Nexus: Heroes Will Rise

by tmb1112

Universal borders have been erased and beings from thousands of universes now live on the same world: Nexus. In the first Saga of Nexus, Awul was saved, but the mysteries of Nexus remain. Now our heroes sail across the sea to Aebrith to search for lost loved ones and save the world. MCs from DBZ, KH, Soul Eater, FT, Blue Exorcist, Bleach, 7DS, OP, Ben 10, SAO, HxH, and many more!

108. Nexus HWR 15-9 Welcome to the Resistance

Nexus HWR 15.9 Welcome to the Resistance:

"Alright come on guys," Gray said while looking into the room with their youngest members in it. "Hurry it up."

"Yeah, yeah we're coming," Ben muttered tiredly. He picked up his bag and shoved the last of his stuff in it, then he grabbed his capsule case and checked to make sure his four capsules were in it before putting that in the frontmost pocket of his bag.

Stan let out a yawn as he picked up his cloak with his steel left arm covered in fake skin. He put the cloak on and then started rolling up his sleeping bag on top of his bed. Once it was rolled up and tied tight with its straps, Stan pressed a button on one of the straps that capsulized it into a small pill-sized, lighter object. He did not really get the physics of it, but he just shoved the capsule into his own rucksack that was tan and smaller than the others' bags. His was more like a drawstring bag only it had side pouches too. He patted down his side under his cloak where his lightsaber rested, then he double-checked his sleeping area before nodding once as it looked like he had all his things.

The boys left their room and walked down the hall to where most of the others were already gathered. More of them than ever were using the ladder outside the door to climb down, and Dash, Ben, and Stan all waited for their turns to use it too. Robin glanced at her watch as everyone waited to go down the ladder one by one. 3:30 a.m. Too early for anyone to want to work up a sweat it seems. She had gotten up as soon as Gray made the announcement that they were ten minutes away though, so while her friends were all laying down and trying to sleep for ten minutes more, she had gone to drink some coffee along with Sanji and Kirito.

Luffy walked right through the door with both eyes closed, and he did three flips past the people climbing down the ladder behind him. Luffy hit the ground on the side of the truck flat on his face and stomach, then he just lay where he landed with a snot bubble sticking out of his nose. The Resistance guards who were gathered at the base of the vehicle were surprised and worried when they saw him crash down so un-gracefully, but Sasuke Uchiha just shook his head at the pirate who was somehow still asleep.

Goku let out a loud yawn as he reached the door, then he floated outside like Timmy did right behind him. The Saiyan floated down to the top of the wall first, and when Goku landed he turned to a man with long black hair that covered one of his eyes. "Sasuke," Goku greeted with a smile.

"Son Goku," Sasuke greeted right back. He did not look surprised, and he continued, "Gray called ahead, and he mentioned that you had joined them."

Goku smiled and nodded back, then he stretched his arms up in the air and yawned again. "Why did you come back here?" Sasuke questioned. Goku lowered his arms and gave the ninja a confused look. Others were reaching the wall behind Goku, and there was a small boy floating down next to a woman with long orange hair climbing down who Sasuke Uchiha stared closely at for a moment. He looked back at Goku though and continued, "Is there a specific reason?"

Goku shook his head, then responded, "I came to help the Resistance, and fight the King."

Sasuke stared blankly at Goku for a few seconds, then he asked, "Why now?"

Goku shrugged his shoulders, then he glanced behind him and said, "Gray was talking about it and it sounded interesting."

Son Goku, you… Sasuke frowned, then he looked at the small boy floating down next to Nami who finally reached ground level and landed at her side. Considering how intent that woman was on rescuing Timmy Turner from the south, Sasuke felt like the person he was seeing with her should have been the same one who threatened the Resistance to "Submit" a few days ago. The child in the pink hat he was looking at though looked nothing like the muscular man who had almost killed them all. "Are you Timmy Turner?" Sasuke asked.

Timmy turned his head from Nami to the ninja, and the second their eyes met Sasuke's expression filled with shock. The two of them stared into each other's eyes, remembering something from so, so long ago.

"Idiots. What can you do that we couldn't?"

"Everything. I wish I had two huge wings…"

"You were," Sasuke muttered, taking a step towards the boy in the pink hat that he realized now should have given it away instantly. "That day, you fought Madara."

Nami's jaw suddenly dropped as she noticed the similarities between the man in front of her and one she had seen before. Timmy had wished all the people nearby to safety on the treehouse that had appeared out of nowhere above a bunch of very tall trees, and he was one of those people who lay on the floor of that treehouse. She remembered he had blood coming out of his eyes, and that he had seemed like one of the stronger people there. His hair was shorter back then and did not cover one half of his face like it did now, but once she noticed the resemblance, it was impossible to think of anything else. Sasuke turned to her too, and he somewhat remembered seeing a woman next to that boy who had shocked him so much, right before he had wished them all to safety so much farther than he had the first time.

"You were there too?" Goku asked Sasuke in surprise.

Sasuke turned to Goku just as surprised, and he asked the legendary Super Saiyan, "Did you defeat him?"

Goku shook his head, then he looked back towards Timmy. Sasuke's eyes widened in even more shock and he spun to the boy who was frowning all of a sudden. "It was Cosmo," Timmy said, "not me, who beat Madara."

Cosmo, that must have been one of those strange creatures that appeared next to him. The one with green hair most likely. I could ask what happened to them, Sasuke recognized the look on Timmy's face though well, and he decided against it. Still, seeing that those beings were not there, ones that could grant wishes, it made him grimace. He wiped that disappointed look from his face quickly though, recalling the power that Timmy had shown off in a different transformed state not long ago. He is powerful even without them. It was a good bet letting them go after him.

"Sasuke," Gray said as he walked up on Goku's side. He glanced over his shoulder at Timmy, then looked back and grinned as he said, "Mission complete."

"Good," Sasuke replied. "I passed on your messages to HQ, and you're group's been summoned."

"'Summoned?'" Luffy asked, wondering what that meant while frowning at the sound of it.

Sasuke did not like the tone of the pirate's voice, but a slightly taller boy walked up on Luffy's side and patted him on the shoulder which made Luffy turn his way then frown and ease back. Sasuke was also frowning at the figure who kept walking towards him, and he was confused as Gray moved a little to the side for him. "Hey there," Sora said as he reached Sasuke. "Sorry, about before, you know," Sora continued, and he scratched the back of his head with his right hand. "Turning you into a chicken, I mean," he specified in case Sasuke did not know what he was saying it for.

Half the people behind Sora pursed their lips and tried not to laugh. A few others who had heard about the story during one of the boisterous meals they had had over the last few days only got even bigger grins on their faces as they saw Sasuke's reaction. Sora lowered his hand and put it in front of him, "Anyway, I know we got off on the wrong foot, but I'm looking forward to helping out the Resistance and fighting with you. We all are."

Sasuke stared at Sora's hand with a narrowed right eye, then he darted his gaze around at all the others gathered behind him on the dark surface of the Great Wall. There were only a few lights set up around them, and the guards on the wall also had flashlights with different brightness settings that were aimed around the group at the moment, (the ones who were not watching off the south side of the wall at least). Sasuke grabbed Sora's hand and shook it, but he kept it brief then dropped his right arm back to his side. "There are shuttles waiting for you down the wall just over there," Sasuke motioned behind the group and past the tall truck they had parked on the wall.

A few of them had already noticed the lights down there which seemed out of place since they were outside of the lower walls of the Resistance base below. "Actually, Sasuke," a man began and started walking towards Sasuke from behind where the people who just arrived thought were only guards to the base. He walked forward and was set apart from the other guards by his tall height and broad shoulders. He had a head of dark red hair as well as long red sideburns that spiked out of his cheeks but stopped before connecting down at his chin. He had on a pair of glasses almost covered by his long red bangs, and he had an overbite with two sharp teeth sticking up past his top lip. "The Commanders would like for you to return as well," he said to the ninja who looked his way then frowned and turned to the right to look over the base again.

"What about here?" Sasuke questioned

"My subordinate Zapp will take control of Resistance Outpost Z-345," he turned more towards Son Goku and specified, "or Zulu base in Sector 345."

Natsu, Kirito, and a few of the others remembered how Gray and Black Canary had talked about Sectors and bases when they first met up with the Resistance back up north. Sasuke frowned, not appreciating having this thrown on him in the moment. He nodded after a few seconds though, then he said, "I'll be right back then." He disappeared to most of the people standing on the wall, moving incredible fast as he leapt off the wall down for the base where he had to get his things and leave behind some notes for the person coming to take charge of his base.

As Sasuke shot off, Dash noticed one of the guards up on the wall looking his way. Dash looked back at the man and saw Lancelot looking back towards him. He ran over to Lancelot as the guard gave him a small wave, and he asked, "Is Mister- is Frozone still here?"

Lancelot shook his head to the boy and spoke in a whisper since the red-haired man continued speaking to the rest of the group of new arrivals. "Frozone and the other heroes he was with are out on a mission on the border with the Emperor, few hundred miles west of here and to the north."

Dash frowned, then he frowned deeper and thought, Why did I even ask? I can't talk to him about this. Even if he does know a way, if I tell him and he doesn't, what if he goes and tells my parents? What if he tells them, what I let happen?

Dash's eyes filled with sadness, and Lancelot continued, "He'll be back here though when his mission is done."

"Nevermind," Dash said. Then he added, "Actually, don't tell him I came back here, even when he does return." Lancelot looked at the boy in a whole lot of confusion as he seemed to have changed his mind on the spot, but the guard just nodded his head at the kid who gave him a desperate look after the knight's hesitation.

"Yeah, you got it kid," Lancelot assured him.

"My name is Klaus Von Reinherz," the red-haired man formally introduced to the group in front of him. "I am a Resistance Commander like Sasuke, and I came here to take you all to meet with the other Resistance leaders at Headquarters."

"Headquarters?" Ben asked.

Before Klaus could explain, Sora cut in, "Does Resistance Headquarters have good training areas?"

Gray turned to Sora and gave the teen a nod, and Klaus replied as Sora saw that, "Headquarters has the best training equipment and grounds of any base in the Resistance."

The others behind Sora started smiling and a few of them laughed while looking at each other. Sora grinned and leaned back, putting his hands behind his head with a relieved look on his face. Man, this is great! I didn't have to do anything and we're already heading somewhere where everyone could train and get stronger.

"Anyhow, I can see that many of you are still exhausted from your journey and could use some more rest," Klaus said as he looked around the group. "Let us head over to the shuttles, there are two we will be taking to Headquarters. The flight will take three hours, so you can go back to sleep on the way."

Luffy threw his arms up in the air, relaxing again as he was told he was going to be able to sleep some more. Just the knowledge alone made his eyes start closing, and he felt like turning right there and then and heading to his next sleeping spot. He paused though before turning around, and then he said, "Let's go grab Killua."

Right as Luffy said it, a few of the guards around them on the wall got hesitant looks on their faces, and they looked around at each other and started murmuring.

Stan looked around with wide eyes as he saw those looks on the guards' faces. "Hey, hey what happened?" Stan snapped at the guard closest to him who had just started frowning.

Dash turned and looked up at Lancelot with wide eyes. Lancelot remembered how scared the kid was when he arrived at the base with his friend, how desperate he was for someone to save him. "Don't worry," Lancelot told the kid whose scared face turned into one of more confusion.

"Hey, someone tell us what's up?" Natsu snapped in an angry voice. "I'm going to go get Killua," he said, and he started marching forward, ignoring all the looks and murmurs of the men and women around him.

"He's not here," Sasuke said, reappearing on the wall to Natsu's right.

Natsu turned and frowned at the ninja who said that. "What do you mean, 'he's not here?'" Natsu asked, his voice seething through his teeth.

"He woke up," Sasuke replied. His tone was steady and the others could not tell if he was telling them good or bad news from the sound of it. "Not long after you all left, he awoke. We had him in physical therapy recovering for a day, and we told him that you would all be back once you saved Turner, who he said he wished he was awake to help out with." Timmy smiled at the sound of that, then Sasuke continued, "However on the second day after he woke up, he left the base."

"Why?" Natsu growled.

"Where did he go?" Usopp asked.

"I don't know," Sasuke replied. "But, we do know where he was last before he left. He snuck into the command quarters, and I confronted him as he was hacking into Resistance servers." The others all got confused and nervous looks on their faces at what Sasuke was saying. "He was angry, and he looked at me with killing intent," the ninja paused, then he continued, "but I let him leave."

"Thanks," Sora told the man in front of him. He did not know if Sasuke was stronger, or if Killua would have won, but he did not want to have come back to learn that Killua had been killed by their new ally. That was Sasuke's same reasoning for not attacking the boy and questioning him. Sasuke continued, "However, after he left I checked the computers he had been searching through. He went into the Resistance's member files, and he searched a single name before leaving."

"Killua's friend," Ben said, nodding as he remembered Killua talking about him once or twice before.

Gray had a bad feeling in his gut as Sasuke turned towards him. "What was the name?" Gray asked.

Sasuke's right eye widened again just a small amount, then he muttered in a low voice, "You didn't know?" Everyone else around Gray started getting hesitant looks on their faces, and they looked back and forth between Sasuke and Gray wondering what was so serious all of a sudden. "The name he searched- his friend's name," Sasuke corrected. He felt better after hearing Ben say it, though after seeing the history of what Killua had looked up on the computer he already did not feel any harm had been done. Sasuke's eye locked on Gray's though, and he finished, "Was Gon Freecs."

Gray took a step back and his eyes were as wide as they could be. No, no no no. This is too crazy. Sora knew Axel and Cloud. Killua's dad being at the Lazarus Pit. "Your fellow member of Delta Squad."

"No way, really?" Natsu whispered, looking back towards Gray with huge eyes. He shook his head and muttered, "If Kil was a little more open with us from the beginning, and just told us about his friend," shook his head and just trailed off in a grumble, though really he was just frustrated in general.

"Gon?" Luffy mumbled, thinking about that name himself.

Robin recognized it too, as did the half of the others who had gone with Luffy north. "…But in the end Netero died, he had to sacrifice himself. And Gon… My best friend was on death's door. He almost died, lost a limb…" Outside of the Dread Fort, he mentioned that name when he was trying to keep us from sneaking in. Has he finally found… oh, oh no. Robin looked towards Gray and she asked, "Is Gon, one of the ones-"

"He was enslaved," Gray said before she could finish the question. "He's a gladiator in the Capital, at least that's what I got from what Hiei told me." Gray's expression got darker, and he whispered, "Did Killua…"

"He wouldn't have," Sanji began. "That kid more than any of us knows not to do anything as stupid as that." The other pirates around Sanji nodded in agreement, and Stan nodded too as he thought about all of Killua's carefully made plans back in Metropolis.

"Yeah, and Killua hasn't done anything stupid for his friends before," Natsu muttered from in front of Sanji.

Sanji stared at Natsu's back, and he felt less sure of himself at the sarcastic tone in the Fire Dragon Slayer's voice. "You've, got a point there," the chef mumbled.

Killua, Stan thought, a deeper frown forming on his face. Knowing you were with them, I thought maybe you could help me. I wanted to know what happened to you in Metropolis. I wanted your help, getting stronger. Can I get stronger just by going to Resistance Headquarters? What is there for me?

"Alright then," Sasuke said. He started walking in the direction of the shuttles down the wall. "There's no time to waste." He had on a longer black coat now than the jacket he had on before, but he did not have any bags with him. He did have a single capsule case in his coat's right pocket though that contained everything he needed to take with him. Why am I being called back to HQ? Is something going to happen on the western front soon? Or are they changing leadership here? Which Commander will take over against the Emperor?

---

Sanji sat on the left side of one of the shuttles flying through the sky to the east over Aebrith. Since they were flying east, the suns were rising faster than usual, and Sanji expected it would be midday at their destination while still feeling like breakfast time to their group. That's going to make cooking for everyone difficult today. Have to adjust for the time zones. He was staring out the left window towards the north, but he was not staring at the shuttle flying a couple dozen meters away from them at a slightly higher elevation. He was looking below that shuttle, farther into the distance north.

He looked over thousands of miles of landscape, green grass and black wasteland, rivers and valleys, and forests and mountains. Flying huh? Airships are pretty common I guess, like those zeppelins outside of Pyraxas. But sitting in a ship like this, Sanji wanted to light up a smoke. It's claustrophobic. His eyes narrowed more as he stared out into the distant northern sky that was filled with a low orange light. On that zeppelin, I heard that bastard Niji's voice. They're here. The Germa 66…

"You thinking about that guy too?" Usopp asked.

Sanji glanced to his left and frowned with his bottom lip sticking out at the sight of Usopp's face right next to him. Why am I stuck with long-nose? Sanji thought in annoyance. The shuttle had two columns of seats going six rows back, and on either side of the wide aisle in the middle of the vehicle were two seats on each side. Sanji was closer to the window, but Usopp leaned in from his seat at the aisle so he could look out as well. "He looked kind of scary," Usopp added while staring up at the green-plated shuttle not far from them.

Why did the ladies all go on that shuttle? Why are all these extras coming with us? We don't need guards taking up the seats near Robin-chan and Nami-swan and Juvia-chwan! Sanji bit down hard and Usopp nodded his head stoically in misunderstanding agreement. "I know. Despite his friendly attitude, I could tell he was strong. I don't like leaving the others with him without knowing much about him."

Sanji's face lit up with an idea. "You're right," he said, spinning to Usopp with a huge smile on his face that confused the sniper into leaning back. Sanji grabbed Usopp by the shoulders and shook him around while saying, "I should go check on the ladies right? To make sure they're safe, right? Right? Right?!" Sanji stood up without waiting for a reply and made to push past Usopp. He froze though at a glare through one eye of the younger man up one row and across the aisle from him. That man had no one sitting on his side in the aisle seat, and Sasuke stared straight into Sanji's eye with his own black one, as both of them had the other eye blocked by their hair.

"What?" Sanji asked.

"Klaus V Reinherz," Sasuke said in a low voice. He stayed quiet in case not everyone who tried getting more sleep was awoken by the perverted chef. "Is a hero of the Second War of the Gods," Sasuke's voice had respect in it, and also a different tone hidden inside it that was telling Sanji not to leave the shuttle, not to doubt Klaus's intentions.

Sanji frowned at the ninja he could tell was threatening him, but before he could retort, Goku yawned and put his hands up over his head as he woke up again. "We're getting close right? I'm pretty hungry."

Sanji turned from Goku back to Sasuke, then he glanced back down at the side window next to him. He sighed and reached into his pocket, grabbing out a capsule case that had more capsules in it than anyone else in his group. "I'll start up on breakfast."

Sasuke narrowed his eyes at Sanji and started, "We're almost there-"

"Thanks Sanji," Goku said, getting up and stretching a bit where he stood in the aisle. "What are you making?"

"Pancakes!" Luffy shouted. They all spun towards his seat near the front, only to see Luffy half leaning out of it into the aisle, his head tilted back and a snot bubble sticking out of his nose. One of his eyes opened up while the bubble was still there, and his head tilted even farther back to a point that it was creepy and only possible because of his rubber neck. "Sanji! Pancakes!" He called out.

"Yosh yosh," Sanji said, shoving past Usopp who muttered 'Oi' at him as the chef did not ask him to move or anything. "Twenty pounds of pancakes coming right up," he said while walking back on the shuttle to the open space behind the rows of seats. There were doors on either side of the open area for loading and unloading, as well as for jumping off mid-flight as Sanji could tell by the hooks hanging from poles on the ceiling next to the doors and the boxes with parachutes in them nailed down to the floor. He tossed a capsule in front of him and a stove appeared in the ship, making it rock at the sudden increase in weight at the back.

"Hey! Watch it back there!" The pilot called out while looking over his shoulder behind him. He gawked and his co-pilot looked back too, and they both stopped focusing on flying for over ten seconds as their passengers all started getting up and getting loud as they made their way over to start eating breakfast. Sanji started yelling at them all to be patient, then Luffy started fighting with Goku from behind the Saiyan's back as he tried to get in front of Goku to be the first in line for pancakes. Without ever turning around, Goku was blocking every one of Luffy's attempts at getting past him.

It's like he can see the future, Luffy thought as he watched Goku's blocking movements coming from even before he started trying. Like Rayleigh said, there are people who can use Haki to see in the future. I don't think Goku's doing that, but I need to be able to get past stuff like this! Goku's not the strongest one out there! Luffy used his Haki and saw where Goku was blocking, and he bent his arms and legs to try and swerve around his guards. Goku grinned as he saw Luffy's right arm raise over his right fist that he just snapped up to block, but then he spun his arm in five rapid circles and wrapped Luffy's arm up around it like cotton candy.

As Luffy's arm started unraveling, his right leg was moving between Goku's legs. Goku expected it though, and his right foot moved in fast and caught a piece of Luffy's leg under it. Goku added some Haki into his stomp, and Luffy winced in a small pain of the block. The others around them who were also trying to get their pancakes started staring and getting quieter as Luffy's left fist punched forward at Goku's back. All five of his fingers opened up right before his fist collided, curving around Goku's body at several different points right as his right arm was finishing unraveling. Goku's right arm he had used to wrap up Luffy's in the first place moved so fast in every direction that all five of Luffy's left hand's fingers were deflected back in the other direction. "Pancakes!" Luffy yelled, his left leg curling around Goku's side while he had been busy with Luffy's left fingers. At the same moment, Luffy punched his right fist around Goku's right side, but Goku grinned and lifted his foot a little from Luffy's still stretched right leg, making it snap back to him with momentum that slowed all of Luffy's other movements.

"First come first serve," Goku said. He snapped both arms down and caught Luffy's left leg and right arm, pressing them against his sides with his elbows. The parts of his appendages that were already past Goku started stretching for Sanji's back as the chef flipped pancakes without focusing on the two right behind him, but Goku's bent arms snapped forward and he curled his hands around Luffy's left foot and right hand. He clapped them together while focusing some more Haki, then Luffy curled his whole body forward only to see Goku lifting his foot and hand to block him over his spiky-hair. If he knows I'm coming from here, Luffy thought, then he focused on reaching his left arm around the left side of Goku's head. Once he thought that though, he followed up by emptying his mind of every thought and let his instincts take over which move to actually make, while Goku still moved his head to the left to block Luffy's hand.

What is this idiotically intense battle? Sasuke thought with a bead of sweat rolling down the side of his face as he looked over the top of his seat. His head was only half-poked over, and he only sweatdropped more as the two of them both yelled something pancake-related, while the rubber pirate was clearly getting closer to some amazing new power. Both of them can predict more than I could with a normal Sharingan, Sasuke thought as he watched them. But as much as the pirate gets better, he will never reach Son Goku's level. I know that more than well enough.

"Sir," the co-pilot said to Sasuke, while the pilot had gone back to focusing on flying. "Can you stop them? If Son Goku starts fighting on this ship."

"Don't worry," Sasuke said, turning back and sitting in his seat with a disinterested look on his face. He closed his eyes and decided to get some extra rest himself since he was up awaiting the group's arrival from the south for most of the night. "That's not fighting," he said with his eyes closed.

The co-pilot looked back and watched as Luffy pumped his arm to the side to go into Gear Second, and the movements of the two battling over the front spot in the pancake line became something impossible for him to follow. He sweatdropped and muttered to himself, "It sure looks like a battle to me."

Luffy and Goku's battle ended uneventfully and as all their friends imagined it would, with Goku getting the first plate of pancakes as he always did whenever they ate a meal together. Sanji served everyone their firsts, but as Goku and Luffy came up for seconds, Sanji opened the side door to the shuttle and leapt out while holding stacks of pancakes. He did not realize how fast they were going and had to Skywalk much faster than usual to catch up to the other shuttle, and it took them a while to open the door for the man knocking on it with his foot. Sanji served the ladies (and the rest of them) some breakfast, and he received a strong compliment from Klaus who claimed he had never eaten a more delicious breakfast. Sanji chuckled after receiving it, and when Klaus asked he said it was nothing while thinking of how he had almost rushed over to "check on" Klaus not long ago.

Sanji returned to his original shuttle before long though, and he made up seconds, thirds, and a whole lot of extra batches for the ones who needed all that food in order to be satisfied. By the end of breakfast, even though Sanji had re-capsulized all of his cooking supplies, the shuttle was back-heavy from Goku and Luffy's bloated bodies as they lay back in their seats across the aisle from each other. "One of these days, urp," Luffy began, then burped. "I'm getting my food first," he said, a determined expression replacing the super-satisfied and full one.

"Can't wait," Goku replied, always happy to have a challenger when no one usually tried challenging him. "Makes it so I can't let my guard down even while I'm eating," he added while smiling wide.

"Huh?" Luffy turned his head and gave the Saiyan a confused look.

Goku just laughed though and said, "Nothing."

"We're coming up on Resistance Headquarters," the pilot's voice announced through the ship. "Don't bother coming up here," he continued as he saw some people getting out of their seats so they could run to the cockpit and look out. A television screen dropped down from the ceiling just behind the cockpit, and the blank black screen shimmered to life with a current view out the cockpit's windshield. The ten guys in the group on the shuttle who had never seen this place before stared with wide eyes at it.

Ben had imagined a lot of things in his head, and his imagination came pretty close to what he was seeing, but that did not make it any less impressive. They were a little to the north of the Resistance HQ, but the shuttles were turning towards the front of it so they could come in from the front. They were descending too, but before they had started lowering they all had seen the roof at the top of the base which had a single massive cannon on it. Ben looked behind him (since he was sitting on the front row of seats), then he frowned and looked to his left instead. He stared past Dash who was still staring up at the tv screen, and he looked to the other shuttle, Wish Gray was here to explain some of this stuff. I bet he's going on about it to everyone over there. I could ask that Sasuke guy, Ben thought, but he shivered and decided not to turn and look towards him. He doesn't seem like the real friendly type. Plus I think he's sleeping, though he could just have his eyes closed. How does he know Goku? How does everyone on this whole continent, seem to know Goku?

On the other shuttle, as Ben thought it, Gray responded to Nami who just asked about the giant cannon, "It has no range. As in, there is no limit to how far it can shoot. It does take some time to charge though between each blast."

"And it's power?" Robin wondered.

"I've been in a pinch before in the middle of a battle, only for a shot from the MPC to shift the momentum of the fight." He smiled nostalgically as he thought about it, while a few of his friends sweatdropped that he used an acronym after just calling it the Mega Pulse Cannon when he answered Nami's initial question.

Is MPC really that much faster to say? Natsu thought from behind the seats Gray and Juvia were sitting in.

Their shuttles started descending though to a point where they were below the cannon, yet still several hundred yards off the ground. The cannon was atop the highest floor on the front section of the base, and as they were still descending down the seventh floor before reaching the elevation level of the sixth, Robin questioned, "Has the Resistance Headquarters ever been breached by your enemies?"

"Not this one," one of the guards who she had sat next to sat. The woman was younger than Robin and had a pair of glasses on as well as a green helmet that matched her military uniform's color. "But over a year ago, the Resistance HQ was somewhere else. It got invaded a bunch of times though since it was so far north, past the northern border of Leam even."

"Which is practically enemy territory at this point," another guard in the seat behind the girl next to Robin said.

"That's not true," Gray argued back at them. "If anything it's disputed, but they're fighting hard up there to keep the Co-op out."

"Leam's army had to be called up north not ten days ago though," the guard countered right back at the ice mage. "The evacuations from Pon-Gatso south were followed by Co-op forces, and Leam's army had to go beyond Leam's old borders to push them back." Gray's eyes widened as the guard said that, and the man continued as he saw Gray was not informed of this yet. "After Leam pushed back a decent amount, they stopped and let the Resistance counterattack push farther. They probably want us to regain some more land as a buffer zone between what they're required to guard and the closest Co-op lands."

Gray grimaced at the sound of that. Klaus spoke up, "Leam is helping us out as much as they can." He was speaking on their behalf, and though Gray knew the man needed to, he and the others on the ship were not convinced by the Commander's words. Klaus continued though, "Although they do use that buffer strategy often, they have not used it on their western border with the Emperor since he started pushing east. Their entire army is focused on preventing him from moving any farther, and we are more or less support in the southwest at this point. We cannot criticize them for not wanting another border dispute while in the middle of a war."

Gray hummed and nodded along with the Commander. It's tough enough for the Resistance to be surrounded on all sides, and I'm sure Leam's feeling that pressure as well. But for now at least, they want to keep the illusion of a one-front war.

"Oh man," Nami whispered, running a hand back through her long orange hair as she stared at the television screen in front of her. "The closer we get to this place, the more daunting it gets," she said in amazement, since the front walls of just the first two floors of the Resistance Headquarters were almost taking up the entire screen at this point, that is everything that could be seen out the cockpit's windshield.

"Although this is quite an amazing fortress," Robin began. Nami turned to look at her friend across the aisle in some surprise, while Robin continued, "I was expecting, more."

"There's also the basement," the male guard behind Robin on her left said. She did not think a basement would add that much, but in the corners of her eyes she saw the young female guard next to her trying hard to suppress a snicker at what her comrade just said. She turned towards Klaus next, and even the Resistance Commander was grinning like the guard had just made some inside joke. So Robin turned to Gray next, and sure enough he was grinning along with the rest of them while Juvia looked at him oddly and in a confused way.

"Really?" Nami asked the guy who said it, not catching on since the man she looked at who spoke up and the guy sitting with him were the only two who kept from letting their expressions give themselves away. The guard looked her way and nodded, and Nami sweatdropped that the man was serious about that. Still, I don't know what Robin's talking about. This is the biggest building I've ever seen. It's amazing!

The screens lifted back into the ceilings of the shuttles before they had landed, disappointing a few of them who still wanted to see the building from up close. Then again, that just made them more excited to get out of the lowering vehicles. It was only another minute before their vehicles reached the ground with soft clunks. When they touched down, it was impossible to keep some of the passengers from throwing the doors open and sprinting out onto the short-cut grass on the field just north of the massive gateway.

There were several roads coming off of the main gate, but they had parked the shuttles off the side of the main road going north from the castle. There was also a huge paved area just in front of the gates as well that stretched to the sides around the castle's outer walls. There was only one person outside of the castle, and Robin guessed that thanks to its size, anything and everything could be inside it so no one had to be outside of the protective walls at any times. She wondered if behind those giant walls in front of her there was actually a sort of town with smaller buildings that she knew would be able to fit inside considering how tall the first floor alone was.

The one man who stood outside the Resistance Headquarters to greet the group smiled wide as a group of three got out of a shuttle. Natsu started lifting his head to stare at the castle from close up, but he froze and snapped his head back down with a dropped jaw at the sight of the bald man standing there. Juvia also opened her eyes wide in surprise, while Gray smiled at the sight of the man he had not seen in over five months now. Natsu started running forward towards the man smiling at them, shouting, "Jura?!"

Jura Neekis chuckled at the surprise in Natsu's voice, and he glanced behind Natsu to the ice mage who chuckled and scratched the back of his head. "I see Gray did not inform you of my presence here," Jura said. His arms were crossed over his chest, slid into the opposite sleeves of his black robe that covered his body. It fell almost down to his feet but just above to reveal he was wearing a pair of brown sandals, and he had red trimming at the bottom of his kimono-style robe, complete with a red belt in the middle. His black beard had gotten even longer than the last time Natsu saw it, almost to his waist now, but he smiled in his same friendly way the fire mage who stopped in front of him remembered.

"Who is that?" Nami asked the people to her left as Juvia said something in surprise to Gray about his appearance there. "Another member of Fairy Tail?" She wondered.

"No," Gray replied. "Jura was a member of Lamia Scale back on our world, a different magic guild," he said. "He was also, one of the Ten Wizard Saints."

"The ten strongest wizards in Ishgar," Juvia said in a whisper to Nami since she would not have understood that.

Well how big was Ishgar? Nami thought, though she got a good-enough read of the guy's strength by the way the Fairy Tail mages were treating him. Well, except for Natsu, she thought with a sweatdrop rolling down her face as Natsu shouted out a challenge to Jura.

"Perhaps later," Jura told the fiery mage, a sweatdrop on his own face along with a smile as he was half-expecting that.

Natsu frowned, then he grumbled while turning back to Gray who was almost behind him now. He had run up first, while the others were all taking their time walking to the paved area just in front of the massive gateway into the Resistance HQ. Natsu turned back to Jura and said, "Before anyone else pops up, are there other people from our world here?"

"Several," Jura replied with a surprised laugh that that was even a question.

"Anyone I know?" Natsu wondered.

"The Blue Pegasus Guild Hall is inside Headquarters," Jura responded. He glanced over Natsu's head and saw most of the others were almost on him, as well as Sasuke and Klaus who he did not want to keep waiting. "Not all of Blue Pegasus's members are here, but Ren, Eve, and Hibiki who you know well are. And I do not know if Gray told you of the other Fairy Tail members in the Resistance, but Gajeel and Levy are both here."

"Yeah, I knew that," Natsu said and frowned, as he was hoping for more than The Trimens of Blue Pegasus when he asked Jura about it.

"Hmm," Jura hummed, "I also saw Panther Lily recently, as I have on occasion."

"You saw Lily?" Gray asked, stepping forward interestedly.

Natsu turned to Gray in confusion, then back to Jura with that odd look on his face. Juvia had a confused look as well, and Gray frowned as he saw their expressions. "Lily's in the Resistance?" Natsu asked in surprise since Gray had not mentioned it back when he told Natsu that Gajeel and Levy were members.

"No, he is not," Jura said, confusing Natsu and Juvia even more. Luffy had been about to cut in and shout about going inside, but a solemn look on Jura's face had him hesitating for a moment.

"Why isn't he with Gajeel?" Natsu asked in a low voice as he figured out what that meant.

Jura shook his head and sighed, saying quietly, "I do not know." Jura took a step back after saying that and regained a strong but friendly demeanor as he faced the large group in front of him. "Hello there. My name is Jura Neekis, a Commander here." He turned sideways and loud clanking came out of the huge doors to his right which everyone started looking back at.

"I'm here to welcome you, to the Headquarters of the Resistance," Jura said. The group in front of him was staring forward with varying gases of amazement, awe, or neither as some were not impressed or had seen it before. For most of them though, awe and amazement filled their eyes at the sight of the magnificent castle that stretched a few hundred meters up in front of them, just for the first floor.

The building looked like a fortress that could withstand any attack. There were dozens of tall towers sticking out of the walls and corners of the fort. The walls had turrets every ten feet it seemed like as well as guards patrolling the defenses looking heavily armed, or not at all which in their experience was even more reassuring. The second story to the building was as tall as the first but did not start for a couple hundred feet after the top of the first floor cut in with a roof that was impossible to see from in front of the gates. In fact, it was harder to see the rest of the the Headquarters from closer up than it was from miles away, though some of them had gotten good looks out their windows during the descent. The gates of the first floor entrance were almost as massive as the first floor itself, but as they started opening, it was only the small doors on the bottom of the huge gateway that were opening up. Small, normal-sized double doors, opened outwards at the bottom of the giant gateway not in the center between the two halves of the gate, but a little offset to the right of center.

Jura walked towards the opening doors and everyone followed behind him to get a look inside this amazing fortress. A few of them noticed thin cracks to the sides of the double doors a few meters and up some more too. Robin spotted these and realized that although these doors were being opened for them instead of the massive gates, there were other sizes between giant and regular human for those who needed more than a nine-foot tall door. Jura smiled while looking over his shoulder at the man closest behind him. "It is a pleasure to see you again, Natsu. I had heard from a comrade of mine that Gray had returned to the continent, but I was very surprised to hear that you were with him. And taking down Sozin," Jura continued, and Natsu smirked and beamed while his friends all rolled their eyes knowing that Natsu would let that go to his head.

"It was no big deal," Natsu began. "I just-"

"But even more surprising was word that you were with them," Jura said, while turning and smiling at he man with black hair that spiked in every direction. "Son Goku," he finished, and Natsu frowned as his moment of praise did not last very long. Jura continued from just in front of the doors while Goku smiled at him, "I do not know if you remember me, but not so long ago you saved my life."

"I think I remember you," Goku said as he thought that he recognized the man from the moment he spotted him near the gateway. "Oh yeah! You made a mountain!"

Jura started laughing though there was a bead of sweat rolling down the left side of his face. "It was not very effective at stopping Zeref. When you showed up though, and faced him and his dragon-"

"Goku did what?" Nami asked, her face pale as she thought about the monster they saw on their journey south from Pyraxas.

"Goku," Gray began, turning to the muscular Saiyan in the middle of their group. "Why didn't you ever mention that?" He asked. "We've brought up Zeref before."

"Zeref?" Goku wondered, and he scratched the back of his head. He looked back to Jura and said, "I fought Spriggan..."

Gray sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Nevermind," he muttered.

"Actually, we met once before that too," Jura said. This time Goku looked confused as he did not recall recognizing Jura the last time he saw him.

"We did?" Goku asked.

"On the First Day," Jura continued. "I tried to assist in stalling Doomsday, but I only managed to buy you a few seconds."

"Doomsday?" Kirito asked the older man next to him.

"He was really strong," Goku said to Kirito, then smiled at Jura and added, "Thanks then! That was a really close fight, so everyone who helped was responsible for beating it. None of us could have done it alone."

"You couldn't beat him on your own?" Natsu asked skeptically, wondering if Goku was just being modest.

"Uh-uh," Goku said with a shake of his head. "Doomsday killed Piccolo who was one of the strongest fighters I ever knew. It took Gohan, myself, Vegeta, Superman, and a bunch of others all working together to stop it. Haha, I went a little overboard during it and could barely move the whole second day!" Goku laughed as he said it and scratched his head again.

Ben sweatdropped as Goku mentioned that. I know a lot of people who could have used your help the second day. It's not funny... though I guess it couldn't be helped if you were too beat up from the day before. Ben frowned. He thought back to the second day when it took Krillin too long to save him and his friends, allowing so many to die first. They couldn't be everywhere at once. And as powerful as they are, they're human too... or, Saiyan I guess, some of them at least. But still, everyone needs to sleep and rest and eat. I always thought they had just not gotten there fast enough, but maybe sometimes they just weren't able to help.

"Well anyway, thank you," Jura said, bowing his head a little to Goku. "I am very glad you decided to come back."

Goku nodded at him with a smile on his face, while all the guards and other Commanders behind Goku stared at the man with spiky black hair. Kirito glanced around as he saw where they were all looking, and his expression darkened as he knew what their looks were for. They're wondering why he left in the first place. I don't blame them. If they've been at war this whole time, of course they'd want Goku to stay and help them. Maybe this time though, he'll finish the job. Ra's… He did kill Doflamingo after all, and the Sea Clan King, but it's not enou- Damn, I can't really complain about Goku not giving people mercy. Not when, that mercy saved my life.

"Let's go inside," Jura said, and he turned and led the group inside the Resistance HQ.

Natsu ran in behind him and then past Jura before doing a spin and taking in the whole building around him. "Huh," he said, his voice disappointed. His smile dropped and he let out a sigh while looking all around the huge open floor that stretched almost as wide as the walls outside made it look like the floor would. Natsu was half expecting a sort-of city layout inside the base though, and instead he could only see different doors on the side walls far off into some different shops. He saw windows lining the side walls, and he realized there must have actually been rooms covering the sides of the first floor, but the majority of the floor was empty.

Juvia walked in and she felt similarly underwhelmed by the inside of the base. The far wall from the entrance was not all the way at the other side of HQ from what she could tell, since it was only a couple of miles away whereas she could not see the back of the base from above when they were approaching. The far wall was beyond where she thought the second floor would have started above them though, and Juvia hummed while gazing around the place. She looked high up on the wall to her left and her eyes opened in a bit of surprise at what looked like a food stand window, only it was a hundred times bigger than normal ones. It was also way higher up than she would be able to reach.

"As you may be confused," Jura began as the group entering around him looked around. "This is the Headquarters of the Resistance, and thus it has to be able to satisfy height requirements of any who may enter. The other half of Headquarters has a few hundred more floors thanks to this," he explained.

"So giants can only use this half of Headquarters?" Ben wondered.

"As well as the basement," Jura added.

Ben sweatdropped and glanced at the mage to see if he was serious, but Jura turned around and tossed something in front of them. Pop! The capsule Jura tossed turned into a land speeder that started hovering off the floor as soon as it appeared. "If your group would not mind, the other Commanders and myself would like to speak with you."

Goku frowned at the sound of this, and Luffy got a pout on his face as he was just about to go run off towards a sixty-foot tall guy he saw all the way to his right near a store at that wall. A few of the giant's companions who Luffy had spotted with him had just gone into the shop, but he was just ten or so feet too high over the height limit. This floor of the Headquarters was not very crowded, but there were people scattered around it, though most of them were walking close to the walls at the sides as there was little reason to be walking through the middle of the room. Coming towards them from the far wall were two speeders similar to the one Jura just dropped, so some of them started to think the middle of the floor was for vehicles only.

"Hey Klaus," Goku began. Goku turned to the red-haired man who was just behind him. Klaus V Reinherz was in the middle of telling the other guards who came to Headquarters with them what to do now that they would be separating from the Commanders and rest of the group, but he stopped to turn to the Saiyan, as did everyone else. "Where are those training areas you mentioned?"

"Goku," Gray began. "Shouldn't we-"

"I don't want to do boring stuff!" Luffy shouted. He looked over his shoulder and said, "I'm gonna go explore this place!" Rather than go through a long and boring tour as he expected was about to happen, Luffy decided to run off.

Jura sweatdropped as he watched this. I did say it as a request, but, well-

"Y-Yeah, let's do it Luffy," Usopp said, running over to Luffy's side. Sanji looked over at the sniper in some surprise that he was bold enough to try this, while Usopp was just thinking about how he was not mentally prepared to meet a bunch of the strongest people in the world.

"Oi, do you have a place where a SUPER shipwright like me could go work?" Franky asked the ninja at his side who was about half his height. Sasuke looked up at him with one eye to see if the cyborg was seriously asking him this, but Franky was grinning down as he lifted up his right hand. His fingers all popped open on that hand and various tools came out of them, and he said, "I heard you guys make some Super robots yourselves, I want to check out what I'm working with."

Gray looked around at the group behind him as they were all already planning on going off and doing their own things. He opened his mouth, but Sora cupped his hands to his mouth and called out, "Everyone!" The whole group looked towards Sora, wondering if he was going to try and get them to stick together or something. Instead, Sora just grinned and called out, "Meet back here at this spot, thirty days from right now!"

Jura and Gray's jaws dropped. Goku started laughing and turned to Klaus who could see Goku still wanted him to show him the way, and Klaus finally nodded to the legendary Son Goku and said he would show Goku the way to the training area. Luffy laughed too and spun to Usopp, "Nihihi, let's go!" Luffy started running towards the giant who was still sitting outside of a store, and when Usopp saw where Luffy was heading, his eyes lit up excitedly. Giants! Usopp thought with a huge smile.

Sasuke stepped towards Gray and Sora and began to the two standing next to each other, "What are you doing?" Gray sweatdropped nervously and scratched the back of his head with one arm, trying to figure out a way to say this.

"We decided to spend a month getting stronger before we go back north to fight the Cooperative again," Sora replied to the dark-haired ninja. Sasuke glanced around at the rest of the group to see what they thought about that, then he refocused as Sora continued, "Well, I decided it. So, if your Commanders want to talk or something, you guys can all talk to me. Because I'm the leader," Sora said it and put his hands behind his head with a cocky look on his face.

Nami rolled her eyes at him then turned to Juvia and Robin who were on her left side. They both looked back at her and smiled softly after a few seconds, then Nami nodded and said, "Alright, let's go check the place out." She smirked and looked back towards the spiky-haired "leader" of their group, "Let's just let Sora take care of all the boring stuff."

Sora's smirk lowered down, then the rest of the group who had been rolling their eyes or frowning at Sora for playing the leader card started laughing as well. The more they thought about it, the more they realized that none of them really wanted to go meet with Resistance Commanders.

"It's not like we're joining the Resistance," Franky said with a shrug to the ninja who was looking at them all in confusion as to how they could care so little about the summons.

"You're not?" Jura questioned in surprise.

I am, Kirito thought. He glanced towards Gray, then he turned his head and floated off the ground. I'll figure out how to do it on my own though. If I say that now, it'll just be the two of us as actual members here. "Kirito," Goku called over before Kirito had flown too far. He looked back and saw Goku flying behind him, while Klaus ran across the huge white floor beneath and a little in front of the Saiyan. "I'm going to check out the training equipment," Goku said as he neared the teen who Klaus ran beneath. "Coming?"

Kirito nodded his head. He flew after Goku while thinking, I'll do it later.

Riku frowned and looked back at the doors that had closed behind him. A whole month? Is that on the thirtieth day we return here, or after thirty days we come back to this spot? So thirty nights too? Kairi…

"Alright? Can we go?" Sora asked the bald mage who he turned back to after half of his friends had scattered or just started to walk off.

This is not protocol, Jura thought hesitantly, but then he sighed and smiled again as he motioned for the speeder. Sora jumped up and landed on it, and a few of the others seemed to be sticking with them too. Nothing we can say to the group who brought us Son Goku though. It is not worth it to start arguments over things so trivial.

Sasuke was thinking along similar lines, though he frowned as he looked around and saw these people scattering off through Headquarters. Can we trust all of them? Are they a tight-knit group, or are there members who the others think they know but don't really? Like him, Sasuke focused on one of the shortest members there who had on a blue hat with half a red poof-ball on top of it. He said he could help get them Timmy Turner, did he? Even if he did, it could have just been his method of gaining their trust.

Stan Marsh snapped his head to the right and glared at the ninja already staring at him. Sasuke did not look away or pretend like he was not staring; he let Stan know he was watching him. Stan looked away after a second and grimaced while he walked towards the speeder a bunch of the others were getting on. What am I doing here? Thirty days meet back up? Is that it? Yep. That's what my decision to stay with these people amounts to. Training on my own, again. God damn it.

Stan got on the speeder and Sasuke followed him up, then Jura started it forward fast towards the far wall. As they sped across the floor, they passed Natsu who had shouted about doing his own, separate, exploring as Luffy a minute ago. Natsu gawked as they sped by him, then he started sprinting much faster in order to catch up. "Would you like to get on Natsu?" Jura questioned.

"No, I'm fine," Natsu said while running next to the speeder. That shuttle landing almost made me throw up Sanji's pancakes. I've gotta get even stronger meds, or maybe magic this time again. Stupid motion-sickness. Natsu played off the reason though and just called out, "I bet I get to… where are we going?" He was going to say he'd get there faster, but he did not know what they were doing yet.

"The four hundredth floor," Jura replied. "First we have to go to the south side of the fortress."

"The middle of the base is open," Gray said off-handedly to Ben who looked confused. Ben glanced up, but Gray was staring off the back of the speeder even as he said it, looking far back towards Juvia and the girls who he could still see. He relaxed himself after a second, We're in the safest place on Aebrith. The one place I don't have to worry about her, hopefully. Gray thought about earlier that morning when he had gotten Juvia alone for a minute. She didn't want to talk about it. Maybe, she's all good now.

"What, like a courtyard?" Stan asked from the right of the ice mage.

Gray refocused and chuckled as he turned from Ben to the kid on his right. The speeder was approaching the far wall of the huge first floor of Resistance HQ, and Jura pressed a button on his speeder that made the huge wall start opening up at the middle. A huge crack that no one had been able to see before appeared and the two halves of the wall started pulling apart to the sides. Natsu slowed down as the speeder did the same, but he ran up ahead and stopped farther than the speeder was parking. Still, from on top of the speeder, the opening on the other side of the wall became visible and Gray let out a laugh at the shocked looks on his comrades' faces. "Yeah, kind of like a courtyard."

Past the giant walls still pulling apart, was a massive open space with walls on all sides of it, all eight sides of the perfect octagonal hole that dropped straight into the surface. There was no floor on the other side of the opening walls, instead just a hole so wide that planes actually flew straight up out of it and much higher until they were out of sight of those looking at the hole from the first floor. Natsu leaned off the ledge a little and looked up to follow a pair of jets that just shot up, and he watched as the ceiling was higher up opened for them and then closed once they were outside. A much lower hole opened up on a side of the wall a few hundred meters above him, and Natsu watched as three helicopters flew into the base from up there. Those choppers flew into the center of the huge hollow gap in the center of the fortress, and then their rotors slowed down to stops. They started dropping, but dropping in a controlled way where they were moving straight down. Natsu stared closer and could swear he saw some sort of translucent energy lowering the helicopters until they had hit his level, and then dropped them much farther until they were in the dark hole in the ground.

"The basement?" Ben wondered.

Gray chuckled and decided to finally just say it, "The basement, is the actual Headquarters. It's about, a hundred times bigger down there than the surface HQ."

Ben, Stan, Dash, Rin, and even Kuro dropped their jaws at the sound of that. The black cat sticking its head out of Rin's back whispered, "That's big."

"And I thought the surface base alone could hold a city inside it," Franky said and let out a whistle of amazement. "Who built this place?" He asked.

"It's constantly being expanded," Jura replied while turning to the cyborg who was the only one there larger in size than him. "In fact Gray's estimate is pretty low compared to the actual size. And if you include the mines as well, the area of the 'basement' is well over two hundred times the size of our surface defenses."

Gray turned to Jura in some surprise, then he looked back and thought, It has been a long time.

"If it's that big, is there a city in there?" Ben asked.

Jura turned to the boy and nodded, while the wall across the gap from them was starting to open up. They suddenly remembered that Jura said they were going to the four hundredth floor, and Ben looked disappointed that they would not be going downstairs. Then he smiled and laughed to himself, "I'm gonna go check it out then." Ben floated off the speeder and flew towards the hole, while Jura and Sasuke both stared in surprise at the kid who neither expected would know how to fly.

"If the rest of you would also like to go down," Jura began. He pointed off the side of the speeder far to the right where the wall had finished opening up. On the outside near where the wall had slid into, they could see elevator shafts, and Jura explained to them that there were doors to get into the elevators just on the inside over there if they went down a nearby hallway.

Riku sighed and he turned to Dash as he walked for the side of the speeder, "You coming?" He asked the kid. He had been planning on going with Sora to the meeting with the Commanders, but the rest of the group were all getting off after Ben. The idea of such a large underground city was too enticing for them to pass up seeing, and even Sora was disappointed he had to go do other stuff first before checking it out with the rest of them. Dash nodded at Riku and jumped off the side of the speeder to head over to the elevators with some others, and Sora sighed as he watched them go.

"Let's get on our way then," Jura said and the speeder lifted back up as the wall across from them opened up just wide enough for their speeder to get through. On the other side of the next opening, Sora could see the ceiling was only twenty or so feet tall, but it looked like they would be taking the speeder for a little farther at least. Jura glanced down as they flew over the hole, "I hope Klaus is able to make it after showing Son Goku the way."

Meanwhile inside of one of the training rooms that Klaus had led Goku and Kirito to, Kirito watched with an impressed expression as Klaus staggered back up on his feet in front of Goku. "You are strong!" Goku said excitedly as the guy got back on his feet. The Saiyan whose hair was still black and spiked out to all sides stood in his martial arts' stance and cracked his knuckles as he curled his fingers and grinned at his opponent.

Klaus was sweating and panting, and he thought as he got ready for the Saiyan to charge him again, I am supposed to be somewhere. Goku flew towards him and Klaus shot back forwards himself in the hundred foot wide by hundred foot long by hundred foot tall white training room. Their fists collided and Kirito examined the red-haired Commander closely as the man tried trading blows with Goku. How strong is he? I heard Sasuke took on Natsu and Luffy together, though they were weakened at the time. And Goku holds that Jura guy in high regard. Are there many of these level fighters in the Resistance? Are there a lot of people here, who could train me?

Descending through an elevator shaft, a small group looked around in awe as the shaft turned completely to glass once they had dropped far enough that they were below the surface. There were artificial lights everywhere, but it still looked like they had just dropped into a cave. The walls were made of rocks and dirt on most sides, though there were steel walls too as well as the metal ceiling holding up the surface. Far below them but not exactly where the elevator was lowering them towards, there was a huge dome covered in hexagonal panels that seemed to be made of glass. The dome itself was many times larger than the fort they saw from the air, and the group gawked at the fields inside, the lines of trees, the crops, the houses and mills and even a river with a power plant on it using water energy.

Beyond that huge agricultural dome, there was a massive hole in the wall where stalagmites and stalactites blocked off the other side like the wall had huge teeth. On the other side of the rocky hole in the wall there was movement though, and Franky's eyes opened wide as he spotted a giant yellow robot walking around over there. He knew it had to be a giant, because although it looked tiny from the elevator, the fact that he could see it at all across the huge cave was an amazing thing. They soon lowered too far though that the top of the dome blocked off that hole in the wall and whatever lay beyond it. The group turned from the dome and looked past it to what they thought was the east, where there was a giant white pyramid sticking out of a wall, terraced levels sticking out with each level getting smaller higher up. It looked like only half of the pyramid was sticking out of the wall, a wall which had steel reinforcements all around it for a few miles before turning back into rock.

Natsu turned the opposite way as the agricultural dome which he thought was to the south, and he looked back the direction they came from on the surface. "Doesn't really, look like a city," he said while staring down at the huge black floor that covered up the majority of the cave basement down below. On top of the black floor that Natsu guessed was metal, there were planes, helicopters, soldiers all over the place. There were trucks driving around and tents set up all over the place. There were watch towers inside of what seemed to be mock battlefields, and Natsu turned to Dash after looking that way. "Looks a little like that Fire Nation camp we attacked, right?"

Dash stared at the x-shaped metal spikes sticking out of the ground, the watchtowers at the sides, and he nodded his head with a small smile at what Natsu asked. Natsu frowned at Dash's unenthusiastic reaction, then he continued while looking back over, "The practice one looks tougher than what we faced though. So much barbed wire, and are those- yeah they've got turrets too."

"Guess they'd need to be prepared for the worst," Riku began.

"When did you guys attack a place like that?" Kuro asked, and Natsu and Dash looked back to see the cat on Rin's shoulder looking at them interestedly.

Natsu smirked and said, "Back when we first went south, I pushed back a Fire Nation army."

"We did-" Dast started exclaiming, but he caught himself and furrowed his brow. Like it matters who gets the credit, he thought darkly, turning back away. He thought back on that though as Natsu frowned at the kid he almost got a normal reaction out of for a second. "That was fun," Dash said in a soft voice after a few seconds. His mouth curled up at the corners and he said, "We got to use squirrel-suits, flying down into the enemy base. That was…" Dash thought about the bullets and beams flying everywhere. He imagined Azula's scary face and the powerful flames that burned his legs. He thought about the poison that got Natsu and the different strong enemies they had to face. "Oh! Hey San-" Dash spun, then he glanced around but did not see Sanji anywhere. "Thought Sanji came with us," he said.

Rin sweatdropped and said, "I think he snuck off to follow the girls around."

"That sounds about right," Riku said. Their elevator was getting close to the edge of the huge black floor that covered more than half of the cave's floor, but they were not slowing down as they reached it. The elevator descended through the floor without stopping, making most of them gasp as they expected to slam right into it. They shot down through the thick black ground for a few seconds, and then the elevator doors opened up and they looked out into a hallway that had a few people in it waiting to use their elevator.

"You going to get out?" A girl asked them as they were still just standing in there. She reached her arm out to stop the door from closing, and the group inside hurried out to make room for the others trying to go up.

"Where are we?" Dash wondered as the elevator doors closed behind them. He looked hesitantly to either side but did not see that many other people, and those people looked like they had things to do and places to be. They were rushing about, and Dash lifted his gaze to the ceiling above in the normal hallway they were in. Ben, he thought, wondering how his friend who had just flown through the hole instead of using the elevator was going to meet up with them now. The ceiling he stared at had some long lights on it, as well as panels that looked able to be taken off and replaced if they were damaged. There were vents on the sides of the wall close to the ceiling, as well as speakers every dozen panels or so in between the lights.

"This must be," Riku began. He started walking and the others followed after him as he seemed to have some idea as to where they were. He hummed to himself as he headed down one hall while trying to make sure he was still heading north. "I think, this is the real base. The Resistance Headquarters," he continued, while stepping out of a hall onto a balcony that people were walking around and up and down the stairs on the sides of it. The others walked up to his sides and stared out over an area that dropped down several dozen meters from where they were standing before extending for tens of miles ahead of them. There were some large white buildings with curved roofs that looked like barracks, tall buildings that touched up to the ceiling, as well as other elevators like the one they used before only smaller. Riku did not remember seeing huge elevators sticking out of the long black floor above the base, so he figured those elevators must have just been for getting to the roof of the main Headquarters.

"Why down here?" Dash wondered.

"Not as many attacks, I guess," Natsu wondered, scratching his head while not really caring. He looked a mile away to his left towards a wall, and he saw a huge building with a brightly colored sign outside. There was a second floor deck area over there, and he spotted a party going on between some very strong looking people who all had weapons with them as well as different kinds of armor. He turned his head right from that cool hall, and he watched as a group of five people riding on broomsticks flew over some barracks and headed for what looked to him like a school in the distance to his right. On top of one of the barracks that the magicians flew over, there was a man sitting down with computers surrounding him. It seemed like a strange place to set up to Natsu, but he ignored it and just kept looking around the giant base. "Is this, the city?"

"It's gotta be," Riku said, and from where he was standing he could not see the walls all the way across the place. Even if I could see a wall, from above it stretched so far that I would know there was even more behind it. "This is probably where people can evacuate to." The others looked in at him, and Riku continued his observation, "Maybe if towns and cities are destroyed, Resistance HQ can take them all in. Tens of thousands of people could be situated here for a while, maybe even a lot more than that. The base makes its own food too, and… wow," Riku shook his head and just stared around the huge Headquarters ahead of them. "This is, on a place like Aebrith, this is just-"

"Wow," Rin said in surprise at the silver-haired man next to him. "Don't think I've ever seen you stumble over your words like this. I think this place, is pretty amazing too though," Rin said, looking back and over everything with a huge smile on his face. After everything Gray said about how much Aebrith sucked, I was prepared for it when we got here. Dressrosa was terrible, the uninhabited expanses of the continent were pretty rough too, and the cities to the north were the worst of all. Then Zeref's minions, and the Southern Wastes, the Wizard King… everything here was so bad, that I didn't think places like this could exist on Aebrith. Rin smiled even more as he remembered how they said this Headquarters had never been breached by their enemies. It was the first time, in a long time, that he imagined they were in an actual safe place.

His smile dipped down after a few seconds but he still looked satisfied as his gaze shifted back to his friends around him. I don't feel guilty, leaving you in a place like this.

"What do we do now?" Natsu asked, getting bored quickest of everyone staring out over the huge Resistance base/city.

Riku hummed and then said, "Well, we should go check out the training facilities. See what's in store for us."

"Follow me," Gray said, and the group turned to the ice mage who was smiling wider than the rest of them. "This place, is pretty much home," he added, a nostalgic look on his face. He had been watching their expressions and chuckled recalling the first time he saw this place when it was fully completed. After all that hard work building it, this place really is awesome. He turned right and started for the stairs down, and he opened his mouth to say something about what the place looked like back when it was first built. He subconsciously reached for the railing on his left as he started down the stairs, but his hand never touched the railing and he glanced at his side.

The ice mage froze as he remembered he no longer had a left arm to grab the railing with. The phantom feeling he felt while lifting it disappeared, and Gray lost his bright smile as he watched Ra's al Ghul slicing through his shoulder and lopping his entire arm off. He kept walking while turning his head back forwards, and then his expression darkened more, If I had to guess, Kirito's going to be at the training facilities. That's where he and Goku flew off to in such a hurry. Damn it, Kirito, I'm sorry.

---

"Hey Kirito, where are you going?" Sora asked, stopping at the entrance to a huge training facility as his dark-haired friend just reached it heading the other way.

"On a walk," Kirito said.

Sora could tell his friend was thinking something dark by the look in his eyes, but Kirito marched straight past without giving him a chance to ask what it was about. Sora turned after him and called out before he could get too far, "Meet up at five in the cafeteria okay?"

Kirito stopped and looked back. "Cafeteria?" He questioned.

Sora chuckled at the confused look and replied, "Yeah, seems strange for a place this big, but the cafeteria's huge as well."

Kirito nodded and then turned around again. "See you there," he said as he could tell Sora was still watching his back.

The spiky-brown-haired teen frowned after the swordsman, then he sighed and turned to head into the training building. It was the most high-tech, biggest one in the Resistance HQ, and Sora knew his friends would be inside it somewhere. With Kirito looking like that, I bet Gray's here with some others. Wonder why Kirito wouldn't tell me about it when I asked on the way back north from Cartman's castle? Sora shook his head and then walked down a corridor to his right. He walked towards a tv screen outside of the door on the wall and tapped a button beneath it, giving him a view inside the room. He saw a lot of smoke and explosions coming from the other side, and when he turned on the screen sound started coming from it too, showing the people on the other side screaming at each other as they sparred. "Whoa," he said, surprised at how loud the blasts and shouts were when he could not hear a thing from just on the other side of the wall.

He did not recognize the people in there though, so he just kept walking down the hall and tapped on a screen across from the other room. The training rooms were huge, and they all seemed full considering the doors were closed with red markings above them matching the room he had just checked on. Sora walked down a hallway in the training building and wondered how many other types of rooms there were other than the kind he was seeing. They look like they can handle a lot, but is that all? Are there rooms where you won't get damaged or killed? How about rooms with magic replenishing? I should check this place out… a little… Sora shook his head with a more serious look on his face while checking the next room. Nice, he thought.

Sora opened up the door and headed inside, to see a half dozen of his friends cheering and laughing, while Goku helped Natsu back on his feet. Natsu groaned while Klaus V Reinherz staggered up behind him. Even with two of us, Goku didn't have to try at all it seems like. Natsu wanted to complain that he never got into his strongest modes, but even spending a few seconds trying to get into Arcosian Fire Dragon Slayer Mode was too long for Goku to wait, nailing him with a knee in the chest while lecturing him about how some fighters won't let him power up in fights. Natsu did not get it while Goku told him, since he always thought Goku liked fighting people at their strongests.

When Goku had seen Natsu start yelling to power up, he had imagined the moment his father threw the artificial moon into the sky while facing Meruem. Just as his transformation started, Meruem attacked, and then it was the same for all the other Oozarus and Oozaru Gods. They were attacked while transforming, and the idea that Natsu would just start slowly transforming in the middle of a fight without worrying about being attacked, it made Goku want to warn him. Especially since, he could see Natsu going after Meruem one day, even if he told the Dragon Slayer not to.

"Hey Sora, done already?" Riku asked, looking over at his friend who walked in when he was about to go challenge Goku next.

Klaus looked exhausted, but he looked over towards Sora in some surprise to see the teen standing there. "That was fast," Klaus said.

"I think they wanted to talk to Goku more than me," Sora admitted with a shrug of his shoulders.

Gray was walking towards Natsu who had his hands on his knees and bruises all over his body, but he glanced over his shoulder at Sora who looked his way and frowned for a second. Sora must have saw Kirito. Did he- no, Kirito's not the kind of guy who would go around telling everyone what I did, but he can see something's up. Gray sighed then turned to Natsu, only to be surprised as green light surrounded his friend and Natsu's wounds disappeared.

Klaus spun to Natsu in surprise, then he looked down at his own cuts and bruises that Goku had inflicted on him through their training sessions. He even felt some of his fatigue go away, and he looked back towards Sora who had pulled out his Keyblade and healed them. Riku did not want to patronize the losing fighters by healing them right after their loss, but he just turned away after watching them heal to look back at his best friend since he was a kid. "You meet the top Resistance people?"

Sora nodded his head, then looked back towards Klaus, "I was surprised, Commander is the top rank in the Resistance."

The others, besides Gray, spun back to Klaus just as shocked. Even though they had seen some of his strength, they were surprised to hear that he was among the highest ranking officers in the Resistance. Natsu looked doubly surprised, thinking, Does that mean Jura, and Sasuke, are also… If they're the top in the Resistance, Natsu frowned and looked towards Goku again. I forgot about it, because he told us how he lost to Meruem, and Sora said how much stronger Goku's dad was than him, but… Goku's strong. I thought Aebrith might have been a different league, but the Resistance might not have anyone on his level. No, there must be someone, or else wouldn't the King destroy this place?

Dash was thinking something similar, and he asked Sora, "Is there anyone stronger than the King with them?"

Sora scratched the back of his head and said, "I asked the same thing, but the Commanders I met with all said they weren't. I only met half of the thirteen of them though, seven in all including Klaus," he added while looking back to the red-haired man who had huge arm muscles that were showing now since his shirt's sleeves had been ripped off during the sparring.

"So many are missing," Gray said in surprise. His friends looked his way wondering why he would be surprised about that, and he continued, "I just thought with the return of Son Goku, more of them would have shown up," he explained.

"Well, they didn't seem very confident that Goku was going to stay," Sora began hesitantly, looking back towards Goku who stared at him in confusion. "I tried telling them he would this time, but…"

"We thought he would stay before," Klaus said. Everyone spun to him, and Goku looked in the man's eyes to see them harder than they were before. "And it has been a long time since his last visit." Goku started opening his mouth, but Klaus continued quickly, "Yet, not one person in the Resistance would ever speak ill of you, Son Goku. We do not know why you left, but we are just happy you have returned."

Dash spun back to Goku with wide eyes. No one's mad at him? Just what did Goku do that everyone here thinks he's this awesome hero? And if he was such a hero, then why didn't he- Goku looked towards Dash and his face softened and got a sad look to it at the hurt and angry look on the child's face.

If the Dragon Balls do exist here, what if I can only bring one person back at a time? Goku thought while staring at the boy. Dad, ChiChi… no, Piccolo says she's in Heaven, even with our child. I don't know how it works, I don't know… but, if the Dragon Balls exist, I'll bring back your brother, Dash.

"Alright so guys," Sora began again, just as people were starting to notice where Goku was staring. He tried taking everyone's minds off that stare quickly, and he continued, "I think I may have told everyone to run off a little too quick earlier. So at five o'clock, let's all meet up at the cafeteria. I heard some things from the Commanders, and I want to tell everyone before you get too settled in here."

"Going to be difficult to tell everyone by five," Riku said. "This place is huge."

"I think if we find Timmy, he should be able to use telepathy to reach us all, maybe," Sora said.

"Where's the cafeteria?" Natsu wondered. "And is there just-"

"This is a Resistance base Natsu," Gray began, and Natsu turned to his friend who continued, "It's not like there are restaurants and grocery stores here. It's a training base, a military base, and a rendezvous point for evacuations before relocations can take place. No unnecessary buildings, no space taken up needlessly."

"Anyway," Sora called out. "If you guys could split up and help me tell everyone, it'd really be a big help. Riku's right, this place is huge. And I really want to tell everyone what I can, while I still can." A few of them looked at Sora oddly, and he continued, "Since this place is so big, it'd be strange if we all wound up eating at the same times, sleeping in rooms close to each other's, we may not see as much of each other for a while now."

His explanation got nods out of some of his comrades, though Stan stared closely at Sora's back and thought, He's right. Not for those reasons though. If this is what I have to look forward to for a month, just training the skills I already have, then I'll never be able to surpass Ichimaru Gin. I needed to come here, to get a look at least, the boy leaning back against the white wall near the door leaned off it, and thought, but this type of training isn't what I need. I need something more. Something, the Resistance will not be able to give me.

"I'm going to keep training here," Goku said, and Sora looked over to the Saiyan whose hair shot up golden in an instant. "I need to get some high level training in now." He turned to Klaus who nodded at him again, as he had already answered Goku's question earlier and told him that no matter how high Goku brought his energy, the training room would be able to handle it.

Natsu grunted in annoyance. Because I'm so low level, he thought. He started for the door, and said "I'll help you out, boss." It sounded sarcastic, but Sora nodded thankfully at him.

"Me too," Riku agreed. He opened a black portal in front of him and stepped into it.

Dash called out he would go as well and ran into Riku's portal, going to break off from wherever Riku brought them first. Riku and Dash reappeared back on the main floor for Resistance giants at the top of the basement hole, and then Dash waved Riku off and sped away to go try and find some of the others. As soon as he was out of Riku's sight, his face dipped down into anger again after he had tried masking it from Goku and Sora when Goku had looked at him so apologetically. It's not their faults, Dash thought, getting sadder instead of angrier. They weren't there, they showed up after it had happened, but I… I was right next to him! Tears spilled out of Dash's eyes, so he kept running too fast for anyone to be able to see his face.

---

"Oh, excuse me," an old man rolling down the hall in a wheelchair said to the group who had moved to the side for him. He was bald and smiled at the ladies and small boy in a pink hat as he was rolling past, but he stopped for a moment and turned to them on his right side. "You have just arrived with Son Goku. It is a pleasure to meet you," he said.

"Um, yeah you too," Nami said to the old man. Someone had been walking behind him who Nami and Robin recognized, and they glanced up at the scruffy man with a stubble beard and spikes in his hair going up to either side. Like Mandy, Robin thought, cracking a smile at the resemblance.

"Hello Logan-san," Robin greeted the man they had met back at the Zulu base in Sector 345. I wonder how he got here? He must have left before us, as I did not see him on the shuttles. Strange he would leave a Sector so close to the borders to come here when he seems to be very strong. I wonder what Sector we're in right-

"We are in Sector 501," the man in the wheelchair said to Robin whose eyes widened at the man.

"You can read minds?" Robin said, less of a question and more an observation.

"Yes, just like young Mr. Turner," he said, turning to the child who frowned at him for reading Robin's mind. "There is no need to be alarmed. I am a friend," Charles Xavier told the child in their heads.

"Who are you?" Timmy asked, saying it out loud unlike the man who spoke to him telepathically.

Wolverine narrowed his eyes at the kid's tone, while at the same time thinking about how the Professor had called him 'Turner.' This is the same guy that was threatening to blow up the outpost? Doesn't look like him.

"My name is Charles Xavier," the man in the wheelchair said. Charles looked around at the four and said, "I am a Professor at a school for gifted children here. It is nice to make your acquaintances, and I thank you for your recent assistance to the Resistance up north."

"Oh, well, you're welcome," Nami said.

"If I did not have a class to teach in ten minutes, I would have liked to speak with you some more. Perhaps while you are here… or maybe some other time," the Professor told them, chuckling to himself and then starting to roll off.

The girls and Timmy all turned to watch him, then Wolverine following after stopped next to them. "The Professor's a great…"

"Sectors in the Resistance are based on geographic location," Xavier spoke to Robin right as Wolverine started speaking to the group aloud. She had asked him a question about it with her thoughts, and Charles smiled as he rolled away and explained it to her. "They are not solely in Resistance territory however. All of Aebrith is separated into Sectors. However, Sector 345 where you were earlier is the third lowest number of a Resistance-controlled Sector. All numbers lower than that have designations farther in the west and south." Robin swore she heard a sigh in her head just as Logan continued following the Professor, though the sigh was not because of the defensive way in which the other mutant backed him up to the kid who had used a disrespectful tone towards him. Instead, the sigh was because of what he continued telling Robin, "The Resistance used to control Sectors from 1 to much higher than 1000."

If 345 is the third lowest, then the Resistance has from 343, to what number now? Robin wondered. How high does it go? She did not hear a response in her head for a few seconds and wondered if she had left the telepath's range, but he finished in a soft tone back into her mind, "Not 1000." It was not a clear answer, but Robin could hear the tone of it and felt that despite his answer, the true highest Sector was far, far below 1000.

"Hey guys," the group of four spun from the mutants heading the other way, towards a silver-haired teen behind them. Riku looked past towards Wolverine's back that he recognized, then refaced the girls and Timmy. "We're meeting up at…"

---

"Where did the ladies go?" Sanji mumbled, a dark aura of sadness around him as he moped his way down some hallways in the surface base. He was on the half not built with giants in mind, walking down hallway after hallway before heading up a floor at a time to check the next ones. There was so much base for him to check out, but when he finally reached the level that lined up with the second floor on the other half of the building, he decided to go have a look.

Sanji walked around the building thinking about how from outside he was able to see a huge extension between the front wall of the Resistance HQ and the wall behind it that stretched higher up in the sky almost as tall. In that half of the building, are even the upper floors meant for giants too? Sanji got his answer as he headed into a floor almost as tall as the room they first entered, only the entire northern wall was pretty much made of glass. He could see through it from the other side of the room where he entered from, and outside he could see swimming pools, sports fields, some rock-climbing walls, as well as huge turrets lining the wall on the edge of the second floor's outer extension. His eyes barely focused on any of that though, as his jaw dropped and his hearts popped out as hearts at the sight of five female giants walking away from him. Their hips swayed to the sides, their legs were long and barely covered up, as were their midriffs and arms.

Blood poured out of Sanji's nose and his head got knocked back by the force of it. He was about to start running forward, when he spotted someone to his left and looked over with sweat forming on his face. Not far from him stood a figure wearing a black cloak that covered his entire body. He was mumbling something under his breath while the dark wisps of his cloak swung around behind his back. His dark cloak was not even the spookiest thing about him though, as he seemed to be wearing a skull mask over his face. What kind of skull is that though? Sanji thought with a sweatdrop, upon closer inspection of the cartoonish skull that did not seem all that threatening.

"…uncentered. Why aren't they walking down the middle? This is ridiculous. The doors are in the middle of the room anyway, they're just making more work for themselves by not doing it. And what's with that weapons' shop across from the training armory? The weapons to buy and rent should match outside of each building, and the signs, one of them it higher up than the other." The man in a black cloak pulled out a pistol and pointed it straight down the huge room. His gun shook while Sanji dropped his jaw at the Grim Reaper-looking person.

Grim's not this creepy though, Sanji thought, before holding up a hand and starting, "Oi, what are-"

The gun the masked figure was holding lit up with white light, then Sanji's jaw dropped again and he had to throw a hand over his nose as a cute girl appeared in front of the cloaked man. The girl had a bob of blond hair and wore a very small red top that her big breasts pushed out against, bouncing as she fully appeared and making blood spill between Sanji's fingers. Patty Thompson put her fists down on her hips and leaned towards her Meister, giving him a pout while pushing out her cheeks that had red blushes on them and made Sanji start swooning at how cute she was. "Kid, we're gonna be late if you keep stopping every time we see-"

"OHHHH!" Sanji started spinning around on one leg over to the two who snapped their heads towards him. "Mademoiselle!" Sanji stopped and dropped to a knee next to the girl who cocked her head to the side and stared down at him confusedly. "Such beauty can only be described-"

"Sanji," Death the Kid said, stopping the man's rant right as it started. Sanji turned to the figure who reached up for his mask, making Sanji wonder if he had seen him before when the guy's mask was off. Kid pulled his mask up to the side though so he could stare down at Sanji, while the blond pirate stood up and gave the younger man a confused look. What's up with his hair? Sanji thought. He stared at the three white lines on his black hair but only around the left side of his head, which seemed extra strange to him considering what the guy had been muttering about symmetry a minute ago.

"We met?" Sanji asked, confused since he felt like he would remember meeting a guy who looked like this before.

"No," Death the Kid replied. "I know everyone in your 'group' though. You received rank orange by the Cooperative's standards. You are a pirate. And that flip of hair on your face is an eyesore. Change it."

"Kid!" Patty exclaimed, spinning back to the boy who frowned at her tone of voice then turned away from the man he was having trouble looking at for too long.

What a weirdo, Sanji thought. He spun to the girl, as he did not really care about this Kid person enough to keep thinking about him. "And what's your name, cutie?" She smiled at the question and Sanji gasped at how cute it was, almost knocking him back off his feet again.

"I'm Patty," she said. "Patty Thompson." She lifted a hand and made a gun with her fingers, then winked at Sanji and snapped her hand back while saying, "Bang!" Sanji felt like he got shot in the heart with love and he grabbed at his chest while staggering back, which made the girl laugh and only made Sanji freak out more.

"Commander Kid!" A voice shouted loudly, and Sanji turned his head to see a soldier jogging towards them. The man came to a stop when he was directly in front of Kid, and he looked nervous as he put his feet together and shifted them so he was perfectly centered with the Commander. "The battlements are ready for your inspection. Everything is exactly as it should be."

Death the Kid nodded and started walking forward. "Let's go Patty," he said. The guard spun around while still straight in front of Kid, and he started walking back across the huge room straight down a black line that Sanji noticed someone had taped to the floor. The pirate chef sweatdropped as the guard marched down that line with a bead of sweat on his face, Kid following behind right on top of it. Patty just smiled at him and gave him a wave before skipping back after Kid, not at all caring that she was off the line several feet to the right of it.

"Ahhh," Sanji let out a long breath of joy. "I could get used to this place," he said with a big smile on his face.

As Kid walked away, he turned his head a bit and glanced towards the blond man out the corner of his eyes. Sanji. He is related to the Germa. Seeing him just now though, he has a different feel to him. Figuring out the relation between them is a task for later however, and it may not be necessary… Kid's eyes narrowed while staring out through the north wall's glass that were all darkly tinted on the outside so no one could see in. In a dark tone he asked, "What is that guard doing?"

The man in front of him opened his eyes wide and scanned the walls between the turrets, trying to find who was out of position when they knew that Kid was coming by for an inspection. You fool!

Sanji was about to turn and go see what other beautiful women he could find through the base, or if he could find Nami, Robin, and Juvia, when a blur flew by in front of him. The blur shot past and down a different hallway, then it came flying back and reached him before doing spins around him so fast that he was getting caught in a wind funnel. "Dash?" Sanji asked, lifting a hand to his face to push his blowing hair out of his left eye.

"We're meeting up at five o'clock in the cafeteria," Dash said before speeding off again.

"Huh? Wait! What cafeteria?" He shouted, and a second later a blur shot by him again. A piece of paper flew up in the air and Sanji grabbed it as it started to fall after the blur had vanished. He looked at the slip of paper and read aloud, "It's in the basement. Not hard to find." He lowered his hand and the paper and looked in the direction he was pretty sure the boy ran off to, "Could have just said that," he muttered.

Dash rubbed his eyes as he ran off, but he knew they were still red. Geez, get a grip already. What if someone sees you? Things are going to work out. They did for Juvia, and Killua, and they'll work out for me too. For JackJack. So just, stop crying about it already! Dash rubbed his eyes again and stopped himself in a secluded area. If anyone saw this, they'd start treating you like a kid again. So buck up! And just deal with it already!

---

"Kakashi," Sasuke said, and the white haired ninja in front of him spun around to see his old student standing right behind him.

"Sasuke, you're back?" Kakashi wondered. He turned and looked over his shoulder, nodding at some of the aides who were in front of him. They started shouting at the soldiers and trainees around the black floor of the HQ's basement, above the main base, and all those soldiers rushed off onto the mock battlefield where they had already been split up into teams. "Are you here to observe the mock battle?"

Sasuke shook his head, then Kakashi asked, "What about the western front?" The older ninja wore a mask covering most of his face from his nose down as well as his left eye, and he wore the same headband that Sasuke had on. While Sasuke's headband over his forehead was hidden mostly under his dark hair, Kakashi's went diagonally over the top left side of his face and crossed over his face-mask, while also going over his hair. Kakashi Hatake also wore a green jacket over his black uniform, and he had a hat on his head with stars above the rim.

"There's been a new development concerning the Emperor," Sasuke began. "You have time to talk?"

"General, everyone's set," one of Kakashi's aides who ran back towards them said. The guy looked to Sasuke when Sasuke turned his way, and the lower officer saluted and said, "Commander."

Sasuke just nodded at the guy who lowered his salute and spun back to Kakashi. "Take command of the exercise," Kakashi said while scratching the back of his head, wondering if this was alright. Then again, his former student was a higher rank than him here, so he figured it was probably fine.

"Yes sir," the Captain called out, then he turned and ran back to get the training underway.

Not far from the ninja who started walking away from the training grounds together, Ben was floating a few dozen feet off the ground and looking at the battlefield that closely resembled one he had fought on before. He was not there to hear the conversation Dash and Natsu had, so he thought about flying off to tell them about this place. He had already checked out the agricultural dome and learned a bit about the food situation in the Headquarters, and he had ran into Franky not long ago inside a hole in the wall where a bunch of inventors and scientists were working with Artificial Intelligence, robots, and some awesome alien species of robots Ben heard were called Autobots.

While Ben was floating there, watching as the two sides wearing protective armor and loading up on non-lethal rounds prepared for mock battle, two figures were flying above him and he shifted his gaze up. At the sight of their kimonos, their black hakamas and the swords they had on them, Ben recognized what they were. Just like Zoro, and, and I saw one before too. Ben tried thinking back on it, but he was having trouble recalling it. He remembered seeing Zoro back when the Espada attacked them in the Fire Lord's palace, but he could not remember where he had seen one before, even though the outfit Zoro had been wearing seemed so familiar to him.

Ben flew up towards the men who were about to pass him by. They looked down at the kid, and one of the two, a bald guy whose hakama's sleeves were ripped off and who had red markings on the outsides of his eyes, said, "What do you want kid?" His voice was brunt and he looked down his nose while narrowing his gaze at the boy who stopped flying at them.

Oh crap, what do I want? Ben hesitated, then he just said, "I'm Ben Tennyson. I just got here."

The other of the two shinigamis looked Ben up and down. He had long black hair that fell straight around his head to his shoulders, except for a single braid dropping over the right side of his face. He also had two green feathers sticking out the sides of his hair, and he wore an orange turtleneck under his hakama with a collar that completely covered his neck. He lifted his eyebrows at the boy's boldness, then greeted in polite response, "I am Yumichika Ayasegawa, the 3rd seat of the Gotei 13's 11th Division."

Ikkaku Madarame glanced at the man next to him in annoyance, which only made Yumichika grin more as he mentioned his squad and seat intentionally to annoy his friend. "And this is Ikkaku," Yumichika continued, "the 3rd Division Captain."

Gotei 13? Captains and seat numbers? "I didn't know shinigamis, were so organized," Ben said.

"What do you want kid?" Ikkaku snapped. "I'm a busy guy, got things to do."

"Are there a lot of shinigamis in the Resistance?" Ben asked, wondering if this question was the reason he flew up to them in the first place. It's a good one, he thought, at least, he added to himself with a sweatdrop as he really did not know what he was doing here.

"There are a few," Yumichika replied. "But as it seems that you do not know, the shinigami squads exist in all parts of the world. We do not take part in the world's wars though."

"You just able to see shinigamis now?" Ikkaku wondered, confused at why everything they were saying was making this kid look so surprised. "Even if that were it, you should have known this stuff. You been living under a rock?"

"No!" Ben said defensively. "I just, I came here from across the world. Over on Awul."

"Ohh?" Yumichika said, then he chuckled and continued, "But the Gotei 13 exist there as well. Captain Hitsugaya is stationed in Rhodar, is he not?" He turned to Ikkaku and asked, and the bald man just rolled his eyes as Yumichika knew the answer and was just messing with the kid at this point.

"Yeah, whatever, let's go," Ikkaku said, turning and floating up again. Ben opened his mouth, but he could not come up with a reason for the shinigami to talk to him for any longer.

The man with long black hair chuckled while facing Ben again. He has an interesting aura, Yumichika thought. "Goodbye, Ben Tennyson," he said, then turned and flew up after Ikkaku. A beautiful aura indeed. Though his outer appearance could use some work. He got to his friend's side and continued the conversation they were having before that kid interrupted them, "Ikkaku, if he really did come here, don't you think he would have come to the tower?"

"Maybe he doesn't know," Ikkaku replied. He grinned and continued, "But I heard Byakuya saw him in Leam. He popped up to help out after the continent shifted around."

"What a strange time to make an appearance," Yumichika said, scratching his chin as he thought about it. "Well, as much as I would like to go look for Ichigo, the Hollow outbreak to the west requires our attention."

"Yeah yeah," Ikkaku muttered, an annoyed look on his face. He frowned even more thinking about that conversation they just had, Just had to bring up that you're the 3rd seat now. Stupid Captain-Commander, all I want is to fight with Captain Kenpachi!

---

I know them, Kirito thought, staring down a wide street cutting between all the Resistance barracks, armories, training rooms, and maintenance shops off the main path of the Headquarters. There was a black roof on the ceiling brightly lit so it felt like it was daytime in the base, and it felt even more like they were outside because of a flock of Pokemon birds that just flew over Kirito's head as he noticed a couple people walking towards him on the street. He stopped walking and watched them, and one of the three he looked towards was already facing him. Kirito was not looking back at him though, but at the strangest of the three who finally looked towards him when she noticed where one of her friends was looking.

In the middle of the three, was not a person but a floating computer cube with a screen on it. Its screen showed a girl on it who had long lilac hair and light blue eyes, and she wore a tight black Resistance uniform pressing to her teenage body. The two boys at her sides were wearing more casual clothes, though with their black armor underneath from what Kirito could see sticking out of their sleeves and out their collars. The one on the left of the group and largest one there, a muscular boy with dyed-blond hair only on the sides of his head and brown in the middle, turned towards Kirito and his eyes opened wide at the sight of the older teen. "That Kirito?" Terasaka said. Ryouma Terasaka ran over to the black haired teen who did not look as surprised to see him, though mainly just because he had seen them first.

"Hey-" Kirito began.

"Where's Nagisa?" Terasaka asked in a harsh, threatening voice as he reached in front of the teen. He was younger than Kirito, but he was the tallest out of his comrades, most muscular too. He was a few inches taller than Kirito and bulkier than him too. He glared down into the teen's eyes as Kirito did not respond, and he snapped, "What? Where is he?"

"Terasaka," a girl's voice started softly behind him in a calming tone.

Kirito looked behind the bulky boy at the computer screen. This is weird, he thought as he stared at the girl on the screen who looked right back into his eyes. She's probably just calling from somewhere else. Kirito turned more to his right where a red-haired teen was standing and looking at him with a flat lip.

Akabane Karma narrowed his eyes at Kirito, then said, "Could you answer his question? We would all like to know."

"So would I," Kirito replied, a slight apologetic tone in his voice. "But we separated soon after our mission started. I have no idea where he is."

Karma sighed while the other two frowned, Terasaka more angrily and the girl on the screen in a sadder way. Karma smiled after letting out his sigh though, and he said to the older teen who was looking at the hovering computer near his head in confusion, "This is Ritsu." The sad girl lifted her gaze back to Kirito and shook her head around before smiling at him and waving a hand next to her face that was the only thing showing on the monitor. "She's also a member of Class 3-E," Karma said.

"Is she, are you guys in a call?" Kirito wondered.

Ritsu giggled on the screen and Kirito felt a bead of sweat roll down his face. Terasaka put a hand on top of the computer floating at his shoulder level and the girl on the screen lowered her head down like his hand had just pushed on top of her hair. "Nah, Ritsu here's a super smart AI."

"Thanks Ryouma," Ritsu said, lifting her gaze to the right side of her screen where the larger boy was laughing at Kirito's shocked reaction.

AI? It exists here? "Did she come from your world?" Kirito asked in a frantic voice. The others all looked at him confusedly. "Can AI travel between worlds?" He asked again, his eyes still huge as he stared straight at Ritsu.

Ritsu stared back into Kirito's eyes and a flash of sadness came across her face. "Yes," she replied. She lifted her head fast and frowned towards Karma, turning her floating computer to him as she did. "And I keep telling you, I'm not in Class 3-E anymore. Stop introducing me like that. He probably thinks I'm a robot assassin now."

"You could be," Karma suggested with a grin. "You'd be the best robot assassin out there."

Kirito watched nervously as an interested look came across the AI girl's face, then she shook her head and spun back to him with a more serious but still friendly look. "I'm not doing that. Not anymore."

Terasaka continued to Kirito after seeing the girl's indignant look, "Ritsu got assigned a different job after an upgrade to her AI system helped her fight off the Terminus invasion."

"Terminus invasion?" What's that? "What job?" Kirito asked the girl who smiled brightly again at his interest.

The screen on the computer zoomed out a little to show the girl in her black uniform posing with both arms over her head. A bunch of fireworks went off in the white void she was standing in, and the girl introduced herself while bright lights exploded above her, "I am the Resistance central computer! Running Resistance systems all over the alliance, I am an integral part of supporting the Resistance's cause!" The screen zoomed back in on the girl's face who looked excited at the expression of surprise on Kirito's face.

"What kind of things does she-" he paused as he had turned to Karma, then he spun back to the girl and said, "What kind of things do you do for the Resistance?"

Terasaka humphed and crossed his arms, though he thought in a satisfied way, Most people aren't as quick to treat her like a normal person. Knowing she's a computer, a lot of people here got hard feelings.

"Hmmm, I don't know if I should tell you," Ritsu said. Kirito leaned back in some surprise, then a picture of Kirito's face appeared next to hers. There was not a lot of space on the box computer's screen, but as Kirito noticed how they barely both fit inside, three other cubes flew in from out of nowhere and attached to the top and left sides, and the top left corner of Ritsu's computer cube. As soon as all the computers had connected, all the screens connected too and Ritsu's head became much bigger, but not four times larger. Instead the connected image of all the screens that barely had lines separating each box showed Ritsu there with Kirito's picture at her side. "You've been designated as non-Resistance personnel. Although I am supposed to give you access-"

"Could you switch me to Resistance personnel?" Kirito wondered. The others looked at him in semi-surprise, and Kirito said, "Or change my status?"

"You're joining the Resistance?" Karma questioned. Kirito looked to him wondering why that was such an odd thing to do, and Karma looked him up and down to see if Kirito was serious. He smiled at the older teen after a few seconds and began, "Actually, I just came down here to give an in-person report, but we need to return to our current mission in a bit. While I was just giving my report on our mission's status though, I asked about your group and heard that you weren't joining the Resistance."

"Not all of us," Kirito said. "Just me. It's what I came here to do."

Ritsu smiled at the boy in front of her, "In that case, I'll put in a request to have your current status changed. Anyway," she continued, rushing past that last part and sounding excited as she went on, "I am connected to all the Resistance's servers. I can locate hacks at any time, like when I told Commander Sasuke that your friend Killua was hacking into computers at Z-345…" she trailed off after saying it, then she continued in a more carefree tone as she had lost it for a second there. "If any Commander needs to speak to the others, I can report to everyone at the same time. Send messages. And I create the codes for bases to signal each other…"

Kirito thought back to when they were approaching Pon-Gatso, and he remembered the Scarab Tank using a special code so that it was able to approach without being shot at. As he thought about that and Ritsu was continuing on, Karma interrupted with a loud, "Well! We really do need to be going." The others looked in at him, and Ritsu nodded after frowning his way in a worried way. "We'll be back," he said, lifting a hand and waving it while he continued on past Kirito, Terasaka walking on the older teen's other side.

Ritsu looked like she wanted to keep floating after them, but then she just called out, "Come back soon."

Kirito watched the two of them leave for a few seconds, then he turned back to the girl next to him and said, "Were you allowed to tell me all that, if I haven't been confirmed as a Resistance member yet?"

"I heard what you did for my friends," she said, the four computer screens turning as one towards him. The girl whose showing-top half looked more the size of a normal person now as she floated in front of Kirito gave him a bright smile, and then she bowed her head which made Kirito lean back feeling strange at the gesture, especially since even the computer boxes did a bow towards him.

"I didn't, really do much," Kirito began.

"No, you did," she said, standing back up straight and giving him such a grateful expression. "That mission, the best outcomes I had come up with, using all the algorithms and ideas I could process, still resulted in the deaths of several of my friends. I was so scared, but they would not back down after Pon-Gatso's council was killed. Nagisa said that they would have to accept casualties, but then, then you killed Ra's al Ghul before they could go through with their plan. I knew sending stronger fighters would result in the League's spy network reporting and giving Ra's the time to flee or bring in other strong allies, but he either did not know you were coming, or thought he could kill you on his own."

Kirito stared silently at this girl, thinking about that long, long night. His head bowed after a few seconds, and he said in a low voice, "But, still-" he hesitated. Kirito frowned while staring at the floor, and when he lifted his gaze he could see the girl looking sadly back at him. "I'm sorry," he said.

"Okajima was a friend," Ritsu said softly. "He didn't deserve that. My friends told me it was quick, but I couldn't help myself and opened the official mission report in the database. But!" She exclaimed, smiling at Kirito again even as he saw water in the AI's eyes. She's so real, just like- "You saved all the others! Not just from Ra's, but they reported that you pushed back the Diclonius to give them all the time to escape. Even Maehara," Kirito's eyes widened and he leaned forward, and Ritsu continued, "He's doing fine. His surgeries went great, and Winry Rockbell, a girl I'm pretty sure you know, fitted him with brand new automail arms."

Winry? Oh, that was the blonde girl who… who Kairi made friends with. Kirito's expression darkened, but he could see the computer girl in front of him looking confused so he shook his head around and gave her a half-smile. "That's great. I'm glad." He glanced behind him again but could no longer see Karma or Terasaka. "Say, what is their mission?" Kirito asked. He turned back to Ritsu and added, "If you can tell me?"

Ritsu hummed like she was mulling it over, then she smiled and put a hand up to her mouth while a quieter voice came out of the computer screens. "I'm not supposed to tell anyone- so keep it a secret okay?" She grinned, and Kirito chuckled to himself. No way of proving AI exists my ass. Computers couldn't just go against stuff like this. Though, she should really be more careful.

"I promise," Kirito assured her.

The computer box turned to the left, then right, checking if there were other people watching. At first Kirito thought she only wanted to tell him, but the look on her face made him wonder if she thought her superiors might see her doing this and she was acting like a kid trying not to get caught. The bubbly girl with lilac hair then pulled closer to Kirito who did not back off from the computers despite how close the face on them was to his own. "My old class is focusing on keeping the old Fire Nation lands in a state of as much chaos as possible," Ritsu said, and Kirito lifted his eyebrows up in surprise at the sound of that. "I shouldn't tell you any specifics, but Komei and Azula are on bad terms, and so are Kong and Judge." She grinned more and finished, "So it's looking good."

Should figure out who all these players are. I know about many of the High Lords, but I didn't understand half of that. Kirito started frowning even more, Is this really a good thing? In his head he saw him and his friends sitting down at a table on their way north from the Wizard King's castle. Sora, was probably right. It sounds chaotic enough up there because of what we did in Pyraxas, without the Resistance helping keep it unstable. I know Gray said that from the Resistance's viewpoint, they can now focus on their flanks without worrying as much about the north… but I don't know. Sora said, we needed to be better. And I think, I agree with him. I have so much I regret during my time here on Nexus. Sometimes I thought I was doing the good thing, and it wound up being terrible. So I can't just join up with some assassins thinking that my judgement has changed and I'm really making the right choice this time. If I do something, it has to be for the right reasons, and has to be the right methods too. I can't keep, accepting that I'm the darkness. If I ever want to make a change, I need to be a part of the Resistance that isn't hidden in the shadows like Class 3-E. They might be a necessary evil in the long run, but not everyone can be a part of that. Not when…

"Um, excuse me?" Ritsu asked. Kirito's eyes snapped open wide as he realized he was staring straight at Ritsu, while his mind had wandered far, far off.

"Sorry," Kirito muttered, while thinking about how he shouldn't be having philosophical debates with himself in the middle of conversations. "So you guys haven't heard anything about Nagisa since he left with us?" Kirito asked, changing the subject from the one he was hesitant about speaking on when he did not know his own feelings on the matter. This new train of conversation may have just been more awkward though, and Kirito sweatdropped at the sad look he made appear on the AI's face.

The left two screens on Ritsu broke off and then separated from each other. Kirito saw her face appear smaller on each one, while numbers appeared next to her head on one and the other flashed red for some reason. Those two computers flew off, while the girl who appeared as a thinner version of herself on the two screens still in front of him began, "No. We haven't heard from him. I was hoping you would have known something," she faded off, then she continued with a more optimistic look on her face, "He said he was going all the way to the Capital. Nagisa doesn't say stuff like that unless he means it, so he probably went all the way there and can't risk reporting back and having his communications' intercepted while deep in enemy territory."

Kirito opened his mouth to mention how Nagisa got separated from them farther south that their group made it, but he decided against it with the optimistic look he saw on her face. And she knows him better anyway, who am I to say it's unlikely?

The bottom of the two computers suddenly broke off and cut Ritsu's body so only her face was showing again, and that computer flew off to go do something else while Ritsu's face appeared on it too. "You seem busy," Kirito said.

"Always," Ritsu replied with a sigh he could tell was only mock exhaustion. "But you're right, I've got some things I need to focus attention on right now. Anyway, it was nice meeting you Kirito… and it's almost five o'clock by the way." She winked at him while he opened his eyes at her wide in surprise, then the computer turned and flew off before he could ask how she knew.

She's in all the computers around here, maybe she saw it on a surveillance camera or something, Kirito reasoned while putting his hands down in his pockets. I forgot to thank her. Becoming a full member of the Resistance, after seeing just a small bit of what the rest of Aebrith looks like, I know this is the right move. I'll train, and I'll fight for them. To stop slavery. To stop the King. To change this world.

---

"Well, I'm surprised everyone's here," Sora said as he looked around the big square table his friends were all sitting at. "Thought at least someone might not have come," he glanced towards Goku, but the Saiyan was devouring his food too fast to notice. Goku stood up and walked off towards the counters at the walls that had buttons to press that would produce all kinds of different foods out of a panel in the wall below them. Goku grabbed a dozen trays and started walking back, but two of those trays full of food were empty by the time he sat down again. Though that's why I wanted to do this in the cafeteria near dinner time, Sora thought, feeling a bit of self-satisfaction that it worked out as he thought it would.

"So what's up?" Ben asked, looking to his right towards Sora's side of the table. There were a lot of other people in the cafeteria, a huge room larger than any mess hall Ben had ever seen before, but it was still pretty early in the day for dinner so they had managed to grab a table without a lot of prying eyes around them.

"That meeting I had with the Commanders, I heard something interesting that's gonna help us out," Sora replied. "I know I said, a month once we step inside, but that's kind of confusing me now that I think about it." Riku nodded his head, glad Sora picked up on it as he was annoyed about that all day. Sora continued while sitting back down, as he had stood up when he started talking like he was going to bring up the important stuff, because he did not want a big formal atmosphere around the table or anything. He just sat and continued talking casually, "I heard there was a summit over on Awul today with all the leaders of the different countries there at it."

"Really?" Nami asked in surprise. Didn't think the Rhodaris were chummy enough with the RNG for something like that. Guess they've gotta start sometime though.

"It actually wasn't the first one," Sora continued, surprising Nami and a few others even more. "But this time, one of the Resistance leaders, General Organa, apparently went with a representative of Leam to try and convince Awul's leaders to help them."

"That's-" Gray began, his face lighting up excitedly as he had not heard anything about this.

Sora continued before Gray could say something optimistic, "But, then some Cooperative representatives apparently showed up too, and it turned into a huge mess." Sora chuckled and leaned back in his chair while a few others sighed, groaned, or looked worried about that. Gray looked more worried than most, and Sora decided to keep going instead of leaving him to imagine all sorts of worst case scenarios. "Luckily the escalation only lasted for a bit before Mandy stopped it."

Luffy's cheeks puffed out as he was in the middle of chewing but tried to shout something, and he started pounding himself in the chest to try and speak. "Mandy did?" Franky asked with big eyes.

"Was it really her?" Nami wondered. She glanced next to her at Timmy and saw him smiling more than anyone else at the table was, though his smile looked strange to her.

Sora chuckled and nodded his head a few times, "It wasn't like they described who did it to me, they called her by name."

"Ehh?" Luffy finally managed to swallow and got out his amazed/shocked reaction.

"Resistance Commanders know who Mandy is?" Dash muttered quietly, some sweat forming on the sides of his face.

Not far from Dash, Timmy scratched the side of his head then wiped sweat off his face. I didn't actually think, you'd get close to world domination… She's actually starting to scare me a little. But, she'll do the right thing, I think. Timmy was not very sure about his thoughts at all, but at least what Sora said she did seemed to be in everyone's best interests. "So, how did it go?" Timmy asked, trying to get his mind off something he had created.

"Well, talks will continue, but they didn't seem very happy by the results of the summit," Sora said, looking disappointed himself as it came out. "But," he said, bringing his tone back up again and smiling around at the others. "They talked about more there than just what's going on over here on Aebrith. And one of the things they decided on, was a dating system."

"Dating?" Goku asked, looking to Sora in confusion.

Sora did not think he was going to have to explain it in that much detail, and he sweatdropped at the question Goku asked. "Like, the date? You know, like what year, month, and day it is?"

Goku hummed while still chewing, and he cocked his head to the side while everyone looked towards him, wondering if he truly was an idiot. "Anyway," Sora said as he could see a bunch of people gawking at Goku's unrecognizing look. "Leam and the Resistance accepted it apparently, probably trying to show the governments on Awul that they want to work closely with them or something," Sora trailed off at the end then shook his head and continued more on pace, "So today, is day 0!"

"Day zero?" Kirito asked confusedly.

"Yeah," Sora replied. "They couldn't decide on what day to start the new dating system on, whether to jump back to an old important event or a new one, but then someone said that the summit itself was important enough to make this day 0. Everything after it with be one, two, x days C.E., or Common Era." A few of the people at the table lifted their eyebrows or breathed in fast as they recognized that system. The ones who breathed in fast let it out just as fast, realizing it was less of a crazy coincidence and more likely that someone from their universe or a similar one had suggested the idea. Sora cracked a grin and said, "Someone suggested that the days, months, and years before 0, should be labeled as Before Summit." He kept grinning and said, "But that would have been abbreviated as B.S. so they thought better of it."

A bunch of the people at the table started laughing, and Sora grinned wide while thinking, Awesome joke Sora!

"What does B.S. mean?" Dash asked. Ben glanced at his younger friend and smirked that Dash did not know it, going to hold it over his head later.

Goku had his head tilted to the side again, Luffy had a puzzled look on his face, and Timmy also looked confused which Nami saw and started frowning at the boy who made the joke. Sora sweatdropped as he forgot how many of them would not have been able to catch on, and how old some of them were, but he was happy he made a few of them laugh, especially since he got Stan and Kirito to crack smiles too. "But they decided on B.C.E., so Before Common Era. Anyway, this makes when we have to be ready to leave again easier." His friends started nodding at him and getting serious expressions to their faces. "The same spot where I said we'd meet up, right inside those front doors, on Day 30. The night of Day 30, 5 o'clock, sound good to everyone?"

The pirates looked around at each other. Rin nodded towards Sora, and Kuro nodded its small head after seeing Rin give the nod. Kirito nodded when his closest friend looked his way. Gray looked at Natsu next to him who frowned but then nodded his head showing he was alright with a month break starting now. Gray looked the other way and saw Juvia looking towards the pirate girls, but she turned back and looked him in the eyes. He smiled at her and put his hand over hers on the table, and she smiled back though he could see hesitation in her eyes.

Stan stared over at Sora and bowed his head for a few seconds. What is my decision? Do I stay with them? Do I ever come back? That's, not a decision I need to make right now. His head nodded while he kept staring down at his hands, If I can't return, I can't return. But if I do need a place to come back to, then why not leave this option open? Better with them than staying with the Resistance. But a whole month of doing nothing, while Ichimaru Gin runs part of a country, while he traipses around as a Lord of this continent… I can't do that.

"Seems like it's decided," Riku said. He stared at Sora who stared back into his eyes with a guilty look. Riku sighed and then said in a low voice, "I know you're doing what you think is right, and I'll try to be patient." Sora just got an even more guilty look on his face, but he nodded at Riku in a thankful way for that.

"Hey, you know with them making a dating system and all," Nami began, interrupting the serious mood with her smirk and tone. "Hopefully we can predict next year's Day of Fire."

That thought did not cross most of their minds and they all started talking about it. A few of them mentioned how they could finally start marking down their birthdays, and then Rin complained since he said he was ready to celebrate his eighteenth soon, but if he goes back and checks using actual dates he was probably still not even seventeen and a half.

"Speaking of the Day of Fire," Natsu began. "You guys think Yugo ever made it here?" He smirked and clenched his fists tightly over the table, "I'm gonna get a rematch with him on land, and go all out this time."

"He'll still beat you," Sanji said while lifting some more food to his mouth. Natsu jumped out of his chair and yelled at Sanji to try something, and then Luffy's hand flew over the table and grabbed a chunk of meat off of Natsu's plate when he was distracted. Natsu in turn started breathing fire, and Nami started yelling which made Sanji just get more into it to try and back her up, though she just started yelling at him too for escalating it more.

Sora sighed happily as they started a meal more like their usual ones. Wonder how long, until something like this comes up again? How long, until I can eat a meal with all of them like this? Sora's smile lowered down into a flat lip as he watched them eating and yelling and laughing together. But we're not all together right now. I'll have to find Killua and let him know this plan, get him back here safely to be with all of us. And, I need you Kairi. Even if we had meals like this every night, it'd never feel right. Just like how the meals on the way north through the Southern Wastes, I couldn't get into the feasts, couldn't get into the usual attitude. It wasn't the same as the Thousand Sunny, or even that short time after Timmy and Goku had gone. Without you at my side, it doesn't feel like, home.

---

A/N Hope you enjoyed! Hey guys, so I know it took a while to get this one out, admittedly it was probably the toughest chapter to write ever, just some major writer's block when it came to how to introduce the Resistance. Anyway, chapter 15 ends with the beginning of a big month for the group. I'd like to see some predictions for the upcoming chapters. Also hit me with any questions about the recent developments or comments you have about Nexus leading up to now. Going to put a list below since I have added some new characters this chapter. Also want to say that I've got the next few chapters down already too, so those will be up soon. Recently binged Charlotte, Full Metal Panic, and some of Sousei no Onmyouji, and I also caught up with the Dragon Ball Multiverse fan comic as well as the God of Highschool (not all the way finished, but almost 2/3 I think). Anyway, got a lot of new ideas, (also started a new fanfic about Charlotte which I really enjoyed), and maybe those characters might show up in here, at some point. Alright, list then review responses:

Bleach: Ichigo, Ikkaku, Byakuya, Yumichika, Kenpachi, Hollow, Gotei 13, Espada

Ben 10: Ben

The Incredibles: Dash, JackJack, Frozone

Naruto: Sasuke, Kakashi

Avatar the Last Airbender: Azula, Sozin

One Piece: Komei, Judge Vinsmoke, Kong, Luffy, Robin, Nami, Sanji, Franky, Usopp, Zoro, Germa

Fairy Tail: Jura, Natsu, Gray, Juvia, Hibiki, Eve, Ren, Blue Pegasus, Panther Lily, Gajeel, Levy, Zeref, Ishgar, Ten Wizard Saints

Kekkai Sensen: Klaus Von Reinherz (first character from this show!), Zapp (Klaus mentioned him too)

Star Wars: General Organa (Leia if anyone figured that out)

Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy: Mandy

Fairly Oddparents: Timmy Turner

Soul Eater: Death the Kid, Patty

Yu Yu Hakusho: Hiei

Hunter x Hunter: Gon, Killua, Meruem

SAO: Kirito

DBZ: Goku, Gohan, Vegeta, Piccolo, ChiChi, Dragon Balls

DC Comics: Doomsday, Superman, Ra's al Ghul, Black Canary

Assassination Classroom: Ritsu, Karma, Nagisa, Terasaka, Okajima, Maehara

Kingdom Hearts: Riku, Sora, Kairi

Wakfu: Yugo

South Park: Stan Marsh, Wizard King (Eric Cartman)

Transformers: Autobots

Elfen Lied: Diclonius

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood: Winry

Espada-001 chapter 107 . May 28

Hello again, it's been a while. Well first off, Dammit Yang! Why did you throw yourself at the horde of heartless! You should've just listened to Weiss when she said to retreat! And Weiss isn't much better off since she should have just grabbed Yang and speed Glyphed the hell out of there when she still had aura! Also where's Ruby and her darkness slaying eyes when you need her. Speaking of which, by the lore you've created for this series at least one of the Gods decided to contribute in making something else to fight counter the darkness. You just had to go and make another negative chapter about Malifasent right after I watched "Malifasent". Well I'm curious as to what Malifasent is up to know after she surrendered to Sora and even more so at where she's hiding her new private army. Here something that I've been meaning to bring up for the longest time now. With all the characters that have arrived from the RWBY universe shouldn't there be a lot more people in the resistance with their Aura's literally unlocked? I'm sure in the RWBY universe that there are probably some laws saying that you can't just go around unlocking any random civilians Aura otherwise there would be a crap ton of random people running around with super powers. But on Nexus I'm sure that huntsman and huntresses would see the need to bolster their numbers to better defend the masses. Also having Aura users would greatly reduce the number of allies that can be killed by a lucky shot if they're a strong person that relies on either skill or abilities rather than power. As for this chapter I'm excited to see that there's going to be a training arc. To bad you haven't shown any MAR characters on Nexus otherwise I'm sure Gray would just have the use a training gate a few times to get stronger in a ridiculously short amount of time. Well I don't have much to say about this chapter aside from noting that Rin is about to pull a stupid card so that's great. Well as usual, until next time have a good day and I'll look forward to the next chapter!

The RWBY world certainly has a lot of interesting aspects I could add in to Nexus. When Gray was talking about all the different ways they could train, I left out Aura, but maybe it was one of the things he was mentioning they could possibly learn during their break. Then again, I feel like RWBY tier is not very high compared to a lot of the universes brought to Nexus, and yet the people who reach the strongest RWBY tiers we've seen have been training with Aura and Dust, etc, for a while. While I think unlocking auras and finding out semblances could def help, they're not the strongest powers, plus they'd have to be learnt from scratch... anyway just some pondering on my part, though they could come into play. What could Maleficent be doing here on Aebrith? She's creating her own dark army now, so we'll see her again, someday... XD Have not seen MAR, surprised two of you brought it up though after the same chapter since I had never even heard of that anime before. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the chapter. Thanks for the review!

kg833998 chapter 107 . May 29

well looks like yang has been a heartless for a while I agree with Espada-001 Weiss should have grabbed yang and run and I can guess that it's time for the training arc knew It was coming a since goku and sora met the gods great chapter as usual and decided to read this the day before finals so wish me luck

Yang nooo! Weiss was pretty low on power, plus she had just been dragged into darkness (whatever that must have felt like), but she agrees that she done screwed up there, as she considers her sin is 'Betrayal.' Glad you liked the chapter, hope you did well on your finals, and thanks for the review!

Limit-Breaking chapter 107 . May 30

You know the charcters from MAR would be really helpful at his point in time, it's an anime that aired around the same time as naruto timeslot on toonami or maybe even earlier. I don't really remember to be sure but the story was truly amazing to read, the powers were interesting and the characters journey and development was really nicely done.

Anyway besides that rant there a certain character from MAR basically has the power to help you enter a training area, one day passes in the world they are from but three months passes in there. Basically like a time chamber but the the major problem is the person who opens it up has to stay awake if not they will be trapped in there. Im not sure if it's forever or something else again it's been a while.
Besides that i hope we can see vegeta soon i really want to see what he is up to at this point in the story.

Again, really surprised 2 of you brought up this MAR show on the same chapter when I have never heard anything about it before. That does seem like a cool training power/ability/device, but I'll have to check out the show myself before adding anything from it in here so I stay true to the source material. Butchering those characters just to toss them in here and give myself a plot device wouldn't make fans of the show happy I'd bet :P, but there's a chance I start watching it after hearing so much about this show out of nowhere. Vegeta, where you at? We'll see, soon, probably... Thanks for the review!

flo463 chapter 107 . Jun 3

I read a crossover Kamen Rider/Sao or an enemy resurrects Saichi, Kirito betrays his friends just to hope to see her again!
if an enemy (eg Poh Lauffing Coffin Leader, him or an other) learned about Saichi's old relationship with Kirito, would not he be tempted to capture her? Kirito scared of losing her a second time would be forced to betray his companions
although having no console, Kingdom Hearts 3 really tempts me
I can't wait for the game to come out!

Sounds like a cool fic! Won't say if anything will come of it here though. And I lol-ed at your KH3 comment, because I felt the same way a few years back. I suddenly remembered on the bus home one day how awesome Kingdom Hearts was back when I played as a kid, so I went on Ebay to buy it and a PS2, and I found out that KH3 existed too. I though 'Awesome!' and I bought a PS2 and both of them. I was shocked that the Tarzan world was not the final world when I started playing again and actually managed to beat Clayton and his invisible chameleon monster. XD Anyway, I'm stoked for Kingdom Hearts 3 too, as much hype as Infinity War- no more! Thanks for the review! Hope you enjoyed the chapter! Thanks again everyone for reading, faving, following, and reviewing! 'Till next time!