The Voice in Your Heart
Page 87: Bring Me That Horizon
Axl stood on the deck of the airship as he gazed into the sky. Epsilon was floating beside him instead of being in his head. Half of his mind was focused on the scenery; the other half of his mind was looking back at the last few weeks.
He had rejected the offer to return to the Maverick Hunters and accepted the offer to join Marino's guild of scientists. It had kickstarted… a lot of things.
First off, he had to move. After he was presumed dead for so long, Axl was surprised he still had possessions at all. He was touched to find out that all this time, X and Zero had used their funds to keep Axl's room untouched; if they hadn't paid the "rent", it would have been allocated to another hunter. Alia, Douglas, Layer, and Pallette didn't spare funds, but instead took turns to clean it once a week to keep it from collecting dust.
When Axl discovered the lengths his friends went through to preserve his memory, he couldn't stop himself from crying. They had a farewell gathering a few days before Axl's departure.
To add to their workload, Axl and Cinnamon couldn't take a teleporter straight to the Guild. They have a lot of stuff, and the Maverick Hunters teleporters are meant for missions; matters of life and death in a lot of cases. Hence, it has to be strictly for mission-related purposes, which is why they had to take the airship.
While Cinnamon was with Marino inside the airship itself, Axl was still looking back at what he is leaving forever. It was sad, yes, but more happy than sad. It was even better than when he resigned out of the blue with Epsilon the first time. This time, he has somewhere to go.
But even then, this couldn't have happened if Epsilon hadn't come back in time to prevent Axl from shooting himself back then.
"Hey, Epsilon." Axl said to the floating purple ball of light beside him.
"Yeah?"
"I… I have to thank you."
"For what?"
"For… preventing me from blowing my brains out."
Epsilon guffawed. "Aw, it's fine."
"I was a little shit back then."
"You were hardcore stressed. And it was my fault."
"Hah! That's correct. But now… I think you've made up for it. I think. I feel that a big burden has been lifted off of me. A big burden that had been weighing down on me for years."
"That's good."
Axl continued to stare in the distance, and suddenly he remembered how X called him a hero for saving Cinnamon and Gaudile. Not only had he revived them, he also helped both of them find another chance in life after they had lost everything. Gaudile is now working with the Hunters, while Cinnamon gets to live a free-er life with Marino.
But even so, he couldn't be a hero if it weren't for Epsilon saving him first.
"Hey, Epsilon," Axl said, "I think… I think you're a hero this time."
The purple ball of light twitched and floated slightly closer to Axl, "Pardon?" the reply came, somewhat surprised.
"You know, now that I think about it… you were always saving me, or at least thinking of saving me. Ever since Jakob."
Epsilon giggled sheepishly, "Heh… yeah."
"Think of yourself for a change. You got killed like twice already. That's like, Zero's record. One more death and you'll break that record, and my heart along with it."
"Oh. Um… now that you mention it—"
And then, the ship stopped.
"We're here," Axl said as he turned to get his things, "get back inside."
"Okaaaaay," Epsilon responded as he flew back into Axl's head.
With the DNA of Incentas that Axl still has, he transformed into the six-armed reploid and carried his things with all those hands. Cinnamon, Marino, Epsilon, and the rest of the guild watched. The first three in morbid amusement, the rest with awe. It didn't last long, however, as the other workers in the guild helped carry the things.
Axl and Cinnamon's things were then scanned to check for weapons. Fortunately for Axl, he keeps his weapons in his person, so his suitcases could go in smoothly. It helped that Marino advised him about it before the departure.
After their things were scanned, the newcomers themselves have to be scanned for malicious programs or malfunctions. Cinnamon had gotten a thorough scan prior to the move-in, so she only had to get a quick scan, which went smoothly as expected. However, Axl has not.
Even though he had entered the scientists' guild before, he didn't go deeper than the reception area. But now that he's going to be a part of them, he's going to have to go through a thorough scan like Cinnamon did.
But he's fine. He's going to be okay. He's more stable than he's been in years. Epsilon, who knew what was going to happen, left Axl's head and floated away while he was scanned.
"What's that purple thing over there?" a scientist asked.
"Eh… the data used for my Stealth Mode and everything. It'll take a long time to scan, so I kind of… took it out. Better to scan separately. I just want to go to bed and sleep, haha." Axl replied.
"Understandable." another scientist replied amusedly before starting the scan.
"Uh-huh, okay, DNA data, okay, okay…" the scientist in charge of Axl's scan read out what was displayed in the screen, "All clear. You're good to go."
Axl relievedly stepped through the room-wide scanner. Epsilon, who had no choice but to go through the scanner, nervously floated towards it—
Beep… beep… beep…
The scanning program started beeping and the doors started to lock. Suddenly, there was a siren sound as the program showed the message: "Maverick detected: Lumine" and "Maverick detected: Epsilon."
And as if it wasn't alarming enough, another message showed: "The program has encountered an anomaly. Shutting down…"
As the scanning program started to shut down, the siren stopped. But since the program was not terminated normally, the doors were still locked and the inner lobby was in lockdown mode. The scientists scrambled to unlock the doors, and from the inner area doors came out Massimo and a few guards.
"What…? What happened here?" the confused Massimo asked when he saw nobody other than familiar faces.
"Apparently… Epsilon and Lumine are… here." said one of the scientists, as they slowly glanced at the fidgeting floating ball of purple light.
