::chapter three - dark echoes::

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"Stand your ground, this is what we are fighting for...
For our spirit and laws and ways.
Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.
For heaven or hell we shall not wait."

--VNV Nation, "Honour"

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--THE MAYSHIP--

"Dizzy... Diz..? Hey, Dizzy! Wake up!"

She hadn't quite realized that she was staring aimlessly at nothing, her soap-soaked dishrag sliding over the porcelain plate in slow circles. But as Dizzy glanced up she perceived that one of the other girls - June, it was - was frowning at her and tapping her toe against the linoleum tile of the galley-kitchen floor. "You fall asleep over there or what?"

The Gear girl gasped and jerked herself back to her task of scrubbing the dishes, a guilty blush staining her pretty cheeks a light fuchsia as her wings shifted a bit with her discomfiture. She could hear the soft fluttery whisper of individual feathers brushing against each other. "I... I'm sorry...I guess I was daydreaming."

"Hey, it's no big deal. Geez, you apologize for everything." June shook her head with a faint laugh. "I just wanted you to hand me an extra towel if there are any - mine kinda got dropped on accident and it's almost time for someone else to come in here and help," the pirate girl added, gesturing to the floor upon which the soiled cloth lay. Her grin was decidedly embarrassed. "I'm a little clumsy sometimes."

"Oh. All right, here," Dizzy said as she hastily handed June a fresh towel - she was still feeling more than a little flustered, but the blush was fading. It was so strange here... being constantly surrounded by such peaceful-natured humans, and so many of them. She hadn't been around this many humans since - well, ever, really. Maybe when she was first born, but she couldn't remember that far back. Even though by all rights they should have hated her - many of these girls had lost families to creatures like her - they were all so nice to her. None of them seemed to care that she was a Gear, even though they knew about it by now. She could almost pretend for a while that she was no different from the rest of them.

It was almost as if they found it impossible to believe that she was capable of hurting anything. Dizzy knew better, but she was surprised to find herself fairly content. Before joining the Jellyfish Pirates she had acknowledged the concept of "friend", but not the idea of "confidante", someone who really understood her concerns through shared experience. And while her scythe-wielding guardian was certainly a very sweet man, he wasn't a teenage girl. Granted that Dizzy wasn't either, chronologically speaking... but she was certainly of age in other areas.

Dizzy just wasn't afraid anymore, the way she had always been in her grove. Even when she'd no longer been alone she had worried about her companion and the way he was constantly using himself to draw attention away from her when humans came too close to her home. She just couldn't stand the idea that he might be badly injured, even killed - all to protect her. She wasn't worth that risk, not when she couldn't even control her own power enough to guarantee she wouldn't be the one to hurt him, or anyone else...

"Go away!" she shrieked, sobbing, pushing the sorrowful-eyed intruder away with a violent shove. The girl stumbled backwards towards the entrance of her cave, copper-colored eyes blinded by tears of despair and confusion as she nearly tripped over the hem of her long, puritanical gray frock. "Please... just... just go away... if you stay you'll just get hurt and I don't want anyone else to be hurt because of me... just please leave me alone..."

How long ago had that been? Not so long, really. He'd stumbled upon her by accident, cutting down the hunters who'd cornered her in the clearing without a single hint of mercy or concern for the blood that stained his hands. She had been afraid of him at first, hiding in her cave when he tried to approach her. He'd responded by simply taking a seat by the little area she used as a campfire, leaning his weapon against his shoulders, and waiting for her to come out. Dizzy had at first assumed that hunger or boredom would drive him away, but he had remained, sleepless, waiting. After three days of indecision, then irritation, then listening to Necro and Undine bicker incessantly over whether they should let him be or scare him away, she had emerged... still fearful, but curious.

Only after weeks had passed did he tell her his name, after she had healed him with the simple balm of empathy and kindness. Dizzy suspected that no one had ever shown him either of the two. And as she spoke to him at length she saw past the intimidating facade, saw him for what he was: a broken man who hadn't quite lost the capacity to give compassion and comfort freely despite his own pain - a pain of which he never spoke, and probably never would. It was not her benefactor's wish to pity himself. He had in fact told her once that he thought it "disrespectful to those who have truly suffered." It was that realization, the acknowledgement that there was infinitely more to him than met the eye, which made her fear of him vanish...

"Evie, get in here! It's your turn to dry dishes!"

"A-all right..."

The Gear paused in scrubbing and glanced towards June to see the reed-slender, petite brunette who was possibly even more reticent than she was. Evelyn, or Evie as everyone called her, had been mute for a very long time after joining Johnny's band - so May had said. And even now that she could speak, she didn't do it very much. You couldn't help but feel a certain maternal instinct when dealing with her - she was so timid and meek that her very manner compelled protection from those around her. Johnny never sent her out on heists because she just didn't have the temperament for that sort of work. Evelyn never seemed to mind her relegation to more menial tasks, however. Dizzy liked her almost as much as May, though for very different reasons; the personalities of each girl were quite nearly polar opposites.

"Hi, Dizzy," Evelyn mumbled, her face turning an interesting shade of red as she spoke. Her chestnut-brown eyes wouldn't meet the other girl's. She always seemed a little afraid of Dizzy, but she was a little afraid of everyone else too - so it wasn't anything personal. "Have you been here long?"

"Yes. But I promised May that I would take her place tonight."

"She wanted to go to the bridge with Johnny, right?"

Smiling, the Gear girl nodded.

"She...she always does stuff like that. We all love Johnny, but she's scary about it." Evie let out a tiny yelp as she realized just what she'd said, and that of all of them May was probably the closest to the new girl. "I mean.. I'm sorry. I know May's your friend. Just forget I said anything..."

"It's all right," Dizzy replied, shaking her head. "That's just the way May is."

Evie threw her a hesitant smile in return, relaxing a bit as Dizzy's openness seemed to encourage her a little. "She actually joined the big tournament last year to free Johnny from jail when he got arrested. He nearly had a fit when he found out."

Dizzy laughed a little, her crimson eyes searching Evie's face. "Captain Johnny says that maybe between him and me we can keep May out of too much trouble."

Her observation was met with a little giggle. "That's easier said than done with May, you know. She can get into more trouble on accident than most people can on purpose."

"I know the feeling." And she did, it was completely true.

I can only hope trouble doesn't follow me here, too...

And before long, the young Gear would have cause to recall that thought in bitter circumstances.

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--HUNTER'S WIRE, RUE VERDANT, PARIS--

"Both of you'd better behave yourselves," Sol muttered under his breath, just enough for Anji to hear him. The politician could sense the third member of the party somewhere close by, but save the sight of a large black raven perched on the streetlamp above his head, there was no sign of the Gear Lord.

"Where's Testament?" Anji shifted uncomfortably. The steel hasps about his wrists were itching and sore upon his flesh, and his feet ached from the three-hour walk to St. Germain - there'd been no help for it since none of the tiny villages in closer proximity had provided direct transportation to Paris, and Sol had been in one hell of a hurry to get to the capital city.

"Right over there to your left. As much as I wish he'd get lost." The snapped reply wasn't without a bit of hopefulness, and sure enough it didn't go unanswered.

"I heard that, Sol."

Anji jumped with startlement at the cold echo of the other Gear's voice, looked around, saw no one, and realized with something like uneasiness that the testy response had been totally mental. Sol, on the other hand, glanced at a seemingly empty space to Anji's left and nodded coolly, obviously seeing something the human couldn't. The Japanese man glanced nervously up at the crow familiar, who stared at him with golden-hued indifference and cawed softly.

Then they were entering the relative warmth of the contact office. This was where all the notifications went out to the bounty agents and by proxy to their clients. A heavily built man who'd probably been a hunter in younger days waved as he stood and approached, his right foot dragging behind him a bit and giving him a slight limp. His dark hair was brushed at the temples with silver, and his blue eyes were webbed at the corners with all the sun-hardened wrinkles. But they were friendly eyes, unlike Sol's shuttered chocolate-brown orbs.

"Hey, Badguy! Long time no see." The voice was unmistakably American. "Sam told me to expect you. Who's your friend?"

"Just a tagalong. I'm taking him to Geneva, thought we'd make a stopover on the way," came the curt reply. No need to give out the full story just now; there was business to be handled. Sol wasn't one for idle chitchat anyway.

The contact seemed to get the hint right away; he nodded quickly and dropped all pretense. "Coroner's officer left us the files on all the victims. Autopsy reports, everything. They had a hassle with the second guy who was killed trying to get his family to release the body for all the examinations - bunch of religious freaks apparently, said the autopsy was defiling him somehow. Can't see how, since I don't think he cares one way or the other anymore." He gestured towards the back room. "Follow me."

Testament seemed to melt out of the shadows as he followed the men on silent feet - in truth, he'd been present the entire time; he'd just chosen not to reveal himself. It was one of the myriad spells at his disposal. He couldn't cloak himself in broad daylight, but he could insert a hypnotic suggestion to the minds of humans in the vicinity that he was psychologically invisible: those who fell under its thrall would simply not notice him even though he was in plain sight. Simple but quite effective. Even Mito was susceptible to it to a certain degree, despite knowing he was in the area...

No, he wasn't as powerful as Dizzy or as well-endowed with brute strength as Sol, but his facility to harness and channel black magic more than made up for both deficiencies.

I'm missing something. For a moment in the grove I thought I felt something: a twinge of power, something familiar... my imagination, perhaps...?

It was nagging at him now that he had chosen to dwell on it, which annoyed him. Testament didn't like to concern himself with human affairs, and he was busy telling himself to leave it alone. But if he really believed it was just that, why had he acted on the impulse to accompany Badguy and Mito to Paris?

He'd learned to trust his misgivings over the years, and that sense of something overwhelmingly familiar had only increased as they had neared the capital city...

"Here you go," the contact was saying, passing Sol a manila file folder. A flash of color within bespoke pictures. "They don't have any pictures of the suspect in GPF files, so the composite artists up at Central Paris HQ got together and drew out the eyewitness description. Pretty accurate, they said. The only thing that differed was hair style, clothing, that sort of thing."

Sol grunted. "You want this back?"

"It's okay, this isn't the original copy, and a bunch of those drawings were made. Keep whatever you need."

Anji sighed. "Sol?"

"What now?"

"Could you at least take these handcuffs off me?"

"Can pigs fly?"

In other words, no. "Come now, where do you think I'm going to go? I'll just get picked up by another hunter." The Harisen had their own special abilities - but Sol had his hands on those right now, so escape was pretty much out of the question. Besides, if he were freed, he could always just steal the fans and make himself scarce at a more convenient date. "Besides, you have my weapons."

"Jesus H. All right, if you'll shut up..." He set the folder aside long to produce the key to Anji's restraints, unshackled his bounty, then tucked the cuffs away with a narrow, distrustful expression. "You try to run from me, Mito, and I promise you'll spend the rest of your life untying your hakama with your teeth."

Anji held up his hands. "I wouldn't dream of it."

All that got was another grunt as Sol turned back to the folder and began to sift through the photos and report copies inside. His dual-toned eyes skimmed the latest report with no betrayal of anything he might have felt, ignoring Anji's curiosity-fueled attempts to read over his shoulder. The third to fall prey to this unknown killer's pattern was one Marcus Andrew Berkman, thirty-four year old native of New York (what was left of it), freelance mercenary and bounty hunter. Known by some as 'Wind Rider' because of his innate ability to channel wind magic - albeit in a highly limited sense. 'Wind Rider'? What the hell kind of stupid ass name is that? Sounds like someone was half-baked when they came up with that crap... Not much more than a slight whiff of natural talent that had probably greased the skids for him in a lot of places, Sol thought.

He'd joined the Seikishidan in 2169 on a whim, left shortly after Ky Kiske was appointed the commander of the force and had been supporting himself with a variety of jobs - mostly over minor bounty runs on petty criminals and small-time Mafia-affiliated racketeers. Third-rate hunter at the most, but he'd been bragging to a lot of associates on the circuit that he was after the 'big prize' as he'd called it. The five hundred thousand dollar Gear. And somehow, he'd ended up dead on a Seine River wharf not far from the airship docks, a block away from a tavern which was a known hangout for prostitutes.

"Huh, the suspect's a woman," Anji observed as he frowned at the picture. "Pretty enough, but... there's something a little off about her."

Testament glanced over at the two men, his eyes flickering with disinterest over the woman's picture - and immediately did a double take. "Wait a minute! Let me see that." His gaze narrowing and sharpening as it settled upon the composite drawn, he reached forward and took it from under Sol's nose, bringing it closer.

"Hey," Sol began, but the expression on the younger Gear's face silenced him. He was staring at the painstakingly detailed sketch with an unnerving intensity, as though he were an art historian perusing a newly discovered Monet painting. "What's that all about?"

After a moment Testament shook his head and handed it back, wordlessly turning away. A sidewise glance to the window gave him a view of his familiar Yoshino, the demon crow, gazing unconcernedly at her master from her perch on the sill. Something seemed to pass between the two, an unspoken command, and with a caw and a flutter of coal-black wings the bird disappeared. Satisfied, he turned his attention back to Sol and Anji, who were still perusing the file. His eyes kept traveling back to the woman's face. She'd let her hair grow out, but... it was still her. Testament had assumed she'd been hunted down. So many of their kind had been eliminated after Justice's sealing eight years ago...

Sol cast a strange look at the younger man as he flipped through pages. "If you wanted the picture that damn badly you could've just asked me for it."

"Sorry," was all he could muster. Anji was the only one to catch the troubled expression that fluttered across the mage's porcelain-skinned face, but it was so quick and so faint he almost thought he'd imagined it.

"Better take this with me," the bounty hunter said after a moment, scooping up all the photos and assorted papers with one hand and tucking them untidily back into the manila folder. "Some of this is heavy reading, and I'd be here all day if I tried. Let's go get a place for the night..."

- - - - - - - - - -

The inn Sol had chosen was a modest one. Not much beyond the basics, to the private dismay of Anji Mito who admittedly appreciated the finer things in life. He wasn't asking for a four-star hotel, but really, a tiny room with two double beds? That meant he'd either have to share with one of the other two or sleep on the floor...

He glanced hopefully at Sol then shot down the urge to converse almost as soon as it came to him. The bounty hunter was too busy reading through that file to have the time or patience for anything approaching conversation. Besides, Anji got the impression that Sol didn't care much for him anyway, bounty mark or no.

I don't think Sol cares about much of anyone or anything, least of all himself.

It was an interesting idea, and a little sad as well. Anji shook his head and glanced over at the bed. Maybe the other Gear would be willing to talk to him, and besides, the politician wanted to know what had been nagging at him all day to put him in the brooding, silent mood he'd been in when they arrived at the inn.

But there was no one. Their third wheel was gone. "Testament?"

No reply. Anji coughed, looking nervous. "You can stop doing that now, it's just the three of us." Besides, it was a trifle disconcerting to talk to what looked like empty air. Not to mention, an irritating habit...

"He's not here, Mito," Sol growled. "He left like Satan was riding his ass about half an hour ago, while you were downstairs whining to room service about dinner. That crow of his scared the shit outta me tapping on the window." He glanced up briefly, fixing Anji with his crimson eye. "Swear to Christ, I'm gonna kill that goddamn bird and have roasted squab for dinner some night..."

The Japanese man blinked, ignoring the rest of that. "Where'd he run off to?"

"Didn't say. Something about business to handle. Now could you shut up and let me read?"

Anji Mito fell silent, grumbling under his breath about the rudeness of some people, present company not excluded.

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--LOCATION UNDISCLOSED--

...all in all, she was rather satisfied with herself.

She'd taken pains to appear human on those little outings of hers to gain information - at least, long enough to garner the information she required before she disposed of her sources. Wouldn't do to have a perfect description of her getting back to the police, now would it? And in the areas she'd been frequenting of late it wasn't all that much of a surprise to see a racily dressed woman prowling about a bar. Human habits had told her that much.

I've lain in hiding for the last five years like a stray dog in a pile of garbage, and now it's all about to pay off...

The woman glanced into the cracked mirror on her way down the hall of her rundown flat. Human enough at a glance, yes. Furthermore, not bad-looking by human standards if she could say so herself. Long violet-black hair and strangely arresting golden eyes. Long legs, slim oval face, full breasts. Yeah, nice body. Just... looked like your average woman, though strikingly attractive. If not for the symbol emblazoned on her forehead - that forced her to wear various headpieces when in public areas - she could blend in perfectly. The ancient old woman whom she'd rented the flat from hadn't been able to tell what she was, certainly. Well, okay, she'd been half-blind anyway. But it'd still worked.

It wasn't really that she needed a place to live, but one must keep up appearances when working incognito, and so she'd conformed enough to escape the notice of the human law enforcement. So much the better. When Master Justice had been declared captured, that had nearly killed her. Devoid of any purpose, she'd only just managed to flee the witch hunt that ensued: the human massacre of Gears worldwide. Now not even a handful were left. And it was all because of that filthy, sanctimonious Holy Knight... and the prototype Gear...

...stupid... humans....

But there had been an ace in the hole, hadn't there...? A strangely fond smile drifted over her face, though the golden eyes were bright with a zealot's insanity. He'd almost succeeded, too. It'd just been his bad luck to encounter the same pair who killed their master. After that, he had disappeared, and she had assumed him dead until she'd started hearing the rumors of a strange figure roaming the forests. Most likely he'd assumed that the death of Justice had made their goal a completely lost cause.

Not all of Justice was gone yet, though. Oh no indeed.

A discreet rap at the door jolted her from her thoughts, but that was trivial compared to the comfortingly familiar waves of dark power that preceded it. A slow manic grin stretched her full mouth and her eyes sparkled happily as she bounded to the door and pulled it open: an unconventionally pretty woman in a tattered old long-sleeved jumper and a pair of cutoff denims - and a five-tongued symbol half-concealed beneath her violet-black hair.

The figure before her was achingly familiar, so wondrously unchanged that it delighted her. A tall young man, slender and pale and graceful, stood at the threshold. His long wild waterfall of ebony hair was being tossed in haphazard directions by the chill wind wafting from the Seine as his exotic feline eyes gazed upon her countenance with a curiously clinical dispassion. There was a large black raven perched on his shoulder. It cawed a bit as she peered at it, the raucous scraping sound softened by lack of volume as it proceeded to preen itself - evidently deciding that she was beneath its notice. Absentmindedly, as if on habit alone, the man lifted a fragile-looking hand to stroke the bird's feathered back.

Testament. You've come back to me at last. She didn't bother to speak aloud, knowing he could hear her perfectly. An honest smile replaced the one that had been frighteningly devoid of anything approaching sanity as she just stared at him - her expression now rather flirtatious, almost coy. He was every bit as otherworldly and beautiful as she remembered... and when he spoke, it was as if the five years since she had seen him had never passed at all.

"Hello, Kira."

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AUTHOR'S NOTES: God, I love VNV Nation. (Right, in case you couldn't tell.) If they were of the heavy metal genre, they'd be a perfect band for GGX. Their lyrics fit Guilty Gear well and consistently. So. Yeah! There you are. Chapter numero tres. *dies* x_x Four and five should be out in the next couple of days, methinks... Get to know Kira. She will scare you eventually. The woman does not just have issues, she has entire volumes of subscriptions. o_o;; RAHAHAHA. HA. *cough*

You know what's really funny? I shouldn't have the time to do this, it's finals week. But here I am, cranking out a third chapter of this nonsense in a white heat, and I'm about to start on the fourth. This may take me a while, but I've got all Christmas break to do it XD; Okay. Note stuff. On the raven's name there's a bit of a discrepancy. Some people say Yoshino, others say Zio. O_o; Can someone please tell me what's up with that? I've never seen where the name Zio comes from at all. *_* All the reviews from the nice people make me feel all squishy and loved. ^_^ Thanks so much for the feedback! Continue, por favor~ ^^