Chapter 10: "Dioscuri"
It was Monday afternoon, and again, the BIS main room was strangely quiet. What was going on with that crazy gang? That could have been the best question that someone who knew them could have asked.
Apart from that quietness, everything seemed normal. Everything was in its place, and it seemed like those days after Myona and Cage's departure, when the group was just there, with no activities in mind and wondering what would come next.
The unknown group seemed to have vanished, as it was going to be like two weeks after their last attack. Maybe they were gone for good, but they would have that bitter feeling of losing, as they hadn't found out who were they…
One of the doors opened, and Robin came in. The light haired leader of BIS left her things in one of the chairs, and sat down, letting go a deep sigh, sign that she was really tired.
Another door opened, this one was one of the doors that led to the bedrooms, and Mebius walked into the room, not carrying Lia, surprisingly. The little girl had to be asleep, it was one of the few times in which Mebius wasn't around her. Mebius was always with her, as if being constantly with her would make the child immune to "bad things".
"Hi, Robin", the blonde, cheerful young woman greeted, smiling. "How have you been?"
"Fine, but I'm terrible tired now", she replied, giggling. "The new 'nifty things' for the OFs aren't ready yet, and that's not so good; but apart from that, I'm fine, thanks"
"Don't worry about that. I'm sure we'll have them soon, and of great quality, like all the other times", the blonde young woman replied, as a way to make her friend relax a bit.
"Yes, you are right. Hey, where's everyone else? It's so silent here…", Robin asked, surprised by the fact that only Mebius and herself where in the main room, while everyone used to be there, usually. "It just doesn't look like BIS, you know"
"They must be in their rooms, but Twede and Warren are at the hangar, and I think that Ares is with them. They just wanted to check the frames' status, nothing out of routine"
"Right. Guess I'll pay them a visit"
"Sure", Mebius smiled, before turning back. "Oh, Cynthia's here. She has just arrived, and she's at Hazel's room, if you want to talk to them"
"Thanks", Robin replied, standing up. "Can you call them in a few minutes? I would like to talk to them, indeed"
"Sure. No problem!"
"Thanks".
And with that, the two young women went to their respective places…
"I should have imagined that you weren't going to change your decorative taste that soon!", Cynthia joked, playing scandalized, as she examined her cousin's room in the Saoshyant, while she took a seat in a small, comfortable sofa, one of the few things that Hazel brought with her when she 'moved' to the hideout.
Hazel's eyes looked at the ceiling, frustrated. "I'm not going to live here much, you know… This is temporary, so why would I decorate it?", she asked, not understanding much her cousin's reaction towards her room.
After all, it had all what she may need. A bed, a small closet, her little sofa from her apartment, a little table next to her bed, where the lamp and an old, almost 'dead' alarm clock were. She didn't need anything else there.
"You should take some 'taste classes'", Cynthia went on, looking at the bare metal walls. "At least you could put a picture, a cheap doll, or photos!" She regretted saying the last word right after she said it.
She looked at Hazel right at once, just to find her laying in her bed, without saying a word, as if she hadn't heard a single word. Immediately, Cynthia noticed that she had screwed her cousin's mood.
"Well, it's up to you", she said quickly, to mend her error. "Hey, what happened that you are back to your usual self, wearing jeans again?"
Hazel looked at her, then she looked at herself. She was wearing her favorite blue jeans and a grey t-shirt, and her jean jacket was laying next to her. It was then that she noticed that, just as Cynthia said, she had returned to her usual self.
"Well, guess that you are right", she replied, leaning her head over the pillow.
"It's a pity; you looked nice with that skirt"
"Yes? Oh well, you can't have it all", Hazel replied, faking an uninterested voice.
"Talking about that, how did you do with Ares? C'mon, tell me, tell me!", the brown haired student pleaded, highly enthusiastically. "You weren't going to avoid this, were you?"
Hazel moaned, and hid her face in the pillow for the second time. Then she sat down, so she could speak better, and analyze her cousin's expressions while she spoke to her.
"It wasn't a good moment, but we hadn't a bad time", she started, thinking well in her answers. "What were you expecting?"
"I don't know…", Cynthia looked to her right, mischievously. "That sounded like a variant of a blind date"
"How funny", Hazel replied ironically, throwing her pillow to her cousin. "What did you do last Saturday? You lost all your savings in the sale?"
Cynthia threw the pillow back, knowing that she wouldn't have another chance to return to the previous topic, as Hazel was something near an expert when evading issues were concerned; then she replied. "Not exactly. I still have something left, but I'm loosing interest in sales. After that one, I went to an old sci-fi exposition"
Hazel let go a short laugh. "And how did you get there?"
"I bumped into Yukito after getting out from the shopping mall"
Hazel stayed silent for a while, playing with her pillow. "I see", she replied, finally. "And how did you do?"
"Oh, perfect! It was something really interesting, out of the ordinary. Some things were really strange, but I liked it"
"I'm glad for you", Hazel smiled, laying on the bed again as she said that.
"What's wrong?", Cynthia asked her, uncomfortably. For some reason, she felt that her cousin was now acting strange, as if she were worried about her.
"Nothing", Hazel said. "It's just that I can't get the picture... I can't see you hanging out with Yukito, that's all"
Cynthia looked at Hazel as if she was crazy. "Hey, I see him as a big brother, if that's what you want to know", she said, sighing. "He's not my type... or is it that you are jealous, because I can hang out with some other older people rather than you?", she asked, now chuckling.
Hazel's eyes rolled, and as her only reply, she threw her pillow to Cynthia, once more.
"Ok, I guess that topic's finished. So... won't you tell me anything about your attempt of blind date?", Cynthia insisted, making her cousin moan again.
"No", was the blue haired girl's short answer, but Cynthia could tell that she was smiling under her arm.
"Oh, well, do as you like, I already know that you are smiling and that you like it", she told her, acting as if she felt some kind of superiority, and moving her head around with some 'elegant behavior'. "Oh, changing the topic! I brought a list with some names I came across for our OFs weapons!", she added, searching in her bag quickly for a common sheet of paper. "Here you have"
Hazel stretched her arm, and picked the paper with some difficulty, as she hadn't moved much. She read it, and moaned again, disappointed by what she had just read.
" Twin swords ", Hazel commented, still looking at the paper. " Crimson Shield ? I thought you could do better… Wait! What does this mean: Saint Pure Sword as your sword attack? This rings a bell, you know…", she added, thoughtfully and puzzled. "You still watch that old show? I thought you had already forgotten about it…"
Cynthia acted surprised, again, parodying a jaw-dropping expression and opening wide her eyes, as if what she had just heard was some kind of heretic statement. "How can you say that? That show made my childhood even nicer of what it was!", she cried, trying to go on acting, but she ended up laughing before she could finish her sentence. She really enjoyed acting, after all, although she always messed it up later. That was one of the reasons because she never got to join the Drama Club at her school…
"As if it had been sad"
Now, Hazel's tone was sarcastic, but it was easy to tell that she was nicer than when Cynthia came into her room.
"Anyway, the Wedding Peach show really fits us, especially you", Cynthia went on with her explanation, cheerfully. "If someone decided to make a live-action remake of that superb magical girl series, you should be Angel Salvia"
Hazel rose an eyebrow, skeptically.
"And you would be Momoko, a.k.a. Wedding Peach, am I not wrong?"
"Hey, that's not like that! I have some more things in my head, you know. I would have to be Yuri/ Angel Lily, that would really suit me"
"Yeah, yeah, as you say"
"Hey, but it's true! You are really like Scarlet or Salvia, and I'm the splitting image of Yuri!"
Hazel started laughing hard, so hard that she ended up coughing badly. "As you say", she said, between her laughter and her coughs.
"Hmph!", Cynthia complained, as she crossed her arms and her eyes, pointing up with her chin. "I'm a graceful, soft young lady…"
"Until you get pissed off, then you are a lady no more", the blue haired girl finished the phrase, covering her face with the pillow, to hide her laughter.
"Very funny", her cousin replied sarcastically, frowning. "I think I should bring those old tapes and torture you with that show a bit. Then, you would notice the resemblance"
"What? You still have those things somewhere?"
"Of course! What were you expecting from a big fan like me?"
"I thought you had erased them long ago"
"Never ever! That was a really impressing love story to even think in erasing it. Ahh… so 'Romeo and Juliet' like…" Cynthia blinked fast and let go a romantic sigh as she said that, making Hazel want to scream.
"Yuck. You can't be serious…", Hazel said, disgusted.
"You are the one that can't be serious! How can it be that you aren't interested in love stories? Every girl dreams in having a boy-friend, and you seem totally disconnected with that!"
"That's my business", the gray-eyed girl said harshly, playing with her pillow (which was now looking a bit… spoiled, by the way). "I'm just 19. Why should I hurry to find someone?"
"Leave it that way, you'll never change", the brown haired student sighed. "Back to our previous topic, it was great! Those transformations, those phrases! Wedding Graceful Flower !"
Cynthia leaned back, with her index finger in top, trying to look like any of all those mentioned characters in their transformation scene, with bad luck, because she almost fell backwards. Quickly, she sat again, silently. She stared at her cousin, who was still leaning in her bed, also silent.
"Do you remember when we used to see that show at your place?", Cynthia finally said, thoughtfully, almost lost.
Hazel took her time to reply, like every time she had to speak about her past. "Yes. Those were good times…"
"Good old times… when everything was… fine"
"Peaceful…", the light haired youth filled in like a whisper, softly, closing her eyes, as a lone, vagabond tear slid across her cheek.
A metallic sound resounded in the room, and a few seconds later the door opened, and Mebius came in.
"Hi, girls. Are you ok?", the blonde haired young woman greeted the cousins, cheerfully at first, a bit worried later, as she noticed them too taciturn.
"Yes, we are fine", Hazel replied, getting up.
"Robin waits us in the hangar. Shall we go now?"
"Sure", the blue haired girl replied, picking her jean jacket, and going through the door.
"I wonder how she manages to look normal when she's destroyed at heart…", Cynthia thought, looking at her cousin, while leaving the room after Mebius.
" Twin Swords , Beam Motion , Crimson Shield , Dual Beam Motion , Green Lance ?", Robin read puzzled the names written in Cynthia's sheet of paper, raising an eyebrow. "What does this mean?"
"What? Read the title!", the mentioned girl told her, pointing the title in her tidy, handwritten paper. "'Twin Swords' would be Hazel's OF regular attack with swords, 'Beam Motion' and 'Dual Beam Motion' stand for that awesome, nifty slashing attack in which my cousin strikes several units in a row; the name changes whether it's with a single sword or with both of them. 'Crimson Shield' stands for that big red shield that saved us last time; finally, 'Green Lance' is Carpe's regular lance attack, and I have to think in something nice for Hazel's gun attack and for my sword attack and a variant for my kick attack", she explained, as a scholar would have done in a conference.
"May I ask a question?", Yukito asked, grinning. "You've been having too many magical girl animes throughout your life?"
"Let me answer that!", Hazel 'intercepted' the question. "YES!"
"Hey, it's like a tribute, and the names suit them well!", Cynthia complained, smiling.
"Goodness, what we have to cope with", Twede sighed, leaving the hangar. He had had another image of Cynthia, and now he was feeling far too disappointed.
"Indeed, they are strange, but if you can't think in anything better…", Robin said, giving the paper back to Cynthia, feeling awkward. She didn't know what to do with those names…
"Well, can we leave?", Razma asked, right after Robin gave back the paper to the brown haired student. The chat about their opinion about the unknown group and their OFs and LEVs had already ended. Apparently, Razma was quite eager to get out from the hangar, for some reason.
"What? Are you gonna miss a date?", Semyl joked, sarcastically.
Everyone chuckled, except Razma, who glared at the reddish haired girl while leaving the room.
"If you want to… there's no problem", Robin replied, grabbing her suitcase.
"Great. Let's prepare everything for tea, Myona!", Semyl exclaimed, grabbing Myona's hand and hurrying to the kitchen. Against what everyone could think, Semyl was a great fan of cooking little things like cookies or cakes. Poor Myona barely waved at her sweetheart before going through the door.
"Hey, may I join?", Cynthia yelled, but she had no answer.
"Don't worry, you can go later. I don't think there's any problem", Mebius said, conforming her.
"Thanks"
"Hey, Hazel, are you alright?", Warren asked, worried by the girl's passive state.
Cynthia turned round as she heard that, just to find her cousin standing, looking at some direction. She followed it with her sight, and ended up smiling when she realized what Hazel was looking so interested.
Ares was sitting in front of his notebook, typing many commands, in one of his tries to crack some security code of some file. She turned back to see if Hazel went on looking, but she noticed that she wasn't looking at Ares' himself, but at the screen.
"Yes, she's right", Cynthia replied for her, walking in her direction. "She's just in some 'contemplation state'"
It was then when the light haired girl reacted. "Ah, sorry… I was wondering how does he manage to crack those things", she explained, shyly, looking down.
"Ah, I see…", Warren replied, puzzled, walking away.
"Are you sure it was just that?", Cynthia whispered her at her ear, mischievously.
"Hey, what were you expecting?", Hazel complained, walking away.
Cynthia kept on looking at her as she walked away. She stayed for a while like that, thinking in both important and trivial things, such as the importance of a bath cream in Hazel's hair, it would look gorgeous after one, in her opinion. But what she needed most was something she could trust into, apart from her. She turned back, but Ares was still in front of his notebook, without paying attention to the outside world. With a deep sigh, the young final year student left the hangar…
"Cage! Wait a sec…"
The blue haired boy turned back to see who called him, and found Hazel walking in haste in his direction.
"Sure"
"May I talk to you…", the girl said softly, recovering from her hard walk. "It's about Ares…"
"What's the matter with Ares?", Cage asked worried. "Had he done something wrong at the park the other day?"
"Not at all, he's a sun… I mean, he's a good person", Hazel corrected herself quickly, ordering her ideas. "It's just that there's something that worries me about him… Had he ever had some kind of health problems, or something similar?"
Cage stood still, surprised with that question. "Well… I think he doesn't, as far as I know", he replied thoughtfully, while searching in his mind. "Why do you ask?"
"We were at the park the other day, when you and Myona were in another ride, when he started coughing badly. It wasn't something common. He even had to knelt down to feel a bit better, but then, in less than five minutes he was totally okay, as if nothing had ever happened. He didn't want to go to the first aid room, and he told me it was something silly, but I don't like it at all. I think it's his lungs or something like that… Could you speak with him about that, please? You are his best friend, he'll listen to you, I'm sure…"
"Man… you really freeze me with these news…", he said, worried. "I've never seen him like that before… Are you sure it wasn't a cold?"
"No, it looked worse than a cold, I can assure that!", Hazel insisted, puzzling Cage even more, as he never saw her that worried, not even when her home was damaged and she had to move into the Saoshyant. "He coughed hard, and he also breathed heavily. It was something… odd for a normal cold or even a minor lung disease… Will you talk to him, please…"
"I wonder why you worry too much, Hazel. There's no need to. A minor thing like that isn't enough to finish me off", Ares' voice replied from behind, in a mix of seriousness and friendliness.
"Ah…", Hazel whispered, trembling. She turned back, and, effectively, Ares was standing behind, carrying his notebook in one hand. She searched for some feeling in his face, but she could only find that odd simple smile of his, which no one could tell what it really meant.
"Ares!", Cage exclaimed, also surprised. "Why don't you listen to her? You should be ashamed of worrying her like that! What's with those coughs?"
"Nothing, the remnant of a previous cold", he explained, walking to them and standing next to Hazel, who was wishing that the floor would swallow her. He looked at her and said, "Hazel, you should have forgotten about that. There's no need to worry, I already told you"
"You didn't resemble that when you knelt down at the fair!", she replied back, a bit harshly, trying to evade his gaze.
Ares chuckled. "Why do you worry that much?"
Hazel's eyes widened, and look down and in the other direction quickly, before anyone noticed she was blushing. Lightly, but blushing, nonetheless. "I…", she mumbled, thinking in a good answer.
Just then, the alarm started ringing, furiously. An attack, without doubts.
"What happened?", Cage asked Robin as soon as he saw her, despite he already knew what the alarm meant.
"Twede got a strong Metatron signal coming from somewhere. We are going to the hangar and get into the frames, he'll guide us to the 'battlefield'", the light haired leader replied, in haste. "Come on, everybody, we have no time to waste!"
"But… our cookies! They are in the oven!", Semyl protested, dropping her cooking overall behind.
"Twede will switch it off. Now go!", Robin exclaimed annoyed, picking the girl's piece of clothing.
"Saved by the 'gong'", Hazel thought, sighing, while running to her OF…
"You've just arrived", Twede reported from the Saoshyant to the others, as soon as he got their Metatron signals over the blinking spot in his radar from before.
Thankfully, this time the Metatron signal came from the outskirts of the city, so they wouldn't have to worry about doing any damage to civilian property or civilians themselves.
"What does this mean? A bad joke, or…", Razma wondered, but he was interrupted.
"Or they have an anti-stealth…", Warren completed, but he was interrupted abruptly, and couldn't finish the sentence.
A beam laser hit him from behind, knocking his Durandal II over. Apart from the surprise of the sudden attack, he was really angry at himself, for letting his guard down.
Everyone turned back. A new, giant dark OF was standing behind them. Slim, yet strong, painted in a metallic gray and brown design. It had a humanoid shape, resembling a strong, young person. However, there weren't any distinctive features on it.
"I hadn't supposed you would find it out that soon!", a female, cold voice yelled, sarcastically. "That's what you get for that!"
Of course, everyone could tell who was the runner…
"Ruth! You again?", Cage exclaimed, feeling his blood boiling. That woman was a pain, after all.
Another frame appeared, next to Ruth's. This one also resembled a young person, robust and with huge arms. It was a little shorter compared to Ruth's OF; its color scheme was light, in light yellow and whitish colors.
"I see you already have your fan-club, Ruthie", a male voice joked, ironically.
"Hell! Can you stop calling me like that, Ethan!", the blonde female enemy cursed him, deeply annoyed. "I'm not a child anymore!"
"'Ethan'? So you are new here?", Cage asked, puzzled. "We seem to grow much each week…", he thought, checking Will's control panel, ready to start fighting.
"Just who are you?", Myona asked from the Calibur, sitting next to Robin.
"For whom do you work for!", Warren asked, although he wasn't as gentle as Myona.
"Nice question, isn't it, sis?", Ethan joked, ironically. "What can we tell them?"
"I don't know…", Ruth said, following her brother's trend. "I think there's a suitable phrase for us…"
"Ah, yes!", Ethan chuckled, still ironically. " Freedom to Mars "
Ares swallowed hard, knowing that all the glances would be over him.
The whole BIS gang blood froze, even Hazel and Cynthia stood still for a second. Hazel lowered her head, after opening her eyes wide, due to the surprise; Cynthia whined, Semyl sweated, Razma almost lost his jaw, Mebius frowned… the rest remained petrified, but no one looked at Ares… not in first place.
"Freedom… to Mars", Cage repeated softly, almost syllabicating the words to understand better.
"That can't be! Who the heck are you?", Semyl inquired, really pissed off. She was really tempted to pull the trigger at that same moment.
But someone stole her turn. Ruth's OF got sort of impaled by Hazel's OF, with a single sword attack. Hazel's OF stood there, like matching with its runner, with the light blue haired girl, who was breathing heavily and glaring at the two enemy frames.
"Ruth! Are you ok?", Ethan yelled, astonished. He wasn't the only one.
"Hazel?", Myona whispered, softly.
"Haze… are you alright?", Cynthia asked her cousin worried, calling her by her pet name.
"Look out!", Ares yelled, freezing everybody else. He had been the only one who noticed Ruth's OF moving, but it was too late.
The dark Orbital Frame just kicked and then punched the lighter one, making Hazel fall backwards, hitting the Martian ground. With a soundly laughter, Ruth answered her brother, "Yes, I'm fine. Guess it's show-time"
"As you wish", Ethan smiled grinning, arching his left eyebrow. He clapped his fingers, and as soon as he stopped doing that, hordes of Mummyheads appeared behind them.
"Crap! They decided to stop using the anti-stealth thingy!", Razma cursed, starting his Dreizhen on, and going forward, ready to smashing some Mummyheads.
"Haze! Are you alright!", Cynthia yelled to her cousin, standing next to her, but also keeping an eye on her back.
The fallen OF's runner took her time to answer. After a long, pitiful sigh, she said, "Yes, I'm fine. Go ahead, I'm going"
Her voice was sounding too weak… but Cynthia knew she couldn't do anything for the time being. Instead, she did as her cousin told her, and went straight to battle.
Pain… striking at her again. Once again… for the forgotten time in the last period.
Gentle, yet bitter tears were running across her cheeks, even without her permission.
Laying on the Martian ground, in a strange thing which the others called cockpit… worse, inside an OF… worrying others, who were sending her text messages while battling, as she had closed the camera connection so no one would see her crying…
"It's time…", she whispered, drying up her tears. And so, her OF stood up, crushing a Mummyhead as she did so.
"This shouldn't be as hard as it seems. They are just Mummyheads", Cage commented, just talking to Ares through a private link. As he hadn't heard any answer from his light haired friend, he looked at the screen. As he had expected, Ares was looking really gloomy.
"Hey, relax", the blue haired boy said, trying to cheer him up. "This isn't your fault. You have nothing to do with them". As Ares' silent was even deeper, he added, "Or so I want to believe"
"Of course not!", the taciturn youth replied back, annoyed. "I have no idea who those ones are", he explained, while launching his Vyaja's Beam Web attack towards a couple of wandering Mummyheads, and killing most of them. "I'm as puzzled as you are, or even more"
"Hey, I hadn't blamed you. I know you wouldn't have returned here if you were planning something like this", Cage replied, attacking with Will's Rusty Cutter imitation of the original Testament.
"And how can you be so sure?"
"Well… you wouldn't commit the same mistake twice", the blue haired youth replied simply, dodging a phallanx attack.
"I… thanks, Cage", Ares whispered, puzzled.
"Hey, had you stopped with that private chat?", Semyl's voice resounded in their OFs. "I wonder what you were talking about…", she added, joking. "Anyway, look who's our new ace, pals!", she exclaimed, pointing with her thumb to their back.
The two frames turned back, and what they saw almost quitted them their breath, as the usually shy, taciturn and not-too-fond-of-combat Hazel was smashing frame after frame, moving at really high velocities. The light gray and blue frame kept on attacking lines and lines of Mummyheads with what Cynthia came to call 'Beam motion' attack: sliding at full-speed, she could attack a line of enemies. And that's what she was doing again and again…
"What the…?", Ares asked, astonished. His eyes were wide opened as he saw her attacking that way.
"Seems she got up quite pissed off, doesn't she?", Razma joked, joining the others. "Well, she has to defend herself well. Those Mummyheads seem to be right after her and her cousin"
And he was incredible right. Further in the other direction, Cynthia was doing the best she could against a big bunch of enemy OFs, and if it weren't for Mebius, Semyl and Myona in the Calibur, the poor student would have already failed miserably.
"I have an idea", Warren commented after getting rid of a Mummyhead. "We have to put the two frames together. The mummyheads will go straight to them and we can help from the outside"
"Nice plan", Razma approved. "I like it. Let's go and kick some more butts!"
"Hey, and what about the other two frames?", Cage asked, looking everywhere for Ruth and Ethan's new frames.
"They are at the back, that's why you can't see them", Yukito explained, kicking an enemy OF. "They look like they will start attacking when we defeat all their minor OFs, which will be never if they keep on coming like that"
"Aha… Well, maybe with Warren's idea we can finish this soon", he hoped, while making a connection with Hazel's OF. "Hazel, can you hear me?"
The light haired girl looked everywhere until she realized where the screen was. "Ah, Cage! Hello again", she sort of greeted tired, now shooting at an upcoming Mummyhead with her OF's 'phantom Metraton gun'. "Do you know when it's gonna end all this?"
"No idea, but we have a plan. Start walking until you met with Cynthia. Supposedly, all the enemy frames will go after both of you, but we'll start firing from the outside"
Hazel thought for a brief second. "Risky… but it may be the only way to end this. I'm going", she said, swtiching off the connection.
"Hey… too late", Cage told himself, as he saw the image went black.
Soon, the cousin's frames were side by side, and, as expected, the enemy Mummyheads –which seemed tougher to defeat- were all going towards them.
"Haze… What are we to do now?", Cynthia asked, softly. She wasn't feeling too comfortable there, and, although she didn't want it to admit, she really wanted to be at her comfortable home, even in her ultra-protective mother's arms, instead of being in the middle of an OF fight, facing death, if things wouldn't work out as planned.
"You are scared, uh?", Hazel replied, with her eyes closed and a small smile in one side of her lips. "Don't worry, you'll return back, and so I'll do. This will just be a bad memory for our grandchildren"
Hazel's comment wasn't much relief for Cynthia.
"Yeah, alright, but if we don't get out from here we won't have children!", she exclaimed, impaling an enemy OF with Carpe's arm sliding lance. "Take that!", she yelled, letting her nerves go away, as she crushed the same enemy again with the green beam lance ant then attacked another.
"Seems you enjoy this when you get used"
"Very funny", the brown haired student complaint, evading a shot with little success. "How do you manage to remain cold and quiet in all this mess?", she asked, as if she had just noticed her cousin's mechanical behavior during combat.
Hazel's eyes widened a little bit, and then she looked down, ashamed. "I don't realize that I look that cold… guess I just accept this as part of my life…"
"Stoicism?", Yukito asked, getting into their conversation.
"Ha, you can say that! She's the perfect stoicist!", Cynthia grinned, much to her discontent. "Hey, what are you doing in our conversation? How rude!"
"Sorry, sorry", the green haired youth apologized, quickly. "I just had to tell you to get ready to 'dance' a bit. You'll have to avoid our missing shots and the unknown Mummyheads ones"
"What? Now I'm sure I won't have any children to talk to!", Cynthia yelled fearfully. She could barely move her OF, so how was he expecting her to avoid all those beam lasers or even missiles without getting hurt, or worse, without dying?
"Ok, we'll handle it" Hazel replied, quietly, making Cynthia feel more nervous with her cold tone of voice.
The two cousin's stood there, back with back, while the others got ready. All the enemy units made a circle around them, and the BIS gang surrounded the unknown force, and started firing. The unmanned units didn't know how to react, as they were being attacked from both front and back, as the cousins started attacking with all their attacks, one after the other. The area was a complete mess of lasers, and it was a blessing that they weren't in a civilian area, or else, the damage would have been enormous.
One by one, the unmanned units started falling, clearing the area. Soon, all the Mummyheads were defeated, and there weren't any traces of upcoming reinforcements.
"We… did it?"
"It seems so", the light blue haired girl replied relieved, trying to make her cousin feel more relaxed. She leaned against her seat, and sighed, letting a small, victorious smile appear in her lips.
"Good work, girls", Robin acknowledged them from the Calibur. "I can see you still are in one piece"
"This is too much, I guess I'm gonna vomit", Cynthia admitted, faintly.
"If you are going to do that, try to avoid doing it at the cockpit", Yukito commented, grinning. "It's really disgusting to clean that later"
"Yuck… now I feel worse!"
Robin giggled. "Guess that now you'll learn to avoid some kind of topics from now on"
"Alright, alright, I'm sorry!", the girl apologized, annoyed. "Can we return now? I'm feeling fatal"
"Guess there's no other thing to do there, is it? If so, leave the area"
"I'm going…", Cynthia replied, staring her Carpe's 'engine', but was soon stopped by Cage.
"What about the other two OFs? They have to be around…", Cage insisted, worried.
"Oh, Cage! Don't be so meticulous!", the student complained again, now pissed off. "I'm leaving, do what you want…". She started walking some meters, but couldn't go any further because the two missing frames reappeared, a few meters ahead from her.
"So you were planning to go away, little rat?", Ruth's voice asked slowly, with a hint of sarcasm. "I'm afraid you are staying a little bit, my darling", she added, getting her OF ready and rehearsing a possible battle pose, crossing her OFs arms and standing with her OF's leg quite separated from each other, forming a triangle.
Mebius frowned. "And Twede thought that Cynthia was childish…"
"Be quiet, for you are next to die!", Ruth silenced the blonde BIS member rudely, pointing with her arm to somewhere else but the Orchrist. Surely, she was intending to look like a girl-show heroine, but she was failing more than miserably.
"Ruth… can you stop with that nonsense?", her brother Ethan asked simply, ashamed. "You are doing it really bad, you know"
"Hmph!", she moaned, annoyed. "Great, let's go down to work, if so!", she added, running at full-speed at the cousins' frames.
The girls moved their OFs in opposite directions, just in time to avoid being knocked over by the brownish frame. Instead, Ruth ended up quite far from the group.
"Nice escape", Ethan congratulated. "Let's see what you are capable of"
He also went against them, quickly, although a bit slower than his reckless sister. With his OF's apparent fists closed, he charged against Hazel, and managed to hit her, making her loose her balance and stealing some of her energy.
"What I expected", he added, looking at the light haired girl's frame. "You are no match to us, even with that frame"
Much to his surprise, she managed to fire her gun at him repeated times, also making him to lose his balance and fall down. "Never underestimate a woman, my unknown opponent", she said sarcastically and solemnly, charging at him with her beam sword.
"Haze! Look out!", Cynthia yelled, noticing Ruth's frame charging against her cousin. Luckily, she was stopped by Cage and his Will's Beam Arrow attack, stopping her from the back. The blonde woman wasn't going to stay passive at an offensive like that, so her brother would have to wait and defend himself, as she had now another target to attack…
The rest of the BIS group splitted, half attacking Ethan, the rest charging against Ruth. Only Cynthia was passive, staring like hypnotized at Carpe's screen, which was blinking quickly, as a sign that something wasn't fine.
"Cynthia, are you ok? Hang on, we are going!", Myona said all of a sudden, rushing to her side. She thought she wasn't moving due to either lack of energy or HP. But it wasn't the case.
Finally, her frame's screen became clear again, revealing two unknown names to her.
"Castor? Polux?"
The siblings' stopped attacking and turned back to face Cynthia.
Ruth grinned. "Well, you found us out, finally"
"We thought it was going to take you less time"
"What the hell does this mean?", Semyl inquired, running out of patience. "Cynthia, how did you know about that?"
"I… I'll explain later"
"Oh, poor little one! She's scared!", Ruth went on with her sarcasm. "Why don't you let Castor, the horseman –well, the horsewoman in this case- to take you to a safe place, like… the Underworld?", she added, faking a gentle tone which grew into a darker one as she spoke.
Cynthia stood there, trying to move her OF as she saw the siblings charging against her. She couldn't make it work. It was like petrified.
"Why can't I move this?", she thought in despair. Her hands were sweating, as well as her face, and it made it more difficult to handle the OF, which seemed like dead.
"Cynthia, why can't you move?", Hazel asked angrily, rushing to her. Her cousin had already been hit twice by the siblings, and she wasn't doing anything to prevent another attack. Right then, Pollux, Ethan's frame, sliced hers with a beam sword.
"Damn! As if it were that easy! I can't do it!", the brown haired student replied back, pissed off. "Isn't it obvious!"
"Oh, great! Hang on!"
"Ha, nice answer! You can repeat it again!", Cynthia sighed, desperately.
Hazel's OF went next to her petrified cousin's one, and activated its crimson-lighted shield, protecting them both as she tried to push Carpe, with no success.
Meanwhile, Ruth and Ethan kept attacking, trying to penetrate the shield, while dodging –or trying to- the other's attacks. Mebius managed to stop Ruth with the Elfin Bow, and Ethan was about to run the same fate, until…
"Alright, Dioscuri, alright", Marrek Pith's voice called, satisfied. "All for today. Don't push your luck and retreat right now"
"Fine", Ethan replied, as his OFs beam sword disappeared.
"But… we can do better…", Ruth complainted, both angrily and disappointed.
"Ruth, don't complain. We are off", her brother told her, already flying North.
"If there's no other way…", the blonde runner mumbled annoyed, joining her brother without looking back, although she would have liked to throw a menace like before, but she was banned to do it.
And so, the BIS gang found themselves alone in the middle of the Martian nowhere…
Cage was the last one to get out from his frame. They had just arrived from the battlefield, and now it was turn for one of the most boring –or interesting, depends on how you look at it- parts of the battle: battle analysis. He frowned at the only thought of it. He was just wanting to rest a while and hang out with Myona and maybe Ares, but he knew that would have to wait.
"Seems you are getting used to Will, aren't you?", Myona asked, with a hint of melancholy.
"Maybe yes, maybe not", he answered back, embracing her.
"Well… it wasn't going to be a regular fight with all those Mummyheads around", Mebius commented, leaning against her Orcrist.
"Not at all… although I'm still thinking in that name… 'Dioscuri'… I find it familiar, somehow…", Yukito agreed, searching in his mind for that term.
"Greek Mythology", Cynthia replied, seriously. "Castor and Pollux were called the 'Dioscuri'. Both of them, with their sisters Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra, were product of one of Zeus' 'affairs' with Leda, Queen of Sparta and Tyndareus' wife. He took the form of a swan to seduce her and she gave birth to all those children. Clytemnestra and Castor were considered Tyndareus' sons and Pollux and Helen, Zeus' ones, although many sources take both of them as sons of Zeus, which is what 'Dioscuri' stands for", the young student retold, puzzling more than one person with her knowledge on Greek mythology. She could bet that most of the BIS members thought she was only interested in shopping mall sales. "Zeus used the form of a swan to get closer to her because she wouldn't notice any other man besides her husband, but many people say that he used that disguise to rape her and leave her pregnant. But you know, those are old myths..."
"Disgusting", Mebius frowned, annoyed. "Those old myths… those Gods are all a bunch of perverts. Zeus was a 'ladies man' and his wife's 'hobby' was taking revenge against any female he just saw. Everyone enjoyed applying heavy punishments over the weak ones. Aphrodite used to go out with any male she came across…"
"That last one reminds me of someone but in a MALE version…", Semyl commented mischievously, looking at Razma by the corner of her eye.
"Hey, I'm not like that!", Razma cried, annoyed.
"I hadn't even mentioned your name!", Semyl said, innocently.
"But I know you are referring to me! It's obvious!"
"As I was saying", Mebius went on, smiling; "She would fix her eyes in any boy she found, but would do ANYTHING to prevent women to be as beauty as she supposedly was… And the list goes on, further and further on…"
"That was the good thing in Mythology", Yukito grinned back. "Gods had too many human aspects, after all. They loved, they hated and they took revenge against them or against humans for either their greed or some 'personal affair'"
"But they were cruel…"
"Right as humans are…", Hazel added, at the right moment, thoughtfully.
Everyone nodded, agreeing with her.
"We all agree with that", Warren said, summing up. "But now tell me, Cynthia, how do you know about Mythology?". He was really amazed by the girl's knowledge on the subject, but he couldn't figure out from where she got it.
Cynthia smiled, proudly. "I learnt it at school. It has to be the only thing I enjoy of it, because the rest is pure nonsense and stupid propaganda. Apart from that, it's like reading the yellow news and the 'heart-magazines' from many millennia ago, of a bunch of people who believed in that!", she exclaimed highly enthusiastic, grinning broadly with her eyes shut.
At that answer, Twede let go a resigned sigh. She was disappointing him even and even more, if there was another 'more' in his 'attitude rating'.
"Fine", Robin said a bit bored by the Mythological chat. "Cynhia, I noticed you are having some troubles with your OF…"
"Yes, it's odd, because I could handle it better before"
"And you couldn't move it later"
"Exactly! I don't know what happened. And then it showed the 'Dioscuri' names in my screen…"
"That's fishy", Cage got in the conversation. "Hazel, did you had something like that?"
The light haired girl thought for a while. "No. I guess that I hadn't", she answered, still thoughtfully. "Really, I can't recall something like that happening in my unnamed frame"
"And then you couldn't move it…", Robin analyzed, rubbing her chin, thing that meant that she was really clueless about something.
"Could it be that it doesn't like her?", Myona asked, thinking in Testament for some reason. She couldn't criticize Pharsti about her choosing Cage as her runner… it was a part of herself after all.
"Maybe…"
"What? Is it something with my Zodiac?", the young student asked puzzled, making leave Twede the room right away, sick of her responses. "Hey, what's going on with him?", she asked, even more puzzled than before.
"Don't pay attention to him, he's like that", Mebius told her, giggling.
"It has nothing to do with that", Robin answered, trying to remain calm. "It's something odd to explain, even to find out, but there's a chance that OFs can select their runners, or that once they were run by one, they stick to it, and reject or don't work well with other runners. But that's just an hypothesis. Metatron is a great mystery, after all…"
"Worse than women", Yukito grinned, thinking in one of the chats they had the other day.
"Don't start again, or she'll kill me right now…", Razma begged, walking away from Semyl slightly, without her noticing, but he failed. However, she didn't go after him. She decided to give him a break, in appearance.
"Uh, oh!", Hazel said, looking at her watch. "Come on, Cinderella, it's time to leave", she told her cousin, picking her jean jacket, which was laying in the floor next to her feet.
"Hey, why now?", Cynthia whined, angrily.
"Because if you stay more here, you'll arrive later to your home and I'll end up like a smashed pumpkin if your mother finds out", she explained, as if it were necessary. "You know that I'm not a good influence for you, in her opinion"
"But… alright. I wouldn't like to eat you at lunch time"
"That's the way I like things to work!", the jean clad girl joked, gaining a glare from her student cousin.
"Hazel!", Robin called, as she was walking her way to the exit.
"Uh?"
"What happened that you started attacking as you never had?"
Hazel blushed a brief second, then she replied, "I guess that I wanted to finish with all that…"
"Does the phrase 'Freedom to Mars' mean anything to you?", Myona asked, shyly.
Everyone froze, but nobody dared to look back at Ares, who just stayed where he was, leaning against the wall.
"No… I don't think so…", she replied quickly.
"And you, Cynthia?"
Cynthia took more time to answer back. "I… I can't recall what was exactly…"
Hazel look at her watch again. "Sorry, but it was all? We can go on talking when I return, but I have to take her really quickly if I don't want to bring trouble…"
"No, sure, go ahead", Robin said, waving at them.
The two cousins left the room, but those seconds they took looked like an eternity for the rest of the BIS gang. Razma sighed relieved when he heard the sound of the door closing, for some reason.
"Myona, why had you asked them that question?", Robin asked curiously, and not understanding why, of all the members of BIS, she was the one who asked about their knowledge on the infamous phrase.
The purple haired girl shrugged. "I don't know. Well, I know. Hazel started attacking after she heard that, so I thought there was some connection, but she may be sick of this situation and wanted to finish everything as soon as possible"
"Now that you mention it, you are right. But I can barely see any other link between her and that", Robin said, thoughfully.
"Maybe she was part of BAHRAM once, or she got her life spoiled by them", Mebius suggested, shrugging. "Or maybe they even aren't part of BAHRAM, and they are using their infamous signature quote", she kept on proposing, realizing that "Freedom to Mars" originally belonged to BAHRAM, as some kind of battle-cry.
"It's quite factible that we may be facing BAHRAM once more", Twede analized. "Their equipment matches with BAHRAM stuff..."
"It's too early to say that", Yukito interrupted him. "Unless we see some more frames, we can't certainly tell if it's BAHRAM or not"
"Don't mind me. It was a supposition, nothing for real", Myona insisted, now feeling guilty for making the others think that Hazel could have been a BAHRAM rebel.
"Well, if you say so…", Robin concluded, giving up. "Well, guess it's time for a well-gained rest. Se you later", she said, walking into the main room, so she would end up in her room.
The rest either got up from the floor or left their comfortable places against their OFs or the wall. Ares got up quickly and started walking towards the main room, but his sister call him.
"Yes?", he asked, not turning around.
"You don't have anything to do with them, do you?", she asked, shyly. "I don't distrust you, but…"
"You want to be sure", he filled in, coldly.
Myona nodded, blushing and feeling ashamed of having so little trust in her brother.
"I don't know them", he replied, turning to face her and all the others. He was rather surprised by the faces he saw: curiosity, anxiety, tiredness… but no hints of regret or distrust towards him. He was expecting another kind of reaction. "I just had contact with Jimmer and Amante, and with some other people, a few, but not with those two. At all"
His voice was getting colder as he spoke, making Myona feel even more guilty than what she was feeling with her own torturing conscience alone.
"Ares, it's alright, we are not blaming you", Mebius tried to calm him down, speaking softly. "You wouldn't do that, not again with the same people in the worst of cases; and I think that no one of us think that you can turn to the 'bad side' again"
Ares sighed, relaxing a little. "I'm sorry", he apologized, rubbing his eyes. "It's just that I'm tired, and I'm being a bit over defensive, and I have no clue about who they are or how the hell they found out… I guess I'm in an almost critical state…"
"You should try and relax a bit!", Semyl offered, cheerfully. "If ya' avoid thinking too much for a while, ya'll see things different"
"So that's why you never think, isn't it like that?", Razma shot back, sarcastically.
"You!", Semyl glared at him, really angered. She was about to punch him in the stomach as revenge, but she remembered something more worthy of her attention than Razma's pain: the cookies she was making with Myona before the battle.
"Ahh! The cookies!", she cried in despair. "Come, Myona, we have to see their state!", she went on yelling, grabbing the purple haired girl's hand and rushing to the kitchen so fast that she didn't had time to apologize to her brother.
"There they go", Mebius giggled, watching the two girls in haste. "They are quite some characters…"
"We are all quite some characters", Yukito added, leaving the hangar.
"Mmh… you may be right. But the cutest here is our little Lia", the blonde woman replied back, getting into the main room, also.
Someone knocked the door to Hazel's room.
The gray-eyed girl was laying in her bed when she heard that sound. Unluckily for her, she was about to get asleep. Rubbing her eyes, she told whoever knocked her door to come in.
"Hi", Myona greeted her again, walking into the room. "Were you sleeping?"
"Nope", Hazel lied, trying to look as awake as she could. "What happened?"
"Nothing, really. I just wanted to ask you about the other day's…"
"Forced date?"
Myona looked down a bit embarrassed.
"It was Cage's idea", she explained, shyly. "I didn't know he had invited him, so I'm as puzzled as you are, and I didn't want it to turn out as it did. Sorry if it made you feel bad"
Hazel smiled. "Don't worry. It wasn't that terrible. Ares is a good guy…"
"Hey! You are having a girls' chat and you hadn't count me in?", Semyl asked, showing her head through the door, which Myona forgot to close properly.
"Come in, it's alright", Hazel invited her, giggling. "Hey, Myona, you too take a seat. Don't wait for me to tell you, I'm a terrible host"
"The cushion's mine!", Semyl claimed, grabbing the big cushion that was laying in the ground. Myona had to sit in the little sofa.
"You were saying that Ares what?", the red haired girl started again, with the little info she caught in the corridor.
"That he was a good person"
"Aha. We already knew that", Semyl ticked off mentally. "Well, that was like a sort of date, so… how does he kiss?"
"Semy!", Myona let go that exclamation against her will, caught by the surprise.
Hazel blushed, looking almost like Semyl's hair. "I… I haven't kissed him!", she replied back, both embarrassed and coldly, at the defensive.
"So he's the shy type… well, that earns him some points, but he loses others…"
"Semy, you are talking of him as if he were a thing…", Myona reminded her, looking her by the corner of her eye.
"Alright, alright, I'm sorry…", the red haired youth apologized, much to her disappointed, as this was a great opportunity to get data about Ares.
"I barely know him, and I wouldn't kiss him while I'm staying here. I wouldn't be able to look at him naturally, I guess…", Hazel said, as a way to conclude that part of the chat. "Enough of this. What about your cookies?"
Semyl and Myona looked at each other, resigned.
"Burnt", Semyl said, opening the little tupper she had in her hands. "They just needed a little more of cooking, in appearance, but when we switched it off, well… we found them a bit hard to eat. Wanna try one?"
"They can't be that bad…", the light haired girl said, picking one. "Well, they could taste better, but it's ok"
"Great, do you want, Myona?"
"Well, if we don't eat them, then who will?", Myona shrugged, resigned.
And so, the three youths kept on eating the poor, little burnt cookies…
Author notes…
The series I was making reference to in Cynthia and Hazel's chat is "Ai Tenshi Densetsu Wedding Peach" (Legend of the Love Legend Wedding Peach). It's a 'magical girl' anime series (and what does this have to do with ZoE? Almost nothing… wait, the series has a 'Romeo and Juliet' story, and that would apply –loosely- in ZoE, with Earthling and Martians, IMO… hahaha). It's the story of Momoko, your typical cute-clumsy teenage girl, who finds out that she really is Wedding Peach, the legendary angel of Love. Her two friends Yuri and Hinagiku, are also Love Angels, Angel Lily and Angel Daisy, respectively. Later on the series a fourth angel appears, Angel Salvia (Scarlet). They all fight against Rein Devilla (Queen Devil in french?) and her minions, in order to protect both the human world and the angel world of falling in their hands. Well, guess that's enough. Comically, enough, I haven't seen the series yet, nor I have read the mangas! I came across it by accident and read the chapters synopsis and I think it's quite original, even if people call it a bad Sailor Moon rid-off (thing that I don't agree with; I think that Momoko is much prettier than stupid Serena/Usagi – yes, I can barely stand her, and I had never fully watched Sailor Moon! Anyway, that's my opinion, and nobody has to agree with it P). Back on topic, "Twin Swords" is Angel Salvia's attack in 'Wedding Peach DX' (four volume OVA series, takes place after the TV series), "Saint Pure Sword" is, again, Angel Salvia's attack, this time in the regular series. "Wedding Graceful Flower" are Yuri's transformational words. "Crimson shield" and "Green Lance" are 'cameos' from Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken P. About the girls' personalities, Momoko is the classic clumsy-cute-head in the clouds-protagonist; Yuri is the elegant, fashion fan, polite girl; Hinagiku is the tomboyish one and Scarlet is the cold, distant one. I still don't know why I left this part in the story (now that I'm doing the revision -slowly, but I'm doing it!- I realize this). Guess I left it because it was there and it was like a small bond between Hazel, Cynthia and their past... who knows, it's still there
You can also notice that I'm a fan of Greek Mythology Sorry if I've been quite technical about it or if I forgot important things, I tried to do my best to keep that one short.