Disclaimer: All self-inserts belong to their respective owners, Ozzy belongs to Roscoso, and the Moscow Metro belongs to...the Russian Government? I think? Yeah, that.
Chapter 10: The Twelfth Day
In the Moscow Metro system, the tunnels were quiet. While normally very busy, this subway system under the capital of Russia was abandoned. For the moment, at least.
In one of the halls, a portal of light opened up…in the ceiling. Five Author Fighters dropped from the portal, all of them yelping in surprise. They landed in a dog pile on the brick ground, and the portal closed.
Four pairs of eyes, belonging to Roscoso, DJ, Kitten, and Agent Liberi glared at the girl on the top of the pile. Phoenix made a look that basically said "Who, me?" She sighed. "Right. Sorry."
"I'm never letting you transport me through a light portal ever again," Ross said. "No offense."
"None taken."
"Great," Liberi grunted from the bottom of the pile. "Can you maybe, I don't know, move? I can barely breathe." Each of them stood up, and caught their breath.
Phoenix summoned her keyblade. "Hm. Still can't get these portals right. Gotta work on that. At least we're in the right spot."(1) She dismissed it.
"Yeah, what a relief," Liberi said sarcastically.
They set off through the tunnels, with the tracer in Ross's hands. Despite the abandonment of the stations, there was no sign of any destruction (though that was quite likely to change soon with the Author Fighters around). No reason for the lack of people. It was very cold, and in some places the ground was wet from rainwater flowing in. The lights consistently flickered. Needless to say, it was quite unnerving.
DJ muttered a spell under his breath, and his eyes glowed brighter than usual. He looked around, his eyesight having been enhanced in a way similar to the Byakugan, except without looking out the back of his head. "We're the only people around here. It's empty, everywhere."
"This is unnatural," Liberi said. "The Moscow Metro is the second busiest subway system on the planet. You would think that there'd by at least a few people."
"They're afraid," Kitten said. "Can't you feel it? There's darkness in the air. People are naturally afraid of darkness. It's human nature."
"Most human's nature, at least," Phoenix corrected. "Some of us aren't so much afraid of the darkness, as what lies in that darkness. Or maybe not the darkness of others but the darkness in ourselves. All of our pain, our sorrow, guilt. Hate."
There was silence for a moment. Then: "That was deep," Ross said, and a few of them laughed.
"Hey, I can be very deep sometimes," Phoenix said, grinning. "Just ask any of my friends. Every once in a while, I'll spout some kind of metaphor that would make Shakespeare proud."
"And other times you'll talking to somebody, unable to find your cell phone, only for them to point out that you're talking to them over the phone," Liberi added.
"That only happened once!" Phoenix protested.
"Noise," Ross said.
"I don't hear anything," DJ said.
"No, with a capital 'N', Noise," Ross corrected. Nobody reacted beyond a couple blinks of confusion. Ross groaned. "Bad things that try to kill you!" he exclaimed, trying to be as blunt as possible.
Something black, resembling a wolf, ran past them, and stuck its muzzle into one of Phoenix's pockets for less than a second before running away. She dug around in her pocket, and a vein pulsed in her forehead. "It stole one of my Summon Charms!"
More Noise appeared, many resembling real animals but in unnatural colors, or with their tails or wings having the appearance of being digitalized. Ross henshined into Kamen Rider Kiva, DJ's scythe appeared, Phoenix called up her keyblade, Kitten created a spear of ice, and Liberi drew one of his guns.
DJ swung his scythe through a couple of frog-like Noise, and cast a fire spell, sending a wolf at Kitten, who stabbed it through the center. Phoenix went after the black wolf that had stolen her summon charm, and as it charged at her, she raised her keyblade, causing it to jump onto the tip. It burst apart, and she scooped up her charm, shaped like an hourglass.
Ross easily got some of the weaker noise with base Kiva form, but the stronger and faster ones posed a slight problem. He grabbed a whistle from his belt, and placed it into his belt. "Bashaa Magnum!" Kivat whistled. Ross snatched the Bashaa Magnum out of the air, and entered Bashaa form. He blasted Noise with high-pressure water bullets, shooting with high accuracy.
However, none of them could really keep up with Liberi, who had gotten further away, and was using his sniper rifle to destroy a Noise with each shot. Even with the speed of the Noise, he was taking them down with a headshot for each one.
Kitten threw her ice spear, then sent a few blasts of ice around her. She created a sword of ice, and cut through Noise. A giant one that looked like a bear roared in fury. Ross went from Bashaa to Garulu form, and both of them charged at the Noise, swords in hand. Kitten slid underneath it, while Ross went overhead, cutting at it from both ends. It exploded apart.
DJ swung his scythe fluidly, always attacking whatever was closest to him so he didn't end up leaving himself open to be punished for a missed strike. He cast a barrier spell, that kept a group of ten Noise together. "Liberi!" Liberi drew his shotgun, and fired it into the group of Noise, obliterating them.
Phoenix cupped her hands together, leaving a little space between her fingers. She focused her gravity control onto a single atom. A slight disruptions appeared between her hands, and she smiled in triumph. She pushed it out just slight beyond herself, and decreased the amount of gravity holding the Noise down, at the same time increasing the gravity that held down herself and the others. The Noise were quickly pulled down together into that small space, now about two feet square, and Phoenix summoned her keyblade and sliced through it, destroying the Noise completely. She released the gravity control completely, and looked at her gauntlet. "Shoot." That thing had sucked up a full orb of the four in her gauntlet.
"Never doing that again," Phoenix said, breathing deeply from exhaustion. "Wastes power. Since it usually takes about ten wall-collapsing gravity slams to empty an orb usually, it's just not worth it." DJ cast a healing spell on her, and she nodded in appreciation. "We should keep on going."
The headed down the passageway, and were walking by a station when Liberi stopped. "Do you hear that?" he said. "Rumbling. There's a subway train coming this way."
"How's that possible?" Ross asked, and for good reason. While they had been fighting the Noise, the power had gone out completely. They were currently seeing everything by a flame perched atop DJ's scythe.
A train came by the station, and slowed down, coming to a stop. A door opened, and from the train stepped none other than the traitorous Darkside, Ozzy.
"Ozzy," Ross said. "What're you doing here? How'd you get the train working?"
"As for the second question, I don't think you want to know. As for the first one, I found out that the Author Fighters were trying to take on this darkness that's been spreading across the globe," Ozzy said. "And I thought I'd give you a warning. The guy that's behind this could very well be beyond Drake and Shade."
"It actually depends on the situation," Phoenix interrupted. "Omega thrives on fear, distress. You can gauge his power by the strength of the storms. Give it a few days, and neither Drake nor Shade, or even all of the Author Fighters combined, would stand a chance against him."
"You've met him?" Ozzy asked.
"Unfortunately," Phoenix replied flatly.
"Right," Ozzy said. "Moving on. He's something else. A different sort of power than a Darkside. He took control of the Guardians by infecting them with his malevolence. He's not human. He's lost his mind almost completely. There is no sense left in that guy's mind."
"How do you know this?" Kitten asked him.
Ozzy took a deep breath. "Got it straight from the source. And I gathered that he has two goals in mind. Destroy 'them.' I can only figure that the 'them' is the Author Fighters. Then the other one, I can't quite figure out, is make 'her' wish she was never born."
Phoenix's heart skipped a beat. "Thank you, Ozzy. We'll keep that in mind."
He nodded. "Just, be careful." Ozzy returned to the subway train, and it headed off again to an unknown destination.
"We need to keep going," Phoenix said. While they couldn't tell, she was trying to hold down panic.
For you see, this was the nineteenth of July. The twelfth day since Omega had arrived in their world. They had two more days to restore the key, or all would be for nothing. The end of this world, and with that power obtained, Omega would continue on to easily destroy the rest. And nobody would be able to stop him.
(1) Light portals, a nifty little ability of mine that I have yet to really figure out yet. I end up in the right place, but usually I end up coming in from an odd angle. Such as, for instance, upside down. Need my keyblade to do it, so if I'm in an environment where I can't summon it, no go.
I'm really starting to scare myself with some of my descriptions of Omega. Though I will be honest, the idea of him infecting the Guardians with his malevolence was kinda borrowed from how Shuyin possessed the Aeons in Final Fantasy X-2, except on a much larger scale. It's through possessing the Guardians, and changing them into the Black Guardians, that he gains most of his power in this. But I'm still scaring myself. DX