Deepspace: Cayne (Ea)(Com)

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Cayne woke up a few minutes after passing out. She sat up and yawned, then she reached her hand up to her neck and then gave it a quick crack to unstiffen it. Once she removed her hand from her neck, she noticed something quite strange with her arms and hands.

She inspected it, and it seemed the mechanical parts under her metal plating were slightly worn out. It wasn’t anything serious but could be a problem later down the line. Cayne was a bit confused, though, as she was fine before she fell asleep.

She thought about what happened before she passed out; she remembered nearly being crushed. That’s when her special power overdrive activated and she used it to save herself. Wondering if that was the case, Cayne checked her legs for worn-out parts.

Sure enough, just like her arms and hands, her legs were slightly worn. It had to be Overdrive, which means if she uses it for too long, she’ll run the risk of completely destroying her body. So it’s best to avoid it, unless necessary, in which case a minute of use should be okay.

Cayne picked herself up and looked around. She was in the tunnel that led to the security control room for the prison and the exit. Cayne decided to check out the security control room before leaving and she followed the tunnel towards it.

On her way, another stubborn anomaly occurred, this time making the metal plating on the walls start to peel and roll up into balls. Once they turned into balls, they started to shoot at Cayne, hitting her over and over again.

It was like being shot by a cannon at point-blank range. Luckily it didn’t hurt very much, and thanks to Cayne’s armor plating, she wasn’t damaged in the slightest. It was just more annoying, as the large metal balls would cause her to stop and sometimes get pushed back.

After being hit a dozen times, Cayne got sick of it and used her arms to cover her head, then activated full power and ran down the hallway. Once she was at full power and speed, the balls exploded into pieces as they hit her instead of stopping her.

After some time, Cayne made it to the end of the tunnel and to the entrance of the security room. She was expecting to have to break down the door, maybe even fight off whatever security measures were inside but instead the door was wide open.

Cayne stepped inside slowly, expecting something to happen, but still it was quiet, and there were no anomalies. Even more surprising than that, the security room looked mostly untouched, not nearly as run-down as everything else she’d seen.

It also still had power running to it, which was good. Cayne checked each of the consoles in the open part of the security room to see if she could use them; unfortunately, they were all locked and there were no security key cards to be found.

So she went into the overseer's office, which was when she found something strange. There were clothes laid out from the floor up to the desk. On the floor was a pair of boots with socks popping out, and on the seat of the chair was a pair of pants with a belt and a pair of underwear inside them.

Folded over the back of the chair was a shirt, along with body armor, and then finally on the desk was a pair of gloves. It was sort of horrifying. Had a person been using the console when they just suddenly vanished, or did the anomalies bring the clothes here and place them like that?

Cayne had no way of knowing, and she really didn’t want to think about it. Cayne carefully picked up all the clothes and folded them up and then neatly piled them on the desk away from her. She then pulled the chair in close and checked the console.

She was amazed to find the console was already logged into. Cayne started to look through what it could do. She figured that it was only the control point for the prison but she was wrong; this security point also had access to the outer ring of Zeta-13.

It didn’t let her see or access any functions for the inner ring, which was where the center was located, likely because of how important that area is. What she could do was view any active security cameras, unlock tons of doors, control security droids, and so much more.

Cayne started to download the security codes to her system while checking out a map of the outer ring. Luckily the map on the console grayed out areas that were inaccessible, so she was easily able to route a perfect and safe path through the facility.

She was about to leave and take it when she noticed there was an option to show dots on the map where people, robots, and creatures are. Cayne, figuring she could use this to find the other captains, turned it on, then watched as tens of thousands of dots appeared.

Cayne let out an awkward laugh, then she filtered out anything that was completely mechanical, as she figured the other captains were either still human, or they fused with their ship like her, so they wouldn’t appear as robots.

That dropped the number of dots down to about two thousand. Cayne tilted her head and wondered if there were actually a lot of people here. She didn’t believe it was possible, so she filtered the search again, this time only including things that were human, even if it was one percent.

That finally sorted it down to ten dots. Which were likely the captains that arrived here alongside her. However, there was one thing off. Cayne looked at the map and counted the dots; she was included in the dots, so ten dots didn’t add up.

There should be eleven, as that was how many of them arrived. Cayne felt her chest tighten up and she felt horrible. Has one of them perished? Cayne shook her head; perhaps they were still outside and never made it inside.

She had to have hope they were okay. Cayne looked at the dots for the rest of the captains and noticed that some of them were getting closer to each other. Cayne thought that was good; with how dangerous this place was, they should pair up.

So Cayne started to unlock doors and lock others, all in an effort to guide the captains closer together, even if they themselves had no idea. After some work Cayne managed to get a few pairs together, while the rest somehow made it together on their own.

Only one person was alone on the map, and Cayne was worried about her, so she used the security cameras to make sure she was okay and not injured and in need of help. If she was, Cayne was going to go find her and become her partner.

To Cayne’s relief, the captain was completely fine, and she was accompanied by someone else. A black-haired girl who strangely didn’t appear on the map with her. Cayne used the scan option available to her to inspect the black-haired girl.

Despite looking more human than the rest of the captains, it seemed she was completely mechanical, which meant Cayne had filtered her out earlier. She was also a model of robot not in the console's database, which meant she wasn't from Zeta-13.

She had to be the missing captain, and when she fused with her ship, she was completely changed, unlike the rest of them. Cayne was happy she was okay. She then went back to the main map and noticed the groups were all heading to different places.

Cayne looked at the areas they seemed to be going to, and most of them seemed important and perhaps could help the group with what was going on. So Cayne started to help out where she could, unlocking doors and powering things that the captains could use.

At one point she noticed something strange. The captain who was with the fully mechanical captain kept vanishing and then reappearing. Cayne checked the area where she was last seen, and Cayne found the full mechanical captain alone.

Strangely, the fully mechanical captain didn’t seem fazed and simply kept going. So something was going on, likely anomaly related. There wasn’t much Cayne could do about that from here, but there was plenty she could do, so she focused on that.

Cayne continued to help out, using everything at her disposal. She used several functions to move anomalies out of the way, lock them away in side rooms, or send hordes of robots to go and fight them.

In the end, she managed to remove ninety percent of the anomalies the other captains would have come across in their travels, which wasn’t the easiest task, but she managed to do it. Once each captain managed to make it to their destination, she decided to stop and take a break.

She closed her eyes, cracked her neck again, and then stretched her arms out. As she opened her eyes, she noticed the fading of a flash of light, which meant one thing: an anomaly just occurred. Cayne quickly jumped up and covered her face.

A split moment after that, her arms were hit by something very durable and made of metal. Sparks were flying everywhere, but Cayne didn’t let that distract her. She took her foot and kicked in front of her as hard as she could.

That sent her attacker into the back wall at a great speed. Cayne moved her hands away from her face and was shocked at what she saw. It was a full metal skeleton with claws coming out of its hands. Even crazier than that, her kick didn’t even scratch it.

The skeleton pulled itself out of the wall and then charged at Cayne again. Cayne dodged it and then took both her hands and slammed them down on the skeleton's back. The skeleton was sent into the floor with enough force to cause the floor to crack, but it still didn’t have any damage.

Cayne let out an awkward laugh. Whatever metal this thing was made out of was crazy. It wasn’t Cast-r, but it was about as durable as it. The skeleton got back up and continued to swing at Cayne, hitting her arms and causing sparks to fly everywhere.

Cayne kept dodging and blocking while leading the skeleton away from the console to avoid breaking it. Once they were in the open part of the security control room, Cayne started to get herself to full power.

Once she reached it, she punched the skeleton again, this time sending it right through the metal wall. Cayne stayed on guard and watched the hole; she had hoped the thing wouldn’t get up, but yet again it was unscratched and still coming after her.

Cayne shook her head; she still needed more power, which left her with one option: she had to use Overdrive. Cayne tried to activate it, but for some reason it didn’t work. The skeleton came walking through the hole, and for some reason it was much faster and completely on fire.

It started to attack Cayne like crazy, not giving her a single chance to punch it away, and worse than that, her arms couldn’t protect her from the fire, which simply bypassed her arms that were trying to protect her face. So now she was getting burned.

Cayne finally managed to get a second and rolled out of the way, only to be punched in the back and sent flying into a wall. As soon as she hit the wall, she quickly pulled herself out of it and dodged the skeleton's next attack.

She then stood in front of it; her adrenaline was now over taking her and she was pissed. Cayne looked at her hands and asked Vanguard to lend her its strength so she could beat this thing. Cayne then closed her eyes and told herself she needed to be stronger.

Suddenly overdrive mode activated and Cayne felt herself getting much stronger. Cayne opened her eyes and smiled. The skeleton once again ran right at her and attacked using its claws. Cayne grabbed its arm, then its other arm when it attacked with that.

She then took both its arms and bent them downward. She then quickly spun it around, grabbed its arms again and bent them together almost like tying a knot. Then, because she knew this thing wouldn’t stop, she grabbed its legs and bent them as well, all the way up to its arms.

Now it sat on the ground, unable to move or harm anything. Cayne smiled and told it to be good; she then walked back into the overseer's office and closed the door. She then went back to the chair and sat down. Seconds later, Overdrive deactivated, and Cayne passed out.

She had only used Overdrive for about thirty seconds, so she wasn’t out for very long, only about a minute. Once she was awake again, she checked her hands and saw they were slightly more worn but still in acceptable condition, but she’ll still need to fix them at some point.

Cayne looked at the map, then checked on all the captains. She waited for most of them to finish up what they were doing in their areas, and then, using the intercom system, she introduced herself and then told all the groups she was at a control console and could see them all.

She also said she could give each of them a safe route to take to a safe area so they could all meet up and work together. Each pair agreed to let her help, and Cayne sent each of them a unique path to the area she picked out to meet at.

Once each pair was all set, she told them to be safe, and then she got up. They were on their own now, as Cayne had to leave in order to meet up with them, so she’d no longer have access to the control center. She had faith in them, though; it was clear each of them was skilled.

Cayne left the overseer's office and saw the metal skeleton was gone, or more like it somehow melted. Cayne shook her head and avoided the puddle as she left the security control room. She was glad it was gone, and hopefully those damn anomalies will stop causing her so much trouble.