Revelation

"Aw, man," Bernicia sighed as the Gen 1 boys disappeared into the clouds. "I kinda liked Roy."

A noise sounded from the rubble. Then a pile of steel moved, revealing a metal-clad arm and a tuft of wavy black hair.

The Guy! He was still alive, the tenacious prick.

"Hey guys," he called (he even had the nerve to sound friendly). "Uhh, glad you could join us. Really came in with a bang, eh?"

"Shut up," I shouted back at him. "Where's Joseph?"

"He's fine. What do you guys want?"

"Answers!"

"Huh, is that so? What kind of answers?"

I narrowed my eyes, and Blake flew with me towards the Guy. In a flash, we had him sky-high, our grips the only thing between him and the ground six hundred meters below.

"I'd say this is high enough for you to make a nice pattern on the ground," Blake speculated.

"Wha- hey! Let go of–" The Guy quickly revised his statement. "Uhm, I mean, please put me on the ground."

"I want answers to everything," I demanded. "Who are you? What's your connection to Joseph? What is your boss's plan for us?"

"I'm not an encyclopedia," the Guy complained, and I loosened my grip for a second. "Aaah, wait, wait! On second thought, I can maybe answer a few questions."

"Maybe?" I glared at him.

"Yes, maybe." He sounded irritated at that. "It's not like I run the place."

"Sooo, you can start by telling us what you know first," Blake supplied, "then you can tell us what you don't."

"And I'm not taking no for an answer," I said.

"Okay, fine! Apparently, some business partners just got approval to field some new droids, and they'll make the I-bots look like toys, to put it mildly. And they want you guys captured, but for some reason they don't care about Gen 1 anymore? Maybe it's to keep the auction prices high. And there are more of you! The Gen 4 aeronauts were in the House of Steel when you blew it up. Their stasis pods are buried in this place's remains somewhere, so if you could just let me down, I can find them!"

I mulled over the information and noticed a few holes, like what the Gen 1 aeronauts were up to, and how the Guy himself fit into all of this.

He picked up on my thoughts: "I don't know about Gen 1 at all. We were just told to make sure they didn't prevent your detainment," he continued. "I designed the I-bots and oversaw their manufacture, because Atticus insisted it would be more efficient than hiring men. I'm not sure why he thinks so, but we can't really complain since he's funding everything. And Joseph is my dad, so we meet up a lot."

"Joseph… your dad," I growled. "I should have known. I mean, he told us as much, didn't he…? Blake, you think he's lying?"

"To be honest, I lost him around 'auction prices'," Blake yawned. "So are we dropping him or what?"

I rubbed my forehead with my free hand. "Yeah," I decided. "We'll grill Joseph for the rest of the info."

"You've made a big mistake," the Guy shouted as he fell.

"I doubt it," I called back, then turned to Blake. "Hmph. What a loser, thinking he can sway me with such… ridiculous claims. There's no way, right? He and Joseph can't be related. Joseph was cool! Uhm, I mean, until he wasn't…"

"Say, Kit," Blake said after a moment. He was still looking down. "Shouldn't the Guy have hit terminal velocity by now?"

"Hmm?" I followed his gaze, and was mildly intrigued to find that the Guy was getting closer to us instead of the ground.

A moment later, Blake quickly dodged an uppercut from the Guy's armored fist. He countered with a powerful kick, but it dinged against the Guy's armor without cracking a single rib. Then the Guy grabbed his foot, and I saw it – a weak point!

I fell on him from behind, clamping my arms around his exposed head. It was then that I noticed his method of flight: small rockets supported him from his feet and shoulders. It'll be easy to throw him off balance, I thought.

"I don't think so," he grunted, breaking my grip. I quickly recovered while Blake tried to go on the offensive with his spear. Blake's attacks were all but useless against that armor, though, and as I tried to get a stranglehold on the Guy from the front, his face suddenly covered itself with a protective mask.

This caused me to falter, and I was rewarded with a headbutt to the gut that knocked the wind out of me.

That armor, I thought as I fell, is getting to be a real problem.

I ended up falling twenty meters before recovering. As I swooped back up with intense feelings of rage, Blake stopped me mid-flight. "Kit! Fall back! He has too much of an advantage right now."

I noticed the broken stick in his hand. "He wrecked your spear?"

"I looked it up in a bookstore the other day. It's actually a naginata," he explained. "Err, it was a naginata. I'll get him for that."

"Where'd the Guy go?" I noticed that he was no longer in the sky with us.

"He jetted to the wreckage. Probably looking for weapons, or something."

"Hm. We'll leave him for now," I decided. "Let's regroup with the others and bust this joint."

"It's already been busted," Blake snickered.

"You know what I mean! Do you see Bernicia and Travis anywhere?"

"Let's see… oh, there they are." Blake pointed at a spot near the edge of the wreckage, where I could make out three people. "Is that Gen 1?"

We flew in for a closer look. "Oh. Joseph," I realized. Bernicia and Travis were standing over him.

"What's up with him?" Blake asked as we landed.

"He's gone cuckoo," Bernicia stated.

Joseph glared at me. His glasses were gone, and his hair lay disheveled over his sallow face (which looked more haggard than usual). "Ah… all my children are here," he murmured. "Only children. Distorted into these… abominations… what was I thinking? What were any of us thinking?"

"Huh. First set of actual words he's said since we found him," Travis noted. "Maybe he's getting better."

"No!" Joseph struggled to stand up, but failed. "Better is worse! I wanted to take him on, but I'm only a human. It takes more than that to fight this evil… it will require your power."

"Oh, so we're your saviors now?" Bernicia sounded annoyed. "Don't give us that 'chosen heroes' nonsense. We're just a project to you!"

"Just another spoke in this web of lies," Joseph mumbled. "The truth is in Holding Room 4 of Metacorps. Yes, you'll find the biotools there. But you'll have to hurry before they move them…"

"Biotools?! Like the ones Larry mentioned? He called them 'weird patchwork creatures', I think," I said. "What do you know about them? Tell us!"

Joseph looked at me again. "Ah… you have Zina's hair. And Noren's eyes, too. If your parents were alive, they would have loved to see you again."

"Wha-?!" I took a step back.

"Your names are not an accident, you know." Joseph looked around at all of us. "I knew all of your parents personally. They were influencers, moneymongers, and risk takers, but they were not evil. All of them agreed to donate you to the cause if they could at least give you a name."

"Wh… where are they now?" I asked hesitantly.

"Ah, where indeed," Joseph sighed. "Imran, Larker, Nikos… bombed to the ground. The assassin found Borohon as well, but his wife, she escaped. Winters and Lee, they went into deep hiding. Maybe they're dead, maybe not. But the rest of them are gone. My dear wife, bless her, she may be next. As for me… well, the flare sigil makes no exceptions. I suspect I have only moments before it activates."

I blinked. "Wait. Are you going to die? You'd better not! You're gonna explain everything to us, and then I might reconsider!"

Joseph intently looked at me. "Atticus is an anomaly, Shurikit. He harnesses the powers of genetics and sorcery. You–" His voice cut off, and a funky red symbol appeared on his chest.

"Uh… Joseph?"

Then, right before our eyes, he burst into brilliant yellow flames.

We shielded our faces from the heat, and when the conflagration finally faded, Joseph was a vaguely humanoid husk of ash on the ground.

A long moment of silence passed as we tried to figure out what just happened.

"So… wait, I'm confused," Blake said. "He WAS a good guy?"

"He could be playing us," Bernicia muttered. "How do we know he isn't lying?"

"Well," I began, "If I knew I'd become a fireball, that would probably incline me to be honest. And he mentioned some of our last names, too. So he probably did know our parents."

"Yeah, like Borohon…" Travis thoughtfully rubbed his chin. "That means my mom is alive. She can help us if we can find her, I'm sure of it."

"And the biotool we were spliced with; we know where that is, too," Bernicia said excitedly. "If we find that, we could get a lead on whatever Atticus is trying to do!"

"So we've got two objectives, then," I said. "The biotool and Travis's mom. What are you guys'—"

"I'm not waiting for a vote," Travis shouted. "I'm going after her RIGHT NOW!" With that, he turned and flew off towards Chandonis.

I threw a look at Blake and Bernicia, who both shrugged.

"Ugh," I sighed. "Well, if we're going to split up, we'd may as well go in pairs."

Then I launched off after Travis.