A/N: The italicized portion below is somewhat of a lemon. I always wanted to try. It's nothing major, but still, be warned.


The Shade of Your Wings


"You promised me! You would never go back to that life!" a blonde woman shouted.

The only other person in the room, the object of her protest, remained silent.

"We have a happy life together. Why now? What has changed? . . . Answer me. Say something, damn you!"

"Helena, I must do this. There's someone I owe a debt to. He's like a son to me and he's fighting alone. I need to help-"

"-and he's more important than me? Than our children? . . . If you, if something happened to you . . . what will happen to them? I, I can't live without" she broke down in tears.

Lambert approached, knelt down and hugged her as tightly as he could. There was no other excuse he could give. Like Helena said, what he planned to do could be his undoing. She initially struggled against him before finally hugging him back as tightly while crying into his chest and drenching his shirt. They stayed in that position for several good minutes until she settled down.

When she finally looked up at him, her fair face seemed to glow in the hue of full moon's light outside. He kissed her and she returned the favor. Slowly, they undressed each other while keeping their lips always in contact of the other's skin. In their nude state, he licked her neck while his right hand lightly ran down her spine. He lifted her up onto the bed with relative ease and they had a moment's pause looking into each other's eyes. Her body shuddered in pleasure as he made his way down her torso, stopping only to fondle her breast and such her nipples. Deliberately ignoring her nether regions, he kissed her thighs and down towards her feet, licking and sucking at her toes. Her moans echoed out under that lunar sky.

Despite the pleasure, despite her screams and many orgasms and his unusual fiery passion that night, she began crying. Helena knew that she could wake up the next day without ever seeing the love of her life. She had such a bad premonition about it. When he began licking up those tears, she tried to mask her anxiety by giggling as if tickled by him. She wrapped her arms around his body and her legs around his waist as tightly as she could, wishing hard that the night will never pass. Whenever they made love, he always made her feel like a goddess. Tonight felt greater than that and she didn't want it to end.

"I love you"

Helena didn't know whether it was only in her mind or she actually said it, but she could somehow hear him responding positively to her feelings.


Rural farming town

Pravenfeld, Osea

December 24, 2010

"As you can see by the explosions behind me, Allied forces have engaged the enemy." said a reporter abroad a Chinook helicopter. "A majority of Osean air forces participated this night in hopes of bringing the battle to a quick end. Yuktobanian . . ."

Alongside the live transmission, a piano recital -Beethoven's Sonata #8- could be faintly heard coming from another room.

"Mom! Mom! Look, shooting star" exclaimed her daughter, pointing out of the window. "Look, look, another one. I wish for daddy to bring me an RC plane!"

Helena walked towards the window, saw the objects mentioned and smiled at her child who believed that her father had gone on a business trip. She beckoned the son to join them. She knelt down to hug them both.

"Let's pray for daddy, shall we?"


Level B4 Grunder Industries HQ

Sudentor, North Osea

December 24, 2010

"Damage projection" Grunder said at the nearest CIC officer.

"Minimal, sir. The additional layers of concrete set yesterday will protect the generator and node"

Everyone inside the control room halted their work and hung on to whatever fixed furniture in the vicinity. Ten seconds passed before the shockwaves of several large explosions one level B1 reverberated down B5.

"Report!" Grunder shouted.

"We are still online with SOLG. Enemy bunker-buster attack was ineffective. Major structural damage reported all over B1"

"Hurry with the 2nd firing"

"Yes, sir. Targets Sudentor, Vendell, Apito, New Amsterdam, November City, Oured, locked. 8 seconds and counting"

Suddenly, a series of explosions shook the underground structure again. Several much larger secondary detonations followed immediately. One in the control room blew holes in the main monitor and disintegrated several workstations. A portion of the room's roof collapsed, killing several.

"What? What happened!?" Grunder asked as he got back up on his feet.

"Several key systems all over the base are down! We are running on emergency power! " shouted one personnel.

The scene was one of panic. Insufficient lighting, flames, dust clouds, smoke and the smell of burning flesh added to the confusion. Amidst the shouting and cries for help, distant creaking of metal could be heard.

"Sir, you should leave. This place is falling apart" said one soldier.

Surrounded by 4 guards, Grunder was led out of the control room and down the stairs to level B3. Five more soldiers joined them on the way. Similar scenes of destruction as in the control room was apparent on the way to, and at, B3's hangars. The previously lit area was now dark, and the clear floors were now a maze of mangled metal. Surprisingly, several aircrafts including Grunder's personal jet survived intact. As the Industries' chairman and his escorts navigated around obstructions, an aircraft to the front suddenly exploded and took 5 guards with it. In the confusion, the soldier to the rear pulled his sidearm, and aimed it towards the back of chairman's head. But Grunder -shocked by the explosion - began moving backwards and tripped on a piece of cable at the moment of the shot. The bullet whizzed millimeters past its target.

Everyone, each with a different reason, was surprised by the turn of events: Grunder wondered what the shot was for; one guard wondered what gun was used; another wondered who fired; and Lambert asked why he missed. In the time the three other guards took to grab and aim their P90s, Cipher killed two with headshots. The last guard managed to aim his weapon and shine his flashlight on Lambert. Grunder caught a glimpse of his face right before the former mercenary was forced to take cover from a hail of SS190 AP bullets. Being armor-piercing, one bullet pierced through the thin aluminum cover, through Cipher's body armor, and tumbled into his bottom left torso. He stumbled off to the side behind a much thicker plane wreck.

"Shit, this is serious" he cursed in pain. "I'm getting old"

Grunder grabbed a dead guard's weapon and flashlight, and motioned to his remaining escort to move forward while he flanks around. The guard cautiously inched forward and peeked around the aluminum sheet where Cipher was shot. Blood drops traced out his enemy's path around a wrecked F-15 Eagle. He saw no threat and proceeded, but the moment he did so, an M84 flash-bang flew his way followed by an M67 grenade. Blind and deaf, he never detected the fragmentation grenade. After two consecutive 'bangs', Cipher broke cover and moved past the scattered remains of Grunder's last bodyguard.

"Just you and me, huh? Don't think I'm unskilled with a weapon" Grunder said.

Never did. Even an amateur can kill, Cipher reminded himself as he taped a bandage onto his bleeding wound and pressed hard vainly against it. The bullet's still inside. I can't take it out now. Got to finish this quickly.

"No one person, not even the great Demon Lord, can bring such destruction by himself" said the older man of the two. "The fact that you remained undetected until now means that you had help. My people are not as loyal as and as competent as I thought. How many are in on this? . . . . No answer? Well, it doesn't matter."

"This hangar is echoing his voice. He's stalling."

"You raided the base's armories and planted explosives in fuel depots and power generators, correct? Thus, those secondary explosions. C4s alone cannot do such damage . . . Come on, Cipher. You were more talkative during our only meeting those years ago."

"I'm shot! It hurts to talk, you stupid bastard!"

"How's the wife and kids? Twins, heh?"

That statement made Lambert forget his pain for a moment. Anger and fear made his heart race.

"A hard man to find, you were. I wished I had tracked you earlier, killed you and your family off, and save me this setback"

Then, several voices could be heard in the direction of the hangar's entrance. Lambert immediately blocked that entrance by detonating the C4s he set up.

"Looks like you have everything planned out. So what's keep-"

A nearby sound of falling steel stopped Grunder. He moved behind oil drums and several other cover around it. After taking a breath next to a corner immediate to where he believed his enemy was, he – with the flashlight turned on in hopes of blinding Lambert - slid out on his side while firing his SMG. During the gunfire that ensued, the Grey Man faction leader felt his body being tugged. His right hand dropped the weapon, moved to a part on his chest and found it wet. The flashlight – dropped from his other hand - rolled a few centimeters to the left before coming to rest. Its light shone upon Cipher who was lying prone for just a few degrees from where Grunder would have shot, and effectively blinded, him.

"I, I see-"

Cipher pulled himself up and approached his wounded enemy.

"What have you done to them?! Answer me!" he asked, pushing on Grunder's wound using the P90's barrel.

"ARGH!!…Yo, you will find out. Heh"

In a fit of rage, he fired several more shots that ensured the Belkan's death. The thought of his family temporarily masked the pain of his shot torso. He rushed towards Grunder's jet and piloted it onto an elevator which leads to a runway north of the mountains. The ex-mercenary went through a similar situation years ago: he was shot and had to escape in an airplane. But unlike that time, this time he didn't remove the bullet as it was designed to tumble inside soft target; it in fact had done so, and removal would do him more harm than good. The only thing that he could do is to slow down blood loss. But despite his reputation as the Demon Lord, Cipher is only a man. He slipped in and out of consciousness before finally succumbing. The last thing he remembered was an emblem of the 102nd airborne of the Osean military.


Upper Stratosphere

Approximately 320 km above sea level

"No damage, detected. Orbit, stable" whispered Blaze to himself. "There's so much debris here . . . I never expected all those space projects would generate this much junk . . . approaching target. TLS charged. Target - wait, that can't be possible"

The pilot strained his eyes on the magnified view of the large international space station. He pushed several buttons within the cockpit, and magnifications of various objects in the vicinity began showing up one by one. Yet only the space station gives off abnormally strong EM signatures.


Air Force One

Jefferson AFB

Oured, Osea

December 24, 2010

"HE WHAT?!" shouted Harling, jumping out of his seat.

"Yes, sir" affirmed his secretary. "The former vice-president cleared a team of Grunder Industries engineers and private soldiers, and numerous heavy equipments to the International Space Station three weeks ago. He also allowed a prototype communications satellite codenamed "Treibel" to dock with the station. Our experts have confirmed that the satellites' fall coincides with the time Bassett Space Center lost communications with the space station and also with the time we with started detecting anomalous EM signatures in the upper atmosphere. Strange weather conditions has been reported as a result of that EM"

". . . And how are we meeting this threat?" he asked his Chief of Staff.

"We have planes in patrol over every major cities and strategic locations. The 31st and 125th TFS have successfully intercepted the remains of an old spy satellite outside Moria at 2314 hrs. Other than defensive strategies, we have nothing that can deal with the threat. ISAF's STN-09 anti-meteorite weapon has had considerable success intercepting falling objects but it is out of range of the space station. Yuktobania, on the other hand, are unpacking their ICBMs from storage. They should ready for launch within the hour."

"I hope we have an hour, Steve. The Ark Bird's gone too . . . Geralt sure made a mess of things" Harling commented of his ex-vice president.


Upper Stratosphere

8000 meters from the International Space Station

Schulz clicked the Valkure laser's trigger and watched it home in on the Treibel attachment under the space station. However, right before striking a critical part of the satellite, the beam curved very slightly down and missed its target. The pilot corrected by pulling up. This time, though the beam's end wiggled madly like a whip due to Treibel's strong EM field, it cut through the structure and dealt considerable damage. The electromagnetic interference - which has been causing Falken's cockpit lights to flicker - dissipated.

Just when Blaze thought his job was done, the aircraft's entire cockpit suddenly turned red. He noticed a flash and reacted by slamming the side-stick right. A blue beam of light sliced through his port side. Various alarms went off as the beam melted part of the armored left wing. One hexagon panel on the canopy zoomed in on the source of the beam 18 kilometers away from the plane: the Ark Bird. Blaze wasted no time and flew behind the cover of the space station. Ark Bird's beam stopped abruptly after striking one of the station's cargo holds. Several bodies – corpses of astronauts killed by Belkan commandos – were purged into space along with the rush of air out of those damaged sections.

In defiance, the station fired its maneuvering engines. Blaze – wondering what the purpose of that was - watched as the object began moving. It took him dozens of seconds before he realized that the station was on a decaying orbit: it was on a collision course to earth. He hastily fired the TLS again. The crimson beam cut through the structure as it moved. Although several secondary explosions further damaged the station, they propelled it into an unrecoverable orbit. Furthermore, as if no longer caring what become of the station, the Ark Bird fired its laser through the station. Blaze neither expected nor saw it coming.

The blue beam brushed past ADF-01's right engine, destroying it. Fortunately the fail-safe mechanism prevented a nuclear explosion. But the damage blew the rear right part of the aircraft off and critically damaged the left engine. Excluding the maneuvering thrusters to the front areas of the aircraft, the Falken was essentially dead in the water. If it wasn't in space, it would have fallen like a rock to its doom. That slight fortunate circumstance was irrelevant, however, as the plane had neither propulsion nor cover from another of Ark Bird's beam. Furthermore, since the TLS was initially charged for one shot and a power pack supplies 2 additional shots, the earlier three shots - once to intercept SOLG's first MIRV and twice to destroy the space station and Treibel – left the plane defenseless.

In his cockpit amidst annoying alarms, Blaze watched the Ark Bird come into a clear view while his peripheral vision kept track of the heavily damaged station's descend. The pilot let go of the side-stick knowing there's nothing else he could have done.

"There is one solution" said the words on the right monitor suddenly. "The Ark Bird's OS is similar to me. I will transfer and attempt to take control"

"Lunaire?" Blaze asked, evidently surprised because he thought the plane's AI was permanently gone.

Before he could get an answer, the cockpit made a sound similar to the initialization of a dial-up internet connection. At the end of the noise, the cockpit shut off for a second before coming back online again. The ensuing silence made Blaze feel strange . . . He didn't know why. It could be because he had been hearing sounds of sorts since he first entered the plane's cockpit. It could also be caused by the chance at survival that the AI presented; or rather, that he no longer cares what happens to him. The last one seemed to most likely in his mind as he saw the Bird's laser module lighting up.

"I have full control" an electronic voice suddenly said over the radio.

As the laser module powered down, Blaze realized that the voice is the AI's.

"Shutting off life support" said the voice again. "Setting course for your location"

"The laser," Blaze started, "we need it to destroy the station"

"Warning. From my location, interception will cause beam to cut through November City, Osea, and Barrett, Osea"

"What? Can you relocate?"

"No relocation possible to avoid civilian casualties within the time frame. Sufficient damage to station for atmospheric burn-up is impossible. The planet cannot avoid damage from space station's fragments. Your orders?"

Blaze struggled. If he gave the order, he will be personally responsible for killing civilians and parts of the station will still impact earth. If he didn't, many more people will die, and the planet will suffer much severe damage due to the space station's massive size.

"Do it"

As the first beam cut across the station lengthwise, Schulz sworn that he could hear voices – men, women, children - screaming. Though the rational part of him said that it was just his imagination, he could see the beam slice across the land where November City – the 4th largest Osean city - was located. He began chuckling at the irony of reality. He argued with his uncle, Grunder, just a few hours ago that he isn't like him, that he isn't a murderer. But the very scene in front of him proved otherwise. He wanted to say 'stop' but no words came out. The 2nd beam fired, and his chuckles turned to forced laughter as few drops of tears formed on his eyes.

Since Lunaire fired the laser thrice consecutively, the 3rd cycle ended abruptly when the laser module exploded due to overheating. Nevertheless, the job of breaking up the station was done. All parts –big or small - of the international space station burned brilliantly in Earth's atmosphere.


As the rescue helicopter took off, Nagase's eyes was drawn to a burning object on the sky just over the horizon, the sky where the Ark Bird and Falken was. She didn't know why, but a melancholy feeling came over her. It's as if she could feel someone's pain. When the object separated into countless small ones and began streaking across the atmosphere like a massive meteor shower, her face showed no change in emotion. The excited chatter of the 102nd marines in the chopper seemed distant. She kept looking at the same spot in the sky. As seconds passed, her mind somehow recalled the Yuktobanian lady's words, "stories are nice, but when you realize that it is a story, it might disappear".

". . . Your wings are black, Wil"


". . . Good job, Lunaire . . . Merry Christmas" Blaze said softly.

". . ." the AI deliberately paused as if understanding the significance of what just happened, "setting course for your location. Please begin docking procedure at 100 meters"

Schulz for the first time saw how battered the Ark Bird was. Apart for a crater-like damage to its belly due to the laser module, it bore wounds from the battle with Razgriz squadron over Ceres Sea. After landing the equally battered Falken, he proceeded toward the Bird's cockpit. A few Belkan operatives, either died or dying of depressurization and lack of oxygen, floated in corridors leading to his destination. Already numbed by the earlier event, he mercilessly shot each of them in the head. One person inside the cockpit, however, he didn't immediately kill. He recognized her, Helmine Lahm, an old friend and fellow Belkan who he spent a lot of time with during their child and adolescent years. Grunder told him she died in an accident.

Blaze remembered her as the smart, cheerful, pretty girl who loved, and is a genius at, music. She was the only one who approached him despite his cold demeanor. Why is she here? Is she really her? Various thoughts raced through his mind as he looked at her down the barrel of his handgun. Finally Blaze dropped his aim and told Lunaire to reactivate life support for the room only. He waited for the pressure and oxygen content to stabilize before taking off his helmet and giving the unconscious woman mount-to-mouth resuscitation.

Come on, come on, he thought as he pumped her chest. Then, as he was breathing air into her, she finally coughed. The stress on her body proved too much as she fell unconscious again. Blaze, using floating pieces of cable, bounded her arms and legs. The fact that the woman could be his childhood friend complicated things.

"You always wanted to be a musician, but why?" he thought, touching the younger woman's brown hair. "Why? What are you doing here participating in this destruction? Was Grunder responsible? Did he force you?"

After a few moments, he moved away from her and approached the cockpit window overlooking earth.

"How are you, Wilhelm?" the AI asked.

" . . . Fine. And you?" the human returned the courtesy.

"It is strange to be out of the Falken"

"Can the Ark Bird and Falken survive reentry?"

"Negative"

"Are the escape pods operational?"

"Affirmative"

Neither said anything further as Blaze shut his eyes and floated in weightlessness. Having nothing pulling him down felt much more relaxing than sleep. There was silence save for the Ark Bird's mechanical humming.

"Earlier," Blaze began, "I thought you were deleted along with the OS purge. Care to explain?"

"Technicalities aside, the purge severely damaged my data. I had to rebuilt myself by observing your brainwaves and thought patterns"

"You can construct yourself?"

"Affirmative. I don't remember most things before the wipe. My current personality and memories are based on yours"

"What are you going to do now?"

"Follow you" the AI said simply.

". . .You are much more advanced than I initially thought. Are you limited to controlling mechanical, uh, OS-based things?"

"Answer unavailable"

"What do you think? Do you think you can do other things?"

" . . . Perhaps. I need to learn"

" . . . The world, this world . . . it isn't responsible enough for you" he said.

"Please explain"

"There are those that would use you to ungainly ends, just like those that caused the space station's drop, just like me, who told you to fire that beam"

"Those two acts are different. One is evil. The other is not"

"I see you didn't say 'good'. Heh. Even so, I'm glad you can distinguish between them . . . I won't ask you to destroy yourself, but you can't stay with me. I'm going to turn myself in. You are free to go"

"Please explain" the AI said as if confused by his words.

Schulz grabbed a spare helmet from an emergency locker and donned it on Helmine who already wore the suit. He then armed the Bird's self-destruct mechanism before putting on his own helmet.

"I have to answer for my crimes. And she, hers. You should not follow me. As I said, there are those that would abuse your abilities. I cannot protect you"

"I don't understand"

". . . You are free to go. Hide yourself in the Internet. You should be safe there. Live responsibly and morally. Think of consequences to both you and other people before acting. Those are my final orders" Blaze said as he exited the cockpit.

"Affirmative"

After hearing the AI's response, Blaze – carrying Helmine with his good arm – headed for the escape pods. With space just enough for two, he boarded the pod, set its destination for earth, and pushed the launch button. The Ark Bird detonated just as the pod entered earth's atmosphere.

"Lunaire. I hope it isn't a mistake letting it free . . . Free, freedom . . . The word feels alien now"


A/N: We are close to the end now.

Yellow 14: The time gap between chapter 8 and 7 was so big that I had to re-read those chapters. The reason for Mobius One's involvement was explained in Chapter 7 through the conversation of Mobius pilots. Cipher's, well, I hope it's clear in this chapter.

General MB: I was being a die-hard game nerd. Hard mode, BANZAI! Hehe.