Chapter IX: Fallen

Absolution Arc


1419 Hours, December 18, 2714

Shibuya District, Old Tokyo

Shit! Just when you think having to deal with this was bad enough! Leon dived over cover nearby and huddled against it, Lionheart at the ready as well as his supply of Spira throwing daggers. Three of his daggers rested between his knuckles in his free hand and customized sword's cylinder overheated, steam erupting from it in a fury. Even with the throwing daggers in his hand, the Dark Knight hit the cylinder release on his gunblade. It swung out on its own, the steam in more of a furious storm than before and ejecting the casings of the handcannon-caliber rounds. Fumbling around to get his speed reloader from his pouch and dodging the bullet storm directed at him was already difficult enough but being pinned down by a strategically-coordinated team was hell. What next, throwing all of their grenades at me?!

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw multiple spheres flying towards his point of cover and cursed himself for mentally saying that out loud. He dove out of the way and behind a wall, speed reloader slamming into the cylinder and loading the chamber before swinging the gunblade to the side and slamming the cylinder in place. Dammit, where is she?! He wanted to call out to Aqua for support here but this was beyond a typical ambush. Guess they weren't kidding when Valhalla was one of the strategic Fireteams! Pinning down one of us with the entire team is just overkill! After the barrage of grenades intended for him had snuffed out their last sparks of life Leon kept both his fist lined with throwing daggers and gunblade at the ready, his helmet's sensors diverted a majority of its function to listen in on Valhalla's chatter.

"Did we get him?"

"That amount of grenades? Doubt that it worked at all."

"Don't know much about the Dark Knights but they're rumored to have ninja-like reflexes. Guess they kept something from their Tenno brethren."

"Might as well be better than Hunters."

"I don't know Carolina but something about this one seems to be saying 'I'm better than the others' to us."

They got that right. Leon slung Lionheart across his back and two blades popped out from underneath his wrists, sparking with ash gray energy. Scaling up the wall with the help of his hidden blades, Leon sloppily vaulted over the edge to get onto the roof as though he was in pain. He almost slipped and fell off the edge but managed to hang on with his hidden blades. After regaining balance, Leon deployed a scanner drone to find the rest of his teammates after they separated. C'mon, where are you guys? His hidden blades retracted back and he slumped over against the wall, breathing heavily and dropping his Spiras next to him. I don't know if any of my shots hit any of them but given the massive shields resistance I doubt it caused significant damage. He lifted a hand from his shoulder and picked up his daggers only to drop them again. Dammit… They got me good in the arm. No doubt about it. Right now, Leon felt as though some rabid animal chomped its fangs onto his arm and turned into a hanging sack of meat once it was done.

"Leon!"

"Aqua, where are you?!" hissed Leon, the pain steadily growing from his wounds.

"I don't know, the drone I sent out hasn't picked up any of us except for us on the comms! Cloud and I are safe but Light went off somewhere! I tried contacting her but she's not responding!"

"Aqua, I'm on the rooftops within the area where Valhalla tried to kill me with their grenades. I won't lie but they're damn good as a team!"

"Hold on, Cloud and I are nearby. Just stay there!"

Leon scoffed amusingly. "Why would I ever move out when they're still out there?" he turned off the comms channel and glanced out into the sky where his drone was still scanning for the rest of his team. He got back to his feet but collapsed against the wall from the pain. Glancing at one of the corners of his HUD, his health wasn't in good fighting condition as the gauge was already in the red zone. Shaking his head, he took another look at Lionheart and spun the heavy cylinder with his thumb and replacing the current round with the next round.

Heh, I may bleed out and be eliminated or might be saved in the nick of time… Might as well lay low for now. The drone he sent out to scan for the rest of his team's location returned to him and perched on his shoulder like an eagle. "Nothing, huh?" he murmured, slipping in and out of consciousness. The world around him became clouded in a haze, a clear blue sky now a mess of blue and the vegetation growing wild than its current condition. Even the chatter he picked up from Valhalla was becoming a cacophony of voices. "Can't say… I blame you…"

It continued to worsen for him as the built-in vitals monitor was blaring in his HUD and dropping steadily. C'mon Aqua, hurry up… Even if he had done what he could to stop the blood, it somehow reopened and continued to bleed. Memories of the missions he had undergone in the worst conditions resurfaced and Leon recalled a number of those missions with a similar situation of wounds of this scale. After all, his armor compared to the other Dark Knights and the kazoku was visibly weaker to provide himself with more mobility. He tightened the makeshift bandages from the remnants of his sleeve as hard as possible, grunting painfully in spite of slipping in and out of consciousness.

That was until two shadowy figures appeared before him and based on their appearances in his blurring vision they were Hunters. Weakly, he raised Lionheart at them with his finger on the trigger despite his arm shakily holding it with the little strength he had in his arm. If Valhalla had already found him, then he was going down with one of them. Instead, he dropped his gunblade immediately after struggling to hold it for so long. One of the two knelt next to him and started saying something to their partner before pulling out a medical kit from their pouches. Why are they helping me? I'm their enemy, not an ally! In the growing numbness from the blood loss he faintly felt the makeshift bandage he made being removed and cleaned up the blood before applying an actual gauze bandage.

The Hunter that was standing up and facing him knelt next to him as the other stood up and repacked the kit. "Stay here… They'll be… soon."

"Who…are you…?" questioned Leon before succumbing to his nearly fatal blood loss and falling unconscious.

-Destiny: Skyfall-

Leon, where are you?!

Just as things were going smoothly for Aqua and Cloud, it all came crumbling down just as they were within Leon's location. As he had warned, Valhalla was still here patrolling the area until they found them. Aqua already casted a shield spell to reflect as much bullets as it can take but her lack of a firearm and beliefs of being a pacifist unless using her magic to kill is necessary really made her weaknesses. Cloud had both of his Buster and Fusion swords at the ready and defending himself from the bullets using the flats of the swords as shields. As Cloud blocked the bullets, the swordsman and healer-sorceress hid in an alleyway and being the brawn of the kazoku he took first and took cover near the end. The gunfire aimed at the two scattered near the corner and Cloud moved his head away from the corner in the case that any strays hit him.

"Hey, why don't you come out of hiding and face us!?"

"You guys have to pay for eliminating Blood Gulch!" called out Leonard Church, aiming his sniper rifle at the hiding place where Cloud and Aqua are hiding.

"What are you talking about? We didn't take them out!" responded Aqua.

"Then how do you explain the combatant killing them using a weapon not known in the Guardian armory database?!" Church countered irritably, finger on the trigger just itching to fire a shot in their direction. "Plus, how the hell can a special weapon cause a massive explosion as big as a rocket launcher round with cluster bomb and wipe the team out!? Something tells me that another one of you is among us!"

"Listen, I don't know what you're talking about but I can reassure you that there are only five of us, and you know that Spectre is still in a coma! The rest of us are here in this match and didn't find Blood Gulch last night!"

The Exo Titan of Valhalla started speaking in Spanish, to which the rest of Valhalla and the Dark Knights had no clue what he's saying. That was until Colton translated it for them. "Can't believe I'm saying this, but Lopez said 'Still doesn't make a difference! It has to be Dark Knight weaponry and you're the only ones who have such weapons!'!"

Aqua glanced over at Cloud, the two of them sharing puzzled looks. "A weapon that can cause an entire six-man team to be wiped out in a single payload?"

"Sore ha, Angstrum nari mase n. Watashiha, sore ha sonshou no you na mono wo okonau koto ga deki masu shitte iru yuiitsu no buki desu. It has to be an Angstrum. It's the only weapon I know that can do that kind of damage."

"That handheld rocket launcher?!" gasped Aqua and Cloud slowly nodded in agreement. "Combine a professionally modified Angstrum with a Gjallarhorn while a rocket is live and in the chamber…!"

"Bingo."

"But who would bring that here? No other Guardian I know has it and last I checked, our relationships with the Guardians in the last twenty years weren't on friendly terms! In fact, we've never had any relationships with Guardians who stumbled onto our territory as a whole!"

"Nai kagiri, betsu no Kurai Kishi ha watashitachi no ma desu. Unless there is another Dark Knight among us." Cloud added, dodging another fired bullet from either Colton or Lopez.

"Well?! C'mon out and fight!" yelled Church. Cloud looked at his female partner and the two silently thought about it.

Taking a deep breath, Aqua moved over in front of Cloud. "Let us find Leon and we'll fight you fair!"

"As if! We're not letting you get that chance after the trouble he caused!" Valhalla opened fire again at the corner. Cloud pulled Aqua away from the corner he previously occupied, becoming her shield once more.

Aqua had her own set of throwing bombs at the ready, all of which were sparking with electricity and huddled against the wall. "Cloud, what now?!"

"Varuhara no ki wo sorasu desho u. Anata ha Reon wo mitsuke, karewo shuuseiwo eru iki masu. I'll distract Valhalla. You go find Leon and get him fixed up," said Cloud, readying his swords and dual-wielding them.

"Are you out of your mind?! They have a Dragon's Breath rocket with our names on it and you're going to charge in with just your swords to stop it!?"

"Watashiha bachiwo toru koto ga deki masu. Makase te. I can take the punishment. Trust me." Cloud's armor morphed in front of her according to one of his subclass's abilities. During its transformation, Cloud's armor started to increase in durability as layer-like armor plates overlapped the previous one until he practically looked like a human tank. "Akua, Reon wo tori ni iku maeni watashiha buusuto wo hitsuyouto suru tsumori desu. Aqua, before you get Leon I'm gonna need a boost."

She nodded. "Right."

Without the use of her journal containing her magecraft, Aqua started praying in an ancient language. An aqua blue light enveloped the two Dark Knights' armors followed by a leaf green light. Cloud breathed in as the spells reinvigorated him both strength and health before exhaling. Both of them looked at each other and nodded, ready to execute another tag-team maneuver before charging out of cover. Valhalla immediately saw the two running out of the alleyway and into the snow-laiden vegetated streets and readied their weapons.

"Get them!"

Valhalla returned fire at the swordsman mainly only to see that the bullets they had fired at him were completely ineffective as they only burrowed themselves into the multi-layered armor. And according to their HUDs, his overshields barely even took damage at all! Some of the bullets strayed from their target and charged towards the healer-sorceress but were stopped completely when Cloud stretched out his arm and used the Buster Sword as a shield for her. While the Buster Sword was covering her, Aqua threw her bombs at the Fireteam attacking them out of their field of vision but enough to lay a trap.

"Donut, what're you waiting for? Fire!"

"Fire in the hole!" he pulled the trigger on Dragon's Breath.

The rocket charged out of its chamber and into the direction of Cloud and Aqua. Quickly, Cloud put his swords together into a makeshift shield of sorts and braced for the explosion and surrounding fire. But the rate of which the rocket was closing the distance between them was starting to shorten quickly. Aqua already made her way to the alleyway and dodged the fire directed at her.

Even if he does that, he'll take heavy damage! It'll be enough for his Iron Armor ability to completely be decimated! An aura of green light encompassed around the healer-sorceress of the kazoku, followed by her best hand glowing in the same light and a seal appearing beneath her feet. "Aero!" A ball of wind sped from her casting hand, blowing away some of the snow as it headed in the direction of the rocket.

The sphere of wind struck the rocket mid-flight, whistling like a hurricane had struck the area and diverted it from course effectively. It missed Cloud by a few feet and struck the side of a building, the napalm released from the rocket bursting to life and setting both the wall and snow aflame. Cloud broke his 'shield' and planted the swords into the ground before starting to channel his inner power. Like Aqua's Aero spell, Cloud became surrounded in navy blue energy and encasing his Buster and Fusion swords as well.

"What's he doing?!"

"Stop him!" Again, Valhalla returned fire on the tank of the kazoku. What they didn't expect was that this time was a barrier was in front of him, deflecting the rounds like rubber balls bouncing off a wall. Unstable electricity started to form at his fingers like a Stormcaller until he gripped the hilts of the heavy swords and put the Fusion Swords away, leaving him with the Buster Sword. He felt the power grow to pass beyond his limit and cut the channeling of his power, yanking the Buster Sword out and preparing for battle.

"Genkai wo kaeru! I'm breaking my limits!" he charged towards Valhalla, sword grinding against the ground. Even if the onslaught of bullets hammered against his reinforced armor, he kept on going. Once the distance between the Fireteam and Cloud was closing at an alarming rate, Donut already loaded another rocket into Dragon's Breath and aimed at the Dark Knight. I don't want to do this, but I have to! Cloud grit his teeth knowing it was too late to stop the inevitable. "Akua, ima! Aqua, now!"

Aqua heard his order and despite being in cover and out of visual range with her bombs, snapped her fingers. The bombs hidden from Valhalla's sight detonated without warning, the streams of electricity combining as one. It first ensnared Donut in its electric web, followed by the bolts jumping to the rest of his team and giving them the electric shock of their life. Some of the team yelled from the unbearable shocks and even in this state, Donut kept a lock on Cloud.

However, Donut was too late to pull the trigger as Cloud leapt and punched the ground like a Striker. A tsunami of electricity swept Valhalla off their feet, the ground shattering in the process and suspending the team from the ground like falling in place. Quickly, Cloud propelled himself into the air and summoned the rest of his Limit Break channeling it to the Buster Sword and swinging. A beam of power shot out from the sword and bombed towards Valhalla. As the blade beam was mere feet away from the group it deconstructed itself into five mini versions of itself. The five beams struck their individual targets dealing a nasty amount of pain to them all.

But this triumph didn't last as long as Cloud thought.

"N-nani?! W-what?!" at the corner of his HUD, he saw blood flying and a trail leading straight into his chest. Some force hit him in the chest like someone shoving him around. According to his HUD, the remainder of his Iron Armor had disappeared in an instant and in one bullet. How did─?!

His gaze followed the trail left behind and traced it back to a rooftop. A purple and green-trim Warlock with a 1000-Yard Stare in her hands. Sparta! As if she read his thoughts, South rested the sniper's barrel against her shoulder and smugly saluted at him before bursting into a sadistic type of laughter. Cloud growled to the best of his ability at the Warlock of Fireteam Sparta for her cowardice even though he was rapidly descending onto the ground. Blood escaped his lips and he heard his heart pounding against his ears from the shot, but it ended all too quickly.

After what seemed to be an eternity, Cloud came crashing down on his back and leaving one hell of a crater on impact.

"Cloud!" gasped Aqua and ran towards the crater where her kazoku member was embedded from a fall like that. I'm sorry Leon, just hold on a little longer! Even though Leon should be her main priority to look after, Cloud's shot from South was more immediate to look over right now! She slid next to Cloud's body and with the strength her frail frame could muster up, she pulled him out of the crater in the ground. She rested his head against her lap immediately after pulling him out. "C'mon Cloud, stay with me!"

It wasn't good. The shot from that sniper found its way to his right lung and it wasn't getting any better. Aqua removed his helmet to let him breathe and started on administering first aid to him. C'mon spells, don't fail on me now! The green glow she used to cast Aero reappeared in her casting hand and over Cloud's wound, clearing up the blood and extracting the round from within the lung. Cloud grunted painfully from the bullet being extracted from his lung, and each tiny movement the bullet made wasn't helping him at all. Instead of being painless, it felt more like his lungs being decompressed and torn apart by meat hooks!

"Good luck with that wound there, Cloud." South faced the other direction and started walking away from the scene. "Once that round hits bone, let's just say your little medic is gonna get blood on her face and hands."

"Akua, sore wo hikidashi te i nai! Aqua, don't pull it out!"

"Cloud, I have to or we're gonna lose our muscle in this team!"

Cloud grabbed part of her armor and pulled her face close. "Honeni fureru sore wo kika se te iru baai bakuhatsusuru yo! It'll explode if you let it touch bone!" he growled.

"What am I supposed to do!?" countered Aqua, withdrawing her hand from his wound and covering her helmeted face with her gauntlets. "If I don't, Light's not gonna be happy when she finds out you were taken out of the Battle Royale by a bullet to the lung and refusing to have it removed!"

"Sukunakutomo watashiha naze watashiha watashino hai kara sakujo sa re ta dangan wo motte iru kyohi shit e i masu yoi riyuu ga aru! At least I have a good reason why I'm refusing to have a bullet removed from my lung!"

Aqua looked down at her casting hand and frowned under the veil of the helmet, the faint aura of the magic she could harness giving warmth in her palm. The odds were stacked against her thanks to what Valhalla and now South had done to the ninja and brawn of the team. In her lap was one of the more valued members of the kazoku. One wrong move on removing the bullet and he's gone from the match; she could be held responsible for his elimination and not South; she could be possibly leaving her boyfriend for dead because of this turn of events; she could─

Her thoughts and panic came to a freezing halt upon the cocking of many rifles' bolts chambering rounds, and she lowered her head. Aqua dared not to look back and beg to heal Cloud. Tears welled up in her azure eyes, blurring her vision badly by making her HUD a complete mess of its former look. It's over. I'm gonna be gunned down by them and leave only Lightning to finish the fight… I'm sorry…

And then they fell.


A/N: I DEEPLY APOLOGIZE FOR MY LACK OF ANY UPDATE PROGRESS! *On knees begging for forgiveness* THE DAYS FOLLOWING MY LAST UPDATE WERE RIDDLED WITH STUDYING THAT I DIDN'T HAVE ANYTIME TO CONTINUE IT! NOR DID MY SUMMER VACATION! THIS IS WHAT I GET AFTER SIGNING UP FOR AN AP CLASS AND ASSIGNED HOMEWORK OVER THE COURSE OF THE BREAK!

Prophet: *Sweatdrops* Link, you're making yourself look like a fool. I think they get the idea from the duration of the time between June and now.

Me: How about you put yourself in my shoes?!

Prophet: I don't have to ─ Since I helped you out on parts of it.

Me: You and your silver tongue…

The Crimson Commando (II-XX)─ We all know how that went when Rez 'flirted' with Vura: on a sour note that it couldn't make songs! As for the kazoku teaming up with Valhalla to take down Sparta? Odds are one of the two teams are gonna stab the other in the back, as most alliances in the Hunger Games went when the numbers narrowed down. I know the enemy of my enemy is my associate but I doubt that Valhalla can restrain themselves after Sparta bites the dust. Battle Royale rules are that one team has to remain standing to win, and that includes any surviving teams that allied with another. Now look what reading the Hunger Games has done to me writing this match…

I can't guarantee set dates for updates to this story due to my school year starting up again but I'll do what I can even when I have a suffocating amount of homework piled on me practically every day. I mean, when things are all said and done, what's stopping us from returning? No, I'm not abandoning this UNTIL it's over. Until then, I'll see you guys in the next chapter. Stay strong out there, Guardians!