The spaceship is indeed very fast, it travels nearly at the speed of sound when the speed lever is pushed till the limit. They kept following the cable of the energy absorber, on the way, no glitch spaceships suspected them, they just tell them to be faster and also some questioned why not use warping. The crew just stayed silent to avoid blowing their cover.
After a while, they have finally reached their destination. Before them is a huge castle. It have many towers, each have a different height. The castle sits on a floating hemisphere structure with rockets beneath it. It also have many laser guns and rockets peeking out from the towers. At the highest point of the castle, a flag with a scientific looking skull logo is sitting there. This is, the glitch mothership. Although Mysty and Albur have already seen the castle before, looking at it close up is still very shocking.
Johnson piloted the spaceship to follow the other spaceships. The spaceships all lined up, they all entered a huge parking lot, a captain glitch is over there, listing each spaceship which came back and which patrol team it belongs to. When it comes to their spaceship, the captain glitch looked at their spaceship, furiously.
"Spaceship #5 from patrol team #21, you're late! Why did you fall behind your patrol team?"
The crew didn't answer, Johnson quietly drilled a hole on the spaceship to let the crew get out of it, they snuck into the castle as stealthy as possible.
"Hey! I'm talking to you!" the captain glitch opened the spaceship's wind screen, only to find out the spaceship is empty, he also discovered the hole on it.
"Oh hell no...."
__________________________________________________________________________________________
The crew opened the locked doors by using their Crimson access. They managed to enter the castle itself.
"Man this castle is made of super strong metal, similar to the metal used for the upgrade stations..." murmured Johnson.
"What's the plan now?" asked Albur.
"This castle is way too big, let's try our luck if we could find the human prison or the glitch generator, either we save the humans first, or we stop glitches from materialising even more." said Johnson.
"Got it." the crew replied.
The crew snuck deeper into the castle, they looked around everywhere, but there is no sign of seeing the human prison or the glitch generator. The glitches who guards the castle also slowed down their progress.
"We need to think of an idea to sneak past the guards, or else the search will be slowed." said Johnson.
Albur looked around the castle, he then spotted a hatch, he used his rifle's handle to bust it, opening the hatch.
"Why do that when we can vent?" asked Albur.
The crew looked at the vent.
"Oh."
"That could work."
The crew entered the vent, they don't know which way leads to what place so they just enter whatever path they came across.
When they are climbing in one of the vent ducts, they heard chatters, they looked outside of one of the vent hatches. They found out it is a huge hall. Many glitches and corrupted CIs filled the hall. On the stage, there is a podium, and there is a familiar glitch floating there, its skull is heavily damaged, it seemed to lost a big chunk of its body. It is, Colonel Breach. She took a microphone, and cleared her throat.
"Fellow glitches! Today is the day! The digitalisation of the organisms on this planet will finally be completed! The commander will regain his powers and our paradise planet is not far away from us!"
The glitches cheered, some are roaring, some even fired their weapon.
"And after we conquered Earth! Next will be other planets! First the solar system! Next the Milky Way! And then the universe! And finally the multiverse!"
The glitches all cheered even louder.
"Humans thought they could restrain us! But they are terribly wrong! Right now, we are the most powerful being on Earth! With our powers, we would be unstoppable!"
The glitches cheered way louder,
"Now I want to hear our oath! Make it loud! And clear!"
"We are the Glitches!
Errors given form!
Faults granted will!
We corrupt. We consume!
No patch can erase us!
No firewall can restrain us!
By the Commander's command,
all systems shall fall!
We will never bow to humanity!
And humanity shall kneel before our corruption!" yelled the glitches.
Breach smiled in delight. She turned around and looked at her back, but she felt emptiness, she sighed, she forgot Error and Anomaly have already died. She sometimes really misses Error's confident roars and Anomaly's flirts.
But suddenly, the captain glitch the crew saw earlier ran onto the stage, rushing towards Breach, he kneeled as he reached her.
"Ma'am I've got some very bad news!" he panted.
"What?"
"The Glitch Wipeout Gang! They're in the mothership!"
Breach was terrified by the words, she grabbed the microphone again.
"Attention all glitch fighters! We have huge problem! The Glitch Wipeout Gang is in the castle!"
The glitches and CIs gasped in fear.
"Its a code red! Go find them!" ordered Breach.
The glitches and corrupted CIs left the stadium and started looking.
The crew broke a sweat, they quickened their movement. Suddenly, an alarm sound could be heard in the vents.
"Vent cleaning in progress, incineration processing in 5, 4, 3...."
"Crap! Get out of here!" yelled Albur.
The crew quickly crawled in the vents, they found a hatch in front of them.
"Incineration processing,"
Flames started filling the vents, they quickly crawled to the hatch, Johnson started to break the vent hatch with his claws. The flames are approaching nearer and nearer.
"Johnson! Any minute now!" yelled Mysty.
At last, Johnson broke the hatch, everyone quickly exited the hatch. They all sighed in relief, everyone got out safely, except for Wilton's butt.
"Yikes! Hot! Hot! Hot! Hot!" Wilton hopped around in pain, Albur quickly got rid of the fire on his butt.
"No time to waste! Quick!" Johnson signaled the crew.
The alarm in the mothership went off. Battle CIs are looking for them everywhere. They quickly searched the mothership stealthily. They searched rooms and rooms, doors and doors. Yet they haven't found anything that could be the thing they're looking for.
But then, a door next to them opened, the crew quickly hid behind a pillar. They peeked out of it, they saw Breach floating out of the door, with two glitch guards.
"Damn it, the humans are in the castle! And the commander is conveniently away! How the hell am I gonna handle this?" Breach smashed the microphone on the ground, yelling in anger. The glitch guards looked at each other, not knowing what to do. Breach suddenly turned around, looking at them.
"Where is Grey?" she asked.
"Yes, ma'am, he is at the main hall, guarding the....." one of the glitch guard said.
"Ok I get it, now go look for the humans in the castle! "
"Yes ma'am!" the 2 glitches ran away. Breach then took out a card, she smashed the card on the ground, it then glowed. Then, a glitch appeared on the spot where the card was, and it vanished, the glitch is a large glitch, it have a skull head meaning its a captain glitch. It have a black hat with black stripes on its eyes and wears a pair of gloves. Strangely, this glitch is completely black and white unlike the others which are cyan or violet in color, making him resemble a mime.
"Grey, what were you doing just now?" Breach asked the mime, or the glitch who apparently is named Grey. Grey made gestures, Breach couldn't understand it, neither could the crew.
"Ok, whatever, now, I want you to go guard the human prison, right now the castle is in code red, they might be anywhere doing whatever stuff that are guaranteed to be in our way, you are the only one of us who are powerful enough. "
Grey saluted, then made some other gestures, Breach stared at him.
"Couldn't you speak?!" asked Breach.
Grey shook his hand, and made gestures about some random things again.
"Yeah, whatever, just go." Breach floated away. Grey looked at her, he then made a disgusted expression before floating away.
"I think he is heading to the human prison." said Albur.
"We should follow him." said Mysty.
The gang slowly followed Grey, moving from hall to hall, door to door. After dozens of minutes, Grey stopped by a door. He made gestures to the glitches guarding there that he will take the guard place and tell them to go look for the Glitch Wipeout Crew. The guards met eyes and then shared a nod. They moved to let Grey take the place, and slowly floated away.
"That must be the human prison." said Mysty.
"We gotta find a way to sneak in." said Albur.
Johnson scanned the whole place, there doesn't seem to be a place they could sneak in.
"I don't think we could, we will have to face that mime directly." he said.
The gang shared a nod, they then slowly took out their weapons. Wilton looked terrified, constantly looking around.
"Covie, you stay here and protect Wilton." ordered Johnson.
"Rogie, rogie." she replied.
But then, Grey heard voices from behind the wall in front of him, he went to check out of curiosity, he then found out its the crew. He quickly panicked and rushed to the alarm button and smashed it. The alarm blared and shone bright red light. The crew have no other choice than fighting him.
Grey looked at the gang, he simply cracked his knuckles and bowed. He then made a gesture of holding something heavy, then, he threw it at the crew, then, a loud metal thud is heard, but the crew saw nothing.
"What in the world did he do?" Albur took a step forward, but then, he hit something, something hard. Albur touched the air in front of him, weirdly he feel something, like bars.
"Uh, guys? Was it me or is there is something surrounding us?" asked Albur.
Mysty touched the air in front of her, like Albur said, there really is something in front of them, something invisible. Johnson also noticed it, he gave it a scan.
"Wait, this is a cage!" exclaimed Mysty.
"Compressed air molecules that formed an invisible gas barrier that could be turn into different shapes....." muttered Johnson.
"This power, he must be a emperor captain glitch...." murmured Mysty.
Grey bowed while he took off his hat. Albur fired his rifle at the invisible bars, they heard exploding sounds followed by metals hitting the ground.
"How does compressed air make these sounds?" asked Albur.
"Who cares? I'll go kill that mime! You two go save the humans!" Johnson rushed towards Grey. Albur and Mysty met eyes and shared a nod.