The trap was sprung and everyone was falling victim to it. The Galactic Fleet already boarded the Eclipse Ark. With Ano unconscious, there was no one to stop Marshall from rummaging around a ship he had no business being on otherwise. But there was one thing he was searching for: the Shard of the Black Moon Star Casey's crew obtained on Delta Ridge. Marshall broke down walls, tore doors apart, doing whatever he could to find that shard. "Where is this damn thing! I'll tear this whole ship apart if I have to!" Marshall's current sin was Wrath. The frustration of not being able to find what he was looking for caused Wrath to take over.

"Calm down, Marshall..." A voice spoke to Marshall. It belong to Vanessa. Her whereabouts were currently unknown within Mercurius, but they knew someone had to keep Marshall in check. "Remember who you are."

"Who I am?" The snarling Marshall grit his teeth. But those words did enough, causing the sin of Pride to take over. His eyes were purple and he stood up straight. "Right, right. I remember. It would be in a place that only crew members can reach. As far away from enemy hands as possible." Marshall's mind was working quickly, calmly traversing through the ship. He found a sealed door in the back of the ship, and his radar was picking up a large surge of Ether behind it. "Bingo."

"Please enter the password." An automated voice spoke to Marshall. The security system was disabled, the ship had no means of knowing it was speaking to a complete intruder.

"Password?" Marshall quirked a brow, but then shook his head. "I bet that kid has it, but he's knocked out. So i'll just brute force this." He drew his sword, allowing his ether to surge around the blade. With a single stroke of his sword, he cut through the thick iron doors easily. They were sliced in half, and the collapsed to reveal the cargo hold. There were various boxes containing meaningless things to Marshall. His prize was in the very back of the hold. "There it is..." And so he walked over, and took the Shard within his hands.

And the moment Marshall grabbed it...

"INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT!" Alarms began blaring loudly throughout the ship, causing him to look around, confused.

"What the? We shut down the security system. Don't tell me that brat got back up!" Marshall grunted. But before he could even take a single step forward, multiple guns began to spawn all around him, the barrel of every single one pointed directly towards him. "Tch...!"

"You may have got the drop on me, but I hope you weren't thinking you'd waltz outta there that easily!" Ano's voice spoke out to him from the intercom. "Code 030: BARRAGE!" The guns then began to open fire on Marshall. The man did his best to try and avoid these ether coated bullets, but the sheer amount of them overwhelmed him. Marshall let out a cry of agony as his body was covered in a thick cloud of smoke.

Ano watched through the security camera, panting heavily at the timing and how close it was. "Good thing I reinforced myself at the last second. That one attack would've done some serious damage..." When the smoke cleared, Marshall was lying on the ground, seemingly unconscious and unmoving. "I got him..." Ano let out a sigh of relief. "If I couldn't watch the ship when needed, that would be bad." This was the moment he noticed the Chronophage alert. That was bad. "Oh shit...! I gotta tie this guy up and tell the others..." He was about to go restrain Marshall, but something happened...he saw him moving. "What...?"

Marshall grabbed the nearest item and sank his teeth into it. It was a box of solid iron, which he chewed through like nothing. Whatever injuries he sustained, they were slowly beginning to heal up. The sin of Gluttony came through once more for Marshall, allowing him to heal off the damage dealt to his person. Ano was standing in shock. "Man...I'm hungry..."

"No way...what is this!?" Ano's eyes were wide. He attempted to send some snakes towards Marshall to paralyze him, but Marshall grabbed them and ate them as well! This made Ano start to panic.

"I wish I had the ability to hack. I'm just clever brute force." Marshall's eyes then flashed green with envy. He stood up and snarled, placing his hands on the ground. This prompted several Serpents to spawn from his fingertips, crawling into the ship. "Hey, kid! You deal with this! You're so good at it, right?" After Marshall did this, the lights of the Eclipse Ark started to flicker off and on, and the ship started to shake violently. "I got better things to deal with now. I'm bored of you."

"No! No no no!" Ano couldn't afford to focus on Marshall right now, even as the man was literally making his way off with the Shard! He had to make sure their ship stayed afloat! "Shit, shit shit...!"

.

.

"So?" Lluvi asked with her arms spread out, a confident grin on her face as she looked towards Jinn. "You can't use your Ether Gear. So how do you intend to fight me now? At this rate, I'll defeat you."

Jinn grimaced. Admittedly, the complete stoppage of his Ether Gear wasn't on his plate. But luckily for him, no ether gear didn't exactly mean he was out of options. He pointed his fist forward towards Lluvi, and exclaimed: "Wind God Punch!"

"What?" Lluvi had no idea what Jinn was trying to do; she thought it was some kind of joke. That was until his rocket arm launched forward and slammed her in the chest, causing her eyes to widen as she was sent skidding backwards from the impact. "Ugh...?! O-Tech!?"

"That's right. You've only limited my options, but I still have plenty left." Jinn replied while swiping his other arm, controlling the movement of his flying rocket fist. It circled around in an effort to try and strike Lluvi a second time, but she wised up and formed a barrier behind her. This was circumvented as the rocket fist circled around that barrier to hit Lluvi once again, causing her annoyance to grow.

"Enough of this!" Lluvi held her arms forward, creating a barrier around Jinn's rocket arm that stopped it from moving. Lluvi didn't have much time to celebrate this, as Jinn's leg slammed her right after. She grunted, but she caught it after the impact. She then spun Jinn around and threw him towards a wall, which he crashed into. "I have the upperhand here. Give it up."

"No." Jinn said while recovering slowly. His Rocket Arm punched through Lluvi's barrier and retracted to his arm, and he took a deep breath. "Your Ether tricks are pretty dangerous, I admit. But...as long as someone knows their own Ether, these sorts of effects don't really work."

"What?" Lluvi narrowed her eyes.

"Focus your ether..." Jinn recalled this during the Aoi War. He was put in a similar situation, but all he had to do was focus and understand his Ether. This caused green lines to appear along his arms once again, the 'block' on his Ether shattering due to his mastery of his ether. His body burst into his Overdrive as well. "And then, these sorts of things can never effect you."

"No way..." Lluvi's eyes went wide. She took a step back from Jinn's might. Was she...going to lose here? They had data on the crew of the Eden's Zero, but were they this strong? Jinn came in for an attack, but Lluvi remembered who she was: the Barrier of the Eclipse Ark. She brought her arms up, creating a barrier that clashed with Jinn, causing a shockwave. She was holding her ground, gritting her teeth against his might. "I'm not going to fall to you!"

"You and I feel the same!" Jinn grit his teeth. Before their stalemate could continue, they both sensed unwanted presences around them. They turned their attention to behind them, only to see multiple Galactic Fleet soldiers surrounding them. "Huh?"

"What in the...when did these guys get here!?" Lluvi gasped. "I had a barrier set up...they couldn't have gotten past Percival..."

"Or Weisz..." Jinn turned to the entrance where he came from. Something felt wrong... "This...is a trap. They didn't just get here! They were already here!"

"Ding ding!" That voice belonged to Nina Roulette. She appeared, cracking her knuckles. "We gambled that you'd all show up here at once, and it worked out for us! Now, we get to beat the snot outta ya! This is a win for me!"

.

.

Homura and Lowell suddenly found themselves back to back as well. Despite the clash of swords they were having, everything had to be put to rest the moment the Galactic Fleet surrounded them. "These strangers..." Homura took a look at them.

"Who are these people!?" Lowell exclaimed, demanding to know.

One of the soldiers spoke up. "We are the Galactic Fleet! We are here for the Shard of the Black Moon that both the Eden's Zero and Eclipse Ark possesses! Although, by this point, the shards should already be in our possession, heh."

"What are you talking about?" Homura questioned.

"Ugh, don't you get it?" X then appeared, rolling her eyes. "You were baited. You weren't the first people to show up here. We've been here the whole time, waiting for you."

"But that's impossible!" Lowell shook his head. "We got here before the Eden's Zero! We would've noticed if any other ships were around. There was simply no way we would've missed that!"

That made X snicker for once. "Of course you dolts wouldn't notice it. We happen to have someone who's very good at disguising things. Be it a ship, a fleet...there was simply no way you would've been able to notice us until we wanted you to. And now, you're caught in our trap."

Homura shifted into a stance, acknowledging that X was the one in charge right now. As such, she planned to take her out. Her body flared into Overdrive, and she lunged forward, gripping the hilt of her sword and focusing all of her might into it. "Warrior Maid Single Sword Attack: Dragon Flash!" She flipped forward, aiming a downward strike towards X.

X did briefly narrow her eyes. It seemed like Homura was somewhat competent, but X was also lazy. So she had no intention of wasting much time on her. "Rage." Her multicolored sword appeared within her hands and she swatted at Homura's blade, deflecting her attack with ease. The crew of the Galactic Fleet cheered, while Homura's eyes were wide.

Homura managed to recover, but she stared at her own sword in shock. "She...deflected me...?" Being parried was not something she was used to. X's lazy stance gave her the wrong impression as well. Now, she could see that she was exceptionally skilled with a sword.

"That's X for you!"

"You don't stand a chance!"

Lowell couldn't stand the peanut gallery. His sword shifted to Aries and he swung, creating a potent gust of wind that he expected to knock the foot soliders off their feet...but it didn't. They took the damage, but still remained standing. "Tch, tougher than they look...!"

"And I thought you'd be stronger...that's a relief. Less work for me." X suddenly appeared at Lowell's right, swinging her sword at his side. Lowell was fast enough defend himself, but X's sheer might sent him staggering. "Ugh, just stop fighting it. You've already lost."

"You mustn't know me very well. Tis not in my nature to give up." Homura said calmly.

X let out an aggravated sigh. She knew she was going to hate these people. Because of that annoyance, her ether spiked, causing the temple to shake slightly. "You're making me work."

.

.

G and Geno were also surrounded by the Galactic Fleet. There was no high ranking officer with them, so they had no choice but to shift their attention to these soldiers. They were fending them off with only a little bit of difficulty, but the fact these grunts weren't going down in a single punch was frustrating. "Who are these guys?" G questioned. "Clearly not friends of yours."

"No they aren't!" Geno responded, firing a Mega Buster that knocked back a number of grunts at best. The grunts didn't have Ether Gear of their own, but their numbers and basic weaponry more than made up for that fact.

"They just dropped in outta nowhere!" Omega commented. "I'm startin' to worry about the girls on the ship. Not to say they can't handle themsevles, but if they're getting jumped like we are...!"

"Hermit...!" Geno's eyes widened. He avoided an ether blast from a rifle and flew into the air. "I'm trying to contact her, but I'm getting static. Something's wrong!"

"Same with Ano..." G replied. "If that's the case..."

"We have to stop fighting each other!" Geno looked to G and nodded. They were at least on the same page there. "If Hermit is in trouble, that device I gave her would whisk us right back to her. But there's also Rebecca's team as well..." He didn't like at all how things were going...

.

.

Hubert was a cause for concern. Hermit and Sister were thrown back from his might, even in their Battle Dresses. The Empyrean of the Galactic Fleet stood before the two of them, a menacing gleam in his glasses. "Is that the best the Shining Stars are capable of? I heard so much more. Perhaps it was overblown..."

"We really don't have time for this right now..." Sister snarled. A Chronophage was on the way and they had to deal with an ambush! In her annoyance, she grabbed her whip and cracked it at Hubert, but he used his runeblade to easily deflect it, countering with a slash against Sister's chest to knock her back and deal some heavy damage. "Agh, shit!"

"Sister!" Hermit shouted in worry. "That weapon is a problem...it's been launching all sorts of attacks at us. By the looks of it...I can hack it..."

"Haste makes waste." Hubert said. "Truthfully, we did not plan for the Chronophage to appear at all. But this marks us with a pleasant surprise. You will be hasty to make sure your crew escapes safely...and that is where we strike."

"You're just a special brand of asshole, aren'tcha?" Sister grunted. It was at this moment that Couchpo and Moscoy heard all of the commotion and hurried to the bridge.

"Hey, what's...!" Couchpo gasped.

"An intruder!? But how!?" Moscoy couldn't fathom.

"Rabble." Hubert turned to deal with these distractions, just to prove the point of how callous the Galactic Fleet was. But Hermit sprang to her feet, placing her hand on the Runeblade to begin a hack sequence. Hubert noticed this and jabbed the back of his dual sided blade into Hermit's shoulder, blowing off her arm with the small explosion that followed.

"Aaaaaah!" Hermit cried out while tumbling along the ground, much to the concern of everyone.

"I should have dealt with you first." Hubert turned to pull his runeblade apart, but the weapon stopped working. "What?"

"Heh..." Hermit said with a cough. Her arm started to repair itself, while she looked on at Hubert's bewildered expression with an annoying smile. "You shouldn't underestimate a hacker. I knew from the start that weapon of yours was a problem. So I hacked into it to shut it off. I wonder how powerful you'll be without it now?"

"Haha!" Sister laughed at Hermit's quick thinking. "Nice one, Hermit! Now we can really give it to this guy! He's got some nerve stepping onto our ship like that!" Moscoy and Couchpo immediately went to get out of the way, knowing the fight was about to pick up. "Any last words?"

Hubert calmly allowed his runeblade to vanish. Since it was currently useless to him. "You think you have me cornered? I will show you just how wrong you are."

.

.

And conversely, despite all of the chaos happening around Mercurius right now, Ram Village was still peaceful. Ignorant. Thanks to everyone's efforts, Blair was able to successfully make it back home with the large beast in tow. She already did the dirty job of cutting out the pieces for meat and got to cooking inside. The others just took the chance to make themselves comfortable on the furniture of such a nice home. "Thanks for bringing it back with me." She told the others.

"You're welcome!" Rebecca placed her hands behind her back. She also couldn't help but drool a little bit...the scent in the air was delicious. "It smells soooo good..."

"What are you making? I'm drooling over here!" Cynthia was hopping up and down.

"Her world class stew!" Raven commented while crossing his arms. "But do you really have to make that much...?"

The pot Blair was using was massive. Damn near bigger than her, but she was seriously making it work. "The crew's gonna want some when they get back. I don't like leaving people out when it comes to cooking." She replied, but then let out a quiet sigh. "Ugh, if only Hannah was here. She'd make this a lot easier, though..."

"Who's Hannah?" Kleene tilted her head. She had yet to see anyone like that around.

"My closest friend here. We grew up together." Blair replied. "She had an Ether Gear, actually. She could duplicate things, it always helped when it came to cooking when we were short on things."

Kleene's eyes went wide immediately, and she had to cover her mouth to prevent herself from gasping. "D-Duplication Ether Gear?"

"Yeah." Blair replied absentmindedly.

"After what happened in the village, I think she left to find you and get stronger..." Raven sighed.

"What's wrong, Kleene?" Happy looked over at Kleene.

Kleene scooted away from Blair for a second to whisper to the others. "...You guys remember the Fiertia, don't you? The one with Jigan King at the helm?"

"Yes." Pino nodded. "They were the first adversaries we fought for the Black Moon Shard."

"Well, there was a girl there...Hanabi, I think? She had the same Ether Gear that Blair is talking about. I fought her...!" Kleene said. This information did make everyone's eyes widen. Raven wasn't sure what they were whispering about. But he didn't ask either.

"Are you saying that was Blair's friend?" Laguna quirked a brow.

"Well...it's just...it seems a bit too coincidental." Kleene admitted. "But...it sounds like Blair didn't recognize her as such..." Still, it bothered her...

"Mmmm! Dinner smells good!" Arthur said while walking down the stairs. "Is that Blair's stew I smell!?"

"Oh, it's wonderful." Melissa gently clasped her hands together. "I've never seen you make a pot this big either! You must have a lot of people in your life that you want to feed now."

"W-Well..." Blair looked a little embarrassed and looked to the side. "I owe these guys. They brought me home." She sighs quietly, and then decides to have a taste of the stew she was making. She took a ladle, dipped it into the stew, and had a small sample. It was just instinctual, she didn't even give it a second thought. But she sighed. "...Not enough salt..." She shook her head.

A deadly pause filled the air. The eyes of the crew of Eden's widened at Blair's statement. She didn't even seem aware of it at first.

"...Blair...?" Rebecca said in a hushed whisper. "What did you just say?"

"Not enough salt." Blair repeated, and when she did, that's when it hit. Yellow eyes widened, and she stared at the reflection of herself in the stew in horror. She could taste it. Why could she taste it!? She couldn't taste food! She couldn't taste food unless...

And then, Raven spoke up. "What's wrong, Sis? You look like you've seen a ghost..."