Say My Name

Written by vox shade

v/s: Okay... I don't get it, but why are some people afraid of reading my fic? Oo I've heard from some that they were afraid to read this at first, and I can kinda understand because of the whole Cliff-and-Albel thing, but I did mention in the third chapter (I thinks) that this wasn't a yaoi fic... makes me sad T-T And yes, it is official: I am developing an unhealthy addiction to Ragnarok Online.

Disclaimer: Star Ocean 3 belongs to Tri-Ace/Ubisoft/Square-Enix

Chapter Thirteen

They had been frozen in time. Albel, leaning against the wall, Nel held firmly in his embrace, with no space in between. She could hear his heartbeat racing, despite the calm tone he had used before. It was strange, because the fact was that she was pressed against his fake breasts. The footsteps had passed by their hall what felt like an eternity ago, going down the left hall instead of the left where they were locked into place. But for some reason, the constricting feeling inside didn't ease; it pressured her even more.

"You can breathe now," Albel whispered against her ear.

It took a second for her to realize it, but when she did she let out her breath with a whoosh and valiantly sucked in another to replenish her oxygen-deprived brain. Albel chuckled and ruffled the back of her hair almost affectionately. Nel scowled, "let go."

Albel smiled, "as you wish." He loosened the strength in his arms and Nel stepped back from his warmth, cheeks flushing pink. She could still smell him.

Albel chuckled knowingly as he passed by her, his steps quiet taps against the tiles. "A minute more and I would have kissed you."

...This only served to accelerate her just-friggin-calmed-down heart. She stared at his back blankly, then smirked as she tried to stop blushing. Looked like even Albel the Wicked could have a cute side after all.

She quickly caught up to Albel and together they backtracked down the hall they had come from, when one of the doors opened and someone hissed, "Nel, Albel. Here!" Nel and Albel started and walked quickly to Seraph, who was beckoning from the stage room door connected to the servant hallways. Both slipped in and looked around. There were a few performers getting ready in small groups or by themselves, and didn't seem to really care about them too much. Sin and Soul joined them from a corner, carrying cloth-covered bundles.

Soul handed his bundle to Albel, and Sin gave Nel his. She could tell by the weight and shape that under the cloth were her daggers. "Thank you," Nel murmured. "No problem," Sin said with a wink. "Least we can do."

"Your clothes are in here," Seraph said, producing two bags seemingly out of nowhere. She had changed into different clothes, along the same style as what the brothers were wearing (picture it Chinese style, except with runes patterned on it instead of dragons or phoenixes). Nel took it off her hands and looked around and spotted a screen set up in a corner of the room, where a tall bundle was leaning against the wall which she thought to be a prop. She hurriedly crossed the room and checked if anyone was behind it before ducking around it and stripping herself of the waitress's uniform.

It felt great to be back into her own clothes, which were comfortable and not constricting. It felt even better to buckle on her belt and slip her daggers into them, liking the feeling of the weights by her sides. She also liked the fact that she was covering more skin than the uniform could ever cover.

She rejoined the group and rejoined the group as Albel left to change. She fixed her gaze on Seraph, "any word about reinforcements?"

Seraph nodded, "they're already here. Two of your agents are inside the building already. The rest outside have been equipped and given high-tech handcuffs."

"They've been developed especially for this mission," Soul said. "They're these blue rings, and when you put one around each wrist they automatically lock together with high magnet power. They glow and suspend around the limb when activated. They're quite ingenious for this planet, in fact."

"The ones inside are Tynave and Farleen right?" Nel said with a nod to Soul.

"Yes," Sin replied as Albel rejoined them, fully clothed in normal clothes. The conversation was broken as everyone struggled to stifle their laughter which lead to a lot of snorting because Albel still had breasts and thus, made him look like a punkish woman.

"Shut up! Worms!" Albel snarled, apparently uncaring now whether anyone saw him or not because most of the stage room had been emptied by now and only two performers remained, but seemed not to care.

"Come here, let's get those off you," Seraph said kindly with a glint in her eye and led him back to the screen. Nel had managed to bite back her chuckles when a sound like a Velcro ripping off insued from the corner and a biting yell came right after.

"Scum! Just what do you think you're doing!"

"Taking it off, what else?"

ChhhhhhAK!

"Argh! You could be more gentle about it, maggot!"

"Don't be such a crybaby. See, at least people can tell that you're more a man than a woman now."

"The hell are you insinuating, woman!"

"You work it out yourself."

Sin, Soul, and Nel all chuckled and immediately looked away from each other as Albel stormed back, determined not to laugh…. In his face, of course. Albel's expression was mutinous as he slid his sword into the sheath with a menacing hiss. Seraph came into view, holding a bag Nel assumed to be his Velcro fake breasts. Oh, if only she could get her hands on them, she'd have Albel forever in her pocket with her little blackmail.

Sin seemed to notice her eyes on the bag and smiled, then coughed when Albel looked at him suspiciously. "Alright, let's get this mission over with. I'll let the reinforcements outside know that you've started to move, and they should enter in five minutes, that'll give you some time to locate the ringleader without them knowing too much until it's too late. If you come across anyone, knock them out and leave them to be arrested by the reinforcements. Your primary goal is Lockroi."

Albel snorted, "you sound like Arzei. Shut up and let's go."

Nel smirked, and shot one last look at the bag then turned and followed Albel out the door and into the servant halls. They quickly made their way to the door they'd been cornered at, and peered in. Her blood was thrumming with pent up energy, her hands itching at her blades. Her eyes narrowed as she glimpsed a mercenary rough handling a woman into a room.

"They're here," Albel whispered softly. He moved to allow Nel to peer through the crack in the door. As he had said, the men who had followed Lockroi into the bar were now eagerly making their way into the hallway, peering behind the curtains and picking which room to enter. Nel was disgusted to see that some had already started to remove articles of clothing, and her anger started to boil. As if sensing her temper, Albel laid a hand on her shoulder from beside her, "wait until most of the hall has cleared, then we can start destroying the filthy scum."

Nel nodded, and told herself to be patient and wait just a little longer before busting down the door and rescuing Tynave and Farleen. The corridor filtered out as the men disappeared behind chosen curtains and the mercenaries started lumbering off down the hall, muttering to one another. As soon as the last broad back had disappeared around the corner, Nel stepped inside, daggers drawn and ready for action. Her eyes swept the hall, wondering which room contained her friends.

Before she had settled on which room to wreak havoc in, Albel had swept by and deftly pushed aside the curtain of the nearest room. "Albel, what're you-?" Nel's words were cut off by a thud, thump, a partial scream, then Albel showing up at the doorway again with a grim smile. "They're not in there, but let's keep going."

Short, sweet, and to the point. That's Albel for you, Nel thought, somewhat enviously.

He strode across the hall and disappeared behind the curtain and Nel passed by the first room, making her way for the one beside it when she peered in and snickered at the sight. Somehow, Albel had managed to yank both of the fat man's feet behind his thick neck (ouch...) and tie them together there, and his arms tied behind his back. It appeared that he had tied them using the ropes which had tied the two girls' hands together. The girls were now looking at her fearfully, and back to the passed out man, but Nel gave them a reassuring smile and set to work.

She dove into the next room and kicked the old man off another girl and swiftly cut the ropes which bound them off, and tied the man in the same fashion as Albel had. Satisfied, she quickly ran out and into another room, where she repeated the same process, keeping quiet and as quick as possible. She a bit of difficulty with the man in the seventh door down – he was abnormally obese – but in the end it had worked out with two handy toothpicks found and stuck into – convenient – places which held him still.

Nel stepped back into the hallway and spotted Albel nearing the tenth – second last – room of his side of the hallway and decided to speed it up when a man was flung from the room she was about to enter. Two people burst out after him, and tackled him as he screeched and tried to stand up. She recognized them before they stood up with triumphant smiles and saluted. "Sorry for making you wait, Lady Nel," Tynave and Farleen chorused.

Nel smiled as she was flooded with relief. "No problem. I'm just glad you two are fine."

"Thank you Lady Nel."

"You should go up ahead, Lady Nel," Tynave said, kicking the man's head into the floor to knock him out. "The ringleader should be in the warehouse, at the end of the hall. Farleen and I will finish up here, and you and Lord Albel can find Lockroi. Reinforcements are already infiltrating the bar as we speak, and will be here shortly. You will only have to fight alone for at the most, ten minutes."

Nel nodded and with a salute, took off down the hall. A curtain moved and Albel joined her as they both raced down the hall and around the corner, their steps in sync as they drew to a halt in front of a heavy-looking, metal doorway with a huge metal lock.

Albel cast it a perplexed look. "You have a lock pick, Nel?"

Nel shook her head and stepped forward. "The problem with these kind of people are that they only go for appearances. Usually, the more ornate and bigger it is –" she raised a hand and the lock glowed, "-the easier they are to open." The huge door swung open silently, and Albel lifted an impressed eyebrow. Nel smiled and slipped inside the dark warehouse, drawing her daggers and peering around dark shapes of boxes and crates. The windows were covered with drapes of cloth, making it hard to see. No sound could be heard other than from the noises coming from behind them in the hallway. Yet, this as the only place the mercenaries and Lockroi could be, since there were no other exits. Unless there was an exit from here as well? It made sense…or perhaps Lockroi had decided to enjoy himself after all and had been in one of the rooms she had left unchecked.

Albel and Nel crept through the maze of boxes, crouching slightly as they made their way silently to the center of the warehouse, where they found a kind of lab. Albel let out a sound of disgust as he examined a test tube. "It's crystallized hemlock. This place is a drug factory and an illegal whoring house. It's a wonder we never caught him."

Nel nodded in agreement as she placed the beaker back where she'd found it – this would be a job for the crime department when they could get here.

Signalling to Albel, Nel lead the way through the boxes, heading for the other side of the warehouse. If Lockroi wasn't here, they had to find him as soon as possible.

Nel peered around as they neared a large clearing in the boxes, and thought she saw some oddly shaped, looming parcels. But before she could ponder it, a voice rang through the air. "It took you filth long enough."

A light came on directly over the clearing, although dim enough so Nel could adjust quickly and make out Lockroi standing on a stack of boxes just in front of them, and the clearing surrounded by mercenaries. Nel glared and stood firmly, refusing to show any sign of weakness. They didn't scare her – she'd been up against Luther for Apris' sake – but the danger was real enough. This man was cornered, and a cornered animal was the most dangerous of all.

"After all the clues I had left you, it took you this long to catch up with me," Lockroi said in a genuinely disappointed tone. "It's a wonder you made it to your positions without intellect. But then, the standards for the army always were slipping."

Whoa, clues? "If you wanted to be caught Lockroi, you could have saved us the trouble and made a one way trip to jail yourself," Nel said sarcastically, knowing perfectly well that that was not his intention.

"You really are clueless, aren't you?" Lockroi sneered, seemingly not noticing her sarcasm. "You really thought I'd be foolish enough to target the king and queen when their two most loyal and dangerous allies were alive? Of course not – I'd have to be as unintelligent as you two to think so. The main objective was, of course, to exterminate you in order to have a clear path to my true goal."

Nel caught a sudden movement from the corner of her eye and froze to see Albel doubling over, in pain. Her mind registered a blank. None of the mercenaries had moved, so how could he have been injured so quickly? Did they attack while she had been occupied with Lockroi from behind? Was Albel okay? But she couldn't move now... not when they were both surrounded, no matter how weak they might be they were outnumbered.

But then a sound escaped the Captain of the Black Brigade, and it wasn't a cry of pain. Instead, it was a slight chuckle, his shoulders shaking, until he was laughing his infamous maniacal laughter which raised hairs on her skin, and caused the circle of fighters to withdraw slightly, eyes focused on Albel the Wicked as he laughed. Nel, too, found it strange that he could laugh in a situation like this, when they were trapped and fighting against at least forty mercs. But then, she had always known that he wasn't wired the same as normal people in the first place.

"You think-" Albel chuckled again, straightening up to his full, formidable height, "-that we didn't notice this? That we would follow your breadcrumbs and not know what we were getting in? And to top it off, you bring in these... do you call these mice mercenaries? After humoring you this long, I would have thought you wanted to end your life in a better way than this, dying in a musty warehouse surrounded by those only loyal to coin. You really have no idea do you?" Albel snickered, his smile not reaching his ice cold eyes. "Frankly, this is an insult, to think that I and the Crimson Blade would die fighting a few pests. If anything, you are the disappointment, worm."

Nel noticed restless movement in the men surrounding them as Albel kept shooting his mouth off, distracting Lockroi. She knew that he was trying to get him angry enough to slip up and make a mistake due to anger. But not only was it affecting Lockroi under his cool, yet slowly breaking, composure, it was affecting the men he had hired. She could see the murderous gleam in their empty eyes, and the glint of blades being drawn. It was true that Albel and herself were looked up to as some of the best fighters in the continent, but up against these numbers, she had a prickle of doubt.

She was the first to catch the movement. Nel turned and simultaneously kicked the legs from underneath the mercenary who had tried to dart in to stab her side and hit him soundly on the top of his head with the hilt of her dagger to knock him out cold. It was over within a moment, cutting off the conversation effectively.

Nel smiled sinisterly as she received shocked looks at her speed and glared at Lockroi. "Sorry, you were saying something along the lines of exterminating us?"

Lockroi quickly slid his mask in place to hide his fearful expression. His face hardened with hatred. "You will be exterminated soon enough, if not by the number of these men, then by your weakness, Nel Zelpher and Albel Nox."

When nothing happened, Albel casually looked over his shoulder. "So you know about it? Or rather, knew about it. It's too late, scum, it's worn off long ago. And I thought you were slightly intelligent."

Lockroi's mask shattered to reveal his shocked face, eyes wide and mouth slack. Both Nel and Albel took the time to smirk coldly as Lockroi slowly processed the fact that his trump card had been nothing but a bluff. But they knew better – the absence of the Locking Lips Syndrome was temporary, for the time being until Fayt and the others found the permanent solution. Nel guessed that it should wear off in two or three hours, plenty of time to fix this problem and head home.

"What are you doing just standing there? I'm paying you to kill this filth!" Lockroi shouted shrilly, finally losing his head. The men looked at each other and seemed to be trying to decide when a huge, burly man swinging an axe burst from the back of a crate and barreled to Albel with a shout. Spurred by the act of a leader, the others joined in and the warehouse was soon filled with shouts and sounds of fighting.

Nel couldn't spare a moment to look at Albel, because there were just too many men trying to kill her at once. She was in constant action, slashing with both blades and performing runology when the number of men became overbearing. She cleared a mob of mercenaries quite neatly with a spell of ice, freezing their bodies in place. When there was a break in the action, Nel looked around and noted that she and Albel had separated, caused by the mercenaries which had divided them. The number of them had significantly decreased – less than half remained. But it seemed that the survivors were the tougher out of the men who were hired. Albel was fighting three tough mercs at once, slowly cutting them down to size. Nel had no doubt that he would win.

She dodged a blow from another mercenary wielding a mace, and quickly disposed of him with a clean, harsh hit into his midriff, knocking the breath out of him and causing him to lose consciousness. She backflipped to dodge another, and something caught her eye midway. She righted herself and dove for the floor, and slashed the back of the boot of the man who had tried to attack her. He gave a cry and fell, disabled. She kicked his weapons away from him and looked behind her, where she noticed Lockroi dancing with nerves on a platform of boxes, shouting something. She concentrated, trying to listen above the noise of the clashing weapons ringing through the air. And she realized that he was still screaming Albel's name, hoping that he was still inflicted.

Nel smirked and glanced over at Albel, seeing that he had won over the three men and was now reaching for the fourth when:

"Albel Nox" Lockroi screamed.

And Albel reacted.

Nel watched in shock as Albel reached for the man he was to attack, dropped his sword and grabbed the stunned man's shoulders, and kissed him. Everything was blocked out from Nel's mind, but distantly she knew she had to act. Her body was in action before her mind realized it. Nel darted into the ring of mercenaries surrounding Albel and the mercenary who was so shocked that he had dropped his weapons. One thought was lodged into her brain: the solution has worn off. Albel is in danger.

"Move, bitch!" a mercenary shouted, aiming his club at Albel's unprotected head. A rune spell was on her lips, and balls of fire shot from her hand to scorch the attacker's face. The other mercenaries stepped over their writhing ally to advance on Nel and Albel, Albel who was finally saying "I hate you" to the man.

"Albel Nox!" Lockroi shouted gleefully.

Nel swore violently and mustered up her energy. This time, a ring of fire sprouted out from beneath the feet of the men and shot up in violent flames to consume them. Nel winced her eyes and cut off the spell. After blinking away the spots dancing in her vision, she was satisfied to see that the all of the remaining men had caught fire and were running towards the exit of the warehouse, effectively ignoring Lockroi's shrill orders. The man who had been held tightly in Albel's grasp also seemed to have passed out from the lack of air, even though Albel was still standing. "I hate you," Albel gasped, unsealing his lips from the nearly-suffocated mercenary. "And I hate this," Albel muttered, wiping his lips on the back of his arm. "It wore off too soon."

"It would seem that way," Nel agreed. "But we've only got Lockroi left, and reinforcements should be here-" Nel cut herself off, noting a gleam with her keen eyes from between crates. It took her half a second to identify the shiny object – an arrowhead pointed straight at Albel's heart.

Once again, she didn't have time to think. Her body moved, her hands dropping her daggers and moving almost dreamily in front of Albel, directly in the arrow's path. She heard herself say Albel's name. his lips just touched hers before a painful, sharp impact tried to burrow itself into her back, and she knew she was hit.

vox shade: ohh, another cliffy! xD Nel's shot, Albel's vulnerable, and Lockroi's still alive! -gasp-