My Infinite Investment System

Chapter 72: Guardian

The guardian struck before anyone had time to argue with its legal theory.

Water drove through the channel, separating Ryan from Mika, Grace, Dara, plus the recruits.

Ryan caught a brace with one hand, planted the spear with the other, and watched the flood throw the ace toward the crown machinery.

"The crown stays intact," Grace called through the water wall, her camera held above the spray, "if it breaks, every repaired route becomes a pressure line into the district."

The guardian twisted around the regulator as pipe limbs locked into an old filtration frame.

Pale roots dragged shell plates from the overflow and fixed them across its chest.

Ryan’s valuation found three temporary platforms supported by maintenance braces.

"Mika takes the left platforms," he said, pointing across the flood, "Grace keeps Dara on the valves, and nobody crosses the red water."

"The roots move pressure instead of protecting the body," Grace replied, tracking the rise, "so strike the joints when they expose a brace."

The guardian’s arm swept through the channel and smashed the brace behind Ryan.

He jumped for the nearest slab before the safe return path vanished under the flood.

’That was one way to simplify the map,’ Ryan thought, driving the spear into the maintenance slot, ’now it only had the bad options.’

Claim held the slab in place through one narrow line.

The boundary stopped at the brace edge and left the water entirely outside his authority.

Across the chamber, the ace’s escorts formed a shield around her junior while she held the regulator against her chest.

"Your repair changed the balance," she said, watching the roots swing toward both teams, "and the guardian is treating us as claimants."

"Then stop holding it like a trophy," Ryan called, throwing a short blade toward the damaged valve, "and help Grace keep the station alive."

Mika reached the left platform without using Lightning Step, since she had already spent both safe steps before the guardian arrived.

She set both tonfas against the stone as a root limb lifted beneath her boots.

The limb tried to curl around her ankle beneath the turning platform.

Mika caught it between the tonfas and pushed a controlled C-rank burst through the outer shell.

Current moved through the platform, so two recruits dropped their spears and grabbed the rail.

"Ground through the metal," Mika said, adjusting her stance against the turn, "if you cannot see it, feel for the vibration and wait for my count."

At her count, the recruits struck together and opened a seam beneath one shell plate.

Ryan saw the seam from the opposite platform, then a second construct dropped from the ceiling to close the gap.

It wore the rough shape of a maintenance worker with a broken seal where its face should have been.

Combat Valuation found a fourteen-second loop buried inside the construct’s movement.

’Fourteen seconds was barely enough time to make a bad decision professionally,’ Ryan thought, waiting through the first cycle, ’which was apparently the offer.’

He drove the spear through the construct’s shoulder joint as it reset.

Hostile Takeover caught the instruction loop and made its next command belong to him.

The construct seized the guardian’s root limb, exposing a second brace for exactly fourteen seconds.

Ryan struck the exposed brace before the borrowed order unwound completely.

"Fourteen seconds is not a victory," Grace said, watching pressure climb past the warning line, "it is a window."

"Then use it before it shuts," Ryan replied, bracing his shoulder against the construct.

"My junior stays alive," the ace said, locking one arm around the regulator, "so do not mistake this window for permission to spend him."

"Then hold the crown steady," Mika called from the central platform, "because the valves cannot carry a repair while it keeps twisting the pressure."

The guardian reclaimed the limb, crushed the construct between roots, then threw Ryan toward the junior trapped beside the crown housing.

For one clear second, the exposed joint offered Ryan a clean strike before the guardian could turn its shell plates back across the trapped junior.

Beneath the shell plate, the trapped junior screamed beside the crown housing where the flood kept climbing over his boots.

Ryan abandoned the opening, crossed the narrow gap with the spear braced behind him, then caught the junior’s harness before the guardian could drive another root limb through the crown housing.

He caught the junior’s harness, pulled him clear, and took the guardian’s root limb through incomplete Iron Root.

Pain went from his ribs into his hand with the uncomplicated enthusiasm of a bill arriving late.

Water reached the crown housing in heavy sheets, carrying loose shell fragments past Ryan’s boots while the guardian tested the damaged braces with the methodical patience of a machine looking for the next failure.

Above the flood line, Grace shouted valve numbers to Dara, who answered with wrench taps because the chamber had become too loud for anything more elaborate to survive the water.

The spear slipped beneath the water before he recovered it and rolled them behind the crown housing.

The ace dragged her junior toward the repaired valve rather than holding position on the regulator.

"You gave up the joint," she said, pressing one hand against the junior’s bleeding side, "do not ask me to call that trust."

"Keep him alive," Ryan replied, holding one arm tight to his ribs, "then stop the guardian from flooding the station, and we can name the rest later."

Mika reached the central platform with the recruits behind her.

She chained measured C-rank bursts through exposed joints instead of giving the guardian one large discharge to redirect.

The formation forced it back, but roots seized Ryan’s ordinary spear from the water and dragged it toward the crown.

Ryan caught the shaft before it vanished beneath the machinery.

The metal vibrated as the station forced three incompatible readings through its old locks.

"The spear is becoming a conductor," Grace warned, reaching the final valve with Dara, "if you use it again, the locks might not return to their old shape."

’It only had to return once,’ Ryan thought, fitting the handle through the crown housing gap, ’after that, Dara could be mad about it somewhere dry.’

"It only needs one return," he said.

Mika understood the improvised plan before the ace had time to object.

She pulled both tonfas against the spear rather than the guardian and sent a prepared rhythm through the ordinary locks.

Mika’s first controlled burst cracked open the guardian’s outer root frame without touching the regulator beneath it.

Her second burst scorched the crown’s outer housing, which forced the roots to release their grip without splitting the regulator itself.

The third forced the guardian to kneel against the filtration platform.

Gold and pink ran beneath the spear’s black metal while its old locks bent under the current, turning Ryan’s ordinary weapon into a temporary route for a repair nobody could safely repeat.

Dara closed the final clamp while Grace held the pressure sequence open.

The filtration core accepted the repairs with a deep mechanical pulse.

The guardian lowered its head, released the regulator, and placed one root hand against the station.

Its posture looked less defeated than reassigned to a less violent task by the restored station.

Between the teams, the crown floated beside a narrow clear key carrying the same three claimant colors.

Ryan waited for the frame to stop shaking before he reached for it.

’Do not turn a repair into a conquest,’ he thought, holding his position, ’that was the exact kind of sentence people said before doing it anyway.’

After a long pause, the ace lowered her blade before either escort moved.

"Temporary stewardship belongs to the people who restored the line," she said, pushing the regulator toward the center platform, "but the station has not granted title to anyone."

Grace recorded the statement while Dara checked the falling pressure.

Mika guarded the crown while Ryan accepted the narrow crystal key from the water.

[Return credits: 600]

[Current balance: 1,000]

[Stewardship: provisional]

The guardian folded into the machinery and revealed a lower tunnel beneath the filtration platform.

The ace’s junior coughed beside the valve while both teams lowered their weapons around the regulator.

Ryan looked toward the tunnel, where something crowned and intelligent had watched the fight from below.

"We leave with the key, the evidence, and every person who entered," he said, checking that Mika still stood beside the crown, "then we decide what the lower route is trying to buy."

The Exchange unfolded behind his eyes with one purchasable blueprint.

[Spear evolution blueprint I: 900 return credits]

[Status: locked until purchase]

The price would leave one hundred credits after purchase.

Behind the screen waited an image that did not feel like a message.

A crowned creature studied human ownership diagrams beside dark water, one hand resting on a name Ryan could not read.

’It had been watching the paperwork,’ Ryan thought, closing the screen, ’which felt worse than watching the fight.’

The lower tunnel gave no further sign of the crowned observer, but its flooded mouth remained open beneath the restored machinery.

Grace secured the regulator’s position, then directed both teams toward the exit while Dara kept checking the repaired valves.

Ryan followed with his ribs protesting each step, carrying a scorched spear and a key that had changed nobody’s ownership without making anyone safer.