~

"Aren, wait! I'll go with you! Just hold on, and I'll get my boots-"

No time!

The rusted street flew under Aren's Screamer at hundreds of miles per hour. Six in the morning, but none of the Nebrian "daylamps" had activated to announce the dawn. In a neighborhood as bad as this, Aren knew, most of them had probably been destroyed. He raised the bike's headlight intensity and sped up.

No time, he thought again. No time to wait for Selphie, to think twice, to do anything but go! The audio sirens from his Terran armor were still present; still pounding his skull with panic.

Unit 44B taking damage! Move to assist! Unit 44B taking damage! Move to assist!

After all these years, Snap's armor was still neural-netted to Aren's. It was a good thing, because Snap was off-duty, and his neural nets to the other soldiers were broken. Aren was the only one to hear his cry for help.

The sleek battle machine began to lose grip on the road. A flourescent rain fell from the darkness high above, and ran horizontally into his windshields. Water pipe must have burst at the ceiling, Aren thought, and four wipers did their best to ward off the torrential storm.

At the entrance to a beaten, multi-story living complex, the Screamer skidded to a halt. The cockpit swished open; the soldier leapt forth. His heavy suit of armor was draped with the eerie remains of the jumper cloth. The torn shreds whipped about his body and cast a supernatural glow.

Aren ripped the old wooden door off its hinges. The lobby was a mess of blood and splinters. The hotel's owner and security guard lay embedded in the front desk.

Another body was impaled to the ceiling, by a javelin of ice.

Within his helmet, Aren's vision zoomed in, and he examined the wall of keys behind the desk. Snap's staying in Room 12 on the second floor.

Aren's handguns flipped up from his armor. They cocked a round into each chamber automatically as he grabbed them. His metallic boots pounded the floor as he climbed the stairs. The lights to the second floor were shot out. The armor sensed the darkness, and switched Aren's visor to infra-red.

A young lady was crumpled against the wall, beside Room 12. The door was broken down.

Aren grew closer, slowly inching his way toward the girl, and aiming his guns into each open door on the way to reach her. None were occupied, not even Room 12. Aren knelt beside the girl, and lay his hand on her back.

"Can you hear me?" he asked, gently but quickly. "Are you there?"

He heard a reply, but the words were too quiet. The buzzing of his infra-red visor drowned them out. Aren unlocked his helmet, and lay it on the floor beside him. A small floodlight opened from his shoulder, and shone upon the girl.

It was Ai-Mei. Her face was a mess of exposed wires, and her white bathrobe was soaked in blood. She quietly recited a prayer for the dead, one that Aren had never learned before.

He gently raised her into his arms. "Mei..." he whispered, coughed, choked on his own breaths. "Hi, honey..."

She struggled to focus her swollen eyes. Her face twitched, as wires snapped against each other with lively sparks. "Ohh...ughh...hhynne...whhooo-are...you..."

Her breaths were labored, and her forced words came out as cries. Aren adjusted her carefully, and raised his arm. He opened a small compartment on his leg plating, and retrieved a small syringe. To help with the pain, if nothing else.

"It's me...it's Aren," he said.

"...ehhh...aren...its...itsyou?..."

He nodded and smiled, as bright as he would allow himself. "Yeah...I made it back."

"...and...ann-kore...is...he-dead?"

"He is."

"...ohh...then...its...itsover..."

Despite the horrible damage to her face, and the crossing and snapping of the wires, her lips and cheeks began to contort. They twitched and spasmed, but finally set into a grotesque expression.

"...look...lookaren...a...smile..."

He forced a smile with her, and told her it was beautiful, and to keep working on it. Because he would see it again.

~