Dim red lights produce scarce visibility in the room that it illuminates, for the room itself such as furniture or walls cannot even be seen. The mild lighting in fact only allows one entity to appear in frame, a man whose body is garnished in a black fiber-woven suit with the same texture as those of the Watchdog fighters.
Opposedly to the fighters however is the lack of an otherwise vital component of the uniform: the concealing mask. For instead, the man's face is exposed, his short hair visible, and his facial muscles clearly moving. The faint and dark lighting however makes further identification of his face difficult as his body is only moderately more exposed than a pure silhouette, casting an ominous presence. The color of his eyes remains undisclosable, but the movements of his mouse are distinguishable enough.
Further diffusing the menacing aura, while the man speaks with clear words, they're heavily distorted and deepened, speaking with a voice unnatural as a human but rather one excessively modulated.
Those words spoken are: "This declaration is not a warning, because by the time you will be seeing it, we will be marching to your doorstep in masses. This siege is not a threat, it is the action we shouldn't have waited so long to take, and by the time the supersun sets, this war will be over."
Two bars slide into the frame, over the man's torso as it inhabits the lower region of the canvas. A smaller red bar left justified reads: "BREAKING NEWS," as a far larger blue bar, nearly covering the width of the frame, sits right below and reads "DECLARATION OF WAR BETWEEN RIVAL ORGANIZATIONS OVERNIGHT."
Nudged between the right of the blue bar and the edge of the screen is the text "SIN" enclosed in a circle with many more circles filling the inside.
Another voice speaks, this one being crystal clear, unaugmented with a far friendlier tone of voice. It doesn't seem to speak from the room, but rather straight off the shot as it reports, "A statement has already been put out by PC 50, confirming that they are standing by their word and, quote, 'Not interfering over the civil conflict.' Many on Chriper are arguing over if the council is being lobbied and failing their authoritative duties, while others argue that jumping to action so quickly would only make more mess! We here won't lie to you that tensions have been high for quite some time, but we also won't lie that none of us expected a declaration of this magnitude without warning! Many hope that maybe today this long, grueling conflict will come to an end, and we here just hope that it doesn't take too many lives before that happens. Now here's a word with Chris over the air…."
Stable projections maintain the holographic screen that plays the broadcast in perfect color and virtual opaqueness. The broadcast runs in front of light-gray walls with the soft, carpet-like texture, and a white door with smoothed edges.
The door abruptly vaporizes into a white cloud before dissipating, revealing the woman in the black blazer standing in the doorway: Dana. She glances around the room before her eyes set on the entity behind the broadcast, to which she sighs in relief and casually begins approaching it.
Dana calmly greets, "Good morning sleepyhead, I was wondering where you were," as behind her, Ekitai steps in through the doorway, following into the room in his brown overcoat.
On the other side of the holographic screen sits Kokei, her back leaning against the cushioned headboard of her bed, attired in a short sleeve white shirt, worn loosely which exposes black straps wrapping over her shoulders, as well as pink shorts. Laying on the edge of the bed is her white cupcake hoodie, seemingly ready to be put on, but postponed indefinitely.
Glued to the screen, Kokei wears a face of dread, her lips slightly parted and her eyes sunken.
Perplexed by the disturbed expression, Dana's eyebrow raises as she walks around Kokei's bed, gently checking "Are you alright? What are you looking at?"
Without being given a response as Kokei remains frozen speechless, Dana takes it upon herself to seek truths, standing beside Kokei and leaning over her shoulder to stare at the screen. Her green eyes peer in concentration and intrigue, only before quickly assuming the same dreadful expression as Kokei.
Now even more confused by the sight of both of his friends' horrified faces, Ekitai blissfully prods, "What's so crazy there?"
Also unresponsive to questioning, Dana remains in her posture, her attention unmoved. As the reflections of the video play in her green eyes, she softly murmurs to herself, "What did he do…."
Those words succeed in snapping Kokei's trance, as she turns her head towards Dana, although she still appears troubled. But now facing away from the screen, she quietly implores, "'He'?", explicitly disoriented.
Her sights narrowing as the surrounding world is slowly tuned out, Dana stands up straight, turning to Kokei. She hastily commands, "Get dressed and come on, we need to go talk to him," before she turns around and rushes towards Ekitai, who then repeats his friend's same puzzlement, "'Him?'"
Behind her, Kokei does follow regardless of the disclarity of Dana's intentions. She slips off the bed, to which her pair of white shoes manifest over her once exposed feet in a suddenly generated cloud. She then walks to her hoodie before picking it up and slipping it over her body, letting it drape over her shirt and shorts.
While Kokei pats herself to prepare for the day, Dana stands beside Ekitai across from Kokei, and extends her arms around as though preparing for a wide embrace. She then directs, "Get close to me Kokei, Ekitai."
Still not having a clue as to what's transpiring in front of him, Ekitai lightly quips, "Since when were we doing group hugs?"
To his surprise, neither of the two appear amused or even reactive to Ekitai's witticism, as Kokei follows Dana's word and steps right in front of her.
Rebounding to protect himself, Ekitai remarks "Okay, looks like it's a bit too early," before following with silence, acknowledging both of their heavy attitudes.
With all of them now within adequate proximity, all of Dana's fingers begin extending into golden tentacles, but furthermore, tentacles begin extending all from Dana's back to further cover the three. In seconds, the three's bodies become completely concealed in golden coils, still without a worded explanation.
Dana does finally speak up inside the containment, responding to Ekitai with: "It is too early," but nothing more.
Without warning, a blinding blue flash of light imbibes the golden container from inside. As the excess light dissipates from the bedroom, neither the container nor any of the three are left visible, as all of them are now absent from the room.
Deep down in the dark domain, silver luminiating disks hover in stationary position above the floorless waters and below the merciless stalactites inside the cavern. With such expansive space boundless to the eyes, a sundry pads graze the underground, the inhospitable home not for the casual to inhabit, as self submission wouldn't grant safety but rather intimidating dominance was the only path to control.
Among the darkness resides one of the pads, where a circular region of the pad is matte black, covering about half of the pad in radii. Although the region is not elevated, it appears as a distinct unit of the pad due to its unique color and texture.
Surrounding the black platform, several curved holographic screens suddenly project, and only a second after the entire black platform is covered by a flash of blue light. The dispersal of the light reveals a golden cylinder in the center of the black platform, composed of a series of coils tightly packed together.
After arrival, the coils retract, opening up the container as many of them are reabsorbed into the back of the black blazer worn by the guide. As the golden tentacles reel back into Dana's fingers, the two guests are exposed.
Both guests immediately glance around in shock, speechless to the sight that surrounds them. Kokei's jaw hangs as she stares at all the sharp stalactites facing down on her nervously simultaneously as Ekitai peers at the distant silver pads, amazed.
After returning her extensions, Dana turns her body around and steps forward, swiftly leaving the black platform without reaction, as though normalized to the environment. The other two continue to share at the cavern in awe, temporarily entranced by the vulgar departure from the luxurious residence they had been adapting to.
"Come," commands Dana, abruptly shattering their daze, reeling their minds back to their brains. Both of them turn to Dana and follow accordingly, although Kokei can't help but continue to glance at the lethal ceiling, unable to shake the jittering thought of one collapsing down on her.
Passing the holograms that accompanied the platform, which disperse after all three steps past it, Dana reaches the edge of the platform. Granted a better view of the cavern, she peers over the sea of pads, searching for a specific entity. She views pads with large metal terminals, ones housing large contraptions with chemical tubes, and ones with pod capsules connected to other metal terminals.
Seeking a specific presence, Dana's bright green eyes remain wide at first to absorb more of the environment with greater peripherality, but then contracts them as she hones onto a certain point of interest.
That point is far down on one of the lower pads, which has four silver tabletops by the edge, and four others surrounding the middle. While nobody can be seen, the four central tables exert a holographic screen that encapsulates the origin. Even though the visible portion of the screen is simply black, concealing the true display from the outside, the simple presence of them indicates use of the monitors, and thus a user inside.
Pupils expanding, Dana locks in her target. A soft gust of air rustles her amber hair as, without turning back, she continues walking forward off the edge.
Her black and white shoe descends over the air past the silver platform, and her sole splashes on a translucent blue surface. The surface extends from the edge of the pad far down to a lower pad, bridging the two through projections. Unconcerned over the faintness of the bridge nor the questionable narrowness, she continues down the bridge, marching towards her destination.
Behind the guide, Ekitai follows on the holographic bridge, glancing down at his feet as it feels like he's walking on air. He then raises his head and observes the caverns before softly remarking to himself, "Well…I've seen a lot…but this is something else."
Behind him, Kokei cautiously steps to the edge of the pad. She then slowly drags her left foot over the edge onto the bridge, feeling for the surface. She pushes her foot down on the bridge before stomping on it twice, testing its integrity. Uncomfortable with another surface projection she's expected to support herself on, she peers over the bridge to examine the side.
"Come on Kokei, you're not that heavy," shouts Ekitai from ahead.
Her cheeks reddening in embarrassment, Kokei raises her gaze towards Ekitai before flusterly yelling, "Hey, I wasn't thinking that! Baka!"
She lets out a sigh, the exchange slightly alleviating her stress. She stands up straight again, standing right by the edge. She then places her left foot back on the bridge, and then her right, standing entirely on the bridge. Caution first and foremost in her mind, she slowly begins trekking down the bridge, extending her arms by her side as though walking a tightrope.
Her gaze slowly plummets in temptation, passing the pads until it sets down on the flat waters far below her with no visible bottom, looming right below her feet. She gulps, trying to overcome the fears of this treacherous territory.
Dots in the darkness, the three hike down to the intermissionary pad at the end of the bridge. The two guests follow the guide across the pad, where another bridge manifests, which the guide leads the herd down as well. The sheer magnitude of the cavern itself emits a sense of unease, for it's contentious why anyone would choose to spend the bulk of their time here.
While never diagnosed with such, the hostile ceiling, unforgiving floor, and ambiguous depths of the surroundings walls of darkness cause Kokei to question if she had agoraphobia, as she wasn't even exactly sure how she entered the underground, and there was not one affordant exit in sight. She was effectively trapped, bound to the whims of those with more confidence in these lands than her, having to place all her trust onto others.
Pale fingers tightly grip a rectangular container that fits in the hand, its dimensions comparable to that of a deodorant stick. Its transparent casing reveals a vibrant blue substance with a liquid gel texture, which radiates in front of the surrounding screen.
An odd sizzling sound hisses from the container, and the blue substance depletes itself, lowering and exposing the pale hand past the transparent case holding it. Once the substance is wholly exhausted, the container is raised as it flashes blue before disappearing from the hand. The hand then closes and is lowered, allowing focus to shift onto the screens, which project several displays providing footage of what appears to be a fleet of black pod-like vehicles the size of trailer trucks deep in light gray clouds from various angles.
Visibility of the footage suddenly corrupts from the emergence of an outsider whose amber hair dances from a previous breeze, storming in with closed fists and stern green eyes.
Seated on the central chair that hovers right above the origin of the pad, the man turns his gaze to the woman. Dressed in his usual attire, his dull eyes stare between his white locks.
Behind the guest, the two others pass through the screen. Both the senile man in the brown overcoat and the girl in the white hoodie glance around at the encompassing screen in astonishment, fed reveal after reveal.
Now alert, the man on the chair pushes himself off his seat, standing up straight. He glares in a displeased expression before sternly scolding at the guide, "Dana, you let them in here? What made you think that's okay?!"
Too entranced by the screens to fixate on the argument, Ekitai comments, "Woah…you literally got your own man-cave here, Rohan! Dang, this is so cool!!"
In retaliation, Dana tosses her arm back and points at the footage of the black fleet, rebuking "What is that?!"
Mystified at first by the ambiguous question, Rohan irritatingly demands, "What is what?"
Lost of temper, Dana clarifies, "That! Since when were they doing a Hail Mary? There has to be somethi-...oh my god…," Dana abruptly cuts focus as her eyes peer over Rohan and at the screen behind him. She silently walks past him, getting a better look at a variety of images displayed over the screen, which reveal a collection of strongholds in diverse biomes from scorching deserts to freezing blizzards. Half of the strongholds are silver while the others are boundless to color, some green, gold, blue, and white, with the only correlation being the palette of the environment they reside in.
The commonality across all of the strongholds however are their ruined states. Many of the colored ones are blown to pieces with craters everywhere, and the silver ones are entirely abandoned with a sea of bodies surrounding them. All of the strongholds decimated, whether it be the structure or the residency.
"So this is what triggered them…Jesus," realizes Dana in a soft, captivated voice. Her eyes then move beside her, as she pieces the puzzle together in an instant, and turns around to face Rohan who stares back at her.
Her jaw hangs open as she's flooded by the revelations before then exposing, "Wait a second, those silver fortresses are the ones Generation S uses, aren't they? But instead of them just being haphazardly bombed, only the people were neutralized. They might have some variant of Anti-Exmatter but they'd bomb anyways, it was you who did this all, wasn't it?"
Blinking twice in heart dropping shock, Kokei glances at Dana before muttering, "...what?"
Tuning her friend out, Dana begins circling around Rohan, reprimanding, "You leveled all those bases, didn't you? You triggered both of them to go into a hot war! Rohan, do you have any idea what you've just done?"
All three of the intruders stare at Dana. Dana stares with an enraged glare. Kokei stares with petrified dread. Ekitai stares with perplexed detachment.
All of them stare right at Rohan, who stands before them, his hands by his side. He closes his eyes with a soft sigh, and opens them back up, his dull eyes glaring back into their souls simultaneously.
In a monotonous, verbally unconcerned tone, he answers, "I already told you all, the war's conclusion was imminent. What I did was what I've been planning from the beginning. All these laborious years of searching, tracking, discovering, plotting, you'd think it'd be easy to find all those bases but oh I'm sure if the authorities knew they wouldn't be so neutral. But I did it, I found every single stronghold of both organizations. Not only that, I studied each of them, learned the parts they play, and I even managed to locate exactly where the leaders of each would be. So as I've wanted to do for all this time, I picked off every single stronghold besides those two. Before, they could probably wage war with an entire continental sector if they wanted to and win, maybe several at a time. Now, it'll be about the scale of a gang war, even though those last strongholds have a plethora of arms themselves they aren't even a fraction of their full force. And now they're going for the bait, both of the leaders are going to be in the same place at the same time, they're finally revealing themselves. I have just one operation left, and the war ends."
Lost for words by the meticulous scheming of a man she had previously seen as nothing beyond a mindlessly violent vigilante with an unpleasant face, Kokei staggers back from the confession.
Never has Ekitai seen this facet of Rohan before either, this cunning controller, as even though he has always had a positive outlook on his first friend, even he is taken aback.
Unconvinced, Dana thrashes her arm before stepping towards Rohan and berating, "No, this isn't calculated, this is reckless! How many people were hurt? How many people are going to be hurt now? There are going to be casualties now, if you knew where the leaders were then why the hell didn't you just pick them each up and stop it? Why go through all this?"
Sighing exhaustedly, Rohan raises his head before muttering, "You don't understand. It isn't that simple."
Confounded, Dana yells, "Why isn't it?!"
Lowering his head to meet Dana's eyes, Rohan explains "I'm not seeking to just end this fight. This war was never about the war. What, this fight has been going on for a couple years, honestly it was mostly a minor street level fray for a while before it really picked up. But that's not what it's about. I could push off the two leaders, but two more will take their place. This war has been going on for several years, but this conflict has been going on for centuries. I thought it was over, but all that happened was a short break, a dwell. But this time, I'm going to end it for good. And to do that, I need to do this right."
He turns away from Dana, and approaches the silver ahead. He then waves his hand, which dispel the images of the strongholds, and instead replace them with new geological images, with one being of the Earth, and others showing satellite imagery deeper into the atmosphere in a concentrated zone. Diagrams accompany the images, diagrams of similar landscapes as the images, although each with a red dot all correlating to one position.
Rohan proposes, "I can tell you still don't like it, so take the two out of here and find some activities to do for just today. I assure you, by the time the supersun sets, this war will be over."
Overwhelmed by conflicting emotions, Kokei can only stare blankly at the holograms without a clear idea of how to act.
"Kokei," the man refers, honing Kokei's tangled attention onto a single point as she turns her gaze onto him, her jaw still open.
"By tomorrow, it will be safe to return home. I deeply apologize for this extended quartering, and I acknowledge that it is I who brought you into this mess. I know now that it was an irresponsible mistake of mine to casually place myself in your house and let it be collateral."
Standing in her gaze, Rohan offers "I don't believe you have any luggage with you, but if there's anything you wish to bring back, I'll provide you with a Pouch. Tomorrow morning, I'll drive you back to your house, so make sure by then you have everything ready. After that, you'll never see me again."
Her only response is a disoriented "Huh?" as her expression remains blank.
Another window pops up on the screen in front of Rohan, which covers most of the others as it overlays. The window depicts a blue contour map with a wired aesthetic, the region it displays seeming to have several dots of elevation in front of a flat region. Across the maps sit green and red dots in diverse positions, some in the flat regions and others deeper into the dotted areas.
By the wave of Rohan's hand towards his body, another projection appears before the contour map, but vastly different from the others, it doesn't display on the screen but rather over the silver table in front of Rohan.
The projection is also more definitely three dimensional, more in the form of a topography contour landscape model. The model depicts what is now more clear to be a golden beach by a body of blue water, and past the beach is a small green forest. Deeper in the forest is a silver stronghold, the same design as the ones faced several hours ago.
Amongst the model are several red and green beacons, which are in line with the dots on the contour map as the model appears to be simply another form of the map.
Behind Rohan, the three guests stand around, once again ignored. Dana keeps her vexed glare on Rohan while Kokei still is visibly spaced out, with Ekitai seeming to be the only one who has reabsorbed himself.
He turns to Kokei and places his hand on her shoulder before softly exhorting, "Uh…so are we supposed to go now? How do we get out of here exactly?"
Once more prioritizing his work, Rohan clasps his hands together over the center of the model and expands it with his palms facing down, which triggers the model to undergo a modification. More constructs begin appearing, as now by the shoreline rest black pods similar to the trailer truck-sized ones on the other screen.
Also now dotted all around the beach and forest are small models of human figures, with the ones by the shoreline apparelled in green fiber-woven suits and masks, matching the battlefield, and others clothed in the black jumpsuits with orange branches, blithe to tactical camouflaging.
Concentrated back on his mission, Rohan analyzes the model of the current state of battle, peering and humming to himself as he assimilates into his previous state of mind. He glances at the green beacons while reasoning, "I assume you used your own access to The Pad to carry them here, so you'll need to escort them out as well. Why don't you three go to the gymnasium floor and let loose? I'll tolerate any repairs if another incident occurs, but it should be an enjoyable way to spend your last day here."
Not moving one inch, Dana glares down on Rohan from behind, her green eyes blazing as her amber hair rustles in the breeze. Betrayed on multiple sides of the die, she couldn't even muster a word to respond, as she's so appalled by the scene she's witnessing that not one potential reaction can stand out as one to take.
No clairvoyance is necessary to notice the pulsating tension between the two, for even Ekitai can tell at least to an extent that Dana felt upset. He sighs softly and walks to her, leaving Kokei in her state of disarray. He taps Dana on the shoulder twice and softly alludes, "Doesn't seem like there's anything here to do, we should probably go."
Entirely instinctually, Dana grabs Ekitai's bony hand and removes it off her shoulder. She then puts her foot forward and points her finger at Rohan before hollering, "Hey, since when were you kicking me out? Wasn't I the one who asked to come with you? And didn't I ask for the main reason of helping you WITH your mission?! I didn't come here to be a caretaker, I came here because I wanted to help you! So why have you not said a word to me about what's been going on ever since I came here? Why have you not even given me a chance to help you? I said that I understood what weight that has, and that I still wanted to help! So why did you just throw that out?! Maybe I'd be more understanding of your plan if you told me before waltzing past the point of no return!"
All five pale fingers curl into a tight fist, their nails sinking into their own palm. Rohan stands up straight and turns around to face Dana, his eyes glowing in a glare as he marches straight up to her until his chest pushes against her finger, getting as close as he can.
Wind throws his white locks backwards as his eyes blaze blue, and in a voice raised nearly to a shout far beyond even his tone during the awkward dinner, he confesses, "Maybe I didn't want to drown you into that same miserable water that I know you really would rather not go into, and that using the excuse of doing it for me is bull! Maybe I didn't want you to have to get reabsorbed in that world because maybe then when I learned that the Generation S volunteers have been using a modified variant of your ability enhancing serum, maybe I was actually kind of relieved that at least you wouldn't need to deal with that guilt!!"
Those words instantly shake Dana, whose eyes shoot wide open, staggering back and dropping her arm down from Rohan's chest. She takes another step back, her jaw dropped and shaking as she stares straight back at Rohan. Her green eyes become more reflective as tears start welling in them, barely managing to be held back.
In front of her, Rohan turns to the side and lowers his head as his locks gently drape back down. Unable to maintain eye contact, he just stands in place, concealing his face.
Her soul held together by bits of string, she shakingly implores, "Wait…they…wait…they are? Wait…are you being serious or…wait like are they actually? Wait…."
"Thank you for everything you've done for me during my time in this war. I don't have a single doubt that without your assistance in tinkering with my armor and helping me every way you have, I'd never have been able to get this far. But I can take it from here, you don't need to worry; I can end this on my own. You can stop worrying about me."
From the bottom of the green eye, a stream of water gushes down the cheek.
Locking his sleeve around hers, Ekitai begins walking back towards the screens, dragging Kokei with him. She puts no resistance, but instead is pulled like a box without any conscious power. Her eyes remain in place, her body remains in its stance, and she simply allows Ekitai to drag her away.
Just one step away from the holographic projections, Ekitai stops in place. He lowers his head in contemplation for a few seconds.
"Good luck Rohan," Ekitai wishes. He then takes the next step.