Me back! A day early, but that's because I'll be on a trip tomorrow and won't have internet access. Anyway, enjoy!
"I was out checking our perimeter sensors… I saw in the distance a band of the native Plutonians roaming across the glacier. They didn't seem to be approaching, so I ignored them and continued with my work until I heard a strange sound coming from the sky. It was sort of a mixture between a rumble and a… a roar, I suppose. I couldn't tell if it was mechanical or animal. Our sensors hadn't picked up anything coming from above, but suddenly, there it was. It blocked out the tiny amount of sunlight there was, and I swear that it got several degrees colder almost instantly… but only for a few seconds. The next instant, blazing heat seared through the sky, red and blue and golden flames firing from who-knows where. It was too dark to see anything but blackness overhead. Several of our buildings were caught in the fire and burned to a crisp in milliseconds. The only thing I could see was that glittering spiral of an eye."
"Oh yeah, I saw it. Seems as if everyone here saw it the last time it attacked, well, those who stayed afterwards. This base is camouflaged, and somehow it's been missed, but I bet it's only a matter of time until that eye spots it."
"The Eye of the Storm? I've heard of it. Luckily I've never seen it, but I've heard that its eye gives people nightmares for years afterwards."
"We already knew all of that." Tsubasa sighed as the group got back together to report their findings.
"Spiraling eye… Never blinking… Fire and destruction… We haven't learned anything by coming here!" Maru exclaimed in frustration.
"We have, actually." Ren pointed out.
"We've learned that Gingka's an idiot." Eight sweatdropped as he watched the redhead, who was swinging casually from one of the roof rafters like he hadn't a care in the world.
Zero snorted. Ren facepalmed. "That's not what I meant!"
Tsubasa chuckled under his breath.
"Are you guys talking about me?" Gingka called, swinging and letting go of the rafter before doing a flip and landing heavily next to them.
"Nope."
"Not at all."
"You're an idiot."
"Eight!" Kite clamped a hand over his brother's mouth, laughing awkwardly at Gingka, who had crossed his arms and gained a serious look.
"Would you rather I be boring?" he asked, a flash of mischief behind his eyes as he spoke.
The others blinked in silence, thinking hard.
"Uh… No?" Zero said after a few moments.
"Good choice." Gingka grinned. "I'll just be outside if you need me."
Before any of the others could protest or stop him, Gingka had stepped through an airlock and outside.
"Definitely an idiot." Eight said, earning himself a stern smack on the head from Kite.
"Let's keep asking until we've asked everyone here for what information they know." Tsubasa sighed.
The group nodded and split up once more.
Gingka, meanwhile, was calmly walking through the snow and ice, across the glacier towards a high ridge that had several craters on it.
"So… This is the result of that attack, hmm?" the redhead muttered to himself, looking through the lenses of the helmet he was now wearing. "It's… A bit more than I thought it would be." He narrowed his eyes at the sight of several objects attached to the ridge. "Are those…?"
"Well, that went well." Tsubasa sighed.
"We still don't know anything more than we did before… Except that it's fast." Zero said.
"Which we kinda already knew." Kite pointed out.
Zero paused. "True…"
"Is the Commander still outside?" Ren asked.
"Suppose so. Still no clue how he didn't freeze to death." Maru said.
Tsubasa pulled a communicator out of his pocket and turned it on. "Captain Otori to Commander Hagane. We're ready to return to the Infinity, over."
The group waited silently for a few minutes before Tsubasa repeated the message.
"Commander, please respond." Tsubasa said. After a few more minutes of silence, he sighed. "We're going to need a search party to find him. Hopefully he's alright."
Zero nodded. "I'll get the snowsuits from the shuttle."
Tsubasa nodded. "Hurry. Time's of the essence if he's freezing to death. It's probably already been too long. We don't want to lose two commanders in two days."
The others nodded and quickly ran for their suits. Within minutes, they were all suited up, helmets sealed. A search party had gathered around the airlock.
"You all know who we're looking for. Time is of the essence here. Once you've found him, signal the others and get him back here immediately." Tsubasa said.
"Yes sir!" the group saluted before heading out, Tsubasa and the crew of the Infinity being the last to exit.
"Even with these on it's still cold." Zero commented as they walked out into the growing darkness.
"Sun's setting. It's about to get a whole lot colder for a long time." Tsubasa said. "We'd better hurry. I'll take the north. You guys head south."
"Yes sir!" The group split up.
"Anyone else find it a bit weird how friendly Captain Ootori and Commander Hagane are?" Eight asked casually as the group began searching.
"Yeah. They have such high ranks, but… They don't mind socializing with us, even though we're rookies and way below their rank." Ren said.
"We're only a little bit below the Captain, since we're on the bridge with him." Shinobu pointed out.
"True, but still. I'd think that most captains would mostly talk and be friendly with other captains, not their crew members of any rank." Zero said.
"Yeah. Guess our captain is just different." Maru said.
"Kinda nice that he is." Eight sighed.
The others nodded.
"Anyway, we'd better pay attention. We're trying to find the commander and we have to watch out for the ice aliens." Kite said.
"Yeah."
Tsubasa sighed in worry as he looked around.
Where are you, Gingka?
Darkness was spreading rapidly as the sun slipped over the horizon and out of sight. The last rays turned the icy horizon into a glittering pile of jewels that soon faded and became dark, ominous shapes. Tsubasa sighed as everything went entirely black. Everything, that is, except for two tiny pinpoints of blue light in the distance.
Tsubasa glanced quickly around as his in-suit sensors picked up the presence of several crunching sounds that sounded like footsteps. However, he could see nobody, even with his night vision goggles. However, he could see footprints appearing in the snow around him.
Cloaked! The thought entered Tsubasa's mind as he looked around quickly, trying to stay calm. However, he found that he was surrounded. In the process of turning and examining all of the snow around him, he had managed to lose track of which direction the WBBA outpost was. The silver-haired man growled under his breath, trying to figure out which way to go. His eyes fixed on the pinpoints of light in the distance just as he felt hands trying to grab him.
Tsubasa quickly broke free of the grasp of whatever was after him, bolting towards the lights in the distance and hoping that they were from the WBBA outpost. He could hear footsteps crunching the snow and ice behind him as he was pursued. The blue lights he had been focusing on suddenly went out, but Tsubasa kept running. As he looked behind him, he noticed several of the native Plutonians giving chase.
"This is Captain Ootori, I'm being chased by something cloaked and a few Plutonians. Requesting backup. Over."
Tsubasa panted as he continued to run. He suddenly skidded to a stop, finding himself at the edge of the ridge that had been melted in the attacks he had heard about. A quick glance behind him revealed the Plutonians still in pursuit, although they had now been joined by several figures clad in all black suits. Tsubasa could only assume that they were the ones who had caused the footprints earlier.
"What do you want?" Tsubasa asked, turning to face them.
Nobody replied, but the black-clad figures raised laser blasters and pointed them at him.
Tsubasa narrowed his eyes, reaching slowly for his own gun.
"Don't move." the figures said. "We'll shoot if you do."
Tsubasa froze, narrowing his eyes. "What do you want?" He repeated.
"We-" the enemy spoke, but was cut off by an explosion as the part of the ridge Tsubasa was standing on collapsed right out from underneath him.
"Good evening, Captain Ootori." A deep, distorted voice said. Tsubasa glanced over as he fell, spotting brilliant blue eyes… And a spiraling shape that, although he had never seen it, was all too familiar. Blackness was the next thing that the Captain of the Infinity knew.
"What in the world is that?!" Ren yelped, pointing at an explosion on the side of the ridge that collapsed it.
"Let's go!" Zero took off running for the falling debris.
A few more explosions collapsed more sections of the ridge, as several of the figures standing on it scattered. A burst of flame rose high into the air out of the center of the explosions. Zero and his friends froze and stared in shock and awe as the streak continued on, zigzagging across the black sky and occasionally sending off smaller bursts of flame to the side. Electricity crackled to the ground every once in a while as well, as small bursts of laser fire struck down the fleeing figures that had survived the ridge collapsing.
"Run!" Tsubasa's voice came, as he ran towards the group. They all bolted back towards the relative safety of the WBBA outpost, fleeing from the destruction behind them.
"Was that the Eye?" Ren panted as they finally got back inside.
"That was too small… Right?" Zero said.
"It was… Way too small… But it had that same firepower." one of the workers panted.
Kite sighed as he took off his helmet. "And we still didn't find the Commander…"
"I don't think he could have survived this long.. Not with that attack out there." Eight brooded.
"What do we do?" Maru asked.
"We head back to the Infinity." Tsubasa said calmly.
"But the commander-"
"Has a way off if he's still here and the outpost can take care of it. We leave. Now." Tsubasa said coldly.
The others sighed and headed for the shuttle.
"So much for friendliness…" Eight muttered.
"He's probably just worried about the Commander. We have a duty to fulfill." Zero said.
"Yeah." Kite nodded as they boarded the shuttle, which soon took off.
"Set a course to Clomb." Tsubasa said.
"Course set."
"Take us out."
Zero nodded silently and did so, watching as Pluto slipped out of the window before the stars elongated into lines and the Infinity took off once again.
"What in the world happened…?" snow was moving in the darkness for a few moments before a familiar figure popped up. Gingka put a hand to his forehead.
"Geez, I don't even remember anything after that fire… Ah well. Better get back to the outpost and let them know that I'm alright… Oh look, I'm running low on oxygen." the redhead sighed and began walking, shaking out the stiffness in his limbs as he did so. Upon returning to the outpost, however, he found that the Infinity had left at least an hour before.
"Strange… You'd think they'd wait for me." Gingka sighed and climbed into the cockpit of his starfighter.
"Alright, shall we trace them or the flagship?" Gingka mused as he took off. The redhead pressed a few buttons, bringing up a communication link.
"There you are, Commander. Having fun away from duty?"
Gingka rolled his eyes. "Shut up, Kyoya."
"You shut up." Kyoya shot back.
"Just wondering if I'm needed there. I'm sorta following a spaceship full of new cadets and it's interesting. Takes me back a bit and we haven't had much to do recently."
Kyoya frowned as if looking at something. "I don't think we'll need you… But you still have a duty."
"It's probably better if we search separately for him... " Gingka sighed. "We will find out who was behind that attack, and why. We'll find what they want, everything. We'll find out why and how Falcon managed to survive without us knowing at first."
Kyoya nodded. "Alright. Good luck on your own search then. And don't worry about your dad. He'll be fine."
"Yeah, I know." Gingka smiled slightly. "I try not to worry. Helps if I just throw all of my focus into the search."
"Good plan. Well, we seem to have arrived at our next destination, so I'll have to go now."
"Alright. Oh, and Kyoya... "
"Yes?"
"The Infinity is looking for the Eye."
"Are they now?" Kyoya raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah. I told them I wasn't going to give them a direct order to not do it."
"They're crazier than you are."
Gingka chuckled. "Perhaps. Over and out."
"Over and out." Kyoya replied.