Gatekeepers Encore
Lullaby: And there was Another Baby in My Bed
Mitsuoka Yuji woke with a certain sense of unease from a quickly fading dream, into another boring afternoon of leisure. For a moment he thought he was a child again, waking up in a random room in his familial mansion after falling asleep in the middle of a game of hide-and-seek. A nostalgic sadness rose in him, remembering. Nobody ever came looking for him.
But it's all different now, ne? He didn't really want people to come looking for him. He enjoyed his solitary leisure. No places to go, things to do, downfalls to plan and bring about... Let the rest of existence whiz on by in their pathetic daily little lives. You are free to put up your feet and snigger; or not, if that's too much trouble. Today, he was his own man. He stretched the kinks from his neck and considered another nap.
A world away, a woman in pink paced the sterile hospital maze, caught in indecision. Her heart told her an action in direct conflict with her long-standing orders. Her mind deferred that it is not her area of responsibility. There should be no question what the line of action should be, but then, she was not them. She lacked the courage they had, the courage that saved the world. Ironic, that she has seen more than a person's, or even a Gatekeeper's, share of horrors, faced and survived them all, and yet, lacked the simple courage to defy an order for the greater good.
Her place was to remain secret, the final frontier against whatever that may threaten the integrity of AEGIS International's internal security. She had no other purpose, as she walked into a school girl in the halls.
"Aaa, gomennasai...! Oh dear, your dress is all stained... arara, how careless of Reiko...."
"I... I'm sorry about your coffee..." She stammered at the concerned young girl with none of the poise and grace her image projected.
"Oh no, I'm sorry I was so clumsy... what will everyone say... mou..." Reiko smiled sheepishly.
Asagiri Reiko, the dazzling Gate of Glamour. Soft-spoken, as is her gentle heart, shy, with the mentality of a child. Simple, one might say, and at that moment, faced with her innocent smile and easily given emotions, the woman envied her with all her hidden heart. All of her heart.
---
Nobody ever comes looking for her.
Megumi hugged her knees to her chest, tired and miserable now that the excitement has worn off. She wanted to go home. Even though her parents and everyone else around her were stupid and didn't appreciate her. Even if everything was pointless in her pathetic little life and if, as that strange bastard that keeps appearing to disturb her said, though not explicitly, she was in fact weak and stupid, not at all the strong personality she fancied herself to be.
So, not knowing the way home, the little girl curled up on herself in her pretty cavernous prison with the glittering green-on-black rocks and cried.
Presently, the little green snake with the hard golden eyes slithered up around her right ankle and fell asleep.
---
She dreams. She dreamt. She is dreaming.
Masses of zombies falling over their fallen pieces came to her on the top of the hill. The sky was bloodied. The grass was bloody. The earth bled. They came to her, chanting, and she was rooted, shackled by chains of blood warm on her ankles and face. She held her bow and arrow in her hands, caught between a logical paradox. If she gave life to these undead, will they become more powerful? Or will they shrivel up and die?
And then she noticed.
The blood on her arrow.
And her eyes cleared and she saw, littered at her feet, the fresh corpses of familiar faces, blood on her arrow. In a distance, from the north and the south, came two figures. A young girl with long hair that danced free on the scent of death, and a long muffled figure with a deadly curved blade... ...
Iya... IYA!!!!
"She looks so peaceful, doesn't she?" Shun sighed. "It's been a while since she could sleep like this." Kaoru gave him a sharp look. "What?" Shun shied away from the sudden warmth creeping up his neck and cheeks. "We live next door!" Feye and Reiko, being the innocents that they are, totally missed the (mis)-implications and were subsequently very lost, as usual.
Someone smiled, a cruel, self-satisfied smile, and she was dark. Nothing, now. Only a warm velvet darkness and blissful, blissful silence. Yes, go away... leave me now... ...
And oblivious to them all, Ruriko slept, lulled in the comforting silence.
"Yes, sleep tonight, hime-jou-chan..." Whispered a spectre smiling, somewhere else. "For tomorrow, you may never sleep again."
---
He dreamed. He dreamt of his youth, of destitution, of dissolution, and he dreamt of things he had thought long forgotten. He wasn't sure he was comfortable with that.
When he woke, the one they had called only Geas sat across from him, in the depths of a great armchair, reading. He watched her finish it and put it down, a black leather-bound volume stamped "Pilgrim's Progress" in gold lettering.
"Good afternoon, Mitsuoka-kun. How did you sleep?"
He frowned. His dreams perturbed him, pricked at him in some way he did not quite understand.
"That was a loaded question." He murmured, accusatory.
Geas smiled mysteriously. "I know. Tea?"
He declined, sitting up from the daybed trying to stretch out his long limbs as she observed him, Of the three who abducted (saved? – the distinction seemed somewhat uncertain to him) him from his just ends, she unnerved him the most with her pale silver hair and bright coral eyes, ghost-like. It was a rare condition of the body, the same that made her confined to the house and the night.
Although by far the most rational and stabilizing force of the household, Kaika with her ningyou manners and inexplicable belief in tea and Koto's generally outrageous moods and styles seem to become easily overlooked in her quiet, ineffable presence.
"Geas-sama," He averted her questions with one of his own. "You said you were Gatekeepers..." She cocked her head a little towards him, stirring sugar rhythmatically into her teacup. Suddenly he was nervous about the answer. "... Then, what are you?"
She thought about this a while, bemused, and answered, "Wynken, Blynken and Nod, Yuji. Dreams. We are dreams."
He nodded, satisfied. "Though I shall have to think on that."
Then added, "And I think I'm really more Reiji now."
---
"What do you mean you can't find anything? You found those files on Shadow for Kurogane, didn't you?"
"I don't know! Here! Try it yourself!" Megane shoved the chair towards Bancho's wide frame. Bancho stared at the tiny symbols and letters on the mysterious mechanical contraption and shoved Megane back in his seat.
"I don't know any of this! What are you giving it to me for! K-so....!!"
Kaoru and Shun crowded around, too high strung to notice. Ruriko hung around their edges. It was warm and cramped in the computer resource room. Megane was nervous about being caught hacking into AEGIS secured files. Their anticipation was high, but greater still was fear at what they would find.
"Try 'Gatekeeper Angel'." Ruriko suggested hesitantly and screwed her eyes tightly shut. The computer clicked and whirred and finally, after a pregnant pause, beeped.
The accessed file showed a series of mug shots such as those on their own Earth Defence licence, in monochrome sepia tones. A blinking red "CLASSIFIED" sign obscured the screen and there was no text.
"Kore..."
"Could they be... an earlier Gatekeeper team?"
"Ee How long ago do you think this is?"
"There're so many of them... ..."
"Seven from Japan and fifty-six around the World, 1958."
They jumped as one, turning to see a woman in a pink dress, carrying a white motorcycle helmet. She had an open, welcoming face under the sad, pained expression she did not seem to realise she wore. "Hello, Gatekeepers," She said softly as she bowed. "Dozo yoroshiku. Please forgive me, I cannot introduce myself because of my job description."
"How can we trust you then?" Shun snapped before the words came to his mind. Because, Megane thought at him, I've seen her around the base before? She must be some kind of secret agent... or a secret weapon! Sugoii! Unfortunately, Shun wasn't psychic enough to pick that up and required convincing otherwise.
"With this." The woman announced, holding up a clear plastic card, the AEGIS symbol embedded in its heart. This was good enough for them. Shun stepped forward.
"I am Ukiya Shun, Captain of this team. You know about the Gate of Genocide?"
"I was there."
They couldn't pull her in fast enough.
"Please tell us!"
"I..." It would be a serious breach in her protocol, but she had broken the most important one against contact with the Gatekeepers already. They deserve... no, need to know.
"I could show you."
"Arara! Taihen, taicho!" Feye scrambled into the doorway, followed shortly by Reiko.
"A're, you're the lady I spilled coffee on yesterday... gomen nasai..."
"Feye, what is it?"
"Ta... Taicho..." The little Chinese girl huffed, "In... Invaders!"
---
Red. Ruriko hated that colour. Red.
Of boundless seas of Invaders.
Of strive, war, fight.
Of blood.
Ruriko hated that colour.
She thought.
---
Something was different in the air today, Feye could not help but sense. There was no sight of the usual life and vigour in her fellow Earth Defenders; certainly, she felt very little of the old enthusiasm herself, what with Shirei down and the base destroyed, it was as though everything has fallen apart... but surely it was only in her head? They weren't actually defeated yet. They hadn't even started fighting.
The bus pulled in on an otherwise empty lot. Invaders? There was nothing... And the mad melee began.
They had been laying in wait in the long grass, among discarded concrete piping and other construction debris. No, wait, they WERE the debris. Where did they get the idea to stick bits of sharp, hard objects into themselves? A bout of nausea threatened, watching them pick up broken pipes and other assortments and driving it all into their red plastic flesh, watching the flesh open and close around the new wounds, fusing in the new hardware. She couldn't bear to watch, and the sentiment surprised her. It was as if she actually thought of them as human beings, had a sympathy with them, for all they were her enemies and she has killed many in her day without so much as a bat of an eyelash. She hid this by running to Shun's side. Taicho could always steady her nerves and resolve when she grew too weak.
Kaoru clang pale-faced to Bancho's arm. Red. Red everywhere. Their welcoming committee was made up entirely of the red Core Invaders. The way they rose out of ambush resembled men raising from their graves, ashen-faced, glistening in red blood, lurching sluggishly forward like a zombie army. "Ban... Bancho..." She whimpered pitifully. This was impossible, like fighting a many-headed serpent!
"It's okay, Hime..." His huge bear-paw hand clasped firmly over hers. But he was scared too. He didn't tremble, having Kaoru to protect, but it was in his unusually quiet tone and knuckles pale enough to match her bloodless cheeks. He worried now, if he was going to get out of this. He couldn't control his Gate at all... and even though thoughts of death were far from their minds and impossible to picture as it is with young people, they couldn't help but feel its cold, cold breath and shiver in the unrecognised fear.
It was inexplicable, as if they had gained the powers of his Gate of Gales: one minute the Invaders were advancing slowly towards them, as though they had trouble making their way through the grass, the next they were swarming all over them. And it was no good trying to take them out, either. There were just too many targets, and far too close to them. Unlike the battles of yore where entire victories were based on their foolproof stall-as-long-as-possible-and-take-out-the-leader strategy, this one promised not to turn out that way. The Invaders had a tougher strategy: arm-yourselves-to-the-teeth-and-throw-yourselves-at-them; there are a score and a half of us and only six... no, four Gatekeepers... two were missing, and all the better. Shun tried the best he could to fend them off, but it was impossible in this hot press. He saw Feye's look and understood her reluctance to engage the enemy. He shared the same hesitation, knowing that opening their Gates and throwing out attacks such as theirs would just as easily harm their team-mates.
Reiko was the calmest of the lot by virtue of ignorance. It's very easy to be calm when you have no idea what you're up against. This was Reiko's strength and weakness. Protected by the gentle love of her own music, she was spared the cold hand of fear, but also failed to realise her Gate, dazzling pink over the AEGIS bus, was having no effect on the battle where the Invaders had apparently done their homework and traded in their hearing.
Ruriko steeled herself, determined to make every shot count, for she didn't have very many. The Invaders have learnt their lesson. It didn't take long for her to find herself completely isolated among that hateful, tearing, disturbing mass of aliens easily overwhelming her. Her hands shook. She was lucky if even one of those fifteen arrows she had actually hit something. The pink bow slipped from her numb fingers as the last fell empty. She threw her Gate wide open, its double rings of pale golden light before her like a small, desperate shield. Was it her or did they seem greyed out along the edges? Perhaps it was just dark...? A part of her cringed. Another part, a stronger, more savage, heartless part that has been lurking around ever since the Gate of Genocide, stood tall and snatched her hand straight out, through the centre of the Gate of Life. She held her breath, unable to fight against the other soul, in rapt, horrified fascination, heightened by the knowledge that she wanted this too, that the electric rush of power thrilled her as much as it did her dark self, and let the silent scream tear her head apart.
He couldn't see Ruriko anywhere, but then, he couldn't find Kaoru and Bancho and Megumi, either, so thick was the blanket of attack, and all they could do was put their arms over their heads in weak defence! Kageyama would surely laugh at him. What kind of man was he that couldn't even put up a fight? Boiling over in the sound of the other youth's mocking laugh inside his head, Ukiya Shun hollered savagely and charged. His eyes glowed in rings of electric blue, greatly frightening poor Feye as he recklessly threw his Gate wide open and made super-charged missiles of first himself, then whatever Invaders he'd sent flying through it.
All the world became a blur, moving along in super-speed, the air cackling on his skin.
Author's Ramblings
"Wynken, Blynken and Nod" are from a Dutch lullaby. A copy of the original rhyme can be found
I was wondering if I should explain each chapter's titles... This chapter's is a reference to Peter Pan, where he flew home once when he missed his Mother, and discovered that his parents have had a new baby and forgotten all about him.
Ningyou, used to describe Kaika, means "doll".
In other worlds... I'm stupid. I lack discipline ;-; gomen... ... as you can see issue 8 (chapter 7) has been rewritten.
is working on issue number 9 now...
this indent thing is driving me crazy ;; and why're all my extended spaces and underscores missing? ;-;
I hate HR tags they don't look as cool as asterisks... ;-;