Well here is the next chapter, but first I would like to say: Thank you all who reviewed. Anyway, onto the disclaimer, wOOt!

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Ocean, never have, never will.

Chapter 2: Fear

We arrived in this town called Arias. It was a small town that was badly damaged for some reason. Plus there was something odd in the air, it must be because of how silent the town is. There are very few people walking around and there are several soldiers here and there muttering.

"What's going on here? Why is this town so badly damaged?" I asked as I looked around.

"This was the result of an attack from Airyglyph," replied Nel.

"Airyglyph?"

"The country that is next to our country, Aquaria. We are currently at war with them and we have been for the past few years. You will hear more details at our headquarters."

"Okay." This was the first time I had ever been in a place that was at war with another country. In all of my life I have never heard of any wars in my world, I don't think there has been any of them for over a millennium.

"There you are Lady Nel. Commander Clair is waiting for you at Headquarters," said a soldier as he walked over to Nel.

"Right, I am on my way over there," said Nel. We continued walking towards a large building. So this must be the headquarters that Nel was talking about. We went inside and entered the door on the left. This room was some sort of conference room. A woman with grey hair and an outfit similar to Nel's outfit was sitting at the table. Two other people dressed in armor were on the other side of the table. The woman with grey hair looked over at us.

"There you are Nel," said the woman. Then her eyes shifted over to me. "And who is this?"

"This is Alex, we met him outside of Arias," said Nel.

"Welcome Alex, I'm Clair Lasbard." I simply nodded and we all sat down. The first part of the conversation was battle tactics. It was boring but fortunately it wasn't that long. After the two people dressed in armor left, Clair looked back at Nel.

"Nel, there is something else I would like you to do tomorrow. A task I am entrusting to you. I want you to destroy Airyglyph's commander center."

"So your saying you want me to take out Vox, right?" Asked Nel.

"That's right." Clair looked over at Fayt and Cliff. "Cliff, Fayt..." Clair then looked over at me. "...and Alex. Please assist Nel in her mission."

"Will do," said Cliff.

"Sure," said Fayt. Soon everyone was looking over at me waiting for me to answer. I was silent for a moment while I thought about it.

"Okay," I said.

"I'm sorry to be getting you involved in this, Alex. Especially when you just came into town today," said Clair.

"It's all right, if there is something I can do to help than I am willing to try it. So why is Airyglyph attacking this country anyway?"

"Many believe that they want our land so they can grow more food for themselves. As a result they attacked us without any form of negotiation or politics," said Nel.

"Sounds more like a bunch of warmongers raising their fists into the air and attacking before asking questions."

"You are probably right about that. With people like Albel and Vox in command of the army it's no surprise that they just suddenly started attacking." The truth is I really didn't care that they were at war or that they were being attacked by a war-hungry country. The only reason I agreed to help was to gain Cliff and Fayt's trust. If I can make them think that I am one of their comrades I should be able to get a ride to Styx.

"Alright, now that we have agreed check your equipment and rest if you have to. We start this mission at dawn. Cliff, Fayt, and Alex. You three may leave." Clair looked over at Nel. "We have several things that need to be discussed, please stay here." Cliff, Fayt, and I left the room. I walked outside, as I was about to start gathering information I felt someone slam their hand down onto my left shoulder. I spun around to see Cliff and Fayt behind me.

"So Alex, what are you doing on this planet?" Asked Cliff.

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"It's kind of obvious that you are not from this world. Were you stranded here?" Asked Fayt.

"Yeah, you could say that," I said.

"Well don't worry. Our ship is coming soon, when it does come we are going to leave this hunk of rock and head out to where we have to go. Your welcome to come with us," said Cliff.

"Thanks, so could you tell me more about yourselves, like why you guys are here?"

"Sure. There was a recent attack on a planet called Hyda IV. Fayt here is one of the people who were on that planet at the time. His escape pod ended up on Vanguard III. I am a member of Quark, and our leader wants to meet with Fayt. So she sent me and Mirage, who you haven't met, to go find him. We went to Vanguard III and picked Fayt up. On the way to the rendezvous point we were attacked by the same group that attacked Hyda IV, the Vendeeni. We escaped but our ship was badly damaged and we ended up crash landing here," explained Cliff.

"I see. So we are all stuck on this underdeveloped planet. Let's hope that your ship comes soon." I had learned how to talk like I was from this galaxy so no one would suspect that I was from another universe.

"I wouldn't say that this place is a that much of an underdeveloped planet. You should take a look at some of the runological devices they have made," said Fayt.

"Runological?" I asked out of curiosity.

"Runology is basically Symbology. People on Elicoor II call it Runology." I will have to look into these runological devices and see what kind of powers these beings are capable of using.

"I see, well thank you for giving me the low down of what's going on," I said with a smile.

"Your welcome," said Fayt.

"Ah, don't mention it," said Cliff.

"Well I am going to have a look around this town. See you guys later," I said.

"See ya, Alex." I waved goodbye and started walking around town. I started talking to various people, most of them being runologists. They would gladly show off their abilities to me and the engineers loved talking about how powerful their runological weapons are. Okay, I have enough info. Time to report to Luther. I accessed the debugging tool and I resized it, reshaped it, and configured it so it would appear on my left wrist as a wrist guard. I went behind a corner and activated the communicator function. I typed in the command to contact Luther. A screen popped up with Luther on the screen.

"It's good to see that you are okay, Alex. So tell me what your current status is," said Luther.

"I am currently securing a trip to Styx so I can get back to our universe," I said.

"Good, anything else?"

"Yes, bad news I'm afraid," I said as a look of concern appeared on my face.

"What is the bad news?"

"You remember the meeting where we determined the worst case scenario and how soon it would occur if it does happen?"

"Yeah, why?"

"It seems the worst case scenario is going to happen a lot sooner than we thought at the rate things are going."

"That bad?"

"Yes. The people know how to use symbology really well. On this underdeveloped planet they have developed weapons that can use symbology."

"Advanced spells?" I shook my head.

"No, standard spells." Luther let out a sigh of relief.

"Seems everything is still running smoothly. Alex, I want you to report anything else you find out."

"Alright, I will."

"Oh and one more thing, be careful."

"Don't worry about me, I can take care of myself." The screen went blank and I walked back inside the mansion. I am feeling a bit tired so I'm going to go rest. The only problem is... I don't know where the bed rooms are.

"You looking for something, Alex?" Asked someone over to my left. I looked to the left to see Nel standing next to the door to the conference room.

"Yes, where am I sleeping?" I asked.

"Follow me," said Nel as she walked towards a flight of stairs. I followed her to the second floor and she let me to one of the doors. She opened it and inside was Cliff and Fayt. "This is the guest room, this is where the three of you sleep."

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it." With that, Nel closed our door and left.

"So, you guys ready for bed?" Asked Cliff.

"Yeah, I'm tired," said Fayt.

"Same here," I said.

"Then get some sleep. The last thing we need is you guys losing tomorrow because of lack of sleep," said Cliff. The next morning came quickly. As the sun slowly started to rise we headed down to the conference room where Clair and Nel were waiting.

"There you three are. Are you ready?" Asked Nel.

"Yeah," I said.

"Ready when you guys are," said Cliff.

"Yeah, I'm ready," said Cliff.

"Do you need a weapon, Alex?" Asked Clair.

"No, I'm fine. I have this," I said as pulled out the handle of my swallow.

"You know, I really don't think that metal pole is going to do you any good, Alex," said Cliff.

"This isn't just a pole, you'll see once we are on the battlefield." I wasn't remotely frightened or scared that I was about to go into a large battle. In fact I was looking forward to it, the chance to get rid of some of these bugs in the Eternal Sphere.

"Alright then, let's head on out to the field," said Clair. Soon the entire force had assembled in front of Clair outside of Arias. Clair started giving her little speech and then we assembled into our places.

"So how many are there?" I asked.

"Walk over to that cliff and you will see," said Clair. I walked up to where the Runological weapons were. As I looked at the horizon I starred in shock. There were thousands of soldiers. Most of them were on ground but in the air was a legion of knights on dragons. Okay, bad situation. I can't handle that many, there is no way that Nel, Cliff, Fayt or even me can reach Vox with that many soldiers between us and him. I walked back over to Cliff, Fayt, and Nel. Soon there was the sound of thousands of feet and the sound of armor in the distance. It was slowly getting louder and louder. This is bad, just in case I should probably activate it. Normally, if I was fighting in the real world I would have to rely on my skills with a weapon. But since I am in the Eternal Sphere I am able to use all of my powers as a System Moderator. I may not be as powerful as Luther but I can still put up a good fight. As we got assembled into ranks Nel looked over at Cliff, Fayt, and I.

"You three, once we break through the first set of ranks we will head straight to Vox," said Nel. If we are going to be charging through ranks of enemies I am going to have to use a better weapon. A swallow isn't meant for this situation. I activated me debugging tool. I pressed a few buttons and I felt another weapon materialize in my large pocket. I pulled it out, the weapon I had chosen for this battle was an energy sword. Slowly, Airyglyph's army was coming closer. Clair extended her hand and commanded the unit we were in to charge. We started running down towards them and they started running towards us. I activated my energy sword and charged down towards the enemy. I didn't care who I was fighting or who I was going to kill they were all bugs that had to be deleted. As I reached one of the soldiers in the front line I plunged my sword towards him. The energy blade plunged through the armor and into the soldier's innards. I pulled the sword out and then I cut another soldier to my right in half. Suddenly I felt something grab onto me and pull me into the air. I looked up to see that I was being clutched by a dragon. A few seconds later I was dropped towards the ground. Damn, what a cheap battle tactic. I aimed my hand towards the ground, suddenly a large pillar of earth shot out of the ground and I landed on it. This is one of the times that I like being able to manipulate the structure of the landscape in the Eternal Sphere.

"Hey, Alex. How did you get all the way up there?" Asked Cliff from the ground.

"Beat's me," I said. I looked around to see that the pillar was surrounded by bunch of soldiers. Not only that but the same dragon that had picked me up was now heading towards me. Good, time for some payback. I saw the dragon coming towards me at a fast pace. I pulled out my energy sword and this time I threw it at the dragon. The blade went through the dragon and it fell to the ground. Now that I have that taken care of... the only problem remaining is the fact that a bunch of soldiers are ready and waiting for me to jump down. If I don't approach this careful I will be putting myself at risk of getting severely hurt. I activated the symbology energy chain program and shot it towards the ground. I pulled out the handle of my swallow and I put it on top of the line and I slid down to the ground with it.

As I landed I deactivated the symbology energy chain and activated my swallow. Fayt, Cliff, and Nel looked over at me as I landed.

"How did you do that?" Asked Nel.

"It's just something I can do," I said with a smile.

"Right," said Nel with a tone that clearly stated that she didn't seem to believe me. "Once we clear a path we will continue heading towards Vox." A group of soldiers charged towards us. With our combined strength the group of soldiers didn't stand a chance. Once a path was cleared we continued to proceed to the location of this Vox person. If only I could summon one of the Executioners, this would be really easy. But since that isn't an option right now and I would rather not have the beings of the Eternal Sphere know about the Executioners yet. A little nasty surprise for them to find out on their own. Finally after several battles and a lot of walking and running we reached Vox.

Vox was quite the fearsome looking opponent. He had short brownish-blonde hair and brown eyes. On his face was a scowl that would intimidate just about anybody. His presence and his physical appearance made it obvious that he wasn't leading this army for nothing.

"I figured someone would come to attack me," said Vox. He looked at Fayt and Cliff. "Well, well, if it isn't the two engineers from that object that fell in our city? I thought I would see you two sooner or later." Vox looked at Nel and then sneered. "And what do we have here? A young lady from Aquaria, none other than Nel Zelpher. A weakling from a pathetic country." Nel snarled and clenched her fists. Vox let out a chuckle as he saw Nel's reaction. Then finally Vox looked at me. "And finally we have Alex Rothrock, System Moderator." I gasped in shock as I heard him say System Moderator. How could someone from this back water planet possibly know about us?

"How do you know who I am?" I demanded.

"That's simply not for you to know." I activated my swallow.

"Answer me!" I exclaimed.

"You don't need to know the answers since you are about to die." Nel drew her dagger, Fayt unsheathed his sword, and Cliff cracked his knuckles.

"If anyone is dying today, it's you Vox!" Exclaimed Nel.

"You all have guts, I'll give you that. Very well..." Vox looked back at the two soldiers standing behind him. "Leave these scum to me, I can easily take care of them myself!" The soldiers nodded and back away to give Vox more room. Vox let out a whistle and a bigger dragon than any I have seen on this battle field flew down and landed next to Vox. He got onto it and it flew up into the air. The dragon roared and shot balls of fire at us. We all managed to dodge the attacks and we got ready to launch a counter attack. Just as I was about to jab my swallow at Vox the dragon kicked my swallow out of my hands, causing me to stumble back from the unexpected attack. Fayt, Cliff, and Nel jumped in and managed to do some damage to the dragon. While they were busy dodging attacks I pulled out my swallow and joined in the fight. Vox indeed was a tough foe. A lot of the time we were either dodging his attacks or trying to launch counter strikes and failing miserably. After awhile we started to breath heavily. Damn, at this rate I am going to have no choice but to use more of my powers but I would rather not do that in front of a bunch of beings from the Eternal Sphere. They will start to question me about my powers.

"Damn, this guy is tough," said Fayt.

"You have all fought well, but anything else wouldn't be acceptable!" Said Vox. He's not even remotely tired it seems. Damn, I really don't have a choice anymore. I was about to start using my powers when I noticed something in the sky.

"Hm? What's that?" I asked. It's too early for the Executioners to come, it couldn't be them. Suddenly a large blast of energy shot from the sky and hit the ground below Vox. As the light faded Vox seemed to have disappeared, probably instantly incinerated. It's too bad that he had to die, I wanted to know how he knew about me. Suddenly something started coming out of the sky, it was a large red ship. Not sure what it is, but it isn't good for sure.

"What the hell is that?" I asked.

"It's them," said Cliff, looking mad about something.

"Them?"

"That's the Vendeeni," explained Fayt. Oh yeah... these guys. The freaks that gave me a lot of trouble during one of the last times I had come to this galaxy.

"Vendeeni? Are they from Greeton?" Asked Nel.

"No, they aren't. Why are they here? Are they planning on conquering this world?"

"Fayt, Alex, Nel, let's get the hell out of here. I know what THEY'RE after!" Exclaimed Cliff.

"Huh? What are you talking about?" Asked Fayt.

"Umm... actually I..." Cliff was cut off as a blast from one of the Vendeeni ships hit the ground nearby us.

"Gah! What's their problem?" I asked.

"Discussion can wait. Let's get out here, we are not exactly safe right now," said Nel.

"I'm with Nel on this one!"

"Your right, let's get back to Arias," said Fayt. As we headed back to Arias I looked up at the sky to see that the dragons with knights on them were flying towards the ships in attack formation. The Runological weapons were also firing off at the ships as well. Don't they understand? They can't win that way, they are only putting themselves in danger. Wait, what am I thinking? Why am I concerned about the safety of these people, these collections of data? Within a few minutes the Vendeeni started attacking the dragons and various places where the runological weapons were. All over the place was corpses and destruction. We finally arrived nearby Arias, there the Vendeeni were being relentless with their attack. Almost every time they fired, a chorus of blood curdling screams would follow after the impact of the attack. People were running around in a panic, this was a perfect example of chaos. There a man was tell people to retreat. He had short black hair and black eyes.

"Dion!" Exclaimed Fayt. Dion continued to tell people to run away and save their lives. Just then a blast from the Vendeeni ship hit the ground nearby Dion and he fell to the ground with a scream. He tried to get up but then he collapsed. The Vendeeni continued to fire randomly.

"These guys sure are trigger happy," I said.

"No... stop please," said Fayt.

"Snap out of it, Fayt! Get out of here, you'll be captured if you don't!" Exclaimed Cliff.

"Captured? What are you... wait... they are not after me are they?" Asked Fayt. Cliff didn't say anything, obviously showing that Fayt had hit the bulls eye. But why would the Vendeeni be looking for Fayt? He's just an ordinary person as far as I can tell. "Is that why the Vendeeni attacked Hyda IV, the Helre, and now Elicoor II? Was all of that my fault."

"Calm down! I... I... can explain," said Cliff trying to take control of this situation.

"No! I see now, everything is clear to me. It is all my fault!" Exclaimed Fayt starting to get a little hysterical.

"How could that be? This attack could purely be chance," I said trying to calm Fayt down before he starts to freak out even more.

"Calm down already," said Cliff as he put his hand on Fayt's shoulder. Fayt spun around and knocked Cliff's hand off of him.

"What do they want me for? Why do they want me enough to kill so many innocent people?" Demanded Fayt as his voice started to rise. Then Fayt raised his head up into the air. "Who... WHO THE HELL AM I?"

Suddenly a symbology array appeared on Fayt's forehead. Then various symbols appeared on his arms and he clutched his head. He let out a scream and once again he looked up at the sky. Now various symbols were flying across his body and the light started getting brighter. Suddenly a large symbology array appeared underneath Fayt. The next second a large angel made of symbology symbols appeared behind Fayt. The angel raised it's hands into the air and two large symbology arrays appeared above it. The light got brighter to the point where I had to shield my eyes. A pillar of light shot up towards the nearby Vendeeni ship and upon impact several more symbology arrays appeared and surrounded the Vendeeni ship. Another pillar struck the Vendeeni ship and it started glowing blue. The ship started to stretch out and slowly it disappeared without a sign of it ever being there. With a burst of light the symbology arrays disappeared. Out of nowhere came a bunch of angel feathers that disappeared as they touched the ground. Fayt was glowing with energy and he slowly sank to his knees and passed out. As he fell the light slowly faded away. There was dead silence, no one spoke a word.

"What was that?" Asked Nel.

"I never expected that his powers would have such amazing destructive capabilities," said Cliff. Words could not describe what I had just seen. There is no way that the people of the Eternal Sphere should be capable of using symbology spells that have power of THAT scale. Creating an angel out of symbology symbols, instantly destroying the ship, and then creating a bunch of angel feathers is all advanced symbology that is similar to the symbology that is the foundation of the Eternal Sphere. This goes way beyond our estimation of what they are capable of. I fell to my knees and threw up. I couldn't stop shaking, I was more than shocked at what had just happened, I was frightened.

"Good lord, that goes way beyond anything we had predicted. If they know how to use that level of symbology then we HAVE to get the Executioners into the Eternal Sphere NOW! The worst case scenario has become even worse than we all thought, I have to tell Luther about this," I said in my thoughts.

"Alex? Are you okay?" Asked Cliff.

"Yeah... I'm fine," I said as I slowly got up.

"Someone care to explain what exactly is going on here?" Asked Nel.

"We'll tell you later. For now we have to get out of here," said Cliff.

"Your right, let's go back to Aquios. We must report this news at once to Her Majesty."

"Okay, let's go," said Cliff as he picked up Fayt. Nel and Cliff started walking towards Arias. They stopped and looked back at me when they noticed that I wasn't following them. "Are you coming?"

"Yeah... just give me a minute," I said. Cliff nodded and he and Nel continued walking. I activated the debugging tool and turned on the communicator. Luther popped up on the screen.

"What is it, Alex? Why do you look so pale?" Asked Luther with a tone of concern in his voice.

"Luther! We have a bad situation at hand!" I exclaimed trying to remain as calm as I could.

"What's the problem?" Inquired Luther as he started to look even more interested.

"This is the problem!" I held my hand to my forehead and a sphere of energy appeared. I put it into the debugging tool, it's at times like this where being able to transfer memories is useful. "Watch that video." Luther activated it and watched the video. A look of fear appeared on his face. He fell back in his chair and was breathing heavily.

"Good lord, that's even worse than what we had predicted. That means that the worse case scenario is even worse than it was before," gasped Luther.

"That's why we have to act now. Send in the Executioners as soon as possible. We have to get rid of the Milky Way Galaxy now!"

"The Executioners need a little more work and they will be finished and ready to go. We will try to get that finished a soon as possible. But wait a second, you are still in the Milky Way Galaxy. If you can't get out of there before the Executioners come in, then even I can't guarantee your safety."

"Don't worry, I will make it out of here. Don't let the fact that I am still in here hold you back." Luther sighed.

"Very well, but let me warn you. The Executioners have been reprogrammed so that they will attack regardless of what staff member is present, except for me the Creator," said Luther.

"Understood. I will get out of here as soon as I can."

"Best of luck to you." With that, the screen went blank and I headed back into Arias. I met Cliff and Nel at the entrance.

"There you are, are you ready?" Asked Nel.

"Yeah, sorry I took so long. Let's go to this Aquios place," I said. We left Arias and headed towards Aquios.

I was scarred on that day that Fayt's powers manifested. But I had some relief thinking that Fayt was the only one who had those kinds of powers... but I was proven wrong after we reached Aquios.

So how will Alex react when he finds out that Maria has special powers as well? Find out in the next chapter. Anyway, please review. I should have the next chapter done soon.