BANG!
The Champion shot out of Aegis' headquarters and charged towards the east.
The Shield stationed east of the attacked stronghold also made their way.
Luckily, even if the Champion wasn't present, Aegis' headquarters was still defended.
The Tinkerer was still here, and there were also over 30 Protectors.
Nick watched as the Champion shot out of Aegis' headquarters.
'Can't get fired from my job as the Envious Researcher. Gotta make sure the Champion is actually doing my job correctly.'
Nick immediately entered Aegis' headquarters with the identification of one of the Peak Protectors from the stronghold.
Next, he charged toward the physical location of the central database and used the Peak Protectors' authority to send malicious code to it.
Naturally, that wouldn't work.
Aegis had learned a lot about cybersecurity.
However, that was not Nick's goal.
The malicious code damaged the database, but Nick was certain that Aegis had ways to repair it.
BANG!
An instant later, the Tinkerer appeared in front of the door of the central database and entered.
Naturally, Nick was completely hidden and just followed her in.
The Tinkerer approached the console and started to type rapidly.
In truth, she was typing in the air.
Nick had created an illusion that made her think that she was interacting with the console.
Then, Nick perfectly copied her movements and gained the Tinkerer's credentials.
He now had administrative access.
In the Tinkerer's perception, the console was extremely slow, but that was to be expected.
The malicious code was messing with the system's performance.
She just needed to stop the process of the malicious code, but that would take a bit.
Meanwhile, Nick just looked through the real settings at the real console.
'They have several central backups, several secondary backups, and they even have a distributed backup.'
'The Barriers of the Shields have an encrypted part of the database. As long as they all gather, the entire database can be restored.'
'Quite clever.'
'However…'
Nick saw another backup, and this one was inaccessible without additional verification.
Apparently, the Tinkerer's base verification was not enough.
Whatever was in there had to be top secret.
The next moment, Nick killed the malicious code.
In her illusion, the Tinkerer did the same.
A moment later, the Tinkerer sighed in relief and checked the settings.
Nick just typed in what she typed in and sent her everything just as he saw it.
She reloaded a backup from the primary backup, and after a couple of settings, everything returned to normal.
Then, she checked the status of the secondary backups.
Everything was fine.
Finally, she looked at the top-secret backup.
She hesitated.
Her instincts were telling her that she shouldn't check it.
Only she had access to that part of the database.
As long as nobody had her credentials, they wouldn't be able to interfere with it.
She decided against checking the top-secret backup.
Instead, she just looked at a tiny machine at the back of the room.
Nick followed her gaze.
BANG!
Nick shot a laser, and the tiny machine exploded.
He didn't need access to mess with the top-secret backup.
He just needed to know where it was.
Naturally, the Tinkerer didn't see what happened since she was still under Nick's illusion.
After checking a couple of things, she left the room again and closed it behind her.
The next moment, Nick deactivated his illusion and hid again.
The Tinkerer looked at her Barrier for a while.
She was communicating with the Champion, who was on his way back.
She told him about the incident and assured him that everything was fine again.
Just to make sure, the Champion checked through the database as well.
He had learned a lot about the database over the past years.
Everything worked and seemed to be in order.
"What about the secure files?" the Champion asked.
"I didn't check. Nobody should be able to mess with it, and the physical machine was still operating normally," the Tinkerer answered.
"This has to be the Trickster's work," the Champion answered. "I'm going to check for myself. You can't underestimate the Trickster."
"Of course," the Tinkerer answered.
Outside, a random Protector was watching the Champion entering Aegis' headquarters again.
Naturally, the random Protector was Nick in disguise.
When he saw the Champion returning, he took to the sky and flew to the east.
Meanwhile, the Champion reached the door to the database, where the Tinkerer was already waiting.
"Everything's fine," the Tinkerer said.
"Just open the door," the Champion said.
Not even the Champion had access to the physical space of the database.
The Tinkerer opened the door.
"You see? Nothing's…"
The Tinkerer's eyes widened as she saw the destroyed remains of the small machine.
She felt like her world ended.
What?!
But it was fine just a moment ago?!
The Champion immediately released his light and covered all of Aegis' headquarters.
The next moment, Aegis' headquarters went into lockdown.
The Trickster had to be here somewhere!
Over the next hours, every single person inside the headquarters had to undertake an invasive examination to see if they were human or not.
The headquarters remained in lockdown for an entire week.
The Champion was convinced that Nick was still there!
He had to find him!
No matter what!
After the week was over, he finally caved under the pressure of all the other Shields, who kept telling him that he was chasing a ghost.
The Trickster was gone.
Luckily, their database wasn't damaged.
However, their research into Pure Energy had been destroyed.
This research was so secret that the other Shields didn't even know about it.
The Tinkerer and the Champion were the only ones who knew about it, and the Tinkerer was the only person who researched the secrets of Pure Energy.
The Champion wanted the information to be so secret since he didn't even want the Sun to find out.
This wasn't because he wasn't loyal to the Sun.
No, this was just something he had made to deal with Nick.
If it suddenly came out that Aegis knew a lot about Pure Energy, the Sun might fire Nick since he had failed at his job.
This stuff wasn't even on the Tinkerer's Barrier.
She had to add the information to the secret database manually while being physically in front of the machine.
Now, the Tinkerer would need to transcribe all her information again, and it was possible that she misremembered some things.
This meant she also needed to experiment again to make sure that everything was accurate.
To top it all off, she had to do it secretly!
Once more, the Trickster had cost them years of progress!
At least, this time, Aegis could still operate normally.
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