The Luna Destiny

Lotte woke up to thudding against the door. The creatures seemed to have discovered where she and Atlas were hidden. She quickly got to her feet and looked at Atlas who was still passed out.

"Dammit..." She sighed to herself, as she summoned the Celestial Spear. She cast an explosive fireball at the door, sending the door flying backward into the creature, in an instant she jumped onto the door and thrust the spear through the wood, impaling the creature.

The cries of several more creatures echoed throughout the large atrium, as two of the creatures rounded the corner. Lotte growled and summoned two Celestial whip hooks, she shot one of the hooks into the ceiling and swung over the large atrium, one of the beasts attempted to jump at her, but missed and fell down to the lobby floor far below.

Lotte shot the second beast with her other whip hook, and yanked at it, dragging the beast over the edge through the glass railings, and sent it falling to the floor below.

"Phew" Lotte sighed as she jumped back to the balcony. She heard a grunt coming from the office, Atlas had gotten to his feet, but was holding onto his head. "Atlas!" Lotte waved as she headed over.

"Hey..." Atlas smiled slightly.

"How are you holding up?" Lotte asked.

"My head is killing me, but other than that, I'm okay" Atlas replied. "What were those things you were fighting?" He asked.

"They seem to be some kind of experiments that broke containment. I've dealt with three of them, but I can't say for sure how many remain" Lotte sighed.

"Did you notice the tech on them?" Atlas asked, as he leant against a desk.

"Yeah, seems to be how they're controlled" Lotte nodded.

"Maybe if we shut down Crystech's network, they'll be shut down too" Atlas suggested.

"Right" Lotte nodded. "We better get moving before more of them come" She said, as she headed toward the door, Atlas nodded.

"Cool weapons, by the way" He chuckled.

"Thanks... the Crystalla powers seem to let me summon more than just my base weapon" Lotte shrugged.

"Not just those with Crystalla, I've seen others do it more often too" Atlas replied.

"Huh, perhaps a side effect of more power being out in the open?" Lotte asked.

"That's what I thought" Atlas nodded, as the two headed down a long corridor. The wind howled along the long room, with snow coming through several broken windows, one or two of the hallway lights seemed to still be functional, but were buzzing as if broken.

A set of screens along a section of the corridor were still playing old Crystech commercials, as if the building was evacuated in a hurry.

"You know, I thought the Academy was creepy, before we came here..." Atlas shivered.

"Yeah, the evacuation must have taken a while to organise, so why does this place look like it was evacuated within minutes" Lotte pondered. Atlas stopped and looked out of the window.

"There hasn't been any fiends here" Atlas noticed. "Even those cyber wolf things were just normal animals... and the sky hasn't gone dark" He pointed to the dim grey sky.

"Huh..." Lotte nodded as she looked outside.

"This place wasn't evacuated for the reasons we were told" Atlas suggested.

"It's possible that the people who were evacuated we're aware of this too..." Lotte said, as she resumed walking.

"What sort of horrible experiment are we going to encounter next?" Atlas sighed deeply, remembering the mercy death of all those in the forsaken project below the Academy.

"It makes you wonder, how long Crystech were like this? They always suggested they were for the future of mankind, but operated outside the purview of the law. They even operated inside the Empire..." Lotte pondered.

"Rychard took everyone in with his act" Atlas grunted.

"That's the thing, I don't think it was an act, I think he believed he was the hero, and was the one who was willing to make sacrifices for the bigger picture" Lotte sighed.

"I'm gonna kill him for what he's done to my family" Atlas sighed as he looked out into the cold blizzard.