The destroyed fields of what was left of Greece lie before Testament, his steps off of the giant stairway coming to the gravel at bottom. His scythe tipped into the gravel slightly, a few rocks moving aside from its crimson tip, black eyes hidden behind black hair, an untamed and wild mop on top of his head, and rags of an old uniform hanging from his shoulders and around his legs in equal black. His skin was pale, a contrast to the darkness and covered moon, which itself looked like a ripped piece of flesh from the body of the Gear and thrown into the heavens.

He stood at the base of the stairway, loking over the other ruins of the Acropolis; the temple of Athena Nike's four colonnades bashed and battered, it's square base littering the surrounding grounds, the Propylaea's few foot steps and multitude of colonnades shattered and almost indiscernible from a pile of rubble that iwas once the entryway of the Acropolis grounds. The ground of the Grecian monument was littered with boulders, of rubble and stone, and man smaller rocks of gravel lining its walkways made by trampling feet of Gears. The rocks seemed to be forced into cement status by the sand that was packed in the holes, old bricks holding up walls that hardly stood, and the small gardens surrounding the elevated hill being removed of its green by the malignant settlers.

The malignant settlers being Gears, and thousands. The masses of them stood still, lying down, husking over rocks, breathing rhythmic in pattern, so every breath inhaled and exhaled of the giant mass at once, by the command of Justice. None of them were moving, except for a few designated few (get to it later). They all sat on the wreckage, laid across heaps of rubble, in the small weeds growing in through the gravel ground and vines up and across the destruction, leaving Eden to reclaim its grounds, without the interference of humanization.

Each step Testament took, the Gears parted, leaving the gravel underneath for his boots over their biological carpeting of the area. The Gears took up all of the space around the base of the Parthenon, leaving no space, except for the stairway up, which was barren, except for the select special Gears, manufactured by Justice himself to sit on that exact stairway. Orders rained from the top of the stairway to heaven, as Justice would say, his throne being the Episcopal entry of holiness itself, though the orders were unheard audibly. Racing through the Gears' heads, orders to move, relocate, legs moving, contracting 72 degrees for a step of the left leg, 98 degrees for the right, parting a way with each sequential step of Testament to get through unfazed, the Gears mindlessness only obeying the orders. Even those orders ran through Testament's head, hearing the feminine voice, the elctronic lull of estrogen, yet he didn't follow the orders, they were not represented to him. The voice stayed though, he always heard it, heard Justice in his head…a voice in the back, telling what to do, and you'd have to follow it, it was unable to not. Though, the orders ranked lower than his biological transformation would allow, and thus wouldn't follow the orders, but higher intensity orders he was unable not to follow.

The outlying garden had been razed, Gears lying where there were trees and grass, the destroyed town of Athens lying in front of Testament, reaching the edge of the grotto where the Acropolis started. To the beachfront was a stretch of small buildings, the dotted roofs and windows innumerable, rising and falling with the hills, streets lost below, though of course, Justice's battle A.I., Siren, knew of all of them, if needed to be called upon, and his direction flawless to his destination, if he decided to or was coerced into following the orders issued in his own mind, like a rattling tambourine that never silences. In the darkness, the waves lapped up on the barren city, the bodies mostly collected up from the city and…used, the beach completely clean and white, as well as the clear water smiling back at the moon with a reflection of simplicity that the moon would be bashful to accept as her own.

A dim light burned through the allies though, at a azimuth direction of 58 degrees in front of Testament, the voices in his heard mathematically contracting his muscles and taking the steps with precision of a program incapable of error or sub-par efficiency, unless manually over-rode by Justice. So, down the hill Testament walked, the mass of Gears at the foot of Justice's massive throne building sitting around, not moving or working, but stagnating, waiting…for the second that voice buzzed to life from their minds, the slow and dulling lull of the voices inactivity like a melody not even Ulysses could have avoided.

Slowly stepping through the thicket of life growing near the city front, he stepped between buildings, Seikishidan issue boots trampling on the road with efficient weight distribution and speed, slowly denied by Testament who preferred a more lulled way of arrogant walk, the priority of his commands leisurely backing down to allow his more sentient being to take over, though he already knew where he was going and why, as the voice reminded him.

Coming around a few corners, the blood stains and severed limbs occasionally lying in the street to accent the broken buildings, shattered glass, and destroyed life of the city, he came to the center of the dim light. The bodies were stacked in heaps, being reached at by a fw of the toiling Gears, never blinking, stopping, thinking, taking a break, just grabbing the bodies, throwing it to the next Gear, who would split it open, removing all useful organs and tissues with a dull piece of metal, and tossing the carcass aside for the next. The pool of blood gathered on the discarded organs, a putrid stink of the already dead suffering post-mortem humiliation. Another few Gears would collect the discarded carrion, taking it to a device that had a central link to Justie, a sub routine analyzying the organs, taking cell samples, DNA, seeing what was useful or not, then tossing them aside, a conveyer belt loading each of the tools on as it was stabbed and poked, analyzed and digitized, then the machine spitting out the deformed and rotting liver to a stack on a wall.

Justice would collect DNA, make perfect ones from the traits of others, constantly find new methods and ideas, and make these new Gears, seeing efficiency, the discarded pieces of body and flesh sometimes becoming the new Gear itself, if so deemed, b ut not at Greece, not yet. He hadn't the supplies to make his forces, nor could he quite set them up. Tibet struck a deadly blow, where he had all of his abominations and devices, destroyed by the Seikishidan, but he had back ups. His relatively new relocation to Greece suffered him the blow of taking only what he could carry…which meant every Gear in his force, though no new ones at the current time, but he had more than enough, numbering in the thousands.

Another few of the Gears working around the small campfire of raw and dead, constantly tossing in the lifeless and gutted corpses of men and women to keep it burning, toiled away from materials ferried in from around the city by search patrols. Metals and plastics were brought to them, hammers mending them to one, and making new weapons for the Gears who had not the inclination of natural ones, like razored teeth or jagged bone obstructions.

Testament's unwavering black eyes met each gear, looking up sequentially as they were targeted by his gaze, both his return transmission to Justice and then to the Gear he was looking at working like clockwork, almost simulating a sense of life in the drones. The Gears knew what they had to do, Justice knew everything to be done, but he sent Testament none the less, who had a personal aspiration as well.

Searching over the final products of the new weapons, the battered copper and aluminum, bits of steel and iron for the lucky, the bones mended to sticks and rocks sharpened for guerilla tactics appeasing him, as well as seeing the blatant efficiency of the mindless.

"Lyon…to see you, my friend. Once again, we meet on the battlefield, Kiske. Don't disappoint me, don't let down the Holy Order in your name or His. Don't let it down for Father." Testament uttered, watching the disgusting site of the butchered people of Greece get mangled and the battering of new weapons under the dim bon-fire of flesh.

"Excuse me, please open up, sir." The voice repeated itself, with a light knocking. Kiske stood up slowly, the fold-out cot held up by metal support beams, one that had been salvaged from some patrol troops digging through rubble, giving it to the commander hoping for a promotion that never came.

It was mid-day, and Kiske was just lounging in the small destroyed building that used to be a shop. The inside was thrown about in a mess, and cleaned out by a few soldiers for Kiske, who made accommodations in the form of a half of a shattered mirror, the cot, and his own trinkets lining the walls. His cross on a nail hanging from the wall-papered wall (which was hanging from age in places, revealing a yellowed dry wall behind it), the Fuuraiken leaning in a corner, his top-heavy garments of his uniform over a few small chairs from the shop that would have the pedestrians who walked in sit as their order was prepared.

He was in the standard issue Seikishidan pants, and his light tee-shirt, a white, semi-transparent one that went underneath all of the garments, a basic undershirt, with no sleeves and arced into a low cut on the chest, below his clavicles.

He opened the door, shades adorning the two windows side by side that would allow bypassers to look in upon it, so his knowledge of the company outside was next to nothing.

Upon opening the door, he wished he had not. Seeing Gestahl standing a good few inches above the man in front, who stood at a portly 5' 7", the rather tall, yet old frame of Gestahl dwarfing him.

"I am with the U.N. security commission. I am here to take the events of the preceeding battle, for recording."

"You mean tribunals" Ky said with a maliciously low voice, seeing Gestahl smirk slightly behind the man, who scoffed at the notion.

"Is this your living quarters?" the man said, halfway pushing past Ky into the shop.

"Currently" Ky said with a slight dissatisfaction at the man, his perfectly trimmed black suit ironed and pressed, hiding his massive gut and obtrusive chins. U.N. officials usually wear black when addressing other U.N. officials, or at the central agency. Otherwise, a more formal color is white, or if you're Sekishidan going to Geneva, white's the color. It's kid of detrimental, and class based, though hardly, it's just there for kicks to those who take enough time to actually care. The man perused around the shop slightly, a clipboard in hand, pen twiddling in his outside fingers, his beady eyes scanning over every thing; the peeling wall paper, the bits of rubble left on the floor, the cracked and water-damaged ceiling, the missing back wall (which had been closed off by a draping sheet by Kiske's underlings, of which he didn't ask, which rang true of just about everything he received, the soldiers doing it of good will and faith to the commander, just brown nosing).

"Satisfactory" the man said in his voice that seemed as portly as his with a squeamish tendency hidden in the bellowing words that jumped their way from his corroded throat. Ky gave Gestahl a glance of disbelief as he stepped in, only shrugging, looking him in the eyes, though Ky didn't quite care.

"And you are?" Ky said, folding his arms, trying to remain calm.

"Hans Oppem, U.N. official of"

"Recordings." Ky finished off.

"Yes, I said that already." Hans said with a slight distaste to Ky, looking down at his clipboard while assuming a seat on one of the three stools left manageable after the Gears destroyed the shop at the initial raid of Lyon, dating four and a half weeks prior (Lyon was seized about a week and a few days earlier from this point). "So, let's get to it. I am representing the U.N. council in this matter for the recordings of this battle and session. You, Kyle Kiske—"

"Not, Kyle, just Ky."

"…Ky Kiske, are the commander of Seikishidan, survivor of the Lyon incident." After repeating the day's date, time, and all the other necessities by the practice of a U.N. recording, he finally got to it. Ky managed to take a seat on his cot, taking the hanging gold cross from the nail above his bed t put it around his neck over his undershirt, which did a good job of accenting his lean physique, especially for 16.

"The mission started as per Adam Gestahl's briefing and direction. To enter the sewers through three different points, use the flare guns if encountering resistance and to meet up at the center of the city, already told to us, and on the maps given to the navigators of our groups. Each group had two-hundred soldiers, or close to it, and one flare gun, one compass, one map, as what you rationed us." Oppem furiously scribbled his antique pen across the pad, taking down the words as they were said, Ky not slowing down to let him write any more, but the speed of the fat man's hand rather surprising to Kiske and Gestahl.

"We were…ambushed. All of our flairs went up at once." Ky said, his eyes peering over to Oppem, who sat diligently writing the notes on the paper pad attached to a metallic clipboard, hinges to open up and insert the pad inside, the inscribed U.N. symbol across the top of the shining alloy. "From there, we all rushed to the center of the city, all three groups converged. We were backed into a cul-de-sac, and fought the remaining Gears and finally defeated them all."

"You were ambushed by a larger force and still won?" Oppem said, his chin (and subsequently lower ones) rumbling as his low voice bellowed, his German accent permeating through his words in a way one might have though his name Auric.

"We had some very dedicated soldiers." Ky reaffirmed, leaning over his legs from his sitting position, resting his arms over his knees. Gestahl was standing on one of the walls, arms folded behind his back, leaning slightly, watching. More than one party must always be in the presence of an off-site recording, and Ky also found Gestahl more consoling than any other U.N. official he met, so he didn't have much of a problem with it. "And, Gestahl here was waiting outside of the city with three MTs to get the wounded, and a troop of A.A.'s." Ky said, nodding to Gestahl, who nodded at Oppem when the beady eyes hidden by rosey and large cheeks looked upon him for verification, turning back down to his pad to take more notes, if not word-for-word.

"…All right, and what of Sol Badguy?" Oppem said, flipping pages back to notes and official business. Ky cringed at the name, looking to the back of the shop where the sheet had been nailed to the ceiling to provide some privacy, wind billowing across the surface, causing the white sheet with drops of crimson stained onto it to ripple like waves.

"He fled soon after the battle ended."

"We were hoping you would have detained him." Oppem said forcefully and aggirvated. "I would think that, considering your past, you wouldn't have let Sol leave." You're right, Oppem. But, I told him to leave. I told him to get out of here and not to show himself around me again. I can't hold him, I can't detain him so you can try and ask him questions or endanger the lives of my soldiers or you. He's a tarnish, a blemish on the Seikishidan, and he is worthless.

"Well, too bad." Ky said, standing from his cot. "Is there anything else you need, Mr. Oppem?" Ky said, innerved by the man and trying to keep his reserve.

"Number of casualties, soldiers you know of the be K.I.A., or alive, with 100 guarantee. As well as what you could have done to"

"The recordings are to ascertain fact, do not patronize me as to my leadership." Ky said authoritatively. "There is a graveyard about three blocks east from here, but the crosses are too few for the bodies. Ask the other soldiers to compile your report, I cannot answer those questions. Thank you and good day." Ky said with a sneer, opening the door to the shop. Oppem wrote down the last statement, stood up, and walked out with an elegant poise, except for the angry visage he had painted across his pudgy face at Ky. Kiske turned to Gestahl, who stood off of the wall and proceeded to the door, stopping in the door way and turning to Kiske.

"Don't let it get to you, Mr. Kiske. They're always like that."

"I know" he said back with a timid smile, the uneasy anger subsiding as the portly man tried stopping a few soldiers in the street whow alked past him like he didn't exist, rapidly yelling for somebody to help him or to answer his insulting questions before turning to what he thought was east, and walking off with an annoyed sense of speedand arrogance in his steps. "Though, he's your official."

"I try not to think of that too often" Gestahl said with a slight smirk on his old and wrinkled face, his gray-to-white hair slicked back in perfect fashion, as it always was, with a shine on it that never failed to at least capture part of the blue above him. "Though, get used to him. He will be the U.N. commanding officer here for a long while…"

"Exactly what I need." Ky quipped. Gestahl nodded, taking a step out the door, when he was stopped by Ky's mention of his name.

"Gestahl, wait." Gestahl turned slowly, amused, without a sense of urgency in his body, inquisitively looking at Kiske. "Tonight…there is a gathering, amongst soldiers and civilians. It's more or less a celebration that we are here, we colonized this city, and we won. I wouldn't mind if you came. No by-word-of-mouth is said of it, only in whispers and short tongue, because of the fact no one wanted any U.N. there."

"I do not suspect there will be a shortage of A.A.'s." Ky chuckled a little at Gestahl's correct assumption before continuing.

"Yes, but, I think that you're not the type of U.N. official we would be determined to not have had there. Southern district tonight, I would be honored if you would join us."

"I am honored by the invitation. Good day." Gestahl said with his elegant and composed self, dating back to another day and age gone by, as well as showing a deeper character than what was led on by his U.N. official façade, of which they tend to be very condescending, over-bearing power-hungry fools, watching war with a distasteful eye, not because it is war, but how it was gone about, assuming an infinitely wiser aura of everyone else, especially Seikishidan. Gestahl walked off, trailing the side of the street and between the destroyed and shattered buildings, though the city looked admirably better by each passing day, being cleaned and rebuilt, by both the soldiers and civilians.

Zeronova's Notes:
I don't have much to say, except that we see Oppem, a neat new character that basically works as a big U.N. asshole. Also, we see more of Gestahl's humanity and his relationship with Ky, yadda yadda, my normal bullcrap notes, you know how this goes. I can't friggin' beat Metroid Prime 2...