Chapter 4

Destiny: Souchou.EXE

A long night overtook the three soldiers. While the other two slept Kururu stayed wide awake. Although he didn't mind all-nighters, since he stayed the most awake during the night, Kururu was consumed by his thoughts of E.X.E.

"You were going to betray us….After all the work we've done, you were going to betray headquarters."

He hated the sound of Miyiyi's voice then. She sounded so hurt, a hurt that he had never inflicted upon a person before. Despite Kururu's shady doings, he had never outright betrayed someone. He'd create mind twisting and semi-faulty inventions, but, he had never betrayed, never disobeyed Headquarters, because despite his personality, he was still a soldier of the Keron Army. And despite his being a soldier of the keron army, he still couldn't be proud enough, couldn't be selfish enough to give E.X.E. to headquarters. The thoughts twisted in his head a deeper meaning Kururu could barely grasp.

"Kururu,"

Kururu looked up seeing that Giroro was actually awake, which had caught him by surprise. He didn't like the idea being seen while in sentimental though. "hm?" he asked. Giroro rose from where he had been trying to sleep and looked up, staring out the only window in the room high above them, a faint light shinning through from a distant star. "I got a message." he said in a whisper. "It was from Keroro. He said he's not coming for us." Giroro's voice held much regret, and hurt.

"Why are you so surprised?" Kururu asked faintly. Giroro's gaze fell to the floor, a frown crossing his flips. "I thought," he began, though paused. "That he cared about us. We are his responsibility anyway. But…" Giroro's voice was filled with sorrow. "I hate this. Being a prisoner to Garuru." Kururu nodded to him knowing that Giroro didn't really care about Keroro, but rather having been captured by his brother. "Hating it won't get us out of here." Kururu said casually. Giroro nodded to him in return, "I know," he said...

Morning came slowly, however the dawn of earth didn't greet Kururu, nor Saburo. Kururu felt his heart drop when he looked at the time. He hadn't slept at all. He heard a small beep from his neck, reminding him of his collar. It beeped a few more times before someone appeared at the door. It was Zoruru and Taruru again. "Just you today," Taruru said looking in Kururu's direction. Giroro and Dororo stirred from where they were sleeping. Kururu stood, brushing off his still bandaged legs before he walked out of the room joining the two that awaited him. As he passed through the door he stumbled forward, and nearly tripped had Taruru not caught him. "Be careful!" he warned helping Kururu stand. Zoruru fitted him with another pair of cuffs and he reluctantly followed the pair through several hallways, leaving Giroro and Dororo behind. They arrived at a set of double doors labeled 'control center'. Taruru pushed opened the doors and they entered into the control room of the Garuru Platoon's ship. Garuru sat at the controls with Tororo by his side. Once they entered Garuru spun around in his chair to face them. Taruru and Zoruru left his side and took up post at their own controls leaving Kururu standing below them all since all the controls were on a raised platform reachable by a ramp with a huge screen displayed in front of them.

"Our first objective is to locate where you sent E.X.E." Garuru announced looking down upon Kururu. "You're going to help us find it. You remember where you sent it don't you?" Kururu looked up at him smirking, "Planet Alucard, ku-ku." he answered. Garuru scowled down upon him. "Now is not the time to be making up names. We know ever planet that's ever been charted. There's no such thing as Planet Alucard." Kururu swore he heard Tororo burst out laughing hearing Garuru say 'Alucard' obviously he was the only one who had gotten the pun. Kururu simply rolled his eyes. "It's in uncharted space." He answered dryly.

Garuru rose from his chair and pressed a button amongst the controls. A large holographic screen appeared before Kururu. There were huge paragraphs shown on the screen, all of it which were in binary code. "Where did you find this…" Kururu growled in a whisper looking over his own work. "Decode it." Garuru ordered. Kururu shook his head. "This isn't normal binary. It's my own version, I've forgotten how it reads." Kururu complained, trying to find any excuse not to read out the map to E.X.E. 'I forgot about this…' Kururu thought, pressingly. He had only made the map when he was making a route for E.X.E.'s departure. He had made sure to dispose of it, and had never expected to see it again.

"Well I hope you can remember. Your comrades are depending on it." Just as Garuru had said that thought an alarm went off. All the present Platoon members jumped from their seats. "What what!?" Garuru gasped glancing about frantically. He then glared down at Kururu before he hopped the railed and jumped down to where he was. "What did you do this time!?" He demanded seizing Kururu by the collar around his neck. Kururu said nothing as the alarm rang a red screen replacing the binary map. "Two intruders are making their way to the docking bay!" Tororo announced. "Displaying camera surveillance." The large red screen was replaced by a camera view of Giroro and Dororo escaping. Kururu would have sighed in relief, but kept quiet as Garuru threw him aside and burst out of the control center. Taruru and Zoruru took off after him.

With them gone Kururu looked up at Tororo, who noticed he was the only one defending the controls. "Don't get any ideas!" He gasped pulling out a small gun. Kururu smirked before breaking out into a sprint up the ramp to the controls. Once he got up he came up behind Tororo and pushed him down the other side. As he screamed falling down the ramp, Kururu took to the controls.

He pulled up the security system and disabled it within seconds. Despite his hands being cuffed he was still able to hack without hindrance. He pulled up camera surveillance of Garuru's position and commanded a lock down on the hallway the group was in. He watched with pleasure that gates trapped them in the hallway, and took even more pleasure in their cries to Tororo for help. Kururu glanced over his shoulder to see Tororo at the bottom of the ramp struggling to get up. He wouldn't be a problem, even if he was armed.

Kururu continued to hack into the systems disabling any security artillery that would stop Giroro and Dororo from escaping. He opened the docking bay garage-like door and unlocked all the escape pods. He watched as Giroro stole fuel out of the other escape pods loading them into two separate ones. Each of them hoped into one and were out into open space within minutes. Once more to Kururu, their escape had seemed to easy. He closed the camera surveillance when an icon for an incoming transmission showed up. Knowing who it would be, Kururu opened the transmission. Giroro's face appeared over the screen.

"Skull-1 reporting." Kururu smiled, feeling more then pleased with himself. "Kuu-ku-ku." he chuckled with victory. "What more could you want?" he asked. Giroro frowned at him though. "We'll wait for you in ship orbit. Once we get away from the ship we'll make a transfer so you can ride with either myself or Dororo-" Giroro stopped when he noticed Kururu relaxing in his chair. "Kururu….?" he asked surprised.

Kururu put his head back exploiting the collar around his neck, he heard Giroro gasp at the sight of it for it was now a size smaller than it had been. "Looks like I'll be here for a little while longer." he yawned. "You should get going. Zeroro needs you. See to it you both get back to Pekopon safely."

"Kururu!? Why didn't you tell me!? We-" he began when Kururu shook his head. Kururu leaned forward in his chair and removed his glasses. "Giroro…" he whispered looking up at the red Keronian, one last time. "Good bye." he said, two amber eyes staring at his blurred face as he reached a hand forward towards a switch that would end the transmission. "Kururu! Wai-" The screen went black. Kururu pitched forward in his chair taking in a sharp breath as a sharp object stabbed his arm. He saw out of the corner of his eye, Tororo's figure standing behind him. "Damn you." he spat, pushing him out of his chair, not caring one bit as Kururu crashed to the floor painfully. "Garuru will kill me for not protecting the controls. It's all your damn fault." he continued to grumble to himself brushing Kururu's glasses off the controls, continuing not to care as they too crashed to the floor and cracked.

Kururu figured he had been stabbed again by the same poisoned darts they had used against him. However the numbness didn't last as long, but to Kururu's disappointment the rest of the platoon had returned by the time he could move his arm again. "Tororo!" Garuru thundered when he barged through the doors to the control room.

Tororo rose immediately and saluted. "I'm sorry sir, Kururu forcefully took the controls-" Garuru cut him off shoving him aside and seizing Kururu once more by his collar. Dragging him Garuru pulled him over to the railing and pounced over it.

As they fell Garuru threw Kururu before him, himself landing on his feet. Kururu crashed into the ground painfully and rolled over on his side. "Hell awaits you if you continue your mischief." Kururu gave a heavy cough, closing his eyes. "Don't think because they got away they're safe. Don't think we won't put you through hell to get to E.X.E!" He shouted loudly. His intimidation reached everyone in the room, but not Kururu. "Then kill me." he said weakly. "You don't deserve E.X.E.'s power. NO ONE DOES!" he shouted back. Garuru stepped back, surprised that Kururu had actually raised his voice, and how strange it had sounded. Sure he had shouted other times, but, never in anger, never with intent of intimidation. Kururu felt his heart and being on fire, burning with anger.

His burning passion helped him ward off the poison that threatened to paralyze him as he rose. 'I won't be held down by you.' his thoughts seemed more like words towards Garuru. Garuru had pissed him off for the last time.

Kururu would have then broken out into a fist fight for the sake of all their cruelty, but the lack of his glasses made it difficult. Garuru sighed at him. "Tororo, the map." he demanded turning away. Tororo scrambled to the controls and pressed a few buttons to bring the binary map back up over the screen. "No one cares about your personal view on the project. Just tell us where to go." Garuru said plainly without turning to Kururu.

Kururu dropped his anger, for a reason he didn't understand. These guys had tried to blackmail him, they had threatened him and even injured him. He had gone to every length to get out of it, and yet, he still felt like he had to do this. He looked up at everyone else in the room, studying them, wondering what they were wondering. Zoruru looked the same as always, but Taruru and Tororo were scared to death. Scared of what though? Garuru? 'This is stupid…' he thought frowning. 'I was scared…' He had surprised himself then. Kururu scared? The words sounded like they didn't belong in a sentence together. 'I've never seen anyone this way though…I never imagined Garuru to be this cruel he…' Kururu didn't want to think more on it. He knew Garuru wasn't the nicest of Keronians, and that he was considered a rival. But for him to be unfair and brutal, and of all people he picked Kururu. "Outside of the farthest galaxy from Keron, there's a crystal asteroid mass, called Sepron's Face. From my past calculations, the rocket would have ran out of fuel in that area, and drifted from there. That's all I know." he said darkly.

Tororo nodded to Garuru and turned to begin inputting a route to Sepron's Face. As he was typing away he froze, his glasses shimmering from the artificial light as he looked up. "Garuru…" he began, his voice sounding a bit lost. He suddenly turned about looking at his leader, nearly shocked. "We've already wandered to the edge of charted space." he said quickly. Everyone in the room looked up at him, surprised at his find. "We'll be at Sepron's Face in just a few minutes…"

AN- mrrf. I haven't been feeling so well lately. V.V; Anyway, as the story progresses I probably won't request reviews for continuation, but they're nice to see :3