Kaida was fully satisfied with the way things were going. The server was running a final scan, and then she would be able to boot it. The scan would take a few minutes, though, and she just couldn't keep herself in the chair any longer.
She stood, intending on finding Edan and getting that coffee she had implied she wanted. It was then that she saw the blaring alarm on the anchor monitor. Mystified, she unmuted the terminal's audio channel.
"…ORTHERN ANCHOR BREACHED. NORTHERN ANCHOR BREACHED."
Her eyes went wide with horror, and she tried to leave, but the door was sealed shut.
"INITIATING EMERGENCY PROCEDURES. SECURE AREAS LOCKED DOWN."
"Damn you!" she shouted, hammering at the door. She would be able to tear through it, and that was rapidly becoming her only option. She took a few steps back, charging a fire attack.
Edan had gone outside for a stroll. Even though the sun never set in Chelone, there was always that wonderfully soothing ocean breeze. It was there that he noticed a series of flashes on the horizon, and closer inspection had revealed an invasionary force.
He tried running back to get Kaida, but every bulkhead door in the complex was sealed. He was trapped outside.
"No problem," he said, preparing himself for a fight. What he didn't expect was to be suddenly pinned against the wall. He looked up, saw blond hair, then blacked out completely.
Cindra tossed the Guilmon to the ground. His mechanical enhancements, had they been fully prepared, might have proven a challenge for her. As it was, this entire operation was a cakewalk.
She looked up at the massive hangar doors. Beyond, she knew, was a hangar bay. And somewhere inside that bay was a secret access point to the new Chelone complex. And in there was the object of her expedition.
With a single kick, she blew the entire hangar door inwards, sending thousands of shards flying. Calmly, she stepped through the lot, walking purposefully to a rusty tool rack on the other side of the hangar. Behind her, human special forces were spreading out, flanking her and covering the area.
"Ah, there you are," she said at a concrete square in the floor, demarcated only by a thin, shallow groove in the dirty concrete floor. There were no visible controls, or any other means of opening the thing.
"Captain," she called, and one of the men – differing in uniform only by a dull yellow strap around his arm – looked up.
"This is target insertion point. Hold your men back while I break through."
"Yes ma'am!"
Cindra considered the stone block. Then she looked up, tracing an invisible path in her mind. It could work…
"You men," she said, pointing in a straight line between the concrete block and one of the hangar walls. "Move out of the way."
They complied; removing themselves from Cindra's indicated line of fire. She stepped around the block, stopped at one of the corners, and considered it for a little while.
Then she leaped into the air, doing a back flip and extending one leg downwards, landing just next to that corner with all the force she could muster. The resultant explosion was enough to pop the entire concrete block – must have been over a thousand tons – into the air like a coin. She spun around, hitting the block with a flying kick, sending it screaming across the hangar floor, and through the wall at the other end. It kept flying until it hit the ground outside with a dull thud.
Under the concrete shield was a much thinner metal shell, below which was an elevator. Cindra waved to her men to breach the elevator, and do their job by flooding the compound below. She stepped back, and they moved forward, cutting through the metal roof of the elevator with remarkable speed. Then they dropped down, one by one, and spread themselves out in the corridor below.
Kaida felt the massive jar as the concrete shield was removed. She still couldn't find Edan, and hoped he was okay. As human troops stormed the corridor she was in, she opened fire, sending several of them to an immediate scorching death, just buying time to get away.
There was an emergency exit – the chamber that Edan had used to enter Earth. If she could get there, she could at least get out. But as she turned the final corner, she stopped dead in her tracks. Cindra was already there.
"And where are you going, Kaida?" she asked. Kaida growled.
"I'm leaving."
"Oh, why is that? The party's just getting started!"
Kaida clenched her right fist, building a massive charge of energy. "I don't like parties. Not when my friends get hurt."
Cindra shrugged. "There's no accounting for taste," she said.
"Really?" Kaida asked, flinging a massive fireball at Cindra. She didn't move, and the fireball exploded directly on top of her, softening and cracking the metal walls with a ferocious wave of heat.
"Really," Cindra said as the fire cleared. She was completely unharmed. Kaida growled again, and started charging a bigger attack. Cindra, however, held out her hand, and started drawing Kaida's power away from her.
She tried holding on to it, but it was no good. Cindra was just too strong. A whitish, purplish cloud of light flowed from Kaida's entire body to a central point in Cindra's outstretched hand.
Then she pulled that hand back, and Kaida gasped as every fiber of her being was immediately drained. She collapsed, barely able to move. She managed to raise one eyeball at Cindra, who had compressed all of Kaida's power into a tiny sphere in her hand. Then she crushed the sphere, dissipating all of it.
"What a shame," Cindra said. Kaida tried making a sarcastic remark, but words failed her, and she passed out.
Flame didn't know where he was. He did know that they had stopped, and carried him into a really large, circular room, where he had been hung on the wall. At least, he thought it was the wall – gravity was tugging at his feet, and his wrists were chafing.
But then they had sedated him again, and he passed back into sleep. He was long gone when they started bringing the others in. First Jorcy, then Jet, then Edan, and finally, Kaida. Each of them was secured to another section of the wall, so that they were all facing inwards. And they were all sedated, and suppressors installed. They would remain unconscious until the suppressors were deactivated. Something that Cindra would only do when she had EVA in her possession.
Edan managed to slip into consciousness for a few moments. He didn't know what to make of it. They were in a dark, stone-walled chamber. Kaida was tied to the wall on his left, and Jorcy, Jet and Flame to his right. The wall curved inwards, so he could see them all. He tried looking down, but sleep overtook him again.