It was evening as told by the positioning of the great cyan supersun which was nearing the horizon, bleeding a vibrant deep shade over the blue sky sparsely sprinkled with fluffy white clouds. In the evening the supersun almost appeared to be burning, its edges lacking its sharpness and instead almost animated, its color unbounded by its shape and instead covering the landscape like a gas let out of a container, free to move however it pleased with only nature permitting its rampage. Even from so vastly afar it was so bright hot, its energy seemingly carrying infinitely far and yet gentle enough to not scorch all life in its orbit.

Its light does not perfectly shine down but rather split rays sectioned by the dividers that was the silver skyscrapers that composed the metropolis, all of the colors uniform but their shapes given artistic freedom as while some of them had the classic shape of rectangular blocks others were more curvy with one even shaped as a double helix. The differences in shapes made the rays different too, some cast between towers and others through the holes in the buildings themselves, for not all light touched the surface the same. It was not the only source of light in the sky, although this other source was still a shade of blue, that being the living river of traffic that coursed between the towers where the streets ran, streams of different viscosities where the lighter ones had faster movement of the blue streaks and the thicker ones saw less. While the bodies of the individual waters were reflective to the supersun, all that could be seen from the distance was the blue light itself emanating, flowing back and forth side by side.

All of that perfect detail was captured and exhibited through the screen that hovered in front of the white glowing wall before one of the adults dressed in professional work suits who composed the crowd some of whom paced up and down the corridor too like the river, others standing around at the edges in conversation with one another; holograms of various colors hover in front of some adults that being the ones standing around in speech as visual aid to make the point and others before those pacing to present work while on the go, all leading to a somewhat chaotically productive atmosphere. Some of the men were bearded although well groomed, and some of the women had lengthier hair although well kept, for all of them understood the weight of their occupation and the requisite maintenance with it.

That was with the exception of whom stepped out of the dematerialized door on the far end of the corridor leading to the shaft only barricaded by the single circular pad, that exception being a European woman in her middle thirties with shortish amber hair disheveled with loose strands poking out like antennas, her green-buttoned black blazer wrinkled same as her white collared shirt not fully buttoned, her stockings not pulled up all the way beneath her formal green skirt. She paced with black heels that had a white top, which only made her hasty movements more uneven as heels were no marathon shoes, her disorderly conduct warranting the attention of the nearby employees who cast curious glances at their superior. Surrounding her body like an army of hornets angered from a tampered nest were holographic screens of various sizes and proportions, most of them with a green base but a rainbow of different colors for the text of logs and graphics of charts. The screens moved smoothly with her, perhaps the only movement that was smooth as its speeds interpolated to attempt suavity in the task of following such a chaotically moving host.

Knowing full well the judgment imposed on her but disregarding to see for herself, the woman continued her strange walking jog down the hallway through the center, the employees clearing a path for her respectfully and trying their best to ignore the aberration and instead return their focus to their prior works. Thus the woman continued her movements, every other step somewhat lunging her forward like an awkward attempt at skipping, as if she was attempting to maximize speed in a professional environment, seeing how much she could go whilst below the threshold of inexcusable immaturity.

Words muttered right by her lips, although they were not comprehensible, with the only identifiable aspect of them being the agitated tone verging on the desire to shout. More men and women casted glances at her, her revolving screens covering a considerable width of the hall such that they’d even pass through the employees, of course not solid but rather like someone walking in front of a projector light. The obstructions to the screens didn’t seem much of a problem to the one casting them however, in fact the screens weren’t paid any attention by her, yet they were still present as the simple act of sweeping them away would be too much.

The woman stormed towards the other end of the corridor where there lied the creases of a large closed double door, and upon the comprehension of the woman’s destination other adults moved out of the way to provide her a clear path as she muttered in clear irritation as the doors dematerialized by her command: “Is THIS where you are?”

Through the open doorway she stepped in, finding herself in a room with light gray walls on most faces other than the far side which had a screen consuming the entire surface to provide the similar sight of the evening sky over the city. In the center of the room was a large rectangular white table top with a glossy finish and smooth edges, surrounded by six Executive style chairs with black leather with three on each side facing each other, all hovering over the white floor. Yet in none of the chairs nor anywhere in the room was a single being present other than the one who just entered, and upon analyzing just that much the woman’s face grew tense in greater annoyance as her bright green eyes sharpened; alas the kettle reached its final breaking point when it whistled violently, “WHERE IS HE??? He’s not returning my calls, he’s not in his office or any of the hundred offices he likes camping in, I’m tired of being his voicemail when he’s nowhere to pick up I swear I’m going to KILL him!” to which some of the employees casted a much graver stare at her, not only in curiosity but also concern as she ventilated heavily.

Unapologetic to the death threat she just shouted in the public space, she just continued to pant with that glare as sharp as a sword’s edge, grimacing while trying to remember any other potential hiding spots to search.

All of the employee’s behind her began to whisper, almost like they were gossiping behind her back, only further infuriating her as if she was in a school full of young immature students with her being one of them.

Enraged more so, the woman turned around to face the hallway before exclaiming, “WHAT IS IT-??” only to be interrupted by the voice of a woman speaking with the accent of a news anchor who announced, “This news was only just delivered to us minutes ago, and we are still getting new information every second so please bear with us here. What we do have is confirmation on the deceased bodies of four of The Shield, looks to be those who were dubbed Furcifer, Tachyon, Eidolon, and Intrepid, the last we know to be Juno Diásimos.”

Instantly the woman silenced herself upon the interruption, and while a few of the employees glimpsed at her from the attempted interjection, they immediately moved their gazes back to their own screens, the ocean of screens much denser than prior with every single one of them displaying the exact same stream: a news broadcast with a woman in a suit as text covered all other parts including the footer beneath her and a header of moving text along with an image of the icon of the traditional handheld shield that had become the insignia for the team of heroes.

In horror the woman could do nothing more than stare with a dropped jaw, her eyes wide in disbelief as the anchor reported hastily, “Wait a second, we’re just getting now that all of the bodies are unmasked, and our people at the site have identified all of them. We’ve matched Eidolon’s identity to that of ‘Calypso Aóranai,’ Tachyon’s identity to ‘Flynn Avery,’...and Furcifer’s to…’Razi Scott.’ All bodies have been confirmed to be in New Orlando of Earth One, at the origin of the rogue android invasion that had just started hours ago. We do confirm that all androids observed are out of operation…so at the very least they did successfully stop the invasion….”

Difficult for her mind to breathe under the avalanche of reveals, the woman’s body was just frozen, at least until a second thought passed through the sludge which had her almost light up in revelation.

She quickly turned around and raised her hand up as she muttered to herself, “Oh no…pick up…come on…,” as an additional hologram appeared in front of her with the simple icon of a classic telephone, and above it was the portrait of the CEO with a bright smile nearly as much as his azure irises. Every few moments the telephone icon was animated in a vibration, signifying active calling.

Before there could be any change to the calling animation of the screen, behind her the voice of that one anchor spoke, “Okay we’re getting more news!...we’re just hearing now!...that…oh…oh my god…wait is this confirmed or…?” which at first the woman ignored, still pressed on the call.

“I just got word that…they’ve confirmed the death of Meditat…,” alas shattering the woman’s ignorance, her eyes instantly expanded and mouth open, pulling her back to turn around towards the hallway, facing one of the many screens covering the white corridor displaying the same broadcast stream but now with the icon of the shield replaced by a photograph of the man in the blue suit, specifically a portrait with the golden shoulders below the white mask with bright azure parallelogram lenses. Text over the header read ‘ANDROID INVASION CEASED ON EARTH ONE, NO CIVILIAN CASUALTIES’ as the anchor echoed in a dreadful tone, trying to maintain her formality but clearly shocked herself, “His body was not found in the city…but instead we confirmed that it…passed in the supersun…. It doesn’t seem we will be able to uncover his identity but…they are certain of his fatality…. Stand by, we will continue to bring the newest findings as they come in.”

In seconds the whispers rose again, professional adults commenting to one another, “Wait, there’s no way in hell,” “That doesn’t make sense, isn’t he immortal,” “They must’ve messed something up, did they even find the body,” “No way…my daughter’s birthday party yesterday was themed around them…what is she going to think?”

In silence the woman just stood in place, listening to the sea of adults murmur to each other as their screens remained around them, waiting for any additional findings to be made, but what was told was more than enough.

Instead, she just turned around back towards the office room and slowly began pacing towards the other side, not in hastily awkward skipping and speed walking but just a melancholic stroll, her face unchanged. She approached the wide screen as the supersun was setting, the whole sky a fiery cyan as the city grew darker, and as it got darker some of the buildings began casting their own screens like advertisements along their faces. However, they were all casting the same stream, not that of an ad, but rather the exact same news broadcast played on the screens in the hallway. No matter where the woman faced she was met by the same broadcast, and as she strolled towards the screen all of the voices of not only the adults but the anchor all drowned out into an echoing murmur, tuned out as no more could be taken. The huge broadcasts cast on giant screens exhibited a switch in streams from the anchor to instead footage being played in a different city at night, one with heavy wreckages with chunks being blown out of the blue exterior walls of the skyscrapers, and heaps of metal corpses from the droids all laid across the roads. The footage was somewhat shaky as it surveyed the remains of the battlefield, with text moving on the footer reading: ‘MEDITAT HERO OF VERSEPOLIS VERIFIED DEAD IN A.I ATTACK NO WORD FROM OFFICIALS YET NEW ORLANDO CURRENTLY UNDER QUARANTINE AS SEARCH FOR POTENTIAL ACTIVE DROIDS CONTINUES…’

Pacing to the screen until just a foot away when she could go no further, the woman stopped still facing the window to the blazing landscape, the supersun’s light, its warmth, its burning lethality swarming the sky as it descended beneath the horizon, pulling its energy back away from the city as it fell to darkness.

As the day came to an end and the long night began, all the woman could do was stare forth in an expression combined with the astoundment of an unfathomable truth with the agonizing grief of an intimate loss, her face unable to decide between traumatization and misery, instead stuck in between as her green irises stare into the night, the blue glow staring back onto her face.

Besides, what was she supposed to feel?

On one hand, the grand invincible hero was inexplicably defeated.

On the other hand, her closest best friend had just passed away.

And she was only now finding out about this.

By the public news broadcast.

Along with everybody else.

For she was too late.

Didn’t know he was in danger.

Until he was already gone.

That woman’s facial expression is not too different, a mixture of sentimentality and stupefaction birthed from the conflicting experiences of loss from her closest dear friend yet the emergence of an impossibility, an aberration far from the fingers of explanation, resulting in a clashing face similar to before that became this bleak perplexion, utter bafflement to the nonsensicality and despair that kept assaulting her.

While her facial expression is still the same from prior–even with a blue glow although severely softer and less cyan–, her face itself has changed, aged with skin harder and slightly more wrinkled, as while she was still in outstanding shape given her age that age was still greater than what it was when the First Passing had transpired. Her amber hair, once short almost boyishly, is also significantly longer, not exactly past the shoulders but in more prominent bangs that are let loose.

Similarly loosened is the professionality of her attire, as while she still wore relatively formal clothing such as the black blazer with green buttons, underneath it is now a white tank top more akin to a street-level mechanic, dirtied and dusted as the blazer too is wrinkled and battered.

Overall the woman exudes a battered demeanor, as even in this immense revelation there is a certain soberness that diminishes animation. Behind her is not the distant white hallway but instead the adjacent black leather cushion of the seat, a sleek design that persists in the black interior of the vehicle with the empty front seat beside her also black leather, the interior lit up by thin blue light streaks along the walls above the windows that shed only the faintest of white light.

Further past the seat are two faces, two bodies, two other beings only dimly lit by the blue streaks. They sit on a bench of the same leather material at the back of the interior, a Japanese man and woman with the latter behind the driver’s seat. That woman has the appearance of a young adult not too deep in her twenties, with long pink hair down her back paired with her same colored eyes, dressed in perhaps the most casual wear that being an oversized hoodie representative of a cupcake given that the upper half is white with cartoonish decals of frosting creases and colored sprinkles blue, pink, purple, and green while the lower half is hot pink with vertical lines all around as the wrinkles of a wrapper. Beside her is the man who on the opposite side is physically the eldest, as opposed to the woman’s fair skin his is wrinkled and stretched on a slender and anorexic body, lacking any hair above his yellow eyes, his cheekbones swelled in as his body is not much beyond a skin-colored skeleton. He’s dressed in a large brown overcoat that wrinkles with sleeves oversized for such bony arms, and underneath the open overcoat is a black jumpsuit although stained. Both of the two sit with similarly disoriented expressions mixed between somber and shocked, the man’s leaned more towards shocked and the woman’s more towards somber, both of them staring out of the windows on their respective sides with the man’s eyebrow raised and the woman’s mouth in a mellow frown.

Despite there being three passengers, there is total silence between them, as there had been since the departure of the blue comet. Regardless of the intimacy of their friendships, at this moment they had all secluded themselves to their own headspaces, isolated mentally while only feet away from each other’s bodies. Perhaps the true feelings they had were ones they were unable to express to one another, or perhaps they did know how but they still chose not to. There is the same core as to why each of them were in the moods they’re in, yet there are still differences in the specifics, in why they felt the way they did, the specifications that damaged them the most. They all grieve, but the driver specifically shows a certain gloom of loneliness, the man specifically shows a disappointment almost like from a termination of anticipation, and the woman has a longingness leaving her in a different disappointment, stuck in a followthrough of a missed throw and unable to return to rest.

Staring out into the window at first, the man shifts his attention to the back of the driver’s seat before ultimately discontinuing the stillness with the raspily spoken curious inquiry: “So…where exactly are we going? I mean…we’re going to try to find…that guy right? Are you tracking him? Oh wait, we can just ask that Orial person can’t we?”

At the front, the only one at the front in fact, the driver shakes her head before explaining in a dreary tone, “I can’t get any trackers on him, and we lost contact with Orial. I can’t reach him…just like before…and I just got him back…,” before she frowns and lowers her head moments before she adds, “We’re just flying forward.”

“Damn that does suck,” responds the man before returning his gaze to the window, just as the woman beside him leans forward and softly comments further, “Wait, but I thought he said we were allowed to contact it-, him-, you know. And he can’t…change that now…not anymore….”

From the perspective of the woman there is only a portion of a side profile of the driver as the rest of her is hidden by the black seat she’s on. Her facial expression is completely obscured by her attention forward, the opposite direction from the passengers, instead facing the direction of the windshield screen above the sleek dashboard. The screen exhibits a view both majestic and eerie, the infinite cosmos with purple and blue smears of nebulas and white dots of stars far in the distance, and closer up there are larger bodies of spheres with compositions blue and green with white swirls over, bodies neighbored by smaller gray ones. Although there is a nearby planetary body, it is not the destination as the vehicle continues to fly in a straight path rather than diverging. There is no end to the cosmic road, and despite the accessibility to spatial travel there are hardly any visible pods either given the vastness of the interstate, so many people alone together.

Staring into the endless void, the driver releases a gentle sigh before then stating gently, “We ‘were’ allowed to contact him, but I lost it just recently. But…I know it wasn’t him…or well…it wasn’t the one who gave Orial back. The line was cut after he…was gone. The line had to have been cut by the one who came out, the Meditat who came out. It must’ve been some lockdown protocol….”

Blinking twice in disbelief before turning his head towards the front of the pod, the man tilts his head with a raised eyebrow before then reminding with a slight attitude beneath the calm tone, “You said it yourself, the man went into the giant fireball, he’s dead. Whoever the hell we just saw come out was someone else, I mean you saw his face, he’s completely different. Just because he has that same weird blue suit and can make shit up doesn’t make him the same person, there’s probably other Exhumans who can do the same anyways.”

“You’re wrong,” boldly proclaims the voice of the driver, with a voice so aggressive that it almost jars the man, his eyes widened and his attention anchored.

From the man’s perspective there is no visibility of the woman at all as her entire body is hidden by the driver’s seat, so instead all he can stare at is the back of the seat between him and the speaker.

But the speaker’s voice is prominent enough to identify its origin from the other side, given how strongly she asserts, “That was Meditat, it has to be, I just know it. And besides only he could’ve locked out Orial, and there’s never been any recorded Exhumans who have creation abilities to his scale other than him and Exitium. I…might’ve never ‘seen’ that exact face before but…it’s eerily similar to who he looked like before he started changing…it’s as if his body aged but more naturally. But it has to be him, and he recognized me, he knows me, and he’s somewhere out there and I just need to find him-.”

Folding his arms over his chest which he attempts to puff out but to little effect, the man offhandedly contends after a huff, “A lot of people know you, I know you’ve mostly just been hanging out with us but you’re a pretty famous person ya know? It’s just not possible for that person to be him, it’s not, he didn’t even recognize me or Kookie here. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“None of it makes sense…,” quietly murmurs the voice of the woman beside him, Kokei’s head low with a frown as she continues without raising herself, “It just doesn’t make sense how any of this could happen…and what was even happening with the Supersun I thought it was going to explode on us, it almost did. I don’t understand any of it…no matter how hard I try to understand it always slips away at the last second…. Why did that person come out…why did he have to leave us…it doesn’t make sense….”

Although first angry from the further disputing of her claims, Dana’s face can’t help but sober to Kokei’s words, her agitated grimace falling to a sentimental frown, her facial tension dispersing and her green eyes becoming mellow. Separated by the two allies by the seat, needing to keep her eyes away from them to keep control on the infinite road, she can only admit delicately with her audience only blurs from behind: “I…can’t explain any of it…I don’t know why or how, I’m sorry but all I do know is that man who we saw was Meditat, it was. I can’t say how but it was. I don’t know if he even knows…but what I do know is even in that brief time we saw him he was hurting…. And…I can’t just see that and ignore it again…he’s out there somewhere alone…and we need to find him.”

One of the blurred faces from behind, Kokei specifically, raises her head and theorizes although doubtfully, “Well uh…in that story he gave us…the one about his time with The Shield and everything…he did say that after everything happened he returned to his house. Maybe the specifics of the moment was different than what he said back then, but I believe him when he said he went back home. So maybe…if this is him…he did the same?”

An eyebrow raises on his face before Ekitai glances at Kokei and queries, “But his home is all the way on Earth 50, how’s he going to get there? If he tries to take an Express Station he’ll no doubt be caught by hordes, I mean I guess hey if he does then we’ll be able to trace him but I doubt he’s that stupid even if he is Meditat.”

“It is him, and when it’s him distance isn’t an issue,” again asserts the voice in front, grabbing both of the passenger’s attention as beside them another distant planet is passed with half of it lit up with vibrant greens and blues but the other half darkened without such prominent colors.

At the head of the vehicle, the driver wears a different expression still with traces of melancholy but with a dominating determination in her glare, one she maintains as she decides pertinaciously, “Earth 50 is where we’ll find him, and if anything stays the same he won’t choose to go anywhere else. We’ll find him there, we will,” as the engine’s deep hum becomes audible and continues to louden.

Now with a destination in mind rather than aimlessly drifting across the void, the hijacked SUV-styled black security pod begins to accelerate and faster too, zooming still in its straight path but now with a sense of direction. While in the vacuum of space there is no sound from the engine, the force propelling it ahead can still be perceived with all its potency as it races onward down the solar system.