Year 2035, March
23:00 P.M
Underground City 3, Saratov, Russia
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A day before the planned invasion, I was in the mansion's hallway. It was late at night, but my stomach was growling.
I didn't want to take a step outside of my room. Even so, my stomach took precedence over everything at that time. When I reached the dining hall, a sweet smell jolted me into focus.
"Someone having a late night snack too?" I mumbled.
"Hmm? The Grim Reaper, is it?" said Evgeny.
He greeted me when I entered the dining hall. Apparently, he didn't get the chance to eat dinner earlier and decided to have it just a few minutes ago. I found it weird that he only had fruits on the table.
"Are you having a diet?" I asked after I took a seat next to him.
"Far from it. My appetite is strange, you see. I only want fruits these days." He popped a small grape into his mouth and looked at me. "You can have it if you want."
"Really? Then, if you excuse me . . ."
My hand grabbed an apple from a straw basket and I took a huge bite. "Hmm! Sweet."
We were silent for a few minutes before I asked him a question.
"Do you know about Amathelia? Her relationship with me?"
He raised his eyebrows. Glancing at the dining hall's door once, he then turned to face me. "Every member of The People's Light knows about Amathelia. After all, she's the first Aegis User. Though, I'm not sure I know anything about the Grim Reaper's relationship with her, sadly."
"Oh." I looked down, disappointed.
"Are you saying that she's related to you, somehow?" asked Evgeny as he straightened his posture.
"Well, the Four Pillars who serve under her keep calling me Big Sis for some reason. They are obviously older than me, so I was having a hard time trying to understand what it means. Hope and I thought hard about what they said, and we came to the conclusion that she is my biological mother."
"Oh?" Evgeny focused on me.
I coughed. "The Four Pillars don't have memories of their past. So, they might have thought of Amathelia as a mother figure to them. Their caretaker, or something along that line, you know. With that in mind, they see me as someone older than them, in terms of who came first into Amathelia's family."
Evgeny put a hand at his chin. "That makes sense. It's a possibility for now, but I can see how it will turn out to be the cold truth."
"I know right?" I held my head high, somewhat proud of myself.
"Though, I do know Amathelia was a former scientist of the C.U about twenty years ago. She had a son back then."
"Huh?!" I blinked. "Really?"
"Yes. I can't really tell you if her son is actually alive right now. I know next to nothing about him. Still, that's all I can recall about Amathelia. My apologies, Grim Reaper."
I waved at him. "No, no. It's fine."
'Amathelia have a son? So, I have an older brother?' I thought.
Evgeny sighed. "I'm quite certain Amathelia only had a son twenty years ago, though maybe she gave birth to you later on. Still, the speculation that Amathelia is your biological mother is still high up there in the realm of possibility."
"Yeah."
"What will you do if she is indeed your mother?" asked Evgeny.
"I don't know . . . For the longest time in my life, I had been living in a world full of lies. Alicia and Bart are never my parents."
Evgeny didn't say a word. He looked at me, worried about something.
"Anyway, thanks, um, Mister Evgeny," I said with a smile.
"I can call for someone to escort you back to your room."
"No, it's fine. I'm not hungry anymore."
With that, I left him and headed back to my room. It was quiet in the hallway. As my footsteps echoed faintly, I recalled what Evgeny had said. He mentioned something about Amathelia's son and his unknown status. If I was indeed her daughter, then I had an older brother as well. Though, twenty years had passed. He could've been dead since no one actually talked about him. After all, Klaus didn't mention anyone from Amathelia's family.
"Oh, Ava."
"Hm?"
I raised my head and Freya was there a few feet in front of me. She was wearing a black jacket and jeans. Her hair was still uneven from what her former comrades did, but I tried to not let it bother me.
"It's good that I meet you like this," she said. "Um, Hope said that the preparation for tomorrow is done. He also said something about using a Teria airship to get both you and him to pop right at the center of Moscow."
"Oh. He sure is working hard," I said.
"Yeah . . . Oh, right, he asked me to fetch him some coffee."
She waved goodbye at me before she went to the opposite direction of where I was heading. Looking at her, I was grateful that she had changed, despite being kicked out of The People's Light. However, something about her stirred the slumbering hatred inside me.
"Why Hope asked her instead of me?" I mumbled.
I knew that I was quick to judge, but it irritated me so much that Hope didn't rely on me that much anymore. Lately, he preferred to do everything himself.
There was also the fact that he could've thought that I already fell asleep, and decided to not bother me.
"Ava, what is wrong with you?" I said. "Get a hold of yourself."
I slapped myself hard in the cheek and shook my head. "I need to sleep and prepare for tomorrow."
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It was the day of the planned invasion.
The Lutalo squad was in a Teria airship, hovering near the airspace of Moscow. The People's Light would join us later on when we had distracted the military forces there. For the military coup, Evgeny had asked them to attack the city after Lutalo had landed safely.
When the metal door slid open, a sudden gush of wind blew against my face. I took a peek at Moscow from that spot, and sure enough, the city was just below us.
"Alright. Let's summarize what we should do after this," said Caesar.
I turned to face him. Sofeea, Hope, Lily, and Freya moved closer to form a circle. Freya accompanied us because Hope said she could be a useful backup.
Hope cleared his throat. "Basically . . . Caesar, Lily, and Sofeea are tasked with destroying the six railguns lined up along the edge of the city. A large number of military coup stationed outside will join when you get to the first one. Also, we will be in touch all the time with the earpiece."
I put a finger on the earpiece I had at my left ear.
Hope continued, "Ava, Freya, and I will try to distract as many of the C.U's forces as we can in the middle of the city. The military base is just right there, so there shouldn't be any problem in getting most of their attention to us before they get to Caesar."
Everyone nodded.
"Right . . . Let's get this over with and come back home alive," said Caesar.
We looked at him.
"What? It's not like I'm triggering any red flag here. We always come out alive anyway." He shrugged.
"We will not die though. At least, not today," I said.
"I will give this mission my two-hundred percent," said Sofeea. Her eyes were filled with determination.
"We have the advantage when it comes to overall strength. We will not lose this one." Lily adjusted the Aegis Gear: Gloves wrapping her hands.
Freya was silent as she stood next to Hope. When we stared at her, she flinched.
"I'll give it my all," she said.
"Alright. Let's go. Once my team is done with the railguns, we will head straight to Lady Ava's position," Caesar said. He held out his right hand towards us. "Come on. Put your hands on top of mine, like in the movies."
One by one, we did just that.
Caesar, Lily, and Sofeea then went inside a pod, where Hope, me, and Freya entered a separate one.
"Ava, I'll be right there after we are done with our own task," said Lily through my earpiece.
"Thanks, Lily."
After a few minutes, my pod launched itself from the Teria airship, straight towards Moscow's center. When we were a couple hundred meters above the Troitskaya Tower, a railgun atop the military base aimed at us. I recalled that The State Kremlin Palace was supposed to be there instead of the military base.
"Hope," I said.
Freya kicked open the pod's hatch. We wasted no time and jumped out of it. Hope then manifested a golden shield and pointed it at the railgun. As expected, the railgun took its time to fire. A few seconds later, the shield glowed in gold; brighter and brighter as time passed.
"Let's just hope this is enough," he said.
A moment later, a bright, golden ray of light exploded out of the shield. As the railgun was about to fire, the light crashed into it; causing a huge red flame to shot upward into the sky. The impact was strong enough to crack the walls of the large building that was the military base.
"Everyone, hold on!" I said.
Large, dark blue gauntlets manifested itself from my back and grabbed Freya and Hope in mid-air. Then, crimson Aegis crystals popped out from my shoulders. It engulfed everyone to form a protective sphere.
In the blink of an eye, the sphere crashed into the dark Troitskaya Tower.
"Ow!" I said.
When the sphere disintegrated, we were already inside the Tower. Fortunately, no one suffered any major injury, aside from Hope who had broken his right arm.
"Hope!" said Freya, her eyes widened.
"No, it's fine." His right arm healed in a few seconds.
"Phew." I wiped the sweat trickling from my forehead. "We made it, somehow."
"Yeah," nodded Freya.
My earpiece crackled for a second before Caesar's voice came through. "Everyone, we found something."
The three of us there looked at each other.
"Something?" I said.
"Um, when we landed at the first railgun, there are quite a few of them guarding it," he said with a nervous tone. "We have . . . One, Two . . . Oh, Ten Vasquez, about a hundred soldiers, and a tank."
"Huh?!" Hope and I exclaimed.
"Oh, wait. There's also this railgun behind us here. Haha!" Caesar gulped. "This will take some time. The three of you over there will have to hold on a bit longer. We'll get there as soon as possible."