Chapter 181: Firefly and Kafka
You fell from a dream of fire and blood.
It was a nightmare, disjointed and agonizing. An endless, blinding white light swallowed everything. It was an arrow, a judgment from the heavens. You heard the roar of war, the shriek of tearing metal, and the terrified, final screams of comrades as a world, a massive ship, collapsed around you.
"...Jiang Li!"
"...Neergul!"
Someone was calling their names, a desperate, familiar shout. Was it... you?
Then—you suddenly opened your eyes.
A cold, sterile, metal ceiling greeted you, illuminated by the steady, antiseptic blue light of a medical pod's diagnostic screen.
"Hoo… hoo… hoo…"
You gasped for breath, a deep, ragged sound in the quiet room. Your entire body was slick, not just with cold sweat, but with a slimy, viscous nutrient fluid. Your heart hammered against your ribs with a strange, heavy, unfamiliar palpitation.
You tried to grasp the afterimage of the dream, but it slipped away like smoke, leaving only a profound, aching sense of loss and those two phantom names echoing in your mind.
You tried to sit up, a simple command, but your body felt weak and uncoordinated. You only then realized you were submerged in a warm, clear liquid, wires and sensors attached to your chest and temples.
Who am I?
The question hit you with the force of a physical blow.
Where am I?
Your brain was a chaotic, throbbing mess. Your memories were a complete void, a terrifying, formatted emptiness. There was nothing. No past, no family, no home.
Only one name stubbornly surfaced from the emptiness, a single, cold anchor in the storm.
Orion.
Yes. My name is Orion.
Beyond that, nothing. You remembered nothing else.
The pod hissed, the front glass retracting. The warm nutrient solution cascaded onto the cold metal floor, and the room's chilled, recycled air hit your bare skin, making you shudder.
You awkwardly climbed out, your limbs feeling strange and unfamiliar. The solution dripped from your hair. You looked down at your hands, turning them over. They were pale, strong, and completely alien.
Then you realized a second, more immediate, and far more human problem.
You weren't wearing anything.
A jolt of primal panic shot through you. You were naked, unarmed, and had no memory in a room full of strange, humming machinery.
Fortunately, there was a set of clothes neatly folded on a nearby stainless steel shelf. You scrambled for them, pulling them on with fumbling, desperate movements. It was a black uniform, made of some special, durable, and slightly elastic polymer. It fit perfectly, hugging your form as if it had been tailored just for you, which was somehow more unsettling.
After getting dressed, your breathing slowly steadied. You finally took a moment to observe your surroundings. This was a high-tech medical room, advanced beyond any technology you… well, you couldn't remember what you did know, but it felt impossibly advanced.
Just then, your gaze was drawn to another medical pod near the door. It was identical to the one you had just woken in. Through the translucent, fogged cover, you could vaguely see a figure floating inside.
Another person? A fellow prisoner?
Curiosity, or perhaps a deeper instinct of a fellow captive, drove you to walk over. You reached out, your fingers wiping the condensation from the cold glass.
It was a young girl.
Her long, silver-grey hair floated gently in the clear liquid, like ethereal seaweed in a serene, colorless ocean. Her eyes were closed, her face perfectly serene. She was beautiful, almost unreal in her delicate, peaceful beauty, a stark, painful contrast to the storm of confusion raging in your own mind.
You instinctively wanted to see more clearly, to confirm she was real. You leaned closer, your face almost pressing against the cold pod cover—
Flinch.
The young girl's eyes, without warning, snapped open.
A pair of striking, beautiful blue-violet eyes met yours directly, separated only by a few millimeters of glass.
"…"
"…"
The air in the room, the universe, seemed to freeze.
The young girl's pupils, initially hazy and unfocused, slowly focused on your face. On the man, the stranger, pressing his face against her glass prison.
Then, her eyes widened.
Her gaze shot down, landing on her own submerged, vulnerable, and completely naked state... then snapped back up to you, the strange man who was still staring intently at her.
The next moment, her face turned a brilliant, violent, incandescent red, a color that rushed from her neck all the way to the tips of her ears.
"You—!!"
But unexpectedly, her first reaction was not to scream in terror. It was to scream with rage.
With a speed that defied logic, her hand shot out inside the liquid, grabbing a fluorescent green device that looked like a high-tech cell phone.
"SAM!" she shrieked, her voice muffled but furious through the pod and the liquid.
BOOM!
Flames and superheated steam instantly engulfed her entire medical pod. The explosion of heat was so sudden and violent that you were thrown backward, shielding your face with your arms.
The next second, the sound of tearing metal and hissing, high-pressure hydraulics filled the room. A giant, silver-white mechanical suit burst out of the pod's wreckage, landing with a heavy, three-ton THUD that shook the very floor.
By the time you regained your footing, there was no longer a sleeping beauty in front of you.
Only a murderous, 3-meter-tall mech, poised in a low, predatory battle stance. Its glowing, singular green optic was aimed directly at your head.
[Inorin's Note: SAM, or 'Stellaron Hunter Mechanical Armor,' is Firefly's combat suit, which she can summon and pilot.]
"???"
Your brain was a little slow to process. Where was the girl? She… she turned into the mech?! Okay. So girls turn into giant, murderous robots here. That's a thing. Good to know.
"Who are you?! How did you get in?!" a deep, male, and synthetic robotic voice boomed from inside the mech. Its optical eye flashed with a dangerous green light. "I advise you to state your identity immediately, otherwise…"
"Huh? I don't know either!" you yelled back, holding your hands up. "I just woke up here!" This was the absolute, frustrating truth.
"Still trying to quibble!" the mech seemed enraged. The synthetic voice was layered over a fainter, distinctly female shout. "Peeping Tom! Prepare to die!"
"Wait, I'm not a—"
Before you could finish, a huge steel fist, the size of a small car, whistled through the air and slammed towards your face.
Your body reacted faster than your brain. You didn't think. You just moved. The combat instinct, the muscle memory you didn't know you had, took over. You dropped into a defensive posture, your arms crossing to block, bracing for an impact you knew you couldn't possibly survive.
Just as the punch was about to connect—
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Several delicate, shimmering purple threads, thin as spider silk but glowing with an unnatural power, appeared out of thin air. They instantly wrapped around both of you, binding you like struggling insects.
You were frozen, unable to move. The mech's massive fist was also firmly fixed in mid-air, its momentum completely nullified, stopping just centimeters from your face.
"This is…" A surprised, synthesized voice came from inside the mech. "Kafka?"
Tap, tap, tap...
The elegant, unhurried sound of high heels on the metal floor approached from the corridor. A woman walked in.
She had long, dark purple hair, and her wine-red pupils held a perpetual, faint, enigmatic smile. She wore a stylish black coat over a white shirt, revealing her long, pale legs. She exuded an aura that was both dangerous and impossibly alluring.
"Oh dear…" Kafka tilted her head, her voice lazy and magnetic, as if she were deeply amused by the scene of a giant robot about to pulverize an amnesiac. "So lively first thing in the morning."
[Inorin's Note: Kafka is a high-ranking member of the Stellaron Hunters, known for her 'Spirit Whisper' ability, which allows her to control others with her voice and specialized threads.]
She walked calmly between your frozen form and the mech's massive fist, seemingly unfazed by the weaponized armor. She extended a single, gloved finger and gently tapped the mech's fist.
"However, listen to me—" Her voice was soft, but it carried an absolute, hypnotic authority. "Good children don't fight."
The purple threads instantly snapped and dissipated.
The mech also regained its mobility, but it did not attack again. It just stood there, humming angrily. A ball of flame ignited on its chassis and then extinguished, and the silver-haired girl reappeared, as if stepping out of the armor's very essence.
This time, she was wearing a simple, fluorescent green dress, but the furious, blotchy blush on her cheeks had not faded in the slightest.
"Kafka!" the girl pointed at you, her voice sharp, like an annoyed kitten. "Who is this guy? Why is he in my medical room?! And why was he in that pod?"
The woman called Kafka turned her intrigued, wine-red gaze towards you. Her eyes swept over you, from head to toe, as if she were appraising a fine, and very interesting, piece of art. Then, she glanced at the empty, fluid-drenched medical pod you had just climbed out of.
"Firefly," Kafka turned to the girl, her smile widening slightly. "Don't be so nervous."
[Inorin's Note: Firefly is a Stellaron Hunter and the pilot of the mech SAM.]
"He's not an enemy."
Kafka's gaze returned to you, her smile holding a world of secrets.
"He's our... special new companion."
The girl called "Firefly" widened her eyes. Her anger, her embarrassment—it all evaporated, replaced by pure, unfiltered shock.
"He... he's the one?" she stammered, her gaze snapping back to you, her eyes wide with a new, horrified disbelief. "The one you mentioned? The one Elio told you to pick up..."
She stared at you, her mouth slightly agape as she processed the information.
"...The one who was... just a head?"