Aryu flustered. “So he’s not a creation of God?”
Crystal grinned devilishly. “Well, that’s a question of your faith.”
Aryu wasn’t amused. “I have no faith.”
Crystal was ready for the answer. “Then you have no God, old or new, and Nixon is the result of an unbelievably powerful Embracer creating an actual living creature eons ago. He is one of the ultimate culminations of all of Earth’s sciences.”
“And what if I said I believed in the true God?” Aryu asked, smirking back at her.
Crystal shrugged. “Well, then I’d tell you that he’s an Angel and you’d believe me.”
Aryu wasn’t sure if it was fact or Crystal’s bitterness at Ryu veiled behind an impishly cute exterior that had come up with that answer. One tends to lose faith when directly betrayed by a god, be they old or new. A thought occurred to Aryu.
“Is he the only one of his kind? Are there others like him?”
Crystal faltered slightly, but just enough for Aryu to catch it. After a pause, she finally responded. “There are others, but you’ll never have to worry about them.” Aryu tried to press her for more, but she expertly brought the topic back to him.
Crystal worked with him until the appointed time, but even she could see he needed what all skeptics needed: proof. Since both she and her son were lacking the talents at this moment, it would be difficult to break that all-important mental barrier without some kind of tangible visual display of just what, if given the time and resources, a human is capable of. Her father had faced this dilemma many times; trying to always find a way to convince someone it was possible, and in many cases necessary, without showing them.
The barrier in him remained. Until proof was shown (or he pushed himself over that last hurdle just as she had as a child), Aryu was taken as far as she could get him.
“Remember, Aryu,” she said, “it is there, inside of you. Inside everyone and everything. You will see it, and you will be amazed.”
Once the big metal bird began to noticeably slow and descend, the lessons were all but forgotten as they began to execute the plan the four had devised.
Sho and Nixon wasted no time. The moment they felt the telltale change in altitude and velocity, they were on their feet with sword and shield in hand.
The door that held them was a sad collection of hard metal and electronic locks that to them were more like tinfoil. Nixon slipped his sword into the crack along the edge of the door above the handle and just let it fall, severing the weak attempts to seal them in as he did so.
The alarms sounded before he was even halfway. Either by his actions or that of Aryu and Crystal he didn’t know or care. The plan was in effect, and they all had to see it through to the end.
One mighty kick was all that was needed to cause the door to swing open with a bang and the two inside to emerge, ready for an attack, screaming madly as their battle-ready eyes scanned for the enemy. There was nothing but a wide empty hallway lined with doors, without a guard to be found anywhere. Only the bleat of the alarm that seemed to summon no one. The confidence of their enemy was staggering.
Nixon was instantly suspicious. No one was so stupid as to assume they didn’t have a plan. This was just a trap.
Across from them, one of the many doors that lined the area swung open and Aryu stepped out, Shi Kaze in the lead. Crystal, despite her current condition and lack of armament, pushed Aryu aside at once and led the way out the door.
“Not much for greetings, are they?” Crystal said, looking around. Aryu appeared ready for an ambush from all sides, but Crystal only looked bored and listless, as if this was all just a large waste of her valuable time.
“So it’d seem,” replied Nixon over the alarm, a part of him upset at the lack of any physical confrontation. The brief skirmish with Sho had been all he’d seen since he had awoken, and that was nowhere near enough to satisfy the battle hunger one such as him possessed.
“What do you think it means?” Aryu asked, still jittery. The surroundings of cold metal and blinking buttons and switches were still putting him in an uncomfortable place, even after all he’d seen. He was not one who would so easily forget the deep-rooted fears he harbored about machines and technology, but at least he didn’t vomit or pass out. That was a hassle Nixon didn’t want to deal with.
In the end, he just shrugged. “Yer guess is as good as any, Aryu. I doubt we’re so low a priority after all tha' destruction they caused jus' t’ get us, but I expected at least one guard. No point in wonderin’ the ‘why’. Let’s just be done with this.”
Nixon and his still-intact Divine powers in the lead, Sho and his unbreakable shield bringing up the rear, they followed the hallway until it branched at a ‘T’ intersection. “Which way ya figure, Crystal?”
As the most important part of this plan, she pointed them left, searching for wherever the central command was located (assuming it had one. These things were self-sufficient enough to control a plane like this without one.).
Once they turned again and entered a large cargo bay in the heart of the plane, luck took one of its frequent turns for the worse. Multitudes of robotic autonomous eyes turned to where they entered. They had entered a cargo bay full of dozens of troops.
“Protect Crystal!” Nixon yelled as he brought
