After spending another hour in the bunker, discussing plans about how to approach the station strategically and the truth of what the previous survivors had stated about the Rot, the four approached the iron side gate in the bunker to progress with their journey to find more about the truth of Qliphos. Although they were missing the key, Claire approached the gate, declaring the truth about the secret ability. She raised her left hand toward the iron gate and melted it within an instant, creating the new passage for them to cross.
"Sorry," Claire apologized, facing the other three with her hands tied behind her back. "I couldn't tell you all. I was afraid of how you would all react."
Ardine smirked and moved past her, tapping her shoulder on the way out. "I knew this whole time." He said.
"Y-You did?" Claire exclaimed, stepping back in shock. "H-How?"
"He's... joking." Alfaic commented, moving past her along with Lyn by her side.
She was quite amazed how little they truly thought of it, making her anticipated anxiety nonexistent. It was a different sensation than one she had been used to.
Now that they were out of the bunker, they pushed themselves through another section of a larger tunnel with deceased corpses of both man and Rot. Signs of a previous struggle were clear with more droid carcasses in the vicinity. Prior to entering the bunker, the current droid carcasses were already destroyed, all devoid of life and surprise.
Lyn and the others found themselves at the edge of a crossing, finding a flickering light in the distance. Battle droids patrolled the opposite side, with their massive clawed legs echoing through the tunnel.
Claire, who was beside Alfaic, gazed at him nearly long enough for her to be ensnared in a never-ending trance. The realization that his father was responsible for her revenge-riddled journey was still impossible to comprehend, despite taking time to acknowledge and move past from it. She wondered what other secrets he was hiding, for it was impossible to read a sword's mind.
Lyn led the move through the tunnel, directly hiding from sight. They found a small entryway through a ladder raised on an upward platform, leading them to an emergency exit entrance from the other side. After jamming Alfaic to pry the door open, the four of them found themselves in a hangar spanning nearly three large grass fields in size. The hangar served as an outpost to transport crates, store weapons, build minor mechanized components, and create droids. In the center of the hangar was a platformed elevator that could take them all the way down to the core of the space station, which would eventually lead outside. However, it was blocked by a energy barrier due to their tightened security measures, still unaltered from its prime creation.
After scanning her eyes through the hangar, Lyn could find a surplus amount of patrolling battle droids moving in tandem, with smaller flying hover droids scanning the vicinity with the light detection sensors. The place, although corrupted by the Rot's influence, remained brutally secure that not even a mouse could bend through the rules of the machines.
"That's our way out," Ardine acknowledged, looking at the flying drones scouting the perimeter. "Although... those fucking drones. Reminds me of the ones that destroyed Buchasa long ago."
Alfaic hovered beside Ardine. "I can deal with them," He volunteered. "I'll blindside them from behind and knock them down."
"My hero," Ardine teased. "Would be really great to have more of those sonic grenades right about now..."
"There's tons of those crates just lying around here," Claire said, examining the perimeter of the hangar. "Chances are we'll see them again for you to play with."
"That's one way to put it," Ardine chuckled, looking over at Lyn. "What's the plan, Lyn? How are you gonna-"
Lyn watched as Alfaic ascended the skies, hiding from the drones in the shadows. She ignited the sawblade attached to her wrist while looking up at one of the hovering droids scanning the area. Ignoring Ardine's statements, she ascended on a set of barred edges of their platform and pushed herself off, leaping toward the drone out of its viewing zone. She pierced through the center of the drone and held a bar below it, hovering down to the lower stages of the hangar safely out of sight.
Ardine and Claire exchanged glances with how fast Lyn enacted her plan. "Welp, no time to lose." He said, moving against the top section of the hangar with Claire, whom shrugged at Lyn's response.
At ground level, Lyn descended toward a section of the hangar guarded by quad-pedal droids with turrets attached to their frontal chassis. After they were alerted by Lyn's appearance, they blasted their rapid-fire turrets, leaving Lyn to duck as close to the ground as possible to avoid the initial shots. She ejected her sawblade and blocked several of the bullets before running up the side of the girder walls, leaping down on them to execute them before they continued to wreak havoc. She then rushed toward the opposite side and swiftly sliced through more of their weak backs, clearing the bottom level.
Lyn gazed up at the sky, noticing a hovering droid about to detect her presence with the spotlight attached to its optical eye. However, Alfaic rushed from behind and pierced through the droid before it managed to spot her. After a quiet whirring sound played from the droid as it attempted to sound an alarm before its destruction, it collapsed on the ground beside Lyn, leaving Alfaic to free-fall down onto Lyn's grasp to safety.
"That was pretty solid," Alfaic complimented, hovering out of Lyn's hand. "Guess you didn't need me after all."
"It would have been easier with you," Lyn said, turning her head to face a generator with a control panel hooked up to a section of the blue energy barrier blocking their pathway. She approached the panel and noticed large wiring coming out of the side of it, hooking it toward one of the barrier's main energy sources. With her sawblade ejected again, Lyn delivered a solid vertical cut, severing all of the wires in order to shut it down.
The sever was successful. It reduced the barrier's blue color, and it also decreased in size and power.
"There are more." Lyn said, searching for a way up to the second floor. She found an ascending ramp up to the top and moved up to it, holding her right hand against a railway attached to balance herself. Alfaic hovered beside her, eager to start a conversation that had been bothering him ever since the beginning of their journey through Ionis 9.
"So..." He began, distracted from the chaos around them. "I saw you talking to Claire back at the bunker."
"Yes." Lyn said.
"What... did you guys talk about?"
"We can talk about this later," Lyn bounced his question away as she was about to reach the second floor. "There are more important matters to attend to."
"But... I was just wondering if you-"
Before Alfaic could finish his statement, a hidden towering battle droid caught Lyn off guard, tackling her until they both descended down the ramp in a rolling turmoil. As soon as they reached the ground level once more, the battle droid seized control of Lyn's neck with its left claw, while its right claw pinned down Lyn's right shoulder. It shrieked loudly, revealing a small fleshy tendril in its neck attempting to flay Lyn's face to devour her.
"Lyn!" Alfaic cried, charging against the backplate of the droid to destroy it. However, an electromagnetic barrier reflected Alfaic toward the ground, spiraling out of control until he struck several metal crates. He was stunned upon the impact.
As she struggled to breathe for air, Lyn angled her wrist to face the battle droid's tendril. She ejected her sawblade and sliced it entirely off before using both of her feet to kick the droid's chest away from her. She dashed forward and peeled off the metal plating shielding optic nerve of the droid's eye, diving her sawblade into its nape. She grasped the yellow optic with her left hand and yanked it cleanly off, putting it out of commission permanently.
Lyn leaped back to the ground level to recover Alfaic from the droid's attack. However, upon grabbing him, she had a different conversation in mind for him.
"Blade, I need you to focus," She insisted with a bothered tone. "I need you with me. Do you understand?"
Alfaic floated back beside her and was adamant on being silent. However, he responded curtly. "Okay." He said.
Meanwhile, on the third level, Ardine and Claire approached the same generator on the ground level stealthily by taking cover behind many of the hangar's crates lying across the girder floors. Most of the droids were patrolling away from them, so Ardine took the time to loot most of the metal crates by prying it with the head of his rifle. Upon closer inspection with most of the crates, all Ardine could find were scraps of metal used to rebuild the hangar in case it was ever damaged by an unsuspecting attack or malfunction.
By random chance, after approaching one of the final crates close to the generator, Ardine looted several sonic grenades and attached it to his belt. Just before he was about to dive back into cover, a battle droid detected him and began priming its laser cannon.
"Shit!" Ardine shouted, rushing toward cover as fast as he could to block the bullet. However, the distance between him and the cover was too short, leaving him vulnerable even as a single second passed. But right before the cannon was about to fatally strike him, Claire lashed out to defend him with her left hand pressed against the air, facing the battle droid. A golden barrier shielded the initial cannon bullet, dissolving it before it could even reach Ardine.
Claire gritted her teeth to muster all the strength she could to keep the barrier up. The battle droid continued to attempt to retaliate with its chain-gun bullets primed on its wrist, but all of the weak bullets failed to pierce through the conjured barrier. As the droid began to overhead, Claire disbanded the barrier, leaving Ardine enough time to activate one of the pillaged sonic grenades to toss toward the droid. The shrill sound of the grenade exposed the fleshy corpse powering the droid near the chest, and Ardine blasted it with his rifle to execute it.
Three more battle droids were alerted to the gunfire, preparing their weapons to kill.
"We fight!" Claire shouted, snatching two of Ardine's sonic grenades attached to his pouch. She activated and tossed both of them toward the three droids, weakening their resolve and leaving their chests exposed. After Ardine blasted one of the droids with his rifle, Claire unsheathed her folded blade and hovered her left hand over it, coating it in a golden and black energy to imbue it with power. She rushed forward with her blade extended, stabbing the chest of a droid with raw amounts of force so powerful that it severed its entire torso into two pieces. She then spun midair to face the last stunned droid, slicing down upon it vertically in half until there was nothing but a pool of blood and remnants of mechanized scrap.
The adrenaline of combat mixed in with the result of not having to hide her secret power caused her to breathe abnormally rapid, until Ardine approached her from behind and patted her shoulder to calm her down. She slowed her breathing down, looking up at Ardine with a firm smile.
"So, that power's useful after all," Ardine said, approaching the scrapped droids with a satisfied gaze. "And without a doubt, saved me once again." He finished, approaching the generator.
"A-again?" Claire stuttered. "What do you mean, again?"
Not wanting to elaborate further, Ardine examined the same control panel attached to the generator powering the blue energy barrier. Upon examination, he holstered his rifle on his back and began cracking his knuckles, seeing what he could do to deactivate the barrier. As its color began to wane down entirely, Ardine guessed that it was connected to it. "Must be Lyn's doing," He concluded. "Let's see what we can do to deactivate this-"
Claire, who primed her energy imbued blade, vertically sliced down upon the wiring coupled beside it, severing it much like Lyn had done earlier. Sparks flew from the control panel, prompting Ardine to move backward to avoid it from splashing on his face. Claire turned her head slowly toward him with a cocky smirk, leaving Ardine to shake his head in sarcastic disappointment.
"Barbaric," He said, turning toward the blue barrier winding down entirely. "Well, effective, at least."
Lyn descended beside Ardine and Claire with Alfaic in her hand, standing up straight after fluffing her long black ponytail. "All clear." She said.
"Thanks for doing your part," Ardine said. "Were you worried that we couldn't handle the weight?"
"Sure." Lyn remarked, ignoring them as she began to trail toward the platformed elevator.
The four of them moved toward the entrance of it, discovering that it could only be entered through ground level. They passed by many of the destroyed droids as they approached an iron gate that was previously locked off.
"Blade," Lyn called, letting him hover beside them. "We need you out here."
"Right." Alfaic said, jamming himself inside the iron door's lock.
"Still a long ways to go once we make it down," Ardine said. "If this elevator will take us directly to a section of the core, we still have to get through the station itself. That should lead us to outside again."
"It's such a headache thinking about this place's layout." Claire commented.
Alfaic pried through the lock of the door, revealing a even sturdier solid door towering and blocking the entrance to the actual platformed elevator. On the side of the door was a panel detailing the list of locations the elevator could take them. Highlighted in glowing green text, Ardine scanned through the list of potential locations; he discovered that it could take them all the way toward a Level 512, indicating the bottom toward the core of Ionis 9.
"Well, we're in it for the long ride, I guess." Ardine said, smacking the Level 512 button with the side of his fist. "Never seen an elevator that needed to be activated before actually stepping onto it."
"Wait, I think I hear something-"
Alfaic's voice was cut off immediately by an astonishing large presence in front of them. The entire iron gate was shredded by a towering mechanized figure behind it, startling the entire group. Upon first appearance, the barely visible figure seized control of Lyn's neck and yanked her out of the passageway and into the platformed elevator. The force of the throw snapped Lyn's back against the lower-hanging wall, disorienting her for a split second.
"LYN!" The entire group shouted and attempted to join her on the platformed elevator with their weapons drawn. However, a blue laser wall prevented them from entry, barricading them from joining her.
The platformed elevator rattled itself before playing an automated voice from a hidden intercom on the metal ceiling: "DESCENDING TO LEVEL 512. PLEASE KEEP YOUR HANDS ON THE ELEVATOR RAILWAY. THANK YOU FOR VISITING QLIPHOS STATION."
As Lyn pressed her hands against the cold metal floors to push herself up again, she watched as several light sources above the metal ceiling activated to lighten up the surrounding area. The dim light eventually expanded, revealing an enemy that Lyn nor the others had ever encountered before.
A towering mechanized droid, no less than ten feet tall, stood firmly several meters away from Lyn, staring down upon her with a tiny yellow optical nerve that the other battle droids carried. It was a securely armed battle droid with a helmet-shaped head protecting its eyes; a red feathered ornament protruded from the top of its scalp, acting as a sort of hair attachment. It was equipped with a wide chest plate in the shape of a sideways diamond, covering most of its body and leaving no weak spots. Its burly hips and wired legs were mixed with red hardened flesh, no doubt from the past lives that it took all made stronger by its iron-skin like infusion.
Lyn coughed before standing upright, facing the large goliath in front of her. Before it could even approach her, the machine reached behind its back and summoned a mechanized glaive that was almost half its size, spinning it around as golden electric energies radiated from its blade. As the elevator began its slow and arduous decent, the sheen on the glaive managed to unveil its true name; GLAIV-086.
"Okay, fine." Lyn muttered under her nose, igniting the sawblade attached to her wrist.
The GLAIV spun its weapon in the air before discharging an electric voltage from its body, preparing to fight. Lyn charged forward, aiming for its wired legs. After attempting to stab through, the sawblade was deflected right off immediately from its powerful hardened skin. GLAIV kicked Lyn back against the wall and stomped through toward her with its glaive extended. Lyn dodged out of its way, but noticed that the sawblade attached to her wrist was now completely destroyed.
Now unarmed, the GLAIV jumped on top of the platformed elevator, severing the cables to the slow moving transportation. With the cables snapped, sparks flew from the failed locking mechanisms underneath the transport. The elevator began to wobble as it began to drag itself down from gravity, speeding up in the process until Alfaic, Ardine, and Claire were all but a memory now.
With the platform bolting down each floor at lightning speed, it was nearly impossible for Lyn to hold on properly. As the GLAIV rushed toward Lyn with its sharpened shoulder, Lyn managed to leap behind it and onto its back, searching for a way to sever its optic nerve, much like the previous droids she battled. But with the rattling and shaking environment, along with a lack of light, all she could do was hold on for her life until the end of the ride.
The GLAIV grabbed Lyn's arm and slammed her to the ground, severing it entirely. It then struck down with its sharpened glaive, piercing through Lyn's torso until it stabbed through the platformed elevator. As the speed began to ramp up to its maximum state, the elevator jerked fully out of control, sending GLAIV and its weapon spiraling away towards oblivion. Lyn closed her eyes as grey blood gushed out of her injuries, coming to a full unknown stop as soon as the elevator crashed from an extended Rot tendril peeking out of a middle level.
An explosion of scrap metal and debris ensued, caving the entire elevator and sending it to its demise. Lyn's body freely fell out of the elevator and onto a platform on Level 450. As she gasped for air, she stood up and focused on regenerating her body with her powers. She watched over the railing as the elevator reached the bottom floor with a crashing bang. Dust and smoke ignited her surroundings, making it impossible to see.
As Lyn's arm regenerated, along with her chest wound sealing up entirely, the GLAIV hung above her with its weapon, stalking her from a distance. She attempted to run to evade it, but the GLAIV pure strength and weight made it impossible; it spun around its glaive to gain momentum, launching itself along with its weapon toward her. It collided down beside her, sending Lyn tumbling toward the edge of the platform.
But it was not without consequence. The weight of the bridge platform could not support the GLAIV, caving it in entirely as it snapped in half. Holding its weapon as it descended into nothingness, the GLAIV was no longer present as it disappeared to the bottom of the abyss.
A careful and cautious Lyn appeared to sweat in the moment, examining around her surroundings for a way out. She then looked above the elevator platform, eyes ensnared by the illusion-like entryway where the beginning of the platform used to be. She was in the middle of nowhere, and for the second time, she was abandoned and alone, once again.