[TSAB Dimensional Patrol Cruiser - Auriga, captain's office] [October, MC 076]
As soon as he entered the room Elric stood in attention and saluted. "Special Operative Elric Thorn reports back to duty, Sir."
Admiral Jorin Fafnir, sitting behind his desk, returned the salute. "Good to have you back, Thorn-san. Sit down." He waited until Elric took seat, before he smiled and continued. "I see you recovered fully."
"Not fully, Sir, but quit enough."
[Combat capability is 63%, this unit wishes to be deployed as soon as possible.] Carnage added.
"Oh, it's getting talkative..." Jorin commented the rare moment of Carnage speaking to someone other than Elric. "Looks like the time in the hospital bored even the combat nerd on your arm."
"Err... yeah, seems so..." Elric answered confused. Even he had no idea why Carnage suddenly spoke up like that.
The hissing of the door announced another visitor, both men faced the source of the sound.
"Elric!" Rinya's happy voice filled the room as soon she stepped in and saw him. Her face beamed with a smile. Seeing her happy face made Elric realize how glad he was to see no more worry in her eyes.
But wait... wasn't her face a little pale?
fa-thud Ah! She fell!
"Rinya!?" "Shuri-san!?" Both Elric and the Admiral jumped up but Rinya sat up already, rubbing her forehead.
"Tehe~!" she chuckled and wobbly got on her feet. "Sorry, I'm alright."
Must be her dimensional sickness again. Elric thought as she arrived at the desk and slumped down on one of the free chairs.
"Ahaa." Rinya, still rubbing her forehead, was still in high spirits. "Nice to see you finally discharged. Truth to be told, I was a little annoyed of the nurses always grinning knowingly at me whenever I came to visit for whatever reason."
"Were they?" Elric asked.
"Yeah. One said something about a boyfriend once, but I didn't really listened so I actually don't know what that was about."
"Anyway." Jorin suddenly interrupted the conversation, looking like he had a good time. "It is nice that the investigation team is finally back together. Thorn-san told me already that he is ready to continue, what about you Shuri-san? Did you visited your family? This is your home world and all."
Rinya smiled. "Yes, father was a little awkward as always, but it was nice seeing my parents and my little brother again. We had a nice time together."
"Good." The atmosphere around Jorin changed from laidback to serious. "I don't want to stay longer than necessary, now that we have the information we were able to confirm with the specimen you retrieved."
Elric and Rinya straightened up as Jorin continued. "As the Research Department already had assumed, these Mantis Stalker creatures are not naturally born, they are manmade. We also found this inside the creatures body."
A hologram display appeared above the desk, showing Elric and Rinya a computer chip.
"This device controls some kind of magical created nanomachines we also found inside the creatures body, making it some kind of suicide bomb. Whenever the right order is received, the nanites would destroy the creatures gene structure, causing it to... well... explode as a side effect. Then they would erase themselves. These machines explain why we never were able to retrieve genetic data before."
Rinya frowned. "So we really have someone controlling these things? Do we know who and why?"
Jorin tilted his head. "That was a mystery at first. As you two know, all attacks were random and never hit specific targets, only this last time we were not only able to secure a Mantis Stalker but also got a glimpse of the real threat behind them."
The image of the chip was replaced with the pictures of two young people wearing grey, skin-tight bodysuits.
"We got this image from your Device, Thorn-san. They did identified themselves as Rem and Lyria am I correct?"
Elric nodded, his face showing a dark expression. "This is what they called themselves, yes. Do we know something about them?"
Jorin shook his head. "Only the data we got from your Device and the records of the team that recovered you. It is unknown what kind of mage the young man named Rem is, but his fighting style suggests that he is at least Belka-type trained.
The young woman, Lyria, seems to be a Midchilda-Type mage who specialises in support, which seems to make her the reason the Mantis Stalker are showing up in so different locations. She and the man both teleported away the moment our team broke though the barrier... sadly, we were unable to pinpoint their destination."
"So we have not much leads?" Rinya seemed disappointed.
"I never said that. As we had no information about the two suspects we tried a biometric facial recognition with all sorts of pictures from different databases. We could not find a 100% match for the girl, but for the boy..."
Jorin's fingers quickly moved over a holographic keyboard and another image popped up, showing Rem in casual clothing with an innocent smile on his face.
"You actually found a picture of him?"
"In the database of the Cranagen medical research university... but... you may want to look at the date."
"This picture was made over fifty years ago!?" Rinya shouted flabbergast. "Why does this guy still look so young? Is this the guy? Who is this guy anyway?"
"This is a picture of a former student of said university." Jorin continued after Rinya calmed down. "He graduated, made an doctor's degree and worked some years there. Here is the last picture that was made of him."
Another image replaced the young student. It was a man in his 60ies with a stern face, receding grey hair, a beaked nose and small evil looking eyes.
"This man is Doctor Josop Resoran. As you might know, he went into hiding about nine years ago and no one has heard of him ever since."
"I think I remember." Elric said in thought. "It was found out that he was involved in illegal research. That was shortly after the Jewel Seed incident."
"Exactly" Now that finally had steered the briefing to the right part, Jorin allowed himself to give out a sight and slumped backwards in his chair. "And this finally gives us a connection to all the big incidents that transpired since the last ten years."
" Sir, don't keep us in suspense, what exactly do you mean?" Elric still had a dark expression.
"Yeah, I don't even know this Doctor person." Rinya added.
Jorin started pinching the root of his nose like he had a slight headache, then he chuckled a little.
"Come on. I really expected a little more from both of you." He leaned forward again and rested his arms on top of the desk and explained in a patient voice. "Josop Resoran lost his position after it was found out that he conducted research about the creation of Artificial Mages."
Rinya swallowed audible. "You mean... Project Fate?"
"Close." Jorin agreed. "But he was providing a lot groundwork for what would become Project Fate. He moved in the same circles as Jail Scaglietti, so of course they knew each other. Scaglietti used Resoran's work with his own theories and created Project Fate. Later, Precia Testarossa would help finish Scaglietti's work."
"So we have a connection between Resoran and Scaglietti." Elric nodded.
"And Testarossa... She was a long time protégée of his and we believe it was Resoran who gave her access to the Project Fate research data in the first place. It was also his connection to Testarossa that made people suspicious of his involvement with said research."
"So Rem and Lyria are Resoran clones and Artificial Mages created by Project Fate?" Rinya shook her head and made a disgusted face. "And those ugly Mantis Monsters are..."
"Pretty much the same, yes." Jorin leaned backwards again. "We did found traces of human DNA inside the Stalkers genetic information but he used only a little bit, most of it is a mishmash of different creatures. We already send a report to HQ, maybe we can find out what species were used and where they naturally came from, that might really help us narrow down our search for Resoran."
"Well, I certainly hope so..." Rinya mumbled while Elric nodded again.
"I know we're are grasping at straws here... but we really can't do much." The Admiral looked apologetically to Elric. "Sorry Thorn-san, after all you went through."
"It's alright..." Elric shrugged. "I knew the risk when I went planet side."
"Yes, but you also proved that we have some criminal mastermind behind this. Seriously, one theory I heard was that we would face a swarm of all bio-mass assimilating insectoid horrors from out of all dimensions!" Jorin laughted.
"Really? Who said something like that?" Elric asked a little surprised.
"Shuri-san did."
"He! That was just a random guess!" Rinya blurted out, her cheeks returning to a healthy color.
"Insectoid horrors from out of all dimensions...?" Elric lifted his eyebrows and looked at Rinya.
"That was... duh! I think I saw it in a movie! I tried to make a joke okay!?"
"You sounded quite serious as you suggested it, Shuri-san." The blond admiral grinned.
"Ooooh! Not you too admiral! I take my statement back, okay?" protested Rinya.
"To late Shuri... I'm pretty sure the your theory was send with the report back to HQ." Elric just couldn't help himself and added a little fuel to the fire.
The redness of Rinya's face had reached her ears as she hung her head and mumbled something that sounded like "Oh I will get you for this Elric Thorn... Wait, just until you sleep."
"Okay, enough..." Jorin straightened himself and whipping his eyes as if he had nearly cried from holding in the laughter. "For the time being we were ordered to return to HQ to resupply. That would be all for today."
"Thank you, sir." Elric rose from his seat and saluted, Rinya followed a little slower.
"Oh and Shuri-san." Jorin said holding Rinya back as she wanted to leave behind Elric.
"Sir?"
"As you were so kind to exclude you superior officer from you terrible plans of revenge. If you'd like I could provide you with the codes to Thorn-san quarters, so you can set whatever evil plan you have in motion."
"What?" Elric quickly turned around on the threshold.
"Oh, thank you, Sir. I will take you up on your offer."
"Always a pleasure. Now if you excuse me... I have some captain stuff to do."
"Wait a second, that..." Elric began but was already pushed outside by Rinya who happily interrupted him. "You heard the man, he has stuff to do!"
Jorin watched the door closing, then he let out a little sigh and opened another file.