The Legend Within
by shike77
Chapter IV
"The world is a scary place
Now that you've woken up the demon in me"
- "Down with the Sickness", by Disturbed
And there's ALWAYS time to sit down in the middle of an enemy base and make sex jokes. amused herself writing it
… --;; ::falls over:: God, I'm tired. Hope you people are happy—long-ass chapter. Do I have to edit this? Really?
(Note: Yesh, I've done that. Woots for me. If there's any glaring mistakes—git over it. I'm tired, and you guys're lucky I managed this before finals. XD!)
shike: ::drools madly, clawing at screenshots and video of the next Zelda game::
Saer: Well, crap. Here we go again.
shike: Horseback… fighting… sword… HORSIE!!
Leon: … I thought Nig was doing a better job of hiding the crack than that.
Nig: HEY!
shike: … Preciousssss… ::claws at the computer screen:: PRECCCIOUSSSSS…
Saer: We're never going to hear the end of this.
Leon: Nope.
shike: ::continues on with being rather pathetic::
I mean, what, a 2005 Japanese release date? I'm going to have had a few summer jobs, by then… Bwahaha… ::drool:: What, you haven't heard of the new Zelda game? Then go… IGN or something. I'm too lazy to find a link for you. --;; JUST GO DROOL, DAMNIT.
I am a Zelda fan until the day I die. Live with it.
You'd think someone would actually be keeping an eye on the job—what with rumours of a break-in from the rebel factions and all—and at least try to keep their eyes open.
This man certainly didn't think so. In fact, guard duty was another form of naptime. All he had to do was wake up every hour or so when his com buzzed to give a report. He didn't understand why anyone even used human sentries anymore—robots were far more efficient. Scanners indicated the position of everything that moved in that building, so there was obviously no use of humans in the hallways…
"All clear," he mumbled into the device before clicking it off and heading for a break.
He stopped at the sight of four letters scrawled on the wall in blood.
RFOE
Reaching for his com, he opened his mouth—
—but a sword was sticking through his brain, so he couldn't speak, let alone guide his hand the rest of the way to the communication tool.
Drawing the weapon back, Saer let the man drop to the floor with a sigh.
"They just don't make them like they used to," she mused, wiping the brain matter off her blade on the man's jacket. Cehkan padded up behind her—on all fours—grabbed the man's clothing, and proceeded to drag him out of the hallway. After prying apart the man's communicator, she snatched a mechanism off her belt and scanned the chips inside. After a few near-silent beeps, her own com device picked up the conversations taking place.
Listening carefully, she walked over to the man's body and flicked out a mechanized switchblade. After quickly engraving RFOE into his torso, she headed back out into the hallway, where Cehkan was taking care of the security camera.
Spitting the now-broken electrical device out of his mouth, Cehkan's ears flicked back and forth as he listened to sounds in the hallway.
"… Good," she whispered, glancing over to her partner. "We've got an hour to get to that ship before buddy boy here is supposed to report back and alarms sound."
"Bob."
"What?"
"His name was Bob," the mutated wolf continued, gesturing to the man's nametag, which he held in one paw. Robert Chiem.
She sent him a look through her open visor in her helmet. "… I don't care what his name was, as long as he's dead and stays that way."
Her com crackled.
"… Maybe you should pay tribute to the almighty Bob?"
"Shut up, Sparrow."
Cehkan cracked a wolfish grin at her, a gesture that didn't cease at the glare she sent his way. Sword in hand, she moved down the hallway, checking to make sure the next passage was clear before moving on.
The redhead absently moved along the lines of the children, occasionally kneeling down to examine one of them closer, or admiring the handiwork on their clothing. Odd letters, they were… almost fascinating, the way they were written. Running his hand over the chest of a small girl, he admired the rather awkward-looking rabbit on her clothing. At least, he thought it was a rabbit… it looked nothing like the real thing.
Of course, he thought with a grin, technology could make wonderful things happen without the help of magic. Like ugly women could all be beautiful. In fact, he decided that there should have been a law—all women must make modifications to their bodies so that there would be a world full of—
He stopped, suddenly, frowning. A… jolt? Of magic?
After a blink or two, he cast his gaze and senses around the room. The children knocked out by the fumes—sleeping gas, was it?—all lay on the ground, unmoving. With a slight frown, he stood, feeling the tug again.
Catching the source this time, he absently stepped over the little humans, white eyes fixated on a boy curled up in the corner.
He knelt down beside the child, running his gaze over the creature's figure. Brushing aside tousled brown hair, he absently ran his fingers along the boy's forehead.
The attraction of magic snapped into place, creating a funnel for the thoughts and visions the boy was experiencing with a jolt of essence.
… Her eyes widened and she drew away, watching as the flesh she'd just torn melded together, fresh and pale.
He smiled, softly, already tasting her fear.
"I missed you," he whispered, the sound no more than air passing over his lips.
He drew away from the boy with a wicked grin that looked so utterly out of place—the complete opposite of the soft, bittersweet smile he was so fond of.
"She's here," he breathed.
He spun to his feet, turning to face the guards who were staring at him.
"I want this boy brought to my quarters when he wakes. He amuses me."
They nodded tersely before moving aside as he walked past. One reached to his com and relayed the order to someone on the other end, including his chosen pet's code number.
The red-head was rather content to stroll along down the hallway, setting a fast walking pace that he was positive they wouldn't be able to keep up with.
"Sir, we're to take you straight back to your quarters…"
He spun around, examining the speaker closely, under the cover of his hair. After a smile, he replied, "Oh, I'm sure I can find my own way back. I just want to see the sights… Stretch my legs. Haven't had a decent walk in a while, you know." He winked. "The sex is pretty good though, I must say. People are dropping themselves on me left right and center."
The guard raised his weapon. "Sir, we have our orders."
Still wearing that smile, he raised his hand, as if he were signaling for them to stop. "Unfortunately for you, they conflict with my desires."
His facial expression never changed as fire started to grow on his fingertips, swelling and flaring as he poured more magic into the spell.
"And what I want is the most important thing right now."
They stared, slack-jawed, at what was becoming a blazing inferno in front of their eyes.
Covered in the brilliant, dancing element, yet completely untouched by it, the redhead suddenly dropped all pretence of humour. White eyes narrowed and he hissed, "So you're not going to make that mistake again."
They didn't have time to fire their weapons, because the metal had already melted and burned straight through their flesh.
They certainly didn't have time to scream, but no one would have heard them anyway.
Onica did not like being discovered. Not at all.
Neither did she like being tossed around like a rag doll by two large, burly men, speaking the most bizarre language she'd ever heard. In spite of the massive amount of weak struggling she managed to pull off, she was promptly dragged through the hallways with a crude gag stuck in her mouth that kept her from screaming. Sobbing, she eventually gave up, instead struggling to her feet so that she could walk—although a more accurate word might have been stumble, considering she could barely move her legs—in tow, and at least retain some of her dignity.
Promptly after the men dragged her through a doorway—that she dimly remembered moved on its own—she was thrown to the ground, much to the cheers of more men… She whimpered a small, "Please God no," as she lay on the cold metal, gasping and fighting off tears that threatened to stream down her face.
She was kicked sharply, then grabbed by her hair and forced to stand. Wavering, she opened dark blue eyes and watched as he placed something that looked like it was out of Star Wars up against her throat. He grunted something, and the men in the crowd—she could see them all, now, advancing—yelled their agreement. Onica looked up at her captor, bewildered, then screamed as he hit her clean across the face, the metal of his ring digging into her eye. Shaking and choking on fits of sobs, she tried to crawl away with one arm, her other hand pressed to the wounded eye.
She was grabbed, suddenly, and yanked to her feet again, whereupon she felt another fist collide with her now-blind side. As she fell again, screaming in pain, she felt someone grab her wrist and yank her arm fiercely.
There was a rusty taste in her mouth.
Choking on her own blood, she tried to move her hand away from whoever held it, but soon realized that she was being held down by this group of men. Trying vainly to struggle away from their grasp—weakly, because of the agony—she was slapped again by the man with the ring.
Then someone lay on her chest, clawing at her clothes, and she started screaming again, even though her voice was hoarse.
Quite suddenly, someone else joined in on her screaming and she was let loose by her captors.
Struggling away, she gasped for breath in between sobs of pain as she dragged herself away, praying to God she'd find a corner to crawl up and die in.
Eventually, she did find a corner, and she curled up into a ball, rocking back and forth as she whimpered her pain in a pattern that might have been humming the lullaby her mother sang her, but she wasn't sure.
Saer's face was passive as she lifted her weapon to eye-level, watching the blood run along the engravings in the blade as if it were some idle entertainment befitting a child's attention.
"See you in hell, bastards," she grumbled, using a man's shirt to clean off the sword before pressing the combination of switches that retracted the metal. After clipping the canister to her belt, she flipped out the switchblade and proceeded to carve the initials into the corpses.
Cehkan decided to leave her to her own devices, instead heading for the blonde curled up in the corner.
"She looks pretty bad," he grumbled, sniffing the blood on her face cautiously. The area around and on her right eye was a mass of ripped skin, exposed bone and blood. He assumed the eye itself had caved in because of how flat her eyelid was—or at least, what was left of it.
She moved her head to look at him with her eye not mauled into shreds, and Cehkan's mouth hit the floor.
"… Falcon…"
"Busy," she mumbled, carving the initials into the ringleader's… unmentionables.
"… You really need to take a look at this kid."
She finished the E, then looked up at him through the mass tangles of her hair. "Why?"
He sent a look her way. "Because I'm your boss," he replied sarcastically, although it came out as more of a growl.
She sighed, brushing away strands of blonde and red with blood-stained hands. Before standing and stepping over the bodies, walking with a little indignance to examine his find.
After a moment, she shrugged. "… Okay, Puppy, I give up. What's so special about her?"
He stared at the blonde for a moment, then looked back to the girl who was also staring up at Saer. He blinked, then continued to move his gaze between the two for a few moments, as if doing so would help rid of his speechlessness.
"… But, she looks exactly like you!"
"Let me see!" Githen's voice jumped out through the communicator, and Jheil yelped as there was a sound of thunking and moving chairs—Githen had just knocked him over.
Saer rolled her eyes, grabbing a camera only large enough to be held between two of her fingers. After squeezing the item slightly, the small light flipped on.
"… Holy hell, she does."
Saer frowned at that, looking the girl huddled in the corner up and down, then snorted. "Right. We're nothing alike."
"But look…" the words died on Cekhan's tongue as he noticed that there was something different about the two of them. It wasn't the fact that there was no natural red in this girl's eye or hair, or that she was a bloody mess, but something he couldn't place… not yet.
"See what I mean?" she replied, putting the camera away. Even though none of them did, they remained silent as she knelt down beside the girl.
"What's your name?"
She paused, then shifted further away, mumbling incoherent phrases and eyeing them warily.
Saer stood, then, frowning. "Did you get any of that, Sparrow?"
"… Yeah," he replied, sounding startled. "She said, 'Who the hell are you?'"
Saer glanced over at Cehkan, who sent her a confused look right back. They'd never heard anything like it, how did he figure it out that fast? "How do you know that?"
"It's the exact same stuff used on that code you guys had me crack."
Wide-eyed, Cehkan looked to the bloody girl again. "… But, she's got to be older than fifteen. That's… too old. They don't harvest kids older than ten…"
Saer rolled her eyes. "She might have been a stowaway." Slipping her helmet back on, she continued, "If she was one of the kids they wanted, they sure as hell wouldn't let the drunkards have her."
Cehkan nodded. "Good point. Sparrow, how do you calm her down?"
There was a moment of shifting papers, moving chairs, and then he piped up. "Patch me through. I'll talk to her."
Saer obediently turned up her radio and held it closer to the girl.
"… Alrighty, then," Githen must have been grinning. "Time to sing for my supper…"
"Ma'am…"
"Yes?"
"… There's been a slight mishap."
The woman glanced back at the attendant, who was twitching nervously under her red-eyed glare.
"Continue."
He swallowed, largely, then took a deep breath. "There were two stowaways in the cargo bay and not one, like we planned. The girl was conscious, and she was dragged away by some of the less…" he gulped again, "Sober employees."
She stood. "And why hasn't anyone dealt with them yet?!"
He took a step back, shivering.
"That's… not it. The guards watching him haven't reported since they requested transfer of his pick of the cargo. And he hasn't reached his room, either."
She sat down, fair skin furrowed in heavy thought. "Anything else?"
He nodded, attempting to calm his nerves with deep breaths.
"… Cameras in the room where they brought the girl and started beating her are no longer functioning. We have no idea what happened to her."
He closed his eyes. "The guard in hallway C-34 is not responding to hails."
She watched him closely for a moment, then stood, smoothing out the business suit currently adorned on her small, frail frame.
"… It seems the Factions strike again," she replied, scowling. "But he's loose. And we know that when he wants something," she sighed, as if the fact irritated her, "he gets it. No matter what."
"… Ma'am?"
She looked to him, a dangerous glint in her eyes. "Make sure every employee is safe within the secure rooms, out of harm's way. It's time to test my newest toy."
"Calm down. We won't hurt you."
Onica started a little at the sound of plain—however heavily accented—English, but it sounded so much better than whatever was being thrown around her.
"What's your name?"
She frowned. Was that… a kid? By the sound of him , he couldn't be any older than… eight? Maybe?
"O-Onica…" she stammered, visibly. "Where am I?"
"It's okay, we'll get you out of here. These are my friends—Falcon and Wolf. They'll help you."
She looked up with her one working eye, then slowly tried to get to her feet. The kid spouted something in that odd language, and the girl in the helmet—she looked familiar—helped her stand. Onica was then, shivering, handed to a now-standing wolf. The monstrous creature held her easily in piggy-back fashion as if she weighed nothing.
… God, he was huge.
Onica clutched the silver cross around her neck with a free hand, but realized that she felt safe. They'd help her. They could talk to her. They could…
… Leon.
Where was Leon? She almost panicked at the thought of someone hurting him, so she immediately looked to the small device the kid was talking through.
"Where's Leon?!" she panted, struggling a little against the firm hold this wolf had on her.
"… Who?"
She shifted again, but stopped struggling at the glare she received from the wolf… thing. "My friend… Leon… he… he's bleeding…"
She didn't remember passing out, and she didn't remember exactly when she did. Those words were the last thing she could clearly recall—and the only thing she was aware of for quite some time afterwards.
Githen sighed as the girl's incoherent babbling slowed and finally stopped, leaning back in his chair with a scowl on his young face. Slipping the goggles back above his eyes, he scratched his head and shrugged.
"… Uhm, yeah. She's not doing too hot. I think Leon is a name, but I'm not sure…" He gave a small, innocent grin, knowing that neither could see it. "Sorry."
Jheil shook his head. "She's most likely just collapsed from blood loss," he muttered. "Be careful, although—try not to give her anything you find there."
"I don't need a lecture, Owl," Saer grumbled as Cehkan snorted. Jheil rolled his eyes, shifting a little uncomfortably.
"Hey, guys, let's take a quick break while you guys do something about her head. We're running early on the hour mark.," Githen interrupted, slipping the goggles back over his eyes. Lines of text immediately began appearing on the twin screens as he hooked the various wires he kept tied around his arms or stuffed in pockets on massive pants six sizes too large for him. After pressing a few buttons on the laser-keyboard in front of him, the text changed to a large map.
"… 'Kay, Saer? You guys should be in a mess hall—there's computers to your left…"
"… That would be the door."
"My bad," he grinned sheepishly. "To your right. Hook me up."
After a few moments of fumbling with wires and strings of curses, the map was replaced by a login screen. There was little effort needed to bypass the security using memorized patterns of ones and zeroes, and soon Githen was downloading data off the main database while mosing through some of the more interesting files.
"… Hey, Jheil, what's a… I dunno how to say it… Erection?"
Jheil paused in running through an analysis of the girl's wounds, looking at the youngest member of Air Faction with a very befuddled expression on his face.
"… Er… It's… Uh…"
"That's it, you're not going to be the one telling him about the birds and the bees," Saer commented dryly. "What's that got to do with anything, Sparrow?"
"… I dunno. It's on some guy's journally thing. What's faggot mean?"
Jheil had never looked more uncomfortable in the entire time Githen had known him, the boy resolved, and he almost wanted to picture the grin on Cehkan's face. Saer was most likely smirking in that way of hers—she never laughed much, and she liked to avoid answering to his pestering about it, so her reaction was well-predicted.
"It's a bundle of sticks," Saer mused, a tinge of humour in her voice.
"… And… fucking?"
She sighed. "Githen, if it's not that important, I think it could wait until later."
"… Okay," he grumbled, but then perked up once he decided that he knew enough of the message to comprehend it. "So, apparently, fucking bundles of sticks make people have whatever erections are. That's cool."
He could actually hear Cehkan laughing at that one, and—to his surprise—Saer was, too. Success? But at what? What was so funny? Jheil didn't seem to think it was too funny. In fact, he was suddenly blushing rather profusely and sputtering random syllables, just like he did when Saer insulted him and he couldn't think of a comeback. But, she'd barely even said anything…!
"I've stopped the blood flow on this kid, so let's get moving," Saer interrupted after her and Cehkan had their good laugh. The text was replaced by the maps on Githen's goggles once she removed the wires, and he watched the little dots representing his friends leave the room and head into the hallways.
So, they'd emptied the halls just for him. Oh, how he felt loved.
The man who called himself the Shifter watched with colourless eyes the laser projections in front of him, a bemused expression on his face at the large dog and the two blondes who looked so much alike to any eyes but his own.
"Where are you headed, little girl?" he mused to himself, watching them through a machine. "I wonder if it's straight to me…?"
He grinned darkly, closing his eyes and passing his hand over the lids, fingertips brushing along skin fabricated from his own whims in a fashion that the pitiful mortals he spoke to should recognize as his. Very few knew exactly what hide was his own.
"I haven't forgotten, beautiful, the taste of your steel."
Baring his teeth in a venomous fashion at the memory of the pain—but it was only a flash, and then he willed it away. Who needed to dwell on the pain, when there was always the chance for a sweet revenge?
He opened his eyes, watching as the three passed by a sign on the wall—a direction sign. They were headed right towards him.
"Right where I want you, pet," he breathed, half-laughing. "You're the one who's forgotten. Forgotten everything."
He sat down in the spinning chair and leaned back, placing his feet on the panel that projected the buttons made from light.
"Then I'll just have to make you remember the pain, siren."
Aidan was shivering over in a corner, shaking off the remnants of yet another nightmare… A red-headed man had invaded his dreams, he knew, even as he dreamt about that same man… but, why would he do that? All he was doing was dreaming… Not like the time he stopped the ball, and everyone in the class stared at him like he was a freak. It wasn't anything special…
Then the girl over in the other corner woke up. Aidan was about to talk to her, but then she started making noises…
Aidan almost couldn't breathe for a moment. No, no, no, no, no…
He stood on shaky legs and went over to her, tripping over still-sleeping children. She was clawing at her clothing, eyes wide, trying to find something…
She can't breathe. She can't breathe…
The last time his dreams came true… Tears welled up in his eyes. Not again…!
He started screaming for help. The people would come in, he knew. Maybe he could stop them from turning around and leaving… Maybe he could help her. Maybe things wouldn't be so bad. Maybe…
They did come in, and they paused. One of them jabbered something incomprehensible at him, and he couldn't help but stare blankly at… it. He realized then how foggy his dreams really were, because—although human in shape—these… things were definitely not what he dreamt they would be.
He didn't have much time to pause and think of their composition, because, sure enough, they turned around and moved out the door—shouting things like mad in some language he couldn't understand.
What he didn't dream was that they'd fall back into the room, twitching as the lights that were their eyes slowly faded to black, and that a very large wolf would stalk in on his hind legs and look right at them.
Aidan was very proud that he didn't wet himself.
Saer and Cehkan made a very large point of not mentioning how there were no guards in the hallways. Once, Saer decided to finger the hidden cameras to see what kind of reaction she'd get—which was none. Highly disappointed at lack of a fight, she trudged on ahead of Cehkan, scouting around corners and the like, until they finally arrived at the ship's docking bay.
"Alright," Saer took a deep breath, holding out a small scanning device. "Owl, what'cha got?"
"One sign of life in the area on the way to the cockpit—but from here, it's hard to tell who it is. Plenty in the lower areas of the ship that are closer to you, but they could be passengers or lab rats. There's about four robots in that area… by their model, they're human-shaped."
"I'll bet ten credits they're the rats down there," Saer muttered. "Any passengers or pilots should have gotten off by now."
"I'd take that bet, but I value my money," Cehkan muttered, eyes narrowed. "You go for the cockpit and see to the person there; I'm going to kick some metal ass."
"That's my line," she grumbled, flicking the sensor away.
"Just do what you're told."
She rolled her eyes at that, and started jogging towards the ship. Cehkan followed at a trot, veering to the right instead of following Saer, his nose already picking up the smell of metal and humans… odd-smelling humans, at that.
They smelt like the girl he was carrying.
He leaned her prone body against a wall, then, standing as tall as he could without touching the ceiling, he made his way around the next corner.
Someone was screaming something that he couldn't understand… a kid, by the sound of it. His ears twitched a little. Damn, that kid had a set of lungs on him.
He peered around the next corner, ears flat against his skull, and noticed two of four robots positioned there—human in shape, for sure—enter the room the screaming was coming from, then start shouting back.
"DO YOU REQUIRE AID, SPECIMEN?"
Cehkan stiffened immediately at that word.
"… He'll make a fine specimen. Take him, too."
He howled fiercely, and, without further thought, leapt for the closest robot.
After colliding and knocking over the first one, he grabbed its head in his teeth and ripped it off, circuits and wire ripping easier than muscle and tendon.
This was what he missed about the field. Revenge.
The second robot aimed to fire at him. It was dealt with easily—those things were not built to handle three hundred pounds of wolf. Fur bristling, he turned to look at the next targets.
They were easy, too. All he had to do was throw the remains of the first robot into the two of them, and they promptly fell back into the room—in a considerable amount more pieces than they had walked in as.
Cehkan stalked forwards, towering over the remains of the robots darkly and glaring about the room, where silence had just hit home. Blue eyes darted over to the figure of a boy staring, wide-eyed and gaping, at him, sitting next to a girl…
… Who seemed not to be breathing.
Cehkan fell forward onto all fours—he was less threatening that way—and tentatively sniffed the girl… her throat. There was something wrong with her throat…
Wide-eyed, he painfully manipulated his paws into finger again and hit the com button around his neck.
"Saer, get the hell over here."
Saer, in the meantime, was having a few problems of her own.
Crouching over a rather abruptly dumped body of a human, teenage boy, she temporarily removed her glove and checked for a pulse. It was there, sure enough. Slipping the leather item back on, she frowned a little before looking back to him. Odd… he looked familiar.
She turned him over so he was lying on his back, at first to examine the scabbed-over wound on his head, then to give him a quick look-over. He wasn't the most masculine of men, and almost had a naïve look to him. A few small cuts other than the large one on his head and one small bruise on his chin were the most of injuries on his dirt and grime-covered face… Odd. Was he supposed to be unclean? She almost thought not.
He kept his rich, somewhat dirty blonde hair long, and some of the strands were trapped in the large scab. Wincing at that, she moved to pull them out, then realized that wound had only just recently closed, by the look of it. She wouldn't risk opening it again so soon.
He winced, suddenly, and she didn't move as his eyes tentatively opened, slowly and wearily, to blink once or twice blearily as he looked up at her.
The first thing she thought was how impossibly pale his eyes were. A soft pastel green, they looked the kind that could easily calm or frighten—depending, she added, on the personality of this kid. There almost looked to be no definite line between iris and white; the two colours just simply blended in with each other naturally. A strange look passed over them, momentarily, and he muttered something incomprehensible that he almost thought to be a question.
"Soa," she grumbled, leaning back on her heels. "I'm dealing with fucking kids on all sides, today. I sure as hell don't want to baby-sit…"
Glancing back at him, she noticed that he was struggling to sit up. She helped him lean against the wall closest to him, and noticed that he was studying her rather closely, as if trying to decide friend from foe.
With a sigh, she reached for her belt and unclipped one of the rectangular canisters on it. After pressing a button, a small hole appeared in the top. She took a swig from it, to show it was a drink, then handed it to him. He accepted it, and, after a moment's hesitation, took a small sip. After that, he seemed to think it safe, so he greedily downed the whole thing before handing it back with a small, lop-sided smile of apology. She smiled a little at that, mainly so as not to scare him, taking it back and clipping onto her belt once again.
She pointed to herself. "Saer."
His eyes narrowed, momentarily, at what she figured was the foreign sound of her name to him, but he repeated it, slowly. His accent wasn't that bad, either. At least he didn't mistake it for 'Sarah.'
After a little wait, he replied, suddenly understanding what it was she wanted. "Leon."
She nodded, repeating his own name, only just then realizing that the girl they'd found was babbling that particular word over and over again… He knew her.
Then he might know what happened. He might know what was going on.
Then again… He didn't exactly look like he understood the situation. At the moment, he had realized that he had hair virtually glued to his forehead by dried blood, and as thus was trying, slowly and rather painfully, to remove it, strand by agonizing strand. In fact, he looked very much like a random kid caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Actually, the first thing she felt like comparing him to was a naïve schoolboy, but that was just her ever-so-humble opinion.
She stood, then, ignoring the confused looks he sent her, and leaned against the cockpit door. She attached a wire to the small panel next to the door, waited briefly for Githen to hack the codes, and stepped back once the door slid open. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Leon struggle to his feet, a puzzled look on his face as he surveyed his surroundings. Rubbing his eyes with his sleeve, he gingerly touched his forehead, and, with a grimace, continued pulling the strands of hair out of his wound.
Saer did nothing to stop him, listening to the satisfactory whir of miniscule gears and metal grinding on metal as her guns took shape. Smirking grimly to herself, the Air Faction member stepped into the cockpit, guns pointing at two disabled pilot robots. With a sigh, she strode forward, neatly blasted a nicely sized hole in each bot's metallic body before approaching the console. Sticking the wires into the console, she waited for Githen to hack into the machine, leaving the computer the size of her fingertip on the floor as she leaned against the wall, absently fiddling with the numerous devices on her belt.
Leon stood there rather awkwardly, staring at her, at the lights flashing in front of them, then back at her. He opened his mouth, as if to speak, but stopped, seeming to realize that she wouldn't understand him, anyway.
Either that, or he figured out that she was the kind of person that didn't appreciate talk very much.
With a small smirk at that thought, she examined Leon again, out of the corner of her eye, watching him as he looked uneasily about the confined area. He stood strangely, waving a little back and forth, almost slouching—although it seemed closer to shrinking away from something. He looked rather timid and docile, more lithe than muscular, facts which he supposed were owing to his age—seventeen? Sixteen, at the least.
Githen crowed affirmation as the ship's engines started to warm up. It would take some time to physically leave the area, she knew, but it was smooth sailing from there on out. Cehkan could smell out any tracking devices their scans missed, and the rest was a breeze.
Then her com sparked to life.
"Saer, get the hell over here."
She sighed at that, glancing over at the suddenly very startled Leon, eyes wide as he looked around for the new source of sound. Saer gestured for him to be calm, and, after hesitation, he nodded, slowly sitting back down and resting his head against the cold, metallic wall behind him. He wasn't looking too good, she realized with a start.
"I'm babysitting," she grumbled in a short reply, removing her glove again to feel Leon's forehead, gingerly. No, he wasn't alright… Most likely recovering from some sort of fever, and not too well, it seemed.
"I've got a kid down here who can't breathe. I think it's Asthma."
She sighed at that, reaching for a contraption on her belt.
"… Be right there."
Removing the rectangular canister, she opened it and slipped out a cylinder. After pressing her glove into the reader, it bleeped in assent and a long bar slid out of each side, resulting in a staff. Handing the weapon to Leon, she pressed the empty container to her belt and signaled for him to stay put before jogging off down the halls.
Leon didn't quite know what was happening. While taking a break from the suddenly dubious effort of standing, a little shocked at the sound of the voice coming from nowhere. Saer—her name, he thought—had spoken little more than her own introduction throughout the few minutes he'd spent in her company, so it was small wonder he'd be frightened by a straight-on blast of complicated words. Especially when the speaker couldn't seem to get his jaw around them right.
That last thought had come to him when Saer replied. Her own sentence structure was smooth, flowing—it didn't matter that her tone was harsh and her comment must have been something the person she was speaking to did not want to hear.
Then, suddenly, a long metal stick was thrust into his hands, and he was left to stare at the rather bland plainness of it while she darted off, past the corner. He opened his mouth to call her back, but doubted she wanted him to do so. He sighed, curling up closer to the wall. She wouldn't have understood him, anyway…
He might have fallen asleep—if so, it was only a fleeting moment, and suddenly he was awake again, pulling the metal… thing… closer to himself for protection. A foreign instinct for survival ruled his actions, almost for a second, but he couldn't bring himself to stand. He just moved to protect his battered body—or, more likely, his body moved on its own.
There was a tall man standing over him, watching him peculiarly with eyes that reminded Leon of something a person would see in a horror flick—pure white. Red hair drifted across features that were eerily perfect—far too perfect to be real. In spite of momentarily considering the possibility of dreaming, Leon's body tensed as soon as sight registered the smirk on the man's face. Gears turned, and Leon realized he'd seen the man before…
… But where?
The man was speaking, Leon knew, but the words were so impossibly foreign that he never could have hoped to understand them. Eyes narrowed, lips parted a little, but Leon never replied. He had a feeling that, perhaps, if he did, the man would have wound his own words straight back at him, and somehow figure out the English language with just those few words spoken. It was a strange sensation, and one that seemed oddly ridiculous, even at the time, but he accepted it, and refused to speak.
The man tired, it seemed, of talking to someone as responsive as a wall, and left. Leon took a deep breath in relief, leaning back against the wall again, briefly closing his eyes…
Then he remembered that the man had gone the same way as Saer.
"Let the kid go."
The red-head looked as if he found that statement amusing. He examined the little boy he was holding in the air, smiled wistfully at the child struggling in his arms, and looked back to the two in front of him.
"I'd rather not," he replied, staring down the two metal shapes that she held firmly in her hands. "After all, I don't think you find too many with his particular talents, anymore. Not after that nasty little boom."
Saer waited for a moment longer, her eyes narrowed, those items she held in her hands still, never taking her eyes off the Shifter.
"Let him go, and we won't kill you," the ugly creature beside her—a towering thing, that wolf—growled, his voice as dead as anything someone could imagine.
He laughed a little at that, shaking his head slowly as his expression shifted, flawless features dancing in his mirth. "Kill me?"
He closed his eyes, wondering if now was the time for the dream. The boy's dream. He spread his fingers across the boy's face, his palm breaking the human child's nose. He didn't pause as he reveled in the child's scream, lips parted and he exhaled. Yes, this child in particular would be amusing… he liked the way he screamed.
"Show them, boy," she growled, drawing his hand back to examine the blood on it. "Help me show them what I can do. What I have done."
Saer drew back a little as the blood suddenly began to multiply, falling from the Shifter's hand like a waterfall, as if there were some wound in his hand. But it was the boy's blood. Not his.
Whether or not the spectators knew this, he didn't care. The little girl behind them—the only other child awake—began to scream, her eyes wide with terror as she drew away from the river flowing straight towards them, curling closer towards the corner she had planted herself in.
He liked the way she screamed, too.
Saer, much as he predicted, didn't move an inch as the red tumbled towards her, lapping at her boots and the bottom of her trench coat. She merely pulled the trigger on both those things in her hands—the left one first, he noted just before two metallic objects hit his chest, the closest not even a centimeter away from the boy's nose.
She had impeccable aim, he thought as they shot out his back. But she wasn't aiming in the right place.
He continued the spell as if he hadn't noticed, listening and feeling the wound slowly close in around itself, watching as her eyes widened and she drew back.
"I missed you." The air passed over his lips, barely audible, as he had seen in the boy's dream, right before he started to sing.
The wolf-creature immediately collapsed, howling in pain as he clutched at his ears as if to stop the sound. A hideous sound, the Shifter thought distastefully, letting slip a little more of his power.
Saer, at first turned to see what had befallen her companion, suddenly found herself fighting off the blood as it churned about her, drawing higher and slapping at her like waves, drawing higher each time. It danced around her in a vicious whirlpool that eventually overcame her, and she was trapped within it.
The wolf had long ceased to be aware of what was happening to the blonde. The Shifter didn't care about him—he just didn't want any interference.
The song changed. The liquid-blood-egg churned about her, filling slowly with the crimson-black as the outermost part of the prison began to clot and solidify.
The Shifter was slowly, gradually losing his awareness of the world spinning around him. His own being was focused on the past, whirling through a thousand eternities of memories, the song flying through them in a twister of vocal maneuvers.
The chains he kept the magic on were about to break, the essence was pulling so fiercely.
Saer was now holding her breath, he knew. He could feel her try to twist within her prison, but the blood held her fast, the whole egg clotted about her. The outer shell was approaching a state so solid it would become impenetrable, he knew.
The dog was still lying on the ground, victim to the previous spell. The little girl was useless, cowering behind the animal's bulk, and the boy in his arms was sobbing with the pain as he was used for a vessel. The spell's vessel. His vessel.
Remember… he thought as he released the chains.
He was completely lost to the churning world as the song wove itself, the craft he was using so wild and chaotic, full of its own erratic purpose. The boy might have been screaming for the agony he was experiencing, but the Shifter was no longer aware of anything but of what the magic and his own wild need willed him to do.
He could have drawn back then, if he wanted to. He could have pulled away easily enough. He had done so a million times before, and this could have easily been no exception.
But this time, he gleefully obeyed.
He no longer felt the weight of the boy in his arms, or even the beat of his own fabricated heart. He felt the flesh of a small child—but not that one. A little girl. He felt her fear as she pulled away, laughed once again as she resisted, striking out with a small piece of wood she'd found somewhere. He turned and saw a boy, tears streaming down his face as he screamed at the man to let his friend go. He thought once again, He's next, then turned and shoved the girl back onto the cold stone floor, and would not let her rise again.
The only sound he heard was not his own voice—it was the sound of a little girl screaming, remembered from thousands of years before.
Just one little girl among a countless number of broken children.
Leon became aware of the singing as he crouched over Onica's prone form, trying to still his hand long enough to see if she had a pulse. He was praying—something he never did—that she wasn't dead, that she was alright, when the singing started, and he remembered why he'd come.
Saer. He had to warn Saer.
If that man had killed Onica…
The bastard.
He curled closer to her limp form, shivering against the heat his own body was experiencing. He might have been feverish, but the thought never occurred to him. He was lost and alone in a strange place, his best friend could be dead for all he knew, and he found himself, for the first time in an eternity, wanting to curl up in his mother's arms and cry.
But his foster-mother was a whore, and she had died that way. The only father he had known had shot her when she brought her last client into the house. The police were about to take him and his brothers to another home.
And then… the world ended. And he wound up here, tears streaming down his face and wishing vainly for what could have been and never would be.
But Saer was in trouble… she gave him water, helped him. He could rely on her, he knew. It was bizarre, but he needed something solid to latch onto while he was coping with the loss of his entire life, and somehow he felt like she was someone to trust. Something she seemed to stand for looked to be something he might learn to as well, if he understood what it was.
He'd come too late for Onica. He would not come too late for Saer, as well.
He ignored the voice in his head that chided him, taunting with how weak he was and what little he could do. He was used to ignoring his darkest self, a habit he'd had as long as he could remember.
He stood, slowly, and took those extra steps to the doorway.
He saw the blood close about Saer and drew back immediately. For some bizarre reason, even though he'd seen an entire world blown to pieces with one bomb, an egg of blood seemed a strange thing.
He examined the room quickly, seeing a dead dog, children thrown haphazardly about the floor, and a man…
Leon's eyes widened.
The red-headed man from before was holding a screaming Aidan. His younger brother. Eight years old, and he had to see that destruction… And yet, he still survived.
The egg was in his way. There was no possible way to get through that door without going through the solidifying… blood clot.
But… What could he do once he was in there?
The answer seemed clear the moment he thought the question; free Saer. She would help him.
Bringing the metal stick about, he took a deep breath before ramming it into the egg with all his strength. The shell caved in, hardened so fast, and the blunt end of the stick collided with something far more solid embedded within the shell. He forced the staff—because that sounded so much better than stick—up, cracking the brittle shell and watching in disgust as clotted blood piled out of the enormous gap he had created.
Saer fell out, crawled as fast as she could away from the egg, shaking visibly and coughing wildly, trying to breathe far too quickly and too much.
Leon knelt beside her, reaching out to calm her, helping her out of the rapidly crumbling blood-egg. She immediately pulled closer to him, and Leon saw in her eyes a haunted and frightened look he hadn't seen when she helped him.
What happened…?
The question was forming in his eyes, he knew, because her face hardened and she pulled away, fiercely, almost roughly.
He looked up and saw the red-headed man towering over them, enraged as he glared down at the figure of a wide-eyed Leon, Aidan no longer in his grasp.
Soa, what the hell just happened…?
Saer wasn't sure. She couldn't have been, and knew it had happened too fast for possible or any recent comprehension.
Don't worry about it. He's just trying to scare you.
The Dragon's image flashed before her eyes, wrapped protectively around an image of herself. She hadn't felt her… She's been scared… She had thought Saer was gone, for a moment.
There was a warmth nearby, and she clung to it momentarily, readying herself for a breath in time, feeling the solidity and presence of a real human being—not some fiction woven by a freak with blood magic, or the sudden clamor of the two voices in her mind trying desperately to reassure her. She looked up, her vision slowly returning, and saw the concerned face of Leon looking down at her.
She drew away roughly, thinking momentarily of a muffled thanks but knew he wouldn't understand. She nodded to him, then caught the look in his eyes as his gaze ventured up.
She rolled away immediately, pulling the metal canister off her belt and feeling the sword form. She was enraged at the man—but even as his figure shifted and he became a lizard-like creature that pounced at Leon, who rolled away, she was strangely calm. All she wanted to do was kill him. Nothing mattered but that.
It was as if this were something she had been working towards her whole life.
She drove the blade through his chest, then pulled it out, backflipping away from the slow swing of a reptilian arm. Recovering quickly, she narrowed her eyes as she watched the torn skin men itself, as if nothing would phase it.
A shape-shifting regen… she thought, ducking under a testing jab with an arm that was changing, becoming like a heavy harpoon from days long past; when there were still things to hunt in the sea.
You have to get him to fight you in his original form.
All she had to do was show him power, the Dragon insisted. Show her own.
Saer calmed the rapid beating of her heart with practiced ease, dodging what was beginning to look like a heavy medieval bludgeon on the end of his tail. Not yet, she hissed inwardly, feeling the white scar on her cheek start to throb. Not while the kid's around. He's seen enough already.
He was hardly a civilian. That was the only limitation…
I'm not using it, and that's final.
The Dragon didn't reply.
The creature, his form constantly shifting, as if he couldn't keep his mind in one place, leaped for her, now more like a panther in build, protected by a hide that was rapidly molding into something metallic. She rolled underneath, only to find that she couldn't stand. He'd changed the tail of the creature into a net, which was gathering her within.
The metal staff she'd given Leon was thrust through one of the rungs and she grabbed hold, using her free hand to swing her own weapon at the still-changing snare about her. Hot and pliable, it was easily sliced through by her weapon. Once free, she backed Leon up a bit, fully aware that they were being driven somewhere by this creature. And she didn't like it one bit.
Unfortunately, standing their ground was virtually impossible. They were overwhelmed, and she knew that Leon wasn't going to last long regardless. He looked dizzy, confused, and his own reaction time was slowing drastically. His eyes looked feverish, and he was sweating uncontrollably.
The ship's engines suddenly started up.
Wide-eyed, Saer stumbled to duck underneath the arms of some kraken-imitation, then grabbed Leon's arm and started pulling him with her as she ran back down the ship's hallways. Hearing the wild roar of glee as the thing followed in pursuit, Saer pressed harder, half-dragging the unfortunate boy behind her.
She could not have that… thing at the base. It would kill everything there.
The pursuing creature was barely through the passageway separating ship from docking bay before the seals slammed into place, Saer and Leon mere paces ahead of it.
It could have easily caught up with them at any moment. It was merely toying with them, a fact Saer had to grit her teeth against and force herself to keep running. An opportunity would arise—she just needed to be patient.
She was almost carrying a half-conscious Leon when it came.
This hallway was a tight squeeze for the large shape the shape-shifter had become, and he was forced to downsize himself a bit. There was an emergency seal, built to section off the building in extreme cases. It was a function accessed by fires, floods, a control panel somewhere in the main office, explosions, and her own personal favorite.
Her guns were barely out and at the ready by the time she needed them to shoot—and the small panel sitting off to the side of the doorway was blasted into smithereens, causing the seal to slide down from the ceiling too fast for the creature's current state to avoid, and she immediately dashed off again down the hallway, lest an error in her impulsive plan present itself.
She was around the corner a breath before tears began to stream down the creature's face, and was too far away to feel the heat when the remains burst into flame, leaving nothing but the tears and ash.
Because every death scene is more fun when something burns. Even spontaneously, just like that. --;; THERE'S A REASON TO MY MADNESS, PEOPLE.
::sniffles:: GOD, that was hard. Blah. ::pokes DemonGod:: Maybe you'll stop complaining about nobody updating. XD!
… What do I do at the end of these? ::thinks for a minute:: ...
Crickets: ::stare blankly::
REVIEWS! Right… ::grins sheepishly::
Fifi: … NO WORSHIPPING, DAMNIT. ::stops:: … Wait. I'm going to be killed for the end of this chapter, aren't I?
DG86: … Is that a good thing? Probably not. Blah.
Shade: Yesh, I hate the freaking-ass cubes, too. That's why I put it in there. XD! Nehehe.
… ::eyes the spell check button nervously:: … It's not REALLY necessary, is it? You guys don't mind grammar oopsies? Do you? ::looks around pleadingly:: … ::gets no sympathy:: … Blah. ::trudges off to edit::
(Sixteen pages. --;; Woot… waves a banner)
(... Are all my little... face things supposed to dissappear like that? Stupid FF.net. Ask me at summonerchild88hotmail.com and I'll give you the URL. It works nicer. Fucking technical errors...)
