Lorenzo, instead of following the others into the holo deck as they were escorted, simply tapped a button, locking them in the room for a short while before speaking into a mic to Boris and Airick. “Pardon me, but I’m going to need you two to stay there for a moment in order for me to get us out of this situation… and if we are to get out of here alive, you are to listen to my orders, okay?” spoke the scientist as he could hear Avacramdt fighting outside and keeping the Cruxi horde at bay. “In approximately ten minutes, this door will open, and you are to make a break for the ship’s main deck and pilot us out of here. Simple as that. In these ten minutes, I’m going to recover the Avacramdt and restore the ship’s power.”
Hitting the back of his fist against the door, Airick let out a long sigh before finally hitting the door once more, this time far harder and letting out a loud yell. How was he supposed to trust this deranged man… this damned lunatic? For now, all he could do was just wait and see what was to happen.
“Command unit of the L.A.D. Project, do you hear me? This is Chief Scientist Lorenzo aboard the Izanagi. I am attempting to repower the ship, but I require ten minutes to finish things up, what is the status of the facility’s defenses,” he spoke calmly… almost dully as Matilda appeared and began to help scan things.
“Lorenzo?! You’re alive?! Thank the lord you are alive,” spoke the female commanding officer from the main command unit. “There are hardly any defenses left on the facility and we have many Cruxi forces landing all over the planet causing destruction everywhere. As expected though, their main bulk of the forces are here and they are continuously closing in on your position.”
“They’re after us then.”
“It would seem so, sir! However, we have a bigger problem! The Yamaguchi is facing a might behemoth… A Cruxi Dreadnaught of sorts unlike any we have seen before.”
“Ahhh… So that is what the Red Hare was used against earlier… and why I keep hearing static from another call… Matilda, be a dear and fix it would you?” Smiling, Lorenzo waited a bit before his A.I. cleared the call, allowing Koboro to patch himself through easily.
“Finally… Lorenzo, I take it you’ve already heard from the nice lady?”
“Yes… I heard plenty, and I know what it is. That thing is here to destroy not this planet, but this entire sector... to ensure that nothing survives or escapes. They are so rare that there are only a total of three of them in the Cruxi army… but facing one now is simply stellar…” spoke Lorenzo in a sarcastic voice.
“Well then, how do we stop this thing before it can decimate this section?” asked Koboro as he looked straight at the behemoth from the screen of his ship.
Pausing in his steps, Lorenzo thought carefully, before coming up with an idea… one that he will certainly regret. “Officer,” Lorenzo’s voice was cold, “what is the status of The Vavel?”
The officer didn’t speak at first.
“Sir… you don’t mean…?”
“What is the status of The Vavel?” he asked again.
“Fully operational, sir,” spoke the male officer. “However, it alone will not be able to fully stop the Behemoth by my calculations, sir.”
Lorenzo grinned, “As I thought. Smart kid you got there, girl. Koboro, how’s your ship?”
“It’s a piece of shit, if you ask me. The Cruxi on board are still putting up one hell of a fight… but we can fire off one last Red Hare, sir, for whatever good that’ll do.”
“Prepare the Red Hare and The Vavel immediately… By using The Vavel’s accelerated energy from the core of the planet and by using up all the matter we have collected and storing it into the caliber chamber of Vavel, we are going to fire it straight into the energy chambers of the Yamaguchi as it fires the Red Hare. This will cause a chain reaction of immense energy to be fired at the Behemoth and destroy it,” spoke Lorenzo as he proceeded to the core of the ship.
“S-Sir… but… something like that would-”
“Kill every single thing on this planet and destroy the Yamaguchi,” interrupted Koboro as he stared at the Behemoth slowly closing in. “…Heh… This planet is already lost, kid. The Cruxi have taken the cities and are trying to take the facility as we speak. We need to get Lorenzo and whatever remaining pilots he has left off world… Prepare The Vavel, I’ll prepare the Red Hare immediately!”
Silence was all that could be heard as the calls went off and as Lorenzo went back to the power source room.
It was there that Lorenzo met up with Kaila and found her staring at a mech that had its chest wide open with a weird… spherical like crimson liquid of mighty size within it. While the Framework itself looked intimidating, and rather spooky to some who would come… especially those who would wonder down here alone… to Kaila, she would find that the machine was almost warm. It was as if it was calling to her; crying for her to come to it as if it was in deep, deep pain.
“I would let you spend more time with little Totsuka, but we have an emergency at the moment…” murmured Lorenzo as he promptly pushed Kaila forward into the Framework. “Don’t worry, I only need you inside of it for a bit until he can power himself. Totsuka is a special guy in that regard,” spoke the scientist as he watched as Kaila let out a yelp before she was flung straight into the Framework’s core. Immediately, as she entered, wires and tubes coiled around her and pressed her down into a chair as she was submerged in a liquid of sorts without drowning and as the chest piece of the Framework sealed shut.
The Totsuka lit up and Kaila could see through the eyes of the Framework… but she couldn’t move, for the Framework itself was trapped powering the ship. Then, suddenly, all the lights on the ship began to awaken before the wires on Kaila began to tighten a bit.
“Relax girl, try to get accustomed to your Framework for a bit and once it’s done… doing whatever to you and you tame it, do get out of it and get something to eat,” muttered Lorenzo as he headed back towards his second secretive goal.
As he headed towards the hangars, he ran into Demeter who just came out of their room. “Ah, hello Demeter… Not quite the kind of pilot I was looking for, but I suppose you will have to do.”
They gave the doctor a strange look, before a sharp sound echoed through the hall. Demeter’s face widen a bit before looking down at their stomach, only to see a strange spike impaled into their side. Forcing themselves to stand with their trail of thoughts going utterly blank, the doctor promptly grabbed them by the arm and forced Demeter to follow despite bleeding.
“Sorry for the spike, but it beats having a gaping hole in you. Oh, I know it does hurt, but I right now, I need you to be hurting for us to survive, Demeter… I don’t like doing this to my children, but I need you in this state now more than ever, you hear me?” Demeter didn’t answer, instead just being dragged by the doctor. “Right… you probably can’t, the drugs in this are probably making you a bit loopy… Anyway, you aren’t going to… well, bleed out… I hope, but you will be in a bit of a bad state.”
Still dragging the drugged and shot Demeter, Lorenzo finally arrived at Anu. “Now… Allow me to explain a bit dear Demeter, these Frameworks… they are different. They are living beings,” he said as he gently lifted up Demeter and placed them next to the mech, “they are… sentient. These Frameworks, upon knowing that their pilots are in danger, is believed to enter a state that many call Berserk, but truth be told, the Berserk state is one that no one but I have seen. The truth is, the state that the Frameworks enter when their pilots are in physical or mental danger is called Defiant… and now that I think about it, you are the perfect candidate. Allow me… to tell you the truth, behind the Frameworks, Demeter.”
Pulling back their hair, Lorenzo whispered the dark truth behind the creation of the Frameworks… and the truth behind the Anu. After a while, Lorenzo just took a step back and watched as Demeter took it all in.
Tears were what streamed down their face first… before a scream. A loud agonizing scream as they turned towards Lorenzo and tried to punch him, but the drugs simply caused them to fall to the floor. Yelling… crying… and more screaming was all that could be heard from Demeter.
“Why?!”
“For humanity,” he said in response to their question before grabbing them as the mech opened their chest… revealing a crimson liquid sphere.
“NO!” shouted Demeter as they bit down hard upon Lorenzo’s hand before he threw them into the mech that promptly grabbed them with wires and tubes.
“I’m sorry…” spoke Lorenzo as he took steps back before pointing outside. “Anu, retrieve the Avacramdt, they’re getting surrounded. We’re leaving now”
The Anu let out a horrendous noise before it began to move against Demeter’s will, all the while as they screamed inside before the Framework quickly ran out to get the Avacramdt.
“Lorenzo here, status on The Vavel and the Red Hare?”
“Both are ready to go, sir… we are ready to fire on your mark.”
It was then at that moment that the engines began to fire up, and Lorenzo knew that his time was up. Gritting his teeth, he knew he had to go with his plan now or else everything will fail.
“Fire!”
The Vavel slowly emerged itself from behind the Facility. A massive rod-like cannon that looked as if it could have taken out the enemy fleet itself. Though, the reason it wasn’t used was because it would have eliminated the facility as well as a prototype weapon.
The already charged superweapon was waiting for the Yamaguchi to get in position, for Lorenzo’s plan, as stupid as it sounded, had some leeway. The Yamaguchi’s energy cells that are located near the rear end are far more powerful than any other ship, and by firing the Red Hare, a thin and precise beam at the right time, the Yamaguchi’s Red Hare will be unstoppable with The Vavel behind it!
“Lorenzo! Hurry, the Behemoth is getting closer… and we’re about to fire with your crazy plan! If you’re not in the air you might be caught in the blast!” roared Koboro as he shouted at the doctor.
“I said ‘fire’ didn’t I? So fire! We don’t have time to dilly-dad!”
“Damn it… Alright! Everyone… FIRE!”
“FIRE!”
“FIRE!”
“Firing The Vavel… NOW!” shouted the male officer with a bright smile as he slammed the palm of his hand onto the keyboard… right as a Cruxi Grinder broke through the door into the command center.
At that moment, the Defiant Anu destroyed two Cruxi Grinders and a Hunter, before grabbing onto Avacramdt by the arm and throwing them towards the Izanagi. Running towards them, the Anu followed behind before Avacramdt and its pilot took that as a sign to get back to the ship.
The Mighty Vavel cannon began to twirl as the rods heated up… as the dark matter around them began to gather and as energy from the planet’s core fueled its riveting power…. Before suddenly, a violet kind of matter started to form between the two rods.
Anu and Avacramdt continued running as the Izanagi began to take flight, with the Avacramdt hopping on the ship and looking back towards the rampaging Anu, who had a few Cruxi on it. Kill them swiftly with beams, it proceeded to run to the ship and hop on it, but was quickly pulled down by a pair of Hunters.
Outside, Vavel’s twin barrels were spinning faster… the rods turning pure scarlet as crimson energy began to flow into the violet matter… almost as if a star was being born on that very planet to be used as a weapon. In response to this, the massive Cruxi Behemoth let out a large screeching sound that was deafening, before it began to spin as a dark crimson light start to form from its center.
“Ah shit… “murmured Koboro with gritted teeth.
The Avacramdt promptly jumped down and decimated the twin Hunters before placing the Anu on its shoulders and hoping onto the Izanagi one final time before the hangars closed. Immediately, Lorenzo took a now unconscious Demeter out from Anu before nodding to Avacramdt and then before taking her to the medic bay.
And in that moment, the ship took off as fast as it could.
Things moved around a bit, but nothing was heavily damaged. Nonetheless, those who wanted to, could probably see outside what happened next…
The large weapon Vavel fired it’s crimson-violet energy star straight into the rear of the Yamaguchi… but in doing so, the moment it did, the recoil of it destroyed not only the superweapon, but also the facility, and that face of the planet.
However, thanks to the timing, it only lasted for a mere instant, for the Red Hare’s firing caused the Star to be absorbed into the Yamaguchi’s energy supply, causing a mass overload soon after the Red Hare’s firing; however it was able to empower to the Red Hare as it fired to give it a massive boost as it pierced straight through the Cruxi Behemoth’s attempt to stop Vavel’s firing.
However... none of this was Lorenzo’s true goal.
His true, true goal, was to cause a chain reaction with the planet’s core along with the destruction of everything else and to replicate the explosion of a miniature big bang… and with the destruction and chain reaction of all that has happened in the time frame of less than a few seconds, and the hundreds upon thousands of millions of highly volatile resources on the planet can make that happen.
As Airick led the ship as fast as he could… a massive catastrophic wave of destruction soon boomed the back of the ship, causing it to spur and whirl out of control; flying out of course as the planet… the Yamaguchi… and the Behemoth were all destroyed behind them.
For a while… the ship just drifted, and everyone just assumed they were dead, wondering how they survived, or if something decided to spare them for some odd reason. Though, for some, they believed it was because of the explosions giving their ship an extra boost for them to escape. Anyway, many of the crew were in disbelief.
“Everyone… we’re free from danger. Demeter is hurt so please let them recover… otherwise, feel free to go about and do things however you want for now. There’s a Mess Hall, Training Room, yadda yadda… yadda… you get the jist… Just don’t anywhere that you’re not supposed to,” spoke Lorenzo on the intercom as he patted Demeter on the head from the Med-Bay before leaving them to the Doctor there.
“Airick, I take it you’ll want to talk to me, eh?” spoke Lorenzo to Airick via his ear-piece.
Ariamis
