“What?! The hideout!” I shouted, looking at Shock over Nōne's shoulder.

“No, no, no, I am not letting this happen,” she faltered, wide-eyed with a hand on her forehead.

“You'd best be fast,” Nōne sassed us.

“C'mon, Shock!” I started running back the way we came, paying no attention to the edgy TV-head.

She wasted no time following me. “Go, GO!!”

I didn't care if Nōne was following us or not. Shock and I bolted through the door and into the long chamber of robot pods.

A few steps in, I stumbled over the corpse of a long-deceased robot, just barely saving my footing with another quick step.

Once we traversed the room and ducked through the broken doorway to the narrow hallway, the sunlight from outside was finally in view.

“Xaita!” I screamed, recording my line as I swung around the hole in the ship's hull. “XAITA!!”

“Heyo, back so soon?” She was standing only a few feet from the entrance. “What's the hurry?”

“We need to get back to the city NOW!” Shock yelled, already running towards Xaita's vehicle.

“Whoa, whoa! What's going on? A... okay, let me pack this here up and–”

“NOW! There is NO time, Xaita!” I'd never heard Shock shout so loud before.

“My goodness, miss, quit yelling at me! Fine! We'll go!” Xaita angrily dropped the piece of metal she was holding and stomped towards the desert behemoth.

“Look, I'm sorry, Xaita, I'm sorry,” Shock spoke in a much more polite voice, slowing down for a brief moment to face Xaita. “Our friends might be hurt! They might be dead, for all I know! We really need to get back!”

“I'm coming, I'm coming!” Xaita grumbled.

I ran beside Xaita as she trudged through the sand. “We just got word that there was an explosion at our home, and one of our friends sent out a distress signal from there!” I tried to remain calm as I explained our situation.

“It's gonna be about half an hour before we're back in the city. Er... I can go a bit faster, see if I can shave off a few minutes on the flat stretches, but that's the best I can do!”

“Good, y-yes, that's good,” I stammered. “I'm so sorry for such short notice; in a perfect world, we'd explore this thing all day, but...”

“I hear ye.”

By the time Xaita and I had climbed aboard her vehicle, Shock was already standing inside, looking as skittish as a spider-bot. Xaita hopped upstairs and started the behemoth up without hesitation, and we started wheeling around, heading back to the city.

“Shock, seriously, who the fuck is that guy? How did he get Lacuna to open up like that?” I bellowed over the accelerating engine while sitting down next to her.

“Nōne has some sort of authority over Lacuna. He can make her do whatever he wants. I don't really know any details besides that.” Shock sat down with me.

“And... how do you know so much about Nōne?”

“...I'll tell you later.”

She was being dodgy again. “Shock, we have all the time in the world while we drive back.”

“Look, I'm really frazzled and unfocused right now. I can barely think straight.”

Was she shaking, or was that the vehicle's vibration? Both? Mmm. I let off.

I could tell we were going faster this drive than the last. All of Xaita's trinkets were jiggling around, with monitors clanking about and relics swinging in the air. The bumps in the terrain even bounced me into the air for a split second on occasion.

“Lavil's at the base... he should be good enough to defend it. Like... what could be going on? An explosion?” I wondered.

Shock drew a deep breath. “Maybe it was just... maybe something went wrong with Trivo's repairs and there was an explosion. That would be cause for concern. If that's it, then... this might not be as bad as we think.”

A thought hit me. “Don't you have a way to contact them? Like, a phone?”

“Yeah, a land-line at my office and home. I don't even have a number to contact Lavil with.”

“Damnit...!” Waiting around in a moving vehicle was the last thing I wanted to be doing, wondering if our friends were even alive.

“I'm goin' as quick as my beastie can muster! We'll be there in maybe... 25 minutes!”

“If Tangent is the cause of this, I'm going to flip,” Shock remarked.

“I'm going to flip on him.”

“Fuck.” Shock tilted her head a bit. “I can't wait to kill him. He's a cancer in this city.”

“Got that right,” Xaita and I both chimed in. “About time someone made this place safe again,” Xaita continued. Amen to that.

Aside from small talk, all we could do was wait in our hyper-tense state, sitting in our aura of stress, bracing for the occasional bump in the terrain.

Hypotheticals:

-The Vesky we met betrayed us and killed Lavil and Trivo, but Trivo had just enough time to send out a distress signal through the network.

-The sharky guy from Dukes came after us with his goons, also killing Lavil and Trivo.

-No, wait, maybe it was the news crew...!

-No! It had to have been the people manipulating Lavil and Trivo (which made a scary amount of sense).

-Or, half of the city exploded and everyone's dying.

“What-If Land” was a dangerous place, and I was trapped in it. The closer the city became, the deeper I fell into that mental pit.

We were easily less than a minute away. I could see the big road we first drove off, and–

Xaita was still speeding through the sand at a nerve-racking pace.

I gently put a hand in the air. “H-hey, Xaita, I don't wanna be a backseat driver, but...”

“Don't yap about my driving! I've done emergency stops before!”

A siren-like horn blared from the front of the vehicle – loud enough to put my speakers to shame – signalling anyone in front of us to clear the hell out of the way. We slowed down just a touch, but not nearly enough for me to be comfortable in any regard.

“Xaita! We're going to spank the road at this speed! Christ, slow down!” Shock yelled, her voice wavering a bit.

“Pipe down! I've got it!” Xaita pulled on a big lever in her control booth, presumably, shifting to a lower gear.

Oh boy. We were still going way too fast. I braced for impact, instinctively holding onto Shock's arm.

The base of the road drew closer,

closer,

“Oh my god...!” Shock yelped, shutting her eyes, grabbing hold of my arm as well.

Closer...

I looked away.

Closer...!

WHAM. The front bumper of the behemoth slammed and scraped against the concrete as Xaita's vehicle bounced onto Zynima's main road, bouncing everything in the vehicle around. A few startled and panicked shouts from nearby pedestrians confirmed that everyone in at least a two kilometre radius was now very aware of our presence.

Xaita started slowing our ride down to a much more reasonable pace (a little too late?!).

“Nothin' my rig can't handle!” she declaimed.

“Mhmm... cool... okay,” Shock faltered, sliding her hand down down to mine.

Seconds later, we'd slowed down enough to stand up and get ready to move, allowing Shock a well-needed breath of air.

“Xaita...! Uh, thanks for the ride! I'll pay you back later for all the trouble!” I called our to her, stepping towards the entrance of the behemoth as we slowed to a crawl.

“Appreciate... it,” Shock wheezed.

“Good! Catch ye later!” Xaita waved to us as we charged from the vehicle's front entrance, catching the attention of a few onlookers.

The moment I let go of Shock's hand, she did a total mood flip and ran straight towards the street that'd lead us back to Verdin.

“Go, go!” I called, perhaps unnecessarily, seeing as Shock was already a few paces ahead of me.

“Clear the way! Clear the way!” Shock waved her arms in front of herself. “Emergency!”

Her shouting was sufficient enough to give my speakers a rest.

Although the streets were slightly less crowded than earlier that day, we still had to clear a path through a few citizens to get to Verdin Square. Even though Shock was hauling those huge beams on her back, she still managed to keep ahead of me.

Just two more blocks. Shock repeated her shouts as we ran; once we stepped onto the wider streets surrounding Verdin, we opted to zigzag around any robots that might have been in our way rather than plow through them. I hardly cared about the looks we got.

One more block. I could see the plaza from where we were. The closer we got, the more anxious I grew.

A few dozen paces later, we were there. I couldn't see anything out of the ordinary: no smoke billowing from an exploded building, no dismembered robots littering the street, nothing.

But we didn't stop. Our destination was just one street away.

The side road was completely empty, which did nothing for the sinking feeling I was starting to experience. Shock led the way into the alley of our secret base, and moments later,

“Oh fuck!” she yelled. “Fuck!”

The door to the hideout had been blown wide open.

Shock started crawling through the ruined doorway. “Lavil! Vesky! Are you in here?!”

Just as I began crawling through the remains of the door after Shock, I heard Lavil's voice. “Shock! Ya, I'm here! Where's Aural?”

“I'm right here!” I cried back. “What happened?”

I raced down the stairs, three steps at a time.

The main room had been destroyed. The desks, seats, and computers were tossed around, and huge, broken crates and sheets of metal were scattered everywhere.

Limbs. Vesky limbs. Oh god, no...

Just from the bottom of the stairs, I could see a white arm and a grey leg. The white arm... Trivo...!?

“Get over here! Come on, yo!” Lavil was beckoning us to the back room.

The two of us climbed and hopped over the carnage, heading towards the back of the hideout. Just in front of the side room's doorway, the grey Vesky had been smashed apart, its head, torso, and extremities all in several pieces.

When I looked inside, Lavil was kneeling on the floor with a rocket launcher by his side, holding Trivo's deactivated body upright. She was intact – thank fuck – except for her left arm.

“Lavil, what... what happened?!” I surveyed the room for a brief moment; it was just as damaged as the main room.

“Tangent found us! He blew the door open and fucked the whole place up, killed the Vesky, and almost killed us too! I beat his bitch ass off as best as I could but that motherfucker takes no prisoners!”

“Where is he now?” Shock and I both asked in unison.

“He left down the back entrance, the one leading to the tunnel that's normally blocked off by a bunch of shit. He ripped up that blockade in seconds! Probably long gone by now! Shit!”

Shock stood up to leave for the back door without another word. I felt obligated to follow.

“Lavil, Trivo's alive, right?” I needed to confirm before I left.

“She's just off right now. I don't know if Vesky finished her repairs. She'll... she'll wake up soon.”

It sounded like he was trying to convince himself.

...I shook my head and walked out of the room, sprinting down the debris-filled hall to catch Shock. She'd just walked out the back door into the tunnel we first met Trivo in.

...

“F... fuck...” I muttered, as I took a step into the tunnel.

...

20 or so feet away, in the middle of the tunnel, stood Tangent. Looking at us. Waiting for us.

“L-Lavil!” I immediately screamed. “Lavil!! Get out here! Help!”

I couldn't help but tremble. This was our chance, right? With all three of us here, we could do it. We could end Tangent. We could do it. Right?

Shock, just to my left, was staring Tangent down with a livid scowl. Lavil skated over to my opposite side posthaste, missile launcher in hand.

“Son of a bitch!” he growled. “You're dead, asshole. Fucking dead!”

As usual... Tangent didn't say a thing. He remained still, all four arms at his side.

Shock unclipped the saw from her belt.

I inched my guitar bag down off my shoulder.

Lavil propped his missile launcher onto his shoulder, aimed square at Zynima's serial killer.

“Shock... I'm scared,” I whispered just loud enough for her to hear.

Her breathing grew shakier by the second. “...Yeah. Me too.”