A magical world of dreams are an amazing adventure, but sooner or later... you'll have to wake up.
The Awakening
~ The year 2071 ~
The Chopper ride was silent and long. Lindow, Sakuya, and Soma were heading for their current mission which was further from the Den than usual. A couple of days ago Fenrir's Europe Branch had discovered an abandon lab facility out in its wastelands. The facility was believed to date back before the time of the Aragami and one of the few kept in secrecy from the public. The Far East Branch's Director, Johannes, had requested clearance to investigate the facilities and confiscate all items valuable and salvageable from the building. The Europe Branch saw nothing significant about the building so they granted Johannes request with no trouble.
But Johannes saw potential in this discovery. Perhaps if they investigated further into the building they might find some key information. The place was establish before the time of the Aragami, maybe it held information of how the Aragami came to be. If not it still most likely held a bundle of history, which was still valuable since a lot of it was lost during the first wave of the Aragami.
And so there they were, heading toward a discrete location deep within the heart of a foreign forest wasteland. In an area once known as apart of a country called Germany. The ride was a couple of hours long and already Soma was sick of the mission. Not only because he hated the Director, but because he disliked working with a group- even if his teammates were as skilled as they were. Also the fact it was a mere scouting mission, they had specific units for that job, he was an Assault Unit for heaven's sake. If he wasn't killing Aragami in this mission then it was a waste of his time. But another reason he was reluctant about this mission was for the fact he hated science facilities and labs, it brought back memories of his... past.
"We're here, guys!" The pilot called back to them as he began to lower the Chopper, low enough for them to jump. He lowered them a good minute walk from the facility where the only closest open field was. "You've got 40 minutes before I come get you guys. Call me if you guys are done early."
"Thanks, John." Lindow waved at the pilot before jumping out along with the others so the man could take off. Once the Chopper was out of view Lindow addressed his team. "Alright, let's finish this up so we can go home."
"Right." Sakuya agreed.
"Heh, just don't get in my way." Soma smirked before he started to walk off toward their destination.
"Be careful. This place hasn't been inhabited by humans for years." Sakuya cautions. "We have no idea what might have taken resident in the place."
Moving around the stop gate by the guard post they continued on toward the facility. The entrance was made of electric bullet-proof glass doors, ironic for a place that was suppose to hold secrets. The power has been shut off for a long time, so the doors have long since ceased from automatically opening. But the doors have long since been cracked open, something strong enough was able to shatter through the glass. Tightening their grip on their God Arcs they braced themselves for what ever might have broken into the facility.
"This place is a wreck." Sakuya commented as they looked around.
"Yeah, this place has probably seen better days." Lindow agreed.
"But I must say, this place seems emptied out even with Aragami roaming around." Sakuya observed. "It lacks the bite and claw marks it should have if Aragami have raided the place. It's almost like the people in this place just up and moved out."
"Or disappeared." Soma suggested.
"?!"
"Let's save our theories for later. We need to find out what happened or what information this place holds." Lindow ordered, taking command. "We'll split up and search the rooms. Remember, time is of the essence and caution is a necessary. We'll meet up here once we're done. Got that?"
They both nodded in confirmation and split off into separate directions. The building was a two stories building, Lindow and Sakuya investigated the second floor while Soma checked out the first floor. Most of the rooms were large and spacious with massive ventilation systems, indicating that this facility housed many experiments. But all the rooms were empty of any evidence of what went on in this place. No files, no graffiti on the furniture, even the storage rooms were emptied. In this time period Terminals were not invented yet so information was gathered and stored in electric things called computers. But all the regular sized computers were taken away, they could tell from the dust differentiation in the areas they once were. The only ones that remained were the giant ones that were built into the wall, but the place had no power to start them up.
Emptied handed from their search, they returned to their meeting point.
"You got anything Sakuya?" Lindow asked.
"No, this place is cleaned out." She said, slightly crestfallen.
"(Sigh) Man, what a drag. At least we didn't bump into anything."
"Hey," came the voice of Soma from a little bit ahead of them.
"Soma, did you come up with anything?" Lindow quarried with a hint of hope.
"Maybe." Soma said as he started to walk back where he came from. "Come with me."
"What is it Soma?"
"I heard something."
"Was it an Aragami?" Sakuya questioned, bringing up her guard.
"No, more like a... humming."
"A humming?"
"Really? I can't hear anything." Lindow commented.
"Just shut up and follow me." Soma grunted as he lead them to a door that lead to a set of stairs in the far back of the facility. "It's coming from down there."
"Boy, you got some mad hearing ability, Soma." Lindow commented which earned an angry growl from Soma. "Let's go check it out."
Lindow went to twist the door's knob but to no avail. "What the? (Jiggle) It's locked."
"It's one of those automatic lock doors. It must need a pass code." Sakuya concluded, investigating the number keypads by the side of the door. "I can probably hack my way through the door, but it'll take some time to find the-"
"Gh!" Soma grunted as he kicked down the door, interrupting Sakuya mid-sentence. The crash of the door echoed through the empty halls.
"That or we could just do that." Lindow teased.
"For the record, my idea would have worked just as well." Sakuya pouted.
"Ugh, let's just go down these stairs." Soma sighed, walking away from the flirting pair.
Their footsteps echoed through the stairs as they made their way down. The stairway only lead to one basement floor down which was also sealed off by an auto-locked door. Soma tried kicking this one down as well, but it did not go down with one kick. It took a couple more kicks before it finally went down, apparently this floor was more maintained than the ones above it.
"Well that one was harder than usual." Soma commented.
"We could have helped, you know." Lindow pointed out.
"I could handle it on my own."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's get going." Lindow said, waving Soma's comment off. "Hey, I can hear the humming."
"And the lights... this area has power." Sakuya stated. "That must be where the humming was coming from."
"For this place to still have power after all these years they must of had something they wanted to preserve."
"This place holds many secrets." Soma said as his eyes widened and zoned out. "I sense something coming."
"We've got an Aragami heading our way on the tracker." Sakuya informed.
"Can you pick out what it is?" Lindow questioned as they got into a fighting position.
"It's hard to tell. The radar keeps jumping between a Vajra and an Ogretail."
"Heh ha, great." Lindow sighed.
"It's here." Soma informed.
They all braced themselves as they heard footsteps coming closer from around the hallway. Ready for action when they were suddenly thrown off guard by what came from around the corner.
"Is that... an Aragami? Or a... dog?" Sakuya questioned aloud, not fully understanding what she was seeing. The creature was as big and had the same body build of a doberman pinscher with the tail still attached. But its eyes were a solid neon teal ocean color as its body was a transparent caribbean blue water color that made it seem like it was made of gelatin. In between its ears was a long antenna flowing backward that glowed like a tiger glow fish, and where its heart should be glowed its core. This thing was an Aragami, but it was one of the weirdest Aragami they have ever seen.
"Well this one is... strange." Lindow commented as the Aragami-dog stared them down. "This is the first time I haven't had an Aragami blatantly attack me."
"Don't let your guard down, moron." Soma growl as he noticed Lindow lower his sword a little from his peripheral.
"Guys, look!" Sakuya called out, pointing at the beast. "Its got a collar."
"Tst, this thing has an owner." Soma huff in disbelief. "Who's crazy enough?"
The beast slowly approached them, carefully to make no move of aggression as it still sensed the tension around them. Stopping two feet in front of Lindow, it looked up at him for a second before sitting down and lowering its ears to expose its head to him. As if waiting for him to make the next gesture. Slowly, Lindow reached out an arm -the other still gripping his God Arc tightly- and petted the strange dog on the head. The beast made a low rumble in approval as it slowly wagged its tail. Suddenly the tension lifted away from Lindow as he leaned down to use the other hand to scratch under the dog's ear, much to its approval.
"Careful." Sakuya warned with worry.
"Relax, Sakuya, this guy's friendly. Aren't you boy?" The beast let out a wail in agreement, earning more ear scratching from Lindow as he used his other hand to get a look at its collar. "Attaboy, now let's see what your name is, buddy... Duke, huh. That's a catchy name."
The beast then gently grabbed onto the center front of Lindow's coat and began to tug him forward, much to no avail as Lindow remained still.
"Do you want us to follow you?" The beast wailed at Lindow question and slowly started to move forward in a attempt to lead them on. Turning back on occasion to make sure they were still following it. "Heh haha, alright, alright."
"Lindow are you out of your mind? We're following an Aragami." Soma hissed at him as he reluctantly followed Lindow along with Sakuya.
"He seems harmless enough, let's see where he goes."
"Looks can be deceiving."
"Heh ha, then I'm following my guts."
"Guts naturally stink, Lindow."
"Excuses, excuses. Come on, Soma. I know you two got my back if things go down hill."
"Heh, it seems like we always have your back when you get reckless like this. You're starting to cross over to my baggage list."
"(Giggle) Seems like you're being demoted from the comrade list, Lindow. You better be careful, that list is a hard one to get back on with Soma." Sakuya teased.
"Ha, then I'll have to make sure not to cross the silver line." But the beast finally came to a stop at a door and entered through the bottom opening. As they looked around they noticed that all the rooms had pet entrances on their doors as if to allow something without bendable thumbs to get in. "Looks like this is our stop."
Lindow opened the door as they cautiously entered the room. The room was spacious with little more than a giant computer with its monitor attached to the wall, a chest in the corner next to the computer, and massive wires that attached to a pod in the center of the room. And there the beast sat, more like laid, right next to the pod using its pointer nose to point at the pod. A keypad stand was stationed to the left of the pod.
Lindow and Soma slowly approached the pod, Soma purposely moving around to keep his distance from the beast. What ever was inside was glowing yellow through the pod's glass top. Once they saw what was inside of it the knowledge took Lindow and Soma's breath away.
"Well, what's in it?" Sakuya question as she slowly approached from behind Lindow.
"It's a girl. Look." Lindow answered, making room for Sakuya to see.
"What?!" Sakuya gasped as she rushed to Lindow side to observe the condition of the young lady in the pod. It was hard to make out her features as she slept in the yellow neon liquid which blinded her features. She showed no signs of the liquid bothering her as she continued to peacefully slumber almost making her look dead. "H-how... did she get here?"
"The better question is how long has she been here?" Lindow countered.
"This doesn't make any sense. There's no way she could have lasted long in there without air, but there's also no way for her to have survived so long out here in the wasteland with Aragami around. Even with a security dog..." Sakuya commented as her eyes silently slid to the beast sitting in the room.
"This place did a pretty good job erasing most of its tracks, maybe they had discovered away to cryogenically rest a human."
"This liquid has Oracle Cells in it." Soma commented as he starred into the pod and beyond it.
"What?!" Sakuya gasped as she pulled out a tracker to scan the room. "My God, he's right. This stuff has the same pickup waves like the P53 Bias Factor... but it's more concentration, maybe even a stronger dosage."
"!" Soma had to stifle gasp at the news. Could this girl be the same thing he is?
"But how could this be?!" Sakuya demanded in confusion. "Oracle Cells didn't start appearing until the 2050s and even then little to nothing was known about them."
"Maybe this place holds deeper secrets than we thought." Soma commented as he unconsciously began to lean in. Doing so his hands began to shift to adjust to him, one of them even landed to rest on the keypad stand. Once his hand touched it, the room came back to life. Machines started up, the monitor turned on, all of which startled the three of them to jump back. The beast sat up from its spot, wagging its tail in excitement.
"What's happening? Soma, what did you do?" Sakuya questioned in concern of the situations turn.
"How should I know." Soma growled. Just than the pod's glass top shifted open from its sealed shut closure, trapped air escaped from its confine. The glass began to slowly slide up and off the pod, out of the way of the occupant inside. Wires came from out of the top of the room lowering down to the pod, one with a rod attached to it as it sent a shock wave through the pod. "!"
That's when Soma heard it... a heartbeat. Green eyes shot open as the body bolted top side up out of the pod. A breath of life echoed through the room... she was awake.
