The 27th and Last
Is this the Penultimate mission? Who can tell!?
We make it back to Foundation.
Harden is waiting for us when we get back. He tells us his dreams of founding a better world are crushed, and worst of all, it was at the hand of his right hand man, the Marshal. Eagle Eye had warned him, but he hadn't listened, and now she was dead and Marshal is gone, having taken Tower and Tanna with him.
He begs us to save them. They are innocent in whatever Marshal is planning. He isn't sure where they went, but believes they were in contact with PIRC before they left.
We leave, and suddenly our senses are overloaded with a mystical vision.
In a large clearing, sourrounded by forest, a large military base bustles with soldiers. At the center of the base is a warehouse.
The image zooms into the warehouse, showing that it contains a large spherical machine that hovers a few feet off the ground. Alexandria and other PIRC members are accompanied by a man with a large walrus mustache.
He gives Alexandria a thumbs up, and she enters something into a console, and the image transforms.
Silver Knight is flying along side a military jeep, which is being driven by a soldier. It looks that Tower and Tanna are in it, both unconscious.
The vision changes yet again. Parahumans are collapsing to the ground, us included.
A voice speaks. It's Aldor. "They would ruin all you accomplish. All would be wasted in the name of returning things to the way it was."
We manage to find our way to the military base.
Our presence is not appreciated. Sirens go off, and several soldiers open fire on us, but they are no match for us.
More soldiers are on the way, but we quickly bar ourselves in the warehouse.
The inside looks different than our vision, with every corner of the warehouse filled with all sorts of equipment. The sphere is here though.
Piper looks at some consoles, which show a status screen of the machine. It's highlighted in green and says that it is active.
One one side of the room the floor is covered with a engraved hex grid, with another console. It lists several names. Sergeant Lessander Vaniger. Lt. Alexandria. Ronald Wellington. Wayne Shu. Tanna D-lisk.
Legion grows and size and destroys the orb, and it shatters in many pieces. The console alarms and says "Contact Watch Officer Tain".
The wall of the warehouse explodes, and a giant mech steps through. A loudspeaker speaks, "Surrender or be destroyed," also identifying itself as Watch Officer Tain.
We decide we'd rather be destroyed, and missiles shoot out from the mech at us. A tesla coil emerges from its shoulder and emits blinding light.
No matter. We knock out the mech, and remove Watch Officer Tain from it.
It's the man with the walrus mustache.
Watch Officer Tain wakes up, and immediately accuses us of being terrorists, refusing to assist us in any way.
But Legion has ways of extracting information from people, or more accurately, one of his gross minions does, getting the information on how to activate what is apparently a teleporter directly from his mind.
It only takes his hand print, and the teleporter flings us through time and space.
We're on a broken battlefield littered with destroyed battle armor, beneath a blood red skies, marred only by three moons of varying sizes.
A voice speaks to us. "The first of my attempts."
A power armor rises up, its shattered helmet masking a skull of some fallen warrior. The skull moves as if to talk.
"A failure so stark I did not try again for a million years."
The world melts away, and darkness returns.
The darkness recedes, revealing a jungle.
The voice has not left us. "The fifth of my attempts."
Three alien creatures drop down from the tree tops. They look amphian in nature, almost like geckos with large eyes. Their clothing has a sheen to it, and there faces are plated with metal.
They spot us. "You are not of us. We are the potential of the gods. How dare you slander them with your very presence!"
They attack, and we quickly fell them.
The world fades and returns again, and the voice speaks.
"A failure so sobering, despite observations so favorable. It was my fourteenth attempt."
The land is gray and brown, as lifeless as it is colorless. The smell of acid and decay smothers our senses.
Strange many appendages creatures with many tentacles flee past us.
A wall of flesh oozes towards us, spewing a nasty green liquid.
The wall bleeds when struck, but then the world fades away again.
"Failure so terrifying, understanding was necessary. This was my twenty-sixth attempt, and my last."
We see a creature with batlike wings before a collection of shadowed figures clad in robes.
One of the shadowed figures speaks.
"Your failure marks you now. What you have done marks you as equal, but do you deserve redemption? The Eledra cannot choose, the future cannot be chosen. Face it, and earn it!"
Piper puts light above the shadowed figures, revealing their true forms, all trunk and bulbous eyes, and the bat like creature before the once shadowed creatures attacks us, attempting to mentally dominate us. We stun and knock him down, and he turns to the others, as if to beg.
"Is it worth it to destroy me? Will it give a sense of closure? Allow me to correct the mistakes I have made!"
The figures whisper between themselves, before turning back to the creature.
"Very well, we will spare you. To destroy you would be to destroy all life. We will spare you in the hope that the next chosen will understand you. The Eledra will be cast off once and for all."
The voice speaks again.
"A failure so final that their mercy was undeserved, and yet, they gave it to me."
Focus returns to the world. Alexandria, Marshal, Tanna and several others sit around a multi-ringed device
Aaron says "the bat creature is coming to kill us!", but then Alexandria's figures dissolves, revealing the bat creature.
Alexandria, no, Eund explains that the Eledra had become so technologically advanced they became immortal. His species were the first, and again and again, they played species against each other, giving them powers.
But Eund found a loophole in their power granting, and was able to steal power from them and move it to his own quasi-dimensional source. The Eledra hold the gates of ascension, but no longer!
Eund motions to the machine. "This is how we will reach them."
Tower came willingly, with Tanna less so. The device was not easy to construct, but it will provide passage to the Eledra's dimension.
Furthermore, our powers come now from Eund, so the Eledra will not be able to prevent us once we reach the other side, except by force.
We agree to take on this task.