Hello there my good readers! I present to you, the new chapter of 'The slow descent'! Took some time I know, I've been updating a few stories here and there, but today I give you the long awaited chapter!
I have to say though that I decided to cut two dungeons from the story, they didn't really have that much interesting features. But I do tell what happens during that period so don't worry much. Do enjoy the reading.
Add's P.O.V
As we docked down, we could instantly see frightened ponggos trying to hide inside their makeshift homes. The sight of the black crows must of struck them much more deeply than I taught before.
"A-Add! What is the meaning of this!? Why did you bring them here!?" Asked Adel to me, fear could be seen from his quick actions.
"Don't worry Adel, we came here to make this guy say sorry to you and to your people." I said softly to him, if I say the wrong thing he'll kick us out before we can act.
"Elder Adel, please forgive me from my actions. I wasn't myself because of this nasod claw and my blinding rage, I'll accept all punishment from the stead of my crew's actions." Raven said with deep remorse of his words, he truly was ashamed that he couldn't stop himself from doing said actions.
"As long as you can use your power for good, everything is okay." He said still wary of him, it would need time for them to trust him.
"I will, thank you for your kindness. From today forward, the black crows will help those in need. We'll also make a perimeter around this place to make sure your kind is safe against the blasted nasods." He said somewhat angry towards the mechanical race.
"*Ahem* I'm a nasod engineer you know?" I said while putting a hand in front of my mouth, he quickly turned to me.
"You and your creations are different, you fight for the right reasons." He quickly tried to reformulate his statement.
"My only creations are my dynamos and my nasod armor. I hope your statement doesn't affect our new nasod healer friends that joined us shortly before you." I said towards him still giving him pressure, he looked to the side and tried to ignore my pressure.
"Master Add!" Yelled Abby as she rushed towards me, Raven was already ready to smite her, I quickly rose my hand to him to stop.
"Hello Abigail, this is our new gang member, Raven. Say hello to him." I said as she looked to him from toe to top.
"Nice to meet you, mister Raven! Hope we can get along from here on!" She said cheerfully as she did circles around the two.
"How can this nasod have emotions?" He asked dumbfounded as he watched her talking with the other ponggos and the gang members.
"My dynamos picked up the data for emotions, every time a new nasod joins us I order them to pass their emotion data to them. They in turn apply their system the emotions and apply to which they think suit them best." I explained as I did some research on the matter.
Although I explained to him he could barely believe it, nasods talking to ponggos like they were the best friends before the war ever started.
"How are they even moving if they don't have a power supply?" He asked me again, the answer was quite simple actually.
"Well, nasods are a sentient robot race that get power from nearby power sources. I think that they have some shards of El in them that, if managed well, can last them for a couple of weeks. While traveling with them, I collected a good amount of these shards from breaking down armor and taking the time to look." I explained as he continue to follow my little 'story'.
"I'm planning of finding an alternative energy source to provide them a stable supply of El without resorting to use these here shards." I explained as I was showing him some shards that were bigger than the common ones. "Although it's difficult to find one to an entire race as there isn't no records on the ancient library, for a small group however it is possible if you put your mind to it."
"Interesting..." He said with my little explanation, he then looked to my dynamos. "Do they also run in El shards?"
"These? Oh no, these run from my mental energy. The weaker my mind is, the weaker they become." I explained as he took note of it.
"Captain Raven! We already established the perimeter around the ponggos area, what are your next orders?" A high ranked mercenary asked towards him.
"You're all to make sure nothing goes through you, only ponggos are to enter and leave it. Your objective is to protect this place." He ordered with a rough tone, makes me think that maybe Elsword could learn a few things from him.
"Yes sir!" He said before to relay the message to the other crew members.
"I need to make a call Raven, go meet with the others." I said as I walked somewhat away from the gang. Once the coast was clear I took out a transmitter and began calling the number.
"Hello?" Said a familiar sweet voice from the other side of the hologram.
"Hey Echo, it's been awhile hasn't it?" I said giving her a soft smile, she immediately stopped doing what she was doing and looked at the screen.
"Add! It's so good to see you again! How are things around there?" She asked quite happy for my call, I guess without Wally or not many customers came to see her today.
"Well, they could of been better. But right now, we're at Altera Island on the ponggos hideout." I said as she seemed to be surprised to where we are.
"Altera Island? You mean the place where the rumored Altera core is located?" She asked, to which I only nodded. She seemed to squeal a little bit for some reason. "I always wanted to go there! Even though I'm an alchemist, knowing how nasods move and such was fascinating to me." Fascinating you say?
"Well we just got a new member with a nasod arm, he could use a little help with it as I'm not that in tuned with its proprieties. I can only do so much as maintenance, do you know anything about the sort to help him out?" I asked towards the small genius to which she seemed to smile.
"Oh yes! Someone gave me blueprints and a book regarding prosthetic nasod human parts, I can probably upgrade the arm to a much more powerful version to him without making it have more control over him!" She said with some enthusiasm on her tone.
"Then ask Hoffman permission to come here! Bethma is out of trouble for now so you have a clear path to us." I said giving the much needed information to her.
"Oh I will! I can hardly wait to go there! Give me a day or two to arrive there!" She said while immediately making preparations to leave. "Talk to you soon!" She said while closing the call.
Well that went better than I expected! I thought that she would refuse to come her, but it seems I was completely wrong!
"Wait a moment..." She said she had a book regarding prosthetic human parts? I remember that there was a missing book on the library... Could that book originated from there? If so, then how did that person that payed her had that book?
"Hmm... Mysteries, mysteries. I guess that unless, I found out who that person was I'll never know." I said while walking back to the village, with the crows guarding the place it can be considered the most fortified place there is right now on Altera.
Rena's P.O.V
"Where did this leaf came from?" Asked a ponggo, when I heard leaf appear out of nowhere I knew it was the Night Savers trying to lay low while signalling me.
"Excuse me, I need to go to the Inn." I said while moving away from the group. As soon as I was out of sight I dashed to a alleyway and waited a bit before a fellow member appeared.
"It took us awhile to find you, but you appeared at the right time here." The same Night Savers member that contacted her said while pulling out a letter to her.
"What's that?" I asked as she began reading a little bit of the letter.
"It's a warning that was put here, we are not intervene with the plant life around here. Doing so will result of the death of a plant that took countless years of persistence and struggle to spring to life." She gave me the short summary of the letter.
"Is this plant aggressive?" I asked, we are bound to the nature, but if this plant is aggressive than we have no other choice but to put it down.
"According to this report, they only attack those that are close to the mother of the root." She said, it still means that it is aggressive so I don't need to feel that bad if I take some of its spores.
"Is that all?" I asked waiting for more instructions.
"Actually there is." She said looking at me intensely. "In two days, you are to report back to the hideout and give a full report about what happened to you, in these last days. If everything is in order you can return back here and finish what you started before returning back to our home world."
"T-two days?" I asked surprised of the sudden order, she then looked at me because of my stuttering. "Understood." I said before she saluted and waited for my salute.
"From shadows we come." She said to me in a monotone,
"From shadows we're gone." I finished her before she disappeared out of sight. "Two days huh?"
2 days later
Add's P.O.V
Today should be the day that Echo should arrive. This gang actually saw the great potential that Raven showed during our last two expeditions. His skill with the sword was top notch, even Elsword was impressed. So much that he asked him to give him some classes to improve his own swordsmanship.
He in turn was amazed with our way of fighting enemies, our styles were very different, but at the same time compatible if we know our roles.
Ara's and Chung's pair work went almost flawless if Ara could stop falling from no rock below her. Elsword and Raven took a very aggressive approach, but they got their own back. Rena took the support role with Aisha to make sure no one would flank us. I went almost on the attack all the way, but stopped when I noticed that I was draining myself a bit too much.
Me on the other hand got a new nasod race friend, Nasod Scout Type L. There was one specific Scout that was different from the others, I named him Alexander even though I simply call him Alex for short. His child like pranks have gave him the reputation of prankster even though he means well with them.
Also I named him with a male character because his voice is kinda like Elsword's, only a bit more childish and cocky too.
I took a liking to these scouts during our first expedition, they are very useful to scout unknown areas. Plus they give company to Abby and her friends.
I nearly lost Alex and a small amount of its friends on our second expedition, believe it or not. If we were a minute later the alterasia spore would of took control of him and his friends. Though it was pretty successful the operation, we then burned the surrounding fungus, I took some samples with me, just to study how a plant could take control of deactivate and active Nasods.
Are you wondering where I am at the moment? Well since the ponggos saw that my nasod knowledge was more advanced than theirs, they offered me a small place to stay near the scientists and Adel. Of course I only go to that place when I need some peace from the constant bickering from Elsword and Aisha or to do some research.
"Master Add! A cute little girl came to see you!" Said Abby, she acts like an assistant to me while Alex went to scout the new area. Since the alterasia went down the spores instantly stopped moving so he was clear to move to the next unknown space.
In Alex and his team, I installed a reflective cloak which disguises themselves to which makes them almost invisible. The only way to know they are there is if something or someone bump them, since their signature signal are also cloaked on other radars. Except for mine of course.
"A cute little girl?" I asked as I could only think of someone that could of told her that.
"Hello!" Said Echo making her presence being known through the little establishment, she nearly made me flinch.
"Echo! How nice to see you again!" I said while closing my PHC to go to her. "How have yo-" Before I could do a handshake she hugged me from nowhere.
"I missed you so much! After you guys helped out on Elder, things went for the better! Except that business went down a bit, but that's all right!" She said in a cheerful way, probably because she's at Altera.
"I missed you too, Echo. Want a lollipop? The sweets around Altera differ from time to time." I said while gripping a one and eating another one.
"With pleasure!" She said while eating the handed sweet. "Hmm~ It tastes like marshmallow!" Marshmallow? Mine tastes like grape.
"Do you want to take a tour around the hideout?" I asked her, she just shook her head.
"No thank you, right now I'm more curious on the nasod arm that your new friend has." She said while eyeing Abby. "Who is this, by the way? She called you Master Add earlier, is she another of your creations?"
"No, this little one accepted coming with me, her name is Abigail, but I just call her Abby for short. She's kinda of the commander of her little unit of healing." Commander... I need to remember that in the future.
"Nice to meet you Abby! Good choice going with Add, he's really kind to everyone." She said while making me a bit embarrassed.
"I know he is! Why do you think I wasn't trashed by Mister Elsword on the spot?" It was kinda true, he was going to trash her, badly.
"Well then, where is your friend with the arm?" She was getting a little bit impatient, is she in a hurry to explore the place?
"Follow me." I said while moving outside of the my space, we then went inside the Inn where Aisha and Elsword kept bickering. Rena was making a very scary face so I cover Echo's eyes.
"Add, why did yo-"
"It's better you don't see this, trust me." Here it comes...
"YOU TWO HAVE BEEN BICKERING FOR TOO LONG! STOP THIS INSTANT OR I'LL MAKE YOU STOP! DO YOU HEAR ME!?" Thank god I saved her from the screaming, her tone isn't the friendliest at the moment and her expression was pretty much saying that it was bad.
"Umm... Rena?" I asked trying to get her attention.
"WHAT!?" She looked at me with the same expression.
"You might want to calm down, we have a guest here." I said while not taking off my hands from her ears, she shivered a little bit.
"Oh I'm so sorry! I didn't know that Echo came to visit us!" Now you realize it? I took of my hands from her eyes.
"Raven, can you come with me for a bit?" I asked as he looked at Echo to study her for a bit, he rose up and started to walk outside. I guess that seeing Rena's 'bad mood' made him want to leave the place fast.
As we went outside, he began to chuckle a little bit.
"Hehehe... Even their mood is the same, they are so similar together." So Seris also had Rena's bad mood? El lady...
"Hmm... This arm really is the same one from my book. With some pieces and parts I can install the overheat system from the blueprints, but it won't be exactly the same after that." She said as she examined the parts better.
"Change my nasod arm? Do you want me to lose control again!?" Said Raven to me in a unsecure way with his sword almost unsheathed.
"Don't worry Raven, we are just adding something to the arm to be more battle oriented. We won't give it more power over you." I said to him slowly, he sheathed his sword again, but still a little bit antsy from the change.
"I have some spare parts around my place, they are basically some components and body parts of destroyed nasods that were out of control.
"I need to see if they are good to integrate in the main system and to see if they are a match to the body work." She said as she took another good look at the arm. "You did a very good job making the arm this clean, did you do the maintenance?" She asked him.
"No, Add was the only one around here that does that. Without him, the arm would malfunction and severely downgrade my fighting style." He said while looking at me, I took it as a sign of appreciation.
As we walked to my place I told Raven to sit down on the second chair on my office, since I need to research a few things I sometimes dissect fallen nasods to see and harvest good parts. This chair can be made as a makeshift bed, I turned the crank and it turned to a table with she pillows of the chair to makeshift a mattress.
Once I turned the crank, I told him to lie down and to stay still.
"Go look on the organized parts on those boxes, I'll start opening its casing." I said while taking a few parts off.
"Roger!" She said again in her cheerfully tone, searching from my orderly fashion boxes.
After some time, the arm was completely bare showing off its tough yet delicate circuits. Echo brought the parts and pieces she needed to revamp the arm.
It took us some hours to finally finish the new arm. Sometimes a part didn't fit well or it wasn't rightly optimized to handle the overheat system. We even had to revamp the entire look of the nasod arm, instead of the clean white color now it was charcoal black with some orange spots signifying that it was active or in this case 'alive'.
"Well, right now this is as far as we can go. We could go a step further if I had the other half of the blueprints." Said Echo smiling with her oiled face.
"You need a good cleaning!" I said while cleaning her with a handkerchief that I had on top of my desk, I made small round motions while not applying that much strength. Once she was good I pet her head, she smiled at me for the attention. I looked at the guy that was softly laughing.
"What are you laughing at?" I asked him confused, was it something I did?
"You act like her big brother." He said while waiting for my comeback.
"He does give off a big brother vibe, maybe that's why I like him this much. I never had a big brother so its nice to see someone look like one to me." She said while putting her lollipop on her mouth and doing swirls with her fingers on the stick end. You just had to say that Echo. Now I can't talk back to him, well whatever.
"Anyway, go test out your new arm at the training field. You're going to be surprise with how its style will modify yours." I said to him, releasing a sigh of defeat because of Echo.
Suddenly, a holographic screen appear with Alex being the one to communicate with me.
"Status report Alex." I said with seriousness coming from my tone, for him to call me out of the blue must be important.
Oh I need to explain how Alex looks as with his team right? I completely forgot about it. Well, I opted of giving them the color of black and green, more green than black. I switched his lens to a bright lime color, his green one didn't look that well with him.
"Master Add, I found two nasods guarding the passage of our old home. We carefully sent them a few attacks without seeing us, but they didn't even took a scratch! And you know how our attacks are!" True, Alex's team do good damage so not suffering anything is quite odd...
"Show me how they look." I said while he switched views on me. From his view two nearly identical tall nasods were indeed guarding an entrance of something, for what I don't know. They only way to distinguish the two of them were from their horns and color patterns, one had a split horn while the other now and their color were opposite of one another. One being navy blue with white around him, the other being with red and somewhat dark grey around him.
Raven then quickly stood up and looked at the two with rage on his eyes.
"It's them... The guardians that guarded that place that I was reborn and kept as a test subject. Ignis and Leviathan." Guardians? Test subject? Time to get some answers.
Velder arc - 2 years after
Add's P.O.V
Why did I agree to this? Why do I have to fight her again? Oh yeah... Because I pissed her off of me 'overworking'. I need to get going and see if any of them need maintenance, their bodies are still new so I need them to be careful or all that hard work was for nothing. Like my time formula...
"Are you ready to be mauled by our captain?" Laugh while you can, we ended in a draw before. But now I think I'll end the match pretty fast thanks to my rules.
We both can only use two skills, but essentially we can only finish the other with our strongest skill. I don't know what she'll use as the second skill so I need to wait and see.
"If I defeat you, you'll rest and then admit that I'm the strongest." The hell I will! That's the line your brother said and what were the results? I won because he doesn't think!
"Bring it on, pretty face!" I said ready for her to make a move.
"I'll finish this with only one skill! Fate Smash!" I don't like the sound of that skill.
"Seal of time!" I shouted as I enveloped myself in a blue aura.
Elesis began to envelop herself with dark energy, she then created a giant dark sword while charging her strength to its peak.
"You better start running! She killed thousands of demons with that! She almost killed a few of us!" Said the coward soldiers while running for cover. I just stood there with my hands in my pockets. "Do you have a death wish!?" Nope, I just think that I won the match.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!" She screamed before doing a quick slash with the sword to me, as soon as it touched me a wave of dark energy was forcibly expelled cutting me in deeply, the after burst of energy created dust around me concealing my body.
"I guess he wasn't that tough after all..." She said half depressed.
"You haven't gotten rid of me yet." I said surprising her, she looked as the dust settled down to me completely harms free.
"How..? That was my strongest move." She said not understanding how I don't even have a scratch on me.
"Remember how I said we can only use two skills, and only our strongest skill can defeat us? Well I used my one skill that lets me survive any damage if it's a life threatening one." I explained as I began walking slowly to her. "And I know after using a strong move like that, your pretty exhausted."
"*Breathe's slowly* You..." She said as I teleported at arms reach to her.
"It's over! Paranoia!" I shouted making my dynamos glow ominously and concentrating my nasod armors power on my fist. Just before I reached her chest, I smashed the glass of four gates of time and space, each one bigger than the last one. She fell to one knee to not submit to the pain.
"Why am I burning? And feel cold and nauseated?" She said while feeling weaker and weaker by the second until she could only lay down.
"Because my Paranoia gives hallucinations. Fire, water and poison are in bedded in your mind and your body feels them as real things. Face it Elesis, you lost." I said as the sky began dropping some raindrops. "I guess today it'll definitely rain. I'll take you to my house for you to be healed by Abigail. Dynamos."
"Unbelievable..." Shut you up didn't I coward soldiers?
As the rain started to drop at a faster pace, I decided to sing a little bit. I'm in a good mood today.
"Look at me... Don't you see... All the pain you've brought to me.
Tears from my own eyes... Words from many cries."
Interested on Add's little song? I got the idea while listening to 'Song of Storms' from the legend of zelda game. If you want to read all the lyrics go search on Youtube for 'Song of Storms Orchestrated'. I kinda copied some lyrics and I'll give full credit to 'The Realm' for making them.
Leave your thoughts and opinions on the story so far, your support is greatly appreciated.