Eternal Galaxy: Phoenix - Intermission

Nevaaras

As Miranda had waited for the others to arrive, when she noticed that the sandstorm was already beginning to hit. Things were getting quite rough as the Sandstorm hit. Thankfully though she had managed to get to just outside of the gates of the colony in time, and managed to get into a small Guard Station building for shelter. While in there she had then calmly waited for the Sandstorm to die down, while some of the guards in the building were giving her some strange looks due to the fact that Miranda is wearing practically nothing but her underwear and boots. However as Miranda turned to look at the guards as she could barely notice them staring at her, the guards immediately began pretending as though they weren't doing anything.

This prompted Miranda a quick comment.
"Hey jackasses, stop staring at my ass. For crying out loud you've seen me in even LESS before. Me being in my underwear is nothing fucking new." Miranda commented as the Guard's were somewhat caught off guard by her comment and reaction.

"I uh... Yes Ma'am." One of the Guard's replied as the other guard, who seemed to grow a little nervous mostly due to it being one of his first week on the job, and still not entirely used to Miranda and her antic's. Quickly rushed to the men's restroom without saying a word. Of which Miranda simply rolled her eyes as she turned to look at the many monitors in the building to keep an eye on the sandstorm. Unfortunately the sandstorm was a little too fierce and the sand was blocking most vision.

"Goddamn this is a tough sandstorm..." Miranda simply commented as she continued to wait for the storm to pass. Which it eventually did, and when it did she quickly left the building to look for Ethan and the others near the gate, and in no sooner than a few minutes she had found them.

"Hey you guys all right over there? Need me to call some men in to help?" She called out to the group.

Prosperity | Sungrey

---

Fissures... in time...? What a horrifying image, Terra thought. Oh, boy, I hope the portal I came here through wasn't one of those.

After the man calling himself Ian and his bizarre comrades left the scene, Terra nervously stepped over to where Phenom stood. She did her best to look up at him, but for some reason, her nerves were hitting her hard again. Maybe she just wasn't used to him yet. He was intimidating. And, as Terra thought for the umpteenth time, so very, very tall...

"U-um..." Terra paused, then tried again. "U-uh... th-those people... they... that conversation seemed weird..."

Colony - Nevaaras

"Yea...", Ethan said to Mokou before finally letting go of her hand, gently placing the girl in his arms down, and wiping the excessive buildup of sand and dust from his face. From what could be seen, Ethan had actually had his eyes unprotected from the sand, but was not left blind from the ordeal. Instead, he was now wiping away the sand that was trapped against his eyes and face, wiping it against the bottoms of his pant legs, then shaking as much of the sand out from his hair as he could before picking Megumi back up.

"Next time I'm bringing a spare helmet.", Ethan added before hearing Miranda call out.

"Sure. We need to get this girl some water and a place to cool down. She passed out again.", Ethan called out to Miranda.

Prosperity | Sungrey
BGM: Legend of Dragoon OST - Echo of Flame
http://listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=FzXuyzrMxow&s=2686&e=2831#The_Legend_of_Dragoon_-_Complete_OST

---

Phenom shared in Terra's sentiment, but did not make any indication that he felt so. He simply gazed at the equipment that had he had been granted by the strange newcomers.

Fissures in time. Different universes. Phenom thought. Whatever was true, it seemed this universe's Earth had been destroyed as well. Or rather, rendered uninhabitable. He stared out at the hills beyond the smoldering colony. As the last colonists shuffled their ways onto the dropships, the ships took off, headed toward Heaven. He watched as they left. He then looked down at Terra.

"I don't know, Terra, but it seems we've made a powerful enemy... You've yet to rest after today's ordeal. You should do so. If you'd like a blinder over your window to keep the sun out, we can hang our cloaks over it."

Prosperity | Sungrey

---

Shaking her head, Terra refused. "N-n-no, I couldn't possibly make you do that for me!" If she was telling the truth, Terra did want them to do that, but it would have been horribly rude of her to force them to cover her window with their cloaks. It made her feel bad just for wanting it at all. "I'll just... go to bed. Good night, Phenom..."

After walking over to the stairs, Terra stopped and looked back at him. There was still fear in her eyes, but this time it wasn't her usual discomfort. This was fear for what might happen to them the next day. "S-see you tomorrow," she said quietly. She wasn't even sure he could make out her words, they were so hesitant. Quickly, Terra dashed up the stairs.

Terra entered the room she and Phenom had spoken in earlier. It would have been too freaky to sleep in her old room with the wrecked door there. Once again, Terra got under the covers with all her clothes on. For a short time, she pulled the sheets up over her head. She wished she could just fall asleep right now... Terra pulled them back down and stared over at the wall. As if it could be that easy to sleep in peace, she thought grimly.

Colony | Nevaaras

---

"And I'd really, REALLY like to take a shower." Mokou added as she took off her helmet. Thanks to Ethan's chivalry, her face and the top portion of her hair was safe from the sand and dust. Her body, however, didn't fare very well. "And when I mean really, I mean REALLY really. I couldn't emphasize it more."

---

Five Years ago, Twin Serpent Workshop | Electra, Geminiea Alpha

---

A monitor turned on, revealing a quite pale and distraught-looking Erin, devoid of any clothes and any legs as well. She was also missing her right arm, and the left side of her face was charred form of what once was beauty. The angle of the camera was unstable, as she was holding it with her only hand.

"Project Crossroads. Log number, zero-zero-one. Today I'll be recording brainstorms of any ideas for my missing legs. Currently I'm using these primitive walker legs that don't even fit-" Erin sighed, her voice a chime in the gentle breeze, as she held her camera to show the two grey walker legs standing awkwardly in front of her. "The thigh portions are actually too large for my thighs to fit into it without having to sink my entire body in, which is very uncomfortable. I think I'm going to make the thigh portion smaller, make some more minor arrangements, and call that a good walker type legs."

"I'm not giving up hope on other leg types though. Reverse joints, quadripedal, maybe even caterpillar tracks. Imagine having tank wheels for legs. That would be awesome." Erin looked a bit excited at the end of the clip. "Whatever. I'll see what I can do. This was Erin Park, out."

Colony | Nevaaras

Ethan simply gave a small chuckle as he heard Mokou express how much she desired to bathe and clean herself of sand.

"You know, a shower doesn't sound so bad right about now.", Ethan commented as he shuffled Megumi in his arms and tried to wipe some more sand from behind his ears with his now free hand.

---

"Project Crossroads, Log number, zero-zero-six." Erin muttered. She looked even paler and more exhausted than usual, and she had a gaping slash wound across her left shoulder that had a yellow ointment smeared on it. "So uh... I made a fun mistake while using an angular saw and accidentally almost cut my shoulder open. It doesn't hurt much anymore; I put some painkilling ointment for now. I'm going to put some healing ointment an hour later and put on bandages to let it heal."

"I made some progress on the walker. It now fits on my thighs, although it has gotten really weak." Erin commented on her progress, pointing the camera to a sleeker-looking walker legs. "I'm going to add some weight to the bottom to make it stable."

"On another note," Erin took the camera's attention back to her. "I'm going to create some way for me to travel through the workshop without having to put on the prototype legs and walk around. Maybe a railing with benches at the same level as this workbench I'm sitting on. I think I had some slabs of granite leftover that I can use, but I don't know. Erin Park, out.

---

---

"Project Crossroads, Log number, zero-one-zero." Erin remarked rather cheerfully. The composition was also different: instead of holding the camera, Erin placed the camera on the other side of her workshop, allowing the screen to not shake and distort the video while she tested the legs. "Today I will be testing the walker leg, TITAN. I have reduced the radius of the thigh portion, allowing me to fit onto the leg nicely. I also added several armor plates on the shins of the legs, giving it the stability it needs as prosthetic set of legs."

Erin took a deep breath as she stared at the bulky TITAN legs. "Here goes..."

She brought one of her leg stump into one hole of her legs, then brought the other leg stump to the other hole of her legs. It held, albeit still a bit unstable with sudden amount of weight being put onto it from the top. Erin then tried to walk with the legs, but a single step was all it took for the TITAN legs to topple, sending Erin straight down with a thud and a "FUCK!"

It took another 10 minutes of strenous moans for Erin to reach the camera and turn the feed off.

---

---

"Project Crossroads, Log number, zero-two-two." Erin began the feed, this time keeping her human decency by wearing a white dress shirt and a beige skirt. "Today, I'm going to continue testing the TITAN Mk.3, which finally succeeded in clothes-less test drive yesterday. This time I'm going to be wearing some degree of clothing. If all goes well, all that's left is some fine-tuning and the leg will be used permanently."

Erin equipped herself with TITAN Mk.3, which had sleeker and more solid design than the previous versions. So far, the legs weren't acting up, which was good. "Okay... here goes nothing..."

Erin took a single step with TITAN Mk.3. Thankfully, nothing odd happened so far, which made Erin relax as she took a second step... or tried to. The hemline of the skirt she was wearing was caught with the edge of TITAN Mk.3, causing her to lose balance and fall down.

"FUCK!" Erin spouted a foul word. Once again, it took Erin ten minutes to barely be able to cut the feed.

---

---

"Project Crossroads, Log number zero-three-zero." Erin looked more tired than usual, with a bag of dark circle forming under her eyes. She was naked again; TITAN Mk.3 was not compatible with clothes after all. The beige skirt that was caught with it had to be cut up and disposed of. "This project is taking a longer time than I imagined. Maybe I'm approaching this problem wrong."

"I needed some time to cool off, so I put aside TITAN for now and worked on some miscellaneous things around the workshop." Erin announced rather proudly as she began sliding away from the camera feed. Surprisingly, the camera chased after her sliding herself towards the second half of the workshop: where all her tools and toys were at. "Firstly, I made the camera a bit sentient. It now tracks and follows me around on default, and I can manually control it using a remote controller."

"Other things I've worked around the workshop are some safety measures. The railings are reinforced, split metal ends are welded up, and all that good stuff. It's still not the safest place for a crippled engineer, but it'll do for now." Erin added. "I think the next things I'm going to work on other than TITAN are some ways to automatically call in for some beverages, instead of having to go to the fridge. Another thing I should do is automated mobility system on the railings and platforms; crawling around places are tiring. Erin Park, out."

---

---

"Remember what I said in my previous feed about increased safety in this workshop?" Erin started without the usual log number update. She looked extremely fed up with everything, although a newly-acquired scar from over her right ear to her lips gave her a delusion of smiling. It was already dried up and healed, but just like the shoulder wound a few weeks ago, this will stay forever. "Well, a few hours ago I was using a weak laser to slightly melt a piece of metal for TITAN Mk.4, but a debris from the metal bounced the laser and burned my face, making this scar."

"To be honest, if the laser's output was any stronger, I would probably be dead." Erin looked at it from an optimistic angle. "Anyway, log number, zero-three-one. Starting TITAN Mk.4. I'm going to lower the topmost portion of the walker, and I'm putting a rubber guard around it to protect any more skirts from getting ripped and torn apart by the prosthetic limbs. I'm also continuously going to fine-tune the balance issue that the walker's been having for a long time now. Erin Park, out."

Colony | Nevaaras

---

"Cleanliness is important." came the voice of SiMo, from the side of Ethan and the others. "It could lead to skin irritation, disease, rot, and potentially death, depending on the atmosphere and situation at hand. I may need one as well. I do not wish for sand in places where it could cause a malfunction."

Prosperity | Sungrey

---

Gaspard approached the bar of the inn and began perusing the liquor than lined the wall. He pulled a bottle off of the wall and inspected it. He continued this for a few moments while speaking to Phenom and Amanda.

"So... We've sure stepped on the hornet's nest, here, hmm?"

"It would appear so." Amanda responded, inspecting the building's architecture. "It's unfortunate that we cannot clean the colony of the bodies..."

"It might work to our advantage, Amanda. Distract the raiders. I do not envy Terra, though. Not used to the stench of a corpse, I'm sure."

Gaspard hopped up on the bar and began playing with his wires, cutting off the tops of wine bottles and sampling the contents within. "So what exactly do you plan on having Strelok do when Keegan finishes his rifle, frère?"

"Assuming I've planned far enough ahead... that will all be clear tomorrow. Hopefully that won't be necessary though. I'd prefer to kill this... Null... before he has the chance to steal my form."

"And if it doesn't work?"

"Plan B."

"Knowing you, Plan B started out as Plan A." Gaspard said, chuckling.

"Thank you, Pierre... Regardless, I can see it in her eyes. Terra is not a soldier. She may have combat skills, but she's not got the mental fortitude to kill without hesitation." Amanda interjected. "What are we to do if she buckles under the pressure?"

"Compensate, Amanda." Phenom replied, "You're both seasoned veterans of Heaven. You've both seen your fair share of conflict. Get... innovative."

"And let's assume our Null takes your form?" Amanda asked.

"Sounds of it, he's arrogant. He won't bother much with you. He'll go straight for me. But you're both to be on your guard. Gaspard, this fight is going to be especially taxing on both you and I. My apologies in advance for all the deaths you'll witness in your foresight. Just keep in mind that they won't be real provided you warn who you see."

"Oui. It is not a problem. I've seen more than my share of fallen comrades."

"I just hope Terra can cope with the stress of the situation." Amanda reiterated.