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

[S121]

Helios System
Delta Division Flagship | Excalibur
Combat Simulation 1

As the Aura bullets flew towards John, he readied himself for a feat of strength that no normal person would be capable of. Using his right hand embedded in the wall, John leaned down and in swift motion, launched himself upward with enough force to send a car flying. The result was enough to rocket him all the way to the top of the tower. As John soared above the roof, he noticed the sniper turning around to take aim at him. Reacting quickly, John used his M6D Magnum Pistol and fired three times at the soldier. Just like before, the first two bullets slammed into the soldier's shields and exploded, allowing the final bullet to fly unimpeded by the soldier's energy shield. The final bullet struck dead center in the man's chest, exploding in its target and eliminating the sniper. Just as the sniper hit the ground, John fell back down towards the tower's roof. Right before landing, John had an idea. Right before he touched the ground, John crouched in midair, increased his suit's weight to 7,000 lbs and as soon as his feet were within range of the roof, John stomped down, breaking the roof and sending him two floors below, where the other sniper was.

As soon as John broke through the ceiling, the sniper spun around and fired, striking John's shields in the left thigh. As John fell, he quickly fired off three more shots, destroying the sniper's shields, then killing him. Right before he touched the ground, John lowered his suit's weight back to its original setting and landed on the floor, shaking the room, but keeping the floor intact. Now that the snipers were dead, John could move on to the next phase of his plan. He still needed to eliminate the soldiers down below, but they would be neutralized soon enough.

John looked around the room until he got a rough idea where the building's support beams were. Thankfully, the building was just tall enough for it to land right in front of the tank when it would fall. After walking over to where the building's support beams would be, John pulled his fist back and slammed it straight through the wall, striking the beam and breaking it. As soon as the first beam was out, John did the same to two others, sparing the furthest beam. After the beams were destroyed, John then walked over to the window as he reloaded his pistol and his shields charged, and positioned himself in the nearest tank's line of sight. Once that was done, John waited for the tank to fire.

[bookdragon2000]

Sol Inceneron
Inopia - Temple of the Lost

"How did you kn-Gah! Never mind, I will figure out these things later but first...If I'm to use this as a power source..." He looked back towards where they had feel from. "I would actually need to use the power on something, but how do I get back to my ship...?" Nhiome picked up the orb again, careful to use his left hand so that the keystone did not react to the crystal fusion again. Well, since she already knows... He created another flame in his hand, making it as bright as he could, then looked around again for a way out.

[MyHatismyFriend]

The Operator remained motionless.

As I have stated before, my current and only objective is to find and extract intelligence to my superiors. Your jamming is interrupting my attempts at gathering intelligence. If you do not have anything to say, then I will move on. If you choose to disclose information, I will relay it to my superiors for their evaluation.

[Cucoo5]

Celestora System
Alcyon - Forest of Spirits

"...Some information is not meant for others to evaluate. You seek to know about the Shards? Fine. I will show you."
Cicero then snapped his fingers and the whole scene changed. They were no longer at the lake or the woods. They were inside an old house. Abandoned. It had fallen to ruin over the course of time. Pictures and various belongings lay untouched throughout. Dust settled in layers over tables and light fixtures. Pictures covered in webs. Cicero was no longer there, Only the Operator stood in what could only be described as the living room of a house. A couch was along one wall in front of a window with moth-eaten curtains blocking the view outside, which seemed to be shrouded in a grey mist. A fireplace was in the corner of the room. embers smoldered in the pit, seeming to emit a grey light. Along the wall opposite of where the Operator stood was a mirror with an ornate frame that seemed to be of greying, splintering wood. To the left, a cabinet stood with a set of pictures sitting on top of it.
Some of the pictures were laying facedown. One was still standing and it was covered in dust. but the faint image of a woman was in it...
A woman that bore a resemblance to the Operator without her armor or augmentations.

---

Sol Inceneron
Inopia - Temple of the Lost

"Being the chosen wielder of a sacred sword has its perks. I can faintly sense the Aura of the crystals of your arm. But as for a way out...There." Dalia pointed to a passage across from where they were. it was the center of the three passages. The one on the right was where they entered the room from. "I think I feel a slight draft of cold air...let's see if this is the way up...?" She started to head for it but the stumbled slightly in the ankle deep waters covering the floor of the room. "Ahn...my head..." Dalia rested against a column clutching the side of her head, where she had hit when she fell.

---

Helios System
Delta Division Flagship | Excalibur
Aura Core

"Ha...might not be that extreme. If anything...I think it's more than just any one person here that will decide the fate of our Home... You would help lead us to the truth. The search for your memories might uncover more than just your own past..." Nero chuckled. "Anyway, enough of the deep talk for now...Let's keep looking around. Heck I might as well give ya a tour of the ship. I don't really get out much..." Nero started to climb the ladder and hung from it for a moment, turning back to Mima. "Is there anyplace you would want to see? Maybe there's something here that's similar to what you would be familiar with?"

---

[Koishi]

Helios System
Delta Division Flagship | Excalibur

---

"Do you guys have a bar or a pub? I could use a drink right about now." Mima said.

---

Helios System
Somewhere in Space

---

The Reaper and Nova's ship flew side by side, watching for anyone who may be coming. They communicated through a channel, talking about their objective.

"Leads?" The Reaper asked in it's usual monotone voice.

"There was a man spotted matching his armor's description about a week ago on Sedes Imperii in the Nexion System" Nova replied. "Like trying to find a needle in a haystack though."

"Joy." The Reaper said with the same tone. "If that's the best lead you have, we'll go with it."

---

Sol Incineron
Videc

---

After about thirty minutes, Deimos stumbled upon a towering room, a large spinning drill like object in the center. A large hole was around it, showing that the drill continued down to what appeared to be the planet's core. Luckily, a railing was in place. He stepped forward on a small bridge which led to what seemed to be the control panel for the drill and seemingly, the temple itself. Deimos had stumbled onto the archelogical jackpot. If an Anodyne had a mouth, he would be smiling right about now. Instead, he gave a hearty laugh.

[MyHatismyFriend]

????
???????

The Operator blinked in confusion, then her training kicked in and she dropped to a ready stance, pressed her back against a wall and activated her stealth arrays. Satisfied that she wasn't going to be attacked for now, she lowered the rifle and took a quick glance at her surroundings.

KINGMASTER?

No reply- her HUD was missing the systems that he would normal have control over as well. The Operator blinked in mild bemusement. It looked like she would have to move on her own for now. The man had said that he would teach her about the Shards- if this was his doing, there would be intelligence somewhere. Moving with incredible slowness so not to give her presence away to some hidden sharp-sighted observer, the Operator crept across the room and paused to examine the photo, noting the figure mounted on it. The Operator blinked at the resemblance- not a coincidence, most likely. She took a photo of the image and turned her attention to the cabinet the photograph sat on, opening it up with a small cloud of dust that made her arrays flicker.

[Cucoo5]

Helios System
Delta Division Flagship | Excalibur
Aura Core

"Ha...sure." Nero smiled. "It's just by the main mess hall. There's a few shortcuts connected to the Spine on getting around. Though most don't use it cause of the...well...atmosphere of crawling around in the exposed parts. Dunno why that's such a deterrent..." He shrugged and led Mima back up into the Spine heading towards the center of the ship.

---

Between Dimmensions
Alternate Reality - Abandoned House

The cabinet was empty, save for another picture.
It was a picture of a girl that would have been what the Operator would have looked like when she was but a child.
The girl was standing in front of a mirror with an ornate frame next to a fireplace. It was the same as what was there currently.
In the picture the girl was smiling but her face portrayed that of an empty sadness.

[S121]

Helios System
Delta Division Flagship | Excalibur
Combat Simulation 1

As John stood in the path of tank's sights, the tank turned its main gun towards John and fired. In a near instant, a large energy shell ripped through the air, heading straight for John. A normal human wouldn't have been able to perceive the shell exiting the barrel of the tank's main gun, but John was a Spartan. Reacting quickly, John ducked down, and as soon as his fist touched the ground, he activated his suit's Armorlock mechanism. The Aura shell slammed into the room John was in and destroyed everything in the area, but left John unharmed. The entire tower began to moan as the weakened infrastructure began to crumble away. As the tower began to slowly tilt, John deactivated his Armorlock and remained crouched, hidden from the tank's view, waiting for the right moment to act. After a couple seconds, the tower's walls began to crumble as its metal exterior began to shriek as metal crumpled and tore away. Finally, the tower could no longer stand and fell towards the tank.

That was the signal John was waiting for. As soon as the tower came to be almost parallel to the ground, John sprinted up the now nearly horizontal wall, charging and punching straight through the ceiling as his shields regenerated. Debris and furniture fell out the windows as they slid and fell to John's side of the room, but it did not deter him. Building up speed, John than punched through the next ceiling, letting the sunlight through the deteriorating room and letting John escape the building. At the very last second, John bent his legs and lunged forth, exiting the building and soaring straight towards the tank below him.

The turret operator on the tank was shocked by the sight before him. The armored man that the tank had just fired at should have been dead. In fact, he shouldn't even have been able to escape the falling building. Despite the slight hesitation, the turret operator aimed straight for John and opened fire. Just as the man began to open fire, John raised his fists up in the air, and after two Aura bullets slammed into John's shields, he slammed his fists down into the tank operator's head, killing the operator instantly. The tower behind John finally crashed into the ground, causing the ground to shake and dust to cloud the air. The dust obscured John's sight, but thanks to his radar, he could still see the enemies before him. It was apparent that the soldiers that had formed the firing position had now scattered, most likely trying to get out of the way of the tower. John knew an opportunity when he saw it, so John wasted no time as he took control of the heavy machinegun turret on the tank and opened fire on the soldiers lost in the dust and debris.

The heavy Aura machinegun fire ripped through the dust and killed each soldier in fractions of a second. John's Spartan reflexes allowed him to waste little to no time between switching targets, and after only 7 seconds, all of the soldiers from before were dead. Right as the final soldier fell, John abandoned the heavy Aura machinegun as his shields regenerated from the earlier machinegun fire, and slammed his fist into the tank's shields with 26,689 Newtons of force (6,000 pounds). The tank's shields crackled blue around the impact site as John's fist crashed into it. Similarly to the old Covenant Wraith tanks he used to destroy with his bare hands, John quickly followed up his first punch with a second, equally devastating blow, knocking the tank's shields offline and leaving the tank exposed to attack.

Now that the tank was vulnerable, John quickly climbed up the top of the tank and headed for the tank's entry hatch, but before he could reach it, he was greeted by a solder emerging from the hatch with an Aura assault rifle. Before the soldier could even fire, John grabbed the gun by the barrel and bent it under his grip. Just as the soldier reached for an Aura-powered combat knife located on it's shoulder, John interrupted him with the same devastating blow he inflicted on the tank, shattering the soldier's shields and killing him instantly. The force of the soldier's back slamming against the lip of the hatch left a dent on the tank's otherwise perfect exterior, and before the soldier could fall back into the tank, John grabbed hold of him, tossed him out, and dropped down the tank's open hatch.

As John dropped down the hatch, the tank's driver and two co-pilots turned around to face their assailant, but before they could even reach their guns, the driver was already killed by three armor piercing, high explosive rounds to the torso and head. As the co-pilots opened fire on John, John lunged over to one of co-pilots and used him as a body shield against the other. The other co-pilot pulled out an Aura-powered combat knife and charged at John, but was met with John using the co-pilot's teammate as a club, killing both co-pilots and securing the tank. Now that John had the tank all to himself, he quickly seated himself, aimed the main gun at the tank closest to him, and opened fire as his shields regenerated. He knew that all the chaos he had stirred up would not go unnoticed by the gunships in the sky, so he quickly came up with an escape plan and kept it in the back of his mind as he continued to fire at the enemy forces.

[bookdragon2000]

Sol Inceneron
Inopia - Temple of the Lost

Nhiome looked left towards the direction Dalia had indicated. He set off in that direction, he couldn't really tell, but since she could sense the aura crystals in his arm, sensing cold air should be much easier. He was already some distance away before he noticed her difficulties. He paused and turned towards her, then stopped unsure what to do. "Are you...ok? Could it be a concussion?"

[Koishi]

Helios System
Delta Division Flagship | Excalibur

---

Mima put a hand over Nero's shoulder. "After a pint or two, the atmosphere won't even matter." Mima smiled.

[MyHatismyFriend]

Between Dimensions
Alternate Reality - Abandoned House

The Operator took another photo. Baseless and futile attempts at psychological warfare, she told herself. She knew for a fact that Operators were created in the Corporation's artificial wombs, being 'born' at the age of 15. Augmentation began at 17 and finished at 20 years of age. Still, intelligence was intelligence. She looked around the house for anything else of value.

[SUSTIC]

Helios System
Zephyr-Old Continents-Ancient Nasod Palace-Eve's Chamber

"The year is MDe12-MMXII" The man with the red bandanna pushed up his glasses. "You've been asleep for a few trillion years." He then turned and started walking away but then stopped when he noticed Eve wasn't following. "Well? Time waits for no one."

Helios System
Zephyr-Old Continents-Ancient Nasod Palace-Eve's Chamber

Eve looked at the man in shock. "A-A few... trillion years?" He muttered as she began to follow the man. Eve was shocked. She did not expect to be sealed away for so long. She remembered that she was to be sealed only until after the war was over... "I suppose the Nasod-Zephyr war is over? If so... then why was I woken up so late?..." She asked... a sense of depression and sadness could be heard. By this time there surely couldn't be any members of her race left.

__________________________________________________ _____________

Helios System
Zephyr-Old Continents-Ancient Nasod Palace-Chamber Hallway

Hajime continued even deeper into the ruins. He had gone through hallway after hallway, room to room, trying to find a way out of this place. He had came across many moss covered robots, and stones. Even a few plants. Eventually he came to a dead end. The hall just seemed to end in a small circular room. Much like the one from before, but the only difference was that this room was much smaller. The walls were lined with cracks everywhere. Even what looked to be a few vines here and there as well. The only thing different about this room was that the pictures on the walls were clear as day.

The pictures on the wall was a mural of what looked to be that same giant robot from the Main Chamber. With a smaller more human looking female standing below the towering machine. The female character on the picture appeared to be leading some sort of robotic army against what looked to be humans.

"Is this depicting some sort of war?" Hajime asked himself as he saw that the rest of the mural was covered in dust. Being the curious one Hajime wiped off some of the dust from the rest of the mural. What he saw was the same female that was leading that army. However she was alone... well at least it seemed that way. The woman in the picture looked to be holding the hand of something or someone... Hajime tried to wipe off the dust off the rest of the mural, but all there was... was a large missing piece of the mural. "...Well there goes that..." He said as he turned around. "I need to find my way out of here before I get lost even more so..." He said as just as he was about to leave the roof above the doorway collapsed. Blocking his only exit.
"OH COME ON!!!" He said as he tried to move the rubble out of the way. However he was not strong enough to do so. "DAMMIT!!!" He cursed as he banged his head against the moss covered walls...

That's when he heard it... the sound of people talking... directly below him... "Wait a second... is that... someone talking?" He said as he looked around the room. He couldn't find where the voices were coming from. Yet on closer inspection he began to notice that the voices were coming not from the floor, but under the floor. "...?" He knelt down and kept his ear to the floor so he could try and make out the voices. They were getting faint quite quickly. "No! No no no no no!!!" He said as he began to punch the floor in anger. "HELP SOMEONE HELP!!! I'M TRAPPED DOWN HERE!!!" He yelled in a futile attempt to get the attention of Eve, and Cicero who were now in the corridor below him. He continued to hit the floor in anger.

Suddenly the floor began to crack. Hajime's eyes widened as he noticed the cracks on the floor getting bigger and bigger. Until the point of where the floor finally collapsed. Sending Hajime plummeting to the room below. Luckily there was a small underground lake right below him to stop his fall... at least it looked like a lake...

In actuality it was a bed of glowing aura crystal's that gave the illusion of a sparkling underground lake... If something doesn't happen Hajime would end up splattered all over the crystal's.

[S121]

Helios System
Delta Division Flagship | Excalibur
Cortana's Custom Simulation

Cortana was a little surprised by Mara's sudden counter, along with her reacting within milliseconds, but it was simply more data for Cortana to use to better herself. As Cortana flipped over Mara, Cortana calculated her angle, how far she was from the ground, and how fast she was accelerating towards the ground. With that data, Cortana quickly corrected herself so that she would land on her feet, and as soon as her feet touched the ground, she drove a quick elbow towards the kidney area on Mara's back.

[Kristia]

Helios System
Delta Division Flagship | Excalibur
Cortana's Custom Simulation


Mara used her momentum to keep going down with her back on floor "You got skills, but keep going" she said as the elbow graced her head and grappled the elbow with her arms to pull Cortana´s body so the white haired could headbutt the AI´s chest

[S121]

Helios System
Delta Division Flagship | Excalibur
Cortana's Custom Simulation

Cortana could see the head-butt coming, so thinking quickly, Cortana came up with a plan. She had seen John do this every once in a while. In fact, whenever he performed this attack, it tended to either stun his opponents for a long amount of time, or knock them unconscious. Following what she had seen John do, Cortana reared her head back, and in one swift movement, head-butted Mara in the forehead. The sound of Cortana's Ceramic Carbide coated skull could be heard as the blow landed, giving off a sound similar to dense concrete.