Chapter 16: Missing Memory

Simultaneously as Ethen was pulling Tina and Yelena out of the rubble that had been their prison, Sarah & Ethen found themselves loosing to the twos evil AI controlled counterparts.

"Dammed!..." Cursed Tellius under his breath as he had to use his first Auto-Repair Charge to get back up on his feet and continue the fight. "... I should have taken the Pallas with me!"

"Or I my smelter pistols!..." Chimed Sarah in even though she was jumping on her right leg and fake Ethen wasn't really giving her time to think between his scattershot blasts. "... Some heat should do the trick pretty easy."

"Yeah, both would have come pretty handy right about now..." Fully agreed the male mercenary, just as fake Tina attempted to land jet another crippling blow. Withstanding the blow with his Invincibility skill, Tellius asked her. "... Wanna switch opponent?"

"Oh, praise the gods!..." Agreed the female mercenary just as she jumped over to him on her intacte leg. "... Of course!"

Now fading fake Ethen, Tellius once again spammed his Invincibility Skill to tank the creatures shots. With molten sparks flying everywhere, the male cyborg quickly closed the distance between himself and the shotguning thing.

Finally in striking distance, the former commander shouted angrily as the moment of his lover getting gunned down replaced inside his head. "You goddes be dammed fake! Die!"

That said, his powerful fist instantly shattered the sound barrier as it struck fake Ethen's chest with such a speed and precision that it was impossible to block or avoid with devastating consequences.

*Booom!* *Splatter!* A fist sized hole appeared inside the AI controlled creatures chest just as green blood painted the wall behind it.

Yet instead of dying this thing in the shape of Ethen Ryan began healing at a rapidly pace and the hole in it's chest quickly filled up with new vine like flesh before it darkened into chocolatty flesh.

Recovered fake Ethen pressed his left handcannon right up against Tellius's forehead. With an arrogant smirk, it pulled the trigger.

*Bang!* The hand cannon discharged and jet the cyborg remained frighteningly calm.

Simultaneously Sarah was also struggling to defeat her opponent as she rapidly stabbed the fake Tina and yet the little hellion constantly recovered.

"Dammed, Tellius we need a heat source..." Shouted the female cyborg frustrated by the enemy's ability to recover. "... Its like fighting one of those mutant trees on Omega-4."

"Yeah, it is!..." Agreed Tellius as he fought the small AI controlled creature. "... But let me think!"

That said, half his consciousness pulled up his system to check up on a particular item in his skill shop.

[+Path of the Blade Lv.1:]

[Adds: Flaming Draw (Skill) or Flaming Slash (Skill)]

[Purchase for 2 SP?]

[YES | NO]

Tapping [Flaming Draw] and [Flaming Strike], Tellius got the explanations:

[Flaming Draw:]

[Skill that emits flames in a wide forward arc as you draw your bladed weapon. This will also coat the armament in fire.]

[Flaming Strike:]

[Skill that emits flames in a wide forward arc. Follow up with a strong attack to perform a lunging, sweeping strike.]

Noticing the implication that [Flaming Draw] was coating his bladed weapon and [Flaming Strike] wasn't, the male cyborg immediately chose to buy [Path of the Blade Lv.1] and selected the former.

That said, Tellius exited his system and instantly drew his Gladius Blades using his latest skill.

*Slide!* *Slide!* The blades extended from his wrists and instantly ignited. *Foof!* *Foof!*

"WTF?!..." Exclaimed Sarah, surprised yet still fighting the disarmed fake Ethen. "... You could have told me that you could do something like that?!"

"Sorry, I just remembered..." Apologized Tellius, even as he pressed his advantage by swinging his blades at the much smaller fake Tina.

"Ah... HISS!" Fake Tina hissed as she retreated in fright.

"DIE!" Exclaimed Tellius angrily, just as he incorporated his Footwork into his attack to better position himself.

*FOOF!* *FOOF!* Tellius's flaming blades descended upon the fake little girl's neck, which sent her head flying.

Normally able to recover from being decapitated, but not so with fire in the mix, fake Tina's head and body instantly caught fire.

Yet as his enemy burned, Tellius had already moved on to support Sarah.

*FOOF!* *FOOF!*  His blades descended, this time upon fake Ethen's midriff.

"Thank you..." Exhaled Sarah while watching her enemy burn. Rubbing nonexistent sweat off her forehead, she told him. "... This was crazy!"

"Yeah, it was..." Replied the former commander, his eyes neither on the burning corpses of his enemies nor the shimmering of his sole companion but on the half-buried train compartment inside the nearby wall. "... Bet that we'll find something interesting in there?"

"The usual stakes?" Asked Sarah with a seductive smirk.

"Of course!" Replied Tellius, already climbing into the train compartment half-buried inside the nearby collapsed tunnel.

...

Meanwhile, at the park's entrance, also known as the City underneath the Worldtree, Tina and Yelena awoke simultaneously, much to Ethen's delight.

"What?!" The two confused females nearly simultaneously as they struggled to sit up straight.

"We were in a train accident!..." The marshal explained to Tina before he gently addressed his wife. "... Hi, there, beautiful... Do you still remember who I am?"

"Yes... No? I don't know..." Yelena answered her husband with a heavy accent as she explained. "... You feel familiar, like out of a distant dream that I fail to grasp!"

"Oh, boy!" Ethen exclaimed, disturbed.

"That sounds just  as I expected!..." The little hacker chimed in before she explained to the couple. "... When I restored her personality, I didn't know the alignment of her memories and her consciousness. But with time, her natural healing should kick in.  As they say, time heals all wounds."

"Thank you, Tina..." Ethen stated and kissed the little girl's forehead. "... I really appreciate all that you, Sarah, and Tellius have done for us!"

"Hhhhm!..." Tina giggled, muffled yet happily. "... It was nothing, but I demanded Ghost-Waffles as payment."

"Of course!" The marshal chuckled and patted the young genius's pink hair.

Looking dazed during the entire exchange, Yelena eventually asked absentmindedly, "So, was it defeated?"

"Your dark passenger?..." Ethen asked, a bit taken aback that his wife remembered the AI controlling her for years before she did him. "... Yes and no. It is out of your mind but has taken over most of this very amusement park."

"I wasn't talking about the Devil..." Yelena replied as she hugged her legs before revealing, "... I was talking about the Hydra!"

"Hydra?!" Ethen and Tina asked simultaneously, shocked but for very different reasons.

Ethen instantly feared yet another one of the Devil's powerful incantations, yet Tina got excited to finally see a dragon, as in the Grim-Souls Lore, a Hydra was a more powerful variant of dragons.

...

Simultaneously inside the train compartment,  Sarah and Tellis found a rather spacious laboratory geared towards both mechanical and biological engineering.

As Tellis searched and secured the entire train cart, Sarah decided to check out the laboratory's server. Rather quickly, and even before her lover would return, the female cyborg discovered the servers to be the Devil's backed-up memory.

Hence, just as Tellis returned, she found a video file in a folder called Genesis. Starting the file, a clip recorded inside Thermopoly-6's Shelter-31 showed General Tellius Warfield sitting behind a desk.

Stopping the clip, Sarah ordered Tellius, "Come  over here; you might want to see this!"

"What is it?" Asked the cyborg, intrigued by what his friend might have found.

Pointing at the screen in front  of her, the female cyborg replied as she restarted the clip. "You!"

["This is General Tellius Warfield, call sign 'Killzone', promoted to the rank of General at [time] local standard time..." Human Tellius on screen introduced himself as he laid out the reason for the order that he was seemingly issuing at the end of the clip. "... And so with the knowledge of being outnumbered, outgunned, and abandoned by the very institution that we have sworn to serve, I am authorizing the creation of the Devil-AI with a heavy heart..."]

"Holy cow!..." Cursed Tellius as he stopped the clip while anxiously rubbing his hands and temple. "... That isn't me! I don't remember recording that video! I would never authorize the creation of an AI with a potential like the Devil!"

"Telli..." Sarah approached the cyborg who was currently experiencing a long overdue panic attack. Clapping his hands between her own, she ordered. "... Calm down, soldier!"

"Yes!..." Replied Tellius reflexively as his identity as a soldier grounded him in the present. Yet as a single drop of brain-cooling liquid escaped his right eye socket, making it look like he was crying, he confessed. "... I am frightened!"

"Hush now!..." Ordered Sarah and pressed the much taller cyborg's face against her chest while soothing him. "... I was, too, when I first discovered that I was missing some memories of Thermopoly-6."

"Just what the hell happened to us?..." Asked Tellius, his friend/lover's soothing cooing working its magic on him as his mind calmed. "... I still remember ordering the retreat to Shelter-31, meeting one of my father's scientists named Hall or something before he was shot by a turncoat, and then lying down in a recovery chamber to sleep with you taking first shift."

"Oh, I remember most of that!... The mercs had just overrun the eastern perimeter, which rendered most of my girl's acts of sabotage useless." Commented Sarah, her mind pulled back in time. "... But I don't recall one of your father's scientists getting shot by one of our own... Strange, as I distinctly remember taking the first shift that day while you rested!"

"So, someone has tampered with both our memories?" Asked Tellius, disturbed since Sarah's words had basically confirmed that they were missing memories.

Nodding, the female mercenary agreed rather calmly. "Of course, and I am guessing that it was the UCG, as I don't remember either one of our supposed 'Ascensions,' and they're awfully tight-lipped about the whole concept!"

"Ascension?" Asked Tellius, confused, having never even heard or read anything about it.

"Yeah, it's when soldiers and mech pilots have a spiritual breakthrough, never to be the same thereafter... Most heroes that made a name for themselves during the Corporate War supposedly did..." explained Sarah before she revealed. "... Also, you and I  are supposedly the first to do so, but I can't recall how or when we did that."

"PUH! That's an awful lot that we're missing in our memories!" Exclaimed Tellius the worst of his panic attack over, and he let go of Sarah's hourglass-like frame.

Stroking his bald head, the female cyborg agreed once more. "That we do, and it's awfully hard to get anything more than is publicly available."

"I guess that means that we'll have to travel to Thermopoly-6 after we leave Tina with her hopefully still-alive family on Johal VII..." Suggested Tellius before he piloted into their current situation and continued to play the clip. "... But first, we'll have to know what exactly the Devil was made to do."

["... The Devil is programmed with  two purposes in mind. Firstly, it revives fallen soldiers in the soldiers' cloned bodies, allowing the fallen to continue the fight even beyond death... Then secondly, in case  I fall on the battlefield, it is supposed to replace me as General once I revive in a clone and I am no longer allowed to lead this army. It is programmed to fight the corporations by any means necessary! For the UCG!"]

With the clip ending, Tellius stared at Sarah in disbelief. "How the hell did you allow me to be so foolish?"

"I didn't..." Replied Sarah close to tears as she pointed at a faint scar on the Tellius on screen's left ear. "... See that scar? You got it in an assasination attempt on you that instead killed me!"

"Dammed! This is insane!" Cursed Tellius his anxiousness back in full force and he once more rubbed his nuckles and temples, as he didn't remember seeing Sarah die.

...

At the same time as Tina and Ethan were learning about the Devil's Hydra from Yelena, and Tellius had to wrestle with his missing memories, the AI that had caused all of it happily sat atop the Worldtree.

From its layer, it had watched the corporate forces encircle the entire theme park and the hyperloop malfunction caused by a certain cyborg's tempering. But now it was watching as mechs and starfighters invaded its domain.

Yet with the Massacre of Thermopoly-6 still present in its neural network, the Devil's focus didn't lie neither on the corporate forces nor the mercenary hired by his previous host's husband, but the stars above.

Up there, in the infinite void, it was tracking a fleet of spaceships. The fleet being the very reinforcements that Marshal Ethan Ryan had requested after his second strike team had been wiped out by the Devil.

Giddy like a twelve-year-old as yet another of its plans was coming together, the AI program began calculating the most likely chain of events occurring after its plan came to fruition.

["Secret operations are essential in war; upon them the army relies to make its every move." – Sun Tzu] The Devil told itself as it eagerly awaited the clash between Government and Corporations that would reignite a war fought and lost in most people's minds.

As a civilian-owned moon, the Marshal's wouldn't be able to tolerate the presence of corporate armed forces. The armed forces would in turn insist on securing their investment. Out of these opposing interests, conflicts would arise. Conflict would then breed violent actions, and out of violence, a war  could be reignited.

Or so the most likely scenario that the Devil had calculated said.

On the other hand, the most unlikely scenario that the Devil imagined painted a peaceful yet frightening picture.

As a civilian-owned moon, the Marshal's by law could not  tolerate the presence of corporate armed forces. The armed forces would, in turn, be forced to secure their investment. Out of these opposing interests, conflicts would arise. Conflict would then breed violent actions with the marshals getting needlessly slaughtered as the UCG would refuse to follow the very law that created it. In not fighting, the current UCG would prove that it was not  the UCG the Devil was fighting for.

[Let's hope my calculations are correct and the most likely comes to pass.] The  Devil thought as it reviewed the results of the scenarios it was calculating.

...

Simultaneously, up in space, the Captain of the corporate-hired battlestar-class spaceship was having yet another transmission with the pilot in charge of the team of stealth mechs.

"What do you have for me, pilot?" Asked the Captain while standing in front  of a large tactical map of the Grim-Souls Theme Park with all his ground forces.

"We're unable to pinpoint the Devil's servers, but we have detected Marshall Ryan, the Widow (a cyborg), and two female civilians on the ground." Reported the pilot matter-of-factly.

Frowning, the Captain watched as five new dots were added to his map. "The  Widow is an S+ ranked mercenary. Any idea who hired her?"

"No, sir!" Answered the nearby adjutant as the transmission to the pilot was cut.

Rubbing his balding skull, the Captain asked. "Any idea when the Marshalls will arrive?"