As soon as Raphael realizes what is happening, he runs straight towards the first Demu to rush through the hole. He dodges a straight thrust aimed for his left shoulder and kicks the Demu square in the chest with his right foot, sending it backward into it's allies and back into the dark entrance that it came from.

Raphael looks behind him for a split-second to examine his allies. He sees Miyra pulling a metallic object out of her pocket while Chiot is attempting to shuffle June out of the lobby, but she is protesting harshly.

Raphael swings his head back as he hears the clambering of feet drawing closer. Before his head is even halfway turned, Raphael hears a blade cutting through the air. He throws his head and body down, ducking out of the way of a blade that had been aimed straight for his scalp.

Thinking on instinct, Raphael punches the Demu straight in his gut as hard as he can, sending it recoiling back only a few feet. Before Raphael can make another movement, he feels a hand being placed firmly on the center of his back.

While Raphael is kneeling in his bent over position, Miyra jumps over his back and drop kicks the Demu Raphael had just punched earlier back into the dark hole a second time.

As Raphael re-balances himself, he sees Miyra standing in front of him, holding a fold-out metal sword in one hand and a metallic rod in her other. Before Raphael can mutter a word, Miyra holds out her hand with the metallic rod towards him and says “We've got work to do, Guardian.”

Raphael understands what she means. It is his job from now on to not only protect June, but to also fight in this eternal war. Raphael grasps the metallic rod and grips it firmly in his right hand.

Simply gripping the metallic rod must have been enough to activate it. Right after Raphael grabs the object, it unfolds into a three-foot-long metal sword.

While Raphael fiddles with his new weapon, Miyra is hard at work fending off the Demu that are wading through the insertion point that they had just created on the ship. She blocks the first overhead strike of a Demu and parries the enemy's blade to her left. She then knees the Demu in it's gut, and then chops halfway through it's neck.

While the Demu falls down dead, she slashes her sword through the Demu's neck to release her sword and then pulls it into a parrying position to deflect an incoming low-angled thrust from another Demu with a single stroke. She parries the blade, and then spins around and slashes the Demu with an upper-parallel slash from the left that goes through the entire upper-right portion of it's body.

As Miyra readies herself to strike down the next Demu, Raphael appears from her left and thrusts his blade into the chest of the next Demu to appear, ripping it back out in the next second and readying himself to fight his next opponent.

During the fight, June and Chiot are struggling against each other in the background. As much as Chiot attempts, he can't persuade June to leave everything to Raphael and Miyra. She just downright refuses to leave them behind.

June eventually rips her hand away from Chiot's and runs away from him toward Raphael and Miyra. “Get back!” she screams as she rushes forward with her fist's clenched.

Raphael trusts June's judgment, but Miyra does not. Raphael knows this once he looks into Miyra's eyes and sees a fiery determination that shows that she refuses to move a muscle.

June runs towards the insertion point with her right fist extended behind her, ready to strike with some kind of unknown magic might growing within her fist.

Raphael sees June coming closer and quickly realizes that nothing is going to stop her, she is rushing forward like a raging stampede. Raphael grabs Miyra by her shirt collar and pulls her to the side as best he can, despite her resistance.

By the time Raphael has cleared Miyra out of June's way, she is just a few feet away from the insertion point. With a great yell of pure fury, June slings her clenched fist forward. A great, destructive blast of air is sent out of her fist that has so much force that it blasts a hole straight through the first two Demu's chests and sends any of the Demu behind them hurtling back into the depths of the insertion point. After letting out the blast, she lowers her fist.

Without skipping a beat, June changes her stance and straightens her body. She closes her eyes and clasps her hand's together. She starts to chant in mystic tones and a white light begins to radiate from her. After a few seconds of chanting, her eye's flash open and she releases her hands in opposite directions. As she moves her hands, a bold stream of green light appears between them. That beam of light eventually forms into the shape of a two-handed battle scythe.

Unfortunately, June isn't paying attention to how long she is taking. By the time she is halfway through making her scythe, the Demu have already gotten back up and are ready to continue the fight. Raphael isn't too mystified by June's magic to not be able to notice this. He rushes in front of June and grabs the first Demu's sword arm as it attempts to slash her. He pulls the Demu's arm into the air and fiercely headbutts him in the head. His headbutt is not enough, however, as the Demu barely moves a single inch backward from Raphael's forceful head bash.

Miyra moves in front of Raphael and his enemy and slashes another incoming Demu across both of it's shins. She spins on her feet along with the momentum of her slash and slashes Raphael's Demu across it's back. Still spinning, she turns around another time and smashes the Demu she had previously slashed into the ground with a powerful downward smash with her blade.

By the time Miyra has smashed her enemy into the flooring, June has just finished bringing about her mystical scythe. She leaps over Raphael and Miyra and slams the point of her scythe down on the last Demu to appear, slamming her scythe straight down the base of the Demu's skull. She shifts her body behind her scythe and uses her body and arm strength to rip her scythe out of the Demu's corpse.

At this point, the Demu have stopped appearing from the hole, but that doesn't mean that there isn't more of them coming. Raphael looks over his shoulder to examine the rest of the room.

Chiot is standing at the other end of the room. Although his facial expression doesn't show it, Raphael can tell from the look in his eyes that he is amazed by what he has just seen. Seeing a group of pre-teenagers just mercilessly take out a group of well-armed damned souls is not a normal thing. By the time that the fighting has finished, Chiot had already prepared himself in case the fighting were to reach him. Wielding a metal lunch tray, he is ready for whatever sort of monstrous beast would come after him.

“Chiot!” shouts Raphael from the other side of the room. “Put down the tray and listen up! I need you to find Sherah for me and tell her to meet us back at Lendlock's office. Is that clear!” Chiot drops his make-shift weapon and nods obediently. “Good. Now get going!” Chiot takes off out of the cafeteria lobby and sprints down the hallway, even though he has no idea where he is suppose to be going.

“So what are are your orders, commander?” asks Miyra while standing ready in a battle-stance.

It takes Raphael a few seconds to realize that Miyra is talking to him, since he has never been called a commander before. He looks over to her a mere moments later and says “We're going to stay here for a little bit longer until either we're sure that the Demu have stopped using this entryway, or UMA backup gets here to cover this entrance.

Both Miyra and June nod their heads and ready themselves for when the next enemy will show up.

Time passes slowly as the small group stands around the insertion point with their weapon's risen and ready. They wait for a long while, with not a single enemy appearing through the entryway.

Raphael is nearly about to call back his squad and have them begin making their way back to Lendlock's office when a small, circular device comes rolling out of the hole toward them.

The device rolls across the ground until it comes to a stop in the center of the half-circle that Raphael's squad has formed. The entire group stares at the metal instrument the entire way between it rolling out of the hole to it coming to a rest in front of them.

Raphael and June stare at the device in pure confusion. They have absolutely no idea what this instrument is. When the object comes to a stop, however, Miyra's eyes widen as she begins to realize what has just rolled out of the insertion point. She says cautiously and quietly under her voice “Oh shit...” and then leaps to the ground behind her, saying, “Get down! Concussion grenade!”

Raphael understands instantly what she has just said, but June doesn't. She simply stares at Miyra in confusion. Raphael sees that June doesn't understand and knows that he has to do something.

Without thinking, Raphael leaps in front of June and tackles her to the ground, shielding her with his body. As him and June drop to the ground, the concussion grenade goes off, sending him and June head over heels across the room. Raphael lands upside-down against the upper-portion of the lobby wall and slides back down to the floor head first. June, however, flips over low to the ground and lands on her stomach with a slight slide.

Miyra looks up from her laying position after the blast and sees a massive gray man with a gigantic axe making his way out of the insertion point, his weapon ready and waiting to hack and maim....

Chiot sprints down the hallways of the Starlooper with no sense of direction what-so-ever. All he knows is that his commander had just instructed him to find Sherah, no matter where she may be. The Starlooper is in complete chaos from what Chiot can see as he runs through it's hallways. There are small battles breaking out across the ship and insertion points being created every way he looks, but that doesn't matter to him. His mission is to find Sherah and get to the meeting point, and only then would he be safe.

As he sprints down the corridors, he starts to realize that he has no idea where Sherah is at. The last time he had seen her was when him and the rest of the squad were extracted to the Starlooper. Once they were on the ship, he left the group and went straight to the bridge to get a quick rundown on what the current situation was.

After he got all the information he needed, he left the bridge and headed to the cafeteria, finding Miyra on the way as she waited outside of the infirmary. He decided to wait for Raphael to wake up so that he could go to the cafeteria with Miyra instead of eating alone.

After Raphael had awakened and headed to his meeting, Chiot and Miyra headed straight for the cafeteria. After waiting in the massive cafeteria line for about the same amount of time that it took Raphael to finish his meeting, Miyra and Chiot got their meals, which were more complex than Raphael and June's, and sat down quickly at one of the many cafeteria tables.

As Chiot thinks back throughout his time aboard the Starlooper, he notices that he never even saw Sherah after they came aboard the Starlooper. Not only that, but Raphael never even told him where he could find her, he just told him to find her and bring her to the rendezvous point.

Chiot let's out a deep sigh as he comes to a stop in the middle of one of the Starlooper's many hallways. He realizes that how he is going about searching for Sherah is going to be in complete vain if he continues, he needs to think of a better strategy.

As Chiot starts contemplating on his next course of action, he hears someone running down the hallway toward him. He shoots his head upright and sees none other than Sherah running straight down the hallway toward him. Chiot's face lights up in relief as he acknowledges that his only mission has just been accomplished by itself.

Sherah sprints down the hallway, grabs Chiot by his shirt collar and throws him up against a wall. Chiot is completely astonished by this, he had figured that Sherah would at least be a little happy to see him, but apparently feelings of joy are not even remotely appearing in her mind.

“What the hell are you thinking, you damn idiot!?” barks Sherah in a state of complete anger. “You're suppose to be helping the key right now, you fucking moron! What could have possibly been going through your head while you were prancing around the damned hallways! Now, tell me where the hell June is before you really get on my bad side!”

“Please Sherah, calm down...” Chiot chokes out “Raphael told me to find you and to tell you that we're all meeting back up at Lendlock's office-”

“I don't give a flying monkey crap about what that little kid said, now just tell me where June was the last time you saw her!”

“Over at the fifteenth floor cafeteria, now please... can you let me go...?”

With eyes filled with rage, Sherah slowly loosens her grip on Chiot's collar, eventually letting go of his shirt completely. In a flash, Sherah spins around and sprints down the hallway out of sight.

Chiot watches Sherah run down the hallway with a new found fear of her in his heart. He doesn't understand what is happening to her, she was so calm and understanding during their trip to Numarus. She almost never overreacted to anything, but now she is just filled with anger and rage. Chiot let's out a slight sigh once Sherah goes around the corner. He slides down the wall and sits on the flooring, knowing that Sherah's new attitude is going to cause some major problems among the squad in the future.

“Heh, that must be their leader, a Demu Berserker.” thinks Miyra as she stands and examines the hulking gray man that has just appeared through the entryway and onto the Starlooper. She looks past the Berserker to see June and Raphael laying unconscious on the ground opposite of her “Guess I'm going to have to do this on my own....” she thinks once more.

The Berserker stares back at Miyra through pasty white eyes, eyeing down his prey. The Berserker's mouth opens in a wide grin, letting out white steam that vents into the air from the sides of his maw. He laughs in a low, dark tone. “Stupid little girl, a weakling creature like yourself doesn't deserve to face me as an opponent.”

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“You underestimate me, you hulking a-hole!” says Miyra with a grin as she raises her metal sword toward her new enemy. “You've never even come into contact with my kind, have you? If you had, then you would've already realized that you're nothing compared to me!”

“Shut up, puny mortal!” screams the Berserker with rage in his voice. “You think too highly of yourself, you weakling child-girl! Now pay for your weakness!!”

The Berserker rushes toward Miyra while spouting evil words from his mouth. He throws his axe down in a mighty smash, attempting to completely destroy Miyra with a single blow.

Miyra is stronger than he is, though. She blocks the Berserker's axe with her sword and uses her body weight to throw his weapon to her side. She pushes herself forward and punches the Demu straight in his gut. Her punch has so much force that it knocks the wind out of the monster, forcing him to stumble backward. “What...” stutters the Berserker “how could you possibly-”

Miyra raises her sword another time as she runs toward the Berserker. The Berserker raises his axe to block whatever attack Miyra is going to use next, holding it out vertical in front of him.

Miyra leaps into the air in front of the Berserker and with a great screech, swings her sword across the dark metal shaft of the axe, slicing it in half and prying it from the Berserker's hands. Miyra leaps backward from the Berserker, sliding across the ground to a halt. “Come on, you can't really be so weak that you can't fight a 'weakling child-girl!'” Miyra let's out a laugh as she slings her head backward into the air.

“Wha-What are you...!?” mutters the Berserker in complete horror.

“Oh, did I forget to tell you?” Miyra says through a smiling grin, “My name is Miyra Sinnt, and I'm a Taurus!”

“By the Devil...” says the Berserker as he looks down at Miyra in horror. “You're a Taurus... that explains everything....”

Without another word, Miyra runs toward the Berserker and jams her sword into his defenseless gut. She shifts her hand around her sword with it still sticking out of her enemy's mid-section. She grasps her sword in a backhanded stance and slashes her sword upward, ripping through the Demu's gut and chest plate.

The Berserker spits out black blood as he attempts to live through his fatal wound. “Sinnt... I swear...” the Berserker drops to his knees as his blood slowly drains from his body. “you... will pay...” the Berserker's body slowly drops down to the ground, landing with a thump. He spits out his last words as a pool of blood starts forming around him “for... this....”

Miyra stares down at the now dead Berserker, wondering how he is going to supposedly make her 'pay'. “Tch, whatever.” Miyra pays her enemy no mind now that he is dead and decides that she needs to check up on Raphael.

Luckily enough, he is just starting to regain consciousness when the battle finishes. Unfortunately, June is still knocked out.

Raphael sits up from his laying position and begins to look around the area, still dazed from the earlier blast. He looks around the room as his memory starts to recover. “Aw crud...” he blurts out in dismay. “how long have I been out...?”

Miyra walks over to him after she goes to June for a quick second to check on her vitals. “You were only out for a few minutes, but don't worry, I took care of all the baddies.”

“Mmh, alright...” Raphael can barely respond to Miyra in his confused state. His eyes suddenly flash open as he notices June laying motionless on the floor. “June!” he screams out in alarm. “Miyra! Is June okay!?”

“June's fine” says Miyra before she reaches out a hand to help Raphael to his feet. “She's only been knocked unconscious by the concussion grenade. She'll be up soon, but for now, we need to get to Lendlock's office.”

“Alright, that's great.” Raphael grabs a hold of Miyra's hand and lifts himself up using her assistance. “Somebody is going to need to carry her, it's not like she can walk in her state. Do you mind carrying her, Miyra?”

“No problem.” Miyra compresses her sword and fits it into her back pocket as she walks over to June. She wraps June's unconscious body in her arms and lifts her up. “So, shall we go?”

“Lets.” Raphael grabs a hold of his dropped sword and then motions for Miyra to follow him as he walks out of the cafeteria lobby with her following after him.

Minutes before the attack, Lendlock sits in his office. Raphael and his compatriots have just recently left his office to make for the portal room and evacuate to Pontractus Numerus. Before calling his recommended Comm's director and giving her a necessary briefing on the current situation and her new squad, Lendlock decides that he is going to take care of a report that he is required to send to the UMA first. Time passes slowly as he marks down every single second of his experience, making sure that he makes everything correlate correctly as he writes.

After Lendlock writes down the last word of his report, he lays his pen down and leans back in his chair to clear his head and relax for just a few moments. Seeing as this might be the only time he has left to catch a quick breath if the Demu are to catch up with them, he relishes his time. He takes a few deep breaths before leaning forward and bringing his chair back upright.

He grabs his mug and takes a sip of cold, crisp water before reaching across his desk and grasping a microphone and bringing it to his lips. “Bridge command?” he speaks into the microphone. “This is Commander Lendlock, over?”

Lendlock waits for a response from the bridge, which arrives quickly. “What do you need, Commander Lendlock, sir?”

“I need you to bring a communication officer to my office. Her name is Specialist Yen Porint, and she needs to get here ASAP, is that clear, over?”

“Yes sir, Specialist Porint will be at your office momentarily. Is that all, sir?”

“Inform me immediately if there is an enemy sighting. That is all. Get back to your station, over and out.”

Lendlock places his microphone down on his table and let's out a sigh. “That ship better not show up. If it does, this ship mine-as-well be scrap metal. I need to get the Key off of this ship as fast as possible, at least then she would be safe for the time being.” he thinks to himself.

Lendlock shuts his eyes as he recounts the situation that he is in. He lowers his head down and rests his chin against the back of his bridged hands. He knows how dangerous it is to have that Demu ship this far behind the UMA's front lines and he also understands that, with him being a UMA ship-commander, that he needs to instruct his ship into combat against the dark black ship that looms over the Milky-Way system, but from what Sherah had told them, this Demu ship is twice the size of his ship. Going into battle against this ship will be extremely dangerous. The fact that the Key is aboard his vessel makes the situation even more dangerous. If that ship appears while June is still aboard the Starlooper....

Lendlock let's out another anxiety-filled sigh as he attempts to push the day's stress aside. He thinks to himself again. “This whole situation has danger written all over it. If we got June off of my vessel, then we could attempt to take out the Demu ship, but then again, it's twice our size, taking it on would be incredibly dangerous.”

Lendlock reaches across his desk and grabs a hold of his mug, which now has barely any water in it. He let's out another sigh. “Here's to another great day at work...” He raises the glass to his lips and drinks down the rest of his water. Exactly when he finishes drinking down the last drop of his water, a red light flashes on his microphone. He set's down his now-empty mug and reaches across his desk for his microphone. He drags it toward him and turns it on. “Come in, over?” he asks into the microphone, hoping that it isn't about what he thinks it is.

The voice from the other end of the microphone comes in at a hurried pace “Sir, this is the bridge! We have a major problem! A Demu ship has just appeared about 500,000 kilometers away to the left of the Starlooper! What are your orders, sir!”

Lendlock feels his heart drop as he listens to the bridge's report. He is completely speechless from what he has just heard. The color drains from his face while the soldier continues to speak through the microphone to him, begging for a response.

Lendlock realizes within a few seconds that he needs to reaffirm control over the current situation, because if he doesn't, then there would be no hope for his ship and her crew members. He shakes his head quickly to get his mind back into order. He raises the microphone back to his mouth and speaks in a low voice. “Put the ship on red alert. Fire everything we've got at the ship once we get June and her squad evacuated.”

“Confirmed sir, the ship is on red alert and we will do everything in our power to destroy that ship once the Key has escaped.”

“That is all, over and out....” Lendlock says as he starts to feel a cold sweat coming along once he places down his microphone. Everything that he was fearing at the current time has come true. The Demu have found his ship, and quite possibly, the Key and her squad are still on the Starlooper.

He shakes his head vigorously to quell his fear. He knows that he needs to act swiftly if things are going to work out correctly. His hand slings forward and grasps his microphone, he then shoots his hand back and brings it to his lips.

He frantically speaks into it as he knows that time is running short. “Attention all members of the Guardian's squad, report to the Portal Room immediately. The Starlooper is under attack. I repeat, the Starlooper is under attack. All crew members are to assist them in reaching the Portal Room.”

Lendlock places down the microphone as sweat begins to pour down his face. He let's out a cracked and frightened sigh, knowing what will happen if the Starlooper loses this fight. He shakes his head once again to wake himself back up.

He reaches underneath of his desk, grabbing a handgun hidden in a secret compartment. He pulls the gun up in front of him and clicks off the safety. He knows that if they board the Starlooper, then the fighting will eventually reach his office. He takes a deep sigh in an attempt to calm himself as he rises from his chair, pushing it behind him and back against the far wall. He takes up a crouching position behind his desk, leveling his handgun in front of him and toward the doorway. The room then falls silent, time slowly ticking away...

Little does Lendlock know that Raphael and his squad had never received his message. The heat of the battle, combined with the blaring red alert siren, makes it so that Raphael and the rest of his squad never even notice the fact that the intercom had even turned on in the first place.

Raphael leads his squad through the halls of the Starlooper with Miyra following closely behind him, June being held in her arms. Raphael does not know exactly what is going to happen after they reach Lendlock's office.

Now that he is actually thinking with his mind out of the battle, he begins to realize that he doesn't really even have a plan, he had just decided in the heat of the moment that his squad would meet up at the only point in the ship that he knows of that everyone knows the location of. He turns the corner toward the elevator that he had come from earlier. He runs up to the elevator and is about to begin pressing buttons when Miyra stops him.

“Wait,” Miyra blurts out past the blaring red alert sirens as Raphael reaches out for the elevator's open button. “the elevator's don't work during red alerts. It's standard U-MASS protocol.”

Raphael spins around as soon as he hears Miyra's voice. He sputters out a “What?” and then a “Why?” after she has finished her sentence.

“The elevator's are shut down in case there is any kind of electrical damage to the ship, so that nobody would die by the elevator falling. There also is the possibility of somebody getting stuck in the elevator, which would bring up a whole host of different problems.”

Raphael let's out a calming sigh before glancing around the area. “I guess we're going to have to take the long way then.... Miyra, do you know where the stairwell is at?”

Before Miyra can answer Raphael's question, she feels June shift in her arms. “Hold on a second, Raphael.” she says before kneeling down to place June against the side of the wall next to the elevator. June begins to grunt and moan as she begins to regain consciousness.

She awakens to see Miyra staring back at her with Raphael standing guard in the background. Miyra has the back of her hand placed gently against June's forehead. “Aside from the fact that you were just knocked unconscious, it seems like you're alright to me.” says Miyra as she takes her hand away from June's head. Miyra then reaches behind her waist and produces a long, thin black metal object that looks like a rebar. She presents it to June and then helps June off of the ground as soon as she takes hold of her new weapon.

June looks at Miyra with confusion in her eyes. She doesn't know why her friend has just given her this odd little item, which also means that she doesn't know how to use it. A pair of hands suddenly reach out for the weapon, startling June. “It's rather simple, actually.” says Miyra to June as she grabs a hold of the black metal object that she had just given her moments ago. “All you need to do is twist it...” she grabs the item at two different ends and twists it in opposite directions, making the two outer shells of the weapon split in half and separate. “and pull....” Miyra pulls the weapon in opposite directions, making the long, thin object extend until it reaches three feet. After the rod extends, a thick, black metal sickle blade clicks out of a slot in the object and extends out the weapon near it's tip, creating a portable battle sickle.

Raphael calls back to his friends after giving them a brief moment of respite. “Are you two done yet? We need to get moving if we want to get out of here alive.” Raphael asks while looking over his shoulder.

“Yeah, we're just about ready.” answers Miyra to Raphael, looking over her shoulder back at him. Miyra slings her head back around and looks at June. “Are you ready to get moving, June?” June gives her a quick nod. “Alright, let's get going! You're staying in the middle for equal protection, alright?”

June quickly says “Okay” before running behind Raphael.

With the emergency lights still flaring and the corridors flashing red, the small band of friends continue to make their way to the rendezvous point. Raphael leading the way with June following close behind him and Miyra guarding the rear. They slowly make their way through the Starlooper's hallways until they inevitably find their way to a staircase, which they immediately run through to reach the twelfth floor.

As they are running up the staircase, when they are about halfway through, a hole is suddenly blasted in the wall of the platform ahead of them, with three Demu immediately running out of it toting automatic rifles.

Raphael raises his arm up in defense, which brings up his azure barrier as he sprints up the stairs. As soon as the Demu notice Raphael and his team, they fire their rifles at an fully-automatic rate towards them. The gunfire has no effect, however, as the bullets bounce off his barrier meaninglessly down to the ground.

Raphael rushes forward with June following close behind him. He throws his arm to the side, blasting his shield forward and sending the shards of his barrier toward his Demu opponents, killing them in a rain of psychic death.

Leaving his foes to die, Raphael and his squad run past them without even stopping to check if they are dead. The small band continues up the staircase and exits the stairwell without a single other hindrance.

Once they exit the stairwell, Raphael takes a quick second to stop and think about where he is and how he is going to get to Lendlock's office. He ponders for a second over what to do next, and decides that it would be a good idea to find a map of the area. He motions for his squad to follow him as he starts to walk down a nearby hallway, keeping a stern lookout for any kind of map of the ship.

He eventually comes upon a directory after a long trip down a very spacious and lengthy hallway. From what he can tell, him and his squad are very close to Lendlock's office, it is only a mere two or three hallways away.

Sudden gunfire jolts Raphael while he is starring at the map. There is a firefight going on further down the hallway out of sight. Raphael readies his sword and motions for June and Miyra to follow him before he takes off toward Lendlock's office, hoping that the battle is not happening where he thinks it is.

Unfortunately, his wish is not granted. As Raphael sprints down the hallway, he starts to notice that the gunfire is getting closer. As he rounds the corner to the hallway that leads to the Commander's office, he notices three Demu crouching in the hallway behind darkwood crates and firing down the corresponding hallway. He immediately doubles back and nearly tramples June as he attempts to make his way back behind the previous hallway's wall. June let's out a sudden, unexpected yelp as Raphael nearly knocks her down. This, of course, attracts the attention of the Demu spawns.

“What are you doing, Raphael!? Why did you just run into me like that!?” screams June in confusion. She quickly understands why he had plowed into her, however, once she turns and notices that there are Demu in the abridging hallway turning to face her. She cusses and chucks her sickle through the air and into the temple of the middle Demu on instinct, the blade piercing through it's skull with such force that the tip of the blade comes out the other side of it's head.

The other Demu rise from their knelling positions to face their new opponents, only to be cut down instantaneously by gunfire from the UMA guards further down the hallway.

As soon as the gunfire comes to a stop, Raphael looks over the side of the wall that he's taking cover behind and sees a UMA guard staring back at him from down the hallway. The man recognizes him from earlier in the day and calls out to him. “Is that you, Guardian? Commander Lendlock told me that you're suppose to be heading toward the portal room. Why in the universe are you here?”

Raphael walks out from behind his cover and says back to the guard “I know that, but my squad was separated and I needed to pick a rally point. Lendlock's office was the only place that I knew everyone in my squad knows the location of.”

The guard sighs and then begins to think to himself for a split second. “You know what, it doesn't matter right now. We need to get the Key to safety, and the commander's office is the best place to re-formulate a plan of action right now.” the guard makes a waving motion with his free hand for Raphael and his squad to come closer, saying “Come on, the sooner you get in here, the better.”