C15: Captured - The Second Toll And The Third, Final Round
The fight was drawing out and Ina was not enjoying it one tiny bit. The robot fiend was taking up the space, using its rocket-powered legs, torso and arms to zip around the field, sending out devastating blows (She was quick and nimble enough to dodge the incoming punches and kicks with only some making it to her skin). The entire arena was now in rubbles, sounds of clashing reverberated across the Gym.
Ina sent out punches with her fist, slashed with her finger tips and swept with her powerful legs, each leaving a vacuum which was quickly filled in by the rushing air, resulting in booming sounds. Yet despite how impactful the attacks were, they left merely dents onto the armor across the robot's arms, joints and legs. The balance was disrupted multiple times as the AI controlling the robot caught up to her moves and patterns, began utilizing them to neutralize her. The fight was still manageable as she only had to focus onto one opponent. The stalemate was broken when she quickly disrupt the robot balance by breaking the ground beneath, its nose cones barely heated up to prepare for aerial movement. She quickly climbed onto the thing, her arms held its camera head in a choke hold before twisting it with all of her strength. The hands of the robot trying desperately to pry its way out of the hold, its legs trying to push its back into the wall to get away from the tightening grip. Ina was plunged into the reinforced walls, her arms outputting increasing strength. The robot started to get weakened as the sound of snapping cables, breaking electronic circuits, tearing artificial muscles and failing metal bones combined into a triumphant choir for Ina, ending the fight. The bell rung with the dropping of the robot's body onto the ground, leaving a heaving Ina on top. She quickly removed the head off, reaching inside to pull out a pack of battery halfway to its death. She threw the held object to a corner, its case breaking under the sudden impact and the battery caught on fire, dying the air with its scorching heat. She was thinking that the test was over when she heard of the hydraulics gates opening around her. She took a moment to look around before sweating heavily, 5 other robots of different models entered the ring, their energy cores not as vulnerable as the one she was sitting on. She could make out three melee robots and two capturing ones from their differences in appearance and equipment. She got up, ready herself for the encore. Then, chaos broke lose.
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" She is quite skilled to be able to get that decisive hit on my child. Nezu, how did you find her? I have read your report regarding Beast but I am still having no idea how you managed to pull her into this test. Care to share?"
" Of course, so we are hol..."
"What is the other purpose of this security test of yours, Nezu?"
Recovery Girl cut in between Nezu's explanation toward David Shield's questioning the methodology. She had spent enough time under the rat's employment to understand that there is another objective not being met here for the test to continue. The rat was patient only to those he was interested in, the fight had been going on for minutes and she could see from her side the impatient tapping of his small feet. David Shield was too focused onto the choreography of the fight to care. She was the only sane one in this viewing room keeping a mad scientist and an uncaring inventor from committing something immoral or destructive to the girl's life. She knew the girl was strong, but she was still just a teenager, forcing her to fight like this was no different from the chaotic era before All Might.
" You are always so ... impatient with your tests and experiments. You are relying to validate something on your mind, he and I understand you better than you think, but I doubt he is caring enough of a person's worth and future. "
David Shield sheepishly stayed silent and kept his head low, Nezu was wetting himself in sweat seeing a pissed Recovery Girl. The old woman's temper when ignited would not died down easily, so he needed to be truthful enough.
" Do you remember the Morel Conjecture, the one that the medical and administrative professionals rejected around 70 years ago? If you remember it from your medial college time, you will understand my purpose for the test. "
" Morel Conjecture ....no, no, NO! That would spell another era of unrest and division. Why are you trying to test that now?! "
" I cannot find any mentioning of the name 'Morel Conjecture' in the I-Island database. Can you two share with me the details? "
Nezu, seeing the frantic Recovery Girl, decided to take the mantle of bringing the abandoned theory from David Shield's memory .
" To begin, David, have you ever read about the increasing of quirk lethality and power throughout the course of history? Aside from the ickbaiting titles telling the story as 'the world is ending' and similar, have you read any report about the raise of power floor of the later generations compared to their predecessor?"
" Yes... Oh I remember, at the time the scientific community described the paper as another counterargument of the Quirk Singularity Model of the scientist Kyudai Garaki.
Against the prediction of the appearance of quirks so powerful that would define the world's power structure, plunging every nations into a head hunt and talent poaching for those individuals, Morel Clark proposed another premise. He believed that the universe would not create such entities due to the fact that causality and influence would end at some point, else the very limit of physics would be destroyed entirely, he did mention that completely removing the framework of physics to accommodate Quirks was a terrible ideas as most material naturally still followed it.
His conjecture is simple. He replaces the omnipotent verses of the Quirk Singularity model with the secondary quirks and even tertiary quirks. The names are a bit confusing but the gist is one person holding multiple quirks. Such a wonderful thought, but an impossible one to check. One thing I know for sure is that the prediction based on his idea has been met with strong opposition from various social justice groups and government figures.
Are you trying to validate that!?"
David Shield's eyes turned to stars shining with genius, his eagerness reached another height. He was having so much discovery today from the real-life performance of his robots to an experiment defining a new era. Recovery Girl, who had calmed down, decided to throw in the battleground a bomb that hopefully would end the whole experiment.
" If this test fails and the girl faces any severe damages to her body and mind, you will face the girl's parents yourself, I will not patch her up until you finally bring them here to see your meddling. "
The room turned silent with an exception of the fans in the AC rotating its blades to push cool air into the room. Nezu was sure that his plan would work out, his hands were miraculous just like that, but agreeing to this deal was not the worst thing, so he quickly agreed. Recovery Girl also turned to David Shield and warned him to watch his antics or else a report would be filed to the management board of I-Island, she still got some connections to the top medical researchers of the bio-labs to make the threat a reality.
" Don't worry, the test only has three phases, we are entering phase two. You have already witnessed how well she has completed the first phase. "
"That doesn't make it any better! However, I know no matter how hard to dissuade you, you will ignore it without batting an eye or an ear. I will witness the whole testing under your control, do not shot yourself in the foot, Nezu"
Nezu punched the big red button in front of him. The fight showed to them began anew. The three watched as 5 specialized units entered the ring, their emotions varied between excitement, worry and curiosity.
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The fight was not as simple as before with the tactics the 3 brutish robots at the front cooked up and the occasional interference cause by the capture robots. All five of them were not as fast as the single one before, but that was but a small minus in their combined strength. Their armor was still on par with the one she had destroyed, their cooperation and jointly defense left her with little chance to attack and the constant learning of the shared AIs screamed a tiring opponnent to face.
They had inherited the data from the database connected them to the previous one, turning the fight into a speedrun to clear as quickly as possible to stop further adaptation of the AIs to her movement. She tried to limit her movement but introduced variables in the form of environment and other robots. She tried to break up the orchestrated waltz by stepping hard onto the floor, cracking it unevenly and creating a cover of dust. Utilizing the blindspot, she lunged powerfully onto the one in front of her. Her fingers gripped the angular head tightly and the momentum was enough to bent the thing backward, its head snapping out like removing the st from an apple. Again, her body shot forward like an arrow from an unlikely position according to the AIs' calculation. That single moment was enough as her hand had touched the neck of the one preparing to shoot weighted nets at her. She pulled herself closer, using the "spine" connected to the robot's head as a pole to spin around. The tension due to the torque was too much for the connecting artificial neck muscles and metal joints fighting against the twist. The result was a bent backward head, the cables and soldered joints maintaining the faux nervous system all broken or bunched up inside the metal shell. T
Before the closest robot could fell down, Ina quickly distanced herself away from the spot. Immediately after, one of the two brute robots had jumped to and destroyed with a rocket punch, leaving a crater in its quake. The punch had punctured the heavy armor of its dead comrade. The red emotionless light lingered for a moment at the punctured corpse, probably gauging the damage, before setting back onto the girl. Its left arm punched out a powerful blow from the front, but Ina was more focused on what was happening behind her back. From her behind, a robot was running, its pair of arms arriving timely to try restraining her in a bear hug. Ina dropped her center of gravity by using her legs as a lever, tripping the robots behind her as it overreached. Her core and legs muscles produced great power, realigning her while kicking the arms away. The momentum in the failed grapple was enough send the robot into a straight punch from the remaining robot. Using the back of the out-of-balance robot as a boosting grip location for her hand, Ina pushed with all her might, propelling her a short distance away from the collision into the air. All happened in the matter of a second.
Landed back onto her feet after an aerial back flip, she observed the field again. The falling robot had already lifted its heavy torso off the ground and repositioned to her sie, the only capture robot in the middle anD!
Clank, clank clank!!!
A sound of heavy links coliding against one another could be heard from her right, they were already at her arms the moment she noticed. The previous manuvour had left her flank exposed, a perfect opportunity for the final robot of the remaining three to chained her right arm. The chain wrapped along her skin, trying to tear apart the skin it was in contact, the shear burning. The end of it reacher her fingers, the whip -like effect dislocate her joints. It pulled upward, flinging Ina into the air. With no ground to exert force on, her trajectory was dependant on the robot holding the chain. A game of human volleyball ensued, the speed only achievable through programmed prediction models and slow-motion sensors.
All the three robots had joined the game, the capture one removing all of its gears seeing how useless their performance had been. Its program had determined this was the better option, and so it followed to the tee. A closed orbit was formed between the three, each ensuring that the system could be maintained.
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Disorientated, that was Ina's feeling right now. The robots were the one controlling the pace of the fight now, each of their strikes coming from unpredictable angles and she could only use her left hand to block or grab the momentary surfaces to change her directio!. The only thing she could do now that could change the tide, was that. She kept her mouth shut and her left arms on the chain, the lunge only required a moment of minimum tension. Then, it came after the 17th strike on her back, possibly from the non-brute robot; she began pulling herself toward the chain holder wih her chest and arms muscles, juicing them dry of any strength. The sudden decrease in radisu made the chain taut, bringing her right arm out was a must. Friction curves covered the touched section, the blurry line between the sheared and unsheared screamed with burning but was quickly getting better due to her improved regeneration. With the mass of the chains swinging around it, the robot could only watch as its target get closer and closer before she tore its head off.
Two remaining! Ina thought as her arms swung freely by her side. The momentum made them into fleshy pendulums. Seeing the scene, the capture robot dashed back to its pile of gears as its bodyguard block her line of sight. A single robot was not too difficult to destroy, leaving only the remaining capture robot to take aim at her with high-voltage taser gun. The cables were fired, their targets her brachialis and pectoralis major, easy shots since she was running directly toward it. She then threw the two large chuncks of metals ripped from inside the fallen robot to counter. Sparks flew out in between the two chuncks as the voltage was discharged, heating the pieces up to the point of scalding. Ina quickly bridged the distance with a grand leap, using her knees to collidide with the head, knocking the robot over and its head off. The 1-versus-5 ended with her decisive victory.
She was breathing difficultly, sweats forming on her forehead. She had overexerted her leg muscles to dish out the impressive speed bursts while maintaining accuracy and precision. Her arms were getting better from the state they had been in before, slowly could she begin feeling the fingertips brushinh against her suit again. Ina was having a seriously bad premotion with the premise with the test.Two phases seemed to fall in the akward middle place, not an opening nor was it a closure.
Taking her sweet sweet time, she relaxed her muscles to prevent further damages, keeping watch om the surrounding. Then, the center of the arena began releasing smokes as if an electrical system was burning. From her position nearer to the North, she could smell melting plastic and oxidating metals combined together to form a pungent scent dying the room. The lights started flickering wildly, its intensity dimmed and brightened sporadically. Then, the light fixtures started breaking down one at a time. She was not worried as the pattern of the turning off was all heading toward her place. Seconds later, darkness dropped inside the gym, with the only way outdoors being barricaded in thick concrete, punching had proved ineffective as only a small crack could be implanted onto the wall. She waited for minutes, getting herself familiar with the shattered terrain and the air. Then, the sound of rattling came from the center hole. As she waited longer and longer, she could begin making out more thing.
The third phase, she thought, had already begun and the preparations were being laid bare in front of her. She could hear the rattling of conveyors transporting something heavy, the metal composition groaned and that reached her ears. Small vibrations began making themself transparent, uplifting the smaller debris off the ground.
Then, all the lights returned, the brightness dimmed down. She could make out the silouhette of something massive, reaching one half of the ceiling heigtht. A pair of metal horns presumpruptly bulged out from the top, the contour lighted up by the ambient light of the rumbling rockets behind its back. Four thick pullars with specialized rams installed on the forearms, two pair of legs, the frontal resembled that of an agile leopard and the back, despite how poorly lit the things were, could be seen as powerful kicker akin to locust legs. She was widening her eyes to take a better grasp of the enemy's possible tactics when it raised its upper right arm up, a rectangular box popped out from beneath the raised forearm and shot something.
Ina immediately raised her arms up to block the projectile, then, an explosion rang out in front of her body. She quickly held her breath, her instincts telling her something was wrong with the air. Shaking away the aftershock from the direct attack, she got to another location hiding behind the smoke screen. As the screen broke apart in the turbulence, she noticed that the robot had already changed its location. Not letting her turn her head, it had closed up to her. A large surface filled her vision. Her expression filled with suprprise at the sudden appearance. Then , it connected. The shattering sound of something reverberated inside the gym, following that an impact on the wall facing the robot made its entrance onto the stage, robbing momentarily the sound of everything from the actors' ears.
Not letting the rising dust hindered its plan, the robot raised the remaining three arms, three missles entered the fray, all hitting their targets, broadening the hole on the wall. The structure intergrity of the building was up to standard, Nezu's standard as the force was transmitted smoothly without breaking any lined rebar and wiring. Not caring for the already inflected damage in that general direction, the bull never stopped, it quickly approached the crater, speeding up due to the tremendous the thrusters and hind lega giving it tremendous.
Boooooom!
Another direct colisiom assualted Ina after bringing up her defense for the three missles. The first impact had made her nose broke, the bone shards cut into her flesh creating internal bleeding. Some had managed to rip themselves from the flesh, exiting through her nose and fell through her nostrils. The following three attacks had weakened her arms significantly, inducing level 1 burns across her arms and now-forming bruises. The smoke afterward did not help her lung, which was now begging for her to take in the air polluted with paralyzing drugs. She was trying to wrestle out of the hole when she was faced with the humongous body and horns slamming right into her, driving her deeper into the hole. Luckily that she was not too high, as the horns cut theough the concrete walls like good sword through mud.
The robot then jumped back slightly before starting punching repeatedly at her. Now she could clearly see what the gears installed on top of the forearms had been. Hydraulics-powered pistons, the industrial ones meant for cars and trash processing, it was their identity. Beside the pressure brought forth bu pressurized fluids, the momentum of the placeholders added even more power to the punches. A rain of pillars fired up, the pace reaching its maximum after a few seconds. Explosions from the compressed air introduced secondary blunt trauma to her body, the punches broke her weak defense and pummeled her directly. She was hurting from how wrecked her body had become during the process. With the danger to her life, she resorted to her final trump card.
[Mission updated: Survive!
Down-Payment: Immediate Transformation (passive)
Reward: Anti-machinery Organs
Failure: Death]
It seemed her System had resonated with her earnest wish to live to tell the tell. She could feel her muscles transforming into better, harder, more powerful ones. Tendrils grew out from her bangs and two dark horns pierced painlessly through her forehead. Her hip bone began splitting and mutating to accomodate more lower limbs, her tail bone elongated to first form a backbone for the growing flesh to bind to, the spikes growing up immediately after. Her shoulder dislocated from their usual spots before being enveloped in a red light that duplicate the structure in no time. The whole process happened even quicker than the gap between each drops of the hydraulic pistons to her delight. Now it was time for the counterattack.
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" Nezu! The girl will die if this continues on. Can't you see how exhausted she has become after your second phase? And Shield, distracts him for me so that I can grab the tablet!"
" On it!"
A wild goose chase was happening inside the observatory room, the rat now was the the goose running around to dodge persuers. Recovery Girl was right after him, determined to pry the tablet he was holding off and paused the test. She was of course right to be mad at him considering the android he had brought out, the Spartan V3.5. With Shield luckily only a hologram, he only needed to take care of one opponent. Then, unlike the hectic begining, the end came surprisingly quickly in the shock of everyone watching.
All four arms of the Spartan were held in a stalemate, a black mass pushing back the powerful android. Ina made her grand entrance by pushing back the metal puppet. Now she was the same size as the being, her tail offering better stability compared to the locust hind legs of the Spartan. Now the playing field was even, reaching a new stalemate where she was not restricted by the hole. Attempting to break off her opponent's balance, she moved her four legs back, tilting her body forward and sacrificing inches of height. The Spartan took the initiative, overworking its thrusters to gain even more space. Feeling that the opponent had fired up all of its thrusters, Ina quickly directed her tail at one of the front legs. It struck like a spear, piercing through the midpoint of the foremost metal skeleton. The robot began to tilt to that side and she introduced more torque to the unbalance. The outer armor in that leg of the Spartan could not bear the weight anymore and snapped in halft, the robot now standing with three legs and one joint. She quickly did the same thing for the other leg, rendering the robots front useless for any useful redirection.
To combat this, the robot began turning its arms while clutching her clawed hands tightly. The torsion began to crack the biological plating and flesh, acidic blood flowned out and drenched the metal fingers in a layer of smoking yellow melt from corrosion. Seeing the sight, she decided to take a gamble as her stamina was depleting fast. She headbutted the lense as hard as she could, burying her head in the smashed reinforced glass shards and trying to get her head cracked, her horns inching deeper and deeper inside the android. The first time, it failed, the second time, she could feel itching in her forehead and the third time, using her tail to pull the robot toward her, she could feel the fluids flowing along her armor. Holding the robot tight, she tilted her head. Drops of acid fell onto the control system, frying up the Spartan's digital brain. After who knew how much time had passed , her grips started to weaken from the loss of blood from deliberate injury on her head, the Spartan was still standing and fighting. The stalemate was broken as she was thrown back to the hole she had crawled out, she fell onto the floor, her body trying to keep it together. From that position, her eyes could only capture the approaching robot. Its head was smashed to pieces and a hole was formed through the neck. its front legs were cut to the knees and the hydraulic auxilary was sparking from overuse. The final scene she saw before succumbing to exhaustion was the advancing robot albeit slowly. She drifted into the darkness, and lost conscious.
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Its circuits partially destroyed, its many sensors had stopped functioning from the lack of energy and all of its available options for optimal attack strategy had been destroyed in the capture process. Initially, its evaluation of the target's strength had been low. Despite how impressive the target had been at fighting its lesser models, its power posed no major threat to its hull intergrity, its agility outweighted by its side thrusters and its hammers' strength over the limit of the target's durability. It did not question the parameters as they were its parents, concepting it.
But the reevaluation occured after it had restrained the target under heavy firepower. Facing the external stimulus, Thethe target's body changed to that of an unknow being not registered in Japan's quirk registry database nor its master's personalized collection. It began the learning protocol Ultra+, experimenting on what it could do to the target and from the result conjecturing a viable plan. The model was hindered by the target's resistance, ending 3.9834 seconds ago. The target had detransformed back into humanoid shape, vital signs weakening. Proceed with capturing the target, Heavy-Hitter protocol.
BOOM!
Light began flooding into the darkened room following the explosion. Something emtered its lenses. The image processor took a second figure out the streamed data. Another civilian, arms free, hospital gown, conclusion: a patient.
" Please step aside or else you will be considered interfering with the capture process. "
That was played on repeat for three times.
The civilian used his quirk bringing the target and him to another location. Cannot detect changes in continuity of other objects, conclusion: true teleportation of living beings, allowing for companions. As the camera leered over to the new position, the civilian teleported again. The process repeated with mout any rest in between, finding 0% percent intervention rate. The final rotation consumpted all remaining power with the thursters efficiency dropping fo better precision.
Shutting Down...
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" Let me get the girl inside ... I will take care of her. Stop the robot now. And Nezu, we are going to have a talk about your reckless experiment just now. "
" Don't worry, the protocols limit the actions to weakening and capturing. The finale will be just a weighted net. "
" Uh Nezu, how is there a boy in there? The conditions are not good so I cannot see his face. Can you kinda give me an explanation? "
That question stopped Nezu's in his track. Recovery Girl was flabbergasted at the intervention inside the gym, she had no idea how he looked but her mind could connect the dots.
" Nezu! Nurse room's camera!"
" Already on it! Here!"
A blank room where a patient should have been was empty, leaving the identity of the boy clear to the two of them. But his appearance was different. His hair had turned a sickly white and red veins popping on his skins showcased how muscled the boy was.
" Is this another one of yours?"
David Shield asked Nezu seriously. He had been subjected to enough experiments for the day.
" No, he is the cause behind this whole event. "
Nezu said then stayed silent together with the other two. They watched as the Spartan made random rotations as if locking on different targets there. The boy was shaking, his pushed forward arms movin drastically. A few seconds later, the boy collapsed next to the girl, his hairs reverting back to the green of healthy kale and his skin returning to normal. The Spartan seemed to have used all of its energy, remaining motionless in a different direction from the pair, its cameras focussing on a random spot.
" ... Nezu, check if their parents are available, I am going to send them to the hospital. "
" Yes, I will. Let me collect the bodies."
Countlesss smaller robots on four legs with suction pad attached to a hook began to crawl into the room, white light returned to the place. They stucked onto the larger robots and began carrying the parts back into the underground repair plant, leaving the two kids knocked out cold on the floor. Nezu began calling his detective friend Naomasa and arranging the kids to enter his privately invested hospital known for privacy and security. The day ended just like that, with the vacations of their parents inching closer snd closer to the end.