Chapter 2: Escalation and Anticipation

"Charnel! Death is not the answer to everything!"

"Yes, torture also has its merits!"

-Persephone and Charnel, two of Eldred's patron deities.

"For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction"

- A law of physics and, according to some, of sociology as well.

Several years ago, a demon stood on the brink of death. His name was Marduk. The wizard Eldred had rallied the five gods against him. Together they had struck the demon down. Dragons and phoenixes flew around Marduk as he pulled himself up by his staff. He gurgled, blood pouring out of his mouth. Lightning played across Eldred's fingers as destructive force was poured into Marduk's skull. Marduk dissolved, his mind an echo. Eldred sighed as a Shrike whizzed past his face.

"All this time we walked together, you listened, but you did not hear me. I told you I would stop you this time!" Marduk had been defeated. The demon looked upon itself. This was impossible! Eldred couldn't have done this! Marduk was more powerful then this! Marduk was stronger! Marduk was not... Ugh. Marduk was dead.

Eldred would go on to reconnect with his old friend the Timeless one, who'd advise the Doctor to include him in their Blue Council.

Present day: "Exctraction commenced" Three men looked down at the spinning and screaming power core. At the heart of the installation the Tau had built, a chained god wailed. To no avail. The three men had ordered construction and had provided the power source. The benefits of the device were shared equally. For the greater good, of course. The leader looked at his two collegues before pushing a button on the console before them.

Back at the time and place of Marduk's grave, a wailing was heard. A red haze coupled with a sound not unlike that of a TARDIS, but more drawn out. Stretched. Maduk's body was ripped from the timestream, though Marduk had still died, then and there. A paradox. Time doesn't like paradoxes. But apply enough brute force...

Marduk the should-have-been-dead demon lord materialized on a teleportation platform. He looked into kind eyes. Kind eyes set in pale skin, constrained and contained by a facemask. Scorpius, a hybrid between a human(ish) and a Scarran(Lizard-folk) helped him up. Only to be shoved back, falling into the arms of his two compatriots.

One of them was wearing a metal gauntlet. He pointed it at Marduk. Marduk was a monster that ate energy in all its forms. Wizards and even gods trembled before him! Now, moments after his last defeat Marduk found himself again at the mercy of some wizard-man. Pain wracked his body as blue fire erupted from his flesh only to arc back upon him, scorching his plated skin.

The third man was chuckling. His eyes were still hidden in shadow. A suprisingly normal voice echoed through the chamber. Its tone was one of pity. Of empathy: "We saved you! Do you want revenge on Eldred, yes or no?" Marduk was bewildered. Nothing but a wild beast. He strained to nod. Kane stepped forward, smiling. "Good."

In blinding light, the majestic, newly re-plated BC-304 Daedalus appeared far above a planet. It looked to be far more Earth-like and far less Tamriel-like. To the pleasure of both Zechs and Jygg. Down on the surface, there was technology. Lots of it. "I've taken the liberty to... tap into... a television broadcast, captain." Zechs nodded at his newly acquired god-A.I.: "On screen."

A large square at the center of the front windscreen went opaque. A picture formed. Two robots, each no more then four feet high, were depicted on the impromptu television. One machine was strafing the other. "Sumilidon!" A haughty young man shouted from the sidelines. "Flexorsword!" The yellow and black feline robot slashed at its counterpart. It hit. The other machine's arm flew off, both ripped ends crackling with sparks.

Zechs slumped down into his chair, sitting the same way Irleth's boss always sat. He bit his finger: "Blood sport. What do you think?" Jyggalag's holographic avatar looked down on his captain: "I think violence is part of human nature. I would prefer a bloodless blood sport to a blood feud."

"Very philosophical" The voice came from behind them. The G-man stepped out into the bridge. Zechs flew out of his seat and drew Dawnbreaker whilst Jygg warmed up the few shield emitters they still had.

"Come now." The G-man stared at Zechs. "If I could board your vessel without you noticing, I could also destroy it. I am just a messenger. A messenger of the Doctor." Dawnbreaker was sheathed. Zechs opened his mouth to speak but to his suprise, a forcefield sprang into place between Zechs and the G-man, sealing Zechs off from the rest of the ship. Jygg's hologram appeared beside the G-man and turned toward him.

Jyggalag was furious: "Share your message and leave or I will vent all atmosphere!" The G-man raised an eyebrow. Zechs smiled: "...You entered his body unannounced. That's generally considered bad manners. ...I'm not stopping him." The G-man's eyebrows rose up, he stammered and he reached for his tie. "I... I beg your forgiveness. I've come to warn you. The same entity that had interfered with the Doctor's efforts, the entity that sent the dragons your way, has been found. Down there."

The G-man inclined his head toward the viewscreen. Sumilidon, the yellow robot with the flexorsword, was shot in the head, kneed between the legs and shoved out of the ring by a blue-white gunbot with pink detailing. "Brass WINS!" Brass's operator, (a young woman named Erika) was jumping for joy.

Whilst the G-man was making his... ahem, airless exit from the ship, (Immedeately followed by transdimensional teleportation courtesy of Eldred) everybody on the planet watching television cheered as one. Brass, a relatively basic model medabot owned by Erika, a young lady who'd helped save the world, had beaten Koji, the posh young man who, too, had helped saved the world.

Saving the world helps you get into world championships, Metabee mused. He was watching TV in his big lazy chair. Metabee smiled. His owner Ikki and he had, indeed, saved the world a few years back. Erika and Koji were among the people who'd helped. Metabee was a yellow-white gunbot. Beetle-based design. Missile launcher on the head. Oh and he looked cute. Or so he himself thought. Stepping out of his room into their small apartment, Metabee wondered where his owner Ikki had went.

The answer was that Ikki had gone for a walk. The quarterfinal between Erika and Koji wasn't something he was all that into anymore, having fought both of them dozens of times. He knew how it'd problably turn out. Sumilidon would tire himself out and Brass would evade. When Sumilidon would trip up... Bam. It's how she got him and Metabee the last few times. Ikki had won world champion a few years in a row but he and Metabee decided to retire last year so he could focus on his studies. At least for a while. They were of one mind on this. In three years there'd be a spectacular comeback for Bee and a diploma for Ikki.

Smirking despite his pain, Kaworu Nagisa observed Ikki walking past a small group of children. The back of Nagisa's head was bleeding. Profusely. Nagisa's eyes seemed to have lost focus. Even an entity edging on superbeing status doesn't like taking a blow to the head. Nagisa smiled as he heard the ripping of flesh and bone followed by an otherworldly scream. Another one of the Xenomorphs had gestated. Thankfully they weren't considering him a threat or a viable host. Nagisa would have time to recover.

The Xenomorphs needed people to hatch their larvae into adult forms. Their queen commanded them to stride forward. Ever forward. More life to drag into the nest. More. The patrolling hunter saw the children playing in the sand pit. It saw the young man sitting on the bench beside them. It didn't know who the young man was. If it knew the young man was Ikki and what that meant, the Xenomorph may have re-thought its decision. But it lunged for the children. And screams were had.

Nagisa had unleashed a plague upon an unsuspecting world. Unleashed it upon children. Thankfully, these children were not defenseless. Ikki grabbed his wristwatch. "METABEE!" Advances in technology allowed a medafighter to teleport his medabot to him, using the power of the ancient and mystical 'medal' A.I.'s at the robot's heart. Back in Ikki's day, this wouldn't have been possible. A very specific set of circumstances would have to be met to teleport a medabot. Thankfully, times change! Advances in technology meant one could now teleport in a fully-operational medabot at pretty much any time.

The Xenomorph saw Ikki cross his hands, standing in its path. A futile attempt to prevent it from bringing its queen more humans. But then something unexpected happened. A flash of yellow, followed by the materialization of a short metal man. The Xenomorph was smart. It could think. It asked itself, it asked its queen: 'Why have we been hatched on a planet where everyone has their own personal robot guard!' The smart beast stopped wasting precious miliseconds on comptemplation, for it was at this point still dashing toward the kids, the man and the puny little robot. Prey for the hive!

Metabee's metallic voice rambled into being: "Kekekekekekekeke!" He was disoriented, horrified! He'd materialized staring down a rampaging black... ant-monster. Like a light in the dark, his buddy Ikki's voice was crystal clear: "SUBMACHINE GUN!" The tiny yellow warbot's eyes ignited in green. Target locked. He raised both his arms and unleashed a spray of bullets from both his accuracy-focused right arm and multi-barrel left arm. The Xenomorph's shining chitin was pierced dozens of times. Blood met air and immedeately turned acidic. The speed the Xenomorph had built up meant its carcass still flew forward several feet, tackling Metabee, even though several 9mm bullets had already crossed the alien's mind.

Metabee's steel hands shoved the carcass off him. Bee stood up... before twitching and furiously shaking his arms. Ikki's medabot/best friend turned to face him, hopping up and down and screaming in pain. A thin layer of metal was melting off Metabee's armor. Ikki's eyes widened. Oh crap. Corrosives. Think, think... AH! "Bee, into the fountain!" A mad dash by a yellow medabot followed by a swan dive and a splash. The flowing water diluted and dispersed the acid sprayed onto Bee's armor plates. Quick thinking on Ikki's part saved the lives of both the children and his medabot. Metabee was sitting at the bottom off the pond, legs crossed. Being metal, he sank. Being supertech with a bit of precursor tech mixed in, he was waterproof. "Kekeke...ke.." He was hurting. He was scared. This was new. This was weird.

After disposing of the G-man, Zechs asked Jyggalag to log into the planet's internet to find out more about the 'medabots'. To the Daedalus crew's suprise, moments after Jygg's tap into the internet had begun, someone hailed them. "...lling the.. ahem: The 'BC-304 Daedalus'. Half the nations on the planet have you on radar and the only reason the other half don't is because the earth is a sphere and they can't radar past the horizon. You're also broadcasting an identification beacon. You're either incompetent at stealth or incompetent at something else. I'd be happy to help you out, maybe spin a coverstory? Especially if you're space aliens!..."

Zechs chuckled and tapped some keys on the arm of his chair to reply. "This is Zechs Marquis, captain of the interdimensional starship Daedalus calling you. Sorry to inform you, we're not aliens, just creatures from another world."

A cheer from the other end of the line, followed by the voice of someone who was clearly a gleeful old man: "I'd love to know more! Please follow the directions I'm sending you and land. It's a wharf. For sea ships, because we're not going into space yet... Though we can, in theory... I'm Doctor Aki, by the way. If you'll let me inspect your ship, I'll make sure nobody believes 'creatures from another world' showed up and I'll do repairs if you want me to." Zechs nodded: "Approaching, Doctor Aki. You seem awfully energetic. Exactly like the scientists who've been a boon to my ship so far! Feel free to poke around but be warned, my on-board A.I. is a vengeful god." Doctor Aki took that statement the way it was intended and gulped.

Earlier that day, in another reality entirely, two men were being reprimanded. One was Kaworu Nagisa. The other was Bobby Hobbes. Nagisa was hovering just above the ground somewhere in a big city. He couldn't tell where he was exactly, for he was in a psychic trance contacting his bosses. They were currently reprimanding him for getting eight dreadlords killed and screwing up his mission:

What worried Nagisa was that instead of the expected four robes shouting at him, he'd found five. Granted, when he was recruited, there were only three, but he'd met Kane when he joined the Red Council. Kane wasn't half bad. Like Scorpie he was reasonable, had goals. Scorpie (Scorpius) had approached Nagisa after... after Nagisa's previous employer had asked him to assist in one too many genocides.

Contrary to Scorpius and Kane's intellect, the head of the operation was a power-mad idiot. He was, however, the head of the operation because he could kill Nagisa and/or the other members with but a twitch of the gauntlet on his hand. Power-mad and powerful. Bad mix.

Ah well, what are you gonna do? The pay was good, the hours were even better and Nagisa actually able to have life next to his work for the Red Council so he just nodded and obeyed like any good employee who wants to keep his job.

Yes, he wouldn't screw up again. Yes, this next plan will yield an army. Yes yes yes. After the mental link closed, Nagisa punched a brick wall. Yay. More genocides.

Nagisa had ported into an alley. Garden variety earth-world. Nothing special. Or so he thought. Appearing next to him: a single leathery Xenomorph egg, (courtesy of Marduk, but Nagisa didn't know that bit yet).

The other man being reprimanded that day was Bobby Hobbes. His boss didn't like him spending company money fixing his van. Well, the van broke on the job so he'd fix it on the job. It was at this point that Hobbes walked out on the conversation. Ever since the fat man retired, it was even more difficult to get a refund! The fat man was a miser, but had a heart of gold. Former right hand Eberts had turned out to be a far more competent boss. Smarter. Emotionally stable. But just as frugal, without the easily abused soft spot for good meals and good results.

Hobbes was walking down the street, grouching, newspaper in hand, wondering where his buddy Darien had went. He had only just taken a bite from his cheeseburger when he was yanked by the scruff of his jacket into an alleyway.

The little snot that had yoinked him couldn't have been older then eighteen. And he was an albino or something. Red eyes, white hair. Mostly caucasian... kinda asian looking though. When the little freak kneed him in the gut, Hobbes was forced to spit out the cheeseburger. It hurt but Hobbes laughed. Then the little delinquent shoved Hobbes into a crouch, gripping his arms so he'd be bend over, looking down at. ...Holy crap. This day just got interesting.

Nagisa was expecting the balding red-faced man to scream after he'd blitzed him. Apparently the man's mind had snapped, for he was laughing. The Facehugger's egg was opening, getting ready to... well... hug face, and plant an egg in Hobbes's chest. Hobbes regained his composure, or, well, the composure he generally had in situations like this: "Oh pal, there's three things I really aught to tell you right now..." Nagisa shoved a foot into Hobbes's gut. Hobbes gargled, spat up a bit of blood and strained to look up at Nagisa: "First thing you should know, pale kid: I know what that thing is!" Nagisa scoffed at his captive: "How would you possibly..." The balding man continued: "It's an Alien egg. A Xenomorph! I've seen it in the movies." The hybrid's grip slackened in suprise.

"Second thing you should know... My name's Bobby Hobbes, I'm a secret agent. I know what I'm doing and you just made me angry." Nagisa was perplexed. Perplexed but not stupid: He was still holding Hobbes tight. No mere mortal was going to escape his grip. Not even a spook. Not even a spook that knew what a Xenomorph was from a film. Hm, Nagisa reasoned, apparently this was a reality in which other realities were fiction... Wait a sec. ...That wasn't supposed to be possible. No overlap. Overlap was bad for their plans. Very very bad.

"Third thing... My partner can turn invisible." Nagisa's eyebrows rose. "Wh-" An invisible crowbar slammed through Kaworu Nagisa's medula oblongata. The rear of his brain was destroyed along with the back of his skull. Though Nagisa was ungodly in his power, he wasn't the toughest nut to crack when suprised. A dead Nagisa slumped down as the invisible liquid biometal quicksilver turned solid and shattered, revealing to the visible spectrum of light the crowbar and the man holding it: Darien Fawkes, the Invisible Man.

Hobbes let off a pained chuckle as picked himself up:"Too ya long enough!" Darien helped him stand: "I wanted to hear him out. Not every day you see a creepy albino kid drag a full grown man into an ally wi... holy shit, is that what I think it is?" Hobbes nodded and turned toward Fawkes: "Yeah, it's a Xenomorph egg. We better call the keeper, she'd kn-" Darien's mouth flew open as he stared at a space beyond Hobbes's peripheral vision. Hobbes understood immedeately and ducked. Kaworu Nagisa's fist, or rather, awakened Angel Tabris's fist snapped through the air above Hobbes's head.

Nagisa'd been resurrected by the Core inside his chest. He was back... mostly. There was still a hole in the back of his head, but it had already begun healing. Nagisa, or rather Tabris, because his conciousness was currently inside his crystal core, was grinning. "You killed me!" Nagisa had been killed before. By the one person he... loved. Or something. He himself was unsure of what he felt. He'd been resurrected. And now this guy, this invisible schmuck had killed him again.

Quicksilver flowed from Darien's every pore. A gland in his brain secreted the beautiful reflective grey goop that would turn him invisible. Hobbes wasn't so lucky. Unwilling to pay any more attention to the guy who was still visible and therefore not a threat, Nagisa simply flicked his wrist at Hobbes, telekinetically slamming him against a wall. Hobbes pulled his gun, prompting Nagisa to stare into Hobbes's eyes for a moment, a burning gaze simply switching off his brain. Hobbes went limp, gun in hand. The Xenomorph egg, which had been laying in the corner, had vanished, or rather, turned invisible by this point. Kaworu sighed in annoyance. His red eyes began to glow and an AT-field fell into place. (Soul-forcefield, as upposed to electronic forcefield) It let off a telekinetic shockwave which rattled the rusty trash cans and metal staircase within the alley.

Darien became visible in the corner. He could feel it. Two ribs broken. Left arm. Still concious. Still.. concious. Darien played dead. He was lucky Nagisa was in full-on telekinesis mode, using his extrasensory powers to yank the egg toward him instead of checking Darien's pulse.

After intense focus on Nagisa's part, a trans-universal portal opened. He threw Hobbes through, along with the hatching egg. Evacuate. Find some other suburb to unleash the Xenomorphs.

Fast forward a few minutes, Nagisa was dragging an unconcious, recently face-hugged Hobbes through an abandoned factory, checking to make sure they weren't seen before passing out and leaving Hobbes to... hatch.

A few blocks away, in another alley not unlike the one he'd just left, quicksilver solidified and shattered. Darien winced in agony. He didn't know where he was. Looking from the language written on the cardboard boxes around him he looked to be in Japan. His earth's Japan? The albino psychic kid's Japan? He slumped down against a wall.

... Hold on a sec. Japanese albino kid. With telekinetic powers. Happy smiley, even when fighting. And a red glowy gem in his chest. He'd heard that one before. But where?

In agony due to his broken bones, Darien searched his mind. Then it began to dawn on him. He took an interest in Anime during his prison sentence. (The clean kind, thanks.) It was where he'd seen the kid before. On TV. Or, well, DVD and some books. But still! He knew who he'd just fought. And if Xenomorphs could be real ... Then the kid didn't just look like...

Oh crap. Oh crap oh crap oh crap. Of all the Anime to come to life on him, it had to be that one. Hobbes had been facehugged by a real live Alien and Darien himself had been beaten up by Kaworu Nagisa, a.k.a. the fucking Seventeenth Angel.

Okay, calm down, Darien. Ungh. Breathing laboured. Probably the ribs rubbing on or even piercing the lung. He knew he had to get to a hospital, but they'd discover the quicksilver gland stuck in his brian. The doctors might mistake it for a tumor or worse: they might realize it was something else entirely. Whatever would happen, they'd try and cut him up. Straining to stay sane and collected, Darien heard a thud behind him and turned around.

Before him stood a four-foot tall grey robot with a golden sword mounted on one of its arms, armor styled after a stag beetle and a ragged cloak on its shoulders. The machine had hopped down into Darien's alley from the roof. A small white cat rubbed its back around the little robo-knight's legs. Darien stared into the robot's red eyes and smiled like he'd met his own personal saviour. He took a deep breath and winced, sputtering blood: "Holy crap. Yes! Rokusho! It's Rokusho, right? Right... Take... Take me to... To Karin! To Karin. ..Neutra-nurse. Neutra-nurse. Not the hospital. She can heal me..." Pulling on Rokusho's shoulders, pleading... Darien collapsed.

Rokusho the masterless medabot quirked his head in bewilderment, sighed and hoisted Darien onto his shoulder.

Zechs was being led through the halls of Doctor Aki's laboratory. Doctor Aki was an old man with a balding head, hair at the sides as white as his lab coat. His huge black sunglasses also seemed to serve as a HUD and the tourist-esque clothes he wore under his lab coat made him a disarming, Einstein-like figure. His demeanour was similair: "I hope you don't mind, but my granddaughter is currently leading the team that's evaluating your ship. I'm reading you've got a giant robot on board?" Zechs nodded: "If you can make some incremental improvements to it, especially when it comes to reaction speeds, I'd appreciate it. But don't install an A.I. It's a suit, not an assistant."

Zechs looked down as they walked down a walkway suspended above the medabot assembly lines. So many different types... "About the medabots: Where do you get their A.I.'s?" Doctor Aki smirked: "I'll be frank with you, because you're a spaceman and you're not gonna tell the press..." Zechs nodded. "Archeological excavations. They're from a civilzation long extinct. People had uploaded their minds into the medabots. Sufficed to say, all but a few were lost. The survivors are the templates that we now copy. We don't know how it works, we just know that it works. The original medals we've unearthed are... more then the copies. People rather then pets. They can do more too. They're obviously entrusted to people who know the secret so that they're able to live as comfortable a life as possible. Which brings me to Jyggalag, the god you have in your machine."

Again, Zechs nodded, smiling understandingly at the scientist: "You want to design a medal off him?" Doctor Aki chuckled: "You're a sharp one, mister Peacecraft. Yes. Crystal series. Based off his A.I." They walked into Aki's office. Zechs sat down opposite Aki: "If Jygg wants an homage like that, it's fine by me. ...So are you going to tell the world that your 'experiental medabot' they've detected is actually an inter-universal incursion?"

Aki laughed and pulled his sunglasses down, looking directly at Zechs's helmeted face: "You really are smart! Or is Jyggalag streaming you the news? No, no, of course I won't tell the world. They'd go mad! For no good reason! I couldn't hope to replicate the... reality engine you've been using. Why would I tell them if it'd only whip them up into a frenzy?"

Zechs nodded back at Aki: "No reason for them to get all world-war-worked-up about it, eh? Yeah. Been there, done that. I wonder if my world's at war because I disappeared aboard a reality-skipping gunboat." Aki shrugged: "Go back and check. Or can't y-...? Oh...! Oh of course! You'd need to plot a course! Which would require... Of course!"

Aki jumped up at Zechs, suddenly understanding what the captain was angling for :"You want to go back! You want me to give you an A.I. that can hook up to your reality drive and... oh." Aki's hyperactivity suddenly died and he murmured as he looked down. He pulled his glasses off and placed them on his desk. "If you're asking if we have a supercomputer that could fit on your ship to guide you home, I'm sorry. We don't have the processing power you'd need. When it comes to A.I. all we do around here is replicate an old design we really can't understand." The room fell silent for a while.

A wistful expression crossed Zechs's face: "It's okay." A relieved Aki grinned: "We did fix the teleporters, tho!" Behind his mask, Milliardo Peacecraft's eyes snapped open. "Teleporters? How in-" The vidscreen in Doctor Aki's office lit up, revealing a scowling young man.

Doctor Aki turned around: "Ikki! Is everythi... Oh dear god!" Ikki panned his camera across the Xenomorph's corpse, talking over the video: "It attacked some kids. I was able to step in and call Metabee. He's not okay. These... things... They spew acid." Another call to doctor Aki's office. His viewscreen suddenly extended horizontally, doubling in size rather then going to splitscreen. Eh, if you're rich...

"Doctor Aki!" A young, red-headed woman appeared on the vidscreen. Doctor Aki's mouth flew open. No longer the funny Einstein, he sounded both angry and concerned: "Karin, is everything allright?" Karin had been doctor Aki's ward for a long time. She'd been an ill girl and if she'd been born in any past era, she'd be dead by now.

But this was the era Aki and his peers had built. Oppenheimer had become death. Aki had given life back to ancient civilizations... and! He'd built the Neutra-nurse type medabot to heal and protect Karin, so she could have a somewhat normal life whilst he poured his funds into proper therapy and treatment to be developed for her congenital condition.

It had mostly worked. Her blood vessels had been strengthened and she could regulate her own temperature. She still had a weak heart and it would take time for her to really build up a healthy constitution, but she could basically live a full life now.

Karin turned her camera outward as well. In Karin's living room stood Erika and Koji, the world championship players they'd seen on television. They too were Doctor Aki's pseudo-grandkids. In front of them Neutra-nurse, a bright pink/white robot, was pumping healing energy into a broken man.

Darien Fawkes woke up, looking first at Koji's face, then at Erika's. Darien nodded affirmingly. "Hey." Erika tapped her medawatch, changing the camera feed from Karin's watch to her own before turning it over to Darien: "This is Doctor Aki. Tell him what you told us."

Darien nodded: "Umm, hello Doctor Aki... wait.. holy crap, is that Zechs Marquis? ...Figures." Zechs's eyebrow quirked. Darien muttered something about a Char. And bad luck. "Anyway, there's a Xenomorph infestation, and I know where it's coming from."

The G-man and Eldred walked into the void. The Doctor and the Timeless one had already arrived. "I've delivered our message." The necrid trader sounded even more dour then normal. Bit hoarse too. Eldred sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose: "Yes. Yes you did. ...They... They airlocked him."

Eldred shook his head in resignation before taking his seat beside the Doctor. The timeless one supressed a laugh: "You really are great with people, G. Really. Well done." The G-man's frown seemed to deepen. Eldred noticed the Doctor's expression. He noticed something else too. "...Oh no. Where's Manhattan?" The Doctor clenched his teeth and inhaled. "Well..."

Nagisa had been healing. This was fortuitous for Nagisa. Because things were about to hit the fan for him and his little alien ant farm.

It was getting dark. Ikki's hometown had been cordoned off by the international army and their medabot armed forces. Doctor Aki himself had also dispatched nearly all his scientists and gave them appropriate medabots to find people and escort them to the military safe zone. Zechs and Aki walked down the main street's sidewalk, patrolling the town for stragglers.

"There's a light burning, over there." Dawnbreaker was leveled at a small house at the left end of a long street. Ikki's parental home. He wasn't home right now. No, Ikki was racing home from the city in his Porsche (thank you, multiple first prize world tournament wins) with Metabee in the passenger seat.

"Thank you for fixing me up, ma'am." Nagisa nodded cheerfully. Ikki's mother closed her eyes bemusedly: "You got hurt. It happens. Next time, wear leather when riding your motorbike. Or at least a helmet. You had quite the gash." Nagisa nodded. "It'll heal (some more). But I'll be more careful in the future. Nothing like getting hit when you least expect it."

"I agree." Ikki's dad shoved a syringe into Nagisa's neck, squirting him full of sedative. Being the commander of Japan's branch of the aforementioned international army, he got suspicious when he was suiting up and a young albino man, just like the one they were looking for was brought in injured by his wife.

This was a mistake, though, because as soon as the needle was injected, Nagisa's eyes turned bright red. "Now why did you do THAT?" Nagisa rose up into the air, a wind picking up inside the home. Nagisa sighed, tapped a finger on his lips. "Okay. Playtime's over. Go away." His words hummed. He extended his arms. An AT-field fell into place. Then a shockwave.

Ikki's home simply exploded. His parents were flung in two different directions. His dad was caught by Zechs, whose piloting skills gave him excellent reflexes. His mom was caught by Rokusho, whose robotness gave him excellent reflexes. Needless to say, two golden swords were drawn and two figures ran into the debris cloud. Unfortunately, Nagisa teleported out.

Rokusho's built-in scanners and Zechs's helmet could both see through the fog. Rokusho, however, had situational awareness radar. He noticed Nagisa had reappeared right next to doctor Aki. Rokusho smiled. The old man was definitely made of very chewy meat.

Nagisa screamed in terror.

Doctor Aki had pressed the THREE medawatches on his arm. He had summoned in THREE faces.

Nagisa was blinded by the flash. When he opened his eyes, he thought he was dreaming. He stared... And he saw the visage that still haunted his nightmares. Unit 01's metal skeletal mask of a face, flanked by massive shoulder pylons, groaning at him from THREE directions. He was surrounded.

Nagisa screamed. As did the three Robo-Emperor prototype medabots, who each looked remarkably like Unit 01, the giant metal-clad death god from Kaworu's home reality. The death god that had crushed him in its hand. With the boy he loved at the controls.

The poor refugee demigod's brain broke. Protecting his human side, his Angel core shielded him by projecting an opaque AT-field shell. The three robo-emperors were still roaring. Energy was gathering inside their maws. Particle cannons. They released their aggregated energies onto the halfgod inbetween them.

Three bolts of near-unlimited power slammed into and broke apart Tabris's shield, though a significant portion of the energy had been redirected back onto the mechs. Needless to say, mutual annihalation was had.

Nagisa had a leg and a hand blown off. He floated away, wincing in pain. Each of the Robo-Emperors had taken significant armor damage.

But these were super prototypes. Designed to test weapons later added to lesser medabots. They were able to both take a beating and dole it out. They weren't meant for the general public.

The only reason Doctor Aki was running around with THREE of the things on call was because he, like his ancestors before him, liked his big booms.

"Robo-Emperors. Entwine!" Aki grinned. Like something from... well, Anime... the robo-emperors's legs, writhing masses of cable, shot forward and ensnared the fleeing Nagisa, lifting him up.

The somewhat meta-aware white-haired pretty boy squealed in terror. His eyes turned bright red... Then bright gold. As did his hair. When he was recruited by the Red Council, they'd made some... additions to his DNA.

His emotional fever pitch had activated a hidden trigger. Apparently, they'd built in Super Saiyan capability. He flexed his muscles, closed his eyes and chuckled. The red crystal in his chest synchronized with the primal fury that had been hidden in his DNA.

The robo-emperors's tentacles were sliced apart by a blindingly white AT-field. Vectors spun and twisted around his body. Nagisa nodded politely at Aki before throwing an energy ball onto one of the Robo-Emperors, instantly totaling it.

He teleported away again. The two remaining Robo-Emperors flanked Doctor Aki as he sprinted into and through the dust cloud that was once Ikki's home.

Inside the remnants of the house, Dawnbreaker flashed against Rokusho's saber. Rokusho's metallic voice carried gravitas: "Stop this. I'm not the enemy. I've observed the pale man."

Clang. Parry. "Follow me. I have radar. We can find him. Fix this." Zechs grunted, lowering his sword. The two men and three robots all sprinted toward a certain abandoned factory. It was here that Nagisa had reappeared. This was his hideout.

Nagisa was panting, head down. Waddling toward the alien queen, his leg barely regrowing, he placed a hand on her head. Communion of minds. The queen shuddered and roared. Ever single Xenomorph in town raced toward the factory. Protect queen. Protect ally. Protect! Little did the Xenomorphs know, that was a stupid, stupid move.

On the outskirts of town, Koji, Karin, Erika and Darien were seated inside Koji's Mercedes. They were racing toward the warehouse, followed by Ikki and Metabee in the Porsche.

At this point, Jyggalag had begun coordinating communications between the team, patching into the medabots and medawatches (and Zechs's helmet), guiding everyone to the confrontation site.

All the while, Darien was speaking furiously with Karin. Erika was in the front seat recieving a proper briefing from Jyggalag and Koji was focusing on driving.

However Koji did hear Darien losing mental cohesion, shouting and rattling off nomenclature. If Darien was intimidating Karin, Darien would be in big trouble. From Karin, more likely then not. So Koji focused on ballistic parking.

Two men, two big robots and one small robot ran into an alley. Two cars were quickly parked, five people and four more robots rushed in.

Rokusho and Zechs were on point, if only by virtue of their speed. A latecomer Xenomorph hunter who'd ran parallel to the group saw his chance and jumped onto Zechs's back. Or at least tried to.

"HAMMER FIST!" The short grey mech's punch sent the Xenomorph skidding into the alley's far wall. The little robot brandished its golden wrist-mounted sword in front of its face.

Which prompted Zechs to pull out Dawnbreaker and swing it forward from the side in an arc. Unsuprisingly, the Xenomorph hopped toward Zechs, who twisted his body out of the way, letting the alien simply jump through his blade.

He put his weight behind Dawnbreaker to keep it steady as it bisected the beast. The Xeno's carcass hit the floor and Zechs twirled around, glaring at the nest, sword still dripping acid. ...He loved his new vocation.

Five slightly smaller drones ran into the alley from the entrance to the building. Thankfully, the Robo-Emperors's maw-mounted particle cannons had been charging.

"YAAAWH!" Two lazy roars were followed by two huge horizontal bolts of hot light. One hit its mark. The other merely blew the Xenomorph's legs off. Brass and Erika, who came up from behind, shot its head to pulp.

"Sumilidon, FLEXORSWORD!" A Xenomorph cleanly sliced in half. Sumilidon and Rokusho took turns approaching Darien, who turned the blade-wielding medabots invisible. The quicksilver was also an excellent acid retardant.

"Metabee, ROCKET BARRAGE!" Another hit by a rocket, merely dazed.

"Raaaaaaawh!" The monstrous robo-emperors unleashed their arm-mounted machine cannons and spreader missiles into the building, killing quite a few Xenomorphs and popping dozens of the immobile eggs. Their leg parts, normally unused for combat, whipped rubber tentacles at the single still-mobile worker in their proximity. Eventually it tripped up and lost its head, courtesy of Dawnbreaker.

It really WAS getting dark, though. After Metabee had converted into swiss cheese the head of the Xenomorph his missiles had only grazed, the yellow bot looked up at Dawnbreaker: "Hey buddy, can you brighten up the place?" Zechs shrugged.

Doctor Aki took stock of the situation. He looked at all the people standing in the very narrow alley. He palmed his face. Over the following moments, everyone's face started to to depict the same dread. ...They'd been trapped.

It was at this point that all of twenty Xenomorphs crawled out of the sewers, over Koji and Ikki's cars, over the roofs beside them. Koji and Karin squealed. Erika wasn't doing much better. "Brass, fire! FIRE!"

Aki sighed. "Emperors. Cover the walls and the factory entrance side. DO NOT RELENT!" Both behemoths roared.

Doctor Aki was fiddling with the third medawatch, trying desperately to recover the AI of the Emperor that had been blown up.

All three Emperor AI's were clones of Metabee's... unique mind and he quite liked them. Thankfully the medal seemed to be recoverable. That point would be moot if they were unable to make it out, though.

The medabots strained to hold the line. Metabee and Brass were on fire support, Rokusho and Sumilidon were in the melee, taking turns to hold hands with Darien to obtain a quicksilver coating.

Zechs was holding up Dawnbreaker to provide some light to the folks without night vision. He prayed. The star at the blade's heart glowed like it had when he'd met Irleth. It glowed brighter. Brighter still. The Xenomorphs recoiled and began falling back.

The blinding daylight, however, drove several into berserker rages, causing them to fall over and impale themselves onto the Robo-Emperors. The machines roared, flailed and fired everything they had but they were both simply too big and slow to properly lock onto the lightning-quick Xenomorphs.

They bashed and crushed the aliens between their heavy guns. One even bit an alien's head off. As the battle dragged on however, both remaining Robo-Emperors were worn down by claw, fang and a LOT of acid.

Thus they had to eject their medals into Doctor Aki's hands and power down. In the end the Xenomorphs did fall back, but not before over forty of their number were slain.

Everyone was still alive. Everyone was unharmed. Even (apart from the Emperors,) the medabots. The medabots had been heavily damaged by the acid but they were being patched up by Neutra-nurse. "MY CAR!" "MY BEAUTIFUL CAR!" Ikki and Koji shrieked in unison. They were right. Their once-impressive cars were now molten piles of slag coated in Xenomorph carapace. To end their small-brained whining, Erika slapped them both. No further words were said. Everyone was tired.

Then Kaworu Nagisa, swishing with the energy of a Super Saiyan, stepped out into the dark alley: "Hello, mister Marquis, mister Aki. Kids." He giggled somewhat drunkenly.

Rokusho lunged. "YOU WENT AFTER CHILDREN, YOU MONSTER! HAMMER FIST!" Nagisa sighed, grabbed Rokusho by the wrist, zapped his circuits and shoved him down a reality portal.

"Who's next? How about you, Zechs? You're not gon-NO!" A crowbar had been shoved through Nagisa's chest from behind, cracking the red crystal at his core. A voice behind him whispered: "Fuck you, Tabris."

"Oookidoki..." He simply teleported the invisible Fawkes into his right hand, closing fingers around his throat. "Byebye, Fawkes. It's been a- Oh"

Kaworu Nagisa's Super Saiyan form suddely gave out. Copy-pasting DNA simply isn't enough to replicate the ultimate warrior. No power boost, no golden hair, alas.

However, the crowbar was still stuck in Nagisa's chest, causing pain and power leakage. Soul leakage, to be alarmingly exact. Darien kicked and scratched at Nagisa who was barely holding him at arm's length. Everyone lunged at the now-depowered monster.

Nagisa, close to despair, decided to retreat by stepping into the portal he'd shoved Rokusho into, dragging Fawkes in with him. Despite or perhaps because of the group effort, nobody got to the portal before Nagisa closed it up.

Thinking that this was finally it, Zechs sheathed Dawnbreaker. He turned to the group. "I'll go after Rokusho and the stranger tomorrow. For now, let's-"

Brass was raising her hand. Zechs nodded at Erika's bot, whose eyes flickered as she spoke: "I...I'm equipped with the same radar awareness system as Rokusho. The.. there are one-hundred and forty-nine Xenomorphs remaining. Fifty-seven hunters, Ninety-one drones... and a big one. There are also Three-hundred-fifty-eight eggs about to hatch, containing lethal larvae."

Everyone's eyes slowly turned toward the warehouse. Inside Zechs's helmet, something flashed. He smiled. The only other people smiling were Erika, Ikki and Metabee. They'd done this before. An inhuman wail blew through the alley. The queen was coming out to play.

Metabee placed his arms and legs into a combat stance. The other medabots tried to prepare themselves but they knew, like their owners... this was it. Erika punched the air in joy: "Kick it, Ikki!" Ikki chuckled, she'd seen this done before: "Just a sec. Just a sec. Metabee, preparing?"

Metabee was chuckling: "Kekekekeke... Gotta go fast, heh." Zechs and Ikki waited patiently for the queen to appear. Of all the aliens, she'd be the one they had to kill in person. Just to be sure. Zechs waved at the door: "Oh. Hi."

Everyone turned from Zechs to the opened factory loading door, out of which dozens of Facehuggers streamed, swarming around the massive girth of the queen. She roared. It was like a wind blew through the alley.

...Hold up, a wind was blowing through the alley. Metabee was glowing yellow. Ikki stifled a giggle: "Metabee. Target the queen! MEDAFORCE!"

(Now I'd like to explain for a moment what the medaforce is. It's a special power, reserved for the ancient medals that were dug up in the years before medabot production. Sure, a few mass-produced copy medals can learn it but it takes longer to master and isn't as efficient. Long story short, this basically allows the SOFTware part of the medabot, e.g. the SOUL to take total control of the HARDware. The body. This allows it to pull nigh-impossible stunts. In this case, dumping the entire power supply into a great big plasma beam.)

Night turned into day and Metabee's eyes went bright green as a huge yellow ball of compressed atmospheric gas appeared before him. Using all he had, he condensed it, ignited it and shoved it into the Xenomorph queen's face.

BOOM. Whoosh. The queen's head was mostly blown off. Half the lower jaw was still attached to the neck. The body swayed about for a few more moments like a headless chicken. With a thud, the beast keeled over. Dead.

"Keke...kekeke... ..heh." His power depleted, Metabee fell flat on his face.

It should be noted at this point that all the Xenomorphs subservient to the queen were still standing. And promptly went berserk with bloody revenge on their mind.

The three remaining medabots were pretty much depleted. No battery, no ammo, no armor left to shed.

So when a dozen Xenomorphs and three dozen Facehuggers barreled down upon the dwindling party with more aliens on the way, nobody was suprised when Zechs laughed out loud. He'd gone insane, they thought. Well, not Erika, Ikki or Aki. They knew Zechs had saved their asses and was gloating by this point. Koji and Karin, their medabots and poor Brass, however? Yeah, abject panic.

When a Xenomorph finally jumped for Doctor Aki's face (who, by the way, didn't flinch) Koji couldn't help but scream. Thankfully, it was at this point that *KUNG-TISSH* the Asgard teleporter engaged! The most impressive piece of tech aboard the Daedalus, repaired and activated in the nick of time.

Apparently, Doctor Aki's granddaughter knew a thing or two about transporters, thanks to reverse-engineering the ancient tech used by the medabots. Not enough to build a teleporter from scratch, mind you. But enough to work with Jyggalag to get the Daedalus's scrapped systems back in working order.

Once the system was back online he waited behind some cloud cover. When it was time for a tactical retreat, Jygg simply locked onto their comm signals and whisked them off.

Settling into his chair, Zechs looked to Jyggalag: "Thank you for your patience." Jyggalag's hologram let off what sounded like two stones grinding together. His idea of a chuckle. "You wished to lure out their queen, captain. A wise decision, if perhaps not entirely nessecary considering the firepower I possess"

Doctor Aki nodded: "Yes, thank you, Jyggalag, for saving our behinds! ...Say, where are the medabots?"

Jygg seemed to smile: "Reactor chamber. Recharging. I also took the liberty of splitting myself into two holograms to explain things to the... younger members."

Jygg turned back to his captain. "Requesting permission to make a crater, sir." Zechs looked to Aki for permission, who nodded. "Go."

The Daedalus descended through black clouds, hovering ominously above the abandoned factory. Jyggalag's intimidation tactic worked. The scurrying aliens ran into their lair together. A single big, soft target. ...Wait a sec.

"Moment, sir." Jyggalag managed to target three surviving humans. He teleported them out, into the sickbay and Neutra-nurse's care.

The gestating Xeno eggs weren't teleported. Instead they were simply left at the abandoned factory. ...Where gravity took hold and they dropped onto the floor, squirming.

It was at this point that all four plasma cannons aboard the Daedalus began to spark, charging up their magnetic fields, before *SCHWANNNG!* *SCHWANNNG!*

Two salvoes of two. The building and the ground below were crushed, burned, churned and mostly atomized. Nothing survived. The next morning, returning evacuees would find a cordoned off depression coated in sizzling volcanic glass.

Removing his helmet, Zechs, or rather, Milliardo turned to Aki, a mix of amusement and regret in his eyes and half a smile on his lips: "Sorry about blowing up the building, sir."

Doctor Aki chuckled: "Thank you for killing the aliens! Don't worry, it was the only way to be sure!" He placed his hand on Zechs's shoulder before the two men began conversing, telling stories of the past and metal men.

Later that evening, Zechs and Jyggalag promised Ikki and Metabee they'd find Rokusho and that Fawkes guy. It would be courteous to at least offer them a ride.

Though Metabee suggested that Rokusho might prefer becoming a permanent part of the crew. Zechs was certainly going to ask, if not beg Rokusho if the opportunity arose. That little bot could fight!

It was around this point that Karin took Jyggalag aside and whispered something into his ear, or rather, the side of his head: "Darien has told me something. I don't want Zechs to hear this. He... ...I don't trust him to take this seriously. But I trust you. Will you listen?"

Jyggalag's head turned. Diagonally, then up. A nod.

Karin began her tale. "When we were driving in Koji's car, Fawkes got excited. And then suddenly he got very glum. Got a look in his eyes. Like death.

He turned to me and asked me to tell Zechs something. I'm telling you." Jyggalag nodded respectfully, voicelessly offering Karin a drink by showing her a list via hologram. She pointed at the ice-water. The ship complied.

"Fawkes told me he recognized the guy who caused all this. His name is apparently Tabris. And he goes by the alias of Kaworu Nagisa. Darien said...

He said he's watched a TV show in which Tabris died. Darien thinks that the TV show he watched is real somewhere.

That TV show, that world Tabris is from is apparently called 'EVA'. It's a world where good will lose and evil will win. And eat humanity. Darien said if you ever come across the world Tabris is from, you should..." Karin told the tale Darien had told her to Jyggalag, who nodded understandingly.

After she had gotten Darien's warning off her chest, Karin stood up, hugged Jyggalag and smiled weakly. Her legs bent and she keeled over from dehydration and sheer exhaustion.

Jyggalag morphed his avatar into very large pillow to break her fall. Nothing quite like holographic technology supplemented by force fields and just a pinch of magic.

Discreetly he contacted Neutra-nurse and together they sped Karin's recuperation from half an hour to half a minute. She walked back to her friends, though she kept Neutra-nurse close.

Jygg sighed. He decided to inform Karin's father figure Doctor Aki by mailing him a video recording of the conversation and subsequent collapse.

Aki replied with a text. "Thx 4 discretion. In a few years, she r healed. Doesnt want friends 2 worry. Strong mind. Body will follow in time. G luck on EVA."

Later that night, Jyggalag uploaded a simplified version of his AI into a whole new set of medals. (Crystal medals to be specific, designed with deflection and reflection combat techniques in mind)

Everyone but Zechs departed the Daedalus as it rose back up into the sky, weapons suite and, suprisingly, teleport system fully restored.

The duo decided to commit themselves to finding a computer system capable of calculating trans-reality jumps.

This way they could at least try and hold to their promise of finding and picking up Darien and Rokusho, Once again the Daedalus departed in a flash of blinding light.

(A few hours earlier, elsewhere in the multiverse):

Rokusho was still not moving. Nagisa was barely awake. Darien was kicking Nagisa in the back. Repeatedly. "You MURDERED Hobbes! Fucking Angel! You MURDERED- Oh. Hi, G-man. Just when y... ullgh."

Swish. Bonk. With a gesture, the G-man mesmerized Darien and put him to sleep. He hit the ground rather hard, though. Couldn't be helped.

Fawkes was good at complying when things got serious but the G-man wanted a private moment with his former employee.

Nagisa opened his eyes and looked into a face he never, ever wanted to see again. "Tabris..." The G-man hissed.

Nagisa smirked, pulling himself away from the G-man, coughing and ranting and crawling back: "I'm safe from you! I've found a better boss! They've made me stronger! I don't have to go deep cover anymore! No more caring for people I'm about to feed to hell!"

The poor boy sounded manic. G-man sighed as he calmly walked forward. G-man acted like he was angry. Played the part of the wrathful god. It was just an act.

Tabris had betrayed him, yes. But the G-man was happy. He'd found him again. Spooking the poor kid was just a good way to wear out his mind.

Pallid fingers wrapped around the crowbar and yanked it out. It was stained with an orange ichor. Something between pop soda and human meat.

A wistful smile played on the G-man's lips. "Ah, a crowbar... Good memories! ...Which reminds me, Tabris: You've brought yourself, mister Fawkes and mister Rokusho into my home reality! It's always a treat to return to the source."

The G-man cracked his knuckles. He was inspecting the way phsyics flowed around his body. He loved this world. His world.

Though he regretted he'd have to resort to this. He pulled back his arm and whacked a still rambling Tabris over the forehead with the crowbar.

After wiping his hand clean with the small tissue he always kept in his pocket, he turned and dragged the unconcious Tabris off into the void.

Fawkes and the robot would be quite safe on this earth. ...Unless of course they ended up at one of two very specific locations. But what were the odds of that?

A security camera extended from the ceiling of the white room. A mechanical woman's voice sing-songed: "WELcome to tHe ApERture SCIence enRICHment CENter. Upon reGAIning CONciousNess and/or CPU acTIvity, plEase proCEEd to the nExt CHAMBer to comMENCE TESting."

-Preview- (Now with 80% less clarity)

..."Where is he? TELL ME!" The Doctor was livid. Tabris had been strapped to a chair. He could barely move. The Timeless one, this time wearing the face of a Cardassian, inched forward, teeth bared in a scowl: "TELL US, or I will make you hurt!" Fear flashed over Nagisa's eyes. He looked at the Doctor and saw no sympathy, no shock. only burning ice...

...Within the lava lake at the heart of mount Doom, a red haze formed around a certain melting ring and the tormented wail of a TARDIS pierced spacetime...

...Kane turned to Scorpius: "Go home. You have guests to attend to." Scorpius nodded, his lips curling into a cheerful smile. On an abomination like him, it was out of place. Like everything, down to his calm manner and sophisticated accent. What was also out of place was the Daedalus, floating alongside Scorpie's command carrier at the back edge of the galaxy. Very, very far away from Earth...

...The girl was looking down on them, smiling. She threw Rokusho what looked like a wonky gun and a pair of boots. Darien, however, was not so lucky. The girl threw a big, metal ball at his head. Was it... Shouting?: "...aaaaaAAAAAAAAACE!"...

...Einstein, Zechs and Jyggalag looked at each-other. They stared for a long moment. Zechs nodded: "Mission accepted." Jyggalag gave a curt nod in agreement...

..."Oh, Nagisa..." The doctor shook his head. "I may not like guns but I've got friends who don't like guns! Big, stompy friends! And their handlers. Oh, hi Hogarth!" The doctor grinned malevolently at Nagisa as the portal behind him, the portal Eldred and the Timeless one had conjured, the one Hogarth had just stepped out of... suddenly got a whole lot bigger...