A tainted place filled to the brim with a sickly darkness that made my skin crawl.
Not to mention the number of seedforms we had to fight through. Even without using my techniques, I felt my mind spin the deeper we went into the HIVE…

"Cyruss"

"Huh?" I turned my head back to see who said my name but saw no one.

"Did you hear something?" The group turned back towards me.

"No, it's nothing."

"Oh…well, Alright." Maya took a deep breath.
"I can feel the air wrapping it's tendrils around me… This really is Rykros."

"I attempted to get a fix on our location but the signal appears to be jammed." Said Lou.

"Huh?" I gasped. If it was just jammed now that meant a certain little robot was acting more sly than I thought possible. Of course, the signal could have been cut off sometime when they entered the sector. I never did get an answer to which it was.

"Either we've been transported to Rykros or somehow it's been recreated here… I think that's it. Like the Seed appearing through thought manifestation." Said Maya.

Before I could even attempt to think about why they'd want to revive this accursed place I heard the sound of a faint desperate cry from a familiar voice.

"Somebody… Help…"

"That was Emilia! I heard her!" Yut shouted.

"I heard her too!" I replied.

"She sounded close, we're almost there."

"Well, there's definitive someone up there, Let's go find out who." Said Maya. We followed the voice down numerous halls that seemed to stretch on forever until we've finally reached our destination, a large circular dome-shaped room. At the edges were these dark bottomless pits in the center was a group of people in matching uniform.

"Stay frosty! They're still coming!" A shout came from the center of the room.

"There's just so many! How many seed scum do we have to kill?"

There was a ring coming from us, or specifically Lou.

"The transponder code matches. They are guardians."

"You don't say..." I muttered sarcastically as I searched the group for Emilia with no luck.

"Are the hallucinating? This is exactly what happened in Lumia's report." Said Maya. I looked again and realized she was right, there wasn't a seed in sight.

"Look out! It's some kind of new Seedform!" A Guardian shouted.

A roar rang throughout the room as something appeared floating in front of them. A triangular shaped monster with metallic armour and this long tube-like tentacle that wrapped around its back.

"Lumia's reports also mentioned the manifestation of illusions." Said Lou.

"Save the analysis for later! Here it comes!"

The seed extended it's arms towards the group most of the guardians had managed to move out of the way except for one unfortunate soul who got impaled through his shoulder. The guardian screamed out in agony as the others stared it terror before readying their weapons to fight the monster.

The monster spun around while dragging the guardian's body using it to hit the others before throwing him towards the edge of the room nearly into the bottomless pit. The monster's eyes shined red as it turned towards the others that were knocked to the ground.

As we ran over to assist more Seedforms spawned right in front of us blocking our way. I rose my left arm to cast a technique but remembered it was disabled. "Damn…" I cursed. Suddenly Yut leaped over the group of seen and dashed over towards the monster attacking the guardians.

We fought the monsters in front of us while Yut assisted the Guardians in fighting that thing. Maya's techniques broke through the group quite easily. As Maya waved her staff around I inched away from her when more monsters appeared in between us. The Seed had started pushing us away widening the gap between us.

Each time we killed one two more appeared to take it's place, making it even more difficult to regroup with Maya and Lou. Yut had been keeping that monster off of the other guardians. I ran over to help out the kid but before I could do that more monsters came rushing me from the side. I blocked their bladed claw with my saber but their overwhelming numbers forced me towards the edge.

I turned my head down towards the endless void beneath my heels and clenched my teeth. I was completely surrounded without a way out. With a loud cry I swung my blade in a desperate attempt to push them back but as my weapon bounced off of them I was pushed over the edge. As I sank down into the darkness my consciousness began to slip away once more.

"I'm sorry…I couldn't- I couldn't save you…" I whispered as my body grew cold.

"I didn't care about anything else… I just wanted to stay with you. As long as you were there beside me… I didn't care… Heh, some hero I am."

"I can't understand why you'd ever have believed in someone like me… You and Emilia would have been better off with anyone else." I let out a short breath.

"…Emilia." I reached into my coat and pulled out a device that shined a bright pink light in the pit of darkness. I couldn't leave her alone in this terrible place. I had to save her no matter the cost.

I held the light firmly in my right hand and stretched out my left. The coldness left my body as a blue circle appeared above me and what emerged was a large blue bird-like creature. My hand gripped on the bird's tail as it shot up towards the surface.

As it flew out of the hole it froze the surrounding seedforms. I leaped on the floor and smashed the frozen seeds to pieces. I stared squarely at the seed with the bluebird hovering behind me with a cold cloud of air emanating from its wings.

"Konl… Please, help me. Tear them apart!" I directed the bird to towards the seedforms with my sword, it let out a high pitched shriek as it charged into the large horde of monsters. With Konl hear monsters seemed to dramatically slow down the seed and their spawn rate.

The only monster that resisted the creature's power was the tentacled beast Yut was fighting. "You alright?" I asked as I rushed over to his side with my sword out.

"Yeah! Watch out! This one's tough!" He replied with a serious look on his face.

"Alright. Let's end fast so we can find Emilia and get out of here."

The monster quickly extended its arm towards but I quickly deflected it with my sword as Yut jumped over me with his spear pointed towards the enemy. Before the monster could react I dropped my saber and with my hand, I shot out a small ray of light that pierced the beast's armor. As it let out a cry Yut thrust his weapon into the monster and pushed it into the ground causing it to disappear as it died.

Once that was settled I felt a stinging sensation in the palm of my hand. I saw a light, it was attached to my hand like fluorescent paint. It felt like it was eating the skin but I balled up my hand and endured the pain. Personally, I've never heard of a technique staying around like this but I've never cast a technique with my bare hands before this.

Lou scanned the area.

"I am no longer detecting enemies in the vicinity. The danger has passed." She said.

I approached Maya who had been checking up on the guardians.

"Er, How are they doing?" I asked.

"The missing Guardians have passed out, but I think they're okay." She said.

"But where's Emilia? She should be here." Yut looked around.

"Hey! Em! You around here?" I called out.

"Help…" She faintly replied.

"This way…" We heard Mika.

"Did you hear that? I know where she is!" He said.

"I believe he does, but we can't leave our comrades like this. We'll have to split up. You go on ahead."

"What are you waiting for? C'mon! We're almost there!"

"I'm right behind you."

We ran deeper into Rykros and before long we found her lying on the floor passed out.

"Look! It's Emilia!" Yut rushed over to her side as I followed closely behind him.

"Wake up, Emilia!" I said.

"Emilia! Emilia!"

"Stop yelling…" She groaned lazily as she sat up with her hand on her head.

"Looks like she's okay." I sighed in relief.

"What? Where am I?" She asked. The next thing I knew Rykros disappeared and we were in an old building. "This place… Is this a dream?"

"More like a nightmare, really," I replied. Fighting the Seed on Rykros was about the last thing I wanted to do. But I suppose it was worth it.

"You… Why are you here?" She looked at us with a wide-eyed expression.

"We came to help of course. Why else would we be here?" I replied.
"Ahem. Sorry, we couldn't get here sooner."

"Help? I didn't need any help." She said glaring at me. "I can do just fine on my own. I don't need Little Wing's help!" She shouted out at us before averting her gaze.

"It's better for everyone that way…" She whispered under her breath.

"Em, That's-" I slowly reached over to grab her hand but she quickly pulled it away.

"Just keep away from me! Don't get my hopes up anymore!" She ran off down the hall.

"Emilia, look out! It's not safe here!" Yut shouted before chasing after her, leaving me in the dust.

"Grah! Why did I- Nevermind!" I chased after them.

"I could have subbed as a Vanguard but NO, I had to try and become a hunter! AND I still can't keep up with these kids!" I complained once I lost track of them.

Suddenly I heard a scream, followed by a gunshot and the sound of a battle. I followed the noise out of the building. As I emerged from the building my goggles took a second to adjust to the lighting outside.

"Boss?" My jaw dropped when I saw Kraz in front of us, standing silently in front of Emilia.

"Why? Why are you here?" She asked as a sour expression formed on her face. "Wait don't tell me. You came to fire me. Well, you wasted a trip. I already know."

"What are you doin' here?" He asked with his arms crossed.

"Why do you care? I can go wherever I want!"

"I asked you what you're doing here!"

"I'm investigating. On my own. It's a lot easier slipping in and out of Inhelt without anyone to slow me down." I'd be offended if it weren't for the fact I was probably responsible for most of the times we've been split up, that and the fact I was the slowest force I knew.

"If you don't like it, too bad! I'm not your problem anymore!" Then there was a loud smack sound.

Emilia looked completely stunned as she held her cheek.

"Not our problem? Do you have any idea how worried about you we've all been? If you weren't our problem, you think we'd come all the way down here to knock some sense into you?"

"How should I know? I'm alone now. No one has to worry about me anymore."

"You're a real handful, you know that?" He sighed as he pulled her closer into his arms.

"Kraz?"

"I just wanted to keep you safe, but it backfired. I never shoulda tried to pull you off duty in the first place."

"Keep me safe?"

"Shizuru's after you. I thought he might try to get to you while you were out on a mission. I was only trying to protect you. To keep you close. Somewhere I could watch over you myself."

Emilia was speechless.

"At least you're all right. Good thing we got here in time. If we hadn't, I… Well, I'm just glad we did."

"Kraz…"

"Wipe that guilty look off yer face. We're family, and family watches out for family-even the black sheep."

"Family?"

"That's right. Wanna guess who our black sheep is?"

"Cat got yer tongue?"

"Why do I have to be the black sheep? Your wool's pretty dark too, y'know… So how come…" She started to sniffle. "How come it has to be me?" She said with tears running down her cheeks.

"Miss us?"

"Yeah…"

"Hard bein' on yer own?"

"Yeah…"

"I'm sorry, Emilia."

"You're not alone," I said with a smile.

"I'm not, am I? I can count on you. I could… I could cry…"

"No one's stoppin' ya. You're almost more trouble than you're worth, ya know that?" Said Kraz.

"Ooooh. Be quiet!" She cried.

Emilia went back with Kraz and Yut went with me back to our ship. This mission ended on a high note, much better than I thought it would, but as much as I hoped for…

The burning light on my hand refused to go away, unsure what to do I covered it up with some bandage.
Suddenly there was a ring on the phone.

"Ooh! Welcome back! And Emilia is safe and sound too! Magnifique." Chelsea said through the ship's com. "We are all waiting so come say 'allo when you are all done, yes?"

"Yeah, I'll be right down there."

I let out a short breath as the hung up.

When I entered the office I saw everyone inside waiting for me. "Ah, you're back. Let's get down to business. But first the brainless wonder's got something to say." Said the boss.

Everyone looks to Emilia.

"Don't call me a brainless wonder! Um… er, right. I'm sorry for all the trouble I caused. There!"

"Hmm? Oh, don't worry about that, Wonder." Said Ursula.

"What did you call-"

"Oui, Oui! We are merely happy to have you returned, mademoiselle brainless!" Chelsea joined in.

"H-Hey!"

"Pfft, Just watch it, Wonder…" I smirked.

"You too?!"

"Brainless! Brainless!" Yut chanted.

"You aren't even trying to be mean, which somehow makes it worse."

"All right, enough horsing around." Said Kraz as he moved on to the more important part of this meeting. "With the missing personnel found on Inhelt Corporation turn, things are coming to a head."

"We've joined the Guardians and the AMF in demanding an explanation from Inhelt." Said Ursula. "The subspace plans have been indefinitely shelved. Depending on how Inhelt responds, we may launch a full investigation."

"So, it looks like the brainless wonder helped us out after all. Said Kraz.

"I just don't like how quiet Inhelt's been about all this. That CEO would hold a press conference to explain a toilet malfunction. But so far we've heard nothing but silence about this." I completely forgot about that CEO, when we met the man, he didn't seem at all like the kind of guy who'd do something fishy. It didn't quite match up at all.

"I'm sure everything'll be clear soon enough." He said. "I don't see why you shouldn't take a break while things are quiet."

"Er, boss. What should I do?" Emilia asked. "I'm guessing I'm under house arrest."

"Do what you want." He said bluntly.

"Huh?"

"I've learned better than to try to keep you locked up. It's more trouble than it's worth. So get out there and do what you do. We'll help you if we can."

"So, it's okay if I hang out with you? I mean, I can fight with the team?"

"Yeah… but! You gotta stick with your partner, this time. Don't go out alone."

"Right!" She said with a big smile on her face.

Kraz turned to me.

"You're the only one I dare leave Emilia with. Keep an eye on her, got it?"

"Heh, You're asking alot from me. Y'know?" I replied. But honestly, Emilia had been right there for most of my time in Little Wing and every mission without her felt kind of weird.

"If anyone can do it, you can." He replied.

"She listens to you, see? She trusts you. Believe it. Aight, meeting's adjourned! Keep yer coms humming. I'll buzz you if anything comes up."

I returned to my room but couldn't find the little robot anywhere. As I tried to reestablish the connection to my goggles I heard a lit tap on my door. "Rose?" I opened it and in front of me was Emilia.

"Um, Got a moment? There's something I wanted to talk to you about." She said

"Alright? Come on it…" It felt kind of weird. Normally had no problem barging in here unannounced. I was pretty sure Rose mentioned that came and hung around a few times even when I wasn't here. Though, I'm not sure what exactly she does in here.

"Uh, What did you want to talk about?" I asked.

"So, what I, er…" She stammered. "what I wanted to talk about. Well, not so much talk, as, er…"

"Uhh, Need some water? Or something?" I raised a brow.

"No. I- I wanted to apologize. I'm really sorry! I know you must've been worried sick and…" She spoke all at once. "Just, sorry."

"Worried? Me… No, I wasn't-"

"You shouldn't lie so much…" Rose spoke through the visiphone surprising both of us.

"Isn't there something you're forgetting?" I quickly cut the call with my goggles before thinking about it.

"Forgetting? Oh… Er, here." I dug into my pocket and handed the visor back to her. "You dropped this…" She stared at it for a moment with a apologetic expression.

"Sorry…"

"It's fine! Don't worry about it-"

"But I am worried! I'm really sorry! I mean, you're my partner and all…It's strange… I don't remember much about when you came to rescue me… just the sound of your voice. I remember that clearly."

"Huh?" I felt my face get warmer.

"It was like I could almost feel it." She started to sniffle again. "Why am I crying? I'm not sad, really! Boy, I've turned into a real crybaby. Gotta get a hold of myself."

"Er, ahem…" I wasn't sure about how to…er, respond so I started, um… gently patting her head.

"Hey, s-stop that. I'm gonna cry more, I'm warning you!" When she said it like that it made it hard to stop.

"I don't know what I' even saying anymore. Just…" Suddenly she wrapped her armed around me tightly as she buried her face in my chest.

"Huh?" I stared down with wide eyes, then they went soft before I started cradling her head with my right arm and let out a short breath.

"I guess I just relaxed, and now I can't stop crying." She said.

"I'm not sad, really. I'm happy. I mean, it's like I'm dreaming, almost. But if this isn't a dream, keep holding me. Please. Hold me until I know what's real."

"As long as you need, I'm not going anywhere," I spoke softly with a smile.

As I held her closely I felt a few tears streaming down my cheek.

"Is this true happiness?" I asked myself.