-X- Introduction -X-
- Desolate Gail: Redux
- Started on: 5-17-2004 / Posted on/ Checked on:
- By: Zeronova
- Chapter 46: The pale and the white

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

-X- End Introduction -X-

"All civilians, repeat, all civilians, please come outside with you, your families and no possessions. Repeat..." A man walked down the streets with a convoy of soldiers behind him, most Zepp outfitted with a few Seikishidan. Most of them were along for the ride, just wanting to see more of Troy, considering they had a little bit of time before they were needed for the fight, and most wanted to see the city that was the enemy of their superiors, at least before they died. Most of the civilians came out at the loud noise, the man's voice amplified through a weird, cone looking contraption that made him sound like thunder. People gathered their families and children and stood on the sides of the streets, watching the soldiers in black slacks and black vests, large red Z's emblazoned on their gear, march down them. As the one in the center who kept reciting the quickly memorized speech by those who had heard him for more than thirty seconds, his followers traced the sides of the crowd, handing out small flyers and sheets of synthetic paper, listing instructions and things to do to get up to the upper city.

A low murmur of confusion ran amok among them. What is this? What's going on? The upper city? Finally! Is it because of those Seikishidan dogs? I hear it's about Gears. This is just one of those precautions, it'll be gone by tomorrow. I won't leave without my stuff, it's been passed down for generations, I won't leave, I'll stay down here even if Gears are coming! The trailing Trojan soldiers, who in turn were followed by a few stray Seikishidan, looked outwardly at the crowd they passed through, the crowd reciprocating the odd look back. One of the pairs of eyes looking out onto the procession of soldiers was Quint Darton.

"This is going to be bad" he said, turning and whispering to Bianca, who had his right hand clutched in hers, and her body leaning on his right side. They watched the soldiers pass, Darton grabbing one of the fliers, reading the directions aloud. "Go east until this block ends, then north for five blocks, and west until you reach the wall...isn't that where we met that guy?"

"Yeah, Rodney. I wonder what he thinks of this."

"All soldiers get weird feelings when Gears come on. I mean-" As if his timing wasn't impeccable through out his entire life on saying something stupid, he had once again proven it. A Seikishidan soldier trailing the Zepp ones stopped in his tracks, halted his wandering eyes from the crowd and concentrated on Darton. Quint got that gut feeling of being watched, looked up, and saw the face.

"Hey Joey, looky here. It's that guy from Paris." said one of the Four Jokers. Three other soldiers caught up to him and looked over at him, squinting for a second then remembering after a little discussion.

"Yeah, the one who was at the bottom and went missing the next day. Guess we know where he went." they chuckled. "Hey, you. Ya, you" they said when Darton nodded. "You're lucky, you missed out on the Lyon campaign."

"Doesn't seem like I did, since you caught up to me anyway." They chuckled and kept on walking.

"Friends of yours?" Bianca asked once they were out of earshot.

"Never seen 'em. I guess it's a Seikishidan thing." he shrugged. He slowly stepped back, Bianca with him, and they took a familiar route back to her apartment, the rush of people, with arms full of possessions and reading the directions in their frenzied sprinting paces, dropping items, turning to pick it up, running another three steps and dropping something else from their bulging mass of items. Quint and Bianca simply walked normally as these few panicked citizens ran around them, a few being as laid back as they were, others still standing in the street and conversing in small huddles.

"So...what are you going to do?" Bianca suddenly decided to ask, her hands in her pockets now, walking next to Darton.

"What do you mean?" he asked blatantly.

"Are you going to fight with your old buddies against the Gears?" Darton had no response, he took in breath and words played across his mind to say, then let out the breath wordless with a sigh, turning to look at Bianca whose penetrating and curious eyes made him look away.

"What would you have me do?" he asked finally.

"I don't want you going. I don't want you to die."

"I'm kind of hard up for that trait." he said with a smirk.

"Don't play with me...I don't want you to be killed. You'll go down there, back to the Seikishidan, fight those Gears, then what? Be killed? If not, your troops will take you back with them, you're still a soldier. And what will Troy do with them or you? They'll surely execute every one of you, assuming you're not slaughtered."

"But would you rather not have me, someone who can fight this and help to win, not fight for victory? What if they could have won with me?"

"One person never wins a battle." she said strongly, looking Darton fiercely in the eyes. His mind instantly raced back to Kliff's purging of Justice from Purgatory and then all the men who died, one by one, in his flight from Floor C to the sky light in Paris months earlier. Sometimes, one man made the difference, other times, it was strength in numbers, not man power, because one man can only do so much.

"Whatever you want, I will do." he said, stopping and turning to Bianca who stopped as he did. His hands rested on her shoulders, lightly rubbing with his thumb, looking at her eyes. "I promised you, right?" She smiled slightly, before falling into him with a hug and teary eyes. He was slightly unprepared, but his hands slowly snaked up her back and held her tightly.

"I just don't want you to die now. I've done too much for you, we've come so far...and now these Seikishidan bastards have come, and they're going to destroy our life. I know I asked you why Troy doesn't help the fight against Gears...and I didn't know why then. I now know why. Because of people like you, when there are people like me, who don't want you to die. We don't want this war here, our people dying, caught up in the battle..."

"But we are, and we have to make this decision" he said lightly, leaning over her and whispering into her ear while pulling back a strand of hair.

"Quint...don't leave me."

"I won't. I'll go up with you. We'll get out of this hell and be up there" he said, looking up the buildings above him, sitting in the twilight, the purple hue of the sky bouncing off and fuzzing the tension wires that became little specs in the horizon as they moved up farther and farther "and we'll watch the battle, I'll be with you, and we'll be safe. Nothing will stop that."

She smiled and looked up at him, Darton smiling back. His smile was consoling, hers was of happiness, his right hand reaching up to wipe a tear from her eye. As he did, she reached up on her toes and kissed Darton. For a few moments they were locked in the passionate moment, the world and problems of the oncoming battle melting for the moment of romance, until Bianca pulled away, blushing slightly.

"Let's go back to your apartment and get what we need, then we'll see Rodney." He said as bravely, yet consoling and with the softness that he hadn't used since Berlin, as he could, for Bianca's sake. She nodded, and they were off.

"Hurry up, old man, I don't want to have to keep watching after you." Darton said, looking back to Bianca and Zimmerman. They were both walking side by side, Darton up ahead. The crowd of people was bottlenecking ahead of them, the screams of the crowd trying to force their way up onto the platform before anyone else, no patience or courtesy given to the bewildered folk. Darton had noticed a few stagnating faces in homes, watching the exodus o people off of the ground floor to the outer rim and the buildings, not joining them. Mostly, it was old couples and people who had nothing to fear, not even death, and the skeptics who thought the Gear attack on the horizon would blow over.

Darton had on an old type of overcoat, not unlike a Seikishidan one, but shorter and stockier, his sword tucked underneath on a makeshift strap he had strung through a belt loop, and his knife tucked securely under his belt. Every step he took, he could feel it sway and push into his gut, and somehow, it was reassuring and made him smile, knowing he finally had it back. But, he couldn't not think what it represented...the return of his knife also went hand in hand with the Seikishidan's presence, Troy's vulnerability, and inevitable death of many innocent people.

Bianca was behind, a small satchel over her shoulder and Zimmerman toting a makeshift crate of goods. He was surprisingly strong for being so rotund and small, but underlying of the old exterior was a compact solid muscle of a body that he rarely used.

"We're never going to get that up." Darton mused to Zimmerman who shot him a glance that could only be translated as "shut up". "What's in there anyway?"

"Sentiments, things from my shop, my life." He said, pulling on it again as he walked doggedly, a step forward then a tug on the crate, Bianca slightly helping him.

"Well, we've got to get on soon, let's move." Darton said, pushing forward, grabbing Bianca's hand as he did to tug her along through the sea of people screaming and yelling for the next spot when the elevator came back down.

"Rodney!" Bianca screamed over the roar of the crowd and screams, and the head of the Trojan soldier popped up at hearing it. Soon, he saw the face through the armpits and slight gaps in the people in front of him, parting them with his own hands for Bianca to finally get through with Darton and Zimmerman.

"Good to see you made it." he said with a smile, his frazzled red hair and freckled face reassuring her. "I'll get you on the next."

"Thanks," she muttered, giving him a friendly hug.

"You'll be coming back down tomorrow, honestly. This is all a bunch of crap." He said courageously, as if he bought into the bullshit notion that the Gears weren't coming and they weren't a threat, that this whole evacuation was out of hand.

"I doubt it" Darton chimed in.

"Well, we'll see at dawn, right?" he said smiling as the lift slammed back down on the ground. The normal soft and precise way the pad was operated, the four wires on each apex of the panel twisting up into a single wire on the crane on the outer rim, moved with ferocity. Darton jumped on board, helping Zimmerman get his trunk on, and then Bianca, along with twenty other people that swarmed on like locusts. The packed ride up, and they got off on the outer rim. It was as hectic as the streets were, people running back and forth with families or loved ones behind them, screaming and yelling.

"Are we staying on the rim or going up?" Darton asked as they got off, and the sheet of paper he had earlier denoted they were headed for a building. A short walk later, they found themselves headed up a ramp to the upper city. From the outer rim, there were a lot of ramps upward, all usually guarded so that none of the lower city folk who got to the outer rim could get up the upper. It was kind of like a big wall, and once up on the wall, a lot of ramps running up further into the innards of the buildings, forking off and winding around for many different paths. Airborne walkways, suspended by wires, cables, and grounded on the walls, between buildings, and reinforced all through out. All weather metal grating with holes in it let it not be affected by rust, and it had been secured so that massive gusts wouldn't tear them out, or subsequently the buildings they were affixed to.

"Wow, finally up here..." Bianca said, looking down at the lower city. They were a good two hundred feet off the ground at least, and increasing as they went up into the behemoth buildings. The people walked along the ramps, then split off by their directions and a few forceful soldiers directing them, separating the wealthy and upper city dwellers to nice confines where the lower city were stuffed into buildings with each other, sometimes claustrophobic inducing cramped floors. That's where Bianca, Quint, and Zimmerman ended up.

"And we're going to be in here for how long?" he asked sarcastically, looking around at the hundreds of people locked into the small building floor they were in. There were two exits, both exits having large walkways attached to other buildings on them and an upper level, but no stairs went there, only the people in suits walking above them, able to look off at the mass of dirty people hobbled together on that floor of the building.

Quint finally sat down on Zimmerman's chest as the owner of said chest was forcing his way through people and trying to find a good place to sit himself, forgetting the chest was good enough. As soon as Darton sat, Bianca did, and all space was used, to Zimmerman's grumbling. He sighed, putting his head over his clenched hands, Bianca's hand finding its way onto his shoulder blades. He looked over at her, a slight smile lingering on her lips.

"Always smiling..." he muttered.

"For you, anything, Quint." she said with a slight laugh.

Elsewhere in the confined room, Zimmerman bashed his short figure through people, as if looking for a needle in a haystack, which isn't a far off assumption. He pried two people apart with large calloused hands, turned sideways and tried forcing his way in-between people who wouldn't move, to the curses of them and Zimmerman yelling back another such curse. He tried sitting into a corner that he assumed was just covered in trash or clothes, when a resounding voice hit him.

"What was that fir, ya lousy bastar'!" the voice shouted at him. Zimmerman turned to yell some profanity at him, then noticed his attire. He was hiding under a heap of clothes and trash in the corner of the room, almost surrounded by the backs of people who seemed not to notice or care he was there and isolating him, but Zimmerman had stumbled upon him now. He was wearing a full Seikishidan uniform, complete in all regalia, trim and tidy. Under one arm, he had grasped a small notebook, the wire holding the pages together slightly rusted and the pages warped and yellow with time, but he also had a pen in the other hand, clutching the book for dear life.

"The hell you doing here, 'Kishi'?" he asked gruffly.

"I...don't want to fight, I'm not a fighter." he said feebly, gathering his makeshift hiding spot again before Zimmerman destroyed it.

"You're not a fighter? Hell, how did you even get up here away from your troops?"

"I'm just here to survive, please don't make a scene." The man was a stickly fellow, not very masculine and seemed like his skin barely fit onto his bones with lack of muscle. His voice was instantly annoying and high pitched, and he was always squinting to see something. "My name is Hudson...please, don't tell the soldiers." he said, pleading.

"I don't need any of your crap, 'Kishi', and I don't trust you neither to be up here with me. Ye'd stab me as soon as a Gear would."

"No, please...here." he said, holding out the notebook to Zimmerman. "I don't want to fight, take it, I don't care, just don't make me go down to the bottom floor..." Zimmerman eyed him for a moment, an instantaneous sentiment struck inside him, from where, God knows, but he had a twang of emotion in him. Exactly why he had hated the Seikishidan was obvious, but seeing more soldiers like Darton and now this Hudson had to have had some impact on him, despite his unwillingness to show it. He snatched the notebook with antipathy and a scorn to the thanks of Hudson, then walked back to Darton, finding his chest's sitting area taken.

"Found a buddy of yours in here." he said disdainfully.

"A Seikishidan?"

"Yeah, damn kid's a pussy, gave me this to make sure no one would find him."

"And that is?" Darton asked simply.

"...It's some paper and a pen."

"Anything written in it?" Zimmerman flipped through the pages of the notebook, reading.

"Some, not much though, only a little bit."

"By that guy?" Zimmerman grunted, flipping through the pages, looking for a name, then his eyes widened, reading over something three times. He looked up at Darton genuinely surprised.

"...No, Ky Kiske."

The night was dark enough to the point of not being able to see one's hand in front of their face, yet it felt familiar. You couldn't see the hand, but you knew it was there…while the darkness embraced and hid the fact it existed, it also embraced its existence and gave you the feeling you knew it was there, it was comforting. The atmosphere was hardly that of a battle…it was more wrapping and consoling than that of what would end up being bloody.

A few pyres lit up the darkness, the light seeming swallowed up by the demons lurking in the shadows. The metal poles, with a structured wire basket holding small embers and burning pieces, were stabbed into the ground every twenty feet from one side of the broken gate to the other, with more pyres on the tops of the walls and the artificial gold rained down from the buildings above silhouetting the backs of the heads of the soldiers who bravely stood, looking into the darkness.

They had already been there a good hour, sitting firm under the dancing fire and unmoving light. The two MTs had been driven into place behind them, acting as a makeshift gate to the broken rubble littering around the now destroyed gate. The civilians had helped to clear the rubble out of the way of the MTs and instead stacked it in the spots where they were not, like a dam for the imminent flood of Gears, but a few large immovable pieces still littered the landscape, including the one destroyed MT lodged firmly into the support ruts of a building.

On top of the two Seikishidan MTs, as per plan, stood the Troy elite, Zeppian pistols in hand with extended grips on them that reached back to hold in their armpit, steadying their shot and increasing the length of the pistol two-hundred-percent. But, the pistols were in their holster, the extended grips on the other side of the belt, waiting to be snapped onto it and the pistol grasped. The Zepp soldiers were standing on top of the MTs metal frame, every step they took echoing out, a few smoking cigarettes and laughing at some joke, uncaring of the battle that was coming, especially with their disregard of their weapon, which would have been a strategical element, by Kiske's estimation.

The Seikishidan troops weren't as laid back though; under Ky's direct supervision, standing somewhere in the blockade of white-clad bodies, he was ready, with his sword in his hands. The soldiers around him hadn't moved at all, they all had their swords in hand. They weren't poised for battle, the tips of swords dug into the ground, but their hands were securely on their weapons, and Ky would constantly walk through the ranks, looking each eye as he went. The soldiers only looked back at him with stone resolve, for the oncoming fight, not looking above his head, but it was somehow right.

The previously mentioned atmosphere had somewhat clamed their nerves. Like a man who has reserved his life to the hangman, they had the look of determination. They might die tonight…but they weren't just going to lie down and die. The embrace of the darkness seemed warming and comforting, but they wouldn't allow themselves that comfort until they were truly ready. It indeed was alluring to be in that tight enrapturement of the darkness, to let the worries of the world, oncoming Gears, a war and death…just slip by. But, that would be later. They would eventually get there and enjoy that solace, but only after the battle, which would snare it from them and lie them down, then would they finally enjoy the darkness.

It was an odd sort of depiction of their emotions. Some had slight smiles on their faces, and the sigh of dedication and determined conviction that this was it. They weren't afraid to die, and almost ready for death, but they knew the job before them had to be done. The sort of…happiness for the upcoming battle and the ensuing death was something Ky had never seen. He couldn't quite place how he could feel it…understand it. One soldier in particular, an older man, his balding head exposing some wily combed over hair, sighed in deeply, then let it out in a somewhat content fashion, looking out into the pitch black, a slight smirk curling on his left lip, as if he was happy that finally…he'd be able to die tonight, or to fight for his death.

Not one soldier of Kiske's felt afraid, felt fear of the Gears…this euphoric feeling had passed over all of them somehow, with some unknown disease or virus that had infected them all. Even the Four Jokers, standing in the back with their deck of cards, had one hand on their swords, one on their cards, and were standing in a somewhat circle, but still in line. They too were ready for battle and keeping to what they were ordered to, and doping their card game, as per usual.

Three of hearts…will luck be gambled on our side tonight, or does everyone get dealt a bad hand eventually? Ky couldn't keep from the biting cynicism, since it was all he could muster at the feeling of the Seikishidan and then the Four Jokers. Suddenly, he snapped his head outward, into the darkness.

A faint wind rippled along the stagnant darkness, carrying with it a small hint of a voice. The voice was a harmonic lull, like a siren's voice to Odysseus' sailors, but it caught all of them at once. The cards were stopped from being dealt, smoking laughter was halted, swords were slowly dug from the ground, tips leveled to the darkness. The hymn grew louder with each passing second, Kiske finally moving after it had durated for about ten total seconds, then moved to the front of his troops.

He stood out in the front of the troops, all breathless and now looking forward, swords raised to attack position. A few whispered in questioning and others shushed them quickly, the few Trojan soldiers laughing at their superstition and making some wisecracks at the white-robed holy army. Then, the wind carried the faint womanly voice, twanged with a duality in it that was undeniably overlapping with every syllable, rise in tone, they were synonymous to perfection. The whispering lull sent shivers down Kiske's spine, until the shrill French-Italian wind bore the words of the seducing lull.

"Les éléments ainsi mélangés dans lui que la nature pourrait se lever et indiquer à tout le monde, ceci étaient un homme. Mais... vous n'êtes aucun homme, garçon. Sentez la mort, regard à l'abattu innocent, elle seul est pour vous et vous. Mon père m'a abandonné pour vous, et je ne laisserai pas que le péché soit tellement facilement effacé. Venez, mon frère, il est temps pour nous de saigner le même sang une fois renversé au-dessus de la saleté de de la terre. C'est pour vous, il est pour vous, le jeune Christ..."

The words came like small stabs, each of the poetic French words enrapturing his senses and making the world around him fade into the black he was looking into, as if he himself was the only person on the planet to hear the words. They trailed off, then began again, bleating and chanting in the same droning, yet melodic way that would seduce one and lure it out to death, not far from the meaning.

Finally, the voice stopped, when it was replaced with a foul stench on the air that had taken place of the shrill voice. The pungent, decaying smell of death…it made noses curl up, it made eyes water, it made you cough and wheeze, anything to get it away from you. But, the scent was normal to these soldiers, they knew it well, it was invigorating to their previous air and atmosphere. Tagging along with the carrion stench was another one…the smell of burnt hair, charred skin, and blackened bone whittled by kerosene.

The scent came from Gears, obviously. They walked in harmony, but they were seen. Generally, the night would have prohibited their being seen, but they weren't without sources of light. They slowly came into range, trooping over a hill in perfect fashion, a long line of Gears in front, all carrying what Prometheus had given, for the sake of being chained to a rock and having his liver eaten every day by a vulture: fire.

Small sticks and pieces of metal held up skulls, the skulls crudely punctured through their handle, or situated through the jaw and up through the eye-socket to keep it lodged on. They had been wrapped in tattered piece of cloth, dipped into oils, and set alight. If the sky weren't black, the smoke would have appeared as dark as the night, but it only melded in, and mixed into the pure midnight to rejoin its luminescent-challenged brethren. A few of the skulls still had piece of skin left on them, dripping off of cheek bones and hanging by faint tatters as they turned black and fell off into ash, piece of hair singeing and flying off in the heat, and other more disgusting bits of gore left on their handheld pyres. Some of them were dripping off pieces of the tattered rags and human entrails onto the arms and hands of the Gears holding, lighting their skin and exposed muscle as well, a few of the Gears with burned hands and one or two fully on fire, but walking on without thought or care, only to eventually fall by biological inability to continue, where a Gear behind picked up the torch and continued on and over the fallen.

The Trojans immediately stopped laughing at the sight of the Gears bearing the torches, their cigarettes falling from haggard lips and puffs of smoke escaping with choked fascination and fear. They fumbled for their pistols out of their holsters, snapping the grips on awkwardly and with jumbling hands, yelling back and forth hurriedly.

"Stop!" Ky said, yelling powerfully, getting all of their attention to freeze their movements. His eyes said everything, and then he turned back to the Gears at front. They all marched on, then immediately stopped a good thousand feet from where Kiske was. The front Gears parted to the sides, without looking back, doing so on command, and letting through their commander.

Testament walked slowly, his feet light across the French rolling hills of wine-country, almost as if he hovered above the ground without touching. But, that was mostly an illusion, he was just very agile and light-footed…said most. The Gears stayed in perfect formation, closing the gap when Testament passed them. He continued to slowly walk forward, looking straight ahead with burning red eyes that offset the ominous orange that jumped from one Gear to the next with their pyres of skulls from those who weren't lucky enough to escape Lyon. Ky in turn started to walk forward, his right hand's grip on the Fuuraiken reassuring itself time and time again as his fingers pulsated over it. A few soldiers whispered questions, to which another volley of shut-up slurs were barraged at them from the others.

Ky walked out slowly, looking straight at the pale figure dressed in blackened tattered robes of the Seikishidan. They were watched by their respective armies for a good minute as they walked out equally, to meet their opposing commander. Almost like the battles of old. They used to have the two kings of the armies that fought ride out beforehand. They'd talk, almost ironically, about how the land was, how the weather was, as if the battle didn't matter. Sometimes, they'd even make wagers, bets, or talk about strategy, or simply go out to meet each other to scorn them and tell them that when they won, their family would be killed painfully. Anyway, the leaders would meet in the middle, talk, then go back and the battle would begin. Wonder why when the leaders went out, one didn't just murder the other right there. That would have been a lot easier.

"Don't fear, boy…I won't kill you." Testament said in a slightly snakelike manner, the dual voices intertwining in a ghastly voice that always caught the attention of anyone listening. It had to catch the attention of anyone listening, be it human or Gear. Gears would follow his words, humans would be scared by them, and its hard to miss something that…odd sounding. It was a Gear thing though; all Gears had a dual voice. One voice of their first part, then a second voice of the DNA that was infused into them, sometimes they had eight or nine voices, depending on how many strands were placed into them, and those are just ugly sounding.

"You couldn't kill me anyway, Tesu."

"A name I've not heard in a long time…" he smirked, letting the words trail. A slight gust blew by them, Testament's robes jumping out to Ky, and Kiske's blowing out behind him, Atlas' back facing his troops and Neo-Troy. "My master…she thinks that you're unworthy." It took Ky a moment to formulate an answer, especially to the pronoun used, but he did nonetheless, but he was cut off before he could. "Do you know that? Do you have any idea, you pathetic human, of the true nature of Justice? Have you any concept of what is planned, how your race is inferior, weak, pitiful, and deserving of the cleansing hand of Justice? Yet, even my master is not without…emotion."

"…Emotion?" Ky said astonished and somewhat angered that a Gear could be using words so vile, when implied to a creature such as Justice. "There is no emotion in the deaths, hundreds of thousands…millions of them caused by the evil of Gears. You say emotion? What emotions have been given by the terrible hand of Justice? Fear, pain, suffering, torment…the loss of love, the loss of life, the loss of friends…you say emotion. I say that you, your race, your master are the ones who are worthless."

"Heh…my master finds you very appealing, Kiske. Ever since that elevator ride back in Paris…Justice has been watching you, slowly and surely, just watching…she's kept an eye on you. You're not Kliff, you'll never be, but maybe that's fine by Justice. Just don't die…"

"Don't die? Justice wants me to live, even through these battles where I am directly targeted to be killed!"

"Ha, boy…you have no concept. Go back to your fucking filthy humans, I'll give you five minutes before the attack beings. Justice isn't without some senses of humility, don't be so arrogant as to insult my master when it comes to those matters. Go."

Ky was disgusted. As he turned, he spat out at Testament's feet, stopping long enough to look into the blazing red eyes and the small scar on his forehead, indicating he was in fact a Gear, the blazing circle with jutting carved lines into the skin that radiated blood that boiled and seemed illuminated under his ravenous hair. Kiske turned around, walking to his soldiers, his back facing Testament and the Gears. Somehow…Ky knew that he could. Generally, turning your back to Testament would mean a scythe through your chest, but Kiske had no such fear of it. Possibly for the history he had with him, or for what Testament had told him…but his action was a very bold one, and he received no death from behind either.

He finally reached his troops, nodding to them all once more.

"We fight here until my call, then we retreat back to cut them off on the inside of the city, remember. LaTorri…" Ky said, finding the face of the man as his name was mentioned, "your men shoot off their rounds when my hand goes down. When they do, they only fire into the distance beyond the Seikishidan, we do not need to lose any human life." The Italian man nodded and barked orders back at his own troops, heavily stepping on the top of the MTs as his words echoed into the night.

"This will be a test of who you are. Whether or not you live…no, don't think that. God will see your life, what you've done, who you were, and that's what matters. Right now, you do what you need to, and let God be the judge of it. Fight for your race, for your fellow soldier standing next to you." Ky turned and faced the Gears, Testament slowly returning to his own, silhouetted by a dancing flame next to him, and the mouth opened wide of the Gear, his own horde rushing forward in a vicious attack, the sound not heard from that far away, drowned out by the heaves of the now active Gears.

"…And the elements so mixed in him that Nature might stand up and say to all the world, this was a man."

-X- Author's Notes –X-
- Zeronova's Notes:
- Well, this one was a bitch to write, and got kind of long. The French part is French for good reason. I mean, French on the wind in a whisper is a lot more creepy than normal, and it has also a bit of hidden meaning in what it says. Go to Google and find a translator, if you wish, but that's for you to figure out. Also, who says the last line is for you to figure out as well. Anyway, the battle of Troy begins!
-X- End Author's Notes –X-