(3rd P.O.V.)
"Ruri, what's that?" Yuki asked, looking at the sonar screen, finding nothing.
A live feed from the cockpit of the glider appeared in front of him.
[Alarm system of the first glider. The pressure on it is rising at an alarming speed.]
"Is... is that a giant squid?" Wanda asked, baffled. Despite her work, things like this were still a first even for her. Soon the shock became greater as a giant shark bit the squid in half, taking it to the darkness.
"Yup, and here I thought I saw all that could be seen! That's a freaking MEGALODON!" Wanda screamed excitedly.
"Seriously? You just saw dinosaurs in real life and you're surprised by a little shark?" Yuki's deathly calm voice came from her side.
Turning, about to rebuke him, she stopped mid-sentence, as he was looking at the screen with a serious face. Looking up, she saw the sonar was showing the Meg coming back to the glider.
"This is bad," she murmured. But to their relief, the shark swerved mid-swim, seeing something.
[The rescue sub just broke the fog and scattered some light.] Ruri said, as both Yuki and Wanda let out the breath they were holding.
"How much time we have?" Yuki asked, and a countdown appeared, revealing 2 minutes.
"Take control, I will go there with my suit," Yuki said and was about to slip away, but Wanda stopped him.
"No, you won't," she rebuked. "Are you idiot? Out there with only a suit? Against a Megalodon?"
"Wow, calm down. The suit is just an excuse. Did you forget my Instinct?" Yuki rebuked back with a calm voice.
"Also, a Megalodon is down there, with blood around, and they're about to link hatches," Yuki pointed out the reason.
"Even if you get down there, you know you will be punished for unauthorized ability use, right?" Wanda said.
"What?" Yuki asked confusedly, as it was the first time hearing about all this.
"Sigh, so you don't know?" Wanda massaged her eyebrow. "After you came up with the Awakening System, the Guild came with a new monitoring system to monitor the users, and with it, they forbade any unauthorized use except in extreme cases, missions, or self-defense."
Looking at the baffled Yuki, she said wryly, "You really should follow what's going on around you carefully, or at least follow the after-effects of your invention."
Yuki flinched for a second, as it may be his bad habit lately: every time he comes up with something interesting or useful, he will hand it to his mother and run away.
"Okay, I got it. So, what kind of punishment?" Setting back, he asked.
But before he could get his answer, the screen beeped and showed that the hatch had already linked and they had started to get people out. Along with it, their main screen showed that they were already below the Thermic Fog.
"Oh, boy, that's not good," Yuki said, freaking out. "Ruri, kill all their lights now."
As soon as he said that, 2 signals were already on their way to the two submarines.
"Wanda, take control, take care of the east signal. Ruri, tell them to keep going, leave the rest to us," Not giving Wanda time to react, he left the piloting.
"But…" Wanda was about to say something.
"We have no time, and even without my ability, I can buy them time for at least until their transport and blow the tanks," Yuki stopped her, and picked a unique shotgun and sword from the side after putting on some kind of suit.
"Sigh, I got it. And to be clear, the moment you're in danger, I will abandon everything and come at you," Wanda said in a sigh of defeat. Knowing this kid since he was a toddler, she knew for sure that he won't back down.
'Well, at least with his ability, the worst that can come at worst is he will use it. And I saw nothing,' Wanda thought so to calm herself.
[Ready to open the hatch.] Yuki said from the comms, as he was already on the launching hatch.
[Affirmative.]
Clicking the affirmation switch, Yuki got out. The moment he did, he activated the torpedoes on his back and legs, full throttle to the dark abyss below. His only view was the sonar image and his heightened senses.
Soon he came in front of fully lit subs. "I thought I told you to shut the lights, Ruri?"
[Magnetic interference. I couldn't. I just contacted them with the same purpose.]
Soon the lights died down, but that wasn't enough to stop the advancing targets.
Yuki accelerated, and came in front of the subs. As the shadow came closer, he fiered a shot, but not with traditional ammo.
What fired was a sonic bomb, a compressed high-frequency vibration exploding on contact.
The moment the explosion happened, the shadow revealed itself as a Megalodon, who retreated in fright.
[What about you, Skull?] Seeing the retreating shadow, and no other attack confirmed, he decided to ask about her condition.
[All good! As a matter of fact, this is fun!!] Wanda answered with an excited tone.
[Skull, what are you doing?] Yuki asked, knowing he won't like the answer.
[Nothing much. Playing tag with a Megalodon?] she said like a kid was playing with her neighbor's friend, like it was nothing.
[You!! One scratch on the paint and you're redoing it manually!!] Yuki screamed on the comm.
[Oh, come on, Feather. It's not like I get the chance to play with a Meggy every day! Don't be a joy kill!] she answered.
From an outside perception, it looked like two siblings arguing about their ride, disregarding the condition they are in, and the 'type' of vehicle they were talking about.
(3rd P.O.V.)
Li Ming, the oldest grand Daughter of Mana-1's Founder
"How are things?" running through the open door of the elevator, a girl in her early 20s appeared.
"Li Ming? What are you doing here?" Surprised at her appearance, her grandfather asked, hugging her.
"I asked a friend for a favor. How is Mom doing?" Hugging him back, looking at the screens, noticing the depth of her mother's glider decreasing, she let out a sigh of relief.
Looking around, nodding her head and sitting beside Jaxx after bumping her fist. The latter told her the situation in mutual understanding, after saying that,
"Good to have you back."
"Well, don't get used to it." With a huff, she started to browse with speed most impossible to others.
Soon she closed her eyes, and put her hands against each other.
"Man, no matter how many times I see it, it never gets old," DJ said in excitement.
"What's she doing? Some kind of Chinese technique?" The morris said in confused mockery.
"High Intellectual Potential," meiying said. "My sister is the smartest in the world."
Most of the people in the place knew the girl personally, and those who don't, are educated enough to know the meaning of the H.I.P.
Opening her eyes, she looked at the screen, then after dozens of seconds of keyboard clicking, she stopped to murmur, "Amazing." Then she smirked. "Ruri, right?"
"What's our chance of rescuing all the crew?"
The question confused all the people, but soon the screen lit up and a little girl hologram appeared. The moment she showed up, she puffed her cheeks. [It rose to 95% before you trapped me.]
As soon as she said that, she added with teary eyes, [Why did you close the door? I was just helping. Sniff.]
Li Ming looked baffled before standing along Jaxx. "An emotion-integrated A.I.?"
They looked at each other. With the cute look Ruri had, Li Ming felt bad, and Jaxx gave her a reproachful look.
"What? I only saw an unknown program in your system, so I locked it in the main server. You think I knew a program could be this cute?"
[Now that's rude! I am Ruri, not a program!] Hearing her, they looked at the screen and found her puffing her cheeks in anger, letting out a little cute growl.
Sighing, Li Ming deactivated the locks. Ruri noticed the looks that were off. She nodded before going back to her normal expression with a sigh.
[Since you didn't mean it, I won't tell Papa about it.] With a huff, she disappeared from the main screen, reappearing in front of Jaxx. [You're the one who made the system?] Along with her words, she looked excited.
"Yup. What do you think of it? but I guess not that much since you can go in and out," Jaxx said playfully.
[No, it's amazing, you know! I can do that because I am geared up to do so," Ruri said, letting a list appear in front. [These are some of the things I found you may need to look out for.]**
Reading through the list, Jaxx smiled wryly, as it was the list of all the security breaches possible and how to counter it.
[Also, can I keep coming here? I kind of like it here] Ruri said while linking her fingers and looking down, which made her look cute, and almost human.
"I have no problem, but is your creator okay with it? Also, is it okay to give me this list?" Jaxx asked, passing her shock.
[Nah, he is easy-going enough to laugh after getting a bullet in the face in his sleep. No problem," Ruri said, waving her hand in denial.
"But how is that... You know what, I will stop there," Jason said, going back to looking at the screen with a sigh.
"Yup, I forget about this part," DJ said, nodding.
"What part?" The morries asked.
"Anytime those two gather, things get weird," Mark rebuked. And DJ nodded. "But this time, it takes the crown."
Sadly, he got a keyboard thrown straight to the face.
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