Breath of Fire:

Hunger

Authors' notes: I really wanted to have the title of this chapter be 'Enter the Cliché' but alas, I feel that the title is fairly accurate. That and I ran out of cliché halfway through.

I hadn't originally intended for it to be this violent, so if any of you guys dislike it, let me know. If that be the case, then I'll pull up the rating. Any who, enjoy.

Capcom owns Breath of Fire, I' am merely writing this for entertainment purposes.

Chapter 4:

Enter the Dragon

This is unreal was the thought that was going through Momo's mind. Ryu, civil-security officer of the Japanese government, was locked in mortal combat with a man named Alexander, whom she gathered from the injured woman to be a fairly high caliber criminal. The mortal combat wasn't even with guns, it was a katana that Ryu had stashed on him somewhere versus some… mechanical spider… thing. Alexander was dressed in the black garb of a covert operative, while Ryu could've been mistaken for an ordinary businessman wearing his black suit and tie, the only difference being the civil security badge and the ... large sword. Everything about this screamed to Momo This is not real. You're going to wake up and find that none of this is happening. No matter how many times she pinched herself, she apparently refused to wake up.

... Ok then. Now that I have determined that this is, in fact real, the real question is: What do I do now? Ryu and Alexander have apparently occupied each other pretty thoroughly, so there was no immediate danger there. This leaves… Momo thought as her gaze traveled to the wounded woman. Momo hesitated only briefly, realizing that on some level, assisting her would leave herself inexorably entwined with whatever was occurring between Alexander and everyone else here.

"What's your name?" Nina shifted her effort from her wound to the woman speaking to her.

"Why the hell do you care?" sighing, Nina said "Nina. My name is Nina"

"Alright Nina, do you think you can move?" Momo asked, looking critically at Nina's wounded arm. Momo wished, not for the first time, that people were as easy to repair as machienes.

"Not yet" Nina replied. Momo, looking confused, gave an appropriate "Huh? Nina, you're wounded, you're not thinking correctly we have to get out of here n-" Momo's protest were cut off but Nina grabbing Momo's jacket with her wounded arm, dragging Momo over so that her face was inches from Nina's and said "Alexander's slipped through tight nets before and I have little doubt he'll do so again. He's a pompous bastard who refuses to acknowledge how … insignificant he is." She hissed the word through clenched teeth. "This… she continued, gesturing with her other arm towards the stone edifice on which she lay. "…Is what's important. I have to unlock the cell before I can leave"

Momo looked around in confusion for what Nina was talking about "Cell? Do you mean like a power cell? Or is it more like a prison cell?"

"Yes." Nina replied.

Alexander was beginning to have difficulty keeping pace with Ryu. In one word, Ryu's fighting style was best described as 'aggressive'. Every time he tried to get a jab at his side, Ryu would swing his blade horizontally to keep him at arms reach. Alexander was tempted to duck under the sword the next time that happened.

There were two schools of thought on this approach: on one hand, Ryu would have difficulty getting enough momentum for a killing blow once he was inside his reach. Then all Alexander would have to do is gut stab him and the fight would be pretty much over. On the other hand, Ryu could just kick him while he was going for the stab and then he'd be open to pretty much any attack Ryu wanted to use. This was an unacceptable risk. Funny he thought if anyone asked me ten minutes ago, I'd say getting into a sword fight in the first place would be unacceptable risk.

Time to get unorthodox.

Ryu feinted a jab at his right side then followed with a diagonal slice going from his right shoulder over his left shin. Alexander stepped to the left of the jab and made like he was going to jab forward with the claw on his right hand. Halfway thorough the motion, just when Ryu had his left hand on the hilt and the right hand on the blade for the parry, the spider leapt off his arm, just barely clearing the blade's edge and latched onto Ryu's face. Not wasting a second, Alexander kicked the blade out of Ryu's hands with a right kick; followed by a gut punch him with his left hand. Snapping his fingers, the spider leapt back onto his hand whereupon he rotated his forearm so that the back of the spider was towards the ground and emptied the remaining two rounds he had left into Ryu's midsection.

Nina was furiously scanning the inscriptions on the outside of the tablet. "Where is it where is it?" she muttered to herself, beginning to panic. Momo said "What are you looking for?" she asked as she traced her finger on the illustration, the stone rough on her fingers "This is beautiful" she said, captivated by the image despite the violence occurring between the two men. The stone gave way under Momo's hand and began to recede from the surface.

Nina hauled Momo around so that they were face to face again. "What did you do?" "Nothing… I think" The stone circle made on last quarter turn, before the switches returned to their original positions so that the image was whole once again. "I think…" began Nina, before she was cut off by the stone beginning to rotate in the opposite direction. Now it was Momo's turn to yank Nina off the stone so that she would not be flung off by the motions of the rock.

Momo heard chachink, chachink followed by two wet sounding noises. Turning away from helping Nina, she saw Ryu have sharpened quartz crystal or some rock that was transparent, protruding from just below his left shoulder and where his left rib met his sternum. Blood was already starting to soak through the jacket. "RYU!" Momo cried, running towards him.

"Well, G-man, I must say I enjoyed our time together. Unfortunately, I have a ride to catch. Ta." Alexander said giving Ryu a mock salute as Ryu slowly staggered to his knees, Momo propping him up to keep him from going completely prone.

Unseen by anyone, except Nina, who wouldn't take her eyes of it, the stone began to pick up speed in its rotation, the smooth script surrounding the spinning rock beginning to glow an unearthly blue. Beneath the smooth surface of the seafloor, ancient electronics began to power up for the first time in centuries. Like a pump drawing water from a well, the ancient apparatus began drawing to the surface the forces it had held hostage for an inscrutable amount of time. Freed from its bonds it raced to the surface like a diver running low on air.

The first 'impact' caused the ring surrounding the now blurring fast illustration to briefly flicker. Nina gasped as she felt the resulting energy from the ricochet hit her, literally knocking her off her feet. The second 'impact' caused a spider web of cracks to form in the ring. Nina, now further away from the point of the origin was not thrown but instead merely scooted across the ground, until she felt something poke her. Looking down at what she found, a devilish grin broke out over her face.

"Turn and face me, vile human!" Nina cried. Alexander halted at a door at the other end of the dig site, his hand halfway to the keypad that sat to the right of the door.

"Nina, you're beginning to annoy me…" he began turning from the door. His eyes went from anger to shock as he found Ryu's sword, arcing end over end, aimed straight at him. It struck his right arm near the shoulder pining it to the wall, as blood spattered the door.

That's when the third 'impact' happened: the circle surrounding the rock shattered into multiple pieces as the illustration exploded, sending fragmented stone across the room and filling the dig site with dust.

This was Alexander's nightmare scenario: he was pinned to a wall; the other three people in the room knew exactly where he was, and he had yet to get any answers from Nina about how she knew where this place was, or as it seemed now what it did. Plus if he were to remove the blade, he would be risking bleeding out. The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry he thought, got to think of something.

…

I got nothing. BUT! He thought above all I must not panic. If I panic, then I'm screwed.

…

I HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO PANIC! I'M STUCK TO A WALL, THOUHSANDS OF FEET UNDER THE OCEAN, AND I LEFT SPECFIC INSTRUCTIONS TO THE CROWNE SISTERS NOT TO COME BACK FOR ME! IT'S THROUGH, IT'S OVER, STICK A FORK IN ME, I'M DONE! He thought leaning back and closing his eyes in defeat. Until clarity hit him like a bolt of lightning, causing him to gasp not in pain, but in surprise, his thoughts on future modifications on his plans that juggled dozens of variables, his lamentations over his current disadvantageous position, all 'noise' suddenly came to a stop. Alexander Drassari, the man who played three games of Civilization at once and won, was left thinking of nothing at all.

He began to relax until he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye: in the reflection of the blade through the rapidly clearing dust, he saw Momo pick up something from the ground: Nina's dropped handgun. His left hand went to the hilt of the blade, pulled it out regardless of the pain that brought tears to his eyes and threw in Momo's general direction.

Momo flinched away from the blade before a hand deftly caught it out of midair. Momo saw that to her surprise, Ryu was on his feet and charging towards Alexander, blade in hand. How is he doing this? A few seconds ago he was barely able to kneel. Now it looks like he's eager to tear Alexander apart.

Ryu screamed as he brought leapt into the air bringing his blade down for the kill. Alexander brought his right arm and put the spider drone in between the blade and himself. When the blade got to within a couple inches of the drone, the blade was yanked out of Ryu's hand by some unseen force, sending it flying across the room once more. With his good arm, Alexander gave Ryu a left cross to the face, hoping to send him off balance. Ryu took the blow without moving an inch, spit the blood out of his mouth, and retaliated with a right cross of his own. Alexander backpedaled backwards, dropped to his knees and looked up at Ryu. He noted that Ryu's eyes, once blue were now a shade of crimson. Ryu brought his knee up aiming it at Alexander's head, but he was faster bringing the blade of the spider drone upward, knocking Ryu backwards. By the time Ryu got up, Alexander had opened the door and closed it the sound of a mechanical lock filing the room.

Momo approached Ryu, who was swaying slowly from left to right. "Oh my God Ryu… are you okay?" Ryu turned towards the sound of Momo's voice causing Momo to gasp, not only at the severity of his wounds, which included a bruised face, a midsection that was twice shot with an unfamiliar ammunition and fairly deep cuts left from Alexander's weapon, but also at the color of his eyes. Ryu blinked once his iris shifting back from red to blue and collapsed to the ground with a groan.

As Momo saw to Ryu's wounds, Nina was over at the lift messing with the wires to bypass whatever Alexander had done to the system. Looking over at Momo and Ryu she grinned. So it begins…

Author's notes: I was barely able to write this chapter until two days ago when everything just came pouring out. Groovy .