"We'd better get a change of clothes, since someone- huh? Where'd she go?" Zeno spoke.
He saw Atari managed to run to the stream nearby and was happily kicking, stomping and splashing around.
"Get out of there before you catch a cold!" Zeno hollered.
"How can you catch a temperature? Especially when your body maintains its own?" Copen pondered.
However, Copen's words didn't even fall upon any ears as Zeno was already at the stream. Atari noticed him so she grinned and waved. Zeno walked towards Atari, the water reached his shoe soles.
"I know you're having fun Lily, but we need ta go home, take showers, change, eat, sleep and come back tomorrow." Zeno rambled.
Atari splashed water with her hands and managed to drench Zeno from head to toe. Gunvolt was snickering but trying to prevnt Zeno from hearing while Copen was a little concerned if Atari would be exempt from the rest of the mission. If that were to be the case, Moniqa would stay at Zeno's house with Atari.
"So, that's how you want to do it then? Fine, whoever surrenders first will have to listen to the winner. So, if I win, we go home. If you win, you get five whole minutes of uninterrupted playtime. Does that sound good?" Zeno notified.
Atari happily nodded.
"On your marks, get set, splash!" Lola hollered.
Atari tried to throw some water at Zeno but he dodged it. Atari got mad, but she got an idea even quicker. She went to kick and splash, but fell on her rear. Deciding on a different approach, Atari ran to the right, this time slipping and falling forward.
"How do you slip and fall in sneakers in water that shallow?" Zeno queried.
But when Atari began sniffling, he went from feeling victorius to sad at the snap of a finger.
"Uh oh." Gunvolt whispered.
Zeno ran to Atari and helped her to sit on a rock on the other side of the stream, his left arm around her shoulders. She was breathing alright, no water got into her lungs. Though she got pretty badly scraped on her right knee and it appeared it would start to bleed soon. So, everyone went home, took a shower, changed into their clothes for tomorrow and ate.
Gunvolt talked and ate in the kitchen with Joule, Copen ate with Mytyl as Lola sat in her bedroom as well, the two telling the miniature Muse of what they saw in the Grave Pillar so far while Zeno and Atari ate on the sofa watching Mega Man. Zeno rubbed the scrape clean with hydrogen peroxide and isopropyl alcohol for good measure which caused Atari to whimper. He held her left hand in his left hand while he used his right hand to wipe off the liquid and some blood. Antibiotic ointment was applied before a 4x4 gauze was put down and some black cohesive bandage wrapped around Atari's knee to keep the gauze in place.
Zeno and Atari had the last two pieces of tiramisu for dessert. Everyone felll asleep soundly that night. The next morning, Atari was wishing she could go back to sleep as Zeno was giving her a lecture.
"And no more running off exploring without me or my permission." Zeno ordered as Atari sat glumly on the front steps while Zeno locked the door on the right of her.
The team entered at the passage to the upper stratum together when Copen and Lola came.
"Yikes, talk about a pitfall. Definitely don't wanna fall down there." Zeno remarked as he looked down to see a black, botomless pit.
They encountered a mech similar in appearance to a gear in silver with green on either side to hold the gear in place and an 'eye' on each side. Robotic gunmen with axes instead of guns. Those were a common sight along with drones with round shields on the sides. It shot a laser which took a few seconds to charge. Which helped to dodge the laser. Many pits were seen. Atari was almost constantly either falling into the pits, forcing Zeno to grab her by the back collar of her shirt or staring through the glass at the purple/magenta color clouds.
"Lily, I can see the glass through the monitor and I know the sight is surreal but you need to focus on the mission right now." Moniqa advised.
A little ways through the building, the beam reached an area that led up, about the size of a big stairwell. That unfortunately began filling up with a purple ooze as soon as they all entered.
"Whatever that is can't be good, we'd better hurry." Copen theorized.
When they reached the hall before the enemy, everyone was worried if the security would only get tougher from there. there was green security robots with axes. Atari said she liked the "spinny trick".
"Yeah, of death." Zeno retorted.
There were spheres with orange hexagonal plates that would rise up and the green underneath would turn red before the ball created a void and ceased to exist. Another enemy they knew would be semi-common was a variant of the Cyclops M known as Cyclops D. It was red, could propel itself forward and had a drill instead of a rocket launcher. A green robot hovered in the air, moing left to right before opening a hatch door to drop rockets on its target.
"There's an elevator up ahead, it'll take us to the next area and the other Gravekeepers. Hopefully we can get the full password to reach the Mother Computer's room." Copen informed.
However, an enemy suddenly appeared, wearing similar apparel to what Copen wore in his first fight with Zonda. But this mysterious opponent was wearing a red cape that started at the waist and ended, tattered, at his ankles. His face was covered by a mask-like visor that left his red-tipped hair exposed, his gauntlets featured clawed fingers, and his boots had sharp upward protrusions around each foot.
He also had a shield like Copen's, however, the bottom right part of the emblem wouldn't light up. The bottom of the shield was clearly worse for wear.
"B-boss? Is it just me, or does this guy look an awful lot like you?" Lola wondered.
"I'll eliminate you, then I'll be superior." The android rambled.
"What are you...?" Copen questioned.
"I am Ypsilon, defender of the elevator and Mother. I shall not let you pass!" Ypsilon announced.
Gunvolt, Copen and Zeno tagged and damaged Ypsilon while Atari distracted him by slashing him with her tessin fan. Ypsilon charged forward and slashed the air, causing a crimson to maroon wave of energy to wavily be emitted. When Gunvolt went to retag Ypsilon, he dashed forward and knocked Gunvolt on his knees. Seeing an opportunity, Copen Bullit Dashed into Ypsilon.
He startled the android, who could only stand in shock. Smart Bullits were a smart decision since they quickly helped initiate Ypsilon's second battle gauge. Ypsilon 'threw' his shield down so the shield was point down on the ground. Ypsilon released five wind orbs like the ones Vespa attacked with in a semisphere formation around him.
Ypsilon flipped in the air and tried to take out Zeno by surrounding himself with flame in the air and landing. Ypsilon charge attacked again before fire flipping twice, charge attacking once and fire flipping again. Zeno, Gunvolt and Copen retagged Ypsilon who fire flipped then charge attacked. Ypsilon used another wind orb attack before his final battle gauge was initiated.
Ypsilon used his Blazing Tempest special attack. Using a green whirlwind on the center of the field. Before throwing a ball of fire into the whirlwind. the whirlwind was spewing fireballs up and down and left and right. After the whirlwind died down, Ypsilon did a Bullit removing backflip.
He dashed forward and damaged the tagging trio. At this point, Atari was just spectating. Ypsilon used the wind orb atack twice before dashing forward, followed by another Bullit removing backflip to the right. A final wind orb attack was used as Ypsilon was defeated.
"That was unexpected, we should go before anything else comes." Copen spoke.
Everyone retrieved the energy bars and brought them to the second break room. Everyone ate and slept soundly with the second couch being moved uspstairs, revealing to be a futon couch. Zeno and Atari used one couch while Gunvolt and Copen used another. Both of them were far too exhausted to argue.