Meanwhile, Matt continued to regale the crowd. "So there we were, face to face with a giant ass demon called Diablo. Probably one of the toughest dudes we've ever fought."

"Diablo?" Chico exclaimed. "You loco! You fought the devil?"

"We think so," R.D. said, shaking his head. "Guy was ugly enough and scary enough to be the Devil."

Edited by RisingDragon on May 13, 2009 at 18:37:09.

"I don't think it was the real Satan," Matt said. "But he was hard, lemme tell you. I had to dump out every trick I had on that guy." He squinted his eyes. "How'd we beat him again?"

"You had to ground him so I could stab him in the head with the Phase Lance," R.D. reminded Matt. "Your whole 'seal him in a hole with explosives' plan didn't work out too well."

"You went and stabbed the devil through the head with a sword?" Berenson said, leaning back.

"Damn, kid," Johann continued for his brother. "You got some major balls to pull off a stunt like that!"

"What can I say?" Matt said, with a wide gesture. "I AM great."

"Modest kid, ain't he?" Rodeo commented with a grin. The other male pilots broke out in laughter.

"Hey, I'm just tellin' the truth," Matt said, fanning his hand over his chest in mock smugness. "The whole team's pretty great, though. We've each got our own awesome victories. R.D. here definitely has a few himself."

"I'll be impressed when you surpass my giant robot kill-count," R.D. said smugly. He knew it was practically a challenge to Matt--both were even in that department, with Matt destroying Cackletta with the Omega Core's Genesic GaoGaiGar, and he himself having slain the Dark Goddess of the Ice Dragons with the Drake of Braves, KishouDoragon.

"Son, you know I'm the king of giant robot fightin'. Perhaps one day I can show you what I mean."

"We'll see about that," R.D. said, smirking.

"If you're going to fight, you should take it to one of the training simulators," Raven said, speaking up. He looked back at the rest of his team. "Time's up, so we need to return to the hangers. Our Nine-Breakers should be completely repaired now."

"Aw, and we were just starting to have fun," Rodeo complained, grabbing his empty tray. "Well, you're the boss."

"Come back sometime when you're ready to hear more tales of my greatness," Matt said, tipping back his bottle of root beer.

Raven nodded and turned, taking his tray back to the cafeteria of the mess hall, with the rest of his squadron members quickly following suit. Soon enough, they were left alone again, and they could see Ileyna visibly relax as she pushed her beret back into place on her head.

"Well, they were an interesting bunch," Alasea commented.

"That's for sure," Matt said, leaning back in his chair.

"They were nice," Helena said. "Hope they make it okay."

"I think the enemy's going to be a bit more worried about KishouDoragon once I'm in the air than they will with the Nine-Balls and Nine-Breakers... whatever those are," R.D. said.

"I could probably drive one of their robots," Matt said with a casual thumb over his shoulder. "Well, if the interface worked like GaoGaiGar's did."

"It doesn't," R.D. said. "I saw what's inside of a Nine-Ball's cockpit. Too many computers and devices for me to make sense of."

"We should probably go find our quarters," Alasea suggested. "We do need to know where we're staying while we're here, after all."

Matt pushed himself up from his chair with a grunt, and he felt his legs twitch as his muscles prepared for movement. Some rest would be good.

"Matt, do you think later you can finally start showing me how to use my powers?" Helena asked.

"What?" Oh, that. "Sure. Hopefully we get enough of a lull to start doing that."

They quickly vacated the mess hall after returning their trays to the counter. They passed a pair of technicians headed towards the mess hall upon their exit, both of whom were talking animatedly about a "Project H1" that had recently gone online. They paid little attention to it.

"Um, I think father said that it was this way," Alasea said, pointing off to one side of an upcoming intersection in the metal hallway. Turning the corner, she ended up coming to a complete halt, surprise evident in her motions.

Coming down the hallway at a casual stride was the man in the black armor, the one with the Ao-Gem embedded into his right gauntlet.

The rest of the party paused along with Alasea. Matt pulled his hands out of his pockets, keeping an eye on the bruiser.

Helena waved at the armored man. "Hi there. How are you doing?"

The armored man nodded to Helena. "I'm doing fine, thanks," he said in that unusual, synthesized voice of his. He looked over to the front of the group, at the second brunette girl. "I never thought I'd see you again, Alasea."

Alasea blinked in surprise when he addressed her--despite the synthesizer he was obviously using, it did sound incredibly familiar to her. He reached up the one hand and pressed something on the side of his helmet, causing the visor to slide up in an instant, revealing hazel-colored eyes, eyes that had a slight, almost glassy look to them. The rest of the paneling of the helmet shifted back and seemed to shrink, disappearing and leaving the head of a blond-haired young man, grinning slightly at the girl.

Twice more the girl blinked in surprise. "Jared!?" she exclaimed.

===Area K, Innerpeace===

A second black claw burst out of the lava, grabbing a hold of the grated floor. Long, stone-black wings followed suit, like impossibly long fingers, stabbing upwards and out, as the protruded from the lava as it continued to slide down the creature's body. As it oozed down, more and more of its body was revealed--skin like molten lava pulsated along the upper arms and legs of the creature, down the lower torso and the tail, and up the neck. Black, volcanic rock-like hide stretched over the creature's serpentine head, back and torso, down its foreclaws and talons, and at the tip of its tail. As it flapped its wings, made up of membranes that blazed like sheets of fire, it shook off the remaining magma trailing on its floor and unleashed a deafening roar within the crater of the volcano.

Stepping to the side of the flooring, the Magma Dragon turned its black head, settling red-orange eyes on Seril, who lowered her head slightly in some form of protocol.

Ahhh. An unexpected twist. Somehow Matt figured the bruiser-er, Jared-was worth notice.

"You know this guy?" Hugo asked.

"Ah, yeah, I do," Alasea said, a slight blush tinging her cheeks. "He's my ex-boyfriend."

"Ex-boyfriend." R.D. repeated in a deadpan manner, raising an eyebrow at the girl.

"Yeah, we had a short relationship, but it just didn't work out," Jared said, his voice sounding normal, now that his helmet was out of the way. "Plus, I was going to join the army, so it wouldn't have worked out anyway."

"Well, it's nice to meet you," Helena said. "I'm Helena. I don't think we've told you our names yet."

Matt tipped his chin back. "We didn't have a chance, remember? But man, Jared, you've got one hell of a grip. Is that from the armor?"

"Oh, this?" he said, holding up his hand. "No, its, not because of my armor. Not exactly. I'm an Ao-Gem combat cyborg."

"A cyborg, huh?" Matt said. Guess he didn't need to adjust to Jared after all. "Well, that would explain it. By the way, sorry about earlier. Things kinda got tense."

The cyborg shrugged. "All you had to have done was just stopped resisting and that'd have been the end of it. You should thank your friend Helena for that."

"Jared, how'd you become a cyborg?" Alasea asked, looking concerned. R.D. simply folded his arms, frowning.

"Ah, that," Jared said. "Well, my post got overrun by monsters sent out by the Seven Beasts. I got maimed by one of them when G.A.R. tried to evacuate us. Using that shard of theirs, they were able to download some information about a "Guy Shishio" and craft this cybernetic body for me."

"Is that right?" Matt said, stepping in front of Alasea. "You should consider yourself lucky to get hardware like that."

"I guess," Jared said noncommitally. "Losing nearly all of my organs still kinda sucks, and I have to go in for maintenance regularly. Having most of my skeleton and muscles replaced with parts repeatedly is also pretty lame."

"Oh. Well, sorry about that." That sure killed the mood.

"Look, I'll let you two catch up," Hugo said. He pointed past Jared. "Guest quarters are that way, right?"