Act 2, Chapter 4 - The Past Made Present (Part 2)
The trio eventually reached the bottom of the cliff, as they're now walking down the ancient city streets that have been completely abandoned and crumbling away. They look at their surroundings to find broken, intersecting roads and walkways passing over their heads. The architecture for the buildings, however, look suspiciously more familiar to the teens.
"What happened here?" Articho wonders. "And why do these buildings look awfully familiar?"
"Yeah." Maaya agrees. "Something's definitely not right about this place."
"Speculating isn't gonna get us anywhere." Kinuho reminds them. "But I am getting a reading of those anomalies Shiage picked up earlier."
"That would be correct, Miss Wannai." The Doppelganger AI confirms. "They're likely the cause of the eruptions beneath Mount Fuji."
Articho stops walking, and his wives turned around and stopped to look at him in confusion.
"Mount Fuji was never a volcano." He realizes. "It's just like any regular mountain we've seen, except that it was carved into to build a city advanced enough for whatever inhabitants used to live here."
"Then what do you think caused those eruptions?" Maaya asks.
"If I had to guess, then these ruins could still be running on power." He answers. "Doppelganger, can you trace any active power sources nearby? There may be a connection to this."
"Scanning." The AI says, taking a few seconds before finishing. "Scan complete."
"That was quick." He mutters quietly to himself before checking his helmet's HUD, which is now pinpointing several clicks southwest. "Let's move out."
Along the way, the trio decided to take photos and video record the city ruins with their Omni-tools. However, it's possible that there should be data that's been preserved for centuries. With any luck, it may even hold a charted galaxy map that could lead them to Tellus. A few minutes later, they finally arrived at the end of the trail. And it's coming from inside a large domed building.
"The trail ends here." Articho says. "But this building must be older than the ones we've passed by."
"Way older." Kinuho adds. "My Omni-tool scans indicate that the carbon dating on this structure was built some time around the late 6th or 7th Century A.D."
"Wasn't that around the time when the Ainu were the original Japanese natives or something?" He raises an eyebrow beneath his helmet.
"Yes." The light chestnut haired girl nods. "Which may support this theory of mine from the data we've been gathering so far."
"Let's hear it." The Pathfinder insists.
"What if we know everything about the Ainu is wrong?" She suggests. "What if they weren't always a primitive people, but was once an advanced civilization? Think about it, guys. Something cataclysmic caused the downfall of this beautiful city, and the Ainu devolved into an indigenous tribe. Centuries of their previous culture lost to them. Until now."
"Then that means the Ainu were originally aliens that properly first settled here on Earth." Maaya's indigo eyes widened in surprise. "Aliens that are humans from the stars."
"Impressive, Kinuho." Articho compliments his light chestnut haired wife. "You may have a knack for xeno-archeology other than fashion and martial arts."
"That's very sweet of you." Kinuho giggled, grateful for her husband's praise.
"Alright then, let's see if we can get inside." The Pathfinder says, walking up a small flight of steps before coming across a door control panel. "This tech definitely looks more and more retro, I'll say."
"The controls are on a separate system." The Doppelganger informs. "I cannot hack the door open. You'll have to resort to hotwiring it."
"Great." He sighs in annoyance before prying the panel open with his right hand. "Watch my back, ladies. Who knows what's lurking down here."
"Wait." Maaya hushes her husband. "Do you hear that?"
It was a low growl, and this causes her and Kinuho to pull their primary guns out and aimed at the shadows. Articho hears the sound, too, as his hand is ready to pull out his modified heavy pistol. Heavy footsteps are heard, and a large creature reveals itself. The creature roared at the trio and runs toward them, preparing to slam its fists down on their heads. Luckily, Maaya dropkicks the creature hard, sending it flying backwards.
"Shit, was that a Rancor?!" Articho exclaims in disbelief. "Here on Earth?! In our universe?!"
"That looked nothing like the Rancors we've seen in the movies, games, shows, and comics!" Kinuho agrees, completely confused as well. "Some kind of new breed? Guess we now know what happened to the city because that thing's fucking massive!"
"Get that door open, Articho!" Maaya tells their husband before running towards the beast. "Kinuho and I will keep it busy as long as we can!"
"If you could avoid using ki blasts, I'd be very much appreciated that you continue to restrain yourselves." Articho jokingly warns, pulling out several colored wires as Kinuho joins her best friend into battle.
The Rancor got itself back on its feet and roared in anger before attempting to lunge one of its hands at Maaya, only to miss as she slides under the creature between its legs. She then jumps up and fires multiple shots from her submachine gun, only to realize that the Rancor's hide is resistance towards even the most advanced bullets that Articho and Ryouko developed to fight against the Decepticons. She became so distracted by this that the Rancor turns around and swipes her across with its fist, breaking through her armor's shields and staggering her.
Before the creature could grab and eat her, Kinuho joins into the fray on time with multiple shotgun blasts onto its back. Annoyed, the Rancor and turns around to eat her instead, only to be met with a few sticky incendiary grenades onto its face before detonating at point blank range. The creature roared in agonizing pain, covering its eyes from the flames of the resulting explosion that burned its face. Kinuho gave a cocky smirk at her success, having found a weakness to easily exploit.
"Thanks." Maaya sighs as her armor's energy shields were fully restored.
"Stay frosty." Kinuho warns. "This fight's only just begun."
The Rancor stops covering its face, revealing a large scar that left the creature half blind. It roared in anger, and slams both its fists down on the ground, resulting in a shockwave of debris flying beneath toward the duo's feet. Kinuho and Maaya evaded out of the way, landing on a nearby rooftop.
"How's it going over there?" Kinuho asks their husband who is still trying to hotwire the door open.
"So far so good, I think!" Articho answers with uncertainty in his voice, before accidentally electrocuting himself with one of the colored wires he's trying connect. "Damn it!"
Kinuho and Maaya blankly stared at him, beginning to doubt his skills to open a door that's run on retro alien tech. Suddenly, the Rancor had just jumped towards them and brings down the building they were standing on. Luckily, they instantaneously moved at lightspeed and reappeared back to ground level.
"Too close." They both sighed in unison.
"Screw it." The Pathfinder frowns in annoyance at the control panel before pulling out his modified Carnifex pistol and fires several rounds at it, resulting in the door to slowly open that reveals a dark corridor since the entire building has been on emergency power for centuries. "Well, that's one way to open a door as always."
"Took you long enough!" Kinuho chastised.
"Just shut up and get inside before that thing comes back, will ya?" He suggests, holstering his sidearm before walking inside.
No time to lose, the two girls took his advice to heart and followed their husband inside the domed building as the door closed behind them. The trio turned on their lights built within the sides of their armored chest pieces. Evidently, their lights shined upon the remains of a long dead corpse lying on a wall with its skull titled dowards. Articho walked towards the decaying skeleton and crouched in front of it for a scan with his Omni-tool.
"This person must've drowned in his or her own blood." Articho analyzes. "A fatal wound on the side, it would seem."
"How do you know?" Maaya curiously asks.
"Because the corpse's ribcage has been totally slashed through by that Rancor's claws." He explains. "And since the DNA's been corrupted and decayed, I can't determine the victim's gender and identity."
"Doppelganger, can you bring up any schematics you can find for whatever this place is?" Kinuho asks their AI companion.
"I will try my best." The Doppelganger acknowledges before getting to work. "This'll take a moment."
"Hmm?" The Pathfinder perks his head up, noticing something shiny and familiar besides the victim's remains.
He picks the object up, revealing it to be cylindrical in shape with a few buttons on it, as well as a black round and flat knob on the lower side of it.
"The material looks worn down, by the looks of it." He thought what appears to be a lightsaber hilt. "I'm surprised that this thing's still well-preserved in these past thousand years or so."
"Find anything?" Maaya asks, as her husband gets back up and shows the hilt to both her and Kinuho.
"Is that what I think it is?" Kinuho begins questioning as her eyes immediately recognized the object in the boy's hand.
"Look at the fine craftsmanship." Articho points at the details on the hilt's alloy. "I... I think this is High Republic."
With a flick of his wrist upwards and pressing the activation button, a plasma blade is ignited for the first time in ages as it illuminates the trio's surrounding area with a yellow light.
"If this is a lightsaber, then these remains belong to a Jedi." The light chestnut haired girl deduced in awe at the yellow-bladed lightsaber in her husband's hand.
"Not just any Jedi." The indigo haired shinobi princess adds, scanning what's left of the remains' clothing. "These white and gold robes confirm that he/she is indeed from the time of the High Republic."
"All the way out here on Earth-86?" Articho questions. "More importantly, how'd they even get to our world in the first place? Something doesn't sit right with me about this."
"Apologies for the delay." The Doppelganger apologizes, as building schematics appeared on each of their helmets' HUDs. "I overheard your conversation, so I chose to do some digging. Apparently, this facility serves as what any alien civilization would call an 'Observatory'."
"An Observatory?" The Pathfinder asks. "Like a map room?"
"That is correct, Pathfinder." She confirms. "However, I request your assistance in gaining access to its central chamber. Perhaps we could use the Observatory to narrow down the search for Tellus with the data we gathered, as well as the star charts we've 'relieved' from Starscream's quarters on the Nemisis."
"Good thinking." The light chestnut haired girl agrees. "Maybe we could get some answers on where these High Republic settlers came from as well."
"Kill two birds with one stone." The indigo haired girl nods. "That's a plan I wouldn't mind following."
"Then that's where we're going." Articho declares, lowering the lightsaber and deactivating the blade before holstering its hilt on the back of his waist horizontally.
"Waypoint is marked on your HUDs." The AI adds.
"Let's move." The Pathfinder signals his team, pulling out his assault rifle and taking point this time.
Both girls followed his example once more, as they continue to venture deep within the High Republic's Observatory.