Aftermath by Justin
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Disclaimer:
I do not own Galerians, only a copy I bought at Babbages. Galerians is owned by
Ascii, Crave Entertainment, and Polygon Magic. (I think that's all of them...)
I do not own any of the characters from the game, although I do claim ownership
of my own characters, as well as any personality and/or appearance changes I
have given the (very few) surviving game characters. I am not responsible for
any Shorting deaths induced by this fanfic. Enjoy ^_^
GALERIANS
A F T E R M A T H
Chapter 1: Rebirth
"Lilia… Please just let me die…"
The words echoed in her head like the crashing waves of the ocean, again, and
again… each echo louder than the last… Like a tide rising closer to her…
"…Lilia…"
She remembered the childhood memories of her dear brother Rion, and how he
finally came to her rescue… But was he really "her" Rion?
"…Please…"
Could it all be true, that the Rion who saved her was all part of
an elaborate plot against her, that he was created to retrieve her for Dorothy?
"…Just…"
That "her" Rion died in the hospital, just as Cain had told them? Was
Rion just a clone?
"…Let…"
Was Rion really just a Galerian altered to look like him? That all his memories
of Lilia and their childhood together were loaded into his brain?
"…Me…"
How could that be? A Mother Computer, with a mind of her own… Dorothy had gone
mad, creating her own race… the Galerians… Who was she to play God?
"……Die……"
* * *
"No… Rion… You can't die, you have to come with me… no……"
Lilia's memory of that day repeated itself over and over, like a broken record
player…
"RION!!!!"
Her eyes burst open, and for the first time in what seemed like forever, she
had awakened.
"W-where am I?" she thought groggily, as she felt her body floating
in some form of liquid… Her vision focused and she realized that she was
suspended in an incubation tank… the same kind that the Galerians were
"grown" in… but how? She had no memory of being placed in one.
Then again, she had no memory of anything since the incident at the Mushroom
Tower, she remembered nothing after the death of her dear brother. What
happened after that, she knew nothing of.
It was as if it just happened the second before she awoke, one
second she was mourning over her dear Rion, staring out of the giant hole in
the side of the Mushroom Tower, and the next, she was floating bare in a
Galerian incubation tank.
She felt a bit faint, and her vision started to blur and fade to yellow as she
noticed a biomechanical tube to some kind leading into her navel. Translucent,
yet segmented like a mechanical device, flowing with some form of green fluid.
"…Nalcon?" she thought, not wanting to believe what she saw. Until
now, she had only re-lived the memory of her brother's death over and over
again in her mind, every minute the nightmare would repeat itself.
And yet, now knowing the truth, the harsh reality of it all, she would rather
retreat back to those horrifying images of her dreams.
She winced, trying to look away from the apparatus leading into her. She looked
up, through the glass wall of her tank, and could see that she was in a
circular room, similar to the Hand Of God, the room where Cain and the rest of
the Galerians were born.
Much more she noticed her own body was much different than when she last
remembered. She had now matured, her body was that of 17. "How long have I
been here?" she asked herself.
Though her appearance was still similar, her light brown, shoulder-length hair,
and her reddish-brown eyes remained the same as she remembered.
She noticed that all the other tanks were empty. "Maybe they've already
been born?" she wondered. Just then she saw the black circular panel in
the center of the room start to glow a turquoise blue, and a cloaked human
figure materialize, wearing a standard tan robe uniform of Michelangelo City,
with a metal plate on his right shoulder, possibly armor of some kind.
Most of the person's face could not be seen, it was shadowed by the hood of his
robe. Lilia could just barely tell it was male, judging from the figure's
muscular structure. All that could be seen was a few blond streaks of hair,
falling down to his mid-cheek.
She noticed him smile slightly, not a menacing smile like that of the
Galerians, but a soft, caring smile. But that image was soon shattered, as he
raised his hand out before him, standing several feet away from Lilia's tank,
and used a psychic shockwave. Lilia's vision slowly began to fade as she saw a
bright flash of light and the glass tank around her shattering.
However, instead of falling to the shards below, she felt herself
floating in the air as the water around her splashed to the floor and spread
throughout the room. The last thing she saw before passing out was the man
holding his arm out toward her from his standing point a few yards away, as if
he too had the same powers as her departed brother.
Her apparent rescuer slowly levitated her out to the floor in front of him,
after using his power to send a single shard of glass shooting up from the
floor to cut off her "umbilical cord" of Nalcon. He carefully set her
down before removing his robe and wrapping her in it, his clothing now visible.
More could now be seen of the man, he appeared to be of 18, his eyes not
visible as they were covered by a form of visor, its goggles a luminescent
green.
His outfit was clad of black; a tank top, and knee-length leather jean-shorts,
baggy at that, as its waves and wrinkles shone in the dim light of the room.
Lower still, he wore brown leather combat boots, literally steel-toed as they
held corrugated metal plates at their front and side, possibly for an advantage
in combat.
Also visible was a black leather glove covering the middle three
fingers of his left hand, much like an archer's glove.
Moreover, on his left arm as well, was a crude cloth bandage covering part of
his upper arm. A dark-red stain could barely be seen through its mid-point, as
if the injury had happened recently, but enough time had passed for the blood
to dry.
Lastly, he was metal-clad, a punk-ish dog collar around his neck with hanging
chains, one twisting downward around his right arm to another, spiked collar
around his wrist, another twisting around his body down to a belt-loop, then
around his waist as a belt would. One more chain, about necklace-length, hung
in front, a Cross-like pendant at its end.
His hair was scruffy and rugged, literally dirty blond, with no apparent part.
It just hung down in front of his face, with occasional spikes shooting out
every which way. The only area which appeared well-groomed was in back, as it
fell to about mid-neck. Partially visible was a scar on his left cheek, about
two inches across and just barely below his eye, though part of its midsection
was covered by his abnormal visor.
After wrapping her snugly in his former robe, the man quickly picked Lilia up
in his arms and carried her back to the room's center, teleporting with her out
of the disturbing room. He hustled down a dark hallway, lit by a scarce amount
of blue-green lights on the walls, lantern-like in appearance, yet flowing with
organic energy for their light source.
He could see not the color in them with his visor, as it only detected heat;
the lights were like that of a firefly, lit by organic chemicals and not heat
as though it would seem. To him they were blue, almost black as translated by
his heat-detecting goggles.
Just then an alarm sounded, and all the lights of the hallway, as
far as he could see, suddenly went out. He flipped a switch on the mechanism
and its function switched to night-vision, and all appeared in shades of green.
He ran his fastest carrying the girl, turning his head rapidly in many
directions, simply looking at the security cameras in his path before they
exploded in a shower of red and blue sparks. He ran through the swarm of sparks
before him, too fast for them to even rest a sear on his pale skin.
Then the nightmare began. The young man heard a shrill screech in the distance,
echoing down the path before him and coming from behind as well. "Damn
it…" he thought. As his mind went blank for a moment, he did not stop,
continuing to run for all his legs' worth as he knew what would hold his fate
if he stopped to fight.
"…The underlings…" he muttered, as he ran down to the light at the
end of the tunnel. He was confronted by a trio of repulsive creatures, wielding
blades in place of their hands. Their faces masked for all but one eye, the
mummy-like gray skin around it barely visible by the edge of the bandages.
"I haven't the time for this!" he yelled, as he managed to move one
hand to point out toward them, igniting them all in a pyrotechnic combustion.
As they spun in pain, he ran past them like an airborne bullet, his heart
racing with his mind. They fell behind him, twitching in their death throes,
but he was already far enough ahead of them to even hear their fall.
He now entered a room full of light, a grotesque elevator at the other end of
the room. In a dash for his escape, Lilia still unconscious in his arms, he was
ambushed by an inhuman, repulsive creature, insect-like in its appearance. The
young man was quick to blast it across the room into the opposite wall,
shattering the monstrosity to pieces, but not before it managed to spit off a
shot of it's acid blood, several drops burning into his left shin.
"AAGGHHH-" he cried out, as his mind could take no more.
As he stood there, stunned with a killer migraine, he carefully set Lilia down
and searched his pockets for some Delmetor, but to no avail. "Damn…"
he whispered, knowing what had to do, if he was to escape alive with the girl.
Several guards entered the room, several feet away from him, their guns pointed
with deadly aim to his head. He fell to his knees, hand on his forehead as if
suffering the headache of his life, but for him it was just an old pain that
came up every now and then.
"DAMN YOU ALL!!!!" he echoed through the chamber, as a shockwave of
violet energy spread through the room, harmless in its state, until he rose
from the floor, his entire body surging with static waves of electricity.
One of the guards was smart enough to react by backing away. "Holy
shi--!!!" …but it was too late. Everyone in the room, except for Lilia and
her rescuer, laid dead on the floor, after a rather violent explosion from
their skull, blood still spurting from what remained of their gray matter.
"Ugh…" muttered the young man, not from disgust, but from his very
life force slowly debilitating with every second he stood there. He was
Shorting, a fearsome trait carried only by the Galerians. Slowly, he flipped
his visor back to heat-vision, picked Lilia back up and carried her to the
elevator, which automatically took him to the lobby of the building.
As he staggered out to the lobby, those workers who weren't fast enough to get
out of range from his brainwave aura suffered the familiar fate of a detonating
brain-death, and before he could make his escape from the building's front
doors, he was encountered by a pair of Galerians, their race quite obvious as
their were immune to the effects of the Shorting.
One was female, of about 18, with short rose-red hair, fog-gray eyes, a black
leather trenchcoat, and flared blue jeans visible from her ankles, as were her
brown high-heeled boots. She slowly raised her arm, pointing it out toward him
as if to finish him off with a psychic attack of some sort.
"No, Saiki," said the other Galerian, a male of 19, with long
dark-brown hair to his shoulders, and ocean-blue eyes. He wore an odd black
shirt, his right sleeve the length of a T-shirt, and his left, a sweatshirt's
length. He also sported baggy blue jeans, with 2 brown leather belts, one
around his waist, the other hanging from one belt loop, it's opposite end hanging
down just below his hip. "Let him go."
"But Yokei… if Mother finds out--!" attempted Saiki, before she was
interrupted.
"Mother is understanding, Saiki… besides, wouldn't it be dishonorable to
waste our powers on someone so meager that the streets alone would take him in
a night?" he said, smirking some to the young man, who was too weak
already to respond, his eyes covered still with the visor set on heat.
"You may leave," said Yokei, as he and Saiki stepped aside to allow
their passage. Cautiously, the young man walked through the doors, and to the
outside world of the Michelangelo City streets, now dying in his Short.
"…Brother." The words from Yokei's mouth made the young man stop dead
in his tracks, although he wouldn't have made it much further anyway.
Yokei took a Delmetor capsule from his pocket, and flipped it with his thumb to
the young man. As if almost by instinct, he turned around to catch it in his
mouth, and swallowed, seconds from death, as he felt his mind beginning to
clear once again. He nodded, and continued to walk away, carrying Lilia as he
went.
The sun was setting, and the air grew cold, as they were already enveloped in
the darkness of the colossal skyscraper's shadow.
"What about the girl?" whispered Saiki. "Do not worry,"
replied Yokei, "Mother mind-spoke to me… She told me to let them go."
Saiki nodded.
"As you say."
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