Welcome to Gaia! ::

Omni-Gaia 1

No one knows how, no one knows why, but one thing we all agree on is… this whole thing is the fault of man. We created them, but we had no idea, they would develop a mind of their own and start killing people.
This was one item we should've left on the drawing board.
What I don't understand is… how come only one of them went haywire? Why not the other forms?
But anyway, after we lost the battle for Gaia's survival, they started rounding us all up; putting us in these machines. Once plugged in, we had no knowledge of the real world. To tell ya the truth, we thought where we were now was the real world.
We have one individual among the many Magma skins to thank for freeing some of us, because if we weren't here, we wouldn't be able to tell you all this, because we would be totally oblivious. Those that were freed from what we now know as the Omni-Gaia, fled city and made our own safe haven, our own little nest somewhere far from where it all began, a place known as Lingrion.
With limited resources, we make do with what had.
Our savior taught how to free others from the system and we set out to do just that. We built ships, and scoured the world, being careful to avoid roaming patrol. Though, while some of us intended to save lives, there was one who sought to find the said chosen one, who will help end the reign of the magma skin empire and restore this great ball of rock to its former glory. That little daydreamer is known as Samuel Grant…
The Omni-Gaia
"Terra, I need you to be careful. If they're on to you, they'll probably set up a trap."
"I know what I'm doing," Terra answered over her cellphone as she typed away on her computer like a hacker, who was busy breaking into some secret government file to expose the truth of something to the entire world. "By the way, I should be the one telling you to be careful."
"I triple checked and this line is secure…" Bradshaw explained. "Anyway, you seemed very eager to take this assignment. What's your interest with this guy anyway?"
"Strictly professional," she answered, slowing down between each word.
"Right, professional…"
"Don't take that tone, I barely know the guy to even have the slightest attraction to him."
"You're in denial."
"Think what you want… wait, did you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
"Bradshaw, are you sure this line is secure?"
"Very."
"I gotta go…" she hangs up on him.
Meanwhile, outside two cops break down the door and storm in with a bunch of others, guns at the ready as they make their way upstairs and down the dark hallway. Once reaching the room where Terra was, they stand their silently, waiting for the signal. Once the leader gives the nod, one of them kicks the door in and they rush in with their guns aimed at the back of her head.
"Hands on your head!"
Back outside, a black Sedan pulls up and several samurai in mauve kimono get out.
"Who are these guys?"
"I dunno, but what's with the robes?"
"Captain, your orders were to stand down and let the professionals handle this."
"We figured you would be late, so I sent some of my men in there."
"Your men have no idea who they're dealing with…"
"How bad could it be? It's just one girl."
The middle samurai puts two of his fingers on his left hand to side of his head and looks up at the building. His eyes turned blacked and he was able to see right through the wall and into the very room where a huge fight took place between Terra and the police, ending with her still standing. The samurai's eyes turned back to normal.
On the inside, the very same vision he had saw then became true as Terra moved so fast and dealt devastating strikes like she were Bruce lee himself.
The Samurai, who had saw this vision then took the place of the one cop, who was still standing, similar to how an agent could do in the matrix trilogies and started to open fire.
Terra thought it'd be best if she got out of there as quickly as possible, "Bradshaw, I dunno how, but the line was traced; I got a samurai on my tail. Can you get me an exit?"
"Head east down the hallway you are now in and jump to the adjacent building, make it to the rooftop and proceed north towards the pier; I've got an exit portal waiting."
"Affirmative."
Once she made it around the corner, the other samurai came up in the elevator accompanied by cops; Terra looks in their direction and quickly runs the opposite way while they fired shots off in hopes of hitting her.
She ran up a flight of stairs until she came to the window Bradshaw told her about and jumped through and into the hallway of the adjacent building.
The samurai and the cops all stopped; the samurai picked the cops up by the back of their coats and throw them across before they themselves got a running start and jumped over there with them.
Terra makes her way onto a fire escape and works her way up with the samurai leader not too far behind. She looks down at him and he looks up at her before she continued up the ladder at the top.
"Hurry up!"
"Bradshaw, I'm running out of building here…"
"I got it covered. Just grab for the crane three rooftops ahead and swing off the ledge."
"Are you crazy?"
"Trust me."
She continues running towards the ledge with the cops and samurai right behind her, jumping from rooftop to rooftop. She reaches the crane, holds on tight as it rotates 45 degrees. She does a leap of faith and lands in the back of truck north.
The three samurai slide down a pole alongside the wall and continue after her on foot while the cops stayed up above.
They follow her until the distance between them and the truck grew greater and greater and proceeded to open fire.
"How much further?" Terra asked.
"Not much, just stay on until you reach the end of the pier.
Inside, the truck drivers started shaking violently like they were having a seizure before two of the samurai took their places in the seats.
"Terra, look out behind you."
She looks up at one of the samurai climbing in the back with her.
The samurai throws the first punch, which Terra blocked.
Terra throws a left kick and the samurai leans back then forward again with a lunge punch to the heart.
Terra steps back and the samurai strikes with a spinning kick, which she ducked under. She then reaches for her gun and fires a shot; the samurai delivers a swift kick and her shot was diverted towards the driver, whose head then falls on the steering wheel as Terra and the other samurai still fought.
Once they reached edge of the boardwalk, Terra delivers one final attack before back flipping off the truck just before he drove into the water.
Several seconds later, a blue light shone on the edge of the boardwalk. Terra steps on it and her molecules instantly scattered as if she went through a wormhole.
A couple of workers rush over to check out the truck that was sinking deeper into the water and the samurai immediately take over their bodies.
"She got away…"
"Doesn't matter; we have the name of their next target."
Back onboard the ship, the intangible, in the real world…
"Guy Tucker…"
"Are you sure it's him?"
"It has to be, he's a very extraordinary guy; a computer hacker, and karate school teacher, yet his technique is a lil rusty."
"That could mean anything."
"That may be, but I still would like a private audience with him; test his skills."
"You think that is wise, sir? There's a statewide manhunt for you."
"I can handle myself. Just set it up."
"Please… let me meet him instead."
"You really like this guy, don't you? I can tell."
Terra doesn't respond.
"Alright, you will meet him at his martial arts school around 5 in the afternoon. Are you sure you can handle it?"
"I'm sure…"
An hour later, Terra is the corner of the room, waiting for Guy's karate class to end.
"Alright, everyone, class dismissed. I'll see you tomorrow."
Once the students leave, Terra approaches.
"Yes, what can I help you with?"
"You're Guy Tucker, aren't you?"
"Yeh, how do you know my name?"
"My name's Terra, I know all about you."
"I'm not working for any branch of government that wants to detain you; I'm here because a friend of mine would like to meet you."
"Who might that be?"
"His name is Samuel Grant, you might have heard of him somewhere before."
"The guy that lead that assault on an airport?"
"The one and only."
"Why would he want to meet me?"
"He's under the impression that you're mankind's only hope for survival."
"What are you talking about?"
"Look, I don't understand it myself, but all I know that you're in danger."
"Why am I in danger? We need to go someplace a lil less conspicuous if we're to discuss this further; the walls have ears."
A little while later at a place called Club Meth…
"So you gonna tell me what all this is about?"
"You ever get that feeling where you're not sure if you're dreaming or if you're awake?"
"Sometimes, yeh."
"That means you're trying to wake up, but they won't let you."
"Who's 'they'?"
"Please just listen to me. They know we're looking for you and they know what you're capable of you have to come with me."
"Look, I don't know who you think you are or what your angle is, but I got to teach a class tomorrow, so I'm not going anywhere with you; not now, not tomorrow, not ever. Now, thanks for buying me a drink, but I must be getting home."
The next morning, Guy woke up and realized he was late for class. He brushed his teeth, washed his face, got dressed, had a big breakfast and stormed out. On the way to work, he was unaware of the woman in black leather wear a helmet following behind him at a safe distance. After arriving at his karate school, he was just about apologize for his tardiness when he saw two white men going through his stuff while a third guy was rambling around in the back room where his computer was.
"What's going on here? Where are my students?"
"We sent them home, so we can have a lil chat."
"Who are you?"
"Is your name Forest Tucker?"
"Most people call me Guy. I ask again, who are you?"
Meanwhile, outside the school, Samuel places a call to the woman on the bike, Terra, "As soon as they leave, you follow behind them and be careful; if they're on to you, they'll try to elude you."
"Got it."
Back inside.
"Who I am is unimportant. What matters is that we've been watching you for quite a while and I must say that you are a piece of work."
"Why, what's this about?"
"Everything will be explained after you come with us."
"I'm not going anywhere," Guy brushes the guys hand off his shoulder, but then the samurai then grabs him by the necks and hoists him up.
Guy kicks him in the stomach three times, but the samurai didn't even flinch. Guy swats his hand away and causes him to release his grip, then he strikes with his left fist; the samurai blocks and Guy throws a right kick, which the Samurai ducks under. One of the other Samurai joins in. he jumps over the other samurai and lands a flying kick.
While on his back, Guy rolls out of the way as the third samurai slashes at him with his sword. He rolls over to the weapons on the wall, knocks them down and uses the Bo staff to defend himself.
After getting to his feet, he strikes back. He strikes high and the Samurai blocks before attacking low; Guy jumps over it and lands a devastating strike to the top of the Samurai's head. as he lands he ducks just in time as one of the Samurai attacked from behind; Guy spins his Bo staff behind his back and hits him in the stomach before rising again and blocking as his opponent struck with a slash from the right diagonally.
Guy jots his staff out and the samurai leans to the left, grabs the staff and spirals towards Guy with a karate chop to the stomach, then the face, and strikes with a kick to the stomach.
Guy lands in the arms of the other two, who held on tight as the other one Tasers him.
As they brought him out to the car, they failed to noticed Terra sitting on her motorcycle, watching and waiting. She pulls out her handgun and instead of firing bullets, she fires homing device into the side of the trunk and puts the gun away. She waits until they're almost out of sight before she follows after them using her tracker to determine their movement.
She turns left on the intersection before the one the black car took and rejoined them at the next intersection. As they stop at the red light, she pulls up next to them.
Up in one of the windows overlooking the intersection, a single sniper sat poised with his rifle aimed at the driver.
Terra waits for the signal, which was the sniper putting a bullet hole in the forehead of the driver, before she took out the passenger in the front and proceeded to open the back door and pull Guy out. She puts him on the bike and races off.
When Guy came to, he wondered how he got there. Terra didn't answer. Guy asked if she could pull over and let him go, and she still didn't answer him.
"Can you at least tell me where we're going?"
"Like I said, my friend would like to meet you."
"You told me that. Samuel Grant, right? What the hell happened back there? I remember being tasered and put in the back of a car."
"I saved your life back there; at least you could say thanks."
Later on in the day…
"Follow me, please." Terra requested. She lead him up a flight of spiraling stairs and into the presence of the infamous Samuel Grant.
Samuel immediately turns to greet him, "At long last… welcome, Guy."
"So you're Samuel Grant… I was expecting someone with more color…
"You're thinking of Morpheus from that one movie trilogy, 'The Matrix'."
"Why did you want to meet me? If you don't mind my asking. I know Terra said you think I'm mankind's hope for survival, but I'm not sure what you mean by survival."
He takes a seat and asks Guy to do so as well, "Right now, I bet you're probably feeling a lot like Alice when she found out she had to slay the Jabberwocky. You're thinking that 'maybe I got the wrong guy'."
"That's about right."
"I can tell by the look in your eyes. You're a man, who doesn't realize what he's capable of until the time comes when he must do what needs to be done; this is not far from being true. Do you believe in fate?"
"Not really."
"Could you please explain why?"
"Because I don't believe the possibility that someone else is controlling my life; I create my own destiny."
"That's exactly how I feel on the subject. Now as for the reason why you're here. I'll be as quick and to the point as I can be. You are here, because you possess knowledge so powerful that is beyond your comprehension. We know this, the three men who abducted you know this, which is why they felt it was important that they get to you before we do. You will need our help unlocking this hidden power if you are to help us save mankind."
"Save it from what exactly?"
"What you see all around you is an illusion of what the world once was before they came and took over."
"Who took over?"
"No one knows the true identity of these things, but we've come to know them well as the Magma Skins. An experiment made by Gaia that had went horribly wrong; it turned on its creators and spread like a plague across this very rock we call Planet Gaia. The world around us is a computer simulation being fed into the minds of millions in order to keep us under control."
"I find that hard to believe."
"It may be a little bit too much to take, but it is all true."
"If all of this true like you say it is… then how do I get out?"
"It is not an easy thing to do, but it can be done if you choose to let me help you. You have two options. Which one you choose is entirely up to you. You take the black pill, you'll stay living in the shadows and believe whatever is put in front of you and have no idea what is reality or what fiction; you take the white pill, it'll help open you up to a new point of view on life. You will learn the truth and everything you once knew will be swept away like footprints in sand."
Samuel holds both the pills out in each hand for Guy to make his decision; Guy reaches for the white pill, takes it in his hand and swallows it along with some water.
Once done, Samuel asks him to follow him.
"Gizmo, how we doing?"
"We were able to locate his body in the real world, but the pill is taking much longer than expected."
"What do you mean taking longer?"
"Your mind is still plugged in to the system through a series of nano-bots, which follow your blood through your body. The pill you took is designed to short circuit those bots and disable their effect, thus releasing you from the Omni-Gaia's hold," Terra explained.
"Oh."
"When it starts, you'll start to feel dizzy, so you may want to sit down."
"Well why couldn't I just stay in there and sit down…"
"Because you wouldn't understand what's happening to you and Samuel can't explain as fluently as I can," Terra explained.
"I'm starting to feel it going to work…" Guy collapses into the comfy armchair and places one hand on his forehead.
"Just hang in there, it'll be over soon."
Guy's vision got blurry; he could barely see his hand in front of his face. To him, it looked as if his hand were disappearing. Soon, it looked as if his whole body were vanishing like a ghost fading into the spirit world. Long after, Guy wakes up, wearing a tattered blue shirt and dark brown pants lying on a table. His vision was still a bit blurry as he woke up to see a white man in his early 40's towering over him.
"For your sake, sir, I hope you're right about this one."
"7th time's the charm, Bradshaw. And stop calling me sir. You're not my butler anymore. Quite frankly, what's the use of having a butler in the end of the world? Besides, if he's not the one, he is still welcome in the city."
"If he's anything like the others, his muscle will be stiff from not using them in a long while, which means we should perform acupuncture."
"You're right. He's no good to us if he can't move…"

Omni-Gaia 1 ½: separate vantage point

Somewhere else in the real world onboard a much smaller version of Samuel's hovercraft, the Intangible, we are introduced to a new captain and crew; the first is a captain Harris Mills, a lightweight, brown skin Latino in his 30's with short, black hair and a blue shirt with gray pants.
Next was the Jar Keith who was both the pilot and operator; he was the same height and weight as the captain and was a male Caucasian, "I don't even know why we're here… this place gives me the creeps."
"We're on assignment, will you relax?" Jan replied.
"We've got Magma drones crawling over every drop location we've ever used, and you're aksing me to relax?" Jar answered. "My brother nearly got BBQ'd by one of them."
"Hope it wasn't anything serious…"
"Nah, not as serious as it's looking for us right now; do you even think we got a chance at getting to the drop before they find us?"
"The odds aren't stacking in our favor at the moment, but we've got no other options."
"This is suicide."
"Jar, how long have you been operating this ship? When have you ever known the captain to play it safe?""
The captain sets the ship down by an unknown rock face and diverts all power the computers as Jar readied them for their assignment.
"Drop's still clear, sir."
"Excellent, then we proceed as planned."
"This won't be easy; are you sure you wanna go ahead with this…"
"Whatever is at that drop cost Ali and her crew their lives and I intend to find out what."
Later on the inside, after stocking up on weapons and ammo, Harris and Jan enter the Omni-Gaia outside of the local post office.
"Your call, wanna go in or stay out here?"
"I could use the exercise, I'm going in."
"You already look fit as is…"
"I'm flattered that you say that, captain."
"I'll keep watch in case you get into trouble in there…"
Jan enters the lobby of the post office just minutes before closing and takes a look around. As she wanders, her cellphone begins to ring. As she picked it up, Jar gave her instructions.
"Take the elevator at the far end behind reception and that should give you a clear line to the P.O. Boxes."
"Roger that, Jar." She casually walks to the back behind the front desk and past the guards to the elevator Jar suggested only to find it inoperable, "Jar, the elevator's not working."
Just before Jar could suggest another way, two security guards come out of the door on her right and attack her. She takes them down as quick as possible and heads through the door they came out of and into the back room.
"Okay, you got a freight elevator in the back of the sorting room; I don't know if it's operating, but let's hope for the best…"
"Thanks."
"There's security everywhere, since you're limited on weapons, avoidance is the best policy if it's possible."
She puts the phone away and continues through the room quiet as a church mouse; she hugged tight to the wall and crouches down low as she passed by what appeared to be the cafeteria or something and continued down her current path normally as if she belonged there. At the end of the hall, she heads through a door and finds herself standing front of a security desk; two more guards appear from the back of the room and she makes quick work of them before taking their weapons and adding them to her collection and moving on.
She continues through the next door, up some stairs and into the epicenter of the entire post office, the post office. After venturing down some more stairs, she treads lightly through this room to avoid getting spotted. She uses the machinery for cover so not to disturb the workers and ducks in and out of aisles on her way to the freight elevator at the back beyond the fence. As the two guards approached, she quickly attached a silencer and took them down with one shot each to the forehead. A third guard captures Jan in a choke hold and she breaks free and deals with him discreetly before accessing the elevator.
Her phone rings with Jar answering on the other end with bad news.
"You need to get out of there, cops are everywhere on the next floor; it's a trap!"
Jan tries to hit the emergency stop button, but it was too late. Once the doors opened, there was no one around for all Jan knew.
"I'm calling in Harris for backup…" Jar hangs up.
She steps out of the elevator and the cops come out of hiding with a barrage of gunfire.
Jan takes cover after flipping one of the tables in the room and fires back every chance she got. First couple of times, she managed to hit nothing, but the walls. After emptying both clips, she reloads and tries again, this time getting two cops in the process. She decided to move in close and takes cover behind a stack of boxes with a net on top and continues the fire from there. She then takes down enough cops to move further into the room. She turns the corner to more cops and a takes cover again. She continues fighting her way through until she reaches the end of the room where more cops are waiting to ambush her. She takes cover and kills them one by one until the coast is clear and moves on through the steel gate beyond the door.
Once inside, a bunch of guards with gas masks pop out; one of them throws a canister with a weird type of smoke, which made Jan's eyes water.
"Oh s**t, tear gas." She climbs up onto the top of the shelves to get away from it, while Jar calls her up on her phone.
"Just stick to higher ground and keep going in the direction you're currently headed and you'll be fine…"
Jan goes from the shelves to the ventilation pipe and runs across until reaching the end and jumping to the pipe on opposite wall and continuing forward until reaching the roof of a small room and jumping down through the glass window.
"He's in the store room, ALL UNITS MOVE IN!" one of the officers barked.
Jan scrambles to get out of there, but it took some time; guards came pouring in and she had to resort to using the shelves for cover as she looked for an alternate exit. Realizing there wasn't one, she took her guns and fought her way out.
Exiting the room, Jan had to run past more gunfire coming from a fence off area to the right of her position. She follows the pathway until turning the corner and ending up outside the PO boxes.
"Any ideas, Jar?" she said into her phone.
"There should be a control room nearby, lemme know when you find it."
"Well that's helpful," she answered sarcastically.
"Sorry, best I can do; this place has been renovated so many times, I don't know what to look for…"
She approaches the fence and proceeds to climb. Once she figured it would be too hard to climb over, Jan heads towards the glass office space, gets a good running start and dives through the glass, rolls onto her feet and keeps going. In this room, she makes her way towards the shelves and takes down the guards that pop out from behind cover before moving towards the partially opened gate, rolling under it and continuing through the door on the other side to a room filled with more glass offices.
All seemed quiet in here, so she put her guns away and casually walked through, looking for another way out until she found one in the glass office at the end of the room via the glass window. As she dived through, she rolled along the ground and immediately took cover. More guards proceeded to flood into the room as she pressed firmly against the pillar. She reloads and takes the guards down one by one and moves on. She later moves into the control room and subdues the PO workers before wandering around.
"There should be a big red button somewhere in the room; that'll restore power to the elevator that takes you to our PO Box…"
Doing as she was instructed, Jan presses the button and walks through the second doorway in the room and back into the office area as she backtracks through the building and down to the main lobby where she first saw the elevator. Once she made it back to where she started at the beginning, three guards approached her and she had another fight on her hands. She deals with them quickly and gets in the elevator to the second floor. From there, she strolls to the P.O. Boxes and takes the package out of the box, which belonged to her and Harris. After she reached for it, her phone rang.
"You have more cops ascending towards your position, you need to get out of there," Jar answered.
But it was too late, they were already outside of the room; one cop shoots a canister of tear gas while the rest storm in with gas masks and assorted firearms; shotguns, assault rifles, you name it, they brought it.
Jan sticks closely to the pillar as she tries to assess the situation. Thinking long and hard, she figured the smart thing to do was move all around to confuse them, disarm them and take them out one at a time.
As for the ones outside the room, she performs a cartwheel, grabs the tear gas can, hugs tightly to the pillar on the opposite side, peeks out and throws it back at them; her partner immediately comes up behind the officers with a gas mask on and a shotgun in hand and takes them out.
As Jan got back in the elevator to the first floor and ran towards the front entrance, the doors automatically lock and trap her inside with a bunch of SWAT officers pouring into the room like a colony of ants at a picnic.
With another fight on her hands, Jan takes cover and does the usual strategy for dealing with the enemy.
With the front doors shut tight and the guards gone, she had to find another way out. After minutes of aimless wandering, she heads back to the mail sorting room where a huge fire had just took place in her absence, "Jar, what the hell just happened here?"
"Harris created a distraction."
"Since when does a distraction involve blocking my route escape?"
"Hang tight, I'll take a look at some other options for ya; only take a sec…" Jar comes up with a solution, which he tells her via cellphone, "Okay, I got something that is sure to piss you off a bit; head back to the offices on the second floor. There should be a window that gives you access to the alleyway; that's your escape."
"And I suppose you're expecting me to sprout wings from my back like an angel and ******** fly out…" Jan said sarcastically.
"Hey, I warned you this will piss you off. I'm sorry, it's the only way I can think of; good luck."
"What I need rather than luck is another exit that won't be hazardous to my health, Jar, but I'll take what I can get at the moment."
With the path behind her blocked by the falling debris, she had no choice but to move forward through the roaring flames and overturned machinery and other various objects. In some areas of the burning room, guards pop out from time to time to hinder her escape, but Jan takes care of them as she moves through and towards the freight elevator from earlier; with it out of order, she takes the stairs to the second floor office where more officers pop out. As she fought, she wondered why the cops were sticking around with part of the building on fire and all, but the thought faded from her mind as she fought her way to the window Jar mentioned at the right moment, landed on the trailer of a moving semi-truck, and rolled off onto the ground beside it as it rolled away. Jan gets up like nothing happened, brushes herself off and head back out to the street just as Harris rolls up in the getaway vehicle.
After getting in, Jan and Harris make small conversation before driving away to the destination only Harris knew the location of.
At the same time, Jan readied her rifle for a high-speed shoot-out as the cop cars starting arriving on the scene. As she ducks back in to reloaded, she answers, "You know, thought this was going to be simple."
"Just shut up and keep shooting," Harris answered back with an annoyed tone in her voice.
Harris makes a sharp right turn and Jan gets back in her seat to reload, "You could warn me when you're gonna do that; I almost dropped my gun." She puts in another clip, sticks her head out of the window and continues firing. Further down the road, Jan starts using the drivers on the road to slow the cop cars down, which proved useful for their escape at the cost of putting innocent lives in danger. Though, her efforts seemed to have not done much to tip the odds in their favor as more cops cars approach and take the place of the downed squad cars.
Meanwhile, Harris was still driving like a maniac to try and shake them; after turning another corner, Jar gives Harris a call.
"Head towards the train tracks on the north side, I've got a plan."
After half an hour of trying to evade police, Harris comes up on the tracks Jar mentioned and noticed the gate-like things were lowered and the red lights were blinking back and forth.
"This is crazy, Jar…!"
"Accelerate your speed and you'll make it," Jar explained.
Harris puts the pedal to the metal and doubles his speed, which in turn gave him the opportunity to rip through the gate things that blocked the tracks and jump past the oncoming train just barely with the end result being part of her rear bumper, the left taillight broken off, and no more cops on his tail.
After a thrilling chase and narrowly escaping death by locomotive, Harris and Jan find themselves a step closer to the extraction point unaware of the presence of a single homeless person in in the alleyway, which posed a threat as being a potential agent.
As they wandered into his sights, the Samurai got a lock on their position; one of them takes over the homeless man's body, gets to his feet and pursues them silently.
"Jar, give us some good news for once; is the exit close?"
"Head up to the fire escape and onto the roof; the extraction point is just behind the roof access door, but be careful, I picking up a signal, which reads like Samurai coding," Jar explained.
They ascend the ladder to the roof and from there, they venture across the rooftops like trained acrobats as they jumped across gaps, climbed more ladders and pulled off long jumps, which would be impossible for any normal person to perform.
Upon approaching the right door, Harris jiggles the handle only to have the door slam into his face and knock him flat on his backside. A samurai in a light-purple robe walks through the doorway and Jan aims her gun at him. The samurai quickly disarms her and knocks her on her back as well.
Without putting up a fight, Jan and Harris decide to split up and make a run for it; they jump off the roof they were previously on continue moving. As they ran around in circles to draw the Samurai away from the exit, our heroes have more cops to contend with. With the possibility that a Samurai could inhabit the body of one of those cops, Jan and Harris avoid confrontation as they they head towards a building with a part of the wall missing and jump through; Jan falls through the floor, leaving Harris by himself while Jan sought another way back up to her partner.
Harris continues on without her, assuming she'd be fine on her own, but after several minutes of wandering the rooftops, Harris soon stopped worrying about the life of his partner and felt concerned about his own as he finds himself in an unavoidable fight against the samurai pursuing them, on one of the rooftops very high up.
Getting straight into the fight, Harris deals a combination of low, middle, and high kicks, which the samurai block before swinging back from the left. Harris blocks and throws back a straight punch to the stomach, which the samurai counters with an arm twist and a leg drop on his back, which brought Harris to the ground face first. The samurai kicks him like a soccer ball and drives through the air towards the ledge.
Harris quickly gets up and continues the fight.
The samurai strikes with a frontal kick, which Harris counters with a leg grab, a spiral and a palm thrust to the chest, which knocks him on his back; the samurai gets to his feet quickly with a Kip-up, reaches for his gun, which Harris rapidly takes from his hands and throws to the ground before swinging from the right. Seconds before Harris could land the hit, the samurai ducks, grabs onto Harris and throws him over his head and onto his back behind him before unsheathing his sword and striking at him on the ground while Harris rolls from side to side to evade the attacks.
After a few more strikes, Harris grabs the sword with his feet, spirals into the air as he twists the sword out of the samurai's hands, lands on his back, releases the sword, backward rolls onto his feet, pulls his gun and starts shooting.
The samurai dodges all the bullets with lightning fast reflexes before he and Harris both went for the sword.
After the Samurai got to it first, Harris ducked and dodged and then finally knocked the sword from his hand and off the roof, forcing his opponent to rely on his hand-to-hand combat skills.
After a few moments of Harris wearing him down, Jan was spotted on the rooftop adjacent to Harris and the Samurai's position; she fires her weapon to distract the samurai while Harris moves in with a scissor-lock and makes the Samurai tumble backwards and over the side.
Jan drops the weapon and rejoins her partner as they venture through the roof access door and approach the phone as it rang, signaling the hard-line was ready for extraction.
Back onboard the ship after Harris and Jan were extracted, they get down to deciphering what was on the package they picked up, which proved to be a difficult task as the disk was coded. After cracking the code, the message they listened to was very shocking news. So shocking, that once she uploaded the message to the resistance in the city, the commander initiated an order for all available ships to make their return.
After the commander made this order clear to Captain Harris and left the recall in his hands, Harris and Jan went back into the Omni-Gaia with another plan.
"Won't be easy making as many calls like that…" Jan answered.
"That's why we need to use the airport payphones; it'll make a trace impossible."
Once at the airport, Jan and Harris split up and start using the phones to make their calls. Several hours after that task was complete, Harris receives an unexpected call from Roman Cooke, the operator of the ship, "the Eris"
"Roman, I don't it's safe for us to be having a discussion."
"I wouldn't be calling if it wasn't important."
"What is it?"
"They've got one of our crewmen, Jennifer, and they're transporting her somewhere; I don't have a clue as to where, but their current location is the airport."
"That's where we are."
"Candy is pinned down by Samurai and dozens of other heavily armed guards in one of the hangars and they're taking Jen to the tarmac. If they get her in the air, then we'll have no choice, but to…"
"Don't worry, we'll get her back before anything else bad happens." After hanging up, her cellphone rings; it's Jan on the other line.
"Whatever happened to being discreet?"
"I didn't do anything, it's Candy's crew that messed up; she's pinned down and they got one of her crewmembers hostage."
"What's the plan here, captain?"
"See if you help Candy; I'll go after Jennifer."
"Good luck…"
"You too."
After hanging up, Jan and Harris go their separate ways. In the direction Jan is going, she comes across a metal detector and about 3-5 guards; one of them was on the ground with another one dressing a wound on the guy's right arm. Knowing that going through the metal detector would set it off, she tries to go around it. After passing it, one of the guards gave her a warning and told her to go back to the lobby.
Jan kept moving and the man holds up his firearm.
"I won't ask you again," he said.
Jan quickly turns, pulls out her guns with the silencers on them and takes him out before focusing on the others. Once the fight was over, she holstered her guns and moved on. As she entered the concourse, more guards fire at her, causing her to take cover behind the chairs. As she took cover, she removed the silencers from her handguns, seeing as the cops already know she's here. She then waits for the right moment come out from behind her cover and fire back. When she finished, she continues down the concourse and makes a left. Before she could make it through the gate closes right in front of her, so she had to find another way through via the restroom. Inside, she comes across SWAT team units converging at her location through the opposite door. She makes quick work of them and continues on.
Checking back with Harris around the same time, she has made her way towards the baggage conveyor behind the check-in counter. She gets on the conveyor belt crouched down and rides it all the way to the other side of the wall to the baggage sorting area.
"Harris, I'm monitoring a whole lot of activity outside as well a Samurai; keep your distance if you can. Also, I've picked up a transmission. They're taking Jennifer to the hangar; you can get there via remote terminal."
"Only one problem, I'm staring at a whole shitload of conveyor belts, which one will get me there faster?"
"Get on Belt #8."
Once Harris was done with his phone call, the belts suddenly stopped without warning. Figuring out that the guards must've shut down the power, he makes his way through the area looking for the control panels.
Checking back with Jan, we find that she's made it all the way to the customs office with little to no trouble at all from SWAT. At first as she walked through the office, everything was quiet. But as soon as she went through the short hallway, she heard three guards having a conversation about what was going on. She sneaks up one of them and puts him to sleep with a choke hold. The other two took notice to her presence and went for the guns on the rack; Jan throws one of her handguns at the back of his head and knocked him out before rushing over to the only one standing and knocked him out with a variety of karate moves. "Hmm… nice guns," she said to herself, admiring the various firearms on the rack, "Hope you boys don't mind me taking a few…" she reaches for as many of them as she could carry and continues down her path until coming up on bulletproof glass. She places a grenade and steps back before it detonates and gets glass shards and shrapnel stuck in her. Once the glass was gone, she jumps through and gets into another fight in which she takes the guards down quickly, except that this time, they came prepared.
There was a whooshing sound like that of a propeller and Jan takes notice to the gunship rising to her level.
"Oh crap…" she runs in the opposite direction and takes cover behind one of those small billboard things behind the row of chairs as the helicopter open fired.
During that time, Harris had his own problems as we see him wandering around in the dark looking for tunnel 7R. after finding it, she comes in contact with a samurai, which meant he had some running to do; he quickly makes his way around him and follows the tunnel to the end and races up the ladder
Checking back with Jan, who was still dealing with the gunship at the same time Harris was navigating the tunnels, she continues pelting the hull with bullets, hoping it was doing some damage. After awhile, the chopper starts producing smoke from the propeller and it started to go down. From the concourse, she then moves onto the monorails, taking down all SWAT units in sight as she moves onto the revolving restaurant and then the control tower, where she meets up with Candy Austin.
"Seems like you got things under control here…"
"Not quite; they have Jen. If they get her in the air, she's dead."
Without any warning, a Samurai accompanied by SWAT team storms in and takes Jan and Candy by surprise. After realizing who it was, they put their guns down and ran in the opposite direction.
"After them…" the Samurai instructed.
As they go up the stairs the control tower, Candy orders Nicholas to guard the door while she and the others double back into the terminal to Jen's location. "Jan, I'm gonna need you to cover us from the control tower.
At the top of the tower, Jan finds a single guard standing watch; she equips her silencer and delivers a single shot to the back of head. Once he was down, she disposes of his body, takes the sniper and provides covering fire.
Later after disposing all the SWAT team units, Jan gets a call from Harris, who then tells her about the plane on the runway and that that's where they're taking Jennifer.
"If I aim for the tires, I might be able to stop it." Jan takes her aim, focuses really hard on the target and blows out the tire on the front with a single shot.
Harris surfaces on the runway just seconds after Jan shot the tire and takes notice to a bunch of cops putting Jen into the back of a SUV. The driver takes off just as Harris rushes over to intercept.
Harris, who figured he wasn't going to be able to outrun a vehicle on foot, decides to commandeer one of the other vehicles on the runway and take chase.
Meanwhile, back up in the control tower, Jan had more helicopter-related problems to deal with. With the sniper rifle being the only thing effective enough to put a dent in it, Jan takes one shot at a time to deal some damage.
Around the same time, Harris pursues the samurai and a bunch of SWAT officers into the hangar. Once inside, he saw where he needed to go, but hesitated as a bunch of SWAT units took their positions in front of him and stopped him with a wide range of gunfire. Harris takes his handguns and jumps out firing back in sprays as he inched closer to one of them and disarms him. After taking his gun, Harris killed him and took cover once again as she planned his movements slowly and precisely. He moves in closer while firing back to make the cops take cover and then takes cover behind another box like figure on the opposite side of the soldier. Timing his attack carefully, he rotates around the box and behind the soldier, grabs him in a choke hold and breaks his neck.
Adding his gun to his collection, he moved about the room until making it over to the ladder and onto the balcony where a familiar face calls out to him and gestures for Harris to follow.
After going through the door that the girl went through, Harris ends up in another part of the hangar with more soldiers, who were guarding a huge, gray cargo plane with Jennifer onboard.
Moments later, Jan had finished off the gunship, headed back downstairs and saw Harris chasing after the cargo plane in a police SUV as the plane prepared for takeoff. As he took chase the hatch door opens and someone began to fire at him, but Harris managed to get onboard before the plane got in the air.
Candy and Nicholas meet up with him just as the plane was in the air.
"Jennifer's on that plane; Harris managed to get aboard before it took off." Jan pointed out.
"We're gonna to keep up with, see where it goes."
Jan spots two police cars on the runway. After shooting the cops inside both of them, Jan, Candy and Nicholas got inside and took off after the plane.
"Alright, here's the plan. We'll keep the SWAT team at bay while you follow the plane. Good luck, Jan."
"I'm certainly due for some luck about now."
Meanwhile onboard the plane, Harris notices the car is about to slide out of the cargo hold; he hits the brakes, but that wasn't doing anything, so he quickly opens the door and gets out before it took him down with it. He checks to confirm is Jen's okay before going to get a couple of parachutes, but as she returned with the chutes that's when the real trouble began. After cutting Jennifer free, another samurai inhabits the body of the pilot and heads back to the cargo bay just moments before they were ready to jump. He grabs Harris by the hand and slams him into the wall and then goes for the button to close the hatch door.
Harris gets up and strikes a fighting pose as he gestured him to make the first move.
Meanwhile, Jennifer gets to her feet and bails on Harris just before the door closes.
Down below, Jan noticed someone jump out of the plane.
"Candy, it's me. Jennifer's made it out okay."
"Roger that."
Back onboard, Harris had his hands full as he had to fight off the samurai.
Harris strikes with an overhead swing from his right and Samurai ducks as he throws back a low backhand to the chest, which Harris blocked before delivering a shin kick to the samurai's left left.
The samurai retaliates with a punch to the groin and Harris flew back a couple feet back and landed on his stomach. As he got to his feet, the Samurai started kicking at him and Harris had to block before throwing back another overhead strike.
The samurai grabs his arm and twists it around behind Harris, who breaks free by delivering a back kick to the samurai, who immediately reaches for his gun only to have it kicked from his hand.
Harris then performed three kicks; one to the side of the knee, one to the side just above the hip and a high kick to the face. The samurai blocked the third one with a leg grab and punched Harris into the wall near the button and caused the hatch door to open.
Harris peeled himself off the wall and moves in for a sweep kick, which the samurai jumped over.
Afterwards, Harris threw a straight punch for the neck and the samurai blocks with an arm grab.
Harris unclenches his fist and pokes his fingers into the samurai's Adam's apple, causing him to release his grip.
Harris then hits him with a midair wire-fu kick and knocks him out of the plane before jumping of the plane after him and pulling the chute.
Down on the ground, Jan is racing against a black Sedan, which was heading straight for Jennifer's position.
"Whatever you do, don't lose that car," Jar said, stating the obvious.
By the time he caught up with the car, the guy on the passenger side had already started dragging Jen back to the car as she lied unconscious.
Jan rolls up, and drifts to the right coming to a full stop as she rolled down the window, take her gun and fired quickly before the Samurai had a chance to block.
With Jennifer in the car, the driver took off and Jan had another chase scene on her hands.
A couple miles up ahead, Jen comes to and causes a diversion which makes the driver spin out of control, plow into a lamp post and go flying out of the front windshield.
"Should've worn a seatbelt," she mumbled.
Jan gets of the car and rushes over to Jen to get her out of the passenger seat, "You're gonna be okay; don't worry."
As soon as Jan's cellphone rang, she picked it up.
"Jan. tell me we have her."
"I got her right beside me; where are you?"
"I'm airborne. Have Jar track my position and meet me when I land."
"No need, I see you right now." Jan pulls to a stop as Harris lands in front of him.
Harris opens the driver side door, Jan gets in back and Harris takes the wheel.
"Report: what's the status on the rest of fleet?"
"Candy and the others are out and safe and I called ahead to the rest of the fleet."
"Good…"

At around the same time, Samuel enters Commander Argo Arbiter's office; Arbiter had a disappointed look on his face, which Samuel could not interpret, so Samuel just entered quietly and stood at a respected distance awaiting the first sentence to make its way out of the commander's mouth.
"Captain Samuel, you are this close to be locked in the stockades; if you can come up with any reason why I shouldn't execute that order, please feel free to share…"
"I have not done anything wrong."
"You were ready to disobey a direct order and not return with the other ships. Instead, you decided to order on ship to stay behind in the Omni-Gaia despite my previous orders."
"I needed someone on the inside to await word from an informant of mine; I would've stayed myself, but I needed to come back and recharge."
"I'm not having this conversation. Informant or not, what is important here is ensuring the lives of millions of people within these walls; the dome in place above our heads can prevent from an aerial attack, but goddamn it, these things are burrowing. Once they breach the city, we're going to need every ship, every soldier we can spare to put an end to this."
"You and I both know there's only way to do that. You just refuse to believe that it's the only option."
"Samuel, we can't put millions at risk on a stupid prophecy. We need to focus on the here and the now; what we can see in front of us; one man cannot stop an entire army and you need to realize that."
Back to the fight in the garden between Jan and Terra…
Jan throws a couple kicks to the chest, which Terra blocks; after a third kick, Terra ducks; Jan throws another kick and Terra blocks with her palm.
Jan throws a right hook.
Terra quickly rotates her right and blocks before twisting Jan's arm forward and throwing back some kicks to the chest.
With Jan's free hand, she blocked. On the third kick, she grabs Terra's leg, lifts up and throws her to the right and onto the ground.
Terra gets up and calls a time out, "Damn you are good, Jan."
"I figured I'd show you mercy after the times I've given you an a**-kicking in the past; seeing as you hardly showed me any during the times you won."
"Think I can ask a serious question?"
"Shoot…"
"Is your faith in Guy as genuine as mine? Do you possibly believe he'll be able to end this war?"
"Honestly? I want to believe it, but I'm sure how; to put faith in one man, who will defy all odds and take on a whole race of machines? Sounds like a silly comic book I used to read as a child."
Seconds later after unplugging from the machine, Jan and Terra awaken.
"Thank you for that, sister."
"Any time…"
"See you at the gathering later on tonight?"
"I might actually stay in; had a long, stressful day. You know how it is."
"Might be the last party we have in a long while after the Magma army invades."
"They will… not invade; we're not going to let that happen."
"So you say…"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing… you have a good rest, Jan."
After everyone, who attended the gathering partied like there would be no tomorrow, Terra and Guy went back to Terra's place for a bit of R&R.
The next day at Samuel's quarters, there came a knock at the door.
"Captain Steele."
"Your informant requests your presence; you and your precious Guy Tucker, as soon as you can."
"I'll gather my crew…"
Hours later at the docking bay for the Intangible.
"You ready to go, Bradshaw?"
"As ready as any normal human can be, sir…"
"How sure are you you can trust this guy, Samuel?" Guy Tucker asks.
"I'm not sure. But as soon as we meet him, we'll find out."
"We?"
"Just you and I, Guy. Whatever may or may not happen, I wish to accompany you in case you need backup."
"So where are we meeting this guy?"
"Chinatown."
Later, after plugging in, Guy and Samuel go from the broadcast drop zone to Chinatown by car. As they make their way into the back alley and through the door on their right, they enter a tea house with a lone man in gray sitting at the end of the room, eating a hot bowl of soup.
"Is that him?" Guy whispered.
"Like I said, I haven't met him…"
"Welcome to my tea house; I am Zero Li, how may I help you?"
Guy and Samuel bow before introducing themselves.
"Before we discuss business, I must first apologize."
"Apologize for what?"
"This…" after the first punch was thrown, Guy, and Zero got into a small confrontation until Zero stops the fight and says, "I had to be sure…"
"Sure of what?"
"That you are who you say you are; I had to see if it for myself rather than take your word. Now follow me if you please."
Going back towards the door they came in, Zero puts a key into the lock and gives it a turn; once he opened the door, instead of seeing the back alley, Guy and Samuel saw a room filled with doors floating all around as if the room had no gravity. As they stood there, the door Zero need floated towards them while the one behind them floated away after shutting on its own and causing them to disappear from Bradshaw's view.
"They just disappeared into thin air…"
"Can you get them back?"
"I'll try, but I don't think it will be easy."
The door that Guy, Samuel, and Zero went through landed them in a park next to a fountain with four lion statues circling the area with the water in it.
"About time we put a face behind the voice."
"You get to see me, because I choose to let you know who you're up against."
"But why now? Why not earlier on?"
"It wasn't the right time. He would've come after me."
"Who would?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you, so let's leave it at that. That's not the reason why I summoned you."
"Well unless you have anything new to add that I don't already know, then I guess we'll…"
"The Prophecy is not yet complete."
"How so?"
"In order to continue forward, you will need to recruit the help of another."
"But you said if I find the chosen one, the path will be laid out in front of me."
"I'm afraid it is no longer that simple."
"Nothing is ever simple with you."
"Samuel, please…" Guy interrupted. "What other would that be? What does he look like?"
"I can't say for sure, but all I know about him is his temper; much like yours, Samuel. He makes his own decisions, he has no fear, and when his mind's made up, there is no stopping him."
"Sounds like you already, sir."
"He's a traveler; he made it here from a very far away world, not by choice, but by mistake."
During the conversation, Guy started getting a strange feeling of being watched.
Meanwhile, high up on a skyscraper above where Guy, Zero, and Samuel were, a mysterious shadowy figure a weird looking robe lurked, casting a dim fog above the area in which he stood.
Guy would look up occasionally and the guy watching them would no longer be up there until Guy looked away.
"There is something else. I see a girl; blonde, Caucasian, a keeper of keys. To get your guy out, you're going to need her assistance."
"How do I find her?"
"She's been held captive by an old program; her name is Pétale Rose. Don't let her appearance fool you. She may look young on the outside, but she is indeed older than you; she currently staying as a guest in Gambino's mansion and has gotten her hands on some… powerful stuff."
"Like what?"
"You remember back in 2004 with mansion fire?"
"The one which led Gambino to shut his laboratory down…?"
"The same… though, Gambino never cleared the place out, so Pétale Rose has gotten into there and has used it to created her own personal programs."
"Well then let's go now. Sooner the better."
"Slow down, there's an order to things." Zero pulls a note from his pocket. "You need to show up at that exact time if you hope to rescue them." He then looks up to the sky where the shadowy figure was, "A storm is coming; I must go…"
Back onboard the Intangible after Bradshaw relocated Samuel and Guy's signal he began to pick something else up.
"What is it, Bradshaw?"
"I dunno, it's weird. I'm picking up a code that reads somewhat like a Samurai, but it's… not…"
"Could be upgrades then; like what Guy faced earlier on."
"Could be, but until I know for certain…"
"Where is it exactly?"
"Most of the code seems to be all bunched together, while the rest is scattered across the sky above them."
The entity rapidly descends towards their position in the shape of a miniature tornado before taking on a humanoid form wearing a red Kimono.
"Mr. Tucker…"
"Shakuro?" Guy said.
"I thought you destroyed him?" Samuel whispered.
"You get the package I sent?"
"What package?" Samuel asked.
"Yes, I did…"
"Guy, what package is he referring to…?"
"Good. You surprised to see me?"
"Not really…"
"Then you're aware of the connection we have…"
"We are nothing alike."
"I feel I must argue that. Seeing as I'm no longer part of the Samurai clan due to my different colors, we are very much alike in ways you don't know. I don't fully understand the how or the why, but during our last encounter, some part of you must've integrated itself into me somehow and thanks to it, I'm a new man, such as yourself. And I have you to thank."
"I suppose you wish of me to say 'you're welcome' then?"
"Not exactly; for you see, you may be the cause of my out-of-body experience, but nonetheless you're still an obstacle in my way, which I've had no luck getting over. Because of that, I see only one option; deletion."
"Delete this…" Samuel pulls his gun and fires, but the bullets stop right in front Shakuro as he creates a wall of flames, which burned so hot that they instantly melted the pieces of metal. "You'll need to try better than that." As he said that, a trail of smoke emits from his feet and quickly restrains Guy and Samuel; more smoke emits from Shakuro's body and approaches Guy. As the smoke took the shape of Shakuro, it stuck its palm to his chest; a trail of fire spread across his body rather slowly, leaving a gray film like ashes or something where it had been as it slowly made its way from the front to the back.
When it was almost complete, Guy started fighting whatever it was that was taking a hold and drives the flames back the direction they started in, taking the ashes with them. Guy finally breaks free and helps Samuel get away from his captor.
Shakuro made more copies of himself, which started off as smoke which came from his body as if he were on fire on the inside.
As the fight started, Samuel and Guy at first stood back to back to fend off the onslaught of Shakuro clones.
"I'm much more powerful than before, you cannot hope to win."
Guy attacks right and blocks left; Shakuro strikes from the front with a straight punch and Guy ducks, swats his fist to the right and hits one of the copies in the face.
Samuel unsheathes his sword and slashes upward from his right; the copy leans to one side and avoids the blade altogether. Another copy flies at him with a superman punch and makes him kneel. Another copy kicks the sword from his hands and knocks into Guy with a frontal kick to the stomach.
Guy immediately flipped over Samuel, who then crashed into a set of clones like a bowling ball and knocks them over.
After Guy had landed and he throws a left side kick to the hip of one of the copies, who grabs his leg and starts throwing back hit after hit to the upper part of Guy's body, which Guy blocked.
Shakuro then plants his other hand on Guy and throws him to the right towards the fountain.
Samuel rushes up with a spinning back kick; Shakuro delivers a kick to the back of the knee and drives Samuel to the ground; Samuel lays on his back, kicks Shakuro in the shins and slides back like a rocket only to stop in between more Shakuro clones. Nervously looking up at them, he cringes as they begin to kick him.
Moments later, Guy approaches and fights them off before helping Samuel onto his feet.
"You okay?"
"Yeh. Look out behind out."
Guy grabs Samuel by the arm, swings him around and has Samuel to kick the clone in the face and drive him to the ground in one spiral.
As more clones surrounded them, Guy and Samuel stood back to back once more.
Samuel throws a right hook and knocks one of the clones down, but another one strikes back from his left; Samuel ducks and the clone aims for the back of Guy's head; Guy blocks with his elbow before focusing his attention back on the ones in front of him.
They remained back-to-back until Guy spirals around Samuel, sticks out his palm and uses telekinesis to put away a bunch Shakuro copies.
"Thanks."
"A lil early to be showing gratitude, sir," Guy answered.
With how many of them they fought off, it seemed like there was no end as more copies appeared out of nowhere like flies over a pile of garbage, which had got the attention of the Samurai clan as they sent one of their own in to interfere.
A random couple enter the area, hugging and kissing, they take their eyes off each other as they noticed the fight and their bodies glow a bright green, their silhouette changes shape and two Samurai took their place where they stood. The two nod at each other and rush into the fight, alternating between Samuel, Guy, and the army of Shakuro clones only to find themselves having their code overwritten by two of the Shakuro copies during the fight.
"Two more added to my collection." The two new Shakuro copies turned to Guy and Samuel and jump into the fight.
"There's no end to these guys…!"
"We need to call Bradshaw and set up an exit before we end up dead."
"You take care of that, I'll handle these clowns." Guy hoists Samuel on his shoulders and tosses him out of the center of the circle of enemies before taking his right hand, focusing his energy and striking the ground with one solid punch, which shakes the ground and creates an invisible force of energy, which knocked all the Shakuro clones back as if an explosion took place.
The clones got back to their feet and Guy took them all on one at a time as they approached.
Guy kicks off with his left foot and knocks one of the clones to the ground, rotates and strikes the one at 45 degrees to his right with a backhand to the face; one of the clones at 45 degrees to his left strikes with a sword and Guy holds out his left palm and stops it a few feet away with telekinesis. Another clone strikes low and Guy blocks with an arm grab and then ducks as the fist of another enemy swings for his head; Guy throws a karate chop to the clone's chest and immediately shifts to his left and throws a side kick to the stomach of another clone; another clones come in from the front and throws a low punch. Guy blocks and the clone throws a high punch, which Guy also blocks; the clone goes back throwing punches to various locations on Guy's body and Guy continues to block until knocking him down with an elbow strike to the jaw.
One clone approaches from behind and grabs Guy by the waist. Two more rush at him from the left and right; Guy jumps up and drops them both with a kick to the face, then breaks free from his captor; another clone comes in from the right and Guy hits him with a backhand to the face.
Two more jump him from both sides with a side kick, which Guy dodges by performing a sideways flip between their kicks. Afterwards, Guy approaches the fountain, tears off one of the lion heads and throws it at a crowd of clones marching towards him; one clone marches towards him with his sword pointed outward and Guy immediately shuts him down, disarms him and uses his own sword to fend off the onslaught. As they all came at him with swords, Guy wielded the sword like a samurai warrior while moving backwards, but his efforts soon dwindled as they got the better of him and dog-piled on him all at once.
"This is not sacrifice, it is merely evolution; why not just give in?"
Meanwhile in another part of the park as Samuel speaks with Bradshaw.
"I can get you out, but you need to act quickly."
"I'm not leaving without him; can't you get us someplace else?"
"I can try, but it's not gonna be easy."
"Make it happen; I'll let you know when I have Guy."
A moment later, Guy breaks free from his captors and jumps from one to the other as he uses them to make his escape; after reaching the last clone, who had been thrown the highest, Guy leaps towards the ledge of one of the houses in the surrounding area and makes his way to Samuel.
"Thought for a sec I lose you back there."
"It's not me you need to be worried for…"
"What the heck happened back there? I've never seen the Samurai do that sort of thing."
"That's because he's no longer an ordinary Samurai; other than his wardrobe, he's… changed."
"We'll have to discuss this later, let's go."
Meanwhile back in the city, Commander Arbiter stood before the council with the captains of each ship and their crew in the background.
"The enemy now realizes our city is impenetrable from the surface, so they're digging to avoid all of our defenses we have in place."
"Commander, the council is fully aware of the dangers to befall this city; you have our permission to do whatever it takes to prevent such a catastrophe from taking place," Councilwoman Aurora spoke.
"Thank you for hearing me out, councilor."
"But I must ask if there is any word from Samuel Grant aboard The Intangible?
"No, Councilman Janis, nothing yet."
"We request a search party to bring back word on them…"
"We're going to need every ship we've got for my plan to work, I don't think we can stand to lose another ship with this absurd request, Councilor Coleman."
"Careful what comments you make, Commander…"
"But it is truly a ridiculous request; you're suggesting I ask one of the ships to go through with this?"
"No such request is necessary; let them speak for themselves since they're present." Aurora spoke out, "The council calls upon any, who volunteer to help the Intangible if such assistance is needed by the captain and his crew; who here among us will answer such a call?"
The two captains, who soon volunteered for such an assignment slowly rose up out of their seats.
"Captain Harris of The Hare will take on the task."
Captain Daniel Creed turns abruptly and looks to the stands as Harris and Jan took a stand.
"So will we," Captain Candy Austin of The Eris responded, speaking for her and her crew.
"Both of you understand the circumstances, I presume."
"Yes, councilor, we do." They both said at the same time.
"Commander Arbiter, you have your orders. Council is dismissed.
Back to Samuel, Terra, and Guy moments later as they walk down the street towards a rather large building looking to be about 20-stories or more.
After stepping inside, they hop in one of the elevators and make their way to the top.
Reach the 15th floor, they get off and head down the hallway and into the restaurant, which was owned by Pétale Rose.
"At long last I finally meet the famous Guy Tucker in person. Please, have a seat."
As she requested, Guy, Terra, and Samuel sit down after the chairs were pulled out from the table.
"I'd like you to meet my… friend, Marguerite." As she introduced her, she gave Pétale Rose a mean look.
"Anything to eat, drink, or whatever?" she asked.
"No thank you," Guy said.
"I'm assuming you know why we're here."
"Of course I do, I'm a trafficker of information, so nothing escapes me. So of course I should be the one asking you that same question."
"You have someone of personal interest to me and my crew; a certain girl, who takes interest in… keeping keys."
"Ah yes, her. But she does not constitute a reason nor a why. The girl herself, her very nature of existing, is a means; not an end. So what means would you have for such a prize as she?"
"I believe you already know the answer to that question," Guy answered.
"We've already established that I'm a trafficker of information, so it doesn't matter if I know the answer; what matter is do you know? Never mind, I'll answer for you since you are too slow to comprehend this. It is because you were given orders to appear before me and you obeyed; you did not appear here by choice or of your own free will."
"Can we cut the philosophical s**t and just skip to the part where you give us the info we need…" Terra spoke out.
"Or you'll do what? Shoot me if I don't? Seeing as you don't have enough firepower, you'll never make it out of here alive. Well, not all of you to be exact." She throws a look at Guy Tucker after saying the last sentence. "I tell you what, you leave right now and forget about the girl, and maybe you'll have a chance at survival."
"We're not leaving without her."
"Well you have no choice in the matter, Samuel. She is my property; everything that enters this world is considered my property from the moment I lay eyes on, and I see no legitimate reason to hand her or anyone else over to you or anybody. This conversation is over, gentlemen…" Pétale Rose gestures to the armed guards to take Samuel, Guy, and Terra and escort them out of the restaurant; Terra stops one of the guards from touching her by twisting his wrist, "I'll show myself out if you don't mind," she said.
"As you wish…" Pétale Rose replied before she got up from the table. "I'm heading to the restroom," she told the others sitting at the same table.
Marguerite watches Guy, Samuel, and Terra as they exited the room.
After exiting, they got back in the elevator.
"Sam, did you get your facts straight?"
"My informant told us the exact time to be here."
"Do you think maybe he's jerking us around…?"
"He did seem a bit dodgy when we met him…" Guy said.
"What happened had happened and couldn't occurred in any other shape or form; because were not still alive, then we know something had gone wrong."
The elevator stops and Marguerite was there waiting for them all by herself, "I can help you get the one you seek, please follow me." She leads them into the men's room, seeing as that's the only place her lover wouldn't dare follow. She kicks open all the stall doors to see if anyone was in them before stepping towards the mirrors and applying makeup to her face, "She wasn't always like this, you know. There was a time when she was… different… but something inside her changed. She's become cold-hearted and ruthless; out to gather anything and everything she wants; only caring about power ever since ransacking the laboratory beneath the mansion." She turns to the other and says, "I will take you to her, but first I want something in return; a kiss…"
"Kiss from who?"
"Him," she points to Guy Tucker.
"Why?" Terra asked in a jealous tone.
"You and her love each other, I read that much from you; a long time ago, I knew what love felt like, and now I want to know that feeling again."
"How about feeling one of these instead?"
"Terra put that away please." Samuel instructed her to put down the gun.
"Just one kiss… and you get the girl, I promise you."
"How do we know this isn't a trap?"
"If I renege on our agreement, then she can shoot me."
After the first kiss, Marguerite felt nothing and slowly turns away in disappointment.
Guy puts his hand on her shoulder and begs her to give him another try.
"Don't waste my time…"
When they leaned in to kiss once more, she felt the same feeling she felt after kissing Harris earlier; fireworks went off in her mind, she felt shivers running down her spinal cord as if the room suddenly got colder. She shies away with her eyes closed, envisioning the kiss as she said something in French with an erogenous voice. After the feeling was gone, she leads the trio through the kitchen and towards an open door in the back room. She closes it, puts a key in the lock and turns it. As she reopened the door, the scenery behind it changed to the same foyer that Harris and Jan ended up in earlier. As they stepped through, their code once again disappears from Bradshaw's screens and sends him into a semi-panic as he tries to locate them.
Marguerite leads them down into the dungeon. After passing a few dozen prison cells and going around corners, they come up on the girl's cell.
Samuel was the first to peek inside. A surprised expression comes to his face as takes notice to who it was locked inside, "Sister, is that you?"
"Samuel…?"
"Sister?" Guy commented.
"She's the one you kept obsessing over all this time? She looks cute."
"And… she's off limits, Guy. Back up," Samuel instructed.
Marguerite unlocks the door and Samuel rushes in to give her a hug, "I've missed you." He said.
Passing back through the way they came in, a familiar voice called out to Samuel from one of the cells; Samuel follows the sound and finds out who it belonged to, "Wulf?" he asked. "You're the one Zero spoke of?"
"You know him?"
"Yes."
"He another one of your long, lost siblings or something?"
"Not exactly, but their codes are similar in nature."
"Spare me the psychic readings and get me out of here."
Guy steps back, holds out his palm and uses telekinesis to rip the bars off the cell.
"I don't even know how I got here. I was tracking down another bounty and next thing I know, I wake up here."
"You'll have time to explain later; for now, let's just concentrate on getting out alive," Samuel explained.
Marguerite leads the five up the stairs and back to the front of the mansion just as Pétale Rose storms through the doors on the opposite side, madder than ever at the fact that her friend betrayed her, with a bunch of her men following behind her, "How can you do this to me after all I've done for you?" she starts cursing in French.
"Don't try to play the guilt card on me, after you've been hooking up other women besides me."
"What women? Where's all this coming from?"
"I saw with a strawberry blonde; you didn't see me, but I saw you two."
"So that is what this is about? Betray me because of one lil affair?"
"Not just one, my love…"
"You know what… we'll finish this later, get out of my sights." As she left, Pétale Rose ordered the two identical twins in the white Zoot suits and spiky hair to retrieve the girl.
The two turn transparent like ghosts and fly towards Samuel and the other, causing Samuel's sister to flee towards the way they came.
"Crystal!!!" Samuel called out.
"You guys go after her, I'll hold these guys at bay."
"Hold us at bay? Your friends have more sense to run away, when the odds aren't in their favor, than you do."
"He's right about them, but I'm different; I'm staying."
"I work better alone, now GO!" Wulf shouted.

i was good, wasn't i? kicked their asses. much better than anything you could EVER do, Samuel rolleyes

Omni-Gaia 3: redemption

Several minutes later, a lot has happens, which couldn't be explained in mere words; the Intangible was destroyed, Wulf was still inside the Omni-Gaia, Guy was gone while the others were onboard Alan Gate's ship, the Tortoise, and Harris, Jan, and Jar's ship, the Hare, was still MIA.
"Anyone wanna explain to me what the hell happened?"
Samuel decided to start from the beginning with his story; starting with when they noticed the strange behavior of the Magma skin drones as one of them stood just out of range of their GDS, preparing to launch an assault. It charged up for a shot and fired a huge ball of fire their way, which made Samuel, Bradshaw, and Guy flee their ship, carrying only what they could on their backs.
While they ran, the Magma skin drones approached the burning wreckages, scouting for any survivors to eliminate. When they finally caught up with our heroes, Guy felt something that he thought he could only feel when inside the Omni-Gaia. He left his fellow shipmates and turned towards the drones like he had a death wish to fulfill and held his hand out, hoping his telekinesis would work and it did; he waved his hand around and knocked the drones into various rocks and debris surround the area until reducing the drones to nothing but rubble. After that heroic attempt, he fell flat on his face in the dirt.
Bradshaw raced back to pick him up and so did Samuel. As Bradshaw held him in his arms, Guy began to turn into light particles, which spread out in the air and disappeared as quick as lightning striking in the sky.
"What happened?"
"Exactly what I wanna know," Bradshaw answered.
After telling the story, Alan was just as confused as they were.
"Enough about us, what brings you here?" Samuel asked.
"Less than 24 hours until the invasion and Arbiter figured we could cut them off before they breached. It sounded like a good plan; we drill, send a small beam into their tunnel and stop them then and there. We almost had them until something went wrong." Alan explained.
"Somehow 5 ships were instantly destroyed; it was like a computer malfunction, but it seemed too sudden. It was as if they knew were coming, so they sabotaged our systems…"
"So we decided to bail; go out and look for you and the rest of your convention of nut-jobs, who believe this bullshit prophecy, and drag you back to the city for the final battle."
"With all respect, Captain Gates, we go back now and it'll be more of a slaughter than a battle. We know that much for certain."
"Who told you that, your so-called informant?"
"No, it was someone else. You wouldn't believe if I told you who it was; all I can tell you is what he explained seemed genuine."
"I don't care; my orders are to bring you back and that's what I'm going to do as soon as we find the others…"
"Well, Candy Austin and her crew were confirmed dead by Bradshaw; as for Harris' crew, we're not certain."
"It was as if someone pulled the plug; they were draped across the consoles, lifeless."
"And you… know this to be certain?"
"I was looking right at them on my monitor… I know what I saw."
Half an hour later…
"Sebastian, any word…?"
"No sign of Harris or Jan yet, but we're still checking."
"Give it another try; if we don't hear anything, assume the worst and say they're already dead."
"Maybe we should head back…"
"They may be dead, Tia, but I'm not taking any chances with their ship; if it can still fly, we can use it. So push on…"
"I had a feeling you'd say that…"
"Check every canyon, every cave, every sinkhole out there; do as wide of a sweep as possible until we locate it."
"We may as well paint a target on our backs for the magma drones if they find us."
"Sooner we locate it the better."
"Alan, if it's possible, I'd like to run a search and see if we can find a couple of our guys in the Omni-Gaia."
"A couple? Who's the second man, I thought Terra was presumed dead?"
"Not Terra; Zero told me Guy wasn't the only chosen one I needed to find; I need to run a search for one by the name of Wulf ninja warrior."
"Sebastian…" Alan says before nodding to him.
"Right away, sir." Sebastian responds before going to work. "So far, I'm getting nothing; are you sure he's there?" Sebastian asks.
Meanwhile, inside the Omni-Gaia, Wulf quietly follows behind Zero from the rooftops of one of the busiest streets; it was proving to be difficult for him to keep up with all the businessmen and women moving back and forth, but Wulf maintained pursuit until following Zero into a secluded area surrounded by tall buildings and trees.
As Wulf jumped down, he used the trees as cover to keep from getting spotted.
Zero approaches a portable outhouse and places a key into the lock. As he turns it in one direction and opens the door, the inside appeared as a teahouse; Wulf knew he had to act quickly, so he leapt out just as Zero walked through and caught the door before it closed.
"Took you long enough."
"You're a hard man to reach."
"Only when I choose to be…"
Before Wulf could speak, Zero cut him off.
"I know who you are, Wulf ninja warrior."
"Okay… you know my name, but I don't…"
"My name is Zero; you seek the one named Guy…"
"That's right."
"I can take you to him, but first…" he said vaguely before throwing the first punch.
Wulf quickly leans back and then leans forward to throw a punch back, "What the hell is your…" before he could finish his question, Zero threw another attack in the form of a 540 kick, which Wulf ducked under.
Checking back with the crew aboard the Tortoise, one of the crewmen came down the stairs with an urgent message, "I've got the latest projections; the Magma army will be well inside of the city in 20 hours, so we gotta move fast."
"Jesus ******** Christ…"
"Alright, let's move like we've got a purpose; Sebastian, I want you upstairs on holographics, Tia I want all front and rear gunner positions filled at all times; let's move, people!"
Checking back with Wulf, who was still fighting for his life against Zero; Wulf pulls out both his swords and slashes at Zero.
Zero kicks the right sword away and falls to the ground as Wulf swings his left sword.
Wulf strikes the ground where Zero lied and misses as Zero rolls to the right; Wulf strikes the ground with his right and Zero rolls left before doing a back flip and getting back onto his feet.
Wulf strikes with his right only to have Zero turn sideways and dodge his attack. Wulf swings right, Zero leans back, grabs Wulf's wrist, twists it and makes his release his weapon. Zero takes Wulf's sword and blocks as Wulf strikes with is left; after a short while of going back and forth like two sparring partners in a fencing class, Zero disarms Wulf and swings blindly at him.
Wulf then manages to disarm Zero and then they both switch to hand to hand combat.
Zero leaps at Wulf with a double midair kick.
Wulf blocks up until Zero lands and performs a fan kick, which spirals Wulf to the floor on his face.
Zero leaps at Wulf with a flying spiral kick which he turned into a knee strike.
Wulf flips onto his back and wraps his lefts around Zero's leg before squeezing tightly like an anaconda.
Zero breaks free and rolls to the left and back onto his feet; Wulf does the same before approaching rapidly.
Zero puts both his arms in front of his face and blocks Wulf's punch.
Wulf then throws a right hook, which Zero also blocked.
Zero responds with a frontal kick to the stomach to push Wulf away. As Wulf backed up, Zero approached. Zero throws a right punch and a left punch; Wulf moves from side to side and initiates a shin kick, causing Zero to kneel.
Zero rolls to the left and behind Wulf where he throws a low kick to the back of the knees before grabbing him in a choke hold.
Wulf throws several elbow strikes to the stomach to get Zero to let go before turning and striking with an elbow to the jaw.
Zero spirals and attacks Wulf with a back fist; Wulf ducks and punches him in the armpit, grabs hold of Zero's arm, gives it a twist and presses it behind his back.
Zero submits; Wulf releases his grip; Zero turns and bows to him.
"My apologies; I had to be sure…"
"Sure of what?" Wulf said, raising an eyebrow.
"That you weren't corrupted; I can't just ask."
"That's good to hear; now what about Guy Tucker?"
Back onboard the Tortoise several minutes later, the operator onboard receives a call.
"It's Wulf, he's with Zero."
"Is he okay?"
Bradshaw hands to the headset to Samuel
"Tell Samuel to stop worrying," Wulf answered. "Zero requests an audience right away; it's about Guy."
"Do you know where he is, yet?"
"If I knew, I'd tell you."
"Name a place and we'll meet up ASAP."
While Wulf discloses a location, we check in on Guy as he's lying on his back with his eyes closed in a white room with no doors or windows; just a bench and the sound of a faint humming from some sort of generator.
After a few minutes, Guy starts to open his eyes. He yawns, rubs his eyes, and sits upright. As he began to look around the room, all he could see was white over and over, "Hello?" he said, trying to outmatch the humming sound, which filled the room. "Anyone there?! Samuel? Wulf?!"
Meanwhile, on the outside, the room Guy was in appeared smaller than it looked on the inside. The room Guy was inside of was a cage specifically designed to hold people like him prisoner.
A bunch of guys in white suits like they use in a clean room monitored his status as if they were conducting an experiment.
"Sir… what if he manages to break free?"
"To him… the room has no walls, no ceiling either. Whatever he does, wherever he goes, he'll be moving around in complete circles; it's called the infinity zone."
Back on the inside, Guy wanders around, trying to find a way out, but the more he moved, the more it looked like the room had no end, "C'mon, Samuel, if this is a joke, it's not funny!!"
Meanwhile, in another part of the Omni-Gaia, Samuel meets up with Wulf and Zero.
"So glad you could make it, but where's Terra?"
"Exactly what I wanna wonder, Samuel; you never elaborated on that."
"Because there's not much to elaborate on," Samuel replied.
"What I've learned after all these years is nothing ever works out the way you plan it."
"Alright, Zero, enough riddles; you have some explaining to do."
"You wish to find out about Guy Tucker, well as I explained to Wulf, where he is is heavily guarded and is in a remote location of the Omni-Gaia. If and when you manage to get past Pétale Rose's men, you will face another obstacle that no gun, sword, or conventional weapon and destroy; I've been to where Pétale Rose is holding him once before, I will accompany you on your journey."
"Well, this indestructible obstacle… how do we get past it?"
"Pétale Rose holds a key to releasing Guy from his prison."
"Then what are we still doing standing here, let's go after her and rip it from her hands."
"It is not as simple as you think. The shortcut leading to her lab is through a door I've hardly ever used; that door needs two keys total to unlock it and they're protected by two powerful gatekeepers."
"Nothing's too powerful. Leave him to me and I'll have the key in no time."
"Here is where we can find them; we must tackle them both at the same time or else risk one alerting the other." Zero hands Wulf a piece of paper, which Wulf unfolds, "Once you have it, meet us here." He said pointing to the location below that of where Wulf could locate the gatekeepers.
"I'll take this one; you guys go after the other."
Sometime later in the penthouse suite of a hotel in Vegas, tons of strippers were lying across the floor in separate areas, like bear skin carpets in a log cabin in the wood, while a man in a black jacket, pants and burgundy shirt, sat in a comfy armchair with his junk hanging and one of the prostitutes draped across it.
As the first bit of sunlight had shone through the window, someone from housekeeping came in quietly; ignoring the numerous amounts of sluts laying their unconscious, she tiptoed over to the man, pulled the girl off his private area, tucked it back in his pants, and proceeded to reach for the key around his neck. As she tried to remove it from the chain, she heard a noise come from the back room and decided to hurry things along. Once she got the key, she rushed back to the front door and made her exit undetected.
Moments after getting in the elevator and heading down to the lobby, she bumped into Samuel and Zero.
"Thank you," Samuel said.
"You're welcome, now what about my compensation?"
"100 large as promised," Samuel said, handing her $100,000."
"Let's go meet up with Wulf," Zero said to Samuel.
Awhile later, Wulf reconvenes with Samuel and Zero near a marketplace.
"Do you have it?" Zero asked.
Wulf held up his key for Samuel and Zero to see, "How about you…?"
Samuel did the same; holding up his key in Wulf's face.
"Your friend awaits you; let's go," Zero replied.
After entering the white room with lots of doors one more time, they head towards the only red door in the room; Samuel and Wulf place their keys in the holes; Wulf gives them a turn counter-clockwise; Samuel grips the knobs, turns it and opens the door.
What was on the other side left Wulf and Samuel with confused looks on their faces, "Is this where we're supposed to be?" what they were looking is an underground parking lot
Zero steps through and Samuel and Wulf follow.
"The elevator on the other side will take it where Guy is held, but the path there won't be easy; spread out and wait on my signal." Zero walks towards the elevator.
"Okay, but… what's the signal?" Samuel asked before looking at Wulf, who then went right. "Guys… someone tell me what the signal is…"
Zero approaches the two guards in front of the elevator slowly but surely.
"Your name on the list?" he asked.
"No, but I was hoping to buy my way in…" Zero said before bowing.
Wulf whispered to himself off in the distance, "That there is my cue…"
"This club's exclusive; you're not on the list: access is denied." The first guard said to Zero.
Wulf rushes up and places his sword to the guy's neck," Deny this…"
The second guard pulls his gun and takes aim, but before he could fire, Samuel approaches from behind and grabs him in a choke hold, ready to break his neck.
Wulf removes his sword as Zero swings around with a spinning heel kick to the jaw; just seconds after, Samuel initiates his neck break move and instantly kills the second guard.
"Nice work, Sammy, but your timing could be improved."
"Timing? How the hell was I to know that was the ********' signal?"
"Can we talk about this later?" Zero asked.
"Next time, someone tell me what the signal is, so we won't be having this conversation."
Getting in the elevator, Samuel, Wulf, and Zero ride it all the way to the bottom floor; after getting off, they head down a small hallway and into a crowd of people dancing to a variety of music the DJ was providing from high on this platform where he could a bird's eye view of the dance floor.
"Let's spread out; cover more ground."
"I think we should stick together to avoid getting lost."
"Stick together, in a place this big?" Wulf asked. "You do what you want; I'm gonna have a look around."
"Wulf, wait!"
"Let him go, I know which way to go."
"Well, why not tell Wulf that?"
"We're going to need a big enough distraction to keep Pétale Rose's men from interfering and Wulf doing what he does best will provide that distraction."
Just seconds after Zero stopped speaking; a fight broke out on the other side of the dance floor, which led to the two guards near the freight elevator leaving their post and granting Zero and Samuel access to the lower levels. As they got in the elevator, Wulf's voice echoed throughout the room, "Yo DJ, gimme some murder music!" he shouted.
The crowd circling Wulf and his opponents moved back; most of them blocking the elevator as Samuel and Zero descended.
Once they made it to the bottom, they exit and traverse the long hallway until coming up on a laboratory. As it soon became obvious the room was empty, they took this as an opportunity to look around.
"Spread out; we'll cover more ground that way."
"And what are we looking for again?"
Zero quickly comes across an odd looking box in the center of the room at first glance, "I think this is it; I sense a presence within; a human essence."
"Maybe it's Guy; or one of the Queen b***h's soldiers ready to be thawed…"
"There doesn't seem to be any place to fit a key."
"Maybe there isn't one; at least not a key like any ordinary key."
The elevator goes back up to the top floor; Samuel and Zero take cover as the elevator quickly descends with a couple of werewolves carrying Wulf unconsciously by the arms into the room.
Samuel quickly peeks out to see who it is, "It's Wulf. What do we do?"
They wait for them to carry Wulf over to box before they spring into action and take the two werewolves down before they even knew what hit them.
Wulf wakes in a dimly lit laboratory with Samuel and Zero standing over him.
"What happened…?"
"A couple of guys brought you in here…"
"But we kicked their asses; you should've seen it…"
"None of that is important; we must get Guy and get out of here before…"
"Well well, isn't this a pleasant surprise…"
"Pétale Rose shows up…"
"I knew that if he was here, you two wouldn't be too far behind; I was right."
"We just want Guy, and we'll leave in peace."
"It is only by mere coincidence that we both have something the other wants; if you're willing to trade for him, so am I. All ask for is Zero in exchange for you so-call 'chosen one' and I'll consider throwing in this leftover scrap as a bonus," she said, nearly spitting in Wulf's direction.
"Seeing as there's four of us and only three of you, why don't we just kill you and take him ourselves?"
"Yes, you can do that, but your precious Guy will be useless to you if he remains trapped in the infinity zone. You see… I'm the only one who knows the key to his freedom; without me, you won't know the passcode to set him free. So why not put your archaic devices and negotiate a trade? It's the only way you'll be able to save your world."
"If I hand myself over to you, how do we know you'll honor your word?"
She gestures to her men to move towards the box holding Guy as she recites the passcode, "Passcode: Quantum." The box makes a hissing sound like an airlock door to a clean room just before it opens.
Guy is then ejected from the box and into the clutches of Pétale Rose's men, who cocked their guns and took aim, awaiting her orders.
"You submit to me now, Zero, and he goes free; you trick me in any way and…" she signals to one of her men to fire a warning shot into the ceiling.
Samuel takes aim at one of the men nearest Guy.
"Samuel, wait. I have completed my mission; it's now all up to you, you know what you must do; I accept your deal." Zero casually steps closer to Pétale Rose, who gestures for Guy to move. Once the trade was complete, Samuel kept his guns pointed Pétale Rose and her men as they got back on the elevator and rode it up.
Sometime later, back in the real world, Samuel, Guy, and Wulf awaken in the chairs to the sight of the captain and crew just in time to see them rescue Harris and Jan from their downed ship.
Back inside the Omni-Gaia…
"It was almost too easy getting you; it used to be like chasing ghosts when chasing after you."
"As I told them, I only allow myself to be found when I want to be…"
"What do you mean…?"
Before Zero could answer, he flinched as if he were stabbed in the back by something sharp. As he stood there still a statue, eyes wide open, whatever stuck him in the back sent a trail of flames across his body, which left ashes where it had been; as the ashes completely enveloped his body, they soon crumbled and Zero's appearance on the outside took on the form of Shakuro.
"What sort of sorcery is this?" Pétale Rose asked with wide eyes.
"Succumb to my dark side," Shakuro said, speaking slowly as he stuck his hand through her stomach and sent a trail of flames across her whole body. "Let it consume you…"
Before Pétale's men could react, Shakuro got to them as well.
"Sir… sir?! There's something weird going on in there."
"Right now, that is not of our concern; what we need to focus on is getting back."
"But…"
"No but's, Samuel; I don't give a damn about what you believe needs to be done, but we're not heading enemy territory without a clear cut plan of attack."
"What if he's right? What if we go back and our assistance is all for nothing; if we're gonna die anyway, let it be after we've explored every option and not just the most logical one; once our ship is fully charged and ready; it's at your disposal, Samuel," Harris explained.
"Thank you…"
"This is insanity..."
"That may be, Alan, but the fact still remains that that ship belongs to me, which I can do whatever I feel like."
"We have 12 hours until they breach and we're here discussing prophecies."
Back within the walls of the city, the resistance gets in position where they know the enemy will breach and surround it from all sides with battle tanks and infantry carry all sorts of strange weapons unlike those seen before.
"How long?" Arbiter asked.

Omni-Gaia 4: the dark storm

The war was finally over and the real world was slowly starting to rebuild.
Most, who did not want to leave the Omni-Gaia just yet, chose to stay; others, who were already out, decided to jack back in and hang out at their usual locations until the ones in the real world were built; two in particular were Samuel Grant and Guy Tucker.
Meanwhile, in another part of the Omni-Gaia, in a deep, dimly lit tomb, we see Harris and Jan running away from an unknown entity chasing them back towards the way they came in.
"What the hell did you do this time?"
"Jar… now's not a good time," Harris says before hanging up on him. "Jan, which way is it? Everything down here looks the same!"
"How the ******** should I know? Just keep running!" "How I let you talk me into coming here is beyond me…"
"Now's not the time for the blame game, Jan; we need to focus on survival," Harris answered with a condescending tone around the word 'survival'.
The dark force covering the walls as it tried to keep up with the two as they maneuver each turn that lied in front of them.
"Jan, I see a light; this way!"
As soon as they reach the light, they found it was not an exit, but a bright light in the center of the ceiling with three more hallways and no sign pointing them in the right direction.
"What are we stopping for?" Jan asked, pushing her superior aside. "One of these must lead outside."
"You want us to guess while we have a shadow thing chasing us?"
"It's better than standing here and letting it catch us."
Harris calls Jar back, "Which way do we go and make it quick; that thing's catching up."
"I can't find any blueprints; you're on your own."
"Thanks for nothing." He hangs up, "We're s**t outta luck; follow me, we'll go right."
The shadow creeps out of the hallway seconds after Harris and Jan move into the room and take the right corridor.
Jan and Harris make it to the outside, only to be stopped by a familiar face.
"Wait, I know you…" but before Jan could finish her sentence, the shadow that was chasing them finally caught up; its very essence covering their body like a silk cloth from head to toe as it slowly disintegrated them into nothing before the man's eyes.
"Come to me…" a raspy voice escaped from the man's mouth, beckoning the dark entity towards him.
As it ran up the length of his arm, it slowly drew a dark black aura that consumed his entire being, altering his outer appearance from what it once was, "Do with this place what you please; I've got other plans that I need to attend to," the voice of the guy said to the bald men with tattoos on the top of their heads, who were standing behind him in red and blue sleeveless shirts and pants, "We'll be in touch if there is anything else…" he explained in a demonic voice, referring to himself as he were more than one person.
As the men stormed into the temple, the mysterious shadowy figure holds out his hand and conjures a cloud of purple smoke. Within the smoke, an image appeared. At first it was blurry, but second by second, it slowly became clear that who he was looking at was an unknown white female with strawberry blonde hair wearing a green sleeveless top and blue jeans.
Three days later in at a diner in a desert location on the outskirts of the region, two unsavory looking characters were seen chatting as they exited the establishment.
"I hope you're satisfied. Because we're already late as it is without you having to order dessert."
"Hey, I can't help it if I have a sweet tooth. Besides…" he paused while rubbing his belly, "That was the best slice of peach cobbler I have ever had."
"Can you for once, think of something other than your stomach? If we don't get this package to the boss, who knows what he'll do to us…"
The two get into their Hummer and take off heading into west
The mysterious figure held out his hand and produced the same cloud of purple smoke as before, this time to seek out two by the name of Samuel Grant and Guy Tucker, who were sitting outside a local coffee house on a nice sunny day, talking about the old days among other things.
"Finally glad the war is over in our world."
"Amen to that."
"You know, it seemed like it was only yesterday that we were living in a dream world, blissfully unaware of what is around us. We would go to our jobs…"
"Work, get paid."
"Live a normal life, even though that life was all a lie illustrated to keep control over us."
"Before I was out, before I… was able to do what it is I was born to do… I used to come here every day; had the same old boring cappuccino, dreaming of what I could've been besides a Martial arts instructor. I was going about it all wrong; I wanted more money instead of wanting a job that has meaning or purpose."
"Society: it's based around money. Soon enough, we become corrupted by this way of thinking that we lose sight of what's really important to us, you know?"
"Most of the actors in Hollywood have succumbed to this sort of mindset and that's what makes them no longer who they were when they started." Guy looks away from Samuel and towards the entrance to the city.
"What is it, Guy?"
"I dunno, I just… I just got this weird feeling; like someone's in trouble. And it had to do with those two goons near the front entrance."
"Are you sure?"
"Not 100% positive, but it wouldn't hurt to investigate."
Guy gets up from the table first and Samuel follows.
"Hey, why do I get the feeling I'm the only one doing the heavy lifting?"
"I'm sorry, Butch, it's not as easy as it looks; she keeps wriggling."
"Get a grip, Sundance…"
"You boys need some help?" Samuel asked.
"No thanks, we're good…"
"Help, someone get me out of here!" a female voice bellowed from inside the bag.
"You boys do realize what the penalty is for kidnapping around these parts, don't you?"
"Just stay out it; this doesn't concern you."
"Just let her go and there won't be any trouble."
"Oh… just let her go and there won't be any trouble," Sundance mocked.
"You two keep sticking your nose in where it needn't be and there WILL be trouble."
Butch releases his side of the bag, approaches Guy and takes a swing at him.
Guy dodges and Butch throws another punch from the opposite direction, which is countered by Guy with a kick to the shin.
As soon as Sundance joined in, so did Samuel.
Samuel quickly initiates a sweep of both Sundance's legs and sends him tumbling onto his face after a couple of flips.
After Butch and Sundance got tired of taking a beating, they left their vehicle and the bag with a girl inside and fled the city on foot.
"What's the world coming to you these days? A girl can't even take a stroll down the street without getting stuffed in a duffel bag and carted off to who-knows-where."
"Uhm… excuse me, you think maybe you can put your topic on hold and help me out here?"
"Oops sorry, miss…" Guy crouches down and undoes the rope around the mouth of the bag, so the girl can get out.
"Oh thank you thank you," she said, hugging Guy as if he was a long lost lover or something.
"Don't mention it…" Guy said, nervously.
Around the same time up in the sky, a purple aura briefly filled the sky, sending a jolt of lighting over the city before returning to a light blue shade.
Several minutes later back at the coffee shop.
"Oh sorry, where are my manners. My name's Bekah, Bekah Diru."
"Nice to meet you, I'm Guy Tucker and this is my friend, Samuel Grant."
"Miss, do you have any idea where you are?"
"No, but I have a feeling you're going to tell me…"
"Jewel city."
"Well… maybe one of you could give me a guided tour when you have the time." She bats her eyes at Guy in a sexy-looking way, causing him to swallow his spit in a huge gulp nervously.
"I'd like that…" Guy answered.
"Bet you would."
Over at the entrance to the city, three bald men, Two Caucasian and one African American, dressed in red sleeveless vests and blue pants with tattoos on their domes enter; one of them looks over to the vehicle, which belonged to Butch and Sundance.
"This is the place…"
"Hey look over there, isn't that the girl?" the guy pointed to her over at the coffee shop.
"Who are those guys she's with?"
Back at the coffee shop
"So why exactly did those men want you?"
"I can honestly say I have no clue; one minute I was minding my own business in the neighboring town and the next, I'm being stuffed into a sack."
"Are you okay?"
"Yeh, why wouldn't I be?"
"It's just that… you have the same look on your face as Guy did earlier before we rescued you."
"Oh it's nothing; you know I'll take you up on your offer to show me around, c'mon."
"You mean right now? Well what about your drink?"
"I can always get another one later on, let's go." She lures Guy and Samuel away from the table just minutes before the three who were chasing her could get close enough.
"I don't get it… she was just here." The guy scratched his head.
"Spread out and search the whole city; she couldn't have gotten far."
"Right up there is the supermarket where you can get all your basic essentials. Right across from it is the gym, where you can go to work out, spar, and basically do whatever."
"Can we go in there first?" Bekah asked.
"But… there's more to see."
"Please…?"
"Okay, sure…"
"Guy, what's your deal? You've never been this nervous around women before."
"This one seems different…"
"You wouldn't happen to have feelings for her, huh Guy; and so soon after getting over Terra."
"Hey, you guys coming or what?"
Guy, Samuel, and Bekah enter the gym, all around they saw the members training; in the center of the room, they could see a couple fighters going head-to-head with a referee present.
"What's in that room over there?"
"That back there is a classroom; this place doubles as a school for the youth."
"I think at this time, they're holding a cooking class; nutrition and healthy alternatives to some of the foods kids eat nowadays."
"Yeah, it's okay to enjoy junk food occasionally, but you can't make a lifestyle out of it," Guy explained to Bekah.
"Is he normally like this?" Bekah asked Samuel.
"This is the first I've seen him like this, actually; I think he fancies you."
"Samuel…" Guy said, sounding embarrassed.
"Well it's true, isn't it?"
"It's just… I… I'm just gonna go over here." Guy unknowingly walks over to the ring.
"Okay, who's next?"
Guy steps into the ring without thinking about it.
"You? Kinda scrawny, aren't you?"
Guy just now realized where he was and found out it was too late to step down as he saw Bekah look over at him, like a love-struck teen watching the guy of their dreams about to fight for her honor.
The champion asked for a pair of gloves for his new challenger.
After Guy got his MMA gloves, the champion points to Bekah and asks, "That your girl?"
Guy looks back at her and then at his opponent again, he chuckles lightly answers, "I wish."
"Well, whoever she is, it's best that you put her out of your mind for the duration of the match. Keep your focus… right here," he says, pointing to the floor of the cage. "Keeping an eye on her a** is a good way to get yours kicked," he explains.
"Thanks for the advice."
"Here's another bit of advice, there are no shoes allowed in the ring. You have to take'em off."
"Oh, my bad." Guy crouches down and unties his shoes, "Take care of these for me, will you?" he said to the referee.
The ref opens the cage and puts the shoes on the floor before commencing with the match. "Alright, touch gloves and commence with the beatdown," the referee said.
Guy and his opponent ball their fists and touch gloves knuckle to knuckle and get into their fighting stances ready to throwdown.
Guy approaches with his fists up, waiting for the right time to strike; his opponent does the same.
Every time Guy gets ready to throw a punch, his opponent keeps dishing out shin kicks to mess up Guy's balance. After several kicks, Guy puts his guard up.
His opponent throws a right hook and Guy goes in for a tackle.
After Guy wraps around his midsection, the guy starts pelting him with elbows to the back until he finally lets go. After allowing enough space between them, the fighter quickly knocks Guy into the fence with a flying knee to the chest and continues to run up and throw punches to the stomach.
Guy finally pushes him off and throws back; after a 12 punch combo, Guy attacks with a roundhouse kick to the hip, but his opponent counters with a leg grab, spins Guy 180 degrees and initiates a sweep of his other leg, knocking him on his behind.
"Excellent improvisation, I gotta remember that move," Samuel commented.
Guy's opponent proceeds to the mount and throws punch after punch into his head. Guy defends as best as he can until throwing the guy off and getting to his feet. His opponent follows up with a superman punch, which he sidestepped before he grabbed him by the wrist and the elbow.
"Most people, who were caught by that move hardly evade; Bravo, Guy." Samuel said.
"What are you, an announcer for the UFC?" Bekah responded.
"Good reflexes, I'm impressed."
"Thanks," Guy twists his opponent's arm around behind his back. His opponent reaches back and attacks Guy with several elbows to the head until Guy releases his grip and then quickly strikes with a spinning kick, which Guy slides under as he rotates and lands a low kick to the back of the knee. After that, Guy quickly leaps to his feet and dashes towards his opponent, who strikes with a low kick to the waist, which Guy slides under; his opponent performs a back elbow, which Guy blocks before also throwing a back elbow from the opposite direction, which his opponent also blocked.
They both went back and forth throwing strikes as they stood back to back until Guy's opponent performs a sweep, which Guy flips over like a ninja; the fighter waits until Guy lands and alternates between his left and right leg as he throws frontal kicks at Guy, who blocks with his palm each time before quickly striking back with a straight punch to the stomach powerful enough to knock his opponent from the center of the cage into the fence behind him.
The fighter looked surprised as he looked towards Guy, wondering how he could be so strong.
Realizing he didn't know his own strength, Guy taps out and exits the cage.
"Great spectacle; what do you say we get outta here? I've had enough of the scenery." Bekah quickly makes her way to the entrance.
"Get the feeling she's running from something?" Samuel asked.
"I dunno, maybe…"
"C'mon, Romeo; your Juliet is getting away," Samuel literally dragged Guy out by the ears.
Meanwhile, outside in the city square, the three men following the girl were still searching for her.
"There she is…" one of them pointed as they watched her, Samuel and Guy head further into the city.
"You keep an eye on her; I'll find the Kane."
"Sure thing; I won't let her out of my sights."
"What's up there?" Bekah asks.
"That's the Stadium of some kind; a lot of MMA fights take place there with loads of prizes given out to first, second, and third place winners; Bekah, wait." Guy said, stopping her from rushing on in. "Don't you think you're rushing into things? You haven't even taken in the sights, you just run off like you're avoiding someone or something. Can you tell us what's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong."
"Something is obviously bothering you and you can confide in us; we're your friends."
"Well well well… you're a hard woman to track down." One of the three goons said.
"And just who might you be?" Samuel asked.
"They're here for me…" Bekah responded, vaguely as she looked at the bracelets around their right arms.
"Out of all the things in this world, you're the only one that "he" fears, which makes you a potential threat to him."
"Who is 'him'? Bekah, what is going on here?"
"Stay out of this, matters such as these don't concern the likes of you."
"Well, seeing as you're harassing our friend, it does concern us."
"So I suggest you leave her alone," Guy finished what Samuel was about to say.
"Samuel, don't; you don't see what I see in these guys. They'll destroy you."
"See what? Can somebody please start at the beginning, I think I missed something."
"Well here's something you won't miss. Boys, break every bone in their bodies starting with the face."
"Oh boy, what is it with you people and faces?"
"Hold on a minute… 'you people'?" the Black guy asked, sounding infuriated. "Oh I'm really gonna enjoy messing you up now."
"I'd advise against that; it's not going to favor you if you fight angry."
"Save your grasshopper speeches; let the beating commence." The black man throws the first punch, which Samuel blocks with a slap on the wrist. The black man throws another punch with his other arm and Samuel grabs him by the wrist with one hand, grabs him by the elbow with his other arm, twists the dude's wrist, bends his arm and strikes him on the forehead with his own fist; the man stumbles back a bit, comes to his senses and quickly gets angry as he charges at Samuel, who sidesteps and allows him to run into the wall behind him.
The other two immediately step in after the black man is render unconscious.
One of the men, who approached Guy, attacks with a flying knee, which Guy sidesteps; after he lands, he strikes at Guy with his elbow and gets blocked; he draws back and strikes with is right arm and Guy wraps his left arm around it and lifts up, almost breaking the guy's arm.
"Hmm… interesting choice in fashion," Guy commented as he noticed the bracelet his opponent was wearing.
"You think so…?" he responded, "Well allow me to demonstrate some of its features," he breaks free from Guy's hold and summons the powers within the jewel in its center, which shrouded him in a purple mist, which slowly took over his body and transformed him into a curly horned demon with red eyes, and a black armor that had skulls; one big one on his chest and a couple small ones on his knees; after he summoned the powers of his bracelet, so did the other guy; his also issuing him the same armor as his teammate.
"Uhm… Bekah? Is there something you're not telling us? Samuel asked.
"Okay, maybe I did have some idea as to why those two from earlier were after me, I'll explain everything later; right now, just focus on your survival, since you were stubborn enough to not heed my previous warning." Bekah said quickly, so not to waste and of Samuel and Guy's time as they were obviously busy at the moment.
The opponent Samuel was facing fired a purple beam from his chest, which Samuel quickly dodged.
Several minutes later, the black guy regained consciousness and joined his friends in summoning the powers of his bracelet.
Guy bobbed and weaved as his opponent swung at him left and right with a combination of punches and kicks until finally getting an opportunity to strike back. As he delivered a punch to the head, he found that these demonic type things were a lot tougher than their human form, "Samuel… toss me a weapon."
Samuel quickly unsheathes both of his swords and throws one of them to Guy, who caught it by the handle and started swinging blindly; Samuel did the same.
"These beasts sure are strong."
"Everything has a weakness, Guy; find one."
Samuel gets back up against the third demonic beast, who turned out to be the temperamental black guy, who takes a swing at him and misses, hitting his own teammate and causing him to hit the ground and roll towards the edge of the steps; Samuel turns and faces him and fights his off the best he could until he decided to back up towards Guy Tucker, "On the count of three, duck when I say to…" he muttered so only he could hear.
"What?" Guy whispered back.
"Just trust me. 1… 2… 3…" on three, he ducks and so does Guy; both their enemies strike and hit each other with their strongest attacks and hit the ground hard, causing themselves to revert to their human form; Guy quickly turns and notices the third demon approach. Once it gets close enough, Guy uses his telekinesis to knock him down the staircase.
As the demon rolled and slowly reverted to his human form, a thought races through his head, something that he heard from one of the dark lord's messengers using the voice of the dark lord himself.
"These bracelets will grant you the power necessary to complete your task. Use it wisely."
"We will, thanks…"
"However… you fail me…? And trust me when I say you will not like the consequence." The dark lord's messenger vanishes into the thin air.
Back outside his mind, he and the other two members of their clan began to disintegrate slowly into tiny particles of purple dust, which took the sky.
"Okay, tell me I'm not the only one seeing this," Samuel asked.
"No one deserves that; not even them."
"Bekah, I think now is a good time to explain yourself; to explain what the hell is going on…"
"Hell? That's not even the half of it, Guy."
"What does that mean? Can you start over from the beginning?" Samuel asked.
She decided to explain everything near the fountain in the middle of the city some time later.
"Three days earlier, someone broke into the temple housing the greatest evil known to mankind and unknowingly set him free…"
"How do you unknowingly set something like that free?"
"I am not sure of that yet, but those two you met and earlier, they went by the names of Butch and Sundance; they wanted me for what it is I can do; I have this ability where I can sense the aura of those things you battled back there. I pose as a threat to 'him' and he wants me dead so he has nothing more to fear. What you saw happen to those men was their souls being taken from them; 'he' is gathering strength."
"How does being able to see those things pose a threat?"
"Because I can sense their aura, it makes it difficult for them to assume human form; in human form, any form of evil can walk amongst us and no ordinary soul can see it. If left unchecked, it could spread across the entire world very easily. It can plunge the world into darkness and wipe out all life as we know it."
"Well what do you know, Guy, we rescue the savior of mankind."
"Savior? I'm merely just the eyes; I wasn't gifted with the muscle to complete this task on my own. No no, in another life, I'm a dancer."
"Well in that case, you should get yourself a tazer… or pepper spray."
"Pepper spray isn't gonna stop this thing. Please can you guys help me? I know I doubted you moments ago, but I can see now; you were meant to find me when you did."
"Lady, we're no longer heroes anymore; we retired."
"C'mon, Samuel, she needs our help. Please?"
"Even if I were to say yes, how do we fight something like this? I'm not exactly an expert on 'the devil'; 'I'… am a worshipper or GOD! And even God doesn't wanna deal with the devil. When it comes to the devil, God tells us we need to help ourselves."
"Of course God says that, you can't expect him to just abolish evil and leave nothing but good in the world; there needs to be a balance between the two." Bekah explained.
"She's right, Samuel. Everywhere we look, there's evil walking the streets; you try to fight it and there's always more coming outta the works. You can try to get rid of all the evil in the world, but it always finds a way to slip through the cracks."
"Okay, don't start preaching stuff from the holy bible, Reverend Tucker," Samuel said sarcastically. "We still need to stop evil from wiping out all that is good."
"You know, a while back when I was held captive by Butch and Sundance, I heard them mention a place called Common Town. They didn't say where it was, but I heard that's where they're going." Bekah then got the same look on her face as earlier before noticing the men in red looking for her.
"What is it now, more of those demon things?"
"I think so…"
"What do you mean you 'think so'?"
"It's just the aura from what I'm seeing now is bigger than before; stronger, too."
Samuel looks around and at first sees nothing, but as he kept on searching, he came across a couple of familiar faces, "Hey, Guy, look who it is…"
"Oh you gotta be kidding me," Guy said softly as he saw what Samuel saw; the two Banshee looking twins with the spiky hair, whom they had met in the Omni-Gaia when they first met Wulf ninja warrior. Only this time, they had dreads instead of spiky hair; they were seen accompanying Butch and Sundance, whom Samuel and Guy also had the pleasure of encountering.
"That's them, boss. Those are the two, who roughed us up and took the girl from us."
"Well well… what is that human expression you say when meet old faces from your past after not seeing them for a long while?" the male banshee asked.
"It's a small world after all…?" the female banshee replied in the form of a question.
"Yes… yes, that's the one."
"You two know these guys?" Bekah asked.
"Surprisingly, yes…" Guy said vaguely.
"I thought you were dead; I killed you myself."
"Well that's the beauty part about being who we are; we can't be killed… twice that is…"
"You can send us straight to where all things dead go to after dying, but we always come right back; it's part of our programming."
"Programming, what are they talking about?" Bekah asked.
You needn't worry yourself with understanding, dear. What you really should worry about is giving yourself up; the dark prince himself fears you because you can see things no ordinary people can see…"
"Spare us the old song and dance, Bekah told us this already."
"You two… front and center."
"Yes, boss…" Butch and Sundance approach the twins, who both place their hand on their palms to transfer some of their power into them, "You see… when you 'killed us' as you so adequately put it, a bit of our lord passed over into this world with us; it is only temporary, but know this, if you two screw up, don't bother returning to us in Common Town.
Butch and Sundance froze as the power the banshees endowed them with completely took over, rewriting their DNA and shrouding them in a dark mist.
"Guys… remember I said I see an aura that's bigger than before? Well it's still here."
"These two? Whatever power they gave them, we'll take care of it just like the last three."
After several minutes of standing there, the purple mist covering the two seemed to have melted them down into purple liquid, which spread out along the ground. Several horned shapes then began to rise from the liquid and form an army of horned demons from before.
"Okay… this is gonna take longer than expected." Guy said with wide eyes like he just seen a ghost or something.
Samuel and Guy drew their swords and plowed through army one by one until only two remained; those two, Samuel and Guy made quick work of, causing them to revert to their human form.
"Five seconds, two options; tell me everything or I turn your face into a piece by Picasso; where is this Common Town your boss is heading for?"
"What?"
"Don't gimme that; you mentioned it when you had her tied up in a sack. Now where is it located?"
"It's west of here…"
"Why'd you say anything at all, big mouth?!"
"What does it matter? Boss isn't gonna know we told him; we can't return to him a failure, remember?"
After letting them go, Samuel, Guy and Bekah decided to head out to Common Town to look for some answers.
"One question, how do we get to Common Town? We can't exactly walk, it'll take us days."
"How do you think we got here?" Guy asked, as Samuel led them to their car.
"Wow…" Bekah said in awe.
"Guy who gave it to me owes me a favor," Samuel explained. "So are you getting in or staying here?"
"With pleasure; the sooner we get to the bottom of this, the better."
Halfway out of town after Samuel got lost, he stopped at a construction where a bunch of unfriendly construction workers were getting to work a top secret project.
"Hey."
"Hey, how ya'll doing? What may we help you with?"
"What are your working on?" Guy asked.
"I'm afraid I can't divulge that information; you'll just have to wait like everyone else, now how may I be of assistance to ya? Unless… that was you were wondering about."
"No.. no. we're actually trying to find some place; you wouldn't happen to know of a Common Town, would you?"
"Well, you're certainly going in the right direction to find it; just keep heading west it's not much further."
"Thanks…"
"But why do ya wanna go there? The place is full of undesirables, who would hurt their own mother if given the chance."
"We have a mutual friend there; thought we'd all pay him a visit."
"He expecting you?"
"He should be…"
"Well you should get going instead of wasting time here with me and 'my' friends…"
"Yeh… I can see you're busy, so we'll get out your hair."
"Good luck, Vaya con dios and all that stuff." He said before mumbling under his breath, "Not that he'll be able to help ya…" just shortly after Samuel, Guy, and Bekah departed.
"Didn't something seem a bit 'off' to you about that guy?"
"Like what?" Guy answered Bekah.
"Bekah, they're probably not getting paid enough and he's upset about; you need to take a break from this whole situation with 'evil walking the earth'; not everyone we meet is a tool of the devil."
"Oh, I'll take a break when you can start seeing what I see; every day for the rest of your life. How about that?" She answers sarcastically with a condescending tone on her last statement.
"What does uh… Maya con what's-it-called m…"
"Vaya con dios," Samuel enunciated.
"Yeh, that…"
"Go with God."
"That's what it means? Real appropriate."
"I'm a bit of an Atheist."
Meanwhile, somewhere in Common Town…
The Banshees receive a call from an unknown voice; the male banshee picks up the phone, "Uh-huh, yes we know… we'll be ready for them when they arrive, don't you worry about that, sir." "Yes, we understand the consequences if we fail you. Thank you, sir. Goodbye." He hangs up the phone. "That was 'him', he says the trio is on their way here."
"Obviously, they have failed in capturing the girl. Honestly, I don't know why you put up with them…" the female banshee inquires.
"I have my reasons, sister. Oh believe me, I have my reasons…" he answered vaguely.
Back on the road to Common Town
"What exactly did those guys back there mean by programming?"
"Bekah, that's one of those things you're better off not knowing."
"I told you guys everything about why they wanted me, at least you can return the favor."
"This sort of thing you wouldn't understand if we were to tell you."
"Try me; I might just surprise you."
The rest of the way to Common Town, Guy explains the situation between he and Samuel and their earlier adventure in the Omni-Gaia; the war against the Magma Skin empire and everything.
After they finished explaining, they were slowly approaching their destination.
Moments later, after entering the city, they come across one of the locals being harassed by a town cop.
"Look, I've told you all I know, cut me some slack, Mr. Pearson."
"Devin, I know. A reputation like yours? You can't pass up an opportunity like this; there's something you're not telling me and I'll find out what."
"There's nothing to find out; I'm innocent."
"Yeh, we'll see. Cuz if sus that you're lying to me…" he paused, giving Devin a chance to come clean.
"I'm not lying to you this time, I swear it."
"Alright, I'll leave you alone this time, but don't think you've gotten rid of me."
Devin then smirked while the cop's back was turned, "Of course I don't have anything to tell you," he thought to himself with an evil grin.
"Okay… what was that about?"
"Not sure, but I can't seem to pick up anything from his aura. It's like this place is shielded somehow."
"Well first thing we should do is split up and cover more ground; you guys take the east and west side of the city, and I'll cut straight through the middle," Samuel explained.
"Where do we meet up?"
"Over by that small building with the windmill in the background," Samuel said.
"Splitting up, in a town like this? I'm not so sure if that's a good idea."
"Alright, how about this? You two go together, cover the east side and I'll handle the center and west side."
"Oh now I feel much better," Bekah said sarcastically.
Bekah and Guy take to the east side and check things out, starting with a fortune teller shop. As they enter, they find an old woman with green hair and a round meatball like hairstyle like the girl from Sailor Moon, who was already entertaining a customer with her talent to predict the future.
"Tell me, oh great Madame Valeria; is my sister happy with her new life?"
Madame Valeria places down three cards from a strange deck of cards, that didn't look like any Tarot cards ever seen. Then, she places her right hand on one of the three, which gives her a vision of a long, blonde haired woman on a big boat with the one she was in love with, "I see your sister; she's on a Yacht sailing the seas. She seems rather satisfied with her life."
"Will she ever return?" the man asked.
"At this stage, it's hard to tell; I can see into her heart and it tells a story, which mentions nothing of being homesick."
"Well, that's my sister for ya. She never did like this place and I kept saying to her no matter what things may be like for us here, it is still our home."
"I see you're busy, Miss. We'll come back another time." Bekah drags Guy back out the front door
"I'm just about done, if you want to…" but before the man could finish, Guy and Bekah were already out the door.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, Samuel goes from building to building trying to find some clue as to where the Banshees were hiding, but no one seemed to know anything, which Led him to believe they either don't know, or don't want to say anything; that they're protecting them.
And with Bekah unable to track them via aura, this made an easy assignment into a hard one. That was until he saw the same bracelet worn by the three men with the tattoos on the top of their heads also worn around some unsavory characters hanging around the center of the city. He approached one of them without thinking.
"What do you want?"
"The thing around your wrist, where'd you get it?"
"What's it to you, you a cop or something?"
"Me being a cop is the least of your worries. Now where'd you get it from?"
"Is this guy bothering you, Gary?"
Gary slowly turns away from Samuel, "Not anymore, he's not…"
"Hey, I'm not done…" Samuel puts his hand on the guy's shoulder.
Gary quickly turns and decks Samuel with a punch to the face, which drives him into the arms of two of Gary's pals, "Hold this lil white cockroach still!"
Just before Gary could throw another punch, Samuel places his right foot behind Gary's left and quickly kicks him in the kneecap with his left, breaking the guy's leg.
He reacts to the pain for a brief moment before snapping his leg back into place as if nothing happened.
Samuel was able to break free of his captors' hold and knock them to the ground.
Gary approaches Samuel with anger in his eyes and says, "I'm gonna enjoy this." And then he serves a right cross, which Samuel avoids be ducking.
After Samuel knocked Gary back with a punch to the right breast and a punch to the jaw, he then approaches him with a low kick from the left, which Gary countered with a leg grab just before throwing him into the wall of a building; Samuel throws several punches to the jaw before Gary blocked.
Moments later, Samuel managed to push him away. "This guy fights like a demon," he thought to himself. Gary rapidly approaches, but Samuel quickly gets out of his way and then presses his face up against the wall; Gary fights back with an elbow punch to the face and a spinning back fist; Samuel ducks and hits back with several punches to the chest.
Gary manages to push him away with a frontal kick to the stomach.
Samuel falls to the ground where two of Gary's friends mount him and starts pounding him into the ground.
Guy and Bekah happened to walk by; Guy tells Bekah to stay back while he rushes to his friend's aid. He peels the two off of Samuel and directs their attention to himself while Samuel struggles to get up.
"Sam, what the hell you got yourself into this time."
"Guy…? Now's not the time for this." During the fight, Samuel's enemy picks a knife off of him, delivers a high kick to the face, turns and then aims at Guy.
Waiting for the blade to reach the right amount of distance, Guy holds out his palm and uses telekinesis to stop it in midair. He then turns to the guy in front of him and serves him a back fist to the jaw before turning to the one behind him and kicking with a fan style kick to the face. He turns back to the guy he was previously face, blocks his punch and lands a devastating blow to the groin and sends him flying before falling flat on his face.
Gary tries to knock Samuel to the ground with a frontal kick, but Samuel counters with a leg grab, a spin, and a sweep from his other arm; as Gary falls on his back, Samuel places his fist on his chest as he falls.
Gary swats Samuel's fist away and jumps to his feet.
Off in the distance, the same cop that was hassling Devin from earlier arrived on the scene, "Excuse me, law enforcement coming through; hey, what are you looking at?" he barges his way through the crowds and up to the brawl that was taking place, "Okay, break it up!" but the fighters didn't respond to his command. Before repeating his words, he took out his gun and fired a shot in the air to get their attention. "Enough!"
The fighters stopped; Gary and his friends fled the scene and left Guy and Samuel to take the rap.
Moments later, Guy and Samuel were behind bars at the local police station; in the neighboring cell were two familiar faces.
"What are you two hillbillies doing here?" Samuel asked.
"That's funny, we could ask you the same exact question," Sundance said.
"We couldn't bear to face the bosses after our previous failure, so we turned ourselves in."
In the front of the station
"Damnit, Pearson, you can't just go locking people up without probable cause; we're running out of cells back there!"
"There disturbing the peace, sir, what would you have me do?"
"Well, what about the other gang they got in a brawl with; it's probably their fault as much as the two you arrested. Not a day goes by that I wish we had way of dealing with these hooligans."
"They took off. I wasn't about to just come back here empty handed."
"So you took those two. How do you even know they started the fight?"
"Well what would you like me to do now, sir?"
"What would you like me to do now, sir?" he mocked under his. "Let them out."
"Sure thing, sir."
"I swear that boy's as useless as potting soil is in these parts," the chief muttered to himself.
Pearson walks over to Samuel and Guy's cell, puts the key in and opens the door.
"Hey, what about us?"
"Butch, we turned ourselves in, remember?"
"Oh." He said. "Why couldn't we just go someplace; put all of this behind us?"
"Because anywhere we go wouldn't be as safe as right here."
"How can you be so sure?"
Meanwhile outside where Samuel and Guy were enjoying their freedom; Bekah walks by and says, "There you guys are, I've been looking everywhere; I've heard talk from some of the townspeople, who were willing to talk to someone like me and I've got some interesting information. There's talk of a prize being given out to winners of a tournament at the Coliseum in town."
"What prize?"
"Well, I heard from this woman, who at first kept going on and on about this town hero, Silva, and how he used to run things around here until your friends and a dozen other goons stormed in and just… took over. Afterwards, she told me about there's some sort of weird prize being handed out at the Coliseum. She hasn't competed in the tournament to find out what, but she reckoned someone else would know. So after talking to her, I went around to the Coliseum and someone blabbed to me that those weird bracelets the Blue Dragon clan were…
"Blue Dragon clan?"
"Yeh, that's what they're called; they sorta made a deal with the dark lord himself and swear their allegiance to him. Anyway, the guy told me that Devin, the guy at the front of the town, won one of those, so I went to go see him about it and got some useful information out of him.
"How'd you manage to do that? Hardly any of the guys around here would give up any information without a fight."
"I have my ways…" Bekah flashed back to the several minutes while those two were in prison and explained how she whooped the guy's butt with nothing but dance moves; as Devin threw the first punch, Bekah ducked and glided to her right. As he struck with a frontal kick, Bekah spiraled around behind him and initiated a sweep of his legs with her arm. Before she proceeded to mount him, she stopped as Devin had his feet bent, prepared to knock her off balance; Devin got up only to be knocked down several more times as he attempted to throw a punch and at least make some sort of a mark on her face, but failed.
"Wow…" Samuel said.
"He may be tough, but he was not very coordinated."
Guy was the only one out of the three, who wasn't laughing, "Honestly, how could bad guys not see that enemies like him want to destroy the world, not conquer it? Guys like them make me so…"
"I know, Guy. But we're not going to get anything done by standing here having a meeting; we need to enter a battle at the Coliseum, win one of those bracelets and find a way to put a stop to this madness."
but before Samuel could think of a plan, there was a huge commotion coming from the windmill, which powered the city; a man in yellow and blue clothing came out carrying something large and made of metal, while the engineer, a slim old man in his 70's, came stumbling out like a drunk at a bar, who's had too many and fell to the ground; the man with the metal object under his arm came sprinting at Guy, Samuel, and Bekah literally shoving them out of the way.
Bekah, Guy, and Samuel rush over to the injured old man.
"Are you okay? What happened?"
"It… it was Greg. He stole one of the… the gears. Without it, the city, the Coliseum is without power."
Pearson and the Chief rushed in some time later and asked the same question Bekah asked.
"Some guy named Greg stole something from in there."
"Damn it, Greg. We talked about this! I'm so sorry, Garland."
"I think he might need a doctor."
"There aren't any in this town."
"How can you have all these different places and no hospital or doctor's office?"
"Listen, I'll take him back to Jewel city and check him in; you guys work on getting that gear back."
"Okay, here are the keys," Samuel tosses Bekah the keys to his jeep. "Careful with the accelerator, it sticks sometimes."
Guy carries Garland to the truck parked outside of town; Bekah starts the engine.
"If she's got our car, how do we search for the gear; on foot, perhaps?"
"You guys can borrow my motorcycle; not the company one, my personal one." The chief throws the keys to Samuel.
Inside the secret hideout of the cult
"What the hell happened?" the Dark Lord said on the screen in front of the banshee twins.
"Probably the pesky trio we met in Jewel City."
"It's become apparent that they've sabotaged the power for most of the city, Coliseum included."
"Without power, we cannot continue with our plans to use that place to distribute part of our plan to conquer this world. See what you can do about fixing the situation or that trio will be the least of your worries." The Dark lord said vaguely to prove a point.
"Don't worry, master, we'll handle things down here."
The master ends transmission.
"See what you can do about that pesky Greg character; he's becoming an annoyance," the male banshee ordered.
"What should we do once we've netted him?" one of the two women asked.
"You two think of something for once; we're heading into the caves."
The women salute and then take off.
Inside Jewel City, Bekah rolls up to the front gates and carries Garland inside, where a couple of the residents saw her and approached. Bekah and the two residents carry Garland into the hospital.
"This man needs a doctor."
"Right this way, miss…" one of the nurses said.
Bekah took over from the other two, who helped her carry Garland in. she carried him over to a wheelchair and sat him down where a nurse rolled him away.

"Oversee the completion of project dark storm at the desert lab. Everything must go ahead as scheduled for the new world order."
Back at Seth's place, Samuel, Bekah, Guy and the others overheard the whole conversation.
"We mustn't allow that to happen; for the sake of our world as well as yours."
"Again with the 'our world', what exactly do you mean?"
"Later…
"You always say later, why not explain this now…?"
"It's gonna be a whole lot to take in."
"We owe you a fair bit of gratitude for bringing us the part. A while ago, we lost access to the grid, probably something to do with Lady Mercutia. But with this powerup pack, we can get it up and running again; once it's done, we'll get right down to deciphering this relic for you."
"It may be awhile before we restore the system, so may I have your cell number?"
Samuel hands his cellphone over so Seth could copy his number into his phone.
"We'll let you know when we find anything."
Samuel, Bekah, and Guy make their exit to find someone, who looked just like Gregg being hauled off the elevator and into a fenced off area, which served as a holding cell.
"Hey, isn't that Gregg?"
"Get your hands off me!"
The two women in pink and purple toss him into the cage on his face and watch him wiggle around like a worm, trying to break the shackles.
The women then closed the door behind him and locked it, "You be a good boy and behave yourself now, okay…?"
"We gotta help him out."
"But how do we do that without making a scene?"
Samuel, Guy and Bekah go down low and climb up onto the ledge alongside the back of the fenced area. From there, Bekah gives Guy and Samuel a boost and launches them over the fence.
"What are you two doing here?"
"Shh, we're here to rescue you," Samuel whispered. While he untied Gregg, Guy takes his position on one side of the door, listening to Bekah go on and on about some random topic to keep the two women occupied; Samuel joins Guy shortly after and makes a noise to get the guards' attention. The two women open the gate, go inside, find Gregg's shackles had been cut and then get quickly dispatched.
"We've never been properly introduced; we know your name, but you don't know ours. That's Samuel and Bekah and I'm Guy."
"Glad to officially meet you. You guys are friends with Silva, correct? Doesn't matter; I found out how that these guys are using this place as a gateway to bring more of those bracelets into the town above. After finding that out, that's how I ended up here."
"Tell us something we don't know. We monitored their transmission with the head honcho himself."
"Well here's something you'll need if you are to stop them. It's a key to the bridge for that gap over there." Gregg hands it over to Samuel. "I'll only slow you down if I tag along; you go."
The trio makes their way over to the gap and access the bridge to gain access to Mercutia's lair just as she was about to do another broadcast.
"Okay, people, we're ready to roll. Quiet on set!"
Just as she was about to speak, she looks over at our heroes, "Hey, what are they doing here? This is a closed set… wait those faces, I've seen them before; and here I thought I'd have to keep a low profile in order to obtain the orb from you. How about you hand it over now, unless you haven't deciphered it yet?"
"Whether we did or didn't we wouldn't tell you…"
"Well, seems that plans have changed; once I've disposed of you three, I'll take the orb to the lab to get it analyzed."
"Well come and get it, what are you waiting on?"
"Well if you insist…" Mercutia turns to her bracelet to morph into her higher form; as with the others, the aura shrouds her, changing her into another hideous beast. This one somewhat the same height as our heroes, light-blue and skinnier with weird looking legs like a grasshopper, hooves like a horse or a bull and long antennae like things protruding from its fists with fangs on the end; the blue things with the fangs on the end detach from Mercutia's monster form and burrow into the floor.
Samuel and Guy reach for their guns, but before they could aim and fire, the antennae-like things pop up near them and knocks the guns from their hands with the sharp end; Guy and Samuel duck and dodge as the things poke and prod at them like a sword.
Samuel drew his sword and fought the things while Guy made his way towards Mercutia.
Mercutia throws a right and Guy ducks, comes back with an uppercut and cartwheels to safety as one of the antennae pops out of the ground near him; Guy draws his sword and fights back long enough to get away and chase after Mercutia.
The two fight bravely while Bekah scrambled to get out of the way. Eventually Bekah trips over a cord plugged into one of the cameras and out pops the orb from her bag.
Mercutia takes notice to it just as Guy was about to launch the final strike and holds up her wrist, so it takes the blow. as that happens, she quickly separates from her monster form, and leaves the bracelet to disintegrate while she grabs the orb and runs off, leaving her camera crew.
"She's getting away!" Bekah shouts as Mercutia ran down the steps at the back of the room.
Guy and Samuel pick Bekah up and pursue Mercutia down the hall and through the corridor on their right.
They were already too later as Mercutia got in the elevator and rode it down.
Bekah, Samuel, and Guy backtrack and go through the corridor on their left this time.
"Do your job, you imbeciles! Slow them down!" Mercutia shouts the guys on the stairwell on the way down.
Our heroes fight their way through the horde, which crowded the stairwell; Guy and Samuel took the lead, drew their swords and fought through the horde one at a time while at the same time allowing Mercutia to get away.
Mercutia entered a large opening at the opposite end and up to two men in light blue standing near a train, "Change of plans, we're gonna need to get this to the lab to get it analyzed and quickly!"
She and the two men board the train.
Meanwhile, back on the winding staircase, Guy and Samuel still had to fight through the massive horde.
"There must be a quicker way of doing this!" Samuel said, saying each other in between attacks.
Guy looks over his shoulder and comes up with an idea. He leaps over the banister and plummets to the bottom feet first.
"You're crazy, Guy!"
"Got any other options?!" he yelled back.
Samuel then jumps over, leaving Bekah by herself for a brief moment before she decided to jump as well.
As she plummeted, Guy was there waiting to catch her. He succeeds and puts her down just before he and Samuel took off in the direction they think Mercutia went.
When they got to the trains tracks, one of the trains was discovered to have left the station.
"Anyone know how to drive one of these things?"
"How hard can it be?" Guy fiddles around with the controls and off the trains shoots like a bullet.
"Think ya can slow it down a lil?" Bekah asked.
Guy works the controls once again, "Doesn't seem to be working."
"Well try something, we're coming up on a dead end."
As they reach the end of the track, the train automatically stops.
"Do something, you fools. We cannot let them reach the lab." Mercutia takes off with the orb and her cronies follow.
Guy, Bekah, and Samuel take chase only to be met with a mild explosion on the other side of the door. They venture through to find their path is blocked.
"Have fun digging through that, you meddlesome pests!" Mercutia's henchmen gloated.
"Now what do we do?"
Samuel pulls what seems to be a tracking device from his jacket pocket, "We go around…" he said vaguely.
The trio head back the way they came and head topside; Guy and Bekah looking confused.
"We don't even know where to go from here."
"I say we go back and try our hand at digging through."
"Guy, do you not remember the plan we used to find this underground city?"
"Yeh, we placed tracking sensors on those two idiots, so what's your point?"
"We do the same thing to find the lab; I've hidden a tracker inside of a fake orb before we left Seth's HQ."
"So… the one they have… is not real?"
"You catch on fast…" Samuel replied sarcastically. "The place is due east; past the construction site. We've got no time to waste."
"Just… one thing. How do we go about getting there? That part of the desert on the radar looks as if it's too much sand; we try driving out there, we might get stuck."
"You know, I never really factored that in; thanks, Bekah."
"Hey, Sam… how about we call in a favor from an old friend." Guy said, pulling out his cellphone.
Inside the lab, Mercutia meets with Herschel and presents him with the orb.
"I doubt they had time to decipher it yet, so there's a little change in the plan."
"I'll get right on it."
"Great, now what's the status on project: Dark storm?"
"The bracelets we've given out to winners of the coliseum battles are doing their job; the power level is at 65% and rising; slowly."
"I suppose that's better than not raising at all…"
"Once our excellency gathers enough energy, he will soon be able to shroud the whole world in his essence; there won't a shred of good left."
Somewhere out in the desert miles from their destination…
"This is the best you could muster up?"
"What are you complaining about, Guy, we're getting there, aren't we?"
"In a subterranean vehicle, a giant metal scorpion at that…"
"It's better than a giant metal sandworm; bouncing up and down like we're on the high seas. I may not be seasick, but I will eventually if we have to ride in one of those."
"Plus, it's stealthy; I don't think they'll see us coming on their radars in this."
"Right it is, Bekah!" Samuel said with enthusiasm.
"At least the sandworm, we could drill through walls."
"How would we deal with roaming patrol if we did things your way, huh?"
They reach the location on the radar and burrow to the surface.
"This is it? Looks rather small."
"Not according to this…"
"How do we get in?"
The perimeter was surrounded by an electric fence
"Allow me…" Guy strolls over to the gate, pulls out a keycard and swipes it across the dash. Once the gate lowers, he explains, "Mercutia dropped before blowing up our route."
"Think she'd miss it?"
"Even so, how's she gonna get it back?" Guy approaches the door on the right and jiggles the handle, but the door wouldn't budge. "What do we do now?"
Noticing the door on the left, Samuel, Guy and Bekah enter it, "This looks like a storage facility."
They explore the downstairs area and noticed the same gap, which blocked their path back in the underground city.
"Well, we're definitely in the right place." With nothing of importance down there, they head back up. On their way out, they hear a soft murmur from somewhere in the room and proceed to investigate.
Far off to the right, they find another staircase. Heading down, the voice grew more clear.
"This just isn't right, why single me out all the others for these mundane assignments?" the scientist was too busy talking to himself to notice our heroes sneaking up on him.
Samuel brings his index finger to his lips, gesturing the others to be silent as he lead them closer and closer; making it to one of the crates on the far left of the guy, Bekah makes a small sound, which alerts him to their presence.
"Anyone there?" he asks.
No one answered, so he quickly went back to what he was previously doing, "Been down here so long I'm starting to hear things…"
Samuel creeps up on the scientist and knocks him out before checking his pockets and finding another two keycards.
Leaving the good doctor unconscious, the trio heads back up stair and into the lab. Once inside, Samuel uses the second keycard to gain access to the elevator. From there, they head to the lower levels and across the hall.
"It's about time; you'd better get ready or else Herschel will… wait a minute, you're not part of the staff." He pulls a strange gun from his pocket, but before he could fire it, Guy threw the tracking device at him; the doctor ducks and continues firing while making his way to the door on the opposite side of the room; Bekah and the others take chase, but the guy was too quick, "We're gonna need a different key to open this one."
So they head back the way they came and then go down the hallway on their left, but as they reach the elevator at the end, a single guard pops out of the lurch and stops our heroes. The guard powers up his bracelet and takes on Guy and Samuel, who quickly evades all his strikes as they threw back a few of their own. After a long drawn out fight, the guy is defeated, the bracelet consumes him; he disintegrates into purple mist and thins out in the air and Samuel, Bekah and Guy jump in the elevator and ride it down. On this floor, they find themselves in a small vacant laboratory; they move around checking the tables and they come across a DNA sample amongst the test tubes. After picking it up, a single scientist strolls down the stairs, "Who the heck are you three? You can't be in here."
Up the stairs, the other scientist hears a scuffle taking place and calls out to his fellow colleague, "Everything alright down there?" when his partner didn't answer back, he decide to go down and investigate, but Samuel, Guy and Bekah beat him to it as they meet him halfway and force him back up.
"So you're the three everyone's been ranting on about; Lady Mercutia was in here earlier bad-mouthing you lot about how you've been wreaking havoc with our plans. Well you're too late, we've already shipped a fair bit of dark energy bracelets out. Besides, even if you were successful in destroying the amount we've produced, you still can't stop him."
"Where is he hiding? We'll stop this thing at the source."
"You just don't get it, do you? You're too powerless to stop. He will consume the entire world!" the doctor puts on a pair of sunglasses and breaks a small plastic pill with his teeth, causing a bright light to blind our heroes long enough for him to make his escape.
As the light dims, they look around.
"He got away…" Bekah stated the obvious.
But in the doctor's absence, they discovered another keycard, "This must be linked to the door back in that room with the whiteboard.
With the keycard in possession, they backtrack and head through the locked off part of the facility from earlier, but as they make their way further through the place, they're hounded by the many henchmen, who most of have dark energy bracelets in their possession; they deal with them all as they come.
The further they move into the facility, they come across random DNA samples. Not knowing what they're for, Guy continues to collect them. After a total of five, our heroes then came across a DNA analyzer as they explore the rest of facility. Upon inserting the slides into the machine, they each displayed one of the creatures they've faced before; the big, red hulking beast with the huge hands that the banshee twins turned into, the red dinosaur looking one with the huge horn and bad temper that they faced at the temple, the blue beast with the weird, burrowing horn things that Lady Mercutia turned into as well as a couple unseen ones; one being a weird, black looking thing with multiple eyes large as golf balls, and weird claw like things protruding from its underside; the second one a gray, rock looking beast with four legs and horns sticking out of its backside.
"The other three I recognize, but who are the others?"
"Maybe some new experiment they're working on…"
"Or something we're about to meet in the future; whatever they are, it's not important to think about them right now."
They head back downstairs and into the adjacent elevator to the next floor, but just as they step off, a single researcher spots them. He looks the lever on his left and shifts his attention back and forth from our heroes and that lever; Guy reaches for a gun and shoots; the scientist takes the bullet to the heart and falls on the lever, pulling it and sounding the alarm and disintegrating.
"Oh great, nice going, Guy," Bekah answered with sarcasm.
"I didn't think he'd fall in that direction.
"What's happening with the alarm switch?"
"It's emitting dark energy, we gotta move!"
They hurry down the hall, but are soon cut short once they approach a large door unlike what they've encountered before; on the left side was a panel, a security panel obviously, but instead of numbers, it had pictures of weird looking beasts painted on all the buttons.
"The samples!" it soon dawned on Guy that the DNA samples they analyzed were pertaining to this very security panel. Guy pressed the corresponding buttons and the door opened automatically.
The trio immediately ventures down the steps on the other side and come across Herschel.
"It seems Lady Mercutia has underestimated you. I applaud you for the ruse you played with her by allowing her to make off with a duplicate orb."
"Why not just surrender and we won't have to kick your butt like we did the rest of your lackeys?"
"How dare you compare me to the many you've sacrificed in the name of the dark prince? I am the brains behind this whole setup; without me, all this wouldn't have been possible. You won't find me to be so easily defeated as they were." Herschel calls upon the power of his bracelet and transforms into the beast from the slide with the multiple eyes. Each of the eyes taking a photograph of Guy and Samuel, storing them in its memory for later in the battle; after Samuel and Guy put up a good enough fight, it started to make copies of them to do battle with.
"What the hell?" Samuel shouted; he and Guy both fought their counterparts vigorously, but it was like practicing moves in front of a mirror; each attack they threw, their doppelganger threw it back at twice the power. They fought for seemed to be hours, but they were no closer to defeating their doubles. Samuel and Guy then decided to switch opponents; their plan proved to work until the each other's counterparts studied their moves and then it was back to square one.
"There's got to be another way…" Guy and Samuel practically stood back to back. It wasn't until several seconds later that Guy noticed the beast's many eyes and came up with an idea.
"The eyes; those are what's controlling them." Guy took out his sidearm and shot at the eyes. Cracking a couple of them seemed to weaken their doubles.
"It's working…" Samuel pointed out as the copies started to grab their heads and shake as if they saw something in a mirror they didn't like. Samuel takes out his sidearm and joins Guy in taking out the monster's eyes to weaken their doubles. With each eye they destroyed, their copies grew weaker and weaker until completely disappearing. With them gone, Guy lands the final blow and defeats Herschel.
Before Herschel disintegrated, he toppled over and hit the self-destruct button.
"Just when you think things couldn't get any worse, fate deals ya a cruel hand…"
"C'mon, we gotta go!" Bekah yells.
The guys find a quick route to the front of the lab and rush out the door and towards their vehicle before the place could blow. Just as they thought they'd escaped the blast radius, they receive a mild bump as they navigate the sandy desert.
They make it back to Jewel City, but receive a call from Seth just as they sit down to rest. He had told the guys his team was successful in deciphering the code and they should return as soon as possible.
Back in the underground city, at Seth's house, "The answer was quite simple; once we plugged the symbols into our computer, we were able to determine the markings are notes."
"Notes?" Samuel asks.
"Yes, notes. Musical notes to be precise. The key to opening this thing is sound."
"I plugged them into a sound program and our efforts to open it haven't been successful."
"Do you have a laptop?"
"Laptop, why?"
"Well perhaps it hasn't worked, because it needs to be in the presence of the relic stone. The relic stone in Serenity Valley."
"I think it's worth a shot; get'em your laptop," Seth said to one of the kids.
Later in Serenity Valley, our heroes return to the relic in the forest along with a laptop and the orb; the laptop, which had the same sound program from Seth's computer. They place the orb on top of the relic and played the sequence.
Guy's theory seemed to be working as the orb began glowing brighter and brighter, filling the forest with its aura. As the light dimmed, a white oval shape, which resembled a bracelet of some sort wrapped itself around his right arm.
The dark lord, who was watching the whole time, clenches his fist, "Start the storm…"
"But… we're only at 98%, my lord," Mercutia pointed out.
"Oh right, forgot about that." He held out his hand like he was about to summon a beast, but instead collected Mercutia's essence and used it to fill the meter up to 100%, "You are no longer of any use to me…" he then gets off his chair and starts the countdown himself.
Back in the real world, Bradshaw picked up on an anomaly and tried to warn Samuel and the others. When he couldn't get through, he tried everything he could to get ahold of their signal and drag them out of the Omni-Gaia. It took several tries, but he managed to get them out just seconds before the countdown was over.
The dark storm continued to cover the entire world in their absence.
"Where are we?" Bekah asked as soon as she came to.
"Uhm… Bekah? Remember when we kept talking about two worlds? Well this is our world."
"The real world," Guy finished Samuel's sentence.
"To be more accurate, this is my place; my mansion somewhere in California."
"I'm glad I was able to snag you when I did. Ever since the power surge, you've been stuck in there; all I've been able to do was send stuff in. only thing I could receive was your calls."
"How were you able to get us out then?"
"If I had to make a guess, I'd say it was all thanks to that bracelet. Your signal returned not that long ago. If you were still there after the countdown; your bodies would've been a gateway into this world, so the dark energy storm could take over here."
"If you ask me, we should just not go back in."
"What?"
"How'd you come to that solution, Samuel?"
"Well, we almost died and allowed that thing a free passage into this world. I say we're lucky Bradshaw got us when he did."
"With the many people, who are still going in, we have not seen the end of this… 'thing'; anyone else could unintentionally set it loose into this world."
"Well if we're to stop this thing at the source, we need to figure out where the 'source' is coming from…"
"Just before I pulled you out, I was able to get these coordinates."
"Are you sure those are accurate?" Bekah asked.
"Double checked them myself…"
She turns to the guys with distressing news, "You guys remember that construction site? Well the signal derived from that location."
"They've been under our nose the entire time and we never realized it."
"We have to go back in, Bradshaw."
"It's not gonna be easy finding a drop-off point; the storm seems to be covering everything that it makes it hard to find anywhere to put you down, but I'll see what I can do."
"I'm going, too."
"No you're not; you're staying here with Bradshaw where it's safe."
"No no no, we're in this together. Where you go, I go," Bekah explained.
"We're not arguing with this right now; she's coming with us," Samuel said.
All three of them sit back in the chairs and plug in.
"I've found something, but it's not pretty."
"It'll have to do, Bradshaw, put us in."
"Wait, I got the perfect suggestion for a vehicle," Guy said energetically.
After being dropped down into the storm surrounded by dark energy soldiers wearing black costumes with gray skulls on their chests and knees and horns curling around in a spiral shape on their heads, we see them flying into battle in an armored dump truck with a couple of gun turrets, Guy and Samuel manning them, and Bekah behind the wheel.
After taking down a couple thousand dark energy soldiers, bigger balls of dark energy rolled down from the sky and took the form of rock like beasts with four legs like a bull and horns stick out of their backs almost like the plates on the back of a Stegosaurus.
"Bekah, you see what we're seeing?"
Bekah looks at her rear view mirror and sees the beasts stampeding towards them like a herd of buffalo, tearing down everything in their way like trees, boulders and abandoned buildings.
Samuel and Guy stop looking surprised and fire back; most of the shots bounced off, but it seemed to slow them down a bit.
"These things must be made of solid rock…"
"Gee, ya think?" Guy said with sarcasm. "Switch to rocket launcher."
Samuel picks up a huge rocket launcher; Guy loaded the rockets while Samuel fired; the beasts moved from side to side to avoid the rockets as they made their way closer and closer.
"Aww c'mon!" Samuel moaned.
"Hard right!" Bekah shouted as she took a sharp turn.
Samuel and Guy hang on for their lives while the beast still stampeded closer.
A couple miles ahead, Guy got an idea, "Aim for the buildings."
"What?" Samuel asked.
"Fight fire with fire, or in this case 'rock with rock'."
"You sure this will work?"
"No, but what other options do we have?"
Samuel aims to his left; Guy loads a rocket and he takes aim, plowing through the top floor of an apartment and bringing it crumbling down onto several of the rock monsters.
"Damn, I was hoping to get all of them!"
"Just keep firing, Samuel…"
"We need to conserve ammo, cuz these things are just gonna keep coming."
"Coming up on the tower, guys; get ready!"
Getting close to ground zero, Bekah notices something that would make it more difficult to reach their destination, "Oh, ******** me!" she said angrily as she noticed the huge gap.
"What is it, B…" Samuel and Guy look over the roof of the cab at what Bekah saw, "Oh my god…"
"Wait, head for that skyscraper; Samuel, get ready to tear it down."
"Tear it down?"
"It'll make a great bridge, just trust me."
"We're not a one-man demolition crew, it's gonna take a lotta heavy fire to bring that b***h to its knees!"
"Maybe not…" Guy points to the rock creatures still chasing after them. "Bekah, try and keep'em on us!"
Bekah maintains her speed as she races towards the skyscraper. Getting close enough, Guy gives her the signal to make a hard U-turn; as she did, the monsters behind the truck, slid into the building and toppled it with enough blows to the foundation.
Bekah timed it just right and drove up onto the side of the building as it fell over, making a bridge for them to get across. Once ¾ of the way across, Guy blows up the makeshift bridge and sends the rest of the rock monsters tumbling down the deep, dark hole.
"Can we not do anything like this again, Guy?!"
Exiting the vehicle a couple hours later, they take any weapons they can carry with them as they enter the tower.
On the inside, they come across the three doors; the middle one of the three had four markings on it of different colors: red, blue, white, and purple. In the middle of each marking was a large keyhole.
"I never imagined for once he'd make things easier for us."
"Maybe the keys are around here somewhere."
"Guy, you take Bekah and go that way. As for me, I'll take this direction."
They nod to each other and go their separate ways.
Samuel gets on the platform on the other side of the door and it carts him off to another part of the building; an abandoned bar. Though it looked as if no one was around, the flashing lights and music were still on, which made Samuel proceed with caution. He strolls over to the bar counter and peeks over only to have a guy in blue pop up and deck him with a right hook.
As Samuel stumbled back, another man in brown slides in and brings him to the ground with a scissor lock. At the same time, the other man leaps over the counter performs a knee drop.
Samuel breaks free from the other guy's grip and gets to his feet.
The two men face him and get in their fight stances as Samuel did; they both attack at the same time and Samuel does his best to block, but they get him with a couple of surprise attacks. He gets back up, shakes himself off and tries again. The two attack again, Samuel blocks same as last time; they both attack with a superman punch and Samuel grabs them by the arms, gives them a twist, releases his grip and knocks them back with a palm punch to the breast.
At the same time in another part of the building, Guy and Bekah run into a big brutish Caucasian male in an orange, white and green shirt and blue shorts.
"I thought we finished this guy back at the temple…"
"Apparently, we didn't do a good job of it."
He stampedes toward Guy and Bekah, who get out of the way in time.
"Bradshaw…" Guy says into his cellphone, "I may need a lil help on this one…"
"One crash course in Martial arts for your lady friend coming right up," Bradshaw enters a floppy disk into the computer and downloads the information into Bekah's brain as if he was programming an android; she froze for a minute while it was taking place, but soon regained control shortly after.
"What the hell was that?" she came to and saw Guy getting tossed around by the big guy and rushed in to help. She climbs up his back and disorients him with an elbow strike to the top of the head. the guy comes to his senses and attacks her; she goes for a kick in the crotch, pivots around , brings him down on one knee and grabs him in a choke hold while Guy hits him with a spinning back kick to the stomach.
The man throws Bekah over his shoulder; Guy dives and breaks her fall.
"How'd I just do that?!"
"You have Bradshaw to thank. And I have you to thank; nice one."
"You're welcome."
Meanwhile, Samuel was still fighting back against the two, who attacked him in the bar. Realizing he was outmatched, he decided to divide and conquer. After a long, drawn out battle, the aura departs from the fallen and converges in one location in midair, creating a new body; as it took form, Samuel immediately recognized the shape, "Herschel? But… I killed you already."
"A minor setback," he picked up the blue key from off the ground and adds it to the purple one around his neck.
"No super beast this time?"
"I don't need one of those bracelets to defeat you." Herschel holds out his palm and shoots dark energy like cannonballs; Samuel gracefully dodges, using the tables as cover as he dives from one to the other while trying to get closer at the same time.
After his tenth table jump, Samuel pops out from his cover and fires back with a shotgun.
"You'll have to do better, Samuel."
Samuel continues to fire back
"It's like getting pelted with marbles, actually." Herschel scoffed.
As Samuel fires an RPG, Herschel takes the fight to Samuel as he evades by teleporting about the room. He gets close enough, disarms Samuel; Samuel fights back and Herschel drops him with a clothesline move before performing a curb stomp; Samuel rolls out of the way, back flips onto his feet and rushes in with a low side kick to the waist.
Herschel flinches slightly, grabs Samuel by the leg and spins him around before launching him behind the bar.
Samuel gets up after coming to his sense; Herschel fires a dark energy ball; Samuel reacts quickly and throws a bottle of alcohol at the ball, causing it to explode right in front of Herschel and knock him off balance.
"Seem stressed, Herschel. How about a drink to help you relax?" Samuel throws another bottle as Herschel launches another dark ball and produces the same results as before. "Not a Vodka fan, I see. How about Scotch?" he opens the bottle, sticks a rag inside and creates a Molotov cocktail before throwing it and firing a shot to cause the fire to spread. Once the flames caught fire to the tables, Samuel used the smoke to get the jump on Herschel as he moved about to get the perfect angle on him. Once in position, he approached him and snatched the keys from his chain before he got to safety and took another shot with a rocket and quickly ended Herschel in one shot.
Moments later, Samuel walked over to the bar and poured a glass, "You call this good Scotch?" he said, examining the contents of the shot glass before taking a drink. "I suppose it'll do…"
Checking back with Guy and Bekah, Guy had their opponent in an armbar while Bekah had in in a rear neck choke; Guy breaks the guy's arm before Bekah tightened her grip and suffocated him.
In the assailant's death, an apparition slowly descended from the ceiling, which caught Guy's attention just after the guy disintegrated out of their grip.
"Terra?" he asked.
"You know her?" Bekah asked Guy.
"An old friend…" Guy answered vaguely.
"Is that all I meant to you…?" Terra was disappointed in Guy's words of choice that she turned her nose up.
"I didn't mean it like that, I…"
"Well what did you mean?"
"Guy, what's that around her neck?" Bekah pointed to the bright devil red key hanging from a chain.
"You probably thought I died in a car accident that moment when got Sam's sister out, right? I thought the same thing, too, but someone was watching over me at the time; any guesses as to whom?"
"Why?"
Terra drew the key on the ground towards her with telekinesis, "He gave me life, for a price. He never mentioned it until just several days ago."
"So what now?"
"Now? One of us walks of this room tonight." She zips towards Guy and the speed of sound and knocks him on his back with a palm strike to the stomach; she then strikes right with her elbow, causing Bekah to block and counter with a right hook. Terra ducks, pivots and pushes her back with a straight punch to the stomach. Then she approaches with a right front kick and a left front kick. Bekah blocks and pivots around Terra with a low kick to the back. Terra back flips over her leg Capoeira style.
Guy hits her with a flying knock to the face before she could get to her feet. Terra blocks with her hands and immediately shakes then to make the pain from the kick go away, "You always went for girls, who could fight, Guy; I liked that about you."
"We don't have to do this…"
"Yes… we do…" Terra smacks him across the face with a left, punches him in the gut with a right and makes him kneel with a spiraling kick to the jaw; Bekah rolls over Guy's back and strikes back with a back fist to the face before she rolled onto her feet.
Guy spiraled around and struck with a back fist, but Terra grabbed him by the wrist, causing his bracelet to glow bright white.
Guy broke free from her grip; Bekah aims her weapon and Terra kicks the gun, causing the shot to hit the security camera in the room.
Terra stopped fighting, but Bekah and Guy kept going until Terra told them.
"What is this, a trick?"
"No, no trick. I just wanted to make sure we were no longer being monitored." She hands over the key.
"Why are you doing this?"
"Because, even in death in still love you, Guy. I cannot turn against you no matter how hard I try." She approaches and places her hands on the bracelet, transferring her energy into it, "Take good care of him for me," she says to Bekah before completely transferring her life force.
Samuel comes barging into the room seconds after Terra disappeared, "You guys okay?"
Guy takes a moment before he responds with a nod.
Later back in the room with the mysterious door, Guy, Bekah, and Samuel place their keys into the locks, thus opening the door.
On the other side was another large room with an elevator in the center; Samuel decided it was best they board it before any trouble came along and hindered them from moving further. Reaching the top, they enter a large arena type area surrounded with dark energy soldiers and an open roof, allowing any creatures created by the storm to gain entrance.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, always a new surprise around every corner; allow me to introduce to you, for your entertaining pleasure, earth's last hope. I don't quite understand it; it's too late for you to change anything, yet you still fight on. Why's that?"
"Because we choose to…"
"You actually think by continuing to fight, you'll win? Take a look around, my storm has consumed the planet; fight all you want, but my warriors can spawn over and over with no end and limitless strength."
Herschel, Mercutia, the guy our heroes faced at the temple and a darker version the Banshee twins in black suits, purple shades, purple dreads and skin, all came out and stood in a formation in front of them, their auras mixed in midair, creating an unusual shape with four feet, horns all over and long, snout like a Spinosaurus. Its shadowy form now replaced with a red, spiny scaly version.
"Like Phoenix from the ashes, my men can be reborn as many times as I see fit; it's pointless to fight, why not just accept fate?"
"Fate is what you make of it."
"We're in charge of our destiny, not you."
"Suit yourself. ATTACK"
The beast chased the three all around the room as they spread out in different directions and attacked from all sides.
After Guy leapt in and dealt his attack, the beast grabs him and tosses him to the right and into Samuel, who slid under him, rose up, and fires shots right into the beast's face; the shots dealt some damage, but not a lot; one of the shots cut off a horn on its left side.
"This thing's gotta have a weak spot."
The beast pounces like a lion at an animal carcass, Samuel, Guy, and Bekah dive in separate directions; Guy goes under the monster and fires his gun at its underbelly, which made it flinch.
Guy comes out the other side and the beast swings its tail at him. He ducks and dodges until finally the tail knocks into him like a baseball bat to the abdominal region and flings him several feet.
Samuel gives Bekah a boost, launching her towards the monster and onto its back where she attacked it with Samuel's katana until it shook her off.
Samuel rushes up, dives and catches her before moving out of the way as the beast stomps it front foot over top of them.
Guy takes a shot only to find his gun was empty and then throws it at the beast to get its attention before switching to another firearm.
"Any ideas?" Samuel murmured into Guy's ear.
"A weak spot on its underbelly, but other than that: nothing. I can't keep sliding under him. We need a way for it to expose its underside."
"I got an idea; you're gonna need a pair of these," Samuel hands Guy a pair of sunglasses and races off with a flash grenade in his hand. He dashes towards the beast and Bekah, grabs her just as he detonates the flash grenade and runs off.
The flash temporarily blinds the monster and makes it stand on its hind legs, giving Guy the opportunity he needed. He fired every bullet he had and finally laid the beast to rest.
Infuriated, the dark prince himself jumps down from high on his thrown and into the arena, "This has gone on long enough; I'll kill you myself!" he recollects the essence of his soldiers.
"Not if we kill you first," Samuel took several shots at the devil himself, who zigzagged left and right, dodging each bullet at the speed of light as he got close enough to strike; he disarms him, lands a low punch to the gut, a backhand to the jaw and then spirals around, places one foot so he can trip him and pushes him back until he fell over on his back.
Guy fires a shot in the devil's back and gets his attention.
Satan turns to Guy, who shoots again. His shots had no effect as Satan dodged the same way he did with Samuel, but as he moved closer, he landed a flying kick to Guy's chest.
Bekah jumps on Satan's back and holds on for her life while trying to bring him to his knees. Satan tried shaking her off and eventually succeeds.
Samuel lands a left punch to the jaw. Satan reacts and then pushes his jaw back in the opposite direction of which it was being push, grabs Samuel by the wrist, twists his arm, delivers a shin kick to his left leg, pivots and initiates a sweep of both his legs with his arm and double front flips him onto his face.
Guy surprises him with a fan kick to the face, which knocks his mask off.
"Janis?" Samuel asks as he immediately recognizes the face.
"Who's Janis?"
"He was part of the council back in the real world. After the war, which we'll tell you about when we get the chance, he disappeared instantly without a trace."
Janis knocks them all down one by one and stands at a safe distance before saying what he had to say.
"He was presumed dead after several days…" Samuel interrupted.
"I have died; a part of me at least. And in my return, a new knowledge passed over along with me; Knowledge hidden away deep inside the program hundreds of years ago by the Magma Skin Empire, because it was too powerful for even THEM to handle!"
"What?"
"Oh, you weren't made aware, young lady? Of course not, you're just their eyes; you are meant to seek out the threat with your unnatural ability and keep it from spreading. I didn't quite count on Earth's previous savior interfering the way he did. If I had been successful in killing you, nothing would stop me from unleashing a bit of chaos of my own and showing the world that there is something to fear."
"How about you fear this instead…" Guy throws down a flash-bang grenade and blinds Janis while he rushes in and tackles him.
Janis strikes back with a couple knees to the abdominal area and tosses him aside like garbage; Samuel fires more shots, even though he knew they wouldn't work as Janis dodged at the speed of light and approaches with a fan kick to disarm him before dropping to the ground and bringing him down with a scissor-lock.
Bekah jumps in and deals several kicks to Janis' face, but Janis covers his face with his arms before spiraling onto his feet and landing a kick to the jaw.
"Hey! That's no way to treat a lady…" Guy got Janis' attention for a minute and fires a rocket at him.
Janis grabs it with both hands as it gets close and struggles with it to keep it from blowing up in his face.
Bekah and Samuel move away. Samuel fires a shot at the warhead and makes it detonate; the blast knocks Janis onto his back instead of separating all his limbs from each other.
"Can you do better than that? Seriously…" he says as he gets up and dusts himself off.
"How is he not splattered over the floor?" Bekah looked shocked.
"If this is how you hope to beat me, we'll be here for all eternity…" he said with an evil grin.
"He's right about that; we need to even the odds." Guy steps forward, holds up his right arm.
"Ha. Do you even know how that thing works?"
"I'll figure it out as I go along…" the bracelet glows bright white and envelops him in its aura. After a few seconds, the light dimmed and it looked as if nothing changed.
"Nothing happened." Samuel commented.
"Not… exactly. I do feel stronger."
"It won't be enough to defeat me." Janis rapidly approaches and grabs onto Guy's shoulders.
Guy knocks him off and they both moved so fast that Samuel and Bekah couldn't see them fight.
Janis swings from the right, but Guy ducks; Janis then swings with his left and Guy blocks before striking back with a flying knee to the Solar plexus. Janis reacts to it until Guy approaches again with a left kick. Then he grabbed Guy's foot, twisted it, and swung him around. As he released him, Guy slowed down enough for Samuel and Bekah to see him. At that time, Janis also slowed down, grabbed Guy by the neck and hoisted him up. Guy broke free from Janis' grip, dropped to the ground and dealt several punches to the stomach; Janis swings with his right fist, Guy ducks, brings his hands together and initiates a double palm strike and lifts Janis a couple inches off the ground before making him fall on his face. Janis strikes the ground, gets back up, and continues to fight; both he and Guy traveled at half the speed of light and end up over at the east side of the arena before they slowed down again.
"It doesn't feel good being left out, you know…" Samuel said to Bekah.
"I agree."
Just then, Guy was blasted toward Samuel and Bekah by a ball of dark energy.
"WHOA!" they both said together.
"You alright?" Bekah asked.
"Never better…" Janis grabs Guy by the foot and tosses him into the Emperor's box.
Guy grabs onto the edge and tries to pull himself up.
"FOOLISH MORTAL, YOU CAN'T HOPE TO DEFEAT PURE EVIL!" Janis yells as he pelts Guy with dark energy.
"Doesn't mean we'll stop trying to…" Samuel takes shots at Janis, who dodges as the speed of sound, zigzags closer, disarms Samuel, grabs him by the collar and tosses him behind him with a Heaven-and-Earth throw.
Before he grabbed onto Samuel, Bekah unsheathed his sword and waited for the right time to strike.
Janis blocks every swing she took by using his arm; the blade dug in to his skin, but he didn't even flinch or wince. Once the blade sunk in deeper, he rotates his arm, disarming Bekah before backhanding her across the cheek and knocking her to the ground.
Samuel fires a shot into his shoulder and makes him turn around.
Guy then tackles Janis and they both move so fast that no one can see them.
Samuel points his gun while looking around for any sign of the both of them.
Guy and Janis both their hands on the other's shoulders; Janis brushes Guy's hands off his shoulders, and throws a straight punch to the chest; Guy grabs him by the wrist and strikes with a spinning kick to the jaw. As he backed up, Guy flew at him with a Wire-Fu kick; Janis blocks each kick, Guy lands and strikes with a back fist. Janis ducks, throws several punches to the chest and a strong right hook to the jaw.
Guy reacts, but then shortly after moves his head back in the other direction again. After that, he grips Janis' wrist, twists it, delivers a kick to the shin and then lands a knee kick to the chin.
Janis gets on his feet. Guy attacks with a left swing, Janis ducks, counters Guy's move and quickly puts him in a Guillotine, spirals and drops Guy on his back. As he turns to grab him by the neck, Guy gives him a kick to the top of the head and springs onto his feet. While Janis was disoriented, Guy strikes him down with a tornado kick.
"Even when we're evenly matched, we'll still be fighting forever."
"Hate to disappoint you, but I don't have forever…"
Janis gets up and Guy delivers the strongest punch imaginable to his solar plexus; Janis' chest then emits a large amount of dark aura, which consumes Guy's arm and eventually runs up the length of his body. At the same time, the light energy surrounding Guy tries to fight off the dark energy, but it proved to be too powerful; once it reached his eyes, it looked to be all over, but something happened. The dark energy then fought back and drew back the dark energy as it then surged from Guy's both, onto Janis' chest and across his body. As it took over, the power inside Janis sought to return to the sky above, but as it went, the light energy from Guy's body followed. Soon it overtook the sky; patches of blue sky shone through and the dark storm slowly disappeared as did Guy and Janis.
As the sky cleared, the demons below all left the bodies of the humans they inhabited.
"Even all the darkness, there still was the presence of light to combat the forces of evil…" Zero said, stepping forward.
"How can this be, I thought you were…"
"Dead? You're not wrong there, but if it wasn't for you three, your world would've died along with ours."
"It was mostly Guy, who did all the work. By the way, what happened with him?"
"He served his purpose…"
"Will we ever see him again or not?"
"This world is full of possibilities that it's hard to tell…" Zero looks to the skies.

The end