"Tenshi"

------------------------------

The penguin slowly made its way through the brush, waddling on unsteady feet through the lush forests. Ominous shadows fell upon his face, but they were cast only by the peaceful branches above, bringing serenity and not gloom about his being. The flora suddenly cleared, and he looked up to witness the unnatural phenomenon standing with the midst of nature. Beneath a canopy of treetops rested a large, blue mecha, humanoid in nature, its face like that of a cyclops with but a single red sensor 'eye' standing out from the rest of its armor. But years of abandonment had let the creature rest instead of suffer the casualties of violence. Its skin untouched, wines and weeds had grown all over it, hiding it beneath a blanket of shrubbery.

It was a peaceful release from the others he had seen on his long journey. Here lay a child who would forever remain innocent of the purpose it was created for, born in the hands of Mother Earth, living in a utopian world untouched by hatred. Wasn't that how they had all started, human beings? Raised from innocence? How ironic that even bred from the simple peace of gaia, in their deaths they left behind nothing more than barren wasteland, the product of their argument and bickering. Perhaps this mechanism of their hatred would be spared that fate.

Gentle rays of sunlight lit the area about the penguin, and he watched with confused curiosity as a group of yellow butterflies flapped up into his face and fluttered off back into the shadows of the trees. Knowing that he still had a long walk ahead of him, he regretfully tore his eyes away from the sleeping statue and continued on his way through the serenity.

...

“So instead, I just sit, slowly turning to ice, until I'm too cold to sit still.”

--- The Lordly Kid, Alan McDougall's MonsteRock Band '93: Rising Star

...

...

...

...

...

The Enforcer stood silently beside Toy's throne of darkness, mechanical eyes watching the dim screen that flickered before him. The glowing rectangle held aloft in midair lent the chamber's sole source of illumination, and the mysterious figure sitting in the chair stared at its moving pictures in disdain. Upon the screen moved the green-haired android, the gravity-wielding young boy whom he had sought to tame. The massive room seemed to groan in anguish as the sole figure lounging upon the dias briefly flared up in annoyance. Rivulets of stone shook loose from the ceiling in a beautiful hail of azure drops as Toy forced himself to quell his heated fears, and the chamber soon grew silent once again. Why did this one provide so much trouble? Was one young boy, a mech who had never even reached his full potential on the training grounds, that much difficulty? Was one young boy too much for even his own experienced warriors to handle? He had not thought so at first, but now he questioned the competence of his own decisions. Had there been a mistake somewhere along the way? A mis-calculation? Had he thought wrongly about this rag-tag band of travelers who dared to defy his will?

Perhaps he had.

Toy absently crossed his legs in front of him as his vision glazed over the observation window with interest, watching a captured clip of the child as he faced off with Yujin's hulking mass. This young one... he had believed him to be something else in the beginning, the evolution he had been searching for so many years. With that, he could have done so many things. But now he himself was under careful observation. By HIM. And HE seemed to be taking a special interest in preserving this particular package as well. Why? Did HE know? Not that it mattered much. It only meant that it would now be to his own advantage to try to destroy Edge as quickly as possible. But new problems quickly arose. Now, every second that he was out of his lair he risked the distinct possibility of unwanted taint and corruption, something he could not afford this late in his progress. His foe was growing stronger, gathering all of his resources for the crushing blow that he had meant to administer for years. That meant all his plans, all his eons of careful strategic placement, were slowly crumbling into dust...

Why did HE take such interest in the boy? Unless... Edge was...

The deity's attention was suddenly diverted from his brooding by a small collection of blue sparks that had begun to collect in the center of the room. His eyes narrowed into slits of disdain as the weaving energy began to take shape in a flash of light, leaving behind the crouched and humbled form of his heavily armored general. It was one thing to make an appearance before him without notice. It was another to do so just after an instance of utter failure.

"I did not call for you, Yujin," said the emperor coldly, his enforcer stepping forth from the shade with hand tightened around the shaft of his stave. "You should know better than to approach me in your current state, especially after your recent insolence with regards to my instructions."

"Toy-sama," said Yujin, his voice unusually filled with a plea for mercy and forgiveness. He looked up in despondency, continuing to rest one hand and knee upon the ground in a respectful bow. "Please, Toy-sama, I merely wanted to---"

He was cut off as the top end of the Enforcer's staff--- a circular piece of metal wrought into the sign of [G_O_D]--- fell heavily upon his head, smashing his cranium into the ground. A deafening crash thundered about the room as the massive warrior was thrown into the stone floor like a doll, the impact cracking the foundation and widening a gigantic crater beneath him from the sheer force of the blow. Before the general could even dig himself out of the hole, he was dragged into the air by a simple thought from his master, his limbs rendered completely helpless by invisible strings that tied him in place.

"There is no excuse for disobedience," said Toy, jaded by his servant's incompetence. Why did Yujin always insist so heavily on participating in these mindless games? Did he not understand that they were nothing more than a product of his own selfish greed, a thorn that threatened to loosen his grip on his master's already melting scheme? Did he not hold any respect for the one who had created him, who attempted to guide him in the right direction? He would have to be taught a lesson so that no more mistakes would be made. No more chances could afford to be lost, not this late in the game. "You have proved several times that you are an unreliable force for me to use on the field. You have proved that you are unable to follow orders as I have stated them, that you are incapable of listening to something as simple as my word. And now you come to me again, begging for another chance? Perhaps more time to yourself will teach you the importance of patience as well as the cost of impetuosity."

"Toy-sama!!!" pleaded Yujin, his voice straining against the invisible wires that bit into his armor and synthetic flesh as fiery red lines began to peel out upon his face. "Please! I didn't mean to! It's only that I wish to dispatch of Edge before he runs too far from our last place of encount---"

"The sueno chip is already growing ripe with fruition," cut in Toy, staring down the beaten warrior with righteous contempt. "When it finally reaches activation, then we shall receive our window of opportunity. The most important thing right now is keeping Edge's group too distracted to discover its presence. Until then, Yoshiki will have his chance to properly earn the keep that I allow him."

"Sang-Wu?" sputtered the general, the pressure on his body almost completely incapacitating his function of speech. "You would trust that treacherous, lowly human over even myself?"

"His overzealous ambition does create unwanted difficulty," said Toy coldly. "However, he seems to follow orders much better than you. Perhaps you could learn a lesson from this man you hold in such disapproval."

The general gasped as he crumpled to the floor, the puppet strings holding him in place suddenly disappearing along with the torture that racked his body. All that was left was a bittersweet pain that he tasted in his mouth, a sour, acidic flavor of humility and defeat. As Yujin remained crawling on the ground, his erratically shaky hands struggling to find a firm grip upon the cracked floor, the Enforcer turned back to the throne and silently found its place by its controller's side once more.

"Remember, Yujin," said Toy. "I have plans that cannot be interfered with, and it is a shame when my own loyalties are the perpetrators behind the fault. Neon is being prepared to lead the next mission. Perhaps, if you are lucky, you will join his side in battle."

...

...

...

"It's incredible..." said Edge in awe, his hair blowing wildly in the strong winds that met the hovercraft's speed.

"Isn't it?" grinned Yoshime, her eyes joining his own, gazing upon their destination. Throughout his entire life, Edge had seen nothing but the ancient skeletons of crumbling architecture, the dirtied streets of impoverished unfortunates, dingy bars and taverns, and sterile government facilities. But none of that compared to the lush growth that he found here, not even the dense forests that had concealed the WNHR's North Point.

Here, humanity had not even had a chance to lay its dirtied hands upon the lush thicket. Across an entire range of mountains and expanding into the valleys below was a sea of green, fresh grass and trees jutting up in every direction, even the petals of flowers catching the wind in a majestic imitation of snow. The hovercraft slowly increased its altitude to avoid crashing into the massive trees that poked higher and higher, and Edge stared as the metal bottom of the flying vehicle caught tly tops of hardwoods and sent showers of leaves spraying into the air. It was wonderful to feel them blow into his face, wonderful to feel their light, cool touch upon his cheek. He closed his eyes for a brief moment, embracing the resonance without sight, thinking that this must be the true form of heaven. And when he opened them once more he found himself further awed by the gushing river full of blue that rushed below.

"Places like these only pop up in children's fairy tales," mumbled Iesu as he looked over the side, his hands excitedly gripping the edge of craft. "It's like a dream..."

Zero was the most ecstatic of all, repeatedly sliding from one side of the transport to the other in an attempt to get the best view possible. Asimov desperately followed her the entire time, trying to maintain a firm grip so she wouldn't end up leaping hundreds of feet down to the ground below.

"WAAA!!!" clamored the pigtailed girl excitedly, dragging Toy's former agent around as though his efforts to hold her down didn't mean a thing. "C'mon Double, hurry up and land so we can go outside and play!"

Double opted to keep to himself up in front, his hands tight upon the steering wheel, his gaze sternly steeled ahead. Everything in his eyes read of the irritation he felt from the tumult that rumbled on in the backseat.

"Kids," he muttered to himself. "Show them something green these days and they go nuts. Didn't we go through this already back at North Point?"

"Oh, quit being so crabby," said Kouryuu with a smile. "They haven't traveled as far as you and I have, haven't lived as long either."

"What are you talking about?" said the assassin. "Little-Miss-Jeckel-n'-Hyde over there outweighs us all in the age department by at least triple! If she were human, she'd be an old hag seventy times over by now!"

His comment was accompanied by a heavy smack to the face courtesy of his front seat partner's fist.

"You can't even try to be subtle, can you?" she said as her face crumpled in disdain. "Still, the main point is that we've all been under a lot of stress lately. It's good that we've got a chance to get away from it all." She added a sly grin and leered forward on the last of her words. "C'mon, even someone as uptight as you has to pull that stick out of his ass sometimes."

"Me?!" balked Double, returning her expression with his own cynical smirk. "I thought I was the goof-off around here! Besides, look who's talking miss-righteous-honorable-I-gotta-do-everything-the-goody-two-shoes-way---"

"Shut it," grunted Kouryuu as her elbow violently smashed into the assassin's ribcage. For a brief moment, the hovercraft tipped back and forth as Double desperately tried to deal with recoil and driving both at once. Nobody in the back really seemed to notice though, for they were all too busy vying for a glance of the beauty below.

"You idiot!” he roared. "You could have gotten us all killed! Do you ever see me hit YOU when you're trying to operate heavy machinery?!"

"You damn well deserved it and you know it!!" retorted Kouryuu smugly. "If only you'd learn to keep your mouth shut once in a while!"

"Me?! You act like I'm the only one who ever makes mistakes around here!"

"Glad to see you're starting to agree with me!"

"You little---!!!"

"...do they ever get along, Edge?"

"I don’t know. I've known them for just as long as you have."

...

...

...

The high walls of the luxurious Victorian mansion echoed with the empty footsteps of a single man down below. His neatly polished dress shoes reflected their black gleam off the thin streams of light that permeated the carefully crafted building. High above, majestically carved arches of marble cast deep shadows upon the valley, covering the smooth, stone walkway with an air of darkness and gloom. The man did not seem to mind. It was something he was used to.

He carefully tugged on the grey collar of his perfectly cut suit, made from the finest and most durable materials to accompany his varied activities. Over his shoulders hung a massive, black overcoat, its heavy folds trailing like a phantom ghost in his wake as he confidently strode through the endless corridors. On the outside, his tailor had made a small fortune crafting his specific apparel needs. For him, it was merely typical dress for business.

Beneath sharply cut bangs of blond hair, the man's dark eyes flashed forward as his feet carried him to his destination. Before a twin set of large wooden doors, a single butler dressed neatly in a black ensemble graciously bowed at the waist and moved behind his master to lift the heavy covering garment from his body.

"Thank you, but that won't be necessary today, Seth," said the man in a smooth, deep voice, waving him away with his hand. "I'll be going out as soon as I finish my business here."

"As you wish, Master Yoshiki," said Seth humbly, backing off and opening the gate behind him, following his lead as the tall gangster waltzed through the opening.

Within the new chamber, a completely different reality bustled about in a mad flurry of economic mayhem and black market subtleties. The beautiful statuettes on the other side of the walls were merely a mask to hide the tarnished corruption within. Here, groups of technicians and analysts slaved around the clock on massive machines as they stared up at enormous surveillance mechanisms. Stock brokers watched numbers fly up and down their consoles at dizzying speeds, taking it all in with electronically-enhanced robotic eyes and high-powered computer brains, inputting their transactions with thought-precise accuracy. On all sides, negotiations for guns and cyborg technology were being discussed, some with petty thieves, others with government turncoats. Trillions of credits left pockets and entered others as deals were executed and orders were made, all at the speed of light. Each and every contract was leased from a private server, a private wavelength, and protected by an intergalactic network of satellites that Yoshiki himself owned. It was perhaps the largest criminal organization in existence. However, his attention was focused on only one screen that day, one that revealed nothing more than stretched static and distorted background noise. Yet, it remained a far more important connection than all the others in the room combined.

"Toy," said Yoshiki lightly as he approached the brightly lit blur of pixels. "Is there anything in particular that brings you to my home today?"

The screen flickered ever so slightly as the sides began to deform. The buzz in the background suddenly quieted itself to a whisper, clearing the line for a voice to speak.

"I have a job for you to accomplish," said the emperor, his voice coldly deadpan.

"Ah," replied the gangster as he grinned. "I see the time has finally come for me to come clean on our exchange. You know I will do whatever you need, as long as you keep the robots coming in."

"I trust you enjoy my particular product line?" inquired the deity.

"Indeed," said Yoshiki. "Far better killers than anything else you'd find in this dismal hellhole. Certainly worth the price that my clients are paying."

"I see," mumbled Toy, the screen waving gently in response. "At any rate, I think you will enjoy this assignment. If I have estimated the respective parties' moves correctly, it will involve that singular individual you so seek to reclaim: your son."

"Really..." said Yoshiki shrewdly, his eyes narrowing into ravenous slits, hungry for fulfillment. His own son was coming back to him, carried by the fate that he had erected between himself and his benefactor. Soon, they would be together again. "Then please, tell me more..."

...

...

...

"God, we're old..."

Kouryuu and Double sat up against the cooling hovercraft as their eyes watched the others run off into the wild embrace of nature's brilliance. Zero had wasted no time in dragging Asimov off into the deep forests to investigate anything that happened to catch her interest, and Yoshime, Edge, and Iesu were hot on their trail in pursuit. Clef had merely sighed and followed the cluster, probably in another attempt to convince his green-haired student to forget his recreation and renew his efforts of training. And for once, Terpfen had opted to join their numbers, more so on Zero's 'request' than by his own free will. The only ones left were the rebel and the assassin, just violently quarreling only moments ago, now sharing a look at the vivid landscape as the sun's rays glistened off a river in the distance.

"Mmm?" hummed Double irritantly, flicking away a small insect that had opted to perch on one of his lengthy spikes of hair. "Maybe YOU'RE old, I don’t know what's with this 'we' thing..."

"Oh, shut up," grumbled the rebel, shooting him a sidelong glance. "But you know what I mean. Look at us. Everyone's gone off to play and we're the only ones left behind. We're like two old codgers comparing dentures on the front porch."

"Ch," snickered the assassin as he ruffled his hand through the grass, taking the longest stalk he could find and snapping it off the base. "Give me a break, we needed someone to stay behind and watch the stuff, just like every other time. It's nothing different."

"But even Terpfen went this time, and its not like his brain cells need to be satisfied by any kind of curiosity," mumbled Kouryuu, resting her hands behind her head and looking up at the orange-blue sky. For a brief moment she forced herself to push all her worries aside and simply enjoy the view. It had been long since she had had the opportunity to do such a thing. "It's a nice today, isn't it? But here we are, guarding the backs of everyone else. I wonder if that's just become some kind of inherent instinct over the years."

"What? You think we do this because we like it?" Double snickered as he set the long grass in his mouth and began to chew absently on its end.

"Well, what would you rather be doing?" questioned the rebel. "We've trained and fought our whole lives for something we believe in, never got the chance to just sit and relax in a place like this. We never got this chance... but them, they're all still young. With the exception of Asimov, they haven't seen all the things we have, and it's different for even him because he never really lived within this society. This is still all new. Do you think there's still space for them to grow? I mean, can they not... turn out like us?"

Silence rang in the air with her last words, and the assassin's jaw slowly stopped its motion as he turned his head towards his companion with awkward eyes.

"Oh, come on," he said. "Do you really think that we're so beyond the breadth of a normal life that we couldn't enjoy the same things they do?"

"Sometimes I do," said the rebel quietly, a soft gust of wind blowing her blue locks about her cheek. "It's amazing how cynical you become when death is your constant partner, both on and off the battlefield. Twenty years ago, I might have cried for a fallen teammate. I'm not so sure I can do that anymore. Yes, it's another life lost, but as time goes on you almost start to accept the atrocity as something normal. And then when you turn around and see yourself given another chance at crying again, you can't accept it because you're too far past the point of no return. There’s just no time for it anymore."

"Peh," spat Double, launching the blade of grass into the air and watching it fly a couple feet over the field. "You know that's not true. You can always start over again no matter how far you run. Just look at Edge, he's a government killing machine. Unlike a killer such as myself, he was made for mass scale destruction, for missions that would have no other purpose than to slaughter thousands upon thousands of men. Who knows what kind of training a monster like that must receive. I dare not even try to think about something that awful. But now he's been given a second chance, and he's doing all right. I think--- given a little more time--- he'll never have to think of the horrors of where he came from."

"But that's different!" protested Kouryuu, sitting up from her position. "He doesn't remember---"

"Exactly!" grinned Double. "He doesn't remember! He doesn't know, and with luck he may never even care about whatever it was he did or was meant to do in the past. And that's the whole point of it all, because knowing that we're living in a pile of crap, knowing that that's true, only corrupts our minds with despair. Edge doesn't understand everything about this world yet, and I'm damn glad he doesn't. You're right, it's a horrible place, but that doesn't mean that someone like him--- or us--- can't find happiness in it."

"Happiness... eh?" mumbled the rebel as she lost her previous spark, settling back down against the cooling metal. A cloudless sky looked back down at her, reflecting a beautiful mirror of lights across an ocean of blue. Throughout most of her life, she had never been able to witness such a phenomenon. The city lights always drowned out the heavens with their selfish screams, even during the day. But now she could not pull her gaze away from the majestic sea, her vision lost in their infinitely changing formations. "You never answered me. What would someone like you rather be doing instead of fighting? Instead of killing?"

"Instead of fighting?" said Double as he too reclined against the hovercraft, a new blade of grass plucked and set between his lips. "I don’t know. I haven't thought about it that much."

"And yet you tell me all this stuff how we still have a good place in the middle of this hellhole," laughed Kouryuu smugly.

"Give me a break," said the assassin. "It's not like I'm going back to the WHNR anytime soon. At least you still got a fight to go back to when we're through here."

"So if you don't want to work for the government anymore, why not join us?" inquired the rebel. She added a mischievous grin to the end of her words, even though she was still staring straight up at the azure heavens. "After all, what better opponent would your former employer have than a turncoat from their own ranks?"

"HAH!" bellowed Double, and turned to give Kouryuu a cunning smirk. "You know that'd never work. If I had to work beside you twenty-four hours a day, we'd end up strangling each other to death within a week!"

"Hmmm..." murmured Kouryuu thoughtfully. "I suppose, but then what about these past months that we're been traveling together? We haven't killed each other yet."

"Yeah," said the assassin, his voice giving in a little. "But then again, we've been so pre-occupied with so many weirdos lately that it seems to have quelled your tendency to naturally bitch at every single damn thing I---"

The rest of the words never got out of his mouth. As Kouryuu yanked up as hard as she could with the thin lasso of laser wire she had secretly slung around Double's ankle, she watched his body fly off into the air and smiled, thinking what a wonderful addition his madly flailing limbs made to the already perfect landscape.

...

...

...

Asimov watched the others with a calm and quiet face from his dry spot on the top of the rolling hills. Down below, his companions had opted to explore the damp regions of the wide river that rushed about with such brilliance. He couldn't help but grin as Yoshime tried to point out a silver flash of a fish to Edge amongst the rushing current, as Iesu laughed when the green-haired android could only stand perplexed by his companion's wild and frantic motions, and as Zero happily bounced circles around Terpfen in the middle of the blue water. The pigtailed girl had tried to pull him in as well, but he was far too fatigued to play at the moment and for once she let him go on his way. He sighed heavily and reclined into the bed of flora, staring up at the cloudless blue above. Peace at last. If only he could stay in this small oasis forever, undisturbed by the troubles caused by man's petty life. He remembered within his many years under Toy's service how he would venture to North Point to see the trees, to exhilarate in the freshness of nature's bloom. He was sick of the sterile halls, the dark, looming arches, and the massive viewing screens with which to see the world. He was sick of bars and thugs, of homelessness and poverty littering the dirty streets, of violence becoming a way of life just in order to survive. If only he could forget everything and remain here, maybe after he fulfilled his debt to Edge. He still did owe him for his mercy, as well as his acceptance. It was something he had not expected from an individual he had been sent to kill.

His eyes fell from the sky and fell once again on the short, hyperactive android girl who bounced around like a six-year old, grinning happily as she tipped Terpfen over and sent him headfirst into the shallow stream. He could only smile as she proceeded to bounce around the perplexed nuclear weapon another dozen times before attempting to cover him in small waves of water that she splashed up with rapidly waving hands. Zero had come to mean something in his life as well. This strange girl who was nothing like him, he had found a certain affection for, a secret care and passion. He didn't know what yet, but he knew it was something he could not loose. Maybe he owed Edge for bringing that into his life as well.

"I see that the one who has experienced the most horrors is also the one who cherishes this peace the best."

Asimov's hand swept up behind him on instinctive reflex, stopping as his head turned to find that it was only the cold optics of Clef's child body that had addressed him.

"Clef," he said tentatively, relaxing his tense arm back down to touch the lush fields. It still discerned him how this particular member of their party seemed to move about without any notice whatsoever, but he figured it must have just been because he never paid attention to him. After all, he was definitely the least battle-savvy of them all. It only made sense that his persona was a lesser priority in the back of his head, especially with all the insanity that had been happening lately. "You always seem to be the silent one around here, aren't you? Any particular reason you decided to join us out here for once?"

"Just to observe," said the child solemnly, his firm voice seeming awkwardly out of place on such a small frame. "You know, you should watch yourself more carefully around that girl. There's things about her that you still aren't aware of."

"Hrm?" questioned the golden warrior slowly, raising a sharp eyebrow in the other's direction. "What, Zero? She hasn't done anything to anybody. Are you questioning who I choose to befriend?"

"Not only that, but I would presume someone like you would know better," said Clef coldly. "After all, you are a former employee of Toy."

Asimov's casual demeanor quickly faded to muted anger, his limbs filling with unfulfilled violence once again. He did not like having his simple, perfect world being analyzed and critiqued by someone who was so inhuman in himself. He did not like his one, singular affection being questioned in its righteousness and potential. He also didn't appreciate the frozen logical arrogance that this one person seemed to believe was correct, especially when it questioned specific details about his past.

"I think you should watch what you say," he said, his voice low but filled with bold annoyance. "What I do with the rest of my life is my business, not yours. I appreciate Zero's company and I would like to think that she returns the favor. I see no problem with that."

"Ah, but if you had studied deeper in your former master's chambers of texts, then you would understand what there is to truly fear," said Clef, lending the warrior a sidelong glance. "Do you truly know what you fused with your friend back at the country border? That spirit composed of pure sin? Are you even familiar with the demon lords and their dark god, Valkair? If you were, perhaps you might have let that poor girl die."

"You're getting out of line," growled Asimov as he rose to his feet, towering over the shorter cyborg. But before he could even berate him on keeping out of his personal business, a different matter suddenly flooded his mind with worry. Something clicked in his head as he traced over his accompaniment's words carefully, detailing out the sentences he had spoken. How was someone like this even remotely familiar with anything about Toy, especially the wealth of information buried in his personal data chambers? Few people on Akuji were even familiar with the name, let alone whom it referred to. Many of the few who had discovered anything usually did it by freak accident, and Asimov had personally seen to their deaths. And now this massive intelligence whom he heard Edge had merely stumbled across was telling him things that no human could ever comprehend. Something itched uncomfortably in the back of his head, and he did not like it one bit.

"How do you know that much about Toy's library?" He leaned down in front of the boy's face and glared at him with eyes of suspicion. "Nobody alive knows the extent of information that his chambers hold, and very few of the dead. Maybe safeguarding those secrets is no longer my job or concern, but I still would like to know just exactly how you came across that knowledge.”

For the first time since he had met him, Asimov saw Clef smile. It was barely anything, no more than a miniscule tug at the corner of his mouth. From any more than two feet away, he doubted that he would have been able to tell the difference. However, up close it almost seemed much more frightening a gesture than if he had attempted a real human grin.

"Do not underestimate the extent of my erudition just because I occupy this young body," said Clef, his voice never changing despite his face. "There are reasons why certain people would rather have me dead, my mind's wealth being one of them. Also---" Asimov swore he saw the boy's face settle back into its normal position. "--- do not misconstrue my cautions for insults. You have lived long enough to know that many of this planet's legends are really history dressed in costumed flair. Perhaps you will see things more from my perspective as opportunity lends itself."

“You little...” muttered Asimov as he straightened up. But before he could say another word, his eyes were distracted by a sudden commotion by the river. Ignoring the young boy in front of him, he glanced about to find Zero splashing her arms wildly in the water, rummaging about in front of her as if looking for an invisible treasure.

“Ne,” said Zero as she continued to churn up small waves in every direction. “Can you feel it, Yoshime? There's energy in this water, but I thought that we were the only ones up here!”

“Eh?” questioned Yoshime slowly, turning in the pigtailed girl's direction. "I thought so too, but..." She quickly waded out of the river and dashed over to her pack on shore. “But if you can feel something, then that means we might not be alone after all.” Her computer was flipped out in a hurry, a jack quickly inserted into her head. Bits of information began to run back and forth between the machine and its host, and Yoshime's glance finally rested on the rushing waters once again. “She's right. There is a faint residue in the river, but with a very high frequency. Usually something like this only comes from the operation of heavy machinery, which makes me wonder...”

“We're miles from civilization though!” said Iesu. “This is almost the northern border of SenShuBaan. Who would waste their time rummaging around out here?”

“I don't think the question may be so much 'who' as 'what, '” said Clef as he left his spot on the hill to join the conversation. “You're right, supposedly the outside area of this country is completely devoid of worth. This area would not be populated so lushly if humans had found it. However, there are other things that can create this amount of power on their own accord.”

“The most logical course of action would be to track the source to its base to witness for ourselves the foundation of this mystery,” said Terpfen dully.

“That's probably a good idea,” said Yoshime. “Let's regroup with Double and Kouryuu. After that, we'll try to find out if this thing is going to be dangerous to our stay.”

Asimov said nothing as he watched them, his mind too heavily clouded with doubt to concentrate on the matter at hand.

...

...

...

'Don't you even know what you want anymore?'

Yes, I do. I want revenge.

...

A young Fumiya watched as his father held the last of the rival gang leaders before him, his strong hand clutching his neck and choking the life from his body. A cold wind blew about their bodies as they stood just outside the Sang-Wu estate, a massive mansion that had taken years for expert craftsmen to create. Yet, its beauty remained nothing but a dark shadow that haunted the young boy as he watched the last of his family's rivals die in front of him. Even the lush garden that surrounded the men was dimmed by the impending doom of the struggling mobster who grasped so futilely at the vice about his neck in a desperate attempt to save his life. His motions meant little in the end, and the frantic tugging and gasps soon faded away to a final breath and the dull sound of his arms falling limply to his sides to forever rest. With a snicker of resentment, Yoshiki Sang-Wu hefted the corpse up and tossed it to his son's feet, the cadaver's eyes staring up at him with a silent scream of terror.

"You see this?" said Yoshiki, his hand motioning to the dead body lying on the ground. "This is what we give to any who oppose us. This is what happens to the weak and the foolish. Do you know what this means? This struggle of the strong versus the weak?"

Fumiya could only look at the dead man with eyes petrified from fear and disgust, his hands trembling uncontrollably at his sides, his mouth hanging open in horror. He was only seven years old then.

"Brat," said Yoshiki coldly, and swept his own son up by the collar, holding him in front of his face. "Is this all you can do in the face of death, stare and shiver like a mere babe? Are you going to cry as well? Please. Understand that this is the world we live in, a life of killers and thieves. There is nothing beautiful out there as you would so expect, only human grime and corruption. I have granted you protection beneath my wing. I have raised you above the paltry poverty of the average citizen. I have grown strong in this dying world and my empire will be passed on to you when I die. However, you will not remain alive unless you learn to become strong yourself. There will be a lot of things you do not like in this life. Deal with it."

Fumiya heard an old record player somewhere in the background, and a Uematsu opera sang out a sad tune of a lover lost forever...

The young boy fell to the ground as the taller man let go of his shirt and turned to walk back within the confines of his house. As rain began to lightly fall from the darkened sky, Fumiya could only stare at the forever bulging eyes of the festering flesh that was once a man. The song grew louder, blotting out the noise of the drops tapping on the intricately set concrete beneath him. He welcomed it, because it was better than the sound of the unspoken scream that so violently tore in the back of his throat.

"Young master." A neatly dressed butler leaned over in the rain, one hand holding an umbrella to protect them from the downpour, the other outstretched in his direction to help him to his feet. "Young master, the weather is becoming rather undesirable. I would suggest we retreat inside the residence to keep your clothes from getting wet."

"Shut up, Seth." sputtered Fumiya coldly, his eyes still fixed on the dead man before him. He couldn't move, for his hatred had rooted him to the ground. He could not stand this man who called himself his father, this man who did these horrible things to him, who never let him do anything on his own free will. He hated being controlled by a sick lunatic, hated having his life set on a single track from which he could never diverge. He hated having to watch these things from rivalries and feuds that he didn't care for and didn't understand. He hated being cut off from the rest of the world. He was lonely. He wanted to escape this horrible life. But for now he would burn these images of his father's crimes in his head, force himself to watch and take in every last sin he did to numb his offspring against the world. He would watch and remember, and when the time came right he would reverse every last one of those hated memories upon this man he despised most when he tore the monster's heart from his still breathing body. "Leave me here. I'll come in when I'm damn well and ready."

"Young master, I---"

"GO!!!" roared Fumiya, his young voice suddenly exploding with volume and authority unnatural for a child. "Or I will make you regret it later!"

"Yes... young master," said Seth, and quietly turned to leave. The departing butler's shoes echoed clear, quick strikes across the hard ground, the sound overlapping the music that continued to play in the background just as the soprano reached the apex of the tragedy and tossed her bouquet from the castle balcony into the abyss below...

...

Fumiya looked up as a bump from the rattling transport disturbed his rest. Hidden in the darkness, his eyes looked up at his only other companion in the chamber of the vehicle, the humanoid prize that he had claimed in the tomb of the collective android intelligence, Nefpret. He reached up to its cheek, soft and feminine, and stroked it with deep affection. His treasure, this mysterious robot of a woman's body, covered in a blanket of ancient armor, she would be his tool to finishing his duel once and for all.

"Father," he whispered, a sweet grin coming to his face. "You may have made your pact with the devil and tried to drag me into the pit of hell with your bargain's consequences. But now I have a power you cannot compete with. Finally, I shall be the one to show you a true, grotesque vision of this petty, violent world."

The woman, an A_N_G_E_L, could say nothing in return, her cold eyes forever imbedded with the anger and fury of a ravenous spirit wronged by her father's sons, her freedom and love rewarded with the self-loathing of man.

...

...

...

Had the sweltering heat not softened the hard rock beneath their boots, the group would have transversed the deep halls to the reverberations of their own feet hitting the floor. Double lead the way through the dark cavern as Edge, Terpfen, Asimov, and Zero followed closely behind. Tracking the energy signature had been easy enough at first. It followed the river straight up to the base of one of the huge mountains that towered over the quiet scenery. However, the search party found themselves at a dilemma when the path pointed to a deep cavern that headed directly to the core of the monstrous rock. Even with volcanic activity, igneous movement couldn't possibly be producing the signal they were tracking. Now they knew that their target could not be a natural coincidence and that their temporary escape from action would most likely be interrupted very soon.

“I'm tired,” pouted Zero as she dragged her feet, hanging loosely on Asimov's arm. "Are we there yet?"

Double's mouth had the automatic instinct to spit out a caustic retort in response, but he forced himself to silence his bitter words. Kouryuu was amusing to prod and tease because of her tendency to overreact to his offensive remarks. Zero didn't exactly have enough common sense to be offended by anything he said, which was distressing enough in itself. What made it worse was the humorless moron who always accompanied her, Asimov. He could never take a joke.

“Ch,” he muttered. “It's probably a good thing we didn't bring Yoshime and Iesu along. It's getting pretty hot down here.”

“I am detecting high levels of geothermic activity nearby,” said Terpfen dully, clomping along behind. "There is a high probability that we may encounter a volcanic opening up ahead."

"Geothermic activity?" questioned Edge. "Who would want anything to do with that?"

Double grunted as he began to run the possibilities through his head. The dying world of Akuji was slowly crusting over from years of abuse and waste that were literally poured into her arteries. Natural resources were so rare that government industries had resulted to producing synthetic building materials to fuel their selfish passions. Thus, something as rare as this---a source of natural heat energy--- could be a priceless treasure for the right people. This was worth a lot of money, which meant they could end up being caught in the middle of an industrial war zone.

"Don't bother questioning who," said the assassin coldly, his right arm slowly elongating into a silver-tipped blade whose slender length reached down to his feet. "Just be ready for whatever is up ahead."

As they rounded a wide corner, a distant thundering began to rumble all about them. It started softly at first, a quiet omen on the horizon of a larger storm. But as it picked up momentum the ferocity of the hurricane increased as well. The low hum rolled along the earthen tunnels like a gigantic juggernaut, the intensity of the sound rising with each step they took, almost as though the beast could sense the approach of the foreigners. Soon, even thought was blotted out by the deafening cacophony, and Double had to force himself to level out his audio receivers to a more tolerable volume.

“A generator?” questioned Asimov over their comm-link. “Has somebody already beat us to the source?”

“It’s way too loud to be an engine of any type,” said Double, his voice tinted with worry. No man-made machine made so much noise that even an android would have to screen the sound level to something more bearable. He doubted it was a new technology either. The noise pollution here was far too inefficient to qualify for even a preliminary prototype. A rouge group, perhaps? There had to be dozens of renegade organizations out there who would love to take this opportunity to their advantage. Still, that continued to leave the mystery of how they had found this oasis in the first place, for rebel resources were often so low that they were forced to scavenge the cities for survival rather than expand their horizons. It was doubtful how such a group would be able to scrap the time and energy to search for a place as distant and isolated as this. Yet, what other explanation remained? Could this even be something inhuman?

Small pebbles on the ground frenetically bounced around now, the very air jolting their movements. Double stopped as he closed in on a final corner, erratic rays of crimson light spraying out from around the bend telling him that they were about to come upon the source of their uneasiness.

“Let’s get this over with,” he grumbled to the others. His sensors were arcing off the charts from the levels of activity within. He didn’t know who or what to expect. As long as they could rush in and come back out alive, he would be plenty satisfied.

As the assassin’s other arm quickly whipped back into the curved blade of a wicked scythe, he suddenly turned the rocky bend and ran straight into the tempest, both his weapons raised high above his head to slice open any who would oppose him. However, the flashy entrance was all for naught, for what he saw inside shocked him to the point of passive observation. As the assassin’s quick eyes continued to scan the massive chamber for every agonizing detail he could find, he abruptly found himself slowing to a complete halt and staring up at the wonderous specticle before him with limp arms by his side, his weapons useless against the visual wonder upon which he had stumbled.

There was no man-made machine in this chamber that spanned high and wide enough for an entire army to comfortably relax in. There was no bloodthirsty creature that dreamed psychotic wishes of blood and death. Instead, a massive oblong bubble shimmered in the center of the room, floating majestically over a pool of molten lava from which smaller balloons of red liquid floated out of and upwards to join the body of its larger host. The transparent shell of the ellipse gently glowed at intervals with a deep, crimson hue that bathed the chamber in relaxing carmine. Yet, Double’s eyes were particularly drawn to the body that rested inside this creature’s translucent form. Floating in the center of the capsule was a monstrous beast that huddled up in a fetal position, its bulbous head yielding a single gigantic eye that peered about the chamber every so often. The rest of its body seemed horribly underdeveloped, its thin neck extending out into many bony vertebrae that curled around itself like an injured serpent. Small, wrinkled arms were clutched to its sunken chest, an odd number of finger-esque appendages reaching out and retracting back in to its palm in what appeared to be agonizingly painful motion. The entire entity was covered in a thin stringy material that seemed to be weaving itself around its bones and joints, and its protective shell seemed to reverberate with every meticulous motion that went on within, the environment gently shifting around it as it continued to hibernate.

“Wh... what is this thing...?”) whispered Double, the sound now so unbearably loud that he had been forced to lower his receivers to the bare minimum. He had seen a lot of bizarre things in his life, but nothing quite so intricately strange and beautiful as this.

“Sensors indicate that this is the source of the energy signature that Zero had previously found,” said Terpfen, unaffected by everything that careened about him. “Confirmation of a 99.94689% energy match is complete. As there is no other explainable source in this vicinity, it is logical to presume that this is what we have been searching for.”

“But what is it?” muttered the killer, still cautious as to if they were in any danger. “This massive... thing, is it alive? If so, what is it and how did it end up in the bottom of a volcanic crater like this?”

Zero stared up at the creature as she clung to Asimov's arm, the playful shine in her eyes suddenly gone.

"This is a Shiken," she said, her voice lightly tainted with the deeper musings of her demon half. Asimov quickly turned his head toward her in surprise, but she paid him no heed, entranced by the thoughts of her other self.

“Shiken?” questioned Edge, looking first towards his companion then back to the floating oval carriage above. “But the other Shiken were far different from whatever this is. It doesn’t make sense that one could be so peaceful while the others sought to kill us.”

“The Shiken are creatures of the earth,” spoke Zero, her tongue clearly reflecting her other half now. “As with human beings, they have a beginning and an end. For this young one, this is merely the beginning.”

“The beginning?” questioned Double, looking up to the thundering creature with fear in his eyes. “Are you saying that this is a baby Shiken?!” If that was the case, then what were these creatures in reality? They had been attacked by several of them already, each and every one of them seeking to put an end to Iesu’s life. At first, he had presumed that they were merely servants of Toy, biomechanical tools to finish the job that Yujin and his henchmen had not when they first met the cross-bearing boy. However, it seemed very unlike the dark master to reap his army in this manner, from the bowels of the planet. The deity specialized in the realm of mecha, but not in the bio-engineering of sentient creatures. So if the Shiken were born rather than created, that left the question as to why they wished to slaughter Iesu as a collective. It seemed impossible of an entire species, if they could be called that, to desire such a shared task. Maybe there was something they did not know about the boy that garnered this judgment...

“So what are we going to do with this one then, if it’s going to grow up to be like its other brethren?”

Their voices were consumed by the low rumble of the animal’s growth for a second, each considering and weighing the consequences of their actions.

“I haven’t fought any of these for myself,” said Asimov slowly. “But if they have all had violent intentions, I see no reason why this one wouldn’t as well. We’ve already had enough things to worry about lately. Perhaps extermination would be the best option.”

“Hmm...” mumbled Double beneath his breath. He didn’t like the choices set on the table, but he was forced to agree with the golden warrior. If they left this one behind, who knew if or when it would come back to haunt them. He was not particularly a humanitarian, but he also knew trouble when he saw it. The Shiken had only given them grief in the past. It would be better if they could eliminate another skirmish for the future. “I don’t like it, but he’s right on this one. It would be better if we could just get it out of the way if there’s the possibility of meeting it again later on. It won’t be so easy to put down then. No point in delaying the inevitable.”

Edge glanced away from the shifting lights towards his companion, and Double saw the fractured look on his face. He knew that they had to do this to protect themselves as well as the ones they looked over. He didn’t like the choice though, and the assassin understood all too well.

“Yeah,” said the green-haired android distantly. “We just have to get it over with. Double, if you’ll...”

Double just nodded. Killing something on the basis of fear alone was something he did not like, but they already knew what this monster was and what it was capable of doing. The other Shiken had found them easily, tracking them through entire countries to home in on their goal. They had won victory over the monsters thus far, but the margin of error had never been absent from their battles. With each new incident, they grew in strength and complexity, continuously expanding their abilities to compensate for their opponent's numbers. If next time one of them made a mistake and either Yoshime or Iesu paid the price, then this single instance of mercy would no longer hold any sacred meaning. And yet, it hurt him to destroy one who had not the capacity to even realize its own wrong. Even the guilty should know why their murderer chose to kill them, if nothing else.

"Forgive me," whispered the assassin under his breath. "But we can't take the chance."

The assassin’s arm elongated into a sharp lance without a word, the tip lightly scraping the rocky ground as he slowly stepped back to observe the infantile creature. He looked up at the glowing mass of gel, the enormous sound waves it discharged sending a slight chill down his spine. It truly was a wonderful sight, a natural wonder and beauty that the planet so rarely offered for observation anymore. Unfortunately, for their own safety, he could not afford to let it live. Lifting his arm to eye level like a sniper rifle, he forced himself to shun his feelings and act on discipline. One pass, and then it would be over. He could leave the stain behind him and forget that he had had to make the choice. Sighing a deep breath, he narrowed his eyes on the target as his body grew taunt, and his boots digging deep into the earth to charge forth and slay the beast before him.

Without warning, he was knocked off his feet, a solid blow administered to the side of his head with enough force to crush his skull. The assassin flew across the burning rock in surprise, twisting about and reaching down with his hands and feet to bring himself to a grinding halt. What had just hit him? They were miles from civilization and sensors had already shown that there wasn’t anybody nested nearby for just as far. So how could he have been attacked? Was it the Shiken? Could even this mere larva be sensing their intentions? Perhaps he had been underestimating the range of abilities his foe had.

Dragging his limbs into the tough mineral and bouncing back to his feet, Double spread his hands wide, his forearms curving into jagged swords on either side. However, as ready as he was to receive another assault, his eyes bulged with surprise as his gaze fell upon a new arrival in the chamber. Before him, a heavily-armed robot clad in white armor was just recovering from the momentum of the heavy spin kick it had administered to his cranium, its hide reflecting the luminance of the young Shiken’s steady pulses. Thick layers of plate alloy covered the android’s shell with a large automatic rifle was strapped across its back. Lifeless eyes of electronic circuitry stared out at the assassin without feeling. However, it was the more the slender design of the mechanism that made him uneasy rather than the fact that they had an unexpected visitor. He had seen the structure more than once in his life, and every time it brought him worry of what its designer was looking for.

“Toy’s mecha!” growled Asimov, his body suddenly exploding in a fiery yellow aura. “Did he follow us here?!”

Double cursed as he sized up his opponent, his body rippling with suppressed anger.

“He slipped past our detection pretty easily,” he said in disdain. His arms quivered with anticipation, but he knew well enough that it was better to keep still before his new foe. Toy’s design had an uncanny ability to measure and predict their opponent’s movement. This fight was not going to be wrapped up as quickly as he had hoped. “What does he want with us this time?”

“Whatever made you think I came here for you? Personally, I think you’re merely paranoid about your own level of importance!”

The sudden, resounding voice drowned out even the thunderings of the Shiken, and Double instinctively covered his receivers with his hands as his circuitry resonated with the trembling echos. His levels quickly balanced out to compensate for the disproportional waves, leaving him hearing nothing more than a tiny whisper from the world about him. Yet, the question remained who had caused the disturbance in the first place.

“What the hell?!” he shouted over his comm-link line with the others.

“Really, with all the talk Toy makes over you, who’d think that you were such a group of sniveling cowards? He certainly made you sound stronger that you appear now, or at least more adversarial.”

This time, the voice came in cool and clear over his own private communications line, and Double whirled about with eyes frantically searching for the source. In the short time the tongue had taken to distract his attention, a dozen more androids had flown into the room with heavy rifles in hand. Amongst them all floated a single, tall man, his sharp blonde hair flaring every so often from the opposing forces that escaped from the circular anti-gravitational platform he stood upon. His clothes were perfectly cut, a handsome blend of grays and blacks fit together in an elegant business suit, and on his back a large overcoat floated loosely in waves, the tops wrapped stylishly about his shoulders and the rest left to hang about like a majestic cape. A look of surprise abruptly passed on his face as his eyes passed over Asimov, and his tough features widened into a cynical grin.

“It seems I recognize a face within your ranks,” he said coolly, taping the nearly invisible voice amplifier at his collar and gently adjusting the dampener near his ears. “Vomisa, if I remember correctly? So did you officially defect from our much respected boss, or did your logic chip merely screw up?”

“You know this guy?” questioned Double warily, his eyes cautiously hunting down the golden warrior.

“Feh,” grunted Asimov insultedly. “Unfortunately, I guess you could say so. This is the infamous Yoshiki Sang-Wu. I’m sure you’ve at least heard the name in your former profession. To you, he’s just an underground mob leader. However, he is also Toy’s main contact with the human world outside his own fortress.”

“Now, now,” chided Yoshiki mockingly. “No need to pass around the extraneous information. Besides, look at the wonderful fringe benefits I get from your former employer!” He spread his arms wide to the small armada of soldiers standing before him. “His generosity has been a strong addition to my business as well as my muscle.”

Yoshiki Sang Wu.

Double turned with wide eyes of suspicious surprise back to the man who was the elusive living legend in the criminal underworld. In his youth, it seemed that the man had had the foresight to effectively erase his history of birth and citizenship from the records before he emerged as a mob boss just a year later. Despite his age, he rose quickly on the rungs of command until he rivaled even the older mafias of the world with his dominance. The West Newport Human Republic had been foolish then, deciding that the various factions would end up killing one another in the end in a battle for prevalence, that it would be better to keep their hands clean while their own adversaries did the work for them. They had never counted on Yoshiki’s skills as a politician, for a few months later he had them united beneath a single name with the promise of equal distribution of heightened spoils garnered from their combined forces. There had been doubts even then as for how long the coalition would last, but remarkably it had kept stable for over a decade, turning only more and more hidden to the public beneath twisted politics until the scheme became completely untrackable to the government police. Yoshiki kept true to his word, and the older bosses received everything they wanted right up until their peaceful, natural deaths. Yet, the ambitious man was far younger than any of them, and by the ripe age of thirty he alone remained alive from the original pact, thus inheriting a single, glowing monopoly of illegal activities. From that point on, his name became completely lost behind a wall of fronts and lies, but he remained one of the most legendary figures in the history of the planet’s leaders. And now the legend stood before him, having made a pact with the devil himself.

“Ch,” cursed the assassin. To have the most powerful human on earth make an alliance with Toy could not possibly give them advantages of any kind. This encounter was surely a sign of bad luck. “So what do you want with us? Or are you just another thug Toy’s sending to rough us up?”

The gangster’s wide grin shortened to a more serious smirk, but confidence still radiated from his burning eyes as he looked down on the androids with arms crossed in front of his broad chest.

“Surely, your sense of humor deserves some kind of violent retaliation,” he said smugly. “However, you luck out today, robot. Turns out that I was given rather specific instructions for this particular outing, and dealing with you directly isn’t one of them.” With a quick flick of his wrist and a ready snap of his fingers, two of his android companions suddenly threw out several levitating sensors about the pulsating Shiken’s body. As the circular metallic pieces slowed down in midair about their target, piercing beams of light shot out of each in several directions, interacting with one another and forming a cube-shaped matrix about the creature. The open space filled with a protective field to hold their capture within once the grid was completed, and the mobster smiled at the clean work as his miniature squadron prepared for departure. “Mind you, I was never told I couldn’t finish you off if you did happen to inconveniently get in my way. That would be a tragedy, wouldn’t it?” He grinned invitingly as his platform's humming began to pick up in volume and slowly lifted up towards the ceiling of the monstrous cavern, the entrapped larva slowly following in tow. “I thank you for your generous business. Until next time!”

“Like hell!!!” shouted Double, his body crouching low in preparation for attack. Maybe he had no personal grudge against this man, but he did with Toy and the Shiken. For the former, he had only too many suspicions as to what this expedition could be for, but none of them turned up on his list of good deeds. For the latter, the Shiken were dangerous enough on their own, but he certainly did not want to see how far its capabilities could be stretched in the hands of the malicious deity. If nothing else, they could not let the gangster get away with the larva alive.

Apparently, the others got the same idea, for he could feel their auras explode outwards behind him. Yoshiki didn’t even flinch.

“You heroic archetypes always like to make things more difficult than they already are,” he sighed, and when his eyes opened again a squad of his robotic army was already swooping in for the kill. “Luckily, your predictability has given me enough foresight to cover my boredom while I get away with my award. Enjoy the gift. Don’t play too rough!”

“Cocky bastard,” muttered the assassin beneath his breath, left arm cocked back to strike. A hail of bullets pierced his flowing body, coming in one side and blasting out harmlessly on the other. As the first of the streaking minions touched down, its face rocked back violently as the assassin’s bladed hand tore into his eyes. Grunting in disappointment at the weakness of his foe, Double’s other arm slammed into the android’s gut, wrenching his steel bowels into a pile of useless scrap. Another quick twist and a brutal pull of his embedded limbs was all it took to shred the warrior to pieces.

“Cocky?” inquired Asimov, smashing one of the soldiers into the stone wall with a reverse elbow. “That really must mean something coming from a guy like yourself.”

Double lent the golden warrior a contemptuous glance, but the energy bolts whipping about Edge held precedence to his attention in their ferocious fury.

“Deal with it later!” shouted the green-hair android as several of the soldiers turned their heavy rifles on him. The air exploded with the sound of shots, but the projectiles merely collected in a dense wall before him as a concentrated wall of gravity held them in place. The full force of his power emerging to meet the opposition, several small pockets of black hole energy opened into the air as a solid bulwark of opposing gravitational ripples tore through his opponents, shattering them apart before their remains even hit the ground. “Right now we can’t let Yoshiki get away!”

“Feh,” snickered Double, but he knew Edge was right. If they came out of this empty handed, who knew what the result would be.

The chamber suddenly shook in rough tremors, and the assassin glanced upwards to see shards of rock and sediment falling from the ceiling. Even though the Shiken larva blocked most of his view towards the canopy, he knew well enough what Yoshiki was planning.

“He’s going to drill the damn thing through the ceiling!” he said. Glancing about, it appeared that the gangster had no end of the robotic bodyguards who enjoyed distracting their attention so much. As if their numbers weren’t bad enough, this make had far better resistance than the average grunt, but it was almost expected. The mob boss lived up to his reputation. “It won’t be long until they finish digging their way out of here, so listen up! Terpfen, Edge, and I will hold off the thugs down here. Asimov and Zero, you two already have natural flight systems, so you’ll be better adapted to taking Yoshiki out up above. Terpfen, only machine gun fire, no nukes! It doesn’t take a genius to know what’s going to happen if we hit this overgrown crater too hard, and I have no intention of getting fried in molten rock. It would probably be best if all of us could veer away from the heavy-duty firepower, lest the same thing happen.” The end of his elbow abruptly extended out sharply as he jammed the limb backwards into the gut of an approaching mecha. Spinning about with the edge of his sharpened palm at neck level, he lopped off the robot’s head in one clean spin, pivoting back to his starting point with a confident grin. “Shall we dance?”

Asimov just gave him a thumbs-up and his own stoic smile.

“I see Kouryuu has been rubbing off on you,” he mused, and he and Zero leapt up towards the ceiling to finish the job. “I didn’t think you were the type to believe in building character.”

“You’re deluding yourself!” shouted back Double, already jumping into another armada of the oncoming soldiers, blades bared lusting for the taste of his opponent’s innards.

...

...

...

As the pair neared the monstrous Shiken above, Asimov noticed how quickly Zero’s body seemed to adapt into her Demoness form. Compared to the other instances of her transformation, this seemed much more like a natural response of her body rather than a reaction of anger. Though his knowledge of both the history of demons in the Clone Wars as well as that of the Shiken was very limited, it was acute enough to know that whatever it was that resided inside Zero was still dangerous, no matter how well sealed away it was. Perhaps it was only natural for him to worry so much. His confidant would probably just tell him that he was just being uptight. More often than not, the pigtailed girl tended to be correct.

Seven android soldiers quickly wasted no time in homing in on the trespassers with glowing swords of energy flashing in their hands, several more waiting patiently behind them with rifles cocked and aimed for the intruder's heads. Asimov only smiled as his absorption field read Zero's thoughts, plans unfolding between their minds in the span of the few seconds that it took their foes to raise their weapons. Without a word, crimson flame erupted between their bodies and surrounded them in a blazing inferno of heat. Channeling and rechanneling the excited molecules caused by the magical fire, Asimov fashioned a self-sustaining circuit between their frames that quickly took advantage of the blaze and erupted in a massive energy storage battery that easily dwarfed the firepower of their foes. As both their hands tore open with the excess golden energy, the pair whirled about as solid lasers of light flashed forth from their palms and sliced the minions to pieces. Debris was the only thing left as they flew past the demolished troops with Yoshiki in their sights. The gangster only glanced over his shoulder and sighed in response.

"Those DO cost money, you know," said the gangster irritably. "I wonder if the 'boss' can still bill you on your employee account?"

Asimov didn't even listen as he rose above the man with his fist cocked and ready to strike.

"Shut up," he growled, and let loose with a solid blow to the man's jaw, easily knocking him off his floatation device. Asimov grunted as he watched him fall towards the pool of fire below and turned back to Zero with a slight grin on his face. It surprised him how quickly he had been able to finish off his opponent. At the very least, he had expected a fight to back up the man's many impudent words. "I guess after all the hype he gets, he's still only human, eh?"

"Asimov, behind you!!!" was the only reply Zero offered, the urgency of the warning strangely muted by her dark demeanor.

Asimov turned his head about casually, expecting another one of the mobster's android goons at best. However, his eyes widened in shock and surprise when he saw Yoshiki's grinning visage looming over him, both arms raised above his head in preparation to knock him out of the air.

"Impudent fool," said the man softly, his tone mocking the golden warrior's relaxation. His arms came down like a jackhammer, smashing Asimov so hard that he immediately lost his hold in midair and fell plummeting towards the flaming sea below. Struggling to re-orient himself in his spinning descent, he suddenly felt support beneath his legs and back as a mysterious force lifted him back towards the cavern's ceiling again, turning his head to find that Zero had caught him only seconds before he would have made contact with the lethally burning substance below.

"You're still careless," she said bluntly, releasing her brace as the golden warrior caught up with her momentum and flew up under his own power.

"Damn," cursed Asimov, rubbing the back of his head, but he knew that she was right. What hit him? He had knocked Yoshiki clean off his little toy and then the man had gotten right back up and retaliated with at least three times the power that his troops had. Staring up towards the crime lord again, a renewed glance revealed a burning aura of white fire that surrounded the man as he gracefully awaited them to climb up for a second round. Yet, the power seemed to have no external effects on him in any ways, his clothes remaining perfectly intact despite the rippling energy that coursed through his body. The coat gracing his back even swirled up in rhythmic pulses as though his newfound ability provided him with his own dramatic headwind.

"What the...?" muttered the golden warrior in awe. Modern bionic implants could easily provide a human being with a set of augmented abilities, but those would have at least shown up in a simple bioscan, and his computers were registering no foreign objects in his body. Add to the fact that additions of such potent magnitude were harder to find--- let alone purchase--- than nuclear age fossils and that this flaming aura had no affect on his body whatsoever, and the crime lord's capacity had no logical explanation whatsoever.

"Surprised?" mused Yoshiki, cracking his finger joints with a wry look in his eyes. "You should be honored. Not many people get to experience my attack and live. Now that you're all nice and warmed up, let's see just how good you are." The gangster's body crouched over as he suddenly swooped down headfirst towards the blond android, and Asimov had to bring both arms above his head to block the crushing blow that the gangster administered. Instead of countering with words, the golden warrior merely maneuvered cleanly about to the man's back to sweep up with a hard kick to his ribs. However, before he could even make impact with the spotless coat, Yoshiki brought a hard elbow down on his foot, effectively blocking the attack just before the same hand whipped back with a fist meant to break his face. Asimov cursed beneath his breath as he lifted his forearm to deflect the hard onslaught, using his remaining free limb to lash out at the back of his opponent's neck with fingers aflame with kinetic energy.

"Not bad," said the gangster, spinning about in the other direction as his body erupted with white fire, his own arm knocking Asimov's out of the way with a surprisingly powerful strike, leaving the android's guard wide open. "Toy taught you well, but I guess your secession has shaved off that killer instinct!"

Asimov looked up as Yoshiki's arm pulled back to administer the strike that would destroy his processors, knowing all too well that his recovery would not be quick enough to defend in time.

"Zero---!" faltered the warrior as he spotted a crimson flash behind the gangster, black, curvaceous talons opening up to take hold of the man's head and crush it into pulp. At the last possible moment, Yoshiki's hand abruptly changed directions and swept backwards, stopping as it grasped the pigtailed-girl about the throat and prepared to smash her neck. It was all the time Asimov needed to move.

His fist contacted solidly with the crime lord's gut this time, and the man grunted from the recoil. A quick chop to the wrist easily loosened the gangster's grip on the pigtailed girl, and before Yoshiki could even move to counter, Asimov spun forward with a heavy heel kick on his collarbone that sent him crashing into layers of rocky sediment along the jagged walls. Catching his breath as kinetic energy crackled about him, he watched in dismay as his opponent easily got up from the smoking crater in the bank with little more than scuffs along the surface of his clothing.

"I guess I underestimated you a bit," said Yoshiki nonchalantly, but his casual mood was quickly replaced by an ice-cold stare that would have stopped a bull elephant in mid-charge. A bright flash replaced the floating visage for a brief second as his body exploded in a fiery holocaust, and when the glare residue finally cleared there remained a man engulfed in an incandescence that rivaled the sun. Asimov could only ponder on how seriously the man had been fighting up until now. "However, I don't leave my mistakes unattended. Enjoy your last thoughts, servant of Toy, because I don't intend to let you live long enough to make regrets about your oversight in alliance."

Asimov braced himself for the impending assault, but before his foe could rise to full momentum on his murderous charge, a bright beam of light swung upwards between them and cut the crime lord off before he could reach his prey. As the laser's penetrating arc finished its piercing oscillation, both parties whipped their heads towards the ground to discover who had interrupted their match. The gangster's expression softened with mock compassion upon seeing the new interloper, but Asimov's merely tightened up as he gazed upon a purple-haired mercenary and his black-trenchcoat-clad assistant down below. Their faces were only too unwantedly familiar, their intentions as questionable as their treacherous actions.

"Fumiya?! But why is he---?!" His eyes circled about towards his floating opponent once again, realizing that neither was paying attention to either him or Zero. The rivals' stares were locked by something deeper than battle, forced into confrontation by a pact only blood could make.

"Father," muttered Fumiya, hefting the heavy laser cannon that he had used to call the pair to attention. "You're a hard man to find."

Yoshiki merely chuckled, his gaze boring into the furious form of his only son.

"Oh?" he questioned coolly. "And how exactly did you find me? I thought the sound abnormalities caused in this area were enough to throw off conventional tracking procedures."

"You can thank your new adversary here. That, and the black market offers wonderfully faithful knockoffs of your own machines, allowed me to keep close range tabs on Edge here." Fumiya gave the side of his neck a light tap, indicating the presence of a similar sound dampener device.

"You followed us?!" shouted Asimov, clenching his fists angrily. This boy had had the nerve to ask for their assistance, claiming his cause to be fully honest in its valor. Yet, he now returned with an agenda he had kept hidden from their eyes, muting it in secret proportions so that they would hear only that which appealed to them. As opposed as he was to Double's often excessive interrogation tactics, he was strongly tempted to lop off the betrayer's head at that very moment. However, nobody had ears open to hear his vehement objections, father and son already too deep into their own contest to listen to his qualms.

"How very resourceful of you," said Yoshiki, his eyes narrowing. "However, I was told to anticipate your appearance as well, and I'm afraid it's already too late for you to do anything to stop my plans." The entire chamber thundered loudly as the room shook with falling debris. The gangster grinned as he glanced overhead at his finished work, and beams of sunlight slowly began to pour down around the silhouette of the hovering Shiken as his soldiers slowly guided it to safety. "As I said earlier, my mission is straightforward enough, and eliminating your petty threat doesn't appear anywhere on my list of priorities. However, feel free to try and stop me. It has been a while since I've had some fun."

As a hail of stone rained down from the mouth of the opened mountain, Yoshiki shot up towards the ceiling and joined his exiting excavation crew. Gunfire abruptly exploded from every direction as several groups of Fumiya's followers flooded the room and pelted the distant target with their ammo. Yet, it was to little avail as the huge object began to float up into the sky, out of range of the distant creatures' weapons below.

"Oh, no," muttered Fumiya, his lips curling back in a sadistic smile as he watched his prey depart. "Not this time, father. I have a surprise for you."

Asimov watched in horror as a newcomer suddenly stomped into the chamber on the mercenary's mental command. At first glance, she appeared to be a short-haired blond female of above average build, but the dark armor layering her body held no secret to the monster that lay waiting within. Her blue eyes shot a glazed stare up towards the top of the mountain, her face showing no any compassion whatsoever. There was no insignia printed on the smooth surface of the metal strips and joints that covered her shell, but the golden warrior needed little more than to see the look in her eyes to know what she was. He had seen the sleek design far too often for his own liking to ever forget what it would mean. It was the counterpart of Zero's method, an opposite power equally trapped in a mechanism of war created for the very same purpose. An A_N_G_E_L. A harbringer of death.

"Fumiya!!!" roared Asimov, diving down towards him in desperation. The man had no idea what he was doing playing with such a creature. Human beings had already made the mistake once during the Clone Wars, trying to play God. He couldn't let it happen again. "Don't do it, you fool!!!"

But Fumiya had already turned towards the cyborg, the simple order playing on his lips that would end his problems forever.

"Father wants that fat beast of his alive, does he?" The mercenary snickered bitterly and grinned. "Let's see what that bastard Toy will do to him when he fails to bring in the game." His arm shot towards the sky, his line of vision centered with his index finger as he pointed directly towards the center of the obese larva. At that moment, a thousand invisible neural bits raced from his brain directly into the A_N_G_E_L's receiving end, giving it a silent order that it had been deprived off for eons. "KILL."

Asimov abruptly braced his arms before him as the machine shot skyward in a crazed blur, the air and rock surrounding him shattering from the sheer force with which the creature took off. Swinging his head towards the ceiling once again, his optics quickly refocused and zoomed in as the killer tore through Yoshiki's remaining quarry with blades that could not be seen. The energy matrix that had safely lifted the Shiken out of its womb now dissolved, broken by a simple thought from the airborne assassin. He watched as it raised its hand high above its head, a lance of pure light blazing out of its palms and thirsting for blood. As if revisiting the tapestry of bleeding color so many years ago, he could only observe as it plunged its weapon into the heart of its enemy, red liquid pouring out of the open wound. However, unlike the painting woven in the silence of space, the creatures did not scream in such chilling tones when they died.

Zero suddenly shrieked in pain, and Asimov whirled back to find her body twisting and churning about wildly, her arms clutching her head as pain wracked her skull.

"ZERO!!!" shouted Asimov, wasting no time in flying over to hold her.

"The---angel---" sputtered the pigtailed-girl, her body slowly calming itself as it began to revert back to her normal form. "She----He---can't---you must not----…" Her voice slowly died out as the returning transformation became complete, the girl residing in the golden warrior's strong arms to rest. It must have been a reaction to being in such close proximity to the enemy she had been constructed to fight. Yet, what did she mean when she mentioned the angel? He had learned well enough that her Demoness form seemed to sense things that her normal self could not. Could it have seen something that none of the others could…?

"What the hell is that?!" shouted Double down below.

No longer distracted by the presence of Yoshiki's strongmen, the golden warrior followed the assassin's cry and glanced upwards. What he saw made his entire body run cold.

The angel-type android was now bending backwards in violent spasms, bright beams of light erupting from its hide and carving indiscriminate lines through anything too unfortunate to be near by. However, the Shiken larva had not died. Instead, its bulk was now flowing completely around the mechanism, flooding it with its pulsating mass. Asimov let his sound channel run free now, listening as the once deafening roar now boomed at timed intervals. Like a massive heartbeat, the pair thundered in conjunction with its throbbing body, slowly folding in on itself as the mecha within became a shadow of pure white matter, absorbing every drop of red plasma that the young Shiken had to offer.

Double wasted no time in tending to the newcomers despite the chaos that had just exploded over his head. No longer impeded by the burden of battle, he shoved Gared aside with one hand and headed straight towards the purple-haired legionnaire with a look that could have melted the androids he had fought just moments ago to sludge.

"You mind telling me just what your little contraption of yours is doing up there?!" he roared as he collared Fumiya and rammed him into a wall, only half-oblivious to the mysterious metamorphosis going on above. "Is this what you had planned back when you said your assistance was sincere?! Huh?! You didn't want to help us kill that Nefpret bitch. You just wanted to keep tabs so that you could follow us to your goddamn father! You USED us!!!"

For once, no snide remark left the mercenary's mouth. No arrogant façade played with the assassin's threats. Not even a smile this time. Instead, the man's sight was completely entranced by the transformation high above, hypnotized by the sheer concentration of brightness that blessed the witnesses down below.

"This... isn't what I had planned," he managed to say quietly, and Double loosened his grip a little, surprised at the response he received. Fumiya's eyes never left the shine high above. "No. This isn't what I had planned."

Slowly, the android drank forth all of the Shiken's body, the shriveled, bony larva within breaking free of its thin epidermis. Instead of simply seeping through the killer's pores as the rest had so easily, the mechanism's eyes suddenly flashed white as it opened a gaping maw filled with teeth, satiating its hunger on the youth's remaining flesh. This time, no noise came from the dying monster as it willingly bled forth, covering its devourer deep in blood. Seconds after the angel had begun its unholy feast, its body began to shake and spasm again in all directions, thin beams of energy lashing out and carving up the sky with its message of destruction. Asimov watched helplessly as layer after layer of armor fell from the sky, splashing into the steaming lava lake below. Accompanying the shedding of its skin came forth a soft rain of downy feathers, a light hail that bathed the broken room in warmth. Each quill sparkled with its own glow, illuminating the room in a fervor that no one could understand. High above, a piercing cry rang through the air, slowly turning deeper with every passing second. Against a background of white, the seraph writhed in agony, growing, changing, evolving. Spreading its arms wide, the light slowly died down, and details carved themselves across a face once hidden in darkness. A golden mane that now flowed all the way down its back swirled about in the wind, whipping about as the last of the energy residue faded away. Wings graced its back, sprouting from the shoulder blades in wide embrace, covered with perfect, snowy feathers upon every inch. And high above them all, a male now looked down upon them where once a dying woman had been, flawless flesh with the exception of its right arm which had not shed its metal shell of man in exchange for blood. He smiled down upon the visitors, a benevolent look of mercy and love. It was something beautiful, beyond words of description, and all gazed upon the scintillation knowing that what they witnessed was a rare and wondrous treasure. Flooded with a holy touch, the spectators could only stop and stare, feeling a hint of humbleness in their hearts for looking upon something so grand. And just as suddenly as the change had come, he was gone again, flown off in search of more people to bestow his compassion upon, leaving the souls below feeling slightly empty, but nevertheless more full and complete than they had ever felt before.

"What the---?!" exclaimed Double, his sensors equally baffled by the sudden departure. "Terpfen, track that thing!"

"Subject is moving north at a speed of approximately 1500 kilometers per hour," said the behemoth coldly. "He will pass the northern border of an unregistered country shortly. Data files are not updated to state the specifics of this unknown territory."

"Aruna Trane," spat the assassin in disgust, then turned back towards Fumiya with malice in his eyes. "You better start coughing up details here, boy! First off, I think it's bad enough that you've been playing us for fools, and I'd kill you right here if I knew what that thing was. Second, we need to know what just happened up there before someone gets hurt!"

However, Fumiya could say nothing. His face was now creased with acrid malice as he tried to gather up his dignity once again, but the reflection in his eyes gave away just how confused he really was.

"I don't know what that was," he said coldly. "I thought---"

"Goddamnit!!!" roared Double. "You use a living weapon without even knowing what the hell it is and you dare tell me it was to your best judgment?! And now it somehow merged with that Shiken larva and flew off into the sunset! What were you thinking?!"

"Double, I know what it is," said Asimov hesitantly, coming forward and forcing himself to keep his posture rather than break down before the truth. "What Fumiya found was… an angel-type android, a weapon from the Clone Wars, the same age as Zero. I don't know what happened up there, but I do know what came out. During those battles, humans entrapped the souls of angels and devils into mechanisms of their own design with which to fight their wars. They say that these souls never truly die, but instead live in eternal agony, waiting for the day they will be freed so that they may walk the earthen plane once again. I think what we may have just witnessed here was its call of liberation, a physical re-manifestation into something resembling its original form, a... rebirth."

Silence penetrated the cavern as all eyes fell on him, no one daring to break the stillness. Finally, Double shifted towards the golden warrior warily, letting go of his victim.

"Are you saying that we just loosed one of history's most violent weapons on the planet?" he said quietly.

"Angel's themselves are not inherently 'evil,' per say," said Asimov. "However, in its life previous to being released this day, its orders were as narrow as to detecting its foe and slaughtering it by any means possible." He coughed uncomfortably as he looked down as the comatose Zero resting in his arms. "I have witnessed some of these battles myself. I'm confident in saying that any one of them would sicken even a seasoned veteran like yourself."

"And Zero's little pet wasn't all that happy when it got out," said the killer solemnly. He rested his fist on the wall as his mind quickly evaluated the situation, his body still shaking from his unfulfilled rage. "Maybe this is a guy coming from the opposite side, but I sure wouldn't be all that benevolent if I was trapped in a suit like that for thousands of years, no matter who I was supposed to like."

A real angel, reborn upon the earthen plane. Such creatures had mostly left the planet before Asimov's memory even came into existence, and what little he had witnessed of their power was enough to easily frighten him. Not since the Clone Wars had one with free will roamed the land. Too many things had changed since that time for them to ever be familiar with their master's people again, and he wondered how they would react to being released in such a drastically different world.

"I haven't witnessed enough of angels in their normal state of being to judge their behavior properly," he said. "There's no telling what this one may do, but they were constructed with interstellar combat in mind. The amount of damage they can inflict is beyond my description."

The assassin stared long at Asimov, not in animosity but rather in helplessness. Those orbs usually hidden behind easily summoned anger and arrogance now slipped away to the real individual within, one who wanted to do right but knew not the solution to the problem. Asimov could not blame him, for he himself had never faced a foe as strong and unpredictable as this. To make the next decision of where they would move was not a choice he wanted to make, and he respected his companion well enough for taking on the daunting task by himself. It was comforting to know that even someone as cold and egotistical as he knew the values of humility and defeat.

Finally, deciding that apathy would solve nothing, Double whirled about and cornered Fumiya once again, summoning up all the pomp and circumstance he could muster. Sticking a finger directly in his victim's face and yielding nothing with his malignant stare, Asimov swore he looked ready to conquer the world by himself.

"Here's the plan," he said in low, menacing tones. "WE are going to follow whatever that thing is and take it down. If Asimov is right in what he's saying, then you might have just released the end of the world on us all. I personally want to give you more pain than you've ever experienced right now, but I can't afford to. You're going to take responsibility for all these screw-ups you've been making and help us bring this angel in, no matter what the cost is. If you have to die, you better be damned willing to get your ass in there and fight, or else I'll do you the favor of feeding that creature your bones." His eyes closed as he paused, his face tightening as he resisted the urge to kill the mercenary at that very moment. Forcing himself to look upon the hated creature again, he bared his teeth as his whole body heaved with seething anger. "Just in case we fail, you better pray that that thing gives you a quicker death than I would, but don't think I wouldn't take the chance to make you suffer myself if that time does come."

Fumiya stared back with just as much vehemence, but made no effort to retaliate, knowing full well what his fate would be if he chose a path of defiance. Double simply nodded in approval, accepting the mercenary’s lack of words as an agreement as he turned about and prepared to return to the others. The golden warrior watched him leave, hesitant to follow in the direction he led them but knowing that he must walk that trail to save the ones he cared for. It was the only thing he could do, that any of them could do.

A real angel, reborn upon the earthen plane.

Asimov shivered at the mere thought...

...

...

...

Yoshiki Sang-Wu shielded his eyes from the blinding light as he watched the top of the mountain explode with energy. Already several miles away from the confrontation, he allowed himself a wry grin as the brilliant object rocketed off faster than his eyes could follow, leaving powerful waves of distortion in its wake that tore up the ground below. Toy had never told him that he actually needed this particular creature that he had been instructed to capture, only that the attempt was necessary for his plans. Thus, retreat from this battle would issue him no big loss, if only a couple dozen androids that could easily be replaced. Besides, any deed enacted for an alliance with an entity of that magnitude was well worth the rewards. His only regret was that he had not been able to settle the matter of business that he had waited so long to dispose of. Yet, his client had ensured him a promise to come with patience, that Fumiya would come to his arms once again in the near future. He would have preferred to finish the concern with his kin as soon as possible, but he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut. He had learned the value mere seconds could bring early on in his life. He was not about to violate it now out of overzealous anticipation.

"Interesting," said the gangster as he turned away from the calamity and prepared to depart with his robotic accompaniment. He had achieved much in his life, but the last piece of the puzzle was finally falling into place. If a little time was all it would take, he was more than willing to wait out the impetuosity of youth.

...

...

...

"... is this... freedom...?"

'No, my friend. Unfortunately, this is only the beginning of the end...'

...

...

...

...

...

“***’Programa de Sueno’ loaded. Time until activation: 597600 cycles.”

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

End "Tenshi"