The next morning arrives. Lux, Jade, Klaus, and Tora join Vern in the meeting room. The trio sit in the same seats as last time. As for Tora, she sits in the chair directly next to Jade. Vern walks to the furthest wall turning to look at everyone before nodding a greeting. A holographic screen appears on the wall behind Vern as he moves to the side so that everyone can see the display of a map of a city port.

"Good morning. I hope you all had a good enough sleep. Today is the day that the Ethereals come out of hiding to make themselves known. Our objective is to take Meriport."

"What's so special about some random ass city?" Lux asks, leaning forward in his wheeled chair.

"Meriport holds a well known recruitment base in the heart of the city. Not only that, but it is home to a port where the Federation brings in foreign wares and supplies. This is not the only city port of course, but taking this will give us a stable front to capture other cities."

"Guess that makes sense."

"Lux, Miss Umbra, Mr. Fulgur, your job is simple. Destroy the recruitment base and take the port. Our forces will be fighting off the Federation to assist you as well."

"Shit should be easy. Anything else?"

"Yes, two more things. First, Miss Zelterra will be your personal communicator. A liaison with the Ethereals who handles information if you will."

"Yeah! ...Wait, wha?" Tora tilts her head, now fully immersed with the briefing.

"I am assigning you to watch over and guide them."

"Nice way of sayin' he doesn't trust us," Lux cuts in, shifting in place to gain a new comfortable position. Heh, which is cool with me."

"On the contrary, I trust you will get the job done. Miss Zelterra is a smart young woman. I believe you all will work well together."

"If ya say so. Don't really matter to me. What was the other shit?"

"I will also be joining you all in the field. Commander Dawson is very good at what he does. I have no doubts this will go smoothly."

"Whatever. I'm done talkin'. Let's get out of here."

"Come. Our submarines will serve as transportation."

"Good luck, y'all!" Tora waves to everyone, her smile filled with a sense of encouragement.

After everyone walks out into the control room, their eyes witness crowds of Abnormals running in a synchronized manner toward a certain location. Vern motions the trio to follow him to a pair of descending stairs that leads to a small door.

They all descend the stairs, past the door where eventually they find themselves walking into a huge, underground cave area, arriving at a metal pier. Before them lies a gargantuan pool of water littered with enormous metal submarines staying afloat.

In every direction, they observe Abnormals climb into those submarines, closing the hatches behind them. Vern nods to Dawson, who walks by returning the same greeting back. Vern leads his now specialized team of three to a smaller sized submarine. Lux climbs up to the top, opening the hatch with ease before jumping in without hesitation.

As the others climb down the hatch ladder, he looks around to inspect the interior. In front of him is a fairly lit, narrow hallway with doors leading to either another small area or room. In the far back is the control room where he detects two people, a male and female. Everyone enters the control room, then the male and female stand up from their seats, turn around to look at Vern and nod. "Sir," a voice all too familiar to Vern greets.

"Jacob. Morgan."

"'Ey, look who it is. Pussy with a Cap."

"Of course you ended up joining. I hope you don't lose your head out there, sir."

"Thank you for your concern," Vern says with a light chuckle following after. "Let's get ready to go."

"Yes, sir."

Jacob and Morgan sit in two seats that are a short distance from each other. Both have large panels, switches, and buttons in front of them. Their fingers seem to work in tandem, a choreographed dance rehearsed many times before everyone can hear the fruits of their song, the engine starting to roar outside.

"Now we can swim with the fishes and be one with the ocean," Klaus exclaims, entering his usual voice changing shenanigans.

"With a submarine?" The tone behind Lux's words pulls Klaus' gaze away from the nearest window like a magnetic force. He responds, yet again switching the pitch of his voice to something deeper.

"If you're not fucking with it, it's time to throw you overboard."

"'Ey, I'm standing right here. C'mon and try. You won't do shit."

Lux and Klaus start to wrestle in the back. Meanwhile, Jade shakes her head in response to their seemingly never ending need to enter a wrestling match before sitting a small seat on the far right. Vern walks up to stand behind Jacob and Morgan, peering forward as the submarine headlights turn on. "Take us to our destination." he orders, his words deeply rooted in his accent.

The propeller of the submarine starts moving, and all the other submarines in the water follow suit. When the main submarine that the group is in lurches forward, an entire sub-nautical fleet follows behind them.

                       - Meriport City:
         Southeastern Pier -
~

The southeastern pier of Meriport. A small base that defends the gate entrance leading into the city. It has watchtowers scattered across it, with fairly sized tracker turrets mounted on the sides. In front of the base, is the pier section where some Federation ships are anchored. AAF sailors are working, walking back and forth whilst talking amongst each other. Two men wearing dark blue sailor uniforms are striding along the pier, both pulling and unraveling a thick rope. The first, more robust and superior in height in comparison to his counterpart, speaks out. "Hey, have you seen the news lately?"

"Nope," the second sailor answers, taking a moment to rid himself of an itch invading his dark haired scalp. "Lola told me I watch too much TV."

"I don't see what that has to do with the news, but alright. Heard a bunch of Abnormals escaped Silver Cloud. Lots of dangerous ones too. They talk too much down here, I'm telling you. There was a heated conversation here not too long ago between our superiors and some officials up north. It got out. Someone in the boardroom mentioned something about a Silver Cloud program for those very same dangerous Abnormals."

"Eh, they probably went into hiding or something. I'm sure our people will hunt those freaks down like they always do. There's nothing to worry about."

"Guess not," the first sailor states blankly.

"Okay. Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"Every time I say something will be alright after you say something that's from the news or whatever, you do that voice. I'm just telling you the facts."

"And I listened to the facts."

"Dude, seriously?"

"I'm not doing anything, man."

"Whatever. Let's just get this shit done. I have to be home by five."

The two men continue to unravel and pull the rope. The more slender of them looks up into the sky and squints to confirm the odd silhouette he's seeing. "Uh, one of the guys fooling around with the jet packs again?"

"The hell are you talking about?"

The sailor who's already looking up points in a certain direction towards the body of water. His working partner looks up in the same direction, noticing what seems to be a man with silver hair flying in the air, large light blue crystalline wings trailing behind him. "What the fuck...?"

Multiple huge ice shards suddenly form on each side of the man in the air. He motions with his hand subtly, directing all the shards in rapid descent towards the pier. "Shit! Move! Move!"

The ice shards hit multiple targets. The sailors on the pier, wooden storage crates, the ships themselves, and the small structures a short distance past the pier. Agonizing screams of pain and loud explosions from the ships are deafening. Some men that manage to get away start screaming towards the base. "SOUND THE ALARM!! WE'VE GOT AN ABNORMAL DOWN HERE!"

The threatening silhouette in the air slowly drops towards the ground, softly stepping onto an undamaged pier, revealing Vern's stately posture. As he casually walks forward, his hands behind his back, the ice shards continue to fall, effortlessly killing and destroying anything in their way. "Ethereals. It is time we advance," he says, his commanding aura overtaking the destruction created by his own power.

Suddenly, an entire army of Abnormals through the deceivingly calm surface of the water. Some land in the small areas leading towards the base while others are flying above. They all begin attacking the men who are trying to flee towards the base. In response to the sudden attack, the base sends multiple foot soldiers to fend off the waves. Vern looks forward to all the AAF soldiers, who all start to fire their rifles at him.

An ice wall instantly appears in front of their leader, blocking the hail of bullets. Once the temporary protection has served its purpose, it disappears. Vern responds after slipping off his left glove, flitting his left hand forward; in an instant, all of the foot soldiers are encased in ice.

Afterwards, he clenches his fist sending the ice to shatter by his command into pieces along with the men. Another wave of AAF soldiers rush forward to defend their base, this time with large, mobile cannons. Two males along with a female launch out of the water touching down in front of Vern, all assuming a fighting stance as they look forward. "J. Klaus. Time to get to work," the voice Vern recognizes as Lux's.

The assault against the base begins in earnest with Lux initiating the battle by catapulting into the air. With a gripping shout, he bashes the ground in front of him with his fists upon landing, creating a wide, destructive pulse that sends batches of soldiers flying as well as a few of their mobile cannons. Rushing forward with excited eyes afterwards, beginning to punch or dismantle anything in his way.

Klaus and Jade follow Lux's lead. Klaus dashes forward in a flash, while dodging the sudden blasts from the mortars. He easily slashes into the armor of the soldiers that were left alone from Lux's destruction. After deflecting the constant bombardment from the cannons with her own balls of energy, Jade ascends into the air. She shrouds her hands in dark purple aura motioning them downwards to conjure a wide cloud of similar colored mist causing the soldiers below her to violently shake as they begin suffocating.

Vern quickly follows up, he forces Jade's mist to drop to a freezing temperature, making it harder for the crowd of soldiers to escape. Immediately afterwards, he conjures a giant ice shard above the crowd, and drops it onto them without hesitation, creating an ample wave of icy destruction. Before the group takes care of the soldiers remaining, they collectively hear Tora's voice in their heads. "H-Hello? Can y'all hear me?"

"She's here!," Klaus shouts, a rush of excitement overtaking him. "She speaks to us from the heavens! Look up my brothers and sisters! Look up!"

"We can hear you, Miss Zelterra," Vern calmly responds to the familiar voice in his head. "Please, guide us."

"Yes, sir! The base of the pier isn't too far ahead of ya. If we wanna make it easy for our forces, y'all are gonna hafta take those watchtowers out. Those Anti-Turrets will impede on our advance for sure."

"Understood. These three and I will destroy the watchtowers after we rid ourselves of the enemies ahead of us."

"Roger that! Be careful out there, y'all!"

"Do not worry. We have prepared for this very day."

One by one, Lux punches then kicks two soldiers, sending them a considerable distance away. Before he turns around, he's blasted by the wide explosion of a cannon a short distance from him. Unharmed, he casually walks forward, then stomps his foot on the bulk of the cannon, crushing it with ease.

Afterwards, he picked it up and tossed it at the last one remaining. The two cannons collide, creating a huge explosion that kills the rest of the soldiers in the vicinity. Once the way forward is clear, Dawson arrives with an army of soldiers diligently following behind him, approaching Vern with a respectful nod. Vern quickly acknowledges him, prompting his commander to speak.

"Sir. We've disposed of any fleeing enemies trying to make their way to the base."

"Very good. Continue your advance. The hires and I will take care of the Anti Towers."

"Understood. I'll see you when everything is done, sir. Ethereals! We continue our advance!" Dawson shouts, his commanding tone calling for the attention of all the surrounding Abnormals.

The army of Abnormals follow Dawson up a small hill past the area in front of the pier. Loud booms from the turrets firing at them can be heard from the base, along with screeching beams of energy from their counterstrikes. Vern turns to look at the trio, smirking at them in confidence. "Shall we?"

Though they're in the middle of a chaotic battlefield, Vern still walks forward calmly with his hands behind his back, as if he knows no stray bullet or sudden explosion will harm him. Klaus covers his mouth with his left hand before deepening the pitch of his voice.

"And there he goes, leader of the Ethereals, walking like he doesn't give a care. "Why not?" Said the young child. Well, you can-"

"Shut up and let's move," Jade interrupts, having a no tolerance policy on the battlefield. After her cut in, she and Lux continue on to catch up with Vern. Following behind, Klaus lowers his head, mumbling to himself as he walks forward.

"I didn't finish my story! This won't be the last you hear from me, Jade...!"

Through Tora's guidance, the group take a different path into the base apart from the main forces, and enter through there. After walking into a small railing area, they can see Dawson below them leading the main bulk of the Ethereal army into combat, fighting off Federation soldiers at the front entrance whilst taking severe blows from the turrets above. Spotting the fallacies in the Ethereral's advance, Vern turns his head to speak to the others. "Come. We should hurry and destroy those watchtowers."

With haste, the group begin searching throughout the base for the Anti towers. During the search, they're forced into combat due to the Federation soldiers' desperate attempts to defend their base. In addition to fighting them off, the group luckily find scraps of items they feel are useful, and lost or left over cash they find in the standalone lockers throughout the base.

After a short time, the group entered a fairly sized area. An enormous turret in the far right corner is firing its artillery downward towards the fighting. As expected by the group, there's small wave of AAF soldiers defending it with some heavy mechanical suits.

"There! You'll need to take that turret down!"

"Quit your yappin' and let us work," Lux asserts, mentally preparing for the assault awaiting him.

Vern makes the first strike. Before attacking, he conjures a small mirror shield to reflect the initial gunfire, only to then dodge the following explosions. Afterwards, his shield quickly dissipates, and he elegantly surges forward with a long icicle blade in his right hand.

He rapidly cuts down five soldiers with ease all while avoiding the second round of gunfire from the soldiers further away. He then leaps over one of the mechanical suits, plunging his blade into the ground, causing an icy pulse to spread throughout the area.

Lux decides to only attack the soldiers inside the mechanical suits, who are slowed due to Vern's cold pulse. Leaping forward towards one of the mechanically suited soldiers, he rises up with a devastating knee followed by a descending elbow directly to the neck.

Once they're on the ground, Lux rips apart the armor with a harsh pull and extracts the soldier in the suit's previously protected interior. He then tosses the soldier into another mechanical suit, and rams straight through them with a swift shoulder blade tackle.

While Klaus is fighting off the foot soldiers at the forefront along with Vern, the ranged soldiers in back lines decide to attack Jade all at once before she goes airborne again. Finding herself surrounded, she blocks the instant gunfire with an energy barrier, but is quickly struck from the many swings of heavy batons behind her. Jade staggers from strikes, soon, she's overwhelmed by the damage she's taking and falls to her knees in need of aid. "Fuck...I-I can't breathe...!"

"Jade's in trouble! Can someone help her?!"

Lux instantly changes directions and rushes forward to assist his partner. Punching three of the soldiers to the metal floor in one hit, he then strikes the ground in anger, causing an enormous eruption to blast upwards and burn away the ones remaining. Afterwards, he extends his left arm helping her to her feet.

"Come on, J. You don't want to get paid then embarrass yourself right after," he says jokingly to do away with the shock of her near death experience.

"Keep your attitude until after I've said thanks."

Jade has the honor of taking out the one mechanical suited soldier remaining. She forces him into the air with her chains, she then conjures a fleet of purple energy balls behind her. With a swift motion of her right hand, she commands the energy balls towards the soldier.

One by one, the energy balls continuously crash against him, finally ending in a giant, purple aura explosion. With the area now cleared, Lux jumps atop the turret, and dismantles its dual cannons with ease. He lands back onto the ground, and wipes the dust off his shoulders from his quick work.

"Nice job, y'all! Three more to go!"

"Yes, let us continue our advance," Vern concurs, motivating his comrades to persist with their work. "We still have a ways to go."

The group leave the destroyed watchtower area continuing to fight through the chaos of the base in search of another tower. On the way, they find scraps of items and rare materials, as well as run into small crowds of AAF soldiers. It doesn't take the group very long to find the next watchtower. They are, of course, met by defending Meriport forces once again.

This time, however, there are not only Federation soldiers that are inside large, mechanical suits. They are being joined by others, some flying in the air with the help of the jetpacks on their backs who are holding odd looking grenade launchers.

"Watch out for those grenade launchers, they've got Anti rounds! It'll pack more punch than a drunk driver on a Saturday!" Tora quickly warns.

"Why is the voice in my head speaking in riddles?!" Klaus yells at a nearby wall.

Despite his scatterbrained questioning, he's the first to attack. He zips around in a seemingly aimless pattern, creating long, thick lines of electricity that float in the air in front of him. One by one, kicking the streaks of electricity towards the flying soldiers, forcing a few of them to the ground after destroying their jet packs.

Lux once again propels forward with violence at the soldiers inside the mechanical suits. Vern quickly conjures an icy shield to protect Lux from the distant gunfire, then dashes after firing multiple shards of ice towards the foot soldiers directly in front of him. Jade forms dark chained nets that propel the wave of grenades descending towards her back at their source.

She flings her chains towards the flying soldiers, hauling three of them toward her. Afterwards, she softly blows dark purple mist in each of their faces, forcing them to individually suffocate to death, smiling as she watches.

Lux has already destroyed four of the mechanical suits. With two remaining, he jumps to his right to avoid the downward punch of the one directly in front of him, then grabs the arm of the second one after taking the blow of their kick. With a tight grip, he begins spinning in a circle, taking the mechanical suit along with him. The impact of the spin knocks the first suit away, and he tosses the second into the air with ease.

While the second suit is in the air, Lux rushes forward at the first one and forces it to the ground with a descending kick. Afterwards snatching the soldier that was inside, and tossing him into the air as well. He begins to chaotically pound the ground with his fist, finishing with one last crash that causes a huge, uplifting eruption that scorches both the soldier and the mechanical suit into ashes.

Klaus and Vern take out the remaining soldiers. Vern creates solid lines of ice that travel across the metal floor in various directions that surround the soldiers. With a cheerful smile on his face, Klaus begins sliding along the lines of ice with trails of burning electricity behind him.

He begins tossing streaks of electricity at the soldiers, who are struggling to counter strike due to his extreme speed. Klaus ends his constant bombardment by leaping up into the air. He sends a huge streak of electricity towards Vern, who catches the kinetic energy into his ice covered arm.

With a swift descent, Vern crashes down into the crowd of soldiers with his arm extended forward, creating an icy, electrical explosion. Now that the area is clear, Lux indulgences himself as he begins to destroy the turret with a satisfied smile on his face. Once he's done, he walks up to the others and speaks with a bored tone. "That's two down. This is just too easy."

"Says the guy who's practically Anti-bulletproof," Jade states, humoring Lux's nonchalant attitude with her arms crossed.

"'Ey, can't help how I was made. You can be jealous if you want to. Won't change a thing."

"You can borrow my bulletproof vest, J. I got it for free from a raffle," Klaus chimes in, gently placing his hand on Jade's shoulder. She giggles, both amused and kind of confused as to how exactly one can obtain a bulletproof vest from a raffle.

"Thanks, baby. I'll be fine."

"There's two more to go. I would suggest refraining from wasting time," Vern exclaims, walking off in his usual posture.

The group leave the area, and return to the main parts of the base. As they run across the railings they can still see the Ethereal forces fighting against the soldiers below. The search for the last two towers isn't a long one. The group quickly finds and destroys the last two turrets keeping the Ethereals from advancing.

Once Dawson realizes that the devastating bombardment of the turrets has ceased, he leads the Ethereal forces forward in a last push to take the base. With most of the soldiers either scattered or killed, the group begin trekking down towards the lower levels to meet up with the main army. That is until Tora notices something odd about the soldiers whereabouts. "Huh? That's weird."

"What's up?" Jade asks.

"AAF forces are all converging to the heart of the base."

"A tactical retreat, perhaps?" Vern respectfully replies. A complete contrast to Lux's comment, who shrugs his shoulders without a care. To him, the battle was over as soon as he made an appearance.

"Or they just figured out they're gonna die and said fuck it."

"They are afraid of the mythical creatures from a foreign land, so now they flee to form a band," Klaus vocalizes in an intentful rhyme.

"Regardless of their plan, we'll need to rid ourselves of them. You mentioned the center of the base, correct, Miss Zelterra?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then that is where we are going."

With their new destination in mind, the group travels to the center areas of the base. After a short time of searching, the group entered a spacious area. A fair distance in front of them are the last remaining forces of the base. It's not much, not even enough to fight off any large number of Abnormals. A slim man with tan hair wearing a unique dark blue uniform with a tie steps forward and yells an order to his men. "Do it now!" The door leading into the area suddenly closes and is instantly blocked off by a large wall of blueish purple energy. "Now you can't escape, freaks. This will be easy pickings."

Vern steps forward as he releases a short lived chuckle, amused by the non threatening numbers of soldiers in him. "Humans. You so very much amuse me. I'm afraid that inside this trap of yours is the place where you all will die. Do not be afraid, however...I shall make this as quick and painless as I can," he states coldly, his irises pulsing light blue as he gazes into the eyes of the surrounding soldiers.

"What? So you can have all the fun?" Lux asks, glaring into the eyes of his enemies as they were injured puppies with no chance to escape his wrath.

"I'm not dying here! Not to freaks like you!" The man presses a button on his tie, he increases in size and muscle mass due to the bulk of his activated armor, and draws a large one sided ax from back afterwards. He points the ax at the group then barks an order at his men. "Kill this trash! For your families! In the name of the Federation!"

- Final Encounter (Sonny 1)

The group makes quick work of the soldiers fighting alongside Chambers. To their luck, there's only a few foot soldiers who rush forward to defend their leader. Lux harshly grips one of their necks, then strikes them with a swift head butt. Klaus and Jade both dash back and forth, slicing and exposing their armor while Vern begins to fight Chambers.

Lux finishes off the remaining soldiers. With a double clothesline he knocks them to the ground accompanied by a high powered kick, sending them all flying straight into the farthest wall. Once Chambers realizes he's alone, he kicks Vern away to create some distance, and forms a desperate plan to kill the group once for all. "I'm not dying here...Turn all armor functions to max power!"

By Chamber's command, his armor sure enough begins to pulse with a dark blue light. His ax grows in size as well, and he begins to swing it, wide blade beams emit from it and propel forward towards the group. Although he's alone, Chambers tries everything in his power to keep the group from overwhelming him. First comes Lux, who manages to strike Chambers a few times before he's forced away by a countering back swing.

Second, is Jade, and Klaus, who deflect the weapon beams and begin cutting away at his armor. Chambers answers by sending out a forceful shockwave that emits from his armor to quickly counter the constant pressure of attacks. Those attempts are futile however, when Vern rapidly closes the gap between the two of them conjuring an icy rapier. With three swift thrusts and a forceful horizontal swing ending with a powerful blast of cyro with his free hand, Vern fractures Chambers' armor and causes him to stagger backwards.

Chambers can feel a chilling pain coming from his chest. He looks down groaning in pain, instantly noticing the wide exposure in his armor, along with a piercing wound tainted by small ice shards. He falls backwards from pain, slowly and desperately attempting to crawl away from Vern's unforgiving eyes. "Fuck...This is fucking crazy...What are these things?! I-I don't want to die. C-Come on...! C-Cut me some slack! I-I was just following orders! You don't have to kill me!"

Vern interlocks his fingers as he steps forward, forming a sharp, icy hand blade in place of his skin. Once he stops in front of Chambers, who's now backed into a wall with his right hand raised as he begs for mercy, Vern looks downward, gazing into the fear of Chambers' widened irises. "On that, I will respectfully disagree. Look into my eyes. Know that the last person you will ever see is an Abnormal. A freak whom you hold so much hatred and distaste for."

"No...! No, no come on! I'm just a small fry! Please don-"

Vern swiftly swings his arm in a diagonal angle, completely splitting Chambers' body in a directional half. The crystal handblade slowly dissipates from Vern's hand, who then calmly places his hands behind his back before turning toward the trio in a relaxed state. "Our job here is done. Come."

As Vern walks forward to leave the area, Klaus glances over at Chambers' spilt body to make a final decoration. "And thus ends the story of the half naked man."

"Heh. C'mon, dumbass. We're leavin'," Lux chuckles, playfully placing his arm around his friend's neck as they make their exit. After a hard fought back and forth battle lasting almost an hour and forty-five minutes, the pier base now belongs to the Ethereals.