The Undying Mecha Emperor

G-Drake made his way to stand before a strange looking disc the size of a car tire and triggered the bio portal activation sensor.

Whoosh.

The portal activated without any fanfare.

We quickly entered the portal, and as G-Drake had mentioned earlier, we appeared in an idyllic underwater paradise.

We were underwater, but the water was so remarkably clear that we could still see the sunlight streaming in slightly!

Of course we weren't very deep underwater, but in most cases, sunlight would cease to make its presence felt even only after two hundred meters, and photosynthesis would no longer be possible after that depth.

My sensor reading was telling me that we were almost three hundred meters in, and still the sunlight was streaming in!

The water was as clear as clear can be and lots of colourful fish and strange ocean fauna were everywhere.

The place was teeming with life, and nature seemed to be very, very generous with its blessings upon that particular place.

"Where are we exactly?" I asked as I marveled at the beautiful underwater scene.

I was a ten year old who had never seen the ocean in a positive light before, and I never knew that oceans could actually be so beautiful when they are not filled to the brim with murderous civilisations hungry for human blood.

"We're still in the Pacific Ocean, approximately a hundred kilometers from the other entrances. But we seem to be in some sort of… ecological bubble." Bruce Pang said in a thoughtful voice as he studied every single instrument reading in the pod.

All the tension was gone from his voice, and it was completely understandable.

Although we had not traveled far from the portal, there was a world of difference between being on the other side of an unopened portal where should we fail to open said portal, we would be trapped and possible become dragon food, and of course being on this side of the portal where we could escape at anytime in any direction we wanted.

We had left the dragon lair, and we could afford to relax.

Just a little bit.

"An ecological bubble is a very apt description. I am detecting an abnormal amount of life density within a three kilometer radius from our position. Beyond that, everything is suddenly normal." G-Drake reported.

"From our position?" Bruce Pang asked sharply.

"Indeed." Came G-Drake's reply.

"Hohoho." My eyes shined with undisguised greed. "There must be another treasure that is causing this phenomena! Let's look for it!"

"There's no need to search for it. I think whatever is causing this excess life energy to flood the area is coming from that thing." Bruce Pang said quietly and pointed to what seemed like a large bus-sized clam.

We made our way there, and G-Drake easily forced the giant clam open.

Crack!

"Oh my god." My jaw dropped when I saw what was in the clam.

A beautiful little girl laid there within an ethereal air bubble, unconscious. Her hair was glowing an incredible golden colour, and her pale skin was completely unblemished.

She looked around my age, and she was completely naked.

"Close your damn eyes!" Bruce Pang growled at me as his left hand shot out and smacked my face where my eyes were.

"Ow! Dude! I won't look, what do you think I am? A pervert?" I shouted indignantly.

However, my big bro ignored me and ordered G-Drake to get the girl into the pod.

"Slowly and gently, damn you and your fat dragon claws!" Bruce Pang shouted at G-Drake.

"Slowly. Get the secondary hatch open first. Okay, now grab the clam flesh around her, don't get your damn claws on her! Slowly! Slowly!" Bruce Pang nagged at G-Drake like a fussy old woman.

I grinned at this new and naggy side of him.

"Keep your damn eyes closed!" Bruce Pang warned me threateningly.

"I got it, I got it. Stop nagging like an old woman." I grumbled.

I heard the secondary hatch close, then the primary hatch open.

"She's so thin!" I heard my big bro say with a voice that was filled with fury. "G-Drake, scan the area! Find out what the hell is going on here! Justin, you too. You can open your eyes."

As soon as my eyes opened, I saw that beautiful little girl wrapped in Bruce Pang's outer jacket.

She was so small that just his jacket alone was able to cover her from her shoulders down to her feet.

"Her eyelashes are so long." I couldn't help but comment when I finally saw her up close.

It was true, she had the longest eyelash I had ever seen. Not to the point of being ridiculous, of course. In fact, I think she looked really pretty with those eyelashes.

But it was the first thing I noticed, even among the sea of beautiful features that I could have chosen from.

"That's a strange thing to focus on, but okay." Bruce Pang said. "Start scanning the area. We need to gather as many clues as we can before we leave soon."

"Right." I gave the beautiful girl one last look before casting out my resonance as far as I could.

With my red mecha core dormant, my resonance was rather limited in strength and my range was reduced by a pretty large amount.

But even with all those limitations, I had no trouble sensing the presence of a massive underground machine that was connected to the giant clam.

It was shaped like the roots of a tree, with a rounded cylinder connected to the clam as the trunk, and spreading out into hundreds, then thousands of root branches deep into the ocean bed.

At that very moment, it was slowly powering up and giving out a strange hum that sounded very much like an irritated hum of sorts.

"What's going on? Why are my senses telling me that something bad is about to happen?" Bruce Pang demanded.

"There's a massive root-like machine underneath us. It seems like it's activating. And… irritated?" I said in slight confusion. "G-Drake. Get us the hell out of here."

But as soon as those words left my mouth, the oceanbed started to rumble.