Matilda groaned as she fell back into her seat, slumping back slightly.

"What a day." She said. The others nodded in agreement, all in similarly tired positions. The day had been exhausting despite mostly nothing happening save for the end.

"Mr. Brand is gonna chew us out for not capturing Lily or figuring out where Flinch is." Jackson sighed.

"At least we know he's ok. And we also have other things to go on. Like, we know she's trying to resurrect her parents, she has a brother, and she has robotic legs! That's something, right?" Duncan said, trying to bring some energy back to the group.

"I guess. But it doesn't really do anything for us. We still don't know where her base is, or how she has all those robots, or even any good way to shut off said robots without using a device that would shut off our upgrades in the process." Heathcliff retorted. Duncan slumped slightly more in his seat at that. The rest of the ride back to The Playground was mostly silent, nothing much left to say about the matter.

When they finally landed and exited the school bus, they were met by both Brand and Deprankova. Deprankova almost immediately began checking the group over for injuries like a worried mother.

"Are all of you alright? Were any of you hit by any shrapnel? Did Lily's bots injure you?" She asked quickly.

"We're fine." Jackson said, waving her off embarrassedly before she could continue to worry over them.

"Yeah, it's ok. Don't worry." Ruby told her.

Brand waved her away slightly from the group, frowning. Deprankova gave him a look as he went to say something and he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"That's...good. Were you able to get Julio back? Or at least gain new information?" He said.

"No, we couldn't get him back. But we did get in a video call with him, and it looks like he's as safe as can be." Ruby said.

"I doubt he's in any danger. I mean, Lily probably wouldn't even have it in her to stomp an ant, much less hurt Julio." Matilda laughed. Ruby elbowed her before clearing her throat.

"Right...well, we don't have any clues on where exactly her base is or anything too extremely important, but we do at least have a couple things to go on." She stated.

Brand nodded stiffly, biting back any sourness on the failure of bringing anything useful to the table.

"Well then, you are all dismissed. Get some rest." He said before turning on his heel and disappearing back into The Playground.

For a few moments the NERDS stared at where he had gone off to.

"Well, uh, that went better than expected." Heathcliff said.

"I guess so. At least we didn't get chewed out." Jackson replied. Ruby sighed, rubbing her temples and shaking her head. Duncan glanced over at her with a slightly concerned look.

"Ruby? You ok?" He asked. His teammate waved him off, letting out a long breath.

"I'm fine. Just need to think. And sleep for that matter." She responded. And with that, she turned and walked away from the group, back to the exit. Duncan rubbed the back of his head awkwardly and turned back to the group.

"Well then. I guess I'll see you guys tomorrow?" He said. The others nodded in agreement.

"Yeah. Pretty sure I'm going to be late for dinner if I stay any longer too." Jackson replied.

"Same here." Matilda chuckled.

"I think I'm going to stay here and do some more research." Heathcliff said. His friends looked at him strangely.

"Why? Aren't you tired?" Duncan asked. Heathcliff shrugged and pushed his glasses up.

"I am, but there's some stuff that I want to look at." He said dismissively.

"You do you I guess." Jackson snorted. Heathcliff gave him an icy glare, making him shrink slightly and chuckle nervously.

"I will, in fact. You all can go." Heathcliff said as he took his eyes back off of Jackson.

With that, the team took his advice, breaking off one by one and going back to the exits after saying their goodbyes, eager to get home to their families and comfortable beds. This was save for Heathcliff of course, who stayed in that position for a while longer, simply thinking before finally turning away to continue on his path towards a few empty computers on the side of the room. There were things to do.