The Next Generation 23
Magicman: I'm back once again. I'd say something, but I have nothing to say. A dilemma. While I'm at it, why don't you read some.
The spell used by Andrakus Kasar was very ancient and powerful. He had found it in a text from an abandoned library many years before. The text had spoken of the Draconians and their plans to change the world itself. Knowing that such powerful magic would be invaluable to his plans, Kasar took the text and burned down the library so no one would ever know of its existence. Once he gleaned all the magic he could from the text he destroyed that too. Kasar left nothing to chance; only he would use this powerful magic, that way no one would ever be able to rival his power. For the same reason, he used that magic against Yukari Albatou. He had never liked competition.
But here Kasar erred.
He had learnt all the magic he could from the book, but had he looked deeper he would have seen the principles behind that magic. More importantly, he would have discovered possible ways for the spell to be broken.
The spell Kasar had used on Yukari locked the mind within itself and imprisoned it in the realm of subconscious. There it would remain beyond the reach of time itself while the body slowly died of lack of food and water. But the realm of subconscious was strung through by the strands of life. These strands were caused by every living thing in the universe, and they formed a great pattern. If a living thing were to die then one of the strands would snap, sending a shiver through the web. If many strands were to snap then the shiver would increase in strength.
Yukari's mind lay among these strands, unknowing, uncaring, and completely unaware of its own existence. When Veers ordered the destruction of Dodaria and its more than ten thousand inhabitants a massive tremor shook the web. Even in her spellbound state, Yukari could feel the vibrations. They cut through the darkness and awoke her from her slumber.
***
Yukari woke suddenly and nearly choked on the load of saliva that had been building up in her throat. She quickly sat up in bed and started coughing.
"Yukari! You're awake!"
Yukari would have said something sarcastic if she weren't in danger of coughing up a lung, or maybe even a kidney. She became aware of someone pounding on her back in an attempt to help.
When she could finally draw a breath, Yukari had a lot to say. "Where the fuck am I?! What the fuck happened?! How the fuck did I get here?!"
Millerna sighed in exasperation. "You're in Palas, in the castle's hospital. You were hit by some kind of magic. Mark carried you here while you're parents watched. Now, do you have any other questions?"
Yukari was about to start yelling again when she stopped and stared. "What happened to your hair?"
Millerna made a noise that reminded Yukari of a pissed off dragon and she backed away from the question hurriedly.
"Why exactly am I in this hospital?"
Millerna seemed to calm down. "As I understand it general Veers managed to get a bunch of assassins into the castle. One of them even tried to go after me..." The queen clenched her fist as she remembered the 'incident'.
Yukari however clenched her fist because she suddenly remembered. Kasar's smirking face, his eerie chanting, and the feeling of being ripped from her body all came back to her. "Ah yes. Now I remember."
Both women seethed for a few moments before returning to the present.
Yukari reached over and grabbed a glass of water that was sitting on her bedside. "So, what did I miss?"
"Oh not much. The general attacked the city."
Yukari spit water clear across the room. While she was coughing, Millerna snorted in amusement.
"I never get tired of seeing your mother do that. Your style is different but it's still funny."
Yukari managed to regain control of her breath. "What?!"
"Veers attacked. Weren't you listening?"
"No, I was too busy choking on my own lung!"
Millerna laughed. "Just yesterday after the assassins struck Veers' army attacked. Apparently it was quite bloody." Her eyes twinkled. "Mark was in the fight. It seems that he did quite well."
Despite her intense annoyance at missing the fight, Yukari was proud of her boyfriend. "Well then I suppose I should go and make sure that he's alright. It is my job as his girlfriend after all." She started to get up when Millerna pushed her back down.
"You're not going anywhere until I figure out if you have any side effects or anything that could be dangerous." The queen scolded.
Staring at Millerna in surprise, Yukari opened her mouth to object.
"No arguments or I'll have you sedated!"
Yukari hesitated before speaking. "Well if I'm going to lie here for who knows how long could you get my mirror for me? It's made of blue energist."
Millerna paused before she answered. Truthfully, she couldn't see why Yukari wanted a mirror, but who was she to argue? Patients made some odd requests while she was treating them and it was bad medical practise to make them miserable. Besides, it might be important. "Under one condition".
Yukari cocked her head, listening.
"I want you to promise that you won't leave this bed while I'm gone!"
The girl shrugged, only slightly annoyed. "Sure. It's your hospital."
Millerna nodded, reassured, and went to get Yukari's mirror.
Yukari smiled to herself and lay back, enjoying the comfort of her bed. This was actually quite convenient. She didn't have to move and she could use new-found psychic powers to find out what was going on. "I don't know why I'm bothering." She said aloud. "I'm sure that Millerna would have told me if anything went TOO wrong."
***
"Things couldn't have gone MORE wrong!"
Van clapped a hand on the incensed general's shoulder. "Take it easy Sageth!"
Dilandau snorted. "How does one take it easy when a third of one's guymelef forces are wrecked in a single battle? It's like that bastard knew we were coming from the start! I'd hate to start thinking that we have traitors in the castle!"
"That" Mark said matter of factly, "would be very bad".
"There's no proof that Veers has any spies in the castle." Van was desperately trying to stem the tide of panic. "It's not Basram's style to use infiltration."
General Shoal conceded the point. "That's true. They usually don't need it."
Sageth glared at his colleague. "Oh? And why is that pray tell?"
The other general glared at his superior's sarcastic tone. "Because Basram has historically produced the best military leaders in history! If you had read any history at all you'd find out that Basram never existed until three hundred years ago. They had to carve up territories from some of the world powers at the time, and they did it in less that a year! War is an art in Basram, generals are honoured above kings and it's a proven fact that Veers is the greatest war tactician of his generation!"
"Who proved that?!"
"Twenty years of pulling his country up from the brink of destruction says a little something about his skill on the field, don't you think?"
"Well if he's as great as you say then why don't we just surrender?"
"Don't insult my intelligence!"
Hitomi sighed as the two generals continued arguing while Van tried to play peacemaker. Occasionally Mark or Dilandau would add something that would only inflame the argument. "With men like them leading the army it's no wonder that Veers is winning!"
Jasmine shrugged. Asturia's fleet commander tried her best to stay out of the concerns of the ground generals. "They're actually quite good when they're on the field. Sageth has commanded troops in Asturia's army in every campaign for the last fifty years and Shoal has studied military strategies designed by some of the greatest war heroes who ever lived. It's just that they've been wrestling for the same job for years and Shoal is seeing this as an opportunity to force Sageth out of the running. As for me," Jasmine stretched and sipped at a glass of wine", I'm happy as long they don't try and drag me into their private war."
Hitomi stood up and frowned over the battle map. "Dilandau's got a point though. Those tanks of Veers' hurt our armoured units badly."
Jasmine joined Hitomi at the table. "We've still got control of the air over Palas. They can't really do much while we can drop bombs on them from above."
Hitomi frowned harder. Something about this map wasn't right. "True, but if Veers is as good as they say then he's probably got something planned to deal with that."
Jasmine snorted. "Bah! Veers is just a loony general who wants to kill us all! He's got the men to overrun us so that's what he'll do. They way he ran the battle today proves it. He sacrificed all those men just to lure us into a trap."
"But those men were all just mercenaries. He wouldn't care for them the way he'd care for his own troops."
Jasmine frowned slightly while the others came over to listen, their argument forgotten. In truth she had a low opinion of infantrymen. She always thought that they were too willing to sacrifice their soldiers to gain an advantage, hence her opinion of Veers. But looking back on the battle statistics she remembered that very few of Veers' troops actually took part in the fight; just those damnable tank things, and they were nasty enough.
Sageth frowned too. "Could he be trying to save his own troops while weaken our own?"
"I doubt it" Mark put in, "He didn't even have to attack at all. Why would he need to? He controls all the territory around Palas. He doesn't need to attack, all he needs to do is sit back and let us starve until we give up."
"I'm not sure that that's the case."
Everyone turned to the voice. Eries entered the room, looking unhappy. She pulled out several sheets of paper and passed them around without a word. Seeing their questioning glances, she answered, "These are my latest findings about this little incidence. If you'll look at your copies then you'll see the problem."
Everyone looked at their sheets in trepidation. Dilandau swore very loudly and was glared at by the women. Mark stared in horror at the news while the others watched grimly.
Eries watched their reactions impassively. "I see you understand the problems. If you'll allow me to summarise then we can all try to find a way to solve this."
"Basram's forces have indeed struck every country of importance on the continent. They've had twenty years to prepare while we were lazing about enjoying the peace." Eries smiled briefly before continuing.
"Armies have attacked Daedalus and Domaria. They're fighting back but they don't have enough men, they don't have enough weapons, and they don't really know what to do with what they have."
Sageth, Shoal, and Jasmine all nodded at this, for once being in perfect agreement. Daedalus and Domaria were very important culturally but they couldn't punch their way out of the proverbial paper bag. Eries continued.
"Cesario has been overrun and what's left of her army has hidden in the mountains."
Mark shook his head in sadness at the news of his home country. Van patted him on the back consolingly as Eries spoke.
"As you may or may not know Cesario is a mountainous country that is incredibly rich due to valuable deposits of gold, silver, iron and other valuable minerals."
Mark cut in. "Why didn't they buy them off?"
"They tried. The Basramians wouldn't accept and invaded anyway. Cesario won't surrender" Eries added, "They're too proud and stubborn to ever give up. My guess is that they'll continue the war as guerrilla combatants." She ignored Mark's slightly miffed look and moved on. She still had a lot to say.
"Freid has fallen back to their capital, much like us. But they're in a far better position than we are. There are miles of tunnels under Godashim and the Basramians don't know about any of them. Chid and his troops should be safe enough while they continue to fight."
Van couldn't contain himself any longer. "What about Fanelia?" he blurted out.
Eries hid a smile while Hitomi rolled her eyes and Dilandau chuckled. "Fanelia's fine. They can match the attacker man for man and they have the advantage of position to counter Basram's technology."
Van slumped in relief while Eries wound to a close.
"But Basram's biggest problem has got to be Zaibach."
The room became instantly tense. Nobody really cared about the former superpower and Eries was about to skip to the conclusion when Mark suddenly interrupted.
"Excuse me," he said, ignoring glares from most everyone else ", But what exactly is going on over there? Sorry for digging up old memories but I haven't heard anything about Zaibach since the Destiny War."
Eries shrugged. "That's probably because no one really cares about how Zaibach is doing."
Mark was adamant. "If they're causing Basram problems then maybe we should care!"
Eries sighed and rubbed her head. "Fine. Here's the general situation in Zaibach."
"After Dornkirk was killed and their armies were decimated in the war, Zaibach fell back on itself. With no clear leader, the country splintered and remains divided today. Now each of the four generals and the occasional sorcerer rules a part of the country and they spend most of their time fighting each other for control of the whole country. They still have advanced weaponry however and they've rearmed at a remarkable rate. They've repulsed Basram's first assault but the warlords are too suspicious of each other to make any kind of co-ordinated effort to fight back. Veers will probably take care of the rest of us first so he can concentrate fully on Zaibach."
"Then that should be our first step to turn the tide!" Mark had suddenly had an idea. Nobody else was liable to like it but who cared? "We should try to make some kind of alliance with Zaibach! If we work together we just might be able to overcome these guys!"
After the initial objections ("Zaibach hates us!" "How can we trust them?" "We don't need those bastards!") had died down, everyone agreed, with some grumbling and a whole lot of reservations, that the plan was at least worth looking into. Eries volunteered to talk with the warlords, being the least likely of any of them to offend the Zaibachians, and the meeting was about to wrap up when the queen's sister spoke up once more.
"Uh, there is one more problem that you should all know." Eries looked uncomfortable under the stares from the military personnel. "I assume that you all know the city of Dodaria?"
Hitomi frowned and turned to Dilandau. "Have we been there?"
"You were sick that trip. We had just taken a job to wipe out some bandits when you caught pneumonia. You stayed in Varkas while we took care of business."
"Oh yeah."
"Anyway" Eries continued, "Dodaria is gone."
"You mean it's been overrun?" Van was the first to ask.
"No, I mean it's gone. It's been totally removed from the face of the map."
"But how?!"
Hitomi suddenly shivered as comprehension hit her. "Destroyed. By the energist bomb."
Silence reigned throughout the room. One could have heard a pin twist itself into a pretzel shape throughout all the silence. Suddenly Mark laughed unpleasantly.
"Well at least we know what Veers is up to. He's waiting for us to surrender to the threat of the bomb!"
No one argued this newest revelation.
***
Setto was industriously making his patented exploding arrowhead. Whistling while he worked, he patiently added the proper amount of explosives to each arrow, careful not to make a mistake and blow himself through the roof. That was an added thrill to his little hobby. You could never tell when he might wake up one day and send himself to heaven.
He was concentrating so hard on his work that he didn't hear Sabrina enter his room. Wearing a simple blue and black outfit, she watched him in silence for a minute, an almost sorrowful look in her eyes. She knew her father would never give up his dreams.
Yes, Sabrina Veers knew exactly what her father was doing. What's more, she knew why he was doing it. He had often sat with her at night and told her stories before she slept. Being a general, he had told his daughter of past battles and future wars. He told her of death and suffering, all because he did not want her to have any illusions of life. Krannek Veers loved his daughter with all of his heart and he wanted the best for her, which, in his mind, amounted to knowing the truth.
"Sabrina", he used to say when she was a child, "The world can be a hard and cruel place. There are people who would take everything you care about and laugh with pleasure while they do it. But there are also good people out there, who always have a smile and a kind word for any they meet. One day the cruel will be punished and there will be only peace and happiness for all. I promise you this."
Sabrina sighed softly as she turned away and went down the hall to her room. She knew that her father would not stop until he got her back, and she wanted to go back to him. But she could not leave Setto alone. No, she would do anything it took to protect him.
A ghost of a smile flitted across her face as an idea came to her, and she quickened her step. 'Yes', she thought, 'I'd do anything at all.'
Magicman: Okay, I am seriously getting freaked out by my own characters. Is that a good sign?
Smokegirl: Ooh! Zaibach is coming! They'll BURN Basram to dust! Heh heh heh...
Magicman: Anyway, thank you who have stuck by me during this difficult period and this one is for you!
Magicman: I'm back once again. I'd say something, but I have nothing to say. A dilemma. While I'm at it, why don't you read some.
The spell used by Andrakus Kasar was very ancient and powerful. He had found it in a text from an abandoned library many years before. The text had spoken of the Draconians and their plans to change the world itself. Knowing that such powerful magic would be invaluable to his plans, Kasar took the text and burned down the library so no one would ever know of its existence. Once he gleaned all the magic he could from the text he destroyed that too. Kasar left nothing to chance; only he would use this powerful magic, that way no one would ever be able to rival his power. For the same reason, he used that magic against Yukari Albatou. He had never liked competition.
But here Kasar erred.
He had learnt all the magic he could from the book, but had he looked deeper he would have seen the principles behind that magic. More importantly, he would have discovered possible ways for the spell to be broken.
The spell Kasar had used on Yukari locked the mind within itself and imprisoned it in the realm of subconscious. There it would remain beyond the reach of time itself while the body slowly died of lack of food and water. But the realm of subconscious was strung through by the strands of life. These strands were caused by every living thing in the universe, and they formed a great pattern. If a living thing were to die then one of the strands would snap, sending a shiver through the web. If many strands were to snap then the shiver would increase in strength.
Yukari's mind lay among these strands, unknowing, uncaring, and completely unaware of its own existence. When Veers ordered the destruction of Dodaria and its more than ten thousand inhabitants a massive tremor shook the web. Even in her spellbound state, Yukari could feel the vibrations. They cut through the darkness and awoke her from her slumber.
***
Yukari woke suddenly and nearly choked on the load of saliva that had been building up in her throat. She quickly sat up in bed and started coughing.
"Yukari! You're awake!"
Yukari would have said something sarcastic if she weren't in danger of coughing up a lung, or maybe even a kidney. She became aware of someone pounding on her back in an attempt to help.
When she could finally draw a breath, Yukari had a lot to say. "Where the fuck am I?! What the fuck happened?! How the fuck did I get here?!"
Millerna sighed in exasperation. "You're in Palas, in the castle's hospital. You were hit by some kind of magic. Mark carried you here while you're parents watched. Now, do you have any other questions?"
Yukari was about to start yelling again when she stopped and stared. "What happened to your hair?"
Millerna made a noise that reminded Yukari of a pissed off dragon and she backed away from the question hurriedly.
"Why exactly am I in this hospital?"
Millerna seemed to calm down. "As I understand it general Veers managed to get a bunch of assassins into the castle. One of them even tried to go after me..." The queen clenched her fist as she remembered the 'incident'.
Yukari however clenched her fist because she suddenly remembered. Kasar's smirking face, his eerie chanting, and the feeling of being ripped from her body all came back to her. "Ah yes. Now I remember."
Both women seethed for a few moments before returning to the present.
Yukari reached over and grabbed a glass of water that was sitting on her bedside. "So, what did I miss?"
"Oh not much. The general attacked the city."
Yukari spit water clear across the room. While she was coughing, Millerna snorted in amusement.
"I never get tired of seeing your mother do that. Your style is different but it's still funny."
Yukari managed to regain control of her breath. "What?!"
"Veers attacked. Weren't you listening?"
"No, I was too busy choking on my own lung!"
Millerna laughed. "Just yesterday after the assassins struck Veers' army attacked. Apparently it was quite bloody." Her eyes twinkled. "Mark was in the fight. It seems that he did quite well."
Despite her intense annoyance at missing the fight, Yukari was proud of her boyfriend. "Well then I suppose I should go and make sure that he's alright. It is my job as his girlfriend after all." She started to get up when Millerna pushed her back down.
"You're not going anywhere until I figure out if you have any side effects or anything that could be dangerous." The queen scolded.
Staring at Millerna in surprise, Yukari opened her mouth to object.
"No arguments or I'll have you sedated!"
Yukari hesitated before speaking. "Well if I'm going to lie here for who knows how long could you get my mirror for me? It's made of blue energist."
Millerna paused before she answered. Truthfully, she couldn't see why Yukari wanted a mirror, but who was she to argue? Patients made some odd requests while she was treating them and it was bad medical practise to make them miserable. Besides, it might be important. "Under one condition".
Yukari cocked her head, listening.
"I want you to promise that you won't leave this bed while I'm gone!"
The girl shrugged, only slightly annoyed. "Sure. It's your hospital."
Millerna nodded, reassured, and went to get Yukari's mirror.
Yukari smiled to herself and lay back, enjoying the comfort of her bed. This was actually quite convenient. She didn't have to move and she could use new-found psychic powers to find out what was going on. "I don't know why I'm bothering." She said aloud. "I'm sure that Millerna would have told me if anything went TOO wrong."
***
"Things couldn't have gone MORE wrong!"
Van clapped a hand on the incensed general's shoulder. "Take it easy Sageth!"
Dilandau snorted. "How does one take it easy when a third of one's guymelef forces are wrecked in a single battle? It's like that bastard knew we were coming from the start! I'd hate to start thinking that we have traitors in the castle!"
"That" Mark said matter of factly, "would be very bad".
"There's no proof that Veers has any spies in the castle." Van was desperately trying to stem the tide of panic. "It's not Basram's style to use infiltration."
General Shoal conceded the point. "That's true. They usually don't need it."
Sageth glared at his colleague. "Oh? And why is that pray tell?"
The other general glared at his superior's sarcastic tone. "Because Basram has historically produced the best military leaders in history! If you had read any history at all you'd find out that Basram never existed until three hundred years ago. They had to carve up territories from some of the world powers at the time, and they did it in less that a year! War is an art in Basram, generals are honoured above kings and it's a proven fact that Veers is the greatest war tactician of his generation!"
"Who proved that?!"
"Twenty years of pulling his country up from the brink of destruction says a little something about his skill on the field, don't you think?"
"Well if he's as great as you say then why don't we just surrender?"
"Don't insult my intelligence!"
Hitomi sighed as the two generals continued arguing while Van tried to play peacemaker. Occasionally Mark or Dilandau would add something that would only inflame the argument. "With men like them leading the army it's no wonder that Veers is winning!"
Jasmine shrugged. Asturia's fleet commander tried her best to stay out of the concerns of the ground generals. "They're actually quite good when they're on the field. Sageth has commanded troops in Asturia's army in every campaign for the last fifty years and Shoal has studied military strategies designed by some of the greatest war heroes who ever lived. It's just that they've been wrestling for the same job for years and Shoal is seeing this as an opportunity to force Sageth out of the running. As for me," Jasmine stretched and sipped at a glass of wine", I'm happy as long they don't try and drag me into their private war."
Hitomi stood up and frowned over the battle map. "Dilandau's got a point though. Those tanks of Veers' hurt our armoured units badly."
Jasmine joined Hitomi at the table. "We've still got control of the air over Palas. They can't really do much while we can drop bombs on them from above."
Hitomi frowned harder. Something about this map wasn't right. "True, but if Veers is as good as they say then he's probably got something planned to deal with that."
Jasmine snorted. "Bah! Veers is just a loony general who wants to kill us all! He's got the men to overrun us so that's what he'll do. They way he ran the battle today proves it. He sacrificed all those men just to lure us into a trap."
"But those men were all just mercenaries. He wouldn't care for them the way he'd care for his own troops."
Jasmine frowned slightly while the others came over to listen, their argument forgotten. In truth she had a low opinion of infantrymen. She always thought that they were too willing to sacrifice their soldiers to gain an advantage, hence her opinion of Veers. But looking back on the battle statistics she remembered that very few of Veers' troops actually took part in the fight; just those damnable tank things, and they were nasty enough.
Sageth frowned too. "Could he be trying to save his own troops while weaken our own?"
"I doubt it" Mark put in, "He didn't even have to attack at all. Why would he need to? He controls all the territory around Palas. He doesn't need to attack, all he needs to do is sit back and let us starve until we give up."
"I'm not sure that that's the case."
Everyone turned to the voice. Eries entered the room, looking unhappy. She pulled out several sheets of paper and passed them around without a word. Seeing their questioning glances, she answered, "These are my latest findings about this little incidence. If you'll look at your copies then you'll see the problem."
Everyone looked at their sheets in trepidation. Dilandau swore very loudly and was glared at by the women. Mark stared in horror at the news while the others watched grimly.
Eries watched their reactions impassively. "I see you understand the problems. If you'll allow me to summarise then we can all try to find a way to solve this."
"Basram's forces have indeed struck every country of importance on the continent. They've had twenty years to prepare while we were lazing about enjoying the peace." Eries smiled briefly before continuing.
"Armies have attacked Daedalus and Domaria. They're fighting back but they don't have enough men, they don't have enough weapons, and they don't really know what to do with what they have."
Sageth, Shoal, and Jasmine all nodded at this, for once being in perfect agreement. Daedalus and Domaria were very important culturally but they couldn't punch their way out of the proverbial paper bag. Eries continued.
"Cesario has been overrun and what's left of her army has hidden in the mountains."
Mark shook his head in sadness at the news of his home country. Van patted him on the back consolingly as Eries spoke.
"As you may or may not know Cesario is a mountainous country that is incredibly rich due to valuable deposits of gold, silver, iron and other valuable minerals."
Mark cut in. "Why didn't they buy them off?"
"They tried. The Basramians wouldn't accept and invaded anyway. Cesario won't surrender" Eries added, "They're too proud and stubborn to ever give up. My guess is that they'll continue the war as guerrilla combatants." She ignored Mark's slightly miffed look and moved on. She still had a lot to say.
"Freid has fallen back to their capital, much like us. But they're in a far better position than we are. There are miles of tunnels under Godashim and the Basramians don't know about any of them. Chid and his troops should be safe enough while they continue to fight."
Van couldn't contain himself any longer. "What about Fanelia?" he blurted out.
Eries hid a smile while Hitomi rolled her eyes and Dilandau chuckled. "Fanelia's fine. They can match the attacker man for man and they have the advantage of position to counter Basram's technology."
Van slumped in relief while Eries wound to a close.
"But Basram's biggest problem has got to be Zaibach."
The room became instantly tense. Nobody really cared about the former superpower and Eries was about to skip to the conclusion when Mark suddenly interrupted.
"Excuse me," he said, ignoring glares from most everyone else ", But what exactly is going on over there? Sorry for digging up old memories but I haven't heard anything about Zaibach since the Destiny War."
Eries shrugged. "That's probably because no one really cares about how Zaibach is doing."
Mark was adamant. "If they're causing Basram problems then maybe we should care!"
Eries sighed and rubbed her head. "Fine. Here's the general situation in Zaibach."
"After Dornkirk was killed and their armies were decimated in the war, Zaibach fell back on itself. With no clear leader, the country splintered and remains divided today. Now each of the four generals and the occasional sorcerer rules a part of the country and they spend most of their time fighting each other for control of the whole country. They still have advanced weaponry however and they've rearmed at a remarkable rate. They've repulsed Basram's first assault but the warlords are too suspicious of each other to make any kind of co-ordinated effort to fight back. Veers will probably take care of the rest of us first so he can concentrate fully on Zaibach."
"Then that should be our first step to turn the tide!" Mark had suddenly had an idea. Nobody else was liable to like it but who cared? "We should try to make some kind of alliance with Zaibach! If we work together we just might be able to overcome these guys!"
After the initial objections ("Zaibach hates us!" "How can we trust them?" "We don't need those bastards!") had died down, everyone agreed, with some grumbling and a whole lot of reservations, that the plan was at least worth looking into. Eries volunteered to talk with the warlords, being the least likely of any of them to offend the Zaibachians, and the meeting was about to wrap up when the queen's sister spoke up once more.
"Uh, there is one more problem that you should all know." Eries looked uncomfortable under the stares from the military personnel. "I assume that you all know the city of Dodaria?"
Hitomi frowned and turned to Dilandau. "Have we been there?"
"You were sick that trip. We had just taken a job to wipe out some bandits when you caught pneumonia. You stayed in Varkas while we took care of business."
"Oh yeah."
"Anyway" Eries continued, "Dodaria is gone."
"You mean it's been overrun?" Van was the first to ask.
"No, I mean it's gone. It's been totally removed from the face of the map."
"But how?!"
Hitomi suddenly shivered as comprehension hit her. "Destroyed. By the energist bomb."
Silence reigned throughout the room. One could have heard a pin twist itself into a pretzel shape throughout all the silence. Suddenly Mark laughed unpleasantly.
"Well at least we know what Veers is up to. He's waiting for us to surrender to the threat of the bomb!"
No one argued this newest revelation.
***
Setto was industriously making his patented exploding arrowhead. Whistling while he worked, he patiently added the proper amount of explosives to each arrow, careful not to make a mistake and blow himself through the roof. That was an added thrill to his little hobby. You could never tell when he might wake up one day and send himself to heaven.
He was concentrating so hard on his work that he didn't hear Sabrina enter his room. Wearing a simple blue and black outfit, she watched him in silence for a minute, an almost sorrowful look in her eyes. She knew her father would never give up his dreams.
Yes, Sabrina Veers knew exactly what her father was doing. What's more, she knew why he was doing it. He had often sat with her at night and told her stories before she slept. Being a general, he had told his daughter of past battles and future wars. He told her of death and suffering, all because he did not want her to have any illusions of life. Krannek Veers loved his daughter with all of his heart and he wanted the best for her, which, in his mind, amounted to knowing the truth.
"Sabrina", he used to say when she was a child, "The world can be a hard and cruel place. There are people who would take everything you care about and laugh with pleasure while they do it. But there are also good people out there, who always have a smile and a kind word for any they meet. One day the cruel will be punished and there will be only peace and happiness for all. I promise you this."
Sabrina sighed softly as she turned away and went down the hall to her room. She knew that her father would not stop until he got her back, and she wanted to go back to him. But she could not leave Setto alone. No, she would do anything it took to protect him.
A ghost of a smile flitted across her face as an idea came to her, and she quickened her step. 'Yes', she thought, 'I'd do anything at all.'
Magicman: Okay, I am seriously getting freaked out by my own characters. Is that a good sign?
Smokegirl: Ooh! Zaibach is coming! They'll BURN Basram to dust! Heh heh heh...
Magicman: Anyway, thank you who have stuck by me during this difficult period and this one is for you!
