Ar Tonelico
Rite of Passage: A Murmur In The Dark
Chapter 12: Assault of the Omegas
Lyner followed Shurelia out through their small camp where they met Aurica, Misha, and Vincent facing the direction of the choir, already standing there listening.
"So…there are Reyvateil out here!" Vincent said with his brow furrowed. "How peculiar…"
"What do you mean?" Lyner asked.
"Well, there weren't any traces of them at Nervocelambra," Vincent reminded him. "Nor was there any trace of Song Magic. I had figured that this whole realm operated on a different type of magic altogether, like the kind this peculiar sea was crafted from."
"That song…it sounds familiar," Misha said with an annoyed look on her face. "But I can't quite place it."
"Ohh, don't you just hate déjà vu?" Aurica said cheerfully. She ran over to Lyner and gave him a big wet kiss on the cheek. "Hi Lyner! You were awesome in battle today!"
"Thanks, I've been practicing though," he said with a wink while putting an arm around the jealous-looking Shurelia's waist.
"These songs make me ill at ease," the Tower Administrator said. "We should wake everyone up and go check it out."
"Hmm," Lyner said, stroking his beard. "Vincent, are you getting a Quiad reading from that direction?"
"I don't believe so," Vincent answered. "But we are getting fairly close to the large grouping of the third Quiad I detected earlier."
"Alright; maybe it's a lone Reyvateil colony or something?" Lyner wondered. "Mir would certainly have liked that!"
"On the contrary, Mir has begun to accept humans into her heart once more," Ayatane said, approaching from his tent with a yawn. "It seems your guidance has ushered in a new era of respect for Reyvateils by humans."
"W-well, I'd like to think I did," Lyner said, blushing. "So should I go get everybody?"
"Nah, I got it!" Misha said with a wink, and started singing a Green Magic song. Within twenty seconds, every party member recognized the signal for what it was, and they all congregated (fully armed) at the edge of camp.
"Let's head out, but everyone; be on your guard, just in case," Lyner instructed, and the team slid down into the valley in front of them.
The team slowly made their way up and around two more massive violet waves of squishiness, making much faster progress now that they had rested. In about ten minutes, the party came to the peak of a nearby standstill wave, and froze at the sight. There in front of them, was what appeared to be a gigantic factory, here in the middle of this isolated, mystical landscape.
"A- a factory?!" Radolf queried. "What on earth could they be producing? And who do they supply to?"
"Hmm…" Vincent thought, stroking his goatee. "I've noticed that this Neutron ooze substance is actually quite fertile with nutrients; perhaps it's a massive farming center?"
"I dunno, I don't see many telltale signs of farming," Ayatane mentioned.
"Oh well, who cares, let's check it out. The singing's obviously coming from there!" Lyner announced.
As the group consented and slid down the tidal wave into the very long runway onto the factory ground, Misha couldn't help but feel apprehensive; the song that was being sung by multiple Reyvateil seemed like it was unpeeling her soul verse by verse. She just wanted to get away from it. Not wanting to bother Lyner with her inner problems, however, she just gritted her teeth and skated after the party on the squishy ooze.
The ooze had flattened out into a slant now, so the party gained momentum quickly and traveled the mile-long distance in no time.
As they neared the hulking steel castle, which was sending descending clouds of smog over the Sea, Lyner took a deep breath of the sordid air. He could feel a battle coming on. As the ground began to level out, the party's sliding speed gradually decreased.
"Wow, that was fun!" Shurelia exclaimed. "But how will we ever get back to our tents?"
Lyner shrugged; he always liked traveling light anyway. Some large stocks of corn had appeared as they neared the ugly factory. As Lyner was busy analyzing their large physical structure, he felt someone watching him, so he looked down and saw what appeared to be the harvesters: three nude Reyvateils of utmost beauty.
Misha gasped. She knew those faces from somewhere; but it was with different hair, and a different body shape. Whatever the case, the three girls' ghastly stares freaked something inside of her out.
"Uh, excuse me ladies," Lyner said with a smile as he attempted to skid to a stop, but in doing so accidentally cut into the water and fell into it. He laughed and flailed about, trying to get out, but when he looked up, he noticed that the gorgeous Reyvateil with fiery red hair had bent down to look at him.
When her face got down next to his, she suddenly screamed maniacally, "FOR CHRIST'S SAKE, KILL THEM ALL!", making his blood curl terribly.
The other two nodded, and began to spell cast, while the redhead suddenly thrust her mouth forward, fangs bared. Fortunately, he was too quick for her; he whipped out his sword and cut her down the middle of her skull before she could bite him.
"COULD SOMEONE HELP ME OUT OF THIS GOOP?!?" Lyner yelled, knowing he was probably the target of the remaining two Reyvateil's spells. Unfortunately, momentum had carried the other nine party members just out of reach to help him.
Seeing this, Ayatane yelled, "It's no use, Lyner, just swim after us!"
Lyner nodded, and ripped off his armor, so it would stop threatening to sink him. Kicking the last of it into the depths of the Sea, Lyner swam onwards after the party, hanging on to his sword. "Start running, all of you!" he screamed, as the momentum began to make him pick up speed.
Just as Lyner and the group ran/swam into the entrance to the factory, Lyner's heart dropped. He heard the evil Reyvateil's songs abruptly stop, signifying their launch. Lyner threw his head around to see what was coming, and gaped. A giant, ugly horse-like dragon had erupted into the sea, and a massive red minotaur seemingly entirely crafted out of blood soared into the sky, hovering after the party at an inhuman speed.
"Everyone! Head for cover!" Lyner cried as he and the party made it to solid land inside the castle. As they ran inside, Lyner noticed that the singing got incredibly louder, but only caring about his immediate survival at the moment, he ran up behind Shurelia and Misha, scooped both of them up with either arm, and he dashed behind a giant black-and-red cog, hoping it would protect them. He heard the roar of the dragon, and the hoarse hackneying of the zombie bull approach faster and faster, until suddenly the entire room exploded into an extraordinary combination of blue and red energy.
For a moment, Lyner lost consciousness, and felt as if he were floating in another dimension, one in which his soul was being ravaged by the hands of ancient leviathans.
Then, suddenly, his eyes snapped open. The giant gear lay in shambles, but it had apparently protected the party, since they were all there and in one piece. Just as he was about to wipe his brow in relief, he remembered the singing.
Lyner looked up. There towering above him, was an entire pantheon of different rooms of the castle, among which hundreds, no thousands, of nude Reyvateils stared down at him. And, he noticed, all had exactly the same face. He would have thought it an extremely beautiful one, had a replica of it not just tried to bite his own face off a moment ago. Lyner remembered the face of every man or woman he had ever killed. And there above him, ten thousand people with that eerie face looked at him; their eyes empty of all emotion.
"Oh my god!" he heard Aurica say behind him. Turning, he saw Aurica point at the symbol in front of the massive velvet throne on one side of the pantheon. He recognized the symbol immediately, and glared at Vincent. Vincent looked back innocently, apparently not catching on. "This factory belongs to TENBA!" Lyner hissed. "It's a trap! Devon sent us here to DIE!!"
Misha's face morphed into one of understanding. "OH, so this is where all of Tenba's Reyvateils are made." Her eyes shifted onto Mahine's face, which was identical to the rest of the evil Reyvateils. That's where she had seen it before. "Including you."
Before anyone could respond, a masculine voice rang out throughout the hall. It spoke a singular command: "FOR CHRIST'S SAKE, KILL THEM ALL!"
Extremely eerily, the entire pantheon of Reyvateils repeated those words, and their emotionless faces turned into faces of twisted psychopaths. The lowest tier of women leapt off their floor and began to attack Lyner and his friends with their nails and elongated teeth. The rest of the Reyvateils all began to sing.
"Okay, we've GOT to get out of here, or we're all going to be fingernails!" Jack roared while shooting a spray of machine gun bullets, killing 30 Reyvateil instantly.
Lyner slashed once and downed a similar number. These fighting variety really were poor fighters. "I agree. This bunch is just trying to hold us in place." He threw a look at the four Reyvateils of their group, who were all hiding behind the men so they wouldn't get touched by the zombie-like Reyvateils. "ALL of you, sing a speed-augmentation song, NOW! We cannot win here."
They all nodded and sang quite quickly, since their harmonics were up. Misha released hers first, followed by Shurelia. "That'll have to do," Ayatane said grimly. "Let's make a break for it before we're all destroyed!"
"NO! We need ALL the speed we can get!" Lyner said. "We have no idea what they're capable of, if just two can create monsters of godlike strength." In no time, Aurica and Mahine released their spells as well, and the entire party got more speed in their bones than 700 Yellow Potion A's would give you. "Alright!!!" Lyner roared. "Let's get the HECK out of here!"
The rest of the party roared back, for it was only way they could speak with this much energy pumping through their beings, and together they burst through a random wall, and another, and another, until finally they made it through the huge factory.
A large barbed wire fence came up quite quickly on the dashing party, and Lyner brought his sword up just in time to slash a hole in it.
It was at this precise instant that the monstrous song being sung by the Reyvateils in the factory ceased. "Oh, NO!!!" Radolf roared. "We're still too close!!"
"Make a break for it!!!" Ayatane roared, picking up speed.
As the party stepped onto the goop of the Neutron Sea once again, the elastic bounce of the surface gave them augmented speed. At least, it did for everyone but Misha, who immediately slipped and fell on her face, splashing in the water.
"No! Misha!" Lyner roared, whirling around. As he did, his eyes lit up with the monstrous creation that the evil Reyvateils had crafted. A league-tall grey dragon, if you could call it that, made entirely of cloud and rotating multi-eyed golden wheels sat perched on top of the comparatively small factory. Lyner counted at least 100 massive ghastly heads branching off from the wheels and clouds, and all of them were launching a variety of hulking energy bombs at the party.
"No you fool! She's not worth it!!" Vincent roared.
"Shut up!! Yes she is!" Lyner roared back. In one smooth movement, he collected her with his burly arm and raced back to catch up with the party, letting Misha use his elbow as a seat.
"Lyner!! I love you!!" Misha roared, her heart suddenly overflowing with love for him. She started singing brusquely. Lyner ventured a look at the massive bombs heading towards them. He knew immediately that they couldn't outrun them, if the blast was as big as he thought it was.
Yet he and the other seven runners (Yeeka was riding on Radolf's shoulder) continued to surge forward, their sheer willpower overcoming all other senses. Soon, Lyner could hear the approaching planet-sized orbs of nuclear energy over Misha's singing, and he knew that they were about to be obliterated.
At once, Misha released her newly crafted song, which caused seven dolphins to suddenly erupt from the sea and swim right next to each party member. "Grab on, everybody!" she screamed in her lovely voice, which had returned as a result of singing.
Without hesitation, everyone grabbed their accompanying dolphin and were quickly slurped into the huge sea beneath them. Underneath the surface, the water was much more red; in fact, it was kind of like swimming in blood. The dolphins didn't seem to mind, though, and sped deep underwater.
Lyner realized that he was starting to get a little creeped out, since he could hardly see anything. Suddenly, everything was illuminated when the hundred bombs hit the surface. Everyone looked up and saw a variety of colors exploding above them, but the sea seemed to consume every single bomb, without any of the energy reaching the party.
As the sea lit up, Lyner was alarmed to notice a hulking leviathan just beneath them, sneering at them with a face befitting the Devil. Fortunately, this leviathan didn't seem to have speed on his side, whereas Misha's dolphins did, and they sped onward.
Lyner sighed deeply; they had narrowly cheated death again. However, these dolphins kept going downwards into the bloodstained sea, and he was starting to run out of breath.
Meanwhile, Michaelis gripped his handrail, eagerly watching the gigantic explosion. The entire realm of the Neutron Sea lit up when the bombs impacted Lyner's party.
"Yes!" he jeered, and pressed up to his scantily-clad companion, Blaire, making out with her passionately. After a good long time, he resurfaced and breathed in the scent of her skin. "Finally; father, I have avenged you."
Blaire hadn't seen her master so happy for a while, so she was quite happy too. She hugged him tighter, nervous that she would mess up in the slightest sense and he would beat her abrasively for it.
Suddenly, Michaelis pulled away, grinning at her. "We must thank the perpetrators!" Blaire nodded fake-enthusiastically, and followed him down the bloodstained Black Hallway to the massive Great Hall, which looked something like a pantheon.
All the girls in the room immediately turned around and mooned him, like he had taught them to do whenever he talked to them, for they were not worthy to look upon their Creator's face. "My Creations!" Michaelis announced, his commanding voice resonating throughout the hall. "You have done well today for killing the spawn of Satan, Lyner Barsett! As a reward, you can all have emotions for exactly one hour." The multitude of mooning girls beneath him cheered, but didn't move. Satisfied with their manufactured response, Michaelis curtly nodded to Blaire and walked back into the hallway that was drenched in her blood.
At this instant, after first singing a song of protection that ensured that the Reyvateils would not rebel against her, Michaelis, or the factory itself, she sand the song of freedom (she had been inspired by classical Nervocelambran songwriting when she wrote this; she thought the result was quite complementary), and a wave of emotion registered on each Reyvateil's face beneath her. She silently performed one more song; which was to locate Mahine in order to see whether she was still alive.
Unfortunately, Blaire saw Mahine swimming through the sea, unblemished. This meant more bloody beatings in the future. Blaire sighed; if she didn't tell Michaelis this now, however, she might get a break from being ravaged in the near future. She didn't know how long she could get away with not telling him, but she would have to do it before he found it out from an external source, or he would surely kill her.
Now, she heard her evil master beckoning her to bed with him, and she skipped back to him, hoping to receive from love from him tonight.
Lyner had quickly lost consciousness underwater, as had the rest of the party, and when they all awoke, they were back on the surface of the jiggly Neutron Sea. Lyner coughed a little and stood up, helping Misha up, who was still beside him. "Are you alright, Misha?" he asked, concern evident in his eyes.
"Of course!" Misha grinned up at him. "As long as I'm with you nothing can touch me!"
Lyner smiled softly. "If it wasn't for you, we'd all be little particles floating in the sea! Thanks!" he leaned forward and kissed her once on the lips.
He regarded the others. "Everybody okay?" The various travelers nodded and helped each other up off the sea. "Vincent?" he asked.
"Yeah?" the scientist muttered.
"Did you, er…know about that factory?"
"No, I've never heard anything about it!" he said with wide eyes. "Please believe me!"
Jack narrowed his eyes. "He's obviously lying! He's the frickin' head of the Scientific branch of Tenba; how could he NOT know about it? Hell, he probably designed the frickin' place!"
Everyone glared at Vincent and Mahine. "Look," Vincent held his hands up. "I swear this is someone else's doing! Something this top-secret would have to be a Devon project! Remember, no one at all is supposed to know the Neutron Sea even exists! I sure didn't."
Lyner supposed Vincent made sense; the less Tenba officials that knew about the place, the less likely the company would get in serious legal trouble. "So…what exactly WERE those women?"
"Hmm," Vincent said, pulling on his soaked goatee. "Judging by the extreme nature of their verses, I would presume it's safe to say that they operate on a different level altogether than the Origin, Beta, and Third Generation Reyvateil types."
"I agree," Misha spoke up. "Hey Vincent, did you ever see the readouts for Tenba's abandoned Omega Reyvateil project? Because, their songs remind me of the Omegas."
Vincent nodded intently. "That's very perceptive of you; I have a feeling Tenba didn't stop make Omegas after all."
"But these ones, they're different; and MUCH more powerful!" Misha said. "They don't all look like me."
"Yes, they do, actually," Vincent said. "Just not EXACTLY like you. They must be cloning with a combination of originals, you being one of them."
"The other part is Mir, it has to be!" Ayatane announced. "Why else would Tenba take her? I'm going back, she's probably there right now!"
"No, stop!!" Lyner said crazily, grabbing Ayatane by the shoulder. "You don't know that for sure! Besides, if you go in there alone, you're just being suicidal!"
"But I love her!" Ayatane cried, throwing Lyner's arm off of him, but he didn't move.
"I fear you may be right, Ayatane," Vincent said, looking sadly up at the pearly stars. "That would explain why this batch of Omegas is so powerful; they're a combination of two legendary Reyvateils, the Star-Singer and the Murdering Mule." He looked back down at Ayatane. "So that means Devon was lying to you when he said Tenba didn't take her."
While Ayatane fumed, Lyner shrugged and asked, "So what's our heading now, Vincent?"
Before the young man could answer, Jack interrupted. "Wait, we're actually going through with this mission! For all we know, Devon just tried to kill us, and we're STILL doing his dirty work?"
Lyner glared at him. "Have you forgotten already? What about the Severed Serpent? It can save all of Nervocelambra AND your girlfriend! Or do your promises mean so little to you?"
A look of comprehension crossed Jack's face. "Oh," he said. "But why are we still following the Quiads?"
"Because it's our only source of bearing," Radolf explained. "That singular cluster of the third Quiad is the only thing we have a location for. Right now we have NO idea where we are, so going back there is the best start we can do." He looked up. "If only we'd been paying attention to the stars."
"Don't bother, I already tried it," Aurica said. "The "stars" if that's even what they are, come and go randomly. The constellations are inconsistent, at least so far as I've noticed."
"Okay, may I talk now?" Vincent asked impatiently. "We're actually still very close." He pointed off in the distance. "You see that extremely curvy wave far off there?"
"No," Lyner said.
"Uh, the one that looks like a Brachiosaurus?" Vincent muttered, embarrassed to say it the first time.
"Uhhhhh, no. What's that?"
"Er, the one that looks like a penis?" Vincent said even quieter.
"Ohhh, yeah, now I see it!" Lyner said with a goofy grin.
"…that's our bearing," Vincent said with a sigh.
"Alright, let's go!" Lyner said, and he and Jack brought up the lead once more. It was rather odd walking now that their extra energy had been depleted, but the party made the best of it.
After a few hours, with even fewer battles, mostly with giant stingrays from the sea beneath them, the team came upon a very odd sight; a shore.
Everyone paused, not wanting to believe their eyes. It seemed a huge beach stretched out to the left and right, and the Neutron Sea was behaving like normal water, wracking wave after wave on the shore. Surprisingly, a number of people were relaxing on the beach too.
"What in Mir's name..?" Lyner asked aloud. "What's a freakin' beach doing here!"
"Well, what are we waiting for?" Shurelia asked eagerly. "Let's kick back and relax for a bit, shall we?"
"Yeah, can we, please?!" Aurica pleaded with Lyner, her turquoise eyes wide with desire.
Lyner paused poutingly, and spared a look for Misha. She was nodding her head vigorously at him. He relented. "Oh alright, let's have some fun!"
The girls all cheered and dashed down the final frozen wave onto the mile run to the sandy shore. Halfway there, they plunged into the water, apparently unable to walk on it any longer. "Oh, come in, it feels SO-O-O-O good!" Misha exclaimed, and the rest of the party could hear her from back there.
Jack shrugged. "Well, I might as well go, who knows what kind of hot babes are hanging out here?" He walked down too, and the others all looked at each other with raised eyebrows, wanting to get on with the mission.
As Jack walked onto the sand, drenched with refreshing water, he saw that the girls had already set up their own umbrellas and towels. "Where did you girls get all those?" he asked as he concentrated very hard on them while they stripped to their undergarments.
"Oh, we just spent most of Lyner's leaf at that stand over there!" Shurelia said of the shack just a little ways up the beach. "Ooh, here he comes now!" Jack, Aurica, and Misha all looked up to see Lyner and the other more reserved travelers finally following them.
"Alright, this is gonna be a sweet beach party!" Jack announced, throwing his hat off into the air with a flourish. It went sailing off into the distance, where two random naked girls ran out to catch it. Jack raised an eyebrow at this; why weren't they wearing any clothes?
He didn't really mind, but he was still curious. The Reyvateils didn't seem to catch the nudity of their beachmates. He looked around and noticed a wooden sign with its back to them. Stomping forward in the sand as he removed his hot, dark-colored clothing, he went to the front of the sign to read it. It said:
"World-Famous Tong-Rhok Nude Beach. Come and enjoy all that the Neutron Sea breeze has to offer, in all the ways it can be enjoyed!"
"Oh, no!" Jack said with a huge grin. "OHHHHHH, no! This just can't be happening!"
A/N: But it just did. Apparently my offer of Lemon Meringue pie didn't help y'all review much. What about French Silk? I LOVE that stuff! I'll e-mail everyone who reviews this chapter a free slice of French Silk pie, just cuz I love you that much!
Tell me what you think. Beware, the next chapter has a lot of nondescriptive nudity in it! Cover your eyes! I'm still trying to go for a T rating. If you think I should change it, please let me know.
By the way, Part 1 of this epic (A Murmur In The Dark) comes to a close in about three chapters. Woot, thanks for sticking with me this far.