(Standard Disclaimer: All characters and settings from Xenogears belongs to Squaresoft. I'm just playing with them for a bit, and promise to put them back when I'm done.)

Author's Voice: I hesitated for a long time to put this up. It's sort of an on going drama I've been creating in my livejournal that eventually was moved to my blog. However, enough of my friends have assured me it's decent enough in quality to stick it up, so here it is for your amusement/entertainment. There is the eventuality of yaoi in here. If you are not a yaoi fan, consider this your final warning. If you continue to read it anyway, I take no responsibility for your injured sensibilities.

Faultline

"Vance! Report! We've lost you on radar!" Renk's voice called out, static interrupting anything else he might have yelled into the comm. Unfortunately, the youth had enough to worry about and couldn't immediately reply. Around him red lights flashed and LEDs announced critical failures, overheating modules and other assorted disasters as the ClawKnight gear struggled to maintain power and keep from crashing down into the canyon below. Suddenly he regretted pulling out ahead of the others, desperate to prove to them that he wasn't some wet behind the ears kid who couldn't hold his own in battle.

"You stick near Broyer, Vance," Renk said as he set the orders in motion as the team prepared to go into the caverns and root out the problem. It was a simple mission, one meant to test out the new recruit and establish a sense of unity to the team. From what Vance witnessed and heard about so far, everyone took their last teammate's death rather badly. Part of the youth felt comforted and slightly accepted among them, but the irrational sector of his mind rebelled at the idea of hiding behind another gear.

"No way, Renk. Come on, you want me to stick with the shield? He brings up the rear!"

"You got a problem with me, kiddo?" came Broyer's rather stony response.

"No offense, Broyer," Vance replied into the comm unit quickly. The last thing he wanted was to piss off the guy built like a brick shithouse. "But come on, Renk, how can I prove myself to you guys if you wanna baby me? Hell, Stratski's only a year older and you have him at the front of the pack!"

"That's because I'm not going to fuck up," Stratski chimed in with a derisive sounding snort.

"Stratski, that's enough. Take front," Renk cut in before the argument could go any further. "Vance, you stick behind me and Helmholz. Broyer bring up the rear. This is the way we work things in the beginning, Vance. Hold your own a few times and you'll take offense alongside Stratski. You may be the ClawKnight, but this is your first real mission. This ain't no practice run, you fuck up, you die and you might take us with you. We're a team, we work together. Got it? Promise me no stunts, hot shot."

"Got it," Vance replied after a moment of sulking back in his seat. "And fine, no stunts."

So, he ended up doing exactly what he had promised not to do. He never intended for it. Vance prided himself on being a fly by the seat of his pants kind of guy, which resulted in some unpredictable moments. The mission was supposed to be an in and out sort of deal. The five of them were to enter the mountain and find out what happened to a Gebler officer who supposedly took his team in and never came out again. If possible, they were to retrieve his gear, since Solaris didn't like leaving gears behind for anyone else to find and use.

Once inside, Vance found himself staring at the walls, swinging the ClawKnight's light sensors back and forth. The sound of condensation dripping echoed inside the little cockpit and the monitors displayed rough hewn walls and a tunnel wide enough to fit the Wand Knights abreast, but no more than that. So, it pinned him behind them whether he liked it or not. Sulking again, he slouched further into his seat and trained his view for straight ahead, right between Renk and Helmholz' gears. He could see the outline of the SwordKnight and only scowled more to think that Stratski was at the lead and would get to see action before Vance would.

But, most curious was a sudden blip of light that left all three gears ahead of him haloed for a brief second of time.

"Did you see that?" Stratski's voice came over the commlink unit.

"Yeah, a flash. Medusoids, probably," Renk replied, "Everyone, switch to infrared. These things can be nasty with their electric attacks. If you have ether armor, or Grounding use it now."

With a few flicks of switches and the turning of a dial, the world plunged into darkness for Vance. Instead of caverns, now he saw the hazy outlines of the gears in front of him and the world turned a strange shade of black and red. Red from the heat given off in front of him and the rest of the world remained black and cold. He saw the flashes more frequently then, and felt the adrenaline begin to flow at the idea of there being more than one. Then maybe, just maybe they wouldn't make him stick in the background and he'd get to show them a thing or two.

"More than one," Helmholz spoke the obvious, "You think this is a nest?"

"God, I hope not," Renk's voice sighed, "Ok, Stratski I know you're using the Hollow, so if you get too many lights reading critical status, you get your ass out of there this time and let Broyer back you up. Vance, you're me and Helmholz' backup, got it kid? And no heroics or stupid shit. That goes for you as well as Vance, Stratski."

"Got it," Vance replied soberly into the commlink unit. It chafed, knowing he wasn't allowed to engage except to help the others escape. The ShieldKnight did it all the time but that was Broyer's purpose, to wait and come in if the others needed his aid or needed him to get their asses out of the fire for retreat. Vance was meant for frontline combat in his gear and he was far too impatient to bother with this crap. Blue eyes drifted down to the needle cradled in a plastic half oval by the arm of his chair. Drive. A drug that wasn't to be used unless necessary, but ever since he'd first felt that heaven in his veins, Vance knew he'd found what he needed to get by. So sometimes, he snuck in a little bit of Drive when he wasn't supposed to. It got him through Jugend, after all, with scores high enough to rank him into this rag tag Striketeam. They were the best, he'd heard. The highest record for successful missions, the Knights of Solaris.

"My ass they're the best," he muttered to himself. Then he pulled the needle from its cradle and thrust it into his arm. It took only a moment before he felt the affects begin to wash over him. The entire world faded to gray and left him with a profound taste for coming violence. Grinning maniacally behind the gear controls, Vance knew what he had to do. He'd show Renk, he'd show Stratski, he'd show them all.

After a chorus of voices gave the OK from the rest of the team and they continued forward cautiously. Ahead the flashes of light continued, though they moved about steadily. Vance knew a little about Medusoids from the textbooks he'd neglected often enough. Cavernous creatures with electroids so powerful they used it to charge up and stun or electrocute their enemies in order to feed on them. A gear's worst nightmare if one didn't have the proper parts installed. Vance wasn't overly concerned. He'd had ether mach installed awhile ago and used it already to raise his defenses slightly against any oncoming elemental attacks. He simply had to find a way around the WandKnights in front of him.

"Incoming!" Stratski's voice called over the commlink. Somehow he sounded perfectly calm and composed. Ahead Vance could see the SwordKnight's outline suddenly rush forward, the clang of metal striking against something heavy heard directly, and not too far ahead. Though he couldn't exactly see it, Vance could well imagine the whiptails that slinked off the strangely shaped gear cutting through fleshy, translucent bodies. The visualization only lent to a frothing desire to get out into the midst of the combat, fingers twitching against the gearshift.

"It's a nest all right, everyone on your toes!" Helmholz spoke next. The WandKnights strode forward together, a pair even among the larger whole of the team. Flashing of red fire enaminated from their main cannons toward the overwhelming number of Medusoids that suddenly flooded the narrow space. Vance could see now that the passage ended abruptly into a huge, cavernous structure stretching so far and wide and high that it seemed to disappear into infinity. If not for the Drive in his bloodstream, he would have stared in awe, and then realized how much trouble the team had run into.

"Shit! Stratski let go of the Hollow! Get back here, there's too many of em!" Renk called out the order but the SwordKnight pilot didn't respond.

"I'm going in after him," Broyer lurched forward in the ShieldKnight, a gear so immense in girth and so heavily fortified with shielding and armor plating that it could withstand a lot of damage before succumbing to circuitry overload. It's what made him the shield for the others, able to dart in and pull a fallen gear's fat out of the fryer. Vance saw his opportunity then. With the WandKnights distracted and Broyer deployed to pull Stratski back, he simply detoured out from behind them and leapt into the fray as he soon found himself surrounded and suddenly cut off from the rest of the team.

"Vance! What the hell do you think you're doing!" Renk yelled. But Vance didn't bother replying, too far gone to the Drive in his system and the need for brutality. The metal claw rent flesh and tore through cartilage, no bones within the spineless, overgrown jellyfish to snap in half. For each he killed, two more would appear, sometimes three, crowding around him with a frenzy of sparks enaminating inside their translucent bodies. But they weren't attacking him, he realized, just sitting there like ducks in a row for him to slaughter.

"What the hell? These things don't attack or something?" he asked after jabbing a thumb down on the commlink unit talk controls.

"No, you idiot, they power up first and then they electrocute you," Helmholz' voice replied dryly, "You better have Grounding installed on that gear or you're toast."

"Hang tight, kid, this was stupid of you but we'll get you out," Renk sighed, saving his lectures for later.

Vance felt droplets of sweat begin to beat against his forehead, plastering bright red hair against his skin. He vaguely recalled Medusoids powering up but it seemed so distant thanks to the void that Drive left him in. He continued striking at the fleshy creatures surrounding him and did his best not to panic as he realized how many really did surround him.

And then came the first shockwave. It hit him from behind, forcing the ClawKnight to lurch slightly from the impact. Bells and whistles went off inside the cockpit, returning reports of light damage to the rear sector. Vance quickly redirected power supply away from the area of attack, anticipating a blow from the side instead as he caught another Medusoid hovering toward him in his peripheral vision cameras. The prediction proved true, and thanks to his quick thinking damage was minimalized and he rounded on the creature to tear it to pieces. Another hit struck him from the opposite side and then another and another. Vance soon realized how right Helmholz was. Even with his ether mach protections, he had no ability to protect himself from this level of continuous attack on his gear.

And that was how he came to be at the edge of the cliff, now. Sensors registered the drop, readouts declaring it to be at least fifty feet, enough to incapacitate the ClawKnight and possibly kill him in the process. But the Medusoids were not letting up. He'd given them the time to charge and in sheer numbers they were pushing him closer to the edge, even as he clawed and ripped and tore through their numbers in a desperate attempt to at least clear a path back to the others. The electricity messed with the commlink unit and he heard nothing but static interrupted occasionally by someone calling his name. He couldn't even reply to them, too busy concentrating. Besides, he doubted they'd hear him if he could answer.

The ground beneath the metal feet of the gear began to give way. Vance suddenly felt as if the jig were up. He settled his hands into his lap and didn't bother with the controls any further. He wondered briefly if they'd even retrieve his gear. Of course they would. Solaris didn't like leaving gears or parts out for others to salvage, if they could help it.

"Wake up you brat!"

The voice suddenly broke through the commlink static and startled Vance enough to realize that he was not alone anymore. The SwordKnight now stood at his side, taking the brunt of electrical attacks while holding onto the Clawknight enough to keep Vance from a rather abrupt fall to his death. Reacting quickly, Vance spurred his gear forward, out of immediate danger of the fall and as soon as Stratski let go, joined him in tearing through the numbers to get the hell out.

It took effort from the entire team to make it back to the tunnel system. Stratski propelled Vance forward, and Helmholz and Renk fired over the ShieldKnight's massive shoulders as Broyer brought up the rear and blocked the Medusoids from causing any further damage to his comrades. The oversized jellyfish followed them almost to the exit, finally backing off as the light from outside illuminated the cavernous walls.

Once outside, finally, no one stopped until they'd reached a higher plateau, out under the noonday sun. No Medusoid would try to follow them out here, for they were far too sensitive to the sunlight. Finally, they felt safe enough to pause and assess the damages done.

"Everyone, report," Renk's voice held a note of concern.

"Took moderate damage, everything is functional, however," Helmholz replied first.

"I'm fine," came Broyer's response.

"Stratski? Vance?"

Vance sighed and ran a hand through his hair, the readouts and LEDs and signals were no longer screaming at him, but he could tell that he'd taken significant damage nearly everywhere. "I'm amazed I'm still standing. ClawKnight's gonna need repairs."

Silence for a moment, and Vance knew what was coming next. He braced himself for it.

"We'll talk about this when we get back, Vance. Stratski, report please."

"Repairs will be necessary. I am fine otherwise," the SwordKnight pilot finally spoke up. No edge to his voice. Nothing to indicate distress or anything else. Vance growled under his breath, Drive still making him edgy even in the aftermath of combat adrenaline. How did the preening peacock manage to remain that damned calm? It had to be the Hollow. Renk kept talking about it, he'd heard it mentioned but no one ever explained it to him and the one time he asked Stratski about it, he just looked at him oddly and refused to answer. Was it some kind of new drug?

"No, little -Lamb-, it's not. Don't ask me again."

And then he walked away, leaving Vance there to clench his fists and wish he could deck Stratski right then and there.

"I'm getting too old for this shit," Renk's voice groaned and cut into Vance's thoughts. "All right, so long as everyone can make the trip, let's get back home and report. Helmholz, you got the statistics?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good, move out."

(To be continued...)