Chapter V
Hello everybody. Yes, that's right, another chapter of Final Reign already. I'm feeling energetic right now, I've already made it pretty far through the story in just five chapters, and some of my favorite parts happen in this chapter. Really wish there were some more reviews for the story though. At this point it seems like my coauthor, Bakuto Masaki, is the only one posting any reviews. You guys can't just leave him out there all alone. Speaking of, guess I might as well respond to his review.
Bakuto Masaki: Yeah, I thought that'd be funny. I had to find a good way to introduce Marianna and the Freedom, and what better way than for her to utterly thrash two very powerful mechs and one grunt? Yeah, I just kinda felt that would be a good way for that to go. Yeah, Alister getting his name wrong, the few times he actually says it, will be a bit of a running gag. Naturally.
Well, I guess that's it. So on to the actual story then. Make sure to tell me what you guys think if you would be so kind.
Alister and the group continued their trek through the large Gnosis, which Alister had chosen to dub the Cathedral Ship.
"You gotta be kiddin' me…I still can't believe we're inside a friggin' Gnosis," Alister grumbled.
"To be more specific," KOS-MOS remarked, "We are at the approximate center of a giant Gnosis roughly sixteen thousand kilometers in diameter."
"Sixteen thou-that's a damned planet!"
"It's likely that large Gnosis we saw at the center of the fleet," John added as he played with some of the goo dripping from the ceiling.
Alister sighed heavily as he looked around. "Yeah…guess so."
Shion stopped momentarily as they looked around. "So…would that mean…we were…eaten?"
Alister shrugged as he turned to her. "That may not be far from the truth if you ask me. But, I don't think we're in its stomach."
"Why's that?"
"First, there's obviously breathable oxygen here, otherwise only the two bucketheads and KOS-MOS would be moving, the rest of us'd be dead. Second, there don't seem to be any digestive juices. Unless that creepy lake down there is but that's beside the point."
Shion put a hand on her chin in thought. "You have a point. I suppose it is odd that there is a hospitable atmosphere inside the Gnosis."
"You guys…" Allen moaned, "don't we have bigger problems?"
Everyone looked at him puzzled.
"Where's the Elsa!?"
Everyone turned slowly to look at each other before simultaneously shouting, "AAHH!"
Alister slumped his shoulders in frustration. "Gotta be kiddin' me."
"Hopefully," Murasaki added, "they're all alive and in here somewhere. I hope we can find them."
Alister ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "Yeah…I'm not exactly keen on trying to survive by eating Gnosis meat."
"Do they…" Homura mumbled as she looked at a wall curiously, "…even have meat?"
Alister grabbed her collar and pulled her away. "Not the time to find out."
"Hey!" she shouted as she was dragged along by the ODST, "lemme go!"
After walking for a little while KOS-MOS suddenly stopped.
Shion noticed this and turned around to her. "KOS-MOS? What's wrong?"
"Although it is faint, I am detecting a signal not very far from our current location."
Alister, who was still dragging Homura, turned to her. "Is it the Elsa?"
"Affirmative. Also, there is a faint energy signature that matches the Zohar Emulator that was housed on the Woglinde."
Alister narrowed his eyes while Shion asked, "Zohar? You mean that gold object that was in the hangar? It's here?"
"Affirmative."
"How far?" John asked plainly.
"It is roughly ten kilometers from our current position."
Alister shrugged in response. "That's not too bad. As long as we don't encounter too many pains in the ass we should be able to get there in a reasonable amount of time."
"Well in that case," chaos added, "we should start moving towards the Elsa."
The others nodded and decided to continue walking.
After another short walk they all stopped and ducked behind a short wall.
"Oh great," Alister grumbled.
Down below them on the lower level they found multiple Gnosis.
They were merely wandering the area, as if patrolling it.
Including Gnosis that looked like large green brutes, small bee-like Gnosis and the same Golems and Goblins as the Woglinde.
"Geez, they're everywhere," Alister groaned as he pulsed electricity on his hands.
Ziggy lowered Alister's hand slowly. "That's a lot of Gnosis. Going out of our way to fight them would be a bad idea. Let's do what we can to get around them."
Alister sighed after a moment and nodded. "Got a point there. Guess we'll just need to sneak around for now. Actually, has anyone thought about where Commander Jackass is?"
Shion raised an eyebrow before realizing who he meant. "The commander!"
Elsewhere inside the Cathedral Ship, Cherenkov was stumbling through the corridors of the fleshy area breathing heavily.
As he stumbled he saw a light ahead of him and looked ahead in shock. "This…this isn't real…am I hallucinating…?"
As a landscape appeared in front of him in the light he said, "This…can't be…Ariadne disappeared when the Zohar went out of control!" He found himself in front of an energy plant with hundreds of people wandering around, going about their business. He looked around in pure shock.
As he walked ahead to try and get the attention of someone walking away from him, the people around him slowly vanished, leaving only him in the energy plant with a single door in front of him.
A door standing in the middle of nowhere.
Apprehensively he pulled open the door and looked inside, seeing a battlefield in a completely different place. Soldiers firing and bombs dropping, one of the bombs going off right in front of him and filling his vision with blinding light.
A sudden flash appeared in his mind of a young boy standing amongst a pile of debris and dead bodies, changing to the figure of himself in a U-TIC military uniform.
"Ahh crap!" Alister shouted as he sent a blast of lightning at an approaching Gnosis. "I thought the idea was to sneak around these damn things!"
"It was," Ziggy answered plainly as he punched one of the small flying Gnosis before using his arm-mounted blade to slice another in half.
KOS-MOS stood amongst the group as well, firing shots from her pistol and arm gun at the Gnosis. She turned as a Goblin charged at Shion. "Shion." She charged the Gnosis, jumped over Shion, flipped in the air and fired several shots from her arm gun at the Gnosis, killing it.
Chaos also fought a few Gnosis as he ran, white wisps of energy flying from his hands and destroying each Gnosis they touched.
One landed behind MOMO and was about to crush her when Salcito blew it away with a shotgun blast. "Stay behind me."
MOMO nodded and ducked behind him as he fired shots from his shotgun at the encroaching Gnosis.
One of the Gremlins, the flying, leech-like Gnosis, flew towards the two only to have John drop from above and crush it under his boot before punching another. He then grabbed its tail and spun it around, taking out multiple Gnosis surrounding him. "KOS-MOS."
KOS-MOS responded instantly by equipping her miniguns and firing a hailstorm at the Gnosis John had thrown in the air, eliminating them all.
Alister continued firing, both bullets and thunderbolts, at the Gnosis, before a large green one came at him. "Oh screw you!" He shoved his hands forward and sent it flying with a shock wave. He clenched his hand and zapped it with a powerful electric blast, killing it. "Damn, these things just keep comin'!"
"We must keep progressing forward. Remaining in this location would result in our destruction," KOS-MOS mentioned offhanded.
"Ohh, that makes me feel so much better!" Alister responded sarcastically.
Several of the Gnosis ran at the group and Alister snarled and put up a hand reflexively hoping to stop them with an electric blast. What happened instead confused him.
A wide shield of electric energy formed and repelled the Gnosis that hit it. He smirked and turned to the rest. "Hey! I've got us a snowplow! Stay behind me and we should be able to storm through them!"
The others nodded as Alister lowered his head and raised the shield again. As he ran forward with the others behind him he smirked as the Gnosis ahead of him were mowed to the side. He widened his eyes as several Gnosis flew down from the sides. "Uh-oh!"
However, right before they were close enough to attack, a series of missiles hit them and blew them to pieces.
Alister looked behind him to KOS-MOS who had her shoulder pods open as missiles launched at the Gnosis around them.
Alister smirked and nodded to her as they continued charging forward.
On the Durandal, multiple warning signals were blaring on the bridge.
Inside a special hangar within the Durandal, multiple large blocks with Zohar symbols on them, one yellow the rest pink, a low-pitched, ringing sound was emanating throughout the room.
"Warning alert in Section D!" one of the 100-Series shouted. "There are strange waveforms coming from the quarantine hangar!"
Jr. appeared on the bridge in a lift with Clair and Haruka beside him. As he walked ahead he narrowed his eyes. "Sector D? Is it the Zohar?!"
"Raising Attract Inhibitors in Sector D!"
Another 100-Series announced, "U.M.N. activity detected across EPR radar! Something's beaming resonant waves through hyperspace!"
"Where's it at?!" Jr. demanded.
Haruka giggled as she looked at the screen. "Ufufufu…I wonder if we'll find any more new Gnosis."
"Your obsession with them is disturbing," Clair remarked.
Haruka flipped her hair and huffed in annoyance.
"Searching for signal source," Shelley reported.
Jr. looked over the edge of her seat at the screen. "Must be resonating with whatever's sending that signal. Alright, prepare to gate-jump! Mary, let Gaignun know, we're gonna follow this thing!"
Mary saluted as the ship prepared to jump.
Back inside the Cathedral Ship, the group stopped to catch their breath.
"Well…this thing is certainly deserving of the title Cathedral Ship…" Ziggy remarked.
"Hell yeah," Alister added through huffs. "It's certainly big and feels like a ship."
"I wonder…" Shion added. "Look, over there."
Alister looked to where she was pointing and saw a sign. "Is that…a sign?"
"Yeah!" MOMO said excitedly. "Hey, look, it's written in English!"
"But…it's not stuck on the wall."
Shion nodded. "Yes, it's more like…it's part of the ship itself."
"Wait…are you saying that sign is a part of this thing?"
Chaos nodded. "Yeah, take a look around us."
Everyone looked around the area and found that there were signs, chunks of walls and even entire buildings off in the distance.
Alister rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Okay…this is just absurd. Wait…what if…this thing is the planet?"
Everyone looked at him puzzled.
"What're you talking about?" Salcito snarled.
"Think about it. That Gremlin, it attached itself to that A.G.W.S. back on the Woglinde, and turned it into that Cyclops thing. What if this is the same idea? Except on an infinitely larger scale? What if it's a planet that turned into a Gnosis?"
"That's absurd," Shion argued.
"Actually," chaos began, "it's all that strange. There have been reports of people turning into Gnosis before. And, from what I've heard, all Cathedral Ships seem to coincide with the disappearance of a planet."
Alister nodded. "It's the most absurd thing I could think of. But…you have to admit…with all the crap we've seen in the last few days, is it really all that weird?"
Salcito folded his arms in frustration. "I have to admit the asshole's got a point. Considering what's happened in the last few days it wouldn't be all that weird."
"So…this thing is really…?" Murasaki asked timidly as she looked around sadly. "But then…where are all the people?"
Cherenkov continued to stumble through the Cathedral ship. As he did, he was having unbid flashbacks. Or images and events appearing in his mind.
In a large open room, Cherenkov, wearing a simple white prison uniform, stood sealed inside a glass box floating in front of several people in elaborate chairs.
One of them began reading off of a document in front of her. "…at this time the defendant's origins are unknown. That information was lost in the chaos of war, perhaps deliberately I might add. It could be said that the circumstances surrounding the defendant actually qualify him as a victim of the Life Recycling Law. Therefore, is it right for him to be the first victim of a capital punishment system that had been abandoned for thousands of years? It's true that the defendant must pay for his crimes. But with all the progress we've made in science and the study of the human psyche, surely there must be alternative means by which he can repay society? Please, I ask you to make a merciful and wise decision."
After a moment, the people sitting in front of Cherenkov announced, "This court hereby sentences the defendant, Andrew Cherenkov, to undergo Level 7 Personality Reconditioning."
Cherenkov looked at the judges in front of him angrily as the woman from before explained what that would mean, "With this ruling, the current you will cease to exist, but it also marks the birth of a brand new world for you! Let us celebrate shall we?"
The symbol on Cherenkov's forehead began to glow again, this time with bulging blood vessels around it and glowing, blue, circuit-like objects on his skin around it.
In a different area, a lavish room with a fish tank, the blonde woman stood near the door, looking rather frustrated.
Cherenkov walked up to her and showed her a document. "What is the meaning of this? Why can't we have a child of our own?"
The woman folded her arms and looked away from him as he spoke. She then looked at him annoyed. "Oh stop it. What could you want to leave behind? Don't tell me you want that abnormal DNA of yours to live on. Nanotechnology is hardly perfect you know. It still can't correct mutations in genomes."
Cherenkov's eyes widened in horror. "Are you saying this is my fault?"
The woman turned away and laughed scornfully. "You're pathetic…a bit of nucleic acid desperately clinging to life. You haven't changed one bit since then. But of course…that's what makes you, you."
Cherenkov then asked heartbroken, "But then, why did you marry me?"
"For this," she said plainly as she pulled the document from his hands. "Do you know how hard I worked for this permit? That's why I volunteered to care for you. What, did you think there was love between us? Please, don't kid yourself. I can get all the love I need with this," she held up a headset in front of him and taunted him with it. She then threw it at him, slamming it over his head. She then turned and coldly walked out of the room. "Don't forget to take your meds…" she added mockingly. "After all, I'm the one who'll be held responsible if you don't."
Cherenkov scowled at her and walked up to her, crushing the headset under his foot as he did.
Cherenkov's mind flashed to a few other images, the woman lying on the ground at his feet, himself sitting in a prison cell.
"In accordance with Federation law," one of the judges began, "the defendant will now undergo Level 8 Personality Reconditioning. With this, defendant 12584's human rights shall be revoked, and henceforth the defendant shall be treated as a life form belonging to the Federation. According to current law, this treatment grants the bearer the same rights and privileges as those of a Realian."
Cherenkov then saw himself walking down a random street amongst hundreds of people near that same energy plant.
He wandered the area for a few moments puzzled before he saw a young blonde girl walk in front of him, one he had seen earlier. As he watched her, her visage was periodically replaced by his dead wife, causing him to widen his eyes. He chased after her and then stopped in front of her, the girl just looking at him confused for a moment.
However, the girl then said, "Garbage…"
His eyes widened in great shock at that word before he bellowed. The next thing he knew, he was holding the girl's limp body in his arms.
Again he saw himself in a prison cell, sitting despondently.
One of the judges spoke again, "I must admit…I've never seen such a stubborn neural network."
"He's even rejected the Level 8 Procedure."
"In any case he's still quite valuable to us. We can use him as a test subject for the Level 9 Procedure."
As Cherenkov lifted his head, the door to his cell slid open filling his eyes with bright light.
He then found himself standing in front of a large, tower-like structure with many flashing lights and dead bodies scattered in front of it.
A blue drop ship flew overhead and landed on a nearby landing pad.
In amidst the collection of dead bodies sat Cherenkov curled up in a ball, merely sitting silently. He then heard a voice speak to him from the side.
"So you're the man who murdered every worker in this facility, and annihilated three squads of Federation Special Forces. I was looking forward to meeting you. But you…you look like a poor little stray. Is this really your handiwork?"
Cherenkov turned to see Margulis standing beside him, looking at him scrutinizing.
As Cherenkov looked up at Margulis the purple-haired man smirked devilishly.
Cherenkov stood up and charged at Margulis, attempting to slam him to the ground, but Margulis dodged to the side at blinding speed, not appearing to even move as he did.
Missing his mark caused Cherenkov to land on the ground and roll along the ground lamely.
Margulis turned to look at the downed man. "Hmph, a Life Recycling Variant. No wonder the Federation police couldn't handle you. I'll commend you for that. However…"
Cherenkov turned and charged at Margulis again.
Margulis dodged to the side again and slapped the back of Cherenkov's head as he did, causing Cherenkov to gasp before falling to the ground.
As Cherenkov rolled onto his back to look up at his would-be opponent, Margulis turned and chuckled darkly.
"Reality is cruel, is it not?"
A U-TIC soldier then walked up to Margulis.
"Commander Margulis, the 308th Vulgata division is-"
"I know," Margulis interrupted, "we're taking him with us."
"Sir, you're not serious?"
"Yes…this one may be useful."
"But…"
Margulis then knelt down to Cherenkov and spoke to him. "All you ever wanted in life was to leave behind a legacy." Margulis then stuck out his hand towards Cherenkov. "Isn't that right?"
Cherenkov looked up at Margulis and widened his eyes as the sun shone behind him.
"Now show me the proof of your existence. To me alone."
Cherenkov closed his eyes as the light from the sun became brighter and brighter.
Cherenkov continued wandering the Cathedral Ship as the hallucinations in his mind of his past continued to wane on.
Alister's group continued fighting through multiple Gnosis before arriving at a large skyscraper.
"Wow…that was probably a cool lookin' little…somethin' or other in its day," Alister remarked.
KOS-MOS looked at the object and seemed to scan it. "It appears to be a standard Federation office building. It was likely utilized for mundane tasks and operations."
Alister looked at her with a twitching eyebrow. "Thanks for stating the obvious genius. Ever heard of sarcasm?"
"I apologize, my algorithms are not properly allocated for sarcastic comments."
Shion laughed uncomfortably. "Heh, heh, yeah…sorry about that. We never got into the stages of her proper interactions during the designing phase. We were actually about to start that when…well, you know."
Alister nodded in understanding and looked around. "Oy, robolady, where's the Elsa?"
KOS-MOS looked around at a HUD only she could see and then answered, "Approximately two kilometers west of our current position, four kilometers down."
Alister giggled off to the side. "Heehee, she understand my joke."
"Negative. I simply inferred that your remark, 'robolady' referred to myself because I am the only artificial member of our party that resembles an adult female human."
"Oh can it you bucket o' bolts!"
Shion couldn't suppress a giggle at their interactions.
"Huh? What's so funny?"
"Oh, it's nothing. It's just amusing watching the two of you talk like that."
Alister looked off to the side slightly embarrassed as he rubbed the back of his head. "Ah…well…thanks…I guess."
"Alright," John asserted as he walked up to the door in front of them, "I think it's time we get moving."
Chaos raised an eyebrow as John approached the door. "Uhm, that's a security door, I don't think-" John ripped the door out of its track, "er, nevermind."
John tossed the mangled door behind him into the river of goo.
Homura watched it plummet and then cringed when it hit the liquid and began steaming before dissolving. "Yikes, good thing I didn't bring a bathing suit."
The group entered the building and walked forward, finding it disturbingly empty.
"There's…no one here," MOMO mentioned as they walked forward. "It's kind of…creepy."
"I wouldn't worry," Alister reassured with a smirk, "If there are any monsters here I can just zap'em with my fancy new lightning rod powers."
Shion looked at him thoughtfully. "Actually, I think a lightning rod attracts electricity, not produces it."
"Would you two stop making me look bad!"
As they walked forward they heard a distinct crunch before several, large, humanoid lizards dropped from the ceiling.
"Well that's not good."
One of the lizards leaned back and then launched a ball of green slime at the group.
"Scatter!" Salcito ordered.
Everyone jumped to the side as the slime hit the ground and began sizzling before dissolving the concrete floor.
Alister pulled out his assault rifle and looked at the four lizards ahead of them. "Seriously? Giant lizards and they spit acid?! That's just not fair!"
One of the lizards charged them and attempted to swipe at John.
He raised an arm, blocked the swipe, punched it in the gut, grabbed its head and then threw it at its friend, causing it to get hit with the acid before slamming into the other one, causing both Gnosis to die.
Another one charged Salcito but he shot it with his shotgun, then turned and shot another.
Several more dropped from the ceiling and ran to the rear of the group.
"Oh no!" Shion shouted.
KOS-MOS turned and shot two of the oncoming beasts with her arm cannon.
Two more charged at them and one fell over as a series of electric blasts was fired at it.
The other roared and fired a shot of acid at KOS-MOS.
Alister jumped in the way and raised his shield, repelling the blast as KOS-MOS jumped over his head and fired her cannon at the monster.
It fell over backwards and exploded.
Shion frowned and pressed a button on her small console. "I don't want to just be the one getting defended!" Her M.W.S. appeared on her arm and she turned to fire blasts from its dual barrels at the Gnosis charging in from the doorway.
"Way to go John!" Alister chided. "Pulling that door off like that left these things a space to get in."
Murasaki and Homura ran up beside him, Murasaki with two, large, bladed discs in her hands and Homura with dual swords.
A Gremlin charged at Homura and she sliced it in half, turning and doing the same to a Manticore, the small, centipede-like Gnosis with bulbous stingers on their tails. It launched back before sliding and exploding.
Murasaki hurled her large shuriken at the oncoming monsters, slicing many of them apart.
Salcito continued to fire at the beasts, ducking behind a small wall for cover.
Everyone else ducked into areas for cover as the Gnosis charged in.
"Ohh crap. We got more baddies comin' in," Alister observed.
Several flying, fish-like Gnosis, Alister deciding to name them Skyfish, flew down to attack the group.
Alister snarled and thrust his hands forward, sending a shock wave of electricity that blew them back and killed them.
Alister turned as he saw several Goblins break through a nearby wall to get in from the side. "Son of a bitch!" He fired a series of electric blasts at the group of Gnosis, killing each of them. He panted for a moment before getting down to one knee. "Damn…I'm…running on fumes here." He growled as more Gremlins and Skyfish came from above. "Ahh screw you!" Another shock wave sent them falling.
Ziggy ducked out from his cover at a few Goblins coming from a near wall and used his arm-blade to slice them apart, before turning and using a jet-powered kick to send the last one flying into a spike, killing it.
Shion and KOS-MOS stayed behind a short wall firing at several Gnosis that charged at them.
Several Goblins with the Lizardmen dropped down behind the two.
KOS-MOS turned to shoot at them but was punched away by a Goblin. She slammed into a wall and dropped to the ground watching as the Goblin shadowed Shion.
Shion trembled at the monster before two katanas thrust through its torso.
It exploded as Homura sliced it in half, ducked a swing from a Lizardman and then sliced off its head.
"This is going downhill fast!" Alister snarled as even more Gnosis besieged them.
John looked around and saw an elevator in the back of the room. He looked from it to the horde and then jumped over his cover, shot the face of a Gnosis and then approached MOMO. "Can you get that elevator working?"
She looked at him timidly and nodded slowly. "Y-yes…probably."
John nodded and then turned to Salcito and Alister. "Come with me, we need to cover MOMO while she readies the lift."
Salcito and Alister nodded.
Alister spun to a stand, fired off a few more lightning bolts and then followed after John and MOMO, Salcito doing the same after shooting a few more Gnosis.
MOMO got onto the lift and started accessing the control panel.
Salcito turned and then remembered one of his suit's functions. "Everyone! On the lift!"
The group turned and one by one ran back to the cover of the lift.
Salcito slammed one fist into the open palm of the other and slammed his fist into the ground, causing a dome-shaped energy shield made of individual hexagon panels to appear.
One of the Manticores fired an energy blast at the shield.
"No!" Shion shouted in fear.
The blast connected with the shield and exploded.
She felt the vibration of the hit but still felt uninjured. She looked and saw the shield still standing.
Alister nodded to Salcito and the two fist-bumped. "Good work jackass."
"Same to you dumbass," Salcito fired back.
Ziggy turned to MOMO and asked, "MOMO, how's it coming?"
"Just about…yes!"
The lift jolted before descending slowly down to the bottom level.
Shion moaned before sitting down on the floor. "I don't believe it. There were so many."
Alister nodded as he checked his gun. "Yeah, I can't believe how many of those things there were. Hopefully we can find the Elsa, find Commander Stick-in-ass and then get the hell off this forsaken thing."
After a moment the lift stopped and the group turned as it opened.
They saw a long hallway ahead of them with a single large door at the back, shaped like a Zohar.
"Well…I guess we go through," Shion mentioned.
The others nodded and walked ahead.
As they reached the door, Alister looked around and then asked a pertinent question, "Anyone know how to open it?"
"Uhm…" Shion began, "well…huh…"
John shrugged and added, "We could just punch it."
Alister shook his head. "No, I'm not sure this is-"
He was interrupted as KOS-MOS slammed a fist through the door and then ripped it straight out of its supports before throwing it over the edge.
"Does anyone else feel their balls shrinking?"
John and Salcito nodded.
As they walked in, they saw more of the same fleshy substance as they had seen all over the Cathedral Ship.
Shion looked around this new, large chamber in wonder. "It looks like…we've arrived at the center."
As the group entered, they stopped and looked up at a large object in the center of the room.
It was a massive, towering structure resembling a giant, black Zohar with blue lines on it, a small dome entrance at the bottom, and multiple, vine-like tendrils all over its superstructure.
"Is it…" chaos wondered, "a building? Or maybe some sort of device."
"What do you mean?" Shion asked as she turned to him.
"I don't know, it's just…"
"Yes…?"
"Well, if this is really the center, it's possible that it may be of some importance to the Gnosis. But this, of course, is from our frame of reference, so we could be completely mistaken."
Alister folded his arms and looked up at the tall pseudo-Zohar. "Basically, if that thing's man-made, it might be some other ship or whatever that got gobbled up just like us?"
MOMO looked around scared. "What about us? Are we gonna end up like that too?"
Alister looked at her and grinned with a thumbs up. "Don't worry. We'll get the hell outta here before we do that."
Shion turned to KOS-MOS and demanded, "KOS-MOS, what's the Elsa's current position?"
She responded, "Location unknown. I have lost its signal."
"Lost…?"
"The Gnosis' magnetic and gravitational fields have become unstable near the center. The last known coordinates point to a location on the lower level, 300 meters below our current position."
"That's pretty close," MOMO added, "shall we go?"
"Yes," Shion answered. "Let's just hope the Elsa isn't in the same condition as the wreckage around here."
Cherenkov continued to stumble around the corridors of the Cathedral Ship.
More images displayed in his mind as he did.
In front of Ariadne's main power plant, late at night in the rain, stood the same Zohar-like structure Alister's group had found, some time prior to its assimilation to the large Gnosis.
Margulis stood on the bridge of his flagship watching a video feed of the structure. As that fee closed, a new one opened showing Cherenkov's face.
"Commander Margulis," he said plainly. "Preparations for the Zohar Link Experiment are complete. We'll begin Phase One in sixty minutes."
"Good," Margulis responded simply with a nod.
"Commander. Why was I assigned to this mission?"
As Cherenkov asked his question, Margulis looked behind him to see the same Zohar the Woglinde had collected. Margulis then refocused on Cherenkov. "I wanted to test your loyalty to the Organization. Nothing more. The citizens will be affected whether you succeed or not. Do you regret your decision?"
Cherenkov paused before answering, "No. They're of no consequence to me, nor to our Organization, or anyone else."
Margulis smirked at Cherenkov's response. He couldn't suppress his chortle. "Well said, Cherenkov."
Sometime later on the planet's surface, the sky was altered into an eerie, throbbing, glowing, multi-colored appearance.
Cherenkov walked up to a U-TIC transport to get to a safe distance from the experiment. Several soldiers saluted as he boarded the transport before it took off.
As Cherenkov looked out a side window, he saw something unbelievable, his wife and the child he killed, standing the center of the large platform. His blood ran cold as he saw them below.
Another flash of light and Cherenkov's mind returned to the present as he wandered the Cathedral Ship.
Ahead of him was a dark hallway leading to an area he didn't recognize. However, what frightened him was seeing a single light appear in the shadows. Followed by another, and then more.
Cherenkov fell back and stumbled away as more and more lights, lights he knew were the souls of those he'd killed, appeared and began to chase after him. He turned and ran away as quickly as he could.
After getting through another small group of Gnosis, Alister's group finally made it to what appeared to be the center of the massive structure.
It was a single large room with a metal floor and a mass of fleshy tissue in the corners.
As they walked in, Alister widened his eyes and pointed ahead. "Hey guys…tell me I'm not seein' things!"
"The Zohar?!" Shion shouted.
Ahead of them was the Zohar, or rather the Emulator, which had been taken from the Woglinde. In addition to being in the center of the large room and having its base surrounded by the Gnosis' biomass, the Emulator was also covered in a series of circuits and panels on the top and bottom.
"No, apparently that thing's just an Emulator," Alister added.
"Emulator?" Shion asked.
Alister nodded. "Yeah, don't know much about it but apparently that thing's not the original."
"We must go," KOS-MOS suddenly demanded as she walked ahead of Shion.
Shion frowned at her and shouted, "Hey, KOS-MOS, wait! Don't you go off on your own."
KOS-MOS ignored her as she continued to step forward before stopping and looking up at the Emulator.
Shion huffed in frustration at KOS-MOS' continued obstinateness. "Oph, I don't recall programming her that way."
KOS-MOS merely stared silently at the Emulator for a few moments.
"Uhm…anyone know what she's doing?" Alister asked.
Shion looked from KOS-MOS to the Emulator and wondered, "But what's the Zohar, er, Emulator, doing here…?"
KOS-MOS then said, "I have confirmed that this object can be identified with a 99.99998% probability to be the Zohar Emulator that was stored onboard the Woglinde."
Shion put a hand on her chin. "Emulator. Say, Alister. If this is an Emulator that would mean the real one is somewhere else, right?"
"Affirmative," KOS-MOS answered instead.
Shion looked at KOS-MOS suspiciously. "Affirmative? KOS-MOS, how do you know all of this? I never stored any type of information like that in your main databank."
"You…" a droning, labored voice said. "You're the creator of that thing. And yet…you didn't even know about that?"
Everyone turned to see Cherenkov coming up one of the side ramps next to the Emulator.
Shion ran over to Cherenkov's side to check on him. "Commander Cherenkov! Are you all right?"
Cherenkov took several pained steps forward with a few groans as she spoke.
"Let's get out of…" Shion trailed off as she looked at Cherenkov and he seemed to become…transparent. Almost like a Gnosis. "Commander…" Shion said worriedly as his body continued to phase in and out of transparency. "Your body's…"
Cherenkov breathed heavily and moaned loudly as his body continued shift and pulsate. "Escape? What are you talking about? You think you'll survive…through something like this?" He continued to moan and groan loudly as he stepped forward. "That's right…I…I was the one behind the disappearance of the planet Ariadne…All that mattered was the recovery of the Emulator."
"You're what?!" Alister shouted. "You bastard!"
"Hah…hah…yes, it was me. Recovering the Emulator was…the reason behind the deployment of Vector and the military." Cherenkov continued to stumble and tremble forward before latching onto a control panel in front of the Emulator. "They were really only pawns. But in spite of all that…" he trailed off as he looked up, and then to the side in terror. He backed away from the console in fear as he gasped and looked around him. He then began swatting at the air around him, turning and running as he did.
Shion walked up to Alister and grabbed his arm as Cherenkov ran around like a mad man.
Alister glared and clenched his fists. "What's the fuck's gotten into this bastard?"
"G-go away!" Cherenkov shrieked. "Don't come near me! You were the ones who rejected me! So why are you bothering me now…?!" He looked up and saw a flying, purple, skull-like being fly down from the ceiling at him. "Nooo!" It slammed into his body like an anvil.
Everyone backed away as Cherenkov's body began morphing and mutating grotesquely. Dozens of the purple objects flew down and into Cherenkov's body as he floated in the air.
"W-what…is that…?" Shion asked frightened.
KOS-MOS answered, "All photon, lepton, hadron, and graviton scans read negative."
"Then…what is it that we're seeing?!"
Alister snarled and condensed large amounts of electricity on his hands. "I don't know, but we've gotta blow it the hell away!"
Cherenkov continued to fly higher into the air as a bright golden light was released from the Emulator and down onto him, his own body covered in a pulsating, eerie purple light.
Everyone ducked and covered their eyes as the light brightened more and more before it was blinding.
"Wha…what the fuck is that!?" Alister shouted.
In Cherenkov's place was a massive, red, clawed creature floating in the air, enveloped in the purple light.
MOMO stepped forward and looked at it. "I sense…it's a Gnosis!"
As it floated in front of them, Ziggy remembered a similar event from his own past, a pale man in a black cloak with a monster floating behind him. "It's the same…just like that day…"
MOMO looked at him puzzled as everyone tensed while the gargantuan monster roared, dropped to the ground, causing the room to tremble, and roared into the air, two flying, wormlike creatures forming into existence beside it.
"Oh this is bad!" Alister shouted.
Shion stumbled back as she looked at the once-human monster. "T-this can't…be."
Alister snarled and surrounded his body in lightning. "I don't know what that thing is…but it is going to die!" He clenched his hands and condensed energy into them, charging up electricity.
The two flying worms flew down at the group.
Alister raised his hands and released two powerful blasts of energy, killing the creatures at once. "Good, those were easy enough to deal with. All that's left is that…Gargoyle."
Ziggy raised his hands into a fighting stance, extending out his arm-blade.
Salcito armed his shotgun and looked at the Gargoyle. "Fighting this thing is going to be a problem, we've got almost no room in here and absolutely no cover."
Alister just grinned and slapped his fists together. "Then we just hit it until it stops moving."
Salcito looked at him puzzled and then shrugged. "As good a plan as any I suppose. Let's go Master Chief."
"Right," John answered with a nod.
The Gargoyle bellowed and swiped a claw at the group, Shion and MOMO ducking as it did.
John jumped in the air, landed on its arm and then ran up the arm, firing his assault rifle at its face.
It reached up its left arm and attempted to squash John.
He backflipped off the monster's arm, causing it to smash just its arm, making it stumble forward.
"'Nade out!" Alister shouted as he and Salcito threw grenades at its head as it roared in pain.
The grenades landed in its mouth and it snapped its mouth shut. It bellowed as the explosives went off in its throat.
"Alister, now!" John shouted.
Alister clenched his left fist, electricity condensing on it so much that it turned bright blue as KOS-MOS activated her arm-blade, both jumping in the air and slamming down on its head.
"Grrraaahhh!" he bellowed as he and KOS-MOS slammed with dual attacks onto its head, causing chunks of flesh and sparks to fly everywhere.
"Whoa!" Shion shouted as she and MOMO ducked from the shock wave.
"Ooph!" Alister grunted as he hit the wall. "Gah!" he shouted as KOS-MOS landed on top of him.
KOS-MOS stood up and waked forward.
"Owww…"
The Gargoyle stood back up, a large portion of its head missing.
Alister stood up and wiped the blood from his lip. "You gotta be kidding. What's it gonna take to kill this thing?"
KOS-MOS looked at him and then back to the Gargoyle. "Alister, place your hand on my back."
Alister looked at her puzzled. "Ah…erm…why?"
"No time to explain. Place your hand on my back and surge as much electricity as you can."
"Uhm…" Alister trailed off as he stepped behind the android woman and put his hand on the center of her back and began flowing electricity.
KOS-MOS looked at the Gargoyle as it collected energy in its mangled mouth. KOS-MOS raised her arm-cannon and began collecting energy, using Alister's electricity to add to the attack. Soon a massive sphere of blue energy formed and she launched it at the Gnosis.
Alister was forced to brace her as the recoil knocked her off balance.
The blast hit the Gargoyle and condensed before expanding and sending the Gargoyle crashing back into the Zohar Emulator before it crumpled to the ground.
"Whoooaaa!" Alister shouted as the energy burst outward. He looked up in surprise at the dispersed monster. "W-what the hell…"
KOS-MOS stood up unsteadily and then looked at Alister with a small nod. "I utilized your modified electricity to bolster the strength of my R-Cannon shot."
"Err…alright. I'll just not and pretend I know what that means."
The Gargoyle then suddenly stood up and started thrashing around.
As it did, Shion suddenly had her vision clouded by strange images.
The first was of Cherenkov standing in a U-TIC control room alongside Margulis, ahead of them through the observation windows a bright golden light spreading everywhere.
Margulis folded his arms and said, "Behold the light that spreads before your eyes. This light once symbolized civilization – the very will of the human race."
As he continued to speak, Shion saw that the light was a star peaking over the horizon of a planet, a planet with a war torn and almost dead looking surface.
"But what can be gleaned from the light we see today? The people of this world have cast away their will to create, drowning themselves instead in an endless cycle of consumption. What you see now is the deceitful light cast by their stagnant eyes."
'The commander,' Shion thought as she watched these events occur. 'But, who's that with him…?'
"The people you've encountered in your lifetime are not people at all. They are less than human – mere sacks of flesh and bone. Only upon the realization of self-will, can a person truly be called a man. You chose to reject the false light, refused to succumb to their lies. That's why you never faltered, even after all the personality reconditioning."
'The commander…underwent personality reconditioning…?'
"Long ago, man was forced to leave behind his homeland. This was brought about by the masses who extinguished the very light that drove their will. So how about it, Cherenkov? Let us rekindle the torch, so that human consciousness may once again be resurrected. For our sake, and that of our god."
Cherenkov turned silently to look at Margulis.
Shion, who now found herself seeming to float in an empty darkness, looked around as she started feeling odd emotions connected to the events she just witnessed. "Happiness? Were those my feelings just now? No…it must have been the commander's feelings." She looked ahead and saw a silhouette of Cherenkov standing in front of her. "Commander. What was it that you were searching for?"
He turned to face her before her vision was filled with light, blinding her momentarily.
Suddenly all of the events Cherenkov had been reminded of, his trial, his wife and his killing of her, the child's death at his hands, all of his personality reconditioning, how he was treated by the Federation, his slaughtering of all those people before being found by Margulis, his work to aid Margulis and U-TIC, those images and feelings all filled Shion's mind at once.
Shion then awoke in a strange place. A world of white. White sands, pure, colorless white, white grass and trees behind her, a white sky and ocean ahead of her. And herself standing behind Cherenkov, who sat on that sand. Both of them seemingly part of that world of white. She looked down sadly at Cherenkov as he sat on the beach. "Commander…"
Cherenkov's mouth turned up in a sad smiled. "I never really existed at all. I…" He trailed off as he decided to explain his life to her, one last person. "Thirty-six years ago. The year after Zohar Incident, which led up to the Miltian Conflict. I was brought into this world as a weapon of warfare. It happened all the time back then. Killing was my…no, our whole reason for existence. The fortunate ones were those who could adapt to that way of life. Even luckier were those who died on the battlefield. But I was never granted that opportunity. Before I could find some significance to my own life, the war ended, and I was left behind while the world went on. I tried to adapt. But the language I spoke was so different from the rest of the world. I thought the entire world had rejected me. But the Commander…it felt like he really needed me. I saw a future for myself in the commander. Or, I wanted to, at least. But I had to rely on the drugs to communicate with the rest of the world. It was because I hadn't changed. After everything that happened, I hadn't changed at all. Now I finally understand. The world didn't reject me, I rejected the world. Shion…" he trailed off as he looked out into that stark-white world, "I like it here. I'm the only living thing that exists in this place. There's nothing else. No anger, no sadness, no happiness, not even a future. The only thing that's here…is me. And that'll eventually fade away. It feels good. This is exactly what I've been searching for all this time. Shion…you'll eventually find yourself here, too." After a moment, the Commander literally faded away.
"I'm sure of it…" his voice lingered, "It won't be much longer. I know…I…can tell."
Shion herself then faded away from that place as well.
Shion finally jolted awake back in the real world, both she and Alister, who had placed his hand on her shoulder as she stumbled, fell to the ground grasping their heads in pain.
They both looked ahead and saw the Gargoyle continuing to thrash and writhe, before it stood up straight and its body was enveloped bright light. Soon its body was completely enveloped in the light before the creature simply faded away.
Shion lay on her knees staring at the space where Cherenkov had been, sobbing quietly.
"Shion…" Alister said lowly as he turned to her, putting a hand on her shoulder.
Shion turned to him slowly. "Did you…see it too?"
Alister rubbed the bridge of his nose and nodded slowly.
"Where…where is the Commander?"
Alister sighed heavily as he stood slowly with Shion, KOS-MOS helping them both up.
Shion turned to Alister and leaned into his chest. "Alister…what've we done? Tell me!"
MOMO looked at Shion as she sobbed into Alister's armor and then turned to her cyborg companion. "Ziggy…did something happen?"
Ziggy looked at her silently as she pressed him.
"Ziggy…"
"It's…nothing you need to worry about." He turned away reservedly, "I'm sorry."
Shion looked at Alister with tears in her eyes. "Was that really the commander?! Tell me, Alister! Surely, we didn't…!"
Alister put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her away gently, still holding her. "Shion, unfortunately…the truth is usually painful."
Shion slumped her shoulders and looked at the ground sadly. "Alister…are we all…going to end up like him?"
Alister put a hand on her chin and moved her gaze to him, smiling slightly at her. "We're all still here, ain't we? And last time I checked none of us look like giant monsters, do we?"
Chaos nodded in agreement. "Perhaps we can take solace in that."
Alister nodded as well. He then turned to Shion. "Alright, we need to go, okay?"
She nodded weakly as she wiped some of the tears from her eyes.
Everyone then stumbled as the area began to shake.
KOS-MOS walked towards the Emulator. "The connection between the phenomenon boundaries is dissipating. If this continues, this spatial location will disappear. We are in danger."
"Okay…" Alister mumbled, "I'm not certain what that means but basically either we run or we're fucked."
"Affirmative."
"Well that's just great."
Everyone gasped as they suddenly lost gravity and began to float in the air.
"W-what the…?!" Alister shouted as they floated. He then looked to his side where Shion was and squinted his eyes.
"Hey!" Shion shouted before kicking him.
"Ouch!"
"Look!" MOMO pointed. "Over there!"
The Elsa suddenly appeared nearby them in the dissipating Gnosis.
Matthews' voice rang through the air. "Heeeyyy, Ms. Vector! You still alive?!"
"Chief!" Allen shouted over the comm, "Are alriiight?!"
"Captain!" Shion said relieved as the Elsa neared them.
The starboard hangar door opened as it neared the group, all of them using the now weightless environment to get inside.
Outside the Cathedral Ship, the Elsa raced away from the massive monster as it began to break apart, the ship-class Gnosis turning to chase after them.
On the bridge, Hammer trembled greatly. "Ohhh, they're coming after us!"
"Full speed ahead!" Matthews ordered, "Shake 'em off!"
"Aye, sir!" Tony answered.
The Elsa's thrusters fired up as it increased its speed in an attempt to escape the oncoming hoard.
"Man…there's a ton of 'em!" Hammer shouted.
The Elsa raced through space as it attempted to shake off the immense fleet of Gnosis.
However, right as they were about to be destroyed a barrage of blue streaks of energy fired and destroyed a large portion of the fleet.
"What the…?!" Matthews shouted as he attempted to locate the source of the attack.
Outside, the Durandal, which dwarfed the Elsa, flew overhead towards the Gnosis fleet.
"The Durandal?!" he shouted again as he saw it fly over.
"You got it!" Jr. said proudly on the Durandal's bridge.
"Registration confirmed, Little Master," Mary reported, "it's the Elsa."
"Jeez…those guys were damn lucky we were passing by. What the hell are they doing here? Well, whatever. All guns, target the Gnosis. Cut open an escape path for the Elsa and annihilate the enemy!"
All of a sudden the Durandal was alight by a full-range barrage of missiles firing in every possible direction.
A sea of bright pink explosions burst to life momentarily around them.
Back on the Elsa, the group was heading through the lower corridors in an attempt to get to the bridge.
"Sounds like it's started," John observed from the shaking.
"Are we gonna be okay? There were so many of them when we transferred in." MOMO asked.
"They destroyed an entire Federation fleet," Shion responded. "It would be wiser for us to flee than to fight."
The Durandal continued its onslaught, destroying hundreds upon hundreds of the Gnosis fleet with each barrage.
"This is no good…" Mary whined, "We'll never get all of them. What should we do?"
"We could try the Corleone's Beam Barrier," Haruka suggested with her ever-present playful smirk.
Jr. shook his head. "No, the Corleone couldn't create a large enough or powerful enough barrier to keep back that many Gnosis for long. We should've resupplied earlier. This is what I get for taking on U-TIC. Otherwise this would a cinch."
"Little Master," Shelley intervened, "Enemy group formation approaching from five o'clock. We're being surrounded on all sides."
"So they're not gonna let us go, huh? And they've coordinated their attack patterns. I've never seen them fight like this before. Even if we gate-jump out of here, we may not be able to shake 'em."
"Little Master!" Mary shouted frantically. "Another group is chasing after the Elsa!"
The Elsa continued its attempts to evade the pursuing Gnosis group, finding no fruit in its attempts.
The doors to the bridge opened as Alister and the others walked onto the bridge to get an idea of the current events.
"Captain!" Shion exclaimed as they entered the bridge.
"Hey, you alright? Damn, you guys smell like old snot."
Alister growled in response. "Save the witty remarks for later. We've gotta shake these assholes otherwise we're gonna get spaced."
"You think I don't know that ya moron?! Grr, Tony, can you lose 'em?!"
Tony turned to Matthews frustrated. "I doubt it…they're a lot faster than we are."
"Damn it. The Durandal's guns aren't slowing them down. What're we gonna do…?"
In another of the ship, a sliding door opened as KOS-MOS walked in.
She walked over to the lift at the end of the small hallway and began to press on the control pad. Eventually two small railings popped up as the lift rose.
Outside, a small hatch opened on the top of the ship.
"Huh?" Hammer grunted confused. "Hatch number seventeen is open…?" He then turned back to Alister's group and asked, "Was somebody still down there?!"
Everyone looked around before Alister flinched. "It's KOS-MOS!"
Shion gasped. "What is she…?"
"I'll put it on the monitor," Hammer said as he pressed several switches on his console. The small monitor in front of him changed from a diagnostic of the ship to an image of KOS-MOS riding up in the lift.
"KOS-MOS!" Shion exclaimed as she and Alister walked over to the monitor.
"What's that idiot doing?!" Alister shouted in frustration.
On the lift, the screen behind the android displayed an image of the bridge from Hammer's console.
"KOS-MOS! KOS-MOS!" Shion shouted. "What are you doing!? Get back here!"
Alister then shouted, "You're a real powerhouse but even you can't take that many dammit!"
"He's right! You're not equipped to handle that great a number!"
"Shion…" KOS-MOS began, her voice slightly different. "Will feeling pain…make me…complete?" As she asked that she opened her eyes, her usual, dull, robotic, red eyes replaced by softer, warmer, blue eyes."
"What?! I can't hear you!"
"The air is too thin for her voice to carry!" Hammer explained.
KOS-MOS looked up as the lift reached its highest point, before turning to face the horde of Gnosis behind them.
The red warning light on the Elsa's lift turned green as KOS-MOS began to float away from the ship and towards the back.
Reaching the stern of the ship, she spun and flipped before landing on the very rear of the ship, magnetizing her feet to the ship's hull. She looked out calmly at the Gnosis fleet.
Back on the Durandal, the 100-Series Realians began giving reports to Jr. "Attract Inhibitor output is at three hundred percent. Zohar Emulator waves can no longer be suppressed."
"What the hell?!" Jr. snarled. "Now they're acting up?!"
"Intruder alert in the Pieta motherframe," Shelley reported. "Permutational phenomena appearing in the Variant!"
"In Momma!? Where's it coming from?!"
"Scanning transfection course…" a Realian replied. "Course tracked! It's coming from the quarantine hangar!"
"The quarantine hangar! It can't be the Zohars."
"It is! External sources are sending requests to the Zohars!"
Shelley then reported, "Paradigm contamination is spreading! If this keeps up, the motherframe will be taken over!"
Jr. growled at the report. "Cut off the main line to the quarantine hangar. Stabilize the Attract Inhibitor through a secondary line!"
"Ufufufu…" Haruka snickered, "this is getting interesting. We could all end up dead."
Clair glared at her. "This is no time to be laughing."
"Main line purged!" Shelley responded. "All signals blocked!"
Back on the Elsa, KOS-MOS stood on the rear of the ship still overlooking the Gnosis fleet. As the fleet neared, she narrowed her eyes.
She then waved her hands over her abdomen, the panels on her stomach flipping open, revealing a mechanical device with a small blue crystal in the center with sparking energy, while a large blue crystal appeared on her back before extending to several feet in length, then fanning out in a flower-like shape. She leaned back and thrust her hands forward.
Her body released a massive amount of light from atop the stern of the Elsa as energy collected and condensed in a sphere in front of her abdomen. The light condensed to an almost invisible amount before bursting out, forming a several foot wide, immeasurably long tunnel of blue light forming at her torso. It extended to near impossible widths the further it went, literally breaking the Gnosis it hit into pieces and dissolving them, pulling them into the tunnel and towards KOS-MOS.
As thousands of Gnosis were disintegrated, all of the fragments were pulled towards KOS-MOS and sucked into the crystal in the center of her abdomen. After a few moments the light died down, her abdominal panels closed, the crystals on her back disappeared. She closed her eyes and then reopened them, the soft expression on her face returning to its normal cold expression as her eyes had returned to their normal red color.
The entire Gnosis fleet that had bared down on them was eradicated, not a single one left.
Alister, along with the others, could only look at the display in shock.
"T-t-that was…what was that?" Alister said in disbelief.
"Heck…that wasn't so bad," Matthews said relieved.
"N-not so bad?! Did you see that?!"
"Yeah…so?"
"I…I…I…I don't, know."
"Chief…" Allen mumbled.
"Did…" Shion mumbled, "…did that really just happen?"
Alister ran a hand through is hair in exasperation. "I…have to say yes."
Allen nodded in agreement. "It appeared as if she absorbed the Gnosis."
Shion brought a hand to her mouth in shock. "How could she have weaponry we don't even know about…?" Shion shook her head. "No…that wasn't a weapon, that was…"
"The impossible," Alister finished.
"Who cares if it's possible or not?" Matthews asked as his chair lowered. "She got rid of the Gnosis, right?"
"Uhh…Captain?" Hammer remarked worried.
Matthews looked down at him.
"Little Master's been buzzing us for awhile…"
"Huh? Oh. Patch him in."
Hammer responded wordlessly and pressed a series of buttons on his console.
As everyone began asking about "Little Master" Shion was lost in her thoughts. 'This isn't the KOS-MOS that I built. Kevin…is this your hand at work…? Is this the real KOS-MOS that you wished to create…?'
Alister noticed Shion's far off expression and walked over to her, he tapped her shoulder, causing her to jolt.
"W-wha…?!" she exclaimed in surprise.
"You okay?" he asked.
"Ah, y-yes…"
Alister narrowed his eyes. "I'm not dumb. I may be a point and shoot kinda guy, but I'm pretty good at reading people, and if you looked any more worried your face'd be twisting."
"Oh…well…it's just…I was thinking…about Kevin."
Alister raised an eyebrow as she looked out into space. "Kevin?"
"Yes, you don't need to worry about it." She turned to him with a forced smile. "I'll be okay." She then walked out of the bridge.
Alister attempted to walk after her but John put a hand on his shoulder and shook his head.
Alister just sighed worriedly as Shion disappeared through the double doors.
The Durandal moved to collect the Zohar Emulator from the vanquished Gnosis fleet.
Elsewhere, on a large, blue-green asteroid with large, glowing yellow symbols on it, within the control room of a U-TIC base, one of the masked soldiers turned and said, "Commander."
"What is it?" Margulis asked as he turned.
"Commander Cherenkov's S.M.S. tracking signal has disappeared."
Margulis turned to the man in surprise and anger.
Pellegri turned to her stoic commander in curiosity.
A few of the soldiers looked between each other, greatly afraid by their commander's silence.
"And the U.M.N.?" Pellegri asked.
"Y-yes!" the soldier answered. "I was able to track him while he traveled through hyperspace, but I lost him at point 2100-783. There are traces of a space-time anomaly at that same point, so we believe the Gnosis may have been there."
"I see."
Margulis merely continued to stand silently.
"What's wrong, worried about your little dogs?"
Margulis turned to the sound of an amused voice.
Albedo, with Kirsch by his side, walked up to Margulis. "I told you, you should start treating your dogs better, lest they start to bite. Hahah, although, I suppose in this case it's more like disappear in a space-time anomaly!"
Margulis narrowed his eyes.
"You're far too noisy, Albedo," Zellex remarked as he walked up beside the man.
"Aww, what's wrong Zelly, are you jelly?"
Zellex narrowed his eyes and raised a hand, a blast of purple energy shooting from his hand and sending Albedo flying against the back wall. He then immediately pulled out his sword and sliced off the man's head.
Margulis just sighed while Kirsch covered his eyes.
Albedo's disembodied head then began to cackle as his body reattached it, backwards. "Hahahah! That hurt you know!"
"I'm just sorry it didn't do more damage," Zellex answered frustrated.
"Aww, you know you love me."
"Burn in hell."
"Oh? Guess what, I already have!"
"Tch, crazy immortal fool."
"That's enough out of both of you!" Margulis snapped. He then turned to address the two of them, "I need you both to go and do something for me."
Zellex and Albedo then looked at each other flatly and then back at Margulis before saying in unison, "You can't be serious."
Back on the Durandal, Jr. stood on the bridge talking to Mary. "…so ya got it?"
"Roger Little Master," she responded.
The lift to the bridge then rose up, the entire Elsa group on it.
"Thanks for helping us out," chaos mentioned as he and the others walked over to Jr.
Jr. turned to them and said, "You guys better fill me in on the situation later. Man, what the heck is going here…? And Momma's gone and caught a bug, so we can't perform any investigations or analyses for a while."
Chaos walked up to Jr. and put a hand on his back. "That's terrible."
"Tell me about it."
Alister raised an eyebrow and tapped Matthews' shoulder. "So…is that…Little Master?"
Matthews nodded. "He's out boss…the head honcho." He then turned to address Jr. "Hey, Little Master. We picked up a couple of passengers headed for Miltia while we were working. What should we do with 'em?"
Jr. turned to look at Alister's group. "They look like they're in pretty deep with something. Well, your first concern should be to repair the Elsa. Why don't you get it fixed over at the Foundation? You won't make it very far in that kinda shape." He gave Matthews a tap on the wrist as he walked away, Shion, Alister, and Allen walking over to Jr.
"Foundation…?" Shion asked. "Do you mean the Kukai Foundation? From the Galactic Finance 500's 'Top Ten Fastest Growing Corporations' list?"
Alister flinched some. 'Sheesh, what's up with her?'
"Then you must be…?!"
Jr. rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment. "Ah…the business stuff was meant to be a side thing. We got lucky, that's all."
"This is bad Chief!" Allen whispered into Shion's ear. "We can't associate with these people!"
"Hey, hey, I heard that man." Jr. then walked over to Allen frustrated. "Would you rather we just left you here in space?"
Alister lightly elbowed Shion. "Hey uh, mind fillin' me in?"
Shion looked at him puzzled and then gasped. "Oh right, you don't know do you?"
"Of course not dummy," Alister answered deadpan.
Shion put her hands together in a comedic apology. "Sorry…it's just that you've been with us for so long you're like part of the family now."
"Oh…" Alister said shyly as he scratched his cheek. "is that…so?"
Shion nodded to herself. "Right, okay. The Kukai Foundation is an organization established shortly after the end of the Miltian Conflict. I'm not certain what it was originally for, but it eventually became a business group with multiple independent branches involved in multiple areas of business across the board. For having been around for less than forty years is part of the reason it's so surprising that it took off so fast, most corporations take much, much longer to get that large. It's also run by two people. Gaignun Kukai and Gaignun Kukai Jr. the latter of whom is over there."
Alister looked at the young redhead who was, with Matthews' help, teasing Allen. "Wait! That little squirt is the head of one of the Federation's biggest corporations?!"
"Hey, whoa, whoa, who you callin' a little squirt?" Jr. challenged to Alister.
"Come on you little squirt, I've killed Grunts bigger than you."
"I don't know what that means but it sounds insulting."
John displayed with his hands as he said, "Grunts are these little annoying-"
Alister slapped a hand over his faceplate and snarled, "Not helping."
Shion couldn't help but smile at their playfulness while she turned and looked out the ship's main window.
After a moment, Alister turned and noticed Shion's lost expression. He tapped her shoulder, getting to flinch as she turned to him. "Hey, come on. Stay with us. Quit zonin' out like that."
"Ah, um, sorry."
"It's alright, just make sure you don't do that too often, kay?" He accented his words with a wink.
Shion nodded with a small chuckle at his encouragement.
"Hey! Stop getting so friendly with the Chief!" Allen snarled as he pushed Alister to the side.
"Oh? Why's that? You claimin' her?"
"Claiming-what?! That's absurd! She's a person, not a piece of property!"
"Great, so she's free."
"What!? No! I-I mean yes! Wait, I mean…auu, I don't know what I mean…!"
As Allen slumped over Jr. raised a playful eyebrow. "I think you broke him."
"Huh, I've broken men before, but it usually requires a nail or two through the fingers."
Jr. looked at Alister in disbelief. "Dude, just what the hell kinda job do you have?"
"I'd tell you…" Alister trailed off then said in a gruff voice, "but then I'd have to kill ya."
Jr. could only face-palm. "Oh brother."
Alister then sighed and turned to Jr. "Anyway, little squirt, the name's Alister. Alister Manase."
Jr. nodded and stuck out his hand to shake Alister's. "Jr. Gaignun Jr. I got a real name, but let's just leave it at that for now." Jr. then turned to Mary and Shelley. "Shelley, change of plans. We're returning to the Foundation. Make sure to tell Gaignun that we've secured the eleventh Emulator."
"Roger," Shelley answered, "Preparing to return to the Foundation."
Alister raised an eyebrow. "Eleventh? Just how many of those damn things are there?"
"Twelve," Jr. answered. "There are Twelve total Zohar Emulators created by Joachim Mizrahi. However, one was lost a few years back when it fell outside the Federation Rim. We haven't been able to find it since."
Alister raised an eyebrow. "Hold on." He then pulled out his phone and showed Jr. a picture he had taken. "This wouldn't happen to be it, would it?"
Jr. raised both eyebrows. "That's it exactly. You guys found it?!"
John nodded and answered. "Yes. We found it inside an old Forerunner ruin on one of our colony planets called Reach."
"Colony? So, that means that you guys have a central planetary hub?" Jr. asked.
John nodded. "Yes. Earth."
Alister and Jr. turned when they heard chaos gasp. "Uhm…you okay buddy?"
Chaos nodded as he held his chest. "Ah, yes. I'm fine, think I just sucked in a bug or something." Chaos then used the lift to leave the bridge.
Jr. mostly shrugged off his response for a few seconds. Then raised an eyebrow. "Wait…there aren't any bugs on the bridge."
The Durandal then hopped into a slip-space portal and disappeared through it.
However, none noticed as there were two machines floating in the space where it had been.
One was the Simeon.
The other was a heavily retooled, black Unicorn Gundam with an oversized left fist, a strange contraption folded up on its right arm, and a large, rooster-like, yellow horn on its head. It also now had a red visor eye rather than green.
"Kukuku…how interesting. Rubedo's little ship has managed to pick up Ma Peche."
"Hn," Zellex responded plainly. "What a waste of time. I came all the way out here with the Banshee and didn't even get to test it. The Federation's doll destroyed all the Gnosis before I could use the Smartgun. Hopefully next time we meet I can pay back both of those UNSC maggots for damaging my Unicorn."
"Kuku, I'm surprised you didn't enter Destroy Mode against them."
"I let my confidence get the better of me. The UNSC's mobile suits are pathetic. That's why the Covenant keep defeating them."
"I see. So, shall we tail them?"
Zellex turned around and flew away. "No, they've gone too far through slip, er, hyperspace to trail them."
"Whatever you say."
Jr. was running down a long stretch of road, a road littered with bodies and wreckage, most of them enflamed. The sky was tinted to a sickening multi-colored hue, with pulsing, rainbow-colored lights flowing in the sky.
As he continued to run, he looked behind him periodically, trying to escape his pursuer.
He grit his teeth and breathed heavily, though continued to run, as an eerie, almost sorrow inducing song, rang through the air.
He looked around as he ran, no life anywhere around him. He stopped running, forced to catch his breath, and grabbed onto his throat in pain as he shouted, "Gaaiignuuun!" He slumped his shoulders as he received no answer but the pulsing sky and the infernal song.
Soon the ethereal sky began to drop rain as it fell around him.
He then looked ahead and saw a black and white cat lying motionless in a pile of rubble, a red collar around its neck with the word, "Gaignun" engraved on the metal portion of the collar.
He walked up to the cat and picked it up in his arms, crying as he held it.
After a flash he found himself somewhere completely different, a large, red and gray metallic room in a hexagonal shaped, a small catwalk around a deep pit. He knelt down, now holding a boy in a blue shirt and yellow pants who looked just like he did, except with black hair. "Don't say anything…it's all over."
The boy slowly opened his eyes.
"…everything…"
A sickening white and pink light then erupted from the pit in the center of the room as it almost reached around the room.
Jr. then flinched and looked up. "Al…bedo."
As the light grew and intensified, he suddenly found he was floating inside a black abyss, falling down endlessly with no top or bottom in sight.
His descent slowed as he found himself approaching an endless sea of red, pulsating energy with a sickly glow.
Streaks of red and black energy then shot out of the sea and raced up towards Jr., encircling him and dragging him down into the sea where he was enveloped in a bright white light.
Jr. gasped as he sat up swiftly in his bed, sweating heavily. He put a hand over his throat in an attempt to regulate his breathing as he gasped. He then pulled his hand away and looked at the red number printed on it, "666"
"Damn it!"
Elsewhere, Alister wandered the halls of the Durandal's residential sector.
He looked around and then saw who he was looking for. "Shion!"
Shion, who was about to enter one of the rooms, heard Alister call her and turned. "Oh, Alister. Need something?"
Alister nodded as he walked up to her. "Yeah, I just wanted to make sure you're okay. And…I wanted to ask you about something."
Shion frowned concerned but nodded and opened the door to her room.
Both of them then walked in as the door closed behind them.
Alright, that chapter's finished up. Tell me what you guys think of it, the way the story's developing or just about anything to do with the story.