Session 57: The Dias Tournament (1)
The first round of the DIAS tournament!
Session 58: Tournament It (2)
The second round of the DIAS tournament! Pow pow pow!
Session 59: Ring Out (3)
Biff! Pow! Who wins the tournament?
Session 60: Clowning Around - The Last Hey
Location: Underground Base
Following the tournament, the teams have down time to relax and do whatever they want to do for relaxation. However, it is interrupted when Erevis falls into the command center with a knife in her back and wearing a clown costume. As people panic at the implications of what it means, especially the older members, the younger members are mostly puzzled and confused, not knowing the history of Bimbo.
As they investigate, they begin to believe that maybe it wasn't Bimbo, seeing that Lenneth fired an employee recently for having sex on the job, so they begin to investigate that line of questioning. Going to the guy's room they smell garbage and death, with his mirror having, written in blood, "Hey Hey Hey". They also discover dead female bodies in his room that look like Lenneth, cut up and wearing clown outfits, though mixed in the DNA in the room is an unknown one that cannot be identified.
They report to Lenneth, who seems bemused at the idea of a man in a clown suit wanting to kill her, but the lights go out in the master bedroom. Ash teleports into the room and moments later Ash's head rolls out, cut off from the rest of his body. The team, in the other room, watched the camera feed as movement can be seen and a hand tilts the camera to face the wall creepily. The clown then rises up behind them as they focus on the door way, trying to stab Reikana and Kaori, because of their dark hair, but is stopped and the moment his knife falls out of the hands, the lights are restored. However, they see Jem has been stabbed during it and as they free her, they realize Lenneth has been possed during this, Bimbo proclaiming through her that she has decided to adopt a new persona, an edgy persona, asking how she's doing, after stabbing Ben too. They manage to stop Lenneth's heart to defeat Bimbo, hopefully for the last time. Right?
Session 61: Evening (1)
Location: Underground Base
A meeting has been called by Cheryl, who is running late, as well as Kaori and Hess. When she does arrive, she looks haggard and unkept, as if sleeping in her uniform, but despite that she launches into the mission briefing - on the clone Eve that runs a female shelter that Chad and Zephyr have been looking into. She seems to think this might lead to Sun VI's final downfall - the Eve there doesn't show clone degradation despite having been around for years. She sends one team to talk to Eve and get a blood sample, as well as look out for her if Sun VI shows up, as well as another team to go through the military contracts Steele and others might have a hand in, to see if they can close the net on Sun VI's bases. As they prepare to go, Ren seems to be hiding something about her grandfather, making Necia and Vesta eye her. During all this in L.A, Lorelei's team deals with a reality quake, getting the kids to shelter.
Zephyr leads the others to the women's shelter, debating what story to use to get them in, such as using the cover story of Chad's penis injuring her petite form (being stuck in child form currently) - which gets a kidney shot from Hope. Katrina just walks in through the door, with the others following her, then motions at Zephyr, claiming that Zephyr was punched in the stomach - pregnant, by her daughter - which Angela seems to oddly think is true. Led to Eve, when she sees the group, her reaction is unsure what to do, but she has them take a seat.
Back at Dias' Presidental Building, Stacey helps them search through Steele's papers, with his son, Robert Steele - Vesta and Necia's father - arriving to aid them. He brings up Steele's finaces, but the biggest find of all is 3 ships and two bases. Robert offers them an escort to check out the nearest base. Meanwhile, in L.A, Aschae shows up, despite trying to put the kids to shelter. Before she can be put away again, the entire block is swallowed up.
Session 62: Sunset (2)
Location: Women's Center
Back at the women's shelter, Eve sits with the group, asking them what they want with her. Giving Chad a DNA sample since he asks, he explains that Sun VI might be after her, filling her in on the events of the last few months. However, as they talk, they get a warning about an attack and outside, missiles strike the front of the building, blowing it up. Emerging from the reality quake, Isis and Miyuki appear with a bunch of children, born during their time in the Duality Reality. It seems they are finally returning after leaving the Academy in Session 156 through a reality quake on that side. Gor helps rescue the two with his foxhole abilites and the family is reunited.
Back at the Women Center, the place has been trashed and is now on fire as the team unburies themselves, only to have VI troopers marching in led by a female samurai cyborg, who is immediately jumped by Hope and Cassandra scatters the troopers with a rail gun shot. The battle begins to go poorly as they out number her and bring her down, so she tries to rip something out of her, a neutron bomb to take them all out, but before she can use it, Cassandra rips her head off.
Up in space, Ben leads an inflitration unit to the Sun VI asteroid base to find out what their secrets are inside. As they begin to land, the base commander threatens to destroy the entire base to keep them from learning what may be inside, but as they begin to enter, it is strangely empty. As Necia works on hacking the terminals, the team creeps inside until they encounter a cyborg that seems to be inside a pile of bodies, ala Castlevania Legion, hiding inside the mass of thriving, wiggling flesh. They manage to destroy the controller inside and time bomb with a combination of dark matter from Noire, electricity from Necia, and fire from the others like Narok and An'Mi, leaving the thing quite dead. With a base gone, they still have two ships unaccounted for and likely another base. Returning back to the underground base, they have the pleasant surprise of Miyuki being there, who declines to join the team for now, wanting to spend time with her wives and enjoy being home again after her decades of being at the Duality Reality, despite for them it has been only a few months.
Session 63: Heroics
Location: Undergeround Base
Ben begins the mission for the two teams since Cheryl is running late once again, though he has trouble getting the mission briefer to start, complaining that things have been loading slowly lately.
The team makes note to look into it later as Ben begins to speak about the six cyborgs, talking about how they were sickly to begin with, and around Aya's age once before her accelerated age, and had inopperable diseases - and somewhere along the way, Venerator or one of his people took them in. They were given cyborg parts along the way to help with the disease, and when VI fell, they had no direction and to top it off, their bodies began to fail again, the cyborg parts so powerful it put pressure on their brains so they began to look for alternatives to fix it. It turns out that there is a Sun VI lab under the old school that Jennifer and Aya used to go to back during TAW4 and which had attacks by Legion in the day, so the team prepares to send those who look young enough to inflitrate it, or look like teachers.
They discover the lab behind a special locker that leads down a narrow stairway down beneath the basement, where they find a manmade cave. Ir seems to be a VI lab, not a Sun VI, that was never discovered all this time surprisingly, and was searched for by the Sun VI cyborgs. However, the locking mechanisms require handprints or voiceprints, and if it fails might cause dire consequences. During this, Ben's group searches the desert when a space ship emerges from the clouds and attacks them. Tabetha and Angela, with Marcus riding, brings down the attacking airship, which crashes nearby - however, emerging from the wreckage, a male cyborg rises and grabs Ben by the throat, trying to strangle him. Necia attacks the cyborg to free Ben, while the others converge on him, Cassandra and the cyborg firing their rail guns at each other, causing a backlash that knock everyone back. As Ben powers Necia to weaken the cyborg, Marcus and Rea rip the explosive out of the cyborg's chest, allowing Cassandra to rip his head off, destroying the last of the remaining four leaders.
Back at the school, they learn the only way to open the lab is with the voice print and DNA of Venerator or William Spade. Which they have neither. However, they might can do it with the cloned kids of William Spade, Adeline and Wade.
Session 64: Something is Wrong Here
Location: Underground Base
Back at the base, after defeating the last of the Sun VI cyborgs and returning after hitting a dead-end with the VI lab door, the team searches both for the cause of the power drain and Kane debating if he really wants to use Adeline and Wade, having adopted them with Lemon. For now they decide to focus on where an unknown power source is at in the base, which they think is the cause of the power drain. As they get deeper into the lower levels of the base, which are rarely used, they run into Cheryl, who's sudden appearance gives Ben a fright. She claims she didn't know her project was eating up so much energy, and they see her arm has a lot of shots in it, which she claims are energy shots to keep her awake. When pressed, she admits when she emerged from the crystal, she didn't return quite right, and she is trying to keep a promise. Going back up to the surface, Cheryl begins to answer their questions, at first aversive while staying as close to the truth that she can, before returning to her lab. Chii shows up, and Zephyr begins to piece the puzzle together the way she talks about her hands being tied together, which can only mean Cheryl is using the old style of the bond again, which Cheryl had long ago erased with her reality powers, making it so Chii can't answer them fully.
Zephyr, seemingly figuring it out, runs down to the lab, leaving the others scrambling to figure it out who it is. Zephyr asks them why Cheryl has begun to white an outfit lately, and who has done it in the past, as their only clue, and many of them seem to figure it out who is in the body now. They enter the secret lab and see it is a cloning machine that has errors all over it - apparantly Alexander Cran was indeed in the room and used the machine earlier, knowing they would come affter them. Chii, feeling the bond lock released, indicates to her that Cheryl has been freed, as promised, keeping her from warning them since Cheryl emerged in Session 50. They find a personal teleporter and see Cran has escaped, with Cheryl laying there, free now. Chad seems to think that Cran was behind Sun VI, despite the others thinking the timeline is off. Chii seems to think Cran should be given a chance, and with him having escaped in the nude out into the world, it seems it is now on him to live up to it, while Cheryl sleeps off the influences of having Cran using her body the past month.
Session 65: Volley Ball
Location: LA
Lorelei's team is out playing and watching the Tarehian children on a nice cool, windy March. They decide to play a nice game of volleyball with Stacey and President Dias, when they get news of a hostage situation going on. It seems to be a robbert with 10 hostages, so working together with the kids and Dias, they manage to save the day, disarm the bombs, and rescue the hostages.
Session 66: The Vault
Location: Underground Base
Cheryl, now back in charge of her own body, decides to lead the team back down into the VI labatory under the school, using the twins Adeline and Wade to unlock the Spade side of the locks, while they muse how to unlock the Venerator side. With Hess and Kaori joining the Originals team, they head back into the school, using the same scheme they did before, having the younger members pose as students, to get inside. Using a fire alarm distraction and other stunts, the majority of them down below to the labatory, where they unlock the Spade lock and Zephyr attempts to unlock the Venerator lock, discovering that Venerator indeed used his DNA for the father half in her birth, to her mixed feelings.
They discover beyond the vault doors a labatory, they find monitoring equipment with people inside it - one is a clone of Aya, hopefully, that seems to have failed over the time, the child clone dead some time over the many decades. However, the most shocking of all, they discover Eve in one of the tubes, with a scar on her body, matching the damage Eve had long ago, though it is being healed over the many years. Going through the records, they discover they grabbed Eve during Season 8 of TAW4 after Chad was shot and replaced her, it seems, and kept her body here all this time for experiments, hoping to make another Aya.
Hearing a noise down the lab, Hess and others find Hunter X Robots still active, and they begin to target the team, lumbering forward to protect the lab. Having a flaw in their system that cannot identify friends from foes, they target everyone they can identify. Working together, they manage to take it's head off, with Cheryl deciding to take the strong alloys that make the Hunter Xs. They find a mirror also in the lab, where peered at, Kaori would see a duplicate that tries to crawl out of, but Hess throws the sheet back over to cover it up. As they prepare to head out with the fire departments, Cheryl works with the PAX to get them to come get the healing tank, to hopefully revive Eve.
Session 67: The Man in the Mask
Location: Underground Base, the Next Geners
At the Underground Base with the Next Generation Team, Necia finally manages to hack into an Island Mansion that she and Vesta have been working on for some time, having been hiding it back from the others on the team outside Ren. Ben sets the team down to learn what they have been up to so far, demanding an explanations, and learns that is looks like Darien's mansion, only on the island. They learn that someone who claims to be Darien has been giving Necia and Vesta information that has been aiding them throughout the Sun VI crisis, and lives on the island. They head out to investigate it, landing near the mansion. Oncee inside, Ash teleports a team i up stairs, while Saf busts the office door in so they can go inside to check it out. Inside they find documents indicating "Darien" has been tracking Sun VI, the team, and other various potential threats, and they find a charging station with an armor inside.
Upstairs, the team is hit by a powerful EMP that effects part of the team with eletronics like X and Ash. They find inside robotic parts all hanging about, but more advanced, and those who know what they are think they are possibly reploids, from the other reality. A man with a mask walks in and they see he has brain waves of Darien Starr inside, asking why they have broken into his home. As people see that the person with Darien has 50% mechanical parts, the two teams converge and Necia and Vesta ask if he is really their grandfather, so he removes the mask, revealing he is actually Death Star, trying to bring Darien Starr back with his technology using the brain waves. Stating that when Darien gained the knowledge back in Session 125, TAW4 it was driving him mad, so he downloaded the extra information into the reploid body.
Necia and Vesta seem sad, but Death Star promises to keep working on the problem with Necia until they bring Darien back.
Session 68: Gang War
Location: L.A Base
The L.A team is relaxing, with the children training and the adults relaxing, when Dias arrives in the presidental limo. Stacey calls them all over as she plugs in a data crystal of L.A up, with color coded sectors, telling them it is gang territories - apparantly they are getting their hands on high tech weapons and using it on each other. She believes they are getting their hands on the weapons due to the fall of Sun VI, so she tasks them with dealing with it, lest she drag Dias back to Mega City. Lorelei calls back up from the Next Gen Team, and they pick up firepower and suits from Taiga, before heading out to deal with the Gang War that is escalating.
Kellin's team breaks into a landing pad that belongs to one of the gangs, and Kellin hyperspace blasts his way inside. Once in, they find railguns and other big weapons, when the gang arrives. They do battle and manage to bring them to heel, defeating and arresting those that are still standing. The other team runs into a gang leader and defeats him. Bringing him in, they manage to bring down two gangs.
Session 69: Alexandria Corporations
Location: Cheryl's Mansion/Underground
Cheryl's birthday has come around again and has everyone over at her mansion, adding yet another animal to her growing selection of exotic animals to her zoo that she has in the backyard - a goat. Hope comes out of a cake for Cheryl, to Zephyr's embarassment, and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves, even Reikana's band comes out to live perform. Ben interrupts the festivities with a message to come down below, excluding Cheryl, so they come down. He informs they about a new corporation that has appeared in Germany called Alexandria that works on medical advancements and cloning. Before they can act, Cheryl sits down and eyes the documents, believing it is likely Cran behind the corporation.
Once at Alexandria Corporations, they find portraits on the wall, much like the Guardian Prophecies on, showing creepy images that look familiar. After discussing things with the secretary, they are waved up to the top floor, where they come face to face with Alexander Cran once more. Cran, Chad, and Cheryl have some verbal sparring about believing him and other things, before turning to the paintings. It seems to have been painted by an unknown painter 100 years ago showing events to come. They also notice he seems to be under the weather, and admits to using the company to trying to fix the rush clone job he hd to do to escape, showing his arm with shot marks. Having enough, Cheryl steps out, annoyed at Cran trying to be a good guy now as she waits in the lobby for the others to finish talking. Having Marcus send people to check the corporation over, they all depart. Once back at their base, Cheryl decides they want to see if they can find any more of the paintings.
Date: 10-637.3.27
Location: Europe State
Ben's team deals with a military raid that his another base, the medical bay emptied of items. Going over the manifest, they see a Weapon brain was taken, Dragoon DNA, and other classified items. As they step out, they see one of the top four Earth Generals talking to Alexander Cran on the base. He tells Kaori she can stop by some time if she wants more paintings, stating he is there to help resupply the base' medical division with better items, before leaving. Back at the Underground Base, Ben lets Hess and Kaori know that Shretrav is requesting their help again on a mission, while for Chad, Cuddles is ready to try to revive Eve again. Also, Hess is given a device from XIII to give her the bad luck ability again since Hess returned it long ago.
Back on the PAX, Cuddles manages to revive Eve, who slips into a coma. Cuddles predicts it will take a week or so before Eve will regain consciousness, needing that time for her mind to handle the trauma of what happened.
Session 70: Reaching Out
Location: PAX
Hess and Kaori lead their team up to the PAX in order to find Shretrav's ship, in order that they can complete a follow up mission that they fulfilled a while back. Ao briefs them on the sector of space that Shretrav's ship is currently, and the current political climate, that the three big are moving their forces and it looks like that all three are gearing up their war machines again, despite it being a bit out of character for their leaders after all this time. Once they launch into hyperspace, with Kaori flying them, though there is hijink with Hess wearing a kinky kitty outfit that has only paws covering her breasts. They settle in for the long trip to find Shretrav's ship.
Date: 10-637.3.29
They arrive at the system and find Shretrav's ship, floating in space, looking broken and depowered in space, the system looking empty of other ships. They discover it has life support systems still functioning on parts of the ship, so Kaori lands them in a hanger. They suit up and are greeted by a Erusian after a bit, Kaoiv, who leads them to meet Shretrav and Kre'trav on the bridge, where systems are straining to work. After learning the situation, X leads a small group back to the shuttle to contact the PAX for aid, while Kre'trav leads them to learn more about the saboteur they have on board.
Kre'trav leads them to the engine core, she shows where the guards were posted, then leaves them to bring some of the engine workers to answer their questions. Kaori and the others find signs of damage and the weapon type used, when the Tsivrixsh and Erusian crew begin to fall down. The team begins to show signs of being affected by gas on those with no suit on, and those with them quickly suit up. With some of them struggling to stay awake and open the door, which has sealed them in, they also discover a bomb. Thankfully, the doors are lifted up by Shretrav and Kre'trav, helping them escape the gas filled room. Ori and Megumi work on the bomb, while Ash arrives after he and X contact the PAX, having seen Tsivrixsh warships are on the way.
While they plan how to deal with the fleet, they notice Kre'trav has left, so Hess begins to ripple after her, finding a sword tied up in a room. After freeing the sword, it turns into a girl, Camilla, who informs her that Kre'trav is not herself anymore, and Hess finds a hidden communication in the wall. Meanwhile, as Reikana turns into Noire to prepare for the battle against the ships, she is shot with a railgun in the back by a masked figure. During this, one group works on delaying/stopping the warships, the other hunts and battles Kre'trav, destroying her armor. They manage to subdue her at the moment Erevis' fleet arrives, making the enemy fleet retreat.
After the battle, Erevis scans her mind and finds a mental block on Kre'rav, surmising the Tsivrixsh have telepaths now. Removing it, Kre'trav returns to normal and apologizes for what she has done to them all. Taking the data from the terminal, the team heads back home with the ship.
Session 71: Dreams of Tareh
Location: L.A.
While up in the PAX they check Eve, who responds to stimili now but still hasn't begun to talk, at the L.A Hotel Base, Lorelei announces she has discovered more of the Tarehian kids they had previous missed. Lorelei names the new kids, including a girl named Cersei, and Juliet. She sends Kellin and herself out to find them. Back at the Underground Base, Ren and Reikana's band's new song is playing on the radio, and Ren is showing off the cover art to their new album. During the celebration of the band's new hit, Kellin shows up to find out about Cersei, who is apparantly Reikana's little sister. They find her as a fan of the band trying to get autographs before the band gets famous to make a lot of money. Convincing her to join, Kellin leads the kids up to the PAX.
Arriving on the PAX, they go to an orphanage and the kids immediately swarm the group, trying to get adopted. As they look around, they see a girl that looks a lot like Kaelan but with red hair and younger, and learn her name is Zegretta. They decide to tryto adopt her, thinking she must be one of the Tarehian kids. Meanwhile, Lorelei leads a mission, going after a certain mercenary. Sunny works hard, using various tricks and traps to try to shake them off, while Gor foxfires Sunny but she shoots him in return. As they battle for the shuttle, flying past Dias' Presidental Building and knocking a shuttle down, Lorelei offers her a job instead of jail; Gor finally hacks the shuttle and brings it down to land, after a piece of it nearly crushes him.
The last stop is the Gelus residence, which is a rich merchant's house. Lorelei and Kellin join up finally, and try to talk Gelus into letting his daughter join the team. As they talk, all the kids fall over in front of the adults, going into a dream like stance where they see a vision. They are adults on a planet with a dead world above them and they witness an invasion of various races attacking the planet. Snapping back into their child bodies, they tell everyone what happened and Gelus allows Juliet to join them temporarily when it doesn't affect her daily lessons.
Session 72: Striking Out (1)
Location: The Underground Base
Cheryl calls a meeting with the parents of the old Strikers group, with the children of the Strikers trying to listen to the meeting outside the door as best they can. It turns out that members of the Strikers have gone missing, as well as some others in the same age group such as Ben and Aya. The group debates who could be behind it, musing to themselves, while Chad reveals he has a tracker on Aya - apparantly having a tracker on each member of his family. The team heads out to see if they can find their kids, leaving Hess, Kaori, and Ren in charge of the base while they are gone; however, Ren plans to go out and find their parents herself, gathering all the kids of her generation to rally them. They call Elder Billy to see if she can sense her counter part, since Younger Billy is one of those missing, and she succeedes, transporting them all to some planet she feels, warning that the planet feels a bit like the old Dark One Homeworld.
Location: Unknown Planet, Time - Earliest Point in the Timeline
The generation of the Strikers and those closely born near to them, or around them, wake up on some unknown planet that feels familiar to them. Lorelei suggests they split up to determine where they are at so she hands out datapads to everyone to keep in touch, then makes a large marker that can be seen for miles in any direction. As Kitty's group travels they come across a village that they realize they were at long ago as children in TAW5 Session 299 when they came here to rescue their parents who were MIA at the time, but now it seems empty of people. At that moment they notice that Billy is acting strange and when Taiga tells Kellin to tie her down, when he complies, she explodes with dark energy and a cloud grabs them both, dragging them off.
Location: Shuttle About to Reach Unknown Planet, Latest Point in the Timeline
While the older team members talk and banter with each other, they come out of hyperspace to see a fleet of Tsivrixsh, Erusian, and Cartel ships surrounding the planet they are trying to teach, each of them equipped with Other/Illium tech. They realize the three races seem to be working together and are focused on the planet for some reason, so Cheryl states they are too numerous to fight their way through, so sneaking is their only way. Letting Xanatos fly their way down, X lets out a pray to Kitty in the event she never sees her again, but somehow they make it safely down.
Location: Unknown Planet, Middle Point in the Timeline
Elder Billy arrives on the surface of the planet with Ren, Reikana, Kaori, Hope, Hess, Saf, and Cel they watch as the ships are firing on something and drawing energy from the planet. She also warns that the planet will try to sink it's claws into you if it gets the chance as they head toward a mountain with dark energy. They begin to pass a village with a large marker that has been made of sand, but the village is a bit different now compared to when Kitty and the others passed through; it now has damaged houses and deep gourges cut through the ground, like a tornado made it. At that moment an object crashes down from the sky, likely whatever was being shot at above, and so the kids go to investigate it. They discover a royal Eruisan ship damaged and smashed up on the ground, so they move to pull the occupant out of the wreckage, only to find a masked Erusian that has been wounded. While they treat her, Reikana realizes Elder Billy has gone missing, and that she can detect both Billys now at the dark energy mountain now.
Location: Unknown Planet, Time - Earliest Point in the Timeline
As the darkness forms, a tornado sweeps Kellin and Billy as it sweeps through houses and gourging the ground. While others scatter to avoid the damage - and Ouka blaming Taiga for the mess they are in though it's hard to tell if she is joking or not - Elwyn goes after Kellin to rescue him. During the chaos, Billy vanishes and as the tornado subsides, Kellin is flung at a house at high speeds, but Elwyn and Lenneth work together to catch him safely.
As the storm itself continues, they decide they will follow Billy up the mountain to rescue her, trekking up the mountain side.
Location: Unknown Planet, Latest Point in the Timeline
Arriving at the village, Cheryl, Miyuki, Chad, Xanatos, Fiona, and Cassandra, run into the Striker children who split off from the group to survey the area, reuniting and asking questions about what happened, at the landmark Lorelei made. They learn they found a crashed ship and that a storm is forming around the mountain near by, while some of the kids go back to Cheryl's shuttle, while a few join the mission now. Cassandra kicks herself for not thinking of the other Billy, and so they all load into the shuttle temporarily after scouting the village, getting as close to the mountain as they dare risk with that storm.
Location: Unknown Planet, Middle Point in the Timeline
The team rests as they let the Erusian recover and when she does wake, they are given a surprise - she is Yasha, the Princess Majestrix of the Erus Ascendrancy. Apparantly another person took her looks and is now ruling the Erusian government, and tried to kill her by shooting her down while she fled. Which means there are shapeshifters again out there, despite the fact they thought they got rid of the Dark One/Human hybrids long ago. For now though all they can do is continue down the path they are currently on and reach the mountain to find their parents.
Session 73: The Visitors (2)
Location: Unknown Planet, Time - Earliest Point in the Timeline
Taiga points out to the others there's someone in the energy storm on the mountain and begin to debate how to reach them in the center of the storm. Growing bored with the debate, Ouka slashes it with her weapon, which causes a reaction that draws them inside where they see Billy and a few others hanging up by crosses. As Mal tries to free Si'Chii, he gets snagged by a cross and dragged down into the ground, while even more try to grab the others. During all this, a figure rises up while they are distracted by the crosses trying to pin them as well.
Location: Unknown Planet, Time - Middle Point in the Timeline
The group finds the vortex of dark energy still gathered and empty crosses standing upon the top of the mountain, but Reikana still feels a slight buzz from the Billys somewhere nearby. Hess activates her bad luck and gets the vortex to chase her around, giving the others an opening to get inside. As she ripples from the vortex, they all roll down into a cave, going into the mountain in a roll/slide/fall. After the chaos, they light up the area and see skeletons all around them.
Location: Unknown Planet, Latest Point in the Timeline
After re-landing again, Cheryl once again has them split up, with some of them minding the shuttle for a quick get away, with the rest of them going with her to investigate the mountain. After traveling, they reach the vortex and the crosses at the top of the mountain, they each debate how to cross through it safely. Em dragoon leaps into the air and lands in the center safely, while Hale just crosses through the vortex to reach his wife. Doing so activates the vortex to drag Hale to the cross, which doing so drags him down into the ground, then other crosses begin to rise up, trying to grab the others now. Fiona and Aya are dragged down, while the others reach the cave and escape down it. Cheryl surmises if they find Hale, they'll find the others as well.
Location: The Caves 1
Taiga and the others wake up down in the cave, realizing they have lost some time after being dragged down there. They spot a figure down there, so they begin to follow it, but as they move along, they realize they are beginning to get smaller and younger as they do so. After a bit, they run into the Other Leader who died, sacrificing himself to stop his dark half when the kids talked him down using passion instead of fighting in a battle. Lia and Nanashi speak in one voice, with both Bellys melded into the wall behind him/them, claiming they betrayed him/them, that people came back and brought him/them back to life and used him/their body as a power source. They reveal the other two groups in the wall, and state he is given them one more test, to see if they will fight/kill to save them, unlike last time, or will they let him do what he wants.
Location: The Caves 2 and 3
Ren's team, after tumbling down, reaches Nanashi/Lia begin to get the same spiel. Stating they are unexpected but they are the children of the children so they can be tested too. They see their parents in the wall and Cheryl's group in the wall, giving the same kill speech, before asking what they will do. Em, leading to Hale, runs right into Nanashi/Lia who does his spiel once more and the two other groups in the wall. Each group finds a flaw in the thinking, or trick, and the walls seperating them comes down, reuniting all three groups. The kids get a bit older, to high school age and decide to stick to it, but Ouka decides to go back to her original age, despite Kitty and Taiga opting to go back to their younger ages. Nanashi for his part seems to have used up most of his energy repelling the invaders for killing the villagers, giving the team a way to get home.
While talking, they get a message from the Mansion Base that they got two visitors who need to talk to them, Wind and Xevil. So they all hurry back home to see what is going on.
Date: 10-637.4.11
Arriving back at the Manor, the team warily eyes Wind and Xevil, realizing they are from the Mirror Universe, with both being copies of the real people. Megumi twitches and see upset at the idea, having shown up to be a representative for Erevis, who has also come, so they all walk inside to hear what the two have to say. As they enter, they find Samson, Xevil, and Wind there, sipping tea, Xevil having glasses on strangely. They inform them that there is something going on in the Mirror Universe's future - they are trying to rebuild Centerpoint. And apparantly there is only a few of the "copies" left, with their Erevis MIA and many of them hunted down for betraying the C'en. They give them their plan to stop Centerpoint once and for and inform the others who are lost what is going on.
Session 174: Forbidden Knowledge Part I
Location: The Aquarius
As the Aquarius powers back online, they detect massive temporal over the Priest Capital. Chronos takes the Captain's chair when asked about what she can add temporal wise, taking Erica's Captain chair, she warns with the power of the pull, it will be one way for them. Realizing they are missing some of the other teams still, they ask Chronos to sense out other spirit energies, hoping to locate the other teams. Once they get a hit, they begin to follow Chronos' direction to begin searching for the nearest group. They land on a island where they find Shade learning a ritual dance of a village with Talia and Kito, Alita and Vyvy watching, Ellie ignoring, Mykel watching curiously, Simon studying the culture and Sasha eventually joining. Having tracked Sylph, the Aquarius crew picks them all up so they can prepare for the upcoming trials. Simon decides, as they prepare to lift off, to train with Chronos, who thinks it will be easy to break him.
Location: Mainland A
Cypher is outed as being pregnant, having learned it due to the time jump the group experienced reaching the kids in the alternate future; due to the jump, many of them have aged 3-4 months, accelerating those who are pregnant. Asarar, hooked up to the warrior ship finally, powers it up so the group can fly and prepare for their three prong attack plan. However, along the way, they encounter the Aquarius, who detects them flying a Warrior C'en ship and prepares to attack them. They quickly resolve the issue and land back on the Mainland where the kids have been planning; while they meet and greet each other, all three groups reunited, Chronos runs by telling Simon doesn't need to do any more trials and that she will be his summon.
Seniga goes through the plan once more now that all three groups are together, telling them how the three C'en groups are working together: The Uminites are creating a super weapon for the Zhen, the Zhen are amassing an army in order to invade the past through a time gate, and the priests are making the Time Gateway. The three teams and the kids prepare to decide who will tackle what, since orbital bombing will not work and civilians will get in the way. As some head to the Aquarius, Denise's water breaks.
Date: 10-637.4.12
Location: Prime Universe, Cheryl's Mansion
Wind prepares to take a team through to the Mirror Universe with Xevil leading a second team shortly after so that any stranglers can catch up. While Samson and Ben avoid each other, clearly not likely the other, others are more wary of Xevil and watch as he goes through their library. The first group, comprised of: Erevis, Megumi, Xanatos, Lenneth, Ren, Reikana, Chad, Cel, Durt, Cheryl, Angela, Marcus, and more all follow Wind through his portal, appearing in the same village that Shade and them left a while back.
Session 74: Forbidden Knowledge Part II
Location: Cheryl's Mansion
Xevil takes those who did get picked up from last time, such as President Dias, a new face Syiean, one of Ao's daughters, Rea, Kaori, and Angelos. They catch up to Cheryl's group, where some of them are trying to learn the village dance, much like the the Mirror Universe groups were doing. While Dias and Marcus bro it up, C'en crystal ships show up and begin to attack the village on their way northward. Reikana is buried in the sand, damaged, by the attacks, while many of the others like Syriean and Angelos hurl hyperspace to try to bring down the ships attacking the innocent villagers, killing them. An elite C'en warrior lands with the crashed ship and they have to battle it, which gives them a surprisingly hard time until they team attack it enough to get 4 shards once they kill by shattering the brain. However, using the Emerald Sword in the battle reveals it is damaging Erevis, with it threatening to go into the Ruby form, red veins crawling along her arm. They decide to split up, after hearing from the Elder of the village, that some people used their village for shelter, so Taiga leads a group to find the Resistance, while Erevis leads another group for the capital nearby.
Location: Crystal Pathways
Taiga, Kellin, Syiean, Angelos, Cel, Kaori, Saf, Ouka, Chad, and Tabetha find themselves on the pathways that connect the worlds instantly and the group instantly recognize it feels a bit like Centerpoint. Along the way they find foodprints that lead to a shortcut so they follow them, seeing what looks like to older pathways in disuse. However, along the way, they run into another Taiga, leaving both Taigas shocked, realizing this is not Tora. The other Taiga seems to realize what is going on and begins to explain what is happening, despite warning them it is dangerous to talk in the pathways. That everyone here is not duplicates, but people from previous turns that attempted to against the person that put this forth, and somehow they are a few that are still here despite the rest of the people they know are now dead.
Before she can tell who the enemy is, a wall chases after them, attempting to erase them before they can reveal more, or the others, so they have to try to escape as fast as they can in the pathways. Xevil leads them out of it but is erased helping a few escape, gone forever. Again. They manage to esape the Pathways and find the kids, with Cherie being molested by Tabetha and the others. Seniga explains the three prong attack plan to the group, as they settle down.
Meanwhile, Erevis' Team walks along the desert to the capital, with Erevis explaining the history of the Emerald Sword. As they arrive at a large citadel with soldiers gathing, they find Ellie's team covertingly watching the building, and Shion tackles them in greeting. Lenneth greets Vyvy and hugs her, and they are reunited with the groups. Some Temmies show up to sell them armor and items to help them in their fight, so they march forth.
Session 175: Forbidden Knowledge Part III
Location: Weapon Citadel Team
Seniga draws a map for her battle plan to handle the Citadel, so they can handle the Uminite Weapon inside. One group will go inside to work their way past the traps, while another group handles being decoys and drawing the warrior garrison that is protecting the Citadel. As they approach the Citadel, preparing to split up and cause chaos, they run into Reikana, brought in by the Elder of the village, serving as her guide, but he is killed by the Citadel forces, causing her to go into Noire more. With the battle raging on outside, one group slips inside as the other continues to act as a decoy, the inflitration group compromised of Chelsea, Seniga, Bix, Ziza, LJ, Max, Nell, Bella, Jinx, Bonnie and Logan. They are tasked with having to solve various mazes, puzzles, and other hardships, plus find that the food in the building is made up of people, to their horror. Once they drop the barrier, Taiga's group with Kellin, Kaori, Chad, Syiean, Noire, Angelos, Saf, and Ren begin to work their way up the Citadel on a different section.
Location: Warrior Capital Team
After some light banter and dressing, the team prepares to deal with the capital where the major warrior army is amassing with their new Temmie armor. They debate having Ellie going out and drawing the Warrior Leader since he has a mad on for her after she defeated him previous in Session 173. Shion comes up with a plan that allows Dias and Marcus to lead a team to deal with the barracks around the Warrior Citadel, while she leads a team directly to the Citadel to destroy it and seed chaos in the warrior army. Erevis, Si, Jem, Megumi, Rea, Mi'Na, Angela and Sunny join the two in their destruction champaign, heading off while Shion, Ellie, Lenneth, Xanatos, Talia, Alita, Durt, Mykel, Gor, Vyvy, Simon, and Ceilia go for the Citadel.
They find the Warrior Citadel where the base they destroyed in Session 173, rising up from the ruins of said base. Despite saying they should wait, Shion lets the mages - Alita, Simon, Ceilia as well as the gun users and TKs from Mykel, come down on the 30 defenders of the Citadel entrance . After wiping them out they barely manage to keep the gates from closing and get inside. During this, Dias starts an encounter with hundreds of enemies, dragging the entire group into it. They messily begin to empty it out, draining reserves, when 10 Lieutenant C'en Warriors arrive that take more more finese to take out, and the Ruby Sword tries to take over Erevis again. Megumi has to give some of her life force to help stablize her, and they all work back to back to slowly pick them off one by one. They leap onto Angela who has gone into dragon mode to escape the remaining few and to get Megumi to Isis for healing, retreating.
Location: C'en Homeworld Reach Team
Yuki prepares the Aquarius while Mireille floats in her chamber naked in the middle of the bridge, having brought it up to power the ship up more instead of just standing there. As they exit lightspeed, they appear in the Crystal Pathways, flying above them, to reach their target. They detect, as the ship tries to repower from having managed to make it int othe Pathways, a figure moving along them and they detect someone that looks like Taiga down there. Saorise grabs the other Taiga, who is not happy, while the Pathways erasure tries to get the Aquarius, making Erica having to go on the evasive mauevers, flying through the Pathways and trying to avoid smashing into walls as they find their way back to the C'en Homeworld.
Erica flies like the wind, doing the best she ever has, while Yuki confronts the other Taiga, learning that she is not her mom, nor a duplicate. She states this cycle must have gone different when Yuki asks if she is her mom and during this Erica makes it through the gateway to the C'en Homeworld, landing on the planet as the ship loses power and comes to a stop on the surface. As the emerge the other Taiga says she will reveal everything. During this, Chronos protects the Time Gate, waiting on the other three teams to finish their missions so they can catch up to Erica and Yuki, becoming bored. And back in the Prime Universe, Necia and Thena are having a classic anime stare contest with sparks when a male voice speaks, causing everyone to vanish who has had major hands in events shaping things.
Session 75: Forbidden Knowledge Part IV
Location: Weapon Citadel Team
Seniga and Taiga's teams both, on their respective floors, work their way through their puzzles and traps, arriving higher and higher. Both teams arrive at the top where the Weapon is located, where the jointly work to defeat it; Lieutenant C'en Warriors show up to beat them and the Weapon's mechanical tentacles swipe, grabbing at people like Kaori to try to crush them, or molest them. They split into two teams, one team working to hold off the lieutenants, the other team trying to destroy the C'en Weapon. Jinx, Max, Cel, Tabetha, Kaori, Bella, Saf, Binx, and Nell, as well as a few others, team up to a team attack that shatters their weapons or knocks them down temporarily, allowing the team to strike their crystal armor to shatter it and kill them, attaining their shards for later. The remaining team attacks the Weapon and overloads it as their counterparts bring down the Lieutenants, overloading it and causing the Citadel to begin to crumble around them. Thankfully, a shuttle crashes into the wall, flown by Ruhi and Cherie, allowing the team to leap on it as they are flown out and Kaori states that she might need to start exercising/training as they head for Chronos.
Location: Warrior Citadel
Alarms go off as Ellie's team, signalling that Dias and Marcus' team has begun their assualt on the barracks, they are assaulted by some of the Lieutenant C'en Warriors. Dispatching them with magic by Alita and Vyvy as well as physical attacks from the rest, they head on as phallic explosions can be seen in the distance, Shade leading them along and Sylph snoozng on Ellie's head. As they move they find paintings that show them but they seem different, as if they were living different lives. As they are studying them, the Warrior Leader Ellie beat before emerges from the shadows, larger and now covered in crystals, clearly having changed from before. He seems a bit unhinged now and focused on Ellie, and Shade surmises if the Spirits have a crystal each, this Warrior Leader has several in him now. Perhaps dozens.
As he circles them, he states that a new leader has given him this power, which gives insight now. The self-proclaimed Warrior King pulls Ellie up by the hair, and even as Vyvy attacks his arm, causing him to grow more monsterous, he rattles on about knowing her secret. Vyvy yells at him to let her protege go and she attacks again with a few others, so he lets her go, vanishing into the shadows, leaving the team uneasy. He next appears behind Mykel, proclaiming that her real name is not Ellie even as he attacks Mykel, but his wives protect him and others come in, attacking him from other angles, hitting him and making his body grow even larger and more deformed as he escapes into the shadows. Sasha orders the team to form up on Ellie, but instead the Warrior King goes after Gor, bending him over his knee, attempting to break his spine, even as he states Ellie's parents rejected her, trying to push her buttons.
As Shade rescues Gor and Alita heals him, the others attack the Warrior King, driving him off; Ellie and Sylph merge into their Spirit Form, gaining wings and increasing their strength. After taking more damage, and even larger and monsterous, the wounded Warrior King vanishes, stating Ellie's real name is Elliot, to drive the pain even deeper for Ellie. While she is distracted, he appears behind her, grabbing her from behind, telling her the saddest truth is that in other turns, she was born a girl. However, that moment Vyvy, having been hiding the entire time, stabs him in the back with her moonflower, allowing the others to gang up and attack him, sending him flying into his throne, growing even larger and more monsterous. Ellie, letting go, deforms from Sylph, which immediately attacks the Warrior King in a rage for her friend, or perhaps more with how angry she is, and Xanatos throwing exploding discs, making the monster deform more and more. At that moment, Dias and Marcus' team arrives to witness the sight.
The Warrior King swings his throne to crush Vyvy, but Shade takes the hit is sent flying, but Simon, Ceilia and Sylph's attacks finally do it. His heart is exposed, so Angela, Marcus, Dias, Mykel, and Ellie and Sylph attack the heart, causing it to explode inside the monsterous form of the Warrior King, destroying it. However, it causes the body to go out of control now, growing larger and larger. Sasha suggests a tactial retreat, so Ceilia freezes the body and they all begin to run out of the Citadel. Along the way, Erevis cuts a wall in half with the Emerald Sword, and they all pile onto the shuttle they stole, flying off for Chronos to meet up, with Vyvy wondering if Ellie will be okay.
Location: C'en Homeworld
Sitting on the roof of the Aquarius, the other Taiga talks to Erica's group as one by one the other groups arrive from their missions, landing with their shuttles. Families are reunited, such as Ren with her sister Yuki and Yuki with her mother Taiga, as will as Vyvy and Lenneth having more quality time together with her family from the other side. The other Taiga points to a strange hill in the distance where strange, creepy lightning and says from her memory of her turn, that is where the next step will need to be taken. They decide to split up to confront whatever is at the hilltop, dividing into groups to approach it, with some staying at the Aquarius in case they need a base of operations. Cypher remains behind to help unhook Asarar from the C'en Warrior Shuttle, while others who were injured in the battles are seen by Taiga to the Aquarius medical facilities. Vyvy and Sylph for her part stay with Ellie, talking to her and cheering her up due to the stress she is under.
Cheryl, Erevis, Dias, Chelsea, Kaori, Chad, Rea, Syiean, Xanatos, Airym, Mi'Na, and Kellin follow the other Taiga, dubbed Taltga, as they walk along, with Cheryl committing it doesn't feel like Centerpoint, despite the energy being there, due to the world being dead. However, when they each the top of the hill, they find all their loved ones they left behind on crosses, hanging there, and they begin to pull them all done, reviving the ones they can with shakes. As those taken slowly wake up, if they can be, Taltga, seeing Kitty, moves over and comments seeing her makes a few things come back to her, but at that moment a garden rises up sealed in crystal with crystal data terminals can be seen. Erevis seems to know what it is, as a figure with red hair can be seen hiding in the garden, and Jaimie realizes her twin is alive in there - Jamie.
The garden goes red, as if darkness is flooding from it and C'en dark crystals form, running down the ground toward them and they realize that Jamie is the father of the C'en and the other half of Tora. Those back on the Aquarius or having gone other ways, arrive, witnesses as the crystals attempt to grab people and absorb them, making everyone back away warily. Shade gets her leg caught until a team effort blows it up so she can warp away but her leg seems darkened, as does the ground where the crystal is transforming. Everyone plans their various ways to get lose to the corrupted center: Dias wants X to ripple, Ellie have Sylph to have them be fast like the winds, Erevis will use the emerald sword, Chad will have the Mirror Universe people use freeze spells, and Bella mud. With each technqiue, various charcters make their way up to the garden where they break in and dind Jamie sleep walking holding a corrupted crystal. Mud monster C'ens surround him to protect him, so the group works together to cleanse the garden.
As it cleanses, it become a bit more like Centerpoint, though overgrown, with the elevator to the core barely visible down below. As the group below works to undig it, Erevis brings Jamie back to a stable mental state by hugging him and holding her and Xanatos' son, comforting him. Below, as they uncover the elevator, Cherry, Samson, and Taltga gather, with Samson stating he knows a bit more than Taltga when it comes to what is going on, and Taltga not knowing these extra people from her turn. Samson states they are in a science experiement of sorts and when asked, he states it is THE progenitor who made Centerpoint but before he can explain more, the core elevator activates and begins to rise up to them. A bald man holding Centerpoint's core and standing beside him is a strange woman with white hair and red eyes holding Key.
He states he just there to talk, but if they force a fight, he can shut down the Mirror Universe people with their Spirit Names. When asked who they are, he states his name is Destiny and her name is Fate. He gives them credit, as they have only gotten this far three times in previous turns, then begins to explain a bit about the Progenitors and Centerpoints true nature. That they wantd to create other realities, but that it is impossible. He states Centerpoint shows causalities, the possibility of left instead of right, and makes it come "true". Apparantly the Prognitors kept using the power until it left their reality barren and lifeless, and he took it to seek other pathways.
From there he allowed the Erusian princess to survive to chart her destiny, to see if her turns might lead to something, and over time, in the various turns, something kept popping up at times. Holding up a twig, the team realize he is seeking Yggdrasil. And apparantly of all the beings, their group came closest, so he focused on them, turning them again and again, building up the energy of Yggdrasil, and with the final turn, the 100th, he'll have another power to bring it forth. Strangely, Destiny then begins to speak to each of them, offering - almost friendly like - to tell them information he learned from the previous turns. He makes the offer of their data living on in Yggdrasil, much like Samson, Cherry, and Taltga.
He gives the option to let anyone come up to ask if they want to learn about previous turns or information from the current turn, despite many of them thinking it is a trap to make them surrender. But one of the biggest bomb shells if Kane learning he has a daughter that was kidnapped, despite no one remembering her. Kaori learns she is the daughter of Kasha and Miyuki in a turn where only those two hook up, Angela learns her and Chad are together on a beach, Chelsea learns the truth of her past - that she is the daughter of a corporate president in many turns and this one - and finally Destiny shows Vyvy the life she sometimes has with Catherine and the children they have, but states it always leads to an early turn end since she does not aid Shade and the others.
Airym announces quietly if she can get the core, she thinks she can stop Destiny, so John launches an attack to get his Key back, and everyone begins the battle for Centerpoint. Strangely, Fate does not aid Destiny during the battle, but along the she gives hints as they get Fate back - using the shards to use casuality against Destiny to weaken him to strike devastating blows back to him. The only casuality is Key's powers are drained into making Yggdrasil, but with the team's new determined power injuring him, he opens a vortex, throwing them into other turns to delay them while it grows.