62 Pink Bean

With sweat sliding down his forehead , Irvin was feeling the pressure as he was tasked to perfectly time the missiles as the molten beast made it's way toward the cave.

As the beast lifted it's front paw and triggered the invisible laser sensor. *Bzzzzzz..Boom!* The beast was paralyzed by the short electricity conduct and caused the disk on both side to explode. 'Now!' Even thought he couldn't see because of the smoke , Irvin didn't hesitate to fire dozen of missiles from his shoulder.

*Boooom!!!!!* The ground shook as the gust of wind from the explosion propelled the trees into the air. As soon the flaming explosion calmed down , the two armed squad quickly made their way toward the cave.

"Clear , the target is down." After the smoke dissipated , the beast turned from orange to black as it laid on the ground. "The corpse is burnt but the magic crystal should still be harvest-able." Lanny who inspected the beast nodded at Elli and took a step aside to let Elli do her job.

Lili and her squad went into the cave that was bigger now due to the missiles and discovered a hole at the end of the cave. "Looks like we have to hold on the drills.." The squad gathered around the huge hole and saw hundreds of sharp purple crystal sticking out from the walls. "It might be a ancient ruin entrance.. Should we call commander Nodus?"

Evelyn looked at Lili as she was at lost on what to do because some ruins may contain dangerous threats from 10 000 years ago. "I say we suit up and take the lead while Amy and Erica stay here to notify the commander just in case something happens." Evelyn nodded and pressed on the button on the belt. The metal backpack extended with multiple thin panels and surrounded her body as it slowly turned into a robotic shaped armor.

With a nod they both jumped down at the same times and quietly levitated in between the round tunnels with their jet pack. With their back against each other , Evelyn and Lili toggled their visor that scanned 2 kilometers of the passages. "No living being."Lili could only see the tunnel cutting off in her map while Evelyn met a deadend on her map. "I think the entrance is this way."

With only two directions and the floor being free of danger , the captains told their squad that it was safe to come down. "Irvin you will stay behind me." Evelyn took the lead while Lili stayed behind the squad this times since the passage was quite narrow and could only fit two people at most.

"It's fine Amy , if anything comes up I will see it 2 kilometers ahead." Lili told Amy to go ahead as she followed up when they got further away. As they went deeper into the tunnel , the crystal became longer and could only allow 1 people at the time now. "Should I take care of it?" Irvin was confident he could just make a wider path with his shield but Evelyn told him that saving energy is a priority other than their lives.

"Wow...This is .. really a ruin.." Arriving at a big round room with crystal sticking out from the ceiling , the squad stood in front of a big and round sealed door. The round door had a drawing of the sun with rays of light illuminating 6 skyscrapers. Evelyn approached the round door and scanned the drawing with her visor "Beep.. Beep.... Gama language detected..Vault 99."

After a week , Mimi finally finished her foundation while Ali was still very close from it. "I can feel it.. But something is missing.. booo." The girl pouted as she held Shishi in her arms for emotional relief. "Don't worry Ali.. Why don't we start out first group missions now and you can tag along for experience!?" Lulu didn't want to see her best friend sad at all as she looked at Nodus with a pity expression.

"Let's stock up on food and head out tomorrow." As soon the girls heard Nodus agreeing to Lulu's suggestion , they hurriedly ran out together through the gate to buy food and ingredients for the upcoming days. "Sneaky." He knew that they were probably afraid he would turn back on his words.

After gazing at the sun for a while , Nodus turned around and went into the laboratory building. Sitting inside of the new vehicle that was parked on the platform , Nodus drove it out and parked it toward the direction of the gate. The vehicle resembled to a futuristic car with smooth curves that moved around on four wheels. Within the driving seat , Nodus shifted the gear onto the the letter *P* and released his left grip from the steering wheel.

Temperature control , sun roof and many other buttons on the front board were in within the reach of Nodus if he chose to turn on anything , including a folding wheel icon. "It can at least fly for an hour and is hard enough to protect against physical attacks.." Nodus was imagining of a dangerous situation as he prepared to bring the girls along with him on his first official mission trip.

With Lulu and his special circumstances , they didn't need to attend school like the two other girls. But since Mimi finished her foundation while Ali was close , they could be considered done with the 1st grade and could choose to advance to the 2nd grade right away so their absence could be justified.

*Knock knock* After two knock , Nodus pushed the door open and went into the room that was filled with stacks of paper. "Nodus? What a pleasant surprise!" Kathrina who lifted her angry face from the desk smiled immediately after seeing that it was the young man.

"Mhmm , are you used to the magic tool yet?" Nodus chose to randomly pick a paper from the stack to read it's content. "Not yet.. But I am so close with just half a second delay!" Kathrina stood up as she couldn't miss this chance and held onto Nodus. "Ahh.. Nodus is so soft.." Even though she went home just to take a quick shower , she still didn't get the chance to use the so called hair conditioner that she received from Nodus.

"I am bringing them with me to do some missions." Cutting right into the point , Nodus stored the paper and looked at the teacher's face. "When are you going to be back?" He could tell that the teacher completely trusted him as her face didn't change at all."Less than 40 days." With a sigh , Kathrina stood up and stared out of the window."I wish I could tag along but.... I will miss you all."

Seeing her sad expression when she turned back around , Nodus couldn't help but to figure out a way to help her. "What are these papers mainly about other than applications?" After questioning the teacher , she told him that she had to organize and group them in order while leaving a stamp on each of the papers.

With thousands of papers from the students coming through her office , she barely had times for herself and now that the principal escaped to somewhere , she also had to do his workload that involved school activities and military related stuff that were mix in together with the piles of papers.

"How about this.. I could get my artifact to stamp them for you and leave the serious matters aside." Nodus didn't know that stamping a couple thousands of paper could be such a hard work since he always let the computers do his works back at the military office.

"What!? Really? That means I can come along with you all!" As the teacher held onto the young man with joyful tears , Nodus told Z1 to find a desktroid in the database. "Send it to lab one and have it built right away."

"Hello C1!" As they arrived through the gate , Kathrina happily greeted the robot who was watering the grass in the field. "Hello miss Kathrina." Seeing that the teacher couldn't hold back her happiness , Nodus felt that he should of done this earlier. "I am sorry for not doing this earlier." Kathrina pinched his cheeks and laughed. "Hehe don't worry , who could of guessed that old monkey purposely forgot to pack his papers with him."

Although Kathrina knew that Langon left for Nodus , she couldn't help but be angry at him because of the paperworks. ' He better bring back a rare fire spirit or else! ' The teacher was nodding at herself while Nodus was dragging her toward the laboratory building.

After picking up a round pink object from the laboratory platform , Nodus and Kathrina quickly returned back to the office. As the ball hovered around the room , it shot a square streak of red light through the stacks one by one and with two hole panel folding side way , it hurriedly organized the papers with it's thin metal arms. "Woah , Pink Bean sure is fast.." The pink ball was the size of a basketball and Nodus decided to let Kathrina name it. 'There is such a big bean in this planet..?'