(Warning: The line between being rated M for Mature due to cursing and M for Mature due to other stuff gets stretched a bit here in this chapter, and given what's to come, it will play a factor in Cameron's story.)
6th Week Of Training
3 days before the weekend..
Cameron's shocking feat in saving the entirety of the 28th Generation of Pandora for West Genetics, plus untold numbers of civilian life, didn't take long to reach the higher-ups of Chevalier, who immediately placed a gag order on anyone who had witnessed Cameron do the impossible, including the boy himself. In particular, one man seemed pretty interested in the capabilities of the C.I.S Military's second-in-command, who was quickly gaining a reputation for himself as one of the Chevalier's most capable and skilled assets, as much as the other man interested in the boy that the former man held a disdain for. While the latter man was Gengo Aoi, the former man was Radox Phantomheim, the current commander-in-chief of the Chevalier. And to the former man, it was fortunate that he was seeing someone in the ranks of the 28th Generation of Pandora for West Genetics, albeit someone who was never supposed to be there in the first place had it not been for the circumstances that had brought them into the Chevalier fold in the first place, circumstances that even though Radox held a disdain for Gengo, he couldn't help but actually go and congratulate the scientist in helping to get Cameron to fight
for humanity, along with his droid forces. It was fortunate indeed for the Chevalier commander-in-chief for he sensed trouble on the horizon, and coming very soon.
Criminal Groups attacking Genetics Facilities to abduct or kill Pandora for various reasons was nothing new, not even for Radox. And yet in recent years, there had been one terrorist group that had become infamous throughout Chevalier for the reputation of abducting Pandora and forcing them to endure perverted, horrific ordeals that mere words could not describe and then return them to the Chevalier all broken in, and requiring at least a couple years of treatment to regain their former personalities - and they had managed to do this time and time again despite the best efforts of both Chevalier and many law enforcement agencies to track this terrorist group down. The group's name was simply three words, yet for this group, it was a meaningful name - Pandora's Worst Nightmare.
In keeping in line with how well-known this group was yet also with how difficult it was to track them down, their leader was equally well-known and hard to find - a man who had done much to found the organization in the first place, the son of a wealthy Canadian who was involved with Chevalier, Astrid Burke.
Not much was known about Astrid's childhood, and even the man's father admitted that even he was still, to this day, unaware of why his son became who he became. But, he had become something far more dangerous than anyone could have imagined back then. Extremely smart and equally dangerous, Astrid had crafted a group known for the methodical, meticulous way they committed their crimes and his terrorist group had been a thorn in the Chevalier's side for a long while, diverting valuable time, energy, as well as valuable Pandoras and Limiters. Even so, they usually had no firm intelligence - or even any intelligence at all - at where or when Pandora's Worst Nightmare would strike again, leaving them picking up the pieces, much to their frustration, after the attacks.
..That was until a couple weeks ago.
On Monday morning, Radox himself personally received a letter in the mail from an unknown member of Astrid's terrorist group. The sender claimed to be in the very highest echelons of the group and very close to Astrid, and felt that although that he couldn't do anything to stop what Astrid was planning next and they were in fear for their life should he find out about the letter, the guilt inside of them compelled to write this letter and send it anyway, in the hopes that they might have someone who could stop Astrid's group once and for all. They said Astrid was planning to abduct the twenty-eighth generation of Pandora from West Genetics at their graduation party on the weekend of the current week, and subject them to something unspeakable, a creature that Astrid had said that would make Pandora and Limiters obsolete and powerless to even attempt to stop him thanks to the power of science. The ominous portion of the letter that said that the sender had heard Astrid himself think of this crime as only the beginning of something worried Radox greatly.
There was something curious about the letter as well. Astrid appeared to have heard about Cameron and the Cloaked Bulldozer incident, but he apparently had - and even still - dismissed the whole thing as fantasy and that it didn't happened. Even now, the sender's detailed notes of Astrid's plan included repeated references to the fact that Astrid took no consideration of Cameron and his droids into account when crafting his plans, as if they didn't even exist to him. For Radox, the letter was a golden opportunity and a one-in-a-million insight into the mind of his opponent. Even so, he wanted to eliminate Astrid's group once and for all, as he was still under pressure from world leaders, politicians, and even some of his own subordinates to take more desperate measures to locate and take down Pandora's Worst Nightmare.
Radox had always called himself a monster, someone who killed plenty of people to get to this point in his life, but he was also a serious and determined man, willing to use any means necessary - even if it meant taking major risks - to accomplish his goals. And so, using the letter as a guide, he formulated an audacious plan, one that could break his career if it failed, but given what Cameron had been recently able to do, if it succeeded, prove to those that still doubted the Chevalier over letting Cameron and his droids join them that both he - and Gengo Aoi - had made the right decision.
He full well knew the amount of outrage that the families of many of these trainees would hurl at him for it, but he felt that he had no choice. He would use them as bait to get Cameron inside Astrid's hidden base, as a walking tracking beacon and lead the Chevalier straight to Astrid, and hopefully, Cameron would keep them safe. After all, Astrid had been giving the Chevalier so many headaches over the past years, why not get the ultimate payback by planting a potentially fatal headache right in his base? It would be a lot to ask of the C.I.S Second-in-Command, but from the reports about the landslide incident, Radox sensed that from the condition of Cameron when he froze all that water, he had been close to becoming something else, and from the reports of the aura that witnesses were feeling in the air from him, it was something.. far darker and scarier than the boy appeared to be, as if he was about to explode in fury.
If it was dark and scary that people felt that he was about to explode, Radox wondered, why not push him over the edge and see what happens? Win or lose, the situation itself that the plan would put Cameron in and the connection that seemed to exist between him and three particular Pandora trainees seemed like the perfect combination to make him unleash whatever potential he had inside of him, and at the very least, place Astrid for once in the back seat, unable to control things his own way. Win or lose, it was the best plan Radox could come up, and given how unpredictable Cameron's potential inside of him was, it offered at least a decent chance of success.
Radox sighed and sat up in his chair at the present moment, his aides all rising up in surprise, for all that time, the commander-in-chief had been deep thought about this. But his mind was made up, and now, it would all depend on that boy. It was time to put this ridiculous - and embarrassingly one sided - cat and mouse chase into the endgame.
"I want Cameron in my office now as soon as possible. If Abyss is there, tell him to come with him. Tell him - or both of them - the matter I will be discussing is extremely urgent and either of them cannot tell anyone else, except their own droids about it, and that the droids they tell must be sworn to secrecy immediately after. Time is of the essence, people. Move it!"
Radox's aides quickly filed out of his office, leaving the man by himself. He shed a tear from his eye as he thought about the whole plan. Forgive me Christopher for endangering your daughter like this as I follow through with this plan, but I had no choice. Forgive me as well, every parent, relative, and sibling of these trainees. Know only that I took every consideration into account when plotting this course of action and trusting these trainees' lives in the hands of this boy. Let fate decide whether this plan will rid me of Astrid Burke and his group once and for all or condemn me to the fires of hell.
He recorded all of this into an audio recorder and sat back down into his chair, awaiting Cameron - and possibly Abyss - and knowing full well what he was about to ask Cameron to do.
But even the man who thought of this plan had no idea about the chain of events he had just set into motion. What was building inside of him had nearly reached the end of its journey in constructing something for the boy without his knowledge, and was now waiting for the opportunity to activate it. Astrid Burke, wherever he was, had no idea of what he was about to play a major role in causing.