Banadar Maibara's Story

It didn't take Obake very long to make up his mind on what to do next. He wasn't being followed by any biological lifeforms at the moment, which made his ability to think much clearer. He got the sense that perhaps Ascendant was analyzing him, but it wasn't abnormal for an android to do such things and Obake did not appear to be threatened by them. After all, his own miniature drones were still buzzing around the warehouse, analyzing everything for themselves. Obake was not alone in the area, despite his appearances. He took one last look at the list before placing the data unit into his pocket for safe keeping.

"I am Ascendant. I send myself. If you are speaking of my creator, well, he and I are business partners... and friends," Ascendant responded in a robotic voice while remaining perfectly motionless. Obake listened carefully as his insectoid drones buzzed around above them, scanning Ascendant, Obake and everything else in the immediate vicinity. One of the tiny winged bots would even land on Ascendant's shoulder, prodding him with its own little sensory devices like a common housefly searching for food. Obake's fly-bots were non-threatening, small and nearly unnoticeable to anyone unless they were paying close attention. Other droids could probably sense them and Obake often wondered how AI-programs interacted with each other, but it was a small matter and after many years the masked human grew accustomed to such strange technology.

While all of this was going on, a few of Obake's bug-bots would detect two hidden cameras in the corner of the abandoned warehouse which appeared to still be active. The red lights on the cameras signified that perhaps Obake and Ascendant were being watched through the security feeds by someone else. However, Obake did not seem to notice or care as he kept his attention focused on the giant 7-foot-tall android in front of him. "I have the currency with me now," Ascendant stated as two assassin droids exited his escort freighter. Shortly afterwards, Ascendant's astromech droid followed behind them and approached Ascendant, who began petting it like a cat. Quickly studying the situation, Obake determined that perhaps all of them shared a mental connection of some kind. Most droids did, just like his miniature bug-bot drones that were flying around. Ironically, however, Obake did not appear to feel endangered at all. His heart beat remained calm and relatively normal, as if he had already been dealing with this kind of technology for several years.

"Well in that case, I might be able to help you out a little bit." Obake was never willing to hand over anything without being paid first, but for the right price, there was also nothing he couldn't get done. Even if there was something he couldn't get his hands on, Obake would be able to find the person who could get it. "Unfortunately, I don't have any of this stuff with me right now. I can get you a good amount of pyramite, but it's very rare. I don't know about one-thousand-tons of pyramite, but I can definitely have a shipment sent to you." Obake waited impatiently for his armor upgrade to finish downloading as he continued to speak. "I can probably also get you a central control nexus and an arm module capable of long-range activity. I can't get the other things on that list right now, but I can arrange a meeting for you with the one who can." Obake was referring to his unknown companion, the mysterious voice who had spoken into his earpiece.

"A single uncharged pyramite crystal runs for about $1-million. That's without etherine capabilities. It takes centuries for these crystals to grow, I don't think your creator understands the value of it. It only grows in one specific cave on one specific planet, inhabited by a race of beings that I would not dare to cross. But luckily, I am friends with their commander. I can get you 500 pounds of uncharged pyramite without etherine properties within 3 days and have it sent directly to your ship. I'll give you a good deal on it. I'll throw in the arm module and the central control nexus and give you a 20% discount on everything." Obake raised his arm in front of him, pulling up his own wristband module and calculator. He would input the numbers into his computer and calculate the cost of everything right there on the spot. "Let's see, 10 crystals is equal to 1 pound. Multiply that by 500 pounds, that's five-thousand pyramite crystals. An arm module that turns into a long-range rail gun and 1 central control nexus. I'll just go ahead and throw those in and we'll round off and say it's going to be..." A small blinker on his wristband informed Obake that the upgrade on his body armor was now fully complete. "$5-billion, cash."

As he said this, Obake's bug-bots suddenly attacked the security cameras in the corner of the warehouse, using miniature welding devices on their labellums to disable the monitoring feeds of whoever might be watching them. Obake and Ascendant were now unsupervised, at least by any local law enforcement agencies. "That's a lot of money, but I can take payments. It doesn't have to be all at once. What I can do for you is break up the shipments into smaller packages. I'll send out 5 shipments, that way you only owe me 5 payments of $1-billion each." Obake looked up at Ascendant, assuming that the droid was processing everything he was saying. By now, Obake's bodysuit had changed properties and there was no way for Ascendant to monitor his heart-rate. "If you have $1-billion on you right now, I can have the first shipment sent to you in 3 days." Obake waited for Ascendant to react, as his tiny winged drones buzzed curiously around the assassin droids.

Obake accepted the modified data unit from Ascendant, noticing that his assassin droids had turned to leave the warehouse towards their spaceship. As this was happening towards the front door of the abandoned warehouse, a convey of large trucks came to a sudden stop towards the back door of the warehouse. Obake immediately sensed it was bad news, considering he could hear the loud eighteen-wheeler semi-truck coming from half a mile away. There weren't many other intelligent lifeforms on this side of the dusty city, only the occasional vagabonds and lone riders. Obake knew right away by the sound of their engines and the number of their exhausts that something was not right. He placed the data unit into his pocket and grabbed two of the briefcases that the other droid had in its possession, one filled with minted precious metals and one filled with actual money. Instinctively, the White Eagle had to cancel their business deal for another time, so he didn't bother to grab the other briefcases. Those would only weigh him down and stall his precious plans.

"Did you hear that?" The masked joker asked...

Just then, the shield opened up on Obake's hovercraft. He had pushed a little button on his wristband which caused the windshield to slide open into the rearside roof of the vehicle. "I hope you have life insurance," the jester said jokingly with a bit of mild sarcasm as he climbed over the side of the hovercraft and slid into the cockpit. He was speaking to an android, after all, and wondering if Ascendant could even compute laughter or what it meant to be sarcastic. Not that it mattered, since all of Obake's u-flies were soon buzzing around Ascendant in a small swarm with more concentration on the droid's sensory mechanisms. They seemed to attack all at once, as a simultaneous unit. The bugbots approached Ascendant from many different angles and directions, specifically targeting the droid's vision, hearing, vocals, sensors and any mechanical joints that might effect the droid's movement. They were alerted to these areas by one of the bugbots that had previously landed on Ascendant's shoulder and began secretly probing for weaknesses. The hive-mind of the bugbots allowed all of them to act as a single swarm, which sometimes gave Obake the element of surprise. In either case, the bugbots were soon prodding at Ascendant with tiny etherine lasers in an attempt to disable the android just like they had disabled the security cameras.

As if that wasn't enough, Obake suddenly raised a rather large hand cannon and pointed it at the other droid which brought out the briefcases, firing a beam of bright blue etherine which blasted a fist-sized hole into the center of its chest-plate. Watching the droid fall over, now disabled lifelessly, Obake then turned and pointed the hand cannon at Ascendant while his white painted face-mask grinned motionlessly. It was a cheap shot and he knew it. He pulled the trigger, firing a blast of blue energy at Ascendant before activating the force-field on his hovercraft. Obake laughed menacingly as the windshield came sliding down over the dashboard in front of him. Dropping the hand cannon into the seat beside him, he grabbed the joystick and hit the thrusters, ramming his hovercraft straight through the garage door into the front parking lot just as the Tech Con team was approaching the back of the warehouse. Obake wasn't about to stick around. Within seconds, he was back on his way to flying across the landscape at incredible speeds. Looking down at his computer screen, Obake suddenly became curiously interested in Clockwork again. The bugbot he had placed into Clockwork's pocket appeared to show exactly where he was located. Soon, Obake was heading back towards the way he came from, to the vicinity of Clockwork and Mr. Niac.

Soulburst, an enormous battle carrier of Asphodelian design was stationed on the dark side of the moon, hovering just above the moon's surface. Its design was that of a hybrid mix between an Asphodelian frigate or aircraft carrier and a destroyer warship. Soulburst was not just any spaceship, it was an entire space station with an Asphodelian crew that numbered in the hundreds. The captain of this spacecraft was Prince Sin Asphodel, the second heir to the Asphodelian throne. He was there with his crew to watch over one of their own, a human being by the name of Obake who had gone down to Flora City to scout the area and gather information about the local inhabitants. Little did anyone know that Prince Sin had setup a surveillance grid around the entire region of the planet and had been watching everything that was going on for quite some time.

Prince Sin had watched Clockwork freeze time, an event which caused Prince Sin to contact Obake through his earpiece. Sin had also watched the android Ascendant and informed Obake of the droid's status. Sin had watched the Tech Con trucks pull up to the building where Obake was located. He was also aware of the man in the camera station who had been watching the building from a distance when his cameras were suddenly destroyed by Obake's bugbots. Prince Sin was watching everything on his holographic display interface, making sure that his friend Obake was never alone, even if he appeared to be in danger. Sin zoomed in on Obake's hovercraft as the masked jester glided swiftly across the landscape. Obake had said the magic word, a code signal which informed Sin Asphodel that it was time to act.

Within seconds, Sin hit a button which launched a drone from Soulburst's hull around the moon's surface and down into the planet's cloudy atmosphere. The drone had a tracking device on it which narrowed in on Obake's hovercraft in Flora, causing it to descend like a frisby upon his location. The coordinates had been set to a destination not too far from Clockwork and Mr. Niac, in a place that had been preset and arranged by Obake and Sin in case things went wrong. As the disk-like drone struck the planet's surface and hit the ground, it opened up and transformed into a small platform. As Obake's hovercraft made its way over the platform, Obake's entire vehicle would be teleported into the docking bay on Sin's space station. As this happened, the platform itself would close back up again and it too would be teleported back to the space station along with Obake's hovercraft so that nothing foreign could aboard Soulburst.

Prince Sin would not go down to the docks to greet him right away. Instead, he watched his displays to make sure that everything on Soulburst was in working condition. Seeing that the cloaking apparatus was in effect to disguise his ship and ensure invisibility in space, Sin made sure that there was enough power and energy to guide the station back to his sister's planet, where they would stop at the lab to take another sample of Obake's blood for their experiments. Sin knew that Obake did not particularly enjoy the Asphodelian's experiments, but such tests were necessary and vital for the advancement of Sin's species. When it was established for sure that Obake was on-board the battle carrier, the Asphodelians took to their stations and soon, Soulburst was warping through the galaxy at light-speed, heading for another galaxy in an entirely different realm altogether. They were heading for the Bluestar Galaxy, to a most dangerous solar system.