I could only nod my head at Sharon’s resolve to continue forward. She was right that we were short on time, as I had just said a little while ago. Sadly, since we knew that everything was likely to blow up in our faces soon, we didn’t have time for her to meet up with Priscilla to combine. “Alright, let’s go.”
Inside the room that Sharon had opened moments before, Yo had assumed the form of a massive three headed dog. There was a literal fire in her eyes as she viciously ripped to shreds the large robot that was likely responsible for the blast that knocked Sharon down. I could see chunks of metal flying through the air as the three heads tore into it.
Every now and then, it would try to fire another blast at her from various parts of its body, but those seemed completely ineffective against Yo. It was only a matter of time before she ripped out something vital, and the robot stopped moving altogether. Although it had once appeared to be large and humanoid, it was now nothing but a pile of discarded scrap.
As Yo walked towards the next door, her body seemed to explode in green slime, which rapidly reformed to create her humanoid appearance in only a second. However, her eyes were still set in a sharp glare as she looked to the two doors that lead further into the base. “Where do we go, dad?” She asked, her voice still dark.
I was tempted to say that we should split up to cover more ground, but that wasn’t really a logical decision here. We were looking to capture someone to interrogate, and the only way to do that was my Toybox power. Or… “Yo, when you absorb creatures, you get their souls, right? Does that include memories?”
When I asked that, she turned to look at me curiously. “Somewhat. I can see their memories when I eat them, but I usually just spit the memories out.” She answered, unsure where I was going with this.
“Alright. Then, you take Yin and go that way.” I pointed towards the door on the left wall. “I’ll go through the other one with Sharon. If you see anyone that looks special, just… don’t ‘spit out’ the memories that could help.”
She seemed a bit surprised by my decision, but nodded her head nonetheless. Yin looked at me in concern, but still followed Yo to the door, using a blast of her mental prowess to rip it out of place. Once they left, that meant it was only Sharon and I remaining. She couldn’t help but turn to look at me. “You sure you’re alright with her eating people?”
I thought about her question for a moment, but shook my head in resignation. “Not really. But, we are going to be killing them either way. Either they die to us, or to the explosion they are trying to set off. Either way… this is war, and they’re the enemies.” I said this more to remind myself than her. “We need that information if we’re going to get out of this situation.”
Sharon hesitated, but ended up nodding her head. Taking a few steps forward, she reached the door we had chosen. “Alright. But you picked our two powerhouses to go off on their own. This is going to get a bit harder with just the two of us.” She admitted with a light smile. While her words may have sounded like she was worried, the expression on her face showed that she enjoyed the challenge.
“I know.” I nodded. “You worry about the doors, leave the fighting to me. I want to test something.” I glanced down towards the slime sword in my hand as I said that, and she seemed to understand.
“Alright. One door, coming right up.” She said with a grin, metallic blades forming along her wrists. She stabbed those blades into the door and let out a shout as she spread her arms wide, forcing it open. Once again, I was forced to accept the results of her spending so many of her stat points in strength and dexterity.
However, once the door was open, it was my turn. To make this work, I converted my entire arm into slime, before splitting it into countless threads. Using my Spatial Comprehension skill, I was able to accurately send all of the slime threads through the door, bypassing Sharon. Once inside, each one turned into the same sword that I had been wielding moments before.
There was a brief cry of alarm from within the room as it was turned into a sea of green blades. I could feel each one that made contact, and knew that there had been two guards within the room. Seeing as I was safely able to use the past tense to describe that, Sharon and I both walked into the room after I returned my arm to normal.
“Huh, nice.” She said with a nod. “Might want to wait till we scout a room out first, but it seems pretty effective.” While she was saying that, I swayed on my feet slightly. While controlling the threads wasn’t too hard, the act of pushing enough mass into them to create all those swords was something that left me momentarily drained.
“Yeah, no… I’ll figure something else out.” I decided. If it was the last room, and our only goal was to kill, then this would be an okay tactic. But with the sudden loss of strength that came after it, it was not worth it to use repeatedly, especially when we were looking to eventually capture some people.
Sharon looked to me with concern before the two of us went forward again. Once more, there were two doors within this room that we could choose. However, this time we had no intention of splitting up, so we simply chose the door that was facing opposite of the base’s original entrance. It was safe to assume that the actual research would be conducted near the core of the facility, while the outer areas would be for things such as guard stations.
In the next room, Sharon and I charged in together. This time, there were three human guards, along with another of the humanoid robots. Now that I was able to see it before it was being destroyed, I was finally able to confirm their appearance.
Tall, over seven feet, with four white arms. Each of the top arms ended with a four-fingered hand, while the bottom arms both ended with a gun barrel-like shape. Though, that same shape could also be found in its stomach, head, and both sides of its chest. Wait, did that mean…
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“Hahah! Seriously!? I got shot by nipple lasers!?” Sharon laughed strangely as she walked into the room, and I felt a shiver going down my spine. This time, the robot was looking at a door to the left when we entered, so it didn’t blast us the moment the door opened. That was… probably a mistake on its part.
Still, I couldn’t help but see the resemblance between these robots and the aliens that had served as grunts in the previous bases. If not for the fact that I had seen the robot’s insides while Yo was ripping the last one to shreds, then I might have had some rather morbid ideas about where they came from. I considered securing one of these robots to take back for Celeste to study, but I quickly gave up the idea of it being this particular one.
Almost the instant that Sharon stepped through the door, the robot turned to face her. In a flurry of motion that I wasn’t sure she was capable of without Priscilla’s help, she appeared in front of the robot with the angriest smile I had ever seen on a woman. Her arms seemed to dance through the air as crisp sounds of metal striking metal filled the room.
By that time, even the three human guards had begun acting, and turned their rifles towards Sharon. However, what kind of man would I be if I let someone shoot my wife? I mean, seriously? Pointing a finger at each guard, I sent them stabbing forward as slime blades to skewer each of them. While filling the room with slime blades may be something I can’t easily repeat, creating three blades like this is a much different story.
By the time that I was able to look over at Sharon, her arms were still moving wildly. With each slice, sections of the robot would fall off of its frame. While it looked like she had already disabled it, as it was no longer showing any signs of movement, she simply continued slashing it apart until I cleared my throat.
“Short on time, remember?” I reminded her gently, before pointing my hand towards the next door. She let out a small huff as she kicked the robot down to the floor, moving to the door.
“Alright, fine. But I reserve the right to vent my frustrations.” She said with a wicked grin.
I could only chuckle at that, nodding my head. However, soon Celeste’s voice spoke up over our comms. “We’ve captured the warp gate, guys. Give us a few minutes to an hour, and we should have a direct link to every gate the Empire controls.” She reported happily, before her voice turned seriously. “Also, be warned, I estimate you have two minutes before the reactor explodes down there. If you have any intentions of saving those bodies, make sure you are outside the base within that time limit. I’ll be ready to teleport you guys up if you exit.”
After hearing that, Sharon and I looked at each other and nodded our head. We had two minutes left, and this whole trip was a waste if we did not at least capture someone. Though, it did felt nice to get to stretch my legs like this, but it somewhat lost its appeal since it wasn’t really that long since I was fighting in order to clear up the planets in the Gerin system.
“Next guy we see?” Sharon asked, getting another nod from me. Most of the guards we had seen so far had the exact same face, meaning that they were likely all purchased through the markets as disposable characters. Adding onto that the fact that there were no alien slaves in this base, and it seemed like something was fishy. At the very least, I wanted to get someone who might know what this base was researching before we left.
“If only I could use the elements, I could dig us through straight to the research areas.” I groaned in regret. Sharon sent a small smile my way as she proceeded to demolish the next door.
Behind it were not the guards that we had expected, but a long and empty hallway lined with more doors. Though, given the fact that these doors were all opened, I felt like it was a safe bet that there were guards stationed inside, ready for ambush. “Please let there be someone that has their own face... “ I sighed as I walked forward with Sharon.
As expected, the moment we began moving forward, dozens of laser blasts were aimed at us from people poking out through the open doorways. Notices of minor damage continued to appear in front of me, though I simply ignored them as I continued walking, letting Sharon take up position behind me. It wasn’t often that I got to play the role of the tank, so I was going to do the best that I could.
However, it seemed that our hopes were for naught. For the last two minutes while we slaughtered our way through the base, we did not see a single person that had a unique face. While I did manage to capture a robot for Celeste to study, I wasn’t able to find any researchers. I could only hope that Yo had more luck than we did. Still, we continued going on until a blinding white light filled our vision.
You have died. Good job.
That message was never one that I enjoyed seeing, but after it passed I found myself waking up in my true body aboard the ship. Nearby, I heard several gasps as the girls woke up at the same time. Looking around, I found that Yo still had an annoyed expression on her face, though it had calmed considerably since when we split up.
“Any luck?” I asked her, hoping that the two of them had been able to force their way deeper in than we had.
Thankfully, she nodded her head, making a somewhat difficult expression as she spoke. “Two researchers.” She answered. “Kept their memories, though they are getting annoying. Hope you can find what you need quickly.” Yeah, I hope so too...