Chapter 19

-Me-

So it's been six days since the guy informed us about the inquiry and we are about to head off to Rita's to meet up with our travel agent. First off I need to wake up my brother. Heh heh heh heeeh. One bucket of antarctic water coming your way little bro.

"Blargaprargphra." my brother spouted out when I splashed the water on him.

"AHAHAHA!!!! Eat that little brother of mine!!! Feel the pain of being awoken by the almighty Ull's wrath!!"

"Who is Ull?" My brother asked completely ignoring all of my anticipation. What a serious buzzkill.

"Dunno, just thought I'd say it, and way to kill that mood."

"Well retorting you gives you the win would it not?' Gasp! He's already figured me out?! My brother!! You're not secretly a super human bad ass are you? Word. Well after splashing ice water on my brother who, like me, is unbelievably difficult to wake up, I went down stairs to meet up with Crysea before taking off. When I arrived she was having a conversation with Mae, unexpectedly. Well Sorry to interrupt but we must go. "Crysea, once Sami comes down we need to go. Sorry Mae, but we're going to borrow my little brother for quite some time. I'll have him send a post card every once in a while."

"Yes please do, and please take care of yourselves." Aww she's such a caring girl. Bro, you've struck gold! So to speak.

"We shall." I assured her and, with Sami and Crysea, left the house. So over the course of the stay, Crysea still refused to allow Sami to know about her race so we had to call in my contact, of which is able to make it through so everything's going well so far. Ugh always the lines that ends up with something bad happening shortly after. I immediately look to my left and right to scout for any misfortune that could turn about.

"What are you looking for?" Sami asked me.

"Nothing, just thought of a phrase that could cause us misfortune is all." Crysea seemed to react to this but only slightly, heh; she must know what I mean. Aaah I really should stop setting myself up for epic failure. Well let's just get to Rita's safely... please.

Surprisingly, even after the 'words that should, under any circumstance, not be spoken' incident, nothing happened for the duration of our travel. It... Was actually rather boring. I was hoping for some sort of excitement, but, alas, all we did was talk about future plans and finished playing catch up with the last 15 years. Apparently my little bro wants to be a space farer, how adventurous. Well, circumstances given, ya might get lucky and find something... 'New' heh heh. Good luck little Sami, good luck.

Upon our arrival Rita was waiting for us at the entrance of the ex-Alpha Corp. building and guided us to where our transportation contact was waiting. This person.... Why the hell did it have to be this person?

"Sky~ how are~ you~" A six foot eight giantess with big ogling eyes and the most mismatched voice ever, sang upon catching my visage. Oh lord, save me please. Not this chick... please... no. "It's been so~ long why haven't you contacted us?" She demanded cheerfully. I'm... I'm crying right now. Do you not see the tears?! There are tears!! Many... many... tears. You bastard!! Why would you send her!!! Next time I see you I'm going to deck you in the face... using electrified brass knuckles... WITH MY LEFT ARM!!!

"Please, just... Please just shut up. Your voice does not match your body, you have an annoying sing song tone, AND YOU'RE WAY TOO..." Gruh.... I'm being smothered stop hugging me you freaking beast!!! Guys!! Don't just stand there watching!! Help me!!! Please!!! Also.... FUCK YOU REUNION CLICHE!!!!! "Dyo... zap!" upon my command Dyo zapped the giantess off me. Thank you Dyo, you're the best. Better than a certain someone that just watched. I glared at Crysea and Sami, who, in turn, merely laughed. Betrayal to no end. Life.... why you be so cruel!

"Alright Alitoria, I believe you know why we are here so no more playing around." Rita.... My savior... I love you! In a completely normal way... I'll just stop from digging further into a hole.

"Alri~ght." she conceded. Please, Rita, you handle her from here.

"Why did he send you? You shouldn't have your license by now." Rita asked for me. Rita, you're a saint. A bonafide Saint.

"Big Bo said 'you have enough practice to put professional pilots to shame' so he told me it was fine." She answered cheekily.

“As long as he gave the go ahead, did he give you updated authorization codes?” Rita continued.

As Rita was gathering information from Alitoria Sami tapped my shoulder and asked, “Who’s that? I don’t believe you’ve mentioned her.”

Naturally, I absolutely hate the memories that contain her in it. “She’s the A.I Big Bo created.”

“A.I? She’s not human?” Crysea asked.

“Yup, 100 percent artificial intelligence. Big Bo, though, never gave her command data so she is completely free from and binds that would force her to obey someone. Essentially, she’s human. You’d never guess she was unless you were told by Big Bo himself. The reason why I very much dislike her is because she’s absurdly nosey, she has that voice to specifically mess with me, and she’s destroyed quite a few of my experiments. Like Dyo, at that time.” I explained to them.

“Oh.” Sami. That one sound. That’s not a good sound ya did there. I don’t like that reaction at all, well, no matter; it’ll all be fine as long as Rita handles it.

“Sky. We’re ready to leave.” Rita informed me.

“Right! What’re we waiting for then. Mush!” I exclaimed. Ah hahaha haha hahaha! I will show up in style! I wonder what kind of plane we’ll be using…

Upon arrival at the aircraft I was thoroughly surprised. “The hell we using an old model like this?”

“Big Bo says I don’t have permission to fly newer models.” Alitoria answered.

“Damn. Well, at least it’ll get us there. Beggars can’t be choosers, as the saying goes.” With a defeated enthusiasm I boarded the older model plane and found me a nice comfortable seat…. As far as comfortable can go with these things. Let me just take a huge deep sigh here. “Sigh.” There we go; I am now prepared for this bumpy ride. Let’s just get this over with…

Ding dong

Oh, it even has the older model annoying alarm thingy, how wonderful…

“This is your captain speaking.” WRONG! This is not a ship. This is a plane. You say ‘this is your pilot speaking’ dammit you can’t even get that right! This is going to be a long ride; I can already tell. “Everyone should go ahead and fasten in; we’re bout to take off.” Don’t make such an excited voice; this is not the time to be excited! This is a serious matter and our lives are in your hands right now! You hear me? OUR LIVES… oh wait… I’m saying this all in my head…..

“Shall we sit here as well?” Crysea asked, gesturing towards the seats aside and across from me.

“Go ahead.” Please, Rita, keep that idiot in check. I beg you.

“Al~ri~ght we~’re off!” I HADN’ T BUCKLED IN YET YOU STUPID LITTLE SHIT!!! Dammit…. Still in my head. I need to start voicing my complaints… naaah, to much work. My view is ‘do as little work as possible’ and yet, here I am trying to save an entire specie… If that ain’t the definition of work, I don’t know what is. Let’s just not think about it too much. Yeeeaah I’ll do just that.

The ride was a silent one. We didn’t say anything for the whole ride. Well, mainly because I fell asleep as well as my brother. Crysea did her own thing and Rita was keeping the idiot in check. We eventually arrived in Graeg airspace, naturally accompanied by fighter pilots requesting authorization. Now, Rita, this is your time to shine! Make that idiot solve this problem without fail!

Ding dong. Ugh, I really don’t like that sound.

“Sorry to tell you guys but it would appear that…” She didn’t even get to finish her sentence before I figured out what she was trying to say. Authorization got botched, and now we’re being targeted. I mean, look at the left wing. It’s completely missing! Wait…. THE LEFT WING IS COMPLETELY MISSING!!! Holy shit!

I ran up to the cockpit to address this issue. “The hells going on?! Also, the hell are the parachutes!!”

“They’re in that compartment over there. There should be enough.” Rita explained.

“It seems they didn’t want to allow us in regardless of authorization. The code was correct however they came back.” Dammit. Whoever’s trying to get us is seriously pissing me off and when I find out whom… Oooh I’m going to make you pa…

The ship rocked as the other wing was blown off. Dammit no time to talk. I rushed to the compartment and grabbed a parachute for Rita and Alitoria. I then grabbed one for Crysea, Sami and I. Wait, does Crysea even need one? Meh, not the time to contemplate.

“Here put this on and jump out the door when we’re over land.” I told them as I opened the door, which almost sucked me out. Phew, close one. I can see land ahead so this shouldn’t be too bad an issue.

“Got it.” They both confirmed.

“Good now…”

“They’re coming to finish us off!” Alitoria warned us.

Shit. “GO!! NOW!!!” I shouted grabbed both Sami and Crysea and tossed them out the door before they could react. I made sure they had at least one parachute. Besides, even if they didn’t, Crysea’s there so they’d be fine regardless. “Rita, Ali! We need to…” I didn’t get to finish my sentence. Why? Well when your plane blows up from when asshole pilots fire off missiles, of course you don’t get to finish your sentence.

As of right now, I’m free falling. Yup, and guess what! My freakin parachute is about two or three feet away from me. Time for some midair swimming! After a few moments of failed attempts to reach my parachute, by the way, I looked like a complete idiot flailing my arms and legs around like that; I decided to alter my body’s position to see if that would move me. Guess what? It did! Now I just need to get this thing on and fly to safety. Is what I’d like to say but this is going to hurt. By time I opened the chute and it fully deployed, I smacked the ground. Heh, lights out everyone.

…

…..

…….

………

“Uoh… Am… I… Still alive? I… can’t move… Ow… So… much pain… Let’s… try opening… my eyes…” My eyelids began to flutter but eventually I was able to get them open. I began to look around but quickly understood that I can’t move. Damn. Well let’s try looking at my body. Can’t be that HOLY SHIT! IS THAT MY BONE?! MY FREAKIN BONE’S STICKING OUT!!

Ew… Well it’s better than losing the leg I guess… FUCKING NOT!!! Dammit take the whole damn thing if you’re going to put me through such a thing, don’t just stick my bone out as to say ‘hey, how’s it going? I’m the bone to your leg. It’s nice to meet you.’ No! It’s fucking NOT nice to meet you! Go away!! ‘but I want to be your friend.’ Well I don’t, now go away!! Why am I having a mental conversation with the bone protruding from my leg? Have I already sunk this low? Haaa… Let’s just move on.

So, it appears that I can’t move, like, at all. Looking around it seems that I have some broken bones, some fractures, I might have some internal bleeding as well. Who the hell knows! I mean I did just… dammit focus. “D… Dyo… Ow, can… you hear me?” a familiar buzz resounded when I called for my little handy helper. Thank goodness, if he weren’t around, I think I’d have died. “Dyo… I need you too… scan for internal…” I had to take a few breaths before I could continue. “Bleeding and mend… the wounds… Also… if you can… the broken leg… please…” I stated my requests.

Dyo acknowledged and began to do a full body scan. Immediately after, a sharp pain erupted from my stomach. “AAAAH!!” dammit Dyo, I know what you’re doing but no freakin sedative makes this wretched! I retorted such as Dyo cut open my stomach and began to work on sealing up any and all wounds. You’re wondering how? Well, all he is doing is singing any torn or ripped tissue preventing further bleeding. He’s not repairing anything, I didn’t program that function. I should do that when I get back to the lab.

After at least an hour of careful sealing and constant outburst of my screaming, of which, by the way, has become a simple release of air, Dyo finally finished the internal portion of the damage and is now working towards the external. Oh… Uh oh. Not the le… “haaaaaaaaa….” I released another blast of air, which, quite frankly, is starting to sound like hissing, when Dyo corrected my leg. How? I don’t know I closed my eyes dammit, this shit is painful and I don’t want to watch. Well at least I don’t have to have another conversation with my bone…

After another full body scan, Dyo gave a buzz indicating he finished. Oh thank you God, thank you. Now let’s see if I can get up. I slow start to position myself in an upward sitting position and had to stop there for a breather. Who knew sitting up would be so difficult, and never have I wanted to be as lazy as I want to be now, but things to do, places to go, and people to kill so let’s get to it.

With an effort that could encourage and entire planet, I slow began to stand up, and when I did, I almost fell. Thanks Dyo for the stick. That saved my ass, heh, literally. Now where am I? I looked around and saw nothing but trees and water. Oh, forgot to mention the broken bridge. Wait… Broken bridge? I don’t ever remember, even in history, there being a spot like this… The hell is it doing here then? Something left out? Huh, how odd. Well it is dark out so I might just be seeing things, I hope I am. There’s going to be some serious shit going down if I’m not.

Whelp, let’s start marching. I’ll eventually find someone… or something… Please let it be Crysea. Whoa, almost fell there. Let’s just take this nice and slowly.

“Dyo, get me some water, then after bringing it to me, search for something edible. I don’t care what. Please, and thank you.” Dyo acknowledged and flew off. So glad I made that, I’d definitely be dead by now if I hadn’t. It’s funny how things work out like that huh? Well let’s just… enter this dark and creepy forest… Seriously though, why can’t I remember this place…?

It’s been a few hours since I entered the forest now and the strangest thing is, I have yet to hear a single sound. You’d think after all this time you’d hear at least a ruffle of some night time predator but nope, not a single noise. It’s eerie as all hell. Well let’s just climb up this tree to get some rest, never know what could be down here.

Well I did attempt to climb the tree, but with these injuries, well, it was impossible. So now I’m still walking around looking for a safe place to sleep. Seriously though, what’s up with the forests on this planet? It’s like they’re all alive or something… I don’t like it. I have enough issues to deal with with the Shadowless Forest as is.

As I was complaining to no one Dyo arrived with some fresh, sterile, tasty looking water. “Thank you Dyo.” I thanked him and received the water, on which I guzzled. “Ah. Much appreciated. Change of plans Dyo, I need you to do a 3 kilometer ping and inform me of any entity of any sort. I need to know what’s going on here.” Dyo acknowledged with the usual buzz and rose into the sky. Soon after, an inaudible sonar pulse was release covering the area I designated and Dyo returned to me. The results? Nothing… Seriously?? Not a single living being within a three kilometer radius? How? This is a flourishing forest so there should be at least some wild life… So why isn’t there any? I’m starting to actually fell a little fear. How unsightly.

“Dyo, are you able to give me my location via world map? Also, could you tell me the exact expanse of this forest? If I can figure out where we landed, I may be able to get us to a safe spot, as well as locate the others.” Dyo once again acknowledged and flew off. “A silent forest… a forest empty of life… A detachment of the Shadowless? No, we no longer reside in Byolin so that’s not an option… Silent and empty… silent.. and empty… Eh, I don’t care anymore; I just want to get some rest. I’m so freakin tired and that rough landing definitely took more out of me then necessary.” I’ll worry about everything after I get some rest but for now, since there’s nothing, I’ll just rest next to this tree. Heh the inquiry will just have to wait.

It wasn’t long before I fell asleep…

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _