RB Chapter 180 Threat Assessment

A stylus was being moved in between fingers, dancing between them with such grace that the owner of the fingers must have practiced extensively to get that good. The fingers were a pale brown, smooth and slender with good looking nails. Subtle red nail polish coated the nails, making them beautiful, but not to the point of glaring. 

The person, the owner of the hand was Cleo. Even though the stylus was weaving in between her fingers, it was more of a subconscious activity since she was deep in thought. The heavy rain had lowered the visual acuity of the cameras attached to the drones. They were still up in the air but they were simply hovering since the AI and the manual operators wouldn't be able to navigate through the rain.

"Lower the drones. They should approach at the ground level."

"What about the trees?"

"This is a chance to capture an undocumented life form! We can't waste it!"

"Hey! This is a very dangerous life form!"

"Should we send for a spectrum warrior?"

"Its just a plant! There is no way that it will be able to move from its position."

"She's right. It can be ignored for now."

"..."

The people, the strategists she had brought in to help her were now arguing up a storm due to the differing nature of their opinions.

"The drones are less than adequate...on that I agree. But we have to monitor this lifeform. Lower them until they reach ground level. Get the best pilots in the job." Cleo ordered after gathering her thoughts. Those brats were there. She wanted to see how they were going to solve this problem.

"...also, get a few biologists, I want to get their opinions on the life form. We need to at least substantiate whether it really isn't that dangerous." She continued. Everyone worked to fulfill her orders, even those who had been arguing had stopped.

A few minutes later, everyone was focused on the screen. The drones had lowered to ground level, having managed to avoid the trees. They were cruising in the ground, visibility was a bit better allowing all the people to see the vibrancy of this fruit forest. Many species fruit producing trees, mutated or otherwise, could be seen, eliciting a few gasps. Some of the people here were even envious of the city that was going to own this entire plantation. Rain water had covered the ground, carrying around the weightless dry leaves, forming into streams and running off into low lying soil, forming puddles, or joining up with more streams to form larger streams.

Cleo took all this in as the drone flew close to the ground. She could see that the cameras were now able to capture 500m away since the trees were blocking the bulk of the rain drops. Though, since the skies were gloomy, the view was dark, coupled with the tree shadows, it became even more eerie. Goosebumps appeared in her arms which had been crossed in front of her chest as she leaned back into her chair.

'That place is too creepy! I wonder whether there is someone who feels the same as me.' She thought, her gaze wondering onto the faces of the others. The drones still hadn't reached the target, and she was horrified by the video feed, so she took some time to look around.

Her gaze fell onto a group of people, four to be precise, three women and one man. They appeared to have gotten along in years. They were dressed formally and she saw glints of excitement in their eyes as they discussed the ecosystem being shown on the screen. They were the biologists she had invited. She listened to some of their words.

They were discussing about the type of creatures that would have thrived in that forest. They were so animated that they had even temporarily forgotten to greet her. They had been like that ever since they had arrived. She didn't mind it too much, since she was very familiar with the behaviours of scientists. Though that probably wasn't the same with her secretary. She was standing to the side of her seat a bit further back so that they weren't on the same level.

Through her keen senses, she felt the woman glaring at the quad. She was probably angry at their rudeness. Cleo could have taken the time to pacify her but there were many ears here. 

"Hmmm!? What is that?" Someone's voice pierced through the atmosphere, breaking up the murmurings of the others. Cleo didn't look towards the person who had shouted but at the screen. She sucked in a very large breath of air upon seeing what the three cameras of the drones were capturing.

Brown roots, like a bundle of earthworms were drilling out of the ground and sucking in water and some had even connected tendrils to the other plants and trees. Every connected plant or tree became dessicated in a matter of seconds, and they weren't even slowing down. They were in the middle of invading everything, like locusts.

"Biologists, I do believe that this is your cue." Cleo said calmly. Her heart had skipped a beat, but as someone who had experienced many scenes, she had quickly reined in her emotions.

"Does anyone have any idea what this plant is?" One of the biologists asked. Cleo nodded to her secretary, who moved towards them and showed the clip before the rain. The vines which had been encroaching towards the top of the building.

"I believe those vines are the origin of the roots." Cleo said. The other people in the room left it to her to converse with these people.

"As expected...going by the speed the vines are growing at, the energy needed must be massive, meaning that a normal root system can't keep up unless the energy was stockpiled for many years..." A woman, one of the biologists started her expression. All four had glowing eyes as of they had just laid eyes on the holy grail. Their glowing eyes had Cleo remember the first time that she had become a spectrum warrior.

"...mmm...the amount needed is massive indeed, but do you see that more water is being a absorbed, far more than the nutrients? That means that this plant life form must be substituting some of the needed nutrients with the water." The man said.

"If what we thinking is correct, then, most of those green vines you saw were temporary. Even their growth must have been stimulated by the water pressure." They concluded.

"What I mostly want to know is whether the plant is sentient...plus its threat level." Cleo waited for them to finish before asking the main question.

"Just the way its making use of its abilities alone gives it away as a sentient life form." Another woman among the biologists answered.

"Its threat level, I would assume that to be around the expert energy channeller level, someone who has mastered energy channelling to the point where its like breathing to them." The third woman said.

'An expert level energy channeller...now that's a hard person to find.' Even Cleo, who was a spectrum warrior wouldn't boast that she was an expert energy channeller. Such people were geniuses...rarer than even spectrum warriors!

'Two of them are spectrum warriors and the others are energy channellers...they will probably be able to handle it.'

While she was deep in thought, the drones were continuing their flight. The good thing was that the roots didn't seem to have any extra sensory organs, so the drones weren't attacked. Deeper within, they could see a network of thick roots which were occasionally pulsing as if they were transporting something.

"The sentient life form must be at the center where these roots converge." Cleo said. They had all been attracted to this video feed, entirely ignoring the others, of course those others were being monitored by other people, so if any emergency cropped up, someone would send a notification.

-----

"Eric! Eric! Eric! Eric!" Someone called out loudly in the darkness. It wasn't totally dark though as the occasional flashes of electricity were lighting up the place.

Those flashes were shedding light on the nature of this place. It was an enclosure formed from dark green vines which were squirming around and launching attacks at the person whose body was flashing with electricity.

Chloe was feeling very frustrated. Eric's earpiece was still functioning but he wasn't answering. She had just let off a powerful attack which had bought her a few seconds to track the earpiece and she found that it was heading downwards. That had worried her.

'Could he have been captured? But there is no way, he's as strong as me. He must have dived down himself, but then...why isn't he answering?' The thoughts of him being in danger ate away at her mind. Her heart was throbbing intensely, making her feel uncomfortable.

With those thoughts occupying her mind, her attacks were getting more and more powerful, a sign that she was putting in more energy.

Zzzzzzzt!

An electric bolt hit the wall of the enclosure causing multiple vines to be burnt to a crisp, spreading water vapor inside. The temperature if the place she was trapped in was rising with every vine she was taking out since she was burning them to a crisp. The high water content within was turning into steam, which was starting to obscure her vision.

'Should I head down?' She asked herself. But what if she instead got in his way and was captured, provided he was still okay? A dilemma fractured her thoughts. The dilemma brought about feelings of rage which caused her to enter a melee with the vines. She had been dodging and hurling electric bolts, but this time she coated her fists and legs in electricity and started throwing punches and kicks. Her body was very agile.

She threw a punch to her right, roasting a vine, and causing a burst of steam. Before the steam could even proliferate, more punches and kicks connected with many more vines which were in the middle of attacking! Tens of attacks were being exchanged every single second, with the vines being the ones mostly coming up short. Though, their fragility was compensated with their massive numbers and terrifying regeneration.

"Vines! Vines!...these things are everywhere! Why can't you give me sometime to think!" She shouted and threw a more powerful punch, coated with a lot of electricity at a wall, burning through it and coming out into a place where the vines were sparse, light from the gloomy clouds entering through.

"..." She sighed after exiting the trap...but she had no time to even stay motionless for a single second because more vines were still attacking! 

As she wove through the vines, running along their length or skipping towards another, a drop of rain fell onto her, causing her body, for a brief instant, to have goosebumps and a chill down her spine. The chill snapped her out of her recklessness and she resumed her previous way of fighting with minimal energy.

'I will choose to have faith in him. He's strong enough, there is no way that this life form can kill him.'

-----

In the darkness, two emerald eyes could be seen moving. They were glowing in this darkness, but they didn't stay in one place for as long as a second. Before a second could elapse, they were already in another direction. That wasn't the only thing that was intriguing within them though. They were also moving in their sockets with such speed that the entire sockets were being out green. They only had a black vertical slit running through them, but nontheless, they appeared both beautiful and terrifying.

In this darkness, Leah felt at home. All her senses had been heightened to their limits with energy channelling. She was micro managing every inch of energy in her body as if it was sparse. Her body was contorting in were shapes to dodge most vines. Her attacks were also filled with finesse...she only scratched a vine with her long nails for it to corrode.

'Eric has been sinking down for the past few minutes. I was worried at first, but I now don't think these vines have what it takes to bring him down.' Leah thought as she side stepped a vine, scratching it softly, using its force against it. She wasn't in a hurry to break out of this encirclement, instead, she was using it to polish up her skills. Monki hadn't been the only one who had taken the assassin's lecture seriously. She had also taken in his knowledge.

She had to admit, the man was a natural born prodigy. If he hadn't been fixated on pulling out the human potential, neglecting his other genes, then she might not have killed him that easily. She was modifying her combat ability, making sure that every inch of her body was lethal.

She was even using her scales, strengthening and raising a few to scratch the vines, administering her lethal dose of poison. Pools of dark water pooled underneath her feet, forming puddles which were being held up by a mishmash of vines. Even though the pools had diluted poison, it was still causing the vines holding the water to corrode.

'I will wait until he asks for my help.' She went back into investing her thoughts into training. She had discovered a few flaws in her attitude previously, so she was now putting more emphasis on gaining strength.