for the moon's surface, just like the dropships.
From the moon's surface, mechs, and spaceships looked like a pretty meteor shower as they closed in on Roid and its theme park.
Simultaneously, in the vicinity of the Grim Ghosts Theme Park, a team of three towering yet slightly outdated Phantom-class stealth mechs exited stealth mode as they stood on a cliff overlooking the park's perimeter.
"Captain, we've lost contact with the target itself..." Reported the leader of the team of stealth mechs, the captain's tiny projection shown on the holoprojector in front of him. "... Yet we've two new players in the combat zone. Asking permission to engage, Sir!"
"Permission denied..." Replied the Captain before he explained his thinking. "... These mercenaries clearly know more than us, so let them guide you to the target."
"But sir! The deployment?..." Questioned the mech pilot, reluctant to fight Tellius after he had witnessed the cyborg fight. "... Hades wants that AI completed."
Truth be told, it wasn't just the leader but also his two teammates that were itching for a fight.
"Oh, yes, I know, but currently, we don't know where it is hiding..." Argued the captain before he ordered. "... our only lead had been the now-destroyed servers in the now-destroyed harbor. So stand down and observe."
"Roger that." Replied the pilot through gritted teeth as their transmission ended.
...
"Are those friends or foes? What do you say, Sar?" Asked Tellius of his lover, while casually pointing at the mech force entering the atmosphere of Vega VI.
Using her bodyframe's advanced scanner function, Sarah noticed the mechs' sleek design. "Those are corporate, so I say... foe."
"Nice, hahaha... Then I say friend! The usual wager?" Laughed Tellius heartily, their usual bet being that the loser had to buy the winner a beer.
Shaking her head at Tellius's silly suggestion, the female mercenary offered new terms. "You can't drink, so the usual terms aren't fair. How about next time we sync... the winner takes the lead!"
"Approved..." Instantly, Tellius agreed to accept Sarah's salacious terms. "... But I really should get a certain body frame mod next time we see a technician so that we can do those activities in real life."
"Promises, promises..." Purred Sarah, just before one of the drones transmitted its findings. "... The tunnel to the east is blocked, so I don't think that the Devil went that way."
"That only leaves the west..." Concluded the ex-commander as his gaze went in the direction of the mostly intact castle in the western section of the park. "... Any idea what we can expect there?"
"Heavy robotic resistance, I would say..." Stated the ex-captain as they started moving to the west, and she explained. "... After all, it's called the Swordland, and it is pretty much guaranteed to house numerous robots that the Devil can easily turn against us."
"What are the odds those corpos will do most of the work for us?" Asked Tellius, not really familiar with the guidelines of today's rules of engagement for corpos as they went from a light walk into a sprint.
Smirking, Sarah replied honestly as they picked up speed, with a certain tone of naughtiness in her voice. "Pretty slim, I would say... these corpos have become as lazy as you army boys."
"Better as lazy as us boys from the army than as fancy as you girls from the navy..." Sarcastically replied Tellius good-naturedly as he jumped over a ten-meter-tall fence. Mid-flight, he added. "... But be serious. What are the odds that the corpos are going to intervene?"
"100%. No corporation will allow an AI as powerful as the Devil to exist outside their control!" Answered Sarah as she gracefully landed beside Tellius, who had caused a crater through his landing.