Chapter 49: The Ghost of Sector Zero

Casca then told Clyde and Craig to step outside. Taking a set of clothes from Corie’s bag that they had gotten from Selma, she dressed Celes, who was still lying on the floor. After that, Corie called Clyde and Craig back inside. Clyde, Casca, Craig, and Corie then tried to wake Celes, calling her name and shaking her body. When several attempts yielded no results,

"Why isn’t Sister Celes waking up?" Corie asked.

"She reverted to her original form after being freed from the sockets, right?" Casca added, confused.

"Turns out... Sister Celes is really pretty... I didn’t expect that," Craig said.

"What are you talking about, Brother Craig... please don’t joke around!" Corie shouted in panic.

"Ah... sorry... sorry, I was just saying something silly," Craig replied, rubbing the back of his head, his face flushing red.

Clyde studied Celes’s face, which seemed to be sleeping peacefully. Crouching beside Celes once again, he stroked her forehead. His memories of Celes, who used to cling to him constantly when they were little, began returning to his mind piece by piece. A smile appeared on his face,

"We are human... I’m sure of it... before the three of you arrived at the orphanage... it was just me and Celes... then Casca and Corie came... and lastly Craig," Clyde said, smiling.

Hearing Clyde’s words, Casca, Corie, and Craig naturally turned to look at Clyde, who kept his eyes fixed on Celes. Their faces, which had previously questioned their own existence, returned to normal and even looked relieved as they gazed at Celes’s sleeping face. A quiet calm settled inside the cockpit since no one spoke, until Casca suddenly stood up,

"Oh, right, Brother Clyde, maybe Sister Celes is hungry. How about we try feeding her so she can wake up?" Casca asked.

"Ah... that’s right. Caught up in nostalgia, we forgot to check her status. Let’s check it first," Clyde said.

They opened her holographic status display, then looked up at the screen above Celes’s head and read it.

[Subject serial number : C – 3135 – Flatwood Monster.]

[Abilities : Silent Approach, Mind reading, Mind detection, Third Eye.]

[Perk : Super strength, Enter other people’s minds and souls, Immune to all poison and disease.]

[Skill installed : Peak Martial Arts Mastery, Mind corruption, Purple Beam.]

[Hunger : [Progress bar 10%]]

[Stamina : [Progress bar 25%] Exhaustion.]

[Regeneration : [Progress bar 0%] Status : Healthy.]

After reading the status display showing above Celes’s head, Clyde, Casca, Craig, and Corie naturally turned to glance at one another. Casca’s hand, which had already reached into her bag to grab some raw meat as food, pulled back out empty.

"She isn’t hungry, Brother. How can that be?" Casca asked, looking at Clyde.

"I don’t know... but her stamina is depleted... like she worked herself to exhaustion," Clyde answered.

"How do we restore her stamina?" Craig asked.

"Should we try forcing her to eat the giant meat we stored?" Corie asked.

"Hmm... maybe her stamina will recover on its own... look, the progress bar is constantly going up by itself," Clyde answered, pointing at the screen.

Casca, Craig, and Corie looked at the screen. What Clyde said was true, Celes’s stamina progress bar was rising slowly, even if only by half or one percent at a time.

"But it’s going up so slowly. Is there another way to make it faster?" Craig asked.

"Um... if we gave her an energy drink... would that speed it up?" Corie asked.

"We don’t have any energy drinks," Casca answered, shaking her head.

"Never mind. Even if it’s slow, it’s still going up. Let’s just wait while looking for a way to restore her stamina," Clyde replied, reassuring his three younger siblings.

"Ugh... fine," Craig, Casca, and Corie groaned, staring at the slowly rising stamina progress bar.

In the end, having no other choice, the four of them sat cross-legged on the floor surrounding Celes, who lay in their center, keeping their eyes glued to the status screen above her head.

***

Meanwhile, at the exact moment Clyde, Casca, Craig, and Corie were waiting for Celes to wake up on her own, far out in the middle of the ocean, inside a floating metropolis encased by a protective dome that rendered the city invisible from the outside, appearing as nothing more than open sea and inside a skyscraper bearing the G.D.A.B logo near its top,

Blam!

A man dressed like a doctor burst into a room, rushing frantically with a pale face while clutching a tablet. He walked straight up to the desk where a middle-aged man sat writing.

"Commander Heindrich, I have something important to report," the man said, slamming his hands onto the desk, his face filled with panic.

Heindrich raised his head. Seeing the panicked and terrified expression on the man’s face, he glanced at the tablet in his hand. Then his face turned serious as he met the eyes of the man before him,

"What is it, Doctor Michael?" Heindrich asked, calm yet stern.

"Look at this, Commander. Someone has infiltrated our old facility," Michael said, showing him the tablet.

Heindrich snatched the device and stared at the footage captured by satellite imagery. The video displayed Clyde, Casca, Craig, and Corie, dressed in Neo Ark military uniforms, walking into a building hand in hand. Then, he swiped through the video to reveal a facility map, where a red dot blinked on screen. Heindrich’s face instantly went pale. He stared intensely at Michael.

"Chimaera Z-X is active? Neo Ark forces entered our facility?" Heindrich asked.

"Commander, we both know no creature should be able to activate Chimaera Z-X. There’s no way Neo Ark troops could activate a GEAR that has been sitting there for fifty years," Michael answered.

"Then... who? This signal clearly shows the Chimaera Z-X we locked away in our old facility has reactivated," Heindrich said, pointing the tablet at Michael.

Both fell silent, Heindrich suddenly realizing something. Heindrich swiped the tablet screen again to rewatch the earlier video, pausing it to zoom in on the image. Heindrich and Michael’s faces turned ghost-white as they took in the detailed, enlarged view of Clyde, Casca, Craig, and Corie’s faces. Heindrich slammed the tablet onto his desk and stood up, panic evident on his face as he stared at Michael, then pressed the intercom button,

"Lieutenant Bradley, head to our facility in Sector Zero immediately! Bring heavy weaponry and apprehend everyone inside the facility. But treat them well and do not anger them—bring them all back to our city, New Leviathan. Move, right now!" Heindrich barked frantically.

"Understood, General," Bradley replied over the intercom.

Heindrich released his finger and sat back down heavily, his face suddenly looking five years older. Michael stood before him, observing the commander’s face. He then looked at the frozen, zoomed-in image of the four youths on the tablet screen,

"Um... who are they, Commander? Do you know something?" Michael asked softly.

"Something we should have forgotten long ago after the war ended... they are still alive, and now they have returned," Heindrich answered.

"But... why do you intend to bring them to our city?" Michael asked.

"They are capable of turning the entire state of the world upside down, and we cannot allow them to fall into Neo Ark’s hands. Please inform the military authorities over there, tell them we are evacuating our Sector Zero facility, and they do not need to interfere in the process," Heindrich answered.

"Understood, Commander. I will contact General Daniel over there," Michael replied.

Michael then turned and left the room. After the door closed, Heindrich looked down at the tablet screen displaying the close-up faces of Clyde, Casca, Craig, and Corie.

"Ugh... the failed project that bit the hands that made them has returned instead... this world is getting more troublesome and annoying by the second... let’s just hope they cooperate with us and don’t rebel like they did back then," Heindrich thought, instantly appearing intensely stressed.

Heindrich then stood up, walking over to the window behind him to gaze out at the bustling metropolis, with countless anti-gravity cars filling the streets, several tall GEARs stationed around the city fully armed, GEMAs patrolling the avenues, gatling cannons mounted atop skyscrapers, and human citizens going about their lives on the sidewalks below like bustling ants.