ShiningWings, please hand in your character info, anyways, the plot thickens! It’s getting interesting, isn’t it? Next Chapter will arrive soon.

E.D.E.N.

Characters: Apostles (The ones known so far)

Pod Numeuro – A lively Apostle, an adult male, somewhat interested and questioning in NEL Sagittarius’ plans. Seems his personality is nice – maybe not.

NEL Sagittarius – A sinister android Apostle that takes form of a child, except that he’s 46 years old. Partners with Aries, he specializes in technology and is very clever and extra evil. He came to Sokoro City to look for his symbolizing jewelry.

Gabrielle Aries – Sagittarius’ partner, has a bombing technique that can destroy anything in a few kilometer’s range. She is apparently 17 and likes strawberry ice cream, and was exploited as a deadly weapon in her early age.

Leo – Pod’s um, friend? Is very sarcastic and calm. Has a deep voice, nothing more is known about him, (Same with almost any character).

Natalie – A curious small child Apostle, whom is very full of questions. She somewhat takes Pod’s powers lightly.

Natalie’s mom – A woman Apostle, seems to be Natalie’s mom. Is calm and good at solving conflicts.

Holehart – He was quickly mentioned by Natalie’s mom in Chapter Six, his son lives in Sokoro City.

Mysterious member that never talks – A silent person that never talks, but listens to everything. Is very mysterious.

Apostle’s Creed Chapter Seven: Merciless Combat

Location: Sokoro City; Southern Entrance
2020, May 01

“Take that, bas****s!” Aries grinned, boasting her satisfaction.

Cryo’s world seemed to end as the echoing explosion seemed to sing a requiem for the three new citizens of after-life. Cryo’s insignificant, uncreative reality seemed to abrade away as the sound of the explosion reverberated in his mind. Shura was the only true friend in his life, probably the only one he trusted, his family being an exception. Now she lies with the debris, also, the battle was done for, since the captain and half of their fighting force blew up.

The other two members of Team Older seemed much shocked like they were about to fall in a coma. The other two in team Younger must’ve have been very important to them.

”The only thing you ever wanted in your life is now gone. Now it is time for you to take everything,” a voice announced in his mind.

“What! Not you again! Stay away! Ah!” Cryo screamed, clutching his head, the other two taken by surprise, stared at him.

“Alan! Calm down!” Reganus shouted, and tried to hold him still.

”You have all the right to be furious, my dear host Kazura, now use our powers to destroy what you hate!” his inside voice called.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!

Cryo shrieked and grasped his temples tightly as his irises began to deform into a shape of a crimson blade, and his eyes turning into deep tar pits where white can never protrude. A suspicious and unapproachable burning aura began to leak out of him.

“Cryo! Now’s not the time!” Reganus tried to calm him down, but Cryo pushed him out of the helicopter with brute strength.

“Holy **** . . .” Reganus muttered, as he looked shocked and dropped, falling rapidly on to the terrain like a heavy boulder.

“Traus, you packed a parachute, remember!” Suri called.

Suddenly, a white quadrilateral with a deep blue ‘Z’ on it appeared where Reganus fell, thank goodness.

”CRYYYOOOOOOOO!”

A really familiar voice scolded.

“Are you whacked in the head or something? I told you! We don’t die easily, like Reganus, I packed a parachute as well, and we jumped off just in time. Sano has one too, Hope is just clinging onto my legs right now, heh, so calm down!” it was Shura.

“Thank goodness! Now that’s what we expect of the field commander,” Mr. Sanong shouted with joy, in the HQ.

Cryo’s irises morphed into a black blob, then casually returned to normal state. The despicable aura had disappeared moments ago.

He let out a sigh of immense pain and relief, then fell powerlessly on his seat.

“Team older, everyone except Suri fight on the ground!” a voice in the speaker ordered.

As the helicopter safely landed on the empty streets, a nervous Cryo sluggishly marched out.

“Sorry, I lost control . . .” Cryo sheepishly apologized.

“Don’t mention it, it was an um, an unusual experience, after all, we’re all safe,” Reganus laughed.

“Don’t worry about what happened and focus yourself on ‘him’, if you’re careless, you might lose your life,” the commander warned, advising them. The ambiance of the city seemed to drop into a heavy, life and death situation-like mood.

From the helicopter in midair, Suri wordlessly observed the enemy. The heartless android seemed very familiar, it definitely existed somewhere in her memories, which most she couldn’t recall. She had a really bad feeling about this.

Cryo and Reganus faced Sagittarius, in the middle of the road, the only thing separating them was a thick blockade line of automobiles. Endlessly grinning in the stalemate, the android snapped his fingers, and much to their amazement, the hundreds of metallic blobs surrounding him transformed into arachnid-like machines that resembled the size of goats.

Reganus and Cryo’s jaws dropped, as myriads of crimson quivers were fired from the combat machines, heading straight for them.

When Team Younger was forced onto ground, they began taking action. Loud barrages of sniper fire echoed off the streets, every single one hitting their targets, yet bouncing off like simple rubber balls. Aqua-green light materialized and gathered in front of the ‘eye’ symbol in the middle of Aries’ defensive, continuously forming into a bigger, better, and stronger looking sphere by every second.

“Sano, concentrate your mana into your attacks, they said before, Aries has armor harder than a handful of tanks combined!” Shura reminded.

“I said before, dammit! I don’t believe in that ‘mana’ or any other occult stuff!” he screamed back in reply, continuously shooting at Aries, who was floating still in the middle of air.

“Stop, you’re wasting bullets!” Shura scolded, as a few dozens of custom-made paper spider-mines paused on rooftops, waiting for the enemy to get in range.

“You’re the only one right now that has his enemy in range, so listen to what I say! Everyone’s lives depend on it!” Shura screamed, furious.

“I told you, I can do this with my skills alone!” he bragged, but inside, he was unsure, he had never fought an enemy like this before.

“Listen to Shura, depend on your Maple Spirit!” Mr. Chugo ordered.

“Disgusting, what have you been doing until now mindlessly indulging yourselves? Unlike you, I’ve worked very hard to reach Fourth Job, you know. Now you can pay for your sloth!” Aries spat, as the magnificent aqua-green energy sphere ceased its evolution and dropped onto the ground.

”This is god’s retribution to you sinners,”

Dozens of new, painstakingly erected skyscrapers were annihilated, razed to the ground and washed away by the blow. Cars, buildings, the pavement, establishments, everything in a few kilometers’ range were totally devastated, ‘twas worthy of being called a god’s wrath.

A crater had formed, Aries floated above the most declined point of it, everything reduced to crumbled dirt. After the smoke had cleared, three survivors were noticeable. Team Younger had regrouped and evaded the blast.

“Damn, what a destructive power. See? This is what happens if you give an opponent a chance to attack!” Shura yelled, a cold sweat dripping from her back.

“Impressive,” Aries thought. “She deflected the blast with a stronger explosion, heading straight,”

“I’ve used all I had, now I’m all out. Good thing we were out of range of the attack. My supplies are few, the next time she does that, we’re done for,” Shura gulped.

”Unlock all of the entrances and switch off all the defensives, it would be hard for my plans to proceed, after all, Sokoro is a major refugee city,”

The pipes creaked and dripped and the lights flickered and dimmed as Nova strode through the corridor, coming into sight range of a guard.

“Oh, it’s just you, Ms. Zerra,” the guard said, lowering his weapon and guard.

“You need something? It’s dangerous you know,” the guard beside him warned.

“I need you and your friends to die,” Nova muttered, the guards shocked, looking into her grey, foggy eyes, which was once pure as the blue sea. A grim presence locked all benevolence from her mind and eyes. In a split second, shooting sounds spread through the corridor, blood sprayed everywhere, the two guards lay cold on the ground, and Nova had disappeared.

Under the shallow trenches of cars, the two evaded enemy projectiles. The barrage was so heavy that the two couldn’t properly see the sunset that took place in the sky.

“Suri! Faster! Shut off the robots in your range!” Reganus roared, as he and Cryo ran under another car as the previous once was reduced into nothing but scrap metal.

“I’m on it,” she replied, as she ordered a tiny, satellite-like mechanism to hover over the battle machines, which emitted a strange wave that ceased their movements.

“Never expected the opponent to fight with machines,” Suri deviously grinned, as it was her field.

“Hurry! Damn luck we ended up in a traffic jam, or else we would have much holes in us as beehives!” Reganus roared in the havoc.

The number of crimson quivers had diminished, and Reganus peeked gradually, and saw most had fallen obsolete on the road.

“Our chance!” he shouted.

Reganus stood up and pressed the trigger of his machine gun. Empty shells dropped onto the ground, as one by one, the remaining battle machines fell, soon leaving only Sagittarius untouched.

“The hell?” Reganus muttered, surprised that his attacks combined with the energy of his Maple Spirit had no effect against Sagittarius.

“Take this!” Cryo sprinted towards Sagittarius, aiming for his head with the sword. Instead, what he hit was a sapphire blue triangle, reflecting his strike.

”A shield?” Cryo gasped.

“No! It’s a rotating blade; think of it as an electric chainsaw, except a countless times deadly combined with mana, if you didn’t have mana in your sword, it would have been simply shattered,” Shura informed, using her communicator.

Cryo noticed Sagittarius had another chainsaw in his hand, in the shape of a circle and attached by a rod to his hand.

They engaged in melee combat, each throwing devastating blows, which made sparks, fly everywhere. Suddenly, bullets flew from the back, aiming for Cryo, by instinct; he turned around, seeing that nothing was there, the bullets disappearing. Sagittarius, not ignoring the chance, slashed Cryo, leaving a severe, deep cut in his cheek, almost slicing off half of his head.

“The hell was that, a illusion?” Cryo stepped back, raising his guard higher than before.

“No, it’s a hologram. There are some devices back there. Concentrate on the fight, ignore unusual things, Sagittarius can’t run fast as you, and there’s no way we’ll betray you, so don’t worry,” Suri reported, from the helicopter.

“I can’t move faster than him? That’s bullsh**,” Sagittarius grinned, and released his metallic wings.

“Guess playtime’s over, now you can die,” he laughed, and the wing tore into a million pieces of shrapnel and was furiously fired at Cryo.

Cryo screamed as he tried to parry them all, but thousands of scratches appeared in the blink of an eye, then sounds of muscle tearing and bone shattering were heard, Cryo fell on all fours, heavily panting, coughing blood from his mouth.

“It would take too long to kill everyone with just us two, I brought some of my subordinates, they’re coming right now. Oh yeah, you killed one of them before, remember? Octavius or whatever his name was? He was just one of my experiments, a formidable one, except he hadn’t been ‘adjusted’ by yet,” Sagittarius spoke.

. . . .

“Commander! Enemies are coming through the open gates, our defenses obsolete! We just checked in the defense mechanism department, everyone’s been killed and everything’s been shut off! We can’t do anything! And what’s worse is that there is no evidence of anyone doing this!” someone reported, as pictures of a few hundred tall, muscular men in black armor and wild, spiky hair, a face full of scars, and wry grins marched through the streets on the screens. They looked very similar to Octavius.

“Let the military fight them, since they aren’t Apostles, soldiers should be fine,” the Commander ordered.

. . . .

“Type ‘J’ BMH are incomparable to these new type ‘K’ B-MUMH. While the ‘J’ type is only genetically modified, the ‘K’ type is both biologically and mechanically modified. They do not have hereditary fire-manipulating skills like Octavius. Well he’s a special one. But their modification means that they’re unstoppable by normal abilities. The military is useless, you will all fall, and die! Even if you manage to beat us somehow, all inhabitants you are trying to protect will be killed!” Sagittarius roared maniacally, extracting all the hope from Sokoro.

“We’ll never give up!” Reganus cried, charging at Sagittarius, mercilessly firing at him. Countless pieces of titanium enveloped around him, deflecting all of the attacks.

“How, wasn’t that the shrapnel wing weapon he just used?” Reganus thought, pausing for a moment.

“These wings are multipurpose, they have a pattern of breaking and a magnetic core, so it’s easy to break and merge countless times,” he proudly boasted, and eight, skinny metallic arms protruded out of his back, tearing his shirt apart. All of them had a rotating chainsaw in their hands, ready to tear things apart.

“Finally getting serious, eh?” Suri muttered, unheard from everyone.

“Time to bring out my secret weapon,”

To be Continued. . .

Eh. . . ShiningWings, please PM with your character information, ASAP. Anyways, next chapter will be out soon, hope you enjoyed.

Next Time: Chapter Eight; The Secrets of Gemini & the Apostle’s True Power

The conclusion of the battle between Zealots and Apostles, a frightening secret is revealed.

Suspicious things you should ask yourself. . . In AC

Who the hell is Nova actually?
Who the hell are Cryo’s inside voices? (Cryo is perfectly normal).
Who the hell are Cryo’s family?
How does Suri recognize Sagittarius from her memory?
Who is Shura’s Brother?

CHAPTER SEVEN END