Infinence: Continuation

[XxKiraYamatoxX]

10 consecutive chapter posts. Is no one going to comment? D=

Chapter 10

Cold water dripped down my face... ah... damn, it felt so hot... but at least I was awake now... I rubbed my aching head for a moment as I opened my eyes.

"You shouldn't stay in the sauna for too long if you can't take the heat..." Scotty was sitting beside me... From what I make out of the blurry surroundings, we were in the changing room...

"I didn't even know I couldn't take it..." I moaned, trying to get up. The towel Scotty had covered me with fell off - ah, I was still naked. "You shouldn't strain yourself too much if you can't even walk right," he laid me back down and covered me back up with the towel. Good point... my vision was still quite blurry and I could barely discern which way was up or down. Man, I didn't like these situations.

"Just lie down and rest for now. When you feel better, I'll be on the ship's observation deck."

"Okay..."

I just lay there as Scotty walked out of the room. Luticia burst in soon after and ran to my side. "Mama, are you ok?" she asked. "Yeah... Lute. I'm just a little tired," I managed a weak smile. Seriously, it was hard not to smile when your child was being worried about you... Oh yeah, I wanted to ask her... "Did you finally master controlling your armour?" I asked. She nodded and lifted a hand... a hand covered with a black metallic fingerless glove that had a long sharp blade seemingly growing out of it. I smiled... so she really had mastered it.

"Keep it up, Lute..." I rubbed her head gently.

She reabsorbed the glove into her body and hugged me tight as I got up. I felt a little better now... enough to walk, though I was still a little dizzy. "Shall we go find Papa now?" I patted Luticia's head. "Yeah!" she grinned. I got up and made my armour reappear on me, and then proceeded out the door, banging my head on the frame on the way out. Ow...

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The open-air observation deck was right on top of the bridge, meaning I had to go up lots of stairs to get there. Not that it mattered... but I fell down once before my vision completely recovered and ended up in a pile right at the bottom of the stairwell. It was very embarrassing to have Luticia see it... she was still laughing hard when we made it up. Scotty was leaning against the railing, looking out at the scenery that lay before us... the wide, expansive sea stretching out beyond the horizon. I could make out the faint outline of another continent to the right of the ship against the light of the evening sun.

I took a deep breath and allowed the salty smell in the air to enter my nose... I was surprised I could still smell it from this high up... maybe it was just my enhanced sense of smell. I felt somewhat refreshed just by taking in the sights and the smells. "Feeling better?" Scotty asked, turning around to face me. "Yeah. I still find it embarrassing to faint in the sauna..." I blushed. It really was embarrassing, even just thinking about it.

"Well, don't mind it. You've really become a bit of a klutz lately..."

"Yeah... maybe it's something from Fate."

Lately, I had started getting a little clumsy in my daily life. Bit of tripping here and there and sometimes accidentally breaking stuff... Well, it didn't happen in combat though. Being clumsy in combat could lead to death sometimes... and I wasn't planning on an early death.

"So... why the observation deck?" I asked.

"Refreshing, isn't it? We need a change of pace from the cold metal inside of the Leviathan anyway, and the pool's not really open-air."

"I guess... but is that all?"

"Yup. Besides, I think we should let Lute see as many sights as possible whenever we bring her out."

"Whenever? You mean you want to bring her out again?"

"Yeah, but she'll have to stay in the Leviathan. That way, she won't get hurt. The Leviathan is even safer than our house now."

"Lute, do you agree?"

"I wanna go out with you two more, Papa, Mama!"

"Alright, Lute. We'll show you as much of the world as we can, okay? When you grow up, you can come with us to fight monsters and stuff."

"Mmm!"

"She fought the Emperor Dragon Turtle, you know..."

"We need to train her more if she's to survive. There's no way around that, and the best way to train her is to bring her along whenever we go out on missions."

"Might as well do it now... she can carry a sniper rifle, you know."

"Well... good point... but I still don't think we should bring her out just yet. She's not experienced."

"The only way to get real experience is through field work. You of all people should know that. Besides, she's not just strong, she DID inherit your reflexes. And she does know how to control her armour now."

"All right, all right, I give in. If you insist, I just can't refuse..."

"Thank you, Papa!" Luticia ran over to hug Scotty. Kids these days... I sighed resignedly, but smiled at the two of them hugging each other. I simply couldn't argue with those two when they shared opinions... and neither could Scotty when it was Luticia and I. Heheh...

I turned to look at the sunset for a moment. It was rare for us to be able to enjoy a peaceful sunset like this... for once, not on a battlefield. More often than none, we were fighting monsters or other people in the evening. It wasn't exactly a tradition... but somehow we always ended up getting into those tight spots around evening. Not that they were all deadly... some were ambushes sprung by mere amateurs, sloppy and easily fought out of.

"Isn't this atmosphere pretty romantic? We're on a ship looking out at the wide sea, and the sun is setting," I said.

"Mmm, yeah. Do you want a kiss?" Scotty smiled.

"Do you?" I smiled back.

"Well..." he was just about to reply when I threw myself at him and put my lips to his. He recovered quickly and wrapped his arms around my back, hugging me tight.

I knew we were doing it in front of Luticia - but she never ever seemed to mind. She just smiled and turned her back and started doing something else whenever we kissed in front of her. For now, I just concentrated on Scotty...

"Ah, a shooting star!"

That kind of ruined the moment. We turned away to look in the direction Luticia was pointing in - the shooting star... wasn't exactly a shooting star. It was more like a fireball or something... and it was coming down from the sky, in our direction. It looked like it was set on a crash course for the Leviathan's main deck... though it certainly didn't look big enough to cause any major damage to the heavy armour the ship was plated in.

"Warning. Foreign aerial object detected on a collision course with the ship. Impact in 15 seconds. Evasion impossible. Brace for impact."

Sometimes the computer made it sound like it wasn't even serious at all... its voice was somewhat relaxed. Not that I cared at the moment. "Hit the deck!" Scotty shouted as the fireball neared us. I ran towards Luticia and knocked her down to the deck as the fireball roared over us, barely singing my hair as it passed... damn, that was close.

It hit the main deck with an explosion and set part of it on fire, though it was quickly put out by water guns that had popped up out of the deck nearby. The deck itself was a little scorched, but nothing too serious... hopefully. Smoke billowed from the crash site, but I could still see something... something there. My view was partially obscured by the smoke, so I just took the quick way down to the main deck - I jumped off the observation deck and landed on the main deck moments later.

"Hot, hot, hot!" I gasped in pain when I tried stepping on the crash site. Damn, though the armour was fine, it was still hot from the impact... I took a step back and quickly healed my burnt foot. I didn't dare to have the Leviathan activate the water guns again - they ran the risk of washing the object off the deck. Still I couldn't see it clearly - the smoke was too thick!

Scotty jumped down together with Luticia later, and the rest of the party soon appeared through the door into the ship. They gathered around the crash site as Ben casted a wind spell to blow away the smoke and attempt to cool down the deck. The smoke receded slightly, but the deck was still far too hot to touch when I tried to step on it... yeah, I had to heal my foot again.

"Leviathan, isn't there any kind of emergency cooling you can use to cool down the deck?"

"Yes, however it will instantly freeze the deck. I have determined that the freezing may damage the object you are attempting to recover."

"Great."

"So do we just... wait it out?"

"Nah. I have a better idea."

I closed my eyes and concentrated on the seal within me holding back my powers. Within two seconds, it was released and I returned to my Shadow Angel form. I spread out my wings and started to hover by gently beating them. The more constant movement of the air blew the smoke away, allowing me to see what the object was... and boy was I surprised.

"Will somebody please explain to me how a woman can come down from the sky in a fireball?" Winnie sighed, kicking Kyle in the shins when he craned his head to take a look.

Yeah... it was a woman, no doubt about it. Naked, with strange, mystical long straight silver hair that radiated an aura of power. She was of average height - pretty well-developed like me, though with smaller proportions. If I had to guess, she was the same age as me. "Let's just get her to the sick bay first. And somebody get her some clothes before the guys start gawking!" I ordered, floating over to her and pulling her up. Her body was strangely warm, though she should be all hot from the fireball... Damn, she was light for her size.

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We laid the woman down on a bed in the sick bay for now and some of us left to get back to their own business. I stayed to watch over her. It was strange enough that she had fallen out of the sky... but in no way did she look alien. Or maybe it was one of those aliens that looked like humans. Who knew? Her hair was definitely extraordinary - I had never seen anything like it... Silky smooth, silver and constantly emitting a radiant glow...

I sighed and got off the chair to stretch for a moment. Watching over her like this was rather boring... really not my style. Scotty was off playing with Luticia now, so I was all alone here. Maybe not alone, yeah, but she was unconscious. For now we had just covered her in a robe. I sighed again and walked back to the chair to sit down... but somehow I ended up walking into the chair and tripping over - right onto the bed and onto the woman's chest.

I quickly got back off as she stirred... damn, I sure hoped she hadn't felt that... but really, she was soft. Real soft. I just sat down on the chair and watched as she turned around for a bit, before she finally opened her eyes several moments later.

"You're finally awake, huh?" I smiled, trying to hide my surprise.

"I think so..." she replied, and then as if noticing she was somewhere she didn't recognize, she started looking around with a bewildered expression on her face. Later, she looked down at herself and then at me... I wondered what she was thinking.

"Ummm... Can I ask you something?" she said, apparently still confused.

"Go ahead," I nodded.

"Do you know who I am?" she asked.

Uhh... this felt cliched in so many ways... but whatever.

"I don't know. You just fell out of the sky in a fireball and we picked you up. You're lucky you landed on the deck of our ship, or you could've drowned in the sea."

"Your ship...? Sorry, I can't remember anything... my memories are blank..." she sighed.

Yeah... she was an amnesiac. What in the world had happened to her for her to fall out of the sky like that? Had she been in space or something and got shot down before crashing on the Leviathan? Or was it some kind of weird experiment nobody knew about? There were so many possibilities... and no way to prove any of them because she couldn't remember a thing. Not even her own name, apparently.

"Nah, it's okay. The Leviathan can take a hell of a beating. If you have nowhere else to go... I guess you could stay with us. I sure hope you recover your memories soon."

"Thank you..."

"In that case, we'd better give you a name. That way, it'll be easier to call you," I smiled.

"I... I don't know of anything good... Can you?"

Hmmm... well, her hair was certainly the most striking part of her, because of its colour and glow... Mmm, yeah!

"How about Aurora?" I suggested.

"Anything's fine," she smiled.

"Aurora it is," I nodded, giving her a hand. She stared at it for a few moments before grabbing hold and allowing me to pull her off the bed. "Welcome to the crew," I grinned. Well, I couldn't have her walk the plank or dump her off on some deserted island... though some pirates certainly would do that. We were in no way pirates.

But then again... I remembered reading something about these large ships. It was something about ownership of large vessels... yeah... A single person alone would be able to claim ownership to any vessel smaller than a frigate, but only guilds could own anything larger than a frigate. If an individual owned such a ship, that would be against the law, and that individual would be considered a pirate and put into jail until some guild was found that would accept him or her, along with the ship. Damn, I didn't want to go to jail... and I wasn't in a guild - I had never really found time to join one.

I needed to consult Scotty about it...

"Feel free to explore the Leviathan as you see fit, you can talk to the computer if you need anything. To be honest, I'm not really an adequate guide for the ship - even I don't know everything about it. I'll introduce you to the rest of the party later!"

"I see... thanks!"

"I have something I need to do now, so I gotta run," I waved at her and left the room.

Where was Scotty? My Shadow Sense was active, but I couldn't sense him anywhere nearby. Maybe he was out of range? "Leviathan, where's Scotty?" I looked to the ceiling and asked.

"He is currently browsing through my files on the bridge."

"Got it."

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"So you're suggesting that we find a good guild to join once we get back?" Scotty asked, leaning back on the chair he was sitting on.

"Yeah. I can't think of any other way... since owning a ship like this is illegal since we're not in a guild."

"I suppose... but we'll have to find an honest one. With the Leviathan as powerful as it is, we're bound to attract unwanted attention, and some guilds might try to use that power for bad stuff."

"Yeah. Do you have any ideas? I'm not that familiar with the guilds around here."

"From what I've heard, the Twilight Brigade's pretty good. They're a pretty active guild when it comes to helping out in wars."

"I'd rather not fight in a war, thank you."

"You're getting the wrong idea. They help end wars through the solution with the least casualties, and just help newbie hunters in general. They're a pretty well-known guild, I'm surprised you don't know about them."

"I guess it's okay..."

"Then let's hurry. The Twilight Brigade's headquarters should be somewhere in Sarena."

"Yeah!"

"Warning. Large unidentified heat signature detected 600 metres below the ship. Length is estimated at 1 kilometre. Life signs suggest an aquatic monster."

I looked at Scotty, and he looked at me. It didn't take long for the words to sink in. I dashed off up to the control bubble as Scotty started hailing the rest of the party on the intercom. I hoped Aurora wasn't anywhere dangerous... because things were going to get really hectic.

I reabsorbed my armour into my body and entered the control bubble. All the usual screens popped up, along with a visual of the monster under us through the forward underwater camera. No doubt about it - it was a long, slim serpentine monster - most probably the Paralodon we had been hunting. At least it was far out here, not lingering around near Sarena. It was time to settle the score... I needed to repay that bastard for what it had done to me!

"You guys head to the hangar and get in those planes! The Leviathan's far too slow to hit that Paralodon!" I shouted, fingers flashing across ethereal keyboards in the bubble as the ship ran self-diagnostics on the weapons. I was typing so fast that all I could see of my fingers was a blur. I felt the hangar doors in front of the ship open, and a few screens detailing the specs of the planes in the hangar appeared.

The Artemis fighters were the smallest out of the three, looking in all ways like a normal twin-engine jet fighter with a variable wing sweep. Only thing that made it stand out was the large cannon installed under the nose and the array of guns lining the nose. The Athena tactical warfare planes were second largest, with a big radome on the back and large missile racks on the fuselage aimed forward. Again, twin-engined. The biggest plane, the Zeus bombers had four engines - two on each delta wing. Their fuselages were long and also carried missile launchers similar to Athenas.

On the screens, I could see the party hurrying into some planes - Scotty had a Zeus, Clara an Athena and the rest were taking Artemis fighters. I sighed. If only I could join the fight... but someone needed to control the Leviathan...

"If you would like to join the battle, I would recommend activating the RSC System."

"RSC System?"

"Remote Slave Control System. It allows you to directly take control of any plane in the ship's hangar by transferring your consciousness into the cockpit."

"Do it. I'll pilot an Artemis."

"Affirmative. RSC System active. Transferring Operator's consciousness to Artemis unit 46."

All of a sudden, I was staring out the cockpit window of one of the Artemis fighters in the hangar... and at the same time, I had the controls of the Leviathan around me. Hopefully I didn't get confused.

"The RSC System operates by thought alone. Your thoughts are translated into commands the fighters will obey. Do remember that you are not physically present in the cockpit, but you have a 360 degree view of the battlefield around your plane and you will not feel the effects of G-force as strong as they would normally be."

"Great. Then let's do this!" I smiled as the elevator carried my plane up to the carrier deck. Once I reached it, I taxiied out and turned my nose down the runway. "Depth charge the Paralodon," I ordered.

"Depth charges firing."

A low rumble resounded through the control bubble, and I felt explosions from below the ship. A low roar followed, and then out of the fighter I was piloting, I could see a large serpentine head burst out of the water beside the launch deck. I wasted no time accelerating down the deck and launching off into the air. Already the others were sweeping in for the kill - even my three living weapons were there, all in bombers. I hadn't seen them launch just now, but oh well, at least we had more firepower in the air.

"Pin the Paralodon to the deck of the Leviathan!" I heard Scotty yell over the radio... but yet it didn't sound like it was a radio at all. Rather, it felt like I was right beside him... like I was in the radio network itself, not tapping into it...

I took a deep breath and performed a backflip that would have been impossible with other planes, pointing myself back towards the Paralodon and flying right at it. Clara slung a netbomb at the Paralodon, which exploded in mid-air to release a large net that caught the creature and wrapped around the Leviathan's carrier deck. As it started to jostle, I felt the ship shake and quickly flew at the head, pumping it full of lead from the nose machine guns and the spread-type main cannon.

The Paralodon roared again and started to lash its tentacles about, but I had already gotten used to my fighter and its mobility. It was a simple matter to fire the right maneuvering thrusters in the right direction... and voila, flying sideways. I broke off my attack as Scotty dove in to drop a large bomb. Right on cue, the Paralodon roared, and the bomb flew into its mouth. "Ouch," I shuddered as the detonation blew smoke and other organic debris out the mouth... damn, that was not something I wanted to be on the receiving end of.

The Paralodon recovered very quickly though, and actually managed to snap a few of the ropes lashing it to the Leviathan's deck while thrashing about. The ship rocked even harder, making me feel a little disoriented... "Fire the main turrets!" I ordered, feeling a little big dizzy...

"Unable to comply. Target is within minimum firing range."

"Great!" I groaned, flying in close and unleashing a volley of cannon fire right at the head. Again, it regenerated quickly and a tentacle almost nicked my right wing. I rolled aside and came around again, this time firing a missile into the head at almost point-blank range. I quickly pitched up to turn my full wing surface towards the explosion, using it to blow myself back and fly off again. That was one stunt I had never thought I'd be able to pull...

And my butt felt kind of hot. Maybe because of that explosion, but I wasn't physically inside the cockpit... or maybe it was feedback from the RSC System. I guess it was ok as long as I didn't feel any pain... "Heads up, incoming, Traya!" Scotty shouted. I yanked the plane up until it was fly almost vertically, barely clearing the tentacle that had been flying at me. That was close... but this thing just didn't quit, did it? No matter how hard we hit it, it still regenerated...

So in the end... it came down to one single attack powerful enough to obliterate the whole thing... but the fighters didn't have any such attack. If anything, only the Leviathan could kill the Paralodon in one hit, but if we let it loose, there was no guarantee we'd be able to draw it out of the turrets' minimum range... and it could escape. I couldn't let that happen - it could attack other towns again, but we couldn't go on like this... Even the Leviathan wouldn't be able to withstand the continuous thrashing of a 1 kilometre serpent on the deck...

[XxKiraYamatoxX]

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Chapter 11

That thrashing was getting harder and harder by the second - enough to rock the whole ship... and me too. It was enough that I could hardly fly the Artemis fighter I was controlling... I was forced to switch it to autopilot and turn my focus back onto the Leviathan. Already the damage reports were coming in - some of the bulkheads had either cracked or become distorted under the pressure. Although the ship's automated repair system was making up for the damage, I wasn't sure how long it would hold. We needed to deal with the Paralodon... and do it fast.

"Scotty... I think we should let it go this time. We'll plant a tracker on the Paralodon and deal with it some other time. We simply don't have the means to deal with it now."

"It was lucky enough for us to come across it in the middle of nowhere and you expect us to let it go!?"

"Girl, are you chickening out on us?"

"It's not a matter of chickening out or not - we simply don't have the right tools for this job. We'll track it down and deal with it some other time. I don't know how much more thrashing the Leviathan can take. Scotty, please... I don't want..."

"... Alright. Clara, you heard her."

"If you say so... you're the leader... Firing tracker and releasing holding net."

I could see Clara's jet fire a bright red bullet at the Paralodon's head, which just stuck there and kept emitting that glow as the net holding it to the Leviathan came loose. It roared and slid off the deck back into the water. I watched it leave... damn, it was fast when it wanted to be fast. At least it didn't try to attack us - I wasn't sure how long we'd last against an enraged Paralodon of that size...

Besides... I didn't want Scotty to get too angry again... and enter that mode... I didn't want to see him like that ever again - that enraged self filled with anger, hatred and bloodlust... I tentatively ran a hand over the scar on my underbust that still had yet to heal... rather, it couldn't heal. A lone tear trickled down my cheek, and I wiped it off to focus on the task at hand. I didn't want to remember that memory...

"Target has retreated out of firing range. Returning to standby mode. Operator, you may leave the control bubble."

I stayed for a while longer to watch as the party touched down on the rear deck and taxiied onto the catapult deck, where their planes were then carried down to the hangar deck using several large elevators. After I saw them leave their planes, I climbed out of the control bubble and just... collapsed on the side, totally worn out... Heh, I guess controlling two vehicles at the same time took a lot out of me. Though I at least managed to drag myself onto a nearby chair...

Since I could barely even move, all I could do was just wait here for the others to arrive. And they did a few minutes later. Scotty was the first to reach the 3rd level of the bridge and see me just lying there. "Again?" he exclaimed, running over to me. "Nah... a little better this time around..." I waved him off, feeling a little dizzy. Yeah, I needed another rest... "Yeah, right. Go take a rest. We'll talk after you're fully recovered."

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"... Scotty?"

I tentatively approached him... he didn't look like he was in the mood to have someone disturb him. His fiery aura was much stronger than normal... just getting close made me feel like my skin was on fire. I activated a Shadow Barrier to protect myself against the blazing heat and took several steps closer apprehensively. As I got closer, I could see that his eyes were... literally on fire, and were blood red... not their usual green... What was going on with him? Why was he like this?

"Scotty, are you ok?" I asked. Pretty stupid question - of course he wasn't ok... why was I even asking?

As I approached, I heard a low growl coming from him and stopped. Something was seriously up with him... "Scotty, it's me! Traya!" I said, trying to snap him back to his senses. No response, but the growl got louder...

And then... all of a sudden, he launched at me, greatsword outstretched and completely ablaze.

"AAAAHHH!" I screamed out loud.

"Whoa there!"

I sat up, gasping for air... damn, what a nightmare... I patted the underside of my right breast, feeling for the scar. For a moment I had thought it would be bleeding again from that attack... "Nightmare?" Scotty suddenly appeared in front of me, half-scaring the wits out of me. But looking at his normal, green eyes made me feel a little relieved that he wasn't in his Blood Rage. I managed to calm myself down a little...

"Yeah... and it was about you..."

"Sorry... I guess that mark is rather deep. How're you holding up?"

"I'm fine, but I'm more interested in finding a way to fix your Blood Rage..."

"Look, it's not something that can be cured just because you want it to. Even I couldn't control it... it's in my blood."

"I... I don't want to see you like that again!" I threw myself at Scotty, sobbing into his shirt... I simply couldn't control myself after witnessing that near-fatal event again. Scotty losing himself to his Blood Rage and almost killing me in it. The scar I bore on my underbust was the only wound that hadn't healed completely - the rest had healed over months. Even without the scar... how could I forget? It was the event that had put me into the hospital for several months...

My injuries then were the hardest I had ever suffered in my life - a lot of broken bones, severe blood loss, even a punctured organ or two. It was a miracle I had even managed to move a single limb. I was unconscious for most of the 7 months in the hospital though... I only woke up sometime in the 5th month, and even then, moving my finger alone hurt a lot and I was very weak... It was another 4 weeks before I could move my arm, and another 5 to move my legs.

Just thinking about it made me shake...

"I promise, I won't let it happen again, alright?" Scotty hugged me tight. My response... an even louder sob.

"We have about 2 more days left to Sarena. If you go up onto the observation deck, you'll be able to see the silhouette of Caria on the horizon," Scotty lifted my head up gently and looked into my eyes... I looked back into his and looked away for a moment, a little scared to look at him... He wiped a few tears off my cheek and took a few steps back to let me get off the bed. As I was about to get off, my foot slipped off the edge of the bed and I fell right onto Scotty, knocking him to the ground too.

My current position had me sprawled on top of Scotty, with my bust right on his face... so his voice was muffled. I quickly got off him and apologised, but he got up and merely lifted a finger to shut my mouth. "No need to apologise. I do owe you a lot from that Blood Rage incident..." he put his lips to mine. I was about to object, but decided against it at that moment and just let... him take me.

We stayed like that for a few more moments until we were interrupted by the sound of the door sliding open... Clara stood there together with Luticia, and both of them were staring at us in the middle of the kiss. "Maybe later," she reached for the door switch, but I lifted a hand to stop her, and Scotty broke off from me. "It's fine," I insisted. Now that I was fully conscious, I could see that I was in the captain's room again.

"You okay now? Lute was dead worried about you, ya know." Clara said.

"I'm ok, Lute. No need to be worried, you know Mama's strong, right?" I bent down as Luticia came running to me. I rubbed her forehead gently and stood back up again to listen to Clara.

"The Paralodon got away, but it doesn't seem to be attacking any towns now. Looks like it's resting somewhere at the bottom of the sea somewhere around the continent of Yrlana."

"We must've gotten it good."

"Or it could be biding its time, waiting for an opportunity to get revenge on us," Scotty suggested.

"Either way, we'll have to deal with it sooner or later. Better be prepared."

"The Twilight Brigade should definitely help us if we ask them."

"Yeah, that's why we'd better hurry. Not only that, there's a really big storm coming in from the south. It should last for around 3 days..."

"We could always dive under storms using the Leviathan's submarine mode."

"Well, yeah... but what'll people think if we suddenly surface right in front of a town in a submarine? A port, no less. They'd think we're there for sabotage or something, and then we'll get into real trouble. I think we're better off sailing through the storm to the port. Weapons stowed away too."

"Good point... nobody likes submarines."

"The Leviathan can sail through a storm like this, right?"

"Affirmative. This ship is able to sail through storms at full speed if need be."

"Stay on course for Sarena and don't enter submarine mode. Try to get there as fast as possible," I ordered.

"Would you like to use the booster?"

"A booster? Seriously?"

"Of course. This ship is far too big to be speedy, and as such, it is equipped with a booster to facilitate quick transportation to other locations at a higher speed in order to join battles faster. However, it takes a period of two days to fully recharge once used."

"Use it. We'll probably be staying in town for a while, so we don't need to reuse the booster that fast."

"Using the booster will cut journey time from 2.2 days to 0.5 days. Confirm usage of booster."

"Do it."

"Rerouting engine power to boosters. All personnel brace for shock."

I quickly sat down on the floor as the ship began to accelerate - TOO FAST! Already the ship was moving at near triple its normal speed... what kind of acceleration was this!? The shock actually managed to throw some of us off balance - Scotty fell onto me while Luticia managed to grab onto the bed before the shock hit. Clara had tripped and fallen face-down. Ouch.

"Lucky you, Scotty... you get a nice soft pillow to land on..." she moaned, climbing back up and rubbing her head once the shock passed.

Ah, indeed he got a nice soft pillow to land on... my bust. "Sorry," he got off me. "Don't blame yourself. I expected the acceleration to be slow," I smiled. Damn, I was hoping he would stay like that for a while longer. Oh well...

Oh yeah, I had almost forgotten!

"Clara, do you know what Sarena's code for a friendly military vessel is?" I asked.

"All weapons aimed skywards and five gold flags lined with dark red on the bow. You want me to get them ready?"

"Yeah, or else we'd probably get fired on upon arrival."

Most port towns had their own specific codes that incoming vessels used to grant themselves safe passage into their waters. Merchant ships were all neutral, so their code was universal - blue-and-white striped flags on the stern and bow. That was the only one I knew - different types of ships had different codes. Warships, supply vessels and other miscellaneous ships all used different codes. Submarines were the only naval vessels that didn't use codes, owing to their secretive nature. Any ship not displaying the correct code pertaining to its type would be fired upon unless it bore a white flag, but then cannons would still be trained on it regardless.

We still had about several hours' more worth of the trip... and nothing much to do. And I wanted to stay in the bridge to watch over the ship. Then again, if I could see the silhouette of the continent now, Sarena would most probably be able to see our silhouette too... maybe it would be better to do it now. "Leviathan, raise the cannons skywards," I instructed.

"Maximum gun elevation is +70 degrees. Proceed?"

"Do it."

I saw the barrels on the turrets shift to point up at the sky - well, just as high as they could go, they couldn't point directly upwards. So where was Clara? Ah, I could see her fixing up some flags on the bow. Gold and red, following the code. Probably got them from the synthesizer - otherwise she wouldn't be able to get them finished that fast.

Maybe I could go to sleep again... but I simply didn't feel like it - I had just taken a nap after all. So what could I do to pass the time? I couldn't really think of anything now... Maybe I could watch over things from inside the control bubble, but I didn't want to tire myself out in it before we reached Sarena. We had a lot of things to do once we arrived anyway, and I wanted to be a part of those things. Just sitting around doing nothing was totally not my style.

But still... I didn't know what to do. Aw heck, maybe I should just try to take another nap...

Wait, where was Aurora? And the other three weapons? I hadn't seen them during the fight with the Paralodon... "Scotty, have you seen Lucia and the others?" I asked. "Yeah. They were sleeping through the fight in the crew quarters. Must've gotten too tired from exploring the ship," he replied. I heaved a sigh of relief. At least they hadn't gotten flung overboard or something... but I still needed to find Aurora.

"Eh, so you were here?"

Never mind.

"So you woke up already? I didn't know," Scotty looked at Aurora, who had just entered the room.

"I woke up before the ship was attacked..."

"Where did you run off to anyway?" I asked.

"Wandering around various parts of the ship. It is... impressive..."

"You never did tell me your name, did you?" Scotty suddenly said. Oh yeah, I had forgotten to tell him about her...

"She's an amnesiac, unfortunately. I gave her a new name - Aurora," I answered the question for her.

"Too bad then. Nice to meet you, Aurora. I'm Scotty!" Scotty smiled. I suddenly felt a bit of a 'pang' in my chest... what was this feeling?

"Nice to meet you..." Aurora replied shyly. Suddenly I felt a little... jealous. I didn't really know why... and there was no reason for me to be jealous either. So why was I jealous?

I turned to look at the radar screen in the bridge, and noticed a few more ships lighting up on it. Pretty normal, considering our proximity to Sarena. Quite a few cargo ships, all of which were scrambling to get out of our way. Hopefully we didn't hit any - if we did, I'd have to pay for the damages... and those ships usually carried very valuable cargo. A few battleships were loitering around the area as well, and they had their cannons aimed our way. Again, no surprise. The Leviathan was simply far too big and too heavily armed for them to take chances, even though we were displaying the code.

"Navy seems to be out in full force today," Scotty remarked, studying the screen closely.

"Maybe it's because the Paralodon attack put them on edge," I suggested.

"Probably. We still have a few more hours to go, so wanna go swim again?"

"Better than lounging around here doing nothing, I guess..."

"I found a few extras for the pool too by the way."

"Like?"

"Hot spring mode."

"I am really starting to like this ship."

"Mama! I wanna go too!" Luticia turned her attention away from the holographic chess game she had been playing on one of the consoles. Why was there even a chess game in the console? Looked like the ship had damn near everything.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"Aaaaand... done!" Scotty walked away from the console at which he had been slaving away for a while. There was a bit of a shudder, but it receded pretty quickly and the light above the entrance to the pool turned green. It opened later to reveal the same room - only with the pool replaced with a natural-looking hot spring. Incredible... it even had grass and rocks all over the place... "Pretty nice way to relax, eh?" Scotty grinned. "Yup!" I walked in to take a better look around.

The moment I stepped in, I felt the steaming heat on my skin... already I was sweating a little - I wasn't used to such heat, but then it wasn't unbearable. Comfortable, rather. I was surprised that Scotty knew my limit... Now, time for a dip in the bath. I let the towel covering my body fall to the ground and stepped into the hot spring naked. Scotty, Aurora and Luticia followed behind, Scotty still with his towel on. "Scotty, did you set everything to suit me?" I asked.

"Sure did. How's it?"

"Lovely!" I threw myself at him the moment he got in the spring, knocking him into the water.

Red liquid bubbled up from below the water's surface. Ah. He wasn't coming back up. "Scotty!" I shouted, diving underneath and pulling his limp body out.

......

"Man... at least watch what you do... you damn near killed me..." Scotty moaned as I fanned him with a fan made out of solidifed shadows.

"Sorry..." I kept my head down. The atmosphere in the changing room was awkward enough already... Luticia and Aurora were trying to find some ice elsewhere in the ship to put on Scotty's head to help cool him down, leaving me here to fan him. We had moved him to the changing room because the hot spring was far too hot for him to recover quickly. I sighed. Scotty would need to take a good long rest later... and we still had 9 hours before reaching Sarena - plenty of time to take a short nap.

"It's fine... at least I'm not dead. Then you'd really have to answer a few questions."

Haha... I really felt responsible for this... damn, I felt tongue-tied. I couldn't seem to come up with anything to answer him...

[ClericLordLeo]

I'll read this.

Just for you.

---------- Post added at 09:31 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:24 PM ----------

I hope you post this fic in many other places as well. It is a pretty decent work and would be such a shame to be left untouched

Keep at it! (I've read to chapter 4)

[Lunasaku]

This is it. I'm going to go back and read the original fic from start to finish sometime, and then feast my eyes on this.

[XxKiraYamatoxX]

At least somebody's commenting. =) Now I don't feel so unnoticed anymore.

Well, here's a new chapter! (Or at least just the title until I get around to updating)

Chapter 12

I ended up spending the rest of the time playing with Luticia in the hot spring, and later we had a bit of fun playing chess on one of the consoles. I beat her every single time though - I had already memorized every single possible move, and could easily anticipate what she would use to try and beat me. Well, it wasn't like I wanted to use it... but those moves kept popping up in my mind the moment she moved a piece. Sometimes I half-wished I didn't have photographic memory. It made things a little unfair...

Besides, all those gory scenes I had seen... I remembered them all down to the smallest possible details. Especially that time when Scotty had first entered his Blood Rage...

"Checkmate!"

Ah, I lost focus. "I wasn't concentrating!" I groaned, eyeing the rook that was now sitting where my king had previously been.

"No excuses, Mama! You taught me that!" Luticia laughed.

I sighed, patting her head gently. Seriously, she was one smart girl. Almost too smart for her age, in fact. "Alright, alright, you little devil. Then how about we go to take a look at the scenery? We still have another 3 hours to Sarena after all. We'll be able to see more of the mainland now."

"You don't want to play more chess?"

"Well... I already beat you every single time-"

"-except for this round."

"I still beat you most of the time. Do you really want to go again?"

"Different game!"

"So what'll it be?"

"Blackjack!"

"Only for a few rounds and no money on the table, ok? I don't want you to grow up to become a ******r."

"Okay!"

"Blackjack selected. The dealer is Traya."

A holographic board appeared over the console, followed by a deck of cards in the middle. It was shuffled and splitted with invisible hands, and two cards were dealt to both of us. Before I could even take my cards to look, Luticia had flipped hers over. "Blackjack!" she cried out. Queen of Hearts and Ace of Spades. I had the 4 of Clubs and the 7 of Hearts. "Lucky you," I frowned as the cards disappeared and the deck reshuffled itself again.

She won another 9 more games. In a row.

"Why am I so unlucky......" I squatted in a corner gloomily.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Sarena looked a lot closer now, and there were even more battleships in the area. Guess the port didn't want to take any chances with the giant vessel now practically charging at them. Well... it looked like it was about time we started to decelerate. "Leviathan, begin deceleration," I instructed, looking at a nearby battleship. The weapons it carried and its hull seemed to have come from Besalia - it looked pretty damn high-tech. I pondered going to Besalia sometime in the future. Might be good to see some new stuff - plus, we could probably get a vehicle or two for the Leviathan. Maybe ship a car back using it. No, wait, that'd be pretty risky.

"Firing reverse thrusters at 10% power. Will decelerate to docking speed over 3 hours. Warning, no dock large enough for the ship to dock. The ship will halt outside the port."

That was only natural... we'd need a specialized dock for something as big as the Leviathan. Sarena was made for handling cargo ships and a few military-grade vessels, but nothing as big as a dreadnought. Let alone a hyper-dreadnought like the Leviathan. Well, at least we had smaller landing ships we could use to make landfall. There was even an armed amphibious hovering transport that could carry a few assault vehicles, but we didn't need it. Sarena's port authority would surely be on edge, and sailing anything armed into the port would probably make things worse. I felt a shudder as the ship's reverse thrusters blared to life to slow down the ship.

"What's the largest unarmed vessel available that we can use to make landfall?" I asked. We'd probably need to take on more crew, so the bigger the transport, the more crew we could bring onboard.

"The Varsis-class cargo ship is the only ship matching those terms."

"Have one ready for launch. We'll be going ashore."

"Affirmative. Flooding forward interior dock and moving Varsis 1 into launch position."

"How many hours until we stop?"

"2 hours."

Then we should get going already. It took a long time just moving through the ship. Luckily the more vital facilities were closer to the ship's centre and were more easily accessible. The forward interior dock, however, was at the very front of the ship. We could use the ones at the side, but it'd be rather inconvenient. "Mama, are we going home?" Luticia looked up at me. "Yeah. We're going home. But first Papa and Mama have important stuff to do, ok? So bear with us for a while."

"Home?" Aurora asked - she had followed us up to the observation deck.

"Yeah. It's a place we go back to. It'll be your home too, until you regain your memories. Hopefully we'll be able to find out where your real home is."

"Thanks..."

"Don't mention it! It's the least we can do to help. Right, Lute?"

"Yeah!"

I turned my attention back to the horizon. I could just barely see the outline of some of Sarena's buildings now. Just barely. I doubted the others could see that far. The distance was far too great to be seen with the naked eye - though mine was an entirely different matter, because of my archer training. Problem was, even I couldn't shoot an arrow far enough to hit targets at the very edge of my sight range. For that, I needed a sniper rifle. And I had my own customized one, but I didn't bring it out unless I felt that I really needed it.

My rifle was a customized Saga X9, a bolt-action sniper rifle made for extreme-long range sniping - up to 1 km if conditions allowed for it. It was pretty damn heavy, and extended the full length of Lucia if she was laid down on a table. The scope allowed me to extend my already-incredible sight range even further, though the weight meant it was a little hard to stabilize. Not that weight was a problem, but the recoil was. If I wasn't rooted firmly enough while firing, the recoil could knock me flat on my back. But the firepower made up for it... plus, it could fire a multitude of different bullets. Including penetrating explosive bullets. It was a one-of-a-kind weapon - only one copy existed, and I had it.

"Come on, let's go to the forward dock. I'd rather not waste any time."

Luticia and Aurora nodded and I walked to the hatch that led down into the ship. I jumped in and slid down the ladder inside to the bridge tower. From here, we'd need to go down a lot of stairs to reach the cargo bay, and from there, we could drive a cart over to the forward dock. That saved quite a bit of time. "Everyone, head to the forward interior dock. We'll be entering the port using a smaller ship," I said as I walked, well aware that the Leviathan would interpret it as a message and broadcast it throughout the ship.

It took about 20 minutes to reach the cargo bay down all the stairs, and it looked like we were the first to arrive. Just being in the cargo bay... made me feel extremely small. The Vanguard sat, unused on a frame in a corner. We wouldn't be using it for a while anyway... it felt like a pity - we had only been in it for a few days at most. A few carts were arranged around the base of the ladder that led up to the ship's centre. They resembled... hovercars with large mechanical arms extending out of their hoods and trunks. Pretty weird, but no doubt effective and made for speed and handling cargo.

I climbed into the driver's seat of one, while Aurora and Luticia took the passenger seats behind me. Almost immediately, the vehicle sprang to life - the vehicle information display lit up with blue, futuristic looking words and I felt a low rumble as the engine started up. Totally silent... must be electrical. Not to mention the seats were comfy as well. I gripped the steering wheel - the car instantly lifted itself into the air on gusts of air generated by a large fan underneath it. When I turned the wheel, it turned on the spot - pretty handy in tight spots where ordinary wheeled cars couldn't make a decent turn.

"Let's go!" I smiled, flooring the accelerator. The car tore through the air like a rocket. It took us a few minutes to reach the massive door to the dock, which opened up as we approached. The brakes automatically engaged, slowing the car to a halt just before it hit the large ship that was now sitting calmly on a submerged bracket holding it in place on the water.

Luticia was cheering, but Aurora looked a little... green. Whoops.

"Be my guest," I indicated the water. She quickly got out of the car and ran to the water. I didn't watch the rest.

But man, this was one big ship... or maybe it was just because it looked big from where we were standing. I guessed it was the size of a battleship - just completely unarmed and made for hauling cargo. I walked around it a bit, and noticed stairs on the side leading up onto the ship's deck, and from there we could enter the ship itself. As I walked into the bridge, the monitors arranged around it came to life along with the large screen over the windscreen. It showed an image of the world outside the Leviathan - Sarena looked very close now.

"Are cargo ships normally this big?" Scotty asked - he had only just arrived together with Clara, Winnie and Sapphira.

"No. Normally they're about two thirds the size of this one... but I guess size is all it's about on the Leviathan," Clara replied.

"Where are the others?" I asked. Ben, Valis, Kyle and the three weapons weren't here yet.

"Right behind you."

I whirled around to see Ben standing behind me, accompanied by the rest of the missing ones. "When did you get here?" I was really surprised.

"Just now. You didn't notice?" Ben blinked. Why was I getting this weird sense of deja vu...? Oh, whatever. At least we were all assembled already.

"ETA to Sarena, 1 hour. Varsis 1, launch when ready."

Clara took the helmsman's station while the others just hung around on the command deck and took whatever seats were free. Lucia, Lynia and Merylynn opted to return to their weapon forms and returned to their usual spots on me though.

"I'm tired from exploring the ship..."

I smiled and rubbed Lucia gently as I watched Scotty take the captain's chair. I just stood beside him and watched the monitor closely.

"Initiating launch sequence. Opening hatch," Clara's fingers moved across a keyboard like lightning - barely slow enough for me to follow. The hatch in front of us opened, causing the water in the dock to surge a little. I could see Sarena's docks from here... there were a lot of people gathered around to watch. "Varsis 1, engines at full speed," Clara said, pulling down a lever. A low rumble started up in the back of the ship as the turbines started up.

"Docking clamps released. Varsis 1, launching!"

A mechanical groan came from under the ship, and I felt it wobble a bit as it settled into the water before sailing out of the Leviathan.

"Operator has left the ship. Leviathan entering standby mode."

I felt a small jolt of electricity that disoriented me, and I stumbled into Valis. "Sorry," I apologised, clutching my head. What was that... I felt like some part of me had been disconnected or something. Maybe it was some side effect of using the control bubble system...

"You ok there?" Lynia asked.

"Fine... I think it's because I left the Leviathan," I replied.

"I don't see how that's related."

"It's a gut feeling."

"Right."

I turned my attention back to the scene unfolding before us. The people around the docks appeared to be clearing a path for someone... no doubt a port official. I had a feeling that things were going to get really awkward...

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

We docked at the docks about half an hour later and dropped our anchor. The crowds were staying back, as if they were afraid to approach our dock. Even the port officials didn't dare to get too close to the ship. Some guts they had... Even some children were more gutsy - they were rubbing their hands across the Varsis's hull. "Scotty, I think we'll have some major explaining to do," I looked at my husband. "You think?" he pointed at a figure in the crowd. Hey... it was the mayor. Guess our entry had attracted more attention than we had initially expected.

"Let's go. We shouldn't keep them waiting," Scotty got up from the captain's chair and left the bridge through the rear door. I followed suit, and so did all the others.

Murmurings arose from the crowd the moment they saw us coming down from the ship. Some of the port officials that knew us relaxed a little, but one we didn't recognize walked towards us at a brisk pace, practically fuming. "Did you know that you need a special permit for these giant military vessels to dock?" he was definitely not happy.

"When we headed out, we didn't even know that we'd come across something this big. And besides, I never knew anything about a permit like that," Scotty said.

"Pardon him, he's a bit straight-laced when it comes to regulations. Not many people know about the permit because we rarely ever have these gigantic ships come... Plus, they're only issued to guilds," one of the friendlier officials said.

"Regulations!? Do you think this is just about regulations!? A military vessel this huge will scare off the trading ships!"

"I don't see any trading ships hanging back," I looked towards the horizon. In fact, those ships were still coming like the Leviathan wasn't even there. Maybe it was because of the code we were showing.

"Gah! There's also the balance of power in the region! People might think we're going to war or something by building this huge monstrosity!"

"Any nation with decent intelligence would know that the ship surfaced in the middle of the ocean before sailing to Sarena. Besides, Sarena doesn't have the resources to build a ship like this," Clara pointed out.

"..." the port official was getting rather red-faced. He stormed off in a fit, followed by a few of his aides. Our win. Hehe.

"There's one thing I want to know though," the port official that had defended us earlier asked, "Are you guys in a guild? Even I can't let you off the hook if you're not in a guild since you have a ship like that..."

"We're going to look for one now."

"I see. Make it fast, because I don't think old Thomas is going to take this lightly. Do you guys need any suggestions for a guild?"

"No, we've already decided. And I take it Thomas is the guy that stormed off earlier," I shook my head.

"Yup. He's the son of the current Minister of Economic Affairs in Sarena. Too much pride in his head, if you ask me. He goes around acting like he's king or something, but kisses his father's feet like a dog when he's around."

"Typical. We'd better get on our way then. Try to keep people away from our landing ship, okay?"

"The big one scares people enough already. Go on, don't let me keep you. And come back with a guild before Thomas does!"

"Thanks!"

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

We had no trouble getting through the mass of people - they parted to let us through. It was 20 minutes to the centre of town at a full sprint, and from there, 5 minutes to the Twilight Brigade's headquarters. It was actually a converted warehouse that now flew the flags of the Twilight Brigade. Obviously it had a few other modifications as well. The main door opened into a bar where the guild members hung out. It was... big. And packed. The patrons stared at us as we entered, but I was used to attracting attention anyway.

"Sorry, but this bar is reserved for members of the Twilight Brigade only..." an attendant told us.

"We're looking to join the Twilight Brigade. Where do we go?" I asked.

"I see... follow me."

She walked to the other side of the room and opened a door there, motioning for us to follow her. We did so, and were soon walking through a pretty modern-looking corridor. With electrical lights, no less... Only a few people were walking around this area, and all gave me curious stares as I passed. Was I still that famous? I thought my reputation would've died down by now...

"Ma'am, we have people looking to join the guild," the attendant knocked on a door that was labelled 'Recruitment Office'.

"Come in, come in. New members are always welcome!"

The attendant opened the door - and boy was I amazed. The office was filled with ornate tapestries, some of which looked VERY pricey. One side of the room was occupied by a long wooden desk, at which a slim female sat. Pictures of famous guild members lined the wall behind that desk, presumably to give a good impression of the guild.

"Well, well... Of all people..." the woman at the desk got a bit of a jump when she saw me.

"Anything wrong?" I asked.

"I wouldn't say it's wrong - it's just that I never expected someone with a reputation like yours to walk in my door. Traya, the Maiden of the Shadows. And your husband, Leon, the Demonslayer, I presume?"

"I thought most people would've forgotten about us by now."

"Believe me, a lot of people remember you. You stopped the demon invasion several years ago. Most of the Twilight Brigade members were in the defense squad fending off the demons that were attacking. They remember you as their savior. Even some of our newer members joined in the hopes that they can become like you! Now, you want to join, right?"

"Yeah. We just recently found a gigantic ship during our travels, and since we're not in a guild, we can't claim ownership of it," I nodded.

"So I heard. News travels fast. We'd be happy to take you on - after all, it's not every day someone like you signs up. Oh, sorry, I forgot to tell you my name. I'm Artemis, and I hold the position of Major in the Twilight Brigade," she stood up and left her desk to shake hands with us.

For a Major, she certainly didn't look like one. Her lithe, busty figure was quite similar to mine, though her silver hair contrasted with my black very differently. It reached her knees as well - in fact, some people might mistake us for twins if not for her face and height - she was shorter than me. Right now, she was wearing light armour made out of some kind of metal that emitted a black shine of sorts - it was open at the top to show her cleavage, and the bottom was like a miniskirt that held two quivers full of arrows. I spotted a black-and-white coloured bow resting on the wall - most probably hers. So she was an archer?

"Which division would you like to join? Since you have a ship like that, you won't be able to join any of the ground-based divisions - the Brigade will want to make full use of your ship."

"What are the sea-based divisions?"

"We operate quite a lot of ships here, enough for 7 battle groups of around 14 ships each. There are 12 sea-based divisions - the 7 battle groups I mentioned and 5 more amphibious assault divisions. But I do have a better idea..."

"Like?"

"The Brigade has a few Special Forces divisions. Normally, new members aren't allowed to join them, but I believe we can make an exception for you, what with your reputation and all. If it's all right with you, I would like you to join my division, the 3rd SF or Avalon Division."

"Is it really fine for us to jump in like that?"

"Would you like some opinions? Some of my subordinates are listening in at the door."

Artemis walked over to the door and opened it. Several men and women fell in the open door, and even more looked in from the corridor, a little surprised by the suddenly-opened door. "So?" she addressed them, putting her hands on her hips. "Do you even need to ask?" one guy said. The others echoed similar opinions.

"There you have it. Of course, it's your opinion that matters. Will you join the Avalon Division?" Artemis held out a hand towards me.

"Scotty, you decide," I nodded at my husband. He nodded back and stared at the hand for a while. It took him less than 10 seconds to decide. "We're looking forward to working with you," he shook the hand. Loud cheers filled the room - even Artemis herself looked like she was about to cry with joy.

"I'll take care of the papers. You guys can show our new members around the place while I do that. And then I'd like to visit your ship if you would allow it," she smiled.

"Of course. Thanks a lot!" I smiled back.

[XxKiraYamatoxX]

Chapter 13

Frankly, the Twilight Brigade's headquarters had some... facilities I had never expected to see. There was a workshop where various equipment were produced, and even a large swimming pool for recreational purposes. Of course, those were for private use only. The bar had its own mission board, but according to one of the members of the Avalon Division, the bigger missions were only given out by commanding officers like Artemis. The division's meeting room was pretty big and fancy - unlike some I saw earlier, which were just plain. I took it as a sign that our division was pretty powerful and well-known.

Overall, the tour of the HQ took around an hour, after which we returned to the recruitment office to look for Artemis. She appeared to be done with all the paperwork already, and was leaning back on her chair, taking a deep breath. She stood up as we entered. "All done. Some of the Brigade's higher-ups want to survey your ship, so we'll have to wait for them to come before we head off."

"Right. Hope Thomas can wait," I sighed.

"Thomas the port official? Nobody in the Brigade's naval divisions like him. He tells us off over every single one of our battleships 'waltzing' right into Sarena's port. Think he has an issue with military vessels or something."

"Really? I thought he came after us only because the Leviathan was far too big," Scotty said.

"Yeah, right. Ask anyone in the naval divisions. Some of our smaller ships have been confiscated before. We had to pull a few strings to get them out of the compound before they got scuttled."

"Sounds tough," Sapphira nodded.

"You bet. Thomas hires mercs to try and take our ships almost every time we land. He never found the guts to openly declare war on us though, and we can't do anything about it because he's the MEA's son."

"I can imagine him trying to board the Leviathan..."

"... crap, I forgot. We'd better hurry, or he might take over your ship and who knows what'll happen next?"

"He can try. I'm the only one who can run the ship," I smiled.

"You run the whole thing by yourself?"

"Ancient technology that's far more advanced than anything we've ever seen. Don't ask me how the system works."

"Sounds like something out of a dream."

"Mmm hmm. Are the higher-ups here yet?" Scotty asked. I could easily tell he was getting a little impatient.

"They will be in a few moments."

"We already are."

A few men and women were standing in the corridor outside. They wore casuals as well - I guess the Brigade didn't place such a big emphasis on dressing up according to ranks. At least it meant I wouldn't need to wear a uniform or anything - I didn't really like those.

"We were quite surprised to hear that you took new members directly into the 3rd SF, but now I see why you did. Welcome to the Twilight Brigade, Traya, Leon and your friends, I presume," a woman said.

"Bit of family in here as well," I smiled, gesturing at Luticia who was staring at a goldfish tank at a wall.

"Ah, I see. Shall we get on to business then? I'm Baron, and the tall man beside me is Geist. The woman with glasses is Yena, and the short one is Maina. We're all Colonels - don't let the attire fool you. The Brigade has never really been that into uniforms - we believe in wearing our own individual armour or clothes. Makes things a lot easier, if you ask me."

"I see..."

"We heard you're taking a ship in. Leviathan, is it? We'd like to take a look at it."

"We'd better hurry before Thomas gets to it," Artemis urged them.

"Right. Old Thomas seems to hold something against us for some reason..." Geist sighed.

"Let's get moving. Wouldn't want to keep him waiting," Ben nodded.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

By the time we got to the docks, it seemed Thomas had already gotten to work. Some of his men had erected a blockade of wires behind Varsis 1, stopping it from leaving port. He himself was nowhere to be seen, although the assortment of battleships now encircling the immobile Leviathan suggested that he should be somewhere nearby, planning something. "That... is one huge ship," I heard one of the colonels comment. "It's heavily armoured, so no need to worry if those ships start shooting," I said, jumping onto Varsis 1. The others followed, with Scotty carrying Luticia up - she couldn't make a jump like that on her own yet.

"I'll deal with the blockade," Scotty ran off to the rear deck while the rest followed me into the bridge. Clara took the helmsman's station quickly - it activated when she got in it. I heard a loud splash coming from behind the ship, and assumed it was Scotty cutting up the blockade. "It's done! Get moving!" I heard him shout - looked like the intercom had automatically activated.

Clara threw the ship into reverse, and so we slowly left the port until we were far enough away to turn around and head back for the Leviathan.

"Operator. Multiple boarding attempts took place while you were away, all of which failed. Recommend immediate return to ship for a defensive battle."

"Heading back now. Thanks for the heads-up," I replied.

"Is that... a computer?" Yena looked surprised.

"Yeah. The Leviathan has a very advanced computer system - almost like an artificial intelligence."

"Interesting... and I assume that those cannon barrels aren't just for show."

"Of course. It can annihilate an entire fleet in a single full salvo."

"Talk about overpowered..." Baron murmured.

"The Leviathan's very slow though, and needs to use boosters to get to battlefields quickly," Clara said.

"I suppose that comes with a ship of this size..." Maina nodded.

"Is there anything else we should know?" Artemis asked.

"The cargo hold can store about 4 aircraft carriers and some smaller ships. The Leviathan itself can transform into a submarine for underwater travel as well."

"It's... almost perfect for special ops..." Artemis gasped.

"Depends. The Leviathan can carry other subs if needed, and generates enough power to keep itself running forever. You'll be able to save on fuel by putting ships inside the Leviathan and using it to transport them. The ship also has its own runway, so it can act as an aircraft carrier as well."

"Yeah... but if the cargo hold is that big, we can use it for other things besides transporting ships."

"Like?"

"I don't know, but imagine the possibilities! We could fit a small army with all the equipment they need!"

"Talk less, fight first. We've been spotted, and two battleships are looking our way!" Clara shouted.

"Traya, Valis, concentrate on sniping those gunners. The rest see what you can do to stop those cannonballs from hitting us!" Scotty shouted, automatically assuming command

"I'll help with those gunners," Artemis took her bow out of its quiver.

"... and we'll deal with the cannonballs," the colonels drew their weapons as well - Geist had a large greatsword, Baron had dual longswords and the two women had staffs. "We're counting on you," Scotty nodded as we all rushed out to take positions on the deck. As I left the bridge, Luticia cheered me on, "Beat them all up, Mama!" I smiled and waved at her as the door closed behind me.

"This is the first time we'll be seeing you fighting, so let's see if you can't impress us," Artemis smiled at me as I stepped up onto the bow of the ship. The Leviathan was already pretty close - it was practically looming before us, but the two battleships in front of us were taking care to move in our way. And these were modern battleships we were talking about, with powerful cannons and armour. They weren't going to go down very easily with the kind of firepower we had, so we would need to do some very careful shooting.

I reached into my pouch and brought out my Saga X9 sniper rifle. It took me all of 5 seconds to get the tripod stand set up and move myself into a kneeling position so I could look down the scope. In order to disable the cannons, my best hope was to fire into their barrels with explosive bullets, timing my shots according to their reload so that I could hit the shells they were going to fire before they could leave the barrel. It wasn't easy - but accuracy was my forte. Nobody else in my party could beat me at it.

I ejected the loaded bullets and reached into my pouch to retrieve a handful of bullets with red tips. I took my eyes off the scope and loaded each explosive bullet in individually, taking great care not to accidentally set them off. Having one blow up in my face could potentially kill me and damage the gun. That would be disastrous in a situation like this...

I listened carefully for the cannon fire, aiming the gun down a barrel of the battleship on the right's front turret. It fired moments later, and I began counting the seconds until it next fired. Beside me, I heard the sound of a heavy blade cutting through the air, and there was a small explosion that was casually deflected by a magical barrier. The cannon fired again exactly 22.3 seconds later. I smiled - now these guys were doomed. I adjusted my aim again and began to count the time. My breathing got a little heavy, so I calmed myself down a little and it returned to normal. At 22.1 seconds, I fired.

The turret blew up in truly spectacular fashion, pelting the bridge of that battleship with debris and shattering its windows. I smiled and turned my attention to the rear turret - these ships only had 2 turrets, on the front and back. I had heard the cannon fire a few milliseconds before the frontal turret was destroyed, so I started counting the time, adding 0.7 milliseconds to my count to make up for the time I hadn't been counting. 21.4 seconds later, the rear turret went up in smoke and I moved the gun to the left to target the battleship there.

In less than a minute, that battleship's turrets were destroyed too, and a few well-placed explosive attacks from all the people on the deck knocked the two battleships out of our way, allowing us to sail right into the Leviathan's frontal interior dock unhindered. As we entered the dock, I felt another small jolt of electricity, but this one seemed to energize me instead of sapping me of a little energy like last time.

"Logged, Operator has returned to the ship."

"Operator?" Artemis was puzzled.

"It's what the ship calls me, because only I can run it."

"Oh."

"Warning, ships around us are opening fire."

"Oh shi-"

The explosions rocked the Leviathan slightly, but I could tell there was no major damage - I felt like some of my senses had been expanded to encompass the ship now - I could feel the damage it took, feel the cool water of the seas beneath me... it was incredible, but at the same time, a little disturbing.

"Let's head to the bridge first. We can get a better view of the field from there," I said.

"You'll have to lead the way, because we don't know the first thing about this place," Artemis smiled at me.

"Right. Follow me," I ran off to the door that opened into the cargo bay. It opened as I approached, allowing our visitors to see the scale of the place. Needless to say, they were speechless, and stayed that way as we drove through the cargo bay using the hovercars. It was only when we reached the ladder that led up to the upper levels of the ship that they began to speak. "This is... amazing..." Baron uttered.

The journey back up to the bridge took a shorter time than expected - mainly because all of us were running at full speed. I wasn't too keen on letting Thomas do whatever he liked with my ship.

When we walked into the bridge, the first thing I did was look up at the platform with the control bubble and execute a jump that took me right up there. I quickly made my armour disappear and then touched the control bubble to get absorbed into it. I felt even more energized this time as the floating screens appeared - I instantly started bringing up the damage reports and camera feeds from all over the ship. The Leviathan was taking next to no damage from all the cannonballs hitting it - thank goodness. There were still a few mercenaries on the ship too, and they were frantically bashing at any doors they could find. I was surprised the battleships around us had opened fire while there were still some of their own on board... Talk about heartless.

I knew I couldn't put on too big a show and destroy the battleships... all I had to do was scare them a little and they would run. The Leviathan had that effect on other ships' crews. But what could I do? I couldn't risk using the turrets - they were far too powerful, and Sarena was uncomfortably close. If I fired at the battleships, the shot would most certainly go right through into the water and could send a tsunami racing towards the port. That wasn't the outcome I wanted.

Then again, the Leviathan was armed with torpedoes. Maybe it would be better to just shoot out the battleships' engines and leave them like that - their attacks were like mosquito bites against the thick armour of the Leviathan anyway. I knew because I could feel it all... and I was feeling a bit itchy all over. Besides, if I blew all the battleships up, Sarena's naval power would suffer pretty hard - those battleships bore her flag. And I didn't want to get on the authorities' bad side.

"Arm 9 torpedoes," I ordered.

Another screen showed the arming of the torpedoes, represented by their icons turning green and indicating their location around the ship. I was surprised to see that they were all already aimed at the surrounding battleships...

"Target their engines. Try to limit the number of casualties."

"Affirmative. Torpedoes firing."

9 separate screens popped up, showing the feed from the torpedoes' cameras as they launched and went right for their respective targets. I felt some explosions shake the water a few moments later and the camera feeds blacked out, leaving behind status reports. All had confirmed hits.

I heaved a sigh of relief and leaned back to take a break. Some of the ships were still firing even though their rear ends were smoking. I wondered how long it would take them to just give up and call for help... I didn't want things to end the bad way - me picking off the mercenaries at long distance using my sniper rifle.

"You can control the whole ship using this thing?"

Ah, it was Artemis. She walked closer to examine the control bubble, but then shrunk back suddenly. "Why... why are you naked?"

Pretty understandable, that question. "Don't ask me. If I try to enter the control bubble while wearing my armour, it just disappears by itself. I guess I'm just meant to be naked in here," I replied.

"That's a bit harsh..." she murmured, and then looked down the ladder that led up here. "Baron, Geist, don't you two dare come up here!" she shouted. Haha...

I had to repeat my explanation when Yena and Maina came up later, and I noticed them frown a little. I couldn't really concentrate on what was going on outside the bubble - most of my attention was focused on all the screens inside after all. It wasn't like I had a choice, since I couldn't turn my eyes away from the screens inside. I just... couldn't, unless the ship was in standby mode. It was like there was some unseen force gluing my eyes to the screens.

Problem was, with all the ruckus going on outside, the ship was stuck in combat mode. I was stuck in here until the cannon fire died down. And at the moment, it was just getting harder. Some of the ships were even using explosive shells now - making me feel a little hot in here. It was still nothing much to be worried about... but I needed a way to neutralize their weaponry so I could get out of here.

All of a sudden, the ships stopped firing.

"What's going on?" Artemis asked, turning her attention towards the large screen in front of the bridge. I started searching around using the ship's sensors - sound, light, infrared, everything. A plump figure shouting on the docks seemed to be the cause... and he was shouting at the battleship with Thomas on it while waving a pair of binoculars angrily. I enlarged the image and put it up on the main screen, enhancing the sound as well.

"Thomas, you get right back here this instant! This is an order, you ungrateful son! Your mother will definitely not like this at all! What will she think if she sees you on some pirate battleship!?"

"Well, well, I never thought I'd see the MEA scolding that S.O.B." Artemis smiled.

"That's the Minister of Economic Affairs?" I asked.

"Yeah. I think you just put Thomas out of business. The Leviathan must've attracted enough attention for him to come out to look, and what does he see? His own son on a battleship opening fire on the Leviathan. I bet he's pissed!" Maina laughed.

The MEA's scolding was getting even more vulgar - he really looked mad. Thomas himself was getting on a small boat and rowing back to shore, his face looking extremely red. Haha, served him right!

I still couldn't get out of the control bubble though. The Leviathan was still flagging the ships around us as hostile, and they were a little too close for comfort, according to the computer. As long as they were around, the ship couldn't return to standby mode. "By the way, Traya, does the Leviathan have anything like... helicopters?" Yena asked.

"Hold on a sec," I brought up a few more camera feeds of the hangar to check. Yeah, there were quite a few sitting in two separate hangars on the back of the ship, one on either engine block. The one on the right carried assault helicopters, while the one on the left had transport helicopters. Weird thing was that they didn't have rotors at all - just cylindrical... engines hanging on their sides. They looked more like... hovercopters than anything.

"What do you need them for?" I asked after a bit of a pause.

"I heard from Clara. The ship can either run on a full crew, or you can handle the whole thing. With the number of facilities on the ship, you people aren't going to be enough to man the whole ship. Essentially, we're thinking about bringing more crew onto the ship. Don't worry, we'll pick the finest among our members-"

Artemis cleared her throat loudly. Yena quickly rephrased her sentence, "-among the 3rd SF's members to come aboard."

I could barely hear Maina snickering behind Yena - but even I was trying to hold back a laugh. Looked like Yena had gotten a little too in over her head.

"Besides that, I'd like to - if it's fine with you - use your ship as the command vessel and headquarters for the 3rd SF. We can fit all our stuff here - heck, all our crew members and other vehicles we use can fit in here. I was already thinking about asking Baron for more barracks space - he's in charge of the HQ's accommodations-related stuff."

"Sure, it's all good. So you need transport helicopters to bring everything on, right? They're in the hangar on the rear left side of the ship."

"You don't really sound surprised."

"You could say that I was expecting this a bit - I mean, the Leviathan easily fits in the role of a command ship. Sorry if I sound a little proud..."

"It's only natural that a ship like this works great as a command ship. No need to apologize for something like that..."

"Haha, thanks."

"Mmm yeah, we'll need a few days to move everything on board. I'm sure all our members will be eager to come onboard - I've been hearing quite a few complaints about the HQ's barracks. Personal stuff. How many people can the Leviathan hold?"

"This ship has enough space to accommodate up to 8 thousand crew members comfortably. Each crew member can be assigned one room where they are able to store personal belongings and assorted memorabilia."

"That's a lot of people. The 3rd SF numbers approximately a thousand though. I guess we won't be getting any more complaints about not enough personal space anymore."

"There's something else, Artemis. Standard Brigade procedure requires any ship above battleship class to have at least a Brigadier General on board to supervise. A ship of this size is going to need a Lieutenant General, maybe higher. And it's up to people higher up our food chain to pick the guy," Maina pointed out

"Actually, I've already taken care of that. Ares is coming."

"You mean... THE Ares!?" Maina gasped.

"Yep. The one that single-handedly held off two hundred giants attacking the mountain city of Gaelia. Regarded as a hero without peer, the Archon."

I had heard about that before... it was sometime after my return from the Shadow World. Ares slaying two hundred giants made my taking down the Shadow King feel easy. He didn't have a single bit of help - whereas I had an entire army to help me back then. And Scotty.

"You don't really need to flaunt your husband like that though. You're exaggerating a bit," Yena sighed.

Husband?

"Artemis, you... how come I never knew of this?" Maina was very surprised.

"I was pretty surprised myself too. One day he just... upped and proposed to me. How could I refuse? We had a simple, small wedding. Ares doesn't like it when he gets too much attention and all the paparazzi come hunting."

"Lucky you, girl... I wish I had a husband like that."

"We've actually been friends since childhood. He just found his path much earlier. He's been holding a sword since he was 4 years old. I took up a bow at 8 years old."

"That's way too young!"

"Says the person who accidentally blew up her first toy magically at 2 years old."

"...I didn't mean to do that."

I left the three women to their bickering and focused my attention back on the surrounding waters. The battleships were slowly being towed away by tugboats - it wouldn't be long before I could leave the control bubble. I heaved a sigh of relief and started looking around for Luticia. She was on the lower level of the bridge, looking out at the scenery together with Scotty and Aurora. Clara was sitting at a console checking status reports, The rest were chatting on the middle level of the bridge. Everything was calm now...

[XxKiraYamatoxX]

Chapter 14

About 10 minutes later, the Leviathan returned to standby mode by itself, allowing me to leave the control bubble. By then, Artemis and the colonels had flown off in some of the transport helicopters. Thankfully the controls were simple enough for them to fly without my help. Now all I had to do... was wait here.

"Mama, are we going home yet?" Luticia tugged at my arm. Oh yeah, I had almost forgotten... The whole move would take a few days - a few days we could spend at home together. "We are, Lute. Where's Papa?" I smiled. "On the observation deck. He said he wanted to look out at the sea..."

"Go look for him and tell him to meet up with me at the transport helicopter hangar," I told Luticia, and then turned to the others, "Any of you guys want to go back with us?"

"Yeah. I think I'm going to move my stuff onto the Leviathan. By the looks of it, we'll be spending more time on it than at home. Might be better for us to move," Clara nodded, getting up from the helmsman's station.

"I agree. Besides, the Leviathan has everything we need to survive and enough room to accommodate everything we have," Valis voiced his opinion. Our mother nodded as well. Kyle and Winnie were discussing something in a corner of the bridge.

"I see your point. I'll ask Scotty about it when he rejoins us," I nodded. Ultimately, Scotty was my husband. I'd follow his decision no matter what - he was our family head and party leader after all.

The rear part of the ship was closer to the bridge compared to the frontal interior port, so we only had to walk there. As we neared the hangar, I heard a faint humming sound coming from underneath us. I was surprised that the engines were this quiet despite their massive power generating capability... normally something like this would deafen an entire town without muffling. That was advanced technology for you, I guess.

Scotty met up with us several minutes later, with Luticia trailing behind him. When I asked him about moving, he thought for a few moments, and then agreed.

"Lute, the Leviathan will be our new home after we come back here, all right?" I bent down to Luticia's eye level.

"Okay!" she smiled. I was surprised she agreed so fast...

"Then it's settled. We'll take one of the bigger ones since we have so much stuff to move," Scotty looked into the hangar. The helicopters in here were all of varying sizes, and were equipped with different tools for different jobs. One had four grappling arms attached to its underside, while another had a pair of larger mechanical arms extending out of its sides. I had to admit, some were a little... freaky. Especially that one with the 8 legs that made it look like a spider... though the question of why a helicopter would need legs was beyond me.

We took one of the basic ones - one equipped with cargo ramps without any legs or whatever. We'd probably scare a few people if we took one of those with arms anyway. Clara climbed into the cockpit while the rest of us stayed in the cargo bay. At least it had nice comfy leather seats.

The helicopter hooked up to a conveyor belt of sorts, which dragged us out of the hangar bay and onto an elevator, where we were then whisked up to the actual launch pad. Clara throttled up the engines and took us into the air. We flew for a few more minutes before we landed in the backyard of our house. Thankfully it was big enough to land in...

"Fly over to our house later," Winnie instructed.

"You too?"

"Yup. I was never really the type to settle down somewhere anyway."

"Great!"

"Just start packing your stuff first!"

Clara lowered the ramp of the helicopter and climbed out of the cockpit herself to help out. All of us walked into the house, going to our respective floors to clear out our rooms.

I felt a bit... reluctant to leave the place behind - I mean, we had lived in it for so long... It held a lot of happy memories - Luticia playing in the garden as a baby... the entire household laughing over jokes at dinner time... the warm embraces Scotty and I shared just before going to bed...

"It's easy to talk about moving, but... we just seem so reluctant to move out when the time comes. Talk about ironic," Scotty smiled, patting my back.

"Yeah... but then there's no point getting all sentimental about it. All we have to do is make even more happy memories while we live on the Leviathan, right? Besides, we'll finally be able to stay together all the time. And I'll be able to remember this very room as clear as day. I'll never be able to forget the place," I nodded.

I wiped a few tears off my cheeks and sat down on the bed for a moment. We couldn't take some of the furniture in here, so all we could do was leave it behind. The stuff we'd be bringing along would mostly consist of important stuff like our weapons lockers, armour lockers, some documents and memorabilia like photographs or valuables. Like that huge painting that hung in the family room. I knew that one was worth quite a bit... None of us were willing to part with it.

Come to think of it, I still had a few weapons stowed away inside our locker. I got off the bed and knelt down beside the side table on the right side of the bed and opened it up. A compact locker was inside - I just put my hand on it and it opened by itself to reveal a very large stash of weapons inside that seemed to occupy a much larger space than the locker was supposed to.

I reached a hand in and withdrew two black wristguards. They looked like wristguards, but they actually concealed small retractable blades inside. They were pretty useful when I needed them, but I actually kept forgetting to put them on after Valis bought them for me. As such, they still looked pretty damn new. Even the mechanism inside that controlled the retractable blades was still bright and shiny - no rust or anything at all. I slid the wristguards onto my wrists and buckled them tight - my existing gloves instantly melded with the wristguards, absorbing them into my current set of armour.

I lifted up my right arm and flexed my hand hard. The retractable blade slid out silently, and then retracted back in again. Still worked like a charm. It'd work really well for those stealth missions... and I seemed to get quite a lot of those. I rummaged in the locker again, looking for another weapon. The one I got out this time was a pair of handguns. I twirled them about my fingers and tried aiming them at the window. "Bam," I pulled the triggers. Nothing happened - the guns weren't loaded.

"I've been meaning to ask you, but don't you feel a little too heavy carrying all those weapons around?" Scotty asked.

"It's actually fine, I can carry them all without a problem. Besides, I'm a Weaponmistress. What do you expect?" I put the handguns back in their holsters and buckled them around my waist. The holsters' belts disappeared, melding into my body, leaving just the holsters behind, apparently just stuck on my hips like that. Indeed, I couldn't remove them now.

The next weapon to join my arsenal was a whip. It'd come in pretty handy for attacking around corners - and I was often in situations where doing that could save me. It wasn't any ordinary whip though. I had it custom-designed and made to my own specifications only recently. This particular whip was heavier and bigger than other whips, but contained a little bit of magic that decreased its weight. The magic automatically disabled itself mid-swing and reactivated when the whip was at rest, allowing the whip to hit for maximum power, but still stay light enough to be carried.

Of course, it was still heavy even with the magic activated. I felt part of my skin start to sag when I fused the clasp to my waist. It returned to normal after a while, and didn't sag anymore. My Saga X9 sniper rifle now hung on my back. It was a little more convenient carrying it around like this - the weight didn't really seem to matter.

"Scotty, do you have anything you'd like to take out?" I turned to my husband. The extra weight of my expanded arsenal was easily bearable. I'd only have trouble if I added like... 4 or 5 more new weapons. "Nope. Let's just carry the weapon locker out first. I'll bring the heavy stuff down," he shook his head. "I wanna help!" Luticia raised her hand.

"Then help Mama pack our clothes into boxes, all right? We'll take everything aboard the Leviathan."

Scotty reached into the drawer and pressed a small button. I heard a small hiss as the locker came loose, allowing Scotty to pull it out. The opening was pretty small, so those large weapons like hammers wouldn't fit inside. Others could though, and the locker could store a LOT of smaller weapons. Our armour locker was hidden in the wall, and it used the same space enhancement magic as the weapon locker. Just that the opening was bigger so we could fit Scotty's huge armour pieces inside individually. I didn't have anything in there - I couldn't wear any armour other than the one I had on now.

"After we stow everything back on the Leviathan, why don't we go take a quest? It'll take a pretty long time to get everything in order back on it," Scotty suggested.

"Yeah, sure. Should we bring the others along?"

"No. Let's just go on this one as a family. Lute, you know how to handle handguns, right?"

"I can tag a bee at 150 metres!" our daughter bragged.

"Good. It wouldn't do for you to be only sniping when we're fighting."

"But what quest are we going to take? I don't want to bring Lute along into some dangerous area."

"It'll be fine. I got a special offer the other day. It's an exploration quest - the ruins that were just recently uncovered to the north. The archeologists want me to help check it out before they head in."

"Sounds good. We can protect Lute more easily like that."

"Yay!"

"In that case, why don't you let us handle moving your stuff?"

Ah, Sapphira and Valis were standing in the doorway. "Are you fine with not going?" I asked. "Yeah. You three need to spend some quality time together as a family anyway," Sapphira smiled. "Thanks, mum!" I ran to her and hugged her tight.

"You've packed everything already, right?" Valis asked.

"Yeah. The clothes are in boxes, and our lockers are ready to be moved. The rest of the documents are with us. I don't think there's anything left."

"Right. You don't need the furniture, right?"

"Yup," I nodded.

"Just go and have fun, you youngsters," Sapphira patted Scotty on the back.

"Okay," he replied with a big wide smile.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

It was half an hour to the ruins on Reena - they weren't really that far away and Reena could easily carry three people. I was sitting at the very front, maintaining the speed cone Shadow Barrier that also kept our hair from getting all swept up. Luticia sat between Scotty and me. We just spent the time on the way checking our weapons - me, more so because I had so many. I had to check the magazine of each of my guns and take them apart and reassemble them to make sure they didn't jam while in combat. And that was very hard to do while flying.

Reena took us down in a clearing in the middle of a lush green forest - we had no other landing spot. It was only a few minutes' walk away anyway. Within 5 minutes, we had arrived at the ruins. Well, at least the entrance to it. The actual ruins were underground - the entrance was in the side of a small hill, a tunnel that led downwards steeply. It was totally overgrown with tree roots, and I got stuck in the already-cramped tunnel VERY often...

"Help," I sighed. Yup... I had gotten stuck again trying to crawl through a gap between a tree root and the ground. It was my breasts this time. Sometimes they were a bit inconvenient... but what could I do about them? "Oh geez..." I heard Scotty moan behind me. I quickly put up a Shadow Barrier around my butt, but he still managed to shatter it as he slammed the flat edge of his greatsword at it. I ended up flying out of the gap, although I managed to stop myself before I hit another tree root.

"Maybe you need to go for some slimming down," Scotty remarked as he crawled through easily - his armour didn't get in the way as much as my body did, and he could slide his greatsword through the gaps before crawling through. The tunnel had a strange, musty smell about it. Not only that, I could sense... something beneath us. I couldn't tell what it was - I just knew there was something there. All I could tell was that it wasn't a living creature.

"Slimming down won't help," I shot him down. Yeah, I had tried using magic once, but Sapphira explained that succubi couldn't reduce their bust size. If the bust grew physically or magically, then it was a one-way trip. No amount of magic or machinery could make it shrink back to normal size - only make it look smaller. Same with the hips. I suppose that was one of the quirks that came with having succubus blood in me.

"Right. Let's just go and hope you don't get stuck anymore."

"Uhuh."

"Mama is too big!"

"Don't be so disrespectful, Lute..."

"Okay..."

Even Luticia was beginning to comment on stuff like that... oh boy. Guess she really was growing. Then again, she'd probably be my size in about 10 years or so, at the rate she was growing.

The tunnel changed shape from a steep slope to a spiral downwards curve that eventually flattened off into a more level slope. Problem was... this one was even smaller than before. The tree roots here were more concentrated. More often than none, we had to cut through the roots instead of crawling under them. And in this part of the tunnel, I ALWAYS got stuck when crawling under the roots. Scotty eventually resorted to just cutting up the roots in our way to avoid having to bash me out from under the tree root.

It was several minutes later that I started feeling a strange... presence. Again, the feeling wasn't something I could explain. Scotty and Luticia said they couldn't feel anything when I asked them about it, so was it possible that it was just my imagination? After all, we hadn't encountered any monsters of any sort on our way down. Our only enemies were the stupid tree roots. But then again, why were there so many roots down here? Normal trees didn't grow this far down. It was... unnatural.

But to heck with it, there was always something unnatural when magic was involved. Maybe the trees had tapped into some kind of incredibly powerful source of mana. Yeah... that was probably it... it would explain the sense of something beneath us - lifeforms that lived off mana always gave out something like that. Pure mana on its own could kill people, but some creatures had adapted to it and used pure mana to fuel their daily ventures. Like the Frostfall Wyrm that we had encountered once before. Wyrms were extremely old dragons, perhaps even several millenia old. They were thought to be legends, but us hunters knew far better than that. Anyone that went after one came back in a body bag. Our Frostfall Wyrm? We had miraculously drawn.

The Frostfall Wyrm was capable of synthesizing its own mana. Pure mana, to be exact. Pure mana enhanced many traditional magical attacks - but even the fabled mage hero Aeternia from the past could only control a little bit at a time. Even then, his attacks reportedly doubled in strength - his magical bolts became like super high-explosive darts, and his regular Flood spell turned into a Tsunami. Now, the most powerful mage in the world was given the title of Aeternia, after the ancient hero. We knew the current one, and even he had trouble controlling pure mana.

I wondered if it was possible... trees growing off naturally-occurring pure mana. Only one way to find out... and maybe I had just found a shortcut.

Several long, thin roots were snaking out of the ground under me.

"Traya! Look out!" Scotty cried out. Problem was, I couldn't move. It was like I was... paralyzed. All I could do was stare at the ground as all the roots coiled around my body... and pulled me down into the earth, which parted way to let me through... talk about an impromptu welcome.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

A strange sound I hadn't expected to hear in the depths of the planet woke me up... the cries of unknown birds. I was lying face-up in a pile of branches and leaves, and there were several large trees growing up above me. Guess they had broken my fall... but the question was why was there sunlight in here? The ceiling of the cavern was shining rather brightly, imitating the light of the sun. The larger plants in this place had leaves, followed by another section of trunk inside the ceiling with roots there... so that was why there were so many roots up above.

The air was surprisingly fresh in here, even though I was quite deep underground. I climbed to my feet and noticed that my armour had disappeared... somehow. When I tried to use my magic to resummon it, I found that I couldn't control my mana at all. Was there a magic-blocking field in the cavern or something? The cavern was incredibly large though - and it even had everything animals needed to survive. I wouldn't be surprised if I ran into some new species in here.

Scotty and Luticia were nowhere to be seen - perhaps navigating the tunnel network up above. I sighed. Hopefully I could meet up with them soon. Maybe they had already found a way into this cavern and were looking for me already... I had to keep moving. Problem was, I was now weaponless since all my weapons served as part of my armour when I didn't have them out. So now they were inside me along with my armour. If it came down to it, I could kick pretty hard though. But I was defenseless and unarmed. Not a good state to be in while stuck in an unknown region.

I was rather thirsty at the moment... so I put my ears to the ground to try and listen for any nearby sources of water. Nothing. Felt like the soil here was packed too dense for my hearing to work here. No other choice, I could only wander the forest aimlessly. I was just about to take another step away when I noticed a strange... fruit lying on the ground. It actually looked like a flower, but upon closer examination, I could see that it was much fleshier and juicier than any flower I had ever seen. Was it poisonous...? Not that getting poisoned would bother me - I could recover myself pretty easily. No harm in eating it, then.

The fruit seemed to melt in my mouth as I ate it... the flavour was so delicious that I started looking around for any other fruits of the same kind. No luck - it looked like the only one in the area I was in. I finished the fruit within a minute and sat back for a moment to look up at the ceiling, my thirst quenched. It seemed so peaceful here... maybe we could retire here someday if possible. Clear up the tunnel, reinforce it with steel or something so that the roots couldn't penetrate. Then it'd be much easier getting down here.

I suddenly started feeling itchy in some parts of my body... and when I looked down, I saw... ridges forming all over my breasts and hips. They eventually emerged through my skin - apparently not even damaging it... The ridges turned out to be green vines, and quickly grew to cover my right underbust and my crotch, leaving the rest... exposed. What was this? "Mmmm..." I whispered, feeling weak all of a sudden. The vines around my right breast suddenly grew three milky-white flowers that plastered themselves to my skin before fusing together to form a similarly-coloured membrane over my skin.

Yet another vine snaked out of my back, just above my butt. This one coiled once lazily around my waist and went back into my body in my bosom. Was this... some kind of plant armour or something? I took a deep breath and tried to focus myself... but lost it for a bit as something grew out of my bosom. Looking down, I could see that it was a strange, teardrop-shaped white fruit. I plucked it from my bosom and examined it for a moment. It didn't seem to be harmful in any way... so I decided to try and eat it.

Turned out that this fruit was very sweet - even the juice was thick and white. It made me feel a little uncomfortable thinking about the origin... bleh. Still... maybe it could help me stay hydrated as I walked around the place. And it was better having some form of armour instead of being totally naked.

"Who's there?" I whirled around. There was someone behind me...

"Huh? I thought we were the only humans here."

Another naked young woman stood behind me, wielding a rough bow fashioned out of wood. Well, she'd be naked if not for the plant covering her in the same fashion as mine... only hers was different. Hers looked like a cactus, and covered her bust and hips in a skin-coloured spiky membrane. "Who're you?" I asked.

"Orina. I'm a member of the archeological team sent to investigate the ruins. I suppose you ended up here the same way we did - dragged into the earth by the plants?"

"Yeah."

"Now, who are you?"

"I'm Traya, a hunter sent to explore the ruins."

"They covered it up, huh... typical. We were the first team sent in, but from what you said, our bosses decided to cover up our... 'disappearance'. Geez."

"So do you have any idea how to get out of here?"

"None. We've been stuck here for days, surviving on all the fruits out here. So you ate one as well?"

"Seems like you know something."

"Only from what I've heard from the team leader. The fruits are symbiotic organisms that find a host, then they grow into plants inside the host. They're not parasitic, mind. Instead, they actually... fertilize the host's body in a sense."

"So am I going to get pregnant again?"

"Nope. It's like what fertilizer does for plants - make them grow. Believe it or not, I'm 16 years old."

"Seriously? You look like a 21 year old!"

"Well, yeah. The plants make your body grow faster, and release the natural growth limit for those who have already reached it. You don't age though, your body just... grows."

"Is there anything else I should know?"

"Some of the plants have other special effects. Take the cactus I got for instance. I don't think I can find a boyfriend like this."

"Ouch."

"Yeah. Our team leader has the exact same plant as you, and she actually got her leg muscles enhanced. She was already an incredible runner, and that plant just made her even faster. But one of our other members has the same plant too, but hers gave her the ability to sense things moving all around her. She was an expert tracker before she joined our team. The leader thinks it enhances the strongest ability of the host, although it doesn't appear to work on guys."

"My strongest ability..." I murmured. That would probably be my... sex appeal.

"That plant also appears to be able to store the enhanced ability of the host in its fruits. If the host eats it, the ability is further improved depending on the quality of the fruit. If other people with the same plant eat it, the ability spread to the other person as well. And if someone without a plant eats it... well, yeah, it reproduces, but with a different ability."

Uhoh.

"By the way, you look like you have some serious quality fruits there."

I looked down. The fruits were actually growing out of my exposed breast this time, and they were nice and fat... not only that, they were growing very quickly.

"The fruits differ depending on the host, so it's hard to classify them using the fruits. We can only figure out the effects after eating the fruits."

"Is there anything else I should know about this place? I think I know enough about the fruit."

"Well... there are plant-monsters running rampant around here. They just look like plant-ified surface monsters with a few additions, or some are just plants."

"Example?"

"That giant bug behind you."

I whirled around to see... what appeared to resemble a bee. It looked very different though... the wings were replaced by flower petals and the abdominal area looked like a pitcher plant with a cactus spike attached to it. Moments later, an arrow flew through the head and it dropped to the ground.

"The local creatures drop fruits as well that can give you certain effects. That bee? Its fruit has a very unique effect. You wanna try it?"

I walked over to the carcass and carefully examined it.

"It's inside the abdomen."

I carefully pried open the abdomen. Indeed, there was a golden-coloured fruit in the shape of the bee's abdomen inside. I popped it into my mouth. It was sweet... like honey...

"It only works for women, again. It changes most of the liquids you produce to have the texture and taste of honey."

As if responding to the statement, the previously-milky white coloured membrane around my right underbust changed to become a golden-coloured one. Same with the fruits already growing out of me. "Nice effect, but aren't you bothered by it?" I shuffled a little uncomfortably.

"Ummm, not really. My plant can't bear fruit anyway."

"Lucky you..."

"It looks like it lasts forever by the way. I think I'd better take you to our camp. It's safer there."

"Beats standing out here waiting to be attacked."

[XxKiraYamatoxX]

Chapter 15

The team's camp wasn't too far away, and we didn't really encounter anything dangerous. Just more plant-bees and a few harmless plant-frogs. Thalia, the woman who had found me, explained that the strongest ones they had encountered were plant-bulls and plant-tigers. I wondered how the plant-animal hybrid monsters came to be...

The camp was a pretty simple one - a makeshift tent made out of plant leaves and wood sited in the middle of a clearing. No campfire, surprisingly. The team members were just sitting around studying the local flora. "Welcome back, Thal. I have to admit, I'm surprised to see another human besides us here," a woman stood up to greet us. The plant covering her appeared to be the same type as mine - just with better coverage compared to mine. She stood slightly taller than me, but she carried an air of... authority. Must be the team leader. "I'm Lana, the team leader of this expedition. I suppose Thal told you about the circumstances we're in right now?"

"Yeah. I'm a hunter, I was sent here to explore the ruins up above. In the end, I ended up down here with you guys."

"Typical company. Well, I guess we'll be hanging around a lot. What's your name?"

"I'm Traya."

Lana paused for a moment. As she did, I noticed a strange mark on her waist. It was... the emblem of the Twilight Brigade! "You mean... you're THE Traya? The Shadow Maiden?"

"Yeah. And you're from the Twilight Brigade?"

"My, it's an honour to meet you. And yes, I'm from the Twilight Brigade."

"Never thought I'd see another member here."

"You joined us? I... can't say how honoured I am... I mean, I'm a big fan of yours!"

"Wasn't aware I had a fan club."

"Now you know. I'd ask for your autograph, but I don't think any of us has a pen or anything. We lost all our supplies when we were dragged down here, even our weapons."

"I still have my armour, but only because it's special. I can't use it for some reason."

"Your magic's sealed when you get dragged down here. See Caine over there? He's miffed by the fact that he can't use his magic anymore."

Lana gestured towards a man sitting on a log nearby. I had to admit... the guys looked like their plants were way better off, covering more.

"So what should we do now?" I asked.

"Can't do much, except hope for rescue. Maybe they'll hire more hunters. We really need hunters right now - we barely staved off the last plant-boar attack."

"My husband and daughter should still be up there. They weren't dragged down with me, and they know better than to get caught in the same trap twice."

"Good then. Let's just hope they get here quickly. We can't last much longer with our current weaponry - you see, most of these weapons are only crudely-made since we don't have the right tools or materials. Can you fight without a weapon?"

"I'm a Weaponmistress. I can use anything to fight."

"Never knew that. Oh well, maybe I'm just too outdated on the current news. Been stuck down here for about a week. Can't tell how long it's been because it's always afternoon here."

"What do you guys survive on anyway if there's no food?"

"Just eat whatever we can get our hands on. Usually our own fruits. They only increase your abilities up to a certain limit. Of course, some are pretty bad if we overdose. Worst one we've seen so far is Cecilia - her breasts turned golden because she ate too much of the honey fruit."

"What other fruits are there here?"

"The plant-boars give you fruits that make you furry. You've seen the effect of plant-bees, plant-tigers make you grow tiger ears, and plant-bulls make you grow horns. Only the plant-bee's effect is permanent - the rest are only temporary. We've actually seen a plant-dragon somewhere, but we never got around to taking it down because it looks too powerful."

"Sounds hard."

"Yup..." Lana suddenly whirled around and looked at one of the other team members. Her plant was similar to Lana's... probably the tracker. She pointed off into the forest. "Looks like we have company," Lana ran into the tent and came back out with another makeshift bow and several arrows. The others followed suit. I looked around for anything I could use as a weapon, but the closest was a long stick of a bamboo-like plant... maybe a spear. I picked it up and walked over to join the others.

Moments later, a few plant-snakes burst into the clearing only to be killed by the first volley of arrows. A... gigantic plant-scorpion surfaced out of the ground moments later. The team's wooden arrows bounced off its shell, so I ran in close and leapt high up into the air above it. It looked up at me, apparently ignoring the rest of the team... and I hugged the makeshift spear with my whole weight on the way down, driving it into the monster's body. It instantly collapsed.

"For a moment I thought we'd be dead meat... thanks a lot," Lana heaved a sigh of relief.

"No problem," I smiled, turning to look at the plant-scorpion. One of the male team members was picking it apart, while others were working on the plant-snakes. Soon, they managed to get the fruits out. The snakes' one resembled extremely long beans, while the scorpion's looked like a link of sausages.

"Here," the guy tossed me the scorpion's fruit. I grabbed it and stared at it for a moment. It looked... oddly delicious. "But is it okay to eat it?" I looked at Lana. "We take whatever we can get. Not like we have much of a choice - our plants don't bear fruit as often. But yours is different for some reason..." she replied.

I looked down. A lot of those golden-coloured teardrop fruits were hanging on my left underbust now. "Mind if I try one?" Lana asked. "Go ahead," I plucked the biggest one I could find and tossed it at her. She took a bite out of it, paused, and then popped the whole thing into her mouth. "Delicious," she smacked her lips.

"By the way, are you going to eat that or not?" Thalia pointed at the scorpion's fruit I was holding. I hesitated for a moment, and then bit off one of the sections. Hey... it actually tasted a bit like meat. I finished it very quickly and sat down to rest. Next thing I knew, there was a scorpion tail growing out of my back. I could even move it around like it was my own tail...

The others were still munching on the snake fruits because they were so long. Thalia passed me one of the extras, and I took another bite out of it. This one was... a bit sour. Not too sour though. I finished at about the same time as the others, even though I had started later - maybe because I was used to eating fast. It helped me get back on the battlefield earlier. "Mmm, weird effect," Lana studied her abdomen and bust. Both now... had gained the texture and colour of the belly of a snake. So had mine. It was even as slippery as it should be...

"Well, just hope it wears off quickly. By the way, just to let you know, it looks like only plant fruits will become armour. If the fruit's from a plant-ified animal, it will definitely change the body in one way or the other," Lana said.

I studied my current scorpion tail again. Strangely, it wasn't plant-like like the one on the scorpion itself. This was a flesh-and-shell scorpion tail. I tried sticking it into a nearby log, and I felt something leave my body. A dense golden liquid oozed out of the hole my sting left behind... honey. What, no poison? I sighed and sat down. What would Scotty think if he saw me like this? I sighed again and stood up, spinning around to kick one of those giant plant-bees that had attempted to sneak up on me. It collapsed and broke apart, leaving behind the golden fruit. Well... what harm could just one more do? That team member that had overdosed had probably eaten dozens.

After I finished eating it, the membrane around my right underbust turned an even richer-looking shade of gold, and so did my fruits. My entire left breast was covered in those fruits now, and it didn't look like any more were growing.

"Traya, we're going out hunting for food. Wanna come along? You'll be a really big help to us, I'm sure of it," Lana approached me again.

"Sure. I don't think I have anything better to do here anyway," I shrugged and stood up. As I did, I noticed something odd - my tummy was actually curved inwards instead of being perfectly flat. Was it my plant taking effect?

"I'll introduce you to the team first. You know Thalia already - she's an apprentice. Caine's our quartermaster - he handles all the supplies. Not that he has any to handle now. Cecilia's our tracker. She has a really good sense of smell and sight, and she's skilled in the hunt - and now thanks to that plant, she can sense anything within a hundred metres. Cody over there is my assistant archeologist and there's also the brother-sister pair over there, Reika and Ralstan. They're both natural fighters with an interest in geology."

"Pretty good team you have here."

"I took care to hire only people who can fight. Nowadays, most companies skimp on bodyguards and just claim they're not involved when something goes wrong."

"Sounds harsh."

"You bet. Let's head out."

I picked up the makeshift spear lying beside me and walked off to follow Lana as she walked off into the forest. The rest of the team followed behind, armed with various makeshift weapons. Cecilia, Reika and Sakura had bows, whereas Cody had an apparently homemade greatsword made from sharpened pieces of bamboo tied together on a simple wooden frame. Ralstan had a bamboo spear longer than mine and Lana herself carried a sharpened bamboo longsword. Too bad we couldn't use magic, or else we'd have a complete team. Caine only followed behind, marking the route we had taken by using a sharp knife made out of bamboo again.

The very first monster we encountered was yet another plant-bee. It went down very easily, and Lana passed the fruit around the party. Nobody seemed to want it, so I took it. And again, my plant and fruits turned an even richer shade of gold. The membrane around my right underbust also expanded slightly. "Those bees are so common that most of the team is getting sick of their fruits," Lana explained.

My first kill was a medium-sized ant-like monster, but the abdomen was swelled up in a different colour compared to the rest of its body and it didn't have any pincers on the mouth. AND it had an extremely hard shell. When I cut it open, I found an oval-shaped red fruit inside. It was a little sour, and I ended up with a dark red shell growing out of my sides after finishing it. Pretty solid too, but in a rather useless place.

We soon came across a huge clearing - this one had a large lake in it, with the water apparently just welling up from beneath the earth. It wasn't hot though. "No fish by the way. Only reptiles and a few amphibians," Lana said, walking to the side of the lake and peering into the water. I felt a strange buzzing at the base of my neck... uhoh. "Look out!" I ran into her and knocked her over as a large head burst out of the water, narrowly missing us.

The both of us scrambled to get out of the way as a... gigantic sea serpent leapt out of the water, apparently pissed that it had missed its meal. The others seemed a little too surprised to react, until Lana yelled, "What are you guys waiting for!?" The women started shooting immediately while the men ran forward, yelling battle cries. Save for Caine - he was hiding in the forest.

This sea serpent was of course a plant-ified one, but it resembled nothing I'd ever seen before... The body structure looked like a dragon's, but upon closer examination, I could see a series of small fins on the side of the body. The head was distinctively draconic, although the tail sported a normal fin like any other sea serpent. To be honest, it looked... ancient.

The creature somehow managed to deflect all the arrows directed at it by swinging its tail around. When the men got within striking distance, they found that their weapons only bounced off the thing's shell. I guess that came with makeshift wooden weapons... Since it didn't look like penetrating weapons would work, maybe I could try to fashion some kind of impact weapon. I could reuse my bamboo stick as the shaft... but I still needed a big mass of something.

Come to think of it, the ground was rather hard in some places. The earth was compacted very tightly, I assumed. Maybe it would work... I tried walking around for a bit and feeling the earth very carefully. Once I found a bit of hard earth with some softer parts around it, I jumped up in the air and brought my bamboo spear down into the earth. Fortunately it didn't snap - the bamboo was very tough and hard. I bent down and heaped more earth around the bamboo to make sure the earth would stuck tight when I pulled it out.

And pull it out I did. The resulting makeshift mace's earthen head was about the size of my torso, but it was light enough for me to swing around, at least. I hit the ground a few times to flatten one side so that I could use it like a warhammer before turning and charging back towards the serpent.

The team was still having trouble with it, so I just performed another super-high leap into the air and came back down on top of the serpent. My makeshift hammer hit it in the head, and inertia carried it and the head down until the head was completely flattened. The serpent's body instantly went limp.

"I guess we owe you twice now... sorry to trouble you so much."

"It's fine, it's fine. For now, we just need to make sure all of us make it through, right?"

"Right... You can have the fruit. It's the least we can do."

I left the hammer on the ground and walked to the creature's plant belly. It was surprisingly soft, and was easily ripped apart. Inside, I found a fruit the size and shape of a watermelon, but with incredibly soft skin. I took a bite out of it and found that... it was just liquid inside. When I bit into it, all the liquid just drained out of the fruit and entered my body of its own will. The skin itself followed in, but surprisingly it didn't lodge in my throat. Though it made me collapse and start coughing really badly.

Most of my skin actually changed to become blue and scaly - my back, hips and neck, even part of my face. My scorpion tail disconnected itself and disappeared, to be replaced by a large blue scaly tail. Even my feet grew a bit larger and became webbed, and so did my hands... the snakeskin on my abdomen and bust also became even slipperier than before and even expanded up to the front part of my neck. The red shell on my sides also disappeared and my spine grew out the back of my body, making me appear to have two bony ridges on my back.

"That's... the most drastic change I've ever seen," Lana gasped.

"Tell... me... about it..." I groaned. I was seriously hoping to get out of this nightmarish place now.

As I stood back up, I noticed that my body shape was a little different now. My hips seemed to arch backwards further, and my torso's normal position was shifted forward a little, while my body from my waist upwards seemed to bend backwards. It made my hips and bust look bigger... Besides that, the plant on me seemed to have grown - the membrane on my bust covered the nipple now, and the vine covering my crotch had flowered as well, so now there was another membrane covering it.

"I'll have to study you later..." Lana murmured.

"Don't make it sound like I have to sit in a lab while you take samples of me..."

"I haven't seen anything like this before, so I'm not even sure if you'll change back. Just hope you do."

"Yeah..."

My new tail made walking a little awkward. It was a little too big and hefty... and I wasn't used to my webbed legs. But maybe I could find something in the water... "I'll dive and see what I can find in the lake. Can you guys wait for me?" I turned to the rest of the team. "Sure. Oh, and incidentally, what's the ability the plant gave you?" Lana asked. "Most probably... sex appeal. I'm pretty sure that's my strongest trait," I shrugged, turning back to the water and jumping in, leaving her behind to think over what she had done earlier.

Thankfully I could breathe underwater when I was like this... I couldn't use my Siren form here either, and without it, I couldn't breathe underwater. The water here was actually quite clear... I could see quite far in it. There were other creatures here as well, mostly giant plant-sharks and a few smaller plant-sea serpents. I found it much easier to swim in this form - even my Siren form couldn't match this speed and maneuverability. I swam over to one of the sharks and coiled my tail around it before it could react and crushed its neck.

Another one came at me from behind, but I swung my tail at it and hit the head, stunning it briefly. I used the chance to bite into its head. The shark went limp... but I was a little appalled by what I had just done. It felt like some of the serpent's instincts had transferred over to me... and just killing these two sharks made me feel... good. I turned my attention to the rest of the sharks here. Within the minute, I had killed about 6 more sharks and the rest had fled. I looked at my hands and saw that there was a blue stigma of sorts glowing on them. The stigma seemed to extend all over my body, and the glow got weaker as I calmed down.

But for now, I swam over to one of the dead sharks and started biting off the skin at the abdomen. It was strangely easy for me to do this biting stuff... it came to me instinctively, and I even had the sharp teeth to boot. Well, I felt like my teeth only got sharp like this when I was fighting or eating. The fruit from the sharks was bean-shaped and blue in colour. I downed it in a single gulp and waited for the effect to kick in.

Nothing happened though. The only difference was that my stomach got filled up a little more. I sighed and swam around, salvaging the fruits from the carcasses of the dead plant-sharks.

Within 5 minutes, I was back on land with all the fruits I could get. Surprisingly, when Lana decided to test one of the fruits, she ended up with a shark fin growing out of her back. And it seemed my fruit was starting to take effect as well - she was distinctively... wider now. So was I, but only slightly. "Did you feel anything strange while you were down there?" she asked. I was a bit afraid to admit it... but at least I could control myself around them. "Hunting rage. I got a bit high in combat," I admitted.

"We didn't see that in the serpent just now," Lana frowned.

"Can you think about any explanation?"

"I'd say it's possible that the fruits from monsters impart part of their DNA onto anyone eating them, although they can't gain the special effects themselves. Maybe the stronger the monster, the more dominant the DNA. It'd explain your drastic transformation."

"I'm more interested in knowing whether I'll turn back or not..."

"You should. The only ones that are permanent are from the plant-bees for some reason, as far as we know."

"Let's hope we don't accidentally eat a permanent one that'll give us weird effects."

"By the way, I just discovered another effect of our plants. They actually... enhance the effects of fruits that we eat. They'll last longer and have a more powerful effect on us."

"You just discovered that now?"

"Yeah. I didn't really have the time to examine it closely until now."

"I see..." I looked around the forest. Nothing that looked interesting around - just lots and lots of trees.

"Let's keep moving. I think this is the only lake within several hundred metres. If that dragon comes for a drink, we'll be in a hell of a lot of trouble."

We got moving again, deeper into the forest this time. Caine continued marking our path as we walked, and the team was on high alert this time for some reason. According to Lana, this part of the forest was exceptionally dangerous - there were stronger monsters here. And a lot of them too. The team had apparently never dared to venture in deeper than this before, but maybe they felt more confident when I was with them.

We roamed around for a few minutes before encountering a pack of plant-raptors. At least they weren't hard-skinned like the monsters before, and we had numbers to match theirs. They went down pretty easily, and we managed to get their long sharp claws from eating their fruits. Later on, we bumped into a large carnivorous bird that really wasn't as strong as it looked. I managed to kill it by hugging its back and wrapping my tail around its neck to suffocate it. The struggling made it a little hard to hang on, but I simply dug my newfound claws into the creature's skin to stay in place.

I gave Lana the fruit from the bird, and she ended up becoming a little fluffy. Rather comically too, I had to admit... I was practically struggling to hold back my laughter as she walked around with all that fluff on her body. Then again, I wasn't exactly one to laugh at her body.

[XxKiraYamatoxX]

Chapter 16

We continued on deeper, until we came across a... plant-woolly mammoth. And I thought they were supposed to be extinct... "Are you guys gonna go after it?" I turned to the rest of the team. "Yeah. The fruits don't satiate that much hunger, so we need to eat a lot," Lana nodded. The mammoth was just looking around at the moment, but when it spotted us, it turned its attention on us and charged right at us.

Lana was gone in the blink of an eye - she ran off to the back of the mammoth and started attacking its rear legs. The creature lost balance, allowing me to jump up onto the head and bring my hammer down on its head. The mammoth went limp. "I think the creatures here don't like getting hit with blunt weapons," I noted. It looked like my hammer one-hit KOed the stronger monsters here...

Cutting open the stomach revealed a brown furry fruit with a hard shell. I had to meticulously cut it open with a claw before scooping out the flesh inside with my hand and eating it like that. At least the fur was just on the shell - after I was done, two large mammoth tusks grew out of my forehead. They weren't really as heavy as they looked, thankfully.

To be honest, I was feeling a bit full now, but Lana still insisted on giving me the fruits of the monsters I took down. A bit further in, we encountered what appeared to be a plant-human. The appearance was a bit disgusting, I had to admit... but on closer examination, it wasn't a human. The devilish tail and voluptuous body gave it away. This was a succubus. But what was one doing here? Plant-ified, no less...

"And down she goes," Lana announced as an arrow struck it in the head. It didn't cry or anything as it went down, thankfully. Otherwise I'd probably feel like I was killing an innocent civilian or something. I had to remember that these plant creatures weren't alive...

Surprisingly, this one yielded two fruits - one in each breast. Lana tossed me one, so I had no choice but to take it. The fruit was perfectly round and black in colour, and tasted rather sweet... I looked down at my body and found that it was changing again. This time, it was my bust - it became much more pointed. My hips got rounder, and Lana's body had actually grown in the same fashion as well.

"You know what? I think what we're dealing with is fossilized creatures that sink deep within the ground. The plants in this place somehow reconstruct the fossils and turn them into plant versions of the original creature," Lana voiced her opinion.

"Explains why we're seeing monsters that are supposed to be extinct," I nodded.

"Yeah. Like that sea serpent - now that I think about it, it looks like something I saw in a book about ancient monsters. Most sea serpents nowadays don't even grow to that size anymore."

I put a hand to my skin - though technically, it was the sea serpent's skin - to feel it. The scales definitely didn't feel like anything I had seen before - the apparent colour stuck at light blue no matter what. Even when we walked into a dark place, my skin still looked light blue even though it was dark... like it was glow-in-the-dark or something.

"Let's keep moving. I wanna see what other creatures we might come across," Lana said.

The next monster we came across was an even more humongous version of the plant-bees we had seen before. A queen, huh... it was so much faster compared to the smaller versions, despite the size. I managed to get a lucky shot on it when it flew towards me - I swung my hammer at it and luckily hit the back. It collapsed and started struggling to get back up, but Lana stuck her bamboo longsword into its head, ending it once and for all.

"You dig in," Lana pointed at the abdomen. I hesitated for a moment before reaching down to slice it open with a claw. The fruit was bigger than those of the smaller plant-bees, of course. Once I finished it, the membrane and fruits on my body turned pure golden coloured. Even my bust started feeling a bit... sticky inside. As if that wasn't enough, the tip of my serpentine tail sprouted a stinger. "I'm not gonna eat any more of these bee fruits," I declared.

"All of us got to that point. You see my legs? Same golden membrane covering it like yours," Lana pointed at her feet. Indeed - I was surprised I had only noticed it now.

"Thalia's cactus grows from time to time, and if you carefully cut it open, it's all honey inside instead of cactus juice. And if you take a closer look at Cecilia, you'll notice that she got the worst one - golden bust. Reika got something that looks like a rose as her plant, and her petals are actually golden," she added.

Yeah... and I was hoping I wouldn't end up any worse. I just needed to make sure that I didn't eat any more of the plant-bee's fruits.

So we continued onwards deeper into the forest, as per Lana's orders. I noticed that the forest seemed to get thicker and thicker as we proceeded, and in some places we actually had to squeeze between tree trunks. Of course, I had some trouble again here. Deja vu much? Problem was that the team wasn't as strong as Scotty, so they had to pull me through laboriously. And I tended to get more than a few scrapes on my body each time. Thankfully the scales all over me absorbed most of the damage. And it wasn't just me - Lana was having trouble as well. She did have all the fluff to take the hurt though.

After a while of squeezing between tree trunks, we eventually came to a large clearing with a river running through it. Of course, there were a few monsters here too. One of which was a large monster with what appeared to be... two cannons on the back. It spotted us and turned away from the river to look at us. "Uhm, hi," Thalia squeaked.

The creature promptly lowered its head and trained the cannons on us.

"SCATTER!" Lana shouted.

Not a moment too soon too. The creature started firing... cabbages at us. Well, more like explosive cabbages. We scattered and ran off, prompting the creature to decide on who to shoot. Eventually it decided on me. Maybe I looked the juiciest... not that I wasn't, really... but with all those cabbages flying at me, the main attacker, I wouldn't be able to do any major damage to it since I was occupied too much dodging the projectiles.

It stopped firing for a few moments, probably to reload. I took the chance to run in close and bash it on the head with my hammer. At the same time, I whirled around and stabbed it in the head with my tail stinger. I got that feeling of something leaving my body, and then the head... exploded, raining honey all over the place. I withdrew my tail and took a few steps back to admire my handiwork. Although the... honey had gotten all over me and the rest of the party due to our proximity to the creature.

"Maybe you could try warning us before you pull off something like that?" Lana complained, trying to brush off a bit on her waist. The honey only stuck there and she got it on her hand as well. It was far too sticky... "Well, at least it's down," I looked at the headless plant-corpse. Why the creature fired cabbages was beyond me, but still, that was one monster down. And we could wash off the honey in the nearby river. "You want it?" Lana asked me, pointing at the corpse.

I kneeled down and tried to tear the belly apart with my claws, but it was surprisingly tough. In the end, I had to bite it open. Lana was visibly shaken by the action, but she seemed to recover pretty quickly. Out of the belly tumbled a brown fruit in the shape of the letter 'H'. Normal fruits didn't even grow like this... but whatever. I downed it pretty quickly, and my back suddenly felt heavier. I didn't even need to look to know that two cannons had grown out of my back. Well, at least I had a ranged weapon now.

"Lemme test this for a while," I turned towards a clump of trees and lowered my body to try and roughly target the trees. That done, I tried a mental command to fire. The cannons indeed fired, but what came out wasn't exploding cabbages. Instead, the projectiles were... rather, looked like balls of honey. And they didn't blow up - they just coated the trees in honey. This was... kinda useless. Worst they could do was probably blind a monster. Then again, maybe that could come in useful.

"That's rather useless," Lana observed. Maybe it was because I couldn't produce the right projectiles for the cannons, so they used my honey instead.

I washed off the honey on me in the river before continuing on along it. Thankfully the forest thinned out a little, otherwise I'd probably get stuck for good because of the cannons on my back. Because of them, I moved a bit slower than before. Lana still wanted to continue, so continue we did.

The river led us to another clearing, this time with a lake in it. And again, there were more monsters in here. Among them... a plant-dragon. "Oh boy," Lana breathed as it looked our way. "Better start running, because that guy is fast as heck," Cody said. I simply lowered my body and fired my cannons at the creature's head. The thing instantly got coated in a layer of sticky honey and started thrashing about, unable to see.

"Oh. Well. That was... surprisingly easy," Lana was a bit surprised.

With the plant-dragon blinded, I just walked up to it and stuck my tail stinger into its face. Again, the head exploded, but this time I was smart enough to backflip before it blew up. The now-headless plant-dragon slumped to the ground. "All yours. You deserve it," Lana walked up to me and patted me on the back. I sighed and walked forward.

The fruit this time around was blue in colour and was shaped like a dragon's egg. Blue, huh... I took a bite into it, and again, the fruit just... melted and flowed into my body by itself. I just wasn't prepared for the transformation though - I half-screamed in pain as two draconic wings burst out of my back to replace the cannons, and my entire body began... changing. My hips widened and my tail shifted down so that it sat above and touching my butt. The tail itself thickened and grew tough armour plating, and so did my back and arms. My hands and feet completely changed - they became distinctively draconic and the claws thickened. Even my chest and abdomen weren't spared - they thickened with a layer of tough dragon muscle. The tusks on my head disappeared to be replaced by two long blue horns growing backwards out the top of my head.

Thankfully my face was still maintained - although the armour plating on my back extended up to my neck. My tail now had two stingers, and I felt so... much stronger than before. At least I would if I didn't feel so helpless now, lying on the ground panting. It was no surprise that I had experienced as much pain as I had, with my body's physiology totally changing. "You okay?" Lana knelt down beside me. "Yeah... somehow..." I groaned.

"An ice-elemental dragon, huh..." she noted, studying my body. Indeed, my current body was very highly adapted for extremely low temperatures. I was actually feeling kind of hot at the moment... "That was one heck of an extreme change," Lana remarked. Extreme, of course... More than half my body had changed! I tried to stand up, but found it kind of hard to stabilize myself. With my legs further apart, I couldn't balance myself like I normally did. But as an ice dragon... could I use the ice breath?

I turned around very carefully - it was much harder to turn on the spot when my legs were this far apart - and walked over to a nearby tree. I tried summoning up the power of the ice dragon inside me and exhaled using my mouth. A frosty mist came out of my mouth and the tree just... froze like that. "That'll really come in handy," Lana remarked.

"I think we'd better head back. There's no telling what other dangerous monsters we could come across, and Traya isn't in much of a condition to fight," she turned to the rest of the team. As much as I hated to admit it, she was right - I wasn't in much of a condition to fight. The climate was too hot for my current body - I was sweating pretty badly - and I wasn't used to my body.

We headed back, following Caine as he retraced our steps by using the marks he had made on the trees. It took us approximately an hour to get back, and thankfully I could get past the part of the forest that was really dense by flying over it. Not all the trees here were tall enough to grow through the cavern ceiling.

Problem was, I was already tired out by the time we reached the camp and just... collapsed on the ground. All my energy was directed to just staying awake - I couldn't move a muscle. Lana stayed behind to look after me as the others left to go hunting - they were still not really full. All I could do was look around... and damn, it was so hot...

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"What in the world happened to her?"

"Even I can't explain the stuff that happened here scientifically! Like I said before, she ate the fruit from that plant-dragon and transformed like this! And now she's running a high fever!"

"Mama!"

Damn... I really felt hot now... and were those Scotty's and Luticia's voices I was hearing? It really sounded like them...

"More importantly, we need to get out of this place first. You two got through the tunnel unscathed, right? That's the only way you could've kept your armour!"

"Luticia here marked the path out. We're leaving ASAP."

I felt myself getting hoisted up on someone's shoulder. I could barely even open my eyes now - it was just too hot...

"C'mon, stay with us, Traya," Scotty whispered in my ear. I could only reply with a weak nod...

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

It felt like ages later that I felt my body start to cool down a little. When I could finally open my eyes, I saw that we were in a tunnel. No wonder it was cooler. "Are you ok now?" Scotty asked. It really was him! And Luticia too! "Yeah... damn, it's hot," I murmured, still weak. My body had changed back to the way it was before I had entered the plant cavern, plus a bit of the reshaping from during the time I was in it. Thankfully there was nothing from my time as a part-dragon.

"All the plants and so what we got from the monster fruits dissolved into nothing when we left the cavern. I think it might be something to do with the light from those plants up above," Lana said. The rest of the archeological team was also here - the guys were wearing Scotty's spare armour to cover themselves up. The girls weren't so lucky - I never carried spare armour around. Scotty himself was wearing his heavy armour, while Luticia was using her own parasite armour.

I tried to activate my own, and surprisingly, it did come out. Though of course, it was a little undersized now. But feeling the weight of all those weapons on me reassured me a little. Surprisingly, the armour had a few parts that were now golden in colour... "Weaponmistress indeed. I suppose your armour is some kind of ancient artifact or something, being able to meld into your own body and out at free will... but I think we'd better get up to the surface first," Lana said.

"That was... crazy..." Lucia whispered.

"Yeah... being trapped inside you for so long and experiencing all those... weird stuff..." Lynia agreed.

"Truly an unforgettable experience," Merylynn said.

"You guys could all feel it?" I was astonished.

"Yup. When we're on you and you have your armour melded inside you, we all feel, see, hear, smell and taste the same things you do."

"I'm really relieved... we've been stuck in that place for about a week because we couldn't find the exit," Lana said.

"Lucky you we didn't fall for the traps, eh? The plants are scared of fire, so I just walked through the whole tunnel with my sword lit up. They didn't even dare to come close."

"Then you'd better keep it lit up. I don't want to fall into the place again."

"Right."

With my body back to normal, Scotty could carry me on his back instead of on his shoulder, so I had a comfortable ride this time. He kept his greatsword out and alight, and indeed, I could see the plants growing ahead of us shirk back into the earth as we got closer. "Mama... are you ok...?" Luticia asked. "I'm fine... Lute... just a bit feverish at the moment..." I whispered weakly. Obviously she wasn't convinced - she stayed right beside me the whole time, easily matching Scotty's pace.

I noticed that the golden colour on my armour was slowly... spreading all over it. Perhaps my armour had absorbed the effects of the plant instead of it dissolving into nothing like Lana had said. But then... could it be possible that it could absorb the effects of those monster fruits on my body? I sure hoped not.

It was about two hours getting back up to the surface, running at full speed. But by then... I was feeling strangely weak. Weird... I should have gotten better already... "Traya, hang in there. Can you summon Reena?" Scotty asked. I nodded weakly and called out to her with all the energy I had left in me. A large black silhouette appeared in the air above us and slowly descended. The large armoured warhawk known as Reena landed beside us and folded her wings. "I take it you guys need to get back to town quick," she said.

"It... spoke..." Lana whispered, partially out of fear, and a bit out of amazement.

"You guys will need to get back to town on foot. I have to go ahead and find a doctor for Traya. You guys know the way, right?"

"Yeah... Don't worry about us. Go save your wife."

"Thanks."

Scotty put me on Reena's back as Luticia jumped on behind me. Scotty himself then climbed on in front of me. "What happened to Traya anyway?" Reena asked. "Long story..." I moaned. I was feeling numb all over... Reena took off, leaving the archeological team behind as she flew off back towards Sarena. This trip took 15 minutes - Reena said that she had given it her all.

We landed in front of Sarena's northern gates, and Scotty picked me up and ran into town. "Where's the nearest doctor?" he asked the very first person he ran into. The man pointed off somewhere to the south, saying, "Take the first turn to the right and go straight for a few metres. The doctor's somewhere around that area."

"Thanks!"

So he started running again, and I was forced to close my eyes because I was way too weak. Because of that, I had absolutely no idea when I fainted. All I knew... was that my world suddenly seemed to spiral down into darkness...

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"Look, I'm sure not even Purberry Juice can cure what your wife has right now."

"Just skip the cure for now, doc. What does she have?"

"I don't know myself... but it seems that some kind of foreign DNA is attempting to overtake her body. You see her abdomen? There are scales growing out of it, and even her body itself is changing."

"Scotty..." I whispered, rolling over.

"I'm right here," he replied. I felt a pair of warm hands grip mine.

"I feel... terrible..." I moaned. No joke, I really felt terrible. The numbness on my abdomen had subsided, and when I tried to feel it, it was obvious that it was no longer smooth human skin. Rather, it was smooth dragon skin.

"If this foreign DNA actually completes the takeover of her body, your wife could very well turn into some kind of monster."

I now had... a rough idea of what was going on...

"An... ice dragon..." I whispered.

"You know what you might turn into?"

"It's a... long... story..."

"That makes things easier. We've had several cases of people eating dragon's eggs, and then the eggs overtake the consumer's body and slowly overwrite the original DNA. If it's this... then I know how to save your wife."

"How?"

"Draconian Mountain Herb. It's an ancient herb that only grows on the peak of mountains that have dragons living on them. It's long thought to be a plant that contains the cries and thoughts of dragons..."

"Enough with the stories. Where do I get it?"

"I usually don't stock it, but there's a possible location in the middle of the continent, but it's the mating season for dragons right now. If you go, you could very well come out in a body bag. If I make the call now, I could get my next shipment of artificial ones in a week. I don't recommend going to the mountains now."

"In that week, my wife will have turned into an ice dragon! I'm going."

"Papa!"

"Lute, stay with Mama. You're too young and inexperienced to take on dragons now."

"But... Papa, it's dangerous!"

"Would you rather Mama turn into an ice dragon!?"

"But..."

"You can't be serious! Those are dragons you're talking about!"

"Dragons my ass. In the end, they're all just oversized flying lizards."

I heard a door slam.

"I have never seen such a stubborn person..." the doctor sighed, "I'll put in the call. It's the least I can do to try and save you..."

I cried out in pain as my abdomen developed a layer of tough dragon muscle. Damn... not again... and Scotty... I just wanted him to come back safely...

[XxKiraYamatoxX]

Chapter 17

Three days since Scotty had left... and my condition wasn't getting any better... in fact, the doctor said it was accelerating. By now, my entire body save for my head had been covered in dragon scales, again, with armour plating on the back. My hips were slowly expanding too, and I had no doubt that the tail would grow out pretty soon. Lana and the rest of the team had reached Sarena safely, and Lana had taken on the responsibility of watching over me in Scotty's absence.

"Damn, that guy better get back soon," she murmured, running a hand across my abdomen. The dragon muscle there had spread up to my chest, and even now it was still thickening.

Thankfully I could still eat normally, although my appetite was rather diminished. Every now and then, Lana got me something to eat, but she had to spoon-feed me because I was too weak to even lift my hand, although my fever had gone down. "At this rate, the herb's not going to arrive fast enough," the doctor mused. "If Scotty doesn't return within 3 days, I'm calling for help. The Twilight Brigade might be able to find some way to get that herb to arrive faster."

"Aaah!" I half-screamed. Out came the tail... complete with two stingers still. More like... spikes. It was still too short - it needed time to grow.

"Make that 2 days."

"Mama..."

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

But still... 2 days and there was still no sign of Scotty. Lana paced anxiously back and forth across the room, while Luticia sat beside me, holding my now-clawed dragon hand. My tail had developed fully the day before, and so had my muscles. So now, the horns were growing out of my head and the scales all over me were starting to turn blue. My upper torso was also widening, and my waist was getting thicker too... damn... I estimated that I'd have about a day left. My head would probably be the last to change. "Okay, that's it! I'm calling for help..." Lana stood up.

"Good, because the damn freighter just reported that they broke a propeller on the way here and are sailing at half speed. Just now! And the propeller broke a few days ago! Don't these guys have any idea of the kind of responsibilities that comes with my job!?" the doctor was a bit on edge too...

"I'll see what I can do."

"3rd... SF..." I moaned.

"Wait... you're in the Avalon Division?"

"Leviathan... in the... harbour..." I continued. The Leviathan's planes would surely be able to get to that freighter, wherever it was, on time. There was no other choice...

"... All right. I'll head over to that ship. You want me to talk to Artemis, right?"

I could only nod - I had used up most of my energy just speaking those few words.

Lana was gone in the blink of an eye. Luticia just stared after her, then turned back to me and repeated, "Mama..." I managed a weak smile and patted her on the head. Again, she wasn't reassured.

Artemis burst into the room an hour later. "Damn, if only I had known earlier... I've already sent people out to look for the freighter. And I'll have a word with the company that went hiring for that botched exploration mission. Just rest for now. We'll get that herb to you in time, I promise."

"I'm really sorry I didn't inform you earlier..." Lana walked in behind Artemis.

"Look, I'll let it slide for now. What matters now is turning Traya back before she turns into a real ice dragon... damn, she's looking pretty terrible."

"Scotty..." I moaned.

"What the heck is he doing at a time like this anyway?" Artemis groaned.

"Off looking for the herb on the mountainous region in the middle of the continent."

"The... Raesvak Mountains? Oh crap."

"What's wrong?"

"I heard from our branch on the western side of the continent. A gigantic red dragon - possibly a wyrm was spotted overflying several towns there. It looks like its headed right for the mountains. Nobody's got the guts to engage it, and they're all recommending evacuation."

My heart skipped a beat. I started coughing, and when I put my hand to my mouth to cover it, my hand became all... frosty.

"I'll send a team to get Scotty back, I promise. We still have a chance, the wyrm was only spotted a few hours ago. And it may have stopped for a snack or two. I know what you're thinking, but you're in absolutely no condition to fight a fire wyrm."

Two blue wings suddenly burst out of my back, causing me to scream in pain. Even my normal... Shadow Angel transformation... didn't hurt like this... but I just couldn't ignore... Scotty...

"Scotty..." I moaned.

"You two are really close, aren't you... All right, I give in. But are you prepared to face the consequences? If you go to him, you most probably won't be able to return... and by return, I mean return to your human self. I believe in having my members make their own decisions, and I have a way to get you up and running again, but only temporarily."

I only nodded... at the moment, all I could think of was Scotty... he couldn't face a fire wyrm alone... his fire attacks wouldn't work against it, and neither would his earth attacks...

"Come back safely, Traya," Artemis sighed. She uncorked a flask and emptied it into my mouth. Almost instantly, I felt energized and quickly stood up. "It'll increase your maximum stamina tolerance for 8 hours. You have 8 hours to get to Scotty, and get back here, maybe less. Remember, I told you to come back safely. That's an order as your commanding officer!"

"Artemis..." I was half-crying by now, but I shook off all the tears. My armour had disappeared now - it didn't seem to work with this dragon body. Not that I cared... now, I just wanted to reach Scotty. I ran out of the clinic and spread my wings, startling everyone around me as I took off on powerful beats of my dragon wings.

My body was done transforming, so now I felt my head changing. At least it was slow - it started with my neck, which needed to elongate to normal dragon length. It felt a bit weird, having a long neck. But I didn't care about that now. The Raesvak Mountains were about 3 hour's flight away. Maybe 2, if I pushed my body to its limits. No choice, huh... I accelerated off through the sky, beating my wings as hard as I could.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

I arrived at the mountains within 2 hours, and by then my neck was done elongating, and my hair was slowly fusing into it as dragon's armour plating started to cover my scalp. The ridges on my back were growing out now, and were extending up my neck and onto my head. I knew I had less than 2 hours until I was fully turned into an ice dragon... maybe I couldn't make it back after all. But at the very least, I had to make sure my sacrifice helped to save Scotty. It was supposed to be cold here, but I felt warm enough. Thanks to my current body.

It didn't take too long to find the wyrm - it was huge enough that it was impossible to miss it. Its wings spanned about 700 metres long, and the body length was around 600 metres. It was a red one - no doubt a fire-elemental wyrm. And it seemed to be attacking something... oh no, Scotty!

I dove in and flew right up to the front of the wyrm's massive head. The huge eyes staring at me unnerved me... but I couldn't let them bother me. "Why don't you pick on someone your own size, stupidhead!" I shouted, spraying my ice breath all over its face. It roared and turned on me as I flew away. The dragon scales... were creeping up my cheeks...

The wyrm fired gigantic fireballs after me as I flew, but I easily dodged all of them. Sure, they were big, but they were slow. So was the wyrm itself - it could barely even keep up with me as I led it around and around in circles while I looked for Scotty.

"Scotty!" I cried out when I saw him, but my voice came out as a roar. My mouth and nose were elongating into a snout... oh no...

The momentary distraction allowed the wyrm to hit me with a hand and send me flying into the mountainside. Damn... it really hurt...

"Is... that you, Traya?" I heard someone ask. Luckily I had landed next to Scotty... but now I couldn't speak...

I nodded and pointed at him, then down the mountainside to ask him to retreat. "You know why I came up here in the first place, right? I got the herb, but this wyrm ambushed me before I could get down the mountain. I'm not leaving without you."

I shook my head and tried to speak, but again, my voice came out differently - this time it was a whimper. "Please, my ass. I went all the way up here for you. Even if... you can't turn back, I won't abandon you."

Tears started flowing out of my eyes - blue, cold tears. I didn't even know dragons could cry... but maybe my transformation was still incomplete. I could still feel myself growing. Maybe I wasn't true dragon size yet...

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the wyrm whip up and open its mouth to fire a fireball at Scotty.

I quickly climbed to my feet and ran into the path of the fireball before it could hit Scotty...

"DON'T TOUCH MY HUSBAND!!!"

A shining blue light seemed to encompass the whole mountaintop, blinding the wyrm, and even myself. It stayed like that for a few seconds, but when it cleared, I was extremely surprised.

I... was now at the wyrm's eye level, and when I looked down, I could see that my body had drastically enlarged - no, it wasn't my body, instead it was an incredibly large piece of ice in the shape of a dragon... and I could see my own naked, human body frozen where the heart of a dragon would be. This ice body was surprisingly flexible and was the same size as that of the wyrm, which was obviously extremely surprised, but it still roared in an attempt to intimidate me.

Not that I was going to back down.

I opened my ice mouth, aiming for the wyrm's head. A beam of frosty mist shot out of my mouth, hitting the wyrm in the wing because it had dodged. The entire wing instantly froze over, causing the wyrm to roar in pain as it crashed to the ground. The frozen wing shattered on impact with the mountainside and the wyrm roared even louder, now one-winged. It rolled down the mountain and through the cloud cover. I followed behind, flapping my giant ice wings.

I didn't expect it to recover quickly though - a fireball shot up out of the clouds and hit my right wing. It felt really hot... but surprisingly it didn't melt. What kind of ice was this?

The wyrm suddenly launched itself up through the clouds and onto me, forcing me to the mountainside. Oh, it was now actually using its feet. It bit at my neck - it hurt... but it looked like the wyrm hurt more - its teeth actually froze over when they touched my skin. So did its feet. I swung my tail around and slapped it off me, and then took to the air and unleashed another ice beam at the wyrm. This time, it hit the tail, and I swooped down on it and shattered it with a swipe of my right hand.

The wyrm roared in pain and fell over, giving me another chance to hit it. This ice beam finally managed to nail the head - it froze mid-roar and I shattered it by landing on top of it. The rest of the body went limp, and rolled down the mountainside to come to rest at the foot of the mountain.

I flew back towards Scotty, who was quite shaken by the sight of me like this. I smiled and landed in front of him - though I had to admit, it was very hard to land when I was this big.

"That was... incredible..." Scotty breathed. I lowered my head to his level and purred softly - I still couldn't speak normally. "People are going to start asking questions why a headless, one-winged and tailless dead giant red wyrm appeared at the bottom of the mountain though," he looked down the mountain. I snorted.

"So can you turn back to normal? Your human body is frozen in the middle of all that, you know," Scotty asked. Oh yeah... it should be possible now. I positioned myself so that my frozen body would fall in front of Scotty and closed my eyes to concentrate...

The next thing I knew, I hit the snow and almost rolled over the side of the mountain. Scotty caught my hand before I could fall and pulled me up. I was naked, but the cold didn't bother me. "Welcome back," he smiled and hugged me close. I started crying as I wrapped my arms around him...

I tried to make my armour reappear, but it failed for some reason. Not that I minded. "Doesn't the cold bother you?" Scotty was a bit puzzled. "Uh hello, I'm part ice dragon..." I smiled. Maybe it was fine to joke about it now... since the crisis was over somehow. I still had no idea how I had managed to turn back to normal though. Maybe it was because of that... sudden intense desire to protect Scotty.

I knew Reena couldn't fly up to this altitude, so we could only climb down and try to avoid the rest of the dragons around. They had all returned after the wyrm was down, and were now hovering a safe distance away from us, watching our every move. If they chose to attack, we'd be dead. "Did you bring a rope?" I asked Scotty. "Yeah, hold on," he rummaged in his pouch for a while before producing a coil of it. I tied one end around a nearby rock and tested it before throwing the other end over the mountainside.

The rope was extremely long, so we could reach the bottom of the mountain in one slide. Of course, there was some rock dodging that needed to be done. I noticed that... some aspects of the dragon body seemed to have carried over. My abdomen and bust, although no longer covered in scales, were completely slippery. When I touched them, I could also feel dragon muscle underneath the skin... no wonder I felt stronger.

"How did it feel like... becoming a dragon?"

"Are you interested? It's not really that fun though... it really hurt, and I couldn't speak normally after my head transformed."

"Sounds tough."

"Yeah... it is. Even now there are side effects lingering."

"Like?"

"I'll show you when we get down."

My hips were also slightly wider, and so was my upper torso. At least this time around my feet weren't as far apart. It wasn't long before I found my magic again, and quickly made my armour reappear. It looked... different this time around. The normally black claw-like projections around my bust were golden where the joints would have been, and now resembled dragon claws. The black piece of cloth covering my crotch had been replaced by a black piece of what appeared to be dragonskin, from the abdominal part. It stuck on my body despite seemingly having no support at all...

My gloves had also obtained draconic features - just without the claws. Even my grappling hook's hook now looked like a dragon claw. My boots were now made out of black dragonskin as well. Some parts of the armour had gotten blue highlights - possibly as a sign that I was part-ice dragon now. And strangely... even some of my weapons had morphed. The dual handguns on my hips sported dragon motifs, and had been lengthened a lot. They were now about as long as my thigh. Their holsters were now dragonskin holsters too, with blue highlights.

The Saga X9 sniper rifle on my back had a dragon's head around the barrel where it met the gun's frame. The barrel was lengthened as well, and the scope bore a motif resembling a dragon's wing. Somehow, it had lightened as well, so it was easier to carry. That was pretty much it. Lucia, Lynia and Merylynn were still the same as ever.

"Another crazy ride," Lynia remarked.

"Seconded," Merylynn nodded.

"Thirded," Lucia agreed.

It took us about an hour or so to reach the bottom. When we finally reached it, we were standing right next to the body of the wyrm I had... destroyed earlier. Already there were people crowding around it. "Did you two come from up there?" a frightened villager asked us. "Well, yeah."

"It's dangerous up there! Someone reported seeing a gigantic blue dragon up there, and next thing we knew this red... thing came tumbling down!"

I stifled a laugh. Scotty looked at me knowingly - his expression was emotionless, but his eyes were 'smiling'. "We only just escaped too," he nodded, playing along. "Yeah, we got away just before the two started fighting," I went along too.

"It was crazy, right? All the guys with all those... high-powered telescopes were saying it was."

"Yeah."

"Aw dammit, I wish I had one... then I could watch."

He left us alone afterwards, leaving us to walk back to Sarena. Thankfully Scotty knew the way on foot, and I didn't really feel like taking to the air right now.

"Scotty, what made you decide to do that?" I asked.

"Eh, Traya, did you say something?"

"Huh? I did say something. You weren't even paying attention?"

"No, but your voice just came into my head."

I paused for a moment. What was going on? Telepathy wasn't something we shared... "What's going on?" I mused.

"See, you did it again. Your voice is in my head."

"I'm about as confused as you are," I shrugged.

"Let's try talking to the doctor later."

"Yeah... I'd like to know what's really happening to me."

"You did it again."

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

It was... about three hours back to Sarena at our full running speed. I tried the telepathy thing a few times during the run - it appeared to be exclusive to the two of us only... something like a closed circuit. Scotty could also send me telepathic messages, so we could talk just in our heads alone. Could it be possible that it was something to do with me being part-dragon?

When we reached the town, I was really surprised... the rest of our original party plus Artemis and Lana were waiting for us in front of the northern gates of the city. They cheered and ran up to us as we got closer, hugging us tight. "Ah dammit, I thought we'd lost you for good!" Clara cried. "It's... really good to see you made it back safely," Artemis appeared to be on the verge of tears. "You made it back!" Lana shouted.

"Yeah... it's good to be back..." I smiled. Valis gave me a wordless hug, and then walked up to Scotty and gave him a pat on the back, leading him aside. "He says that he'll kill me if he finds out anything ever happened to his precious sister," I heard Scotty say moments later. I laughed a bit - Valis always tried not to show his emotions. "If you ever die on me, I'll kill you a thousand times over, you got it?" Winnie scolded me. Well, that didn't make much sense... but it showed she was worried, at least.

"By the way, I received word from our branch at the bottom of the Raesvak Mountains. Apparently that red wyrm came down headless, one-winged and tailless, and a gigantic blue ice wyrm was spotted high up in the clouds, near the peak. I don't know how you did it... but I must say, I'm impressed. Not even I have the guts to take on a red wyrm, and I'm a half-dragon myself."

"... what?" I stared at her.

"Yeah, I'm a half-dragon. Most of the guys in the Brigade don't know. If you want to see my alternate form, I'll show it to you when we get on the Leviathan."

Wow... so there were other half-dragons as well. Then again, it was a pretty big world out there. There were probably other hybrid species we hadn't even seen before. "By the way, we've completed the move. All personnel are on the Leviathan, along with their personal belongings and stuff. They say it's pretty comfortable in there."

"Haha, of course."

"Oh, and I requested for Lana to transfer over to our division. She'll be working in the logistics department on the ship."

"Really?"

"Yup. I always wanted to join the Avalon Division anyway. The logistics divisions were always pretty boring - that's how I ended up taking that exploration quest."

"Speaking of that exploration quest, I had a word with the company. Turns out it's one of Thomas's ventures, so it's no wonder they're not claiming any responsibility. I'm pretty sure they incinerate the contracts of the people that go missing."

"That guy again..."

"Apparently he's grounded. There's been no news on him for a while now, so it's probably safe for the Leviathan to head out to sea. We've got a new mission, and we'll be working together with one of the naval divisions. I haven't heard the details yet, but it sounds like some peacekeeping."

"When do we leave?"

"Tomorrow, if possible. Traya, I want you to get some rest before we head out. I'm still worried about your condition."

"Actually, I have a few questions to ask you."

"Fire away."

"Are there any special abilities you gain as a half-dragon?"

"Well, there are a few. You get some dragon abilities - there's weather resistance, telepathy..."

"Telepathy?"

"Yeah. Dragons can form really close bonds with humans. With a strong enough bond and a submissive temperament, it's possible to talk to the bonded human telepathically. And this telepathy cannot be blocked or disrupted in any way, and is instantaneous, no matter how far away the partner is. Ares is still on his way over here, but I can talk to him like he's right beside me."

"Is there anything else?"

"There's one. With an even stronger bond, the dragon can even assume a human form to live alongside the partner. Though as a half-dragon, my default form is my human form. The dragon may select its human form's appearance, but without changing the gender. Half dragons are stuck with their existing human forms though. The partner is able to freely change the appearance of the dragon's human form at will, but that requires an incredible level of submission. I'm not even at that level yet. In that sense, dragons may actually be man's best friend, haha."

"Changing the dragon's human form at will...?" Scotty asked. Right on cue, I felt my bust swelling up. "Hey! Stop thinking whatever you're thinking!" I shouted at him, covering my bust. My face was extremely red...

"You can't be serious... you mean you're also a half-dragon now?"

"More like part-dragon. Right now, I'm an amalgamation of human, Shadow Angel, succubus, Siren and dragon," I nodded as my bust slowly began to return to its original size. Scotty needed to control his thoughts... seriously. "That's a bit... crazy."

"Of course... especially the Shadow Angel/succubus/Siren one. I get stared down by most men just by walking past them. I can barely control the ability even now, because all three mix together and make it even stronger."

"Must be tough."

"Let's skip the topic for now. I think the potion you gave me is starting to wear off."

"That fast? Guess it might be less effective on you. Let's get you back to the Leviathan before you collapse."

"By the way, did anyone bring pets onto the ship?"

"Yeah, a few dogs and cats, nothing major."

"... Cats."

"Yeah. Cats. As in the furry ones that go around meowing at people."

"I'm afraid of cats."

"Oh. Siren. I see. Well, I did set a rule saying that pets are to be kept in personal rooms only. Don't worry."

"I hope so... Make sure you hang up a sign on the bridge entrance saying 'No pets allowed'. Clara'll have a fit if she sees animal droppings on the bridge."

"Damn right I will."

"I already did. And with the computer's help, we've renovated the whole ship so that there are restrooms, bathrooms and changing rooms for both male and female crew. We've also added weapon and armour lockers to all personal rooms. Besides that, our chefs got all their gourmet dishes scanned into the system, so the computer can easily prepare quick and delicious meals. They still stick around in the kitchen, trying to come up with new recipes. I'm pretty sure they're trying to use the ancient ingredients to make a new recipe now."

"All that in a few days?"

"8 days. You were stuck down there for 2 days and were bedridden 6 days... Lana's team was stuck in there for... 9 days."

"I totally lost track of time down there."

"From Lana's explanation, I can understand why. C'mon, let's head back. Your face is starting to look a bit pale."