When Mai arrived in the office she was met by Ritsu and Lorenzo, who was now sitting at the desk, shuffling through partly crumpled papers. He stopped to look at the pilot.

"Pilot Twilight, according to our readings you experienced an unnatural spike in your Synchro Rate during the events of the mock battle. This phenomenon is, even by Synchro Rate standards, abnormal, and often accompanied by certain...traits. Did you feel strange when it happened? Perhaps you sensed something you shouldn't have? Don't spare any details."

As Mai stood at attention before the two, she then responded.

"...sir. With all due respect, the Telekenetic system tends to be...inefficient at times. As the name suggests, it tends to briefly affect the mind of it's pilot more so than usual than other framework systems at brief periods of times. It was nothing more than my poor mental performance...my inefficiency..."

Lorenzo took another bite from his sundae. "Now, does anyone have questions before I announce who the squad leader will be?" Lorenzo asked in a bored tone. "Yes, that includes you, Karamote. You may have missed out on the fun, but that doesn't mean you have to just stand there like a fresh lobotomite. You too, Paris. Stay sharp."

Orion looked up, realizing that Lorenzo was trying to get his attention. "You too, Paris. Stay sharp." "No problem, L." Ever since Orion first met Lorenzo, he had called him that. He still had questions to ask Lorenzo, a lot of them. He was still clueless about why the Cruxi didn't kill him, and he hadn't spoken or even told anyone about that situation, and he should of. Orion, looked back down at the device, he was watching a replay of the mock battles. He didn't even know they were recorded. Possibly for his and the other guys purpose. He watched this one segment and replayed it over and over.

"I can't do this, I've had enough. No more. I'm gonna quit."
""My team was wiped out, and I'm the only one left...I can't fight anyone anymore, even if I wanted to. This..anger...I don't want it. I'm done.""

Orion, had already found someone to be friends with and he hadn't met them yet. He wondered of Koehler was already here, probably. Considering Zeus took, longer to prep.. He knew he was already here. He couldn't wait to see Roxy in action, with his own eyes instead of on a digital screen. He also wanted to get back inside Zeus, he hadn't been inside him for a bit. Orion wondered, if he should talk to Lorenzo, or talk to Koehler about it first. The Cruxi incident.. Orion decided Koehler should know, he'd get a laugh out of the fact that he apparently got struck by lightning, survived and didn't know about it, they have it under classified video files. Funny thing, Is Orion can access it.

After the lecture, he decided to go wander off, and finally talk to Koehler after a month or two. Like the goofball Orion can be he waited for Koehler to realize he had walked up on him. Mouth sucking on a loli-pop.. And the split second Koehler would realize.
Orion was ready to say 'Watcha-doin there? Bud?' He had a grin on his cheek, as he walked up to Koehler. He definitely needed to tell him about the whole Cruxi incident, seems like it happened literally yesterday. It's been so long. Orion had much to-do. Especially make friends with Elora, she needed a friend like Orion, at-least he thought so. He wasn't a big brute, he was sometimes as scared as Elora... well not as scared, but he sure as hell could be as traumatized.. That brang a flood of old memories.. No not his ex, nor his sister would be brang up unless it was on the battle field, and used as an insanity trigger.

His Insanity Trigger was odd, it didn't effect his Synchro Rate, because it was positive insanity. Yet it was very disturbing to watch Orion become a killing machine. It was a drug, in Orions sense, he got off on it.. He liked it, yet he still liked to keep his sanity in touch. It's like an over-dosed sugar high, fueled by the hatred of the Cruxi.. yeah that sounded right to Orion.. It sounded right indeed.

Koehler was in the messhall, looking just a tiny amount of sad, not being able to show much emotion due to 'his little condition'. He watched as Yeshua seemed to be deep in thought again, before abandoning him for now to sit back where he was. He checked his little 'Supply drop' again, smuggled in by one of his 'friends', and confirmed that he still had everything he asked for. NUKE NOODLES, Murdersauce, and a final bottle of... Orange juice.

Why did Koehler like orange juice so much anyway? That was strange in comparison to the 'extremes' of what else was in there. In any case, he crackd open that bitch and began slamming it down, before hearing footsteps and an odd feeling of familiarity come behind him. He turned around, before going back to his drink, then turned around again, unexpectedly. He quickly put his drink down and jumped up.

"IT'S YOU!", he yelled, "Holy shit! I swear to god if you don't remember the handshake!...", he threatened, fist and pinky extended.

]Orion easily remembered the handshake, he did the starting pinky and through each step all 25 individual steps they made up for this specific handshake that they had perfected, and it all look so.. manly. True Bro's with an epic handshake, and it ended with a little digital spark from Orion's hand, it was actual lightning from his glove's. He picked that trick up whilst in his few last weeks of training, and was waiting on a reaction.

"Hey Koehler, I'm in a hurry to go check out the God of Olympus. I wanna be alone with mah Zeus for a bit. But, I decided to check on you first, can't wait to see Roxy in action, checked over the recordings.. Definitely liked the fact that you went in on that A-hole Miles, as soon as you got the chance. I swear if he underestimates my childish demeanor.."

Koehler responded to his old acquaintence, a bit sad, "Oh... him. Well... he's a vegetable now. He was an asshole, but I don't think anyone really deserves that. He isn't here anymore even, think he was sent back home."

]"No, no they don't. Oh Darn, I wanted him to see me in combat, how's Roxy handling?"

"The old girl is still going strong. Pretty damn quick still, if not a little faster now that I kind of know what I'm doing. Piledriver is still probably a one-hit-killer."

"You've always been faster than me, heheh. My Lightning storms, they're getting pretty hectic." Orion pulls up an image and ushers Koehler to walk with him, "I'm gonna go to the hangars, are you going that way?"

"Well, I wasn't. But I am now, I guess. ...Hey? Can we talk in semi-private? The recreational areas have a quiet room, mind if we do a detour?"

"Yeah sure"

The two then went for the hangers, before stopping about halfway to get to the 'Recreational Areas', which as aforementioned still featured the little 'main area' with the ability to play some sort of training video game, whatever, and after that a little quiet library, and the empty room that was effectively sound-proofed. Koehler went in that one, and started talking again in private.

"What's up?"

"You saw that guy I was talking to?"

"Who? Yeah, whats his name? And Framwerk?"

"Yeshua. I'm worried about him. Something's wrong with him. He pilots Anzu, a sniper."

"Alright, what's up with him" By now, Orion figured Koehler was used to Orion bringing his bag everywhere he went, especially since Orion decided to put a new shirt on, after wearing this same old shirt for like 10 hours.. it was getting irritating. "Keep talking brah"

"Well, you remember when we met? How did we become friends? We just talked and it sorta sprung up, right? What did we talk about?"

"Yes, definitely."

"I think, it was after my training session, you were kinda disturbed of me going psycho. Then again you kinda liked it." Orion makes a psycho face.
"Yeah, har. Well anyway, we critiqued eachother, but did you ever call me a 'sweaty drug addict' or a 'fucking idiot', even if I said that kinda shit about myself, myself?"

"I honestly can't remember.. I remember snapping at you once trying to give me some shit. I kept explaining, I get off on insanity.." he spoke as if it was a casual thing, and chucked Koehler some orange juice, yet it wasn't just any Orange Juice.. it was Rogue Orange, something that was hard to get your hands on. "look what I got!" Orion grabbed his glass of Rogue Orange and grabbed a straw, sipped it like it was a casual drink, though he loved it.

"Holy fucking shit, ROGUE ORANGE!? The most BRUTAL OJ for the most BRUTAL people? That's BRUTAL."
"Well.. anyway. I'm being serious though.. that Yeshua guy needs help. I kind of hate him, but thinking about him calmly.. He's just scared I think.

"Yeah, I understand.. I might have a chat with him. I know for a fact he's probably noticed that ZEUS's files are up. You can finally look at all his specs!" Orion needed to get tot he hangar as quick as possible, but he needed to tell Koehler about the Lightning. So before he changed shirts, he made sure Koehler saw the Scar down his back, that mixed in with a weird ass scar. Koehler probably already knew about the Mount Olympus tattoo on his left shoulder though... that wasn't something new.. or something unseen.

"Well... don't talk to him. Just be careful if you must talk, y'know? He's very... volatile. And scared, I think. To me, he seems like the kind of asshole who's only an asshole because that's all he knows, maybe. Y'know?". Koehler then noticed the scar. Finally. "...Holy fuck, wht the hell is that?"

"I purposefully did that." He laughed, "I've been meaning to tell you a ironically funny story, yet a weird one"
"You know how I was the last on my evac ship?"

"Eyup?"
"Well, before hand like 8 hours or so beforehand, did you see a lighning bolt? It wasn't.. definitely wasnt from the actual planet itself. It come from far above, hit me like a truck."
"Yo, numbnuts, I wasn't even on the same planet. Yeah, I saw something a solar system away."

"I got hit by the lightning bolt, just as the cruxi gave me this scar.. then they literally stopped as if they had better things to do. They wandered off and I escaped, sort of like a hesitation of killing me than actually deciding not to kill me. Odd."
"That's some weird ass shit."

"But, the funny thing is Lightning.. Zeus.. Ironic.." Orion laughs every time..

"it gets me all the time.. I'm like meant to be piloting Zeus.." He laughs as he gets up.

"Are you sure that's actual irony? Wouldn't that just be 'oddly fitting'?

"Well, enough's enough. I'll go talk to the Yeshua guy later, I'm gonna go to my Hangar Bay and see Zeus.. GUHHH, Must see his beautiful chassis"

"Dat Chass, huh? Well anyway, just a heads-up, they apparently want us doing some sort of 'Star-Fist' martial arts tomorrow, with a 'Sergeant Ken'. I can't wait, that should make me a complete bad-ass when I get back on the field, since my Framework relies on punching the shit out of things?"
"That's cute.. I'll be fine remember, I kinda know too much Taekwondo, as you could remember. Lol, you were in some deep-shit, and I decided to help you"
"Odd, I don't remember you saving me on any occasion. AND YOU KNOW TAEKWONDO?! Why didn't you train me then? Fuck, I've been doing goddamn 'street fighting' shit, without any technique at all! You could've trained me or something? Dude..."

"It was the day before you left, I didnt save you really. I helped you get back up. And then we both kicked the shit out of those two guys who were baggin us for being 'Framers' I only did it because they were trying to beat you up.. and i mean it they were 'trying' "

"Ah right, right. That didn't... Look like taekwondo though."

"Yes, I can teach you some stuff.. It's ancient, these days.. this has been used for since freaking 1998, all the way back then! It's History dude, you should check it. Aight im off" He commences handshake of awesomeness before he leaves for the Hangar Bays, to finally see Zeus.

Koehler finishes with the handshake as well, but stays in the room for a few minutes by himself.

Feeling better about herself after her conversation with Alyssa, Elora wanted to check out if any Framewerks were brought in yet. After she passed through numerous corridors and halls, she eventually did find herself in the Framewerk hangars, which were absolutely gargantuan in size. The last time she was there she was in a hurry, so she didn't have much time to marvel at the true size of the place, which was necessary; it housed the greatest creations mankind had ever made, the protectors of planets and guardians of the galaxy. More old-fashioned people could easily call them gods, and they wouldn't be that far off: even their very steps shook the earth, and they had more power than a hundred atomic bombs. Such strength could easily be seen as ludicrous, but when one knew even the smallest fact about the threat the Cruxi posed to the universe they didn't question their need.

Elora had to use a two-wheeled vehicle that looked like an ancient Segway to move around the hangars, and even then it took tens of minutes to pass by a single Framewerk hangar. Only one Framewerk was carried inside since the mock battle, and it was the remains of Ryan's wrecked Framewerk Macabre; the two halves of the machine were carried by worker-class Framewerks, incredibly sluggish and slow, but they got the job when it came to heavy lifting.
Elora sighed as she looked at the bent metal, remembering how Ryan rushed to defend her after Lorenzo slapped her in the shoulder, and how his arm was mangled in front of her eyes.
She didn't know if she could ever get over that horror, or if it would haunt her for the rest of her days.

She eventually reached the last hangar, and expected to find another empty hall. She gasped in surprise when she looked up and saw a titan standing there; it was a Framewerk with a shield on one arm, colored pure white, like a paladin from ancient times. Elora's mouth was left agape as she stood there, wondering that the machine must have been delivered there in advance. She took out her mobile device, and opened up the Framewerk briefs. The last time she checked it, there wasn't any mention of a shield-using Framewerk...but then she saw the link: Zeus. Elora opened it, and found out that it's weapon system was based on plasma manipulation, brand-new technology reverse-engineered from the Cruxi.
She was in awe of such a machine actually existing, but then she noticed something about it; on its shoulder, she saw someone. Elora held her hand over her forehead as she tried to peer high into the distance. She waved her hand at the person, trying to warn him or her that it was dangerous to stay that high.

---

Orion had calmly walked off on Koehler straight to Hangar Bay, though. He walked down the corridor until he reached the bay doors. He came in from the opposite side. He didn't search for a detour, but luckily they have a door straight into ZEUS'S Hangar.
He was staring at the beauty of his Framwerk. The insignia on the shoulder pauldron reminded him of his memories of learning to pilot this Framewerk. He walked slowly around ZEUS, not noticeable by anyone if they were also inside the Hangar Bay.

He let off a sigh in awe of his magnificent machine. He couldn't wait to hop in him again, yet he decided to do his nifty trick of sitting on the shoulder of ZEUS. He always managed to get up there super quickly. He knew his way around ZEUS like it was the back of his hand. He rubbed his fingers against ZEUS'S Chassis as it gave off a static electrical zap that was not dangerous, just a result of using him.

"Damn. It has been at least two weeks, and it's still static?" Orion said in surprise.

Before he jumped to the front of the Framwerk he decided to sit on the back of ZEUS's Head. There was a little unintentional nook that he could hide himself in. He could see this as becoming a potential habit, and he'd probably even fall asleep on ZEUS. See, Orion lost most of his family. Sure he had a Koehler as a bud, but nobody was truthfully family to him ever since the Cruxi invaded. Orion would occasionally get flash backs of past events, especially of Kirsten, his beloved ex, whom he loved so much until she was impaled by a Cruxi Assassin. Out of all Cruxi, it was one of the most dangerous that had clasped her body. She looked dead, she had to have died...Orion was sure of it. There is no way in he...Orion stopped.

He had to stop thinking about the past...it's been too long for him. He should just enjoy the company of ZEUS, as he kept replaying that match. This girl who he saw in the video was probably more devastated than anyone here, especially Orion. Orion had a thing where he could tune into someones mannerisms, understand how they spoke and speak alongside them as if he understood them. When he is with Koehler you'd see him swear more often, if he was with someone calm, he would become more soft and welcoming. Yet Orion's personality always bursts through with his goofball attitude that he definitely shows to his mates.

Orion sat there for nearly 40 minutes, just watching the one Framewerk in the video. Diver, Diver, Diver...Orion saw something in this young girl, he just didn't know what. Is it his sister? No...He can't quite put it. She reminds him of someone. he knew. It would hit him later, definitely. Orion contemplated on the fact that he could possibly be on the battlefield with her. He would definitely be a powerhouse to stand by, especially when putting his static shield to work and using it on Diver. It would make for some great recon power, as well as keeping her safe. Orion definitely wasn't thinking about his safety; he'd be in and out of the shield, chucking lightning as well as making pulses and thunderstorms. Lightning doesn't just strike once or twice with this one, it rains down on you when he's around.

"That's what they get for killing my sister...They will know what we mean by hell in the end of this stupid nightmare."

Orion decided to sit on the shoulder of ZEUS. He sat there, just collecting his thoughts, and didn't even notice the girl who came in. Then he realized that she was Diver's pilot, and was shocked; the coincidence was uncanny. He decided to wait a bit and see if she'd notice him. And when she did, he waved at her. Once she answered back, he activated the intercoms system inbuilt in their devices.

"Don't worry, I'm fine...I know my way around ZEUS like it was my own body. You're Diver's pilot? I've been meaning to find you. How are you feeling?"

Even over the mic Orion's voice was soothing. He wasn't pushy, but settled and mellow instead. He decided to walk across the bridge that was directly infront of ZEUS, climbed down the back-side and jumped down to the middle bridge through the small parting. He landed beside the mysterious girl. He didn't bother checking her personell file for her name first, since he believed in just meeting and greeting.

Elora got a call from her device, and answered it; the voice seemed to come from the boy who was atop Zeus, as she saw when the boy's arms moved in synch with his speech.
He sounded nice enough, but then again, everyone sounds nice enough until you learn they're jerks. She was a bit cautious with him, as her experiences with Yeshua taught her.
"Uhh...I'm feeling...fine?"
Elora wasn't sure how to answer the question. She honestly never felt fine since she was put inside a Framewerk, but when she told about it to the adults they ignored her.
As she was absorbed in her thoughts, she didn't notice how the boy jumped right next to her, and yelped in a cute way, surprised.

"Ahhh! Where did you...come...from..." Elora only then noticed that his shirt was missing, and her face turned bright red, like a tomato. She covered her face with her hands in embarrassment, shaking her head from seeing the boy's muscular frame and weird thunderbolt-shaped scar. "Eeeeehhh! I can't believe you're shirtless!"

Orion realized he was shirtless.
"Oh, that's why I'm freezing cold." He looked over at the girl.
"I'm sorry if this embarrasses you, I don't have a shirt anywhere...I must have left it with Koehler. He's probably laughing about it right now." Orion stretched himself and leaned against the rails while looking through the windows and staring into the hangar bay to see the other Frames. "So, uh...I saw the mock battles. That's why I was asking if you were okay...I've been watching them since the start of the day. Sorry if this is weird, I'm really weird, but yours caught my eye. I was wondering why you gave up? Yeah it's tough, but there must be a valid reason. I'm known to be a caring person, hell, I cared for my little sister alongside 5 different orphans back on Delta Enire. I'm gonna miss home a lot."

"I'm sorry about the whole shirtless thing...It's actually better for me, considering my back issu-"
He winced a bit in pain while accidentally stretching the wrong muscle. He was used to it, though, so it was barely noticeable. Orion shrugged it off.
"My back issues. Heh. Being struck by lightning is kinda ironic, right?"

Elora peeked out from between her fingers, still too embarrassed to look at the boy directly.
She couldn't imagine how the boy could be so calm after exposing himself like that to a girl. Wasn't he embarrassed at all? Was this his way of trying to hit on her? She didn't know what to think.
"Umm, okay. Well, about the mock battle...I don't want to talk about it." She turned around, and held her arms.
"I was scared...the fighting...the emotions...I turned into a different person there...I wanted to hurt someone then...I never want to be like that again."
She paused for a moment before speaking again.
"You must miss your sister, right? I never had siblings, but I know what it's like to...lose someone..."

Orion looked at the girl. She was super shy, like very, very shy. That was normal on his planet; a lot of kids didn't know how to survive, and that's where he came in. He took care of them. He sat on one of the multiple benches nearby the railing, and listened to her. He knew for a fact that being patient and listening to someone was an easy way to make them feel welcomed, though being shirtless didn't really help. Thank god she hadn't asked about the scars. He didn't want to tell a complete stranger about them, though he would have if asked. If someone asked, he would tell the truth.

Orion himself didn't believe he deserved all this, especially ZEUS. He couldn't figure out why he was chosen. Then again, he's the only one who didn't go completely insane while trying to run ZEUS; Orion was the only one who could pilot ZEUS properly. According to L, it was literally in his DNA that for some reason, Orion's psychological aptitude fit ZEUS like a key in a lock, making everything match up perfectly. Of course, there was the side-effect of becoming a machine of pure carnage, physically and psychologically.
After she stopped speaking and after she mentioned his sister, his face kind of went numb for a second.

"Yeah...It's...It's tough. I've lost my whole family, I watched all the orphans and my own sister die...and others I held dearly as well, a lot of close friends."

Though to be honest, he tended to leave out the details if he wanted to hide something. Being honest was a disadvantage sometimes, and he was hopeful that the Cruxi don't know english. Orion put his chin up.

"Yeah, I think most of us have lost someone, and in fact I think everyone in this universe have lost someone significant. This is bigger than all of us, but we were chosen to face it. I'd be glad to have your Diver by my side. We would make a good combo, right? That is, if you have read my full specs, like almost everyone would have as once that stupid notification came up."

"Yeah..." Elora nodded, still facing away from Orion. It was true that ever since the Cruxi appeared, people have lost their families and loved ones. It was the fate the entire human race would meet if something wasn't done about it. She turned to Orion, but kept her gaze on the floor. She looked at his feet, not daring to look any higher than that. Her face had a slight tone of red to it.
"I-I'll do my best in helping you, and everyone. It's my role, after all. Your Framewerk is impressive. There's a couple other Framewerks in our squad who use plasma weaponry, but Zeus seems to utilize it in a more refined form. It's really interesting."
Elora started to ease up when the topic came about technical stuff; she was in her element when talking about machines and circuitry, and wishes to grow up to be an engineer.

Orion noticed she was more comfortable with technical stuff, and knew she was easing up. He had done this twice before; he had experience, and was a good talker. It was almost as if he was enjoying this chat. He really didn't want her to see him twitch into insanity on the battlefield. He would tell her afterwards that he was considered by many to be a very nice guy. However, on the battlefield if something were to happen he would try to talk calmly to her...even if he's gone on the kill switch.

"Yeah, the amazing thing is, it's not just the plasma generators. I can manipulate nebulas in space flight or the atmosphere, and I can also create thunderstorms that have a slight tendency to kill Cruxi!"

He laughed. He was showing that he was enjoying the conversation. It has been a long time since he talked to a girl. Somehow, he felt easier while talking to girls. It was odd.

"It's a lot more refined, yes. You should see his allocated shield array. It's what I believe would help you out a lot in-between battles. I still don't know if i'm able to decrease the radius and have more than one shield out at a time. that'd be nifty, but It'd come with a price to my offense. But yeah, Zeus is mystical. The plasma is literally harnessed from actual thunderbolts; the exact same plasma that is made from clouds crashing together. That's basically how the generator works, but more concentrated. I can form the plasma into shapes, I usually tend to keep it in a lightning bolt shape, like ZEUS intended it," he said, referring to the god of an ancient Earth mythology. There have been sightings of temples of Zeus on other planets other than Earth; a lot of history from Earth seems to be spread around.

"So yeah, Zeus is pretty great like all the Frames here. Using reversed engineered Cruxi tech against the Cruxi themselves will serve them right. It's gotten to the point that ZEUS's Frame Systems and anything on ZEUS is referred to as Myth Tech. I wonder if there's any other Myth Tech Frames in the process, like Hades or Poseidon. That would be hilarious."
He stopped for a moment, before continuing.

"What model number is Diver? Zeus is apparently Model XX4 - TSPHP (Thunder Storm Power House Project). Dunno what the Model Numbers are for, but I guess it means something, right? Funny thing is, they went through five people to get to me, and none of them could pilot ZEUS at all. It ended terribly for them. It's good motivation for me though; I'm going to make sure that I'll avenge them. Hey, I reckon that if I died to the Cruxi, I would create a supernova. I wonder if that's possible...I wouldnt do it if it wasn't neccessary." Orion realised he had spoken a lot. "Oh, crudz. Sorry, your turn. So, about Diver?"

"Oooh," Elora said in awe as Orion explained his Framewerk's systems. It was fun to exchange thoughts on the matter, and in the process Elora forgot that he wasn't wearing a shirt.
"I don't think creating a supernova would be a good idea; we'll be defending human colonies, and they would get caught in the blast radius...umm, not to mention the other Framewerks." She blushed, embarrassed to add that in.

Elora listened some more, and pushed her chin with her index finger in thought.
"Umm, I think Diver's code was...XJ9-RSU. If I remember correctly, the last part is abbreviated for Recon Special Unit. They picked me to pilot it because I'm good at computers, and the Diver uses a state-of-the-art supercomputer called the Combat Analyzer to process battlefield data. It's complicated stuff, but I got a hang of it pretty quick. Working the drones was a completely different challenge, though...it's like you're balancing multiple objects on your head, you know? They have AI built on-board, but they're pretty dumb about most stuff, so I gotta reel em in and have e'm on a leash. Uhh, I think I went a bit off-track, sorry," Elora said while shuffling her leg.

"So, umm, what do you think of the other pilots so far? I think Koehler's a pretty nice guy, if weird. I don't think he should be taking that drug stuff he talked about..."

Orion giggled slightly, and it turned out to be more of a chuckle. He listened to everything she said, but he couldn't figure out who she reminded him of. She caught his eyes as soon as he first saw that tape. Orion paused, stopping for a moment and reminisced over previous events that suddenly struck him.

"I can't do this...I'm done. I give up! Run, Orion...RUN!"
"N-No, Wh-What's happening?"
"Run, goddammit!" Tears struck Kirsten's eyes.
Orion was frozen. "Kirsten, WATCH OUT! KIRSTEN!"
"I'm done, Orion...It's too much. It's too much. I give up..."
"I....Give....Up..."

Orion was spaced out for a good minute or so until he realized it.
"Uh, by the way...I forgot to mention, I only looked at the Framwerk files, I requested specifically for files with nobody's names on them so that I'd get to learn about them personally. So, uh...What is your name?"

"Umm, are you okay?" Elora asked Orion, who seemed to have something wrong with him. It made Elora worried, and scared. He should have known her name, he said it himself. Whatever was happening to him, she couldn't help but look on, paralyzed with horror.

Orion was baffled. Elora had reminded her of Kirsten. After this long...It had been way too long. Why her? It was the shy aspect, it must have had something to do with it...Orion wasn't sure. However, he was definitely not going to mention this. Orion was half concentrating as his cheeks went red. Sitting down again, he completely forgot that Elora was there. His hands ran through his hair shakily.
"Jesus...Christ..." he whispered. "Unexpected," he thought.

He didn't expect to be all depressed here, and he didn't plan to. As soon as he could phase it out he would be on his feet again.

"Well, I guess I might as well introduce myself now..." he muffled, as tears dropped to the floor.
"I'm...I'm Orion Paris...My ancestors were famous or something. Ironically, I was quite poor."
He tried to hide the fact that something stupidly traumatizing had just happened. He tried to change the subject, but it would probably fail. That said though, he was keeping relatively calm. He felt rather weird, but he knew he'd shake it off soon. He would then probably talk to Elora some more.
"I dunno what's wrong...I'm okay, but...something weird happened: a flash back."

"Oh. Well, nice to meet you, Orion. I'm Elora Liu'un."
Elora wondered about his condition just moments ago. Was it related to the weird scar she saw on him? Thinking about it reminded Elora that she was staring at his bare body, and lowered her gaze to her feet again.
"Hey, if you're feeling sick, you should go to the med-bay. I don't think that's normal."

Orion shed a few tears.
"The back pains? They're normal, I got struck by lightning, so I figured something would happen. Nah, I'm not sick either, I just had a memory flash past me. It wasn't a good one either. I watched too many people die."
Orion looked up as the tears disappeared.

"Sorry about that. I can be pathetic at times."
He smiled, trying to make sure she wasn't scared or something.
"We've all been through tough times, and we all deal with it in odd ways, I guess."
Orion looked towards Zeus.
"I'd rather fight with ZEUS for our freedom than live a life in which challenges were meaningless."
Orion sighed.
"Well, you can call me Paris, my last name. I usually go by that or Orion, whichever you please."
Orion couldn't stop smiling.
"Thanks for the chat. I hope you were put into a better mood. You didn't look too happy out there. I do hope we can be friends. I'll definitely protect you out on the battlefield. Don't be afraid of my lightning, I don't believe it to be so frightening."
Orion joked. The noise of lightning was hard for some to get used to. But for Orion, it was music to his ears.

"I'm gonna get some rest...I'm knackered," Orion stated. Though she probably wouldn't expect it, Orion gave her a friendly hug before he walked around and eventually climbed up onto the nook on ZEUS. The hangar bays were seemingly quiet. He grabbed the blanket out of the bag, forgetting the shirt. He would probably sleep beside ZEUS more than he would in his own allocated bed. He wouldn't care about regulations for sleeping with a Framewerk, for it was true love. It made him rest at night and that was it.
"Good night," he yelled to the shy girl, and decided to replay that clip of her again and again, until he fell asleep.

Elora yelped when the boy suddenly hugged him, and at first blushed from embarrassment. However, as embarrassed as she was about being hugged, she didn't struggle away from it, knowing that the boy meant well. She could tell that the boy had some real issues, especially with his speech, so she thought of him as a troubled dog who required attention and care. She noted how warm he was, and looked on with a slight smile as he climbed up his Framewerk. She waved back to him, and went on her merry way, having met a special kid who she genuinely felt pity for.

---

"I see," Lorenzo responded to Mai. "Well then, you are dismissed. It seems your mother was a unique case with her visions..." he mumbled once he turned around.

Yeshua's hands were still hanging over his face, hiding his emotions from the world. He hadn't shown many different feelings anymore, but the chance of anyone reading him was slim. He hadn't moved for many minutes. Eventually, when the muscles in his arms began to ache, he reached into his left pocket and pulled out his omni-use device, a hologram emitting into his view. The boy flicked through the three dimensional screens and arrived at the Pilot's profiles. It was frightening that almost half of them had been eliminated already. The first on the list had the most potentional, Yeshua realised. Stukov's mugshot seemed to stare back at him. Even if it was just an amalgamation of pixels, it striked a very horrifying point to the boy. This person was dead. The all-caps imprint beneath the picture explained that very well and coldly. DECEASED lay beneath Stukov's empty eyes, like a file ready to be sorted into its appropriate drawer and never be touched again.

Did he even have any family? Yeshua dreamt the sight of a funeral with no one attending, or a cremation in an empty room. Who had cried over this young man's death? The more he dug into the tomb of his mind, the more Yeshua felt sympathy for him.

Who would cry if he died tomorrow?

Sympathy didn't revive people. Sympathy didn't save people. Sympathy made him weak and prone to acting out. It made him weak. He didn't realise his feet were tapping together again.

His feet shuffled underneath the chalk-white table, the bruise on his leg fading. His emotions to the dead should fade just as well, he assured himself. The other two missing pilots, while not deceased, were useless to the cause and treated that way. Miles would never function as a normal human being again and Ryan had tried to attack Lorenzo. They had deserved everything to come to them, and as such, there was no empty, twisting feeling in his stomach.

The next pilot stabbed him in the gut. It was Elora, the young girl who, to Yeshua, was so pompous as to think that she had been "bullied". He had tried to help her, tried to show her that a liability in the Corps would only end up with everyone being worse off, but she had deflected those harsh words back at him so easily. While he did pride himself in being to shift an argument, Elora had made him feel so ill not because she was a wordsmith.

Trying to clear his head, Yeshua left his seat and vacated the mess hall, an empty tray in his place.

---

After her conversation with Orion, Elora decided to take a tour through Solaire, the advanced training facility where they would work on their squad skills and become the ultimate fighting force of humanity itself. It was a big burden, but Elora didn't think much of it, believing that she would be a valuable memeber of the unit if she was strong like Lora told her to be. She had to prove it to everyone, even naysayers like Yeshua. Elora still wondered what even happened with the boy; was it a misuderstanding, or whether she was actually the kind of person to aggravate others?

As she wondered about it, she found herself in the recreation area, which included different kinds of rooms; a game room, a library, and even a silent, room where one could find a moment of peace. Elora, interested in growing up to be an engineer, first went to check out the game console that was fitted for use. However, the collection of games on it didn't interest her; Hour of Honor, Battlezone, Killstrike and the rest were shooting games, and Elora felt she has done enough of it for today. It was easy to think that shooting and killing was fun and exciting if you only played games and saw movies about it, but being there and actually doing it for real wasn't fun, at least to her. Then again, maybe she could try them out, she decided. It could be a nice break from reality.

---

He moved like a leaf in the wind, silent and purposeless. There had been very little to do recently. After the intrepid and interesting "conversation" with Lorenzo, which had left one of the pilots in intensive care, he had felt a slight emptiness at the thought of relaxation. Yeshua wondered if escapism was going to be helpful when he had so much resting on his mind. As the boy moved silently to the recreational area, he decided to allow himself some enjoyment, but not enough to make him forget the duties and responsibities he had on his shoulders. Leaning on one of the walls, he took off his glasses and began to clean them, while peering over at the different rooms he could enter.

An empty but ethereal chamber caught his attention. He moved forward slowly and threw his head inside, observing that it was empty. While he couldn't tell, a cardboard-like substance shot out in different directions like an elaborate art piece, falling between different layers. Horizontal and vertical panels were orientated perpindicular but almost randomly against each other in an effective way to block out almost all sound from the outside world. Yeshua realised the door was also constructed this way.

His thought was broken when a masculine voice erupted from the other room. It was cliche and American, being run through at least three different audio transformers. Gunfire soon followed. He didn't even flinch as he took a peak around the corner and saw Elora sitting down, casually, jamming the different buttons of the controller. A frown morphed onto his face as his eyebrows narrowed. Beside the large TV was an appealing pool table, the green fabric of the table in top quality. The budget of the Solaire building must have been impressive, Yeshua almost smirked.

He flew over to the pool table and found a well-crafted wooden chair placed adjacent to the wall and the cue rack. The cues were as superbly shaped as the table was; they were the gentlemen's sword, a scabbard and a rapier all in one. The only thing that was missing was the chalk. Yeshua's eyes lit up as he snatched the chalk off its resting place on the side of the table.

"Pool was always a better escape than any virtual reality." He remarked, the chalk rubbing back and forth on the end of the cue. He spoke in almost a whisper, but just loud enough for it to overcome the noise of the video game.

Elora was so absorbed in Hour of Honour blasting North Korean Commie-Nazis (a fictional group based on ancient history) that she didn't notice Yeshua until he started playing with the pool table. She didn't turn her face from the screen despite hearing his words to her, partly because she wished he ignored her, and partly because she was too afraid to look at him in the eye. She didn't know whether he would become angry at her like he did last time, so she took a distant approach to him.

"I...I don't know how to play pool," she answered in a low voice, almost like a whisper. "I never got the chance to learn."

Yeshua finished chalking the first cue with ease and slipped it onto the table. He took the second one and began doing the same. His hands made good work of the chalk, rubbing it back and forth until satisfied.

"That's an arrestable offence, young lady."

Elora continued playing, and as another Commie-Nazi's head exploded from the twin automatic shotguns her player character carried, she sighed.

"I'm sorry." That was all she knew to say, after years of doing that in her orphanage, and afterwards when she screwed up during her basic training.

The chalk ran up and down the tip of the cue with ease. He rested his now blue-tinted fingertips on the side of the pool cable.

From nowhere, a pool cue was thrown across the room, knocking the controller out of Elora's hand.

"Aaaahh!" Elora screamed when the controler flew out of her hands by a pool cue only inches away from hitting her head. She trembled in shock as she looked over at Yeshua.

"I...I..." She didn't know what to say, so terrified of the sudden action that seemed like an attack on her. "P-Please don't hurt me..."

The loud clanging sound of the wood and plastic colliding had definitely made the young girl jump, Yeshua remarked. He had her attention, at least. Seeing her like this had now made him almost regret his decision, however much he tried to knock the feeling out of his head.

"Pick the cue up. I don't want any Pilot to try and save the world without knowing how to play pool."

"Umm, okay..." Elora said as she carefully rose from her seat and picked it up while avoiding sudden moves, like a bank clerk during a holdup. She went beside the pool table, the cue shaking in her hands, and made a weak thrust that barely moved the pool ball.
"Ughh..."

Yeshua saw the pathetic attempt at a shot and let out a sound that could only be recognised as "contempt but somewhat amused".

"I don't know why you're afraid of me. I couldn't hurt you even if I wanted to." He admitted, sounding oddly too apathetic. He reached for the red ball and collected the rest of the spheres. His hand snuck underneath the table and came up with a triangular item, hollowed out in the centre. Arranging all of the balls inside of the tray. With the black ball firmly in the centre, he removed the tool and put it on the nearest chair. The white ball found itself removed from the rest, directly in front of the triangular arrangement.

"Pool is about pocketing the balls. It's like chess, but for gentlemen -- gentlepeople." Yeshua suddenly cut himself off, not making eye contact and constantly keeping his hands busy. "I am going to try to pocket all of the red balls in any of the holes, while you --" he breathed and spoke slower now, "will pocket the yellow balls. Once either of us have . . ." Yeshua sighed, losing his train of thought. He rested his left arm on the pool cue, which was also balancing on his knee, underneath the table.
"When any of us remove an entire set, we pocket the black ball and win. Do you understand?"

Elora stayed silent when Yeshua talked, and actively avoided eye contact with him. She wasn't sure how to take his claim of not going to hurt her, as he almost did when he threw that pool cue at her. It was like the boy didn't understand what he was doing, and that terrified her the most. Who knows if he started actively hurting her and claimed that he wasn't doing anything? She didn't know if she had the courage to tell any of the adults or even Lora if that were to happen, so she would have to endure it, like she did back in the orphanage.

Then Yeshua suddenly asked him if she understood, and Elora nodded; she didn't get everything that he said, but she picked up on the very basics, at least.

"Do you...hate me?" She suddenly asked, and covered her mouth in reaction. It just came out of her mouth, like a butterfly that was floating in her stomach, wanting to be free. She immediately regretted it, but she couldn't take it back, and now had to live with the consequences.

The boy maneuvered around the edges of the table, his hair covering his eyes. He pulled the cue over the edges of the table and onto his left hand, sliding it back and forth on the rift between his thumb and forefinger. The cue made very slight and small contact with the white ball before he slid it back again. The repetitive motion sent him into a trance. His throat was caught for a second before he spoke. He desperately needed a drink. The door was so close and so welcoming, where he could sit in the quiet and think about the future. Who was he to want to run away?

"What would make you think that?"

To Elora's surprise, Yeshua stayed calm, and didn't blow up like he did last time. She now had a chance of really getting answers from him, and as scared as she was, she had to act then if she wanted them. Her feet wavered a bit as she held her arms to her chest.

"Well...I know how you think of me as someone who doesn't deserve to be a pilot, and the way you talked about it...I think you hate me...for being weak, and a burden to the others..."

The skin between his thumb and forefinger was growing hot now. His shoes began clicking together again.

"Do you not think that is the case?"

"Yes...I am weak...I quit during the mock battle, too...I understand why you would hate me...I never had many friends...and the few that I did have bullied me in the orphanage...I guess they weren't real friends if they did that, but I was scared of losing them, so I never said anything...I'm pathetic."

The white ball sat still as the cue lined up the shot. His left hand was on fire. He could barely line up the shot. He tried again.

"Are you the object of your own hate?"

Elora was quiet for a moment before she responded: "Sometimes, I look at the mirror, and...I don't see myself, but someone who I want to change...someone I want to not be afraid anymore. But she never listens to me...she couldn't...I hate that person, yet I can't bring myself to express that hate...I'm not a person like that." She looked away.

"I try to be stronger, I truly do. It's not easy, and often I fall on my step...but I think it's possible."

Yeshua wished that she hadn't brought up this topic. The road was paved with eggshells and stalacmites. Elora was giving her entire life here now, the way she looked at herself and the way she felt. She was being honest with him, or at least she was very good at lying. This innocent, young girl was talking to him, but he could not figure out for the life of him what she wanted.
Yet, he had wanted her to play pool. What did he want from her?

"Try not to drown in all those tears."

The white ball was launched by the cue. It shot into the triangle. A loud crack resonated through the lounge like thunder.

"Yeah..." Elora quietly answered, and watched as Yeshua made a move on the pool table, sending most of the balls in the corner-holes.

"You're good at this," she neutrally observed. If Yeshua was willing to teach her more about the table game, maybe she could one day send those balls under the table.

The balls had settled upon the green turf, like houses on a hill. It was calm once again.

"You could be good, too." Yeshua spoke, with a more clear voice, shuffling his feet to directly opposite Elora. He analysed the balls and allowed his cue to rest upon the curb of the table. The chalk found its way into his hand. "The key ingredient to perfection is perseverance."

Another nod came from the shy girl as it was her turn. She aimed with the pool cue with her tongue out. She seriously concentrated on the shot, and exerted as she thrusted.

The ball went faster this time, and actually hit another one this time. An improvement, if a small one.

"I'll never give up, no matter how hard the journey is..." Elora said, mostly to herself.

Yeshua analysed her form. In fact, he realised, a monkey could have analysed her form. She was quite literally grabbing the end of the cue with a fist and shoving it forward with as much precision as a blind musketman. It was mildly amusing that she was a lot better at shooting virtual people than playing such an old and popular game.

"Your form's off." Yeshua suggested, bending down and allowing the cue to graft between his thumb and forefinger in the more popular technique. His head hovered above his left elbow with his hair dangling just above his eyes.
"Look at my hands. This is the way you hit the ball."

He pressed the cue forward, hitting the dead-centre of a red ball. It rolled into its hole with a satisfying plonk, like a slot machine at a casino. A game was easier to teach than a fight, but Yeshua was terrible at games. Escapism only came through books. He doubted the effectiveness of books at talking to Elora.

He was talking to her, now. She didn't seemed to actively despise him and hate him. While he wasn't a psychic, it wouldn't be a stretch to say that she was enjoying this. No friend before her had given him this pleasure.

"Elora, are you my . . . ?"

But she was desperate. He was taking advantage of her, in her state of weakness. What was he trying to accomplish? He was leading humanity. He had forgotten this important fact. He was lost and primal, just as he feared. The path to victory could not be built upon the shackles of relationships. Before he had realised what he was thinking, a loud snap echoed through the room.

His cue laid on the floor, snapped in two. His hand was bleeding.

Elora was listening to Yeshua's instructions, and mimicked his actions with the pool cue, when suddenly she saw him break it with his bare hands. There were splinters lodged into his wounds that bled, and Elora screamed.

"Y-You're bleeding! We gotta-"

"I can deal with it, Jesus Christ."

Yeshua clasped his left hand from the right, shielding it from the world. Protecting the wound, he ran away.

He had no idea where the med-bay was.
Metal corridors designed to look as unappealing as possible surrounded him and trapped him. The maze of metallic panels jutting out in hexagonal shapes, air conditioning vents sealed behind grates between them and the hollow floor that crumbled with every step only added to how lost he felt. The air was fake and stuffy.

When he had eventually realised he had no idea where to go, he slumped on the wall, trying to desperately remove the splinters in his hand. They stung like a bullet ant underneath his skin, like a bonesaw cutting through his fingers. He spat on his hand twice when no one was looking. Any people that were still walking through the corridors simply passed by, not caring.

Elora stood there for a moment, her legs shaking like a house of cards in a stormy weather. She saw somene bleed before her again, and was terrififed that Yeshua would meet the same fate that Ryan did. As if some kind of survival instinct kicked in, she ran after Yeshua in a panicy state. He didn't manage to get far, and leaned against the wall, smearing it red with his hands. Elora held her mouth as she reined in her urge to spit out her lunch, and knelt beside him.

"Y-Yeshua, hey, we need to get you to the med-bay now...there's a map of the place in our devices, we can use it to get there...Yeshua! Please, say something!" She tried to lift him up, but he wouldn't budge. She started crying as she looked at him bleeding on the floor.

Yeshua was not delighted at this turn of events. The bleeding was stopping now, but his hands were still smeared with blood. He spied to his left and right CCTV cameras, realising that they were all watching. It had been a disaster to allow himself to try and talk to someone. He knew the consequences. She didn't.

"Can you stop crying for a minute? You're not the one bleeding. By Isaiah's prophecy, can you stop being so weak?" He fidgeted for a moment, the splinters digging deeper into his hand.

"Damn it!" His muffled mouth cried, before his legs pulled himself upwards. He had no injury to his lower body, and this particular accident wasn't serious at all. He began to lick his hand like a big cat. Keeping one of his limbs in the air, his right hand dug into his pocket for his omni-use device. It was absent. He had left it in the Mess Hall. A fantastic stroke of luck to get away from a crying girl.

"I must've left it in the Mess Hall. Go and cry somewhere else, please. I don't want to deal with two catastrophies of human beings." Yeshua muttered bitterly.

"But I-" Elora hesitated. However, as Yeshua continued to tell her off, she couldn't help but leave, despite wanting to take him to the med-bay. She first stepped a couple of times backwards from him, and then ran away, tears dropping to the floor like sparkling stars. No matter how much she tried, meetings with Yeshua always had to end in a tragedy. Maybe her life was just a single, convoluted play, with occasional happy moments but ultimately leading to sorrow and grief.

Strolling into the Mess Hall, he didn't feel guilt or pain run through him. He only felt happiness, leaving the shackles of contact. He hadn't the need to deal with crying girls, brutish boys or violent men, when the adrenaline of real pain kicked in. This is what dying felt like and it made him feel alive. He was more alive than anyone else could tell him or force him to be, as the blood continued to leave a trail behind him.

He was going to save the galaxy. He wanted to see Death in his own eyes, and if he could kill it, finally be alive.

"I see," Lorenzo responded to Mai. "Well then, you are dismissed. It seems your mother was a unique case with her visions..." he mumbled once he turned around.

Mai then did something out of character. She brought her hand up as to properly salute before doing the "about face" out of the admin's room but half way up, her arm froze then came back down.

Then, Mai spoke up to Ritsu and Lorenzo but her voice didn't sound like a "drone" per say...in a way, it sounded more "normal" than anything.

"...I'm sorry sir...I guess I can't put this off after all. Been falling apart I feel ever since I got here. Even now, I'm not the same "killing machine" I was trained to be...but you must know. I've always had a grudge of sorts with my mo...with Maria Twilight codename "Angel"."

Mai then turned around. Her back to her two superiors.

"...that damn preminition or "future seeing" ability...you should know, despite Cain's best efforts to cover it up, I know the truth...my old "Professor" told me about it during training...it got to a point where she only started seeing SELECT future events...but then...it grew to the point where she started seeing EVERY possible outcome even during battles...to the point where her final moments were that of madness as her Framework "R-0" absorbed her...or so I was told..."

That's when Mai changed the subject and told Ritsu and Lorenzo of the "Cruxi" she saw in her vision. To what the Cruxi looked liked to what it tried to do when it "spoke".

Talking like a drone now, Mai said, "If that's all sir, I'd like to return to my quarters...I need to fix my inefficiencies by "hitting the books" as the saying goes."

"Thank you for this privilege." Krista took the patch and pistol. She carefully attached the patch to her shoulder. She attached the pistol's holster to her harness at the shoulder. The heft weighed on her more than it's physical weight would suggest.

After they were dismissed the group dispersed quickly, mainly leaving for the mess hall. Even Elora went to talk to Lora before she could grab her attention. Krista was considering heading towards the mess hall when Romeo caught her attention.
***
The boy was surprised by the decisions, to be sure. Glad that she had been one to get the promotion even though he was told to be one of those who used his brains. It seems the hesitation was enough to lower whatever ranking system was in use.

Still, he was glad she was selected over many of the other choices and it showed as he approached. Slipping the blade up the sleeve of his kimono, he offered her a soft salute to respect her more than her new station. Casting a look to the professor, he motioned to the doorway as an option to escape all of this tension.

"Je suis tellement fier pour vous...I am proud for you."

If she followed, he would be trying to lead her to the virtual training areas for a plan he had in mind.
***

Krista smiled and replied, "Thanks Romeo. You did a good job out there too." After realizing that he was trying to lead her out of the room, Krista put a hand on Romeo's shoulder. "Actually Romeo," she said after he turned to face her, "I'd rather stay here in this hall. I've yet to meet the new guys and I don't want to go wandering off before they get a chance to meet me, and I would like to go talk to Elora afterwards." She cocked her head towards the mess hall. "But I'd be open to finding somewhere quiet after dinner if you'd like to talk in private though."

Romeo was stopped and surprised that she wanted to stick around but he understood. Back to the wall, next to the exit, he smiled softly and getured with a spinning downturned hand like someone mixing something. It was an intended gesture for her to go mill about and he hoped she understood that.

"I'd like that, I'll stay right here for a little bit, I'm in no mood to see what sort of military Cruxisludge they pass off for food without someone for backup."
***

Krista let out a small chuckle. "I still don't know how they make a grilled cheese taste bad." she said, "Though is there anything you would like to say right now though?"
***

"They dont use real butter, it makes all of the difference." Romeo grew a soft smile as he thought about it. "I hope you like flowers, now go."

Krista nodded and went off to go greet the new cadets.

Orion, had tried to sleep. It was redundant, he wouldn't be able to sleep. What had come over him?
It wasn't for him to just melt down, especially in-front of someone. I guess the memory of Kirsten, is just too much trauma for him.
Orion replayed the mock battle, over-and-over again. He just kept repeating it. It was the same thing each time, Elora gives up. She's had enough, it was all too much for her. It was exactly what Kirsten said before she died, something only known by him. Nobody else knew about Kirsten, in-fact it was a good idea to keep it that way. Orion decided to get up, maybe wander around a little bit. As Orion walked through into the Mess Hall, he decided to sit down a read through frame files.

He had specifically asked for the names of the pilots aswell as there profile to be excluded in the files he was given. So instead of using the servers database for frames, he used a chipset that was installed in his device. He could look at the Frames, with a moral respect for the privacy of other pilots, he'd rather meet them then just already know 40% about them. Orion methods were quite archaic when it came to socializing. He'd rather talk to someone upfront than, sitting behind a screen. Yet he has gotten used to the fact that, technology is probably the only way we are going to lead us into a victory. Not a mighty victory, nothing would be positive about this victory. It would be blood-stained, vicious and well downright inhumane.

Orion scrolled upon the Anzû Framewerk File. He had already known the name of the pilot, from Koehler. He looked through the information, scrolling down and up... analyzing everything he read. Like the majority of the frames, they all seemed like they actually belonged to the military, whilst ZEUS is more natural. Zeus's chassis flows like an actual body, unlike some of the Frames being quite robust and well man-made, man-made was the best way to describe it. This comes well known, considering that ZEUS is partially Cruxi.Orion sometimes felt guilt, that he was using something that was made from the ones who butchered his life apart.



Orion thought about it and chuckled a bit.

"Hmm, I wonder if Yeshua is in the Mess Hall. I should talk to him about his Frame, I wonder if he noticed my Frames files being added to the database."

Orion thought. Orion switched his mind back to Elora for a second... he kept it in the back of his mind,

"How the hell did she just do that... remind him of her like that? How was it possible? Elora was a hell of a lot different to Kirsten, nothing alike... impossible."

Orion closed his device and leaned back against the wall, observing... everyone in the Mess Hall. He wondered who he would have the acquaintance of next, he couldn't wait to see them underestimate his ever so lovely childish demeanor, it was rather funny. There had only been one person, who treated Orion as if he wasn't a kid. That was Koehler, he wondered if there rooms were close to each other... Orion wondered alot. Orion lost his train of thought... and just decided to lean there, and relax... he needed to chill out.

---

Orion, was so busy. Checking every Frame File. He looked at every Frame, to make use of what they can do and can't do. He was so focused, he didn't realize the Koehler had gotten into a fight with Yeshua. Apparently something happened with Elora. Orion felt rather bad about that, he left Elora and she apparently got hurt again. Orion found that rather odd. It'd been a while Orion, seemed to be himself again. He wouldn't dare show that side of him again. It's the only time his mental state has nearly switched outside of battle. Back to Yeshua and Koehler.

By the time, Orion got through. Too many people blocked Orion's path, thus the fight must've moved somewhere else. By the end of the fight, Orion decided to walk back to his dorm, see if he had any gifts from close-friends who made it off, Delta. Orion was worried about Koehler apparently he took a beating from Yeshua. Orion didn't want to hurt anyone... He decided to get the full story, and sort it out like the adults they have to be, not supposed to, but forced to be put into a role of an adult.

Orion left the Mess Hall, he had a couple of thoughts on his mind, Koehler and Elora both being prominent.
He got most of his information from other cadets. Hopefully some of it was exaggerated.

Koehler sat for a minute inside the silent room, just thinking about things. Things like violence, things like emotions, and why we have those, and things like why he's here, and what got him here. Really, what got him here? That was a weird question indeed. He had a good synchronization rate, in simple terms. So he was conscripted, well, he signed up. He wanted some revenge for his sisters' death on the field. Was it really so simple, though?

Koehler stopped being like that other asshole in the team and stopped his thinking, coming out of the silent room, and heading for the barracks. He noticed Elora crying and running into the girls' rooms, and he shouted out, "Elora, what happened? Are you okay?", thinking the worst.

Elora passed by Koehler as she ran inside and shut the door, locking it from the inside. She leaned against the door with her arms, and slid down, wrapping her arms around her legs. She was still shocked at what happened with Yeshua, but the worst part was that she was starting to expect stuff like that to happen; the blood, the hate, everything.

"G-Go away! I'll just hurt you, like I hurt everyone else! Stukov, Ryan, and now Yeshua! I'm like a curse to you, so stay away!" Elora cried out.

Koehler stopped at the door, waiting. Elora could likely hear him breathing, thinking. What happened with Yeshua, he decided to ask first. As calmly as he could, "Well... what happened to gothy Mcthinkyson?", an honest question. She really wasn't a curse... She didn't intentionally do anything. So what?.. in this kind of situation, of course people would die.

Elora breathed heavily as she tried to calm herself down. Right now she couldn't cause any harm to Koehler, being on the other side of the door, so she could talk to her. Whatever may happen next, Elora wanted that nobody else would get hurt.

"Well, me and Yeshua were in the game room playing pool, and...he broke the pool cue. His hand was bleeding, I tried to bring him to the med-bay, but he just shouted at me, wanting me to leave. So...I did..."
Koehler continued her sentence, "Absolutely nothing wrong. He broke the damn thing, it's his fault. What, did he get angry at you? Why?". That Yeshua fuck was getting on his nerves now. What the hell could Elora have possibly done to get him angry enough to break a pool cue?

"Uhhh..." Elora hesitated with her words. Back in her orphanage tattletales were severely persecuted and mistreated, and Elora didn't want Yeshua to come after her for telling off on what he's done.

"I...If Yeshua finds out, I'll be in trouble..."

"If Yeshua does something I'll kick his pencilly, nerdy ass until he's as red as a tomato. What happened, exactly?". Koehler loved the opportunity, honestly. That would've been fun. Of course, he'd get punished, but he's used to that by now.

Elora leaned her head against the door, and listened to her heartbeat, which picked up ever since she ran in there. Even if Yeshua were to punish her for being a loudmouth, she believed Koehler wouldn't let that slide, and would be there to defend her.

"He said I'm weak...and that I don't deserve to be a pilot...that I don't even deserve to be here with you guys..."

Koehler then had a small epiphany. "What were his words, exactly?", he asked. Maybe he's beginning to understand that weird piece of shit. Probably not though, and hell, he honestly doesn't want to. It'd make him feel bad for kicking his ass in the future.

Elora was quiet for a moment as she had to remember the exact words Yeshua used to hurt her, and it wasn't easy in the least. But somehow, she found Koehler's presence, even if he was on the other side of the door, soothing, helping her concentrate.

"The last words he spoke were...I think, 'I don't want to deal with two catastrophies of human beings.'"

"I see... anything that... how to say this... Eh, fuck it. Nevermind, I thought I had something going, seems like I don't. Why do people have to be so hard to read...", Koehler calmed down himself, now. He wondered if he should've been there. Perhaps he could've gained some valuable insight.

"Are you okay, though? Aside from the obvious? Did he hurt you any?", he inquired, wanting to make absolutely sure Yeshua didn't do anything to anyone else.

"He did throw a pool cue at me, but he only knocked my controller off my hands. Otherwise, no."

"Well, think I should do something about that? ...And did you save your progress?", he put in, mostly as a sort of joke.

"Autosaves. Really convenient feature in games today," she said, and realized she was smiling again. Koehler really helped her sort her feelings of fear and nausea. "Hey, Koehler...thank you for caring."

"I'm always glad to help, R-..Elora.". What was he going to say? That little noise he made before Elora was cut off, but still noticeable. "I.. I care for you very much. I'll see you soon, I'll try to help Yeshua, I guess. Might as well help that idiot. Stay here, scream if he comes in and does anything." Koehler mumbled something to himself as he walked off, wondering what he was going to say instead of Elora.

Elora heard the sound of Koehler's footstep distancing from the door, and she opened it to look at his departure. She sighed, fearing that Koehler may go overboard with his talk with Yeshua, but at this point it was too late for her to do anything about it. She wasn't the type to promote violence in any way. But one thing was clear; Koehler may be weird, but he's got his heart in the right place.

Koehler walked through the halls, eventually finding Yeshua, that nerdy fuck, bleeding and sitting in the Mess Hall. Koehler spoke up, shouting. "Hey you short fuck." He was obviously quite angry.

Yeshua was staring at his omni-use device for some time now. He had his eyes glued to the holographic projection, not daring to use the map. He could figure his own way there. There was a disturbance in his contemplation of the use of electronic devices when Koehler had managed to sneak up on him. His ears weren't visible underneath his shaggy and unkept hair, but he eventually figured out he was there. His brief but very interesting greeting had him almost shocked, if he hadn't realised who this young man was. Like a Crane in the swamp, he remained frigid, looking at the profile of Elora once again.

Koehler spoke again, "Look at me when I'm talking to you.", He demanded. "Stand up."
He shook his head again, while towering over the relatively short individual he was quite annoyed with.

"Nice to see you too, Koehler." Yeshua returned in a polite and dry form. He switched back and forth between Stukov's, Miles, Ryan's profiles, analysing their worryingly brief reports and statuses. These were dead people, Yeshua realised, and the institution brushed it off like a failed test drug. This was the cost of being a Pilot. These were the risks he would be taking, and had taken, by arriving at the Solaire facility.

Koehler, not caring about such things, nor noticing them in the first place, simply grabbed the chair Yeshua was sitting on and dragged it with him, back towards the dormitories. This would've obviously startled Yeshua, and Koehler responded with a quick, sharp "Don't fucking move outta that chair."

Yeshua rolled his eyes at the very, very, rude boy. He hadn't seen such insolence from someone larger than him. Quickly, he shot himself up from the chair and sat on the table, finally deciding that he couldn't concentrate on his clearly dangerous fate.

"Young man, we're in public. Don't make me take you home and send you to your room." He pouted, far too impressive at putting on the voice of an annoyed mother.

Harold Koehler, easily the largest, most physical person of the group, was beggining to get enraged at this short fuck giving him shit. That was enough, and he was getting sick of this. He grabbed Yeshua himself, almost like a toy, and dragged him by the arms towards the dormitories, his greater strength and ability at this type of thing giving Yeshua little chance to actually get out of this situation.

Teasing, whilst not exactly a stairway to success, had only made him madder. He couldn't have used many things against him, being the shorter and smaller boy of the two. It would be an incredibly ludicrous suggestion that Yeshua had arrived to become a pilot without reading some form of martial art. It wasn't exactly a martial art, he corrected himself, but it was useful.

The boy reached forward with his right hand and yanked the hair on Koehler's head, stopping him in his tracks. He was scrawny, but it was very hard to resist the pull of someone on your hair.

Koehler noticed the pulling, and decided to surprise Yeshua with an unexpected headbutt, Yeshua unwittingly assisting such a maneuver with pulling Koehlers' hair. Their heads smacked together, and they were both ejected from eachothers' grasps.

Yeshua fell to the floor as a searing pain entered his forehead. Their skulls had collided as a sickening crack jelled into the walls. He heaved himself up, keeping his distance.

"Try to overthrow Rome next time, you barbarian." Yeshua teased in between heavy breaths.

Harold rushed at Yeshua, lowering his upper body a bit to the ground and preparing to deflect any counter-attacks with his own fists. When he got close as possible, he decided he'd try to do an uppercut, or kick him in the groin. Those were decent openings. Yeshua did have a moment to attempt his own strike first, of course.

Yeshua saw the wall of idiocy and rushed to one of the tables, while not particularly high, that would give him a barrier. He leaped on top of it and was sure that nobody was eating here. However, there was still a tray left on the side which found itself in his hands. It had just been cleaned and was warm with soap.

"Try to think with something other than your fat head, Koehler. I thought pilots were supposed to be the cream of the Corps, not mediocre saturday-night show imitations of spanish Bulls." He moaned, keeping the tray in front of his jaw and chest.

"Yeah, I guess that's a good point.", Koehler said as he went to the table that Yeshua was sitting on. He wondered for a second if he could flip it over, but since it was more of a bench, that was unlikely. He then decided to try and kick Yeshua off, aiming for his left leg. The tables were 'thankfully' small enough to allow that, and Koehler's legs were long enough anyway.

Yeshua's knee felt the powerful blow of Koehler's kick, knocking the wind out of him and letting him collapse on his stomach. Groaning, he rolled off and threw the tray at Harold's face. With some space between them, he tried to catch his breath.

"I knew that Bowhead Whales were family-loving creatures, social and slow. You're breaking the stereotype."
Koehler jumped up on the table as the tray hit his head, further hurting his skull. He paused for a moment to regain his momentum, then jumped off the table to do a fucking divekick towards Yeshua's chest, aiming for the lungs. Apparently just to fuck with him.

It was a pathetic attempt at a divekick, but to see someone's body move like that was a priveledge. He almost envied Harold, with his desperate attempts to hurt him. "Hurt" rushed through his arteries and veins as his leg collided, sending him to the floor once again. He coughed blood and rolled as far away as possible. He rubbed the blood off his lip.

"Are you trying to teach me a lesson? If so, I've learnt that the Id is much more of the Thanatos than I first thought. Go on Socrates, make your allegories."

"I don't even know what the fuck you're saying. What the hell does that mean?", Harold wondered for a second, enjoying the pain coursing through his legs. Even a successful divekick hurt like hell, for both parties.

"I don't want to particularly kill you, Harold. Stop acting like a child."

"I don't wanna kill you either, dumbass. As long as you break a littl--"

Yeshua lunged forward, grabbing Harold's hair and thrusting his knee into his groin.

"KRAAARKASF!", Harold yelped in pain, before stepping backwards a few steps to put a little distance between them. "Jewish little shit, fight with some dignity.", he let out in some pain.

"I don't care, you teething brat. If you had the slightest bit of diginity you wouldn't instigate this beforehand. "

"Fuck it, you're gonna fight that dirty? I'm gonna fight that dirty.", Harold angrily replied, as he rummaged through his pockets for something.

By now, almost anyone in the Mess Hall had either left or was hiding behind any kind of protection they could find. The cooks were watching vigilantly behind their screen and the staff of the facility had vacated. Yeshua became aware of the situation and the trouble they would be in if he was caught fighting him. However much this boy needed to be taught a lesson, Yeshua didn't particularly want to be expelled as a pilot. His voice raised into a shout now.

"Do you want to be a pilot? We'll both get kicked out for this. What are you trying to prove? Are you proud of yourself yet? Satisfied that primitive desire yet? When you're alone and robbed of--"

Harold then got what he was looking for and threw it at Yeshua's face. The mysterious bottle breaking open, and getting what was inside into Yeshua's eyes, mouth, nose, and maybe his ears. At first, Yeshua was perfectly fine, the glass not hurting his skin aside from a tiny amount of cuts that were utterly inconsequential.

Harold asked him a rhetorical question. "Hey. Yeshua? Guess what that was?", as the blood-red liquid trailed down his face and went into his eyes some.

No noise came out of his lips as he ran away instantly to wash whatever was in his face. He could barely see but could make out the sign of the male bathroom, rushing in. Hearing feminine shrieks erupting from the room, he shot out and went into the real men's room. The door was plastered white and recently painted, lumps of the wet material still observable. The walls were still the dark metal-grey, grates lining the panels and walkways.

Yet, before he could begin actually washing it off, he faced the most pain he has ever been in his entire life. It felt like bullet ants were biting his every facial orifice, or he was being torn apart on the molecular level by some sort of demonic creature. The pain was so irritating, Yeshua at first would've feared he might die from this. After a few seconds, he'd fear he might not.

He screamed a twisted yelp, prolonged and exasperated, his lungs filling with charcoal and his heart a flint. His face was covered in a thick layer of the acidic liquid, burning into his face and bone.

Koehler could only laugh as he heard Yeshua feel the after effects of Harolds' favorite hot sauce. Hearing such pain was utterly delicious. However, he mourned the fact that now he couldn't put that shit on everything. He followed Yeshua's steps into the men's bathroom and watched as the poor, panicked individual tried to get it off in futility.

The pain almost subsiding, Yeshua stared at himself in the mirror. His eyes were red and had lost their colour, a primal rage filling them instead. He had lost all sense of reason or logic, the intense pain sending so many different types of drugs into his system that he was now in a near state of comatose. He shot at Koehler, his right hand grabbing onto his hair and his left underneath his chin, his thumb stabbing into his windpipe and his knee into his crotch. While having the element of surprise, Harold found himself at the corner of the bathroom. The bare walls smashed against his body.

Koehler actually let out a small amount of puke as he reflexively did that in pain. Being hit in the groin that hard did that to a person. His head slammed into the wall, and he lost sight for a few seconds, before going fully unconscious.

As Koehler's body went limp, a sadistic smile creeped onto Yeshua's face. The pulse of the taller boy became slower as his eyelids drooped down, any sort of movement and reflex stopping. Realising what kind of state he was in, Yeshua grabbed the boy by the chin and examined his youthful face.

"You . . . brat . . . " he gasped, trying to regain his composure. But it had been knocked out of him the moment chemical warfare had been achieved. He had lost his cool and his logic, replaced by what he feared would happen; an irreplacable rage.

Harold's body was dragged halfway across the room by a stumbling Yeshua, his smile and teeth shining like the moon in the end of the Lunar Calendar. He almost fell over at one point, balancing his entire weight on his heels. The mirror was already cracked as blood trickled down Yeshua's forehead. He didn't feel any of it.

A soft rushing sound could be heard as Harold's limp body rested on the surface. Using his shaking hands, cold water dripped into the sink. He tip-toed, quietly, with no one around, into one of the stalls. Staring at the serene white surface of the toilet, he gaggled something incomprihensible and began yanking the tissue until twenty metres of it had been stolen. Stuffed into a ball and shoved into the bottom of the sink, the water began to fill in the sink. Yeshua grabbed Harold's face, twisted and broken. Sharing a last vital eye contact, he waved his hand back and forth as to mimick a goodbye.

The body of Harold Koehler slept there, silently, as the water began to run. The empty bathroom giving no condolences. The shards of the mirror flexed and refracted the light of Yeshua's face. But it was a true reflection of his ego. He saw the weak boy that his fathered abandoned, the person who killed his own grandmother and the same boy who hated his own foster parents. He saw the vicious smile of a jungle cat, a large predator hiding in the wild. He saw the flesh ripping, the tendons tearing, the heart hardening. He saw that smile. For the first time in two years, a laugh erupted from his throat. Patting and stroking the soft hair of Harold, his fingers dug into the soft scalp. His hair was thin and fleshy, unlike his. This was the first time he held someone. He placed his lips upon his head and embraced his contact. His body was still warm.

Yeshua drooled slightly as he spoke.

"Nesi'á tová, monster."

Yeshua lifted the weapon, about to bash the bigger pilot's head in when he heard a rushing noise coming from the hallway. He turned around, and saw a boot kicking him square in the face. Yeshua was knocked on the floor, and was immediately overpowered by the military officer who brought her tazer pistol to bear: Ritsu came in at just the time to put an end to the attempted murder Yeshua was about to commit. Yeshua saw soldiers line up in the room before the back of his head was zapped with an electrical charge, knocking him out.

"I can't believe this happened," Ritsu said as a soldier went to Koehler and lifted his head from the sink. He was still unconscious from the beating he took from Yeshua; he would have been dead if not for the Lieutenant's intervention.

"Place him into custody," Ritsu gave an order to the corporal in charge of the strike team. "And bring the other pilot to the med-bay. I'd like to have some rest before the court martial begins."

---

Yeshua woke up in a detainment cell, on the wrong side of the bullet-proof glass. The room was empty and desolate, save for the chair he was sitting on now. They had managed to catch him in the act. It wasn't his fault, but the amazingly idiotic Harold Koehler. He had only malice reserved for that baffoon, who in Yeshua's eyes, had caused the escapade. There were people watching him, he realised. He jerked his head up to the CCTV camera in the corner of the room. Did they think he was dangerous? Did they think he was a criminal?

A hearty laugh filled the room.

Yeshua didn't know how much time passed before Lieutenant Ritsu, accompanied by a couple armed soldiers, came in to the detainment room before the cell, and stood in front of the glass. Ritsu had the kind of gaze that would pierce the soul of anyone she looked at, and it was with this gaze that she looked at the prisoner.

"Cadet Horowitz, you are to attend court martial for the assault and attempted murder of your fellow comrade. Do you even understand what you've done?"

"Do you understand how much of a mistake it was to expect soldiers out of us?" Yeshua returned, staring at the ceiling and leaning back. His arms were crossed and his feet tapped on the floor.

"I expected a rational human being who can follow orders, and doesn't try to kill his fellow man in a bout of teenage rage. How could you even justify what you've done?"

"How can you justify what you're doing?" He spat again, not even flinching. He sighed, realising how deep of a hole he was digging.
"I will pilot the Anzu again. I will not kill anyone. I will save the human race. What else do you want from me?"

Ritsu was about to answer when a soldier entered the room and whispered something in her ear. She nodded, and sent him off.

"Cuff him up, and bring him to Z-sector. You'll have only one chance at convincing the Executive Officer, so make it count."

The soldiers entered the cell and put bound Yeshua arms with cuffs. Then, following Ritsu, the group entered an elevator that travelled a fair distance down, before it stopped. They walked through a couple of corridors, and entered a large room that resembled a court room, only more streamlined, with a defendant podium and opposite to that a stage where a line of high-ranking officers were waiting. Yeshua only recognized one person out of that line: Lorenzo.

Yeshua was placed in the defendant podium, and an older officer from the left began speaking. His eyes scanned the chamber with an impressed look stuck on his face, like a child in an aqaurium.

"All, rise." The officers stood up and saluted, before sitting back down. Then another officer, a pudgy one, spoke up.

"Cadet Yeshua Horowitz, do you know why you are currently standing here for judgement?"

Yeshua cleared his throat before speaking. He wrapped his arms around himself as a cold child would.

"Your honour, could you please go over my charges?"

The officer cleared his throat, before he spoke again while looking at a list.

"Assault on fellow comrade...Attempted murder on fellow comrade...Grievous injuries afflicted on fellow comrade...Disruption of peace...And violent, unhumane behavior."

Yeshua grabbed his shirt and felt the bruise which had formed, a reminder of Koehler's "divekick". His eyebrows arched and he looked worried.

"Does this take into account I was not the person who instigated the violence and as such, almost all of my actions were taken as self defence?"
Another officer, who wore glasses, now spoke up: "Lieutenant Ritsu, is this correct? Was this man acting in self-defence?"

Ritsu, who stood at the back of the court room, saluted, and responded:

"We believe that to be the case, Captain. The incident was instigated by Cadet Koehler."

The officer then said: "Yes, your charges are made with self-defence accounted for. Still, these are serious war crimes you have committed. How do you plead?"

Yeshua swallowed a very large, obvious stone in his throat and darted his eyes like a deer in headlights. He made himself look as uncomfortable as possible.

"Before I plead, may I ask who I am being charged as?"

"You are charged as a war criminal, you idiot!" Lorenzo screamed. "Don't you understand what kind of shit you've dug yourself into, Horowitz?"

"I mean this in no disrespect to you, Lorenzo, but I'm sure you are aware I am fifteen years old. Does this not qualify as a case for juvenile crime? For minors?"
He grabbed the fabric of his clothes and shook slightly. He stood completely adamant under the watchful eyes.

The officers started talking to each other in hushed tones, while Lorenzo glared at Yeshua. Yeshua did not return the gaze. After a couple of minutes, the pudgy officer spoke:

"The Cadets are not considered to be part of the conventional military force, and thus are subject to exceptions in martial law. However, war crimes of a severe enough magnitude are judged upon with the same jurisdiction as those done by a regularly serving member of the organization. This would have went more smoothly if the incident with Cadet Koehler only went as far as throwing a few punches. But the fact that you actively tried to murder him does not exempt you from the appropriate punishment for such an action."

Yeshua remained still.
"I did not try to murder him."

"Is this true, Lieutenant Ritsu?" The officers looked at her again. You could tell she was sweating as it was her time to again speak.

"Captain, Cadet Yeshua may have gone though a hormonal phase where he couldn't tell between assaulting Cadet Koehler non-lethally and lethally."

"That didn't answer the question. We can bring the truth detector to test if Cadet Yeshua indeed is not convicted of the crime..."

Cadet Horowitz put his hands behind his back.
"The prosecution cannot convict me without substantial evidence. I was not aware of my actions at the time. I plead not guilty."
"Very well. Bring the machine over." The machine was a helmet adorned with wires connected to a larger machine in the back with a visual display of the neurons that run through the person's brain, along with other technical information. The helmet was placed over Yeshua's head, and activated. The results were then shown: a big red FALSE.

Yeshua's face contorted as he winced and shook his head side to side like a small child being told Santa Claus wasn't real. He tried his best to feign innocence, even crying at one point. He covered his face and made loud, yelping sounds.

The officers looked at the result, and once again spoke in hushed tones, one of them watching a video from his device. Sounds of fighting could be heard from it.
Again, it took another couple of minutes before they came to a single agreement, and the officer wearing the glasses spoke:

"The evidence speaks for itself. Though you may have been induced into a crazed state by hot sauce applied by Cadet Koehler, it wasn't enough to completely blur out your conscious decision to attempt to murder him. Cadet Horowitz, you are hereby convicted of all charges. Your sentence wil be carried out with the Executive Officer Lorenzo's discretion. How do you think we should proceed?"

The sounds from Yeshua became louder. He cried for them to stop.

"Heh heh...Now you fucked up, Horowitz." It seemed that the professor was enjoying this.
"I propose a new type of treatment I've devised, one that is sure to turn our psychotic pilot here into an obedient soldier; we extract a lobe of his cranial organ that directs his aggression levels. The treatment has been tested, and been confirmed to be effective."

The crying did not stop. He tucked himself into a ball on the chair and continued to shout some words in Hebrew. "IT'S UNRELIABLE! TRUST ME! PLEASE! FATHER, DON'T LEAVE ME! DON'T LEAVE ME!"

"Silence!" The pudgy officer comanded. A soldier came behind Yeshua and gagged him.
"Very well then. We shall proceed as the Executive Officer has deemed necessary. Prepare for the operation immediately."

"Of course," Lorenzo said, and rubbed his hands together as he stepped out of the room. Yeshua was knocked out by a tazer again, drifting into darkness.

---

Harold didn't wake up at all, as his mind was stuck in that strange state called a coma. Perhaps he was just barely lucid, perhaps he was completely out of his mind. He couldn't tell himself. He tried to look around the room he was going to be stuck in for some time, but found he couldn't, for reasons obvious. He was going to be stuck here staring at the same damn thing, the same unfamiliar ceiling.

Indeed, in this state, he couldn't even tell who he was. Why was he here? What was he?
Why did he have these few scattered memories? If only he could correlate the contents of his own mind right now. Of course, he tried, and had 'dreams'.

When he does wake, he might not be the same Koehler anymore.

After her conversation with Elora, Alyssa decided to walk around and get herself acquainted with the facility. She wandered about the halls for quite some time, eventually happening upon the recreational rooms. Hmm...sounds like there could be some pretty fun stuff in here. She thought to herself before eagerly exploring the area, looking in awe at the plentiful of games, activities, and the like. Though, in her eyes, all of the fancy games and activities were nothing compared to what Alyssa now found herself staring at through an observation window; a piano.

They have one! They actually have one! Alyssa thought excitedly as she quickly looked around to make sure nobody was around to see her excitement over the musical instrument, not even noticing the broken wood pieces of a pool cue and signs of blood laying on the floor. When she completed her quick analysis of the area and found that nobody was nearby to watch, Alyssa hurriedly opened the door - shutting it behind her - to find that this room was filled with several different kinds of musical instruments. Yet even as the sight of all the other instruments amazed her, it did not hold her back from taking a seat at the piano and examining it with awestruck eyes. She had never expected to find a piano here, as her previous training facility didn't have one, and she didn't think she'd be able to play one until this dreaded war was over.

The war...Alyssa's face of happiness reverted to a blank slate when that thought crept into her mind, and as her heartbeat increased slightly she began to worry about what might happen to her out there. What if...what if I die out there? She thought as the piano seemed to be drifting away. What if Elora dies?...no...no, she said Koehler helped her in that live combat scenario...he looks strong enough, he should be able to protect her...so long as he can keep himself alive too...but what about me? As Alyssa thought on she noticed that Elora continued to keep popping up in her mind, almost as much as the possibility of her own death. Once she realized this, Alyssa started to calm down, thinking about her earlier conversation with the frail-looking girl. She had felt good after having that conversation with Elora, and even just thinking about having made this new friend was calming Alyssa down from the fearful thoughts of combat with the Cruxi.

Eventually she came back to reality and began gingerly running her fingers across the keys of the piano sitting in front of her, gently pressing down on one every so often just to hear the lovely sound. Then, as if she had had her fill of hearing only the sad, single, and lonely little notes, she began to press on several of the keys in a short sequence of trial-and-error attempts to acquire a rhythm. After a few more moments of searching, Alyssa found a rhythm that satisfied her, and began warming herself up for a few moments more. Once she was confident enough, she began to play a song, one that she had known since she was several years younger...a song that immediately caused her eyes to water up, flooding her mind with memories of her childhood.



With only a sniffle more, she continued to play on without skipping a beat, mentally bent and focused on not allowing her memories and emotions to set root and control her. She needed to become a stronger person, to show no fear in the face of combat...to think of all the things she'd lost and not cry...but as the song continued, her hands and fingers moving like clockwork in a machine, Alyssa found her brave facade harder and harder to maintain.

Suddenly, and without much warning, she was absorbed by her memories. She looked on with widened eyes as a younger Alyssa, who had just turned 10 years old, appeared in front of her. As she looked around, she could do very little to hide neither the tears that began to swell up in her eyes, nor the look of utter shock that appeared on her face as her surroundings materialized out of what seemed like thin air. She was sitting at a table, with a birthday hat on her head and a cake in front of her...and one by one her family began to appear around her and the table...first, her younger brother by 7 years, Clyde, who, for a moment, seemed to just be floating there. Next came her older brother by 4 years, John, followed by her father, who was holding the young Clyde up in his arms, and then her mother, and soon after her grandparents and aunts and uncles and so forth.

Even as the memory continued to become more and more lifelike, Alyssa did not stop playing the piano, even as the first few tears began to roll down her cheeks when she began to hear the voices of her family, all united as one, as they sang the "Happy Birthday" song to her. She sniffled a few more times as the memory continued on it's unrelenting path, as she watched all the happy smiles and faces...as she heard their cheers and laughter...as she saw her own beaming face, full of joy and sunshine, with a big smile sewn upon her little lips. Then came the presents...one by one she watched herself open them, seeing the look of delight on her young face as she revealed the contents to the light...then finally came the last, and perhaps the largest, of all the neatly wrapped presents...

Alyssa let out a quick, shortened gasp for air as tears began to flow from her eyes like water down a stream, staring with unblinking resolve at the present that now sat on the table in front of her younger self. For a moment Alyssa's whole body shook, as she inhaled in short, quick convulsions...staring onward with eyes paralyzed in what appeared to be fear, as her younger self avidly tore through the pink wrapping dotted with the images of hundreds of little kittens. By now, Alyssa's hands were no longer moving as she ceased to play her beloved instrument, and instead, the upper half of her body was now lying, collapsed and convulsing with each breath, upon the front end of the piano. And there she cried, carrying on for what felt like eternity...as the last images of that memory remained plastered within her mind.

Within the large present that had been wrapped ever so beautifully, with pink, kitten covered paper, was a lavender-colored dollhouse that came with two little dolls...and both of those dolls were girls; one with short blond hair, and the other with long brown hair. The memory seemed to freeze for only a few seconds, as Alyssa pressed her mouth against her forearm and released a muffled wail, resuming only to see what had been such a vivid and happy memory squandered by the utterly dumbfounded expression plastered upon her own, ten-year-old face...she hated that present, she truly hated it...she thought to herself that she was too old for dolls, and had even asked her parents to get her a musical instrument for this birthday...and instead she got the dollhouse set that she had asked for just three years prior. Internally, the young girl was outraged, but externally, she put on a smile and thanked her parents for such a lovely gift. Alyssa completely lost herself as she remembered how she felt at the time, unable to think of any situation where she had been more upset with her parents than right then and there...

Her now uncontrollable emotions did not let up, even as she could hear her parents eagerly telling her that there was something else they had to show her...and that was when she saw it...the piano, her first instrument, unveiled in the corner of the living room right before her very eyes as the blanket that concealed it was pulled away. She immediately lit up, and quickly hopped on the bench to start pressing on several of the keys in what would usually be considered an agonizingly terrible performance…but instead of contorting their faces in disgust, her family simply laughed as they saw her enjoyment. Then her parents told her that there was just one teeny weeny little rule; the piano belonged to the whole family, and if anyone else wanted to play on it…Alyssa had to let them. She felt slightly hurt by the fact that it wasn’t truly hers, but at the time she didn’t care…she just wanted to play it…

And with that, the memory ended; leaving an emotionally defeated Alyssa lying upon the front of the piano, pressing down against some of the keys as she twitched and convulsed with each attempt to breathe through her quivering lips. She thought about how she had put the dollhouse away in the back of her closet, never bothering to even look upon what she thought was such a disgrace of a gift. Little did she know at the time, but her parents would be killed by the Cruxi almost two years later…that dollhouse never once leaving her closet before then, as Alyssa could not forgive them for an entire year after that one birthday. However, once her parents died, she finally pulled the old insult of a birthday present from where it had collected layer upon layer of dust for two whole years, opening it up to see the exoskeletons of deceased roaches and the now abandoned webs of long-gone spiders. The brunette doll was completely desecrated, much like the rest of the dollhouses’ interior, but the blonde had remained mostly intact. From that day forward, she hated the way she had felt towards her parents on her tenth birthday, going so far as to cut her hair to resemble that of that little blonde doll...

Alyssa remained unmoving for quite some time, completely unaware of the brutal fight between Yeshua and Koehler as she sat in the silence of the sound-proofed room.

Out in the wilderness, past the tall, scaling walls of the Solaire facility, nature did not stir. It slept in the dawn, only the birds reaching the canopies of the trees and letting forth an extravagant song. It could not be translated or appreciated but simply heard. The green grass swayed like bristles on a brush, cleaning the air and sky. Trees stood tall and strong under the evening wind. A river rushed by, salmon leaping in and out of it. A hungry bear stalked them, clutching its claws and waiting at the mouth of the waterfall, half a mile away. It raised its massive snout and sniffed the air, a bothersome change in breeze interrupting him. The bear shuffled on the rocky slopes, might grey slabs much heavier than itself, to look at the Solaire Facility far away.

From the distance, it appeared like a prison, with barbed wires and sloping, impenetralble walls. The hungry bear turned back to the water, suddenly swiping forward and knocking a fish out of its territory. It lay on the ground for a second, flipping and turning incessantly, before the bear's claws dug deep into its flesh.

Blood made its way onto the green grass but the bear only seemed to care about its meal. It had eaten; as the young cubs came up behind it, dawdling and rolling in the dirt. They shared what little they could. Young bodies squirmed and giggled as they hid in the thick coat of their mother. It had children; as the helicopter flew overheard and caused the animals to skitter back into the forest. It had protection; they arrived at the dug-out, turned up logs and muddy mounds making a shelter in the cold. It had purpose; as the sun shone through the cracks and holes between the trees. The brown coat it wore allowed it to disappear into the broken world. Before retreating to its burrow, the bear looked again at the alien building, a fortress of food, safety and purpose. It wondered in this extreme circumstance, if anyone was looking back.

Yeshua was looking back.

A bandage wrapped around half of his head, covering his right eye. It was tied behind his hair; it had been cut just before the surgery. The shaggy and unkbrushed nature was gone, the hairs only slumping a few millimetres off his scarred scalp.

His white hospital gown blended into the broken world behind him. A plastered wall held his back, while a window bigger than him, starting at his toes and not even stopping at his head, shot up to the ceiling. He raised his left hand and pressed its warm skin along the glass. The sun has just escaped behind the woods, the last glimmers of sunlight still a sign of hope.

But the warm glow of the orb had faded; it was fading, Yeshua corrected himself. His right hand eventually fell upwards, grabbing onto his left wrist. His skin was smooth and far from dry. It had youth falling off it, like a burn under a cold tap. He felt numb. As the sunlight seemed to fade, another young man stared back at the boy, from behind the glass. He had a bandage on his young face. It was not sculpted correctly. A potter had just left his masterpiece waiting to fix itself on its own. A chill ran down his spine as he noticed his eyes looked not at him, but the wall behind. They were fixated with an unfamiliar emotion.

Was it sadness?

The boy drifted away, but Yeshua wanted to talk to him. He felt he knew something he didn't. A broken lock without a key. He looked down to his feet; they were bare and cold under the tough floor panels. They hadn't been cleaned for days. They scraped at his soles.

Looking back up, there was no boy. In fact, there was nothing at all. Only darkness was there.

"Cadet Horowitz, we recommend you go and get some rest. Aren't you tired?"

An older man, bespectacled and holding a clipboard in one hand, had turned off the lights. The shaders of the glass had changed to not let anylight in. A soft whirring had begun without Yeshua noticing, and as it ceased, all the light drained out of the room.

If the glass had just broke his sight of the evening world, Yeshua wondered, then why did he still want to see the bears? The river still flowed, the sun still fell, the light still faded. Now there was just a barrier between them, but he knew they were there. Who would want to shut out just a beautiful sight?

"I implore you to come with me, Mr. Horowitz. We have some clothes for you to get changed into." He stated, standing at the door. He waited for some time, but no movement was made. The doctor opened his jaw once again. The boy had not moved

"What are you looking at?"

Yeshua continued staring into the darkness. It was empty, to the Doctor at least, but he could see through their facade. His father had taught him that; how to see what you couldn't. How to build a house out of bricks you couldn't cement. How to climb a ladder with no rungs. No one knew their little secret. As he continued staring at the black pit, his eyes widened. The bear stared back!

"Tut tut, Doctor! What a time to be alive!"

And so began the new life of Squad Sigma in Solaire. For some of the pilots, it was a sanctuary that enabled them to grow stronger and realize their potential, while for others it was a hellish prison that tormented them, and every day was a struggle to simply survive. Then there were those who fit neither category; Yeshua was one such example, having lost his ability to hate his superiors who whipped them into shape, or anything, really. He was kept in a classified section of the med-bay for a week before he was deemed ready to be integrated back into Squad Sigma. The reactions varied from disbelief to utter shock; Elora cried for the rest of the day in the girl's barracks once she learnt what happened due to her loose lips, blaming herself for the horrific events that ensued. Even after two months nobody, not even the resident emotionless girl Mai, could get used to his new behavior.

Koehler, who was at first comatose, but then released from the public section of the med-bay a couple of days after the incident, was not left unpunished for provoking Yeshua in the first place: he was sentenced to serve not only as Sergeant Ken's dedicated sparring partner and Liutenant Ritsu's assistant during virtual reality training, but also as the engineer's delivery boy while they were making new maintenance to the Roxy, resulting in additional service every day for a month and two weeks, which was taken from his free time. Eventually, thanks to Koehler's involvement with the Framewerk, and his unwavering will to see the original model improved through numerous conversations with his superior officers, the Roxy was eventually revised into a more fitting model for Koehler's use, and given the new name of Roxy Kai.

Every day began with physical training held by Sergeant Ken in the gym. He told the pilots that they were already dead unless they made sure they were prepared in both mind and body; he emphasized that their minds would stay sharp and their reflexes remain at top efficiency if they worked out and kept to a balanced diet. He also lectured that the Cruxi bleed just like humans do, and even if a pilot were to find himself outside of a Framewerk he or she could still take out one of the alien scum with his BARE HANDS. The training consisted of the conventional like push-ups, squatting, jogging and weight-lifting, but also sports, meditation, and practice of martial arts; the Star Fist-style. The Sergeant showed an example of how a master of the style can throw punches at incredible speed, like from a machine-gun. He encouraged sparring between the pilots, but made sure that nobody got severely injured in the process.

Afternoons took present in virtual reality; Lieutenant Ritsu directed the advanced training simulations where the pilots learned various techniques and maneuvers that could be utilized while piloting a Framewerk, while also testing their accuracy at a simulated firing range. At the pilot's request, Ritsu also authorized virtual competitions with minor prizes for the winner, encouraging the pilots to develop their piloting skills further.

Once a week, Lorenzo would hold long and tedious lectures about Framewerks, such as their history and details to their construction and built-in systems. He occasionally held a pop quiz to startle any pilots who may have snoozed during class, while sometimes he made the pilots do group assignments. He was strict when teaching, but he showed constant interest in their progress, especially Mai's. After she revealed to have the power to see visions to him, Lorenzo made tests on her, but soon quit after she didn't show any new results.

Lorenzo also taught about the various identified Cruxi units.
Some were front-line shock infantry equipped with energy shields and plasma rifles, and tasked with assaulting defended locations. Their genetic material seems to be identical, and Lorenzo's hypothesis was that these soldier-types are created using some type of cloning technology which he showed interest in acquiring.
Another type was designated as a hunter-assassin type that infiltrate enemy facilities, eliminate key targets and infect victims with their eggs, spawning more of their species behind enemy lines. All these Cruxi units are delivered with the use of specialized troop ships.

---

"However, these won't be your opponents in the field," Lorenzo said while pointing at the hologram during his lecture. It has been two months since the pilots first entered Solaire. "While planetary defences are by this point capable of holding out against an infantry invasion, they are powerless against the war machines they utilize. This is their most basic model of Cruxi mech. They stand about half a regular Framewerk's height, but where they lose in size they more than make up for their number. You can expect to see yourselves outnumbered by these units while out there in the field. While the type I'm showing you is dedicated to long-range fighting, there have also been documented cases of Cruxi mechs equipped with claws capable of rending through even Medium-type armors with a single slash. Sometimes more advanced models accompany them such as this sniper-type Cruxi."

"As an aside note, I would like to mention that, despite our attempts, we have yet to capture a member of what we believe to be their
ruling caste. For the most part they only seem to be located on their battleships that escape into hyperspace at any documented case where their invasion was thwarted, but I know that they must also be present during the later stages of the invasion directing their troops. All in all, while these are the types of Cruxi and their weapons we know about, there may be more unidentified and dangerous weapons currently built by them to counter our use of Framewerks. Be extremely cautious when engaging them. Now then, class is dismissed." Lorenzo then went back to organizing the pile of papers he always took with him to the lectures, but only rarely looked at.

Harold Koehler, after 'the incident', stopped talking. Apparently taking a vow of silence, over the months he has commonly holed up inside his dorm, doing... something. Of course, usually that was sleeping, obviously. The rest of his time was training, training, lectures, and training. Indeed, he barely complained either during all of this. The many, many times Sergeant Ken knocked him on his ass for example, he didn't even really grunt in pain. Of course, his handlers thought this was suspicious, but he quietly assured them he was fine all the way through.

As the lecture from Lorenzo came to a close, he meticulously listened, jotting down all of the details he could in a notebook he brought with him into the 'classroom'. As the other pilots began to leave the class to do their own things, he decided to acquire more information. He got up, and walked over to the desk before doing a short bow. Strangely polite, being from him just made it freaky.

"Lorenzo.", Harold quietly said, waiting for a confirmation.

"Mmm, what is it, pilot Koehler?" Lorenzo mumbled, not moving his eyes from the pile of papers before him. "And it's sir, to you."

"I'm sorry, sir. Are there any other significant sub-types present in the Cruxi armies? As well, what types of ships are in their... space-forces? Will we have to worry about them on the field?", Koehler inquired.

"Hmm, there have been reports of some kind of sphere-shaped weapon that was deployed in Sargassia, but I don't remember the details to that. I do know that shortly after it was used, the entire planet's defences were quickly subdued. I remember mentioning about this too, but there have also been types of Cruxi that can traverse using some kind of pocket dimension; in more simpler terms, teleportation." Lorenzo paused for a moment to shuffle his papers, deep in thought.
"The Cruxi actually are very similar to us humans when it comes to their spaceships: they have troop ships like I mentioned in my lecture, fighter ships for engaging our spacecraft, and battleships that only land from orbit once a planet has been conquered. So no, the Cruxi tend to only send war machines to oppose Framewerks and not their ships. Was that what you wanted to know, Koehler?"

"More or less, sir. It's curious why they seemingly don't have a dedicated space-to-planet 'siege craft', if I'm getting your implications correctly. I wonder why they're so interested in us anyway. There have been many attempts in communications, right?"

"That is a good point; the Cruxi certainly would have the technology to destroy colonies with orbital bombardment, yet they seem focused in taking them instead. They are quite an enigma. No matter how much we have tried to establish contact we have not gotten any kind of response from them. Damn aliens only clickety-clack like bugs!"

"You have tried pheremones? Perhaps to them our sweat is a big 'shoot me' sign?"

"Why yes, I have tried chemical responses as well, but having only tested it on a captive soldier-type Cruxi, the results have been inadequate. Their biology is like nothing else in this galaxy. I could spend years simply studying their cells, but frankly my time is better spent trying to save humanity. Don't you agree, Koehler?"

"Yes, yes I do agree. I assume that's implying I should leave you alone for now? Before I go, I do have one last question. Have you tried those... well, narcotics of mine? Any effects?"

"That is classified, pilot." Lorenzo now stared at him with cold eyes.

"Fair enough. I'll see you later, sir. You likely know where I'll be.", He then walked off, to the actual dormitories. Possibly to actually talk to his associates for the first time in months.

---

"OMEGA-ULTRA SLAUGHTER PARTY!" Screamed the announcer as Elora was playing Hour of Honour again in the game room. Over the last two months she tended to retreat there once free time began, keeping to herself in a vain attempt at not trying to cause any trouble. Ever since she saw what happened to Koehler, sh couldn't help but avert her eyes, ashamed to have let something so horrible happen. She should have known better than to snitch about Yeshua, she should have just kept quiet like she always did.
As another North-Korean Nazi Commie's head exploded, she sighed. It was then that she heard someone coming in the room, and Elora took a look:

"Oh, Koehler." She went back to playing her game, not minding that the pilot who used to be very talkative and friendly, but now turned mute thanks to her, was present. Well, she did mind it a bit, believing she was the cause for it and all.

Koehler might've scared her a little, doing something he hasn't done in two entire months. He actually opened his mouth, and began to talk. It seems as well that his voice got just a bit deeper over time, just a little, as his voice finalized. "Hi, Elora. How have you been?", he matter-of-factly said, not even hinting that this might've been sort of weird now.

He sat down on the small couch and put his hands on his lap, laying back just a little. He watched as Elora continued her game. "Nice shooting.", he commented. "So what's the story so far?"

Koehler occasionally did speak a word or two, usually as a response to an officer's question or when it was absolutely necessary, but ever since the incident he never opened up a conversation, which did surprise Elora. "Oh, thanks," she meekly answered, and continued talking after she cleaved a cyborg soldier with a chainsaw-sword. "Well, you can't call it a story, really; some Adolf Kim Stalin is trying to take over the world, and in the game you play as some no-name war hero. But stories don't really matter in these; it's all about the shooting, and the killing, and the pain..." Elora drifted off as a tear flowed down her cheek.

"Reminds me of something.", her friend said as he wiped the tear from her face, not even looking at it all that much. "Maybe you should be playing something a little less... realistic, apparently.", He suggested. "Are there any other things on there?", with the tiniest hints of worry in his eyes. "Have the others been treating you bad? I'm... sorry for being so absorbed in my duties.", he apologized.

"Well there were some sports games too, let me check." Elora bent over and took a look at the games that were piled under the console. Then Koehler threw the million-dollar question, and he heard a quickly muted gasp from her. "No, no. The others have ignored me, and I'm fine with that. It's better that we all just focus on our training...I've only caused trouble so far, so I prefer it that way. You don't need to apologize, I've also been bad about it."
"Yeah, right.", Harold sarcastically suggested, he then looked at the sports games available. "Interplanetary spaceball, basketball, shooting...", and various others, "Wow, all of these look horrible.". "I mean, look at those graphics. What is this, the 2020's? Where'd they get these, the bargain bin?"

"Yeah. I read about these games, and it seems they tried to cash in on the holo-game craze that was happening then. They advertised it as the 'Next Evolution In Gaming' or something silly like that." Elora then picked out an old-looking hockey game and put it in the machine.
"So...umm...Koehler? Would you like to play? This has two-player mode..."

"I was just about to ask. Where's that other controller?", inquiring, he looked around the console, and eventually found the other controllers , taking one of the four, apparently. "Yeah just pick-up-'n-play right?"

"I think so." The two began a match. Elora was really bad at it, constantly losing the puck and even shoting into her own goal once, making her yelp. "I didn't mean for that to happen..." she muttered out, but smiled afterwards. She was really glad Koehler was opening up again, reminding her that she could also get over it if she just willed it so.
After a while of playing, Elora opened up: "Koehler, when do you think we'll actually go fight the Cruxi? Do you think it's going to be soon? There hasn't been a lot of talk about that, and I'm wondering about it."

"Probably soon. I mean they said four months or so, it's been two. Halfway there.", "Fucking christ that was horrible though. I mean, these controls goddamn suck." "I think my left stick isn't even working.", he then seemingly had an epiphany, "How the hell do hockey-guys do hockey anyway? I could never figure out skating off of ice. Is the ice magnetic or something and they have magnets in their boots?"

He then looked around, wondering if there were drink dispensers or something in there. If they were on-base, they were most likely in the mess-hall, but who knows?

"I think it's interesting how they slide on the ice with thin blades to lessen the area pressure of their feet...uhh, sorry." Elora noticed that Koehler was looking around. "I can get drinks for us," she said, and stood up. "What do you want to have?"

"Eh, let's get em together. I want my trademark.", obviously referencing his love of orange juice. After-all, he did fucking love orange juice. Perhaps it was just so he could joke about it, if he ever did.

Elora smiled. "Okay then~!" Not only was she happy that Koehler was back to being his usual self, but she was also happy that he was still willing to be friends with her despite everything that's happened.

"I think I'll go with this, it looks good," Elora pondered as she looked at the selection of drinks, and picked up the strawberry juice. "I remember when we were handed out milk cartons every Friday back in my orphanage; it was the best day of the week."

Koehler had that sort of mildly horrified look on his face, thinking to himself, 'Damn. Everyone else had it just as rough as I did', most likely."Y-yeah.". He got himself his daily glass and slammed it down before putting it back in the 'used' pile. "That was the best."

"So... I made mods to my 'Werk as you've probably noticed. Wanna check it out later? I kinda wanna hang around in here for a bit first. Get seriously re-acquainted with everyone."

"Yeah, I think the Lieutenant mentioned about it. You were really serious about it then, huh?"
"Yep. Has to be absolutely perfect. Reaching it, not yet there. ...Heheheheh...", he giggled about its' amusing little addition. Teehee. It was actually just a simple extension of some of the internal systems, but the... well, crotch-region was oddly hilarious. Yet it did look visually interesting to him, Probably because he's still a 16 year old hormonal twit.

"Well, I'll just wander around and try to talk to everyone. See you around, Elora."

"Thanks, Koehler. I hope to see you too!" Elora waved goodbye, and gave the kind of smile that could kill a man with diabetes.

A lone boy skipped down the west wing corridor in the Solaire Facility. He had just been to the Mess Hall where his meal had consisted of a drink and two chunks of brocolli. He wasn't hungry; and he worried that he would overeat if he had anymore. Being a soldier was tough as he was told again and again, but if it made people happy, Yeshua cheered, he would do it to the best of his ability. He carried a heavy ebony duffel bag, tightly zipped and slung over his shoudler. He spun around in the empty space he found himself in, with no one around to watch him. It was liberating to be without the company of others who couldn't match his bolsteringly upbeat personality. He wasn't sure why everyone seemed so afraid of him, and it was this feeling of loneliness that had made him go through this detour. He knew he had to speak to his good friend again.

Rushing into the room, slipping back and forth on his two feet, he tripped and rolled down onto his stomach. Sliding on the metal grating, his shirt was ripped slightly. He giggled incessantly. What fun it was, Yeshua thought. The deep chasms of his mind were replaced by waterfalls and cliff faces, which he dared to climb or fall down from. The rush of air that embraced him whenever he fell was awesome to the boy.

Looking at his shirt, he pouted.

"Oh, darn my diligence, that is the fourth shirt this week! What are the fish going to think?" He laughed, hands gripping the railings as he flipped his head side to side in an attempt to ruffle his hair. It was much shorter now, but it had grown out in the last two months. He had got to know all these interesting people who he only hoped to please, but who seemed to shove him out of the way. He was an eyesore to their beautiful view. He just didn't know what they were all looking at.

"Shucks, do you think they understand me?"

The Anzu, standing tall and towering over him, responded. Its white metal shell was almost lost in the darkness. The boy was still trying to pursuade Lorenzo to turn on the lights in the cages.

"Come to me. I cannot hear you."

Yeshua leaned forward, balancing precariously on the edge of the railing. He took a deep breath and filled his lungs with air, pushing his lips out.

"IS THIS BETTER?"

The Anzu's eyes darted towards him. It let out a sigh and rubbed the bridge of its nose.

"Yes. They do hate you. But you have the river. You're better than them."

The boy took his feet of the bars of the railing and placed them on the floor. He got lost in the eyes of his friend, which were bigger than his face. Yet, Yeshua remarked, they had a warm, inviting glow.

"Oh, don't be such a spoil-sport! What is more to the world than a smiling grace and a warm embrace, huh?"

"You spoke to me later today. What kept you?"

Yeshua placed his right hand on his chin. He rubbed his dirty face and scrunched his eyebrows like a child would scrunch a wrapper.

"I ALMOST convinced Lorenzo to turn on the lights. Do you like it here, in the dark?" He pouted. "It's scares me."

"Do not be scared. You should come to me."

Yeshua shot a worried glance at his friend before turning his back towards him.

"You know I cannot do . . . that. I should go now. I need to breath."

The Anzu shifted in its place. Its long, coiled ears slid down and grabbed him by the shoulders.

"You always breath. Stop. Please, this is for the best."

Yeshua laughed a hearty laugh, followed by him coughing intensely. He dropped to the floor and wiped his face from the saliva that had just accumulated. He wiped it on his shirt.

"They made their choice. He broke his rib, he wanted to suffer. I don't. They won't let me."

His eyes darted back to his bag. He giggled as he unzipped it and brought out two broken ends of a pool cue. He stared at the ends; they were splintered and covered in blood.

The pool cues were thrown with extaordinary strength at the Anzu, falling into the chasm beneath its feet.

"This is my body. I give it to you, now."

The Anzu frowned, the metal contorting and its apapendages shifting.

"What are you still here for?"

Yeshua grabbed the duffel bag and became to walk away.

"Ani lo yodéʿa, monster."

---

The sun continued to gleam in the midday weather. Clouds had scurried away to their chambers, an old furnace keeping them warm while the air seemed to be on fire. Colour jumped at the boy as his muddy shoes found a cobbled path. He followed it, past the green bushes and yellow daffodils, by the red roses and the blue violets, past the morn of the cliff and the break of the stones. A bluff yawned and the woods, unaware of his presence by the flowing river, continued to stare at the sky. Apples and oaks, the sycamores and birches, drew their hands together as Yeshua approached the rapidly running river. Their green leaves shuffled, putting their hands in front of their mouths. Yeshua laughed as the trees blushed at his presence. He grabbed the apple of the nearest tall titan, stroking the ripe fruit. He ripped it from its hold and stared at it for a few seconds. It was shiny but he couldn't see his reflection; he couldn't see the boy on the other side of every mirror.

Finding the opening he desired, he sat down on the side of a smooth rock that the water had turned from rough to invaluablely beautiful. He stroked the smooth texture and shivered slightly. The warm air became humid as the water rushed past him at level ground, his nose a fishnet to the river, both wet and hot. There was no sound apart from the rushing water, no person here apart from the boy and the river, no emotions apart from gleefull bliss and the beauty of nature, no animal apart from the fish darting around in the pearl white water. He saw them leap like gymnasts, yet they had no training. He was kind and a God among them, yet he was not malevolent.

"Abba . . . is this what you wanted?"

A fish was grabbed by his hands from the water. He took its slippery tail and threw it into the air. It flayed like a morning star and landed back into his grip. It wanted to go back to its spawning ground, the home of its people. It had no home.

The fish was smashed repeatedly on the side of the rock, its bone cracking and flesh tearing.

"Stop! I am trying to help you! They won't let me!"

Crack. "Abba!" Crack. "Abba!" Crack. Grunt. Crack. "Abba!" Crack. "Abba!" Crack. His hands slipped and he skinned his palms. They stung as if they were dipped in fire. It had exposed, red flesh.

The fishs eye was suddenly reduced to a pulp as finally the squirming ceased, only a flimsy lump of flesh in its place. It lifted the fish up by its tail and made eye contact with whatever was left. It was like it had been put through a meat grinder. There was nothing resembling the animal it used to be. It had been contorted and misshapen by its owner, vicious and cruel. The fish also looked disgusting.Its scales glistened in the wind The body remained lifeless as it threw the flesh into the river. It looked at its bloody hands and the rose-stained rock. The fish, if it was alive, would have drowned anyway.

Its hands connected with its face. Its soft touch was absent.

The crying began once again.

Koehler waited a short bit at the drink dispenser, thinking about his... failure. He failed many times over his life, but what happened two months ago hurt the most. From what he's heard, Yeshua was lobotomized. Just the thought alone disgusted the young man as he walked to his dormitories, mildly angry.

He caused it. He should've just talked to him, at most brow-beat him. but actually just... fighting him, it was his fault that now he was a mindless drone, or something of that sort. He shaked a little as he opened the door. What if he was lobotomized? He... he just couldn't live after that. Maybe kill himself. If he wasn't Koehler, what was the point?

He closed the door behind himself and saw his room, the standards, a bed, all that stuff, but he asked Sergeant Ken if he could put a punching bag inside. Sergeant Ken thought that was an acceptable proposition.

He punched, again, and again, then a kick. Not as fast as Sergeant Ken, but he attacked faster then the others. He expelled air, a 'Kiai', at his next flurry of attacks, seven punches in a few seconds. He began memorizing what he was fighting for as he continued mindlessly pummeling the poor punching bag.

In his mind, there was a seven year-old Harold Koehler, at a table playing checkers with a young woman. "No," she said, "You can't do that. These little pieces can only move one square at a time." "Ohh... Well what do the uhh... what do the big ones do again?"

"Well they can move diagonally, but only diagonally. But they can move backwards too."

"Ohhh, okay.", the little kid replied.

"So what did you do in school today, Harold?"

"Oh. Uhm... math?"

"Well, what kind of math?"

"The hard kind. With the x's"

His sister laughed, "But that's every kind!", and her brother laughed at her joke as well, agreeing.

"Uhh..."

"Yeah?"

"So where did mom and dad go?", the young boy asked. That was a sort of a hard question for his sister.

"Well...", she thought a little, "Mom and Dad are doing sciencey things. They're almost ready to come home, though."

"But then you're gonna leave..."

"I'll be fine, I promise. And I'll be back before you know it!"

That's when it ended. She never came back. He stopped training for a moment to wipe away his tears, then resumed his assault.

The door had been left open. It creaked slowly as someone pushed it with a slight push. Tiptoeing, he shuffled into the room and looked around for two seconds before shuffling under the bed. He looked for whatever he could find. He spotted a black box and decided against looking at its contents. Quickly, he rammed his hand into his satchel, taking out something hideous. From underneath Koehler's bed, he stared at the cramped, dark boards that supported it. He could feel his own warm breath slide down his face. His toes wriggled in his shoes.

"Do you have any books?"

Koehler panicked at the new, yet oddly familiar voice, quickly turning and seeing Yeshua has infilitrated his room. "AAAH JESUS!", he screamed, surprised. He had to stop himself from reflexively punching the lobotomite.

"Ho..hoh....Ohhh...", he calmed down, "Uhh, n-no, no. Why are you in my room?"

Yeshua coughed for a second before standing up from the bed. He shuffled his body around and rolled onto his belly. Standing up, both hands were behind his back. He stood on his toes.

"Silly, I want to know if you have any books. I was just perfecting my mole impression!"

"Oh. Well, that was... a really good mole impression. I couldn't tell you were Yeshua for a second.", he was quite disturbed. 'This... I created this...', he thought to himself, horrified. He took a few steps back.

"Oh, I haven't changed. Well, he hasn't changed. You see, he is I. I am I. Don't be afraid. That would make you weak. Now, do you have any books?" He chuckled, grabbing himself by the earlobes and dawling his elbows in the air.

Well at least this creepy bastard was still Yeshua. Sort of. Liking books and calling everyone else weak. Still, a husk of his former self... "No-no, I don't have any books in my room. At least.. I don't think so."

"Uhhh, don't we have a library somewhere on-base or something? You could look for books there?"

Yeshua groaned. It was long and overdone.

"I've already checked there. Don't treat me as a fool."

His face soured. His eyes clenched and he turned around.

"I can't find them anywhere! No matter what I do, no books! What am I supposed to do? They're running an advanced facility, goodness gracious! By the fiddles of Friar Tuck, deliberations of the Delaware! A disaster!"

Tears dropped onto the floor. Yeshua kept his back to Koehler and saluted. He clicked his heels and walked out. The door was not closed.

Koehler whispered to himself, watching 'Yeshua' walk out.

"What have I done?"

A foul stench filled the air. It smelt of fish.

Harold looked around the room. "Fuck, I didn't eat fish. What the hell is that?", he then seemed to triangulate it after a while, it came from his bed. He looked all around it, finding no contacts, then under it. A fish...

"...I fucked up really goddamn bad...", he said to himself as he pulled the fish out and put it in the trash, sad.

Yeshua continued walking down the corridors of the soldiers' quarters, his hands behind his back. He was grabbing his left wrist and had made good distance so far. While he had not exactly thought up of a plan of action, he was at least determined to walk as far as he could in one day. If he could, then he could outshine the bears. Yeshua really wanted to talk to the bears. He wasn't afraid anymore; the doctors had taken that out of him! What he did have to be, though, was careful. The man he used to be was gone for good; that was good. That was what he was told by Abba. Abba wanted him to be safe and secure and he would protect Yeshua when the time came. But Abba wanted to see more than him, Yeshua pondered as he turned a corner and continued walking another path; this particular walkway suspended above three floors of buildings with an alcove to his right protected by a railing, Abba wanted to see the Cruxi. He couldn't remember why his friend would want to see those who wanted to kill him, while Yeshua wanted to be safe.

He fell onto his chest again. What a fall! Yeshua's knees were grazed but his tea shirt was fine. A slight bump on the head was the only injury but he soon regained his balance.

Yeshua wanted to be safe. He wanted to talk to the fishes everyday and not drown like them. He wanted to read this book; whatever it was. He wanted Abba to appreciate him; which is what he did. He wanted people to stay away from him. He wanted no one to be his friend because he had found his friend. He knew, in his heart, that he was safe.

After the current class session had ended, Koehler had talked to Lorenzo about his business. During this, one other had waited. Patiently waiting her turn to speak.

And when Koehler did leave, Mai approached Lorenzo. She didn't say anything though...from her position, she then took a long look at the holograms that were last displayed.

She then walked over to the hologram of the Cruxi that Lorenzo metioned were at the "ruling castle".

"...sir. I'm assuming you showed THIS particular picture for a reason in my case. If so...yes, this is the Cruxi I saw two months ago in that "vision"...but not the one I saw...the one I saw was real. It moved slightly...looked liked I was actually seeing it...and it "tried" to talk but failed miserably as I said...growls and grunts like no animal I've ever heard..."

Mai moved slightly to a different position to look at the hologram at a different angle.

"...thing is, I know the "reports" on Mari...I mean of my mother sir. The visions tended to be vague or ambiguous. It simply "showed" that something was going to happen but sometimes not always enough to pinpoint exactly what. For all I know...the vision could be telling me a number of things...but two things do come to mind. Best case: I or others were watching some live broadcast of a Cruxi delivering a message of some sort..."

During all this, Mai was talking normal. She did talk like a "drone" or even "monotone" like a robot but ever since she had come clean with Lorenzo and Ritsu about her possible ability, she had decided to act at least a bit "normal" in front of them.

And after Lorenzo and Ritsu had responded to it afterwards, she had found herself unable to hold that grudge on her mother afterwards...hence why she had called her "mother" rather than Maria "Angel" Twilight.

But her voice went back to monotone when she said the second opinion.

"...worse case: myself or someone else could be talking to that Cruxi...perhaps a private meeting or as a P.O.W..."

In the weeks following the training exercise, Krista had buried herself in her new role as Squad Leader. Between the training they all had to do and her own studies on being a leader she hadn't much time to socialize with the others. The constant reminder of her responsibilities she bore on her shoulders didn't help break the ice either. Then there was the incident between Yeshua and Kohler. She hadn't seen it personally but from what she had heard about it it was pretty gruesome. They both seemed... off ever since.

At the most recent of the Professor's lectures, a question struck her from earlier. After letting the others ask their questions before approaching. "Sir, I have a question about something you brought up earlier. About the difficulties in capturing a Cruxi unit intact."

Lorenzo looked over from his bundle of research notes. "Yes, Officer Reynolds, what is it?"

"You mentioned a while back that certain units would retreat by teleporting. I was wondering if they ever use this offensively?" she said.

The professor stroked his beard when he listened to the question. "Hmm, that is an interesting thought. It wouldn't take them much to adjust what they're already using to materialize weapons or use it some other way. However, considering how recently they started using this technology in this war, I believe even they themselves do not understand the full capability of what they have discovered. Like us, I believe they are also inventing new weapons to overcome us in the arms race. Still, it would be easy to teleport bombs into colonies, yet they haven't done so...most intriguing..." Lorenzo mumbled, deep in thought.

Krista shuddered at the thought of a bomb appearing in her lap without warning. "Do you think it might operate on some sort of homing beacon? Like it can only recall units, not deploy them."

"A plausible theory, Reynolds. Of course, as long as we don't understand how the mechanics related to the phenomenon exactly work we can only guess. But if we were to acquire this technology...oh, it would revolutionize human society. Such an ingenious race to turn it into a mere weapon of war...there is no greater disappointment for a scientist."

Krista sighed. "Too bad learning about them requires being shot at..." she said, "You said that the decision to try and capture one would be at the Squad Officer's choice. Do we have anything that might help take one intact?"

"Why yes, that is correct. Let's see..." Lorenzo scrambled over his papers until he found one. "If we take the concept of the immobilization mine and turn it into an attached weapons system, and a brave pilot would close the distance and apply the freezing agent onto an enemy unit, covering it up...add in the electrifying solution with EMP-generators...Yes! If my hypothesis is correct, that should prevent the unit from self-destructing! But it would have to be applied at extremely close range, and without the unit's weapon systems being hindered. An extremely dangerous situation for any Framewerk pilot. But if one were to succeed, oh, I would get an entire Cruxi mech all for myself, heh heh!" Lorenzo devilishly grinned at the prospect.

Krista put that in the back of her mind as something that might be worth trying later, once the rest of the squad had seen action. "That would be nice. Know your enemy and all that. Going back to the teleportation thing. I was wondering if we knew where they went. Seems like it would be simple enough to tag them with a tracker of some sort."

"Why yes, it would be...if any of the Framewerks who attempted that ever survived. The teleportation function seems to only be reserved for the most advanced models of war machine the Cruxi utilize, and any attempts to place trackers on them only resulted in the poor pilot being shredded or annihilated. They are really defensive about their precious toys, those damn clickers..."

"Ugh... should've realized it wouldn't be easy," she lamented, "Thanks for answering my questions sir. I'll let you get back to what you were doing." She turned around before stopping and facing Lorenzo again. "Actually, one more thing, when do you think we'll have a prototype of that Cruxi-immobilzation weapon?"

"I'll start working on it now, so if my calculations are complete...it should enter production stage in a month or so. If there aren't any malfunctions present, of course." Lorenzo then went back to his pile of papers and looked at them with renewed interest and stamina, as if his brain was running with more gears than usual.