Disclaimer: I own nobody in this story. Maybe that's a gooooood thing.
Author's note: I know this chapter is very odd, and I'm sorry. But I have to set the stage for the events I have plotted out for later. Bwa ha ha! It still isn't clear yet what I meant by making this more like a "classic" Final Fantasy, but give me time. It's coming… And, it's really, how shall I put this? Weird. I almost thought about chucking the storyline and just making this a nice, simplistic Aki/Neil romance. I know... I can't see it either, but it would be pretty darned funny.
OUT OF THE ASHES
Chapter Two
City of the Mad
Neil Fleming swore and braced himself as another shudder rocked the building. He could hear the sound of loose objects hitting the floor around him and the clatter of metal as armored soldiers struggled to keep their feet.
"Hurry up in there, Corporal Fleming," a voice shrilled into his headset. Neil bit back the sharp retort that sprang to his tongue, choosing instead to concentrate on the task at hand. Getting the generator online was far more important than mouthing off some officer.
Still, it would have been nice if the officer had asked Neil if he was okay. Not that anyone was okay anymore. New York was a city of the mad, and it was all Neil and the others could do to retain their sanity.
Funny. The resurrection of New York should have been a gift. Millions of people had died in fires, falls, stampedes, and of course, Phantom attacks. It should never have happened.
Neil had been stunned to actually wake up. His spirit had been taken by a Phantom - he remembered it, remembered the feeling of doom he'd felt when he'd seen those tentacles protruding from his chest and realizing he wouldn't escape, remembered how it had felt to have something so vital just ripped from his body.
That wasn't all he remembered… but he wouldn't think about that.
He thought he'd been in hell. Or perhaps even heaven, because Jane had been lying in his embrace, eyes blinking in confusion. Obviously something that would never have happened if he'd been alive.
They'd been overjoyed to realize they actually were alive, and that this was real. They'd heard Ryan's moans some distance away, and had worked to cut him free of the busted jeep. And they had been joined by several equally confused soldiers, who'd been wandering around aimlessly, lost without someone to command them.
Then they had gone out into the city and found the citizens. At first, it seemed as if everything would be all right, that Aki's Gaia had given them a precious gift, perhaps in return for ridding the world of the conspicuously absent Phantoms. But there were problems…
The trauma of having their souls torn free was too much for some. Many had curled up into fetal balls, screaming at the remembered pain. Then there were others… those whose wounds were grievous, yet they lived. Like Ryan. People's bodies were burnt, smashed, or broken, and yet they lived, as if the wounds didn't even pain them. Ryan had a gaping hole in his chest, yet he claimed he didn't even feel it. Neil had seen people walking around with broken necks, punctured lungs, and hideous burns, people who should all be dead, but weren't.
And then there were those who claimed to be two different people, two spirits within one body. These were the ones who went mad as the two minds warred for dominance. It was a futile war, one neither could win because the two minds were no longer the people they used to be, so meshed were their memories.
But Neil wasn't going to think about that.
Two days ago, the city had had reason to rejoice. But now they were fighting for their lives with a population that had decreased again by a third. At the end of the day, the Phantoms had returned. They weren't the invisible, ethereal creatures that fed on spirits. They weren't ghosts. They were flesh and blood, their armored hides nearly impervious to the bio-etheric weapons. They'd come into the unprotected city, wiping out thousands of citizens too dazed to move. Phantoms were sweeping through the city, and it was all Deep Eyes and the rest of the USMF could do to protect the populace.
It had been Neil's suggestion to reactivate the New York City barrier. Even if the Phantoms were alive, it should still stop them from entering. For a while, anyway. The city was powerless, but the barrier had emergency generators that should still be able to come online. After trying to send Captain Edwards a message through the com link to the Black Boa that they still had, Neil had joined a team to head to the barrier control center buried in the city's heart to reactivate the barrier.
They hadn't expected it to be destroyed. Theoretically, it should have been the safest place in the city. The barrier around it was strongest, and no firearms were allowed that could accidentally damage the fragile equipment. The staff was carefully screened, and the area was restricted. Only someone with high clearance could breech the area.
It was there that Neil found one of the most horrifying sights he'd seen yet. He had seen many of the "undeads," the people who should be dead but weren't, but the one he'd found there… It made him ill just to think about it. They'd found two men in the rubble; soldiers, not the technicians Neil would have expected. One was Lieutenant Anderson, the impatient soldier standing by the dead holo-board Neil was trying to bring to life. He was mostly undamaged, his armor having taken most of the blast. Neil had barely had time to wonder why one of the 307's, General Hein's elite squad, was in the control room when he'd found the second person. This one was almost a skeleton, with flesh and clothing blasted away, and its eye sockets were empty. A hole was ripped through its chest, suggesting it hadn't been killed by a Phantom. Neil had thought it was one of the few citizens who hadn't returned to life, when it had reached up and grabbed his hand. It had sat up, its jaw dropping as if it were trying to say something. Neil, much to his shame, had given a high-pitched scream. He'd noticed, rather distantly, that the shred of cloth around the person's neck carried the tabs of a major. Major Elliot? What was he doing down here? Neil had wondered.
Lieutenant Anderson wouldn't answer those questions. He had grimly taken his superior back up to the city with them, then joined their discussion of how to bring the barrier back up.
There were ten generators located around the city that maintained the barrier. They were controlled in the now-ruined control room, but they all had auxiliary stations where they could be brought back online. Three of the generators had been irreparably damaged in the city's initial downfall, but the others were built to compensate for a loss of two of generators. It was Neil's hope they could make up the work of three when pushed. Yesterday, Neil and a number of techs had figured out how to bring them online again, and been able to activate three. Now, the teams were divided, and were hitting the last four generators. Two had already been brought online. If this hadn't been a serious situation, Neil would have been miffed that two other teams had beaten him.
Then again, they didn't have a Meta Phantom attacking their generators, either. Neil wouldn't have thought that anything would make the bastards any harder to kill, but life seemed to make the giant insectoids damn near invulnerable. At least their tentacles didn't kill dozens of people with one swipe anymore. Now they just annihilated city blocks.
The building shook again, and Neil nearly ripped the wire he was holding when his arm was jerked side to side. That would have been a disaster because, if he was right, and he usually was, all he had to do was connect it here…
"Corporal, the holo-board out here is online," Lieutenant Anderson informed him. Neil backed out of the crawl space he'd been wedged into, grateful for once for his small stature that made this easy.
"All right," Neil said, wiggling his fingers dramatically. Anderson didn't look amused. "Let's bring this baby online." His fingers flew over the keyboard, occasionally shifting to grab an icon and drag it with his fingers across the holographic display. A low hum began to build around them as the generator powered up.
"Let's get out of here," Anderson said as the building rocked again. "That thing is determined to tear this place apart to get to us, and we don't want it to destroy the generator."
"No kidding," Neil muttered. At least Anderson and his chosen men had their armor; Neil had left his behind so he could fit into the tight crawl spaces as he brought the machinery back online. Again the building shuddered, and Neil turned to Anderson. "You said something about getting out of here?"
"Right," Anderson said, waving his men out of the room.
* * *
"Jane, watch out!" Ryan's voice came through her headset a split second before Jane Proudfoot saw the massive tentacle bearing down on her. She sprang out of the way, rolling awkwardly in her armor to escape the Meta's reach. The slimy black tentacle slapped at the cracked pavement and missed her by a hairsbreadth.
"Thanks, Serge," Jane murmured as she scrambled to her feet. She angled her Nocturne, the bio-etheric weapon that was having so little effect on the damned Phantom, and fired at the tentacle. The creature didn't even cry out as its body took the energy as if it were only a minor nuisance. "Any word from Neil and the others?" she gasped out as she dodged the tentacle again.
"They're on their way," Sergeant Ryan Whittaker answered grimly. "But we still need to keep this thing from taking out the generator."
"Right," Jane growled. "Any ideas?" She and a handful of soldiers had been given the task of distracting the Phantoms while the various teams brought the generators online. It was difficult to distract a creature the size of a building with tentacles that spread out over a city block, Jane had found.
"Jane!" Ryan's voice came again.
"I see it," Jane hissed, watching another tentacle descend towards her. It wasn't even watching her; how did it know she was there?
She was so busy concentrating on this tentacle that she failed to see the second one that knocked into her weapon, sending it flying from her grasp. "Damn!" she cried. The first tentacle was still coming towards her, the other was behind her... She couldn't run... She held up her hand in a futile defense and shut her eyes.
I don't want to die this time...
Suddenly, the Meta screamed! Jane's eyes snapped open, in time to see the tentacle whipped away from her. It hit the side of a nearby building and shattered to pieces.
"What did you do, Jane?" Ryan's voice was
incredulous. "I thought you were a
goner!
"So did I," Jane said, confused. The Meta retracted its tentacles away from her and took a few great strides down the block. Ryan jogged over to her, leaving behind the small squad of soldiers she'd been fighting with before the Meta had cut her off.
Jane went to examine the chunk of tentacle that was closest, Ryan at her heels. She prodded it with her knife, and was surprised to see it was coated with... ice?
"It's frozen," Ryan breathed. "Jane, you're one of THEM, aren't you?"
"I don't... I couldn't have..." Jane hated to be confused, and it seemed to have been the dominant state of mind ever since she'd woken up. Dammit, what was going on?
* * *
The Black Boa was making excellent time. Aki was nearly to New York. She could see the old city on the horizon, and Barrier City New York was at its heart.
Beneath her, the ground was a riot of color, where plants had bloomed with a vengeance where a week ago, there had been none. It had been like that since Aki had left Houston, and it had stunned her. But it pleased her as well. It seemed Gaia was restoring life to the world after all, at a rate any scientist would envy. She longed to stop and examine the plants, gather some samples, but she was on a mission. Once she was certain Neil was safe, she would stop.
The Black Boa beeped a proximity alert. Aki frowned; there shouldn't be any ships around. What could be out here? There shouldn't be any ships...
A long, undulating form wavered in the air before her. Its iridescent green scales glittered in the sun, and its movements in the air were almost lazy.
What in the world? It looked almost like a Snake Phantom! But, that was impossible! They were gone! And the creature before her wasn't the angry red and orange of the translucent Phantoms, but actual flesh and blood!
Was she dreaming again? If she was, then she had better wake up fast, because the creature's massive multi-fanged jaws were opened and heading straight towards her ship!
To Be Continued...
I actually hadn't intended to end it here, but circumstances forced me to. Oh well. Sorry for the cliffhanger.