Episode 2
Roxas scanned again to make sure, I could tell because briefly his eyes were illuminated blue. It was freaky to watch, but after he put his player pin away, he ran over to where he'd seen the noise and tried to kick the door in, but no avail. It was locked.
"What are we going to do?" I asked him, looking at the pins he'd handed to me. Roxas had pulled his two swords out using his pins, could I maybe use some of the pins I had like that? I put the pins away and pulled out my drill pin, I could probably take down the door with this. It was still a little gray though, so I couldn't use it.
Roxas was a step ahead of me anyways. "It's just a lock; it's nothing special for me," He pulled out one of his own pins and pointed it at the door. The pin flashed white, a beam shot from it, and I heard a loud click as it magically unlocked the door. Roxas pushed it open, peering into the darkness of the shop.
"What did you just do?" I asked, unsure what had just happened.
"All of my pins that I use activate my—whoa!" Roxas stepped back as a blue laser beam shot by him. A shiny-yellow robot thing ran out of the darkness and took off down the street. I looked at Roxas, who was getting up to chase after the robot. I followed him, not running as hard, not sure if we should really be doing this. There were infected everywhere, this might be a bad idea.
If he wanted the robot to stop, I could help him…Should I? It would hurt really badly, and I still didn't know anything at all about the pins. Maybe I couldn't even use it again. Either way, it was worth a shot. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the pin with the anarchy "A" drawn in chains, and I pointed it at the robot.
I felt suddenly drained, like my life had been rapidly sucked out of me, and a web of chains shot from the buildings to form a wall in front of the golden robot, who stopped, and turned around. I fell to the ground, coughing, and Roxas stopped and turned around to look at me.
"Are you okay?" He asked, but then we both heard a loud whine, and looked back to the robot. Roxas pulled two pins out of his black coat and in a second he was holding his two key-sword-things again. One blinding flash of light later and in the robot's place stood a very oddly dressed blonde girl with upturned hair—her hair looked like it'd been sucked up by a turbine or something. She had a slight frown on her face and seemed terrified.
"Please," she said, "Don't kill me. Don't hurt me."
"We're not trying to!" Roxas shouted at her, and I stood up, putting my anarchy pin into the same pocked that had the drill pin and my cell phone, "Are you both alright?" I nodded, and so did the girl.
"I'm fine, I just…I'm scared." She said, and I felt like laughing. That was an understatement. In a hellish world like this? I was surprised I hadn't wet my pants already. Then I looked down to make sure I actually hadn't, because my partner was freaking terrifying. I hadn't, which was impressive, and let me have a moment to sigh relief, before I looked back to what was going on.
Roxas was talking into a walkie-talkie, and I heard Dante's voice on the other line.
"We need to call in for a RTB." Roxas said, and I heard Dante groan, "We can't drag these two around indefinitely, and we're too close to the scramble crossing for safety. Got it? Dante?"
"I hear you, just give me a minute, there's a pack of…well," I heard Dante reply, and then when he stopped talking his voice was replaced by garbled roaring and the sound of his microphone being jostled around. Thirty seconds went by without a word, and Roxas' face became more nervous.
"Should we go help him?" I asked, sticking my hand into my pocket with the pins.
"Dante can take care of himself," Roxas explains, a little white in the face, "He probably just dropped the communicator."
Sure enough, a few seconds later, Dante picked up on the other end and said, "Call in an RTB; I'll be over as soon as I can."
"Got it." Roxas said, and changed the frequency just as I heard Dante start to say Jack-something. I didn't' quite catch it, but he sounded excited. Roxas called another channel, and the voice of a gruff older woman answered him, "We're calling for an RTB, coordinates are—!"
I didn't hear the rest of what he said as Dante came running towards us, followed by a large crowd of enormous infected. These things were huge, and although I was scared, I feared a fight might soon ensue. Not with Dante around though. He drew his two pistols and began glowing!
He turned around, leapt into the air, and rained down a mass of glowing bullets onto the large infected. He landed on the other side, already having swapped his guns for his sword, and went to town on the closest infected in range.
"Hunters! I knew we were too close!" Roxas said, handing me the walkie-talkie and lighting off a flare, "They're sending an air-carrier to pick us up, so make sure that this flare does not go out. Protect this girl, and if they radio us anything, let us know!" With that, he took off running toward the crowd of Hunters that were surrounding Dante. His two pins became the key-swords again, and he did like a triple-flip to land next to Dante in the middle of their hellish mosh pit.
I clipped the walkie-talkie to my belt, and stood in front of the girl, so that I was between her and the infected. I set the flare on the ground, and pulled my drill pin out of my pocket. I knew I might die here, but oh well; at least I'd go down fighting.
"What's your name?" I asked her, putting my fists up.
"Ilana," She said, "Ilana Lunis," is all she said, nervously looking at the hunters.
One of the Hunters strayed from the group, and that's when I let my anger take hold of me. I gripped the drill pin tightly, why the hell was I here? I didn't even understand what was going on, I was NOT about to die! I wouldn't let that happen, these things would not get me!
My hand holding the pin turned into a large drill, and I rocketed forward, propelled by the force of my anger, piercing the Hunter and leaving a large hole in him. The creature fell over, falling to the ground, and I turned my drill into the crowd as a whole. Dante and Roxas were nowhere to be seen, and I would have been confused if I hadn't been running on anger. I leapt up into the air and my drill turned slender again; I slashed through a few of the Hunters as if using a whip, leaving a gash across their body and causing a splash of blood.
I landed with the drill back to its standard form, with a Hunter looming over me. This close, I got a good look at them. They were huge, like a giant gorilla, with sunken eyes, and well, going back to the gorilla description, they looked like that only shaved. I raised my drill to block the attack, but it knocked me back, into the middle of the group. I looked around, surrounded by the infernal things, my drill having turned back into a pin. I reached for the pins Roxas had given me, hoping one of them would be able to help me. One of them did, but not in the way I'd hoped.
When I used it, a cloud of flechettes flew out from the pin, striking all the hunters around me, but ultimately just making them angry. I still had the anarchy pin, but it was rebooting, so I was effectively screwed. Suddenly, a blue beam of energy shot through the hunters, piercing one of them. The pack turned their attention to Ilana.
But then Dante and Roxas materialized next to me, cocky smiles on both of their faces.
"This was a pretty town," Roxas begins,
"You're tainting the view." Dante finishes.
They put their weapons away, and the Hunters all fell over, collapsing onto the street, the red color of the neighborhood fading once again. I picked up my pins off the ground and stood up, trying to keep from crying. If they hadn't finished off the Noise when they did, I'd be dead, or worse.
Infected.
A loud roaring was heard, and we all looked up to see a giant hovercraft sort-of-thing landing. It was basically a floating platform, a railing around the edge to keep the occupants from falling off, and a pilot's seat attached to the front. Dante and Roxas escorted Ilana onto the platform. I made to follow but stopped.
I felt a cold breeze from behind me, and I turned around to see a lanky kid dressed in a white button up, with messy silver hair. He smiled at me. He smiled, and I felt instantly disturbed.
"Hello." He said to me.
"Hello," I replied to him, "Were you waiting for someone?"
"No, well not really waiting anyways," He says, "What are you doing for the rest of the day, Xavier?"
"What?" I stopped, this was really freaky.
"What?"
"You just used my name, how did you know my name?"
"We all know your name. I don't mean to sound rude, but you're rather ignorant of your own position," on ignorant, he casually brushed his hair to the side.
"Oh really," I asked, "Who are you?"
"I'm Kaworu Nagisa," he says, walking closer to me. I see he has red eyes at this point, and his smile grows, "I hope you won't make me regret what I've done."
I blink, and he's gone. Roxas is calling to me, asking me to get on the air-carrier. I numbly comply, confused at what just happened. Did I just have a dream, or Kaworu…I didn't know. I got on the air-carrier, and the pilot took us up, on to the next leg of my journey.
The Air Carrier flew us to a paramilitary outpost on the edge of town. Dante filled me in on the details during the flight. Apparently, a deadly virus had been unleashed in Manhattan, a part of New York. A military group called Black Watch had covered it up, along with a prior incident in Hope, Idaho. They'd nuked them in Hope, and had attempted to in Manhattan, except that my partner had stopped the second bomb from destroying the city somehow.
The virus overran the city then, and Black Watch sent part of it to their lab in Tokyo for analysis. If you can see the flaw in that plan, then congratulations! You're smarter than Black Watch. When the virus exploded, the Mikado Corporation took over Black Watch, buying it out, and taking over the functions. They were the guys who were keeping down the virus in the myriad of places it had broken out. People who had demonstrated resilience to the virus, or had some other means of preventing their corruption—such as mine and Roxas' player pins—were sought out by Mikado, and employed to attempt to clear out the infected areas.
"We've had more success here, than in other areas, due mostly to these," Roxas says, pointing to my player pin, "You saw it yourself, when the noise is eliminated, the infected go down too. We aren't exactly sure what the Noise are, but it works for us."
"How come you and Dante didn't have a timer?" I asked, looking at my hand and remembering the sting. You have no idea how badly that had hurt!
"Oh, that," Roxas chuckles, "We finished our game, and kept the pins. Seven days, we got a mission each day, and when we completed it, the timer vanished."
"Huh, that's strange," I said, becoming silent. This was a lot to take in over the course of a few hours. I needed a nap, badly.
The air-carrier took us to the edge of the country, to a large industrial building. From the edge of the railings, I could see the coastline stretched below us, and the destruction to Tokyo behind us. From here, parts of the city were normally colored in shades of gray, but also I could see larges masses colored by and invading red. That was where the infection was. I looked down sadly, this really sucked.
We landed atop the Mikado Corporation building, and had to go down several flights of stairs. I had no idea where we were going, I was just following Dante and Roxas. They eventually turned onto one of the floors, and down a generic office hallway; potted plants, carpeted floor, all that jazz. Roxas knocked on the door of the office of "Julius Steel" The door opened, Roxas and Dante entered, and the former saluted, while Dante shrugged indifference. Steel saluted behind a desk, and then returned to what he was doing, which was apparently typing on a computer. I snickered because I imagined that he was on something like Facebook, or G+, or looking at Ponies or something.
That got his attention. He looked up and yammered at me for a full minute about disrespecting your authorities. I backed down, and hid behind Ilana. His eyes lit up when he saw her, and he lost his cool demeanor.
"You!" he cried, "I thought I was done with you when I resigned and took this position! What are you doing here? Dante, Ruck-sack! One of you two escort her to the prison compound!"
"You don't really mean to imprison me, do you?" Ilana exclaimed in surprise. Dante shrugged, and Roxas looked at me.
"If it doesn't involve killing, "Dante left, "Then I'm off the clock."
Roxas shrugged and followed his partner. I shrugged and followed them, and Ilana followed me, leaving Julius Steel to yell about treason, and treachery in his office, about having all of our heads. I didn't know what to make of him, but he seemed thick-headed.
"What's up with him?" I asked them, and Dante laughed.
"That guy thinks he's so high-and-mighty."
Roxas sighed, and actually answered me, "He used to be a General in the American military. He dealt with several alien threats, but ultimately resigned. Black Watch recruited him after he resigned, and he stayed on during the merger. He's just the guy we report to when we return from a mission, he's nothing special."
"Wow, he went from being a General to a glorified receptionist, that really had to suck," I remarked, and turned around to see if Ilana was still following us. She was and she looked sad,
"Did you hear anything about a Titan?" She asked Roxas, who shook his head.
"No, I didn't, why?" He replied.
"No reason," She said, looking down and holding her other arm. Dante, in the lead of all of us, stopped and turned around. Roxas and me immediately crashed, while Ilana was far enough behind to actually stop.
"There something you wanna tell us?" He asked her, crossing his arms.
"Well, me and," she said, but the building was suddenly rocked by an explosion. We all fell to the ground; I put an arm out to break Ilana's fall. Dante and Roxas both rolled back to their feet and the lights flickered on and off, before going out.
"An attack?" Roxas shouted, "Did they get the generators?"
"Sounds like fun!" Dante shouted, trying to decide which way to run, before stopping, "Roxas, where's the generator room?"
"Follow me," Roxas said, "keep her safe!" He shouted back to me as him and Dante ran to the generator and theoretically our aggressors.
I JUST WANT A NAP, IS THAT SO MUCH TO ASK FOR?
I sighed and helped Ilana to her feet, "Come with me," I said. She nodded, and I tried to figure out where the nearest fire escape was, or at least where the staircase we'd entered through was. If there was another attack, I didn't want to be this high off of the ground.
Essentially we stumbled around the halls for a while to no avail, but we did bump into a few people running around in a panic. I would have asked them where to go, but they didn't stick around enough for me to get a word in. Then an alarm rang out, and a calm male voice issued an evacuation procedure.
"You know where you're going, right?" Ilana asked me, and I almost cried.
"I know just about as much as you," I replied sadly. I stepped forward for the last time that day, and the ground exploded under me. A giant violet robot was wedged in the hallway somehow, a gaping hole below it. Dust and debris floated in the air, and were illuminated by the light as the robot transformed into a young man with long black hair.
"Ilana, we're here for you!" He shouted, running at me. I pulled out my Anarchy pin and held it at him, but nothing happened. His fist met the side of my face, and he kicked me so hard I blacked out.
Probably lost a tooth or two, too.