Darkness blanketed everything as best it could. A quick glance up the way they had come revealed a slender ribbon of light from the sun, but they had traveled farther into the chasm than Albel had initially expected. If not for the artificial torches they'd brought with them, they might not be able to see anything at all. A shiver of apprehension coursed through him.
"Are you feeling well, Mr. Albel?" the mechanical Morphus asked in a quiet tone. Aside from water dripping somewhere either to their left or to their right, there were no other noises. The distinct lack of other noises disturbed Albel and only heightened his senses more.
"Fine, fool," Albel whispered. His battle senses tingled. Something about this cavern struck him as odd. The quiet was too disturbing, not after reading the reports from Cake Saionji and hearing them from Quark and the Morphus. He expected an attack of some kind, to see . . . something that resembled a threat, but so far, there was nothing. Just a hum in the air.
"I thought I detected . . ." The metal Morphus man paused in his statement. "I see . . . so that's what it must be. How odd I have forgotten what it was like to deal with warriors such as yourself. You remind me of him."
"Him who?" the pink-haired witch inquired. "Crowe? Edge?"
"No. Mr. Arumant," Bacchus replied. "He, too, was similar to Mr. Albel in mannerisms and personality, though Mr. Arumat wasn't quite as hostile."
"Huh. Another person like Albel," the buffoon muttered. "Imagine that. Mirage, do we have a lock on where Fayt might be down here?"
"Scanning now," Mirage stated. "But I'm not getting a reading on anything."
"I am scanning as well, Mr. Cliff," the metal man added. "There seems to be some kind of signal causing a disruption to standard scanners. Adjusting my scanners now."
While they talked, Albel grasped the hilt of his sword. There were two directions they could go in, and they had the option of splitting up to cover more ground. This, he knew. He weighed his options on who would be the least annoying to him during the search and deduced it was a tie between the giant metal Morphus and Mirage.
'And that would leave the buffoon to wander with the pink-haired witch,' he thought with some disgust. 'Knowing him, he won't be able to resist trying to grab her the way he has Mirage. Idiot.'
He opened his mouth to make his suggestion, that they split up, when Bacchus stated, "My scanners indicate there are seven life forms fifteen hundred kilometers to our left."
"Seven?" Cliff inquired. Albel had turned to face the group, thus noting the alarm on the buffoon's face.
"Indeed," Bacchus confirmed. "Two are human, or at least humanoid, and the others are Cardianon."
Albel didn't wait for any of them to say anything else. He started running in the direction Bacchus indicated, his sword unsheathed and ready for battle. His heart hammered away in his chest, fear clutching his heart.
'One of the humans has to be Fayt,' he reasoned. 'It just has to be, and he's in trouble. Dammit, Leingod, why do you have to be such a trouble magnet? What have you gotten yourself into this time? Why did you even have to volunteer for this idiocy in the first place? What were you trying to prove? So help me, I swear I will make you answer those questions for me, so you'd better not die. Killing you is my job.'
The others trailed behind him – Albel heard Bacchus the most more than he heard the others; a part of him marveled at the metal man's ability to keep up with Albel's pace as the only other one from their group that could match his speed was Fayt; his clunky appearance belied his agility, it seemed – and for that, he was both grateful and annoyed. He was grateful because he wouldn't be outnumbered against these Cardianon scumbags. He no longer tried to convince himself he could handle any kind of technology from offworlders without some kind of aid, and he believed the Cardianon would present him a challenge he hadn't seen since traveling with Quark. He was also annoyed because he had help in rescuing his friend.
'Can't be helped, I suppose,' he told himself. 'I couldn't have gotten here on my own anyway. Dammit, Leingod, why did you have to be from another world?'
He didn't dare gripe, even to himself, about Fayt's father passing away. He knew if he veered into that territory, he'd end up saying something to the younger man about it, saying that the professor had been a fool, and, if he did that, he knew he'd lose Fayt as a friend and potential partner. For good. A part of him yearned to do so, though, but it was a part Albel squashed ruthlessly, much like he had the Aquarians he fought against during the war. There were other things more important than entertaining the notion behind Professor Robert Leingod's death.
'I witnessed the man's death,' he reminded himself as he sped along the silent cavern corridor. 'He fought for his son. Much like my father had fought for me. I can respect that.'
He didn't know for how long he ran, nor did he really care. Fayt was his primary concern. The younger man's life hung in the balance. Any further delays in retrieving him and getting him to a healer would result in Fayt's death. The knowledge hounded the Glyphian with every step he took. He even caught noises of frustration from behind him – presumably from the pink-haired witch, though he couldn't be certain whether or not she was trying to catch his attention for some reason or another or if she was trying to keep quiet on something else; he wasn't entirely certain and he truly didn't care. Albel, however, slowed his pace down considerably when a light appeared at the end, and the sounds of a skirmish reached him. He stopped a few feet from where the light, which was provided by the same kind of lanterns as found on The Diplo, spilled into the tunnel, and he tucked himself to one side in order to better observe what was taking place.
If Cake Saionji hadn't included a photo of some sort in his reports on the Cardianon, figuring out what they looked like wouldn't have been difficult. According to the metal man's previous statements, there were two humanoids and the rest were Cardianon, and the fool hadn't been kidding. There were two humanoids present in the skirmish, and Albel had to do a double-take on the one, as he recognized the man from the 4D world. If anyone had ever said his name, Albel didn't recall, but he recognized the man as one of the first hostile encounters at Sphere 211.
Short, dark hair, glasses on his face, and a nasty gash on his forehead, the maggot himself appeared worn out and more than a little out of his element. His clothes were torn, too, allowing a bit of blood to seep through.
'What is he doing here?' Albel wondered, squinting in the light until his eyes adjusted. When they did, they widened even further at the sight before him. 'And what is he doing with Fayt's sword?'
Indeed, the maggot himself wielded his friend's weapon, albeit a bit awkwardly. The Cardianon were trying to surround him, but they weren't having an easy time of it. Despite appearing human in appearance and looking like hell, the 4D maggot maneuvered himself to where they couldn't get behind him but to where they couldn't him into a corner, either, an impressive feat.
'But where is Fayt?' Albel surveyed the battle for even a hint of blue hair. 'He has to be the other humanoid here. He has to be, but I don't see him. He's the only one with the Destruction capabilities, and we know that power was unleashed not that long ago. So where . . .'
The others caught up to him in that moment, the buffoon sidling up next to him. Mirage, the pink-haired witch, and the metal Morphus lined up on the wall opposite of them.
"I don't see Fayt anywhere," the buffoon muttered. "And is that Azazer?"
"I wouldn't know," Albel hissed. "I never cared to learn his name, but, if you're referring to the first 4D being from Sphere 211 that we encountered . . . yes . . . that's him. And I don't see Fayt anywhere, either, yet I know he's here somewhere."
"I don't think we're going to see him until we get rid of these Cardianon," Cliff huffed out. Albel glanced at him. The Klausian was cracking his knuckles and rolling his shoulders. His gauntlets glinted in the light. "Well . . . shall we?"
"Hrmph." Albel grinned maliciously. He slid the Crimson Scourge from its sheath. The edges of the blade glowed a faint red in the darkness. "I thought you'd never ask."
He half-expected the pink-haired witch to remark on their potential carelessness. She was too much like the other pink witch that liked to hang around Fayt for Albel's liking, always advising caution and generally just putting a damper on Albel's chances to have a little fun. Even Maria behaved the same way. Sometimes Fayt agreed with them. Most of the time, he hadn't agreed with either woman, and Albel suspected this Myuria was no different. The Aquarian witch Nel had a healthier dose of recklessness to her than what Sophia Esteed and Maria Traydor possessed.
"Just admit it," a little voice that sounded an awful lot like Fayt whispered, "you're looking for a fight with a woman. You'd pick it with Maria if she was here, but she isn't. You're being a bit of a bully."
'Maybe I am,' Albel groused to himself. 'I just . . .'
The air around them hummed with electrical symbological power, effectively cutting off Albel's mental excuses. Streaks of lightning flew by him and the buffoon and sent two of the mechanical beasts flying into the opposite wall. A rocket joined the lightning a few seconds later. The 4D scum only flicked his eyes in their direction for a brief moment before he resumed defending himself from the Cardianon. Two of their numbers remained focused on the man while the rest turned their attention to Albel and his group. Already, the buffoon charged towards them, his fists at the ready.
Surprised that the two Morphus had joined in the fight, Albel took a second longer to marvel at their handiwork before he, too, rush into combat.
The remaining Cardianon didn't stand a chance. Within a matter of minutes, not a single one of the lizard-like aliens remained alive.
Albel gazed that their combined handiwork with more than a hint of satisfaction. The thrill of the battle coursed through him, and he wanted to shout in triumph. It didn't last long, however. There was still one more danger left in the room, and Albel intended to get rid of him. Permanently.
He wasn't the only one, either. Mirage and the buffoon also regarded Azazer the same way anyone regarded an enemy amongst them. Albel pointed his blade at their mutual foe and said, "Where is he?"
He gave Azazer a good look over, and his face contorted in more rage as he noticed whose blade their foe held in his hand. He narrowed his eyes and said in his quietest, deadliest voice ever, "I will ask you once more. Where is he? How did you get his blade?"
Azazer exhaled and slumped a little, his hand loosening its grip on the sword. He shook his head and replied, "I don't know. He was here one moment, and he is gravely injured. However, before I could actually reach him, those things overtook us. They'd been hunting me on the surface, but I'd managed to make it down here, hoping to find a reprieve from them. Two of them managed to grab him and run off before I had a chance to do anything. In his place, they left him." And he pointed to the individual laying on the ground.
Eyes still narrowed, Albel kept his blade pointed at the four dimensional being and stepped closer to peer at the one he indicated. And he wasn't the only one to do so, either. Cliff, Mirage, and their newfound Morphus friends also closed to the gap to find out who it was that was laying on the ground.
It was someone he didn't recognize. But it wasn't lost on him that the man laying on the ground, with his blond hair, was also injured.
"Mr. Edge?" Bacchus said, his tone was one of great disbelief.
"You know this guy?" Cliff asked.
"We do," came the reply from the pink-haired witch. "He's the one we were telling you about. This is Captain Edge Maverick from Earth."
"We don't have time for this," he growled. "We have to find Fayt, and we're running out of time. Which way did they take him?"
"Down the only corridor that's here," came the reply. Azazer pointed. "But I'm going to recommend that we heal this young man, because we're going to need all the help that we can get in rescuing your friend. They kept going on about something called their Epiphanies of Guidance, and I didn't like the way that it sounded. I have no idea what these epiphanies are, but they can't be good. I don't have access to anything that could tell us more about who and what they are. But I can tell you that they're stronger than what I had anticipated upon first meeting them. They've been able to injure me whenever I've been too careless."
"I can explain who and what they are," Bacchus replied. "I can even tell you about their Epiphanies of Guidance."
"You do that while we work on Maverick," Cliff said. To Mirage, he said, "it's a good thing that we came prepared."
"Indeed it is. Let's get to work."
Author's Notes: I know it's a shorter section compared to some of the other ones, but I'm starting to wind this story down.
I wrote back in February that this year started out rather chaotically - that was due to work. I currently work as a cashier in a local, regional franchise (Great Lakes peeps, I'm at Meijer), and I've been work 40+ hours every week, except for one week back in August.
A few weeks after I posted the last chapter, I had to lay my 15-year-old muppy dog to rest due to cancer in her nose. Poor thing couldn't breathe, eat, or drink on that last day. She went quickly, and I held her until a few minutes after she was gone. A month later, my dad passed away while in the Philippines, and that was a nightmare in and of itself. The week I had off in August was my bereavement. I'm still not 100% on much of anything, but I haven't stopped writing. I get in what I can almost every single day. and I'm aiming for completion for this story.
Thank you so much for bearing with me. Love every single one of you guys who reads my work.