chapter 5: From Assasination to Escort (Part 1)

[ENEMY VANQUISHED!]

"Oh? So that's how it is!" Tellius thought, drawing the conclusion that the obsidian robots he defeated were only counted after Mr. Purple began overwriting their AI programs.

"So, are we really going to do this?..." Sarah asked her friend as he exited her room, still having not noticed Tellius' absentmindedness. "... Kill Theodore Baldur, I mean?"

Meanwhile, Tellius was already considering that the system might be counting the other robots still undefeated as one since technically their heads still existed.

Finding the silver robot head beside the other that now had glowing purple eyes, he took it between the palms of his hands. Stroking its metal forehead for a moment, he eventually crushed it without mercy.

"Hey! I am talking to you!" Sarah shouted angrily for being ignored by him just as she followed him back onto the bridge once more, dressed in her blue catsuit and armed with her pulse pistols.

Not getting a notification, Tellius concluded that the other robots had neither been counted as a unit nor as worthy enemies by the system standard.

"Ahm... Sorry, Sar..." Tellius told Sarah, still looking into his system to learn how much the obsidian robot samurai had earned him. "... I just have a little too much to process..."

[ENEMY VANQUISHED!]

[Reward: 2x SP; 1x Remembrance of Greatness]

[Remembrance of Greatness detected!]

[Do you wish to consume it?]

[Yes | No]

Consuming the Remembrance, Tellius received another notification.

[You have gained the Skill-Tree: Martial Arts]

[Path of the Fist; Path of the Blade and Footwork are now available in the Shop!]

Having just gained 2 more SP, Tellius was eager to check out his system's shop page, but Sarah had once more spoken to him.

"... So, are we going to do it?" Sarah asked, her eyes serious but her lips smiling.

"Yes?..." Tellius replied, not really sure what he was actually agreeing to.

"Oh? So you want us to get married?..." Sarah asked, smirking like a cat. "... Or could it be that you once again haven't listened to what I was saying?"

Stuck between a rock and a hard place, Tellius relented. "Okay, I didn't listen to you just now, but I heard you before... And yes, we'll be killing that Theodore Baldur, but I'm not sure that it has to be permanent."

"Oh? What do you have in mind?" Sarah questioned happy to hear that Tellius had apparently come up with a plan.

"Well..."

...

Meanwhile back at the Cerberus station inside a private storage room filled with hundreds of transparent tubes stood Theodor Baldura. Blissfully unaware of somebody plotting againt him, he was currently looking at his latest acquisition.

Stored inside a transparent cylinder floated an unconscious little pink haired girl with tubes connected to her spine.

"343, how are you doing, my dear?" Asked the handsome Baldur brother as he gently caressed the cylinder.

"Better, uncle..." Answered a little girl's frightened voice over the loudspeaker attached to the bottom of the cylinder containing the pink haired little girl. "... But where is my mom? I wanna see momy!"

"Hush now..." Theodore said, while unbottening his sky blue dress shirt. "... Your mother is in a better place now and Uncle Theodore will take good care of you from now on!"

"But I wanna be with my mom..." The little girl's voice insisted sniffing. "... Where did mom go? I wasn't bad! I did as I was told and hid under the bad!"

"Hush, hush now, my dear 343..." Theodore stated calmly as he pulled his dress shirt out of his pants and removed his cufflinks as he persuaded. "... The war is over. The good guys one."

"No, the good guys always lose, and only the corporations win!..." The girlish voice angrily insisted. "... Also, my name is Tina, Tina Thops, not 343."

"Now, now, 343... Didn't we agree that lying was bad!" Theodore said before he pushed a hidden button on his golden thumb ring.

Instantly, a small light right next to a lightning bolt warning sign at the bottom of the girl's cylinder lit up, and she began to twitch uncontrollably.

"AUWAAAAH! Bad uncle! You're hurting me again!..." The girl's voice yelped before she screamed in pain. "... AUWAAAAH!"

Turned on by her scream, Theodore asked her gleefully. "Now, 343, will you stop lying about your name? And be a good girl for uncle?"

"Yes..." The little girl's voice agreed, weakly quivering. "... I'll be uncle's 343... good 343."

Very satisfied with what he was hearing, Theodore loosened the button of his trousers. "Good! Now..."

*Www!* *Www!* *Www!* His communicator vibrated.

Touching his earing, his AI assistant informed him that the mercenaries that his brother had hired had arrived.

...

Meanwhile, as the Wings of Eos hovered just outside of scanner reach of the Cerberus space station, Tellius, armed to the teeth, lay inside a cramped torpedo launcher. Only now, in this crazed darkness, In space, he finally found the time to check out his systems' updated skill shop.

[Skill Shop:]

[+Skill-Trees:]

[-+Commander]

[--Radio Silence: 50 SP]

[--Morale Boost: 25 SP]

[--Supply Drops: 5 SP]

[-+Mech-Pilot]

[--Final Stand: 50 SP]

[--Berserker-Mode: 25 SP]

[--Auto-Repair: 5 SP]

[-+Infantry]

[--Orbital Strike: 50 SP]

[--Aimbot: 25 SP]

[--Invincibility: Sold]

[-+ Martial Arts (NEW)]

[-- Path of the Fist Lv.1*: 2 SP]

[-- Path of the Blade Lv.1*: 2 SP]

[-- Footwork Lv.1*: 3 SP]

[*Once a skill with 'Lv.' in its name is bought, the next level version of said skill will become available for purchase.]

Looking at the updated store page, Tellius was surprised to learn that the newly available skills came with a lower price tag. However, restricted by only having 10 SP to his name, he once more decided to shelve his purchasing decision, as Sarah had already begun the countdown.

"Launch in... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1..." Instead of hearing her say zero in his head, Tellius felt his body frame compress slightly as he was shot out by the Wings of Eos missile launch system.

Suddenly in outer space, Tellius instantly felt his weightlessness as the launch momentum continued to carry him forward.

"How am I doing?" He eventually asked Sarah as boredom crept in.

"Trajectory looks stable. ETA 20 minutes till bingo..." Sarah dutifully reported before she simply had to ask. "... So, do we trust this 'Mr. Purple' will keep his word?"

"Best case scenario, Mr. Purple is a powerful AI with a plan. In that case, it should value powerful human collaborators like us and not screw us over..." Tellius explained his thought process. "... Worst case scenario, Mr. Purple is a power-hungry corporate executive who needs Theodore Baldur gone to advance his career. In that case, we're screwed no matter what. Might as well buy us time by cooperating until the target is dead."

"So, you're betting on him being an 'it'..." Sarah said thoughtfully before reporting. "... New scans are in, and it looks like Theodore has gotten himself some hired muscle."

"How many?" Tellius asked, slightly taken aback, as additional firepower on the other side would mean longer gunfights and more variables to consider.

"Impossible to tell with our outdated technology, but I am counting three ships docked and two more incoming..." Doing some quick calculations based on the ship types, Sarah estimated. "... I am guessing five to fifteen hostiles in addition to bots, staff and turrets."

...

Seventeen minutes later, Theodore Baldur had just finished his talks with the mercenaries willing to take the job of avenging his nephew when suddenly a station-wide alarm sounded.

*Attention!* *High-velocity object detected!* *Impact imminent!* *High-velocity object detected!* *...*

"Damned! Not now! Not again!" Theodore complained, annoyed by yet another unwanted delay of his gratification.

Ignoring the alert, he began rushing to his secret storage room, hoping to reach it before the impact. Yet as the executive reached the corridor connected to it, the object struck, and the entire station shook.

*Boom!*

...

Meanwhile, crashing into the station's prison module after grazing a pressurized corridor, Tellius still succeeded in performing a nearly flawless heroic landing. Sliding over the metal ground with sparks flying, he raised his HMG as he switched it to single-shot mode to preserve his ammunition and instantly transitioned into a slow jog.

*BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!* He fired at the cameras, just Before they could have triggered the local defense system.

With the ejected bullet casings of his HMG still singing as they hit his cold steel, the former commander swiftly scanned the empty cells.

"Sarah? Can you hear me?..." Tellius asked Sarah but got nothing but static noise in response as his landing had most likely triggered the station's blackout protocol. "... Dammit!"

Bleak and empty as the cells were, their universal cleanliness showed that here people were rather being liquidated for parts to pay for damages than they were being imprisoned.

At the far end of that floor of the prison module, Tellius eventually found a familiar but somewhat changed face. Battered and bruised with even some teeth pulled out, Jack Searcher had remained surprisingly fancy as he lay unconscious in his cell.

Feeling somewhat responsible for the man's apparent fall from grace, the hulking cyborg broke the cell's lock to give the guy a chance to escape in the chaos that was to come.

*Crunch!*

"Hihihi... Somebody has been naughty..." A stretchy female voice echoed through the prison.

That said, hunched-over r slender female figure in nurse's clothes slowly revealed itself behind him with syringes in place of her fingers on one hand and scalpels on the other.

Rushing him like some kind of overly flexible ninja, she screamed. "... Hihihi, looks like somebody needs to be cured of his naughtiness."

Swinging his HMG around, Tellius immediately opened fire on the insane nurse.

*Ratatatatatatatata...* The Pallas HMG howled, but sadly the nurse turned blurry as all bullets hit only her afterimages.

Moving at simply inhuman speeds, she instantly closed the distance between them and stabbed her syringes into his neck.

Feeling dangerously close to death, Tellius instinctively struck out with the barrel of his HMG. With the melee attack connecting with artificially strengthened flesh, the crazy nurse instantly slammed into the bars of one of the prison cells.

Falling to the ground, she recovered before she could hit the floor. Bending her body like a human spring, she bounced back into a flurry of slashes.

Now in the rhythm of her attacks, Tellius spammed his Invincibility skill to withstand it all like an indestructible rock. With a wave of furious slashes washing over him, the cyborg simply kicked out as the attacks slowed down.

With chrome and flesh once more connecting, Tellius succeeded in pinning down the nurse below his matte black foot. Seeing the nurse struggle beneath his feet, he took aim and pulled the trigger.

*Ratatatatatatatata!* A burst of steel cut into flesh and bone. Ending the fight for good.

[ENEMY VANQUISHED]

That said, however, his initial victory was incredibly short-lived, as immediately dozens of white coat-wearing robots stormed the floor, opening fire on him.

Unable to spam his Invincibility skill and fire his HMG at the same time, Tellius sought cover in Fancy Jack's cell.

"Are you here to finish the job for them?" Jack Specter stammered, frightened as he hid in the corner furthest away from Tellius, making himself as small as possible despite.

"No, but because of that stunt that you pulled on us..." Tellius told him, a burst of lead from him cleaving the nearest robot's chest.

*Ratatatatatatatata!*

Looking back at Jack, he added. "... I am also not saving you... But do you have any idea where Baldur is?"

*Ratatatatatatatata!*

"No, I know nothing!" Jack shook his head feverishly while sitting in a puddle of piss.

"But I know, Mr.!..." A girl's hesitant voice suddenly echoed inside his head. "... But I'll only tell you if you promise to get me to my mommy!"

*Ratatatatatatatata!* *Ratatatatatatatata!*

"What?" Tellius asked between targeted bursts to cut down the advancing robots.

*Ratatatatatatatata!* *Ratatatatatatatata!*

"Promise me!" insisted the childlike voice in his head.

"I can promise you..." He agreed, not expecting any tangible help from an infant AI. "... But I am currently occupied."

*Ratatatatatatatata!*

"You mean those angry robos?..." The supposed infant ai. "... I can talk to them for you if you want me to. I am Tina by the way."

*Ratatatatatatatata!* *Ratatatatatatatata!*

'Great, must be my luckily day! An infant AI with a name and the personality of a little kid.' Thought Tellius as he had to reload his HMG betwenburst but told the assumed ai. "... That would be great, Miss Tina."

That said however the automatic turrets build into the sealing suddenly came out behind the cyborg.

"F**k!" Tellis cursed and immediately spammed his Invincibility skill to better withstand the damage the turret would be causing while he moved inbetween Jack and the turrets.

*BBBRRRRRRRRRRR!* Turrets howled throughout the entire prison module, drowning out the sounds of falling cartridges that they were simultaneously expelling in buckets.

But the expected barrage of bullets didn't occur as the turrets, instead of aiming at Tellius and Jack, fired at the robots.

"Bad robots wouldn't listen to Tina! So Tina made them listen..." Exclaimed the little girl's voice in Tellius's head. "... By the way, metal uncle! Do you know a woman named Sarah? She sounds angry like a mom, but she is looking for a Telli, not a Tina. So..."

"I am the Telli that she is looking for..." Tellius told her before formally introducing himself. "... Tellius Warfield. Would you mind helping me contact Sarah?"

"Of course!..." Tina happily agreed like a little kid, which made Tellius consider the possibility of her being an actual living and breathing child imprisoned by Baldur. "... But Lady wouldn't like me messing with Mr. Baldur's station."

"Who's Lady?" Tellius asked, confused, as he had previously assumed Tina to be the station's AI.

"My caretaker, she often hurts me when I misbehave..." She replied, hesitating over whether or not she should go through with helping Tellius. "... Just like Mr.-... Oh, NO! I am supposed to call him Uncle Baldur!"

Panicking, Tina began to reconsider helping him. Then again, in her mind, it made sense that no bad guy would be named after the Greatest Hero ever. But in the end, it was Tellius's words that sealed the deal for her.

"Then f**k that Lady and Theodore Baldur! If you want, you can stay with me and Sarah till we find your mom..." Tellius told her, disturbed that a little girl, artificial or real, was being hurt by adults. "... You know, we have a ship called the Wings of-..."

"Telli, are you there? Please, answer me!" Sarah's frighteningly sad voice pleaded, shutting Tellius up mid-sentence.

"Yes, Sar. I am a bit banged up but good." Tellius told Sarah, to the woman's immediate relief.

"Why didn't you answer me sooner?..." Sarah scolded him, immediately switching from sad to angry in under a minute. "... My scans show me that you should be pretty close to the communication module. Did you finally find the time to deactivate the jammer?"

"No, it wasn't me..." Tellius told her in a childish tone of voice. "... a little angel named Tina did!"