Archangel's Amazing Adventures

by CSS Stravag

Mass Crossover fic. Chapter 51 UP! Powerful magic draws the Archangel and the ZAFT Creuset Team into a world of magic and intrigue like nothing imagined by the straight-laced CE residents. Their battles on Cephiro are only the beginning of their nightmarish journey as they give Odysseus a run for his money in the 'bizarre trip home' category...

20. Of Kings And Things

(Section 3, Chapter 4: Of Kings and Things)

"I think this is more restful than that 'steel beach' day we had yesterday," Umi says as she finishes settling her body onto the underwater ledge in the hot springs.

"It is something we have not had frequent motivation to use lately," Fuu replies.

"We have had a lot to do lately," Commander Badgiruel notes. "It's over for now, though. The Imperials are far behind us, and so far word is they are not trying to take over the North Continent yet. We get a small reprieve, for now."

"Where is it we are heading next?" Fuu asks in kind.

"Figaro Castle."

"That name seems so familiar, yet I cannot place it," Fuu notes after thinking about it in silence for a minute.

"Forget thinking," Umi says. "I'm just going to relax for an hour or two."

"Yeah, agreed," Fuu says as she leans back against the stone walls of the spring. That had been an ingenious touch, the stones actually were layered in such a fashion that people who wanted a smooth seat had smooth, flat rocks, and those who wanted something to rub their backs on had rougher rocks for that purpose. Fuu preferred the smooth rocks, she had bought a back massager on Twycross for that purpose.

Ten minutes elapsed before anything more was said. "I've actually never been to a castle before," Umi says. "Is there going to be anything interesting to do in it?"

"Maybe, depends on what kind of castle it is," Natarle replies. "If it is a military fortress, probably not. If it is a civilian establishment inside a castle, there may be some things to do."

"What's the difference, ma'am?" Umi asks, a bit confused. As far as she could tell, a castle is a castle is a castle.

Hearing that from her is kinda strange, Natarle thinks sardonically, referring to Umi calling her 'ma'am' basically. "Physically, the difference is small. Mostly, it's how many civilians in the castle when compared to the soldiers, and what those civilians are there for. If the amount of civvies is low, and they just support the troops, then it's probably a military fort. If the civilians actually have a town inside the castle bounds, and they are not just there to support the castle, then it is more of a town inside a castle."

"Oh."

"It's really old planning and strategy, walls and similar fortifications are not a defense any more," Natarle says. "Just another outdated technology that we have to deal with as it comes along; hell, the Empire has weapons and units capable of bypassing or attacking the inside of a castle, the same way they tried sinking us. It's a moot point," Natarle adds after a moment of silence. All the same, now I'm glad I actually paid attention in ancient history of war classes at California Base. This is actually coming out to be useful now, she thinks after she had finished speaking. She paid attention to all of her classes in the academy and

"Amazing, it is always fun to see how progress changes the use of ways of the past."

CRACK. In an instant, the lighting in the hot springs died, only to be replaced with the required emergency lights for such an occasion.

"You were saying something about progress?" Natarle asks acerbically, though her disdain was not directed at Fuu.

"You all right in there?" Hikaru shouts as if standing at the door to the robing room.

"We're all right, what happened?" Umi shouts in retort.

"I don't know, maintenance is supposed to be here in a minute," Hikaru replies back.

The sound of movement outside the rooms was clearly audible, the movements of technicians who moved with purpose and equipment. This continued as Umi, Fuu, and Natarle sat in the springs and waited, themselves not really intent to move lest they exit the springs to a crowd in the robing room. Thankfully, the springs had been designed to retain heat, so they were not at major risk of freezing. And none of them really had any inclination to move anyways, they were enjoying the time in the springs, even if in pitch-darkness.

"Something blew the breaker for the lights in this area, Commander," Hikaru reports after five minutes of activity. "They're trying to find the cause now."

After about five breaths, the emergency lights die out, leaving them in pitch darkness. "Forget it, I am just going to take a nap," Natarle says after a few moments in the darkness. "Someone wake me up if they get the lights back on."

"Everything goes wrong all at once, or so say the Techs," Umi says at her most cynical.

"Sounds about par for the course," Natarle says.

There was relative silence for several minutes in the springs.

"Commander, we found that bird that got loosed in the ship," one of the ship techs reports.

"Okay, how does that apply to this problem?"

"The bird cooked itself after it got into an electrical relay. We're replacing connections right now, Commander, should be a couple minutes."

"And things are still going wrong," Umi notes.

"Poor bird," Fuu says after a few moments of silence.

"Better that it was fast, like that was," Natarle notes. "Still and all, that's got to be a clever bird if it broke into an electrical junction box and tried having at the wires." Probably just looking for something to eat or a way out of the ship, Natarle adds in the confines of her mind.

CRACK.

"Aww, shit!" one of the techs shouts loud enough to be heard inside the springs.

"I get the feeling we're going to be in here for a while," Umi notes sourly.

"Athrun Zala, please report to corridor D-23-A at first available," the PA was heard to squawk. The Springs and shower rooms had their own Intercom speakers and squawk boxes, but those devices were on a different feed circuit from the lights so they still had power.

"I wonder why they are calling Athrun down here," Fuu says.

"Probably because he is a very good technician, when you get down to it," Umi says.

The minutes pass, and Umi thought she heard Athrun walk by after a few. Some talking is heard, then another CRACK as some of the lights flicker. There was a gasp of hope to accompany, then a sigh of resignation from Umi as she realized she did not win that one.

"Will someone from maintenance please report to the hot springs with a two meter ladder, an electrical kit, a type 8-echo power distribution block, and a pissed-off badger. Thank you," Athrun concludes his intercom message.

"What does a pissed-off badger have to do with anything?" Umi asks, slightly disgusted of tone.

"I do not know," Fuu replies.

"No clue," Natarle replies a moment thereafter. "Probably some kind of mechanic's joke," she appends, not quite realizing the totality of her correctness.

Again the springs were silent for a minute, until they heard the sound of an approaching mechanic with the unmistakable rattle of a ladder and toolbox. There was some low speaking to accompany, some sniggering, and a lot of rattling of equipment.

"I don't think I like where this is going," Umi notes.

"What do you mean?" Fuu asks fairly.

"I think they may have to come in here," Natarle says darkly.

"Should we get out?"

"No way to see what we're doing in the showers, and personally I figure if we stay low enough, the tech won't see anything," Natarle notes. She definitely did not want to have a Tech in the room, especially since there were no official female techs, but she also knew that trying to get out of the springs right now was a severe safety hazard when you literally could not see your hand in front of your face.

To confirm her theory: "Commander Badgiruel, Athrun Zala. I have to replace the distribution block above the springs light fixture to restore lighting. Permission to enter?"

"Athrun's supposed to be married, isn't he?" Umi asks.

"He is engaged for it," Natarle notes. "Permission granted on the provision that you don't look too far low in the springs," she replies loud enough to be heard out in the robing room.

"Understood, Commander," Athrun says as he begins the winding trek to the springs. After three loud bangs with the ladder hitting the walls, they saw Athrun push the bead curtain aside and step in with a toolbox, a ladder, a helmet that had a pair of flashlights duct-taped to the sides (which looked really goofy to Umi) and some equipment in a sealed package. He entered and immediately broke open the ladder to spread it across part of the hot springs, which allowed him to climb up and access the light fixture directly above the center 'island' of the springs. "This sucks," Athrun comments as he opens the panel for the light fixture.

"What happened?" Natarle asks.

"Oh, when that bird got into the junction box, it cooked off this distribution block. And the one in the shower room, and the shower room in the men's side. Not to mention killed itself."

"Ouch," Natarle replies. She had taken a few amps in her life, though never enough to cause serious injury.

"And he really cooked this one as well," Athrun says as he pulls the block clear of the recess in the roof. With a screwdriver, he unsecured a series of six wires and pulled the block itself clear of the cables. The dead block went into his pants pocket, and he opened the seal on a new one with the blade of the screwdriver. In a matter of moments, he had the block in place and the wires attached to it.

"Is that it?" Fuu asks.

"Sort of," Athrun replies as he sets the screwdriver down on the top ledge of the ladder. "Maint from Athrun, come back," he says into the shoulder microphone of a radio he had on his waist.

"Go for Maint," someone replies.

"I have the new distribution block in place, you can turn the power back on for the female springs, over," Athrun announces.

"Roger, wait one," which turned out to be ten seconds. The lights came on and stayed on this time around, which brought upon them a quandary: it was now obvious that if he tried, he could see them...completely. "Status?"

"Green, we are working here, I am moving on to the showers room at this time," Athrun replies.

"Roger that, Maint is over and out."

Athrun reached for his screwdriver to pack it into the toolkit, though as he moved his arm to pick it up he scraped it off the top ledge. His incredible reaction speed would be his undoing; as he tried to catch it, he overbalanced to the right, toward Fuu and Umi, and the bar of the metal ladder he was on had gained condensation from being in a steamy room. His footing slipped and he tumbled down, right, toward the two Magic Knights.

The last thing he remembered of the incident was holding his left arm out while throwing aside the screwdriver to avoid stabbing Umi with it.

-x-x-x-

"Ahead ten percent, course 3-1-0," Murrue orders.

"Engines ahead ten percent, come left to course 3-1-0, Aye captain," Mina replies. She was the only pilot on duty right now, Newman was off duty and presumably asleep. She shifts the rudder pedals to put the ship on the requested course for a few moments. "Steady on course 3-1-0 at this time, Captain," she reports as she ship settles on requested course.

"Sensors, any sign of the castle?"

"Negative, Captain, no structures on sensors at this time," Sai replies.

"The desert: an otherwise inhospitable chunk of a planet where even the Earth Alliance's most advanced warship can feel out of place," Chadratta notes as he looks over his control panels. He saw no targets on his scopes, so there was nothing for him to do at this time.

"Thank you, Mister Chandratta," Natarle notes slightly icily.

"Figaro Castle does fairly well out here, and in the other deserts on this continent," Locke notes.

"I guess you can adapt to anything...if you're willing," Murrue concedes. "Chime out if you pick anything up, Sai," she orders.

"Yes, ma'am," Sai replies.

The bridge was eerily quiet for over ten minutes, until Natarle sneezed. "Bless you," Miriallia replies immediately.

"Thanks," Natarle replies.

"Conn, sensors, I have a...something...on the scope at two o-clock low, may be a structure," Sai says.

"Roger that. Helm, maintain course, Sensors, track steady."

"Track steady, aye," Sai replies immediately as he dials in the commands necessary to track the object steadily, which would also give him a decent range estimate after a few moments. "All right, I show range to target is 8-5 kilometers, heading now 3-3-5."

"I see it," Murrue replies from the window area. "Large castle, looks like."

"Roger that," Natarle says in reply, as she was observing the castle from one of the monitors.

"Let's avoid getting too close to them; don't want to spook them. Helm, continue on course for another twenty kilometers, then set the ship down."

"Aye, Captain," Mina replies. She used a laser pen on one of the screens to draw in the waypoint on her course map, which would give her more precise landing instructions and info at the time she arrives at it. Given that this was not a flat desert, there was a distinct possible that she would have to go hunting for a landing ground due to hills. (Unlike the small motor vehicles, parking the Archangel uphill was not a real wise idea.)

Murrue moves back to her seat and picks up the growler phone, then sets it down. She had to stop and think about something for a few moments, then picked it back up. "Yzak Joule, please report to the bridge in five minutes."

In five minutes the ship was beginning to settle into position for parking. When Yzak stepped into the bridge of the Archangel, and that was still the creepiest feeling he got on the ship, it was to the sound of the ship settling onto the dunes below and scaring the piss out of the various Aereinids and Trilobiters that called the sands their home. Yzak could see a pair of the scorpion-appearing Aereinid quickly scuttling away from the ship over the edge of a dune that was as high as the ship's bridge, forward and right of the ship's legs. They had to be at least a meter tall including bent tail, he judged, for him to be able to see details on their body at about a kilometer.

"Yzak Joule reporting, ma'am," He says as he comes to attention and salutes in the ZAFT fashion.

Murrue returns the salute in Earth Alliance fashion, which also creeped Yzak out. "We've reached the destination." Yzak had been briefed earlier in the day about the necessity for at least one guard to go along, but Athrun had volunteered when she had requested one. And Athrun was laid up in the medbay right now, having broke a rib and an arm in the girl's hot springs, as well as the obligatory concussion and several bruises. This, of course, engendered the comment that Athrun should not have been doing anything that strenuous in the springs, they made softer objects for that kind of conduct, despite the real reason for him being in there.

"And since Athrun is banged up, again, I'm it," Yzak completes the thought.

"Correct," Murrue replies. "You do have the right to un-volunteer yourself, but—"

"Nope, someone has to do this," Yzak replies stiffly. Part of him knew he should not actively care if she didn't come back alive, but he also knew that if she did not come back alive, it would seriously impede or cripple his ability to get home. "How soon before we leave?"

"Ten minutes. Please draw a weapon set, no armor, no LAWS, and two extra pistols. The quartermaster will be ready for you by the time you get down to the weps locker."

"Understood, Captain, anything else?"

"No, just head down to the hangar when you are ready," Murrue says.

"Will do," he replies stoically.

"Thank you," it was as clear a dismissal as he was going to get, so he headed out.

"Oh, no, you did not shoot that green shit at us," Chandratta says to his monitor. "Captain, I got one of those scorpion-looking things shooting spines at the ship, looks like it may even be scratching the paint."

"Deal with it," Murrue orders. "Commander La Flaga report to the bridge please," she says into the phone.

The sound of one of the forward-mount ERPPCs being shot at it did not sound like a normal PPC shot, all they heard was the whip-crack sound of it striking the sand after blitzing through the Aereneid in question. "That'll teach ya," Chandratta mutters at the screen, making Natarle wonder what his level of sanity was. On the screen view in question, a second Aereneid that had joined the first was now seen to be scuttling away at a decent pace, apparently not wanting to hang around at risk of its own life.

"Did we just shoot at something?" Mu asks as he steps onto the bridge.

"We did, and we even hit something," Natarle replies.

"All right, Mu, Natarle, you two know the drill," they had also been briefed on the plan of action prior to Athrun's accident. Natarle had filed all the usual paperwork, and lamented that they needed at least one female tech for instances just like what put Athrun in the hospital. "Yzak will have a pistol for each of you. I don't think there will be any trouble, but just in case..."

"Right," Natarle replies as she sets her headset down. "After you, Commander,"

"Who's doing the driver-and-guard routine?" Mu asks as they step out of the bridge.

"Yzak," Natarle replies flatly. Yzak and she did not always see eye to eye still, but at least he did not append some form of derisive comment to anything he addressed of her. It was an improvement, she figured, though she thought it would be years before she got anything resembling normal conduct out of him. Years...are we really going to be here that long? Away from home that long?

It was a question she avoided for the most part, but sometimes, laying in bed after her shift was over, she could not help but wonder how much longer they were going to bounce around parallel dimensions before they got home. If they ever got home. Not that she would ever stop trying to return home, but the thought of trading a chunk of her life for it was not endearing. The whole affair was not without precedent, of course: the Odyssey, the main group of that story spent ten years lost to the world, only to return and find that their nation was under siege with people that thought Odysseus was dead and his wife was fair game. Of course, the story of Odysseus did have a happy, if bloody ending (he killed all the people hitting on his wife) and he reclaimed his throne, but so far the story of the Wandering Archangel was only getting stranger and more perilous by the jump. She really dreaded what she would be up to in a few months.

As Natarle entered the hangar area, she noted that Kira was mounting Athrun's Gundam in full battle gear; apparently he expected he might have to attempt to rescue someone if everything went south. That much she knew was a bit of a leap of faith for the ZAFT soldiers, but in Athrun's case she had little doubt that Athrun trusted Kira implicitly. Leftovers from the circumstances of home, she figured. Yzak was already waiting by the main entry doors with one of the jeeps and a tactical harness on for his various magazines and a couple grenades. Natarle expected nothing less in these circumstances, and even relished the thought of having an extra pistol at hand for these purposes. Royalty could be rather unpredictable, the history books showed, which made her rather jittery and somewhat reluctant to do this at all. Not to mention the unit's experience with Princess Emeraude. The only prop she had was that Locke considered the King on the level or better, which thus far he was on the level as far as Natarle was concerned, so there might be a modicum of truth there. She had her orders, though she did not like them.

"Ready to go?" Natarle asks as she approaches.

"Yeah, you might want these," Yzak says as he passes each a pistol in holster. The holsters themselves had an extra magazine in a pouch on them, which gave them a 15+1 pistol that also had another fifteen, and all three of the involved persons had their own magic melee weapon to sort out anyone real close to them. It was little in the way of reassurance, but better than nothing, which in turn beat the hell out of a stick to the eye.

"Thanks," Natarle replies as she pulls enough of her belt to secure the holster. With that slipped on, she refastened her belt and finished adjusting the holster to her preferred draw angle before she clamped it down. Mu had done the same, though he was less finicky about the placement of his holster than others were, particularly Natarle.

"Control, Mission, requesting vector to the castle, over," Yzak asks into a radio as the four of them climb into the jeep. Locke had thus far been rather silent about the plan, but most of that was because he had a very minimalistic clue what the vehicle he was in was for.

"Mission, this is Control, heading 0-1-0 at range 65 kilometers is the castle. Good luck, Mission," Miriallia replies.

"We're all wising you good luck, Mission," Sai says loud enough to be heard by Miriallia's microphone.

"Roger that," Yzak replies. In a matter of a minute, one of the mechanics had opened the bay doors to allow the jeep out, and the four of them were on the way.

"Whoa...are we supposed to be going this fast?" Locke asks, looking around the dunes warily.

"Eh, we're only doing seventy," Yzak replies, meaning seventy kilometers per hour. It happened to be much faster than a Chocobo at a dead run, however, which is what Locke was mostly experienced with, the ability to run way the hell away from Imperials when they caught him in the wrong place at the wrong time. It did not use rails like the Empire's vaunted train lines, which made it far more flexible. Locke wanted one, severely.

"This is amazing, a lot smoother than steam-engine machines," Locke notes. He had been on Doma's rail lines more than once and marveled at the speed and efficiency as well as the ease of escaping the Empire, but this was far better and not limited to rails.

"What the hell is that?" Mu asks, looking forward.

"Looks like a pack of Aereneid," Locke says. "In numbers, they are very dangerous. Watch out," he notes. The said creatures were marching along the spine of a desert dune that Yzak was heading for.

"I am not stopping for them," Yzak says crassly, though he was maneuvering to avoid the bulk of their numbers. Still and all, he ended up hitting two of the said denizens of the desert, which wildly jarred the vehicle and sent the meter-tall scorpion-looking critters tumbling out of the way, assuredly killed by the impact.

"Wow," Mu says in something approaching a squeak. Yzak had to run the window washer for almost a minute to clean the Aereneid guts off the windows, but otherwise there was no damage to the vehicle courtesy of its mil-grade construction.

"Told ya I wasn't gonna stop," Yzak notes coldly.

"Cute, Yzak, just don't hit anything that's gonna get bug guts all over us, okay?" Natarle says in the moments after the stunned silence.

"Yes, Commander," Yzak replies with an obvious smile to tone. As the jeep crested the hill, Yzak could see numerous such groups in the desert and many of them were between the castle and his vehicle. He could naught but smile at the thought; he had plenty of frustration to calve, he always did after a losing battle.

-x-x-x-

Despite enjoying running over the foul-tempered Aereneid in the desert around Figaro, Yzak did not like the fact that he was away from the ship regardless. Too many variables, and he had the unenviable task of guarding the two Commanders in what was supposedly a friendly location, but the looks from the guards said otherwise.

On the plus side, he only counted a handful of old arquebus, older muzzle-loaded black powder muskets. The Federated AR-32 he carried, one of the newer weapons picked up from the armaments groups on Twycross, would be more than enough to settle an inaccurate arquebus and its moronic user, so long as he wasn't ambushed. Not to mention the various sword and pike users stupid enough to try charging him down, should it come to that.

"Halt!" The main entry guard orders as they approach. "Oh, it's you," the guard notes as he visually identifies Locke, given the angle he was looking at. "Proceed," he says as he pushes open one of the doors. As the group filed past, Yzak looked the Guard up and down to see what kind of arms and armor he carried. Sword, chain mail with scale plates, nothing too impressive. Basically advertisement and not a serious threat in the age of gunpowder weapons.

Inside the first doors, they passed through the castle's gatehouse, which in addition to having the typical medieval castle defense tricks (portcullis, murder holes, arrow slits, etcetera) (1) also had a pair of secured stairways headed into the castle interior. Strange, that, they all figured, given that it was supposed to be a defensible structure they had entryways into the lower reaches of the castle that close to an exterior entrance. Yzak could only guess at how they expected to defend those staircases in a siege.

After passing through the gatehouse, they were inside the main castle foyer. To right and left were square crenelated turrets flanking a gradually sloping staircase that led to the castle main keep; outside the rather tall and crenelated exterior curtain walls were a pair of exterior towers, square with rounded corners, connected by a breezeway/walkway to the main castle body. Everywhere Yzak could hear the unmistakable whine of machinery, likely environmental control systems for the castle. In the light desert breeze the banners and flags of Figaro flapped in the wind. Everywhere, there were the eyes of guards on Yzak, and he knew it.

Inside the main keep, the air did not match the hot and dry exterior of the castle, it was cool and almost clammy, a pleasant change of environs from the brutal desert. The only thing Yzak had to say good about this whole scenario was that Natarle was not one of those ladies that complained about any detriments to her appearance (such as hot, dry air that dried her out). So far, she had said nothing of note since they entered the castle, which endeared her more to Yzak. He did not want to listen to idle chat.

"Locke, well come (2), how went your expedition in the South?" the person in question did not match what Yzak had thus far heard about King Edgar, so she figured him to be a high-ranking subordinate of the King.

"Excellent, Chancellor, excellent. I learned a lot in my travels and even got to watch the First Imperial get bled out by...well, shall we say, a mysterious entity."

"This wouldn't happen to have anything to do with rumors about some massive winged-and-legged thing like a warship that flies like the Gambler's Airship, right?" the Chancellor replies.

"It does, actually," Locke replies. "It's a long and very crazy story, but I got to watch part of the battle myself," he replies. "I have never even thought about anyone having the kind of power needed to slaughter the Empire's Magitek forces wholesale, short of the old tales of the Espers," Locke adds.

"This I must hear sometime," the Chancellor notes. "Regardless, the King would like to speak to you, and likely your guests as well," he notes with a strange intonation. Their English was more along what was called the British lines, but still easily understandable to Natarle, Mu and Yzak.

"In chambers?" Locke asks.

"No, throne room," the Chancellor gestured to the highly decorated double doors at the end of the hallway they were in.

"Thank you, Chancellor," Locke replies as he heads for the doors. The three from the Archangel held their position, awaiting an invite into the throne room as would be nominal custom. "Hail, King Edgar, how fares the realm?" Locke asks as he enters the room, though as the doors closed any such hearing was cut off; the Chancellor had entered the throne room as well, ostensibly as an escort to Locke, though Natarle figured it to hear the tale more than to escort someone who was already on good terms with the King.

"I am beginning to think this may not have been a bad op," Yzak says in Japanese, so as to prevent it from being understood by the paltry four guards in the room.

"I would not count this one yet," Natarle replies in the same language. She reminded herself that she had not thus met the King, which left a lot of open territory.

"And now we wait," Yzak notes in Japanese. He had his weapon combat slung but his hands were free, no grip on the weapon's handle, which made his presence less threatening somewhat.

"Interesting..." Mu says as he starts examining a set of armor nearby where they were waiting.

"So, this is the world?" Natarle says, looking over a map in a large tapestry depending from the wall. "Okay, this is where we stiffed the First Imperial, I guess," Natarle points to where it appeared they had been; "then after they started bringing their numbers down on us, we traced down here to Maranda, then west and away from the enemy over here," Natarle notes.

"If this is accurate, we came ashore about here," Mu says. He had taken out a Skygrasper to check their arrival location, in case the enemy had some form of ambush waiting. Beyond that, there had been little in terms of human activity anywhere; most of the land was uninhabited.

"This must be where those air forces sortied from, if I'm remembering my bearings and direction orders correctly," Natarle notes as she traces the paths out. The path led to a very large city more or less in the middle of the southern continent.

"Vector, the Imperial Capital," Locke notes from behind them. "And did I hear that right? You tangled with the Imperial Air Force?"

"You heard correct," Natarle notes. God, we're lucky we survived, Natarle thinks aloud, considering that Vector itself looked on map and scale to be larger than Chicago. In comparison, the cities around the rest of the area looked collectively smaller than most of the suburbs of Chicago did, which rather skewed the odds in the Empire's favor.

"Oh man," Locke says. "I figured you guys were powerful, but that's a whole different story," Locke says. "Anyways, the King wants to speak to you two," and his gesture indicates the two Commanders.

"I'll hold here," Yzak notes as he changes orientation to keep an eye on the main entrance to the area (that led out to the castle courtyard).

As the two Commanders entered the throne room, Yzak found himself a bit uneasy again. After a few of analyzing it, he realized that whatever unease he had was from the fact that he was standing alone at this time, and even the presence of the Earth Alliance commanders was a damn sight better than being alone, even if they were still 'technically' the enemy. The semi-hostile looks from the guards around the room did not help the matter, of course, though the fact that only one of them was armed with an arquebus meant that if he had to he could eliminate all four of them in a matter of moments, and with almost zero hazard to himself. Getting out of the castle was another story, however.

After about ten minutes, Yzak noticed he was being watched, and not just by the guards. He figured it inevitable that once word got around about these new and strange people, someone would come looking. He could tell that the looks were coming from a stairwell that was nearby the shop to the left of the main walkway (headed toward the throne room, there was a shop on either side of the red carpet). Rather than looking at what he thought he sensed and heard in whispers, Yzak took a page out of his CQB (3) training and reached into one of the pockets of his tactical harness. He had 'borrowed' one of the blush compacts that the Allster girl seemed to hoard (as if looking good on a warship mattered whatsoever) and cleaned the actual makeup out of it, leaving just the black compact with a magnifying mirror in it. This Compact he pulled, flipped open with just his left hand, and snaked the mirror surface around his right arm so as to be able to see behind him and to the right. With a little creative angling he was able to get a good look at the persons that were spying on him.

They were several ladies and a couple guys, all crowded around the corner of the shop and most were trying to be quiet about it. One of the guys and at least three of the girls had to be continually reminded with gestures or sounds to be silent, and it was fairly obvious that Yzak was their object of beholding. "Isn't this just wonderful," he mutters as he puts the compact away.

Minutes passed, and Yzak could pick up enough of their conversation to come to a conclusion. First, the guys were foppish airheads hellbent on proving to the girls that they just had to be better than this mysterious foreigner. Several more passed, and he concluded that the ladies were wondering if he was some sort of prince on military duty and if he was basically available. This engendered a disgusted moan from Yzak, who despite wanting to flip them a flashbang to get them to go away, still did not move.

Another several minutes passed, and Yzak could only guess that his observers were trying to get dimensions on him without getting close. As if they aren't being obvious about it to begin with, Yzak thinks aloud. The doors finally came open and the two Commanders were the first out, followed by Locke and the Chancellor, then someone in a blue cloak and wearing something akin to plate armor. Before Yzak could comment on the condition of Commander Badgiruel's face, which appeared to be beet red out of embarassment (not her atypical frustration he often seen her suffering from), Mu La Flaga shook his head enough that Yzak knew not to press the issue.

"Ready to move out?" Natarle asked in what almost sounded like a level tone. Almost, not quite to Yzak.

"Aye, Commander," he replies seriously, then moves toward.

Mu stopped next to him, though he had at least at a glance looked past Yzak toward his collection of potential stalkers. "Friends of yours?" he asks low, so as to not be heard by them, and not to give away his intent he was looking down the hall, not toward them.

"It is a story," Yzak says, not really thinking it worthy of the title 'long story' since it encompassed less than twenty minutes total, and would take no more than two minutes to completely explain.

That much being said was enough to restore most of Natarle's normal color. After a moment that Yzak could tell she was trying hard to compose herself, she turned back to the King. "Thank you for the offer, King Edgar. I will relay it to my commanding officer," she notes. "Unless something comes up, we should be back here in about two hours, maybe less."

"Thank you, Commander Badgiruel," the King replies. "I look forward to your return," he adds smoothly. Yzak needed not ask what had happened, he could tell by prior evidence combined with the inflection of the King's voice what had transpired. Being the commensurate and elite soldier he was, Yzak masterfully suppressed his immediate reaction to bust out laughing. Not that he objected, per se, she was allowed just as much personal leeway as those perverts Mir and Tolle, but Yzak did not think they were in there that long...

"Thank you, highness," Natarle replies almost level again. "We shall be off, unless something else is at hand?"

"Safe journey, Commander," the King replies.

"Lead us off, Yzak," Commander La Flaga requests as Yzak clearly notes a mini-exodus of those who were spying on him prior.

Outside at the jeep, the three filed in and Yzak made no hesitation in getting moving again, this time heading 1-9-0 to get back to the ship, almost due south.

"Okay, what was with that mob behind you, Yzak?" Mu asks after they were definitely out of earshot of the castle.

"Just about everything, from the guys thinking they could take me down to a couple of the more adventurous ladies trying to get dimensions on my butt without a tape measure," Yzak replies. A quick glance confirmed that Mu was indeed trying to stifle a laugh, and mostly succeeding.

"Any issues with the guards?" he asks after a moment.

"No, they just stood there and stared at me like good guards," Yzak replies with contempt. To point, not one of them showed any sensibility, even when there was possible hazard to their king. "Now, what happened with you guys?"

"Oh, the King hit on Natarle enough times I lost track of how many," Mu replies offhand.

"Well, I figured as much," Yzak notes. "I take it you didn't even give him the time of day?" Yzak asks the mirror, and by extension Natarle.

"What? Be uncivil to a King? Are you crazy?" Natarle asks in response.

"Point taken," Yzak replies, seeing a whole wealth of possible outcomes to that scenario, most of them one bent or another of disastrous, but all of them hilarious nonetheless.

It was with these highly amusing thoughts that he entertained himself on the drive back to the ship.

-x-x-x-

"What's goin' on, Yzak?" Tolle asks as he happens across the Gundam pilot in one of the service access hatches nearby the hot springs.

"Checking something, Tolle," Yzak says without even pulling his head out of the access hatch.

"Oh?" Athrun asks from behind Tolle. "What are you checking for?"

"A while back I happened across a gaggle of mechanics farting around in this access compartment, trying to connect a remote data feed into the recorder systems on those holoprojectors—"

"In the Ladies' room, right?" Athrun asks, then snorts. "Kira and I removed all the recording connection points from the machines and soldered open those contacts. They would have to do a lot of work on the machine to get it working for recording again, and I think Kira killed the recording firmware on the projectors anyways."

"Never underestimate the power of pervert technicians in any size of group," Yzak says, modding a catchphrase from long ago to suit his purpose. (4)

"True," Athrun concedes after a moment. "What were they planning?"

"Snake a cable down this conduit to the record outputs, then run it back along one of the weps controllers on an unused channel to the mainframes, and from there out to wherever," Yzak says of what he remembered to be their plan.

"Okay, need some help on the testing side?" Athrun asks, suddenly quite worried that Kira's burst of inspiration that he helped set up could be used to malicious purpose.

"Wha—" Tolle begins, then snaps his mouth shut with a quelling glance from Athrun.

"I'm not going to let Kira get screwed over for something a pervert did," Athrun replies deadpan. "The castle can wait."

"Yeah, you're right, this is more important," Tolle notes. "Anything I can do to help?"

"Here," Yzak passes Tolle a small testing device with a digital output screen. "Start checking every cable in this harness. If you find a video feed, tell me immediately." The harness in question led to missile tube MP28, Yzak was on harness MP26 and Athrun checking MP27.

"Thirty-two missile tubes," Athrun notes, remembering that when they started this mad-end of a tour, the Archangel was far less substantial than it was now.

"I've already given up on sinking this ship," Yzak notes. "This thing's only gotten tougher since we started, and its arsenal is a helluva lot more powerful. If I do end up back in ZAFT I'm avoiding this ship like the plague," he concludes.

"You have to admit the crew is a lot better now than over the I-O, as well," Athrun notes, referencing their battle just barely outside Aube territory.

"Yeah, that scares me as well, and your friend Kira, God help ZAFT if he gets anything equivalent or better than the Strike," Yzak notes in response.

"You're still missing that one, Yzak. He never was Earth Alliance, he was fighting just to defend this ship. Kira couldn't give a hill of beans about the Earth Alliance, he was just defending Flay, err, all of us." Tolle declares with definitive resolve.

"Flay is right, I'd say, she could manipulate the Pope into signing a contract with the devil," Yzak notes with a derisive sniff. "Superwench," he concludes after a moment.

"Whoa, what is—" Tolle says, causing both the pilots to look at him just as his jaw drops open. After a moment: "Whoa, holy shit," he barely squeaks a moment later.

"What?" Athrun asks, then checks the display. "Oh, wow," he notes in shock himself, causing Yzak to arch his neck to take a look.

"Well, looks like we found the bastard wire," Yzak notes after he gets a good look. "She's bigger than she looks, yes, but we have a mission, guys. Focus on that," Yzak notes. "God, after the shit we pulled in Academy, I'm surprised I have to say this to you, Athrun, much less you Tolle," Yzak notes.

Reflexively Tolle turns off the tester, which more or less snapped both pilots out of their reverie. "And what is that supposed to mean?"

"You might as well be married to Miriallia, do I really need to answer that?" Yzak asks acidly.

"No, guess not, sorry," he says as he pulls the probes out of the harness with the cable still attached. "Here it is," Tolle notes.

"Gimmick time," Yzak says. "Athrun, you're better at this kind of stuff, so you'd better do it," he says.

Athrun picks up the remote gimmick and threads the offending data cable into the wire tracing loop, which would allow him to see where the wire was going easily through the remote camera. With some very careful motions, he was able to insert the Gimmick into the harness and began threading it down the conduit, headed for the hot springs. He had the harness a third of the way down the conduit before anything else was said. "That's just wrong, y'know? Like looking in someone's window on a wedding night," Tolle says.

"True, that," Athrun says as the gimmick passes the theoretical halfway point to the projectors. "Which is why we're going to eliminate this and put in a series of tamper detectors on the rear feeds."

"Wow, this looks conspiratorial, three pilots inside a maintenance access hatch with a gimmick? What are you three doing?"

Oh, shit, Captain Ramius! Tolle squeaks inside his head. "Well, erm," he begins, but chokes.

"Ah, um," Athrun begins, but stops himself.

"Huh?" The Captain asks in reply.

It was Yzak that diffused the situation and immediately poured more gasoline on it in the same sentence. "We're removing a threat to the ladies sauna room, Captain," he notes stoically.

"What?"

"Some Techs, who I never got their names, I came across them trying to snake a cable to the record out on the holoprojectors. Kira and Athrun had disabled that feature and removed the connection point hardware, but apparently they rebuilt that capability."

"How?" Murrue asks deadpan.

"Same way we're going to remove the capability again, and this time I am going to weld over the connection points as well as have Kira reprogram the projectors for playback only," Athrun notes, now not so much stunned as he was infuriated he could not do this without involving the senior officers. This is the kind of shit they don't need to put up with, they have more important problems to see to, Athrun thinks.

"Thanks for the concern, Athrun, but any problem is something the whole ship needs to deal with, in the end. See to it, and I trust you can be 'diplomatic' about seeing to it not happening again?" Murrue requests politely.

"Yes, ma'am," Yzak replies almost in a snarl. He did not clearly recognize the grimace from the Captain after he had said so.

"Excellent," she replies. "Yzak, I'd like a report on what is done when this is over."

"Will do," he replies.

"Carry on," she says, making a mental note to have Kira check it out. She did not know that Yzak intended on having Kira reprogram the projectors to make any physical modifications only one step in three to get it working for voyeur purposes.

"I'm there," Athrun says. "Time to get to work," he notes with a determined tone.

"Tolle, go drag Kira down here, I don't care how you manage it," Yzak notes.

"I'll be right back," Tolle says in a cheery voice before he starts jogging down the hallway, headed for Kira's usual haunt (the hangar).

"I severely hope this does not come back to bite a chunk out of our asses," Athrun notes.

"Relax, the Captain may actually have believed us."

"Which should be the first step to preventing this from happening again," Athrun notes in a cold tone of voice. He had no intention of abiding a peeping tom.

-x-x-x-

"Interesting, is this only part of the world, or is it not to scale?" Murrue asks as she looks over the tapestry map that hung in the hallway headed toward the throne room. I wonder why nobody has gone exploring for the remainder, She asks herself in the confines of her mind.

"This is the world, Captain," the Chancellor notes. "Not far beyond the edges here is the end of the world; a ship that goes there falls off into the abyss below," he notes.

"Flat earth, basically," Mu notes with a tone that Murrue could tell was obvious tease. They both knew that was complete bullshit, they did not make worlds flat, they were spherical by nature. Which meant that whatever went exploring over that way, if anything, did not come back for a specific reason. Which brought back the question unto Murrue's mind: what is over there? "Shall we?" Mu asks before Murrue could think about it any more. "If we must, we can send one of the Gundams out on a LRRP to see if there really is an edge to the world," Mu notes before they enter the banquet hall.

"We may do that," Murrue notes in Japanese, the same that Mu had been speaking in to conceal from the locals. Thus far nobody had received even part of a hint that the locals spoke Japanese, it all seemed to be various accents and flavors of English.

"Presenting Captain Murrue Ramius, Commander Mu La Flaga, and Commander Natarle Badgiruel, of the Archangel Team," the castle's majordomo says unto the reception crowd. Yzak, Kira, and Nicol had followed them to a point, but did not even enter the keep, they had remained outside in the promenade, awaiting time to return to the ship and generally guarding the area from miscreants and those who would assault the keep...not that there were any in the area. All three had come this time with the Gunther KA-23 SMG, the exact opposite of the Rorynex in that it used a heavy slug instead of the small explosive-tipped one of the latter. Everyone figured it better at punching through the local armor than the Rorynex.

It did not take long for the stares to begin, which surprised Murrue a lot less than it would have six months ago. She had slowly come to the conclusion that she was forever doomed to draw significant amounts of attention due to her command rank, appearance, and/or being a foreigner until such a time as she found a group collectively crazier than her own. Part of her was beginning to think that impossible; nobody in their right mind or their wrong mind would dare to mix so many divergent elements on one battleship and hope to get away with it. It was categorically impossible that she was getting away with it, yet somehow her ship had not thus far torn itself apart from the inside out, and she had no intention of complaining about it remaining intact.

Not to mention, ladies almost never commanded anything in this society; she had been informed of some of the norms by Miriallia, and the screaming exceptions (like herself and a General Celes of the Empire).

"Commanders, welcome back; Captain Ramius, a pleasure," a gent says as he takes her hand and gives it a polite kiss.

Grossly charming, Murrue thinks, recalling that this person fit the description of King Edgar Figaro, whom Natarle had some choice words about when she got back to the ship, as well as no shortage of advisement about said King before they even left the ship.

"Thank you, highness," Murrue replies sincerely. She was not going to stand too much of being hit on, since she was entertaining her own notions of such conduct of late, but by hushed rumor that had already made it to her Natarle appeared to be the one he had initially set sights on. Not that she would wish a known lecherous monarch on anyone, but better someone else with more discipline than she.

"I find myself much appalled that one of your stature would visit such destruction on the Imperials, yet after seeing the ship in flight with no visible means of movement I am inclined to believe other such rumors very possible," the King says as he ushers the three over toward a more secluded corner. "Yet, without having any other reason I can see, why did you step in between the best force of Imperials and Maranda?" It was a question that had been driving Edgar rather wild with worry since he first encountered their group, especially since the two Commanders were both disciplined and very competent as far as he could tell.

"Let us say that we do not like the normal conduct of soldiery on a town and its populace after being sieged," Murrue replies deftly.

Her reply went a long way to defusing what trepidation the King had about conducting any dealings with the Archangel Team. "Ah, yes, that is a serious point of contention between ourselves, the lands of Doma, the Independent Eastern States, and the Empire. Normally, General Leo's forces are better than most on this subject, but far from excellent."

So, that maggot's forces were actually some of their more disciplined troops? Murrue makes a note to keep that in mind, not that what Miriallia said endeared her to them any more than else. This left her to consider the artful turn of phrase 'better than most on the subject but far from excellent,' and most of those thoughts were less than pleasant.

"Were we able to, we would have held out completely and stopped the Imperials cold before they could close with the town," Commander Badgiruel notes. "As it transpired, it came down to too many of them against too few of us, so I aborted the combat operations and tried to evacuate the town before the Imperials closed."

"It was the right move, Commander," The King notes solemnly. "By all accounts, your forces were able to almost completely cripple the Imperial Air Force and put a serious dent in the Imperial Ground Forces of the 1st Imperial Division. You should not regret doing what you could; I have little doubt that there would have been a massacre in Maranda should they have gone unchecked. Likely, you taught General Leo the meaning of the word 'circumspection' anew," the King notes ironically, which also told Murrue and the Commanders that the King had received the same lesson from the results of the battle as well.

I sense a 'but' coming, Murrue thinks.

"Yet, despite the skills of your force, that was incredibly hazardous. The First Imperial has thus far stood undefeated, if you count your skirmish with them as a partial victory for them."

"I would," Natarle replies. "They still got the town, but they did not get more than a decent swipe at the ship," she notes as her analysis of the battle's outcome.

"And you caused a lot of damage to the Imperial Forces. Yours truly are some of the most amazing machines and skills I have seen prior." He pauses for a moment, mulling something over. "I take it you have been informed of my real affiliations?"

"Indeed," Captain Ramius replies, wondering where this is going.

"I know that you have gone through much over your journey, yet I cannot guarantee you an area to rest on this world. It is no secret the Emperor looks to this continent with covetous eyes; in due time, he will come here seeking to wrest control from anyone who opposes him. Your ship will be on that list, without doubt. I can provide you a way to gather material and funds to keep your ship moving and provisioned, however, if you are willing to put some faith in those you have never dealt with before," King Edgar says smoothly.

"You propose a Mercenary Contract, basically," Natarle replies after a moment.

"I do," King Edgar replies calmly after observing the soured look from Commander La Flaga. "I know not the details but I can tell you are already tired of the strains of war. Yet, if you want a time of peace here, the Empire has to be knocked down. Thus, the Returners, the one underground resistance movement worth their salt. (5) And thus why I ask this of you," the King notes.

"War sucks," Mu mutters, for which he received a discreet elbow from Natarle.

"Also, the best bet for you to find a way home is by the hands of the Imperial Magitek Scientists. To secure their services, you will certainly need to take over the Imperial Capital, Vector." Natarle could not tell if this was bullshit conjecture on this subject, or if he knew something about Magitek that they had not thus far encountered...

"All right, message received, King Edgar," Murrue replies. "Now, we can operate as mercenaries, we have done so before. My question is, what involvement would these Imperial Magitek Scientists have with getting home to another dimension?"

"They are rumored to be working on projects to instantly move objects, people from one location to another over long distances," Locke notes as he joins their small knot. "I have seen some of these devices in months past, it was one of the things I was looking into before I got word of the battles at Tzen and Maranda. Those machines sound similar to what has happened to you, I guess," he appends.

"If the Empire gets those working even on a small scale, they could take over any part of this continent by bypassing our armies," King Edgar says. "And the resistance would be categorically doomed, due to—"

Natarle's portable radio beeps three times. "Excuse me," she says as she steps back. "Natarle, go," she says curtly, facing away from the King. Of course, said King's eyes did some wandering...

"Commander, sensors is reporting a pair of large energy anomalies, one believed to be in the direction of the enemy stronghold, another heading 0-2-5 at range 600 kilometers," Kuzzey reports, himself sounding bewildered by the report.

"Roger that, track steady—"

"Commander, Sai says the anomalies are gone now, like someone pulled the plug."

"Not good news," Natarle replies. "I roger the info. Stand by," she kills the send on her radio. "Think that could be related to what King Edgar just told us about?"

"I won't bet against it," Murrue replies. Before anything else could be said, something unexpected happened.

The doors to the assembly chamber are thrown open rapidly, the entrant a person none of them recognized in riding gear. The three officers of the Archangel were wary of someone who entered so fast, but did not draw a weapon as some of the more excitable nobles in the room did. After looking around a moment, he immediately heads for the King. "My Liege, a message from Arvis in Narshe," and he hands over a sealed leather tube to the King.

"Good God," King Edgar says. "Locke, it appears you have some business," he says as he hands over the roll of parchment.

"Holy," Locke says. "That...that...no way..."

"Huh?" Mu asks, having somehow acquired a cup of fruit juice that Murrue was wondering how he did so.

"If the Empire gets their hands on that, that's it for the world, they'll trigger another War of the Magi," Locke mutters after a moment.

"What?" Murrue asks. "Sir, I request an explanation,"

King Edgar sighs. "They just unearthed a frozen Esper in Narshe. If that thing awakens, it could cause a huge amount of destruction. If it is captured by the Empire, they'll use it to power more Magitek forces than you just destroyed," Edgar says calmly, despite the severe worry in his expression.

"Captain, that energy anomaly could have been a small strike team they sent in to capture the Esper," Natarle notes.

"Great," Murrue notes.

"I'll get on it right now," Locke says. "That note was from Arvis, right?" he asks the messenger, who nods affirmative.

"A moment, Locke," the King requests before Locke could take a step toward the doors. It was King Edgar that had the shocker of the night: "I know you have not agreed to anything, but even if just to save lives, would you be willing to prevent the Empire from capturing the Esper? Even if you destroy it, better in the hands of nobody than in the wrong hands."

Murrue only took a second to respond. "Will do. We can discuss the details later," and she looks to Commander Badgiruel. "Get the ship warmed up and the spec ops team ready. Locke, you're going to have to lead my team in," the Captain says.

"Can do," Locke replies immediately. He didn't really know what a 'spec ops' team was, but he figured he would find out soon enough.

-x-x-x-

The vehicles stopped outside a small schoolhouse built outside the main walls and gate to Narshe. The ten Commandos, Natarle and Locke immediately stepped out of the three jeeps amid several smoking gouges and craters on the ground. "Jesus, I know they have power, but this is insane," Natarle says.

"This is fresh," the Crazy Cook says, kneeling down next to one of the impact gouges. "We move fast enough, they may never get to the Esper," he says in a tone that told Natarle it was a command.

"Then we move," Locke says as he heads for the wall of the gatehouse that led into the main area of Narshe. "Follow close, I think they would have killed just the guards that got in their way, not all of them," Locke notes. "and the leftovers are going to be very mad," he appends after a moment.

"Kind of reminds me when the potato salad goes bad, it tries eating the chef's assistants," the Crazy Cook notes.

"Or that time you had to sort out that casserole with a hand grenade, y'know, the one that tried taking a bite out of Admiral Haliburton?"

"Can't forget that one, Weasel, that was a bitch to kill off," the Cook notes after a few moments.

The unit advanced up the main street of Narshe in two squad formations, basically, and each with weapons in all directions to prevent any ambush from catching them completely by surprise. They passed numerous dead bodies on the ground, some frozen, some killed by blade trauma up to and including dismemberment and beheading, some obviously burned, and even some that Natarle could not identified how they had died. They passed numerous shops and houses that had closed shutters and doors, not the typical welcoming country village that one would expect in this area of Existence (given what they saw in Maranda).

"What is that smell?"

"You?" One of the Commandos replies to the first.

"Screw you," the first notes.

"That is the smell of a coal mine, dipdunks," the Crazy Cook notes.

A sound of a pigeon immediately draws the attention of the whole unit to the offending...person? "Locke, get up here, quickly," the older guy fairly orders. "And bring your friends with you," he adds after a moment.

"C'mon, guys, this is where we start," Locke notes as he heads up the stairs toward the house in question. The rest of the team was not slow to follow, though the first two up the stairs stopped and moved to the left and right, covering the ingress into the house by keeping an eye on the rear of the column. No threat presented itself, and the last two entered the house.

"What happened?" Locke asks.

"Three Magitek soldiers came in to steal the Esper, except the Esper blew two of them to hell and destroyed the third's machine, but not her. The girl piloting the third was wearing this, a slave crown," the older guy was holding the said 'crown' in hand. "She went out the back when the Narshe guards came looking for her."

"And I suppose we rescue her?" Locke asks.

"Yes...except, who are these guys?" the guy asks.

"A long, crazy story," most of which Locke would admit he didn't believe outside of evidence that had been shown him. He certainly did not deny they existed, per se, but the tale of how they had come to where they were and what misadventures they had suffered prior was so insanely out there that Locke had problems believing them. "C'mon, we gotta move if we want to catch up to her before they do," Locke says.

"Why is it nobody puts up a sign that says 'this way to damsel in distress' when these things happen?" the Mess Hall dishwasher says as he cinches his sling up tight.

"That would be too easy," Natarle replies. "And we're in the Archangel Team; Easy is a foreign principle to us," she reminds the dishwasher.

"Oh, yeah, I keep forgetting that," he replies.

"C'mon, guys, in here," Locke says as he ducks into one of the personnel accesses to the upper reaches of the caves. Natarle was next in, followed immediately by one of the heavy weps officers in the commando team. The light machine gun he carried would be more than ample to toast down a squad of enemy or give the pilot of a Magitek serious pause.

The cave they entered was the first major cave Natarle had been in since Cephiro, and the feeling did not make her welcome it any more than she had back on the rock where magic ruled. Evidence of that came moments later as a hiss from a very large rat came to her ears, followed by the movement of a pair of semi-reflective eyes. "Shit, a rat, I hate rats," she mutters as it edges a paw closer to her.

"I got it," the sauce chef of the unit notes as he comes forward with his primary slung. He had reached around to a secondary part of his kit, more intended for opening doors than opponents, but the shotgun he carried was capable of—BLAM. Instantly, the rat's head and upper torso were shredded by the shot; in the halo around the barrel light they could see a half-dozen more rats screech and retreat from the nasty sound. A Sub-machine gun barked at one of them, the Rorynex projectiles tearing a series of five huge chunks out of the flank of one of the rats, increasing the panic in their ranks as they fled to their hides and holes, away from the infernal noisy weapons that had entered.

"Thank you, specialist," Natarle notes as she gets a good look at the deceased vermin.

"Easy prey," he replies as they continue moving down the random cave twists and turns. After thirty meters of following the natural path of the caves, they ended up out on a precipice overlooking some fairly deep canyons, spanned by wooden truss bridges. Only three of the team at a time crossed each bridge, out of fear of their weight collapsing the personnel bridges. First north to another precipice, then west and north again and they were on the far side of the canyon group. This done, the team reassembled and continued moving, this time north and deeper into the mountain.

"Wait, something is not right here," Locke says. "This area is a new collapse," Locke says as he looks around with one of the Archangel's absolutely amazing Mag-Lite flashlights. He approaches the collapsed floor carefully, then leans over and shines his flashlight down at the area below. "One Imperial Magitek Knight, female, quite young, directly below this hole."

"They must have cornered her and she fell through," the Crazy Cook says. "We rappel down," he says as he pulls his zip rope off the back of his body armor. He tied it off to a pair of stalagmites and dropped the coil down the hole. With a swift, practiced motion he had the rope connected to his zip harness and was on his way down in a controlled fashion. When he got down to the bottom he immediately released the harness from the rope, took up his assault rifle, and hunkered down in a guard position awaiting any possible threat from the cavernous area to the south.

The process was the same for the rest of the team, and by the time they had arrived at the ground, there was the sound of activity in the distance to the south. The girl was confirmed alive but unconscious; apparently she took a nasty hit from her fall, though it was not enough to kill her.

"She's up there! We've finally got that Magitek-riding bitch!" someone shouts from that direction.

"No you don't," one of the cook's assistants replies as he pulls one of the gas-canister grenades off his body armor harness and yanks the pin. With a side-arm lob the grenade went downrange to a natural choke-point at the far end of the cavern that was studded by hills of mining debris. In moments the gas grenade had begun sputtering, spewing red smoke all over the place and causing the several guard wolves to go wild in a frenzy to attack something. Several of the Commandos had mounted the debris piles nearest them to get an enfilade shot against approaching enemies, though the wolves turned out to be more difficult to hit than a person.

A shotgun silenced one. Two bursts of Gunther KA-23 SMG killed another, though it was not heard due to said machine gun having a sound suppressor on it. A third was felled at Natarle's hands as her magic saber cleaved its head and shoulders clean off the body. The fourth of them took a lot more effort, as it had vaulted up onto the rock piles and closed in on the Crazy Cook. The wolf closed, closed, as a pair of bursts missed its rapid movements to where it charged down the Crazy Cook and lunged. The lunge knocked both down the reverse side of the debris mound, the wolf clenching at the flak jacket sleeve on his left arm and shaking its head in an attack dog fashion.

"Shit, shit, shit!" the cook shouts before he first knees the wolf in the gut; that only made it clench harder, though still not hard enough to penetrate the flak jacket. His second was more of a pure reaction, a kick to the wolf's nugs with steel-toed combat boots. The reaction was significant to that, it immediately yelped as it released its bite, and continued yelping as it dragged its arse on the ground in a circular pattern. "Bite this!" the Crazy Cook shouts as he draws his sidearm and begins shooting. Not even halfway through the mag, the wolf crumpled to the ground, though he kept firing until it locked open on an empty magazine.

"I think you got it, butch," Natarle says with a clear tone of disapproval. "Three, four times over," she adds after a moment.

"Just making sure," he replies before a rock skitters down to where he was laying at the base of the mound, disturbed from the top of the pile. "Oh, shit!" the Cook shouts as he ejects the magazine and pulls a reload from the front of his vest. The slide came down and his pistol centered on one of the Marshalls that were 'commanding' the attack dogs. CrackCrackCrackCrack, the four shots came in less than a full second, all four within a five-centimeter circle fired uphill with him laying downhill at an angle and shooting at a standing enemy. The raised ax clattered to the ground as his body collapsed to the right and down into the walking trench

"Tango!" The baker shouts as his Rorynex comes up and centers on the enemy. "Drop your weapon! Hands up!" The enemy did not do so, the ax came up and he took the first of two strides he would ever take again. As his foot hit the ground from his second stride, a five-round burst of Rorynex impacted on his chest, the burst naturally curving right and upward slightly. The five slugs all detonated on impact, blowing large rents in his chest more akin to high-caliber rifle rounds, though not large enough to match the shotgun slug that entered his gut courtesy of one of the assistant cooks. He hit the ground still traveling forward, his body rolling once and stopping, unmoving forevermore.

"Tango down, remaining tangos retreating," Natarle says. "Recover the girl, we're out of here," she orders over their tactical radio.

- - - - -

"Beast reporting, I confirm entry team is exiting through a secret passage to the west of the schoolhouse," the assigned sniper for the operation says. He was also watching them through the ten-power scope on his rifle at the time.

"Beast, this is Beauty, we are escorting one out of here at this time, confirm vehicles are waiting and clear," Natarle says over the radio.

"Beauty from Beast, confirmed; book it south, I have the welcome mat rolled out and a fresh canteen for you all," the Sniper replies.

"Roger that," Natarle replies as the group began the kilometer-long overland trek to where the vehicles were parked.

The sniper had kept his rifle respectfully pointed away from the group and was using a pair of field binoculars to observe the escorted party. He could draw some conclusions immediately about her, she looked way too young to be available to him for starters, 'flat' aptly described her in his opinion (Fuu looked better, and she was severely too young for him, which made him wonder what she would be like when she was older), and she appeared somewhere between dazed and frightened, though Locke was keeping her from panicking by talking her through something. Unlike the movies, you cannot read lips through a binocular and he had not brought a shotgun microphone with him, therefore he was not hearing what they were saying.

It was movement at the edge of his binocular's peripheral vision that caught his attention. After adjusting, he realized that scoping out the new girl was probably the biggest mistake he had made yet. "Warning, warning, Beauty team, you have incoming!" he shouts into the mike as he remounts his rifle and zeros in on the leading wolf.

"Fire at will!" Natarle shouts, meaning both her team and the sniper.

WRAAM, the rifle in front of the sniper barked a crack four times louder than the Rorynex. The slug's flight time was absurdly short, less than a half-second, and then it struck the wolf like a hammer. A shotgun has no shortage of power, especially with slugs instead of shot, but the .50 Browning Machine Gun, often called the fifty-caliber, has far more power per shot. Far more power. The slug entered the chest of the wolf, and after it passed its heart the slug itself began tumbling on its course through. It exited the beast in a seven-centimeter exit trauma out its arse, and in the course thereof the wolf collapsed to the ground, skidding to a stop and twitching several times.

On this rifle there was no need to run a bolt to reload, the Barret M82A1 was a semi-automatic rifle that immediately reloaded itself after each shot. The sniper recentered on the next wolf, took a breath in, held for a moment, and fired as he exhaled. This slug struck the wolf in the head, basically exploding the head from pure translated kinetic energy. The bolt finished slamming forward with a new cartridge just as the wolf's body slammed to the ground and rolled three times from inertia before it stopped.

The sniper paused to survey the battlefield as the Commando team had hunkered down and was firing on the other approaching guards, though something coming through the gate of town caused the sniper to do a double-take with his sight. A mammoth was bearing toward the team, and at a fast lumber it was definitely closing on the group, though there were closer and far more immediate threats. An arquebus, a heavy muzzle-loaded matchlock musket, was leveled and fired at the group, though the shot simply kicked up a fountain of dirt as it impacted the ground. He never even had a chance to reload, as he was hammered with four rounds of assault rifle followed by a fifty-caliber slug that tore his arm off at the shoulder.

WRAAM, WRAAM, the sniper took down two more of the guards, one with a crossbow, the other with a battle ax. One chest shot, one head shot, the latter explosively removing his head as his body skids to the ground meters in front of the unit.

"Beauty from Beast, put some distance between you and that walking carpet, I'm switching over to armor-piercing ammo to take it down," the Sniper says as he ejects the ten-shot magazine and reloads with a ten-shot magazine containing a very different form of ammo in it.

"Roger that, we're moving now," Beauty replies. Locke had helped the escorted girl up and tried using a handkerchief to clean some of the remnants of a tango's head off her, the last one that the sniper had shot of the wolves. They were running toward the sniper as the mammoth was lumbering toward the group.

WRAAM, WRAAM, the sniper started by picking off an escorting guard and a rider, both of which ended up smashed underfoot by their 'pet' as a final insult. The Sniper then recentered on the mammoth's head, breathed in, held it, and exhaled as he pulled the trigger. The sniper was rewarded with the singularly unusual view of the slug exiting its upper back after blitzing through its skull, though for some ungodly reason it appeared to keep going after the hit. WRAAM, he fires a second shot in the same general area of its head, and this time the animal staggered; its pace slowed, but it kept stepping toward. "Jesus H Christ, this thing is so primitive I blow its brains out and it still keeps coming," the Sniper says in shock.

"Keep shooting, then," the Crazy Cook opines.

WRAAM, WRAAM, these two shots were aimed at the forward left leg of the beast. The first shot missed high and slammed into its chest, which drew a grunt from it. The second shot did not miss the upper leg bone, and this one had the desired effect. The bone blown to shreds in its leg, the enemy slammed into the ground and began thrashing about, unable to stand at all.

"Tango down," the Sniper reports. "Area appears clear, remaining guards have retreated."

"And what were you doing, Beast, jacking off behind that scope?" one of the Cook's assistants asks in a very arch tone.

"Enough," Natarle orders. "No arguing about this, we'll sort it out later," she orders.

"Yes, ma'am," the chastised cook's assistant replies.

The sniper kept an eye on the unit's six as they jogged in to where the vehicles had been stashed out of sight of the front gate of Narshe. They were fast to pile in to the vehicles, the new lady getting one of the front seats which she mounted with practiced precision. "C'mon, rifleman, get your ass in or we're leaving you!" the Crazy Cook shouts at a bush he thought was the sniper.

The Sniper stood up in a different location and trotted to the jeeps, his monster rifle weighing him down a bit. He hopped on the back of Natarle's jeep, facing rearward, still cradling the massive Barret

"Thanks for saving our asses, Newman," Natarle says directly before she drops the jeep in gear.

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Author's Chapter Afterword:

I am still alive, I swear it!

Well, if you count having having no social life (and yes, I can prove that mathematically), and being stressed out severely as being alive, and suffering seven shades of writer's block over the past weeks, that is. It's not all bad, however. I have figured out how to get myself into the writing spirit lately, and it involves getting out and doing some good and heavy target practice. Shoot some inanimate objects, write 4K words in two hours afterwards. Not a bad tradeoff, and I get to feeling better all around; watching targets shred under the onslaught of my Remington 870 is incredibly stress relieving.

I severely apologize for how long this took. It has not been a good month plus at work, at home, or in just about any other fashion. I am still working on this, and I will not abandon the field, and I still respect your wish to see this story advance apace and in an exciting fashion. I will continue on this, and as a situation improvement I am no longer bound by having to use someone else's internet connection to post, I now have access to internet through my own system. Things should get done faster now, provided I can find the time to write. Time is fast becoming a commodity I have almost none of, actually, but I shall never give up. Death before dishonor, tea and cake or death, and all that happy ration. You know the drill as well as I.

Keep in mind that this is just the beginning of the antics, and while this one may have seemed a little on the 'easy' side for the team, these guys were bumpkin country town guards, not serious Imperial soldiers in quantity. The commando-trained Archangel's Cooks would go through them like a chainsaw through butter, no questions asked. Wham, Bam, thank you, good-bye, problem solved. The battles will heat up in the next two chapters, and you might as well disregard what you thought you know about the FF6 storyline, because I'm about to throw a very big wrench in the works.

And if you think I'm going to drop details about the Empire's secret projects, guess again. This si something that the cast is going to come across the hard way, and not in a pleasant fashion at all.

Thank you, all, for your continued patronage and reviews. The next chapter is in the works, no ETA at this time but I do hope to get back down to my average of 1 chap every 3 weeks or so, plus my other works. If Fate allows me. Stay tuned, the fun is less than a fifth done, and this is only chapter 20 :P

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Review Replies:

FraserMage: TY for the review and continual support, comrade. Oh, yes, the battlemechs will be making an appearance in very short order, none of that folderol today as the action was mostly infantry, but the mass destruction is just about to begin. Stay tuned :)

Barricade: Thank you for the review and the in-depth ideas, comrade. Such ideas will come in handy for the crew, but I do have some categorical replies.

1. Being that close to a city and in a defensive posture, Natarle was not going to chance the radiation effects of the Lohengrins, not to mention their intent was to get them to go away with as few casualties as possible, not to completely annihilate them or they would have started with a Lohengrin volley. Natarle is not dumb, but she does stick to intentions.

2. The Archangel does not have any Arrow-IV weapons, but they do have Thunder and they do have LB-X. Expect to see some missile weapons engineered for the Magitek threat in short order, as more than one of the crew has realized what you just pointed out.

3. Fuu had that ability after the nominal events of the AAA timeline would have transpired. She has not yet developed it, but that can change at any moment...

4. Not really possible for the sub-knights attached to each of the Rune Gods, yet, at least. An interesting idea, and one that will require some review.

Final: Keep in mind that I study process as a necessity of my job, and military operations have a lot of ancillary process to them. What happens below decks is ten times more frequent than even one sortie of the Gundams, and just as important in the long run. If it don't get fixed, it ain't gonna work, and you might as well flush the Aegis down the toilet, ne?

Green Knight/63: Thank you for the review, comrade. Keep in mind, with the battle of the past chapter, and with the battles of this chapter, that fate picks your foes and how they fight, not the allied forces. Sometimes, a foe can only cause minor damage but a large volume of it. Sometimes a foe can powercrush even the mightiest of Gundams with little effort. It is all in the hands of fate. And how do you count 14000 words as short?

Gatomon41: Always a pleasure to read your reviews, comrade. Ringo, Eric Flint, Dale Brown, Tom Clancy, I draw inspiration from many authors and many forms of fiction, and I hope that which I write is as logical as the real deal, in its own creepy fashion. Thank you for the comment about the char dev, I got a few good chances to play with that in the last chapter, though less in this one than I think I wanted. I'll rectify that in the next, I hope.

Anonymous: Thank you, comrade, for the accolades. I'm still going, and I have a long way to go before I am done with this superbeast. Stay tuned, the fun is just beginning.

Thank you, one and all, for the reviews and the ideas. The next chapter should have some thoughts that have been voiced in prior reviews, and definitely some quirks that will make you scratch your heads.

NEXT UP: As the Archangel returns to Figaro, the crew finds out the breadth of their foe's depravity and what it will take to truly get out of this nightmare...

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Footnotes:

(1): This is an extrapolation from the game's scenery as well as what I know of castle siege and warfare. I did a lot of study on this long ago when I was into Dungeons and Dragons, so I know something of how a castle is engineered. Of course, I write closer to reality, so Figaro is going to be a little meaner and nastier (and a lot larger) than in the game :P

(2): No, this is not a typo, it is proper English.

(3): CQB means Close Quarters Battle. MOUT (Military Operations on Urban Terrain) is a similar principle, though CQB is more the premise of law enforcement, MOUT is strictly military.

(4): The original is: "Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups".

(5): 'Worth Their Salt' is an old English expression. To be declared 'below the salt' used to be a serious insult, especially in affluent circles. On the flip side, to be declared 'worth their salt' during such times was better praise than many phrasings.