Chapter 156: The Rath Facility
Yesterday, the Borealis had pulled up alongside Betty's Revolutionary ship.
"You met your mother out here in the middle of the ocean?" Boomer had asked in disbelief. "What are the chances?"
"I have no idea," Artorias replied. "I'm more interested in the fact that Pierce is carrying a gun. I'm very interested in the story behind that,"
"It's not a gun. It's a blaster. And I need it for my new teammates," Pierce explained, patting the bandolier of slugs wrapped around his chest. "What happened to your voice? You sound louder,"
"Audio therapy," Artorias brushed it off. "Did anything interesting happen to you, Hare? Where'd you get those swords and that jacket?"
"I might be an honorary member of a paramilitary force dedicated to killing giant monsters now, but I'm not entirely certain. It's been a weird week," the witch brushed off. "I'm sorry about the Fowl Iris, Kenzie," she offered the pirate after a moment.
"It's fine. I got my closure," the pirate assured them. "I also got a brand spanking new ship!"
"It's at least a hundred years old," Cal pointed out with a wry smile.
"That's not relevant,"
"So, where's Sarph?" Artorias frowned, looking for the only member of their group unaccounted for.
"I don't know. I've been Mimicking his Archive magic to try to find him, it's how we worked out where everyone else was," the blacksmith pointed out. "But I haven't been able to contact him,"
"That's worrisome,"
"I'm sure he's fine. He's strong, after all. We'll probably have to talk him down when he shows up at Rath and we've already taken care of business," Grace pointed out with a smile.
"Probably. But it's weird that I can't contact him. Hare wasn't even in the Grand Line and I had enough range to reach her. There's no way he ended up on the other side of the planet or something, right?" Cal frowned, looking at Kenzie, their resident expert on the Grand Line.
"The things I've seen in this ocean? A shortcut to Reverse Mountain from Sabaody wouldn't surprise me at all," Kenzie admitted. "He'll turn up,"
"Yeah. Yurei's still missing too," Cal frowned.
"Why exactly is that a bad thing?" Kit grumbled.
"He's supposed to be my Yokai partner. Worrying about him is sorta my job,"
Meanwhile, Hare sidled over to Artorias. "Hey, redhead. Who's the handsome one?"
"Hmm? Oh, Kirito? He's married," Artorias assured her, looking at the Black Swordsman standing apart from the Phoenixes, who seemed somewhat uncomfortable, not being part of the group dynamic.
"Pity," she mumbled.
~St0rm C0m1ng~
On the following day, a door hissed open inside the heart of the Rath Facility - the very same one that Phoenix's Eye was targeting - and the man within entered the main laboratory room of the facility. He was tall, with clean-shaven blue hair, sculpted, refined features, and piercing blue eyes partly hidden behind sunglasses. "Doctor Kogami?" the man called, looking around the laboratory.
A tall, dark-skinned man emerged from around a corner, bowing to the newcomer. "Agent Kikuoka. I've been expecting you, sir,"
The now-identified Kikuoka nodded magnanimously, entering the immaculate laboratory. "A pleasure as always, Doctor Kogami. Tell me, how is young Ryoken?"
Kogami smiled, thinking of his now-teenage son. "Not so young anymore, of course. He's quite helpful. I'm sure he is around here somewhere," he mused, looking around.
The room they were in was a large control centre, filled with lacrima-vision screens and Archive magic control interfaces. Most of these showed various data outputs, or various views of an island, and were all routed through a massive, overgrown Transponder Snail the size of a magicmobile, with eyes that flickered with static and a porcelain blue shell reinforced with metal augmentations that was wired into the computers.
"No matter. After all, he's not what I'm here to see," Kikuoka brushed aside the pleasantries. "Tell me, how goes Project Alicization?"
"Quite well, if I do say so myself," the tall man smiled. "As I'm sure you have heard, we now have working models. There's just a couple of kinks to work out,"
"Excellent. The World Nobles will be pleased to hear that," the agent smiled. "Of course, I cannot bring mere assurances to them. Show me,"
"But of course," Dr. Kogami nodded, turning to the bank of Archive magic lacrimas that formed a massive control hub along one wall of the room. He typed a sequence of keys into the magical computer, and the main screen lit up. For a second, a picturesque image of a small, idyllic village on an island appeared on the screen, but it only took a second for a warning message to cover it.
"Is there a problem, Dr. Kogami?" Kikuoka questioned.
"Um," The Doctor paused, reading through the message from the communications centre. "Yes, but not with Project Alicization. There are two unknown ships approaching Rath. One of them is flying the colours of the Revolutionary Army, and the other has a pirate flag. According to the database cross-reference, they are the Black Eye Pirates, a minor group with known ties to Red-Haired Shanks,"
"What?" Kikuoka snapped. "How could the damn Revolutionaries possibly know what we're doing here?!"
He groaned. "I'm going to secure the main lab. Keep an eye on the situation,"
~St0rm C0m1ng~
And now the two ships were approaching the Rath facility. They could already see it in the distance; a massive dome-like structure, easily the size of an island, with four struts pointing in each cardinal direction and a control centre mounted on the side . .
"Guys, it's shaped like a giant turtle," Grace pointed out to the wizards observing the floating structure.
"What? No, it's just . . um," Pierce looked at it again, and realised she was right. "Huh. So it is,"
"There aren't actually turtles that big, right?" Siria asked her father.
"I'm the wrong person to ask. I don't think so, but then I didn't think there were aliens and we all know how that turned out," Boomer shrugged.
"Y'now, TFEI technically aren't aliens," Everyone jumped and span, seeing that Blue had appeared behind them and was covering her eyes with a cerulean hand. "How can you all stand to look at that place?" she asked with a grimace.
"Can you please stop sneaking up on us like that?!" Tyria, who had all but jumped out of her skin, snapped.
"But it's fun," Blue whined. "Seriously, though. Do none of you see the aurora around that place?"
Everyone looked back at the facility. "What aurora?" Pierce frowned. He couldn't see anything out of the ordinary.
"It must be something only TFEI can see," Blue realised. "There's a sort of shell of time around it. I can barely stand to look at it,"
"Where's Sarph when you need him, huh. He's the expert on the Sempiternal Phoenix," Tyria frowned. "That's probably what's causing it. They might have built that entire place around the Sempiternal Phoenix,"
"It looks too big, though," Boomer frowned. "Diamauros wasn't even half the size of this place,"
"We'll find out when we're on the inside. First, we need to find Lync. He's been camping around here and scouting the place out for the last few days," Pierce took charge.
"On it!" Grace nodded and vanished into a spatial distortion.
"I . . already told him you're here," Blue tried, but Grace was already gone. "He'll be here in a few minutes. I suggest you all get ready to go in. This ship is awesome but there's no way they haven't seen it," she pointed out, gesturing at the Borealis.
"Yeah, we're going to need to invest in dinghies if we want to be sneaky going forward," Kenzie agreed.
A couple of minutes, Aluze landed on the Borealis' deck, silver wings flared and six purple eyes glowing, and Grace reappeared. "I found him!" she proudly reported. No one corrected her.
"Lync! Good to see you!" Pierce called as the pink-haired punk emerged from the mechanical bird.
"Same! I like your new ship!" Lync replied, looking over the rest of the group. "It's only been five days, why do you all look so different?"
"We'll catch you up later. The people in Rath will know we're here by now. Do you have an infiltration plan?"
"I do indeed. The communications centre is in the head of the turtle. They have interference stopping Aluze from scanning the main section where the Sempiternal Phoenix probably is, but it only partly covers the extremities, and the head is completely outside the barrier. The turtle's two left legs are labs and research areas, the front right leg is a dock and landing pad, and the rear right leg is accomodations," Lync explained. "We could dock the Borealis at the actual dock . . or we could pull up alongside the control centre, blast a hole in the wall and find the source of the TFEI jammer, which is almost definitely going to be there,"
"Sounds like that'll be faster," Pierce nodded.
"I have a partial read on the layout of the area, but I don't know where the shield generator is, or where in the facility Blue's missing TFEI friend is. She'll probably be somewhere in the radiation-shielded area, though," Lync explained. "We won't have much choice but to split up and start searching. Whoever finds the shield generator, destroy it,"
"Exactly," Blue nodded. "The communications centre's outside the barrier, so I'll be able to come with you that far, but whatever they've done is draining the Data Particles out of the air. The closer I get, the weaker my magic is, so I'll need you all to protect me if we run into any trouble. When the barrier's gone, I'll be able to scan the entire facility and find Yui's location. After that, we'll work out what they're doing here, and depending on how much it pisses us off we'll either destroy it or just leave,"
Pierce cast her an odd look. "Did you say Yui?"
"Yeah. That's the name of the missing TFEI. Did I not mention?" Blue checked.
"Wait, who's talking about my daughter?" Team Pierce and co. turned to see that Kirito had come above decks and was regarding them curiously.
Artorias' eyes lit up in dawning realisation. "Wait. So your daughter, who you're here to rescue, is the selfsame missing TFEI who we're here to rescue?"
Before Kirito could confirm this, though, Blue squealed, "Oh my Cardinal you're Kazuto Kirigaya! Kirito! The Black Swordsman! I - I am a huge fan!"
"You know this guy?" Hare interjected.
"He's the star of one of the all-time most popular anime franchises in the multiverse!" Blue retorted.
The non-TFEI exchanged confused looks.
"You're another TFEI, aren't you?" Kirito questioned. "Do you know my daughter?"
"Yeah, Yui's adorable. Everyone loves her," Blue nodded. "I'm Fairy Blue. Blue for short,"
"Okay, there's a story here," Pierce looked at the older man. "Your daughter is a TFEI? How did that happen?"
"Well, she's adopted," Kirito replied. "Cardinal assigned Blue to monitor all of you and your guild, right? He assigned Yui to a massive dungeon in Alfheim called Aincrad to monitor everyone who went in there,"
"We visited Aincrad last year," Pierce confirmed.
The solo swordsman nodded with a warrior's smile. "It's a fun place, huh? I spent a lot of time there a few years ago, when I was young and adventurous. That was when we found Yui, actually. Me and my girlfriend were taking a holiday on the Twenty-Second Floor, when we found a little girl lost in the woods. There was no sign of her parents, and - well, it's Aincrad. The only place in the world that's more dangerous is, um, where we are now," Kirito expansively gestured to the ocean of the New World around them. "Turns out, she was a TFEI who'd been injured in a fight against a Red TFEI from the Sky Canopy Dominion. Do you know what . ." Everyone was nodding before he even spoke, and Kirito smiled. "Good, saves me an explanation. Asuna and I - my wife, now - took her back to our house and discovered that she'd lost her memories, so we took care of her for a few months. She started calling us her momma and poppa. It was cute," Kirito looked a strange mix of wistful and abashed. No one judged him. "And eventually her absence was noticed, so another TFEI came to find out what had happened,"
"And Cardinal just let her stay with you?" Blue frowned. "Doesn't sound like him,"
"Not immediately. Yui's memories finally came back when the other TFEI was here. He was all set to erase me and Asuna's memories, but Yui intervened. She pointed out that she was still technically assigned to Aincrad, and it wouldn't really hamper her doing her job if she were to use our house as a forwards base. It took a bit, but she managed to talk Cardinal into letting her stay with us," Kirito sweatdropped. "Gotta say, it was a bit of a shock to find out that our daughter was hundreds of years older than us,"
"I'd imagine. I was surprised to become a father too," Boomer nodded in paternal solidarity.
"This . . almost makes my childhood look normal," Siria nodded with a nervous chuckle.
"That was pretty much that. She stayed with us and we were a family . . until the World Government kidnapped her. And I'm gonna make them pay," Kirito growled.
"You'll have to get in line," Blue assured him. "Alright, we've got our plan. Blast our way into the communications hub, destroy the barrier, find out what's going on here, rescue Yui, possibly destroy the place,"
"It's not actually going to be that simple, is it?" Pierce checked.
"In my experience it never is but we can hope," Blue shrugged.
"So where do you kids want me and my people?" Everyone spun in surprise to see Belo Betty approaching with a crooked smile.
By mutual consensus it fell to Artorias to address this development. "Mum? You're going to help?"
"Of course I'll help! My little boy's all grown up, breaking into a government facility with his friends like violent criminals to rescue someone unjustly imprisoned and ruin the World Government's plans. I couldn't be more proud if you walked into Marie-Jois and punched a World Noble in the face!" Betty beamed. "Oh, and I brought gifts. You kids need a way to stay in touch while separated," She snapper her fingers, and one of her subordinates came forward, bearing a wooden chest, which swung open to reveal a small pile of wristbands, each of which had a curled shell attached. "These are baby Transponder Snails born to the same mother. They're telepathically linked to one another and capable of mimicking human language, like parrots. They'll let you talk to each other from anywhere within a few kilometres. Seems like the sort of thing you kids desperately need,"
With grateful smiles, the Phoenixes accepted the wristbands. Grace inquisitively poked hers, and a tiny grey snail head appeared, it's eyes on stalks staring at her. "Hi! Nice to meet you," the greenette smiled at it.
Snails popped out of every other wristband, and a chorus of Grace's voice told each one of her teammates, "Hi! Nice to meet you!"
Cal gazed at the tiny snail and beamed. "This is awesome!"
"Now, where do you want us?" Betty demanded, and Artorias cast a questioning glance at Pierce. He was the team leader, after all.
Pierce frowned thoughtfully for a second. "This is a government facility, they might have Marines stationed here or close enough to call for help. They probably already have. Lync, get back in Aluze and watch the sky. Take a Transponder Snail and keep in touch with Betty. Betty, patrol the perimeter. If you see any unknown ships approaching, be ready to intercept and give us warning. Don't engage in any fights you can't win, though. I don't want to lose anyone on this mission,"
"Roger," the Revolutionary nodded her approval, turning and striding back to her ship.
"I'm guessing you want us pirates to stay on the Borealis and be ready to leave at a moment's notice?" Kenzie checked.
"Took the words right out of my mouth. Make sure Pasha's ready to portal out. I think that's everything, people. Can anyone think of anything I've missed?" Pierce asked, to a round of negative responses. "Alright, good. Captain Black, take us in next to that turtle's head. We'll blow a hole in the wall and find this shield generator!"
~St0rm C0m1ng~
The Borealis drew level with the communications centre of Rath. If they were still sailing on the Fowl Iris, this never would have worked, the Black Eye Pirates' old galleon sat far too low in the water. But the massive, high-riding Borealis, with the metal containers stacked high on its deck, was another storey.
There was a screech of metal as the top of the 'staircase' that they had built of rusted containers ground against the outer wall of the facility. "Grace, now!" Pierce commanded.
"Reality Dragon's Roar!" A torrent of grey energy washed over the walls, causing them to buckle inwards and rupture, leaving a sizeable opening.
"Tyria!"
"TechType: Tectonics!" Massive metal fists found the edges of the opening and ripped them wider, creating a huge hole leading into a strange room that was full of square machines.
Pierce and Blue were first through the hole, the rest of Team Pierce (plus Artorias, plus Blue, plus Kirito, minus Sarph) following them within seconds. Unfortunately, the room was deserted, so there was no one to pay attention to their dramatic entrance.
"Blue, do you have any idea what these are?" Pierce asked, inspecting the closest machine.
"It, um, looks like it might be a really primitive version of Cardinal's quantum server farm. I think it's running on Archive Magic. It's a shame Sarph isn't here, he could probably tell you everything about it and what its inventor ate for breakfast this morning," Blue shrugged. "As is, it's just more proof that they're tampering with TFEI technology. This is more advanced than anything the World Government should be able to build,"
"Guys, I hear footsteps above us," Grace interrupted. "I think there's a control centre on the next floor up,"
"I found some stairs!" Artorias reported a moment later, and the wizards converged on his location, rushing up an industrial, corrugated metal stairwell and finding a door.
The Blood Wizard burst into the room beyond and found himself in what was quite obviously a control room. Massive screens, some strange blue variant of Archive magic displayed on lacrima-vision, dominated the room, and in the centre was a massive snail with a blue shell and eyes that flickered with static. Two men were seated in the room, surrounded by banks of magical computers. A slight man with glasses and a shock of blond hair flinched backwards, unable to hide his surprise, while an older, stately-looking man with dark blue hair, a goatee and a calm expression regarded them. "And to what do we owe this intrusion?" the senior man asked.
Before any of the Phoenixes could react, Kirito shoved his way to the front of the group and levelled the tip of a katana at the bluenette's throat. "Where's my daughter?" he demanded.
"Dr. Kogami Kiyoshi, a pleasure to meet you too," the man sarcastically replied.
"Well, I'm Kirito, the Black Swordsman, and if that name means anything to you you'll know it's in your best interest to tell me where Yui is right now!" Kirito yelled.
Dr. Kogami's brow furrowed, and his eyes raked over the rest of the intruders. After a long moment, he replied, ". . Who?"
"Kirito, we don't need him to tell us. We just need to know where the shield generator is, then I can find her easily," Blue reminded him.
"I - I can tell you where the shield generator is!" the other man in the room stammered.
Kirito looked across at him, and was a second away from making a move, but Pierce interceded. "Let me handle this," he instructed Kirito, advancing on his fellow blond.
"I - my - my name's Takeru, Higa Takeru. M-my mother lives in Alabasta, she's going senile and she depends on the money I send her and she'd be devastated if I died -"
Pierce raised an incredulous eyebrow. "We're not going to kill you, alright? We're the good guys. We're here on a rescue mission. So where's the shield generator?"
Takeru took a breath. "It's two floors up. You can't miss it, it has a massive blue tube in the middle and it's surrounded by yellow and black warning stripes,"
"Stop talking," Dr. Kogami commanded, but the younger man ignored him. "If you want I could show you how to turn it off safely?"
"I appreciate the thought, but if it's turned off it could be turned back on and that's not a chance I'm willing to take. Grace, you got all that?"
"Yep!" Grace confirmed, sinking through the floor into a spatial distortion - much to the shock of the people in the room who weren't part of Phoenix's Eye. "What the - she just - who are you people?" the blond computer man spluttered.
"We're members of -" Pierce started, but Artorias cut him off. "The Revolutionary Army," the redhead interrupted.
Pierce raised an eyebrow, and sidled over to his guildmate. "What gives? Rule number one, never let anyone forget your name?"
"That's all good and well, but if you're dead set on leaving these two alive, do you really want them to tell their superiors who we are? The World Government has destroyed entire islands just for researching forbidden texts, do you want their wrath to befall our guild? They're already at war with the Revolutionary Army, it's not like we can make things worse there. Better to pretend," Artorias whispered back.
Pierce grimaced, but conceded the point. "I suppose you're right,"
"Um . ." Both young men looked at Takeru. "If you don't mind me asking, why do you even want to destroy the shield generator anyway? It only affects Temporally Adjunct Entities,"
"Temporally Ad . . what?" Pierce blinked.
"I think that's what they call TFEI," Blue pointed out, and Pierce nodded in realisation. "I mean, 'Temporally Adjunct'? I kind of like that,"
Takeru focused on the fairy. "Wait . . what the heck are you?" he asked, suddenly looking more confused than scared.
"Oh, I'm one of those Temporally Adjunct Entities you're talking about," Blue shot him a cheeky smile.
"What?" The geek blinked in disbelief. "But, but that's not possible, right Dr. Kogami?"
Looking back at the older man, his calm veneer cracked and he stared at his colleague with sorrow and, perhaps, guilt. "Takeru, there are details about Project Alicization that you don't have high enough security clearance to know," Dr. Kogami warned.
The conversation was interrupted by Grace popping back into the room with a self-satisfied smile. "I found it and hit it with a Roar. It should explode any second now," she assured the group, drawing breath to continue, but interrupted by a muffled boom.
Blue beamed at her. "Great, thanks!" Already her hands were tracing Cyversal magic in the air, but she took a second to smirk triumphantly at Kogami and Takeru. "Hah. You thought you could keep us out. Didn't count on the Revolutionary Army, did ya?"
The doctor grimaced, but Takeru just looked confused. "What are you talking about? That barrier isn't to keep anything out! It's to keep them in!"
"What do you mean?" Pierce pressed. "What is Project Alicization?"
"Uh, guys?" Blue blinked, sudden concern in her voice. "This can't be right, but . . according to my scan, there's more than one other TFEI in this facility,"
"What? Then, how many are there? Two? Did they take a Red as well?" Pierce asked.
"Uh, no . . There's hundreds,"
A/N
A/N
Plot twist! If anyone called this, have a cookie. Peace!