A few light-years away from John and Peri...

An enormous building made of metal was silently standing in the nothingness of the outer space, surrounded by nothing but little dots of lights in the distance.

But there was something wrong with this space station.

Around it, multiples small ships could be seen.

These ships were all Condor-class spacecrafts. The ships were all colored pitch black and had no other mark or anything that could show its origin, owner, or organization it belongs to.

The inside of the Space Station was beautifully built in the most simplistic way possible to maximize utility rather than beauty.

Long white corridor with enough light to illuminate the whole place.

Uncountable rooms that were bedrooms and also various types of rooms made specifically for scientific use, such as the laboratories.

The energy cost to maintain such enormous building was very high, that's why it wasn't powered using Core Fragments, but rather with Erchius Crystals.

It was very expensive to power the Space Station with Erchius Crystals, but the Independent Scientific Union (ISU) had more than enough money to operate more than ten of such stations across the known universe.

How they earn such amount of money?

It's simple; they develop and research new technologies to all governments and organizations.

But they never touch the subject of militaristic use of their technology. They remain neutral in conflicts and had set their goal as the betterment of the universe.

That's why they are funded by everyone, but the technology developed and researched by them would be publicly available, and not belonging to one group or another.

Although their policies make some people unhappy, they had no other choice than bitterly accept how ISU deal with it because ISU was at the forefront in scientific discoveries, even further than Letheia Corporation and Miniknog.

Letheia Corporation didn't see the need to destroy such an organization since it doesn't meddle in worldly affairs.

But Miniknog saw ISU differently.

Most of the scientists from the ISU were Apexes that fled from Big Ape's dictatorship. For the Miniknog, the ISU was only a bunch of rebels that needed to be eliminated...

...

Inside the ISU's Stationary Space Station:

Alarms could be heard all around the station as the previously bustling corridors were now empty and illuminated only by the red emergency lights in the ceiling.

Corpses from all races were lying lifeless in the cold, metallic white floor. A pool of crimson blood beneath them drenched their clothes and body with the sticky and thick liquid.

In one specific room, there were three people hiding behind a lab table that had all kinds of glass containers with unknown liquids in them.

One of the people was a yellow Novakid with an "Omega" brand on his face.

He was wearing leather leggings with metal pads on the knee section, a simple white shirt covered by a leather coat, a cowboy hat, and a red scarf on his neck.

On his hands, two weapons gracefully made with dark, bluish metal. They looked like a piece of art, but of course, a lot more deadly than one.

On his back, he had another weapon hanging out from a string. It was a shotgun, the one he took from Oscar.

The Novakid was Lenny.

Crouched by his side, hiding with him, there was a middle-aged female Apex and a small Hylotl kid.

The Apex had a yellow coloration fur with the typical characteristics of her species, prolonged skull, larger nose, and fur covering almost the whole body.

She had a small bust, higher pitch voice, and wider wrist, which indicated that she was a female.

In her body, she was wearing simple white pants and a black shirt underneath her white lab coat.

Her fearful and worried black eyes hidden behind her thick, round glasses stared at Lenny as he carefully reloaded his weapon.

She had a sad and grieving expression.

The Hylotl kid was at Lenny's other side.

He was a light blue Hylotl with the signature three red eyes that belonged to his race.

His scales were soft and very bright. This indicated that he was indeed very young, younger than 8 years old.

Currently, the kid was lying on the floor, unconscious. Beneath its eyes, tear stains could be seen with some more tears that slowly dripped from his eyes.

Blood drenched the little kid's clothes, but it was clear that it wasn't his blood but from someone else.

Lenny glanced at the for a moment as he heard it murmur in its sleep, and immediately returned to reload his weapons with an unknown expression on his face.

His yellow light kept flickering as he was in deep thought.

While his emotions and expressions couldn't be seen on his face, the reactions on his bodily light were more than enough to know how he was feeling.

"Will he come?" The scientist Apex that was beside Lenny worriedly asked him.

"I don't know..." Lenny said as he placed the last bullet in the barrel of his revolver, "Knowing Connor, it's very likely that he will come." He said with some confidence, but not completely sure.

After he finished reloading his revolvers, he swiftly took another weapon from his PIPS and started to reload it.

It was a shotgun, the same that was on Oscar's hand when he faced off against Lenny.

The female Apex caught the doubt in Lenny's tone and shuddered at the thought that she had to stay in such place and probably die in this station together with most of her colleagues.

If it wasn't for Lenny's timely arrival, she would be resting on the cold floor, bathing in her own blood like her colleagues.

Lenny casted a side glance at the tearful and trembling Apex and spoke with a grave and low tone, "Put yourself together. I don't know how long it will take for him to arrive, and I don't even know if he can go through all those ships and Mechs out there."

"..." The female Apex cleaned up the tears in her eyes using her sleeve and nodded, "I know..."

"We don't have much time. Let's hurry." Lenny said while he slightly raised his head to look at the room's door to see if it was clear.

Once he was sure that there was no one in the way, Lenny looked at the Apex and asked, "Can you shoot?"

"Eh? What?" She confusedly stared at Lenny.

Lenny glanced at the weapon in Forge's holster and the rifle across her chest.

Forge followed his line of sight and looked down at her weapons.