"I must apologize in advanced for this story." Xiaomei carefully stepped forward through the void of space. "It may not be a pleasant one for some of you. And as you already know, when it comes to the story of the story of the Eden's Zero, time is not a factor. As such, the events before you will dictate the future in ways that you may not expect. That is the only warning I can give for the time being.
"Let me tell you the weight of the story that will be taking place. It will revolve around an ancient story that is known as the Black Moon. This story dates back as far back as the tales of Mother. It is foretold that those that can locate the Black Moon will obtain untold power, whether it be android or human. How does one find the Black Moon, you may ask? It is quite simple. The power of the stars, or rather…star fragments, to be more precise. A star from what is known as the Kronos Belt. The power of this Star is capable of locating the Black Moon when all 5 of its fragments are collected. The Black Moon Star was reformed once long ago…but it has recently fallen from the Kronos Belt and shattered once again. The Black Moon Star will have Shiki and his comrades engage in a battle unlike any other. Not only that, but there is a another group that also seeks the Black Moon Star. Who are they…and what purpose do they seek? That is the story being told today…"
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Cosmic Era, Year x495. The Kaede Cosmos.
It was two years since the destruction of Nero 66. A lot of people lost their lives in that brutal battle. No side in that war came out without some kind of causality, whether it was big or small. Those at the Eden's Zero felt the loss of Witch Regret every single day, but they were already determined in their mission to stop Ziggy and his mission to create a robot empire. Shiki Granbell stared at Witch's helmet, recalling the final words she spoke when shielding the crew from certain destruction.
"I love you."
Those three words struck powerfully for every crew member on the Eden's Zero. Shiki took a deep breath and gave a nod. In the last two years, he changed physically. He got taller and his face became a bit more mature. Even if he looked a little more rigid on the outside, he was still the same Shiki on the inside. He simply did a lot of growing between then and now, but they were still hardly making a dent in their efforts to stop Ziggy. They couldn't even find him after all.
Shiki decided to stop by the main bridge. Hermit Mio and Sister Ivry were taking care of navigation to their next target. "How does it look?"
"It's just as we thought." Hermit said, pulling up a map of the planet they were going to approach. It was a planet that was in a perpetual winter, snow falling every second of every day. "This is another one of the planets that Ziggy has taken control of. The bots here are adjusted to work in harsh weather conditions, be it heat or cold. I can't imagine what Ziggy plans to do with a planet like this, but that's all the more reason for us to stop it."
"This'll be the 4th planet we've liberated, then…" Shiki told himself. Liberating planets were the only thing the crew could do.
"I can call the others and we can start discussing a plan. I don't think this one will be as simple as the last one." Hermit reported. "I'm detecting two cores this time instead of one…"
"Leave it to Ziggy to make things harder for us…" Ivry let out a small groan. It couldn't be helped. They all knew this battle wouldn't be an easy one.
On that cue, Wiesz Steiner stepped into the bridge with a bag of chips. He was hungry. "So that's our next stop, huh?"
"It'll take us a few days to reach it." Hermit reported. "This planet is called Iceburg. I need to do some more research, but I think there are some humans on this planet as well. If so, we'll have to save them too."
"Just another day for us." Wiesz said while shrugging his shoulders. But this did give him an idea. If they had some time to kill he could make some adjustments to Arsenal. Things were going to break for the day, there was an explosion off in the distance. It was a bright white explosion, and while it didn't harm anything nearby, the explosion did reverberate in space. "What the…what the hell was all that?"
"Something exploded far away…" Hermit said. "But I have no idea what it was. It couldn't have been a ship…and nothing nearby seems to be damaged."
"Maybe a star finally reached the end of its life?" Weisz suggested. That was the only thing he could think of.
"Probably." Ivry shrugged her shoulders. Curiously, there was a pink streak of light shooting off into the distance. To be more specific, it was flying towards the planet that they were planning on liberating in a few days' time when they arrived. "Huh…"
"What is that thing…?" Shiki tilted his head.
Something was bugging Hermit. It wasn't something she could leave alone either. Something about this felt oddly familiar. "I'm going to look into something. I'll let you know if I find anything before we land."
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A few days passed and the Eden's Zero was hovering over the icy planet known as Iceberg. They were prepared for another liberation mission. The crew of the Eden's Zero gathered together to discuss their strategy. Jinn had his arms crossed, looking towards the others curiously. "So what are we doing this time?"
"That place looks cold…" Kleene remarked. "I suspect we'll be at a slight disadvantage because of the weather."
"I'll have to adjust my makeup to accommodate for that kind of weather." Laguna Hurst said.
"Anything is better than the heat, though…" Homura Kogetsu, one of the four Shining Stars of the Eden's Zero said. She was already sweating at the mere mention of heat. "I can layer up properly to ward off the cold!"
"…I hope there's no snow around when I use Cat Leaper." That was a worry of Rebecca Bluegarden. Cat Leaper was a useful power of hers, though since it focused on her legs and feet, more often than not, she'd have to be barefoot. Being barefoot in the snow…did not sound ideal.
"We'll keep you nice and warm when we get back of course!" Happy said, well, happily.
With Hermit's aid, there was a map of their targets. The planet was big, yes, but they only had to focus on a specific region to get their job done. Shiki took over from here. "It doesn't look like this one will be as easy as before. Hermit says there are two cores to deal with now instead of just one. Ziggy is upping the ante on us…"
"What a pain in the ass." Wiesz grunted.
"But it's something that only we can do." Pino said with a nod.
"Yeah, after all, the government hasn't been able to keep up with our pace." Rebecca said with a slight snicker.
"I've narrowed down the locations of the cores." Hermit said, two rectangles appearing on the grid of the map, both north and south. "One core is hidden south in what appears to be a factory of some kind. I don't know what's being manufactured there, but it can't be good. The other is being hidden in the mountains up north. It doesn't help that this planet is accustomed to random snowstorms…it's unavoidable, but do be careful out in the cold. The bots down there have the advantage."
"There is one more thing." Ivry pointed out. She had a burger in one hand, and used the other to point out somewhere south west. "It appears the robots there are keeping some humans hostage…or rather, using them for work to be more accurate. It's close to the factory."
"That doesn't paint a pretty picture…" Chonpou said. Granted, she wasn't a combatant on the ship, this didn't mean she was excluded from these meetings.
"I suggest we break off into three teams." Shiki said. "One team will go shut down the factory and that core in the process, the other team will go free the prisoners, and the last team will take out the core in the mountain. If we do it this way, we can cover the most ground and finish this quickly and efficiently."
"That sounds good to me." Rebecca agreed with Shiki's plan. "What's your idea, Shiki?"
As captain of the Eden's Zero, he was the one responsible for dolling out the teams. "Homura and Rebecca, I think you two can take the factory. I'd like Pino to go too, since she can identify which robots are under Ziggy's influence, and which ones are outright serving him. We don't want to hurt the former, after all."
"Of course, Master!" Pino saluted.
"I'll do my best; you can count on my sword." Homura said with a firm nod. "…Although, I do hope the factory isn't going to be hot…" Her tendency to let her thoughts slip would never die.
"Jinn, Wiesz, Kleene, and Laguna, you guys go free the prisoners." Shiki looked to the three of them, and they were determined to act.
"But that means you'll be taking the mountains alone, right?" Kleene asked for clarification. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah." Shiki nodded firmly. This wasn't him trying to be cool and act solo, far from it. "I know you guys can handle your roles perfectly, I'm not worried about that at all. But if they're going to place a core all the way up there were most can't get it, I can only imagine someone strong is going to be protecting it. And I know I can take them."
"If all their forces are occupied with our assault, it would also make it difficult for them to receive any backup." Jinn understood Shiki's plan. Considering Shiki recently accepted the title as an Oracion Seis Galactica, his strength was nothing to sneeze at. They could trust Shiki to handle a task alone. "Alright."
"Looks like everyone has their roles." Hermit said, placing coordinates for the miniature ships to take off. "I'll punch in coordinates for all of you. Remember to dress warm, the weather down there is really no joke." All these constant reminders about the weather were drilled into everyone's mind. As such, they planned to dress warm to combat the cold as best as they could.
"Moscoy…" Moscoy said to himself as the others left. It was his way of wishing the others good luck.
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The crew of the Eden's Zero was ready to begin their liberation mission. As smaller ships shot from the larger one to land the assigned teams in optimal locations, there was another ship off in the distance of space, watching the whole thing go down. They were cloaked, thus escaping any radar that might detect them. The ship was just as large as the Eden's Zero, following a black and white color scheme, the symbol of three moons engraved on the side of the ship. "Is that the fabled Eden's Zero?" The captain asked. He was a man with short, spikey, dark red hair. His eyes were gray and he watched the Eden's Zero as it lingered above the planet Iceberg.
"It appears so, Captain…" A younger male said. He had yellow eyes, short black hair, and wore headphones. He was working on keeping the cloaking device active. "If their record tracks, it appears that they're here to liberate the planet and nothing more. I don't know if they're aware of what has fallen towards the planet or its significance just yet…"
"I see…thank you, Ano." The captain nodded. "That works for us. I am a little curious how their strength fares against ours, but I'm more concerned about the star fragment. I'd rather not have it fall in anyone's hands but our own. It's the key we need…keep the Eclipse Ark right here. It's the perfect range."
The boy nodded. "Yes Captain!" Ano Lyrai, a member of the Eclipse Ark crew. "If we're going into action, I can call the others to the bridge immediately."
"That won't be needed." The captain of the Eclipse Ark said, standing up from his ship. "I'll be in and out quickly. You don't need to worry. Or my name isn't Casey Aster."
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And from afar, a third ship was watching it all go down. This ship was large, but not nearly as large as the Eden's Zero or Eclipse Ark. The captain of this ship was a large man with an eyepatch over his eye. The group he surrounded himself with were all rough and tough. "Finally, a chance to score some profit…!" The captain said with a hearty laugh. "With the state of the Kaede Cosmos, bounty hunting opportunities are far and few in between. But this is our chance to finally rake in some business. Our spy is already there, right?" His attention turned to a woman with long black hair, a messy, tattered outfit, yellow eyes, and a bandage on her left arm.
"Yeah," She responded with a disgruntled sigh. It didn't seem like she was very into this whole surrounding, but made do anyway.
"Perfect. We'll throw a wrench into this whole operation and rake in the money!" The captain let out a hearty laugh. "Or my name isn't Jigan King!"
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The crew of the Eden's Zero all landed in their respective locations, ready for their mission to start. Homura and Rebecca were near the aforementioned factory, while Weisz, Laguna, Klenee, and Jinn were going to rescue the human captives. The moment Shiki landed in the snow, his expression shifted to a more serious and battle ready one. They weren't going to come out of this mission without conflict, but they were more than prepared for it. "If anyone can do it, we can! Alright, Eden's Zero! Let's begin the operation!"