The team meets up with Tanya, who drives them to Pilloa. The day was Friday of December 23rd, 2191. Tanya was able to give them a ride because her daughter was once again staying with her babysitter for the weekend. So now everyone besides Demetri and Robin were together. This time, Tanya has brought a larger vehicle, capable of carrying everyone. A red van with multiple rows of seats in the back.
"It's a rental" Tanya says as everyone gets in the van, "so if anyone trashes the car, I'm kicking your ass!".
The team reaches Pilloa by noon. When they get there, Zia starts digging through the rubble that was once her house. The crew split up to look around the area for any clues of Siran having been here lately. After several hours, Alex, Finn and Vivi meet up with Zia who was still digging through the rubble but looking more and more discouraged the longer she spent digging.
"Nothing still, huh?" Finn asks in a sorrowful voice. Zia shakes her head in disapproval. "Look" Finn continues, "I'm not giving up the search for Siran, but maybe this wasn't the place to come to after all?".
Zia climbs out of the rubble, looking very exhausted. "I'm starting to think so too" she says.
"Well" Alex says, "we can keep looking for a little while longer, but I say we should return before long".
"Alright" Zia says as she walks away slowly. Zia walks into the woods and leans against a tree to rest. It was the same tree she had hidden behind when she first met Siran. As she sits down, she lets out an elongated sigh and says "Where could you possibly be?". Suddenly, Zia heard a large thump against the tree. She crawls around the other side and finds that mysterious sniper they had met before. The sniper still wasn't talking, but when he sees Zia, he lets out a loud sigh. Zia could see he was injured. There was a shard of metal stuck in his chest. The robes he was wearing were ripped and exposed an armor vest he was wearing beneath it. The vest was cracked as the metal shard penetrated his armor. Blood was coming out, but he has his hand on his wound. Using both pressure and magic to suppress the bleeding. The sniper picks up his other hand slowly, and grabs the metal shard. With one quick motion, he rips the metal shard out of his chest. The sniper groans loudly, but a large bright flash of light seems to close the wound completely.
"Is that... healing magic?" Zia asks the sniper. "I've never seen a medical magic before, I thought it didn't exist". The sniper shakes his head in disapproval. "Who are you?" Zia asks, and what happened?". Once again, the sniper shakes his head in disapproval, refusing to speak.
A few days ago, Siran was attacking a base by himself in the southernmost area of Omnia during the night. This area was just between a desert and the capital city Omnium Guild. The Omnium Guild was to the west of this area, and the desert to the east. As Siran stared down this large fortress of a military base, he puts on his mechanical mask, tucks his dark blue hat under his large cape-like scarf and picks up his sniper rifle. This sniper rifle he had made with knowledge he had learned from Vivi. He kept his magic pistol and his regular pistol in holsters on the back of his belt. He slips the hood of his robes over his head, leaving only his mechanical mask to be exposed. He and he alone walked up to this military base, with a gun in his hand, looking for a fight. Siran, the sniper approached the outermost wall of the base, and with a touch of his hand, the wall itself exploded and crumbled before him. The base was instantly on high alert. A group of soldiers instantly open fire at Siran, but all the fire seemed to be distorted around Siran. Siran raises his right hand and points it at the group of soldiers before him. As Siran clenched his hand into a fist, the ground beneath them shoots up like a piston. The soldiers flew into the sky and hit the ground with a heavy thud. The ground remained reformed, with each section of the ground that flew up in the shape of a hexagon. Each hexagon at a different elevation. The ground was permanently rearranged. Sirens go off as more and more soldiers come out. Siran starts firing at them with his sniper rifle, each blast causing a lot of damage. Each beam from his rifle that hit a soldier made that soldier disappear in a pink mist. Each beam that missed a soldier, hit a wall behind them. Each wall that was struck crumbled. The first section of the base had nearly completely collapsed by the time soldiers started bringing out large metal barrels with unlabeled contents. They rolled the barrels down from an area above Siran, like the ramparts. Siran hesitated to touch the barrels. Suddenly, a soldier threw a large fireball at one of the barrels and it caught fire.
"Gasoline!" Siran says with a panicked expression. As Siran tried to dodge, the barrel exploded, causing the other barrels to explode as well. The entire front gate section of the base has caught on fire. Siran pushes a large metal slab off of himself as the fire closes in. As Siran touches the metal, the sheer heat from the slab causes his gloves to burn and give off smoke.
"Ow ow ow ow!" Siran says as he gets up. "Feel the burn! Man, I need new gloves, these are NOT heat resistant!".
"Halt!" A voice calls out behind him. Siran turns around with his hands up and sees a large number of soldiers behind him, narrowly avoiding the fire that's closing in on them. There was nearly twenty of them. "We're not afraid to make a few sacrifices" the soldier says, "as long as we're able to take you down, Siran of The Six Guns".
"Guess the jig is up" Siran says, "but before I go, how about a game of catch?".
"You're not going anywhere!" The soldier calls out as they point their guns at Siran, preparing to fire. Siran reaches behind him and pulls out that pistol Vivi had made. The handgun that fires regular bullets rather than magic, but also has that bomb charm. Siran holds the gun by the barrel, dangling it with his thumb and index finger, jingling the gun like it were a pair of toy keys. "Catch" Siran says as he throws the gun with tremendous force. The gun flies over the first sets of walls, and over the center of the base. A bright glow could be seen from the gun as Siran says "You sure you don't mind sacrificing the base? Because we're about to find out how honest you were".
"What the?" The soldier asks, "what'd you just do?".
"I'm out of here" Siran says as he seems to teleport right outside of the walls. Siran moved quicker than anyone's ever seen, with his speed boost paired with a stability boost to keep his body from falling apart from the sheer force of his speed. Siran ran towards the east, trying to get his distance from the explosion. After getting so far away from the base, that the fires raging was the only thing he could see of the base, Siran found himself at the border of the desert. The grass seemed to just suddenly die and the rest of the scenery was nothing but sand. As Siran looks at the burning fires, he says to himself "I wonder how big that explosion will be. I hope I didn't mess it up".
Suddenly, a bright flash of light could be seen as a small mushroom cloud rises from where the base once stood. A black wave of magic lining the edge of the shockwave from the blast quickly approaches Siran.
"Uh oh" Siran says as he frantically puts up several digital shields to protect himself, "too much magic! I put too much into it!". The shockwave hits Siran's shields, instantly shattering them all, and then hit Siran. Siran got sent flying deeper into the desert from the shockwave, but he got knocked out immediately from the impact. When Siran woke up the next day, he found himself in a poorly made shack. There was an old man and what looked like a man in his late twenties in the shack with him.
"He's waking up" the younger man said.
As Siran sits up, the old man says "My name is Jeremiah. I live here in Giga Desert. I found you unconscious near the western border of the desert, and from the looks of it, you must be some sort of mercenary. Do you remember who you are, or are you having any memory loss?".
"I-I'm... Siran" Siran says as he rubs his eyes.
"Not sure if you really care" the other man says, "but my name is Mark. Mark Jameson".
"Mark... Jameson?" Siran asks. "That's a stupid name".
"Yeah well..." Mark replies, "nothing I can do about that. Anyways, I'm stranded here like you are. I was traveling from Beinna to Omnium Guild, but my car just suddenly broke down when I decided to cut through the desert to save time. Now, every time I try to leave, there's these men in black uniforms of some kind with these... masks... they won't seem to let me leave this place".
"Black uniforms and masks?" Siran asks as he thinks to himself. "Sounds an awful lot like the MTRU".
"What's that?" Mark asks.
"Don't worry about it" Siran says, "but if they're here, then they either know I'm here, or there's a base nearby. Hey, old man-".
"The name's Jeremiah" he replies, "but I can assure you, there's a base nearby".
"Wait, hold up" Siran says, "why are you being so casual about this?".
"Oh, I've lived here for so long" Jeremiah says, "I came here on my own accord to live a quiet life. Little did I know at the time, there's a top secret base in the center of the Giga Desert. I guess it'd make sense that they'd research this place though, given that this is where Naris's dead body lies".
"Yeah..." Siran says to himself, "dead body... anyways, you said the center, right?".
"Are you going there?" Asked Jeremiah.
"Yeah" Siran says, "they want to research Naris, and I want to... research them".
"You don't have to be secretive with me, young man" Jeremiah says, "you're going there for a fight, ain't ya?".
"That's the general idea" Siran says.
"Well, if you leave out of this door here" Jeremiah says as he points at the front door, "then turn to your left about 120 degrees and then walk straight. That's the way to the base".
"Thanks" Siran says, "I should be fine finding my way there using the sun to tell me which way is east or west, but that helps too".
"Good luck" Jeremiah says as Siran leaves.
"You're just gonna let him go and do all that crazy mess?" Mark asks Jeremiah.
"I've already done all I can" Jeremiah says, "you're welcome to try leaving any time again. Maybe next time you can sneak past the mystery men".
"Shit!" Mark says as he stands up and rushes to the door, "that gives me an idea!".
Mark rushes out and shouts at Siran before he gets too far away. "Hey!" He calls out. Siran turns around and looks at Mark. "If you come back in one piece, think you can get me out of here? I don't want to be stuck here forever like Jeremiah!".
Siran raises up his thumb in approval for his response and then continues walking. As Siran walks, his head is still hurting from the explosions last night. First from the exploding barrels of gas and then the gun bomb.
"I really hope I don't get caught in another explosion" Siran says to himself.
Alone, Siran traversed this empty desert. The place became a desert because of all the endo radiating from Naris's body. The place didn't look the same as Oklahoma did because the endo simply killed off the plant life that was already there. However, here there was never plant life. When Siran last fought Naris, this place wasn't even habitable. The country had only recently formed from a super volcano erupting from the bottom on the ocean, and when Naris and Siran fought, the rock beneath them had only recently cooled off from its previous state of smoldering rock. The place was left barren, and over time, the rain and water eroded the rock into fine sand. As well as the endo kept anything from growing and increased the speed of erosion. That's all that this place had become.
Several hours later, Siran approaches the center of the desert, but no buildings or structures in sight. Siran noticed for a while, that the deeper he got into the desert, the more shallow his footsteps had become. It was as if something was beneath the sand. Siran points his sniper rifle downwards and shoots into the sand. The sand kicked up into a cloud of dust, and the sand that remained where Siran had shot turned into molten glass. But sure enough, there was a hole in the ground, leading to what looked like a bright hallway beneath his feet. And so Siran jumped into the hole. To his surprise, he was not immediately surrounded by the MTRU.
"This is unusual" Siran says to himself. Siran then begins wandering aimlessly through the halls. Coincidently, Siran comes across an elevator. He presses the button to call the elevator and patiently waits for the elevator to arrive. Upon arrival, three MTRU soldiers with their masks off were laughing amongst each other, until they noticed Siran in front of them. Siran grabs two of them by the head and bangs all three of their heads together, causing them to pass out. Siran then quietly walks into the elevator and starts pushing buttons, not sure where exactly to go.
Siran went from floor to floor, finding little to no resistance on any floor. There where strangely very little people here, and it wasn't putting Siran to ease. The less people he ran into, the more anxious he became. After checking around 15 different floors, Siran finally came across a floor that was full of people. By this time, they knew Siran was coming and had their guns drawn and ready by the time the elevator doors opened.
"Hello" Siran says as he waves at them. The MTRU open fire at Siran, doing so much damage to the elevator, that a screen of smoke was pouring out of the elevator. After the smoke cleared, Siran was nowhere to be found. The soldiers looked around aimlessly now, only to find Siran behind them.
"And goodbye" Siran says. Suddenly, a strong burst of wind knocks all of them off of their feet. One by one, they'd each get up off of the ground, only to have their head briefly smacked back into the ground by Siran, knocking them all out. Siran wanders around on this floor for a short while before coming across a large circular area with a glass window stretching all the way around the inner side of this circle. Behind the glass, there was what looked like a giant round-bottom flask. The flask was filled with that smoke-like black substance, pure endo. There was no doubt in Siran's mind. He was sure that they were harvesting endo from Naris's body.
"I figured you'd show up one day" a woman's voice calls out. Agatha Besse, of the Mages Guild approached Siran from around this long circular hallway. "I just figured you'd show up with that misfit crew of yours, rather than show up alone like a fool" she continues.
"I think I know what you're doing here by now" Siran says to Agatha, "but I want to know how".
"How?" Agatha asks as she tightens these gauntlets around her hands. The gauntlets has small tubes leading to a metal backpack on her back. The gauntlets glow with a charm in the top of her hands as she says "I'll show you how".
Agatha charges at Siran, trying to hit Siran with an open palm attack. Siran keeps dodging backwards, causing both of them to move through this circular hallway quickly. Siran was fast, but Agatha was somehow just a little faster. Eventually, Agatha grabbed Siran by the face, draining him rapidly of his magic. The metal backpack filled up to its maximum capacity with endo as Siran collapsed. Siran managed to get on his knees.
"Do you understand now?" Agatha asks, feeling cocky.
"Yeah" Siran says as he gets back into his feet, "you guys are boosting yourselves with Endo from Naris's body, and you're using whatever technology that is the sap all the endo from his body. But you're mistaken if you think you got all of my endo".
Agatha's eyes widen in surprise as Siran dashed forward at Agatha at a high speed, planting his fist firmly into her stomach. Agatha hit the floor and vomited. She tried getting back onto her feet, but she collapsed before getting onto her knees.
"You're not taking anymore of this endo" Siran says as he turns over to the flask. Siran breaks the window, climbs down to the base of the flask and cracks the glass, causing the endo to pour out. Siran absorbs the endo that's pouring out into his body. Siran grunts and grits his teeth as all the endo enters his body. Siran falls to his knees when he's done, and lifts his mask off of his face. He vomits blood onto the floor, then wipes his face with his right arm.
"Argh! Shit that hurts!" Siran says as he stands back up. "One is not meant to hold that much endo in their body... oh man, feels like my blood is actually boiling".
Siran climbs back through the hole in the window that he shattered and back into that circular hallway. When he looks over, it appears as though the MTRU soldiers had disappeared along with Agatha Besse. They had fled the scene.
"Cowards" Siran says as he puts his mask back over his face. "They strut their power, but when they realize that power alone won't save them, they hide. Reminds me of myself, really". Siran tries to use the elevator he arrived in, but the elevator was completely out of commission. It had taken too much damage. "There's got to be another way" Siran tells himself, "how'd the others escape?". Siran looks over and sees an emergency escape route of stairs going all the way up to the first floor.
"No way I'm walking up all those stairs" Siran says to himself, "that'd be a killer workout". Suddenly, the entire base starts to shake. Parts of the ceiling start to crack as windows all around him start to shatter. The place was crumbling apart.
"Stairs it is!" Siran says as he changes his mind and runs up the stairs.
Suddenly, an intercom turns on as Agatha's voice could be heard over the intercom. "You may have thought you've won" she says, "but this place is going down and I'm taking you with it! But don't worry, I'll get out safe and sound, you can die here alone".
As Siran rushes up the stairs, he shouts at the intercom as if Agatha could hear him "I can die here, but I'm not gonna!". Siran rushes up the stairs in a hurry, panting and struggling for breath. Finally, Siran makes it to the first floor. The walls were already collapsing as Siran rushed under the hole he made in the ceiling when he first entered. He put up a digital shield to block debris from landing on him and the ceiling collapsed around him. Siran climbs up the rubble and sees a car driving away towards Omnium Guild. Agatha has gotten away. Siran rushed back to Jeremiah's hut, and gets Mark.
"You're back!" Mark cheers, "I didn't think I'd actually see you again!".
"Yeah, well" Siran says, "save the celebrating for when you get out of here".
"Roger that!" Mark says, gleefully.
Together, Siran and Mark start walking out of the desert. However, as they got close to edge of the desert, these hatches open from under the sand, and out of it pours MTRU soldiers in military cars. There were more sections of that underground base that didn't collapse with the center section.
"Stay behind me!" Siran calls out as he pulls out his pistol. One by one, Siran shoots the cars out of commission. Some of the MTRU soldiers bailed out of their cars as they broke down and started chasing them on foot.
"You any good with magic?" Siran asks Mark.
"Nope" Mark says, nervously.
"Great... this is going well" Siran says. Siran creates a giant fireball, but when he throws it, it turns into a blazing wall of fire that engulfed the soldiers. While he wasn't looking, one of the cars got close to Siran and Mark. Siran instinctively threw up a digital shield to block their fire, then jumped onto the car. The car took off, leaving Mark behind, but soon came back. Siran dumped two dead bodies out of the car and said "Get in, hurry!".
Mark and Siran drove away, mark steering the car and Siran shooting down anyone who followed them.
"Head north!" Siran says to Mark, "go towards Seeira!".
"Anywhere but here works!" Mark says as he stomps harder on the pedal.
A few hours later, Siran and Mark drive just west of Pilloa. They were relaxed by now, but suddenly, a road block cut them off. Two large armored military vans cut off their route.
"Hold on tight!" Siran calls out to Mark as he grabs Mark and pulls him out of his seat. Just before impact, Siran jumps with Mark in his arms. Using his own body to shield him, Siran lands on his back and kept Mark from taking the fall. The soldiers outside of the armored vans point their guns at the two of them, but Siran had other plans. He threw a bright ball of white light that flew like a spear. The ball of light hits just between the two vans, right into the car they were driving and exploded. The explosion engulfed both the vans and the car. Mark got sent onto his back from the explosion and Siran got knocked out for about five minutes. When Siran woke back up, Mark was shaking him, trying to make sure he was still alive.
"Hey!" Mark would call out. "Get up!".
"I can't believe" Siran says as he wakes up, "that I got caught up in ANOTHER explosion...".
"Oh good, you're alive" Mark says.
"Would you get out of here already?" Siran asks Mark. "Seriously, keep moving, find somewhere else to be".
"What about you?" Mark asks.
"Don't worry about me, you keep going" Siran calls out, but then coughs up a little bit more blood.
Mark sighs nervously and then stands up and walks away a little bit. Mark turns to look at Siran who's still laying on the road, but then continues walking away.
Siran tried getting up slowly, but suddenly a shock of intense pain brings him to his senses. As he looks down, a metal shard from the car was stuck in his chest. Siran gets up slowly, clenching the wound, using magic to shapeshift his body so his circulatory system could work normally until he found a quiet place to rest. Siran eventually finds a tree in the middle of the woods in Pilloa, the tree where he first met Zia and plops down at the base of the tree. There, Zia finds him, with his mask hiding his identity. Siran removes the metal shard and shapeshifts his body back to normal, making the wound seem closed. He refused to talk around Zia and the others so he wouldn't give away his identity. Rather, he simply got back up, and slowly starts walking away. As he walks, his scarf blows in the wind, revealing a small portion of his dark blue hat that Zia gave to him.
Zia barely recognizes it and calls out to him. "Hey, wait!" She calls, but Siran the sniper doesn't answer. He keeps walking.
"There you are!" Finn calls out as Alex and Finn run up to Zia. "It's about time we go". Zia was staring off at Siran's silhouette, trying to remember what she was going to say. She recognized the hat, but she couldn't remember exactly where from because she had only seen such a small portion of the hat and she's been too stressed over trying to find Siran to think clearly.
"Think you found something?" Finn asks.
"No, I-" Zia says, "I met that sniper again, but... I think I need to find them again. There's something I need to ask them. I think I might know who they are".