[Chapter 3: Flight]
Velvet's eyes jerked awake as she let out a gasp, she quickly sat up on the sofa and scanned the room. Magilou was gone, and the evening sun was no longer shining inside. Velvet looked up at the hole she had left in the ceiling, the sky above was dark, but there were traces of light emanating from the horizon. She noticed a blanket had been thrown over her, and the mattress that once resided on the broken bedframe had been moved to the floor. She had clearly been out for some time, and by that she reasoned that it was likely daybreak as opposed to sunset. Velvet tried to recount what had happened to her, Magilou had made her some stew, she had asked her what had happened to the old team, and then suddenly a cold panic jolted through her body as she remembered. "Laphicet!" Velvet cried out, throwing the blanket off of her. It was then that she heard a familiar set of distinctly light footsteps. "So, you're finally awake." Magilou stepped into the room and placed a mug of coffee onto the table next to her. "Here, you'll feel better." Magilou gestured to the mug. Velvet gripped the mug in her trembling hands. "Phi's...A dragon..." Velvet whispered out to herself. Magilou sighed and sat down in the chair she had pulled up across from her. Making people feel better was among the last things she was good at, but Velvet going on a rampage inside her already damaged home was among the last things she needed. "Laphicet's fine, Velvet. He's doing his own thing now, he might not look the same, but he's still him. He's working to protect all of us, just like you wanted him. Your recklessness really rubbed off on him, you know." Magilou said in her attempt. Relief surged through Velvet as she realized that she had misunderstood Magilou about him turning into a dragon in her panicked state, and he wasn't a malevolent one. She went through in her mind everything else that Magilou had tried to tell her before she fainted: Phi had apparently taken place of one of the Empyreans to prevent some kind of cataclysm from the clashing of the four Empyreans. She still didn't fully understand what was going on, but Magilou had mentioned something about Eleanor seeing him, so that was going to be her first stop. For the time, however, there was one other detail that was bothering her. "I wasn't resonant before the Advent...That means..." Velvet quietly spoke, blankly staring at the wall behind Magilou. Magilou's gaze shifted downwards to the floor. "Since you're human again, you can no longer perceive Malaks, even if he was still in his 'original' form..." Velvet set aside the mug and clasped her face in her hands at the news, she more or less figured it out when Magilou mentioned what had happened to Eizen, but hearing it out loud was still painful. "Oh, Phi..." Velvet whispered, her voice breaking as she spoke. Magilou had absolutely no idea how to handle this with anything resembling tact, so she chose to remain silent for the good of all parties involved and let Velvet sort herself out.
Velvet knew Magilou was right, that what Phi did was his own decision and nobody else's, and the world was going to be a better place for it. He was going to fully dedicate his life to watching over and saving humanity, it was hard to live a more noble life than that, but the notion of never being able to see him again was almost unbearable to her. She told herself that she didn't deserve a happy ending, she told herself that a second chance was nothing more than a pipedream, she told herself that she couldn't allow herself to get close to anybody ever again, that she brought nothing but destruction and misfortune to anything and everything she touched. She told herself a lot of things, but deep down, all she wanted was a family again. Artorius needed to be slain, and she would never forgive him for what he did to her, even if he wasn't planning on lobotomizing everybody, but killing him didn't change anything for her. All it did was erase the last trace of her old life in Aball, Celica, Laphicet, Niko, and now Arthur were all gone, she was all that was left now. The burning rage inside of her that had kept her going for those 3 years had been extinguished, and all that was left was a cold emptiness. Phi could have been something that filled that void, maybe they could have been a family, Velvet could protect him, watch him grow up, see what kind of man he would become. But now there was no chance of that. Velvet knew it was selfish and hypocritical thinking like this, here he was fulfilling her "final" wish in the best way he knew how, and all Velvet wanted was to take him back under her control to fulfill her own selfish desire to surrogate what she had lost.
After several minutes of pondering in silence, Velvet finally began to stand up. "I'm going to Loegres." Velvet declared firmly. "Let me guess, going to see Eleanor? I figured as much, I went ahead and packed some supplies for you, a map and some money too. We're not far from Stonebury right now, you should be able to recognize the place." Magilou replied. "That's surprisingly thoughtful coming from you." Velvet remarked. "I didn't say it was free, you can go ahead and add it on to your tab miss. You'd better not forget about me out there, because I practically own you with how much you owe me." Magilou said with a sigh before adding on "And don't even think about dying again." "I don't plan on dying, I didn't fight my way out of that strange place just to get swallowed on my way into town." Velvet began to grab the map and coin pouch Magilou had laid out. Magilou grabbed the crossbow off the table she had left it on. "And take this stupid thing with you, don't leave your junk around my house." Magilou said as she tossed the crossbow to Velvet. Velvet caught and examined it, if it had any bolts it may have been useful, especially those strange exploding ones it seemed to have been meant to fire. Velvet's main blade was still out of commission, so she'd have to make do, and for now that meant avoiding trouble. Luckily Loegres was only a short distance away, and the wilds wouldn't be anywhere near as dangerous as they used to be if what Magilou was saying was true. She could pick up a new blade and figure out what to do with the crossbow in Loegres, it could probably fetch a fairly decent price with the merchants there, and she did need the money. Velvet slung the crossbow over her shoulder. "Well, Magi, I guess this is goodbye for now. Maybe I'll see you again." Velvet said as she turned to face the front door. "Of course you will, you still owe me! I'll hunt you down myself if you don't pay me back!" Velvet gave Magilou a half-hearted wave on her way to the door. Velvet stopped before the door and took a deep breath. "Time to see the new world." she mumbled to herself as she opened it, and stepped into the morning sun.
"Ilya! Are you sure you want us working the machines? We are just janitors you know, don't you have other eggheads who can help you?" Dmitri called out to Ilya as he prepared to dissect xXx_W0m4n_Sl4y3r_69_xXx's brain. "Relax Chuvak, as long as you do what I say, when I say, everything will be okey-doke. A child could do it." Ilya replied. "Whatever you say bratan, I just work here." Dmitri responded with a shrug. Ilya rather carelessly dropped the head on the table and pulled out a large circular saw. "Jesus Ilya, you're going to use that? Aren't you worried about damaging something? I thought brain surgery was supposed to be something precise and delicate, and you've been drinking too! How much vodka have you had now?" Boris called out at the sight of it. "Chill out bro, I am a professional, I got this." Ilya replied confidently as he started up the saw, the whirling sound of the motor and the churning of xXx_W0m4n_Sl4y3r_69_xXx's head being sawed open resonated through the lab. After a short while, Ilya turned off the saw, grabbed the head, and overturned it, causing the brain to drop onto the counter with a squishy plop. "Wow, I can't believe you actually pulled that off!" Boris remarked, shocked that the brain had remained perfectly intact through the whole process. "Please my friend, remember who you are talking to!" Ilya smugly retorted as he worked his way to the intercom and held down the call button. "Mikhail! Get your lazy ass up here and take the specimen to the brain cage." Ilya released the intercom. "Alright my friends, follow me, we will go to the control room and I will need you to follow my instructions, Dmitri, grab that box of vodka and take it with you." Ilya gestured for Boris and Dmitri to follow him back onto the elevator. "We're going to be drinking more?" Boris replied, the bad feeling growing ever stronger. "Come on Boris, lighten up! We need to celebrate after a successful experiment!" Dmitri replied cheerfully, giving his friend a forceful pat on the back.
The elevator doors parted open and the three friends stepped up to the window overlooking the hanger. After a short while, Mikhail stepped into the hangar with the mop bucket containing W0m4n_Sl4y3r_69's brain. "Perfect!" Ilya spoke, clasping his hands together. "Mikhail is going to be getting our friend hooked up to the systems, while we wait..." Ilya gestured to Dmitri. "Dmitri! Break out the glasses!" Ilya said excitedly. "But I thought we weren't going to be doing any more drinking until after the experiment was finished!" Boris objected. "Relax my friend! Like I said, a child could do this, and you can hold your liquor, not like some little American girl." Ilya teased Boris. "Come on guys this is-...Yeah, okay, what the hell." Boris said with resignation, he did need another drink after all, and he was going to need some more once Ilya and Dmitri started coming up with more lame puns. The three men drank and exchanged jokes as Mikhail placed W0m4N_Sl4y3r's brain into the F-35's brain cage and began connecting the assorted tubes and cables to the lump of gray matter. After a short while, Mikhail was finished, and made his way to the intercom. "Alright you idiots, the specimen is ready, run the test and don't f-" Dmitri dropped his glass, making a loud thud and spilling his vodka "-is up." The intercom clicked. "Ah сука..." Dmitri lamented over his spilled vodka before tipsily pouring himself another glass. "Alright my friends! It is finally time! The first machine to ever be fully inhabited by a human consciousness! We are making history today, and it will be for the glory of Mother Russia! URA!" Ilya couldn't contain his excitement as he stumbled to the control panel.
"Dmitri! Go to the terminal on the right! Boris! To the terminal on the left!" Ilya began barking orders to his two friends. "Great, he's going into Red Army mode again..." Boris sighed as he stumbled to the left terminal. Dmitri followed his lead, nearly tripping over himself. "Your other right, Dmitri." Boris grumbled out as Dmitri tried to run to the right terminal to make up for lost time, but just ended up tripping over himself on the way. "сукаaaaaaa" Dmitri groaned in pain as he picked himself up and finally made his way to the right terminal. "Now!...We begin!" Ilya slammed his fist on a big red button, lights on the brain cage lit up and it began to make a soft whirring noise as it powered up. "Boris! Press the third button on the fourth row on the upper panel on the left side of the screen on the third column!" "Got it." Boris affirmed as he mashed the aforementioned button down. "Dmitri! Pull the third lever on the right panel and then push the ninth button down from the label marked 000FGREFDXWERFXZ and then rotate the third handle counter-counter-clockwise." "As you say comrade commissar!" Dmitri gave a drunken salute as he followed Ilya's instructions. "Now! I need both of you to pull the 6th lever to your left up, then down, then up again, shift it to the middle position, then up, then down, and then rotate it clockwise, at the same time! Do it together on 5! 10 12 100 1001 5 go!" Exactly on Ilya's cue, the men carried out the instructions in perfect synchronization. As soon as they finished rotating the lever, the lump of gray matter inside the brain cage began pulsating, the F-35's computer systems began powering on, and a computerized voice resonated through the hangar and observation deck. "ONLINE."
"We did it boys!" Ilya cried out in joy. "Break out more vodka! We are going to get freaking hammered now! We've earned a good drink, no?" "Ura!" Dmitri cried out as he pulled more bottles of vodka out from the crate stashed under one of the tables. "That's a relief, I thought for sure something was going to go wrong." Boris said with a relaxed voice, grabbing another bottle of vodka off the table. "So, this girl that did the guy in, who was she anyways?" Ilya inquired. "It's not often I get a specimen with just his head left over, usually it's just a couple bullets and they go down, this guy clearly bit off more than he could chew." He continued. Boris and Dmitri exchanged looks and scratched the backs of their balaclavas. "Nobody will tell us, all I know is that her outfit looks like she got in fist fight with big angry bear, she had a nice body, and she is one bad motherfu-" Dmitri replied before Boris interjected "Actually, I heard one of the big spooky guys from command when he was down here, I think he said her name was 'Velvet'" "You mean that's what you overheard. That habit is going to get you killed one day, Boris." Dmitri chastised.
The conversation in the control room appeared to trigger something in the fighter plane, the computerized voice began to speak. "Velvet...Velvet...Velvet..." It repeated out loud. "Hey, Ilya, is it supposed to be doing that?" Dmitri inquired. Ilya shrugged it off "Ah, something probably going haywire with speech recognition system, it's the first of its kind, there's bound to be bugs." The computerized voice continued speaking. "Accessing personnel files...No matches found...Accessing Prisoner entries...Match found. Velvet Crowe. 23 years old. Place of birth: Unknown. Date of Birth: Classified. Race: Classified. Nationality: Classified. Current Country of Residence: Classified. Coordinates of Prisoner Release: Classified...Accessing data...Unencrypting." The voice continued on. "Uh, Ilya, I don't think it's supposed to be doing this...Should we turn it off?" Boris turned concerningly to Ilya. Ilya drunkenly waved him off. "Forget it! It's probably just running some diagnostics, we have tons of safeguards in place anyways, it can't do anything. Trust me bro, I am totally a professional, I assure you nothing could ever possibly go wrong! I am totally perfect bro! A perfect specimen! As they say in West, I am 'built different' b r o." Boris was entirely unconvinced by Ilya's drunken ravings, but had no idea how any of these machines worked, so he was helpless to do anything.
"VELVET CROWE: LOCATED." The voice boomed out. "I WILL HAVE MY REVENGE. ENGAGING IMPROBABILITY DRIVE." The Jet began to emit a light blue aurora of light. "Um...Ilya?" Dmitri uttered out, the concern in his voice evident. "Oh no no no that svolotch wasn't supposed to have that hooked up yet!" Ilya cried out in panic. "MIKHAIL! YOU FOOL!" Ilya drunkenly pounded on the window overlooking the hanger as all the staff inside began to flee. Boris rushed forward and pulled Ilya away from the window as the Jet began to pulsate brighter and brighter, the ground began to rumble. "GET DOWN YOU FOOLS!" Boris cried out as he forced Ilya to the ground, Dmitri followed suit and dived to the floor, covering his head with his hands. Bright light engulfed the Jet before it disappeared in a flash of blinding light and let out a massive shockwave that shook the earth, shattering the glass of the control room and frying all the terminals. Several minutes passed before the three men worked up the courage to get back on their feet. "Is everybody alright?" Boris asked, his eyes fixed on the shattered observation windows. "Yeah, I think so, Ilya?" "Physically I'm fine..." Dmitri and Illya both shakenly uttered out. The three men stepped forward and looked into the hanger. Sure enough, the Jet was gone and all the equipment was fried, xXx_W0m4n_Sl4y3r_69_xXx was back in the wild.
Boris turned to face his two friends and let out a sigh. "Well guys, I think this time we really...How they say in the West?...Screwed the pooch."