Galactic Nexus/Episode 6: Arboreal Discord II

**Arboreal Discord II** is the sixth episode of the first season of Galactic Nexus.

## Story so far

"As inscribed in the prophecy, a young man named Frisch Celerent walks on a path where the future of being the ruler of time and space, the Harvester, awaits him. A group of researchers had gathered somewhere in the great forest where the allied camp was resting. They seem to be investigating on the anomaly using strange machinery. Their leader, Doctor EggPlankton—a rather weird fellow, mind you—sparked an alert to a vigilant figure hiding in the trees. After hearing that they will kidnap those who know of their machinations, the figure went out to search for someone... but who? I know who it is, but it is up to you to guess. Well, such marks the fifth page of the history of the Harvester in another realm." — Irissia

## Roleplay

While the Mobians were having their recollection somewhere else, Frisch, Seele, and Julia went to a nearby forest to separate themselves from the sudden tension a while ago.

Nature can be therapeutic to those in it as well, so why not?

Julia seemed to be the more curious one of the three, looking around her surroundings with awe in her eyes.

"Th-Th-This place... i-it's kind of b-beautiful," she said, seeming calmer than before, but still having that stutter.

"Isn't it?" Seele agreed. She looked around the trees and noted that they were not coniferous. Regardless, it reminded him of their home back on Crystialga—a forest village named Asternitz. The forest itself shared the same name.

"We find forests if there are some nearby. Here we find solace and refuge."

Julia nodded upon Seele's agreement, and kept looking around. She felt content and at peace, at least by a little bit since they had went to distance themselves from the others. Obviously, that did her some good, since she wasn't fond of the others.

"... This brings us back to Crystialga," Frisch described. "... Our home is surrounded by a forest of pine trees, after all."

Julia glanced over to him with a tilted head. "Cr-Cr-Crystialga? I-Is it a settlement o-or a world?"

"... A world. Quite large, in fact. If we could return, we'll invite you there."

"Mm-hm!" Seele perked up again. Seems she was enthusiastic to share what her homeworld was when Julia asked. She knew she was curious.

"We'll even take you on a tour around our forest village, if you want."

"Re-Really?" Julia's brows rose a bit, surprised and a little in disbelief that they invited her to visit their world.

"I-I-I would like that a-actually! Th-Thank you..." she said, sharing Seele's enthusiasm about Crystialga.

"...Bu-Bu-But I-I need to fi-figure things out fi-first... I-I mean... I-I-I'm still trying to-to process what's going o-on..."

"... I see," Frisch confirmed. "... First of all, we have experienced spatial anomalies as well. Even Elainne here and I ended up here without our knowledge."

"Mm-hm, that's me," Seele affirmed. "Seele Elainne Aeterisch is my full name. Remember it well~"

"U-Um... I-I-I'll be sure t-t-to remember that..." Julia said to Seele nervously, before glancing back over to Frisch.

"... It was because of a battle back on Crystialga. When we fought Reginull, the Hollow Empress, we were sent here. We didn't even know that her attack even affected extra-Crystialgan entities. But we figured that her power is adequate to affect anything in an astronomically large scale."

"S-S-So that's why I-I'm here? O-Oh no... I-I-I can only imagine h-h-how many people it affected..." she said, expressing a bit of worry.

"... Yes, but we have no time to worry. We have to deal with Reginull as soon as possible... which means I require powerful allies to stop her. I alone am not adequate for this."

"I hope the other Scythes end up here, too. That way, we could regroup easily... at least before Reginull catches up to us."

Upon mention of the Scythes, Julia looked confused.

"Wh-Wh-Who are the S-Scythes?"

"... A task force I lead against those who trouble Crystialgankind."

"Y-Y-You lead people t-t-too?" she asked, her brows raised a little.

"... Yes."

"Ri-Right... I-I-I, u-um... I-I can try to he-help with everything i-i-if you want..." In perhaps the shyest/nervous way anyone has ever done, Julia offered her services to them.

"... Very well. In behalf of my task force, we thank you for lending a hand to our cause."

"We look forward to be working with you, Julia!" Seele brightened up more, inviting her to shake her hand.

"Do-Does that mean y-you'll accept me? U-Um... o-okay! I-I-I'll try not to let y-you both down!" she said, sounding a bit cheered up. She took the opportunity to shake Seele's hand before glancing over to Frisch.

"U-Um... d-d-do you want one t-too?"

Frisch nodded with a thin smile.

"... Of course."

Without hesitation, he shook Julia's hand with friendly fervor.

Julia gave a shy little smile at him, shaking his hand a bit before they let go.

After which, Frisch raised an eyebrow and looked up to check. His Prismatic Eyes helped him see whoever was coming from the distance.

"... We have company. A friendly one too."

"Oh?" Seele mouthed, using her Ether Vision to sense the soul of whoever was inbound.

Julia had noticed Frisch looking off into the distance, and couldn't help but look too. But she saw no one, and thus she got a bit confused. When he announced they were getting friendly company, it only furthered Julia's confusion.

"Hu-Huh? Wh-Wh-Who's there?" she asked.

From the rustling of the plentiful leaves of the tall trees emerged a figure in charcoal-black armor, with wings of dark yet metallic sheen, which retracted back into the raiment as dissipating orange particles.

"E-Eep!" Julia got startled when she heard the rustling of the leaves, and immediately went to go hide behind Seele. It was just going to be one of the two, and she chose her.

The figure faced the others. The helmet dissipated as well, revealing a youthful visage under the mask—healthy peach skin, unkempt ashen-brown hair, and a pair of crimson eyes.

"Found ya!"

"... Heiz...?! Seems you ended up here as well."

"What have you gotten yourself into?" Seele asked him. "Took you a while to regroup with us."

"I was in fact looking for you guys! Even though I'm kinda hungry right now, I got quick news for you."

When she heard the conversation between the figure, revealed to be Heiz, and Frisch, she peeked out from Seele's side in a shy and admittedly cute manner.

"Ne-Ne-News?" she asked, a bit more nervous with a sudden newcomer on the field.

"Oh! That's right; I expected Frisch to have allies sooner. My name's Heiz Celerent—Frisch's younger brother. ... That kinda rhymed."

"U-Um... I'm Ju-Julia... i-i-it's nice to meet y-you," she replied. Despite having recovered from her startle, she remained behind Seele for the sake of being shy.

"Hey," Heiz simply greeted. But there was no time for banter. He was feeling hungry, after all. And EggPlankton's group might be heading towards their location if they have spotted them from a distance.

"We have shady people lurking in the forest. A one-eyed alien, two animals standing on two feet, a group of automatons, a human and a snake-like woman. Oh, and a geezer Prismite too."

"... A Prismite as well? Care to tell us about them?"

"He calls himself Locar Du-Mas. He's holding some strange snake staff, to which I sense something... off. And the man himself emits signatures similar to Voldraken."

"A dragon Facet then. What else?"

"They're holding three prisoners and will kidnap whoever who knows their plan: to get the Chaos Emeralds or something. And they seem to be looking for them. One of their robots seemed to be sensing *chaotic signatures* though... Does that mean they're looking for the items?"

"... Chaotic signatures... So they are looking for a connection to Reginull and are intending to eliminate witnesses... Whatever plan they are brewing, we must stop them from getting to her."

Julia listened to the news that Heiz presented to them. Shady people, aliens, bipedal animals—what perhaps interested her more were the mentioned automatons. She looked a little confused when the word *Prismite* was thrown out there. She never heard of what Prismites were, so it was understandable that she was confused.

But that didn't matter right now. What did was this group that was possibly intending to get to Reginull and possess her power... or do something with it, no one really knows.

"U-Um... i-i-if that's the case, sh-should we let them c-come to us, o-or do we g-g-go to them?" she asked.

"... We should not be facing them head-on—we have little information on what they can do. That means we have to assess their capabilities from the shadows and strike from there if they have an opening."

"Ri-Ri-Right... wo-would be stupid t-to attack them n-n-now..." Julia concurred with the two. Recon of course was an important part of retrieving intel on enemy forces, and Julia knew that. Doing the actual recon was something new for her though, but she thought to try her best.

"Good point," Seele agreed. "That way, we can have Heiz control himself for once and stick to the plan until the end."

She let out a smug smirk as she batted an eye at Heiz, who was evidently somewhat ticked off as she called him out for his impetuousness.

"As if I still lack enough self-control. I didn't Awaken for nothing; just you guys watch! I'll show you what Voldraken and I are made of!"

"... Heiz sure is confident as usual," Frisch remarked. "... Anyway, let us split up. Heiz is coming with me."

"I've got your back, Frisch!" Heiz assured his brother.

"Then I will be accompanying Julia this time!" Seele perked up. "Let's do our best!" she told her, exuding great confidence.

When the teams were separated between the two, Julia's brows raised a bit when she was paired up with Seele. She faced her with a small shy smile, indicating she was glad to be paired up with her.

"Ye-Yeah! I-I-I'll be sure to gi-give it my all!" she said, sounding positive and confident even with her stutters. For someone like her, that was a bit of a rarity.

Though that diminished a little quick when she realized she had no idea what to do, and so looked a bit anxious. "U-Um... Wh-Wh-What do we do?" she asked, looking at the others.

"... Simple," Frisch answered briefly. "... Elainne."

Seele smirked and snapped her fingers—a testament of how she knew what he was going for.

Several minutes had passed as EggPlankton's group were surveying the forest. The black jet from earlier flew overhead. Usually it would just fly away, but the pilot noticed them in a clearing from one of their camera feeds. Now the jet was flying around in circles, slowly but at the same altitude it's been flying at.

*"Huh, what's going on down there? Looks like an army, battalion's worth. Hell are they doing though is the question? Ooo, maybe I found myself in the middle of a war! Now **that** will be fun!"* the pilot thought to himself with a small grin on his face.

*"Who knows, maybe I'll get myself a contract. Hopefully the buyer pays in credits!"* he added in his thoughts, while he kept flying his jet around, surveying the group up ahead.

Now Locar was unfamiliar with the tactics and motions of those flying jets, so when the pilot started flying his jet around them; from what little he knew about flying, he moved a little closer to the one tracking the chaotic energy signatures; raising the oak staff as Prismions gathered towards the open mouth. Forming a command circle of some kind yet not activating, more so as a precaution.

EggPlankton begins to stop & hear a lot more jets sounds, & begins to see one & said "I should've known that where the Jet sounds are coming from. Jack-4 Commander, Metal Jack, Jack-4 Bots, take the jet out before it alerts any REAL trouble."

Metal Jack, Jack-4 Commander & Jack-4 Robots begin to engage at the fighter jet, bringing out heat seeking missiles to open-fire at the fighter jet, while Metal Jack activates the thrusters within it's body & back to fly after the jet, trying to slash at it's metallic wings with force.

The pilot immediately caught sight of the missiles and Metal Jack from one of his camera feeds, and was immediately alerted.

"Oh okay, apparently I'm not welcome here! Alright, you wanna piece of me, fine! I'll happily show you what a flying **assassin** can do!" the man exclaimed to himself, pressing a button on his dashboard before increasing the throttle. The heat-seeking missiles may suddenly begin to fly off in random directions, implying their targeting systems had been scrambled. Before Metal Jack could get close, the jet suddenly took off at supersonic speeds, breaking the sound barrier as it entered Mach 2 speeds - and its speed was still increasing!

And you know what that means—a sonic boom occurred!

As if that wasn't enough - it slowly vanished from visible sight. Not by disappearing over the horizon, but... it just vanished. It could still be heard, but not seen... and judging from its sound, it was quickly widening the gap.

Metal Jack scans the area to find the jet that vanished or camouflauge with it's robotic vision, beeping angrily, while trying to find the jet & tries to find it. "Now where'd it go?!" asked Archer, looking in the sky.

Vulcan brings out a flying Cube shaped Robot & charges it's EMP. "If you want to play hide & go seek in the sky, then I'll seek you out myself." said Vulcan as he deploys the Flying Cube robot upward to the sky, while Metal Jack moves out of the range of the cube robot, knowing what comes next, as the Cube Robot unleashes an EMP wave with a huge radius at the jet that just vanished, in hopes of bringing the jet out of invisibility hiding or at least try to shut down its systems.

Locar shook his head silently, these fools dared to provoke a proverbial dragon in the skies...? Maybe he was wrong to ally himself with them. Regardless, he did need someone to guide him towards the source of the chaotic energies they were tracking so he decided to stick to what he said and continue traveling with them. However Dr. EggPlankton's orders, while reasonable, still irked him as conflict wasn't the best option at this time.

Without further ado, Locar muttered the chant to equip his Raiment, Prismions gathering around his body as if to form a tight weave around his body. "Twisted vessel of flesh and bone, relinquish thine body in the name of..." The rest of the chant went unheard however.

With the activation chant finished, the 'weave' of Prismions began to take proper shape and form, revealing a rather draconian looking helm that ended with a sort of horn like point up near the top of the helm. Furthermore the face was covered by what looked like a sort of slide on mask; with fluorescent gold lines running across the helm and ending at the eyes of the helm. Giving the helm the glowing yellow eyes feature that struck so prominently.

The chest piece was styled like a dragon scaled cuirass of some sort; with numerous bone like talismans covered in gold and precious gems hanging off the gorget that protected the neck; followed by a gold trim that seemed to resemble circuitry in the vaguest sense of the word; on the sides seemed to be bone-like structures that were meant to evoke the aesthetic of ribs, and the centerpiece of the cuirass itself seemed to vaguely resemble a fearsome dragon of some sort.

The gauntlets and greaves also shared a similar design, much like the helm at the chest piece being a shade of ebony black to gunmetal grey, the gauntlets themselves seemed to evoke the style of scaled based on the ringlets that covered the area's that the armor itself did not cover; though their seemed to be no gaps in the armor for movement of the fingers, they bent and wiggled like fingers were want to do; the tips of these gaunetlet fingers ended in sharp points. The knuckles having curved spikes that pointed forwards instead of backwards.

The leggings and greaves were a little more fancy in a sense, the gold trim was more noticeable and it seemed that there were claw designs on the leggings around what looked like precious rubies and sapphires studded in the leggings; with the boots of the armor styled much like dragon's feet. Wrapped around the neck of the armor, to finish the look and evoke the sense of wings for this 'dragon' was a pure white scarf wrapped around the neck; the scarf being large enough to double as a cape with a large, jagged tear running down the middle and at the ends of the scarf.

Of course, now that he had equipped his Prismatic Raiment, Locar would quickly enter Sveionagoria in order to completely hide his presence from non-Prismites, including his companions and the aerial jet fighter.

Despite the large radius the EMP fielded, from the looks of it nothing happened to the jet - in fact all it would pretty much do was disable Metal Jack and every other automaton in its radius, assuming they didn't have any resistance to such a thing. It was possible the jet had managed to out run the pulse's field... or had countermeasures of its own.

Even stranger - it couldn't be heard anymore.

However, despite the large radius, Vulcan had taken extra precautions of sending the cube high enough or the fact that they manage to recently install EMP proof shielding into Metal Jack & the Jack-4 Commander & Jack-4 Robots in case the EMP missed the target or even hit one of their own automatons, due to their recent warning from Eggman regarding the base that was engulfed in Darkstorm's EMP blasts from long ago, last time.

EggPlankton & Vulcan growls a bit in disdain since it's a lot smarter or mobile than they thought as EggPlankton said "You're so lucky that I installed EMP proof shielding in case we have another EMP situation problem like that Eggman Base incident from before."

"I'm starting to think that this Jet is a lot more agile than anticipated. And now it's gone away." said Vulcan showing signs of frustration from his face.

"Now can we get back to solving this new energy mystery or what? We haven't got all day." said Archer, while growing a bit impatient.

Indeed, the jet seemed a lot more agile than they thought, and now it had flown away...

But just when they thought they were safe, the roaring jet engine could be heard yet again. However, it still couldn't be seen visibly... but judging by how the sound was getting louder by the second, it was definitely closing in fast.

Now that the group had earned the ire of whomever was piloting that strange mechanical dragon of sorts, Locar thought it would be more prudent to abandon them to their fate, as he would utilize the head of his staff to locate the source of the chaotic energies; the vessel on top serving as an excellent tool to locate the source of the chaotic spikes in energy.

EggPlankton scream in frustration & anger at the top of his voice upon hearing the roaring jet engines yet again & said to the jet driver in an enraged tone "Oh for goodness sake! Can't we have one moment of peace on solving the mystery portals of mysterious people & entities anymore?!"

However, when the pilot heard him scream, he was sorely tempted to point out that it was his own fault for ordering his machines to fire those strange objects at the metal dragon. Had he just continued on his way, odds are the *metal dragon* would have moved on already.

Vulcan brings out a communication system & begins to try & make contact with the fighter pilot & said "Attention unknown fighter jet. You're trespassing on our investigations of the unknown energies & entities of these mysterious portals of chaotic energy. Please explain your actions on why you chose to hound us, even before we commenced our previous attack. Please speak now!"

Obviously the jet driver couldn't hear them, just from distance alone. It even ignored Vulcan's attempts at communicating with it. The man probably thought since they opened fire at him, all was fair game... so trying to peace their way out of it wasn't an option. Regardless, the sound of the roaring jet engines sounded like it was getting closer, and closer...

Suddenly, a dense beam of red light shot out from thin air itself, aimed directly at the flying Metal Jack and fired at the speed of light with extreme precision. It was a laser, and judging from its color, it was infrared light. Despite it being relatively close to visible light on the electromagnetic spectrum - this infrared laser packed a pretty powerful punch. In fact, it was comparable to two Lascannons firing at once, if we're talking Warhammer 40k standards, which even a single Lascannon is effective against armored targets like tanks.

Vulcan & Jack-4 Commander sees the light speed beam & turns to the Jack-4 Commander & said "NOW!". As Metal Jack takes the hit, Jack-4 Commander quickly retaliates against the fighter jet with a powerful laser blast at the fighter jet, during it's red light beam, with precision aiming.

Metal Jack, taking the hit, pretty much had a death sentence since the power behind the laser would be enough to melt a hole straight through him. Luckily for the Jack-4 Commander, the jet revealed itself from its invisibility when it fired its laser, so hitting it was plausible... or was it?

While lasers were certainly precise and fast as light—they needed to focus on a single target. The speed the jet was going was still at Mach 2, so the laser could certainly outspeed it. The trajectory was a possible issue, Jack-4 Commander was on the ground in the middle of a forest and the jet was still far away. Taking that into account, hitting the jet would be really difficult, but still possible.

But how did the jet hit Metal Jack from so far away? Simple. It was flying at the same altitude as him, and the likelihood of targeting systems onboard was high - if not a trained eye in the pilot's favor.

It could've been both, actually.

If the laser had hit, which again was possible, the laser... was deflected!? It seemed the jet had shields of its own, which only made itself visible when the laser struck. In fact, its entire shield became visible - it was practically a dome-shield of individual pieces of tessellating hexagons that were made out of some kind of energy. The infrared laser beam fired from it was able to fire due to an opening in said dome, which was in front of it. Though since Jack-4 Commander's laser fired from the ground, it would hit a few hexagons before the jet sped past the laser - assuming Jack-4 didn't try to concentrate the beam on the jet.

Regardless if the laser hit or not, the man took action, keeping the infrared laser beam on Metal Jack for a few more seconds (assuming it was still in the air) before it turned off, and slowly it vanished from visible sight again. Judging from its sound, it was trying to fly away again, possibly for another run.

Dr. EggPlankton now becoming more frustrated, having to fix Metal Jack while the battle rages on, ordered the Jack-4 Robots to set up more heat seeking missiles to open-fire more at the skies in hopes of taking out the shields of the jet before Jack-4 Commander gets ready to fire again, with the HenchCombots help.

Though not without merits having found out the jet was both invisible & shielded, they had sent out an upgraded Metal Jack in the original's place, which has more power, speed, agile, defence & shielding, just in case the fights are too serious, even though he was saving it if Jack, Patricia & Layla are getting more serious, making sure that the fighter jet must be taken down at all costs.

"Alright, forget quiet! This fighter jet is getting on our last nerves. This chaotic energies must be discovered in order to either harness it or destroy it before it destroys us!" said EggPlankton as the Jack-4 Bots try to extract some of the chaotic energies into energy tubes for examination.

Serpina slithers to her soldiers who bow their heads and hiss.

Locar, after seeing that Dr.EggPlankton could have just did that... Well, he left Sveionagoria with an angered shout only someone who felt they have wasted their time could make, which left a sonorous reverb due to his metallic helmet.

"YOU COULD HAVE DONE THAT FROM THE START!!? AAAAAAAUGH!!!" he screamed, storming back over to the group.

Yeah, he was frankly a little irritated at the sudden turn of events. He'll calm down though. Probably didn't help that he had left Sveionagoria, standing next to Serpina when he screamed.

She winces before directing her anger right at Locar wrapping her fingers around his throat.

"Don't ever scream next to me again, you scaleless half-pint."

Now, putting her hands on Locar's gorget; aka neck protection worn on armor to prevent decapitations, probably was not the best action for Serpina to perform to display her anger at Locar's frustrated screaming. Because Locar was not someone who would respond passively to something like that, no. Rather, as she wrapped her fingers around the gorget, the golden snake vessel that normally curled around the top of Locar's staff would suddenly uncurl, lashing out towards Serpina's unprotected neck before stopping its fangs mere millimeters away from puncturing her throat.

"Okay, to be fair it was the heat of the moment when this jet fighter couldn't help sticking their noses where they don't belong. We had no choice but to keep this jet fighter out of our sights enough for the extraction. That's we were suppose to do a while ago, but SOMEONE couldn't help examining on it's own out of curiosity! This is why we don't want any interruptions," said EggPlankton, explaining his fault to Locar, while he facepalm, knowing this unknown Pilot in a cloaking Jet Fighter had only delayed their investigation & extraction & are forced to adapt to the situation, much to their irritation. Even though they had results of capturing some chaotic energy in the tempered glass energy tubes.

"Let's just get these chaotic energies back to base so we can figure out why the Chaos Emeralds reacting to them more than usual, now? This jet fighter is starting to get annoying." said Archer, while showing signs of disbelief & frustration of his own that they couldn't find little to no weak points of this cloaking jet fighter, while carrying the shut-down Metal Jack.

As for EggPlankton, Locar would glance at him for a brief moment, almost as if contemplating what he even said before arriving at a rather inevitable question for someone of his era.

"... What in damnation is a jet...?" He asked, completely ignoring the fact that Dr. EggPlankton was most likely laying fault on Locar, not even bothering to point out that the dense foliage, the speed it was flying at and the altitude itself should have made it difficult for the jet to even get a clear idea of what they were doing. In addition, were he more knowledgeable on modern technology, he would have also pointed out that the jet in question wasn't like any jet he had seen before.. Of course, such an assumption was unlikely because the era he came from didn't even have jets from the sounds of it.

The heat-seeking missiles would possibly track the jet fighter, since heat could still be detected despite its stealth. Yet the same thing happened the last time when they tried to fire heat-seeking missiles at the jet: its systems would get scrambled, and they would start flying around in random directions.

How will they be able to hit this jet that they provoked in the first place? Regardless, the pilot was practically cackling to himself.

```
To be continued in the next episode...

```