Hey guys! I apologize for the massive delay in posting this chapter. I've more or less figured out a posting schedule, but not the average length of these chapters. I'll post a new chapter within 6-18 days of the last chapter, the reason for me not having a definite time period is because the chapters will still vary in length, so I'm giving myself extra time to review and revise the chapters. Anyways, read and review!
"What makes this operation so important?" Shiro asks.
The man takes a deep breath before responding. "I don't know all the details, but what I'm about to tell you is a mix of my current knowledge and some factual hypotheses I've made based on what I've heard from others."
Shiro nods before saying, "Continue."
"Alright, for me to really explain all this, I need to know what you know, so I don't say anything redundant."
"Right. What I know is basically what everyone else knows from the experiences that they've had. What we do know is that Mikumo is technically a clone of a woman who is known as the 'Star Singer' in the lore of Windermere. She is also more or less a non conventional weapon with the ability to control the minds of a population of people that stops short of the whole universe with her voice. However, she doesn't have full control of these abilities, and in encounters where she sang as the Star Singer, she was controlled by people who were of or very close to the royal bloodline. It's likely that her creation was overseen by Lady M, who may have been collaborating with NUNS." Shiro reviews.
"Okay, so you know the basic information about her."
"Obviously, neither NUNS nor Lady M has granted the rest of Delta Platoon or the captain of the Elysion any substantial information. I haven't been here long enough to know everything the others know about Mikumo. They've given me a rundown of what's happened, but there's a good chance that they might have left something out."
"Wait, what do you mean by that?"
"I'm Mikumo's personal bodyguard, of sorts. As for the time I've been here, I've actually only been here for about three days or so. In spite of this, we already had an attempt to kidnap her. In fact, it was basically yesterday when we had that attack."
"So you barely know Mikumo."
"Mind if I join the conversation about myself?" Mikumo asks, to no one in particular.
The man and Shiro look at each other, before nodding at Mikumo.
"What Shiro's said so far is true, but like he mentioned, he doesn't quite know me so I'll take it from here. However, I'll be brief, mainly because I really want to know what your or whoever's purpose for all this is." She adds the last sentence with a serious tone.
The man shivers and Shiro looks at Mikumo, his expression unreadable.
"Go ahead, Mikumo."
Mikumo nods before speaking.
"Well, I'll say what I'm certain or almost certain of. Most of this is coming from the flashbacks that I had while I was unconscious after the more recent battle on Voldor. I haven't told the others all this, so you will be the first one to know all this, Shiro."
"Are you sure you don't want to say this to them? It seems that they're much closer to you than I am." Shiro asks, slight skepticism in his voice.
"They are, but that's part of the problem. They would be more likely to sugarcoat or withhold their responses. You'd be more honest with me, or at the very least, blunt."
Shiro nods before leveling his gaze at her. "Alright, but are you okay with him being here as well?"
She looks at the man who flinches when her gaze stops at him.
"I have no problems with this."
"Okay, then please, continue-"
Shiro is cut off by the sound of pounding on the operation door, followed by the sound of familiar voices.
"Hey Shiro! Mikumo!" Arad's voice is the first they hear.
"Are you guys okay?!" Kaname raises her voice just enough to be heard through the door.
"Guys, say something!" Freyja yells, her voice panicked.
Shiro walks over to the door before saying, "We're okay, but we're a bit busy right now, give us ten minutes, okay?"
There's a pause before Arad responds, "Alright, but give us an update soon. I don't like not knowing what's going on."
Shiro and Mikumo simultaneously sigh before looking at each other, then to the three bloodied dead bodies on the floor.
Shiro scratches the back of his head before sighing. "I wonder how I'm supposed to explain all this."
Mikumo looks at him, her head tilted slightly to the side. "Well, you can say that you did it to defend me, and all things considered, I don't blame you. So don't worry about it. I'm more worried about him." She motions to the man sitting on the floor.
"I accept whatever you guys choose to do with me. At this point, there's nothing I can do now, especially given that I've failed to inject the tracker in Mikumo."
"Oh, so that what you were injecting into me." Mikumo says, confirming the man's statement.
"But that doesn't explain why you guys had so many needles, nor does it explain how it killed the other three men." Shiro notes.
"It was a bio-tracker, designed to bond with Mikumo's body. The way it works is that the nano-machines in it would physically bond to everything close to the injection site, but because of this, it causes intense physical strain on the affected area. The only way to counter this was to inject every part of Mikumo's body, spreading the effects over her whole body. Mikumo's body was genetically modified to handle this level of strain. In addition, when you threw those needles back at those guys, you hit them in vital areas, the resulting physical strain bursting their arteries and veins." The man explains.
"Welp, shit." Shiro thinks to himself before responding.
"So, Mikumo, given that I doubt that we have time to continue any further, would you like to wait until after we've resolved all this before sharing your knowledge?"
Mikumo thinks for a few seconds before responding. "Yes, I would prefer to explain my side of things uninterrupted. I'd find it easier to do so with just the two of us."
"Alright, I'll let them know the situation and see what they want to do with him." He glances at the man still sitting on the floor.
The man looks directly at Shiro before saying, "Like I said earlier, do what you want with me. I have but one request in exchange for any information you want from me that I actually have."
"And that is?" Shiro asks.
"I have a wife and two children on Al Shahal right now. Given that I've failed in probably the most important task that NUNS has assigned me, they will probably go after my family."
"And you want us to take them in under our protection?" Shiro assumed.
"You don't have to go that far, just hide them, or at least give them a chance to run away." The man pleads.
"You do realize that if we do that, NUNS will most likely won't take that lying down."
The man sighs before lowering his head. "I understand that, and I'm not going to try and justify what I tried to do, but please, I know what NUNS does to the families of people who fail important tasks. I'll do anything, please."
Mikumo looks at Shiro, her expression firm yet gentle.
Shiro exhales before he responds. "I'll consult the others. As you probably know, I'm not the one in charge, so even if I wanted to, I don't have the authority to do anything. If they approve, I'll consider it, but you should know, Mikumo's safety is my main objective. If it comes down to it, I WILL leave your family behind."
The man looks up, a glimmer of hope in his eyes. "That's all I'm asking for."
"By the way, I never got your name."
"I'm Toland Stein. I'm a bio-engineer."
"Well, Mr. Stein, I'm about to let our friends and my superior back in this room, so you should be prepared for some...negative backlash from them." Shiro states.
Toland gulps nervously as he watches Shiro walk up to the door and says that everyone on the other side of the door is clear to go inside. No sooner than when he said that did the door burst open and two men, one rather young, the other considerably older, ran into the room, followed by a group of girls with varying hair colors. They stop and survey the room, noticing the three bloody bodies on the ground before looking at Shiro. Toland can't help but notice how they seem scared but at the same time, it seems as though they accept Shiro's actions. Ignoring the bodies, they walk over to Mikumo, making sure that she is still intact, mentally and physically. The other two males ignore him, walking over to Shiro, who says something inaudible to them. The two males look over at Toland, then back to Shiro, who gives the latter a nod, easing Toland's nerves.
After the incident, the operation room was cleaned up like nothing ever happened. No one except for Arad spoke to Toland, who simply told the latter that naturally, he would be detained for a interrogation, but they would otherwise treat him fairly. When the group made it back to the Elysion, the members of Walkure and Delta Platoon were debriefed by Shiro, who explained the whole incident, including the contents of the injectors that Toland tried to inject into Mikumo, and how the other three men died.
Afterward, Mikumo pulled Shiro aside to tell him her side of the story, and as she described every flashback and vision that she had, Shiro found himself shocked by what she was describing. He remained stoic, however, seeing as recalling those memories seemed to bother Mikumo greatly, as she couldn't stop shaking and Shiro had to hold her for a minute before she calmed down enough to continue on. The experiences that she described confirmed Shiro's suspicions about Mikumo's development as weapon of sorts. What he couldn't confirm, however, was how Lady M was involved, or what the end result of Mikumo's development was supposed to be. He decided that he would only give this information to Reina, whom he entrusted to keep it a secret from the others, on the sole reason that there wasn't enough information to make an accurate conclusion, to which Reina agreed. Shiro pondered how far NUNS was willing to go to have Mikumo under their control, and how ironic it was that a weapon was hired to protect another weapon.
Arad and Ernest kept good on their word, and Toland was satisfied knowing that there was hope for his family. Two weeks later, he was informed that a special ops team under the directive of Captain Ernest was dispatched to find his family on Al Shahal given the information he provided. Shiro, despite being the one to suggest the operation and the one to bring up the information, was not included in the operation. Toland honestly didn't care, as long as his family was on Al Shahal, the spec ops team would find them. Little did he know, he was already too late.
The day the Spec Ops team returned to the Elysion, four days after Toland was informed about the operation.
Toland waited eagerly on the launch deck of the Aether, where the shuttle that was supposed to contain his family was on approach. Next to him were Arad and Shiro, who was asked by Arad and Ernest to escort Toland's family to him before meeting up with the other members of Delta Platoon for his first day of flight training. The shuttle's rear bay door opened to reveal six figures in black clothing and tactical armor with rifles on their back. They walk out slowly, lowering their face masks before looking at the three men standing before them. Toland's face changes from hopefulness to fear upon seeing the men, then to a mixture of horror and sorrow upon seeing what was behind the squad of soldiers on the floor of the shuttle. The last man out, presumably the squad leader, walks up to him, his face grim.
"I'm sorry. They were like this when we arrived."
Toland pales as he walks into the shuttle to confirm the man's words. He gazes at the three body bags on the floor of the shuttle. Just by eyeing them, he can tell two of them are notably smaller than the last, and the last one exactly matches the body of the one person that made his life worth living for. He lowers the zipper just enough to reveal the face of a woman with a small face and brown, shoulder length hair. There is a massive cut across the forehead, and a large scar in place of the left eye. He closes the zipper before standing up and walking out, his face calm, his eyes brimming with cold fury. He walks up to Arad, who regards him with a grim expression while Shiro, like usual, remains stoic. He stops in front of Arad, his gaze leveled with Arad's.
"I don't care what it takes from me, I want to know one thing: Can you track down whoever did this to my family?" He asks, his tone leaking anger.
Arad sighs before responding. "We can, but unless the ones who did this have something to do with our goals, we aren't going to go off a tangent just to help you get revenge."
Toland calms down visibly before replying. "I have information and resources that you guys might possibly need. Especially since NUNS will most likely be your enemy in the imminent future."
Arad stops to think before he responds to Toland. "We'll discuss this with the Captain, Walkure and the members of Delta Platoon. The latter two groups will most likely be involved in an operation should we decide to pursue the ones who did this to your family."
The squad leader walks up to Arad and Toland, clearing his throat to get their attention. "About that sir, it appears that you or someone else may be able to gather some information from these." He hands Arad a few small squares with orange circuit-like lines engraved into them.
"What are these?"
"Those are data chips with audio files on them. We found them one of the bodies. When we tried to play the audio on them, we heard a variety of voices, but it seems the data chip is pretty badly damaged. Perhaps someone could repair and extract the information?"
Toland picks up one of the data chips from Arad's hand, gazing at it intently before looking back up at the squad leader.
"You found these on the body of the woman, didn't you?"
"That is correct. Why do you ask?"
"Because I know exactly how to get the information off the chips. They aren't damaged, they're set up this way to appear so." His face breaks into a sad smile. "Only a few people in the universe know how to do this, and I married one of them. As far as I know, I'm the only one who knows how to retrieve that data."
"I assume that you want the data chips?" Arad asks, extending the data chips to Toland.
"Yes, I do. If you don't mind, I would like access to certain resources to retrieve the data."
"As long as you don't cause any trouble, you can have access to anything you want. We'll decide whether or not it's worth helping you take action."
"That's fine with me. I'll be working on this for a while, so you don't have to expect anything."
"Ok. Well, if that's all, I'll have Shiro here escort you to your quarters. Let us know when you figure things out."
"Thank you."
With that, Shiro escorted Toland to his quarters, while Arad took the spec ops squad to debrief Ernest on the bridge. After escorting Toland to his quarters, Shiro walked down to the hangar of the Aether to meet up with Hayate, Mirage, and Chuck. The later three were already in their respective flight suits.
"I thought we were doing flight training?" Shiro asks.
"Well," Chuck answers, "we were, but the Captain insisted we start with teaching you how to fly before we teach you the basics."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Shiro thinks to himself. "Okay, what are we going to do?"
"Long story short, we're going to put you in an actual fighter, not one of ours, of course, and we're going to execute a mock dogfight to make you learn faster" Mirage says.
"Don't worry about it, we'll go easy on you, and we'll make sure you don't get seriously injured." Hayate adds.
"Why do I get the feeling that I'm not going to enjoy this?" Shiro thinks to himself. "Okay, well, we might as well get started. Do I need to know anything else before we start?"
"Oh yeah, you need a pilot suit. We have a trainee suit in the changing room behind us to the right." Mirage adds.
Shiro walks past them into the room that they described, finding an open locker with a white suit that included black shoulder pads, black boots, and a white helmet with an orange visor. Upon donning the suit, Shiro realizes that, somehow, the suit fits him perfectly, as if they had gotten his measurements before they had even recruited him. Pushing his extra side thoughts aside, he finishes putting the suit on and grabs his helmet before exiting the changing room. He then walks over to the three pilots still standing at the same place they were before.
"So, you three obviously have your own fighters, where's the one I'll be flying?"
"You'll be flying a Nightmare, Makina hasn't even started tweaking the Siegfried that you might be getting in the near future." Hayate replies.
"What is a Nightmare?" Shiro asks, not familiar with the nickname that the fighters were given.
"Nightmares are the standard Variable Fighter that NUNS deploys all over the universe. Siegfrieds are the fighters that we fly, Chaos orders them, Makina and Reina tweak them. Every pilot here has a Siegfried tuned to them specifically, and assuming you pass our initial tests, you'll get one yourself." Mirage explains.
"Okay, anything else I need to know before we get started?"
"Y'know, besides how to fly a fighter?" Chuck jabs at Shiro.
"Yes. Besides how to fly a fighter." Shiro says without a hint of humor.
"Nope that's it. Let's go." Hayate quickly says.
With that, each pilot climbed into their respective fighters, and they took off. Without Shiro, who still had no idea how to even start the fighter. He looked around the cockpit, looking for anything that might give him a clue. A couple minutes passed before the HUD in Shiro's cockpit lit up, displaying the faces of Makina and Reina, both of which were smiling at him. Shiro looks intently at the two before sighing.
"I take it you two are here to either pour salt into my wounds or to help me start this thing."
"Actually, we're here to do both." Makina chimes bubbly.
"We'll help you first before we tease you a bit." Reina adds in her usual monotone tone, which contrasts her expression.
Shiro exhales before responding. "I hope that your way of teasing doesn't include something like turning off the engines while I'm mid-flight."
Makina and Reina look at each other before giggling and turning back to him.
"Nonsense!"
"We wouldn't do such a thing."
"Alright, whatever you say. Just tell me how to work this fighter and you can do whatever you want to me after I land back on the Elysion in one piece."
"Fine, but we get to do anything, okay?"
"Don't take it too far, okay?"
"Fair enough."
Meanwhile, outside the Aether
Hayate, Mirage, and Chuck are hovering a small distance away from the Aether's runway, guns drawn.
"Do you think he'll make it out?" Chuck asks, looking at the clock in his fighter's cockpit.
"I doubt it." Hayate yawns.
"Well, the Captain said we have at least two hours to get him up to speed on the basics of flying." Mirage adds, scanning the hanger that they launched from, looking for any activity.
"What if he doesn't make it out?" Chuck asks, apparently the only one who cares about Shiro.
"I guess we'll have to go in there and drag him out." Mirage states, a sadistic smile breaking out on her face.
Hayate and Chuck look at each other nervously, obviously offset by their superior's sudden change in demeanor. A roar grabs the trio's attention. As they turn towards the source of the sound, they're met with a blur of a khaki fighter that blows past them. They look at each other for a moment before switching their Siegfrieds into fighter mode to chase the Nightmare that was soaring into the sky.
The bridge of the Elysion
Arad walks on to the bridge to see the members of Walkure standing in front of a screen displaying the skies around the Elysion.
"Well, I didn't expect this. Why are you guys so interested in the flight training Shiro's undergoing right now?" Arad asks.
"We're more or less interested in how well or how poorly our new bodyguard will perform as a pilot." Kaname responds.
"You mean Kumo-Kumo's bodyguard?" Makina lightly teases Kaname.
"Isn't that what she meant?" Freyja asks, slightly confused.
"For all intents and purposes, Shiro's role is similar to Delta Platoon's, except that he is always going to be paired with Mikumo whenever possible, and even then, he is going to be more adept at keeping up with her than the rest of Delta Platoon." Ernest adds.
Neither Reina nor Mikumo say anything, although Mikumo is considerably more focused on the screen than Reina. Her emotionless eyes track the movements of the fighter that stands out from the rest of Delta Platoon's. The motions are erratic, each turn jerky and every maneuver even more so. All Shiro was doing at this point was trying to dodge the volley of paint rounds being stormed upon him. He rarely fired back, even when one of the three was right in front of him. To anyone else, Shiro had no idea what he was doing, but to Mikumo, she could tell that Shiro knew what he was doing, he just couldn't quite put his thoughts into actions. Not the way he was expected to, anyway.
Her thoughts were interrupted when Freyja asked, "How has Shiro not been completely painted a rainbow yet? Hayate got painted a new one when he did his flight exam, and that was just against Mirage-san. Shiro's facing Hayate, Mirage-san and Chuck, and he's only been grazed a few times."
"I think a better question is how Shiro even knew how to take off in a fighter. I was under the impression that he had little to no flight experience, yet he can dodge the majority of the shots being fired at him." Arad wonders aloud.
"Well, you see," Makina nervously says, "we kinda taught him how to start and operate variable fighter in like, five minutes."
"But that still doesn't explain how he's flying like a cadet in flight school and not like some kid we threw in a fighter for shits and giggles." Arad notes.
"I think I can answer that." Everyone's eyes turn towards Mikumo. "I've only known him for a few days, at best, but I can definitely see this. Shiro has incredible reflexes, and despite him being completely new to piloting, he's managed to perform adequately for someone who started flying today." Her eyes never leave the display.
"Hoh, Mikumo, are you actually interested in him?" Arad questions, surprised by her attitude and behavior.
"I guess I am, I can't quite determine why though." Mikumo absentmindedly responds.
The members of Walkure and Arad look at each other, expressions a mix of surprise and amusement.
"Well," Kaname says "things are certainly about to get more interesting, in more ways than one."
Hey guys! Again, sorry about taking so long to post a chapter, and for those who really care, sorry for this chapter being shorter than the last couple. I'm trying my best right now, what with my other commitments and stuff. Anyways, I hoped you enjoyed reading this chapter, and I hope to hear from you guys.