Extra chapter 2
As the Vent Saviour Gundam takes off the trio of Fox girls bid farewell to the boy wishing him good luck on his way home.
"Bye-Bye!"
"Be careful on your way home!"
"D-Don't forget your promise!"
Sometime during mid-flight, a comm. link interrupts him as he is now near the Starting Point.
"Kuonji! Are you there?" A familiar female voice echo through Kuonji's cockpit.
"Hey..." The boy replies in a tired tone of voice, as the recent event had him drained of his vigor quite a lot.
"Oh, thank goodness you answered. I haven't been able to call you since the whole stage started, so I assumed... No never mind." The Elf Diver had a worried expression as she hadn't made contact with the boy within the Stage's duration, "I'm sorry that I didn't get to support you this time..."
"No problem. Mind telling me the reason you're offline back then?" Kuonji asks with a raised eyebrow, as she seems to be distressed for some reason.
"Oh, I was just busy with something..." Cerea had her eyes pointed elsewhere, evidently avoiding eye contact at Kuonji, "It's kinda...complicated to explain it, sorry..."
Sensing that she doesn't want to talk too much about it Kuonji then said, "...Okay. Anyways, I'll be landing on the deck. Meet me there." The boy then adjusts his controls in which the machine responds by prepping its legs to make contact with the solid runway and then stopping in a short and abrupt landing.
"Okay~"
As she sees the Saviour Gundam in a battered state Cerea had almost fainted out on the spot from the sight of the severe damage it sustained. And right after he gets out of his mech...
"My goodness! What happened to you!?" Cerea quickly comes to his side right after the boy lands his foot on the floor and immediately inspects his body, "Are you okay? Does it hurt anywhere?"
Shrugging her worries the boy replied with, "Eh, nothing much, just a surprise Boss Fight. They had a commander-type unit among them, and she's pretty strong..." Kuonji then continued to explain what did he encounter during the stage, "She called herself 'Tester' or something, if I recall..."
"...!?"
The boy then continued to tell to her how did he get his machine severely damaged to its current state as it engages the Humanoid Siren with the help of the three Foxgirl Kansens as they take down the Elite Siren's fleet head-on.
"And the last thing I'd never expected is she merges herself with a Gunpla..." Kuonji then casually describes the experience, "These Siren Elites were no push-overs, I can attest that much..."
"..."
The Elf Diver can be seen blanking out as as she heard the name Tester, as if it was familiar yet foreign to her ears. Deep behind her mind something had awakened inside her, like a preserved memory from a past life.
"..."
"..."
"Uhh, Cerea..." Seeing Cerea in a state of blank Kuonji calls out to her, worried that she's ill or having another episode of PTSD staring state.
"Hm?" The Elf Diver responds in an absent-mindedly gesture.
"Is something wrong?" Kuonji asks in a careful attempt to snap her out of her trance.
"O-Oh! I-It's nothing!" Cerea then waves her hand sideways at a fast pace in a panic and then points out to a particular item he's carrying, "Uhm, what is that metal ball that you're holding...?"
"Yo there, nee-chan!" An-Xous then jumps from Kuonji's grasp and does a bow as a greeting, "Looks like my partner here has already got himself a cute sidekick~"
"Kyaah! I-It's alive!?" Almost shrieking in panic and falling off on her feet Cerea was momentarily startled from the sentient metal ball's greeting to her, "What is that?"
"Don't be afraid, nee-chan~" AN-Xous wobbles and jumps around trying to ease up Cerea's wariness towards him, "If you look closely, I'm pretty cute, you see~"
"Uhm..." Unsure of what to make of this situation the Elf Diver diverts a glance at the boy, silently asking on what to make of this situation.
"He's a Misc Item who turned out to be an AI support NPD." The boy answered in a calm tone, "He can help me finish this Mission sooner than we expected."
"...I, see." Cerea still had her guard on high alert as she observe the purple ball rolls around and bounces on her perimeter, "Good for you, then."
"I'm An-Xous, and I'll be in your and this young lad's care from here on out~" The purple Haro happily greeted the Elf Diver with an energetic smile and tone of voice, albeit in a generated hologram icon style.
Recovering from her previous shock the Elf Diver then stands up slowly and regains her composure, finding her balance again and prepares to greet the purple HARO.
"Oh, then... Pleased to meet you, Mr. An-Xous..." Cerea then smiled at the Haro and bows, "I hope we could get along just fine~"
"Heheheh..." With a big holographic grin the Purple Haro assures the Elf Diver that he had no ill intentions to her, "No worries on that, I assure~."
"So... Since you can't contact me during this time..." Kuonji then starts to review everything that had happened during his previous conquest, "let me fill you in on the details regarding this Stage..."
And the Elf Diver replies with, "Oh, Okay..."
The boy then begins to flesh out further details that he had experienced throughout the recent Stage, from meeting the three Fox Girl Kansens, getting An-Xous as his partner and their confrontation with Tester. Cerea was quite taken aback at how he met the would-be famous First Carrier Division of the Sakura Empire, meeting An-Xous and moreso learning about the Item he obtained on the First Stage. At first Cerea was quite perplexed on why he didn't ask her about the cube before but after given with several other bits of Kuonji's story she finally understands his circumstances and moved on to how did they defeated the Elite Siren with just him, the HARO and the three foxgirl Kansens.
"So that's pretty much it." Kuonji ends the review on this Stage, "Thanks to everyone's efforts, we managed to take down that Elite Siren. But I really have to give most of the credit to An-Xous here, since he pretty much provided us the backup that we need the most. If he wasn't there I can't do anything to help in that situation, not to mention unlocking the G-Cube Builder for me to use."
"Wow, that was intense..." Cerea then ponders to herself, "On another note, how and why did Illustrious possess such Item unknowingly in the first place...?" she thought.
"Haha, my partner's quite a talker alright." The purple HARO interjects with a smiling face, happy that he acknowledges his efforts during the battle.
"So this cube..." Cerea then brings out the topic of G-Cube Builder, "May I see it?"
Without a word Kuonji then opens his Inventory Holo-panel and takes out the G-Cube Builder, which he then hands over to Cerea for her to observe carefully.
"...I'm sorry, I don't know much about this cube either. Other than the facts on how are you able to utilise this to your advantage, I can't tell anything more about your cube." The Elf Diver then gives it back to the boy, "It's different from a Wisdom Cube, that is certain."
"I see." Receiving the Cube from her Kuonji then concludes, "Welp, guess we'll just leave it like that. Everything's alright in the end~."
"..."
"..."
"Ah, right. I have some thing to do, so uhh, catch you guys later." And with a click on his holo-panel Kuonji disappears in a bright light after accessing the Log out button on his Holo-panel.
"Oh, okay. Take care." She then waves goodbye to the boy as he disappear into the light, exiting him out of the Starting point.
With Cerea and An-Xous alone in the Starting point's inner compartment there's an awkward silence can be observed between the two, making the mood a little bit tense.
"Ah, I should get going too." An-Xous then looks at Cerea with a big smile, waving at her in full glee, "I had some business pending to attend."
"Eh? I thought you were going along with Kuonji in logging out?" The Elf Diver somewhat confused, as she thought that the link between the boy and the Haro is that of a player and an AI Terminal.
"Ah no, you see, I'm a specialized independent AI unit that functions without the player's inputs and acts as a substitute Diver." An-Xous then vaguely explains his abilities, "so like, I can pretty much move on my own in a certain degree, albeit still with a few restrictions."
"...I see. Then..." The Elf Diver does an formal bow to the HARO as a farewell, "Take care~."
"See ya again~"
Soon after An-Xous had left the Starting Point and entered the Dive Zone he then opens a Holo-panel on his terminal and opens up a file folder named 'Antiochus'. From there he opens a catalog of names labeled as 'P-Unit'.
"So she's that rogue program, huh..."
Stage 2 End
