Modak walked up to Ryan and leaned closer toward him, cupping his hand by the side of his mouth as he whispered, "She's... using the fragment as a battery."

The orc could practically hear his friend's heart skip a beat as he snapped his head toward him, "What? She's doing what?" he asked, in full volume, but Modak quickly pulled him to the side.

"Calm down, seriously. It looks like she doesn't know what it is, someone else gave it to her," Modak explained, as Ryan tried to slow down his rapid breaths.

"But... how can I just let her use Gaia like that? It's not..." Ryan muttered, frowning deeply as he stared at the small robot stood at the edge of the taped-off arena. His role was to protect her, and letting this happen definitely didn't feel like he was doing a very good job at that.

"Just... wait it out, alright? Try to link with the core, and maybe... see how it... she's doing? If she seems fine, then we can just calmly figure something out," Silvia suggested, trying to place her arm onto Ryan's back but flinching back before she could, as if worried. He didn't really notice this either.

Ryan took a deep breath and nodded, "You're right... you're right."

He looked at the other side of the duel area, seeing Kit standing across from Vanda. Lightspeed and Kit were going to be her first opponents. It seemed like most people that weren't actively partaking in a duel were gathering to see Vanda's Duellist, 'Energiser', put into action. It was the only one that they hadn't seen yet. Even the ones that were actively taking part in duels were peering over, almost wanting to take a quick break.

One of the two club members activated the countdown, and both Kit and Vanda got ready. While Kit was using a combination of a keyboard and a tablet to control Lightspeed, Vanda seemed to be making use of a customized game-controller. It had more buttons and dials placed onto it, to the point where it seemed completely over the top and unusable, but Vanda seemed confident.

The moment the countdown hit zero, Lightspeed shot forward to get to Energiser. Vanda's Duellist, however, was just carefully walking forward, almost casually. Kit didn't immediately have Lightspeed use the 'Jump Pads' as he had dubbed them, but instead was just making use of its generally fast speed. It struck Energiser with a kick, and Vanda seemed to 'parry' the attack with a swing of the robot's arm. It honestly just seemed like a light tap, but Lightspeed was completely thrown away, unable to find balance against before dropping onto the ground. Kit seemed taken aback, but quickly recovered. Just like before, he stuck to his guns, and for the first round, didn't use Lightspeed's 'gimmick'.

Lightspeed continued to try and attack Energiser, but it seemed almost impossible to get a good attack in. Energiser wasn't moving fast, or rather much at all, but Vanda's control over the robot was almost perfect. Parries, counter-attacks, they were all timed perfectly and Lightspeed didn't seem to claim more than just a couple of points at time.

However, on the opposite side, every single one of Energiser's attacks, even if they just barely grazed by Lightspeed's body, did an immense amount of damage and threw Lightspeed across the improvised arena, forcing it to close the distance just to repeat the same thing again. The power running through its body was ridiculous; almost impossible for what it was showing. But then, Ryan had a small hint of understanding why exactly that was.

Energiser was not only strengthened through whatever methods Vanda had found, but also by the 'Garden Golem's' power. As Ryan understood it after talking to Maximus about it, part of their power and stats were inside their bodies; the ones that Ryan built for them. But another part of it, the part that actually grew stronger when Maximus levelled up, was within the Spirit Core. So while Energiser wouldn't be able to use the full extent of that, some of Gaia's stats were clearly flowing into Energiser's body. It was like a mock version of what Ryan could do, giving Gaia a body to use. But it couldn't be more different to the way that the 'Spirit Keeper's' method worked.

Ryan could see threads of green mana flow out from Energiser's body, though he knew nobody else could. It was Gaia's mana that was being used to strengthen the robot's body. The only reason he could see it was because he was already Gaia's Keeper, even if he only held the first fragment thus far. But as Ryan looked at the mana, his stomach churched. These threads were supposed to flow beautifully, like the wind over densely grown tall grass.

But these? These were tangled and cut, a mass of frayed ends. Just seeing them like this made Ryan feel like he failed.

Today was not a good day for Ryan. He was already anxious to begin with, considering that tomorrow was the day that whatever Runar was dealing with was going down. Then, the bit of excitement he had while heading out to this exact event was immediately replaced with anger after he was attacked by Simon.

Once he finally came here, he was met with the fact that most people in this room were scared of him. Not only that, but Silvia, one half of his best friends, saw his back and started acting distant immediately after. And now this. He couldn't go a second without feeling Gaia shivering in his mind. If she could produce them, her tears would probably have already formed a puddle underneath the fragment currently in the domain.

They weren't tears of pain or anger; that was something that Ryan was sure of the more those emotions constantly filled his head. Instead, they seemed more like an immense sense of loss or fear that Gaia was experiencing, unable to handle with a fraction of her being. Honestly, all Ryan wanted to do was step into the arena and rip open that damned robot to just take the fragment; it was taking all he could to not just do that right now.

Inside his head, the cooldown of the Spirit Link skill kept counting down, and he was clinging to each second, as if trying to speed it up. But of course, he couldn't. He just had to wait. Ryan chewed on his lips nervously, tapping his foot impatiently, as if the activation of the skill would just fix everything magically.

The duel continued on. It was a fairly simple win for Vanda and Energiser, and both sides quickly went to grab their Duellists to check up on them. Particularly, Kit was looking over Lightspeed with a bit of concern due to the strength of those attacks.

In the meantime, as the break between the rounds continued, Modak started making his way back to Vanda's laptop, reading through the notes that she took during her construction of Energiser. But Silvia stayed with Ryan.

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"It's going to be fine, don't worry. It will all work out," she tried to reassure Ryan. Silvia knew what kind of person Ryan was. When he saw someone in trouble, he couldn't hold back. It was basically ingrained in his DNA. Whether it was a service worker getting yelled at by an entitled asshole, or some kid being picked on, he always intervened in some way. Though of course, not always violently, but in more extreme cases, it did come to that. Silvia couldn't imagine what exactly Ryan was experiencing right now.

He slowly nodded his head, closing his eyes, "I hope so. Thanks."

"...I'm sorry for how I was... you know, acting after..." Silvia slowly let out, not sure how to best word it. She was good at speaking most of the time, but this situation was different.

Ryan turned his head and glanced at her, "It's fine, I get it. It's not really something you see every day. But... I won't go into any details, but... they're basically ancient, you know? They're healed, they've faded as much as they're going to, and they don't hurt or anything. I forget about them most days now, it's not like I can see them super easily. You've got nothing to be worried about."

"...Alright. If you ever want to talk about it... even if not with me, I could ask my dad?"

Ryan scoffed lightly and shook his head, "I'm fine, really. I've been in therapy about it for like ten years now. I do need to find a new one here, but..." he looked to the side, weirdly feeling calm while being distracted from the fragment, even if the topic that was distracting him was something as big as the scars covering his entire back. But then, he saw Silvia's confused expression.

Quietly, she let it out, concern, "Ten... years?"

"...It's a long story, obviously. Maybe some other time," Ryan replied, patting his friend's shoulder. At least he didn't feel any pity from her, though he couldn't blame her, even if that had been what she felt.

By the time the next round for Vanda and Kit started, there were only twelve minutes left on the cooldown of Ryan's Spirit Link skill. Sometime during the last round, he should be able to activate the skill. Though for now, the second round itself had to finish.

This time, as in every other duel until now, Lightspeed began jumping around on the barriers that it could create under its feet. It got a lot more hits in due to how unpredictable its movements had become, but even so, Energiser barely seemed to be taking much of any damage. High defence and high damage. That did certainly sound like a golem.

While the battle was more drawn out than before, it did still end sooner or later; obviously. But that being the case, Vanda didn't seem like she had really broken a sweat. As if she was only just getting started.

The break between the second and third round was shorter than the first, as if both sides wanted to quickly return to the duel. Whether that was to save time or because they were both excited to continue was a bit unclear, though.

Ryan took a deep breath. Just five more minutes and he could connect to Gaia's fragment. Or at least, he could try.

The last round of the duel started, and Lightspeed shot forward, once more jumping around wildly. However, Energiser was acting different to before. Vanda was getting more excited about this fight, and seemed to have started acting a bit different. Something had changed in Energiser; Ryan could see the threads of green mana change just so slightly. Larger lumps of knots but shorter distances between the cuts. And the moment Ryan seemed to recognize this, Energiser started to move. And fast. A speed that easily seemed to match Lightspeed, despite Energiser's larger size and weight.

And finally, Ryan realized why exactly the way the robot was moving had seemed familiar to him this whole time. It was a classic battle approach for Enhancers. Through their skills and ability to manipulate both aura and mana, they were able to intertwine the two energies into each other in specific patterns, boosting them in a number of ways.

Strengthening their muscles or eyesight, improving their intelligence or even the effects of magic spells in some rare cases. And what happened to Energiser just now was that its body was a classic method of switching between different 'modes', as they were referred to by many Enhancers. Going from strength to defence to speed within moments. Energiser was clearly something created to imitate the way that Enhancers fought.

Frankly, it was impressive; clearly this was something that Vanda had worked very hard on. The only bad part was that she, apparently unknowingly, used Gaia's fragment to make it all work. But it really didn't matter what her intentions were. It didn't matter how impressive it was. This was clearly like some kind of ridiculous torture for Gaia herself.

Ryan was focusing back on the cooldown of the Spirit Link skill, but as he tried to, he noticed something else.

The threads of mana seeping out from the cracks of Energiser's body were starting to... change. Their colour was becoming muddy, as though they were soaking up the water of a dirty puddle. The more mana that was being used within Energiser and the more that this mana leaked out, connecting with the fragment of Gaia already with Ryan, the more that corruption seemed to spread.

"Huh?" the confused mutter came from the other side of the room, from Vanda. She was fiddling with her controller, the way that you did when it stopped working. But despite that, Energiser kept moving, only much more erratic than before, as if its limbs were being jerked around by some other force.

Its arms were being twisted around in an all too familiar way. It was the exact same thing that happened when Maximus settled into his new body. But... still different. It just felt completely wrong to Ryan, there was no other way to say it than that. Energiser kept moving forward toward Lightspeed. Kit was also able to tell that something was going on, and was looking at Vanda when it happened.

Energiser grabbed Lightspeed. It wrapped its right hand around the other robot's neck, and then began tearing its arm off its body.

"Vanda, what are you doing?" Kit asked confused, trying to get Lightspeed out of Energiser's grip.

"I-I'm not doing anything, it's-it's doing that on its own!" she stuttered out a response. Vanda was trying to get the robot to respond to her input, but no matter what she did, it didn't work.

And then, Lightspeed's arm was ripped off. Wires were exposed as the robot's whole body started to spasm.

"Vanda!" Richie yelled out, snapping his finger toward the two robots to try and take control. Energiser flinched for a moment, and the corrupted mana in the robot's body seemed to all gather toward Richie. The threads began to climb through the air, toppling over each other to carry the corruption over to Richie. It happened too fast for Ryan to respond and stop it, and the corrupted mana crept up on the gnome.

Richie fell to his knees, grabbing his head in pain, "Aargh!" he screamed loudly, clear physical pain in his voice. Everyone stared at him as Energiser continued. It threw Lightspeed to the side and proceeded to pull apart the arm. The metal plating was pressed on top of Energiser's plates, while the wires wrapped around its limbs. Ryan watched the threads of mana break down the metal plates, pulling them into the rest of the body. It looked all too familiar to him; it was just like how the monsters in the Abandoned Copper Foundry looked and seemed to advance their bodies.

At this point, Ryan didn't hold back any more; he had to do what he could, and practically jumped at the robot. Similarly, Maximus tried running at it, though hesitant due to the nature of what was happening to it. But Energiser was too fast and small, and immediately jumped out of the way of either of them.

With just a single leap, it reached the podium in front of Vanda, who was staring at her creation as it went berserk.