“Why should we trust someone who won’t show up in person?” asked the general.

“You shouldn’t, because I didn’t ask you to. If you’re doing a business transaction with someone, at some point whether you trust them or not doesn’t matter. As long as you play your cards better than your opponent, you might win. However, I will warn you. There’s nothing you can hide from me, and if you try to double cross me... Actually, let me just show you what will happen”, said the voice.

The robots in the command center started shooting at everyone in the building. The electronic doors just locked themselves, and despite all attempts, no one could open the doors! The robots mostly killed the soldiers who were keeping the place secure, and even the remote override module installed on all PI Robotics units, was not working!

“That’s enough!” yelled the president. He continued, “We get it. You control the robots, so you can kill everyone here!”

Everyone else glared at the computer screen, while the president sighed with deep regret. The president looked sideways, as the robots stopped their carnage and resumed normal operations, like patrolling the halls and whatnot.

“Do we even have a choice in this matter?” asked the president.

“Of course you do. You can chose to decline, but it will be your loss. You’ll lose the soldiers you have deployed, and when the beasts start invading your other territories, you’ll lose your citizens and then your territories! But hey, at least you’ll be safe right?” asked the voice projecting from the computer screen sarcastically. The voice continued, “The choice is yours, I just wanted to show you what will happen if you decide to cross me.”

The president looked at everyone else with a hesitating look on his face before saying, “Wait a minute, didn’t you say... Actually, never mind. Alright then, what information do you have on this secret weapon?”

“Now we’re talking. I have a method that can be used to upgrade all the level 4 robots you have, and to overclock their processing units. I will give you until 11 o’clock to install the upgrades”, spoke the voice.

“Wait a second, how are we supposed to upgrade over a thousand robots in the span of five hours? That’s ridiculous! Besides, didn’t you say you had information on a secret weapon called the Rhizen canon?” asked the president, getting slightly angry.

“Hold your horses, and try to be patient! I am in the process of making smaller versions of the canons. I will give you the blueprints once I install them on your Gen X robots and then let you see their might. For now, I have sent the method used to overclock the level 4 robots. By the way, if any of this information is leaked by any means, expect a personal visit from me. When I visit, it won’t be a good thing!” warned the voice.

“You still haven’t explained how we’re supposed to upgrade over a thousand robots in less than 5 hours!” yelled general Eizard.

“All PI Robotics units have over the air updates. Since this is just a small software update, it can be done in a span of less that 3 hours. The only issue that might take time is checking for units that haven’t received the update, or units whose update failed. However, I trust you can do something that miniscule with ease.”

“Software update?” everyone started murmuring among themselves, with hushed voices. Only the president and general Eizard remained unmoved, with stern expressions on their faces.

PI Robotics wanted to maintain control over all the units they had created, so they created a backdoor and installed it into the hardware of the units. What this allowed them to do was control the robots and override them remotely, in case they went haywire and tried to take over the world. Well, actually, the engineers used the excuse that someone might hack their units and use them for nefarious purposes. The higher ups approved of this excuse, giving the engineers too much control on the robots!

This proved to be a double-edged sword, since if someone hacked into their systems, they could control all the robots manufactured by PI Robotics. So imagine someone like Dr. Paige for example, who could hack into any system with the Pirin, gets access to the PI Robotics’ systems. It’s basically game over!

However, the people in the conference room didn’t know this, not even a little bit. They assumed they were dealing with a normal computer hacker who had inside access into their systems. After the voice on the screen finished speaking, the screen returned to normal, and the president sighed again.

“This is the trouble with digital systems! Anyone can hack them!” complained the general.

“So what do we do now?” asked Ms. Wright.

“We don’t have much of an option now, do we?” asked Irving.

“We could always take our entire systems offline”, spoke Jacobs, while shrugging his shoulders.

Everyone pondered for some minutes. Peterson looked at everyone, and then coughed dryly, before speaking, “We have a problem. I might have a solution, but I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

“Speak freely”, urged the president.

“Let us just cooperate with the hacker, and let’s not double cross them--”

“Are you crazy? What if they go back on their word? Do you remember what they said? We should hold our cards much closer and keep our hand hidden!” shouted the general, interrupting Peterson.

“But--”

“That’s not going to work, Peterson!” interrupted Irving, who looked like he was about to complain. He sighed before continuing, “Look, for now we need to come up with a plan that leaves us the winners!”

“Then, whatever plan you’re going to come up with, I will not be involved in it”, declared Peterson.

“Me either”, followed Jacobs.

“Leave me out of this as well”, echoed Ms. Wright.

Everyone turned to look at the president, who simply sighed and used his hand to support his head. The room turned deathly silent, as everyone waited for the president’s opinion.

“This is what we’re going to do. For the sake of the citizens, we are going to cooperate with the hacker! Jacobs, Peterson and Ms. Wright are in charge of making sure that we don’t lose valuable information during this exchange. General Eizard and Irving, your job will be updating the robots and then coming up with an attack strategy. At the end of the day, we should have eradicated this threat. Am I clear?”

“Yes Mr. President”, replied everyone, in unison.

*****************************************************

While the president of Tibet and his counterparts were planning on how to deal with the threat of the tailed beasts, the battlefield was becoming more and more chaotic with each passing second. The tailed beasts descended upon the cottage, and began to slaughter the Tibetan army. Despite trying to fight back, the combination of human soldiers and robots could not gain the upper hand at all.

The humans had more casualties than the tailed beasts. Everywhere one looked, they would see scattered bodies. Some of the bodies were hewn in two, spilling blood and gore everywhere. The soil was dyed red, and one could see bits and pieces of guts, electric components and teeth.

Ryan was busy fighting against some tailed beasts. Two and three tailed beasts surrounded him from all sides. He wasn’t injured, but he was covered in tailed beasts blood. If it wasn’t a fight for survival, he would have long escaped. Currently he couldn’t escape because he was trying to protect Hezron. Rose was now conscious, and fighting against a two feet tall, gray dire wolf. Her hands were glowing with a soft blue color. She was using the talismans that she had been given by Gonin some time ago, in the forest. Her white blouse was now red, and there were some parts which were torn.

Gonin was also fighting against some hybrid, rabid two feet tall squirrels. He was using his staff to fight back against the beasts. He was surrounded by four of them, and there were three lying dead a couple of feet away from him. His breath was slow and steady, as if he was meditating while fighting. He wasn’t using any talismans, just his staff.

Hezron was the only one who couldn’t fight, therefore he stuck to Ryan, preventing him from doing anything. Therefore Ryan was fighting while protecting Hezron, which was very much taxing. A three feet tall lizard with two tails suddenly attacked with its sharp claws.

CLANG! CLANG!

There was a sound like that of metal clashing again another metal object as the claws connected to Ryan’s body. Ryan flew backwards, as he fell and crashed into Hezron, who was holding on to his flute dearly. The lizard and its companions started edging closer to the two, who were struggling to get up.

ROOOOAAARRRRR! ROOOAAAARRR!!

There was a loud roar from the direction of the mountain range, where the beast king was. After the roar, the sky lit up once more, as a bright beam of orange light blasted its way to the cottage once more. The soldiers who had survived the first beam started to lose their minds. Some began to cry out, other started mumbling inaudible things.

The orange beam started getting nearer and nearer to the cottage, while the tailed beasts closer to the cottage started edging away from it. When the beam was a few meters away from the cottage, a large purple vortex appeared directly in front of it. The vortex swallowed the beam, and then closed. A few seconds later, the same purple vortex opened up, this time facing the direction of the mountain range. The orange beam was ejected, and it appeared to be slightly bigger than when it went in.

The Beast King was standing at the base of Mount Sun. When it saw the beam it had sent being redirected, it simply grinned and said, “It’s finally here! Guess the bait worked...”