>>> "Element" - By Hiryuu Chapter 27 - One More Conclusion * * * * * General Disclaimer: Any Freudian slips courtesy of my subconscious. Remember, kids, these are drafts you guys are getting. * * * * * Millia took a look at all the monitors once more to make sure that the headache she was developing was warranted. Yep. She was pretty sure that this situation fell under some 'Surrounded By Evil' trope of some kind. According to the readout of the planet's stasis, it was already coming apart at the seams again, literally. It was bad enough that the outcome had initially been ripped into five but now it had apparently begun to tear a hole on the mental overlay as well and certain parts of it had begun to restore data to a previous time. Why this wasn't caught by the who-knows-how-many people under her was something she was going to have to get to the bottom of at a later time. She couldn't just kill off every idiot she had; it was bad enough cleaning up the mess even with her limited temper...and she was quite aware of the circumstances otherwise. "I guess I don't have much of a choice then..." She typed in a few things on the console, executing a few commands, and then brought up a different program other than the statistic readouts, which provided a visual representation, showing that it was loading something. The next thing she saw, each loading at its own pace, was five different visuals. Five people. "Evening, everyone." It took a few seconds, but the others in question began to respond. "Uhoh, you're calling. What's going on?" "Good evening, Millia." "Heyyyyy, what's up?" "What do you want?" "..." No response from the fifth. Still down I suppose until needed. "Well, you'd be right, I am calling because we do have a problem. I know you five have been placed to keep a temporary hold until we get things done for Ozma but as you know I can only go so fast with what we've been given. We've only cracked the mental frame of Prime just a few days ago and the rewrite process is coming along far slower than anticipated. It doesn't also help that I have a limited amount of competence underneath me here...so things are barely moving along." That garnered results. "Oh, that sucks." "I'm sorry to hear that." "I don't really get what you said but okay." "Sucks to be you." "..." Millia shook her head. Definitely a lack of respect, if nothing else. "What I need to keep you informed of is the fact that apparently people are starting to lose their mental sets. If you start seeing some suspicious activity any time soon, you need to let me know. I have a feeling that Gilles is going to be needed soon and I may need one of you to help me out in that fact if things don't occur in the smoothest of fashions..." Millia took a look at the readouts. "Hm...I just thought I would let you know at least. Lily, you need to stay for a moment but the rest of you are dismissed. Just be sure to report to me if you find ANYTHING suspicious." "Works for me." "As you command, m'lady." "Yup, sure." "..." "..." The rest of the screens closed but the fourth one, Lily's. Lily started the conversation again. "You've got a lot of fucking nerve to be calling me at this point." "Aww...I don't even want to hear it, sister. You shouldn't have tried to meddle with things. You and Rose. Did you honestly believe that I wouldn't get word of this eventually when I've got a client that wishes for something that would be monetarily worth my troubles?" "I had absolutely no CLUE you'd even be looking at this place. I was out here questing solely for power and planet territory. Nothing more. I'm out here as a collector for a reason...YOU do it just for your bottom line and that isn't what this is about." Millia smirked. "It doesn't matter if I do it for the sport or for cash, the bottom line is that if you DON'T cooperate with what I'm doing that you will be at a major loss of way more than just this planet's gain in my favor...so watch your mouth, honey. I don't need to end any more lives than I already have today." "Shut the hell up. You know I could kick your ass in a heartbeat." Millia started to laugh hard enough. "Oh don't even get me started right now. Akira wouldn't like that." That shut Lily up on the spot. "You bitch..." "Now now...I told you to watch your mouth when you speak to me. You wouldn't want anything to happen to him, would you?" "You had a hand in him being lost in that skirmish against Rose the entire time. This whole thing you have me is nothing but blackmail and I DEMAND to be let go from this position. We're sisters by blood but this is shit no matter how you slice it." "All in good time," Millia continued. "I still need you to do things for me. I'll maybe consider your...proposition after we get things done for my client. You scratch my back, I crush yours. Seems fair to me." "..." Millia figured it was time to finish things up. "Well, your wannabe Akira...Rale...he let me know that one of the members Prime was with is one of the people that have started to break free from the hold. If we change too much with the mental overlay now, we're going to jeopardize the entire hold on this place...but if things get out of hand, I want you to at least check on her. Most of them have been reduced to peon strength anyways but I don't want to take any chances. They were the ones I was worried about the most when I wrote the code for the wipe that I had been given." "Whatever...who do you want me to look after?" Millia brought up the information about her on the monitor. It transferred to Lily in real time. "This one," the image popped up. "The name that was given was simply 'Rain'. The other three outside of Prime attached to them have shown no signs of mental flux from the overlay but I would watch the one you're assigned to. I already noticed your sector has been leaking according to what readouts I've read. I'm going to start thinking you're not doing your job soon. As I've found, it's really leaked to all sectors in mild cases, but this seems to be the case most prominent." "..." Lily didn't like that tone she was taking. "I'll be sure to check things out." "Wonderful!" Millia said with faked enthusiasm. "Now how hard was that to cooperate? Hmm?" "We will be discussing all of this very soon. Pray our other sister doesn't get word of what you're pulling." Millia laughed once more. If nothing else, her sister was chock full of amusement for her. "Oh please...there's a multiple dimension rift barrier she'd have to overcome and the odds of tracing it are scarce even if she was five foot away from it in space. So you may as well consider yourselves my...bitches...as you so adequately put it until a later time." Lily hung up then, that did nothing to quell what laughter Millia had been getting from all of these. With Rose destroyed and now Lily doing her bidding without means of failure, there was really no way she was going to get loss of results. Not to mention she still had a few aces in the hole if she so needed them. Progress on this wasn't as planned but it was coming along. She would soon be able to report the situation and get everything she wanted done. For now, though, it was just a matter of waiting things out and hoping things didn't get worse than they already might have been. Honestly, it wasn't too bad at this point but Millia did tend to be a perfectionist for a reason. That said, it was time to find if Rale was slacking again. * * * * * "Mn?" Elaine opened one eye slowly. She yawned and stretched. It felt like she had slept a hundred years as she adjusted her vision to look out the window this early in the morning from her hospital bed. She felt quite a bit better after Colin administered the meds last night and the sleep did its usual good. "I see you're doing well." Elaine turned her head. A bit stiff still but it wasn't really that much of a painful thing. One of the nurses was checking things in her area. "I'm glad to see you up this morning. You gave us all quite a shock yesterday." "Oh...I-I'm sorry that I-" "Oh don't worry about that. I think we're all glad that you're fine. You're more than likely going to be released from here in a short time as it is so I think you're going to be just fine and that's all we need to know." "I appreciate it...thank you..." The nurse shook her head. "Oh don't mention it. It's the least we can do for well..." the nurse stopped herself. "Oh nevermind about that. Just be more careful out there, all right?" Elaine nodded. "I don't have you hooked up to anything. If you want to walk around a bit, feel free to. You need to get moving again for your own benefit. I believe Colin was by the front gate...I think I saw him there a few minutes ago. He said he wanted to speak to you if you got a chance." Colin again, huh? I guess it would be a good idea to go give her most sincere thanks to the matter. "All right...thanks again." "You're welcome, dear." "Mn..." Elaine moved around on the bedside and got to a standing position. Surprisingly, it didn't take that much effort to get on her two feet. She figured that she would have to go through some sort of rehabilitation or something for months with what they had told her she had. Not to mention the giant stab she received in her leg. Looking at it now, though, it looked like it had never been cut into, let alone scarred. She was lucky to have a medical team like this, that was for sure. Getting going, she walked out the door of her room. The front entrance was just a short distance down the hall through a door. Walking from there to the front took less than a minute. The sun was barely peaked out this morning but there were four people out there. Erina was among them, still in the form she was last night. "Yer kiddin' me. You were a kid the whole time? I can't believe it!" "Ed...since when did age really have to do with things." "Well, ah didn't wanna get a kid involved with these kinda things." "She did better than you. Both of us, I'm afraid." "Tch, whatever..." "Oh, Elaine. Good morning," Colin noticed that his patient was moving around. That got Ed and Tricia's attention as well as Erina who turned around as well. She smiled, thankful that Elaine was all right. "Elaine! Hey!" Erina ran up to her and hugged her. Elaine didn't really want to make everyone worry but she was kinda happy to be this lucky to be liked. In a lot of ways, she thought. "Morning, everyone," she looked up at Colin. "Colin...I..." Colin rose and hand, shaking his head. "Don't worry about it. I know this isn't the first time for us meeting but I think we're all just glad you made it through. I didn't think we'd actually make it this time but I'm glad everything turned out for the best." "I really can't thank you all enough..." "Ah don't mention it. T'weren't nuthin', really," Ed gushed. "Well, at least for Erina...she really held her own out there. You're very lucky, Elaine," Tricia added. "Mm," Elaine nodded in response looking down at Erina still attached to her. "Well, I don't like to keep things like this short but unfortunately we've overstayed our time here as it is. We need to be getting back soon since we have plenty of other work to do. Hopefully we get to meet again under better circumstances," Colin said, motioning to the two that it was time to be moving. "All right. Well, thank you again. I'm glad I got to see you three off. Please feel free to drop by once in a while...I'm pretty sure I owe all of you and you most certainly have my gratitude." "Ah don't mention it." "Yes, that's quite all right but we might take your suggestion to visit at least." "That's right," Colin said. "Anyways, we'll be going then. Take care, Elaine." "Laters." "Goodbye." The three of them conversed for a moment and then got moving. "Bye! Thank you again!" Elaine waved them off. She then looked back at Erina who had not left her side. "I'm not going anywhere, Erina." Erina then jumped up and bopped her. "H-hey! What was that for?! You aren't supposed to attack the people in recovery!" "Don't you ever do that again! I already told you before how I'd be if you ever got into this position again and here you are doing exactly what I said not to..." "I...I'm sorry I made everyone worry. It wasn't a choice I made to get into something like this again." Erina looked down. "I know...but it doesn't make me worry any less. You really are one of the few things I have ever since..." She trailed off. "Since your grandparents passed away?" "...Yea." "I dreamed about that too." That made Erina stop, she looked back up. "Oh no, Elaine, it isn't happening again, is it?" Elaine shook her head. "I think it was just the situation I was. I really didn't want to see that whole scene over again. I know what it put both of us through afterwards and what weight we both really have...what weight you have...but that doesn't mean that I need to keep pushing it back either." "..." Erina couldn't really say anything. Although it really wasn't the two of them holding things down in this town, they were the two that the initial founders of this place cared for. They had much of the town's respect because of it...and they most assuredly couldn't be put into a position that made more people leave. It was bad enough when everything happened. And honestly, it wasn't something they wanted to remember right now. They took a look at each other as if on cue and Erina let go of Elaine. "Ah don't worry about it, Elaine. We'll be fine. We always have been. Hopefully, we can just go back to the way things were starting tomorrow." "...Oh yea fun...work," Elaine was definitely not enthused about the future. "Hey, I didn't say it'd be cake and ice cream, did I?" Erina chuckled. "Besides, I was kidding. You're not starting back when they're still fixing the place up. It exploded, remember?" "Hah..." Elaine sighed. Thank god for small favors. "Although...now that I mention that. There was this one guy..." Elaine blinked and looked down. "Erina, we've already been here before with Brandon. He's way outside your real age range." "Th...that's not what I meant! Geez!" Erina wildly shook her head. "Sheesh, Elaine. I meant that there was this one guy that we met when we were trying to get things to fix you up. We ran into Harold from-" "WHAT?!" That caused Elaine to go on edge. She remembered THAT guy clearly. "Where the hell get away to?! He should be-" "Elaine!" Elaine stopped. "I'm...sorry." "...Harold was part of the whole thing. You were right. I didn't want to admit that he might have been responsible for them dying but it was more or less confirmed." Elaine closed her eyes for a moment. She opened them back up, sighing hard. "Okay, so what happened? Is he with the authorities now?" "Well, he...he actually was causing the whole riot that happened yesterday, apparently. You being attacked was probably part of it. I'm pretty sure he was after me as well...and who knows what kind of a whack following he had consider what they did to you...but... Erina shuddered. "Let's just say Harold didn't survive our encounter." "...I see," Elaine didn't like where this was headed. "So who was this guy you mentioned then?" "Oh...well he was part of their group and defected onto our side at the last minute. He helped us all out. Really strong too but...I'm pretty sure he was at our job yesterday. He came in an ordered something and I waited on him." "Really?" Elaine didn't recall. "Mm...it must have been part of whatever they were doing," Erina thought about that for a moment and then disregarded it. "Anyways, I wasn't able to get him to come back with us after the fact. He pointed us in the direction we were already going anyways and said he had to get back. I'm not exactly sure what for since his leader he was hired under is no longer his boss and..." Elaine stopped her train of talking when she noticed a large amount of footsteps coming closer. She turned the gate and went wide-eyed. She did a double take as well when she saw the person in the front. "I...it's you." Derrick laughed. "Well, I'm glad I make an impression. I think we all need to talk for a moment..." * * * * * Elaine and Erina walked into their home a few hours later. It was already well into the afternoon. Considering everything they had just talked about and had been through, they needed about a week off. Preferably in a long, hot bath or something very similar. "I'm really surprised how that turned out. I never thought that he would round everyone up that was under Harold and turn in to the authorities." "I'm surprised it ended out in community service. With everyone that was there, this town basically brought back everyone they lost. Almost looks like they forgave each other." "Yea..." Both of them took to the couch in the main room, dropped there and proceeded to drone a gigantic sigh in stereo. Erina ended up dropping her head in Elaine's lap a moment later. "I'm glad you're safe, Elaine. You must know that if you ever do that again or get yourself killed...I'll kill you." Elaine laughed. "I'm glad I'm so loved." Erina stuck her tongue out. Both of them were exhausted. In fact, it wouldn't be a bad thing to Elaine right now if the two of them just crashed out where they were... * * * * * In a cave nearby, a portal of light suddenly tore open. A few moments later, Lily walked out of it as it closed behind her. She threw a hand out, getting a spark of energy to emit light for her, illuminating the vast, open area that she had arrived in amply. "You know, big guy, I don't really care if you end up doing your job right. I may as well start you now at let you tear it up as far as I'm concerned." She was talking to the eighteen-foot iron giant that was a couple dozen feet in front of her, sitting, not making much of a move. It had been deactivated. "I should just order you to crush that town and throw everything into oblivion for Millia. It would be so easy too..." No response but she wasn't expecting one. "Hah...screw this situation, seriously. She's not going to get away with this." Lily said as she charged another small amount of electric energy and tossed it at Gilles. It penetrated and went inside of the giant causing a mechanical and electrical reaction from it a few seconds later. All of its systems began to come online, one by one until it had completely restored its function. The eyes at the top glowed white soon after. It moved its head slowly downwards, noticing the energy reading of something humanoid nearby. "LILY." "Hey, yourself. You've got orders. I trust you know what that means." "...INDEED." "Good, less I have to explain for you then..." * * * * * End of Chapter 27. * * * * * Hey, I've got a bit of a special this time. If you're still reading this in real time with the thread, I wanna see if I can get some intel from you guys. Depending on the response, I might do things like this from now on just to jazz things up. After you get done reading this, give me your favorite character in this series so far and why. Doesn't have to be long or anything. Make sure to post it the Element thread on Jul. More to come sooner than later, hopefully. I've got a lot to do.