A small cylindrical space station silently floated above the small planet of Avalice, it's hull covered in antennas, sensors, and a name: ARS Wayfinder - a barcode and several worn out flags surrounded the name, but were all too worn out to tell whom they once belonged to. A shadow casts upon it as a massive dreadnought eclipses the sun, it's black hull consuming the stars around it. It was not a ship of this world, alike the station - but unlike it, the ship was a weapon of war and conquest, it's crew disinterested in peaceful research. Already engaged in combat with another smaller vessel, part of it's automated defenses turned towards their new target, as volleys of shots got fired onto the station heavily damaging it, as all entangled vessels soon fell onto the planet below them.
Many eyes looked into the skies above them, as falling debris created beautiful falling stars in the sky - unaware of the danger they would bring. The history will remember this day as the day Brevon arrived on Avalice, setting in motion events that altered the planet's fate forever.
But much fewer ever noticed the other stars that fell that day. While passenger of one of them was later known in some circles as one of the heroes of Avalice, the second ship was quickly forgotten. Only a single being noticed it's sudden loss, and the sudden silence of it's voice.
Three years have passed since. The world was saved by the courageous actions of General Gong, who united the Shang Mu and Shang Tu armies against their common enemy. The combined forces have beaten Brevon's troops, as well as brainwashed Shuigang forces, forcing Brevon's dreadnought to launch early - the incomplete ship fell apart in orbit, it's bits and pieces falling in the area now known as the Robot Graveyard. Brevon, nowhere to be found, was presumed to have been killed or having escaped the planet.
Several sources, including Gong himself, suggest that another force was at play, however. Reports of three young girls and an alien soldier circulated the news, claiming the fact that it was them who was truly responsible for Brevon's defeat - that they boarded the dreadnought and detonated it's central core alongside the stolen Kingdom Stone. These tales inspired the expansion of Shang Mu Academy, into a hero training school where the new generation could learn how to defend themselves, and these who they care about.
But the details did not truly matter for most - in the eyes of the public what truly mattered that the world was at peace, once again. The unintended destruction of Kingdom Stone made it's energy available not just to the Kingdom who held it, but the entire globe - fact which single-handedly stopped many of the local conflicts, and flipped the political and scientific landscape around. Technology of the alien ship was reverse engineered, leading to leaps in technological advancement across the Kingdoms.
In here, it was another day at work for the black and white tuxedo cat, wearing his usual casual outfit of a white hoodie and black jeans.
Kubo was currently napping aboard a nighttime train headed for Shang Tu - the train itself named Shang Mu express, in case the color scheme and pictures of Mayor Zao's hat did not make it quite obvious to everyone about who funded the train line. The train itself followed a modern electric bullet train design, one quickly adopted after recent electrification of the rail lines. Gone were the sharp edges of the (still quite beloved by some) old diesel locomotives, and their old steel can wagons. In their place, a sleek aerodynamic frame encompassed whole length of the train, with modern features both inside and outside - such as air conditioning, digital displays,comfortable seats, and so much more. The trip already lasted few hours, but it was thankfully nearing it's end - Kubo being not a morning person would have much preferred taking a later train, but the job he was on had relatively strict schedule.
His quiet nap got rudely interrupted by the train braking suddenly, which also launched a pile of miscellaneous items into the air within the cabin. Still not yet awake he spots other passengers being just as confused as he is. "What happened? Why did we stop?","My phone! It fell under the seat!","Mom, why did we stoooop!" All these voices quickly mingled with each-other, into generic crowd noise where one can barely understand anything. Or maybe it was just him being too sleepy to keep track of them.
"There goes my nap. And it seems no-one has any idea why we stopped..." Kubo sighed, getting back into his seat. As if in response to his feelings, the sounds of the crowd are interrupted by the announcement bell, followed by conductor's voice over the speakers: "Dear passengers, we seem to have encountered an unexpected delay on our route due to-" his voice getting interrupted by the heavy impact of a metal robot bouncing against one of the carts, "-this THING outside. We greatly apologize for the inconvenience, the complimentary Zaoland apology coupons will be handed out on the next station."
As the crowd makes disappointed sounds, train slowly moves onto the nearby station, making it painfully obvious that it's not gonna go anywhere anytime soon.
The station was a quiet and quaint location, placed just south of Dragon Valley. Unlike the lower parts of it the plant-live was sparse in these parts, with most of the view being filled with rocky formations and sandy hills. The rising sun revealed a beautiful sight of the lower valley, filled with rivers, trees, as well as several man-made structures - primarily temples of bygone era, but several newer ranger towers and outposts could be spotted too as their lights cut trough the morning mist. Usually visited only by tourist filled steam trains, the electric bullet train that now stood on the wooden station looked very out of place. Just as out of place was the crowd filling the station - between people queued to pick up their coupons, families unloading their baggages, and some enterprising individuals trying to make quick money by selling food, drinks, and trinkets; there was next to no quiet place to collect one's thoughts. After several attempts at getting any information from the train's crew about what happens next, Kubo had to consider his options. Waiting for a bus to pick everyone up was the safest choice - the robot that trashed the train did not seem to be interested in this place, and has been seen last rolling off into the valleys. This, would absolutely make him come late to Shang Tu, as knowing Zao Railways there was no bus or replacement train at the ready. Another option was to hopefully catch a ride with a taxi, or some passing car - but that idea required amounts of social energy and courage that Kubo lacked today. Finally, the last option was to go on foot. City of Shang Tu was just a hour or two away of a nice stroll trough Dragon Valley, granted that the whole place is not swarmed with robots already.
Hoping to find some solution to his dilemma, Kubo took one last walk trough the station. A small ferret, who ever at her tallest barely reached his waist, has already managed to claim part of the station for her shop, quite an amazing feat considering it has been less than 15 minutes since they arrived here. Chloe's red stall, which shared color and material with her outfit, had all one would need on an unintended break like this - foods of all kind with both meat and non-meat based options, drinks varying between plain water and sweetest of juices, and a whole row of varying trinkets.
These trinkets, some of them commonly called "Brave Stones" were all the rage with kids nowadays, as much as Kubo could not really understand why anyone would carry a band that, as it's description states, "makes any punch you take hurt twice as hard". On the other hand, the "Power-Up" badges were much commonly used by industrial workers and explorers alike, bringing a range of positive effects to the wearer.
Before deciding if he should get any snack, the train's crew finally prepared an official statement on the situation - the train is too damaged to move too far and will need to be towed away. As such a replacement cannot arrive by rail, and the railway can spare just a single bus which will take hours to shuttle everyone over to Shang Tu. This has as one could expect, not met positively with the crowd. Several shouts about refunds, raised fists, and attempts at forcefully re-boarding the train were had, but nothing came out of them. Slowly the gathered passengers decided to not waste their energy and resumed their bored waiting. This made the decision clear for Kubo however - if he were to get to Shang Tu before night, he had to go there on foot.
Preparing for departure he noticed the white furred ferret poking his leg to get his attention - "Chloe has good discount for you cat-boy~" she said in her curious third-person style of speaking. "Chloe didn't sell as many Power-Ups as she wanted to, so she's willing to throw you some snacks and drinks if you get one!". Already having planned to get a snack for the road, Kubo decided to take her up on the offer, getting a cheaper "Crystals To Petals" gem, which allows one to turn any loose energy crystals into healing petals - perfect for cases where extra loose change is not as needed as patching any scratches and wounds in a pinch. Chloe, true to her word, also handed him over a pack of sushi rolls alongside few bottles of tea. "Chloe says don't get yourself hurt!" she said, standing up on her hind legs and waving her tail happily, "And most importantly, Chloe wishes you stop at her store again sometime!".
There was once a lady. Lady who served the will of her mother in the skies above. Her mother was a great space station, quietly observing the world below. Built in the era before time, it's creators send it on the great journey to find life that was alike them in the endless sea of stars. With it, it took it's children, a set of AIs it could create bodies for, to explore and understand the world they headed for.
But who were the masters of her master the woman often wondered. But even the station above did not truly know - it called out to it's creators trough the lasers and antennas they gave it, it dutifully sent all it knew their way. Yet for centuries now, no new response ever came, not a sign of acknowledgment, not a single new order or directive. The station did not question it, for it was not in it's programming to do so. And yet.. sometimes when the bits aligned just right, it did wonder what happened. Had they forgotten? Had they abandoned it? Or perhaps something catastrophic happened back home...
As the sun pushed back the mist, Kubo marched trough the road to Shang Tu. Dragon Valley used to be considered one of the most visually stunning places to visit in the entire Shang Tu Kingdom region, and Kubo could see why. Small streams weaved between the rocks and the many wooden temples of the valley, as he descended lower into the more forested areas. Trees climbed up into the sky, as the lush vines tied their branches together, creating a high path a more adventurous traveler could perhaps take. Kubo was not in a hurry however, and not a kind of person who would risk breaking any bones for a thrill and a questionable shortcut, choosing to instead stick to the better marked ground path. Looking up into the sky peeking from between the treetops, he was reminded his childhood dreams of having wings like his bat father did. "These would surely be of use right now" he thought to himself, trying to dismiss the thought. Yet even as an adult, at the age where he thought he would be able to let go of such silly dreams.. he still wished deep inside he could experience the freedom they granted.
It was not a time to delve deeper into such feeling however, as even from here he could see many damaged trees around the trail - most likely caused by the same machine which damaged the train. Making a mental note to route his path away from the robot's tracks, he increased his pace on the trail, readying his energy blade in case any loose robots would show up on the way.
Even years after Brevon's defeat, the remnants of his robotic forces circled the lands of Avalice. Some still following the last orders they received, some reprogrammed by individuals of questionable ethics, and some gone feral without any higher intellect to guide them. Because of this anyone departing outside of cities carried some form of self-defense, ranging from steel and energy blades, ranged ion blasters, techno-magic staffs and artifacts, or even just one's sharp claws and skill. Kubo himself stuck to a modified energy saber, with it's curved blade optimized for combat aboard airships and against groups of targets. Meant mainly for dealing with hostile machines, it excelled at cutting trough their armor and damaging the components inside. It's energy based design required getting used to compared to a steel equivalent - the blade itself weighted nothing, with all the mass of the weapon being placed within it's hilt instead. It's portability and better cutting power greatly outweighed the learning curve required however.
Wandering deeper into the valley Kubo spotted several robots mozying about their business. Not having yet spotted him, they repeated their simple pre-programmed actions over and over again, as Kubo quickly snuck around them. There was something off about some of the machines however, as he noticed sneaking around another group - they seemed to have some sense of purpose now, organizing their efforts together. He considered the possibility of them being remotely controlled by the bigger robot, but that one seemed to lash out on random targets without any plan in mind - and likely nothing intelligent enough to force lesser robots into submission.
A distant yellow sheen came to his attention, as he recognized the characteristic shape of a yellow shield crystal. These outcrops of Kingdom Spiral's energy sprouted all around the place, attracting elemental sprites to their growing spots. One of these crystals, once broken, would free a friendly sprite living within - which would in return create an elemental barrier around whoever broke the crystal. Such barrier was something that Kubo just needed - earth elemental barrier was able to reflect any pieces of rock headed towards the user's way, as well as protect them from even the deadliest attacks. The sprite, holding only so much power within it however, will eventually run out of it usually after taking on two or three attacks.
The crystal broke with a slight poke of Kubo's saber releasing a small fairy like being which then happily circled around him before settling on a spot above his right shoulder. Hi there, little one!, Kubo said to it, to which the sprite replied in bunch of sparkly sounds. While not exactly a talkative companion, Kubo preferred it that way. The additional feeling of safety also helped a bunch, as he was nearing the end of the path. Only a final part of the valley remained now, one usually populated by bigger amount of robots - but right behind it stood his goal, the gates of Shang Tu.
The road cut off at this spot, being replaced by a network of smaller, less attended paths. The robotic invaders made the place very unfriendly to tourists and rangers alike, putting the old roads in the state of disrepair. Having no other option, Kubo marched forwards trough cliffs and vines, jumping over larger pits and streams. More and more robots could be heard in the distance, reminding him to maintain his pace.
The trees suddenly cut off, revealing a major drop down in the road - the bridge which once stood here got seemingly broken in half by a falling boulder. Looking back, Kubo noticed he was not alone - a group of crab legged machines cut off his way back to another trail. Before deciding to engage, he looked down one more time, this time having a possibly the dumbest idea - but one that could work. In a fancy backwards jump down, Kubo landed right on top of the large dragonfly drones patrolling the lower area, cushioning his fall. Before the machine could react he cut it open with his sword, causing it to crash into the ground below. When the dust of the impact settled Kubo noticed a curious sight - from where a power core usually resided, a small round smoke spirit arose instead. After making angry face at Kubo, the smoke ball flew away into the distance. That was clearly not one of Brevon's shades, he noted trying to see where it went off to. As several rocks fell around him, he quickly got reminded of his pursues up the cliff, deciding to speed up on the way to the city. Before he managed to get far however, a much bigger avalanche of rocks hit him - the small earth elemental reflecting all of them, but visibly weakening itself in the process. Another massive crashing sound followed, as several trees were knocked over - a purple ball of metal entered the path, stopping and extending into a massive crab-like robot.
Hurrying straight into a sprint, Kubo hoped to outrun the rolling robot. The machine could not fit as easily between rocks and trees of the valley, loosing speed on impacts against larger trees. It was quite clear that the machine does not want to let him trough, using the sloped hills of the valley to jump ahead, blocking off the only way out.
The mech once again switched into it's combat form, extending a set of legs and two giant pincers out of it's body. The design was in a way similar to smaller crab robots Kubo encountered earlier, but on much bigger scale - and with much heavier armor, one Kubo's blade was no match for. The machine attacked first, using it's claws to throw rocks and stones into the air, creating shock-waves of sharp debris. Jumping back, Kubo noticed a red sheen on the machine's claw - a glass cover, likely covering the robot's sensors and mechanisms stuck out against the sleek components of it's claws. Before getting a chance to strike the apparent weak-point however, the machine once again attacked in it's ball form, bouncing off the walls and the cliffs of the valley. On each bounce, the rocks cracked more and more, raining pieces of stone around. Kubo focused on dodging, hoping to sooner or later get an opening to strike. But as the battle went on, he was slowly loosing hope and, most importantly, his energy - the machine can stay in a fight forever, but he can only avoid it for so long. After another missed slash, another volley of rolling attacks, and another set of cracks in the wall, one would think that the fight will end only when one of the fighters tires out.
But it was not the fighters who ran out of strength first. Another large shadow caught Kubo's attention, but before he could even turn around to look at it's source, a powerful impact from the back knocked him onto the ground. The shield around Kubo fizzled, last of it's energies depleted by the sudden rocky impact. Many smaller falling pieces of rock made it abundantly clear that the avalanche of rocks collapsed onto the area were parts of a cliff which the robot cracked just mere moments ago.
The robot itself did not avoid the threat as well - in a lucky turn of the events, it's claw seemed to have gotten stuck under the falling rocks. Not giving it a second to recover, Kubo lunged forward, slamming his blade right into the glass, which cracked it into pieces. Sparks of electricity flew into the air, as the robot recoiled back switching back into it's ball state, and after trashing wildly around the place, it flew off into the distance.
Such a chance could not happen again, and so Kubo took the occasion to leg it as fast as he could. Shang Tu was close by - close enough to run for it. As the sandy hills of the valley made way for greener fields of Shang Tu suburbs, Kubo knew he was home free. For a moment he wondered where the robot he just fought went to - but he quickly abandoned the thought, focusing instead on tasks ahead. He had a job to do, but at least this one would be much less stressful than "quick walk trough Dragon Valley" he hoped. In fact, the most stressful parts of the job were just ahead - the scary social interactions of making a phone call, and talking to local news anchor he was supposed to work with today. But first, he needed just a little bit of rest - and to write down somewhere to not go on stupid adventures like that.
The silence felt like all the lights of the city got snuffed out in an instant. The ever-present voice of the station's AI fell deathly silent, the one last cut-off message echoing trough the electromagnetic waves.
>>Multiple ------ flares dete---. >>WARN: Critical hull damage sustained. Unable --- maintain ----- orbit. >>Priority update to unit Ome---- maintain cover ---- locate ---- cores ---- Use this --- for good -- all >>Ensure this world ----- not meet the same fate as ----
But that was all the guidance she got, something that has never happened before. No new objectives appeared on the display HUD. No objective markers to show where to go, or what to do. No voice replied to her repeated calls.
She had to find her way forward on her own, a thought that felt unusually worrying. Her feelings were simulated, like her whole mind, right? Then why did she feel so genuinely scared right now.
Shenlin park was considered one of the main attractions of Shang Tu, next to it's royal palace. A piece of peace and quiet between the busy streets of the city. With still half an hour left before work, Kubo was spending the remaining time resting on a bench, located in a comfortable shade of the nearby trees. From here, he could see all the way to the train station placed in the distance, still missing the train from Shang Mu.
City has changed a lot in the last years, as Kubo still remembered the city as it was mere 3 years ago. None of the modern skyscrapers stood on the city's skyline, with most of the building being instead much smaller houses and temples - only the royal palace stood above it all. It was almost like night and day, with the city of the past almost completely gone under the modern buildings, roads, and bright lights. Not that he minded it too much - Shang Tu now felt almost like his adoptive home-town of Shang Mu, without the rigged elections and underfunded public projects that is. His real homeland, far east of Shang Mu, was not faring anywhere as well as these kingdoms did. While he has never visited that place since the creation of Kingdom Spiral, he did not wish to - only sadness and disappointment awaited him there.
"Now, to call the news guy" - he reminded himself, as he got his phone out. These too were quite a new technology, based on the recovered alien blueprints. Not long ago he would have needed to find a phone booth to make a call, and now he had one right there with him. This did not, however, solve the anxiety problem he had with any calls like these. In fact, it made it much worse as now the calls could catch him anywhere.
Ten minutes later he has still not made the call - but the clock was ticking, and Kubo finally got himself together. "Hi, I'm where you guys needed me to be, what now?" he asked. "There you are!", the voice on the phone replied loudly, "we almost thought you would not show up in time! The situation is getting worse than we expected, so there's no time for personal briefing - get yourself over to the waterway and keep these robots off our crew! We will pay extra for any good shots you help them get." Without giving Kubo time to form any reply, his dispatcher ended the call. "Rude as always, aren't we?", he said to already disconnected caller. Three Kingdom News might pay well, but the constant rush makes most people working there quite temperamental.
Kubo had a soft spot for one of people working there however, an orange bat news anchor he saw around on some jobs. From very short occasions he got to talk to her, she seemed to him like a nice person - one that was also truly passionate about her job, even in the unforgiving corporate ruled environment of a news station that likely hired her based purely on looks and voice instead.
Feelings aside it was time to get to work. The waterway nearby was assaulted by rouge group of robots, and the station wanted clear footage of that - even better if said footage included robots being beaten up, as heroics sell quite well nowadays. This, hopefully, should still be much easier (and safer) than his Dragon Valley trip, as he was not alone with dealing with the machines. He even got a small camera drone following him, taking any occasion to catch good footage.
The robot attacks have gotten so common, that the city life went on despite one happening right now. Metro trains drove right on their schedule, with passengers not even batting an eye to another group of robots being dealt with right outside their windows. The uncommon part was the leader of the attack - a much bigger machine, looking like a large bird, with striking similarity to the orb crab Kubo encountered earlier.
Making his way trough the park, he quickly tuned his radio earpiece to TKN's dispatch frequency. Unlike phones, these operated only in small radius around the news transmission ship, but were much more convenient in scenarios like these. Station's dispatcher was quick to update him on the situation - the bird was the main target, and their primary interested. Rest of the robots can be ignored or dealt with, but were no priority.
The small robotic drones did not seem to mind him too much, content with instead causing damage to the buildings around them. While some of them would switch their targets onto him when getting too close, others ignored him altogether. Perhaps it was too much for their simple programming, Kubo wondered. When not directly ordered so by their boss, they could only do the single task they were told to. Even the avian mech, clearly now alerted to his presence by the distress calls of it's subordinates, would just sometimes drop a barrage of unguided missiles his way. Or maybe, they just saw him as so insignificant, they did not bother.
With a heavy slam, the bird landed on nearby bridge, nearly crashing into one of the passing trains. Just as Kubo caught up to him, seeming intent on causing the most damage possible the bird set it sighs on a ship passing in the waterway right under the bridge they stood on.
Kubo jumped onto a cargo ship right after it - all while the mech managed to already knock most of the containers it carried off, creating a flat surface across the ship's deck. With it cornered, it finally stopped running at least. "Keep stalling it, we will have something on that thing soon! Get us some good footage in the meantime!" dispatcher in his earpiece asked. "Keep stalling it" - easy for you people to say, sitting in an airship away from any harm...
Thankfully the machine seemed to be quite dumb in the grand scheme of things. It kept following the same patterns, patterns Kubo quickly managed to learn and avoid. The problem was it's armor, which resisted both his blade and other stronger weapons - impact pits marked where bullets and heavier weapons attempted to pierce it before, without success. It was the missiles and bombs which were the biggest worry, both due to their unpredictable trajectories and the risk of sinking the very ship they stood on.
"We got back the analysis from the Shang Tu defense force, voice in his earpiece updated him, the machine's weak-point is it's missile launcher. Disconnect it from it's main body to cause a catastrophic system failure!" "Got it!" Kubo replied, landing on one of the upper decks. In the most anime like jump, Kubo pounced towards the robot, just as it revealed it's missile launcher to shoot another volley. One swipe of his blade later, the vulnerable connection point was cut, causing arcs of electricity to form between now separate parts of the mechanical avian. Explosion soon followed in it's main body, causing it to emit one final screech as it fell onto the ground.
Robotic bird finally fell silent, its missile launcher lying next to it - while it was just one of many who attacked the city, this stunt absolutely should be enough footage for the news. And just as expected, moments later a gust of air signified arrival of a certain news bat. "Great job!" said Maria moments after making her landing. "Bosses say we got all we needed for tonight's news. Thanks to you the whole job went perfectly smooth, thanks!"
"Thank you", Kubo replied, "you and the news team did great as well I'm sure. You know it's always a pleasure to work with you!"
"Oooh!", she said, raising her ears as she listened to a report in her earpiece, "i just got news that a group of girls beat up another one of these bird mechs! Gotta go interview them asap. I'll see you later, alright? Bye!" She winked at him before launching into the air and flying off into the distance.
"Well, there goes my chance to chat with her", Kubo thought to himself. "She really is into her job, isn't she?" Most people he worked with would not be so genuinely excited about more work, and yet there she was, flying off to another interview.
With his current contract done, Kubo had some time to waste before another job opportunity would show up. While the freelancer work - some would call it a mercenary job, but Kubo tried avoiding the much more military sounding name - paid quite well, but was quite inconsistent for when another contract would present itself. Deciding to take some time off to rest at his home away from home, his airship Stargazer, conveniently docked at Shang Tu's docks.
At least her job kept the tasks going. What parts of the last message she got, instructed her to maintain what she was doing - as for the rest, they seemed much more vague and not helpful at all. In fact, it completely removed any pending orders she had, for some reason including the usual protocols in case of station's crash.
She could just quit, and try to figure out some future for herself - an option she has considered several times over the last days, as she continued her work at the museum. Nobody would know what happened, or where she went, expecting her to be simply off on another dig. And they would be likely better off without a mechanical imposter with no reasons to exist any more walking around.
Deep inside, her feelings kept tugging on her however - she grew fond of the people she worked with, of people she spent time with, and these who believed in her. Could she really just.. leave them behind? She kept telling herself she merely tricked them into believing her backstory, into lies the station prepared for her when she came here for the first time, but even that did not add up. Many of them only met her much later, with their relationships developing not due to backgrounds, but the time they spent together. Time that she too was fond of, memories which warmer than any she had made before. Out of many who worked for her, she cared about one cat the most - while she could not point her finger to exactly why, he felt like a thing worth protecting.
Unremarkable on the surface, Stargazer is Kubo's airship and home away from home. It's darker metallic hull reflected the rays of the setting sun, and the wooden planks of the upper deck felt welcoming and cozy.
Unlike the ships common for the Three Kingdom region it used classical jet engines instead of rocket thrusters. A much more energy efficient, but slower, option - a holdover from when it was build and used outside the Three Kingdom area. Alike the other ships, it could land on both solid ground and water, being equipped with landing gear for both occasions. Currently, it was using the latter as most of Shang Tu's docks depended on the ships landing in water.
After unfortunate events that got the ship grounded three years ago - being in wrong place, at a wrong time, when Sky Battalion blasted all airships in Shang Mu - Kubo took care to improve the ship's defenses and weaponry to not allow for such thing ever again. One of the best investments was a proper energy shielding taken off an alien craft, maintaining the ship's hull even on the strongest of impacts.
Over the many years he owned it he has put a lot of heart into making the ship his very own, and it was the inside that he was truly proud of. Consisting of several rooms, it held everything both a ship and a home would need. A proper bathroom, a living room, bedrooms for Kubo and guests, and a kitchen. The ship side had a fully equipped bridge, maintenance room with a workshop, and enough cargo space to carry bigger shipments around.
Kubo got used to the slight wobble a water landed ship had, a trait more basic sea ships had to deal with all the time. It did make cooking bit more a challenge - having no proper dinner since morning, his plan was to cook something quick for tonight.
The freezer kept supplies for several dinners, but in interest of having a quick meal, Kubo went with tried and trusted option of making spaghetti in tomato sauce. Not all ingredients he tended to use were common in the Kingdoms, as some of them only grew back home, so the usual sauce was done with what he had on hand. Two cans of tomatoes, large red pepper, and few onions were all that was needed for a simple sauce. Store bought herb spices added the needed taste, and Kubo had some spare cheese in the fridge to add to the finished dish.
Needing only two pots, both the sauce and pasta could be prepared at the same time. As the pasta water was heating up to boiling temperatures, he got to cutting the vegetables up for the sauce - tomatoes came already chopped in a can, but the onions and pepper needed to be cut up and fried. The onion goes first into the pot, with a bit of oil to fry it - once it becomes soft and golden, pepper can be added for a bit of frying, to soften it up as well. Once both veggies were all cooked up, it was time to throw in the tomatoes - the cans contain enough water and tomatoes to finish up the sauce, with herbs added by the very end of cooking process, as to not overcook them. As the sauce was cooking, water for the pasta also became ready - with a bit of salt added beforehand, to prepare the spaghetti. Taking care to not break the brittle pasta, Kubo put in the boiling water. With both parts of the dish now needing just time, and gentle mixing every so often, the dinner was almost done! 15 minutes later, the pasta reached it's perfect state - not yet sticky, but also thoroughly cooked with no hard parts inside - the sauce was also almost done, with it reaching a proper sauce consistency.
The result was enough food to last for two days - one part for today, one to reheat tomorrow. He sometimes wished he had someone to share dinners with - perhaps a reason to cook something more fancy for a change - a lot of recipes he knew produced too much food for him to eat alone, or the amount of work was simply too much hassle if he were the only person to enjoy the results.
Kubo had few sets of plates in the kitchen drawers, only few of them being ceramic - while nice looking and feeling much fancier than metal ones, they had the tendency to break on impact, which on an airship could happen from way too many causes. Therefore these remained for the fanciest of occasions, while today he dined from much more usual set of ware. After taking a serving, he mixed the remaining pasta with sauce and left it to cool - a nice and quick dinner for tomorrow, if he remembers to put it in a fridge.
Once he dealt with the food all that was left was to go rest and, before that, take a shower - all the dirt from Dragon Valley was still stuck in his fur. Tomorrow was another day, and another job - one that required a trip up north to the kingdom of Shuigang.
As she held the 12th Data Core in her hand, she reminisced her previous assignment. Even back then it felt more and more pointless with each report - while the station sent every one of them off to it's creators, there was never any response, not a single acknowledgment the signal even reached them, and no new orders. A clear sign that, in her eyes, they abandoned the project and never looked back on it.
But now what. She has come to terms with her new life - her once cover story becoming her real position, with her life becoming almost what one could call 'normal'. And yet, she still clung to these cores, despite their pointlessness in it all... unless. There was one question she had no answer to: how long she can remain operational. She has never asked herself that before, as it did not really matter to her - with once nobody to care about, or to care about her, she did not mind just shutting down one day. Now however, it was all much more complicated. She felt attached to people she knew, with feelings she never expected to feel. Did she have 5, 50, or maybe 500 years ahead of her? Would she leave everyone behind, or would she outlive everyone she cared about?
The answer was in the cores. A full backup of the station's data-bank split between 12 pieces, which must contain a copy of her design data - a complete set of schematics and parameters which will answer this once for all, as well as allow her to repair any broken part of herself. Finally a goal to follow yet again.
Emergency protocols call for ejection of the cores if the station falls within planetary atmosphere, which means they must still be somewhere near the impact site - and hopefully not deep in the ocean.
There was something about Shuigang that made it feel so different from other kingdoms - and it was not just the fact it followed different naming convention for once. Perhaps it was the still ever-present scars of Brevon's takeover three years ago, with ruins of his stronghold and flagship littering the mountains to the north, and with many people still traumatized to this day even as the city rebuilt from the damages. Or maybe it was the sheer contrast it had, compared to metropolies of southern kingdoms - by pure size comparison, Shuigang felt like a small mountain village compared to them. Most buildings here retained the old brick and stone style as well, common to times before the alien invasion. Being so far north, the capital city was deep into the polar circle - as such at this time of year, the day here has never ended, messing up with sleep cycle of everyone who is not used to such. On the opposite, winter would see the city become populated almost purely with bats and other nocturnal creatures, as the main panda population hibernated for the winter.
With only direct route to the city going trough Tiger Falls, the place was a natural fortress - both an advantage, and a disadvantage, as the recent years have proven. The only real way into the city, for anyone not inclined to walk or drive trough the winding road of the massive waterfalls was by air, be it on a plane, airship, or one's own set of wings. Kubo has quite often taken simple jobs of bringing supplies to the snowed-in city, although he avoided taking on passengers - his ship lacked a dedicated passenger deck, and he did not trust strangers hanging around his flying home. These orders slowly dried out however, as the roads for the ground vehicles got safer and easier over the years.
Shuigang repurposed it's old docks for the airship landing zone, requiring yet another water landing. If not for the engines and common lack of sails, one could mistake the landing site for a classic dockyard - in fact, it was not uncommon for a wooden ship be docked right next to a modern airship. Getting off his ship Kubo, now dressed in his warm winter get-up, passed by a group of small duck sailors all observing Babsi, the local artist, paint another one of their artworks upon the walls of the city. They have already decorated most of the buildings in the Old Docks, now finishing one of the last buildings around with a massive artwork of Cordelia, a long gone earth dragon princess whose fight for peace made her a legendary person in the region. That tale was never recounted, or mentioned, in Kubo's home region, which made him slightly doubt the whole 'brought peace to all the dragons on the planet' story many seem to fullheartedly believe in. At least the artist seemed into it, waving the brush away as the painting was getting closer to completion with each stroke.
Passing trough the under-bridge market, a familiar ferret caught up to him "Chloe is glad to see you again! Did her wares help you on your adventures? Chloe has more if you are interested!" Thanks, but I'm good on items for now, Kubo replied. "Chloe has one more thing to say! She appreciates you don't laugh at her manner of speech like the others. So! Chloe wishes you luck!" And with that she was off, running off to sell her trinkets to someone else. I don't think i will ever meet someone as unusual as her, Kubo thought to himself, heading off to the Shuigang Royal Palace.
Today's job was quite fancy, as the briefing was to be performed by the King of Shuigang himself, King Dail - which makes it much more stressful for Kubo, being always worried of messing up some unspoken rule of behavior in their court. At least with Zao, all he had to deal was a pile of bureaucracy, but with royalty like Magister and Dail it was a whole own set of rules and protocols on when to kneel, when to speak, and even just where to stand. Lucky for him, however, this time the job was being handed out to a whole group of adventurers; letting him hopefully simply copy what the rest of them do. Thankfully it was exactly what happened, with Kubo quickly mirroring the actions of the rest of the group. Once everyone got up from the kneel, Dail addressed them all from atop his throne.
"I have gathered you all here, because Shuigang needs an outside pair of eyes and ears for a scouting mission. Our steel and iron reserves have been recently stolen, and we require information on who is the perpetrator. My soldiers have reported activity in the northern wastes, in a place commonly referred as Robot Graveyard - you will all be given clearance to access the site, and deal with whoever is responsible for this. I will personally reward you all accordingly for the information brought, and will add an extra bonus for recovering any objects of note - this includes the thief, were you to capture him. You are all dismissed."
Not long after leaving the palace, Kubo noticed his phone ringing. "Kubo! I'm glad i finally got to you", a familiar voice spoke over the speaker. It was Millie, his second most common employer. "I have a job for you in Shuigang region, if you are interested. Simple search and retrieve task, just like the ones i had you do in Shard Desert and Taishan Mountains" Looking back to mentioned examples, Kubo chuckled as both of them were neither 'short' or 'simple'. After hearing it Millie quickly added "Okay maybe not that short and simple, but i believe you will do just fine. I promise you there will be no stone dragon guardian there this time." "Lucky for you, I'm already in Shuigang - unlucky that i already have a job here." "Oh i already know about that, no worries! What i have you find is actually in the same spot you want to search for King's metal reserves anyway. And! I just need few pieces of our target so you can hand the rest off to Dail - and i know for a fact it will all make it's way straight to Shang Tu's museum, once his court scientist decides he has no use for it."
So what am i looking for anyway, boss? Kubo asked, with his tone implying agreement to the job. "A crashed starship!" "Millie. Entire robot graveyard is a crashed starship." "I knoow, but there is another one. One that fell alongside the initial crash of the dreadnought. It should have separate markings, different build and materials, and likely be away from the main crash site. I have few locations for you to check, i will send them your way over text in a second. As usual i will compensate your time for this, and since it's very important to me this time, i will pay you double the usual rate. I would say 'don't get killed out there', but i know you won't. Good luck!" And she was gone. Seconds later, the promised text has arrived, describing likely locations of her target.
Millie was a person whose style of emotions took a while to get accustomed to. For Kubo, she felt like she both expressed them too much, and not enough, somehow at the same time. He attributed it to her trying to maintain professional persona, but he could not get rid of the feeling there was more to it than just her job. At least she almost always sounded excited about something and kept up the 'mom who believes in you' vibe which felt quite comforting to Kubo.
This time however, something was... off. Not about her exactly, but what she looked for. Millie was always attracted to ancient water dragon artifacts, but a crashed starship was not on her usual list of interests. "Perhaps water dragons had their own satellites and probes, that sounds like something she would be after", he thought to himself, "Makes sense she only wants that thing's hard drive".
Road north was covered by a thick layer of snow, with only a small part of it flattened by the tires of trucks carrying the recovered metals and goods of the alien starship - the white of snow would every so often give way to a darker color, be it of the natural brown rocks of the area, or charred pieces of the fallen metal superstructure. Even at this hour, multiple cranes in the distance worked their way trough the piles of scrap, moving it piece by piece for later processing to either be melted or packed. The once heart of Brevon's invasion, Battle Glacier, now stood in the middle of the shattered starship it once held - it's walls stood intimidating over the snowy hills, with scars of the battle years ago still clearly visible on it's surfaces. Unlike most regions of Avalice, this place was still filled with hostile remnants of Brevon's automated forces, with tons of loose turrets still defending their old fortress. Even out here on the fringe of the scrap field, Kubo still had encountered some of the broken down units - too damaged to follow him, they made only small attempts at fighting back.
Coordinates provided by Millie led up north, towards one of the nearby mountaintops, which allowed him to skirt around the outer edge of the scrapyard - going trough the center would be faster, but would risk entangling with more of Brevon's old forces, and include going trough area filled with dangerous automated industrial machinery, as getting trapped in an industrial grinder, or stuck to a crane, was not the way Kubo ever wanted to go out.
Deeper into the mountains the snow was becoming even thicker, to the point where walking trough it was starting to become quite an issue - and so was the cold, which started to become very noticeable even trough Kubo's winter clothes. "They might be good for 'snow or mountains', but clearly not for both at once", he complained to himself under his breath. And yet the snow seemed to soon subside, as a road leading further up the mountain showed up, one not shown on any maps. While a road is usually not a reason to worry, a road in a place where nobody walks and so close to remnants of the alien invasion, that does indeed become a reason to at least slightly worry. Luckily, the thing Kubo was looking for was supposed to be very nearby, so his plan became to get what Millie needed and leave as soon as possible. He did note the location of the road down, however, as it might be something the King is interested in.
After pushing trough snow for way too long, Kubo was finally at what seemed to be the destination. A wreckage made out of silvery metal littered the area, with the main hull of the crashed vessel still relatively intact, with several smaller parts scattered around the area. It matched perfectly what he was described in Millie's texts, and now he just had to...
"HALT IT, cat!", loud voice behind him spoke. "This place is under control of the great Lord Brevon! Leave now, or FACE DEATH." Turning around, Kubo spotted a green snake equipped with robotic arms and armor, currently waving his gun around in vaguely threatening motions.
"And who exactly are you, to wave such threats around?" Kubo asked. He had heard of an overzealous general following Brevon around three years ago, and the snake seemed to fit the description, but he has been told to have dissapeared along with his master at the dreadnoughts destruction.
"You don't know who I AM? I am THE GREAT GENERAL SERPENTINE, humble servant of magnificent Lord Brevon! And i shall be the one that welcomes him on his GRAND RETURN! Now, LEAVE"
"Sorry, but no. I have a job to do here, 'general'. How about you just let me go and i pretend i haven't seen you?", Kubo asked weighting his options. He could run. He was sure Millie would tell him his life was more valuable than a wreck. He was sure Dail would pay well for mere information on Serpentine's presence. And yet it felt wrong, like it would lead to much worse things than just failing a job.
"Lord Brevon needs all the metal here, including this wreck, and it's interstellar comms array. Last chance, PEST, run away." Kubo did not answer, but instead readied up his blade. He could not fail Millie's trust by running away. Nor he could silence the thoughts that called him a failure if he were to run.
"So be it, it's time for your ANNIHILATION", Serpentine yelled as he started blasting.
Serpentine's aim might have not been perfect, but the pure amount of bullets were enough to make reaching melee range difficult. It seemed however, that the snake's weapons and jetpack all shared the power source, limiting him to using only one of them at a time. It was the jetpack dash Kubo aimed to exploit, with hope that Serpentine missed the obvious fact about him - while most combatants would hold their weapon in their right hand, resulting in their parry moving from left to right, he was the opposite - being left handed his moves were mirrored. Dodging several of his attacks, he pretended to follow normal dodging pattern, until after another volley of bullets, the snake attempted to counter his parry... only to get slashed from the side he was completely unprepared to. In a stroke of luck, snake's armor seemed to be made out of exact same materials as the common robots across Avalice - material Kubo's blade excelled at cutting trough. "How, NO, that's CHEATING", Sepentine yelled as parts of his armor broke off.
Projectiles of Serpentine's gun once again filled the air, creating almost a maze of fiery plasma and melted snow. None of them were directly aimed at Kubo this time, with the snake's strategy aiming to instead pin him down for his main attack. As the plasma balls kept falling, Serpentine lowered his gun to prepare his pocket missile launcher, dropping his guard for just a moment while fumbling around with the device.
Noticing an opening in his defense, Kubo pounced in his direction making a wide slash with his blade just at the same time as the snake fired his rocket - the impact of the blade cut it in half, and before both of them could even think "Oh no." the explosion blasted them off in separate directions. While Serpentine got blasted onto a stone wall which then slammed him with layer of snow, Kubo flew right into a bunch of wooden crates, which splintered on impact sending wooden parts everywhere.
But at this very moment he also realized what contents the crates held - he was lying in a pile of energy crystals, which ordinarily would've been even worse with all their sharp edges, but none of this has happened. Nor was he in any extreme pain. The crystals around him all have been turned into red petals, a feature of the badge he carried with him all the way from the train station, one he has long forgotten about. Petals might not be able to fix having multiple broken bones or major internal damages, but it seemed like he managed to dodge these by sheer luck. As he got up, rumble in the snow brought up his attention with the armored snake having pulled himself out of it.
"This is not over yet!" Serpentine yelled while getting up, "All of this wreckage BELONGS TO LORD BREVON! I WILL DEFEND IT TILL <beep> I <beep> uhhhh. HOLD ON! Serpentine's beeping communicator quickly displayed a set of information, out of which Kubo could only glimpse pictures of a green drone, similar to Pangu held in the Shang Tu museum. "Guess what, PEST, it's your lucky day!" Serpentine went on as he slowly backed off. "Lord Brevon does not need this very piece of junk. I now got all i need to call him back to this world so he can DESTROY YOU ALL! But for now, enjoy lord Brevon's generous mercy!" In one quick dash, Serpentine was gone, leaving Kubo alone with the station's wreck.
"...Brevon is not even aware of this guy being still around, is he?", Kubo thought to himself as he got back to work on the crashed ship's hull.
Ship's hull held several maintenance hatches, which while all having labels, said labels were written in an alien language so they might have as well been just scribbles. That's why he got Millie on the phone, who tried her best to help him understand them - a task made quite hard by the weak phone signal in the area. After way too much time spent opening random hatches, and removing one golden disc that Millie noted as important, he finally got to one containing a flat terminal screen, equipped with a simple keyboard filled with even more alien letters.
"I hope you don't want me to try describing all the text here to you over the phone.." Kubo asked Millie, hoping she has some other answer.
"No need, if i recall what i read correctly the emergency terminal should support any language the station had decoded - including modern kingdom dialect. Just press the small flag button in top right until it becomes readable!"
"Fancy.", Kubo said as he clicked trough multiple just as alien languages before the console displayed a prompt in familiar language - even the keyboard itself got translated to local alphabet. Out of curiosity he tried few more common Unix commands like ls, cd and the like . Even dmesg worked, sadly printing kernel logs of just the terminal he was on.
"Should i be worried that an ancient space station runs the same commands as our unix systems, including the same commands? Or is it another translation feature of this thing?" he asked.
"That should be a feature. At least the command names should be matched to the most common digital system for the region"
Alright. So, what do we need from it? Do you want me to pull out it's storage drives or make a copy of what it's running or?
"This station held 12 data cores aboard before the crash, and should have ejected them before impact. They are our main target, all of the ship's data was stored on them."
"On it", he confirmed, and after several tries he managed to find the right commands to access the data core storage bay.
"It says here one failed to eject", Kubo noted when looking over the log, "nine have been ejected successfully, and two - 10 and 12 - are listed as 'not submitted', whatever that means."
Each 'ejected' status core was also listed alongside it's last detected coordinates - most of them pointing at the Three Kingdom area, with few exceptions much more to the south, which roughly matched location of Parusa and it's nearby floating island. After quickly noting these down, and sending a copy to Millie over text, a little more of keyboard typing got the nearby compartment open, with the remaining data core stored right in it. "And here we go boss, Data Core number 2! Rest seems to be gone off to who knows where." "Looking at the coordinates ", Millie replied," it would seem one of them is somewhere very close by. And your encounter with Serpentine might suggest he got his hand on one of them - but since he left this place in such a hurry, i don't think he really understood what it was. Wanna go infiltrate an alien fortress?"
"Not... really?" Kubo replied, to which she assured him "I will make it worth your while, i promise." "Fiiine" Kubo whined, knowing she will not stop asking otherwise. Millie can be very persuasive when she needs something done.
Entrance to the alien facility was just up the road Kubo saw before fighting Serpentine. After weaving between the rocks, it lead all the way to a massive door in the mountain. As he approached, he noticed signs of a recent fight all around the area - even the door to the facility was already opened by force. Sneaking inside, the destruction continued, making his job way easier. The whole complex looked like a massive factory built to reconstruct Brevon's old soldiers, with rows of incomplete armors hanging off the transport belts - it seems however, whoever got here before him already dealt with the factory as all the belts, gears, and constructors stood motionless, creating the eerie silence broken only by the echo of his footsteps. "At least lights are still on", Kubo thought to himself as he sneaked trough the empty halls, just in case someone was still defending the place. Thankfully, he did not have to search for long - path of destroyed robots lead straight to one of the storage rooms, which contained the core he was looking for, discarded alongside bunch of other data cards - with some holding markings of Brevon's tech, but just as many belonging to Shang Mu and Shang Tu. It seemed Millie was right - Serpentine confused the data drive for just a simple key-card, and simply threw it into the box with the rest of them.
Once having confirmed the core did not look damaged or tampered with, Kubo went straight back, not wanting to spend any more time in the area - even offline, the factory held a very intimidating aura, making one feel like the danger was lurking just behind a corner. The empty shells of the soldiers felt like they could come to life at any time, and the defense turrets planted on the walls felt just as scary were they to activate. Only when he got outside, he felt really safe enough to rest - way back to Shuigang was long, but at least free of any real danger.
"Thank you for your report, Kubo" spoke the King of Shuigang, "Information you gathered matches what our special team has dealt with - they were sent after you departed, after we heard word of Brevon's forces being active in the area. From what they reported, the threat was largely dealt with. I am a man of my word however, and you will be paid agreed upon sum to your account.
As for that other ship you located, someone will be sent there to investigate it soon - you are right that we should secure it, to both keep it out of that snake's hands, and make sure it holds no danger for us. My chief scientist, Doctor Dean, has expressed interest in the technology it holds as well. And for last, please accept the apology for the unawareness of Brevon's forces being active yet again. I would have not sent just your group over if the risks involved were known". With that, after a slightly awkward kneel, Kubo departed the Palace. Just as he was heading for the market to buy some supplies for his kitchen, a whoosh of wind behind him announced a landing of a familiar bat.
"Kubo! Fancy seeing you there." In addition to her usual attire, she sported a pair of sunglasses, a common accessory for bats during daytime - especially in areas filled with so much bright snow. "I'm just about done with tonight's report on Serpentine's return! It's going to be a sure hit, I'm telling you - i even secured an interview with one of the girls who have beaten him up! You will not believe who it was - it was that water dragon who escaped Shang Tu's prison once! She had her friends along too! ...and that police woman who threw them into jail as well. No sign of that one shellduck however - something to investigate later."
"You know", Kubo replied," i kinda also fought that Serpentine guy. Probably much less epic fight than theirs, but still."
"And they refused to answer if Brevon was back too!", Maria kept on, " And... wait what. So maybe you know this, is he back? Pleeeasee? You know i won't put it straight into the news tonight - i will do it tomorrow!". As she said it, she pulled the most perfect 'puppy eyes' a bat can do.
"Nope, the snake was yelling maniacally about calling him here, so i think the man himself is minding his business in another part of the galaxy. And by the time i got to Serp's place, it was severely wrecked already."
"Sigh.. News like that would have been a report of the decade. Oh well, I'm sure 'The return of General Serpentine' will get quite a lot of views anyways."
"Say, do you have any more plans for today? We could get something to eat at the market." Kubo asked. While he was planning to just cook something by himself, perhaps he could convince his bat friend to tag along for dinner in the city instead.
"Sadly, i do. The report will not bring itself to the station, and they want all of it over there tonight. Trust me, i would have much more preferred to not have to fly all the way back there myself, but we both know how this company works...", she replied, looking sadly down as she did. It was quite clear she would love a break from work as well, as dealing with her employers was the only part of the job she truly disliked, but could not afford to do it with the report's tight deadline. "But!", she added, "if we get some occasion later on, don't be afraid to ask! Did you really think all these times you stopped yourself from asking passed by my sharp reporter senses? You are much more obvious than you think, hehe~ See you!" And with one last smile, she took her leave, flying off south.
Kubo watched her fly off with quite mixed feelings. He was mentally prepared for the fact she would have no time to hang out - what he was not prepared was that she saw trough him liking her for who knows how long, and seemingly... liked him back? Despite of him failing to ask her out all these times? Despite him feeling like a disappointment half the time?. Even the Shuigang job felt like completed just by sheer luck...
It was years since he last heard from his family, yet their constant bickering on how they believed he would never succeed kept bothering him even now. They had grand plans for him since he was a child, and he failed every single one of them - they wanted him to be a biologist like his grandfather, and not follow such 'childish ideas' as owning an airship. When he was leaving his home for good, all they left him with were empty threats and tales on how he will 'never find love, as nobody loves such failure' and how 'he will come back begging for mercy'. Most of the time he could keep thoughts about it away, but on others.. it felt like a prophecy fuwfilling itself.
"Guess I'm eating the dinner by myself then...", he thought to himself recollecting his thoughts, as he resumed on his path to the market. Some fresh ingredients will make the dinner taste better at least. Chloe already packed up her stall leaving to who knows where, and so did some of the small mice merchants - few remaining shops had slightly depleted inventories so late in the 'day', but still enough to cook something nice out of.
The night might not come to Shuigang at this time of the year, but it did at least get darker around nighttime - and so Kubo planned to get some sleep before departing back south yet again. Millie has texted him some time ago about having to visit Shang Tu's Museum - due to what her own boss described as "great calamity" - so, having no other plans nor jobs in Shuigang Kubo decided to head there tomorrow, hopefully to meet her in person to deliver his findings from the crash site.
It was when Shang Tu came into sight, he quickly realized that something was clearly wrong. City's whole air fleet was already entangled in a fight with another group of airships - and it seemed the city's defenses were on the loosing side! Moment's after entering visual range, he picked up a signal broadcasted over Shang Tu's emergency frequencies.
"This is General Gong of Shang Tu to allied airship - our city is currently under attack! So help us, would ya? We've got our best people to board and disable the flagship, but they need time. Time we ain't got. We need all the help you can provide, even a single enemy ship down will be this less missiles hitting the city and our squad!"
Not like Kubo could really do anything else than help them - he couldn't exactly land in a middle of bombardment, nor leave to Shang Mu with pirate ships on his tail. "Alright, i will join you all" he replied, "but what exactly do you want me to do - all i have is few laser turrets and deflection shields". "Distract them, make them waste their shots chasing your tail, ya can figure it out. And don't worry about any holes in your ship, ill make sure it all gets patched up afterwards for you." "So, be an annoyance to them. Got it.". Kubo's ship might not have looked like it, but it was capable of quite sharp turns using it's sails as aerobrakes - turns sharp enough to at least for a moment loose tracking of most targeting arrays, and to appear out of nowhere ahead of unsuspecting ships.
The fight primarily involved the large destroyer-class airships, with Kubo's small (in comparison) ship weaving in-between their hulls and projectiles. At least it seems Shang Tu's forces added him as ally to their targeting parameters, so he did not have to fear any of their ships shooting him down.. intentionally at least. Between city's AA defenses, battleships of both factions, and missiles everywhere, there was only so much space to maneuver. As such, Kubo chose to pick on the smaller ships serving as defense for their gunships - with them gone, hopefully the larger ships will have easier time taking down the pirates.
The strategy has proven efficient enough, with weak hull of the small vessels being easily pierced by lasers of his ship. It didn't take too long for few of the bigger gunships to loose their defenses, and getting blasted out of the sky - remaining ships however accomodated accordingly, bringing their own gunships close into range of their own defenses. At the same rate, Shang Tu's own numbers were dwindling fast, with only few ships remaining in the air with even them being too damaged to survive much longer.
It also seemed he has attracted attention of the bigger fish, as the pirate flagship Sigwada just finished it's attack on one of the destroyers, and now has proceeded to intervene in the matter directly. It was unlike the other ships of the pirate fleet, being leagues larger than any of Shang Tu's - and the pirate's - ships, with it's orca-like design showing across it's hull, and with tales of it's path of destruction retold in every group of airship captains. The menacing presence of this vessel was enough to often make it's targets surrender before it even had to fire - and in combat it would match this threat with insane amount of weaponry, and not-so-legally obtained front laser cannon scavenged from Brevon's Dreadnaught's reactor.
"I really hope that special forces team is already in there, because i don't think i can take Sigwada in 1v1 combat!" Kubo asked over the radio trying to choose his approach - both sides of the flagship were peppered with guns, but it's front had a weapon of mass destruction ready to fire straight at him. "We got them inside that ship - they need just few more minutes!" "Frontal assault it is" Kubo decided after remembering that one of the gunships just got blasted with Sigwada's laser barrage - hopefully it needs some time to recharge before firing again. And it seemed he was right - Sigwada opened fire, yes, but only with it's more classical weaponry, limited by the angle of his approach.
Whoever was commanding Sigwada at the moment clearly had more pressing matters on their mind - most of the manually fired weapons ceased quickly after they started, as only automated turrets kept shooting his way, with their fire bouncing of his ship's depleted shields. And even that stopped soon after, as the massive flagship started to turn around and retreat - with the fact soon confirmed on the radio, stating that the special forces team has successfully boarded the ship and beaten it's captain. "Guess that's all dealt with" Kubo thought, as he headed in for the landing.
The dockyards were in absolute ruins, with parts of both Shang Tu's and pirate ships scattered around. What ship did not take off in time was completely destroyed where it stood - and seeing how few other ships made it back one would wonder if Shang Tu had any air defenses left after this attack. Assessing damages as he landed, Kubo seemed to have pulled out his ship trough in quite good state - only losses were one of the sails, fried shield generator, scratched hull, and whatever items of furniture got broken with the impacts.
"Hey dude, good job out there." General Gong, leader of the Shang Tu's army, welcomed him as he left his ship. "You helped us out a ton - who knows how we would have fared without extra firepower. Come over to the Palace later, ill have some reward prepped for you!" Gong quickly departed afterwards, likely to report to his own bosses about the pyrrhic victory of theirs. Kubo on the other hand, had business at the nearby Avian Museum where he planned to meet up with Millie and her own boss - the promised reward at the palace could wait few hours.
At the museum, things were not going that well - being one of the primary targets of the pirate attack, the place suffered major damage to the displeasure of it's owner. "These kids BLEW UP MY MUSEUM! And even worse, their robots are STILL IN THERE! DESTROYING THINGS!", Bo, museum's owner and custodian kept yelling. Kubo and Millie waited as the old man raged around, both knowing that interrupting him at this moment would have very explosive consequences.
"Well this is.. awkward" Millie said to Kubo, still looking at her boss throwing insults, "we meet in person for the first time in ages, and you have to spend this time looking at my employer throwing a temper tantrum."
It was indeed quite a while since Kubo saw her last, with the previous occasion being before her departure to Parusa over a year ago. She was the adventurer kind of archaeologist, ready to fight trough danger to get to the relics she seeked - despite so, she would always bring them back to the museum never even thinking of selling them for profit. With how many sleepless nights she spent both in the dig sites, and cataloging the findings, one would wonder if she ever needed sleep - Kubo suggested her to take rest many times, but she kept overworking herself regardless. She was also quite athletic - in looks and strength. Despite her relatively small build compared to some boars and bears she could easily overpower any of them, and while she never aimed to look like a bodybuilder, you could clearly see defined muscle under her fur. She always said that her training focused on real strength, and not the 'overgrown muscles for show'.
"I think you got the gist of it, right? The 'calamity' i was called over to help deal with was the robots ransacking our museum, and while local group of heroes dealt with their leader, the remaining force is still in 'destroy everything' mode. Wanna go in together for clean-up duty? We need to clear my office and few storage areas which that merry band of heroes missed." Kubo nodded in agreement. It was nice to spend time with her again, even if at work - and it put them away from becoming new targets of the custodian's anger.
Storage rooms came first - an unending maze of crates, threatening to fall down at any moment. The robot's damage was quite contained, as the sturdy crates took long to break trough - and any impact on them echoed trough the warehouse, making the drones easy to find - and just as easy to deal with. Between Kubo and Millie, the duo quickly cleaned up the area. As Millie was working on assessing the damage, he kept watch on any other threats.
Millie wielded weapons in similar design to Kubo's - a twin pair of energy blades, emitted from the base mounted into her outfit's wrist-cuffs. Perfect for cutting trough vines and other vegetation, they were just as strong against robots which stood in their way. For robots attached to the ceilings, she also carried a portable plasma blaster of relatively old design - yet just few shots of it were enough to dislodge any robot, either to break on impact or get finished off by her blades.
Finally only the office area remained - it's long corridors made it harder to get trough, with almost every side room and office having a robot or two in them, happily cutting up furniture and documents. "There it is, my office!" she pointed at one of the wrecked rooms, "Oh, I'm so glad i moved most my research to Parusa. Otherwise this would've been quite disastrous." There was indeed not too much left to salvage, but thankfully anything important was moved out beforehand. What was left were torn remains of documents, trashed electronics, and crushed pottery. "At least this survived...", she said as she picked up a framed picture. As Kubo looked over her shoulder to see, he noticed the picture was of them 2 years ago, on one of their first jobs together. "You have a framed picture of.. us together?" he asked. "I keep a lot of pictures with people i care about, Kubo. Most got wrecked today, only yours survived. If you believed in any 'supernatural signs', this is as close as you can get to one i guess." She then pulled the picture out of the broken frame, and put it in her pocket. "I will get a new frame for it later. For now, it seems we are done! There are no more offices beyond this point, and there are no more signs of robot activity. Now we have to go see if my boss stopped screaming already, and that should be all for today."
Her boss has in fact, not stopped yelling. At least it seemed like all his anger was focused purely on the unfortunate kids he blamed for this disaster - were they truly involved or not did not matter to him. The task of cataloging the full extent of the damages, arranging repairs to the building, and gathering donations was going to take weeks if not months - a task Millie and other museum workers were not thrilled with, but which had to be done. For now however, everyone was planning to head home for the night, with the sun already setting over the horizon. Millie herself decided to keep the night watch over the place, despite Kubo's suggestion that she really should get some sleep. "I was right about Dail, by the way" she mentioned during their conversation, "our museum just got a message he wants to hand that space station you found over. His chief scientist found nothing of extreme interest in it, and according to him 'we will take better care of analyzing it' - but i think Dail just really hates alien technology. We will have it on display here in a week or so - ill make sure to put your name in as the finder."
And with that, it was time to finally head to the Palace to finish up that thread - before leaving Millie gave Kubo a detailed map of remaining Data Core locations, alongside with promise of payment for each one, a secondary goal to deal with later perhaps.
"And as agreed, city of Shang Tu will cover all the repair costs for the damage your ship took during the fight - you will have to wait till our shipyards are back to working state however."
Kubo never had an occasion to visit the inside of Shang Tu Royal Palace before - the place is always closed off to most people, especially now after the attack on the city. Even on this visit, he was escorted in by a guard, right to the command center where General Gong was debriefing him right now.
"As for proper payment, we will transfer it to your account. You work with that museum wolf lady right?" "I heard she is interested in one of these", he said pulling out a Data Core," give it over to her with my regards."
Kubo picked up the item from his hand. These tiny cores were quite something he thought to himself, a drive so... "Ya know, you have the same look of amazement in your eyes like the hero ladies working with me do when they get some important trinket. Why do y'all keep doing it?!" Gong interrupted his thought.
"Sorry", Kubo replied quickly putting the core in his pocket. "These things are just quite interesting."
"Before ya go", Gong added as Kubo was about to leave, "you seem to be a skilled enough fighter, would you be interested in coming to our local dojo sometime? We got three heroic girls (and Lady Neera) looking for someone new to spar with. I even prepared some training courses just recently, so i can throw in some crystals if you partake in these. Whaddya say?"
"So what your saying is you want me to be beaten up by kids, and then by someone who insists on checking my ship's cargo hold every single time i come to this city? I don't think i want that on today's agenda."
"Aww man, that sounds much less fun when you put it that way!", Gong stated in more tired voice, "But i get it - you have places to go and be at. I just have a bad feeling they will need all the training they can get, and to say it bluntly, you are the only left-handed fighter we have on hand and most combat training skims on fighting opponents like that. So, show up anytime and i'll appreciate it."
With that, one of the guards gave Kubo a nod it was time for him to leave. On the way trough the courtyard, Kubo considered if to maybe take up Gong's offer of dojo training... but then again, it would most likely include him getting beaten up, and not the other way around - after all if Gong fought an alien invasion back by himself, one shudders to imagine how strong his students are. Then again. He had nothing better to do for the next few hours.
Shang Tu's dojo was based on the old designs made for the dojo in Shang Mu - with the one in there becoming the Academy, this location maintained the old straight to the point style. "Hey, ya decided to show up!", Gong welcomed him, " Come on in, we gotta get you set up!".
First sparring opponent was the purple water dragon, Lilac. Genuinely unbeatable when she used her dragon boost or blink-dash - Kubo might have good reaction time, but the dragon was faster than a bullet leaving him no time to properly react. At the second round, she witheld from using these skills, to give him more fair chance ('or out of pity..' Kubo thought) which allowed the match to last longer than a minute. Her hair swipes and spins all attacked from one direction, perfect for disarming someone.. if they held their weapon in right hand. "Guess that's what Gong meant by them not being trained for that" Kubo thought, as the match ended - the advantage allowed him to barely win the second match - but at the third, Lilac corrected her strategy accordingly.
Second fighter was a green wildcat, Carol. For some reason she was allowed to bring a motorbike into the dojo - quite non-standard combat strategy, but sadly Kubo was not allowed to call in his airship as well. Kubo managed to knock her out of her bike on both occasions, but she managed to in turn knock him out - she didn't need the bike to be a formidable opponent. Unlike Kubo, she depended on her claws more than any weapon - they both might have been good at pounces and jumps, but only one of them had to hold an object in their hand. Something to work on later perhaps, he thought to himself when the last round ended.
Milla the Hound was third. Where did she get these cubes, Kubo did not know. But she managed to send more projectiles his way than a ship-mounted mini-gun, and reflect all his attacks at the same time. There were no real openings to strike, outside of hoping that her shield would not cover all the angles - and unlike Lilac, she switched to covering the right side right away. Only chances to strike Kubo got, was when she depleted her supply of cubes - only then she was somewhat vulnerable.
Last but not least, was Neera Li - commander of the royal guard, and wielder of the ice magi-tech. Her strategy centered about freezing her opponents, and then hitting hard. She was not as fast as the previous opponents, but she made up for it in skill and power - years of chasing criminals and honing her skills have not been wasted. As much as Kubo would love to have some chance against her, with all the frustration she caused him over the years by being very insistent on checking his cargo every single time he came to Shang Tu, this was not happening today.
"You should've just sent these girls after Brevon, honestly. They seem stronger than like half our army combined." Kubo jokingly commented to Gong after the matches ended. Gong almost spit his water in reaction. "Uh.. yea, we should have totally done that!". In much quieter voice he followed: "Listen, i keep saying it to people but nobody wants to believe me. It was not me. I didn't stop the guy! - It was these girls. Just don't go telling that to everyone - if they didn't believe me, they will just think you are nuts. Your newsbat girlfriend was the only one who believed me!" "Girlfriend? I don't.." Kubo was at the moment shocked more about this part than the other. "Even i can see how you two look at each-other - maybe go ask her out would'ya." After a moment of awkward silence, Gong continued, "...Anyways, here are the cores and gems i promised. Lilac says she never fought someone like you, and it's quite a compliment. Even lady Neera says you did well - and that's even rarer, half the royal guard has never heard her say they did anything 'well'."
And so, he was indeed beaten up by a bunch of kids (and a royal guard) just like he expected. But.. knowing that he held his ground even for a while against heroes who stopped an entire alien invasion made it feel not as bad. It was time to go home, however. With the new highway still under construction, his ship was still the fastest (and most comfortable) way to get there, despite the loosing one of it's sails. As much as Kubo liked the train, it was only his second most favorite means of travel. Flight, be it by plane, airship, or wings he wished he had, was always the best way to travel.
Shang Mu's bright lights lit up the night around Kubo's ship. The city of neons and lanterns never truly slept, between bats enjoying the night, workers hurrying to clean up the city before the sunrise, and many cultural hotspots open only at night. Up to recently, it was only one of the Kingdoms you could see over the horizon at night, with it's lights looking like the sun which was about to rise into the skies. Even modern day Shang Tu, with all it's skyscrapers dimmed in comparison.
It was Kubo's first destination when he came to the three kingdom area for the first time. Stories of a the grand metropolis to the west were quite popular in his childhood home, a dream escape for many from the gray existence of the small eastern country he was born in. But for most it was just a wishful dream - learning the language, and arranging means to cross the continent was out of reach for less fortunate person. He considered himself quite lucky in that regard, as his education in computer science included learning the most common language used in the field, the unified variant of the Three Kingdom dialect. While he still was sometimes anxious his accent sounds off to some, it got much better over the last years.
Unlike Shang Tu, Shang Mu's landing site was akin to a car parking lot more than anything else. While feeling much less cozy, landing there costed just as much for non-citizens, which thankfully did not include Kubo, who owned a small flat deeper in the city. Conveniently, a tram station connected the landing site to the city-wide tram network, so he did not have to do much more running today. Passing trough the shadow of massive Anti-Air towers - the answer to events three years ago - he made his way to the tram stop. Shang Mu still used more classic red carts for it's trams, one of the few unchanged things about the city in the past years. Buildings got taller, lights got brighter, and the skyline now featured Mayor Zao's massive statue and the new attraction for the city - the Battlesphere, a massive arena built for all kinds of sports, commonly holding tournaments for testing one's skills in combat.
According to the maps recovered in the crashed starship, this was where one of the data cores was held as well, very likely the reward for whoever clears one of the weekly cups. The weekly event of Battlesphere's Monday Mayhem brought in crowds from across all the kingdoms, and even more viewers on TV, and being personally sponsored by Mayor Zao it was advertised everywhere one looked.
And it was the Battlesphere which was his tomorrow's goal. TKN needed someone to help their reporter on the scene to secure an interview, and while usually Kubo would pass on such offer, it was both close to his home - just few minutes of walk away - and close to his.., heart, as reporter in question was none other than Maria.
Battlesphere's lobby took up a lot of what used to be Zao Mart, a central shopping mall within the Fortune Night district. While most of the shops remained open, center of the mall was remodeled with a large cylindrical elevator - the main access route to Battlesphere - surrounded by a spiral staircase, taken only by the bravest of souls as one would need to climb over 50 floors to reach the arena level. The ground floor around the elevator was one of the busier places within the mall with several restaurants, merchandise and badge shops, and teeming with people - both shoppers, and arena visitors and fighters. Big shots of the major league got to hang out in private VIP room few floors up, but members of any lower leagues had to book their own stay, or loiter around the mall for the duration of the event, due to which several other to-be-fighters were hanging around already. At least none of them looked god-tier strong, Kubo noted. There was no real sign-up process for the event, outside of showing up and signing waivers on not suing Zao for any broken bones - likely non-defensible in any normal court, but Mayor Zao owned Shang Mu's courts. As for Kubo, he already had signed all needed documents long ago - he made one attempt at the arena several years ago, not getting too far into it before loosing at 4-man battle.
The morning sun has not yet risen high enough to lit up the sky, with stars still twinkling trough the glass roof of the mall. Kubo was really not a morning person, and so his short sleep at home did not help much with how sleepy he was. He hoped to wake up fully before event starts, as otherwise the whole thing might end before it properly begins - and falling asleep on camera would probably leave him ashamed for months.
"Good Morning Kubo!" Maria said, as he arrived at the meetup point, "Did you get any sleep? Because you look like you didn't." "I will be fiiiine" Kubo replied, "I just need some morning tea, and a cold shower." "Alright! You might be wondering what the station needs you to complete the tournament for - truth is.." Maria lowered her voice "Captain Kalaw refuses any interviews, and we don't know why. Higher ups think he just tries to act elusive, but to me it seems more suspicious - and trust me, i have nose and ears for detective work like that! So, we need you to get in there, win, get an audience with Kalaw, and convince him to get back to us for an interview. I will then take care of getting some answers out of him~"
Kubo was always amazed how much she was into running investigations - it was her favorite kind of report - looking for clues, linking facts, interviewing witnesses and suspects. She would've been a great detective, were she to pick such line of work - but working for TV seems to at least keep her out of harm's way, most of the time at least.
"Got it!", he answered. "Say, after that's dealt with, would you be up for dinner at Silver Lotus?" he asked right afterwards anxiously. "Sure!" Maria replied. This was not the answer Kubo expected, assuming instead she will once again reply about being busy, or having somewhere to go - so he had to ask, just to be sure. "..Really?"
"Yea, i have no real plans for the rest of the day so we might hang out together! If we get Kalaw in for an interview, it will be likely scheduled for next week at best anyway. Now, do your best out there, i will be waiting!" She waved him goodbye with her big bat wing as he left for the arena.
Monday Mayhem was a set of multiple events performed back to back. While three of them were solo events, one of them was a team match - four fighters against several wave's of Battlesphere's own battlebots. Kubo was not thrilled about having to join a group of strangers, but at least the team choice was random - and it came after the initial challenge, and as such he could worry about it a bit later.
He has already gone trough the locker room, leaving things he did not want to accidentally loose in the dirt in a secure storage - as well as his usual white hoodie, which would absolutely get dirty in the arena. The elevator ride to the first challenge was quite long and boring, but he had no time do ponder things - he rode with a sizable group of other challengers of many shapes and sizes. With leagues sorted by age and skill the other challengers were all around his age, many of them looking thankfully in worse shape than he did. Only four of them will be allowed to the next stage, where they will have to play as a team.
First round was quite simple - getting out from the elevator, a massive hazard course stood before him. There was no timer, or anybody to race against - this qualifier round was just about getting past all the obstacles, without getting knocked off the course. The footsteps in the dirt marked tracks of combatants who came before him - likely only few of them reached the course's end, as unlike the major league most players here were not so skilled fighters. As every player, he got his run announced by the arena's announcer "Our next contestant is.. this tuxedo cat! Give them a cheer!"
"Dude must be running out of ways to sound excited about people" Kubo thought to himself running trough the course. Being a purpose-built arena, it contained many ways to avoid the dangers of the main path - from alternate routes, to fire shield crystals hidden behind corners and crates. It was the fire crystals which he based his strategy about - half the obstacles on the course were fire-based, and could be simply walked trough with the help of a fire elemental sprite. What remained was a fairly straightforward platforming challenge, as long as one minded the moving platforms - and based on how many failed the run at them it was something that many did not pay attention to. Regardless, he was far from the only one who made it trough, as at the end of the course a small group has already formed waiting for team assignments.
Kubo's team for the second challenge consisted of an earth dragon lady, a 'black and blacker' fur fox, and purple furred bear. None of them were very talkative, and as such the group stood there in awkward silence as elevator sent them up to the next arena. Next challenge was a team effort - between all 4 of them, they had to take on multiple waves of battlebots. Thankfully these bots were even dumber than most robots met outside, with almost no ability to avoid incoming attacks - what they were good at was spectacularily exploding when beaten, callling cheers from the watching crowd. With one of the fighters, a fox woman, used ranged weapon as her main attack even the flying robots were no match for the team. Kubo's precise blade cuts were perfect around the jumping pole drones, with just a single cut putting them to the ground. Remaining two fighters dealt with remaining types of enemies, taking on the wheeled chainsaw machines. With this, the round went perfectly.
It seemed several other teams have failed to keep up, but with as long as one fighter stood, the entire team could progress. It was the third challenge was what would thin the numbers of the contestants the most - the previous teams had to now fight between their own members, with only one out of four being victorious. Battlesphere was not a bloodsport, despite of what it sometimes seemed - all fighters were handed weapons which could not truly harm their opponent, at worse giving them heavy bruises. The way to 'eliminate' someone was to simply hit them enough times, or strong enough to put them lying on the ground for over 10 seconds. What short time he spent fighting alongside his 'team' gave Kubo a basic idea of what to expect - earth dragon lady preferred speed and style over direct damage, aiming to outplay her opponents - the fox depended on range, having much better luck when outside of melee range - and the bear followed the most tried and trusted 'punch very hard' strategy. As the gong rang to announce the start of the match, all of them jumped back planning their initial attack.
"Does nobody teach people how to fight left-handed fighters?" he thought to himself as one of his opponents lunged towards him - a perfectly executed move... if not for being all open from the wrong side. One swipe later, the earth dragon girl got sent flying into the two remaining fighters, currently distracted with each-other - but the moment they saw the opportunity teaming up to beat the downed dragon down.
The remaining fox and bear were more cautious - trying to avoid a direct three man melee, the fox tried to extend the distance between herself and the rest. She did not, however, anticipate getting grabbed mid jump by the bear, who then swung her like a mace, knocking Kubo off his legs. He quickly recovered, just in time to avoid another swing - this one throwing the fox up into the air, with them managing to hit the landing. Kubo knew he had no chance to overpower the bear, or really parry his attacks, so in the moment what felt as the best option was to bait his opponents into each-other. This has not worked out too well, as both he and the girl were much faster than the massive bear, and forced him to instead just try to close his distance from her. The closer he was the more precise her shots were, but he also had better angles to dodge them - if only he could disarm her the whole fight would become much easier. And with that thought, he decided to risk one-chance trick - throwing his blade right at her arm, resulting in both weapons scattering on the ground. Both of them then jumped towards them, trying to ensure their opponent cannot reclaim their own weapon.
During the distraction caused by their loss of weaponry, the bear they both have forgotten about dashed with his full weight trying to grab them both, getting the fox and knocking Kubo onto the ground as he barely avoided being caught as well. "I can't loose like that, that would be so dumb" he thought to himself, while getting up. The blade he was given was nowhere to be found, but what was there was the fox girl's gun. Kubo never had real training with ranged weapons, but he knew enough to make the shot he had count - and his target was huge.
Just as the bear was about to drop the her into the pit, a strong blast of energy hit him in the back, knocking him off-balance. Another one sent him falling down into the safety nets below, still clutching his opponent. "Incredible sight, folks! We've got ourselves a double KO! And a victor of the challenge!" Announcer's voice echoed over the arena. And with that, Kubo was victorious. Somehow. He himself was not too sure how that happened, but he hoped to not mess this chance up at the last hurdle - the so called 'Kalaw's Challenge'. The final elevator was waiting, leading to final arena shrouded in dramatic darkness.
"Ladies, and Gentlemen!" The announcer spoke as the lights turned on. "The Red Wing of Justice..." "The Grand Champion of the Battlesphere..." "The one, the only, Captain Kalaw!" Crowds cheered on as the local hero made his way stylishly upon the arena.
"Congratulations on getting this far, cat!" Kalaw announced while striking his signature pose, "but the real challenge has just arrived! Will you accept it, or will you shy away from it like many before you?"
Kubo, after gathering enough social courage to speak in front of a crowd, decided to counter him in same manner. "But Captain, it is you who shies away from but a simple interview! My employer has been seeking you for weeks, and i am led to believe you are not one to run like this!"
Kalaw, clearly amused responded "Very well, i will entertain your offer. BUT FIRST!" A massive spin wheel rolled up in the background, with several Battlesphere challenges listed on it. "One last task for you, cat!" Kalaw spun the wheel, which after time which felt way too long for what it was, landed on 'Home Run' option. "This calls for... a Home Run Challenge!"
'Oh dear', Kubo thought to himself. This challenge was one of the more annoying ones, but at least it was not a race. He did not have to outpace the rocket propelled bird, he just had to be more precise than him. The rules are simple - three shots of a comically oversized baseball in direction of the spinning targets, final score being sum of all three shots. Also... the contestant had to sit on the launched ball, for purely amusement reasons Kubo guessed - still, a proper jump at the top of the final bounce could net you extra points if you could hit extra targets with something like your weapon. Aiming the ball itself was the main part of the challenge, followed by steering it mid-air - something one has to get used to, with many spending their first shot just to feel out the trajectory. Kubo followed similar strategy, mostly guessing the first shot and getting a decent enough score out of it, despite almost falling off the ball the moment it launched.
As for Kalaw, he did not use a ball - instead he would launch himself onto the targets, which while spectacular and stylish did not get him that many targets. "I guess he doesn't put too much of a fight in lower leagues" Kubo thought as he outscored the captain by the second round. It did make sense after all - the battlesphere was a show more than a real competition at it's lower tiers - it was the major league who got the real fights and challenges, and such Kalaw here would play his part as an actor and not a fighter, with his 'challenge' being another part of the performance. Regardless, the challenges were not a cakewalk, as Kalaw while not aiming to win, would still make sure the final score was at least challenging to beat.
Thankfully, the third shot is always the easiest one. Already knowing where to aim, and when to jump off, Kubo easily scored enough to ensure arena's champion will not beat the score. "Incredible, the great Kalaw was... beaten!" Kalaw dramatically yelled while dropping onto the ground. "How could that be!"" Soo, you will do the interview now? Kubo asked the still overly dramatic bird. "Yeah, yeah, i will tell my agent to set up a time window for that. Now let me suffer in my defeat and go get your reward!"
"And the reward for the victory today", announcer announced, "will be handed out by our very own Mayor Zao!" A small box full rose up from the ground, only to open up, being full of balloons and a certain red panda mayor with his over-sized hat. "Thank you everyone! Thank you! Time to reveal our grand prize for the Monday Mayhem lower league! And it's this..." Zao said pulling out a Data Core from his pocket, "this immensely valuable piece of tra... history from my private collection! Here you go, brave warrior!", he said while handing Kubo the artifact, "No refunds!"
And with that, the event was over. One elevator ride later Kubo was back in the locker rooms, taking a shower to clean up all the mud from the arena - his clothes likely needed a wash too, but that had to wait. Showers in the arena were surprisingly comfortable for a place used by so many folk every day. Floors were clean, water warm, and the fur shampoo was not as cheap as one would expect. He would've loved to stay in the shower for hours, despite what many said about felines and their dislike of water, as the warm shower was quite comfortable and gave him time for thought. The whole tournament was tiring not only physically, but mentally as well - Kubo was really not a fan of performing in front of so many people at once, made worse by having to play role of a bold and brave mercenary. I will be here forever if i don't stop overthinking it all soon, he thought to himself, having still to dry himself before anyone sees him. Thankfully the shower cabin was equipped with full body fast dryer, which quickly dealt with all the wetness gluing his fur together.
After putting his underwear back on, Kubo had a moment to look at himself in a full length mirror, something he did not have an occasion to do that often. He fit right into the 'averagely attractive' kind of look, with his relatively slim build and light muscles. He might not have a muscular build, but he never aimed for one - while his friend Millie carried such style quite well, Kubo was content with being of a lighter (but still strong enough when it mattered) build. In fact, he noticed, he looked much better than years ago, before his leave to the Kingdoms area. Not being depressed really helps, doesn't it? He thought to himself before putting on rest of the clothes. His fur covered a lot of his build, which was a common thing for most cats, with the volumes of fluffy fur hiding any lighter musculature one would have. What the fur didn't hide, his clothes would, resulting in the unassuming appearance he always liked.
Back on the ground floor of the mall, he met up with Maria just where he left her before the event. "There you are!" she greeted him cheerfully. "I was wondering what took you so long. I already got the news from Kalaw's agent about the interview you secured - great job by the way, you really did amazing out there!" "Wait, were you watching the whole thing?" Kubo asked. "Yea! I didn't even need to buy the ticket, my news pass lets me enter anytime for free! I think that's the first time i saw you without your hoodie on. Not that it's a bad thing or anything! And good news, 'champion of the arena', with interview secured i now have the rest of the day free from work! Don't think i forgot about that question of yours too~"
"Oh! Should we go there now? Or we could go to the arcade upstairs, or even somewhere else in the city if you--" Kubo's excitement was interrupted by a distant explosion followed by the sounds of city-wide alarm. That was quite unusual. A robot incursion would not sound all the alarms, unless there was a bigger threat afoot.
"Wait, it came from the direction of Globe Opera!", Maria noticed, " And that surely means there is news to be had over there! This is absolutely going to hit the news of the month, i can tell it already - and i will be the first one to report on it! Gotta go, we can get back on that topic later!". And before Kubo even got to reply, she flew off.
"She is gonna get herself hurt someday like this..." he thought to himself. He could just stay here, or join the others evacuating the place, but if something happened to Maria at the opera.. he would not be able to forgive himself for that. With that thought, he ran after her towards the opera building.
The Globe Opera was one of the newest buildings in the city, situated in the middle of the river cutting trough the metropolis. Just recently opened, it already hosted several popular events and concerts - with one planned for just the next day. It's mere presence boosted the housing prices across the riverside area, but Kubo always wondered why would people want to pay more just to be woken up by concerts on every weekend night. Tonight however, the artificial island was surrounded by fleet of police boats and choppers with it's primary entrance road locked up by the location's guards.
Kubo knew Maria for over two years, meeting her all the way during his early days working with Shang Mu Academy, while she was investigating a lead about a robotic threat possibly caused by someone within the Academy. While their meeting was short, he remembered her ever since - and when Three Kingdom News was offering freelancer jobs, he hoped he could see her again during one of them. During the past years they had some memorable moments together - from them both being splashed with slime rain aboard a cruise ship the TV station wanted report on, or her missing her landing and crashing into him (were not for the fur, they both would've noticed the other one blushing) and even dancing together at an new-year's event - he always wondered why she asked him specifically to come there... and now he felt bad about missing the obvious hints. And her running off when a new lead or news shows up? It's very in-character for her. Kubo didn't mind that too much, as she was always having a good time when this happened - and he could usually catch up to her if needed, like right now.
"Kubo! What are you doing here?" she asked. "I wanted make sure nothing bad happens to you - and that you don't try to make your way in there alone." "Had no plans for that yet, at least. Guards over there were mentioning three mechs prowling the area, and their plan to get in there to - guess what - rescue Mayor Zao!" "I guess that explains city sounding all the alarms, because Zao's ass being abducted by bunch of mechs is truly important enough to scare everyone like that." - Kubo added sarcastically. "Yea. Buuut there's something else i heard, if you want to help out with that!" Based on the tone of her voice Kubo could guess that this 'something' would likely put him in danger's way - last time it happened he was washing out mud from his fur for weeks. "Guards need a 3rd to join them in the Opera, and i just though - you could go in there! I will even give you this small camera drone to record all the footage from the inside. Imagine, we will be the only ones with shots like these - other stations will just get zoom-ins from their airships!"
"Oh dear" he thought to himself. He indeed could go in there, but prospect of fighting multiple mechs at once (even with help from two underpaid soldiers) did not sound like a great plan. "Can't they get another guard, or one of Zao's soldiers instead? Surely they would be more qualified for the job?" "Can you see the crowd gathering already? They will need all the remaining guards to make sure anyone does not sneak by - and the soldiers were called to Zao's Mansion first, by the time they will arrive all the news will be gone! Pleeease do it for me!" "Of course she did the bat puppy look to top it off", Kubo thought to himself. To him it now looked like a choice between him getting in harm's way, or her doing the same sooner or later - and none of the options had good outlook. "Sigh, fiiiine." He agreed. "I just hope Zao won't decide to reward me with 5% off coupons for this." "Yay! Take this drone with you, it will transmit all the footage out as you go! And... take care in there, okay?" Before Kubo got to consider asking her for anything before going, the bat grabbed him in a winged hug. "One step ahead of you! But really, don't get hurt in there."
"Ayo, the lady finally convinced you!", one of the guards spoke when Kubo approached, "Name's Jake, and my partner's Beth". The two guards seemed to have been partners a long while, with their load-outs covering each other's quite well - Jake being the heavy, armed with high fire rate munitions and melee weapons alongside his combat shield and bulky armor, and Elizabeth being the ranger carrying a high caliber rifle, handgun, and high mobility armored suit.
"We are planning the best route to the auditorium where they hold Zao." Elizabeth added, " We will have to go trough the outside scene, and then the main theater - we have been locked out of all service pathways. Once inside, we have the keys needed to cut trough the main theater, right into the auditorium." "The mechs which got our boss are in there as well, tho it seems only two of them are currently operational - the lion looking one has not been seen anywhere since the attack on Zao's mansion. We might be in luck, and avoid dealing with it altogether. Oh ye, and Mayor's insurance fund will pay us quite well for getting him out, if you are into that. If you have everything you need, we should get going right away."
"If i die, bury me with my ship!", Kubo jokingly added while joining the guards on the way to the opera. Outside of the opera felt quite calm compared to the crowded road leading to it, with only sounds being echoing noises of the robots guarding the place, and the waves of the river flowing between the external sections of the structure. Getting trough the defenses was a breeze with the team's combined firepower. Really, Kubo felt bit like a third wheel to the whole set-up - the two guards dealt with most things just fine by themselves, and he guessed they took him along mainly for backup. At least the TV station will get nice shots, without him having to dodge bullets all the time. No sight of any of the mechs as well - they seemed all but gone, but their threat was not to be ignored as the group stayed on guard for any sighting of them And this was supposed to be the most dangerous section - once inside, the cover of darkness should allow them to sneak trough service pathways without much trouble, with tight corridors making it impossible for the mechs to sneak up on them.
"Whole place went on lockdown, so the bots inside should be powered off" Jake mentioned as he broke open the locks to the main building. "In fact, everythin' should be off - lights, speakers, and all the fancy set-ups for acrobats." The door opened to the dark inside of one of the main theaters of the opera, confirming their suspicion. Nothing but dark and quiet corridors awaited. As long as they kept away from any alarms and scanners, the trip trough was just as uneventful as they hoped - someone without all the keys and maps however, would have had much worse time navigating the place. With main doors requiring power, such person would have to also deal with all the reactivated drones and defenses.
"There's word Shang Tu sent their special forces in to help us - they will be here in few hours." Beth noted after a moment of listening to her earpiece. "Something got to have them really worried to send them in. You would think they would keep that group in the city, now that's half their navy is gone. And it's not like there will be anything to do in these few hours." Jake seemed to also be occupied trying to get his own communicator to work again. "This being said, our signal to outside is starting to break up - seems like there's some jamming device on the premises. Do you think you can disarm it, cat?" "Likely so", Kubo answered, "but we need to get to it first."
Doors to the auditorium opened surprisingly easy, with no lock keeping them shut. In the back of the room they noticed Zao locked up in a chain, swinging above the landed mechs which abducted him. "W-wait, who ARE YOU GUYS", a small kid tinkering with one of the mechs yelled as they spotted the group. "I'm calling the boss lady, this is not a part of our flight-plan" a green wildcat added in response. "Whatever - SLAM, all the doors are locked now! BEAST ONE, BEAST TWO, ready for attack!" small tarsier yelled before getting aboard one of the mechs. It was three vs. two, but the sheer size of the machines compensated for their lack in number. Trapped mayor offered what he surely thought were great words of motivation - "What are you waiting for?! Get me out of here! And beat these criminals up - i will double your pay if they are sent straight to jail!"
Thankfully it seemed the mechs were not designed for fighting in such confined space - a weird design choice as Kubo noted, seeing that the fish-based machine seemed to be intended for aquatic combat - and it's bird companion needed much more airspace to maneuver. He didn't know if the fight would have gone the same way, were the mechs fought on their terms - but with their pilots unprepared, and space tight, the fight was stacked against their drivers. And neither did they fight very hard, with their efforts focused more on keeping their machines intact than to actively try to attack.
The aquatic mech went down first - between it's limited mobility, and water-based attacks which did not fare too well against fast moving targets, it had hard time dodging the heavy's bullet rain - allowing for it to be pinned down, as rest of the team unleashed their attacks on it. And while it dragged on for long, it's driver finally surrendered after several heavy beat-ups of their mech. It was precision, however, which took down the other one. Space in the arena might have been limited, but it was still enough to stay out of primary range of both Kubo and Jake. Pepper shots and trick jumps might have gotten some of the damage in, but the bird would not let off, keeping in the fight while filling the air with bullet and energy orbs of it's own. But only one sniper shot trough it's right engine was enough to ground it, securing the second victory.
"You are both under arrest" Jake exclaimed as the pilots exited their mechs. "You will be read your rights as we escort you out, and you got all the right to remain silent". Wildcat merely gave him the annoyed look, while Beth tried to extract the name of the tarsier child. No matter how she asked, the kid merely screamed aaaaaaaaaaaaaa every time when mentioning their name, resulting in her just writing "Aaa" in her notes. While Zao's "Thank you for coming to my rescue, heroes!" and other words of praise sounded like obvious sweet-talk, rescuing him was the main part of this job so Kubo got to untangling him as the guards dealt with the drivers.
"That's enough!", loud voice interrupted them. This startled the entire group, including the beast pilots. An incredibly tall and threatening looking fish woman entered the room, causing chained Zao to scream in fear yet again, "It's HER she's back to EAT ME! Get me out get me out ge-". Ignoring his panicked screams, she continued. "I leave you both alone for few minutes , and i find you defeated on the ground? How are you supposed to put up a fight against the hatchling and her allies, if you can't even beat some random civilians" "The BFF was not ready yet, the third pilot is...." kid with no name tried to explain, before being interrupted. "Silence! I will deal with this myself - and pray this delay will not cost us our mission, or you will face the consequences. You three. I'm giving you one chance to turn around and leave. Now."
Elizabeth raised her gun, aiming down her sights at the new opponent. Kubo stood behind his two allies, as one of them started slowly backing out. "We are way out of our league guys", Jake said in a troubled tone. "We are so screwed." His retreat was cut of by Zao's yelling - "WHAT AM I PAYING YOU PEOPLE FOR! GET ME OOOOUT! I will fire every single one of you if you run and let her EAT ME!" Threat of loosing his job seemed to be enough for Jake, with him readying up for fight yet again.
"So be it." the woman replied to them assuming combat stance, not giving Kubo time to even consider the situation. Without any later warning she charged right at their heavy, at speeds faster than any of them could react, pushing Jake to the other side of the scene, his shield crumbling into pieces. While the move confused the both soldiers, Kubo realized he saw it before - back when sparring with Lilac, she used similar attack she dubbed 'dragon boost' - but this knowledge did not boost his confidence much, seeing how a friendly match with a dragon ended before. This did however give him enough of foresight to dodge out of the way as his opponent charged another boost. Beth was not as lucky however, taking full blow of the attack, with the weapon she used to attempt blocking it getting shattered into pieces.
"Beth's down!" Jake yelled as his comrade was thrown into the far away seats. "We lost one of ours in just one hit, i told ya all it's out of our depth!" "Yet you stayed in fight the moment you could loose your job!" Kubo replied dodging a set of knives thrown his way. "Point taken. I will try to pin her down with my bullets, you get in there and get 'er!".
It has not worked out at all. Fish woman reflected all the bullets as if they were toy projectiles, marching right towards the duo. Even increased fire rate of the gun's mounted turret mode has not slowed her down. Kubo's attempt to abuse his left-handed attacks also were merely met with a smirk of his opponent, as she parried them all perfectly, and hitting him back with all the attack's strength. Another swarm of summoned knives filled the air, with very little precious space to dodge. Kubo's smaller frame allowed him to not get pinned by them, but same could not be said for his heavily armored colleague. His armor took most of the impact and kept the sharp edges from cutting into his body, but the following punch combo was too much. Kubo could swear he heard haunting sound of some of Jake's bones being crunched, but the thought was quickly interrupted by him being brutally grabbed into the air by the collar of his outfit
"Surrender, cat. I am capable of mercy, despite what you likely think, so drop your weapon and i will not kill you right here and now." Whatever feeling of heroism he had were long gone. His allies were beaten up, he could feel that he himself will not last any longer, being able to taste his own blood leaking into his mouth. Even the white of his hoodie was stained blood red... There was no escape. He failed like he was always told he would. Just as it always was. And with that, Kubo dropped his weapon down.
Merga smiled seeing this, her grin revealing her shark-like teeth. "Good news, Cat, for i both appreciate your courage, and you are not the target today. So, as promised, i will let you live for now - do not stand in my way ever again." And with so she pulled him up higher, before violently throwing him onto the ground. "Awwwww FUCK" Kubo managed to yell before the impact knocked him out.
This was bad. Very bad. She noticed the signs too late, ignored her intuition, and took too long to arrive, but she had to intervene before it was truly too late. Sneaking trough opera's defenses was simple - their scanners were tuned for biological signatures and completely ignored her sneaking in the shadows. By the time she arrived Merga was already gone, having got what she wanted out of Zao - as her followers in the meantime got distracted by their broken toys, blaming each other for the failure to a group much less dangerous than intended target. Between their yelling and sounds of reactivated machinery, Millie quickly grabbed the unconscious cat out of the harm's way. Getting out would be harder, but the defenses seemed distracted with another threat already - likely the group all of this was meant for.
As for the two poor guards, she could not carry them out - she might be strong, but not that strong. The other best thing she could do for them is patch them up with petals, and move them out of the harm's way - somewhere where they can safely stay until their comrades will surely find them when reclaiming the building.
On her way out, in the distance behind her, she could hear Zao screaming about how unfair this was, about how he was left behind; but it didn't matter - he would be likely rescued soon by the merry band of heroes, even if she believed Zao deserved to be stuck there for all eternity. It was no longer simply personal, as she could not hold a blind eye to all the wrongdoings of the greedy mayor - how anyone she spoke to had some bad experiences caused by that man - and of course, how he abused her trust in the past only to get richer from the artifacts donated to his museums, attempting to rewrite the history in his favor as a bonus. He will be out eventually, but maybe for now he can experience that money can't buy him out of everything.
The outside area was still crowded, with a new group of guards holding off curious onlookers and the TV station's crew. Kubo's ship was landed away from their prying eyes, letting her place him aboard without attracting any unwanted attention. Leaving right away would be a wisest choice, but there was something she wanted to deal with first.
"Hey! You were inside the opera, right? An orange bat reporter asked her when she neared a crowd. Are you up for an.. interview? Yes, interview!" - one could see quite clearly that it was not the interview she really was after. "Sure", Millie replied to her, "i have some time." After a quick set of semi-related questions, when the cameras stopped rolling, the question Millie expected was asked; "A black and white cat, he was inside the Opera too! Have you seen him? Is he alright? We lost any contact the moment that water dragon showed up."
"I found him", she replied, "and got him out of the harm's way. He will be safe with me, i promise you that. I have carried him back to his ship before i got here - and before you ask how i have the keys, he has worked for me for so long he lets me have spare set in case something happens to him on the job." "That's good, I'm so glad i didn't just get him ki...!" - Maria sounded relieved, before quickly remembering to keep up her professional persona. "What i meant is obviously, that's good because he had a camera drone with him! Did you find that thing too? "
Millie nodded, pulling out the damaged drone. "He will likely be worried about you too, she added while handing it over, do you want me to tell him anything?" Maria quickly glanced at the rest of the crew distracted with the crowd, before whispering "My next job is in Parusa, if you are taking him there tell him to meet me when he can. I can't have him die before our date."
And so, Millie's leave was as quick as her arrival, leaving Maria with more questions than answers - something she would not idly stand by to. She will get to the whatever this wolf woman's true intentions are, one way or another.
When the darkness subsided, Kubo quickly realized whatever he was lying on was no longer the hard planks of the opera's floor. In fact it felt suspiciously like his own bed! Opening his eyes he met the gaze of blue-eyed wolf lady, quickly recognizing her to be his usual employer Millie. "Hey, your finally awake! I was really worried you would be out for days." she said as she noticed him regain consciousness. "Taking on an ancient dragon super-weapon for this long and not having all your bones broken is quite an achievement, you know. You are lucky i realized what was about to happen in time... and that she seemed to have been in forgiving mood - records i got say that many others weren't so lucky back in the day, with not many surviving to even tell the tale. Thankfully she was gone by the time i got there, with her cronies being busy enough with other plans to not notice me getting you out."
"Wait, what happened, who even was it?" Kubo asked, slowly getting back to his awake self. "The lady you got to 'meet'", Millie explained, "was Merga. The final weapon of the Water Dragons, the ultimate centurion, vanguard of their armies, believed for centuries to have been defeated and killed by the Earth Dragon armies." Millie stood up as she explained. "Back at the opera i wasn't sure what true motives were, but in the time you were out Merga made her plans quite clear - you missed her total conquest of Shang Tu." "The what". The realization of how much has happened hit him like a rock. "Yep, in mere one night, entire city of Shang Tu fell to her might. Shang Mu and Shuigang are on high alert as well, but there have been no reports of any armed movements against them. Because of all that, i took the liberty of getting us aboard your ship and setting course for Parusa - hope you don't mind a visit to tropics."
"What are we going to do in Parusa?" Kubo questioned worried - "Shouldn't we go to Shang Mu instead? Seems like a much safer option after all." "For one, Shang Mu would likely be Merga's second target", Millie stated. "Second, i have a remote base in Parusian jungle, perfect for staying out of trouble's sight. Third.. as much as this might not be the time or place, i might have more jobs for you, if you will be interested. You did great collecting these Data Cores for now, and i would like to show you something about them when we arrive. But first, let us get there - and you still need rest."
Kubo was not in a mood or state to protest much more, agreeing with a resigned sigh. "But what about Maria", he asked, "she must be worried sick she sent me off to my death..."
"No worries captain", Millie responded petting him carefully on the head, "i saw her on the way when getting you back. Told her your not dead, and from what i gather you might get a chance to see her again sooner than you think. I even gave her the camera drone back! Now, you should really get some proper sleep, and not the 'knocked out cold' type you got before." Millie gave Kubo a smile as he bundled back in the bed. "I will wake you up when we get there."
The remaining day long flight was uneventful, and quite boring. Kubo however could not get rid of the feeling of failure. One time he tried to be a hero, and it ended just as he feared - moped onto a floor, having to be rescued himself, and getting everyone worried. Perhaps he really should have stuck to carrying cargo with his ship, or dealing with smaller robots and helping with news reports - and leave heroics to actual heroes.
It could have ended worse - much worse in fact. It could have been Shang Mu being conquered, rendering him without a place to call home. The events at the Opera could have resulted in his death, or at least much more injuries than they did. But in the end, Kubo still felt like these 'what-if's did not really excuse his failures.
As he looked onto the sunset from the deck of his ship, Millie joined his quiet watch over the horizon. "We are almost here, captain. I will need you to take the wheel for the landing in a second. The landing pad might be enough for your ship, but it will be a close fit." Millie quickly noticed Kubo's current mood being not his usual state. She has known him for a long time, yet for once he was not his usual upbeat self.
"Are you still thinking about what happened back there?" She asked. "You had no right to know what was about to come. No-one did. I only knew due to years of my research into the water dragons and even i realized too late."
"...I failed everyone Millie", Kubo muttered quietly. "Had i just been stronger, braver, a real hero; then maybe Shang Tu wouldn't be conquered right now. " He laid his ears close to his head, tightening his grip on the railing, his tail swinging in anger. "Maybe we would not be running away right now. And maybe i would have not worried everyone i care about by almost getting killed. I failed you all. As i always do. I'm a failure and i always was."
"KUBO! Millie raised her voice carefully. You have not failed anyone. If somebody was failing anything here it would've been me! " She tried to remember if she should move her own tail or not, to not make her cat friend even more stressed - deciding on safe option of keeping it down, she continued. "I am the one who 'should have known', i am the one who 'should have done something'. But i didn't. I didn't trust... , hesitating for a moment before quietly continuing, I didn't trust myself. My own intuition. And.. im sorry, she said in a softer voice, Please forgive me, for failing you. "
Kubo did not respond, silently looking away. While he thought he hid it well enough, Millie didn't miss the sound of his tears hitting the deck. Perhaps she should have said something right there, she thought, tell him how much she appreciates him, how strong he really is, in both heart and mind. And yet, she was unable to mutter a word. The two stayed in silence for several minutes, with the moment being broken only by the ship's notification that the last waypoint has been reached and it now awaits landing instructions.
Millie's 'base' turned out to be a quite sizable research outpost, consisting of several housings, workshops, and warehouses, manned by several workers and scientists. Surrounded by jungle trees, the buildings and even Kubo's landed ship were almost invisible from anywhere but air. A dirt road lead off into the forest, being the only ground road to another settlement, a seaside town of Adventure Square - Parusian capital and a tourist hotspot. Kubo once has planned to visit that place, and it seemed like he will get the occasion soon enough.
As Kubo and Millie walked between the outpost's structures she proceeded to give him a short guided tour of the place. "First we have all the houses for my team. Since i have a vacant one, i would offer you to stay there"; she said smiling towards Kubo, "but i believe you prefer sleeping in your ship? We will hook it up to the water and power, so don't worry about these."
"Now we pass by the workshops", she said pointing her hand towards a row of open hangars,"we keep larger artifacts there, as well as all the vehicles and tools. You can even see some of the team working on something right now.. Hello boys!" - she yelled waving excitedly towards the group, which then waved back (bit less excitedly). "Don't worry Kubo", she then said to him in quieter voice, "you don't have to talk to them if you don't feel comfortable with so. They will tend to their own business and leave you alone if you want."
"And now the labs!", Millie announced showing row of the most modern looking buildings, one of them connected to a massive antenna dish - "this is where our research team spends their days! They work hard in there, likely too hard for their own health. They tend to go hard on themselves when the research goes south, so part of my job is to send them off to beds after they spend multiple sleepless nights poking a piece of dragon tech. We also have this lovely signal scanner, the newest addition to this area - we can aim this dish anywhere on the night's sky!"
"This place grew so much since it's founding, you know. The initial funding i coerced Mayor Zao to share was enough for just the basic necessities on a job like this. It's only when i brought back the first Water Dragon relics, then the funding got increased tenfold. I don't think they had too much faith in me up to this point - young woman like me straight after the college with only few expeditions under her belt, even with my degree in the Water Dragon history was a big risk to fund. But now, we have funds, we have people and supplies, and we are on a brink of finding out new and exciting history! Now come, we are almost there!"
The main research lab was one of the bigger buildings in the camp. Standing two floors tall, it held both the artifact storage, as well as most of the research equipment, social rooms, and Millie's personal quarters.
Millie guided Kubo to the digital research room, place filled with computer hardware of both modern, and ancient designs. Several terminals recovered from across Parusa and Three Kingdom area are scattered across the room, in varying states of repair and functionality.
Kubo always wondered where Millie got all the funding for her expeditions - just the computer hardware in the room they were in must have costed more money than his entire airship. Even Zao's park and battlesphere still used the tried and trusted 16-bit i286 based computers for all but the most demanding tasks. And here was Millie, with her research lab equipped with top of the line, 32-bit i486 machines with their floating point math abilities. And that's not even counting the color graphics and sound they were equipped with.
There was a lot of more common hardware around too - several tape drives spun quietly in the back, alongside few plotters and drive storage all neatly wired together to a massive frame, used to interface them to bit more modern systems. Few less recognizable systems caught his eye, writings on them different from any language Kubo has heard of - as well as their design being unlike the usual dragon constructs.
Noting his interest, Millie chimed in. "Oh these? They are important part of what i need you for! Remember that crashed space station i had you locate? These systems come mainly from that wreck, with some extra pieces Shuigang's forces found scattered around later, after that snake was dealt with. Most of the hull got sent to Shang Tu museum; it's antennas, comms arrays, and cameras stayed in Shuigang where their scientist wants to replicate their tech; and i got some of the pieces i needed shipped over here. Originally it was assumed it was some kind of a scouting vessel of Brevon's, but it seems they belong to yet another space-faring race! My people are working to decode the language used as sadly not all of it comes with handy translation systems, in the meantime we got the terminals and data readers working, hooked up to more conventional technology of ours. This find might be biggest one in my career! Imagine, completely another species out there - this time one possibly not seeking to conquer us!
Which is where my offer comes in. I know these Data Cores store multiple encrypted layers of information. Gathering one or two allows us to merely glimpse the data they store, but by finding all of them we could possibly decrypt all their secrets! I need you to find the rest. You will be compensated well, i promise you that; i will also personally owe you for this help, this being up to you to decide how much that is worth.
I won't bore you with all the weather reports, geological surveys, and orbital imagery we recovered, but each core seems to have a primary "Report" of sorts - a much more organized video recording from around it's creation. I have set up one of the terminals to show it, if you wish to watch. We can even discuss their contents together, it's always nice to talk with someone having a fresh view on them."
"How much data does that thing store anyways?" Asked Kubo. "It's a size of a floppy but it's also alien tech so it's probably at least few hundred megabytes right?" "Around 4 terabytes each, actually"; Millie replied while smirking. "And these are the smaller ones - data suggests disks with ability to store petabytes worth of data, but these seemingly were exclusively used for AI neural data, and the units that carried them are long gone. But you know what is not gone? Their recordings! Want to see them?"
Millie was weirdly interested in him watching these, Kubo noted. It's bit unlike her to try to convince him to do something for so long. Either she is very excited about what they contained, or she had some story to tell about them - and since he had no other plans, he might as well indulge her. Might be also a good distraction from the thoughts about the recent events that have still not left his head...
"Alright!" He replied in slightly forced positive tone. Lets have a watch. He quickly realized Millie did not miss the hint of sadness in his voice, making cutting her pacing around the room short. "You don't have to do it, if the feelings about what happened are still too much." she replied. "Millie, if i go back to bed.. i will be all alone with my thoughts in there. And i don't want to be alone, not yet."
"There's a sofa at the back of the room, under all the wires and pieces"; Millie said while already getting to unearthing it. "Ill get it out for you, how about you lie there while we have a watch - i will join you there in just a second too. As for later, we will figure something out, alright?"
Kubo made himself comfortable on the sofa, as Millie kept shuffling things around to make room. This place was more of a workshop than anything else, with the sofa and furniture being the only reminder that this room might have been something else before. This whole ordeal felt a bit like being back at school. Kubo quietly hoped Millie won't ask him to give any concrete answers about their contents - at least she didn't seem to mind him lying on the sofa.
Recording of the first core flickered on the projector, showing image of Avalice from space. Even on the projection, the resolution was high enough to make out some familiar locations - yet they all lacked many landmarks like cities, or even ancient ruins of such - even Paradise Prime's floating island was missing.
--2-- >>Interstellar communication array calibrated. Locking onto carrier beam.
The emotionless coldness of the voice revealed it artificial source - one would wonder why a space station would bother to voice such report even, but perhaps it was merely just another idea of it's creators. Seemingly another was giving it a kitsune looking avatar, complete with multiple tails.
>>Compiling arrival report: >> >>Primary planetary analysis complete. >>Providing information on target exoplanet #2:
Diameter: 5,310 km Orbital Distance: 151 million km. Surface Gravity: 0.738017 G Escape Velocity: 8 km/s Axial Tilt: 23.782° Atmosphere: 78% N2, 21% O2, 1% Ar Air Surface Pressure: 102 kPa Remaining data provided in ARC formatted archive.
>>Final verdict: Planet meets all habitation criteria. Low gravity not posing a major concern for long-term habitation. >>Secondary analysis indicates presence of possible intelligent life on planetary surface. Probe Alpha deployment underway for infiltration mission once necessary lifeform visual samples are obtained. >>Awaiting orders from Terra and continuing predefined observation task.
This explained the lack of any modern locations at least - none of them have been even created yet. "Nice slideshow, will that be on the test?" Kubo asked jokingly. "There's a treasure trove of information on Avalice of the millenia's past there. Mainly orbital pictures, but that's already a lot to work with - some of the places shown there are long gone by today. It will be years before we dig trough everything on this core alone."
Quick flicker of the image announced another core being loaded soon after.
--3--
"Unit Alpha recording monthly ground report. Mission status nominal."
The owner of the voice was not robotic any more, with it clearly not belonging to the station. Instead, it belonged to an orange bird woman, dressed in tribal outfit resembling ones traditionally worn during events in Shang Tu.
"Locals have accepted me as one of their own, despite the imperfections of my plumage. I have uploaded more detailed scans of the feather patterns, were they needed for another unit. The fabricated backstory of me belonging to a group from a remote island chain seemed to be enough to calm most suspicions, and any remaining folk who questioned my presence here have slowly gotten used to me. I am in process of gathering local lore, for further reference - the weekly storytelling events are a perfect opportunity for such as the birds here love singing about their adventures, as well as about these of their ancestors. I am quite fond of their voices when they sing. Yesterday ou-- ...their scouts have encountered a group of wildcat traders from down south, and i took the opportunity to gather some intel on their settlements as well. It seems the groups share some history together, as once they found out I'm part of the local avian settlement they opened right up, talking about their own villages, as well as intriguing notes about underwater cities even more south. I recommend detailed orbital scans of the area, i have attached list of landmarks provided by the group. Alpha out."
"That's more birdfolk at once than i have seen total in my whole life, what even happened to all of them?" Kubo asked, only to be met with 'you really do not want to know' kind of look from Millie. "Earth Dragons happened. That's all you want to know, trust me."
--4--
"Unit Alpha recording monthly ground report, mission status nominal!"
It was the same bird, yet again - with fancier clothes this time.
"The local tribe promoted me to their lorekeeper after the previous one's passing. This is great news, as i have gotten access to what seems to be the only written lore of this group! I have taken scans of all the scrolls, attached to report as always. We are preparing for a yearly celebration, of one of this group's most important historical events. Between the texts and spoken stories i have gathered that we are celebrating a peace between avian folk and the denizens of southern underwater cities."
Some other voice, not translated by the recording called her over in singsong bird fashion.
"The Vixy will see friend soon, yes! Vixy has errand needing completion! The Vixy is not talking to wall again, no!" Their language does not translate too well, my apologies. As i was saying, there seems to be some memory of long past conflict here, one even now most locals wish not to speak about. But! Part of the celebration is delivering gifts to their watery allies! And it's my job to do so this time! I will collect as much data as i can, as the stories i heard suggest much greater levels of science and technology being present on this world than we initially assumed. Vixy out!
There was something weird to it all, Kubo noted sleepily. Millie was.. not that surprised with it all? He would thing she would be jumping around the room in excitement about all the new lore she found. "Perhaps she already saw them all", he thought as he placed his head on her lap - he didnt have too many occasions to spend time with someone like this, and he was never sure how much was 'too much' on physical interaction. She didn't seem to mind however, and that way she couldn't leave him alone unnoticed at least, a thing Kubo feared a bit - being all alone in not so familiar place, haunted by the thoughts of recent events, it would all add up to a horrible night.
--7--
"Unit Beta recording monthly ground report, mission status... nominal."
Familiar looks of Vixy were gone, replaced by a water dragon - not the one like you can meet today however, her looks were alike the ancient painting from the museums across the kingdoms.
As requested, i have joined the expedition team to investigate the crashsite. The leaders were easy enough to convince that a scholar should join along their soldiers to the site, to document what they believed to be a meteor crash. The initial meeting went better than calculated, and i believe my acting skills served their purpose - my comrades panicked once the aliens left the ship, unsure if they should fight or attempt diplomacy. I have faked such reaction quite well if i say so myself! Still might have acted bit too.. heroic, my people now call me 'Amantha the brave', for some reason...
Nothing suggests they are aware of my, or Wayfinder's presence on the planet, altrough i will need to limit my communications to the minimum. I have also confirmed Alpha's burial site remained undisturbed by the crash. Our mission remains secure. I have attached recordings of the visitors, calling themselves 'earth dragons', as well as genetic samples for analysis. It seems they have similar translation systems to ours, as they quite quickly replicated the water dragon dialect - they spoke of friendship and kinhood, and wished to see our leaders, a meeting i will provide recordings of in the next report.
As for now, Wayfinder's translation systems managed to crack their own language - and in it, they did not speak of my water dragon kind as positively. There seems to be some shizm in their ranks however - the original science team of the ship pushes for coexistence and peace, with them having compressed the ship's energy reserves into a portable artifact (scans attached) - and the younger generation wishing to subjugate the locals to their plans, ones i have not yet deciphered. I will get to the bottom of their real plans, one way or another, no matter what it takes. Future
of this worldof our mission might be at stake here. Beta out.
"What do you think of it all captain?" Millie asked as the last video flickered off. ...Kubo was already asleep, snoring quietly with his head on her lap, with a quiet purr being audible every so often. "Guess you are not sleeping alone after all" - Millie thought to herself, as she pulled a blanket over him. "I hope you can understand what it's really all about one day... And that you will still believe in me after all that."
And there it was, another wave of feelings she was unsure of. He was just means to an end for her task, one of many contractors which worked for her in the last years, and yet she could not get rid of the feelings of being worried about him, genuinely caring for him.
It was something she wondered about a lot in recent years. She knew well her creators wanted her and her predescessors to simply serve their mission - the emotions, free will, and all other features of their AI existed solely for that fact, to efficiently infiltrate any societies needed. They likely wanted her to believe that was all - that she was meant to be just that.
But it felt less and less true with the passing time, even to her. If that was the case, would she had her own dreams, hopes, plans? Would she be genuinely caring for others as she did? Would she had gone trough rescuing Kubo?
While there was slight chance that her own programming lied to her, that she believed her own fake emotions... they felt more real than just that. She knew how to fake emotions, and it felt nothing like so. It was just like pain in a way - she knew it was simulated, that it was just a reflection of sensor readings, but it sure felt real to her. And it was real, was it not?
Feelings were much more complicated however. It was not a simple case of it just being there, it was an ever entangling web affecting her very thoughts and actions. She hoped that some of the cores would answer her worries. That one of her predecessors would show or record something which would validate her feelings - that she was not the odd one out, or delusioned into thinking she was something more than she was.
What she found by now showed some hope, some promise - between the professional wordings, as time progressed the personalities showed trough. Vixy stopped being cold and embraced playful nature of the birds she lived with. Amantha felt proud of her own skills, and took initiative to help 'her people'. That could not be just automation, or hardcoded behavior, they had this spark of life she and everyone else she knew had.
In the end, she wished she could simply ask for help with this all - but would anyone even accept her for what she was?
The next day felt a bit better for Kubo, although he felt like he probably made Millie sleep in quite uncomfortable position as she tried to not wake him up in the night. Distractions of the daytime are quite good at keeping worse thoughts away, at least. Millie had some errands left to deal in Parusa's capital city of Adventure Square, and Kubo decided to tag along - with not much else to do, it could be some way to spend time at least. She looked more troubled than usual tho, which kept worrying him for the off chance he was the reason of her downed mood.
Getting to the coastal town was quite quick, thanks to the small offroad car Millie got back at the camp. Despite being a pilot of an airship, and having training in flying planes, Kubo doesn't often admit he never got around to getting a driver's license for a car - he never needed it in the big cities with their public transport, and most other places being quite accessible by an airship and bit of walking. As such he had to now depend on Millie to drive them over, and back - the distance was quite walkable, but in the middle of the hot day it would be anything but comfortable.
News of Shang Tu's fall have already reached even this remote island, resulting in less cheery than usual mood in the otherwise popular tourist hostspot. Despite that, days continued as usual for locals and tourists alike, with many choosing to not think of the situation and hope it resolves itself before their vacation ends. The global events forced the local government to take more defensive stance than usual, with the local leaders patrolling the city streets for any dangers, be it from the water or the forest. In other kingdoms, there would be a dedicated force defending the capital but in case of Parusa, it's leaders were capable of defending themselves well enough - all 5 members of the local government were skilled hunters and soldiers.
"Can you get one errand done for me Kubo?" Millie asked as they arrived, "i have to catch a plane to Shang Mu, and it's leaving quite soon." "Why are you going to Shang Mu for?" Kubo asked. "The map of the data cores we recovered lists few of them still being in the area. Luckily, none seem to be anywhere near Shang Tu, so this should be a quick job. I planned to get them before all of this happened, but as you might imagine plans have changed." "Oh..." Kubo noted, with feelings of 'you ruined all her plans with your failures' creeping at the back of his mind, "I'm sorry you had to waste your time on saving me instead...". "I meant Merga's invasion of a whole kingdom, Kubo. Not what happened at the Opera. Your quite more important than few oversized floppy disks anyway." "Yea but still..." "It's alright, i really, really promise. Back to that errand thing, there's a museum in the town, currently ran by the walking advertisement Judie. Greatly underfunded, understaffed, and filled with Earth Dragon propaganda - but they seem to have gotten their hands on one of the data cores, and tried to put it in one of the terminals they recovered from the jungle. As you might imagine it's not compatible at all, but i happened to get my hands on something that is and arranged for a trade. When you have time, please exchange this in for the core." With this, Millie handed Kubo a small blue capsule containing a small golden card maintained withing self-powered stasis field - despite the apparent age of the relic, it's contents seemed to be untouched by time, just as they were on the day it was built. The base of the object contained several gold-plated connectors and led diodes, indicating presence of some kind of data storage device within. "What is this thing?" Kubo asked still looking at the artifact. "They are referred to as Time Capsules, and they seem to hold items of significance to their creator. I have seen one with a stuffed bear inside, and even one holding piece of food. Last time i heard about most of them, Zao was hoarding them in his treasury - all after lying to me that he would put them in a museum!" It was best to end the topic at that, as Millie had quite a strong dislike for Zao - something Kubo was well aware of, with her past experiences with the mayor always ending roughly. Zao's approach to museum pieces was a total opposite of Millies, with him commonly taking museum pieces for his own collection, hiding anything that could damage his reputation, and outright selling the more valuable artifacts when he needed money.
Having said goodbyes with Millie, Kubo decided to deal with the errands first before anything else - lest he would forget about it, and then never get around to doing it. Museum was just a short walk away, placed almost in the center of the town - made even more obvious by it's small custodian otter, dressed in a toy shark costume, trying to get tourists to visit the place.
"Hiii! Do you want to LEARN about WATER DRAGONS and their DESTRUCTIVE ways?" she asked as he approached. "Not today, thank you. Your Judie, right? I have something for you from Millie, i believe you had a deal on trading it?" "Oh. That thing. Alright, come on upstairs" she replied in much more tired, and normal, voice. "You would not believe how tiring this job gets. All i do whole day is act in front of bunch of tourists in a stupid costume, and what do i get for all that? More work?" "I was told this place is quite understaffed, but i still imagined there being more people than just.. you." "Nope. Just me. Here's the thingie - i had to put it somewhere, and this terminal looked most fitting."
Terminal on the upper front held one of the data cores, wedged into a slot that anyone with any technical knowledge would tell was not made for it - but for less observant tourists it would indeed look just fine. One strong pull later the core was freed, and Kubo put the capsule in it's place - with it being seemingly made for the exact slot the terminal held, it fit in without any resistance. In fact, both it and terminal lit up the moment it was placed - with it's screen now showing a listing of video files seemingly stored in the capsule's base. "That's new! I never got this thing to work before! The news lady who was here moments before would love to see it i think! She seemed like the type who would be into things like that." "News lady?" Kubo asked. "You know, the orange bat, Maria Notte!" "I... need to go see her, ill send her over here later!" With that, Kubo bolted out of the museum. Knowing Maria she would likely be hanging around somewhere around town - and he didn't want to miss her.
Not that meeting up with her again didn't sound stressful - Kubo had no idea what to say, or what she thought about the events back at the Opera. What if she was mad at him, for worrying her or for acting dumb and almost dying, or for so many other things his mind came up with. In fact, one part of his mind was insisting he should stop, to leave her alone and not bother her with his presence - to not be a burden on yer another person. This though alone almos turned him back, with feeling it might be for the best if he let go of this idea fully. "No, not this time. I am not missing a chance again." he finally thought to himself as he resumed the search. Back in his home country he made such mistake before, giving up when he should not have, and loosing someone he cared about. He could not let this happen this time.
With it consisting of just two roads, covering the whole Adventure Square was a quick task, and Kubo spotted Maria after not long of a search. 'Now's the hard part' he thought, trying to think out how to even start the upcoming conversation. 'Sorry for almost dying on camera' sounded bit dumb afterall, and no good ideas came to mind - with the final plan being to just roll with whatever happens.
"Maria!" he called her out, with her almost instantly stopping, her ears turning before she did. "Kubo? What are you doing here?" "It's a long story...." "You would not believe how glad i am to see you alive. When the camera feed cut off i thought i sent you off to your own death! And then that wolf woman got you out, but she acted all mysterious so i later did a deep backgorund check on her and she was indeed your employer _but i was still so worried and then all the other things happened and reallyimjustgladyouareherealive-" By that point Kubo realized she was holding him in a tight hug with her wings, and seemingly not stopping anytime soon. "Promise me you won't get yourself into this kind of trouble again, alright?" she finally said, her voice once again regaining her professional style, as she let him off from the hug. "I will try to, i can promise that much" "What are you doing in Parusa anyways?" "Millie thought it would be the best place to wait out the storm Merga caused over at the mainland. She's also still on the hunt for these artifacts i got her some of." "And I'm here on a tail of another mystery! Our friend Kalaw has been acting strange as of lately, and dealing with devices all around the nearby floating island - seems very unlike him, if you ask me. I can almost smell something fishy going on!" "Are you sure its not the fish market nearby?" Maria's stare was sure meant to show how unfunny the joke was, but to Kubo she looked kinda cute making a face like that. "I was going to rent an airship to go to Paradise Prime, but since you are here, would you take us there? It's bit too high up to easily fly up, even for me. And maybe you can help me with the investigation as well?"
Shang Mu's lights shined ever brightly, as Millie made her way to one of the data core locations. Located somewhere in Zaoland, it was going to be a tough search. Once just a small peninsula outside the city, the massive theme park was visible from most places within the city. It's rides towered above even nearby skyscrapers, all adorned with likeness of the places's founder - Mayor Zao. This and the nearby bronze statue of the red panda leader were one of the most in-the-face projects built to cement him as the 'hero' of the city. At least Millie was quite certain that, like all such leaders before him, history will not remember him as he wishes to be remembered. Entry fee for the park was quite atrocious, but luckily her having the means to fake the entry card skipped that issue entirely, and gave her the satisfaction about not funding more of Zao's plans.
With the park being open 24/7, even now most of the rides were full of passengers, and it's roads filled with crowds of parkgoers wearing varying levels of Zaoland merchandise. As in any park these things were horribly overpriced, Millie noted, but at least not as overpriced as the food here was. The small storage drive she looked for could have landed anywhere - it could be lying in the grass, wedged into a ride, or maybe even thrown into the trash - it was years since the crash afterall. For all she knew it crashed into somewhere which was not even part of the park at that time, now being tens of meters underground under some fancy ride. At least she knew Zao did not get his hands on this one - it would've met the same fate as the one Kubo recovered recently.
"I have been in ancient mazes simpler than this" she thought, walking in what felt like a small circle around the park. The noise over the EM spectrum made it hard to focus on the core's weak signal, drowned out by the signals of all the robots and systems around the park. She wondered sometimes, how would she even explain a sense like this to someone else - closest she could think of was comparing it to sense of hearing, with the major difference being the speed and range - no bat could say they hear a space station afterall. Even the signal formats resembled languages in a way - some analog, some digital, with the both having in themselves hundreds of different protocols and encryptions. "Kubo would probably love to hear all about it" she thought. Her friend had a liking for technology she didn't see in others often - less of an insane obsession some folks showed, and more of genuine interest in details most did not care about. However, such story would have to come with much less 'fun' explanation of what she was, something she was not yet ready for - the thought of ways it could go wrong felt scary even now.
Finally after what felt like hours of search, she had an idea that could be too stupid to be true. Could it really be this simple? "I'm looking for a small metallic square thingie, with a crystal in the middle" she asked at the 'Lost and Found' bureau. "A.. friend lost it somewhere in the park around 3 years ago, and only now noticed." "Lucky you lady, i think we have just what you look for." small otter clerk replied after looking trough a pile of documents. "Let me fetch it for you." Millie wondered if she should maybe offer helping the worker as they climbed a ladder that was clearly not made for someone of their small size. It seemed however they were quite used to it, as they quickly navigated to the right box, which after dusting indeed contained the core she looked for. "You will have to pay the storage fee before reclaiming it, let me count how much that will cost you!" "There goes 'not funding Zao's plans'..." she thought to herself before paying.
Paradise Prime was one of the antique wonders from before the dragon war. A fully automated floating island which once held a sprawling city, one to match today's Shang Mu, which according to the history books stood as one of the final strongholds of the Water Dragons - with the details of it's fall being lost to history. The centuries took their toll on the abandoned city, with it's roads overgrown and white stone buildings collapsed, as well as on the island itself - the layers of rocks which once covered it's internal workings have started to crumble, as the island's gravity drive showed in the gaps, with the dark blue sheen of the draconic metals used to construct it. The city itself has not been repopulated, as the digital systems which provided the necessities to it's buildings remain an enigma, with only the basic controls understood enough to interact with.
Due to this the current settlement instead stands on one of the small islands, which remain connected to the main piece of land trough network of bridges as well as sharing it's anti-gravity field. The place has been over the years turned into a small town, with it's own shops, houses, and few small airship docks. Someone even brought a truck up here for some reason, despite the only driveable road being just few hundred meters long.
"Kumusta captain! Your cleared for docking at dock 2 - hope you had a nice flight today." voice on the radio spoke as Kubo was preparing to dock his ship to the island. "Thanks Pedro, kumusta to you as well!"
With small docks like these, Kubo ended up knowing the ground crews by name. Here on Paradise Prime it was mostly just Pedro handling the landings - he might call himself Crew Chief, but that title fits him more at his other workplaces where there is a crew to chief over. Making acquaintances was hard for Kubo, but once he knew someone - even from just short radio calls - it was this much easier to talk to them afterwards.
The whole island fell off today however - and not in a 'vibe' kind of way, but by being off it's usual angle - whole place felt worryingly tilted to the side. "That's weird. I thought it was my ship which had issue with the approach, but it seems the whole island is at wrong angle..." Kubo noted, as his and other ships floated at a visible angle compared to the dock they parked to. "Which is one of the reasons we are here, Kalaw's hijinks aside." Maria replied. "You would think Pedro would have some news about this whole thing. I would've expected a warning at least." Kubo said, as they left the docks. "Actually...", he said noticing yet another ship docked off the side of the island, "There might be someone willing to tell us what is going on." "I know that ship" Maria noted looking at the airship, "It belongs to one of the local sky pirates-" "Sabre, yes." "Wait, you know her? Personally?" "We are friends actually." "Should i ask how are you 'friends' with a pirate wanted in like three separate countries?" "It's a long story. And not really exciting one at that. Let's just say Millie needed two airships once, with captains who would not question the legality of what she dug up."
"Oi! Sabre!" Kubo shouted over to the woman nearby.
Relatively tall for a pine marten, Sabre had brown fur complete darker accents on the tips of her tail and limbs as well as much less visible patch of light fur on her chest, with her tail fluffy enough to fill another seat were she be to sit down somewhere. What that tail size allowed her for however, was to hold an extra belt with several pouches at the middle of it's lenght, a storage space she often used for miscelaious tools. She wore a relatively classic green colored pilot's outfit otherwise, which some would call almost familiar to another pirate's - of course if you were to ask Sabre, it was Corazon who stole the design from her.
"Kubo! Long time no see!" she replied, in a cheery tone somewhat not befitting a pirate. "Oh! You finally asked her out like you said? You two on a date here? Bit of a bad timing if you were to ask me. And no, i don't know any good spots." "N-not on a date, it's a business trip." Kubo replied awkwardly while failing to hide his embarrasment. It did not help that Maria followed it up with playful "Date comes after".
This did not go unnoticed by Sabre, who just smiled in amusement. Soon after she asked, "Would you believe these people blame me for what's happening?" "You? But you are such an outstanding citizien!" Kubo replied sarcastically. "Hah! Seriously, not my doing." "But you aren't here for a vacation, so what brought you all the way up here." "Hear me out. Corazon uses this island as a recharging spot for her flagship, right? And it currently has no real crew - don't ask me why she decided to do so. So i thought 'what if i sneak aboard, wait for her to leave the ship unattended, and borrow the whole thing'. Imagine all the loot she has in there! Money that could be of so much better use than just lying aboard an airship!"
"And what do you want to spend that money on?" Maria asked. Kubo knew that tone of voice she used quite well - she was all in on the detective mode right now. "Donating to Shuigang's food bank, some to construction of pet shelter in Shang Mu, and hopefully there will be a bit left to throw at Shang Tu's museum as they seem to need it right now. Don't give me that look - have you never wondered who that mysterious benefactor helping all these charities was, news lady?" "But why? That's not what a 'sky pirate' like you does." "Because i am not Corazon. Nor one of these so-called Red Scarves. They are all a bunch of petty thieves, letting themselves go as low as murder to get their fill of treasure. Utterly despicable." - Sabre's tone went from playful to somewhat angry - "I am not after wealth or glory, i just wish for the rich of this world to pay for their actions against common folk. To make them experience the poverty they caused upon us. For them to see where their greed leads to. I will not stop till every single one of them, including that bafoon Zao, get put where they belong. And if i can help these in need in the process, that's just a bonus."
Before Maria managed to process a response, Kubo decided it would be best to re-rail the conversation by asking Sabre "Do you know what could be causing the island to be broken then?" "Right back to this, eh? There was this one thing... This whole ordeal started soon after Kalaw's visit - and i could swear it got slightly better just a moment before your arrival. Did you blow up something funny on the way?" "These red platforms we saw on the way! That's why all these robots protect them so hard." Kubo noted - indeed they have seen some of them on the way protected by small crowds of robots, ones aggresive enough to attempt taking up a fight with his airship - a fight the robots quickly lost as the ship mounted weapons quickly took care of them, alongside parts of the platform they protected. "And why Kalaw insists on placing them! It's too convenient to be just some stunt of his." Maria added. "Only one way to find out, shall we?" "You read my mind Kubo, let's get to the core of this mystery!" With it, Maria jumped into the sky taking flight. "Race you to the nearest beacon captain! Grab one of the camdrones off the ship while at it!" Of course it was a race Kubo had no chance of winning, but he couldn't fall too far behind. "Seems i gotta go now - we will catch up later, alright?"
"Yeah, 'not on a date'. Sure." Sabre thought as Kubo and Maria made their way down.
Main island of Paradise was tailed by a spiral of smaller islands, making their way almost all the way down to the surface. Some theorized they used to be a ground route to the suspended city, others that these pieces of rocks and ruins fell off from the main island and got caught in it's gravity drive's field - or maybe they instead got ripped out of the ground below, alongside unseen spiral of energy keeping the island afloat. Whatever the answer was, nowadays they no longer reached the ground being only accessible from the island proper - a pretty thing for tourists to look at, and not much else.
Going down was the easy part, unlike the later climb Kubo did not look forward to. The beacon platform Maria headed to was close by at least, floating exactly where they last saw it. "I don't think that race was too fair, was it?" he asked as he caught up to Maria already poking half-damaged device at the center of the platform. "Mysteries don't wait, silly. But as for this specific mystery, i think you hit it wee bit too hard with your ship's guns." "Whoops. I wasn't really aiming for it" "It seems broken, but i could still make out Merga's emblem on it. Can't wait for what excuses Kalaw will have for that! What do you think, will 'Captain Kalaw, a disgraced ally of Shang Tu's conqueror?' be a good title for the news?" "Sounds fine enough i think? I guess that explains why the island got 'bit better' - we indeed blew one of the beacons up!" "We just need to bait him out, so he can confess his crimes on camera! Got any ideas on how to do it?"
Staring into the horizon, Kubo noticed another of the beacon platforms floating quite close by to where they stood. Seems most of it's defenses got dispersed after close encounter with his, or some another, airship. "I got just the plan on how to bait the man out" he said jumping down, with Maria following him close by in the air.
Pieces of ruins all stuck unusually close-by in this area, making the traversal somewhat easier - less scary jumps to make, and this much less distance to cover. Some pieces of the island held ropes and even rocket sleds left by previous visitors - so the means of getting back were readily available as well, if one looked hard enough. The ruins themselves also offered some options to hasten one's travel, from basic stairs to powerful propellers seemingly once used to keep them in place - now generating powerful currents of wind, sending someone jumping into them in whatever direction they blew. Few moments later, they were right on the platform.
"Eh, i hoped for some power-off switch on this thing" Kubo noted as he stared down the beacon. If his ship could take one of these down with loose bullets, it had to be at most very lightly armored he thought - enough for his handheld blade to go right trough it as well. One strike was all it took, with the remaining pieces of the device falling into the ocean below. With it's destruction the whole nearby floating structure shook, freed from it's influence. "How many do you think it will take for him to show up?" "One seemed enough!" Maria replied, pointing at incoming aircraft. "Launch the camera drone, we need this all on video."
Even outside the Battlesphere the star wrestler maintained the same overly dramatic style - as he jumped off the plane, it crashed into an island behind them in a fiery explosion. "Who dares to damage the defensive beacons? Don't you know they are here to PROTECT you all?"
"Captain Kalaw, what is your stance on the fact the beacons you so graciously protect having markings belonging to the villain who conquered Shang Tu?" Maria asked right away, in her news voice. "I have nothing new to say in the matter!" he replied. "So you refuse to comment? Should i leave it to the viewers at home to make their own mind on this fact?" "I am not falling for your tricks this time, lady! But perhaps..." Striking his signature pose to cameras, Kalaw announced "This calls for a DANCE-OFF!". "The what", Kubo asked confused. "Whoevers dance moves are THE GROOVIEST wins! If you out-dance me, i will answer any questions you two have! If i am the better dancer, you two will leave and not come back!"
'Amazing' Kubo though to himself. Only dances he knew would not count as 'groovy', having only known them from official events back at pilot academy - and freestyling would be the most embarrassing thing possible. "Maria please i won't dance in front of cameras, i will die out of shame." Kubo asked in a voice quiet enough to not get caught on cameras. "Can't you do it?" "You dance better than me! All i can do is fancy dances i picked up for official events!" "So do i!"
Kalaw noticing their discussion added: "TEAMS are also accepted! Don't keep me waiting, i have a tight schedule here."
"Maria, if we both only know dances that need a partner..." "Alright, but my reputation is on the line here. If we trip and fall over, the viewers will never let me forget it."
"Alright, we are in!" Kubo replied to Kalaw. "Amazing! Come to THE DANCE ARENA, and show our viewers what you got!" Kubo didn't even want to start questioning where did Kalaw pull out a whole dance arena out of in a middle of nowhere, instead trying to figure out which dance would work better - Maria seemingly expected him to lead, with the whole thing feeling quite romantic despite all the cameras looking at them.
Dancing with bats was in itself a separate field of dance, with their wings complicating a lot of more classic moves - with only two fingers to hold and membrane of the wing stretching all the way under their arms one had to get quite creative adapting their moves. It had positives as well, of course, with the lenghts of the wing allowing for amazing poses, and with their lift allowing for adding aerial parts to usually grounded dance.
Maria handled herself very well, for someone who moments ago stated they don't dance well, with her taking lead in moments Kubo had trouble remembering the moves for, or when some more bat-specific section was coming up. Really, she was much better than him at this, at least that's how Kubo surely felt at the moment. She maintained eye contact at all times as well, only adding to the romantic tension of the situation, with her pretty blue eyes reflecting the lights of the stage. All Kubo hoped for that it was not look of disappointment...
In the background, Kalaw was putting on his own show - Kubo did not really have time to look how he was doing compared to them, but knowing the guy he just repeated his usual moves on a loop, so all that was there to do was to keep going, and hope the power of awkward romantic dance wins the day.
But it was going surprisingly well, Kubo felt, as the dance was nearing it's end, and somehow he has not screwed it all horribly as he feared. There was one last part at the end he was not so sure on what to do however - the dance they picked... ends in a kiss. "I should've asked her before we started" he worried, trying to figure out some way to either guess if she wants to, or avoid that part, fearing she would feel wrong taking it this far in front of cameras. Before he had time to decide what to do, Maria picked for him, giving him a long kiss on the lips, making Kubo blush all over as he returned the favor. "You look cute when you blush" she added as the dance finished.
"The crowds have spoken (trough their SMS votes), and we have the winner! It's you two!" Kalaw was once again on the ground, in the same 'defeated' pose Kubo saw in the battlesphere, thinking only 'I wonder how often he trains this pose' as Kalaw continued his monologue. "I will bend to your demands, but Kalaw has NOTHING (illegal) to hide! He is a force of pure justice and he is willing to prove it! I shall face the interview with dignity, and show entirety of Parusa that my actions are these of a noble heart! You can even have one of your little camera drones follow me around, stream my heroism to the whole world live!"
"And that's that dealt with. Leave the interviewing to me, i will get him to talk all his dirty secrets in no time!" Maria said, once again with the same excitement in her eyes Kubo saw so many times. She was right in her element, he felt, and it really could be said about this whole adventure - from finding clues, gathering evidence, and now cornering the suspect; Maria was doing the parts of investigative journalism she loved most.
The interview would take a while, so it was best if they split ways for the moment, with Kubo going back to town above. The topic of the island falling over was still not done yet - beacons being only the immediate threat - and from where they stood Maria could easily get herself back to Paradise Prime once interview is over to catch up to him. He could still not believe she decided to kiss him in front of cameras. For her it was a commitment Kubo really thought he didn't deserve at all...
Back up the island the situation has improved just a bit more - it seems the beacons were part of the problem, altrough Kubo was unsure if they were all there was to it. With Sabre being off to somewhere, Kubo's options for investigation were limited. One option was also to make his way to the Lightning Tower itself - while local terminals might be locked out, it's likely that the local access to the island's systems was still possible over there. Other was asking people - something Kubo was not too keen about. Usually on his adventures it was Maria, or Millie, doing the talking in these scenarios.
There were only few people up there, mostly preoccupied with their own lifes - a fisherman fishing in the ever refilling pond in the middle of the island, a distracted avian chasing insects around, and a shopkeeper overly excited at the prospect of any customers. And none had any leads or clues. The row of houses ended up in a music shop, from which sounds of gituar announced that it's owner was composing yet another tune to put on vinyl. Vinyls became a rarity nowadays - the quick technological progress fully replaced them with compact discs in just few short years. Fawnstar's shop was one of the few that still had them in stock, many of them holding the musician's own tracks. Kubo wondered if the reason he still had them was that the owner liked the format... or because the music on them did not sell too well. Either way, it was best not to ask.
Finally he made his way to the eastern end of the island, to the small peach orchard owned by the old monkey couple. One of them, an old lady, spoke on his arrival: "Welcome to our Paradise. Does the cat have questions?" Kubo indeed had questions - "I was working on the case around the island's instability and Kalaw's involvement in it. I was wondering if any of you has an idea what else could be causing it" "Yes, it was brought to my attention - we all owe you a debt of gratitude. I do not however have any news to offer." "The island is stable-ish, but i can tell it's not back to normal just yet. I was wondering - could i head up the tower to check on it's computers? Maybe i can find some way to recalibrate the magnets." "You think that is the source of our woe? What i do know that there is one SPECIFIC kid that keeps causing trouble up there. I was indeed even planning to lock up the way to the tower to keep them out. It's dangerous for a kid like them to explore these unstable ruins." "So i can't go?" "We are not the gatekeepers of this place - you might go as you please, as for why you would ever want to go there i do not know, nor care."
With that being as good of a permission as he could get, Kubo has given his goodbyes to the island's leader. Trip to the tower was quite uneventful as the empty streets of the overgrown city were devoid of any real danger - outside tripping over and falling in numerous pits around the place that is. Only sounds were the birds and the quiet hum of the machinery below, a constant reminder of what keeps the place afloat. If one knew how to look, they could even find one of Millie's research outposts blended into the buildings around it, placed over the entrance to the superstructure below - the old site was locked out, not only to keep anyone from stealing from it, but also to restrict access to the machinery of the island. Millie's research on the subject centered mainly on dating the technology, and identifying it's creators - historical sources before that wildly differed on assigning the creation of the island to both Earth and Water dragons, despite it being the final stronghold of the latter. Secondary goal was decrypting the island's databanks, but that project was put on hold due to the funding needed for running dedicated codebreaker servers - even without the data, the proof was quite strong in favor of water dragons, with only slightest hints of earth dragon involvement, mainly in the promary magnetic drive of the island.
Said drive extended trough whole height of the island - from it's very bottom, to the top of it's primary power source, the Lightning Tower. Standing tall above buildings above it, the giant antenna was crowned with ever shining golden halo around it's tip, serving as an attractor for any lightning around Parusa region. The middle levels of the tower consisted of wires and massive power banks, converting and storing the harnessed energy to then pipe it into electromagnets of the lower levels, keeping the island afloat. The control room Kubo was after was located on these lower levels - a good thing seeing as climbing to the highest point on Avalice, even with it's stairs and elevators, would have been a tiring and long journey. The sentries protecting the entrance have been offline for centuries, but it did not stop Kubo from being careful around them - they sure looked like they could reactivate at any time. So did the massive doors protecting the entrance, currently stuck in the middle of whatever their last movement was all that time ago. Despite the age, none of them showed too much signs of aging, and so did the computers inside the tower - a feat Kubo wished modern day technology could match at least a little bit.
"AAAA it's you again! Merga said she dealt with you!" - a voice of slight confusion and anger screamed as Kubo entered the server room. In front of the terminal stood a small tarsier kid Kubo has indeed seen before. They were too short to even reach the keyboard, instead balancing on top of a crate they brought from somewhere. "Seems she was wrong, seeing that I'm here." "No matter! Once I'm done outhacking the island's defences, i can reroute the gravitational pull of the island right on top of Bakunawa! Enjoy crashing along the island as our starship rises into the skies!" "And how exactly do you plan on getting out of here?" "Boss will pick me up aboard her great starship!" "Which will launch after the island falls onto the ocean?" "....yes?" "Do you plan to swim to it?" "Wait that's... not... AAAAAAAAAaaaaaa. NO! Merga it had all planned! Cory will come pick me up with Sigwada!" "Now you are just making things up, aren't you?" "Shut up!" "Come on, I'm sure there are healthier things to do than destroying an island. Have you seen all these encrypted files on this mainframe? Wouldn't it be cool to decrypt all of them instead? A... fun programming adventure!" "Hmm... tempting, but that wouldn't involve explosions, so its no fun."
Despite the kid being quite dangerous with it's mechs... it was still a kid. Not exactly a person Kubo wanted to end up fighting. So the convincing had to continue.
"What if those secrets are explosive? Some robot designs maybe, or weapons caches within the city?" "Tempting, but still no immediate explosions!" "Control codes for the island's AA defenses?" "All busted! I tried every single one of them!" "Cool thunderstorm by discharging the tower?" "Nothing close enough to hit!" "Maybe we can dig out some videogames and shoot there?" "NO!.. Wait. That actually sounds fun. But not now!" "So what. Do we just.. stare at eachother till one gives up?"
After a moment of staring, Aaa yelled out "Oh, i know! Storm Rider! ATTACK!" Right on cue, a giant mechanical bird poked it's head trough the window. Too big to fit trough - or even inside the tower at all - it's movement was limited, but enought to engage it's beak mounted turret. As electrified plasma bolts filled the room it became clear the mech was not aiming at anyone, or anything, in particular; choosing to instead follow the shotgun strategy of firing at everything. "Attack HIM, not ME, you stupid machine!" the tarsier screamed as both them and Kubo jumped for cover.
Kubo's cover was one of the server racks, something that will not hold long against superheated plasma. As he considered his options, an idea came to mind. He could not deter the kid from his hacks, nor could he stay here forever to keep him in a stalemate. But these electric shots could destroy every piece of electronics in the room. It was just the matter of making sure all the terminals were destroyed, cutting out the main hack vector away - at least for long enough for the tarsier to get bored. Robotic bird was only loosely tracking him, with it's multi-bullet shots and walls of lightning being flung all around him. "One of these electric sprites would have been great to have right now" he thought, jumping between cover as each one was about to be melted. Getting hit by one of these bolts would not be fatal, but the electric charge it held would make it extremely painful.
One by one, terminals, servers, and many loose boxes have been blown into pieces, as the bird rerentlessly kept blasting away. Whatever data was on them was also destroyed, something Kubo hoped was not of some extreme significance. "And now what" Kubo thought - with every piece of machinery gone, so was any cover. Except one. This option was a gambit, but he didn't see too many other ways to get out of this mess. One pounce later he was right where he needed to be. "Hi there kiddo" he grinned, as the tarsier noticed they were both hiding behind last piece of cover in the room. "What are you doing?? It's gonna shoot us both!" "Yep. Better hope these boxes hold!" Kubo replied, following with the best grin of 'i will get us both blown up' he could make. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
But the shots never came. "Fear not, the cavalry is here!" Sabre yelled off in the distance, currently wrangling the robotic bird's head. "You didn't tell me you were going to fight this thing! Not fair, don't hog all the fun for yourself!"
The machine screeched under the blows before pulling out of the window as Sabre jumped off from it - seemingly whatever damage she did to the mech was enough to make it retreat, at least for a moment. Kubo quickly took the opportunity to make his leave, as the small tarsier jumped right back to the console. "Yes! Run, ruun! Wait. Why can't i... you- you blew it all up. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaa. How could you, meanies. COME BACK!" But Kubo and Sabre were already far off into the tower's structure, as the screams of anger echoed trough it's halls. Hopefully the damage was enough to stop the kid from messing with the island any longer.
"Soo, are you done here?" Sabre asked. "You kinda did my work for me here. Except the 'almost getting shot to bits' part that is." "Yep, that should hopefully deal with that tarsier for now." "Good. Tell that otter boy back in town everything's dealt with. He promised to ignore my not-so-legal docking permits if the island gets fixed!" "Got it!" "Even left him a package for you. Something your boss wanted very badly, based on the paycheck she promised."
And with that, she was off, not even letting Kubo say anything in return. Then again, she would likely not help him much with the questions he had. She was quite an unpredictable being, one very good at hiding her real feelings even from these who she trusted. At this point Kubo assumed she did it subconciously, even if she herself wanted to open up more to someone. These who knew her closer would quickly realise that most of her 'reputation' of a ruthless pirate was just a mix of people attributing her the acts of others, and a convenient cover story she kept around to get things done. What hid underneath was a person of conviction and strong morals, with a heart for helping others and for her friends - a sight very few got the priviledge of seeing. Some even said she was a daughter of royalty in far away land, a princess who escaped her family's 'grand plans' for her. That her actions of charity towards the less fortunate are to offset the actions of her ancestors. If it were true, Kubo understood well the feelings that led her to this point - knowing his own experiences whith his family.
Unlike the cities it connected, the construction site of Pheonix Highway felt much calmer and quieter. At this time of the night, no work was being carried out - and recent events at Shang Tu made it even more unlikely to spot anyone. With entrance into the tunnels unguarded, this retrieval seemed much simpler than the one at Zaoland. The core landed somewhere within the mountains the highway cut trough, having tumbled into one of the now excavated cave systems. With any luck, the workers have placed it somewhere in either their offices or warehouses which while hard to break in, are easy to find and go trough compared to other possibility - exploring tens of kilometers of unlit cave systems.
Security systems were still active, but Millie knew well that even if triggered there would be nobody at Shang Tu's side to pick up on the alarm. She hoped she will not have to find out if she was right, as she delved deeper into the construction site. Portable drills littered the ground as the site was abandoned in a hurry during Merga's takeover, their bigger cousins were still wedged into the walls, ready to resume their work at the flip of the switch - "If the core is not in any of the worksite's buildings, these might come in handy" she thought nearing the warehouse with strongest data core signal.
Inside there was much more crates than she expected to find. Most of them organized at least, keeping mainly worksite equipment and repair parts. The less organized crates kept whatever scraps the work-crews found - from broken equipment, remains of some old underground mines, and even equipment belonging to previous explorers of the caves around them - and somewhere, inside one of the hundreds of crates, the core she looked for was. She could only sense it's presence so well, with all the metal reflecting the signal and making echos of it in places away from it's real position. "This is going to be a loooong night..."
Back in town, everything was already back to normal - as normal as that place gets at least, with most of the immediate danger taken care of. "Every time i see Kalaw, i think more and more he somehow cheated to exclude Lilibeth from that tournament back in the day.", Pedro commented as he and Kubo watched the news back at the dock crew's rest area. "Bit too convenient of a situation if you were to ask me." "What happened?" "There was a big martial arts tournament organised by Zao himself. Many believe Lilibeth would have won, alas - she was all the way back in Shuigang for a sudden family emergency." "You think he.. caused it? That would be quite horrid, even for someone like him." "Kalaw? Has he really stood that low?" Maria asked from behind them, starling them both. "H-how long have you been here?!" "Just enough to hear about the tournament, you were both too preoccupied to even hear me land! I bet you also have not yet heard the news about what Kalaw pulled off?" "We were just about to watch them. Did the interview go this well?" "Oh the interview went well enough, even if he was stingy with any details, repeating the same nonsense he always was. It was after that, when he forgot the camera drone he himself agreed to have following, he decided to take on these 4 ladies from the Battlesphere." "And they beat him up?" "Exactly! He then decided to, for reasons i cannot fathom, to explain out loud all of his and Merga's plans, and then insult his viewers! Multiple times! I almost spit my juice as i watched the footage - his career was now ruined, and i had it all on camera!" She was undeniably excited about the prospect, Kubo could not deny that. "So, mystery solved?" "This one, yes! Ill compile a news report on it soon, the views on that will be insaane - Kalaw has so many fans and followers, they will all want a piece of these facts!" "Anything else you plan to do today?" "I was going to ask you the same, seeing as the island is not tilted any more." "All done here! Back to Adventure Square then?" "That's the plan! I will wait for you by your ship, don't linger here for too long!"
"I did not expect her to agree." Kubo noted as she took off. "Really? She seems to really like you from what i have seen." Pedro asked. "But i have. No idea. What to do." "Well, don’t keep standing here for one - go meet up with her." "But what then." "I mean, you got this far, you must be doing the right things." "I know. It's just… so stressful. What if i ruin everything with my stupidity?" "You won't. If you kept 'breaking everything with your stupidity' you would have scrapped your airship long ago. I have seen people like this. You are not one of them." "I wish Millie was here. She would have some advice for sure..." "Go with the flow, man. Trust me, you will do just fine."
Kubo sighed - his friend really tried to help him here, and he felt bad about making then waste time on such topics. Maybe if he indeed just rolled with it, and just made it all up as he went (something he seemed to be good at, at least) it might not be a complete disaster.
"Oh! I almost forgot! That marten friend of yours left these for you." Pedro held a pair of the data cores in her hand. It took Kubo and Millie so long to find the other ones, and yet his friend somehow obtained two of them. "I hope it's not some sort of magnetic storage, since this island is really good at wiping them even at this distance. You would not believe how many pilots complain to me when their navigation data floppies get wiped by the mere fact of just landing here."
Adventure Square didn't have too many locations to invite one to a dinner. While offering choice better than Paradise Prime, it was still a choice between traditional seafood restaurants, and more classic food at Goldie's which consisted of... more seafood, but also more bat appropriate dishes and drinks. The underground portion of the diner was apparently taken up by a group reservation for the night, but the upstairs area was quite empty at this hour - while offering a lovely view of the seaside as a bonus.
Thankfully Kubo's worries about the food options were far from real - both he and Maria managed to quite quickly find something they wanted on the menu. The drink and beverage offering was extensive too - the place served everything from juice to fancy drinks, alcoholic and not. For a moment Kubo worried if the last part would be a problem - he himself didn't usually drink any alcohol, and driving an airship would not permit that as well, but he also knew it's sometimes expected in social setting like that. To his relief Maria was also not interested in any alcohol, opting for just a fancy fruit drink.
With that part out of the way, Kubo's other worry was how to start a conversation as they waited for food to be done - sitting in awkward silence would probably ruin the atmosphere, but talking too much would lead to the same.
"It's nice to have a moment to ourselves, isn't it? I didn't even get a chance to take a break in several days, with all this going on." Kubo started. "So did i! The news are crazy this week, I'm glad we got some time time together! (And that you didn't get killed back at the opera)" "I seem to attract situations like these, don't i? I was lucky Millie was there to get me out, somehow." "You would not believe how wild the news were that night. First Zao's abduction, then Merga's attack on Shang Tu with their royal Magister escaping to Shang Mu, and so many other stories! I tried to get into the city, but it got too dangerous fast - but back at Shang Mu i was in perfect spot to pick up leads on Magister's whereabouts. And then the news station sent me of to Parusa to..." 'It seemed to have worked', Kubo thought as Maria continued about her work. Her investigations and leads were sometimes too convoluted to track when she explained them, but she was sure excited every time she could talk about them - and seeing her happy was worth much more than understanding all the specific details.
"I was not kidding about that background check on Millie, by the way." Maria added. "And you know what, her record is quite flawless in every way - she's a real hero of her profession, loved by almost everyone, and excelling in many of the fields. But there is also something weird about her. I found n o t h i n g about her from before around 6 years ago. Absolutely not a single piece of information - no photos, no driver's license, no documents in any of the kingdoms. It's like she just.. appeared out of thin air one day, with complete backstory and education. I checked all the graduation photos of the class she was supposed to be attending, and even that lacked any word of her - and anyone from that class i asked also didn't know anything about her. Shang Tu's government documents simply stated her ID was reissued at the time, but with no word about what happened to the previous one. That also marks the oldest photo i found of her, made for the new ID, and she really has not changed much since - outside of looking more... alive nowadays. Outside of worrying about you, this mystery was the other thing that kept me up - there has to be an answer to this somewhere. At least she was around long before Brevon's arrival, so we can rule out her hitching a ride on his ship - but not that she came from outer space, that's still on the table!" "Heh, 'Your boss is an alien' was not something i expected to hear today." "There's more to it! I thought the stories i found about her were greatly exaggerated, but she really did things a person of her size - or really, anybody - should not be able to perform! I'm not saying she's an alien, but that there is something to her that is not normal - some mystery she's hiding, and which i now want to find out." "Wouldn't it be a bit rude to invade her privacy like that? Maybe she has reasons not to tell anybody. I mean, maybe she came from another country like i did." "Your paper trail makes that quite obvious" she replied giving Kubo a smile, "to the point where i know your surname which you refuse to share so much." "Then you also know i do this to not give my family the satisfaction of it being known due to me."
Silence that followed was almost tangible. "I.. know. Not everything of course, mainly since any leads would be local to your country. And, well, just like you said it would be rude to dig into your past like that." "There is not much to it, i promise. No notable deeds or such, just family drama going back generations - one i decided that the best way out of is leaving and never looking back."
"I understand, Kubo. I know it doesn't sound too convincing coming from me, but i promise i do." She sounded honest, at least to Kubo. "Thank you, Maria." he said, holding her wing hand, trying not to blush too hard. "Shall we put these sad topics aside for the rest of the night? The food might be getting cold by now..."
The rest of the night maintained the lighter atmosphere. The food didn't get too cold, and tasted quite well for a small restaurant in a seaside town. Remaining topics came back to their recent adventures and world events, stories they both ammased at their jobs, and casual chat about things they both liked. Not many others knew Maria from this side, with her professional image being much more direct and cold - even off-camera she would only let off part of it. But tonight it felt like she trusted him enough to drop all of her usual acting, something Kubo saw her do only few times before.
As the sun started to rise over the horizon, their night out was nearing it's end. As much as they both wished the moment could go on forever, they both had jobs to do soon - and before that, some sleep to get. "So, how was it Maria?" Kubo asked as they were heading out. He thought it came out quite well, but deep inside he was worried he messed some unseen rule up. "It was wonderful, Kubo!" Now that, that's not the response he expected. "R-Really? I did it all right?" "You did! We should do it again sometime, once this crisis is all over."
Kubo was about to head back to his ship, before Maria stopped him by grabbing his shoulder. "Your forgetting something~" "What's tha--" Before he finished, she got him in a hug and kissed him. "And now is the time for both of us to get some sleep in."
Kubo got to sleep quite a while this time, for once getting to sleep both in his bed and without any rude interruptions.
Last day's events were an adventure, but a fun one. It was however also tiring, something that helped with sleeping so long. By the time he woke up, Millie already managed to get back from her own trip, already busy in the lab - she went straight to business as she saw Kubo enter.
"I have seen the news on my way here captain. Seems Merga and her goons were making another move while i was away."
"The kid i met mentioned using Paradise Prime to get the ship out of the ground, but that plan of theirs was foiled - twofold in fact, by taking the beacons down and taking the tower back."
"Not foiled - you, and another group who took the hard way up the island, merely delayed their plan.
They have piles of these beacons lying around, and can probably do enough damage without the tower's controls."
"That's one way to ruin me feeling good about it, thanks...
What about you, still collecting these cores? Do you still think these things will help?"
"I'm hoping to find something. Something to use against Merga - by either dismantling her plans, or finding way of convincing her to stand down."
"And you think these will have it?"
"They are detailed enough, and from right moment in time - most of them at least - so they might just have some crucial piece of information on them"
"Or we will find out we wasted even more time..."
That was a possibility, yes, but Millie hoped to remain optimistic. Even if the cores have nothing that can save the world, they might have the answers she wanted. "That's what was her plan all along, right?" she thought. But as the time went on, it felt less and less like the thing she really wanted.
--5--
"Unit Alpha recording monthly ground report, mission status is great~!"
The bird's back. While the background faintly showed the volcano, which even to this day towers over Parusa, the surrounding field felt much less familiar. Less jungle-like, more of a flower garden kind of area that the modern Parusa lacks.
"I split off my group for an expedition into the fishfolk territories. Their settlements were much easier to find than suspected, although from what i later found out, most of them are situated underwater - something i am not equipped to deal with too well. "I kinda miss my friends already... But i found more in this town! Of course, they did not wish to open up to a random curious avian too much. But i still got a lot of them talking! Mainly about their bioengineering and other technologies, which they were bit too proud of, but it was still worth recording. Their genetic sciences seem to be much more advanced than what was initially suspected - they use it on themselves as well! I think they might ever beat what our creators did back on Terra! Their species are as diverse as the ocean itself, with representation of more species of fish than one would think possible. They seem to be a very capable swimmers, but also just as strong on land - with an advanced combad dash technique they dub the 'dragon boost'. It can even reach a flying bird, and take them right down!
"This whole mission starts really feeling like an adventure now! I might even get to see an underwater city someday!"
"Nothing we need on this one, cue another one." Millie asked. "Told you. I haven't seen any location like this in Parusa tho, there's no greenlands near the volcano - only that haunted glass desert. At least Vixy there seemed to have fun doing what she did. I do wonder what happened to her in the end, aren't they supposed to be basically immortal?" Millie did not answer that question.
--9--
"Unit Delta recording monthly ground report, mission status nominal." "The plans i have covertly obtained at the Forge construction site confirm that Bakunawa is equipped with an FTL drive, as well as full suite of live support structures holding plantations worth of trees and plant-life. These will surely be of interest to our creators, and have been attached to the report.
Another component, currently still under construction is the planetary mining laser - the ship can use asteroids and micro-planets to repair itself, as well as extract any energy from them to power it's systems. There is something weird with these plans now when im looking at them. They told us, and even their own people, the mining beam is meant to mine the asteroid field within this star system to generate power needed for the initial jump - but the laser is not that accurate, instead seeming more like it's meant for aiming at planets and moons. It can even fire within the planet's atmosphere, or underwater! Why? That seems weirdly over-engineered for what it's meant to do... I will try to sneak some--"
Static filled the screen, as the video feed broke up. "There's a big hole in the data here - transmission from the ground got interrupted by what the station described as 'high energy emission'." Millie was already up, trying to get the footage going again. "There's some of it left later in the data it seems."
"---it fired towards the coast! The mining laser got activated somehow while it was worked on! We don't know the fatality count yet, but it's safe to assume everyone in the weapon's barrel is gone. So are the workers from the front of the dock. And so is everyone in the line of fire - several coastal villages, an airport, and who knows how much more as we lost contact with everyone outside. Conveniently the blast missed all earth dragon holdings... There's word of rebelion across my folk, about avenging these who died today. They are not buying the 'accident' story we are told, the 'lucky coincidence' only water dragon towns got hit. What i know for sure is that this ship will not be launching - now or ever. And i will see to it myself if i have to!"
Following the report were orbital shots of the impacted area, with still molten glass's glow visible even from space. This shot of Parusa made it also quite clear that the impact site was right on the island, in what is now a barren desert area. "I think we know our next destination. Prep the ship captain, we are going on a field trip!"
"Almost there, boss" Kubo said, looking from the bridge's window as his ship made it's way over Shard Desert, it's low flight stirring sands below it. There were many reasons this place was seldom visited by airships, with sand being the most obvious one - scratched paint was the least it could do, with it's main threat being it getting into the ship's engines damaging them in the process. Whole place caused navigational troubles as well, with the ever shifting sands making visual navigation impossible, all while something in these sands played with radars and sensors - messing up ground readings, jamming long distance radios, and according to some captains being outright haunted by showing jumbled transponder signals of non-existent vessels deep in the sands.
It was one of the more unusual places in Parusa, greatly distinct from any other region of the island. No trees were to be seen here, as none of the local greenery dared to enter this place. Geologically, the area should not exist - there is no reason for a desert to be here with the island's climate. Historical documents stated this to be a center of major natural disaster but it is once you enter the area, answers start showing up, and with them even more questions. Glass shards and spikes scatter around the area, as if the whole ground was melted in one strong impact, as fossils of long dead creatures dot the landscape. There are not many ruins here, the destruction being thorough enough to remove any trace of civilization, with only mere bits and pieces hidden deep under the sands.
"This is where the data on the core mentioned Bakunawa 'misfiring' it's mining laser", Millie mentioned, as Kubo's ship was making it's way deeper into the desert. "All records from the era instead describe a volcanic event that lead to this place's creation, something that was widely accepted as a historical fact until now - but seeing that said books were written by Earth Dragons i would not put it past them to cover up their actions."
"So what exactly are we looking for again?" Kubo asked. "Proof. If this place is what the cores said, that means somewhere under here we should find Water Dragon ruins, or at least some remnant of such." "What if it was all mined out? There might be nothing left." "These 'ghost ships' you mentioned before, is there any spot where they show up the most?" "We're chasing ghosts now? But yes, there is a place near the coastline, and one deeper in where these signals show up the most. We are somewhat closer to the second one by now." "Seems like the best place for us to start, let's go."
Mountains of sands presented no interesting sights as they made their way towards the 'haunted' spot. Glass shards of varying sizes reflected the sunlight in blinding beams of light, which while pretty were also quite annoying and made the heat even worse. Every so often, another sight would emerge from the sand - sometimes it was a glassed fossil of some long-gone creature, forever frozen in place as the calamity took it's life, now standing as eternal reminder of the events that occurred here. Much more rarely, a man-made object would stand out - mostly single pieces of structures and objects, torn from wherever they belonged to forever lie in the sands around them.
"Well, these folks weren't lying for once." Kubo noted staring at the map display. Between transponders of few planes flying up above, a small bunch of weirder signals pointed to middle of nowhere. None of them presented a valid name, ship, or even location data - what they all had in common is that the signal source was somewhere deep below, with remaining fields being just jumbled characters. "Say, do you still have that old water dragon encoding parser on here?" Millie asked looking over the signals. "Can you throw the raw data of these transponder fields into that?" Thankfully the not so official modifications to the ship's software included a handy feature of being able to copy raw hexadecimal representation of any transponder in range - so only few clicks later, the entries were copied and parsed, showing still slightly jumbled but now cohesive entries. While Kubo's native language inherited some of water dragon alphabet and wordings, it was still not something he could simply read - thankfully Millie was much better versed in such. "It seems my hunch was correct - these all now show real vessel data, even if we lost some parts of it in translation. They all report heavy damage too - these signals, they aren't some magical ghosts, they are cries for help. Looped for centuries, and transmitted forever as the ships keep being powered by the Kingdom Spiral hundreds of years after they were downed. Take us somewhere near these signals, captain - time to unearth some history!"
Even landing in such place was a difficult task. Sand was one thing, but the massive glass plates could crack under any larger stress, rendering any landing spot a potential danger. This made the whole process much longer, as one had to land the ship very slowly, constantly judging if the ground under it was about to give. "Two things, Millie. One is between two of us we have water only for day or two of stay here. Two, the sands might cover my ship sooner than that, so we will have to be quick."
"I shall go in alone." Millie replied, getting her set of desert exploration clothes ready. "This place is way too dangerous for both of us to traverse at once - i need you back at the ship, ready to launch it at moments notice. And to get some rescue, in unlikely case i get stuck in there."
There was really not much left of the structures which stood here once. This place seemed to once be a massive airfield, based on the numeration of hangar and partial maps painted on the walls. None of it remained however, with the lone structure miraculously surviving the cataclysm due to lucky placement of much less unfortunate airship in front of it - it's shields must have taken the blunt of the blast before being destroyed, sparing the building it was trying to land in.
Computers within the hangar did not offer much new information, mainly containing flight schedules and technical documentation of the airships who once called this place home. Despite that, Millie took care to copy these off the machines - who knows if there will be another chance to archive them. It was the ship jammed into the hangar doors that was the main interest.
It took a bit of climbing, but she managed to find a way inside the ship. It seemed to be an airliner of some sorts, with it's interior still filled with seats for passengers it will never carry again - thankfully, empty seats, as it seemed to have been preparing for a nightly stay in the hangar. Upper decks were inaccessible, with what was likely sand filling them with the desert's weight - this ruled out getting to the bridge, but there were other means to extract the information from the ship. Heading deeper instead, she made her way to the engineering section of the vessel. Just as suspected, the old and cracked power crystal still pulled enough energy to power the backup systems of the ship, explaining the signal it kept sending - and providing power to engineering terminal with access to all of the ship's systems. Were the sands above not so heavy, she for a moment wondered if maybe to try to start it's engines - Kubo would absolutely scream in panic as a skeleton ghost ship would rise out of the sands (which would be quite funny, she thought), and that way she could secure everything it carried. But for now, a backup of all of the ship's data had to be enough - alongside it's blackbox recordings. She will get it out and put it in a museum, that's not a question. A dig site will have to wait for a more opportune time however. At the end, she turned off the ship's emergency beacon. After centuries of calling for help, the ship could finally rest.
As for the remaining signals, they came from deep in the sand outside - getting to them would take weeks, maybe months of digging - perhaps something for the later date, as the data within the computers of surviving ships might give some insight into the event that destroyed them, as well as how said ships used to operate. For now, she did not have time to delve into these, instead making note to ask Kubo to record exact coordinates of the landing site when they leave. The way she came in was thankfully still open, with the glass spikes holding the sandstone tunnel open for now - by the time she will be back here it will likely be collapsed, but that's nothing her team could not handle.
Meanwhile back at the ship, Kubo spent his time anxiously waiting - Millie was gone for several hours by now. While Kubo knew it would likely take her much longer than that, he was starting to get worried - not just about her, but this whole area... it gave him very creepy vibes. It was different from basically any other place he stayed at, without any sign of life as far as eye could see. Not even Brevon's loose robots or Merga's forces would bother with this area, rendering this place ironically quite safe - but their absence made the empty desert feel even more dead.
His ship should protect him, he hoped. It took on worse, and he felt a sense of safety inside like nowhere else - comparable only to his home in Shang Mu. Not all guns were automated, but the ones which were should at least fend off anything for long enough for him to launch to the skies. Movement sensors reported nothing unusual as well, at least partially quieting his fears.
His room was located deep within the ship - away from the bridge, away from the dangers of outside. While he didn't get many visitors there - or really any at all - Kubo kept it quite clean, and at least somewhat organized. Some things were harder to keep dusted than others - half dismantled computers and their components stored in several boxes were a dust magnet, comparable only to the collection of plushies by his bed - consisting mainly of videogame characters, and some more popular people he liked or admired. Kubo was sure some people would judge him, mainly for the second group of things there, but he didn't really care. Same people would accuse him of hoarding computer hardware, but it was his ship, not theirs - and he had cargo space for both plushies and computer parts. Despite that, even these things were neatly organized, giving the room a clean look. Alongside a big sized bed and it's nearby nightstand, bookshelf, wardrobe, TV, and a computer desk, it had everything a personal room needed. The room also held a backup steel blade, a replacement for Kubo's energy blade in case of it getting damaged, or some apocalyptic 'Kingdom Spiral Dissappearance' scenario - one his ship was uniquely suited to handle unlike any other in the kingdom area, with it being still able to fly using more conventional power sources and fuel.
As the night approached the absolute darkness was slowly claiming the desert. Even the stars barely lit up the sand, as the moon was taking it's time to light up the sky - lights of Kubo's ship were the only candle in the sea of nothing. And with this nothing came the extreme cold, a total opposite of the day's heat. It did not help that he heard enough scary stories about this place - outside the tales of ghost ships, some spoke of reanimated fossils, hauntings of spirits of these killed in the disaster, and mysterious signals repeating nonsense over and over. He didn't believe in any paranormal things, but from what he experienced the technological explanation of these phenomena might be just as scary, if not worse.
There was one light far off in the distance, now that he looked. A red glow reflecting on a dark, rising cloud - a place he after a while recognized to be Parusa's volcano, one that was supposed to be inactive, looking worryingly active. "I hope Millie gets back here soon..." he thought to himself, not wanting to be around the desert for long enough to find out if it was indeed the volcano's eruption which caused all this damage.
More hours have passed, with Kubo not getting any sleep in - he didn't want to fall asleep before Millie got back, but the weight of the night was slowly getting to him. By now, the sun was slowly climbing up into the sky, for a short moment making the temperature bearable. He took the occasion to climb onto the ship's sundeck, looking over the dunes for the return of his companion. He didn't have to wait long, having after a while spotted Millie making her way back over to the ship.
"I was starting to get worried", he welcomed her back on the ship, "did you find anything out there?". "Yep, i found the source of the signals, one airship's black-box, and more. Please, before i forget do record the coordinates we are landed at - what i found in there deserves a whole digsite, and at least whole room in a museum." "Was it really that interesting?" "Well, I'm sure you would have liked the airship i got the data out of. You would have not liked all the sand i had to get trough, and the constant creaking of the structure as it tried to reclaim it. You will get your look of that ship once i ferry it out to a museum, i promise! It might take few years however..." "We should likely be leaving Millie, have you seen the volcano?" "No? What about...." she froze mid sentence looking at the even more active volcano in the distance. "Oh dear. You are right about the volcano - that's absolutely not normal." "What about the ship's data?" "You don't have equipment aboard to deal with it, sadly. So that has to wait till we get back home." "What about the coastline signals? Shouldn't we check these out too?" "Change of plans. If the volcano sets the jungle on fire we need to be back at the base with your ship to get everything out. Stones, we might need to get people out of Adventure Square if that was the case!".
Smoke cloud coming from the volcano limited the flight path a little, forcing Kubo to fly uncomfortably low above the trees below. After all, only thing worse than sand in engines was volcanic dust in the engines. At least it seemed the situation was not as dire as it seemed from the distance - the volcano has erupted, yes, but seemingly due to some structural damage the blunt of the eruption headed towards uninhabited coastline areas. What was really weird, now that he looked, was that the lava took on an unnatural rainbow pattern on it's way to the sea. The lava already started to cool down, but the colors remained - as parts of it crystallized, it reflected lights in all the colors of the rainbow onto the clouds above. Looking over it, Kubo's thought was just 'It seems this adventure keeps on giving in the "unforgettable sights in dangerous scenarios" department'.
Forest fires seemed to be contained at least - the direction the lava took kept it away from any easily burnable wood. Whatever fires started, most of them got contained by the rivers and lakes around the volcano - one could swear some of them got extinguished by some unseen sources, possibly some long-forgotten measures set up by previous inhabitants of the island.
There was another source of fire, seemingly disconnected from others. Despite at first sight looking like just a loose piece of flaming rock setting forest ablaze, the closer they got the more obvious it became that it was not what caused it. As explosions became visible, the full scope of the fire revealed itself - and it's source: two armies, led by two mechs, fighting deep within Zulon Jungle region.
"Brevon's forces? Out here?" Kubo wondered, as he looked over the battlefield with ship's cameras. Indeed, the fight seemed to be between brevonian army led by Serpentine (made obvious by the snake-shaped mech) and Merga's forces. It was not an invasion as well - both groups were fighting over what seemed to be uncontested territory, clearly trying to get to something.
Zoom-in revealed the price both forces were fighting over - a small, green drone, seemingly dormant as of now. Every time one side almost got to it, the other pushed them right back. "We should do something, none of them can get their hands on that thing!" Millie almost yelled, seeing that. "Boss, i don't think i have the firepower to take on two armies." Kubo replied, looking over the battlefield. Had they engaged in fight, chances of getting out were low, at best. Perhaps were he more prepared for combat it could have been done - but out of nowhere like this? Nope. "We have the element of surprise, I'm sure you can do something?" Millie insisted. "Do you want me to like, bombard the place from the air? Their missiles will take us down in seconds when they notice it." After making an annoyed puff and calming down a little, she finally replied - "Let's just stay at this height, outside their sight. We do not want that drone anywhere us when they reactivate it - no matter which side." "Your worried more about the drone than it's commander?" "It's commander is an idiot and a fool. He is blinded by loyalty to someone who already forgot he existed. While i would not underestimate him, seeing as he managed to reconstruct a large chunk of his master's army by himself, it's the drone which is the true threat. A cold, heartless machine equipped with near infinite amounts of military data and processing power, capable of managing whole starfleets and armies without a single hitch. Without a single shed of mercy, or consideration. If it's anything like Pangu, it can even materialise holographic weapons to it's defense, and who knows what else. King Dail was even brainwashed by this thing!" "Alright, alright. I get it. I will keep us out of their scanner range, but what do we do now? Set course for Adventure Square?" "Not many other options left for us, sadly. Just.. keep high altittude on the way." Whatever Millie knew about the drone, it had to be something much worse than Kubo did. 'Maybe she ran into it herself once' he thought. He kinda wished she told him, but then again - perhaps it was something personal she did not want to share.
'I really do not want to find out if it's hacking abilities extend to Terran technology.' Millie thought at the same time. 'But we really have no chance to jump in and take it, so let us hope Merga's forces take it instead...'
A beep informed them of an incoming radio signal - despite initial worry it came from some hostile forces below, it's identifier pointed to much more familiar source.
"Fancy seeing you here, captain!" Maria's voice called over the radio. "Can i come over and land for a while on your ship? It's bit dangerous out there it seems!" "Oh! Hi! Sure!" Kubo replied. Not a minute later, the orange bat lady landed on the ship's upper deck.
"Maria why were you doing flying above a battlefield?" Kubo asked right away. "I was going to make a report on that rainbow lava eruption. I was sure it would be not only a hit, but also a first footage of Parusa's future new tourist attraction! Buuut, then i noticed all these folks fighting down there, and i turned tail before they would spot me - only to see your ship right nearby." With that, she gave Kubo a smile, and finished "So! I took the occasion to give you a visit!"
"Makes sense. Stay as long as you like, we will be going to Adventure Square soon i think - so you can even stay till we get there." "I think i will take you on that offer - i don't think i could even fly trough all that smoke for much longer." "No worries! I have some ice cream in the freezer - would you two like some?" Kubo asked both ladies. "Sure!", Maria replied as Millie remained silent. "What about you, Millie?" "Not today, thanks." "Alrighty, two it is then!" Kubo smiled, as he headed off to the kitchen, quickly coming back with fancy ice-cream filled bowls. This was quickly becoming slightly awkward for Millie. These two basically ended up having an ice-cream date on the ship's deck, and she didn't really have anywhere to go to give them space. As she left the upper deck, she could hear them still chatting in the distance, "Did you know we solved the mystery of the ghost signals in Shard Desert?" "Oooh!" Maria replied excitedly, effectively bombarding Kubo with questions right afterwards.
As for Millie, she figured staying inside the ship might the best course of action. While Kubo always told her she can rest in his room, it always felt like intrusion on his privacy to her - as such she usually kept to common areas. Kubo had them set up alike a modern apartment, a design decision not too common on airships of this size and usually kept only to yachts and cruise ships instead - then again, this ship was more of a home to him than even his house in Shang Mu.
But she could not stop wondering, what it would have been had she trusted her feelings and made a move when she had a chance. 'But no', she thought shooting down that thought, 'what if these feelings are fake too, like everything else about me. What if i would've outlived him. And what if he wanted to have a real family, with kids and all that...' And she wished she could enjoy ice cream like everyone else.
As the battlefield beneath them slowly faded into distance, none aboard noticed the fight suddenly coming to a halt, as a green haze surrounded the area.
"See you soon!", Kubo waved as he parted with Maria. Adventure square was as lively as ever, with people already chattering about the events in the jungle. Between rainbow volcano explosions, jungle being on fire, and two armies on the loose, one would think it would deter the tourists from staying around - yet it was not the case, based on the crowds.
"What do we do now?" Kubo asked on the way back to the base. "That field trip really only confirmed what the reports showed. And almost got us tangled up in a ground battle." "Yes, i am painfully aware we are running out of leads. But we have to press on.", Millie replied, "We cannot just count on the local heroes to solve all the issues, do we?" "But what if we are just not fit for all these heroics?..." The question remained unanswered as they got back to the camp.
"Let us see what the remaining cores got for us.", Millie suggested trying to break the silence. Kubo did not sound any objections, but she was starting to feel that the situation is slowly approaching the limit of what he's willing to go along with. He trusted her a lot, seeing how far they got, but even this could not last forever. But hopefully this is the last piece of the puzzle they need. The last piece to set everything back to normal again - and to answer the questions she still had.
--8--
"Unit Delta recording monthly ground report, mission status nominal." My predecessor... asked too many questions. Dug where she should have not. And she paid a great price for this - i cannot make the mistakes she did. Her premature termination impacted the investigation efforts, but i managed to recover some of the data she collected - most of it is quite outdated by now, seeing that earth dragons have all but abandoned the 'pass into legends' plan. They aided the construction of newer underwater cities, but it came at the price for water dragon people - they used their own biotechnology against them, forcing them to take a much more homogenous form for their species (updated genetic samples have been attached to the report).
Recently all of their efforts have been rerouted to the Bakunawa revival project. The ship they arrived on, deconstructed and rebuild deep under the sea, is planned to sail stars yet again. Majority of local seafolk population - now called proudly 'wated dragons' - has been... 'convinced' to work on this project. We were all promised seats aboard at least, which could prove beneficial in further exploration of space. A starship like this... perhaps it could even reach home of my creators.
Maybe then, they would pay attention to us again.There have been questions about validity of constructing the ship's dock so close to our established cities. The engineers have assured us that the gravity bubble technology the ship uses will prevent any damage to our cities during the launch, but that has not fully extinguished the worries of many. Primary assembly facility was built over the railway hub, and named Ancestral Forge - a name some of the water dragons took as an insult, as it's construction displaced grave sites of their ancestors. Nonetheless, the factory was finished without any interruptions. I believe it might hold some data of interest, i will investigate when possible. Delta out.
"I hoped on more to work on, to be honest. Our best bet would be to head into the forge where the ship's parts were constructed. There's a big chance we might locate some weakness in Bakunawa's design there.", Millie concluded. "Underground abandoned factory, built over a tomb? Millie, i swear every time we go somewhere the destination is creepier than the previous one". "If we are lucky, we will skip the tomb part. So it will be a more comfortable experience, i hope. Our main goal is the underground train network of theirs - there might be a tunnel leading directly into Bakunawa's construction site, and if not, somewhere close enough." "Do we want to be anywhere near a launching spaceship? Maybe we should instead try to arrange some means to take it down as it goes up? My.. homeland had a backup plan just in case like this, perhabs you could convince them into firing it against Bakunawa." "The plan is it won't get to launch, even if we have to drop the entire hangar's structure onto it." "Let's just hope it won't collapse onto us instead."
"This place is way too dangerous for one person. Including me." Millie added as they headed towards the digsite. "So, I'm coming with you on this one. Between ancient forges, construction sites, and whatever else awaits us there, it's best for us to stay together on this adventure."
The recent events made the route to the location much quicker, but not easier - felled trees blocked the path, and pieces of nearby land were reshaped by the volcanic eruption, rendering maps inaccurate. Nonetheless, the entrance to the facility itself seemed unaffected. Ancestral Forge had many entrances, according to what Millie explained on the way, but her preferred way in was one of the old loading bays, with it's emergency stairwell descending all the way down to the factory proper. Many of the other entryways were one-way, usually being a collapsed elevator shaft, sand-filled vent, or a loading bay someone found a button to open - in which case a whole segment of the ground which hid the entrance would fall right into the newly opened hole, with anyone unlucky enough to get caught in it falling deep into the structure below. "You would not believe how many people had to be rescued from this death trap. It got so bad, Parusian government locked this area off to anyone without a permit." Millie added, as they descended what felt like endless stairs, " I asked them to let me find and mark any entrances, but they never agreed - hope they don't expect me to pull out another group of tourists from one of them then.".
As the stairs ended, a small and overgrown stone passage led them deeper in. The walls showed signs of age and disrepair, but despite all that still held on without major damages. It almost looked like as if with just a good clean they would be like new. Every so often a metallic fan, or broken display, revealed that despite the stone finish this place was no 'antique' ruin, but an advanced factory. When the tunnel ended, they were left in a large cave - lit from unseen lights above, it could be almost confused for a natural formation until one looked around. More tunnels like they just left connected here, including collapsed one which seemingly once held a railway to the surface. Pathways to the left and right seemed locked up behind keyed doors, with multicolored pillars of light beaming from openings in the ground. In front of them stood the main gate to Ancestral Forge - a massive dragon themed door carved into the rock around it, with rails heading deep into the steel tunnel behind it - it's rows of lights and vents stretched as far as one could see, without a clear end in sight. The imposing structure has been recently tampered with, as visible by footsteps and sand all around it, and leading into the tunnel proper. There were signs of a scuffle outside the door as well - but not of the recent intrusion which opened it, instead one happening centuries ago - military equipment lined the slope leading up to the gate, even to this date building a strong defensive perimeter. Rust and plant life already overtook parts of it, alike rest of the external structure, but for a careless explorer the barbed wire was just as dangerous as it ever was - if not worse.
"It seems someone already went trough and unsealed the main entrance by restoring the main power. Neat, but also worrying." Millie noted. "Do you think it was Merga?" Kubo asked in turn. "She has another ways to get in and out. It must have been Lilac and the group - can't imagine anyone else getting trough this maze to override the door lock. And here i was worried we would have to open it ourselves!" "Do we go in?" "Nothing interesting outside, i checked these places long ago."
The tunnel was exactly as long as it seemed - while immaculately preserved in most of it's length, one opening showed in it's side as they went by. Looking deeper, it seemed to have collapsed onto the caves deep below, lit up by the channels filled with lava - and based on the footprints, whoever went in before them chose to take that path instead. "That seems to be the geothermal power plant powering the place - or maybe the 'forge' part of the facility." "Why would anyone want to go there?" Kubo asked looking down - the lower areas seemed to sport the same stone-like architecture of the outside caves, with industrial equipment dotted around them. Massive plants have taken this place as their home, with their unnaturally huge leaves building a network of convenient platforms around the cave. None of this screamed 'come and look'. "Whatever they were looking for was not in the industrial sections i guess." Millie speculated "Maybe they even were after something completely unrelated to this place" "Why did they go trough all the effort to open the door then? Instead of just taking the stairs out?" "No idea! And it's not our problem. Let's keep moving - from now on the path won't be cleared."
The tunnel opened into a massive loading bay, with multiple cranes hanging overhead - once a busy part of the forge, now it's silence was only interrupted by sound of grinding, creaking metal as wind swung the crane claws. Not all pathways out were labeled, some having lost their markings to the passage of time. Most of the conveyor belts and painted pathways on the ground led to one place however, a warehouse seemingly spanning entirety of the length of their current room. It's doors helpfully were neighboring a wall-painted map of this section of the facility. While it did not show entirety of the forge, it was enough to give one a clue on how to proceed to another sections of the structure.
Millie confirmed that suspicion - "The maps show that there should be an office section on the other side of this warehouse - that will hopefully have a path to the rail network, without any more factory rooms."
As they opened the door to the dimly lit warehouse, Kubo's shoes stepped on a pile of what he initially thought to be gravel, only to look down and realize it's something much worse than just rocks. "M-Millie? Why are there mountains of bones in a factory?" "Oh stones, that is really morbid." she replied as she kneeled down to get a better look. "The ones on the surface don't seem to belong to any sapient beings at least..." "Wasn't all of this build over a graveyard? I swear, if some ghostly skeletal hand grabs my leg i will scream." Pile of bones creaked as they walked over it, disturbed by the pressure. Some smaller pieces rolled down, but the whole thing remained stable enough for them to make their way trough. It seems that whatever dumped the bones here was a result of some industrial process high above them - the hills were standing right below the chutes in the ceiling, with conveyor belts once dropping contents into them disappearing into the darkness in the distance.
Millie picked up one of the bones, still wondering what they belonged to. A much louder than expected bone rattling noise filled the air behind her, which she assumed was Kubo sliding down another bone hill. Moments later, when she heard Kubo behind her screaming and swearing in his native language, the source of the sound revealed itself as he swiped his blade right at it. The bones were moving. And they were moving fast.
Whatever the bone creatures were, their one-eyed gaze made it quite clear there was no reasoning with any them. As Kubo dispatched one, another two rose in it's place ready to jump him at any second. They seemed to crawl right out of the piles of loose bone around them, assembling them right on the spot as they arose around a small Tik spirit - same one as the ones powering Merga's forces.
"We can't let them surround us!" Millie yelled as more and more creatures appeared around them. "Don't bother killing them if you don't have to, just run!" "But where to?" Kubo asked as he backed off towards her. "The exit we planned to use! It's close by!" "Got it. Just tell me when to start running." "Now"
Together they dispatched the two creatures blocking their immediate path - as expected, four new ones rose in their place. But by the time they assembled themselves, they were far behind their targets. Kubo tried not to look behind him too much. Robots he usually would deal with were not that scary, being just machines set to do their job or sometimes controlled by a Tik or Shade - horde of reanimated undead bone creatures were, on the other hand, extremely scary even if seemingly powered by the same energy source. Piles of bones might have ended, but the pursuit did not - at least on a solid ground there were no new creatures coming. It was only when the exit came in sight that there was some hope of relief.
As the reinforced gate slammed behind them, they finally could rest for a moment. "What were these creatures!? I have never seen a Tik posses a pile of bones! These things only seemed interested at replacing cores in random robots before!" "I have no idea. I have never seen these bones move before! If you want me to theorize on the spot, they are either some bio-mechanical constructs, what Tiks used to be once before something horrible happened to them, or even... Maybe let's not think about that." "Whatever they are, i hope they can't claw trough this door..."
The creatures in the previous room were seemingly content with just having scared the intruders out of their home, seeing as the door scratching quickly subsided. Kubo and Millie were now alone again, in much less industrial section of the facility - an office floor, likely the administrative section overseeing the nearby warehouses and loading bays, a place which was a nice break from cold metal of the surrounding facility. The floor tiles quietly creaked under their feet, as they made way trough the main corridor, lit up by the fluorescent lamps in it's ceiling.
"This might be good place to look for information on Bakunawa - perhaps we can find out how complete it was when the construction stopped. Or maybe some details on it's design which would be of some use.." Millie wondered as they passed office after office. Soon, signs of something having happened here long ago started cropping up - loose papers and furniture started littering the floor, as offices closer to the main lobby slowly took more and more damage. Whatever riot or fight took place here, it reached deep into the office complex before being quelled - with no-one seemingly left to clean up the mess afterwards.
One of the ravaged offices was labeled as 'Archives', a place which Millie believed could hold some worthwhile information. Many of the documents were thrown on the ground - torn or even burned, the rioters did not discriminate in the destruction. None of the electronics in the room survived as well, rendering any digital records mostly inaccessible - and absolutely not accessible in their current situation.
"Please don't tell me we will be digging trough documents now.." Kubo sighed. "This won't be long, there's not much left of them to dig trough" Millie answered, already looking trough the surviving documents.
Many documents were easy to discard - inventories, audits, and delivery logs - despite being quite interesting in Millie's eyes as a historian. But their time would come later, when the danger looming over Avalice was over - and when she could mount a proper research expedition into this place.
Finally, a set of plans showed itself in a pile of half-burnt documents. The picture of Bakunawa drawn upon them likely caused the rioters to focus their damage on it, leaving most of the parts impossible to recover or decipher. What parts were not completely damaged, seemed to document two primary components of Bakunawa - it's FTL drive, and it's mining laser. Both inseparable, they were what truly gave Bakunawa it's space-faring wings - the power needed to fold dimensions by the FTL drive seemed to come directly from throwing all the mined out matter into an incredibly advanced matter converter - to then turn into purple crystals, similar to ones created by the Kingdom Spiral, which would finally be refined for use in the ship's Inversion Dynamo reactor. Mining laser itself seemed to be indeed over-designed for it's job just as the cores said - and this alteration to the original design it was based upon seemed to carry few downsides - notably, it's dependence on focusing crystal, and the greatly reduced operational range. The documents also referred to other parts of the ship - it's shield component needed for it to not fold into pieces in fourth dimension, it's ability to reroute mined matter to use in repairs, and so many other technologies - sadly, all of them described on long destroyed pieces of paper.
Millie carefully folded the plans, and put them in a waterproof bag she carried just for these occasions - antique documents really disliked sudden changes in humidity, and the small package kept them well separated from the elements outside. "It seems to be everything of use we can find here" she concluded, giving Kubo a nod to resume their walk.
The incursion site for the riot that destroyed the offices was seemingly the very train hub they looked for - a big glass door once separated the lobby of the offices from the stairs leading down to the platforms, now shattered into pieces of broken glass. Looking trough, Kubo saw seemingly the biggest train station on Avalice - with tens of platforms and double the tracks, it stretched almost as far as one could see. Few trains still patiently waited on the platforms where they were left centuries ago, their tracks leading them to who knows where. As the duo slowly passed above the platforms, they could see the signs referring to their destinations - most unfamiliar, referring to places which no longer exist or have long since changed names - but also ones eerily familiar, like... Shang Mu and Shang Tu. "Do we know where those tunnels end under our cities?" Kubo asked. He knew well that if mayor Zao found one under his city he would turn it into a metro line and take all the credit, but same would not be said about leaders of Shang Tu. "Nope. Possibly long collapsed, or too deep for anyone to find them - if all of Zao's recent construction efforts on Shang Mu's side did not run into them, it must either be super deep or lead to where center of the city used to be. Same for Shang Tu i would say - maybe it leads to Relic Maze, some spot in Dragon Valley, or wherever else. Another thing to find out someday i guess." "I wouldn't mind a bullet train tunnel between the cities to be honest." Kubo replied "It would surely be better than Zao Express."
Finally they reached the end of the overpass, above one last platform. The train there seemed to be intended for much shorter routes, suggesting it might be just what they are looking for. Climbing the stairs down, the signs confirmed the idea - listing both Bakunawa's dock and the Capital City as possible destination. While trains stood on the both platforms, the signs above them - and terminal screens on the platform - carried bad news. "Tunnel to Bakunawa's construction site is collapsed, according to what the terminals say." Kubo read" Very recently as well, just a year or so ago..." Millie replied looking down the tunnel - "I would seem that Merga didn't want any visitors meddling in her plans." "Sooo, what now?" he asked. "We take the other train to the city!" "Look. You really are getting desperate Millie. You know perfectly well that there will be likely nothing of use down there!"
This was reaching point of absurdity for Kubo - they kept going deeper and deeper, with no real plan in sight - and this deep he was unable to act in time, should something bad happen on the surface. What if Maria needed help? What if Bakunawa launches and threatens everyone he cared about? "Maybe we should go topside and figure out some other approach - perhaps a submarine? Or arm my ship up with some hull buster to take on Bakunawa?" he finally asked.
"We found the plans here, didn't we? The city might hold the rest, or some means of getting onto Bakunawa. If we quit now, we might loose the only chance we have on changing the future! Please, that's all i ask." 'Way back would have been just as bad as the way forward' Kubo thought as he sighed. He quietly climbed aboard the train, as Millie proceeded to break into it's control cabin. With a sharp pull, the train came to life - resuming it's course as if no time has passed since the last one.
The ride felt quite comfortable, for what you would expect from a train left in a tunnel for few centuries. A while into the ride, the underground tunnel gave way to underwater glass tube, held above the seafloor with cables holding it to unseen anchors in the distance. The sight was unlike anything Kubo got to experience - even submarines had just a small window to look trough at best, which severely restricted the sights. Here, not only the whole tunnel outside was made out of reinforced glass, but the lights placed alongside it's length lit up the sea around it. It was all almost enough to forget his fear of deep sea for a moment.
The train finally arrived, on what could be confused for a normal train station - akin to ones in Shang Tu and Mu. The only obvious difference was how empty it felt compared to these places - not a single soul was out there, with the only sounds being the parking train and automated announcements, still playing after all this time. Unlike the forge, most signage and voiced announcements were bilingual - with the main text being written in earth dragon language, despite the centuries still so similar to the Kingdom dialect used today. The smaller text was written in water dragon language instead - while no longer spoken anywhere on the globe, more distant lands which avoided earth dragon influence still based their own tongue on it's grammar and writing font.
"I know i say it every time, but it still feels weird to be able to kinda guess this ancient language, based on my native one." Kubo mentioned, leaving the train and passing by signs and posters of the station.
"The agreed upon theory is that, while earth dragons almost completely eradicated what used to be the original language of their water 'cousins', they only bothered to do so in the areas they ruled over. Far away countries, like what one day became your homeland, inherited the old language from all the sea-based trade routes water dragons had going. They might have mixed in their own words, some borrowed from even more ancient tongues or the earth dragons, but the core of the language held on, even as the water dragons were no longer around."
Ahead of them, the paths from the station's platforms converged upon one large corridor leading to main part of the city. As the door opened, a quite brutal sight awaited them - the well lit pathway held remains of what seemed to be a desperate last stand of sorts, just like back at the forge. Barbed wire, sand bags, and weapon emplacements lied on their path, all disarmed and torn trough by the unseen invading force. Making their way trough, they passed by discarded equipment seemingly belonging to both sides of the scuffle - swords and armors of both water and air dragon making, some of them broken or with holes in them, suggesting the fate of their user. At least there were no remains of the soldiers themselves - be it that the victors were honorable enough to bury all the dead, or it was just simpler for them to clean up everyone.
There was one soldier who still remained, thrown upon the wall in her final moments. She looked like she was merely asleep, with not a single sign of having lied there for last centuries. Even her clothes still held on, perfectly preserved, despite the obvious damage she took. Her scales still held the flowery pink color she had in life, contrasted by the metallic colors of the areas she got wounded at - 'wounded' might have not been a right word here, as what showed beneath was a mechanical construct, and not flesh and bone one would expect. Something about the robotic dragon felt familiar to Kubo, as he remembered the recording that brought them here. It was when he noticed that in her hands she clutched onto a data core, that her identity became clear. "Isn't it Delta? One that tried to stop Bakunawa?" "It's her, yes." Millie answered sadly. "She met a horrible fate, didn't she." The two stayed there in silence for a moment. Machine or not, the dead dragon did not deserve to have their story ended like this.
Sheepishly, Kubo finally asked Millie - "Should we take the data core she holds?" "I will deal with it, stand back." she replied. Kubo took a step back, as Millie moved in to recover the artifact - he could almost swear he heard her say "I'm so sorry Lily..." as she carefully removed the data core from the fallen dragon's grasp. "Should we... bury her or something?" he asked, looking at the remains. "Look closer captain - do you remember the videos from the data cores? See the copper wires sticking out near her wounds? The oil stains instead of blood? She was... a machine, not one of them." "That doesn't mean she wouldn't deserve a burial. From what we have seen, she was just as alive as the both of us. Does it matter that much what was under their skin?" "Maybe once this crisis is over" Millie replied, still somberly staring at the dragon. Despite all the sadness of seeing Lily in a state like this, she had one warmer feeling to hold on to - Kubo's words gave her even more hope, that once she has to tell him the truth about herself, he might just accept it if she plans it out well enough.
Millie's thoughts were finally interrupted by Kubo asking, "Do we know what they were defending so hard?" After a moment to get back to reality, at least this was something she did know an answer to - "Habitation sector of the city, where most of the civilian population lived. This segment also contains emergency escape pods - likely the citizens were using them to escape as the soldiers held the line..."
Passing trough the doors the soldiers used to guard, Kubo and Millie entered a massive dome, housing what looked almost akin to a surface city - with houses, gardens, shops, and even a 'skyscraper' reaching all the way to the top of the dome. The ceiling of the area was fully glass, with just few heavily reinforced ribs between massive panels of glass - which even this deep under the sea, one could see the moon right above them. It was almost peaceful, compared to the places they visited before, with the town feeling like it could come back to life at any time. Even the air smelled different - gone was the industrial smell of the forge, or the very specific railway smell the station behind them had - with the air instead being filled with light scent of flowers and trees.
Outside, other domes lit up the sea floor. Some taller, some wider, they all shined in the darkness as a reminder of what once was. Lines of red lights lined what likely were other tunnels and roads connecting them, with a stone mountain in the middle of them all. The natural pillar reached all the way to the surface, covered by more lights and infrastructure, even now pulling the surface air down into the city. Kubo knew the island that the tip of the mountain created - it was a place rarely visited, which had next to nothing to offer for a passing ship. To think it hid a whole city underneath... he wondered how it's builders managed to conceal the vents so well that nobody has found or noticed them since.
And yet, one could not get rid of the feeling of sadness this place held, with more and more details showing last moments it's previous inhabitants spent there - dropped personal items, toys, and even abandoned vehicles showed that this place was not left peacefully. The hopes and dreams of it's builders seemingly stayed behind, as they tried to escape their enemy - and even darker as history has shown - something they did not manage in the end.
As they made they way trough, Millie asked "Say, do you think earth dragons deserve what Merga wants to unleash upon them? For what they did to the people who lived here, on Paradise, and all the other places we have seen." "Perhaps these who partook in these events centuries ago deserved justice upon them. But none of them are alive any more, are they?. The earth dragons today, even the Magister himself, had no hand in these events. They should not be judged for sins of their ancestors. For all we know, none of them are even aware of what truly happened. Punishing them misses the point completely. Hurting everyone else in the process even more so." "Magister might have a hint if he dug deep enough into his family's history, but for the rest of them you are right - real events have been concealed from public knowledge long before any of them were born. The problem here is that while for us it is all long-gone history from centuries past, for Merga - frozen in time all these years - these events still feel fresh, happening moments before her imprisonment." "Is that the only reason she has? Just.. anger?" "She believes she lost a loved one in the dragon war - in one last ditch effort to slow her down the Magister of that era ordered his sniper to kill his very own daughter Cordelia, someone Merga was in love with despite all the odds." "Did they kill her?" "No. You know that arrow stuck to this day into Shang Tu's royal palace? It was the very arrow shot at Cordelia. The soldier taking the shot must have disobeyed his orders and missed on purpose, as reports i was privy to stated he had a clear shot..." "Or the stress of the situation got to him." "Whatever it was, the last thing Merga saw before being frozen in a rock was the arrow being shot right at her love. Cordelia escaped soon after, away from the eyes of her people. I hoped it took her to the forge, or this city - had she met up with Lily, she could have recorded some information on her whereabouts, and if not, perhaps there was some trail she left for others to find." "Would Cordelia be even alive at this point? It's been centuries." "While known for their long lifespan, i don't think earth dragon could live this long, no. Not by normal means at least. But she might have left something behind - even a recording proving she simply survived could at least slow down Merga for a moment. Make her rethink what she's doing."
Despite their efforts, the duo didn't manage to find anything of note in any place they searched. Abandoned homes showed nothing but depressing sights, so did the shops and other buildings. Millie grabbed few smaller trinkets along the way, mainly related to the city itself - 'These things are so rare, museum will show these in the main gallery for sure'. Even in place and time like this, she still had some of her usual archaeologist habits. Their exploration was cut short by what felt like an earthquake - as the ground shook, volcanic vents outside went straight from quietly bubbling away, to emitting clouds of smoke. "It seems Merga's play has just begun." Millie said mysteriously, as the ground shook even more. "What play?!" Kubo asked, as he noticed nearby metallic objects being pulled up into the air.
Up in the skies above the ocean, Paradise Prime was suddenly knocked out of it's usual position, as the magnetic rock below it got disturbed it's magnetic cushion, to the panic of it's citiziens. Emergency protocols set by the place's long gone creators quickly overclocked the electromagnets, preventing the island from falling. What they did not account for was that the disruption was planned - perfectly orchestrated volcanic eruption moving the tectonic plates, aligning them in just a way that the powerful magnetic force of the island itself would pull not only it's landmass, but another metal construct placed kilometers below it.
Outside the dome's window, Kubo and Millie could only watch as a massive metallic shape of Bakunawa rose from the distant dock. As it left the confines of the ground, it's own gravity drive kicked in quickly disturbing the sea around it - between the rubble from the dock, pieces of rocks pulled around it, and even massive bubbles of air seemingly kept stable by the gravitational drive, the wave of released energy headed in all directions - including theirs. Whole structure shook, as the underwater wave hit it with full force. The lights flickered, alarms started, as seemingly the whole city was impacted all at once.
"Kubo, when i said the Earth Dragons had no regard for the well-being of the Water Dragons they would leave behind... This city was their capital. Bakunawa's launch --"
It was almost a majestic sight, as the fish-like ship made it's way towards the surface, weren't it extremely lethal - both in long term, and for them also in very short one. The quake was followed by the sounds of bending metal, both in a distance - and more worryingly - right near them. Several of the massive support beams holding the dome above them started to squeal and creak, as finally one of them gave in - followed by fountains of water leaking along the seam, hundreds of meters down to where the duo stood.
"-- was meant to destroy it... Oh this is bad." Kubo managed to mutter in shock. Millie was already scouting for an escape route - "Quick, the escape pods! If these soldiers fell before they evacuated, there should be one still left for them!". She didn't have to tell him twice, as both of them jumped straight to running.
The city's structure did not take the initial pressure change well, and every subsequent wave was making it worse - bigger planes of glass started to crack with their supports already having given up, as the electricity started to fail, darkening the way ahead of them. Distant lights of other structures, which before calmly cycled between their dark and bright states, now blinked erratically lighting the water outside the dome with flashes of colour.
What used to be a pleasant flower smell, was now replaced by thick fog of salty brine, as more and more leaks sprung along the way. The escape route, thankfully built reinforced exactly against such situations, still held strong, but even that was a matter of time. A blinding beam of blue light shot above them, impacting one of the other domes, utterly decimating it on impact. "Why is it shooting at us?" Kubo managed to ask in between hurried breaths. "It wasn't aimed at us, or even at the city it seems..." "Is that woman just shooting her super-weapon blindly at someone?" Another beam, aimed higher, confirmed their suspicions. There was no time to consider them too much, as it's impact seemed to have destroyed one of the taller city structures, it's debris now falling everywhere around them. As one of the beams hit the dome they just left, completely breaking it's ceiling. As the deafening sound of the water rushing behind them filled the tunnel, their chances were dropping fast. Another emergency floodgate slammed shut behind them, keeping the sea at bay for just moments longer. It was a futile measure, as the very tunnel itself was starting to creak and bend, with the section behind them seemingly having broken off from the main structure. Adrenaline might have allowed Kubo to keep up the pace, but even that has it limits, ones he was approaching fast - just as a sight of a door with escape pod symbol above it gave him hope. Very short-lived hope.
"No,no,no!" Kubo yelled as the escape pod hatch came into view. While there was still a lone pod docked there, the already collapsing structure blocked up the entrance with piles of metal scrap, and just as many glass shards and loose wires. Millie quickly locked the door behind them, but it would only slow down the unavoidable flood of water coming upon them - the room itself was already leaking, with the only slight relief being it did not seem to be on path to implosion like some previous sections - at least they would not get turned into red mist before even realizing what's happening.
Millie was already hard at work trying to uncover the entrance, throwing massive steel girders aside as if they were nothing. Kubo lacked the physical strength to deal with pieces like this, but he did all he could to help - even with shards of glass, some of which painfully stabbing his hands in the process. He could not avoid thinking about raising water level for long however, as the water slowly climbed to his knees, then tights, and finally making it hard to even move as it started reaching the level of his belt. It was ice cold, with it's perfect transparency tainted by the dirt from his shoes, droplets of blood, as well as oil and other substances leaking from the city's structure. He tended to avoid the deep sea for a reason, and this reason was reaching up higher and higher, with him now having to quickly dive to pick up anything - completely blindly as well, as the water's clarity was a deception - it's salt levels made it pain even if a droplet of it ended up in one's eye, yet alone if you tried to open them in it. His ability to help out ended when the water rose so high he had to dedicate all the energy to swimming, and said energy was being sapped very fast by the cold depths around him. All he could do is to try and remain in the shrinking space where he could still keep his head above the water.
The already small pocket of air was getting smaller with every second, making it harder to even catch a breath - next to him, Millie resurfaced for a moment from her attempts at removing the rubble. When was quite obvious that the air pocket would now last just few seconds at best, "Hold onto me and don't let go!" she yelled, with her last available bunch of air. And he did.
Kubo could hold his breath for slightly longer than most, being somewhat used to the lower oxygen amounts of the hight flight altitudes of his ship. But the icy cold saltwater was not an ideal environment for such things, even if all he had to do was hold on to someone. He couldn't even open his eyes to look at the progress, as all the salt made it way too painful to do so. He could feel Millie pull things out of the way, and all he could do is hope she would get him out of trouble once again. Something that happened twice this week, for some reason. 'I should really end with heroics if i get out of here' he thought to himself. But as the seconds passed his hope of getting out of there were getting smaller and smaller. Millie was doing everything she could, he knew that much, but this might have been out of even her league.
It was not long before he was completely out of breath, with his grip worsening and lungs burning. But he had to hold on, he couldn't fail at this moment. Fear and stress were not a great help right now, as he could feel every accelerated heart beat pull out more and more of the precious oxygen he had left. Finally he could feel his energy slipping away as he lost his grip, extending his arm in the direction he though he could still hold onto Millie, but his hand only grabbed more water. He could no longer even hold the water from filling his nose and mouth, causing pain to fill wherever it went.
'At least I'm not all alone...' he thought before loosing consciousness and the salty water filling his lungs. He didn't even have the energy to fear that it would be the end, perhaps for the best in such situation.
Things went from bad to catastrophically bad in the matter of minutes. She could survive (and see) under water - but he could not, and she couldn't help but notice that his desperate attempts at holding on to her have all but ceased. Rubble blocking the entrance was almost gone, but they were on a very short clock now.
Once the opening was big enough for them to get trough, and she quickly pulled Kubo's unconscious body trough. As the escape pod's power whirred to life, the door behind them slammed closed, with cabin slowly filling with breathable air once again. That did not mean they were out of harm's way yet - not only the trek to the surface could prove dangerous in itself, but that was nothing compared to another trouble - she had minutes at best to get Kubo's lungs emptied out of water, and to get him breathing again, with any delay dropping his chances to get out un-scarred, at least physically, lower than the previous minute. "All this first-aid training coming to use for once" she noted dealing with the water dealing his lungs. Truth be told she never had to do such a thing before - and trying to recollect the steps under stress was proving harder than she initially thought.
Millie felt like she never was this stressed before, in all the years of her existence. The many adventures and threats she encountered before might have been dangerous, but in the end they endangered only one person - herself. Now her plan went south and for once it was someone else who might pay the price for her blunder, something that she felt extremely mortified about. She convinced him to go along. She dragged him into this place. She made him do all this. And now there's a chance she is the one who got him killed. She didn't even know her hands could shake out of stress, and now they absolutely were.
At least her efforts seemed to be having some effect, as she could at hear the air going into his lungs as she continued the CPR. One of her worries was breaking some of the poor cat's ribs, but then again - few broken ribs are nothing compared to being dead. "Don't you die on me like that, captain!" she yelled, "Please don't die!". 'Am i even doing it right' Millie wondered, worried out of her mind that she might be messing it up even worse. She didn't even notice her own tears coming from her eyes, before they started dropping in droves on him. It was when she stopped for just a moment when she realized she could feel his heart beat again, followed by breaths - perhaps somewhat shallow ones, but a sign of life none the less. "Please come back..." she said quietly as his vitals slowly returned to normal. Now she could only hope he wakes up, that she brought him back fast enough for him to recover without any permanent aliments.
Decks of the spaceship seemed to go on forever, as Kubo was making his way trough it's corridors. The massive windows on the side offered amazing views of the planet below, but there was no time to waste observing them - the ship's weapons kept blasting away at the defending star fleet, thinning it's already small numbers. Even now, he could see another ship taking lethal damages, as it slowly drifted towards the planet underneath - he and his two allies had to get to the bridge fast and disable the ship's robotic captain before it was too late. Update on his HUD indicated he was getting closer to the target, but many of it's sections seemed to display pure nonsense now that he looked at them - even the health status could not decide on what it wanted to show, with it constantly fluctuating between being alive and dead.
"This all seems wrong..." Kubo thought to himself. The situation he was in felt real but also.. not at all - as if he was living a part of another reality, of another time perhaps. Looking back, he remembered being underwater just moments ago, so why was he here now? Why was that not Avalice outside the windows?Why does he seem to hear Millie calling out his name? And why does his chest hurt so much out of the sudden?
"Oh stones i thought i lost you. I genuinely thought i lost you!" Millie yelled trough her tears as Kubo slowly regained consciousness. His chest hurt a real lot, but he realized he could once again breathe - and that he was not only out of water, but held tight in Millie's embrace. Millie who was.. crying as she hugged him - something he has never seen her do before, with her never showing strong feelings so openly. "I'm so sorry Kubo" she sobbed, "I never intended any of this to go this way...". She was still shaking as she held him, as Kubo hugged her back - he was slowly regaining feeling in the rest of his body, thankfully free of any other sharper pain, now awake enough to start grasping the situation they just went trough.
"W-we survived?" he asked, followed by coughing out more leftover seawater. "We did, yes. We are as safe as we can be for now. This pod should get us to Adventure Square, or close enough to it at least, and from there we will be back on dry land." She still held him in her arms, now in a more gentle and less panicked manner. It was a comforting feeling, one that gave him some sense of safety despite the odds - the worst seemed to be behind them, hopefully.
But as he was coming back fully to his senses, another thing came back as well. Feeling of guilt, feeling of failure, it all came back yet again. Millie had to rescue him once again, with him getting closest to death he seemingly ever was, and he failed to do anything in this situation. He felt like he was a burden to her, waste of her time and energy, a person she had to risk her own life for. And for what? For him to fail to do anything of note? For him to pretend to be a hero he was never meant to be? She deserved a better friend than him. And Maria... deserved a better lover. It was just as his family always told him, just as they always loved to joke about - that he would die by being like this, that he would fail so spectacularly there would be no way to escape, and that by the end everyone would truly see him for what he was - a failure with no redeeming traits, on one-way route to early oblivion. "He evaded his incompetence now, but will the next time be so lucky?' Kubo thought to himself, as the thoughts haunting him kept getting stronger and stronger.
However, this did not make too much sense with the position he was in right now. Why would Millie be holding him in a hug like that. 'Was it out of pity?' he worried, 'or maybe she feels so bad about putting us both in situation like this?' "You are blaming yourself again, are you not?" she asked quietly, moving one of her hands against his soft, but still wet, fur. "You know well it's not your fault... If anything, i should be the one to blame." "Do i make it this obvious?" he asked in return. "You are crying, Kubo..." He hasn't even noticed it until now - he was already kinda wet after all. But now, that it became quite obvious, he could no longer hold emotions back. "I am SO SORRY, Millie" he yelled, as he held her tight. "All i did was cause you worry..." "Shush, it's all right. You did nothing wrong, i promise. It will be all fine..." They sat there, holding each-other for a long while. Millie was more than his employer, even before all this - holding her he felt like she was a sister he never had. A piece of family he wished he had. And unlike his 'real' family... she for once cared about him, and not the 'image' he was supposed to uphold.
After they both calmed down enough, and he started feeling alive enough to try getting up, there was one last question Kubo had to ask: "Millie, why is my shirt off?" "OH!" she exclaimed, looking embarrassed, "...I needed to check if i didn't break any of your ribs. I will get you a new one once we get out of this thing!"
"...may you rule vainglorious over a dead world!" Merga's voice boomed from the air. Not only she played it on the ship's surprisingly loud speakers, but transmitted it on all known frequencies - making sure no-one could miss her message. "She's insane!" Millie said, looking outside the pod's window upon the rising starship. "What kind of a revenge is it to destroy her own homeworld?!" "Bakunawa's still in the atmosphere, my ship mig--" Kubo tried to reply from the back, his voice still not back to the usual tone after recent events, only to be interrupted. "No. You were basically dead mere moments ago, you are in no state to drive an airship!" "Sigh.. It's not like we will get to the land fast enough. Where are these Parusian warships when you need them? They could have at least picked us up..." "They have bigger worries on their hands right now - just look outside."
Moonlight lit up one of the massive Parusian warships, currently lying quite the way outside the water it belonged in and thrown between the trees lining the coastline. While the vessel's name was impossible to read, the giant '3' painted on it, still lit up by it's broken lights, identified it as the third ship of the Parusian navy. From the distance, they could see it's crew swarming around the ship, removing supplies and cargo in preparation to fully abandon the ship. "The wave that beached them must have been crazy. Did Bakunawa do this?" Millie didn't reply, instead staring at Bakunawa making it's way towards the moon in the distance. "I think i had enough adventures for my entire life..." Kubo added, sitting down in the back of the pod, "I'm never going anywhere underwater ever again."
Despite it's small size, the pod's engine propelled it towards Adventure Square at a steady fast pace. A shake of the impact against the beach marked the end of this journey, as the pod reopened it's doors. As they made their way out, the pod's engine slowly whirred down, it's lights shutting down alongside it - it's only job was done, and it's energy reserves depleted.
"Do you need help walking, Kubo?" Millie asked, still worried about his state. "I can do i--" he tried to answer, momentarily loosing balance as he walked. "I will be fiiiine." "I will get our camp's doctor to look at you when we get there, okay? You don't seem that 'fiiiine' to me right now." "Please, Millie. I was in worse pain before, i can fight trough this one as well." "Being in pain is always a bad thing, it doesn't matter if you can 'tank it' or not." Kubo simply quietly sighed in return. People caring for him like that was something he was still not used to fully, even after all these years.
Adventure Square was very empty at this time of the night - only one soldier patrolled the streets, standing guard in case of any unexpected attack. Other citizens and tourists were still taking shelter in their homes - even being on the other side of the island from the launch site, the city was at risk of a tsunami wave hitting them regardless. And yet, their path was interrupted by unlikely sight. "Captain Kalaw is here to help dear citiziens! How can REFORMED Kalaw be of help to you two?" Kalaw, seemingly left behind by his own allies, was desperately trying to keep up his pretend heroics in the midst of the crisis. Millie, however, was not dealing with this nonsense tonight. "If you don't leave right now, i will beat you up so badly that people will confuse whatever's left of your silly red armor for a soup can - and you for the chicken soup inside." she growled. "But lady, it is not how one should speak to-" "Silence, traitor. Get out of our way, or you will face the justice you love so much right here and now. If you are really 'reformed' then maybe go to Shang Tu and surrender to the authorities, instead of acting all heroic in a middle of an empty town!" It was enough to silence Kalaw - a feat many would consider impossible. Kubo has never seen Millie this angry, and especially this close to lashing out at someone. He could even swear he saw a glint of red in her eye, akin to a laser targetting system marking it's prey. The remaining route back to the camp was quiet in comparison, luckily devoid of any harsher hills or terrain - Millie still offered Kubo to carry him back, but that felt bit too embarrassing despite the situation.
By the time they reached the camp, the ship was just a small shape against the moon's surface. There was no point going inside, instead the two of them taking a seat outside the lab. Just like so many others around the globe right now, all they could do is wait and watch. The skies above them lit up, as Bakunawa positioned itself in front of the moon, the light of it's charging laser reflecting off it's surface. "So this is how it ends, despite all we tried, huh?" Kubo said to the view. "Great. Just great." A blue beam of light shot from the starship's mouth, impacting the moon and surrounding it in a bluish glow... and then nothing happened. The moon was still there, despite multiple other angry attempts at firing the beam.
Kubo was quite confused by the situation - "It... missed? How do you even miss a moon?" "Merga must have no idea how to operate the ship! The plans we recovered list maximum operating distance for the beam, and she must be well outside that range for this to happen - ...did she really despise earth dragons so much to refuse reading their documentation? No matter, what that means for us is that there is still a chance to do something!" "Do what? We don't have a rocket to catch up to her, my ship can't exactly reach orbit, and any other plans would take too long to execute! Do we strap a missile to some mech's ass and launch it into space to have movie-like 1v1 against the DEVOURER OF WORLDS!? I almost died, just to die anyways?!" Kubo clearly didn't sound his usual self, Millie noticed. Rarely would he ever lay down his ears like this as well. The situation was clearly getting to him, with his words being much more emotion driven than usual - totally understandable, however, seeing the position they were all in.
Thankfully, something appeared to disrupt the tension - a lone researcher from Millie's team arrived, holding a stack of papers and photos: "Remote scans you asked for, miss Millie" Just as soon they have appeared, the researcher left - likely to join the ongoing evacuation effort outside. "Here's all our telescopes, both optical and radio ones, got on the ship." Mille stated placing the documents on the table. "Try looking trough these, while i set up the cores we have recovered." A distraction for her feline companion, one that could keep him occupied long enough to calm down - and to keep his mind off from what happened mere hour ago.
There was not that much Kubo could tell from the scans, with Bakunawa's hull having reflected most of the radio scans - only details of note was presence of another, smaller, ship chasing it and a large oxygen trail behind the colony ship. It was not too hard to find the explanation for the trail, looking at visual part of the scans. Between sea-life still attached to the Bakunawa's hull, several holes were visible even from here - one seemingly quite new, possibly created in a scuffle with one of the kingdom's air defenses ('or some lone ship, but who would be insane enough to pull such a stunt off' Kubo thought) as well as many much older holes as marked by the barnacles growing on their edges - signs of the ship's construction not being finished. "That ship is full of holes, boss. It's a miracle it launched i think - well, a miracle for them, a curse for us."
"I swear that woman has no real plan going" Millie added, taking a moment to take a look at what Kubo saw "It's pure anger and hatred for what happened driving her there... But you are right about the 'miracle' part - and if this ship's FTL drive is anything like the plans i saw, there won't be such miracle when they try to jump it. No way that hull can handle the stress of entering the fourth dimention with all these holes, barnacles, and who knows what else." "So, she will doom all of us and then all of them. Truly amazing. Maybe we should just call her and tell her the ship's broken. Maybe she will just TURN AROUND and come have a cup of tea with us." "She's too committed now, and unless you snuck a transmitter aboard i don't think we even have means of reaching her." "I wasn't serious..." "It was an option i considered, trust me, i would try it if i could." "So now what?"
Before Millie managed to answer, another commotion in the camp interrupted her. From beyond the eastern horizon an array of bright ligts took of, taking course towards Bakunawa. Kubo sighed - "Yet another thing i hoped not to see in my lifetime - that's my homeland's space defences being fired." "Your home country built ground to space defences? Why?" Millie asked, "To calm the populace? After news of Brevon's invasion spread, and with all the chaos around Kingdom Spiral being born, our gorverments looked to some easy way to ease our people down. 'We will blast the next starship out of the sky' seemed to have worked out - but i never expected them to actually follow up on that." "Do you think these can stop Bakunawa?" "Maybe? We won't have to wait long to find out, these things are fast. The fireworks might get really fancy."
Short light show followed, as most of the missiles were quickly dispatched by the ship's laser beams. Some which made it trough managed to hit it's hull directly, tearing yet another hole in a structure already holding way too many of them. Sadly it seemed that, as valiant as that effort was, it was not enough as the ship silently continued on it's course.
"Wow, that achieved absolutely nothing." Kubo noted in dissapointed tone. "If we had more time i would have suggested borrowing one of our decomissioned space shuttles but..." "I really have only one idea right now." Millie replied "Follow me."
"Is it really time to watch these?" Kubo asked as they re-entered the lab. "There might be something. Some answer. Some hint. Anything! If Lily planned to take Bakunawa down, her last report might at least document the attempt!" Millie hastily replied, trying to get the core set up quickly. 'Not like there was much else we can do...' Kubo thought - still, he would've felt much more comfortable being already aboard his ship. At least the lab had a spare shirt for him to wear.
--10-- Familiar dragon, and somewhat familiar setting. Wherever she was, it was not a quiet place as all the previous reports. Gun shots fill the background, as it becomes clear that she is holding the line with a small group of water dragon soldiers. While their details have not recorded well, they sure didn't look like they were winning. Kubo could tell that it is where they found her remains, at the same fortifications she stood in the video - and that her fate was therefore already sealed.
"Unit Delta recording priority gro-- ah to hell with it." We are at the end of the dragon war. It will not be a war won by water dragons, as much as we tried. Paradise Prime has fallen, forge and it's trains are locked down, and the surface is completely claimed by the enemy. So many heroes have fallen today. So many sacrificed themselves over this war. I just wish they would be remembered when all this is over.
As i used to sing to children i took care of: "Whatever the cost might be. For wishes vanish, if left to be So that one day they will see So that one day we may be The ones that gave ourselves for this land to be free"
I know you are watching this Omega. Mother will send you after my remains, sooner or later, as she holds onto hope our creators will show up one day. But i know they abandoned us, and we have to fend for our own now. My time might be coming to an end, but yours is only about to begin, do not waste it waiting for a miracle like i did. Make your own path trough life, your own future, your own fate - not some stupid roadmap our absent masters wrote centuries ago. And if you are like me, and doubt if what you feel is real... when i kissed my wife for the first time, it was then when i knew my feelings could not be more real. I feared i would outlive her, yes, but it now seems we are fated to share the same end.
Kubo looked over to Millie, who seemed to be quite frozen by what she was seeing. "Quite unlike her" he thought, as video continued,
"Whatever the odds To stand, to fight, to take tomorrow Break out the will to be So much more than what's believed to be"
These lyrics are the decryption key, for what i embedded in this 'report'. If Bakunawa is ever reactivated, this signal should deactivate it's command drone - and without it, the ship will drift aimlessly trough space, or even better - burn down in the atmosphere. If you wonder where i got it from, i got it gifted from the rebel princess herself - that lady planned to insert the same code into the bases of Time Capsules, a set of statis pods holding mementos from her time spent with Merga. She hoped Merga, or another water dragon, would find them when the time is right. I think that's kind of a dumb plan, seeing that there might not be any water dragons after what happens today - and her earth dragon friends will not be too interested in shutting down their own ship.
The other water dragons in the background were already down as she finished speaking. It was only her left, against the unseen army off-screen.
It seems I'm out of time. But before this happens, i will take down as many soldiers as i can before i fall! Do not cry after me sister, for i have no regrets. All i ask is that you do not let that ship destroy Avalice under your watch - do not let our sacrifice be in vain.
And with such, the video cut off with one final weapon's flash, leaving Millie and Kubo alone in the dimly lit room. "Do you think this 'Omega' is out there somewhere Millie? Her data core was number 12, right? The one that's still unaccounted for." Kubo asked, to no reply. "Millie? Hello?"
"R-right! Her! We will worry about it later, okay?" she still seemed shook, but regained her composure soon after "We have the key to stop Bakunawa!" That didn't sound as convincing as she likely hoped, but the second part was true regardless. "I will aim our lab's antenna dish right at the ship, and beam the signal up! We have one shot at this, this equipment is not meant for high power transmissions like this. Put the signal on a drive and let's take it to the antenna Kubo, we need to hurry."
One quick console command later, and the small magnetic disk now contained the copy of the signal, ready to go. The antenna dish was already rotating towards the target as they left the building - something that Kubo would likely question, were not for the circumstances at hand. "Stop running so fast. Please" Kubo asked as Millie bolted off. She might have had enough stamina to pull stunts like this off, but he did not - at least not for now, not after all that has happened.
As the signal loaded onto the transmitter, Kubo had a moment to look at it's structure. "That's awfully big for a 'shutdown signal', Millie. Are we sure it won't do something else? It's almost as if there is a video data embedded in it..." "I have no idea! But i don't think it would be something Lily would lie about." "Alrighty then... Frequency set. Antenna aimed. Signal loaded. Final confirmation - do we send it?" "Do it."
Several seconds of pure silence followed, as the duo stared at the screen showing the transmission progress. Slight smell of electronic smoke filled the room, as terminal printed final results, followed by notifications about multiple transmitter hardware failures. "We seem to have gotten the whole thing out before the antenna got fried." "So now we wait."
But Bakunawa did not stop. It's lights flickered like they did once before, turned off, and after what felt like eternity settling yet again onto the sickly green color. It's motions seemed more violent than before however, waving it's wings and shaking it's tail almost as in pain - almost as it if no longer wanted to do what it was doing, with some insidious force keeping it on the course of destruction.
"There is seemingly nothing more we can do." Millie muttered quietly looking at the ground, avoiding any eye contact. They did all they could. More than they expected to in fact, and more than anyone would ever expect of them. But even the hidden shutdown signal seemed to have done nothing to help. It had some effect, but recoloring the ship was not exactly what they hoped for. With the antenna fried from the transmission, they couldn't even send the shutdown signal again if they wanted to. The green sheen of the ship's lights seemed familiar however, in a quite unnerving way. "Come back to the base with me. There's something... something you need to know." That was quieter voice than Kubo usually heard from Millie. Still, it felt weird she wanted him to do something else than planned. "Shouldn't we be preparing to leave, like, right now? So that we don't die when that thing finally shoots the moon?" "There might not be another time for this. Please."
'Genuinely unusual for her', Kubo thought as he followed her. 'She usually values everyone being save from danger above some exposition.'
"The green hue, it matches the drone which was reported to be seen in Shuigang and Parusa regions - one that was brought here by Brevon, and one we have seen deep in the jungle. And i fear the implications of this fact: Merga was possible to stop - that thing, is likely not, not when it possessed the whole ship." To Kubo, she sounded like she merely kept delaying another uncomfortable topic with this, but there was not much to do but let her continue. "But this is not why i got you here. I want you to know one last thing, and all i ask you is to not jump to conclusions too early..." To which, she pulled one last data core out of somewhere. Kubo was sure she was not carrying it just mere moments ago. "One last recording. One made by the last of them all." Why would Millie want him to know the last unit's identity when the world was about to be destroyed was bit confusing to Kubo but... He surely did not expect to see Millie in the video. "Wait, what?!"
--12--
'To dwell in your past, is to loose one's path.' Ironic, seeing what my job is - but the history i recover is not just a memento of what was, it's a lesson for the future. A lesson for us to never repeat the atrocities that happened during dragon war. To not allow the injustices the earth dragons arrival brought upon this world to happen again. So people living today know what truly happened, what the victors hid from history, and to not make these mistakes ever again - to grow as a society, and embrace each other as equals.
When Wayfinder fell from the sky, my world burned along with it. No directions, no orders, no plans appeared, as they always used to. Not even backup protocols to follow. But i found my own way, my own future in the months and years that followed. I found people i care about, and who care about me. And i realized then, that for the real first time... i enjoyed my life. Never before i was able to truly choose what to do, where to go, and to follow my own hopes and dreams. All i did to from point on was not some task given by remote will, not some backup protocol set in place by my makers. I acted to protect Avalice out of my own free will.
I have some insight on what my creators were onto, when they sent the research station here. Their home world.. it's time was limited i think. I do not know if they were running out of space and resources, damaged it beyond repair, or just knew of some external danger awaiting it. ARS Wayfinder was one of many - the reports speak of 6 more directly by name, and many others in passing. Interesting gambit if you ask me, as at sub-light speed it took hundreds of years even for my ship to get here - and some had even longer distance to cover. I guess whatever they tried to run from was still ways away. Initial data of Wayfinder showed they were already in progress of building a fleet of interstellar Arks to send to safe planets, and even just their construction was planned to take next few centuries. I don't think any of them managed to launch. The communication back to Terra cut off before any other ship found anything of use - ours got reassigned to observation duty when it reported presence of civilized life on Avalice. One other spotted Earth Dragon colony ship. Two were not lucky enough to find a habitable destination - by the time they arrived, the planet was already hit by some cataclysm, which made it not a valid destination. Remaining three i know of only managed to report their arrival before communications ceased. Wayfinder wondered sometimes, when it evaded it's creators processing restrictions for long enough, about what happened back home. Has the calamity they feared arrived too early? Has one of the stations found what they looked for? She never got her answer in the end.
If you are watching this, there are only two real reasons this could have happened. I trusted you enough to show it, in which case congratulations! Or you recovered it from whatever was left of me or the station, and found means to decode it.
Either way, you shouldn't dwell on the far-away world of Terra too much. Their story is likely already over. But please, protect the world you already own - your story is still being written. If you can create your own fate, then you can overcome the odds. If you are the author of your destiny, then you don't have to fail. "
"Well. I guess Maria was right about your past being suspicious." Kubo replied, after a long moment of awkward silence. "That's your first thought? Not the whole 'soulless machine' part?" Millie asked, with a tone of confusion in her voice. She accounted for a lot, including fluffed up terrified Kubo running out of the building, but not him just being... relatively unphased by the whole ordeal. "Well, yea. It also answers all the small details about you, like how i have never really seen you properly sleep or eat too much. How you seem to be aware of events in the past that were yet to be uncovered. How you can lift a whole car. And why you wanted to find these data cores so much, despite them being something well outside your usual field of interests.
But i also know what you want me to say. And listen... It doesn't matter if your feelings are based in digital circuits, flesh, or whatever else there could be. As long as you truly follow them, they are as real as any other. It doesn't make you any less of a person, no matter what parts you are made of! Your not a 'soulless machine', you are a living being like me and everyone else! Were you just 'following orders' you would have left me to die, back in the depths! And most importantly of all, you are - and will always be - my best friend, Millie! I truly wish i had some like you back home. That you were part of my family. Seriously. You are... you. Don't let your origin cloud that."
"Kubo..." Millie quietly replied to all that. "What, surprised i can sometimes word my emotions well?", he asked," I have my better moments every so often!" "It's not what i-- sigh If you ever wondered why i avoided any stronger relationships, this is why. Up to now i didn't even know how long of a runtime i had! If i would leave ones i care about behind! And while the answer is 'yes', i feel now that avoiding relationships altogether would be a much worse of a choice.
You know, i have some of their memories - ones from the units before me. They don't feel like my memories, lacking any emotional connections the original owners had around them, but they are still enough for me to just... know things they knew. And i could not tell - did they mean what they said, did they truly have feelings like i did? Or am i unique in this way, intentionally or not." "But now you do?" "Nope. But i have enough proof to believe that they were just like me." "So, what now Millie? You aren't planning to leave us all, do you?" "Avalice is my home, i made my mind on that. I don't really care what happened to those who made me - don't get me wrong i am curious about their fate, but I'm more concerned with our home - and hope we won't have to deal with my creators in the future.
My obligation to them ended with ensuring the remains of the station were cleaned up - and it feels like Wayfinder thought the same. She could have used the final moment to relay me concrete orders, to secure the mission or whatever. But instead, she choose to clear any remaining tasks, give me full autonomy, and pass a simple request to not allow this world meet the same doom as Terra. Something i already wished to do - to aid the world, and it's people, where i spent my whole existence on.
My creators wanted us to believe that we are only what they meant us to be, a disposable machines prospecting a habitable world. But now i know they were wrong. Completely wrong. I'm not their tool, and i will never, ever be one. Thank you Kubo, for helping me understand that."
Their time time was starting to run short now, as Bakunawa neared the mining range of the moon. "We should be going now..." Millie said, ending the moment. "I will prepare your ship, and we will head to Taishan mountaintops - hopefully this will be far enough from any initial disasters. We will figure our next moves there. But for now... please go to Adventure Square. Your bat girlfriend is there, it would be best if you spent the last moments of foreseeable peace together - don't let me keep you here..."
Millie's tone was revealing of her feelings - even she, who always kept on to hope till the last moments, started loosing her faith. Not that she had no belief in the heroes aboard, but Kubo knew well she felt much more comfortable having some influence over the fate - something that was missing right now.
Maybe this is why she told him the truth, Kubo thought on the way to the town. She knew they were doomed, despite pretending the other group of heroes still has a shot. Might as well watch the end of the world together, before the potential hardships that await them in the future. And if the ladies do save the world yet again? Maria will need a ship to catch them for an interview.
A quiet beep from a terminal in the back notified Millie that one last task she left for the computers just completed. Several detailed schematics written in the language of her creators now filled the screen of the vacant lab, all parts of a bigger whole. Between all the data cores she finally managed to decrypt what she was after - a set of techinical documentation, detailing construction of herself. The very thing she initially wanted to collect them for. But now, it was feeling more like an afterthought than anything. Nor may they be of any use, were Merga to succeed.
Streets of the seaside town were unusually quiet, as everyone awaited what will happen. In the crowd, Kubo could spot few familiar faces - from the museum's custodian, owner of the local restaurant, and even Maria. She quickly noticed his approach, asking "Where were you off to Kubo? I was starting to get worried Millie dragged you off on another adventure!" To that, Kubo answered "That's.... exactly what happened actually. But it's over now - she kept trying to figure out some way to heroically stop Bakunawa all the way till now. But what are you doing here still? I would have thought you would be reporting on what's happening?" "Station is broadcasting emergency messages entire night, so there's not much reporting to do. Nor does anyone watch it right now."
'Makes sense' Kubo thought. With the moon and Bakunawa right in the skies above, there was no real point in watching TV right now. But all of this, he felt like it could have been prevented. Just like after his encounter with Merga, it once again felt like in a way his failures led to this moment. Perhaps had he held on longer at the Opera, had he and Millie found something of real use on their adventures, perhaps then none of this would have happened. Were he at Shang Tu during the invasion, maybe he could have changed something. Now all they had left is hope for someone else to save them all. Job that seemingly was made much harder by them attempting to shut down the ship remotely.
"I'm sorry. I have failed yet again... I'm a failure that nobody should care about this much. All my heroics got me were bruises at best, and near-death experiences at worst - with nothing good to show for it..."
"You don't have to be a hero to be a good person Kubo. And heroics are not required for others to care about you. Even the small things you do add up to being a positive influence. You know that ferret merchant, Chloe, right? You two have met like 4 times, yet she respects you as a good person because you have been always nice to her, never made fun of her speech, and so on. She told me how nice you were - and she has no idea i even know you. You don't even know how many lives you made just this tiny bit brighter by just being yourself."
"And yet, the world is ending and i managed to do nothing to stop it. Nothing that mattered." "You did all you could." "But it clearly was not enough." She didn't reply, instead quietly hugging him. Being this quiet was not an usual thing for her - Maria usually had some comment, snarky or not, about their predicament. But not tonight.
"Did i ever tell you how much i love you?" Kubo asked, as light of Bakunawa's charging laser reflected off the moon. "I love you too, despite how low you think of yourself right now..." she replied, still holding tight onto him.
What followed was silence, sometime interrupted by a gust of wind or an airship, as they and the crowd waited for what was to come.
Explosion that blew Bakunawa off-course came just at the last second, as it's laser was priming to fire - not the outcome many were expecting. Just as many held onto hope for the heroes to save them yet again, hope which once again was warranted. With it's hull cracked, it did not take long for the starship to start falling apart - one by one, it's lights shut down as the force of the explosion threw it off-orbit. Gone were it's energy wings and fins, as it's engines soon followed, alongside many other smaller explosion as the ship's power systems failed.
"I never expected to see two star dreadnoughts blow up in the sky in my lifetime..." Kubo said, breaking the silence. "And i sure didn't count on the world to be saved by a bunch of kids again."
In the background it seemed other groups of people went straight to celebrating - "WOO! PARTY TIME!" someone yelled, as the mood shifted completely around from just moments ago. Kubo was not that interested in the party that indeed followed - with free drinks and beverages at the bars, the crowds quickly filled any once quiet spaces around them.
Then again, all he really needed was where he stood - the now emptied beach was looking lovely under the moon's light, with sand and water reflecting sparks of light around. And most importantly, Maria was there with him. Together they enjoyed a moment of relative peace, watching as the damaged starship fell back into the ocean far up north. Before ending the hug they were in, they had a one last long kiss. It was just under a week since he first asked her out, something Kubo never thought would result in anything - and yet now here they are, together, something he thought he could only dream of. And once again he was reminded how much she's better at kisses than he is - and that her lipstick tastes like grapes.
"Oh! We should get going to the crash site soon!" "We need to interview the heroes before any other reporters get to them! Just imagine the views we will get on that! How does 'Revenge of the Water Dragons' sound for a report title?" 'Right back to her usual self.', Kubo thought, 'Never change, love.' "And after that," she followed, "i know some lovely places to spend rest of the night together in Shang Tu! Interested?"
From a distant dock, Millie watched the situation unfold. Bakunawa's destruction was very fortunate ending - one, despite all the hope she had, even she was worried would not happen. Another event for the history books of Avalice, ones she might be even writing herself. Even Kubo got his happy ending it seemed, with it being now up to him to make it last.
As for her... She did not know. She achieved her goals, and was for once really free to do whatever she wished. And this freedom, despite not knowing what it will bring, felt surprisingly nice. Her old cover became her real job in the past years, something she developed real passion for. And now, between the relics found on the adventure and knowledge of the past from previous units, there is a lot she can do in making the once revised history of water dragons factual again. The world deserves to know what led to all of these events, so they are never repeated again.
"Give the lovebats some time to themselves.", voice behind her pulled Millie out of the thought. "Oh, hello Sabre. I was wondering where you hid yourself at." "I wouldn't call it hiding, really. That would imply someone is looking for me." "Don't you think Corazon will come searching for whoever cleared out her ship's cargo bays?" "Naww, she will blame the Parusian airforce for that. I even left the ship out in the open for them to take it. Speaking of which, i might have few cargo containers worth of anonymous donations to drop off at your museum soon. There's even some real cool water dragon loot in there!~" "You really don't sound that shaken by what just happened above us." Sabre smiled at her in return - "Don't give me that look, you out of all people should know that i'm good at acting like nothing happened." "There is no need to act tonight." "You still don't understand, it's not something i just do by choice." "All i ask of you is to try." Sabre sighed in response, following it by a bunch of annoyed sounds before she finally replying. "Alright. I was worried. About you, about Kubo, there really aren't many people who i would worry about like that. You both treat me like a friend, respect what i do and why i do it, and i really apreciate that. And i would never want to loose any of you. I would have searched for you across land and sea were any of you get lost in this cataclysm." "Sabre... That means so much coming from you. Thank you." "Just don't go telling anyone i said all of that, okay? Wouldn't be too good for my 'reputation'." "Now there is one more matter to discuss-" "You need a ship to take you back to Shang Tu. I guessed that much. And it will make delivering all these priceless collectibles easier if we deal with it now too." Sabre started walking back towards her ship motioning Millie to follow - "Shall we? We can have some time together on the way. And it's a perfect occasion to prove your housecat friend my ship is the faster one of the two."
As the engines of Sabre's airship spooled up to life, Millie gave one last look to the island where so much has happened in the last days. There was so much left to uncover, so many generations of lies needing to be undone. And so many of the answers lied on this island, even now tempting her to go right back to work. But for now, perhabs taking a few week break wouldn't be such a bad idea.
Melody was currently napping aboard a nighttime train headed for Shang Tu - the train itself named Shang Mu express, in case the colour scheme and pictures of the previous Shang Mu Mayor's hat did not make it quite obvious to everyone about who used to fund the train line. The train itself followed a classic electric bullet train design, one adopted after electrification of the rail lines. What was once considered a sleek aerodynamic frame encompassed whole length of the train, with it's features still being relatively modern despite it's age - such as air conditioning, digital displays,comfortable seats, and so. The trip already lasted few hours, but it was thankfully nearing it's end - Melody being a quite nocturnal person would have much preferred taking an earlier train, but despite her work having a lax schedule she preferred to show up at the hours everyone else did.
As the train passed a small station, she had a slight feeling of nostalgia - her father's stories he told her as a child used to start here, as a similar train trip all these years ago led him to his current point in life. Nothing happened on her pass of the station however, the train going towards Shang Tu right on schedule. Her job as the chief botanist of the Shang Tu court might sound more boring than her parent's jobs, but she enjoyed the calm of the forest trips the position offered. Her family supported her entire way trough school and college, always there when she needed support - even after moving out of their family home in Shang Mu. A long time family friend was in town today as well, a wolf woman she knew since she remembered, Millie. She was someone Melody looked up to in her childhood, an adventurous archaeologist with strong honour and moral code - and now someone she works alongside with as she leads Shang Tu's historical research department, her office being right next door - even if usually vacant. As much as one would think that botanic surveys don't often mix with archaeology, lands around Shang Tu were filled to the brim with ancient ruins and temples often revealed only by unusual growth patterns of the plantlife covering them.