[IC] Eternal Galaxy: Shards of Starlight - Part I

[Kristia]

Egale System
Planet: Senarious

Walking through the wasteland of what remained of a city, Mara was searching for artifacts that could help her with her prototype. She heard there were people working in similar projects related to her idea of portal creations. The white haired woman was in the basement of what remained of the fifth lab in the city.

"There should be something to gather around here.." Mara said to herself while scanning the many archives with her arm brace. It was a wide area laser scanner that crossed around the room. Unfortunately there was no succes on the search.

Sighing for the eleventh time, the bioroid walked through the stairs to get outside of the building. Looking again to the wasteland of city, Mara felt sad for the now gone inhabitants. Poor people, she thought how this city was in its best years, but now there was nothing to see here.

Mara walked towards the forest preparing to leave on her small ship ("Looks like I will need to search in another place then, atleast I got some clues on the next part of the prototype) she thought while updating her HUD towards the closest path to her ship

[Cucoo5]

Venturia
Helios System
Planet: Dua
The Mirror Sea

"Ah...yea...that's right...your from..." Cicero chuckled to himself. "It does seem a bit like magic, doesn't it? You could say that with technology these days..." he then reached into his bag and pulled out what seemed a small little glass tube with two metal nodes and a red crystal suspended inside. "This is an Aura Crystal. Here, everything uses them as a sort of power source. They also have some inert abilities which can be accessed by strength of will. But what they can do in that regard is sort of a mystery." He then pulled out another device, an octagonal device that was as big as his hand. the center seemed to be missing a component. He placed the Aura Crystal into the center and put what seemed a sort of lens set of various colors to close the device.

Spoiler:

"Aura Crystals are sort of raw energy in solid form. Just one thing you would need to be aware of...is don't touch one with your bare hands. It'll either just "kill" the crystal or do something that would...not be pleasant for you." Cicero turned to the horizon and saw that they were almost to the tower. "Kind of wish we had more time to get you acclimated..." He turned back to Mima. "I know it's fool-hardy to ask, but is there any other questions you want me to answer?"

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

Venturia
Egale System
Planet: Senarious
Forest

Eleos walked through the forest, contemplating what he would do now. First, he thought, it would be best to distance himself from who he was. Forget the past, live for the future. Despite everything...despite what he had fought for in the war against the bio computer M.O.R.S.
As he walked on he came across a ship landed in a small clearing in the trees.
"Great...more vultures." he sighed and found a place nearby for him to watch in relative concealment so that he could see if the owner would return.

[bookdragon2000]

Venturia
Nexion
Near Nexus

Nhiome aimed the prow of his ship straight at the plodding transport ship and sped towards it, his research told him that this ship was from helios and should have some aura crystals among its goods. Due to this though, it was being escorted by 4 Drones. That was the reason he chose to attack this one, its cargo was more valuable and drones were slightly easier to fight, the pilots were not onsite and the reactions were slightly slower, he also did not need to worry about not entirely destroying those ships. KuroiKame was coming from behind the ships, which were headed for Nexus from the warp gate.

His speed allowed him to come up next to them within minutes from where he had been hiding just beyond the warp gate. KuroiKame turned to face her side towards them and fired a broadside, each gun aimed at a different drone. Nhiome watched in satisfaction as the pulses hit each ship in the engines and they started drifting in random directions, due to his need to only sabotage the ships and also his weaker guns, he had ensured that his fire-control was the best available. The two remaining drones turned to face him and one more was taken out by another pulse from the forward gun as KuroiKame turned to face them too. As he sped towards the transport, his receiver picked up a distress call from the transport ship and the drones, Nhiome grimaced, he would need to finish this fast before reinforcements arrived. As he sped past the last drone, he jinked his ship to avoid a pulse and used the rear cannon to destroy it. He trained his forward cannon on the transport and shot the thrusters. This way the ship was disabled but there was little chance of a hull breach.

He got in close and slowed his ship down, he then shot one of his special bullets from the third gun that fired projectiles. This special bullet was designed to do three things, first was to pierce the hull without releasing the atmosphere within. This was accomplished by releasing a small amount of molten steel behind it the moment it came into contact with the hull. The inertia and the coolness of space should cause the steel to cover up the hole behind it and solidify. The second was to release a special gas that knocked out any thing that came into contact with it, the gas didn't even need to be breathed in, as long as it came into contact with the skin it could do its job. He was a thief, not a murderer. After a duration which is set corresponding to the ships size, in this case 30 seconds, the fast acting gas should have spread through the ship. The third purpose came into play then, the gas was sucked back into the bullet to be stored again via means of a filter vacuum. Both the bullet and the gas were hard to acquire and he wanted to recover them if possible. This also had the advantage of not knocking out him when he boarded the ship, since he usually had no time to bother with the suit during raids.

He steered his ship into position next to the transport and deployed his modified airlock. It extended out wards and connected with the other ships hull, the edges of the airlock was actually a shaped welder and it heated up and sliced through the hull easily before quickly attatching vaccum seals that were easily removed to the inside of the other ship. The now detached part of the hull fell inwards leaving an opening behind. After the peration was done as well as a beep from the console behind him indicated 45 seconds had passed since the special bullet was shot, ample time for it to do its job. Nhiome quickly cycled through the airlock and recovered the bullet. He then started gathering the aura crystals from the cargo area of the ship, ignoring the unconcious forms scattered about.

He had done that and was lugging a third crate of finely-tempered steel towards the airlock when his proximity alarm sounded. So reinforcements were on their way. He increased his pace and after depositing the crate in KuroiKame, pulled the piece of the hull back into rough position. He quickly then reactivated the airlock and watched nervously at his radar as a few blips approached, soon they would be within sight. The airlock retracted the vacuum seals and released a small amount of molten steel to reseal the other ship's hull. Then it began retracting.

By the time it was done retracting and locked into place, he could already see fighters in the distance rising from Nexus. He quickly turned his ship around and sped off towards the Warp gate, escaping into it before the fighters even arrived at the transport. He emerged in Sol Incineron and after a small exultation of victory, sped away from inopia, towards one of the outlying planets.

[Koishi]

Venturia
Helios System
Planet: Dua

---

"What is that tower thing, anyways?" Mima asked.

[Cucoo5]

Venturia
Helios System
Planet: Dua
Tower of Aquarion - North Sea

Cicero first looked out and noticed the black obelisks that reached up from what seemed a chasm that seemed to curve. The water though didn't fall down, it fell up. They were sailing across one of the bridges that linked the Mirror Sea to the surrounding waters. They have crossed the Mirror's Edge. Cicero nodded in satisfaction and then addressed Mima's question. "Ah, yes...the Tower of Aquarion. No one knows why it was built, but all that is known is that it serves a link between Duon and Dua, the two planets. The way they orbit each other... makes the Tower able to exist." Cicero looked up and saw that Duon was even closer, and the edge of Pangaea, the sole continent of Duon, was visible.

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Venturia
Nexion System
Near Nexus
Nexus Warp Gate

A squadron of four fighters seemed to casually approach the warp gate. The leader of the group quickly accessed the warp gate network and discovered its last warp transmission. "Sol Incineron, huh?" The leader, a woman with fire-red hair that came down to her shoulders, with some tied off in a pony tail, chuckled to herself. "So that's where that rogue scurried off to..." She opened an encrypted channel to her squad. "Well boys, looks like we found ourselves another candidate." She leaned back, a smile forming as her green eyes shone. "Black Roses! Let's go hunting!" a loud 'Roger!' could be heard in reply and they quickly sped through the gate before the Alpha Division fighters could arrive.

[Koishi]

Venturia
Helios System
Planet: Dua

---

Mima looked onto the oddly flowing water. It seemed familar, though she couldn't put her finger on it.

"What will I find there? On that other planet, I mean." Mima continued to ask.

[Cucoo5]

Venturia
Helios System
Planet: Dua

"A place where strange things like the Digital Bag and other various technologies are commonplace." Cicero handed Mima the octagonal device he was holding. "And later on you'll meet some things that may threaten you. So take this. If you want, you can digitize both this and your staff so that way it'll be harder to lose them. All you have to do is think about storing it and tap the device with your hand." Cicero smiled again. "And if you want to know everything that's in the device, it can project a hologram that will show a small representation of the items you can scroll through with their name and some description on some things. Also it has a little ability that allows you to access it like a sort of encyclopedia that'll help tell you what it is your looking at, if entries exist of course."

Cicero paused for a moment then spoke again. "You'll find many types of cultures on Duon. Look for my brother...or well...I call him my brother, but he isn't...uh so ya...look for Nero, he should be in the area near the Tower's base on the other side. He'll help you from there."

[Kristia]

Venturia
Egale System
Planet: Senarious



As she managed to cross the forest, Mara detected her ship landing on the clear area. The ship itself looked kind of small as it had just enough space for the pilot, but it had enough space for at most 4 or five people on the backside of the vesselhttp://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/i/20...op-d57l2c5.jpg

Ready to touch her ship, the bioroid suddenly heard a small blip on her HUD, it showed a living being hiding behind some trees. Quickly looking towards the source of that blip, the white haired pointed her palm to whoever was hiding

"WhoŽs there? show yourself" Mara said

[Koishi]

Venturia
Helios System
Planet: Dua

---

Mima thought about digitizing the octogonal device, and tapped the device, making it digitize. "I won't digitize my staff, though. It's special. I think."

Mima then thought about the whole other side thing.

"So, how do I get to this 'other side'?" Mima said with finger quotes.

[Cucoo5]

Venturia
Helios System
Planet: Dua

"Through the tower, of course!" Cicero chuckled. "Don't worry, you don't have to climb anything to reach Duon. There's an ancient teleporter that will do pretty much the same thing as what you did to that mini-hakkero, except it'll rematerialize you on the other platform." Cicero adjusted the sails and they were a mere minute away from the tower. It was massive, dwarfing them and the boat. a large opening could be seen where a platform with stairs running along the walls down to the waters below. Some debris from the ancient tower jutted out of the waters. Cicero guided the boat gently to a landing that was just before the stairs. The inside of the tower was hollow with various beams crisscrossing high above the platform with a beam of light going into the darkness above. The bottom area also seemed large enough for a fair sized ship to dock in it.
"Ok so there's one flight of stairs, but other than that, the rest is easy."

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

Venturia
Egale System
Planet: Senarious

Eleos stepped out from behind the tree, and at first didn't pay any attention to the woman. Then he placed himself between two trees that were positioned so that if he so chose, he could duck behind the one and sneak to the other to have a slight advantage in a fire fight. "Well, you called me out. Now...I got two questions, and depending on your answers, I'll just leave you alone. First off, how long have you been on the planet?"

[Koishi]

Venturia
Helios System
Planet: Dua

---

"Okay then. This is where we split up, I would guess?" Mima asked.

[Cucoo5]

Venturia
Helios System
Planet: Dua

Cicero nodded. "You'll be fine. Just step- er... float over the center of the platform above and in a mere moment you'll be in the Tower's Duon side. Go to the Space port nearby and you should be able to find Nero, who does bear a striking resemblance to me, but with darker tones for his clothes. If anything...He'll find you."

[Koishi]

Venturia
Helios System
Planet: Dua

---

Mima nodded back and floated off of the boat, heading up the staircase. As she reached the top, she looked to the platform in front of her, and sighed, and said the first thing that came to mind as she stepped onto the platform.

"Down the rabbit hole I go." Mima said.

[Kristia]

Venturia
Egale System
Planet: Senarious

Mara looked deeply at the man behind the trees with her golden eyes. He lloked both dangerous and calm, yet the white haired had to be cautious with his question

"I have been here just today making some research of what remained of the laboratories of the ravaged city." She answered to the man

While she was just standing seeing the man, her mind was already procesing the posible outcomes

("If he attacks with ranged abilities, IŽll have to test the protoype sooner than I thought, but if he goes for a close combat, the blades shall do their job") she thought as her arm bracers were ready for a possible attack

[Cucoo5]

Venturia
Egale System
Planet: Senarious

Eleos stood there, looking the white haired woman over. "Huh..." He then shifted to a resting position against the nearby tree. "Do you know what happened here?"

--------------------------
Venturia
Helios System
Planet: Dua

And so in a gradually growing light, Mima vanished from the platform.

Cicero looked up at the pulse of light that traveled upwards. He sighed and sat back down in the boat. "Well that's taken care of...now what?" Just as he finished saying this a shark fin broke the waters nearby. "Oh HELL NO! NOT TODAY!" Suddenly, Cicero pulled out a large laser cannon and took aim. "CHEW ON THIS!" The resulting explosion echoed through the tower.

Then, Mima found herself floating on a similar platform. However it was not overlooking a vast ocean below, rather grassy plain with a small city nearby...