The Testing Grounds

"That's the exercise area?" Shion wondered as the three stood in the viewing platfrom. "It's larger than I expected. It's almost like an army bombing range."

"Yes." Allen replied. "They're promoting it as an activation test along with a mock battle that's every close to real combat, but… Togashi thinks it's a demonstration by the Salvator faction. If funding gets approved, the military intends to start mass production of the new unit immediately."

"Salvator," Cerberos growled, but fortunately the other two didn't hear him. Shion saw his hands tighten around the railing tightly however. She suppressed a gasp when he removed his hands, to reveal slightly deformed steel, that had the shape of fingers...

The announcer spoke loudly about the tests that were about to begin and a platform rose out of the ground, revealing a feminine figure standing on it with a hand on her hip.

"That's..." Shion frowned. A camera showed the figure's face. "KOS-MOS!?"

"Are you surprised?" Allen asked dryly. "She looks just like KOS-MOS."

"Development code TP-XX, also known as T-elos," Allen recited. "The ultimate, finished unit. A startling advancement in science, as they say."

"T-elos," Shion repeated to herself.

Cerberos ignored the two yet again as this 'T-elos' began to fight large swarms of Gnosis that had been set free in the testing grounds. She obliterated them without a sweat and he watched intently. T-elos continued dominating the many Gnosis that appeared and then the testing finished. As the announcer announced that the second test was going to begin, T-elos suddenly went rigid. The announcer stopped speaking and everyone peered out of their windows.

"What's wrong with her?" Shion asked Allen.

He shook his head. "I dunno, she's never done that before," he answered. "I wonder what's -"

He was cut off as T-elos suddenly turned around and launched herself into the air, streaking towards their viewing window. No one had time to react as she teleported a small beam canon and fired at the glass, shattering a hole into it. She landed inside, right in front of the three and grabbed Cerberos.

"Cerberos!" Shion screamed as T-elos threw him by the collar out into the testing grounds.

-----

Heh, Salvator's toys must have been programmed to hate my guts as well, Cerberos muttered mentally as he sailed through the air, seconds away from turning into a human pancake against a platform. Well, no time to die now, I've still got to watch over Shion.

He twisted his body in mid-air, so that his feet pointed towards the platform. Hitting it feet-first, he crouched horizontally as his legs absorbed the energy from his flight and casually began to walk down the platform wall, adjusting for gravity (ie, falling down) accordingly. Several seconds later he stepped onto the ground.

Just to corkscrew sideways as a tanned fist smashed into the platform behind him, leaving a large crater. Cerberos landed lightly on the balls of his feet and bounced a little. "Listen, if you want a date you can just ask me," he told T-elos, who removed her fist from the platform's hole.

She sneered at him. "Non-existant!" she said, running towards him.

-----

"Cerberos!" Shion cried, running over to the extended platform area of their viewing window. "Get him out of there! She'll kill him!"

"Chief!" Allen shouted, pulling her back.

-----

Cerberos deftly plucked T-elos' fist out of the air and with a twist of his wrist, locked it to her side, before flicking his leg at her shin, kicking her feet from beneath her. Turning around quickly, he kept his grip on her arm firm as he threw her over his shoulder. She flew several feet before righting herself, and landing on her feet. She held her arm out to her side and teleported a triple gatling gun to her hand.

She pointed it at Cerberos and fired, but he was already moving, moving quickly. He did a flying no-handed cartwheel to his left, then once he landed, spun on the balls of his feet, placing his right leg against a platform, using it to push himself high into the air just as the stream of bullets pulverized the platform wall. He twisted and turned in mid-air to avoid getting hit by the gatling fire and tightened his right fist, preparing to teleport an item. Landing sideways on a platform some 30 feet high, he pushed off it powerfully, rocketing towards the bio-organic android. She tossed her empty gun away and teleported a beam blade this time, preparing to cut Cerberos in half once he reached her.

Cerberos teleported his weapon just before he hit T-elos' blade, and a huge, long broadsword appeared in his right hand. It was 4.5 feet long, and dual-edged. The blade itself made up most of its length, and it tapered outwards to the tip, ending in a diamond shape with a round notch just before it on both sides. Engraved on the blade itself was a thin vinal design, that ran along the center of the blade before expanding into a sort of royal crest-like design with many curves in the diamond tip area. The sword's handguard was made out of several sharp, jagged claw-like pieces, with four on each side. A very short one that ran parallel to the blade, then one twice as long that ran parallel to it stuck out a bit after. Then came another claw that was nearly 90 degrees angled from the blade, but curved because of its clawed shape that made up the familiar shape of a handguard. The last claw acted as a fingerguard as it wrapped around the long black handle. These claws were on each side of the sword.

Sword in hand, Cerberos slashed downwards at T-elos as he reached her, smashing the blade into her beam blade, which caused her to step back from the force of it.

Staring at Cerberos' sword in disbelief (it was solide matter, yet hadn't been sliced in half from her beam blade) T-elos discarded it before teleporting a long, scythe-like sword, which replaced her forearm and hand. She ran full tilt towards Cerberos and slashed at him, but he parried her attack easily with his huge sword. He single-handedly deflected each blow that the android delt him and with a powerful horizontal sweep, knocked T-elos off her feet and she landed on her scantily-clad ass.

She seethed and looked up, only to see the point of Cerberos' sword at her nose. "Why are you here?" she asked harshly.

"If I recall, you threw me," Cerberos answered, his heavy sword never wavering.

"That is not what I meant!"

"Deploying new model human pilot Anti-Gnosis Weapon."

Cerberos looked back at the main control window in confusion. Shouldn't they cancel the tests? This android was surely malfunctioning! His head snapped to the side as T-elos suddenly snap-kicked him in the cheek, and he crashed into a platform nearly 20 feet away painfully.

"Ouch, you could have told me you liked it rough," he called over to her, pressing his fingers against the bruised skin. It would most likely swell.

T-elos rolled her ice-blue eyes. "They will find out your true meaning soon enough!" she declared, before leaping into a hole that opened up in the floor, and away from Cerberos. Another hole appeared to his left and Cerberos saw another female android come up, this time with red eyes like his and blue hair.

"Another one?" he muttered, readying his sword. Suddenly, a massive hole opened up and an equally massive machine rose out of it. Cerberos swallowed his spit unconsciously.

"You must evacuate the area," the other android told him in a monotone voice. "It is not safe."

"I knew that," Cerberos said, turning to look the android in the eye. Crimson met crimson and the second female paused for a moment. She then frowned. Do androids frown? They seemed to like sneering and eye-rolling a lot, if the other one was anything to go by.

"You must evacuate immediately," she said again. "I will be combating the weapon system now."

And then she ran off.

About 3 minutes later, Cerberos caught the heavy android (she may have been made out of nano-organic alloys, but she was still damn heavy!) just before she would have travelled through several platforms.

"Thank you," was all she said before running off again.

"She's persistant," Cerberos muttered, teleporting his sword back to dimensional storage. Several loud explosions rocked his ears as the android fought the huge A.G.W.S. and he took two steps to his left. Seconds later, the android crashed through the platform he was leaning against earlier and hit the one behind it, leaving a crater in which she was flattened out into.

"That looked like it hurt," Cerberos called out to her as she slid down the platform, landing on her feet.

"I do not feel pain," she explained, walking back to the Ags. Cerberos rubbed his throbbing cheek.

"Lucky you," he muttered. "What the -?!"

He leapt to the side as a huge arm slammed into the ground where he just was, rolling a few times away. Looking up, he saw the Ags acting strangely. It began to fire red beams out of its face, destroying everything in sight, and was smashing the ground around Cerberos wildly.

"Great, another haywire piece of junk!" Cerberos muttered, teleporting a different weapon into his hands. This time it was a four foot long rail-beam gun. It was pure white in color, and shaped like a long, curving prong. At the very rear, where the handgrip was, ... you know what, just go to my author page, I really don't want to describe yet another weapon.

Anyways,

He hefted the heavy beam weapon in his arms and raised it just in time to see the blue haired android sail past him 100 feet in the air, and land against the viewing window Shion and Allen were behind with a splat. Luckily, she didn't look like a pancake. Turning back to the huge monstrosity, Cerberos activated the optical link from its internal camera-aiming-system to his Realian eyes. He 'saw' a small crosshair in his line of vison, along with weapons statistics and calculations. Moving the railgun in his arms until the crosshair landed on its body, Cerberos waited for the gun to charge, as the generator at the rear spun up, creating crackles of energy that ran down the rails.

As it finished and he was about to fire, the large Ags suddenly sagged, losing its life. Waiting for a few moments to make sure it was dead, Cerberos finally sighed and lowered his weapon before teleporting it away. The Ags' arm twitched.

Oh, damn i-

That was the last thing Cerberos thought before the darkness claimed him.

-----

Shion sat by the hospital bed side, clutching Cerberos' hand in both of hers. She had been like this for several hours now, hopefully checking to see if he awoke sometimes. But he never did. It had been over 8 hours since Omega had swatted Cerberos into the sky like KOS-MOS... but unlike KOS-MOS, Cerberos was human. He couldn't just get replacement parts or repairs like she did. He had fought amazingly, extraordinairily, but in the end he was still a fragile, weak human compared to machines.

Omega had suddenly shut down (for real this time) and Shion had launched herself into the training area, ignoring Allen's cries of "No!" and the security's shouts of warning. She ran as fast as she could towards Cerberos' crumpled body (he had been smashed into a platform by Omega's arm) and blood had been flowing freely from the crater he resided in. She had then stood there, in shock as medics rushed around her to Cerberos' body, while the security guards tried to drag her away, but she was somehow unmoving.

First, he was attacked by T-elos, who had been incredibly defeated by him in a short amount of time. Then, he helps KOS-MOS when she was fighting Omega, and catches her from the air several times. But then KOS-MOS was beaten by Omega, and he followed shortly.

Shion tightened her grip on Cerberos' hand as tears threatened to fall out of her beautiful green eyes. "Why?" she whispered softly. "Why you? Why did they attack you? You're an amazing fighter, and strong but to me you're still that cute guy who made me spaghetti."

Outside the door, Allen froze before his hand could touch the doorknob. He listened to what Shion had to say from behind the closed door to Cerberos' room

"You always have to help people you know," Shion continued, rubbing his hand gently. The bandaged figure moved slightly, and let out what sounded like a content sigh. She smiled. "You helped me when I fainted, and you helped KOS-MOS, even though you didn't know her at all, and even if someone who looked like her had just attacked you. You're too nice for your own good you know!"

Her smile fell and the tears that threatened to fall finally did. "Please wake up," she begged in a whisper, pressing her cheek against his warm skin. "These past few days... I wouldn't have been able to get through them without you. Wake up, please!"

She raised her head and sniffed, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand as she held onto Cerberos' with her other. "You know, you're the first guy that's managed to get to me since... since... Kev -"

"Shion!"

She jerked around to see Allen in the doorway, smiling at her. She narrowed her eyes. His entrance had been too sudden, too well-timed.

"Yes Allen?" she asked in exasperation, turning back to Cerberos and stroking his hand.

"Well, I, er," he stammered. "Are you okay?"

He couldn't see it, but Shion rolled her eyes. "Someone I care about was slapped around by not one, but two Anti-Gnosis weapons," she said hotly. "How do you think I feel?"

Allen winced. "I - I'm sorry," he apologized lamely. "If it makes you feel any better, Juli Mizrahi was furious over what happened. She practically exploded on Special Advisor Roth Mantel afterwards. The entire Anti-Gnosis department was severely disciplined for allowing the tests to continue with a civilian trapped inside."

"They didn't even stop the tests, or call them back," Shion muttered bitterly. "They just went on as if Cerberos was part of it! How sick are they?!"

Allen shook his head sadly. He took a seat next to Shion. "It's all politics," he said. "I don't know how killing an innocent man will make them look better, but that's probably what the higher-ups were thinking. I still can't believe that Cerberos beat T-elos however."

He shook his head again, this time in awe. "The speed of which he moved, it matched hers perfectly, did you know that?" he asked.

Shion raised an eyebrow. "Really?" she asked back. "How do you know that?"

Allen grinned. "I've got connections!" he said brightly. Shion smacked his arm. "Ow, ow, okay! I asked Supevisor Mizrahi for the battle data on T-elos. She was able to get a copy before they were made classified."

"That was clever of her," Shion said. "And it said that Cerberos moved just as quickly as T-elos?"

"Not just as," Allen corrected. "Exactly. To the muscle movement. Since our eyes couldn't pick up their movements, we had the data cameras slow it down so we could watch. Here, take a look."

He passed her his PDA-communicator and she opened the holographic screen. It showed Cerberos fighting, moving like nothing she had ever seen before. His movements were fluid, graceful and so unbelievable that she almost didn't believe it if she hadn't seen it for herself earlier. She noticed that his peculiar red eyes were slightly glowing, and she frowned. Programming the PDA to zoom in only on his eyes, she played it back again.

"Look at his eyes," she said, showing the screen to Allen. "You can't see it now, but they move so quickly, and each time they stop on something, I bet it's T-elos' next move or something."

"They're also glowing," Allen commented. "What's up with that?"

Shion shut the device off and gave it back to her former coworker. "He has combat-observational Realian eyes," she said, returning her attention to the figure in the bed.

"R-Realian eyes?!" Allen yelped. "He's a Realian?"

"No, he's human," she answered. "He said he was experimented on."

Allen leaned back in his chair and let out a long breath. "That explains much," he said. At Shion's questioning look, he added, "Well, the strength and speed he has of course. Plus, those eyes must have been recording T-elos' every movement and he probably used that to his advantage. KOS-MOS and T-elos have the same sensory optics too so I figured that was it."

"Quite insightful Chief Ridgeley," Shion praised. "But why didn't T-elos track his movements?"

Allen waved his hand. "That's easy," he answered. "It's because she has so far been programmed to predict the attacks of Gnosis, many weapons systems and even KOS-MOS. Cerberos was an uknown element to her. Well, not anymore, she'll have recorded whatever she could from their fight however."

Shion rubbed Cerberos' hand. "It's not T-elos I'm worried about," she sighed. "It was Omega. The way it lost control back there... and Cerberos..."

The tears threatened to spill again. "Everything's been so crappy lately!" she cried in frustration, startling Allen. "The Gnosis Terrorism, the dissapearance of the Elsa -"

"Whoa, wait, the Elsa's missing?" Allen asked.

"- and now Cerberos getting badly injured!" Shion went on. "And chaos told me last night that the Elsa and its crew went missing on some mission. I'm supposed to see them later today but..." She looked back at Cerberos. "I'm not sure if I can."

Cerberos then groaned. Shion shot out of her chair, her elbow smacking Allen on the nose as he yelped and fell backwards, clutching his face. She was at Cerberos' head quickly, patting him on his hair.

"Cerberos, are you awake? Can you hear me?" she asked desperately.

"Did anyone get the ID of that Ags pilot?" he moaned, sitting up.

Shion let out a relieved laugh. "You're silly," she said, feeling giddy. "Don't sit up! You're hurt!"

"I'm fine," Cerberos muttered through his bandages. He began to tear them off with his unbandaged hand. Nurses and doctors poured into the room once the vital lifesigns connections had been severed, and their protests to Cerberos to stop were ignored as the man unwrapped himself.

Shion gasped as the last bandage fell from his waist. His... his wounds! she thought, what happened to his wounds?!

He was perfectly healthy. There were no gashes, bruises or jutted out ribs on his body. His face was back to its normal handsomeness, and his arm wasn't in four pieces. He looked like the epitome of perfect health.

"Wha?" Allen sputtered. "How?'

Cerberos grinned and raised his wrist. It showed a thin silver bangle that the doctors hadn't managed to remove when they began operating on him.

"This bangle has an automated system that activates when the sensors that monitor my vital signs drop drastically," he explained, sitting up more. "Using the presumption that I've been taken to a hospital immediately, it's programmed to wait until my vitals have stabilized before teleporting a DX-series medical kit that is automatically injected into my bloodstream through the veins in my wrist. After that, it's just a matter of hours before I'm healed."

He suddenly grunted as Shion slammed into his midsection, clutching onto him tightly. "DX or not, don't you ever worry me like that again!" she shrieked, punching him in the gut. "I've spent the past eight hours sitting here, terrified for you!"

"Thanks?" Cerberos answered akwardly, patting her on the head. "Um, you can let go now?"

Shion "eep"ed and slid away from him, looking anywhere but his face as her own was fairly hot. "I'm glad you're okay," she said, patting his arm.

"I know you are," he said, enjoying the warmth her hand radiated as it lay on top of his. "But I was serious, what's the ID of that Ags pilot?"