Chapter 8: Preparing For An Attack

"E.L.H. we must plan an attack on the Devours and their lotus-like base and quickly. It is unsure as to what their capabilities are and left alone it'll only become more dangerous. The carrier could have the ability to spread the Corruption or at the very least, have the ability to make more Devours, both of which are incredibly deadly and will prevent you from finishing your mission."

Anna starts uploading new directives and coordinates to E.L.H.'s HUD.

"New Mission: Build A Recharging Station"

"New Objective: Search For Building Materials"

Anna speaks up as the new directives are announced.

"If we are to fight the Devours we'll need a backup power source. If our fight were to stall, the Devours would quickly overrun us as soon as we falter in our assault. This is why we'll need a backup power source. Your own recharging capabilities are good, but not enough and will take too long in a fight against the Devours."

The new coordinates given by Anna are previously known locations of power and material hotspots.

"While humanity did strip most of the current resources out of the remaining structures, they couldn't have taken it all. With whatever is left, you could use it to make something out of it."

Anna highlights several different power creating structures in E.L.H.'s newly restored databased.

"But before we go, you'll need to fully understand what you can do and what are you currently capable of. You were built to defeat the Devours and cleanse the Corruption from Earth. After growing on Earth the Devours, or rather the ones that aren't modelled from earthen creatures such as the mutated wolves, are massive. You aren't fully equip to handle them yet, but you do have some abilities to could kill them. Your fight against the wolves showed that even unequipped with the proper combat module you could kill them. To defeat the larger Devours, you currently only have 2 major weapons. Your lance and your grappling hook. Seeing as you haven't used it yet, you probably didn't know you had one. Your grappling hook is used to engage the weak spots on the much larger Devours. Your lance is used to pierce whatever blocks that weak spot. Your other weapons, the short blade and cannon are used to combat smaller Devours, rare that they are, and used to hold others at bay while you're currently combating your target. Alternatively, your cannon can also be used as your main weapon. Yours is specifically made for the take down of much larger hostiles, but it uses a large part of your battery to do so. It is best to not use it as much as possible."

"We'll discuss what you should use to take down the Devour base later. For now we'll need that recharging station."

The locations that Anna had highlighted earlier show up on E.L.H.'s HUD as the previously known locations: Jumbo Park Power Relay Station; Toki Solar Array; Wiener's Warehouse And Supplies. E.L.H. wastes no time and gets moving towards the closest objective, grappling down the building that it was currently on. Anna plots a course based on the scans that E.L.H. had made the day earlier in order for them to reach their objectives faster. While on the move Anna speaks.

"The places that we are going to have roughly 10% of containing anything left that you could use. The fact that anything is there at all is due to the fact that CE technology required too much resources despite their usefulness. Saving up resources for their departure, humanity still used power stations, solar arrays, nuclear power, and other types of power that still proved useful in the world. I hope that they left something at the locations that we are heading to that could be scavenged and salvaged."

Anna then explains the events of the war up to her knowledge on it.

"True to the Western style, the major corporate companies shut down when their outside production fell. This led to a rise of smaller companies that specialized in their own fields. With the end of the world coming, pollution and production laws were reduced and a major industry movement spread out through the Americas. Along with the billions of refugees that came running from the Devours, human labor was plenty and kept the Americas still up during the war. They also worked on the massive spaceship project. Of course total war was enacted and most of, if not all of the resources ever made went into holding back the aliens. Still with the thousands of companies competing for dominance, new and better technologies were found daily, hence how CE was developed and plenty of other technologies that were used."

E.L.H. makes it to the first objective, Wiener's Warehouse. Unlike the rest of the city, the warehouse is in ruins. Although given an objective to look through the building, E.L.H. has doubts about finding anything useful from the wreckage, but Anna insists on E.L.H. to search for it.

"If we do not look, we'll never know if something was there or not. There could be hidden compartments below the building or perhaps something survived the nuclear blast and the stripping for metallic resources just as we did."

Anna charts out the best way to remove the rubble without causing too many collapses and E.L.H. starts searching for anything to be of use. While searching, in an attempt to help locate any hopeful resource, Anna pulls up the blueprint for the warehouse. The warehouse was a product of the greatest technology at the time. In order to save space, the warehouse had a disassembling station that took apart or broke down tools and other supplies into pieces. Those pieces could then be used to build other things when needed, as if they prefabricated beforehand. While in waiting, supplies would be tucked away into an underground storage system and then brought back up when needed again.

"If humanity makes as many mistakes and errors as the humans around me did, there will be something for us to use even if it is a small detail."

Using the electronic scan sight, E.L.H. scans for any response. Nothing. Digging further into the rubble, E.L.H. finds that the storage system itself is still intact and much to both its and Anna's surprise, the system was made of plastic resources or to be exact, prefabricated railings. Most of the storage system was gone, not ruined but pulled away. What was left was the railing in which materials were placed on and transported out when needed or stored. Anna exclaims in a happy tone.

"Excellent. I knew that this was the best place to find something.

E.L.H. starts taking out the railings which was easy as it was also made out prefabricated technology and easily able to be taken apart after removing several latches and bolts. While working, Anna floats around and scans the nearby areas for danger and providing light when needed. Looking at the ruins and the amount of vegetation grown around, Anna speaks to E.L.H.

"There's so many plants and moss around here. I wonder how long we were out for."

Gathering the railing pieces, E.L.H. makes haste and exits from the location.

"You could use the railing prefabricated pieces to construct a small structure or box to house the new recharging station. If needed they could also melt it down to make other things too, but since they are prefabricated pieces you should keep them together."

The next location is the solar array. The major components they needed were here, but unfortunately nothing was here. The entire array was picked clean, in fact the location didn't even look like an array anymore. Even the prefabricated base components were gone. Moving onto the last location, the power station also stood empty or in ruins. Looking even more thoroughly and with electronic scan sight, E.L.H. did find small bits of copper that could be salvaged, but they weren't in any good conditions. Still, it could be used if handled correctly. Any storage metals weren't found however, despite being in a power station, and without any storage metals, E.L.H. didn't have a stable backup power that could be recharge it. They could make the power source, but could not store the energy. Thinking of another solution, Anna comes up with charging saturated salt water with an electric current. E.L.H.'s internal CE power charger could take the energy from that instead of electronically charged metals.

With daylight still up, the duo starts making the power station. By evening, using the prefabricated materials to create a windmill and placing it at the highest peak that could be reached in the desolate city, they constructed a small but hopeful recharging station with a salt water electric current as its holding source.