This is a recap of the events I consider to be Part 2 of the story thus far. I added some new chapters in that help flesh it out.
Metudo
It didn't take long for us to clean up and get Anatos to a medical bay. We would have done the same to Antigon, but I needed her to talk; so we instead let her lay down and dry while we assembled everyone else.
Soon everyone was around the largest table in the base excepting Anatos, and Herm who was still slumped over; but she was snoring now, so that was a good sign. I looked over the newcomers. Neko, Asuka, Vyrse, Raven, Syndil, Thorium, Zephos, and Moot. Most of them Gods. We agreed to talk first. Explaining to them all we knew about Avarus and his Solarus; then Neko began talking, showing us her map. Tech didn't wait for Herm to wake up, as soon as our attention turned to her stirring body, he left with the map.
“Whahapend?” Herm was blinking rapidly and looking around. “Why am I so cold.” She was suddenly coherent and shivering.
“That's what I think most of the people here would like to know.” I said.
“Yeah, why did you lie to us all that time?” Zephos, a young man with silver hair, spoke up.
“I woulda felt less bad about beating you up all those times.” Thorium said offhandedly.
“We all thought you were dead.” Leukos pointed out, his usually carefree face a stone cold mask. Herm, now very aware of her situation was looking for escape routes.
“No one is going to hurt you.” I said calmly; being one of the few people who knew the truth ahead of time. She still was edging away, before she finally sighed.
“I... I didn't want you guys to pity me. I figured if you all saw me as Pahhur, you wouldn't treat me differently, and we could get through this mess without issue.”
“Be that as it may, you were still lying to us. Most of us knew you before, several of us were worried that you were dead. Don't you think it would be kinder to tell us, than leave us mourning?” She seemed to shrink into her chair. “I'm sure everyone here will have something to say to you, and that will be up to them. But I am going to say this, you weaken yourself when you hide the truth. I've seen you do it before, and it is a terrible habit to have. Tell people the next time something happens; from what I understand we need you to be at full strength if we're going to win this upcoming war.” With that I left her to her fate.
The fallout from Herm's lies lasted a little while, a few people decided to just not talk to her anymore. Though it was decided almost unanimously to continue calling her Pahhur. I however needed to deal with Anatos; he would be waking up soon, and I needed to make sure he didn't explode like that again.
“Wh... Where am I?” He finally sat up from the basin we had laid him in.
“It's alright. You're safe.” I said, trying to keep him calm.
“Herm. Where is he?”
“You mean Pahhur. She is currently getting chewed out by everyone who knew her.” He seemed to diffuse a bit from that.
“Oh. It's not fair is it?”
“What is?”
“I mean, he lived, and so many others died.”
“Everyone is carrying that weight bro.” I said casually. “Our mom's gone, we all shared a lot of family, that are now gone.” He bit his lip. “We're all that's left, I don't think it'd be prudent to go reducing that number anymore.”
“I... I guess not.”
“Look, it's alright, Pah was being dumb, and she deserved what you did. But she's been punished, so lets move on right?”
“Alright, we do have more important things.”
“Right, we've got a lot of families here, I'd rather not let someone else experience the same things we did. So, you wanna come down and hear the plans in action?” He seemed to be brighter suddenly, and got up.
“Sure, just let me get a drink.”
Things moved quickly from there, in a matter of days everyone had acclimated to the base, and Tech had new resources to work with. Thorium in particular could produce large quantities of metals, Pah had enough firepower to generate a forge, and Leukos could provide plenty of energy. Tech had already begun installing various computers and hardware into the mountain, and had plans for some even larger enhancements. However, more importantly was the map, the ATLAS as Tech named it.
“I know it's early.” He said proudly, as we wobbled into the room. “But I think I've located our enemies base of operations.” He tapped the table we were sitting around, and a hologram burst forward, large enough for all of us to see the map of the globe.
“Earlier, we determined that there were seven active bases, judging from Solarus movement. Six form an outer-ring around the planet's equator; meanwhile one seems to serve as the central hub at the southern pole.”
“So we destroy that place, and we win then?” Pah asked.
“Looks like it, now, I've been working on a bomb, should be able to launch it straight over to the base, nuke it from orbit.”
“No.” I said.
“What but.”
“I'm almost positive they are holding things in that base, like the wildlife of this planet, we can't risk blowing it up.”
“But I could.”
“No.” Tech sighed.
“Alright, what do you propose?”
“I think if we rally up our strength, and make a heavy push through one of the six outer bases, we could take the central base fairly rapidly.”
“I don't think so, this map doesn't do it justice, but the scale of this planet is enormous. There's no way we'd be able to trek with an Army all the way around.” Neko said.
“Food, water, and moral would deteriorate too quickly.” Jato said.
“Maybe if we just send in a small team? We should be able to provide enough food and water for that.” Pah pointed out.
“We'd get overwhelmed.” Anatos retorted. I however had an idea.
“Tech, how were you planning on getting a nuke around the planet?”
“Well, I was building a missile, and it might not have enough fuel to get there on its own, but if Zephos and Leukos rode it most of the way, the could keep it afloat more than long enough.”
“Rather than a missile, build a ship.”
“I don't... Oh...”
“You're thinking of loading up a team and flying them in?” Jato asked.
“I think we could managed it.”
“What if there are air defenses, I don't think I can control something that large well enough.” Zephos pointed out; I however did not answer first.
“How about we only fly most of the way there, that way we preserve our energy.” Lark said.
“I'll do you one better.” Vyrse started. “We send a whole team on the ship, once we get within about a hundred miles we land the thing and split up. Attack 'em from two sides, classic pincher.”
“Or we could hit them from the ground and the sky.” Odin pointed out. “If I can get close enough I could tunnel under the base.”
“The advantage we have is strength.” I said, silencing the rest. “We need to spread the Solarus out, try to keep conflicts short and small. Why don't we use the pincher technique, and add a twist. First, we'll only send the Gods. Sorry Vyrse, you guys can get taken down by one stray bullet. Tech will stay here to coordinate the strike. That leaves us with twelve. If we divide into six teams of two, we can hit them from all compass directions and the sky and underground.”
“Sounds solid enough, it would spread the Solarus out far enough, I think we can each handle a couple hundred.” Pah said.
“Okay, but design that ship with a strong front.” Zephos said. “I'm gonna just crash it in.” Tech nodded and moved off while I determined the rest of the teams.
“Odin, you and Pah are underground. Anatos, you're with Lark; you can play off each other well. I want you two to attack from the east. Jato, you and Moot can strike from the south. Neko, you go with Thorium and hit them from the west, while Asuka and I attack from the north. We will attack in two weeks. Train with your partners until then, I want all of you to be completely in tune with each other.”
Jato
The “two weeks” of training was a living hell. In fact I can't remember getting anything done, as I spent most of the time hunting down Moot.
He had always been a bit unstable before all this, but he had been raised as a noble and carried himself well. I guess with the collapse of society he no longer saw a need to pretend. I caught him up to all manner of mischief; from scaring the civilians to getting into the food supply. Worst of all he was hard to stop, his body was naturally intangible and most of the time I tried to grab him all I'd get is an armful of air and my face in the ground.
Eventually Tech got in on this with me, despite my nickname of him Moot seemed to have hit a nerve.
It started with the lights in the halls. Tech hooked up some high output lighting, it was like walking into a light bulb. Unfortunately, they broke too rapidly; and we hadn't lit the storage room the same way, so when we moved to replace them we found out Moot had already fed the replacements to Pah.
This wasn't the last time Moot relied on others to help him. At one point he got Zephos into the food storage. The ensuing flying food had most of the civilians afraid to leave their rooms.
Tech sought to control these three with a vengeful fury; and I ended up playing middleman.
Between chemicals, microchip implants, a few attempts at hypnosis, and an egregious amount of food; a solution was found. Neko, taking pity on us, had Tech synthesize a sleeping potion of sorts, which she used to spike some of the few remaining chocolate bars. This worked like a charm and put Moot into a deep sleep for a few hours. Without Moot, Pah and Zephos were easier to control since both had physical forms and could be smacked.
Anatos
I couldn't be happier with how things had turned out. We were going to fight for real, something I had been looking forward to ever since I got this new body. Being able to run, jump and play was blessing enough, but being able to fight for myself and others, that was just the icing on the cake. Add on to that the fact that I had been told to train with Lark; one of the prettiest girls in the base.
Sure we had spent a lot of time together already, since the main water tank is in the same room as her garden, but this was just more opportunities.
Although I may be counting out the other girls as Metudo managed to prove one evening.
He and Asuka were training, I was sidelined, having just practiced a few tricks with Lark for a few hours. We were trying to push how long I could fight before I dehydrated myself. Anyway, Asuka didn't like him, much like she didn't like any of us. In fact the only one she even seemed to consider worth talking to was Moot, but he was almost never around.
Still that day began the long silence between Asuka and Metudo. They had barely been training for an hour, trying to overlay their energies on top of each other. Metudo was hoping to create something solid enough to stand on. However something happened, and a surge of energy ran over Asuka.
She went into some sort of trance, and silently stripped down in front of all of us. Metudo immediately turned beet red; his mouth hanging low on his face. When she came to and realized what had happened she exploded.
I had never heard so many words come out of her mouth; nor had I ever heard them so rapidly. She even seemed to forget she was stark naked as she absorbed herself in yelling at Metudo. I only picked up a few words, like commoner, pervert and asshole. He just stood there gawking. I think he had gone into shock.
At least he was standing until she slapped him a few times and kicked his kneecaps. He didn't even get up while she turned around, shot me a nasty look, got dressed and left.
I don't think a word passed between them for a very long time.
Late in the two weeks I entered the training rooms, greeted as usual by Thorium.
“Hey Neko.”
“Hey.” I said back to Thorium as I entered the training chamber. We had been sparring the last few days, since the two of us were going to be teaming up. He had gotten very accurate with his mace, and discovered he could change the metal at the end. He had been practicing different forms lately, but seemed to be fond of throwing it in a small form, and once it impacted making it spike outwards.
On the other hand, I had been learning powers of my own. My body could shift into just about any form I could think of, or at least partially shift. I hadn't managed to obtain a fully animal body yet, usually just a very enhanced human. Though if I shifted into anything with claws, the gloves seemed to merge with those and made the natural claws longer.
Tech had said something about genetic information being necessary, but without any animal life, there was nothing I could do. Instead I focused on find a form I found comfortable and maximizing its capabilities.
So far that has been a half panther form. The black fur works well to conceal me, the senses are sharp, the extra muscles in my arms and legs allow me to move quickly and hit hard, and the tail keeps me nimble and balanced. As of yet Thorium hadn't managed to land a blow, even when he tried to shift his metal and follow me.
The sparring had started while I was thinking, today wasn't much different, he tried shifting and I dodged out of the way, tapping his shoulder as I passed. This time though, I was launched from his shoulder by a powerful force. The cloth shirt he had been wearing was torn, underneath I could see a well made shoulder pad, bulging out and slowly shifting back down.
“Ha got you!”
“When did you make armor?”
“You like it? I'm making a set for everyone. Or at least everyone who wants one.”
“I think it would just slow me down.” I said, dropping from where I had dug into the ceiling.
“Probably.” I felt my fur stand on end and turned towards the door. Metudo was standing there.
“You guys ready?” He said, smiling. “It's time to go.”
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