Disclaimer: Read the other chapters, and if you have any queries, don't hesitate to contact me at the e-mail address provided in my profile. Anyone caught stealing will be dealt with severely.

A/N: As some of you may have found out recently, there's been a spate of authors being suspended for responding to reviews in their chapters. I, for one, find this completely ridiculous. So, to de-risk the situation, if you review while you are signed in, or leave an e-mail address, I'll e-mail you to personally thank you for the review.


Chapter 6: Resurrection

"So what you're telling me is that the two crystals are fighting against each other?" Joachim asked after Rin's long winded explanation. Rin nodded. If Joachim and myself hadn't have showed up when they did, he would have been a dead man by now, the demon now a pile of dust next to a flashing computer terminal, firing sparks everywhere. Joachim calmly loaded a fresh clip into his single remaining handgun, before flipping it elegantly back into it's holster.

"Yes, and it looks like the Shadow Crystal is winning. That demon we just saw was a creation of the dark energies within that crystal, the very spawn of evil."

"Gee, and I thought Styx was bad." I muttered.

"Well, he is only human after all, even if his soul is completely corrupted beyond all rescue."

"There was something else. The files said that my mother would be stored cryogenically somewhere around here. You wouldn't by any chance know where she'd be kept?" I asked, as the lights flickered threateningly once again. The back-up generators in this place wouldn't last too long, they simply weren't designed to produce the amount of energy needed to run the systems in the building. Rin stroked his chin, thinking carefully.

"Hmm, the cryogenics section isn't far from here, it should be just--" He was cut off by the sound of gunfire and growls coming from the far corridor, closely followed by blood-curdling screams of pain and terror. "--down there..." He finished, his whole body now trembling with fear. Joachim stood with his single handgun pointed squarely at the door, listening carefully for any sounds coming from outside. There was nothing but a cold lifeless silence, occasionally punctuated with rasping sniffles.

"How far?"

"About a hundred metres, just a few corridors away."

"Right. If you two start running, I'll handle those things." I was a little reluctant.

"You'll follow us...right?" I asked fearfully. He nodded.

"I've fought worse than these before. I'll be fine. Just concentrate on running." I nodded, and we all headed towards the door, hanging around the outside, waiting for the opportune moment. "Go!" The door slid open, revealing two more of the feral dog-like creatures, their completely dark forms crouched and ready to attack.

As we dashed out into the corridor, it looked as if these monsters had decided to give the place a new paintjob, deep red blood splashed along the walls, Gemini soldiers lay dismembered on the floor, leaking more blood all over the hard metal surface.

I grabbed Rin by the hand, dragging him along the blood-soaked corridor, trying to ignore the gunshots and snarls coming from behind me. I swooped my hand down, picking up one of the rifles that the soldiers had dropped, flicking it into position and firing at two more of the creatures that were bounding towards us, my sub-conscious taking over and showing me what to do. The rifle shook violently as the gunfire ripped the skull of one of the monsters to pieces. However, instead of blood and brain matter being thrown all over the place, there was a just a massive poof of black smoke as it's body erupted into dust. I quickly dealt with the other one, it too suffering the same fate as it's comrade.

We made our way along the corridor, charging through any other monsters, which were now bounding out of walls at us, any dark place providing a kind of spawning point for these creatures of shadow. I felt a sharp pain as one flew inches away from my head, catching it's long lethally sharp claws on my left shoulder, tearing into flesh. I cried out, but carried on running, Rin whimpering and yelling in fright as more and more of the demons came at us.

Finally, we made it to our destination, with the words "Cryogenic Storage" stenciled on the stark metal of the door. We dived in as it slid open smoothly, and Rin jumped up and locked the door. I gasped in shock.

"What are you doing? Joachim's still out there!"

"Wait for it." He muttered, listening carefully. After a few seconds, he slapped the panel again, and the door slid open, revealing a bloodied and wounded Joachim, who leapt inside, Rin locking the door behind him.

"Oh my god, you're hurt!" I grabbed him and laid him down, wiping excess blood away. He shook his head.

"Nah, it's just a few scratches, that's all." I looked at some of the wounds, noticing that some of them exposed bone, others were pumping out blood so fast it was almost like a tap. He placed his hands over some of the heavier wounds and began to heal them, the sears in his flesh slowly closing up. "I'll be fine." He assured me. I nodded, turning to look at our new surroundings.

It was a brightly lit room, which was a relief. I'd noticed that those monsters only appeared from shadows, so we would be safe in here. It was quite a long room, stretching into the far distance, the walls lined with some kind of metallic pods all along it's length, each of the pods emitting a freezing cold steam that stiffened the hairs on my body as it touched them. I'd noticed goosebumps start to emerge from my skin as I took a good look around. Each of the pods had a thick glass viewing windows on the front, about the same size as an adult human, the surface covered in a thin frost that covered the contents. There was a small terminal next to each pod, displaying the vital data of it's occupants. Most of the people in the cryo pods were dead, no vital signs whatsoever showing up on the small frosty screens.

I ambled along when suddenly I heard someone shout in terror.

"Stay back! Get away from me!" I looked to see a terrified-looking man, in his late fifties, his hair now a light grey with his age. His face was beginning to show his age too, the wrinkles lining his brow and crow's feet next to his mouth. He was holding a trembling handgun, pointing it directly at me, but as soon as I turned to face him, he lowered it, his face showing an awe-stricken shock. "Eve?"

"Yes? How did you know that?" He put the gun down on the frozen floor and got up. He was also wearing white clothing, although it wasn't a lab coat, it was something similar.

"I'm sorry for all I did to you. I didn't really have much of a choice." It dawned on me who this was.

"You're Alex Hicks?" He nodded.

"I was in charge of all of the operations of Project Redemption. In essence, I brought you up."

"So why did they want me? What would have stopped them from picking some other pregnant mother?"

"I don't know, the three of them never told anyone about the exact details of their plans. All they told me is that they needed a human with specialist combat abilities, they never told me why." There was another lead that had gone down the drain.

"What happened to my mother? I read that she was still in here." He pointed past me, over to one of the pods that lined the walls, like soldiers standing to attention. I carefully crept over, and rubbed my hand along the glass, shivering at the intense cold within. As the frost vanished, I saw a woman's face, her eyes closed like she was in some sort of deep sleep, her expression completely peaceful. Her beautiful locks of raven black hair spread out like ink in water, giving her the appearance of a wondrous siren.

"There's nothing much we can do with her. The body was quite damaged, but she would have lived if her spirit hadn't been destroyed." I kept my hand on the glass, even though it felt like it was slowly freezing to it. This had been the closest I had ever been to my mother, the woman who had carried me for such a short amount of time, whose love had helped me to exist in the first place. I could feel a single tear run down my cheek, it's warmth was quite soothing as it dripped from my face and landed on the floor softly, freezing as soon as it touched the chilling ground.

I knew there was thing I could do, the only thing I could do that would bring me closer to my mother. During the past few days I tried it more and more with Joachim, and I was quite shocked at the results. I closed my eyes and concentrated, allowing my spiritual form to leave it's mortal confinement and float freely above my body, which had now fallen to the ground in a deep slumber. Slowly, I moved my soul through the frozen glass, and entered my mother's body.

---

Neil was panting. Those weird shadow creatures were incredibly fast, and their claws tore through flesh like a hot knife through butter. However, as he had quickly found out, they didn't have much form. His sword cut straight through them, and it didn't take much to destroy them, turning them into a silvery-grey dust immediately.

"What was that?" Garnet asked, her heart beating faster than a terrified rabbit's. Her gown was torn a bit along the waist, a little blood staining the pure-white silk. Neil was however much worse, one of them had managed to clamp it's teeth around his left wrist, blood openly dripping from the wound, darkening the deep red carpet beneath them.

"I don't know, I've never seen anything like it before." He looked down at the horrific wound, watching as it slowly closed itself up. Absent-mindedly, he wiped a bit of the crimson fluid away from the perfectly healed wrist.

"It won't have just attacked here either, the city is in danger." Neil's heart almost jumped out of his chest, he'd completely forgotten that Mikoto and Sal were at home alone, almost completely defenseless. It was at that moment that a blonde haired man dived into the door, ripping it off it's hinges, and flying wildly into the room, waving two long slender silver daggers about madly.

"Where the hell did those things come from?" Zidane shouted crazily, panting as he looked back at the doorway. His light-blue waistcoat was a little shredded in places, and there was a thin line of blood creeping it's way down his forehead. Neil turned to Garnet, who looked incredibly relieved that Zidane was still alive.

"Your majesty, I've left my family alone at the house. I wouldn't want anything bad to happen to them."

"Of course, go down there and keep them safe. Our troops should be able to handle the rest of these creatures." Neil healed some Zidane's wounds before running full-pelt down the stairs and out of the grand front doors, blasting a monster that was diving at him out of the way with a blast of pure light from his outstretched palm. He made his way through the city, wiping out anything that came at him, dodging civilians who were panicking, running in any direction that didn't lead into these horrific monsters.

Finally, he made it back to the house, the windows were completely blacked out. He ran in through the front door, looking into the living room. The house was eerily silent, totally lifeless. Chairs had been knocked over, there were deep slash marks on the sofa, revealing it's fluffy innards. There was a large pool of blood by the window, reflecting the pale moonlight from outside, with a wet crimson trail leading towards the dining room.

"No..." He whispered in pure shock.

---

There was an intense darkness. Nothing was happening.

Suddenly, there was a rapid flash of images, clips from the life of the body I now resided in, the residual memory that remained in the body even after the spirit had left it.

I found myself looking an odd screen. The room I was in was nicely decorated in light green, a bed with flowery patterns was against the far wall. I looked down in front of the old screen to see a big flat grey device sat quietly humming to itself.

The scene changed, now I was in the middle of a field, a massive gleaming city was a few hundred metres away, the crisp grass swayed in the light breeze from the south. I felt alone and frightened. What was going on, what was that place over there? What was a massive castle doing in the middle of that town, the one with giant sword in the middle of it?

Another scene change, and now I felt older, wiser, stronger. I found myself hiding quietly at the edge of a wonderfully decorated crumbling wall, covered in murals of wondrous beasts called Eidolons. I watched carefully as a young man about my age slowly crept out into the open, towards a dark haired woman who was holding a sleeping child, a small horn growing on it's forehead, almost hidden by a well-kept bob of purple hair. I moved forwards slowly, so I was incredibly close to the black-clothed boy, taking the elegantly carved bow and the quivers off his back without him even noticing. What an idiot, I thought. His hand slowly crept onto his back, but he seemed puzzled to see that nothing was there. I drew out my katana, the metal blade flashing in the sunlight, and pointed it directly at his back.

"Looking for something?" I asked, and I could feel a grin crawling across my face.

Another change of scenery, and I was now in a darkened room, nothing but a pale light creeping in through the netted window. Silently, I moved towards the bed in the middle of the room, which held a single sleeping occupant, the same blonde-haired boy in the previous scene, now much older. My heart was fluttering as I watched him slowly breathe in and out, stirring slightly in a dream-like state.

Another memory, and this one was far louder. I stood looking at a colossal mechanical monstrosity stamping it's way towards me in a massive grand city, a proud clock tower stood just beside me. As streaks of light and smoke flew straight into the six-legged machine, bouncing harmlessly off it's armour, I felt someone grab my hand. I turned to see the blonde-haired boy from before dragging me towards a bridge, his crystal blue eyes filled with terror. I ran with him, only for another smaller machine to notice our desperate escape attempt, this one turning a small lethal looking cannon straight at us. I looked deep into his eyes, and we both dived over the edge of the bridge into the rushing blood-stained waters below.

Finally, it came to last memory in this woman's mind. I found myself in a metallic chamber, lit from a single glowing orb in the very centre of the room. I felt a horrific pain in my chest as a long thin blade flew straight past, carving a deep slash into my body. I fell backwards in agony, landing heavily on the hard cold floor, before the blonde-haired man thrusted the blade straight down into my body. I screamed, feeling every inch of the icy cold steel penetrate me, straight through my breastbone and out of my back. I could feel my body grow more and more cold, my vision slowly turning dark, my form jerking as the last few pulses of life flowed through me, before everything descended into oblivion...

---

I emerged from my mother's body, horrified. I'd seen her entire life before my very eyes, watched her fall in love, witnessed her violent death at the hands of the man she'd loved. I drifted back to my own body, which still laid on the frozen ground.

As I slowly opened my eyes, I saw the others crowded around me, looking concerned.

"Are you alright?" Joachim asked, putting his hand on my shoulder.

"Yeah, just a little enlightened." I replied, carefully climbing to my feet. We were about to move on, before I heard a tiny beep coming from the machine that held my mother's body. It was followed by another beep, and then another, and another. Alex looked at the terminal connected to the cryo pod and almost fainted with shock. He went over to check whether it wasn't just acting up, but the results were clear.

"What's up?" Rin asked. Alex shook his head in disbelief.

"Her heart...it's begun beating. Cerebral activity is rising, blood flow is increasing."

"What? Isn't that impossible?"

"Of course it is. She's been dead for twenty years! Something isn't right." He checked the machine again. "Spiritual essence levels are rising to life-support capabilities. We'd better thaw her out before she starts breathing." He tapped a few buttons on the frosty terminal. My heart was fluttering, my stomach was in knots. She was alive? Alex looked at Joachim and Rin.

"I'm afraid us guys are going to have to wait over there."

"What do you mean?" Joachim responded.

"We have to freeze bodies completely naked, so unless you fancy being a pervert and watching, then we will go and sit near the door." He blushed a little, before nodding and heading over there with Rin. Alex came over and explained to me what to do, and I thanked him before he went with the others. I watched the machine slowly open, and I averted my eyes to prevent me from embarrassing myself. Grabbing a long white towel from inside the machine's side, I wrapped it around her, covering up any particularly private areas. I watched as the lid of the machine folded forwards, forming a sort of table for her to lie on. The liquid she had been suspended in had now melted, and was dripping out over the edges of the lid, pouring into a drain underneath it on the floor. I watched with baited breath as she stirred slightly.

Suddenly, she sat up and screamed, clutching the centre of her chest in agony before falling back on the lid, panting rapidly, looking in every direction at once. Finally she looked straight at me, her frightened emerald eyes meeting my calm crystal blue gaze.

"W...where am I? What happened?" She whispered, before coughing up more of the thick slimy white liquid she had been suspended in.

"I think the more appropriate question would be 'when are you'. It's 2025, you've been dead for twenty years." I explained. She blinked a few times in disbelief, shaking from the cold. She slowly sat up, looking down at the thin line that snaked its way down her across her stomach, before closing her eyes and shuddering with silent tears. I didn't know what to do, so I decided to do what any decent child should do, and I hugged her.

"Are you two alright?" I heard Joachim whisper, keeping his eyes firmly closed.

"Yeah, you can look now." Melissa looked at the young silver haired man, almost in shock, before shaking her head.

"What's the matter?"

"Sorry, it's just...you look like someone I once knew." She murmured. Joachim and I looked at each other. "Does anyone want to tell me what's going on?" Alex stepped up from the back.

"You died in Light Chamber in the very centre of Zion. Styx and the others brought you back to the labs where we..." He paused, wondering how she would react. She looked down at the thin line on her stomach again.

"...I see. So what did you do with it then?"

"Why don't you look for yourself? The result is sat right in front of you." She stared at me, her face showing so many different emotions at once.

"...you're my daughter?" I nodded, and she flung her arms around me, crying with sheer joy. I felt as though I'd finally found something, someone I could call family.

We must have sat like that for several minutes, cradling each other. I must have been weird for her, as she hadn't aged at all while in suspended animation, which meant that biologically, I was almost older than my own mother.

"I'm sorry I've missed so much." She apologised, and I shook my head.

"Trust me, you didn't miss anything too important." There was suddenly a loud clank on against the door at the far end of the room, causing Rin to yelp in shock.

"Don't worry, it'll hold out." Alex explained to the terrified Rin.

"Yes, but for how long?" He kept his eye firmly on the door.

"What's going on?" Melissa asked. I shook my head.

"It's a long story." I replied. She nodded.

"Well if I was a little more decently dressed, I'd help out." She indicated to the towel that was barely covering her as it was.

"The clothes we found you in are in the storage compartment of the pod. They're a bit torn, but it's better than nothing." Alex explained. She got up, her legs trembling slightly as her feet hit the freezing cold floor. The rest of us moved towards the door, which was now heavily dented from the outside, a growling sniffling monster banging into it over and over again.

"So what's the plan now?" I heard Joachim ask.

"How about we get out of here?" Rin answered.

"What's the point? Those things will be all across the planet by now. No matter where we run, they'll hunt down every living thing until the end."

"Okay then, how about we do something about that then?" Alex suggested. Rin shook his head.

"Like what? The only weapon that could do anything to a crystal was lost twenty years ago. We can't do anything to stop the imbalance. Basically, the universe is screwed." I thought for a minute, trying to think of something to suggest.

"Well we can't just sit here and wait for death to take us, we've got to do something!"

"Do what!" Suddenly, we heard a terrible voice crackle high in the roof.

"I'm glad to see you're enjoying yourselves, but there's no use. We're all done for now. You'd be better off killing yourselves right now." I recognised that voice, it was Styx, being an annoying bastard as per usual. It seemed to be coming from some sort of intercom system.

It was at that moment I heard a few gunshots outside, and a high-pitched whine of the monster that had been trying to break it's way in.

"Is there anyone alive in there?" I heard a dim voice through the metal of the door.

"This is our hiding spot, bugger off." Firenze muttered. Joachim opened the door to reveal a large jovial man with ruffled black hair, wearing the same kind of purple armour of the Gemini, albeit without a helmet. Behind him was a red-headed girl, watching the corridor carefully, holding a modified version of the standard Gemini rifle, stripped down so it was much lighter. Watching the t-junction in the corridor was another man, his brown curly hair hung loosely down the side of his head, bobbing his head around the corner every few seconds, holding a short barrelled shotgun, ready to fire at any opportunity.

"Glad to see someone's still alive in this place." He muttered, outstretching his hand to Joachim. "The name's Adam, the lass over there is Jo, and the guy with the rocking hair-do is Greg." They all nodded in acknowledgment. We made our introductions, and he nodded.

"Who are you guys then?"

"We are...were the Advanced Gemini Tactical Squad, otherwise known as the Executioners. That was before we got our asses screwed over by the system. They sent us down here to secure the labs, and then left us for dead."

"Wow, sucks to be you." I replied, and he smiled.

"Indeed. We figured that someone would still be in one piece down here, so we came to help out."

"Guys, we got problems!" I heard Jo shout as she turned to look towards the labs. The entire corridor had begun to swarm with the shadowy monsters, rampaging down towards us. They started firing expertly, and Adam shrugged, grabbing the first one to reach him by the shoulders and proceeded to smash it heavily against the wall, killing it instantly.

"You lot had better get running. We won't be able to hold them for too long."

"But what about you?"

"We'll slow them down, just head up the main stairwell and pay the management a visit. Say hi to them for us, will you?" I agreed, I wanted a little payback from Styx anyway. We headed out, running full-pelt away from the rampaging monsters and the brave squad that was holding them back. Adam turned back to the creatures, grabbing the next one by the legs and swinging it straight into an approaching group that had decided to move along the corridor wall, crawling along like some sort of mad insect.

"I'm almost out!" Jo shouted, sliding a fresh clip into the smoking rifle, before opening fire once again.

"Come on! I'll rip your fucking ankles off!" He gave an almighty bellow before wading in, sending them flying left, right and centre.

---

Styx watched the flickering monitors with mild interest, tracking the progress of the Executioners. They were the new experimental prototypes of the Gemini, and he had to admit that they beat their predecessors in practically every way. The dosage of wraith virus in their bodies was significantly lower than in the standard Gemini, which meant that they didn't tend to mutate horribly, having to be hidden underneath armour all the time. Perfect for undercover missions.

The Shadows were getting out of hand. Creatures born from the energies of the Shadow Crystal, they could form in any place where there was darkness, automatically seeking out anything that wasn't made out of shadow and destroying it. It had occurred to Styx that they might have been wiping out the infection that was affecting the balance of the crystals. The only problem was that any living thing drew energy from the Light Crystal, which was what was causing the imbalance. This meant that the Shadows would not stop until everything was dead.

"Brother, this is getting out of control." He heard Acheron mutter from across the central control room, where technicians worked tirelessly to ensure that everything was in working order. The main problem was that Shadows had completely overrun the entire facility, and it wouldn't be long until they took out the back-up power supply, leaving them completely defenseless.

"Indeed. We need to complete Project Redemption before it's too late."

"How do you plan on doing that? Her protectors are too strong." Styx smiled darkly.

"Simple. We split them up. They're heading up the central stairwell, correct?"

"Yes, but I don't see how that will affect anything." Styx wandered over to the security control panel, and watched the flickering footage of the small group ascending the stairway. Tapping a button, he initiated the fire alarm, watching as the thick metal fire door slid down, splitting the party in two. He looked back at Acheron.

"See? Simple as that."

"You're a genius." Styx laughed.

"Wisdom begins where knowledge ends, dear brother. I'll take Cocytus with me to handle the two girls and the good doctor, you take a squad with you and sort out the part wraith and the scientist." He nodded, and Styx turned back to the monitor, watching with a grin as Joachim hammered on the door, while Rin watched nervously. It would be a mere picnic for Acheron. Shifting his view, he looked at Eve, Melissa and Alex, all examining the fire door with confusion. She would be his, whether she liked it or not...


That's it for this time, don't forget to review!

Chris