Soldier Stonekong regained consciousness after the teleport back to Hunter Base. However, rather than once more trying to fight, he gracefully surrendered, accepting his defeat. Since he was willing to cooperate, he was placed in an unlocked cell and told to remain until the crisis was resolved. He also offered a piece of information that was quite useful to the group.
"The reason you can't get in contact with anyone beyond the city is because Tornado Tonion has taken over the primary communications hub radio tower," Stonekong explained. "He is redirecting any messages that try to enter or leave the area to make it look like there's interference elsewhere. If you disable him, you'll be able to get in contact with them again."
Octavia nodded in response to this information. "Thank you for telling us, Stonekong. This goes beyond what the terms of the duel demanded of you, and we are grateful."
Stonekong simply shrugged in response. "Just because you are grown does not mean you are any less a child, and no child should be so forcefully separated from their parent." Taking his seat in his cell, he lay back and entered deep meditation.
"Looks like we know where we're going next," Octavia told Axl. She then hesitated, noticing his expression of ecstatic glee. "Are...are you alright Axl?"
"I'm gonna get to meet X and Zero!" Axl squealed happily. "This is so awesome!"
Octavia promptly facehoofed.
As Axl and Octavia warped into the base of the tower, they found that it had been redesigned. A spiral path slowly led upward against the outer wall, with the entire center of the tower straight up and down filled with a giant Mechanaloid. "That's new," Octavia murmured softly.
"I've got a bead on it," Axl murmured, his eyes focused. "If we keep going up, I should be able to get a lock on vulnerable points."
"Hopefully before it starts attacking us," Octavia murmured, gripping tight as Axl dashed forward.
The crab legged Mechanaloid did target them as they raced upward, but it only attacked at first by hurling spiked, spinning disks at the pair, which they were able to evade by moving forward, staying ahead of where they were falling to as they only rolled downhill. Eventually, it also started firing homing rockets that followed them up the slope, but they were slow moving, slow enough for Axl to outrun even as he evaced the civilians they came across.
Once they were high enough, the Mechanaloid started launching fireballs at them from the front of its head as it spun on its swivel waist to track them, though the fireballs were just slow enough for Axl to roll out of the way before it impacted. A bigger danger than the ordinance being launched at the pair proved to be debris on the path itself, which sometimes threw off Axl's rhythm enough that they almost took a hit. This, compounded by the Mechanaloid starting to launch its arms at them like drills, made the last stretch of spiral path very exciting.
Eventually, they reached a circular platform surrounding the Mechanaloid at head height. At that point, Axl's sensors beeped him an alert. "I've got it!" Axl proclaimed happily.
"Its weak point is its head?" Octavia asked flatly.
Axl blinked. "Uh...yeah."
"Color me shocked," Octavia offered flatly, hopping off his shoulders. "Let's give it two targets to worry about."
"Alternatively, one of us could focus on dealing with what it shoots at us, while the other focuses on destroying it," Axl suggested. "You'd have an ideal position for the second part from my shoulders."
Octavia blinked up at him. "I...suppose it would," she admitted, hopping back up to his shoulders. "I don't know whether to be more surprised that you had a better strategy than I, or that it involved keeping me on your shoulders."
Axl lifted his hands, shrugging without moving his shoulders. "What can I say? I've gotten used to having you up there."
Octavia couldn't help but chuckle. "Good boy," she offered playfully, rubbing the crystal in his helm as though petting him.
The strategy worked excessively well, with the only hurdle coming when the Mechanaloid withdrew its head into a massive shell and extended sweeping blades that spun around over the platform. Being the only attack they hadn't seen yet, they were caught off guard and took a couple hits before they recognized the pattern.
Before long, the Mechanaloid had taken enough damage to begin collapsing, explosions erupting from within its systems as it broke into bits. "Now where to?" Axl asked curiously.
Octavia pointed. "There's another spiraling path over there," she indicated.
Axl sighed ruefully. "Well, at least it's not stairs..."
The path proved to be much the same as the first spiral upward, save the obstacles. Instead of a massive Mechanaloid coming after them, there were numerous drones and turrets along the path, and several gaps that dropped all the way to the ground far below. Through careful maneuvering, the pair were able to make it all the way up, evacing all the civilians they encountered along the way, the only problem being the larger gaps further up that could only be crossed via platforms that appeared and disappeared, seemingly with no discernible pattern. Thankfully, those gaps dropped them directly onto parts of the path they'd climbed up below, letting them quickly regain height if they missed a jump, rather than falling to their deaths.
Once at the top, they came across Tornado Tonion himself. He proved to have an onion shaped brown body with thin green legs and massive green hands connected by energy tendrils. His head was also green, and came to a sharp point. As he caught sight of the pair, he seemed...entertained?
"Yah! Yah! You grow up handsome boy, Axl?" Tonion proclaimed, bouncing and dancing back and forth. "And Octavia grow up pretty filly! But I handsome too!"
"Is...is he right in the head?" Octavia asked Axl worriedly.
"He's a few sandwiches short of a picnic lunch-" Axl began.
"-but I have plenty of cake!" Tonion finished as he did a pirouette. "Oh ho ho!"
"-but he's alright," Axl concluded, rolling his eyes. "Not a mean bone in his body, really. So I don't get why-"
"Professor make changes!" Tonion proclaimed. "Red want answers, but get something more! Bad Professor, bad! But now we're bad too!"
"Professor?" Octavia asked incisively, pleased to finally be getting a clue.
"Oops, did I say that out loud?" Tonion asked, still seeming distracted. "Can't stop, can't stop believing!"
Axl frowned. "Okay...not sure what to do now..."
"Make him bloom?" Octavia suggested. "I'm kinda hungry."
"I surrender!"(1) Tonion immediately cried out, falling to his knees.
"...that was easy," Axl mused.
(1) I hadn't originally intended to eliminate this fight. I had every intention of actually writing out Axl and Octavia fighting this guy.
...then I actually watched the fight. Sheesh, is it even possible to lose to this guy other than deliberately? Zero using the weapon from Stonekong, just keep it charged and let him run into you to take out half his health, then just stay in the air with Axl while shooting the regular buster. Yeah, nothing there worth delving into...