The Lost Legacy
By Zoram Selrof
Chapter 1: Intruder
09:04 AM (Japan Time), Monday September the 6th, 2205…
"… Man! I'm SO bored! Oi! Bertie~! Let's go beat the "R" jerks again! I wanna feel the thrill!"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because I have to finish my homework, War Rock."
"What homework? Aren't ya in the midst of the summer vacations?"
"They end next Monday. And I have roughly 10% of the homework pending. I have to finish it up. Do you think middle school will forgive any delays on submitting the homework, War Rock?"
"Dunno!"
"As expected."
"Why do ya look so dry? Get annoyed! I like to see ya getting annoyed and frustrated!"
"I won't dance to your flute's tune. I'm 13 years old. I'm learning to hold myself back."
"So? Are ya gonna go into a date with Tsukasa~?"
"His whereabouts are still unknown even though Boss suspects he's somewhere in Choina."
"There goes Detective Bertie~!"
Hoshikawa Subaru, aged 13, was trying to bear with War Rock's ramblings as he worked on solving his homework within his house's bedroom: he looked unimpressed and War Rock looked impatient.
"Will you stop bothering me with the nickname?" Subaru calmly asked without bothering to look up from the homework.
"Nope! I wanna see ya play the "game" with Solo!" War Rock grinned and sounded amused.
"I rather wish for Solo to turn hostile and serious again: I can't stand people who can't do anything else but troll others."
"Heh, heh, heh. So, Omega is the blacklist, too?"
"Omega – san? Yeah. Totally. Everyone has blacklisted him by now. Only Moon Disaster seems to tag along him but that's because he's into the trolling club, too." Subaru sighed and rolled his eyes.
"Ah… Hit a spot, B-B-B-Bertie~!" War Rock taunted.
"Come on… I'm Subaru, not "Bertie". I know I used the name "Albert" in the past but the past is the past. This is the present. End of the story: go boycott Ox's newest plan to undermine your reputation."
"WHA~T? Ox! Ya jerk! Wait and see! I'll blow ya up!"
War Rock flew off the room and Subaru sighed in relief: he focused on his homework again.
"Really… The only thing I can do to shake him off is to bring up his rivalry with Ox… War Rock… When will you try to be somewhat more serious, anyway?" He sighed.
He checked his Hunter – VG and spotted the "mail" icon on it so he checked it out.
"Huff… Lovely… From Moon Disaster… Fantastic. "YO, YO, YO! Who was the King of Gamma Empire in the year 1111 BC? King Noses, King Aces, King Roses? Vote for you option! YO, YO, YO! Brought to you by the Moon Ace and Mars Warrior duo!" … Not again… These polls are silly! There's never been that "Gamma Empire" to begin with. So the three choices are false! When will they stop fooling people like this?"
He sighed in resignation and cursed under his breath…
09:10 AM (Japan Time)…
"… Buro~! Gonta! Oi! Wake up! Someone's knocking at the door!"
"Hmm… Roast beef… Hmmm…"
"BURO~!"
"YIKES!"
"So! Will ya answer to the door or are ya gonna wait until they bring it down to the ground?"
"W-what?"
"Move!"
"Uh… Okay, okay…"
Ushijima Gonta sleepily dragged his feet until the door and unlocked it before heading back in and not bothering to check who it was: Ox rolled his eyes as if finding his behavior to be exasperating.
"GONTA!"
"Yikes! I – iinchou?"
Shirogane Luna was standing on the threshold along with Mode (who was humming a tune) and she looked annoyed.
"Homework! Show me the summer vacation homework!" She commanded.
"Huh? Summer vacation… homework…? Huh… Where did I put that…? It looked so hard that I stuffed it somewhere else…"
"WHAT? We're just one week away from starting the new school year and you haven't completed a single page of the homework? Are you insane or what? Do you think you'll get past the first day like that? Do you think you can do that volume of homework in just a week's time? Subaru – kun and Kizamaro are almost done with it: move your fatty belly and start working on it or else someone will pay the consequences!" She exploded into pure rage.
"Y-yes, ma'am…" He turned white.
"This ball of fats and calories…!" She hissed.
Gonta began to sweat in a nervous manner and he stepped back but Luna only slammed his door shut in a violent manner: he sighed in relief and began to look around: Ox was folding his arms as he hovered in a corner and looked unimpressed.
"Later."
"O-oi!"
Ox vanished outta the room and Gonta's jaw hit the floor: he began to rummage all of his drawers and shelves in a mad rush until he found a thick course-book which he checked and he looked astonished while examining it.
"N-no way! Do I have to solve this alone…? Oh! Kizamaro! The guy will obviously help me out! I need to call him out!"
He picked up his Hunter – VG and dialed a number: Saishouin Kizamaro and Pedia showed up on-screen: Kizamaro adjusted his glasses and had a smile on his face.
"So! Gonta – kun! Iinchou just told me."
"E~H?"
"Probabilities of mass panic clock at 85%..." Pedia whispered.
"Sadly enough… You'll have to solve that on your own somehow! Good luck, Gonta – kun!" Kizamaro grinned.
"O-oi! Wait! Kizamaro!"
The communication ended and Gonta gasped at seeing a message show up onscreen:
"YOU FAIL - JACK"
"No way! What am I gonna do? What can I do? Gra~h! They're all boycotting me~!" He yelled.
09:15 AM (Japan Time)…
"… Ops! I actually forgot my sunglasses which are part of the outfit for the new episode of the drama series' recording today… Sunglasses, sunglasses… Harp! Any ideas where I left them? I was trying them out yesterday while rehearsing my lines!"
"The sunglasses…? Hmmm… Dunno, really. I was trying to tease War Rock so I didn't pay much attention to what ya did in the meanwhile… Maybe in a drawer or next to the bed…?"
"Could be, yeah."
"If ya don't mind… I'm off to catch news of the "Albert" front…"
"Sure, sure. Just don't believe anything you find at random: Omega could've tried to come up with a digitally edited photo and a fake magazine story to troll people."
"Pororon!"
Hibiki Misora ran inside of an apartment and talked with the Wizard Harp in the meanwhile: she giggled and warped away while Misora opened a desk's drawer and rummaged inside.
"Not here… Guess in the bedroom, then."
She checked a small bedroom next to the living room but didn't seem to find them, either, so she frowned and brought the right index finger to her chin.
"Sunglasses, sunglasses…! Jeez! Where did I store them? I sometimes look like Gonta – kun when taking care of putting things where I can find them, really! Sunglasses… Ah! The bathroom, maybe…?"
She rushed into the bathroom and spotted them next to the sink: she smiled and tried them on before looking at her reflection from different angles.
"Good. Let's head back."
"Not so fast, woman."
KA-CLICK!
"Who the…?"
Misora looked at the mirror: she spotted a young teen slightly taller than her (maybe over a meter and sixty tall) and having messy brownish hair plus red blood eye irises standing behind her and aiming a gun at her neck from behind.
The teen sported a blood red sleeveless vest over a black shirt, jeans and black knee-tall boots: he also wore a black leather belt which had four grenades and a stylized knife attached to it plus a blue backpack.
"… Where's the Subspace HQ?" The teen demanded.
"Huh? The Subspace HQ? Unless ya own a spacecraft… Then getting there is impossible." Misora calmly replied without moving or turning.
"A spacecraft, you say?" The teen sounded surprised.
"Yeah. The Subspace HQ isn't a building: it's a gigantic UFO – shaped spacecraft continuously orbiting Earth!" She grinned.
"What? By all the… And there I thought it was hidden somewhere in the Bermudas!" The teen cursed.
"The only thing I know which is in the Bermudas is the sunken Mu Continent and the Bermuda Labyrinth above it where Burai usually lodges at." She shrugged.
"Burai! The last descendent of Mu, THE Burai, you mean?"
"Yeah! And I'll add something: the HQ is cloaked using a stealth camouflage field! Radars can't pick it up! And even if ya could use the Wave Roads to get to the Japan Cosmo Wave, then ya would need to predict where it'd pass by given its speed, height, perigee, apogee and orbital period!" Misora listed next.
"There's more to it, right?" He seemed to guess.
"Yessir! You need to be authorized from the inside to be allowed to rendezvous with it! And there's always someone in charge of that!"
"Che! Clever bothersome guy, that Vadous…!"
"Ah… I guess where ya come from."
"Huh? How?"
"Vadous' existence is a very tightly kept secret! You must've spied on the Satella Police… Or maybe you've heard Mr. King of Dealer grumbling about "Zataki Tosho"?" She guessed.
"Mr. King is my Boss."
"Former Dealer, eh? Then ya must know of Akatsuki – san…"
"Akatsuki Shidou, that bothersome traitor…! Dealer was filled with traitors! Queen Tia, Jack, Heartless… The only loyal one was Joker but that because the guy was a freaking Wizard!"
"I'd rather say that you're stuck. Even if you used a spacecraft then you still are left with the problem of locating the ship. And even if ya could board it unharmed, ya would have a welcome committee! Ya better give up if ya value your hide." Misora added with some amusement.
"Che! I'll go settle the score with that bothersome Akatsuki, then! I've got no more uses for you, woman, but don't get on my way or you die. I'm serious." The intruder warned.
"Sure, sure." She shrugged.
The intruder lowered the gun and began to turn around as he holstered it but Misora suddenly ran towards him, closed her right arm around his neck and gripped his right arm from behind using her left arm: she then tackled him into the ground and quickly picked the gun and knife from him before standing up, recoiling and aiming both at him.
"Ya are forgetting something: as a member of the Satella Police's "Raid Troop", I have received training to tackle intruders and attackers like ya. I dunno how ya got inside but this and being armed are enough motives to close ya in a detention center." She grinned.
"By all the…!"
"Harp!"
"Ya called? Whoa! Who's that?"
"A Dealer pawn… Call Akatsuki – san and the Satella Police! Don't worry if you need to shove Denpa – kuns outta the Wave Road: top priority! And if ya see War Rock or Ox, tell them to come give me a hand. Tell them there's something amusing going on." She instructed.
"Roger!"
"And cha better don't move. Or else I'll knock ya out in a painful manner, too." She warned.
"Crap." He grumbled.
"So? What's your name?"
"… Darkus Mors." He admitted.
"Darkus Mors, eh? Yet… You sound like a foreigner from time to time so I guess King picked ya from a foreign country."
"… Thailand." He replied.
"Ah… Thailand. I see. It'd seem my reasoning skills are improving. Well! Be a good guy and wait for the cops to come. And any suspicious gesture and I'll knock you out with the barrel of the gun. Akatsuki – san himself taught me that, so I know it works." She warned.
"… Warp. HQ."
"Huh? What "Warp"?"
Something inside of his backpack began to emit purple streams of light and a white circle was drawn on the ground around him: it suddenly displayed a blurry image of a metallic-like room somewhere else: Darkus Mors suddenly sank inside of it and the phenomenon vanished: Misora's jaw hit the floor.
"W-what was that?"
"Yo! Misora! We're here!"
Akatsuki Shidou and Acid plus two Satella Police officers ran inside and stopped, surprised, to look around.
"Eh… Didn't Harp say there was an intruder?"
"There was! He vanished!" Misora exclaimed.
"Vanished? How?"
"Eh… He was there! Face down on the ground and with the hands aiming forward because I was keeping him at bay. He suddenly muttered "Warp. HQ." and a strange white circle displaying a blurry image of another location formed before he sank into it! That was barely 1 minute ago and I swear I wasn't hallucinating!" She nervously explained.
"But how did…?" Akatsuki asked.
"Something inside of his backpack emitted purple light… And now that I think about it… The phenomenon… It reminded me of the "black holes" which Solo sprung in Kodama Town to draw Rock Man out!" Misora realized.
"What! What was that device's name again…? Eh…"
"… Shidou… They named it "Kamikakushi"… "Spiriting away"…"
"Ah! Yeah. But those things were pretty big, right? I don't think they'd fit in someone's backpack."
"This Dealer agent seems to have gone back to some new HQ King has seemingly built. I'd say King has decided to set up a new "Dealer" organization using money he'd hid somehow. And his name is "Darkus Mors", by the way." Misora sighed.
"Darkus Mors, huh…"
"He claims to have been in the "old Dealer" as well. He's targeting the Subspace HQ but I'd rather say King is the one pulling his strings. We should start to trace the guy." Misora explained.
"Leave it up to us. And please give us that. Did the guy wear gloves, by any chance?"
"No. He didn't."
"Good! Then he left fingerprints in these which we can run into a database to see if we can figure out. And "Darkus Mors" sounds more like a fake name if ya ask me." Akatsuki grinned.
"Shidou. Don't get over-confident." Acid warned.
"What… When did I ever get over-confident?"
"Like a hundred times." He dully countered.
"Yeah, yeah. You go and tell Queen Tia to stop acting like a leech, will ya, Acid?" Akatsuki rolled his eyes.
"That's Dr. Yoiri's responsibility."
"Ahem, ahem! Anyway! Misora: do you give us permission to search the house? He may have left a hair behind or something like that. It could help run DNA tests to find out his ID." Shidou requested.
"Sure. I have to go to Okudama Studios to work in the recording of the new drama series, anyway! I'll tell Urakata – san that something popped out in the middle." She shrugged.
"Pororon! War Rock and Ox have started the 6th FM War." Harp sarcastically announced as she showed up.
"And, as usual, Subaru – kun and Gonta – kun will have to separate them before they destroy the whole town." Misora rolled her eyes.
"Jeez. At least it's not like Omega's secret form in which he goes unleashed and doesn't stop until he's knocked out or the enemy is defeated. That of Planet Omicron was scary enough."
"Not to mention the experiences Subaru – kun had when fighting that "Nomad Emissary"…" Misora sighed.
"Okay! King! Get ready to be dethroned! Your worst nightmare is gonna blow ya up!" Akatsuki grinned.
Misora, Harp and Acid rolled their eyes while he laughed…