Our steps were as hollow as my heart. I didn't know if I would ever be able to feel again. I couldn't even bring myself to look at her. Her face was so pale, her eyes... That sparkle was gone from them, as if she wasn't even seeing at all. Her gait was thick and untrained as if slogging through an invisible mire. I wanted to say something to her, to reach out to see if this MOMO was even real, not simply an embodiment of my fears. She looked just about as incapable of emotion as...
... as me.
I tore my eyes from MOMO's dragging feet, agonizingly staring at anything but the pronounced machine-like attributes of the Realian. We were in another cold, empty hallway. Jr. had led us down a maze of them already, none of them leading to anywhere but our point of origin. If my mind hadn't been so firmly planted with MOMO, I would have very much liked to have smacked the boy over the head. Yet he still had both guns drawn, ready at every minute turn of the hall. It was with this thought that KOS-MOS stopped abruptly in front of me.
"Unidentified object approaching from the rear," her metallic voice stated nonchalantly. "Composition: metallic alloys and electrical components similar to those used in robotic construction. There is a 93.7698 percent chance that the object is approaching at charging speed, and is therefore classified as an enemy. Ziggurat 8," the android turned toward me, her machine guns suddenly at her side. "take evasive action."
I had only enough time to shove my body against the nearest wall, taking MOMO with me. The guns at the tips of the android's fingers erupted into a symphony of raining bullets and metal on metal as they collided with the approaching enemy. I pulled MOMO close, shielding her now more fragile body from the battle before us. The machine quickly fell, smoking, to the floor. The light at its foremost protrusion, indicating operating functions, switched off with a click. My grip on the girl in my arms lessened, and she stumbled out of my reach, as if she were a discarded doll.
She slowly, mechanically, righted herself, her feet taking the appropriate places beneath her form. MOMO turned her head, and she stared at me. There was nothing behind her eyes. Nothing. No warmth, no love, not even sadness. It was as if her entire being had been taken away by the tide. And I was afraid. More afraid than I had been when I had seen my death approaching on the Durandal, more frightened than when I discovered MOMO's hidden location was inside the Song of Nephilim. Those lifeless blank eyes... My insides churned as I stared back, unable to look away.
Then she turned her head again, and her gaze fixed itself elsewhere.
If I had thought myself capable of the emotion at all, it would have been at that moment I would have chosen to shed a tear. The indescribable feeling moved from my gut to my chest, where it hung itself to steal my breath.
What did that bastard do to you, MOMO?
As if nothing had happened, I pulled myself from the wall and followed the others. It was only Jr. that lagged. He was staring, now, at MOMO. As I watched the changes of his face, I saw what I had felt only moments ago. Fear, sorrow, anger, all at once. They were a dangerous combination. I stood suddenly beside MOMO.
"Jr.," I caught his attention, and he looked away from MOMO sharply. "We should keep going."
"Yeah..." Jr. trailed off, turning as he did so. I gently reached out to take MOMO's shoulder encouragingly in my grip.
"Come on, MOMO," I suggested, feeling my voice wish to catch. I refused. The girl looked up, almost inquisitively. Then she opened her mouth, her lips forming her own name, rounding widely and expressively, like a child first learning to speak. Then came her voice. The sweetest voice I had ever heard, brought back from the recesses of that far away time before the Song of Nephilim appeared in the line of KOS-MOS' gunfire.
"MOMO," her infantile syllable pronunciation inched from her lips. She walked on with me, following the others quietly. After a long fight with myself, I nodded.
"Yes," I assured her. I then took her hand in my own and placed her fingertips on my arm, leaving it to rest there on its own. "Ziggy," I encouraged. Again, she formed the word primitively first, then sounded out my name, the name she had given to me.
"Ziggy," she mouthed, her lips mimicking my own as I had done in teaching her. I nodded again, closing my eyes against the torrent of emotions trying desperately to spill from the void I locked them in. Hearing her voice, that voice I had come to know so well, all its smallest implications and idiosyncrasies studied over in my mind, trying desperately to say my name, was almost too much.
The majority of our journey in the Song of Nephilim was silent, tense and lonely. We knew that too many voices too often would alert some sort of defense system that we were hoping to avoid at all costs. Only the quiet directions of Jr., spoken at intervals, were spoken into the eerie, echoing silence. It was as if the heavens spilt their grace upon us when we found a door. Jr. inspected it shortly.
"I can hear something on the other side," he murmured lowly. I stepped forward cautiously and held myself close to the door. I ticked through the possible ideas that my internal system produced at picking up the vibrations from the other side of the door. Perplexed, I furrowed my eyebrows and looked inquisitively at Jr.
"It's thunder," I announced. Silence. Jr. pressed his ear doubtfully against the door. His eyebrows shot up, proving my hypothesis. At his movement, the door slid open with a hiss, but it seemed at though the other side had been pressurized as well. Jr. nearly fell onto the catwalk on the other side of the door, face first, but righted himself in time. Shooting to his feet as if the incident had never occurred, he brushed his hair from his eyes, and nodded for us to follow.
The catwalk was single-file. Jr. led the way, Shion slightly behind, the domineering form of KOS-MOS behind her. chaos was sandwiched between her formidable shape and my own bulky form as we marched as one. MOMO plodded behind me, as if unaware of the drastic and violent change of scenery.
The darkness of the innards of the ship flared into brightness as an arch of lightning tore across my field of vision. I shielded my eyes quickly, squinting to watch as the bolt arched from the very topmost spire of a black tower to the like spire at the top of our own tower. We had arrived at a crux, the joining place of three seemingly identical towers. Each was topped with dimmed lights, each tower with a different specific color. In the center was another, shorter. A crack of thunder deafened my ears for the shortest moment. They regained function to the sound of screaming.
Shion was on her knees, the line had stopped. My first and immediate assumption was that she was injured. I ran a quick scan of her curled body, but there appeared to be nothing wrong with her. She was shaking. She was crying.
"I hate thunder..." her shaking, tear-stained voice warbled low beneath the continuing roll of thunder.
"Shion..." I tried to step forward, but the catwalk was only so wide.
"Shion." I turned. MOMO had spoken the woman's name. Shion's head slowly came up, and she looked straight past me to where the doll-like form of MOMO stood, staring straight at the young woman.
"MOMO, you..." She stood, tears in her eyes. "you can talk?"
"Shion," MOMO said again. "It's thunder." My words from before. She had become a recorder. Shion, joy evident in the discovery of MOMO's ability to speak, clasped her hands and laughed. It was a short laugh, full of release. Another long, loud whip of lightning and thunder. Shion cringed, throwing herself against the handrail and squeezing her eyes shut. But MOMO's strength had given her strength. She didn't fall to her knees, there was no more sobbing.
"Are you all right?" I asked the woman quickly. The thunder passed, and she nodded stiffly. Her white knuckles left the handrail, and she looked sadly toward me.
"Yes," she assured me in a breath of a voice. "Thanks, Ziggy." The darkness lit up lavender with the electricity crackling around us.
"You're welcome," was lost in the roar of thunder.
We headed for the second tower. Our current location didn't seem to lead anywhere but. Another door led inward, and walking into the deadly silence as just as unnerving as when we had left it. But I was more than glad to abstain from walking single-file. KOS-MOS and I both ran quick checks of the surrounding area. We came to the conclusion that there were multiple levels in the tower, accessible by ladders and Shion's Connection Gear. Thank God the woman worked at Vector. I also detected life-forms in the lower levels, which seemed to be human or Realian. But, now acquainted with this madhouse of labrynth hallways and silent darkness, who knew what could be waiting for us down there?
"Shion," KOS-MOS began, "my sensors indicate that a human life-form, much on the same wavelength as Gaignun Kukai Jr., resides in the centermost artifice in the previous area." Jr. glanced up sharply.
"That's him," he growled. The tight grip on his precious guns increased. "How do we get there?" KOS-MOS recited the information blankly.
"There appears to be a lift between the second and third artifices that make up the original triangle. There is a 91.74398 percent chance that there is a mechanism in this tower that controls the functionality of the lift."
"All right," Jr. announced, pulling himself to his full height. "Let's go. Old man," his intense blue eyes turned on me, "keep an eye out for anything funny. Who knows what kind of crap Albedo will try to pull?" He looked sadly at MOMO, biting his lower lip. "St-stay close." Something suddenly caught my eye, and I turned, quickly.
"Watch out!" I called. Before he knew what hit him, I shoved Jr. aside, and he took MOMO with him. A great spider-like machine slashed its mechanical arm through the air where Jr. had just stood. With deadly accuracy, I took aim and kicked it square in its visual sensor mechanism. The wiring and metal crunched under the harder metal of my foot. It fought back.
The machine threw all of its weight against the closest object: my leg. I was sent flailing backwards, but I caught myself before I could fall to the ground. Jr. opened fire, and the bullets ricocheted off of the mechanical monster's metal skin. The thing, its visual damaged, obviously had no way of telling where the gunshots were coming from. So it opened a compartment in its side and produced a gun of its own. And it opened fire.
"Get down!" chaos shouted, dragging Shion to the ground with him. Jr. threw his body over MOMO's, firing at the machine's mounted gun wildly. The enemy's bullets flew wide and wild, embedding themselves in the wall, the floor. One thudded into KOS-MOS' abdomen, but the metal woman was unfazed. I felt fire rip through my shoulder as a stray bullet drove through me.
The bullet. My bullet. My blood. My rage, my self-hate, pouring from me like the lifeblood I had spilled from me by my own hand. I was dying, dying. No more pain.
The cry of pain choked in my throat and ended as a sharp gasp. I'd been shot. It was my good arm, too... Damn.
"Ziggy!" It was Shion's voice.
"Old man, are you all right?" Jr.'s voice called through the hail of bullets.
"I'm all right," I replied. And to get the point across, I rushed forward as the machine's gun was facing away from me. My metal fist crunched into the metal at the base of the gun, causing it to shoot precariously up into the ceiling. With a final blow to the weapon, I smashed it under my left hand. Jr. began firing again, this time at the hole where the gun had once been mounted. The bullets hit their mark, the delicate wiring beneath the tough metal hide severed and shorted by Jr.'s precise aim. The thing convulsed mechanically, sparks shooting from its innards, and finally collapsed at my feet.
I glanced up at Jr., who was still protecting MOMO with his body.
"Is MOMO okay?" I asked. Jr. nodded, his face pale. I glanced at my shoulder. Blood was coursing down my arm, and I could feel it soaking into the fabric of my uniform. I grimaced. The bullet had gone right through me. Funny, that even an old cyborg like me needed blood. I was surprised when MOMO extricated herself from Jr.'s grasp and took halting steps toward me. She placed one of her pale, tiny hands in front of her.
"Ziggy," her lips articulated. I knelt down beside her, concerned.
"What?" I asked. She stepped forward, and her hand pressed down on my wound, blood oozing between her fingers. A sharp breath hissed through my teeth at the biting pain. Then a warmness seemed to come from her warm hand, and spread through the length of my arm. The pain slowly dissipated. When she removed her hand, the blood had gone from her person, and it had dried on my own. The bullet wound had healed up, and there was no pain when I flexed my arm.
I looked MOMO in the face. It was her Ether skills, there was no doubt. But Jr. had said that Albedo reversed the spiritual link, stealing her very personality. How could she still manage to use her nanotechnology on my wound when she had been wiped clean?
"Thank you," she said in a single tone, misinterpreting the word and the way Shion had used it earlier. I watched her blank face, unsure of my previous assessments of her condition. But I felt the same warmness in my heart that she had spread through my arm, and one of the edges of my lips twitched upward.
"You're welcome," I answered.
AN: Aha! Another chapter! This is one of the longer one's I've written, and it's mostly about nothing... Oh well. Oh, and as to some questions that have been posed, I am going to continue on for Episode II. I'll end "Promise" when Ep. I ends, and start a new story, a sequel, for Ep. II. I still haven't come up with a definite name, so if you think you have a good one, feel free to suggest. I love every one of my readers, and I wanted to thank you for your support. It's great fun writing this story, and I'm glad that it's being enjoyed out there. Happy reading!