49th Episode.

Warsaw

The Boy kept sleeping in the darkness, unable to move. He did not have any idea of how long it was since he had last been awake. The darkness dulled the senses, shrouding the Boy's sense of time. Has it been days, weeks, months, or perhaps years? The Boy has no way of knowing. He has been alone all this time, abandoned by his kin. He knew not of why he was alone, but he could still feel the pain that his kin felt; somewhere they were being attacked and killed. The pain was great in magnitude, as if he was being deconstructed, physically and spiritually. The pain was too great, and the darkness was beginning to unveil. A cold light shone down him, lighting a path through the shroud, and the Boy desperately reached for the light's source. A swarm of arms pulsated from the newly lit abyss and made their attempts to drag the boy back to eternal darkness. The Boy, struggling as hard as he could to break free from the swarm's grip, felt one hand take his. It shone like a star, burning away the swarm and freeing the Boy; pulling him up from his abyss and his long sleep. The Boy slowly opened his eyes, feeling a great chill. He noticed the fragments of ice on the dermis of his arms. He also noticed a strange sensation at the end of his arm, at his hand. No, in his hand? He slowly looked to the source of the sensation and saw that the pale hand that saved him in his dream was still holding him. The owner of that hand, a young woman in her adolescence; the boy thought that perhaps she was the same age as himself. She had pale porcelain yet tan skin and was wearing nothing unfortunately. She had light blue hair, which complemented her violet-pinkish eyes, and made her striking.

"Good Morning", she greeted him.

Her pinkish violet eyes met his. She continued her gaze with a smile, unchanging and waiting for a response from him. Her eyes peered through his entire being. The Boy was afraid, unable to speak to his supposed savior. She had an eerie calmness to her, as if nothing could startle her. She was a portrait of a being, perfectly made or shaped. She had a glow to her, perhaps it was because the Boy's eyes were still adjusting to the light, but she glowed to him. In her other hand, her left one, was clutched to her chest, and in between her chest and her hand she had a small book. It was a little bigger than her hand, and from what the boy could tell, it seemed to be a plain book.

"You woke up just in the nick of time, you have just enough time to enjoy your last moments of existence," she said matter-of-fact-ly.

A scream broke from far outside the room they were in. It sounded male in origin, probably from an older person.

"What's going on here? They should all be under Desperation Disease. Why are they and about? Where did their Compac Drives go?"

In addition, he heard the laughing and giggling of young women. It frightened him, for he didn't understand why they were laughing. Then he heard a series of loud noises as if something was popping or exploding, and then it and the laughing stopped, as suddenly as it began.

The Boy was finally out of his groggy state and noticed that he was in a box, on the inside was a formation of chill and frost like that which was on his arms. He realized he must have been put under in some sort of frozen state. Again, his eyes met hers, and fear began to rise from his very being. There was something else as well, curiosity? No, that wasn't quite it. He stepped out slightly, he had no clothing on him, and again he felt a great chill.

"Well, before it all ends and we all go away, I can leave you with a parting gift. After all, no one should die without receiving one of these," she said as she placed her lips on the Boy's lips. She pierced his closed lips with her tongue and gave him a deep kiss. The boy broke away in fear.

"Who is this girl? What is she doing? Why… Why am I so afraid of her?" He thought.

"What's the matter? You don't like me?"

"What do you mean, what is going to end?"

"Oh, you don't know? The world is changing, the foolish ones believe they can reject and destroy the Coralions, but know they are paying for that mistake."

The Boy's eyes furrowed as she said that alien word.

"What do you know about Coralions?" He asked very seriously.

Just as he asked, a violent tremor shook whatever facility they were in. The box's restraints broke and began to topple onto the floor, about to trample the Boy. Fortunately, the Girl pulled him away in time.

"I've extended your life for another short period of time, now you owe me another kiss," she said calmly.

"Kiss? Extended? Wait, how long do we have?"

"I don't know. It could be seconds, minutes. But it will all end soon.

The Boy, after being asleep in that box for who knows how long, did not want it all to end so soon after waking. He tied his shoulder length violet hair in a pony tail, to keep it from blinding him soon. He took her hand, though he did not know why, and pulled her along outside the room. He didn't know why he was dragging her along. Perhaps, he wanted to repay his debt to her, for both saving her from his nearly eternal sleep and from being trampled, or perhaps it was that something else he felt. All he knew for sure is that he did not want to die here, and he did not want here to die either.

The two of them filed quickly through corridors that all looked the same, while a loud alarm began to blare throughout the compound. He had no idea where to go, but he knew where to avoid. He could hear gunshots echoing from some areas and screaming in varying levels of intensity accompanying them. After a short, yet, frantic period, he came across a room that looked very much like a hospital ward. However, now it looked gruesome as there were many young women around the age of the one that freed him, all splattered in varying positions across the room and its floors. It seemed all had been shot to death, their collective blood turning what was a pure white tile floor into a checkerboard of red and white. They all had books, the same model as the other Girl, and they weren't too far from their owners' bodies. However, the Boy could hear, or perhaps better put, sense some were still alive. Two were. They were under the bodies of others, hidden. They were barely alive and were badly hurt. One was bleeding profusely from a gunshot in her stomach. The other from several shots across her left arm and leg.

"This is our fate I'm afraid, whether it be by the gun or by the Scubs, we will all end up dead", the Girl said solemnly, as if revealing her disappointment and discarded hope.

The Boy fell to his knees and attempted to stop the bleeding for the girl with a gunshot in her stomach. He felt despair, being unable to save himself or any of these girls. He felt it was cruel for him to have woken up if this was going to be his reality. He began to cry, though he knew not why.

"Is this the human emotion of Sadness? Is this what I was meant to learn?" He thought, "No, I don't want this. I don't want to die here. I don't want it to end so soon. I just woke up, I never got to experience humanity, I never even found my partner. This isn't fair."

He yelled a cry of desperation and sadness. He felt the destruction of hope. But as if to add insult to injury, another tremor shook the building, though this one was less powerful than the one before and felt to have originated from a closer area.

"Why do you keep attempting to help that girl. She's going to die no matter what. We all are," the Girl asked solemnly.

"I have to do something. I must. I don't want it all to end here. Please help me. The other one, she's going to die as well if you don't help her."

"But, there is no point to it. We are all going to die here."

"But, I don't want that. I want to change that," the Boy said desperately.

Just as he finished saying that, a loud crash was heard emanating from the upper levels and was getting closer. As if by some miracle, the end of the room in front of the small group collapsed as a giant machine crashed down and opened the place up to the outside world. It was a KLF, a mainly blue machine with silver highlights, with a head whose sensor made it look as a cross between a cyclops and a camera.

"A Monsoon-o KLF," said the Girl, with a variable of hope beginning to emerge in her voice.

The KLF reached its arm out towards them, beckoning them towards it.

"Help me carry these two", the Boy asked the Girl.

"Alright".

The cockpit was surprisingly empty and was a tight fit for all four of them. The fact that they were all smaller than the intended pilot helped them. The problems were that neither of the two that would be able to pilot knew how to.

"We got our Hope up for nothing," said the Girl.

"No that isn't true," the Boy cried, and then he begged the machine as if to reach out to a heart that shouldn't be there, "Please, you managed to get here on your own, help us out of here, please tell me what I can do."

There was no initial response. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. The Girl turned away, she couldn't face the Boy. The two injured girls next to her were writhing in pain. The boy began to cry as he saw this.

"Please," he began to plead once more, "PLEASE".

As if responding to his heart the cockpit began to glow green, beginning with the displays and then the whole of it followed. On the displays, a message appeared.

"Welcome Back Yew".

The KLF closed its cockpit doors and launched with a wave of rainbow energy propelling it high to the skies. In the sky, the Boy could see a multitude of meteors and debris headed towards the facility.

"We need to go faster," the Boy Begged the machine, "We need to get away from here."

The machine listened and flew faster to the point where the velocity began to hurt those inside it. They were far enough from the immediate danger, but when those meteors finally hit the ground, a large shockwave emanated from the impact point. It hit the lone KLF hard, and it began to spin out of control. It's Lift Board, the device an LFO or KLF uses for propulsion, was damaged severely.

"No, we were almost there, almost safe", the Boy cried.

The machine responded again, and seven pillars of light surged around the machine, and engulfed it in a blinding light.

"What… What's Happening", the Boy and the Girl yelled.

The white light began to engulf the cockpit. It was swallowing up the four of them.

"I told you, this is our fate", the Girl said to the Boy before she was completely overtaken.

As the light engulfed him as well, a voice inside the Boy reassured him that they were not to die just yet. The Boy opened his eyes and saw himself in the light. His pink eyes, with a ring around his iris, met his reflection's.

"Not yet," his reflection said, "Not yet".

With those final words, the Boy lost consciousness.

The flying warships, the Gekko and the Izumo, flew together over the skies near the Tien Shan Mountains, where their grand enemy Colonel Dewey had used the Federation Orbital Microwave cannon, the Oratorio number 8, to blast into the mountains. The power of the microwave beam from the canon had overpowered it, causing the machine to self-destruct. The debris was expected to fall to where the mountains were, but instead, some force pulled them out of orbit, causing them to hit many of the Tower States.

"The falling debris targeted the Towers? That's impossible!" Holland questioned Jurgens over the communications line. The rest of the Gekko-State crew had a look of shock dressed on their faces.

"No impossibilities about it!" Jurgens exclaimed seriously, "I'll send you the data right now, take a look!"

As soon as he finished talking, the data did in fact show up on the Gekko monitor Holland was using.

"Of the 157 Towers left standing, 31 were destroyed by direct impact of the Debris!"

Jurgens could only see Holland and Gidget's expressions of shock, the two closest to the monitor screen.

"But that's… A thing like that couldn't possibly happen!" Holland denied.

"No!", interjected Woz, "I think they're right. I've compared the values with calculations from the central systems. Right when they entered the Trapar layer, all of the debris radically changed their trajectory angles. If Dr Bear's Hypothesis is correct, the Scub Corals can significantly change the laws of physics by force of will. And if that's the case- "

"Are you saying that all of this was caused by the Scub Corals?!" Holland asked Woz.

"I have one more bit of bad news," Jurgens said over the Line.

"What?"

"A hole's been created in the Tien Shan Mountains."

Maria Schneider., Jurgen's vice-captain, brought footage up over the monitor.

"This is footage obtained by hacking into the military observation satellite, Hummingbird. The Tien Shan Mountains has had a cave in 100 kilometers in diameter. We have found a space in the cave in that's impossible to analyze. We believe that this space has something to do with the microwave weaponry that is currently raining down as debris."

"There you have it, you want to tell what the hell is going on Holland?" Jurgans yelled over the Line.

"Dammit," Holland yelled as he slammed his fist onto the metal of Gidget's station as well as cutting off the Line, "Dewey had this as part of his plan. He took out Renton's group along with the central core of the Scub Corals."

"That hasn't been determined yet," chimed Talho Yuki, Holland's lover, "I don't know about you, but I am not giving up hope! Even in a situation as bad as this, we can't just walk away. We can't!"

"Yeah, I know that," Holland acknowledged solemnly, "Alright, contact the Crew aboard the Izumo, tell them to get ready. On my order, we will attempt to dive directly into the Tien Shan Mountains!"

"Right!" responded his crew.

Some time later, the boy awoke inside the KLF. Again, the Same Girl's eyes peered into his.

"So, you're awake. I woke up a little earlier than you."

"What happened?"

"We're alive, thanks to you."

"We are?"

"Well… We are. Unfortunately, we lost the other two."

The boy looked over to them. They appeared to be asleep. He put his hand over their faces, to see if they were breathing. They weren't. The blood that had poured all over the cockpit was completely dry, as well as the blood from their wounds. They must have been unconscious for a while. Somehow, they were fine, the Boy rationalized that somehow that white light somehow saved him and the Girl who approached him.

"No. No…"

The Boy and the Girl stepped outside the KLF, which was in its vehicle form. The land around them had reduced the area once known as Warsaw into nothing, even more so than it already was; a land of debris and rubble, a new desert to join those that were located near the equator. The He noticed that he was extremely cold and noticed that he lacked something he noticed that his captors had themselves, clothing. He now knew of clothing's purpose, and silently wished he had more on. He looked down at himself; only a thin pair of briefs covered him. He then noticed that his companion was ever more unfortunate, having nothing to cover her.

He took a look inside the KLF to find anything that could be of use to shield themselves from the winds. He came across a medium sized box, as well as the KLF pilot's suit. He offered it to the Girl, which she rejected.

"I'm not a pilot, it would be better for you to wear it," she said while still fighting the cold.

Instead they opened the box, to seek an alternative for her. Inside was a moderate blanket, along with some general first aid items like bandages, gauze, and antibiotics, as well as some rations and matches. She took the blanket to cover herself, thanking him.

She took the matches but realized that there was nothing they could use to sustain a fire.

"What are we going to do?" she asked him.

He looked at her, unable to answer. The Boy didn't know what they could do. He hadn't planned everything out, he only wanted them to live. The sun was setting, and it was going to get colder. There was a silence between them.

"I don't know. I don't know what to do," he said finally answering her, "I don't know what we should do for those Two,".

He looked back to the KLF cockpit. Still inside were the bodies of the other two girls. The Girl had a forlorn look on her face, she felt pity for her fellow research subjects.

"We should bury them, give them a place so they could properly rest", she told him.

"How?" He genuinely did not understand.

She gave him a puzzled look, unable to understand his statement.

"Just follow my instructions," and she explained to him what they could do.

Following her words, The Boy took to the KLF, using it to dig holes for the two perished girls, to give them some sort of a burial. He filled in their graves. He set the machine back into its vehicle form and stepped out.

"Did I do it correctly?" He asked innocently.

"Yes," she said assuredly, "At least they have a sort of a proper burial, even if the graves are unmarked."

"Is that customarily what humans do when another human expires?" the Boy asked.

The Girl now realized what he was, and why he was peculiar. He was one of those she was meant to become a replicant of.

"Yes," she said calmly. She reasoned that he must not have learned much of Humanity, having been locked away in that cell of his. She decided that she must teach him what she could before they perished, based on her memories of her past life as a human. She would teach him all she could, until they both died to exposure or starvation, whichever came first.

The Boy shivered. He had his pilot suit on, but that could only do so much. She felt the wind pierce her blanket as well. As warm as it was, the winds were to strong. The aftermath of the Previous catastrophe, which would be later known as the Second Summer of Love was still in effect. And even though the world had been saved, the Boy and the Girl were not out of the clear yet.

"Come on, we'll be safe from the wind in the LFO," she told him, and led him into the machine.

The Boy sat in the cockpit, while the Girl had to hold onto him. The Monsoon-o had seats for only one pilot, and space barely enough to have held the four of them originally. There was another awkward silence. The Boy had no idea of what to say, and the Girl had no idea where to start. Well, that was not necessarily true. She had one idea, however, she felt that she already knew the answer. She might as well begin.

"Do you have a name?"

The boy thought about it for a short while. His eyes began to dart away from her, and he began to panic. His eyes began to furrow.

"No, I… I don't know," he said worriedly, "Is it bad that I do not have a name?"

"No. Not at all. No one ever thought to give you one. It isn't your fault. We'll find one for you. One that fits."

"Do you have a name?" He asked curiously.

"I used to. My name was Anya."

"Was?"

"I am no longer the same person I once was."

"I do not understand. Did you change?"

She remembered the horrible sensation of her body and mind being ripped apart by that cruel machine. It tore at her molecularly, and at one point she remembered having died because of the Warsaw research staff's experiments on her and her fellow test subjects. She had indeed changed, she no longer was human. She something else. She was like him now. She even looked similar to his kind now, the Humanoid Coralian. That isn't correct either she thought, she wasn't just similar, she was one of them now, thanks to those horrible people.

"Yes, I have changed. I am no longer who I used to be."

"How so?"

Her face twisted, sadness came over the Girl who was once known as Anya. The Boy saw, and somehow, he understood that perhaps he should not have asked.

"It was painful, I don't think I could talk about it yet."

"Alright."

"What about you? Do you remember anything prior to being locked away in that freezer-box?"

The boy thought about it. He tried to focus. He felt that he had been asleep for a long time, he did not know exactly how long, and all his memories was a blur. Images came to mind, but the swarm of dark arms rose again in his mind. He shivered.

"I remember some things, not anything substantial yet. Everything is a mess. I remember, a mine? A hospital table? And A girl that looked like you. That's all."

The Girl once known as Anya wondered if she was the girl she was meant to replace, or the girl she was meant to replicate initially.

"Well, that's okay. You don't need all of your memories. We won't be living long enough for you to remember them anyways," she said while looking up to the sky, "The Scubs only brought me back for so long, just so I could fulfill my last wish, to see the sky once more before the world ended".

The Boy took her words in, and a dour expression laid across his face.

"I no longer hear them, I can no longer hear the Scubs. Something happened to them. The Limit must have been reached, the Limit of Questions. That must be, why I awoke, why I sense that the worst has not passed."

"You're correct," she said with her own sorrowful expression, "Before the Scubs went silent, they sent me back for, besides my last wish, to also see the end as it will pass. It seems their last hope failed, and that the Limit is going to be reached."

"I don't want this to be the end, I just woke up after being asleep for who knows how long… I don't want this to be the end," the Boy said sadly.

"I'm sorry, but this is the end. The Scubs have already decided."

The Boy did not wish to accept this. He looked at the KLF that saved them. It suffered quite some damage; the ref board had been completely ruined, the head's monitor completely cracked open with the optical lenses dangling off of it, and the right arm looked limp. However, as he knew from earlier, it was still usable. He boarded the machine.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

Opening the cockpit, the boy then looked at her.

"I don't want this to be the end. I don't think you want it to be the end either."

"It doesn't matter what I want it to be. It will be the end nonetheless."

"Not if you do something about," he said, reaching out to her with his hand forward, "Come with me please".

Another silence fell upon the two. She looked at him, not with a face of sorrow, but of wonder. The Scubs never told her that He had a will. She thought, as she was told, he was a blank slate like the other two. She was only to be his release from a stateless existence before the End. He was actively rebelling his fate. She couldn't help but smile.

"Sure, why not. Let's see the possibilities you can make".

The two entered the machine together. The Boy sat in his pilot's seat, the Girl put her arms around him from behind, and held on for dear life.

"What do I call you?" He asked.

She did not expect him to ask that. She had no real answer.

"You said that you had changed, so I can't call you by your old name. So, what do I call you?"

She took a pause, and finally decided.

"Call me Anya".

"I thought-"

"Please, call me Anya, just once more," she said as she tightened her hold around his waist, and buried her face into his shoulder.

"Ok. Let's go Anya."

He commanded the machine to fold into itself, transforming it into its vehicle mode, and drove off towards the world, seeking their future.