Billy’s opponent managed, after their constant back and forth, to point blank shoot him in his right hand, losing access to his guns as well. Vivar, on the other hand, encountered difficulties getting any deeper cuts than scratches on the drone’s armor. No matter how Priya sold them, it was an understatement, as the robots were more capable than expected.
The two C.T.Ds shared a look between them, and the knight immediately started charging the Emerald Spear, while Billy grabbed the last of his grenades and threw it between the opponents. Once more, they got glued in their spot, which gave the former soldier enough time to push the one in front of him toward the other drone. Vivar then threw his shield to Billy and then fired the charged energy into the enemies.
It destroyed the chest and stomach area of the first one, while the impact pushed the second one towards Billy, who took advantage of the moment of lowered resistance from the imbalance and, with the help of a wide swing, cut deep inside the other robot. The two won, but were too damaged and didn’t have any energy left to help Angie.
Her speed overcame her opponents once more, but she lost half of her tail and the handle of her pickaxe while destroying the Commissary’s metallic pieces. In return, though, he lost half of his projectile, but there was more than enough with which to impale her legs into the ground, anchoring her swiftness down.
Marc exploited this opportunity to try a beheading with a swing that took him a second to prepare and another to act on. Another third second, was for his face to contort in irritation when he saw that she retracted her body, from the chest up into the stomach. Now it was her time to counterattack, while the boy was still in the middle of landing from his previous attack. “ Why did you have to become such a little shit-head?” she thought, while her fist flew into a right swing, directly into the boy. The shock of the punch ran throughout his entire body, in a matter of moments. His head got lighter and it didn’t manage to comprehend why Angie was becoming smaller and smaller in front of him. Unknowingly though, he still gave her a smirk before passing out.
Now, only Angie and the Commissary remained on the field.
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Inside the center, Priya was leaning near the hacker, trying to help her understand the complicated system in front of her while Savan was keeping an eye on L-Father. Both felt, for the first in a long-time, how it felt to work overtime again, and how management's traps tripped them up.
-” Welp, there goes my right for free baked goods”, said Priya at some point, who was also keeping an eye on how much influence and power she still had. The other CEOs were working in tandem with them, trying to remove her presence from any systems that she might still control. Still, she felt no pain in losing that control, not now since she felt the high of getting close to a real goal point.
-----
Right before their strategy meeting at the clinic, she had one question for the team that felt important to be answered:
-” Ok...so, I actually don’t want to be the one that controls the Playground…I’ve already seen how I rule over something”, she sighted, but then quickly rebalanced when her downer side gained another piece of her- “ With grace and fortitude, I mean, but it’s…exhausting and I don’t want to go over that again. So, I need help. Who do you think should be the ruler of the Playground?”
Syna, Sovereign, Billy, and Chirani were stumped by the question; they thought that Priya would become the new owner of the place, but once that question came into play, they figured something out. If that happened they would have just traded the old city's hierarchy for the same one, only that it was veiled in a coat of false novelty.
The remaining three, though, were stumped by the fact that the rest were stumped. Savan and Vivar already knew how they would solve it, while Angie always felt that her old mining system was the way they went toward it. At least, that's how it looked to her. The first one to reply was the clopy, in a surprised voice:
-” I thought we would all gain control over the Playground.”
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Their proposal garnered attention, but not an impressed one, but a stupefied one.
Billy was first to interject- “ What? No. You saw how I lived, alone or under someone’s command, I can’t…I mean, I don’t know how…Savan, the only reason I’m even here is so that I can help you, I don’t care about Priya’s plan, to be honest. I’m sorry, but it dum… I mean, not feasible for me.”
Sovereign, who felt like their old programming didn’t allow them to speak up, got a bit of courage from the soldier to be more expressive;
-” I just woke up from the…you know… and my memories are still jumbled, but I do remember working all my life. There was never a time when the work, well, worked without a leader. I…don’t know yet”.
-” Anna and I followed everything by rule, tried to please our managers, then they their own, but the higher it got, the less they cared or knew about us. We never even got the chance to tell them about our grievances or choose if our jobs should be swiped right under us…”; Chirani appeared conflicted by it, but then weighed in the present he got because of the County's leadership system: “ It’s going to be a pain to deal with…and we will probably stumble on our feet multiple times, but I’m in. They hunted, enslaved, and killed my sister…I’m down for trying something else.”
While not exactly an official voting per se, the others were now looking at Syna, who still didn’t know what to answer them. She had second thoughts after second thoughts, which then contradicted the other thoughts.
-” Ok…Sovereign, up until now you followed my commands, unwillingly, as a C.T.D. But do you think you could work with me…Ugh, do you think I'm someone you could...uhm...talk to? “
-” What?” asked the C.T.D in such a bewildered tone you could believe she hit them with a dizzying spell. “ I…ugh. I don’t know Syna. I was forced to assist multiple people, but I never asked myself if I could work…or trust them If I had the option to choose.”
Syna breathed in, then out, and slowly approached the C.T.D- “ Ever since I found the secret about you, I only felt pity for you because I never even thought that you could be saved. But then, those three came and wrecked it all”, she said with a smile, while pointing towards Savan’s group. “ And I tried, in secret, to find everything about who you were. I failed though, Milla kept your files hidden. Still, I came to think I can trust you, so here”. Syna then stretched her cable towards them.
-” What …what is this?”
-” This will give you access to all of my memories. I want to keep working with you, Sovereign, so this will be a small price to pay for that. What do you say?”
The C.T.D saw that they were determined, that she truly was up for giving her life on a plate to them, and it triggered a few flashbacks. Moments spent together, even if they were just a spectator for most of them;
-“ You would have made a wonderful boss, Syna”, they finally replied. “ I’m in, as long as Syna is there to help me out”.
-” Ditto”, replied the hacker.
Billy was the only one who remained unconvinced but got a bit jealous when he heard the pair's final reason for agreeing. This, though, gave Savan and Vivar an idea; “ Billy, you never got a real patient to form a duo with, right?” asked the knight.
-” No…never. From the start, I was Samuel's prototype for the mind transfer tech…and future vessel, apparently”. Every word felt heavy, and he spoke with a new bitterness to him.
-” Well, how about then you start now? With Savan and me.”
Billy listened, but the words fell on deaf ears. He understood them but still couldn’t grasp them entirely. “ A trio? That never…”
-“ And we always followed the rules by book”, replied Vivar sarcastically. “I think I grasp what Sovereign is saying, and the reason I’m so convinced in our proposal is that I have someone to rely on. And, if this is not to your liking, or find something else to rely on, that’s more than enough, right?”
-” I… Savan, you are ok with this?”
-'' Yap. Besides, I grew a bit tired of being the target of Vivar’s constant parental advice, so it would be nice to give him a new mark.”
-” True, Savan is not enough to contain my wisdom, I need more vessels!” the knight comically replied; Billy looked at them, pondered, and thought, “ Why not?”
Priya remained neutral, but still asked Angie if she was sure about it- “ You probably forgot about it, but that’s how we did it in the mines. All the commands from the managers were most of the time…well, shit… for the job and us, so we took matters into our own hands. And if you need any help, I’ll also be there. They too, ok? But on one condition”
-" What exactly?", asked confused the former CEO.
-” I don’t disagree that you were horrible for most of your life, Priya. And I agree with you, you don't deserve a leadership role, but the sentence should be this. You will work your ass off, for the rest of your life, by helping us keep this place running…and flourishing. And I’ll be your warden and if you need any help, you come to me for it. Acceptable?”
-” Hmm… Yes, acceptable, I agree with your terms.”