Morning sun found its way through cracks of buildings, the destroyed and littered chunks of cement accentuating the bodies lying face down on the street, some face up. Actually, bodies were there. Some were lying across heaps of rubble, in pieces, strewn across an entire street, held together by innards, others hanging off of the sides of buildings or pinned to the ground by a blade stabbing two inches deep to the tar.
The blood was slowly stagnating, turning brown from hours wake of losing its capillaries and arteries it flowed through, its cyclic route keeping it fresh, but the absence of life to circulate it, the absence of a spirit to push it, turning it brown, dull. Without the presence of God, to push and further humanity, how far would have the war waged?
The sun took on a façade of slowly rising, as apathetic as always, but its own agenda slowly faded into view as the minutes passed, its higher arc letting the golden stream through buildings in such an articulation of light that it crept into a window sill, glass shattered outward from a body tossed through, blood splats on the floor, running over and amok, to a frame of a bed, half of it cut by a misplaced slash from a Gear, the blade still lodged in the iron pole.
The bed housed Ky Kiske, sleeping from the hours past battle, sun rising only a few hours after events, the soldiers gaining what rest they could. They found the abandoned hotel, and whatever rooms they could, going straight to them. The sun clawed at Kiske, his own strength battered and removed from battle, but his insides telling him to wake despite, continuing on despite a forgoing pain and hurt in his body, replaced with a larger amount of faith to displace pain. He slowly awoke, sitting up in the bed, removed of sheets and blankets, a mattress thrown on top of the frame, and Kiske, in full armor and clothes, lying on it.
He checked over himself, unaware of place for a moment at the grogginess of morning, then collected himself. Boots strapped…belt on, shirt tucked underneath, trench on, shoulder garb above, cnter piece on top of all… He adjusted the button on top of his suit, fastening it with shaky hands, littered with bruises and peeled back skin from a few punches he had laid against Gear flesh and sinew. Then, he removed a sentiment he had been holding in his lap, and hands previously, sliding it off to the edge.
His hazardous feet stepped on the creaking wood, his sword used as a cane, pushing himself up. Even in sleep, he held to his prized sword, never letting it out of his grip, sight, or touch for too long. It was something given to him by Kliff…and if it was lost, somehow thrown from his grasp into the fires of Hell, or in the hands of Gears, he would have felt like the soul of Kliff, the soul of the battle and the Crusades, God's strength in him, vanished.
He took a few steps out of the room, down the hallway, seeing doors buckled in, ripped from hinges and streaks of blood through the hall, splintered wood floors and large gashes through the walls, where a Gear temptingly stood over a human, crawling backwards, trailing its talons along the sides of the walls as it progressed on the terrified human three weeks earlier, and killed it, the blood pool sitting into the wood in the far corner, body removed to a large pile in the street.
Ky…alive and well, yet again, dodging death in the face to live another battle. You're one hell of a miracle kid, Ky…living, it seems ot be your knack. Unlike Christ, your sins are more of a motivation, not to be martyred, you continue to survive…maybe Kliff was right in his decision, making you the leader. Here you are, walking down the hall of this hotel…albeit many died, and many more will…but victory, declaration and control of these strategic points, it's what really matters as far as the war goes, and you won…you're alive. Soldiers live and die, but their leaders…they're eternal, and need to be, to lead the thousands more to more victories and deaths. No, don't think like that…each of the dead were men, people, they had families, lives, feelings…and they're lying in the street, like Darton…quit beating yourself up about him, he's dead, he chose it. Not to mention that he was one of thousands…he will soon be forgotten by the sands of time and be another buried statistic, as will this…the death, it's bad, I can't deny it, but somehow…to some extent, I feebly try and make myself believe there is point and purpose to it, but each battle, each amounting dead, makes me less sensitive, less caring of them…
But, I will not be. God is compasisonate to all, He makes all men, and no one is just another mold, another dead soldier…yet, if they are all people, suddenly, there's more at stake, and you, the leader, cannot lead…God, what is the correct answer? Kliff, he knew…he knew it perfectly, and lead perfect missions, and was a leader worthy of remembrance, me in his foot steps… Soldiers loved him, soldiers could just talk to him, he would always know the right thing to say, a compassionate look and a harty slap on the shoulder was all it took, and a soldier was instantly ready to die for a cause, for God, for Kliff…yet, how can I do this, how can these soldiers think it of me?
I think maybe I am not destined to be Kliff…and that is why he chose me. I am not Kliff, I know that, he does too…so filling his shoes might not be my job, despite him being the best Seikishidan Commander in history…I may not be, but I am not destined to be, either…he knew it, he knew I wouldn't be him, and with that, I should lead how I know, how my heart tells me…how God tells me, and with that, I know Kliff is also in agreement. Kliff….
The steps came to him, his feet awkwardly traversing down, each echoing in faint lullaby, the scurrying of soldiers alive at his sound below. He came down the flight from the upstairs of the small, locally owned and operated hotel, the lobby destroyed, left wall ripped apart from Gear, the antique wood frame it was built on littering the floor with shards of the old orange. A few soldiers, including Rivarez, instantly stood, coming over to Ky, saluting.
"Sir, we are victorious in the recpature of Lyon." He said with a wry smile, eyes slightly above Ky's head in authority. "Orders?" he asbently asked as an afterthought after Ky's awkward deliberation and silence.
"Wait."
"Excuse me?" he stammered.
"U.N. is coming in…remember, Gestahl? They'll handle most of the clean up…I give no formal orders, I only give you an option." Ky said. Rivarez seemed unable to understand the commander not officially sanctioning an order, not telling him an exact thing to do. "Collect the dead Seikishidan, collect your friends, pay respect to them…do what you wish, until the U.N. convoys get here…I give you freedom…" Ky said with an exhausted puff, walking forward over the rubble.
"A Seikishidan commander giving freedom? Ha, that's one for the record books." A voice echoed, freezing Ky in place. He didn't need to look to his left, outside of the broken wall, where Sol was leaning against it, smoking, he could smell the tobacco.
"Shut up" Ky said in a low tone of defiance, taking another step forward before stopping again.
"Or what, Commander?" he mockingly asked, a flint lighter mashing the wheel, sparks created to relight the cigarette leaning on burning and stagnant.
"You do not talk like that to Commander Kiske" Rivarez jumped in, silenced by a stern look from Ky.
"The Seikishidan is grateful for your help to this operation, now make yourself scarce, Sol, before the U.N. gets her in full force, because I don't want to deal with you, and I don't want to have to get inbetween you and a few A.A.'s". Sol lightly snickered, stepping forward, his boot crushing bits of fragmented wood.
"You can't do shit to or against me, Kiske, don't try" he said, blowing out a plume of smoke near Ky's face as he walked by. Just keeping his calm, Ky took a deep breath, to calm himself, the smoke entering his lungs, like a sinful plague of his own dissent, but he didn't do the smoking, then breathing out, calming himself as Sol walked from the hotel, the few soldiers outside shooting him glances of vile, but him only smirking back, going on his way, sword over his shoulder, a bit of steam tipping off of it.
"Go" Ky said with a muted mutter, his words not even heard to him, but the soldiers saluting, walking outside the door in rank fashion, Ky last, the soldiers barking at their underlings to clean the streets of Seikishidan bodies, pay your tolls, say your prayers, and do it double quick. The twenty or so left got off of the rubble, from sleeping and resting positions, yawning and saluting, muttering to each other jokes and pennance, as well as the mourning few wiping eyes of tears, and standing to shaky legs to find those whom they mourned.
One soldier pushed off of a wall he was leaning on, walking over slowly, brushing his hair on top of his face back, to its slick backed position.
"Morning, sir." Jaygus chimed in his normal tone. Ky only gave him a nod, from his mild discomfort and lack of sleep, one which Jaygus knew full well of. "I have not seen you in such a condition since Paris" he said with a true compassion behind his perking, yet monotone voice.
"…It's the death. It gets to me." Ky said with sullen words.
"As it does to us all, Ky." He added the end word in hesitation, as if the other soldiers around might give him an awkward and demeaning glance for it, him being a third class sergeant, not a fourth, not to mention calling a C.O. by his name was blasphemy, yet luckily, he said it with such a low tone in his voice, only Ky could hear it, and to him, it mattered not.
"Let's do what we need to do" Ky said, his arm grabbing Jaygus by the shoulder for a moment, both looking at each other with complacent understanding, then both walking opposite ways down the streets, finding white coated bodies before the U.N. stopped in.
Standing up slowly, the ache in his knees amplified, Ky looked over the small burial ground. Littered with small wooden crosses, salvaged from whatever building had suffered the most, wood being precious and in much quantity in Lyon, using it for a service as best they could. There was a small local park near the hotel, a small little dirtway, overgrown with weeds and left to the rot of time, small shrubberies of green surviving off of what mother nature would give it, not the humans.
The plot had been unearthed by a few digging tools found in abandoned shops and homes, the bodies of whatever Seikishidan soldiers found dumped inside the massive grave. They couldn't dig one hole for each person, but rather toiled at one large hole, digging it eight feet deep, and as wide as the plot would allow, then they stacked the bodies inside. Those responsible for lining them up on the ground went through fluxuations of emotions, a few of the first shift ending up sick, throwing up, and crying all at the same time, replaced by a more grizzled soldier who took the bodies and threw them in like they were cargo. After it was finished, and what was near collected (as they weren't going to traverse out to their entrance points for bodies, too far), they covered over the plot with bodies, looking skyward in ambition, then covered in the earth, never to see blue again.
After buried, they set up rows of crosses to simulate that each person got their own grave, but each only reminded them of how many it signified. One cross to three, four, maybe five bodies underneath…and each cross stapled together with a small stake or item they found to drive the two pieces together at apex, stabbing it down in.
Ky's standing had him replacing the small gold cross he had got at Paris inside of his shirt, kissing it with a religious significance before putting it back in, his own hands dirty with mud and grime, but apathetic to it. A few of the twenty sat at graves, cradling memories and ideas, slowly crying and sniffling, the others standing around and simply watching them, leaning against building and rubble, the small park inbetween two moderately sized building, probably scheduled for construction if not for the emptiness of Lyon for years, then once it became inhabited again, slaughtered.
Ky took a look over every cross, associating each of the faces he laid into the earth under him with one, too many faces flooding to every cross, too many thoughts of how many family members they left, what their life meant, what they could have been or done, but quickly locking it away in his mind. No leader is emotional, they can't afford to be, they need to think clearly and without error…
He took a few steps forward, his subordinants following, a few nudging the mourning into servitude, who sniffled, wiping their eyes, and trying to hide their feelings and shattered mentallity of war. They'd soon rebuild that mentallity, and lose it again, but sooner or later, they'd have rebuilt it to the point where the wall became reinforced, the death and pain bouncing off, them apathetic to all of it, only being a soldier.
As Ky led the soldiers, few stopped into broken stores, grabbing whatever items they could, for personal value or gain in trade, but Ky didn't look down on it, as he himself had taken from the dead…the cross dangling under his clothes across his chest reminding him. After a brisk walk and soldiers now looking over plunders and the likes, those grizzled soldiers able to indulge in the profits of war, the emotional few, the broken, still rebuilding themselves.
"Well done, Mr. Kiske" a somber voice echoed to Ky. He hadn't even see who it was to know.
"Finally got in, eh?" He said, stopping in his pace, as his soldiers walked past him, fanning out and finding a piece of rubble to sit on, wall to stand against, flat place to sit, whatever they wanted, back in front of the destroyed hotel.
"Yes, we were hard pressed to find you, though maybe the battle had ended in stale mate due to your absence."
"I prefer to take care of my own bodies than let the U.N." Ky said with a tinge of poison in his words, Gestahl only acting like he had no clue as to its existence, his normal attitude of Ky's U.N. hatred completely wasted.
"Speaking of, there is two convoys heading in…U.N. diplomats, A.A.'s, and civies."
"Civilians?" Ky choked out, a bit stunned at the words. A few soldiers perked at the word, also peculiarly interested.
"The U.N. wants to civilize this city as quick as possible, trying to prevent another attack like before. If there's a base here, at least even a shallow one, it'll be better than that of a ghost."
"But…it's too soon, we have dead in the streets, blood still wet." Ky said, his hand arcing around behind him, the soldiers only looking at Gestahl as he peered back at the surroudnings.
"I am quite aware, monsieur, but I only follow orders. You should too." He said with a smile, turning as a small pack of A.A.'s, almost total to number of surviving Seikishidan, walked around the back of a building, absently chatting and lazily following where Gestahl had led them. The death and bodies were normal to them, not fazing them, only shrugging, seeing one and knowing that they were there for reason. Upon coming up to Gestahl, he gave them a nod, each of them affirming it, and spreading out to the soldiers, readying syringes and gauze, their sweet voices asking what their problems were.
A low rumbling echoed through the skeletons of a city, falling upon the ears of all present. It slowly died down, the rumble still there, but more like a growl than its previous roar, hearing the pitter-patter of footsteps coming.
"They're here" Ky said slowly, breathing in heavily, then turning, his hand sliding to the Fuuraiken, in sheath, just holding there for the authoritary looking position and it being one of his staples to the unknown of him, Come on, U.N…I'm waiting.
"And exactly where are we going?" Quint asked, hands in his pockets. He was wearing a standard type of attire as to most Troy citizens, clothes from the old world. Well, it was what the ground level people wore, frowned upon by those in suits looking over towering balconies and walkways. A normal pair of jeans and a t-shirt too big for him, advertising some company on the front that had perished as the war waged on. They had both been faded by time, broke in by those who wore it before, and ripped in places by previous occupants of them.
"I told you last night, or were you too tired to remember?" she said, looking over her shoulder from her leading positoin, smiling as she did. She kept walking forard though, her head turning back to looking at where she was going, her voice not too high, but somehow, piercing the roar of the crowd. "We gotta register you before someone notices they never seen your face before, and we get mercs with a bounty on your head."
"Sounds delightful…" he said sarcastically, shrugging off a rude man who rushed through the streets, arms full of trinkets, a man following in pursuit, waving a metal pole in the air, cursing with every word he know, switching between French, English, and Italian.
"Oh yeah, keep your hands in your pockets" she said smiilng, a bit of humor on her words because of the vagabond who had stolen from the other man passing by.
"And which hands protect yours?" he asked with a slight smirk of mischeviousness.
"Don't worry about me, we gotta take care of you."
Darton followed her trail, weaving in and out of the many faces and bodies of the crowd, each running to and fro, trying to get groceries, or do errands, or catch their child lost up in the sea of people. All ages, from those who were five to sixty five, going about their duties of life on the streets, merchants piled up in small shops they had set up on the sides of the streets with materials lying around, a cloth overhead to block the sun and sheets for a bench to showcase their findings to those who might want to buy.
They went through the large crowd, pusling with life, a dull roar of unidentifiable speech barraging them, the words unclear, but the actual amount of people actually doing it more than palpable to the deathly silence that stuck with Darton from the H.Q. Finally, after a few streets of pakced people, the flow started to trickel and bottlenose, not many people lingering through the streets, on ways to the mass congregation of buyers and sellers in the streets or holding posessions just bought, heading home. There were two or three districts of major selling on the ground floor, located in the most populated areas. They hadn't changed with the flow of time, since people might have started living there and they died, or the mass amount of people might have left, the business having moved, but people always knew, that block was for the merchants, and so it stayed, even in deserted back alleys and run down sections of Troy, it would become livid with people during day, a haunted gang land at night.
The street they were both on now was rather empty, a few beggars sitting on the sides, wrapped in old blankets and littered with their own posessions around them, shaky eyes looking at those who walked by as to steal it, grabbing them closer.
"We close?" Darton whispered from behind to Bianca, close to her ear, eyes looking to the deserted street, with a person every now and then, discomforting him.
"I'm more scared in the crowds, where you could get knifed and pick pocketed, and no one would even realize. Here, you know what's coming." She said, smirking. "We're almost there" she said, after reading Darton's serious glance. Wakling inn solitude, their footsteps echoing in the rather dilapidated buildings, lined with struts to keep them alive, and wires latched to the ground running up hundreds of feet, the higher city built on the ruins of the old, they continued. Finally, Bianca came to a building, that seemed clean compared to the rusted and dirt covered rest.
She walked to it, turned around, and looked back at Darton, who followed in procession moments later. The building had a buffed steel kind of look, the dirt meticulously scraped off, and made to look presentable, two disgusting wrecks of other buildings next to it, glorifying it even further. Above the massive doorway, it read Neo-Troy Information Agency in bold letters, kept in a similar font, but a few different pieces of metal formed to make the writing, welded in places and the obvious difference being seen, from iron to steel to copper.
She opened the large door, which creaked as it did on its hinges, walking in, Darton trailing behind, holding the door slightly with his arm as she entered. Upon entering, he saw two benches on either side of the wide entrance, people sitting on each of the benches for whatever reasons, holding small bags with a bit of blood soaking the bottom or papers, ranging from jittery and nervous to joyous and blissful. The benches stretched for about fifty feet, a few columns inbetween them, holding up the high ceiling of the building. Bianca walked forward, Darton tailing, to a small booth in the center, a lady sitting behind the desk with a small sheet of synthetic papers in hand, made from metal dust and probably imported from their nieghbors in the sky. She looked up, set it down, and leaned forward to Bianca, her eyebrows arching as if she was expecting to hear something.
"I gotta register this guy as a citizen." She said rather run of the imll, the lady nodding.
"First door to the left" she said, her head nodding behind her, the benches ending where her desk started, then a long hallway behind her, doors lining all of the sides, people entering and leaving some with an echoing click and slam of the doors behind them. Bianca nodded, walking forward, knowing Darton was following, and went to the door, entering to another hallway, though this one narrow and confining, for a few dozn feet where it broke into a nice sized room, with another recpetionist.
Bianca repeated her query to the lady, who handed her a small file form and had her sit on a bench, Darton next to her.
"What is this place?" he whispered hesitantly, looking at the receptionist, as not to alarm her from her boring state behind her desk, filing her nails.
"Neo-Troy Information Agency. Government runs everything through down here. Everything."
Hello, reader. Missed me? I haven't spoken in a few chapters, and as per my approach, I need to give you a bit of background now, to further your understanding of these events. So…Neo-Troy Information Agency, N.T.I.A. Basically, as Bianca said so skillfully, it's how everything is run through the ground floor of Troy.
The government takes a preceeding role over the high class citizens in the sky scrapers above, making them pay taxes, abide by laws, have certain dutiful constraints about their life style, recorded about where they go, what they do, everything. It's a price to pay for being up there, but all of them willingly follow the nearly maniacal state of unbridled secrecy up there, everything laid out for the government to see and account for. But, it also makes those people up there even more snobby, knowing they live under such constraints, and simply being able to abide by them making them superior, somehow better. Government on the top side isn't ruled by a man, but an elected group that all decide on what is best for Neo-Troy, except there really isn't anything but everyday life to contend with. The government keeps tabs on everyone, armed guards and identificatoin required, being recorded as to where you go and where you need to be, but it is also done in an attempt to distinguish itself from the lower side.
The undercity of Troy, the one Bianca lives in, is rather ungoverned. No real force dictates their lives, it's a dog-eat-dog world. When someone is killed, they are looted, body disposed of, property taken, and life moves on, big deal. People get by anyway they can on the underside. The upper city tries to avoid this, and does so by distinguishing their very life so much as to avoid it. Murder is a high felon, as is stealing and adultery up there, with heavy consequences and regulations against it. They try and structure and govern their lives so much, to differentiate between the people living below them, that they are actually happy living in such a crazy society, as to the point of no thought or production coming from them, just a day to day life of simplicity and refinement. Personally, I would hate that. Living a life without your own ability to do what you want (to an extent), and supreme ruling and overbearing by unseen faces dictating to you…no, count me out. Up there, it's insane, heavily reflecting the Zepp society they draw on, being close to the sky, it is almost like they're a second Zepp. They cannot float amongst the heavens like Zepp, but they can touch them with imitating fingers of society.
The undercity is rather overgrown with lawlessness. And, before I continue, I also must throw in a bit about mercenaries.
There is no police force in the world (the Seikishidan is the closest, but they're a force against Gears, not a police force). So, all major cities and places of life, the ruling government (despite being under U.N. control, each city has its own government to govern itself, since the U.N. is just a figurehead) hires mercenaries. Word spreads about people who have killed somebody or did shit that pissed someone off, so they hire bounties, post it at the local information agency, mercs pick up the contract, kill the person, pick up the prize. Sometimes, it's just that you don't like somebody and you have money to back it up, so they got offed. It's not the best system, but it kind of stimulates the economy, builds character and gangs, and also keeps everything in check, sort of. It ain't perfect, but it works. One of the most prominent merc systems, and the one that churns out the best of the best usually is Dresden-4, conned the Dresmercs. You want one of the best, hire a Dresmerc, if they're wandering around your city.
Some of the government sanctioned bounties come in the form of those which haven't been already posted. Serial killers, people who cause desutruction, you know, the average lawlessness, the government posts their own bounties, but the private bounties pay the most anyways. Also, if there's an unaccounted person (and this only applies to Troy), they hunt that person down. If there's something upper and lower city Troy inhabitants agree on, it's their distinction from the outside world. When new people come in, they fear them, thinking they might spread disease or thoughts or something evil from the outside world. So, they either register and become part of the masses, or they get killed. And a Seikishidan in Troy…that's a death sentence. They pride themselves in staying outside of the Gears and humans, and if one got in, they'd unite to kill, or they'd destroy themselves. Their own distance from the world also hinders them, as it does to Zepp, since they like to make sure they're nothing like the rest, they do not have the information about the recent events, some of the information the U.N. has, but Zepp is in the exact same boat on this one (no pun intended) with their isolation.
They're similar socities, but Zepp has no mercenaries to it though. Zepp has another distinction to it…which will be revealed later on. And, this brings another chapter to a close, my friends. Though, what stops you from flipping the page to the next chapter? Nothing, I just hope you would, dear reader. And, before I forget, I might brave this statement and say we are at about half or a little past the middle of the story. Good or bad, you decide, but I am not nearly done telling it, so flip the page, and hundreds more, dear reader. This is a story written for you, whoever you are; book in hand, eyes skimming this…
Ha, there I go again, talking to you, the reader about this, the book of which you read. Let me make this simple to you: if you read this, you are privileged, that this has not been thrown into the fires, and it has been published. Also, you wish to know events, meaning you didn't live through them, or that you're just a historian who wants another view of it. Hell, you might have been a soldier in every battle, and reading it just because it is there to read…but, whether or not you're any of it, you're a human reading a story a human wrote, not Gear. So, who knows, dear reader. Not I. Maybe He does. But, even that is sketchy.
Zeronova's Notes:
So goes chapter 33…ending with a nice author talk. Also, we get into the slow-period once again in DG, after the siege of Lyon, we come to another time of relative peace and drama, until the next big battle. For those of you who can see where I am going with the story (and also have caught every symbol, tip of the hat, motif, and allusion), you'll know exactly what will happen. Oh yeah…this is basically where DG ended, right after Lyon battle was won, so now I venture into uncharted territory. Wee.