A.I.G. Battle Crusier Gemini II

"Are they still there?"

"Are you serious? How can I see in this low visibility?"

"It was just a question, stupid."

"Why, I oughta--"

"Quiet you guys."

"Wait I see something, yup. There they are."

What the trio were looking at, or trying to make out through the thick mist and forested area they were in, was a group of marching soldiers of different sizes. From the size of a short teenager to a staggering height and bulkness of a mammoth, the warriors they saw was a sign that they weren't getting off the planet, without the use of their skill and some help. From what they were looking at was just a small militia, patrolling the road of the unknown wilderness. They seemed to wear dark, reddish armor with torn red drapes or robes underneath. It made seem like they were in fact, drenched in blood spilled in battle. They made soldiers, inferior to them, stagger in fright before they were killed in either melee or close-quarters combat.

"What are we waiting for? Let's go crush 'em!" called out Dune, a Dunekati clad in thick dark brown armor of the Aeon Intergalactic Military, or AIGM, whose eagerness to fight and get things over with was a complete **** to be reckoned with. Like all Dunekati, he stood a couple feet higher than a typical adult human, but with his body crouched behind a blown wall, he looks like a fat brown armadillo-like, lizard.

"Weren't you the one worried about seeing a few minutes ago?" Karina, fully human, with her dirty, dark purple hair draped behind her and also clad with dark brown armor of the AIGM on top of her jumpsuit, take a light insult and tosses it at Dune. She also takes time to slap the visor of her helmet, worn atop her flowing violet hair, along with her insult to top it off. She seemed more manly than squeemish like a female. Even if insults and threats were thrown at her, she wouldn't budge.

"You know in my world, it's forbidden for females like you---"

"Will you two shut it? All you think you see is a group of thirty Drakken soldiers, tops. But what you don't see is, that group times 1,000 sitting in camps in the canyon across from the road. Plus, they won't stop if they see a human, a Dunekati, or a Rinjatta standing before them. These guys are bloodthirsty and they won't stop until blood is spilt," the humanoid man, Keitaro, looking out at the road beyond them says in a rather loud, but clear as a whisper, lecture to Karina and Dune. Like Karina, wearing a jumpsuit underneath his armor, he would look like a regular human in a human eyes. The only thing giving his identity or origin away is the fact that he doesn't wear a helmet like everybody else. His short hair is part of the species he belongs to. His hair is not like human hair or another species' fur, but it is like another organism in a symbiotic relationship with him. His species and origin lie with the Rinjatta, a human-like lifeform that has a symbiotic relationship with their headpieces. Before the symbiosis, Rinjatta were like ninjas, agile in combat and day-to-day commute. But now adorn with the headpieces, they have gained psychic and telepathic abilities, to the extent that most of their kind have gone extinct and are scatter throughout the galaxy.

"So what do we do then, Keitaro?" Karina without changing her voice or current attitude asks him plainly.

Keitaro looks at her directly, disgusted because he hasn't been called captain by either the human or the Dunekati but calm enough to let it pass, and replies, "We would just have to wait and obtain a rendevous point from the ship."

"So boring! We're not going to fight?" Dune stands up straight, dislodging some loose stones from the ruined building they are sitting in, and quietly scolds the captain.

"Correct we are not going to fight---"

Dune takes a brute step and begins scolding his captain back with some of his native dialect. In response, Keitaro stands up to shut him up. The current scene is rather clean because Keitaro has reached to the head of Dune, and with a stretched-out palm, has stopped his head and body from going any further. In Karina's eyes, the psychic and telepathic abilities of a Rinjatta are made true to her since she has never seen a Rinjatta soldier in action. In fact, rarely no one in the Aeon Intergalactic Military has been able to see the mind powers of a Rinjatta up close. Impressively, while Dune's whole body is stopped in its track, even his mouth is shut due to the **** of Keitaro's power.

Without turning his eyes, which are now bright red unlike the common brown eye color when Rinjatta are calm and not using their powers, Keitaro explains to Dune, "You of all people don't really know what you're up against. I know for sure that rookie lieutenants like you two, doesn't have the knowledge or the experience in dealing with these guys. And I for sure have told you that lieutenant do not raise their voices to their commanding officers!"

Turning his head to his left and looking at Karina, his red eyes dim to their normal brown color. As he looks at Karina, she turns her head away but with a strong voice replies, "Yes sir." With his head now turned, the seemingly invisible power eminating from Keitaro's hand dissapates and Dune falls to his knees breathing hard. In between breaths, Dune tries to say "Yes sir," but fails to do so, stunned by his captain.

The trio sit in their position for what seemed like ten minutes before Keitaro began saying, "I think the rendevous point is down that road. I'm pretty sure that the ship crash landed there."

"What if you're wrong, Captain?" Dune gets the courage to say, even though he is still stunned by Keitaro's actions.

For a minute or two, Keitaro thinks in his mind the possible risks and the unpredictable events they could face, just by taking a trip down the road. Unfortunately for Keitaro, the Rinjatta did not have the ability to look in far off places or manipulate time, even though for a fact, Rinjatta are one of the most agile beings in the fleet. Now confident on his decision, Keitaro responds to his subordinate, "I'm sure of it. If we do get into hostilities with those freakin' Drakken, I'm pretty sure that we three can take 'em. Okay then, let's move!"

With the sound of rustling leaves, the trio get up from their positions and hop out of the pillbox-like structure. Through the dead forest, the three don't take long to get to the road. From where they were at, the road looks wider than what they actually see. The road looks narrow but indeed, from what Keitaro said moments before, the road is adjacent a steep cliff and at the bottom of that cliff, dark shadows and regions of moving entities cover the land below. Like swaying trees in a dead forest, the soldiers who dot the land look almost ethereal, like ghosts to the naked eye.

The view isn't looked upon for long, due to Keitaro motivating his two subordinates to quit looking and start moving. To the left path, dozens of thousand of footprints and claw prints create an mosaic of the road. The right path, having been cleared of foot and claw prints by the slow wind, seem more friendly and in the direction of the crash site of the trio's ship. Nonetheless, more and more soldiers could be in patrol of this very same road.

Now moving, Keitaro leads his subordinates down the road, and to the supposed crash site. They walk a short distance, not even a mile before seeing trails of smoke clearly seen in the orange sky beyond the trees. They run the rest of the way and a few meters down the road, they see a road leading out, which is narrower and less used. Now at the fork in the road, they look up on the path, which has a different breeze than the surrounding land and forest and also has less footprints than the wider road.

"Should we take it?" Dune negatively asks.

"I say we take it," Karina makes a confident decision. Her confidence, at least, is based on a gut feeling.

Turning to his lieutenants, Keitaro says, "Well, seeing that we have no other choice, we should take this road. Hey, it could very well lead us to the crash site."

Without saying another word, the three walk on, in alert, on the path leading straight to the trails of smoke. Through a small rocky valley, and then through forest, and then through another, yet smaller rocky valley they walk. Once more they walk through a less dense forest. At the end of the road a makeshift wall consisting of a dead tree trunk and several broken branches blocks the group of three from walking any further.

"Great. It's a dead end. Now what do we do?" Dune asks, negatively again.

"Can we shoot through it?" Karina suggest.

"No. Shooting through it will only draw attention to ourselves," Keitaro confident says to his subordinates. "I guess it can't be helped."

"What do you mean it can't be helped?" Dune turns to his captain, who takes a narrow piece of material from his gear, resembling a long hilt of a sword.

Keitaro holds it out in front of him vertcally. He plainly says, "Extend," and a pair of red energy blades extend out the top and bottom of the hilt. Keitaro also says, "Stand back," and both Karina and Dune take a few steps back to watch the event unfold. Like with a great wind blowing from one position, the two lieutenants watch with amazement of the scene they see right before their eyes. Keitaro, his hair now upright takes a crouching position, as if preparing to strike, and takes a step and slash from bottom to top, the blockade, with his lower blade.

After the gust of wind originating from Keitaro subside, Dune asks his captain agressively, "Wait a second. No one, including you, never told us that you were a--" but Keitaro interrupts.

"It's true but I'm gonna make sure that you two never tell," he explains. Astonished by his answer, both Karina and Dune are unable to ask any more questions. Keitaro tucks away his now inactive sword hilt and continues through the void in the makeshift wall, pushing away loose twigs and branches. Dune and Karina are left behind the wall.

Karina, unknowledgeable of the subject Dune was trying to make a point of, asks Dune what he was trying to get out of the captain. She asks, "What is the captain, Dune?"

"What is--? Uh...Uhm, why are you asking anyway? You heard him," Dune tells her, to the point to where he gets more agressive. Now coming to his senses, Dune heads through the void in the wall after his captain. Karina is now left alone in the dense, but not too dense, forest.

Karina, unable to move, takes her time trying to come to her senses. But a minute later, Karina hears something. She feels little familiarity with it and it doesn't sound like an animal she knows about. The surroundings, as she observes, shouldn't make the sound all echo-like, as if the trees were canyon walls. The sound originates behind her, but when she turns to see, nothing is seen or pops up. The sound seems to be getting closer though. The sound sounds more ethereal than real. Now coming to her senses and getting closer to being scared, Karina runs through the void in the makeshift wall after Dune and Keitaro.

After going through the wall, the dense forest uncovers another valley, but it seems more smooth and shiny like if it was polished by a buffer. Even though the glaze-like valley seems as if the walls could bounce sound off its surface, it doesn't, since the sounds of Dune and Keitaro doesn't seem to travel back to her like in the other valleys. The small canyon leads her left and right and then left again. At the end she find that the valley open up to reveal a plateau like structure, with sheer cliffs all around it. In the center of it, out of sheer luck, stands Dune and Keitaro, and the wreckage of the crashed AIG Ship.

"Took you long enough," Dune remarks at Karina who walks near the wreckage. Karina in response stays quiet but glares back at Dune.

"The ship is still intact and everything still works," Keitaro explains.

"What do you think happened?" Karina asks.

Walking to the left of the ship, and climbing on top of the delta wing, Dune observes a rather dark burn on the top side of the wing. He explains, "I think this is why we had to bail." As Keitaro climbs on top of the wing, Dune adds, "Fuel line must've burst and ignited during the descent. Everything else is fine, including the common re-entry burns."

"Unusual. Must've been something with the atmosphere," Keitaro suggests.

"So how are we going to get off this stinkin' planet?" Karina asks in a worried attitude.

Keitaro, without speaking, goes to the main hull of the ship, and tugs at a lever. Once he pulls it twice in succession, pressurized air leaks out of the door-like hatch. This hatch, almost like a cargo door opens to reveal the pilot and co-pilot's seat, two passenger seats and a void in the floor at the rear of the ship. This void used to a emergency door for all people inside to escape due to an emergency. This is how Keitaro, Dune, and Karina escaped and parachuted out. Keitaro climbs inside, between the passenger and pilot seats and reaches under the center console. He agressively pulls out a black box from the wires and brings it out for the group to see.

"What's that?" Karina asks.

"It's the ship's homing beacon. This is how the ship can locate us if we depart from it. We can use this to signal for help from the Jurai," Keitaro explains, flipping the two switches on the box, in turn turning on the green blinking light on it. Once the beeping starts, Dune climbs into the compartment and lifts a hatch and pulls out a rather big box.

"It's still here," Dune says as he continues to open it, revealing a rather large, heavy weapon. "I had a gut feeling about bringing this."

"Why?" Keitaro asks. But before Dune can get his answer out, Karina quickly turns back and points her active gun at the polished valley behind her. Her gun shakes in fright and the familiar sounds echo back to her. Now concerned, Keitaro shouts a question to Karina, "How can you hear that?!"

"Hear what?" Dune asks Keitaro, unable to hear anything but the blowing wind. Now looking toward the polished valley, he sees a blinding bright light, to the point that he shades it with his arms.

"It's the Drakken," Keitaro whispers to himself, he too hearing what Karina hears. Now shouting to Dune, who immediately gets his huge weapon active, Keitaro shouts, "It's the Drakken!" But seeing that Karina is in the direct line of fire, Keitaro runs off the delta wing of the ship and runs toward Karina, who stands still in fright. As Keitaro grabs Karina, meaning to catch her and carry her off to the side, an explosion erupts from where Karina previously stood, and the shockwaves of the blast hurled them into the air and hard down onto the ground nearby. Immediately Keitaro shields Karina from any shrapnel that may have come from the blast by getting his body over Karina's, ducking her head down.

Dune, setting his sights on the target in the small canyon, shoots dozens of bursts of automatic fire from his portable gatling gun. Keitaro sees the oppurtunity to further shield Karina. As Dune gets in the line of fire of the Drakken, their location unknown, Keitaro carries the scared limp Karina and gets her inside the ship. Dune is seen dodging a few projectiles from the enemy, some which are embedded in the ship's hull, creating metal-upon-metal sounds. Keitaro sits Karina in the empty seat, and takes the active rifle from her. Keitaro climbs out of the ship dodging energy projectile from the enemy, and then putting a one-eyed InfoVisor in front of his left eye, targets the invisible-looking Drakken in the valley.

The rifle, now put in semi-automatic by Keitaro, shoots burst shots of four a dozen times, instantly killing two of the humanoid monster warriors in his InfoVisor. Half a dozen burst shots more, he kills the remaining two monsters. After that, the eerie sounds subside and no more shots could be heard from the enemy.

Realizing that the battle was too easy, Keitaro immediately looks to Dune, who looks exhausted from carrying around a heavy weapon. He then starts to hear the eerie sounds again but Keitaro is unable to target them. The sounds seem to be getting closer and Keitaro awareness shoots through the roof, almost to the point that he become paranoid.

Meanwhile, in the ship, Karina sits quietly trying to figure out what happen in the last fifteen minutes. Her body now feels sore for being tackled and held down by a Rinjatta. As she tries to massage the sores away, the battle outside subsides and the eerie noises dissapate. At that moment, Karina hears static in the radio of the ship. She stands from the seat and goes to the main console of the ship. She find the radio and turns up the volume to a comprehensible level.

".........." static is heard.
"alling......istres......beacon...." garbled words mixed with static comes through, barely recognizable.

Then all of sudden the static goes away and a transmission clearly goes through, "This is Dropship E9127A, calling emergency distress beacon. Do you read?"

Now realizing, Karina picks up the receiver connected by a spiralling cord, and talks back to the dropship, "This is Lt. Karina Aizen of AIG Recon Mission A97, over."

Now that a connection is established, the dropship asks through the radio, "Hear ya loud and clear, is all occupants accounted for?"

"Yes. It's Lt. Dune Anazasi and Capt. Keitaro Tousen and I," Karina excitingly answers back.

"Okay! I'm nearing your distress beacon, ETA fifteen minutes," the dropship tells her.

Meanwhile, outside, Dune tries to catch his breath. When he does, he asks Keitaro, "So those are the Drakken?"

"I'm afraid so. It's no avoiding it," he tells him.

A moment later, Karina excitingly pops her head out to shout that a dropship is coming. But before a shout could come out, her mouth is shut up by the loud cry of a Drakken soldier. Keitaro hears it as well, drawing Karina's rifle to the sky, looking for a target. Dune also is alerted by his captain but bearing all the fatigue of carrying the heavy weapon he brought, Dune is unable to pick up his gun and prepare himself.

Seeing that Dune is ****, Keitaro slowly, in aware of his surroundings as well, walks toward his subordinate. A very loud Drakken cry is now heard, originating from behind Dune's position. Looking through his InfoVisor, he sees an large eerie monster that doesn't look like a typical humanoid Drakken. Resembling a giant scorpion, the monster is seen to have his venomous tail ready to strike.

Keitaro shouts to his lieutenant, "Dune!"

But before Dune could do anything the monster strikes. In the eyes of Keitaro and Karina, a sharp harpoon-like object enters Dune's body from his back and comes out from his front. Green blood spews out of Dune's chest and armor. A cone-shaped object covered in blood is seen protruding out of Dune's body. With it, Dune is lifted high in the air and literally tossed over the cliff and into the lower treeline.

As Keitaro's rifle is set to full automatic, he shoots the rest of the magazine in the invisible air where he is targeting the huge monster. To the naked eye, shots could be seen deflecting off an invisible surface where the large scorpion pincers really are. The deafening burst of rifle rounds seem to completely cover the screams of Karina, to the point where she is inaudible.

When the magazine in Keitaro's rifle runs out and the gun starts clicking, he discards it and goes for his twin machine pistols. With one hand Keitaro shoots several bursts at the venom tail, now preparing to strike again. With the other hand, he tries to shoot the distinct eye stalks protrude from above the scorpions claws.

That is when the monster starts advancing. A tree to the right of the scene is literally uprooted and sent falling to its doom along with dust and rock onto the canyon below. Distinct holes in the ground can be clearly seen as the large scorpion works its way towards Keitaro, who has now depleted one of his pistols. He discards it and reaches behind him, into his back pocket, and pulling out a familiar object.

Karina sees Keitaro's hair grow upright in the intense energy surging from him. This energy, with its immense power seem to be able to render the monster's cloaking ability useless, as it is seen flickering in the gusts of wind originating from Keitaro. Once Karina sees the twin curving energy blades flicker on, she hears and feels another gust of wind from behind and atop her position. She looks up to find a dropship with its cargo bay ramp extending from the underbelly of the hull. A group of four soldier stand on the platform. Two stand with weapons ready: one with a regular automatic rifle, and the other with a bulky rocket launcher. A cannon with another soldier sits in the center of the platform. The last is seen with a rifle, and tossing it, gives it to Karina.

With her loudest shout, she screams, "Captain!"

Keitaro tumbles to the side and slashes to his left side. A large crustacean-like claw is dismember from the monster. At once, after hearing Karina's call, dashes towards the dropship, where all of the soldiers on the platform, plus Karina, are shooting burst of projectile fire at the scorpion. Suddenly, in a blink of an eye, the tail, from its upright position, lunges forward and aims at Keitaro. There is nothing anyone could've done. It's like everything is set in slow motion.

The same attack done to Dune is done to Karina's captain. Dark blook spews from Keitaro's chest and mouth. The Rinjatta psychic energy seems to subside and the captain's eye changed from bright red to dark brown. In a successive attack, the scorpion retracts its tail sending Keitaro's body flying. His sword hilt flies from his hand and lands inches in front of Karina who now realizes that her captain has been attacked. With a gut fury, she aims her automatic rifle at the eye stalks and unleashes a full barrage of fire at the scorpion monster. One by one, the two eye stalks are hit and burst like water balloons. The monster ceases to move and drops on its belly.

Karina sees the fallen sword hilt on the ground near her downed knee. She picks it up and dashes to her captain, who lays on his stomach, his face in the dusty ground. Once Karina gets to her captain, she rolls him on his back and tries to get him to wake up. His eyes open slowly, but quickly Karina drags his dying body onto the dropship platform where the soldier there are shouting, "lieutenant."

Now on the platform, the hydraulic system retracts it back to the main hull where Karina meets the rest of the crew and also a combat medic, who urges Karina, with a few other to carry her captain's body on a medical table. Karina could now feel the dropship rise and fly upwards toward the atmosphere.

"Will he live, doctor?" Karina nervously asks. From the time she found the sword hilt to the time she got Keitaro onto the dropship, she hasn't let go the long narrow object belonging to her captain.

"It's hard to say. I've never worked on a wound like this---" Karina interrupts.

"Well try to do something! You're a doctor for chrissakes!" Karina explodes in fury at the doctor, almost pushing him to the other wall. Before she could do any of that, the two soldiers who carried the captain onto the table stop her and loosely restrain her.

Now calmed down and the fury subsiding, the inside of the dropship all quiet with everybody, including the pilot, sitting and staring. All of a sudden, Keitaro's body coughs as the captain mutters something.

"Karina," Keitaro directly asks for his lieutenant. Immediately, with the sword hilt in hand, Karina goes to the side of her captain, and he says to her, "Don't worry about me. Worry about yourself." Astonished by his response, Karina stays quiet. "But that sword hilt, keep it," he says, then turning to her with a eerie look with his bright red eyes, adds, "you'll need it." With those last word, his eyes close, and Keitaro breathes his last. In a sudden event, his hair starts swaying, as if a breeze was blowing it. Tiny red glowing particles depart from his head and flow in distinct streams toward the sword hilt in Karina's hand. Loose particles fly to the top of Karina's head, embedding them into the dark, purple strands of hair as if they were destined to land there.

"Do you know what he just did?" the doctor asks Karina, who looks up surprised.

But before the doctor could add anymore, the pilot shouts from his seat, "Finally, we're off that stinkin' planet." This cues the others to look out the windows and portholes. Once one sees a ship orbiting the planet and awaiting the dropship, he or she exciting tells the others

A female soldier of human descent calls out from her seat, "It's the Jurai!" Everybody from the left of the ship runs to the right of hte ship to crowd the windows, trying to catch a glimpse of the AIG Frigate-class Crusier, the A097 Jurai. Karina, having seen the ship so many times on so many mission, continues to sit next to her recently departed captain, who seems to be happily sleeping at her side. She is left to contemplate what just happened three minutes earlier.

As the dropship approaches the cruiser, the Jurai's true shape appears. It is a resemblance of a water-based battleship but in space. Six medium-class engines make up the stern. The hull looks familiar but it's plain bigger and bulkier with some attachments. Along the sides are the departure/arrival station, or the places where dropship can go and leave. That is where the dropship is heading. As the dropship nears and opening door, the massive control tower situated at the top of the hull is a staggering scene, as the dim light reflects off its dirty, brown exterior.

The dropship enters the cavity, which just looks like a huge garage with ship lined up next to other. The dropship land atop an elevated platform and once it touches down, the crew immediate exits. Medical teams take the deceased body of Keitaro and put it on a hovering stretcher and zip the body bag. Karina is one of the three people left on the dropship. The other two, a Rafalgar co-pilot and a human-crossed Felgen pilot, prepare to exit the ship. Not concerned of Karina's current psyche, the Rafalgar co-pilot, who looks like a muscled wolf in a space suit, leaves out the side door, similar to the fallen wreckage on the planet below. The Felgen pilot, who looks like human with pale green hair and vulcan ears, complete with a pilot's headset, goes to Karina and pat his hand on her shoulder. Karina flinches and is kicked out of the space-out world she was in, still contemplating what just happened to Keitaro. The Felgen gives her some advice before departing.

"You should listen to him. Don't worry about it. Rinjatta are most wise when they are about to leave the living world. What you should worry about is what's in front of you. Plus, the maintenance team wants everybody to clear out," he tells him in a jolly demeanor. He then looks to the sword hilt Karina is holding. For some apparent reason, dark green and purple vein-like signatures appear on Karina's hand that is holding the sword hilt. In a concerned panic, the Felgen gives some more advice, "You should have that checked out."

Now looking at her hand, she obviously doesn't feel any pain or awkwardness with the signatures on her hand. But now realizing, as a maintenance worker climb aboard, she has to get off the dropship. Karina, sword hilt now tucked in her side pack, heads out of the Cargo Bay.