The Search of the Old Archive[IC-SEMIOPEN, I guess]

"Yeah, it's huge even by Colonial standards... I heard that during the Great War, the first war between Mankind and the Invaders, the Human Colonial Alliance was forced to create gigantic ships in order to fight them. But.. it's the first time I see one.", Alexander said, also amazed. But of course, there was a small problem that was making him wonder. Who was the one that attacked and severely damaged the ship? The Old Archive had been supposed to leave the Sol System after the battle, after the war had ended. What happened? Who had the power to utterly destroy such a ship?

"No lifeforms on board.. that was expected. No running machinery... we might have to manually activate the ship's systems in order to search its records.. we'll have to board it...", Alexander said, speaking more for himself, before someone spoke from behind him, interrupting him.
"43rd Star Guards Division reporting for duty, Großadmiral Werther."someone said. The black haired admiral turned around to see someone he already knew, surrounded by Colonial Star Guards. That certain person was looking pretty... strange. He was clearly a Genome user, spotting the golden eyes characteristic to the early Genome users, and a black to gray messy hair. Strangely, he wasn't wearing the same Armor Battle Suit as the other Star Guards. He wasn't even wearing an uniform, he was wearing a normal black suit. If not for the sword and the pistols, anyone could say that he was ready for a business meeting. What was the strangest about him though, were his wings. Yes, his wings. White, angel like wings. The second Genome user ever created by the Colonial Genesis Genome Program, Angelo.
"Angelo, hey, long time no see!", Alexander said, happy to see one of his friends. "Yeah, truly long time no see. So you're a Great Admiral now? Interesting.", Angelo answered in his usual way."Yeah.. it's a long story. I'll tell it to you once. By the way, Angelo, this is my second in command, Vice Admiral Shimazaki Haruna. Haruna, this is Angelo. He's.. it's hard to describe. He is the second Genome user that was created by the Science Division, so he's been working for the Colonies for quite some time. At the beginning, the Genome had it's.. imperfections, so that's why he has.. wings. Anyway, he's working for the Secret Police, and the Star Guards, and the Fleet... it's once again hard to explain. He'll help us though.", Alexander presented him."Nice to meet you, Shimazaki Haruna.", the golden eyed Genome user said.

"So, Angelo, what do you say, can we board that ship?", Alexander then asked. "It depends.", Angelo answered, before he looked at Haruna."Have you ever boarded a ship, Vice Admiral? Do you know the basics?",  he asked.

"Well, I should have seen that coming." , Angelo said, sighing."Alright, this won't be that hard. Our force is going to be divided in multiple teams. Each time will use a boarding spacecraft to try to board the ship through one of the possible entrance places. Hatches, hangars, holes, things like that. Once we're in, all teams will try to get to a common RV point. We'll see what happens after that, but most probably, we'll try to restart the ship's systems.", the golden eyed Colonial started to explain."First rule, always be careful. Even if the place seems safe, don't let your guard off. For all we know, that ship could be crawling with Invaders. They don't breathe, their hearts don't beat. We can't detect them by normal means. We have to be extremely careful. Second rule, always stay in the group. We can't allow some of us to get lost from the group. We will all have to stay close.Third rule, always follow the lead. I understand that you are a Vice Admiral and so, lady, but during a boarding procedure, please consider the group's officer as the supreme god. Fourth rule, in combat, don't do reckless stuff. You are an Ancient Sword user, so you'll fight as an irregular, but don't do stupid things like letting your angel take complete control. Alright?"


"By the way, Haruna. Did Azarael ever taught you how to use his angelic power?", Alexander asked."It's something like this". The black haired boy unsheathed his sword. The reddish vines appeared around the handle, piercing his hand. A little blood started to flow out of the many small piercings.
"You did well until now using only the sword's power. It's a little painful, and maybe a little dangerous, but you're going to need it on that ship. Do you think you can handle it? Giving Azarael blood and letting him take a little control over you?"

"Alright. Let's get everyone equipped.", Angelo said. With that, Alexander and Haruna left the command center for the hangar, followed by Angelo and his soldiers. In the hangar, they all received a Colonial Armor Battle Suit. The Suit, yet another product of the Science Division, was light and resistant. It allowed its users to go in almost every kind of environment, and it had a couple more good utilities, like the holographic interface, the propulsors, the nano-armor, and so on. It was the basic outfit of the Colonial Star Guards. After everything was ready, the soldiers present were divided into more groups, each with their boarding ship, just as Angelo had said. Alexander and Haruna were in Group B, led by Angelo himself. In total, there where five groups. After everything was prepared, including the helmets, each group entered their respective boarding ship, and left. This wasn't going to be an easy mission.

Group B's boarding ship left the JRSF Yui without problems. Inside it though, the atmosphere was pretty tense. Even the trained soldiers were a little stressed, unsure of what was going to happen. But that was the life of a boarding soldier after all. This wasn't Angelo's first boarding operation, and he wanted to make sure that this wasn't going to be the last- not for him, and not for anyone else present. After a little bit of searching, because of Haruna's scan, they managed to find a hole in the compartment of the hangar deck, and landed without any major problems. The ship was dark, quiet, and empty, as the insides seemed to be almost as damaged as the outsides. After landing, the entire group decided that it would be best to try to reboot the ship's systems - after all, searching through its records would have been impossible otherwise. With that objective in mind, the group carefully left the hangar. But something was wrong.

It seemed that the ship's hallways weren't following any kind of rule. Usually, all ships, be they Human Colonial or Colonial, had their hallways built after a certain plan, in order to facilitate moving throughout them. But strangely, these hallways didn't seem to follow anything, being extremely confusing. Most of them didn't even looked like what was scanned, so they were in the dark. Still, they tried to reach for the ship's main reactors, no matter how hard this might prove to be.

After some time, Haruna's attention was attracted by something that was written on the wall. It seemed to be old, and it was written in something red, dried away by the centuries that had passed. Blood. There is no hope.

And then, a second later, when she turned back around, she was alone. There was no one else around. It was quiet, and dark, with only her flashlight as a source of light. All alone... the others seemed to have just disappeared somewhere. Trying not to despair, Haruna tried to follow them, only to get more and more lost, confused by the never ending corridors.

After some more time, the Jupiterran girl found something. A body. An old skeleton in his suit ,on the floor, leaning against the floor. Scared[, she made a few steps back, hitting the wall behind her. Turning around, she looked at it, only to realize that there was something written on it too. They are here.

Suddenly, someone put a hand on her shoulder. "Are you lost, little girl?", a voice asked. No matter how strange it would seem to be, a pink haired and pink eyed girl, wearing a dress, was now behind Haruna.

"The others?", the pink haired girl asked. "The other humans? They're somewhere around this ship, of course. I don't know where exactly. I can sense them, somewhere, but this place is too strange for me to pinpoint their exact location." Strangely enough, the pink eyed girl didn't seem to be bothered at all by the fact that there was no oxygen on this ship. Walking around a wrecked ship in a dress wasn't exactly something a normal human would do, even if, ignoring her strange eye and hair color, she did look human. Looking carefully at her, Haruna would soon notice that she didn't seem to be breathing, and her skin seemed to be a little too pale..

Hearing the rest of Haruna's question, the pink haired girl seemed to be puzzled for a few moments, looking at the dead skeleton and the blood on the wall with interest. "I don't know.. maybe..", she answered, still smiling, as if nothing had happened. "I've killed too many people to remember, so I can't say that I am the one guilty for the death of this particular guy. The blood though, it's his doing. Right before he died.", she said, pointing at the skeleton before pointing at the blood on the wall. Indeed, it could seem that the blood actually did belong to the now skeleton. Of course, what would have made a dying man write something like that on the wall with his own blood was something else entirely.

"This ship though... it's strange..", the mysterious girl continued, speaking more to herself than to Haruna. "I wasn't here when it was destroyed.. I think. Maybe. But it's not entirely here.. just as it's not entirely there.. it's caught in the middle. That's probably why its insides seem to be a labyrinth.. a labyrinth that catches its victims.. never to leave them go again.." After this strange monologue, the pink haired girl looked at Haruna again, smiling.
"Now, it would be my turn, don't you think? Who are you, little girl? What's your name? Why are you here, in such a depraved and cursed place? And why do you want to find the Old Archive?", she asked.

"So those bastards still use that old trick huh.. they play dirty, just as always..", the pink haired girl said, once again seeming to speak more to himself. Strangely enough, she didn't seem to be surprised at all by the situation, looking down at Haruna, who was now kneeling in front of her. Still smiling, the strange girl seemed really hard to impress, but that was just who she was. Remaining quiet for a few moments, the strange pink eyed girl then continued to speak.

"So, you want the cure for the little poison the Abyssals are using.. yes, I suppose it has to be here, in the Old Archive of the humans..", she started to say. "Unfortunately, they are already here. I can sense them.. the Abyssals.. they have just entered this ship. You might have already sensed it.. I guess that suddenly, your wound seems to be burning. Their simple presence can accelerate the spread of the corruption. They aren't going to allow you and your commander to find the cure that easily.. you'll have to fight.". With that, the pink haired girl extended her hand, obviously trying to help Haruna to stand back up. That of course, if Haruna was going to let her help.

"On your own, I don't think that you'll have many chances. The Abyssals themselves are similar to this ship.. they aren't here, but they aren't there either.. they're caught in between. Even if the angel in your sword is also caught in between, you, on the other hand, are a being that's only here, like all your human friends, of course. You may never find the way out of this labyrinth of corridors.. forever lost.. cursed just like this ship, to never find the way out....", the mysterious pink haired girl said, giggling. "I could help you.. but I never do things for free. Are you willing to pay the price, whatever that might be? Or.. are you afraid?"

Exactly a couple of moments after the pink eyed girl stopped speaking, the ship was lightly shaken by some distant explosions. "Too bad.. your friends don't have much time left.." , she said, sighing.

The strange pink haired girl simply laughed as Haruna pulled herself up and drew her sword. The humans.. always so impulsive.. well, that was something that had to be expected. "For now, I'm going to ask for nothing. The simple fact that you are ready to sacrifice anything for your friends is reassuring enough. You'll see what I mean later.", the mysterious girl said."Listen carefully. I'm going to lead you to what was once the command center of this ship. Unfortunately, that place is where the anomaly is the most powerful, so please stay right behind me, I wouldn't want you to fall in a rift in space and time. Once we reach the command center, you will have to connect yourself to the main terminal. It uses a technology that's partially similar to what your fleet is using right now, but more primitive. Some sort of a neuronal connection. If your friends manage to start the emergency reactors as they intend you, you will be able to enter mentally what's known as the Old Archive. Then, the only thing I will be able to do would be to protect your body. It will be up for you to contact the A.I. that's known as the Archivist, and convince her to give you the information about the cure. Hopefully, it won't be that hard. Of course, you can never predict how will an AI that has spent centuries in hibernation react. Especially those type of AI's.."

Then, the pink haired girl did something even more strange. Taking what looked as a small knife, she sliced her wrist open. Blood started to flow out of the wound, and drops fell on Haruna's sword, clearly feeding Azarael. "That's something else I could do to help you. You'll need it.", she said as her wound started to heal. Both Azarael and Haruna felt a strengthening sensation, and the pain in Haruna's thigh seemed to dissipate a little. "She's here."

Out of a sudden, Haruna could hear the sound of someone walking behind her. Turning around, she then saw a pretty familiar face. A white haired and pale skinned girl, wearing the characteristic white with black clothes of the High Invaders, and with glowing red eyes. The High Invader she had killed. Mu.
"Well, well, well. Look who's here. The little annoying human girl...", Mu said, obviously angry. "Are you ready to die?"