A belated Christmas and Early New Year Present. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

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Dyson Sphere.

A hypothethical mega structure where a spherical structure was built encapsulating a small sun-like star. Solar panels, enough to encapsulate the entire surface of Planet earth, were lined on the inside surface, absorbing solar energy from the said star, producing power equivalent to one million nuclear reactors. That much energy will then be used to power the many more mega-structures build on the surface atop the framework. An Artificial manmade planet.

For a time, it was nothing but theoretical proposal, popularized by many science fiction stories. Take Death Star from that Star Wars movie, for example. If it didn't have that planet destroying death ray gun smacked on its surface, that thing is a proper Dyson Sphere.

Nowadays however, it's not hypothetical, theoretical, or science fiction anymore.

Around five decades earlier, when there's still a UN, when it is projected that Earth wouldn't survive the next decade with the rampant overpopulation, the bill for the manmade planet was proposed, and then it was signed and passed in the fastest vote in history.

Twenty years, UN closure, 3 world wars, 30 bankrupt super power nations, and 5 failed prototypes later, they've finally managed to craft the first solar panel ring around a small star, several planets away.

Within 10 years, the Dyson Sphere was already more than capable of sustaining life. A mass emigration-nay-Exodus was begun following a booming of space travel advancement. With virtually limitless access to raw material via outer space mining, a new space age begun.

By our time, 70% of human population now lived in outer space, and many more Dyson Spheres had been made. Some met successes; others suffered catastrophic cosmic disasters (Like being hit by a crash landing Alien Queen). But improvements were continually made. Before long, a second generation Dyson Sphere was made. Unlike the first sphere, the Second Gen was made using an artificial sun at its core. Of course, artificial sun don't exactly hold a candle to the genuine all natural sun… but with all the protest of men are not meant to meddle medley…

OUR Dyson Sphere was the first and largest of the second gen. Boasting around 30% of the 70% of human population in the outer space.

They call it the pioneer of the new frontier, the herald of the new Space Age, and other embellishments of sorts that we don't give two shits about-now wait a minute!?"

Nao choked in front of her audience: an assemblage of 10 year old Novus Sapien children who was, until a moment ago, gave their kindergarten teacher an undivided attention when she thoughtlessly muttered the S-word.

"JIN!" She screeched.

"What is it Nao?" In an instant, a very real holographic image of Jin appeared. Jin saw his flustered wife and quickly noticed what's in her hand. "Whoa! Nao! Where did you get that?"

"Why did you write these… these vulgar words in here?"

"It's MY diary! I can write what I want! What are you doing with my diary…" Jin suddenly noticed the many innocent eyes of the children staring at the bantering teachers. "Oh my God… did you just… you just went and… AARGH! What on earth did you… how did you… why in the Galaxy did you pick my diary of all things!?"

"I had NO idea this is your diary! I mean… I mean… the kids just picked up the book and hand it to me…!?" An equally flustered Nao retorted. "You shouldn't have left your personal effects lying around unattended!"

"Anyway! You put it back where you found it woman!" Jin snapped.

"Don't you get snippy with me, buster!" Nao growled back. "Oh well, that does it. I'll continue reading it anyway. I can do some editing while I'm at it."

"You change even a single coma on that book, woman, and I'll-"

Nao snapped a finger and Jin's words were cut right as his holographic image vanished. And then once again, she's facing the innocent eyes and ears of the children before her. "…erhh… ermm… sorry about that. Do you want me to continue, or should I pick a different book?" And as expected, the answer was a tirade of: "No!" "Please! Continue!" "We want this one!" "Please!" "What's shit?" "Please!" "Read it sensei!" Nao didn't miss that one particular question, but she decided to address that minor issue later. In any rate, Nao looked at her husband's diary… and considering the amount of profanity in it… she'll have to thread carefully. Very, very carefully. "Uh-hm."

(AN: the following Narrative is a slightly edited version with parental guidance activated.)

There were many names of which our Dyson Sphere was known by. But in the end, we, the First Knights, had only one name for it.

For us… we call it…

Our Home.

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200 years earlier…

"What exactly am I looking at here, Pino?" Haruto glanced at the holographic projection of this black bulbous object that Pino had declared to be inside his body.

"First, let me explain how this works." Pino began her explanation. "All Novus Magius were originally human. They were built to one day transform into Magius, but they're all fundamentally human. This was done by placing the package of mutagenic factor which, for the sake of easier clarity, we will call them Novus-Gene, inside an isolation membrane that rendered the gene dormant. When the catalyst was injected into a Sapien's body, the chemical reaction will rapidly degrade the membrane, unleashing the mutagenic package that quickly triggered the transformation process into a Novus Magius. Everyone following me so far?"

Everyone nodded. Pino quickly continued her explanation by bringing up the holographic genome map of a Novus Sapien and an awakened Novus Magius, side by side.

"Now, Normal Novus Sapien only have the Novus-Gene, clearly isolated away from other molecule. But in Novus Magius, that Novus-Gene had dispersed and merged with the Sapien physique, hence it disappeared. That's the way I designed it, that's the way it should be. But-" Pino brought up the next picture, this time, it is that of Haruto. "But in Haruto, I've discovered these… things. His Novus mutagen pack has been fully absorbed, and yet, there are several mutagens that remains isolated. They were some kind of a… biological genetic clock. These unknown cells are… covered in some biodegradable membranes that are decaying at a very steady rate." Pino unravel her findings before a very concerned Haruto and all other Valvrave Pilots, Novus Magius or otherwise. "The decaying process started as soon as you've transformed. Once a membrane has been decayed completely after a set time, it releases… whatever's inside."

"And… what is inside it?" Somehow, Haruto just know what Pino will say.

"…I'm not sure." Pino shook her head. "There are some things that I've identified when some of these… black box genes breaks off and spread. Among them… are these components that are shortening your septahelix telomeres and catalyzing your Z-Chromosome into premature mutation." Everyone dumbly looked at Pino, asking a layman's explanation. "…oversimplifying it: You're aging at an accelerated rate."

Haruto's eyes widened as wide as everyone else's.

"I said oversimplifying, didn't I?" Pino quickly continued. "To be more technical… the human side is okay. The Septahelix-telomeres had stopped your aging. From a human standpoint, you won't grow older. But what is in accelerated aging… is your Magius side." Pino remarked. "That's the reason why Haruto needs to feed so fast. Because your Magius side's metabolism is many times faster than usual as you are in an accelerated growth, hence you need more nutrients to compensate this spurt."

"That would explain why Tokishima Haruto had already exhibited a Magius secondary traits of an elder Valvire Magius at so young an age." Ashra nodded.

"As I tirelessly being reminded every day, we are weapons." Haruto laughed bitterly. "I suppose they don't want to wait forever for their weapons to mature." But Haruto quickly realized there's a greater implication. "But… that can't be all right?"

"Even after the breaking of this second set of mutagen molecules, there's still some other different mutagenic packages still covered in membrane that is also in steady decay. Once it decayed completely it will release… whatever else inside."

"And what, pray tell, will it do?" Saki growled.

"I don't know." Pino dejectedly answered. "As I mentioned before, I only knew what's inside those black box genes when the membranes had decayed completely."

Haruto frowned as he looked at his hands, as if he can see that black molecules slowly breaking apart. "So you're saying we can only wait until the damage has been done. How long?"

"At this rate… I'd give it a year." Pino frowned. "I'd have to do some tests… but that's not the only problem right now."

"There's more?"

Pino moved right to the point. "This mutagen is infectious. It can spread via Rune Exchange, anyone who had ingested the Runes that has been infected by this mutagen, ergo: Haruto's Runes, no matter how slight, will be infected." The audience was greatly alarmed. Pino glanced at the Novus Magius: Yusuke, Raizo, Takahi, Aina, Saki, and… the most recent one: Kyuuma. "You are all infected. Mutated. Originally, only Haruto had this uniqueness. But you all had, at some point, directly or indirectly, allowed Haruto's runes to enter your system. From that point on, you've all contracted this mutagen, acquiring the same black box genes in your being."

"What of us?" Jeay suddenly voiced his concern. "What of the pure Magius? Lady Ashra, Rasa and I have all came in contact with Tokishima Haruto, so obviously, we're infected. What effect does this black box genes had on us?"

"No, I don't think you are infected." Pino shook her head. "Preliminary simulation showed that merely came in superficial contact with Haruto's runes will not allow these genes to gestate. We're talking only absorption of Runes into one's system I.E. if you fed on him. Which means, if by contact you mean by butting rune armored heads with each other, the infection will not occur as long as you expelled the runes involved in the head butting immediately."

Jeay visible sighed in relief. But Rasa was not yet convinced. "What happens if we do get infected? What if our essence gets infected?"

Pino held her silence for a moment before answering: "…the mutagen it seems, designed to be rendered completely ineffective against Novus Magius, who are part human… Pure Magius can therefore temporarily hold the virus at bay by remaining in their human vassal. But once they removed themselves from that vessel… the mutagen will began to react at an explosive rate, triggering an apoptosis (cellular death) by over aging."

"Will that work on us?" Rasa frowned. "We don't age, do we?"

"Actually, we do." Pino shook her head. "On this physical world, unless contained within a vessel, our essence will diminish as we leak runes. How long do we have until our runes are spent and we fade away; that is our life expectancy." Pino described this by showing the green particles trickling out of her being bit by bit. "I was able to survive this long without a vessel because I am what I am. But for you…" She gestured at the lesser Magius. "This virus will eat the life out of you within minutes… if not seconds."

Whatever sense of relief Jeay had earlier faded immediately. Even though Pino had said as long as they remained within their human vessel they're safe, but Magius are not like Novus Magius. Their human vessel will age and eventually they will come a time when they must move to a new human body. At that point, there's a small brief period where the Magius essence is exposed. This mutagenic virus will now prevent Pure Magius from moving into a new body, keeping them inside a withered and aged human husk forever.

"Calm down. Not one of you had been infected yet. I guess it is fortunate that I found out about it now that I did." Said Pino. "I take it this is some kind of both weapon genes and defense mechanism they put into the Novus Magius to prevent pure Magius from feeding on them. It's… quite impressive, to be honest." Pino laughed in admiration.

The pure Magius in the room clearly did not think so. Ashra asked in suspicion. "Are you sure?"

"Pardon?"

"You said… Pure Magius that has not a vessel… and ones that has been in direct contact with Tokishima Haruto's rune. Those are the prerequisites for a Magius to be infected. If that be the case… there's one Magius who fit that description, no?" Ashra suddenly stated the obvious. There's one pure Magius who had been in more direct contact with Tokishima Haruto's runes longer than anyone. Furthermore, she didn't have a vessel yet.

Pino smiled solemnly. "Yes, Ashra. You are correct. I have indeed, been infected."

Haruto was stunned in thunderstruck horror, as do everyone.

"Now that it has been brought to my attention, I can feel it. This… infection… it's eating away at my being. It grew faster and faster with each passing moment." Pino looked at her arms, watching each trickling particles in her body leaving her. But then, she chuckled mischievously. "Meh, so what of it? Even before this, my constitution would allow me to last a few centuries without a vessel. Now I probably only had decades. Does it really matter?"

"It matters." Haruto replied with a miserable tone. "You're our family too."

Pino was somewhat taken back by such statement, but then she smiled motherly. "Haruto, if immortality has ever given me pause, then I'd say I've lived long enough already. I've done all that I could with the eternity that has been given to me. When the end comes, I will embrace it at last. Really, you need not concern yourself over me." Pino quickly pointed at Haruto. "In fact… you, and I mean YOU, had greater concern than some dying sprite."

Saki was the first to grasp what Pino was implying. "My child. What will become of my child!?"

Pino bit her lips. Everyone once again held their silence, knowing just how grave this matter is. "You'll have to understand this… even though we designed the Novus Sapien children from ground up to be Novus Magius one day, fundamentally you're still originally humans, the Magius part comes later, hence we can still separate the human and the magius part. But as far as your son concerned, Haruto, I'm afraid I can only speculate, but it will be a very different case indeed."

"Different how?" Saki held her womb with trembling hands.

"…Magius essence will constitute an irremovable part of the child's fundamental physiology. Whatever affects his Magius side will irrevocably affect the human side as well. Worst case scenario… your child will not have a normal growth rate… nor a normal lifespan."

To say Saki was devastated would be an understatement. She fell on her knees in utter despair and horror as she looked at the doomed life growing in her womb.

"Is… is there a way to remove it?"

To Haruto's horror, Pino shook her head. "No. Once entered into the system, this mutagen will multiply and gestate unto every cell within your body and essence in a symbiotic manner, becoming an essential part of the host's life cycle metabolism itself. It's virtually impossible to remove."

"Why did you put something like that in Aniki in the first place?" Raizo growled.

"Fool, if the Queen had placed this thing inside Tokishima Haruto in the first place, she wouldn't have bothered to tell you all about it, would she?" Ashra calmly analyzed. "Besides, she, of all people, would want her creation to last forever. Age accelerating gene would contradict that goal, no?"

"Then who put it there?" Yusuke asked.

"There's only one person who can." Haruto stated in a flat and almost lifeless tone. "He's the only one who can. The one who killed me, and then brought me back from the dead as something not even human."

"Who?"

Haruto's lips trembled. "…my father and creator. Tokishima Shoichi."

"Tokishima Shoichi… of course…" A-Drei nodded. "He's the head of the VVV project is he not?"

"The only human on this world that understand Magius biology better than anyone." Pino followed. "Only he can put something like this into the fundamentals of Novus Magius genes."

"Well that's easy then." Raizo barked. "If he's the one who put it in, he's the one who can pull it out, right? Right? And if he doesn't want to, we'll beat him until he does so, right?"

As unbelievable as it may sound, everyone actually agreed to Raizo's point… to a certain extent. "Then the question becomes… where is he?" Kyuuma followed.

Naturally, all eyes suddenly turned to A-Drei. A-Drei was hardly surprised. After all, he was one of those who spearheaded the assault on the module 77 in the first place. Alas, he must answer: "I'm sorry. I don't know."

"What!?" Raizo, and everyone else, glared in anger. Unlike the previous predicaments, this is the one question where the answer 'I don't know' is unacceptable.

"No, wait, listen. To prevent leakage, Dorssian protocol dictates that the full specifics of the plans must never be revealed to all squad. Each team was only entrusted with a portion of the information, allocated on the need to know basis to perform their missions. My squad was tasked to attack the hangar, to commandeer the super weapon, the Valvrave, and that's it." Before everyone's anger erupted even further, A-Drei quickly added: "HOWEVER, I do know for a fact that there are OTHER squads who were tasked to capture all relevant personnel directly related to the project, the scientists, and they must be captured alive, which means non lethal operation. Tokishima Haruto. Your father is definitely on the top of the list of those scientists that has to be captured alive." That calmed them down a bit, and A-Drei quickly continued. "Only the commanding officer has full intel on the mission parameters and its aftermath."

"Who's the commanding officer of that mission?"

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Dyson Sphere.

Up until a few months ago, it was under New Jior.

A few days later, excepting one small piece of the module, it was largely taken over by Dorssia in the Operation Virgin Road.

A small portion of the army left with all the essential parts, the rest remain and kept the artificial under their occupation.

And there they remained, making themselves at home. And by at home, it means, putting the once peaceful and quiet planetoid under strict military rule. Not exactly something the people inside can put up with. But amazingly enough… they endured. Suddenly, the occupants of the Dyson Sphere became accustomed to clear out the streets, avoiding patrolling soldiers and sometimes being bodily checked.

Naturally, they won't stand for it.

Amusement and hope came in form of the stories regarding the escapades of a certain group of brave mischievous children, stoically defying these aggressors. It inspires the Dyson Sphere's underground resistance, what little soldiers the JIOR had in that place, aided by citizens brave enough to do so.

To be frank, it was less than effective. The Dorssian troopers apparently had AMPLE experience in dealing with resistance and rebels. They crushed every opposition, seal off any resources than can be used to aid any form of insurgency. However, thanks to the efforts of the Sakimori Students, hope remained, no matter how small. Because, seriously… they're about a few billions of them, and they're trying to take over an entire planet… these children had to defend one module with their small numbers, and they still even had the gall to upload their singing into the Wired network. It's amazing and amusing enough to keep everybody from giving up.

But then, the world was unlocked, revealed for what it truly is… and suddenly… it was no longer an amusement.

Suddenly, it was serious. So serious that their previous ordeal of being under occupation by some foreign invaders seems like a child's play by comparison. The cat's out of the bag: they've been living together with a bunch of Alien Vampires who sucked their brains out. To add insult to injury, their own governments had been making a deal with those aliens, feeding them under the table. And those brave mischievous children? An army of bioengineered super human alien hybrid designed to fight those aliens off.

Only… after these children established their own nation, the New Jior, which ultimately lead to the nullification of JIOR, the fall of Dorssia, and now the ARUS malfunctioned (or so they think)… to say things don't go according to plan… would be an understatement.

The Dorssians in particular took an especially hard blow on this.

It's like… wave after wave of critical blows: their Fuhrer has been hijacked by these aliens, their home country obliterated… Naturally, this put a dampener on their brutality, allowing the once struggling insurgents to thrive. The Dorssians still retaliate to maintain their foothold naturally but… even children would notice… they've lost their spirit. Their bite.

In the months that followed, the resistance started winning. As if mirroring the successes of the Sakimori Students, the insurgents took over their home one module at a time. By the time the Moon giga-bomb incident occurred, the insurgents had largely taken over 40% of the planetoid. And after that, they've reached an impasse. Resistance had not the resources to expand their territory, and neither can the Dorssians risk losing the territories they're holding by going on the offense.

This stalemate remained for quite some time, both sides began to expect that they will enter a period of a battle attrition. And such battle usually takes time…

That is… until Dorssian recon sensors began to shut down systematically, one at a time.

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"Where's. my. father!?" Haruto asked, no, demanded with barely contained fury and fright.

Cain sat calmly in his cell, fully knowing this eventuality will finally came to pass. "So." He asked. "The Frankenstein Monster is looking for his creator at last. What exactly did Tokishima Shoichi put into you? Some kind of… bio weapon pandemic virus, I presume? Or perhaps a mutagen that shorten your lifespan?"

"Both." Haruto answered short. "And this concern not just me and my kin, but it's also about the fate of your whole race. So help me and please stop the holier than thou attitude, I'm in no mood."

"During that day, when we attacked module 77, I received confirmation Tokishima Shoichi was arrested at 0300 hours after the operation had begun. I did not had a chance to meet him face to face, but I did signed the papers that will see said individual moved to the concentration camp within 48 hours after the operation. After which, in less than 12 hours, the late Fuhrer gave instructions for all scientist and personnel related to a secure facility at a classified location."

"Where?"

"Let me out first."

"Not happening."

"Have it your way." Cain smiled. "Though you might want to consider, it's not exactly my life on the line."

"The survival of your whole race is on the line here, you understand that, right?"

"Why are we fighting?" Cain asked. "Because in the end, only one of our races will survive extinction. But that's hardly matters to humans because it is the Magius race that has been doomed to extinction from the beginning. It no longer mattered to us if that end came in sooner or later. We have nothing to lose. But you…" Cain pointed his finger at Haruto. "…for you… you have everything to lose. For you, this war isn't just about the survival of human race. Their survival was assured in the first place, you know that. This is also not for your newfound family. No. This is something more personal for you. You were made to be a weapon… an ultimate weapon of mass destruction and now you are struggling with every fiber of your being to prove that you are not. That you are more than the monster your creator wanted you to be."

The reddening color of Haruto's enraged expression was terrible to behold, and still Cain remained calm, but he knew the boy before him has no patience for mind storming. Unfortunately, Cain will have him indulge this. "In short… you should realize by now that you need my help more than I need yours. You are, sadly, not in any position to force me to do anything."

Haruto's fingers were pressed against the clear fossil transparent wall so hard, if it were made by any other material; his fingers might've sunk in. But then, he nodded. His rage over his injured pride was instantly suppressed by the need to settle a more pressing matter. "Yes." Haruto said as he pressed the necessary button on the jail control. "God help me, I need your help."

Cain's smile grew wider as his cell began the process of releasing its captive. "Hm. Good. Very good. Never let pride or other emotion to cloud your judgment. A necessary quality, for a leader." When Cain stepped out of his cell, he gave a glance at the other cell. L-Elf's cell.

"You're not going to ask me to let him go too, do you?"

"If he's still half the man he once was, I might." Cain shook his head. "But right now, he's just an unnecessary burden we do not need to add unto our already existing problem, yes?"

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At first, the Dorssian thought it was the Sakimori monster kids. Coming at long last to retake their home planet. The Dorssian side immediately knew this is truly the beginning of the end of their occupation. There's no way they can fight back against the combined forces of Insurgents and super soldiers at the same time. They HAVE to surrender.

Funny thing is… when they finally did send an envoy for surrender… the Jior resistance rebuked by saying that their own recon satellites have been jammed as well. They claimed it was Dorssian reinforcements coming towards the Planetoid.

Despite the initial confusion, it soon became apparent that this incoming force is a new player. Not Dorssian, and certainly not Jior or New Jiorian for that matter. The latter two might disable Dorssian' sensors, but they wouldn't have the need to disable Jior's.

So whoever's coming is gunning for BOTH sides.

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In short order, Cain was released, and once again he was granted the garments of his Dorssian military clothing to denote his position as an important military officer. And right now, all the commanding officers and Valvrave pilots gathered on the hangar, in front of the Dainslev.

"The last I heard of Tokishima Soichi was that he was to be moved, along with all relevant scientists, to a secret laboratory in the Dorssian capital, where Amadeus can keep eye on him. But to be frank, Tokishima Haruto, the location of Amadeus' secret installation held little to no relevance by now. Granted, I doubt the Council even bothered of moving him anywhere else even after Dorssia fell, but still, with the council's retreat from Dorssia, command and control is in chaos. Very few people knew of your father's significance and of the truth that entails of why he was incarcerated, I don't know if any survived at this point."

"You're saying you don't know if my father is still alive or not?"

"I didn't say that. Personally, I believed your father's survival is ensured. After all, he made you. Once everyone knows that he's the one person who knew the secret of immortality, only the most insane and foolish would dare to lay a finger on his hair." Cain smiled. "But, that doesn't change the fact that even I don't know where he is right now. Which is why, before my current predicament came to pass, I've sent a team to find and locate any and all scientists of the VVV project, your father being the primary target."

Kriemhild quickly caught on. "X-Eins, Q-Vier… and H-Neun."

"Correct. H-Neun's expert tracking skills will prove invaluable and clearly suited to the task at hand, I believe." Cain smiled. 'Not to mention he has Prue inside…' But Cain decided to keep that tiny detail to himself for now. "After their latest unfortunate encounter with you, I immediately tasked them to locate and secure Tokishima Shoichi. I told them to send me a routine report of their progress directly to me, but due to my… unfortunate circumstances, I have yet been able to receive them. Pop Quiz. A-Drei, what would a Dorssian trooper do when they're cut off from their commanding officer?"

All eyes turned to A-Drei. "Dorssian protocol dictated that, in the event where we lost contact with the commanding officer of an operation, we are allowed to take independent actions as accorded by the mission perimeter. However, the team is expected to update their progress by uploading an encrypted progress report every 12 hours unto a secure central ghost drive at a specified server."

"Very good. Full points." Cain nodded. "I have one such server right here." The one eyed colonel jerked his thumb at the Dainslev. "If you'll let me?"

In no time at all, the former Dorssian Colonel pulled the data out of the server. Cain rolled his eye seeing the huge mountain of data X-Eins had obviously sent him. It's been a while since he checked in on them after all. What's more, they're all encrypted, as per Dorssian standard procedure. It'll take a while to decrypt them all. Still, important information began to trickle down at an increasingly steady rate.

"Well?" Haruto asked.

"Good news is… H-Neun's team had managed to track and locate your father." Cain nodded. "The ill news is, it seems your Father was no longer where he once was. Then again, we knew this will happen."

"So… what's happening right now?"

"X-Ein's reports detailed the events that transpired after the Council departed from Dorssia. While it was indeed chaos and anarchy, H-Neun's managed to locate your father's trail, but they were too late to secure him. Apparently, someone had managed to discover your father's whereabouts and had him removed from the premises."

"But he's alive." Haruto's grim hope was rekindled ever so slightly.

"They tried to fake his death of course." To make his point, Cain showed the audience a misshapen corpse that barely looked like human in a doctor's coat. "But considering the poor quality of this fake, the culprit was obviously in a hurry. What's more, considering the fact they even attempted to fake his death at all means the culprit knew the value of their prisoner. Ergo, he's alive."

"If they try something as elaborate as creating a fake corpse, then we are talking about a squad of professionals. Probably a special elite army of some nation state down there." A-Drei theorized. "We could filter the number of possible culprit down to just a short list, there aren't many country left down there on earth capable of this surgical strike."

"Actually, I believe there's only one who can." Cain disagrees. "Based on the speed of the operation, the culprit knew exactly who and what they're looking for. Before today, there aren't many people out there aware that Tokishima Shoichi is the head of the VVV project. When the project itself begins, only three knew, quite in fact. Shashinami Ryuuji, the Emperor of Dorssia and…"

"The President of ARUS… Jeffrey Anderson." A-Drei concluded.

"The ARUS president." Yusuke repeated.

"The son of a jerk who sent that death squad the other day, yes?" Raizo punched his fists, itching to hurt a certain someone.

"And one of the sponsors of the VVV project." Ryuuji also followed.

"Does he know about the Black Box gene?" Haruto began to speculate. "Is that why he took my father? Because he knew we'll come looking for him?"

"I don't think so. Jeffrey's a cunning man, but he's no military strategist. He's a businessman." Cain shrugged. "The only value he saw in your father is the fact that he created the Novus Magius. Besides, if he knew about your Black Box Gene, taking Tokishima Shoichi with him would be the last thing he'll do, because he knew you children will stop at nothing to get your creator back. After the Moon and what just happened recently, I'd wager he wants to keep you away, not drawing you close."

"So where has he taking him now?"

"Let me see…" Cain sifted through the encrypted data and found… "Now this is interesting. X-Eins' report indicated that the Arus forces had taken your father… OFF world. He's no longer on earth. He's in deep space."

"That's impossible." A-Drei frowned. "If Tokishima Shoichi has been launched off planet, we would be the first to know, we've been putting the airspace around earth under 24/7 surveillance!"

"And yet, there must be the one time when your eyes and ears are blind. Am I correct in thinking the tracking algorithm this Renbokuji Akira invented had… piggy backed Dorssian communication channel? Isn't there a time when that channel was broken?"

And the fact rammed A-Drei harder than a truck full of bricks. Of course. ARUS most recent invasion devastated the New Jior defenses and military strength but that was just a diversion: the true goal was to momentarily shut down Dorssian coms tower to disable their sensory net! With the sensor array down, they were rendered blind; the enemy used that chance and took Tokishima Shoichi off world undetected.

"So… deep space." Haruto looked up to the dark space. "He could be anywhere, then."

"No… I don't think so." Cain had already decrypted a whole new set of reports. "X-Eins next report indicated they managed to stow away and followed the ARUS force off world. His next report continues to say they're following them…" And Cain trailed to a stop.

"Yes? Followed them where?"

"I don't know. Yet. That was X-Eins' latest report." Cain quickly looked at his clock. "But, X-Eins is very punctual and has a very good analytical skills. If I knew him well, and I do actually, his next report would've already calculated their trajectory."

"And… how long do we have to wait for the next report?"

Cain smiled. As if on cue, the server on Dainslev began to hum again, a sign that it's receiving data streams. "Right about now, actually."

The data was quickly decrypted. It produced a set of numbers. "These are coordinates. Space coordinates. Longitude, latitude… and elevation… would someone give me a star chart?"

The star Chart 3D imagery was quickly produced, depicting the solar system. Cain inserted the space coordinates that X-Ein had provided, and from there, a single point was shown in the chart… "X-Ein is here… it's been a few weeks… calculating their trajectory… he's heading towards… oh!"

Haruto, Cain, A-Drei, and pretty much everyone knew the location immediately.

00000000000000

The first strike landed right on the polar point of the Dyson Sphere. A Module that was jointly held by Jior and Dorssia stuck on a stalemate. The stalemate ended when Arus battleships descend and bombard the battle scarred surface of the module with strafing Splicer bombers.

And then they discovered… these invader are not exactly human.

Why… they're not exactly living creature, to be precise.

The first strategy is a surprise attack by the Arus forces using a wave of Splicer bombers to drop a tirade of thermobaric fuel air bombs. The blast of flame in that confined module was massive enough to nearly wipe out most of the standing forces of the two sides, the chemical virus agents laced into the fuel ensured the survivors won't be able to survive in the contaminated environment for long, much less resist what comes next.

The second strategy saw a second wave of carpet bombing, this time at the now helpless military stronghold of both sides. At first, it caused little damage and no explosion. The Dorssian thought the Arus were dropping kinetic bomblets. No explosives. Merely using the sheer force of the drop of the force to cause damage. But it was not so.

The projectiles were in fact drop pods. And they quickly dispense hordes upon hordes of automated drones; they outnumber the combined forces of Jior and Dorssia 10 to 1. Both sides momentarily found themselves in an awkward position of working together to fight this new invader. But it was to no avail. They were simply outnumbered, and were quickly beaten. The newly arrived Arus found their foothold, took over their first module. The first of many in the weeks that come.

In a span of one week, the Arus' automated forces assault the Dyson Sphere from every direction, taking over many strategic locations across the planetoid. The Dorssian resisted, but they were cut off from support and reinforcements, and they were steadily being pushed back. The Jior resistance responded a little too slow, losing multiple critical grounds before they realized this Arus is not an ally, just another invader that needs to be repelled. But in the end, it was a little too late. Arus has secured multiple location across the planetoid, fracturing the fragile state of balance in the war torn Dyson Sphere, as well as blockading the regional space around the Sphere with their massive fleet of ships.

With their airpower maintained an uncontested airspace, the Dyson Sphere began to slowly but surely, gripped tight under Arus' control.

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"The Dyson Sphere." Cain concluded. "Jeffrey is taking your father back to where it all began."

"Why?" Yusuke asked. "I mean… Module 77 is the place where Novus Magius is 'created' and we've scrubbed it clean."

"Correction, module 77 is the only place that we know of which creates Novus Magius." A-Drei stated. "For all we know, there may be more of such places out there in other parts of the Dyson sphere, as redundancy in case your batch failed to produce results."

"Was there any other place? Other than module 77?" Shoko looked to her father questioningly.

"Not that I know of. But… it could be possible…" Ryuji nodded. "Technically speaking, the Dyson sphere belongs to Jior, but Arus has staked a great amount of financial interest in it. With the amount of Arus facilities on site… it won't be hard to camouflage another Novus breeding facility through some… administrative errors."

"And I thought JIOR was supposed to be neutral." A-Drei grunted.

"Officially, I do not allow them to build any military installation outside the ones in Module 77…" Ryuuji did not try to defend himself. "…but lord knows what's happening behind my back."

"Enough." Haruto concluded. The meeting has already produced its desired result: their next course of action. "Everyone to their battle stations. It's time we go home."

Chapter 12:

Operation: Raven Home

X-eins had done all that he could to maintain his cover, holding fast to the principles of Dorssian espionage of never breaking cover, no matter what. Not even when he saw his own comrades being slaughtered left and right by Arus' death drones when this losing tripartite war erupted. He deemed it a necessary sacrifice to keep his cover intact, seeing it would serve him better to remain undercover so that he can then aid the incoming reinforcement that will someday came.

Alas, the Dorssian standard protocol fails to take into account of Q-Vier's instability.

When Q-Vier saw living flesh and blood but dying Arus soldier on the ground cast his dying eyes at them by accident when they passed him by. X-Eins projected he would die within minutes, no chance of him reporting his sightings of them. But Q-Vier still decided the guy just wasn't dying fast enough. X-Eins forbid the use of guns, and the half sane kid retorted:

"Where's the fun in that!?"

And he shoots him off, with the soldier's very own gun, no less. Unfortunately, Arus gun's don't come equipped with built in silencers.

And that's how he ended up here. After playing cat and mouse game with a bunch of mechanized drones out for his blood for a week, separated from contact with his team, he had to smuggle himself aboard a ship filled with refugees and other Dorssian soldiers trying to get off the planetoid. For his part, X-Eins loathe what he had to do. But he had no choice.

One ship against an arrayed assemblage of Arus' space fleet blockading the airspace.

Crazy. Reckless. Suicidal. Foolhardy. Yes. These people were THAT desperate to leave.

Miraculously enough, they actually managed to get pass the supposedly airtight blockade.

Or not.

The sensors suddenly beep and the alarm sounded as the small shuttle registered that they are being locked on.

The shuttle began to rumble. Amidst the screams of the refugees, X-Eins saw streams of beam energy passed over the shuttle from the window. From what little he can see, a small fast attack frigate is coming towards them fast. At this rate, it'll catch up to them in no time.

The Frigate launched its Splicers towards the shuttle. X-Eins gritted his teeth. 'Is this as far as I can go!?'

A barrage of beam projectiles suddenly rained down and instantly took out the incoming Splicers.

The refugees were shocked and relieved, but X-Eins was more alarmed and curious as to who's helping them.

The answer came in the form of four primate engine that just appeared out of the empty dark space, fully armed to the teeth.

The distinct headcrest on their heads immediately revealed their identity. At long last, the wayward children of the Sakimori returned, bringing forth their fearsome battle mechs. Leading them is a unique looking Kagerou, predominantly colored in red, white and black in contrast with the others' mostly white and variable color linings, heavily customized with an equipment set attached to its chest like a scarf around the head. Piloting it is none other than the leader of the vanguard team, Jin.

"Alright boys! Bring them down fast!" Jin roared. All four Kagerous began to open fire at the Frigate with their weapons.

The Arus frigate returned fire, and in concert, the Kagerous moved in response. One, bearing Hiuchiba pack, stand back and protect the shuttle with their shield while the other three slither pass the shuttle and charged in.

"Kagerous?" The captain of the Frigate immediately recognizes the now infamous New JIOR's signature combat mech. "So… they're finally here after all. RETURN FIRE! Release the Hunter and the Dvergr! Someone contact the base, and told them that the Novus Magius has finally arrived!"

The Frigate fired all its weapons, momentarily breaking apart the four Kagerous. But a yellow Kagerous quickly recovered and, after a brief charge, its mega Chain Saucer cannon fired and took out two of the Frigate's beam cannons with one shot. At the same time, the Frigate returned fire with a salvo of missiles.

The yellow Kagerou retreated back, giving room to the two red Kagerou to fire with their rifles and their ciws Vulcan, destroying most of the missiles. As soon as the last of the missiles were taken out, the Kagerous quickly opened fire in concert at the Frigate. They all expertly concentrated their fire at the Frigate's offensive weaponries first, then their mobility. But the Frigate's captain quickly noticed the danger and maneuvered his ship away, avoiding most of the debilitating damage. As the ship spin sideways, its lower hull opened up, releasing two units.

The first one looked like a red sleek Jet fighter ship colored in a red and black color scheme. Significantly bigger than the normal Splicer, large enough to be only slightly smaller than the Kagerous, a sleek fighter plane body with a pair of massive protrusion extending out of the frontal hull, creating a distinct forked forward nose. The main body is noticeably smaller than its obviously wider frontal part, but it supports multiple wings held by a pair of massive engine thrusters, sandwiching the main body.

As soon as it was detached from the Frigate, the red fighter suddenly boost at break neck speed and rammed Jin's Kagerou before any one of his Kagerou team can react. The fork nose of the fighter turned out to be massive pincers, and it held the helpless Commander Kagerou in its tight grasp.

"Ergh!"

And whilst the Kagerou team watched dumbstruck as their team leader being dragged away by some overcharged fighter, another unit disembarked from the Frigate. This time, it's mostly white, but it looked like a ring of seven interlocked identical orbs. At first, it flew away from the frigate at a snail's pace, but then suddenly, all seven orbs break apart into separate units, and they initially just floated up there…

And then each of those object 'bloomed', unfolding small arms and legs, each becoming a small compact spherical robot, each barely a third of a Kagerou's height. A red visor extended out of a spot, serving as their 'heads'. All 7 drones uniformly make their stance, extending chain axe bayonets beneath their arms.

Suddenly, the arms and legs slink back, the seven drones turned back into their ball shape, and before the Kagerous register what's transpiring, they launched a barrage of full body slam, ramming the two Kagerous directly in their spherical form at breakneck blinding speed. The two Kagerous were caught off guard when 7 metal balls bludgeoned their being in unison. The initial impact disoriented them, and the seven drones slither and vector thrusting at impossible angles and velocity, encircling the two confused Kagerous. The flames from their thrusters blazed, leaving trails of light all around the trapped prey, denying them even a glimpse of their target. At one point, the pilot finally managed to get a good, close up eye to eye look on one of their attackers, and that was when the drone attempted to deal some damage. One of the ball drones rammed a Kagerou's chest, its arms and legs deployed and grabbed the larger bot. Its circular abdomen slide open, revealing a whirring gatling gun.

The veteran pilot's battle honed reflexes managed to safe him at the last moment. The Kagerou lifted his shield with milliseconds to spare and the hail of electrified bullets was blocked, preventing the worst of damage but violently yanked the drone off the Kagerou. "FUU-!" The Kagerou angrily returned fire almost in an instant, alas, the bullets only managed to scrape the drone, as it quickly turned back into its ball shape and blurred away. A moment later, the next Ball drone bludgeoned the Kagerou from the back and another headbutt him from a different direction. "What on earth are these guys!?"

Meanwhile, Jin's condition wasn't exactly better off even though he's only going up against a single Jet fighter. The plane's massive pincer like forward hull had him pinned tightly in its grasp. "YOU PIECE OF SH-" The Kagerou fired its variable Vulcan right at the fighter's cockpit glass. But the said glass window was armored, quite heavily too as even point blank machine gun fire didn't even scratch it. "Well if guns don't work, time to go melee." Jin's Kagerou pulled out his sickle and was preparing to bring it down to the fighter's shell. But then, the jet fighter took a sharp turn whilst simultaneously loosening its grip. The Kagerou was hurled across space until it landed on a sizable space rock.

The crashed primate engine immediately picked itself up whilst the Jet Fighter circle around. Midflight, said fighter detached two pieces off its wing mounted boosters. The two pieces transformed midair into mini drones that quickly picked up the pace and trailed right behind the main jet fighter. The micro-fleet of fighter and drones are now turning around and judging by their trajectory, they intend to ram him again. Jin smirked. "Fine by me." The Kagerou pulled out a Katana. "Come on. Come to papa!"

The Jet Fighter either didn't notice the extended blade, or it didn't care. Instead of slowing down, the fighter responded by launching a tirade of machine guns, missiles and even laser blast, whilst its drone followed suit with a salvo of laser streams. Furthermore, it's boosters roared even more as the fighter speed up, intent on accelerating the moment of impact.

"Oh you wanna play. Okay. Come here!" Even when being rained by projectiles, Jin remained unfazed, he even took the initiative and instead lunged forward to meet the enemy.

But at the critical moment, something happened. For a start, the Jet Fighter suddenly stopped firing. And then before Jin's eyes, everything, quite literally, changed.

The fighter transformed. The massive pincer nose of the fighter extended forward, seams on its surface opened up revealing mechanical joints and the main body at the center folded backward. The upper half armor and the entire rear portion of the fighter slides up and folded back, its main thruster became a back mounted jetpack. Seams all across the transformed rear part of the fighter revealed themselves as the main true body beneath it transformed, forming a torso and a head. The two massive boosters spin backwards as they transformed, becoming the body's shoulders. The two drones from earlier closed in and reattached themselves to the main body, extending joints, hand, and fingers to become a pair of proper arms. By the time Jin came to, he was no longer prepared to slice an incoming plane, instead, Jin suddenly found himself being literally kicked in the face by a humanoid mech whose size could rival his Kagerou.

The kick not only cracked his visor, it also sends him spiraling off his footing, much to the disorientation of its pilot. Jin hastily tried to regained his balance, but the moment he did, the red mech is already right in front of him, carrying what looked like an oversized handgun, with a whirring vibro Axe bayonet. "Do I look like a tree!?"

Kagerou retaliate with his katana but the Hunter caught said hand before he can complete the swing. "Grrh!" Jin struggled as the Kagerou's arm shook, trying to break free from the enemy mech's iron grip. But just when he was barely halfway of breaking free, the mech's other free arm brought down the axe. "Oh no you don't!" Just as the axe swings down, Jin's Kagerou other arm also catch the other mech's arm by the wrist. The two mechs are soon locked in a tug of war for dominance over another. Out of some nagging suspicion, Jin scanned the opponent's mech for life signs… and as it turns out: "No life signs? This thing… is a drone!?"

The other Kagerou team is also slowly coming to that conclusion as the drones encircling them are performing impossibly fast maneuvers that would've burst open normal human's organs. Their Kagerous were soon filled with dents and bashed in craters, scars made when these ball drones rammed them from every direction. To make things worse, each one of these drones have different weapon loadout: one had the aforementioned gatling gun, one had missile launchers, one had laser cannons… between this, the ramming attack, and then their chain blade mounted arms, the Kagerous were reduced to holding vast by floating back to back. Though they're locked in place, they were hardly idle. The Kagerous began to study the patterns of these drones, analyzing their movements. Before long, a telltale pattern was found.

'They have to actually stop before they do anything. There's a slight delay of around 0.5 seconds even when they want to change course! We can use this!' Concluding their study of the opposition, the two Kagerous break apart and went on the offensive. Dual wielding a katana in one hand and a rifle in the other, the Hito Kagerou charged head on against a Drone who had just stop for a course correction. The Z-Katana pierced through its spherical shell before it can go anywhere. And whilst the drone still squirming, the Kagerou emptied his clip inside the opening where his blade was planted, overloading the drone to detonation. Another Kagerou resort to use break apart his armstronger cannons. The smaller arms are set in a rapid firing mode, peppering the space with projectiles, limiting the drones' movements, harrying a small number of them to a certain spot. The tactic worked like clockwork, and as soon as they landed on the killbox, the Hikaminari fired off a shot. Alas, he miscalculated their speed, and he only managed to destroy one out of four.

The near success and the turning of the tide made the drones more reckless and more dangerous. The remaining three headed straight to ram the Hikaminari Kagerou. Said Kagerou had time to fire one shot that managed to take out one of the drones before said drone ram and punch him right on the abdomen tearing a chunk out of the cockpit shell. Sparks rained on the pilot's suit as his monitors and camera malfunctioned en-masse.

The other Kagerou wanted to help, but a drone rammed him first, knocking away his rifle, and now it's eagerly trying to plant his whirring grinding fists into his chest. Losing his assault rifle, the Kagerou reach for his second Z-Katana and quickly plant both blades deep into the drone's chest. The drone seem malfunctioned for a second, but it managed to do one last move and plant a right hook on his chest, and the grinder saw sank in. The pilot inside tilted his head to the right, trusting a blind luck, and moments as soon as his monitors went black, the blade went through shattered LED monitors and sank on his chair, missing his head by the millimeters, then the drone finally went offline.

The Hunter drone ignited all its boosters and immediately overwhelmed Jin's unit. It pushed him all the way back until he struck an asteroid. The unmanned mech pinned the manned one there while their arms are still interlocked with one another. Just when Jin was thinking up ways to break this stalemate, the drone's head extended out like a serpent slithering out, closing in on its prey. And all the sudden, it opened a concealed jaw, showcasing rows and rows of teeth, trying to take a bite at him.

Jin overcome his shock and deftly moved his Kagerous' head to avoid the lunging bite. It only managed to break a piece of his cracked sense nerve visor. The biting head pulled back, getting ready for another lunge. "Grrr…" Jin snarled almost like a feral canine. "Didn't expect to use it this soon… But I guess I had no choice." He plucked out a small capsule filled with green eerie liquid. He jammed it into a prepared slot and pulled the plug. The capsule entered the system and processed. In an instant, pure mass of rune energy coruscated across the circuitry of the Kagerou. The once blank white sense nerve of the Kagerou turned green.

The biting drone did not register the phenomenon, only that suddenly, its captive Kagerou became that much stronger. It quickly lunged in for the bite, but in that moment, Jin's Kagerou had gained the power it need. The Kagerou quickly swing his sickle wielding arm, still grabbed by the hostile drone's arm, placing the drone's own arm right in the path where its jaw would clench. One loud crunch later, and Jin's Kagerou's arm finally flailed free. The first thing it did, is completing its powerful swing, hacking the drone's other arm. The now armless mech still continue to attack and pushed forward with one last full body lunge. The Kagerou caught the mech by the snapping jaw, keeping it at a distance, but the whole mech is still pushing forward in a furious booster charge.

"JUST DIE ALREADY YOU SON OF FULL METAL B-" Jin's Kagerou detached one of his chest mounted equipment, and with a jerk, a sword made of pure rune extended out of its socket. With the snapping razor sharp teeth are but inches away from his cockpit, Jin rammed the beam blade straight under the drone's chest cavity, straight into the snapping jaw's neck. The pure beam blade melted right through its armor like butter. With a yank, the Kagerou disembowel the drone in mishappen and half molten half.

Meanwhile, unlike the commander type Kagerou, the pilots of the normal standard were not so lucky. They don't have any of those fancy Rune Injection or the experimental Rune Beam blade. Not that it matters. The Z Katana can still rip through this drone just fine. Using what little remained of the active monitors, the pilot checked the surroundings. When the Kagerou turned to his other team member, the Hikaminari Kagerou had just used the Armstrong arm to rip the drone apart, but other drones are ramming the yellow Kageroy one after another, their arms are tearing the Kagerou apart beyond salvage. The pilot could barely control said Kagerou, but noticed the other unit is still alive. Exerting what little control it had, the Hikaminari Kagerou managed to nudge its chain saucer cannon to said friend whose intact arms would be able to put the cannon to better use.

The other Kagerou understood and grabbed the cannon. A brief charge and it took its aim at the Kagerou, completely trapped by what's left of the drones… not. It suddenly turned around and instead opened fire at the Arus cruiser, scoring a hit at another set of their cannons.

"Whoa!" The crews of the said Cruiser were clearly shocked. "He's just gonna leave his friend behind like that!?"

But X-Eins had a different theory. 'If it were me… that's exactly what I would've done. As for that trapped one…' True enough, the pilot of the trapped Kagerou had already finished the self destruct sequence just as the Drones are tearing the last of his armor. Only when the whirring blades of one of the drone is already staring at the pilot in the face did the pilot pressed the eject button. Several pieces of the Kagerou's back armor detached, knocking away some of the drones and the cockpit ejected out of the ruined Kagerou. The ejected cockpit landed safely in the hand of the Hiuchiba Kagerou. Seconds later, the Kagerou self destruct, taking out all the drones with it. X-Eins nodded. 'You can't watch other people's back; you have to watch your own. The way these New Jiorians fight… curiously enough… it resembled Dorssian military doctrine to a certain extent. Maybe it's because they've been fighting against Dorssian… against us for far too long, they picked up some of our combat principles…'

Meanwhile, the remaining Hito Kagerou fired the cannon one more time and managed to deal damage to the Cruiser's thrusters, but after that one last shot, the kickback was too much for the damaged Kagerou to handle. With one jolt of electricity, the gun arm fell limp and unresponsive. The pilot realized his Kagerou had sustained too much damage. "I'm not through yet…!" Meanwhile, the Arus cruiser is still looming over him in the distance.

"Pull back!" Finally, Jin's Commander type Kagerou arrived, slightly battered but intact. "Pull back. Your Kagerou won't be able to survive this. Pull back! I'll take it from here!" The Kagerou had to grudgingly agree and floated back as Jin's Kagerou take center stage. The Hito Kagerou had managed to deal a significant amount of damage to the said Cruiser, it should be an easy task for Jin's commander type Kagerou to finish the job.

"Send out the rest!" The Cruiser Captain growled.

The cruiser's hull opened up… and 3 more Hunters and 4 Dvergr drone sets emerged out of their hangar.

"…oh fu-" Jin spitted. "What the hey. BRING IT!" Jin's Kagerou pulled out the other chest mounted weapon, and with another injection and a jerk, two green beam sabers extended from each hand held weapon.

The Kagerou stood deviantly as the drones assumed their combat modes. The Hunters turned to their humanoid mode and the Dvergrs breaks apart. Given the previous circumstances, the odds look bad. Then again, overwhelming odds never stopped Jin before…

That is… until Jin registered a reading. "Heh." The boy smirked. "Took them long enough…"

Suddenly, without warning another Kagerou stepped out of the dark space right behind the much more relaxed Jin. And then another, and another, and another… they just appeared straight out of the empty dark space.

Within the shuttle, the refugees and X-Eins gawked in awe as scores upon scores of giant humanoid mechs seemingly materialized out of cracks in space. A quick mental count and the bespectacled Dorssian counted around 20 of them. 'Obviously, they've expanded and upgraded their forces yet again…'

Jin snarled happily. But then, his com beeped. It was none other than his commanding officer.

"Jin, what do you think you're doing!?"

"What do you mean? I'm the vanguard, am I not?"

"Kakaiju Kagerou is a prototype commander class which is a test-bed for many new experimental and bleeding edge system. I let you roll out with such precious unit, meaning I trust my human second in command to not be so suicidal with it!"

Blood trickling out one of Jin's nostril while his cockpit's temperature is raising to the point where his sweat drops vaporized upon contact with the steaming plating. It's like a griller in there. The cost of using the many new features within Kakaiju that normal human shouldn't been able to bear. And yet, Jin can still have the audacity to snort. "Sorry Skipper. But the situation was just that bad."

"Pull back! You hear me!?"

"Nah… I already got my blades out." The Kakaiju Kagerou swished its experimental dual V-Swordkill beam blades. "At this point, it's a waste, no?" And before Haruto can protest, Jin switched to other channel and addressed the rest of his Kagerou teams. "Alright everyone! Let's go kick some ass and take some names. If you underestimate them just because they're drones, you'll pay." Jin took a brief moment to activate another system. "Activate the Wolf Pack network."

The Kakaiju's white sense nerve glowed and briefly flashed green, its body loosed a unique sound of humming. If one can hear in the void of space, it almost sounded like a wolf howl. Pairing this event, the other Kagerou's sense nerve also briefly flashed green. And in unison, the Kagerous pulled out their various weapons. The Kakaiju charged in, his twin beam blades left behind a trail of green particles for the rest of the Kagerous to follow.

And follow they did. And a small scale all out war erupted, the first of many to come. Jin was the first to arrived, and immediately hurled himself into the first Hunter drone he sees, planting his beam blades one after another, turning the unprepared Hunter to molten slag. The Dvergr drones spread apart to every directions unleashing havoc, crisscrossing at incredible pace, filling the space with projectiles. By that same token, the Kagerous also break formation and engage all hostiles.

Meanwhile, with the reinforcements finally arrived, the Hiuchiba Kagerou that has been protecting the shuttle can finally relax a bit. He gently touched the shuttle and the nano circuitry does the rest. "Aa… aahh! Test, test! 1, 2, 3… can you hear me?"

The Shuttle's occupants gasped in surprise. The Kagerou had apparently hacked into the shuttle's intercom system. "We hear you." The Shuttle's captain responded.

"Right. Would you kindly please let my friend in? I want to join the battle immediately and can't exactly do so like this!" The Kagerou motioned the helpless Kagerou pilot in his hand.

"A… Ah… sure." The Captain can't exactly say no after all that. "Open the airlock doors!"

The shuttle door opened, and the Kagerou shoved his friend into the entrance. As soon as he made sure the pilot is safe, the Kagerou send one last message: "Thank you. Now scram! Don't come any closer to the battlefield! Got it!?"

"Like I want to!" The Captain growled as he quickly closed the airlock door once the newest occupant is safe and sound.

Meanwhile, the pilot now joined the refugees inside the shuttle. Said newcomer felt rather awkward, but then again, the situation warrants the sentiment. The refugees are filled with civilians, everyday men and woman, and children as well as the elderly. In comparison, the pilot of the Kagerou wears a militarized high tech pilot suit designed to be worn by super humans to control super robots, rendering the pilot rather out of place. If they weren't almost involved in a giant robo deathmatch moments ago, they would probably thought the pilot as some misplaced sentai actor in a hero show.

"Yo." The pilot tried to melt the tension by removing the helmets' visor, enough to reveal part of the human inside, to show everyone there's a flesh and blood human beneath the suit. Refugees immediately relaxed when they saw a beautiful girl behind the visor. Her dark auburn formed a bang that beautifully covered one of her grey eyes and a part of her teenage face. "Don't worry. I don't bite." Her remaining eye curved to show that she's smiling. The refugees tension grew lighter somewhat. "Are you guys okay? Anyone hurt?"

"No. We're okay. Just a bit…" the refugee couldn't continue. It seems they were too terrified to even think of a finish.

Somehow, the pilot understands. Catching sight of a small young child, completely terrified, the pilot nodded. She plucked out her ration, among them is a bar of chocolate. The child blinked upon seeing that chocolate, his eyes shined with longing. The Pilot breaks it and kindly offered some to the child. The boy closed in and finally took the chocolate and ate it eagerly. Seeing the pilot's kindness and such plain display of innocence, the civilians' fear was alleviated.

"You lot know who we are right?" The pilot asked.

"Yes." The refugees answered. "You were one of the Sakimori Students right? We saw you back then… during that singing video."

"Ah, that." The pilot smiled fondly. "It's nice to know there are some who remember that video. I almost forgot we've made something like that." The girl chuckled.

The refugees now had a somewhat conflicted feelings. The chuckle seems so childish and lighthearted, but there's something off about it…

"Scared?" The refugees jerked upon being addressed. "Terrified? You guys want to just run and run… so afraid, so terrified, at some point you were even hoping a stray shot would get you and be done with it, if only to be spared the fear…" The pilot chuckled as the refugees shrugged. That was quite a very specific explanation… and not to mention it was accurate to the latter. "I remember the feeling. If I think it back now, I was in your shoes too at some point. Putting aside all the funky features like having a warehouse full of super robots and declaring our independence and all… we were refugees just the same."

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In terms of numbers, the 20 Kagerous were overwhelmed. And yet, to the surprise of the opposition, the Dvergr Drones were completely overwhelmed. The previous fallen Kagerous had relayed all the data pertaining to this new enemy to their allies. Said data had been analyzed, and, in just an instant, an opening, a weakness was found to be exploited.

The Dvergr drone had to actually stop in order to aim and open fire. The time it took between it locked on a target and open fire… is only 0.5 seconds. More than enough time for a Kagerou to finish a slash with a Z-Katana. Their armor certainly can't withstand clear fossil katana. In this battle, Hito and Hinowa pattern excels.

They can try to fire, but the drone's hard and spherical shell was designed to endure anything short of a point blank straight shot. Chain saucer cannon can punch through-more like melt right through them, but they're slow to charge. Thusly, long range Kagerou such as the Hiuchiba and Hikaminari was relegated to support role.

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"So… what you're saying is, you kids ran away?" A refugee suddenly snapped. "You left us behind to safe your own skin, is that it?"

The pilot blinked once. And she nodded. "Yes. Yes, we ran. Then again… haven't we all?"

"What?"

The Pilot looked longingly at the dyson sphere that was her home. "We live in that sphere, and because we were part of the so called 'neutral' country-" the pilot actually made a quotation mark. "-we thought we can just remain ignorant when two super powers are each other's throat. We never once thought the war would come knocking at our door. Look what happens to us now: attacked by Dorssia, betrayed by Arus. We're like a piece of helpless game, fought over by two lions, and we can only helplessly watch as they took chunks at us." X-Eins smirked in the background, not in insult, but in agreement. The pilot finally removed her helmet completely, the refugee balked when they saw her face in full, and X-Eins no longer smirk.

The hair bang was covering another eye that no longer existed. Beneath the hair was a terrible scar that had gouged a horrid crater where her other sight organ supposed to reside as well as ripping apart that supposedly also beautiful half. A horrid Glasgow smile protruded from the corner of her right lips. That, among other many more injuries, not only destroyed what beauty afforded by what's left of her intact face, it made the supposedly teenage girl seemingly older by a decade. Such was the souvenir she received the last time she dealt with a certain Arus destroyer. "Well, this is the price we've paid for our naivety."

The refugee sealed his lips shut, and even X-Eins were a bit taken back. You don't get that kind of injury from sport's activity, naturally, but the last veteran he knew to have that level of scarring spent at least five decades of service or so to earn it. What sort of hell these children went through to become like this in so short of time?

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The Kagerou's combat method in this skirmish also reflected the pilot's bitter combat experience. Now knowing the enemy is actually weak in close combat, they bravely charged in and close the distance with the drones, using their katanas to slice them up close during the brief 0.5 second delay. It was a very brief moment between life and death – barely enough for a Kagerou to complete just a single swing. If they're late, miss, or falter for even the briefest instant, there will be no second chances, the Drone's weapons will obliterate them. Such daunting prospect would've terrified amateur pilots to hesitation and delays. And yet the new Jior's battle scarred pilots boldly entered that zone of life and death without a flinch of fear. They fought, close the distance, fearlessly placing their life at the edge of their blades.

A Kagerou just sliced a drone in half, another rammed it to the ground, its claws attempting to rip into the cockpit. Thankfully, a Hikaminari Amstronger grab the drone before it can more damage, and while it squirmed in its enormous hand, the composite arm breaks off and simultaneously pulling the drone apart to four direction and four smaller pieces. A nailed drone on a Katana still squirmed and even loose off a series of shots in its vain attempt to hit any of the targets, but the Kagerou holding him vast just had enough and finished it off with a point blank barrage from its burst rifle. After failing a slash, a barrage from the drone's gatling gun sent a Kagerou spiraling back with holed chest.

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Other refugees, they may not be soldiers, but they can't help but to be amazed with the way the Kagerous… no… the way these children fight. "Are those robots… did you kids really pilot them?"

"Kids huh?" The pilot chuckled.

"Erhh… well… we don't mean anything bad by it…" The refugee gulped. After seeing the way these Sakimori kids fight, the last thing they want is to offend them by a slip of a tongue.

Contrary to their beliefs though, the pilot's chuckle was not sarcasm. "I know you don't. Age wise, we ARE kids. I'm amused that, even now, they're still some of you who would still refer to us as such. I'm… glad actually."

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"See… Things… happened." The Pilot looked at his comrades out there, fighting with such ferocity the likes of which even an adult would've cowered in fear.

Fortunately, the pilot survived and the Kagerou remained functional, enough to counter a charge from two drones flanking him. He slashed the first one into two while nailing the other one with a Z-Katana stab, tearing through its thrusters, sending it spiraling to a wreck. Unfortunately, the drone also yanked his katana away on its flight to oblivion. He didn't have time to grab any alternative weapon when three drones swarmed and overwhelmed him. They start tearing towards his cockpit when a barrage of blue hardlight bolts tear through them. A Hiuchiba carefully took his aim, taking out the drones away one at a time.

"So many things happened. And… we've changed. We barely recognize ourselves anymore. Students. Children. That's what we are… nay… what we were."

Before he can finish off the third one, one rammed and tore off his leg and now it start chewing up its thigh. The Hiuchiba finally let the Kagerou handle the last drone on its own while he saved his own ass first. A burst shot knocked the drone off, but another blindsided him from the back. It was about to tear right into his chest cavity from his backside when a spindle knuckle jammed itself into the drone's approximation of a head. The spindle knuckle grinded deep before it, and the drone it was embedded upon, were pulled back to the owner, who finished the job by splitting the drone in half with other still hand held chakram weapon.

"We know this. But… to be honest… we're starting to forget. We couldn't even remember our days as a student. Our classroom, our studies… we've almost forgotten what it was like. What's left is the reality of what we are now."

Whilst the rest of the Kagerous are fighting as a pack, the leader, the Kakaiju, instead fought separate from the rest, a lone wolf.

"…and… what are you now?"

And that is why it was ganged upon by two of the stronger drones. Or perhaps, precisely because Kakaiju is the stronger one, it is his part to take on the stronger ones… even if it means to be outnumbered. The Hunters is only slightly smaller than the Kagerou in size, and unlike the Dvergr drones that has a myriad of weapons, all Hunter is uniformly armed with a single set of weapons: a twin handgun with that axe extending down the barrel as a bayonet. He took out the first one plenty quickly so it didn't had the chance to show off, but these two had plenty time alright. And these… handguns, as Jin quickly finds out, are as versatile as they can be.

Extreme close range is more than covered with those axes being swung with overwhelming effectiveness, naturally. Medium range was covered by the gun side, with differing modes of fire: either a burst of rapid fire or a very powerful single shot explosive projectile. If needs be, the guns can be combined into an even bigger blaster rifle weapon to handle extreme long range bombardment.

He's not complaining.

The girl chuckled. "We're soldiers. Warriors. We've been baptized in the flames war, reforged in the anvil of destruction. Armed with anger and hate. What little innocence we have left has been thrown away."

He got something WAY better than those glorified oversized handguns. Grinning almost manically, Jin hled the third dose of Rune tablet by his teeth as he made preparation to inject it into his system. At the same time, a Hunter transformed into its jet form and rammed him again. But this time, Jin was ready. Nailing his feet to the ground, the Kakaiju welcomed the ramming attack and managed to catch one of the pincers, pinning right beneath its armpit. At the same time, Jin injected his third dose into his mech, and the Kakaiju flared once again with Runes. The pin became a crushing grip, and the pincer's armor crumbled. The Hunter transformed back to humanoid form with one leg, and it quickly swing down its axe. The Kakaiju caught the swinging arm with its crushing grip. The other hand activated its beam rune sword and quickly cut said arm. The Hunter's other arm came swinging, but it was also cut short with another wide stroke that both severed said arm and cleaved the Hood's chest.

There's one left, and Jin was eager to go on… but his Kakaiju cannot. All its vents are burning red, and the void around it are hazing by the heat. Jin's console pretty screamed the same with its temperature way off its limits. Three shots of Rune Injection was all it can take.

The one last Hunter lunged in, weapons stretched out at the ready to cleave into its prey. And just when the distance was about to be closed, something huge and fast just dropped right on top of the drone, crushing it in a blink of an eye.

"Some of us in fact… went way beyond that… and throw away their humanity as well."

Jin snarled happily. A series of bright burning beam blades punctured the last Hunter from behind. The Drone mech, still squirming but utterly helpless, were lifted up, revealing none other than the Valvrave as the perpetrator. The ten beam blades came from the ten fingers of a pair of massive mechanical claw ended hands extending forth from his massive wings. They began to part to opposing directions and the Drone manage one last squirm before it was ripped to shreds. Its shredded molten debris scattered around the Valvrave like a twisted molten feathers of a diabolic angel.

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The refugees gasped in hushed whispers. Apart from that, they pretty much had abandoned their initial undivided attention to the pilot girl, and redirect that attention to the demonic silhouette of the humanoid robot.

By now, the Valvrave's image has virtually become the symbol of fear, as well as pretty much the poster boy of the New Jior's military prowess. But more than anything else, it is also the badge of office of a certain individual.

"He's here." One of the Refugees whispered in horror. "That demon child is here!"

The female pilot merely rolled her eye. "We are what our parents made us. We were born for this."

Now the occupants of that shuttle grew more terrified. "T… Then… why are you here?"

The girl merely grinned. "Like it or not, we were born in that Dyson Sphere. Regardless of whether we're humans, warriors, or monsters, we are, foremost of all, spaceborn. They say Earth is the cradle of humanity, but for us, that Sphere is OUR cradle. We're here…"

The girl jerked her thumb to the besieged Dyson Sphere. Coincidentally, the dark angelic silhouette of the Valvrave is also there.

"…to retake our homeworld." The girl stated with a determined look.

And it was then X-Ein had an epiphany. This is not some rescue operation…

This is a full scale invasion.

As if on cue, the pilot of that shuttle witnessed something utterly impossible. He saw the space cracked open into hexagonal pieces. And out from that crack, he witnessed an entire fleet of starships emerged out of the dark space: Dorssia, Arus… as well some ships whose designs were quite unlike anything made by men. Heading this procession is none other than the main flagship of the New Jior, the Valravn. The crack moves forward together with the massive flagship, like a gaping maw of a gigantic invisible beast.

The Arus Frigate captain and the entire crew were left jaw hung when they saw an entire invasionary fleet just appeared right out of thin air, right in front of their noses. They were so distracted by this so grand, so impossible of a scene that they didn't even realize every monitor in their ship had turned to the blue screen of death.

In panic, the shuttle's captain desperately tried to get out of the way of this horrid procession. But when they thought of turning back, they saw the Valvrave and his cohorts of Kagerous had also finished off their mechanical enemies and now there they stand and loom, unintentionally cutting off their way back.

With all parties rendered unto inaction by fear, awe, or indifference, it wasn't long before the Valravn looms over them all, the maw swiftly engulfed all before it snapped shut, leaving nothing but the darkness…

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'That girl sure knows how to punch.' Such was X-Eins first thought when the last thing he saw with full consciousness was the gigantic up close view of the girl's fist.

While a part of him knew this was inevitable, he just didn't expect it will come in such a way. As soon as they were 'swallowed' by the curtain of invisibility, many dreaded on what will happen to them next. Their fear was further vindicated when they saw the Valvrave turned and start moving towards them. The mech got close enough that they can actually see behind the green of its sense nerve crown, and its neon glow pierced through the openings of the shuttle.

And then the transmission came to the girl's com. The pilot didn't say a word, but after the instructions had been passed down, and then she looked at his direction with damning eyes, and then he knew right away he had been made. The struggle that followed was brief but violent. She tackled him to the ground before he could instinctively run, and before he can say a word, the punch came.

And thus X-Eins awake, after an indeterminate amount of time later, with a hurting jaw, cuffed hands, and a black bagged head. His awakening did not went unnoticed, apparently.

"Oh, you're awake." The girl pilot's voice sounded from his left.

"I was gonna say this is not necessary." X-Eins was referring to the punch and the cuff. "I would've surrendered willingly, given the circumstances."

"Sorry buddy. But we've dealt with too many Dorssian agents… none of them were too friendly when arrested."

"Really?" X-Eins began secretly undoing his bindings. As for the cuffs, he started by first bending his purposefully broken thumb…

"Yes, really." And in a heartbeat, the girl just get in there and not too gently replaced that broken thumb back to where it should be with a loud snap. The unprepared X-Eins actually had to bit his lips to stop himself from screaming. "Now, see, this is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about." Grumbling something about maniacs and psychos, she put the finishing touches on X-Eins' bindings: she cuffed his thumbs together. "There we go."

Once the pain was overcome, X-Eins finally realized that the Sakimori students had clearly far too much experience apprehending Dorssian agents, they've learnt all their tricks to escape bondage and made countermeasures for it. At this point, there's really nothing the bespectacled Dorssian can do other than sit down and wait until something happens.

Fortunately, he didn't have to wait for long. He heard the door opened and some footsteps belonging to more than one person. The footsteps stopped right in front of him, apparently the newcomers are observing him from head to toe.

"Take off the bag." A somewhat familiar teenager voice gave the order, and the bag was removed. It took a while for X-Eins to adjust to the sudden change to brightness, but when he regained his sight, he found himself staring at familiar faces.

"A-Drei?! Commander Cain!?"

"Is it him?" A-Drei asked. "Is he not jacked?"

"Judging by the fact that bruises on his jaw had yet to disappear; then I'd say it's him." Cain followed.

A-Drei shrugged. "X-Eins. Look." To make his point, the one eyed Dorssian cut his finger and showed the blood to X-Eins. The wound didn't close anytime soon. "I'm human. They didn't jack me or anything."

X-Ens looked at the wound and indeed it is the truth. "If you ARE A-Drei… what are you doing here then?"

"We're here to pick you up." A-Drei stated. "We need to know of your latest report regarding the whereabouts of Tokishima Shoichi."

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"What the heck are these things?" Jin frowned as the hangar crew began dismantling what's left of the Drones from the earlier fight.

"Beats me." Goh Nijikawa shrugged. "But these techs… they're way more advanced than anything ever conceived by either Arus or Dorssia. I'd like to add it was quite unreal, considering the latter faction was the foremost in drone technology."

"But they're virtually unmanned?" Jin repeated. "So we can blast them with impunity, yeah?"

"Speaking of impunity…" A voice came from above.

Jin gulped.

From up above, slowly, the Valvrave main Pilot landed next to his second in command. "Jin. What are you thinking? You've already used one charge for the V-Swordkill, and then you recklessly pull out a second, and by the looks of it, you were about to pull off a third? Are you really that eager to die or something!?" Haruto firmly scolded.

In case the intravenous drip pole he had to drag around wasn't enough, traces of blood trickled out of Jin's nose lend truth to his superior's concerns. "Sorry skipper. That's just how bad the situation was before you arrived."

"When Nao wakes up, she'll probably gonna wring my neck when you're not there, so please… look after yourself will you?"

Jin smiled kindly at Haruto's optimistic talk. Not that he didn't gratefully appreciate it, but it's not exactly necessary.

Goh rummaged deep into the circuitry of the Hunter's head before he popped out right out of the gaping maw of the Hunter. "I'm missing something here. I see circuitry, I see cables, wirings, all state of the bleeding edge art… but it's missing its main processing mainframe matrix."

Jin and Haruto looked at each other, not understanding those words. "Plain language?"

"Basically, if this thing is a CPU, it's missing its motherboard." Goh reiterated. "It's missing its brain."

"Well duh, it's a drone." Jin chuckled. "You'd have better luck looking for an antenna like in a radio control, no?"

"With the kind of movements it used against you? With that sort of intuitive action, reaction maneuvers, it'll need a very complex on board AI. And when I say complex… you need a CPU the size of a sky scraper to house the hard drive needed to store a Matrix that advanced." Goh banged the half molten junk that was the Hunter. "I didn't even see so much as a single hard drive. I'd kill to know what sort of CPU they used to house an AI that complex."

"Could it be that I've unintentionally melted the CPU?"

"Thought that, but we've checked other drones as well…" Goh jerked his thumb to the carcasses of the other drones they've brought aboard the Valravn. They're currently being dismantled and studied over by the engineers. "So I can say we've thoroughly strip search this thing from cranial chamber to heel strut. We've found nothing of sorts. Which is a crying shame. If we could find its AI mainframe, we could study their movement pattern, add it to the Wolf Pack Network."

The Wolf Pack Network. Yet another prototype system. The technology used the same Swarm Logic concept used in Dorssia's next gen AI system for the next technological step for their drone program. The network would allow multiple mecha units to share their senses: they can share visual data, audio input, even sensory system data like Echo sonar or thermal detector. In layman's term, it allows multiple units to literally share their 'senses' inbetween each other, fighting as one. And that's not even the best part. Further improvement using Pino's Council 101 technology allowed the Kagerous to share performance data with one another. Using that data, the automated smart system-tuning program will quickly made adjustments on its Operating System, further streamlining and increase its efficiency and boosting the unit's overall effectiveness in real time. With every additional Kagerou unit interlinked in this network, the greater the amount of performance data acquired, the greater the boost. This is why, in the previous battle, while the first wave of Kagerou was having much difficulty subduing the enemy; the subsequent squad faced no such difficulty. Their systems had been updated by the experiences and data from the previous fallen units.

In short, the Shadow Wolves will now perform many times better than their original specs when they're fighting in packs. A necessity when they're fighting an uphill battle where the numerical odds are always against them.

"Still, we've lost 2 units today… and we barely even started."

"What, It's only two units!"

"What do you mean it's only TWO!?" Goh exploded as he suddenly jumped out of the Hunter's maw to choke the life out of his somewhat insensitive best friend.

"Uh yeah… well… uhh… we still got around 38 or so…" Jin suddenly got really nervous. Goh had done way worse to somebody for merely a scratch on the Kagerou's paint job.

"Oh, so that means you can get all reckless and trigger happy with your one and only test-type!?" Now there's a dangerous, mad glint in Goh's eyes which screamed murder a hundred times.

"Uh, Commander, help!?" Jin pleadingly glanced at Haruto.

"Don't look at me, you're the one who half-melted the Kakaiju's circuits." And Haruto calmly made things worse.

"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT A HASSLE YOU PUT ME THROUGH!? WE HAD TO PUT RAD SUITS JUST TO UNSCREW A BOLT!" And Goh exploded in a maniacal rampage, and Jin's face had already turned blue.

"Commander."

Haruto and Goh momentarily looked away from the now barely alive Jin.

Ashra floated down towards them and present herself in front of Haruto. "Commander, we've questioned the crews of the Arus' ships. Fortunately they're quite loose-lipped that jacking is not necessary. Despite them wearing Arus colors, it seems they're just mercenaries paid to do the job. As for the ship itself, it's… interesting. Outwardly it is clearly of Arus origin, but they were redesigned from ground up to be run by a skeleton crew, with automated system running 90% of the ship."

"Drones…" Haruto pondered its implications inwardly. "If it's automated drones… is there a chance it might be sending any signal back to… whoever sent it?"

"The stealth bubble field is not only shielding us from view, it also blocked all foreign signals from inside and out of the barrier. That same barrier had also disrupted their communication signals. Our own sensors indicated, based on the chatters in their communication line, that they're aware that a frigate went missing, but they have no idea what happened to it. Security has been increased, but no search and rescue order had been issued yet. Right now, I believe we are in no danger of discovery. We've also began dismantling the ship though. We're trying to find its blackbox… and its central computer system but…" Ashra glanced to Goh, who seemed to have known the answer already.

"Let me guess: Dead end? Nothing even remotely resembling so much as a… hard CPU?"

"So far." Ashra nodded in confirmation.

"…and the refugees? Are they alright?"

"They are unharmed. We offered them to stay, they refused. Thusly, we provide them with all the necessary provisions and send them away to a friendly territory. They'll be leaving our fleet shortly." Ashra continued. "The Dorssian agent has been secured. Cain and A-Drei are questioning him right now. As you say, he has proven to be quite… cooperative."

Haruto nodded. "If so, I want to see him personally. In the mean time, instruct the fleet to stop moving and maintain our distance, but keep their combat readiness and do not engage unless being fired upon. Continue surveillance and report immediately on any changes."

"Yes sir." Ashra saluted and quickly floated away as she had her orders.

Watching all this, Jin, barely alive, can still afford a few stifled words under his choking. "Gotta hand it to you, Haruto. It's amazing how you managed to do this."

Haruto shrugged. "Well, desperate times… desperate measures… You're the one who said you needed some extra pilots…"

Flashback, a few days before the fleet's departure…

"We rushed to make this, but they're combat ready. You have my word on that." The Mechanic, Goh Nijikawa grinned with confidence as he displayed the 79 + 1 Kagerous. The experimental testype Commander class Kakaiju Kagerou being the centerpiece.

"Good." Jin replied glumly.

"Still…" Goh sighed. "…we got the machines but the pilots… we're kind of short…" Goh's murmur trailed to a peep. They still have many injured pilots that won't be standing up anytime soon. Jin's girlfriend, Nao was among them.

"Jin-san!" Several students rushed towards them. "We heard that we're finally coming back to the Dyson Sphere. Is that true?"

Jin nodded.

"Let us come with you please! We're taking back our home right?"

Jin frowned. "Didn't Haruto let out the list of sanctioned pilots? Your names are not in it right? Only those who had 30 hours or more in real combat are allowed to come."

"We… Well… we know we barely see real combat… but… we…!"

"We're short on good pilots." Jin stated blatantly. "And by 'good' I mean properly trained and experienced pilots."

The students gasped.

"Do you know what the battle of the Moon taught us?" Jin continued. "Good intentions and guts will only get us so far. Yesterday's battle also showed us the importance of dividing our forces to balance out offense and defense." Jin frowned. That battle with Arus was a mistake. Every Valvrave went out, leaving little to none to defend the place. Look what happened. "You guys wanna help us? Then stay here. Trust me, your role will be no less important. While we're away, there's a strong possibility that there will be enemies coming from Earth. Your job is to guard our rear flank. Train. Get stronger. Get better. And more importantly, defend this place. Defend those who are injured. Protect them. This Moon is our home away from home. Make sure it's still there when we get back."

And thus, the students departed disappointed. Goh looked at their crestfallen back with sympathy, but he also understands why Jin had to reject them so. "I understand we don't want these trainees to die needlessly… but… I had to ask… what do you think Haruto-san's thinking?"

"What do you mean?"

"He told me to ready 40 Kagerous. The remaining 40 are to stay here to guard this place. But… I don't get it." Goh produced another list. The list of sanctioned pilots. "There are only 23 pilots allowed. Including spares. We still have more machines than pilot. How are we going to offset the balance?"

"He said he had a… crazy idea."

"Crazy?"

"Crazy."

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Haruto, Cain and Ashra stood in front of the jail cells where many Magius prisoners were locked up. They all looked at Haruto, neither hostile nor friendly.

Cain waited calmly for Haruto to say something. But after while, the boy just stand there, saying nothing. Could the boy may be scared stiff? But just as Cain thought of taking over…

"I'll be blunt." Haruto started. His tone is flat and cold. "…my son is dying."

Cain was shocked but he kept his silence. 'Revealing a bad card at this stage is rather risky…' Whilst the Magius now began to see hope in Haruto's child, it was a slim hope which they're still harbor a great doubt. To show that hope is slipping is the same as revealing the card you held.

The Magius visibly gasped.

"There's only one person who can probably save my child. And that's my creator. My own father." Haruto kept talking. "That's the same father who tweaked my genes and turned me into a bio bomb to kill you all."

Cain and Ashra fidgeted nervously behind Haruto. The baby was one big bomb, this one is a whole new level of destruction now. But it's too late. There's no stopping the boy now. What was he thinking?

"It's funny." Haruto laughed bitterly. "I talked big about being a bridge between our two species, but in the end, even at a cellular level, I was built to destroy you." Haruto sighed exasperatedly as he lifted his tired head. Suddenly, the bitterness of his expression made the eternally 16 year old boy seemingly older by 10 years in a span of ten seconds. "I know there will be a lot of setbacks but this… this is really testing my limits. So right now… let's put all that beside for now." The Magius in their cells rolled their eyes. "Right now, I'm not a Novus Magius, not a weapon, not even a general of the army. No. Right now, I'm just a father desperately trying to save my son." Suddenly, cold ruthlessness shined red from Haruto's initially tired gaze. "So here's the situation: We're about to go to war to look for my creator. I have a fleet of Kagerous, but short on pilots. Short on warriors and soldiers. You… and I mean… all of you, are going to help me find my father, have him undo what he's done to me, my kin, and my son, thusly preventing a lethal pandemic that could potentially wipe out your race a little sooner."

"Or… what?" One of the Magius dared himself to ask.

"Or, I will abide to my Magius nature and feed on those of you who refused to help." Haruto's eyes glistened red as the glowing scars on his face began to vaguely show. "You're thinking I'm cruel?" Haruto glared. "Let me remind you, I kept you guys here alive because I believed we could compromise. Because I believed that some of you will see sense and find a different way other than shedding blood. That time has passed. I think you all know by now, that the moment my kin and I leave this place, those that remain will not have the strength left to keep you all prisoners in this place any longer. So I will not risk having you guys stay here and wreak havoc. Let me simplify it for you: fight with us and help me find my father… or I will kill you all, and take your strength as mine, because lord knows… you know… I need them. Now and bad."

And this became one of those extremely rare times where Cain was thoroughly shocked. Though not unpleasantly so. From uncertainty to ruthless efficiency in a matter of hours after the revelation. Perhaps there's more to this seemingly gentle boy than meets the eye. No wonder even his students were overwhelmed.

"Now. Are you in or out?" Haruto take one last step.

Ashra took a glance and nodded in confirmation. "Tokishima Haruto… I think you had them at 'help me or die'."

Flashback ends…

Putting aside the other Dorssian troops and what little survivor remained from the Arus, around a quarter of their fleet are Magius. And not only they readily agreed to become pilots for the remaining Kagerous, they even took the liberty of excavating some of their old starships, hidden away in a small cluster of asteroids some few thousand kilometers away from moon. This small fleet of alien craft also includes the half torn but rudimentarily fixed alien space craft that Haruto ripped apart with Blackrose the other day.

"I'd sure love to know what kind of negotiation strategy you used to convince them to fight with us after everything we put them through." Jin grinned wide.

"Well… it's… trade secret." Haruto smiled.

"Kora! Don't you dare distract me from the matter at hand! What are you going to do about all the mess you've made huh!?" Goh immediately returned to choking the life out of his reckless soon to be asphyxiated friend.

"Ack! Goh… calm down… Haruto… help…!"

"Sorry, I got other matters. I'll see you… on the other side." And thus Haruto left his lieutenant to his ignoble, but well deserved, doom.

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Meanwhile, having proven his cooperation, X-Eins' was finally allowed to roam free in the Valravn, under supervision of A-Drei, naturally. As they went past the hangars, X-Eins focus his attention on a certain Primate Engine, but his gaze was more analytical than reference. Among other things, he noted how they've upgraded it, yet again.

Extra armor on all parts, granting not only additional protection but also weight that was rendered irrelevant given the additional hardlight high powered boosters added in various places for its mobility. It'll add speed yes… but the strain on its pilots would be very extreme. The three broad Ardor Grip exhaust vents had been modified somewhat, merged with the exoskeleton of three Impact Booster ravens which then attached themselves onto the reinforced shoulders and back.

The oversized engine on its massive wings gained an overhaul. Its wings were enlarged even further, with reinforced armor structure that added to its bulk. The last time he saw him, the Valvrave boasted a pair of laser cannons on said wings. Now they were replaced by a pair oversized hands, almost identical in shape and size with the Yashagarasu power gauntlet on the left arm, its fingers also ending in CF tipped talons. These two massive arms were held by two extra forearm-like manipulators, both mounted on said wings. As shown earlier, said forearms not only had enough strength in its pneumatics to tear a fighter sized drone in half, but also a flexible 360 degree joints, allowing a wide range of movements. For instance, right now, it's in the process of rotating and folding the giant talons backwards. And when they do, the mega talons' fingers wrapped around the sense nerve wings, becoming an impromptu additional layer of armor on the reinforced wings, as well as, X-Eins suspected, additional boosters.

But the wing mounted Mega talons had a few features omitted in comparison with the left arm mounted counterpart. It lacked the sense nerve, and naturally, it lacked the sheath for the Blackrose and its ability to transform into a raven drone. Instead, each of the wing talons mounted a sheath the Muramasa Katana as well as a holstered Variable rune assault rifle.

Those rifles, X-Eins mused, are pretty much the only thing that is remarkably human in this technological monstrosity before his eyes.

"In case you're wondering…"

"No. I don't." X-Eins had seen it in action. "This thing is NOT made for human use. I know."

"And it's only 60% complete." A-Drei added. X-Eins wide look pretty much asked the question: you're joking right?

Haruto's unit, the Valvrave. There's a little secret everyone kept about this one unit. Owing to the fact that it is the most alien of all Valvrave, the upgrade was incomplete at 30% when it first sortied during the Moon Battle. Then again, with Blackrose, the Valvrave is already as powerful as it was. The upgrade given unto it was the barest minimal so that it can use Pino's signature weapon. After that, everyone seems to think there's little need to continue the upgrade… until the latest events. Now they know that they haven't faced the worst of it, Pino and the hangar crew quickly worked around the clock to finish the upgrade. Alas… try as they might… they only managed to get it to a 60% completion.

"The Valvrave now take into account of the pilot's recent understanding of his own Magius powers. If before there's still some human element in it, the only thing human in this unit now is its shape, cockpit, Katanas, and its CIWS." Cain explained. "Reinforced Clear Fossil Composite endo and exo-skeleton, a quintupled power cells as well as a fully redesigned cooling system, among other things." Cain listed it with his hands. "An overall 350% increase of performance over the previous original specification. This is already a realm where even a Magius usage would be hazardous. Only an Elder Novus Magius can use it properly now."

And already some the Dorssian began to think that the word overkill is greatly underrated. "I always wondered… where did they get the funding for all this? The R&D cost alone can bankrupt a small nation five times over."

"You'll be surprised." A-Drei had stayed long enough with the Sakimori to understand why they don't ask questions about that particular issue.

"So, you're X-Eins." Coming from the front is the inhuman pilot of this mechanical monstrosity. X-Eins felt a tenseness at his spine. He remembered when he first saw him in the files. He was as pathetic as he is useless. But now… there's something… completely different… and completely wrong about him. His originally blue eyes are starting to get a dark red hue in it, rendering it almost purple. What's more, while he can't quite see it with his bare eyes, but there's something… predatory in there.

"A-Drei, will he cooperate?" Haruto asked.

"Of course he will." A-Drei nodded.

"You will forgive me, if I'm not in trusting mood right now." Haruto snarled. "A-Drei trusted you, so I let it slide. But know this: if I suspect for even an instant that you're trying to play games with me, I will have the insides of your head."

X-Eins blinked. "W…What was that supposed to mean?"

A-Drei shrugged. "It means, it won't matter if you lie, he'll literally suck everything in your brain until there's nothing left and he'd still get the truth anyway."

It took five seconds for X-Eins to understand that he should be terrified at the prospect. "Alright… alright. Don't worry, I understand. I will cooperate."

"Very wise." Haruto hissed.

"You're becoming more like us with every passing day, Tokishima Haruto." Cain smirked.

"Zip it, Col. Dressel." Haruto snapped, much X-Eins shock, who never even dreamed of doing something like that to his commanding officer. Haruto couldn't care less. "Gather all officers in the War Council. I'd figure everyone would want to hear what you have to say, Agent X-Eins."

00000000000000

War Council…

Once again, X-Eins found himself being surrounded by tense eyes. The council war include Tokishima Haruto, Cain, A-Drei, Pino, Shashinami Ryuuji, and… he's still having a hard time believing it… the Emperor of Dorssia himself. But by that time, he already had his share of weird. So, without further ado…

"I'll get straight to the point. Tokishima Shoichi is still alive and well. The Arus Special Forces took him from the hideout, and then they dragged him into the Dyson Sphere. The same Dyson Sphere we invaded a few months back." X-Eins showed the holographic map of the manmade planet. "I managed to catch up with them, but by that time, the task force had rendezvoused with Arus invasion force. And… that's where I almost lost track of him."

"Almost." Haruto rolled his eyes.

"Yes. Almost. See, I really did lose him. But then, as luck would have it, my team managed to infiltrate a ship, which happens to be the same ship they used to bring Tokishima Shoichi planetside. So we're back on track for a while."

"Okay." Haruto nodded. "Okay. We get the idea. So where is he now?"

"We landed… here. Module 654. As I understand it it's a… Industrial Hab module?"

"Indeed." Ryuuji, as the former Prime Minister of the nation that made that Dyson Sphere knew it inside out. "It's mostly pharmaceutical industry in there. It's loaded with industrial grade biological chemicals as well as biomasses." He quickly added. "That was on paper. Unofficially, it is also the one module responsible producing all sorts of chemical that we used… when we changed you." Ryuuji choked.

"So you're saying they have all the raw material and the recipe to make more like us." Haruto concluded. "You really think they really could replicate what they did to us?"

"There are a lot of factors that came into play here." Pino took over. "I don't know what Shoichi has done all this time. But I'd imagine he might've refined the process. Be that as it may, one thing I doubt will change is the fact these transformation procedure can only be done on specially altered embryos. If he wanted to make a whole new generations of Novus Magius army, he'll have to wait for… another 17 years?"

"Unless he can find a way to accelerate the growth rate of human subjects." Haruto rolled his eyes. "And we know that's not exactly an issue. Which means we really don't have much time." He looked again at X-Eins. "Is my father still in that module?"

"No. Not long after, they literally dismantled every piece of lab equipment in that facility and moved them all off module. And that's where… we encountered a slight problem. They split the shipment itinerary into three separate routes. Tokishima Shoichi was in one of those three routes. So Q-Vier, H-Neun and I had to split up."

"Q-Vier?" A-Drei rolled his eyes. "X-Eins… you of all people know Q-Vier can't do stealth!?"

"Q-Vier?"

"The one who blew off half of your body." Quick introduction by A-Drei who was also a near victim.

"Right." Haruto rolled his eyes, immediately remembering that incident. "What's the guarantee that Psycho kid won't kill my dad when he founds him?"

"Actually… when I send him off… none whatsoever." X-Eins dejectedly reported. "But… when we finally meet again in Module 235… he's… surprisingly docile. And… we found out for a fact that… the only thing he killed along the way… is time. Because he really didn't have anything to kill, and I mean that literally. The ship he boarded on has no crew or any living being whatsoever. Everything was remote controlled and drone operated. The same thing when it comes to the ship I infiltrated on. There's no human crew. Whatsoever. There's a surprisingly very low human presence in Arus army."

"So you're saying that out of three ships… both you and Q-Vier gets it wrong. And H-neun got the jackpot."

"I should assume so. Because… in the end, we didn't meet him in module 235. And we have no way of contacting him, so either he has been captured… or the starship went somewhere else."

"And you know that ship didn't go off planet because?"

"Because after that I spent no small amount of time hacking into their space port logs… including their communication frequency. I ran his biometric data against custom entries, checking planes, trains, boats, even space shuttles. Insofar, He's not showing any indication of leaving this planetoid."

"You're sure you didn't miss anything?"

"Don't insult me." Now it's X-Eins turn to be somewhat irritated. "That's my friend on that cargo shuttle. I'm not leaving until I get him back safely."

"But when we found you, you were trying to leave the planetoid."

"Actually, no. I was going to hijack that shuttle, move it close enough to a nearby disabled satellite and then I'm going to hotwire that satellite to reestablish communication. Then I'm gonna find a way to go back to the planetoid."

Haruto rolled his eyes in disbelief. "You'd go that far… just to make… a phone call home?"

X-Eins scoffed. "You just got here. You have no idea on the condition on the surface do you?"

X-Eins began punching in a few more datas and the Dyson Sphere hologram began to change a bit. "This Dyson Sphere is currently in the middle of a tripartite planet wide war. One side, we have the Jior Resistance who had been here, fighting against Dorssian since we came." Some areas of the Dyson Sphere turned green to depict areas under control by Jior. Sadly, it's in the low 15%. "Dorssian used to occupy most of the Sphere, but thanks to you, things haven't exactly going well…" Red areas now formed around the sphere… around 20% or so. Which means…

"Arus had already controlled the rest?"

X-Eins had punched in a few more datas, and lo and behold… blue areas covered most of the sphere. In addition, he also added a holographic image of the Arus fleet encircling the planet. "Arus had virtually complete control over the entire planet. And the first thing they did was to knock down and jam all satellites, all cell towers, and wi-fi transmitter. In short: they've created a planet wide signal blackout zone that completely shut down the airwaves and WIRED broadcast. No information or data can come in or out. They could blow up this whole planetoid and the whole galaxy won't even know. That's why I was desperately trying to temporarily get off the planet so that I can at least send out some information regarding this most recent development."

"Instead, we came to you. Well let's just say then, we're both had been very-very fortunate." Haruto shrugged. "What can you tell me about these… fleet?"

"They had a very… unusual army composition: I project around… 90% of their army is in fact unmanned drones. Which in turn affects their… combat strategy."

"Elaborate."

X-Eins started. "This is how it works: first they completely sterilize an entire module with extreme prejudice… rendering it inhabitable for humans. After that, the tenants take over using mechanized army. Mop up, taking out any other resistance that somehow survived. Once the perimeter is completely secured and new military infrastructure is established visa telepresence builder drones, then, and only then, did the human elements finally landed and take over the abandoned module."

"Drone army. Telepresence mechanized infantry…" Haruto immediately understands. "This… is countermeasures against us. Against Magius and Novus Magius. We did the same thing when we placed many Magius as prisoners. We used unmanned drones and remote controlled mech units. They're prepared to fight us. Okay." Haruto nodded as he looked at all this armada blanketing the Dyson Sphere. "Okay." Haruto rubbed his aching head. "One thing I don't follow. Goh-kun dismantled one of those drones, and according to him, it was highly advanced. So advanced it even put Dorssian drone tech to shame. I'd like to add they even managed to mass produce it, so there's no way all this happened in a day. The question is… how did Dorssia managed to miss this? I mean… you guys managed to find out about us."

"Your insight serves you well, Tokishima Haruto. Well… actually… we didn't miss them." Cain shrugged at the Emperor of Dorssia. "Because we helped built them. Highness, I think it's time we tell them about project Grimm?"

"Project Grimm?" Haruto twitched.

"Grimm!?" Ryuuji snapped at the Emperor. "Ivan? You told me you put that project on ice!?"

"I'm sorry Ryuuji. When we heard you had your own daughter and her childhood friend committed to the VVV project we… figured you were emotionally compromised as you're in too deep in this. So… we decided to keep it a secret from you."

Shoko always said she hates secrets. Now Haruto began to understand why. "What the hell is project Grimm?"

"Project Grimm." The Emperor sighed. "It's an alternative to project VVV. You see… we've already planned our coup against the council even before Pino arrived. The project is to use a highly advanced bleeding edge generation drones to fight them off, jointly developed by Arus and Dorssia. I believe you understand the concept is sound. Magius can grow stronger by absorbing human memories as you yourself had showed along the way. So we deny them that by sending unmanned mechanized units."

"But these are no ordinary drones, Haruto." Ryuuji swallowed a gulp. "You might already notice, they moved with incredibly complex maneuvers, highly advanced tactics and yet for all that complicity, your friend Goh eloquently put it that it doesn't have a brain?"

"Yes?"

"That's because the brain was designed to rot away the moment the drone was disabled."

Haruto nearly choked. "Excuse me!? You put someone's brain in there!?"

"Not normal brain. No. A synthetic cybernetic brain." Cain catches on from there. "Over the years, ever since we've completed the mapping of human genomes, we've been perfecting a technique to preserve human knowledge. To somehow copy and translate the skills and memories of a person into data, to be stored away and preserved. We've had many dead ends… until project VVV made leaps and bounds with the understanding of Runes. We used that knowledge to improve upon the Grimm drones AI matrices by copying the minds and thoughts of our greatest soldiers, to be made into AI. But we hit a little setback. A single human mind filled with a lifetime of experience is way too big of a data for a single hard drive to contain. Only a human brain can contain that much information."

"Cloned brains. The same cloned brains used in the Rune Reactor." Haruto began to catch on.

"Whose concept we took and slightly altered. See… CPU is a technological attempt to copy the functions of a brain. When ran at full efficiency, a single human brain can actually perform the task of ten super computers. But in humans, there's the problem with… emotions, mental stability, personality, etc, etc. So these brains had been altered so as to have none of that. All it has left… is the concentrated capacity to process 0s and 1s. We're talking about a literal biological CPU."

Haruto, and pretty much everyone in that room barring the aforementioned three conspirators of this abomination, had to stifle their disgust, but they all made a mental note to visit the vomit pot. "Alright. Alright. I'm gonna have to stop you there because we're all on the verge of throwing up and punching you A-holes in the face for keeping this from us for so long. Unless you want to add something else of great importance regarding these drones?"

"Yes. They work using swarm logic. The prototype version of the Wolf Pack Network." Cain wasted no time. "In laymen's term, they work like an Insect Hive. Those drones you fought are its warriors. Its talons, and fangs. Eyes and ears. There's a brain… the main brain… the Queen that controls them. Take out the Queen, the rest will die."

Haruto blinked. "The… Queen… huh?" He looked at the fleet before him. But at the same time, his eyes landed on Cain. "Drone fleet, automated ships… but they still need human element, you say?"

"Yes."

A gleam found its way to Haruto's eyes. "So there's room… for an old school human infiltration."

A-Drei and X-Eins blinked, and then they realized what Haruto was planning. "But I don't think it's going to be easy. We've studied the Frigate, and we have a problem. They've attached state of the art tracking device on that frigate. The system would quickly cross reference and detect anyone and track them via audio signatures, retinal scanners… the whole works."

"Then… perhaps we could go in there… inside someone else's body." Ashra stated. "We did keep the previous crew alive, just in case…"

The humans in the war council was visibly disturbed… and it disturbed them even more that Haruto raised little to no protest to the idea.

"Okay…" X-Eins raised another problem. "But they've also installed a gait analysis, in case infiltrators had complete facial reconstruction."

"Gait analysis?"

"A step ahead of facial recognition. The tracker can remember the way the crew moves by bio-mapping their facial tick, body language, even the way a person moves around. You can change your face or fingerprints, you can't change the way you move." X-Eins finished his explanation: "Bottom-line, unless you're registered on the crew list, they'll detect you in seconds."

Ashra understood the problem immediately. Yes, magius can hijack other people's body – assuming their identity, but of course, their mind is still their own. The saying old habits die hard rang true here… it's not like one can easily change certain habits that had survived them for thousands of years. No matter how perfect they absorbed their victim's memories, there will be certain differences. But… seriously: "Is this sensor really that good?"

"You're very welcome to try it Ma'am."

A quick trip to the hangar, one hijacked body later…

The alarm roared allover the frigate 5 seconds after Ashra step into that ship inside one of the mercenaries' bodies.

So… conclusion: body jacking doesn't work.

"You speak of Database. Where is it?" Haruto had yet to give up.

"Technically, every frigate has a personal server which holds all the database for that particular ship's crews data. And before you ask, yes, we could use the one we have by overlapping its database with our own. But the issue here is that each local database must continually update their crew status into a central server, which I have no intel on where at the moment." X-Eins ended his report with: "And that's all I know."

Still, it was enough for Haruto to immediately order: "Alright. Plan set. Let's move out."

"Did I miss something?" X-Eins blinked.

"No. Like I said, the plan is set. We'll register our own database. We'll use that frigate we've secured to infiltrate their ranks, and then we'll shutdown all drones."

"You do realize they'll be nothing but suspicious if you just march this frigate all the way to their front door? Even if you somehow managed to trick them into letting it in, what are you going to do with the central server!? Don't tell me you're going to knock and ask!?"

Haruto smirked. "Actually… that's EXACTLY what I'm going to do."

"What?"

"I'm actually rather surprised that you're surprised over this tactic." Haruto smirked. "You did this to us once, no?"

And thus end the discussion.

00000000000000

A morbidly obese coms officer were just thinking of grabbing another snack… until his sensors began to register a really huge power blip on his sensor… and then there's two… four, seven… a dozen super heavy capital ships just appeared right in front of his nose. 4 Arus Carriers and 6 Dorssian Walkitt, and 2 completely alien Warship with sense nerve wing and boosters, and yet all bear the color of New Jior. The coms officer spat and spluttered into his mike. Alas, before he can say a word, one last capital ship, bigger than the first twelve literally just materialized right in front of his nose. "MA-"

The sickening Squish when the monitor squeezed the overweight coms officer was buried by the loud overwhelming crush when the Valravn popped out way too close to the recon shuttle and its sheer size crushed the infinitely smaller spacecraft.

"Aahh… ooops?" Haruto, acting as the Valravn temporary replacement (intended) Captain, had yet to fully master the way to navigate the Valravn that well. "Ah… well… at least we got their attention." True enough, Arus fleet began turning towards them, all guns trained to kill.

A-Drei and X-eins slapped their faces inside their Kirschbaum. How is it they lose time and again against these amateurs?

"All ships! Fire at will! Fire at will! Weapons free! Fire at will!"

And in unison, all thirteen New Jior capital ships opened fire with every beam cannons, missile and artillery guns at their disposal. Likewise, the enemy fleet, or at least a portion of it opened fire.

Before long, the dark space was quickly filled with explosions and light from exchanged cannon blasts. All capital class warships possess two things: immense firepower, heavy armor, and troop carrying and supporting capabilities. Walkits had their firepower and toughness for frontal assaults. Arus Carriers doesn't have that much firepower, but their traditional carrier ship design allowed them to carry almost twice as much troop capacity as their Dorssian counterpart. The Valravn, the largest and strongest of all New Jior ships took to the fore, braving through a fusillade of cannon fire. Their tougher than norm CF composite armor as well as CF field enable them to survive plenty attacks. Their Rune Lancer beam cannons easily tore ship after ship that landed on their crosshairs.

The initial phase of space battle always begins like this. It started with primarily battleship to battleship macro battle. And then, it will be swiftly followed by fighter to fighter micro combat.

The New Jior fleet capital ship was soon swarmed by their deployed accompaniment. Hundreds of Waffes – manned and unmanned - and all its variants, Splicers, with several dozen Ideal Annihilators and Kirchbaums, and even their Magius equivalents and of course, the Kagerous.

And in opposition, the Arus blockading fleet unleashed their own accompaniments. Dvergr drones deployed in multitudes of seven until thousands of them filled the space. Hundreds of Hunters followed.

Soon, the cannon fire between the two fleets began to lower in frequency. With their units deployed, they don't want to risk firing their own troops with their oversized guns. But now, the fighters of both side are racing until their opponents reached their firing range. That moment of silence before the inevitable clash is pretty much a pilot's last final chance to say something snippy. "You know… this is so straight out of that old movie I watched the other day." Just before the attack began, a Kagerou pilot still had time for some one last side tracking line of thought if only to calm his nerves.

"What movie?" Jin frowned in the com.

"I think it's called Star Wars. You know… that scene where the Rebel Alliance attacked the Death Star."

"And what, pray tell, is Death Star?" It became obvious who was the Star Wars Nut and who is not.

"Pretty much a fictitious imagining of a Dyson Sphere. It's literally a man made planet. Only… they strapped a giant planet destroying super laser on it. That's why they call it Death Star." The Pilot smirked. "They destroyed it by literally flying into its core and blew it up inside out."

"Okay, firstly, nobody strapped any planet destroying death ray gun on that Dyson Sphere, so we really have no need to blow it up inside out. Secondly, we're about to get into a brawl, so keep your focus on. Thirdly… INCOMING!"

As it turns out, the Arus opened fire first.

"ALL SQUADDRON! OFFENSIVE MANEUVERS! WEAPONS FREE! DEPLOY AND ENGAGE!" A-Drei roared over the com as his Kirschbaum unleashed its fleet of Waffes.

"It's been a while since I'm inside a proper combat unit." X-Eins fixed his glasses. "Let's see if I still got this." His custom Kirschbaum is armed with a long range rail cannon, and an advanced targeting array, an upscaled equivalent for long range sniping. The Dorssian agent tested it by firing a shot… and nailed three hunters with that one shot before the fragmentation shell exploded and ripped an entire squadron of Dvregrs. "Guess I still got it."

"Wolf pack network, activate!" The Kakaiju's sense nerve glowed, and the sense nerve of his entire pack of 18 Kagerous also glowed. And an instant, 19 streaks of light flashed allover the battlefield, and wherever they thread, explosions followed. They've already gone far since the battle of the Moon now. Every pilot in each Kagerou is now an ace in their own right.

In the end, the New Jior is outnumbered 10 to 1, but the quality of each New Jior's individual units can more than compensate the numerical disadvantage. What's more, the New Jior now knew what they're up against and had made preparations beforehand. But the enemy's number is quite overwhelming, even the Kagerous were hard pressed by the weight of these sheer numbers. It's just… so many. It's like for every one they destroyed ten more came in. In the end, the two forces are in a stalemate that may escalate into a protracted war of attrition. That is, until a set of new unit were unleashed. Among the relatively smaller units, their size is easily twice larger than Kagerous or Valvraves.

At first glance, it looked like a giant flying tank with four separate boosters across its main hull, with a laser cannon blaster embedded on each of the four boosters. The main hull itself is also armed with a multitude of CIWS across the surface. Stacked above this center main hull is what appears to be an actual massive tank, with a single heavy duty turret, sporting a pair of hydraulic manipulator arms, one armed with rail gun, the other with Anti battleship Gatling gun. Attached atop the stacked tank's turret is another mechanized unit, a four legged walker significantly smaller than the last two, but carries a swiveling turret with multi missile launchers. And the last one, stacked atop the third's module is the smallest of them all, roughly the size of a splicer, and this time, instead of more weapon, it is bedecked with sensory arrays and a wide radar dish. Still… a single one of this heavy unit had enough firepower to wage a small war on its own.

And they brought out several dozen of them.

They wasted no time and immediately fired every weapon they had. The battlefield was already tightly packed with overflowing amount of stray shots, and suddenly, a fleet's worth of firepower was added into the mix.

"EVASIVE MANEUVER!"

The New Jior's forces desperately tried to avoid the attacks, but the Arus drone fleet naturally didn't even bother. Several units were too preoccupied being swarmed by the uncaring drones they didn't have time to dodge and paid the price. Several tens of Waffe and a few Ideal were obliterated, some of the luckier get by with a missing limb. Kagerous and Kirschbaum were fortunately fast and strong enough to escape or survive the blast. But the barrage isn't letting up and worse still, even when they returned fire the heavy tanker drone didn't even flinch. The odds are starting to look bad for the New Jior.

"X-Eins… these tankers… could it be?"

"I have the data right here… Heavy Assault unit… Bremen. So… seven dwarves, big bad hunters… now we got animal musicians?" X-Eins analyzed the data regarding the types of drone units produced by Project Grimm given to them by the Emperor. "Aren't these old farts are a little bit too old for fairy tales?"

A-Drei, inside his custom Kirschbaum glanced in awe at the giant tank like unit. The last time he saw a single unit had this much firepower, it was the Ideal Blume, the pride and joy of Dorssian land forces. Dorssia combat analyst once said Arus' combat doctrine can't do heavy. They really need to redact that statement. "They once told me that we're inside a fairy tale right now. We got Frankenstein, Witches, Succubus, Mummies, etc, etc… and don't forget we have Vampires."

"Oh…" The now familiar streak of red light blazed through all fleet, following behind it is an equally fast green streak. "…Vampires. Right."

"W… What… what is that?" A captain of an Arus cruiser gawked. "Sensor? Can you pick that up?"

"Well… I don't know… I thought they were missiles but… they made insanely sharp course corrections at impossible speed to avoid debris and dodged our counter missiles at paper thin margin… ARgh! It's coming towards us!"

"Counter atta-" the Captain didn't get to finish his orders when he and his entire crew were vaporized by a barrage of cascading red rune lasers. The Valvrave just shot said lasers from its main power claw fingers through the ship's bridge up close.

Just like Ashra taught him, he had to create a balance between offense and defense when using this technique. Coat his Valvrave in a thin beehive rune armor and flow the energy through those hives, and he can significantly reduce the burden on his unit. Which means, he can also do this.

A whole fleet of Dvergr drones came towards him en masse. Haruto charged not only the main claw on his right, but also the two additional set of fingers on the wing mounted power claws. "KORAA!" 15 streams of thick red rune lasers from 15 finger talons instantly sweep across the space, wiping out the area in front of Valvrave clean of enemies in an instant. What's more, in his cockpit, the Valvrave's heat gauge only increased by around 10 to 12 percents. Every Arus ships began to desperately fired every weapon they have, but their targeting systems couldn't even get one clear glimpse of the blurring Valvrave. A Bremen's targeting sensor overheated itself trying to shoot down the zigzagging red light and was reduced to firing its weapons to every direction. The chaotic barrage was stopped short when a 14 meter long two pronged giant Katana cleaved the whole unit from crotch to head in one stroke. The Valvrave immediately plowed through the wreckage, followed by half a dozen homing missiles at its tail. Dancing through a blanket of enemy fire, the Valvrave closed in on another ship and horizontally swing his giant blade, cleaving the bridge clean off and immediately shot away. The homing missiles that were following him couldn't keep up and unintentionally landed on the unfortunate cruiser.

"My, my, my, look at him go." Cain watched in admiration at the red streak that was Pino's greatest protégé and creation. Attlach grinned. "If you had a son… if you could have a son… he might've just been like Haruto right now, no?"

"Really? After several hundreds of years of silence… you're gonna have this conversation now?" Pino rolled her eyes inside the main core of the Valravn. "From the beginning, our relationship as King and Queen is nothing like that of the humans. Just practical hierocracy. What's more… you never said anything when I took her as my legitimate wife."

"Why should I, indeed?" Attlach merely smiled melancholically.

"Anyway, don't you think you should concentrate on the battle in front of you?"

"Did you forget? Arachabus Magius excel in multi tasking." The armless and legless Dainslev merely flies around as his limb drones wreck immeasurable carnage. The twin scimitar wielding drones that formed his legs tear every enemy drones that stands in the main body's path. The left and right arm drones are the main attack force. The right arm drone wields a massive Magius equivalent to an anti material rifle and fired shot after shot of pure solid Rune afterglow energy shells. Once embedded on a single target, the bullet exploded, unleashing a spray of razor sharp lasers to every direction. Not big enough to destroy a ship, but small enough to kill the crew wherever they hide. The Right Drone fired two more shots, and the Cruiser looked like it was about to implode with so many holes. The Left Drone finished it off while plunging straight into the heart of the ruined ship by ramming its oversized weapon: the Dainslev's semi sentient blade, the Maltne Seltsam. "Hmph. Honestly, these human made drones are quite pathetic I didn't even have to try-"

And just when the Spider Queen said that, by sheer dumb luck, a Hunter drone managed to get past his twin leg drones and rammed the Dainslev main body, much to Cain's genuine surprise. It hit him right from the blind side of his one eyed line of sight, no pun intended. Cain was so shocked that something actually managed to get through, the Hunter Drone had began futilely hacking at his rune shielded main body. Already said Drone began unraveling its jaw, preparing to bite him. The one eyed Colonel narrowed his eye in disgust. He can already hear Pino gleefully asking: 'you were saying?' in his face. "…I'll never hear the end of this." In a single contemptuous swipe, the hunter was completely disintegrated down to the particle level by a giant purely rune made limb that appeared out of the sockets of the Dainslev's main body. "Fine. You want me to get serious? As you wish." And by serious, the Dainslev recalled back its limb drones into a single unit. Grasping the Maltne Seltsam, the Dainslev cut a swath of destruction across the field, searching for the source of that drone. A carrier is desperately trying to keep the inhuman Valvrave away, but they can only watched helplessly as the Maltne Seltsam cleaved giant chunks of their warship as its wielder circle around them. The Silver and green Valvrave fly at the rear of a cruiser and fired the Maltne Seltsam cannon mode straight at the main thruster's exhaust. The beam stab through and went straight to the power core, blowing the carrier inside out. Walking out the massive thermonuclear explosion unscathed, the Dainslev looked around the battlefield, reading its flow. "Tokishima Haruto! It is time!"

"Right. Everyone clear out!" Haruto shouted the order.

The rest of the army knew right away they only had the time it took for Haruto's insanely fast Valvrave to rendezvous with Dainslev for their big bang. And unlike the uncaring Arus drones, they wanna come back alive from this battle because contrary to popular belief… they do quite like their life, as messed up has it been.

In an eyeblink, the Valvrave already stood side by side with the Dainslev. The Valvarve instantly charged all three power claws, energy coruscated every fiver fingers before they concentrated into a single ball of red energy in each palm. The Dainslev's shoulder appendages, the legs of the Left and Right drones, were charged with a mass of runes as the Maltne Seltsam turned into its cannon form.

The Valvrave shoved all three power claws forward, the energy spheres in each palm shot out a massive stream of rune energy. All three converged on a single point, creating a massive beam blast as tall as a Bremen in diameter.

The energy on the legs shoulder appendages converged with the energy coruscating in the Maltne Seltsam, unleashing a massive torrent of green rune energy that rivaled the Magius Super Heavy Rune cannon.

The two colored energy streams converged into a spiral of destruction that dwarfed a Carrier the same way a Carrier dwarfed a Splicer. It instantly wiped out the enemy's armada one fleet at a time.

Seeing that giant laser, Jin snarled. "Hah. Death Star. Who needs' em?"

The giant rune beam naturally missed the Dyson sphere by a huge margin, but it was nonetheless affected by the gravitational pull of the artificial star beating at the Sphere's core. And it caused the beam to curve to a certain extent. Fortunately, Cain had already calculated this factor… which is a bad news for the Arus reserve fleet stationed on the other side of the Dyson Sphere because based on Cain's accurate calculation… they're smack dab at the end of the path of the curving beam. The admiral of the fleet had yet to receive a report that the frontal fleet had been largely wiped out when he saw a brief but bright light.

And that's pretty much the last thing he saw.

The light of the larger than life beam can be seen from miles away, and naturally, by the denizens of the Dyson Sphere itself.

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The JIOR Resistance looked up to the sky and saw it glowed red. When the cloud parts they saw the jagged spiraling beam that devastated the rear Arus fleet. Somehow, they know what it means. "They're here… at long last. They're here."

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A certain person saw the light and smiled. "He's here…"

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The Arus radar officer down on the Dyson Sphere were having a hard time believing his eyes when he saw that light just wiped out their blockading armada wholesale.

"That's it then. Pull back our space forces. Bring them planetside."

"We're… retreating, sir?"

"No. I didn't say retreat; I said we bring them planetside. They've just wiped out 80% of our space forces in less than 15 minutes. In space… these… alien Hybrids are unbeatable. The Valvraves are designed for superior space combat. But dare they do the same here on this Dyson Sphere, their very own home planet? In here, we'll have the home-field advantage."

"Yes sir."

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All of Valvrave's heat vents glowed orange hot. All of his talon fingers looked like they were one breath away from melting. Inside the cockpit, the heat gauge had reached 78 of 100… but unlike the post upgrade Valvrave, this 78 is a heat level equivalent to being cooked alive in a high temperature oven. Normal human's innards would've imploded a long time ago.

Unlike the Valvrave, the Dainslev still maintain its alien technology. Naturally, its cooling system is far more superior to the now partially earth based Valvrave. The pilot hardly sweated. "Tokishima Haruto, look." Cain nudged.

The Arus fleet had been beaten so bad, they began a full retreat into the Dyson Sphere.

"Our little show of force worked. They're in panic. They're falling back into the Dyson Sphere."

But Haruto was hardly impressed. This is not the reason why he would commit to this over the top shock and awe campaign. Haruto glanced at one particular Frigate… as planned, in the panic that ensued, everyone tried as quickly as they could to put as much distance between them and these space monsters from outer space. They were so terrified, none bothered to double check their crew… but with so many of them destroyed, an additional one extra frigate full of unfamiliar faces would hardly matter. But that's still half the victory. "Akira…"

On cue, the Malefic in its Gretel satellite mode appeared out of the darkness.

"Please… tell me you've managed to hack their signal?"

It was to his great relief when Akira texted her answer:

Signal hacked. Central Database hacked. Insertion Team Database uploaded.

NOW Haruto can sigh in relief, for now. Because that was just the easy part.

The battle for the Dyson Airspace is over.

The war for the freedom of the Sphere has been renewed.

And Haruto's struggle for the survival of an entire species has just begun.

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