Preparing For Quake

--Sky's Perspective--

---February 28th, 2446---

"Good to see you today," I greeted some people walking through the door, seeing Lia following behind the rude man who was on the ship with us during our first trip to Earth after the fight with Illya.

Speaking of Illya, she walked in right behind those three and stuck close to my side.

The room was big, with a giant table in the middle. Yet, it was filled with holograms that projected to those who weren't standing right around it. This was a huge war room, located underneath the building where I first met Ra Madio. I didn't think of him to be too important until he told me that he knew a little about Quake.

That's right, this whole meeting was for that purpose... defending our home from Quake.

As things escalated in Zealous, we were all trapped in a situation that seemed dire. We were cornered on all fronts... at least, to us Arkians we were.

We know about the threat that is Eirikr constantly breathing down our necks. Our very lives are on the brink of ending every day if I cannot deliver Genesis to him. However, I'm not worried, because I can, and will.

"Is this everybody? Who else are we waiting for?" Ruby asked, standing at the helm of the table.

"Dani, Carl, and Alatus. That's all," I said to her from across the table. I stood on the exact opposite side from her as about fifty people all piled in together. Umbra was unfortunately not present because she had to tend to some matters in her own city about two miles from here named Karia. I almost forgot about it after all this time.

After about a minute of idle chit-chat, the door swung open and Alatus entered with a confident stride, followed by Dani and Carl. Dani waved at me and sat close to me, looking over my shoulder at the table in front of us.

"Is this all of us?" Ruby shouted out, looking around the table. I nodded from across the table and she began, using her fingers to enlarge a map of Zealous around the table.

It was an odd landmass, but because of our placement between a large body of water and a ton of mountains, it was easily scannable by whatever it was that watched over us and displayed an image of Zealous on the table.

"Let's begin with placement first. For all Arkians that do not know, Zealous was designed with a fallout shelter in mind. About three miles east, right through the mountains, stands an underground bunker, that goes as low as sixty miles. The base plan is to have an evacuation plan set in motion starting from here until we defeat Quake on our home soil. We have places in the city that lead to this shelter in the worst-case scenario and have over a century's worth of food and water storage for each citizen to lift comfortably. Materials are not the problem, the problem is the speed at which we can get to the shelter," Ruby said.

She was talking in a professional tone, dragging out her sentences with unnecessary words... I noticed it first but decided to play along. She was the leader of this city after all, and I'm just following her lead.

"You said the speed is a problem? Don't you have subways here?" I asked her in a confused tone. Everybody looked at me with equal confusion.

"Subways... underground trains... are you guys serious? You don't have this? You have carriages and a ton of technology, but no trains? Okay, that will be the first plan. To speed up this evacuation, we'll develop a subway that follows the pathways already dug out that can evacuate everybody," I suggested.

"Train... I wonder if that's what Umbra was talking about in Karia. Okay, we'll work on that first, will it be able to deliver a ton of citizens wherever we need to? Zealous has a population of five hundred thousand. Can you make that many seats?" Ruby asked me.

I explained the way trains worked to the entire room with the odd knowledge I was simply born with and then proposed the idea that the children, women, and elderly would all get on the trains, while all able-bodied men run to the shelter. That would eliminate about half of the population to transport, which isn't a solution, but it's a start.

"So, we have the speed taken care of. With materials, evacuation, and all other assemblies in order... we need to discuss the worst-case scenarios ahead of us. With us here, I've gathered all of my Team Leaders of every division here, along with all of Sky's friends. From here on out, Sky's friends are our people, no discrimination, and will be referred to as The Arkians," Ruby declared. I nodded again, along with everybody else.

Dani, Carl, Lia, Illya, Faith, Ellios, Rin, Ren, Mandi, Tavian, Moon, Noboki, Dante, Ellie, Alexia, David, Tyler, Griff, Jeff, and Amera were all gathered around me at this point to section us off. It was a lot of people to remember, but this is everybody who has joined The Arkians since I first woke up on the beach. This was quite the family.

"Arkians... that's a pretty cool name," Illya said, bumping my shoulder with hers while standing beside me.

"I'll start asking the questions here, why in the hell are we supporting this evil man in the first place? Quake doesn't want us, they want him," Daniel, the irritating man from earlier said.

"Quake was already looking for me. If I wasn't here, they would've destroyed this city searching for me. It was because I was here and that they're afraid of me that you even draw breaths, so start appreciating me real quick before you go missing in action," I told Daniel, finally having enough of his shit.

"I don't like that man either, Sky," Avie said inside of my mind.

"We're not here to fight each other. Let's get that straight, to both of you. You are allies, no matter how much you hate each other, are we clear?" Ruby said in a mean tone.

"As long as The Asterio is okay with me, I'll be okay with him for the time being," Daniel said from across the table.

I summoned golden strands and grabbed onto both of his arms from under the table, slamming the bottom of his chin into the table. People started chuckling around the table and I could see Daniel's face beaming with an embarrassed color.

"The name is Sky Asterio if you want to use my last name. I go by Sky to my friends, you should know," I told him with my hands raised.