Journal of Takaru Inara: September 31st 2140

We’ve managed to take care of our business with Haseo Nisaharra, but let me step back a bit and tell you how everything went down.

We’d managed to find his base of operations a few days ago, the 25th I think would have been the approximate date. When we arrived there Dojiro could tell he was there. We made our way in fighting through his troops, mostly his waves of Pseudo-Pras hosts.

A word about that name, The name Pseudo-paras wasn’t any sort of official name, it was just one we’d come up with to simplify things. Since the info we’d scrubbed from the Separatists didn’t have a documented name for the project.

At first it seemed like it would relatively easy to clear through the base and get to Haseo but then we ran into more of the Admiral’s armored Mecha corps This time it wasn’t nearly as easy as back on Maridia, Their pilots were Pseudo-paras hosts who’d allowed the Pseudo-paras cells to infect the machine granting the pilots the ability to control them as an extension of their body.

As they came out we could see that there was a larger, more heavily built model in the back with its pilot standing on top of its shoulders. The robot made its way down and eventually wound up in front of us on an elevated platform. Its pilot jumped down off the shoulder plate and made his way down the giant’s body.

When he finally got down to the platform and we got a good look at him Dojiro pulled his Inferno Dragon Gun and on reflex aimed and fired at him.

“You bastard, How dare you claim to be in the same family as me!” he shouted, his anger seemed to be more than boiling over at the sight of the pilot who he could tell was his father.

The pilot laughed maniacally, noticing the shot missed. “You really are Han’s son, you have my blood but his lousy aim. Then again he spent more time drunk than making any use of himself. He was so hung up on the old ways of our family that when our father died he spent most of the months after the funeral in a drunken stupor. Sure he could craft amazing firearms like a true artisan but he couldn’t shoot straight to save his life.” He said, continuing his cackle as he brushed his hands through his shaggy red hair.

“It was fun conducting all those tests on the troops you slaughtered on the way here. And the experiments that lead to your existence my little golden boy.” he said as he turned and locked eyes with Kouji.

“What do you mean you sick bastard?” Kouji replied as he returned the glare as he started to feel a strange burning sensation going through him which threw him off balance almost causing him to fall

“Oh you didn’t know did you? Or rather you were never told. You’re one of the Admiral’s cloning experiments. You were cloned from him with my beautiful former bride providing one of several eggs used for artificial embryo growth. While I agree with the Admiral that you had the greatest potential of them. I always had my suspicions that once you had enough exposure to the world outside the shelter of Valin, it would corrupt your mind with ideas of virtue and compassion. That being said, I bothered to engineer some special code into your DNA to allow me to cripple your ability to fight me should you manage to rise against me or the Admiral.” he said with a disturbing grin crossing his face, as Kouji crumpled to the ground.

Tallia stepped up giving him a death glare, as I watched her stand there I noticed an aura building around her. It looked like a vortex of wind, I could feel it was surprisingly strong. I knew she’d undergone some training over at the dojo but I didn’t think she had enough time to train for anything close to what we were capable of due to our Hybrid Arms.

Within a few moments she faded into a wisp of wind and before I could say anything she’d appeared in front of Haseo and delivered a flurry of punches

“You monster!” she shouted as she laid into him punch after punch each punctuated with a small tornado of spirit energy which cut into him and lifted him slightly off the ground. She finished the attack with a jumping uppercut that included her doing a spin as she flew through the air sending Haseo flying off crashing into the robot propelled by a tornado of spirit energy.

In that moment I saw the AI core of the Raging Dragon Gauntlets flash and Sasuke called out saying “While she’s not of the bloodline her spirit still rings true to the virtues you embody, Oh great dragon lend her this power for a short time.” as the gauntlets shrouded themselves with light and teleported onto her hands.

She looked down and noticed the gauntlets giving a quiet thanks before summoning the armor. I could tell she was in a completely different state of mind from her normal. Seeing Kouji like that drew something out I could only compare to my freakout back during the battle of North City. She let the claws extend and proceeded to gore him against the front of the robot with arcs of electricity narrowly missing his body.

I could tell she had the intent of killing him but the thought of making him squirm for what was going on with Kouji was too strong of a temptation to resist.

“You won’t kill me, If you do then Kouji boy dies. The mechanism I’m using to activate the genetic lock is tethered to my lifesigns. The instant my vitals flatline the gene lock will start eating away at his genetic material and slowly eating him from the inside out until there’s nothing left of your little golden boy.” he said between gasps for air as Tallia stood there nearly strangling him against the torso of the robot.

I could tell she was at a loss for what to do as she stood there, one side of her wanting to let her rage loose and kill Haseo but the other was concerned with what he’d said and whether or not he was bluffing as she heard Kouji writhing in pain.

She reluctantly backed down not wanting to take that kind of risk. I stood there wondering to myself how sadistic someone would need to be to resort to such measures to ensure loyalty. I remembered the mention of Kouji having some genetic anomalies but this whole genetic lock thing kinda surprised me, the fact of seeing the extremes of genetic manipulation it left me with an eerily sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I felt my hand clench the handle of the Fierce Dragon Blade, my eyes scanning over him trying to find where the control module could have been hidden. I glanced over at Anya who was scanning him with her watcher's eye

After a few minutes Haseo raised one hand and signaled his unit of mech pilots to attack us while he boarded his mecha. As we got a glimpse inside the torso below the cockpit when it opened, we saw the outline of some kind of organic core. I could see the faint outline of a female body in it but I couldn’t tell who it was.

As his unit began to bear down on us, Dojiro and I opened up on them managing to cripple the front line between my new Rising Dragon Flash and Dojiro unloading shots into them After we cut down the bulk of the unit I tried to cripple Haseo’s mech but when my attack connected it seemed like it was absorbed harmlessly.

“So you think you can cripple the Alpha Gigas, such a futile effort. I’ve designed this unit with your unique capabilities in mind. It includes special shielding that negates any of your silly spirit energy nonsense. I’ve also implemented the latest generation of the Dark Gigas cells you’ve seen in my soldiers on this unit. Meaning it would take an immense amount of force to destroy it.” Haseo bragged as he had the robot throw out a fist on a winch chain

When the dust settled around where the fist had landed I heard Kari scream as the hand recoiled back to the robot’s body.

“She seems like a fitting source of energy to power up the Alpha Gigas,” he said as he dropped the front panel of the robot to reveal the organic core which showed the visage of a woman trapped inside it. After a few moments he placed Hikari in the opening and the material quickly began to consume Hikari leaving her in a suspended state not unlike the woman we saw.

“Hikari!” I heard Dojiro shout as he saw her turn gray and lifeless while the core absorbed her. I saw something change in Dojiro in that moment, he drew the Inferno Dragon Gun and his personal sidearm the Blazer Magnum. As he pulled them to eye level his body began to radiate that strange red glow it had after that incident with Hikari not too long ago.

Before long his entire body was covered in a flame like aura and his armor took on a new appearance that included two shoulder mounted cannons. The AI core on the Blazer Magnum flashed with the words “Cerberus Mode” as he combined the two weapons and braced himself with a powerful stomp that felt like it put a dent in the ground beneath me.

As the energy around him began to charge at the end of the barrel the air filled with an otherworldly heat.

“Haseo!!! You bastard, Let my flames be those which purify that putrid body of yours! If you even have any shred of any humanity left. Cerberus Inferno Cannon!” Dojiro shouted as he reared back and fired the gun with his two shoulder cannons following suit.

The waves of energy crashed into the robot and while the regenerative factor of the Dark Gigas Cells seemed to be protecting it from damage I could tell it was having a tough time keeping up its shields even with Hikari and the other person being used as organic batteries to power its shield.

Haseo lowered the torso plate and exposed the shield to the wave of heat as he shouted out “Well If you want to resort to that then I’ll match you. These two are hardly consequential as it stands anyway.” as the metallic shells that had formed around them from the Dark Gigas cells melding with their bodies recoiled leaving them fully exposed to the heat as Hikari screamed in fear at the sight of the blast wave

With a mental command I ordered the Fierce Dragon Blade to call up its armor in Sonic form and blinked into the line of fire forming a shield to protect them as I tried to reason with him.

“Dojiro stop! If you don’t you’ll be at risk for harming Hikari and your mother!” I shouted over the roar of the flames from his attack. It seemed like he was blinded by rage and was unable to hear me.

Anya drew her Shining Lancer in staff form and within a few seconds I saw a glyph take shape under her feet and a mirrored glyph appeared between me and Dojiro in the air and with that I made a charge forward toward the glyph which began to nullify the blast wave.

I pushed the glyph through the air and toward Dojiro knowing this would be the easiest way to deal with the situation provided it worked. This spell she used was a mana nullification spell she modified to work on spirit energy to deal with when our techniques go out of hand during sparring matches.

As it flew forward it grew and began to absorb the energy from the attack, I saw her straining to maintain the spell against the energy it was absorbing.

I heard Haseo cackling like a mad clown as he shouted “It's futile, Rage like that isn’t something you can bottle up and restrain its pure animal nature. That spell slinging witch doesn’t stand a chance of holding in that power and then the three of you will die!!!!” Tallia stood back up shakily from having been knocked down in the fight.

She drew the claws of the gauntlet and let out a loud roar as the room filled with lightning and the air became dense with static as I continued to force the glyph toward him, drawing my spirit energy into it to amplify its ability to hold energy.

A bolt of lightning split through the flames clearing a path as she blinked out of view and began to plow through the column of flames splitting it clear through with her spin on Kouji’s lightning drill that mixed it with her natural wind type affinity.

The cyclone of wind and lightning tore through the flames as we pushed toward Dojiro and attempted to seal his spirit energy so he wouldn’t be able to risk anyone’s life with that attack. When the seal hit him we managed to restrain Dojiro and force him to regress back to his normal state, although while he was still conscious and raging the biggest worry we had at the moment was preventing him from killing Hikari and his mother.

His eyes welled up with tears and he began to shout, calling for Hikari and his mother. I could feel the anguish and sorrow in every cry.

Sanjiro spoke up from the AI core “Dojiro, I know you have all of these emotions swirling through you, but you have to clear your mind and realize that rash things like that are the worst things you can do. The powers you wield are influenced by your emotions, you have to use them with a clear head to wield them at their fullest.” I saw his eyes close before he let out a soft sigh

In the meantime Tallia had started hacking away at the robot, using the fact that the Terracite that was infused into the claws could amplify the hardness of the metal in proportion to the amount of spirit energy that was being poured into them to gradually claw through the armor

After what felt like an hour, Dojiro stood up on his own, the seal seeming to have quelled his temper in addition to the words from Sanjiro managing to break through and bring him back around from the extremes of his rage.

He stood up and to everyone’s surprise with a single gesture manifested most of his armor. Although this armor was different it more closely matched the description of the armor Sanjiro had owned before him. Including a long red cape.

“Kari, You know it's not easy for a guy like me to say things like this. I've been withdrawn, shut out from most things because I’ve had this burden of sorrow from my father’s past and the separatists. I know it's hard to believe but a brazen, wild, fire starter like me can be a lot more sensitive to things than I let on. So please come back to me. For my own sake as much as for the sake of putting this monster to rest.” he shouted as Tallia continued to hack through the innards of the robot in spite of its healing factor.

She dug through and found a module of nerves which Anya identified as being tied to the core and quickly destroyed it which caused the core to eject both Hikari and Dojiro’s mother. I flew up and caught Saya while Dojiro stepped in to catch Hikari

He flung his cape around her to let her use it as a makeshift dress since the assimilation process appeared to consume the material components of her outfit. As she stood there in his arms I could see she was thankful for his turn around but wanted to finish the situation off.

She drew her Aquos Dragon gun as he followed suit with the Inferno Dragon Gun aiming them in tandem; they unloaded a full magazine of ACS cartridges into them and fired a combined attack which managed to gut the robot and cripple it in spite of the shields.

The robot lurched forward as Haseo struggled to stay aboard. Tallia dived through the lower cockpit and grabbed him up, flying him out with her armor’s sonic mode. She carried him over to the team and stared him down as Anya reached toward him and punched through his chest and pulled out a small module.

“It took me quite a while to find it. You had it shielded pretty thoroughly to prevent it from being found but my watcher’s eye is much more powerful than you took it for.” she said as I took the module out of her hand and tried to look through it to find a way to disable it without bringing any harm to Kouji.

Tallia walked over and began to work on the module. With a little bit of hacking she managed to find out the module was keyed to him and Haseo but there were hooks that allowed the data to be flipped and have it lash out against Haseo.

So with a few commands she was able to rewrite the code and have it begin to attack Haseo at the same rate it was attacking Kouji. She lacked the means to break the connection entirely on her own but she figured Haseo wouldn’t be the type to try and play chicken with his own life even if it meant killing Kouji since he was too much of a coward to risk his own life to fulfill the admiral’s goals himself.

Haseo began to writhe in pain and curse at Tallia for managing to rewrite the code like that even with the DG cells regenerating him it was clear that the effect of the gene lock was eating him alive the same way it was affecting Kouji.

“Either disable the locking mechanism or I’ll let it ravage you until you’re dead, I know Kouji is strong enough to outlast you, the training he’s gone through all these years between the military and the Valion force has done so much to strengthen him beyond what your pathetic little tricks can manage.” she said, staring at him with a piercing glare that looked as though it was tearing into what little was left of his soul that he hadn’t sold away to his biotech enhancements.

For the first time since we’d been there I saw Haseo look back with genuine fear in his eyes as she jammed the terminal into his face before demanding him to break the link. While I could tell Haseo was willing to play chicken I had a feeling that he was fearful of Tallia’s wrath as he saw the aura she was letting off.

He reluctantly began to input commands on the terminal and within a few minutes of starting the process the effects began to halt themselves and Kouji returned to his feet, although still clearly weakened.

“W-w-will the damage reverse itself?” he asked with a staggered breath as he made his way over to Haseo, noticing the death glare in Tallia’s eyes.

“Since the effects were at a cellular level I doubt it, but.” Haseo started to say but his body gave out on him short of finishing his gloating as Talia's assertion proved true.

After a few moments I made my way over with Dojiro’s mother. She looked him over for a few moments and said with a sigh “Well while the process and its effects didn’t reach a point of being lethal, under normal circumstances the effects and the damage would be irreversible. But I think I can grant some assistance. As you’re aware I’m the host of these Dark Gigas cells but the variants I carry are a much earlier strain that existed before Haseo started to repurpose them for his experiments with the Master Gigas. They grant great regenerative powers as you’ve seen with the soldiers you’ve fought but these are also resistant to the elements that allow the Master Gigas and others like it to control hosts, So a blood transfusion should carry enough to help heal your cellular damage, especially with as much spirit energy as you put off.” She looked at me and pointed over to a side room and explained that there should be some medical supplies there to do the work with.

We helped her and Kouji over to the lab and set up for the transfusion. It was as you’d expect for a typical procedure but something strange happened, the skin around where his IV had gone faded to a pale metallic gray for a few moments before returning to normal.

When the transfusion had finished she told him he’d have to rest for a while and let the Pseudo-Paras cells in his blood start processing his spirit energy. While he rested me and Anya did a little bit of data recon on where the Admiral was potentially located.

We managed to dredge up some geosynchronous coordinates from some hashed communication logs while we could identify the rough location of the uplink points we ran into some issues tracing back to their endpoints because of the encryption scrambling the reference points in the logs with mapped locations in their systems.

That combined with the fact that we lacked any real knowledge of the terrain mapping of the area between here and those bases we were left without much of a way of finding the base even if we could get the right coordinates.

Anya and Hikari spent the next few days trying to hack the encryption and decipher it while Dojiro and I monitored the work on getting Kouji back to health. Dojiro’s mother explained that to her knowledge the communications channels had a few different layers of security to breach before we could really tap into their channels and graft anything valuable from them.

First was a basic one time use downstream key that the officer would respond to by using a physical decryption badge that interfaced with the communication terminal to confirm the officer’s basic identity as far as the system was concerned. After that step the communications officer at the home facility would send an identity challenge in the form of a fingerprint and retina id scan, once that's confirmed a secured data channel is established and another key is assigned to the officer to confirm they’ve passed the checks as it’s routed to the priority network and this key is checked against a hash that cross references the original key sent by their command and control to confirm that the connection was achieved legitimately

From the look of the logs it seemed like most of the connections we managed to sniff out were mostly coming downstream from their bases here rather than going out to C&C from there at Haseo’s facility which pointed to the idea that they would probably detect if we tried to make an upstream call to their HQ since the only time those uplinks are open is when they’re receiving a call