Meanwhile, as Tellius and Sarah were entering the park's western section, also known as the Swordland, corporate forces closed in on the city of Roid as well as the theme park. Tina was hard at work, restoring Yelena's shattered consciousness.
"You'll never succeed, darling," Commented the Devil in digital form. "... Without my quantum servers, you'll never be able to restore her in time."
"In time for what?" Asked Ethen, also in digital form, as he lent Tina a significant portion of his brain's processing power.
"For your wife's body to still be alive..." Declared the AI, her teeth flashing. "... Or did you think that I am keeping it indefinitely? Oh no, darling... This flesh and bone construction is so inferior to one made out of titanium-steel bone and artificial muscle!"
"Wait? What are you doing?" Tina suddenly asked in shock just as the AI began to move its database location away from Yelena Ryan's brain.
"I am giving her back, darling," answered the Devil with an innocent expression but razor-sharp teeth. "... The only question is, can she still live without me?... Bye, bye!"
With that, the AI vanished from the hyperloop wagon, just as Yelena Ryan collapsed like a puppet without strings.
"Oh, f**k, NO!" Cursed Ethen out loud, still strapped to his chair.
Thankfully, with the AI gone, Tina was able to easily unlock the electrically locked straps that had kept them in their chairs the entire time.
*Click!* *Click!* Ethan and Tina's bindings unlocked, and they instantly jumped out of their chairs to rush to his wife.
"Oh, no! Please wake up, Yel!..." Pleaded the marshal with his unresponsive wife. "... Come on, come on! Please wake up!"
"She can't! Her consciousness is just a bunch of puzzle pieces..." Explained Tina, her voice laced with cold, detached logic as her young mind was unable to process the complex mix of emotions that she was currently feeling. "... I can't put it all back together before her body suffocates. After all, no consciousness, no breathing."
"But can't I do something?..." Asked Ethan, bargaining not only with Tina but also with himself. "... Can't you put only the most necessary parts of her subconsciousness together to at least keep her breathing? Or how about you transmit and boost my subconsciousness into her body! My subconsciousness can have both our bodies breathe! Or how about...-"
"I can only put pieces back together, but I have no idea about what each individual piece represents..." Stated Tina as she unconsciously evaluated Ethan's second idea of its feasibility. "... But your second idea might work..."
That said, the little genius transmitted the husband's subconscious motor functions to the wife, and a miracle happened as Yelena's chest started to rise and fall as oxygen began filling her previously dying body.
"Oh my God! It works!..." Exclaimed Ethan and pressed his wife's still-soulless body against his chest. "... She's breathing."
"Yeah, that would work until the batteries of her implants die..." Stated Tina, relieved that Yelena's situation had at least stabilized. "... Which should be plenty of time for me to restore her consciousness."
"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" exclaimed the marshal happily before he included the six-year-old in his hug.
*Clank!* The hyperloop's polarity suddenly changed, and the entire train changed its direction from forward to backward, which caused everyone tu stumble slightly.
...
Meanwhile, as Tina was stitching Yelena's consciousness back together and their mobile prison suddenly changed direction, Tellius and Sarah were finally closing in on their destination.
Built to look like the Swordland from Grim-Souls, the western section of the park resembled classical fantasy. As such, it was fulfilled numerous tropes like a massive castle situated in a lush valley with chivalrous knights, greedy dragons, and fair maidens.
From a hill between the northern and western sections of the park, the two cyborgs could already see the outline of the first town in the darkness. Illuminated by torches and artificial lighting that was supposed to look like pale moonlight, the town was organized in a T-shape.
At the most prominent spot of the only intersection, a wooden church towered over the town. At the corner to the right on the opposite side of the church burned the smith's chimney, and to the right was an inn.
Yet as they approached the town where their second stealth drones had located an underground platform, the Devil's fingerprints immediately became obvious.
As Sarah and Tellius strolled into town, it's robot inhabitants cosplaying as guards and villagers instantaneously turned hostile as they armed themselves with whatever was closest to them.
Some swung the tools in their hands like the guards or the blacksmith, others ripped lamps, torches, or weapons off the walls. All in all, an angry mob of fake villagers soon surrounded the two cyborgs.
"You ready for some action?" Asked Sarah Tellius as they stood back to back and a pitchfork narrowlymissed her skull.
Chuckling, Tellius replied as he activated his Gladius Blades. "Do you even need to ask?"
"Guess not!" Replied the female mercenary just as she attacked the nearest bot with her throwing knives.
That said, both cyborgs jumped into action.
With quick precise stabs & slashes Tellius took down one bot after the next, until his blades got dull and he had to resort to powerful kicks & strikes.
Sarah on the other hand started out attacking with powerful kicks and only using her throwing knifes as a backup, she eventually switched to them.
Only now in close proximity to each other did it become apparent to both that their fighting styles were polar opposites of each other. Where Tellius favored slower but much more powerful attacks that ended an exchange in a single strike, Sarah preferred a quick flurry of stabs and slashes that also ended in a quick win.
Furthermore, where he was crudely taking hits, she was using acrobatic maneuvers to avoid them. And yet despite their differences, Tellius and Sarah were covering each other's shortcomings perfectly.
Fighting like that, soon the two of them stood, back to back but surrounded by broken robots and their makeshift weapons.
Breathing heavily as she caught her breath, Sarah looked in disbelief at Tellius's almost pristine body frame that showed only a few burn marks and scratches from an explosion and nothing more.
"Oh, wow..." The female mercenary exclaimed as she wiped the dirt off Tellius's frame to check his metal's integrity. "... The steel used in your frame must be something else."
Not wanting to tell her about the Lazarus System and his Invincibility skill, Tellius ignored her comment and told her. "We need to move. Tina and Ethan need our help! We need to get to them before those corpos do."
"Yeah, I guess you're right..." Sarah agreed and put her advanced scanner to good use. Discovering the entrance to the VIP hyperloop transport system, she told Tellius, "... Got it! The entrance is inside the inn."
"Fancy!" Tellius commented as they walked down the town's main road where the said inn was located at the next corner and in front of a church.
All in all, if it hadn't been for all the damage done to it through their fight with the robot inhabitants, both cyborgs could agree that the town was a very cozy place to visit.
Turns out the inn looked like wooden medieval fantasy inn on the outside but a marble tiled hyperloop station on the inside.
Entering the aptly named 'VIP ONLY' inn, Sarah and Tellius immediately had to descend a set of stairs that led down to a large platform constructed inside the inn, approximately 5 meters below ground.
This arrangement allowed the park to provide VIP guests with the convenience of high-speed transportation through the park without significantly disrupting its overall immersion.
"Okay, how are we going to do this?" Tellius asked Sarah, noticing a series of warning signs on the wall opposite the single platform. The signs indicated that individuals with major enhancements were prohibited from using the hyperloop. "... How are we going to stop that train?!"
*Whoosh!* The hyperloop train rushed into the station, but before it could come to a complete stop, its polarity reversed. *Clank!*
*Whoosh!* The train once more sped out of the station.
Witnessing this, Sarah immediately came up with an idea. "How about manipulating those magnets and keeping that train here?"
"That sounds like a good idea, but how?" questioned the former commander.
Smirking, Sarah jumped down to the train tracks to work on a power distribution box. "I may not know how to hack things, but over the years, I've learned to hot-wire them!"
"Impressive..." Tellius commented absentmindedly, his gaze fixed with concern on the map above the tracks that displayed the train's current location. "...But I don't feel comfortable with you sitting in a danger zone like this."
"Oh, grow up, Telli!" ordered the female mercenary. "... How is this any different from me on the battlefield?"
"It just is. Knowing how good you are in combat makes me less worried seeing you fight than..." Tellius defended his position. "... it is seeing you work on high-voltage machinery with the very real risk of you getting pancaked by a hyperloop train."
"Oh, how sweet of you..." Sarah exclaimed as she ripped some cables out and twisted some exposed wires together. "... that you're so concerned for my well-being!"
"Just shut up and get that train to stop the next time it passes through here." Snorted the mercenary as he rolled his eyes dismissively at his lover's words.
"All done!" Declared Sarah after just a few more minutes and then immediately jumped out of the train's path.
Looking from the proudly smirking woman next to him back at the map that showed the train's current location, Tellius refrained from commenting on Sarah's words.
Yet, noticing that the hyperloop traveled exclusively between the Capital below the Worldtree (aka the park's entrance) and their current train station, the male cyborg was getting a bad feeling.
...
Meanwhile, inside the train that Tellius and Sarah were about to stop, Tina was finishing up on putting Yelena's consciousness back together as best as she could.
"Pfft!..." Tina exclaimed as she left the digital realm exhausted. Dropping onto her backside, she told the eager-to-know marshal, "... I did as well as I could. The rest is up to her and the gods."
"However this turns out, you have my gratitude, little lady..." Ethen Ryan thanked her as he gently stroked his wife's hair. "... And hers, too, I'm sure."
"No need to thank me..." Tina told the man with a naughty smirk, yet the exhaustion in her body betrayed the strain it had put on her. "... I am Tina, by the way."
"Ethen, Ethen Ryan..." the marshal replied with a curt nod before pointing at the unconscious woman in his arms. "... And this is my wife, Yelena Ryan."
"Yeah, I know..." Tina chatted happily, as for once she didn't have to battle in the datastream while talking. Slightly sleepy, the little hacker yawned. "... Hoooaaah... You must have hired Sarah and Tellius to help you save your wife from the Devil."
"Yeah, that I did..." Ethen confirmed, slightly embarrassed as it had taken the lives of two marshal teams and the assistance of mercenaries for him to finally hold his beloved wife in his arms. "... We always called that AI her Dark Passenger."
"How did it even end up in her head in the first place?" Tina curious curiously, as AIs in general prefer quantum servers to human brains.
"Her job..." Ethen replied, not wanting to delve too deeply into his wife's previous job as a UCG agent. "... But we should really look into how we can get out of this place..."
"No, we shouldn't!..." Tina rejected the man's idea. "... We're currently inside an isolated hyperloop train compartment traveling at speeds of up to 1200 km/h. If you want to go out, be my guest."
"Oh, okay..." Ethen said and swallowed hard. "... But how do we get out of here then?"
"Well, I don't know, but Sarah seems to have an idea..." Told Tina before she explained. "... She and Tellius are at the next station after this one."
"Really?" the marshal asked, when suddenly the train began screaming as metal bent and broke.
...
*Clank!* The polarization suddenly changed and the entire train came to a momentary stop.
Yet the sound of fast acceleration never came. As it was about to move again, the entire train suddenly found itself wedged between two opposing forces.
*Clang!* *Clang!* *Clang!* The train's central axis deformed.
Then, as it slowly broke apart, the two now separate sections shot off in opposite directions under the magnetic forces applied to them.
*Swush!* *Boom!* The front section rushed off like a bullet, just as the back section half-buried itself into the collapsed tunnel of the hyperloop station.
Having witnessed all that, Sarah and Tellius stood speechless on the platform nearby for a few awkward minutes.
"That was a bit excessive..." Tellius told Sarah, shocked that a bit of her casual tinkering had netted such destructive results. "... Let's just hope you didn't kill them... I'm going in."
That said, the male cyborg rushed to the left-behind section. Yet as he approached, strange mechanical clicking noises echoed out of the train's gaping opening.
"Hey, wait..." Sarah shouted as she followed after him, rushing to the back section, praying that she hadn't just killed the hostages. With her scanner turned to the max, it was she who saw the new type of enemy first as they transformed into familiar shapes. "... Telli, don't get fooled! These aren't Tina and Ethan."
"What do you mean?" Asked Tellius confused, just as his chest was struck by a tiny Fist before he could use his Invincibility skill.
"BAM!" Fake Tina's fist instantly punched through his chestplate which forced Tellius to his knees.
*Thud!* A knife thrown by Sarah struck the little hellion's skull between the eyes that threw the fake little girl's head back to the point that her neck broke with a crunch.
Yet as Tellius pried the small creature off his chest, fake Tina's head instantly snapped back in place as it pulled the throwing knife out of it's skull, the wound rapidly healing.
Smirking like a maniac, the small robot said. "Hello, darling!"
Yet, just as Sarah was about to reach Tellius to help him, she too was struck but not by a knife like fist but a crippeling shotgun blast to her left knee. *Bang!*
Jumping out of the crashed train section came fake Ethen.
"Oh, f**k!..." The female cyborg cursed as pain was transmitted from her artificial limbs to her brain. "... AARRRGH!"
...
Meanwhile, having somehow survived Sarah's tinkering, the real Tina, Yelena, and Ethan had found themselves traveling at high speeds before they crashed into a wall of the hyperloop station of the City underneath the Worldtree.
Coughing, Ethan found an unconscious Tina lying right beside his equally unconscious wife. Cracking his neck to relieve some built-up stress in it, the veteran looked around not only at their broken train compartment/prison but also at the train station that lay beyond.