Episode 23: Always By Your Side

[Seiki Maki]

Seiki takes in a gulp of fresh air and lets it out with a sigh, moving her hand to Oberus and slowly stroking the legendary bakugan. "Yeah, much better. Thanks." She takes a moment to soak in the sunlight and feel the slight breeze flow through her hair. "Really needed that."

The girl takes a few more moments to enjoy her surroundings before shifting her attention over to the two pyrus brawlers, "Pleased to meet you Mr. Hardy, you too Apollonir." Seiki then listens attentively who what they said and nods her head in responce.

Ahio trots over to Seiki, still somewhat adjusting to her new form. "Heeeeeeeey, this place reminds me of the place from that dream." She turns her head to look around the area. Yup, matches the dream almost perfectly. "Yanno, that one very nice one with Nol-" The bird's speech was cut off by a pluck of one of her newly formed scales.

"Urusai." Although her partner is right, this place indeed resembled the plane they were on in that dream they had seemingly just woken up from in Tracy's house. "Don't say things that don't need to be said."

"But penting up lov-"

Seiki gently jabs Ahio in the spot where she has plucked off the scale. "I just said urusai. I say it for a reason." She was angry, but had that light-hearted tone of voice intertwined with it. Ahio wanted to tell Noland for her brawler's own good, but decided against it. For some reason Seiki was so hung up over not letting Noland know. Something within the lines of his and Alana being a better match, or even Tracy.

The thought of Ahio's regular bugging slipped Seiki's head as another one took its place. As Ahio strokes the area of the missing scale with her beak-like armor murmuring something within the lines of being happy that it will grow back, the ventus brawler sat there, rubbing the scale in her free hand as she thought over the fact that she was needed for something important that Noland was going to do. She had beaten a legendary solider with Ahio so she wasn't that weak, and had finally overcome her unnecessary weight, maybe even a few more points, which one was the reason? "But why choose me? I'm just here because fell from the sky from a shockwave way back when."

[Noland Hardy]

Oberus chuckled after hearing Seiki and Ahio go back and forth over her fear of telling Noland what she obviously feels by now. "I hope you're prepared to confront him about that soon. They heard what you said. Every word. That's why they're there." She laughed again, knowing that Seiki was going to be more flustered than usual now that she's exposed.

Getting back to the reason why Seiki was here, Oberus chose to be a little more personal with what she was going to convey to her. She sat up to return to her feet, walked a couple of steps away from Seiki, and used her powers to project illusions of Skyress flying over their heads, just a little bit lower than the projected Armstrong Limit for Seiki.

"I used to not be like them up there. I used to get laughed at, not because I was slower than them or not pretty enough. It was because they had the tools needed to perform the basic function of flying while I didn't." She spread her wings as she continued to say, "They had wings to use. Me? Mine were useless. I was a sitting duck on the ground while they soared through the air. Fast forward to now..."

She launched herself into the air to blitz straight through the Skyress and land back on the ground in under six seconds.

"I'm flying by them before they can even screech," she finished. "I can be on the ground, and they can be in the sky. There's nothing saying I can't lift myself off the ground and fly with them though, even if it looked like I shouldn't have been. It doesn't matter where you came from; all that matters is where you can and will go. You just have to believe in it and go with the flow. You have wings too, so I'm going to help you spread them and you'll fly higher than you ever thought you could. That's what you need from you, and that's what the rest of your friends will need from you as well."

[Seiki Maki]

"N-not you too!" Seiki shouts as Ahio chortles at her partner's ever flustered reaction. The girl buries her head in her hands to cover whatever her face was right now for a moment before Seiki looks back up at the two bakugans. She was about to make another comeback, but then she shifted her attention to Oberus's life story, Ahio following her actions close behind.

She stayed quiet for the duration of the narration, fiddling with the hem of her shirt while Ahio made some cooing noises to awe at the projections. "You shared a similar problem..." The girl mumbles to no one in particular as Oberus wraps up her story.

"I see now," Seiki says as she looks down to her hands. There was a moment of silence as she continued to look at them before clenching them up into a gentle fist. "I'll do my best to do that then."

"You mean we." Ahio says as she softly nudges Seiki's arm with her now metal beak. The resistor looks over at her bakugan who had a big goofy grin on her face, like she always did. "Remember, you're not alone."

Her partner replied with a nod before getting up and stretching. "I'll help," Seiki looks over at the Hardys with a grin on her face. "But only because you helped me during those dark times of my life," She points at Noland with a stern (yet playful according to Ahio) expression. "So don't get any funny ideas!"

[Xavier Turano]

After the overwhelming success of the first mechanical Bakugan's release - Aquos Macubass, Xavier and his head scientist were hard at work creating something new, something that can cover the areas that Macubass can't. This one was going to be the terror of the skies and beyond.

The head scientist was overlooking this creation outside in the Mother Palace's expansive backyard when Xavier was heading back out there after his break.

"Um, sir...I don't mean to be rude, but...what IS that?"

He was speaking of the Bakugan they were creating. It must not have looked like it was supposed to.

"What? Is something wrong with how it looks?"

"Well, no...but it doesn't look like the draft..."

"Oh, you mean that. I combined the Aluze unit we built with the Altair unit we thought was a failure. Surprisingly, they work better together than individually, so I thought it'd be better for its life cycle if they were to combine."

What Xavier said was true. The craft's head must have been a 2-in-1. The chin area was actually where one of their heads must have been placed, making it so one head was on top while the other was on the bottom.

"I guess the Queen must have gotten on you about wasting money?"

"You know it, but look at it this way. This Bakugan was forged from the battle data of Seiki and Deon, the less useful ones out of the Resistors and Spartans. That suddenly changes when they come together as one team."

"Way below the belt, sir."

It definitely was, but it stayed true to what it does. Ahio and Tyr are both mysterious Bakugan, neither one being too well-known by anyone when it comes to how strong or weak they are. One thing the two didn't get wrong was what they can do to catch people off guard, their surprise factor. In Tyr's case, it's speed and cunningness, shown throughout the times Deon has attacked people without them expecting him to or knowing when he's there, making him rarely ever fight someone one-on-one; in Ahio's, it's unpredictability and an extraordinary amount of luck since her power is often cited as low until she really gets going, even allowing her to survive against stronger opponents on various occasions. This is what this mechanical was going to try to emulate.

It's frame was built like a bird's, durable but, at the same time, lightweight. Xavier wanted it to be fast, but not vulnerable. It sported outward facing spikes that acted as lightning-rods to opposing energy sources when activated, essentially making it immune to any sources of electricity, whether natural or man-made. The choice of wings were slanted, square-like, and closed on its side, allowing it to easily cut through the wind as it soars. In the event that it has to spread its wings, it can do so by fully transforming so that two spinners are at it's side, both surrounded by metal plates that will act as feathers; this increases its firepower tenfold, but consumes more energy than it normally would.

"We didn't make the same mistake we did with Hades, but Altair clearly has the more refined arsenal in terms of firepower. Adding that onto the more calculated and consistent Aluze was the best thing that could ever happen to it. It's the only Bakugan that is 2-in-1 that'll function normally combined. It'll outlast any Bakugan out there, and that's not even the reason why I made it."

"What other surprises are in there?"

"I'm glad you asked." Xavier looked to his BakuMeter and pushed a certain button that activated the Bakugan. Both him and the head scientist stepped away as the Bakugan launched itself into the air past the stratosphere until it was in orbit around the planet.

Xavier pulled up a holographic screen so that the head scientist could see what the Bakugan was seeing. As a test fire, it looked to its left to see a large meteorite threatening to enter the atmosphere and likely crash somewhere on the planet. This seemed to be a rare opportunity for it to act as the planetary defense system, one that it didn't take for granted. It opened its dual mouth to shoot a simple laser in the center of the space rock. It pierced through. As a result, green laser spikes protruded outward from the center as an explosion was caused, eliminating the entire threat altogether and not leaving a single piece available to all. This was done without an ability nor in the higher-powered form of it.

The head scientist was left speechless by its power, but the presentation wasn't finished yet. It had one more surprise...

"I think I'll call it...Slipstream."

Using its spikes, it shot a green lightning bolt down towards the planet. It dispersed when it reached the clouds. This forced a storm to erupt in areas where there were less rainfall than needed, ending the droughts and giving people the water that they deserved, clean water at that.

Xavier and the head scientist high-fived each other at the amazing display. They were now onto their next project.

[Dasia Turano]

While Xavier was having fun doing good things for the betterment of Vestal, Dasia was in her throne room, doing business as usual. She had her guards lined up in there. They were more attentive this time around. The previous meeting must have set them straight, and that's all she wanted. Being strict wasn't apart of her personality, so it was a bit scary to see that from her from all of those involved.

She was having another short one for today. This time, it was with a Spartan - Deon Irvine to be exact.

"I'll be honest. Even though I knew Damian and Jamal were the front-runners out of the six of you, you were the one I was curious about the most. You looked like a surprise factor, someone I could count on if things got down to the wire."

She let out a sigh, showing that she was losing faith in that belief day by day.

"You and Roxy haven't been too active lately. It's like no one even knows who you are or what you're doing, but I want to know. You've ran away from home and took refuge on our planet around the worst time, and now you're just out of the way. Why is that? Is there something wrong?"

[Deon Irvine]

Deon sighed a little as the Queen spoke about him and Roxy not being active lately. While Deon didn't know Roxy's reason Deon knew his reason well of why he had been out of the way more. He question was how the Queen would take it but he knew it would be better the just say it then keep it under lock and key. “To be honest with you, while I don't know Roxy's reason, when I went to earth last and spoke to the Police that had the battle suits, my parents were there. They questioned me and they didn't like want I said.” Deon said before sighing a little. “Since then I have been trying to stay off earth for a bit to given them time to think and stop myself from punching someone from anger.” Deon said not sure what else to say to the queen. Maybe he had said to much? Who knew but now Deon hoped the queen understood the meaning behind his words.

[Dasia Turano]

"That's surprising. I thought it was because you got embarrassingly stunned by Seiki..." she said to herself after listening to Deon's reasoning.

Having already made her feelings about the Spartans being on Earth very clear to everyone, Dasia wasn't worried about him not being there. She was glad Roxy and Deon weren't there. Presence wasn't necessarily the problem. It's when he chose to show up that was an issue.

"That's not where I was trying to get to with my question, but...since you mentioned it, let's talk about that."

She found a way to mix her intended point with Deon's attitude now. She believed that her point can be strengthened by that factor alone. She needed to capture Deon's attention somehow since she didn't want his head to be lost in the jungle like the other Spartans. His service is invaluable now, and she had to make use of it while she could.

"You just said that you were giving your parents time to think...almost like you care about their opinion of you. Would that be true?"

[Deon Irvine]

Deon couldn't help but smirk to create a 'really?' look as the queen said about caring about his parents opinions. “Me care about their opinions?You must be joking, if I cared about their opinions I probably would not be here now” Deon said before shaking his head thinking about his parents. “If it was my siblings then maybe cause they are bond to me by blood. I have gave my parents time to think cause if they are smart and care about me like they say, then they will leave earth and come to find me. A test so to say. Either way there is a reason why I left them and I won't be going back to them if I can help it” Deon finished off before waiting to see what the Queen would say. Maybe she would get the hint but even if she didn't it wouldn't matter to Deon. All he wanted to get across was he didn't care about his parents and wouldn't are about them any time soon.

[Dasia Turano]

With an unconvinced look on her face, Dasia used Deon's own words against him by saying, "Apparently, you must care about their thoughts, even if it's just a little bit. You're giving them a chance to come for you and haven't eliminated the possibility of you going back. Even if it's just for the possibility of your siblings coming here to live with you, which I'm strongly against for the time being, you still harbor some feelings for them. You haven't thrown them away completely. I think it's affecting your work ethic."

Leading onto her main point, "Which is why you're here in front of me now. I've been observing you, and I'm not pleased. I let it go on longer than usual since I've had other things to attend to, but now's the time where we can't afford for you to be stagnant. You're being paid to work, not to stand."

Refusing to take no for an answer, Dasia gave him an assignment without requesting for a proper acceptance of it. She displayed an overhead of a particular region on Vestal thanks to Slipstream's satellite imaging. It looks like the mechanical Bakugan was doing more than just defending the planet and being a weather control system. It sees things even when others think they don't.

"You see him?" The map zoomed in to see that the masked man and Hades were in Beta City attempting to target Macubass. "Get him."

[Deon Irvine]

Deon listened to what the Queen said and decided it was best if he said nothing even if he was getting a little annoyed now. Deon looked a the Queen and nodded slightly as she talked. Deon knew it was better to just listen and not say anything then say something that could get him into more trouble. Deon looked at the screen as a masked man showed up with Hades and kept looking a the screen until the Queen spoke again. “If that is all, then it shall be done” Deon simply said with a tone that to the right people would suggest he was set on his new target. Deon would then bow at the Queen before heading off to do his assignment if nothing more needed to be said.

[Insidious]

"I may have underestimated these Vestals. Their intelligence and work ethic are their greatest weapons. Humanity can't even compete with that. Now it can be shown why they aren't humans."

The masked man was taking a ride on Hades's shoulder on the road to Beta City, the location where one of the mechanical creations he/she has foretold resided in. Macubass, the abyssal predator, was lurking in Beta City's waters after purifying it. It could only be assumed that it was still in there. He/she would know. Some people have flocked on back to the abandoned city. There was word of Royal Guards charging people for water rides on board the mechanical. It was sickening. It's like they didn't have enough money from their creative scheme with the Battle Suits.

In order to root it out, he/she would have to push and shove through multiple people and Bakugan just to be able to get a good look at it, enough for Hades to destroy it. There was no time for that because he/she is easily the most wanted person on Vestal after the Gamma City Meltdown, and anyone who caught a glimpse of that mask would shoot him/her on sight. That'll likely attract the attention of the entire planet at that rate, so casual entrances were off limits. This one deserved a grand one, an explosive entry that made sure no one would be in line afterwards.

Hades stepped forward in front of the city's entrance - within a couple of feet from it. It was ready to fire.

"Go ahead. Just like I taught you," he/she ordered. Hades opened all three mouths and began amassing energy into them. In a couple of seconds, Beta City would soon be reduced to rubble.

[Deon Irvine]

Deon was nearby and didn't like what he was seeing. "You see that?" He asked he partner who just looked at Hades and the masked person without replying. "Alright then, lets get to work." Deon said before taking his partner in hand and knew them. A bull bakugan soon appeared which was Deon's same bakugan that he used in his previous brawl with the ventus resistor. "Bull's Eye" Deon simply said activating a card quietly making his Bakugan nod. The Bull began to charge at Hades with increasing speed with it head down. It horns would hit Hades of which he would turn round and keep repeating as his increasing speed should keep him unseen. Or at least that is what Deon and his Bakugan hoped knowing how powerful that thing could be.

[Insidious]

Both the masked man and Hades were taken by surprise by whatever rammed them from the side. It was like they were being hit by nothing, at least from what they could detect. They knew something was there based on how hard that was, but none of them could see it; the best they could make out was a blur. This disturbance interrupted the casting time of Hades's attack and was canceled. The masked person felt a Bakugan's presence, but didn't know what it was just yet.

"Hmmmmm. Must be the wind," he/she stupidly dismissed. They were struck again. This time, it was Hades's back that took the blow. Something quick was striking them, but they were too fast to be seen properly. It continued to be difficult the more they got struck.

Then the true challenge came when the attacker knocked Hades off of its feet and laid it out on its back. It's like they knew who and what they were targeting. He/she didn't think it was anyone from the Andersen family since none of them were equipped to reach that kind of speed. The Resistors couldn't possibly be wanting to stop him/her after everything that the Spartans were causing. Just thinking about it gave him/her the answer that was needed to solve this mystery.

Just as he/she was getting his/her bearings after being knocked off of the mech, he/she immersed himself/herself in dark power in anticipation of getting trampled, which was surely coming. The heightened reaction time enabled him/her to dodge the speedy opponent with a side-flip. Doing so gave him/her a very small window of time to make out who it was. Skin was seen, so it was obvious who it was.

"Spartan..." Crossing the other masked assailant off the list of suspects, the masked person regrouped with a recovered Hades as they aimed to ward off this pest, not wanting to go inside the city yet in fear of being blindsided by Macubass or any of the residents not happy to see him/her there.

"I had almost forgotten about this one. I guess it was about time you've been put out in case anyone else was about to." As he/she said that, he/she looked straight as if there was a screen there, not like anyone else was looking. "Ability activate! Gravity Bind!" Using its turbine module, Hades twisted itself around rapidly, creating a steady rotation. A transparent, electrified barrier was erected around them both while the motion was being carried. It began exhibiting gravitation characteristics, designed to pull other objects inward to disintegrate them on contact. This is what they hoped would eliminate the Ventus Spartan as well as send a few Vestal structures and people 'home' early.

[Deon Irvine]

Deon decided to pay no attention to what the masked person had to say. After all he had been given a task by the queen and he was going to do it. He knew the queen wouldn't send him out to do something they couldn't do. as such and smirked thinking about what to do. "Got a plan?" Deon's partner asked who got a nod but said nothing. this confused his partner until he caught on. With that Deon's partner let himself get closer and closer to the Electrified barrier due to the ability that had been played.

Deon's bakugan make it seem like he was shrugging to get away but in truth Deon wanted his partner to get close. Once his partner was close enough Deon played an ability. "Bull's Strength" Deon said before his partner put his head down toward the barrier making his horns glow the same colour as the barrier. The barrier would hopefully go down being absorbed and would then be used as a new and better version of the previous attacks. As such the bull would begin charging at Hades again using the electric absorbed for an extra shock.

[Insidious]

He/she was surely amazed that the Spartan was able to come up with a move like that. That didn't mean a counter option wasn't available. It surely was.

"Awww. Isn't that pretty? It'd be a shame if something were to happen to it." He/she got an ability ready on the spot as the bull was charging. Luckily, they played right into his/her hands by slowing down. This gave Hades the opportunity to do some damage.

"Ability activate! D2 Shield!" Hades did not cease its rotational speed just because Tyr absorbed the barrier. He'd get the power back anyway through the use of this ability. The energy of its own battery electrified him, not only supercharging his battery, but his defenses as well. The kinetic energy it gathered through its rotation only made it worse for their opponents as the continuous flow of energy meant that Tyr's horns would be as dull and useless as they are now.

"So you're one of the two that are from Earth? It's interesting how you're coming to the aid of that thing in there when it's designed to waste where you came from." Hades's rotation sped up through the acquisition of Tyr's attack, which it conveniently absorbed. This gave him a speedy, impactful blow across his face and sent him jetting towards the ground like a bullet. Hades gradually slowed down so it could get a good look at its enemy before locking him down.

"I suggest you run how you did when you surprised us. It wouldn't matter, but at least you'd be doing something."