Lan was leaning on his right hand against a horizontal guide rail, looking off across the blue cloudless sky into the horizon as the wind blew through his brown spiky hair.
"Never realized how much I missed flying" he says to his blue suited, holographic companion without taking his eyes off of the horizon. "Especially Yai's surprise flights. Never knowing when, where or how the next one would be" He further ads, this time turning to face his friend. "Yea" Megaman replied. "It's been some time, though I must admit, I wasn't expecting our next flight to be aboard an airborne command center"
"That makes two of us". Lan replies as he turns his face towards the horizon once again. "Those were the days Megaman. Those were the days."
Lan continued gazing into the horizon, lost in his thoughts, until suddenly brought back to reality by a voice coming from somewhere to his left.
"Breathtaking view" the voice said, drawing both Lan and Megman's attention. "Isn't it?"
Lan was surprised by the sight of a young, blond girl in pink and black clothing, holding a plush toy, also gazing into the distance.
"It is." Lan replied as the girl turned to face him. "Thank you for helping Aile.", her bright blue eyes bearing a striking resemblance to those of an old acquaintance of Lan's. "We're just glad we could help. Will she be all right?" Lan proceeded to ask. "She'll be fine in a couple of minutes, our equipment is regenerating her as we speak".
"That's good to know, though she'd better be more careful next time. Had we not of been there, she might have suffered a lot worse".
"Normally she's very cautious, but she's just lost someone very dear to her." The girl said with a look of sadness on her face. "And she's dealing with it the only way she can. By preventing more suffering even at the cost of her own wellbeing."
"Trust me." Lan replied as memories of his own past came flooding back "I, more than anyone, know what it's like".
The girls was about to say something else when, with perfect timing, the door behind them opened and a guard came into view.
"I'm sorry to interrupt." he said, drawing Lan and the girl's attention to himself. "But, I thought you might like to know that Aile is waking up."
"Thank you." The girl said as she dismissed him.
"Well, I guess I should be on my way too." Lan said as he started walking towards the door. "Wait, we never got properly acquainted." she called after Lan "I'm Prairie".
"I'm Lan Hikari." Lan replied as the door closed behind him.
Meanwhile, in the infirmary, Aile's beginning to wake to the relief of both models Z and X, Model Z being the first to break the ice. "Hey kid, glad to see you're still with us." he said hiding his concern, while Model X had a more outright statement. "Don't do that again Aile, everyone was deeply concerned about you".
"Don't worry. I won't." she said, as she reached for the two biometals located on a table next to the bed.
However, as she was reaching for the two biometals, two guards' muffled voices coming from the adjacent room caught her attention. She tried, with limited success, to figure out what they were saying before finally giving up and trying to get out of bed despite the fact that her still weakened state virtually guaranteed, that the only wall she'd be getting close to would be the floor, and sure enough, knees first she did.
"Aile, don't strain yourself." Model Z said as he started floating towards the respective wall. "I'll have a listen." he added as he propped up against the wall.
The conversation went on for a few minutes, before Model Z hurriedly floated back to Aile who had now managed to get back on the bed.
"Well?" Aile and Model X, in unison, asked the approaching red biometal. "Well, from what I can tell, Prairie wants everyone to be on their toes around our guest." Model Z said as he landed in Aile's awaiting hand. "Until more is known about him."
"Is that all those guards said?" asked Model X. "That and there's a guard named Red on level two with a crush on Aile".
"Really?" Model X said with a "is that so" tone to his voice as Aile started blushing slightly.
But before she could fire off a reply, the door started opening and in came our favorite blue bandana wearing ball of pure energy Lan, donning his trademark cheerful smile.
"I'm not interrupting anything am I? I just stopped by, to wish you the customary get well soon, before I left."
"Nope, not interrupting anything." Aile hurriedly said, still a little sheepish from Model Z's last remark.
"Well then, I guess we'll be seeing each other around town." Lan said before turning around and exiting the room.
Aile waited a few moments to make sure Lan was out of earshot before jumping up, megamerging in midair and upon landing, picking up the remaining biometals from the table.
"Aile…" Model X began saying, intent on finding out why she was tempting fate by not resting as she should, before being cutoff by Aile. "Prairie wants more info on Lan, so we're going to get it for her." she said, as she exited the room and began following Lan.
She followed Lan, first to the teleporter, then through several forest areas, two suburban city levels and a skyscraper district, before Lan finally entered an abandoned building. Aile followed Lan into the building, and hiding around a corner, watched him crossfuse before opening a rectangular portal of sorts as tall as himself through which he entered, and sensing her chance, so did she.
She found herself in the middle of a road in complete darkness and, a quick biometal change to Model PX later, she started walking towards the only source of light in sight. A blue roofed, one story house.
Using her wall hopping ability she made her way up to the first story of the house, and using model PX's claws, grabbed onto the upper ledge of the window the light was coming from. There, she saw Lan at a desk, working on a computer, uncrossfused.
The computer's screen was too far from the window to clearly discern what was on it, especially since Lan was in the way, but once Lan left to look something up in another part of the house, she could make out something referring to the state of a network of satellites.
Some of what was on the monitor was indiscernible however, and in trying even harder to see what it was, lost track of what was happening around her.
"You know, it's easier to see from the inside."
Lan's voice suddenly came from behind and to the right of her, startling and almost causing her to let go of the claw she was hanging with. And sure enough, turning around whilst saying in a low tone to herself and her biometals "Busted!", Aile came eye to eye with a now crossfused Lan, hovering besides her with the aid of backpack mounted thrusters.
"How did you know I was following you?" she asks while trying to get her heartbeat to slowdown. "I would have been disappointed in you if you hadn't." he replied her with a smile. "I even let the Panel Out portal open a little longer especially for you."
"What is this place." Aile asked as she let go of the claw, and as Lan slowly hovered down to earth.
"This is were I grew up." still smiling at her.
"Aile, welcome to Dentech City."
On the guardian airship however, Prairie and a scientist survey images coming from the Kepler deep space satellite, a deathly silence between them.
"It just appeared out of nowhere in a burst of energy on Mars' orbit." the scientist finally said.
"Do you have any idea what it is?" asked Prairie as she turned to face the scientist.
"I do." he replied, pulling up some more images on another screen. Images which left Prairie speechless for a few moments. "After all this time…" he pauses for a moment "The…" he continues to say but is interrupted by Prairie.
"Star Force Prometheus." she reads in amazement, from the files.
Minutes later, as the two are still left speechless, eight different colored lights shoot up from the ship and settling on individual courses, start heading towards the Earth and seconds later, a larger, purple, light shot up from the ship also settling on an course for Earth.