ETREUM

Severen

For the next few weeks, Quorra and Troy brought me along with them to search for Deka's crew.

From what we had gathered, Deka was somewhere in the past Star System.

Somewhere in the dark sector.

And at some point, his coms went out.

Quorra tried to get Yelena, her Ship Dataform, to contact Folock, but there was no luck.

"Don't worry, Shane. We'll find them." Quorra reassured me.

I sat on the bed Quorra had tried to make for me. She had Yelena create a personal quarters for me, claiming she knew exactly what I wanted. In other words, she didn't know jack shit about me.

I stared at the numerous dumbbells and gym equipment that I just didn't need neatly racked all around my room. There was a poster of Reagan Glass, the champion bodybuilder of her time, flexing his guns at me every time I woke up in the morning.

The words "DON'T PULL OUT, PULL UP!" Were plastered at the top of my doorframe. For a 16 year old girl, Quorra had quite a dirty mind. It made me kind of scared.

I sighed and got up, bonking my head on a punching bag that Quorra had installed from the ceiling, and walked up to Ais, inspecting it.

Severen metal and Severen designs. The thing looked demonic, but sported its own grace to some degree. It was weird. I knew the Severens and the Torons were both rivalling factions. But you would think with their eight appendages and alien-like appearance, they would be living in some kind of spaceship like the movie Alien.

Not quite the case.

These past few weeks have been nothing but a rollercoaster of emotions. No matter how much I tried to fight back at fate, it just came back to bite me in the ass. SHADE was right; fate never stops messing with you. I thought I had a new life, fighting alongside Captain Price, in his battle to get his mother back.

My days spending time with Rinne.

Chilling with Umbra and Flippy.

Letting Aurora try out new foods and cuisine like an older brother.

But now, I couldn't have any of that. With the truth being revealed.

I am SHADE's past self. I would eventually grow up to become the Severen's greatest monster. Everything I had with Captain Price would disappear. No. It was already beginning. I could only hope they were safe. But safe from SHADE and the Severens? Was that even possible?

Quorra had my back. But even Quorra herself admitted she stood zero chance against SHADE. And even if I chose not to believe her, I witnessed it myself. When she joined the top ten of the Valian Council to take down SHADE, only three of them survived. And SHADE let them go on purpose to prove a point.

As long as SHADE was with the Severens, we were at a severe disadvantage.

SHADE couldn't be beaten.

I put my hand on Ais. The only Valian that had ever fought toe to toe with SHADE was the legend himself, Zennen Ful. With Zennen on our side, the Valians believed they stood a chance against the Severens. But Zennen had gone missing for years. No one knew what happened to him. At this point, many of the mid tier and low ranking Valians questioned if such a Valian even existed.

"We're here." Yelena notified us.

We got off the Landing Craft and stepped onto a platform on what I presumed to be Europa. Was this Dark Sector? No clue. From what Deka had told me, it was controlled by the Toron Corpo of his time. But as of now, the whole icy place was completely overwhelmed.

And it didn't take a genius to know who was causing all the ruckus.

"That's an Eidolon."

I turned to Quorra. "Like those giant chickens?"

"Chickens?"

"Isn't that what you guys call those things? Deka always called those chickens."

"I think you're confusing that for the Ropalocyst. We never once called those things chickens."

My face became red with embarrassment.

Troy let loose a laugh. "Ahhh don't worry about it, Shane! We can take that thing out easy peasy."

I stared at the towering Eidolon as it made a large howl, stamping on buildings as it made its way across the icy mountains.

"Can we even put a dent on that thing? I think Quorra should just-"

"Nope."

"Heh?"

Quorra began tending to her Landing Craft.

"You two will capture that Eidolon for me so I can extract information from it on Dekani's whereabouts. Use the training I gave you. You two should be able to defeat it without my help."

Troy and I stationed near the front of the Severen. I nodded at Troy, who closed his eyes and began to glow purple just like Quorra did whenever she used her void powers. Then he blasted into the air, void dashing right through the enormous adversary and pinning it to the ground, completely shattering its shields.

I took out my Upgraded Harkanon and took aim with one arm, firing an extremely high velocity shell at the synovia. I then took my other Harkanon and fired, blasting the other synovia into pieces. Simultaneously reloading and firing and repeating until all the synovia's were destroyed.

The Severen screeched and fell to its knees, summoning a bunch of its Severen brethren from within the shadows to assist it, but I leapt in to intercept them.

"Lance Upload Protocol: SLINGER Peacemakers 210%"

Everything slowed down as everything became instinct. Impulse. My body moved on its own, as my senses dialled to eleven.

"Ain't nothing coming out of this without bullet holes." I heard myself say. Damn you, Slinger.

In the span of two seconds, everything was destroyed, and the Severens began to prime themselves to explode, taking me with them, but Troy leapt in front of me, unleashing a massive wave of void energy, disintegrating them.

The Severen screeched and groaned, as Troy turned to me.

"It's done."

I retracted my Regulators back into my forearms, and putting my Harkanon Rifles back into their straps. I walked to the head of the Severen and drew Ais.

"Tell me where your brethren are. Where SHADE is. Tell me where Deka is."

The Severen said nothing, as it glared at my sword.

Quorra approached us, resolved in her own Slinger Lance.

"We can't communicate with Severens. But that sword... maybe it might help."

I inspected Ais. I didn't like using this sword. But objective wise, it was superior to Gram in so many ways. If it meant getting information about Cap from this bastard, I had to do it.

I placed blade against the Severen's head, as it began to screech. My brain became flooded with thoughts.

"Wow I didn't think that would work." Quorra said.

What the hell?!