2.01

Lind Part 2:

"How's she? ..."

Yaya asked worriedly at Lind, who was walking closer with the young girl in his arms; princess hug style. The young girl had a peaceful expression on her face with eyes closed.

"Only some minor scratches and wounds. She fell asleep right after she dived into my arms. It must be tiring for her to awaken her power for the first time under these situations… And it seemed like she can't walk…"

Lind looked at the young girl with a sorrowful expression, trying to imagine the pain that she experienced as he grips his fists tightly.

"I see… Let's move to somewhere safe and then let me take a look at her."

They walked to a field of meadow that was a bit far from the car accident scenery and stopped under a bridge. Lind gently laid the young girl against the cold wall. He blushed the moment when he noticed that the young girl was wearing nothing underneath her long patient dresses. Her body outline was clearly shown by the thin layer of cloth.

"Ahem… Could you move away? Mr. Perverted."

"What! ... I'm not looking…"

Lind objected timidly at Yaya's prejudice, but then he suddenly stopped; didn't even finish his excuse.

"Could it … be that you're jealous? ~"

Lind laughed in a teasing way, but he was kicked in his calve right after.

"Who would …" Yaya whispered in a soft voice while blushing.

Yaya bent down and put her hands over the young girl while closing her eyes. A small firefly appeared out of nowhere. It hovered in the midair, emitting its soft orange warm light over the young girl. Her scratches and wounds were healed slowly one by one. It took Yaya roughly ten minutes to finish her treatment.

Lind on other hand was trying to contact Lina through his cellphone while standing on guard. He was quite surprised that the call didn't go through, so he tired Lagann's phone number instead. However, the result was the same.

Hmm… Why are they not picking up? …

Lind put the cellphone away in his pocket. He then stared at the evening sky that was partly covered by thin layers of black cloud. A sense of uneasiness embraced Lind from within, which caused him to clench his fists tightly.

"Lind? ..." Yaya called.

"Ah, sorry. They are not picking up their phone."

Lind turned around and walked closer to them. He was quite relieved to see that the young girl's injuries had fully healed by Yaya's ability.

"Should we head to the meeting place then?"

"I guess so…"

Lind took off his black robe and bent down next to them. He gently wrapped it over the young girl and tied the string so that the black robe won't come off so easily. Yaya then carefully lifted the young girl onto Lind's back; like a piggy back ride. Lind stood up, making some adjustment of the position. Then they started running toward the meeting place.

The meeting place that they mentioned was a place to meet in case of emergency or if the members couldn't contact each other. The meeting place will also be different from time to time to enhance their safely of being discover. However, their intention was useless most of the time.

Tonight's meeting place was an abandoned junkyard with its size being a bit smaller than a football court. Lind and Yaya arrived at the location smoothly. It was too smoothly in a way, included rescuing the young girl.

"Ever since I arrived at this city, I've always wondered that what this branch of SEPB do for living! They didn't even to bother to stop us tonight. They sure are being lazy these days."

Lind complained a bit, while entering the junk yard.

"It's actually better for us if they didn't show up anyway. We're not here to start a war or anything, so it would be better if they just back down. Even if they showed up, there is no way they could stop Lina-nee and Lagan. This west branch of SEPB is mainly a factory of production. They are good at producing the equipment used by the SEPB as a whole. For example, those all-purpose electronic, those fully bullet proofed army coats that are high resistance against burnt, electricity, slashing, and other stuffs. Basically everything used by the SEPB are being created here."

Yaya swung her index finger around in midair, filling Lind's small brain with knowledge.

"So basically this west branch of SEPB is filled with workaholic people?"

Lind mumbled halfheartedly, trying to distract Yaya from her long lecture.

"Well, you can say it like that. Although there's like one very strong workaholic person that might be on the same level as Lina-nee within the west branch, but she barely comes out of her lab so it's not a big deal. Which is why this west branch of Bug Wing rarely fails any mission ever since Lina-nee became the group leader. We just have to play around with the small fries once in the while to insure the success rate and hope that newly awakened hosts won't go berserk… "

"Ya, I figured…"

They stopped in front of a broken truck. Lind gently laid the sleeping young girl down on a flat surface on the broken truck's back. He then stretched out his arms to relax his muscles. Even though that the young girl was not heavy, it was rather tiring to carry someone and walked for a long period of time. Lind and Yaya looked around at their surroundings trying to see if Lagann and Lina were around. Only a bit of moon lights shined through the thin layer of dark clouds, making it hard for Lind and Yaya to look any further into the junkyard. A sense of uneasiness arose within Lind just like before, making him tightened up all his senses, staring at the darkness of the junkyard.

"Yaya…"

"Umm?"

"Stay on alert, I have a bad feeling…"

"I felt the same…"

*creak*

"!..."

Lind and Yaya immediately turned their head at the direction of the sound of some metal being stepped on. A figure started walking out of the darkness; he was covered by a black robe that seemed familiar. His pair of glasses shined brightly from the reflections of moonlight around the junkyard. Although his face was partly covered the hood, one can still tell that he was showing off an evil grin expression. It also seemed like he was dragging something behind him. He stopped at a spot few feet away from Lind's group; standing on a pile of rubbish.

"Lagann…?"

Yaya questioned timidly, while stepping forward but was stopped by Lind.

"He is not the same person that you used to know anymore!"

A shout was heard behind Lagann, at the end of the darkness. Yaya's firefly flew high above them to lighten the area with its glow. Another figure could be seen sitting on a hill of rubbishes, looking down on them. He was wearing the SEPB's official outfit but in a white version instead of the normal black ones that they recognized. His special trait being the [04] tattoo on his cheek.

"All he had left within him are the hatred and the regret of the past. Why don't you ask the girl over there? I bet she understands it more than you do. Hehe…"

Yaya stepped back a little, wavered her weak body in fear. But Lind grabbed her hand before she gets too far away and smiled at her. Lind then turned around at look at the Lagann with a stern expression.

"Where's Lina-nee? Lagann…"

Lind spoke dreadfully at his comrade, who seemed like a soulless puppet now; just like "the Fallen". Lagann responded by throwing the object that he was dragging before in front of him. The object stopped rolling until it hit another pile of rubbish, it was wrapped in a piece of black robe that was similar to the one that Lind was wearing but in a very bad shape with many holes opened up. From the shape of the object, one can clearly tell that a person was wrapped inside. Lind and Yaya knew instantly that the person within that ragged black robe was their leader, Lina.

"Don't worry, she's neither dead or "fallen" yet. I purposely kept her alive for this moment. Although I was quite surprised at her final move, the ability to hypnosis with screeches that took out almost all of my minions in one blow. Too bad, she made a bad decision in the end. She could've escaped by herself, but she chose to stay and try to save that boy instead. Ahaha."

The Tattooed guy laughed sardonically at them. A mixture of feelings arose within Lind, making him clench his fists. He stared his gaze at Lagann.

Lind-nee…even in the end… you still tried to save him…

"Well then, [Storm]. Let's get down to business. I'm here for your ranking scale exam to see if you qualify for the position I have in mind."

"Ranking scale?" Lind questioned.

"Oh, you don't know? Just like your alias that was named by the SEPB, a ranking scale is a ranking given to every host based on their combat and ability on the scale of one to ten; one being the strongest. It then further categorize into three different group of class based your ranking, "Executor" being excellence at combat, "Adept" being excellence at abilities, and "Unknown" being itself. So far each one of your comrades had already received their ranking. [Pendulum] being a level four Adept class, [Lagann] being level five Executor class, and [Star] being level six Adept class. I was rather surprised at the fact that this branch of Bug Wing had so many ranked hosts. Since majority of the host weren't even ranked."

"Who are you then?" Lind questioned again.

"I'm [F], the fourth squad leader of the "annihilators, a level three Adept class."

[F] grinned and crossed his legs.

"I have high expectation of you [Storm], being an equipment type user is actually very rare. In order to force you to reveal your true power, I had no other choices." [F] suddenly snapped his finger.

Lagann's head cocked a bit when he heard the snapping sound, he then grabbed a sharp edged pole that was made out of metal next to him. He walked closer to Lina, who was still unconscious on the ground. He lifted the pole up high in the midair.

"STOP IT! LAGANN!"

Yaya shouted. But her voice was covered by a sudden loud explosion sound of wind next to her. It was Lind who made the sound, the sudden burst of wind had thrown Lind at the direction of Lagann in a blinding speed; the dragonfly was flipping its wings rapidly while grabbing onto Lind's shoulder. It was like an instance before Lind appeared on top of Lina. He blocked the slashing metal pole with one hand while grabbing wounded Lina with other hand. He then threw her back at Yaya's direction as hard as he could.

"Yaya! Do your job!"

"Ahh, Ok!"

Yaya caught the flying Lina with both of her hand, she almost fell down from the sudden unbalance of weight. She then gently laid Lina down on a flat surface and uncovered her from the ragged black robes. Yaya was flabbergasted by the amount of bruises and wounds all over her body; she must have gone through a very tough battle… Yaya spaced out for a while at the injuries before she realized what she was supposed to do. Yaya raised her hand over Lina, the little firefly landed onto her hand and started emitting its soft life to embrace Lina.

Lind on other hand tried to leap back to gain distance after he blocked the metal pole. But an invisible force struck him out of nowhere, making him trip and fall onto the rubbish behind him when he was in midair of leaping back.

Shit!... I knew it… I should have done it faster.

The force was not subsiding at all, pulling Lind deeper and deeper into the ground. Lind raised his head reluctantly to glare at Lagann. Lind already knew from the start that Lagann would be a tough opponent to deal with ever since he met him. During training, he had never won against Lagann in a close range combat, mainly due to his annoying and ridiculous ability

Lagann's Mushi had the ability to control the gravity force around him, increase or decrease the force in a pinpoint or large area. But he rarely increase the force of gravity to a point that can kill a person or Mushi, reasons being that it was against the organization's will, the amount of spirit energy the force requires, and maybe parts of his own beliefs too. His Mushi was also different than most of the user, since he was infested by the second, "Shinpu", rather than the sunglasses woman. Every Mushi that was given by the second infestor "Shinpu" had no physical form of itself unlike the Separation type given by "Oogui". Some of them might compose a shape of itself when their abilities were activated, which would most likely be control of certain medium, ex: gravity, flame, electricity, but most wouldn't. Hosts with this kind of type were known as the "Power" type, while majority of the host with their Mushi separated from the host were known as the "Minion" type, and there was even another type which was the rarest of them all, known as the "Fusion".

Against a "Power" type user like Lagann, one must be cautious of his ability zone. Lind had no other choice but to get into Lagann's territory in order to save Lina. Although Lagann didn't input that much gravity force onto Lind, but it was enough to trap Lind within his territory.

"BLAST!"

Lind roared, and swung his right arm. The piles of rubbishes were blasted by a huge gust of wind, sending them flying toward Lagann. However, the rubbishes were smashed onto the ground by an intense gravity force before they even reach Lagann.

Argh… even though I can still move parts of my body, it's not going to help me much…

Lagann… Why you have to be a "Power" type.

"What's wrong [Storm]? Is this all you got or could it be that you're afraid to harm him? Ahaha, what a nice fellow…" [F] chuckled.

Lind clenched his teeth and stared at Lagann. What [F] had said was right, Lind could've fire a strong air bullet at Lagann to escape the territory. But since Lagann's Mushi had no physical form of itself, Lind could only aim at Lagann or wait for him to use up all his spirit energy. Both options were objected within Lind's mind as he shook his head, he won't hurt his comrade no matter what but he can't wait that long. Who knew what that [F] guy would do while he was trapped?

"Lagann! Stop being a coward!"

Lind roared at Lagann, expressing his anger. At that exact moment, Lagann's body twitched a bit. He had changed his grinning expression slowly back to his normal expression.

"Stop running away from your past!"

Lind roared again, after noticing the effect that his statement had made. But this time, it had gotten worst. Lagann's facial expression had changed into a dire staring one; like a praying wolf. He swung down the metal pole at the ground and gripped it tightly.

Argh!

The invisible force suddenly got stronger, crushing Lind against the hard ground. The force had made Lind collapse to the ground completely rather than a kneeling posture before.

"Wh..at do you … know.." Lagann muttered softly while walking closer to Lind with the metal pole in one hand.

"Fufu… This is going to be fun…" [F] whispered softly while tapping his fingers on his legs. "Let see what you can do, [Storm]."