"Sorry for being late!" Eva ran in with a rather large case. She opened it and took out three LBXs, putting them in a standing position on the desk.

"Did you work on them all night?" Yuuya asked, slight worry in his tone.

But she gave him a reassuring smile. "Don't worry. Once the power was back on, I had it set on auto and slept in the lab. I just finished the adjustments on them earlier, is all."

"Thank you, Eva." Jin smiled at her as he and the other two took their LBXs.

"Did you try to work on them manually when the power was out?" Jessica asked.

Before she could reply, the professor cut her off. "She's a wizard when it comes to technology. Quite literally."

Cobra clicked his tongue. "More like a virus, if you ask me."

Mongoose jabbed his side. "No one did."

She frowned but said nothing. And because of her silence, none of them could ask what they meant either, and so they left the conversation at that.

~~~~~

Eva had been ordered by the professor to go with his son to help save the world, so now there she was. She went along with them back to NICS HQ and greeted the director, Takuya and, to her dismay, Otacross.

They had gathered the remains of the Killer Droid and analyzed them, the results showing on the screen in the main office. Otacross and Cobra both confirmed that the creature was not one of Detector's allies, meaning there could possibly be a second group involved. To further prove it, Otacross displayed a recording from the droid's memory banks of a scene in the Britannia Clock Tower.

The Killer Droid was fighting Achilles Deed.

Unfortunately, that was all the old man could find out as of that moment. But Ban held his held high. "Don't worry. No matter who comes along, we've got Sigma Orbis now!"

Hiro smiled. "That's right!"

Ran nodded. "Yeah!"

Director Kaios gave them a look full of hope and trust. "Ban, Hiro, Ran. Please focus everything into making Sigma Orbis our guaranteed measure."

"Yes, sir!"

~~~~~

They set off to train as soon as they could and all was going well until they called on Sigma Orbis. Ban and Hiro's argument caused them the loss and they were still in disagreement, Ran having needed to get between them.

"Hey, hey, calm it down." Cobra entered the room casually, Eva behind him. "I could hear you from all the way out there. You're getting too worked up. Maybe you guys need to cool your heads a bit." He nodded at himself. "Alright, we'll take a break this afternoon."

Jessica's eyes seemed to sparkle. "Eh? A break?"

Ban seemed dejected. "But right now, we..."

"Is that okay? Can we take a break?" Ran cut in excitedly.

"It's important to refresh yourselves when things aren't going good. I'll go tell the director and Boss Uzaki about it. Rest up this afternoon, alright?" And with that, he left on his own.

"A break, huh...?" Hiro was just about as glad as the girls.

Ban's eyes narrowed. "We haven't made much progress with Sigma Orbis yet, though..."

"Isn't it alright to take a break?"

"Jin?" The brunette seemed taken back. Well, that was to be expected, seeing as Jin was one of the most restless and paranoid people during the Innovators Incident. But seeing everyone else agreeing, and the black and white haired boy nodding at him... "Alright, let's take one." And with one last glance at the blue haired boy, he left the room.

Eva blinked as she watched him, then Hiro and Yuuya leaving. "Did something bad happen?"

Jin's eyes remain on the door. "Something like that."

"Alright, we're leaving too!" Jessica called from another door.

Ran waved at them as she tailed her. "We'll buy you something too, Eva!"

The blonde blinked. "For me? You really don't have to!" The words fell on deaf ears as they too left.

"They're nice people, don't you think?" The boy said, smiling slightly at her.

She returned it with her own. "I suppose. They're much better than Cobra for sure."

"I've been meaning to ask about that. He seemed colder on you than others."

She could only shake her head at that. "He doesn't like me all that much. Probably because of this." She pointed to the side of her head. "He and Mongoose are always working hard for the professor. Having this makes it seem like I have a bit of a cheat code. And well..."

He knew that tone. "He's not the first person to find you... different."

"But there's no helping it." She gave him a smile. "Why don't you go and check on Ban? I'll take care of the maintenance on your LBXs."

He spent a minute trying to read her, but eventually gave in. "Alright. I'll leave it to you then." He took a step towards the door before suddenly turning back and giving her a hug. "About last year... Sorry for leaving so suddenly."

"It's fine, really. It made me panic at first, but..." She shook her head and kept her smile up. "I know you had things you wanted to do, and things you needed to sort out on your own." She pulled away and began pushing him towards the door. "Go on now. Take care of Ban for us all."

He chuckled before standing up straight and nodding at her. "Right. Then, I'll see you in a little bit."

"And I'll be right here."

~~~~~

"Dr. Mummy. Date of birth, hometown, and career history unknown..." Kirito muttered to himself as he continued to look through the files. "Why did Omega Dain take this shady scientist in?"

"We're going to get in trouble for this." The Russian girl said from beside him.

He ignored her and continued to search through the files. A sketch of a familiar droid came up on screen. "Killer Droid's blueprints? So he got into Omega Dain by offering this thing to them."

That perked up her interest. "But why that of all things?"

"You've been here longer than I have, Levanov. I would've expected you to know more about this than I do."

"Shut up." She clicked her tongue. "I've been living with Worthen for years. Sure, he's a bit off at times, but he's not a bad person..."

He grunted, but didn't reply. Reading over the stats, his former tension returned. "This can't be called an LBX. This is almost like a..."

"You're exactly right." The voice made them jump.

Niara stood up straight and faced the man. "Sir!"

His gaze however, remained on the blonde. "Killer Droid is not an LBX. It's an anti-LBX weapon."

They followed him to his office. Whether they were in trouble or not didn't seem to matter at the moment. Curiosity was all that filled their heads.

The two teenagers stared in wonder as Worthen made his way to his desk. He stood still and kept his gaze out the window as he explained. "Dr. Mummy created Killer Droid as something that would surpass the LBX. I decided to accept it, for the sake of stopping the LBX-related terrorism."

Kirito smirked. "But it's still an incomplete product that does nothing but rampage."

Niara wanted to retort, but was cut off by the director himself. "We will complete it soon enough. It's just like your venture to gather EXP for your Cylops AI."

He immediately stood up straight. "Don't compare that thing to the Cylops AI! That thing is-"

"That's right." Worthen cut in once again. "All you need to do is keep working towards your own goal as a test player. Don't think about anything more than that."

The Russian watched as the blonde left the room. Then she turned to the director. "Sir, is there anything I can do to help? Like, with anything at all?"

"You've been much help to us since we took you in. As I told you, we are working to find your parents. However-"

"Because of the intense blizzards in the area, it's hard to send people in and even harder to monitor with drones." She nodded. "I know. Still, I'm grateful that you're continuing the search after a long time of no results."

"I am simply doing what I want to." He showed a small smile. "All you have to do is follow along."

~~~~~

"You're late, both of you." Jin informed. "Begin preparing for battle right away."

Eva giggled as both Ran and Jessica's faces turned from relaxed and happy to utterly confused. She prepped all their LBXs on the table and went to get her tablet to collect data and report back to Professor Yamano. Ban, Hiro, and Ran now had Sigma Orbis under control, and that was an achievement they would never take for granted.