Astral's Rise Part 86: The Firewall

Astrid was typing away at the digital keyboards floating around her. A soft green glow filled the core area as there was no light besides her. "First wall down." She scoffed at how easy this ballad of coding was.

"Let the fire burn around you!" Firewall spoke as one thousand walls of coding came up at once. Astrid looked around and scoffed. The walls fell one by one as Astrid visibly sliced through each of them. 

Her hands stayed still as she was digging deeper for something else, there had to be another way in that wasn't blocked off. Astrid felt like there was a different way around. Examining every bit of the firewall she studied it.

Astrid saw it and wanted to draw this out to test her skills as the walls kept falling with no movement from her. Firewall watched this as he was shocked how she was getting through his walls without effort.

All he heard was a single meow as he finally saw it, a sword slash was coming through his walls as they crumbled one by one. "Die!" The heat rises in the area through the increased ventilation. Astrid finally started typing away once more as Nyan connects with her.

"Apologies for not taking you seriously. This battle is a joke and your code is sloppier than your mothers spaghetti." Astrid giggled as all of the walls fell at once. Firewall hated this, how dare she bring down everything he had at once.

"THIS IS MY DOMAIN!" Firewall shouted as the sound pushed Astrid back as the entire room became covered in walls, all but smothering Astrid into one place. "Be crushed like the trash can you are." Astrid's robotic eye lit up like it was on a short fuse.

A pulse of green light bounced around the room, freeing up room for Astrid as she landed on her hands and looked at the AI in the core hovering there. "See the problem is that I am already inside of your systems." She laughed as Firewall started to focus on all of the holes inside of his programming.

"So many entrances and I will kick you out of each of them." He fired himself up once more as Astrid giggled more.

"No you won't." She smiled more as with each hole he was able to patch inside of his systems. Astrid created six more. He was trying to patch up the dam as all of it was sputtering into chaos before it bursted.

Firewall saw the eventual collapse of all of his hard work. Was it truly all for nothing? To be beaten by the machinery they swore to protect and offer a safe haven. No, there is still time. His hands popped up as he welded shut the exits of the core. Disregarding his own safety for one last play.

Astrid watched as each entrance became closed. She kept sending waves of code at him that he dodged rather than patched. With one last command he sent to the robots. 'Fight until you are destroyed.' Firewall became hit with a rush of code at once. Being knocked back as the core was sealed.

"What was that for, I can still get out if I tried." Astrid looked around. Nyan turned into a sword as Astrid pointed it at Firewall, who's radiant glow had been squashed to a dim light.

"Your friends will die and you have no way to stop them." Firewall slowly faded back into color as Astrid tried to pull up the surface battle map. No connection. Astrid's face turned into shock. Then she realized why Firewall shut her in.

Astrid looked over as Firewall stood proud. His heat radiating and starting to boil her fluids. "And once you can't move, you will die down here in your tomb and the robots will run a rampage on the universe." He started laughing as the boiling point was hit.

Nyan flew through the air and took off the AI's head, it came back as he was still laughing. "That does nothing to a program. You think this is real?" Astrid saw Nyan puncture the right place as she touched the terminal.

"No, cause if it was, you would already be dead." Astrid waved her hand over the terminal panel to access Firewall. He was snuffed out and vanished. Being deleted before he could add any comments. She rammed into the panel with Nyan. Sucking the two of them through the ventilation back to the surface.

"All robots cease the fighting and halt!" Astrid shouted on her way up. Praying she was soon enough as she saw the battle map fill up with friendly markers. Once she hit the sky she felt stiff. "That's right, everything boiled off." She moved her head to the left and saw Zeta. He will be the one to rescue her.

James looked up at the robot about to hit him as it stopped all of its momentum. The hive mind was stopped in one swift motion as James scurried around and looked at the robot in awe.

It fried their programming, effectively making statues with sentience and awareness of their past, but they no longer had any future. James and Angel were gentle to the robots they had smashed, even though it may have been only five between the two they still showed empathy to the creatures who woul;d no longer move.

The dogpound giggled at the children as they mocked them from afar. Proto and Omaha were in between them and saw this. "Let the kids do as they please, at least they respect the fallen." Proto spoke.

"What did you say?" Utah spoke as the dogpound got closer. Achilles snapped the cordage and stood there as Airsoft wanted to wrangle the situation down.

"Those kids are young and still have moral beliefs." Omaha stood still as her brother stood next to her.

"In this kind of battlescape, these kinds of leaders, why have any respect for the fallen?" Hawaii asked the two as they stood still.

"You are outnumbered. I suggest standing down." Minn yelled to the two as James' ears twitched.

"Not when we are defending the right thing." Omaha pointed to Minn as Wash threw a punch at Omaha.

James bolted over knocking everyone down with a sonic boom. "From where we come from, we respect those who fight. Those who die in combat are honored as warriors forever." Everyone around him sat up as Angel hovered above him.

"If you think that's a fool's vow. Then you are the foolish one." James turned away as the clones rushed in to see what was happening. Airsoft and Achilles looked at each other wondering what they should do.

Zane walked over as Sal and Jax were to his sides. "Both sides will be punished, one deployment of half pay." Airsoft shrugged as Proto and Omaha turned away from the Dogpound. Both stood in silence as a deafening boom was heard from a short distance away.

Astral slowly came around as he looked up at Jaimie. "So, when we go to the next galaxy, we disappear together for a bit and tell Adam good luck?"

"That sounds like a wonderful plan, and leave the AI's at base?" Jaimie hugged him as the boom was heard. "Ah, Zeta is still fighting the leader." Astral buried his head into her as he nodded.