Being healed by an individual that would kill Zoomchard without a second thought had Zoomchard on the edge for the entire examination. The process, fortunately, didn't take long and Zoomchard got ready as Derton made up a plan to save his friends that had fallen to Khunex.

Zoomchard wanted to rest and step away from this moment but he was trapped and cornered by Zenhu who had his gun directly pointed at Zoomchard's throat with the finger on the trigger, ready to blast any second Zoomchard thought of leaving.

"Are you all good?" Belthirssa consulted Zoomchard as she stood beside him on the left.

"I- I'm all- fantastic." Zoomchard stammered, eyeing down the barrel of Zenhu's pistol.

"Zenhu, piss off. You're scaring him." Belthirssa whispered, tugging at the pistol that Zenhu hastily jerked back.

"Look, lovey-dovey, you mouldy wrinkled spit. I do not trust this green goblin." Zenhu groused, spitting at Zoomchard.

"After what I said to your stubborn ass?" Belthrissa defended Zoomchard, stepping over to Zenhu, bulging out her chest aggressively.

"What a tiny midget like you going to do?" Zenhu hissed, digging his finger at Belthrissa's chest, hitting her back a few inches.

"I understand you're angry at me but you don't have to spit." Zoomchard gagged, immediately shutting up when he saw the insides of the barrel right in his face, "I was just saying."

"Aren't you being too mean over speculation? You've heard it from him, he doesn't remember it." Belthrisss grumbled.

"Why would I believe a psychopath's lie?" Zenhu barked back, hitting his forehead against Belthrissa's small forehead as he ducked down.

Their disagreement slowly swelled into dead silence as Zoomchard flipped his hand over to see the insides of his right palm and clenched it as he found himself trying to remember whoever that voice was. Her screaming cries seemed to have traumatised Zoomchard and made him feel guilty about something he had no clue about. The scenario repeated on and on, repeating the stranger's screams and his parent's screams; the last memory he had of them before they evaporated on facetime.

Years of therapy couldn't help Zoomchard not to be traumatised, it lasted thirty years, thirty years, just to finally heal. And when it was healed, the feeling came back again with his best friend. Zoomchard theorized it was just his mind playing up, twisting his sanity over to insanity, twisting his morale and depriving him of a succubus sucking Zoomchard's emotions away. Military training helped him in a way to stay strong-minded, distracted and confident, but it always came back. His guilt kept wanting to revolt, take him down and cease Zoomchard with life.

"Uh, Zoomchard, you've been dozing off for a couple of minutes now," Anatolfia asserted, entering the shadow Zoomchard became glued to, ripping down the barrier and opening Zoomchard's eyes to an entirely different area.

"Huh?..." Zoomchard muttered in confusion, looking around him to see there weren't any signs of dead bodies and buildings but emptiness. Then he glanced at the crew and saw all of them wielded a gun and walked in a single file line. He too wielded a gun and looked as if he was daydreaming all this time.

It was still patched with rain but the rain has calmed down while the storm went off somewhere else to ruin lives. The driblet of liquid flushed down Zoomchard's face as he blinked his eyes up to the red cleaned sky, beholding nothing but a reflection of his emotions. Zoomchard glimpsed at Anatolfia for a mere second and instinctively smiled back to her grin as she looked away to leave Zoomchard alone again.

"How long was I thinking for?" Zoomchard murmured to himself, distinguishing the unsettled vibration that drove down his body, emitting a chorus of gloom as his hands jittered uncontrollably.

Putting questions aside, Zoomchard noticed that there was a considerable gap between the stronghold he and the crew took over and occupied and whatever location they were heading to next. The only answer was to rescue the Brothers and Pacho.

"Are we there yet?" Rolthe asked impatiently.

"Do you hear the gun battles?" Derton responded.

"Nope."

"Then we aren't anywhere close."

"But what if the battle has a ceasefire?" Smor implored.

"A ceasefire in a hot moment? That would never happen." Derton countered with a scoff.

"Honestly, I wouldn't be shocked if it had happened. It happened in the past, what's stopping it from happening again?" Menos chuckled.

"I was thinking about that." Belanna laughed next to Menos.

"See, see, the girls agree with me." Smor grinned at Derton, Derton shook his head in gentle disbelief.

"Only two, the other three don't. Belthune is too shy to express her opinion and I simply cannot gather the idea of this main moment cease firing." Belthirssa disagreed, pointing at Belthune as she mentioned her name. Belthune pouted at Belthrissa and rolled her eyes from embarrassment in response.

"Like our boys up there would stop in a serious moment." Anatolfia snickered, "Stop talking out your ass, Smor and Menos." Anatolfia cackled.

"Gotta be careful with your words, Anatolfia, my husband is Derton after all," Menos bragged in a high baby tone, hugging her arm around Derton who was having small outbursts of laughter.

"Don't drag me in it." Derton tittered, swaying his hand sideways.

"Never say that again, Menos," Zenhu grunted, shaking his head.

"Even I can't back you on that…" Smor spluttered, losing his eyes on Menos as he shrank behind Zenhu.

"Oh, come on. Love is the best feeling ever and you gotta appreciate me and Derton are the best," Menos giggled, pecking Derton on the cheek to annoy the others even more.

--

The familiar village, rusted in corpses and vandalism, was strangely quiet. As the crew approached, entering hostile territory while keeping their guns at bay, it appeared like many of the Eithrem Alliance soldiers were either leaning against walls of crumbled buildings, mentally exhausted. Or being healed by another Eithrem soldier who has given up on battling for success. Most of these soldiers oddly looked the same but had so many ranges of different personalities.

"What the hell happened here?..." Rolthe mumbled the words everyone was thinking.

"Hey, Brothers and Pacho. Are you all good?" Derton spoke to his radio, hearing a scratch follow afterwards.

"Yeah-- I'm good, the storm aided us in winning and Khunex left with most of his soldiers following. Some stayed and posed no threat to the soldiers that detained them and patched them up." Ghus groaned through the radio.

"We see that. There's some over where we are." Derton informed Ghus.

"So you are close? I'll get one of the Generals to send up reinforcements." Ghus said.

As promised, minutes later a horde of Conhuy reinforcements came into view, detaining most of the enemy soldiers while taking Rolthe away to get him in a better state. Medics of the reinforcement checked every one of the crew's health but ignored Zoomchard as they all looked disgusted with his genetic illness.

"Hey, check him. It's not his fault he has an illness." Belthrissa snarled, snatching a male white ten-foot robot by the shoulder with a cross on their chest, stopping them in their hurry and forcing the uncomfortable soldier to check Zoomchard.

Zoomchard nodded in a way to say he thanked Belthrissa and she nodded back, staying by his side as the white medic scanned Zoomchard with a metallic cubed box that had a green screen go up in percentage while a loud buzzing, coming from the scanner, flared Zoomchard's ears.

"Oh God, he needs immediate help. His health is at 20%! I don't understand how you're standing up so freely." The white medic panicked, gesturing at other medics that then rushed over to Zoomchard.

"What do you mean?" Belthirssa worried as she watched a troubled Zoomchard get pulled away by five other robots in a hurry.

"What's wrong with him?" Zenhu asked with an edge as he peeked his eyes at Belthrissa disturbed in anxiety.

"His health is at 20% and it's all your fucking fault! He went out there, feeling guilty, and faced the consequences while you kept going at him!" Belthrissa badgered Zenhu, slapping him across the face with force, which made Zenhu spit out cyan liquid, and sped off afterwards to follow Zoomchard.

"Tsk! I'm always the one to blame." Zenhu whistled, swinging his foot at a wall as he rubbed his face and walked off.

--

Zoomchard found out he was low on truitz from the storm and was fed more green truitz to save him from dying. Although already an awkward experience because he had long metallic tubes stacked around his body, it made it even more painfully awkward when Belthrissa camped right next to the right of Zoomchard, watering her eyes out as Derton was on the left after barging in, biting the tip of his thumb anxiously as he waited for positive results.

"I'm fine, guys…" Zoomchard nervously laughed.

"No, you're not!" Derton and Belthrissa yelled at Zoomchard, shoving their faces in Zoomchard's face as he flinched away.

"Jesus…!"