Silya Beeodess

Ducked under part of her jacket, her Demongo nano, Aoi, peeped out to spy on the ever-increasing rain with a sour expression. Maybe it was because he was basically a fire elemental, but he didn't enjoy getting wet, or at least not having anything poured over the flames on his head. It was only drizzling at the moment, but the occasional flash in the distance hinted at something worse coming soon. 

"Let us hurry and get this over with!" he frowned at her, "Sometimes, you pick the worst jobs!"

"I'm sorry I can't control the weather," she snarked back. If she had known that there would be a storm, she would've delayed setting out for at least another day. The Haunted Ridge was one of the worst places to receive any kind of news though. It was isolated, cast in constant darkness with little difference between day and night, and any kind of signal struggled to make it across the nearby mountains.

However, that was also exactly why fixing the satellite was so important to begin with. Fuse and his army had already wrecked a lot of communication networks when he first invaded the planet, so much so that Dexlabs had to make one entirely from scratch. With teams in this region being so scattered throughout the rough wilderness and so many threats lurking within its depths, they needed a fast and reliable way to reach out to each other.

Poppy, who had flown above them for a better look around, finally descended. The Buttercup nano pointed in the direction of the woods ahead. "I think I saw the satellite tower that way, but are you sure you know what you're doing?"

She wasn't confident initially, but the superiors who had asked her to go check it out said they didn't think the issue was anything major. There weren't any fusion monsters in its vicinity capable of damaging it and this storm was the first one that had cropped up in the while. Thanks to her experiences working at Dexlabs, if the problem was something small, she thought she could manage it.

"You could've swapped us out for any of the eggheads," Clutch, her mini Tetramand, said. "They'd have it fixed in a snap!"

And almost none of them were capable of roughing it in the great outdoors for very long. "I need you three to watch my back. There's no telling what we'll run into out here."

They entered the woods on foot, the tightly-packed trees and thick underbrush making it impossible to get to the satellite via hovercar. The tower was around a fifteen-minute walk from the campground. It was an old structure that too had been repurposed when the Fusion Fighters came to the Haunted Ridge, not much taller than the trees themselves. Unfortunately, it also lacked the rope grabs used in modern equipment.

"Spot me." The young woman practically held her breath as she began her careful climb up the tower's ladder. Her teammates stayed close to her side the entire time. Every now and then, she had to pause to brace herself against the wind, which only seemed the worsen the higher she went.

In hindsight, maybe she would've been better off bringing a nano with a rocket or recall power. 

Silya spotted the problem immediately and cringed. The satellite dish had snapped off the top of the tower and was now dangling uselessly by a thick cable, swinging in the wind. She hoped by some miracle that the cable was fine. She could snap the satellite back into position, but she wasn't sure about repairing a torn wire.

Clutch flew over to grab the dish and Poppy helped stabilize it. The damage was somehow worse than the young woman had thought. As the pair brought it to her face, while she noted that the dish was intact, it had a large indention in one side, as if something large had smashed into it. She could probably buff it out, but it would take time and she couldn't promise success. While the rain had washed much of it away, she also noticed... scorch marks?

"What...?" Just as Silya was about to point them out to the others, the nearby trees caught her eye as lightning struck in the distance. Something had crashed through them, tearing apart the canopy before landing deep within the forest.  

Distracted by the damaged dish and the worrying sight, she wasn't prepared when the wind suddenly picked up. A forceful gush pushed her sideways and her fingers slipped from the wet rungs. Clutch and Poppy had their hands full and Aoi wasn't strong enough to brace her weight by himself. The next thing she knew she was airborne. The wind carried her just far enough from the satellite that she couldn't grab back onto it before she fell.

She snapped her eyes shut. Knowing that she'd open them again at the nearest Resurrect 'Em did not make her feel any better.

There was no deadly landing. Silya winced as she fell into something and it was certainly hard enough to bruise, but whatever it was caught her in a cradling position, nesting her safely against its shape. This moment's good fortune, however, did not keep her nanos from panicking any less as they shouted her name.

It took her a second to get over her shock. As she lifted her gaze to tell them she was fine, she came face-to-face with the true source of their terror. Peridot eyes meet electric purple ones as she found herself trapped in the grasp of a humanoid with bolts in his shoulders, metal pillars protruding from his back, and a mean-mug. He towered over her small frame, a giant by any comparison.

She screamed. What she didn't expect was for the behemoth to scream back, dropping her at almost the same instant she tried to scramble out of his hold. She landed on her feet in a clumsy crouch, hurriedly backing away as she tore the pistol off her built. Her nanos dove down to join her side.

"I don't want a fight!" the stranger hurriedly protested, his hands raised in front of him.

Silya held her ground, unsure. The Haunted Ridge was known not only for its dark atmosphere, but for its paranormal phenomena. She wasn't about to blindly trust someone she'd randomly met in the woods.

There wasn't time to talk things out. A low rumble of a growl dragged their attention toward a group of cedars to Silya's left. The woods seemed to come to life, walls of bark shifting in the darkness until multiple red eyes began to appear. There was the clank of metal and a digger claw of a foot stepped out from the shadows.

Cavern Wolves moved toward them—not just the usual two or three hunters, but an entire pack. The young woman cursed under her breath, wondering if their screams earlier may have attracted them. She tried to keep track of where each of the fusion monsters stood as they attempted to circle their prey.

When the last one crept out, she gave her command, "Stun and Gun!"

Her nanos moved in-sync to the ready strategy. Poppy launched her Miss Fire at the pack while Clutch and Aoi simultaneously used Overpower and Demon's Fire on the nearest monsters. Combined with Silya's own firepower, the first wolf was taken down almost immediately.

One of the wolves that hadn't been in-range of the stun attack lunged at the stranger. Due to his size, he was able to hold the monster off, its claws scraping at his protective gauntlets, raw strength against raw strength. Suddenly, the pillars on his back sparked with a purple energy. It coursed through his body, channeled, through his arms, and electrocuted the monster.

There were too many to beat one by one. Silya yellled at him to follow her, "This way!"

She led the retreat back to the campground. They hadn't even made it to the clearing when they heard howling behind them. Ever the predator, the Cavern Wolves would hunt them down like an easy meal. She ordered Poppy to the back to get ready to stun them again and for the others to keep going.

The Alpha Arachnids still hadn't respawned in the area when they made it to the cabins. Silya raced up the steps of the nearest one and pressed her nanocomm over the lock. She heard a click and bludgeoned the old door open with her shoulder.

Poppy appeared at the edge of the tree line, swerving as she flew to avoid the claws and teeth at her back. Only three Cavern Wolves jumped into the clearing after her. Clutch and Aoi swapped out with her with a ready defense, the latter casting flames in a long trail to cut the monsters off where they stood.

"Inside! Now!"

They obeyed: First, the stranger, his large steps almost rattling the porch and they boomed past her, and then her teammates. Silya entered the cabin last, slamming the door shut and reactivating its locks. That should've been enough, but the stranger shoved cabinet in front of the entrance for good measure.

They stood silent for a long moment, hearing the raking of the Cavern Wolves' feet against the porch. Something broke—maybe a railing—and they waited to see if the fusion monsters would try to break in. A large silhouette passed one of the windows and they shuffled toward the center of the room, keeping watch of each other's backs.

Finally, the sounds faded a little and they relaxed. However, once they were able to catch their breath, a new unease fell over them. At the same time, both sides realized they were locked in the cabin together.

...

They kept the lanternlight low. There was a chance that a fusion monster might see it through the windows, attracting them again, and anything too bright seemed to hurt the stranger's eyes, as if they'd grown used to the dark for a lot longer than hers. They sat in the floor, having taken out some of the stashed supplies to relieve a bit of the awkwardness that hung thick in the air. While Silya's nanos took turns drying themselves off with a towel, she set up ration heaters to warm a few MRE packs. The stranger remained quiet.

By now, the storm was on top them. Even if the Cavern Wolves had completely left the area, it wasn't a good idea to go out.

This would be just her luck: Trapped in the middle of a dark forest; in the rain; with a big, creepy, shirtless guy... If it was any consolation—not really—he looked almost as uneasy about the whole situation as she did. Every time he met her eyes, he'd pull them away again, directing them anywhere else in the room as if he were a scolded puppy facing a stern Dobermann. 

Or more like an uncomfortable Dobermann facing a growling Pomeranian...   

Her nanos also seemed at a loss for what to do. Whatever he was, he wasn't human. Maybe he could've been once, because he actually looked like an Underworlder, except he had four fingers on each hand instead of the typical five. His steampunk-like outfit actually seemed to be meshed with his body, with and one of two gauntleted arms appearing scarred or stitched together. The other arm was covered in a black, skintight sleeve. Despite his currently mild demeanor, his body was toned as though he were built for combat. It was hard to know what to make of him.

She figured they might as well start by introducing themselves. "I'm Silya. This is my team, Poppy, Aoi, and Clutch. And you are...?"

"Gorben," he said after a second's hesitation, then he became mute and evasive again. A crash of thunder gave him an excuse to stare out the nearest window.

Right... So, she guessed the two of them would just be sitting here in silence all night, listening for the cries of the Cavern Wolves in case they tried to break in again.

Registering her continued, heavy stare, the stranger flinched and at last began to explain, "I'm a Transylian. When word reached the Anur system about Earth's success against the invasion, a few others and I were told to sneak on-world and try to get into contact with the Plumbers. We didn't think about a blockade though. We crash landed and got separated."

There was a limit to what Silya could take at his word. She didn't know what a Transylian was, but the Anur system had come up in discussion on several of her assignments. She knew that it was one of the few systems that had survived Fuse's invasion a long time ago by keeping the fighting to a stalemate. She also knew that its denizens had allied with Fuse, and that one of its rulers—the alien behind Ghostfreak's DNA sample—was a menace in his own right.

"We're on your side, I swear! Not all of us in Anur bow to Zs'Skayr and I can't think of anyone who'd willingly bow to Fuse! There's still places on our worlds left in ruin from when he attacked us." Reading into her leery expression, Gorben was quick to defend himself. His hands curled into fists in his lap. "But you humans can actually hurt him. No one else has managed to do that."

At least hearing that his people had their own vendetta against the alien goop lord made some kind of sense. Most of the help Earth was receiving from off-world wasn't purely out of charity. There were plenty of civilizations that wanted to take out the intergalactic threat.

Aoi floated close to Silya's ear with a giggle, "I think you're scaring him."

"Shut it," she hushed back. Scaring him? He was easily three heads taller than her and could crush her like a soda can!

Nevertheless, whether it was because of her, his missing companions, or the fusion monsters prowling outside, Gorben was clearly nervous. Since he'd saved her from a bad fall and they could cover for each other if more monsters showed up, she decided to give him a benefit of a doubt.

"There's a Fusion Fighter base not too far from here," she told him, "I can take you there, but I've got to fix that satellite you saw first. And that's going to have to wait until after the storm calms down. Maybe you can survive a lightning bolt, but I'm not sure if I can."

He nodded, relieved.

Good thing I rented a hovercar this time... The vehicle only had one seat, but it was capable of handling heavier loads than most other available rentals, so he could probably ride behind her.

Unexpectedly, the Transylian offered, "Maybe I could help you fix it." He paused awkwardly as she gave him a more curious look, then added, "I've done repairs. I should be able to do it."

After thinking it over for a moment, Silya agreed to let him help. The storm wasn't letting up anytime soon though and she would prefer to be out there, weapon ready, in case they got swarmed again.

Why was he like this though?! Dexter always seemed like the type to consider anything that wasn't an academic pursuit a waste of time. It took weeks before he even remotely loosened up around her and the other research participants—and only because they had roped him into their fun against his will. Now? It was as though he'd been possessed by the ghost of Jungle Jim! 

"Is there some kind of chemical spill in here that we need to worry about?" Amit questioned almost at the same moment a similar idea entered Silya's mind. He followed after her. "Did he breathe in some weird fumes?"

Computress was quick to put both of their imaginations to rest. She met them at the top of the ladder and shook her head. "Please remain calm. Physically, Dexter is fine. This is merely a stress response." 

In contrast to her steady voice, the entire catwalk rattled as Dexter swung himself over to another support railing, making chimp noises as he fled from his subordinates. 

Silya was stressed just from watching him. While their employer might not have been the stereotypical geek incapable of doing a single push-up, he wasn't a top-tier athlete either. If they didn't find a way to settle him down, there was a good chance he could hurt himself.

"How much stress do you gotta be under to turn into that?" Amit pressed further, "It's like his brain's completely shut off!" 

The young woman scrambled to come up with any ideas. After half a minute, she turned to her Eduardo nano, "Beni, Papas Fritas! Quick!"

"How are french fries supposed to help?"

"We have to try something!"

They didn't have any of the imaginary food on hand. It would take a little time for Beni to make them. He flew off into an isolated corner to get started while the two research participants rushed over to help pull Dexter to safety. Dexter jumped before either of them could climb around the railing to grab him, somehow landing in a roll atop one of the assembly's conveyer belts and riding it until he reached an automated lift.

There was a tablet lying on a nearby command panel. As he picked it up, his voice pitched in a similar, forebodingly sing-song manner as his sister's, "Ooo~! What does this button do~?"

It disengaged the lock mechanism on a crane holding up a tank barrel. A Dexbot standing beneath it whirled out of the way as it fell to the ground with a booming clang. Even though he was cause of it, the noise seemed to startle Dexter like a wild animal. He bounced off the lift and began to tumble across the assembly lines.  

Amit and Silya climbed over the railing to pursue him. As they landed on the moving platforms, Amit spun at the hip to yell at the others, "Turn off the belts!"

They fought to catch themselves as everything jerked to a sudden halt. Halfway across the large room, Dexter lost his own balance. He fumbled for a moment before giving in to gravity, hurling his body toward a metal chain. He grabbed it mid-fall and resumed swinging around like a simian once more. 

One of the scientists hurriedly took control of the crank the chain was connected to. He tried to carefully lower it toward the floor while Amit and Silya closed in. They were just over three meters away from Dexter when he abruptly took off again, this time heading straight for the open vent that the research participants had entered from.    

Silya grimaced. If they lost him in the vent system, there was no telling where in Dexlabs he'd end up or how much trouble he'd cause. Worse, there was no way that Dexter would ever live it down if his addle minded outburst became public news. She could practically see the headlines already: Fusion Fighter or Fool? Army's Leader Makes a Monkey Out of Himself.

Amit dove past her, charging at their boss at full speed with a loud shout. He football tackled him from behind, dropping Dexter to the floor right before he could escape. Those nearby ran over to help Amit keep him down. 

Silya made it over almost at the same time that Beni did. He'd bundled the fries in a crumbled piece of paper. Dexter was still acting wild, making the nanos too nervous to approach. Silya grabbed a couple of the fries and quickly shoved them path her boss' teeth.

Dexter briefly froze. It seemed to take him a few seconds to register the taste before he erupted into motion again, reaching for the rest. Beni dropped the fries in the inventors' lap and he immediately started shoveling them down.

One of the scientists jogged away for a moment only to return with a can of herbal tea. He passed it over to their employer to give him something to wash the fries down with. The group was relieved to see Dexter slowly relax at he ate, unable to believe that the snack really worked. 

When Amit gave her a questioning look, Silya could only shrug in answer. Brainfood...

By the time some awareness finally came back to Dexter's eyes, Computress had fetched his sweater and lab coat. He was so embarrassed by what had happened that his face turned almost as red as his hair. The group gave him another few minutes to compose himself, the Dexbots and scientists gradually returning to their tasks while Silya and Amit remained by his side. Dexter wouldn't look at either of them, hiding his face with one hand and clutching the can of tea in the other.

Amit sat on the floor beside him. He took a deep breath, averting his gaze as he debated what to say. He was about to show off his nanocomm—likely to tease Dexter about the photo he took earlier—when Silya motioned for him not to with a swiping gesture at her throat.

Revealing that he had evidence would probably just make things worse... 

Amit relented, but still said, "You know, you really owe us an explanation after giving everyone the runaround."

Dexter just shot him a look.

"Since the time travel incident, Dexter has experienced fatigue, frequent headaches, increased irritability, and muscle tension." Finishing her announcement that the lockdown was now lifted, Computress hovered over to their side. Her creator opened his mouth to protest, but she continued, "Symptoms elevated upon Fuse's invasion, then temporarily lowered following the jumpstart of the Nano Project. I believe spending so much time on his recent experiments with the Spinal-ARCH is what elevated them again. I have warned him about the necessity of rest. My advice was ignored."

"Computress!" Dexter turned even redder in the face than before, if that was even possible.

Sitting on the opposite side from Amit, Silya cupped her chin as she rested her elbow against her knee. Well, it made sense. There was no telling how much hot water Dexlabs had been in following their disappearances, and then Dexter was made the key figure for the war effort. And for all of the Nano Project's success, there was still a lot to manage. If the work didn't stress Dexter out, the heavy expectations everyone probably did.

"Come on, Poindexter..." Amit smirked, lightly hitting him in the arm, "I mean, that's the kind of thing us labrats are here for, right? To help you work out all of the kinks before launch day."

Silya felt Beni sit down on her shoulder. By the time she turned her gaze back to Dexter, she nearly missed the searching look in his eyes that he tried to hide. She gave him a reassuring grin of her own, nodding to Amit's words.

"I mean, I'll take my check either way, but you might as well let us do our jobs."

If Dexter caught the joke, he didn't laugh. Nevertheless, after a moment's hesitation, he nodded back.    

END OF TRANSMISSION

It was just the two of them in there until a familiar face entered. Amit, a fellow research participant, smiled at her as he stepped through the door. Although they saw each other far less often than before due to their separate roles in the Fusion Fighters, they still maintained a close friendship. "Here for an appointment too?"

Silya nodded, then asked, "Where's your team?"

“Already with the scientists. When did you get here?”

"Probably around an hour ago." She checked the time on her nanocomm. Beni's check-up likely wrapped up so quickly thanks to his more agreeable nature and limited powers. He acted as both a medic and cook for her team, so there was little need to test his combat ability. The others would take a while longer still, but she wasn't sure when they'd be finished since it all depended on how many tests the scientists wanted to conduct.

Amit quietly calculated the time in his own head. After a moment, he suggested, "Do you want to take a walk? I heard the bots outside have some new jetbike rentals. Or we could grab something from the convenience store down the block."

Silya cast a sidelong glance at Beni, reluctant. Although someone would let her know via comm when her other two nanos' tests were done, it was better if she didn't go too far. Somewhere within the facility's grounds would be fine, but she was also hesitant to drag Beni with them or leave him by himself. He could get nervous around strangers, so if somebody else walked into the room while she wasn't there, she wasn't sure how he'd handle it.

"Maybe just a quick circle around the labs," she compromised. Amit agreed, offering to hold the door open for her as they began to walk out.

Before they could leave, however, Silya heard the rustle of papers behind her. She looked back a second time to find Beni gathering his drawings into his arms in a messy pile.

She raised a brow, "Do you want to come with us?"

He nodded rapidly.

With a faint smile, she momentarily turned back to help him tuck the papers away. Beni's own grin widened and he muttered as he floated close to her head, "Gracias."

Despite this, he kept himself a few steps behind them as they moved. The young woman couldn't help but partly blame herself for the distance. Since he didn't play as heavy a role as some of the others did on the team, Beni was often sidelined—especially when they were stuck in the Future. While her Buttercup, Numbuh Two, and Eddy nanos regularly had fought alongside her on missions, Beni stayed at ration depos where his skills were best utilized. It had been the most logical strategy at the time, but it meant that he got used to being alone. Now that they were back in the past, growing their team and taking on a wider variety of assignments, maybe he could be more involved. 

Trying not to exclude him, Amit voiced over his shoulder, "It's been a while since I've had your fries. I've been missing them. Do you still make them?"

His grin growing wider, Beni nodded a second time. Along with the imaginary food he could create for healing, back in the Future, he'd gotten pretty good at throwing together a meal despite the limited resources everyone had. He experimented with more recipes now, but fries were his specialty.

Eventually, they reached a long observation window revealing one of the more public labs. On a normal day, this area would've been open for tours. Today, this specific part of the facility was being used for some of the nanos' tests. A group of Dexbots and scientists guided them through multiple, simple fitness exercises without the use of their powers. Silya and Amit tried to find their own teammates among them, but they must've been with another group.

"Looks like they scheduled a lot of people for today."

"Can you blame them? The research team was practically drooling when we brought those blueprints." The young woman didn't envy the scientists' jobs one bit. Earth's survival hinged on the Nano Project's success and imaginary energy wasn't the easiest subject of study. They'd been working nonstop ever since the Dexlabs' labrats returned from their jump through time.

"Still, it kinda makes me feel bad that we're the only ones getting a break," Amit countered with a knowing twinge of a smirk. 

"What break?"

Silya was about to quip at him a little more when an alarm cut her off, nearly making the trio jump out of their skin. Beni squeezed himself against his IE Donor's back to hide. It wasn't the first time they'd heard Dexlab's emergency system—it had actually gone off an egregious number of times since their employments—but it had been a while and it was the first time they'd heard it since joining the Fusion Fighters. The flashing alarm lights and the sound of mechanical locks clicking underneath the blaring sirens as the facility shut down weren't as easy for them to shrug off as the result of a bot gone haywire or DeeDee breaking in.

"Facility on lockdown. Repeat. Facility on lockdown," Computress' voice filtered through an intercom, "All visitors, please follow the instructions of nearby personnel. All personnel near Assembly, please secure doors and remain where you are."

Assembly. That was one of the newer sections of Dexlabs, brought about for the mass production of machines and weaponry following the initial days of Fuse's invasion. At first, Dexlabs' scientists and engineers made a lot more robots and tanks to combat the toxic army of fusion monsters. That had backfired spectacularly, but the automated lines were kept active; fashioning equipment and smaller vehicles for individual soldiers. It was still an integral resource. 

Had a fusion snuck in to sabotage the lines? Were they being attacked?

Either way, Silya and Amit rushed toward Assembly. All Dexlabs staff was familiar with the various tunnels, tubes, and passages that connected each section of the facility. Thanks to their experiences crawling around shuttered and dilapidated buildings in the Future, anywhere they didn't get through with their clearance or thanks to the locked doors, they snuck around using the vents. Nothing, however, could've prepared either of the two fusion fighters for the sight that awaited them when they reached the area.

It was chaos, but not thanks to any monster that had managed to sneak inside the building. It was their boss, Dexter. Their ever articulate, ever stiff and straitlaced leader was swinging from the railings of one of the assembly line catwalks as if it was a series of monkey bars—howling like a wildman with his glasses miraculously hanging onto his face, if barely. His pristine labcoat and shirt were gone. He was missing a shoe. Several meters beneath him, a small crowd of Dexbots had stretched out a tarp to try to catch him if they fell. Meanwhile, a few scientists standing on the catwalk did everything in their power to try to beckon their employer onto the safety of the platform without success.

Silya and Amit absorbed the scene for a minute. Then, Amit raised up his wrist, pressed a few buttons on his nanocomm, and took a quick picture.