trans_9 | Empty Hallowed Halls [Open]

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Empty Hallowed Halls [Open]

How could Billy have missed this heart-wrenchingly familiar structure on all his prior trips to the City?

On a test flight of the RADBUG's improved engine, he'd happened to turn his head just the right way and spot the unmistakable scroll-like tops of a building that had been his second home for so long. The second it was spotted in the distance, he changed course and brought the car into a descent. Moments later he parked just outside the ground-level entrance.

So the only confirmed remnants of my world are myself, my Zord, the RADBUG, and the Command Center. Perhaps Tenaya as well, but her world seems to be radically altered. I highly doubt that Zordon and Alpha are inside waiting for me, but I need to investigate.

It pained him to admit it, but he was afraid of what he would (or wouldn't) find. But a Ranger never backed away from a potentially tricky situation. Even if they had to call for backup, which Billy decided would be wise when entering an abandoned building. In seconds, a quick note was typed out on his omnicom and posted.

As Billy studied the exterior he hadn't seen in what he guessed must have been almost a year, he turned his Power Coin in his palm. It seemed to feel more charged than usual. Likely to be a low-key reaction to its location, he thought.

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Huh. He'd been escorting his newer acquaintances around the Command Center, but the person approaching now was almost entirely unfamiliar to him. One of the new arrivals, he remembered.

"Hey," Billy greeted with a wave and a friendly smile, pushing off the side of the RADBUG. "Are you here for the Command Center excavation, or did you want to talk about something else?"

"Hello," he started, inspecting the RADBUG. For all the talk of things like teleportation, the outdated-looking vehicle was just strange. But he dismissed the thought for now.

"I'm here for the former. Although I admit that after hearing about it, I'm curious about what sort of things might be in there, as well."

"As I wrote on the bulletin board, I'm Billy. It's nice to meet you." Yes, he'd like a name before he takes someone into his former sanctuary. Luckily, he doesn't need much else.

"The primary items of interest were the giant mecha known as Zords, but I'm assuming the Zord Bays were emptied. My Zord was relocated to the vehicle bays, and the others are unaccounted for at the moment. Everything else was for communications, surveillance, teleportation, or Zord maintenance. The empty bays and some experimental workshops are on the lower levels, but the main level has a console room and a remote viewing globe that could once display a picture of any location in the world."

He responded with a quick, sharp salute. "I'm Yzak Jule, of the ... ZAFT ... military." He trailed off with a confused frown. The extended greeting was something that came almost instinctively, but it wasn't as if anybody other than the people he knew from home actually knew what ZAFT was.

But one word in Billy's next sentence stood out. "You're a pilot? I saw a bunch of other machines in the hangar when I was checking it out, but I have no idea what half of them even are."

"A pleasure to work with you," Billy nods politely. So this one's another pilot, likely to be joining Rogue Squadron. Possibly an engineer on the mecha side.

"Yes, but unlike the other pilots my mecha is a grounded tank. It can lift and throw boulders in an almost telekinetic fashion, but its ground speed is limited. One of my other teammates had a flying Zord that would be far more useful out there. I've looked around the hangar as well, but most of us are very protective of our mecha and distrust tinkerers other than ourselves."

"I understand the sentiment. I've only met one person who has enough experience as a mechanic to work with a mobile suit like my own. I suppose you could call that lucky, but as it stands, even though we come from the same world, I never really met this person until my arrival here." It wasn't that Yzak particularly distrusted Lowe, but he was a wary person in general. It was a sure-to-win bet that Yzak would be hawking over him for the first few sessions.

"All the same, that still sounds useful, limited maneuverability aside. With the proper formations and the right cover tactics - which seem perfectly doable considering the number of machines I've seen in the hangar."

"We have other mechanics here, but until you all arrived here I was one of the only ones with a large amount of mecha experience. The rest of our department works with weapons, smaller vehicles, and computers. Stacy probably won't allow anything to be done to yours without your consent, but you may have to watch out for Lash. She seems eager to install death rays."

Shaking his head at the memory of her, Billy grinned. "It would be more effective if the rest of my team was here to combine our mecha into its Megazord form, but it will have to do for now. So anyway---do you want to start exploring the storage rooms?"

Billy placed a hand on the wheeling cart he'd salvaged for the occasion.

Yzak nodded in response, looking back up at the Command Center and then moving to follow Billy. Now that he had mentioned the idea of teammates, it got Yzak thinking. Other than Athrun, really, none of his good friends had woken up with him. And when it came down to it, Yzak would never be caught dead using the term friend on Athrun.

"I suppose in the case of my own mobile suit, while it's perfectly capable of being an independent fighter ... a lot of things would be more effective if my own team were here, as well."

As they walk, Billy gives Yzak a compassionate smile. "I can't promise that your team will awaken, but I sincerely hope you end up more fortunate in that respect than I have. Even if they don't, perhaps the pilots of similar vehicles would be willing to train with you? Some of them run simulation battles in the Sensoriums, and I believe Kira started storing programs there for others to use."

In that time, they've reaches the storage rooms. Panels, mecha parts, wires, and experimental weapons are in somewhat organized piles around the facility. Even some of Billy's old inventions are here. He sees familiar mirror-shields, temperature adjusters, magnetic field generators, and more.

"Well, this is our equivalent of a junkyard."

"They probably will." Yzak thought about this, the selection of fellow pilots that woke up with him that he actually knew was strange indeed. Kira who he felt better about not dealing with much. Shinn, who was already giving him such a cocky impression. The others weren't so bad, but Athrun was Athrun, so that would definitely result in a lot of yelling from Yzak's end.

Upon entering the storage room, Yzak looked around, taking the initiative to step ahead and get some closer looks at things. He wasn't too sure about what would and wouldn't be useful, but he figured some things wouldn't be too difficult to define as worthwhile to salvage.

"I'd offer to help, but as I said, my mecha doesn't quite fit in with the others." It was a rolling giant blue unicorn. This needed to be reiterated. With a shake of his head, Billy started piling up his old inventions.

"Some of these items are specialized tools I invented to fight previous monsters. The rest consists of panels and wiring, but even the old parts and metal scraps can be salvaged and repurposed."

Yes, they should be good for a little while longer.

"You'll have to show it to me sometime. There were some pretty interesting machines there. Especially compared to the one I use."

So collecting it was. Yzak moved around the room, grabbing at this, looking over that, turning his attention to anything that looked interesting or useful enough.

"Invented, huh. You must be a pretty busy person."

"I will. I was actually planning to check on my Zord in a few days."

He looked back up at Yzak with a pensive look on his face. "I am. I started inventing simple items when I was four years old, and eventually I was given my family's garage as a lab. Now I have a full-time job in Special Weapons. If not for that, I would have joined the pilots in training."

More inventions were piled away, and then he moved to the panels. Some of them had belonged to old Zords, and they naturally came in the appropriate colors: black, green, pink, blue, red, yellow, and white.

"Have you found anything else from your world in the city?"

He shook his head. "Other than my GOUF-- my mobile suit, no. Not yet, anyway. Though I'm thankful for my GOUF at the very least. I wasn't expecting it to show up here with me."

Yzak looked the panels over, the entirety of the center was intriguing, really. "What sort of organization was this place created for?"

"I wasn't expecting to find anything of mine either. Especially not something as massive as this place, though I understand why salvaging it was important. If you keep looking, you might find familiar buildings around here somewhere." Even if they were far away, like this building had been.

As he finished one cart and started on the next, he slipped into his memories. "It was conceived as the Earth base of a wizard from another dimension seeking to protect the universe. He activated everything when an evil sorceress awakened from her slumber and started to invade Earth. When the attacks began, he selected five teenagers to become his soldiers. We were each given lightweight powered armor and our own Zords, and this was where we teleported to discuss strategy and recover from battles."

Wizards, sorceresses, the terms were something Yzak had only known from fiction.

"Just five? Was that enough?"

"Not quite. After a few weeks of adapting to our new roles, we were attacked by an evil Ranger who nearly destroyed us all. We learned that he was an innocent new student who had been forced into servitude by a spell, so we broke it and invited him to join the team. Since then there have been six of us, but the lineup has changed somewhat"

Billy shrugged as he started to push his collection out the door. "I don't believe our enemies had enough power to sustain a force that the six of us couldn't handle."

"With the right leadership and teamwork between each other, it's not so hard to believe."

"I can't argue with that. We learned to compensate for each other's weaknesses, and our leader was seemingly omniscient in his knowledge. He used the globe in the main room to view anything in the universe at any time. If I could somehow bring that back online, it could be incredibly useful."

Unfortunately, it would likely prove to be almost impossible to power without magic. And that was definitely something he lacked.

"Anything in the universe? I wonder then, if he was able to notice..."

Yzak looked up. Not at anything in particular, but now he wondered. If other worlds had so much power, and so many different things, were the Ohm really that seemingly indestructible?

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Empty Hallowed Halls [Open]

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