Ink and Blood

Chapter 9 - Escape

AN: Anyway being on my comp's been tough lately, the humidity makes it overheat really fast. Stupid fucking ghetto laptop. It shuts down all the time, like just randomly. :( I try to keep it cool...but meh.

Anyway, chapter 9! Approaching the finale. Whee! Also the rewrite of ITTE (Called Blurry Eyes) is coming along nicely. x3 Should be up within a month, along with the next chapter of OWAM, which I have the second chapter already done. o.o;

Reviews!

x X x

Eremes whirled, slashing a fresh ribbon of blood across the Gemini's face. It crumpled, and he continued running, Byran's red cloak his lantern in the inky abyss. Meri wasn't so used to running, and stumbled quite a bit. Eremes caught up to her and scooped her into his arms, more than aware of the predatory look he was now getting from her husband. She beat his chest, but was too wounded and tired to do much else.

Finally sliding into a spare room, Eremes turned and hit the keypad that sealed off the enormous doors. Panting, the trio setteled against a wall. Meri pulled her husband close, laying a hand on his bleeding torso. Her healing wasn't doing too much good, it was too much blood too fast. Eremes sighed and slumped against the wall. His best friends turned to gaze at him, silence in their bloodshot eyes. Barely a day and they were already pushed to their complete physical and mental limits.

"Kathryne...I went to pre-school with her," Meri sighed, laying her head against her husband's shoulder.

Eremes nodded slowly, trying to get comfortable against the hard wall. "It's all true, every last bit of it...," he rasped, clenching and unclenching his hand. There was blood pooling in it and along the lines of his palm. He tipped his hand and let it spill, watching it pitter to the floor below. Splotches of red on an endless gray.

"That'll be us, soon," the scholar whispered.

Nobody argued.

x X x

What the.

Seda stared carefully at the contraption before her, trying to figure out exactly what its use was. A long, gray bed, with a sort of tray running around it. She walked around it carefully, running her hands just above it. It gleamed, scratched in some places. She kneeled closer to inspect them. Inch-long blemishes about halfway down the bed, in straight lines. Slightly erratic, but evenly spaced. There were a few patches of some, further down than others. A sickening sensation began to creep into her head and stomach, and she numbly connected exactly what they were.

Fingernail scratches. Tentatively, she carefully lowered one long-fingered hand to touch the surface. It was like plunging below the ice suddenly, all pain and a frozen vice around her body. Her muddled mind could only barely make out what was what, but there was a lot of screaming. And pain. And then apathy, on someone else's part...And rage. So much rage.

She finally managed to pull her hand away. It sting like her hand was burned to the metal, ice-cold as it was.

Also alarmingly, there were people watching her. A girl with a sweet face and long, blonde hair was staring at her, one finger on her lip. Judging by her outfit, she was a sniper.

"Er...uh...um"?

The blonde tilted her head to the side. And then raised her bow. Seda ducked just as an arrow whistled by her head, and she turned in shock to discover that she had not been the target. A man in a red jacket was crumpled on the ground, silent. The arrow had cleanly sliced through his head. She looked under the table. The sniper ducked to gaze at her, her knees on her hips. They blinked at each other, when Seda lost her balance and plopped to her butt, pink with embarrassment.

"Ceci no hurt sagey! Honest!" The blonde crawled somewhat-comically under the table, to sit beside Seda and gaze at her with flat gray eyes. "That weirdy-dream amulet thing is nice," she said shyly. "I guess you're supposed to learn more about us to help us."

"Us? Are you one of the people stuck...here?"

Cecil nodded. "I'm Cecil Daemon." Seda offered her hand from her odd position on the floor. The sniper shook it, unfazed. Her hand was cold. Cecil paused. Seda rallied herself.

"O-oh, I'm Seda Alumani."

They stood, brushing themselves off. Another noise echoed from beyond the gray haze that surrounded them. Seda let a spell flare to life in her hand, the runes stringing themselves together in her mind. Man, she was getting faster.

"Uhhh...don't...cast?" A male voice chided, and Cecil smiled. Howord Alt-Eisen smiled down at her. From way up. Like all the way up.

"He's six five. Impressive, no?"

Her mouth was open in a most fish-like manner, so she closed it and bowed briefly. "H-hello."

"Howord Alt-Eisen. Friends called me Ward. Call me Howie, and you die", he finished with a smile, though the sage had a suspicious feeling it was not an idle threat.

"U-uh, both of you can call me Seddy. U-um," she looked at them both awkwardly. Cecil smiled in a shy way, and Ward grinned toothily. The towering whitesmith was intimidating, but she sensed the same energy from his as from Byran. A big brother.

A big, freaky brother. Emphasis on both.

"Hmm, well we should probably walk around and explain things to her," Cecil said at last, and tugged on Seda's hand. "I guess with that thing we can move to and from the labs."

Ward nodded. They walked along silently for a while, interrupted by the occasional commentary from either sniper or smith. It was a long walk, and the scenery itself was both disturbing and dull. Gray stone and metal, with pools of water inside massive granite reservoirs and rusted fencing. Their footsteps echoed hollowly, and Seddy watched and sensed carefully for any approaching "friends." Eventually Ward got impatient, and scooped Seda up, holding her against his chest while she sat on his arm.

"Uh, doesn't that like...err," he starred at her. "Aren't I fat?"

"No. You're tiny anyway." Nothing more was said on the subject, and she tentatively looped her arms around his neck while they walked along the complex, talking more freely now. Their lives before the kidnapping, the kidnapping itself...the experiments...and then the aftermath. Killing the workers themselves, of course. Then the terrible emptiness. Ward stopped at the gates of the complex, and Seda realized they had been walking along for nearly two hours. Her head spun from the information, and there was a heavy haze around her heart. She sighed.

"You'll need to wake up soon, since this is really a dream for you," Cecil sighed. Seda looked between her companions. Ward still had her balanced with her but on his forearm, pressed to his chest. She looked up at him, then looked down to the hand that was curled somewhat protectively around her thigh.

Cecil quirked an eyebrow, noticing her noticing. Ward starred. "It's nice, is all." He finally said after an awkward silence. "To carry someone warm." Which was followed by more awkward silence. Then a faint feeling of sadness.

"We can squish her later, Ward. We'll have plenty of time with her," Cecil said at last, a smile spreading across her pretty lips. The phrase brought both feelings of fear and relief to the sage. He set her down carefully on the floor, putting a massive hand to the small of her back to steady her. She turned and look up, up, up at the smith, then to Cecil. The blonde moved quietly to Ward's side, her round face a bit sad.

"The time will come when we'll meet you in reality."

Seda nodded, fingering the blood-colored stone that hung just above her breasts. "Seyren is already there, actually," Ward said smoothly. Alarm shot through Seda's body.

"But if he's...-".

"Walking around Payon," Ward laughed mutely. "Doing, well...," his gray eyes glinted. "Whatever he feels like doing."

She picked that cute moment to wake up. Though not entirely by choice.

x X x

Someone was poking her awake. And not in the pleasant sort of way. It was the sort of, get up so I can irritate you sort of way that her dad used to poke her awake with when he was bored. A finger finally landed in her eye, and she had no choice but pull herself up.

There was a wispy-haired assassin staring at her, hands on her lips. Her pointed nose was up in her face.

Bitch. The word bloomed into her mind instantly.

"Who are YOU?"

"Uh."

Seda was not a morning person. Nobody in her family except her father was. More than once, he had been beat with a breakfast plate. Or had all of his mana energy burned away by a very grumpy Meri. Coupled with her worries over Seyren, and now this...

Well.

The assassin got firewalled. In the face. In fact, she had no eyebrows, and ran off screaming. The sage lowered her finger in a bit of shock, looking back between her own hand and the after-glow of the spell. It was then that Ryxam shuffled awake next to her, shaking in laughter. Badly. He curled up into a fetal position, eyes squinted shut, hand clapped over his mouth. It was fairly late in the morning, and sunlight streamed through the patterned windows, illuminating the room. She sighed, and giggled a bit more until the overall teenaged-awkwardness of the situation caught up to her and she jumped off the bed.

He slept next to me, the whole night...Ohgodohgodohgod.

"Er," was the only eloquent thing she managed to spit out. He rose, leonine as always, not even using his arms. Striding over to the other side of the room, she turned around shyly when he threw his tanktop to the ground and began pulling on his usual outfit, she assumed. He sighed, and she turned to see him pull the top half of his outfit up carefully, putting the various clasps in place. She also realized his back was heavilly tattooed, an intricate work of Sandtongue and what looked like dragons. It was weird, how quickly he could shift between looking almost normal to mildly terrifying. He stepped up to her, reaching across her shoulder to grab a piece of armor hanging from a hook on the wall behind her. Her heart jumped as his chin brushed above her ear, and she chided herself for being a moron. Maybe he had known about this the whole time, a voice whispered in her ear. He played you, used you, even kissed you...and for what? The guild?

"Miss...".

What was going through his mind?

"Ah, Miss Alumani"?

Maybe she was an idiot. It was too stereotypical anyway. No need to trust a hired killer. Keep your head down and your good foot forward, and maybe you'll get out of this alive.

"You're kind of um...scaring me?"

She was snapped out of her mini inner-critic rant to realize she was starring directly at him, glaring with her pointer finger curled around her chin, thumb up, in thought. Er, sweatdrop. She stepped back, the back of her knees hitting the bed. "S-sorry. Kind of, uh...nervy?"

He nodded, eyes darting between her face and the locket, and then back to her face. An odd tone entered his voice. "What exactly about?"

Her shyness took over, and she scratched the back of her head in a dejected way. Oh, please. How the hell am I supposed to phrase this? Hey thanks for molesting me, I understand that's a guild requirement? Gotcha.There was a knock at the door, and both heads swiveled.

An assassin cleared his throat. "Excuse me. The elder is summoning you."

Seda turned to look at Ryxam, whose normally tan face was looking slightly pallid. This and Seyren, of all things!

Well, this was going to suck.

x X x

This was one of those days Riseen had wished she hadn't woken up. Really, really hard. Luke, Dias's cat, had more than taken to her. It purred and curled around her legs, rubbing up against her ankles. She scooped it back up and let it rest against chest, absentmindedly scratching his ears.

"Ah, Lady Riseen?"

She turned to see Fafnyn St. Ludel, Dias's younger brother, standing there in the morning light. He was a paladin now. Which actually made him look even bigger than he was, which seemed impossible. She let him stride up to her, watching him bow. "You look fairer than usual this morning," he said smoothly. His good looks did nothing to compliment his icy demeanor, she noted. Dias was so much more real, whereas Fafnyn seemed unreal and snide. "But troubled. Is all well?"

"Ah well enough, I suppose," Riseen lied weakly, feeling troubled breaking her priestly vows. But something strange was going on. Where was Seda? Where was EVERYONE?

"That is good to hear, especially in light of troubling news." His face was glum. Riseen starred absentmindedly at the cat, who she noticed had a blonde chest and dot on his forehead. She lifted him to kiss his nose, tuning Fafnyn out. Oh. Er. Girl. How very observant Dias was. Hahaha. Interesting.

Then. Wait.

"Troubling news!" Her heart thumped. Fafnyn sweatdropped and cleared his throat.

"Yes...it seems Ryxam Tyrik has kidnapped Lady Alumani."

The world broke apart and fall past her ears. She clutched the cat, who was mewling softly. "Is-is she?"

"She is well, most think. Byran is beside himself, searching. Ozias, as well." Fafnyn held out an arm to steady her, she shrugged it off and turned to teleport.

"I need to talk to Byran!" She was gone in a blast of energy soon after, leaving the crusader a bit miffed.

"Lovely manners," he muttered. He looked around, finally having shook the feeling he was being watched. Not by Riseen, but by another prescence with her. Wait...the cat? He looked at the spot where she was standing. There was a short, blonde hair sitting on the cobblestones of Juno. Huh?

His heart in his throat, he picked it up, recognizing the color immediately.

"Kathryne...".

AN: DUN DUN DUN DUN...Kay I updated. And 99'd.

SHUT UP.