-X- Introduction -X-
- Desolate Gail: Redux
- Started on: 5-17-2004 / Posted on-: 4-11-2005 / Checked on: Not Applicable
- By: Zeronova
- Chapter 43: Surreal

- Text: Third person, Narration
- Text: First person, Thoughts
- Text: Interjection, the Narrator

X- End Introduction -X-

Their speed was topping at about sixty miles per hour, the pedals depressed and held in place by extra Seikishidan swords, propped into the chair and angled to hold down the pedal. The switches had been flipped to keep it on and straight, the wheels had been tied straight by cloth, and the two soldiers tied the knot tighter, nodded and ran out of the driver's cabin. Ky Kiske stood over them, watching to make sure it got done. They jumped past him, wiping sweat off of their brow, Ky standing firm in the connecting passage of the driver's cabin to the main cabin. He looked out of the glass plate in front of him at the rapidly approaching wall of Troy. He should have jumped out along with the rest, but there was something that wouldn't allow him to leave.

I will not allow a soldier to die that I couldn't save... The names and faces of soldiers who he vaguely tried to remember, the dead ones who had been slain in front of him, flooded his memory, putting more determination to not leave until he got the drivers out. They filed past him, his last look, then he followed their dodging sprint out of the MT. The MT had one large double-door at the back, and a hydraulic side-panel door every twenty-five seats on each side (each side having a hundred total). They had been opened a few minutes prior, over-riding the manual lock. Soldiers and families had bailed in the previous minutes, jumping out of whatever door was closest to them, be it the back or a hydraulic panel of the MT itself.

The wind whipped inside from the many openings, the hydraulic panels skidding along the dirt ground as the MT sped along. The two drivers found the closest hatch and tossed themselves out, curling their body for impact and rolling. Ky stood, grabbing both sides of the doorway, looking back into the cabin and the vague yellow of the approaching sand stone, took a deep sigh, and jumped off. Dirt kicked up and weeds were lining the edges of the panel as it derooted a lot of the surrounding-Troy flora, the clods kicked up in his face and leaving a dark brown trail in the wake of the MT. Hundreds of feet back were the rolling drivers, and even further were recuperating families, gathering their young, looking at wounds, and the soldiers, easily distinguishable in their crimson-stained white uniforms, herding them like cattle and running after the MT. Another sigh, and Ky was off.

He leaped out, curling his head and turning to his shoulder. He hit the ground hard, rolling as he did, bits of the carved out soil dirtying his uniform, the already stained white gaining a few more hues to its growing collection of fabric discolorment. He grunted heavily as his shoulder hit first, rolling to a stop some twenty or thirty feet later. He was slightly disoriented, standing with a falter first, then finding the MT in the distance, closing in on its target. The pads of feet running up behind him soon surpassed him as soldiers hurried families, fathers and mothers calling out names of children to hurry, scooping them up and running faster, the soldiers keeping pace around. A soldier came close to grab Ky Kiske and help him up. The hand around his arm lifted him, a slight grunt from Ky as he swung it in an arc to work out the kink, looking at the soldier who helped him up. The head of the soldier immediately popped up and he saluted.

"Rivarez, we have got to get moving. Enough of the brown nosing, this means more than that."

"Yes, sir." he said almost emotionally. "Do you require assistance in getting to Troy now?"

"Move!" Ky screamed at the soldier whose eyes still seemed affixed to something sitting above Ky's head, possibly a halo. Atlas only muttered, shaking his head, and turning to follow the sprinting crowd of over three hundred, following in the trails of the large wheels of the MT. Up ahead, the MT finally hit its target.

"They really got the better of your wallet." Darton said, looking into Bianca's white satchel. It had a red emblazoned A.A. on the front, the stitching perfect and the white un-tainted, her tote bag for the sneaking missions perfectly official. All of the required items were back; the prescribed amount of gauze wrap, five patches, the spindle of suture, the three syringes and countless bottles of medication. "She charged all that for this? It was free if you wanted to go slum in the med station back in Paris. They had crates of this crap."

"That's a Seikishidan base, this is Troy. It's not like our worlds have a little meeting and venture point. They're out there, we're here. Even items like these are scarce here, we can't just get it here, which is why it is so much. In plus, the real cost really was what I had to use on that." she said, pointing at Darton's hip, him leaning on his sword on his bad side.

"Well, you know how it is with me. I'm a magnet for trouble," he said with a small smirk. She had a light chuckle also, and they started walking out back where they came. The streets by the entrance had a moderate amount of people, the gates facing westward, but they had turned to a trickle. A short amount of time, maybe an hour, was spent inside as Bianca remembered the required amounts and Darton lazily sat in a provided chair and caught a few z's. It seemed the people had gotten out of their morning stupors, and finally found their ways to the busy trading hubs of the city, making the walk back into Bianca's apartment even worse, thought Darton. He took a few steps from the building, Bianca in tow, the light click of the tip of his sword like an eerie reminder of why he had it. The echo rumbled off of the buildings slightly, and a few more clicks later, there was a different rumble. He took another step, hearing his own echo slightly deepened with the resonating sound, his good arm reaching out to stop Bianca, who was scouring through her bag as she walked. Her head popped out like a gopher from the ground, scanning, then turned to Darton, about to yell something, before he made a violent shh. He clicked his sword on the ground again, the resonating noise even deeper...and the rumble now able to be felt, under his feet, around him, in the air he breathed.

"...Shit." he said in a whisper. He looked over to Bianca, who only responded with a look of a thousand questions, before he grabbed his sword tightly, his resting position on it changed to a fighting grip and leaped backwards, grabbing Bianca in his free arm, landing back by the small shop to the side of the gates. Almost with perfect precision and timing, the gates cracked inward, the sandstone rippling off a layer of dust that shot out of the few exposed cracks immediately in a plume, blotting out the sun temporarily, causing a cough to all who breathed in the orange cloud. Moments after the dust storm, the walls groaned and creaked like a tortured animal, the rumbling continuing and becoming synonymous with a deafening thunder and chug, before the wall finally gave way, pieces of sandstone falling to the ground in large chunks, adding to the rumble and kicking up more dust, the worn stones on the bottom of Troy nestled free and flying in every which way by the boulders. The sides of the cracks seemed to lengthen, buckling outward, and cocooning a stabbing utensil, before finally splitting and falling around into small debris and worthless pieces of the now separated stone.

The MT burst through the walls with little trouble, continuing its forward motion, a few bystanders caught in the instant plume taken underneath the MT. It finally stopped once it hit the foundation of a condemned building, bashing through more than its entire length, more dust shot outward. The rubble caved in on the MT, the building above shuddering for a minute second, swaying in the wind before being held back by a tether, but it had a noticeable angle to it now, a foundation base removed from it. The MT was crushed by the loosened stones of the old boot for the sky scraper, the wheels heard groaning against the cement and still turning slowly, going nowhere, and finally stopping as the engine ceased to function.

The hole left in the wall was stable for a moment, the dust settling, people standing up to see what it was all. It was over and ended so quickly as the behemoth smashed through the gates and plummeted into the base of the building, and was then gone, caved in by the old bricks of the equally old building. Then, another groan, of cracks continuing, the splitting of stone and the identifiable stitching sound of cracks elongating and forming veins, spreading over. The two large sandstone gates felt the fingers of death creep up on them and around them, small stones falling off with every new crack, the original hole left growing larger and larger. Finally, the gates both fell inward, both of them toppling inward on top of each other, the Outer Wall's walkways crippling, falling into pieces and the metal rails ripped from each other, the suited upper-city folk screaming in terror, dropping their briefcases as they cascaded around their documents and classified files, crushed under the debris that formulated around them. More dust was blown into the air as both walls fell, the two hundred foot high and countless foot long gates now rubble boulders at the feet of Troy. The outer panels of steel and mixed metals were somewhere under the huge pile of trash, some of it lying on the streets from where the MT carried it in.

Darton stood up slowly, coughing and using his sword to balance himself. His coughs came sporadically as his eyes watered, the orange dust settling only after a few minutes, his hearing only allowing him the temporary deafness that accompanied destruction, the thronging nothingness that had the metronomical beat of insanity laced into the ability to not hear. He felt Bianca's hand on his shoulder as he stood, looking back to confirm to her he was there. A few Troy residents stood, screaming out names of loved ones or wondering what happened, the scene of destruction and orange rock in front of them like sheep looking apathetically and stupidly at something new to them, as this very much so was to a Troy citizen.

The destruction slowly had a murmur spreading as people came to the sound of it, walking, forming a circle around the destroyed opening gates that spread over four hundred feet in length, a bit of blood pooling underneath a few boulders where some body lie. They all gasped and whispered in unison all together in wondrous awe.

It was the first time they had ever seen the outside.

Most Troy dwellers never got to go on those coveted excursion trips. You needed a lot of visas and passports and checks, so that the Troy higher-ups knew you weren't going to just leave as soon as you got out of Troy, and tell the outside world all about the secrets of Troy. Like there were much living on the shit hole ground floor, but their paranoia overrode everything else, and only a few were ever let out, Bianca included. Also, those on the top floor always got their ability to view the outside, but the ground dwellers never did. Their lives consisted of industrialized bricks and cement, gray houses and even duller skies, blotted out by the steel demons that towered over their heads. They had nothing to look out to, no horizon, living on the ground floor, and to look up into the stars for guidance or to wonder what else was above was also meaningless. The upper city blocked out most everything, and one saw more buildings than they did sky. To those ground dwellers, this was the frist time they had ever seen it.

The rustling grass under a light breeze, the sky in the background with a few lulling clouds hanging over the sun, making the day able to be seen out to the horizon and farther without being blinded, and the clawing up of dirt around the tracks and destruction left in the missile MT's wake. It was like wounds to Eden, showing its blood under the ripped out roots and dirt lying in two lines as far as the eye could see, the green grass and weeds around it swaying in its uncut, naturistic way, untouched by human hands. A few small trees sat around on the low hills of the Italian-French border, a few small brooks and little water holes left in where the lit up sky sparkled over them that made the illusion of diamonds sitting, waiting to be grabbed by those who would brave venturing into Elysium.

Then, they saw it. Over the beautiful scene of God's favoritism of green came the rags of gray and yellow, hanging from families of men, women, and children, running to the now destroyed entrance to Troy, the once two-hundred foot wall keeping everything out lying at their feet, at about twelve or fifteen feet high of the stacked rubble and strewn out in every direction from the impact. Amidst the ragged people were men and women in white; men running with swords that reflected the light off in blinding arrows and the women with their A.A. bags flapping over their hurrying legs, all with agape mouths like caverns, sucking in air and rushing harder to salvation of the boulders of sandstone.

The people came rushing in, jumping over boulder, falling on top of the heap and clawing over it, throwing themselves over the barrier that stood in the way, salvation but feet away. The bottom dwellers of Troy grabbed the oncoming, wet with sweat and exhaustion from the run and looks of fear and rampant confusion in both crowds, but they embraced each other. The outsiders falling into the insiders, the insider helping them to their feet to examine and question them, to which the questions found only the tearful songs of joy and prayer that they were finally safe, hugging children and kissing their nameless and confused benefactors. Then came in the Seikishidan soldiers, looking over the scene as instantly, the crowd amassed seemed to hiss all at once and writhe away from them, as oil does from water.

Ky Kiske was the last over the heap, standing on top of it all, surveying the scene in front of him as his soldiers, his A.A.'s, his people melted into the crowd, the sobbing and confusion meeting his ears. His eyes looked over them all, seeing this so-called enemy of the U.N., enemy of the Seikishidan, and enemy of God, the isolated city and its people. The confused eyes looked back at him as a nameless enemy, and vice versa, but he had seen through some of the force-fed bullshit the U.N. had thrown him. These weren't the enemy, the enemy was trailing them, the Gears, and these were people like him. Then, his eyes locked on one man, leaning on a sword, a woman next to him with an A.A. bag slung over one shoulder.

"...No." he whispered in disbelief, his shoulders dropping for a moment, as if he had seen Jesus himself. Darton's hair was long and ragged, a brown mop on his head and he looked beaten like the savior, leaning on the sword like it was a makeshift cross, but he was no Christ.

"...Kiske." Darton seethed, a stabbing wince of pain coming in his hip as he said the name low and bitterly.

"You're...Quint Darton," he said mildly, the crowd looking at each other, whispering as to what he meant.

"Yeah." Quint said, stepping forward, the light click of his sword as he did. The crowd fell silent as he did, all intent on hearing the conversation. Ky stepped down from the sandstone heap, a few rocks turned loose as his boots tread down the side, his eyes unblinking and unmoving as he walked up to Darton, looking him in the face over, Darton's eyes looking away for a brief moment before locking back to the Commander. Ky reached out to try and touch Darton, to make sure he was real, possibly put his hand on his shoulder, but Darton stepped back, Ky nodding and his hand falling back to his side.

"You're dead, I saw you die...right in front of me."

"Seems God didn't want me to die." he said disdainfully.

"...Did you have hope?" Ky whispered, remembering the last words up on Floor F.

"No."

"...Faith?" He seemed to have a stutter before every word, his breath in his lungs to say something, thinking of what to say, on his lips before he let it out to be heard.

"No."

"...How?"

"I had something better." he said, smiling slightly. "I had someone who had faith and hope in me." Bianca stepped forward, looking at Ky for a brief moment before he looked at her face with a scrutinizing eye. He knew her too; he could remember the face, but not a name.

"You're..." he said, pointing a lazy finger at her, then seeing the A.A. bag, he put the pieces together in his mind.

"I'm faith and hope." she said with a sarcastic smirk. The tense moment was instantly ruined by the low rumble of the second MT approaching and the screams of soldiers emptying the bowels of the truck, escorting people off by force and trying to eviscerate the metal shell that transported them from Lyon as fast they could to get into the streets of Troy.

"If you'll excuse me," Ky said with a humble bow and gesture, looking at Darton for another moment, before turning to proceed back up the hill. One step up, and he stopped, turning his head again. "I mourned your death, like you said. The nameless, faceless soldiers...I mourned them too. They died for purposes. So did you." Kiske nodded, pulling out a golden cross on a small chain from under his shirt, holding it in the sun for a second, Quint;s eyes adjusting on it then realizing and remembering what it was. Ky kissed it, tucking it back into his shirt, took another step forward, then turned at the sound of a familiar voice.

"You're wrong to come here. You shouldn't be here, but go, save those that you can. We'll finish this later." Darton said, nodding to the oncoming women, holding up their children for soldiers, standing on top of the heap to grab and toss over to other soldier, grabbing the hands of people who couldn't make it up, pulling them over, a helpful hand to those who couldn't climb over the hill of salvation. Kiske nodded, running to help out his fellow white-robed soldier, grabbing the right hand of a rotund lady, the other her left, and lifting her to the top of the hill, grabbing a child by a parent who held the boy up next, then helping that parent up.

"Sir, what are we going to do?" Jaygus asked slowly, working out a crink in his back as he leaned backwards. Ky was sitting on a small chunk of sandstone, his head between his hands, wet with sweat and wiping his wet bangs from their flattened position on his face.

"I say the Gears are...about fifteen hours behind us. We made unbelievable time in our escape, they have a speed of...I'd say twenty-five miles per hour, we were pushing sixty the entire time, we easily got double time on them, but they're coming. I know they are."

"Of course, but what?"

"You should ask the commanding officer." Ky said with a smirk that caught Jaygus off guard. Surrounding Atlas were his most high-ranking officials, including Rivarez and whatever other sergeants that could be mustered from the ranks. "Hans Oppem."

"...That man?" Jaygus asked tentatively.

"It was his decision to come to Troy. I am sick of being the one to go against what is said, knowing full and well what I do may be better, but the U.N. must have some idea what they're doing, right? I cannot be faulted for what happens here, considering this is Oppem's plan." Jaygus nodded at Ky's words, sullenly reminded of the brief, and violent, meeting he had with him in Lyon. As if on queue, the fat man pushed his way past a few Seikishidan soldiers, saying his name and rank to move them.

"Mr. Kiske, what do we do now?" he asked, his face flustered, dabbing it with a handkerchief to remove the sweat, his notepad and pen under one arm as usual. Ky stood up, towering over the older, shorter, balding, fat man, looking down into the beady eyes.

"Excuse me?" he stammered in a deep and perturbed voice. "You're in charge, right? You're leading this operation; we came here because of you. It is your decision."

"...I..." Oppem stuttered, looking at the soldiers around him who all looked at him with the glance of hatred, then his eyes found Ky again, who reverberated that glance ten-fold. "I...respectfully give command of this mission over you, Mr. Kiske." he said, gulping, dabbing his head once more with his handkerchief. Ky's emotion didn't change, and he appeared as if he was a spitting image of Kliff; standing tall, strong, a determined look in his eyes and knowing exactly what to show, and his soldiers understanding. Oppem pushed through the ring of soldiers around Ky, excusing himself, then Ky sat back down with a slight smile.

"Now that that's taken care of..." he said with a slight chuckle, the soldiers around him chuckling also, except for Rivarez, continuing in a moment and a sigh "get the MT drivers, bring the trucks in front of the rubble. We'll make a small wall if we can, and we need to talk to the government around here. We're not going to get anywhere without them."

"I'll go." Jaygus said, stepping forward. Rivarez was quick to step up after Jaygus, seconding his notion.

"Good, you two, go get the Troy government in on this, we will need their help, that's for sure. The rest of you, start gathering the soldiers, getting intel, we don't have a lot of time."

"And you, sir?" Jaygus asked before leaving.

"I've got some business to take care of." Jaygus nodded slowly, understanding what he meant. "Dismissed." Ky said, standing up, saluting the group of sergeants, then they all dispersed like smoke to a fan. He stretched, looking out to the day, an hour gone from daylight from the time the MT bashed through the walls. He vaguely remembered the words told to him earlier, and then tried going where the directions given to him. The Troy dwellers parted as he walked by, a few poking him as he walked, touching his uniform, whispering names and rumors as he walked by, the mood of people still crowded around the opening to the outside world. The crowd had gotten larger, a few people talking to the outsiders, others getting on top of the rubble hill, walking around on the grass outside, and taking in all of the new things that had been brought to them with the crash of the MT an hour earlier. They wandered around like idiot lemmings, looking and holding the dirt in their hands, smelling it, tasting it, looking at the sky unblinkingly for minutes at a time.

The directions he received had him walking for a brisk twenty minutes, but he didn't mind. The sound of bustling soldiers, cleaning up, the roar of the two remaining MTs lining up, and the dull, cacophonic sound of people talking and chatting trailing the now empty streets. The large masses that had once occupied the business sections of the city had suddenly vanished, retreating home to hear the reports Troy was now broadcasting, or running to the gates by word of mouth, many people rushing by Kiske with sprinter's speed to see. He recalled the directions vaguely from the back of his head, trying to push the immediate, and almost impossible to put secondary, thought of Gears back to allow him a moment that had been dwelling on him since he first took a step into Troy.

After the long walk, he found his hand on a small metal latch welded onto the frame of a door, looking at the street he came from, retracing his steps, making sure this was it. He found himself on a street that had just intersected another road that had led, with a few twists, back to the entrance. Across on the intersecting street, finding himself on the T, he could see a metal escape-fire stairway, heavily used and leading up to a newly attached wood door standing out on the old building for its slight crookedness, despite the entire thing being crooked in one way or another.

He opened the door slowly, looking inside tentatively. A rotund and short man, whose face barely cleared the elevation of the counter that wrapped around him, a rag and a mug in his hands. The shopkeeper's eyes were dead set in hatred and he spit in a familiar copper pot in the corner of the shop with perfect aim, muttering "'Kishi'" before he turned to set the glass down and grab another.

"So you're here" Darton said with a smug satisfaction, sitting at a small linoleum table, two chairs on each side, the chair opposite from him with the woman Ky saw at his side earlier.

"I'll leave you be" Bianca said, standing up, grabbing her A.A. bag. "Don't be long," she said with a smile before turning and going out the door. She passed Kiske, looking at him in the eyes while her head was down, afraid to make eye contact but also magnetized to look at him, for he was Ky Kiske. She knew that he realized who she was, but it didn't matter now, considering he just basically destroyed the decades of tension between the two human nations, if one could call the Seikishidan and U.N. versus Neo-Troy that, with one MT going sixty plus.

"I remember her." he said slightly, standing still. "She helped close up the wound on my back."

"The one you got at the top of the warehouse, I remember." Quint said lightly, hearing Zimmerman file out of the room, muttering about going to get supplies in a back room. Ky walked forward, sitting down in the now unoccupied seat that Bianca had left, the scent of a woman and the heat left on the metal. Ky sat slowly, looking at Darton for a few moments, their eyes meeting in a stone set glare before speaking. Darton had one arm around back of the chair, in his lazy and casual manner, his hair covering his eyes that seemed to be unable to hold any sentiment other than defiance and maliciousness, born to be a rebel. Ky sat formal, not slouched, shoulders straight, and placed both of his hands on the table flat. There were two cups of untouched, steaming coffee in front of both of them, the scent filling both of their nostrils.

"I heard something else about that warehouse, from Jaygus." Darton turned his head, looking out at the people walking by the storefront to the direction of the gates. He knew what Kiske was going to say, but didn't want to say anything himself. "He told me you saved me. I remember...being hit, taking a blade, I reached back..." he said, trailing off, making the motion with his arm, touching the now scarring wound, bringing his hand back to his face, looking at his fingers "seeing the blood, smelling it...then I fell down and passed out. I thought I died, I saw Gear feet around me as I fell, unable to move or think, but I saw them around me, and then it went black. He told me that you jumped in before some Gear could stab me through, that you fended off the beasts that would add my name to the list of billions of deaths they have caused."

"Yeah, I did. So?"

"Still bitter." Ky said with a sigh of resignation. "The point is you saved me. I didn't even know until a few days ago...and it doesn't change what I did on Floor F. You shouldn't have done what you did, I stand firm by my decision on that, and I always had that moment playing back to me at night, wishing I could have held on harder to save one soldier whose life was worthy of it."

"I stand by my decision as well." Quint said without any tone.

"But, you're alive. My obvious question is how." He finished his sentence by taking a sip of the hot coffee as Darton spoke, wincing at the scalding his lips took, setting it down to let it cool by the passage of time.

"That Gear that broke the railing in the first place proved a nice cushion. From there, that A.A. found me, and she was one of those rumored fake A.A.'s who just pillage what they find. She took me back to Troy, and here I've been."

"You kept your word of going to Troy."

"I'm a man of honor, usually. I keep to what I promise."

"Speaking of...I have something." Ky reached into his uniform, pulling out an object, placing it on the table with a dull thud, sliding it across to Darton. Quint made no motion, no movement, the only visible sign he was alive being his eyes which widened slightly at the sight of it.

"...My knife." he whispered, picking it up.

"I kept it the entire time, since you died. You can have it back."

"Thanks." he muttered, stashing it somewhere on his hip with a little click of the sheath hooking to his belt.

"I have a lot of questions for you, Quint...I don't know where to start. Why did you want to die? After all of that? What made you punch me...to kill yourself?"

"It's none of your business, Kiske."

"It is my business, I am…was, your commanding officer. You were my soldier and I tried to save your life, but it seems I could not, but someone else did, maybe God. You're still alive, even after your death being flawless. Anyone would have died from that height, Gear or no Gear cushion."

"I don't argue with what happens, I just go along with it, in most cases."

"I...quit the crap, Darton. You've got as much to say as I do, don't try and be all cool and reserved." Darton chuckled slightly, Kiske calling his bluff, and he leaned forward over the table as well. "Why did you do that?"

"Fine, caught me red handed. You're right; I do have a few things to say. Firstly, it's a request."

"A request? What is it?"

"Leave. Leave Troy, do not ever come back." Ky's head moved back slightly, as if trying to hear the echo of the words again bounce at him to comprehend. "I came here, and got out of the Seikishidan...I started a new life, under K.I.A. just like you said. And, what happens? You come here...you bring soldiers, you have Gears on your tail, you destroy the very walls meant to keep you out."

"It wasn't my decision to come here, I was under orders of another."

"Don't bullshit with me, Ky. I'll be the first to admit I learned a lot about you, and you of me, back in Paris. It may not have all been good, but that's one of those soldier things, and you know damn well what I mean."

"The Soldier's Friendship, I know. Still, I was under my orders, and that's why I did what I did."

"And those you killed?"

"...Excuse me?"

"Do you think you didn't kill any Troy dwellers when you got here? You crushed five or six with that MT, but you seemed not to notice."

"...I was unaware."

"Once again Kiske, the lives wasted for your pursuits are paled in what really is worthwhile to you. You have your eyes stretched on the horizon, looking to the future, unable to see the bodies of those you tread over."

"...I learned something in Paris. I remembered faces, names, and I mean to. I have not let soldier die under me without trying to sympathize, without giving them their proper burials and blessings. You showed me that, that even a private, is a person. These soldiers...they are tools, just weapons I use, like Justice, but mine have life, souls. Gears are nothing but rotting extensions of Justice's deathly fingers. You were a soldier, a person. And, I see you now are."

"Cut to the chase, you want me to join the Seikishidan again, is that it?"

"That's your decision, I would be honored if you would, as well as you'd become a sergeant, per my recommendation." Ky said with civility.

"No, I live here now. I'm part of Troy."

"With that woman?" Ky asked.

"...Yes. Her name is Bianca."

"...Lovely name." he said after a brief pause.

"She brought me here, she basically got me a new life. I owe everything I have here to her, and I do not need you jeopardizing it. I found my way out of the Seikishidan, out of the war, and now I want to live my life how humans should. Away from the death and carnage, battling everyday, knowing it may be your last...I'm sick of that. I want to just simply live, look at that sunset for what it is, beautiful, not knowing that over it could lurk a horde of Gears, thirsty for blood."

"To attain that, the Seikishidan must exist, we must destroy those lurking Gears."

"Then you can, but I don't want to be a part of that now. I want to live, Ky. I want to be here, outside of that bullshit and day-in day-out loss. I told you on Floor F, I had no more reason, nothing left to avenge, nothing in me anymore. That's what this war does, it drains you...we fight the cursed Gears, they're devoid of what we have, humanity. But, in fighting them, I could feel my humanity taken from me, by drops of sweat and blood, it left me. I became nothing more than a tool, a nameless soldier, and I fought. I was even at Tibet, but you don't remember, on Purgatory..."

"I do not remember much of anything from Purgatory."

"We sat across from each other, you had a private uniform then, on that Chinese MT that smelled of rats. We cleaned off the vines that grew over it as well. Those Red Force Eight idiots never used the MTs, they just sat tight in their huts waiting for the Gears, not trying to go out and fight them head-on or build defenses, they sat around waiting to only be defensive."

"I remember that..."

"Well, we were together there, you were the nameless protégé of Kliff, as I was a nameless private fighting along side another nameless. I'm kind of veering off...my point is, I was truthful in what I said. I had nothing to live for, no life in me to live, it was gone, sapped from me. Bianca, that woman, she brought me to Troy, and I found life, I found something to live for and continue for. And, I also found with that, a new reason to fight, if I ever needed to. I enjoy living now, the peace of it...it's intoxicating, but it's also beautiful. It is what God wanted, for man to not be afraid of what night may hold, but to embrace it as he does daytime; not to be scared but to look onto the mysterious and evil and find its merits and what is good. But, you wouldn't know that...you're too dead-set in your rights and wrongs to have that change. You've nothing but your God-says of holy and evil, your steadfast beliefs, nothing will ever change them."

"That's wrong...that's very wrong, Darton. I have changed. I was new to the job when the Paris attack happened, I think I was hitting my three months mark, but no battles since Purgatory really happened, since Justice was relocating, so that Paris attack was my first leading. It failed, I know, and I'll never forget some of those faces that passed me by, I saw looking at me with valor and courage in the docking bay of Floor C to screaming with death and agony under Gear swords. They're never far out of my prayer and out of my mind, and neither were you. I never liked you, Darton, but that did not mean I would allow you to die. You were always on my side, you weren't a Gear."

"That's touching" Darton said sarcastically. Ky grunted, his words having no outward affect on the slick-skinned Darton, words running off of him like water to a blade.

"Still the same old Darton" Ky muttered in response.

"Same old Kiske. Bottom line, get out of Troy." he said flatly, not trying to insult or come off as pushy, simply stating matter of fact. They both had a level of civility between them that neither abused, their voices both staying within casual tones and neither doing anything to offend one another.

"I cannot. My troops are stationed here now, we took back Lyon, and the Gears stole it back after civilians moved in. We have three MT loads, packed to about four-fifty a piece, all here now. We've no where to go, and we can't keep running."

"And you've got those Gears that attacked Lyon coming here?"

"Yes."

"Great. And now that you destroyed the walls that keep them out, you handed Justice this city on a platter."

"Not if we fight for it. I'd fight for Troy to save my own kin in the process. Wouldn't you as well?"

"I...would fight, but not for the same reasons. Wouldn't you be fighting for God though?"

"God's in every place, even Troy, so I would be fighting for Him regardless. As long as you fight, I'll be content. I need all the good arms I can get in the next few hours, and I know you'd be up to par for the job." Ky said, finishing off his now cool cup of coffee. "I'd like to continue this conversation, but I've got other matters to attend to, like your new government." He gazed at Darton for a moment, seeing the cogs turn in his head and thinking, remembering something else. "One more thing, this coffee is excellent, pass my word on to the owner of this shop."

"My new government is full of assholes. Much like the U.N." he said, ignoring the comment about the coffee.

"The U.N. and Neo-Troy seem to have similarities then."

"Speaking of...are there any here?"

"Besides the A.A.'s, there are two officials."

"You're gonna get hell for them."

"I'm gonna get hell for blasting through the walls of this city, but all we can do now is do what ever we can."

"Good luck," Darton said, standing up, walking behind Ky to the door. Ky opened it up, stepping out into the mid-day sun, looking back at Quint, extending his hand. Darton looked at it for a moment, then back up to Ky. Reluctantly, he raised his hand and shook Kiske's for a moment, then Atlas turned and disappeared down the streets like any resident of Troy would.

Darton stood in the doorway for a moment, then turned back inside, returning to the table for a moment. He sat down, pulling out his knife, unsheathing it and looking over the blade. The memories of home and old times flooded back to him, where he had lived here to block them off...

Zimmerman walked in, still holding a mug and rag in hand, wiping it clean.

"You were listening, huh?" Quint asked, still eyeing over his blade, looking for scratches, familiar dents in it, the curve of it, examining with a mechanic's precision.

"No, not too much."

"Don't let Bianca know. And, he said your coffee was pretty bad also." He said simply, putting the knife back on his hip, and walking out like Ky had minutes before. Zimmerman muttered for a few minutes about the two 'Kishi's that had been in his diner, putting some items away and finally went to his normal business routines.

-X- Author's Notes –X-
- Zeronova's Note:
- Is it me or did this chapter feel very...surreal? Like it was moving in slow motion...that's how it felt to me. The action, dialogue, all of it felt like it was in a dream-like state or stuck in Jell-O. I don't know if that is good or bad, it just felt very different from any chapter I had yet wrote (possibly because I have Quint and Ky meet up again?). But, this is 43...I predict Arc II ends around 53. Keep your fingers crossed.
-X- End Author's Notes –X-