I'm sleepy. Like I'm really sleepy. I guess I shouldn't have stayed up all night watching anime but I wanted to treat myself since everything's going under. I would probably still be tired even if I had a full night's sleep.

"Silver I've returned." A voice calls out to me as I rested on a couch, it was Sam.

She passed me an energy drink, this is my fifth can today but it didn't matter since it's not really going to do anything for someone like me, I just like the taste.

"Thanks! Where were we..." I paused briefly to remember where we left off in our discussion. "It was something about Hyperdrift Pilebunker right?"

"Yes, it was the season finale. When Hyperion ended Cronus's reign with his thunderous right hook."

"That was great, I thought they would do the whole forgiving thing that they were building up to but I'm glad he just kills the guy." Not to mention the animation was off the charts.

"I felt the opposite, they squandered their build up just to subvert the trope. Cronus, in fact, did nothing wrong." Sam said.

"He was kind of an asshole..."

Now I remember. We were in middle of talking about Cronus, the main antagonist of the anime we were watched. There were scenes of the guy being nice and his backstory explains why he became the way he is but he still did destroy a couple of solar systems, forgiving him would've let him off too easy.

We started bickering about who's in the right but it was clear that Sam was getting tired. She had stayed up all night with me to watch the entire 26 episodes of Hyperdrift Pilebunker along with a couple of other things and since she's human that's probably not a good thing. I strayed away from that topic and went into the more awesome moments of the show like Hyperion's explosive entrance at the Andromeda base.

"What the hell were you doing last night? I could hear it all the way down the hall!" Miley stormed up to us.

"Were we that loud?" I was sure that the volume wasn't at max this time.

"Silver... are you deaf?" She replied while giving me a look.

It couldn't have been that loud, I mean Sam would've said something if it was straining her ears unless she's deaf too.

"Sorry... No one said anything so I thought we were fine."

"The fault lies with me." Samantha struck one of her poses. "I was possessed by the rhythm of Hyperdrift Pilebunker that I paid no heed to the sounds."

"Yeeaaah... I don't know what that is, it's an anime right?" Miley turned to me as I nod my head.

Suddenly, the base alerted us that an enemy vehicle was approaching. I followed Miley as she made her way to the window and peeked outside to see what it was. We were on the second floor which allowed for a much better view of the front area of the base.

"Hey, it looks like the US soldiers are driving up to us." Miley held her rifle up tightly. "You think they're going to politely ask for their friend back?"

"Should we fire?" I asked even though I don't have my gun with me.

Miley shakes her head as she continued to keep an eye on the enemy, she said something about seeing what they do first before acting. I guess we have the advantage cause of the hostage.

We watched closely as the enemy parked their jeep in front of our base and 2 figures stepped out of it. Oddly enough, a large soldier was clinging on to the top of the jeep. I don't remember much of our basketball game but Catherine did mention that a giant model beat 'me' up. The two smaller soldiers started smacking her with their hands and she rolled off the roof and landed on her feet with a loud thud, I could feel the vibrations all the way up here.

"Hi! Any UCNA soldiers, uh, here?" The short haired android called out with her hands cupped around her mouth. "I'm Guard-375- I mean just Guard and we want Sweeper back!"

"Okay Guard, what are you willing to offer for her return?" Miley shouted back.

"We would like to see her first, ya know, in case you already killed her." The orange haired one said.

"What? You don't believe we'll play nicely?"

"We would like to know if she's okay!" Guard shouted up to us.

"What's going on?" Catherine made her way to where we are and peeked through the window.

"You stay here with me to distract these idiots, Silver go get the hostage. She should be with Engie and Annie in the medbay." Miley ordered.

The base kept warning us about the enemy which was annoying, it should've stopped by now but I suppose it still wasn't fully fixed since someone messed with it. I quickly made my way downstairs and through the halls until I made it to the medbay, by the time I got there the alarm stopped which was a relief.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

As I opened the door I saw that Engie and Annie were in a state of panic as they ran all over the room. Tables were flipped and drawers were opened, it seemed like they were looking for something.

"Uh, what's going on?" I entered the room and looked around, Engie stopped what she was doing and ran up to me.

"Silver! Silver! Bad news! We-we lost Sweeper!" She grabbed ahold of me.

"How?!?" Now I'm beginning to panic, if the hostage escaped during the negotiation this will become a real pain in the ass.

"We checked everywhere!" Annie opened another drawer.

"I went to the backroom to get something and when I came back she was gone!" Engie explained.

"Yeah and I turned away and counted the time it took for Engie to get back." Annie explained her side of the situation.

"So none of you were watching the hostage..." Well this was a blunder.

I scratched my head and tried to think of what to do next. Of course searching for the missing hostage was the only choice we had left. The southern parts of the base had the cultists all around it, the northern would be too far and risky, and the western entrance is where all the commotion is at. The eastern entrance was probably the safest bet since it's the least guarded.

Before I could tell everyone my plan, the door to the medbay opened and Sweeper walked back into the room with her arms held up. Behind her was Bill holding a gun to her head.

"I found her snooping round the east side of the place. Thought you might want her back." Bill said.

"I would've gotten away if it wasn't for your hired goons." Sweeper complained with an annoyed look on her face.

I breathed a sigh of relief. I was also right but wasn't able to show everyone my genius this time. I thanked Bill and asked him to escort us back to the second floor where Miley and Catherine are hopefully buying time. As I came back I could see that Sam was with them.

"We don't have to tell you anything!" Miley was screaming out the window.

"To have a hostage negotiation there needs to be a hostage, so where is she!" It was the voice of the orange haired android again, it seems she managed to really rile up Miley.

"I keep telling you to wait right the-" Miley turned to look at us. "Oh you're finally back."

Miley and Catherine grabbed Sweeper and put her head out of the window showing her to the US soldiers.

"Hey Dealer, hey Guard. Oh Mirabelle's here too. You've actually came for me!" Sweeper said before getting pulled back in.

"There you go, we can start talking about terms." Miley said.

"Alright!" Guard continued to shout at the top of her voice. "We want $1,000,000!"

"Wait what!? You can't make demands! We're the ones with the hostage!" Miley was exasperated, if she had to deal with this for the time that I've been gone then I can get why.

"What, can't afford to pay because your economy is in shambles?" Sweeper said with a smug look on her face.

"You! You shut up!" Miley quickly turned to Engie. "How's our dollar? The economy is doing fine right? We can't possibly be doing worse than a country with a bloodsport."

"It... it could be better."

"That's never good..." Distraught by our lack of imports and exports, Miley walked back to the window to discuss the terms with the US soldiers. "How about you give us your vehicle."

"No! Not this one at least, it's highly customized."

"Dealer! I said leave the talking to me." The two started chattering to themselves.

I didn't notice it at first but the commotion had drawn a large crowd. The cultists were gathered around us wondering what's going on. Haven stepped out of the crowd and met up with Sam, I assume that he's asking her to get up to speed with what's happening. Lucky for them because we immediately got swept up by the crowd with a flurry of questions tossed our way, Engie was stuttering and couldn't get a word out.

Catherine jumped in and broke the crowd up, she formed a barrier between the crowd and us and started answering questions one at a time. I always admired that about her, how she would just go ahead and do and say what she wants.

"That alarm gave a lot of us quite a scare." Paul spoke up, the cultists made way for their leader to walk forward. "If we are discussing terms can we ask them for a large vehicle of some kind, a truck perhaps?"

"Asking for two vehicles is possible but a truck might be harder to get. Do you guys have trucks?" Catherine turned to ask Sweeper.

"Nope, they were all destroyed. By the UCNA." She responded.

"Then ask for food and water, our journey will take us far." Paul pressed on.

"We'll see what we can do." Catherine reassured the saint before picking another question out of the crowd.

A small cultist walked up to Sweeper who was being restrained by Annie and Bill. The pipsqueak started poking her arm and then tugging on it when she continued to ignore it. Eventually the cultist started slapping Sweeper's arm which she retaliated by shoving the cultist back. That was weird but they're in a cult so I should be expecting some weirdos, meeting Bill first threw off my expectations of the other members, I thought they would be more normal but that ended up not being the case.

"Engie go find some grenades, any type will work, I need them just in case. They're in the eastern first floor storage rooms." Miley gave an order before heading back to the window.

"No Professor, they ain't wearing black." Catherine answered Doogledert.

"That's a relief... but make sure you keep an eye on them they have a rocket launcher. Who knows if they actually care about their own." He reminded them to be careful.

"From what little I've seen, they don't seem to be the type to sacrifice their own. At least on purpose." Catherine had managed to calm the crowd down, they shuffled about thinking about what they should do next.

"A vehicle, food, and water..." I said aloud.

"Yep shouldn't be too hard to get. That's all depending on how much they value the hostage." Catherine approached me.

"You think we should be leaving that up to Miley?"

"It's fiiiine."

A loud scream echoed throughout the base, it sounded like Engie. Miley turned around and shouted for me and Catherine to go check it out. We pushed our way through the crowd who's attention was directed towards the source of the noise. This day was only going to get worse, I could feel it.

We're on the first floor now, Miley had sent Engie to the eastern section of the base so we made our way there. Sprawled on the floor was Engie staring into a room, she turned to look at us with a horrified expression on her face. Catherine went to comfort her while I went into the room not really prepared to face what was in it.

There was nothing here just a bunch of boxes stacked up high, it could've been Engie's skittish nature that caused something to spook her so much like boxes falling over. Speaking of boxes there was so much boxes in this room, no one could possibly find any gren- my hand touched something. Something soft. While rummaging through the tipped over boxes I touched something weird. I started to push the boxes aside to see what was under it.

"Huh?" I was confused, really confused. I took a step back bumping into Catherine who grabbed me by the shoulder.

"What's wrong Silver?"

We were now both looking at it. The bloody body that was hidden under the pile of boxes. It was Mary. The person who I talked to just yesterday laid there dead on the floor, stowed away in some random storage room, with multiple wounds. This was a murder.