Well people, this is the chapter that is going to make this fic break into the next size class hurrah! I figure the more different searches it turns up under, the more people will read it. Oh and Crimson is only on the V. hard ruins pesky del-sabers. Please don't laugh, he's only level 48, Ryzada is level 76 (it took me a while to sort out tactics for falz) and I do have better weapons than the ones in this fic, Gigoboomas claw, rappy fan and Yamatos Crimson only has a stupid guilty light and a pair of hell vulcans. Oh and the dark laser.
"Come in Ryzada" Aurora said, even before Ryzada had knocked.
Ryzada stepped inside, followed by Psilo. "Hi Aurora, umm this is my friend- " Aurora cut her off.
"Psilo, I know"
"umm yeah, anyway we were wondering-" Aurora interrupted again
"If I could help you to find her missing friend?"
"Yes that's right, but we have a small problem-" was Aurora going to let her finish a sentence?
"You have a lead, but you don't understand it, so you thought I could help you out."
"Okay stop doing that" Psilo was getting irritated with the all knowing oracle act. "We need to know what this means "you need to find the place where your friend began and ended." Got any ideas?"
"Yes" Aurora smiled
"Care to enlighten us?"
"Of course" Aurora took a sip of tea "Now Skyla is a newman yes?"
"Yes but how did you know that?" Psilo asked
"And she was created on pioneer 1 by your father Dr Osto?"
Yes, but how do you know these things!" Psilo demanded
"You'd be amazed how much you know if you think about it." Another sip of tea and a mysterious smile.
"Whatever, get on with it."
"Well, as a newman, Skyla was obviously cloned from a mix of genetic data." "GET TO THE POINT" the conversation was quickly getting on Psilo's nerves, she couldn't take anymore delay.
"Please Aurora, just tell us what we need to know." Ryzada asked politely
"Ahh please, the magic word, you really should have thought of that." Aurora's comment was directed at Psilo.
Psilo was battling to keep her temper under control as Aurora continued "Anyway, it seems to me that if Skyla was made in a lab, that was her beginning, so therefore her ending must also be in a lab."
"Right, thank you Aurora, we'll be going now." Psilo got up to leave.
"Sure you wouldn't like to stay for a cup of tea?"
"No." Psilo dragged Ryzada out of the door.
"Why were you being so rude?" Ryzada asked on the walk back to Psilo's place "She did help us."
"Not really, there are five different labs on pioneer, and besides I have very little patience for forces, they think they are so much better than everyone else, they lord it over us "lesser mortals" and all because they know how to sling a fireball or two."
Ryzada tried to think of Alice "lording it" over everyone, It wasn't an image that worked terribly well. "Don't you think you are being a little prejudiced Psilo?" she was a little concerned regarding her new team mates attitude towards forces "I know a lot of forces and they aren't all like that, It's just Aurora has really bad taste in movies."
"Ryzada? Do me a favor will you? Don't introduce me to any more of your friends." After that there was an awkward silence between them, it lasted until the reached the apartment.
"So? What did you two find out?" Kilili greeted them.
Psilo threw herself into an armchair "We found out not to ask Ryzada's friends for help" She said huffily.
"No I mean about Skyla, do we know where she is?"
"Aurora thinks she is at a lab, fat lot of good that does us, we have five to choose from."
"Well there has to be some way of narrowing it down, doesn't there? Ryzada suggested tentatively.
"yup" Kilili looked pleased with herself, "There are only two that she could be at."
"And how did you arrive at that conclusion?" Psilo was still annoyed from the meeting with Aurora.
"Well." Kilili began, counting them off on her fingers "Dr montague is a weapons developer, so he wouldn't want Skyla for anything."
"Makes sense." Psilo was forced to agree
"Dr Philmans lab went bust last week, Dr Ryan's Is on the other side of pioneer, so that leaves Dr robinson and Dr Ermintine. And I have no idea what those two are actually doing right now."
"Why not?" Psilo demanded
"No news reporters have come back from either lab"
"Well that's pretty ominous."
"We should check Ermintines lab." Ryzada said confidently
"Why?" Psilo asked
"Well he's, weird, and a lot of his ideas are pretty crazy."
"You think it's likely that he would have taken someone captive?"
"Skyla's a Newman, so yes he probably would."
"Right, it's settled then." Kilili was unusually cheerful "We're off to the mad scientists evil lair?"
"Kilili?" Psilo sounded a little annoyed "What have you been doing?"
"Ohhh well I found this chocolate bar, it was just lying around in a secret compartment of a locked drawer." Kilili was extremely happy
"Great I leave you alone for half an hour and you steal my emergency supplies. Do you know how hard it is to get chocolate?"
"Nope and I don't care" Kilili jumped to her feet "Now let's get moving!"
Psilo and Ryzada both sighed and followed the hyper-active Kilili down the corridors.
Crimson looked around his cupboard with suspicion, something was not right. He scanned the table looking for anything out of place. That handgun, The barrel was pointing in the wrong direction, and his flamer, it was missing a little fuel. Crimson burst out laughing and left the cupboard, locking it behind him.
"What's so funny?" Alice asked, curious as to the cause of this amusement.
"Nothing, nothing" Crimson waved his hand dismissively, then cracked up laughing again.
"No, really what's so funny. Tell me!"
"Tatsu went into the cupboard didn't he?"
"Yup" Alice smiled
"Did it work?"
"If by "work" you mean scorched the opposite wall, then yes it worked." Alice hid her laughter behind her hand. Crimson was struck by how attractively girlish the gesture was, it was obvious why Tatsu liked Alice so much, of course Crimson liked girls who were a little older, 8 years old was about right for him. Crimson smiled inwardly, 19 years old and his major romantic interest was half his age, maybe he should run for government office?
"Where is Tatsu anyway?" Crimson asked "I'm a little annoyed that I can't laugh directly at him."
"Oh he went out to look around the hotel, he should be back before dinner"
That was obvious, Tatsu never missed a meal, especially not when Alice was the one cooking.
As Predicted he got back approximately an hour before Dinner, he also had with him, a few strange objects.
"Where did you get those?" Crimson asked
"There's a row of vending machines a few corridors down." Tatsu continued to empty his pockets.
"Did you have to get something from all of them?"
"Well its not like we're going to be coming here again for a while" Tatsu shrugged "And you'd be amazed at some of the things those machines sold."
"Example?"
"Beer and underwear?"
"I see." Crimson nodded "But I'm really surprised that you could use those machines Tatsu."
"Why?" Tatsu's tone was one of suspicion
"I don't know, I guess I just thought that maybe you'd have developed a phobia of buttons and machinery by now."
"Ha ha, how very funny" Tatsu said sarcastically "Now if you don't mind I'm going to take my beer, my underwear and my assorted plastic novelties and I'm going to go to my room."
He got up to walk away. "NO! TATSU LOOK OUT!" Alice yelled from the kitchen doorway.
Tatsu jumped backwards "What? What is it?"
"Oh sorry, my mistake, it's just a remote control." Alice smiled sweetly
"Will you stop that!"
"Maybe if you ask nicer" Alice stuck her tongue out and went back into the kitchen.
Tatsu deposited his newly acquired items in his room and sat in front of the TV, he aimlessly flicked though the channels, then without warning the Remote shorted out with a loud cracking sound, making Tatsu jump. He caught sight of Crimson working at the table, a smile across his face. Why was everyone picking on him today? His pager beeped.
ARENA 6, 9PM,RX-12, ARENA MINED
Tatsu sighed, 3 hours from now he would be fighting an android in a mine field. What had he done to annoy god today? Things couldn't possibly get- he stopped himself mid-thought. That was a close one, completion of that sentence would have no doubt worsened his situation.
"Hey Tatsu! Uhh your brand isn't working right now, I sort of did something to it and I don't know what." Crimson yelled from the table.
CURSE YOU GOD! WHY DOST THOU MOCK ME SO! Well, Tatsu thought extremely down heartened, by law of numbers, somebody out there was having a worse day than him. That poor person had Tatsu's deepest sympathy.
Magus added another dent to the small collection of boot prints he was creating in the wall. Today was going fantastically badly. Mery was back, so that was bad for a start. He had forgotten to collect the scythe, so that was worse, how could an android possibly forget anything anyway? And now rumors were spreading regarding the fact that he and Mei were sleeping together.
"Aww cheer up Magus, its not that bad" Mei attached herself to his arm. "You're still the bestest fighter out there, you don't need any weapons, you're the most amazing gladiator I've ever seen." Magus felt a little better.
"Have you only recently recovered from being blind?" Mery asked. Magus felt a little worse.
"Ignore him" Mei stuck her tongue out at Mery "It'll all be fine, I just know it." She smiled up at Magus "and you get to prove it tomorrow!"
"Why? What's going on tomorrow?" Magus asked
"Ohh umm didn't you know? You have a match."
"I haven't been paged about it, when did you find out?"
"Oh you won't have been paged silly, It's just that the pit fights start tomorrow don't they?"
"Uhh, Mei?" Magus said gently "I'm not entered in the pit fights."
"Yes you are."
Magus chuckled "Trust me, I'd know if I'd signed up for something like that."
"Umm would you know if somebody else signed you up?"
"Mei?" Magus said slowly "What exactly did you do?"
Mei's lower lip started to tremble and her eyes glistened with impending tears "I'm soooo sorry Magus but I wrote your name down for the pit fights and I thought you would be happy because of the prizes and stuff and if you did well enough you would get to be interviewed by Chisato but I shouldn't have done it because you don't want to enter and now you're mad at me! Mei burst into tears and started sobbing against Magus's arm.
Magus tensed. Oh god, she was crying, what should he do? He had no experience with this! Oh why couldn't she just stop crying?
"Uhh it's okay Mei, I do want to enter the pit fights, I just forgot to sign up, so it was really a good job that you did it for me." He said panicking
Mei looked at him, her eyes red and puffy, tears still running down her cheeks. "R-really?" She said, her voice wavering.
Magus smiled at her reassuringly "Really"
Mei sniffed and wiped her eyes with her sleeve "So you aren't mad at me?"
"Of course not Mei"
"Yay I did good" Mei hugged him tightly and skipped round the room, leaving Magus to wonder what the hell just happened. Had he just been manipulated by this little girl?
Mery accurately simulated the noise of a whip "She really has you trained doesn't she Magus?"
Dammit! Today officially made it into Magus's diary as the worst day ever.
Okay very little actually happened here plotwise, but who cares all that much? I promise to do more plot advancement next chapter. I haven't slept in over 18 hours, I need to go to bed. Oh and I also promise to start doing serious bits, I've been joking around a little recently (a bit of it was in-jokes so don't worry bout it)
"Come in Ryzada" Aurora said, even before Ryzada had knocked.
Ryzada stepped inside, followed by Psilo. "Hi Aurora, umm this is my friend- " Aurora cut her off.
"Psilo, I know"
"umm yeah, anyway we were wondering-" Aurora interrupted again
"If I could help you to find her missing friend?"
"Yes that's right, but we have a small problem-" was Aurora going to let her finish a sentence?
"You have a lead, but you don't understand it, so you thought I could help you out."
"Okay stop doing that" Psilo was getting irritated with the all knowing oracle act. "We need to know what this means "you need to find the place where your friend began and ended." Got any ideas?"
"Yes" Aurora smiled
"Care to enlighten us?"
"Of course" Aurora took a sip of tea "Now Skyla is a newman yes?"
"Yes but how did you know that?" Psilo asked
"And she was created on pioneer 1 by your father Dr Osto?"
Yes, but how do you know these things!" Psilo demanded
"You'd be amazed how much you know if you think about it." Another sip of tea and a mysterious smile.
"Whatever, get on with it."
"Well, as a newman, Skyla was obviously cloned from a mix of genetic data." "GET TO THE POINT" the conversation was quickly getting on Psilo's nerves, she couldn't take anymore delay.
"Please Aurora, just tell us what we need to know." Ryzada asked politely
"Ahh please, the magic word, you really should have thought of that." Aurora's comment was directed at Psilo.
Psilo was battling to keep her temper under control as Aurora continued "Anyway, it seems to me that if Skyla was made in a lab, that was her beginning, so therefore her ending must also be in a lab."
"Right, thank you Aurora, we'll be going now." Psilo got up to leave.
"Sure you wouldn't like to stay for a cup of tea?"
"No." Psilo dragged Ryzada out of the door.
"Why were you being so rude?" Ryzada asked on the walk back to Psilo's place "She did help us."
"Not really, there are five different labs on pioneer, and besides I have very little patience for forces, they think they are so much better than everyone else, they lord it over us "lesser mortals" and all because they know how to sling a fireball or two."
Ryzada tried to think of Alice "lording it" over everyone, It wasn't an image that worked terribly well. "Don't you think you are being a little prejudiced Psilo?" she was a little concerned regarding her new team mates attitude towards forces "I know a lot of forces and they aren't all like that, It's just Aurora has really bad taste in movies."
"Ryzada? Do me a favor will you? Don't introduce me to any more of your friends." After that there was an awkward silence between them, it lasted until the reached the apartment.
"So? What did you two find out?" Kilili greeted them.
Psilo threw herself into an armchair "We found out not to ask Ryzada's friends for help" She said huffily.
"No I mean about Skyla, do we know where she is?"
"Aurora thinks she is at a lab, fat lot of good that does us, we have five to choose from."
"Well there has to be some way of narrowing it down, doesn't there? Ryzada suggested tentatively.
"yup" Kilili looked pleased with herself, "There are only two that she could be at."
"And how did you arrive at that conclusion?" Psilo was still annoyed from the meeting with Aurora.
"Well." Kilili began, counting them off on her fingers "Dr montague is a weapons developer, so he wouldn't want Skyla for anything."
"Makes sense." Psilo was forced to agree
"Dr Philmans lab went bust last week, Dr Ryan's Is on the other side of pioneer, so that leaves Dr robinson and Dr Ermintine. And I have no idea what those two are actually doing right now."
"Why not?" Psilo demanded
"No news reporters have come back from either lab"
"Well that's pretty ominous."
"We should check Ermintines lab." Ryzada said confidently
"Why?" Psilo asked
"Well he's, weird, and a lot of his ideas are pretty crazy."
"You think it's likely that he would have taken someone captive?"
"Skyla's a Newman, so yes he probably would."
"Right, it's settled then." Kilili was unusually cheerful "We're off to the mad scientists evil lair?"
"Kilili?" Psilo sounded a little annoyed "What have you been doing?"
"Ohhh well I found this chocolate bar, it was just lying around in a secret compartment of a locked drawer." Kilili was extremely happy
"Great I leave you alone for half an hour and you steal my emergency supplies. Do you know how hard it is to get chocolate?"
"Nope and I don't care" Kilili jumped to her feet "Now let's get moving!"
Psilo and Ryzada both sighed and followed the hyper-active Kilili down the corridors.
Crimson looked around his cupboard with suspicion, something was not right. He scanned the table looking for anything out of place. That handgun, The barrel was pointing in the wrong direction, and his flamer, it was missing a little fuel. Crimson burst out laughing and left the cupboard, locking it behind him.
"What's so funny?" Alice asked, curious as to the cause of this amusement.
"Nothing, nothing" Crimson waved his hand dismissively, then cracked up laughing again.
"No, really what's so funny. Tell me!"
"Tatsu went into the cupboard didn't he?"
"Yup" Alice smiled
"Did it work?"
"If by "work" you mean scorched the opposite wall, then yes it worked." Alice hid her laughter behind her hand. Crimson was struck by how attractively girlish the gesture was, it was obvious why Tatsu liked Alice so much, of course Crimson liked girls who were a little older, 8 years old was about right for him. Crimson smiled inwardly, 19 years old and his major romantic interest was half his age, maybe he should run for government office?
"Where is Tatsu anyway?" Crimson asked "I'm a little annoyed that I can't laugh directly at him."
"Oh he went out to look around the hotel, he should be back before dinner"
That was obvious, Tatsu never missed a meal, especially not when Alice was the one cooking.
As Predicted he got back approximately an hour before Dinner, he also had with him, a few strange objects.
"Where did you get those?" Crimson asked
"There's a row of vending machines a few corridors down." Tatsu continued to empty his pockets.
"Did you have to get something from all of them?"
"Well its not like we're going to be coming here again for a while" Tatsu shrugged "And you'd be amazed at some of the things those machines sold."
"Example?"
"Beer and underwear?"
"I see." Crimson nodded "But I'm really surprised that you could use those machines Tatsu."
"Why?" Tatsu's tone was one of suspicion
"I don't know, I guess I just thought that maybe you'd have developed a phobia of buttons and machinery by now."
"Ha ha, how very funny" Tatsu said sarcastically "Now if you don't mind I'm going to take my beer, my underwear and my assorted plastic novelties and I'm going to go to my room."
He got up to walk away. "NO! TATSU LOOK OUT!" Alice yelled from the kitchen doorway.
Tatsu jumped backwards "What? What is it?"
"Oh sorry, my mistake, it's just a remote control." Alice smiled sweetly
"Will you stop that!"
"Maybe if you ask nicer" Alice stuck her tongue out and went back into the kitchen.
Tatsu deposited his newly acquired items in his room and sat in front of the TV, he aimlessly flicked though the channels, then without warning the Remote shorted out with a loud cracking sound, making Tatsu jump. He caught sight of Crimson working at the table, a smile across his face. Why was everyone picking on him today? His pager beeped.
ARENA 6, 9PM,RX-12, ARENA MINED
Tatsu sighed, 3 hours from now he would be fighting an android in a mine field. What had he done to annoy god today? Things couldn't possibly get- he stopped himself mid-thought. That was a close one, completion of that sentence would have no doubt worsened his situation.
"Hey Tatsu! Uhh your brand isn't working right now, I sort of did something to it and I don't know what." Crimson yelled from the table.
CURSE YOU GOD! WHY DOST THOU MOCK ME SO! Well, Tatsu thought extremely down heartened, by law of numbers, somebody out there was having a worse day than him. That poor person had Tatsu's deepest sympathy.
Magus added another dent to the small collection of boot prints he was creating in the wall. Today was going fantastically badly. Mery was back, so that was bad for a start. He had forgotten to collect the scythe, so that was worse, how could an android possibly forget anything anyway? And now rumors were spreading regarding the fact that he and Mei were sleeping together.
"Aww cheer up Magus, its not that bad" Mei attached herself to his arm. "You're still the bestest fighter out there, you don't need any weapons, you're the most amazing gladiator I've ever seen." Magus felt a little better.
"Have you only recently recovered from being blind?" Mery asked. Magus felt a little worse.
"Ignore him" Mei stuck her tongue out at Mery "It'll all be fine, I just know it." She smiled up at Magus "and you get to prove it tomorrow!"
"Why? What's going on tomorrow?" Magus asked
"Ohh umm didn't you know? You have a match."
"I haven't been paged about it, when did you find out?"
"Oh you won't have been paged silly, It's just that the pit fights start tomorrow don't they?"
"Uhh, Mei?" Magus said gently "I'm not entered in the pit fights."
"Yes you are."
Magus chuckled "Trust me, I'd know if I'd signed up for something like that."
"Umm would you know if somebody else signed you up?"
"Mei?" Magus said slowly "What exactly did you do?"
Mei's lower lip started to tremble and her eyes glistened with impending tears "I'm soooo sorry Magus but I wrote your name down for the pit fights and I thought you would be happy because of the prizes and stuff and if you did well enough you would get to be interviewed by Chisato but I shouldn't have done it because you don't want to enter and now you're mad at me! Mei burst into tears and started sobbing against Magus's arm.
Magus tensed. Oh god, she was crying, what should he do? He had no experience with this! Oh why couldn't she just stop crying?
"Uhh it's okay Mei, I do want to enter the pit fights, I just forgot to sign up, so it was really a good job that you did it for me." He said panicking
Mei looked at him, her eyes red and puffy, tears still running down her cheeks. "R-really?" She said, her voice wavering.
Magus smiled at her reassuringly "Really"
Mei sniffed and wiped her eyes with her sleeve "So you aren't mad at me?"
"Of course not Mei"
"Yay I did good" Mei hugged him tightly and skipped round the room, leaving Magus to wonder what the hell just happened. Had he just been manipulated by this little girl?
Mery accurately simulated the noise of a whip "She really has you trained doesn't she Magus?"
Dammit! Today officially made it into Magus's diary as the worst day ever.
Okay very little actually happened here plotwise, but who cares all that much? I promise to do more plot advancement next chapter. I haven't slept in over 18 hours, I need to go to bed. Oh and I also promise to start doing serious bits, I've been joking around a little recently (a bit of it was in-jokes so don't worry bout it)