Chapter Two
(Second Miltia)
"You are such an ass doing this to us, you know that don't you?" Virgil said to his current (and hated) partner in crime.
Albedo had dragged him with him to Second Miltia, which he had deemed 'The Rockin' Place that Rocked in the Places that are Known to have Rocked'. Any hope he had once had of the white-haired URTV having any shred of sanity had long diminished. Once arriving there, he had spent ALL their remaining money on a bass and an electric guitar. Albedo had been telling him about how they'd soon rise to fame and perform in stadiums. While he didn't know what HIS definition of a stadium was, Virgil was pretty sure an alleyway beside a shopping center didn't constitute as a stadium.
"Greetings, pitiful beings held down by the mortal coil!" the URTV shouted out to the people entering and exiting the market, totally ignoring Virgil's comment. All he had really received so far were odd glances towards him; he decided that, if they continued, he'd have some more people to add to his 'Ass-kickin' List'. He began to strum on the electric guitar slightly, though even that showed how inexperienced he was with the instrument. "I'm Albedo the Great, and that ugly, fugly, stupid fellow in blue is my good friend and lap dog, Virgil!" By now, Virgil had to force himself from picking up his bass and cracking it over Albedo's head. "And together," he continued, "we are Badass Mothers 4000!" He began to strum a few notes on his guitar (again, quite poorly) while attempting to mimic their sounds with his mouth. "Tonight, we'd like to perform a remixed classic with new words that's always been one of my favorite rock songs, "C is for Cookie", by the Cookie Monster. Virgil, start us off!"
Virgil just looked stoically at the URTV. "HELL no. There is no way I'm playing a rock song version of 'C is for Cookie'. That's just stupid, even more so than most of the crap you've pulled."
The megolomaniacal man snorted back to his partner. "Oh please. Like you would have done any better."
"As a matter of fact, I probably..no, CERTAINLY could have done better. First off, I wouldn't have spent all our money in fifteen minutes, so we wouldn't have to sleep in the cockpit of your mech. I don't know about you, but it's somewhat hard for me to sleep with you sitting in my lap and the smell of sweat in a cramped area."
"You should just enjoy the fact that you get to be so close to a god-like creature such as I. Now, start playing!"
Knowing that an argument would be pointless, he began to play what he (hoped) was the beat to "C is for Cookie". Albedo soon followed him, though the notes he played were the completely different than what Virgil was playing. Soon, Albedo began to sing, as loud as possible, his version of "C is for Cookie":
"H is for Hate Crime! That's good enough for me! Because Hatred is cool and makes the world go round!" Albedo soon stopped singing and playing the guitar completely, eventually reverting to just screaming. "Behold, for your end draws nigh! Life is a wheel upon which no man can stand for long! Harvest the grain and make for yourselves a profit! A profit of blood! BLOOD DAMMIT! I vill drink your blood, as I am a vampire!" Albedo was soon quieted as a brick hit him directly in the face, (surprisingly knocking the URTV unconscious). A round of cheers was heard from the spectators.
'I should just leave him here.' Virgil thought to himself. 'But he's the only one who knows how to drive that damn mech..' After only a moment more of deliberation, Virgil sighed. "C'mon, let's go Ozzy." And he lifted Albedo over his shoulder as he headed back towards the Simeon.
(The Durandal-Corridor)
KOS-MOS hadn't expected the being known as Junior to run into her, and it took her logic drive system a few minutes to process what had just happened. She knew these things for a fact: the boy was running from something due to fright and anxiety. However, whatever he was running from was not a being that was a threat; KOS-MOS sensed no unknown life forms upon the ship. That ment one thing: he had been running from someone they already knew, perhaps due to an argument.
It hadn't taken long for several others she knew to come running around the edge of the corridor. She could easily name them all, but the one she knew she had the most connection to was Shion, who had created her. The others were Ziggy, Captain Matthews, Tony, Hammer, Allen, and Mary. "Little Master, are you all'ight?" Mary asked in concern, reaching the boy first. She thought of the Little Master as more of a brother than anything else, as did her sister Shelly.
"At the speed he was running, he was knocked unconscious do to the velocity created by the propulsion of his body." KOS-MOS stated simply. In her mind, this fact should have been quite obvious; how anyone could possibly think differently would make it impossible for her logic drive to see what they seemed to see.
KOS-MOS quickly reverted her attention from the group that was forming around the boy towards the edge of the corridor once more. From around it came the young Realian of their team, MOMO. Her clothes, however, looked odd on her. They were wrinkled, implying that she had put them on in haste. She was also running at a light jog. As she got closer the group, she seemingly leaped slightly in the air. Obviously, she had tripped.
The firm hand of Ziggy, snatching her by the shoulder quickly stopped her decent to the ground. She looked up at the cyborg. "Thank you." She said gently. The cyborg merely nodded and let her go. She quickly went beside the (unconscious) red-haired URTV. She leaned forward over him and gently put his hand on her cheek, shaking his head slightly. He didn't move at all. "Will Junior be alright?" she asked, almost pleadingly, directing the question to the android beside her.
"Affirmative." KOS-MOS replied, not exactly having believed the statement to be a question as much as it was to have been stating the truth. "After some rest, he should be fine. There is only a .0003982 chance of him having gotten a concussion." The android picked the URTV up. "I shall take him to the infirmary before heading back to the Elsa to recharge."
"Can I come with you?" the little Realian asked. While she was a little embarrassed about what had just happened a minute before, she was also worried about Junior. She had never ment for him to get hurt.
"I do not require company at this time."
"KOS-MOS!" Shion shouted, angry and, in truth, a little shocked and dismayed. It had seemed that, once before, KOS-MOS had sympathized with MOMO. Yet, here they were again, right back to how she originally acted.
"Actually," Ziggy began, "If you don't mind, MOMO, I'd like to talk to you for a minute."
MOMO just looked at Ziggy for a moment before nodding her head. She didn't say anything however; while she knew Ziggy was nice, for him to ask to talk to her was actually something that was sort of new. He was usually pretty quiet, even though she knew he was her protector.
As the two left for MOMO's room and KOS-MOS carried Junior to the infirmary, the floor immediately opened up to speculation. "What could've happened?" Matthews said, a little disgruntled, in all truth, that everything had gone so fast. "I mean, he ran outta there like a bat out of hell!"
"Maybe he lost his nerve." Allen said casually. While he knew that probably wasn't the case, it was really the only thing he could come up with.
"Maybe..but I doubt it." Shion reflected. "If he had lost his nerve, why did he lose it right in the middle of saying something?"
"Well, 'aybe the Little Master just caught her at a bad time, or at least that's what I reckon." Mary added.
"Probably." Hammer said, and quickly added, "Do you think we could prolong this conversation a little longer?"
"Nice try." Matthews said, once again grabbing his two crew members by the scruff of their necks. He smiled coldly. "When we get back to the Elsa..oh, are you two EVER in for a heap of work."
(The Elsa-AGWS Hanger)
chaos had finished the work on his AGWS, as well as the others, long ago. There was, however, still something he had to wait for.
That something came pretty quickly. "Are you sure what you've done is wise?" the voice of a young girl asked.
He merely shut his eyes. He could easily visualize the girl without having to look at her. "I don't see anything wrong with helping the two of them. If anything, I find it rather sweet, and I'll have no part in trying to stop pure love."
"How do you know it's pure? You know his past; you know he was self- serving to the extreme." She replied. Her voice, though younger than chaos', actually sounded as if she were lecturing him. "Granted, he HAS changed..a little. You're wise, chaos, one of the wisest of our order next to your brother..but even you aren't omnipotent. Surely you think there is some ulterior motive. Perhaps he's merely using the girl as a psychological crutch."
"I thought there might have been..at first." He sighed as he leaned against the wall of the room. "However, when I looked into his eyes when he was talking to me earlier.he means it. He utterly and truly ment it." He opened his eyes and turned to Nephilim. "And I think it will do him quite a bit of good."
"But it could hamper what NEEDS to be done." Nephilim retorted, scolding him. "You KNOW the possibilities, or at least some extent of the possibilities, and you know your brother is manipulating it so that the future that occurs will be the one that benefits him the most. And, in several of those cases, some of the members of this group WILL die. Why make their deaths more painful by having some come together in a fashion of love, one of them dying and the other surviving? You give them false hope."
chaos shook his head. "That's not true. Like you said, my brother will TRY to manipulate the future to work for him. That doesn't necessarily he'll succeed." He smiled slightly. "And I think that, of any of us, those two have the best chance of surviving. Both have gone through so much, more than many of the others here. And, if they are to survive, they'll need each other." Chaos smile widened somewhat, becoming immensely gentle and friendly. "And it is pure, and it will last. I know it will."
Nephilim smiled slightly, though sadly. "How can you believe in the idea of love, when the thing you've fallen in love with is incapable of expressing that emotion back?"
Chaos' smile didn't wither, though he did shrug helplessly. "Maybe it's foolish..but I think that, somewhere in her, there is something there. I..could feel it since I met her the first time. I love her, yes, and maybe she won't be able to reflect it back. But.I think she will, and I think that to some extent she already has."
"And if she does not?"
He smiled weakly. "Then is that any reason to stop loving her? If you have love for someone, give it. And if they don't want to accept it in face to face, then keep your love but don't make it totally apparent."
(The Durandal [again]-MOMO's Room)
The little Realian sat on her bed. To tell the truth, she was a little..no, really nervous. While she knew Ziggy was her friend and bodyguard and he only ment the best for her, she almost felt as if she was about to go through an Inquisition.
The cyborg sat down next to her. "MOMO," he asked, trying to make it so his voice could at least register SOME emotion and irritated when he found he could do it only to a minor extent, "first, could you tell me what happened?"
MOMO blushed slightly and looked at the floor at her legs. "Well.." She began, her voice obviously showing that she was a little nervous, as well as shy, on the subject, "I.I had just gotten finished taking a shower, and I was getting dressed, when..well..that's when Junior opened the door. I.I guess I frightened him, because he ran away."
For a few moments, Ziggy made no reply. The young Realian thought that he was mad at her. After all, she had ended up scaring one of her friends, and that ended up with him getting hurt. In truth, however, the cyborg was trying to hold back laughter. This feeling, in fact, was a complete and utter surprise to him; he thought he had gotten rid of it long ago during his surgeries to make him more inhuman. But, never the less, here it was, defying everything about his current programming. After a moment, MOMO asked "I'm sorry.."
Ziggy looked at her quizzically, though his voice wouldn't register that feeling. "What do you have to be sorry about?"
She had stopped blushing, and, in its place, she now looked ashamed. "I was the reason Junior ran out of my room. He got hurt because of me."
The Ziggurat-Series cyborg shook his head slightly. "No, it wasn't. What happened, MOMO, was merely an odd chance of circumstances that couldn't have been prevented. Junior entered at what was an inadequate time, and he ran off when he realized that and got himself hurt by accident."
"Yeah.." Her voice was getting sadder by the moment, "but..I just wish that, maybe, I should have said something to stop him. Then he wouldn't get hurt." She began to hold back sniffles, "I never wanted this to happen..now he'll never like me."
She lifted her head up suddenly, noticing she had just told someone her secret, and she wasn't sure that Ziggy would be the one to totally look on it favorably. She was baffled, to say the least, when her bodyguard replied "I think he likes you just fine."
She looked up at him, her expression a mix of shock and sadness. "R.really?" a pause, and then, "He won't like me anymore..not after this. He'll feel too uncomfortable about it."
As if he hadn't had enough surprises for the day about his emotions, the cyborg found himself putting his arm on MOMO's shoulder to comfort her. "MOMO, this is going to be hard for me to state," he said, his voice as normal as usual and refusing to show the emotions that had begun to resurface, "but I'm going to try. When I was brought back due to the Life Recycling Act, I was devastated and filled with despair and remorse. I kept remembering things I didn't want to remember..that no person should be forced to remember or come back to.and wanted to end it. I couldn't kill myself again..I second death, at that point, wouldn't really be worth it if it was at my own hands. Instead, I was hell-bent on denying my emotions, undergoing several forms of surgery to make myself more and more like a machine, less and less human." He sighed and decided what it was he had to tell her, "This, I guess, is the point. Trying to deny your emotions, MOMO, can lead you down an even worse path..a path that you will eventually regret as you take it. I was lucky that I've become an exception to the rule. MOMO..how do you feel about Junior?"
"I like him.a lot." She told him softly, beginning to gently blush again, "But I can't tell him, because he'll say no."
"I think you may have missed what I said MOMO. If you really want to know.then tell him your feelings. The worst he can do in that scenario is say no, and yet you two will still be able to be friends. However, if you hide your feelings, if you refuse to come to terms with them..they'll destroy you until you let them out. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
MOMO just sat quietly for a minute or two, before looking back up at the cyborg, a smile having come to her face, and her voice full of her usual perkiness. "Yes!" she said, finally understanding what she had to do. She hopped off the bed and ran towards the door; she intended to be by Junior as soon as possible, hopefully right when he woke up. As she reached the door, however, she turned back around, ran to Ziggy, and hugged him across the waist. "Thank you daddy!" she said happily before she ran back to the door.
Ziggy, meanwhile, remained seated on the bed. While his external appearances didn't show it, he was, for the first time in quite awhile, shocked. Finally, he was able to say to himself in the secluded room, "MOMO..what did you just call me?"
(Vector Industries-Wilhelm's Office)
After the whole affair with Albedo and Virgil, he was glad to finally have some good news. His license had just come in.
"Sir, it will be much easier to move the desk." one of the employees who he had sent in to help him rearrange his office stated, "if you weren't laying on it."
Wilhelm laid his head back farther to get a better look at the man. "Tell me, what's your name?"
"My name, sir?" the man exclaimed, bewildered. "I'm Henry Quinstin, sir."
"Well, Quinstin, do you like being employed?"
"Errr..yes sir."
"Then may I suggest you shut your mouth before you lose that privilege?"
The employee just sighed and got back to moving the desk.
Wilhelm turned his head towards his most trusted employee. He had known him for quite awhile, though he was careful not to use his name in public. "You've been awfully quiet." He stated. "That's quite usually of you."
"I was thinking, sir, that maybe this isn't such a good idea." The red- cloaked man said.
He sighed. He had gone over this with him several times before. "I have a license to hunt man, and I plan to use it."
"Well..could you at least give the event a friendlier name, instead of just naming it 'The Thing where I hunt your ass down'?"
"I believe that the bluntness of the title will keep people from mistaking it for something safe."
"Wilhelm, how could anyone mistake anything where you hunt them down for sport as being safe."
"Simply." He replied with a slight smile, "People are idiots. Watch." He hoped off his desk and opened the door to his office. He pointed to one of the people in the room beyond and shouted "Hey! You! Come to my private mansion Saturday so I can hunt!"
The employee shrugged and said "Okay."
Wilhelm closed the door and grinned at the red-cloaked man. "See? By the way, have that man fired for failing to address me as sir."
The red-cloak man would have sighed in exasperation, but he had learned to hold it in to some extent. "Either way, sir, don't you think that you should at least make it seem far by making at least two of your quarry Vector employees so that the media, who will get wind of this, won't attack you too severely?"
"Your right. Let's use Allen and Shion."
"Sir? Are you sure that's wise? After all, they are two of our most valued employees."
"You told me to pick someone. They were the ones that first came to mind. Who do I kill? Allen and Shion. It's like a word association game."
Finally, he said, defeated "Yes sir.."
(The Durandal-Infirmary)
The first thing he saw was a gentle sliver of pink, and then his eyes closed again. 'Pink.pink?' he thought to himself. His eyes opened and closed several more times before they fully opened and he got to see the full picture.
The Realian smiled down at him gently. "Are you feeling any better?"
He just nodded slightly. "Yeah..though my head still hurts quite a bit." He smirked goofily, "I guess that'll teach me to enter your room without knocking."
MOMO giggled slightly. Then, at the same time, they both said, "Listen, I.."
Again, they both went silent. MOMO nodded for him to go ahead, and he complied. "Well, I." he began, struggling for the correct words and blushing slightly, "MOMO, I.it's hard to say. Ever since I met you, I've been.well..happy. And I don't mean the normal happiness I usually have, I mean.HAPPY, like.like.some sort of inner peace." He clenched his fist under the sheet of the infirmary bed, getting angry at himself for floundering so much. "I mean, whenever I'm near you, there's this.gentle tugging in my chest. It's not a bad feeling either; in fact, it's probably the greatest I've ever experienced. It.it makes me feel so light and free.." He turned his head away slightly, the blushing beginning to get worse, "What I'm trying to say is..MOMO, I.I like you. A lot. And..I.I don't want to be apart from you..I want to be with you as long as I can."
He closed his eyes, bracing himself for rejection. His eyes immediately snapped open, however, when he felt her hands gentle placed on top of his. He looked at her, and was shocked by the expression found there. She was smiling, and yet, it seemed so different than usual. Almost as if something had happened to increase her usual happiness. "I.I like you a lot too." She said gently, "And I want to be with you as long as I can. I want to love you as much as I can."
Junior gently took her hands in his, clasping them, and his thumbs running down her hands in a soft caress. He never imagined that anything could feel so fragile and delicate and smooth, and yet seem to strong and full of warmth. They remained like that, looking into each other's eyes gently, neither really wanting to let go of the other.
And neither of them noticed the android watching them from right outside the room, or noticed when she closed the door.
KOS-MOS was at odds with this display. While she knew that there had always been some deep affection between the two, she herself could only calculate what she perceived to be the ideal of love to a certain extent. Love was, after all, the most illogical of human emotions. It had, seemingly, no rhyme or reason, and almost seemed to occur without any true event MAKING it occur. The best she could theorize was that the emotion was caused by a set of chemicals in the brain that didn't occur until some random moment, the brain ascribing the emotion of love to the first being it saw.
Her thoughts were brought to a screeching halt as a gentle voice asked her "How's he doing?"
She looked up to see the silver-haired member of their team, chaos. It was quite obvious by his demeanor that he was concerned, and she registered that as a normal reaction to the situation. "He has been recovering at the rate I had expected." She stated simply. She saw no need for idle chit- chat; her function was to get to the point in a discussion.
He nodded slightly, obviously relieved to hear this news. "That's good to hear." He said happily. He began to turn around; he already knew that MOMO was with Junior; it was just another one of the things he could just do. He soon turned around and asked KOS-MOS, "If you could, would you mind doing me a favor?"
She nodded. "I can carry out such a duty. I am currently not appointed to anything else, and thus, I have no priorities above this."
"Well, you see..I've been missing a lot of pictures of mine lately, and.well..if you could, I'd appreciate if you'd tell me if you found them. I know that this seems pretty illogical to you, but they really do mean a lot to me."
"Affirmative. I shall begin to perform a search of the ship in search of them."
chaos smiled at her. "Thanks.I'd really appreciate that."
(Second Miltia)
Jin Uzuki wasn't expecting visitors. In truth, he really didn't have that many friends. He, personally, preferred the life of a loner and intellectual, thank you very much, and he intended to keep his life that way. That's why he wasn't sure what to make of the two men on his doorstep.
"Please, sir, we're in desperate need of someplace to stay," the man in blue said, "and we don't have any money. However, we promise to make money to pay you back if you allow us to stay here for a little while."
The white-haired man beside him snorted. "Please. Listen, may I suggest you DO comply with us, as giving us a place to stay WILL result in you getting to keep your life.probably."
Jin didn't really seem too fazed by the last remark. "I'm sorry, it's just that I really don't enjoy the idea of letting strangers into my house."
The man in blue sighed. "I understand sir. We'll just stay outside in the biting cold."
"It's July." He told the stranger.
"In the scorching heat," the man corrected, "trying to find a way to live off the land before we die in the streets. I'm sure you're a good man, so you should be able to live with the guilt. You SHOULD be able to, at least."
Jin sighed. While he enjoyed the life of a loner, he found he couldn't turn down someone in need. "Come on in, I suppose, and make yourselves at home. I'll go make some tea."
"Thank you sir." The man in blue replied as he and his partner entered the house. When Jin left the room, he turned to his companion and smirked. "Yeah..thank you s..UCKER!"
Albedo laughed, finding that he could keep his cackle low enough so he couldn't be heard throughout the whole house. "I can't believe that worked! You're a frickin' genius!"
Virgil smirked as he sat down on a couch in the front room. Most of the furniture was nice, but also looked old. In fact, the room reminded him of his grandma's house. "Of course it worked. As I told you, I have much more skill at something like this than you do."
Albedo snorted as he sat down next to his compatriot. "Please, you flatter yourself too much. I could have come up with this."
"And the reason you didn't is..?"
"...Shut up."
He closed his eyes and crossed his arms, smiling smugly. "I think that proves my point."
The URTV decided not to pay anymore heed to his 'friend'. After a few more minutes of awkward silence between the two, Jin came in with a tray holding three cups of tea. He turned and said, "Hey, you have any video games?"
"Well..no." he replied simply. "I'm really not that interested in electronic entertainment."
"You don't play video games?" Albedo exclaimed in surprise, "How do you live, man?"
"In case you didn't notice, he doesn't have a TV either."
"What? This isn't a house, this is a death trap!" he shouted. He quickly turned on Virgil and pointed at him accusingly. "YOU tricked me into coming here, didn't you? You thought you'd lure me here under the false pretense that it was a house we could stay in for awhile, and then WHAM! You leave me to die in this hell hole!"
"You know, I'd appreciate if you didn't call my house that.." Jin interjected, though this went unheeded.
"Oh yes, Albedo, I tricked you by purposely bringing you to a death trap I didn't have any forward knowledge about. YOU GET A GUMBALL, MIKEY!" Virgil snapped back in reply.
Albedo, however, had lost interest in the debate and decided to return to the original problem at hand: no television or videogames. "What do you do for entertainment around here?" he asked, bored.
"Well.usually, I just sit back and read." Jin replied as he handed out the tea to his guests.
Albedo took the cup of tea he was handed. "Read? Psh. Books are for nerds and geeks. That, and dummyfaces." He took a sip of the tea, and immediately spat it out.onto Jin.
He grimaced and tried to sound calm when he responded. "You don't like the tea?" he stated. He was THIS close to losing it. "Oh, well sure I like it, it's good tea...if it's supposed to be crap flavored!"
"Please excuse my friend." Virgil replied hastily, sensing Jin's impatience with the two. "He...well, he has some mental problems."
Jin sighed. It looked like what he had feared was going to happen: his life was going to change. And, more than likely, the change wasn't going to be for the better.
(The Elsa-KOS-MOS' Recharging Room)
The android looked around carefully to make sure no one was in there with her. If anyone had been, they would have noticed how odd she was acting. It almost seemed as if she was trying to be sly, something that conflicted with her programming. Eventually, she decided that no one was with her and opened the door to the recharger.
Her creator Shion, as well as most of the members of the group, would have been shocked by what was on the other side of the door. Within the crevices of it, she had placed several pictures. Some of the pictures looked relatively old; these usually featured two silver-haired boys with what KOS-MOS assumed to be their parents. One of the boys looked almost refined to an extreme degree; the other, the younger, didn't seem to be worried with his appearances exactly, and smiled much more than the older one. In the newer pictures, you could use them to identify the younger boy; these pictures were of chaos with the rest of the crew of the Elsa.
KOS-MOS just continued to look at the pictures for a little, her eyes having turned a gentle blue. She didn't know WHAT it was, but when she viewed chaos, something within her programming seemed to conflict. It was almost if her logic drive ceased to function when he was around. Perhaps chaos was the reason she seemed to become more human; after all, she had determined long ago that he was more than human.
Her eyes reverted to their usual red. Hadn't chaos asked her to FIND these pictures, and she had agreed even though she had been the one that had taken them in the first place? She had just violated a rule by stealing from a fellow member, something that was in direct opposition to what she was created to believe, and now she was not following a command to find them. However...hadn't chaos made it out to be a request? Perhaps..just perhaps, she could keep them awhile longer. In fact, she wouldn't have to TELL him where they were, or who had taken them.
With that, she got in and shut the door behind her.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Author's Note: Hmm.while it was longer, I don't think this was as good as the first chapter. Ah well. If it isn't, I promise the next chapter will be better. You can also expect there to be quite a bit more KOS-MOS/chaos and eventually some Allen/Shion, and you'll see MOMO and Junior's relationship begin to expand. I'm not sure why, but I kept having this feeling to have Jin get mixed in with everything going on, and I did that by using Virgil and Albedo. And about them, you can expect the jokes about what I mentioned in the forward to the first chapter to happen relatively soon. Until then.
Nathander
(Second Miltia)
"You are such an ass doing this to us, you know that don't you?" Virgil said to his current (and hated) partner in crime.
Albedo had dragged him with him to Second Miltia, which he had deemed 'The Rockin' Place that Rocked in the Places that are Known to have Rocked'. Any hope he had once had of the white-haired URTV having any shred of sanity had long diminished. Once arriving there, he had spent ALL their remaining money on a bass and an electric guitar. Albedo had been telling him about how they'd soon rise to fame and perform in stadiums. While he didn't know what HIS definition of a stadium was, Virgil was pretty sure an alleyway beside a shopping center didn't constitute as a stadium.
"Greetings, pitiful beings held down by the mortal coil!" the URTV shouted out to the people entering and exiting the market, totally ignoring Virgil's comment. All he had really received so far were odd glances towards him; he decided that, if they continued, he'd have some more people to add to his 'Ass-kickin' List'. He began to strum on the electric guitar slightly, though even that showed how inexperienced he was with the instrument. "I'm Albedo the Great, and that ugly, fugly, stupid fellow in blue is my good friend and lap dog, Virgil!" By now, Virgil had to force himself from picking up his bass and cracking it over Albedo's head. "And together," he continued, "we are Badass Mothers 4000!" He began to strum a few notes on his guitar (again, quite poorly) while attempting to mimic their sounds with his mouth. "Tonight, we'd like to perform a remixed classic with new words that's always been one of my favorite rock songs, "C is for Cookie", by the Cookie Monster. Virgil, start us off!"
Virgil just looked stoically at the URTV. "HELL no. There is no way I'm playing a rock song version of 'C is for Cookie'. That's just stupid, even more so than most of the crap you've pulled."
The megolomaniacal man snorted back to his partner. "Oh please. Like you would have done any better."
"As a matter of fact, I probably..no, CERTAINLY could have done better. First off, I wouldn't have spent all our money in fifteen minutes, so we wouldn't have to sleep in the cockpit of your mech. I don't know about you, but it's somewhat hard for me to sleep with you sitting in my lap and the smell of sweat in a cramped area."
"You should just enjoy the fact that you get to be so close to a god-like creature such as I. Now, start playing!"
Knowing that an argument would be pointless, he began to play what he (hoped) was the beat to "C is for Cookie". Albedo soon followed him, though the notes he played were the completely different than what Virgil was playing. Soon, Albedo began to sing, as loud as possible, his version of "C is for Cookie":
"H is for Hate Crime! That's good enough for me! Because Hatred is cool and makes the world go round!" Albedo soon stopped singing and playing the guitar completely, eventually reverting to just screaming. "Behold, for your end draws nigh! Life is a wheel upon which no man can stand for long! Harvest the grain and make for yourselves a profit! A profit of blood! BLOOD DAMMIT! I vill drink your blood, as I am a vampire!" Albedo was soon quieted as a brick hit him directly in the face, (surprisingly knocking the URTV unconscious). A round of cheers was heard from the spectators.
'I should just leave him here.' Virgil thought to himself. 'But he's the only one who knows how to drive that damn mech..' After only a moment more of deliberation, Virgil sighed. "C'mon, let's go Ozzy." And he lifted Albedo over his shoulder as he headed back towards the Simeon.
(The Durandal-Corridor)
KOS-MOS hadn't expected the being known as Junior to run into her, and it took her logic drive system a few minutes to process what had just happened. She knew these things for a fact: the boy was running from something due to fright and anxiety. However, whatever he was running from was not a being that was a threat; KOS-MOS sensed no unknown life forms upon the ship. That ment one thing: he had been running from someone they already knew, perhaps due to an argument.
It hadn't taken long for several others she knew to come running around the edge of the corridor. She could easily name them all, but the one she knew she had the most connection to was Shion, who had created her. The others were Ziggy, Captain Matthews, Tony, Hammer, Allen, and Mary. "Little Master, are you all'ight?" Mary asked in concern, reaching the boy first. She thought of the Little Master as more of a brother than anything else, as did her sister Shelly.
"At the speed he was running, he was knocked unconscious do to the velocity created by the propulsion of his body." KOS-MOS stated simply. In her mind, this fact should have been quite obvious; how anyone could possibly think differently would make it impossible for her logic drive to see what they seemed to see.
KOS-MOS quickly reverted her attention from the group that was forming around the boy towards the edge of the corridor once more. From around it came the young Realian of their team, MOMO. Her clothes, however, looked odd on her. They were wrinkled, implying that she had put them on in haste. She was also running at a light jog. As she got closer the group, she seemingly leaped slightly in the air. Obviously, she had tripped.
The firm hand of Ziggy, snatching her by the shoulder quickly stopped her decent to the ground. She looked up at the cyborg. "Thank you." She said gently. The cyborg merely nodded and let her go. She quickly went beside the (unconscious) red-haired URTV. She leaned forward over him and gently put his hand on her cheek, shaking his head slightly. He didn't move at all. "Will Junior be alright?" she asked, almost pleadingly, directing the question to the android beside her.
"Affirmative." KOS-MOS replied, not exactly having believed the statement to be a question as much as it was to have been stating the truth. "After some rest, he should be fine. There is only a .0003982 chance of him having gotten a concussion." The android picked the URTV up. "I shall take him to the infirmary before heading back to the Elsa to recharge."
"Can I come with you?" the little Realian asked. While she was a little embarrassed about what had just happened a minute before, she was also worried about Junior. She had never ment for him to get hurt.
"I do not require company at this time."
"KOS-MOS!" Shion shouted, angry and, in truth, a little shocked and dismayed. It had seemed that, once before, KOS-MOS had sympathized with MOMO. Yet, here they were again, right back to how she originally acted.
"Actually," Ziggy began, "If you don't mind, MOMO, I'd like to talk to you for a minute."
MOMO just looked at Ziggy for a moment before nodding her head. She didn't say anything however; while she knew Ziggy was nice, for him to ask to talk to her was actually something that was sort of new. He was usually pretty quiet, even though she knew he was her protector.
As the two left for MOMO's room and KOS-MOS carried Junior to the infirmary, the floor immediately opened up to speculation. "What could've happened?" Matthews said, a little disgruntled, in all truth, that everything had gone so fast. "I mean, he ran outta there like a bat out of hell!"
"Maybe he lost his nerve." Allen said casually. While he knew that probably wasn't the case, it was really the only thing he could come up with.
"Maybe..but I doubt it." Shion reflected. "If he had lost his nerve, why did he lose it right in the middle of saying something?"
"Well, 'aybe the Little Master just caught her at a bad time, or at least that's what I reckon." Mary added.
"Probably." Hammer said, and quickly added, "Do you think we could prolong this conversation a little longer?"
"Nice try." Matthews said, once again grabbing his two crew members by the scruff of their necks. He smiled coldly. "When we get back to the Elsa..oh, are you two EVER in for a heap of work."
(The Elsa-AGWS Hanger)
chaos had finished the work on his AGWS, as well as the others, long ago. There was, however, still something he had to wait for.
That something came pretty quickly. "Are you sure what you've done is wise?" the voice of a young girl asked.
He merely shut his eyes. He could easily visualize the girl without having to look at her. "I don't see anything wrong with helping the two of them. If anything, I find it rather sweet, and I'll have no part in trying to stop pure love."
"How do you know it's pure? You know his past; you know he was self- serving to the extreme." She replied. Her voice, though younger than chaos', actually sounded as if she were lecturing him. "Granted, he HAS changed..a little. You're wise, chaos, one of the wisest of our order next to your brother..but even you aren't omnipotent. Surely you think there is some ulterior motive. Perhaps he's merely using the girl as a psychological crutch."
"I thought there might have been..at first." He sighed as he leaned against the wall of the room. "However, when I looked into his eyes when he was talking to me earlier.he means it. He utterly and truly ment it." He opened his eyes and turned to Nephilim. "And I think it will do him quite a bit of good."
"But it could hamper what NEEDS to be done." Nephilim retorted, scolding him. "You KNOW the possibilities, or at least some extent of the possibilities, and you know your brother is manipulating it so that the future that occurs will be the one that benefits him the most. And, in several of those cases, some of the members of this group WILL die. Why make their deaths more painful by having some come together in a fashion of love, one of them dying and the other surviving? You give them false hope."
chaos shook his head. "That's not true. Like you said, my brother will TRY to manipulate the future to work for him. That doesn't necessarily he'll succeed." He smiled slightly. "And I think that, of any of us, those two have the best chance of surviving. Both have gone through so much, more than many of the others here. And, if they are to survive, they'll need each other." Chaos smile widened somewhat, becoming immensely gentle and friendly. "And it is pure, and it will last. I know it will."
Nephilim smiled slightly, though sadly. "How can you believe in the idea of love, when the thing you've fallen in love with is incapable of expressing that emotion back?"
Chaos' smile didn't wither, though he did shrug helplessly. "Maybe it's foolish..but I think that, somewhere in her, there is something there. I..could feel it since I met her the first time. I love her, yes, and maybe she won't be able to reflect it back. But.I think she will, and I think that to some extent she already has."
"And if she does not?"
He smiled weakly. "Then is that any reason to stop loving her? If you have love for someone, give it. And if they don't want to accept it in face to face, then keep your love but don't make it totally apparent."
(The Durandal [again]-MOMO's Room)
The little Realian sat on her bed. To tell the truth, she was a little..no, really nervous. While she knew Ziggy was her friend and bodyguard and he only ment the best for her, she almost felt as if she was about to go through an Inquisition.
The cyborg sat down next to her. "MOMO," he asked, trying to make it so his voice could at least register SOME emotion and irritated when he found he could do it only to a minor extent, "first, could you tell me what happened?"
MOMO blushed slightly and looked at the floor at her legs. "Well.." She began, her voice obviously showing that she was a little nervous, as well as shy, on the subject, "I.I had just gotten finished taking a shower, and I was getting dressed, when..well..that's when Junior opened the door. I.I guess I frightened him, because he ran away."
For a few moments, Ziggy made no reply. The young Realian thought that he was mad at her. After all, she had ended up scaring one of her friends, and that ended up with him getting hurt. In truth, however, the cyborg was trying to hold back laughter. This feeling, in fact, was a complete and utter surprise to him; he thought he had gotten rid of it long ago during his surgeries to make him more inhuman. But, never the less, here it was, defying everything about his current programming. After a moment, MOMO asked "I'm sorry.."
Ziggy looked at her quizzically, though his voice wouldn't register that feeling. "What do you have to be sorry about?"
She had stopped blushing, and, in its place, she now looked ashamed. "I was the reason Junior ran out of my room. He got hurt because of me."
The Ziggurat-Series cyborg shook his head slightly. "No, it wasn't. What happened, MOMO, was merely an odd chance of circumstances that couldn't have been prevented. Junior entered at what was an inadequate time, and he ran off when he realized that and got himself hurt by accident."
"Yeah.." Her voice was getting sadder by the moment, "but..I just wish that, maybe, I should have said something to stop him. Then he wouldn't get hurt." She began to hold back sniffles, "I never wanted this to happen..now he'll never like me."
She lifted her head up suddenly, noticing she had just told someone her secret, and she wasn't sure that Ziggy would be the one to totally look on it favorably. She was baffled, to say the least, when her bodyguard replied "I think he likes you just fine."
She looked up at him, her expression a mix of shock and sadness. "R.really?" a pause, and then, "He won't like me anymore..not after this. He'll feel too uncomfortable about it."
As if he hadn't had enough surprises for the day about his emotions, the cyborg found himself putting his arm on MOMO's shoulder to comfort her. "MOMO, this is going to be hard for me to state," he said, his voice as normal as usual and refusing to show the emotions that had begun to resurface, "but I'm going to try. When I was brought back due to the Life Recycling Act, I was devastated and filled with despair and remorse. I kept remembering things I didn't want to remember..that no person should be forced to remember or come back to.and wanted to end it. I couldn't kill myself again..I second death, at that point, wouldn't really be worth it if it was at my own hands. Instead, I was hell-bent on denying my emotions, undergoing several forms of surgery to make myself more and more like a machine, less and less human." He sighed and decided what it was he had to tell her, "This, I guess, is the point. Trying to deny your emotions, MOMO, can lead you down an even worse path..a path that you will eventually regret as you take it. I was lucky that I've become an exception to the rule. MOMO..how do you feel about Junior?"
"I like him.a lot." She told him softly, beginning to gently blush again, "But I can't tell him, because he'll say no."
"I think you may have missed what I said MOMO. If you really want to know.then tell him your feelings. The worst he can do in that scenario is say no, and yet you two will still be able to be friends. However, if you hide your feelings, if you refuse to come to terms with them..they'll destroy you until you let them out. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
MOMO just sat quietly for a minute or two, before looking back up at the cyborg, a smile having come to her face, and her voice full of her usual perkiness. "Yes!" she said, finally understanding what she had to do. She hopped off the bed and ran towards the door; she intended to be by Junior as soon as possible, hopefully right when he woke up. As she reached the door, however, she turned back around, ran to Ziggy, and hugged him across the waist. "Thank you daddy!" she said happily before she ran back to the door.
Ziggy, meanwhile, remained seated on the bed. While his external appearances didn't show it, he was, for the first time in quite awhile, shocked. Finally, he was able to say to himself in the secluded room, "MOMO..what did you just call me?"
(Vector Industries-Wilhelm's Office)
After the whole affair with Albedo and Virgil, he was glad to finally have some good news. His license had just come in.
"Sir, it will be much easier to move the desk." one of the employees who he had sent in to help him rearrange his office stated, "if you weren't laying on it."
Wilhelm laid his head back farther to get a better look at the man. "Tell me, what's your name?"
"My name, sir?" the man exclaimed, bewildered. "I'm Henry Quinstin, sir."
"Well, Quinstin, do you like being employed?"
"Errr..yes sir."
"Then may I suggest you shut your mouth before you lose that privilege?"
The employee just sighed and got back to moving the desk.
Wilhelm turned his head towards his most trusted employee. He had known him for quite awhile, though he was careful not to use his name in public. "You've been awfully quiet." He stated. "That's quite usually of you."
"I was thinking, sir, that maybe this isn't such a good idea." The red- cloaked man said.
He sighed. He had gone over this with him several times before. "I have a license to hunt man, and I plan to use it."
"Well..could you at least give the event a friendlier name, instead of just naming it 'The Thing where I hunt your ass down'?"
"I believe that the bluntness of the title will keep people from mistaking it for something safe."
"Wilhelm, how could anyone mistake anything where you hunt them down for sport as being safe."
"Simply." He replied with a slight smile, "People are idiots. Watch." He hoped off his desk and opened the door to his office. He pointed to one of the people in the room beyond and shouted "Hey! You! Come to my private mansion Saturday so I can hunt!"
The employee shrugged and said "Okay."
Wilhelm closed the door and grinned at the red-cloaked man. "See? By the way, have that man fired for failing to address me as sir."
The red-cloak man would have sighed in exasperation, but he had learned to hold it in to some extent. "Either way, sir, don't you think that you should at least make it seem far by making at least two of your quarry Vector employees so that the media, who will get wind of this, won't attack you too severely?"
"Your right. Let's use Allen and Shion."
"Sir? Are you sure that's wise? After all, they are two of our most valued employees."
"You told me to pick someone. They were the ones that first came to mind. Who do I kill? Allen and Shion. It's like a word association game."
Finally, he said, defeated "Yes sir.."
(The Durandal-Infirmary)
The first thing he saw was a gentle sliver of pink, and then his eyes closed again. 'Pink.pink?' he thought to himself. His eyes opened and closed several more times before they fully opened and he got to see the full picture.
The Realian smiled down at him gently. "Are you feeling any better?"
He just nodded slightly. "Yeah..though my head still hurts quite a bit." He smirked goofily, "I guess that'll teach me to enter your room without knocking."
MOMO giggled slightly. Then, at the same time, they both said, "Listen, I.."
Again, they both went silent. MOMO nodded for him to go ahead, and he complied. "Well, I." he began, struggling for the correct words and blushing slightly, "MOMO, I.it's hard to say. Ever since I met you, I've been.well..happy. And I don't mean the normal happiness I usually have, I mean.HAPPY, like.like.some sort of inner peace." He clenched his fist under the sheet of the infirmary bed, getting angry at himself for floundering so much. "I mean, whenever I'm near you, there's this.gentle tugging in my chest. It's not a bad feeling either; in fact, it's probably the greatest I've ever experienced. It.it makes me feel so light and free.." He turned his head away slightly, the blushing beginning to get worse, "What I'm trying to say is..MOMO, I.I like you. A lot. And..I.I don't want to be apart from you..I want to be with you as long as I can."
He closed his eyes, bracing himself for rejection. His eyes immediately snapped open, however, when he felt her hands gentle placed on top of his. He looked at her, and was shocked by the expression found there. She was smiling, and yet, it seemed so different than usual. Almost as if something had happened to increase her usual happiness. "I.I like you a lot too." She said gently, "And I want to be with you as long as I can. I want to love you as much as I can."
Junior gently took her hands in his, clasping them, and his thumbs running down her hands in a soft caress. He never imagined that anything could feel so fragile and delicate and smooth, and yet seem to strong and full of warmth. They remained like that, looking into each other's eyes gently, neither really wanting to let go of the other.
And neither of them noticed the android watching them from right outside the room, or noticed when she closed the door.
KOS-MOS was at odds with this display. While she knew that there had always been some deep affection between the two, she herself could only calculate what she perceived to be the ideal of love to a certain extent. Love was, after all, the most illogical of human emotions. It had, seemingly, no rhyme or reason, and almost seemed to occur without any true event MAKING it occur. The best she could theorize was that the emotion was caused by a set of chemicals in the brain that didn't occur until some random moment, the brain ascribing the emotion of love to the first being it saw.
Her thoughts were brought to a screeching halt as a gentle voice asked her "How's he doing?"
She looked up to see the silver-haired member of their team, chaos. It was quite obvious by his demeanor that he was concerned, and she registered that as a normal reaction to the situation. "He has been recovering at the rate I had expected." She stated simply. She saw no need for idle chit- chat; her function was to get to the point in a discussion.
He nodded slightly, obviously relieved to hear this news. "That's good to hear." He said happily. He began to turn around; he already knew that MOMO was with Junior; it was just another one of the things he could just do. He soon turned around and asked KOS-MOS, "If you could, would you mind doing me a favor?"
She nodded. "I can carry out such a duty. I am currently not appointed to anything else, and thus, I have no priorities above this."
"Well, you see..I've been missing a lot of pictures of mine lately, and.well..if you could, I'd appreciate if you'd tell me if you found them. I know that this seems pretty illogical to you, but they really do mean a lot to me."
"Affirmative. I shall begin to perform a search of the ship in search of them."
chaos smiled at her. "Thanks.I'd really appreciate that."
(Second Miltia)
Jin Uzuki wasn't expecting visitors. In truth, he really didn't have that many friends. He, personally, preferred the life of a loner and intellectual, thank you very much, and he intended to keep his life that way. That's why he wasn't sure what to make of the two men on his doorstep.
"Please, sir, we're in desperate need of someplace to stay," the man in blue said, "and we don't have any money. However, we promise to make money to pay you back if you allow us to stay here for a little while."
The white-haired man beside him snorted. "Please. Listen, may I suggest you DO comply with us, as giving us a place to stay WILL result in you getting to keep your life.probably."
Jin didn't really seem too fazed by the last remark. "I'm sorry, it's just that I really don't enjoy the idea of letting strangers into my house."
The man in blue sighed. "I understand sir. We'll just stay outside in the biting cold."
"It's July." He told the stranger.
"In the scorching heat," the man corrected, "trying to find a way to live off the land before we die in the streets. I'm sure you're a good man, so you should be able to live with the guilt. You SHOULD be able to, at least."
Jin sighed. While he enjoyed the life of a loner, he found he couldn't turn down someone in need. "Come on in, I suppose, and make yourselves at home. I'll go make some tea."
"Thank you sir." The man in blue replied as he and his partner entered the house. When Jin left the room, he turned to his companion and smirked. "Yeah..thank you s..UCKER!"
Albedo laughed, finding that he could keep his cackle low enough so he couldn't be heard throughout the whole house. "I can't believe that worked! You're a frickin' genius!"
Virgil smirked as he sat down on a couch in the front room. Most of the furniture was nice, but also looked old. In fact, the room reminded him of his grandma's house. "Of course it worked. As I told you, I have much more skill at something like this than you do."
Albedo snorted as he sat down next to his compatriot. "Please, you flatter yourself too much. I could have come up with this."
"And the reason you didn't is..?"
"...Shut up."
He closed his eyes and crossed his arms, smiling smugly. "I think that proves my point."
The URTV decided not to pay anymore heed to his 'friend'. After a few more minutes of awkward silence between the two, Jin came in with a tray holding three cups of tea. He turned and said, "Hey, you have any video games?"
"Well..no." he replied simply. "I'm really not that interested in electronic entertainment."
"You don't play video games?" Albedo exclaimed in surprise, "How do you live, man?"
"In case you didn't notice, he doesn't have a TV either."
"What? This isn't a house, this is a death trap!" he shouted. He quickly turned on Virgil and pointed at him accusingly. "YOU tricked me into coming here, didn't you? You thought you'd lure me here under the false pretense that it was a house we could stay in for awhile, and then WHAM! You leave me to die in this hell hole!"
"You know, I'd appreciate if you didn't call my house that.." Jin interjected, though this went unheeded.
"Oh yes, Albedo, I tricked you by purposely bringing you to a death trap I didn't have any forward knowledge about. YOU GET A GUMBALL, MIKEY!" Virgil snapped back in reply.
Albedo, however, had lost interest in the debate and decided to return to the original problem at hand: no television or videogames. "What do you do for entertainment around here?" he asked, bored.
"Well.usually, I just sit back and read." Jin replied as he handed out the tea to his guests.
Albedo took the cup of tea he was handed. "Read? Psh. Books are for nerds and geeks. That, and dummyfaces." He took a sip of the tea, and immediately spat it out.onto Jin.
He grimaced and tried to sound calm when he responded. "You don't like the tea?" he stated. He was THIS close to losing it. "Oh, well sure I like it, it's good tea...if it's supposed to be crap flavored!"
"Please excuse my friend." Virgil replied hastily, sensing Jin's impatience with the two. "He...well, he has some mental problems."
Jin sighed. It looked like what he had feared was going to happen: his life was going to change. And, more than likely, the change wasn't going to be for the better.
(The Elsa-KOS-MOS' Recharging Room)
The android looked around carefully to make sure no one was in there with her. If anyone had been, they would have noticed how odd she was acting. It almost seemed as if she was trying to be sly, something that conflicted with her programming. Eventually, she decided that no one was with her and opened the door to the recharger.
Her creator Shion, as well as most of the members of the group, would have been shocked by what was on the other side of the door. Within the crevices of it, she had placed several pictures. Some of the pictures looked relatively old; these usually featured two silver-haired boys with what KOS-MOS assumed to be their parents. One of the boys looked almost refined to an extreme degree; the other, the younger, didn't seem to be worried with his appearances exactly, and smiled much more than the older one. In the newer pictures, you could use them to identify the younger boy; these pictures were of chaos with the rest of the crew of the Elsa.
KOS-MOS just continued to look at the pictures for a little, her eyes having turned a gentle blue. She didn't know WHAT it was, but when she viewed chaos, something within her programming seemed to conflict. It was almost if her logic drive ceased to function when he was around. Perhaps chaos was the reason she seemed to become more human; after all, she had determined long ago that he was more than human.
Her eyes reverted to their usual red. Hadn't chaos asked her to FIND these pictures, and she had agreed even though she had been the one that had taken them in the first place? She had just violated a rule by stealing from a fellow member, something that was in direct opposition to what she was created to believe, and now she was not following a command to find them. However...hadn't chaos made it out to be a request? Perhaps..just perhaps, she could keep them awhile longer. In fact, she wouldn't have to TELL him where they were, or who had taken them.
With that, she got in and shut the door behind her.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Author's Note: Hmm.while it was longer, I don't think this was as good as the first chapter. Ah well. If it isn't, I promise the next chapter will be better. You can also expect there to be quite a bit more KOS-MOS/chaos and eventually some Allen/Shion, and you'll see MOMO and Junior's relationship begin to expand. I'm not sure why, but I kept having this feeling to have Jin get mixed in with everything going on, and I did that by using Virgil and Albedo. And about them, you can expect the jokes about what I mentioned in the forward to the first chapter to happen relatively soon. Until then.
Nathander