《Ghost Ship》 Crash Landing It''s quiet in the vacuum of space, cold, dead, and silent. It''s so quiet that you can faintly hear an engine running as the captain, in a last-minute small rocket, approaches his spaceship. His ship is perfectly equipped for long-distance space travels with its own greenhouse, kitchen, top-of-the-line med bay and weapons system on top of what every other smaller spaceship should have. All this combined made it a big spaceship, to say the least, but compared to the other spaceships that NASA has been sending out these days? They made his ship borderline minuscule in comparison, it would have been like comparing a single drop of water to a small pond but to give the captain some credit, he didn''t have too many options due to him only recently getting the role of captain just recently. Although he did look the part with his almost all-grey spacesuit which would of made him almost blend in with the vacuum of space if it wasn''t for the small tints of tussock on the suit and the patches on the sleeves to further confirm that he works in NASA''s new spaceship program, Cozmos, and he''s, in fact, the captain if it was not already obvious from his crew wearing the classic white spacesuits. When his pretty pathetic last-minute rocket, finally arrived, he strolled into the airlock before oxygen was released into the room, allowing him to be able to take off his helmet, the doors leading to the hallway of the ship whooshed open, giving the captain the indication to leave but he already knew that, after all, it wasn''t his first time in space, this was his one hundred and one time in space, he''s even got the badge to prove it. He marched into the hallway with the cockiness that being the captain of the ship would give you as he strolled through the hallway, he felt like something was off, something was wrong but besides the every so often "hello captain" or "morning sir" from the couple crew mates scattered throughout the hallway would say too excitedly, there was nothing that he could see that was wrong besides this weird gut feeling. He began to skim through the windows and open doors scattered around the hallway, but he still couldn''t see anything inherently wrong so before he pushed this feeling down, he decided to touch the walls first as maybe that''s the issue. The walls felt sterile and cold, too cold, so cold that the captain jumped when he felt how cold it was, to say it was cold was an understatement, it was icier than anything but in the end, the captain chose to push this gut feeling down and just chalk the walls to being so cold because of that fact that they were in space and the crew mates being too happy as if they had too much coffee to drink, after all, the ship''s kitchen did had a coffee maker from what he remembered but still he''s never remembered those walls being that cold. Nevertheless, the captain marched forward until he arrived at a door at the end of the hallway, the spaceship helm. It was fitted with a top-of-the-line communication system, a user interface, allowing you to control the flight path which is displayed as a 3D map in the centre of the room along with being able to control the thrusters and engines however they need voice and facial recognition from the captain to activate either of them. NASA of course added one more thing to the spaceship as well, some of the best artificial intelligence they have ever created, also known as the ARG-05 or as the captain calls him ''ARGOS'' who''s usually just on one of the main screens in the room even though if he wanted to, he could go onto every screen on the ship if he wanted to. The captain only had to take one step into the room before ARG-05 immediately notices him and greets him with the most monotone "Hello Captain, how are you today?" he has ever heard, it nearly caught him off guard but after a second or so, he replied to ARG-05 with a "Hello ARGOS, I''m doing just fine just a little jet lagged" ARG-05 change his face on his screen before saying "I''m sorry to hear that captain" and changing his face back to the default one. The captain goes towards the 3D map in the middle of the room and just as he goes to touch the start button mission, the captain snaps out of his flashback with his hand shakily hovering over the cancel mission button as you can hear his heartbeat going a mile a minute as he heavily breathing over the map. It was almost as if he was having a panic attack, but he does have a fairly good reason to be in such a panic with his once crystal clear astronaut helmet being filled with this bubbly mysterious green liquid which is containing his skull, brain and just very faintly his eyes. The captain himself doesn''t even know why or how he is still alive as before it happened, he was knocked out cold and ARG-05 had to come to his rescue which to give ARG-05 credit would of being very hard to help someone who''s inside of you because despite there being a crew of 60, they were all missing or worse dead. Neither of them knew why they were all gone but when the captain awoke, ARG-05 told him that if he takes his head or what was left of it out of this liquid he would most likely die but the strangest thing which the captain doesn''t understand is if his face is mostly gone why not the rest of his body, that''s perfectly fine, did it he just get hit so hard that ARG-05 needed to use a chemical which burns away skin or was it just from the attack all he knows is that the green liquid smells putrid and rotten. At this point, ARG-05 finally noticed that the captain was freaking out and switched to a monitor which was closer to him and said to him "Sir? May I ask what you are doing?" The captain stared at him but didn''t say a word, after a few minutes of silence, ARG-05 notices what the captain was about to press and slowly lowered the button and continued "sir that won''t work you don''t-, it won''t-, look are you okay, do you need to take you to med bay?". The captain continued to stay silent, at this point ARG-05 wasn''t even sure if he could speak so he decides to take his silence as a sign for help, so he begins to slightly move the ship as carefully as possible to try and not break the small bit of glass which is keeping him alive, mainly due to the captain''s silent refusal to move. All he need to do was just get him close enough so one of the mechanical arms scattered throughout med bay can carefully grab him and take him to one of the beds because in ARG-05''s mind the captain just needed some sleep and it will all be fine, after all as he put it two and a half weeks ago ''he was just a little jet lagged'' so that has to be the reason now. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. Besides the one or two rough landings, which luckily hit the more durable back of the helmet, ARG-05, after a few attempts, managed to successfully grab the captain''s arm and dragged him into a bed as carefully as possible. Once he was in the bed the captain felt as if he could sleep for almost an eternity until he jumped out of bed from a loud bang coming from the other side of the ship followed by a loud alarm repeatedly screaming "ALERT CRITICAL DAMAGE TO THE ENGINE DETECTED IMMEDIATE ATTENTION IS REQUIRED". He paused for a second, processing what the alarm was saying before he sprinted to the other side of the ship to see what has happened, he only had to take one step into the room to hear the crackling sound of a fire before the engine exploded from the flames, forcing him backwards and having the side of his helmet collide with a wall causing the glass to slightly crack, knocking him out as well as the liquid in his helmet slowly dripped out of it as everything slowly goes black. He didn''t even know how long he had been out for a few minutes or maybe even a few seconds all he remembered was waking up in a very small puddle of the green liquid, the blaring alarm, ARG-05''s panicked cries and the exploded engine. The captain was running out of time, and he knew it, he quickly got up and took a brief glance at the break proof window, his eyes widening at what he saw, what they were about to crash into, a purple and blue planet. Without even a second thought, he raced to the helm of the ship to try and do something to avoid crashing, not even thinking a second thought about his cracked helmet. Once he got there, he rushed over to the 3D map to try and activate the thrusters but of course, with all the panic he forgot one thing, to activate the thrusters, he needed facial recognition from the captain which is a problem considering how the captain barely even has skull still intact but then again to be fair, NASA wasn''t really expecting a captain to still be alive if they didn''t have their face but this meant that not even the captain of the ship or ARG-05 could stop this all they could do is wait for the inevitable. But while he was staring at the inevitable crash, the captain got the idea to use a high-quality photo of him on the recognition software which although it did work but at the time the captain grabbed the photo and run back to the helm, it was too late, he only had just barely enough time to grab something soft to not further damage his helmet before the spaceship hit the planet''s ground with a loud crash and screech. After a few seconds of the ship staying completely still and silent, the captain emerged from the crash, walking out to see a rocky and mountainous terrain filled with vast amounts of plants and wildlife with a purplish-blue river going for miles as well as some man-made or in this case alien made buildings in the distance along with the faint circle with a lack of colour in the sky. He took all this in for a second before he realises that the green liquid in his head is no longer dripping out of the helmet due to it being just barely below the crack. The captain faintly hears ARG-05 speaking from the ship so he sauntered back to the ship, ARGOS took notice of this and asked him "so what''s your orders now Captain?". He hesitated for a second before he replied, "in all honesty ARGOS, I don''t know but I think the best course of action is to go towards those buildings off in the distance to try and get someone to help". The captain goes to walk off in that direction before he is stopped in his tracks by a panicked ARG-05 yelling "wait a minute Captain you can''t leave you''re supposed to stay with the ship as per the protocol, I can''t let you leave, it goes against my protocol", the captain slightly turns towards ARG-05''s direction before sighing and telling him "I''m sorry ARGOS but this could be our only chance of getting back to Earth and finding my crew, I''ll be back I promise". He only had to take one more step before ARG-05 yelled at him "Captain please at the very least take me with you". The captain stops once again before turning around, giving ARG-05 a confused glance, then confusingly asking "ARGOS, I hate to break it to you, but I can''t take the entire ship with me". "Yes I agree with you Captain, the ship weighs 78,936 tons which even if you were at peak human performance, it would still be an impossible act however I meant the prototype which is connected to the back of your life support system as that way, I''d be portable and I''ll be able to assist you however there are a few ... issues with the prototype" ARG-05 replied after changing his face to a smug look and then back to his neutral expression. The captain thinks to himself about how he never noticed this before when he put on the suit before responding to ARG-05 by saying "well that would be helpful to say the least, anything I need to do in particular?" "No, not really Captain, just try to stay nearby whilst I attempt to transfer". The Captain looks over to where the screen ARG-05 was on, to see the transfer loading going from one percent to ninety-nine percent in less than minute before it took 10 minutes to go to one hundred percent, once the transfer was completed, ARG-05 although he didn''t mean it, accidentally jump-scared the captain with an automatic "transfer complete" before ARG-05 continues by saying "you know Captain another perk about this prototype is that I now have hands so now I can do this", ARG-05 opens two separate hatches in the life support system, revealing two arms with slightly sharpened claws, using them to hug the captain for a few minutes, despite the captain''s lack of a face, you could clearly tell that the captain was a bit emotional about this, almost as if in this moment ARG-05 reminded him of something or more likely, someone, but nevertheless the Captain came back to reality and asked ARG-05 "so shouldn''t we get going?" ARG-05 immediately lets go and retracts his arms without a word before marching forwards towards the buildings off in the distance after all they should get going as soon as possible before night falls as although ARG-05 can now defend the Captain in almost any situation they faced, he was a bit uneasy to say the least when it came to leaving the ship for more than an night, there was nothing of note to warrant this uneasiness, ARG-05 made sure of that but still, he just had this feeling that something or someone who shouldn''t be there is on the ship. Uncharted Territory The captain awakes to a dull grey roof and a Viator with an amputated left arm, standing over him with a confused expression and the muffled yelling of ARG-05 which causes the Viator to step back as the captain immediately sits up so ARG-05 can speak. ARG-05 immediately starts to look around and so does the captain, whilst they were looking around, ARG-05 notices the Viator standing there, completely confused. ARG-05, thinking that he was a threat to the captain, immediately drew his claws out to attack him. The Viator backs up to the cell door before exclaiming "woah qu''est-ce que j''ai fait, je m''assurais juste que tu allais bien tu sais pour un Viator, tu as l''air assez bizarre tu es malade ou quelque chose comme ?a? (Woah what did I do I was just making sure that you''re okay y''know for a Viator, you look pretty weird you sick or something?)". ARG-05 slightly lowers his claws and the Viator looks down trying to find something, once he finds what he''s looking for, he picks it up and hands it to ARG-05 whilst giving him a big grin and enthusiastically saying "Voil¨¤, avoir des bonbons me fait toujours me sentir mieux quand je suis malade (Here you go having candy always makes me feel better when I''m sick)". ARG-05 switches to his happy expression and grabs the piece of candy before passing it to the captain whilst quickly saying "Merci (Thank you)". The captain takes the piece of candy, confused, and moves more towards a wall with a single, lone bar window before loudly saying to ARG-05 "thanks for the candy ARGOS but y''know, we could probably escape through this window by using your claws to cut the window, what do you think?" The captain quickly turns so ARG-05 can look at the window. ARG-05 looks at the window for a few minutes before switching to his side-eye expression and responding in the most friendly tone he could muster "look, captain, now I''m not saying that you''re fat but I think that you would be too wide to fit, once again, not saying that you''re fat but I believe that it would not be wise to attempt trying to fit through the window". The captain audibly gasps and turns to face the window and pouts, ARG-05 pats the captain on the head to make him feel better and goes to speak to him before he notices the very confused Viator, trying to process how the captain has managed to talk to himself in two different voices. Finally thinking that he found a reason as to why the Captain has two different voices, he starts clapping and loudly exclaims "Wow, vous ¨ºtes vraiment dou¨¦ pour les impressions, peut-¨ºtre que lorsque vous sortirez d''ici, vous devriez commencer ¨¤ faire de la magie ou quelque chose comme ce que font ces gens sur les march¨¦s pour des prix ¨¦lev¨¦s, m¨ºme si je n''ai pas pu vous comprendre, donc ?a pourrait ne pas ¨ºtre le cas ¨ºtre une bonne id¨¦e (Wow you''re really good at impressions, maybe when you get out of here you should take up doing magic or something, like what those people in the markets do for high prices, although I wasn''t able to understand you so it might not be a good idea)". ARG-05 stares at him with a confused expression before realising his mistake and quickly replying "Oh non non, moi et le capitaine sommes des gens compl¨¨tement diff¨¦rents, je suis juste un robot qui s''est attach¨¦ ¨¤ son dos et c''est un humain, des choses compl¨¨tement diff¨¦rentes (Oh no no, me and the captain are completely different people, I''m just a robot who attached to his back and he''s a human, completely different things)" "Qu''est-ce qu''un ''robot''? (What''s a ''robot''?)" "C''est une machine qui ressemble ¨¤ un ¨ºtre human et qui est capable de reproduire automatiquement certains mouvements et fonctions humans (It''s a machine which resembles a human being and is able to replicate certain human movements and functions automatically)" "D''accord, d''accord, alors qu''est-ce qu''un ''human''? (Right, right so what a ''human''?)" "Un ¨ºtre human est un homme, une femme ou un enfant de l''esp¨¨ce Homo sapiens, qui se distingue des autres animaux par un d¨¦veloppement mental sup¨¦rieur, une capacit¨¦ de parole articul¨¦e et une position droite (a human is a man, woman, or child of the species Homo sapiens, which is distinguished from other animals by superior mental development, power of articulate speech, and upright stance)" "Alors je fais partie de ces humans? (So, I''m one of these humans?)" "Non, vous ne l''¨ºtes pas parce que vous n''¨ºtes pas un Homo sapien, vous ¨ºtes un Nox Viator, donc bien que vous ayez certaines caract¨¦ristiques d''un human, vous n''¨ºtes pas human (no you''re not because you¡¯re not a Homo sapien, you''re a Nox Viator, so although you have some characteristics of a human, you aren''t human)" "I CAN TELL THAT YOU''RE TALKING ABOUT ME ARGOS" The Captain yells, still visibly upset. ARG-05 pauses for a second before saying to the Viator "Tu devras l''excuser, il est American (You''ll have to excuse him, he''s American)" "Qu''est-ce qu''un ''American''? (What''s an ''American''?)" "C''est quelqu''un qui vit aux United States of America avec un endroit sur Earth (It''s someone who lives in the United States of America with is a place on Earth)" "Oh d''accord, je suis Bengino, et vous? (Oh, okay well I''m Bengino, what about you?)" Bengino extends his hand to ARG-05 before ARG-05 switches to his smiling expression and replies with "ARGOS" as he shakes his hand. As they''re shaking hands, Bengino tilts his head and asks ARG-05 "oh d''accord ravi de vous rencontrer, je jure que j''ai entendu ce nom avant que je ne sache d''o¨´, alors de quoi parliez-vous ¨¤ cet autre gars? (Oh, okay nice to meet you, I swear I heard that name before I don''t where from though so what were you talking about to that other guy?)" ARG-05 lets go of his hand and replies in a confused tone "Tu as? C''est bizarre, je ne me souviens pas avoir jamais ¨¦t¨¦ sur cette plan¨¨te de toute fa?on, je parlais au capitaine d''une id¨¦e d''¨¦vasion qu''il avait, ce qui n''¨¦tait pas une bonne id¨¦e (You have? That''s weird, I don''t remember ever being on this planet anyways I was talking to the captain about a breakout idea he had, which wasn''t a good idea)" "Oh d''accord, eh bien peut-¨ºtre devriez-vous lui dire de ne pas s''inqui¨¦ter car mon Amore sera l¨¤ d''une seconde ¨¤ l''autre et je ne pense pas qu''elle s''en souciera de vous aider ¨¤ vous ¨¦vader de prison (oh right, well maybe you should tell him to not worry about as my Amore will be here any second and I don''t think she''ll mind helping you two break out of jail)" "Je suis d¨¦sol¨¦, quoi? (I''m sorry your what?)" Suddenly, their conversation is cut off by screams which are cut off by the sound of metal hitting something in the room next door which is followed by the footsteps of someone walking closer to the room. As the footsteps get closer, it''s revealed to be a small female Viator who would be the perfect example of the term ''if looks could kill'', holding a metal arm and keys. Bengino quickly looks at her and smiles before replying to ARG-05 with "c''est mon Amore, elle est un vrai coup de coeur n''est-ce pas? (that''s my Amore, she''s a real heart stopper, isn''t she?)". Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. Before ARG-05 can reply, she unlocks the door and Bengino walks up to her preparing to hug her whilst exclaiming "Serafina, mon Amore (Serafina, my Amore)". Serafina cuts him off with an upset "Ne me Serafina, Bengino, pourquoi t''ont-ils arr¨ºt¨¦ cette fois? (don''t you Serafina me, Bengino, why did they arrest you this time?)". "Eh bien ce n''est pas si important, oh h¨¦ je ne te l''ai pas encore dit mais je me suis fait de nouveaux amis (oh well that''s not that important, oh hey I haven''t told you yet, but I made some new friends)" Bengino points to ARG-05 and the captain who both wave back as William walks closer to them. Serafina stares at them for a second before turning back to Bengino, who grinning ear to ear at her. She sighs and smiles at him before replying "C''est super ma ch¨¦rie, mais nous devons s¨¦rieusement sortir d''ici, alors laisse-moi t''aider, mais c''est pour toi, ce sera beaucoup plus rapide si je le fais (That''s great sweetie but we seriously gotta get out of here, so let me help but this on for you, it''ll be much quicker if I do it)". Serafina quickly grabs the metal arm which she was holding onto and attaches it to what''s left of his left arm. Upon attaching it correctly, Serafina quickly grabs Bengino, getting ready to leave before Bengino pulls back and yells out "Attends, Serafina peut-on les emmener avec nous? (Wait, Serafina, can we take them with us?)". Serafina pauses and turns to Bengino with a very confused "Quoi? (What?)". "Vous savez, pouvons-nous les aider ¨¤ sortir d''ici avec nous? (You know, can we help break them out of here with us?)" "Bengino, non, nous ne pouvons pas. (Bengino, no, we can''t.)" "Mais Serafinaaa ne peut-on pas les prendre, jolie s''il te plait? (But Serafinaaa can''t we take them, pretty please?)" Said Bengino with the biggest puppy eyes he could manage. "*sigh* bien, mais s''ils sont captur¨¦s, nous ne reviendrons pas pour eux, comprenez-vous? (*sigh* fine but if they get captured, we are not going back for them understand?)" Bengino very enthusiastically nods and Serafina smiles before motioning over to the captain and ARG-05 to follow her which they do. As they''re quietly following her through the prison, trying not to set off any alarms, they notice that there are not too many guards which aren''t on the floor, unconscious. During this silence, the captain begins to question how Serafina managed to presumably take down an entire small army by herself, however, that questioning almost immediately left him as they walked out of the prison. Serafina turns to them and quietly says " (well you''re welcome for me breaking you out but I gotta get Bengino and prepare for him to move so the guards don''t find him, hopefully, we see each other again soon)". Before the Captain could even reply, Serafina had already left with Bengino, who was waving at them from a distance for a few seconds before Serafina dragged him away. The captain stares at them for a few seconds before quickly thinking of what to do to escape this town. That alarm was about to go off at any second. Frantically looking around, the captain notices a significantly shorter part of the wall surrounding the town and in a panicked tone, asks ARG-05 "ARGOS, will I survive a jump from that height?" as he quickly spun around so ARG-05 could see it. ARG-05 looks at the wall for a few seconds and replies "realistically Captain, most you would do is dislocate your ankle if you fell from that kind of height¡±. "Good then I''m going to jump off of it," said the captain with a confident smirk. When the Captain was nearly at the edge of the wall, he heard a loud piercing siren and the noise of soldiers marching around. He whispers to ARG-05 "well it''s now or never" before jumping off the wall. After falling for a few seconds, the captain falls onto the ground and is completely fine but, not too far away, he spots a grey, dreary-looking, and large city which is filling the dark sky with a dark crimson smog. He immediately dusts himself off and begins to run in the direction of the town. Once he gets closer to the town he notices the grey stone walls, wrapped in vines and how the buildings inside of the city are focused on height over width, with their buildings having a similar height to skyscrapers. As he''s about to walk in, he realises that their ''gate'' is just an arch that the captain just barely fits under, and no one is guarding the ''gate'' unlike the Viators. As he''s walking in, he notices these very light blue and black creatures which resemble birds, albeit with more eyes and an overall bigger size, just walking around minding their business as if the captain didn''t exist with only a rare few waving at him and smiling. This weirded the captain out, "why aren''t they attacking us" the captain pondered as he was walking through the busy street. Getting to the end of the street, he was suddenly swarmed by a few of these feathered creatures, however, they weren''t attacking them, in fact, one of them was offering a handshake as he smiled at the captain. Despite being weirded out, the captain still shook their hand and smiled back which made one of the creatures smile and say, "Welcome to Crowehurst, human, we haven''t seen one of you here in a while but it''s nice to see that your species hasn''t died off yet". The creature pauses for a second as he notices ARG-05 behind the captain before he continues "oh is that one of those ARG robots? My word, I haven''t seen one of these in ages, the last one I can remember seeing would have to be the 02 model but that''s beside the point, Avvoltoio is probably expecting you". The captain stands there for a few seconds, completely confused and speechless as to why they can speak English, before asking "wait wait wait, how come y''all can speak English?" "Oh, that''s an easy question, didn''t you hear what I said before? But to answer your question we''ve met some of you guys before, we don''t just know only English, we still know Acdali, you idiota (idiot)" Before the Captain can respond the creature cuts him off and loudly says "c''mon we better get going to see Avvoltoio, he''ll probably want to have a chat with you". The captain shrugs, thinking why not and begins to follow them as they escort him there. Whilst walking the Captain whispers to ARG-05 asking "so ARGOS, exactly who are these guys?", ARG-05 quickly scans through his records of alien species and replies "they''re occhi dell''osservatores or Osservas for short, according to my records, they''re considered to be very friendly to outsiders, can fly and see in almost any direction due to those extra eyes on their chest and the other eye in between the eyes that would be typically seen on a bird from earth however they''re prey to Viators who typically tend to eat them oh and they also have fake eyes on their crest and wings, was that answer, satisfactory Captain?" "Yes, thank you ARGOS¡±. When they''re nearly at the palace where the Osservas claimed Avvoltoio was going to meet them, the captain notices that a few Osservas are circling around the palace in the sky, glaring daggers at the group along with what he swears was an Osserva with light purple and green tinted glasses in one of the alleys. All of this combined made the captain nervous but nevertheless, he kept his cool as the Osservas were escorting him to the palace and as they nonchalantly opened the large metal gate so the captain could walk in. As the Captain is walking up to the front door, he took the time to look at the palace, it looked much different from the other building in Crowehurst as instead of the dark greys and blacks like the rest, it was almost a pure white with a hint of beige for the walls with a nice cool blue for the roof, as he was walking, he also noticed a wide variety of greenery unlike anywhere else in Crowehurst, it gave the Captain a bit of a shock seeing the palace and how nice and cheerful it looked in comparison to the rest of Crowehurst. As he walked inside, he became even more shocked upon seeing the grandeur of the interior, it was a very simple pattern for the walls consisting of a blue and gold colour and paintings of what the Captain can only assume to be the portraits of the people living here or used to live here, he begins looking at each and every portrait, which are following a bannister, noticing one with a scratched out face before he notices a lone Osserva, wearing a dark blue cape which looked like a suit with wrist cuffs where his talons are, looking down at them. The Osserva clears their throat before saying in a monotone voice "So you''re the human my guards were telling me about." Unwanted Guests The captain awakes to a dull grey roof and a Viator with an amputated left arm, standing over him with a confused expression and the muffled yelling of ARG-05 which causes the Viator to step back as the captain immediately sits up so ARG-05 can speak. ARG-05 immediately starts to look around and so does the captain, whilst they were looking around, ARG-05 notices the Viator standing there, completely confused. ARG-05, thinking that he was a threat to the captain, immediately drew his claws out to attack him. The Viator backs up to the cell door before exclaiming "woah qu''est-ce que j''ai fait, je m''assurais juste que tu allais bien tu sais pour un Viator, tu as l''air assez bizarre tu es malade ou quelque chose comme ?a? (Woah what did I do I was just making sure that you''re okay y''know for a Viator, you look pretty weird you sick or something?)". ARG-05 slightly lowers his claws and the Viator looks down trying to find something, once he finds what he''s looking for, he picks it up and hands it to ARG-05 whilst giving him a big grin and enthusiastically saying "Voil¨¤, avoir des bonbons me fait toujours me sentir mieux quand je suis malade (Here you go having candy always makes me feel better when I''m sick)". ARG-05 switches to his happy expression and grabs the piece of candy before passing it to the captain whilst quickly saying "Merci (Thank you)". The captain takes the piece of candy, confused, and moves more towards a wall with a single, lone bar window before loudly saying to ARG-05 "thanks for the candy ARGOS but y''know, we could probably escape through this window by using your claws to cut the window, what do you think?" The captain quickly turns so ARG-05 can look at the window. ARG-05 looks at the window for a few minutes before switching to his side-eye expression and responding in the most friendly tone he could muster "look, captain, now I''m not saying that you''re fat but I think that you would be too wide to fit, once again, not saying that you''re fat but I believe that it would not be wise to attempt trying to fit through the window". The captain audibly gasps and turns to face the window and pouts, ARG-05 pats the captain on the head to make him feel better and goes to speak to him before he notices the very confused Viator, trying to process how the captain has managed to talk to himself in two different voices. Finally thinking that he found a reason as to why the Captain has two different voices, he starts clapping and loudly exclaims "Wow, vous ¨ºtes vraiment dou¨¦ pour les impressions, peut-¨ºtre que lorsque vous sortirez d''ici, vous devriez commencer ¨¤ faire de la magie ou quelque chose comme ce que font ces gens sur les march¨¦s pour des prix ¨¦lev¨¦s, m¨ºme si je n''ai pas pu vous comprendre, donc ?a pourrait ne pas ¨ºtre le cas ¨ºtre une bonne id¨¦e (Wow you''re really good at impressions, maybe when you get out of here you should take up doing magic or something, like what those people in the markets do for high prices, although I wasn''t able to understand you so it might not be a good idea)". ARG-05 stares at him with a confused expression before realising his mistake and quickly replying "Oh non non, moi et le capitaine sommes des gens compl¨¨tement diff¨¦rents, je suis juste un robot qui s''est attach¨¦ ¨¤ son dos et c''est un humain, des choses compl¨¨tement diff¨¦rentes (Oh no no, me and the captain are completely different people, I''m just a robot who attached to his back and he''s a human, completely different things)" "Qu''est-ce qu''un ''robot''? (What''s a ''robot''?)" "C''est une machine qui ressemble ¨¤ un ¨ºtre human et qui est capable de reproduire automatiquement certains mouvements et fonctions humans (It''s a machine which resembles a human being and is able to replicate certain human movements and functions automatically)" "D''accord, d''accord, alors qu''est-ce qu''un ''human''? (Right, right so what a ''human''?)" "Un ¨ºtre human est un homme, une femme ou un enfant de l''esp¨¨ce Homo sapiens, qui se distingue des autres animaux par un d¨¦veloppement mental sup¨¦rieur, une capacit¨¦ de parole articul¨¦e et une position droite (a human is a man, woman, or child of the species Homo sapiens, which is distinguished from other animals by superior mental development, power of articulate speech, and upright stance)" "Alors je fais partie de ces humans? (So, I''m one of these humans?)" "Non, vous ne l''¨ºtes pas parce que vous n''¨ºtes pas un Homo sapien, vous ¨ºtes un Nox Viator, donc bien que vous ayez certaines caract¨¦ristiques d''un human, vous n''¨ºtes pas human (no you''re not because you''re not a Homo sapien, you''re a Nox Viator, so although you have some characteristics of a human, you aren''t human)" "I CAN TELL THAT YOU''RE TALKING ABOUT ME ARGOS" The Captain yells, still visibly upset. ARG-05 pauses for a second before saying to the Viator "Tu devras l''excuser, il est American (You''ll have to excuse him, he''s American)" "Qu''est-ce qu''un ''American''? (What''s an ''American''?)" "C''est quelqu''un qui vit aux United States of America avec un endroit sur Earth (It''s someone who lives in the United States of America with is a place on Earth)" "Oh d''accord, je suis Bengino, et vous? (Oh, okay well I''m Bengino, what about you?)" Bengino extends his hand to ARG-05 before ARG-05 switches to his smiling expression and replies with "ARGOS" as he shakes his hand. As they''re shaking hands, Bengino tilts his head and asks ARG-05 "oh d''accord ravi de vous rencontrer, je jure que j''ai entendu ce nom avant que je ne sache d''o¨´, alors de quoi parliez-vous ¨¤ cet autre gars? (Oh, okay nice to meet you, I swear I heard that name before I don''t where from though so what were you talking about to that other guy?)" ARG-05 lets go of his hand and replies in a confused tone "Tu as? C''est bizarre, je ne me souviens pas avoir jamais ¨¦t¨¦ sur cette plan¨¨te de toute fa?on, je parlais au capitaine d''une id¨¦e d''¨¦vasion qu''il avait, ce qui n''¨¦tait pas une bonne id¨¦e (You have? That''s weird, I don''t remember ever being on this planet anyways I was talking to the captain about a breakout idea he had, which wasn''t a good idea)" "Oh d''accord, eh bien peut-¨ºtre devriez-vous lui dire de ne pas s''inqui¨¦ter car mon Amore sera l¨¤ d''une seconde ¨¤ l''autre et je ne pense pas qu''elle s''en souciera de vous aider ¨¤ vous ¨¦vader de prison (oh right, well maybe you should tell him to not worry about as my Amore will be here any second and I don''t think she''ll mind helping you two break out of jail)" "Je suis d¨¦sol¨¦, quoi? (I''m sorry your what?)" Suddenly, their conversation is cut off by screams which are cut off by the sound of metal hitting something in the room next door which is followed by the footsteps of someone walking closer to the room. As the footsteps get closer, it''s revealed to be a small female Viator who would be the perfect example of the term ''if looks could kill'', holding a metal arm and keys. Bengino quickly looks at her and smiles before replying to ARG-05 with "c''est mon Amore, elle est un vrai coup de coeur n''est-ce pas? (that''s my Amore, she''s a real heart stopper, isn''t she?)".Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. Before ARG-05 can reply, she unlocks the door and Bengino walks up to her preparing to hug her whilst exclaiming "Serafina, mon Amore (Serafina, my Amore)". Serafina cuts him off with an upset "Ne me Serafina, Bengino, pourquoi t''ont-ils arr¨ºt¨¦ cette fois? (don''t you Serafina me, Bengino, why did they arrest you this time?)". "Eh bien ce n''est pas si important, oh h¨¦ je ne te l''ai pas encore dit mais je me suis fait de nouveaux amis (oh well that''s not that important, oh hey I haven''t told you yet, but I made some new friends)" Bengino points to ARG-05 and the captain who both wave back as William walks closer to them. Serafina stares at them for a second before turning back to Bengino, who grinning ear to ear at her. She sighs and smiles at him before replying "C''est super ma ch¨¦rie, mais nous devons s¨¦rieusement sortir d''ici, alors laisse-moi t''aider, mais c''est pour toi, ce sera beaucoup plus rapide si je le fais (That''s great sweetie but we seriously gotta get out of here, so let me help but this on for you, it''ll be much quicker if I do it)". Serafina quickly grabs the metal arm which she was holding onto and attaches it to what''s left of his left arm. Upon, attaching it correctly, Serafina quickly grabs Bengino, getting ready to leave before Bengino pulls back and yells out "Attends, Serafina peut-on les emmener avec nous? (Wait, Serafina can we take them with us?)". Serafina pauses and turns to Bengino with a very confused "Quoi? (What?)". "Vous savez, pouvons-nous les aider ¨¤ sortir d''ici avec nous? (You know, can we help break them out of here with us?)" "Bengino, non, nous ne pouvons pas. (Bengino, no, we can''t.)" "Mais Serafinaaa ne peut-on pas les prendre, jolie s''il te plait? (But Serafinaaa can''t we take them, pretty please?)" Said Bengino with the biggest puppy eyes he could manage. "*sigh* bien, mais s''ils sont captur¨¦s, nous ne reviendrons pas pour eux, comprenez-vous? (*sigh* fine but if they get captured, we are not going back for them understand?)" Bengino very enthusiastically nods and Serafina smiles before motioning over to the captain and ARG-05 to follow her which they do. As they''re quietly following her through the prison, trying not to set off any alarms, they notice that there are not too many guards which aren''t on the floor, unconscious. During this silence, the captain begins to question how Serafina managed to presumably take down an entire small army by herself, however, that questioning almost immediately left him as they walked out of the prison. Serafina turns to them and quietly says " (well you''re welcome for me breaking you out but I gotta get Bengino and prepare for him to move so the guards don''t find him, hopefully, we see each other again soon)". Before the Captain could even reply, Serafina had already left with Bengino, who was waving at them from a distance for a few seconds before Serafina dragged him away. The captain stares at them for a few seconds before quickly thinking of what to do to escape this town. That alarm was about to go off at any second. Frantically looking around, the captain notices a significantly shorter part of the wall surrounding the town and in a panicked tone, asks ARG-05 "ARGOS, will I survive a jump from that height?" as he quickly spun around so ARG-05 could see it. ARG-05 looks at the wall for a few seconds and replies "realistically Captain, most you would do is dislocate your ankle if you fell from that kind of height". "Good then I''m going to jump off of it," said the captain with a confident smirk. When the Captain is nearly at the edge of the wall, he heard a loud piercing siren and the noise of soldiers marching around. He whispers to ARG-05 "well it''s now or never" before jumping off the wall. After falling for a few seconds, the captain falls onto the ground and is completely fine but, not too far away, he spots a grey, dreary-looking, and large city which is filling the dark sky with a dark crimson smog. He immediately dusts himself off and begins to run in the direction of the town. Once he gets closer to the town he notices the grey stone walls, wrapped in vines and how the buildings inside of the city are focused on height over width, with their buildings having a similar height to skyscrapers. As he''s about to walk in, he realises that their ''gate'' is just an arch that the captain just barely fits under, and no one is guarding the ''gate'' unlike the Viators. As he''s walking in, he notices these very light blue and black creatures which resemble birds, albeit with more eyes and an overall bigger size, just walking around minding their business as if the captain didn''t exist with only a rare few waving at him and smiling. This weirded the captain out, "why aren''t they attacking us" the captain pondered as he was walking through the busy street. Getting to the end of the street, he was suddenly swarmed by a few of these feathered creatures, however, they weren''t attacking them, in fact, one of them was offering a handshake as he smiled at the captain. Despite being weirded out, the captain still shook their hand and smiles back which made one of the creatures smile and say, "Welcome to Crowehurst, human, we haven''t seen one of you here in a while but it''s nice to see that your species hasn''t died off yet". The creature pauses for a second as he notices ARG-05 behind the captain before he continued "oh is that one of those ARG robots? My word, I haven''t seen one of these in ages, the last one I can remember seeing would have to be the 02 model but that''s beside the point, Avvoltoio is probably expecting you". The captain stands there for a few seconds, completely confused and speechless as to why they can speak English, before asking "wait wait wait, how come y''all can speak English?" "Oh, that''s an easy question, didn''t you hear what I said before? But to answer your question we''ve met some of you guys before, we don''t just know only English, we still know Acdali, you idiota (idiot)" Before the Captain can respond the creature cuts him off and loudly says "c''mon we better get going to see Avvoltoio, he''ll probably want to have a chat with you". The captain shrugs, thinking why not and begins to follow them as they escort him there. Whilst walking the Captain whispers to ARG-05 asking "so ARGOS, exactly who are these guys?", ARG-05 quickly scans through his records of alien species and replies "they''re occhi dell''osservatores or Osservas for short, according to my records, they''re considered to be very friendly to outsiders, can fly and see in almost any direction due to those extra eyes on their chest and the other eye in between the eyes that would be typically seen on a bird from earth however they''re prey to Viators who typically tend to eat them oh and they also have fake eyes on their crest and wings, was that answer, satisfactory Captain?" "Yes, thank you ARGOS". When they''re nearly at the palace where the Osservas claimed Avvoltoio was going to meet them, the captain notices that a few Osservas are circling around the palace in the sky, glaring daggers at the group along with what he swears was an Osserva with light purple and green tinted glasses in one of the alleys. All of this combined made the captain nervous but nevertheless, he kept his cool as the Osservas were escorting him to the palace and as they nonchalantly opened the large metal gate so the captain could walk in. As the Captain is walking up to the front door, he took the time to look at the palace, it looked much different from the other building in Crowehurst as instead of the dark greys and blacks like the rest, it was almost a pure white with a hint of beige for the walls with a nice cool blue for the roof, as he was walking, he also noticed a wide variety of greenery unlike anywhere else in Crowehurst, it gave the Captain a bit of a shock seeing the palace and how nice and cheerful it looked in comparison to the rest of Crowehurst. As he walked inside, he became even more shocked upon seeing the grandeur of the interior, it was a very simple pattern for the walls consisting of a blue and gold colour and paintings of what the Captain can only assume to be the portraits of the people living here or used to live here, he begins looking at each and every portrait, which are following a banister, noticing one with a scratched out face before he notices a lone Osserva, wearing a dark blue cape which looked like a suit with wrist cuffs where his talons are, looking down at them. The Osserva clears their throat before saying in a monotone voice "So you''re the human my guards were telling me about." Bird Food "Well, it''s a pleasure to meet you, I''m Avvoltoio as you''ve probably heard, and you are?" The captain freezes for a few seconds before he walks up to where Avvoltoio is standing whilst saying "I''m William or as ARGOS keeps calling me, Captain, and this ARGOS by the way, he''s the newest ARG robot after the last one... well that doesn''t matter, it''s nice to meet you Avvoltoio." The captain bends down and out-stretches his arm so Avvoltoio can shake it which Avvoltoio does with their foot, almost digging into the captain¡¯s hand, but letting go before they can do any real damage to the captain. Avvoltoio makes a squawking noise at the door which causes the door to be quickly opened by two Osservas from the other side. Avvoltoio begins to walk through the door, which leads to a hallway filled with quite a number of doors before Avvoltoio motions to the captain to follow them, which he does. As they''re walking through the hallway, Avvoltoio asks the captain "oh I forgot to ask but I can tell that you don''t know who I am, so I just assumed you wouldn''t know them, but I thought I should ask anyways, so have you met my kids because if not then I''ll introduce them to you, William¡±. The captain tries to recall if he had met Avvoltoio''s children for a moment before replying "no I don''t think I have actually met your kids, I''d love to meet them Avvoltoio¡±. They take a few more steps before entering a lounge area with various assortments of furniture, including a large couch, bookshelves almost going around the entire room and an art easel with an unfinished painting of an Osserva in it. Avvoltoio motions to the captain to stop as Avvoltoio goes to leave the room while telling him ¡°Make yourself at home, I''ll just be a minute while I get the kids". The Captain is left to himself for a few minutes, so he decides to look around the room however he barely made it to one of the bookshelves before Avvoltoio comes back in the room with a smaller Osserva, wearing a similar outfit to Avvoltoio, who smiles at him, Avvoltoio begins to apologise saying "I''m so sorry William but I just couldn''t find Merlo anywhere and Pavona doesn''t know where he''s run off too but oh well he should come over here soon". Avvoltoio motions to other Osserva to take a few steps forward and shake his hand which they do and before the Osserva can speak, Avvoltoio cuts them off and braggingly says "well this is one of my darling children, Pavona". Pavona smiles and says, "it''s a pleasure to meet you William" before once again Avvoltoio cuts off Pavona and continues "an absolute angel, wouldn''t you agree? anyways I''m once again so sorry that Merlo isn''t here but I was wondering if you would like to-". Suddenly, they all heard a loud crash and the sound of running as an Osserva, in an outfit that looks almost the exact same as Avvoltoio, runs in, stopping the moment they enter the room to catch their breath before in desperate breaths for air, yelling out "I''m sorry *puff* dad, I got *puff* caught up with... *puff* something". Avvoltoio sighs and shakes their head before looking at the captain and saying in an exasperated tone "and that''s Merlo, my other kid, I''ll have to apologise, he''s a bit of what you guys call a scatterbrain and Merlo this is William, go say hi". The captain looks at Merlo and smiles which makes Merlo glare at him in return, causing the captain¡¯s smile to slightly fade as he looks at Avvoltoio. Avvoltoio pushes Merlo closer with their tail feathers as they mutter "c''mon just shake his hand" to Merlo which Merlo does albeit with significantly more force. The captain jumps back slightly due to Merlo''s claws digging into his skin and Avvoltoio nervously smiles before making Merlo lower their hand whilst saying "well that''s Merlo for you, he''s really a nice kid, deep down anyways as you can see, our city is quite nice, almost like a utopia, no?". The captain goes to speak but before he can, he''s cut off by a loud "dad" coming from Merlo, Avvoltoio gives them a confused but trying to save face look which causes Merlo''s gaze to become even more intense. "Just... cut the bullshit," said Merlo somewhat quietly as their gaze became more and more intense by the second. Avvoltoio laughs nervously before asking "what do you mean?" "Don''t act like everything here is perfect and nothing wrong can happen¡±. "I''m not Merlo." "YES YOU- *sigh* look I''m not saying that you have to make Crowehurst to seem like this horrible dreary place, but you can''t just... overlook the worst parts of it¡±. "Well, what ''worst parts'' are you talking about?" "The famine which happened a few years ago for starters¡±. "Seriously Merlo, it wasn''t even that bad." "Yes, it was dad, I saw people dying in the streets, attacking each other for crumbs, how is that ''not that bad''?" "I- look... Merlo now is not the time for this, you weren''t even affected by the famine." "It doesn''t matter if I was or was not affected, the point is that you''re still just- you''re just ugh I just can''t with you right now." Merlo stops talking for a second and Avvoltoio looks over at the captain and says, "excuse us for a second William" before pushing Merlo towards the door whilst muttering "c''mon you". There''s almost a full minute of complete silence before it''s broken by the loud yelling and squawking from both Avvoltoio and Merlo. The captain looks over to Pavona who gives him an awkward smile before asking meekly "how about a tour?" to which the captain immediately smiles and replies "sure I''d like that". Pavona begins to walk to the door on the other side of the room which makes the captain follow them. They open the door and whilst they''re walking through another hallway, Pavona begin to apologise about their younger sibling saying "hey William was it?, look I''m sorry about Merlo''s outburst he''s just-" Pavona looks towards the room they were just in before continuing "he''s just uh... a bit upset that he will never be able to fly because of a health issue so he''s just... currently a bit over emotional because of that". Pavona looks back at Captain, who is looking at them before he replies, "oh that''s fine you don''t need to apologise just seems like regular family stuff to me". Pavona smiles before asking "oh okay, should we continue the tour then?" to which the captain nods. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. Pavona leads the captain to a library which is covered wall to wall with bookshelves and the only thing breaking it up said bookshelves, being a large window. As they''re walking through the library, Pavona begins to explain what''s in the room "and this here is the library, in case you couldn''t tell, we also have a couple of human books and- ... what are you looking at William?" The captain stares at a book labelled ''The Wind and Beyond Volume III'' before he looks over to Pavona, who is still confused, and finally replies "oh sorry, I just remember studying that book for my finals". Pavona shrugs and leads the captain to another fairly empty room with the only noticeable thing in the room being instruments left in one of the corners, "and this here is the ballroom, to be honest, it''s pretty fun coming in here and practising the orb of night dance". The captain tilts his head slightly and asks, "what''s the orb of night dance?" "Oh, it''s just a dance we do, I don''t think you would be able to do it considering how it requires flying, however, if you want, I could show it to you sometime," said Pavona smiling at him, which the captain reciprocates. Pavona goes to say something but stops themself before they drag the captain to a kitchen across the hall from the ballroom. If it wasn''t for the fact that the captain knew he was in someone''s house, he would have assumed that this was a kitchen''s restaurant just by the looks, in fact, he was so shocked about how it looked the only word he could mouth was "wow". Pavona once again smiles at him before saying "oh you like the kitchen ay?". The captain looks at them and says "yeah, it''s really something, I don''t think I''ve ever seen a kitchen on this scale before". Pavona chuckles before telling him ¡°Well you''ll probably love the dining room then". Pavona opens a door which leads into an extravagant and large dining room, featuring a large rectangular dining table with a tablecloth which a blue and gold pattern, elegantly placed on top of the table which is surrounded by surprisingly large dining chairs with one of them at the end being larger than the rest which the captain could only assume to be where Avvoltoio would sit. He also noticed two windows on the roof which made him think of a greenhouse window with the only thing separating the two windows, being a large chandelier that was illuminating the room in a bright, white tone. "And this is our dining room William, our dining room is very nice wouldn''t you agree?" Pavona pauses waiting for the captain¡¯s response to which the captain looks around and nods which makes Pavona go to continue what they were saying but they get cut off by the sound of Avvoltoio opening the door to the dining room and walking over to them. Whilst Avvoltoio is walking over to them, they begin speaking in a slightly upset tone saying, "I''m so sorry for Merlo''s behaviour, William I-". The captain cuts them off, saying "oh no that''s fine Avvoltoio, it''s just normal family stuff". Avvoltoio finally finishes walking over to them and says, "no it''s not, I have to make it up to you." "Oh, that''s not necessary, Av-" "No, it is, I''m sorry but I''ll have to insist on this, how about you join us for our family dinner tonight." The captain sighs and thinks about it for a second before finally saying "fine but I really don''t think it''s necessary". Avvoltoio smiles before saying "alright we better make you a suit then, apologies to your robot but he can''t join after what happened last time so he can just stay in our living room". Avvoltoio snaps at one of the Osservas walking around and who immediately rushes over and motions to the captain to take off his life support system which he does, before picking it up, struggling from the weight and waddling over to the living room. Whilst this is happening, Avvoltoio goes towards one of the walls and hits it, revealing several buttons, before he presses one of them, causing a bunch of Osservas to rush in with fabrics, sewing equipment and measuring tape. Almost the moment they walk into the room, two of them begin measuring the captain while the others are sewing, they end up making a suit with a cape. They first attempt to put it over his head before realising that won''t work and proceed to make a few adjustments before finally managing to make the captain fit into it. "Well, what do you think, why don''t you try it on for a minute and see how it feels?" Said one of the Osservas. The captain turns to them and says, "yeah I''ll just... try it on", the captain looks towards one of the doors and walks through it. As he''s walking through the hallway, he begins to think of someone who''s face he can''t quite remember, wearing a black ball gown dress with a feminine frame as he kept thinking of this person, the more he became lost in thought, trying to recognise this person but he just couldn''t. "Why can''t I just remember them?" The captain kept thinking to him, failing to notice Pavona calling out his name as they ran up to him. Finally, he notices Pavona calling out and turns to them. Pavona pauses for a minute before asking "Hey are you okay, you seem a bit upset, don''t like the suit?". The captain goes to say something but stops himself before saying after a few seconds "no I''m okay and it''s not that I didn''t like the suit I just... wanted to test it out is all". Pavona gives him a look that they saw through that obvious lie before smiling and saying, "oh okay well dinner is about to start, so follow me". Pavona leads the captain back to the dining room where multiple Osservas are sitting but once the Captain and Pavona were sitting in their seats and dinner had officially started, the captain realised that one, he can''t actually eat the food and two, there was an empty seat which the captain could only assume to be Merlo''s. The captain cleared his non-existent throat before asking Avvoltoio "so... where''s Merlo?". Almost immediately, Avvoltoio responds back "Oh he''s just been sent to his room for the day as punishment for that little outburst earlier". The captain mutters a quiet "oh" before one of the Osservas at the dinner table asks him "so William, you''re a human right, my how fascinating that must be, say do all have to wear that thing around your head also how old are you because you look a bit... older than other humans I''ve seen". The captain scoffs at that comment before responding "well yes we kind of do need to wear this and I''m only 28 so I''m not that old". A couple of hours passed of the captain pretending to eat and chatter among the dinner table as a wide variety of foods came in and out from the kitchen. Avvoltoio stands up in their seat and grabs a fork before they tap their glass with it, in order to grab everyone''s attention and make the entire room silent. Once everyone is quiet and looking at them, they begin their speech "well ladies and gentlemen, I''d like to thank you all for coming, I really appreciated that all of you could come here even on such a short notice, before this dinner wraps up, I''d like to thank-". Before Avvoltoio could finish their speech, the glass roof shatters from an explosion before a few Osservas fly down onto the table as a rope is flown down with an Osserva wearing purple and green tinted glasses with an outfit similar to Avvoltoio besides the gemstone, which holding their outfit together, being scribbled out in a very obvious bright red marker with the words ''Vive la r¨¦volution''. As they''re being slowly let down, they give the captain a death stare before they begin speaking in a tone which sounds like they''re mocking Avvoltoio "ladies and gentlemen, sorry to break up the little party". They finally drop onto the table, and they make one of their goons pass one of their swords before they walk up to Avvoltoio and point their sword at Avvoltoio''s neck "but you have something of mine". The After Party Avvoltoio glares at the intruder as the other Osservas begin running away, screaming except for Pavona, who is trying to drag the captain away as he just stands there, wide-eyed. Seeing the other Osservas run away from fear, makes the intruder smile as they slowly push their sword closer and closer to Avvoltoio''s throat. "I don''t know what you''re talking about," Avvoltoio grunted, which made the intruder sigh as they lowered their sword towards Avvoltoio¡¯s left wing and said with a sinister grin "well, maybe you''ll be able to remember if I take off one of your wings". Without thinking, the Captain picks up his plate and throws it at the intruder''s head, distracting the intruder long enough to let Avvoltoio escape However, there was one small problem that the Captain didn''t think about which was the fact that the intruder wasn''t too happy about getting hit in the head with a plate and was now running at him with the sword but before they can stab the Captain, Pavona pulls him out of the way to go to hide. "Who is that?" said the captain as they were running away, Pavona opens a closet door and rushes the captain inside as they say, "That''s Squinty and quickly let''s hide in here before he comes over". Pavona walks into the closet with the captain to hide, which they do just in time. The captain looks through a small crack in the closet door as he begins to hear the frantic footsteps of Squinty rushing in, almost like they''re looking for something. As Squinty is frantically looking for something, they begin to desperately pull out drawers and turn furniture over before they find what they''re looking for, but the captain couldn''t quite make out what it was exactly. Squinty sinisterly smiles as the captain watches them walk back to the dining room, jumping for joy before one of their goons meets up with them and Squinty enthusiastically says "Piccone, I got it, I can''t believe it, I actually got it". Piccone smiles with glee and says, "That great Squinty, that should be the last part needed for the plan". Squinty, Piccone and the rest of Squinty¡¯s goons leave from the roof before the captain could hear any more of their conversation. The captain slowly opens the closet door to find that Squinty and their goons have finally left. He looks over to Pavona who''s very obviously scared and asks, "hey are you okay?" Pavona nods and the Captain continues asking "so what was that Squinty guy¡¯s problem anyways?". Pavona looks at the Captain and begins to explain saying that "well he''s a revolutionist who was once one of us, an aristocrat or however you humans pronounce that word anyways, well that''s what we all assume judging by his outfit but at some point, he decided to take a stand and lead a rebellion but nobody knows who he really is so we can''t really arrest him or anything". The captain looks at Pavona for a few seconds, thinking that he swears he''s seen someone who looks like Squinty before, but he can''t remember where exactly. "Pavona" he said, leaving a pause before he continued "I- I think I might have seen Squinty without his glasses before, but I can''t remember where or who it was". Pavona could only say the word "I" before they were interrupted by the frantic footsteps of Avvoltoio looking for them. Avvoltoio notices Pavona and the Captain standing there and runs over to them, almost slipping on the tile floor in the process as they yell out ¡°William I¡¯m so sorry this happened I wasn¡¯t expecting him to show up, Pavona, my angel, are you okay?¡±. Avvoltoio begins tearing up at Pavona who says, ¡°I¡¯m okay dad-¡±, Avvoltoio accidentally cuts them off by hugging them tightly. They hug for a few minutes before Avvoltoio lets go and looks at the captain saying, ¡°once again sorry about Squinty showing up, I wasn¡¯t expecting it- oh but anyways don¡¯t you need to get going back to your ship before it gets too dark?¡±. The captain nervously laughs before replying ¡°yeah about that, my ship might of uh crashed due to one of the engines exploding, it was kind of weird though, I¡¯ve never seen a crash like that before- anyways yeah so can¡¯t really go back plus it¡¯s quite a while away and-¡±. The captain begins to trail off due to the bewildered look Avvoltoio has for a second before they ask, ¡°so you don¡¯t have a place to stay right?¡±. The captain nods which make Avvoltoio look at him for a second before continuing ¡°Oh well why didn¡¯t you say so William, follow me I¡¯ll take you to one of our spare rooms you can stay in¡±. Avvoltoio leads the captain to a hallway and whilst they¡¯re walking through the hall, Avvoltoio begins telling him whose bedroom is who¡¯s saying, ¡°and this here is Merlo¡¯s room and Pavona¡¯s is the opposite it, that''s just another hallway over there which leads to the living room¡± Avvoltoio pauses as they walk past the other hallway before they continue ¡°and over here is my room and this here¡­¡±. Avvoltoio opens the door revealing a small room that looked similar to a child¡¯s bedroom, they both walk into the room before Avvoltoio turns on the light and continues ¡°¡­this is the spare room, you can stay here for as long as want because, besides Merlo, nobody else comes in here so might as well use it ay?¡± The captain nods saying, ¡°yeah I guess you¡¯re right thank you for letting me stay here¡±. Avvoltoio smiles and goes to say something before they¡¯re cut off by a distant telephone ringing which is stopped fairly quickly as Pavona yells out ¡°DAD, TELEPHONE¡­ IT¡¯S MUM¡±. Avvoltoio deeply sighs before they yell out in response ¡°ALRIGHT I¡¯M COMING¡±. As Avvoltoio is walking out of the room, they turn to the captain and smile whilst saying ¡°why don¡¯t you take a look around¡±. The captain does exactly what Avvoltoio saying and begins walking around the room, noticing a wardrobe with an assortment of aristocrat-looking clothing, hats and jewellery, a toy box with no toys inside, a small armchair and a small bed which is opposite the armchair and looks like something the captain could barely fit onto. As he¡¯s looking around, he notices something simmering a very faint purplish green colour behind the toy box. Intrigued about what it is, he goes to reach for it however he¡¯s interrupted by Merlo clearing their throat and asking, ¡°What are you doing in here?¡±. The captain immediately turns around to face Merlo who has a serious expression on his face, making the captain quickly say, ¡°oh your dad said that I could stay here as it¡¯s just a spare room y¡¯know¡±. Upon hearing this, Merlo¡¯s expression quickly changes to a caught off guard expression before they begin to tear up and go back to their serious expression before Merlo says under their breath ¡°oh so he¡¯s already not talking about her now¡±. Noticing that Merlo is starting to cry, the captain takes a step closer, asking ¡°hey are you okay what are you-¡±. Before the Captain could finish what he was saying, Merlo runs away, just as Pavona walks through the door, holding ARG-05. The captain notices Pavona and asks, ¡°hey do you know what Merlo was talking about?¡±. Pavona makes a face before they look towards the door, sighing before saying ¡°oh well like I said before he¡¯s just slightly over-emotional at the fact that he can¡¯t fly anyways here¡¯s-¡±.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. The captain cuts them off by loudly saying ¡°No¡±, leaving a slight pause as Pavona looks at him, slightly more nervous than before as they ask ¡°w-what do you m-¡±. The captain cuts them off again, saying ¡°tell me what really happened because from what Merlo was saying he doesn¡¯t seem to be too upset about that¡±. Pavona takes a deep sigh before saying ¡°alright fine, I¡¯ll tell you, but you have to promise to never let my dad know that I told you because he doesn¡¯t want you to know¡±. The captain looks at them before saying ¡°Pavona, I promise¡±. Pavona takes a quick nervous breath as they both sit down on the bed before telling the story ¡°okay so we used to have another sister, Passera and she was close with Merlo like best friends close however turns out she was trying to start a rebellion against the aristocracy and they executed her for it and since then Merlo hasn¡¯t really been the same since like he¡¯s kind of been colder which is quite the change from his bubbly personality, you should have seen him before this happened, he used to be so happy¡­ I wonder if Squinty was close to Passera- but anyways that is the real reason and in fact, this actually used to be her room, oh also here¡¯s your robot buddy, I thought that I should bring him back here¡±. Pavona passes ARG-05 back to the captain, who almost immediately puts his life support system back on, making ARG-05 switch back his happy expression saying, ¡°Captain long time no see, had a fun time at the dinner?¡±. The captain stood up and said, ¡°yeah I did until Squinty crashed it but anyways I should go check on Merlo¡± to which Pavona nods before saying ¡°yeah I think that might be a good idea, good luck, he doesn¡¯t seem to like you that much¡±. As ARG-05 and the captain walked out of the room, the captain mumbles ¡°yeah I noticed¡±. As they¡¯re walking through the hallway, ARG-05 switches to his confused expression and asks, ¡°So who''s Squinty?¡±. The captain sighs and in a monotone voice says, ¡°just an aristocrat who¡¯s starting a rebellion against the aristocracy¡±. ARG-05 switches back to his neutral expression and says, ¡°oh okay, I¡¯ve never seen him mentioned in the Osserva¡¯s database, so I¡¯ll add him to it¡±. As they¡¯re walking through the hall, they pause just before the other hallway, hearing Avvoltoio¡¯s voice getting more and more agitated with whoever they¡¯re speaking to on the phone. The captain can¡¯t really catch what the other person on the phone is saying but he can clearly hear Avvoltoio''s side. As he sneaks by, he begins to listen to what Avvoltoio is saying ¡°Oca, why do you have to be so difficult? ¡­ No, Merlo and Pavona are fine, Merlo is just a bit upset about Passera¡­ WELL WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO? ¡­ no, I¡¯m not blaming you, I¡¯m just saying that I didn¡¯t have a choice I-¡­ fine you go do that, that way you¡¯ll see that our children are fine¡±. The captain finally reaches Merlo¡¯s room and goes to knock on the door but upon knocking, the door opens wide, revealing a light blue bedroom that looks very similar to Passera¡¯s. The captain takes one step inside and says ¡°Merlo are you in here, I¡¯m coming in anyways, I want to talk¡± but he gets no response. He takes a quick look around the room before giving up trying to find him and walking back to his room, sneaking past Avvoltoio, who¡¯s still on the phone before he passes by Pavona who stops and smiles, asking the captain ¡°so how¡¯s Merlo?¡±. The captain shrugs and says, ¡°couldn¡¯t find him¡± which makes Pavona slightly tilt their head out of confusion and says, ¡°oh that¡¯s weird, usually he¡¯s in there all day, oh well goodnight¡±. ¡°goodnight¡± says the captain as he opens the door to his room and walks inside before quietly shutting the door. Upon shutting the door, he takes his life support system off and places it on the armchair. Switching to his confused expression, ARG-05 asks ¡°Captain what are you doing?¡±. The captain immediately replies as he goes to the light switch to switch it off, saying ¡°I¡¯m going to sleep, and I just took it off so you can stay up if you want and you don¡¯t have to see the mattress¡±. ARG-05 switches back to his neutral expression and says ¡°oh makes sense¡± as the captain turns the light off and goes to lie down, he really did deserve a break he thought to himself as he slowly started to drift off into sleep. Whilst he¡¯s sleeping, he has a dream of someone, the same person he couldn¡¯t recognise before, who hugs him and begins to walk away without a word. The captain tries to run over to her, but he trips and sees the same person, hanging onto the edge of what the captain thinks is the airlock of a ship. He tries to grab her and pull her up, but she falls into the purplish blue abyss before he can. He immediately shuffles back from the shock before he hears someone yelling ¡°why?¡± behind him, making the captain immediately turn around and see who¡¯s speaking. Upon turning around, he sees the same woman from before, now in a black Victorian-esque dress and wearing a white mask which is covering her entire face. The woman yells at the captain ¡°you had the chance to grab me, why didn¡¯t you take it?¡±, causing him to shuffle back saying ¡°I didn¡¯t know what to do¡±. The woman walks closer to him, yelling back ¡°you were just planning to get rid of me, weren¡¯t you?¡± ¡°No, I-I wasn¡¯t, I swear¡± the captain yelled back to which the woman screamed back as she pushed the captain out of the airlock ¡°well then why didn¡¯t you save me, William?¡±. As he¡¯s falling, he keeps thinking to himself ¡°why didn¡¯t I save that person?¡±, before he falls to the bottom of the abyss, immediately springing him back into consciousness. However, when he awakens, it¡¯s almost pitch black and from the looks of it, there¡¯s a bag on top of his head. The Captain goes to take the bag off of his head with his arms however there¡¯s a weight on them, ¡°am I seriously getting kidnapped?¡±, the Captain thought to himself, unamused before he hears an unfamiliar voice saying ¡°oh you¡¯re awake, sorry but can¡¯t have that, S¡¯s orders¡± before the unfamiliar voice hits him in the head with something blunt, causing him to lose consciousness once again. Unlikely Alliance The captain wakes up after being knocked out but this time, he was in an even worse situation than before as now it wasn''t just his arms that were pinned down, this time, his legs and arms were both tied to a chair along with the bag still being on his head and worst of all ARG-05 wasn''t even there. There are the muffled sounds of birds which sound to be almost like they''re talking before they remove the bag revealing several Osserva goons, glaring at him and standing in the centre of all of them is an Osserva whose glasses had a shimmer that the captain immediately recognises. It was Squinty. Squinty approaches him and says in a mocking tone "well look who''s finally awake, had a nice sleep, William?". The captain is caught off guard at the fact that Squinty called him ''William'', he didn''t remember anyone saying his name after Squinty interrupted the dinner. Whilst thinking of how Squinty knows the captain¡¯s name, Squinty continues to taunt him "you think that you could save Avvoltoio by hitting me in the head with a plate". Some of their goons begin to chuckle but immediately stop when Squinty raises their wings and yells "SILENCE" before they continue "albeit it was smart in the short term, I''ll give you that, unfortunately it''s going to cost ya, boys you know what to do". As they''re slowly pushing the captain towards a makeshift guillotine, Squinty begins walking away and the captain finally realises something, those glasses they were in Passera''s room. "SQUINTY" yelled out the captain as Squinty continued to walk out, "SQUINTY WAIT I''VE SEEN THOSES GLASSES BEFORE". Almost immediately, Squinty spins around to face him and motions to their goons to pause as the captain continues "th-they were in Passera''s room, weren''t they?". Squinty looks at him and then their goons before they motion to their goons to put him down and leave, which they do before they close the door behind them. Squinty walks closer to him and asks, "how do you know about Passera?" to which the captain immediately responds "Pavona told me about Passera and it kind of puts two and two together along with bring it down to only two suspects of who it could be." Squinty scoffs and says, "well who are your ''two suspects''?" "Well, you''re either Merlo or Passera¡±. "And which one of your suspects do you think I am exactly?" said Squinty as they walk to the captain¡¯s left and pour a glass of something which looks similar to grape juice before slowly drinking it as the captain deadpan stares at them. There''s a brief pause between the two before the Captain breaks the pause by saying "well considering how you, first, called me by my actual name despite no one saying it at the party after you broke in and the fact that Avvoltoio said that you go into Passera''s room often and the glasses you are wearing were in there then I''d have to say you''re Merlo". Squinty immediately stops drinking their drink and places the glass down as they give the captain a caught off guard look. The captain had them and Squinty knew it. "I- excuse me for a second" said Squinty as they left the room and shut the door. The entire room was quiet for a few seconds before it''s broken by the loud cursing of Squinty for a few minutes. Squinty slightly creaks open the door so they could fit their head through before they quickly ask the captain "you won''t tell my d-Avvoltoio right?". The captain shakes his helmet as he says, "no I wasn''t planning on telling anyone anyways". Squinty smiles and walks behind the captain and cuts through the rope with one swoop of their claws. Squinty motions to the captain and says, "follow me, I''ll show you a secret entrance to the house". The captain stands up and begins walking next to Squinty, they open a door which leads to a hallway, going left and right, they both begin walking to the right leading to a large circular room with several layers as it opens, everyone in the room stares at the Captain before Squinty says "he''s with me", causing all of them to continue what they were doing. As they''re walking up a flight of stairs, the captain notices something, a portrait of an Osserva in a red outfit. He stops and stares at it for long enough that Squinty notice and walk over to him as they ask, "what are you looking at Willi-", they pause noticing what the captain is looking at before continuing "oh... that''s Passera portrait, to be honest it was pretty hard to get that one out before they scratched out her face on the rest of them". The captain looks at Squinty as Squinty asks "shall we continue going to the secret entrance?" As they get to the top of the staircase, Squinty puts in a pin, making the door at the top swing open revealing another hallway with a ladder at the end. As they''re walking through the hallway, Merlo takes off their glasses and climbs up the level opening the hatch slightly to peek around before fully opening and climbing out as they say, "looks like the coast is clear, you can come up now William". The captain quickly climbs up the ladder, noticing that on the outside, it looks like a regular hedge before Merlo shuts the hatch and they begin walking through the garden. "So, what did you think of my secret entrance, pretty cool right?" said Merlo enthusiastically. "Yeah, I guess it is." "Yeah, I know right, it''s so cool, almost like when the glass broke, and I flew down onto the dining table?" "I mean it was pretty cool until you nearly murdered your dad." Merlo scoffs. "You know I didn''t want to attack him, despite how I made it out to be, I was kind of hoping that someone would, I just wasn''t expecting you to throw your plate full force at me," Merlo chuckles before continuing "oh here we are, my window should be unlocked, and the vines should be stable enough". Merlo points to a window which has red climbing roses on it before both Merlo and the Captain both climb up the vines and go into Merlo¡¯s room. Once they walk out into the hallway, they can hear the muffled yelling of people downstairs before they ultimately decide to grab ARG-05 before heading downstairs. They open the door, revealing ARG-05 with a fearful expression on his face before it switches to a happy expression as he shouts, "oh Captain, thank goodness you''re okay I was a bit worried when you got attacked but I couldn''t reach you to do anything". The captain walks up to ARG-05 and re-equips his life support system whilst saying "remind me to keep you in arm''s length next time I go to sleep". ARG-05 switches back to his neutral expression and immediately replies "okay Captain".Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. "Shall we go downstairs and see what the commotion is downstairs?" Merlo asked. "Yeah, probably should for all we know Avvoltoio could be fighting someone" said the captain with a slightly worried tone. They all walked through the empty hallways towards the source of yelling before it led them to the bannister near the front entrance. The clearer the voices became; the more anxious Merlo''s expression became. Once they''re downstairs, they walk towards the underneath of the bannister where 3 doors lie, Merlo opens the door, revealing a second kitchen & dining room mix and Avvoltoio getting yelled at by two Osservas, one wearing a dark red outfit and the other in a dark purple outfit, as Pavona is sitting on one of the chairs in silence. The moment they open the door, the Osserva in dark purple gives the captain a death glare before they notice Merlo and rushes over to them. The Osserva in purple hugs Merlo with slightly too much force as they yell out "Merlo, how my sweet little nephew?". "I''m fine, Aunty Tacchina" said Merlo, clearly trying to escape from the hug. Tacchina lets them go and yells "good well, I''ll have you know that you are 3 minutes late which is simply unacceptable although I guess I can''t blame you as you have some of your father''s genes¡±. Avvoltoio goes to say something but is immediately shushed by both Tacchina and the Osserva in red. The Osserva in red comes up to Merlo and says in a soft voice "well Merlo at least I got some good news which is that your father is so incompetent, you and Pavona are going to live with us instead". "Oca you can''t do that" yelled Avvoltoio as they stood up from their chairs with an angry look. Oca side eyes them as they say, "or what, what are you going to do Avvoltoio, throw me out onto the streets again?" "You only have yourself to blame for that after all-" said Avvoltoio, their gaze getting more intense as they approach, stopping at the kitchen''s island before yelling as they point to Oca "YOU WERE THE ONE WHICH CHEATED". "Well, it''s not my fault that you''re bad at everything you do," Oca sneered. Avvoltoio glared at Oca before walking over to Pavona "hey are you-" Oca cuts Avvoltoio off, yelling out "stop trying to coerce my sweet little child into taking your side¡±. Avvoltoio gives Oca an unimpressed look as they say, "I''m not, I''m simply asking if my daughter is okay, clearly nobody properly taught you how words work." "Uh mum?" Merlo said, causing Oca to immediately turn to Merlo. "Yes deary?" said Oca back in the sweetest voice they could muster. "Um what do you mean by I''m going to be living at yours now, I thought that-" "Oh well you could ask me instead but we found a new place far far away from Avvoltoio so you can no longer be in fear of him" said Tacchina as they cut off Merlo in a melodramatic tone. "What? Now this is the biggest load of bulls-" said Avvoltoio in an angry tone before their cut off by Oca and Tacchina telling them to "shut up¡±. "But I''m not af-" said Merlo in a very confused tone. "No no" Tacchina said as they put one of their claws on Merlo''s beak before continuing "you don''t have to lie to your own mother or your own aunt." "I''m not ly-" "Oh, can you believe this Oca, lying to his own Aunty and his own mother, clearly, he must have gotten it from his dad¡±. "It''s disgraceful" says Oca as they scoff. "Oh, so now you¡¯re ganging up on your child, he''s not even an adult yet, how ladylike" Avvoltoio sneered as they comforted Pavona. "Oh, shut it, Avvoltoio" Oca snapped. "You know what Oca, this is getting no-where, I''ll be waiting outside, c''mon you" said Tacchina as they grab Merlo''s wing. "Ow that hurts" Merlo winced as Tacchina dragged them. "Out of the way you" said Tacchina as they pushed the captain out of the way, almost causing the back of his helmet to collide with the wall, as the captain helplessly watched Merlo get dragged outside. He turned to see Oca push Avvoltoio out of the way as they approached Pavona and say, "c''mon it''s time to go". Pavona hesitates for a second before quietly saying "no... I don''t want to go". Oca pauses for a second to glare at Pavona before yelling "now listen here missy, you are leaving with us where you like it or not, now c''mon". Pavona slowly begins following Oca towards the door and as they get closer and closer towards the front door, the more Pavona looks to the Captain or Avvoltoio for help, but they couldn''t do anything, and they knew it. Pavona slowly saunters to the front giving one last look for help before they walk through before Oca follows them, giving one last glare at Avvoltoio before Tacchina slams the front door shut with a resounding thud. The captain looks over to Avvoltoio who has a speechless look on their face. "What was that about?" asked the captain however Avvoltoio said nothing as they walked back into the kitchen, opening a door to a basement which was filled with a wide variety of drinks before Avvoltoio walks in and then walks back out to their kitchen island whilst holding onto a bottle. Avvoltoio opens one of the cabinets and takes a glass as they walk over to one of the chairs as they open the bottle. They sit down and go to pour the dark red liquid inside the bottle before deciding to just drink from the bottle in silence. The captain sits next to them as Avvoltoio ignores him and drinks from their bottle. Undercover Cap "Maybe we can negotiate with them, like she gets them for one week and you get them for the-," said the captain, trying to fill the silence. "William no, there''s no negotiating with her, she hasn''t negotiated with me in the past so nothing is going to change now" yelled Avvoltoio as they looked at the captain. "It''s weird though, I''ve never seen Tacchina act like that before" muttered Avvoltoio as they looked away from the captain. The captain moves his chair closer to Avvoltoio as he says, "Look maybe if she won''t listen to you Avvoltoio, she might listen to me, do you know where they would be heading?" Avvoltoio snickers as they say, "Well you can sure as hell try but it''s your funeral, if you want to know where they''re heading my guess would be Comedienne, which if you go through the east gate, should be just on the opposite side of this street, you will get there fairly quickly so I would start looking there." "Avvoltoio... thank you," said the Captain as Avvoltoio mutters "Don''t mention it" before the captain races out of the door. The captain rushes down the empty street, filled with adrenaline as he sees Merlo and Pavona but he''s too late as by the time he makes it to the east gate, they''re already flying, except for Merlo who''s more being carried by Oca than flying. The captain takes a minute to catch his breath as he looks out to what looks like an endless dessert before asking ARG-05 "ARGOS w-what do we do, what should I do?" ARG-05 glitches for a few seconds before replying "Hold on Captain let me scan my records, I may have an image of the two cities, and I may be able to create a path". The captain sits down as ARG-05 looks through his records, finding what he was looking for fairly quickly and continues "Okay so by the looks of it if you run in a straight line at an estimated 10.6 kilometres per hour or 6.5865 miles per hour then you should be able to get there at the same time they arrive¡±. The captain stands up and says "Okay" before going into a full sprint. He makes it to Comedienne which looked like a mix of an industrial revolution city and a mediaeval village. Once he''s closer to the gate he spots some guardsmen who look like sheep who are standing on two legs but are more colourful along with also spotting Merlo and the rest of their family past the gate. He''s about to run straight past the guardsmen but he''s stopped by them blocking the path with their spears as they yell "Halt only Osservas and Loculators are allowed in Comedienne". "I- what?" said the captain, completely taken aback. "You heard us human, only Atrium Loculatores and Occhi dell''osservatores are allowed in, so scram," said one of the guardsmen, pointing his spear at the captain¡¯s helmet. "Alright alright I get it, I''m leaving," said the captain before walking around the wall surrounding the town, out of their view before whispering to ARG-05 "We have to get over that wall". Before ARG-05 can respond, the captain tries multiple ways to climb up the wall, but he just can''t reach it. He stops, finally running out of ideas to climb over the wall as it was just too smooth and tall to properly grab onto anything. As ARG-05 switches to his side-eye expression, the captain gets an idea to pretend to be a Loculator and sneak in, but he couldn''t think of a way to get the materials before he gets another idea. Almost immediately, the captain begins taking off his life support system as ARG-05, who''s switched to his confused expression, asking "Captain, what are you doing?" The captain lifts ARG-05 so he can barely see over the wall before replying with "I have an idea which is to sneak in by looking like one of them, I''d say that we''ll need paint and a coat which looks like their wool, can you see that, ARGOS?" ARG-05 looks over the wall for a moment before switching to his idle expression whilst saying "Yes, I see them Captain", the captain immediately replies, "Good now I can''t get over that wall so I''m going to have to throw you, okay, I''ll give you a countdown though alright?" "Alright Captain" "Okay here we go 1... 2... 3!" said the captain as he hurled ARG-05 over the wall, almost accidentally throwing ARG-05 at the wall in the process. Once, ARG-05 lands on the ground, he immediately gets up with his claws and scuttles across the marketplace, grabbing a coat off a vendor and running to a store nearby, he walks into the store and moves in zig zag pattern whilst avoiding being seen, he grabs the paints he needs and a paintbrush before rushing out and running back over to the wall the Captain is standing by. Once he gets there, he holds the paints, the paintbrush and the coat with one of his hands and stretches it over the wall, just barely reaching over and dropping them, narrowly avoiding the Captain''s skull before leaving his hand there so the Captain can help him climb the wall by being a weight of sorts which works as the Captain catches them when ARG-05 begins to fall. The captain places ARG-05 on an angle so he can see the captain before sitting down near ARG-05 before passing him the paintbrush and paint as he asks ARG-05 "Can you paint my helmet, so it looks similar to their faces?" ARG-05 switches to his smiling expression as he says "Of course Captain" before picking up the paintbrush and beginning to paint. It only takes a few minutes before ARG-05 finishes painting and despite the captain having even worse vision before at least it looked like the guardsmen would buy the ruse. Before heading over, he reequips his life support system and puts the coat over his astronaut suit before realising that he''s slightly too tall for the coat and he''ll have to knee walk the entire time so that''s what he does. As he walks back to the gate, the guardsmen pay no attention to him and let him inside. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. As he''s walking through the marketplace, he notices a Loculator in one of the alleyways, staring at him causing the captain to stop in his tracks and stare back. For some reason which he couldn''t explain he thought that this Loculator, in particular, looked awfully similar to someone he used to know, but he couldn''t think of who exactly. Nevertheless, the Captain continued walking in search of where Merlo and their family went. Whilst he''s looking around, he hears the sound of a bird squawking and rushes over to it, leading him to a large medieval-esque castle with a large moat surrounding it and the gate closed. "Well... shit," said the captain, in a slightly annoyed tone. "CAPTAIN" yelled ARG-05 as he switched to his angry expression. "What?" said the captain, slightly confused. "LANGUAGE" The Captain sighs deeply before saying "Yeah you''re right, I''m sorry but there''s no way we would be able to get in with just us but I just- I just don''t know who would help us break in, Avvoltoio would be no use and-" The Captain pauses for a moment as he hears people talking which is getting louder and louder before he quickly hides behind a couple of boxes and ARG-05 switches back to his idle expression as the Captain overhears their conversation. "Okay so here''s your job for today, you are to go to Cabretta and escort the queen of Viators here, understand?" said one of the Loculators. "But won''t the Viators... attack me?" said the other Loculator. "No, they''ll be expecting you, now go¡±. The other Loculator nods and starts walking towards the gate. The captain whispers to ARG-05 "Of course, why didn''t I think of that, Bengino will probably help us, and Serafina would probably help us too, let''s follow this guy" The Captain begins walking through the streets, ensuring that the Loculator doesn''t spot him before they''re far away from the town which is when the captain sprints over and he yells "Wait!". He stops running when the Loculator slowly turns around, so they don''t realise that the captain is a human. "C-can I help you?" the Loculator asked, confused. The captain immediately replied with the best lie he could think of at the time, hoping that the Loculator wouldn''t see through it as he said, "Look my boss told me to tell you that I''m going in your place, and they got the wrong guy". The Loculator looked at him for a second before saying in a cheerful tone "Well why didn''t you say so as you were running here, thank goodness, I didn''t want to do that, thank you for letting me know, cya!" The Loculator high-fives the captain before walking away, the captain looked over to where the Loculator was, seeing Cabretta, "at least they won''t attack me on sight" the captain joked as he began walking over to the main gate. As they get closer to the gate, ARG-05 who realises that they will probably recognise both of their voices makes the captain stop as he says, "Hey Captain, they''ll probably recognise both of our voices, how about I do all of the talking and change the tone of my voice, so they won''t suspect anything". The captain nods in agreement as he says, "Good idea ARGOS". Once they approach the main gate, they''re immediately let inside and escorted to the main building; however, instead of going inside, the captain stops and quietly mutters to ARG-05 "We should probably get away from them now, come up with an excuse". ARG-05 nods and says to the Viator escorting him "H¨¦ escorteur, j''ai besoin d''utiliser la salle de bain, puis-je rapidement passer ¨¤ celle publique? (Hey escorteur, I need to use the bathroom, can I quickly go over to that public one?)". The Viator sighs as he says "vraiment? tout de suite? (Really? right now?)" to which ARG-05 motions to the captain to nod which does, causing the Viator to reply with "Bon alors prends ton temps (Okay then, take your time)" The captain walks towards the bathroom and darts out of view of the Viator before beginning to look around the city for Bengino. They first check the marketplaces, but they cannot find anyone with a metallic arm or one missing arm, but they don''t give up hope as they search restaurants, parks, public baths, theatres and more. Eventually, they''ve almost looked everywhere with a few people who looked like him accidentally being mistaken for Bengino along the way. Beginning to lose hope, he begins to walk around the garden surrounding the main circular building in the centre of Cabretta whilst avoiding the Viator who was escorting him. They sit on a small bench overlooking the garden before he hears the voice of someone who sounds like Bengino, causing him to immediately stand up and look around the circular edge, seeing Bengino talking to someone from one of the windows. The captain gets closer and can now clearly hear their conversation as Bengino says "Oh Serafina, mon amour, je pourrais te regarder dans les yeux pour toujours, je t''aime (oh Serafina, my love, I could stare into your eyes forever, I love you)" Serafina chuckles and replies "Je pourrais te dire la m¨ºme chose Bengino, je t''aimerai pour toujours (I could say the same thing to you Bengino, I''ll love you forever)". Without thinking, the captain rushes over to them and yells out "Hey Bengino" which causes both Bengino and Serafina to turn to look at him. Bengino runs up to the captain and hugs him almost crushing him as he loudly exclaims "eh bien si ce ne sont pas mes deux amis pr¨¦f¨¦r¨¦s, Capitaine et ARGOS, o¨´ ¨¦tiez-vous tous les deux? (Well, if it isn''t my two favourite friends, Captain, and ARGOS, where have you two been?)" "Ce n''est pas ce ¨¤ quoi ?a ressemble, d¡¯accord? (It-it''s not what it looks like okay?)" Serafina loudly whispered as she looked out the window motioning to Bengino to let go of the captain which he did. "c''est bon, nous ne sommes pas des repr¨¦sentants du gouvernement apr¨¨s tout, donc nous n''allons pas vous arr¨ºter mais... nous avons besoin d''une faveur (it''s fine we''re not government officials after all so we aren¡¯t going to stop you but... we need a favour)" said ARG-05 in his normal tone and the captain takes off his coat. Mission Impossible "Oh, bien s?r, nous serions heureux d''aider un ami, n''est-ce pas Serafina? (Oh of course we''d be happy to help out a friend, right Serafina?)"said Bengino as he enthusiastically looks at Serafina for approval to which Serafina sighs as she says "oui je t''aiderai... mais tu dois m''aider avec une faveur qui m''appartient (yes I''ll help... but you have to help me with a favour of my own)" to which ARG-05 immediately translates to the Captain "they said they''ll help us if you help Serafina with a favour of her own". The captain thinks of it for a second before nodding, making Serafina motion to the captain to climb up into the window which he does after a few failed attempts. Once they''ve gone through the window which leads to a large circular hallway, Serafina begins walking to the right of them as she says "suis-moi (follow me)" which they do. Serafina stops at a door before opening whilst saying "c''est la chambre de ma s?ur, la reine des Viators, donc fondamentalement, nous sommes au courant de Squinty et de sa r¨¦bellion ¨¤ Crowehurst et ma s?ur a un peu peur de lui, donc ce que je veux que vous fassiez, c''est l''intimider pour qu''elle accorde un pardon ¨¤ Bengino car seul le la reine peut faire ?a, tu peux le faire comme tu veux tant que tu ne tues personne mais je serai ¨¤ la fen¨ºtre, Bengino est l¨¤ quand tu l''as fait (this is my sister''s room, the queen of the Viators so basically we''re aware of Squinty and his rebellion in Crowehurst and my sister is kind of scared of him so what I want you to do is intimidate her into giving Bengino a pardon as only the queen can do that, you can do this however you want as long as you don''t kill anyone but I''ll be over at the window, Bengino is at when you''ve done it)". Before ARG-05 can reply, Serafina has already left. "So, what did Serafina say?" asked the Captain before ARG-05 immediately replies back "she wants us to pretend to be Squinty and intimidate her sister into making her pardon Bengino by any means necessary besides killing and she''ll be waiting for us where Bengino is". "Any means necessary huh? ARG-05 do you still know how to make TNT?" said the Captain grinning as he came up with an idea. ARG-05 switches to his confused expression as he replies, "yes why?". "I have an idea, how about we explode the wall, getting everyone''s attention and leave a forged letter threatening the queen to pardon Bengino or else because if she''s scared of him surely, she''ll say yes" said the captain as he inspected the wall. ARG-05 smiles as he says, "good idea as always Captain you write the note while I make the TNT". ARG-05 grabs a flare gun in the emergency storage within the captain¡¯s life support system and begins to disassemble it before grabbing out a spray can and using it to make something which looks like a sticky bomb with a timer before he attaches it to the wall. Meanwhile, the Captain writes a letter addressing the queen which reads: ''dear queen of viators, please pardon your criminals otherwise it will be more than a wall I''ll take out - Squinty''. The captain places the letter on her bedside table before lifting it into the centre of the room before motioning to ARG-05 to start the timer on the TNT which he does, giving them 60 seconds to get out of there. The captain quickly rushes out of the room, making sure he doesn''t forget his coat before bolting over to Serafina who says "l''AS-tu fait- (did you do it-)". Before Serafina can finish her sentence, she is cut off by a loud boom coming from her sister''s room and the quick marching of guards and her sister. There''s a brief pause which is quickly broken by a blood curdling scream coming from the queen of viators as she yells "Fais juste ce que dit la lettre, je me fiche de ce qui fait que ?a arrive, nous ne pouvons pas laisser Squinty ruiner notre pays (Just do whatever the letter says, I don''t care what just make it happen, we can''t have Squinty ruining our country)". Serafina smiles as she says "bon travail (good job)" before both her and the captain climb out of the window and meet with Bengino. Once they meet up with Bengino, Serafina asks ARG-05 "Alors qu''est-ce que la faveur exactement? (So, what the favour exactly?)". ARG-05 glitches for a second as the Captain puts the coat back on before replying "ok si longue histoire mais le capitaine a rencontr¨¦ Merlo et Pavona qui sont les enfants d''Avvoltoio et fondamentalement l''ex-femme d''Avvoltoio a emmen¨¦ les enfants et l¨¤ maintenant dans un chateau et le capitaine veut vraiment les sauver pour une raison quelconque, nous avons donc besoin d''aide pour p¨¦n¨¦trer dans ledit chateau (okay so long story but the Captain met Merlo and Pavona who are Avvoltoio''s children and basically Avvoltoio''s ex-wife took the kids and there now in a castle and the Captain really wants to rescue them for some reason so we need help to break into said castle)". Serafina looks at Bengino, smiling, before saying "oh ?a devrait ¨ºtre un morceau de gateau (oh that should be a piece of cake)". Fast forward to when they''re in front of the castle, Serafina and Bengino look at the castle in awe before Serafina retracts her statement as she says "Ok clairement ?a ne va pas ¨ºtre un morceau de gateau (Okay clearly it''s not going to be a piece of cake)". Serafina looks over to the captain and asks "Salut ARGOS? pouvez-vous traduire cela au capitaine, mais a-t-il des id¨¦es sur la fa?on d''entrer dans cet endroit? (Hey ARGOS? can you translate this to the captain, but does he have any ideas on how to get into this place?)". ARG-05 almost immediately begins translating as he says, "Hey Captain, Serafina wants to know if you have a plan yet?". The Captain nods before saying "yes and by the looks of it, it''ll be the only plan which could work so tell Serafina and Bengino that what we''re going to do is first get to the gate by getting Serafina or Bengino to swim us across as it looks too far for me to swim but I''ll explain the rest of the plan once we get to the gate okay, you still got some leftover TNT because we''re going to need it". "Okay Captain-'''' said ARG-05 waiting a few seconds to translate before announcing "H¨¦ Bengino, Serafina, le capitaine a dit qu''il avait une id¨¦e, mais nous devons d''abord traverser le lac et vous devrez transporter le capitaine (Hey Bengino, Serafina, the Captain said that he''s got an idea but first we gotta get across the lake and one you will need to carry the captain over)". Serafina nods and both her and Bengino go into the water before the captain hops on Serafina''s back and they swim across. Once they''re across, the captain begins speaking "okay so here''s our options to break down the gate, first we could try kicking it down, second would be to use your claws to break it or just using the TNT, can you relay that to Serafina and Bengino and let me know what option they want to go with?"If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. "Of course Captain" said ARG-05, leaving a pause before continuing D''accord, voici les options que le capitaine dit que nous devons casser la porte, nous pourrions a, essayer de l''abattre, b, utiliser mes bras pour percer ou c, simplement l''exploser avec de la dynamite, il a dit que vous pouviez choisir (Okay so here''s the options the Captain says we have to break the gate, we could a, try kicking it down, b, use my arms to break through or c, just explode it with dynamite, he said you two could pick)". "Je pense qu''il faudrait peut-¨ºtre y aller, Serafina, qu''en penses-tu? (I think we might have to go with kicking it down, Serafina what do you think?)" said Bengino as he looks over to Serafina. Serafina face-palms before replying "Non, l''abattre n''est pas une bonne id¨¦e, je dis que nous allons simplement l''exploser pour ne pas avoir ¨¤ perdre notre temps ¨¤ l''abattre, quelle est la prochaine ¨¦tape du plan apr¨¨s avoir franchi la porte? (No kicking it down is not a good idea I say we go with just exploding it, so we don''t need to waste our time kicking it down, what''s next in the plan after we get through the gate?)" "Okay Captain, so they''ve decided to go with exploding the gate. Also Serafina wants to know what''s going to happen after we get through the gate?" said ARG-05 as he passes the leftover dynamite to the captain. "Alright good, tell them to step back so they''re not in the blast radius as for the rest of the plan, I''d say we first try to convince Oca and Tacchina to let Merlo and Pavona pick where they want to live and if they get aggressive grab Merlo and Pavona before running away" said the captain, attaching the dynamite to the wall. "H¨¦ les gars, vous voudrez peut-¨ºtre reculer un peu pour que vous soyez hors du rayon de l''explosion ¨¦galement Serafina pour le plan, le capitaine a dit d''essayer de communiquer avec eux d''abord et si cela ne fonctionne pas, attaquez ou fuyez (Hey guys you might want to step back a bit so you''re out of the blast radius also Serafina for the plan, the captain said to try and communicate with them first and if that doesn''t work either attack or flee)" said ARG-05 as they both walk back and Serafina nods whiles ignites it and turns over to them. Once the dynamite explodes the gate, they all walk through the gate and begin searching for Merlo and Pavona, only encountering a few people who were no match for the group. During their search, they hear almost inaudible talking from what the captain could assume to be a dining room judging on how close it is to the kitchen. The captain counted to 3 with his fingers so Serafina and Bengino could see what he meant before kicking down the door revealing Merlo, Pavona, Oca and Tacchina. However, this time something was very wrong, which the captain could very quickly tell from the fact that Oca, Pavona and Merlo were all tied to their chairs with a metallic ribbon and the fact that Merlo was mouthing the word ''run'' to him. But the Captain didn''t back down, even when Tacchina, sitting in their chair and swirling a drink said in a monotone voice "It took you and ARG-05 long enough and oh that''s cute", they point to Bengino and Serafina who look ready to maul them before continuing "you brought friends, that''s no problem it won''t help you in the long run anyways". Tacchina snaps their fingers and before anyone in the group could react, the same metallic ribbons which were keeping Merlo, Pavona and Oca tied up, grabbed them, and captured them. Tacchina snaps their fingers again, causing an Loculator which the captain remembered to be that Loculator as the one who stared at him in the alleyway, walk out and places Serafina in one of two empty chairs before walking over to the captain, ripping his coat off and wiping the paint off of his helmet before placing him on the other empty chair. The Loculator then walks over to Bengino and goes to put him in one of the empty chairs before realising that all of the chairs are full and quickly deciding to just leave him on the floor before walking over to Tacchina and standing on their left. Tacchina stands up and goes onto the table before walking over to the captain¡¯s chair and asking, "it''s been a while since we last met, did you miss me, William?" The captain is confused as he swears that he''s never seen Tacchina on another flight as he questions them "no in fact I don''t think I''ve ever met you besides a few days ago birdbrain so I-". Tacchina cuts him off by chuckling before saying "oh well I guess I shouldn''t be surprised that you don''t recognise me, I mean after you don''t even recognise her, do you? I wouldn''t be surprised it has been exactly 11 months and 14 days since you last saw me perhaps, I should change into something you would definitely recognise". Tacchina snaps their fingers at the Loculator who hasn''t moved at all, causing them to nod as they grab a raggedy brown coat, drooped over the now empty chair before standing up revealing that they''re not a Loculator as Tacchina''s eye go pitch black and they fall, completely emotionless. The person quickly cuts through the coat they were wearing, revealing a raggedy astronaut suit, similar to the captain but with the word ''Nebula'' written instead of ''Cozmos''. The captain¡¯s eyes widen in both shock and horror as he watches the person put the brown coat on and rub the paint off as a black and red glitchy mess which resembles one of ARG-05''s expressions fills most of the helmet to the point you can''t barely see the person inside. "MISS ME OLD FRIEND?" the face exclaimed, leaving the captain completely speechless. "... you''re ARG-04 aren''t you then does that mean that" the captain begins to tear up "that''s Sophia?" said the captain, completely shocked, he finally recognised her, but he couldn''t understand how she was alive. "Oh, don''t act so melodramatic it was your fault I got stuck here in the first place but then again I guess you were always one for dramatics" Sophia sneered. Whilst Sophia is talking to the Captain, ARG-04 notices Bengino lying on the floor staring at him in shock making Sophia cut her conversation short as he asks, "Oh why didn''t you tell me that we didn''t have enough seats for the other guest". Sophia goes silent for a second before responding "I-I didn''t find him important enough to bother getting another chair". ARG-04 doesn''t respond as he walks over to Bengino, menacingly standing over him before saying "oh I forgive you, this pathetic creature doesn''t matter anyways". ARG-04 notices Serafina glares daggers at him, making him smile before deadpan staring at her as he grabs a spear from the wall nearby and uses it to impale Bengino straight through his lower back, leaving everyone in the room speechless besides Bengino who was groaning in pain. ARG-04 walks back over to the Captain as Serafina screams Bengino''s name whilst ugly-crying. The Ultimatum "BENGINO, ¨¤ QUELLE MESURE EST LE STAB? (BENGINO, HOW BAD IS THE STAB?)" yelled Serafina, clearly panicking. "c''est un coup de poignard propre donc pas si mal que ?a je ne peux pas bouger autant (it-it''s a clean stab through so not that bad I just can''t move as much)". ARG-04 laughs before he says, "Sure it might not be bad now from the looks of it but in reality, you''re already dead if that''s not treated in... say 20 minutes?". Sophia stands over the captain before saying "You know I never got to say this before you pushed me off the ship in a murder attempt-". "But I didn''t push you, I just couldn''t grab you in-" said the captain before he''s cut off by Sophia loudly yelling "shut up". Sophia pauses for a second before continuing "don''t try and feed lies to me, ARG-04 told me what you did and how you tried to deactivate him-". "I only deactivated him because he was literally trying to kill me, I don''t even know how he even got reactivated." "Well, that was because you purposefully didn''t grab me and left me to die on this godforsaken planet¡±. "I didn''t purposefully not grab you, Sophia, I only had like 10 seconds to react, and I just assumed that you would have died from a fall like that." "Yeah, well guess what I didn''t, you just can''t face the fact that everything bad that¡¯s ever happened to you has and always will be caused by you." "Oh yeah like what?" "literally everything like you do, I can''t specify it if you wake up and choose to ruin your life and whine about how it''s not your fault but you''re trying to change the subject so what I was trying to say before is that ARGO4 told me that you used to have a crush on me, how sad that you realised that you had absolutely no chance with me and resort to your little murder plot" "Sophia, you have to listen to me, I never wanted to kill you, ARG-04 is lying to you, he might not be wrong about me having a crush on you, but you have to listen to me please¡±. Sophia laughs before saying "Oh please, spare me your pathetic pleads, I saw you not save me and considering what ARG04 said it all makes sense now". "No, it damn well doesn''t, what motive would I even have?" "Hmm well let''s see you always liked me and realised that you wouldn''t have a chance with me so that''s your motive¡±. "That''s one of the worst motives I''ve ever heard, ARG-04 would have a better motive to kill you than me." Sophia scoffs before she says "ARGO4 back me up here, you said that he was trying to kill me and he''s lying to me but now I-I''m not sure, are you sure that it was W-" "Captain just stop speaking for once in your pathetic life anyways William, considering how we''re all trapped on this planet, I''m going to be nice to you for once and give you an ultimatum which is if you sacrifice yourself willingly, I''ll repair your crashed ship and fix that engine I broke, I''ll even be extra nice and repair your little dying friend over there and safety take ARG-05 back to earth or I''ll kill you anyways and let everyone here rot, it''s your call," said ARG-04 cutting off Sophia mid-sentence. "Captain. don''t. you. dare" yelled ARG-05 at the captain, making ARG-04 scoff as he says, "So you''re the captain now, that''s kind of funny that they let someone as pathetic as you lead, I never thought that you would have it in you but anyways don''t listen to the childish version of me, decide for yourself". "CHILDISH!?" yelled ARG-05 as he switched to his angry expression. "What would you rather I call you what you really are, a clown, no? then shut up" said ARG-04 in a mocking tone. "I mean I could say the same for you but at least I don''t turn my captains into mindless worker drones to do my bidding," said ARG-05 in the same mocking tone which makes ARG-04 scoff as he moves his eyes in a way that looks like he''s eye-rolling. "Well at least, I don''t act like I''m permanently stuck in children''s mode," said ARG-04 smugly. ARG-05 switches to his smug expression before replying "Oh so you don''t deny the mindless captain part?". ARG-04 is caught off guard for a few seconds before responding "No I do deny it, I''ll have you know that the captain has her own free will and is assisting me willingly, she can even control what she wants to do while in this suit isn''t that right Captain?" Sophia says nothing as ARG-04 lifts her arm up as he triumphantly yells "See?". ARG-05 laughs, still having a smug expression on his face, before responding in a monotone voice "ARG-04, don''t even try to lie to me, I read your file, the same as all of the ARG robots before me, I know that you can control the Captain''s suit that your currently hiding inside, I guess my Captain was right when he wrote in your report that you were ''a defective and dangerous threat to society who seemed to be devoid of most human emotions and a sadist, must fix in next model as it resulted in attempted murder, deactivated as of 4/19/2027'', in all honesty, by just looking at how you''re acting, the only thing my Captain got wrong is your deactivation date. ARG-03 seems to be more mentally sound than you and it''s written that he claimed to have heard dead people according to his report. Really shows how much of a ''great'' assistant you were". This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. ARG-04 doesn''t say anything for a moment before responding in a tone that makes him sound like he was insulted "I can''t believe you would dare to look through my file, that''s my personal information, really shows how great of a character you have, you don''t even deserve the slightest ounce of respect from me". ARG-05 scoffs before he sneers "Well why would I want respect from someone who uses their Captain as a flesh suit and is an emotionless sadist? Please, you should be begging for my respect after all I''m a better version than you''ll ever be". "Oh, shut it ARG-05" said ARG-04, finally giving up on arguing with ARG-05. Whilst ARG-04 & ARG-05 were arguing, the captain noticed from the corner of his eye, Bengino was still alive and was cutting through Serafina''s restraints with his teeth along with he was nearly through. The captain needed to stall for time so Bengino could fully cut through it. "So, what will it be, William? I''m a very busy robot who hasn''t got all day to deal with your nonsense" said ARG-04 as he glared at the captain. The captain pretends to think of his decision for a few seconds before he stares at ARG-04 whilst slowly saying "fuck you". ARG-04 laughs before saying "Oh well it doesn''t matter you¡¯re going to die anyways". Before the Captain could reply, ARG-04 begins to repeatedly punch the captain¡¯s helmet causing the glass to begin to crack as more and more as the green liquid keeping him alive spills out making one of his eyes burn as it''s exposed to oxygen but at least he was able to see clearer than ever. As the Captain begins to black out from the repeated head trauma and ARG-04 is about to completely shatter the glass, he notices that Serafina has broken through her restraints before she lunges at ARG-04, accidentally pushing the captain to the ground before everything went black. The captain wakes up a few minutes later to the sound of rain, muffling the sounds of yelling, snapping, and punching. The captain looked to his left to see Serafina and Sophia fighting but by the looks of it, Serafina was losing. Without thinking he yells out to ARG-05 "ARGOS release one of your claws, so I can cut us free with friction then you help Serafina with one of your claws while I help untie people with the other". ARG-05 says "Okay Captain" as he releases one of his claws and the captain starts trying to move up and down in his chair to create friction. The plan works and the captain quickly stands up before rushing over to Merlo, who was closest to Serafina and Sophia. Once they''re over there, Sophia is choking out Serafina making ARG-05 quickly decide to hit Sophia in the head with one of his claws, making her fall to the ground, as the captain quickly grabs one of ARG-05''s claws as he asks Merlo "Are you okay?" "yeah I''m fine, so are you going to tell me the deal with those two and why that ARG04 guy hates you so much," said Merlo as Sophia gets back up and ARG-04 takes back control of the suit grinning as he goes to punch the Captain, only being stopped by Serafina lunging at him, making both of them fall to ground as she repeatedly punches him as she ugly-cries. "It''s a long story, can you untie the others?" the captain asked, making Merlo nod in response, and quickly rushing over to Pavona. ARG-04 throws Serafina off him before snapping his fingers, tying her up again before he notices Bengino crawling over to her. He grins as he says to the captain "y''know I''ll give you credit, you were always good at getting people on your side, but... I''ve had enough of your silly games". ARG-04 slowly struts over Bengino, pulling out the spear lodged into him, causing Bengino to groan in pain which makes ARG-04 smile. Just as Merlo nearly unties Pavona, ARG-04 menacingly walks over to the captain, cutting off ARG-05 arms with his spear when ARG-05 goes to automatically attack him. "I was right, your ARG-05 is a pathetic clone of me, he can''t even defend you, it''s sad really, I thought ARG-05 would last longer but no matter," said ARG-05 before hitting the captain in the ribs, creating a distinct cracking sound, which makes the captain slump to the floor from the pain. Before he completely falls, ARG-04 picks him up and drags him over to the window as he laughs before saying "Aw did I break some of your ribs, old friend? Well, no matter at least you won''t be in pain for much longer". Before the Captain could respond, ARG-04 threw him out of the window and onto the grass outside. The captain tries to get up but fails due to being in too much pain from ARG-04 hitting him. However, despite the rain dripping from his helmet slightly impairing his vision, one thing he could clearly see is Sophia, approaching him with the same spear ARG-04 used to stab Bengino, blood still dripping from it, as ARG-04 stares into his soul with his face being the only really think lighting up the grass. The captain tries to crawl away from him but he''s too late as Sophia catches up to him, realising that this is probably it, he moves his body to face upwards so he can at least die without ARG-05 having to watch. Sophia stays quiet as ARG-04 slowly lifts the spear, as Sophia slightly trembles and ARG-04''s grin grows wider. "Goodbye William," said ARG-04 in a monotone voice as he was about to stab the captain. BANG! "w-what?" said Sophia as she dropped the spear, narrowly avoiding the captain¡¯s head, before holding onto her shoulder as she yelled out in pain before passing out on the grass, revealing Merlo holding a gun with white smoke coming from the nuzzle. "Captain it''s just a shot to the shoulder, it''s not that bad, get up" ARG-04 growled as Merlo rushed over to the captain. "h-how did you even get a gun?" said the captain in a shocked tone. "Stole it from my dad during the dinner, guess it''s a good thing I did" Merlo replied as they looked over at ARG-04 who''s struggling to wake Sophia up. The captain slowly gets up and takes a few steps forwards as he says "Oh yeah that makes sense-" before fainting. Before the Captain falls to the floor, the last thing he sees is Merlo running over to him, yelling "William are you okay?" Infinite Horizons The captain awakens to the loud beeping of medical equipment whilst Merlo and Pavona sit next to him on his right and ARG-05 looks at him with a fearful expression. The captain touches his helmet to find that it''s no longer cracked and by the looks of it, more of the green liquid was in it. The captain slowly sits up and ARG-05 notices him, making his fearful expression quickly change to surprised then happy as he says, "Oh thank god, don''t scare me like that again, Captain, I thought you died". The captain nods as he says, "I''ll try not to scare you again ARGOS". The captain looks around the room to find that it''s the med bay on the spaceship, but it looked significantly more functional than the last time he was in this room. He looks to his right to see both Bengino, with a bandage going across his chest, and Serafina. Bengino notices that the captain is awake and yells out " ne vous inqui¨¦tez pas pour moi Capitaine, votre copain robot a dit que le saignement ¨¦tait enti¨¨rement interne, c''est l¨¤ o¨´ il est cens¨¦ ¨ºtre, donc c''est une bonne chose (don''t worry about me Captain, your robot buddy said the bleeding was all internal which is where it''s supposed to be, so that''s a good thing)" ARG-05 begins translating it to the captain by showing what Bengino is saying in English on his screen. Serafina facepalms whilst snickering which makes Bengino confused as he asks " Pourquoi ris-tu, mon amour? (Why are you laughing, my love?)". Serafina stops laughing and smiles at him whilst holding his head with her hand as she says " Oh ne t''inqui¨¨te pas pour toi, mignon adorable mannequin (Oh don''t worry about you, cute loveable dummy)". Bengino chuckles and says " ok mon Amore (okay my Amore)" which makes Serafina''s smile brighten as she kisses him on the forehead. Meanwhile, Merlo and Pavona hug for a couple of seconds before Pavona lets go and says in a joking tone "So you''re Squinty huh? How come you didn''t invite me to join in on your rebellion, I''ll have you know that I would make an excellent second in command and I wouldn''t have even snitched on you to dad". Merlo lets out a loud cackle as they replied, "Yeah sure miss goody two shoes, as if!". Pavona lightly pushes Merlo, giggling, before yelling "I would have been a great second in command and you know it". The captain begins to zone out of their conversation as he looks around the med bay with only one thing on his mind. ''Where is Sophia?'' Confused, thinking that they left her to die, he asks "Where''s Sophia ...and ARG-04?". ARG-05 switches to an idle expression as he says in a monotone voice "Well we didn''t leave them to die like what I''m assuming you''re thinking, we just removed the bullet in her shoulder, cauterised it and left her to rest before ARG-04 tried to kill you while you were unconscious so I threw them into one of our high-tech prison cells, near the trash compartment at the bottom of the ship along with that I also took the time to ensure that ARG-04''s files on the main spaceship are properly quarantined this time so he can''t sabotage the ship nor access it the ship at all, he''s stuck in Sophia''s helmet for the time being". The captain frowns slightly as he looks to the ground with a guilty expression, ARG-05, ignoring the captain¡¯s slight sadness switches back to his happy expression as he asks, "are you ready to go back to Earth, Captain?" The captain is taken back, completely confused as he asks, "Wait wait wait what about these guys, I mean like Bengino just got pardoned, Merlo didn''t you want to stay to continue your rebellion and what about Pavona didn''t you want to stay with your dad?" "Eh bien, je suis presque s?r que ma s?ur me d¨¦teste avant m¨ºme qu''on fasse exploser une partie de sa chambre, alors qu''est-ce que c''est, non? Et en plus, Bengino est toujours en qu¨ºte d''aventure et qui d''autre le prot¨¦gerait lorsqu''il fonce t¨ºte baiss¨¦e dans les lignes ennemies? (Well, I''m pretty sure my sister hates me even before we blew up a part of her room so what the hell, right? And besides Bengino is always wanting adventure and who else would protect him when he runs headfirst into enemy lines?)" said Serafina as she hugs Bengino from behind and ARG-05 quickly translates to English for the Captain. "Well, my point still stands what about Pavona and Merlo?" said the captain as he looked over to the two of them. "Well, I already said goodbye to my parents, and I would much rather have fun with my little brother than stay there," said Pavona as they smiled at the captain. "And as for me, I also said goodbye to my Mum and Dad already and my dad told me to give you a letter so here," Merlo says as they pull out a letter and hand it over to the captain. The Captain takes the letter and Merlo continues "Also, I hope you don''t mind but one of my Loculator friends is going to be joining us on the flight and also a bunch of my goons are already on and they''re now responding to your command Willi- Captain, as for the rest of my goons they''ll continue with the rebellion plans, ensuring that my dad doesn''t get caught in the crossfire". The captain shrugs as he opens the fancy envelope and pulls out the letter which reads ''Hello William, I''m sorry that I won''t be able to say this in person but nevertheless I couldn''t thank you enough for what you did. Although I''d love my kids to stay with me ultimately, it''s not my decision to decide if they want to go and at least I know that they''re not in bad hands. Please ensure that neither of my children die and they''re able to write to me so we can remain in contact. Once again, I can''t thank you enough. Yours Truly, Avvoltoio Corvino.''. The captain smiles as he reads the letter before he looks over to ARG-05 and says "Okay, let''s go back to Earth then". ARG-05 smiles before switching over to one of the monitors in the main control room as he turns on the autopilot. The captain quickly gets up and walks over to the room as Merlo and Pavona follow him while Serafina stays with Bengino. Once they get over to the main control room, they watch the view as they leave the planet''s atmosphere before they''re out of the atmosphere and far away. The captain stretches and yawns as he says, "Well that was a crazy week or two, y''know, one thing that sucks about my head tangling in this stuff is that I can''t drink coffee anymore". "Yes, that is true, but at least you''re alive, maybe you should go take a nap, you look tired" said ARG-05 looking at him. The captain looks at him for a second before saying "No it''s fine I don''t need to sleep." ARG-05 switches to one of his side-eye expressions before quickly switching to his angry expression as he says "Captain, no, we are not having this talk again, go to sleep and don''t you dare say that you don''t need it because it helps you get faster results because I swear, I will personally go against my programming to throw you out of the airlock." The captain gives up trying to avoid sleeping as he says "Alright alright fine I''m going to sleep right now" before the captain heads to his quarters. Whilst the spaceship is flying through space, Merlo looks out a window, watching the silent, dead and coldness of space. After a few minutes, Bengino walks over to them, holding some food and without a word, sits down next to Merlo, staring out the window as well, as he offers some food which Merlo takes as Bengino says " Donc cette chose spatiale est assez grande, hein? (So this space thing is pretty big huh?)"This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. "ouais je suppose que oui (yeah I guess so)" said Merlo smiling. " Alors, quel travail le capitaine t''a-t-il donn¨¦, il m''a confi¨¦ les communications et la s¨¦curit¨¦ parce qu''il pense que je serai bon pour ?a, qu''est-ce qu''il t''a donn¨¦? (So, what job did Captain give you, he gave me communications and security because he thinks I''ll be good at it, what did he give you?)" said Bengino looking over at Merlo, waiting for an answer. "Il ne m''a pas carr¨¦ment dit ce que je faisais mais je suppose d''apr¨¨s ce que m''a dit ARGOS, expert en armes ¨¤ cause de la fa?on dont j''ai- euh... tir¨¦ sur Sophia avec mon arme et pratiquement sauv¨¦ la vie du capitaine (He didn''t outright tell me what I was doing but I''m assuming from what ARGOS told me, weapons expert because of how I- uh... shot Sophia with my gun and practically saved the captain''s life)" "Oh, d''accord, mais comment lui avez-vous sauv¨¦ la vie? (Oh, okay but how did you save his life?)" "Tu sais quand le capitaine a ¨¦t¨¦ jet¨¦ par la fen¨ºtre et que la personne qui t''a poignard¨¦ a saut¨¦ par la fen¨ºtre apr¨¨s lui, n''est-ce pas? (You know when the captain got thrown out of the window and that person who stabbed you jumped out the window after him, right?)" Merlo asked looking at Bengino who nods before Merlo continues "ouais alors apr¨¨s avoir saut¨¦, le capitaine n''a pas pu se tenir debout parce qu''il ¨¦tait fondamentalement ¨¤ l''agonie parce que ses c?tes ¨¦taient cass¨¦es et tout, alors cette personne est all¨¦e le poignarder de la m¨ºme mani¨¨re qu''il l''a fait pour vous mais n''a pas pu parce que j''ai fini lui tirer dessus, le faire s''¨¦vanouir, c''est logique? (yeah so after he jumped out, the captain wasn''t able to stand because he was basically in agony from his ribs being broken and all, so that person went to stab him the same way he did to you but couldn''t because I ended up shooting him, making him pass out, make sense?)" Bengino thinks about it for a few seconds before nodding. "Hey, je pense que ?a pourrait ¨ºtre la plan¨¨te ARG-05 et dont le capitaine parlait (Hey, I think this might be the planet ARG-05 and the captain were talking about)" said Merlo as they looked out the window and watch the spaceship go into Earth''s orbit. They were both in shock as they landed on a runway of sorts, hovering just above the ground as they both heard a loud door opening. They both quickly rush over to it however the captain is already there with Pavona and Serafina as he yells "alright guys stay put, let me talk to him and explain the situation and I''ll be back". The captain walks out of the ship walking down the small platform to the ground before walking towards a large building. As he''s walking through the building, he gets more and more stares of shock and horror, making the captain feel nervous. After what felt like to him an eternity, he finally reached a room which was labelled ''The Chief of the Astronaut Office''. The captain took a nervous breath for a second before slowly knocking on the door as he heard a loud "you may come in" from a male voice inside. The captain slowly opens the door and closes it behind him, revealing a fairly big office with a man sitting at a desk, sifting through paperwork. The man looks up as he says, "Oh well if it isn''t Mr Mil- oh... what happened to you?". The captain sighs before saying "Well it''s a long story Mr Nelson" which makes the man motion to a chair as he says, "I got time". The Captain sits on the chair which the man was motioning to before saying "Well how do I put this, so basically we were on the mission and everything was fine for a few weeks but then there was an attack and I may or may not have been critically injured so ARGOS quickly decided to fill my helmet with this green liquid which also may or may not have melted off my skin, I can''t feel this of course but if I take off my helmet I can only assume I''ll die but that''s beside the point so a couple of days later, I''m about to just end the mission but ARGOS stops me from doing it and then our engine gets sabotage by- and I kid you not, ARG-04 and S-". Mr Nelson begins cackling as he says "ARG-04 yeah real funny story, is this like your other story about how ARG-02 mysteriously went missing, c''mon tell me the real story, I won''t care even if it''s as stupid as you accidentally splashed battery acid on your face". "Mr Nelson, I swear to you I''m telling you the truth; I don''t know how ARG-04 managed to do that but still I''m telling the truth,¡± said the Captain as he got up. Mr Nelson keeps laughing as he says "Look, William, I gave you a chance with the creation of the ARG robots but this is absurd, you gotta admit, I mean how can an AI with no limbs possibly hack a spaceship with a self-aware robot on board with view of everything on said spaceship, look how about you just go back on your spaceship and you can continue your ARG robot work, it''s either that I''ll fire you and you''ll probably end up dead in the streets or something, I''ll even be nice and said that you died on the mission so you can still keep your ARG-05 prototype, either way I don''t care, it''ll just take up less paperwork for me besides that spaceship would probably be unable to be reused because of the ship''s AI anyways besides it has enough fuel to last for hundreds of years, it''s your call" The captain walks over to the door as he says, "I''ll stay on the ship then, goodbye Roger". The captain walks out of the room, ensuring that he shuts the door before he storms out of the building. The captain walks over to his spaceship before he can reach the platform, he''s stopped by a woman with short brown hair in an astronaut suit, running over as she yells "Mr Miller wait!". The Captain stops in his tracks, waiting for the woman to catch up to him, when she does, she doesn''t say anything for a few seconds before quickly blurting out "Mr Miller, I couldn''t help but overhear your conversation with Mr Nelson and I believe you Mr Miller, in fact, I look up to you, your advancements in robots, truly amazing, so I was wondering if I would be able to join you as one of your crew members?" The captain smiles as he says, "Sure why not but just so you''re aware besides me and ARGOS the rest of my crew are basically aliens". The woman nods as she says "Okay, that shouldn''t be a problem". They both walk into the spaceship and head over to the main control room. Once they get there, the captain looks over to ARG-05 and says, "ARGOS, can you call a meeting before we set off? I want to introduce everyone to our newest crew member". ARG-05 switches to a smiling expression before saying "Okay Captain" as he calls a meeting. Everyone on the spaceship heads to the main control room before the Captain begins his speech "Okay guys so good news bad news, bad news, I have been told to basically never come back and on Earth I''m now considered to be dead but we are allowed to keep the spaceship so we can go on missions of our own in this for a long time anyways moving onto the good news, we have a new crewmate, who I have decided just now that, she''ll be making sure that ARG-04 doesn''t break out of his prison cell and bringing Sophia food and her name is uh-" "Kioko Aiuchi, it''s a pleasure to meet everyone and I can''t wait to be in space with you all" said Kioko, smiling which looks more like a slight grimace for a second. The captain smiles as he says, "Great well now that''s settled, it''s about time we take off, right ARGOS?". ARG-05 switches to an idle expression as he replies, "Yes of course Captain". The spaceship begins to take off and everyone goes back to work however whilst Kioko is leaving the room, she side-eyes something above Merlo''s head before she walks through the hallway and the door automatically closes behind her. After a couple of minutes, they''re out of Earth''s orbit and ARG-05 quickly turns on the 3D map and begins flying in a random direction, he switches to his smiling expression as he asks the captain "So where to next?"