Disclaimer: Check out the previous chapters, and if you have any queries, e-mail me at the address provided in my profile. Stealing is punishable by a fate worse than death.

A/N: Once again, the writer's block struck. Fortunately, it wasn't for three years like last time, so here's the new chapter!


Chapter 10: Entwined

The small hotel was completely silent, the soft moonlight peeping in through the open window, the curtains billowing gently in the breeze. I turned over on my bed, my mind clouded with troubling thoughts. Mostly, I was too scared to go back to sleep, my slumber had been haunted by memories of my horrifying ordeal a few nights ago in my personal timeline. In the pale glow of the moons, I could see Joachim's outline on the other bed in the room, the one closer to the door. I watched curiously as he stirred a little, moaning in a mixture of horror and fear in his sleep. What was scaring him so much?

My curiosity getting the better of me, and closed my eyes and relaxed, slowly feeling the familiar floating sensation of displacement, as my soul slowly rose out of my body. When I opened my eyes, I found myself hovering quite close to the ceiling, gazing down at my own body, which was sleeping several feet below me, it's chest rising and falling rhythmically. Carefully, I willed myself across the darkened room, until I was floating mere inches above Joachim's quietly writhing form, a feeling of concern across my face. I'd never seen him so disturbed before, his face slightly contorted in deep emotional pain.

Slowly, I moved my hand down through the empty space, and laid it on his cheek, trying to be as comforting as I could. The instant my hand touched his face, I saw a scene flash before my eyes.

The pain was unimaginable, the numerous wounds on my body leaked my precious life fluids all over the charred metal surface I was lying on. However, I wasn't going to give up. I gritted my teeth together and struggled on, dragging my body across the floor slowly, each movement adding more and more agony on top of what I was feeling already. The sky was ablaze with the dying sunlight of the day, mixed with the intense heat of flames coming from the wreckage of the airship we had been riding on, the one that had crashed violently into a mountain range just outside Lindblum. I could already hear the faint sounds of a recovery crew heading up from the grand city, shouting out for any survivors.

A quiet voice to my left made me freeze on the spot.

"Ah..." I looked at where it had come from, and saw the sight I had been dreading. There were a few corpses littered around, some completely mangled in the torn and twisted mass of metal and wood that was once an airship. Near the edge of the wreckage lay a young red-headed girl, a large shard of metal stuck straight through her stomach, pinning her to the floor. Her hazel eyes were streaked with tears, flickering as she struggled with the incredible task of staying awake. I crawled over to her as quickly as I could, completely ignoring the screaming protest of my wrecked limbs. As I reached her, I surveyed the situation, realising that it was very grim indeed. The piece of shrapnel had gone straight through most of the vital organs in her lower body, mangling whatever hadn't been smashed to a pulp. How she was even alive now was a miracle in itself. Her ribs were heavily cracked and bruised, some completely shattered, shards of bone tearing their way into her failing lungs, blood literally bubbling out of her chest as air forced its way out of her body.

"No, this can't be happening..." I whispered in horrified shock. She looked at me, her body shaking as it began to enter it's final moments, tears flowing freely down her face, mingling with the deep red blood that stained it.

"I... l...lo..."She tried to say something, but it was cut short as her entire body fell limp, her eyes closing in one last twitch of pain before she died. A few moments passed, and I didn't know what to do, my eyes clouding from a combination of pain and tears. At that moment, everything that had just happened, the agony in my body, the emotional heartache, everything got on top of me, and I fell defeated on top of her motionless body, wishing that I would just get on with it and die...

I flew backwards in shock as he shot up in bed, his eyes wide open with terror, his breathing harsh and strangled. As her panted, he said something quietly that I didn't quite pick up on. It sounded something like "Hannah.", but I couldn't be sure, since half my head was currently embedded in the wall, looking at the underside of the coffee table next door. I pulled myself back into our room, and sat on the floor, watching Joachim as he looked towards my body, panting heavily, a worried expression on his face. Slowly, he laid back down, but his eyes did not close for the rest of the night.

---

The morning air was cool and refreshing on my skin as I stood by the window, watching the world go by, oblivious to what was about to happen to it. From where I stood I could just see over the high stone walls that surrounded the castle grounds, at the little ceremonial area being set up in a quiet area overshadowed by blossom trees in the far distance, their pure pinkish-white feathery blossoms slowly floating down from the trees elegantly.

"So what's the plan?" I heard Joachim ask from across the room, sat on his bed, pulling on his thick heavy boots. I looked down at the small device in my hand, it's little blue screen telling me everything I needed to know.

"We need to go to some sort of palace on the continent north of here. My parents went back to Earth at some point in the near future, and they traversed through a portal in that palace."

"Will there be enemies?" I nodded reluctantly.

"A Titan, a battalion of Imaginary Numbers, and several members of the Children Of Erebus." This struck a chord with the sliver-haired mercenary on the bed.

"Styx will be there?" I saw his fist clench a little, almost in anticipation.

"Yeah, along with the rest of his so-called family."

"Let's get going then, if there's no time to lose." I looked out of the window. I thought back to what happened there, and I realised that nothing could be changed for the better at this point. Everything that happened at that ceremony had an important impact on future events, so it would be important that nothing went wrong. Even if we marched on in and killed Lazarus, it would mean that our parents would never have been brought together through the events that followed, thus negating our own existence in the process. My head began to pound again. Just thinking about all the different possible events that could happen gave me one hell of a headache.

---

I stood on the airship, looking down at the twinkling waters far below in wonder. This was the first time I had ever flown while not in my spiritual form, and it was quite unnerving to look down on the world from a rickety wooden airship that clanked through the sky in a loud discomforting way. It was almost as if it was going to drop out of the sky at any second, and fall blazing towards the ocean far beneath in a blazing inferno.

In the far distance beyond the bow of the ship, I could see the faint outline of land, a desolate-looking desert and scrub landscape covered with towering mountains and deep twisting ravines. I turned to see Joachim stood a little further down the rail, looking grimly down at his feet. I scooted over a bit, until I was practically next to him. Something had been bothering me about what I had seen last night, so I decided to innocently raise the topic of conversation.

"Who's this Hannah I hear about?" I blinked as innocently as I could at him, as he turned to me, his ice-blue eyes trained firmly on mine, his face one of shock.

"How did you..."

"You were saying her name in your sleep last night." I figured it might not be a good idea to tell him I'd been snooping around in his memories, even if it had just been out of curiosity. He looked back down at his feet solemnly, before gazing sorrowfully at the light-blue skies that surrounded us.

"She was an old friend, I met her while I was in Treno on business. I caught her pickpocketing me just by the auction house. Very stupidly, she decided to follow me around, even though I was being hunted by about five other assassins that weren't too happy that I'd stolen their contract."

"I can imagine how that turned out." I chipped in.

"Things got a little hectic when they'd decided it was a good idea to start aiming for her, thinking we had some sort of attachment. We barely made it out of that alive, and she decided that I had a pretty exciting life, so she hung around with me a lot more."

"That's practically suicide in itself."

"At first, I didn't like her that much. She was very childish, plus she got in the way a lot, but slowly something began to change. Over the years I knew her, I guess I grew more and more attached to having her around. One thing led to another, and soon afterwards we were so attached that we decided to do something about it." He sighed.

"I take it you loved her?"

"She was the world to me, perhaps even more."

"Then what happened?"

"...We were on one of the new airships that Lindblum had churned out recently, using a new type of steam engine that was supposed to be much more stable than it's previous incarnations. However, it's engines failed just after leaving Lindblum, and it crashed down near Dragon's Gate, killing all but a few of those onboard." We both fell silent for a while. "After she died, I can't remember too much. It felt as though someone had just ripped my ribcage open and left my organs bared to the world. I just drifted from one place to the next, I can barely remember what went on. Finally, I went to Alexandria, stopping by the house I grew up in, just to think things through. The next thing I know, you turn up on my doorstep." Once again we fell silent.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything." He shook his head.

"It's alright, you weren't to know." I moved closer and hugged him, trying to comfort him a little as we watched the land on the horizon slowly get closer and closer.

---

"So, got any ideas?" I whispered to him as we watched the entrance to the hidden palace carefully. Once we'd touched down near Condie Petie, we'd trekked eastward towards the mountain range in the far distance. After a long hard journey, we reached what seemed to be a large docking bay in a mountainside. However, the whole place was crawling with strange enemies. Joachim had explained to me that these were the Imaginary Numbers I had heard about, and they looked almost as terrifying as the Gemini, wearing the same kind of armour, only without the helmets, revealing horrifying dead eyes and a blank expression. They were humanoid, but they didn't seem even remotely human, just soulless shells created to follow orders.

"I say we charge on in...and start killing everybody." Firenze commented.

"Yeah, well you would say that, wouldn't you?" Joachim replied, surveying the situation before him. "There's at least seven guards that I can see, there may be more that I can't" He turned to me. "Have you got anything to arm yourself with?" He asked.

"Well, they gave me all these combat skills, it'd be a shame if I didn't bother using them." I looked down at my hands, flexing them slightly. My sub-concious was already picking out what techniques I could use on each guard. "So are we running in?"

"May as well, there's not really many tactical opportunities out here. They have the high ground, plenty of cover, outnumber us by quite a bit, and have enough ammunition to sink a navy." I rolled my eyes.

"And this is supposed to make me feel a little more confident?" He smiled.

"Heck no, I'm just as scared as you are."

"Heh, you two are complete and utter wimps." Firenze noted.

"Ready?" He asked, and I nodded, my heart pumping faster than I could ever imagine. With that said, we jumped over the sandy rocks we had been hiding behind, and ran at full-pelt towards the unsuspecting clones. I reached the first one and grabbed him around the neck, barely aware of what I was doing. Swinging him around, I held him between myself and another clone as some sort of impromptu shield. The tactic paid off, as the other clone pointed the lethal-looking arm blade towards me, firing off a few shots in my direction, only to hit his own comrade. I pushed the dying clone forwards, grabbing the blade on his arm as he fell, pulling it off and examining it. Deep in my mind, long forgotten knowledge surfaced, and I placed it onto my own arm, sliding my fingers into the grip and pointing straight towards the other clone, squeezing off a few shots into him. My arm shuddered under the recoil, and I watched as the bullets blew straight into the clone's body, causing him to jerk violently and drop to the floor, blood flowing freely onto the warm sands beneath him.

I turned around to see Joachim drop a clone with relative ease, a single shot straight through the head. He dived to the left to avoid a flurry of bullets, his pistols exacting vengeance on those who dared to fight back. I felt movement behind me and swung the blade on my arm to my left, feeling a sick squelch as it embedded itself in the chest of a clone that had been moving up behind me. Just to make sure he was dead, I pulled the trigger while the blade was still stuck inside him, feeling him shudder and drop to the floor silently.

As yet another souless enemy charged forwards, I raised my free hand towards it, letting my mind clear of all other thoughts and trying to concentrate on casting a spell upon the crazed man. Suddenly, I felt my hands warm, and a swirling blast of fire erupted from them, hitting the clone square in the chest. I winced away from the foul odour of burning flesh, and turned to see what was going on elsewhere.

I was shocked to see that Joachim had removed his gloves, and had grabbed the last Imaginary Number by the face. The clone struggled and jerked violently, before dropping to the floor, completely lifeless.

"I thought those things had no souls?" I shouted to him, walking over and examining the dead clone.

"They don't, but I can still take them down."

"How's that supposed to work then?"

"Simple. Exposing them to spiritual energy overloads their internal functions. By giving them what they don't have, the sheer shock of it overwhelms and destroys them." I could almost imagine Firenze rubbing his hands together with glee. I looked down again at the clone, his face completely and utterly expressionless, his deep purple eyes staring blankly at some point beyond our vision. Creatures without a soul, they had deserved to die, even though my heart strained at causing so much unnecessary mortality.

Carefully, we moved on, leaving the dead in the blazing sunlight. More and more skirmishes followed, each one was shortly ended, each more violent and destructive as the one before. Eventually, after fighting our way into the very depths of the luxurious palace, we came across a solid-looking metal door. Joachim placed his ear against it, listening carefully, but shook his head in disappointment.

"There's someone on the other side, but I can't make out what they're saying."

"Leave that to me." I replied, calmly closing my eyes and allowing myself free of my own mortal bounds, free of the flesh and blood I had been encased within. After gently floating out of my body, I placed my faintly transparent hands on the cold metal of the imposing door. Slowly, I felt my body move through the surface, the particles of my soul mingling with the very elements of the door, a faint sense of unity flowing through my spiritual self as I emerged from the other side, unscathed.

I took a look at the room I found myself in. It was pretty well decorated, the floor was a deeply carved marble, bright white with deep flowing veins of maroon running across them, like blood vessels streaking across pale skin. It seemed to give the ground a strange organic feel, almost as if it was alive, and it resented me standing on it. The walls were decorated with a deep maroon, flickering lanterns adorned the walls, casting dark and intimidating shadows across the room. At the far end, stood up against the wall, was a large gate-like structure. It was made out a light shiny metal, long winding and elegant black patterns were carved into it's surface, trailing down it's sides like some sort of morbid ivy.

In front of this gate stood a group of five armoured people, chatting amongst themselves. I quickly floated down into the ground, so only the very top part of my head was visible, and I hid the only visible part of me just behind the eerie gate, listening intently to the conversation going on before me.

"So this is the Seer Gate?" One of the females in the group muttered in a mild sense of awe. Her silver hair was kept short, barely reaching past her ears, her body flickered and twitched. I noticed that her outline was faint too, indicating that she had passed away, and was now just a spirit. With a horrible shock, I realised that I recognised two of the people in the room, and I had to stop myself from gasping with my hand.

"Yes, this is what the master told us to seek." Styx replied, flicking a rogue strand of hair out of his cold eyes, staring directly at the gate before them.

"When's the cannon fodder showing up then?" A large man, carrying an equally large cannon of some sort snorted. "I wanna tear them limb from limb!"

"Calm yourself brother, don't get too worked up just yet." Cocytus patted him on the shoulder, and he shook in frustration.

"Lethe? Do you have any idea how to work this device?" Another member of the group, a young man I had not seen before, turned to the faint outline of a woman just behind him, his ornate arm-blade gleamed dully in the flickering flame of the lamp-light.

"Hmm, it shouldn't be too difficult." I shrunk back a little, so I was almost completely embedded in the wall as well as the floor. I delved beneath the room, my world plunging into a deep dank darkness as I fell into the earth beneath the palace, floating forwards through the depths until I was safe enough to pop back upwards, pulling my spiritual form back into my warm comfortable body.

"So, what's going on?" Joachim asked.

"There's five of them, Styx and Cocytus are there too." I dug my hand into a pocket, pulling out the informational device Rin had given us, tapping a few buttons until I found what I wanted.

The Children Of Erebus

These five siblings form a crack tactical team, and were found to be highly active during the Trans-War. They are lead by the oldest member of the group, Styx. The others are as follows: Cocytus, Acheron, Lethe, and Phelgethon. Approach with extreme caution.

"So what would a crack squad be doing all the way out in the middle of the desert?" Joachim looked thoughtfully at the solid door before us.

"Well, they were looking at some sort of big metal gate device against the wall. I wonder what that is?" I muttered partly to myself, partly to the confused-looking mercenary beside me.

"Whatever it is, it can't be good if they get their hands on it. I reckon we pay them a little visit."

"Two against five? Isn't that a little ambitious?" I suddenly felt a pang of worry. Joachim shook his head.

"We can't just sit out here all day, we've got to do something about them." I slowly nodded, very reluctant to go any further.

"I suppose so. Let's just be careful." He nodded and opened the door, handguns pointed squarely ahead of him. I followed closely, my hands raised with spells at the ready.

The room was empty.

"What the hell?" He muttered in confusion, before I heard a loud slam behind us. I turned to see Lethe standing by the heavy metal door, which was now closed, a small silver key in her hand.

"You didn't really think we were that stupid, did you?" Acheron walked out from the shadows in the corner. Slowly but surely, the others came out of hiding, each carrying weapons at the ready. My head screamed at me to run away, but where to? The only escape route had just been sealed off, we were trapped like rats.

"Hmm, I don't think these are the ones the master spoke of." Styx spoke to the others, while staring directly at me. "I'm sure he said there were five of them."

"The others must be around somewhere. We'll sort them out later." Phelgethon snarled, toying with the huge weapon in his hands. I really didn't want to get in the way of that thing when it went off.

"Are you two going to stand there, or am I going to have do everything myself?" Firenze muttered, and I dove forwards as the entire chamber erupted into rapid movement.

In a mere instant, Joachim had undergone his terrifying transformation into Firenze, his massive black wings neatly folded up against his back due to lack of space to spread them. His malevolent presence seemed to fill the whole room, partly scaring the elite squad attacking us. This must have been the first time they had ever seen a part-wraith, and I could vouch for the fact that it was never a pleasant experience. I turned over and threw a thunder spell at Acheron, who quickly dodged the crackling arcs of lightning I had shot at him, and fired wildly at Firenze, who was slashing viciously at Styx with huge black claws. Each blow looked like it could have taken down a tree, yet Styx managed to nimbly avoid these attacks, his silver blade flashing in the dim light as he struck back.

Firenze let loose a deafening roar that seemed to shake the very planet itself. Dust and sand drifted down from the ceiling as the power behind the roar shook the foundations of the chamber. I jumped back to my feet, dodging left to avoid a wild swing from Acheron, retaliating with a swift punch to his neck. He pulled backwards, shocked from the impact, and I took advantage of this, swinging my left leg into his chest quickly. However, this proved to be a costly mistake, as I felt my foot crack loudly on his thick dark armour. I yelped in pain, before hearing a loud bang, and feeling a dull ache in my back. I turned around to see Cocytus pointing her tiny silver pistol straight at me, and I jerked in pain as I felt another round fly into my body, this one penetrating my chest with a horrifying squelch of blood and flesh.

Across the room, Firenze was running into problems of his own. Styx was now being backed up by Lethe, who was quickly sprinting around the massive black beast, causing the odd cut and wound on his pale white flesh, cutting through a few of the blackened bandages that adorned his body. Meanwhile, Phelgethon had readied his cannon, and levelled it straight at Firenze.

I screamed and threw a powerful thunder spell at the warrior, knocking his aim away, and instead he hit the wall near to Styx, who shouted in shock as he ducked quickly.

"Sorry boss." Phelgethon muttered, before readying his weapon again. This time, Firenze was prepared, and knocked the large man backwards with a back-hander, smashing him into the wall behind him.

While this was happening, I felt myself getting weaker and weaker, the bullets lodged in my chest and back were causing me to become lethargic. I shuddered from blood loss, starting to feel cold. Acheron took advantage of this and slashed at me again. This time I wasn't quick enough, and I screamed in agony as the blade cut right into my left arm, sending a wide splash of blood to splatter the wall.

Firenze turned to see me in imminent danger, and waded in, his roar blasting my eardrums apart. However, he was hit by a combination of shots from Acheron and Cocytus, and promptly dropped to the floor, slowly reverting back to his human/genome form. I swayed a little, the loss of blood finally getting to me, and I fell to the floor beside Joachim, gasping for breath like a goldfish out of water.

The last thing I saw before succumbing to unconsciousness was the heavy metal door that had been locked earlier fly across the room, propelled by a huge purple explosion from the corridor outside. My swaying vision picked up on a few blurred shapes entering the room, but I descended into darkness before I could figure out who they were.