ATE: Chap 11 is finally finished and uploaded. I'm sorry if it took long, but it's not exactly easy to write the battles that takes place in this chap, especially the E.S. battle against the Pilum and the Scutum. And in this chap Lilith will be seen fighting in a battle as well with her weapons (all thought of by my friend). Now enjoy reading this chap.

Declaimer: I don't own Xenosaga or Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion. I only own my OCs, while my friend (my self appointed editoress) owns Lilith.


Chapter 11

It was after having left the Elsa through the hatch that we had started making our way through the Ormus Stronghold in the E.S.s. During that time I had been able to practice maneuvering the Elias as we followed the others who were just in front of us. It was when we had encountered our first enemy that I had a little difficulty navigating due to the fact that I had to react quickly, but thanks to Lilith I was able to respond fast enough to avoid getting ourselves hit. Ever since that first fight we had encountered more than enough enemies for me to finally get used to having to react quickly to avoid their attacks while Lilith did her job at taking them out.

After some time we all stood on an elevator (which we had activated earlier) as we rode it up to a door. Once we had reached the top we moved our E.S.s through the door and into a vast room, with what appeared to be a switch on the wall ahead of us. We started to approach the switch on the wall when I heard a hissing sound and we all turned around to see that the door suddenly closed.

"My name is Richard!" Suddenly we saw the two A.M.W.S. Pilum and Scutum drop from the ceiling and land in front of us. "I assume you remember. I'm sorry, but I have no time for games. Honestly, I grow weary of these encounters. I've had enough of you!"

Now we had no choice but to fight both the Pilum and Scutum at once, but in my opinion we had the advantage due to it being four against two in this battle. I wasn't having any difficulty this time in reacting to dodging the two A.M.W.S.s' attacks when needed, and once or twice I sometimes had close call when a missile almost hit the Elias.

"Hehehe... destroy everything!" Richard said.

Suddenly the Pilum went off until he stood near a corner of the room and stuck his sword in the ground before four optic screens appeared in front of the A.M.W.S.

"Richard! You can't use that weapon in here!" Hermann's voice cried.

"Stay back!" Richard said as he pressed each of the screens like they were buttons.

"Richard, please stop! Richard--!"

The Pilum pressed the red button that appeared after he pressed all the optic screens only for a giant cannon to appear out of nowhere and fell into his hands. To my horror he took aim at the Asher and before I knew it the blast from the A.M.W.S.'s cannon hit the dark blue and black E.S. and caused damage to it, along with blowing a hole in the wall which I could see the black hole outside the Ormus Stronghold. I couldn't help but stare wide eyed at the hole that the blast had made.

"That cannon is powerful enough to blast a hole in the wall?!" I thought.

I looked over to where the Asher was to my left and my eyes widened at the sight of it. There were some areas that were opened, revealing some circuits and sparks due to the damage from that blast. The condition of the E.S. worried me to the point that I feared both Jr. and chaos might've been hurt from the attack. I suddenly felt anger as I turned to face the Pilum and Scutum and gripped the navigational control handles tightly with my hands. I…I wanted them to suffer for what they did to my friends.

I stared at the two A.M.W.S.s through the Elias' clear wall ahead of me before closing my eyes shut. I opened them again only to find that I didn't see the inside of the E.S. that I was piloting or Lilith at all. It was like I wasn't inside the Elias at all and instead was standing inside the room in person as if I was outside the E.S.

"What the…?!" I heard Hermann say very clearly. "What's happening to that E.S.?!"

I suddenly flew at the Scutum at an alarming rate that surprised even myself and felt myself automatically use my arm to slash the A.M.W.S. with a sword with a wide blue beam, causing a great amount of damage to my opponent. While that happened I had noticed that my arm was metallic with the colors navy blue and silver with a golden foreign script written on it, and I suddenly realized with surprise that it was the Elias' arm. I was still piloting the E.S., but this felt like I was wearing an invisible suit of armor that didn't weigh me down.

"I am literally one with the Elias…" I thought amazed.

(Jr.'s POV)

"Dammit!" I thought angrily.

How could I let him hit us like that?! I gritted my teeth as I growled in my anger while gripping the control handles tightly, one because he hit us with that huge cannon, and two because the Asher took damage from the blast along with the wall which now had a hole in it. Now we would be momentarily immobile from that attack and would be entirely useless! I then remembered my companion inside the E.S. with me and looked up to the seat he sat in above me.

"chaos, are you okay?" I asked.

"I'm okay, Jr. How about you?" He asked.

"Peachy."

I tore my gaze away from chaos to see how everyone was doing when I spotted the Elias. Ever since we had all left the Elsa in our E.S.s Ayame had been doing an amazing job in piloting hers and Lilith's E.S. as if she had done it for some time. During our first encounter with some enemies she had appeared to have some trouble trying to react fast enough to dodge them, but thanks to Lilith (as much as I hated to admit it) she had been able to improve her piloting skills in an E.S. very quickly despite having amnesia.

Right now the Elias wasn't moving at all and instead seemed to be facing the E.S. chaos and I were inside off. I mentally cursed when I realized why. Ayame had seen the Asher get hit by that cannon's blast and I could already imagine her face as if she were standing in front of me; her normally kind and cheerful facial expression replaced with worry and fear as her wide blue eyes expressed her emotions strongly.

"She must think I'm weak…" I thought.

As I continued to stare at the Elias I watched as it turned to face the two A.M.W.S.s, but what happened next surprised me. The Elias started to glow with a faint silver aura and huge light blue beams of light came out of the back of the E.S. with three of the beams on each side, making them look more like wings than the metal extensions did on the machine previously. Just looking at the Elias in the state that it was in right now made me think of when Ayame had changed into that angel like form in the Encephalon Dive with the way the wings looked along with the silver aura around it.

"Is it possible that Ayame's causing this to happen to the Elias?" I thought.

"What the…?!" Hermann suddenly said. "What's happening to that E.S.?!"

I watched as the Elias suddenly flew at the Scutum so quickly that it shocked me and slash the A.M.W.S. with a sword with a wide blue beam that the speed itself seemed impossible to me. The attack caused a great amount of damage to the Scutum that it caused it to shut down in defeat. Not even the armor field that it had placed on itself was enough to stop the damage it took. I betting Richard was mad about his buddy Hermann being defeated.

"I'll smash you to pieces." Richard said as he attempted to attack the Elias. The E.S. suddenly disappeared at the last second and the Pilum started to look around wildly for it. "Where did it go?!"

Suddenly the Elias appeared behind him and slashed the A.M.W.S. before it even had a chance to turn around and attack with the beam sword and ended up shutting the system down due to the damage it had taken. After the Pilum was taken care of the wings that were emitting from the back of the Elias disappeared along with the silver aura that came with it. I couldn't help but wonder what was going on.

(Ayame's POV)

After having taken down the Pilum I closed my eyes and opened them again to find myself back inside the E.S. again with Lilith in the seat below me and I relaxed my grip on the navigational controls when I noticed how tight I was holding them. I felt a little exhausted now for some reason and I didn't know why.

Suddenly a communication monitor appeared in front of me and Lilith to reveal Jr.'s face, a somewhat concerned expression on his face.

"Are you okay, Ayame?" Jr. asked. "What was that you just did?"

"I'm fine, but…I don't know what I did…" I answered. What was that I just did?

Jr. looked at me for awhile before looking down at Lilith, a heavy silence having fallen around us. I felt confused as I continued to watch Jr. look at Lilith, but no words were exchanged between them, not each a sound to hint what was going on.

(Jr.' POV)

It was after Ayame answered that I had stared at her for awhile before turning my gaze to Lilith.

"Do you know what happened, Lilith?" I asked my sister telepathically.

"I'm not so sure what happened myself, Red." She answered me back. "One minute she was freaking out and the next she was glowing and piloting the Elias like she's been doing it for years. I barely was able to react since it happened so fast."

For once Lilith hadn't been sarcastic to me. I'm surprised.

"Maybe it had something to do with that angel form she had changed into before."

"Angel form? What angel form?" Lilith response sounded a little suspicious to me for some reason.

"Nothing important for you to know." I answered.

"Now what you said sounded quite suspicious."

And now she was being sarcastic again...

"Oh yeah? Well, I could say the same to you, Lilith!"

"Whatever. I think Ayame's starting to get worried about how quiet we've been while talking telepathically."

With that she broke the telepathic connection we had. I tore my gaze away from Lilith to look over at Ayame as a thought crossed my mind. What has been happening to her lately?

(Ayame's POV)

After a while Jr.'s gaze met mine again.

"You did a great job, Ayame." He said.

I was about to respond to his comment when the communication monitor disappeared before I even got the chance to do so. I sadly hung my head as I started to wonder why he did that all of a sudden. Was it something I did?

"Get a move on, Ayame!"

"What?" I asked as I looked down at Lilith.

"I can understand your confusion at the moment, but are you, by any chance, going to make the Elias move before we get left behind by the others?" Lilith asked.

I looked up and saw that the Zebulun had just left through the door. I quickly followed them out the door where we joined them on the elevator and rode it down with them. I continued to follow them through a series of pathways before we all came to a elevator that went down for some time (while I couldn't help but think it would be a long drop if someone fell down). After having gotten to the bottom, we went through the door until we came into a room where we had no choice but to leave the E.S.s behind so we could proceed deeper into the Ormus Stronghold.

As we all walked down the corridors I noticed that Jr. was all the way in the back of the group (I was with Lilith near the front) with an unreadable expression on his face. I felt concern for him so I made my way over to where Jr. was in the back so I could walk with him. Even after I had done this he didn't seem to notice that I was there.

"Jr., is something wrong?" I asked.

Jr.'s head shot up when he heard me and turned to looked at me from where I was standing on the right side of him, only to look away from me again. I suddenly felt worried and somewhat hurt from this so I took grabbed a hold of his right hand with my left. He didn't attempt to hold mine so his hand remained somewhat limp in my grasp.

"Don't you remember what I told you?"

Jr. didn't say anything.

"I had told you that if you ever needed to talk about anything, I would be there to listen to you. You can tell me anything, Jr., no matter how small."

I gave Jr.'s hand a gentle squeeze, thinking that it would help to reassure him into talking to me. But when he didn't say anything I stopped my gentle squeeze as I felt even more hurt than I had before and my heart seemed to feel heavy. Sadly, I started to pull my hand away from his when I suddenly felt Jr. grasp my hand in his. I looked down at our hands and felt my face heat up slightly when I felt him squeeze my left hand with his warm one this time, the stomach-flipping feeling coming back to me again. I looked up to his face to see that he was facing forward with his head hanging slightly and his eyes downcast.

"You probably think I'm weak from what happened earlier, don't you?" He whispered.

"No. I don't think you're weak at all, Jr." I answered quietly, giving his hand a squeeze again. "You were just caught off guard, that's all."

Jr. chuckled quietly, but there didn't seem to be any humor in it.

"Are you just saying that to make me feel better?"

"Jr. Please stop blaming yourself for what happened. If I could I would have taken the blow for you, but it was already too late when Richard aimed that cannon at you. Yes, I was worried about you and was scared that you may have been hurt, but every time something like that happens you always seem to jump back in and somehow manage to always surprise me with your brave and energetic personality. And that's one of the things I admire you for."

Jr. turned his head slightly to look at me, but I couldn't see much of the left side of his face. His eyes gazed at me in a curious look.

"You…admire me?" He asked quietly.

"Yes. There's nothing wrong with that, is there?"

"N-no there isn't, but…am I the right person for you to admire?"

"You're my friend. How can I not admire you for all the things you've done for everyone, including me?"

I saw Jr. give me a small smile.

"I guess you're right, Ayame."

His head turned to face me more but I spotted something that appeared to be on his left cheek.

"What's that on your left cheek?" I asked.

Jr. seemed to noticed what I meant and quickly turned to look away from me with his eyes downcast.

"I-it's nothing." He said.

I sighed when I heard him say that and I used my right hand to try to turn his face so I could see it but he resisted.

"Jr. Please let me see it?"

I heard Jr. sigh before he stopped resisting so I was able to turn his head to face me. When I did I saw that the spot I had seen was actually a bruise that was starting to form on his cheek.

"I didn't want you to worry." He stated, looking at the ground.

"I seem to be worrying about you a lot today, don't I?"

"It would seem that way."

I gave him a smile as I place my right hand gently on the now forming bruise and used Medica M on it. When I was done I took my hand away and saw that the bruise had disappeared.

"Thanks, Ayame."

"You're welcome. You've done the same thing for me as well that one time."

"You're right."

I continued to hold Jr.'s hand as we followed the rest of the group deeper into the stronghold. We soon came into an area with teleporters and had to navigate our way through it until we managed to get to the top core area, and passed through the doorway that was there. Inside we came into a room where we were standing at the top of the steps, which led down into the bigger room, where a woman was kneeling in the center of the room.

"Welcome to this holy confessional." She said coldly. "Come in, you filth."

"What?" Jr. questioned.

Jr. started heading down the stairs with us following behind him and into the room.

"There is nothing to fear. No matter what you do, there is no escape from this place. Now, confess your sins. I will listen to anything, even from the mouths of foul beasts like you."

"You damn bitch!" Jr. sounded angry as he walked closer to the woman. I walked over to stand next to Jr. and placed a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to calm him down.

"I see. You do not wish to admit your sins. You will leave me no choice but to rip you apart."

The woman got up from where she was kneeling and turned to face us as her eyes opened to reveal menacing green eyes. In her left hand she held a dagger and in her right held a green beam sword with the green beam being curved. It was when her eyes settled on me that I had briefly caught a hint of surprise before it disappeared as quickly as it came.

"Project Eden? No, the chosen one. It is an honor to finally meet you."

I couldn't help but feel confused.

"Chosen one? What are you talking about?" I asked in my confusion.

"You are the one who will lead us to the holy land of Lost Jerusalem. Tell me, where is Lost Jerusalem?" She asked.

"What?" I thought. "Why is she asking me where Lost Jerusalem is?"

How was I supposed to reply to a question I didn't even know the answer to in the first place? The confusion I felt wasn't helping me at all.

"I…" I started, looking at the ground. "I-I don't know…"

"It would seem you don't remember." She said indifferently. "Then stand aside while I take care of the sinners, chosen one."

I lifted my head up to look at the woman when I realized what she meant. I stood in front of Jr. and took out the Shiruba from my holster in gun form.

"Chosen one. You would choose to side with these filthy heretics?"

"Those 'filthy heretics' happen to be my friends. I will not stand by and watch as you hurt them."

"I see. Then it would appear I will have to strike you down as well."

The woman started to run at me with her weapons ready to strike me. As she got closer she was about to hit me when all of a sudden Lilith appeared in front of me and blocked the woman's attack with two daggers.

The daggers appeared to be old and made out of silver with symbols engraved on the sharpened blades that were longer than a normal dagger's blade (AN: like the daggers from Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion). At the moment Lilith was standing up straight with her arms crossed along with the blades in order to block her opponents blade from striking.

"Back off, nut job!" Lilith said. "Ayame get as much distance as you can from this psycho and use Analysis."

"Okay."

I ran as far as to the wall and turned around to see Lilith slightly crouching, the dagger in her left hand was facing backwards in the same direction as her back while the other dagger was being twirled in her right hand. Still slightly crouched she ran up to the woman and quickly slash her, her movements lithe and fluent. I remembered what Lilith wanted me to do so I used Analysis on the woman and found out that her name was Orgulla. I aimed both of guns at Orgulla pulled the triggers, successfully hitting her with my attack. It was after I attacked that I saw some sparks around Orgulla and she seemed to twitch.

"Stay out of this, Manes!" I could hear her say.

When she had stopped twitching she lifted her head up and I noticed that her eyes were now blue instead of green, and her curved green beam sword changed to a straight blue beamed sword that she held with both hands. She suddenly rushed at me as I quickly changed my guns to swords and placed them up before she could strike me with her weapon. Using all my strength I managed to push Orgulla's sword away before slashing with the sword in my right hand. It was after I had done that when Orgulla attempted to strike me, bringing her blade down in a wild and aggressive way as I blocked every attack with my swords while occasionally jumping out of the way.

As I tried to fend her off I noticed from the corner of my eye that Lilith was making her way behind Orgulla while Jr. and MOMO aimed at her. I knew immediately that I was being distracting for this dangerous woman and I kept it up until Lilith was only a few feet away from her before rushing up and slashing Orgulla with her daggers as Jr. and MOMO shot at her. It was from this combined attack that had finished Orgulla off, leaving her dead on the ground.

"…That was close." I sighed as I changed the Shiruba back to guns before placing them in their holster. "Too many close calls to count today."

"Are you okay, Ayame?" Jr. asked, coming over to me.

"I'm fine, Jr."

I noticed Lilith going over to one of the energy conduits and suddenly slashed it with her daggers, causing all of them to shut down.

"What the hell did you do, Lilith?" Jr. asked wide eyed.

"I destroyed the energy conduits. What did it looked like I was doing, Red?" Lilith asked.

"And why?"

Lilith turned to Jr. and placed her daggers away before placing her right hand on her hip.

"Because I felt like it. Why did you think I did it? Did you think I did it 'cause I wanted to? No! I did it because we had to!"

"But why?"

"Again with the 'why?' questions! In case you didn't noticed, my destroying those energy conduits is what's helping us to get to the core so we can destroy it!"

"And how do you know that?"

"It's on that plaque on the wall!" Lilith said as she pointed to the wall that was near her. Upon looking closer you could see something written on it.

"Oh…"

It was with that that we left the room so that we were back outside and took the yellow teleporter to the lower core room in the water. After we went inside we all saw the self-destruct device.

"This looks like the center of the stronghold." Shion stated.

"And luckily enough, it comes with a self-destruct device." Ziggy said.

"All right, let's light it up and blow this thing to hell!" Jr. said. "We'll show 'em!"

After some time we managed to solve the puzzle of the self-destruct device by connecting the correct fuses, successfully activating it.

"Okay, this place is going up in 30 minutes." Jr. stated. "Let's get out of here and go back to the Elsa!"

Suddenly an announcement of the self-destruction of the Ormus Stronghold was heard and we didn't have to think twice before we began to get out as fast as we could in the 30 minute time limit we had. After our long trek back we eventually got back to our E.S.s and we quickly got inside. We made our way back to the room with the elevator, but before we could use it, that E.S. that we had encountered back on Second Miltia appeared high above the area of the Ormus Stronghold.

"Really! Neither my subordinates nor the Patriarch's toys are of any use." I heard the voice of that woman say. "The Inquisition will not allow you to escape."

The brown E.S. descended towards us.

"Disengage your weapons and surrender!" The Asher fired its machine gun at the brown E.S., but the attacks missed the enemy as it evaded them. "I repeat. Disengage your weapons and surrender!"

The brown E.S. held its spear and we knew that we would have to fight it, and we had to make it fast if we wanted to get out of the stronghold before it gets blown up.

We all started to fight the E.S. (which I learned was called the Issachar), Lilith taking care of the weapons while I maneuvered the Elias in accordance with what attacks my partner would use or when I needed to avoid an attack from our enemy. I've noticed that I've been doing better with my piloting skill inside the E.S.

After some time into the battle the Ormus Stronghold started to blow up gradually and I knew immediately that we had wasted too much time fighting the Issachar.

"I'm terribly sorry but I can't allow you to escape." The woman said. "This fortress has already begun to disintegrate. It's only a matter of time before it's swallowed by the Abyss. It'll be a fitting memorial to you. I suggest you spend your final moments praying for a peaceful slumber."

It was with that that the E.S. Issachar ascended away from the area we were in as the stronghold continued to collapse.

"Shion, I recommend a swift retreat." KOS-MOS stated. "This structure will not hold much longer."

"I know." Shion said. "Let's hurry on back to the Elsa."

We became to rush back to the Elsa and we quickly got inside through the hatch that was open. Once inside we hurriedly got out of our E.S.s after placing them back on the stands and we all rushed to the Bridge.

"Hurry, Captain! We're going to be pulled into the Abyss with the Fortress!" Shion said urgently.

"Shut up, I know!" Matthews yelled before turning to Tony. "Tony, what's up?"

"It's no good, Captain." Tony said. "The Logical Drive was damaged in the battle. We don't have enough thrust. Hammer!"

"I'm working on it!" Hammer said as he typed at the console he sat at. "Damn, thrust is down 40%. It's no good. She's still dropping!"

"What the? Who the hell slammed the ship into this place, anyway?"

"Well it was the Captain's idea, but Tony, you're the one who did the slamming!"

"Shut up!" Matthews yelled, sounding like he had had enough. "Quit your bitching and do something already! You wanna die here?!"

As the Ormus Stronghold started to blow up we all felt the impact from inside the Elsa.

"We're losing it, Captain. We can't get away!" Tony cried.

"At this rate, we're not gonna last another minute!" Hammer stated.

We felt the impact of another explosion and the ship shook violently.

"Damn. So, this is it, huh…" Matthew said, sounding hopeless.

Suddenly the Elsa jerked forward and I thought that we would fall into one of the black holes, but something prevented the ship from falling. Through the windshield I could see the Ormus Stronghold blowing up from below us.

"Hey, what the hell's goin' on?"

"Captain, look!" Shion cried.

As I looked through the windshield I noticed a huge red mass, my eyes widened when I recognized what it was.

"It's the Durandal!" Jr. exclaimed.

After a few minutes a communication monitor appeared with Mary and Shelley on the other end.

"Hey, Mary."

"Oh, Little Master! Thanks goodness you're okay." Mary said.

"What the heck are you guys doing here, anyway?" Jr. asked.

"What? We came here to rescue you!"

"Yeah, and I'm grateful for that… But don't you think your timing was a little too perfect?"

I suddenly noticed Tony and Hammer dancing around in circles with their arms hooked. As I watched I couldn't help but find it funny but at the same time I was trying so hard not to laugh at them.

"Don'tlaugh,don'tlaugh,don'tlaugh!" I thought as I tried to hold back the laughter. But as I continued to tell myself this, my resistance started to disappear.

I suddenly felt a foot step on my foot but not enough to cause me any pain. I looked up and saw Lilith staring at me with a stern look on her face.

"Thank you." I said quietly.

"Thank me later." She said.

"Master Gaignun instructed us to come here." Shelley said. "He said if we let the Little Master handle everything, he was bound to do something reckless."

"And it looks like he was right, huh?" Mary asked.

"Naaah! He's always treating me like a kid." Jr. stated. "So, where's the big shot at now, anyway?"

"Master Gaignun said he had important business to take care of. He took off for the Federation capital."

"Fifth Jerusalem? What's he doing there at a time like this? Geez…and he's calling me reckless?"

We all heard a sound.

"Elsa recovery complete." I heard a voice say in the background.

"All right! Let's go back to the Foundation at max speed." Mary said. "If we hang around here, we're gonna get sucked into the Abyss, too."

With the Elsa finally inside the Durandal, the huge red ship boosted away at max speed as the Ormus Stronghold fell into the black holes as it disappeared.


ATE: This took two days to finish, and I had help from my friend when it came to Lilith's dialogue. You probably noticed what's been happening throughout the chap and if you have then great! Please Remember To Review! :)