Cross Ange: The Knight of Hilda

Chapter 5: The Road to Libertus

Just to the east of the Dawn Pillar and North of the Imperial Palace, a grand mansion lay nestled in the woods surrounding the Pillar. This was the Dawn Foundation, an organization dedicated to the further study and refinement of the Light of Mana. For it was from the Misurugi Empire, or rather the Holy Misurugi Empire as it was now known, that the Light of Mana was distributed. The great Dawn Pillar itself was the method by which it was drawn from the universe, harnessed, and radiated to every corner of the world, connecting and empowering all of humanity in its radiant glow.

Or at least that was what the public was told.

Within the Dawn Foundation, seated in his personal study, Embryo studied a list of names. According to the files provided to him by the Ronseblum Royal Family, each Norma on this list were special. They had all survived a minimum of five years combat duty in one of Arzenal's Para-mail troops without significant injury as well as at least one First Encounter with unknown DRAGON types. All of which made them perfect candidates to pilot the Ragna-mail. So many fine and talented women to choose from, he thought. How good it was for Alektra to provide them all to me on a silver platter. Once he had reconstructed the world, these women would be the seed from which a new and better humanity would be grown. A humanity that would finally be devoid of the errors within their wretched genetic code that had nearly pushed them into extinction. A swipe of his finger and the list scrolled down the face of the Mana screen: Salia, Chris, Rosalie, Ersha, Tanya, and Hilda; the one Dark had been sent to retrieve. She would be the first. Speaking of Dark, where was he? He should have captured the Norma and disposed of any witnesses by now. Embryo reached out to contact his servant but received no answer.

"Something unexpected has happened," he realized. Standing up, Embryo waved his hand and on the floor before him, a figure materialized into being. "Something unexpected indeed," he repeated. Somehow, the deviant human accompanying the escaped Norma had managed to kill Dark. Dried blood caked his envoy's mouth while in his side, one of the braces he used to trap his prey had been thrust into his torso. Well, Dark could explain himself what happened. Another wave of his hand and the blood over Dark's mouth faded as the brace pushed itself out of his flesh. The wound closed and Dark's body shook in a massive spasm as his air-starved lungs gasped for air. After a few rapid breaths, Dark stabilized and rose to a sitting position.

"Master...Embryo?" With a frown, Embryo returned to his seat.

"Explain yourself Dark." Lowering his head in shame, Dark climbed to his feet and bowed in respect.

"I offer no excuses Master Embryo. I underestimated the resourcefulness the Norma."

"Is that so?" Embryo asked. "What exactly happened?"

"I had successfully located the Norma and the deviant serving as her accomplice. I had restrained her and was in the midst of interrogating him when she managed to escape her restraint. She disrupted my Mana then them stabbed me with my own trap. Her ally then took advantage to use a Mana technique to attack my internal organs. I can only assume that they escaped afterwards." Embryo leaned back and nodded.

"So rather than follow her own instinct for self-preservation and flee, she chose to stay and aide him. I suppose that contact with him must have influenced her to some degree. I'll have to add that to her file. Well, I suppose in the end it doesn't matter. Sooner or later I expect that someone will identify her and we can try once again. And even if those bothersome Network degenerates should manage to smuggle her out of our grasp, we still have plenty of viable candidates waiting for us at Arzenal that we can collect at our leisure. Still, I am greatly disappointed in your performance and feel that some disciplinary action is inevitable. However, I am in a pleasant mood this evening so I will give you a light punishment. Only 6 hours." Dark bowed his head in respect.