Aftershock
_
As he turned away from the fresh corpse on the floor the thought that soon those eyes would be scuttling around his lab as the central component of two new Eyeders caused the rage that set his blood aflame to slowly subside. The scent of burned flesh and hair from the smoking corpse assaulted his nostrils, but the betrayal of his friends had now been avenged. Even though the trials that the crew faced had brought them closer together, the memory could fade now that the treacherous bitch was laid to rest who's body he left lying in a puddle of her own blood. This sense of calm was short-lived however as the sight of Natsu Mashima stepping through the door caused reason to flee from Sparky's mind and hatred towards Jade to once again course forth,
“I have my orders,” the Gongen man said to Sparky as he made eye contact. Seeing the familiar electric blue glow in Sparky's eyes unsettled him and he stopped his forward progression and cast his glance at the bloody, charred body on the floor. He had seen worse, but that wasn't the issue right now. Knowing what the medic's presence in this room meant the blonde haired Cog growled before shouting “Doitzel! I swear to Bowie that if I have to kill her again I will, and I will go through Natsu in order to do it if I have to!”
Natsu of course knew this was not a threat to be taken lightly, he had seen the Maverick kill and knew he was very good at it when he chose, and of course since his life was the most important on this miserably hunk of junk he took it upon himself to protect it from the hate-crazed man before him. He sighed and muttered something under his breath and Sparky rocked on his feet slightly, dazed. The glow faded from his eyes and they returned to their natural gold state. Quickly but gently Natsu pushed Sparky from the room.
“Go fix the life support systems!” the medic said hurriedly as he locked the door behind him, knowing full well there wasn't an electronic lock in existence that could stop the Kizen if he didn't want to be stopped. Fortunately for Natsu, he didn't have to worry, He had felt his power take hold and knew that Sparky wouldn't be hunting Jade again for a long time... if ever.
Unexpectedly the golden-eyed Maverick realized that he held no animosity towards the girl lying dead on the deck... the girl he had just murdered in cold blood. As he was pushed out of the secondary communications station Sparky's world was shattered, he had just murdered a member of his own crew before she had a chance to react! It was over so quickly he wondered if she even knew what was happening before she was dead. Dazed from the shock of what he had just done he went about fixing the life support systems with the help of his Eyeders, who were replicating using the sea of bodies that littered the ship. Occasionally he would check on Kalingkata to ensure that the Gongen cracker had control over the reactor core. This kept him busy and thoughtless for several days and before he knew it they had reached the Shi home world. While the crew disembarked for Seyal the confused and traumatized Sparky remained behind with some half-hearted excuse about making sure the ship didn't explode. Using his time along Sparky retired to the reactor core where only his Eyeders remained for company. It was here that Sparky began to evaluate what happened over the past few days.
While he went about ensuring the core didn't overheat and enter a meltdown the Cog began to reflect on his association with Jade. The last time he had seen her was just before being gunned down by a Gongen swat team when he had attempted to kill her the last time. Strange, there seemed to be some sort of pattern to him attempting to slaughter her. He thought back to that day and replayed the memories in his head. His old friend Dexter, who he had met when he was still working for the old Gambler to free his friends, had caused quite the uproar when he and Jade had caused most of the crew to suspect Ellodie of killing someone they were trying to keep alive. The whole ordeal ended up with Shadow being locked in a cell on their old ship, Ellodie being subjected to interrogation at the hands of Dexter and Jade with only Doitzel and Sparky working to clear her name, Hotaru being betrayed by her best friend and loosing that connection once again, and Sparky attempting to kill Dexter and Jade. Though he had his bouts with betrayal in the past and should have wanted to kill them both, after all, it was one of his closest friends that sold out Sparky and his friends to the gambler, his anger was only directed towards Dexter. Thinking about it, it was possible his ambivalence towards Jade caused him to not care if she was collateral damage while he was trying to kill Dexter. Though while he was imprisoned Sparky caught news of Dexter's being sentenced to death and felt as if his crew had been avenged. In light of this, why had he endangered a majority of Electric Mayhem's lives to kill this single woman that he had no justification for killing?
After a long time considering, the Cog finally reached a conclusion. He turned to make sure that no one had snuck up on him, engaged his infrared vision just to double check, and then proceeded to wipe the tears from his mechanical eyes. ~Funny,~ he thought to himself, ~I didn't think I'd be able to cry after I got these eyes. I guess they left my tear ducts in tact after all.~
Understanding that he was now a traitor to Electric Mayhem, the only group that he had felt even remotely accepted in since his friends were sold out to the gambler, Sparky began preparing his next course of action. Standing up, he walked to the secondary command deck and along the way he hand picked six Eyeders. Upon reaching the command deck he sat in a minor chair that was out of the way and closed his cybernetic eyes, When he did so he opened his wireless link in the headphones he wore on a constant basis. Suddenly the Ion Stream flooded his vision and he once again felt the familiar connection with the electronic universe. Splitting his attention had become a mundane task for the engineer, almost second nature, so while writing out a text document he also forged a connection with the Eyeder Control Tower on the Muppet of time and began programming a subroutine.
With these tasks complete he changed his attention to the location of every Eyeder on the S.S. Anne and began assigning all one hundred and four of them, excluding the ones he had hand picked, a number. He then began programming a subroutine that would initiate as soon as Electric Mayhem re-boarded the Muppet. Once he had finished he reviewed his work. Each Eyeder on the warship S.S. Anne was to, at the rate of four per hour, dispose of itself by dropping itself into the reactor core after a complete shut down of it's own systems. The small amount of mass that the hand sized robots possesed would be incinerated in the core and the shutdown of the Eyeder's systems would ensure that they didn't detonate and cause damage to the core.
The second part of his plan was more difficult, as it required a physical presence aboard the Muppet, though the creative scoundrel soon thought of a way around this using his Janitorial bot. The Ion Stream pulsed gently at the edges of Sparky's vision as he moved about his science lab, comfortingly assuring him that he was still connected. After assembling the necessary tools and devices needed, Sparky walked to the holo deck and and began programming the scenario that he deemed to be most appropriate. When that was taken care of Sparky clunked back to the science lab, his mettalic feet squishing slightly on the organic floor that Quay had fitted into the floor of his lab and the floor of the hangar bay directly below to fix the damage caused by the cultist issue they had when attempting their last diplomatic mission. Glad that he couldn't actually feel the floor, Sparky cut the connection and opened his eyes, the physical world coming into sharp focus.
~Now,~ he thought to himself, ~It's time to resume my duties here.~ He walked back to the reactor core to make sure that it was still function and not close to overheating. He then continued his tasks trying to clear his mind of the events that had occurred over the past few days. It was some time before Electric Mayhem returned to the S.S. Anne, and even longer before they re-boarded the Muppet at the station where it was undergoing repairs, a time in which the shamed Kizen spent avoiding his crew mates. Once he was confronted by Hotaru, who was justifiably irate with him. Unable to slip away Sparky stood before the young Gongen woman as she all but screamed at him.
“What were you thinking? You killed dozens of innocent people when you shut down the GravDampers, not to mention you could have killed all of us!” Angry tears began forming in the corners of her eyes and it took all of Sparky's will power to keep up his calm and collected mask. Inside however his heart was ripped asunder, knowing that she was right. Not giving him much of a chance to defend himself Hotaru continued, “Have you no sense of responsibility? Have you no respect for human life? You are the most amoral, uncaring, insensitive member of the crew and I hope Doitzel throws you in the brig for eternity!” she said hotly, tears of pure anger in her eyes. Once again, giving Sparky no time to respond she hustled off. Whether it was to maintain her composure and keep from bursting out in tears at the thought of all the dead innocents, or because if she didn't leave she would have smacked Sparky, the Cog would never know.
Shortly after re-joining the Muppet Sparky received a com from the ship's captain Radical Doitzel. Answering the com, he didn't give Doitzel a chance to speak before calmly saying “I will be in the holo deck, meet me there in half an hour.” On the other end of the com Doitzel heard a click as Sparky cut the communications.
“Now, for one last operation before I meet with Doitzel,” the scoundrel said to one of the half dozen Eyeders that he had kept from the S.S. Anne. They hadn't left his side since he had selected them and one skittered off into an air duct before. Once again Sparky opened his wireless connection and the Ion Stream filled his vision. This time he ECT where he initiated the same subroutine in the Eyeders on the Muppet that he had initiated on the S.S. Anne. ~At least this way,~ the engineer though, ~no one will be able to use the Eyeders against the crew.~ Sparky knew full well how easy the Eyeders were to reprogram and didn't want to risk them being cracked. The thought also occurred to him that he'd potentially be able to use the Eyeders against the crew if he ever lost his cool again and spilled innocent blood. While he was running this sub-routine, he was also accessing the Muppet's mainframe where he easily accessed the security feed to locate each member of the crew as well Natsu's electronic copy of his Mustard List. From there it was simple work to remove his name from the roster. Silently the engineer and former Lord of Science thanked Bowie that Kalingkata was absorbed in a cup of coffee and not at his post to counter-crack him.
Meanwhile, a single Eyeder wandered into the sick bay, scuttling out of an air vent. This wasn't very uncommon as the Eyeders were all over the ship, maintaining electronic devices and performing minor maintenance on machines, including the medical machines. This bot was not here to fix equipment though, as it followed Sparky's directions to the safe where the Muppet's security footage revealed where the Gongen medic kept his hard copy of the Mustard List.
“Leave it to Natsu to be paranoid,” Sparky muttered to himself, letting his attention lapse and drift to the Ion Stream pulsating silently at the edges of his vision while the Eyeder cracked the safe's security code, removed the Mustard List, and carefully removed the name of the disgraced Kizen. The bot closed the safe and re-locked it before scuttling across the floor and up the wall, into an air duct as Natsu and Fei walked into the sick bay. Sparky cut the connection, shut down wireless connectivity to his headphones and stood he had a meeting with Doitzel in ten minutes.
Noticing the Eyeder leaving through the duct work Natsu looked around “Must be maintainance time again, though I hope that it kept it's grubby little claws off of my things!” he said as he set about the room ensuring that everything was in order and nothing had been touched.
Doitzel opened the door to the holo deck was forced to pull his goggles down over his eyes. The scene laid out before him was a balcony extending ten feet from the door and only five feet to either side. The wall the door sat on was projected with a large, sturdily built brick house. Below the balcony was a steep drop to a sandy beach that ran to either side farther than his limited vision would allow. Overall, the scene could have been rather pretty, except for the hurricane that was hovering over the entire scene. This would have been tolerable had Sparky not had the physical manifestation of the holo chamber turned to max, so the wind whipped at the Maverick's lock black robes and the ice cold rain stung Doitzel's skin. Through the protection of his goggles Doitzel saw that Sparky was dripping wet and somehow, over the roar of the hurricane force winds, he seemed to have heard Doitzel enter. Doitzel watched as Sparky turned and snapped his fingers, muting the sound in the chamber.
“You were going to reprimand me?” he asked, his hand dropping back to his side under his robe as his eyes glowed an electric blue while his gaze traveled the room. Seemingly satisfied the glow faded and he locked eyes with Doitzel.
“You are correct. Are you aware of what you are being charged of?” Doitzel asked, a thought tugging at his mind, but he was unable to figure out what it was.
Interrupting the pursuit of this thought Sparky replied “I believe that I'm being charged with treason, failure to comply with a direct order, and the murder of a crew member.”
“Close enough, you're also being charged with reckless endangerment of the crew, and it's not murder, it's attempted murder,” Doitzel replied “Oh, and endangering the mission. Are you ready for your sentence?”
“Oh right, Natsu,” the blonde man replied, “Yes I am ready for my sentence.”
“You are hereby Stripped of all your ranks and demoted to janitorial services. You will report directly to Elodie and are hereby banned from the Science Lab, effective immediately.” thinking about his plan, Doitzel silently chuckled inside his mind. He had been planning this joke since the incident and couldn't wait to see Sparky's reaction.
Sparky nodded “Just one thing. How can you guarantee that I won't do it again? I killed a member of the crew in cold blood,” mid sentence his eyes flashed electric blue and he leaped forward, drew his vibro-dagger from under the folds of his robes, and grabbed the captain by the throat, holding the knife in his right hand, just below his left. His grip was ice cold and felt wet from the rain. Here he picked up his sentence “How can you know that I won't cut your head off next and hand deliver it to Raving Red Jane?”
Doitzel's eyes grew wide, all thoughts driven from his mind as Sparky pressed the dagger to his throat. It was then that the Poison Pill witnessed a katana seemingly materialize out of thin air against Sparky's throat. “Oh good, Shadow's here.” he said quietly, trying not to move.
“Sparky, let go of him before I'm forced to kill you” Shadow said in a quiet voice. She didn't want to have to kill the maverick, but her job as body guard for Doitzel came first.
At this Sparky began laughing, a sound unlike anything Doitzel had heard since his days in the Asylum. “Oh goody, Shadow, just the person I needed to show up,” Doitzel watched as Sparky's gaze shifted from him to the blade that was easily inside of his peripheral vision, though it seemed to the Cartel agent that he wasn't able to see the ninja. Then his gaze shot back to Doitzel and he grinned “Thank you Doitzel, you've done what I needed you to do” he said before vanishing into thin air, his headphones clattering to the ground between the Shinobi and the Poison Pill. Shadow leaned down to pick them up and began to examine them.
“Huh... I wonder if I should have told him I was kidding, maybe he wouldn't have vaporized” Doitzel said to himself. It was then that the idea smacked Doitzel like he had been knocked upside the head by Raving Red Jane. Sparky was wet with rain! The rain wasn't real, it was only an holographic projection with a minor force field behind it to give it a feel. There was no way it could get them wet! The Sparky they had seen before them was just a hologram!
“I don't think these are the real thing Doitzel,” Shadow said while examining the headphones, “Can you hack them and see what's in here?” He snatched the headphones from Shadow's hand and began running a scan of them. On the computer chip inside the headphones he only found a single text document. After reading it, he relayed the message to Shadow.
“To Shadow. I'm sorry for the confusion you've just experienced, but I had to ensure that you got this message only after I was prepared. I am sorry that I was unable to locate your child, I swear by Bowie that I will continue to hunt the man who has him. It's the least I can do for you.” Doitzel read.
Shadow then seemed to vanish into a shadow as the holo-storm raged on, not able to fight back the tears and screams that came at the mention of everything: the man who destroyed her life, the child she never knew, and the friend who thought of her in his time of exile. Doitzel continued to read the message,There were a couple of other personal messages which the captain of the Muppet privately sent to each of them. The first of these was for Hotaru which read such “To Hotaru. I cannot undo my actions aboard the S.S. Anne, I cannot justify why I killed so many innocent men and women in order to put a single member of my own crew, one who I hadn't seen in months and had no animosity towards, to death. It is my hope that my leaving the crew will be enough penance for my actions.”
Next there was a message addressed to Jade, it was short, reading only “To Jade. I'm Sorry.” this was probably due to the fact that the Cog had no idea what to say to the crew mate who's blood he had spilled for no reason.
Finally there was a message to the whole crew “To the Members of Electric Mayhem. As you are by no doubt aware, I am no longer on the Muppet of Time. I've properly disposed of anything on the ship that could potentially cause problems, including the Eyeders and anything explosive, and have ensured that my name is no longer on the Crew's roster. This is my sentence, brought down upon me by myself alone. Farewell where ever you fare, and I pray to Saint Bowie that you all survive the coming war.”
Sparky cut himself loose from the Ion Stream once more as he triggered his hologram to vanish and drop the headphones. He sat back in the cargo bay of some random shuttle he had stowed away on and opened his eyes. He had only a small pack with him and six Eyeders, but perhaps that was enough to etch out a new life somewhere amongst the stars.
“Now,” he said to himself and his Eyeders, “It's time for a change...”
As he turned away from the fresh corpse on the floor the thought that soon those eyes would be scuttling around his lab as the central component of two new Eyeders caused the rage that set his blood aflame to slowly subside. The scent of burned flesh and hair from the smoking corpse assaulted his nostrils, but the betrayal of his friends had now been avenged. Even though the trials that the crew faced had brought them closer together, the memory could fade now that the treacherous bitch was laid to rest who's body he left lying in a puddle of her own blood. This sense of calm was short-lived however as the sight of Natsu Mashima stepping through the door caused reason to flee from Sparky's mind and hatred towards Jade to once again course forth,
“I have my orders,” the Gongen man said to Sparky as he made eye contact. Seeing the familiar electric blue glow in Sparky's eyes unsettled him and he stopped his forward progression and cast his glance at the bloody, charred body on the floor. He had seen worse, but that wasn't the issue right now. Knowing what the medic's presence in this room meant the blonde haired Cog growled before shouting “Doitzel! I swear to Bowie that if I have to kill her again I will, and I will go through Natsu in order to do it if I have to!”
Natsu of course knew this was not a threat to be taken lightly, he had seen the Maverick kill and knew he was very good at it when he chose, and of course since his life was the most important on this miserably hunk of junk he took it upon himself to protect it from the hate-crazed man before him. He sighed and muttered something under his breath and Sparky rocked on his feet slightly, dazed. The glow faded from his eyes and they returned to their natural gold state. Quickly but gently Natsu pushed Sparky from the room.
“Go fix the life support systems!” the medic said hurriedly as he locked the door behind him, knowing full well there wasn't an electronic lock in existence that could stop the Kizen if he didn't want to be stopped. Fortunately for Natsu, he didn't have to worry, He had felt his power take hold and knew that Sparky wouldn't be hunting Jade again for a long time... if ever.
Unexpectedly the golden-eyed Maverick realized that he held no animosity towards the girl lying dead on the deck... the girl he had just murdered in cold blood. As he was pushed out of the secondary communications station Sparky's world was shattered, he had just murdered a member of his own crew before she had a chance to react! It was over so quickly he wondered if she even knew what was happening before she was dead. Dazed from the shock of what he had just done he went about fixing the life support systems with the help of his Eyeders, who were replicating using the sea of bodies that littered the ship. Occasionally he would check on Kalingkata to ensure that the Gongen cracker had control over the reactor core. This kept him busy and thoughtless for several days and before he knew it they had reached the Shi home world. While the crew disembarked for Seyal the confused and traumatized Sparky remained behind with some half-hearted excuse about making sure the ship didn't explode. Using his time along Sparky retired to the reactor core where only his Eyeders remained for company. It was here that Sparky began to evaluate what happened over the past few days.
While he went about ensuring the core didn't overheat and enter a meltdown the Cog began to reflect on his association with Jade. The last time he had seen her was just before being gunned down by a Gongen swat team when he had attempted to kill her the last time. Strange, there seemed to be some sort of pattern to him attempting to slaughter her. He thought back to that day and replayed the memories in his head. His old friend Dexter, who he had met when he was still working for the old Gambler to free his friends, had caused quite the uproar when he and Jade had caused most of the crew to suspect Ellodie of killing someone they were trying to keep alive. The whole ordeal ended up with Shadow being locked in a cell on their old ship, Ellodie being subjected to interrogation at the hands of Dexter and Jade with only Doitzel and Sparky working to clear her name, Hotaru being betrayed by her best friend and loosing that connection once again, and Sparky attempting to kill Dexter and Jade. Though he had his bouts with betrayal in the past and should have wanted to kill them both, after all, it was one of his closest friends that sold out Sparky and his friends to the gambler, his anger was only directed towards Dexter. Thinking about it, it was possible his ambivalence towards Jade caused him to not care if she was collateral damage while he was trying to kill Dexter. Though while he was imprisoned Sparky caught news of Dexter's being sentenced to death and felt as if his crew had been avenged. In light of this, why had he endangered a majority of Electric Mayhem's lives to kill this single woman that he had no justification for killing?
After a long time considering, the Cog finally reached a conclusion. He turned to make sure that no one had snuck up on him, engaged his infrared vision just to double check, and then proceeded to wipe the tears from his mechanical eyes. ~Funny,~ he thought to himself, ~I didn't think I'd be able to cry after I got these eyes. I guess they left my tear ducts in tact after all.~
Understanding that he was now a traitor to Electric Mayhem, the only group that he had felt even remotely accepted in since his friends were sold out to the gambler, Sparky began preparing his next course of action. Standing up, he walked to the secondary command deck and along the way he hand picked six Eyeders. Upon reaching the command deck he sat in a minor chair that was out of the way and closed his cybernetic eyes, When he did so he opened his wireless link in the headphones he wore on a constant basis. Suddenly the Ion Stream flooded his vision and he once again felt the familiar connection with the electronic universe. Splitting his attention had become a mundane task for the engineer, almost second nature, so while writing out a text document he also forged a connection with the Eyeder Control Tower on the Muppet of time and began programming a subroutine.
With these tasks complete he changed his attention to the location of every Eyeder on the S.S. Anne and began assigning all one hundred and four of them, excluding the ones he had hand picked, a number. He then began programming a subroutine that would initiate as soon as Electric Mayhem re-boarded the Muppet. Once he had finished he reviewed his work. Each Eyeder on the warship S.S. Anne was to, at the rate of four per hour, dispose of itself by dropping itself into the reactor core after a complete shut down of it's own systems. The small amount of mass that the hand sized robots possesed would be incinerated in the core and the shutdown of the Eyeder's systems would ensure that they didn't detonate and cause damage to the core.
The second part of his plan was more difficult, as it required a physical presence aboard the Muppet, though the creative scoundrel soon thought of a way around this using his Janitorial bot. The Ion Stream pulsed gently at the edges of Sparky's vision as he moved about his science lab, comfortingly assuring him that he was still connected. After assembling the necessary tools and devices needed, Sparky walked to the holo deck and and began programming the scenario that he deemed to be most appropriate. When that was taken care of Sparky clunked back to the science lab, his mettalic feet squishing slightly on the organic floor that Quay had fitted into the floor of his lab and the floor of the hangar bay directly below to fix the damage caused by the cultist issue they had when attempting their last diplomatic mission. Glad that he couldn't actually feel the floor, Sparky cut the connection and opened his eyes, the physical world coming into sharp focus.
~Now,~ he thought to himself, ~It's time to resume my duties here.~ He walked back to the reactor core to make sure that it was still function and not close to overheating. He then continued his tasks trying to clear his mind of the events that had occurred over the past few days. It was some time before Electric Mayhem returned to the S.S. Anne, and even longer before they re-boarded the Muppet at the station where it was undergoing repairs, a time in which the shamed Kizen spent avoiding his crew mates. Once he was confronted by Hotaru, who was justifiably irate with him. Unable to slip away Sparky stood before the young Gongen woman as she all but screamed at him.
“What were you thinking? You killed dozens of innocent people when you shut down the GravDampers, not to mention you could have killed all of us!” Angry tears began forming in the corners of her eyes and it took all of Sparky's will power to keep up his calm and collected mask. Inside however his heart was ripped asunder, knowing that she was right. Not giving him much of a chance to defend himself Hotaru continued, “Have you no sense of responsibility? Have you no respect for human life? You are the most amoral, uncaring, insensitive member of the crew and I hope Doitzel throws you in the brig for eternity!” she said hotly, tears of pure anger in her eyes. Once again, giving Sparky no time to respond she hustled off. Whether it was to maintain her composure and keep from bursting out in tears at the thought of all the dead innocents, or because if she didn't leave she would have smacked Sparky, the Cog would never know.
Shortly after re-joining the Muppet Sparky received a com from the ship's captain Radical Doitzel. Answering the com, he didn't give Doitzel a chance to speak before calmly saying “I will be in the holo deck, meet me there in half an hour.” On the other end of the com Doitzel heard a click as Sparky cut the communications.
“Now, for one last operation before I meet with Doitzel,” the scoundrel said to one of the half dozen Eyeders that he had kept from the S.S. Anne. They hadn't left his side since he had selected them and one skittered off into an air duct before. Once again Sparky opened his wireless connection and the Ion Stream filled his vision. This time he ECT where he initiated the same subroutine in the Eyeders on the Muppet that he had initiated on the S.S. Anne. ~At least this way,~ the engineer though, ~no one will be able to use the Eyeders against the crew.~ Sparky knew full well how easy the Eyeders were to reprogram and didn't want to risk them being cracked. The thought also occurred to him that he'd potentially be able to use the Eyeders against the crew if he ever lost his cool again and spilled innocent blood. While he was running this sub-routine, he was also accessing the Muppet's mainframe where he easily accessed the security feed to locate each member of the crew as well Natsu's electronic copy of his Mustard List. From there it was simple work to remove his name from the roster. Silently the engineer and former Lord of Science thanked Bowie that Kalingkata was absorbed in a cup of coffee and not at his post to counter-crack him.
Meanwhile, a single Eyeder wandered into the sick bay, scuttling out of an air vent. This wasn't very uncommon as the Eyeders were all over the ship, maintaining electronic devices and performing minor maintenance on machines, including the medical machines. This bot was not here to fix equipment though, as it followed Sparky's directions to the safe where the Muppet's security footage revealed where the Gongen medic kept his hard copy of the Mustard List.
“Leave it to Natsu to be paranoid,” Sparky muttered to himself, letting his attention lapse and drift to the Ion Stream pulsating silently at the edges of his vision while the Eyeder cracked the safe's security code, removed the Mustard List, and carefully removed the name of the disgraced Kizen. The bot closed the safe and re-locked it before scuttling across the floor and up the wall, into an air duct as Natsu and Fei walked into the sick bay. Sparky cut the connection, shut down wireless connectivity to his headphones and stood he had a meeting with Doitzel in ten minutes.
Noticing the Eyeder leaving through the duct work Natsu looked around “Must be maintainance time again, though I hope that it kept it's grubby little claws off of my things!” he said as he set about the room ensuring that everything was in order and nothing had been touched.
Doitzel opened the door to the holo deck was forced to pull his goggles down over his eyes. The scene laid out before him was a balcony extending ten feet from the door and only five feet to either side. The wall the door sat on was projected with a large, sturdily built brick house. Below the balcony was a steep drop to a sandy beach that ran to either side farther than his limited vision would allow. Overall, the scene could have been rather pretty, except for the hurricane that was hovering over the entire scene. This would have been tolerable had Sparky not had the physical manifestation of the holo chamber turned to max, so the wind whipped at the Maverick's lock black robes and the ice cold rain stung Doitzel's skin. Through the protection of his goggles Doitzel saw that Sparky was dripping wet and somehow, over the roar of the hurricane force winds, he seemed to have heard Doitzel enter. Doitzel watched as Sparky turned and snapped his fingers, muting the sound in the chamber.
“You were going to reprimand me?” he asked, his hand dropping back to his side under his robe as his eyes glowed an electric blue while his gaze traveled the room. Seemingly satisfied the glow faded and he locked eyes with Doitzel.
“You are correct. Are you aware of what you are being charged of?” Doitzel asked, a thought tugging at his mind, but he was unable to figure out what it was.
Interrupting the pursuit of this thought Sparky replied “I believe that I'm being charged with treason, failure to comply with a direct order, and the murder of a crew member.”
“Close enough, you're also being charged with reckless endangerment of the crew, and it's not murder, it's attempted murder,” Doitzel replied “Oh, and endangering the mission. Are you ready for your sentence?”
“Oh right, Natsu,” the blonde man replied, “Yes I am ready for my sentence.”
“You are hereby Stripped of all your ranks and demoted to janitorial services. You will report directly to Elodie and are hereby banned from the Science Lab, effective immediately.” thinking about his plan, Doitzel silently chuckled inside his mind. He had been planning this joke since the incident and couldn't wait to see Sparky's reaction.
Sparky nodded “Just one thing. How can you guarantee that I won't do it again? I killed a member of the crew in cold blood,” mid sentence his eyes flashed electric blue and he leaped forward, drew his vibro-dagger from under the folds of his robes, and grabbed the captain by the throat, holding the knife in his right hand, just below his left. His grip was ice cold and felt wet from the rain. Here he picked up his sentence “How can you know that I won't cut your head off next and hand deliver it to Raving Red Jane?”
Doitzel's eyes grew wide, all thoughts driven from his mind as Sparky pressed the dagger to his throat. It was then that the Poison Pill witnessed a katana seemingly materialize out of thin air against Sparky's throat. “Oh good, Shadow's here.” he said quietly, trying not to move.
“Sparky, let go of him before I'm forced to kill you” Shadow said in a quiet voice. She didn't want to have to kill the maverick, but her job as body guard for Doitzel came first.
At this Sparky began laughing, a sound unlike anything Doitzel had heard since his days in the Asylum. “Oh goody, Shadow, just the person I needed to show up,” Doitzel watched as Sparky's gaze shifted from him to the blade that was easily inside of his peripheral vision, though it seemed to the Cartel agent that he wasn't able to see the ninja. Then his gaze shot back to Doitzel and he grinned “Thank you Doitzel, you've done what I needed you to do” he said before vanishing into thin air, his headphones clattering to the ground between the Shinobi and the Poison Pill. Shadow leaned down to pick them up and began to examine them.
“Huh... I wonder if I should have told him I was kidding, maybe he wouldn't have vaporized” Doitzel said to himself. It was then that the idea smacked Doitzel like he had been knocked upside the head by Raving Red Jane. Sparky was wet with rain! The rain wasn't real, it was only an holographic projection with a minor force field behind it to give it a feel. There was no way it could get them wet! The Sparky they had seen before them was just a hologram!
“I don't think these are the real thing Doitzel,” Shadow said while examining the headphones, “Can you hack them and see what's in here?” He snatched the headphones from Shadow's hand and began running a scan of them. On the computer chip inside the headphones he only found a single text document. After reading it, he relayed the message to Shadow.
“To Shadow. I'm sorry for the confusion you've just experienced, but I had to ensure that you got this message only after I was prepared. I am sorry that I was unable to locate your child, I swear by Bowie that I will continue to hunt the man who has him. It's the least I can do for you.” Doitzel read.
Shadow then seemed to vanish into a shadow as the holo-storm raged on, not able to fight back the tears and screams that came at the mention of everything: the man who destroyed her life, the child she never knew, and the friend who thought of her in his time of exile. Doitzel continued to read the message,There were a couple of other personal messages which the captain of the Muppet privately sent to each of them. The first of these was for Hotaru which read such “To Hotaru. I cannot undo my actions aboard the S.S. Anne, I cannot justify why I killed so many innocent men and women in order to put a single member of my own crew, one who I hadn't seen in months and had no animosity towards, to death. It is my hope that my leaving the crew will be enough penance for my actions.”
Next there was a message addressed to Jade, it was short, reading only “To Jade. I'm Sorry.” this was probably due to the fact that the Cog had no idea what to say to the crew mate who's blood he had spilled for no reason.
Finally there was a message to the whole crew “To the Members of Electric Mayhem. As you are by no doubt aware, I am no longer on the Muppet of Time. I've properly disposed of anything on the ship that could potentially cause problems, including the Eyeders and anything explosive, and have ensured that my name is no longer on the Crew's roster. This is my sentence, brought down upon me by myself alone. Farewell where ever you fare, and I pray to Saint Bowie that you all survive the coming war.”
Sparky cut himself loose from the Ion Stream once more as he triggered his hologram to vanish and drop the headphones. He sat back in the cargo bay of some random shuttle he had stowed away on and opened his eyes. He had only a small pack with him and six Eyeders, but perhaps that was enough to etch out a new life somewhere amongst the stars.
“Now,” he said to himself and his Eyeders, “It's time for a change...”