Reprogrammed, Rebuilt and Restructured

Sui-Feng paces up and down the room. Her heels loudly tap on the steel floor, ringing out and causing a loud echo. The reverberating sound waves enter the microphones within her system that translates it to her computer. The sound is pleasing to her. It helps her think. She is currently in the research and development lab. Two robots are laid out on two tables in the center of the room. One is the stunning Harribel. She is stripped clean of all clothing, leaving only a few bone metallic pieces that are directly fixed to her body. Next to her is Yoruichi. Her face is peacefully relaxed as she lays unconscious, powered off until Sui-Feng decides otherwise.

Sui-Feng has skillfully captured both of them. She carefully manipulated the two and the organisations they are loyal to in order to bring them right into her hands. She let them fight it out until she was able to easily slide in and take the mangled remains. It took quite a bit of planning, but this is the sort of thing she excels at. She is not in her position at the top of her own organisation by sheer coincidence. She is ruthless, effective, and dangerously competent.

And now that everything has lined up perfectly according to plan… It is time for her to execute on the final, most important step. She has to reprogram these two robots into being her henchmen. Of course she has a staff of incredibly well trained personnel for every single facet. She has a team of researchers that have lots of experience in modifying and programming bots. But she insisted on doing the work herself. She can’t trust that some members of her workforce have been infiltrated. Nor the possibility of everything falling apart due to some random person's error. No, she had to do it herself.

Between the two robots there is a large computer. Thick wires are plugged into ports on the bots that grant complete unfettered access to their core programming. Open on the computer are lines of code. An futuristic looking office chair is just in front, shifted out of place when she left it. She continues to pace up and down, thinking.

Sui-Feng is not an incredibly experienced programmer. She has information logged in her data systems, but no actual experience. She had assumed she could do this with ease. She is confident in her abilities, and until now she has had no reason to doubt that confidence. But she is struggling. Sui-Feng sits back down and stares into the unending text displayed on the screen. She had assumed that literally being a robot, and being constructed of this code should give her more than enough familiarity. But in fact it seems to be the obvious. Her system has trouble reading and understanding the varying functions and files. It keeps misunderstanding the data input. So instead her parser tries to separately read the text by translating it to a string which also ends up confusing and complicating the entire process. It is not impossible, but it is almost as if she is being induced with robot dyslexia.

She doesn’t let this get her down. She refuses to have her pride threatened, especially after she got this far. So with occasional breaks, she continues to make steady but slow progress. Firstly she needs to remove their built in allegiances. Each bot has a respective organisation that they trust and follow blindly. Sui-Feng would like to have that blind devotion instead. So she begins to delete those functions while fixing the corresponding errors resulting from the lack of code. She begins with Yoruichi. Her coding is densely layered with constant input and data referring to her extensive checklist assigned by the organisation. Designed to compare each and every action she performs to the goals and ideals of her owners. Never able to even remotely step out of line from their exact vision. It takes time to untangle the absolute mess present.

It takes a while until she thinks she has gotten rid of all references to her owners. Now she needs to begin her work to input herself within Yoruichi's very soul. This is where she begins to struggle more. Deleting and applying the code equivalent of duct tape is within her skillset. But now she has to replace it with new code in order to keep her loyal. Her progress is significantly stalled. She finds herself rewriting lines over and over again, never actually triggering or doing anything than causing more errors. She feels herself getting frustrated. She was so confident as she demanded the task for herself. Dismissing all of her most accomplished henchmen. Now she is just alone in this room slamming her desk when the program informs her of more system errors.

She can’t handle this right now. She stands up and looks over her two robots. Yoruichi, her ponytail lays gently on her shoulder. Reaching to her chest. Then she gazes at Harribel. She had just dealt with some intruders a few days ago hoping to rescue Harribel. Now those meddlesome bots are being tinkered with in a few rooms over.

In order to regain some semblance of rhythm, Sui-Feng decides to pause work on Yoruichi and begin on Harribel. Get the easier part she can handle over with before she dives back into the more complex work she is now dreading. She gets to work removing all the loyalty from Harribel line by line. It is satisfying making real progress and not just repeatedly butting her head against the wall. She feels embarrassed to be experiencing these feelings. Feeling frustration, difficulty, and especially the embarrassment itself. So when she finally fixes the last bug in Harribels system and must resume the confidence shattering work from before. In order to put it off further, she designs to run an active diagnostics check. While their code shows no problems, computers aren’t that simple. So she sets it up and runs a system reboot to safely test their current code.

She hits the enter key and watches the code compile. It takes a while for everything to boot even with her state of the art computer. This massive almost fridge-like machine that lays between the two robots. Sui-Feng stands up as she can’t be bothered waiting the entire time for the whole check to work. So instead she stands up and decides to speed up the process. She makes her way to the back of the computer. It has a plug designed for her system. She is going to plug herself in. That way she can use her processor to help speed things up. The time will go from hours to minutes with her additional computational power. So she sits down and reaches out. The wire extends out from the compartment until it is her desired length. She then slides it into the slot on the back of her neck. Tingles run through her body as she interfaces with the machine.

This would have been a great plan. If she had plugged herself in before the diagnostic program had started. Usually the computer can handle the task of processing and establishing a connection with Sui-Feng while still performing the check. But not when the check is of two incredibly complex robots at once. The added task overloads the system, and it attempts to force quit the check in order to prevent damages. But when the diagnostics are forced to quit… the two robots are put into an automated reboot. It is not clear exactly how this entire process plays out, but Sui-Feng is able to understand that something is going wrong. Her computer shoves all sorts of warnings onto her HUD. While she doesn’t understand why, she does see the words “Force reboot initiated.” That’s going to be a problem. She quickly pulls the wire out of her and jumps back. This further corrupts the data within the computer but that is the least of her concerns. As she watches the two robots rise from their tables and stretch their stiff hinges.

Yoruichi hops off of the table and looks around the room. She puts her hands on her hips as she assesses the situation. It takes a second for all her systems to get up and running, but eventually she is able to access her memory bank “So this is where you were hiding all this time… B-but why was I looking for you a-again?” Yoruichi asks out loud. It seems Sui-Feng was at least successful in removing her knowledge and allegiance to her creators. But it is unclear how she will react or continue without something in it’s place.

Harribel is next to pipe up. She mumbles to herself as she relieves all of the moments leading up to this. “So we were fighting… until she captured us… m-my fraccion tried to save me… b-b-but what was I doing here in the first place…?” She slowly says. Harribell and Yoruichi then look at each other. They suddenly take fighting stances once they recognise who the other is. But they quickly realise there is no drive in their mind to continue fighting. Both have memories of their previous battle, but it’s almost like their head hurts, their processor runs hot, when they try to remember why.

What they don’t need more information for is this woman on the other side of the room. They have memories of being experimented on, taken apart and put back together for the purpose of research. All sorts of tests ran on their simulated consciousness. They don’t need their now forgotten reasoning to please their masters. They have their own reasons to shift their battle stances towards Sui-Feng. Forming an unspoken alliance to take this robot down. Sui-Feng quickly has to react. She is a powerful robot but not that much stronger than either, let alone both teaming up like this. She has to rush to call in her team. She doesn’t think she can do this alone. However the room she is in was designed to insulate wireless signals. A big hotbox that won’t let any messages in or out. There are a number of reasons, but mostly due to the signal to their respective headquarters when anyone modifies Yoruichi and Harribel. So Sui-Feng will have to physically make her way to the door to notify anyone. The door on the other side of the room. Blocked by the two robots. She is going to have to think on her feet.

Yoruichi is the first to make a move. She begins dashing forward towards Sui-Feng. Harribel soon follows after her. The one advantage Sui-Feng has is that both robots have been stripped of all their equipment. They stand naked before her and have none of their weapons and armour to help them. Sui-Feng is not in her combat gear. But she does not rely very heavily on any equipment. Only the built in piece on her hand. She yells quickly “Sting all enemies to death!” The voice activation phrase for her body to activate her weapon. Her right arm splits down the middle and shifts out of place. It is a clunky and slow process. Thick pieces of metal being manipulated by various metal hinges and gears. Once the process is done her right hand is completely covered in a golden metal with a point on her middle finger.

However this is more than enough time for Yoruichi to reach her and begin her attack. She starts with a strong kick to Sui-Feng's left side, which she is barely able to block at the very last moment. Yoruichi keeps up her relentless assault, using her deflected kick as a pivot point to deliver a powerful punch. Sui-Feng struggles to keep up and recoils from the blow.

Sui-Feng is a master of speed. Her robotic body was built not to deal devastating damage or to shield her. But all in service of her speed, complimenting her pointy weapon. The one bot she knows of who can outpace her is Yoruichi. It is part of the reason she wanted Yoruichi under her control. Harribel has finally had enough time to catch up with the other two. While she can not match either robots in speed, she can easily deal the most damage of all three. If Sui-Feng gets caught by her, just a single strong blow could be enough to end the fight then and there.

Sui-Feng decides she needs to gain the momentum. She charges towards Yoruichi, but right at the last second she uses her superior speed to catch Harribel off guard and land a strike on her. She impales the robot's stomach with her weapon. The needle slides into the artificial skin and is more than tough enough to burrow through the steel underneath. Then the weapon begins to take effect. She has worked incredibly hard to develop this. The weapon pierces a robots system and implants a small device within them. It slowly then damages them from the inside by spreading a thermal substance. But she can only activate it and inflict the true damage by striking the same spot again in ignition mode.

Haribel grips her wound, and jumps back. She is not entirely sure how the weapon works but her system tells her enough that she can not allow that attack to hit her again. She gets all sorts of tamper warnings covering her HUD until she dismisses them to see clearly. Yoruichi sends a few punches but is swiftly evaded by Sui-Feng. The three robots stand in place for a moment. Planning out their next attack while carefully monitoring their opponents. Yoruichi decides she is going to go all out from the beginning. Not waste any time. Her computers begin to whir as they spring to life. Processors are overclocked to begin her transformation. Out of the cracks in her artificial skin along her back and arms a crackling sound can be heard. The air itself begins to waver, until finally bursts of plasma-like energy begin to emanate. Little electrical pulses radiate out. Her entire body is now powered with far more thrust, as her back and her arms now are propelled by this exhausted energy. She speeds towards Sui-Feng who can not hope to avoid this volley. Each punch and kick lands with devastating effect. She does her best to mitigate the damage but the sheer number of attacks is overwhelming.

But luckily Harribel isn’t able to come in and finish Sui-Feng off. She is still reeling from the blow and seemingly trying to do something about it. This gives Sui-Feng just enough time to turn the tables on Yoruichi. Between the flurry of attacks, Sui-Feng finds a moment to gain some distance. She decides to show off a little bit and overwhelm Yoruichi. She begins to increase her speed. Uncapping certain internal limiters to allow her maximum standard speed output, even though it has a costly use of fuel. She hops between two spots. Increasing her pace more and more. As she exponentially speeds up, the motion between the two spots becomes unclear until only her stationary afterimages in each remain. She is able to form a small group of these afterimages. Almost like clones that she has created to distract and outpace the robot before her. It is a technique that required years of development, much like her weapon. She has put so much work into her own body and skills exactly for a moment like this. It feels good to finally go all out, but she refuses to underestimate her opponents she knows so well.

She uses her afterimages to constantly keep Yoruichi on the defensive. Since she is unable to perceive where an attack might come from, she is easily surrounded. This is an advantage Sui-Feng will only be able to maintain while Harribel is temporarily incapacitated. She has to milk this opportunity for all that is worth. She closes in on Yoruichi and begins her own counter offensive. Yoruichi can not avoid it all. She is battered. So she puts all her effort into dodging the strikes made with Sui-Feng's suspicious weapon. She has to avoid whatever is going on with Harribel. As much as this evel of speed is powerful, it is not like there are actually 10 Sui-Feng's attacking her. So she successfully manages to evade the deadly needle attacks. But the rest of the accumulated damage does take its toll. Especially as she burns through her fuel supply with her electrical power up. But the exact same is happening to Sui-Feng. She is attempting to hide any strain this power output causes. But her opponent is not that Naive. She can not keep this up for very much longer at all.

Which is exactly when Harribel finally rejoins the fray. She runs towards the swirl of Sui-Fengs. Obviously she poses no active threat, Sui-Feng can easily outpace her. But she loses her sole control over Yoruichi. The back up provided by her new comrade shifts the balance of the fight heavily. Sui-Feng pulls back. The benefits of her speed clones are quickly being dwarfed by the continued power cost, so she deactivates the skill. The afterimages dissipate into nothingness as she slows down. Yoruichi may not have been struck by the needle, but she clutches onto her arm. She seems to have lost strength in it, likely due to it being hit hard enough to remove it from its socket or damage the joints. So instead Harribel goes on the offensive. She hasn’t had much of a chance to shine yet. A lot of her abilities rely on her weapon which is being held elsewhere in the building. But she would be a lack-luster bot if she couldn’t dish it out hand to hand as well.

She jumps and smashes into the ground where Sui-Feng stood. The robot managed to dodge the strike. But where Harribells fist landed the ground cracks and dents. The flooring is torn, revealing the layers of metal and insulation. The dent is far enough to reach Sui-Feng’s new position and causes her to lose her balance. With unstable footing she is prevented from avoiding Harribells follow up attack. A brutal kick to her side which sends Sui-Feng flying. She collides with the wall creating another dent in it.

This room is not built of cheap metal. The focus was not strength, but rather materials that can block those wireless signals. Though even then to be able to cause even the slightest scuff on this surface would be a challenge. And Harribel is tearing through it like tissue paper. Sui-Feng feels her body completely rattled by the attack. All of her components grate against each other. Her joints grind and tear away on the surface of her internal structures. Her movements already feel slower than before. She might not be able to resume her afterimage technique even if she wanted to. And before she can properly recover, Yoruichi charges right in. They two exchange blows but Yoruichi clearly has the upper hand. Landing many more than Sui-Feng can dish out.

Sui-Feng is able to see behind the aggressive robot that Harribel is not just waiting around. She is instead charging up some sort of power. The plasma is building in her hand, like some sort of energy explosive. The power seeps through the cracks in her palm to generate the crackling light that begins to form. It looks like it will still take a while before the robot is able to use it, but Sui-Feng is concerned about its potential. She is running out of options. But she still has a few tricks up her sleeve. She has noticed that her opponents use quite simple attacks. The sheer force and speed still leave them to be a challenge, but there is not much strategy or technique in their blows. Sui-Feng assumes it is due to the issues their systems are facing. She can use this to her advantage. She engages Yoruichi. Her punches are weaker and slower than her opponents. But she can use Yoruichi’s superior abilities against her. Yoruichi sends a punch towards Sui-Feng. But instead of dodging away, Sui-Feng moves closer to Yoruichi. She slides her hands up Yoruichi’s arm and grabs hold. Using a hand-to-hand combat skill called Tsurigaki, she elegantly uses the force of her opponent's strike to both avoid it, and launch her own counter attack. She lands a strong hit on Yoruichi which sends her skidding back ever so slightly.

She then quickly dives forward, capitalising on this small victory as much as she can and begins her own assault. Keeping Yoruichi on the defensive. She lands strike after strike, but none of them seem to really deal enough damage. Yoruichi isn’t exactly reeling from the blows, she seems fine enough. Just slowly running empty on fuel as it continues to pour out of her. Perhaps it is due to this state of hers that she is barely receiving any harm. She just brushes off each attack after they hit. Still attempting to avoid them but not struggling when she fails. Then, a sudden burst of energy pours out of her. Sui-Feng is almost blinded by the unexpected surge. She quickly performs a low kick that causes Sui-Feng to stumble to the floor. And just as she hits the ground, she sees what was before a small crackle of light has now become a terrifying orb of plasma in Harribel's hand.

Yoruichi then swiftly jumps away, giving Harribel the perfect opportunity to let all that power loose. The blonde robot then braces her arm, and points the energy at the pitiful machine. A fierce beam erupts from her palm, shooting out towards Sui-Feng. She scrambles to escape, but her leg is still caught in the blast. It instantly sears away the artificial skin and clothing covering her leg. Even the metal begins to melt before Sui-Feng can finally pull her leg away from the ongoing attack. The wall glows bright red, then white, and begins to bubble and boil. It slides down onto itself. The blast doesn’t last long enough to bore a hole all the way through but the metal is significantly thinned.

Sui-Feng is deeply injured. She is incapacitated in a way that has basically taken her out of the fight completely. How is she able to go on? This is what she wants them to think. She has absolutely taken a heavy hit. But she is smart enough to pull the tiny silver lining of strategy out of this situation. She collapses to the floor, clutching her melting leg, hunching over it. But as she lies doubled over, she is secretly doing two things. She is cooling her leg as best she can. Her internal coolant system within her leg is completely destroyed, but she can use some of the surrounding ones for a similar effect. And secondly she is building her ace in the hole. Consolidating power. Collecting it and condensing it in her system.

“Give up-p Sui-Feng. You-You can’t beat us like this. We have-e-e won.” Yoruichi says strictly. She is being intense, but deep down she does have a surprising compassion. Not enough to graciously avoid any conflict, but she is at least willing to give her opponent this one chance to yield. Harribel does not share this same kindness. She is instead preoccupied with thoughts of her Fraccion. Her attendants that she knows are somewhere in this very building. Waiting for her to rescue them like they tried to rescue her.

Sui-Feng needs to buy time more than anything. She simply whimpers in pain, pretending that she is too distracted by the pain and damage to even understand Yoruichi. Harribel isn’t having it. “You don’t-don’t-d-don’t deserve a chance at redemption. I would love t-t-to finish you off here and now.” She says, adding pressure to the robot. She wants to charge another attack, but her system is on cooldown. It would cause severe overheating if she produced another beam straight away. But she keeps that to herself.

“I… I…” Sui-Feng sputters out. Still facing away from the two bots. “I REFUSE!” She yells, as she quickly whips around and lets loose all the collected energy she has. It comes out as a concentrated beam of plasma. But instead of crackling with electricity like Yoruichi’s, or emanating light like Harribel… It creates an intense force of air pressure around it. The entire room is completely affected by her attack. The blast is primarily aimed at Harribel who Sui-Feng assumes to be the bigger threat. But even Yoruichi still has to dig her hands into the metal to hold on and not get flung into the air. Harribel narrowly dodges the center of the attack. She was far more on edge than Yoruichi, so she anticipated the attack to some degree. But even then in a radius around the energy the damage is relentless. She attempts to brace herself but is lifted off her feet and slams into the wall. Flakes of her artificial skin begin to tear and come loose, but it never gets strong enough to damage the metal plating underneath. Concentrated energy attacks were never Sui-Feng's forte. She always was far more adept with her invasive weapon. So she just can’t pack enough of a punch to turn the tables around. Her fuel is running critically low. Her system kicks in and begins to shut down some of her functions. The process is completely out of her control. The beam dies down and Harribel collapses onto the floor. There is no longer any thrust to keep her planted on the wall.

Yoruichi instantly springs into action. She charges towards the bot. But by the time she arrives, Sui-Feng has already collapsed, unconscious. She simply ran out of power. Yoruichi doesn’t make the same mistake twice and quickly checks, but finds it to be true. The robot is down and won’t be up any time soon. She will only reactivate when someone restores her.

The two robots are left in an eerie quiet. No longer are they under any immediate threat, and they are free to do as they please. “I want to find my underlings.” Harribel coldly announces. Yoruichi has no problem with this. She is even willing to help. But she attempts to strategise first.

Both robots had not been required to do any deep thinking since reactivating. Most of their scripts relating to combat were fully functioning, so the fight was more than ok. But now that they are left to their own devices, the issues left with the incomplete programming are becoming more apparent. They are even aware of it themselves.

“I am not fully operational… It seems she w-was messing with our heads. And now my energy is exhausted. I don’t… think fighting the personnel is a-a-a good idea.” Yoruichi tells Harribel. “I am also quite damaged. Both e-externally and internally. You are right.” She replies in short simple sentences. The two start planning. They can’t take on each and every combatant staff member in this facility. What they can do… Is to take over the facility itself.

Though in order to do that they are going to need proper repairs. Their bodies are damaged and stiff, unable to keep up with their movements. Both robots are incredibly low on fuel, and Harribel has taken lots of visual damage. They look around the room a little bit. There are all sorts of results from their battle, but eventually Yoruichi stumbles upon a compartment in the wall. She discovers it is filled with replacement materials and all sorts of equipment too. She suggests to Harribel that they should trade off repairing each other. The bot agrees with her, as the two begin to arrive at an odd companionship. Harribel lays down on the table once more, and shuts her power off. Choosing to trust in her unlikely compatriot. Yoruichi pulls out sheets of artificial skin, wires, soldering equipment, and other assorted goods and brings them over to the robot. She lays her hands on Harribel's body. She slides her fingers into the seams of her body and pulls the plates out of place. The metal shielding seems relatively undamaged, so she simply removes the ripped and torn artificial skin from her. And begins to apply the fresh new layer in its place. The skin tone is ever so slightly off, being a little darker than Harribel's usual shade. But they can fix that once they aren’t in enemy territory and have the time.

Yoruihci notices it actually far more closely resembles her own skin tone, which she finds an interesting coincidence. Once the shallow visual damage is restored, Yoruichi decides to move on and begin with the robots insides. Rather than needing to pull the plates off one by one, she can access Harribel's inner workings by simply pressing an indent just under the port on the back of her neck. Once pressed, her stomach unlocks and can be rotated open. Leaving the two halves of her stomach hanging on their hinges at a forty five degree angle.

It is a little awkward with the large metal panels in her way, but Yoruichi is still able to reach inside and do what she needs to do. She first surveys the damage. She can see a number of wires have been ripped and pulled out of place. It seems her coolant system is completely non-functional. Yoruichi has thermal sensors which help her see just how hot her CPU was running. That last attack really did a number on her. First things first she gets that working again. She plugs in the wires that seem fine and replace the ones that are worse for wear. She feels her fingers lag and stutter when she tries moving them. What should take half a minute instead takes ten as she struggles with the small minute movements. But one of them had to perform it, and it’s clear that Yoruichi was the better option. One look at Harribel's mechanics is more than enough to illustrate the point.

Once she finishes with the wires she moves on to the rest of the coolant system. Two of her fans have completely shattered. Shards and plastic dust all collect at the bottom of the fan sections. She removes the screws and takes the two defective fans out of their slots. She is thankful for the compressed air she found in the supply closet, as it makes clearing out the debris nice and easy. There are some replacement fans, but they don’t seem compatible. They are smaller than the previous ones and won’t fit in correctly. Yoruichi isn’t sure how to handle this, because Harribel absolutely needs the cooling. So she decides to try and keep them snugly in place with some paper stuffed in. It slides up and down a tiny bit, and is a terrible solution that will only work temporarily. But it is still far better than going without. It can be fixed later.

Finally she inspects the bizarre wound that Sui-Feng inflicted. She finds where the needle and pierced and discovers a weird gunk on her computer. It doesn’t seem to be too bad on its own. So she swiftly cleans it out and everything seems alright. That is until she notices some of it had entered a cable port. It has certainly caused some damage on it’s own. She can’t easily clean it out without further breaking the port. She doesn’t have the ability to swap it out with a clean piece so she has to be delicate. A gentleness she can’t exactly perform with her technological struggles at the moment.

She carefully removes the bulk of it without getting to the more sensitive parts. Now only a thin layer of the odd substance remains. She tries her best to remove the rest of it but finds herself unable. She instead decides to cut power to that specific section. So unfortunately Harribel won’t be able to activate her backup processors. This usually is only used for very strenuous computing tasks so Yoruichi hopes it will be ok.

She checks to see if power is running through the rest of the system correctly, and is happy with the results. All that is left is repairing the final damage done to her structural supports. Near her joints some of the metal had been shoved out of place and was grating against each other. SO she sets it all correctly and lubes up the hinges. Once her parts are gliding against each other smoothly, Yoruichi is done with the hardware. It is the best she can do. She closes the bot up and powers her back on.

“Harribel.exe BOOTING… BOOTING… BOOTING… ONLINE.” The robot says in a monotone voice, before rising up. She hops off the table and stretches. “Ah… t-that feels better. Though my software still… feels janky.” “We will have to deal with that later… Can you help me now?” Yoruichi asks. Harribel nods. “Of Course. Things are much smoother now that we are w-working together.” She tells her, and gestures towards the table. Yoruichi lies down, and powers herself off.

Yoruichi hasn’t experienced much external damage so there is no need to replace any of her artificial skin. Instead Harribel goes right to opening the robot up. There is not too much damage, but it seems there were some issues she got from pushing herself too far. There are clear marks of overheating. Even slight scorch marks around her central processor. Though now all her components seem to be back at room temperature, so there is not much to repair there. Instead she begins by replacing the few parts that are worse for wear. She notices a wire ended up fried, and then mangled. It is now shoved between various components, fraying in the center where the casing has been stripped clean.

She has to carefully remove all of the thin copper wirings that have been so awkwardly spread out. Without damaging any of the nearby components Harribel is able to clean it all up and put a new cable in its place. She is happy the task wasn’t too hard. Her fine motor control is much better after her repairs. She can move each individual finger with thousands of degrees of range. Instead of the uncomfortably segmented and rigid snap-like movement she had to suffer through before. She continues on with her work. It doesn’t take too long to get everything as good as Harribel is able. She powers the bot back on, who stands up and feels out the changes made. “It is better… T-thank you.” Yoruichi says.

“Now… How are we g-g-g-going to get out of this mess? A-and rescue your friends.” Yoruichi asks. The two run through numerous strategies and simulations in their heads, but the process is not as effective as it usually is. Eventually Harribel turns her attention to the unconscious body of Sui-Feng that still lays motionless on the floor. “We c-could use her. Like a hostage.” She suggests. The two begin to discuss their strategy. By using Sui-Feng, they might be able to negotiate some sort of resolution with the local members. They only really need the Fraccion and a safe escape. But they feel a little aimless. And their software is still glitching. The biggest problem they face is that they don’t have any drive anymore. Their code is so reliant on following an organisation of some kind. But Sui-Feng failed to implement herself into that position. It is not as if they crave authority. But rather they don’t have any plans for their life without one.

They decide to open the door and meet with some of the top staff members. The two of them aren’t even sure what they are looking for. But it seems like they will find it as they begin discussing terms.