Shu POV:
We reported our findings back to Jibral after we had discovered everything in the Engine Cube. He was understandably upset at how we had lost Szabo and the fact that Nene was revived from the dead, but Anya looked extremely troubled, more so than usual.
"Is something wrong, Anya?" I asked her during our talk with Jibral.
"It's just... when Nene was about to get attacked by those cords coming from the capsule... why did my body try to save him?... Why did my mouth say I wanted to rescue him?... Is there... another code inside of me?... To protect Nene from incoming threats?... And if there is, then why hasn't it activated until now?... I'm so fucking confused..." Anya said as she placed her hands on her eyes and sighed as we then got joined by all of our other friends that could use shadows and a couple others.
"Sura-Sura? Guru-Guru? Toripo and Shifa? What are you all doing here with the others?" I asked them. Sura-Sura and Guru-Guru were actually members of the Gorgo Tribe that had usurped the corrupt Jeelala after he tried to frame Guru-Guru with stealing the Gem of Jibral and shattering it. To make a long story short, Jibral found the jewel inside Jeelala's storeroom and handed his butt to him in combat before arresting him and saving Guru-Guru from exile. They were two Gorgo members that insisted on moving to Neo Jibral Castle's inhabitable areas after we had given their tribe refuge.
Shifa, on the other hand, was someone I knew for a long time. She was a young girl that had lived with us in Talta Village before the events with the Land Shark happened. Her puppy, sadly, was killed during the Land Shark attack of the century by Nene, which is when she discovered she had her own shadow. Anya called it the Steel Sphynx, which was obvious as it was a cat that had a robotic look to it.
"We heard from Marumaro that this cube is going to be trouble, so we wanted to join you in taking it out," Shifa said with a smile.
"After all, we can't let Nene come back to life without a bit of a fight! He ruined the Aurora Ruins! I spent my whole life looking for them, and once I found them, he snapped the world in two and the ruins crumbled!" Toripo said as he then let out his shadow and Anya smiled.
"Well, looks like you've gotten improved from Simple Scorpion to Sticky Arachnae. You must have quite the spirit to have more than one shadow on you, Toripo," Anya smiled at him.
"Hehe, I actually discovered this second, more powerful form of my Simple Scorpion after seeing the ruins crumble to bits. I was so filled with fury, it just came out from my sheer anger and distress," Toripo said.
"And as for us, we have also developed shadows. We wanted to have an opportunity to show them off, and I guess now is the perfect time," Guru-Guru smiled as he and Sura-Sura then let their shadows out for us to see. Guru-Guru's was that of a cyclops and Sura-Sura's was that of a Harpie. Part Phoenix, part human, and the beauty of both.
"Impressive," I smiled as Marumaro then gave Anya something.
"Look at this," he said as he handed me a small device... it looked to be an advanced radar of the Engine Cube.
"What are all of these red dots... you don't think that... there are more of those walking dynamite machines?" she asked.
"Dynamite? You mean robots that self-destruct? How powerful is the blast?" Kluke asked.
"According to Anya, roughly a thousand pounds of dynamite in each robot..." I said, Anya gasping as the radar started to beep rapidly.
"O-Oh no... that one we defeated at the surface! It's coming here!" Anya exclaimed. And not two seconds later, we gasped as the big boy smashed through the roof of the throne room and he looked pissed at all of us.
"Round two?" Zola smiled.
"Let's attack this freak together! We cannot allow it to use that bomb! Try to chop it off if you can so I can disarm it!" Anya exclaimed.
"You got it, Anya!" Kesu said as she activated her arm blades as she let out her shadow, which Anya had dubbed the Frigid Leviathan, which specialized in high sturdiness and precision in ice-based attacks. "Let's take out this creep!" Kesu exclaimed as she then flew forward and attempted to slice out the bomb from the robot's body, our surprise very plain as day when she managed to do just that in one single slice! And once the bomb fell off the robot, we were even more surprised when the giant mechanical menace stopped moving and the bomb disengaged.
"Nice job, Kesu!" Sahlia smiled widely.
"Yeah! Way to go!" Marumira smirked afterwards... but then Anya looked at the radar with a frown.
"Guys... some of these dots are slowly moving up the radar... I think that the smaller ones are regular Mecha Robos and the larger ones are bomb robots. We need to go back to that cube with all of our strengths and find out how to stop them before it's too late. We may have stopped this robot, but these bombs would be powerful enough to demolish an entire cube, let alone a city!" Anya stated with a serious tone.
"Don't worry. We're going to join you. All of us," Marutora said with a smile.
"Okay then. Since there are so many of us, I'd say we take a Land Shark to get to the cube. It can fit all of us and more on it," Jiro said. And he was right. The Land Shark, though a killing machine when under Nene's control, was actually a flying machine that was also in the Hangar Cube in abundance.
"Let's move out effective immediately! No time to waste standing around, we've got a cube to take out and a powerful sorcerer to stop once again!" Kluke smiled.
"Yeah! The Devee Dance of Excitement!" Marumaro smiled.
Anya POV:
Our group immediately proceeded towards the cube and I noticed that the hole we had used earlier to get in had been sealed up indefinitely. "This cube must have a mind of its own or the robot patched it up before he crashed into the castle... we'll need to find another way of entry..." I said as I thought and looked at the radar. No other possible entryways. "Peh, well, like my father always said, if there isn't an entrance, just make one yourself! Hyah!" I smiled as I then slammed the fin of the Land Shark into the side of the top of the cube, making a hole large enough for us to enter.
"Are you crazy, Anya?! We could've gotten hurt badly!" Jiro exclaimed at me.
"Sorry, hon, but we need to get down there quickly before those bombs reach the surface. And from the radar, this room is connected to all of the exits at the top of the cube. So long as we can stop them in this room or deeper, we can prevent any bomb robots from escaping and destroying the world," I said to him.
"Okay... sorry for snapping," Jiro said.
"It's quite alright. Should've given you guys a head's up," I smiled bashfully as I then looked at the radar with a smile.
"Okay, according to this radar, we need to proceed down this hallway here in order to go deeper into the cube. All the other gates will lead to the rooms to the surface... I can sense Nene is deeper in the cube, so let's be cautious," I said as we proceeded forward, having no issues with any kind of enemies until we got a floor below us. When we did so, we came across some regular Mecha Robos, a few spare monsters, and found that the path diverged to the north and west.
"Let's take out these enemies and then decide how to split our teams. We'll need two teams to proceed onward, one for each path," Shifa said, taking charge for a change as we then proceeded to pummel all the enemies into oblivion. We managed to clear out all of them within only a few minutes.
"Okay, we'll need two teams to move onward in the two directions... I feel that Shu and Zola should be the ones to choose who will go with them," I said.
"Understood," Zola said. After deciding the order of teams, Zola had picked Marumaro, Fushira, Guru-Guru, Sura-Sura, Marumira, Marutora, and Toripo. Meanwhile, Shu chose Kluke, Jibral, myself, Sahlia, Jiro, Kesu, and Shifa.
"Okay, we have our teams. Let's split up. We'll go to the northern exit, you guys can proceed through the western exit," Shu said.
"Agreed. Let's move out," Zola said.
"Hold it... before we separate, Zola, you take this. It's a special warp device that will warp you back to the top floor if you get into a fight you can't win. That, and it will allow you to talk with our group whenever you come across anything interesting," I said to her.
"Smart thinking, Anya. Okay, good luck, guys," Zola smiled as she took the warp device communicator and we then proceeded to the different passages to the lower levels.