Shion knew she was still supposed to be resting, and that the others would throw a fit if they found out that she had snuck off to work, but she was getting too restless. After checking to make sure everyone was still asleep she got dressed and slipped into the elevator to the lower dock of the Elsa. She figured the computers in the Professor's lab would work the fastest and have the lowest chance of her getting caught.

Once at the lab she starts up the first monitor she sees and starts typing in commands, opening up the files that hold all the security footage. She scrolls down until she finds the footage for the outside cameras and types in the date that they were attacked by the unknown adversary.

If I can just get a close enough look at those ships, I might be able to find out something about them...

"Hey now, it's rude to use other people's stuff without their permission you know!" Shion nearly falls out of her chair when the professor suddenly comes out of seemingly nowhere and yells at her.

"Gah, don't sneak up on me like that!" The professor huffs at her, she also notices that Scott is awake as well. He had just set a cup of coffee and a microwave meal at one of the other desks. "Anyway, I'm sorry to intrude but I really need to use this. I'll try not to take too long though."

The professor grumbles a bit, "oh whatever, it's fine. I owe you for chasing those ruffians off earlier anyway, just think of it as me repaying my debt."

"Thank you, and don't tell the other's that I'm down here. I'm technically supposed to be resting right now."

"Alright, but only if from now on you warn me and assistant Scott before you decide to rough house around with the ship. I'd rather not be in the middle of such a delicate experiment next time."

"Hey, that wasn't my fault you know," Shion notices Scott laugh a bit at her tone. "Hmm, what's so funny? Because I could go tell Tony to take us on a detour through an asteroid belt if you really want to get crazy." She jokingly says to Scott, earning her a few more chuckles before the Professor orders Scott to get back to work, Shion decides to get back to her own work as well.

The large ship was difficult to get a clear image of, all the camera's on the Elsa couldn't capture a full image of it with it being so close to the Elsa itself, and any footage of it before it latched onto the ship was far too blurry to pick out any details. The footage of the small ships, however, was a lot clearer and easier to work with.

It was while she's looking over the footage that she notices something odd, "hey Scott, come her and take a look at this."

"Hmm?" Scott is in the middle of sipping his coffee when Shion calls for him, "what is it Shion?" He sets down his drink and walks over to see the monitor Shion was sitting at.

"I'm not an aerospace engineer, but don't you think something looks odd about these ships? It's almost like some of the parts on them don't match," she points out a clearer image of one of the smaller ships from earlier.

Scott leans in for a closer view, "hey, yeah." He points a finger at the wings of a ship, "it's a little hard to notice at first, but I do think these are from a different ship. They seem to fly fine still, so it's probably a part from a different ship of the same class. Oh it's just that one though, the others seem to match- Oh no wait there's another one with mismatching wings. And I think that one's jet type is wrong."

Shion's face scrunches up in confusion, for a so called powerful empire their ships sure are a patchwork mess. But why would they even be like that in the first place?

"That reminds me," the professor speaks up, "it was hard to get a full picture, but I did briefly look at that ship that grabbed the Elsa. It seemed to be a scavenger like ship, much like the crew here has been using this cargo ship for, but anyway my guess is that it was made to haul around broken or damaged ships." He takes a second to shoo Scott back to his work. "My point, however, is that while it would have a powerful engine it was certainly not meant to go THAT fast. So either someone there is very ambitious, or they have a poor understanding of engineering... Or both."

"That's odd," Shion whispers to herself, "I would have thought at least someone there would have known what changes to make to the ship." While she wasn't too knowledged on the specifics of how space crafts were built, she at least knew that you couldn't just stick any faster engine into a ship without any changes and have it work correctly. Even the elsa had to have major remodeling done when the captain had faster jets and engines put into it.

And there was still the fact that the large scavenger ship looked so similar to one of the Ormus ships. There's just too many loose ends, Shion thinks to herself as she leans back on her chair, this is gonna be harder than I thought.

She considers asking Scott for a cup of coffee as well to help keep her going, but she doesn't want to bother him. I doubt I'll be down here too long anyway.

"So... Are you two just going to mope around all day?" Chaos looks between the two androids that are still sitting in the grass across from each other. The two of them had refused to look at each other the entire time, and any comfort that Chaos had tried to offer was met only with silence. Even T-elos didn't have any witty remarks to throw at him, I suppose that's only natural considering what happened to them, but they won't ever be able to move on if they keep this up.

Chaos sighs, as much as he wanted to keep helping them... "I have somewhere to be, I'll be back soon, but in the meantime I really think you two should try talking to each other. You have more in common than you know, and I think it might make you feel better," he gives one last smile to them before he fades away.

Kos-mos had watched over her shoulder as he left, she looks to where he was a bit longer before turning toward T-elos. Kos-mos knew Chaos was right about talking to T-elos, but that was a lot easier said than done. Kos-mos had always preferred to be led by logic over emotion, but the logical choice was a lot harder to determine without her robotic body. The only part of Kos-mos and T-elos that existed here was their souls, the very thing that made Kos-mos herself. But truthfully Kos-mos wasn't too sure of who she really was.

And then there was also the problem of T-elos, in that the two of them were almost polar opposites. T-elos ran a lot more on emotion than logic, there was no logical way to calculate who Mary's soul would choose to awaken in, yet T-elos would still shout about how she were the better choice as if it were simply a fact.

Kos-mos finally decides the best choice would just be to just start up a conversation about something else, just so she would at least have a distraction from her thoughts. "T-elos..."

"Look I don't want to talk you about 'the purpose of our existence' or whatever, nor will I ever!"

"... I... I was only going to inform you that your hair looked nice today," Kos-mos stares at T-elos who looks both pissed and embarrassed, she gapes at Kos-mos for a minute trying to figure out what to say.

"I- WELL- YOU- YOU LOOK BEAUTIFUL TOO KOS-MOS! WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THAT!?" T-elos screams at her in a way that probably would have been hurtful if she had said... Literally anything else.

Kos-mos puts a hand over her chest "T-elos, of all the interactions we've had, that is the nicest thing you've said to me..."

"Hell yeah it is!" T-elos keeps on yelling as if she just delivered the burn of the century. "... Hey Kos-mos, just uh... do me a favor and pretend this didn't happen."

"Absolutely not, as soon as I am able to control my body again I am saving this very moment to my hard drive."

"YOU BETTER NOT!" T-elos screeches.

"Year 4769, March 2-" T-elos yells and tackles Kos-mos, trying desperately to cover her mouth. "At approximately 0900- hgjghgg," T-elos sticks her hand over, and partially in, Kos-mos' mouth. It takes a second before Kos-mos is able to pry her off, "T-elos, codename TP-XX called me, Kosmos Obey Strategical Multiple Operation Syste- hkkkkk- beautiful."

The professor and Scott had left a while ago, Shion had assured them as they made their way out that she would get back to resting in a few minutes. But soon minutes turned into hours, and without the power of caffeine to keep her going she ends up falling asleep at the computer.

Her arms are crossed on the table in front of her with her head laying on top of them. She's partially on top of the keyboard which is now typing an endless string of 'M's across the screen.

Shion shifts very slightly in her sleep, a small smile is on her face, reflecting the pleasant dream she's having.

"Hi there, you must be the new girl."

"O- Oh, yes. It's nice to meet you, my name's Shion Uzuki."

"Well Shion it's nice to have you here, your resume was very impressive and I'm sure you'll be a great help with this project."

"Thank you, I'm very excited to be here myself. You know I've always wanted to work in a lab like this, well I wanted to work on realians, mind you, but the thought of making an android is just-"

"Hahaha."

"What? Are my ambitions that funny?"

"No, no, I'm sorry. You're just the second most excited person I've seen at the thought of working on Kos-mos."

"Second?"

"Of course, you may seem like the most excited one here right now, but I do have to look in the mirror sometimes."

I remember my first day at Vector so clearly... I was too nervous to talk to anyone at first, so you welcomed me to the first division on your own.

After the Miltian conflict I had all but lost my trust in people, I figured I couldn't lose any more people close to me if I didn't have anyone to lose. But I was still afraid of being alone, I think you somehow noticed that when we met. You introduced me to everyone there, and everyone was so kind and silly I felt like belonged immediately.

That time we spent together, the things you said to me, it couldn't have all been a lie.. could it...

Shion's vision darkens briefly, and when the world comes back into view she suddenly wished it hadn't. It's another scene that she could always clearly picture in her mind, whether she wanted to or not.

Shion is in the same vector lab as before, but it has a much different atmosphere to it. The lights had been shut off, and the only light source is the occasional flash of lightning. The Kos-mos archetype was standing in front of her coated head to toe in blood, Kevin's body hangs limp within her grip.

No... Please, not this... Not now...

The android stares at her for a moment longer before dropping Kevin's body, time seemed to stop around her as Kevin hit the floor. The room around her literally disappeared, all that was left was Shion and Kevin. "K- Kevin..." Shion feels tears begin to form at the corners of her eyes, and although she knew it wouldn't change a thing, Shion slowly reaches out for Kevin.

Shion's breath catches in her throat when something unexpected happened, Kevin gets up.

He's covered in blood, and there is still a gaping hole where the archetype had struck him, but he is still standing there like nothing happened.

"Shion... Please, come with me"

"K-Kevin I thought you'd-"

"Shion please..." Kevin holds his hand out to Shion.

Shion, still crying, reaches out to grab his hand...

"Shion wait!" That voice...

"Kos-mos!"

There she was, her blue hair was flowing in the wind and her bright red eyes seemed to glow due to the stark contrast they had to the almost monotone scenery around them. She's just as beautiful as Shion remembered her.

"Shion it is not time for you to go yet, please come back with me," Kos-mos holds out her arm to Shion.

Shion looks between a blood stained Kevin and Kos-mos, who seems to be slightly transparent. "I- I can't-" Shion feels her tears start to flow even more "I can't choose between you two... Please don't make me choose!" Shion falls to her knees, full on sobbing now "I- I miss you both so much, I couldn't possibly leave either of you behind!"

"Exactly Shion, now please take my hand and join me in this next life"

"No Shion you mustn't. Take my hand and I shall return to this world to be with you"

"Please stop..." How could she possibly choose? She had such fond memories for them both, she missed them both so much, she loved them both so much...

"Shion please come be with me again"

"Shion I shall protect you no matter what"

please stop...

"Shion"

please...

"SHION"

"SHION!"

"HEY SHION, ANSWER DAMMIT!"

"GAAAH!" Shion falls out of the chair she had been sleeping on, oh Matthews is gonna get it next time I see him. Shion pulls herself back up, her eyes feel a little itchy, she probably shouldn't have slept while wearing her contacts. She figures she can take them off after she answers Captain Matthews however, and uses the computer she was sitting at to pull up a direct communication with the bridge. "This had better be important Captain, you nearly gave me a heart attack you know!" She shouts at him, obviously grumpy and annoyed.

"Oh believe me you're definitely gonna want to see this" Matthews has a smug grin on his face, and she can see Allen there as well.

"Chief you're never gonna believe this! You gotta get up here, it's- YOWCH" Allen is cut off as Matthews smacks the back of his head

"Ey don't ruin the surprise! If you wanna know you gotta come up and see for yourself Shion" Matthews turns back to the screen, that same grin on his face again. In the background Jr is also yelling something about how Shion should come up to the bridge and see the 'surprise'.

"Oh alright," Shion sighs "I just need to run to my room really quick then I'll be right there." The others seem to be satisfied with that answer so she goes ahead and hangs up. She then slowly pushes herself out of the chair and stretches out. "Hmmmm I wonder what everyone's so excited about" Shion thinks out loud, yawning as she makes her way to the elevator.

It's a short and uneventful walk back to her room, but as she stands in front of the mirror and takes out her contacts she does start to get more curious about the so called 'surprise'. Well I'm not gonna find out by standing around here, Shion thinks to herself as she pushes her glasses on instead. Shion decides to take one last look at her reflection in the mirror, and boy is she a mess. The clips in her hair had all but fallen out, her eyes were red from staring at a screen so long, and the dark circles under her eyes weren't helping either...

Oh well, it's not like I'm going to a fancy dinner or anything, she decides to just take the clips out of her hair all together before leaving, and anyway they already all saw how much of a mess I am earlier so it's not really worth worrying about.

With that nonchalant thought she makes her way out of her room.