Kyle Swiftedge was bored.
Bored bored bored.
Patrol duty SUCKED.
The long-haired dragoon checked his plasma pistol sidearm for what seemed like the 'n'th time and began scratching a small piece of artwork in the dirt with the point of his naginata. Nothing better to do, after all. Probably the only reason that they were put on patrol duty was that the Presidential Highness himself, Rezo Takada, was afraid of the "unknown cause" that had affected the MEDUSA production factory plant a few miles north hitting the center of Imperial influence. As if!
The Shield-Wall protected the city - a mesh of magic and Ancient power that was unsurpassed by any other form of defensive technology on earth. Kyle had seen it himself. A glowing field of golden energy, held there by a frame constructed of mythril and powered by multiple mana generators around the city; most physical attacks proved pointless against it. Nobody could enter the city without first entering the easily defendable gates, and those had their own laser barriers. A citadel had to be more of a fortress, after all.
Yup. Boring. No terrorists, no rioters, not even the casual drunk he could push off the streets. Just him and his two fellow dragoons.
"Yo, Cap'n." Wedge said from behind him. For the last hour or so, Wedge had been engaged in the laborious process of loading, unloading, and reloading his shotgun. It was a temperamental old piece, a Winchester, and Wedge often liked to boast that it had survived both the ravages of the Five Minute War and the war before that, even. It wasn't a standard weapon, but then again, the Dragoons were a lot more than the standard Imperial shocktroopers. "You don't buy this 'other reality' crap, do ya?"
Kyle brushed his hair away from his face. "Of course I don't! I think it's a complete and utter waste of time... this is the only world we got and it's the only world that we know."
"Neh." Wedge grunted, speaking in the stunted Basic common among the trooper folk. "I'm sure they've at least found som'thin or other. Whass th' reason for all the fuzz aroun' TechDiv, then?"
"No idea." Kyle muttered, concentrating on drawing what looked like a child's face in the dirt, and then cursing when a small breeze picked up some of the dirt and scattered it around. "Some new weapon, maybe?"
"Mebbe?" Wedge laughed. "MEBBE? You tellin' me that MEBBE they've got som'thin new that they don't want us t' know 'bout, neh?"
Kyle grimaced. "Shut the hell up, Wedge."
Wedge grinned. "Oh, pullin' rank, are you now, Cap'n?"
Biggs smacked a meaty fist into a palm. "Wedge, I've been puttin' up with your crap for the last hour. Can't you just shut up and leave the Cap'n be?"
"Neh..." Wedge began, but then the wail of faraway alarms drew his attention.
Kyle drew himself to his feet. "Come on boys, let's get a piece of the action."
"But the Major told us to stay here-" Biggs began, before Wedge cut him off.
"Can it, fat boy. Do you really wanna stay 'ere for another hour while the shit goes down elsewhere?" The dragoon racked his shotgun. "Let's go!"
f i n a l f a n t a s y : r e a l i t y
an angelhawk studios production
original concept by redshadow
written by chaosrayne
disk two: 6ix: sh0wd0wn
Troopers in the dull red of the Imperial Guard scattered as a squat black APC crashed straight out the hangar doors of TechDiv, Alex at the wheel. The blonde whooped in a mixture of exhiliration and relief, adrenaline running through her veins at being behind the wheel of a war machine again. In her manic joy, she had completely forgotten what had happened last time she had been in control of a vehicle.
The APC clipped the side of an inert MEDUSA; it skidded before grinding to a halt against another building. The MEDUSA fared worse- a wing was torn off completely as Alex floored the vehicle, smashing through the wreckage of the building she had just torn into. Alarms rang everywhere. Imperial Guard rushed to and fro in an odd frenzy of panicked troopers.
The vehicle made a left, then approached a street that was too narrow for the APC to enter. Alex did it anyway.
"Alex, don't -" Rain muttered, then was thrown to the floor as the APC brought down walls on either side of it, and the occasional unlucky bystander. Shrill screams ended abruptly as aforementioned unlucky bystanders were converted to pleasantly long smears of red.
A MEDUSA took off after them; Kyrina brought the side turret of the armored personnel carrier to life and targeted. The .88 shell took a chunk out of the MEDUSA's side, but it kept on moving. Kyrina was unperturbed. She brushed a line of dark brown hair away from her face and fired again.
The APC jolted, throwing the shot off course and into a building. There was an eruption of flame and three men stumbled out, screaming and trying to beat out the fires that covered their flesh.
"For cryin' out LOUD!" Kyrina screamed as the oncoming MEDUSA returned fire and a rocket slammed hard into the back of the APC. "Can't you DRIVE?"
Alex gunned the motor, righting the vehicle. Rain got to his feet. "Alex, stop!"
"Tell that to the people chasing us." Alex muttered, teeth clenched and fingers tight about the wheel. "Left or right?"
"RIGHT!!!" Rain yelled, just as Alex turned left, the APC careening precariously on the edge of two wheels before skidding past, grinding against a wall, and coming to a stop... right in front of a small stockade.
Alex grinned. "Hold on to something."
Kyrina fired once more before the barrel of the turret clipped a wall and snapped off. Cursing again, she reached for her plasma rifle and poked it out of the hole where the side .88 cannon had formerly been.
The next rocket that ejected from the open chest of the MEDUSA was shot down by a stream of superheated plasma, exploding about three meters before it approached the APC. And the one after that. And the next one.
Then the entire APC slammed forward as Alex drove the vehicle over the stockade with a resounding crunch. "Hull integrity at 50% and falling." Durandal reported calmly from where he had been plugged into the APC's main systems. "At the rate it is decreasing, my estimate is that it will fail in under three minutes, without MEDUSA taken into account."
"Not far now." Alex coaxed the already complaining engine for more. "Not far."
The Shield-Wall glittered above them, a pulsating gold-orange field of shimmering hexagons. Freedom and the sky waited beyond. It was only a matter of time...
Rain tossed Kyrina another plasma power cell. "That's the last one!" He winced as Alex hit another chunk of rubble. "How far are we?"
"Closest exit from the Imperial City is about six hundred feet away." The cyborg replied. There was a pause, then; "Five hundred feet."
The MEDUSA behind them fired.
"Four hundred."
Rain gripped a metal support strut, Alex kept on driving for all she was worth; Kyrina's eyes widened. "INCOMING!" She screamed.
"Three hundred."
The rocket hit the APC with such force that the vehicle lifted off the ground, landed, skidded, hit a roadblock, flipped, and landed again, on it's back, wheels meeting air and whining ineffectually.
The MEDUSA paused, chest cavity still open. Was it's target down?
Then the remainder of a full clip of plasma shells hit it's vulnerable core, setting off the remaining rockets inside the chest cavity. There was a split second's pause, then the rockets exploded, blowing off the mecha's arms, legs, and head with incredible force and a rush of superheated air.
Kyrina dropped the rifle from where she had thrown herself out the side of the APC seconds before the rocket had impacted. "Jackpot."
Dashing over to the armored personnel carrier, she took a second to savor the burning wreckage in it's wake. The APC was supposed to be invulnerable. Now it was a smoking wreck, suitable for scrapping.
Yanking a door off the side, she helped Alex out. The blonde's forehead was cut and bleeding, but she was otherwise fine, if a little dazed.
"You okay?" Kyrina muttered.
Alex coughed. "Remind me never to drive again."
Kyrina grinned. "You got that right. Where's your boyfriend?"
"He's not my boyfriend." Alex retorted, getting to her feet.
"I miss anything important?" Rain said, sans sunglasses and leaning on his ashandarei. "Anything?"
Alex looked at the street behind them. Screams of the wounded and the panicked were everywhere. The wreck of the APC had in effect blocked off the entire street. In front of them lay the exit, one of the side entrances to the Imperial City - a hole in the Shield-Wall.
"Not much." She admitted honestly.
Then a new voice rang out, loud and confident. "Hold it right there."
Rain looked up. "Who is it?"
A figure with flowing black hair vaulted off a low rooftop and landed in a crouch. He was dressed in the black garb common among BlackOp troopers, but the addition of sections of silver armor set this one out from among the rest. A pair of small, embroidered silver dragons rested on shoulders, denoting rank. The holstered plasma pistol was also high-quality, from what Kyrina could see, anyway.
The long-bladed spear that the figure held was a naginata - a long-range weapon. In an enclosed area, it was useless, but in wide open spaces like this, it was a truly deadly weapon in the right hands.
Kyle Swiftedge, 2nd Captain of the Imperial Dragoons, faced the kids before him. "I place you under arrest of the Imperial Empire. You have the right to remain silent until tortured. You have the right to drop your weapons and come out with your hands up. You also have the right to beg that I don't order you killed right off." He paused mock-thoughtfully. "I think that's all the rights you got."
Behind the sneer, Kyle's emerald eyes went through a few seconds of indecision. They're only kids! He thought. The dragoon had to remind himself of the wreckage behind him to set the thought firmly in his mind that these people were terrorists, most likely to blame for all the commotion and extra security.
The boy stood up, wearily. "Do I have the right to a drink as well?"
The dragoon's eyes never left the boy as he reached down to his belt and unclipped the Imperial issue water flask and tossed it over. Rain caught it effortlessly, unscrewed the cover, and took a long gulp. "Thanks."
The SFMA cadet paused, and then tossed the flask back.
Kyle caught it, and was thus caught, unprepared, when Rain charged him.
"Get out of here!" Rain yelled to the other two. Kyle caught it again, this time, and yelled to his own men.
"Wedge! Biggs!" Stop 'em!"
Kyrina took off like a shot, but only got a few metres before a shotgun blast scattered the dirt in front of her. She froze.
Wedge grinned, a few feet behind her. "Thass' it. Drop your weapon, lady."
However, Kyrina wasn't that stupid. She ducked, and the dragoon let off a shot on impulse, clean over her head. In the split second that it took Wedge to rack the shotgun for firing again, the girl had slipped her plasma pistol and her modded M41-A trooper knife from her belt, clipped the long knife to the underside of the pistol to form the plasmacaster, and placed Wedge in her sights.
Standoff.
"Damn, girl, you good." Wedge sighed ruefully. "You single?"
Kyrina shrugged. "I really don't know."
"What th' hell kinda answer 'zat?" Wedge grinned, chewing thoughtfully on the toothpick in his mouth.
"Well, according to the other two, I'm supposed to be from this reality, and then transported into another one. Now I'm back and I have no recollections of my past life."
The toothpick dropped from Wedge's slack jaws. He didn't even notice.
"Don't ask me, I have no idea." Kyrina continued. "But one of the first aims of mine is to get the hell out of this city."
The dragoon cocked his head to one side. "An' why would a nice girl like you wanna get outa a place like this? We got ever'thin you want. Bars, strip clubs, a chance for a good scrap ev'ry now and again with th' Imperial Guard..."
Kyrina smiled. "Sounds real hospitable."
"Do we really have to keep talkin' like this?" Wedge complained. "I dunno 'bout you, but my arm is gettin' mighty tired. These Winchesters ain't light, ya kno'."
"Speak for yourself." Kyrina said. "We could be at this all day."
Wedge smirked. "Or you could drop your weapon an' save me a hella' lotta time. Then mebbe you an' me could go get some drinks sum'place."
To his surprise, she answered. "Sounds good to me."
And she dropped her weapon.
"'Bout bloody time, too-" That was about all Wedge got out, before Kyrina's right foot knocked the shotgun out of his hand and her left slammed into his jaw.
"You're none of you very bright, are you?" Kyrina said conversationally, landing.
The dragoon spat something that tasted horribly like bloody teeth out of his mouth and raised himself to a ready stance. "My offer stands."
"You're buying."
"Fight you for it."
Kyrina smiled. She could get to like this guy. "Considering what little time I have before the rest of this city awakens and decides to kick my ass, I think I can spare a minute or two."
They rushed at each other.
Alex rolled as plasma fire sprayed towards her. She dived through the nearest street window, rolling to the floor of a food store, not yet open at this early hour. The blue slash of plasma scored holes in the wall behind her, and she frantically drew her own M41-A, ducking for cover.
The stream of plasma stopped, and in it's place a confident voice rang out. "Come out with your hands up!"
Alex didn't gratify that with a reply.
"I guess that means no." Biggs muttered to himself. Then, louder, he continued. "If you do not surrender your weapon and reveal yourself within the next five seconds I will be forced to take lethal action against you!"
'Yeah, right.' Alex thought, tapping the blade of her M41-A knife thoughtfully. "Doesn't firing at me constitute lethal action anyway?" She grinned. She may not have come top of her class back at the SFMA in Military Psychology, but this chump she could handle.
Biggs chuckled. The girl must be some kind of smartmouth... "No, lethal action would compromise me beating the shit out of you, personally." He could give as good as he got.
Alex paused. "What proof do I have that once I come out you won't plug me full of plasma?"
The dragoon frowned. "You're a kid. We don't hurt kids. We just shove them in rehab."
'Ohhh...' Alex muttered to herself. "A kid, am I? I bet I could best you in hand-to-hand combat."
"Suuuure." Biggs sighed. "Want to test that claim?" Truth to tell, he was spoiling for a fight. This was better than street patrol, after all.
The SFMA cadet replied. "No problem... here I come."
"Five." Biggs said, loudly and clearly. "Four... three... two..."
Alex slid past the counter, throwing an unidentifiable package at the dragoon and knocking his aim off. A quick flip of the hands disarmed Biggs, but before Alex could capitualize, he had thrown himself backward, and the riot shockrod had appeared in his hands, extending to a modest length of about two feet.
"One." Biggs said, and he swung.
I slashed downward, then up, twirling the staff around to decapitate my assailant. We couldn't afford to waste any more time - the longer the alarms kept ringing, the more people got wind of the fact that we were trying to get out, and the more chance of the rest of the Imperial Guard reacting properly before we could escape.
The ashandarei met resistance. Plasma staff met naginata, and clung. Blue energy flared up, and I twisted, moving around to get better leverage on the point of impact. The man was stronger than me, however, and he forced me back. I ducked under the swipe that followed, and jumped over the low sweep of the naginata, handspringing up to land, spearpoint first, in a move that would have impaled the man right through the middle.
He was good, very much so. Dodging back, he grabbed a hold of my weapon, and ripped it out of the ground. Twirling it effortlessly, he grinned, naginata in one hand and my ashandarei in the other.
I jumped around, moving away from the twin blurs of steel and plasma that crossed my vision again and again. Those weapons had range... I couldn't get close.
However, if I could... those weapons were both long-range. If I could get in under his guard and hammer him before he had a chance to respond... game, set, and match.
As I moved away from a shifting cross-slash, I sighed. If I couldn't get in under his guard, I was about to be left open with a cleaver-sized headache.
Ducking under another slash tinged with the shine of blue plasma, he grabbed my weapon and tugged. He showed no signs of wanting to let go, so I did. The second of imbalance was all that I needed - I twisted around the point of the weapon, leaned sideways, and popped the ashandarei loose.
He didn't expect that, and he definitely didn't expect the three punches that I threw after that with my free hand. Green eyes showed shock as he couldn't bring the point of his naginata to bear around fast enough. I hit him in the chest with the first punch, and he shrank away from the second; somehow, he managed to catch the third. Then I realised I was too close.
-Damn!
He smiled through the pain. "Not bad."
Then I felt the hand around my caught punch close like an iron vice. Thankfully, he didn't crush it.
Not-so thankfully, he swung me around, hung the arm over the naginata, and bent the arm sideways. I gave a yell of pain, and then the pressure on my arm intensified as he bent his weapon downward, increasing the angle.
I was forced to my knees to prevent the arm from dislocating or snapping completely. I saw the mirthless smile on his face as he vaulted up over the weapon, pinned me to the floor, and swung himself down the pole of the naginata like some sort of poledance that I had seen once in the raunchy videos that the male cadets of the SFMA had kept around.
Except this time the poledancer came down feet first into my chest. Something gave.
Yes, ow.
He pulled his naginata from the ground and I quivered, a little ball of agony welling up. I was sure that at least a rib was crushed, or something. Hurt way too much.
"Not bad, not bad at all." He was saying. I was in too much pain to notice half of what he was talking about. "Even for just a kid. You're no match for an Imperial Dragoon, kid. Admit it."
He turned his back.
Wedge parried the first kick, and moved sideways out of the palmstrike that followed. He retaliated with a two-punch combo that his female opponent dodged.
'Interesting.' Kyrina thought. She was faster and more agile, and possibly more skilled as well. However, Wedge was stronger and could take the punishment, and man, did he hit hard. 'Not a problem...' The chain of thought continued. 'As long as I don't let him hit me...'
Her hazel eyes snapped out of focus as she stepped in too close, just once, and was the recipient of an elbow that clocked her in the stomach. Doubling over, she let the dragoon pick her up and suplex her into the floor headfirst.
Wedge stood over her, the end of a well-chewed toothpick back in his mouth. "Too bad, girl. You not in my class."
Kyrina let the rage build up. "Oh yeah?" She twisted, leg sweeping across and flooring the dragoon as well. She executed a perfect vertical standup manuever and handflipped, coming down with all her body weight and pinning Wedge to the ground. "No, I'm not in your class. I'm in a different one entirely."
"Really?" Wedge said, staring into her cleavage exposed by an artful rip in the collar. "...Can't I join, neh?"
The girl raised an eyebrow. "...Neh." Then she stood up again, clamped both feet around the side of the dragoon's head, and leaned back.
The dragoon was catapulted up and forward into a wall. "....Ow." He muttered coherently. "Does every guy go through this just to get you to pick up his bar tab?"
"You should try hitting on me." Kyrina quipped, looking at the body of the dragoon. Then she was victim to the old trick; a leg sweep. She went through a second of berating herself on how stupid it had been to get that close, anyway. Floored, the combatants both stood up.
Wedge was the first to move, one arm up defensively and the other extended. Kyrina was faster, though. Grabbing the extended limb, she jerked downward, slid through the dragoon's legs, nabbed the issue plasma pistol that every Imperial trooper held on his person, and pointed it between Wedge's legs.
"No, no, no, no, wait..." Wedge yammered. "Can't we talk about this? I mean, I'm sorry 'bout the suplex an' all that, but..."
The barrel of the plasma pistol shone blue with energy. Kyrina grinned wolfishly. "Your ego could use a little smackdown."
"No, please!" The dragoon cringed at the thought of losing both his dignity and his manhood in one shot. "Please don't!"
Kyrina sighed. "What's the name, soldier?"
"Wedge, miss." For once in his life the dragoon spoke politely.
"Well then, Wedge, welcome to Castration 101. First of all, your testosterone levels are sickeningly high." Kyrina smiled, enjoying the way the dragoon was cringing. "Learn a little humility and come back to see me next time."
"NO!" Wedge's eyes widened in fear.
Kyrina rose up and kneed him in the balls. The dragoon collapsed, in a personal little world of pain. "Count yourself lucky."
"...th' pain..." Wedge whimpered.
Kyrina looked at him. "Take two of these..." She slugged him twice across the jaw. "...and call me in the morning."
Sighing, she left Wedge unconcious and retrieved her plasmacaster. Time to get out of here.
Alex ducked, wide-eyed, as the heavyset Biggs moved with the disturbing speed of the obese, blindingly fast. She countered, knocking a shelf of tins to the floor and using the distraction to back away. If she could whip out a spell...
Biggs lunged. The girl was attractive, and he didn't want to hurt her... that thought went straight out the window as he saw the glimpse of steel meet his shockrod. A swipe downward was also parried, as the shockrod met resistance yet again. The terrorist looked into his eyes, and he saw the amusement. Amusement?
No way. The Imperial Dragoons were one of the most famed fighting forces in the continent. Their silver battle armor and black uniform struck fear into the hearts of trooper and common folk alike. Amusement was not something Biggs was familiar with.
A good scrap, now that was his forte. Using his superior strength, he pushed his weapon forward, forcing his opponent back. If he could just get closer...
Alex attacked, the M41-A knife making the Dragoon back away. She was faster, though, and a thin line of crimson sprouted on Biggs' cheek. Grinning, she feinted low, and changed the attack midway to slash upwards in a move that would have probably gutted the Dragoon like a fish. However, Biggs wasn't a Dragoon for nothing. Seeing through the feint, he was able to block the oncoming attack, duck low, and slam a punch into the girl; she was knocked back.
Grimacing, Alex cursed. She couldn't underestimate her opponent... that punch had hurt. Pain would slow her down more than she liked to admit.
Sirens continued to wail outside. She had to finish this fast, before the gate through the Shield-Wall was locked down and reinforcements arrived...
The Dragoon smiled wanly. No match for him, after all... He thumbed a button on the hilt of the shockrod, and it began humming audibly with electricity. Alex's eyes widened.
Biggs attacked, a three-hit combo that was blocked with the flat of Alex's knife. Sparks scattered from every point of impact, electricity coursing along the blade. Alex thanked her lucky stars that the grip of her knife was insulated, otherwise she would have been on the receiving end of a few thousand very painful volts of electricity. Frowning, the Dragoon pressed the advantage; Alex dodged another slash before turning tail and running deeper into the store, seeking solace in the darkness.
The SFMA cadet looked around her. Something she could use...
Biggs shifted his grip on the shockrod, holding it downward like a dagger. Skulking low, he flowed towards Alex, past aisles of foodstuffs and bottles of alcohol. Alex moved backwards, searching for something; anything. Running across one of the fallen tins, she slid past, nabbing it. Catching a glimpse of movement in the aisle across, Alex let it hang in midair, before twisting her body around and slamming a powerful kick into the tin.
The dragoon had just enough time to throw himself sideways as a 300g tin of chicken soup crumpled against a wall behind him. "Holy SHIT!"
Alex ripped a set of small kitchen knives out of their plastic wrapping, a slightly evil grin on her face as she prepared a fan of the dangerous metal implements. Then Biggs was charging towards her, yelling in fury.
She twirled gracefully, one knife after another leaving her palms, seven in total. The dragoon ducked the first one, swatted three more out of the air with the shockrod, and then tripped on a loose tin, as the remaining knives zinged past him and shattered a few bottles of wine.
Biggs looked up just as Alex clocked him with a wine bottle, shattering it and sending the dragoon into the nice little world of dreams.
"Goodnight." Alex muttered, before taking off silently.
At the door, as if reconsidering, she stopped. Turning back, she looked at the dragoon. "...Dibolt."
Suffice to say Biggs didn't get up again.
Here was my chance.
Ignoring the pain in my left side, I struggled to my feet. My opponent whirled with a shocked look on his face. Apparently he had assumed me either dead or unconcious. I really didn't care.
I rushed him... had to be faster, before he could swing the naginata around...
Not fast enough. I had to duck the first swipe, and he flicked the weapon upwards, changing his grip so he could execute a vertical slash that would probably slice me in half lengthways. Grimacing, I concentrated. I could hear the hum of the weapon as it passed through the air, hopefully not a subsonic edge.
...Now!
I clasped my hands together, a foot above my head, and catching the blade beneath my palms. The sheer force of the blow caused me to fall to one knee, pushing me down.
He hung there for what seemed like eternity as time took a coffee break. Then it returned, with a spare cappucino, and those nice little coffee mints.
The trooper slid down the length of the naginata to plant a foot in my face. I was knocked back, but the attack had been weak, and I now had his weapon. Gripping the spear firmly, I gave a cry of fury and snapped it over my knee.
In case anybody says 'Oh yeah. He snapped a naginata. No biggie' I need to stress it like this: imagine someone wanging a heavy metal bar, around a inch thick and three feet long, down on your knee. Fractured kneecaps, hello.
But I did it.
Taking the now much shorter, bladed end of the naginata in my right hand and grasping it easily, I took deep, ragged breaths, facing my opponent once more. He smiled wanly.
"Like you said..." I hissed. "Not bad at all."
Then I flung out my impromptu sword. It span in an arc, straight for the trooper in my way. Predictably, he swung out a sidearm plasma pistol one-handed, took aim, and fired. It was a hell of a shot - the plasma found solid purchase against the spinning blade, forcing the lethal edge off on a tangent covered in bubbling blue plasma energy.
The split second he had needed to make that shot had been all I needed. I finally managed to attack. Finally.
My left palm brushed the barrel of the plasma pistol away from my face as my right hit him square in the jaw. I felt his face sag sideways from the force of the punch. Not allowing any time for him to react, I snapped the punch downwards into an elbow, impacting against his chest, and that flowed into a kick to the stomach. As he doubled over, I span on one heel, pivoting and knocking the plasma pistol out of his grasp.
He looked up into my eyes, motionless for two seconds.
Then I squeezed all my remaining energy and strength into my fist, all of it, and landed a massive uppercut to his jaw.
He jerked upwards and landed on his back, out cold on ice.
I finally allowed myself to collapse.
"Rain! RAIN!!!"
The dreamer came to as his name was yelled. "...Uuuuhh... I got him."
"I can tell." Kyrina looked at the KO'ed body of Kyle. "He's still AWOL."
Alex didn't share in the mood. "We have to get out of here! More of the Imperial Guard could be here any second to check out the crash of the APC!"
Rain flung one arm out in the direction of the exit, the area unprotected by the Shield-Wall. "There..." He grabbed his ashandarei and supported himself as he struggled to his feet.
Spotting a car, Kyrina dashed to it. "Come on!"
Mr. Everyday Shopper got a surprise when a brown-haired girl knocked on his window. Being the fool he was, he opened it. "Is there something wr-"
Kyrina's elbow hit him in the face. Opening the door through the window, she dumped the knocked-out form of Mr. Everyday Shopper out and gestured to Alex, who was supporting Rain. "I'm driving this time." Kyrina muttered, before wrenching the keys in the ignition, slamming the door, and hitting the gas.
The cute little sedan vehicle, best suited for inner city travel and transport, smashed through the electric glass doors with little effort, sped down a ramp, and was outside the Imperial City before anybody could say "Call the MEDUSA!"
Alex laid back, but not before casting a Cure spell on Rain. "So... where do we go now...?"
"We look for Patch." Rain sighed, pulled the handheld computer unit from his by-now very-beat-up backpack, and started up the Durandal file. "Then I am getting the hell out of this universe."
For once, Alex didn't argue.
"Cap'n?... CAP'N?"
The dragoon came to as Wedge yelled, groaning. He had one mother of a headache. That kid may have just been a kid, but MAN did he hit hard. Blinking, he looked at Wedge. "...Where's Biggs?"
"Right here." Biggs grumbled, holding a frozen lump of meat over his forehead. "That fool girl hit me with a wine bottle!"
"Don't ask 'bout th' meat." Wedge advised. "They started fightin' in a store." He gestured to the store across from the smoking wreckage of the APC. "Don't blame me, I nearly lost m' manhood."
Kyle raised an eyebrow, before thinking better of asking and getting to his feet. He sighed as he looked at the remains of his naginata. And it was new, as well...
"The Imperial Guard here yet?"
"Uh-huh." Biggs rolled his eyes to the end of the street, where the red-uniformed Imperial Guard were already fencing off the crash site of the APC with yellow security tape. "Late as usual. I swear, if it weren't for us Dragoons, the Imperial Army would ne'er get anything done."
The Dragoon Captain stopped, his heart sinking. "You're not telling me... they got away?"
"All three of 'em." Wedge confirmed. "We're still tryin' to guess how they got here in the firs' place. Been askin' roun', and all the Imperial Guard tell us is dat they escaped fr'm TechDiv. Some high-secret 'ush-'ush."
"The science sector?" Kyle muttered. Nobody answered.
Sighing, the Dragoon Captain got to his feet. "We'll have to report this to Rezo and his bunch of government cronies. Can't have people just coming into the City and causing chaos."
Biggs grunted and shifted the frozen meat. "These 'terrorists' were just KIDS, for cryin' out loud! How'd they beat us-"
"That's what I want to know as well." Kyle said, feeling in his heart of hearts that bad times were coming. "That's what I want to know."
Wedge didn't mention to his captain what Kyrina had told him. It was a pity he didn't, because a whole lot of other mysteries would have been cleared up if he had. However, that's not the way the story goes.
And in the bowels of TechDiv, the Imperial Empire had no idea of how the bad times were coming, or even just how bad they were going to get. For they were going to get very bad indeed.
Renaku smiled thinly as the security camera from TechDiv showed three figures making their way through the mazelike corridors, not stopping for anything and hacking through whatever happened to be in their way. Not long ago.
The traitor looked at the camera feed and smiled. Rain was back. He would enjoy their rematch when it came. It would be nice to see how much the boy had improved.
But something that even Renaku had no idea of was happening. Slowly at first, but it was coming. And it would be like a tornado, starting slow, but gathering energy and motion, purpose and force. The final fission would wipe away all before it came.
For the cylinder of light in the Reality Engine was flickering.