Lucy//Turner

"How long was Alice in control?" Lucy asked Hannah after walking back to the edge of the half-collapsed rooftop. "You were already aware of it before now, correct?"

"Your consciousness had existed inside of an artificial duplicate since your second fight with the 202nd kaiju." Hannah replied, wiping away her own tears. "If you remember anything since then, it means Alice subsumed your memories into herself for some reason. I can't imagine why."

Lucy stared out at the Atom-3, focusing all of her attention towards it. She couldn't connect to it anymore, no matter how hard she tried. "Why isn't this working?!" She said. "I can't do anything if I can't connect."

"The reason you were able to connect to the Atom-3 in the first place was because of your artificial nature. Humans can't interface with a DCP Grid. The DSC operates on the same principal, I altered your body's code to force a direct connection to the Atom-3."

"So, in other words, I need to use the kaijufinder system to connect?"

"Correct."

"Can you" Lucy looked over to Hannah, "hand me my phone? I think I saw it on the-"

"Yeah... Yeah I can do that." Hannah closed her eyes as she bent down to pick up the phone from Kaden's corpse. "Here." She offered it to Lucy.

"Thanks." Lucy looked saddened. 

Lucy then turned on the phone and pointed it towards the Atom-3 before opening the kaijufinder app. When Lucy touched the spot on her phone that should have opened the app, however, it only opened a black screen. No message or interface, nothing.

"What happened?" Lucy asked. "Why isn't it working?"

"The KF system operated on the Atom-3." Hannah explained. "Gabriel insisted that we shouldn't use the 2nd DCP for it. It runs outside of the firewall, meaning Alice couldn't interfere with it, or so we thought. Somehow, Alice was able to bypass that firewall and send a part of itself to manipulate the KF system. We figured that out after you 'died'. The KF system couldn't have copied your consciousness, only Alice could do that."

"Why though? Why would Alice try to keep me alive?"

Hannah clutched her elbow and looked to the side. "I don't know."

"You're lying to me, Hannah Kennedy" Lucy replied, "or maybe I should say Hannah Holt."

"You... You remember me?!" Hannah was stunned. "I thought you had forgotten when I visited your mother."

"I did forget, I'm sorry." Lucy said in reply. "I know how much you care about Gabriel. That's why I want to save him and everyone else."

"It... It's been a long time. It's nice to see you again." Hannah said. "I take it you remember Gabriel as well."

"The fact that he's your older brother, yeah." Lucy continued. "It's still a bit fuzzy, but I'm surprised neither of you tried to remind me-" Lucy stopped. "Wait."

"If you remember Gabriel and I, should should remember everything else now, too." Hannah said. "Why did you stop, though? What do you mean by 'wait'?"

"It's nothing..." A tear fell down Lucy's face before she recollected herself. "It's nothing at all."

"We can save all of this for later. Right now, we need to stop Alice from making contact with the Egg of Orphan." Hannah said. "You said you have a plan, right?"

"My plan isn't going to work anymore." Lucy replied. "If I can't make contact with the Atom-3, there's no way I can get to Alice."

"What do you mean? What are you trying to do?"

"I know that the real Alice is somewhere in there, she has to be." Lucy explained. "The Atom-3 had no reason to keep me alive, all I can do is ruin its plan."

"That might not be true." Hannah contested. "It could be trying to make you contact it again so it can take control of your body. You can't be so sure that Alice is going to listen to you."

"Whenever I took control of the 2nd kaiju, I saw something. I wasn't sure of it until after my fight with the 202nd kaiju, but now I know what it was. Alice is in there, if I can find her, I can save everyone."

"I suppose if we're doomed anyway it doesn't hurt to take a few risks." Hannah said. "How are you going to do that then, the KF system is offline."

"The mk1 uses the same technology as the DSC to link its operator to the artificial DCP, correct?"

"How do you know that?!" Hannah was shocked. "I only learned about it from the logs stored inside of the DCP Mini. Everyone lost their memory of the year and a half except for Gabriel, right?"

"We don't have any more time." Lucy replied. "We need to fix the mk1 as soon as possible. It was you who said to save this for later, right?"

"Fine. We can repair the mk1 with the artificial DCP, but the closer you get to the Atom-3, the more the repaired parts' data integrity will fail. You'll be on a timer if we can't take the extra time to repair it manually."

"We have to try that then." Lucy said. "Can you get into contact with Gabriel?"

"Don't worry." Lucy heard a voice coming from her phone. "The mk1 is fully operational; all you need is to pilot it, Lucy."

"Who is this?!" Lucy shouted back.

"This is Gabriel." The voice answered. "I'm sorry for lying to you about what happened during those 198 days, I hope you don't hold it against me that much."

"It's my fault for forgetting." Lucy replied. "I'm going to do what I tried to do when I interfaced with the Atom-3, this time I won't fail."

"We need to get back to DEED headquarters to relaunch the mk1." Hannah interrupted. "I have a car parked outside."

Lucy and Hannah raced down the stairway to the ground floor before seating themselves in Hannah's car. It seemed like it took hours to finally arrive at HQ. Lucy had never seen the underground tunnel route before, however. Gabriel must have been lying when he said the subway was the only way in or out of the underground base.

Gabriel was waiting for them at the entrance to the main building. At first, there wasn't even a word exchanged between the three of them as they silently walked through the main lobby to the elevator. It was Gabriel who eventually broke the silence.

"Hannah, I need you head down to the lower levels to observatory D." He said. "Lucy and I will be going to the launch facility."

"Understood, sir." Hannah said. There was a begrudging tone in her voice. Lucy knew why that was; Gabriel didn't even recall that Hannah was his sister.

Lucy and Gabriel stepped into an empty elevator.

"You've heard plenty about the firewall that kept Alice contained, right?" Gabriel walked over to the main panel and touched the button second to the top.

"Yeah, I've heard a little bit." Lucy was confused as to why this was important.

"The firewall was something I put in place to stop my own demise. I now know, however, that poses more of a threat to us than an advantage. Alice is now protected by a barrier that only it can bypass using the alternate codes from the DCP units that its consumed." Gabriel tossed a small mechanical device to Lucy. "We need to disable that barrier before you can make contact with Alice."

"What is this?" Lucy looked down at the device. It looked like a matte black card with an orange icon resembling a lock hovering above one of its faces.

"That's the launch controls for the mk1. There isn't a dedicated crew for the procedure, it's all automated."

"Why do I need this? Can't you do it?"

"No."

"Why? Why can't you-"

"My existence is only protected by the firewall. This body is being held together by the DCP Grid projected by the Atom-3, Alice is forced to keep me alive because of the firewall. Without it, I'll die."

"No, you can't do that! I have to save you too, Hannah is-"

"That's why Hannah isn't here."

Lucy stopped, stunned. Gabriel was willing to sacrifice himself to stop Alice. Could Lucy really bear that weight on her shoulders?

"I won't let you do that!" Lucy shouted. "You need to keep living!"

"The Gabriel that Hannah cares about has been dead for eight years, she'll need to move on at some point."

"You don't care about how she feels, about how I feel?! We can't watch you die! I can't watch you die!"

"You have 5 seconds."

"No! You can't die! Not after everything you did for us! I never got to-"

Blood sprayed out from a cubic grid across Gabriel's body. Lucy was blinded by the liquid shooting into her eyes. By the time she could see once again, the only thing that remained of Gabriel was the stains across the elevator and Lucy's clothes. She was too horrified to cry. Gabriel was gone now, his faith in her now crushing down upon her psyche. 

The elevator door opened, revealing a giant room. The space was completely empty aside from the mk1, currently in a standby position. Lucy walked up to and climbed atop the towering silver creature. Everything came naturally to her as memories of practicing flashed out from her mind. 

As she rested in the mk1's cockpit, Lucy was reminded that it wasn't just Gabriel who had faith in her. Kaden died for the same thing, and Hannah believed in her plan despite never asking what it was. Everyone she knew was counting on her to stop Alice from destroying everything she had ever known. Lucy set her hands on the mk1's controls as the entry doors closed.

Red lights flashed throughout the dark space Lucy sat within, barely illuminating the control panel in front of her. A large panel that enveloped her entire field of view opening before her, letting her see the mk1's surroundings. Lucy pulled the launch controls out of her pocket. Now, the orange lock hovering above it was replaced by a large blue circle. Lucy touched the circle, causing the floor beneath the mk1 to start rising, pushing her with it. She tossed the launch controls off to the side and looked up to the room's ceiling. The sky above was quickly approaching as the mk1 quickly rose to the surface. 

The launch pad's sudden stop as it met the surface caused the mk1 to continue its ascent into the air, letting Lucy get a view of her surroundings. The Atom-3, which hung above the city before, was now gone. In its place was a dark, mechanical figure. Lucy knew it well: the 2nd kaiju.

"Lucy, the cameras on the mk1 are giving us a visual of the target." Lucy heard Hannah's voice over the internal speakers. "That looks like the 2nd kaiju, Alice is trying to defend itself."

"I know." Lucy replied. "That's why I decided to not run in on foot."

The mk1 hovered midair using its propulsion jets. Lucy formed a plan of action for a moment before executing it. The mk1 launched itself towards the 2nd kaiju, flying through the air. Instead of drawing the sword from her back, Lucy threw a punch to the 2nd kaiju's head. The 2nd kaiju didn't have time to react in the split second while Lucy barreled towards it, so the blow struck true. The impact revealed a mechanism concealed within the 2nd kaiju's head before the plating around it reformed.

"That was the Atom-3, its acting as the 2nd kaiju's DCP Core Unit." Hannah said. "If you destroy it, the Atom-3 will shut down."

"I can't let that happen!" Lucy shouted back.

"What?! Are you insane?!"

"Kaden and Gabriel died to create a brighter future, I'm not going to throw that away!"

"That's crazy! There is no alternative to destroying the Atom-3! You're just going to get yourself killed!" Hannah cried. "You can't expect to change the past, it didn't work last time, and it won't work again!"

"I can't change the past, I know that!" Lucy readied herself for the 2nd kaiju's attack. "I'm going to create a new future from that past!"

"What does that mean?!"

The 2nd kaiju aimed its gauntlet at the mk1 and fired off a beam attack, which Lucy dodged with relative ease.

"This thing was faster when I was controlling it, what's going on?!" Lucy asked.

"It seemed like the mk1's data integrity isn't dropping either, it's like Alice is holding back." Hannah answered. "Destroy the Atom-3, now!"

"No!" Lucy shouted back as she threw another punch at the 2nd kaiju. Her strike barely missed.

"You're going to die! The 2nd kaiju was always stronger than the mk1, you stand no chance if it decides to fight back!"

The 2nd kaiju kicked at the mk1's chest, sending it flying across the city. Lucy heard a sound like stone cracking as light began to pour into the mk1's cockpit from a tear in its armor. The impact slammed Lucy's body onto the back of the mk1's compartment.

"That was a direct hit! The mk1's exterior plating has been compromised! I suggest immediate retreat!" Hannah advised. "Get out of there, now!"

"I can't!" Lucy replied. "Not after what happened to Kaden and Gabriel! Not after what happened to everyone who had to die!"

"Gabriel?!" Hannah sounded shocked. "What do you-"

"Gabriel believed in me, just like Kaden. He sacrificed himself to destroy the firewall." Lucy explained. "I won't let that sacrifice be in vain!"

The mk1 stood up as a chunk of its chest armor fell to the ground. Lucy could see out from the cockpit now. The 2nd kaiju slowly approached its damaged opponent.

"You have to leave!" Hannah said. "There's no way you can defeat Alice!"

Lucy released the controls and reached out her hand to the 2nd kaiju. "That's why I don't have to. It's not Alice I'm fighting, it never has been. Alice is the key to all of this, if it weren't for her, this entire planet would be gone by now." She felt a burning sensation in her right eye. It was just like when she used the KF system, but she wasn't taking control of the 2nd kaiju.

"What are you doing?!" Hannah shouted. "There's a reading on the DCP Grid, the KF replica system is reactivating."

Lucy put her left hand on the mk1's controls and began to rush towards the 2nd kaiju. The mk1 made a punch to the 2nd kaiju's head once again, knocking it to the ground.

"The 2nd kaiju isn't reacting at all, are you trying to shut it down?!" Hannah asked.

"ALICE! ANSWER ME!" Lucy cried. "WHERE ARE YOU?!" 

The 2nd kaiju rose to its feet once again. Lucy saw that the Atom-3 was once again exposed, only the armor plating that surrounded it wasn't regenerating. 

"I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE!" Lucy shouted. "WE DON'T HAVE TO FIGHT, JUST STOP THIS!" The 2nd kaiju stood in place for what seemed like an eternity as Lucy continued to call out to Alice.

"Lucy, do it now, destroy the Atom-3!" Hannah said. "Alice is gone, just like Gabriel was!"

"No, I saw her, I know that Alice is in there!" Lucy replied. "I can still save-"

Suddenly, the 2nd kaiju, arm extended outwards, and a beam of energy shot out from within, piercing through the mk1's chest.

"LUCY!" Hannah shouted. "LUCY, COME IN!"

-cut-

Lucy awoke inside of the mk1's compartment. There was blood around her. She looked to her left arm, which was crushed underneath the mk1's control panel, which had been dislodged from the floor, and the wall she lay on top of. She couldn't feel that arm anymore, but pain throbbed throughout the rest of her body.

"LUCY!" A muffled voice over the intercom cried. "LUCY, PLEASE COME IN! YOU CAN'T DIE ON ME!"

"H... Hannah..." Lucy spoke brokenly. "I'm... I'm here..."

There was no response, the microphone was probably broken. Hannah continued to cry from the speakers, but nothing could be done to change that.

 Lucy used all of her strength to push the control panel off of her arm. It seemed like she struggled for hours just to walk again. Lucy slowly climbed out of the mk1's cockpit and stumbled her way towards the center of the city. She eventually came across a giant chasm, reaching from the city's surface to the depths below. Hovering above the chasm was the 2nd kaiju, hanging midair. Lucy felt that same burning sensation in her right eye once again as her gaze turned towards the still exposed Atom-3.

"Why?" Lucy whispered. "Why does this have to happen? Why couldn't someone else have been the one to go through all of this pain?"

There was a rumbling coming from below. The Atom-3 was trying to reach the Egg of Orphan, but it wasn't going to stop there. Hannah was just going off of a guess, but Lucy had seen firsthand the destruction that the Atom-3 would bring upon the whole world. Those 198 days that everyone else had forgotten contained memories that brought Lucy to tears once again. She knew that those memories would have hurt everyone else, so it wasn't that she didn't want to bear them alone. This was the only way to move forward, to leave everything behind and start over. 

The memory that stuck out to her the most was her last date with Kaden. It wasn't important in the grand scheme of things, nor was it something that changed her life, but it was a happy memory that had no right to exist anymore. Kaden had forgotten about it, everyone else had as well. Only she could keep it close to her as the last remaining memento of the days the world had lost. Kaden insisted on a kiss that day, knowing that the world was going to end. Lucy obliged, though she never admitted it was her first kiss. That memory wouldn't save Lucy now, nor would any of the others alone, but it was everything that she had forgotten together that showed her the path forward. 

Just because something is forgotten doesn't mean it didn't happen.

"It's time for this to end." Lucy whispered as she reached her right hand towards the Atom-3 once again. "Alice, I know you're still there, it's okay to move on. Even if you have to carry the pain with you, you can use it to create the future."

The pain in Lucy's eye didn't matter anymore, though it would be the last time she felt it. The world around her faded away as she found herself in a familiar train station once again. Sitting on the opposite platform once again was Alice, clad in her yellow raincoat.

Lucy got up from her bench and climbed down to the tracks. As she climbed up to the other side, her eyes met with her younger sister's. Alice's coat was loosely clinging to her shoulders as her brown hair caught the newfound sunlight and flowed with the wind.

"I'm sorry that I forgot about you." Lucy said. "There's nothing I can do now about that, I'm sure you know already."

"I missed you so much." Alice jumped up from the bench and embraced Lucy. "I'm sorry for everything I did, big sister." 

"It's okay." Lucy felt the tears from her younger sister soak into her clothes. "I forgive you. I don't want you to cry, that'll make me cry too." Lucy returned Alice's embrace and felt tears well up in her own eyes. The two girls stood on the edge of the tracks crying for some time, not wanting to leave the moment.

"I didn't understand anything, I just wanted to make the pain stop." Alice cried. "I just wanted everything to end."

"I don't blame you." Lucy replied. "Sometimes walking forwards just one step hurts more than living in what once was."

"What can I do now?" Alice let go of her sister and stepped back. She looked different now, as though the years she lost had finally returned to her. She wore the raincoat around her waist and her eyes glowed a bright blue, just like Lucy's. "After everything that I've done now, where is there left to go?"

"I've thought about to for a while." Lucy answered. "We've been living in the past for a long time, I think it's time we start over and let a new future begin."

"Won't we all disappear though?" Alice asked. "If we start over, none of these eight and a half years will have happened."

"That's not true." Lucy said in reply. "Even if we forget, the past still exists. We may not be remembered, but that doesn't mean it's not worth doing what we can for those around us."

"Are you sure it's worth it?" Alice said. A train pulled into the station behind Lucy and stopped, opening its doors to the platform. "Wouldn't you rather keep on living in the past than letting things go?"

"No." Lucy answered. "I don't regret this. I might have made a lot of happy memories, and a lot of painful ones, but none of them will disappear. The future is built on those memories. The fact that others can live on is reason enough to keep moving forward." Lucy walked over to the platform's bench and sat down. "I'll be able to make new memories for myself in a world that the ones I lost will have created. It's your turn to move forward."

Alice looked into the empty train car. "Will the future be full of more pain?"

"Of course it will" Lucy said, "but the future will be full of everything, not just pain. If you live being afraid of pain, you'll never be able to look forward."

Alice stepped aboard the train. "Thank you, Lucy, for everything."

The doors between the two sisters closed as the train pushed on forwards. Lucy sat on the bench for a long time. The world around here eventually faded to a dark nothingness. Lucy felt her body fade away next. As she disappeared, her life flashed before her eyes. Memories both good and painful were brought back to her mind. Lucy smiled, knowing that they wouldn't be worth nothing.

-cut-

"No one will forget that day. The day that inspired a new mystery in the heart of the world at large.

It was a new mystery, something that nobody can explain yet to this day.

Eight years ago, a strange device landed in New York City. This coincided with a astronomical discovery that earth had skipped eight and a half years of rotation around the sun. The device, still unknown to the American public, is the stuff of myths now. Some say it was a government test gone wrong. Others say it came from another planet. The truth is that we may never know. Any questions?"

As the teacher, an older man with a grey mustache, finished his lecture, the class sat silently. Every one of the high-school seniors was anxiously awaiting the ringing bell, knowing that its sound meant the schoolyear's end. One student among them had her face resting upon the wooden desk in front of her.

The bell rang.

All of the students but the sleeping girl stood up and walked out of the room, some of them going so far as to run out of the room. Once the room had been evacuated, the teacher walked over to the classroom's sleeping inhabitant.

"Miss Turner" the teacher said, poking the girl with his wooden ruler, "you somehow managed to miss the last lecture of the year. Unthinkable."

"I missed the last what?" The girl replied drowsily.

"Oh well." The teacher added. "I supposed you at least didn't miss anything important. You're excused if you didn't hear the bell."

"Oh, I am?!" The girl shot up. "I'm so sorry!"

"Don't worry, just correct your sleep schedule so your college professors don't have to worry about it." The teacher replied.

Lucy picked up her bag and walked towards the room's exit. "Goodbye, Mr. Campbell!"

"Goodbye, Miss Turner!" The teacher said as Lucy went through the doorway.

"So, Lucy," A boy waiting outside of the room called to her, "you break any high scores last night?"

"Oh, did I?!" Lucy stopped for a second. "Nope!"

"You really stayed up late and didn't?"

"It's hard to beat them when they're already so high." Lucy sighed. "You want to go hit the arcade?"

"Why not?"

"If that's the case, then I guess we can walk there today." Lucy added. "I'll just have to pick up my bike on the way home.

"I'll do the same then, I can't be leaving you alone all that time." The boy said.

Lucy and the boy walked past the bike rack and to the sidewalk in front of the school. Suddenly a bike whizzed past them. Lucy recognized the bike as her own.

"See ya, sis!" The rider waved back as she pedaled into the distance. Lucy recognized her, obviously. It was her sister, Alice.

"How did you manage to memorize my bike lock's password?!" Lucy shouted, though Alice was long gone.

Lucy then turned to the boy next to her. "Can you go make sure she doesn't get into trouble, Kaden?"

"Sure" Kaden replied, "I'll meet you at the arcade later, then?"

"That works with me." Lucy answered. "Thank you!"

Kaden walked back to the bike rack, unlocked his bike, and pedaled off in the direction Alice went, leaving Lucy in the dust.

"Oh well, so much for walking together." Lucy muttered.

"Excuse me, would you happen to be Alice Turner?" Lucy heard a voice behind her. She though she recognized the voice from somewhere, but she couldn't quite pin it down.

"Uh, no." Lucy replied. "That would be my sister who just-"

Lucy turned around to see a familiar face.

"Gabriel?!"

-end-