Legends of Amacia The Caverias Rebellion
Chapter 22: The Destruction of Hell’s Kitchen

Two minutes later, Hanna and her team entered Hell’s Kitchen. They stopped and gawked at the horrid scene before them. Enoch’s mouth fell open in astonishment and horror as he and the others saw the infernal presses, meat grinders, ovens, boiling vats of oil, roasting grates, and hanging racks filled with butchered human victims hanging from their heels like cattle. Their vital organs lay in baskets beneath the butchered victims on the racks; their bodies split open from neck to crotch. Robotic arms and goblin-like android drones not under Josephine’s control sorted and processed the victims’ body parts. Some victims were even in the process of being skinned alive when Hanna first entered the infernal kitchen. Living victims hung on meat hook conveyors on their way to the vats. Some were being boiled alive in oil as everyone watched in horror. Others lay secured to grates roasting over open fire pits. Three freshly roasted victims lay bound in their roasting pans set on a table. Their flesh still sizzled. At the ground level, Hanna and her team could see the clear doors on the ovens with people being roasted alive inside with their flesh blistering and fat running off their cooking flesh.

“By the Ancient of Days,” Enoch breathed in utter horror at the desecration of human life he saw before him. “There are no words.”

Hanna’s face flushed as her berserker rage instantly pegged into the lethal range. Tears flowed as the death screams filled her ears.

Xavier paled at the carnage before him. “Fate be merciful,” he whispered in horror. “This is Murian carnage multiplied by ten thousand times. We must do something.”

Seconds after they entered Hell’s Kitchen, Josephine’s androids attacked the robotic machines and goblin androids. At the same time, a swarm of her immense tentacles came out of nowhere, attacking the machines of the Kitchen while rescuing the living victims before they could be processed into food stuffs. “Come on!” Hanna urged, jumping into the fray. “Let’s get them!” She charged a couple of the goblin androids as they hung a new living victim for skinning. With a shout, she slashed with the Caverias sword, cutting the androids in two. The pieces arced and sizzled as she dismembered them with the sword.

“Intruder alert! Intruder alert!” a mechanized reptilian voice rumbled throughout the Kitchen. “All drones destroy the intruders!” The goblin androids turned from their brutal work, attacking all intruders.

With klaxons blaring, Enoch, Nemesis, and the others rushed in to aid Josephine and her android drones. They destroyed the goblin drones and the robotic machines alongside Hanna.

Two minutes into the battle, the Kitchen’s AI roared, “Activate sentinel drones...destroy the intruders! Kill the Beowulf!” Two monstrous androids that looked like giant twenty-foot demons with bladed arms emerged from a hidden alcove, attacking viciously anything that didn’t belong in the kitchen along with the goblin androids. “Look out!” Nemesis roared over the din. “The AI has sent in its sentinels. We have to take them down now!” He opened fire with the pulse cannon built into his mechanical arm. The shot hit true on the first android sentinel, blowing off an arm.

Josephine’s tentacles instantly engaged the mechanized titan, tearing it apart. The second android sentry stormed after Hanna, seeing her as the leader. It killed several of Josephine’s android drones, several guards, and three gladiators on Hanna’s team while trying to get to her. Hanna saw it rampaging towards her, making her berserker rage go nuclear. Without thinking, she drew back into an attack stance with the Caverias sword in hasso position on her right. Her eyes turned white as a white aura swirled around her like a ghost. The Caverias sword glowed brilliantly with arcane runes suddenly appearing on the blade. “Why don’t they understand that my enemies die?” she growled viciously as the sentry approached menacingly. “They always die!” In the blink of an eye, she darted forward so fast she became a blur. Spinning around in a dervish fashion, Hanna became a bladed tornado that hit the sentinel ten times before she skidded to a stop thirty feet behind the mechanize monstrosity. The sound of the Caverias sword slicing through the android’s titanium alloy body rattled the ears of everyone present. The sentinel took two steps and fell to pieces, crumbling to the floor with a crash.

Everyone saw the unbelievable attack and gawked. “By the Elder Gods,” Xavier breathed while demolishing one of the goblin androids.

“Whoa,” Enoch murmured as he cut loose a living victim that the goblin androids were preparing to skin alive.

“All sentinels...destroy the Beowulf!” the AI rumbled. Three more alcoves opened with six sentinels rampaging forth from the darkness. Nemesis opened fire with his pulse cannon while Josephine tried to bar the sentinels’ way with her tentacles.

“Hanna, we must stop the brain!” Nemesis shouted over the din. “Only by destroying the brain can we stop them!”

Hanna stood there, panting with a flame in her eyes. Looking up from the fallen sentinel and seeing more entering, she shouted, she hissed, “Right; Josephine! We have to end this now! Where’s this beast’s brain so I can kill it!”

“The AI is in the center of the ceiling,” Josephine answered through one of her androids close to Hanna. “The dome in the center is where its brain is located. I can’t reach it with my appendages. The beast has shielded itself.”

Hanna looked up, seeing a dome-shaped protrusion thirty feet across with a glowing eye ten feet wide moving around on it. “So, that’s where you’re hiding!” she snarled, her berserker rage well in the lethal range. “Time to die, beast!” Again, a white aura swirled around Hanna as the Caverias sword glowed white. Drawing back, she threw the sword, sending all her power and rage with it. Traveling one hundred feet vertically as if it were fired from a cannon, the sword struck the glowing eye in the dome, sinking in up to the hilt. The eye grew wide, followed by a shriek that rose over the din of battle. Seconds later, electricity arced from the Caverias sword, running over the entire dome, followed by an explosion that sent everyone running for cover. The entire dome crumbled, dropping the AI’s enormous computer brain one hundred feet to the floor of Hell’s Kitchen. Upon the brain’s impact with the floor, every machine controlled by the Kitchen’s AI suddenly died. The sentinels and goblin androids sizzled and dropped to the floor inert. The ovens suddenly went out. The conveyors abruptly stopped, as did the presses and meat grinders. The fires under the vats went out. The shrieks of gruesome death subsided, replaced with moans and cries of pain and relief from the living victims.

“She did it,” Nemesis said softly, rising from behind an overturned table. “Hanna stopped the machine.” He looked around in concern for Hanna, seeing her standing atop the android sentinel she’d demolished. She looked around in a daze as everyone came out of hiding. A cheer rose from Hanna’s team.

Enoch made his way to Hanna with Nemesis close behind. When he got to her, he noticed Hanna staring at the demolished computer brain of the Kitchen with a paled complexion. She looked weak. “Hanna?” he called out, approaching her cautiously because of her berserker rage.

Hanna looked at Enoch with a dazed look and fell to her knees. He quickly caught her, sitting her down on the piece of sentinel she’d been standing on. “Are you all right?” Enoch asked urgently.

“I think so,” Hanna murmured. “I didn’t know I could do that. You did see what I did, didn’t you?”

Enoch smiled soberly. “Yes, Hanna,” he answered. “We all saw it.”

“You have such untapped power,” Nemesis stated. “I am impressed. No wonder the Emperor wanted to kill you so badly.”

“This is his doing,” Hanna hissed. “Had he not messed with me, I would not be like this.”

“True,” Enoch agreed, “but you must admit, that was impressive by any measure.”

Hanna cracked a weak smile. “Yeah, I must agree with you on that. Even at the height of my power as a dark wizard, I never wielded this much power. It makes me fearful of what I’m becoming.”

“Do not fear what you are,” Josephine called out as one of her androids walked up. “Even though I tweaked your genetic structure in your mutation, I never dreamed you would wield the power I just saw. I am delighted you’re evolving as quickly as you are. It makes me believe in your god, Hanna.”

“Your words humble me,” Hanna murmured. “Now that we’ve shut this place down, let’s get these poor souls out of here. Where are the slave cages that feed this infernal place?”

“Over here near the parts processing area,” Josephine stated. “I will use what’s left of my appendages to remove those souls from the conveyors and other machines if they’re not too close to death.”

Hanna sighed deeply as her strength slowly rose. “That’s good,” she said softly. “If you see any that are beyond help, make their passing as painless as possible.”

“I will,” Josephine stated as her tentacles started removing the living victims. “The slave cage access is this way.” Josephine’s android started moving towards the area where the machines harvested body parts.

“Wait,” Hanna called out, standing up. “I need to replace my sword and get a closer look at this AI over here.”

“Of course,” Josephine stated. “But you must not take too long. The fight in here has alerted the Emperor and the Cadre to our activities.”

“This will only take a moment,” Hanna stated, walking to the demolished computer brain with the rest of her team. “Can you replace my sword, Josephine?”

“Yes,” Josephine answered as they reached the brain. “It’s still stuck in the brain, buried under it. I’ll use my appendage to get it.” One of her tentacles approached and slid under the massive brain. In seconds, it emerged with the Caverias sword and presented it to Hanna. “Here it is,” she declared.

“Thank you,” Hanna replied, examining it closely. Seeing no damage, she struck towards the floor, slinging the strange liquid from the brain off the blade. “Now let’s take a quick look at this thing,” she ordered, looking closely at the ten-foot high pile of computer brain in front of her. It looked like a mixture of real brain and computer. “Wow, this is fascinating. Is this thing a cyborg brain? I see organic and machine mixed together here.”

“Not like I am,” Josephine stated. “This is the Cadre’s top of the line quantum computer system. It’s a biological computer mixed with top of the line machine hardware. The organic portion of this computer was grown from a non-human DNA sequence with five strands. It’s alien in origin. I don’t know which alien species they gleaned to create this computer’s organic components, though rumors state it may be Etherian DNA.”

“Whoa,” Enoch chimed. “That can’t be good. We should be sure to destroy this thing completely along with this place. Not even in my darkest nightmares did I ever think this place could exist in this universe.”

“Enoch is correct,” Nemesis agreed. “This brain must be totally demolished and its organic components vaporized. There must not be anything left of this brain for the Emperor to utilize.”

“Then let’s do it,” Hanna stated grimly. “Nemesis...do you have any explosives on hand?”

“I’m afraid not,” Nemesis stated. “But we have plenty of fuel right here. The oil vats are over there with enough oil to burn this place to the ground.”

“My android drones have a small nuclear power supply,” Josephine stated from her android. “I can set the power supplies to overload, making them go supercritical. The explosion from about ten of them should be sufficient to vaporize this brain and everything in here. Will that be good enough?”

“Oh, more than okay,” Hanna stated. “In fact, why don’t you set your drones to explode not just in here, but on the sex floor as well. It would be the perfect way to demolish these infernal devices.”

“Just what I had in mind,” Josephine chimed.

“Wait,” Xavier intruded. “If you blow up your drones, how will it affect the rest of the fortress? We can’t have the castle coming down on our heads before we can get out of here.”

“Good point,” Enoch agreed. “How about it, Josephine; what’s the blast radius for your drones?”

“The blast will not seriously compromise the structural integrity of the fortress,” Josephine replied. “But it will do significant damage to this part of the fortress, including the Cadre’s labs. I can contain the blast by closing off this portion of the fortress.”

“Will it destroy your core?” Hanna asked bluntly.

“Unfortunately, yes,” Josephine stated just as bluntly. “That’s why I’m not going to do it until you extract my person from the core. The self-destruct mechanisms in my drones have a time delay on them. You will have a set amount of time from the time I set the self-destruct until they detonate. You’ll have that long to free me of my prison and escape.”

“What if we can’t get you out?” Enoch asked.

“Then I shall die here by my own hand, destroying as much of the Emperor’s evil mechanizations as I can,” Josephine answered coldly. “I will no longer be used as a tool of the Emperor’s evil.”

“It won’t come to that,” Hanna insisted.

“I hope not too,” Josephine agreed. “I want to live, but I will no longer be party to the Emperor’s atrocities.”

“Forgive me, milady,” Enoch apologized. “I didn’t mean to imply that we couldn’t release you. I was just thinking of the worst case scenario.”

“I know you were,” Josephine answered. “Now, I think it’s time we released the prisoners. With that infernal AI destroyed, I now have control of what’s left of the Kitchen’s system, including the slave cages. I’ll open the doors to the cages.” A door banged over beyond the harvesting area of the kitchen. “Come this way, quickly,” Josephine ordered, moving her android in the direction of the opening door.

Hanna and the rest of her team followed quickly, getting to the doors as they opened fully. Beyond the door lay stygian darkness filled with moans and cries of desperation. “Can you turn on the lights?” Hanna asked as they stood at the door.

“Of course,” Josephine said, lighting up the darkness. Hanna and her team stared in horror at a cavernous chamber three hundred yards long, fifty yards wide, and fifty feet in height filled with cages holding hundreds of prisoners that had been stripped naked. Men, women, and children sat packed into the cages like so many animals awaiting processing in the kitchen. The smell of urine and feces filled the chamber.

“Dear Lord have mercy,” Hanna cried, rushing in. “These poor souls...how long have they been here?”

“Some have been here for weeks,” Josephine stated from her android. “I have to feed them the protein mix prepared in the kitchen to keep them alive. Now, we can remove them.”

“And so we shall,” Hanna agreed. Raising her voice, she called out, “My brothers and sisters in pain, I am the Beowulf and your nightmare is now at an end. You’re free.”

A young man in the nearest cage croaked, “Don’t torment us with lies. We’re not free until we’re dead.”

Hanna walked over to the cage, found the door, and said, “No so, my friend. My team and I have just put an end to the infernal Kitchen. I destroyed the brain running this pit myself not three minutes ago. It lies in the middle of the Kitchen floor. Surely, you heard the battle in the kitchen through the door.”

“We heard something,” a teenage girl in the same cage called out. “But we didn’t know what it was. Are you truly the Beowulf that the Emperor has raged over?”

“I am,” Hanna declared firmly. “And to prove to you my power, I will have Nemesis free you from this cage. Nemesis, open this cage right now.”

“My pleasure,” Nemesis growled, grabbing onto the cage’s door and ripping it off the hinges. Throwing the cage door down, he stepped back, saying for all to hear, “You all know me. But know this: I no longer serve the Emperor. I stand with Miss Beowulf, whom I rescued from the Arena several weeks ago. She escaped to the north with my help and now has returned as she promised to free all who wish to be free of the Emperor. She is even responsible for turning the Emperor’s mechanized pet, Josephine, against him. She now stands with Miss Beowulf as I do. We are here to free you, my fellow prisoners of the Emperor.”

“Come,” Hanna said, offering her hand to the girl. “You’re free. All of you will be free in just a short order. Young man, come and see what we’ve done for you.” Both the young man and the girl hesitantly stepped out of the cage, shaking in fear. “Do not be afraid,” Hanna cooed, touching the young man on the hand. “We bring hope and peace to those that have none. Come.” She took the young man by the hand and led him by Nemesis and Josephine’s android to the main door into the kitchen. “See for yourself,” Hanna urged as the girl hovered close to the young man.

They gawked in utter astonishment, seeing the kitchen demolished from the battle and the main computer brain lying on the floor in pieces. The young man blinked, looked at Hanna, and then at Enoch and the rest of Hanna’s team in utter surprise. Turning back to Hanna, a look of intense gratitude filled his face as he instantly hugged her. “Oh, please forgive me, milady,” he cried. “I didn’t believe because I’d lost all hope as all my brothers and sisters have. No one has ever reached this inner sanctum of the damned. Thank you so much!”

Hanna returned the hug, saying, “You’re so welcome, my friend. Now why don’t you tell everyone I didn’t lie. We really are here to take you to freedom beyond the Emperor’s slimy claws.”

The young man turned around and shouted to everyone, “It’s true! The Kitchen has been destroyed! Only the Beowulf of the prophecies could do that. Now, she’s here to help us.” The word spread like wildfire through the cages and a cheer arose.

“Josephine, open the cages and use your tentacles to help the prisoners from their prison,” Hanna ordered.

“At once,” Josephine stated. In seconds, the clanking of hundreds of cages opening at once echoed through the chamber, allowing the prisoners out. Then her tentacles appeared with some becoming ladders for those prisoners with strength enough to move. Those prisoners so weak they couldn’t move, Josephine gently picked them up with her tentacles, spiriting them away.

Cries of terror rose from the prisoners as they saw their friends taken by the tentacles. “My friends...do not fear for your friends,” Hanna insisted. “Josephine has control of the tentacles and is merely using them to move your friends to safety.”

“It’s true,” Josephine called out. “I’m moving your friends temporarily to the sex floor that I personally shut down. You will see them in just a few moments.”

The crowd of prisoners gathered in front of Hanna with deeply fearful expressions. “I know you’re scared,” Hanna admitted. “So am I, but we cannot let fear rule us. Come, follow me out of this pit and you will see the truth of Josephine’s statement. Come.” With that, she started walking back into the kitchen, heading for the exit to the sex floor. “Enoch, Nemesis...make sure everyone gets out. I’m not leaving a single person in this hell,” she called over her shoulder.

“Yes, ma’am,” Enoch replied, standing to one side to let the prisoners past.

With a grunt, Nemesis nodded. “That’s it, my friends. Keep moving; follow the Beowulf to freedom,” he ordered the prisoners in a friendly tone.

The prisoners followed Hanna through the kitchen, seeing the truth of her statement. It gave them hope and strength. Hanna’s team spread out and helped to funnel the prisoners through the kitchen, urging them along with kind words and smiles despite their fearsome appearance. When they entered the sex floor, seeing it idle and Josephine’s tentacles depositing their friends with the other victims of the sex floor, they believed. In ten minutes, the last prisoner walked into the sex floor with Nemesis and Enoch behind them.

Seeing Enoch and Nemesis approaching with the last prisoner, Hanna called out, “Is that all of them?”

“Yes, Hanna,” Nemesis declared, “There’s not a living thing left in that infernal pit.”

“Good,” Hanna stated, hearing a rumble from the main entrance. “But I’m afraid we can’t leave the way we came in. Josephine just told me seven squads are just outside the main entrance trying to break in.”

“Are you saying that we’re trapped?” the teenage girl Hanna first spoke to asked in fear.

“No, I’m not saying that,” Hanna cooed in a gentle tone. “I have a plan. Josephine, have you jammed the doors to this place?”

“I have,” Josephine stated from her drone. “But the doors won’t hold for long. What did you have in mind?”

“You said you had the capability to teleport people anywhere within your domain without using your tentacles. Is that correct?”

“It is,” Josephine stated as her mechanized Cyclops eye appeared from the ceiling, dropping into their midst. Cries of terror raced through the prisoners with some of them backing away.

“It’s okay,” Hanna insisted, touching the mechanized eye without fear. “This is merely another manifestation of Josephine’s interface. She is in control and will not hurt you any longer. Isn’t that right?”

“That’s right,” Josephine said from her eye in a soothing tone that calmed the prisoners. “I no longer do the Emperor’s bidding and will not hurt you in any way.”

“But we all saw her torment our friends and take them away,” a voice called out.

“That was at a time when the Emperor controlled my every function,” Josephine stated. “But now, thanks to Miss Beowulf, I am a free soul now. I beg the forgiveness of everyone I tormented and killed. Please forgive me.”

The crowd of prisoners quieted when they heard the sorrow in Josephine’s mechanized voice. “I forgave her,” Hanna stated. “I endured the same torments as you at her hand, even this mutation the Emperor cursed me with. Before I came to his savage land of the Emperor, I was a man from the surface world. But the Emperor saw me as a threat and had me tortured in this very place, and then mutated me into my present form. Josephine did it at the order of the Emperor. But I forgave her. She’s just as much a prisoner here as you are. I trust her heart. She has a good heart and soul. Give her a second chance as I did and you will not regret it. She’s a most powerful ally and friend.”

“You honor me, Hanna,” Josephine stated humbly. “I’ve never had someone call me friend before...not since before my entombment in this infernal apparatus. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Hanna chimed. “But now we must place our lives in your hands. You have the only means of getting us out of here. Can you teleport all of us to the hidden chamber where the portal lies?”

“Yes,” Josephine replied as the crowd became still, hope rising in their hearts. “I can, but not all at once. I can take ten at a time. I suggest that you contact your people guarding the chamber and inform them of what I’m about to do so they don’t get caught off guard.”

“Do it, Nemesis,” Hanna ordered as she turned to the crowd of prisoners.

“Yes, ma’am,” Nemesis replied. He stepped off and made the call.

While he was making the call, Hanna asked Josephine, “How many drones do you have in here?”

“I had sixty,” Josephine reported, “that is until we went into the kitchen. Now I’m down to forty.”

“Is that going to be enough to vaporize this place?” Hanna queried.

“More than enough,” Josephine insisted. “I’ll encircle the brain with fifteen drones and strategically place the rest around the sex floor and near the entrance area to the labs. The blast should be sufficient to destroy the labs too.”

“Are there any prisoners in the labs?” Enoch asked.

“Yes,” Josephine stated, “But most are beyond any chance of salvation. Next to the power core, the Cadre’s labs are the most fortified area of the fortress. Anyone taken to the labs are doomed.”

“Are there any alive in the labs?” Hanna asked bluntly.

“Yes,” Josephine stated. “I’ve scanned fifteen prisoners who haven’t been killed by their experiments yet. When we engaged in open war inside the fortress, the lab went into lockdown and the experiments were paused because of their sensitive nature.”

“What are the odds of a successful extraction of those in the labs?” Xavier asked.

“821,234,536 to one against,” Josephine stated. “The labs have top of the line automated defenses along with five squads of the Cadre’s personal guard present. To attack the labs to release fifteen souls would be folly.”

“You don’t know Hanna’s record,” Enoch stated. “She’s consistently beaten the odds.”

“Can you teleport them out of there,” Hanna asked Josephine.

“No,” Josephine answered flatly. “The labs are shielded from any signal getting in or out. I cannot lock onto anything inside the labs. If you wish to get them out, you need to do it in person, though I would strongly advise against it.”

“Those prisoners need to be release too,” Hanna insisted. “I’ll burn the entire castle to get them. I’m not leaving a single person to those demons.”

“Hanna,” Nemesis intruded. “They’re ready at the portal. Magnus is waiting for the signal.”

“Good,” Hanna growled as her rage bubbled at the thought of the prisoners in the lab. “Josephine, take me to the portal first. When I get there, I’ll send word through if everything went okay. Then start transporting the rest.”

“Yes, Hanna,” Josephine stated as the Cyclops eye rose over their heads. “Now relax, Hanna. This may feel a bit weird when you materialize on the other end.”

“Do it,” Hanna ordered. Josephine’s mechanized Cyclops eye opened wide and a beam of light emerged from it, bathing Hanna in its glow. In less than ten seconds, Hanna dematerialized and the light stopped.

“By the Elder Gods,” Xavier breathed, astounded at the process.

Deep in the lower dungeons where the portal lay open, Magnus heard a buzzing towards the exit to the passage beneath the moat. “Someone’s coming,” he called out to everyone. “Be ready!”

“Where?” Hunter asked as he, Harry, Morpheus, and those tasked with guarding the portal went into defensive alert.

“There!” Magnus pointed to the unused exit to the left of the portal. “Someone is teleporting in.”

A glow formed as the air buzzed. Moments later, Hanna materialized intact and the glow vanished. She felt herself to make sure she had successfully materialized. “Whoa,” she murmured, suddenly staggering forward when the beam vanished. “That’s felt really weird, but it worked.”

Harry rushed to her and steadied her. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Give me a minute,” Hanna stated. “I’m still a bit disoriented.”

Magnus let out a sigh of relief and said to everyone, “It’s okay. It’s Hanna.” Speaking to Hanna as he approached, Magnus added, “The disorientation will pass shortly. I take it you’ve never been teleported before.”

“No,” Hanna stated as the disorientation passed. “It’s a new experience for me. It’s a much cruder form of transport than the portal. I wanted to try it first to make sure it was safe. Josephine has taken a beating with our assault on the sex floor and the kitchen.” Pulling out her communicator, Hanna said into it, “It worked, Nemesis. I’m all right. Get Josephine to start teleporting everyone here.”

“You got it,” Nemesis’ voice came through the communicator. “I’m going to stay here with Enoch to make sure everyone gets out and that Josephine sets the drones.”

“Good call,” Hanna answered, having gotten over the teleportation disorientation. “Just warn everyone to expect a bit of disorientation when they materialize. It’s a normal side-effect of the teleportation.”

“Okay,” Nemesis replied. “I’ll tell them. Josephine is sending the first batch now.”

“We’re ready,” Hanna declared. “Send them on.” No sooner than she had finished speaking, ten glows formed just away from their position. Seconds later, ten people materialized. They staggered after the beam released them. Those guarding the portal rushed in to assist the newcomers, immediately sending them through the portal to the Red Tower. Hanna watched with no small sense of satisfaction as the people escaped through the portal. In ten minutes, Josephine finished teleporting the last of the prisoners and members of Hanna’s team. The people, including those who had been gravely injured on the sex floor and in the Hell’s Kitchen had been taken through the portal to the Red Tower. By this time, the three individual teams had converged on the portal and gathered around Hanna for instructions.

“Okay, what’s next?” Enoch asked.

“Next, we hit the labs, Harem, and the Tower to get Selina and Nicodemus,” Hanna ordered.

“I’ll take the labs,” Enoch hissed. “You go get your sisters in the Harem, Selina, and Nicodemus.”

“Don’t underestimate their defenses, Enoch,” Josephine called out from Nemesis’ communications link. “I’ll do what I can, but I’m rapidly losing the use of my appendages. I’m also draining my power levels. I don’t know how much longer I can keep it up.”

“We won’t,” Enoch stated.

“Don’t you worry about us,” Hanna ordered. “For now, protect yourself. We can handle these chumps. Has Horace and Elle figured out how to get you out of there?”

“They’re still working on it,” Josephine stated. “But we’d better hurry up. The Cadre is trying to invade my system to take control from me. If they get into my system, they’ll take control of me and use my system against you. I can’t let that happen.”

“Like I said,” Hanna reaffirmed, “now that we’ve destroyed the sex floor and kitchen, protect yourself at all costs. The moment Horace figures out how to extract you from that machine, let me know.”

“I will,” Josephine stated.

“Looks like our time is running out,” Nemesis growled. “Let’s do this and get the fuck out of here.”

“Yeah, let’s do it,” Hanna agreed. “Let’s go!” With that, the teams split up again, falling back into battle almost immediately. Hanna’s team headed for the Harem while Enoch’s team and Magnus’ team headed for the Cadre labs through the dungeons.