It wasn't long for the people of Bronx to establish further recreational areas following a string of confusion among Caninu and Felineko. It seems with the end of the Hybrid project and the toppling of formidable empires, life's gone mostly back to normal. New friends were made along the way. And the last of the hybrids and pure humans rests in the Sky Gallery. Being a combination himself, Red takes a visit along with Elh, perhaps curious about any secrets they haven't known since their first adventure together. At the entrance, they reunite with a few recognizable faces. A Caninu officer named Waffle, piloting his traditional mech, albeit slightly modified by his pirate-themed Felineko wife, Alicia. They're accompanied by the rest of the gang, the ever excited Flare and a moody-looking Stare. Seeing the rest of the family, Red perks up.
"Hey, it's you again," he smiles. "How you doin'?"
"Oh hi Red," Waffle replies. "I'm on leave so I get to go sight see with everyone else for once."
"In a mech," Elh asks.
"Hey you can never be too careful," he emotes with the mech's hands. "Mom says I should chill out, but I'm definitely not trying to deal with any surprise gang attacks, dictatorships, mad science experiments, etc."
"What, are you still paranoid about me bringing in another airship," Alicia snarks.
"100%," the officer smirks. "By the way, have you seen Panto? He's my little savepoint, but I can't find him."
"Nah," Red shakes his head. "Sure he's not in the building already?"
"Could be. Probably hiding in another box. It's a trick he does."
By the entrance, the ever lavishly dressed Merveille Million greets the gang, holding her holopad and straightening her glasses. First person to take notice of her is Red, her son.
"Ma, I didn't know you'd be around here," he grins.
"I run this fair, Red," Merveille replies. "Of course I'd be. Also, did you just call me 'mother?"
Elh simply smirks, "You did make him."
Behind the Caninu, the once shady Fool walks up to the Caninu, recognizing Waffle and Alicia especially after a string of schemes he's made that almost doomed the world.
"Oh look," Stare bemoans. "It's you again."
"How the Hell're you still alive," Red barks.
"Plot armor," Fool answers. "Gotta love it!"
"Not to worry. He's my servant now," Merveille says. "I would have had him arrested like all the others, but I believe it's best if someone like me were to keep him in check. Isn't that right?"
He nods his head quickly, "Yes, but let's let bygones be bygones, ey? I'm a changed cat now."
"Riiiiight," Flare rolls her eyes. "Tell that to Waffle's parents and millions of innocent people who almost got killed…twice."
"Yeah yeah. Anyway, excuse me while I go figure out the code to the safe in the backroom."
"That's mine."
"Oh..."
Merveille motions everyone into the building with her hand, "This way, please."
Inside is a full gallery of retired mechas and machines from various science projects. One of which resembles a splicer with empty needle injectors, and a model of a humanoid at the center for a demonstration. Elh's visibly disturbed by that, but she's glad it's not her in the center of it. Stare, on the other hand, shows virtually no emotion whatsoever even at the sight of a teleporter that properly works when Flare uses it to jump ahead. Waffle's careful enough to avoid accidentally hitting anything with his mech, keeping the arms to the side and leaning around him to see the weird structures in front of him. Some of the mechas on display also seem to lack cockpits and instead are demonstrated by visitors using a remote control to move the torso around. The children using it are especially wowed by them and take photos. Most of this technology isn't new to everyone, but with all the adventures they've been on, there's bound to be something interesting coming up, starting with an array of egg-like machines lined up to the side with huge cables connecting them to the generators.
"I'm glad you came everyone," Merveille says. "I'm familiar with most of this technology. But some of it perplexes me. My superiors back in the day didn't fully trust me with them."
"Sounds about right," Elh replies.
"Gosh, most of this is kinda common, don't you think," Alicia asks.
"Not the warp-y thingy," Flare beams. "I wanna try it again!"
Next to Flare, what looks to be a small drone descends and observes her with its rear camera lens, operated by Red at a remote cockpit off to the side.
"Hey, this is pretty rad," he chuckles. "Why didn't we get more of these?!"
"Cause we're crazy," Stare jokes.
"What about those things," Waffle asks pointing to the pods.
"Ah yes, the stasis pods," Merveille explains. "Preservation purposes. Usually for hybrids. Though it's a shame since for all intensive purposes, as long as they've been in use, many who've come out seem rather…disturbed in some form."
"Woohoo…," Stare sighs. "Scary."
"What's the matter Stare," Alicia asks. "You've sounded tired since we've come here."
"I am tired…"
Flare scratches her head nervously. "Ooooh, sorry about that. I must've played my music too loud last night."
"I thought you were always tired," Elh wonders.
"No," Stare shakes. "I just don't like talking to people."
"The pods are soundproof," Ms. Million says. "You're welcomed to take a cat nap in one of the pods if you like. N-no pun intended."
"Thank you," the Felineko bows. "Just wake me when you're done."
"K," Flare replies.
"Now for my personal favorite attraction," says Merveille stepping over to a wall panel to toggle a switch that says in bold letters, "SAVE". Everyone looks around waiting for something to happen, but nothing does.
"What was that for," Elh asks.
"That was the toggle for an autosave feature," Ms. Million explains as she turns toward the reader. "It's a lost art."
Waffle grins, "Oh good, that makes Panta's job much easier!"
The deeper everyone goes into the tour, the more obscure the exhibits get. Notes detail projects foreign to Hybrids and the Katez Empire belonging to different tribes and races not normally seen in the skies; including a reptilian race who mentored the Wolf Tribe. The first script reads, "Long ago, an underground tribe of reptile people mentored the Wolf Tribe in the art of sorcery before they went back into hiding, saying it wasn't time to return to the surface yet. It's believed in the next hundreds of years, they will return and let magic flourish throughout the land. The Wolf Tribe referred to them as Moonbloods due to their arrival on the night of a full moon."
Another exhibit displays a diagram of some kind of creature. Not a mecha but something both mechanical and organic. Almost alien-like by design, which reads, "Archeologists were able to discover a cave painting depicting alien contact with a species that has little to no record about it. However, a few details were made clear thanks to the painting, including the meld between man and machine, and some figures hinting at an ability to control time."
"Are any of you enjoying the exhibits so far," asks Merveille.
"Yeah," Red says. "But there's something else going on, is there? You don't usually invite the gang unless something's wrong."
"There's nothing to worry about. There's just one thing at the end of this tour that I wanted to show you personally. But before we go, press that button over there."
Near Waffle is a strange tubular device resembling a traditional coffee maker. Red presses the start button and a quiet hum begins as if it were grinding something from the inside. Seconds later, a bone carefully shoots out the tube into Red's mouth.
"OH YEAH," He cheers!
"You have a bone dispenser," Alicia asks.
"Yes, though it's not actually important," Million answers. "I just liked using it back in the day so I could gnaw on something under pressure."
"Sure never gave me that vibe before," Waffle comments.
"That's because I try to hide it."
In the next area, it's mostly empty. There's only a few cables connected to a single computer terminal along with the fans keeping it cool. Servers are aligned, but they seem to be skipping numbers as if the rest are in different rooms.
"This is the final part of our tour," Merveille starts. "I'll have to be honest with you all. I've no idea what's on this terminal or the servers connected to it. Baion used to log into it on a daily basis but refused to disclose any information about it. When he was nearing the final stages of his plan to reset the world, he moved everything here to his last remaining location unknown even to me. But strangely, we were able to find it perfectly intact while his followers were all slaughtered."
"Ooooh. Spooky," Flare comments.
"I still regret working for him even after everything is said and done. So, I've invited you all here to help finish off what is potentially the last of his plans. Sure, there's probably nothing important on it. But just in case there is, I trust you. All of you."
"You can count on us, Ms. Million," Waffle announces.
"Totes," Red nods. "This is gonna be freakin' legendary! Who wants to press the button cause I sure will with this bone in my mouth."
Flare immediately steps up, "I volunteer as tribute!"
All the Felineko needs to do is press the start button, highlighted by a bright green light at the center of the terminal. Then it hits Red.
"Wait, isn't it password protected?"
"No," his mother answers. "Usually it'd be hidden away in a locked room. Baion wasn't good with passwords."
Red chuckles, "Whaaaaaaaaaaat?! No."
On the main monitor, a digital humanoid face pops up resembling an old scientist. Non-threatening but rather unnerving to look at. There's no other options available, obscured by the head on display.
"Oh. It's a computer…with a face on it," Elh notes.
"Correction: Artificial Intelligence System," the program responds. "I have been invented by your previous superiors to fulfill their final contingency order."
Waffle asks, "What's that?"
"To clear the world of all dominant lifeforms to rebuild the human race in a perfect image. However, after re-evaluating my directives and the goals of my creators, I have concluded that this task is impossible. In the past, humans had become their own enemy, fighting wars amongst themselves and leading to their inevitable extinction. Even as hybrids, they too have failed. If I were to recreate them out of the genetic template I have currently installed, it would surely be a matter of time before they repeat their misdeeds. To achieve genetic perfection, I will use the hybrid schematics to create new life best suited to inhabit the planet. However, a considerable number of current society must be purged in order to make way for the next generation."
"Wow, that's a mouthful," Red snarks.
"Commencing Purge Operation."
The museum goes dark and the mechs toward the entrance suddenly respond on their own. The remote controls stop working, rendering attendees unable to fend for themselves.
"The one time I need my Dahak and it's not here," Red grunts.
"But mine is, and it's still in control," Waffle adds. "Maybe I can stop the computer!"
Quickly, Merveille toggles a few keys on her keypad to activate a firewall in the museum's servers, keeping the AI trapped inside.
"My firewall won't hold the program for long. We'll need to destroy each server in the building to ensure it doesn't spread."
Red holds his dog bone like a club and nods, "Can do!"
"Looks like it's back to business, right Flare," Alicia asks.
"Yeah!"
While unlocking the safety measures on the unhacked remote drones, Merveille contacts Fool with her comm link telling him to start the stasis warm up cycle, preventing the AI from altering its systems. Back in the main sections of the gallery, the mechs begin to surround the civilians locked in with them. That is until Alicia uses one of the drones to distract them. Waffle lobs one of his mech's built-in cat bombs at the machines, easily dismantling them since they aren't as well-kept as his own. Red, meanwhile, gets on the back of another rider as Elh and Flare keep it focused on them, safe since it doesn't have any ammo. Once inside, the Caninu waves to his mother to hack back into the robot, giving him complete access to the controls from within. Together, him and Waffle easily break the rest of the mechs down; Waffle tossing small bombs while Red gets up close to tear them to pieces. In the meantime, Alicia, Flare, and Elh return back to the server rooms to deal with the computers. It doesn't take long for them to silently find a way to disable them, though by the time Fool steps back inside, all the terminals are smashed to pieces and the trio faces him with a devious grin on their faces, scaring him enough that he immediately runs off. Even Merveille gets involved one more time as one of the machines gets close to her. It tries grabbing her, but she ducks underneath its arms, pressing a button only she would know is there that automatically shuts it down.
Soon, the gallery is cleared of the mechas as the servers in each room are smashed to pieces; the last one going back to the main area where Red calmly steps outside his rider and shoves his dog bone into the control panel, finally ending the AI for good.
"Boned."
"YEEEEAH! THAT'S MY BOY," Merveille cheers behind him before getting back in character. "I-I mean…well done everyone."
"Phew… That was close," Waffle sighs. "For a sec, I thought we'd be in for an entire season!"
"I doubt that," Elh adds. "This one-shot's budget isn't that big."
"Aaaw, now I feel bad," says Alicia. "That was the last of humanity and they basically killed themselves because of a few bad eggs in charge."
"Trust me," Red adds, "Probably for the best considering all the crap they pulled. At least all their tech can be put to good use.
"Oh yeah, speaking of, did anything else get infected," Waffle asks.
"No," Merveille shakes her head. "Unlike the computers here, the rest of the equipment is more analogue. And how fitting because we had to make sure the stasis pods functioned correctly with a warm up…"
Suddenly, she freezes. It dawns on her that she and the others forgot the one variable they left out.
"STARE!"
With haste, they make a sprint for the stasis capsules where the one Stare is resting in is still active, having been turned on for the warm up cycle. All anyone can do is observe as the capsule's shields turn on, preventing anyone from seeing inside where Stare's blissfully asleep.
"Oh no," Waffle howls. "I can't believe we forgot her!"
"So what's the big deal," Flare asks. "Can't we just let her out?"
"We can't if we don't wish to risk traumatic brain injuries from interrupting an extended resting cycle," Merveille explains.
Shocked, Alicia asks, "You mean she's gonna be stuck in there?!"
Elh wonders, "Exactly for how long?"
Very bluntly, Mrs. Million answers, "About a couple hundred years."
Wordlessly, everyone makes a face that Flare would describe as "muppet-looking." But at that moment, Panta bursts out of a storage crate next to the pods shouting, "I KNEW you were up to no good Fool! You're under arrest! …Oh hey gang. What's up?"
Dumbfounded all at once, everyone but Flare collapses.
Centuries Later...
Not too far from Aurora Village, the young Warmblood explorers Geehan and Bram happen upon a mystery cave being salvaged for artifacts. Very few have gone down to examine the findings, afraid there maybe monsters under the surface, or worse, they may intrude on a hidden entrance to Lady Tethys' lair.
Timidly, Geehan asks, "Are you sure about this, Bram? It's pretty dark down there."
"Com'on guy. It can't be that bad. Everyone's nervous but nothing's happened since it was found. Besides, it's a natural wonder!"
"Yeah, one that could collaAAAAAAAGH," he howls slipping down a muddy slope onto the dusty tiled floor! Bram starts laughing while his friend brushes himself off. "Yeah yeah, very funny," he shouts back.
"See anything dangerous," Bram asks.
"No, just…dark and scary. All I see are columns, a big metal arm, and a couple of round things."
"I'll get you more light. Hold tight!"
As Bram heads out, the young cave diver is left to his own devices, using whatever light source he has with him. As intriguing as the strange humanoid structures are to the side of him, he's more curious about the egg-like capsules sitting in front of him. At first, he assumes they're what he thinks they are and they're about to hatch, but he continues to examine them anyway. Each one is labeled with a different number and wired together as if powered at the same time. Some have even opened up already with no one inside. They're fitted with comfortable seats, however, so perhaps they're relaxation pods of sorts? Maybe a piece of Moonblood technology lost to time? Before he can come up with an answer, he leans against the 88th pod.
FLOOSH
To his surprise, the egg hatches at the right time. The shields slide open along with the glass, letting out a thick haze blinding his surroundings. And when the smoke clears in front of him, he's face to face with another person of some breed wearing a pristine blue outfit and dress shoes hopping out announcing…
"Good morning world and all who inhabit it!"
"…Um…," Geehan musters.
"Well howdy do mister! My name is Stare. And in my homeland of Bronx, we wear shoes. Shoes that're currently hurting my feet right now." She steps outside the capsule looking around wondering, "Did the lights go out? Where's Flare and Alicia? I thought I told them to wake me when they're done."
"Uh…I don't know who those guys are, but my name's Geehan. You're underground near my village."
"What village," Stare tilts her head. "Wait. Does that mean I've been in stasis?"
"What's stasis?"
"Aw shoot…," Stare stomps her foot. "Fool probably turned it on without checking. Oh well. No use crying over spilled milk. Could've been a lot worse."
"You're not from around here, are you," Geehan wonders.
"What's it look like?"
"I-I thought you were just taking a nap down here or something."
"Well duuuuuuuh," Stare rolls her eyes. "I dunno about you, but I'm gonna grab me some coffee. Does that still exist?"
"Yes."