Chapter 14: Foreign but Familiar
With a key press from Wally, his monitor displays a mechanical island, floating in the sky. "Here's a shot of Altera. I'm sure we'll find better nasod codes there, Add." While that's possible, this old man isn't going to be necessary once his airship is built. "Could you do me a small favor?"
The white-haired boy groans as his purple eyes leer down. With hands lying on his own lap, Wally smiles from the gray swivel chair. "Did another nasod malfunction?" Edward asks. If so, this will be the eleventh nasod that tries to kill him. Even though Wally claims that he hasn't tampered with their systems, that's a bald-faced lie. Edward's levitating nasod, Dynamo, can analyze everything involving other nasods, including their changes. If only that airship was built already! Edward could end his relationship with the old man, but he has to be sure it's completed first.
"Oh no, not this time. I noticed an error with the power supply room for Elder. It's not supposed to turn their lampposts on at night, but some are active, and I can't seem to fix it." Wow, he finally noticed. "Think you could do the job?"
They both know the answer, so Edward smirks before walking away. It's possible Wally knows his involvement with giving Elder light, which means this could be a trap. Better turn all the lampposts on after destroying whatever killer nasod is waiting. Lighting more lampposts reduces how many El shards can be used for nasods stationed throughout this castle.
Outside Wally's office, a familiar brute approaches from the other end of this ivory hall, full of other ebony doors on the sides. Banthus clutches a scorched right arm, and the closer he gets, the more his stench twists Edward's nose. "Did you hurt yourself dumpster diving?"
"Don't make me laugh, Add. The El Search Party is tougher than I thought, so watch out." As if they'll ever meet. He doesn't plan on sticking around when they eventually come here, but even if Edward had to fight them, it's not like defeating Banthus is difficult. How much stronger could they be?
"Since you can't fight with a broken arm, you're better off retiring. No point in risking your life over a paycheck." The less followers for Wally means there'll be less resistance for Edward to deal with later.
"After all that I've done across Elrios, I can't quit. There's no other place for me to go to but here." What a muscle head, stubborn to the very end.
A few rooms later, Edward reaches a gray door leading to Elder's power supply and thinks, "Dynamo, any nasods inside?"
A high-pitched monotone voice echoes in his head. "No mechanical life detected." If Wally didn't leave nasods here for an ambush, maybe it's not a trap after all?
"If I'm unconscious, emit a shockwave field until I activate you again," he thinks. Edward opens the door inward by a crack and peers inside. It's dark, more so than usual. The power supply's control device should be faintly lighting the room while turned on, which means Wally lied about not fixing it. Gathering Dynamo's energy to his feet, Edward kicks the door off its hinges. The hall's light pours inside, showing the ground's ebony tiles sinking beneath that door's weight. A pressure plate trap? Some darkness remains in the room at the opposite side, and from there, a flying dart lodges itself into the boy's neck. He pulls it out, but sudden drowsiness wracks his head.
Most of the floor collapses! After falling several feet, he sees the tiles flap up to where they were, creating a black abyss to swallow him as Dynamo flies to his shoes. Both eyelids grow heavier by the second, but he sends an electric shock from Dynamo to the rest of his body in hopes that'll keep him awake. Gritting his teeth, the boy soars down to see if there's a good place to hide while sleeping.
At the bottom lies a gray room big enough to hold the gigantic nasods he developed with Wally. To his left, a towering shutter with Velder's sun-like crest stands. That's just like a roller shutter from the underground laboratory, so did the trap hole bring him that far below the surface? A towering staircase to his right leads to a door, which probably goes to Wally's garden if this really is his underground lab. Edward's eyes droop again, and his body is still tingling from the electric shock. He falls forward, motioning Dynamo to the far wall.
The boy wakes up to the heat of soft skin caressing his left cheek. Kneeling above him is a white-haired woman in a lab coat. "Are you hurt?" If not for the purple light from Edward's scar and eyes, the room would have pitch black darkness. He swats her hand away and scoots back. Gritty dirt is stuck to his body, but the grossest thing is that the whole place reeks of whatever Banthus had. This is a square ebony room, closed off by a door made of vertical bars. Humidity feels chokingly thick. As expected, none of Edward's thoughts call Dynamo, so they're in a prison cell without his nasod. "C-can you talk?"
Sitting upright against a wall, Edward asks, "Are you one of Wally's scientists?"
"Well, yeah before until he threw me in here. My name's Grace." His body stiffens at hearing that name. Is this some twisted joke to be imprisoned again, but this time, he's with a lady sharing his mother's name? "What's yours?"
He scrambles to his feet and pounds the door with both fists, hurting from the impact without Dynamo's energy to cushion skin. These metal bars feel jagged and smell rusty but don't budge no matter how many times Edward hits them. "Someone, get us out of here!"
Seconds of banging and yelling turn to minutes. Edward's fists burn with pain while his throat sounds hoarse, but he continues until a hand grabs him by the shoulder. "No one's around to save us. I did exactly what you did, and nobody came." The boy shrugs her hand off before slumping next to the door. Kneeling by him, Grace asks, "How do your eyes and scar glow like that?"
"None of your business." She must've been feeling his scar for answers to that question before he woke up. It's because Edward's father, Asker Grenore, implanted a nasod chip inside the boy, and he wanted to make a weapon out of his own son to fight against Nasod Ruler. Three hundred years ago, Nasod Ruler was an organization bent on destroying all nasods and anyone involved with making them, including the Grenore family. When Nasod Ruler stormed his family's mansion, he fled as his parents were killed, but a slave owner captured him. The boy escaped and stumbled into Asker's hidden library, where he met Dynamo.
"It may sound hopeless, but I'm wishing for someone to come rescue us. Ever since Wally had me reprogram nasods to kill Add, someone working under him, I kept thinking about Echo. She's my daughter."
Edward blurts, "Echo? You mean the alchemist girl in Elder?"
"Yes!" Grace scoots close enough that he smells her foul breath against his face, so the boy turns away. "Did you two meet at our shop? How was she? Please, tell me everything you know!" These desperate pleas come off as annoying, but he can tell she cares a lot about Echo just like his mother cared for him. Asker's plan would've succeeded when Edward told Dynamo his own name had she not interfered. Grace didn't want to see her son become a weapon, so she reprogrammed Dynamo to change his name to 'Add' when 'Edward' was told and send him three hundred years into the future. "I-I'm sorry if I invaded your private space."
"Echo's a healthy kid, who's doing a good job with the store." While looking around Elder, he met Echo, who provided a rotor for Dynamo's current body. Then, Edward joined Wally in search of energy-efficient nasod codes. The ones inside Dynamo use far more energy than Wally's El shards can supply. To reunite with his mother in the past, he needs to find better codes on Altera. So much for that idea.
A deafening explosion to the far right of this cell allows light to pour in, revealing brown residue by the door. "They're at the end," a masculine voice says.
Grace springs up to shout, "Yes, we're over here! Please help us!" Clacking footsteps hurry to their cell until he sees their saviors, a green-haired lady holding a bow and a blonde woman equipped with machinery behind her waist and around both arms. The boy doesn't recognize any of the devices as nasods, which makes him wonder how their functions work, who made them, and what codes are inside. "Thank you so much for coming to our rescue," Grace says. "We've been trapped for who-knows-how-long without food or water."
"Both of you, stand back." The archer draws a bloodied sword from her hip's scabbard as Grace and Edward step away. In two slashes, the rusty bars sever from the ground and ceiling to clack against the floor or clang on each other. "My name's Rena, and she's Rose. We're happy to find you two, but now we've got a problem. The reason we came to this lab was to find Wally and Ruben's El Stone. We didn't plan to evacuate prisoners, so Rose or I can escort you two back the way we came, or you stay with us until the end. What should we do?"
"Describe the last room you were in." Everyone gawks at Edward as if what he said was strange. "Tch, I know most of the layout. There are two exits, one that goes to the castle's battlement and another that leads to Wally's garden. If I know where we are in relation to those exits, that'll decide what you do."
Rose says, "We turned left at a tall red gate to find you guys, and the passage resembled a sewer." That part of the lab is for nasod chemical waste.
"We're closer to the garden exit, so we'll stay until the end." This is perfect since Dynamo was left by the shutter over there.
When the other lady sheathes her blade, she says, "It's decided then. Stay far behind us, ok? We'll deal with any knights or nasods that get in our way."
He's skeptical of her strength considering that she doesn't even have arrows for her stringless bow. When they emerge from the prison's hall to the sewage part of the lab, he sees crumbled remains of a red gate to his left and crowds of dead knights to the right. Their bloodied corpses show lacerations, burnt skin, bullet holes, skulls frozen in ice, and severed limbs. Grace's blue eyes widen as she gasps at the sight. "Y-you girls did all this before finding us?" Even he's impressed, but with Dynamo's power, doing the same task wouldn't be difficult.
"We had to," Rose says. "They didn't give us a choice."
Grace and Edward wait together while Rena and Rose stride past the red gate debris. "Um, you mentioned knowing the layout, so were you forced to work under Wally?"
"He made you reprogram nasods to kill someone named Add, right? That's me."
She gasps again. "Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry." Grace bows deeply in front of him. "Please forgive me, Add."
"You're fine. He made you do it, so there's no reason for me to hold a grudge." When Grace stands upright, he grins. "I'd be happy to see you reunite with Echo after this. Believe it or not, she gave me these clothes, and they're really comfortable."
Her eyebrows rise as she gives him a once over. "Oh, I remember these used to be in a storage shed. You look good in them."
Averting his eyes from her, Edward's cheeks flush a deep red. "Th-thanks."
"Hey!" Rena shouts. "You guys can start following us now!" He sees the two ladies waiting by a crumbled black gate like this red one, but littering the gray-tiled floor are nasods, crushed to pieces. As Grace and him walk past, he notices that all of them are miniature red, yellow, or white versions of Wally No. 8, a nasod that acts as Wally's personal escort in the garden. If he didn't spend so much time talking with Echo's mother, Edward could've seen how these nasods were disposed of. It's no wonder Banthus lost to the El Search Party if just two of the team's members are this strong.
By the time Grace and Edward reach the black gate, Rena and Rose get to a roller shutter. The two machines over Rose's arms are missing, so where did she put them? This room is large enough for gigantic nasods, but there isn't one in sight. "I worked here before," Grace says. "Just past that shutter is Wally's garden!" Without warning, she dashes across the empty gray space to the other ladies.
"No, wait! Something's not right!" It's only a gut feeling from him, and Edward wishes he shouted that sooner.
Rose yells something as she turns away from the shutter while Rena jumps back. Red-orange energy pulses out from the contraption behind the blonde's waist, speeding her to Grace. That's quite an interesting although rudimentary flight system. Since momentum is put behind the user, appropriate body maneuvering is necessary to avoid flying in unwanted directions, but the energy coming out isn't Fire or Wind El. What's powering that machine?
This all happened not a moment too late as the shutter flies off its hinges from an explosion behind it. The hulking door falls straight for Grace! Rose sweeps the white-haired lady off her feet and away from the dented metal before it crashes, screeching as it scrapes the ground. Next to Dynamo, emitting an electric field around itself, a Nasod Inspector stands in front of the stairway. Edward recalls that its El shard is located on the head's back, so they need to lure it out before getting behind to attack.
Rena jumps as a massive radiant arrow manifests on her bow. "Aero Strafe!" After backflipping, the arrow dives into the nasod's building-sized chest plate. It shatters to reveal an orange core. Despite taking such an impact, the Nasod Inspector arches its back cannon upward and fires two glowing spheres of Fire El into the room they're in. One is yellow and the other is blue. Both split apart into many spheres of their own color, but the blue projectiles fall much faster than the yellow ones. Edward hurries behind the destroyed black gate to avoid the raining spheres while Rena jumps closer to her foe. More arrows, smaller than the last one, fly off her bow to penetrate the core. "Didn't Ain say the nasod's El shard is in the chest!?"
Flying lower and lower to weave around the plummeting blue spheres, Rose yells, "That's not the same nasod we—Air Mecha: Gale Force!" Screams cry out from Grace as the blue spheres explode on the ground, chaining more explosions from the rest and the yellow ones above.
Edward strains his eyes to see where Grace is, but he shuts them from the blinding light. There isn't anything he can do to save her. Without Dynamo, Edward knows he's powerless.
When the sounds of explosions stop, he opens his eyes to see black remains of a body and another mysterious contraption that resembles a nasod. It's got a robust humanoid design with a propulsion-looking component on the back. That bronze machine is lying down next to the burnt corpse, but as Edward approaches, the device breaks apart to show Rose underneath. "You only protected yourself? What about Grace!?"
Biting her lip, the woman stares at the burnt corpse. "I'm so sorry, but there wasn't enough room under Gale to protect both—"
He punches Rose's cheek and yells, "If it weren't for you, she could've reunited with her daughter. Echo will never see her own mom again!"
Her blue eyes widen as tears pour from them. "This was Echo's—"
"Need some help over here!" They see Rena sidestep around the Nasod Inspector's laser, coming from its core and cutting the ground. Her arrows pierce the pillar-like legs, but it pulls on the gashed floor with one claw, dragging its whole body forward. This lunge slams one leg into Rena and launches her into the air.
Rose flies up to catch the woman's limp body. "Rena, tell me you're ok, please!" She lays the archer on the ground and checks her throat's pulse while leaning over, ear above Rena's mouth. "Thank goodness."
"If you want to make yourself useful," Edward says, "Destroy that nasod's El shard behind its head."
A pitch black chain blade manifests in Rose's right hand. Maniacal laughter rises from her throat before she asks, "You think I'll be satisfied with just that?" Two more chain blades appear in her hand as Rose makes a mad dash to the Nasod Inspector. It raises the hammer-like arm, ready to crush the woman. "Bloody Carnival!" Swing after swing of her blades shred the falling hammer to dust until the entire arm is gone! She inches closer, tearing apart the legs, claw arm, torso, cannon, and then, spins to dice the head. Everywhere around that monster is metal dust. Edward is speechless, not believing he witnessed such a feat. Even with Dynamo, there's no way he could reduce a nasod to powder. A chill runs down his spine as she turns with a smile, stretching from ear to ear. "So, did I make myself useful?"
He nods furiously. "I-I'm going to leave now, ok?" Ignoring her gaze, Edward rushes to his nasod companion. "Dynamo, activate."
The six purple chunks of Dynamo levitate in front of him and speak in a high-pitched monotone voice. "Enter user's name."
"Add."
"Confirmed." It stops emitting an electric field and slides three chunks below each of his shoes. With just a thought from Edward, Dynamo carries him straight to the gray door for Wally's garden. He looks back at Rose, kneeling by Rena's side.
It's easy for him to hear what she's saying thanks to Dynamo's reconnaissance component. "When you told Aisha that you'd be ok with dying for our safety, did you really mean that?"
Rena mutters, "Of course not. I was testing her, so I'm sorry if I worried you. Anyway, where'd that boy go?"
Edward opens the door and wishes this'll be the last time he ever sees the El Search Party.
Author Note:
Sorry if this disappoints anyone reading, but I'll be taking a hiatus from this project. There's no ETA for when I'll return to it, but I won't abandon this. Lately, my university homework has been piling up and robbing a lot of my free time, so I'm struggling just to get this chapter's video done, which will come later than usual compared to my other chapters' videos. Not only that, but I feel a little discouraged to continue for now because of the nonexistent feedback I've gotten in terms of reviews/Youtube comments. I'm not doing this fanfiction for popularity, but I would appreciate some feedback for constructive criticism or what people think about what I'm writing. I understand that my hiatus will slow the chapter publish rate, so it'll feel even longer before new content gets added. However, I'm glad that I got all the story arcs from Ruben and Elder finished. That's right; chapter 15 will be the start of Bethma's story arc, so look forward to that when I'm back.