Breach

'This is a bigger clump of mess than I first imagined.' Both of them scale down the wall, the rough texture grazing a bit of K4's hands slowly as the tearing causes her to wince in slight pain.

Her eyes wander towards the blasted hole she made with the railgun; the hole itself started to get replaced with metal and flesh like a living regeneration.

"Hino, this thing can regenerate; let's reroute back." Hino nods in affirmation, and K4 looks at the SUV parked underneath them. She impacts on the floor tightly and gets Hino off of her; the metal sheet embraces her feet as she gets a sense of grounding.

Quickly rushing into the SUV again, the engine fires on, and the pedal gets slammed. "Tie yourself in already." K4 looks back, seeing Hino hasn't put on his seatbelt; the car rushes forward away from the meatball approaching towards the city centre at a slow pace.

"I will try to contact Lucy." She starts tapping the earpiece hoping for a way to translate information; her eventual tapping gives a connection to Lucy, who is in the control room.

Having her words planned, she starts to blurt out, "That meatball can regenerate. I need a source of power that could boost my railgun." The car drives towards the city centre, the metal sheet having the reflection of the sun bouncing its sun rays.

Lucy in the control room starts to think about the various buildings. "I can only think of the communications tower since it's where we produce most of our power. Can you get there?" K4 turns back, noticing the various metal robots chasing the car at an alarming rate.

"Soon, maybe a bit late." Her voice was full of mystery and unconfident tones.

Lucy gives a slight palm to herself, giving out an order to the control room: "I need a helicopter to provide support for the SUV on the metal sheet." Her orders immediately reroute one of the helicopters away from the wall positions towards K4 and Hino in the SUV, hoping they can deal with their issues.

The helicopter in the distance starts to get closer and closer; the sound of rotors and the wind being swayed overpowers the sound of the engine. In the next moment, white smoke starts coming out of the helicopter's sides.

There in the sky were two missiles launched at rapid speed; the air was penetrated with the speed of the missiles heading for the robotic messes behind them. The SUV instantly started to get pulled side to side from the impact of the missiles, the explosion causing Hino to lose all sense of sound.

"That was rather effective..." K4 starts talking back to Lucy in the control room while continuing to slam down the pedal once the car gets back stable.

Lucy laughs behind the earpiece. "I only give good surprises." Her voice dies down after a short moment as K4 starts to approach the city centre; the traffic has all been gone at this stage due to the evacuation into the underground.

The SUV zooms past the roads, making way for the communication tower that has most of the power produced in all of Shilo. Passing the opposite way were various armoured vehicles and tanks trying to set up a defensive barrier before the meatball arrives.

"Take a left and a right; the building is on the right." K4 swings the steering wheel like asked, arriving next to a skyscraper with a huge heading of Shicom Ltd. Without wasting time, both K4 and Hino step out of the car onto the pavement. Hino doesn't follow K4, who has gone inside, but rather guards the door, knowing the impact of the railgun is too dangerous.

K4 looks at the lounge area and at the elevator, which can lead her to the top of the skyscraper. The entire building looked identical to the HQ; having an innovative design as a single company was pointless.

Calling down the elevator, K4 waits for a couple seconds until the metal doors slide open. Instantly clicking the top floor of the skyscraper, K4 starts to feel the ascent of the elevator.

"Minister, what now?" Her question was predicted.

"Connect yourself to the signal tower on top; the power in that is enough to supply the energy for all of Shilo; it should be plenty for you." Having the metal doors slide back open, K4 rushes to the staircase that leads to the top floor; the panelling and the tower surrounded by wires in the middle were not ideal.

'That tower is tall.' The tower stretched upwards of ten metres. Without a choice, K4 jumps up halfway and starts climbing through the windy blow of air. She clings to the metal, slowly climbing up until eventually reaching the top.

Her eyes dart over to the meatball who is nearing the city centre due to the elevator's sweet time. It also seemed that Hino and agents supporting him to protect the building are starting to take on small robotics that have advanced; the bright sun pouring down on her causes her to get a boost in energy.

"Time to do this." K4 brings up her right hand, the railgun barrel positioning itself towards the metaball that approaches, making sure it's a headlock, while the left hand, on the other hand, grabs itself to the signal tower, allowing the transfer of energy to enter her.

"It's been quite some time..." A child’s voice enters her head; quickly looking around to spot nothing, she was on top of a skyscraper after all. Where could something come from?

K4 turns her head up, making sure not to move her body. "You always have a weird way of showing yourself," her lens stares upon the fiery yellowed child, the robes flowing down K4's body.

"You won't beat that thing without me! I made sure of it." Her words struck a nerve.

K4 looks at the meatball. "This should evaporate its entire body, so don't worry about it." She positions her railgun at the centre of the floating meatball, which nears the centre.

Pandemonium laughs on top of her head, "Do you even know where its core is? I made sure to hide it well."

'The core? You can't tell me that... The core is located out of the body; that's not possible.' Her lens darts around the metal sheet of Shilo, noticing nothing unusual.

"Hm, Figured it out yet? I'm guessing you haven't with that expression of yours!" Her quiet laughing gave a sense of annoyance to K4.

Turning back up, K4 asks, "Why don't you help me so?"

"Not without a price; you sure could've expected that much."

"I did..." K4 waits for the terms.

Pandemonium's tone changes to more of a serious attitude. "I want to become a part of you and have access to you. I won't use your body, and I won't alter anything; I just want to be there and talk to you anytime I want." The demands were irregular.

The meatball floats near the city's centre; it becomes slower, like pandemonium, sending a message to K4 that it could destroy the city like a piece of cake being cut into pieces.

"Is that the whole deal?"

"Yes, it is," Pandemonium gives a firm teasing smile down towards K4.

K4 looks around, scanning the city; it seemed pretty much still intact compared to some varied destruction of skyscrapers from the small robots at the bottom. Lucy and Hino seem to be doing a good job at defending the city.

'I won't win. That's true; that self-replicating core is an issue I can't avoid.' She starts trying to imagine a way to defeat and find the core.

She gives a grim smile; her decision was set in stone from the very beginning, another game lost towards her goals. "I accept your offer on an extra condition."

"What is it?" those wide yellow eyes start to widen even further at the surprising condition.

K4 gives a subtle smirk. "Whoever breaks the deal dies, and you may only show up for a maximum of ten minutes a day."

"Deal." Without a single moment of hesitation, Pandemonium agrees to the new terms placed by K4.

K4 having her electricity powered beyond the usual, her railgun is set at a 1000% output, having combined all the energy of the city; this was her final attempt to save the city of Shilo.