Draco: If I remember correctly, Johnny C. Bad was the bar theme in VI... in those situations that the bar had a separate theme.
Characters, weapons, origins, locations © Square Enix. Monsters © Akihisa Ikeda.
Johnny's Got That Funk
"Let me get this straight. You guys have had the Divine Light of Feymarch buried under Doma for the past eight hundred and fourty-two years, and you decided to just spread the rumor and see which occupant was stupid enough to piss him off?"
Setzer had set the Blackjack down between Albrook and Vector to strategize; and on the trip there, Cyan had explained the situation, in full (Locke had somehow made it to Albrook without an airship, proceeding to sneak on board once they landed and getting the short version from Setzer). At the same time the Imperial airship carrying Gestahl and his three generals had touched down near the wreckage of the old Imperial camp near Doma, Kirin's incredulous accusation was met with a heavy sigh from Cyan. "I suppose thou might well say that," he admitted. "But the story is not so simple, in truth. 'Tis complicated."
"Uncomplicate it," Zona demanded. "What is Alexander doing under Doma?"
"Alexander is the only warrior of Feymarch who cannot reside in Feymarch," the samurai explained. "His structure acts as residence for his fellow warriors when they need remain in the human world. Whenever he looses his power to attack, his body is shifted."
"He changes his appearance?" Golem inquired.
"He changes his location," Cyan corrected. "The fortress is transported elsewhere - most often, in the vicinity of another castle - and sinks into the earth. I recall reading that he was buried under one particular region for so long that when a city was built around the castle, they called it 'Alexandria'. In any case, he cannot hide himself when he appears, and someone inevitably tries to speak with him. It does not expend enough energy to shift him when he creates a passage from that near castle to his entryway - and often, he hollows the earth around himself as well - and then he sets himself into a sort of... hibernation, as artifact spirits are wont to do, until such time as he is disturbed."
"And eventually, someone down the generations tries to make that a threat," Seraph concluded.
Cyan shook his head with a click of his tongue. "'Tis not so 'eventually' as thou might presume," he admitted. "Rather, 'tis often begun by the same king ruling when he arrives. He spreads the rumor that Alexander will defend his kingdom, and it lessens whatever attacks might go on - even after he deigns to rise and cast his blades, and is shifted for the effort. Rarely does the king of that castle ever invoke it, however; more often, someone is - as thou put, Kirin - 'stupid enough to piss him off', and he and his troops get vaporized for the effort."
"So Gestahl is pretty much assured dead," Maduin mused.
"Someone in the Gestahlian Empire is assured dead," Terra corrected. "We can't be sure that Gestahl will do it himself. It might be Kefka, or it might be Leo." Her gaze fell. "And... it might be Celes."
Locke shook his head. "We can't waste time debating," he insisted. "Gestahl is not in Vector. We ought head to Vector ourselves, and see whether that Fenrir squadron did anything. And maybe raise some hell of our own while we're there."
"I like that concept," Maduin admitted, "but we" - here he beckoned to himself and the other ex-prisoners - "can't go anywhere near an Imperial town. Anyone in Gestahl's colours will see us and snag us, if they don't shoot us."
"Fair enough," Sabin admitted. "Then it's just us non-Roku, then."
Golem gave him a look. "'Roku'?" she demanded.
The monk raised a hand defensively and opened his mouth to defend himself.
"No, no, I'm not mad," the snow fairy insisted. "That actually kinda sounds cool."
Edgar turned to Setzer. "You wouldn't happen to have coms, would you?" he inquired.
"I think I've got some old interlinked earpieces in here," Setzer confirmed. "But what's wrong with just sharing cell numbers?"
"Not all have phones," Gau reminded him.
"Yes," Cyan agreed, "and I'm not eager to acquire one. The smaller and simpler the communications, the better."
Setzer angled his head. "Alright," he admitted. "But we need callsigns for this."
Locke gave him a look. "Callsigns?" he demanded. "What the hell kind of old-school spy game are you trying to play?"
"It's not a secure connection," Setzer elaborated, lashing his hand down. "And I'll bet you anything that they know how to intercept communications, and they will if their tech to do so is still intact."
The treasure hunter grabbed his hand and shook it to seal the deal. A curse, barely breathed, passed through the gambler's lips.
Edgar sighed. "Alright. Callsigns then." A moment's pause. "I can't think of anything for me," he admitted.
"Perchance... 'Desert Gear'?" Cyan ventured.
Setzer raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"He's a machinist," Locke admitted. "I'm sure the desert's got a gear in there somewhere."
Edgar turned to his brother. "Sabin?"
The monk thought for a moment. "I'll be... 'Phantom Fist'," he replied.
The Roku thunder beast raised his gaze at that.
"Not like that," Sabin insisted. "Duncan used to call himself the 'Phantom Wing'. He was a tengu, and he's the guy who taught me martial arts. He deserves a legacy better than what Vargas did." He rolled his shoulders, causing spikes to shoot out of his shoulders and arms as his hands became scissor claws. "But I haven't got wings." His claws shifted back into hands as he closed them into fists. "So I'll go by 'Phantom Fist'." He turned to the samurai. "Cyan?"
The werewolf hummed, glancing down at the wakizashi he had set at his side. "I shall call myself... 'Eclipse Fang'," he insisted. "After the praise mine comrades in Doma wouldst give me, when discussing me amongst themselves and believing I could not hear." Then, turning to Locke; "And thou, thief?"
"Treasure hunter," the accused thief retaliated. Then, realizing what Cyan was trying to do; "And no, that's not what I'm calling myself, the Empire knows about that already." He thought for a moment. "I'll be... Stock Barrel."
"Where did that come from?" Zona demanded.
Locke chuckled. "I always answer my phone, 'lock, stock, and barrel', so as to confuse anyone who rings me and doesn't know me personally." He turned to their pilot. "Setzer?"
The gambler grit his teeth, contemplative; then he sighed. "Falcon Flyer," he mused.
Everyone present raised an eyebrow.
"Don't ask," Setzer mandated. He turned to their wild child. "Gau?"
Gau gave a cry of uncertainty. "You pick," he insisted, beckoning to everyone.
Sabin hummed. "How about... 'Badland Roar'?" he prompted.
"The Veldt is not a badland," Cyan countered.
"Shut up, it sounds cool," Sabin protested.
Gau cried in agreement; then he turned to their dancer. "Terra?"
Everyone fell quiet at that. Terra glanced at her hands, knowing she didn't want to use 'Flare Dancer' - and for more reasons than simply because the Empire knew it. Her gaze wandered, landing on Cyan's wakizashi; then she glanced at the Flametongue strapped to her hip, remembering how Celes had praised her when she had fought Kefka with her runic blade and the samurai's kodachi - and then she remembered her stint as a dancer in Figaro.
"I am... Dances With Swords."
+x+x+x+
"One, two, three, hit it!"
Setzer was in a bar in the Epsilon Sector, playing cards with some of the drunks and trying to get some intel. Although not succeeding much on the informational front, he was making a decent enough profit that he wasn't particularly complaining; this was the third bar he'd visited, and the only thing he'd learned so far was that Gestahl had long left when the attacks struck.
When his opponent ran broke and stormed off, he set a hand on his earpiece. "Stock," he whispered, "any luck with the palace?"
Locke, hiding behind the crates in a warehouse in the Theta Sector, only sighed, waiting until the end of the static told him Setzer had released his transmitter before pressing his own. "No such luck, Falcon," the treasure hunter admitted.
He had been trying to get into the Imperial palace from every angle; the front entrance had nowhere to hide, and the lab entrance was on so much more guard that he had only narrowly avoided detection by hopping inside and ushering a cat out the door. A moment's pause; then he hit his transmitter again. "Fang, anything on you?"
"Nay," Cyan replied, perched on a rooftop. "I've yet to find a trail." His speed had been put to good use in remaining undetected while he had tried to find some trace of the Fenrir squadron aside from the wreckage.
It was clear that the Roku had been to Vector; there were damaged buildings, cracked pavement, a few fallen feathers, and all the humans were looking up - only his being a werewolf stopped let him avoid detection (although the sun having set made things easier). The samurai hit his transmitter again. "Roar, thy status?"
Gau gave a cry into his earpiece before hopping through a broken window. His attempts at looking for any Roku hiding out had only succeeded in pissing off the locals' pets, and he was currently trying to avoid the claws of what appeared to be five dozen cats and the thrown walking staff of an old man.
A few of the cats tried to leap up after him; Gau quickly kicked the bottom of a drainpipe off, letting water trickle onto them, before clambering to the roof. Once he was up, one hand went to nurse the scratches he had received before his escape as his other hit the earpiece. "No found. Fist?"
"Hold that thought," Sabin insisted. His hand closed on the arm of a punch thrown at him; then he kicked the attacker in the ribs. He and Edgar had elected to speak with the locals, but the monk was less-than-convincing, and this was not the first fight he had gotten into.
The punk grabbed what looked to be a crowbar of sorts, swinging it at Sabin; the monk only stepped aside and slammed his elbow into the attacker's wrist, forcing it against the wall until the punk released and took off. With a hand on his com; "Nothing on my end. Gear?"
"Figures, but no faces." Edgar's voice was thick with exhaustion. He had been quite amused and concerned to find out that Vector's Alpha Sector was a red-light district, and had spent his time working his charms the best he could to get information and not lose his leggings.
He had managed to keep his pants on, at the cost of getting only the sparsest information; he was currently stepping into an inn in the Beta Sector that he had checked earlier and found to have a bar. As he stepped towards that bar, he set his hand on his com again. "Dances?"
Silence on the line.
Setzer hit his own transmitter. "Dances, are you there?"
"I'm here." Terra's voice was one of concern. "And I've got something huge."
+x+x+x+
The dancer had (with a little more digging) found in the Blackjack's closet a long robe that hid her blades, with a hood that she could raise to cast her face in shadows. Everyone else had agreed to simply let her do her thing, try and pull off as much as she could; the end result was that she had managed to sneak into the palace through a window.
She was on the opposite end of the palace from the Asura labs, which left her in what looked like an old-school armoury. Soldiers had been unable to raise the alarm before a kick full of voltage or a sword of frost disabled them, and Terra had made her way through the area, looking for anything of interest (there were more of the three Feymarch blades of which she had samples, but she decided against taking them).
Eventually, however, she found a door labelled CLASSIFIED, whose lock she managed to burn through with a finger full of flames. It was a very small room, no larger than a broom cupboard; all it contained was a small table, with a black box sitting on it that was no larger than Edgar's chainsaw.
The surface was labelled Zantetsu in bright white.
As voices began to exchange over the com, a confused Terra picked up the box, carefully looking it over. There was nothing on the box except for the label; slowly, she braced it against the table and pried it open. It was a simple two-piece containment, held together only by its own friction - it was lined with padding, and contained only a single figure.
A small stick, red so dark it was nearly black, and thinner than the stems of some flowers she had seen.
She carefully lifted it from the box; turning it found it to be hollow, and she was wondering why it was so protected and so named when a voice from behind her shouted, "What are you doing here?"
Terra turned, seeing a soldier in Imperial garb standing there. Upon seeing her holding the thin tube, the man charged forward, one hand out to take it from her; reflexively, she gripped the tube tight to ensure he did not break it, not even thinking that it might break.
It vibrated in her hands, briefly and faintly.
Then something surged out of the tip - something of bright blue, such that it was nearly white. The man, who was at arm's length at this point, came to an abrupt stop as the blue passed through his body and emerged out the other end. Terra was horrified when she saw blood began to flow from the point where it entered his body, unimpeded by what was there before him.
Her grip loosened, just slightly; and the blue faded into the air at once. The soldier had a clean hole in his chest, and as she watched, he fell to the earth.
"Dances, are you there?"
She realized suddenly that Setzer was trying to contact her; she reached her empty hand up to her com. "I'm here," she confirmed. "And I've got something huge."
Her gaze fell to the item in her hands - which was, itself, decidedly not huge.
"Shall we withdraw?" Cyan inquired over coms. "Return to the ship, and discuss our findings?"
Terra was about to hit the transmitter to respond when Gau's voice came through first. "Wait! Ship empire! Approach city!"
That was all the provocation she needed. Terra quickly raced through the armoury section of the, passing the soldiers she had already struck without a second thought, and vaulted the still-open window she had left from; then she charged through the city, and was nearly out of the community when she saw the airship touch down outside of Vector. She quickly took cover behind a ruined building, watching through the rubble - and what she saw was astonishing.
Emperor Gestahl, Leo Cristophe, Kefka Palazzo, and Celes Chere, all stepping into Vector at once.
Draco: {generic complaint about nocturnality} {something in dragontongue about how 'nocturnality' is a word}
I had the most amusing mental image of this chapter as a scene in a movie, and Johnny's Got That Funk starts up while Terra's trying to think of a callsign, such that the proper instrumentals kick in immediately after she says "I am Dances With Swords", and then transition to a huge oner of her walking through Vector in her hooded robe, Locke skating through the streets like a roller derby player, Sabin picking a fight with a punk in a back alley, Edgar sniping the first patrol to see him with his Auto-Crossbow, Gau scrambling up a drain pipe, Cyan dashing across the rooftops, and then land on top of a bar where Setzer's singing karaoke and beat-box as the track reaches "One, two, three, hit it!"