AFA Intermission

Reflections – pt. 4


The couple broke the lengthy kiss, both breathless. The woman rested her back against the tree, her arms draped around the shoulders of the man who had supported her through the darkest of times.

"So why did you go find Linna just now?" Leon asked, managing to once again ruin an otherwise good mood.

Priss frowned in the darkness, both from his timing and the subject matter. "What makes you so sure I was looking for her?"

"Do you really want me to answer that question?"

She paused, lost in thought for a moment. "No."

Leon thought back… thought back to the moment of finding his lover in Linna's arms… her eyes horribly over dilated, staring into the ceiling, unresponsive… he had rescued her from that hell… bringing her back to the surface… getting her discrete medical help… nursing her slowly back to health… only to have Priss run back to the Knight Sabers one more time, back to the woman named Sylia Stingray… and once more back into Linna's arms…

Leon pulled Priss into a tighter hug, hoping to block out the fears of losing his love to someone else. He silently laughed at himself though, thinking of how silly it really was to be worried about the future when it looked so bleak at the moment. The woman he loved more than anything in the world was about to take on the devil herself… a god among humans. He had seen enough evidence the last two weeks to convince him of the awesome supernatural power the Knight Sabers were about to charge head on… and he wasn't going to let himself assume there would be a tomorrow to worry about, not when he should be taking advantage of every precious moment he could right now. But despite his best efforts, another moment of jealousy came back instead, drawing his focus away from the woman resting against his heart.


Leon was sure he was dead. Too many boomers… not enough weapons… darkness settling in from the sky above… empty buildings only lit from the burning fires of resistance they were still vainly putting up. He'd never see Priss again… this was it… he was certain. The horde circled around his small group for the easy kill…

A sonic scream drew his attention to the black sky overhead… a green streak plowed into the mutating masses in the distance… the whole world seemed to explode all at once…

The next thing he could remember was the distinct outline of a human form illuminated by the smoldering remains of the boomer army. As his recognition of the shape caught up to his brain, his heart stopped as one name came to mind… …linna… A few details on the hardsuit were different this time, but there was no mistaking the shape as anything other than the Green Knight Saber… the same one that had tortured his love deeply enough for her to teeter on the edge of madness.

She seemed to read his fears as the faceless visor turned in his direction. He could feel her eyes boring a hole through his chest as the Saber stared at him. Just as the ADP officer was beginning to plan which direction to run in case she turned on him next, the helmet shifted skyward as the hardsuit rocketed up into the night.

It had taken Leon a few moments to ponder where the Knight Saber might go next before he realized two things simultaneously… for one, he faced the direction that the Green Knight had just flown off in… the second, he recognized that direction to be straight for his apartment where Priss was still struggling to recover…


When Priss had finally opened the door, he could immediately tell something wasn't quite right.

"Is everything okay?" he had asked anyway, in addition noticing her face was quite flushed.

"Yeah, everything's cool."

Just as he had stepped into the apartment, he heard the muffled sound of metal plodding on carpet from somewhere else in the apartment. "What's that?" he asked rhetorically, although he had a very good idea exactly what it was. Just as he had tried to take a step past a distracted Priss, she had reached out and grabbed onto his arm, holding him back.

"H… hey, where're runnin' off to so fast?" She quickly pulled him into a hug and held onto him tightly.

Another couple of louder bangs from within the apartment distracted both of them however. "There," Leon had answered simply, breaking away and hurriedly walking in the direction of the disturbance. He hadn't got very far… He had to stop at the site of the mess in the living room… Priss' music sheets strewn across the floor… guitar stand flipped on its side… "What the hell…"

But before Priss could answer, another sound drew his attention to the bedroom. He ran back at the noise that sounded ominously familiar… the sound of thrusters blasting off into the distance… away from an open window complete with a broken lock…

"Let me explain…" Priss had started behind him.

Leon didn't give her the chance. "She was here, wasn't she? Linna came here in her hardsuit." He turned around to face the singer… her eyes withdrawn, darting side to side…

"Yeah… she… she came to see me."

Leon burrowed his eyebrows at first, but let it out with a sigh as he took comfort in the fact that the Knight Saber was gone for now. "She didn't hurt you, did she?" He noticed a couple of strange expressions flashing across the singer's face as she rubbed her right side with her left arm.

"No, she… she just wanted to talk…" she had answered, her voice growing distant as she trailed off.

"Talk about what?" Leon asked sincerely before a dreaded thought came to mind. "Wait… Linna… did she ask you… did she want you to go back with them, the Knight Sabers?"

"No, she didn't ask."

"Then… then if it wasn't about the Knight Sabers…"

"She just wanted to come by and say hi."

"And I'm supposed to believe that?"

It was Priss' turn to be irritated now. She growled her displeasure but didn't vocalize her thoughts any further.

Leon drew notice, taking a step back. "Look, I'm sorry. Its just… well… what about that mess out there?"

"Hey! I wasn't exactly expecting her to just drop in like that! She scared the hell out of me."

"So if she was just saying hi… and she scared you so much… why try and hide it from me? What really happened?"

"We… talked… and… oh hell. Why do I really give a damn anyway…" Priss had said to herself, her face turned to the side before she snapped it around as she began screaming at the taller man. "See, I knew this would happen! I knew you'd get upset about this!"

"About what? Just tell me what happened!"

"She kissed me, alright! Are you happy now!"

All he could do was simply stare at Priss while she turned her eyes away from him and stared at the wall in turn It took him a couple of minutes to finally start talking again. "…um … and… anything else?"

"No."

"So… why did she leave?"

"Because… because when I heard you knocking… I told her she had to leave. I didn't want you to see her here."

"Why?"

"I… I don't know…"

Priss began to rub the back of her neck, stretching it out from obvious discomfort. Leon now realized it wasn't the last time she had done that. However, it was the first time she seemed to be preoccupied with the pain… at least as far as Leon could remember.

"…i …i don't feel so good," she had remarked, walking past him and lying roughly across the bed.

His concern for her health outweighed any other issues he might have had at the moment. He closed the window and sat on the bed with Priss' back turned towards him. He stayed like that, silent, until her breathing steadied out into the steady flow of rhythmic sleeping once more.


Leon's thoughts shifted back to the present, his mood softened by the feel of the woman he loved so close to him. "I don't know if you've noticed, but you're a much different person to be around when you're an active part of the Knight Sabers," Leon told the woman in his arms. One hand gently stroked the back of her hair while her ear rested against his heart.

"How's that?" Priss asked, her voice resonating through his chest.

"You're more sure of yourself… more confident… almost like you know what you're doing with your life now."

"Funny. I have no idea at all what the hell I'm doing right now," she half-chuckled.

"I'm just glad you're doing it with me."

Priss wordlessly squeezed tighter onto Leon as she listened to the steady pulse flow through his body.

"I was worried that when you ran back to the Knight Sabers that I'd never see you again."

When Priss didn't immediately respond to his comment, Leon's mind flowed back to that time again just a short while ago…


She hadn't moved much in the last day, complaining of chronic headaches and continually rubbing the back of her neck. Leon had wondered if it hadn't been whiplash from turning around and finding Linna breaking into his apartment, although Priss had been pretty mum on the subject. In fact, they hadn't talked at all about it since the initial argument.

Leon was in the midst of scrounging up some dinner after making yet another set of repairs to the generator on the roof. While putting together one of his not-so-fresh vegetable sandwiches, a high pitched scream sent the contents on the counter in front of him spraying onto the carpet as his arms flailed in response.

"Priss? Priss, what's wrong!" he yelled, running through the spilled mayonnaise and to the bedroom where she had fallen asleep again earlier in the afternoon. He found her sitting up in bed, her eyes wide open. Her breathing was rapid, but not panicked.

"Priss? Priss, are you okay?"

She didn't acknowledge him at all. Instead her focus appeared inward as her eyes narrowed into thin slits, forming a face he hadn't seen in weeks… a face full of grim determination. Her breathing slowed as calm control flowed down into a resolve visible throughout her body.

"Priss?"

Without looking up at him, she answered with a low, angry voice. "I have to go. They'll need my help."

"Go? Help? Priss, who are you… wait…" Leon recalled the painful thought of what she was likely talking about. "You're going back… back to the Knight Sabers…"

She finally looked up at him as her stance softened slightly. "Yeah. It… its hard to explain. I know what they're about to do. They're going to need all the help they can get this time."

"But how do you know they'll even have a hardsuit ready for you."

She smiled at him with an evil, seductive grin. "I just know… and it's more than just a hardsuit."

"And will it be a boomer like the last one?"

"Yeah, but it'll be my boomer."

The next thing Leon could remember was holding on for dear life as Priss tore through the desolate streets of Tokyo. He thought he heard her encourage someone to "hang on", but somehow got the feeling it wasn't meant for him as she continued talking to herself. Her driving was erratic, sometimes making precise cuts and turns like a professional driver… while other times he wondered where her mind was as she nearly drove them right into a retaining wall.

Finally they reached the Lady 633 building, one of the few remaining buildings that still had power in the otherwise deserted city. Priss ran inside leaving Leon waiting at the front steps. He didn't even get a chance to ask her where he should stay before she was gone.

So as he just stood there, effectively guarding her bike from any boomers that might attack it. Okay, I'm useless now he had moped to himself. He wasn't protecting Priss any longer…

Just then a familiar looking blue hardsuit rode up atop a super heavy-duty cycle.

"Priss?"

The bike pulled up next to him, the visor raising up to reveal the smug face of his lover. Without saying a word, she grabbed his shirt with one hand and jerked him into a passionate kiss. When she finally broke the gesture, Leon was nearly out of breath.

"I've got to go."

"Priss," he called out to her, "… you'll come back… right?"

She looked at him with a very confident smile that he suspected was flowing from the armor she now wore. "I promise."

And with that, she tore off down the road and was gone from sight within seconds.

A few minutes later after staring at her invisible wake, a sound from behind spun the big man around into another familiar face.

"Would you care to join us inside? I've found that waiting with the company of others is much more tolerable than waiting alone."

Leon nodded to the man he recognized as Sylia's butler as he followed him inside the large building.


"Y'know I promised I would come back," Priss finally answered his question, breaking into his memories.

After a short time, Leon let out a soft "…yeah…", his thoughts still swirling with worry over what she had fought against earlier… and what she still had to somehow find a way to defeat.

"What are you thinking about?" the singer asked while looking up into his distant eyes.

"What? Can't read my mind?" Leon instantly regretted his poor choice of words. He regretted it even more when his comments earned him another sharp jab in the ribs. "Owww… damn that hurts…"

"Keep it up jackass," she said, only half-joking.

Leon was all too aware of exactly why she wasn't kidding…


The men had all not so patiently waited in the lounge, greeting the victors with the finest wine Henderson could scrounge up. Leon couldn't help but notice the fact that Priss seemed to be ignoring the other brown haired woman in the room. When Priss took a seat on the couch while Leon stood next to her, Linna sat down on the opposite end of it apparently trying to stay close to her… or at least that's what his jealous self convinced him anyway. He tried to ignore her as well, but he had this strange feeling that the two of them were still communicating somehow…

"How are your headaches now?" he asked, doing all he could to divert more of Priss' attention his way.

"Much better. It… its kind of like I was just missing part of me for some reason." Her explanation fell silent for a moment, as her focus appeared to turn inward.

Leon thought he saw Priss shoot a glare out of the corner of her eye in Linna's direction, but he wasn't sure.

Suddenly the singer leapt off the couch and grabbed onto his arm, pulling him towards the door.

"Hey, where are…" he started before he caught the seductive smile written on her lips. Priss picked up a very full bottle of wine on her way out of the lounge door.

Leon had finally learned to keep his mouth shut, and didn't say another word while he followed Priss into one of the spare bedrooms. This turn of events was much more than he could have ever hoped for just a day before. They hadn't been intimate with each other since her run in with Galatea in the dark underground of Tokyo. He had worried he might never see that side of Priss again before the boomer army finally crushed them all.

However, a much too short one hour later, he was lying happily exhausted on his back, a contented Blue Saber hugging tightly to his bare chest. Then in the midst of the afterglow, she had admitted something to him… something that made him doubt even the closeness he now shared with her…

"Y'know she could see us the whole time."

"She? Who, Sylia?" he asked, nervously peering around for likely surveillance camera spots.

"No. Linna"

"Linna?"

"Yeah. See… we… well… we can, kind of, read each others thoughts now."

Just great "She can read your mind?"

"I can stop her if I concentrate, but…"

"You weren't exactly concentrating on that just now..."

"No… and I know she… well… she knows what we did."

"Where is she now?"

"I think… Linna went to the roof."

"Uh oh… She's not going to jump, is she?" Leon asked with a chuckle.

"No. I don't think so anyway", Priss answered seriously. "She just wanted to get away from us. I don't think she realized how… close… we are."

"And how do you feel about that?"

Priss paused far too long for Leon's liking.

"I'm not sure."


The doubts in Priss' tone at the time lingered now into the present. Leon could still see the glowing tower through the thin line of trees above them, its unnatural hue stretching out its influence over the top of their natural shelter. It's long reach unnerved Leon as he clutched Priss tighter to his chest, hoping above all else that no matter what happen to them that they would somehow still be together… that he would still be able to spend more precious time with this person that he was only just now beginning to learn a little bit of.

Fin

A/N: Well, we're through with the intermission. Now it's on to Act II – Falling from Grace… how much more do Linna and the rest of the Knight Sabers have to go through to stop Galatea? More significantly, what has changed from the original 2040 timeline to this one and what will the repercussions be? All these questions will be answered soon… very soon…