Porter shakily rose up, straightening out after nearly getting bowled over by a shockwave that had come from out of nowhere. None of the scanners had detected it within his Goliath, which meant it hadn't been a weapon of some sort. What could produce something like that? Porter scrambled for answers in his mind but came up with a blank, puzzled over the burst of energy.

The youth twisted around, trying to identify where the original source of the blast was. The cameras on the White Storm began to zoom and pan in an attempt to locate the original attack. The Goliath identified Ardwen in the distance, struggling to get back onto his feet. Next to him was Riya, whose Goliath burned with a dark aura, the air around her bending and warping as Porter stared at it. He had to tear his eyes away; it hurt his head to watch the shifting space too long.

"Riya, what's going on? Riya?" Porter tried to call up a viewscreen into the cockpit but was greeted with nothing but static. He couldn't gain a connection to The Warlord no matter how hard he tried.

"She won't respond." Ardwen cut through as he stabilized. "She lost it when Chase died. Couldn't handle it I guess."

"You guess?" Porter shot back, fury flying through his veins.

"Sorry, sorry." Ardwen flinched a little within his warmachine "It's just...none of us can handle it."

"You're damn right none of us can."

"But it doesn't do us any good to not handle it," Ardwen finished, trying to regain command over his unit. "I have no idea what's going on with Riya though. I just got hit by this big blast and now she's like this." As Ardwen ended his sentence, a dark gas began to ooze out of Riya's battlesuit, venting from every crack and hole it could find. The shadows began to coalesce in front of The Warlord and it reminded Porter of his time in the Beijing with their unique Goliaths.

The dark cloud began to spread, rising up into the air. It sprouted arms that ended in vicious claws, and then legs, and finally a head. It had no features other than its body shape, looking like a Bahari made entirely of black gas. A few thin trails of the darkness connected to Riya, the only link between the two that showed Porter this bizarre occurrence was at least on their side.

Slowly, the shadowy creature took a step forwards, a puff of black smoke rising up from its foot as it collided with the earth. Wisps of darkness fled its body, fading away into the light around it. It took another step, beginning a walk towards Porter and the waves of Bahari.

Suddenly the dark monster raised its arm, pointing its claw towards a Bahari. Its fingers shot out, stretching outwards and piercing through the beast's chest. The shadowy digits wrapped around the Bahari's core and tore it out in an instant. Porter balked at the ruthless efficiency of the black gas, as the creature hadn't even turned its head towards the enemy as it killed it. Not only was the speed a shock but the fact that a cloud of darkness could actually physically hurt something was tough to swallow. How was it capable of manifesting itself physically in an instant?

A hail of bullets flew towards the black monster, passing through it as though it didn't exist. Only small holes in the gas showed it had been hit by anything at all, and these quickly released. The shadow's arm reached out again, this time at a closer Bahari, and so it didn't have to stretch out. Even though the two were the same size, the gaseous monster seemed to dwarf the Bahari, its hand grabbing on to the creature's head and ripping it off with ease. It then jammed the head back into the Bahari's chest, driving it straight into the beast's core.

Tendrils began to rise up off the back of the shadow monster, shooting out at nearby enemies. Some pierced straight through the heart of the Bahari, while others wrapped around them, crushing the beasts' bodies. Still more sliced the creatures in half, chopping them to bits in a flash.

The gaseous being's body seemed to have no limit, stretching itself infinitely and producing more of itself as it needed. Its arms whipped around, claws stretching out to flay anything that drew near while the black tentacles continued to eviscerate the remaining Bahari. And still it drew closer to Porter, slowly stepping forward, one foot at a time as if it methodical, planned.

A Mahari rose up onto its hind-legs and charged forwards awkwardly, trying to get in the path of this unknown foe. The shadow creature walked straight through it though, its dark form breaking down and drifting in between the monster's cells, and it stepped out the other side, holding the Mahari's red core in its hands. The Mahari collapsed onto the ground, immediately killed. This bizarre being acted as if the Mahari hadn't even existed. And its march towards Porter continued endlessly.

As it drew closer, Porter began to walk towards it. There didn't seem to be as much to fear anymore. After all, this black cloud was systematically eradicating every Bahari it could get its hands on and it was originating from Riya, a thin trickle of dark matter connecting it to The Warlord. But as the White Storm stepped forwards, the shadow suddenly swung its arm out, brushing Porter aside before he had a chance to react. He was sent flying backwards, only barely managing to stabilize before he hit the earth.

What was that all about? Porter shook his head as he did a complete system scan. Perhaps the creature was more hostile than he thought. If it was willing to hit him it was either violent towards everything, or trying to keep him away from itself. Porter glanced over at Riya's Goliath. If he couldn't get close to the monster, he knew where he had to get close to.

* * * * *

Brigadier General Cross Marian suddenly leaned forward in his chair, his face only inches away from the screen. He began furiously flipping through images, different feeds flying by as he searched for something in particular. Eventually he settled on one, zooming and twisting the view as he needed it.

"Saint Ishiyama!" he exclaimed, startling a nearby crew member. His fist slammed down onto his armrest, shocking the rest of the bridge as the sound echoed around. "Dammit old man, is that what this is about?" Marian shot out of his chair, spinning on his heel to begin a hurried walk through the ship. Immediately he was surrounded by different soldiers looking for orders or an explanation to the sudden outburst.

"Prepare my Goliath right now," he demanded, pointing different people in a variety of directions. They all started to dissipate, scattering down hallways to follow commands.

"If I may inquire as to what has you in such a huff?" General Coriath sauntered up to Marian, keeping pace with the man but making it appear like it was a leisurely stroll.

"Not now Coriath." Marian tried to push the old man away but he easily ducked under Marian's half-hearted swing. Coriath was one of Marian's oldest friends, a greying man who had nearly retired from his Goliath, and spent most of his time as a tactical planner for the Brigadier General. He was the only person who felt like he could safely speak to Marian without fear of punishment.

"Well, when it's something so big you don't want me to know, I definitely have to know." Coriath pinched the end of his white mustache, twirling it between his fingers as he always did when his curiosity was piqued. He loved to hang around Marian for exactly this reason; Marian was always up to something interesting.

"It's this damned Crisis Rescue Unit that old coot Shotuku sent down." Now that it was just Coriath and Marian, the general no longer held back on telling Coriath what he wanted to know. He liked to vent and Coriath liked to listen. "They're a bunch of punks from the academy up in space, real special and all, quite talented."

"What's wrong with that?"

Marian grit his teeth and punched the metal wall of the hallway, stalling for a bit before he resumed his pace. "One of them went and got himself killed and now another one freaked out and is on a rampage."

"That doesn't sound that abnormal Marian. You would really speed this up if you just gave me all the details at once."

Marian stopped suddenly stopped in his tracks, and Coriath managed to do the exact same, having grown used to Marian's quick starts and stops. "Turns out that bastard was hiding a black chi among them."

"Again Marian with the details."

"Look Coriath, we've been through a lot, we've done a lot," Marian continued as he began walking once more, rushing towards the entrance to his Goliath, "but you can never repeat this to anyone...ever." Coriath made a gesture across his lips as a response, keeping silent otherwise. "Black chi is a very rare occurrence that shows up once every generation or so. You and I are lucky to see it in our lifetime. It is the darkest manifestation of life force that we know of and we really don't understand it but what I can tell you is this: there's a power out there that will eliminate the brightest chi it can find and will keep doing that until there is no more chi near it and then it will probably burn out and kill the owner of this black chi."

"So it kills everything?"

"For now it's killing Bahari. Their chi is all messed up because of the experimentation with biotechnology but when it runs out of them, or some of our men get too close, they die too. It will kill and kill until there's nothing left."

"And we can't stop it?" The pair arrived at the doorway to the Archangel. On the other side of the hallway stood Marian's massive battlesuit, currently being prepared and blessed by hundreds of priests and engineers. It took a full-time team to get the Archangel operational and keep it functioning at peak efficiency and Marian would always thank each and every one after he deployed.

"The only way you stop it, is to make the host stop. Only way to make the host stop, is to kill the host." With that, Marian stepped through the door, leaving Coriath to ponder what he had just heard and try to understand what was about to happen. Cross Marian moved through his Goliath with ease, memorizing the entire layout after so many years. He could do this with his eyes closed and that was the way he liked it. This Goliath had been a gift to him when he was little and it was one he had ridden in his entire life. But today may be the first time he truly felt challenged in it.

As the Brigadier General stepped into his cockpit, viewscreens began to ignite all around him, automatically turning on as they detected his presence. He felt the hum of the engine beneath his feet before he settled into the chair, and he murmured a prayer to Saint Ishiyama. Before he could finish, a crew member from the bridge suddenly cut in on one of the screens, interrupting one of Marian's most sacred ceremonies.

"What?" the general snapped, surprising the poor worker.

"I-I-I am sorry sir," the young man stammered. "There's a new report coming in, and you'll want to see it."

"I really don't want to see anything right now, trust me. I would like to see your face disappearing, that is what I would like to see." Marian sunk down in his chair like a toddler throwing a tantrum. This was not the time for him to be cut off. He needed every ounce of his focus if he was to battle against a black chi.

"Sir this...this object has...has been detected..."

"Out with it already!"

"There's an unidentified object coming in from outer space." The crew member began to rush through his report, the words falling out of his mouth. "Trajectory shows it coming from the Saint Maurius Academy and it is projected to land shortly on the battlefield. First images look like this." The young man disappeared from the screen and a still picture went up. It was the sky above them, with the sun taking up one corner, making it practically impossible to see anything on that side of the image. On the other side, a tiny purple streak was faintly visible, one that required a great deal of strain to make out.

Marian's head slumped forward into his hands as the communication ended and the hangar doors opened up beneath the Archangel's feet. "Oh Ishiyama why? Why now? Not this guy again."

A/N: Not Nami but Riya? Distraught at the loss of a friend, the mysterious black chi has been unleashed, but the only solution for Marian is Riya's execution? A boon or a curse?