Chapter 28 - The Darker Side

Lull walked along behind Dark Squall, who kept kicking at the ground. Lull made a heavy growl in his direction, which forced him to look back at her. He perked an artificial brow and shook his head, leaping across a hole in the road. He landed lightly on the other side, activating his beam saber.

"Well.. Hello."

Lull landed behind him heavily, still standing, her axes crossed in front of her chest, the blades jutting out above her shoulders. Her lips twisted into a dark grin.

"Ahh.. Shit."

Blue grit his teeth; he had run right into two Mavericks at once, unintentionally. He quickly morphed both of his hands into busters and began charging them simultaneously. He leapt backward, unleashing a half charged shot at the smaller of the two Reploids, watching him dodge to the side and dash toward him.

'Crap, crap, crap, crap..'

He landed on top of a car, and flipped backward off the other side, peering through the broken windows as the Maverick's blade tore right through the car, cleaving it in half. Blue rolled to the side as the blade continued, a ground-wave ripping through the asphalt and connected with the side of the building behind him.

'Just great.. Psycho chick with an axe.. And deadly midget with a beam saber that makes ground waves. Where's Flagpole when I need him?'

Flagpole stopped in his tracks, sneezing loudly. He shook his head, recovering his senses after the artificial function. He looked around for a moment, but then continued running, hearing the sounds of battle ahead of him.

"I just hope that has nothing to do with Blue."

Blue's left buster began charging once more, since he had used that one to fire off the half-charged blast only seconds earlier. His right buster had completely charged and was vibrating noisily against his leg. He glanced through the window, waiting for the precise moment.

Dark Squall leapt upward, his beam saber clenched tightly within both of his hands. He slammed the dark blue saber into the road, the ground wave leaping upward at a tremendous rate, tearing through the side of the car. He grinned darkly as he watched the car split apart before him.

"You missed!"

Blue dove out from the side of the car, his right buster aimed before him. The fully charged blast leapt from the barrel's end, slamming straight into Dark Squall's form and sending him sprawling backward. Blue leapt to his feet, air dashing in the small Reploid's direction. He aimed his left buster down at his fallen form and fired again, the medium charged blast impacting with his stomach, jerking him painfully against the ground. Blue twisted his body around in mid-air and landed a few feet from Dark Squall's down form, both busters charging once again. His light blue eyes were following the female Reploid now.

Lull stood stalk still, her eyes following along the blue Reploid's movements. Her lips perked into a dark grin as she watched him take down Dark Squall in two shots. She swung her axes from across her chest to her sides, walking slowly across the road to where Dark Squall lay. She felt the blue one's eyes upon her with each step, her acute hearing picking up the humming of his two busters charging.

Dark Squall coughed, sending a dark red fluid all across his face and chin. He had been wounded, and wounded badly. He had to get Lull to take him back to Ragnarok for repairs. He tried to move, but he couldn't even flex his fingers. His eyes picked up movement, but it was fuzzy.

'My vision is shot to hell too.. I'm a sitting duck here..'

Suddenly, Lull's face came into view. She must be crouching over him, checking him, but he didn't feel her touching him anywhere. He then felt a solid object setting on his head, grasping his helmet tightly. He was being lifted away from the hole he had been planted in by the blue one.

'Ugh.. Take me.. Home.. Lull..'

Lull's axes were within her right hand together, her left hand was tightly grasping the helmet to her "partner," holding him up off the ground. She dropped one axe to the ground, letting the energy blade sinking into the asphalt pavement. She hefted the singular axe up and spun it within two fingers. Her lips twisted into a malevolent grin as she drove the axe through Dark Squall's neck.

Ragnarok's tentacles twitched, returning to his sphere-like shape. He twisted about for a moment, 'staring' around the room. The tentacles pushed out from his body again and returned to the Reploid body on the floor, sucking it dry of energy quickly, before he lost any.

'Dark Squall has been destroyed.. One minion already destroyed. These menaces must be dealt with.. Fear and Climax will be the ones to do it.'

Dark Squall's body fell away from his severed head, slumping against the floor heavily. She tossed the head up, swinging the axe quickly through it, cleaving it in half. The three sections of Dark Squall's body exploded all at once, Lull still standing amidst the fire and smoke, both axes clutched within her hands. Blue stared at her in silence, stunned by her act against her own partner.

Blue dashed backward quickly, firing off his right buster, the blast tearing up asphalt as it sped toward Lull's silent form. He watched in dismay as she swung one axe upward through the blast, stopping it in its tracks and dissipated it entirely. He rushed forward quickly, the boosters within his feet activating, pushing him forward quicker than before. He swept past Lull, but she anticipated this, slamming her right axe downward, the blade clipping the back of his left foot, tearing the thruster out.

"Shit!"

Blue tripped up on himself and crashed into the ground, rolling forward. He slammed into a nearby 'Stop' sign. His head reeled as he get back to his feet, evading quickly to the right as Lull came on him, her axe ripping through the sign, melting the pole and dropping the sign to the ground. Blue leapt backward quickly, firing off his other buster, the fully charged shot passing right by Lull as she sidestepped.

"Stop dodging, dammit!"

Flagpole rushed forward quickly, his form enlarging to his normal size. He lashed forward with his right hand, his knuckles connecting with the back of the Reploid's head, the black hair tumbling across his fingers. The Reploid with the axes when flying forward, slamming into the ground and digging a foot deep into the asphalt. Flagpole looked to Blue, who grinned and ran toward him.

"Go! Go now! Before she gets up and kills us!"

Flagpole gave a quick nod and followed after Blue, who took a sharp right turn into an alley and disappeared into the shadows. Flagpole's form followed suit, vanishing into the darkness of the shade of the alley.

Lull pushed himself from the rubble. The attack had taken her completely by surprise, she was usually able to detect all attacks, but not this one. She shook her head, setting her right hand to the back of her head, feeling the fluid leaking from her cracked skull. She grit her teeth angrily and swung around, staring all around.

'The lullaby of death will find you.. And will ring in your ears for all eternity..'

Climax dashed forward, the thrusters in his feet tearing through the ground as he swept along the terrain. He was going to get to that church and remove Fear's 'heart' with a loving hug from his giant steel claw. He grinned to himself as a shot rang out, plowing into his shoulder. It didn't effect him at all, only made him mad.

"What the hell.."

He looked up and morphed his right hand into the giant steel claw, launching it forward as he came to a stop. The claw slammed into three Joe's and snapped shut around them. He drew them back to him and then threw them aside, three separate explosions all sounding out off to his right. He growled at the rest of the group of Mavericks, dashing forward, morphing the claw back into his hand. He grabbed the hilts to his katanas and ripped them from their sheathes, whipping the two blades about him with extreme efficiency, the blades ringing loudly as they tore through each Reploid in turn, felling him.

Climax began laughing loudly, the two katanas dripping with the inner fluids from the Maverick group he just destroyed single-handedly. He spun the blades within his hands, letting the liquid splatted across the ground around him. He slid the blades back into their sheathes, explosions sounding all around him at the same instant. He took off running in the same direction he had been going, before he was rudely interrupted.

Fear stumbled free from the maze of tombstones within the church's graveyard. He dropped to the ground, swearing to himself. He pushed himself back up with his one hand and his eyes caught sight of something off to his right.

"What the hell.."

'It's a Reploid.. Combat oriented.. Highly advanced. Heh..'

"Sweet! A minion!"

'Only you would be excited about a Reploid that, if alive, would kill you in an instant. Traces of viral coding are still intact.'

"I'll purge his systems later, but first.. I have to get him, and myself, to Ragnarok and report in. That bastard better have a new body for me.. Or I'll kill him."

'Right.. You. Killing a being of pure Dark Energy.. Fear, you make me laugh sometimes.'

"Yeah, and you piss me off to no end. Shut up."

Fear reached down and grabbed the heavily damaged, but still intact, body of the Reploid. He tossed it over the shoulder with an arm still, holding it in place. He took a step forward, keeping his balance. He made his way out of the graveyard without anymore obstacles.

'I hope you bring him back and he kills you.'

CN made her way quickly through the city, her eyes darting back and forth quickly. Her job was to find any and all non-generic Reploids that weren't too heavily damaged. She was then supposed to bring them all back to Ragnarok, where upon he would reactivate them with a power-up of Dark Energy and then fix them.

'The only problem is.. I'm not finding anything, dammit!'

She came to a halt and kicked over the body of a generic nurse Reploid, revealing a group of combat Reploids underneath, all generic. She swore loudly and then spun around at the sound of something slimy sliding across the ground. Her eyes widened as a burst of tentacles spread out in her direction. She turned and ran back the way she came.

"Oh HELL NO! I am NOT a Japanese schoolgirl! Get the hell away from me!"

She slammed her foot into an oncoming tentacle that was trying to get her ankle. She turned and leapt over a pile of fluid splattered bodies and kicked off the wall of the building, dropping into the darkness of the alleyway. She landed in a huff, her eyes peering through the darkness.

"I thought the Nightmare collectors were all destroyed.. The hell is going on now.."

She shook her head and turned around, peering ahead of her for a few seconds before taking a careful step. She touched solid ground and began walking, taking the distance of the alley at a quick pace.

"Ow!"

Her left foot caught on something hard and sent her tumbling forward. She moved her arms out in front of her to catch her fall, but when her hands hit the ground, it broke open underneath her and went tumbling down into even more darkness, only this was complete and absolute darkness.

"Oh no.."

She whimpered in the dark, she never had liked being in the dark, especially not total darkness. She felt around in front of her and found a flat vertical surface. She moved her way up it and her fingers ran along something jutting out. It was small and easy to miss, but she pushed it up. The lights began to flicker and came on all around the underground prison. She gasped loudly, staring around.

"A lab.. Woohoo! I might find some Reploids here! Yay! Job well done, CN!"

After taking a ten minute tour of the entire structure, she came back to the room she had first fallen into and walked over to the computer that was right near the light switch. She sat down in the rusty old chair and booted up the computer. A white 'W' flashed on the screen and the computer began a full restoration. What blinked on to the screen next made CN gasp loudly.

"No way.."

Ragnarok drew the Reploid's body in from the outside, a tentacle wrapped about its next. It was still struggling. If Ragnarok had a mouth, he would have been grinning. He snapped his tentacle to the side, breaking the Reploid's neck, completely tearing it from the rest of the body. He dropped the Reploid head to the ground and began to drain what was left in the power core, 'grinning' still.

'Dark Squall is dead.. CN has been in the same spot for the past twenty minutes.. Lull is off somewhere without Dark Squall.. And Climax is busy finding Fear. He better not botch things up with Fear, I need his assistance the most.. Him and Perfect Divine..'

Climax's foot steps fell silently down upon the grass as he left the road. He glanced down as he felt the change of terrain. He slowed down to a walk and stepped upon the grass with ease. He stared up at the church before him, nodding lightly.

'This is the place.'

He glanced around and quickly noticed movement to his left. It was slow movement, but it was still movement. And only Fear was supposed to be out here. He turned his body in that direction, cupping his hands around his mouth.

"FEAR!" The movement stopped.

'Aha!'

Climax ran in that direction, morphing his hand into the giant steel claw. He came to a stop as Fear's body came into view. Climax swore internally and morphed the claw back into his hand. He set his hands upon his hips and stared up at the one-armed Reploid, eyeing the dead Reploid laid across his shoulder for a moment, before turning his attention back to him.

"Fear, I'm guessing."

"..."

"Cat got your tongue?"

".. Yes, I'm Fear."

"I'm Climax. Ragnarok's brother." Fear's eyes widened a bit, "Ragnarok has a brother?"

Lull ground her teeth together between tight lips. Her axes were clutched tightly within her hands as she leapt from roof to roof. She had quickly re-established her position after being attacked from behind. She was now on pursuit of the two Reploids, one was an unknown, but the other one was definitely the blue one she had encountered earlier.

'And this time you won't escape me..'

Flagpole ran along ahead of Blue, who was trailing behind him. He was tired, and was trying his best to keep up with his partner, but he had wasted a lot of energy in that last fight than he had wanted to.

"Flaggie! Slow it down a bit!"

"Come on, Blue! We can't stop! That crazy axe lady is following us!"

"What? Are you ser-AHH!"

Lull stood atop the blue Reploid's body, her axes poised at her sides. She swung the axe in her left hand forward, releasing it in the other Reploid's direction. He dodged to the side and enlarged in shape, punching forward quickly. Lull evaded to the side, and off the blue one, sweeping the other axe into the shape-shifting Reploid's side, digging the energy blade in deep.

Flagpole grabbed the woman by the waist and tore her away from his side, flinging her across the road, watching her slam into the ground and bounce against it. He shrank back down to normal, watching as she quickly got to her feet, wiping fluid from her lips.

"Blue.. We need to get out of here.."

Blue's busters had finished their charging. These two shots would be the last two he got off until he recharged. He dashed forward, sweeping past Flagpole's surprised form. He came in close to the female Reploid, who swung her axe for his head. His right buster went off, slamming straight into her right arm, blowing it clean off of her form, fluid and sparks ensuing from the breaking point. Her axe collided with Blue's shoulder, tearing in deeply. His other buster went off, but it missed as she slid to the side, ripping out the axe and slamming it down into his back.

"Gah! Flagpole!"

"Shit!"

Flagpole dashed forward quickly, his body growing to its max size, his fist half the size of the street and hit Lull straight in the side, sending her flying backward. Flagpole quickly snatched up Blue's limp body and turned, going back the way he had come, shrinking down to his normal size, dashing away quickly.

'Damn you Blue.. You and your heroics.'

Lull pushed herself to her feet, sighing a little. She reached her left arm up and set it against the base of her right arm, where fluid was continuing to leak from the wound. She kicked her axe up, catching it with her left hand. She replaced it in its case, same with her other axe. She glanced around for her removed arm, but couldn't find it. She shook her head and turned toward Ragnarok's base, activating the thrusters in her feet, dashing back.

'Damn that blue Reploid.. DAMN him..'