Hendrix and Vida swung into the floor below Akilah, Kai, and Taro. Vida snapped out of her flustered shock, looking around the floor just the same as Hendrix was.
"Are we just supposed to walk up?" Vida asked.
"That doesn't seem like the whole picture." Hendrix responded as he thought over what could be lurking in the floors leading up to the dummy hostage.
Hendrix and Vida started to walk up the stairs, being slightly wary of their surroundings as they did so.
They were able to make it up to the fourth floor. Vida expected to see the rest of the group, since this was the floor where she saw Kai's blur of speed stop.
"Looks like they kept moving." Vida muttered to Hendrix, who nodded in return.
The two walked through the same path the kids before them did. Eventually, they triggered the same trap that Kai had fallen into.
The plank of wood swung towards Vida's face, she tried to duck under but it didn't seem to give her enough time. She got ready for the pain in her face.
Hendrix wrapped his strings around the board, stopping the plank in its tracks right before it made contact with Vida's nose.
Vida exhaled in relief.
"You alright?" Hendrix still checked in on her with urgency, even though the board hadn't hit her.
"Yeah, thanks." Vida chuckled at Hendrix's worry.
They continued to make their way through the fourth floor, coming up on the stairs to the fifth. The duo got to the last step of stairs when Vida felt an arm against her chest, stopping her from moving forward.
Vida jumped in surprise as Hendrix turned towards the direction she was looking, ready for a fight. He saw a hand cover Vida's mouth, putting him into a frantic combative state until he saw who they belonged to.
"Sh!" Akilah put a finger to her mouth as the two brothers accompanying her pointed towards the office cubicles dividing the group of teens from the stairs.
Hendrix and Vida looked at the cubicles, confused as to what they were supposed to be looking at.
The floor was a maze of cubicles, some with overturned tables and flipped chairs. The sides of the floor were random patterns of broken and intact windows, just like every other floor.
"What is it?" Vida tried to speak through Akilah's hand, which she had forgotten to remove. Akilah removed her hand.
"There's some kind of trap behind one of the cubicle doors." Akilah's eyes glowed purple as she tried to double check if what she saw was still there.
Hendrix and Vida looked at each other, trying to deduce what kind of trap it could be.
"Akilah said it looks like a person." Taro scratched his head, trying to think about what it could be.
"Is it a person?" Vida asked.
"Nope. It doesn't have any Spirit flow. I can't tell what it's made out of, but it seems like it's waiting for a trigger, and we can't find where the trigger is." Akilah's words made the group look around once again. Akilah continued.
"The trap on the third floor was triggered by a trip wire. This one might be something similar." Akilah spoke while she pondered.
While this conversation went on, Kai began to get restless.
"Why don't we just see what it is? It can't be that bad." Kai said, walking forward with slight precaution.
"Bro! Don't do something stupid." Taro reached his arm out to grab Kai but he was already out of arms reach. The rest of the group didn't want to take another step to not trigger the trap.
"This fucking idiot." Akilah lifted up her glasses and grabbed the bridge of her nose to quiet down the headache Kai was giving her.
As Kai got further and further into the center of the floor, he walked with less precaution, walking with more bravado.
Kai got into the middle of the floor, approximately where Akilah had told them the trap was, he turned around with a victorious grin.
"See? It's just trial and error fellas-" Kai's lecture was cut off when a boxing glove came out from behind a cubicle wall, hitting Kai straight in the gut.
The rest of the group was shocked, except Taro, who tried to hold back his laughter.
"Ow. My stomach." Kai whined.
Taro's laughter stopped as another boxing glove came out from behind the same cubicle wall, landing a direct hit on Kai's side.
"It's not going to stop," Taro thought as he ran to Kai.
Taro ran to meet whatever it may be. Taro saw two holes in the cubicle door next to Kai. Another boxing glove emerged, swinging towards Taro's stomach. He was able to catch it, but the glove had enormous strength behind it, causing Taro to channel his Spirit towards his own strength. Even then, Taro still used both of his hands to keep the glove in place.
Taro didn't notice that another boxing glove was coming out of the other hole in the wall. The glove landed a direct hit on Taro's cheek, making him fly back towards the other three kids.
Taro's altercation with the trap gave Kai just enough time to recuperate and get out of the way of the boxing gloves. He picked up his brother on the way back to the group.
The kids thought the trap would go dormant, since no one was in front of it. They turned their attention towards the brothers.
"Are you guys okay?" Vida asked the two as they laid on the floor.
"Ow. My body." Kai whined.
"Yeah, I'm fine. That trap has some power behind those punches." Taro rubbed his cheek, which had become slightly swollen from the punch.
The group heard the cubicle door break. They all looked to their horror as something came out from behind the wall.
"What the hell is that?!" Kai threw his arms up in frustrated confusion.
Some kind of humanoid robot came out from behind the wall. It was adorned with two boxing gloves, and walked on a kind of treadmill-like bottom. As it turned towards the group, they heard the whizzing and whirring of its joints.
"How the hell are we supposed to fight a robot?!" Taro exclaimed.
Akilah's eyes glowed purple as she tried to learn more about the robotic trap. All she saw inside the robot was what she expected, wiring and circuits galore.
"That's a full blown robot." Akilah ran her fingers through her short hair as she tried to think.
The robot began to walk, or roll, rather, towards the group. The kids started to panic.
"What are we gonna do?" Vida tried to keep her friends' minds on the task at hand instead of panicking.
Akilah looked around for an answer to Vida's question, just seeing cubicles and windows, some broken and some intact.
"Wait." The broken windows gave Akilah an idea.
Akilah looked at the head of the robot. There were five green blobs on what seemed to be a black screen covering all sides of the robot's head.
Akilah moved side to side to confirm her theory. One of the green blobs mimicked her movement to a T.
"If the robot is only tracking us…" Akilah thought to herself.
She channeled her Spirit into her brain again.
"Just as I thought." Akilah confirmed her theory in her head. She now knew that the robot was detecting Spirit alone. Her idea might work.
The whole time Akilah had been testing her theory out, the robot had been continuing its journey towards the group. Hendrix began to panic for his friends.
"Vi-" As Akilah was about to put her plan into action, Hendrix thought quickly.
Hendrix jabbed the robot with his strings, spiraling them together towards the robot's midsection. The jab did no visible damage.
"Shit." Hendrix thought to himself.
Hendrix stepped in front of the rest of the kids, hoping to divert the attention away from his friends and onto him.
He hadn't thought before he acted. If anyone was going to be hurt, it was going to be him.
"Hendrix!" Akilah tried to get Hendrix's attention to no avail. Hendrix was deep in thought while also keeping all of his focus on the enemy in front of him.
The robot got into the arms reach of Hendrix, winding back one of its arms to land a punch on him.
Hendrix grabbed both of the robots' gloves with his strings. The robot struggled to get its arms free from the steel strings.
Hendrix let out a small sigh while trying to keep the gloves in place.
To the disbelief of the group, the robot began to spin around, taking its gloves around with it. Hendrix tried to manifest more length to the strings so that he wouldn't spin around with the gloves, but as the robot kept spinning, Hendrix got to his string-length limit. Hendrix's strings were tightly wrapped around the robot's upper abdomen. He began to spin around with the robot as his boots lost grip on the thin carpet.
"Let go!" Taro yelled at Hendrix.
"I'm trying!" Hendrix tried to reel his strings back in but the strings were now wrapped around the robot about five times.
The group watched in horror as Hendrix slowly tried untying his strings from the enemy. After a few seconds more, Hendrix was able to untie himself. He didn't account for the momentum that spinning would leave him with, however.
Hendrix went flying towards one of the windows on the sides of the building, crashing through the glass like a rolling stone.
"HENDRIX!" Vida screamed as Hendrix looked down at the four story drop below him.