The Alien Wars 6: Da Capo
Session 499
Session 499: Darkness Rises Prologue
-Past Event 1-
Location: Geyze
After the events of Session 483, Asarar's team continues to put themselves up in the Ancient Temple while studying the report on the storm a few weeks ago. While admiring the place and avoiding systems they shouldn't, the team agrees it will be a good place to live in and will make it their own, Asarar notes the storms seem to have no reason to them and took place all over Geyze and Sylph claims she had nothing to do with them. The group make plans to move the Mew Mew to the Temple and have Chelsea closer to them like the old times while Sylph continues to teach and follows in Ellie's footsteps, becoming more calmer without her partner, using Terra as an example of a spirit to the class. Cypher notes Chelsea might even can help with the technology in the temple as well as they have a visit from Selena, who is still free at this point as Eve Hapian is not being restrictive, but she does report that trouble seems to be brewing according to reports she is reading on Eve's desk. Asarar promises to keep an eye on Peacekeeper reports more closely then.
-Past Event 2-
Date: 10-641.10.1
Location: PAX
The Empress, along with Erevis and Lenneth, gathers the group in the Command Room on the PAX to show the Galactic Map of the Dark Ones' push into the galaxy - which does not look quite so bad as they are still tangled up by the Cartel and the Erusians in their sectors. She informs them about Andrea's belief that the Well has been activated and informs those who does not know what it is about what it can do (See The Alien Wars 4: A Lonely Place of Dying). They go over how the Dark Ones can take over dead people and wear their bodies/forms, accessing their memories and mimic their personalities, as well as take over ressurected dead people, against their wills. Cheryl ponders if Hotaru will be in danger since she was killed by Xevil once before she used her reality powers to reset that by tinkering with her fate and Angela's long ago, but decides that maybe they will be okay due to "shifting" things to a new timeline persay. As the group ponders who will be in danger, Warren hands out devices to those who might be in danger of being taken over to try to prevent it, or at least alert those near them to stop them while Ymir and Eve Hapian head back to Geyze to inform those back there with the news; Andrea and Noire decide to make it their mission to destroy the Well.
-Present Day-
Date: 10-642.2.14
Location: PAX
Ren bothers everyone with her little kid, Akatsuki, being a proud mother recently with Jikuu watching the baby while Zephyr sits at the bar musing about the stuff she and Charlotte got from Venerator. While everyone rests in Katrina's bar, chatting and talking and enjoying Valentine's Day overall, Lenneth shows up to hold a quick meeting with everyone gathered there. She informs them that the Templars want to meet with the PAX, so they are going to send a small ship to meet with them in the hopes of setting up an alliance. They prepare to gather those who will be part of the mission to go out and meet them while looking for who will be crazy enough to take them out to the border of Erusian space and the Unknown Territory.
-Past Scene 3-
Date: 10-641.10.15
Location: Luna
A group compromised of EarthGov members and people from Geyze that are compromised of Makas like Sparkling, the team is once again on Luna dealing with a resurgance of the cult of the Sun fanatics that are causing problems on the colony. After Sabrina notes that the moon seems a little unstable, leading to comments about Sparkling's actions long ago (Session 429), they meet up with Christina Alder at her apartment; the find it has been vandalised with spraypaint and other things when Chris surprises them from behind, scaring Sabrina up into the sky. Darien and Chad discuss how it will be hard to stop the followers of Sunny due to her ideas being hard to stamp out and Sabrina informs them the moon is filled with a dark feeling all over it - as well as being shakey. Chris reminders them about the Ninth Circle and the machine to break Luna apart so Darien glances over Lemon's notes to head to the general location.
They find a daycare center in the vicinity of where the entrance to mines were located once before with the brand name of a Smiling Sun as well as Smiling Sun dry cleaner and a food place and so on. While Chris notes this feels like Lev's work, Chad proclaims it is not him strangely. They begin to encounter the people in this area and they demand they leave despite Sparkling, sensing something about her, and they also seem to be riled about Chris, declaring her a false prophet. After the encounter they go back inside their buildings and warn someone on their devices; Lemon talks on their comms and notes they need to find a way underground, so the team focuses on the daycare since Sabrina senses something in it and Chris recalls Sunny had a thing for indocturnation. When Angela brings out Montana, it aggros the people and they come back out and mob attack it, beginning to work on ripping it apart while Darien leads the others through the front door of the daycare.
They find children all have dark devices showing them images that make Sabrina and Sparkling sick to look at, except one who's device is destroyed and looks familiar to the team while floating in a bubble. When Tabetha uses her TK powers to take down the devices on the other children it knocks the team down and fries the comm with Lemon as well as knocking the children out. Sparkling seems to realize the one child is Sunny (named after the original Sunny), who remains okay due to magic, belongs to Zayne and wonders if she is aware of this while the others make sure the kids are okay after being healed; they seem to return to normal and no longer seem creepy from the images. The team debates if Zayne is part of this, some thinking it is the case while others do not think so, before Darien finds some stairs leading into a tunnel and they proceed; Sabrina offers her hand and Sunny Jr accepts it uneasily.
After a walk they soon arrive where a large gathering of Smiling Sun followers are located with a leader at a crack inside Luna, despite Sparkling or because of, and inside the ravine of Luna is Tsukiyomi. All over the walls of the moon are dark webs covering her body as they prepare to sacrifice her as the moon subtlely shakes, showing activity despite the fact the moon should be dead. Chris observes lines all over connected to explosives while the cloaked leader as their followers drink from their chalices which causes them to die as a sacrifice, using the energy of it to start the device. While the others launch their attack on the cultist leader, Michiru moves over to Tsukiyomi to begin to free her. While they do damage to her, she manages to hurt Michiru from behind, leading to Tsuki to work on healing Michiru with Sparkling; the others deal with the bombs of the leader of the cultist while taking their shots until Zayne arrives on the scene.
As the original Sunny sits up, clearly brought back from the dead by the Dark Ones, Zayne is clearly furious at them using her lover's body. While "Sunny" plays with Zayne's emotions, which doesn't seem to work well, Chris is just furious at the Smiling Suns to worship a brought back Sunny like fools. Tsukiyomi freed and Michiru recovered, she and Zayne manage to stop her from reaching Sunny Jr; the dying Dark One reaches for Christina with her good arm but she steps backwards when Sparkling destroys her. Zayne picks up Sunny Jr as she informs them about learning about the death cult to turn Tsukiyomi into a monster and corrupt children; Tsukiyomi for her part looks weak in the corner. Zayne offers her help in stopping the Dark Ones that played with Sunny's body that has been dusted away - at least it appears to have been.
-Present Day-
Date: 10-642.2.14
Location: PAX
While the team prepares for the Templar meeting, they remain at the bar still where Tsukiyomi ponders life and Zayne steps into it with Sunny Jr to pick up a birthday cake for her. Kaelan peeks out of her tails to cheer Tsukiyomi up, who seems to be a bit of a downer/darker since her incident on the moon months ago and Zayne tells Sunny to do better than them as she exits with her daughter. She passes Jikuu, studying the mysterious girl who is looking at everyone in the bar oddly.
Session 499: Darkness Rises Chapter 1
-Past Scene 4-
Location: PAX
With the looming forced of the Dark Ones advancing unnaturally fast, it has become apparent to the crew that the Dark Ones have a Soul Engine and have started to turn the Suisen's dead against them. Warren presents the group with questionaires to figure out if any among them have ever died before or not, this being a questionn valid in a world with multiple rewritten realities. Warren also sends his army of Thena spies out to locate people and watch those most likely to be replaced, to the terror of all.
Date: 10-641.11.2
Team Cypher is nearly done setting up their swanky new temple base when they get a request to check on Ylva as there have been reports of her acting strange. On top of that the news is showing reports that Maxwell is back, somehow alive after his tower fall, the group heads to investigate assuming Dark Ones. When they arrive on Kumen, they are almost instantly jumped by Dark One assassins and someone rigs the security footage of the attack to make them look like the agressors. The group goes to the Capital Tower to speak to Ylva who clears them and lets them know of her worry over Ymir. She sends them to the company HQ to find out what's going on.
After a rooftop break in on the building the team makes their way down till they find Ymir and retrieve her, in the attempt to escape they are chased by Maxwell who turns out of course, to be a Dark One Hunter intent on taking over. The group fights with him and ends up killing the Hunter, and learning that Twilight who was also missing is being held by yet another Dark One. The party makes their way to the meeting room where the second hunter stands over a stabbed Twilight, who thankfully has more than one heart. They are able to save her and destroy the Dark One who takes on the form of several other dead CEOs to battle them.
Later after Team Cypher leaves, Ymir stands in a secret lab where the body of Maxwell Terran floats in stasis. She seems to debate whether or not to turn off life support and end him, but decides instead for now to simply leave him there.
Session 499: Darkness Rises Chapter 2
-Present Date-
Location: A Small Ship
The group uses Iceheart's ship to fly toward the Templar meeting location near the Erusian border in space complete with various people from PAX and other places; even Jikuu has been allowed to attend the meeting despite her age as the Empress' eyes and ears wearing an outfit that shows she is her aide. Angela and Noire ponder the reason for the meeting while Lenneth studies things to prepare for it, ignoring the Thena bouncing next to her, and Michiru notes it could be a number of things. The group notes they do not believe the Dark Ones are interested in Yggdrasil at least, but that is much of a comfort. After Locket makes a rather racist comment about the bad Dark Ones, Iceheart begins to look concerned enough that she summons Freyja from her temple area on the ship to study the consoles on the bridge where they whisper to each other and the younger Elwyn. The others discuss Fate and how she said that she would cut off their segment of existence along with all the multiverses from the Yggdrasil tree so the other higher and lower planes of existence would not be threatened by the Serpent and what is going on or anything else going on right now; Locket even asks what would happen if the Serpent manifested in another reality on their plane or what, leading into debates on that, but Angela notes she believes the prime branch would still survive.
Eventually Iceheart alerts them to a problem about the Dark Ones intercepting them before they've reached the meeting point as 7 Dark One ships are moving in to stop them. The group moves to fight back and to give time for the ship to get out of range of the jammers so they can jump to hyperspace. They have Freyja set up an illusion with a beacon while Jaime has Iceheart search for asteroids and they happen to find some; while the beacon looks like a shuttle on screen, Jaime moves an asteroid in front of the shuttle while they have the probe go into hyperspace. Jikuu tends to Thena after she uses up her energy to do so and Jaime focuses on the asteroid; Locket comments on feeling useless and Michiru tends to her with compliments.
The Dark Ones split up to go after the shuttle while the rest continue for the ship while Jaime begins to feel worn down; Elwyn takes over piloting and has them boost under the asteroid while the remaining ones come around it to chase them. Noire points out the special tendril looking ship might be the jammer ship as they begin to take hits and Angela goes to engineering to help with repairs. While Angela uses her Betas to help out, they continue to push forward until Angela and Jikuu use their powers, Jikuu using hyperspace and Angela mimicing Zephyr's bustah style attack, to fend off the Dark One Ships and the jamming ship, destroying them. This draws eyes as Jikuu uses her powers until Lenneth tells them to not question the Empress' Seer. Now that they are freed they manage to jump into hyperspace and escape; freed Freyja invites them to her temple area on the ship and enjoy her hotsprings. The new people on the ship seem surprised at all the stuff on the ship until Iceheart explains this is their family home and she's made it to please Freyja as well.
-Past Scene 6-
Date: 10-641.11.15
Location: PAX
The Empress goes over how the Dark Ones are quickly expanding their armies, fleets, and other forces rapidly the past month as she eyes the Galactic Month which shows the Dark One territory exploding from where it was previously. She informs them they are using the common dead, taking them over and then taking over that planet's armies or ships or whatever materials they have on it and using it against that planet, then moving onto the next one. The group admires the brutal tactics, even if it is without grace, as the Dark Ones are just becoming a swarm that overwhelms systems and is almost like a zombie attack as Andrea puts it. Cheryl notes that there is a sense of brutual desperation; they also wonder if the Well is giving the Templars trouble on their side if the range is far enough. The Empress decides to put together a task force to deal with the Dark One zombies while Andrea looks for the well, so she puts Noire in charge, allowing her to put together the people she wants on it.
-Past Scene 7-
Location: Earth
Date: 10-642.11.22
Lemon overlooks the hoarde of zombies rushing for military Earth bases with her teams while Darien alerts Noire and her team so they can do their thing while Reese sniper shoots them from the roof. While Zephyr assists Reese in shooting and Tabetha sets up a turret, Peter brings in a shuttle to help with supressing fire; eventually the zombies aggro is drawn on the team as they begin to climb the building as a PAX shuttle approaches. The Dark Ones attempt to take over Zephyr as her collar lights up and she vomits up, but Tabetha helps mind shield her from being taken over. As the team holds out on the roof, Noire's team arrives to provide back up as Locket, Charlotte, Angela, Michiru, Cheryl, and Adeline join the group and help clear out the area. Angela suddenly begins to get mental warnings, allowing her to avoid zombies exploding up through the roof to try to eat her; this also sends Locket flying and Michiru manages to save her, the two having grown close lately, while Angela blasts the hoarde.
Now that the zombies have been wiped out thanks to the efforts of the group the team has Charlotte send out her drones to scout out the area while Angela gets another mental warning that this was all a distraction. Lemon notes to the team, unaware of Angela's mental warnings, that they believe the attacks on the base was for the new prototype weapons Cran was making for the Generals here and that they need to make sure Cran was not taken over as well. Lemon leaves Evette and Darien behind to check on the parameter, as well as Cheryl to stay with the shuttles, and they check on the base; during all this Adeline has remained distracted by something as they arrive. They find Cran and everything there alright as if nothing is wrong and Angela's warnings continue, so she has Charlotte send a drone to the shipyard. Lemon orders a few of the weapon prototypes that Cran is designing - a railgun and pulse rifle, while the team heads for the shipyards.
Charlotte's drones discover the original Steele, the father of Robert Steele and husband of Eluere, moving about the shipyards and using an ID that should be out of date to move through the complex with a hoarde of zombies. While Cran puts a no fly on the ships, the team works to cut off Steele; as they arrive they find the hoarde is acting strangely as if someone is using TK powers to slow them down, allowing the team to destroy them easier before they begin to move normally again. As they begin to move inside, doors open as if granting access to the group and after dealing with more zombies inside they arrive at the ships where Steele is working to start one. While Lemon acts as a distraction with Montana, Angela works on disabling the ship engines while the others catch up to her, Adeline huffing. They board the ship and Angela gets one last flash of Steele exiting the ship; it seems he opted to scuttle the ships and take them out of operation when he couldn't get them to fly and then the engines were shut off; the ship is covered in dark material that looks like it was used to bypass the no-fly commands.
The group encounters Steele near the escape pods and they begin to do battle. The group begins to overpower him with Noire's Dark Edge and tentacles, Charlotte's tendrils, Angela's strength, and so on until they destroy him; Adeline looks around as if feeling someone, but keeps quiet for now while Angela picks up a key card. Lemon and Montana have finished dealing with the zombies and are burning them while the team now have to deal with the damaged ships, which will set back EarthGov, but at least it is just ships in this one shipyard. Angela asks Adeline if it was her that was helping her out and Adeline just dismisses it for now.
Session 499: Darkness Rises Chapter 3
-Past Scene 8-
Location: Geyze
On Geyze, Kyouki is giving birth to her child with Erevis, the Spirits helping oversee the birth of the child. As the birth occurs, Asarar's team is meeting with Lumi. After determining that their problems are supposedly solved, they go to investigate something with some of the spirits when an alert breaks out on campus. A Dark One Hunter attempts to snatch Kyouki and her baby, but with the intervention of Jaime, Xan, and several others, they manage to save the baby while the Hunter gets away with Kyouki.
Date: 10-641.11.30
Lorelei's group finds they are held up on their investigations now that the Tsiv have found ways to detect their activity, even most forms of Dark use have become an issue despite the Tsiv alliance with the Dark Ones. Deciding to make a stealthier approach, they work with Shretrave to get a new ship and cover stories as they make their way to the place they think Amazo may be hiding at.
Date: 10-641.12.11
The group has arrived at one of the worlds they plan to search for Amazo, but Shretrav has found she needs to investigate something and hopefully lessen the focus on the group by going off on her own. She leaves promising to meet them in a month, or for them to assume she never will see them again.
Date: 10-641.12.19
The PAX crew is overseeing the way the watr is playing out. The Dark Ones are making huge gains since they have taken Kyouki and now have started to turn the dead on those they fight. An alert goes out as an incident erupts on Earth.
On Geyze, the peacekeepers battle against a horde of Zombies, thankfully repelling them from the Academy with the help of Asarar's crew and assistance from some PAX personell.
On Earth, the fighting is especially tough but as Angela joins the military group she begins to get strange premonitions about the enemy's movements. Following them the team is able to foil attempts to take bases, ships and the telepoters from EarthGov. Spade identifies himself, a zombie back from the dead as the one who helped them before warning them about the soul engines and running off, a rogue not in control of the Dark Ones. Later, he reports to Venerator as he grumbles away, explaining what help he needs, and asks him to take care of Adeline.
Date: 10-642.2.15
The team that left to meet with the Templars arrives and finds they are able to secure half the Templar fleet in the fight against the Dark Ones. Those "rebel" Templars who agree to help reveal that things aren't going so well in the other galaxy either. The group departs feeling they've at least made progress in the battles to come.