[I wonder what lies beyond]

A new chapter...

The Ascent

“It shot through the building, tearing the walls, floors and ceilings to shreds. Fire licked at the wood, its heat melted the discarded and shattered belongings. Another powerful fire tore through the adjecent house. The screams of the inhabitants echoed around the walls.

Soft air filtered through Souta’s hair. The three moons shone brightly from the heavens and in their celestial might, lit the lands. But even the awesome silver glow of these magical structures was outshone by the fierce fire that ravaged the town, Jerinal, below. He chuckled to himself as it bent itseld to his will.

“Soon this land will be mine,� he thought. A pager vibrated in his pocket, he reached and retrieved it. The message read “The Mayor and his Consol are ready.� Souta motioned to a guard, who ran off. His gaze returned to the city, and to the center. The only place that wasn’t burning in the dreadful night. A hover-vehicle gracefully dropped from the sky and landed softly in front of him, its engines purring. Souta opened the hatch and got in.
“Where to gov’ner?� The driver asked in the, apparently, current fashionable tone from a dead planet state in the outer regions of Galaxy 007AE6901.
“The Main Central Royal Consol Hall.� Souta since had adopted a more calm but deadly tone, which didn't suit his thin body, not-so-deep voice and clean face. The vehicle lifted into the air and shot down the hill from whence Souta had set up base. It shot through the thick forest, the driver never failing to impress Souta with his amazing skills, over the torrent of a river called the Ismus, and straight into the furnace that would have killed Souta if he walked. In a burst of energy the driver forced the vehicle up into the air, past the grabbing vicious flames and brought the vehicle down in a smooth arc just in front of the most prominent building of the entire state, the walls under an orange cast, ash floating and settling on the high spires and steep walls.
Another town would soon come under the control of Souta.�

This is just one tale of one of the hundreds of towns Souta took under the control of his swift hand. In all cases he killed everyone, regardless of rank or status, he slaughtered them all. Each town was under his control and every single one of these towns were but a shell of its former existence.

This is surely a dark time. And with his command of the so-called “genetic beasts,â€? and mechanical three-legged nightmares, he cast a shadow over the land. Also, many noted the large fleet of ships hovering in the outer atmosphere, their guidance  lights stars in the night, and forms disgusting sights in the day. The question on all people’s lips was, “Where were the mages?â€?

Before the catastrophe all the mages in the world just... disappeared. The council of elders, a major part of the community of Belisaire and even the great Kalliere and his Mistress Guardian Jacinth, had vanished of the face of the Earth. Furthermore no-one could access the Great Hall, The Nine Chambers or the Grand Sluice. Which systematically meant; the stones could not be consulted.

The King and Queen just commanded what they could, as they could not quell the scourge. The mages that made up any said fighting force  were gone, and many that made up the normal army had, in fear, given up hope and fled to the other side, never to return. But most... most prayed that the mages would return.

And what of our young intrepid group? What are they doing?

Note: This Chapter’s Chapter Master (or CM) is (the first one ever!) I Wonder What Lies Beyond That...
(Please refer to the other topic about what exactly a CM is)

[Senkusha]

[ooc]To continue from the last official post of Chapter 1...[/ooc]

...A sonic boom could be heard in the distance as Tashiko's ship exited supersonic flight.  Only a mere 117 miles from where they just were, the scene was very much different from the village.

"Standing by to deploy statis pod occupants.", a feminine voice echoed from above.

"On my mark, deploy.", Tashiko hesitated as he took in the war torn area.  The sky was lit with flames of orange and red hues.  It was close to night time, the three moons shone brightly through the smog of smoke and debirs and ash.  He navigated to a clearing not too far from the main battle. 

A group of soldiers were deployed to keep watch for the signal for reinforements.  These young solders hadn't seen much fighting.  Souta preferred to keep the young ones out of harms way for as long as possible.  His reasoning was that in time, when the old guys start to buckle from the stress of war, these young guys will be more than willing to share in the excitement.

Tashiko came to a holding pattern of only a mere 50 feet in the air.

"Deploy.", he commanded.  At that moment an intense bright light errupted from the underside of his vessal, much like it had before, only this time, speckles of white particals swirled downwards, gently as feathers caught in a gentle breeze.

"All five occupants have been deployed and will recover their bodily control in approximately ten seconds.", the voice echoed.

"Very well, establish a low holding orbit, and prepare a transmission to Fuza.", Tashiko commanded.  With that, he manuvered into space and composed his request for instructions...
...5....4.......3.............2.....................1..............................................
"Huh?", Eka glanced around to discover she was completely disoriented.  A blast from a blueish bolt of energy landed not too far from where she was standing.

"HEY!", The faint sound of an energy weapon powering up was heard from behind.  Eka whipped around, her lavendar hair following the air pattern to face the new unfamiliar voice.

"PUT YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEAD AND LAY DOWN ON THE GROUND.  NOW!", the soldier commanded in a loud, dictative way.

Almost immediatly, the sky began to cloud over with very dark clouds.  The wind picked up, and some flashes of lighting began to spark in the air.  First there were a couple of drips, then slowly, the rate picked up.  Within a minute it was downpouring.  Eka held up her palms and muttered a few words.  A brillant ball of light errupted from her hands and dived right towards the soldier.  When it hit him, he fell to the ground, stunned, and unable to move.

The storm had taken most of the other soldiers by surprise, and they weren't paying attention to what just happened.  But Eka's unintentional distraction wasn't quite good enough, for three other soldiers powered up their rifles and began charging the group of young adventurers...

[Faia ren]

The lightening had scared Hikari, Ryan, and Die awake. Hikari looked around and spotted the soldiers powering up some kind of a weapon that pointed to her best friend.

"EKA!" She screamed and ran toward the soldiers. She unsheathed her jeweled sword and slashed at the weapon. Her barbed tail slashing out at a soldier and slashing his shirt open as he tried to back away from him. Ryan was still attatched to her head, his ears flopping about.

"Whoa, who, wha!" he groaned out, feeling sick. "Hikari, don't move too fast!" She groaned as Hikari's head continued to snap around. Die stood up, still useing the frozen stick as his cane and his swor din his belt.

"I was this close to getting my sheath!" He shouted, angry. He stomped the ground and growled as he did so. He looked up at Hikari. "Whoa.. what's with the tail? how'd you get it?" he asked.

"Uhhh... I got it from some cards..." She said as she slit the weapons in two.

[Senkusha]

Eka watched in awe as she watched Hikari work with her sword.  She glanced down at her side, and realized she still had the new silver katana she had gotten from the Deck.  She quickly unsheathed it, its luster reflected the nearby lightning strikes brilliantly.  As she rasied it, she noticed that it had a glowing bluish aura around it.  She pointed the sword at an oncoming soldier, in preperation for defense. Quickly a bolt of lightning struck the ground very, very close to the approaching soldier.  The soldier merely only dodged away from the strike and continued his advance.

"I wonder...", Eka spoke to herself.  She rasied the sword above her head, and aimed it towards the sky.  With a quick downward slash movement, a volley of lighting bolts followed the aim of her sword, as each one impacted the ground, leaving smoking glass looking structures behind, buried in the dirt.  As the soldier continued to approach, took her left hand, and made faced her palm outward.  A quick chant later and a pulse of light errupted from her hand, striking the soldier in the leg.

She took advantage of his blow and charged him, while he fumbled with his rifle.  He fired a few shots, and blue steaks flew past Eka's flowing hair behind her.  She lifted her sword above her head and just as she reached him, she thrust downward with all her might.  The blue aura around the sword intensified as it made contact with the soldier, he studdered, shaking there in his boots and electicity surged through his body, from a lighting bolt decending straight above him in the sky.  The smell of smoldering flesh and burning clothes filled the air.  When the lightning bolt subsided, the soldier took one last look into Eka's eyes, and sent her the message of the pain he was in.  He dropped dead as he fell to his knees in front of her.

The wind picked up in intensity as she witnessed her first killing...her first slaying.  She felt sick to her stomach, and stood there in grief while everything else around her appeared to be moving in slow motion.

[Faia ren]

Hikari looked over at Eka and walked over to her, letting Die handle the battle well since he had a cane to help him stand and everyone thought he couldn't do anything.

"Eka..." SHe put her hand on Eka's shoulder. "Are you alright?" She asked.

"Guys, remember, this is a battlefeild!" Ryan shouted from ontop of her head. He was still stuck. He raised his ears up and wrapped them around himself. He closed his light blue eyes and mumbled something gently. Around Hikari and Eka formed a light purple sheild. The blasts from the soldiers rilfe bounced off of it. Die continued his rampage on the soldiers. He looked over at two woman just standing there.

"Hey, you guys wanna help?! and where's Alex with his bodyguards?" He asked, sighing. "And Shiro? I could use the help!!!" he screamed. He dodged an attack and continued his defence.

[I wonder what lies beyond]

Meanwhile in Belisaire (The Capital)...

With the mages gone, the King and his Queen were left to rule the kingdom on their own. The King was no mage, he did not understand the basic four principles of magic. In fact he was a ex-commander of the anti-magic league. But, due to the political situation at the time, the need for peace and the want for further unity between the magic and anti-magic, and the fact that he did have a connection (6th cousin, twice removed) via hereditary ties, to the old king. He was coronated.

He was a brute by structure, but a kind man by mind. When he first met Kalliere and his deputy (Noon), they exchanged a heated argument over the pros and cons of magic and anti-magic. After that day, they became deep friends. But it is safe to say that although there is a quaint friendship between the two most powerful people in the world, their wives did not even cast an illusion to the fact of a mutual friendship.

For King Rogirrek, times were hard. Even considering his, physical, background, he did not lift an arm to stop Souta. He literally could not rule without holding council with Kalliere twice a day. Kalliere had led the King through many bad PR incidents, and this was almost certainly the worst of them all. Queen Liranell was conspiring against Rogirrek Rogirrek to take the the throne from him, and like her relationship with Noon/Jacinth, she made no effort to hide this.

Morning...

"You Majesty." An aide bowed as she entered the room. A pale arm holding a feather slowly lifted itself from the crippled paper, the Queen transferred the nib to the ink-well and with one swift action signed the parchment. Queen Liranell whispered under her breath, and the parchment wrapped itself up, and with brilliant light, it folded itself out of existence to unfold itself on the desk of the receiver. Her arm returned to the chair arm and she and in an expert scare-servants-into-submission movement turned to face the aide. Who withered noticeably under her gaze and bowed even deeper.
"Yes." The Queen said in her perfectly pitched voice.
"The King, Your Majesty, is trying to exit his quarters, and is *ahem* mentioning Kerrigor again... Mam."
The Queen sighed audibly. She turned from her posture and slammed her hand onto the table. A piece of paper twisted and flipped into the air, and burst into flames. Liranell curled her fingers around the smoke and breathed it in. The floor suddenly crippled, hit by an incredible energy. Items, ink and various miscellaneous objects smashed and crunched, scattered into infinitesimal particles. The Queen had gone, and in the seconds after her disappearance, like a deep inhalation the room and all its various objects reformed and marched back to their respective places.
The Aide left.

Liranell arrived into a scene of chaos. The King was shouting incomprehensibly, continuously making references to prisons, magic, Kalliere and an as of yet unknown being or person, Kerrigor. Another Aide rushed out of the room.
"Oh, your Majesty." She was flustered and confused, but she regained her composure, and bowed. "Your father, I mean your husband is..."
"Thank you child, I know." The Queen walked calmly to the great doors that marked the entrance to the King's chamber. She adopted a sweet face. "Rogirrek, sweetie!" The King was currently fighting with a mixture of servants and bed-sheets. But as soon as he heard her voice, he pushed the servants away from him, and with a swift movement he threw a knife at the Queen. It spun in mid-air as it rushed to towards the Queen's forehead. Time seemed to slow for a second as the Queen stared at the knife suspended in front of her. Time sped up and the knife shot through her, to harmlessly get stuck in the wall. Liranell turned as if nothing had happened, and looked at the knife briefly as though she had never seen one before.
"Dear, you have ruined the finesse of the Hall wallpaper again. I chose that specially for you as it matched you eyes." Liranell burst into tears and crumbled into a heap on the floor. Rogirrek stared at her, and slowly tears started to fall from his eyes. He fell upon the bed in a fit of tears.
"Works every time," thought the Queen to herself. She recomposed herself. The aides bowed in gratitude to her. And she departed.

Secretly the aides hoped that the King would restore himself to his old self and push down the tyranny of the Queen. All Kalliere needed to do was return...

[Lookout]

"Ugh...",groaned Alex as she climbed out of the pod."My head...I feel as though I was put into rapid cryo-freeze after teleporter reassembly and then ejected only moments after said cryo-freeze."

Alex looked about at the plasma scorn wasteland before her.

She also noticed the 5 soldiers pointing archaic 45-Z Hydrogen Plasma rifles at her.

"What the heck?! This is all they sent after me? Pathetic! Lambdas 1 and 2: Attack Pattern Beta!"

After about 3 seconds, she turned and found a distinct lack of mecha about her.

"What the hel-"

~~~~~~~~

"-llo? Hello? Master Alex?", inquired Lambda 2."1, can you lock onto the Master's biosigns?"

"Negative. However, Zero should have that capability."

Switching to the Team comm, Lambda 2 inquired Zero as to Alex's location.

Ai responded quickly.
"Pinging...found.[attribute]Sensors[/attribute] He-""She.""...She?""Long story.""O...kay? Well, she is approximately 120 miles away.""But...how?!""I picked up a highly concentrated carbon beam approximatly 3 minutes ago. The frequency that the atoms were vibrating at suggests a teleportation occurred.[attribute]Sensors[/attribute]""Which was followed by a super-sonic transport?""The data supports that theory.""Well, I suppose we are going to have to give chase.""Setting NAV point now....Switching Main Team Objective....Activating Remote Control of Ship...Activating Ship's Cloak..."

[Senkusha]

Eka stood there inside the protective bubble.  The rain came down heavier...almost to the point of a down pour.  She glanced upwards just in time to see more shots being absorbed by the energy shield in front of her.  She stabbed her sword into the dirt next to her and rasised up her arms with her hands held striaght and opened.  She began chanting.

[gm]Hikari also recognizes this chant...[/gm]

"My light, our light,
my embrase, your embrase,
our force, together united,
intensify our light, make us so bright,
we stand up and fight, we will win this fight...."

(repeat)

A sphere of pure white light began to surround the two girls, and slowly began to get brighter....

[Lookout]

Alex looked up from the third trooper she had beat down with her Nu Gauntlets, only to see the strange sight of a glowing pair of comrades chanting a strange song.

"Woah...."

Immediatly, she began searching her person for some type of recorder.

"Shi...shimata!! This event looks important!"

A trooper began approaching from behind.

"I have you now-"

Alex found a small black orb among her belongings with a singular red button on a detachable stand.

"Ara? Junk."

Taking off the stand, Alex tossed the small black orb over her shoulder and stuck the flat credit card like object into her pocket.

"DID YOU HEAR ME?!",yelled the guard."I'M ABOUT TO SHOOT YOU!"

Alex turned to this voice and pointed at herself, inadvertently pressing the button on the stand.

"Me?"

"Yes! Yo-GAHHHH!! I FEEL AS THOUGH I'M BEING TORN ATOM BY AT-"

The guard elongated to horrid proportions before being sucked into a black portal. A few other guards and some mecha also met the same fate, the numerous plasma bolts flying through the air distorted and vanished into the black hole(as the gravitational field of the black hole disrupted the stabalizing field of the plasma bubbles and caused them to either be drawn into the gaping tear in time-space or simply downgrade to a gaseous form.)

"...A black hole?!"

Alex quickly pulled out the stand that the black hole was on and pressed the red button, the portal fading and becoming the black orb once more.

"...Oh. Not junk."

[Faia ren]

"The hell?!" Die stabbed the ground and held himself down so that he wasn't sucked into the hole. WHen it disappeared he looked over to the girl. He wlaked over to her and smacked the back of her head. "WHat's wrong with you, you coulda killed me!" he yelled.

Hikari stood there amazed and then she started to chant as well, her hands up in the air. Her tail slowly wrapped itself around Eka's waist and pulled the two together. Ryan was thrown from Hikari's head and out of the bubble. He laid on the ground, a little surprised. Then he flew up and started to create purple sphere's in the air, tossing them with his ears. WHen they hit something, they exploded, like gernades.

"Hey, Die leave Alex alone and help me fight off these goons!" Ryan shouted.

"What are you talking about, this isn't Alex." he said and then looked into the girls eyes. "Jeez, it is Alex!!! The hell happened to you!?"

[Lookout]

"The hell?! What's wrong with you, you coulda killed me!"

"I suppose I could have.",said Alex nonchalantly as she picked up the orb and slipped it into the infinite folds of her clothing.

Alex was bonked on the head and snapped as she rubbed the sore spot, "Well, don't get in the way next time!""

Quote from: Faia ren on 17-Sep-2006 @ 15:04:48
"Hey, Die leave Alex alone and help me fight off these goons!"

"What are you talking about, this isn't Alex....Jeez, it is Alex!!! The hell happened to you!?"

Alex shot a Nu Matter blast from her gauntlet, sending a trio of rising guards flying into the distance.

"Alot that I'm still a bit sensitive about.",growled the boy turned girl.

"Now if you don't mind...",said well-developed female as she deflected a blasted bolt."How's about we focus on the battle at hand and settle details later?"

[Senkusha]

The two girls continued chanting.  Thier sphere of light also continued to get larger and brighter.  So bright as a matter of fact, that various soldiers could not even look directly into their light, for it was almost as bright as the Sun.

About three more chants later, the sphere exploded, and an intense beam of light (about two feet in diameter) errupted from in front of the girls -- vaporizing anything that it came in contact with.  The light beam finally haulted its devistation about 50 feet away.  Any soldiers that were attempting to flank them were also blinded by the flash of the sphere exploding outward.

The poor group of soldiers in formation firing at the two girls quickly met thier demise as thier bodies were first scorched, then caught on fire, and finally dissolved into smoke.  Hardly anybody could hear thier screams of agony through the down-pouring rain and gusting wind.  As thier rifles fell to the ground -- from excessive heat, they turned a deep redish-brown color, and melted to each other, forming an unusual display of modern art.  The acid from the internal batteries dissolved the ground below, as it was flash boiled -- leaving a pit about six inches deep below the new metalic structure.

Eka glanced around at the devistation that her and Hikari had formed.  She picked up her sword with her right hand and held it high in the air.  Several now very angry soldiers began to fire up on them.  Eka outstreched her left hand and a blue bubble formed in front of Hikari and herself, deflecting any plasma bombardment.

Slowly she advanced with Hikari in the protective bubble, daring the odds that her force field would be able to stand up to the constant energy impacts.  She was running on pure adrenoline now, and there seemed to be no stopping her rage...

She outstreached her arm and pointed at a soldier who was in front of her.  She took her sword back and graped it with both hands, and started a charge as she prepared to slash through his midsection...

[Faia ren]

Hikari's eyes seemed as if they were filled with a dull light. Her tail taking her mask from her pack and placing it on her face. It seemed to become one with her face as she took her jeweled sword and slashing at the soldiers, her tail also attacking. Stabbing one in the heart and curl up, tearing out his heart and every now and then, hikari would lunge at someone and bite into their neck, tearing their neck off.

Die stood there and watched Hikari in amazement. Ryan as well but they snapped out of their daze and continued their attack. "This is rediculos... It's going to take us weeks to kill off al of these soldiers!" Die yelled.

"Your right..." Ryan said, looking at Hikari and taking out any soldier that went to attack Hikari from the back with a see-through purple spike. "I have a spell that can take care of this but I can't use it.." he sighed.

[I wonder what lies beyond]

The relationship between the King and Queen at this time is, interesting, to say the least. We now know that everyone wants Kalliere and the Mages to return, and also that no-one is doing nothing to investigate this.

 Except a group of three people...

This group of people consisted of two men and one women. None of them were particularly powerful, none could produce impressive magic, and they are of no importance in society. All they share is a want to do something.

Young and tenacious they all grew up in a their own dream worlds of fantasy and heroism,  always imagining themselves as great people, but never getting there. They met at 12, and since, became great friends. One rainy night they gathered their possessions and each left a note to their parents explaining to them what they were doing and where they were going.

They walked for weeks across field and dale. Hiding it the wet under forests, avoiding as much as they could the burning cities on the horizon. They had met and escaped from tripods and genetic beasts. But not without injury. After the exhausting ordeal, they reached the north and their aim. Belisaire.

It was almost as if they passed through to another world. The destruction and rain, pain and torture ceased. They entered the great city, and passed under its great aqueducts and through the square of fountains. They stayed in an inn for the night. And tomorrow, I shall introduce them to you...

But... Elsewhere, while robots were destroying towns and Souta was intently watching the battle between our faithful group and his minions. The mages were crying out from their holding place.

Kerrigor is rising...

[Lookout]

"I'll take care of this!",said Alex as she hurled a Hadoken-like blast of Nu Plasma to wards a trio of guards.

She commandeered about 10 pistols from fallen soldiers and nestled herself behind the remains of one of the pathetic Bernard-Class mecha she had taken out about five minutes ago.

"Cover me.",said the girl to Die as she switched to her newer gauntlets."All I need is five, six minutes tops, and I'll have something to finish off these morons."

[Faia ren]

[ooc]Hadoken, you got that from Black mage![/ooc]

"Uhhhhh... what are you doing?" Die asked as he watched the girl. He also defended himself and the girl as he watched her. "What are you doing to that? It looks like one of your bodyguards... where are they anyway?"

[Lookout]

[ooc]Yeppers! And he got it from Ryu and Ken from Street Fighter![/ooc]
"I have no clue."

~~~~~~~~~~~

After being beamed up into the ship, AI linked up with the ship's computer:

"Setting course for transponder signal......ETA:5 minutes...Setting subprocesses to recalibrate weapons to use Nu Matter."

The mini-subproccesses went through the ship's systems, redirecting minute amounts of Nu Matter from the engine to the laser armaments all along the ship.

'295' is not a valid dice string!

"Successful. Accuracy of new Nu Cannons 83% with a boost of 200% from the normal Nu weapons."

"I hope Master Alex is ok."

~~~~~~~~~~~

"GAH!!",squealed Alex as she ducked behind the remains."Keep them off'a me and leave me to my work, bucko."

Alex removed the plasma charges from the cannons and began disassembling the pistols, laying the pieces aside.

"Let's see...re-route this... snap this on here...(Current music track: Mission Impossible theme)Not that I'm complaining about the soundtrack for my life, but geez is this music loud! "

By the time she was done, she had made two grenades(by setting the charges to overload after a three second delay

'296' is not a valid dice string!

,

'297' is not a valid dice string!

) and two powered up, triple-barreled pistols(a la Vash the Stampede

'298' is not a valid dice string!

,

'299' is not a valid dice string!

).

"Ok!",yelled Alex as she assumed the cutest Rambo impression you ever saw, complete with iron-look and dirty face."Let's rock and roll, dudes!"

[Faia ren]

"you scare me..." he sighed and continued his attack. "Hey... WHere did Hikari and EKa go?!" He said, looking around to see if he could find Hikari and eka but couldn't see them anywhere. While he was distracted, one of the soldiers shot his iced stick and shattered it. He fell to the ground, groaning slightly. "This isn't good..." he sighed as he tried to get up but he couldn't. He looked down at his leg, it had been a few days since Hikari had healed his leg so it was useless.

[Senkusha]

Eka continued to slash through soldier after soldier.  The sky had turned an unusual shade of green and it began to hail pea sized pellets of ice.  Many soldiers starting running for cover, ducking thier heads under their arms.  Eka pointed her sword (which was also tinted with a greenish aura) up towards a one of the larger mecha that was firing its cannons at them.  A giant bolt of lighting struck the mecha head on, smoke appeared from its backside as it fell to the ground and burst into flames.  Its occupants ran for thier lives.

Eka's forcefield finally gave out, as she ran out of energy to maintain it.  She started to wobble, staggering as if she were drunk, flailing her sword all about.  (The scary part is that she was still doing damage.) She panted as though she could not breathe -- gasping for air.  A stray laser bolt barely scraped against her left fore arm, immediatly cuaderizing the wound...

[Senkusha]

"Recieving incoming communication from the Central Office.  Patching through now.", a voice echoed from above Tashiko in his spaceship.

"Tashiko.  I am most impressed with the situation down below.  I have another small request to ask of you.  I was reviewing the sensor logs, and it appears as though there was another mage on the outskirts of town.  I want you to find that person, and also drop him or her into the battlefield.  Fuza out."

"End of transmission.", the voice echoed.

"Very well.  Setting a course for that village again....Scan for that life form and transport it to the statis pod.  Engage the cloak.", Tashiko ordered.

After a few minutes of scanning, Tashiko was able to find the biosignature of Silver.

"Scan confirmed.  Initiating transport.  Done.  Engage Ultra Supersonic Flight.  ETA 3 minutes.",  the voice confirmed each set of instruction from above.

Moving at near five times the speed of sound, Tashikos ship literally moved the clouds shortly before evaporating them.

"Destination Reached.  Deploy lifeform.  Tranfer complete.", the voice echoed.

"Very well, back into orbit we go...to watch from saftey.  Prepare a transmission to Fuza and send a status report.  Priority 3.", Tashkiko commanded.

[Lookout]

"Don't worry! I got ya covered!",yelled Alex, tossing a Nu Matter forcefield around her fallen comrade and herself. The plasma shield absorbed all the laser bolts heading their way and incinerated anyone foolish enough to try and charge into it.[attribute]Force Field[/attribute]

"Let's do this!"(Current track:Mona Lisa Overdrive-'The Matrix' Original Movie Soundtrack)

Firing seemingly at random, Alex's hands were a blur as she fired on all opponents and disabled most of them.[attribute]Speed[/attribute][attribute]Gun Combat[/attribute] Seeing a large cluster of troops, Alex pull off one of the grenades, count to two and tossed it into the mass. Said mass detonated into a blue orb of plasma a moment later.

After a few momemts, Alex realized that there were too many of them and that her allies were growing weary.

"Crud... at this rate, I'll be captured in no time!"

Just then, the Ultima V flew over the group, much to Alex's relief.

"Thank goodness..."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Switching to the Team comm, Alex sigh,"Thank goodness you're here! What took ya?"

"We had to track you from 117 miles away."

"...Ah. Sorries."

After a moment of silence, the girl added,"Um... can you guys... you know..."

"OH! Of course.I was just a bit intrigued at this battle force. It seems like a platoon, an invasion force... I was reading high levels of hydrogen plasma not only here, but all over the countryside as we came over here."

"An invasion force?",asked the girl."But why-"

Alex then remembered why she had come to the planet.

"The Omen!"

"Most likely."

"Ok, beam us up. We'll take care of this from up there. Charge the weapons to maximum spread; we're taking them out in one run."

"Roger!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Guys! There's too many! I'm going to teleport us out!",announced Alex to her comrades, awaiting their approval.

[Faia ren]

"Alright... where is Eka and Hikari... and ryan... Damn, Alex, do you kno where they are?" Die asked as he sliced some soldier's feet off at the ankles.

"Eka!" Hikari ran over to her, holding her tightly. "Are you alright?" She asked as she placed a hand on the wound, closing her eyes and began to heal the wound gently and give Eka some of her energy. Her tail removed the mask from her face as she looked over Eka's body.

[Senkusha]

Eka screamed in agony as the laser bolt sliced open her leg.  Hikari's warm gentle touch subsided her screams, and she felt a jolt of energy return to her body.  Just then Alex's orb errupted an energy sheild around her and Hikari.  More laser blasts impacted upon the bubble.

"Hikari, I think we need to get out of here!", she yelled.  "I need to rest!", she said as she regained her composure from Hikari's energy transfer.  Just then she heard Alex yell over the energy blasts impacting that he's leaving.

"What?!  You're leaving us!?  You can't do that!  We need your help -- we all have to get out of here!", she screamed at the top of her lungs.

The bubble they were inside began to slowly collapse as it became surrounded by soldiers firing repeatildly at it.  It was only a matter of time before Hikari and Eka were captured -- or worse...

[Lookout]

"AI, it's too hot down here for my taste!"

"Calm down meatbag, I'm making sure I don't bring about the wrong people."

Alex shot another pair of soldiers as more began to enclose on the group.

"AI! Get. Us. Out. Of. Here."

"Teleporting..."

The group began to dissolve, then were transported in an invisible beam of carbon atoms onto the ship. Once in the teleportation room, the computer reassembled the group and reactivated their mental patterns.

"Cut it a bit close, didn't you.",snapped Alex to the smug looking AI.

"Oh rest for a few cycles. I simply wished for you to remember how much you need me.",replied the AI haughtily as her holographic form walked out of the room.

"Well, set course for somewhere not here.",called the pilot after the hologram.

"Roger.",responded the other girl before the doors swooshed closed.

Alex turned to the group, slightly concerned.

"Hey... are you guys ok? Nobody too hurt, right?"

[Senkusha]

Eka glanced around the room.  "Where..... are we?" as she sat up slowly.