Chapter CCXXXII: And Now For Something – ~Multehx

Scilas snorted in indignation at it all. He had woken about an hour ago, and found himself alone on the scene. He stood atop the rock protrusion he climbed to get a better vantage point. It was a rather desolate world from what he could make of it. The sky seemed to be pitch black though it was oddly illuminated with no sun or moon in sight. The ground consisted of a purple, mineral-rock substance.

There was a slight winter chill in the air, and it was obviously well supplied with oxygen, as the assassin had no problem breathing. He was abruptly shaken from his thoughts as something stirred near the horizon. Scilas narrowed his eyes, trying to better see what it was. It moved a bit more. Though he couldn't tell exactly what it was, he knew it was definitely a person. He leapt to the ground from his spot on the rock and took off hurriedly for the figure.

As he finally drew near, he could finally tell who it was. He waited as the young man got to his knees, brushed aside a lock of his blond hair that had fallen in his eyes, and got to his feet. He noticed Scilas almost instantly on the bleak surroundings.

D'Nel gave a brief nod and slowly walked over. "Well, what brings us here, assassin?"

Scilas glanced off over one shoulder and shrugged. "Who knows," he replied, "I just accompany that gang in saving existence."

D'Nel frowned and folded his arms. "Well, hmm...I swear I've been here before..."

Scilas rolled his eyes. "Nice timing on the dêja vú, kid."

But the young rogue ignored this and kept trying to jog his memory. After a brief time, Scilas was startled from his thoughts once again by D'Nel stamping a foot as something came to him. He snapped his fingers and smirked.

"I knew I had been here before..." he muttered.

Scilas rested his arms akimbo. "Okay, then, where are we?"

"Gaherdat." D'Nel nodded.

Scilas stared at him blankly. Eventually, he waved one hand emphatically. "And that is?..."

"A rather large hunk of rock that orbits a collapsed star located in universe...dang, I forget the Multi-maritime number for it, uh, the one with the advanced giant robotics programs, you know the one." He paused and Scilas nodded in affirmation. "Yeah, anyways, it's a pretty good place. Highly spoken of only in lowly whispered tones. If it's available for less than public uses, it's probably for sale here with a 'no questions asked' policy for the purchasers." He grinned rather fondly. "I got quite a few nice buys here myself in the old days."

Scilas snickered. "Old days...heh, for you, that's like last month, wouldn't it be?"

D'Nel muttered something under his breath and started off across the rocky plains, waving for Scilas to follow.

Bounding over, the assassin glanced at his current travelling companion. "So, where we off to?"

D'Nel pointed straight ahead into the distance. "Headed for the main town of this place. If we need to find out anything or go anywhere, that's the place to start."

-----

They made it into town around midnight that evening, or ten to be precise. They didn't attract too much attention; pirates and bandits were often well respected among the ranks of the outlaws. As were assassins; there were few places at all that didn't treat such professional murderers with respect. Maybe a loathing respect, but a respect just the same.

So, after narrowly avoiding being run down by a passing gigantic robot mecha, they found their way to the local inn. The tattered cloth curtains and dingy, grimy, and not well lit atmosphere made it quite obvious that this was no four star accommodation. Still, it was a safe haven in an area flocked by the worst degenerates, killers and thieves out there. D'Nel inquired about a room for the night and was informed that there were a few vacancies left.

While he originally tried to go for a double suite, their lack of local currency quickly put a halt to the idea. Thankfully, Scilas always carried a few authentic silver pieces in his money purse, so they managed to scrape together enough for a single. Begrudgingly, they accepted this. Their spirits only dropped when they saw the shabby room in person. A dusty and worn old couch lay to one side, and a sink with a glassless mirror above it to the other. Against the back wall lay a single bed. The wood had long since gone wormy and its paint had yellowed and began to peel. At least the linen was fresh, D'Nel had to reason.

After settling in, the two set out to the task that they both knew they had to decide: who got the bed.

Scilas looked to D'Nel and nodded seriously. "Well, time to seperate the men from the boys." He pointed to the bed. "We shall decide this by the methods of true men in hard times. Only the most noble of deciding methods can be used."

D'Nel agreed. Raising a fist, the assassin rested it in the palm of his other hand.

"Best two out of three."

Albeit said D'Nel was a screw up in numerous things, rock, paper, scissors was definitely one of the counter balances to this. Playing this numerous times to decide who got what with Ray Noh had fiercely intensified his skills at the game. It only made it more difficult and one a better hand at it when your opponent had a computerized mind and could thoroughly analyze what the probable outcome would be.

Scilas groaned as he settled down on the couch. The odds of losing three straight games was ludicrous, but he had just the same. As he closed his eyes, he couldn't help but wonder what had happened to everyone. How were his team mates faring through this? Where was the Spectrum? Why hadn't C.R. contacted him? And just what were his enemies up to now...

* * *

Rebdok let out a breath in a whistle. He had been lucky. The others had most likely been hurled about, hitting whatever place they landed on with enough force to keep them out for a good few hours at least, if not a day or so. He, on the other hand, had been securely strapped in the cockpit of Gundam Condemnation.

He originally was somewhat against the whole giant robot of death idea, but it was spawned of a Creation's Weapon, so it wasn't your average powered robot of death. It was somewhere around version 2.0. While Condemnation had crashed down on some dirtball planet populated with extensive plant-life: a lot of dryads mainly, so he had taken to space with the device, picked up a few radio transmissions along the way that mentioned the technological specializations of this planet, and he promptly directed it to land there.

It was a good thing that the lowlifes highly respected and even more so feared the Twilighter race, as he had been able to intimidate a number of the technicians into assisting him. They had serviced the Gundam, returning it to pristine order. Also, they even had made a complex and detailed diagram of the suit and its systems while enacting repairs. Rebdok had "kindly" acquired this from them by a most pleasant "request", and it now resided in his cloak. Then, on his way out to the massive wastelands that covered the planet (he planned to work on testing out the suit there), he crossed through town and almost crushed two careless fools darting about.

He swore profusely at the two under his breath and guided the suit out of town. When it was finally out of sight behind him, he cracked his fingers and took hold of a control stick in either hand.

"Let's see how this thing works."

Walking, running, even jumping, rolling and getting to the suit's feet were all known to him already. So was how to activate the thrusters to clear the atmosphere; it took him a good many tries to figure that one out back when he first crashed down. A few new tests and he had the arms up and working well. From simply manoeuvring them to punching, blocking, etcetera.

Then came the more advanced things: rapid kicks, advanced combined flurries of attacks, and then the main weapon. Withdrawing the metal pole, he examined it carefully for a moment. Frowning, he re-attached it to the back of the Gundam.

"Never seen one of those before....I'll figure it out later." he said dismissively.

His fingers wandered over the sides of the control sticks when he abruptly stopped. Something did not feel quite right in one particular spot on each.

Further examination of these oddities revealed that, in fact, there were two hidden compartments on each of the sticks; the strange things he had felt were the edges of the plastic covers that concealed them. Working each off quite easily with his clawed hands, he found on the inside of each a single grey button. In the center of either face was a red letter "C". Frowning in question he pressed each in.

Gundam Condemnation's arms shot up, one situated on top of the other in the now classic "X" guarding position, the outsides of the arms facing out. The crosses on its arm shields began to gather unholy light and glowed in a brilliant greyish hue. As the light reached its apex glow, a cross-shaped blast shot from either shield and continued on until they collided with a mountain in the distance. Upon impact, the dome of the strangely grey explosion was massive and intimidating indeed to those not in the Gundam's cockpit.

As the shields powered down and Condemnation lowered its arms back to its side, Rebdok grinned slightly.

"A tad small, but it has definite potential...I will have to learn more about this," he mused to himself, chuckling in a sinister tone.