Chapter 34 Aftermath and Contemplation

There was nothing more than surprising to see that his mission phase 1 is now over. Nigel was happy to know that his job will be finished once the leader of the Bal Masque is dead, with all his companions cornered by the reinforcements. He watched as Kazumi fired the yo-yo to execute Yuji Sakai. He then turned his head down, remarking to himself a job well done...

That is until he heard a loud clang of metal in the skies. He immediately turned upwards and wished that he should've brought at least one Pokemon that he has in his GKND locker in the GKND HQ. The Skarmory that kept causing trouble to the entire detachment manages to get pass all the defenses set-up and used its steel body to block the yoyo in its intended flight path. The bird then bank sharply towards Yuji's back and shone a metallic shine with its wings, which, upon impact, severed all the ribbons holding Yuji, causing the later to be free from Whilhelmina's grip. Whilhelmina was about to snare him again when she saw that Kazumi fired the yo-yo towards her direction in an attempt to kill him. Whilhelmina and Yuji manages to dodge, with each forming their own offensive stance. Whilhelmina tried to ensnare Yuji again when the same steel bird cuts through her ribbons cleanly using its wings. The bird then climbs, banks and dives quickly, this time covering itself with white energy. It struck Whilhelmina so hard that she was flung down towards the ground to form a large cloud of dust.

Taking this moment as an opening, Yuji immediately dashes towards the silver ball surrounding Margery, but in doing so, he was faced by opposition, as two S.C.A.M.P.E.R.s bristled with kids holding a projectile weapon on their hand went on to face him broadside, in an attempt to shoot him down. The kids fired the weapons at him, but Yuji just simply covered himself with the Silver and smashes at them like a cannonball, severely damaging the two machines into their spiraling doom. Removing the specialized silver shield, he flies towards the silver prison trap, and upon reaching it, he leans his head down and spoke "Margery, how does it feel like to learn that I'm also the Silver?"

"I should have killed you if I had the chance before!" Margery yelled at him, remembering the time she went berserk when she learned that Yuji bears the flame color of Silver. Back that, she was about to kill Yuji but was stopped when Shana and Whilhelmina calmed her down and reminded her that Yuji is not the Silver. Unfortunately, no amount of convincing would cure the anger from her heart, as she now knows that Yuji actually has the Flame Color of the one who killed her entire family, and out of this rage, she fired a blast towards the direction by which Yuji's voice came from, but only the appearance of a puff of smoke occurred.

Knowing that he finally got her attention, Yuji continued "What if I tell you that the Silver you know is not me, but rather just an object, a non-living organism." This taunting of him made Margery to immediately say "Impossible!", simply because of her disbelief...

And the entire reason of her continued existence in this world is now in huge question.

The voice of the Snake then took over and continued "The Silver is supposed to be my vessel created to jump-start the Grand Order, and it is hidden within the Reiji Maigo. But before we sealed it at the treasure tool, it required some existence to be fully functional. Thus it was sent to kill as many as it can, and that includes your family..."

"No, that's not..." Margery's rage and confusion began to set in, as she begins to rethink on why she even become an immortal and live as a Flame Haze in the first place, which all works on Yuji's favor. The Snake immediately wanted to cause more torment on the now confused Flame Haze, and thus, he summoned several of the Silver soldiers to appear inside the prison ball, causing Margery to hit them at random out of her blind rage. As every hit is made at the soldiers, memories of anger and vengeance filled Margery, and it already came to the tipping point where it became, in itself, a nightmare for her to contain.

"Margery, calm down, those are not the real Silver..." Marchosias said, trying to calm her down. Now thinking of nothing but revenge, Margery begins to culminate a lot of existence and formed a very huge blast that began to crack the entire shield, which Yuji took notice and went away as far as he could. The crack became larger, and like a gigantic bomb, it set off to explode, causing a huge blast that manages to level two blocks of intersection right beneath her. This then caused the Snake to exclaim "That is not suppose to happen..."

Anti-Cosmo immediately appeared next to him and replied "Well, she would've restraint... IF SOMEONE ELSE IS WITH HER!"

"Why didn't you told me of this before?" Yuji's voice took over and asked the anti-fairy, in which the later just replied "Well... I forgot!"

At that, Margery manages to get herself to her humanoid wolf form again and began to charge at Yuji and Anti-Cosmo, and even attempted to slash the invincible anti-fairy. They both manages to avoid the strike, and as they regroup, Anti-Cosmo said "Well, you got her raging, that's enough. We would have to coordinate another strike to take Shana then. Besides, we have to get the Treasure Tool first."

"If that is so..." Yuji heeded the suggestion, and with Snake's voice taking over, said "I wish that everyone that is allied to me, and even myself, be teleported towards the Yoda Department Store". On that account, everyone affiliated to Bal Masque, including the Skarmory, disappeared in the battlefield, with some of the children who took notice of this saying "That's anti-climatic..."

The KND Moonbase is filled with panic, as those who manages to return to Moonbase began to flock in. The KND medics began to attend to the injured and the 'burned out', a KND slang term to those who became a torch. The number of those who are being attended increased dramatically, even to the point that the Existence Restoration Machines available are being overworked to the point that one manages to explode and cause more injuries. The S.C.A.M.P.E.R. holding Shana manages to arrive the base, and many medics immediately came to her assistance. One agent managed to look at her and noticed that Shana's injuries are somehow minor, with just a bump at the back side of her head and some bruises. She was immediately send to the first-aid room, where she will be treated accordingly.

Numbuh 362 is observing the events down through an observation deck and is now worried sick on what is now happening on the ground...

All she has are a few cameras and the radio, which barely even revealed the entire battlefield. An agent manages to contact her in the screen and reported "Our target has just escaped..." which made her to pound on the sides of the screen, with tears flowing in her eyes, thinking about the lives that are wasted for this mission alone. Numbuh 1 finally contacted her reported "We have a raging Flame Haze who kept shooting down our S.C.A.M.P.E.R.s., permission to engage, Whilhelmina is now trying to calm her down..." which somehow just glances over Rachel's mind.

Echoes from Numbuh 1's voice calling her name are just bluntly heard, so are the reports from Eita and Keisaku that the Bal Masque are now in their position. She then begins to think deeply, on how she is responsible for this mission, but then, the voice of Numbuh 1 saying "Rachel, permission to engage, we are dying here!"

She then weakly replied "Roger that...". She then turned Eita and Sato on the mike and asks "How's your position back there?"

"Well, he couldh've killed us!" Eita yelled at her.

"What do you mean?"

"He just went here, talk to us a little cryptic message, and went away with the Crystal Altar!" Eita immediately replied, with a tinge of yelling from him.

"At least your safe, and that's important, Numbuh 362, out..." At that, Rachel manages to think deeply, worried that perhaps the mission is..., no, the mission is a failure...

She then tunes the radio toward Outlaw base, in hopes that she might find some sort of encouragement. Her agents have, at least, risked their lives for their members, as somehow, no actual casualties are reported from the side of the Outlaw. Sophie manages to appear and said directly "You might have a report about the Mystes..."

"It's a severe bad news..." Numbuh 362 remark, with an obvious tone of failure in her voice. "Operation Y.U.J.I. is a failure..."

On the other hand, Yuji's plan to make Margery crazy has paved of. In Margery's eyes, everyone, friend or foe, has now become the Silver, with every vehicle, every person, and every kid in her view becoming objects of her.

Whilhelmina is now trying to snare her with her ribbons in hopes of stopping her, but Margery turns around, attempting to slash her using her form's long, sharp claws. Whilhelmina managed to hear Marchosias saying "Margery, my dear, calm down, you are attacking your own friends!" but it was disregarded by Margery, whose mind is now focused on the intent of drawing the Silver out of existence. Just when things gone from bad to worse for Whilhelmina, a laser beam was shot towards her attacker from below the ground, which has the power to stopped the aquamarine Unrestricted Spell form to dissipate. It is then followed by a wooden plank from a S.C.A.M.P.E.R. flying by, which knocked the raging Flame Haze out of consciousness, saving Whilhelmina from critical danger.

Caught by the children from below using a KND net, everyone in the KND swiped their foreheads and sighing out of relief, as the unconscious Flame Haze and her vessel lay inside the net. Numbuh 1 ran towards the team who had caught Margery and ordered "Send her to the Psychology Department, she become insane by that monster... whatever he did to her may have triggered this."

Seeing this, Whilhelmina landed near the GKND agent and said "Number 1, let me accompany her, maybe she would..."

"Whilhelmina, what just happened?" someone weakly spoke up. It is Britain, who manages to somehow recover walk towards them in pain. He is holding left hand in his stomach, with the right hand trailing on his side. What is remarkable, however, is this: the four spears that impaled him are still sticking out of his body, one on the forehead, one on the shoulder of her trailing arm, one on his stomach, and one on the left knee.

"The spears on your..."

"I KNOW!" Britain yelled at her, trying to stop her from reminding him how the spears from his very own existence hurts. "How's Shana and Yuji?"

"Shana's safe and fine on the Moonbase. She suffered some injuries from the battle..." she suddenly stopped, and gave out a sigh. After the pause, she continued "... and Yuji..."

"Is he dead?" Britain immediately cuts in, in the hopes that a threat of peace has been eradicated.

"No... he escaped..." Whilhelmina replied to him straightly.

"How about Margery?" Britain asks once again, noticing that she, to is missing. Whilhelmina simply replied "She went out of control after Yuji did something to her..."

"Oh dear..." Britain just said in worry, with him continuing "He still manages to induce her to a mental breakdown..."

"What do you..."

"I'll explain later..." Britain said to her, preventing Whilhelmina to continue speaking regarding the matter. He then yelled out of pain "AND can anyone remove the spikes I placed to myself? I might be unconscious after the one on my forehead is removed, so..."

"Ok..." Whilhemina simply just twined several ribbons around the shaft of the spikes around Britain, which caused Britain to just gulped for his life. She simultaneously pulled it out from the country's territory, which caused Britain to fall to the ground unconscious and a lot of blood flowing from him. On the way it was done, several kids, including Numbuh 2, 3, and 4, puked in horror of the gruesome scene straight from a horror movie.

"He suffered far greater injuries than that..." Numbuh 1 said to the Flame Haze. "He's a country, he won't die that easily... it will take more than that to do so..."

After the war clouds are obviously fading away, everyone began to do the clearing operation. The KND manages to patch everything cleanly, which surprised Whilhelmina, as Whilhelmina can just simply remove the Fuzetsu for everything to normalize. In order to preserve the population of innocent people that are killed in the battle, however, she took some of the existence from Britain and restored everything, turning everyone who are living before the incident to become torches. After the clean-up operation, the KND and Flame Hazes boarded the S.C.A.M.P.E.R.s and left the city. With the Seal lifted up, courtesy of Whilhelmina, everything in Misaki City returned to a quasi-normal state of existence. As they arrived in the Moonbase, everyone in the KND and Outlaw, began to ask the same question: What is the next move?

On Sereiden, Yuji began to think of his next plan, which is, an attack towards the KND Moonbase...

He began to think whether he would ask the cooperate from someone he knows, but he also has doubts on the success of such operation. Just then, Anti-Cosmo appeared right in front of him saying "You might be thinking of attacking the Moonbase because of the girl, but it will cause a considerable loss to your forces..."

"I know..." Yuji replied to him. "Besides, you said that the next step is to prepare the Grand Order... but how would I proceed without knowing the wishes of the Flame Hazes?"

"Well, you could proceed right now!" Anti-Cosmo replied, which just post more questions to the Mystes. On the other hand, Hecate is still staring at the two talking, with her saying in her mind I still distrust that fairy and his allies... I hope this isn't the repeat of the Great Binding Chain...

Hecate was surprised to find that Bel Poel is behind her, with the later creeping her out by saying "I know what you are thinking Priestess... but we have no choice but to follow..."

"I know..." Hecate stared back at her "...but that fairy reminds me of that demon 3000 years ago who changed the plan from this mountains to..."

"We just have to not remind ourselves of that..." Bel Peol said to her. She then turned back and began to walk towards the main hallway of the Palace, with her continuing what she is telling to her. "Besides, our plan is sure to succeed this time around..."

The Priestess simply doubted about that, and stared as the two began to talk once again, with her mind beginning to focus on the anti-fairy...

There is something off, as if someone is there, watching their every move...

It is as if someone is manipulating everything that Bal Masque is doing...