Chapter 35
In a launch area where all the ships are, Eric is boarding one despite the aches and pains he is suffering with his body in a cast. Despite what everyone is saying, he still continues to board.
"Are you sure about this?" Poppy asks. "You're still recovering."
Eric speaks, "If our orbital telescopes are correct, the Two Brothers are approaching here." He continues in an electric wheelchair, "If we don't do this now, all we've worked for would be in ruins before they come to full fruition."
Sylvester speaks his peace, "But your body won't be able to handle the gravitational stresses that would make your injuries worse."
Gris speaks, "And Coco is still trying to find out about the hacker. If we leave now, the hacker will surely kill us once we board."
Eric stops. He process this information and way his options.
He sighs, "Alright. I'll hold until things have settled. However, we need to get ready for when they approach." Eric turns his chair towards the trio, "We will commence with Operation: Star Eater. A rather risky plan, but it's worth a shot. Just hope the satellites are powerful enough to detail their power." He heads on back inside, "And what do we know about this hacker?"
Everyone follows as Poppy reports, "Not much. Whoever this person is, their good. They've been covering their tracks that not even Coco can trace."
Sylvester says, "I'm not good with computers, but that's very bad."
Eric stops once they've gotten inside. "Is it possible that someone is using their organic brain rather than a machine as the main processor? Doing things mentally is far better than using a keyboard or touch screen."
The three look at each other and are confused.
Gris rubs the back of his head, "So, what are you saying?"
"I've seen it before." Eric sounds serious. "It is possible that to upload someone's mind before killing themselves. That explosion at his house was nothing more than a smokescreen that obscure the truth. After all, death is a perfect alibi."
Everyone's eyes are raised as they start to realize that there is more going on behind the scenes.
Gris shakes his head, "Hold it, hold it, hold it!" Gris is having a hard time processing, "Are you saying that Acai Mitsuhide purposely destroyed his house after he uploaded his brain into our network?"
Poppy thinks about it, "It is possible. Once the brain is fully drained, all you get left is a corpse. The brain is mostly electrical neurons that can be-"
Sylvester is having a hard time understanding with the dumb look on his face.
"Right." Poppy tries to make things simpler, "Anyways, the brain's electricity can be turned into data. And that data can take on many shapes and forms. Like messing with clay that still hasn't dried. But once in, as in our network, that clay can become permanently wet that can always change shape. Like those special puddies you played with. Remember those?"
"Oh." Sylvester gets it and then he truly understands, "Oooohhh... Ah shit."
Outside the shuttle takes off without a countdown as the doors seal behind them. The shuttle is then up in the air as everyone head on over to the observation room and see the shuttle going high in the atmosphere. Once it reaches the thermosphere, the shuttle exploded. Pieces of it falls down as Eric watches with Gris, Poppy and Sylvester as Eric appreciates the advice his friends have given him about not going.
"Oh shit." Gris says with his mouth agape.
Poppy runs out, "We gotta warn Coco!"
In cyberspace, Coco is using a digital fortress she made to keep herself safe. A large Minecraft-style fortress with ramparts, working catapults, seven layers of super thick walls of bedrock, ten towers, a huge army of non-Minecraft and non-blocky mobs, vehicles and artillery from Halo, Star Wars, Ratchet and Clank, and many, many more in order to protect herself while she works. She is checking all data funnels and processors to make sure that nothing else happens. Deep inside this fortress is something important that connects the entire digital network. The heart of Enlighten Valley's internet and communications array. Even worse when it is connected to the satellites that are meant to trap gods and start The Culling. Definitely don't want anyone gaining access to that.
In the distance, a huge rumble is heard that forces Coco to stop working and see out to the west. Across the flat plains of this Minecraft game, various negative programs such as malware, trojans, bots and more. The malware are in the form of zombies that are staggering towards the fortress. Trojans are in the form of Greek-style warriors from The Odyssey about the Battle of Troy. Bots are in the form of killer robots that are a mix-mash of various machines with buzzsaws, lasers, and whatever the hell else that are attached to them. Adwares are in the form of solicitors that wear Noir suits with big noses and smiles as they discuss about what they are selling with briefcases that have business logos on them. Fake businesses that what to sell you junk and take your money. Worms are in the form of giant worms that are tunneling through the Minecraft dirt that pop up to bring in more malicious programs. Rootkits are in the form of, believe it or not, toolboxes with teeth made of keyboard keys. Sharp keyboard keys with space bars being fangs. Spyware are in the form of magnifying glasses with giant eyeballs that shoot colored lasers. And finally, ransom malware in the form of Noir mafia members with trenchcoats and tommyguns with golden chains that are meant to snatching something.
"Oh boy." Coco sees the massive wave of malicious programs coming at her fort. She says to her troops, "Everyone! Battle positions!"
Poppy appears on a holovid, "Poppy!" she sounds worried, "I have some bad news!"
"I know, I know. I've got a huge wave of malicious duds heading for me and trying to get to the main control point."
"It's not just that! We found out on how-" The connection was cut-off suddenly.
Coco tries to contact Poppy, "Hello? Poppy?! Poppy!" Now she's in big trouble, "Shit!"
The army of malicious programs charge at Coco's super fortress with artillery firing at the rogues with anti-whatever programs that obliterate them. Many troops take on the walls and fire everything they got at them. Lasers and bullets fly as each of the horrible programs get deleted from cyberspace. One of the worms got close enough that it started spewing some of the enemy programs on the other side. However, many of them step on a few nuke mines that obliterated them as the troops on the walls cut down the worm. Many malware programs start bashing on the walls but get destroyed by Minecraft lava that was poured down. Up in the air, many adware solicitors fall down and make their way but get gun down.
"Fuck!" Coco says, "I was not expecting an aerial attack!" she orders a clone trooper, "Set up AA cannons and SAM sites!"
The clone trooper salutes, "Yes, my lady!" and hurries on down to set up more defenses.
As the AA guns and SAM sites are being built, some of the malware started climbing on each other despite the lava being poured with some bringing in buckets of water in order to make a cobblestone pillar to climb on. The ransom malware started attacking the defenders to prevent them from killing more malware that are bringing in water buckets. But grenades are being tossed from the walls that range from thermal detonators to plasma to napalm in order to take down the ransom malware programs and to destroy the cobblestone that was being built.
At the distance, more and more of these malicious programs started to appear and are more deformed. Many of them look like something out of a terrible game with hideous faces, stretched out limbs, twisted bodies, and more. It is almost as if these programs haven't been coded properly like from a bad game. Some of them started to glitch and become unstable. Some explode, some started to rubber band, some lag into other areas, and a lot of weirdness. Some of these faulty programs managed to get in the walls before they got gun down to bytes. Some of these terrible programs managed to touch the wall and caused some of the blocks to be deleted. However, the big surprise is that lava started spewing out and burn away the bad programs. Some of them bring in water to start to turn the lava into stone, but Coco manage to add a special code to prevent that.
The artillery is doing everything they can to prevent anymore programs from coming in. But many worms try to pour in where the artillery is at and many of the malicious programs got through. Coco head towards the chamber where the control program is at and takes it with her as she prepares to leave for the real world. Some of the bad programs glitched through the defenses and bring down many of the walls, destroy all the emplacements and killing many of the troops. Everything starts to fall apart as the evil programs unleash devastation that is causing the collapse of the cyberspace that they're at. As everything vanishes, Coco exits out.
Coco wakes up in the real world with her left eye glowing bright green as she has the master control inside her. She is in her room that is full of electronic devices and computers. Crispin is there and is shocked.
"Are you okay!" Crispin says before his arm started to act up.
Coco takes a deep breath before replying. "I'm fine. I was able to get the master control program out before my castle was destroyed. I don't think I'll be taking a trip to cyberspace for a while."
Back in cyberspace, a large shadowy figure looks down on the crumbling Minecraft world where the fortress is at. The figure is wearing a red robe with white tiger fur trimmings, an overly large crown with jewels all over that looks like an overly decorated chandelier, a large scepter with a large diamond on it with Acai Mitsuhide's symbol inside of it. This figure is also wearing gaudy golden armor with many chains that have gemstones and golden medallions on them and Acai's symbol on it.
"So," says the figure, "Coco managed to elude me and Eric managed to survive." He chuckles smugly, "No matter. It is only a matter of time before I finally gain control of everything. As I, All Mighty Emperor Heavenly Lord Supreme God Acai Mitsuhide, shall take control of all!"
Yes. Acai Mitsuhide is alive in cyberspace in the most repulsive outfit that fit his ego along with a ridiculous title he gave himself to match. Now he is going to try and gain control of all via virtual networks. Without the main control program that controls Enlighten Valley, he won't be able to control all. Including the satellites that will trap the Two Brothers. This also includes The Culling that will be initiated around the day of the Vytal Festival. But things will be complicated with Acai swimming around in virtual reality and ready to pounce at the opportunity to seize control to establish his own dictatorship.
Everyone is at the meeting room to discuss the situation. Eric does a heavy sigh that this complication just happened to pop up when they had achieved victory over Salem as he punched her far out of the solar system. All the remaining members are irritated as well with Acai now having virtual immortality.
Eric speaks, "Okay, now we have a major situation. It is bad enough that we lost many of our friends when fighting Salem, now we have to deal with this crap. A man that was suppose to be dead, a dictatorial ego tripper with a god complex, is now prowling in cyberspace in the hopes of controlling all that we have while trying to kill us. Good news is that our main master control program is safe, thanks to Coco."
Coco does a small nod.
"Bad news is that we have to take extra precautions when using our net. Especially that Acai now has powers that could destroy our network from within."
Dale asks, "Can we just delete him by rebooting our network?"
"Not really." Poppy replies. "He probably made a back-up of himself in another network. Like in servers in Vale or Mistral. Or in worse case, places where we haven't looked like a cave."
Indigo says, "In other words, he have planned this for some time. We should've kept a closer eye on our people when we should have."
Crispin speaks, "Not much we can do now but find out where he keeps his backup before initiating The Culling. Coco will initiate Operation: Star Eater when those two come to our world. We just need them for the final phase."
Rune stands up, "I'll see about getting a few teams to look for the backup or backups while maintaining digital silence to prevent him from causing any more problems."
Howard stands up as well, "I'll see about keeping our own backups up to date to prevent any further damage. Are we all in agreement?"
Everyone raise their hands in agreement but Eric wiggle the fingers of his right arm in agreement.
Gris sighs and seems frustrated, "Dammit. We don't have a lot of options. But Mary and I are gonna be our own independent unit in Atlas to find any of his backups in our abandoned servers we left behind."
"Fair enough." Rune reluctantly agrees.
Everyone leave the room with Eric looking out the window. He looks down and see human and Faunus children messing around with sticks as they play Knights and Grimm. Eric takes a deep breath as he look down as he feels nostalgia about when he and the others were young. He then manages to burst his left arm out of his cast as it is fully healed.
He makes a fist and says to himself, "All for a brighter future. I must bear that in mind so I can create a better world. A world like this in front of me." Then he leaves.
AN: Hey everyone! Hope you enjoy this new chapter. Also, is there a glitch or bug or something on the site? Because my traffic graphs have been 0 for around a week. I don't know what is going on yet I do keep on getting reviews. Hope it will get fixed. Any way, we are getting closer to the finish line for this story. Also, check out my Team Fortress 2 story where YLW and GRN talk about politics like from Oyu'baat Cantina's RED and BLU politic videos (except you have to go to another site to see the finale). Plus, if you guys have an ideology that want to show up for other color teams that might appear, leave a review in that story. Let me know what you think of this story so far so I know that people are still reading. Thank you and have a good weekend.