Black Feather: Episode LVII
"Armageddon"
???
11:42 p.m., 03/25
A dead end...
Rose came up to the occluding wall, knocking at the bumpy stone bricks, her silver and red bracelet tinkling.
"It's no use... We should try to find another way." Garnet shook her head.
"But, there is no 'other' way, is there?" Rose replied over her shoulder, still facing the wall. Garnet turned to Malirant, who shrugged doubtfully. She gazed into the darkness behind them, a double path of eerie lamps on the walls giggled away near and far. A mechanical beep droned.
"Uh... Did I do that?" Rose could have sworn she pushed some kind of hidden button, and indeed she did. The 'button' was a loose brick, about have the size of the other ones. It protruded a little, and slid far back into the wall. Malirant and Garnet faced her.
"What did you do?" Garnet was half-amused.
"I don't know! I just..." Rose swayed back as soon as the dead-end wall came alive. The wall slid back, its stone bricks crumbled to the ensuing gap below, revealing a shining metal door. A glowing line divided it, and it split open, unveiling several similar doors that opened in such a way not unlike the first. The three proceeded to an open area, and there, standing in perfectly aligned stalls were...
"Our ACs!" Rose jumped with joy. Limelight projectors from the ground surrounding the ACs illuminated the armor, their heads only visible from the dim eyes. Three stairs from the stall level stretched out, welcoming the pilots.
Rose typed in her codekey, the main HUD coming into view as she strapped the double seat belts on in an X fashion. The HUD finished loading. The FCS window was inactive, while a live, translucent, video portrait of Malirant and Garnet popped up from the lower side screens.
"How are we gonna get outta here?"
"Don't ask me..." Garnet glanced at a pop-up message from Malirant.
Find a way out.
Malirant walked out first, pushing the outlying stalls out of the way. He trudged up to a thin wall, according to his close-range map. He stepped backwards, poking holes into the wall with a continuous barrage from his machine gun. Garnet and Rose watched on, seeing what he was up to. Beams and festoons of dim light and dust shot in from the holes. Once he had perforated the wall to his satisfaction, Malirant charged right through, leaving an outline of his AC in the wall. Rose and Garnet looked at each other, slightly amused. But, what happened next wasn't. The two girls easily passed through the wall, but found Malirant standing frozen not far away.
"Malirant? Hey, we better get moving... no time to enjoy the scenery..." Rose was somewhat sarcastic, but saw why he was standing there. Inconspicuous to an ignorant eye in the darkness ahead was "something." Malirant recognized it immediately, and typed up...
An Omnis
Garnet's eyes widened.
"Lucifer...?" She gazed harder, focusing into the details. All of a sudden, orange lights flashed in stereo from the rotunda ceiling. The three found themselves where they had entered before from the start of the mission. Far off on the opposite side of the dome was the stolid, unyielding door from which the elevator peeked from behind. In the center of the dome was Angelus, his Arkunis Ceipheid, its entire body suspended in the air and constricted by unwieldy chains, originating from the dome wall, wrapping around the Omnis. Malirant calculated that there might have been thirty chains imprisoning Angelus.
A rattle of metal echoed against the walls, intensifying by the second. Garnet found the Omnis AC to be seemingly frozen, an aura of dark and bright green spinning from the outlines of its armor, the restraining chains snapping in half, one-by-one in rapid succession. With a burst of power, Angelus unfettered himself, his lengthy cannon arms stretching outward, his devil and angel wings flexing, its metallic panels clicking and grinding against one another. Arkunis Ceipheid had no legs, but in its place where three thick, leg shaped spikes with no feet, but rather, ending at a sharp point. It faced Malirant, its cannon arm barrels twisting upward, the long metallic sabers from its elbows slid through its forearms and protruded from where the barrels had been. Angelus charged right at Malirant, brandishing the two sabers. Malirant reacted, activating his Logic Drive. The transformation sped by in less than one tenth of a second, and Malirant dodged to the right, the sabers scathing across his towering shield.
Rose was horrified at the sight of the Omnis AC that had almost destroyed her AC back at Apocrypha. She hesitated to battle, while Garnet went into Anima mode, screens and shards of garnet diamond dancing behind her, forming into an eight-pronged star like a jigsaw puzzle.
"What the hell are you doing!? Don't just stand there!!" The eight-point star rotated to the front of Garnet's laser rifle, magnifying her energy shots into larger, denser beams. Angelus slashed wildly at Malirant, who flew back with his shield drawn.
"I... I..." Rose stepped back, her heart pumping fast from recent fear.
"Just fight!! We'll never get out alive if we leave this thing on our tails!!!" Garnet fired an awe-inspiring star beam, directly striking Angelus from the back between the bases of the wings. A shroud of energetic mist and electricity ensued, with Angelus popping abruptly from the center straight toward Garnet. Angelus unleashed a downward swing, striking and sawing through Garnet's left shoulder, plasma vapors shrieking from the sliced conduits and wires. Garnet screamed in unimaginable pain. Rose was still not ready to fight, for in her year's experience of being a Raven, nothing prepared her for this. Malirant lurched in for aid, but stopped. Rose stared in horror as Malirant's AC dropped its weapons and grasped its head in agony. The intercom went off, and Rose heard the terror of Malirant holding his head also, his throat struggling to scream, only allowing a painful, grating hiss to release. Garnet's live video portrait was in static. Everything slowed to a statue's pace...
Excitate vos e somno...
Excitate vos e somno...
Malirant heard the horrifying chant again, only to grasp his head even harder and shake wildly about. He knew it. It was Qain... Trying to take control of his mind... Malirant fought back for the first time, his body being drained of physical vitality.
Excitate vos e somno...
Urite mala mundi...
Malirant stopped, his arms dropped, his head facing down. Rose watched as Malirant's Colossus fell on its back to the ground. Garnet reverted back into her normal AC, her left arm dismembered and her core's left face decimated. It was up to Rose.
"Oh no..." She gasped as Angelus suddenly faced her. She found herself surrounded by swirling Extra-Orbitals. Rose drew back in a flash, avoiding a swipe from Angelus' blade. The Extra-Orbitals flew right up to his face, and all thirty-six of them fired, then withdrawing from the ensuing flames and gas. Roses fired her dual rapid rail guns, the fire of the Extra- Orbitals accompanying her. Angelus, decapitated, slowly made his way towards Rose, his progress not completely impeded by the storm of shots from Sakura. Pieces and shards of his armor tore away from his body in the hundreds, the ancient circuitry straining to achieve his commands. He lifted his two blades up and drove them down, missing Rose by a hair as she pulled away to the left. She quickly turned, aimed at the dual blades, and shattered them with her rail guns. Angelus' cannon arm barrels lowered, now in its original position. Rose gained distance away from him immediately, Malirant somehow on his knees as she passed above him.
Angelus was now in the distant shadows. Rose dodged wildly as an array of energy columns roared straight for her. Some of her Extra-Orbitals were incinerated as she dodged, and the barrel of her right rail gun was completely vaporized. Arkunis Ceipheid's back spikes powered up, sending him thundering towards Rose. She found herself facing Colossus' back as he charged right at Angelus.
"Malirant!! NO!!!" A shockwave roared as the two Omnis collided, Colossus' chest horn stabbing Arkunis Ceipheid's torso. Angelus struggled to point his cannons into Colossus' core, while Malirant fought to keep them away as they fired wildly in the air. Before Rose could do anything, Colossus charged up with immense energy. Suddenly, from its spikes shot white-hot beams. First outward, now diving right into Angelus, his grating scream pale against the screech of the blast.
In a swirl of a hundred suns, Arkunis Ceipheid was grounded. Only its core, wings, and left cannon arm was left. The rest of his limbs were eradicated. Plasmatic fluid and 'Omnis blood' dripped and poured from the wounds.
Malirant was back to his original form, kneeling down near Garnet. Rose noticed that with Garnet's critical status, they won't be able to continue onward out.
Angelus finally began to speak, his voice was human again. "Farewell... Angeline... Nera... My blessed... sisters..."
Quiet...
Tranquil...
Still...
A heavy revving noise emanated from Angelus' core, increasing in loudness by the second. The fluid from its wounds shriveled into the ground, and an earthquake followed.
"M... Malirant! What's happening?" Rose backed away from the white Omnis.
Angelus' Logic Drive Condenser Engine is over-reacting. If we don't escape, we're dead.
Rose searched wildly about, seeking a way out, but to no avail. The previous exit lied in ruins from the battle.
"What about Iris and Qastor!? What'll we d-" Rose stopped at the sight of Angelus moving again. He pointed his cannon at the roof, ribbons and orbs of energy gathering into the barrel. Five blinding shots spat out, boring a wide hole in the ceiling. Crimson skies leered from high above.
"...Go..." Angelus performed his last deed, his cannon pounding lifelessly onto the ground. Malirant activated his Logic Drive again, grabbed a hold of Garnet and bolted out the roof, with Rose not too far behind.
Once outside, they rushed to the transport, which proceeded to escape with haste.
"Where's the other two from before?" The second pilot inquired as the three traipsed into the passenger cabin.
"They're..."
"Dead..." Garnet finished Rose's reply while Malirant pulled an emergency aid kit from below a chair. Rose couldn't object, for it was the apparent truth.
She rushed to the passenger cabin window, pressing her palms against the glass as they sped away from the Lost Field. The firey skies perished.
"Iris... Qastor..."
Angelus lied lifeless in his cockpit. A hallucination fresco of him and his sisters in their childhood years comforted him. He reached up into the vision.
"Valete... liberi... Diebus... fatalibus..." Those were his last words.
Rose broke into tears as the Lost Field erupted into a gargantuan dome of radiation and devouring flames.
Midnight skies awoke with the grieving of a raven.
_____________________________
Excitate vos e somno...: "Wake up from your sleep, my children..."
Urite mala mundi...: "Burn the evil world..."
Valete... liberi... Diebus... fatalibus...: "Goodbye... children... The day... has died..."
From "Liberi Fatali," of Final Fantasy VIII, composed by Nobuo Uematsu.
"Armageddon"
???
11:42 p.m., 03/25
A dead end...
Rose came up to the occluding wall, knocking at the bumpy stone bricks, her silver and red bracelet tinkling.
"It's no use... We should try to find another way." Garnet shook her head.
"But, there is no 'other' way, is there?" Rose replied over her shoulder, still facing the wall. Garnet turned to Malirant, who shrugged doubtfully. She gazed into the darkness behind them, a double path of eerie lamps on the walls giggled away near and far. A mechanical beep droned.
"Uh... Did I do that?" Rose could have sworn she pushed some kind of hidden button, and indeed she did. The 'button' was a loose brick, about have the size of the other ones. It protruded a little, and slid far back into the wall. Malirant and Garnet faced her.
"What did you do?" Garnet was half-amused.
"I don't know! I just..." Rose swayed back as soon as the dead-end wall came alive. The wall slid back, its stone bricks crumbled to the ensuing gap below, revealing a shining metal door. A glowing line divided it, and it split open, unveiling several similar doors that opened in such a way not unlike the first. The three proceeded to an open area, and there, standing in perfectly aligned stalls were...
"Our ACs!" Rose jumped with joy. Limelight projectors from the ground surrounding the ACs illuminated the armor, their heads only visible from the dim eyes. Three stairs from the stall level stretched out, welcoming the pilots.
Rose typed in her codekey, the main HUD coming into view as she strapped the double seat belts on in an X fashion. The HUD finished loading. The FCS window was inactive, while a live, translucent, video portrait of Malirant and Garnet popped up from the lower side screens.
"How are we gonna get outta here?"
"Don't ask me..." Garnet glanced at a pop-up message from Malirant.
Find a way out.
Malirant walked out first, pushing the outlying stalls out of the way. He trudged up to a thin wall, according to his close-range map. He stepped backwards, poking holes into the wall with a continuous barrage from his machine gun. Garnet and Rose watched on, seeing what he was up to. Beams and festoons of dim light and dust shot in from the holes. Once he had perforated the wall to his satisfaction, Malirant charged right through, leaving an outline of his AC in the wall. Rose and Garnet looked at each other, slightly amused. But, what happened next wasn't. The two girls easily passed through the wall, but found Malirant standing frozen not far away.
"Malirant? Hey, we better get moving... no time to enjoy the scenery..." Rose was somewhat sarcastic, but saw why he was standing there. Inconspicuous to an ignorant eye in the darkness ahead was "something." Malirant recognized it immediately, and typed up...
An Omnis
Garnet's eyes widened.
"Lucifer...?" She gazed harder, focusing into the details. All of a sudden, orange lights flashed in stereo from the rotunda ceiling. The three found themselves where they had entered before from the start of the mission. Far off on the opposite side of the dome was the stolid, unyielding door from which the elevator peeked from behind. In the center of the dome was Angelus, his Arkunis Ceipheid, its entire body suspended in the air and constricted by unwieldy chains, originating from the dome wall, wrapping around the Omnis. Malirant calculated that there might have been thirty chains imprisoning Angelus.
A rattle of metal echoed against the walls, intensifying by the second. Garnet found the Omnis AC to be seemingly frozen, an aura of dark and bright green spinning from the outlines of its armor, the restraining chains snapping in half, one-by-one in rapid succession. With a burst of power, Angelus unfettered himself, his lengthy cannon arms stretching outward, his devil and angel wings flexing, its metallic panels clicking and grinding against one another. Arkunis Ceipheid had no legs, but in its place where three thick, leg shaped spikes with no feet, but rather, ending at a sharp point. It faced Malirant, its cannon arm barrels twisting upward, the long metallic sabers from its elbows slid through its forearms and protruded from where the barrels had been. Angelus charged right at Malirant, brandishing the two sabers. Malirant reacted, activating his Logic Drive. The transformation sped by in less than one tenth of a second, and Malirant dodged to the right, the sabers scathing across his towering shield.
Rose was horrified at the sight of the Omnis AC that had almost destroyed her AC back at Apocrypha. She hesitated to battle, while Garnet went into Anima mode, screens and shards of garnet diamond dancing behind her, forming into an eight-pronged star like a jigsaw puzzle.
"What the hell are you doing!? Don't just stand there!!" The eight-point star rotated to the front of Garnet's laser rifle, magnifying her energy shots into larger, denser beams. Angelus slashed wildly at Malirant, who flew back with his shield drawn.
"I... I..." Rose stepped back, her heart pumping fast from recent fear.
"Just fight!! We'll never get out alive if we leave this thing on our tails!!!" Garnet fired an awe-inspiring star beam, directly striking Angelus from the back between the bases of the wings. A shroud of energetic mist and electricity ensued, with Angelus popping abruptly from the center straight toward Garnet. Angelus unleashed a downward swing, striking and sawing through Garnet's left shoulder, plasma vapors shrieking from the sliced conduits and wires. Garnet screamed in unimaginable pain. Rose was still not ready to fight, for in her year's experience of being a Raven, nothing prepared her for this. Malirant lurched in for aid, but stopped. Rose stared in horror as Malirant's AC dropped its weapons and grasped its head in agony. The intercom went off, and Rose heard the terror of Malirant holding his head also, his throat struggling to scream, only allowing a painful, grating hiss to release. Garnet's live video portrait was in static. Everything slowed to a statue's pace...
Excitate vos e somno...
Excitate vos e somno...
Malirant heard the horrifying chant again, only to grasp his head even harder and shake wildly about. He knew it. It was Qain... Trying to take control of his mind... Malirant fought back for the first time, his body being drained of physical vitality.
Excitate vos e somno...
Urite mala mundi...
Malirant stopped, his arms dropped, his head facing down. Rose watched as Malirant's Colossus fell on its back to the ground. Garnet reverted back into her normal AC, her left arm dismembered and her core's left face decimated. It was up to Rose.
"Oh no..." She gasped as Angelus suddenly faced her. She found herself surrounded by swirling Extra-Orbitals. Rose drew back in a flash, avoiding a swipe from Angelus' blade. The Extra-Orbitals flew right up to his face, and all thirty-six of them fired, then withdrawing from the ensuing flames and gas. Roses fired her dual rapid rail guns, the fire of the Extra- Orbitals accompanying her. Angelus, decapitated, slowly made his way towards Rose, his progress not completely impeded by the storm of shots from Sakura. Pieces and shards of his armor tore away from his body in the hundreds, the ancient circuitry straining to achieve his commands. He lifted his two blades up and drove them down, missing Rose by a hair as she pulled away to the left. She quickly turned, aimed at the dual blades, and shattered them with her rail guns. Angelus' cannon arm barrels lowered, now in its original position. Rose gained distance away from him immediately, Malirant somehow on his knees as she passed above him.
Angelus was now in the distant shadows. Rose dodged wildly as an array of energy columns roared straight for her. Some of her Extra-Orbitals were incinerated as she dodged, and the barrel of her right rail gun was completely vaporized. Arkunis Ceipheid's back spikes powered up, sending him thundering towards Rose. She found herself facing Colossus' back as he charged right at Angelus.
"Malirant!! NO!!!" A shockwave roared as the two Omnis collided, Colossus' chest horn stabbing Arkunis Ceipheid's torso. Angelus struggled to point his cannons into Colossus' core, while Malirant fought to keep them away as they fired wildly in the air. Before Rose could do anything, Colossus charged up with immense energy. Suddenly, from its spikes shot white-hot beams. First outward, now diving right into Angelus, his grating scream pale against the screech of the blast.
In a swirl of a hundred suns, Arkunis Ceipheid was grounded. Only its core, wings, and left cannon arm was left. The rest of his limbs were eradicated. Plasmatic fluid and 'Omnis blood' dripped and poured from the wounds.
Malirant was back to his original form, kneeling down near Garnet. Rose noticed that with Garnet's critical status, they won't be able to continue onward out.
Angelus finally began to speak, his voice was human again. "Farewell... Angeline... Nera... My blessed... sisters..."
Quiet...
Tranquil...
Still...
A heavy revving noise emanated from Angelus' core, increasing in loudness by the second. The fluid from its wounds shriveled into the ground, and an earthquake followed.
"M... Malirant! What's happening?" Rose backed away from the white Omnis.
Angelus' Logic Drive Condenser Engine is over-reacting. If we don't escape, we're dead.
Rose searched wildly about, seeking a way out, but to no avail. The previous exit lied in ruins from the battle.
"What about Iris and Qastor!? What'll we d-" Rose stopped at the sight of Angelus moving again. He pointed his cannon at the roof, ribbons and orbs of energy gathering into the barrel. Five blinding shots spat out, boring a wide hole in the ceiling. Crimson skies leered from high above.
"...Go..." Angelus performed his last deed, his cannon pounding lifelessly onto the ground. Malirant activated his Logic Drive again, grabbed a hold of Garnet and bolted out the roof, with Rose not too far behind.
Once outside, they rushed to the transport, which proceeded to escape with haste.
"Where's the other two from before?" The second pilot inquired as the three traipsed into the passenger cabin.
"They're..."
"Dead..." Garnet finished Rose's reply while Malirant pulled an emergency aid kit from below a chair. Rose couldn't object, for it was the apparent truth.
She rushed to the passenger cabin window, pressing her palms against the glass as they sped away from the Lost Field. The firey skies perished.
"Iris... Qastor..."
Angelus lied lifeless in his cockpit. A hallucination fresco of him and his sisters in their childhood years comforted him. He reached up into the vision.
"Valete... liberi... Diebus... fatalibus..." Those were his last words.
Rose broke into tears as the Lost Field erupted into a gargantuan dome of radiation and devouring flames.
Midnight skies awoke with the grieving of a raven.
_____________________________
Excitate vos e somno...: "Wake up from your sleep, my children..."
Urite mala mundi...: "Burn the evil world..."
Valete... liberi... Diebus... fatalibus...: "Goodbye... children... The day... has died..."
From "Liberi Fatali," of Final Fantasy VIII, composed by Nobuo Uematsu.