In the Shadow of the Crystal

Chapter 2: Echoes of the Royal line

It took almost two weeks for us to get our newly acquired home into a semi operational status. In that time we discovered that the base, as we called it now, had an arms storage room, training facility, bunkers for personnel, and a whole slew of other useful things that we would be able to use. We also learned much more about the A.I. known as NAOMI and her functions aboard the base. During our first day there I was able to eke out an additional 1 ½ hours of power from the grid for lighting to repair the reactor core, and after shutting off from being fully drained, Treks managed to get the reactor pumping out energy just minutes afterwards. Thankfully, throughout all of the chaos of running from the Negaverse, and looking for a new home, Mark had found time to make a battery cell augmentation for our flashlights that allowed them to operate continuously for 50 straight years as long as the bulb could withstand it. But through all that happened, I found myself here once again, in the command center, staring at the consoles that were now brimming with life and vibrancy.

Once the power was back on we began migrating all of our hidden stores from various areas around earth to the new base to use in renewing the facility back to operational status. We also replaced and repaired most of the consoles, security locks, doors, and everything that would be essential to live below the earth's surface for a good long time with adequate security and comfort. It was a tiring job and had taken us much longer then it probably should have, but with us having many close call Negaverse encounters during runs for supplies, it couldn't be helped. Thankfully the Negaverse had been slow to appear those times, and better still, hadn't found our new secret location.

Our initial predictions as to the depth the base was deployed at were off as well. Originally we had estimated some 200 feet below the surface of the earth; but NAOMI had told us it was closer to 13 miles. I remembered thinking how the depth would hide us from most deep planetary scans the Negaverse could muster, and how amazed that the structure could hold so well down here amidst the pressure of earth's gravity. Our only problem was getting materials needed for living but once again, the previous base owners had already settled that for us via escape elevators. While the rest of repairs were underway, I assigned Chris and Turlus the task of scanning the news feeds of earth for any signs of the Negaverse. Everyone else, including myself, was assigned to the task of maintenance and repair of all base systems that were considered top priority. My thoughts were interrupted by a soft embrace from behind me, arms wrapping around my chest. "Hello Dearie!" A soft female voice said close to my ear.

"Hey April." I replied to her, smiling. As far as women went, April was a sight to behold. She has beautiful, deep sapphire blue eyes. Her face was delicate with her chin coming down to a soft point, and long wavy brown hair which flowed down to her hips. Her complexion pale, as though unblemished by sunlight, save for her right arm in which there was a marking resembling a tribal or Celtic mark by her wrist which wrapped around like a bracelet.

Every time I looked, the tattoo was light gold in color. However the guys once said to me that the tattoo changed, between dark and light green, when I wasn't around. April wore a dark blue dress over her slim body that hung snugly against her hips. It came down to just below her knees and was buttoned in the center of the dress from top to near bottom. The dress was cut in a V shape around her neck to expose some cleavage and was also open to her mid back. She had a pink decorated broach, with a fairly large oval shaped sapphire in the center. The broach was clipped to her dress at the very point of the V where the buttons started at. She also wore a cute pair of sandals, with tiny straps, to hold them to her dainty feet.

She pulled herself in closer and pressed herself on me enough so I could feel the warmth of her body. I was glad our air conditioning and ventilation systems were working at that moment. I brought my hand back and patted her gently on her side after which she let go and stepped over to my right. I took a second to watch her come into view before continuing my work.

"How has today been for you? I see you're hard at work again…" She replied with a hint of sadness in her voice. It was a stressful 3 weeks for all of us, and during most of the time spent I hadn't gotten much time to myself. April had been very worried about my lack of sleep recently and was ever concerned of me not being able to defend myself properly should our enemies attack us.

"Yeah there's been a lot to do lately; it looks like we're mostly done though." I said smiling at her. Or well, at least as well as I could while focusing on the monitor in front of me.

"Really? That's great news!" She replied with a smile as well. It always seemed to me that when she smiled, the room would always go from dark, to bright, but it's something I could never figure out, or well, never had time to. "So have you eaten yet Alex?" It was at that moment, when she said those words, in which my stomach decided to growl in protest of being empty.

"Heh I guess not." I replied with a gentle smirk.

"Then we should go get some food!" she said smiling brightly at the notion of finally getting me off my work, if even for a little while. I always forgot about eating when I was engrossed in work. Seeing that there was no way out of this, I set down my tools and my tool belt on the chair beside me, and left the room with April at my side.

After some walking, we arrived at the café room everyone agreed to call the lounge. The name was decided while stocking the room with food and supplies one day. Me and April got the food we wanted, freshly prepared by the automatic dispensers within the lounge, and sat down at a nearby table. Shortly after we began eating, Chris came rushing into the room, skidding to a halt right at the edge of the table, nearly falling over into it. "What's wrong, Chris?" I asked. It took him a few moments to catch his breath from the distance he apparently covered in such a short time before he was able to say anything.

"Alex! We just found out something astounding in the news… OOHHHH! Is that a brownie?" He said without skipping a beat, all seriousness gone from him as his eyes locked onto the brownie. We both knew that brownies were his favorite and this was the last one we had. Earlier in the week we risked a run for 'specialty' foods. Brownies was one thing on the list. Smirking, I waved my hand, dismissing his childishness at his favorite food, and relinquished the brownie to him. I knew all too well that there was no way to keep it from him. One way or another he would have taken at least half of it from my plate before the meeting was over.

"Take it." I said, chuckling slightly as I pushed the brownie over to him. As soon as he had gotten ahold of it he began eating, savoring every bite. "What did you find out in the newsfeeds you were studying?" I asked him, remembering that he mentioned that very thing before seeing the brownie. Personally I thought it was a ploy to come to the lounge and get me to hand over my lunchtime treat. Something he was very good at concocting. But what he said next, even with his full mouth, astounded me.

"We found some information while scanning the planet's newsfeeds linking recent sightings all over the planet of monsters, but concentrated more so within the past few months in Tokyo and London. Along with those reports, there are others with people possessing strange abilities. We also found medical documentation of people, who suffered from a severe loss of energy and entered into a temporary comatose state, were either victims of these subsequent monster attacks or the causes were noted as unknown at the time." He told me. He had a very serious look on him and I was certain he was thinking the same thing I was.

"It sounds like the allies of the Negaverse for sure…" I said, darkly. One thing we all knew for certain is that there was one ally of the Negaverse, the dark kingdom, which thrived off the energies of humans, and it was clear at that point that they had started their efforts once again. This time it seemed they were centering in Tokyo and London.

"There's more. In both London, and Tokyo, where the greatest amount of sightings has happened, the newsfeeds report sightings of defenders against these monsters. They're called Sailor Soldiers, or Senshi, based on reports from eyewitnesses. However, the newsfeeds from London report that there have been no more sightings of either the Senshi or the monsters in the past 3 weeks. That particular article was dated 4 days ago." Chris went on. Then a strange glint came in his eye and a sly smile across his lips which I had come to know all too well. "The reports say they're all chicks too man! We should totally go so I can pick one of them up!" He said in his exuberant voice. I almost fell off my chair when he said that, April laughed at his remark.

"Oh man! Are girls the only thing you think about?" I said, exasperated. April giggled in the background.

"Well hey dude! We're all over here single and stuff, and I mean you and April are an item! It's not fair that you're the only one that gets to have a girlfriend, Alex!" He replied, crossing his arms and mocking my tone a little. I blushed, took a long drink of the soda I had poured.

"Not my girlfriend. Not going out with her. She's my guardian angel, remember?" I said in my cup, the sound mostly muffled.

"Yeah dude, but she's only PART Angel! She's other part Cetra! You got a chance! Go for it!" Chris replied in a hushed tone to me as I was looking at April, who had gotten up to drop off our dishes into the dishwasher. I thought about the first time we met, when I had first seen her and thought that it was amazing the angels really did have wings. Hers were so white and big, but nowadays she keeps her wings tucked and hidden away into the ether so as to blend in with the rest of the humans on the planet. She was 13 at the time, or looked that age when I had first met her. I also recanted her telling me who she was and how she wasn't full angel either, that she was part Cetra, a race of planet cultivators for the lifestream of the universe and that was why she was allowed to take a primary role in my life. I caught myself thinking that it would be nice if she would go out with me. But quickly dismissed it with the thought that angels, no matter what their bloodline may be, just don't 'go out' with anyone or at least that's what I had thought at the time. After mentally composing myself I snapped out of my blanked out state and looked at Chris.

"So the most recent activity is in Tokyo?" I asked looking at Chris. He merely nodded. "Then it seems we'll have to go to Tokyo and check out these rumors." I said. I wasn't looking too forward to leaving our sanctuary we had found so soon, but it was a task that I knew I would have to spearhead myself. If for some reason we encountered the Negaverse directly. Then I wanted to make sure I was the one there at first contact, I had to do what I could to protect my knights, and with Tralus still at large with his team, I wasn't about to risk my friends.

"Has Treks finished the teleportation system yet?" Chris asked me while looking at April. After shooting him a quick glare to scold him at exactly what he was staring hard at on April, I replied.

"No unfortunately, but he reported the estimated completion time to be roughly 3 days from now, give or take. So here's what we'll do. I'm going to go ahead while the rest of you finish up the tasks at hand here. Chris I want you to take Trek's place and Treks will take my place in repair ops. Turlus will have to scan on his own but I want him to scan the media around Tokyo only once every 6 hours at half hour scan intervals. When he's not doing that he can help out wherever he is most needed. When the teleportation system is completed, I want you all to meet up with me in Tokyo. So in light of that, the teleportation system should take top priority." Chris was an experienced mechanic, mainly in star fighter design and maintenance, so a teleportation system would have been a piece of cake for him to handle. At that moment though, April became very serious. I remembered thinking how much I hated it when she did this because I always knew exactly what argument was coming.

"I'm coming with you then…" She said.

"You can't, it's too dangerous." I replied.

"Alex, I have to go with you, I must be there to help you in your times of need! That is what I'm here for!" She plead to me, tears welling up in her eyes. I knew all too well, that it was pointless to argue with her from this point on. Her mind was made up and nothing was going to change it. Not even tying her up to a post would deter her. She'd just bring it with her.

"Fine, I guess you're coming with me, but don't say I didn't warn you!" I told her sternly "Chris you have your orders, make sure the others get there's immediately. I'm leaving in 2 hours." Chris mock saluted me and ran off while April immediately became chipper and basically floated around the table, wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me on the cheek for letting her tag along. Then smiling happily, she rested her head on my shoulder. I swore that I almost heard her purr like a cat.

It took us roughly 2 hours to make sure I was equipped and prepared. I checked the heat compressor on my handgun Sized laser blaster. Back then we called it the Fusion Powered Laser Gun or F.P.L.G. for short, due to its usage of a fusion power conversion mechanic which shot out a laser pulse beam that sent the high energy rounds forward at rates much faster than any normal pulse rifle could. Also aside from us packing normal camping gear I ensured my communicator would be in working order when we left. April on the other hand was always ready to go. I remembered how she never had to do checks and prep she could always just up and leave. If she needed a weapon it was a simple matter of taking off the brooch on her dress, and pressing the gem on the center of it. The brooch would change into her bladed staff, and she was ready. And that usually took half a second if any time at all. After we had everything in order I packed everything into my subspace and we began our walk to the entrance of base prime, the elevator where we had first entered just 3 weeks prior.

Treks came running up to us as we were making our way to the entrance elevator. "h-HEY ALEX! WAIT UP!" Treks yelled at us just before stopping. He stooped over for a moment to catch his breath, and then regained his composure. Treks then held out something to me in each of his hands. In his right hand he had what looked like a wristwatch with a covering plate. In the other he had what looked like 2 small chips that were about the size and shape of today's mini SD cards. "The computer wristband watch is ready, and these chips here are for visors. They allow the visuals uplink to the computer watch which uplinks on a remote frequency to the base, and Naomi's database. It's on a secured hacker proof frequency that I coded myself." Treks said to me with a smirk, and then continued. "The keyboard console is holographic and imbedded in the visors visuals; the whole system is designed to react to your movements and audio commands. The visors themselves can even give tactical readouts in battle without the aid of the watch merely by reading your basic neural patterns, so if you needed information on the enemy, like their power level, or energy signature, or what the energy type is of the blast they fired at you, or whatever, then this thing can tell you. Also there is every type of view on this thing, from normal vision to night, infrared, x-ray, whatever you need! And they all flip through seamlessly!" I took the objects from him and removed my old wrist communicator and began attaching the wristband to my right arm. While finishing with the computer watch, as I began to call it, I looked at Treks.

"So where do I place these chips for the visors? And will I still need my communicator?" I asked him.

"There's a comm. System built into the watch. So no, you won't need an external one. As for the chips, you place one on each temple on your head. They 'snap-in' place and won't move. Don't worry they won't be uncomfortable or break skin or anything. Luke's special adhesive is on the backing of these things so you won't even know they're there. You activate the visor by tapping the right chip twice quickly and deactivate it by touching the right chip once. Since the visors have some limited ability to read your neural patterns, you switch modes of vision by tapping the left temple and think about what you want; it will pull up the closest match to what it can display." Treks' information was right about everything he had given me that day. To this day I still use those devices, the updates are all software based and I've never needed a replacement. The glinting look in his eyes as he saw me with them on told me that he was very proud of his creation, and rightfully so. I gave him a nod of approval.

"Thank you Treks. I can't wait to try them out!" I said with a smile.

"Have a safe trip you two, Godspeed! Remember April we need our leader back alive and breathing! So keep him safe!" Treks said as we clasped hands in a farewell. April gave a big smile of assurance which was all she normally needed to give to say 'I will'.

After the farewell we headed into the elevator shaft and began our ascent back to the surface. Given the speed of the elevator and how far down we were it took us about an hour to make it to the top. The elevator itself was in a dimensional gravity well all its own to avoid any issues with being crushed by its ascent speed and the gravity of earth. Overall it was a nice ride.

We eventually made it to the surface and stepped outside, blinking in the sunlight. It was a beautiful day, very warm, and the valley we stepped out into seemingly agreed with its wonderfully lush grass, flowers, and shrubs. There were rabbits and other small animals at play in the warm light of the day, and the lake nearby also had fish jumping out of the water to sun. I caught myself thinking how peaceful this planet was at times, how we had such a task ahead of us to keep it like this, and out of the Negaverse' rule. I looked up to check the sky. There was a good amount of cloud cover, and I could tell there was a nice, strong wind blowing in the upper atmosphere from how fast the clouds were moving. I motioned for April to come closer and as she did, she wrapped her arms around me. I took one arm around her waist, and with that, I began to levitate off the ground and ascend into the sky. In no time at all we were flying a considerable height above ground, but still low enough to avoid tripping off any radar. The trip to Tokyo took roughly 4 ½ hours in flight and along the way we saw mountains, forests, grassy plains, and a wonderful glimpse of the ocean while crossing the sea towards Japan. We finally made it to the outskirts of the Tokyo county limits at night and began to assess where we were going to set up camp until morning before sighting an open, undeveloped area away from houses.

After I landed, I pulled everything out of my subspace which I packed earlier. When that was done, I opened the communicator on my wrist and hailed Treks, whom always took on operational command when I left. "Treks, this is Alex. Come in, over." I voiced over the comm. link.

"Alex! Hey! We were beginning to get worried! How was your trip? Did you guys make it?" He replied with a very enthusiastic tone.

"Yeah, Trip was smooth, we just made it here. There was no sign of Nega activity on the way here; though I doubt it will stay this quiet for long." I voiced in reply. April yawned and I gave a nod in her direction that I was tired as well as I looked at her.

"Did you get any initial scans of the city yet?" Treks responded.

"No but I'll send you what I've scanned on the way here, maybe Naomi can discover something I can't. I hope that Nega detection program of yours is working." I replied with a bit of a sarcastic tone.

"pfft! Of course it'll work! All simulations came up perfect based on the energies we had previously collected from those bastards!" Treks retorted. I chuckled; I always liked picking on him about the stuff he made. His devices, inventions, and programs had never failed us before and I knew all too well this one wouldn't.

"All right, heh, calm down man. I'll send you the data to look at. Ok? I'll contact you guys in the morning to see if the computer came up with anything. Hail me if anything urgent happens, got it?" I said with a bit of a serious tone in my voice, or rather, about as serious a tone one can make when they're dead tired from flying for four hours while keeping their power level as low as possible. It had really wiped me out.

"Definitely… Oh! By the way! Thought you might like to know that we found a maintenance storage locker in the teleportation room and it had all sorts of spare parts! Our new ETA for the repairs on the teleporter is about 30 hours if we work straight through!" Treks said. I could tell he was literally beaming by the sound in his voice. I figured he must have been the one who discovered the hatch.

"Excellent news, I can't wait to see you all here! You'll love this place, it's very beautiful here. Anyways I'm going to find a place to set up camp until we can get a hotel. Goodnight guys. Alex out" Just before clicking the off button I heard Treks give me an 'affirmative', and 'treks out', standard protocol for ending military conversations.

After closing the communicator covering on the watch, April walked up to me. "Alex, I think here would actually be a good place. It's outside the city limits and we wouldn't be breaking any local laws setting up here. We could set up a camp here without any problem, and besides I'm very sleepy." April said in a tired voice. I nodded in approval to the idea, and found a place over a nearby hill that was out of view with trees and shrubs all around. It took me about 15 minutes to set up the tent and unpack the sleeping bags. Finally with everything set up, we crawled into the tent, zipped it up, and snuggled in our sleeping bags close to one another as we fell asleep.

"Wake up sleepy head! It's almost 9:30am here in Tokyo!" Was the first thing that greeted me into the morning, April and her ever so bright and chipper voice. She was leaning over me, nudging me to wake up. The realm of dreams was the only true sanctuary I ever had from all the fighting and chaos from the war with the Negaverse. Unfortunately, sometimes they even invaded me in my sleep as well. This time though, I was fortunate that my dreams were peaceful.

"Ugh, morning already…?" I said with a sigh as I rolled over onto my back. Just then I looked up and locked eyes with April, who was giving me a very soft, loving look.

"I've let you sleep in as long as I could, but people are starting to come close to our hiding spot dearie." She said, smiling at me. I smiled as well because I realized just how close we were at that moment. It was something I never thought we could be, but she evidently felt. She gazed deep into my eyes with that loving look of hers and leaned closer to me, then gave me a kiss on the cheek. "Come love, it's time we get started." She said with a tone of voice that almost sounded like music the ears. I merely blushed and nodded. April placed her hand on my chest and pressed on me lightly just before helping pull the covers off me. I could feel an odd warming sensation fill my body for a moment, before completely fading away, as she moved her hand slowly away.

Just as suddenly as the warmth had come, it faded away. But it left me feeling a soft, glowing, almost tingly sort of pleasant feeling. After getting out of the sack and eating some provisions from the backpack, packing and subspacing everything back up. I went ahead and radioed in to Treks. It was 10:15 in the morning by the time I called in. "Treks, this is Alex. Do you copy? Over." I voiced up. I was immediately answered by Chris' voice over the comm. Link

"Hey! Alex! What kept ya? Did you finally get laid?" April, who was clinging to my arm, blushed, faced away from me and giggled. "ahhh! So we DID get laid! Nice work man! Congrats! Welcome to the world of manho-." I stopped him there with an immediate response.

"CHRIS! No. I did not get 'laid' as you put it. Geeze! Hey, where's Treks?" I said the last part a little more calmly.

"I… I'm here! Alex! What's up!" treks' voice came over the comm. link obviously out of breath.

"Hey treks, I'm calling in my morning report before we head out. Did you find anything more about these Sailor Senshi or the scans I sent you last night?" I replied, yawning. "The scans you sent didn't show us anything except residual energies. But Chris dug up a lot of useful information on the Sailor Senshi. For one, it is confirmed they are all female. There's a bit of new information on one male that appears with them in a black tuxedo like outfit, helping them out occasionally. He is called Tuxedo Mask, but beyond his name, we don't have any more information on him. Also, while reports are sketchy on the exact number of Senshi, we have confirmed at least 3 for sure with two additional images awaiting proper confirmation. Oh! One other thing! There seems to be one Sailor Senshi named for each inner planet in our solar system, with the exception of the earth, which has no scout equivalent, and Jupiter, which does. There is one for our moon though, strange huh? Bring up your visor and I'll plug in the visuals for you to see." I did as treks instructed and a blue light bent around the front of my vision over my eyes, from temple to temple on my head, in a concentrated blue light energy shell. There was no warmth to it and it wasn't obstructively bright either. Looking through them was just like looking through dark blue tinted sunglasses. I looked at April and she let out a giggle at how funny I looked with them on. I smiled at her and motioned that it was okay to explore a bit while I did this. She headed out towards a small flower patch to tend, as would any Cetra in a wild field on any given day.

My field of view suddenly lit up with full color images of five teenage girls in different colored fuku. "What you see before you are the images we have procured from the newsfeeds and the cover-ups from some local authorities." Treks said. I counted the pictures, looking them over I saw they were sectioned off into two columns and three rows, on the right side of my field of vision so as to be out of the way of my ability to see in front of me. The upper left picture looked like a young blue eyed girl, with blonde hair done up into two small buns. To me, they kind of looked like large meatballs on each side of her parted hair with big red gems on each ball. The rest of her long hair flowed down in what seemed to be an individual pony tail setup, and there was a gold tiara on her forehead with a red stone in the center. Upper right showed a young girl with short blue hair, blue eyes, and a gold tiara with an aqua colored stone on her forehead as well. Continuing to look at the list there were girls with similar tiaras with different colored stones in them, all pictures also had the corresponding scout name underneath them. One though, appeared different than the others. Under her picture it read 'Sailor V'.

"What you see here is in fact the images we've been able to acquire on these girls. They call themselves things like 'Sailor Moon' and 'Sailor Mars' whichever planet they correspond to. There is one though, Sailor V, in which we are not currently sure if she is a Senshi like the other four or not. However, she is close enough in appearance to the others, and the story in London matches the reports in Tokyo enough, that we felt it was needed to place her in this report as well. We have also not confirmed the Senshi in dark green with the brown hair which we labeled here as 'Jupiter' for reference." Treks said. I was impressed by the amount of data they had gathered while I was gone. I was glad to have such skilled knights, and friends, by my side.

"I see. Have we been able to confirm as to whether or not these Senshi are, in fact, enemies of the Dark Kingdom?" I asked, glancing over to check on April who looked content tending to the flowers.

"Yes, they are definitely at war with the Dark Kingdom. Do you think they could be convinced to become allies?" He asked, a bit of excitement in his voice. We haven't had allies in our war in a very long time. The last allies we had were crushed by Tralus' knights in a desperate attempt to save a whole town of healers and sages. It wasn't a pretty sight, and we didn't win that day.

"I don't know." I replied. "They're young, and they might see us as a threat too. Although I'll admit one thing, the meatball haired looking one looks an awful lot like Queen Serenity." I was gazing at sailor moon's picture distantly. Remembering what little bits I could of that era, and rekindling the fire within that gives me the strength to continue fighting the Negaverse still to this day. Everyone in the Silver Millennium had all been killed on that fateful day, and there was nothing we could do to stop it.

What most that know the legend of the Silver Millennium already know is that the Moon kingdom was torn asunder by the Dark Kingdom's generals and also by the power of the Great Shadow, An evil entity of immeasurable power and force, which was only stopped by a loving Queen of that era and the sacrifice she made for her people and her kingdom. What almost all people however don't know, is that the assault on the Silver Millennium was only possible because it's sister kingdom, the planet Dolphina, was destroyed by an agent of Chaos known as the Doom Phantom. Dolphina was a planet orbiting a binary star system in the Andromeda Galaxy. Back then, it took mere hours to traverse those great distances to get wherever you needed to go. The silver millennium was a shining representation of a peaceful time for most of the local galactic cluster and most kingdoms and planets shared some very awesome technologies with one another. But the Doom Phantom took care of that. With one swift strike of his dark power he literally crushed the planet of Dolphina and obliterated its core. We didn't receive word of the destruction of Dolphina until a mere four hours before the Dark kingdom, with the aid of the Negaverse, attacked.

Just then, April touched me on the shoulder and I snapped out of my trance to hear treks hollering over the comm. Link. "Alex? Alex? Do you read? Are you there?"

"Yeah I'm here, sorry" I replied wrapping my arm around April, clinging to her, still semi haunted by the memories that dug themselves up.

"Hey man I don't know what happened but maybe you'd better take a look at your comm. Relay watch?" Treks said slightly worried.

"Yeah… I'll look into that sometime soon. I'm going to go scout the city now and see what we can find. I'll radio in if I find anything ok?" I replied. I wasn't going to tell him I got distracted. Then he'd just get worried about what I was thinking and I just couldn't have that happening at this time.

"Allright, take it easy man! Treks out." With that his signal flashed off my comm. I then turned off my visors by tapping my right temple once.

"Sailor Senshi, heh." I said out loud as I thought about the pictures.

"So where should we start?" April asked, looking up at me with an exuberant look.

"Well, let's head into the city and see what we can find on foot there. Get energy readings and see where things go from there." I said as I looked at her smiling. She nodded in agreeance and with that, we headed off towards Tokyo.