"Man, I am so pumped to be fighting BEGA tomorrow!" Tyson happily said as he walked into his team's hotel room.
"What about stopping whatever Boris is up to?" Kenny asked.
"Eh, that'll just be a bonus at this point," Tyson shrugged, going into the kitchen. "And besides, we managed to take out Barthez Battalion. That was honestly quite satisfying, even though we didn't quite get what we wanted."
"That might not be true," his bespectacled friend replied. "I think that Dizzi and I might have caught something on her camera. The only trouble is that it could take me a while to decode what it is."
"Well, while you're doing that," Max said, "how about the rest of us go grab some food? We've still got some time before we have to go to bed."
"Good call," Ray replied with a chuckle. "I haven't cooked in a while, and I don't want my skills to get rusty."
"Sounds good to me," said Hilary. "What about you, Kai? You going to come with?"
"Eh, may as well," the blue-haired blader replied. "A relaxed mind often yields better results in a battle."
"Your mind is always relaxed, dude," Tyson chuckled.
"Except for when he's battling," Max added. "As focused as he is, if you piss him off enough, he can get quite angry."
"I don't get angry," Kai defended. "I just get really intense in the battle sometimes, and a scream might come out."
Hilary then chuckled. "You're one to talk too, by the way," she said, looking first to Max, then to the others, barring Kai and Kenny. "You all scream from time to time."
"Hey," Ray said, "lightning storms and tigers make a lot of noise."
"As do dragons that can create raging typhoons..." Tyson said.
"And earthquakes too..." Daichi added.
"Okay, I get the point," said Hilary.
"And plus, it adds to the excitement," Kai admitted. "You can't really be quiet with a gigantic animal sitting in your pocket, and you especially can't be quiet in front of a crowd of hundreds, if not thousands. Nothing wrong with that."
"Aw, Kai's socialising!" Tyson teased. "I never thought I'd see the day. I'm so proud."
"Yeah, yeah," Kai chuckled. "Can it, champ."
Hilary shook her head before looking over to Kenny. "Are you sure that you don't want to come with us?"
"I'd love to, but me and Dizzi have a lot to go over now," he replied. "It'd be best to get it finished and out of the way while I have some time."
"Just try not to stay up too late, you hear?" Tyson smiled. "Dizzi's been working hard enough as it is. If she needs a break, then you should grant her one. Same goes for you if you need it."
"I'll keep that in mind," Kenny replied. "You guys going anywhere nice?"
"I was thinking of us maybe just going to the hotel restaurant," said Max, turning to Ray. "You think your culinary skills are good enough?"
"I know it, dude," Ray smirked.
"Let's get on our way," Tyson said. "We don't need much with us. Not even our money, since Mr. Dickenson pretty much paid for it all in advance."
"Have fun," Kenny said. "And try not to stay up too late, you hear?"
"Did you just use what I said earlier against me?"
Kenny nodded. "Yep."
Tyson ruffled his friend's hair, slightly misaligning his glasses. "I've taught you well."
"Take care, dude," Kenny said.
Tyson smiled and turned to exit out of the door, followed by his friends soon after before Hilary stopped in the doorway, using her foot to keep the door open as she popped her head back in, looking at Kenny, who had just started up his laptop.
"Is there anything you want from the restaurant?" she asked.
Kenny shrugged. "I'm fine with some leftover cake if you guys are having any."
"Of course there's going to be cake," Hilary chuckled. "I'm sure that Ray'll work on it for you after everyone else is sorted out. You have a preference?"
"Strawberry cheesecake," Kenny smiled.
"Sure thing. I'll have my best chef on the job!"
Kenny chuckled as his friends walked out of the hotel room before turning his attention back to his laptop, typing his password in and accessing it, smiling as the familiar screen of Dizzi's vocal wavelengths appeared. the laptop mildly vibrating as the bit-beast within let out a small yawn.
"What time is it?" Dizzi tiredly asked.
"It's almost 7:00 pm," replied Kenny.
"Well, no rest for the wicked, I suppose," Dizzi replied. "So, what's up, Chief?"
"I was wondering if you could find that data that your studied earlier from Tyson and Miguel's fight."
"Well, you're the one who found whatever it is," Dizzi pointed out. "I just recorded it."
Kenny chuckled. "You know what I meant. Will you find it for me?"
"Aye aye, captain."
After a few moments, Dizzi brought up several video and image files, and Kenny searched over the most recent ones that depicted the battle between the Bladebreakers and the Barthez Battalion, clicking the video of Kai and Mathilda's match.
"I thought you wanted the Tyson and Miguel fight?" Dizzi wondered.
"I do, but I think that I saw the same thing here as I did in that fight," Kenny replied. He then fast-forwarded to the point that he wanted to see before bringing up the video for Tyson and Miguel, repeated the process for that fight.
"Huh..." Kenny said.
"What is it?" Dizzi asked.
"What I saw in Kai's fight is the same as I saw in Tyson's fight," Kenny replied. "Something flashed in Miguel and Mathilda's eyes as they battled. I think that the same happened for Aaron too."
"Do you want me to bring that one up too, just to be on the safe side?"
"Please," Kenny replied with a nod, getting the video in question soon after. "All right, let's take a look through here..."
"It probably won't take as long to find," Dizzi said. "Ray's fight didn't last as long as Kai's and Tyson's fights did."
Kenny focused on the part that he wanted, repeating the process with the earlier two videos before bringing all three next to each other as separate windows, each focused on a specific moment in the battle.
"So, what's with the eyes?" Dizzi asked. "Are mine not enough?"
Kenny chuckled. "You know that you're the only artificially created bit-beast for me, Dizzi."
"Aw, I'm touched."
Kenny smiled, thankful for the brief moment of levity before focusing more on the task at hand. "I wanted to focus on their eyes because I saw something click when they were battling."
"I think I noticed it too," Dizzi said. "It wasn't as apparent in Aaron, but it was still there."
Kenny wiped his nose for a second. "Hmm... could you crop the images of their eyes together for me?" he asked.
"On it."
The mouse then started moving of its own accord, now being controlled by the bit-beast within the laptop as it split into three separate copies, each one respectively going over the specific location within the video that Kenny wanted, maximising the images to fit better next to each other and waiting for a few seconds to make them more clear.
"Incredible..." Kenny said.
"Eh, I try," Dizzi said, making Kenny chuckle.
"Indeed you do. And you succeed," Kenny smiled. He then looked closer at the images to make sure that he was reading them right, seeing some form of a binary code in them. "Do you see that?" he asked.
"I do indeed," Dizzi replied. "Do you want me to run a scan on it?"
"Please."
The three images were enhanced slightly further, Dizzi having assumed control over the laptop once more, and several green lines passed horizontally and vertically over each individual image, the numbers of code inside each one being sorted out into a more comprehensible order.
"Well, I've sorted and scanned them, and they all seem to read the same message," Dizzi said.
"What does it say?" Kenny asked.
"It just says 'you can't save us'."
"What the heck does that mean?" Kenny pondered.
"Maybe it's a message that Barthez implanted?" Dizzi asked.
"What do you mean by that?"
"As I was scanning the eye pictures, I found something quite interesting. It's something that's locked behind the binary code, so it's unclear to make out what it is."
"Can you crack it?" Kenny asked.
"If Tyson can learn to restrain himself at a free buffet table, I can sure break this down," Dizzi said. "Trust me, I can handle this."
The images of the binary message were soon put aside in a separate window as Dizzi focused past them, attempting to run a scan on whatever it was that she saw behind the code, Kenny smiling as he observed it.
"You're sure getting closer," he said.
"You know, sometimes I think that you'd find better work as a cyber hacker," Dizzi joked. "With our brains and technological capabilities combined, we could take over any system that we wanted."
"I might be smart, but I'm not an evil genius like a certain bit-beast in a computer," Kenny replied, chuckling.
Dizzi continued to work in silence for a while until she had encountered something. "Ooh... this doesn't feel good..."
"What's wrong?" Kenny asked.
"I've found what was behind the code, but it's blocked by a very intense energy signature, not to mention untraceable," Dizzi said.
"Do you have any images of it?"
"Well, it looks like a computer chip of some sorts, but it's been somehow injected into their brains." Dizzi then remained silent for a few seconds. "Oh no..."
"Oh no?" Kenny said, worried. "That's never good. What is it?"
"The chips are attached to the part of the brain that controls their emotions. Boris or whoever is behind this is directly tapping into their neural network and forcing them to do pretty much whatever they please."
"Like in the battles!" Kenny said. "They weren't saying that on purpose!"
"And what's the betting that those sudden headaches weren't natural?" Dizzi proposed.
"Like a shock collar for the brain..." Kenny said. "Man, that is messed up."
"Do you think that we should tell the others?" Dizzi asked.
Kenny nodded. "Yeah. It'd be best to get to them now."
The bespectacled computer geek then closed down his laptop to carry it easier and made his way to the door when it suddenly opened before him, and two cloaked figures appeared. Kenny quickly saw that one had primarily black hair with a red stripe in the middle, as well as deep green eyes, whereas the other also had the same coloured eyes, but was bulkier and had blonde hair under a grey do-rag.
"So Tyson really did see you back in that alleyway..." Kenny said.
Ozuma simply smiled before turning to Dunga, who grinned and cracked his knuckles before landing a punch flush on Kenny's jaw, knocking him out cold before picking him up and quickly hoisting him on his shoulder as Ozuma picked the laptop up, concealing it in his cloak as the two Saint Shields members turned to exit the room, Ozuma reaching to his ear to press the earpiece in there.
"Boris, we have found the hacker," he said.
"Ah, good. Return to the base with him. I want to wait until her gets here to see who you caught for me."
"Understood." Ozuma then clicked his earpiece off before turning to Dunga. "Let's get out of here before the others get back."
The larger blader nodded, and the two made a quick dash to a far away staircase, being careful with their cargo as they soon made it to the bottom and out the back entrance of the hotel, thankful that there were no staff there to manage it this late at night.
The two soon found themselves in the parking lot where a large black van had pulled up, and the two bladers walked around to the back of it, Dunga throwing Kenny in there and quickly tying his hands up, choosing to stay in the back seat as Ozuma walked around to the front to sit in the passenger seat, the van driving away into the dark night.
So, there's another one for all you lovely folks! I know that this was a shorter one, but it's more of a tipping point chapter, I feel. Also, with it being shorter, I would have gotten it done a lot sooner had my laptop not decided to start giving me unnecessary updates, but I pretty much rolled with it and everything seems fine for the time being. I'll see you all in the next one, whenever that may be.