Hunting

"Miss K4, there has been a slight intrusion upon our fixing." The mechanic starts to look down on her with a rather embarrassed expression.

K4 takes a look at the metal bat, her eyes cold as ice, her expression still as water; it was daunting to deal with a situation like this, especially with her not even being fully fixed yet. "Stop forcing this bat, human."

The bat doesn't move at all.

K4, with her limited mobility, starts to force the metal bat back up. "Impossible!" It seemed the voice of an older female that was behind the metal bat; despite it, the metal bat definitely had an intent to kill, no matter how damaged K4 was; a human's strength is no challenge to her.

"Hey, could you restrain her for me? I can't really move..." K4, looking at the mechanic, gives her a jolt. She instantly starts with the other mechanics restraining the killer; she roars around trying to get them to stop, but no matter what she says, she is quickly apprehended.

K4 turns her head towards the right, looking at the perpetrator, "Lucy, nice to see you again!"

"You robots never should've come here, not you or that boy who betrayed me." Her voice was filled with anger and hatred; it was annoying for sure.

K4's face lightens slightly. "Hino betrayed you? You must've really done something bad to him then." Her voice was smirky despite how monotone it was.

On the other hand, Hino bursts through the door, his eyes glaring down onto Lucy, who was being held by multiple people. "You witch!" Hino rushes over, ready to land a punch before Jumper holds him back.

"I wouldn't get ahead of myself now..." He lets out a sigh, moving Hino back. He immediately walks over to K4, who lies upon the metal repair bed.

K4, giving a slight glance at him, wanders, "What are you doing here, Jumper? Thought you had it good for yourself." Her shock was warranted.

"Your buddy needs some help clearing out Shilo of these corrupting worms. We care about our safety as well, so we're here to gear up." His eyes widen at K4, who seemed to be rather changed.

K4 chuckles, "I'm rather destroyed; sorry about the state you have to see this in."

"No, not that. Why is your left lens a very light yellow? Thought you had dark green lenses all this time."

K4 sighs. "I did. I'm guessing the mechanics gave me a replacement."

The girl mechanic turns around from Lucy for a second. "We didn't actually; it just changed recently for no reason."

"When did it change?" K4 gave a stern look towards her.

The mechanic twists her head up. "Around twenty minutes ago."

'Twenty minutes ago – that's rather perfectly planned. System, are you around?' K4 enters her mindspace for a split second.

[Yes, it was twenty minutes ago.]

Leaving her mind space instantly, K4 gives a stern order to Hino: "Go gear up. I heard they developed an anti-mechanical worm weapon. It was simple to use as well."

Hino gives a slight nod, leaving for the researchers who were working on the weapons against the mechanical worms.

"What did you all discover?" His voice was commanding and demanding at the same time.

The blonde scientist walks up to Hino. "Where is the minister? We must tell her immediately."

Hino blocks her path. "She tried to kill K4; she is under custody for betraying us. I'm in charge now." The shock hit her; a mere teenager taking charge makes this mission the more unpredictable.

"Right..." She didn't sound convinced.

Moving aside for her, she notices Lucy getting arrested by multiple underground citizens; the truth was indeed the way Hino said it: Lucy is out of business.

Hino nudges her. "Are you convinced now?"

"Yes, understood. We developed a weapon which prevents any possible signal transmission from occurring between the worms."

"How does it work?" Hino sighs, knowing what this means for him.

"Using this radar device, it overwhelms their signal, which is weak but deliberate; it then overpowers and destroys the weaker symbol. For the first step, we have made these devices hand-portable."

The scientist girl runs to her table, gathering a small radar-like device; her eyes shimmer in excitement as she runs over to Hino to show off her creation.

"That radar really is a small thing after all." He looks down, seeing the device; it was purely metal and had a dish at the top of it to transmit a wide signal, hopefully breaking the communications of the mechanical worms.

The girl instantly gets a look full of pride towards Hino. "Yes, it will work for clearing out most of the worms. You will have to destroy them manually, but after that we will make huge radars that can cover the city and get rid of any that are still alive."

"That sounds rather great, actually. Do you have enough for all of us? We made around... twenty. Hino looks back, seeing that there are more than twenty people, actually around thirty, to be more exact.

"Make another ten while we set out. Thank you for this machine you have made for us." Hino walks off, calling over twenty people to go get the radar with him; they immediately head to the table and pick up the radars for themselves while Hino goes to Jumper, who is still with K4.

He gives Jumper a stern and serious gaze. "Stay here and make sure the minister stays captured and K4 is safe. You are the only person I can trust with this task."

Jumper nods, and Hino gives him a smile back. K4, on the other hand, seems to be gone again; the system gave her a power boost which stopped lasting, finally turning her off for the next months until her repairs are ready.

Hino goes to the centre of the room. "Anyone with a radar, you will follow me on a hunting quest. You won't die with this radar with you, so don't break or drop it, or you will die." The twenty people gasp in shock at the danger they could face, starting to chatter among themselves.

A man calls out, "What do these do?"

"They prevent the worms from doing anything, so just stomp them down once you get close; they won't attack you." Hino gives a loud call out to finally start their hunt.

Before they start moving out, Hino remembers a key detail: "Do not touch the bodies of the dead." His warning was definitely worth remembering; the crowd starts to move back out through the secret tunnel, ready to begin their mass eradication.

The darkness of the tunnel added a bit of suspense and tension for the crowd, hoping that these devices might not fail on them the moment they stepped out, Hino, on the other hand, was in charge at the front with a determined mood to end these creatures for all time.

With them reaching the end, the light still shone down; it was around midday, which gave them a solid amount of time to hunt. They all decided to go in groups of two to make sure the signal was definitely overpowering; this split them into the ten groups that all went in different directions.

Hino was with a teenager around his age; she was a bit smaller than him, and she had deep amber eyes that Hino wouldn't dare to stare into. She wore rather basic clothes, and as a citizen of the underground, they didn't have access to any style for fashion like Hino's trenchcoat.

They walk around the centre of Shilo, looking out for any worms that could be around with corrupted bodies. Their eyes stumble upon a group of three corrupted people, standing around ten metres ahead of them; they were all middle-aged men with rather diseased bodies.

"I'm Hino, if you didn't know." His voice was quiet, trying to scare the girl.

She turns to him. "I'm Vila. What do we do now?"

"Just follow my lead; we will kill the worms simply." He gives a slight grin back towards her, giving her a slight boost in confidence.

"I understand!" Both of them start walking towards the corrupted people in front; it was their first time, but it had to be done at some stage.

They both reached out to the radar, and the corrupted people, no matter how ferocious they could be, didn't move at all. The radar seemed to have worked, and their eyes betrayed them with a spark of excitement and relief; this could finally be the end. Over time, the worms fell onto the ground, allowing Vila and Hino to stomp on them.

With their plan working, they continue the hunt with the others for any corrupted they could find, finally ending the Shilo massacre.