CHAPTER 11 Loyalty
Disclaimer: Keshi-sama does not own Azumanga or any characters
Jaryl stepped into the regeneration chamber. 'Damn Byrten. So troublesome. I can't see why the Prince, Kan'l, of all people, would let 'em live. I will show him his mistake,' he thought as he walked to the regeneration tanks' master control. After pressing a combination of buttons, he turned to watch the light in the tanks fade.
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Eylmey's vision was blurred. 'Why did I listen to her?' the former prince thought as he rubbed his head. He waited for his vision to return before sitting up. Looking around, he saw the wreckage of the ship. Laying around him were the Byrtel girls, unconscious but all in reasonably good shape, aside from a few scratches. He stood and looked himself over.
It seemed as though he was in the worst shape. The cloak actually did the Byrten some good, as none of them were badly bleeding. Eylmey bent down to pick up his cloak off the ground. Putting it back around his shoulders, he turned to wake up the girls.
After some time, he had them all up and ready to move. Tomo stretched and yawned rather loudly. Yomi was cleaning off her glasses with her sleeve. Minamo was checking to see what they still had. Sakaki was standing near Chiyo, who was helping Minamo. Osaka was standing by herself, looking into the clouds.
"We had best start off," Eylmey said. They gathered everything together quickly, and began to walk off towards Tokyo.
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Rylan stood in front of the experiment's transport. He yawned and turned to his fellow guard. "How long 'till we're done?" he asked. Talya shrugged and responded, "Whenever the Kyshen gets here, I guess." Rylan sighed and turned away from his female partner. They had been standing guard for hours now, and he was starting to lose his patience with the Kyshen, no matter what they were.
That experiment had proven to be a problem for him and Talya. When it first arrived, they had looked in to see what it was. Rylan's body still hurt from when it had grabbed him and slammed him against the wall.
He yawned again and looked around. The sun was overhead, lighting up the silver metal of the temporary outpost around them. Over the small wall, he could see a dead Byrtel hanging from one the buildings. The Lyracl that were teamed with Hakrsat had grown into the habit of showing off their kills.
"Did you hear that?" he heard Talya ask. He turned and said, "Hear what?" Talya looked around and responded, "Nothing," Rylan shrugged and turned back around. After a while he said, "I need to walk." He took a few steps and turned the corner of the transport, and collided with another body.
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Naoko prepared to fight as the Lyracl stood. He gasped as he saw her, obviously knowing who she was. The guard scrambled to bow as the other walked around the corner. The Lyracl woman smiled and made a small bow. "Muryl said it would be a Byrtel. I am Talya, and this is Rylan," she said, straitening her back. Naoko tilted her head as she peaked into their minds. 'I'm sorry, but you're not allowed in here,' was the thought she received as she was pushed out of Talya's mind.
"We are part of the Dryka Mirkat, working inside Kanyl's forces. We were given this experiment to guard. We used this-," she said, holding up a small device, "-to attract only the most powerful Kyshen. You. There is something we need to show you." Talya turned and beckoned for Naoko to follow.
She walked around the side to the front of the transport and pressed a few buttons on the small panel next to the door. Rylan walked next to her with his rifle in hand. The panel sunk into the door and the Lyracl stepped back. "I suggest you do the same. The experiment is very dangerous," she said to Naoko as Rylan shivered. Slowly, the door slid open, light spilling into the darkness inside the transport. Naoko could see a pair of feet in the corner, the rest of the body concealed by the shadows.
Talya turned her head to Naoko. "This is the first in line of a new breed of soldier, the Sylrsel 1." The figure in the corner stood and walked into the light. "Hello, Naoko."
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Eylmey and the girls walked through the outer part of Tokyo. The wreckage was lighter here, and not as many dead bodies were littering the street. It was sometime after noon, but the heat of summer was not present. Cold winds blew, making Eylmey flinch. 'It approaches,' he thought as he pulled on the side of his cloak.
The girls had accepted the fact that there was death, and that there was a good chance that they would all die as well. Tomo walked with her hands behind her head. Osaka had fully recovered, and was able to walk by herself. Chiyo walked alongside Sakaki. Minamo was near Eylmey. Yomi sighed as she walked up to Tomo. "Do you trust him?" she asked her wildcat friend. "He's gotten us this far, so why not?" was Tomo's reply, a question for a question.
"He's one of them," Yomi said, "How do we know we can?" Tomo pulled her hands down long enough to shrug, "He seems like he's on our side. Besides, what could we do without him? He knows more about what's happening." Yomi sighed again. She didn't trust Eylmey, even if he said he was friendly.
Osaka was thinking to herself. 'How did Ah know what was gonna happen? Am Ah psychic now or somethin'?' She continued to ponder that as the group moved through the ruins of a former shop. Eylmey ducked under a fallen support beam that had fallen across the building. He looked back at the girls for a second before continuing.
The tall one, called Sakaki, had small cuts across her arms and legs, and a long one across her cheek. Chiyo wasn't badly hurt, mainly scrapes. Tomo had a long cut up the side of her leg. 'That will scar,' Eylmey thought, seeing that. Yomi had several bruises along with a burn on her shoulder from a weak laser shot that she hadn't noticed. Osaka still had a small burn on her shoulder from the day before, along with new cuts from the crash. Minamo, the one who followed him, had one of her sleeves sliced to ribbons, though still attached to the shirt, and a cut stretching down her forehead to the left to the bottom of her cheek.
He himself had small burns spotting the front of his clothing and armor. His gloves were gone, as was the top of his left boot. Eylmey again pulled at his cloak as his small group of survivors stopped to rest in the alley next to the store.
They hid behind some stray rubble piled around in it. It had been a little over an hour and a half since they had crashed, and they had run half of the way back, which was around six miles. During their rest, they jumped at the sound of footsteps coming closer. They stopped right outside it and the girls all froze. Eylmey peeked his head slowly around the side of the rubble he had hid behind to see what had stopped.
He saw a pair of Lyracl soldiers stopped in front of the alley, obviously sure that they had secured the city and its surrounding area. They started talking almost as soon as Eylmey had seen them. "Have you seen what these Haruksa do with their kills?" asked one of the soldiers. "Don't they hang them from high places?" was the questioning answer. "Besides that. I saw one of them eating a dead female," the first soldier explained.
"Not even these Hur'Byrten deserve that their dead be eaten by some lizard." "I agree. We shouldn't even have offered these beasts their pay, but it is the Prince's will, and we should try to tolerate them, at least until this world is cleansed of the Hur'Byrten filth and brought into the Empire."
The other soldier nodded slightly. The Lyracl stood for a while longer before continuing on. Eylmey breathed out as he turned back to the girls. "We need to keep moving," he said to them as he stood, straitening his cloak. The group was off back into the city within a short time.
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Vaera rolled the Dyven-Hel in between her fingers, thinking over what she had found. Raen's story seemed to be correct, as she could not find any missing information on the crew files. 'Damn that Raen,' the Lyracl woman thought as she turned the Dyven-Hel around again. Sighing, annoyed, she sat the crystal on her desk and stood up. 'Those Humans take constant care. Frail things,' Vaera thought.
She walked out of her observation office and into the girl's room. The girl was busing herself with a small piece of paper and a pencil. She seemed to be humming. "Hum humhum humHUM! Hum humhum humHUM! Hum humhum humhum humHUM, Hum humhum humhum! Oh, hi!" she said cheerfully, finally realizing that Vaera was there. Vaera smiled warmly and said, "You seem to be having fun."
The girl nodded and said, "Um hum! I'm drawing a picture, see?" The girl held up the picture for Vaera to see. In amazing detail, it showed a burning star, with a Ravager Ballistic Barge flying above the ruins of a large building. Vaera inwardly gasped at the drawing. 'This girl shouldn't know what a Ravager looks like! How could someone with the mentality of a 9 year old have the ability anyway?' (A/N: Remember, Lyracl age three times slower than Humans, so the age really is 3)
Outwardly, she smiled and said, "It is very nice." The Human girl grinned happily and went back to drawing. Vaera stood and left the room. These Humans were becoming more and more interesting.
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Kagura coughed as she fell forward onto her knees. She coughed for a short time more and looked up. Just ahead of her, was one of the invaders. Growling, Kagura leaped up and charged straight towards the alien. The alien just watched her with and angry/annoyed look on his face. Kagura approached him rapidly. Just as she got within arm's length of the alien, a small laser pistol appeared in front of her face.
She stopped almost instantly while the alien said in a rough voice, "Is that how you Byrten show you gratitude to those who save you? Right now, I could end your life with a single movement of my finger, but I won', by Eylmey's order." He had the gun back up and turned away almost instantly. For the first time, Kagura noticed that other people were in the room with her and the alien.
She also notice that she was soaked, as were the others. Shaking, she finally straitened her back, though she did not relax. The alien was speaking to the other people in the room. She couldn't hear him, so she walked towards the group. All she caught was the end of the last sentence. "-need to get off'a this ship, n' I'm the only one who knows how," was what she heard.
The group, although reluctantly, gathered behind the alien. Kagura stood off to the side and stared until they began to walk towards the alien auto-door. She then followed them. It seemed as though there was only one way off the ship, if the alien wasn't lying.
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Yukari stepped into the large building. She was in the lobby of some sort of office building. The woman walked up to the Receptionist's desk. There was a large piece of the wood missing from it. Looking over the desk, she saw the fate that had befallen the unfortunate receptionist.
Yukari turned back around to see a splintered door. She walked up to it, stopping when she heard noise from inside the room. Throwing herself against the wall, lightly, she pulled the handgun into her hand. She peeked slowly around the corner of the door and looked in,
Inside the room was one of those dog-things. It was eating a dead one, and every now and then, it would sniff the air. It smelled the air again, and stopped. Turning around, Yukari saw that the creature had a look to kill on its face. It growled and ran towards the door, barking madly. Yukari turned away from the corner as the beast broke through what was left of the door.
She began to run towards the flight of stairs on the opposite side of the room. The thing could easily be heard behind her. She turned her head over her shoulder and fired a pair of rounds from her XD-45 Compact at the beast. It just shrugged off the wounds and kept running. 'Damn, what does it take to kill that thing?!' she thought as she turned back around.
Yukari started up the stairs, still running. The beast was faster than her, and she could hear it catching up to her. Up ahead, she spotted a small chunk of the stairs that were ripped up from its foundation. She changed the part of the stairs she was running up. 'Just a little farther…' she thought quickly, as she could hear the beast just right behind her.
She jumped over the stair chunk and pushed it down with her legs as she passed over it. Turning around, she saw the dog-thing be hit by the falling stone chunk. It fell down the stairs, howling loudly as it did so. Yukari waited for a few seconds before turning and continuing up the stairs.
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Kar-kazan stomped down the halls of the Syralri Kurous towards the docking bay. The traitor prince had humiliated him, and no sensible Tigriza could allow their honor to take that damage. Lyracl servants scattered away from him in fear as the tiger-alien stormed past. Three Haruksa mercenaries stepped aside, but eyed him angrily.
Kar-kazan stepped through the auto-door into the docking bay, where there was much action happening. The bay was wrecked, most of the ships damaged. Repair teams scurried back and forth, trying to fix the destroyed ships and the small parts of the walls that were torn. Since the breakout, the Lyracl had been trying to repair the massive damage done.
Kar-kazan stepped down the stairs from the catwalk that connected the doors of the upper levels of the ship here. He headed for the nearest available transport and stepped inside it.
The crew inside were startled at his appearance. They started out the door. Kar-kazan growled as he grabbed one of them by their shirt. "You will drive me to the planet, NOW!" he yelled as he threw the terrified Lyracl towards the cockpit of the transport. 'I will have my vengeance!' he thought angrily, looking out the steelglass panel to the planet below them.
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Translations: (Some I forgot) Raen – Silver, name form. Natural form, Uyae
Lyrai – Destiny, the Lyracl home world
Rylan – Autumn, name form. Natural form, Rayve
Talya – Spring, name form. Natural form, Uara
Sylrsel – Regenerative Combat Assault Unit
Tigriza – Kar-kazan's race
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Keshi-sama: Yet another chapter finished! Next chapter will be the last one before the flashback is over! If there are any words that you want translated into Lyracl, I would be happy to do so. Reviews are welcome.