The Operation, Ouroboros, and Moebius
A few hours later. The sky already turned dark. The glimmer of fire sparks lit their proximity. Noah checked his iris: "It's almost time. Let's review the details of the operation. Our mission objective lies in Alfeto Valley. An unidentified ether source has been reported. We are tasked with surveying it and destroying it."
"Waypoint marked out on map now. Please to have look at waypoint on map!" Riku added.
The party nodded. Noah continued: "The advance party should have already arrived at the planned contact point."
Eunie: "It's time we headed out too, then!"
Lanz was getting excited: "Let's get the snuff out of here. A royal decree, eh? I don't know about all this... But let's get out there and square it away as quick as we can!"
It was foggy. A few specks of purple particles floated in the night sky before disappearing into inexistence. As they ran to above a ledge, they got down to check the situation: "It's really supposed to be here? I don't see much," questioned Lanz.
"Shh" With his iris, Noah scanned the horizon. Agnian levnises came into vision. One, like before, its torso floated on a rolling ball, it's arms equipped with blades. Another levnis is slightly larger, floats in the air, looked like someone wearing a white coat, with two balls attached to its shoulder joints. "Agnian troops."
Eunie: "Seriously?"
Noah: "They're still far off. They haven't spotted us."
Lanz: "Goin' in?"
"We don't have permission to engage. The only thing we need to focus on... is our target." 1
As he tried to transmit information to other squads with his iris, an error screen popped up, with a message: "Communications down due to black fog interference."
He turned and pointed to a faceless soldier, whom came forward: "What?"
"Heads up. Enemies at two o'clock. Go tell the main force. I'm worried about Mwamba and the others. I think we'll go on alone."
"Ok then. I'll handle it." The faceless soldier ran back where he was, where other soldiers and levnises were, while Noah and his team crossed to the side, a ledge for them to enter the lower areas.
Reaching the bottom of the ledge, they knelt down while Noah scanned the horizon with his iris. A "commence mission" popped onto the center of the screen. Kevesi levnises started firing their cannons onto mid air... no, it hit an invisible ship floating in the sky. As fires raged at point of impact, the invisible shield cloaked it from outside view.
Agnian levnises weren't late to join the party either. A few blast and the invisible shield almost lose its invisibility status.
Noah, watching from his position, questioned: "Is that it? It's not Kevesi... Definitely not Agnian either..."
Lanz: "The spark is that?"
One more hit, the invisible shield was zeroed. A ship came into view, floating in the air, army green seen under the blast' illumination, looked like a space ship combined with a submarine. Several pixels of of light emanates from the side, aggregate in 3 groups. It's rocket engine that gave it forward thrust emit a yellow-orange hue.
As it released its legs, the tip resembles a rocket-engine nozzle, which they could tune the direction as it land.
Eunie: "It's coming down."
The landing wasn't entirely a success. As it crossed a ledge, it's belly smashed on the ledge. Sparks and flames engulfed the point of contact as it lose balance and smashed into the dirt, dragging along for a distance before coming to a stop. A ring was ejected from one of the pixelated light group.
The Kevesi and Agnians, seeing their target down, did not went first after the target but after each other. Beams and bullets exchanged, levnises destroyed, soldiers killed.
Lanz exclaimed: "Starting without us!"
Noah: "We need to keep moving. Head to the target."
Eunie: "You got it."
It wasn't a smooth ride. Noah and his team just destroyed a ball-bearing Agnian levnises. They were panting. Yet, more Agnian levnises and soldiers were seen from behind where they'd engaged. Noah and Lanz turned, ran towards the soldiers, each blow downed a soldier. An Agnian levnis not far away in a trajectory shoot its blade towards Noah. Lanz ran up and activated the shield, which the blade bit into, turning itself like a drill before the shield shattered. The Agnian levnis was about to continue when it suffered beams from a nearby Kevesi levnis, destroyed it.
Lanz and Noah exchanged glance, ran off in opposite direction. Lanz summoned his blade and swung at the 3 soldiers whom blocked his way.
A levnis knocked some Kevesi soldiers down. Eunie stuck her staff onto the ground, a green ring encircles them, healing them. As if she sensed something, she squeezed her staff through her armpits, aiming backwards and fired. Two agnian soldiers at the top of the ledge behind her was shot down before they could do anything. She turned her staff back toward the ground, an orange ring replaced the green, the soldiers seem to increased in strength.
Noah hopped off a ledge while the last Kevesi killed. Several Agnians approached him in a fan shape formation, with one ran forward and exchanged hits while the other watched. 2 As Noah repelled him, he calculated a series of blows and executed them thereafter as the Agnians turned into husks.
As he looked at his iris, he noticed his flame clock filled up: "My Flame Clock... It's filling up... but..." The "lives" weren't moving in any particular direction, nor the flame clock levnises nearby either. An unexplained phenomena.
As they regrouped, Noah lead them towards their actual target. A robot sharing a head and a torso, face towards them, it's 3 beam of lights which made up its face flickers for a moment, determined they're enemy, and started firing bullets at them. Noah sliced some bullet away while Lanz raised a shield a second later. The automaton stopped firing while reducing its distance with another automaton that joined it.
Eunie: "What are these things?"
Riku: "There no pilot inside!"
Lanz changed stance to offensive: "They're automatons."
(A while later, battle completed)
The battlefield raged with flames. Beams were still being exchanged. With his iris, Noah located their target, a bright green blob of light.3 "Is that it?"
Nodding to the others, they ran towards it.
Kevesi and Agnians teamed up against the ship's crew. Boxed fell out of the ship earlier piled the area. Large and small flames rose from the ground in the distance.
A muscular man was hiding behind boxes arranged like a barrier, firing at enemies with his machine gun, got down to catch a breathe. The dark night, plus him wearing a pair of goggles, could not render his facial features; we could only see his moustache and a thick hair. "Damn it! Fighting both of 'em? That's gonna be a tough break. But what did I expect?"
The source of ether, an egg-shaped structure, some space split its upper and lower part of its shell. Ether lines were distinctive characteristic. "They'll do just about anything... for our precious Ouroboros Stone."
He wasn't alone. Two others in a fan formation behind boxes firing at enemy from forward direction.4
As one automaton went down, one of his colleague, dark skin, oval face, wearing an eyepatch, signaled to the muscular guy,"Guernica! That's the last of the Automatons! We won't last long!"
The other guy wearing glasses kept firing. Guernica looked at him, shouted: "The battle unit's still holding. (paused) Go, save yourself! Get that Stone to the City!"
"Argh!" Just as he finished his sentence, the eyeglasses guy suffered a blast, dead on the spot. Guernica whom continued firing, eyed the situation, "Zuo!"
As he made his way towards Zuo, he heard another shout: "Arrrghhh!" It came from the eyepatch colleague.
Guernica looked up onto the ledge where bullets hit his colleague. Agnian soldiers were lining up, pointing their guns at him. He made a few shots that brought them down. That's the last of 'em, Kevesi and Agnians. No more faceless soldiers, no more levnises at where he was.
Guernica quickly ran towards the eyepatch colleague, almost dead. He put his hands on his shoulders, the guy brought his hands up and put it on his palm. "Guernica. S-sorry... I should... have been more... perceptive..."
Guernica wrapped both his hands around the eyepatch guys' hand, as if to reassure him. "Yew!" He coughed, head fell to his side, and that's the last of him. "YEW!!!"
Noah and his team approached their destination, hid behind tree barks. Lanz scanned for details with his iris, "There it is. The ether source."
Eunie: "First there was those Automatons. Now another unknown weapon."
Noah and his team learned a lot of new things today: "What in the flames... are we even fighting? No, not just us... Agnus too..."
Guernica laid beside the Ouroboros Stone, "So you made it this far. It'll have to be here."
Eunie: "Noah. Look." She was pointing to Guernica.
Lanz: "Is that... a man?" 5
Noah stood up: "He's no Agnian soldier. What is he? Was he controlling those Automatons, maybe?" He dugged low as he emerged from his hiding place, made his way towards Guernica. Suddenly, paper cards flew at him. Eunie saw him in danger, got out and pointed her rifle6 at the Agnian soldier, wearing a helmet. A paper card floated behind his left shoulder, cut into the shape of a dove-shaped kite, with eyes encarved within it.
The agnian soldier, suffering shots, hid himself behind tree trunks while bullets swooshed past.
From another direction, an agnian girl wearing a helmet, white dress with orange linen7, two semicircle rings with its sharp tip glowing yellow.
Lanz drew the machine gun encapsulated within its broadsword and fired at the girl. The girl was agile, dodged all his shot as she made her way towards him, jumped into the air toward Lanz while he brought his sword up to block.
Noah's sword cut at the point of contact, separating the girl and Lanz. Her team, the guy and another girl carrying a massive hammer, so massive it could fit her inside8 if it was hollow, in wedge formation.
"Kevesi troops..." The double-ringed girl sounded.
"Three of 'em." Said the hammer girl.
"It seems... we are just about the only ones left." The card weapon guy spoke, and turned his head at the Ouroboros Stone, "And there's our objective."
"Noah," Eunie signaled.
Noah, seeing they had no choice, raised his blade in affirmation, "Yeah. We'll have to fight."
The card guy: "Mio."
The girl with high agility, double-ringed weapon, Mio, agreed, "Got it."
(Some fights later)
As Noah sliced his blade, it shattered Mio's helmet into pieces, revealing her face. Her silver hair was short, reaching her shoulder. Her yellow-ochre iris gleamed in the darkness. Her ears stuck towards the top of her head, resembled that of a cat. Her broken helmet did not stop them from exchanging hits.9
Meanwhile, Guernica looked from a distance. "These kids are gonna end up stealing each other's life force..." He held his hand up, clenched into a fist, "And me... I've robbed them even of that kindness."
Memories: Guernica was piloting an automaton-like robot, but larger, torso stick out, handling a gatling gun10 and firing it at the Kevesi soldiers.
The hammer girl, her helmet already broken, emerged by Mio's side, jumped into the air, about to slammed into Noah. "Huh?! Where did...?!" Noah was shocked as he didn't see how did she appeared from behind Mio.
"Call that a swing?" Lanz sounded and emerged from behind Noah, set up a shield while her hammer smashed onto it. "You're way too slow!" She shattered the shield while Newton's Third Law brought her back up into the air.
"He blocked it! No way!" Her shocking face did not prevent her from back-somersault to land beside Mio. We could see she was slightly tanned, with visible blue veins on both her arms, while characteristically a blue flame lit one side of her hair, as a feature, not a bug.
Suffering the blow wasn't easy for Lanz either, "Gah! For a little munchkin, she sure packs a real wallop!" He had to shook the numbness off his right hand.
A distance away, Eunie was dodging the array of dove-like cards, as she hid behind a rock, looking at the guy, also lost his helmet: "Urg... How many of those cards has this geek got?!"
From a distance, we see cards flying around him in circles. He put his hands to his nose and pushed his black-frame glasses up, a stereotypical 'genius dude'. He had tanned brown skin, thick hair. "There's no escape! When my Mondo have you... They'll follow you to the ends of the world!"
As he finished his sentence, he swiped the Mondo at Eunie, some transformed into bird shape, others remained kite shape, flew at her. "Spark that! Why don't you back off?!" Sticking her staff onto the ground, she sent an invisible shockwave that shattered the bird shaped Mondo, while other Mondo we didn't saw their fate. The guy protected his face from the back-flying burning cards, awed: "ahh (gasp)... How did she fool my Mondo?!"
Eunie ran off while shouting from the distance, "Creep. Try followin' that!"
Meanwhile, Mio and the hammer girl landed behind him, as he turned towards Mio's direction. Eunie stopped beside Noah and Lanz; Noah exclaimed, panting: "These guys are tough..."
Eunie agreed: "I hate to say it, but I think you're right."
Lanz: "These are no grunts. That gear... Special Forces?" He was pointing towards Mio's weapon.
Eunie agreed: "Yeah, deffo. That'll be why they've got an off-seer with 'em."
Mio ran towards them while Lanz prepared his machine gun, saying: "Well, so are we! Even-stevens, Right?!"
The Mondo backed Mio up while she made her way to the team. One slice knocked Eunie off to the side, as she concentrated on Noah. Noah spoke to himself while he was busy blocking, "How can she react so quickly?! Can't seem to... hit her!"
As his sword traversed her ears, a sharp-pitch sound generated from the sword damaged her ears. She held up her left hand to soothed its pain, holding another at Noah.
"What's... What's that sound?"
(Note from the translator: For this rest of this section, Noah's and Mio's thoughts would be rendered in italics.)
Noah continued to analyze the situation while they exchanged hits: "She's so fast... And yet... her moves are really simple... It's almost... like they have a rhythm..."
The word "rhythm" reminded him of something: "The Agnian off-seeing tune? I know how that goes..." He looked at her steps, counted, "One, two, three, four... One, two, three!"
Noah turned to the side, ears facing Mio. Mio was shocked at his action, "He's not even looking at me?!"
Noah relied on the tempo rather than his vision, "One, two, three, four... One, two..."
"There!" He gripped his blade, sliced his sword vertically as Mio jumped back just on time. Some pieces of her shirt fell off, in shocked, "He hit me?!" As she landed, Noah thrusted forward and sent one of her ring flying off into the air, which she caught as it fell back down, still awed: "Why you...!"
As they exchanged blows, Noah's brain managed to catch an empty window for clear thinking. "Hang on...The fighting's stopped?" He looked and listened, no sounds nor sights coming from the distance. Lanz and the others were seen exhausted, lending support from their weapons while bending forward. Only Noah and Mio continued their fights, "When did that...?"
"At this rate, one of us is going to get killed... No, maybe both of us will..." He stopped moving forward, need time to think, "Something strange is going on. We shouldn't be fighting like this." Unconsciously, he spoke out: "We should run!" He immediately realized what he had spoke from his unconscious, shock-ridden: "Run? Was it... me who just said that?What is this? There's no time to think.. Have to trust my gut... This is all too real! I hope I'll be able to..."
Mio was seen gritting her teeth, stopping to face him. "get through... to her...!" She didn't stop for long before running towards him. As he blocked her attacks, spoke out to her: "You are an off-seer! From Agnus, right?!"
"What the...?"
"So you are, then! Why are you fighting me?"
"As if you can talk?! You're the ones attacking us! What, too scared to fight now? Too late!"
"It's not to do with fear. It's that sound... You can hear it too, I know you can!" He raised his voice on the second sentence.
Mio could only replied with a standard reason, "We're fighting because there are enemies to kill! You think we'll just let you go?!" Meanwhile, Lanz and the others continued their exchange.
Noah: "Ugh...! This is bad... At this rate...!" Then prompted while thrusting his sword forward, "Is that all you have to say, Agnus?"11
Noah landed a hit which Mio blocked, shouting to her: "I'm telling you..."
Mio shouted back: "Enough! I'm telling you that you're full of it! Take that!" His sword thrusted towards her, just a few centimeters from her neck. Her ring thrusted towards him, short of his torso. Both dodged aside as they flew and looked at each other, sliding on the floor with their trajectory before turning and got up.
"Do I really have to kill her? But she's so fast... If I lose focus for a second, I'm done for!" Noah was questioning himself.
Mio wiped her sweat from her chin, speaking to herself: "These Kevesi off-seers... I thought they were just window dressing. But he's different... And there's his sword... What's up with that?"
Noah's sword, a blue ring joined its handle to its blade. While the outer blade glowed in blue, vibrating at a fast pace, it's skeleton was filled with green liquid.
Guernica took notice of his sword, a situation he hadn't yet understood: "Uh...? What's that?!" Looking back at the Ouroboros Stone, lit with the same color as Noah's sword's skeleton, realized: "Ahh I see... I s'pose this is the reason I'm here then, eh? Heh! Guess this is what they call fate. Fine then. Time for Guernica Vandham... to make an entrance!"
As Noah and Mio's face glared close to each other, eye for eye, Guernica unsheathed his flare pistol, pointed it towards the sky and fire a shot. The flare shoned so brightly that Noah and Mio look from the tip of their eye toward the flare, and saw Guernica jumping right at them, both his hands pressed against their torso, bringing them to the ground. As Noah exclaimed: "What the...!"
Guernica asked, continued pressing them to the ground: "What do you all think you're doing? Why the fighting?!"
Noah didn't get it12, "What's this... guy saying?"
Guernica pressed him back into the ground, "Just why? Answer me!" Lanz and the others, seeing their situation, ran from both flanks of Guernica and stopped at a distance.
Mio used her reply as a chance to get back up: "What do you mean, 'why'? If I see an enemy, I fight! So don't you... interfere!!!" With her final word, she broke free from his grip, landed in front of her teammates. She ran forward, trying to finished Guernica first, but before she could slashed her weapons, Guernica fist punched her stomach while she lost her strength to remain standing, pressing her whole weight against his fist for support.
Guernica lower his hand a bit before letting her fell to the ground, "Pull the wool from your eyes, kid. Think about your real target: that thing!" He pointed at the Ouroboros Stone, and put his fist on his chest, leaning forward, "And me!"
Turning to face the others, he continued, "No, you just have your little scrap. D'you have any idea, who the real enemy is?" He held his fist up high into the air, "It's over!" He punched down to the floor, sending a shockwave. Dirt, Noah, Mio, and dust particles rippled away from the point of contact.
His hands dangling from his shoulder while he stood up, continued his speech: "Now. Is that all you need to fight? Truly? That's all?" He looked up at the sky.
The Mondo guy immediately replied, "Of course. Countless comrades have lost their lives, thanks to this filth." He nudged at Noah's team direction.
Lanz walked forward, looking at Mio's team, "Oh really now? I could say the exact same thing. What'd you think it's like for us? Losing friend, after friend..." Mio's team raised their blade in a defensive stance in case he march towards them. "You steal everything from us!"
Eunie got up and lined up with Lanz, "You think we're even just because both sides do some killing? What good's filling up these flickering Clocks in our eyes! It'll never replace the friends we've lost. That's why!" Her right eye revealed the flame clock as she spoke to them.
Noah reasoned from behind: "We aren't fighting because we want to."
Eunie was awed, darkened the flame clock and looked back at him, questioned, "We're not?"
Noah walked forward: "We can see our lives written before our eyes. Fighting is all we have! Is it any wonder... we lose loved ones? Or have to take them from others?" As he stopped beside Guernica, "All of us... We have to fight so we can go on living!" 13
Mio drew a breathe at his conclusion, never thought about it before.
Noah looked to the side, raised his voice and questioned, "Just who decided that this was how it should be? If I knew who they were, or where, I'd..." He paused to think what actions he would want to take, while Guernica interrupted him.
"I know who they are. You'll what?" He went up to him, shadowing him. Noah's eye lit up as he heard that he had an answer.
Noah looked up at him, while Guernica scanned his attire, prompted, "You're an off-seer, eh?" He put his hands on his chin, like when you're thinking. The blade was emanating the sound Mio heard just now. "I guess I can trust you with this. You better listen up now." He walked up to him and slightly touched his chest with his fingers. "'Cause the face of your real enemy is..."
Suddenly, a glowing yellow object the shape of a scythe pierced him in the chest. As the object emerged behind his torso, purple specks released into the air, several purple electricity flowed through his torso while he fell to the ground, groaning in pain. The Mondo guy was first to react, his Mondo flewed past Noah and his team while the rest turned to face the direction.
Thud, thud, thud.14 A monster, it's chest had two rings, with a smaller ring inside, displaying a "infinity symbol" (or moebius strip). Leaf-like lobes and incision carved into its both sides, emanating a dark blue glow, probably its arms; walking towards them.
From behind the bark, Mwamba's body first appeared, dangling, as Noah immediately reacted, "Mwamba..."
Mwamba looked at Noah, having a hard time replying, "N... Noah! I... I messed up..." The creature probably waited for him to finish his sentence before emerging from behind the bark. Mwamba was held on its right hand. With a brighter background light and angle, we could see some crystal-like structure emerged from its shoulders. It had two horn resembling a bull's horn, sharp jaguar-like eyes like those of the red-suit guy we seen during homecoming. It's skin dark red, like those of the red-suit guy. We could see its teeth as sharp as razors. It had rings on its torso, as if it was playing hula hoop.
His left hand gripped an Agnian, "Mio...H... Help me, Mio...!"
"Hackt!" Mio shouted back.
As it walked closer, Noah's blade reverberate at an even higher frequency, to which he almost can't grip on it. "My Blade... What the...?"
He looked up15, hearing Mwamba's and Hackt's groans, "Mwamba?!"
The monster did not stop. Lanz's voice was shaking, "Wh-what is that thing?!"
Eunie replied, "Never seen anything like that before..." Yet, recalling from another hyperspace:
Eunie's unknown memories: A monster similarly resembled this, but without horns, flat head, jaguar eyed but glowing purple, brought it's sharp yellow-glowing nails in front of adult Eunie. Smoke rising from the distance. A tall rock seen pierced into the sky in the background.
"Eunie! Eunie! What's wrong?!" As Lanz tried to get Eunie's attention back, she gasp as her eyes opened to its maximum and took a step backward. "What is it? Seen that thing before?!"
Eunie didn't understand where her memory came from; it wasn't from her younger self, at her current reincarnation: "No, h-how could I have?"
Lanz: "Noah?"
"No, never. This is no normal creature... It's something else."
"Oi, oi! Don't go stopping on my account. Get back to killin' each other! Come on. I thought that was your whole 'raison d'être'?" As the monster spoke, its eyes turned red, an infinity symbol appeared inside its eyes.
Mio was shocked, "It's... speaking?!"
Guernica, badly injured, held his hand by the wound, "M-Moebius..."
The moebius continued:
Moebius continued: "What's wrong? Too worried about your buddies to fight?" He16 held them up a little, concluded, "Can't have that! All right!" He held them high up into the air while Noah looked. He pressed hard, they made their final groan as he released his hand, their husk dropped to the ground while he made a series of action that looked like a wolf tearing meat from its prey.
"Mwamba!" Noah shouted. Mio gasped.
Lanz: "Grgh, you scum!"
Moebius: "Oh, wow. This is some entertainment." He signaled at the Ouroboros Stone, "Two rival factions, murdering each other over one little rock." Then, he held both hands towards the Ouroboros Stone while walking taking a few steps towards it: "Well! Your objective is staring you in the face! Try and take it! 'Course, you'll be dead before you can lay a finger on it." Then, stopping at a series of ledges, he put his feet on the first ledge, hands supporting on that feet while he sat down on the second ledge. "Don't you just love it? Don't you wanna savor it? The sweet taste of a life cut short!"
Lanz: "Ngh... You mudder!" Lanz and Eunie can't stand it anymore, both running towards him.
"Wait, Lanz! Eunie!" Noah shouted back, but they don't seem like they could calm down, so he had no choice but to run after them.
On the other side, Mio was enraged and started running towards him too, "You killed Hackt!"
The hammer girl was worried about her, running up behind, "Mimi!"
The intelligent guy probably thought it wasn't intelligent to make such move, but he, like Noah, had no choice but to run after them: "Spark!"
Guernica struggled and got up. He managed to get onto the manually-controlled robot which he brought with him, it's thrusters activated as it got up from the ground, warming up. He was sitting in the controller's seat, seen from the glass windows.
The moebius shot his fingernail at where Noah and Mio team ran, hit the ground, sending smoke rippling outward, covering our view. As he stood up and slashed its finger at Noah, Lanz got in front of him, it's fingers almost knock on his broadsword.
Suddenly, Guernica's robot flanked him, like how he flanked Noah and Mio earlier, pressing on the moebius's chest as they dragged along. It's other arm, clearly resembles a grip, punched towards the moebius, whom held his right arm and caught the grip. "Hmph. Well... What did I expect?"
The robot, about three times the size of Moebius, wasn't holding on to its torso. It stood up, threw the grip to the side, while gripping the arm of the grip with both of its arms, swinging it with himself as the center of rotation. "That's about... all you're... good for!" About half a round, the robot's arm broke off, sending the machine flying in a short distance. The moebius still gripped onto the arm, which he threw to the side.
Guernica, seated in his seat, called back: "Well, crud. Helluva throwing arm. But y'know... I ain't... takin' that lying down!" The other robot arm, equipped with a gatling gun, fired at the moebius as he walked towards the robot. Most of the hit missed. Some that shot, he deflected them to the side by flinching his arms. Then, he pointed his fingernails at the robot, it glowed more yellow, and shot. The robot bursted into flames.
Like a frog, he jumped forward and punched into the driving seat, shattering the glass. Guernica groaned in pain. Noah watched him sticking his hands through the windows, grabbing Guernica out and held him up dangling.
Noah: "Leave him alone..." His right eye glowed blue, and he ran towards the Moebius: "Let him go!" On his mark, the others (including Mio's team) quickly followed behind. The Mondo guy actually stopped for a second to think before he make his way.
Noah jumped, his sword seemed to slice the moebius' hand, whom released Guernica witha few red "lives" burst from the point of contact. Noah hit the floor beside Guernica.
"Tsk. Don't get on yer high horse. You're nothing more..." The moebius got angry, standing up, a ball of purple energy ball glowed from his left hand with electrical current flowing on its surface. "than a grunt!" He jumped mid-air and punched in front of the ground where Noah was, sending him flying backward. Lanz was in his trajectory and stop him on his track, after which Lanz summoned his blade.
Moebius: "You've got a real death wish. Maybe I'll take care of you first! How 'bout that!" He pointed his fingers up, nudged Noah and the others.
(Halfway through the fight)
The moebius slid back, jumped into the air, his yellow fingernail shot towards the ground right in front of the hammer girl. A purple electric emits from it sent her flying backwards. Eunie ran towards her, casted a healing ring. She climbed, with her feet knelt on the floor, looked at Eunie: "Uhh... Thanks for that."
Eunie wasn't appreciating it, "Pfft... If you're done thanking me maybe you can get up!" She continued, reload her rifle and pointed it at the moebius and shoot, "We have to beat him together or we're dead in the mud!"
The moebius didn't even bothered blocking, letting it explode in his face. He was busy breaking Lanz's defense. Two hits and his broadsword flew off his hand. The moebius brought both hands up, a purple energy ball gathered, and smashed it towards him. The Mondo guy got in front of him, his Mondo arranged in defensive form, blocked the ball of energy on time. Red and black particles emit from the point of contact, red electricity flowed across the mondos. Signaling to Lanz: "Get out the way! You're just slowing me down!"
"Tch... The nerve on this guy!" Lanz gritted his teeth, swung his broadsword at the legs of the mondo guy, which he retreated his mondo and jumped to prevent being hit, and the moebius slid back for the same reason.
As the battle continues, Guernica crawled on all fours towards the Ouroboros Stone. He supported himself with both hands on the egg17, then start punching the top of the egg with his right fist continuously. "Start working...! Wooork!!!" Blows he landed more furiously.
After a few punches, he talked to the egg, which isn't responding: "Ugh... If you don't start up soon..."
As if it listened, its upper shell starts cracking aside. Seeing his success, he continued his course, landing a hit with each phrase, "Those kids...!" Each harder than before, "And the world!" It's almost fully cracked open, as it started revealing a bottle with metal mesh. A second later, blue particles and smoke emanates from the gap, it's force sent Guernica fell on his back.
He didn't mind a bit. He had succeeded, "Ahahahah! That's what I'm talkin' about. Looks like it wasn't all for nothing!" The egg opened up, it's upper shell sliding downwards, covering its lower shell, fully revealing the mesh bottle.
Meanwhile, the moebius swing around and send his fingernails, hitting the ground before Mio as she fell. "One down, good start!" The moebius walked up to her, his fingernail thrusted towards her. She was still on the ground. Noah emerged from the left and deflected his fingernail, looked back at Mio, before grabbing her by the neck to help her move out of the way. A few steps later, she fell on the ground while they looked back, the moebius just took a step forward, shadowing them. It raised its left arm up, prepare to thrust his fingernail at the two, "Two for one!" Mio stood up behind Noah, whom pointed his blade at the Moebius.
Just before the fingernail sliced through Noah and Mio, Guernica got up again, his palm on the metal bottle, and press it downwards, which totally activated the egg. "It's not over yet!!!" Green ether in gaseous state blew off, like a high pressure liquid whom found a hole to release its pressure. As the gas flowed over Guernica's body, we saw his soul threw up into the air, separated from his body.
A moment after the first ripple, the ether, initially only showering Guernica, expands with the second ripple and hit Noah and the others, also sending their soul out of their body. Time seemed to stop as their soul rose into the air, with the egg still releasing ripples of energy.
Focusing on Noah's right eye, where Eunie displayed the flame clock earlier, the flame clock changed shape and form a full circle, materialize into a clear shape, like a blue snake biting its own tail. In its full glory, Noah's soul was brought into a world filled with yellow clouds.
"The off seer?... Really?" He saw several Mio's memories. A Mio was playing her flute. Another Mio at the top left look at where he stood. "Miyabi?..." The top left changed picture into a girl, which we'll assume it's Miyabi. The middle was the hammer girl lowering her head, fence in the background, rose her head, "This is what...". Miyabi appeared on the bottom right corner too. "Such a waste..." "Mio..." The central image changed to Miyabi, handing Mio her flute.
As fragments and fragments of Mio's memory swapped and filled the yellow clouds surrounding Noah, he managed to catch a glimpse of her past. "Mio, take this. I'm giving you my whole self. So please. Let me..." "Miyabiiiiii!!!" Mio shouted in the final scene Noah saw.
Mio was in the same situation as Noah, except she saw his memory surrounding her instead. Her left eye, originally holding the Agnian flame clock, demonstrated a yellow snake-biting-tail ring. "Stop crying then!" (Noah telling Joran in his memory.)
As we zoomed out, we see them reflecting on the ground. If you try stand on a mirror and look down at yourself, that's just exactly how they stood, except if Noah look down, he would saw Mio in the mirror. They were separated by a thin sheet of transparent floor, but didn't look at each other.
As memories swirled around, two separate yellow tornadoes encircles and engulfed both of them. They disappeared from head and leg towards the center of their torso. The final product was two ball that resembles like the Chinese Golden Elixir (金丹)18. These two ball, Noah's blue, Mio's yellow, slammed towards each other, releasing a bright yellow ball of light as they collided. As the light dimmed out, a top-shaped core appeared, which we'll call it the Ouroboros Core.
The ouroboros core looked like two bowls capped on top of each other, covering its content, forming a toroidal shape. Each "bowl" had 3 circles, one at the tip (like the bottom of the bowl), one at the top like its circumference, and one in the middle, which you can imagine a circumference drawn between the top and the bottom.19 Between the top and the middle, various inscriptions too complicated to put into words carved its surface. The two bowls don't touch each other, hence some space in between.
As the ouroboros core emerged from thin air, blue stripes encircling it, the moebius covered his eyes, perhaps seeing the bright light from before. A purple-shaped monster materialize from the core, immediately punched the moebius whom slid backwards, fell a tree, before hitting on the cliff wall.
"What did I just... do...?" Noah was confused by his actions. He took up his arms and looked at it. It was purple in color, with some veins resembling blood vessels on its surface, orange fluid flowing within it. Such orange veins formed a ring on his wrist. As he flipped his hand to look at its back, four such veins stretched from in between his fingers towards his wrist. "What...? This hand..." Then, both Noah and Mio sounded: "Is it... mine?"
He and she turned back to look at his/her teammates. They were in their defensive stance, as if (s)he was their enemies. "Huh?" Noah and Mio gasped. "H-how are you inside me?!"
The Ouroboros core was located at their chest, a ring stretches like a hula hoop dangling by the neck. The face had some furs by its neck. Eyes sharp, glowing brightly yellow-orange. There was a larger eye-looking feature on each side of their temple. As energy flowed through the veins, it glows brighter; as it leaves, it returned to its dimmer glow.
"Inside...? Hold on... Are we...?!"
As they stood up, we could see a tentacle dangling towards its back. It had a single horn, like that of a unicorn, pierced from its head. There was a sword sheathed on its back.
The moebius fling its right arm, throwing the tree bark to the side, exclaimed, "Well, you sure catch on quick." He stood up, laughing, "So, you got yourselves an Interlink going, eh? Guess I've gotta give the old fool credit where it's due."
As he spoke, we could see steam rising from the ouroboros core. Its skin color glow and un-glow at a rhythm. Looking at their arms, Noah and Mio prompted to the moebius, "Uhh.... Interlink?"
The moebius walked up to them, explaining20 "Well, whatever. That form you just merged into? It's called 'Ouroboros'. Sear that into yer skulls."
"Ouroboros?"
The moebius didn't wait for them to absorb the information, continued: "Oh, and... Me, I'm Moebius. We look a bit alike, don't we? When Keves and Agnus come together in unity, you're practically one step away from being on the same level as us." He opened his arms, as if to welcome the new Ouroboros.
Noah: "So we're..." then Noah and Mio: "One Being...?"
The moebius continued, "Ehh, to put it bluntly, you're failures. Fact is, the two of us are mortal enemies."
"Enemies?" Noah and Mio unconsciously get into defensive chance, as their soldier instinct, hearing this word.
The moebius seemed like finished his explanation, or perhaps, out of patience, didn't wait for their reply either: "You got the picture? No further questions? Then let's get back on the dance floor!"
Footnotes:
1: Noah looked back at him from the tip of his sight, before turning back to look at the Agnian troops.
2: Movie always have some stupid scene. In real life, you'd have outnumbered them in the first place, not letting your colleague wasting their energy in a duel, and not giving your enemy any chance.
3: It actually emanates a ring every second, like how the GPS blue dot when it showed location.
4: Behind them was a cliff so high that no enemy was there; maybe they could if someone climbed up and sniped down...
5: Yes, they never saw a man outside of Kevesi and Agnian. That was their whole world.
6: Eunie's weapon is a staff-rifle, on one end, it's a staff, on the other end, it's a rifle.
7: one of the standard Agnian soldier suit
8: translator think she's probably less than 1.5 meters, assuming Noah around 1.7 meters, and Lanz 1.9 meters.
9: A stupid scene here, Noah ran right into a flame and emerged unscathed, can you believe it?
10: Like how you handle a tank when a soldier got out its top and handle the gun
11: Eunie was seen firing a shot at the Mondos, which lined vertically like an array of shields
12: Or maybe, he was focusing on getting away from his grip, so he can't think properly.
13: Perhaps this was the thing he had been thinking about for so long, lost in his mind without ever saying it out.
14: "er ung, er ung", FRENCH, NOT ENGLISH pronounciation of the alphabets, the sound of the joints of robots when they walked due to air pressure applied on the piston.
15: no time to figure out what the heck is going on with his blade
16: We'll assume it's male, for it sounded male-ish, though we'll use "he" and "it" interchangeably, for "it" assumes the "monster," while "he" assumes his gender.
17: the Ouroboros Stone, egg-shaped.
18: Unfortunately, the translator don't know if there are anything that resembles the Chinese Golden Elixir in the English world.
19: If squashed on a flat 2D surface, it'll look like the tree's concentric ring.
20: Probably he was enjoying the time, so he don't mind spending some time explaining what was going on to them.