Chapter 33: The Arc Edge
They had been on the move for days, and for once, Belle had let Duke drive. Aside from Ruecian and Valen themselves, he was the only other person she knew who had gone into Undercity and not wound up permanently staying there.
Belle had spent the past few days trying to hack into the Undercity system while en route, but other than retrieving obsolete data files, she had had very little success. She stood behind Duke now, one hand resting on the driver's seat, her eyes never straying from their built-in GPS. It had taken her a lot of trouble to get the Undercity coordinates, and she wanted to be sure they made no mistakes now.
A message console on the far side of the cockpit beeped, and Belle walked casually towards the terminal. "Message from Atenacius," she read aloud. "It's the analysis of the Cosmo-Penalty, and several possible codes for the Undercity computer system."
Duke nodded. "We're almost there. Let's just hope there are people left to save."
"It's all we can do," Belle whispered. "This may be our war, but its outcome lies in another's hands."
Rue had sat Mint's unconscious form against the corridor wall. He bound her leg wound as well as he could, while doing his best to suppress the flush that threatened to set his face on fire (Mint totally ignored it—easily done considering she was asleep). He finished the binding with a final knot, and carefully pulled her torn skirt over the exposed leg. He knelt beside her, silently studying her face, he knew not for how long. The building quaked once, and he reflexively covered her with his body in protection as several ceiling tiles fell around them.
Mint stirred feebly as she begun to wake. Rue leaned backwards, afraid of what she might think if she woke up to discover him that close to her. "R-Rue?" she called softly.
"Mint, I…" Rue swallowed. "Thank you." Mint opened one eye to look squarely at him, and with both hands he took one of hers. "But I still have to go back to Valen. I'll come home with you, as we agreed—" he hastily added on seeing the beginnings of a killer glare, "but unfinished business is unfinished business, and I…" he trailed off as Mint nodded in understanding.
"What do you intend to do?"
He wasn't going to kill Valen, certainly… he realized that he didn't know. All he knew was that he had to confront Valen again. He just had to. "To destroy his machines, I guess."
"What about Claire?"
Rue bit his lip uncertainly. "Once Valen is taken care of, I'll look for her myself. Maybe Klaus or Belle would have an idea of where she is."
"Right. You realize of course," Mint smirked, "I'm not letting you go alone."
"Mint—"
"Pah! I didn't come all this way to get shoved aside in the end. You owe me, Doll-Boy." She pulled her hand away, and briskly stood up. Rue started forward to support her, but she waved him off. "I have unfinished business with Valen, too. Besides, I seriously don't think you'll survive in this place without me."
Rue typed the necessary passcodes on the control pad to open the door to the laboratory where Valen and the psyche-transplant machines were waiting. As he navigated through the computer system, he had learned a couple of new developments. "Valen has triggered the building self-destruct, and in an hour this tower will crash onto the Carona plains." It meant one thing—that Valen knew his initial plan had failed. A cornered beast was always dangerous, and Valen more so than anyone they knew. They had to be ready. "I believe he's expecting us. Last chance to change your mind, Mint." Mint sniffed arrogantly in answer, and Rue understood its meaning well. He had expected no less in any case. He clicked the enter key, and they went in.
Rue was right—they were expected. Valen greeted them cordially. But Valen wasn't alone. Claire stood by his side, her brown eyes downcast and her hands bound loosely in front of her. Claire called his name. "Rue…" At the sound of her voice, Rue took an involuntary half-step backwards as if he had been slapped.
"Let her go, Valen!" Rue started forward angrily, but Valen raised one hand and he stopped short.
Claire's tone was pleading. "Please, Rue. Make him stop hurting me." Suddenly she screamed.
"Claire!" Rue raised his hand towards her. Claire rushed forward, her beautiful face contorted in fury and her clawed fingers reaching for Rue's chest. Rue almost fell backwards in his shock, but Valen waved his hand and Claire's body yanked back as if a leash had tugged at her neck.
"Claire is mine now," Valen said. "She will do everything I command. Have no qualms that I will pit her against you if you force me. There is only one thing I will accept in exchange."
Mint urgently grabbed his arm. "That's not Claire!"
Rue shook his head and hoped desperately that Mint would understand. "I… I dare not risk it." He lowered his weapon, and gently pried the girl's fingers off his arm. He turned and walked forward, towards Valen's machines.
A familiar whoosh flew past his ear, and Rue barely had time to shout. The remaining Dual Halo hit Claire directly on the side of her head, and he heard her neck snap. Except that her neck snapped with the sound of creaking metal, and copper tubing emerged from her head's broken skin. The fake Claire collapsed onto the floor, static fizzing along the cuts in her exterior.
She wasn't real… and Mint had known. He shouted, "What trick is this?!"
Suddenly, Mint's body jerked sharply and awkwardly, and she was flung hard across the room. Her body hit the wall with a sickening thud, and she impossibly stayed airborne. She gasped painfully and grabbed at her neck, at the unseen vise that threatened to suffocate her as it crushed her windpipe.
Rue's jaw dropped, as he realized that Valen possessed the full capabilities of magick. "LET HER GO!"
"NO!" Valen shouted. "No one wants to die—not when they can do anything about it. But if I am to live, then sacrifices have to be made. You. Remember that I adopted you boy, that I had spared you from the madness. I saved Claire from dying by the poison caused by your own blood. I have saved the lives of others poisoned by the chroma strain, and I founded Aeon Industries that provide for the livelihood of countless people who would otherwise be hungry, or homeless, or dead. I could not save them all, but of the chroma children who have survived, it was I who saved them—you are one of them, Rue. And I can save others. Dare you claim as much about yourself?"
No. Of course he couldn't. Valen continued, "Isn't it true that Claire was poisoned by your blood, and she's in a life capsule because of this? Her highness here got poisoned too, and she got seriously wounded a few times in addition—once in the tunnels and twice at Elroy's—because of you? Isn't she here now, in pain, all because of you? And Ruecian is dead, because you fought against him in his last battle?" he paused for emphasis, "Don't you agree that things would be better my way?"
Rue staggered backwards, his eyes wide and shaking his head in horror. No, it's wrong… Valen had to be wrong… Valen had lied to him—had lied to everyone! But he spoke truth, and he made sense, when bad guys weren't supposed to make sense at all… He makes sense. Oh, help, he makes sense…!!
Mint's voice broke through his mind's haze. "Rue! Don't listen to him! He's playing with your mind!" But he's right, Mint… He remembered that he himself had used the same argument with Maya when she had urged him to escape, and he had fully believed it then. What had made him change his mind so quickly? He's right… I could never, ever do as much for this world as Valen had…
"Have you forgotten what else he had done? To Lucine and my mom? To Ruecian? To Prima and Ruenis? To Claire? To you?!"
Rue faltered, his grip on the Arc Edge loosening, and he placed his free hand on the living blue gem on his forehead. Mint's words made sense too, and he was confused, so confused. There was no difference between truth and falsehood that he could discern now. Was there even such a thing? He didn't understand. He couldn't. And he didn't want to. Claire… Claire had always known what to do…
"There's no time, Rue," Valen told him. The doorway to the machines beckoned.
Valen's mental grip still held her fast, yet Mint's voice was insistent as she shouted at her overly-irresolute partner. "How can you know what you can do, if you just give everything up?! You [expletive]! Don't you have a brain?! Why don't you think for yourself sometimes!" She gasped suddenly as Valen's psychic noose tightened about her neck in an attempt to shut her up.
No! Every time he made his own decisions, he had wound up hurting others, most of all the people he cared about. If there was one thing he didn't want to do at the moment, it was to think! Mint's words had made him angry then. His eyes never strayed from the machines' open door. His grip on the Arc Edge tightened, and his jaw was set with determination.
"Rue… you don't have to understand. Just do what you believe in."
But what did he believe in?
He believed in Claire. In his friends. In Professor Klaus. In Mint and Maya. He believed in his own will, and that he had his own purpose in this world. He chanced a sideways glance at her—at the fiery redhead whose ravaged body was being pinned against the wall by the invisible hand of magick, her feet dangling helplessly on empty air. She had come for him, but she needed protection too, and it was he alone who could give it now. He had made his mistakes in the past, and they would haunt him tomorrow as they haunted him today. He could never make everything right, but what little he could do, for those who were closest to him…
That, if only for the moment, was certainly reason enough. And for a single point in time, his choice was clear.
Without warning, Rue rushed forward towards Valen and his machines, and unceremoniously swung the Arc Edge down. For a brief instant there was a look of utter dread on Valen's face and he lost his mental grip on the girl, but the heavy blade missed him and instead crashed onto the nearby control panels. Rue slashed sideways, shattering the capsules with a few well-placed blows. As a final touch, he swung high and cut the cables connecting the machines to the rest of the Tower and to each other, and to the wheelchair where Valen's diseased body was perpetually bound.
Without power to his machines, Valen could no longer move. The walls and ceiling quaked, a lot stronger this time, and it wouldn't be long before the building collapsed completely as it crashed back onto earth.
The old man disdainfully raised an eyebrow at the chroma child. He was helpless now, and they both knew it. "You will simply leave me here?" It wasn't exactly a question. Rue took one long look at him, before he wordlessly turned away.
Rue helped Mint up. He whispered, "How did you know it wasn't Claire?"
"The real Claire would never do anything to hurt you," she replied. Rue blinked, and he gaped at her, clearly not expecting that answer. In spite of the current haggard situation, Mint couldn't help but grin. "Kidding!" She pointed behind him with a vague wave, at the wall full of display screens. "There isn't a computer system in existence that Belle hadn't been able to hack yet."
Rue had been too concentrated on the battle to notice. In white Unicode text against a black background, the screens all displayed a single message. Claire, Maya and Ruenis Safe in Carona. Rue shook his head wryly. That she could still tease him in such circumstances… Mint never ceased to amaze him.
And then they ran, the boy leading as they made their way across corridor after corridor towards the lower hangar where Rod was to meet them. The doors and hatchways opened for them easily with a mere mental command issued by the power of the Aeon Shard. Rue didn't notice that Mint was falling further and further behind. They were passing through the same corridor where they had dueled earlier, and he was about to go through the elevator doors when he turned back to see that she had fallen by the opposite end of the hall.
"Mint!!" He ran back towards her, immediately going down on one knee at her side.
"I'm sorry," she said weakly as she gazed her burgundy eyes up at him. "I think I overexerted myself. I'll be fine with a few minutes rest. Go on ahead, or Rod will be worried."
"That's crazy!" Rue practically shouted. Without a second thought, he dropped the Arc Edge and lifted her in his arms. He didn't have the strength to carry both girl and the heavy weapon.
She frowned questioningly. "You… you're leaving your sword… but—" She knew how important the Arc Edge was to him.
"Mint, if you even think that I'd ever choose a stupid sword over someone's life…" But Mint no longer heard those words as her head fell heavily against his chest in a faint. Rue ran once more, although noticeably slower now. Rod was waiting for them in his Pinto when they reached the hangar. The tower quaked again, and Rod shouted for them to hurry.
"You're riding with me this time," Rue whispered softly in her ear as he climbed up the Pinto passenger seat. He knew that she couldn't possibly have heard him, but somehow he just had to say it to her.
"Buckle up, people!" That was Rod's signal. The Pulsar Inferno Typhoon Omega rose up and out of the hangar, away from the Tower of Maya as it pummeled towards the open fields of Carona.
Author's Notes
17 September 2003. Almost done! That's the last battle! Short, ne? Not to mention rather Anti-climatic, Grrrr… Give me a couple of days to work on the epilogues! The ending is so close it's tantalizing!