One Kick Girl — Chapter 89: "The Toaster Catastrophe Protocol"
The elevator doors opened to HQ.
The moment Raon, Shion, and the team stepped out—
BEEP-BEEP-BEEP—🔥 ALERT: NETWORK CRISIS—🔥
Every screen in the building flashed red.
Sirens wailed like possessed microwave ovens.
Someone was crying in the distance.
Shion inhaled sharply.
"Okay… maybe the toaster thing wasn't as small as we thought."
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1. The Router Autopsy
The remains of the router were placed on a metal table.
Burnt plastic. Melted chips. A faint smell of despair.
A forensic IT specialist in a hazmat suit poked the remains with tweezers.
"Diagnosis," he said solemnly.
"Someone tried to apply culinary techniques to a telecommunications device."
All eyes turned to Raon.
She raised her hands. "I didn't cook it. I toasted it."
Yuno blinked. "…that's still cooking."
"No. Cooking is heating food." Raon pointed at the router. "That is a rebellious box of internet."
Manager Kimchi pinched the bridge of his nose. "Raon, that router was synced to the HQ uplink. Its death triggered a firewall meltdown. A meltdown that just started a chain of protocol fails—"
The entire building flickered and rebooted.
A voice boomed from the intercom:
> [CRITICAL] — INTERNET INTEGRITY AT 0% — INITIATING PLAN: TOASTER CATACLYSM
Shion froze. "…we have a plan named after this?"
Manager Kimchi looked away.
"Only theoretical."
---
2. The Origin of The Protocol
They rushed into the conference room.
The holographic projector flickered to life, displaying a terrifying manual:
🚨 T.C.P — THE TOASTER CATASTROPHE PROTOCOL 🚨
REVISION 2 — after the 2019 Microwave Modem Disaster
Shion remembered lectures. She thought they were satire.
They were not.
The holo flipped pages rapidly as Yuno read aloud:
> If any intern, fighter, or Raon-like entity inserts network hardware into a heat-based kitchen appliance… Execute evacuation. Initiate data euthanasia. Seal all servers below basement level.
Raon raised a hand. "Why do I get my own category?"
Shion exhaled. "Because this isn't the first time you've—"
"THAT WAS AN AIR FRYER INCIDENT," Raon snapped.
Synthra Byte muttered, "People died, Raon."
"Only emotionally!"
---
3. The Firewall Beast
A warning siren triggered again.
The monitors showed the internal HQ network—twisted, glitching. Data streams spiraled like snakes.
Then something crawled out of the core server cluster.
A spectral thing made of firewall error messages and corrupted packets.
A glitching mass of code and sparks.
It screeched:
> ERROR 404: YOUR SANITY WAS NOT FOUND
Shion whispered, "Dear god… it's an Error Phantom."
Yuno began sweating bullets.
Manager Kimchi fainted instantly.
Synthra Byte screamed, "THEY ONLY SPAWN WHEN SOMEONE BRUTALLY MURDERS A ROUTER!"
Raon stepped forward.
The Phantom swelled like a storm cloud, emitting lag worthy of Beatmare herself.
Its body pulsed:
"DNS TIMED OUT"
"FILE SYSTEM UNMOUNTED"
"YOU WATCHED 2 HOURS OF YOUTUBE WITHOUT ADS"
Shion gasped. "…That last one isn't an error."
"That's just bragging," Yuno whispered.
The Error Phantom lunged—
Raon moved.
---
4. Kick vs. Catastrophe
A single step.
A single breath.
Her heel sliced the air.
BOOM—
The blow landed, crashing into digital flesh.
The creature shrieked, glitching violently, then split into thousands of error popups.
Every screen in HQ went:
"WOULD YOU LIKE TO REPORT THIS CRASH?"
"SEND ERROR DATA TO MICROSOFT?"
"INSTALL NORTON SECURITY TRIAL?"
Raon roared, "I WILL NEVER INSTALL NORTON!"
She spun—
A second kick cut through the popups like scythes through wheat.
The Error Phantom exploded into a blinding cascade of 144p pixels.
Everything fell quiet.
---
5. Post-Apocalypse Debrief
HQ rebooted.
Lights flickered back to normal.
Shion sighed so hard her soul nearly left her body.
Synthra Byte sat down, trembling.
"We were THIS CLOSE to being stuck in perpetual Wi-Fi authentication loops…"
Yuno Pulse wrapped her arm around her.
"We survived. Together."
Manager Kimchi woke from the floor, rubbed his head, and said the four words that haunted every season of their lives:
"…we need a meeting."
Raon slung her jacket over her shoulder.
"Next time? We just get fiber."
Shion turned to her.
"Or… hear me out… we don't cook the router—"
Raon cut her off.
"It had trust issues, Shion."
---
6. Epilogue: The Real Villain
In the depths of the HQ server basement…
A single corrupted LED blinked.
A soft digital whisper echoed through the cables:
> PHASE ONE COMPLETE.
INITIATING… BUFFER KING.
Somewhere above, Raon sneezed.
"Someone's talking crap about me."
---
End of Chapter 89