Serendipity
Part 5 – The Forsaken Ones

New, what do you own, the world?
How do you own disorder, disorder
Now, somewhere between the sacred silence
Sacred silence and sleep
Somewhere between the sacred silence and sleep
Disorder; disorder
Disorder
Toxicity – System of a Down

She was horror-stricken, but in a disciplined sort of way. She knew not how to express her terror in long-winded lamentations—the words wouldn't come—and so some section of her subconscious told her to scream. After a moment's pause, she obeyed, and did a damn good job of it too.

It was shrill and loud and everything a good girlish scream should be; there was no certain underline, one that would belie a good deal more emotion, the good deal more that she felt. Setting aside fear, there was compassion. Setting aside compassion, there was bewilderment. Setting aside bewilderment, there was fear, fear, and a whole lot of fear. It was a vicious cycle, and the fear was unending though her breath ran short.

Kazu's face was a sickly shade of gray—his skin was a sickly shade of gray.

He used the wall as a crutch as he stood, until he was forced to relinquish his grip by walking further into the room. Outstretched hands thirsted for a merciful touch, and though his eye remained fixated on Moonstone, he was careful not to allow any blind fingers come within a few feet of him.

Repulsion would be far too strong a word. One can be piteous, understanding, and still afraid.

The Wavemaster swallowed bile, unaffected by the foul taste. He opened his mouth to speak—and then he coughed and retched, though nothing came out of his mouth other than a sleek puff of breath. By the manner in which he wiped his mouth, though…

"What," Kazu rasped and croaked, "do you m-mean, real?"

"…See for yourself."

Kazu did not bother to see for himself, instead taking his word as is and weaving his fingers through the roots of his hair. His knees buckled beneath him and soon met chill stone floor; his teeth were gritted and his palms carefully covered his ears, though that did little to block out the chorus of moans that ranged from dull to desperate. An anguished growl emitted low in his throat and his hands slammed against the pavement. Moonstone distractedly paid no heed to the trembling Wavemaster lying a little ways from his feet, turning his head from side to side to catch a good glimpse of the…whatever they were.

"…There are many," Moonstone said with a rare touch of uncertainty, perhaps the most useless thing he'd ever said in his lifetime. His voice and steps were low in pitch and therefore he was adequately invisible, he deduced. They were blind. "…We need a Ryu Book to look up the status of their players."

Ryoko had not taken a step further into the corridor. She was as white as her dress and her will to perform any sort of walking was as flimsy as the underlying ruffles of her skirts.

Her throat was hoarse with disuse coupled with the screaming. Somehow, she found the strength to speak, and her determined words surprised even herself. "We have to help them," she said, voice shaky but with the resolute fervor that had pushed Kazu here and left him behind. "They—" Common sense returned. "—what are they!?" Strangled voice, throat clenching and unclenching. Ryoko wished Moonstone had the answers.

He didn't. "I don't know," Moonstone said after a lingering pause. He then tilted his head downward to look at Kazu, whose breathing was heavy and whose eyes were as wide as dishes. The Twin Blade was hesitant, but finally unsympathetic in gestures and expression, stalking past the Wavemaster to approach the Heavy Axe somewhat reproachfully. "Alert Kite."

"Can't we h-help them without calling anyone?"

The words came out of their own volition.

Moonstone looked at her, lips curled faintly downward. It was hardly a sign of disapproval; his expression would have been tons easier to read if not for that damned blindfold. Instantaneously, she knew the answer and hung her head in shame, putting her back to the Twin Blade in order to issue the message. She spoke in hushed tones, though she doubted Moonstone was incapable of hearing her. His hearing was rumored as magnified as compensation for his self-imposed handicap.

That rumor was, unfortunately, put to the test.

Moonstone's head jolted towards the cages, the motion giving off a mild air of alarm. Kazu had clambered to his feet (although he still was a potent mix of blue and gray) and was remaining out of arms' reach of the prisoners, though he was squinting and leaning slightly forward to catch a better look. He swallowed every now and then, desperation overtaking his usually placid expression.

Sharply, Moonstone said, "Kazu, get away from the cages."

Kazu obliged, briskly moving to the entrance to the corridor. He walked, apparently, more loudly than was tolerable, and there was a new chorus of groans. A hand shot out and tangled itself in his sleeve, long, chipped and colorless nails tearing at the cloth. Kazu barely managed to sustain a yelp as he wrenched his arm free of its bestial grip and he dashed behind Moonstone.

"Are you done?" Moonstone inquired of Ryoko sharply.

"Yes," the Heavy Axe said absently. "'Kite? We found something at Delta: Bursting Passed Over Aqua Field. They're…they're characters, but not quite. They…um… I can't really… Look, I think it'd be better if you came here yourself. Someone d-did something to them…no faces…it's horrible. W-we could check it out again later, b-but what if they're gone…?'" She stopped reciting her message and blinked, eyes refocusing. "S-should I add anything else?"

"Yes. …Kazu will be there shortly to report our findings."

She glanced over her shoulder at Moonstone in utter confusion. "What about us?"

A creaking, grinding sound filled the tight-knit hollows of the walls—walls that anyone would have assumed were simply two-dimensional graphics, a flat panel etched unto cyberspace for the mere purpose of prohibiting free movement. It was odd how players yearned for comprehensive and multidimensional worlds, and yet upon receiving them, never appreciated them.

Kazu was looking around like a frightened rabbit, and Ryoko's reaction was barely different; she squeaked quietly, but the sound was overridden by the combined efforts of the grinding and the ever-reverberating cacophony of wails. She looked as though she wanted to ask what was happening, but thought better of it upon realizing Moonstone, again, did not have the answers. She remained silent—probably finishing the recording.

"Kazu," Moonstone said slowly, "go."

Kazu nodded vigorously in acceptance of the demand, and fumbled with the ocarina dangling from his neck; a couple of rushed high notes, and then the Wavemaster departed in a shower of gold runes. Ryoko whirled on Moonstone, her still-damp hair matted and somewhat disheveled—it was almost unbecoming, considering her demeanor and so forth. Several bent-out-of-shape strands fell clean over the circlet that bound them in an orderly fashion; panic was wild in her sapphire eyes.

"U-um…" She inhaled sharply. "Why…aren't we leaving…?"

Moonstone's bandana raised faintly, a twitch of the muscles in his forehead that she could immediately comprehend as a frown. "Because," Moonstone said simply, "it is unnecessary to send more than one person as a messenger."

She decided not to question it, and nodded, her lips twisted. The grinding sound continued, she realized as the recording ended, and she stepped forward on unsteady legs, holding out her hands and allowing her weapon to materialize; the hefty surface glimmered ominously like the weapon of an executioner. She was preparing for a fight, whereas Moonstone remained warily motionless and tense. He had not drawn his weapon, but he was nonetheless guarded, as per usual.

The sound of metal gears turning seemed to alert the Muted, and they grew…excited, to an extent, becoming more raucous and louder. They shifted and bumped into one another blindly, stumbling in their field of black with little regard for who or what they were making contact with; the guttural grunts reverberated in stone and steel chambers, and fleshy arms retracted from their place in-between the bars.

Stricken, Ryoko realized that the cage gates, once imbedded firmly in the floor, were rising.

"You," she choked, crossing her axe in a defensive position, "knew this was going to happen!" Her mind reeled with outlandish conclusions, but he dismissed them all as he unsheathed his blades with a shink.

"I didn't," he said shortly but truthfully.

BATTLE MODE ON

"No," Ryoko whispered, quietly and hoarsely and fearfully. The Sprite Ocarina became inaccessible to her fingers, and the axe she once wielded with a learned grace was now seemed to dangle precariously in her hands, but she stilled when Moonstone tilted his head to glance at her, lips straightened and slanted in a manner that was a poor attempt reassuring. "We—we have to fight them!? We can't! They're players—they're people! Moonstone, no! I can't! I won't!"

His stared impassively as three (four, five, seven) Muted wriggled beneath the half-open gates somehow, jerky limbs twisting in unnatural manners and stitched-up faces turning this way and that. In a twisted way, they were free. In a logical way, they were not.

"Are they being controlled!? Why would they attack us!?" Ryoko demanded desperately, resisting the sudden urge to cower and hide behind Moonstone—that, or make a run for it.

"Maybe they're hungry," he replied flatly. She didn't have much time to ponder as to whether or not he was joking, but she gawped at him for a good second.

"That's impossible!" Ryoko whisper-screamed lamely.

Moonstone paced further into the room, not quite lost in the swarm of ashen, hairless people clad in tattered robes and dented armor; he stood a good head or two above most, not to mention his peculiarly long silver bangs managed to jut out above the rest. His steps were quiet, and she did not know how he slipped amongst them undetected until a sudden movement tipped her off—he wasn't touching any of them, per se. And when he leapt up and adhered himself to the ceiling, utilizing the Sublimers and inhuman strength…

The metal of his blades grated noisily against the stone ceilings, and Ryoko winced as the crowd rippled, heads upturning to meet the sound. Moonstone's bandana shifted and very nearly fell; he was deathly still as the gates clicked into place and out of sight.

A message dinged in her ear.

"Someone can see us." It was from Moonstone. "Or they were expecting us."

The former was plausible. The latter was a concept Ryoko had no wish to consider; she felt hunted in every sense of the word, and it was a sinking feeling in her stomach that prompted her to glance over her shoulder in a spare second of paranoia. The Muted stared impassively, flitted their indented fleshy heads from side to side. Maybe they were hungry. The concept made her shudder.

"…Stay still."

Though she hadn't been moving much at all in the first place, she remained still, axe at the ready and prepared to whack off a good deal of limbs if it came to that. Alright, so she wasn't really psychologically prepared, but self-preservation, it seemed, had recently become something important to her, a notion that before today had been dismissed along with the threat of Morganna.

Moonstone shifted, warranting Ryoko's timid attentions again; her foot moved backwards of its own accord—quietly—as he turned his head this way and that, and then had the nerve to adjust the piece of red-orange cloth around his eyes before his weapons disappeared in a rush of lights like fireflies and he very nearly plummeted unto the heads of the fumbling crowd—the Muted were moving, still searching for the source of the earlier noise, pushing each other aside in a primitive frenzy—

Moonstone was a Twin Blade known for his obscenely high statistics and for being in the same party as Balmung of the Azure Sky—and managing not to respect him very publicly or vehemently at all. He was also often in the company of Kite, though the bearer of the Bracelet was a hero amongst only the most knowledgeable circles; he was thrice seen performing physically impossible acrobatic maneuvers, and stranger yet he always had a reason for performing them, be it avoiding an irate Gardenia or…anything else. He never wasted a word or a movement, and Rachel oft suspected he would have his own fan club soon if he wasn't careful.

Ryoko was treated to witnessing one of his physically impossible acrobatic maneuvers, and she watched bewildered as he pushed off the ceiling sideways, and managed to grab hold of the bit of wall that jutted downward where the cages would drop to imprison the prisoners; effortlessly he hoisted himself unto the ceiling of the prison cell and remained there, weaponless and wedged in a corner.

She idly wondered if Kite, also a Twin Blade, was capable of such feats. She almost smiled (at a most inopportune moment) when she recalled that Kite never tried because BlackRose always laughed at him.

Now's not the time!

"Moonstone-san," she whispered, "w-what—do you have any ideas?"

"There are 26," he noted. "The crowd is dispersing."

Sure enough, some had managed to maneuver into—thankfully—the hallways that led deeper into the dungeons. None thus far had approached Ryoko; some had even meandered back into the cages, and she felt heartbreaking pity for their dulled senses.

And then, quite suddenly, a pair of teeth clamped onto her wrist.

She wouldn't have noticed, technically, until the sharp pain raced up and down her forearm—but that wasn't supposed to…?

Ryoko yelped shrilly and yanked her arm away, hefting the Thunder Dad and swinging it wildly at what she supposed was a Wavemaster in whatever ghosts of a life it once possessed. The level 53 axe created a wide gash like a straightened eyebrow across its shoulder, tearing through a fold of yellow cloth before stopping just above what would've been the hip bone, and she shrieked again because she couldn't believe what she'd just done—

Like interwoven threads pulled at the seams, the lightly tanned skin was coming together again, piece by piece.

(A graphical marvel well worth dwelling on, had this been basically any other circumstance.)

She cried out and lashed out at it again, several times, wielding the weapon with strength that didn't match her demeanor; gashes, barely deep, crisscrossed the Muted's chest and arms and sleeves and his (her?) robes were falling apart. It did not cease, and raised its arms to grab hold of her axe, and it lunged at her shoulder, the staples on its mouth stretching until the skin tore and the staples hung—its teeth, they were sharp and they hurt—

Moonstone appeared suddenly, an easy roundhouse kick knocking the Muted back and bowling over some of its more alert counterparts. "Go," he ordered, and in a sequence of animatedly fast movements her weapon was gone and she was running, lifting her skirts in habit. She almost stopped when her mind traveled back to Moonstone and his well-being; she skidded to a halt on the stone floors, her heels grating against the cobbles. Her eyes were drawn to the shadowy corridor from whence she just turned, and she wondered if she should have helped him. After all, he—and they were people, but people that could regenerate—

"Ryoko," Kite's voice whispered in her ear, concerned, but it fell just short of being frantic. "Ryoko, are you there?"

"Yes," she responded uncertainly, still analyzing the corridor and stepping forward; the closer she got, the more she could hear. Moonstone fought silently, so she wouldn't be able to see if he was okay…

"That's a relief. Kazu has just arrived and told us what you've found." Kite paused, perhaps grimaced, and then he sighed in resignation. "Is…anything going on?" He was somewhat jaded, she realized upon anxiously wondering why his concern wasn't as high as it could have been—should have been? She shook her head—now wasn't the time.

"T-they're free," she choked out through a closed mouth. "They're t-trying to—" She inhaled, and then exhaled, shaking her head again. "We're being attacked. I—Moonstone-san told me to run, but h-he needs…"

"If he tells you to run," Kite said with an abrupt firmness, "then run. Moonstone…" Another pause, and another sigh, more frustrated as though he was trying to gather his thoughts. "…I'm going to message him. Give me a second, I—"

Static.

"Hello?" she said uncertainly. "K-Kite? Can you hear—are you there? Kite? Kite…"

The static buzzed in her ears until she gave up on the message altogether, and fixated her attention on the winding hall.

Author's Notes: I am not happy with this chapter, nor am I happy with the delays. [Cringes] This chapter was hard to write, believe it or not. It has a crappy cliffhanger, too. And I'm unsure as to whether or not those lyrics are correct, but I checked about six sites and they all said different things, so...

The basic idea of this messaging system, a concept stolen from SIGN in the flashback where Crim gives Subaru his phone number, is that a recorded message can be sent to an entire party at once or one person at a time, like an IM. This way, no one can see if a person is sending or replying to a message; I…um…

It's canon, I swear! [Runs]