<span style="font-weight: bold">Interference Team</span><br/><br/>When Koko anticlimactically defeated Xienghen Agetev, the Checkpoint System AI beeped and booped a few times. “Checkpoint boss defeated. Checkpoint cleared. Error, Error. Checkpoint #3 corruption still unresolved. Race data redirected to Checkpint #5.”<br/><br/>Vespi growled, pointedly ignoring Koko and Hakuzo and Pullio and the Dayman. She grumbled to herself, at Scarlet, and then at the castle in the distance.<br/><br/>“Come on, Gerihald…hurry. We’re running out of checkpoints.”<br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold">Infiltration Team</span><br/><br/>“This…ridiculous!” Momentarily forgetting himself, Geirhald swelled to the size of the room, the roar emanating from his body enough to drown out the shouts of those around him. With an actual roar from him, he punched through the ceiling and tore it apart, causing pieces of it to fall in a haphazard ramp that lead them back up to the main floor.<br/><br/>Haley had put her hands over her ears during the commotion, so when the Atmosfaerie shrank back down, she sighed and ran a hand down her face. “Um. Geirhald.”<br/><br/>“I…sorry…I…”<br/><br/>“No no. You did good, it just…well…stealth?”<br/><br/>The sandstorm shook his form. “Running…out…time…”<br/><br/>Haley began picking herself over the rubble. “Well…maybe we’ll lucky,” she offered, more to herself than anyone else. “Maybe no one heard. Maybe they’re all heavy sleepers – or deaf! Or Opheia sent them all out into the city or…” she trailed off upon reaching the top. “Or…”<br/><br/>Waiting for them was a young woman, probably not much younger than Haley herself, in a short yellow and red dress, with bright red hair, and piercing blue eyes staring out unblinking from a stoic face.<br/><br/>“Or…”<br/><br/>“It’s good to see you again, Haley Cavandish.” The woman didn’t speak. Instead, the voice came from the strange rectangular weapon she held to her chest, protectively (or maybe for comfort).<br/><br/>“Or…”<br/><br/>“Has it really been so long?”<br/><br/>“Or…”<br/><br/>By that time, Geirhald had made his way to the top. The sandstorm looked curiously from Haley to the other woman, and back. “Haley…who…?”<br/><br/>“Or we could find my little sister waiting for us.”