Chapter Twenty-Two: Resurrected Dreams of Regret

Adam tossed and turned in the comfort of his mattress, the azure sheets rustling as his body moved randomly. The confined hotel room echoed with the subtle sounds created by the conflict between Adam’s body and the sheets on his mattress. Sharon’s eyes stared towards Adam as he moved from side to side appearing to be in agony. His hair flung in the air sending out drops of water to fly out through the air, sweat ran down his face moving along the contours of his facial structure. She knew he was in pain; she clutched her hands together as they rested on top of her chest, there was nothing she could do that would cause his pain to disappear, it was something he would have to deal with on his own terms and conditions.

“You haven’t forgotten about me have you? After all this time I haven’t forgotten about you….” The soft delicate feminine voice repeated this line as it bounced in Adam’s mind each time growing louder than the previous one. 

            “No…I could never forget you…” Adam replied as his dream continued on. Once again he found himself strapped in the familiar cockpit of his MF. Confused he quickly began to look out the display screens only to see a tempest of flames raging through the crumbled buildings of debris that scorched the ground of the barren land. He had no clue where he was or when, but he knew the soothing voice that was bellowing in his dreams; Amy Caecus. After all these years he was still carrying the burden of her death on his shoulders, even though he knew there was nothing that he could have done he still felt in his soul that he should have tried harder. He knew that with his current power that he’d be able to stop Chimera from killing her and that’s when he realized. The crumbled buildings, the smell of burning metal drifting through the tainted air; he was back on the testing grounds for the TA military 2 years ago. However the key difference was that he remained his current age, he was 18 years old while holding onto his MF’s throttles. He also noticed a blinking text on his display screen stating “Angel System Engaged.” He smirked; he had the power he desired. Even though in the pit of his stomach he knew he was dreaming he refused to acknowledge it, he so desperately wanted to save her life.

He quickly turned his head glancing at the ground taking notice of the toppled behemoth machine that stormed in the middle of the test. Its four mechanical legs were waving in the sky as the machine tried to move off its fallen back. Everything was playing out the exact same way it did 2 years ago. Adam turned to face Alpha who he was expecting to float down to his right side.

            “ADAM! We have to be extremely careful in what we do!”  He heard Stephen shouting towards him just like he did back then. Adam smirked.

“I know! I won’t let them die. Not again!” Adam screamed back to his dream induced brother.

Blue Dragon quickly began to speed towards the fallen machine with its azure wings beginning to extend outwards as the wind rushed passed the glistening metallic armor. Suddenly just as he expected a crimson blur sped towards his position. Before the crimson blur that he knew was Chimera could reach his position the eight azure wings quickly shot out from the back of Blue Dragon’s torso. The orbital wings began to fire relentlessly onto Chimera causing the demonic MF to jump into defensive maneuvers.

“I don’t have time to deal with you! I have to save her! I have to save Amy!” Adam screamed.  Blue Dragon continued to approach the fallen defenseless machine and extended its right hand. The chrome metal fingers began to reach out as if trying to grasp the life he was trying to save. Then something unexpected happened, Blue Dragon was thrown to the side like a doll as a crimson beam of energy sliced through its right arm. Adam clutched on for dear life as his MF collapsed into fallen debris of a building. Hovering above Blue Dragon was a distorted Shadow, all Adam could here was the surrealistic laughter of Rebel echoing throughout the site which was then cut out by the torturous scream of Amy as her body began to burn in a sea of flames that now engulfed the machine. 

            Adam quickly jolted up from his mattress causing all of the sheets to stumble to the ground. As his blurred vision slowly began to focus on the reality of his environment he took notice of Sharon sitting at the edge of his bed in her bra and silk pink pants holding a glass of water. She stared at him with concern, he had been screaming out the entire night.

“Here drink this.” She calmly said.

“*huff* Thanks…” Adam replied taking hold of the glass.

“You still blame yourself for everything that’s happened?”

Adam glanced back at Sharon, his eyebrows remained motionless, he knew he couldn’t hide his emotions anymore especially from her.

“How’d you guess….”

“It’s not hard when you’re screaming “I won’t let them die again.”” Sharon mentioned as she moved closer to his quivering body.

“Heh…its funny you know. You think you’re forgiven, or at least that’s what you tell yourself, and the fact is there isn’t anyone around to give you that luxury of atonement. I’m going to have to live with this guilt for the rest of my life….”

“Adam…you couldn’t do anything. You know that, and beating yourself up about it won’t change the fact that they’re dead….like I can’t beat myself up because in the dead my father is still dead.” Tears began to form around the edges of her eyes, it was hard for her to discuss her father, but she knew that if she expected Adam to be strong that she would have to be strong as well otherwise she’d be a hypocrite.

“Sharon…”

“Don’t talk, for once in your life let me speak, you listen.” As she said this she leaned her body onto his. He ended up sitting against the wall behind his pillows while Sharon lay across his legs with her eyes gleaming up at his face. “I want you to stop fighting alone Adam, you have a bunch of people here who care for you and if you continue to try and fight this thing by yourself then you’ll continue to drown in guilt. No one expects the world of you; we only want you to remain yourself, the person we all care about. By acting cold around other pilots and by fighting with out mercy you’re only moving away from who you truly are. You’re a caring person; you’re not like that Rebel guy who is obviously trying to intimidate the rest of the competitors.”

“Sharon…”

“Please, just be yourself. And stop trying to fight your pain by yourself, at least share it with me.” She replied. Adam sighed looking away out the window as the sun began to become visible just stretching above the aura of the Earth. His hands began to caress her head while her lively brown hair flowed over his legs and the mattress.

“You’re right…” The words fumbled out of his mouth not sounding forced. Sharon smiled as she began to climb up to his face with her budding lips moving outwards just grazing against his own.

            The matches for the day scheduled for section ‘C’ and ‘D’, the section finals were passing along smoothly. Shadow lingered outside of the space station while Rebel sat in his cockpit comfortably sitting with a glass of merlot placed on the side of his arm rest. He wasn’t sure when it happened exactly, but he had abruptly developed the taste for Merlot. He deduced that he might have acquired its taste from his constant meetings with Luscious but aside from that he wasn’t specifically sure where this came from, nor did it matter. He sighed as he noticed his opponent Colin now approaching his position. He placed the book that he was holding in his hands to the side.

“I apologize Sun Tzu; we will have to finish our engagement another time.” Rebel softly mumbled.

Colin was an EAP pilot, a lower ranked one but somehow managed to make it to the third round in the Azure Cup. His MF, Eternity as he called it was classified as a hover unit with a flat bottom in a circular structure equipped with a dozen thrusters. The torso of Eternity extended outwards to a soft round point while its arm units were blocky, rough and rigid, they didn’t match the torso and leg’s soft eloquent look. Both arms held onto hi-powered sniper rifles, his secondary weapon was a simple vertical missile pack. He also had an energy saber attached to the left shoulder of his unit but he barely ever got the chance to put it to good use. His green eyes trembled at the sight of Shadow, his pale skin continued to force out tears of sweat in order to cool his body down. It was a typical response for any pilot that ends up having to face the ominous Rebel358 in the heat of battle.

            Ready?GO!

Colin managed to grab hold of the throttles; he took a final deep gulp of saliva as he prayed to make it out of the match unharmed. All of asudden he drew a blank; he could no longer remember the elite training that he received when he was preparing to be an EAP pilot. The way his MF Eternity moved was equivalent of a bipedal tank; it was sluggish and lacked any sort of style or finesse.

Rebel chuckled under his breath. “Is there no pilot who can keep their composure when they face me? AM I DESTINED TO FIGHT WORTHLESS INSECTS?!” Rebel screamed, his frustration taking the better of his judgment. He knew he didn’t need to be merciless in his battle; it would be over long before he could consider his methods merciless. Shadow’s arms leaned forward as its right leg arched outwards while the thrusters pulsated sending the dark MF speeding towards Eternity. Colin’s pupils dilated at first glance of the MF zooming towards him with the searing energy beam ignited in front of the torso. He quickly let go of the throttles placing his hands above his head in a natural instinctive response. Like all humans he covered his eyes in defense even though they were already protected by the helmet’s visor. With a single stroke of its right arm Eternity’s arms flung outwards and began to float lifelessly in the depth of space while Shadow continued onward. Colin remained in his cockpit, his legs vibrating rapidly, he tried to force them to stop moving but it was of no use, his nerves had taken over at this point. Shadow then began to descend towards Eternity one last time and with a quick slash destroyed the missile pack that rest between the MF’s shoulders. With Colin curled in a scared fetal position the match was declared over with Rebel358 advancing to the group finals as every pilot expected.

Rebel sighed slowly picking up his book. The book was ancient; its pages were a dull yellow with tears at almost every angle.

“Well then Mr. Tzu, where were we?” Rebel’s voice echoed onwards as Eternity floating singed from the beating that it had just received.

            “Heh, so Rebel advanced again?” Adam mumbled.

Stephen nodded as he leaned forward over the guard rail in the MF hanger.

“I told you he’s going to be in the finals.” Stephen replied.

“Ha! Let that fool make it to the finals, one of us will finish him off!” Mario exclaimed from Adam’s left side while Stephen remained on Adam’s right.

“You idiot, if you go any farther you’ll be the first to face him since your in Section ‘B’.  Me and Adam would have to wait until the finals.” Stephen replied.

“Oh….yeah, good point.”

“Haha….so….” Adam mumbled trying to prevent one of those awkward filled silences to take control of the room.

“So…” Mario replied not helping.

“I heard the war has escalated to a chaotic point.” Stephen replied as he stared at the mechanics who were working on his MF, Alpha.

“Really…that’s too bad. I’d had hoped that without MFs that the war would quiet down.” Adam replied.

“Well Vincent Avidus had something to say about that.” Stephen replied.

“Vincent….Avidus? Whose that?” Mario mumbled.

Adam sighed and began to walk away from both Mario and Stephen.

“He’s the head of Revelations. I heard about him a year ago, he believes that everyone in the EAP needs to be conquered. He’s a firm believer in imperialism.” Adam replied.

“Oh….so what did he do that’s making this war so much worse?” Mario asked as he glanced back towards Stephen.

“He’s created a unique line of MFs directly for the TA. No longer are pilots allowed to customize their own unit, he’s single handedly created an army of MFs.” Stephen replied.

“That bastard…why can’t people just let all of this end?” Adam continued to walk towards the vending machine leaning up against the wall.

“When either side is completely wiped out…that’s when.” Stephen mumbled. He took a deep breath and turned around smiling. “That is of course if we don’t prevent that from happening.”

“Huh? What are you talking about…..ooooh, wait a minute. I’ve seen that look on your face before. You’re planning something dangerous aren’t you?” Mario exclaimed.

“I have my ideas. Don’t worry about it just yet; we’ll deal with one thing at a time, first this tournament and then the war.” Stephen replied.

“Heh, glad to hear it bro…” Adam replied. “What’s wrong….?” Adam mumbled as he saw both Stephen and Mario gawking in his direction. He shrugged his shoulders and slowly turned around while opening a can of soda. The crimson can was shaken too much as it unleashed a wild spray of soda that continued to shoot out all over Adam’s face and shirt until the CO2 began to ease down. The can dropped to the frigid ground as Adam joined his brother and friend in staring with a blank expression. His heart began to pulse at tremendous and irregular speeds. There standing in the door way was an alluring woman, she was the essence of perfection, her shoulder length blossoming mahogany hair floating through the air conditioning of the hanger, her hazel eyes glistened at Adam. Adam began to stumble as both Stephen and Mario quickly walked to his side.

“Adam….Adam Novus is that really you?” Her voice was glazed with a sense of familiarity and innocence that just pierced Adam’s heart. He stared at her constantly muttering the words “impossible” over and over again as if it would somehow alter the current situation.

“It….it can’t be…..Amy…..” His voice transcended through the hanger as he nearly passed out from the shock.