The Quest 2: The Search for Oneself

by UkyoRafa

The sequel to my story, The Quest In the Name of Friendship. Sora and his friends have wakened from their sleep and have been confronted by new enemies the time has come for the heroes to gather and bring light to the darkness once more. BIG CROSSOVER

14. Chapter 13: Pyrrhic Victory

Hey, everyone.

Wow, I didn't think it'd take me so long to update... Sorry about that. Work's to blame, this time. But that's actually a good thing, I guess.

Well, at last, here it is: the final chapter of the AR saga.

Once more, this chapter goes to my friends on the game. I hope you enjoy it! (Although that goes for everyone else, too :P)

Very special thanks to Maici, who helped me in the creation of this last chapter. Thanks for the corrections, suggestions, and compliments :) Couldn't have done it without you!

Also, I'd like to thank Adrián Araya once again for helping me with some... technical aspects of the story. Crazy minds always come up with great things!

I'll leave you now to read. I hope you all enjoy this. I know I like the result :P

See ya!

Chapter Thirteen: Pyrrhic Victory

Narrator: Ken

Things were a real mess. And it wasn't like we could do much about it in our current mood. I mean, we were really pissed. It wasn't Wulfpack's job to rescue our friends from the Heartless (in a way), but keeping us from going to help them had been way out of line. Besides, Sora was the only one that could utterly defeat those fiends. We had practically abandoned our friends like sheep to the coyotes. I guess this goes unsaid, but we were mad at ourselves too. We could've done more than just bitch and moan about it.

It was not all hopeless, however. The guys had told us that Jazzy had turned on a device that was letting them know he was still alive and his location. There wasn't a doubt in our hearts that our pals were with him, as well. I know Ryu's a very tough nut to crack, so I knew he was still kicking. Besides, we all knew JazzyJet wasn't stupid: he wouldn't have turned on for his friends to go pick him up unless things had calmed down.

Balance, EvaRaine, Narue, Kobe, and DjFlaco had attended the call and were on their way to Bark. We were all crossing our fingers so that no Heartless or A.N.I. would be there at that time. We didn't want another fight against the opposing nation, especially after Ryu had hit the nail on the head about our other friends. We were really thankful to him: if he hadn't thought of that, it was very likely that we would've accidentally killed one of them.

I wasn't sure if the Wulfpack still felt like fighting. For one hand, they had witnessed a new enemy, far deadlier and more dangerous than the A.N.I. They knew the Heartless were our primary concern at the present time. Nevertheless, we had lost SupraBoy, Garfungle, and Starsiege to the other nation. Chances were our friends' blood was boiling. We surely hoped this wasn't the case. It was time to put a halt to this madness. It was time for a truce.

Of course, it would be difficult to talk the Wulfpack guys into it if we were also angry. We knew we had to calm down, but we just couldn't stop thinking about how they had dragged us away from them.

We had all left the Wulfpack Headquarters and were roaming around the city aimlessly, both trying to calm down and to come up with a plan.

"I know they did it to take care of us," Sora said. "But we can't just leave our friends alone because it's too dangerous. I mean, Siegfried and Wilheim didn't leave Octavius and Ukyo in Hades because it was a deadly mission, right?"

"Right," Siegfried agreed. "I swear, if something happens to any of them because we weren't there, I'll never forgive Wulfpack or the B.C.U."

"Remember they did all this for a reason," Goofy interjected, trying to calm down the excitable lad. "I bet they're also as worried about Jazzy and Gallager as we are about our pals. I think they have a better idea about what we're dealing with, when it comes to ships."

"But we know better, when it comes to the Heartless," Donald quacked. "We could even have taken care of that big one if they had let us try."

"Gwarsh... I don't know..."

"Let's try to forget about that," Felicia said. "There's no use griping over a matter which we can no longer change. Let the past be; we've got to start thinking about what we will do to change this planet's fate. Let's think: how do we get the B.C.U. and the A.N.I. to establish a truce?"

"That's a toughie," Adrian sighed. "Baiken's and Octavius's hatred towards me is child's play compared to how much these guys hate each other."

"I'll say," I murmured. "Well, the most important thing right now is to convince Milky. If he doesn't want to make a truce, there will be no peace. So we'll have to talk him into it."

"He'll laugh in our faces," Siegfried grumbled.

"We still have to try," Sora insisted. "Even Milky has to admit that the Heartless are the biggest threat right now. The B.C.U. can't take on them by themselves alone. We need Arlington's help as well."

"Let's go talk to him," I said. "Like Sora said, there's nothing wrong in trying."

"Unless, of course, they would take that request as a 'spy thing'," Adrian said. "Paranoia is queen here, remember?"

"Sora is the only one who can stop the Heartless for good," Felicia added. "I think Milky will understand if we tell him that."

"Think what you will," Siegfried said with a patronizing tone. "I personally believe he'll think we're crazy."

(Change of scene)

"You guys must be on drugs, or something," Milky said with a sarcastic chuckle from behind his desk. "Do you really think that we'll establish a truce with the A.N.I. just because some dark beings are attacking us? I mean, seriously: were you lobotomized?"

Well, at least he didn't hint that we were spies.

"Listen, Milky, we have more of an idea of what we're facing than you," Sora retorted. "We know how dangerous the Heartless can be. So far, we've triumphed over them on our journeys because we know what we're dealing with, for one part. On the other hand, we've also always counted with the help of the world's inhabitants. That means that you've got to help us, unless you want your planet to be an appetizer for the Heartless."

"If you know how to deal with them, we can help you," Bygeniou's leader replied. "But joining forces with Arlington is out of the question."

"You're not paying attention," I said, but before I could go on, he interrupted me.

"No, you're the one's that aren't listening! Were you even fighting yesterday? Didn't you see how many pilots we lost to the A.N.I.? Even the Wulfpack lost a few members, I understand. Do you honestly think that the B.C.U., even your brigade members, will want to fight alongside Arlington after a massacre like that? The best thing that you can hope for is that we get rid of both the Heartless and the A.N.I. No way are we joining forces. No way in hell."

"Listen, Creamy – can I call you Creamy?" Adrian intervened. We didn't react right away: we only managed to glare at him without saying a word.

"No!"

"...How about Lactose?"

"Adrian, how about you make your point?" I grumbled, seeing how Milky's head was about to explode.

"All right, all right... Anyway, hell may be a lot closer than you think, Milky. If you don't get help from somewhere, you'll get skewered, roasted, and breakfasted. Right now, you've got to stick to that immortal (like me) motto: 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend'. Sure, the A.N.I. may be your life-long rivals... right now, though, the two of you have one common foe. If you fight against the Heartless and against Arlington... well, why should I tell you again? I guess you're tired of listening that you're going to get gobbled up, huh?"

"The hatred between nations was that which caused that huge monster to appear," Felicia added. "Were you even fighting yesterday? Didn't you see how many ships got destroyed by that abomination? I sure did! And I saw no less than thirty ships trying to attack it at once. None of them did squat!" She approached Milky's desk and banged it with her fist. She meant business, all right... "It'll be even less fighters attacking that thing next time, if you don't put a halt to this war. Try to use that big melon on top of your shoulders for once, hmm??"

"Easy, Felicia..." Goofy said with a nervous chuckle, gently drawing her away from the desk. "And to think you haven't spent that much time with Baiken..."

"So, what do you think, Milky?" Donald asked, leaning presumptuous and confidently on the table. "It's a matter or staying alive or else. I think the answer to that riddle is pretty simple."

"You guys don't understand, do you?" the man laughed desperately. "Even if I did want to make peace with the A.N.I., there's still Jester! You don't know what that sociopath is like! If I went to try and negotiate a truce, he would have me shot as soon as I stepped out of the ship."

"Why don't you offer him to come here?" Sora suggested. He, of course, immediately realized how idiotic the proposal sounded.

"Sure, I'll send him a letter after lunch," Milky sardonically scoffed.

"It's not as hopeless as you think," Siegfried intervened. He took a deep breath and then confessed: "You see, we have friends in Arlington. I'm sure they're trying to convince Jester to make a truce as we speak."

"Friends? In Arlington?" the man asked, his voice turning into a suspicious whisper.

"Way to go, Siegfried," Donald murmured angrily.

"No, wait; Siegfried is right," I hastily said. "If we want this to work, then we've got to trust the B.C.U. as they have trusted us so far."

"Well, not exactly like that," Will's brother grumbled, rolling his eyes.

"Siegfried, don't," Felicia hissed.

"What did I say? It's not like – besides Wulfpack – they welcomed us with open—"

"I mean it: stop. Just stop."

"Listen, Milky, this is how it happened..." I said, not minding my friends' discussion and explained him everything about our arrival to the planet, how we had gotten separated from our friends, and about the Heartless and what they were doing here.

We all thought perhaps that would make him realize that a truce was the only way to go... He didn't quite react the way we hoped he would.

"You guys are talking out of your ass," he groaned. "Get your butts out of here. We'll be able to handle this: you worry about your own business."

"Are you deaf or stupid?!" I roared. "What the heck are you—!" But before I could keep insulting him, Sora stepped forth as he signaled me to shut up.

"Okay: have it your way," he said. "But what if Jester was the one who proposed the truce? What would you do, then?"

"Jester?! No doubt you guys are stoned!" he laughed mordantly.

"Hypothetically speaking, of course!" the boy added.

"What, are you going to turn that major son of a bitch all cuddly and loving?"

"We can try."

"Ha!! He'll shoot you down the minute he sees your ships!"

"Not if we're not piloting a B.C.U. aircraft," Sora retorted.

Milky stared at him in silence for a couple of seconds before letting out yet another chuckle. Shaking his head, he said: "All right, do whatever you want. If Jester were to accede with a truce, I'll think about it. If you want to commit suicide, who am I to stop you? Just make sure you say your good-byes to your friends in Wulfpack: it's unlikely you'll ever see them again."

"Think what you will," the Keyblade bearer said and with that we left Milky's office.

"You're thinking about using the Gummi ship, aren't you?" Donald deduced, to which Sora nodded with a confident smile.

"Let's just hope Jester isn't as terrible as Milky says," Siegfried said.

"He'll probably be as stubborn as him, at least," Felicia guessed.

At that moment, three of the Wulfpack members spotted us and caught up with us. They were Yukunism, Gallger, and Atermel.

"Guys, where have you been?" asked Atermel. "We've been looking for you."

"Is something wrong?" I inquired.

"Nothing's particularly right... We were just worried about you," Gallger said.

"Don't worry, guys," Sora replied, somewhat dryly. "We'll be all right."

"Are you still mad at us?" asked Yukunism. "Listen, I know you guys wanted to help your friends, but staying out there would've been very dangerous."

"Yeah, but leaving Jazzy alone behind is much better," Siegfried groused.

"Jazzy is a monster: he can do better than any of us, better than any of you, for that matter," Gallger said.

"Listen, leave us be for the time being, okay?" Felicia interrupted. "We'll be all right once they're back."

"Sorry, Felicia..." Gallger mumbled regretfully.

"Actually..." Atermel said. "We do have something to tell you. Balence, DJ, Eva and the others just got back. They're in our Headquarters."

"Are our friends there?" I asked, but before we gave them a chance to answer, my buddies were already making their way to Wulfpack's command center. I ended up running behind them as well.

When we came in, we immediately noticed Balence, Eva, and Kobe – three of the pilots who had been sent to rescue Jazzy, Gallager and our friends – sitting on the sofas with an expression of defeat on their faces, accompanied by Spazzy, Sniperdog and Tricky. Of course, an amalgamation of feelings began to flow through my heart. I became very pissed, felt utterly betrayed, and was quite scared. I would just bore you if I told you why, I'm sure... The thing was that I couldn't even speak, because I wanted to express all of these feelings at the same time and the words simply got scrambled in my mouth. Whatever the case, though, there was no need to let those guys know with words what was going through my head: my face said it all.

My friends, however, didn't find themselves in this, shall we say, predicament. Felicia expressed, I think, what we were all thinking in just three words.

"What the heck?!" she exclaimed.

"Where are they?" Sora hastened to ask.

"...They weren't in Bark," Eva answered with a loud sigh.

"Oh, really, you think?!" Siegfried shouted. "How'd you figure that out?! You know what'd be really nice? If you had let us help them in the first place!! Now Jazzy, Gallager, Ryu, and my brother are missing! They could be dead, because of you!!"

"They're not dead," Balence retorted. "Jazzy's signal hasn't faded yet."

"Okay... where are they, then?" I finally manage to ask.

"...The signal is coming from Arlington city."

By the way he had said that, he was sure those were bad news. For our part, though, we weren't sure.

"Well, we have one more reason to go there, I guess," Donald declared. We all immediately felt all of the brigade's members' eyes upon us. You know we were expecting it, I'm sure...

"Are you seriously thinking about going there?" asked Tricky, unable to hide his stupefaction.

"Well, have you got a better idea?" I asked.

"How about stay here and don't die?"

"That's good," Siegfried said with a sardonic tone. "Now, would you be so kind as to think of something else? How about a plan that involves rescuing our friends?"

"Do you seriously believe we're okay with what's going on?" Eva interrupted. "We too are very sad about Jazzy and Gallager. But they understand that there is nothing we can do, I'm sure. If we go near that place, we'll just be wasting our lives..."

"Oh, so you're just giving up without even trying?"

"How about you jump into a three-hundred-feet tall cliff?" Atermel grumbled. "If you survive the freaking fall, then we can talk about storming into Arlington."

"It's not a matter of storming into the city; it's about making a truce with the A.N.I.!" Sora claimed.

"Oh, man, we've lost them..."

"Okay, enough. Seriously," Adrian interrupted before all of them could start mumbling about how crazy we were. We were sort of tired of hearing that we were out of our minds when in reality we were the sanest people in the city (perhaps the vampire was an exception, but that was a different sort of lunacy... and he acted quite seriously at that time, by the way). "You did see the Heartless, right? Those black ships that in the end kicked our butts? Yeah? Well, those guys are our biggest worry right now. I'm really getting tired of saying this: put your differences aside for now and concentrate on beating the Heartless. The B.C.U. alone won't stand a chance."

"Team up with the A.N.I.?" groused Sniperdog. "Are you seriously asking me to fight side by side with the bastards that killed my brother? What's next? Buy DoubleEagle some ice-cream? Have a few drinks with the rest of the Goons? Is that what you're asking??"

"The ice-cream and the drinks are up to you: I'm just asking you to save your skin."

"You guys are freaking retarded!!"

You know... every time Jam, Ukyo, and Baiken had a fight (when the first two hated each other, that is), I always wished, during those times, that Tish and Camille were there to put some order. At that precise moment, though, the one I missed was none other than Baiken, because harsh words wouldn't do the trick alone: we needed some nasty language and an 'I'm going to beat the living crap out of you' glare to go with them.

"Guys, easy! Easy!" Araya, who had apparently been standing by the entrance along with some other Wulfpack members for several minutes now, shouted, doing his best to settle everyone down. "Before trying to bite their heads off, let's hear what they have to say, okay?"

"Jazzy would never approve this!" UpDaBut roared.

"Number one: regarding that, I have my doubts. And, number two: Jazzy's not here. So shut up and let them talk."

"Guys, you now know that we have friends on the other side and that they're fighting for the A.N.I.," Sora hastened to say, before the Wulfpack members could start yelling again. "There is no 'good guys' and 'bad guys' here. We're on different sides... I'm sure our friends on Arlington are thinking about a truce, too. They know how dangerous the Heartless are."

"Okay," Araya said, with a sigh. "Let's go talk to Milky."

"We were one step ahead of you," Adrian replied. "And he told us that we had our heads up our butts."

"He's absolutely right about that!!" Sniperdog began, but Araya signaled him to be silent. Nevertheless, he refused to shut up just like that. "Are you going nuts too, Araya?? Do you really want to fight with those fucking sons of bitches?!"

"No, but I don't feel like dying just yet," the pilot sharply replied. "And maybe the A.N.I. are thinking the same. I bet there's someone sane in there that knows they need our help to get rid of those monsters."

"Sounds logical to me," DjFlaco sighed.

"DJ... do you realize what you're saying?" Eva asked. In her eyes, I saw that she trusted him, but she was still quite skeptical about this measure.

"I don't like it a bit, but we've got to stick with the lesser of two evils." He sat down and shook his head. "We're going to have to use your ship if we don't want to get blasted to pieces right when they see us."

"We had already thought about that, don't worry," Sora said, pleased to see that they were at last acceding to our plan.

"Only a handful of us should go with you," Araya suggested.

"It's not like all the brigade will fit in the Gummi ship, so don't worry about packing yet," Adrian replied, regaining his good humor.

'Well, Ryu, we're coming to get you soon, it seems,' I thought to myself. 'This'll make up for that time when we fought against Ganondorf...'

Narrator: Wilheim

It was as we had expected: the A.N.I. had lost no time and had placed us inside Arlington's prison. It was just a matter of time before our 'trial' took place...

Even though JazzyJet and Gallager were very grim about the situation, I argued that the Tactical Aggression members had probably placed us inside that penal complex in order to protect us from the rest of the A.N.I. If they had hidden us within their headquarters, the authorities would have searched us and attempted to kill us. Truly, I doubt they would have ever defeated us, but I was sure Maici and her group meant well. Our two friends, however, were not as optimistic as I was.

"Trials are worth squat," Gallager said dourly. "We're going to be guilty no matter what, and we'll be sentenced to death. It's inevitable... might as well as accept it, guys. We're done for."

"Why are you so sure?" Akane asked with a bit of fright in her voice.

"It's best not to think of trials as trials per se," Jazzy replied. "Try to look at them as if they were... bureaucracy. They have to sign some papers, say some words... and then they use us as target practice. Gallager's right..." He let out a long, low sigh as he leaned against our cell's wall, hopelessness shinning gloomily through his eyes. "We're dead." And then they said no more.

In another time, I would have thought this as well, when I was certain that the world was a cruel place that only wanted to see suffering through my glance and hear pain through my voice. Yet I had seen that life is as one makes it and did not wish to remain sad and miserable all the time. I was confident in my strength and that of my friends: should it come to it, we would surely manage to escape.

Even so, I did not think we would have to recur to fleeing on our own. If what Gallager and Jazzy said was true, then my beloved and the others would know and would no doubt come to our rescue. My darling had proved her love for me time and again, and I was sure she would not let us astray. Because of that, I was at ease and did my best to calm down my scared companions.

We remained there for quite a long time. An entire day passed by. Even then, I did not despair. Surely our friends were working something out. For the first time in an eternity, it had seemed, I was quite calm despite the situation, whereas my friends were beginning to despair. Even Ryu seemed a little nervous, which surprised me, for he is one of the most serene persons I have met. It was quite strange, because I was usually one of the negative folk. To be the only positive person in the cell was very odd.

Anyway, I did my best not to pay any heed to this detail and remained as calm as possible and tried to soothe my friends.

"It is like Cloud says: 'Everything is OK'," I quoted. "We just have to be patient. You will see that there is nothing to worry about. Our friends are certainly going through... the bureaucratic process, if you will, to secure our release so we can start discussing a truce."

"Was there something on the water you drank?" Gallager sardonically asked. "The A.N.I. don't want a truce. They want to see every B.C.U. dead."

"Do you think that Tactical Aggression betrayed us?" Akane guessed.

"I didn't say that... But I do think, however, that they give a damn about their own asses, and that's why we're here. If they would've tried to help us escape, they would've been shot, like we're going to be in a few hours."

"We're going to have to start thinking about an escape plan," Ryu declared. "I'm not just about willing to die by lead poisoning..."

"If the time comes, then we will think of something," I said. "Meanwhile, trust our friends. If all else fails, no doubt they will aid us in our getaway."

"Probably, but you can never be too sure." He stared at me for a second and smiled. "I'm glad to see you're doing so well, Will. Honestly, I didn't think I'd ever see this mature side in you."

"I resent that remark, Ryu," I replied, half-meaning it. "Now that I know that my Ukyo is safe, I trust that she will come to save us."

"She'll be putting herself in mortal danger by doing so," Jazzy commented.

"I doubt guns will worry her. Bullets are as effective on her as a bucket of water that tries to drown a river of lava. Moreover, Jam, Octavius, Leon, and Baiken are with her."

"Okay: suppose we do get out of here," Ryu said. "What about trying to establish a truce between the B.C.U. and the A.N.I.? Don't you think we ought to be thinking about that?"

"I will worry about it when the time to worry about it comes," I answered calmly.

At that moment, we heard how the soldier guarding our cells began to talk to somebody. He closed the door and footsteps approached us. A scent reached my nose and I instantly knew who it was. Without wasting a second, I raced to the bars and waited eagerly for my beloved to get to where we were being held.

She stepped into the light in front of our cell, an expression of dread haunting her face. She immediately ran to the bars and we held hands and kissed. While I might have been calm and reticent, my heart had still longed for her touch, her smell, her eyes... I was so happy to see her.

"I knew you would be here," I whispered, between quick kisses.

"The A.N.I. are insane if they think I'm going to leave you here to die," she murmured.

"Ukyo!" Akane exclaimed in a low voice. "You're here!"

"I'm here to get you guys out," she answered. "All of you."

"Thank God!"

"You mean... they really were planning on killing us?" Ryu asked.

"Maici told me that trials are more of a bureaucratic process than an actual judgment. They'll have to shoot at a wall, because I'm not going to let them lay a finger on you."

"I knew they were up to no good," Gallager said. He approached the bars and let out a sigh. I did not know if he was thankful or despaired. "You shouldn't try this. They're going to shoot you if they find out you're trying to help us."

"I'd like to see them take a shot at me," Ukyo answered with a confident smile.

"Ukyo..." Akane murmured as she clenched to the bars. "Is Ranma with you? He's still all right... isn't he?"

"He's outside, with the rest of the gang," my beloved responded. "He's worried sick about you. I guess you might as well as stop fighting, for a change."

"Yeah... it'd be nice, I think..." our friend shyly said.

"Thank you for this, my princess," I said and kissed her one more time.

"No need to thank me. I'm sure you would've done the same thing, baby. Now, step back: if we try to force the bars like this, we'll be shocked, so I'm going to have to override the security system."

"Can you do that?" Jazzy asked.

"Yep: I stole the guard's card."

We got away from the bars as my beloved began to work on the keyboard near our cell. However, we all froze the moment we heard how the prison's opened. Again, we heard footsteps approaching our cell. Ukyo hid the card she had planned to use to rescue us and stood innocently by us. Moments later, Maici came into view.

"Oh... hi, Maici," Ukyo greeted, doing her best to sound as dry as possible.

"What are you doing here?" Maici asked suspiciously.

"I... I came here to talk to the guys," she answered. "I... I have to say good-bye to my boyfriend." Not to discard my darling's effort, but she needed to adopt a more convincing attitude if she were to fool Maici who, seemingly, was not an idiot.

"...Give me the card," the woman said, with a sad sigh, as she extended her hand.

JazzyJet and Gallager shook their heads and turned away in disappointment. However, I had all but lost faith in Ukyo. Surely my beloved would think of something. Nevertheless, she would have to do so fast, for she had been caught off guard and could pretend no more.

"No," she answered, firmly, in the end.

"Ukyo, please..." Maici calmly insisted.

"You'll have to take it from me by force. I like you, Maici: don't force me to hurt you. Walk away, please... and don't say anything to anybody. I'd die for my friends: there's nothing you can do to stop me."

Tactical Aggression's leader slowly put her hand down and delicately approached my beloved. She spoke again, but this time she did so in a whisper:

"I know I can't stop you. I'm not trying to do so: I'm only trying to help you as well as ourselves."

Ukyo looked at her with confusion and found no answer. I decided to intervene.

"What are you talking about, Maici? What is on your mind?"

She walked towards me and replied:

"I want what you want. I want a truce."

As relieving as this statement might have sounded to my ears, Gallager was unable to contain a sarcastic laugh.

"A truce... Sure, why not?" he chuckled. "I bet that negotiating peace will be a piece of cake... after all, you did secure our release, didn't you? Oh, you didn't? Whoops, I may be wrong! Thanks for trying: try again next year."

"If we don't do something about all of this, we'll be wiped off the face of the world," the woman insisted and she clenched on the bars as well. "It won't work unless you cooperate: we need to show the A.N.I. that the B.C.U. aren't that different and that we have to put aside our conflict so that we don't die!"

Gallager shook his head and sat down. He had no intention of crossing any more words. JazzyJet thought differently.

"Maici... I respect you," he stated. "You've always been a dangerous opponent, and you've killed many of our companions. But you've always had honor. Even enemies can have respect for one another, I think." He paused and took a deep breath before going on. "You and I are on the same page: I want a truce, too. Yet try telling that to our nation's leader. He would never accept it. He hates Jester. As long as Jester's in charge, Milky won't even consider a truce."

"I know what you mean, JazzyJet, and I also think you're an honorable opponent," Maici politely commented. "And I know what you mean about the nation's leader: Jester not only despises Milky, but everything that's related to the B.C.U. That's why I'm not counting on him for this peace treaty to take place."

"You're thinking about making a truce with the B.C.U. without any of the leaders' consent??" Gallager interrupted with a shocked tone. Indeed; Maici's words had been disturbing. Yet, rather than discouraging the pilot more, the A.N.I. warrior got his full attention. "How they heck do you plan to do that?"

"Well, for starters, not many of our warriors like Jester and his brigade. That's one thing on our favor."

"Wow... I guess we have more in common than I thought," Jazzy mumbled.

"Milky too? Oh, I'm off the point... never mind," Maici said. "Bark's battle was a disaster for both nations. There was already discontent before that: now there's practically a revolution threat going on. People are scared and have no idea of what to do. You guys say you know how to destroy those things: we need your help," she added, glancing at Ryu, Akane, Ukyo, and I. "I know this is asking a lot... but we'll die if you don't aid us. Really: I wish I could say that we'll take care of this ourselves. But that's just not possible: we can't focus our energies to take out these foes if we're fighting against the other nation. And I'm tired of fighting against the B.C.U. What ever happened before, it's in the past: we have to forge Phillon's future together; otherwise, we'll destroy ourselves and the planet, if it doesn't get devoured by the Heartless before, that is." She paused for a moment and sighed. "We need you to tell the people in A.N.I. and in B.C.U. that you know how to defeat those things. We need you to bring them hope and to let them know that, after this one last battle, where we will fight as companions rather than enemies, there will be peace..."

"I would like to do nothing more than this," I ventured to answer. "But, for my part, at least, I cannot guarantee that there will not be any more battles. We will rid this world of the Heartless: I do not have any doubts regarding that. But the peace between nations is up to you, for we will not remain here forever—"

"I know, I know..." Maici interrupted. "But if people lose hope, then we're as good as dead." She looked at me in the eyes as she said: "I'm sorry that I had Ukyo fight against you. If I had known..."

"Maici, it's not your fault," Ukyo quickly intervened and put her hand caringly on her shoulder. "Don't worry about it anymore. Like you said, it's in the past."

The woman nodded silently and discretely wiped off a tear that had threatened to come out of her left eye. She walked about in silence for a few moments and then she told my beloved with a determined tone: "You and your friends will be safe and together again. I promise I'll make this happen. You and your darling belong together..."

Touched by Maici's spirit, my beloved did her best not to weep. She nodded gratefully and shook the pilot's hand. And in return, Maici gently leaned forth and sweetly kissed Ukyo's brow, assuring her with that tender gesture that things would be all right. Indeed, she was a true friend who had reached her limit: she would not let a war get the best of her.

Right then, the door opened a third time. Another person came into the prison. We turned to see who it was, but the newcomer was well hidden in the shadows. We all remained silent and still for a while, not knowing what to expect. At last, however, she spoke.

"Are you here to help? Or are we going to have to knock you out too?" There was no mistaking that voice.

"No, no, Baiken, it's... it's okay." Ukyo hastily said and Baiken stepped into the light. I could not help but to smile upon seeing her. "Maici wants to give us a hand. She has a plan... right?" my beloved added, quickly turning to the pilot.

"What's that about knocking me out 'too'?" asked Maici with suspicion.

"Oh, it's nothing," Baiken calmly replied as she approached our cell. "Let's just say that, since Ukyo was taking too long, I decided to come in and see what the hell was going on. The guard wouldn't allow me to go through... So he's taking a nap right now." She looked at me and her eyes seemed to be relieved, although she did not smile. "How are you guys holding up?"

"We've had better days, I reckon," I answered. "I'm glad to see you are safe, Baiken."

"Well, it's good to see you're still in one piece too, kid," she replied. "So, what's the plan, boss?" she asked Maici.

"I'll put it to you this way: the next trial will be all but about signing papers and shooting," the brave woman answered.

"What do you mean by that?" Jazzy questioned.

"I'll raise my voice during your judgment. I'll get everyone to listen. Trust me: all Tactical Aggression will support you."

"You think you can get everyone in your brigade to help?"

"Well, it won't be easy, that's for sure," Maici replied, while scratching the back of her head. "A good friend... a brother of ours died during that last battle. I think it's safe to assume that the guys will be a bit reluctant at first. Nevertheless, they are all good-hearted and I'm sure that they'll listen to reason." She then focused her sight on Jazzy and approached him. "What about you? Do you think you can talk Wulfpack into making a truce with us?"

"Like you said... it won't be easy," Jazzy sighed. "Two of our men died during that last battle. I bet that my companions are probably dying to get a piece of all of you. I can only trust that their desire for a truce (if there is any) will overcome their anger..." He unconsciously turned to Gallager upon saying these last words. The latter did not remain quiet upon this unaware insinuation.

"If you're referring to me and Shadaoh, I'm still angry, of course," he admitted. "He killed my best friend, after all... But he apologized for it, at least. That, and my wish for peace greatly overcomes my desire for revenge."

"Very good," Jazzy said. "Just help us on the trial and I promise I'll do my best to aid you establish a truce."

"When does the judgment start?" Akane asked.

"In about four hours," Maici answered. "Be prepared: not many people are going to be okay with this initially. We'll have to talk them into it, and in order to do that, you'll have to keep a cool head." And with those words, she instinctively glanced at Baiken. Realizing her mistake, she turned her head as quickly as possible away from the woman, yet it had been too late.

"Hey, I'll keep calm. I'm all up for the truce," she stated. "However, if some fucker like White-Turd-One starts causing trouble, I'm going to— Goddamn it, Wilheim, stop laughing!!"

"I'm sorry," I chuckled. "I suppose I am never going to get used to your foul language. Besides, it has been a while, so it has become a bit new again."

"Fan-fucking-tastic," she groused, rolling her eye, causing me to chuckle even more. "Whatever... okay, I'll try to stay cool. But you've been warned."

"As long as you make a point if you choose to unsheathe your sword, I won't have any objections," Ukyo said.

(Change of scene)

By the look of things, it seemed that the A.N.I. did not have trials often, for the entire nation (or most of it) was standing around us, booing us as we made our way to the court. I have to say that it was the most unorthodox court I had ever seen: it was on lower floor, surrounded by walls, with no ceiling. It gave me the impression that the sky and the clouds would be our judges and I shivered. Of course, what was most irregular about all this were the hundreds of soldiers surrounding the court, demanding that the trial be a short one and our execution be a torturous one. It was not the least comforting, as you may imagine. However, amongst the irate crowd, I recognized my beloved, our other friends, Maici, and what seemed to be her brigade. I realized then that all that we could do was to wait for them to start speaking.

All soldiers appeared to be equal in rank, even the judges (for there were many). It appeared that the leaders were nowhere near, for the time being. Perhaps, I wondered, this would be an advantage...

"Soldiers of Bygeniou," the judge who was sitting in the highest chair. "You're accused of murderer and treason! How do you plead?"

"Damn it, kill them already!!" cried the mob.

"They're guilty, but they're still alive! What's wrong with that picture?"

"I want to take a shot at them! Hey, judges! Come on! I'll buy you dinner!!"

"They must be allowed to live."

This last statement echoed fiercely and made its way to all the corners of the city itself, muting all other voices and forcing the men and women about to turn to Maici, who had firmly spoken these words.

"Did she say what I think she said?" mumbled voices here and there.

"We mustn't kill them. It's time we forged a truce with the B.C.U.," Maici said with resolve.

As you might have expected, this caused uproar amongst the crowd. Confusion and anger could be heard in the soldiers' voices. Even the judges looked as if the cat had caught their tongues. But Maici and her brigade remained unyielding to the turmoil.

"...Order!" the highest ranking judge finally found his voice. "Order!!" But once everyone quieted down, he was unsure of what to say.

"Tell us what's on your mind, Maici," a soldier calmly suggested. He did not seem upset, but rather curious about what Tactical Aggression had to say.

"You saw that monster, right, Mosfet? The one that appeared in Bark," the woman answered. "We made that horrible creature, with our loathing for each other. It's only going to get worse, unless we start working together."

"When you say that we made that monster, are you talking about a metaphor, or do you mean that we literally fabricated it with hatred?" Mosfet asked, with a frown.

"She means exactly that, Mosfet," my Ukyo intervened. "Those things that attacked us – we've fought against them many times before. In fact, the Heartless are the reason we're here: to wipe them out. But this time they're way too strong."

"Heartless gain strength by consuming the darkness inside peoples' hearts," Leon explained. "So far, this is the world with the darkest people we've seen in our journeys." He shook his head and nearly slapped himself. Even Baiken glared at him as he said these words, and she is not precisely the best diplomat within our group. "That's not what I meant," he hastened to say.

"So you mean we're all bastards?" One of the pilots challenged. "Is that what you're saying, you sorry excuse of a—"

"He apologized, let him finish," Jam interrupted.

"What I meant..." our friend went on. "Is that this world is at war, and neither side seems interested in helping us get rid of those monsters. Instead of that, they only think about destroying each other, and that only makes the Heartless stronger. Unless you do something about it, they'll devour this world."

"Well, if we have to stop them, we'll do it ourselves," said another soldier. "We don't need B.C.U.'s help for that."

"Listen, dude, any other day, I would've agreed with you," Dan responded. "But today's different: the B.C.U. saved our lives. If it weren't for them, Maici and I would be dead now."

"Sure, save a couple of people and that'll make up for the dozens of pilots you've killed. Do the math, Shadaoh."

"If you keep that up, this world will be destroyed," Ryoga announced. "And besides, our friends are down there. They've fought against the Heartless too, and they can help."

"Oh, so that means that this is all about saving your friends? All this crap about the Heartless and the war between is just dumb talk! You're nothing but a bunch of phonies!"

A new commotion took place once more at the same time that Baiken slapped the back of Ryoga's head.

"Order!!" the judge cried. "I said order!!" When all was quiet again, he looked at our friends with an inquiring glance. "You mean to say that these people, like you, are not from this world?"

"...That's right," Ryoga sighed. "We got separated by a group of monsters. Tactical Aggression saved us, and the B.C.U. saved them."

"I suppose if we don't want interference from the outside, then it is only fair, we don't condemn these people."

His words made one thing clear: the members of the court were secretly contemplating the 'What if...?' should there be peace between nations. Otherwise, they would have already sentenced us to death. What is more: they would not have let Maici interfere initially. Things were not as hopeless as Gallager had thought at first.

"They fought against us! They deserve to die!!" wailed a young pilot.

"They could just as easily as fought by our side, WhiteHawkOne and Tactical Aggression's newest members could have been our enemies," the judge calmly explained.

"Like I care... I could've just as easily condemned one of them to death: especially that crippled bitch."

Though I was aware that the best thing I could do was to remain quiet and let our friends do the negotiating. However, I refused to stand by idly when he was blatantly insulting one of my companions.

"Do not talk to her like that, imbecile!" I roared, causing my nearby friends to shush me with low voices.

"I won't allow any murdering traitor to speak to me like that! I'll kill you, you hear me?!" he retorted and the threat of yet another uproar became imminent.

"If you want to kill me, White-Piss-One, take your shot! I'm ready and waiting!" Baiken challenged. "I'll just beat the crap out of you again, like always, pathetic moron. And who are you to call him a traitor? Why don't you tell everyone how you ran away like a fucking cockroach when the lights go on and left your friend Earl to die?"

The racket came to a halt the moment Baiken finished saying these words. Everyone turned to WhiteHawkOne, demanding an explanation with their glance.

"What... what are you talking about?" the pilot stuttered.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about, you piece of shit," Baiken snarled. "Your buddy was screaming for help and you just took off because you knew you wouldn't be able to use your gay Town Portals. You don't even try. You're just a spoiled, little fucker. Wait a minute, what am I doing, talking to you? It's the same as talking to a wall."

"You... shut up, you fucker!!" wailed WhiteHawkOne, filled by rage.

"Come here and get your medicine, cocksucker," the woman challenged.

"Order!!" the judges (thankfully) shouted. "You will be dealt with later," the one on the highest chair said to WhiteHawkOne in a dark tone. "Let us carry on with this trial. Although they did fight for the enemy, these travelers could not have known any better. I am sure my fellows think the same," he added, turning to the other judges, who limited themselves to nod in silence. "They are to be freed. However, we cannot consent criminals such as JazzyJet and Gallager to be released so lightly."

"But they should not be condemned so harshly," Maici interjected. "They have shown their desire for peace. JazzyJet, as you know, is the leader of the Wulfpack brigade, and—"

"Laugh-pack is more like it," WhiteHawkOne interrupted.

Jazzy and Gallager were seemingly eager to answer to that remark, but I put my hand on the first's chest and shook my head. It had been stupid of me to reply a few moments ago, yet I was now in a much less compromising position. Someone else would have to respond to WhiteHawkOne, and that someone turned out to be my darling.

"You're already in trouble, White-Jackass-One. Stop making it worse on yourself."

I took a deep breath and decided to intervene.

"May I speak, your honor?" I asked.

Everyone glanced at me and remained silent for a few moments. My friends knew that this time I would not make any inopportune remarks. Nevertheless, the judges were not certain.

After a while of hesitation, they decided to let me talk. A silent nod was all they gave me.

"The situation is quite simple: you need to establish a truce with the Bygeniou nation if you are to survive the onslaught of the Heartless. Killing these two will only make this task more difficult. You need them alive to start negotiating."

"Wow, he's an iceberg," one of the pilots muttered aloud.

"I speak the way I do because I am aware that you do not give a damn about my personal feelings towards Jazzy and Gallager," I quickly answered, while turning to the fighter. "But if you must know, I will not..." I had to stop and think about what I was about to say. I had to choose my words carefully. "I care for them. They are good people who welcomed us to this world and who saved our lives. I feel grateful to them and want nothing more than to return the favor to them by aiding them in the field of battle, with the A.N.I. as allies."

But before the judges could digest my words, a menacing voice boomed:

"I understand that this trial began half-an-hour ago. That's twenty-five more minutes than you, judges, need to condemn the B.C.U. I want to hear an explanation and afterwards, I want them shot. All of them."

We turned to the voice and found a group of men that had apparently just arrived. They all wore the same logo on their jumpsuits: the letters LND. The man who had spoken was tall and thin; his skin was as pale as the snow that takes the breath of the living away with its chill. He had small, pale-blue eyes and a crooked face. The pilots about did not challenge him as he said these words, which led me to believe that he was none other than Jester, escorted by his brigade.

However, after gathering enough courage, Tactical Aggression's members intervened again.

"Jester, a truce is a must," a pilot standing next to Maici said. "We have to forget our differences with the B.C.U. momentarily if we don't want to get crushed."

"I will not suffer the B.C.U. to get away with their crimes, and neither should you," Jester retorted dryly. "Surely everyone here agrees. But if Tactical Aggression so much wishes to remain by these traitors' side, then so it shall be: I will have you all shot."

"So much for diplomacy," grumbled another Tactical Aggression warrior.

"Let me handle this, Djneff," Maici told him and then turned to Arlington's leader. "You are wrong, Jester. A lot of people here want to make a truce. The problem is that they're too afraid that you'll kill them because you'll think they're traitors for wanting peace."

"I think Jester's right," WhiteHawkOne shamelessly interrupted. "I think they should all be killed."

"Either what Maici said, or they're just sorry ass-kissers," Baiken observed.

"You should be killed, too. We can tolerate outsiders in our great city, but not when they come here and disturb the natural course of things," Jester arrogantly said. "Judges, impose your sentence now. And if anyone else says a word in their defense, I will have them shot like the traitors they are."

Like Djneff had said, it appeared that civilized talk would no longer walk. Our friends discretely put themselves on guard, as did we. Should we get sentenced to stand by a wall and take the enemy's bullets, we would have to make our way out of that place by force.

Yet the desire for peace overcame intimidation. After remaining silent and thoughtful for a while, the judge turned to Jester and said in a loud, clear voice:

"I will not sentence them."

Jester glared at the officer with the fury that only a dictator can have when he has been defied by one of his subordinates.

"What did you say?" he growled.

The crowd was speechless. Their faces revealed that they could not believe what the judge had just done. Justice had finally found a way out of the man's mouth.

"I said I will not sentence them," the officer repeated with an even louder and firmer tone than before. "You might be our nation's leader, but this is my trial, and I have the last word. It will be best for you if you stand down."

"How dare you speak to me that way?? I will not tolerate a mindless puppet to defy me in such a way! I'll have you killed!!"

"You are calling me mindless?? Fine! Let's get something straight, Jester: your stubbornness and thirst for battle have cost us more lives than we care to count for. I know that there are many of our brothers here that long for peace: I am one of them. You may mark me as traitor, but know this: there are more people here that despise your leadership than those who long to continue warring."

"You'll regret your words..." Jester grumbled with a menacing voice.

Nevertheless...

"He's right! Nobody likes you, LND!" a voice rose from the crowd.

"How dare you!!" the leader's men yelled in anger.

"You're all a bunch of sons of bitches!" cried another man.

"Because of your fucking tactics I lost my brother!" a woman declared.

"You don't give a crap about us! You only care about remaining leaders!"

The insults and accusations rumbled on for nearly five minutes. Jester and his men tried to intimidate the crowd, yet the A.N.I. would not receive another order from him. Those who favored LND remained quiet, not daring to speak a word for them. The judges did not interrupt this racket: it was time for Jester to be relieved of his command.

JazzyJet and Gallager were unable to believe their ears and eyes. The truce between Bygeniou and Arlington was no longer a lunatic's idea: it was a likely reality. In a world were there is only shadows, one would have never expected to find a ray of light. Sora's words echoed in my mind as the crowd rambled on against LND: "There is always a light that never goes out."

In the end, Jester and his men realized that there was nothing that they could do either convince or threaten the A.N.I. to support their cause. Amidst the affronts, finger pointing, and discontent, they had no choice but to turn their backs on their fellow pilots and walk away. There were some who cheered and some who mocked them when this happened. But I saw that Tactical Aggression remained quiet and they all shook their head solemnly. Hatred had rooted in those men and women's hearts – void of all good feelings, they knew they had not seen the last of them.

Once every LND had left and everyone had quieted down, the judge ventured to address the B.C.U.

"Tell us: would it be possible for our nations to establish a truce?"

Our friends looked at each other and, after a few moments of hesitation, they nodded.

"I had my doubts at first," Jazzy admitted. "But now that I've seen your desire for a cease-fire, then I'm sure that we can do it. We're just as tired as you are of this war. However, I'm not certain if our leader will be up for it. Although... well, let's just say that we have more things in common than you might imagine."

"In that case, we will acknowledge you as ambassadors from Bygeniou from now on," the judge said. "You will help us to establish this pact so we can defend ourselves from this greater threat."

"...Thank you, your honor," Jazzy and Gallager muttered, still incapable to believe what had just happened. For our part, we smiled and let out relieved sighs and so did our friends and Tactical Aggression's members.

Right then, we heard the sound of an engine approaching the city. The noise was different than the one a gear made when it was flying. The pilots were unable to tell what sort of vessel was nearing Arlington – yet my friends and I knew those ship's thrusters well and our hearts leapt with joy.

Narrator: Ken

"I don't know if this is good or bad," I muttered. "It's like the whole nation is out there, waiting for us."

"Don't be so paranoid, Ken," Felicia grumbled. I think my nervousness was making her edgy. "Try to stay positive... and if you say something about being realistic, I'm going to enlarge that scar," she hissed, turning to Adrian, who had obviously been warned just in time.

"You can't widen it: I'm invincible," the vampire answered, his smirk widening.

"Ah, stop it! I'm not in the mood."

"Aw, you're turning into a fun-aunt-Baiken yourself?"

"Fun-aunt-Baiken...?" Felicia mumbled. She remained silent for a few moments, and then neither of us could help it: we laughed it up. "Okay, just promise me that you won't call her like that as long as she lives."

Adrian didn't reply. Instead, his smile grew bigger and crazier.

"I mean it! If you don't then—you know what? Do whatever you want. But I'm not going to help you if you're dumb enough to tease her that way."

"I can't promise anything," the vampire chuckled.

"It's strange that their cannons didn't fire on us," Tricky murmured, without paying the least attention to our stupid conversation. "I suppose that neither our radars nor theirs can spot this sort of ship."

"We're still not safe, though... we have to hope that they don't fire on us when we come out of the ship," Narue sighed.

Five Wulfpack members accompanied us: Tricky, Narue, DjFlaco, EvaRaine, and Araya had decided that they would try to forge the longed truce with the A.N.I. The others remained behind because, on one hand, there wasn't enough space, and on the other... they still needed to digest the idea of fighting alongside their mortal enemies, given that everything went well.

"We'll have to let Sora do the talking," Araya said.

"Me? Why me?" Sora stuttered.

"Dude, you're the one who knows all about the Heartless and how to deal with them," DjFlaco answered. "You have to convince the A.N.I. to consider a treaty. When that happens, then it'll be our turn."

"Somehow, lately, I haven't liked being the guy who talks very much... At least we're not wearing the B.C.U. jumpsuits," the lad murmured mostly to himself.

"Speak for yourself, kid. They need to see representatives..." Eva said. "As long as they don't use us as target practice, we'll be fine."

"Don't worry, Sora. We're right behind you," Goofy assured, ever so positively.

"All right... I know you are, Goofy," Sora said, patting our friend's back. "Looks like you can land right there, Felicia."

"Yeah, I was thinking that..." she lowered the ship and turned off the engines. The crowd began to approach us with untrusting eyes. Yet right then, a group of people quickly parted the crowd and made their way toward our vessel. We were more than relieved when we saw who they were. "I see Leon! And Ukyo! Oh, thank God they're all right!"

"And there's no more sun. That's a relief, too," Adrian added.

We quickly left the Gummi ship, carefully and momentarily hiding the Wulfpack members behind us. Everyone had to be ready for the incoming blow. Little did we know, however, that our task was going to be a piece of cake. Mostly because our friends had already done most of the job...

"Hey, guys!" Donald quacked cheerfully. "Long time, no see!"

"I never thought I'd be so happy to hear that quacking!" Ukyo chuckled happily and rubbed Donald's head before turning to the pilots behind her. "Everyone! These are our friends. Sora here is the one we told you about: he's the Heartless' worst enemy."

"Wow... he's too young," murmured a very beautiful woman standing beside our friend.

"Yeah, but he's good at what he does, Maici," retorted Ukyo with a smile.

The pilot raised her hands and shook her head, saying: "It was just an observation. I don't doubt his skills."

"Ah, it's been such a long time!" Adrian greeted cheerfully. Of course, his goal was to... oh, why waste my breath: you already know it. "I've felt so bored without you! Well, not that much, but you're the crème de la crème of my—"

"Adrian – horrible timing – please, stop," Felicia practically begged, seeing how Baiken was seconds away from exploding. Now that would be a pretty lousy way to start negotiating.

"Sorry, sorry. I got carried away. It's just that I'm so happy to see them," the vampire said with that smirk of his, causing Jam to silently chuckle and making Baiken even angrier.

However, I couldn't help but to feel worried about our friends...

"Guys, were are Ryu, Will, Akane, and the others?" I ventured to ask, somewhat shyly, I have to say, for I didn't know if the A.N.I. knew who they were...

"They're perfectly all right. They'll be here any minute," Ranma replied with a happy tone. I take it he really couldn't wait to see Akane...

"That's great news..." I sighed with relief. "Anyway, we've come in peace."

"We are a race of superior beings!" Adrian unavoidably added. Heck, even I was beginning to tire of him. I turned to him and frowned, urging him to shut up with my glance. "You started it!" he nonetheless exclaimed.

"Um, try not to pay attention to him when he's goofing around like that," Ukyo told the pilots behind her, who looked at Adrian like the crazy being he was. "He's actually—"

"A fucking moron who would do best to shut his hole if he doesn't want to lose his fucking tongue," Baiken interrupted, causing Adrian's grin to grow wider as he contained his insane laughter. I hoped they'd cool down, or things might go from ugly to nearly impossible. "But enough of that. I take it you guys came here to negotiate a truce with the A.N.I.?"

"Yeah, that's it," Sora quickly answered and stepped forth.

"Then speak to Maici, lad," Octavius said. "Thanks to her, you will find that your mission here will be simpler than it appears."

"Huh...?" we all uttered.

Before we could ponder on Octavius's words, the rest of our friends showed up. They were all safe and sound and were happy and relieved to see us, just as much as we were to see them.

"Brother!" Siegfried cried and raced to Wilheim, giving him a quick hug. Ukyo did the same... perhaps they hadn't been given the chance to do so. Akane and Ranma also embraced happily. It was nice to see them take a break from their incessant fighting. As for me, I approached Ryu and we gently punched each other's fist.

"It's nice to see you're okay, Ryu," I said.

"We were worried about you too, Ken," he replied.

And then, we all noticed Jazzy and Gallager.

"Guys! You're all right!" Narue exclaimed, causing all the A.N.I. to notice Wulfpack's presence. She froze upon realizing what she had done. Her face became pale and she stepped back. After nearly a minute, all she managed to utter was a nearly inaudible "Hi".

"W-we can explain why we were h-hiding..." Tricky stammered.

"They're with us," Sora quickly said. "We all came because of the truce."

"In that case, I'm very happy to say this, guys: welcome to Arlington," Maici said with a smile. That really confused us... but in a good way.

(Change of scene)

Tactical Aggression took us to their headquarters. Every pilot from every other brigade had also returned to their command center and had called their members back home to await further instructions.

Our hosts had been named provisional leaders, given the fact that it was they who had convinced most of the nation to accede to a truce. Nevertheless, Maici and her friends seemed quite reluctant to accept this responsibility. However, the woman agreed to lead the nation, seeing how their 'legitimate' leader was being such a douche and refused to even mention the word 'peace'.

They had been very good to us and had already filled us in on what had happened.

"So you guys overthrew Jester... I'm impressed," DjFlaco said.

"Well, people were tired of him and most of them are in for the truce," Maici answered.

"Your timing couldn't have been better," Ziggy added. "When you arrived with a peace offering, many more people agreed to a cease-fire. Now all that's missing is for you to convince your people, which shouldn't be hard, I think."

"Our brigade or our nation?" Araya asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I wouldn't know," Jazzy said. "I haven't told them anything regarding this. I don't know how they'll react."

"Yeah... they sort of know," Tricky commented, scratching the back of his head.

"Most of them didn't take it well," Felicia said. "But I'm sure you can get some sense into their heads, Jazzy. When they see that you're alive and once they know that this was all Tactical Aggression's doing, they'll probably think things over."

"Let's hope you're right..."

"As for the nation, it'll be a bit harder," Adrian said. "See, we went to Milky and told him about our plan. He very politely told us we were crazy."

"I wouldn't say politely," Siegfried grumbled.

"Ah, right. I forgot: he's a douche."

"Hmm... Things could be a bit tougher..." Maici pondered. "Nevertheless, I have faith. Seeing as how our nations are so similar, then perhaps the pilots will want a truce, despite what Milky says."

"I wouldn't be so sure," Baiken intervened. "For us it turned out all right, because the 'leader' was a fucking megalomaniac moron, but it's possible the B.C.U. might have a slightly more charming son of an ass with more people supporting him."

I could see that Wilheim was truly struggling not to chuckle because of Baiken's foul language. I couldn't help but to smile. Unfortunately, Baiken noticed me and instinctively turned to Will. The lad's smirk vanished and he turned a bit pale, yet he quickly spoke his way out of trouble.

"I can see your point, but I am actually a bit more worried about other B.C.U. Besides, I have barely known Milky and I can say that, while he is not the magnificent bastard Jester is, he is not all peaches and cream. Not many support his leadership, so he will most likely be a neutral piece for solving this conflict," he said.

"Don't make a fool out of me," Baiken growled, nonetheless. "You were about to burst out in laughter like an asshole again."

"Yes, I admit that I have to correct that behavior, and I apologize for my childish stupidity, if you will... Nevertheless, I pay attention to your words and I am doing my best to contribute to your idea."

Amazingly, it was Baiken who chuckled this time. I figured what sort of reputation she had amongst Tactical Aggression: everyone was shocked to see her laugh. Heck, even the ones who knew her better were a bit surprised, too.

"Oh, Will, you are an idiot." It was clear that she had not meant the insult and the lad smiled again. "Okay: so what's that which worries you?"

"Why was he laughing?" Eva ventured to ask.

"Because he thinks it's funny when I start cursing," Baiken replied. "He finds it funny that I speak like – what were your exact words, Wilheim? – a pirate, I think. Anyway, kids will always be kids, even if they are freaking seventy years old," she concluded, turning back to Wilheim with a smirk, who unavoidably let out a chuckle.

I saw that Adrian was about to say something. I was forced to punch him in the arm before he could speak. He grunted and let out a single chuckle and then he hit me back. The pain was pretty tolerable, compared to what might've happened if he would've spoken.

"Come on, Will," Felicia said and smiled as well. "Well, I think I know who you're talking about. You speak of MasterMenace, right?"

"Oh, the mini-leader..." Araya sighed unhappily.

"What about him?" Ryoga asked. "Is he like second in command, or something?"

"He wishes," groaned DjFlaco.

"I understand he's in the WarriorNation brigade, correct?" Maici guessed.

"That's right," Akane answered. "We've had our share of trouble with him in the past. For starters, he wouldn't stop bugging us, arguing that we were spies, and that we should be arrested. And that only happened when we arrived."

"I'm sorry to say that, during a battle we had against the A.N.I. in Blackburn Site, he mercilessly killed an enemy pilot Will and I had rescued and were planning on turning in..." Ryu confessed. "Now I see that the result wouldn't have been that different, but we didn't know."

"It's all right; there's no need to explain," Ziggy said.

"Whatever the case, a lot of people support him," I added. "I think he lost some followers after that incident. Will also helped with what he told him, but nevertheless, he's a threat."

"Well, I say we send the B.C.U. a message – you guys should do it together – and see what they decide," Jam suggested, glancing at JazzyJet and Maici.

"That will probably be best," Jazzy agreed. "In either case, I'll send a message to the Wulfpack back in Bygeniou. With MasterMenace's paranoia on the loose, it'll probably be best if they all come to Arlington."

"I don't know if that's such a good idea, Jazzy," Araya said.

"How come?"

"Well, think about it," Adrian added. "You're about to send Bygeniou a message asking for a truce along with Maici. If the brigade rushes out of the city and comes here, everyone's going to think that you're all traitors and that the video is a trap or something. The best thing to do is for our guys to stay there and deal with MasterMenace and the rest of the skeptics as best as they can."

"At last your intelligence dims the glow of your stupidity, bloodsucker," Octavius said. Adrian let him get away with it this time: he only mimicked Octavius in silence, which was a very calm thing to do, by his standards. "Your men must stay there so you will not lose credibility."

"My thoughts exactly," Araya said.

"Yeah, when you put it that way..." Jazzy unhappily pondered. "But I don't know how they'll be able to handle the situation. Most of the ones that are here are the older, more mature members..."

"Longtom stayed behind: Suicidal is also with them..." Araya said. "It's true: not all of our companions will share the enthusiasm of a truce. But I'm sure the more mature ones, like you say, will understand and will be able to talk the younger ones into it."

"And they'll be able to handle the pressure from the other brigades, too," DjFlaco said. "Listen, if you're really that worried about them, let me go back to Bygeniou. I'll see what I can do."

"If you go, I'm going with you, too," EvaRaine hastily commented. "I won't let you face this alone."

"Yeah..." Jazzy sighed. "Yeah, go back, DJ. I can't stop worrying about them."

"It's cool, Jazzy."

"Well, if that's what's going to happen, then let's start thinking about that message," Tek proposed.

(Change of scene)

We had to wait for an entire day for the B.C.U. to send their reply. I was actually beginning to worry that they would send us back DjFlaco and Eva's heads as an answer to our proposal. Thankfully, we weren't in ancient Rome...

Tactical Aggression had been very kind o us. They fed us and gave us a place to rest. For one part, it was nice to know that our enemies were rational human beings and that they had been so all along. On the other hand, it wasn't so great... we had been fighting against them and that didn't make us feel very good. More specifically, I speak about Felicia and Ukyo, who had been the only ones among us who had actually managed to kill an enemy pilot. Nothing that a few drinks wouldn't fix, according to Jam, Maici, and Baiken (a tale that embarrassed Ukyo quite a bit and amused Will even more).

They also told us about their encounter with Kyuxo, which was most discouraging. We all immediately thought about what the Nobody we had encountered in the Underworlds had said to Sora. The plot was thickening and I really don't like it when things take such turns.

Whatever the case, we knew that we were about to go into the fray and decided not to trouble ourselves with such issues for the moment. Instead, we tried hard to talk about any other subject. For instance, Ryu found out something very curious...

It turned out that he, Morrigan, Shiryu, and I had already faced Baiken before. We had fought against her shadow during the battle of the Twelve Houses, back in the Sanctuary of Athena. While the Dragon's saint and I had been busy trying to defeat Libra's dark saint, Ryu and the succubus had struggled to kill Baiken's Heartless. It had been a very hard fight... I remember that the fiend killed Morrigan and only Tish managed to bring her back to life. Ryu barely defeated her in the end... Because he had been the one who had fought her the most, I think, he realized that our bitter companion was the origin of the shadow we had faced. When he said this, our companions seemed quite surprised. I know I was... But Baiken just limited herself to say: "Interesting", gave a puff on her pipe and turned away. Well, at least she was honest. And, of course, I had to stop Adrian from making any sort of remark. I could see in his smile that he was desperate to say something. Another punch in the arm and his physical retaliation was all that happened, fortunately. I don't know why he loves to piss that woman off...

Well, that's all unimportant stuff. That's pretty much what happened while we waited for the B.C.U.'s answer. And just when we were beginning to despair, the city's speakers announced that a small fleet of ships was approaching – all of them had a white cloth on the side of their windshields.

"White means peaceful, right?" Sora said, unable to keep his excitement to himself. Heck, every one of us was thrilled to see that color.

"White's peaceful," I answered, with a smile.

"You're right it's peaceful!" the lad chuckled and we gave each other a high-five. "At last, we're going to kick some Heartless butt!"

Slowly, the ships descended. One by one, the B.C.U. pilots began to come out of their vessels, raising their hands into the air, so the A.N.I. could see that they were not armed. Arlington's inhabitants reacted by lowering their guns and approaching them slowly and serenely. The Wulfpack got together and followed DjFlaco, who quickly made his way toward Jazzy and Maici.

"B.C.U. is now officially ready to start negotiating a truce," DJ proudly announced.

"That's great news!" Maici said with utter relief. For a moment, I thought she was about to break into tears, but she kept her cool and she did nothing more than to pause briefly before speaking again. "I'm so glad to hear this... Well, anyway, I suppose I'm going to be A.N.I.'s spokesperson. What about you, guys?"

"I guess it's Milky, assuming he came," Jazzy said.

"Actually, I think it's going to have to be you, Jazzy," Apocalypse muttered. "And you better say something to the rest of the pilots quick, because none of them feel too comfortable... Myself included."

"Not to throw aside your hospitality..." Amouth added, turning to Maici. "But I really don't feel like staying here for too long. I get kind of nervous."

"I second that," Kobe sighed. "Anyway, say something, Jazzy..."

"Wow, wait a minute... what happened to Milky?" Jazzy questioned.

"The idiot refused to give into the truce, or what?" Siegfried guessed.

"No, he accepted, actually," Yukunism answered.

"...Then where is he?"

"We'll explain after Jazzy calms everyone down," Amouth said.

"The A.N.I. aren't going to do anything. There's no reason to be afraid, guys," Jazzy assured.

"They've been very nice to us: I suggest you drop the paranoia," Araya intervened.

"Besides, if I'm going to be B.C.U.'s spokesperson (which I really don't want to), then we're as good as done with the truce. Maici and I want the same stuff, so there's really not a lot to say."

"Maybe with the A.N.I., but you really need to start calming people down," Longtom said. "There's a lot of tension brewing within some brigades. Try to get them to listen to reason..."

"Well, no one likes there to be any tension..." Jazzy sighed. "I'll see what I can do."

"I'll help you in whatever way I can," Maici said. "A lot of our people are still scared, too."

"Okay. Meanwhile, I suggest you guys start tuning up your ships. We're going to need all the weaponry we can get for the upcoming battle against the Heartless."

"Okay, I suppose we can do that," Longtom sighed.

(Change of scene)

While Jazzy and Maici addressed their troops, doing their best to convince them that a cease-fire had already been established, we began to make plans for the fight.

Before that, however, our Wulfpack companions briefly explained to us why Milky had refused to come to Arlington.

"When I came to him and told him that the A.N.I. had actually agreed to a truce, he refused to believe me, at first," DjFlaco said. "When I showed him your message, his face changed. There were some other guys from Bygeniou Air Force around and they didn't seem too convinced. Milky, however, said that, although he didn't like our brigade very much, he didn't think we were traitors. Most of his men tried to talk him into dismissing the message as a trick come from spies, but he chose to listen to us instead." He paused a bit before going on. I guess he was still somewhat shocked to know that the truce was going to happen and with Milky's consent.

Now, I know I've said this repeatedly... that the guys couldn't believe that peace was near. But hey, after so many years of incessant fighting, wouldn't you be relieved as heck to know that it would all soon end?

"He quit his position as leader," DJ announced, much to our surprise. "He said that he realized that he had done a poor job at keeping the nation together and that he refused to carry on with a task which he couldn't perform properly. His men got really angry at him, yet he didn't pay attention to them. Ignoring their complaints, he declared that we should lead the nation into battle against the Heartless, for we were the only ones that chose to believe in peace in a time of hatred and war."

"Wow... I never would've thought that Milky would be capable of doing something like that," Araya declared. "But, is he still fighting alongside us? Or did he quit being B.C.U.'s leader and war altogether?"

"He transmitted a final message to the nation, telling the people to follow us and to halt our fire against the A.N.I. But he won't fight, and it's unlikely that anyone from Bygeniou Air Force will help us," Amouth informed

"Very few pilots have agreed to come, regarding BAF," Kobe added. "It would've been nice to have Milky either way, though."

"I guess... but we'll have to manage without him," Jazzy sighed. "At least he made a right call. Although I'm not too thrilled about leading the B.C.U. It's too much responsibility."

"We'll just have to do our best, Jazzy," Tricky said with a smile, patting Jazzy on the back.

"Okay, then; let's start planning this attack," Gallager intervened eagerly.

Atermel nodded and hastily informed:

"Scouts have reported seeing the Heartless in Starlite Valley and Redline Beach. We have to stop their advance."

"We're facing the same problems," Ziggy said. "They've invaded Herremeze Relic Site and Plain of Doleful Melody. The way I see it, our best bet is to attack them from both fronts."

"Well, we obviously know our territory better, so it's best we start on opposite sides, as if it were going to be another battle," Eva said. "Except, of course, we won't shoot at each other."

"I must be sincere," Wilheim intervened. "Now that I am by Ukyo's side again, I do not wish to leave her. I would like to remain with the A.N.I. for a while, if that is all right with you, of course."

"No problem here, Wilheim," Dan replied.

"We can always use more hotness on this side," Jam added, with an impish smile. We all knew she didn't do it to piss Ukyo anymore... she had become more like Camille, in that sense. Boy, I wondered what would happen when those two met... "Speaking about that, why don't you bring your little brother with you?"

"Me? Really?" Siegfried stuttered.

"What is wrong, Siegfried? This is the first time I see you getting caught with your guard down," Wilheim chuckled.

"You guys are too inexperienced," I cockily said. "If you want to learn how to get the ladies, you should go to yours truly."

"You're disgustingly rich: that doesn't count," Adrian interfered.

"How about we focus on the attack again?" Felicia shyly suggested before I could reply to that crazy vampire. She discretely pointed at Baiken, who was once again, losing her patience.

"Okay..." the aforementioned woman said, with a sigh, doing her best to calm down. "So, you're coming with us, Will?"

"Yes, I would very much like to do so," replied the lad.

"What ship do you pilot?"

"An A-gear. You see, it was—"

"Excellent. I'm riding with you from now on," she calmly interrupted.

Well, if someone wanted to intervene, it would clearly have to be Ryu, since he had been Will's copilot in the past.

"Excuse me, Baiken, but I've been alongside Wilheim since he picked up the tank..." my pal said.

"You could very well fly a ship yourself. Me, on the other hand..." Baiken replied.

"Yeah, I know, and I understand what you're saying – but I don't want to stay grounded... See, I don't know anything about flying a gear, so a copilot is all I can aspire to."

"Be Octavius's copilot, then. He'll go with the B.C.U."

"Am I now?" Octavius dryly (like always) intervened. "I did not know that I wished for that. It seems incomprehensible to me that you know my desires better than me."

"Point A: if Wilheim's coming to A.N.I., someone from here needs to go over to B.C.U. so their numbers won't suffer. Point B: I may not have been here for long, but I can still give him some advice. And most importantly, point C: I don't like you and you don't like me, whereas I get along with Will."

"Ouch... I guess you're going to have to be Octavius's copilot, Ryu," I whispered to my friend.

"She's got good points..." Ryu agreed and remained quiet.

"Point C is invalid! No one likes Octavius!" Adrian exclaimed all of a sudden. Seriously, I just take my eyes off him for a moment, and the mayhem begins.

However, Baiken didn't threaten the vampire right away. Since the joke hadn't been directed towards her, but rather against her antagonist, she stared at Octavius without blinking and actually had to force herself not to smile. We all saw it: we all saw how she pressed her lips together in a desperate attempt to contain a grin, while Octavius, naturally, wasn't the least pleased to see this (mostly because Baiken had the nerve to stare at him while mocking him, I think). When she knew it would be impossible for her to keep a straight face, she quickly turned to Adrian and said:

"You better shut up, fucking bat, or I'll cut you where it don't grow back." And, as you might've guessed, the vampire almost rolled on the floor laughing like mad. She didn't even sound that menacing at all. In the end, we all had to struggle against our own chuckles and Felicia and I had to slap Adrian so he would quit making jokes that would eventually make everyone uncomfortable.

"I suppose I do not have an objection as to you being my copilot..." Will shyly murmured.

"Well, if Will's staying, any chance I could stay, too?" Siegfried hastily asked.

"You got my vote on that," Jam said in a flirty fashion.

"It would be very nice: that way I can watch over you," Wilheim added.

"Not doing it for you, brother," Siegfried laughed, while mischievously eyeing Jam. I then noticed that Sora looked at him with a bit of jealousy... I did my best not to grin when I saw this.

"It's okay, Siegfried. You can stay here if you want. We've got plenty of people, so you don't have to worry," Jazzy said.

"Actually, Jazzy, I was wondering if Ranma could accompany us in your M-gear... if neither of you mind, that is," Akane said shyly.

"If Jazzy doesn't have a problem, I'll gladly go, Akane," Ranma muttered with tenderness. I bet Akane was enjoying herself much: that boy is seldom effusive.

"The more in the sexy gear the merrier, like I always say," Jazzy chuckled.

"I say the same, regarding Siegfried joining us: the more helpers the merrier, mate," Siachen said.

"Then it's settled," Maici announced. "We will clear our territory from Heartless and you will clear yours. We will meet in Bark and there we'll battle that huge Heartless together." She turned to Sora and asked: "We just have to worry about shooting them, right? You'll take care of the rest, won't you?"

"Sure. Once we get rid of them, I'll find the keyhole and I'll get rid of them for good," the boy assured.

"Well, in that case, let's get ready. I just got news that Kill on sight will be flying with us... try to be careful," she warned.

"I don't trust that WhiteHawkOne," Leon muttered unhappily. "I'm afraid he'll start causing trouble."

"As long as we keep an eye – or a leash, like he would say – on him, I don't expect there will be a lot of trouble," Ziggy said.

"Speaking about that, we should also be on the lookout for troublemakers," Amouth suggested. "MasterMenace is a big concern..."

"Let's just hope that everything goes according to plan," Jazzy said, "In the mean time, let's get ready to go back to Bygeniou. We have to scout all of our territory and make sure that the Heartless haven't invaded any more areas."

"Well, then let's get going," I said, tired of so much talking, and headed for the exit, but not without first approaching Will and whispering in his ear: "Don't piss off your sensei."

"A difficult task, but I will do my best," he murmured back with a chuckle.

Narrator: Wilheim

My new copilot was not too pleased that I had asked her not to smoke inside the tank. However, she did not light her pipe at all, and I think she appreciated my presence more than that of her former companion.

As we left the city and headed to unknown territory (to me, that is), I noticed that the fellows at Tactical Aggression were much more serious folk than my Wulfpack comrades. Despite Baiken's reduced tolerance to jokes, I would have very much appreciated some funny stories. Luckily I still had my companion's foul language; that, coupled with Jam's insinuations on my brother would make the journey a bit more pleasant, I reckoned. And, of course, I had Ukyo constantly flying by my side, twirling and circling me playfully. We would certainly make a good team, looking out for one another.

Before arriving to the Valley of Doleful Melody, we scouted the rest of the A.N.I.'s terrain. Luckily, there did not seem to be any signs of the Heartless invasion anywhere. At that moment, we were about to reach the end of a most long cave; its exit was the entrance to the valley.

Fortunately Baiken had not behaved negatively.

"You fly infinitely better than that idiot, Octavius," she pointed out. "I'm very relieved to be away from him."

"Well, you should take into account that Octavius has always been one of our designated pilots when it comes to flying Gummi ships," I observed. "Moreover, we have only flown through lands that have not been invaded by the Heartless. This will stop being a pleasure cruise when we begin fighting."

"Oh, I'm aware of that. I actually expect that you'll make me dizzy once we're on the fray. I'm just saying that you seem to know your way around this ship more than the were-bear."

"I hope you are right, to some extent. At least I can protect Ukyo and my brother while I am here, and looking out for their safety and that of my other friends will no doubt make me a fiercer warrior."

"I don't know about Siegfried, but Ukyo can take care of herself just fine, Willie," Baiken said. "If you both lookout for each other, we'll be just fine... unless you turn out to be a complete screw up."

"I hope I do not disappoint you," I chuckled nervously. "Well, I suppose Jam will also take care of Siegfried."

"Marmalade Jam? Don't get your hopes up, kid." I turned to her briefly and she went on. "She's got spirit, but she's somewhat of a lousy pilot."

"That's quite a shame..." I sighed. "Siegfried is not that skilled, either."

"Keep your eyes peeled, then."

We reached the cave's exit and stopped. No one dared to go inside until Maici gave the order.

"Anyone think the Heartless will be waiting for us on the other side?" Twist asked.

"That's probably what they're doing right now," Mosfet answered. "We should send in a scout to check out what's happening on Dole."

"No," Maici hastily said. "They fly ships which are very similar to ours. If we send in a B-gear while camouflaging, it's very likely that they'll spot it anyway, and kill the pilot. We have to stick together and play things safe."

"Hmm... Then do you suggest we do it the Baiken way?" Ziggy guessed.

"I suppose that probably is a good idea," the woman pondered.

"What do you mean, 'the Baiken way'?" Siegfried inquired while I turned to my copilot with a questioning glance. "I mean, kicking their asses is obviously a must, but, is there more to it?"

"Of course there's more to it, dummy," Ukyo chuckled. "It's actually a very good strategy she came up with."

"Really? Enlighten us, please..."

Maici and the others did not explain us the full strategy. They only told us what we had to do. Luckily for me, Baiken had the decency to tell me everything about it. Indeed it was a nice plan that would hopefully allow us to take the valley without suffering any casualties.

"Baby, make sure you give me a holler if you run out of energy to keep your barrier up, okay?" my darling told me through a private channel.

"I will, dearest. For your part, call for me if you need my aid and I will go swiftly to your side," I answered lovingly.

"Well, since you're a tank, 'swiftly' might not be that fast," she giggled. "Yet I get your point. Don't worry about me, baby. I'm a decent fighter."

"You just concentrate on not getting us killed for the time being, Don Juan," Baiken said, patting me on the shoulder, urging me with that gesture to put an end to my conversation with my darling. I suppose she did not want to listen to more of our romantic talk for the time being. "She's okay, trust me."

"Actually, Don Juan was a scoundrel whose only interest was to possess women and kill men. I do not think it is such a good compliment," I retorted, in an attempt to tease her playfully.

"He found redemption, remember? Besides, genius, I called you that because of the way in which you— Stop pulling my leg, jackass, and best keep your eyes on our surroundings! Maici will give the order any minute." Despite her reply, I noticed she had smiled.

"Be ready, guys..." Maici said. "On the count of three..."

The moment our leader gave the order, we left the cave and instantly entered the valley. I suppose that the cave's exit had some sort of warp system integrated, which led us to that place. We hastily made our way to the ground and turned on our barriers without even confirming that there were Heartless waiting for on the other side. There were no formations immediately behind the warp. Most of the Heartless were scattered through Dole. Noticing this, I quickly turned off my barrier.

"Everyone in Crystal Cave, be aware that there are no Heartless at the gate," I said through my communicator. "Save your ships' energy for later; B-gears, reframe from utilizing your camouflage devices."

"Wow, look at him talk," Djneff laughed. "Will: you are allowed to use normal language." Everyone chuckled at the remark. I could only remain quiet and blush shyly.

The rest of the A.N.I. came through the warp moments later and assembled at the gate's entrance.

"They aren't too organized, it seems," Maici said, but she was not about to underestimate our enemy. "Break up into full formations. Take at the very least one M-gear with you. I want the faster, more skilled I-gears to scout every last corner in Dole and find out the places where the Heartless might be hiding, please."

"I don't want to fight with the B.C.U. They're all crap," WhiteHawkOne declared, ever so untimely.

"I don't care: everyone, please look out. Don't get away from your formations," the leader said, calmly dismissing that inopportune remark. "A-gears, don't forget to snare the faster fliers. Let's go, guys!"

Without wasting a second, we charged against the Heartless without mercy. Sakura and Ryoga, Jam, Siegfried, Leon, Ukyo, and I flew alongside Maici and Twist in the same formation. We remained close to one another and the other formations did the same, as per Maici's orders. I made my way to the ground and landed as fast as I could.

"Holy shit," Baiken muttered. "That's a bit faster than what I'm used to."

"Forgive me, but I must be quick," I replied and started to shoot at the Heartless ceaselessly.

"As long as you don't get us stupidly killed by diving into the ground, I don't have a problem. Just shoot the damn sons of bitches: I'll let you know if we got unexpected company."

"Good."

My Ukyo circled me like a hawk waiting for its prey to foolishly come near. Every Heartless that dared fly close to me was quickly demolished by her devastating bombs. Ryoga and Sakura remained stationary and shot their targets with little difficulty: a first for them, according to their words. Leon and Twist – the most skilled I-gears within our formation – took on the task of scouting, while Jam and Siegfried remained close to each other and shot down our enemies fairly quickly. They constantly helped each other... things were looking very bright for my brother. As for Maici, she kept a lookout on the more dangerous Heartless and dived against them as soon as she spotted them. Moreover, during all that time, she did not let any of us lose contact with our formation mates, our brigade mates, and the entire nation.

I was half expecting Baiken to moan and whine and curse all the time, but she actually turned out to be quite helpful. She was even shrewder than Ryu, although not as patient, I should say. Even so, she never got angry at me. Just a little... nervous because of the many Heartless that relentlessly threatened to obliterate us. If it had not been for Ukyo, I reckon she would have exasperated me and additionally would have probably slammed my head against the tank's windshield.

Instead of insults I was actually... flattered. As my friends would say, 'go figure'.

"You sure do know how to manage the turret, Willie," she said. "Now I know we won't accidentally die... like with that stupid Octavius." But of course someone had to be insulted.

"I suppose videogames have helped to make me a better pilot than him," I confessed.

"Those things will rot your fu—damn brain, boy," she hastily corrected, aware that the last thing we needed was me laughing. "Anyway... three ships coming in on the left."

It did not take us longer than half an hour to free Dole from the darkness of our enemy. It was time to move on to Herremeze Relic Site. Thing seemed to be going well, for we had also received news that our friends at B.C.U. had managed to defeat the Heartless plaguing Starlite Valley with absolutely no casualties.

However, we all knew that the real challenge lay on Bark. It would be there where we would truly wage a deadly battle.

"Great job, everyone," Maici said. "Relic is next. Same strategy as before. Tanks go in first, followed by speedy I-gears... the Baiken way."

"I just want you all to know that if any B.C.U. starts doing something they shouldn't, I'm going to get revenge on them," WhiteHawkOne blatantly threatened.

"Hey, White-Twat-One, do yourself a favor and eat shit," Baiken hastened to say through our communicator. "Better for it to go in than out of your fucking mouth." Though I did not mean to, I chuckled because of her retort.

"No more drama. Not today," Ziggy intervened, before anyone else could carry on with the verbal abuse.

"I swear he's the most annoying, stupid... thing I've ever met," Ukyo grumbled through a private channel.

"As long as he does not try to harm any of our allies, I will be able to stomach him," I told her.

"Bah, don't worry, kids," Baiken confidently said. "He's a useless jerk. He barks a lot, but he can't bite."

We paid no more attention to WhiteHawkOne as we made our way to the next territory. Like before, we got through the gate without encountering a single monster. However, something was different this time. There were absolutely no Heartless in Herremeze Relic Site. The I-gear scouts quickly performed reconnaissance duty and found no enemies hiding nearby.

"I thought we would find a more solid defense here," Ziggy mused. "I guess I was mistaken."

"I thought so too," I added. "The Heartless are not acting like they usually do."

"Explain yourself, brother," Siegfried said.

"Heartless do not flee in the face of danger. They attack relentlessly, for they only know hatred. In fact, I am surprised that we did not find more of them in Dole..."

"These Heartless must be smarter, then," Ukyo said. "We have to be extra-careful. I don't want to find myself in a situation similar to that of Gaia."

"By God, I will die before I see that happen," I murmured, remembering with dread the day that Ukyo had been taking from me.

"They must be all grouped up in Bark, waiting for us..." Jam sighed.

"Well, Marmalade Jam, if I had a big-ass monster that can tear anything apart in that place, I also wouldn't like to leave that area," Baiken said.

"But that's the problem: the Heartless act on instinct, not on reason," Leon refuted. "I really do hope we're not facing another Digaia..."

"Maybe they really are under someone else's influence, and I could take a guess as to who that is..." Baiken mused. She leaned toward me and whispered in my ear: "Keep a very close eye on Ukyo, just in case."

"...I will," I replied as a chill ran down my back.

"Wait a minute... if the Heartless are fighting differently than what you're used to, doesn't that screw up our strategy?" Honrar asked.

"So far, the only strategy we've thought about is to remain together and push the Heartless back as a group, both B.C.U. and A.N.I.," Siegfried retorted. "Don't be alarmed... We will have to think about something else when that monster crashes into the party, though."

"We've lost enough time talking about this: the guys from B.C.U. might already be in Bark and they probably need our help," Maici guessed. "Let's get a move on, guys. Stay together, like Siegfried said, and don't be overconfident. Though we have some guard bots taking care of Den A, there's a chance our enemies might be waiting for us."

"No pity, no overconfidence," Twist muttered.

As we had half-expected, Den A was empty by the look of things. We paid little attention to what the passage to the barren land had to offer and went through the final warp...

No one was waiting for us at the gate. There did not seem to be a single shadow in sight. We were beginning to think that our friends in B.C.U. had been held up in their territory, but a timely transmission soon made us realize that this was not the case.

"A.N.I. people, can you hear me?" Jazzy asked. His voice sounded a bit distorted, yet he appeared to be calm.

"We're all here, Jazzy and all in one piece. What about you?" Maici quickly replied.

"We're all accounted for, too. We just made it through Den B."

"We also just got here..." She paused as we all noticed an eerie cloud in Bark's center. We stared at it suspiciously, remaining completely still within our vessels for a few seconds. Once we realized nothing would happen yet, our leader spoke again. "Let's meet on the eastern mountains. We have to stick together if we're going to approach that cloud."

"Agreed."

"Stay by my side, baby..." Ukyo whispered on my private channel.

"Do not worry, beloved. I will not any harm fall upon you," I assured.

"I swear you're going to make me puke," my copilot grumbled. "Stop the cheesy talk for once in your life."

"But I—"

"I know you love her: it's pretty damn clear to me and to everyone in the freaking planet. Seriously: concentrate on fighting and demonstrate your love through taking care of her. But please, stop going all cute and blah, blah, blah; because I've had enough of that for one day."

"I cannot shut out the desire for her in my—" Yet as I turned to see her, I noticed in her eye that she was not in the mood for arguing. "...Never mind."

We met with our friends on the mountains. It was nice to see additional fighters... Now we were roughly five-hundred warriors.

"So far we haven't seen any Heartless, except the ones we beat on Starlite Valley," Jazzy informed.

"We understand... although that cloud looks over there doesn't look friendly," Maici muttered.

We looked again and as if the smokes had heard us, they slowly receded and unveiled the horrifying sight that lay behind its curtains. The Heartless were there, flying about the center of Bark like a swarm of bees. What alarmed us was that they were just as numerous as a colony of insects and would no doubt be just as aggressive the moment they realized we were near. The cloud of dust had only move to let us gawp in horror at this new haze... for the swarm of Heartless outnumbered us by far too many. Indeed, these beings were not very good flyers; yet my friends and I were skilled rookies, at the most. I certainly would have felt a lot more confident if I had fought on foot, wielding Renamark and hacking at my foes with all my might. However, at that moment my magical blade would not aid me. My turret, my metal armor, and my wits were my only weapon.

"My God..." Siachen muttered with fright.

"Guys... wouldn't it be easier if we retreated and waited for them on the other side of the Dens?" Yukunism suggested. "It's open field here: numbers will turn the tide of the battle."

"The more we wait to finish off the Heartless, the stronger they'll become," Sora retorted. "No blockade will be able to hold them off then. We have to take them out now."

"Besides, chances are the warps are disabled by now," Ziggy observed.

"We can turn them back on, like last time," one of the younger pilots suggested.

"They will kill more than half our forces while we try to fend them off," Mosfet answered. "And if we split, they'll outnumber us further. If we remain together, one of our cities will be unprotected."

"Your city our Bygeniou: there is no 'ours'," MasterMenace intervened. I was not the least surprised to hear something of the sort from his foul mouth.

"Wait a minute – that wasn't White-Maggot-One?" my copilot said without wasting a second. "Aw, you must be his brother. I guess that stupidity runs in the family."

"I'm not a B.C.U. piece of trash, fucking crippled!" WhiteHawkOne whined.

"How dare you speak to me that way, inferior A.N.I.??" the inopportune pilot demanded.

"Shit, it's even worse. It looks like your brother is an overbearing asshole, White-Prick-One," Baiken mocked; and before anyone else could interfere, she added: "If you two want to kill each other, I don't give a fucking damn – but leave the rest of us out of your bickering."

"Seriously, people: stop arguing!" Adrian yelled. This time there was not a trace of humor in his voice. I was actually a bit surprised to hear him angry. "I'm tired of hearing complains about the other nation. Get this through your skull, MasterMenace: there is no 'other' nation now – we're all together in this. Unless you want to get yourself and those around you killed, I suggest you start contemplating the meaning of the word 'teamwork'."

"If those around me are A.N.I., I don't care if they die," MasterMenace arrogantly announced.

"Right. Do whatever you want. But don't expect me to lift a finger to help you if you're in trouble."

"You mean he can actually switch his stupidity off?" Baiken whispered in my ear. Normally I would have chuckled (especially since she was sincerely trying to be funny), but I was far from being in the mood for laughs.

"MasterMenace: you will fight alongside every one of us. That's an order," Jazzy growled. It was clear that these people would not listen to diplomacy nor soft words.

"Enough of fighting between ourselves. We have to be past that," Maici said. "Let's focus on the Heartless. I can't see that huge monster..."

"Me neither," Ken said. "What about you, Felicia? You have the best eyes."

"Nothing. Nada. Zip," the were-cat replied.

"Surely it'll show up sooner or later. In the mean time, we have to decimate that army. By my calculations, we're outnumbered about one-hundred to one," Maici mused.

"Oh, that's just fucking great," Amouth grumbled.

"I guess you have already thought of something, huh, Maici?" Dan muttered.

"Yes: let's try to take away that advantage. Let's surround them with formations. Luckily for us, they're not too spread out."

"It's very dangerous, Maici..." DjFlaco mumbled. "Each formation will still be facing hundreds of Heartless at a time."

"It'll be less than if we take on them as a single team," Maici retorted. "Besides, being on different formations doesn't mean we won't look out for one another."

"Right; that's what you think..." WhiteHawkOne muttered.

"Okay: I'm going to start ignoring you, idiot, and I suggest you all do the same, guys," my darling said. "How do we make the forms? Balanced, as usual?"

"Yes: the strategy hasn't changed – stay close to your formations and we'll make it. Just remember to look out for those nearby," Maici clarified.

"Let's do it then. And keep an eye out for that huge monster," Jazzy said. No one said 'good luck' or 'God be with us'. At that moment, despite Maici's words, every formation felt alone and perhaps, even threatened by the one beside it...

The squadrons broke up and surrounded the swarm of Heartless. We closed in on the horde of foes and waited for the leaders to give the order. The beings kept on flying in circles as if they had not noticed us. For my part, though, I was sure that they only wanted us to unleash the first shot. They were toying with us... There was no turning back.

"A-gears..." Jazzy said in a low voice. I was expecting a countdown. But instead... "GIVE THEM HELL!!"

I was caught off guard by his battle yell. However, I hastily got a hold of my turret's controls and shot the ship closest to me. Our powerful shots destroyed our targets on the first attempt. This caused the Heartless to wake from their trance... the hive had been disturbed. The cloud of enemies grew thick and angry and they speeded against us, shooting thousands of missiles at us.

"B-gears, bomb them! Don't let them get near!!" Maici shouted.

The bombers quickly formed a wall and unleashed their bombs upon any Heartless that dared get near. Meanwhile, the I-gears and the M-gears shot at the enemies that were farthest away. This time, the fighters did not go after the Heartless that fled away from us. We had to remain together. Luckily for us, the shielding of our ships was hard enough to withstand the foes' blasts.

We had formed a solid perimeter and were effectively keeping the Heartless in check. Since their projectiles were not lethal, I reframed from using my barrier and relied on the ship's own shield and the M-gears' quick assistance. Rather than wasting energy on my special barrier, I employed it to snare any rogue Heartless ships that tried to escape the area we were targeting. We could not afford to get attacked from both ends. Right now we were the ones surrounding: if the tables turned, we would not stand a chance.

Suddenly, a formation that had not been with us during our previous skirmishes picked a spot alongside us and started to attack the Heartless. Despite this extra help, our A.N.I. companions did not seem too pleased with the arrival of these pilots.

"Where were you, Goons? Taking a nap?" Djneff grumbled.

"None of your business. Be grateful we're here to help," one of the fighters insolently answered.

"DE, I swear to God, that I'll—"

"Less yap-yap and more bang-bang!" Felicia opportunely interrupted.

The Heartless numbers somehow kept growing and growing. Every Heartless that fell was soon replaced by another that sprung out of the shadows in Bark. Though we had not lost a single pilot so far, we were facing another problem: we were running out of ammunition.

"I'm nearly out of missiles!" Ukyo announced in alarm.

"I will also be empty of bullets soon!" I added.

"Unless the reload station in this place is still working, we're going to be crushed!" Atermel yelled.

"Then let's hope it's still running, then," Maici muttered. "Ukyo, Wilheim – you guys go there first and see if the station still works. If so, let us know and we'll start to go there by turns."

"And if it's broke?" a pilot asked with fear in his voice.

"If it's broke, we'll have to fix the portal to one of our cities and flee. Then we'll have to go through the moon to reach the other town and protect it," Jazzy answered.

"Right now, we just need to check," Maici said. "Come on, guys, hurry up."

Ukyo and I quickly did as we were told and located the reload station in the blink of an eye. The structure seemed like it would crumble with just touching it. Smoke came out of the many cracks that it had. Truly, it was not a very encouraging sight. Nevertheless, we chose not to give up hope just yet.

"You go first, Wilheim," my beloved said. "Just place yourself on the landing spot and then let the machines do the rest."

"Try to hover, rather than landing entirely," Baiken added. "Looks like that piece of shit will fall by just blowing on it, so it's best to take it easy."

"Understood," I answered and placed my tank just a few inches above the ground.

Amazingly, the reload automatic system still functioned. The machines moved slowly and clumsily; yet they moved and that was quite relieving. I let out a loud sigh as I saw my ammunition count go up.

"Heads up, Wilheim, they're coming from behind!" Ukyo warned. I turned and saw that seven Heartless were aiming for us.

"Ukyo, Will, look out! A formation of those jerks escaped the center," Araya warned, if only a little too late.

"Really?? You think??" Baiken roared at the communicator. Tired of all the yelling and the aggression that we were experiencing internally, I just gave her a quick glance, urging her to stop complaining with my stare. Fortunately, she understood and granted me the favor. "Like it or not, it's time to use your bubble. Snare the fighters and let Ukyo beat the crap out of them: focus your fire on the tanks and the medics."

"Good idea," I said.

"I don't like using you as bait, but the Heartless seem to be going after you either way..." Ukyo murmured.

Indeed: since the enemies saw that I was the slower-moving target, they did not hesitate to throw themselves against me. Luckily I still had plenty of energy to keep my special barrier up. I opened fire against the slower ships as well and brought them down in a matter of seconds. Ukyo circled me and destroyed the fighters and bombers. They barely attacked her, which seemed very strange to me, since she was the grater menace. I suppose it was because I was easier to hit. Yet that did not mean that I took any damage.

In the end, they posed no threat whatsoever and were quickly eliminated by our cunning attacks.

"The platform still works!" I announced. "I have full ammunition!"

"My turn," Ukyo said as I put my tank aside and allowed her to reload. Very soon, there was a line of gears heading the platform. Those who had more capacity in their ships remained behind, doing their best to cover the positions that their companions had momentarily left empty.

"Don't these things ever die?!" cried Kobe, losing his serenity for a moment.

"Patience, Kobe! We'll finish them off eventually," Felicia assured. "We're doing great. We just have to keep shooting them down and they'll be defeated sooner or later. Believe me: I've gone through this before."

"But they just keep coming and coming!" the lad moaned.

"Don't despair. We can beat them if we just focus," Ryu added.

"I'm done," my darling announced as she got off the platform and flew next to me. "Who's next?"

"Dibs," Honrar said and landed on the platform.

Things had gone according as planned up to that moment. We still had to face the immense monster that had stormed Bark during our last encounter. No doubt he would not be an easy foe to defeat. I was a bit concerned about that fiend; for last time I had seen it, it had received multiple attacks and they had not even scratched its dark skin. I did my best to take the advice I had given my friends earlier when we were at the cell – worry about it when the time came.

But there was another enemy that we had to be wary about: the one that was the deadliest foe of them all... one that soon showed its hideous face when we were beginning to believe we had the upper hand on the battle.

A formation of Heartless escaped from the ring of gears that were mowing them down and moved steadily towards the ships that were still waiting to reload their weapons.

"I'm out of missiles," one pilot said. "Please, cover me."

Apparently, the warrior who had requested this had been an A.N.I. belonging to the Kill on sight brigade. He was surrounded by B.C.U. pilots... and as the Heartless approached the lad more and more, no one moved from their positions.

"Guys, please, answer me! I need help here!" But the B.C.U. remained silent and stationary.

"Isn't anybody going to help?" WhiteHawkOne practically demanded, even when he had the nerve to remain still as well.

"Get off your assess, people!!" Baiken roared. "Fuck it! If you want something done... Will, Ukyo; let's go back and lend that idiot a hand."

With a solemn nod, we turned our ships back and raced to the platform. However, we were too far away and had foolishly relied on our companions to help their former rivals. Things did not bode well.

"Help! They're on to me!!" the pilot cried. The Heartless had surrounded him and were unloading every missile and every bullet upon his gear. As tough as his ship's armor might have been, it was unable to withstand the onslaught of Heartless. It was not until it began to catch fire that WhiteHawkOne had the dignity to finally get out of line and help him a bit. However, it was too late and we had not managed to fly fast enough to aid the pilot that crashed into the ground and exploded.

"You B.C.U. bastards!!" WhiteHawkOne roared. "He asked you for help, and you just stood there like morons!"

"You said you wouldn't help any of us: we're simply returning the favor with your brigade," a B.C.U. warrior calmly replied. "Besides, it's not like you did much, either, prick."

"Oh, yeah?" WhiteHawkOne steadily flew his ship behind the pilot. Up until then, we had all thought that Baiken's description of the arrogant A.N.I. was correct: all talk and no action. But we had all forgotten something very important... to never underestimate the darkness in one person's heart. "Return this!!" He fired a volley of missiles against his victim and blew him up in the blink of an eye.

Ukyo, Baiken, and I were speechless. We had not expected such a thing. It was as if time froze for a second, allowing us to have a moment to realize what would inevitably happen next. After that instant was over, Ukyo and I silently flew as fast as we could to the line of pilots, hoping with all our hearts that we would be able to calm things down, while Baiken could only utter in a murmur: "You've got to be shitting me..."

"You son of a bitch!!" a pilot bellowed. "I'll have your head for that!"

"I knew it: the A.N.I. cannot be trusted!!" MasterMenace added. "Kill them all!!"

"No, stop it! Stay calm!" Sora yelled.

We all tried to talk sense into the berserk pilots. However, it was useless. Hatred, fear, and mistrust took over their hearts and once more both nations were at war. Only the Wulfpack, Tactical Aggression, and some other brigades, such as Pablosky's and Mosfet's groups did their best to concentrate their fire on the Heartless, rather than on their companions.

Ukyo and I had no choice but to retreat back to our formation, for we were quickly targeted by both B.C.U. and A.N.I. gears. I was forced to use all of my gear's energy in maintaining my anti-missile barrier, while my darling hastily camouflaged her ship.

The ring of ships keeping the Heartless in check inevitably broke up. The fiends escaped their confinement and started to mercilessly attack our pilots; many of them would not fire back, for they were busy hunting down fellow warriors.

According to my companions, WhiteHawkOne had behaved like an insufferable coward in the past, quickly fleeing the field of battle the moment he sensed his ship was in danger of being dented. I was not seeing this now. Something had possessed him and he no longer cared about the hundreds of missiles heading at him. He was filled with hatred and his loathing of the B.C.U. overcame his spinelessness. He shot opponents that would not escape, for their hearts were consumed by darkness as well.

Now each man had to look out for himself. Those of us that tried to stay out of the inner fight still had a hard time fending off the Heartless, not to mention that our former companions were also attacking us. And the radio was soon filled by threats, curses, cries of hatred, and agonizing yells...

Volleys of bombs rained upon us one after the other. The energy that I had administered so well was soon no more and I had nothing left but my tank's armor to protect Baiken and me from the missiles and gunfire.

"Wilheim, get out of there!" Ukyo cried upon seeing my tank receive so many attacks.

"You're going to get blown up, Will!!" Ken shouted. "Move it! And you too, Octavius!!" Indeed, the tanks were the Heartless' primary target, and with the aid of the rest of the gears, things were even more hazardous for us.

"Will, you better start making me dizzy," Baiken said.

"All right," I muttered.

"We'll cover you, brother," Siegfried said and he and my other friends quickly grouped up as I started to fly away from the onslaught.

I burned my engines to the limit. Still, the Heartless would not stop hunting us. Most of the tanks still had enough energy to keep their barriers up, thankfully; and those who had depleted their reserves still had a very tough armor protecting them. However, my new tank was not as resilient as the A-gear the Wulfpack had given me. I was unwilling to fully trust on the M-gears.

"Will, make me dizzy, goddamn it!!" Baiken yelled as hundreds of missiles raced at us.

"I'll try to draw their fire!" Zephyr exclaimed. He swooped just in front of the projectiles and successfully managed to attract a huge amount of them to his ship. His superior speed meant that he would surely remain unharmed. Yet there were still many missiles threatening to blow us into pieces.

"Stay cool, Will... we'll fix your ship," Sakura assured. I realized her M-gear was right next to us.

"There may be nothing left to fix if I just wait..." I murmured. "It has taken me long enough to grant your wish, Baiken. Hold on!"

"Holy shh—!!" my copilot exclaimed as I flew into the sky, rolling around restlessly.

We flew above the clouds and then dived straight into them. I could barely see anything in the thick, dark fog, yet I kept a steady eye on my radar and skillfully (or luckily, if you want to see it that way) evaded the incoming projectiles. I reckon I was not doing a bad job keeping us alive; Baiken was even holding on to the ship's walls with her arm, while keeping her eye tightly shut.

A B.C.U. B-gear suddenly appeared on my radar. He was approaching us at full speed. I could not see it through the clouds, yet surely his intentions were not good. Instinct alone would save me now... I had to remain a bit still for a few moments and allowed a few Heartless missiles to hit us. The Heartless' shots I could take; but a deadly volley of bombs come from a human gear would no doubt kill us. I had to direct my attention toward the bomber and nothing else.

Before my excitable companion could complain about my strategy, I rolled and avoided all but one bomb. Even that single projectile caused considerable damage. Fortunately, Sakura and Ryoga were near and they promptly repaired my ship. However, the B-gear turned around and attacked again.

"How about a one-on-one fight, abusive jackass?!" my darling shouted as she swooped down against the foe and unleashed a small volley of bombs upon the gear. The ship was severely damaged, but not entirely destroyed.

"Damn bitch!" the pilot yelled and flew away from us at full speed. Ukyo did not chase him.

"Hold on, Will!" Zephyr called and he, along with Sakura, Ryoga, and Ukyo's help destroyed the Heartless that had surrounded me in the blink of an eye. Seeing all the help that I had, I stopped worrying about my armor and began to shoot at the fiends relentlessly, too.

"Thank you all," I sighed. I turned to Baiken and asked: "Are you all right?" I would have laughed in another occasion upon seeing the pale-green color her face had acquired.

"I think you took my request a bit too literally," she murmured, practically swallowing the vomit she had been about to expel from her mouth. "Good job, Willie... good job."

"Guys! I need help!!" Gallger suddenly cried.

"Gallger, what are you doing all the way over there?? Come back to the formation!!" Kobe called.

We hastily descended from the clouds and noticed that opposing gears had driven Gallger away from everyone else. He was alone and was fighting for his life against three I-gears. Without wasting a second, we raced to his aid.

"Damn it!! Leave him alone, you bastards!!" Kobe yelled.

"Get off him, now!!" Honrar exclaimed.

"I knew you Goons were up to no good!!" Twist roared as he noticed that one of the gears attacking our friend belonged to the hated brigade.

"Think what you will, asshole," the pilot replied with an air of superiority.

"We're not letting you get away with this!!" Jam cried. She, along with the rest of the I-gears, made it to Gallger's side. The boy's ship was in terrible shape. He had at least managed to remain alive... he was most skilled.

The enemies were quickly repelled by our companions. Again, they did not chase after them. We did not want to contribute to the hatred that had taken over the battlefield.

"Come over here, Gall, and I'll fix your gear," Jazzy said.

"Okay," the boy replied with relief in his voice.

But no one foresaw that a camouflaged A-gear lay in wait for a prey. When Gallger was in range of his cannon, he fired away without pity. No M-gear was able to help him and the I-gears that accompanied him were caught off guard.

"No way!! Help m—!!"

The lad's cries were lost in the explosion that followed. My heart stopped for a moment as it did its best not to be corrupted by mindless anger. The betrayal was simply too overwhelming... for it had been a B.C.U. gear who had killed our young friend.

"Gallger...?" Kobe muttered, unable and unwilling to believe his eyes and ears. "Cousin...? No... KUJI, FUCK YOU!!" he roared with a broken voice.

"Serves you right, fucking traitors," the tank's pilot replied as he made his way back to his formation.

"You... you son of a bitch...!" Jazzy growled under his breath.

"I'LL KILL YOU!!" Kobe cried and steered his ship to chase after Kuji. However, he was soon snared by a fellow A-gear.

"Kobe, don't lose your head!!" Longtom shouted. "I need you to keep your cool!"

"He killed Gallger, Longtom!! Let me go!!"

"Don't give in, Kobe," Rhino said. "If you give into anger, we'll lose."

"Stay cool and stay together!" Narue added.

Kobe had to swallow both his pride and his desire for revenge for the time being. He silently turned back and returned to our side.

"The Heartless are growing stronger," Sora murmured. "Perhaps not in numbers, but they're becoming stronger and quicker. I bet that the huge monster will soon appear..."

"Hatred calls it – we're screaming for him to show up," Leon said.

"This wasn't supposed to happen..." Donald mused with a confused breath.

"Everyone..." Maici said and slowly raised the tone of her voice. "This shouldn't be a fight of A.N.I. going up against B.C.U... this is a fight of us – of Phillon folk – against a greater threat! Put your hate aside and fight as companions if you don't want to get killed!!" But her words fell on deaf ears and the fight against nations raged on with heavy losses on both sides.

WhiteHawkOne soon appeared amongst our ranks and began to shoot at EvaRaine and Narue. The possessed fiend had already killed many pilots and he had no intention of stopping. The anger in him had turned him into a most dangerous monster. Very soon, both Eva and Narue were in dire need of help, for Eva's ship's energy did not suffice to repair both vessels from the onslaught.

"Get away, you idiot!" the yelled at him and tried to shake him off their tails doing their best not to answer fire. However, WhiteHawkOne was not leaving us much choice.

DjFlaco, Jam, and Siegfried flew to the rescue. Upon being assaulted by these three gears, WhiteHawkOne lost his focus on Eva and Narue. However, he quickly switched targets and started to fire upon my brother. His ship received tremendous damage and was seconds away from being blown up.

This time, I was unable to remain idle.

"Wilheim, I know you don't want to do this, but there's no choice: kill that bastard," Baiken murmured dryly.

"I will not let him harm my brother," I growled and shot at the A.N.I. I-gear without thinking about it any longer.

Siegfried managed to escape from WhiteHawkOne and his ship was quickly restored by our surrounding M-gears. However, the fiend had now targeted me and swooped upon me.

"The crippled is there, right?" the foe groused. "Good! I want to hear her scream when I kill her!"

"You wish!" Baiken yelled and then her tone became low and menacing. "Start saying your prayers, coward. We've suffered your idiocy long enough... this time you'll die, WhiteHawkOne."

"Hah! Let's just see how much!!"

He evaded DJ and Jam's missiles and dived against us. He let loose a flurry of missiles which depleted all of my tank's energy and nearly tore through my armor. About every alarm that the ship possessed went off. Smoke began to pour out from everywhere; even from the control panel. Things were looking extremely bad...

"Wilheim!!" Ukyo cried. She was too far away to help me and there were no M-gears in our proximity to at least restore our normal shields.

"Fuck..." Baiken mumbled, while I remained speechless.

"How about that, you fucker?!" the fiend cackled. "This time you'll end up as a crater!"

The fiend got ready to fire the last volley that would surely annihilate us. There was nothing we could do but to escape the ship, and even so WhiteHawkOne would surely target us and kill us before we could make our escape to a cave or to climb on board another ship. This time I did not think we would be able to survive...

Yet then, a volley of missiles flew against WhiteHawkOne and threw him completely off course. The fiend had been caught by surprise and we were no longer being targeted. As Sakura and Ryoga approached our ship and fixed it, Atermel flew behind the enemy's tail and started to chase him without rest. WhiteHawkOne barrel-rolled and speed up and slowed down, doing his best to escape his opponent. But Atermel would not let another of his brothers be harmed. He let loose a barrage of speedy projectiles that WhiteHawkOne was unable to outrun.

"Fuck!! No!!" the enemy cried. Town Portals would not save him this time. Atermel used his machine gun to finish him completely. "HE—!!" The fiend was no more.

"Damn him..." Atermel muttered. "Are you all right, Will? Baiken?"

"Yes, we're fine, thanks to you," I answered. "You saved our lives..."

"Don't sing your praises yet. There's much more work to be done."

"Good job, kid," Baiken told our rescuer, with a sigh of relief.

"You okay, brother?" Siegfried asked.

"Yes. You are safe now, and that is comforting," I replied. "Remain alert."

Very soon, Kuji returned alongside MasterMenace and some other gears. I sighed and readied myself for another deadly offensive...

"You fools! We've got to stop this!!" Mosfet said as he and his brigade came to our aid.

"For once in your lives, listen to reason!" Pablosky added, while Jusafing and Yopas joined him.

"Traitors will be destroyed!" MasterMenace cried.

"That's it! Your ass is mine!" Apocalypse roared and flew after the fiend.

"Kuji, I'll kill you for what you did to my cousin!" Kobe bellowed.

"A deserter like you doesn't scare me," the A-gear pilot laughed.

"You're the deserter!" Jazzy intervened. "We haven't betrayed B.C.U.! And Tactical Aggression hasn't betrayed A.N.I.! It's you who've betrayed Phillon!"

Wulfpack's leader was unable to contain his anger any longer and assaulted Kuji. The A-gear didn't move an inch and kept firing against Jazzy with all his might, while our friend intelligently restored his shields and repaired his ship. Kobe shot at the fiend with many volleys of missiles, forcing him to turn his barrier on. Little by little, they depleted his energy. Unable to withstand the fury of both ships, Kuji soon fell.

Pablosky, Mosfet, and their respective brigades shot down the Heartless, while the rest of us dealt with the mad pilots. MasterMenace had attacked Shadaoh and had caught him off guard. But before he could utterly destroy him, Gallager damaged his ship and threw him off course. Apocalypse, SniperDog, UpDaBut, and Honrar chased after the speedy I-gear and drew him away from us. Even so, this time they did not stop pursuing him. It was time to put an end to the madness.

As they reached the center of Bark, MasterMenace's thrusters broke down. Honrar had snared him and the fiend had exhausted his ship's energy. The I-gears mercilessly let a rain of projectiles fell upon him and annihilated him. He fell into nothingness while cursing and yelling.

"Anyone else want to behave like a fucking idiot?!" SniperDog demanded.

"People, it's a simple choice: fight against the Heartless on our side, and you may yet live: fight against everyone and you'll get killed for sure," Honrar added.

"Start using your brains, people, or—oh, shit!!" Apocalypse exclaimed. It was then that we noticed that, just past his ship, the enormous monster had finally appeared. It let out a horrifying roar that made every ship tremble as if the Planet was being assaulted by a hurricane. And then, from the clouds, the Heartless' biggest ships appeared.

The fiend extended its arm and took a swipe at our four companions. Apocalypse and UpDaBut managed to escape the deadly attack. Unfortunately, Honrar and SniperDog were not fast enough.

"Mother fuck—!!" Amouth grumbled as we all saw our two friends' ships get crushed. All I could do was to turn my head away from the scene and curse under my breath. "Damn it!! Damn it!!"

"Bloody Heartless bastards!!" Siachen roared with frustration.

The monster's presence did, however, put a halt to the hatred amongst pilots and rather filled their hearts with dread. B.C.U. and A.N.I. stopped firing against each other and tried to fly away the beast. But the monster still had not let loose its potent attack. Few moments after it had assassinated Honrar and SniperDog, it began to draw power from all the shadows about it.

"It's going to attack with his shockwave!" Maici observed. "Everyone, get as far away from that monster as you can and then face him and burn your thrusters as if you wanted to get to him!"

"Get away and then go near it?? Have you lost your damn mind??" DoubleEagle blurted.

"Stop arguing with me! A-gears; plant your ships on the ground and if you feel that you won't hold on, race against the current!"

"You heard the woman, Will," Baiken said.

"I suppose we are far away enough," I gulped. "Brace yourselves, friends!"

Seconds later, the monster unleashed its wrath upon us. Many ships did not manage to get away from the shockwave in time and irremediably exploded upon crashing most violently on the ground. Some others managed to escape their gears before they were entirely destroyed; however, the pilots were quickly assaulted by the rest of the Heartless ships, which were impervious to the monsters' power.

We raced against the invisible wave and managed to keep our ships in place. The I-gears, M-gears, and B-gears were rendered defenseless because of this attack and the Heartless took advantage of the momentary weakness. Many ships fell. The Goons' brigade was completely decimated. Only three of their warriors survived the assault. The Vets were entirely eliminated. However, my fellow A-gear pilots and I soon managed to fend them off, thanks to our turrets' mobility. Moreover, as the monster's attack diminished, the M-gears finally managed to repair the ships' shields and armor.

The Heartless pulled back and started to amass a huge, last offensive. Soon, the monster and the enormous ships joined the force. They had cornered us. Even though the vicious attack had not destroyed us, it had pushed us against the mountains. The Heartless were closing in from all directions.

As we remained there, immobile and confused, Octavius's voice suddenly resounded on our speakers as he spoke the harshest words I had ever heard him say.

"I have traveled through many words and I had never... You are all filled with so much hatred and desire to kill... This world belongs to the Heartless. This world is not worth saving."

No one replied. I found myself out of breath. All I could do was turn to Baiken... she looked a bit surprised for a moment, yet then she seemed to agree with the were-bear by giving a very slight nod with her head. Not one of our companions dared to ask him not to say something of the sort. For his words had been cruelly accurate.

It took the pilots of Phillon a few moments to digest Octavius's statement. At last, it was Maici who had the courage to talk.

"That monster... these creatures... all of this is our doing. And now we're going to die as monsters... The only way to avoid this is to find redemption in each other. A.N.I. and B.C.U. must be no more. We have to find forgiveness in the pilot beside us and fight. Not for ideals; not for vengeance; but to extinguish the hatred that has taken over our hearts. Octavius is right: this world belongs to the Heartless. And that's who we are right now. Let's clean our souls; let's fight for the right to call ourselves human again. We'll fight to save ourselves... as brothers!"

"We can't maneuver in this spot," Riitta answered. Despite her words, her voice had changed. It was the same for all pilots. In the face of death, their true nature was unveiled: and it was the desire to die with honor.

"Form a wall, stick to M-gears," Sora hastily replied. "Let them get to us!"

"These Heartless are going to find out what it's like to mess with these mother fuckers!" DjFlaco roared in excitement.

"We will win!!" Eva yelled.

Our friends' renewed spirit gave us new energies to stand again. At last, they had understood. And, though we were only two-hundred soldiers left, we knew that, united, the Heartless would not be able to withstand our attacks.

The mountains became our allies, for the Heartless were unable to attack from the rear and the sides effectively. As they charged against us dead-on, we all shouted "FIRE!!"

A storm of missiles, bombs, lasers, and machine gun fire deafened the engines of our foes. The fiends' ships exploded one after the other before they could even fire their own projectiles. Those that hit our ships did little damage and said harm was immediately fixed by the M-gears. We had become a wall of fire so intense that the shadows could not get near us without experiencing the pain of our determined flame.

"Everyone, cover us I-gears for a few moments!" Zephyr abruptly yelled.

"I think I know what you're thinking, my good Zeph," Twist chuckled. "Let's go Berserk on their butts!"

"Huh??" Felicia muttered.

"Okay, this is for I-gears only," DjFlaco said, putting special emphasis on 'only'. "A-gears will try this later; B-gears, reframe from doing this unless you want us all to blow up. Felicia, this is what you have to do: rip your lower control panel off; it's possible with slight leverage. Grab the hoses that are behind them; unplug them and then cross colors: don't worry, there are only two pairs and of different colors."

"What'll happen then?" Jam asked.

"You'll see..." Siachen said with a low chuckle of anticipation.

The I-gears stopped shooting for a few moments. The Heartless managed to gain some terrain during these instants. After what Araya had told Adrian, I was beginning to wonder what would happen to the I-gears if they crossed their hoses. I only prayed that someone in A.N.I. had told my dear Ukyo what could happen if she did the same...

"Holy cow!!" Sora yelled.

"Oh, boy!" Donald quacked in surprise.

The I-gears began to fire again. However, there was now no pause between volleys of missiles. It was as if the vessels had gone into frenzy. Additionally, the projectiles were fired with extra potency. Each volley took down an entire row of Heartless. The fiends quickly lost the ground they had conquered with much difficulty. The storm was now a hurricane.

There were still hundreds of Heartless' ships left. However, thanks to the I-gears' 'malfunction', we were quickly evening the numbers. Nevertheless, the immense enemy ships were still functioning and were steadily advancing. The I-gears targeted them and let their unstoppable rain fall upon them. But despite thousands of missiles hit them simultaneously, the ships did not slow down and apparently took little damage.

"Those guys aren't yielding..." Siegfried gulped.

"A-gears: Hyper-Shoot them!" Jazzy shouted.

"What?" I blurted.

"Just like they told the B-gears, Will," Araya said. "Just like I told Adrian – only that he's not the one that has to be doing it."

"I got it the first time," the vampire said.

"And I-gears, be ready to reconnect your hoses the way they were," Dan instructed. "Your ships will soon be powered down for about half a minute, so you'll have enough time to do it. Otherwise, your cannons will melt."

"Understood," Felicia said.

"Which panel did they say...?" I muttered as I frantically looked for a place to stick my hand and pull.

However, Baiken soon spared me the effort. She leaned forward, stuck her fingers in the panel and pulled. Like DJ had said earlier, there were two pairs of hoses of two different colors – green and cyan.

"I suppose you can take it from here," my copilot said.

"Yes... thank you," I mumbled and crossed the hoses.

The tank made a loud sound as if it was going to explode and I became quite alarmed. The turret's cannon became red and began to spark and glow. The over-heat alarm began to sound and I froze.

"Don't worry about a thing, guys," Longtom instructed the rookies – myself included, of course. "Just aim at the big ships and fire as usual. Afterwards, do exactly what Shadaoh just told the I-gears to do: put everything back in order."

"A-all right..." I stammered.

Maici quickly gave instructions as to which A-gears would fire upon a select ship. If we all fired together against one, we would surely obliterate it, but there would still be nine left.

The organization was quick. The M-gears and the B-gears did a good job while keeping the Heartless' smaller ships at bay while the I-gears regained functionality and while the tanks targeted the behemoths...

"Bring them down!!" Jazzy shouted.

The moment I pulled the trigger, the A-gear powered down and violently shook as it fired the blast which could best be described as apocalyptic. The enormous ships' shields broke like a cup of delicate glass and its armor bent like burnt paper. The shot was so powerful that even nearby, smaller ships fell because of the energized shockwave. In a matter of seconds, the Heartless' elite fleet was reduced to scrap.

"Way to go, guys!!" Goofy cheered.

"That was awesome!!" Ranma laughed.

"Don't sing your praises yet, guys. We still have to take down the big guy," Amouth said.

"It's getting very near..." Narue said in a low, frightened voice.

Indeed, the enormous fiend kept walking at a steady pace, protected by a shield of hundreds of Heartless' ships. Surely we would whittle him into nothingness once we got rid of the little pests surrounding him... Yet the vessels abruptly flew aside and let the great foe unprotected as it began to run at us.

"Oh, crap..." we muttered.

Missiles and bombs flew at the fiend. The A-gears soon became operational again and aided in the assault. But our projectiles bounced off the Heartless like pebbles hitting a rubber bed. The explosions did not do the least harm. The fiend did not even bother to cover his eyes; he was impervious to our blasts.

"Scatter!!" Maici yelled.

We all immediately flew away from the Heartless enemy as it brought its fist with fury upon the mountains and obliterated them. Luckily, we did not lose pilots to this particular assault.

"Get together! Everyone, get together!"

The Heartless ships attacked us from every possible angle. We were still vastly outnumbered, so it was difficult to focus on single targets. All we could all do was to withstand the blows as much as possible and race to an M-gear so it could repair the damage done to our vessels before they crumbled.

"Move as one... M-gears, concentrate on repairing; don't waste your missiles. The rest of the gears, fire at will against the monster," Maici said.

We moved like a flock of eagles. We had stopped paying attention to the smaller vessels and simply concentrated on the huge menace. As we passed near his, we fired every missile and bullet to every spot of his body. But every spot of his body had the resilience of a mountain and the monster effortlessly took a swoop at us. This time, he took a few ships with his open hand and crushed them like flies.

"It has to have a weak spot! It has to!" Sora yelled.

"Let's make another pass!" Jazzy said.

Again, we dived from the clouds and attacked. And once more, even though we shot at every part of him, the fiend practically mocked our futile attempt to defeat him. It raised its leg high into the air in a kick and knocked down three more pilots.

"This isn't working!!" Eva shouted.

"Retreat to the North!" Jazzy ordered.

We had no choice but to flee from the might opponent. The fiend gloated in our failure and he and the Heartless' ships remained behind as we flew across Bark, waiting for us to come near them again so they would destroy us with impunity.

Hope began to wane. The soldiers' morale was now a sad memory. Everyone thought their time had come. The pilots wept over their dear ones that had fell into battle, certain that they would soon join them in their eternal slumber. Even I began to think that this time there was no possible way to attain victory. But Sora had not yet given up.

"Guys, we're not going to lose!" he said with resolve. "We can win if we keep a steady nerve and strong hearts! I promise you we can win!"

"Didn't you see what happened?" one of the pilots asked. "We should have at least knocked one of his arms down, and we didn't do squat!"

"We scratched his skin," another one replied. "I saw it."

"Scratched... whoopee-fucking-doo," a third said. "Even if we did hurt the thing, it would take hundreds of assaults to bring it down. We're less than two-hundred people now... We're not going to make it."

"We have to think of a way," my darling said. "I'm not going to die here, you hear? Stop thinking negatively and let's all try to figure out a way to deal with this. There's always a solution."

"Yeah... there always is," Maici said.

Something in her voice had changed. Her energy somehow seemed to have vanished. As if she was tired. To hear her like this got me quite preoccupied.

"Maici, do not give up hope," I said. "We will win through. I assure you."

"We will. I know..." she sighed and made a slight pause before speaking again. "Ziggy, I need you to give all your energy to my shield."

"M-gears can do that?" Jam asked.

"Um... why, Maici?" Ziggy asked.

"I am going to reconnect my ship's hoses."

For a moment, I did not understand. It took me a few seconds to realize what she meant. I lost my breath when I finally understood.

"...Maici, no," Ziggy murmured. "Calm down, there has to be another way."

"Another way would imply losing more pilots. It's a simple question of numbers," Tactical Aggression's leader said with a tired giggle.

"No, no, no, Maici," my darling hastily said. "No, there's no need to do that. We can figure something out."

"It won't be long before they attack again," Maici assured. "There's no time to lose."

"Bloody hell, Maici, rethink this for a second!" Siachen pressed.

"Ziggy: do it," the woman said with a determined air.

"This is all fucked up..." Baiken mumbled, covering her face with her hand. I could not find any words.

"Please... guys, let's calm down..." Sora said. His voice was filled by dread. "Let's think... let's..."

"Ziggy... Please," Maici insisted.

The radio was filled by moans of fright, sobs, and pleas. Every one of them came from Tactical Aggression's pilots... including my Ukyo's. And with a broken heart, Ziggy finally accepted Maici's request.

"All right..." he said with a shattered voice. "Here..."

Maici's ship glowed as her ships became nigh invulnerable. She uttered an almost inaudible 'thank you' and slowly turned her ship to the overconfident Heartless, which were still taunting us from far away.

"From this distance, the explosion won't hurt you, guys," Maici said. "Stay here."

"Maici..." Jazzy mumbled. He paused for a second and then managed to murmur: "You're the bravest woman I've ever known."

"Thank you..." the woman muttered. "Ziggy, take care of them."

"I will..." the pilot muttered.

"No, Maici!" Dan shouted.

Without another word, the fearless pilot started her final race. However, the younger Tactical Aggression soldiers could not bear to see their leader make such a run and they rushed forth while yelling her name, pleading her to come back. My Ukyo was among these people.

"Ukyo, come back!!" I yelled and instinctively began to follow her.

"Maici, don't go!!" she pleaded. "You don't have to do this!"

"Shit!! What now?!" Kobe yelled in alarm.

"...Don't come with me, guys," Maici said. "It's not worth it."

"I'm sorry, guys..." Ziggy sniveled as he raced at Dan and formed him.

"Ziggy?! What the heck are you doing?! Let me go!!" the pilot cried.

"Djneff, snare Zephyr," Ziggy ordered.

"...I..." the A-gear soldier did as he was told.

More tanks and M-gears rushed at Tactical Aggression's pilots and forcefully pulled them away from Maici, despite their cries and pleas. Tactical Aggression was not losing a leader: they were losing their big sister.

Only two pilots managed to keep up with Maici: Ukyo and I.

"Ukyo, come back!!" I yelled.

"Kid, let her go!!" Baiken added.

"No!!" Ukyo answered. "I won't let her die! I won't let you do this, Maici! I'm not going to let you die! Come back, please!!"

"Go back to Wilheim, Ukyo," Maici softly responded.

"No, please!!" my darling yelled with a completely broken voice.

"Will... you have to snare her," Baiken murmured.

"But..." my voice trailed off. I did not know what to do.

"She risked her life for us, Wilheim! She risked her life so we could be together!! Don't let her do this!!" Ukyo yelled.

"I..."

A thousand thoughts assaulted my mind. I did not know what to do. What could be done? I was hopelessly confused, sad, and afraid...

"Wilheim... save her," Maici said with a heart-breaking gentleness that will forever haunt me.

I finally began to shed tears. I understand what had to be done... I had to save my darling to condemn the brave woman.

"Will...!" Baiken muttered, running out of patience.

"I know..." I said. "Forgive me..." to this day, I do not know whose forgiveness I had asked. And so, I snared my Ukyo.

"NO!!" she exclaimed. "No, Wilheim, stop it!! Let me go!! Maici, no!! Let me go!!"

I dragged my dearest away from the battle field and back to the rest of the gears and kept a firm grip on her ship as Maici approached the horrid monster. The dark beings started to surround her as her vessel began to sparkle. And then, the Heartless surrounded her. They became a dark whirlwind which absorbed her, extinguishing the light she had emitted; but their hunger for her brave heart would become their undoing.

"Don't let hatred be..."

A second later, an immense explosion shook Bark's soil. I had to shut my eyes and look away, for the blast was so bright that if I had stared at it for more than a second, it would have blinded me. However, we all heard the deafening roar of the explosion and the Heartless' agonizing yell. The monster's skin, once hard as diamond, was crushed like tinfoil under the weight of God's finger. Every Heartless ship was evaporated with that blast. The only memory of their presence in Phillon was their ashes which were quickly carried away by the wind... And when all had ended, Bark became silent.

Every ship landed in the dirt. The pilots exited their vessels and stared at the place where the immense Heartless had once emitted its roar. There were relieved faces; puzzled, disappointed, and tranquil ones, too. But there was not a single smile. And all of Tactical Aggression's members wept. The younger ones knelt on the ground and pounded it with frustration, while Ziggy and the other veteran fighters simply limited themselves to shed silent tears.

I turned to my Ukyo's ship and saw her exit her gear. She stared at me and my heart gave a leap of fright and sadness. With tears in her eyes, my darling raced at me. And then, she slapped me with a heavy hand. The hit was so fierce that even Baiken leapt back in surprise.

"You bastard!!" she cried. "We could've done something!! You could've helped me stop her!! She told me she'd do anything to help us be together!! And now she's dead!!"

Ukyo had hit me many times before, in training. And, of course, the attacks she unleashed during our sparring sessions had always been quite brutal. But she had never assaulted me to hurt me. Not in that way... That slap had shaken my already broken heart, and her insult had felt like boiling oil. I only managed to turn to her with tear-filled eyes and utter: "I'm sorry..."

But my dearest soon reconsidered her feelings and started to sob. She threw her arms around my neck and squeezed hard while hiding her face on my chest. I chose to forget the painful slap for the time being and held her tenderly.

"This shouldn't have happened... This wasn't supposed to happen...!" she moaned. "I'm sorry, Maici...!"

"It is all right, darling..." I murmured, trying to keep a firm voice. "I am sorry..."

(Change of scene)

Getting ready for a funeral ceremony brought an odd sensation. Although I had lost dear ones in the past, I had never paid them proper tribute, so to speak. I had always said good-bye to my beloved folk with bitter tears and with a fatal feeling of solitude. This was the first time I would be able to hold my friends' hand and mourn in respectful silence. Yet, I must admit, sadness was not the only feeling that assaulted my heart: I was a bit angry, as well.

As I struggled to button my shirt properly (I had never wore one of the sort), Ukyo suddenly knocked on my door.

"May I come in?" she asked.

"Yes," I replied with a slightly dry voice.

My beloved came inside and shut the door behind her. She quickly noticed the mess that was my shirt.

"Oh, dear... you have no clue of what you're doing, do you?" she asked.

"I confess I am not familiar with these clothes," I retorted.

"Let me give you a hand," she said and aided me with what seemed to me an impossible task.

As she buttoned my shirt in silence, I could see in her eyes why she was there. I chose to remain quiet and let her do the talking if she was ready to do so.

"Wilheim..." she murmured. "I'm sorry."

"It is all right," I sighed.

"No, it's not," she immediately replied and took a step away from me. "I... I shouldn't have done what I did. It was... just..." She could barely find the words. "Please, forgive me."

"I know why you did it. You do not have to apologize."

"Wilheim, please. I'm not an idiot. I know when you're angry. And you have the right to be angry. But don't hide it from me, please..."

She was right. I had to be honest with her.

"Of course I am upset," I confessed. "I raced after you and I had to snare your ship to save you from a death which would have broken my heart and my spirit. And instead of being thanked for that, I get a slap in the face and a slur. I..." I stopped and sighed. Yet as I saw her face filled with regret, I understood she had meant her apology. And I could not stay mad at her for much more time. "But I am sincere. I understand why you did it. You were confused and sad." I gently put my hand on her shoulder. "Maici was a very good friend to you, wasn't she?"

"I only knew her for a few days, and yet... I feel terrible. I feel responsible for her death... For all their deaths... Jerry... Honrar..."

"It is not your fault, Ukyo. Do not blame yourself."

"But... what would you have done if it would've been me?" she asked while looking into my eyes.

"...I probably would have raced alongside you," I admitted. "If I could have not saved you, then I would have died by your side."

"That would've been foolish..."

"Perhaps... But to me, life is worthless if you are not here. All I want is to be with you... And, like you said, Maici died for this."

She nodded silently and then embraced me. I gently kissed her and comfortingly ran my fingers through her soft hair.

"Take heart, darling. If we can find Gabrielle, I am sure we can get her and the others back to life," I assured, yet she shook her head and slowly stepped back. "It is always possible, Ukyo. You know this..."

"It's not a matter of being able to do it," she replied. "I'm sure we could do it... but we must not do it."

"...I don't understand," I muttered, taken aback by her words.

"I've given this a lot of thought. And at first, I shared your idea," she explained. "But, despite those last moments of battle when the B.C.U. and the A.N.I. fought together, the truce between Arlington and Bygeniou is still very fragile." She fixed her eyes on me again and went on. "Maici died in order to attain peace between nations... B.C.U. and A.N.I. have to realize this sacrifice. They must learn from their actions and understand what hatred can do. And that won't happen if she comes back to life. Those who gave their lives to achieve this cease-fire can't be brought back... Maici will only find her wish granted in the afterlife. Do you understand now, Wilheim?"

Realizing the terrible wisdom of her words, all I could do was to nod in silence. Without saying another word, she finished buttoning my shirt and then we parted to the Bygeniou plaza, where the funeral ceremony was about to take place... followed by the ceremony of the cessation of hostilities between nations.