Weapon of Choice

-BEEP BEEP- -BEEP BEEP-

-2311 Hours-

-11 hour Hibernation mode: ended-

-Initiating wake-up sequence-

-…-

-Initializing Empyrion OS … initialization complete-

-…-

-2315 Hours. Wake up sequence complete-

-Good evening, Yalda (＾▽＾)-

My eyes were opening, the first thing I saw was Uncle and Indena staring over me like hawks. Marek was sitting in the corner, asleep.

Thank goodness it had only been a little under twelve hours. Last time I used the cannon, I was out for a few days. Uncle must have been tending to my systems, making sure they were recovering more efficiently.

“Ayo! Blue Boy!” Indena shouted to Marek. “Wake up. The Shrimps back.”

I summoned up a little strength to speak. “Where did I go?” I said, playfully.

“Were on a boat, heading for the mainland, Erdreich.”

Seeing that nobody was in a panic, I assumed the golden monster was finished, and that we’d at least managed to stop the troubles at Seaport Blue.

I turned to Uncle with a groggy look, I could hardly keep my eyes open.

“Sorry, Uncle. I had to use the mana cannon again.”

He patted my head, letting me know all was good. As he did, Samael slithered down his arm and coiled up on the pillow next to me.

“Melpomene filled us in on the details. You made the right choice,” he said.

It sure was relieving to know everyone was okay. But what happened to The Actor? I know he didn’t get caught up in the blast.

“That man you met up there, Indena confirmed he was affiliated with the Family of Sai. Unfortunately it appears he escaped, and his minions have kidnaped Yamin.”

Oh no! It’s horrible that he actually stole Yamin away. That wasn’t good at all.

It seemed like Mella’s fears were being realized. Yamin was a target for our enemy, and probably due to some sort of potential she had within her. But what was this dark potential that Mella kept brining up?

“You know, I remember that actor guy doing plays all the time for kids and crap,” Indena nodded. “His magic was always for show, not very strong in a fight.”

Putting video game terms into play, and my own experience, he was a summoner. The type to hang back and let minions do all the work while he provided energy for them. Given how I was able to take down all the demons he spawned, and Uncle took out the pirates, it pretty much confirmed what Indena said about him not being very strong.

The biggest concern now was figuring out what he was doing and where he was taking Yamin. There was affiliation between demons and himself, but it wasn’t clear to us exactly what that was.

If I had to guess, I feel like he was probably one of many people who were sneaking around and stealing mana to summon demons. This was the second time I’d seen it now, the first being Janus back in Elysium. Once is a coincidence, twice is a connection.

“Do we know where he’s heading?” I asked.

“Same place we were always going.” Uncle said.

Verrenvill.

They all came to this conclusion based on a few factors. First was that The Actor made it clear that he was under the leadership of a demon lord named Belphegor. And given how a demon domain was growing in Verrenvill, not very far across the water channel from port Blue, it’s the most likely spot to start our search.

All of that was supported by the fact that Yamin originally lived in that town. So maybe something was hunting her.

Why take her in the first place though? Why call her a Star? Why did Mella want her dead?

Not enough pieces of the puzzle were fitting together yet, but this was our only shot in the dark to save her and everyone else too. All roads led to that town and an awful demon lord within it.

Demon lord…it sounded like something out of an anime. Was I really going to have to fight a thing like that? This is what I was made for, after all…

Beyond the demons, there was also another problem. That gold seed that The Actor had.

“Uncle, did Mella tell you about the golden seed?”

“Afraid so. It’s nothing but trouble.”

He wasn’t familiar with what it was, but his disgruntled face told me that he wasn’t completely clueless. It was some sort of power up or drug, but it didn’t seem super effective, since the golden bull thing didn’t actually finish powering up. Who knows what would have happened had its powers stabilized?

“If you ever encounter anything like that again, initiate Containment Protocol 596,” Uncle ordered. “But use your own discretion. If it’s safer to kill it, do it.

*Beep beep*

“Okay, Uncle.”

Containment Protocol 596-A was as follows; Any unknown parasitic/viral/supernatural lifeform, especially the likes of which from unknown origins to the operator, must be contained within an established quarantine zone.

There were three other tiers to this protocol, finally ending in a scorched earth policy if a mass contamination or outbreak were to happen. Not something I wanted to deal with personally…

Anyways, I noticed Mella wasn’t here either. She was off preparing to go to Verrenvill as well, but apparently it wasn’t to help out, it was to defeat Indena so she could finish off Yamin.

What was up with her, anyways? How many times could she have just taken Yamin out without having to go through Indena? That witch was impossible to understand.

-☆☆☆-

It was very late in the night. The others were sleeping in their rooms on the boat, preparing for the coming day. I was well awake, since I’d slept for 11 hours.

I found myself on deck, looking up. The open sky was so twinkly, full of bright stars.

A bright white and green cloud controlled a large portion of sky. That was our galaxy, Seresta Majoris.

Two big moons traveled across the apex of it all. One grey as stone, known as Darmos. Named after the god of destruction and chaos. The second moon was bright yellow, known as Ecla. It gets its name from the goddess of fertility and harvest. Two very different stories, polar opposites, but both very beautiful to see.

Just watching all these cool things made me worry about Yamin. I know she liked to stargaze too, and she would have loved talking about this stuff with me.

While concerned about her safety, I summoned my spear and held it up like I was ready to attack something.

The spear was normally bluish white, but right now it looked a lot more clear, sprinkled with vibrant colours all over. It was pretty cute.

I swung it around a few times, hitting imaginary targets, but without my combat mode engaged, I toppled over from the weight of the thrusts.

“OOF!” I hit the ground hard. “Dang it. That hurt.”

In my attempt to recover, I remembered I leveled up a little bit, which meant I had some Ability Points to spend.

Let’s see…these could be used to level up my powers, like lesser heal, or curse heal.

Lesser heal for sure was a priority. The earlier in a video game you can have a decent healing ability, the better off your party will be. That’s way I see it.

I was only able to level that up a little, which didn’t do very much. I needed to keep using it to raise the bar. This level system was going to be long term…

With the remaining points I had, I spread them out across a few different powers. Eventually this would pay off.

Meanwhile, I didn’t realize Uncle had been watching me.

“Hi, Uncle.”

“Yalda, you’re still awake?” Uncle asked.

He flew up to my side in his crystal bee form. He hadn’t used that in a while.

“Sorry, Uncle. I couldn’t sleep.”

He didn’t blame me. He couldn’t sleep either, but that was from stress.

“I noticed your working hard up here,” he transformed back into his human form and took up my spear. “Hmm…Spear of Destiny?” He raised his brow. “What a curious name.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know where that name came from.”

Kinda’ cool name though. It made it sound very powerful. Too bad its stats were a little low.

“Did you come up with that term, or did you hear it from somewhere?” he asked.

I shrugged again.

“It was just the name it had.”

I’m new to how things are named in my systems. All I know is that I saw an old spear head in the Urnan city church, and my head made a copy of it out of stardust.

“Well…” he handed the weapon back to me, “it appears you have a W.O.C.”

“A wah…?” I tilted my head and made a funny face.

"W.O.C. Weapon of Choice.” He had a silly smirk on his face.

Isn’t a woc a big frying pan for cooking? Or am I thinking of a wok? Hmm…

“Every Exceed has a personal weapon they favour,” he continued. “It seems you’ve chosen the spear.”

I wonder if any Exceed ever favoured a frying pan as a weapon. Wouldn’t that be silly? No wonder we were going extinct.

Anyways, I liked using my spear. I still wasn’t very good with it, but it was pretty cool.

Uncle wasn’t proficient with a spear, but he offered to help me train with it.

“I really need to learn how to use this thing.” I said, trying to hold it up on my own.

“You’re not the only one.” He spawned a weapon I’d never seen before. It was a broadsword, burning with white flames. That thing looked like an endgame boss weapon.

“Uncle, where’d you get a cool weapon like that?!”

“I’ve had it for a long, long time. You could say it’s my preferred weapon. But I’ve lost some skill with it over the years. I think we’ll be on equal footing,” he winked.

He looked awesome holding it up! Now all he needed to do was equip his armour, and he’d look like a real stardust knight.

"Uncle, can you train me a little?" I asked, getting inspired by how cool he was.

"Sure. Why don't we pick up where we left off before?"

~☆☆☆~

Uncle and I took a a short break from training. I took the moment to stare up at the sky again. It felt like a good idea to enjoy the peace while it lasted.

"Hey, Uncle?" I truned to him as he stepped next to me behind the boat railing. "Can I go into space one day?"

Wouldn't that be awesome? Flying through the stars at warp speed, visiting planets with aliens and stuff. That would be cool.

"Maybe someday." Uncle leaned over the railing. "But first let's make sure everything on this planet is secure before we go to another one."

That makes sense. Going to space is like a vacation. With all these demons and cult guys, who knows what trouble they'd cause if I left?

"Uncle, have you ever been to space?" I asked.

"Many times. Many times indeed," He chuckled, patting my back. "But that was a long time ago."

Uncle's pretty old, so he's got a lot of experience. I bet he's been all over the universe twice!

"What's it like up there?" I asked.

"Quiet,"

That's it? Quiet? That's not very exciting. But there's no air up there, so sound isn't going to travel I guess.

"Yalda, let's get back to training. I have some techniques I'd like to teach you, and we need to learn it before we get to the docks."

Ooh! I can't wait to learn these new moves!