(Opening Theme: Hamatora the Animation Opening 1)

-Present-

The sun had started to rise over the horizon of Pandora. Rak's had begun to take there early morning flight. Fiona and Rhys both slept back to back with one another, while Plutia's head, rested on Shadow's shoulder as they slept.

Their kidnapper, the Stranger had soon disturbed them from their slumber when he fired his gun in the air. This had caused Fiona and Rhys to jump while Shadow and Plutia on the other hand, opened their eyes normally as if they were getting up from bed.

"GAH I'M UP! I'M UP!" Rhys exclaimed as his head darted around as did Fiona.

Plutia let out a yawn as did Shadow. She sat herself up and asked, "Is it breakfast time already?"

Shadow tried to move his arms to rub his eyes but then remembered why he couldn't, "Oh that's right, we're tied up." He said so casually.

"Hey! Seriously, can you use your words?" Fiona said to the Stranger, "You're just wasting your bullets with that thing."

The Stranger was silent for a moment. "Yeah… Okay." He said, putting his gun away.

Shadow than noticed the position that Rhys and Fiona were in, "Whoa." Shadow said with a smirk, "And you two said you weren't a couple."

The two were confused at first until they realized what he meant. They immediately jumped away from each other as far as they could. Fiona had soon realized that there was a wet spot on her shoulder. "Aw! Come on!" Fiona said angrily turning to Rhys, "You drooled on me!"

"Huh?" Rhys said. He turned to her and saw the spot where he drooled. "Oh yeah." He said with a smirk, "Whoa, that's a lot. You know I feel a little dehydrated." This had caused Fiona to spit on his face.

"GAH!" Rhys exclaimed when her spit landed on his face, "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!?"

Fiona smiled in triumph. "There." She said, "Now we're even."

"You are a monster." Rhys couldn't help but say with a glare.

"Stop!" The Stranger had said.

"Yeah, seriously." Shadow said to them, "I know you two have had your differences in the past but this is getting annoying."

"It's really giving me a headache." Plutia had added

The Stranger let out a sigh and then said to the four of them, "I'm gonna let you out of those restraints. Don't make me regret it… Cause' YOU'LL regret it much more."

Everyone was eager to nod their heads as if to say, "We won't run, we promise". He then went ahead and undid the restraints. He first untied Shadow and Plutia; He gave back Plutia's doll which she was thankful for as she hugged it tightly. He then went ahead to untie Fiona and Rhys.

Fiona stood up and stretched her limbs as did Rhys. "We gotta long way to go." The Stranger told them, "We should move before the suns up."

"Can I ask where we're going exactly?" Shadow asked him.

The Stranger turned and simply stated, "NO."

"Just as I thought." Shadow said with a sweat drop.

Fiona had then asked the Stranger, "At the very least can I hit him once? Just to get it out of my system?"

Rhys turned to Fiona, "You gotta work on your anger management. All this animosity is not good for-"

"Just one." The Stranger said cutting him off. Rhys did a double take, and before he could protest, Fiona's fist went right across his cheek causing him to lose his balance and fall over. Shadow and Plutia couldn't help but jump slightly.

"Big sister!" Plutia said, "That wasn't very nice!"

"What?" Fiona said to her innocently, "I needed to get it out of my system."

"OW!" Rhys couldn't help but shout, "SON-OF-A-TAINT THAT HURT!"

The Stranger than motioned them to walk to which they did. They walked ahead while the Stranger walked from behind. "So…" The Stranger said, "Where were we?"

Fiona and Plutia both looked at each other. Plutia than started by saying, "So anyway, after we found the map to the Gortys Project…"

-Sometime Ago on Pandora; Atlas Secret Lab (Fiona & Plutia's POV)-

The group couldn't help but stare in awe at the map before them. There was nothing but silence among the group. Plutia turned to Shadow, but saw the look on his face.

"N-no…" She heard him say, "It ca-can't be…"

"What is it?" Plutia asked, "Is there something the matter?"

Shadow didn't seem to hear her voice which made Plutia a little worried. It wasn't long before they heard Rhys let out a scream which made Fiona jump.

"What is it?" Fiona asked him.

Rhys had replied, but stammered, "I-uh-..." He turned away from the group and walked over to where Shadow, Mion and Plutia were. Shadow's eyes had appeared to follow where Rhys had walked.

"Rhys, you're acting weird." Fiona stated, "Weirder than usual."

"Rhys is fine!" Vaughn reassured her, "He's just… Excited!"

Mion had finally noticed the look on Shadow's face. "Shades?" Mion said getting his attention, "What's wrong? Is something the matter?" Shadow turned to Mion, but took a moment to turn back to Rhys. "Wha…?" He said before asking Mion, "You mean you don't see him?"

Mion and Plutia both tilted their heads when they heard him say that. Mion turned to where Rhys was looking. "See who?" Mion asked him, "What are you talking about?"

Plutia had turned to where Shadow was looking but didn't see anyone. She turned back to the teen, "Are you sure you're okay?" Plutia asked with concern, "You look like you've seen a ghost."

Shadow turned back to Rhys; he had replied to Plutia without turning to her, "You… Could say that." He said.

Soon enough Sasha had asked Vaughn, "You sure he's okay?"

"Yeah, he's fine!" He once again reassured, "He just needs some fresh air!"

Rhys had then suddenly sprinted up the stairs.

"So, upstairs… Where there's more air…" Vaughn said losing his trail of thought.

"I…" Shadow said, looking up the stairs where Rhys just went. He had suddenly exclaimed, "I need to go!" And thus he sprinted away from the group.

"Shades, wait!" Mion shouted, but before anyone knew it, he was already up the stairs.

"What's the matter with him?" Fiona asked her.

"I… Don't know." Mion told her, "I've known him for so long, but he's never acted like that before." There was silence among the group. Vaughn immediately broke it when he said, "So… Hey! What's up with that map?"

The group looked up at the map, wondering what it was about. "That symbol." Mion had pointed out, "That's the symbol for a Vault. Why would this kind of map be here though?"

Sasha shouted towards the map, "Computer! Enhance!"

"Enhance!" Fiona had shouted as well.

They continued to shout the same word over and over again but it was all in vain. "Umm…" Plutia said, "I don't think it's working."

Mion and Vaughn couldn't help but shake their heads. "Seriously." Mion said stopping them, "That's not gonna work."

"She's right." Vaughn said to the two, "Where you guys from? You don't just yell 'Enhance!' at the screen."

Sasha went over to the machine, "Maybe I can bring this up on a legend on this thing." She reached out to get it, but the minute the tips of her fingers touched the machine, it had suddenly shocked her.

"GAH!" She cried out. The core fell to the ground and broke in two letting the map disappear.

"Holy shi-Are you okay?!" Mion said going over to Sasha.

She shook her hand, "Yeah, I'm alright." She replied.

"Did you break it?" Vaughn asked her. He kneeled down to pick up the smaller core that Fiona had earlier, but it ended up shocking him too. "URGH!" He cried out. He quickly shook his hand to get rid of the pain, "Damn it. I don't think we can pick it up."

"Maybe…" Mion said thinking aloud she then turned to Fiona, "Try picking up the smaller core. Maybe it'll work for you."

"How do you know that?" Fiona couldn't help but ask her.

"Just try it, okay?" Mion said to her.

Fiona nodded her head. She went over to the smaller core and picked it up; Surprisingly enough, she didn't get shocked. "Huh?" Plutia said tilted her head, "It didn't shock you?"

"I…" Fiona said at a loss for words, "I don't understand."

"I've seen this kind of thing before. Back when I was with the Black Wind." Mion said.

"You have?" She asked her.

Mion nodded her head, "When Shadow and I were on the job before the Black Wind went… Missing. We found this small machine that did belong to Atlas at one point. When he touched it, the machine imprinted on him and shocked the others that did touch it. Since you and Rhys were the only ones that picked it up, it must've imprinted on you and him somehow."

"Vintage Atlas." Vaughn said fixing his glasses, "Incredible."

Sasha's eyes widened in realization when she had just realized something, "Wait…" She said, "You worked with the Black Wind?"

Mion turned to her and said, "Yeah, I'll... Tell you about it later."

Just than, the group heard a computerized voice, "RETINAL SCANNER ONLINE." It said, "SECURITY PROTOCOL ENGAGED. RETINAL SCAN REQUIRED. PLEASE STEP FORWARD AND IDENTIFY YOURSELF."

"Is that normal for a computer?" Plutia asked Vaughn.

"I don't think so…" He replied to her.

"I don't know…" Sasha said, "Maybe we should get out of here while we should get out of here while we still have the chance."

"Hold on, we can't leave just yet!" Mion said to Sasha, "I don't if you've noticed it, but that symbol just now on the map, was the symbol of a Vault. People don't just turn away from something like that, Vault Hunters or not."

"She's right." Fiona said to her, "This map could lead us to a vault. So we're not leaving until we know exactly where it's telling us to go."

"She does have a point big sis." Plutia said to her, "Aren't you even a little curious to where this is going to lead?"

Sasha thought about it for minute; She let out a sigh, "Alright, a quick peek never hurt anybody."

Plutia let out a bright warm smile. "Good." Fiona said, "Now that's out of the way let's take a look at the computer."

They went over towards the computer. Fiona went forward towards the scanner; the retinal scan had started up and scanned her eye. The computer voice had said, "RETINAL SCAN FAILED. EMPLOYEE NOT RECOGNIZED. ALERTING GENERAL POLLUX."

"General Pollux?" Plutia said tilting her head, "Who's that?"

"Oh crap that must be an Atlas employee." Vaughn said, "That's probably not-"

He was soon cut off when they heard a beeping sound. They all looked around the room. "Um… What's that sound?" Sasha couldn't help but ask.

"It sounds like a pager…" Mion had replied, "But where is it coming from?"

"Let's see if we can find it." Fiona said. The small group spread out and looked around the room. Plutia had soon walked passed a cabinet of some kind. She backed up and looked towards it. She placed her ear against and heard that the beeping sound was loud.

"Hey, guys!" Plutia had called over, "I found the sound! It's coming from here!"

They went over to where Plutia was and they heard the sounds of the beeping were indeed louder than before.

Fiona went ahead and pressed the big yellow button right on the cabinet. It opened swiftly, and within the strange cabinet there revealed to be a person. Everyone couldn't help but let out a scream and jumped away from it. "YEAH OKAY!" Vaughn couldn't help but exclaim, "THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I THOUGHT I WAS GONNA SEE!"

Sasha picked up the pager that was beside the man. It had turned out the man in the cabinet was the one called General Pollux. She shut off the pager, "Well, now all we have to do is get his eye to the retinal scanner." She said.

"How are we going to do that?" Plutia couldn't help but ask.

Mion had suggested, "We can maybe scoot him over to the computer?"

"My thoughts exactly." Fiona said. Sasha and Fiona both attempted to get Pollux out of the cabinet but ultimately couldn't since his legs were stuck. Fiona and Sasha were forced to put him down. "Well that's not gonna work." Sasha had said.

"From the looks of it, he's wedged in there pretty tight." Fiona said taking a closer look.

"Now what?" Plutia said, tilting her head.

Mion thought about for a second and she had said, "Okay, I've gotta one of the strangest ideas."

Everyone gave her a confused look. Vaughn couldn't help but ask, "What kind of strange idea?"

"Well, it is a retinal scanner, so we just need his eye." Mion said, "The only thing we need to do, sadly that's the hard part, is to get his eyeball out."

"Scoop out his eyeball!?" Vaughn shouted, "Are you insane!?"

"Trust me Vaughn it's the only way." Mion said.

"She actually does make a good point." Sasha said

Fiona gave an unsure look but she did admit in her head, Mion did make a good point. If they were ever going to find out what was in that computer, they need his eye. There was just one problem.

Fiona had asked, "How am I supposed to get his eye out? With my bare hands?"

"Don't worry, you won't have to use them." Mion said. She walked over to a table that had an empty lunch tray. She picked up one of the utensils which was-

"Oh hey, it's a spoon AND a fork!" Vaughn said, "Ha! How about that?"

Mion then handed it to Fiona, "This should make things easier for you. I'd do it myself, but I think this requires more, steadier hands."

"Right, gotcha." Fiona said taking the spork from her. Vaughn didn't seem to take in what she meant only until he looked over at Pollux's body, "Wait a minute, that's not-" He said.

"Yup." Fiona said to Vaughn, "That eyes gonna have to come out one way or another."

Fiona walked over to Pollux and kneeled down to get a better look. "Okay… This is… Okay…" Fiona said. Right before she was about to do it, she felt someone looking over her shoulder. She turned and saw it was Plutia. "Hey Plutie." Fiona said, "Trust me when I say you might want to look away for this part."

"Oh right, sorry." Plutia said. She backed up and turned away so that her back was now towards the small group.

She carefully moved Pollux's head and aimed the spork to his left eye. As carefully as she could she placed it above his eye and-

"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Fiona jumped at the sound of Rhys's voice and accidentally shoved the spork into Pollux's right eye turning it into soup; the blood and eye juice got onto Fiona's face.

Everyone's jaw just dropped (Except for Plutia since her back was turned) when they saw the eyeball had basically explode.

Plutia turned around slightly, "Did you get it?" She asked breaking the silence.

"WHY DID THAT JUST HAPPEN?!" Fiona had shouted angrily.

"I'm gonna take that as a no." The young siren said.

"Oh God!" Mion said holding her mouth, "I think I'm gonna be sick!"

"Your not the only one!" Vaughn said holding his mouth and stomach

"Aw… Man… " Sasha had said, "You split the eye right in half… All the thing is-"

"WHY ARE YOU DESCRIBING IT TO ME!?" Fiona shouted cutting her off, "I KNOW! I DID IT!"

"Right, sorry." She said.

Mion managed to stop herself from throwing up as she said, "Well, bad news. You only get one more shot, so try and not to split the eye in half."

"You think I don't know that?" Fiona said.

Fiona turned back to Pollux, she took a deep breath, "Here we go."

As carefully as she could, she placed the spork in his eye. She then turned the spork, trying to avoid damaging the eye.

"Right, so far so good." Sasha said.

"Stop talking to me." She said to her.

She continued to turn the spork feeling that the eye was getting loose.

"I'm gonna be honest right now…" Mion said, "I'm don't know if that's looking better or worse."

"Trust me." Vaughn said, "It looks worse."

"If your planning on puking than do it on the floor." Sasha said.

All Fiona did was give Sasha a look as if to say, "What did I just tell you?"

"Hey, this is me helping." Sasha simply stated.

She felt that the eye was lose. She scooped it in and started to dig out the eye. "You almost got it!" Sasha said, "Just cut the thing… Holding the thing…"

Fiona dug it in as hard as she could. Just as she cut what was attached to the eye, her hand slipped letting the eye fly through the air.

"OH CRAP!" Mion shouted as the eye flew in the air, "SOMEBODY CATCH IT!" Before it could land in front of Vaughn the eye had suddenly stopped in midair. They turned to see Plutia, with her left arm out and her markings glowing a familiar blue color.

Vaughn sighed with relief, "Thank you…"

"Your welcome." Plutia said to him with a smile. She made the eye float towards Fiona, "Here you go big sister."

"Thanks Plutie." Fiona said. She took the eye from where it was floating and Plutia's marks had stopped glowing, "Let's get this over to the scanner."

They went towards the computer. Before Plutia could follow however she heard what appeared to be a voice. It was of a man's but it didn't belong to Rhys or Shadow. In fact, she didn't recognize the voice at all.

"Impossible…Die…...Too stupid…." The voice had said.

"Huh?" Plutia said to herself looking around the room, "That voice…? Where did it…"

Just than she saw her marks started to glow a very faint purple color. A voice had then echoed through her head.

"Looks like our Hyperion pals made a new friend."

Plutia of course recognized who the voice was in her head. "Iris*?" She whispered.

(*Plutia is aware that she has a different personality and is able to talk to her through her head. The only two differences is when Plutia has her own head, Iris is able to see, hear, smell what Plutia does. When Iris is in control, she can't remember anything she does.)

"Hello again Plutia." Iris said in her head, "Nice to see your doing well after that whole Felix thing."

Plutia ignored what Iris had said and asked with her mind, "You mean… You know what's wrong with Shadow and Rhys?"

"Of course I do." Iris replied, "I know you can hear his voice too you idiot."

"But how?"

"It's one of my- or should I say our abilities as a siren. Technopathy*. Since they both have an ECHOEye so I can see why it would work."

(*From what I understand from the Wikipedia page, Technopathy is what allows physical interactions with machines. I thought it would make sense, apologies if it's not really accurate. And before you ask Plutia's Technopathy is a bit unstable so she wouldn't be able to hack into a computer.)

Plutia tilted her head in confusion. "So what does that mean exactly?"

She heard Iris letting out a sigh, "It means you'll be able to see who they've got stuck in those little head of theirs. So head on up and check it out."

Plutia nodded to herself and did what she was told. She went towards the stairs and head on up as quietly as she could. Thankfully the eye that Fiona had worked with the scanner as the computer opened up to what appeared to be a message.

"MESSAGE ONE." The Computer said, "ATHENA. GORTYS FACILITY. OLD HAVEN."

The message had started and as the computer said, it was indeed from Athena. "Hello Pollux." She said in the message, "Too bad I missed you at Old Haven. As you've no doubt surmised the Gortys project has been terminated. And now that you have no soldiers under your command. I regret to inform you that you've been relieved from your duties. I'll come by soon to "ease" your transition into retirement."

Thus Athena's message came to end. Mion couldn't help but say aloud, "Man she knows how to send a message."

No one had seemed to acknowledge what Mion had said as Vaughn asked, "Ummm… What's Old Haven?"

"It's an Atlas old mining town." Sasha replied, "It's been abandoned for years."

"Which makes it a perfect place to hide a Gortys Project." Fiona said, "Whatever that is…"

Just than another message started to play. The computer voice had said, "MESSAGE TWO. GENERAL POLLUX. MEMORANDUM."

Up on the screen, there he was, General Pollux. He turned to the camera, but what they heard next, it had put them into shock. He had said within the message, "If you're watching this, then I'm already in suspended animation. You must understand, Athena was trying to kill me, and what I posses is far too powerful to end up in the arsenal of a ruthless mercenary. If Athena is no longer a threat… Please activate the revival protocol in my statis dock. My life, and quite possibly the fate of the universe… is in your hands."

Everyone's jaw dropped when they heard the words, "Suspended Animation". They couldn't believe it. They all looked at Pollux awkwardly. "Oh…" Vaughn said, sounding a bit disgusted, "Does that mean he was… Oh… When you scooped out his… Gah…"

"Oh Jesus…" Mion said putting her hands in her hair, "Don't tell me we just…"

"No…" Sasha said, "No way. He had to be dead when we-When you-"

Fiona had cut her off by saying, "Don't… Just don't."

Fiona then turned around behind her and noticed that someone was missing. "Hey." She said, "Where's Plutia?"

Plutia was already up the stairs to where Shadow and Rhys ran off. She took a peak and she saw that they were indeed talking to someone. She couldn't make out what they were saying. She saw a blue silhouette image of a man standing in front of the both of them. Plutia squinted her eyes trying to get a better look but it was all in vain.

"I… Can't see him." Plutia whispered.

"Hold on." She heard Iris say. Her markings started to glow a purple light again. When she blinked the image became clear*. She saw the man clearly now. She couldn't exactly describe the outfit that he was wearing nor could she describe his skin and hair color. All she knew was that he was hologram of some kind.

(*Iris is able to enhance Plutia's abilities to make them more stable, this only works with shared abilities however.)

"Well, he's a fine looking son of a bitch isn't he?" Iris said in her head.

"But I don't know who he is." Plutia said to Iris mentally.

"You sure you don't know?"

"I don't know. I don't know who he is... But why does he look familiar?"

She soon saw that Rhys was starting to back up. "Ha! Your so stupid!" She heard the man say to Rhys while laughing, "Watch your head dickfa-" Just as Rhys hit his head on the girder, Plutia jumped when she saw the man disappear, Plutia couldn't help but look around.

Rhys started to move like he was drunk. "Rhys, are you okay?" Shadow said to Rhys.

"I'm fine…" Rhys said groggily.

They soon heard Fiona shout from down below to Rhys, "Hey! Do you need our help!?"

"Nope!" Rhys said still trying to regain his balance, "I'm good!"

Plutia looked around wondering where the strange man had gone off too. "That man..." She said still looking for him, "Where did that man go?"

Shadow had finally noticed that Plutia was there. "Plutia?" He said, "What are you-"

Just than they were cut off when Rhys fell over the balcony. "RHYS!" Shadow exclaimed while Plutia let out a scream.

Rhys fell to the floor and he just exploded with blood, covering Mion, Vaughn, Sasha and Fiona.

(Stranger)

Wait, what?

-Present; Somewhere on Pandora-

The small group were still walking through the deserts of Pandora in the beating sun to which they did not mind. All of them were equally confused by what Fiona had said in the story; even the people that were actually there.

"I didn't hit my head!" Rhys said to Fiona.

"What are you talking about?" She said, "I saw you hit your head on that girder-"

Rhys cut her off, "Right, yeah, true I did hit my head on that, but I didn't hit my head when I fell on the computers."

"And obviously he didn't explode, and there certainly wasn't a lot of blood." Shadow added.

"Well actually there was a bit of blood." Plutia said.

Fiona smiled and said, "See? Exactly my point."

The Stranger had said, "This is all very… Thorough. But what about Jack?"

Shadow and Rhys couldn't help but look at each other at the mere mention of the name. "Right, Jack…" Rhys said.

"Yeah, about him." Shadow said, "So in our version of the story…"

(Ending Theme: Bleach Ending 6 My Pace)