The Astral soul system-Chapter 182: Broadcast

The faint morning breeze gently ran through Zaria’s dual colored hair ,a comforting sensation amidst the chaos that was her current mental state.

She once again stopped in her tracks, letting out a frustrated sigh

"Where the hell am I?"

She asked exasperated. Not only had her watch stopped working but for some reason she’d climbed the highest tree she could find to see which direction the base was but she couldn’t find it. How she’d gotten...here was beyond her. She felt like she’d been walking in circles since yesterday night .

"I didn’t go that far,did I? This place feels...creepy"

«Located»

Zaria’s eyes suddenly flickered to the side and without hesitation she raised her arms above her head just in time as a blast of energy slammed into her with unimaginable force, the residual impact damaging the ground beneath her and kicking up dust.

The forest was quiet for a few seconds and it seemed the surprise attack had been effective when suddenly.

"A robot?"

The dust cleared, showing Zaria standing calmly, visible white scales running up her arms where her sleeves had been destroyed.

"Well you don’t see that everyday"

She suddenly spoke up, looking at the eighth foot tall vaguely humanoid mechanical it had multiple arms, each looking like they were specifically designed to rip and tear.

"What do you want? Or... what is your primary objective?"

Zaria asked, carefully sizing up the thing. She knew how inflexible and literal robots could be,it was one of the main reasons they weren’t very popular. Although effective, they sometimes caused misunderstandings due to problems in programming. Maybe she was in its way somehow?

"Is somebody in there? Like controlling it remotely?"

A whirring sound started coming from the robot as it charged up another attack, ignoring her words

’No answer ’

"Well that’s rude"

Zaria said, cracking her knuckles before dashing for the robot.

*************

"Everybody okay?"

Xavier asked as he held up a large piece of rock.

Maximilian nodded.

At the last second Xavier had activated his gauntlets skills ,quake and tremor and got the ground to cave in beneath them just enough to spare them from the brunt of the blast.

Diane quickly got up, easily pushing away the boulder before hopping out of the hole in the ground,her entire body shaking as she looked around cautiously, preparing to attack at any moment .

"Jade. Go check on Neo, make sure he’s safe,and be ready to fight"

Jade nodded,gripping her scabbard. Luckily she was already in her regular armor, elemental earth shoes and glacier’s edge was tucked in a temporary scabbard on her waist.

Without wasting any time she immediately took the path to that led to the room where they kept Neo, having to do a few extra flips and jumps because of the broken architecture.

"Got anything?"

Maximilian shook his head.

"Whatever this barrier is, it’s blocking all sound coming from the outside and inside. And as for the inside,all i can feel is crumbling infrastructure"

"What even was that explosion? It doesn’t look like they did a lot of damage "

Hearing Diane say that suddenly caused something to click in Maximilian’s mind and he suddenly gulped

"The portals"

He immediately started running in the direction of the portal room and Diane alongside Xavier followed his lead.

Seeing signs that clearly show the damage coming from the portal room, Maximilian sighed but still had to see it himself.

A few seconds passed before they finally the portal room and just like Maximilian predicted, every single one had been destroyed, and scrapped.

Before they could keep going forward something stood in their way.

"A robot?"

Diane didn’t hesitate, leaping over the other two,her hand transformed into a claw aimed directly at the things head.

The robots arm like appendages suddenly moved faster than anyone could react, grabbing her in the air.

"Hey!"

The machine looked back down and the first thing it saw was Xavier’s gauntlets heading directly for its head.

The force behind the hit moved the robot’s head back, causing a distinct crunching sound, probably from internal damage.

Not one to fall behind, Maximilian summoned a beast gear halberd from his ring, immediately slashing at it’s side.

Diane growled, sounding more like a beast than a man as her arms started to bulk up until they were no longer proportional to the rest of her body. She grabbed at arms holding her and started to pry herself free.

The robot let out a faint hum, it’s body glowing before it suddenly let out a massive burst of energy, knocking all three of them back a few meters.

"Fuck!"

Diane cursed, clutching her head rather forcefully.

Xavier was the same. Whatever that attack was it had made his head start ringing.

"A combat drone?"

Maximilian shook his head

"It’s been modified, and those are supposed to be out of commission. Unless..."

Before they could do anything else, the robot suddenly charged towards them, it’s razor sharp hands grabbing at them

"Max,go!"

Maximilian looked at Xavier confused but, Xavier just grit his teeth and charged towards the robot fists first.

Diane growled, crouching on all fours,her body becoming more beastly by the second as . Her body grew by the second, stretching her uniform to the extreme as fur,whiskers, claws and even a tail grew out of her body, transforming her into some sort of humanoid tiger hybrid

"Find something, anything. This is obviously a trap,We can’t waste time with this useless hunk of metal. We’ve lost all connection to the academy. You get there and find a way to contact them, there has to be something else"

"But -"

"Just go. Xavier might be a moron but he matches me better than anyone. We’ll be fine "

What left her mouth next was a feline growl as she pounced, her claws extended.

Maximilian nodded. He had obviously already thought of this course of action but the thought of saving himself left a bitter taste in his mouth.

Now that he had permission though...

Maximilian returned his halberd, breaking into a sprint, avoiding the machine but as soon as he did,a faint whirring sound rang in his ears. He looked at his side to see another robot about to attack him but before it reached him, multiple earth spikes rushed out of the ground suddenly shooting upward in the way of the robot, and although the spike was destroying, the robot had been completely stopped.

Looking to his side he saw Xavier with his fist in the ground and a thumbs up directed at him while Diane single handedly held the previous robot, seeming much stronger than before.

Maximilian didn’t stop, running deeper into the portal room.

Something didn’t sit right with him and Diane had even addressed it. This felt like a trap, like the students of the academy were intentionally being targeted.

After running for a few seconds, he heard another whirring sound and discreetly looked at an inconspicuous corner of the room.

He suddenly equipped his halberd again, slowly approaching the sound, preparing to attack.

"I surrender"

A monotonous sounding voice suddenly came from behind the rubble.

Maximilian was a bit surprised. He’d thought he heard a heartbeat but he wanted to be sure.

’Why is that voice strangely familiar?’

Walking closer he looked past the rubble to see blood colored short hair bent slightly as whoever it belonged to buried their face in the holographic computer screen in front of them.

"You’re..."

Maximilian thought for a moment before realizing who it was and why her voice was so familiar.

"Ava Ryder,you were at the party and got into an argument with Zen. Your family ability is to interact with technology using your minds"

She didn’t even bother looking up to acknowledge him, seeming very invested in whatever she was doing.

"We’re being attacked"

"Wow, how observant, Maximilian Hunter,you definitely live up to your family name"

Max ignored the sarcasm and was about to say something when he realized something strange.

"How did you know it was me?"

Instead of replying, Ava suddenly separated her one holographic screen into multiple, enlarging one and focusing on that one.

Max looked at the multiple screens and realized they were all showing different areas of the base where multiple robots were battling against the few active ability users in the base. He even noticed one that had an image of him and her in it. So that was how she saw him coming

"You and your friends aren’t the only ones battling these things. They’re everywhere. I hacked into the security cameras of the base"

She said, enlarging a specific screen which showed Xavier and Diane , now surrounded by multiple robots but still somehow holding their own without any visible injuries.

"What are you doing?"

"I’m trying to broadcast"

"Broadcast?"

"I’m a news reporter"

Maximilian didn’t know how to respond to that. The reply made no sense. How was a news broadcast going to help them survive.

All this time, Ava hadn’t even looked up at him,her gaze on the screen that was running at least a hundred complex programs at once.

"All communication has been cut off from earth,at least all useful communication. If i can open a network between here and earth i can broadcast what’s going on on these screens to every single screen in earth,or at least sentinel city"

"The academy will definitely see something on that scale. They’ll know we need help"

Ava nodded,her eyes constantly glowing a chrome colored light.

"I’m working through a few satellites to boost the signal but it’ll take a while to hack into. I also need to get to the main control room of this place,so if you don’t mind, protect me "

"Protect y-"

Before he could finish,a robot suddenly burst it’s way into room to neither of their suprise since Max had heard it coming and Ava probably saw it on the cameras.

"Hmm, that’s odd. It’s almost like someone intentionally left this open "

Ava said, standing up,her face still glued to the screen.

"Can’t you just... take control of that thing " 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

She finally looked up at the robot and her eyes briefly flashed before she gave up, looking at the screen again.

"Too difficult, and pointless too. It’s a closed network. It wouldn’t do any good.... What the- it’s almost like someone wanted this to be found "

Ava started walking away, leaving the robot to him to take care of.

She wasn’t a pure combat type, and she hadn’t brought any of her useful gadgets so staying here she’d just get in his way.

Maximilian gritted his teeth, clenching the halberd.

Looks like he had no choice . Ava could take care of finding a way back for them. For now he’d just join the fight and hope he didn’t get targeted again