CH. 34

The Day in Meltokio

Part 1

"So Zelos…" Max began, "is this your little in an' out passage into the city?"

The medic and the Chosen's group stood in front of a small tunnel that linked to underneath the city and also it was the sewer system. "Yep yep! This is my ultimate secret passage that I only use to get back into the city after nightfall. The gates are always locked late at night."

Colette was curious so she tilted her head to one side asking, "Why don't you come back after nightfall?"

Zelos turned to Sylvarant's Chosen, "If you want, I can give you some lessons later on tonight."

"Now's not the time, idiot!" suddenly Sheena gave Zelos a good punch to the skull knocking him into the sewage water completely.

"Why did you do that!?"

"Because I wanted to."

"Jesus… will you two stop bickering."

"This has been on my mind, who's Jesus?"

"Who's Jesus? Jesus, is… damn it never mind."

"What do we do now?" Lloyd asked.

"The only thing we can do is take the way that Zelos mentioned. Since all other entrances are locked, we have no other choice but to go this way." Raine said as she stood behind the group reading some kind of book.

"Sis what are you reading?"

"I'm reading some sort of book that I found in the wreckage of that Pelican drop ship that Max destroyed. I did not know that those things could use such things called com-pu-ter chips for the na-vi-ga-tion-al system… what are computer chips?"

Time passes. The group made their way into the sewer encountering a few small creatures that turned out to be enemies.

"Now that was a sick looking starfish right there." Max said as the group moved along. "Lets hope that we don't encounter one bigger than us."

"That's highly unlikely. Those kind of starfish only remain that size." Max looked over at Sheena.

"How would you know?"

"The reason I would know is because I'm from this world, you're not, and I know a lot more of these monsters more than you."

"Well point taken. But what if you haven't seen or weren't told about ones that would be about 30 meters tall."

"You've got a good point… Say Max?"

"What?"

"What was that big weapon you used back on the mountain when you blew up that drop ship? What was the name of it?"

"If I do recall," Max began to think, "I think on the tag it was something called a 'Spartan Laser'. It's a prototype version."

"Pro-to-type?" Lloyd asks.

"It means that the weapon is a model for the original."

"We have arrived hunnies!" Zelos announced. He was making everyone stare at what's in front of them while they stood a few yards away from him due to the smell of what he fell into earlier.

"It's a door…" Genis spoke.

"And a fine looking door it is." Max added making half of the group laugh.

"Well this 'fine' door is our only way into the city."

At that moment, both Shego and Presea walked up to the door and began to examine it. "It would seem that it's locked." Presea said with a calm voice as ever.

"Locked?"

"A stone door that locks, magical."

"Shut up Max."

"Zelos, is there a way to open this door?" Lloyd asked as he began rubbing the top of his head.

"Kind a, but it's all the way over there." Zelos points out to a certain part of the huge sewer room. On the other side was a wheel on the wall. "The easiest way of getting there is by swimming through the deep toxic water."

"Then what about that way? Does that go into the next room?" Max said as he was looking in the direction of a tunnel that seemed to going in the direction of the room next door.

"That way? That way's goes all the way to the end, it's much easier than going this way if the door's locked, and the sewage water is only two feet deep if it isn't raining."

"Alright then let's go." Max said as he jumped into the manure water and began making his way over to the hole in the wall. A second later, Shego jumped in as well. When the two made it to the tunnel, Max looked back at the group noticing that they're not following, "what are you guys waiting for? Come on!"

"Max, you can't be serious." Genis asked. Unexpectedly, Presea went in as well going up to the medic and the elite, "Presea not you too!"

Back in Sylvarant…

Fred sat in one of the seats of one of the two Pelican drop ships that were on their way down to the surface, "How do you feel Fred? Feel any better?" a Major ranking marine asked as he checked his assault rifle.

"I feel fine thanks for asking."

"That's good." The Major stood from his seat and began going over the briefing, "Alright listen up green horns! Our objective is to go into the crashed Orbital MAC gun, get any remaining ammunition, and get out."

"But what if there're any of those Desian guys there?"

"You know the drill, and that's why the other drop ship is filled with Elites and Grunts. They'll take the front entrance of the base since they have shields and optic camo, and we'll take the back entrance and flank any of the bastards."

"Major, we're here, get ready to pile out." The pilot said. The crew felt the ship touch the ground. The marines stood from their seats guns at the ready and then the doors opened.

"Pile out!" the command was given and the UNSC soldiers exited by twos until the Major came out last.

"Landing zone cleared sir!" one of the marines informed.

Fred immediately got in a prone position and looked through the scope of his sniper rifle quickly looking at the back entrance, "no enemies spotted!"

"Good! Move in!" after the second command, all the marines quickly made their way to the back entrance. The Major then took out his radio and spoke into it, "Elite team, how's your end?"

The radio crackled a bit before the voice of a Grunt came through, "how do you work this thing… Hello? Yes, we have made it to the front entrance, no enemy spotted yet."

"Same on our end too. We'll meet up in the armory if no one attacks us. Got it?"

"Yes, we'll see you then… hey! Quit pushing!"

The Major turned off the radio and focused back on his team, "Lieutenant Fred!"

"Sir?"

"I want you to find a good sniping position and give us cover if anything bad comes up, got it?"

"Yes sir!"

Meanwhile above Sylvarant's orbit…

"So Shawn how do you feel after getting shot in the ass by arrow." One of the two UNSC officers spoke.

"Hey! That hurt alright! At least I went through hell to warn the rest of the fleet instead of hiding in the janitors closet where it's safe!"

Suddenly one of the computers on front of them started making a beeping sound after detecting something, "What is it?"

"The radar detected something."

"What is it?"

"That's what I'm try to find out so shut the hell up!" the officer pressed a few buttons, and end by sitting back in his seat, "huh, whatever it was, it's gone now. But the energy readings are… so big."

"How big are we talking?"

"Exactly the same size as the 100rcn. You better inform the higher ups about this."

"Right!"

Back in Tethe'alla…

"What's that?" Shego asked, "It looks to be something I've seen before."

"It's a dead rat floating in human shit water." Max said as he, Shego, Presea, and a big surprise, Colette, made their way through the tunnel as the rest of the group declined and try to go the cleaner way.

"Ew, I think I stepped in something."

"We're already in something." Presea said.

"Oh relax, look on the bright side. Maybe once we get out of here, we can get washed up. Seriously, when was the last time we actually had a bath?" Everyone stopped in their tracks and looked at each other. Come to think of it, when was the last time these guys took a bath? As for Shego, he was wondering what the hell they were talking about.

"We're almost at the end." Max, Colette, and Shego looked over at Presea, then up ahead in front of them.

"Yea!" Colette suddenly sprouted her angelic wings and flew a few inches over the sewage water and out the end of the tunnel. Happy. "Come on everyone! This way!"

"She's always energetic when good thing come in the clear." Max, Shego, and Presea made their way to the end of the tunnel. Unexpectedly, the young lumberjack and Elite stopped walking.

"Matz, you do realize what is ahead of us, correct?" Shego asked.

"Yeah, it's the end of the tunnel."

"Correction," Presea began, "it's the end of the road."

"Presea, what's that supposed to…" After taking another step, Max's foot didn't land on anything. He then fell forward into the sewage. As time passed everybody stared at the spot where Max fell.

"Max?" Colette called out as she flew closer to where the air bubbles were rising to the surface. With out warning, a big, stinky covered blob like thing rose up and began splashing around in panic.

"BRET BE BOUT WOF BDIS BUCBING BINK BOLL!!!" it said.

Colette began to panic thinking it was a real monster. There was only one thing she could do, she took out here Chakrams yelling, "Angel Feathers!" Her weapons hit their target in the head knocking what ever it was back into the water, "Oh, thank goodness…"

Shego and Presea watched from the side and stood there not surprised, "Chosen, you did know that was our ally?"

"Hm?" Colette looked back where she stuck the monster. Soon before her it turned out that it wasn't a brown, stinky monster. It was Max covered in, well, crap, "Oh my! Max I'm so sorry!"

No response…

Meanwhile…

"Man, how heavy is this thing?" Lloyd said as he, Genis, and Zelos were pushing a big block of metal mashed together out of their path, "And where did you say that this path will lead us to again?"

"Do I have to repeat myself bud? Once we move this damn thing it will take us to a dark hallway."

"And the dark hallway leads where?"

"It will take us to another big room with little space to walk, and it's our exit out of here."

"Where's Sheena and Raine then?"

"We're right behind you guys." Sheena said getting attention of the three that's pushing the piece of junk.

"Uh…Hun, would you mind giving us a little help here?" Zelos ask with a smile.

"So you're giving up on that bet you made earlier?"

Flashback…

"Wow! It's huge!" Genis stated while looking at the big piece of junk in front of the group.

"Uh, Zelos, didn't you say that the rest of the way would be smooth after opening that last door?" Sheena said.

"Well… it's all part of the security thing for Meltokio. For the sewer part, they begin from the room that goes up to the west part of the city, then they work their way towards outside the wall."

"And this huge thing is part of the system?"

"Yep. Say Sheena babe, I'll make you a bet."

"I don't want to hear it."

"If me, bud, and the brat can move this thing without you and the hot professor's help. Then I can take you out for dinner tonight. If I lose, then I'll give you 1000 gald. What do you think?"

"… Fine, but I'm doing this just to see you break your back."

"It's on!"

End of Flashback…

"Come on Zelos! Any minute now you can ask for help! I'm ready to collect my winnings now!"

"No way hunnies, this is a job for the guys. We can do it if we can just push harder."

Crack!

"MY BACK!" Genis yelled suddenly falling to his knees.

Meanwhile…

"Did you hear that you guys?" Max asked while he sat on the ground bandaging up his forehead from Colette's attack with some of the small amount of medical equipment he brought with him.

"I believe I didn't hear anything." Shego said.

"Oh, I could have sworn hearing someone yelling 'For the love of Goddess Raine! Don't kill me because Genis broke his back from my idea!' out loud."

"Now that you mention it," Colette began, "I think I did hear that, it sounded like Zelos."

"Zelos?" Max looked around the room till he saw a door up on the east side of the big room, "You three wait right here, I'll be right back."

Max made his way up to the door and entered. It was completely pitch black. He switched on his flashlight and continued his way through the dark hallway. Suddenly his flashlight began flickering until it gave out. "Damn, I have to change the battery," the medic whispered to himself.

"Don't touch me pervert!" after hearing that sudden voice. Max placed his left hand to the wall next to him trying to hear the voices.

'That sounds like Sheena.' Suddenly he felt something or someone bump into him, "Whoa, what the?"

"I said don't touch me Zelos! And take a freaking bath!"

POW!

"What do you mean? I didn't even touch you that time?"

"Then… wait… who did I hit that reeked?"

"Sheena… can you please get your left foot off my groin… so that way I can get up…"

Sheena then quickly got off after hearing the word of a familiar voice, "Max?!"

A Few Minutes Later…

"So that's why you're all smelly and why your head's all wrapped up?" Sheena said.

"Yeah, it was painful and disgusting. I actually had a bad taste of it."

"Gross."

"Tell me about it."

After the group reunited in the room where Shego, Presea, And Colette were waiting, Max and the rest of the group continued on their way to the other end of the room. Shego picked up his paste till he reached Max, "Matz, did you notice?"

"Notice what?"

"We have someone fallowing us. I count three."

"Position?"

"On the ledge next to us."

"I'm going ahead of the group. Stay ready."

"Confirmed."

Max advanced to the front of the group. When he was a quarter of the way there, something came over him. He felt something that was a part of him leaking out of his body. 'Is this my Mana coming out of me?' Suddenly it happened uncontrollably. Images raced through his mind. It happened like a video camera flashing images into his mind, to him it felt like it was only several seconds, but it was really a quarter of a second in real life. The first image was a man hiding in one of the pipes in the wall with a bow and arrow taking aim, the second one was five men hanging from the ceiling holding their knives with their teeth, the last image was the three people that Shego mentioned earlier. The men were armed with clubs and it wasn't just them, dozens of others were hiding behind them armed as well. Suddenly his mind came back to reality. 'What the hell?' the medic rubbed a hand through his stinky hair looking for any pipes. 'That was almost to real.' As he continued scanning the room his eyes landed on a pipe in the wall. When he looked at it closely, there was a shadowy figure.

"Shego! Shotgun! Quickly!" after those commands, the Elite tossed Max the shotgun he was holding onto for some time, and the Elite and the rest of the group looked at the medic wondering what he was doing. Max took aim and fired once at the figure. The first shell didn't do anything, so he pumped again for a second round. The second shot made the shadowy figure jump a bit. The third cluster of shotgun pellets made the figure jump again. The forth ended the figure's life. The body fell from the pipe landing into the sewage water beneath him.

Max tossed back the shotgun to Shego. Then pointed up, "Shego above us!" 'It's so fucking real!' "Everyone get ready for combat."

"We're being ambushed?" Sheena said as she took out her deck of cards.

"I guess so!" Max took out his ES.

"Get them!" The dozens of convicts emerged from the ledge with clubs in hands, "Remember, we need the chosen of Sylvarant alive!"

"Here we go!" Lloyd, Zelos, and Raine were the first to make their move. Lloyd went up to three of his opponents blocking the first two's attack, then did a Hunting Beast knocking them out.

Zelos went in coming into his enemy slashing his sword up, the next enemy swung his club down on Zelos. After the quick block, the chosen of Tethe'alla used his shield to bash the enemy to make him stumble. Then did a Demon Fang eliminating the enemy.

When Raine enter combat, she was already surrounded by six convicts. Four of them came in at once with their clubs high in the air. This gave the professor a chance. She acted quickly as she spin around with her staff stretched out hitting all four of them in the chest. As for the other two, she went postal on their ass's.

Max was going to engage as well. The moment he took out his energy sword and before he could even turn it on, he was then suddenly tackled by a convict that snuck up on him by surprise. He was then brought down to the ground also getting a few good hits to the face. When the convict was going to strike again, Max put his hand up catching the fist right in his palm. Then he used his free hand to strike back. Between the medic and the convict, it was a brawl.

Max managed to hit the convict make him move to the side allowing the medic rollover his enemy so he could be on top of him. Max then landed a few punches on the convict. Before he could land the next one, he felt a great deal of pain on the side of his head, then he felt the feeling of cooled water or something rushing all over his face. Before he could figure out what happened, he felt a tight grip of someone's hands wrapped around his throat.

Sheena pulled out her deck of cards to defend herself from the inbound enemy coming in to attack her. The first convict swung, but luckily Sheena jumped over the attack. As she was in the air she whipped one card across the enemy's face completely knocking him out.

After that was taken care of she took one quick glance around the room. Shego was still firing his shotgun at the attackers above, Lloyd, Raine, and Zelos were mopping up the rest of the convicts, Colette, Genis, and Presea were on the side waiting for a good time to come in and help. Then she notice that that wasn't everyone, 'where's Max?'

"Get the hell off me!" Sheena turn to the voice. The ninja spotted Max in the sewage water being attacked by two convicts. One had a club and the other was just using his fists.

"Max!" Sheena jumped in as well making her way over to help.

'Shit! I can't get out of his grip!' Max thought as he was struggled to remove the hands that were trying to choke him. He spotted the other convict ready to make another strike on him with the wooden club. As it came down, Max brought up his hand up again stopping the strike. But the shock of stopping it made a lot of pain on his hand. What he didn't see is that the convict that was choking him punched the medic in the face again making fall back into the sewage and began choking him again.

'Damn! I dropped my ES somewhere! What hell should I use?!' suddenly the medic began to feel weaker by the second and his vision completely blacked out. Max reached for his bayonet, 'I have one shot with this. If I miss I'm dead.'

"Max hold on!"

'Sheena?'

"He's not breathing!"

'Wait a minute! I'm dead? How? And when?'

"Raine, you have to use the Resurrection on him!"

"I can't! There might be too much sewage water in his throat! Even if I did use Resurrection, it won't work! One of us has too perform CPR."

'Wait… CPR? Hey, if I'm dead, then, how come I can hear them talking?'

"Hey! Don't look at me because is was trained CPR dozens of times before."

"I'm sorry Sheena, but don't worry, we can have Genis shock some electricity into his body and see if he'll come back by doing that, I always wanted to try it out though."

"Fine, I'm going to begin now." Max then felt the top part of his armor being removed and then a pair of hands were placed on his chest.

'If I remember correctly, it should be thirty pumps and breath, thirty pumps and breath.' The medic then paid attention to pumps, but… he only counted fifteen, 'wait a minute, if I can feel the pumps, then that means I'm not dead. And whoever's doing CPR is doing it the old fashion way. ' After the hands stopped pumping, he then felt a hand squeeze his nose and his chin lowered. The next thing he felt was something pressed on his lips and air being blown into him. Max thought this would be a good time to try opening his eyes. After opening them a little bit, the first person he saw was Sheena. She was the one giving him CPR.

"Actually Sheena, I think I was wrong about him being dead…" Raine said. Sheena then looked into Max's eyes completely forgetting that they were mouth to mouth. A few seconds later, Sheena backed away blushing furiously.

"Max! You're alive!" Sheena said.

"Yeah… man I feel like crap."

"Well you did get hit in the head several times!"

"What happened to the guys that were trying to kill me?"

"About them, you see, you went out of control and killed them before I could get to help you. You then just fell back into the sewage like as if you used up the rest of your strength to continue on."

"What?" Max leaned up looking over to where he was sometime ago when he was being choked. Floating in the sewage were two bodies with furies of deep cuts on their body. The medic then looked in his right hand to see that he was still clinching onto the handle of his bayonet. The blade was covered with blood and brown stuff that smelled terrible. "I don't remember anything about killing them…"

"What about those three? They've been standing there for some time looking at us." Before Max could look over at where Zelos, he saw that the chosen's group was standing around him covering there noses due to the smell of the medic. Then the medic gazed at what Zelos mentioned earlier and spotted three other convicts that were backing away slowly, "They don't look so tough. I think I can handle it from here."

Zelos walked forward making the remaining enemies move away more. When the Chosen of Tethe'alla stopped, he was about to take out his weapon. Before he could remove the sword from his sheath, a figure of a man jumped off the ledge next to him and landed on Zelos. The man placed a foot on Zelos' head and looked at the group. The man wore a small white shirt, green pants, boots, his hands were bound by cuffs, and he wore some kind of Shin guards that were made of metal, "If anyone moves, the chosen dies. Understood?" He said.

"Um… uh…" Zelos couldn't find the right words for his situation, "Hey, Lloyd? Everybody? If you leave my here and abandon me, I swear I'll come back and haunt you…"

Lloyd and Max looked at each other and looked back at their friend, "Me and Max just had a sudden urge to abandon you."

Suddenly, Presea ran up to the man and swung her big ax at him. He jumped back dodging the attack. After landing, he looked at the young lumberjack. To the man, he felt like he saw Presea somewhere before, "Your…" Genis ran in casting fireball at the man. He jumped again, this time he landed back with the other convicts, "damn, retreat for now."

"Damn, these guys are too strong, and they smell too." After one of the convicts spoke, the remaining of them left.

"Thank god that's out of the way." Max said as he put away his bayonet and picked up his ES. "Now I can relax… and take a god forsaken bath."

"First we have to go see my friends at the Elemental Research Laboratory, then we'll get you washed up."

"But where are we going to get Max washed? And I need to take a bath too." Colette said as she shown the stains of brown on her clothes.

"We can wash up at my place!" Zelos announced, "my mansion is nearby the laboratory. So we can just zip on over there once we're done."

"How about we split into two groups. The people that need to get washed up really badly should go to Zelos' mansion, while the other group goes to the laboratory. Then we can just meet up at the mansion later."

"That's actually a good idea." Raine muttered.

"Then it's settled! You four go to my place while me and the rest of the huns go to the lab. Come on Sheena!"

"Actually Zelos, you'll be leading the four of us to your mansion. Cause we don't even know where it even is."

"Yeah pervert, go with them." Sheena then shoved Zelos away from her.

A half an hour later…

"Here we are, my beautiful mansion!" Zelos walked up the stairs to the front door. Max, Shego, Colette, and Presea followed. Both the medic and the Elite were wearing the cloaks that were in the warthog so that no one can identify them. No one found them suspicious so far.

"Wow, this place must be the same size as the 4th White House of the U.S."

"What's the 4th White House?" Colette asked.

"Nothing, forget I said anything."

The moment the five walked in, they entered into the main hall where they were greeted by a older man that was dressed in a formal outfit like what a butler wears, "Good evening Master Zelos, welcome home."

"Hey Sebastian, any news came around while I was gone?"

"Yes, a few of the city guard came by earlier today. They told me if the Chosen of Tethe'alla came back, I was to inform of his arrival as soon as possible."

"Oh that's just a bunch of bull, so you can just ignore all that."

"Understood Master Zelos. I was also told that you have two half-elves, a Mana Carrier, and some kind of monster traveling with you."

"Don't worry about them, they're on our side."

"If you say so Master Zelos." Sebastian then looked over at Shego, Max, Presea, and Colette after catching a wiff of the smell. "Master Zelos, would you and your comrades like to get washed up as I make preparations for dinner tonight?"

"That'll be great. Also, the other half of my group of hunnies will be coming soon" Sebastian nodded and walked off to the kitchen. Then Zelos turned to the others, "alright, there're two bathrooms up stairs that has tubs. So you're going to have to work out a plan on who's going first."

"Presea and Colette can go first." A few seconds later Colette and Presea walked up the stairs leaving only Zelos, Max, and Shego. "Now, Zelos, I need to ask you a question."

"What is it Doc?"

"Tell me how much information Tethe'alla knows about the Mana Carrier?"

End of Part 1…