Raphael awakes peacefully, all the worries of the previous day now having been left behind. He takes a moment to look around his room to make sure that everything is in order.
On the bunk bed side of his room is also stationed a wooden desk that houses his very old and barely functional computer. He has barely a single use for it. It can't play a single game, even the old, 8-bit games that barely take up any processing power. The only reason he has for keeping it, let alone using it for what his parent's gave it to him for, which would be schoolwork, is just to surf the web.
On the wall to the left of the bunk bed side of his room, facing toward the wall, is a TV stand with a TV on it that he uses regularly, normally watching it before he goes to or after school. Underneath of the stand are his gaming consoles. A Time-Gamer 3000, a Mega 46, and a Kolopto gaming console, the most up-to-date gaming consoles of his time.
On the side of the room to the left of the T.V. wall is a closet with no doors and a white cabinet that Raphael uses to store his games, which is starting to become quite a collection. This side of the room is also where the door to his room is located.
On the last wall of the room, to the right of Raphael's bunk bed, is his clothing cabinet. To the left of this cabinet is the nightstand where he places his glasses when he sleeps, along with a lamp. On the other side of the cabinet is a laundry bin that Raphael throws his dirty laundry into.
Every wall of his bedroom is painted light purple, since purple is his favorite color and he requested that his father paint it that. His ceiling, however, is not painted light purple, it is painted white. Because of the height of the ceiling, it would require a ladder to paint it, so Raphael's father had decided to just not paint it.
Raphael let's out a yawn as he examines his room. From everything he can see, his room has remained exactly the way he had left it before he went to sleep the night before. Although he can't remember whether he had left his door open last night, since it's now hanging wide open. He looks to the side of the door by a few inches and discovers why.
June has, for some reason, wandered into his bedroom and fallen asleep in his TV chair. She looks incredibly peaceful the way she's sleeping, Raphael thinks to himself. Raphael drowsily chuckles to himself over the sleeping June, thinking that it is a little odd for her to be in his room for no apparent reason.
Raphael wearily lifts himself out of his bed and walks a short distance to June. He reaches out his hand and places it on her shoulder and attempts to nudge her awake while saying her name. Eventually, her eyes begin to open and her mind slowly starts to awaken. She glances at Raphael as he stares right back at her, still wondering why she is here to begin with.
“Good morning there, my friend.” Raphael greets her through a silly gesture. “Mind telling me why you're here?”
“It's because of Sherah and Miyra,” answers June with a small hint of anger in her voice. “Miyra decided that it would be a good idea to wake me up in the early morning to get you to come to the bunker. She also figured that I wouldn't wake up for her, which is true, so she decided to get Sherah to wake me up instead. As far as I can tell, I only got about five hours of sleep today, which is nowhere near enough for me.”
“Wait,” interrupts Raphael. “If you were sent to wake me up, then why were you asleep in my chair.”
“I tried to wake you up, but you wouldn't move.” responds June. “Then again, I don't even know how long I even tried, I was way too tired to even care about waking you up at the time. I just gave up after a while and went to sleep in your chair, although I can barely remember doing it. Ugh, for goodness sake, Sherah, you should have known better then to wake me up this early. Five hours is nowhere close to enough sleep for me and she should know that!”
Raphael chuckles under his breath as June rants about Sherah and Miyra, agreeing with her every now and then for the next hour.
Raphael eventually sees that an hour has passed and says “Wow, it's already been an hour. Hey June, are you getting hungry? I can go downstairs and make you some food.” After June agrees to the food, Raphael speaks again before exiting the room. “Would you like me to turn on the TV before I leave?”
June nods her head as Raphael passes by her and says “Sure, mine-as-well have some entertainment while I eat. I've been curious about how the broadcasting entertainment works on your planet anyway.”
As Raphael exits the door of his bedroom, he grabs a hold of his television remote and flicks on the power button. He then places down the remote and leaves the room.
The picture that appears on the television is familiar to June, for she has seen it before. She sees an orange-haired man in his late teens punching a punching bag while speaking to a person who appears to be his assistant.
Although the show is familiar to her, she can't quite put her finger down on what show it is. There is also something about the show that makes it different then other shows too, but June can't remember why that is either. June closes her eyes and begins to think deeply on this matter.
“I've seen this show before. Not only that, but there is something important about it, something that God told me.” she thinks “It's been so long since I've seen it, I can't remember even what it's name is. Dammit, it's right on the tip of my tongue... wait, that's it. Sentient Society, that's the name of the show. But why, why is it so important to me...? Wait, no. God didn't tell me about Sentient Society. I somehow got God and Sherah mixed up on this one. But what did she tell me.” June looks at the orange-haired man on the television screen once more. She stares at him intently as she attempts to remember what is so important to her about this show. Suddenly, the reasons all come rushing back to her.
June screams the word “Oh!” and slings her head and arms back in sudden understanding. Unfortunately, Raphael is just entering the room and gets slapped thoroughly in the forehead while holding a small plate of pancakes in his hand. The sudden smack hits him with such unexpected force that it launches the plate of food that he has out of his hand and all over his open bedroom door.
“June! What was that for!?” screams Raphael as he backs up to his dresser, holding his head in pain. “You made me splatter your food all over my door! I hope you're going to clean that up!”
“Heh, sorry about that.” apologizes June as she rubs the top of her head with her right hand. “I didn't even see you there, you sneaky little devil! Don't worry about the door, I'll get somebody to clean it up later. Anyway, the reason I slapped you is because I just remembered what this show is about.”
Raphael looks at the television screen for a split second, realizing what he is watching is one of his favorite cartoon shows, Sentient Society. “Oh yeah, that's Sentient Society, I love that show. It got a lot of viewership here in my country, I think, so now it has re-runs early in the morning. The ending was awesome by the way.”
June sighs and speaks again “This show probably isn't like how you think it is.... Tell me Raphael, did any of the seven main characters die in the process of this show...?”
“No, none of them did. They all survived until the end and put the guy who was brainwashing the city in jail. Are you telling me that something else happened that I don't know about?”
“Yes, something is going to happen. Apparently you got the sugar-coated version of the story, like the one I saw. All the way up to the end, the entire cast of characters are killed off one by one. Eventually, there is only one person left, their leader. Since he is so smart, he is able to make a counter device for the machine that the bad guy was using to control people. He starts up the device right as the bad guy's mind controlled minions bust into his dorm room. He barely makes it out alive, but he does stop the mastermind.... In the end, he is alone and miserable. He may have stopped the person behind the incidents, but he lost all of his friends because of their lone fight against their-”
“Wait June,” interrupts Raphael. “are you telling me that Sentient Society is real? Or are you telling me that Sentient Society was broadcast to your planet?”
“I'm telling you that both are true.” answers June as she attempts to explain herself to Raphael. “You see, Raph, the UHG has these seers, and the seers have the ability to see the fates of those throughout the universe that are in need of assistance or are going to have incredible adventures.”
“They see them throughout their struggles and judge, based on how deeply challenging their journey is to their objective, whether they should tell other people throughout the universe, which is one of their other abilities, being able to telepathically send out their visions of these certain people to the imaginations of other people throughout the universe.”
“These visions will then eventually either become television shows, cartoon shows, video games, books, movies, etcettra etcettra, or they get thrown away by the person that it was sent to as just being either rubbish that doesn't deserve another thought or are considered not appropriate for their civilization. Hell, maybe our little adventures are being recorded right now.... So yes, Sentient Society is really going to happen, and they are going to be killed in the process if nobody jumps in and helps them, which UHG heroes do often in what they call 'vision quests.' “
“Is there anything that we can do?” asks Raphael as his blood begins to boil deep inside him once he realizes that the story he was told so often is false, but also true in a sense.
“Since the portal generator is already set up in the bunker, you could go to Sentient Society's home world if you wanted to, but you need to be an official UHG member before you can go on a vision quest.”
Raphael thinks to himself for a second, then speaks. “June, do you have any idea how long it's going to take for Sentient Society's plot to begin in reality?”
June checks the date on the calendar across the room and then thinks to herself quietly, adding up the calculations in her head. Finally, she speaks “In about a month. That's when the first shot is fired, in a sense. I don't know that much about how everyone dies, but I do know exactly who is the first to die and how.”
“Awesome, you can tell me later.” says Raphael as he begins cleaning pancake shrapnel off of his door. “From now on, since I'm pretty confident that I can pass the UHG membership course, I'm going to go around a bit and help out with these 'vision quests'. Do you know how many people normally take on vision quests?”
“Not many, honestly.” says June, letting her shoulder's fall. “Normally, a UHG squad as a whole only does two vision quests throughout their entire careers. If you do more than two, you would be considered part of the minority, in a sense. If you want to help out Sentient Society, that would make me really happy! I used to really like the show until I figured out the truth about it.”
“No June, I'm not going to help them, We are going to help them!” says Raphael as he lifts himself from his crouching position. “You, me, even Sherah! We're all going to help Sentient Society. No, we're not going to stop at Sentient Society, we're going to help anyone we see in need of assistance, no matter how we see it! We're doing this because we basically work for God, and God would want us to do nothing less than help whoever is in need!”
Using the new-found strength that June had found the day before, June stands up from her seat and shakes Raphael's now-extended hand. “Freak yeah, let's do this!”
Raphael and June shake each others hands firmly. “For the universe!” they both say to each other, now sealing their pact to attempt vision quests, both of them knowing that this is the right thing to do.
They stand still for a few seconds, sinking in the feeling of self-respect that they have gained from this pact.
June tilts her head at Raphael and giggles before speaking “So, partner-in-vision-quest, shall we get going? Miyra is probably starting to wonder where we are.” a sudden yell for Raphael's name can be heard from outside. The pair immediately recognize that it's Miyra's voice. “Looks like she already is....” June says as she lets go of Raphael's hand and walks out of his room, gesturing him along with a sway of her hand. “Come on now, we've kept her waiting long enough.”
Raphael follows June through his house and out the back door, where in which they see Miyra waiting outside. Miyra puts her balled fists to her hips as Raphael and June exit the house, saying “Dammit June, I was starting to get worried....” Miyra sighs to herself while letting her head hang. “Maybe sending you in to wake up Raphael wasn't such a good idea, sorry for waking you up so early. It won't happen again unless there is an emergency.”
“You better be.” says June as she walks casually by Miyra to the stump at the far end of Raphael's backyard. “Five hours of sleep! That's nowhere near enough time for someone my age, you know. You should know better then that Miyra.” June presses in a section of the stump, which is a piece of curved, wood-plated metal. On the left portion of the yard facing away from the house, on the location of a previous flower bed near the stump, the ground begins to shift and open. The ground moves out in separate directions with a levitating metal elevator appearing where the ground used to be.
“What in the world!?” exclaims Raphael as he walks towards the elevator. “Is the bunker already finished!? It looks like you barely did anything! Not even a speck of dirt looks like it's been moved! This is amazing!”
“You haven't seen the half of it.” chuckles Miyra at Raphael's amazement. “You'll be amazed at what the UMA can create in a short amount of time. This bunker was built with a completely independent power source, an armory, a cafeteria, a nano-machine room, a simulator room with accommodations for five, a war room, a barracks for both the generals and the standard troops, and a communication and information room. Everything we could ever need is right here.”
“Hey Miyra,” yells June as she walks to the elevator platform. “can we get this show on the road? I need to get changed out of my sleeping clothes. Actually, we should split up so that I can change. Meet me at the generator room on the third basement floor when your done.”
“If that is what you wish, oh divine one.” says Miyra jokingly as she leads Raphael towards the elevator.
“Hey, I already told you, just call me June, nothing else.” reprimands June. “Now hurry up, the elevator is going to shut without you guys on it by the rate that you're both going.”
Miyra leads Raphael closer to the elevator and positions him next to June before getting into her position on June's other side. The elevator slowly starts lowering itself down to the bunker's level, with the entrance shutting once the elevator is completely down to it's base.
The entrance room is shaped like a rectangle, with a slanted ceiling that goes up to ground level from the exit into the bunker at the top of the elevator. The room is exquisitely made. Only the best for the Key, after all. The whole room is crafted out of a gold-looking material, to the point that it might even be gold, but Raphael never finds out if it is. The gold is cut into 16'x16' sections that make up not just the floor, but the entire room. The room is lit up by overhanging chandlers that are burning twenty candles each that glow a vibrant purple light. The color that envelops the room is brilliant in Raphael's eyes, the combination of purple and gold is just perfect for his tastes.
June moves ahead of the group and says as she rounds the corner out of the entrance room “I'll see you at the generator room.”
Miyra chuckles to herself as she watches June slip away from the group. “Guess I'm going to have to deal with that for the next long while. I just hope that she learns to forgive me for what I said earlier.” she says as she walks forward and motions Raphael along. Raphael follows behind Miyra as they walk out of the entrance room and down a corresponding hallway.
“First place we're going to visit is the communication and information room.” says Miyra as she leads Raphael through the hallways of the newly created UMA bunker. “Before we get there, I have to warn you about the Comm's Director that you're going to be working with. I was working with her last night and she is extremely militaristic. Don't be afraid to be up front with her if she offends you.”
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“Militaristic? Do you mean that she's a military brat? Heh, she can be whoever she wants to be while she's here. As long as she doesn't disrespect others, whether they are below her or not, then she is welcome to act as she pleases.” says Raphael as he follows Miyra into another hallway.
Miyra doesn't say anything back to Raphael's statement. Her warning was just to make him understand that she is going to be different, but now Raphael is giving her a statement about how this UMA squad is going to work. “Just like it says in the lore, the purest creature of righteousness, no matter what....” says Miyra under her breath as she walks through a hallway, over to a set of doors, and into the C&I room.
“Hmm, what was that?” asks Raphael when he notices Miyra saying something under her breath.
“Uh,” Miyra starts to stutter at Raphael's question, wanting to keep her private thought's private. She decides that because they are now on the catwalk of the C&I room that she could use it to divert attention from herself. “Oh, we're here already! Come on, I'll show you over to Yen, our new Communication Director.”
Miyra turns her attention away from Raphael and over to Yen, who is at the other side and on the bottom floor of the C&I room. “Hey Yen, I brought the commander here to greet you.”
A red-headed, six foot tall woman at the other side of the C&I room turns and salutes Raphael and Miyra as they walk down the catwalk to her location.
“Raphael,” Miyra announces as they come closer to Yen. “this is our new Communications Director, Yen Porint. Whenever you or any of us go out on any kind of mission or there ever is an emergency at the bunker while you're out, she will be the one contacting you.” Miyra turns her attention from Raphael over to Yen. “Go ahead Yen, introduce yourself.”
Still standing in her saluting stance, Yen begins to speak firmly and fluently to Raphael. “Yen Porint, reporting for duty, sir. What are your orders?”
Raphael looks over the woman in front of him from top to bottom. She has bright red hair in a double ponytail that goes back behind her head and down her back. Her eyes are narrow and beady black. Judging from the color of her skin, Raphael concludes that she doesn't go outside that much, since her skin is a ghoulish, pale white. She measures in at about a foot over Raphael's height, measuring six-foot, and from what Raphael can tell at a guessed glance, about a little over a hundred pounds. She is dressed in a military outfit that is similar to the outfits that he saw on some of the Starlooper's crew last night. He judges from that that it seems that she must have just come from off of the Starlooper last night. She has a few badges and ribbons attached to her suit over top her left breast, nothing too exemplary though, from what he can guess.
Raphael chuckles to himself at the ghostly-pale person that is in front of him. “At ease Yen, you don't have to do that anymore, especially around me.” Yen looks at Raphael with a cold stare. She doesn't agree with him in the slightest, that he can tell easily. This is a military organization and she didn't expect her new leader to be so... lenient. Slowly, as to obey her commander's orders, Yen lowers her salute. “By the way, you should get out more often, you look like a ghost.”
Raphael notices Yen's eye's widen ever so slightly as he speaks. He can tell by her disposition that she didn't like his remark. She doesn't say anything to him, but he knows that he has just accidently insulted her.
There is a long, stiff silence after that with neither side saying a single word. After a while, Raphael finally apologizes, saying “Sorry....” while holding his head down low.
“It's fine, commander.” says Yen. She is now starting to realize that being under the command of a twelve-year-old is going to be a hassle.
“W-Well, anyway.” stutters Miyra over the intensity in the air. “Now that you two have been introduced, we should get the rest of this tour on the road. Raphael, shall we?” Miyra extends her left arm towards the catwalk and grabs Raphael with her right arm across his back, urging him along. Raphael and Yen look at each other as Raphael is led up the catwalk and out of the room, Raphael turning his head away halfway there.
Yen thinks to herself as Raphael leaves “I never thought about my skin pigment before, but that doesn't give him the right to pass judgment on whether I should go out more or not.... I'm not going to hold it against him, but he should watch his tongue more, or I'm going to suggest a transfer to Commander Lendlock....”
Raphael and Miyra travel through the C&I hallway, going in the opposite direction that they had come from before. “I told you she's a military girl, Raphael,” says Miyra as they walk through the hallway, passing two soldiers that are having a friendly conversation. “you should really watch what you say around her, or you might upset her pretty badly.”
“Don't worry about me, Miyra,” says Raphael as he follows Miyra through the hallway. “that's the worst that I've ever messed up when it comes to talking to someone. It's not going to happen again. So, where are we headed next?”
“Next stop is the armory. The cafeteria is on the way there, but there's nothing extraordinarily spectacular about it, so we'll just skip over that for now. Trust me Raphael, if you like weapons, you're going to love our selection.”
By the time Miyra has finished talking, they are more than halfway to the armory. Raphael notices the cafeteria when Miyra stops talking. It is well-made, but is empty at the moment. Raphael wants to note down all of the parts of the cafeteria, but Miyra starts to get too far ahead, so he has to move on.
Raphael and Miyra fall into silence as they walk the rest of the way to the armory. After going down a set of staircases and taking a left turn, they are there. The armory is pretty large compared to what Raphael had seen in the downed ship that he was in the other day. There are a multitude of weapon types and variety of armaments scattered around the shelves with multiple cases and clips of ammunition for all of them. The selection of weapons is extremely varied, ranging from automatic rifles, sub-machine guns, light machine guns, handguns, magnums, rail-guns, mini-guns, laser rifles, high-tech staffs, longswords, shortswords, daggers, lances, spears, and just about anything else that Raphael can think of that could be there.
Before Raphael can even mutter a word, Miyra wanders over to one of the shelves and pulls out an orange plated mini-gun with the words 'Taurus Approved' printed on each of it's sides. “Here's my baby!” says Miyra as she levels the mini-gun and revs it lightly. “This monster's gotten me through the thickest of situations. It's been specially fitted by yours truly to fit any type of ammo. 9 millimeter, 7.62 rifle rounds, even 12 gauge shotgun shells. Just about everything can fit in here. Pick up a weapon, man, and get a feel for it.”
“Alright.” says Raphael as he reaches across the doorway from his current location and pulls a crystal-bladed spear off of a rack and weighs it in his hands. From what he can feel, the weapon must weigh around twenty-some pounds, which is too much for his young, unfit muscles to use effectively. “It's a little heavy for me, I'll find something else....”
Miyra stops Raphael in his tracks with a glare. “Wait, that's too heavy for you? It should only weigh about twenty five pounds, that should be enough for you to use....” Miyra then starts to think for a reason that would explain why Raphael couldn't lift the light-weight spear.
Finally a reason comes to her. “Oh, I know why! It's probably because you're still in your human form, which means that you don't have any of the holy strength that you get from your hero form. That, and you haven't gotten the nanobot treatment yet.”
“Nanobots?” asks Raphael as Miyra places down her mini-gun on the rack she got it from. “What are nanobots, and what do you mean by 'treatment?”
Miyra pats Raphael on his shoulder as she walks past him and smiles. “Just follow me.” she says as she walks out of the room and down the hallway with Raphael following close behind her.
“So Miyra,” asks Raphael as he follows Miyra down a deserted hallway. “why did you join the UMA? What made you want to be an engineer?”
“Well, it was mostly because I was really into vehicles and machines when I was younger, and I still am. My home planet of Yomino isn't extremely abundant with machines and technology, but we had enough to get by, especially with the aid of the UMA. Trust me, the UMA really helped us along, but we wanted to advance on our own terms.”
“I eventually decided that I wanted to help with the fight for the universe and get my knowledge of engineering improved, so I got permission from my parents... well, a long time ago, and went to the nearest UMA recruiter and got signed up for engineering and combat school. I was about sixteen back then and I'm thirty now. Before you ask why I'm still so young, I'll explain it to you.”
“The UMA has this experimental process going on that I signed up for that's called the AAEP, which stands for the Anti-Aging Experimental Process. It's a new function that they are adding to newer nanobots that freezes your bodies growth processes by taking a snapshot of the applicant's body when the process is first introduced to them and the nanobots then keep the body structure and organs at a reoccurring age, keeping you at a set age for as long as possible. The experiments, from what I know of, are going extremely well and are near completion. From what I've heard, these things will basically make you immune to death from age! Crazy, I know!” Miyra turns a corner and walks right into the Nanobot room right as she finishes her sentence.
Miyra claps her hands three times as she enters the room, activating the overhead lights. The room is made exactly like the entrance room, with the gold flooring and the purple lights and all. The only difference from the entrance room is the fact that the room lay-out is a square instead of a rectangle and there is what looks like a cryogenic sleeping pod with a large computer to it's side in the center of the room.
“This, my friend, is the nanobot room!” announces Miyra as she enters the room. “This is where all new recruits get their nanobot treatment. It's guaranteed, one-hundred-percent full-proof to enhance your likelihood of surviving out there on the battlefield by over one-thousand-percent!” Miyra exclaims
“Here's a little history for you.” Miyra continues “About a thousand years after the DuskWar began, the Omerit Empire started to realize that their numbers were nothing compared to that of the Nes. Demu and their manpower was quickly falling, so they decided to create the 'nanobot procedure'. This procedure put hundreds-of-millions of micro-sized nano-machines into the body that travel throughout a person's organs, bloodstream, and bone structure, healing any and all wounds that you may sustain. They will run out of charge eventually, though, and that's why we have re-chargers!”
Miyra takes out a small hand-held device from the computer and hands it to Raphael. “Whenever your nanobot's might run out of charge, just grip this as hard as you can and your nanobots will be recharged. Just remember to recharge your re-charger's battery every now and then, or it won't work.”
Miyra then continues “These nanobots are full-proof too. They have extremely strong anti-virus programs and cannot be tampered with. As long as you have these nanobots inside of your body, you're basically an unstoppable tank, well at least if you remember to keep them charged. Which leads to one of their only weaknesses, electricity. If you get hit by an electrical charge of any kind other then the low volts from your charger, then your nanobots will overcharge and knock you unconscious. However, there is one upside to being overcharged. When you're overcharged and unconscious, you'll basically be invincible until you're nanobot's charge is set back to normal because of the fact that they will be working at 100 times their normal speed. So, enough about nanobot 101, let's get you fitted for some nanobots! Just step into the pod and I'll get you fitted with some nanobots in no time!”
Raphael chuckles to himself because of Miyra's long explanation. “Heh, alright Miyra, I'll take the nanobot treatment. Just open the pod so we can get this going.”
“Just a second.” Miyra walks to the computer next to the nano-machine and begins typing in commands. Before long, the glass frame of the nano-machine pod decompresses from the rest of the nano-machine and lifts upward, allowing Raphael to climb into the machine and situate himself comfortably before he gives Miyra a thumbs-up, signifying that he is ready to go.
Miyra gives a thumbs-up back and starts typing more commands into the computer console a moment later. Before long, the glass frame of the nano-machine begins to slowly shut until it compresses itself back onto the machine. Raphael can hear Miyra outside of the machine pressing buttons on the console. He hears her voice all of a sudden. “Just sit still and go to sleep, this isn't going to hurt a single bit.”
He then hears the sound of rushing water. Seconds later, everything becomes a blur as he slowly drifts to sleep....
Raphael awakens again to the sound of rushing water. He lifts himself out of his seat, only to smack his head against the hard glass frame of the nano-machine. He rubs his head in pain as he looks around the room from inside the pod. He is still in the same room he was in before and he can still hear Miyra outside of the pod typing in commands on the nano-machine's computer. “Is it over? Did it work?” Raphael thinks to himself as he hears the glass frame of the nano-machine decompress itself. The frame begins to lift up into the air as Raphael then attempts to get out of the pod again a few seconds later.
Miyra walks in front of the pod with a smile on her face and an outstretched hand for Raphael to grab. “Congratulations ma' man, you now have nanobots swarming through your body that are designed to heal you whenever you need it. You're now a living breathing tank, buddy.” Raphael grabs Miyra's hand and she lifts him out of the nano-machine. “Now, let's get the rest of this tour going, shall we?”
Raphael gives Miyra a quick nod. “Agreed, I'm eager to see the simulation room, to be honest.”
“I'll show you the simulation room last. Oh, and we're going to skip the war room for now. That place is mainly used when we have meetings or emergencies, so you're going to be seeing it soon enough. Now, off to the portal room!” Miyra points her outstretched right hand towards the doorway and starts marching out of the room with Raphael following behind her.
“So, Miyra,” asks Raphael as he walks through the bunker's hallways, following her sternly. “what do you think of our little group? How do you think things are going to work out for all of us? I'm just asking for your honest opinion, nothing more.”
“Heh, I'll tell you one thing, we're probably going to turn out being one mismatched group of crazy bastards! I mean, we have a super-powered twelve-year-old as our leader, a military brat as a Communications Director, a Taurus for an engineer, which is actually a really good thing for us, a rich merchant for a pilot, and the key is starting to get rambunctious.”
“There is one thing that does scare me, though, and that's Sherah's reaction to the recent course of events. Chiot told me that she attacked him in the hallways of the Starlooper yesterday for what she called 'abandoning' June. That and you know what she did to you yesterday. I have my own suspicions about what might be happening to her, but I don't have any definitive proof at the moment, so we're going to need to keep a good eye on her until she begins to calm down.” Miyra then notices where she has come to, saying “Oh, we're here.”
Miyra stops in front of a large doorway that leads into a room filled with computers and a large circular portal generator in the back.
“This is basically our deployment area.” says Miyra as she pushes by a portal tech to get to a computer on the near left of the room. “Whenever you have a mission to complete or you feel like going off world for a bit, you go here and get a portal to take you to your destination. I'll explain everything about portal technology and how it works later. For now, we have a tour to do. Before we leave here though, I have something that I need to show you.”
Miyra opens up a panel in the computer console that she has walked over to and motions Raphael to come closer. “You see that little chip in the middle? The one no bigger than your pinky nail? That's what powers the portal generators, nothing else.”
“Wow,” says Raphael in amazement. “imagine what we could do with something so small, we could even install them in our fingers or something to create portals! Wouldn't that be something?”
“Hmm,” ponders Miyra. “that's one interesting idea, Raphael. I'll put that through to the Omerit empire, maybe they'll think something up.” Miyra replaces the panel on the console and gets up from her kneeling position. “We don't have much left for the tour, so let's head to the generator room and meet up with June.”
Miyra leads Raphael out of the portal room and down a few hallways in silence until they reach the third floor stairway. “So Raphael,” asks Miyra. “what do you think of all of this, this war and all of that?”
“I'll tell you one thing Miyra, it's a lot for someone at my age to take in.” admits Raphael. “It may be a lot of work, but I'm not going to cower and flee from this. June needs me and I'm not going to let her down! You all need me, and I know that. I'm not going to give up, no matter what!”
“Good to know that, it's just what I wanted to hear from you.” says Miyra as she pushes open the doorway into the generator room. June is standing against a fence that blocks the way into where the multiple generators that power the bunker are placed. “Hey June,” yells Miyra as she enters the room. “we're here. Ready to get moving?”
June shoots up her head as she hears Miyra's voice. “ 'Bout time you got here. I've been waiting for way too long. Give Raphael a quick explanation of this place so we can get going with the rest of the tour.”
“Gladly.” responds Miyra. “This, my friend, is what powers the entire bunker! This is the generator room!”
Raphael takes a quick second to look around the area that he is in. It isn't lavishly built, since this is supposed to be something similar to an industrial area of the bunker. There are an extremely large amount of electrical generators in the room that produce independent electricity into the bunker, not using any kind of power from the outside. There is a walkway that goes through the center of the room all the way to the back and one that goes around the sides, allowing engineers to get to every single one of the generators if one of them were to ever break.
“There isn't really anything important in this room, although I'll probably be going back down here for the next few months, keeping surveillance over the equipment and such until a full engineering corp can be assigned to us.” says Miyra as she motions toward the doorway with a tilt her head. “Now, shall we get to the rest of the tour? The simulation room is calling.”
“Ooh, simulations, haven't done one of them yet!” says June as she follows Miyra up the stairway into the second basement story. “Can we do a simulation Miyra? I'd love to try one out!”
“No problem June.” says Miyra as she opens the door to the second basement floor and continues through. “We don't have much left to do before we're finished with the tour anyway. The simulation room is the last place left!”
“Ooh, you guy's move fast!” exclaims June as she follows Miyra through a hallway. “So, what simulation do you guys want to do?”
“Honestly June,” says Miyra. “I already had an idea of one that we can do together. I was planning on us doing a three-player simulation together later, but now would be alright. Trust me, I think you both would like it.”
“What's a simulation?” asks Raphael.
“It's basically like a video game, except that you are the character and you control everything that you do. It's like a virtual reality video game taken to the extremes. Raphael, if you like video games, you'll love this.” says Miyra as they go down a hallway filled with chatting soldiers.
There is silence among the group for a few more feet before they finally arrive at the simulation room. The room is relatively large, almost as big as the generator room. There are five isolation pods in the center of the room, with a large computer console in the very back that is elevated a few feet up from the rest of the room by cement.
“Just get into a pod and we'll get this party going!” exclaims Miyra as she moves to one of the open isolation pods and situates herself into it. She presses a few buttons on the glass screen of the pod and motions June to get into a different.
“Come on Raphael, let's go have some fun.” says June cheerfully as she trots to the open pod next to Miyra and climbs into it.
Raphael shrugs to himself and let's out a sigh of happiness. He hasn't played any kind of game since this all started yesterday, so he figured that this would be a nice change of pace. He walks calmly to the pod next to June and climbs into it. He exhales from comfort as he relaxes himself into the cushioned seat of the simulator pod.
“Everybody ready?” asks Miyra as she looks out of her pod to the rest of the group. “Once everyone's ready I'll start the simulation up.”
“Ready!” Raphael and June say simultaneously to Miyra.
“Alright, we're starting in three, two, one... go!” says Miyra, her countdown to make sure that everyone is completely prepared. Once her countdown is complete, she enters in the last few keys into the keyboard of her simulation pod, making the glass screens on all the pods slowly close tight.
Once the screens have closed, Raphael is surrounded by complete darkness. Suddenly, a flash of light blasts through his pod and Raphael falls into a sudden sleep.