Haze & Chaos - Reunion A Part 8
“Ah jeez…” Will moaned as he leaned on his knees once they were all on solid ground. Thankfully Hangar 1X had a special force field to prevent the wind from whipping through. “Sam, you need to practice with Faustus a little…”
“Sorry, Boyo, I just got taken off guard.”
“Hanging in there, Will?” Haze inquired, catching his breath.
Will laughed as he stood up straight with a stretch. “Yeah. I’ve been through worse…”
“That’s a little debatable based on your memories…”
“HEY, what did I say about earlier?”
Morrigan and Faustus laughed, with the latter partially manifesting out of Morrigan’s left arm. “As I was saying…” Morrigan said. “That’s Sebastian's ship?” She pointed to the black zeppelin, assisted by two, massive rotor engines at its sides in the distance.
“Yeah, Gotterdammerung…” Will said with a nod.
Barry tapped his shoulder. “You mean ‘Götterdämmerung?’” Will gave him an incredulous look. “You forgot the umlauts.”
Will sighed. “Götterdämmerung, arguably the only ship strong enough to take on the sky fortresses.”
Morrigan glanced out towards the battle once again. “So now what do we do?” she wondered.
“Take a breather, that’s what,” Will answered.
“Private Ford!” a man’s voice called out.
Amazed everyone was still able to recognize him, Will turned to see who had called him. “Supervisor Jones! Sorry for the unannounced appearance…”
“Don’t worry about protocol, Ford, we’re just happy you’re alright…” he then turned one of his coworkers in the distance. “Let Kyu and Bran know where they are!” Clark Jones was the supervisor for Hangar 1X and often took orders from Wing X. He was pushing towards late middle age with fuzzy side burns and receding, dull brown hair. “Ford, who’s all this?”
Will smiled as he brought Morrigan over, her flames not burning him because of Faustus. “This is Sam, my fiancee and our squad’s newest recruit. Sam, This is Clark Jones.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Sam,” said Clark. “Supervisor Clark Jones, I make sure that the secret aircraft are deployed when necessary and stay a secret. I’d shake your hand, but the… um…”
“Don’t worry, Clark, you can shake her hand,” Faustus assured him.
Clark hesitated at first, but gave a light laugh as he did. “Faustus–What is even going on?”
“We had to improvise given Haze over here.”
Clark nodded as Haze stuck Will’s hand up, smiled, and bounced around a little. “Interesting, because I’m well aware of Ryota’s track record.”
Will then turned to Barry. “And this is Barry Boyle. He’s from both The ULTRAMagic Guild and The Dark Divers Guild, so we can trust him.”
“Nice to meet you, Supervisor,” Barry replied with an eager handshake.
“Likewise, Mr. Boyle.” Clark felt a little bit of static and had to smooth out his hair. “Word’s been coming in of a squad flying around without a craft, and I guess we know who that is now. I understand you want to get out there and help, Will, but stay here for now while we get a hold of Antares, alright?”
Will glanced at Barry and Morrigan, who both nodded. “Sure, Supervisor.”
“Very good, especially given that I doubt you understand what Haze can do yet…”
“He’s learning,” Haze said with satisfaction in his voice.
“Right. I’ll go contact the Lt. Colonel,” he said as he walked away to the control room.
Morrigan glanced around at the various jets and aircrafts, all futuristic and shiny. It gave her the impression she was not supposed to be seeing them with her curiosity getting the best of her. “So, what do these planes do?”
Will laughed to himself. “Sam… I can’t say what these are at the moment, but just know that they’re all basically stealth stuff we don’t want other countries catching wind of. That white one, however…” Will turned to one of the workers. “Is that one going to be declassified soon? It is? Alright.” He turned back to Sam. “Some planes get seen enough to the point where we have to declassify them and that one is the Night Swan. It’s used for cloud-based stealth, day or night.”
Barry nodded as he visually inspected the slightly rounded hull and sleek wings. “Fascinating… Looks like it’s not meant to go fast, but to be agile and quiet.”
“Bingo,” Will replied as he patted his friend’s back. He then glanced at a very familiar, black jet and pointed at it. “And that, haha, that’s the SR-73 Warbird right there!”
The three were in awe of the slender–yet bulky hull, the streamlined wings that looked incredibly strong, and the advanced jet engines. It looked out of this world and a marvel of modern engineering at the same time. “Incredible…” Morrigan remarked. “So that’s what buzzed past us on the way here…”
“Yeah,” Will confirmed with a laugh. “Couldn’t call it the SR-72 because the military is already working on that one… But yeah, we use this one for special missions, usually involving situations we can’t send normal Liger squads in for…”
Barry already had a good idea what Will was getting to just by looking at how the jet was built. “Long range missions I assume? It looks like you could get some pretty lengthy trips out of this bad boy…”
“Yup, absolutely… Jeez, Barry, since when were you a military engineering expert?”
Barry gave a dorky, yet lovable laugh. “I’m not, I just happen to be a massive nerd.”
“And as an aside, we do have our own SR-71 Blackbird. From what Aalders, Lundberg, and Senator Ripper have said, it was a pain in the neck to get it approved, funded, and built.”
As the group walked towards the cockpit section, they heard music of the calypso variety playing, sounding familiar to Will and Morrigan. It then stopped as a strange robot-like entity stuck his head of crimson hair up to get a look. “Who’s there? Oh hey, Will!”
Will looked up and had the tinge of adrenaline he always felt when running into the individual in question. “Hey, Virus X… Sam, this is the person who flew by us.”
“Wait a second–VIRUS X?” Barry exclaimed, startling the two. “No, there’s no…” He then looked up and was stunned. “Son of a bitch, it actually is him…”
Virus X grinned as he looked at Barry. “HEY, is that The Lighting God?! HAHA, as I live and breathe–oh wait, I suppose it’s The Lost Lighting God now?”
“Yes, yes it is…” Barry groaned, then turned to Will. “I don’t know what The Liger Brigade has told you so far, but Virus X is from the Lost Era, like me…”
Will nodded, glancing back and forth between the two. “Sam?”
She shrugged. “Seems reasonable to me…”
“Well, I know Virus X is supposed to be top secret, and that no one has told me why yet…”
Barry nodded. “Make sense, given how much of a troublemaker he was.”
“Troublemaker is such a strong word, your eminence…” Virus X said as he rappelled down the side of the jet with his… bizarre right arm. It was made of a strange, red organic substance that resembled muscle fiber, with a clawed, metal hand at the end of it. Virus X was incredibly bizarre in general, as his frame and chassis was like that of a stylized robot from an animated series (as a best descriptor of it), giving him a youthful appearance. His eyes were black, LED screens with orange icons for pupils. In his torso was a strange light that nearly resembled the famous photograph of the M87 black hole. And between that, his red legs that must have belonged to another robot originally, and sharp teeth, Virus X was truly an otherworldly sight to behold. “I’d prefer ‘thrillseeker,’ or ‘entrepreneur of action…’”
“No, he was a troublemaker,” Barry cut in. “Time and time again he refused to join The Lost Upside Down God and us in the fight against The Lost Darkness God, Surtr, and their cronies.”
“Hey, I didn’t join The Lost Darkness God, did I?” Virus X pointed out as he pointed at Barry’s face with his left (normal) hand.
“No, but Prometheus, Aava, and The Highway Knight all warned you time and time again to stay away from them!”
Will, Haze, Morrigan, and Faustus were all lost at this point. “Wait, what?” Will interrupted. “Prometheus? Like, the Prometheus of Greek legend?”
Barry and Virus X both looked at Will, giving him a chill. “He doesn’t know, does he?” Virus X asked Barry.
“No, and he’s not fully aware of who Animus actually is either… or at least I don’t think he is.” Barry then figured it was best to move the conversation along. “Alright, look, don’t worry about it for now. I’ll explain it to you when Sebastian is not knocking on our doorstep.”
Will exhaled slowly to calm himself a little. “Right… So Sam, be careful around Virus X. He’s a little unstable…”
“UNSTABLE?” Virus X cried as his voice and eyes appeared to glitch out, accompanied by his body spasming a little. “YOU’RE UNSTABLE!”
“See what I mean?” This made Morrigan laugh.
Virus X paused and shook his head, knowing he had been played. “Will, get on Antares’ case about letting me go to The Commercialverse–I need to see my waifu again!”
Will looked at him with a hint of slight cringe in his expression. “Really, X? I appreciate the meme as much as the next guy, but do you have to call Synthia that?”
Virus X seemed to disregard Will’s criticism as he walked over to a tool rack and began looking for something. “Things are getting pretty serious in the fight against Audoin. He’s trying to find a way into the Lost Era and the Mezsdeon arrived not too long ago…”
Barry felt the weirdest feeling, like his blood had been replaced with adrenaline. He buckled a little, needing to steady himself against the jet’s hull. “Who are the Mezsdeon?” Barry asked, albeit his voice echoed in a way that shook the room without jostling so much as a speck of dust, and what Will and the others heard was incomprehensible, but was so close to their understanding that they got the jist of what he was asking.
Virus X stopped and looked at him with a look on his face that was mundane, yet terrifying. “I have no idea, Lighting God. I only heard about them in passing when I was crossing over through The Electric Abyss. All I know is that Raziel and Prometheus did something, and it scares me just as much as when Raziel brought Prometheus to the Lost Era.”
Before Will could ask what they were talking about (and he knew Morrigan also wanted some answers), Bran and Kyu had run up to them. “WILL!” Kyu exclaimed. “Are you okay?!”
Will went and picked up Kyu to give him a hug. “I’m alright… Orion’s probably worried sick about us, but I’m alright.”
“Thank goodness…” Bran said with an exasperated, yet relieved sigh. “So, did you have fun with Haze, Will?”
Will shook his head with a smile. “I guess we’re going to be working together now.”
“Oh boy…” Kyu remarked, trying to imagine how weird things were going to get. He then looked at Morrigan and was surprised. “Wait, Faustus! You can merge with Sam now?”
“She needs some practice, but she’s getting the hang of it,” he answered.
“And you’re sure you’re okay, Will?” Kyu asked one more time as his feelers twitched.
“Yeah, I am… as fine as I can be with a symbiont class construct…”
Virus X looked at both Barry and Kyu and smiled as he put his hands together. “Hey, we got a family reunion here!”
That caught Kyu off guard, causing his feelers to shoot up and float back down. “Excuse me, but what are you talking about?” He then looked at Barry and felt the strangest sense of familiarity, like he had just found a long lost family member. “No, it can’t be…”
Barry smiled and began to step towards him. “Brother…” This, however, was drowned out by a loud thud that shook the ship, with the red alert alarms going off again. “What was that?!”
“Another cannon blast from Sebastian?” Kyu questioned as he looked around.
Haze immediately perked up and used Will’s hand to look around. “No, that’s… something… something familiar… it’s a shadow construct!”
“No offense, Haze, but we’ve been dealing with them all dang day…” Faustus chided.
“No! It’s a new one–I’m sure of it…”
Bran looked up, then nodded. “Hold on… Jones, any word from the bridge?!” he called out with one hand cupped around his mouth.
“We’re checking now…” he answered as he raced back into the control room. A moment later he came back, looking worried. “They say there’s a big one up on the sky deck!”
Will appeared to grow antsy for a second, refusing to just sit around. “XHRA NEZ ROH” he called out as a void door appeared before them. “I’m sorry, Supervisor, but I’m a member of The ULTRAMagic Guild and I can’t just sit around for this. Sam, Barry, Bran, Kyu–come on!”
Virus X grabbed a stool and took a seat, laughing as the void door vanished behind them. “Jeez, if only we had an ULTRAMagic Guild back during the Lost Era… He’s not going to bring up my request to Antares, is he?”
Clark shook his head. “Probably not. He’s too busy to do so, obviously. And even then you’re still under observation from last time…”
He leaned over with his right arm stretching out to grab a can of soda from a cooler and cracked it open with a satisfying pop of the tab. “You guys need to give me more credit. Without Synthia and The Star Eater looking into that issue IGSE-333 had recently, we would’ve been in deep trouble…”
ULTRAMagic Alternate © 2022 William Ford II (ChaoticTempleKnight)
