Chapter 7: Underground Desert

Akira awoke somewhere he wasn’t sure really. From what he could see it was an underground cavern, he carefully got up brushing the sand off him as he looked around for a way out, he fortunately still had his bag with him, but not his sword, that was missing along with Alice. From within his bag, he pulls out a whole apple. He had grabbed a few before he left and fortunately for him, they remained whole even after the run-in with Jimmy. Looking around he seemed to be in an underground desert, it was incredible, it seemed to span the entire desert area, despite being beneath the ground something seemed to illuminate the entire area, keeping everything trapped in a dim lighting. Much like the surface, trees and other plants littered the area, small pockets of water with small animals around, this must’ve been what Taro was referring to when he said the desert would fall, Akira assumed he meant metaphorically, he was not expecting a whole nother desert to be under a desert. It seemed to go on for miles, he couldn’t see the end of it, aside from the large golden age building. If Lily was down here she would’ve made her way to it, so he began to make his way across, keeping a distance from the other animals just in case, was he scared? Not really but a little further to the east was a large…thing. It looked like it would eat him pretty quickly so he wanted to keep his presence low. Akira takes a quick break beside one of the oases, the other animals seemed to be confused as to what he was supposed to be, they kept glancing over at him, but it made sense. Humans have been absent from this region for a really long time now, this must be their first time. Among the animals he spots a familiar face, it was Cleo.

“ How nice of you to join me,” He says sarcastically, she drags her holographic feet through the sand, “ I had to shut myself down, I wasn’t sure if the embodiment could sense me and I wasn’t gonna take the risk, but it seems it came up on its own anyway,” She explains, the embodiment? Was she referring to Jimmy? But why would it be able to sense her, He understood that the fragment made it but wouldn’t that mean every living organism made by the fragment would be after him? “ The Embodiment- or what you call “Jimmy” was indeed brought to life by the fragment, but it also acts as the fragment's consciousness, think of it like the fragment's physical body. Its goal would be to find its other pieces,” Cleo says, “ Which brings us to the large structure we saw before all this happened, I was able to compile some stuff while I was offline. It seems the fragment built itself a containment unit, a sanctuary, in order to prevent further energy leakage, but despite its best efforts it only managed to slow down how much leaked out,” Cleo explains properly. I guess it made sense, It also made things easier, now all he had to do was find Lily, enter the Sanctuary and grab the fragment without alerting Jimmy. It was not gonna be easy. “ But how did you find out about the embodiment? These things aren’t documented anywhere,” Akira asked, Cleo was messing around with the capybaras, she had made herself visible to all and was waving her hand in front of it, pulling away before it could bite, even though it wouldn't get anything. “ I spoke to it since I have a connection to the fragment I was able to connect to its conscious and we spoke, which is why it suddenly backed down when it did, your welcome,” she says smugly, Akira stretches his body as he prepares to continue moving forward, he takes one last look around, and then panic settled. The demon beast thing was gone, did it see him? Did it see something else? Akira quickened his pace, hoping it hadn’t seen him and just went somewhere else to nap or something. The beast loomed in the distance, it definitely saw him. He would have to find a way around this, fighting was not an option…well it was but he’d rather not use that, the beast began treading toward him, slowly, Akira walked slowly as well, but he was trying to go around it. It was gonna lunge at him, it would’ve if not for the sudden wall of fire bursting in between them, the ignition came from his right, it was Alice, she tossed his sword at his feet,

“ Now we're even,” She says keeping her attention on the beast, flames licked her blade's edge, “ A temporary truce, only until we find a way out,” Akira suggested, she seemed to agree to it. Alice paces around the Beast, keeping her flames bright to keep it from making any sudden moves against her. Akira had heard a lot of stories about Alice and her flames, he always assumed they were produced from some piece of tech, but now he knew they weren’t, it was a quick glance but he saw it, what he assumed was an alchemical rune. Alice was part of the super special alchemy whatever Cleo told him about. The rune sat in the palm of her hand, he caught a glimpse as she raised her hand steadily, making a finger gun gesture she kept her aim steady, from the tip of her index finger a small ball of fire burst to life. Akira watched in amazement, he had never seen anything like this before. Like shooting a gun Alice fires the ball of fire at the beast, it pierce its hide, leaving a scorched mark where it hit. Alice switched back to her sword. He wanted to help but at the same time he's always wanted to see a Seraphim in action live, so he sat back and watched. The two paced around each other, waiting for the other to make a move, Alice had condensed the flames into her blade making the steel appear as bright white with hues of orange. Akira hadn’t really noticed it before but her blade was a more traditional one, the more modern swords were almost all made the same way, with the same material, but hers seemed to be different, for one it was a katana. From what he could tell it was old but also really well made, perhaps it was a family heirloom? If they ever come to good terms he’d have to ask. The beast lunges at her, its claws swipe the air. Alice takes a precise step back so she evades the strike but is still within range to counter, in one swift move her heated blade cleaves through the thing, successfully ending the fight there. A small puff of smoke whirls out as she sighs, the heat from her blade cools down. “So…we should make our way to that building, we should probably find our companions there,” Akira sheath his blade as the two of them head for the building, Cleo reappears standing on his shoulder, “ That building is part of the sanctuary, your friends are most likely being held there, but be careful cause I'm not sure if the fragment made anything other than the embodiment to protect it,” She takes a seat on Akiras shoulder, Alice was staring intently at his A.I companion, she must’ve made herself visible to all. Akira hoped to avoid any questions about it by keeping his focus forward, it was hard. He could feel Alice's gaze on him, he was tempted to look back. He did, “ Why aren’t you working with the Union, with your help we could retrieve the Heart much faster,” Alice asked, fortunately directing her question at Cleo, “ I'm not obligated to help anyone find the heart, it was, however, my creator's last request so, and I really don't like the Union but I can’t exactly remember why, eh Im sure it’ll come back to me soon,” Cleo was hoping the questions would end but her response only made Alice continue. “ What do you mean you don’t remember, how does that work?” She asked confused now, which was fair, from what Akira knew about Cleo, she was supposedly some super-powerful A.I so hearing it talk about memory problems was a little concerning. Cleo leans back and stares at the sky ceiling,

“ Normally I don't have memory problems but I was transferred incorrectly and now everythings scrambled, so I don't exactly remember where the heart is, but, I'm like 65% sure it's somewhere in the Sanctuary above ground,” Cleo says, how very reassuring. Her response warranted like 50 more questions from Alice honestly Akira wasn’t sure he kinda zoned out. It took a good while for Akira to notice for some reason, but off in the distance stood a large stone pillar, it connected to the floor and ceiling, kinda like the crystal Taro had shown him, root-like tendrils sprawled along the ceiling, cracks of blue emit from all along the pillar itself. “ What's up with that?” Alice seemed to have noticed as well, “ I can only assume it's what's holding the desert up, the energy leaking from the heart is seeping into the ground, hence the cracks of energy radiating from the pillar. Eventually, it’ll reach its breaking point and the aboveground will collapse,” most of what he said was true, was the pillar really holding up the desert? He just assumed so, Alice looked back at him confused. “ How do you know this? Theres no way for Cleo to have known anything about the desert if all this is new to her as well,” Alice raises some good questions, leaving Akira no choice, well he could’ve lied but telling the truth was the first thing that came to mind, and it was faster. As they head to the building Akira informs her about the village and what he learned. By the time they reached the building it became night, or at least he assumed it was night, the lighting in the cave had changed, before it was bright, now it felt like the moon was shining down. Alice and Akira crouch behind a hill that overlooks the building entrance, two armed androids stand guard, it seems the Heart made more than just monsters. “ We should try negotiating with them first, you go around and find a spot where you have a clear shot at both of them and only take it if things go wrong,” Akira says, Alice nods in agreement as she carefully shifts down the sand hill to go around while Akira makes himself known, by embarrassingly slipping in the sand and rolling down to the base of the hill. What a great first impression with the heart, Akira brushes himself off and strides over to the two guards, they slightly raise their guns as if to intimidate him. Which it worked but you know, they don’t need to know.

“ How do you do on this fine evening, I was just wondering if you happened to run into other people? Perhaps Union soldiers?” Akira asked, he was under a lot of pressure so he did the best he could. Which clearly wasn’t enough as the androids aimed their guns at him, before they could fire they were knocked to the ground by what he can only assume is bolts of fire, unfortunately, the alloy shell of the droids were more resistant than they thought, Akira quickly draw his sword and shove it into the chest of the closest droid, hoping to stop it from moving permanently. Alice quickly made her way over to stop the other one from trying to alert the others by slicing its head off, with that they had secured their way in. All they had to do now was probably fight their way through a whole lot more of these things and save their allies. Shouldn’t be too bad.