Please note that text that looks like this is something that is being typed or read (since ff net is stupid and won't let me use brackets...)
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Arc II: Chapter Ten
The Great Escape
"Have you lost your god damn mind, Urd?"
"I don't think this is the time to discuss that!" She spoke hastily, glancing at him over her shoulder as they flew.
Sephiroth seemed ready to say something else, but settled with a scowl. She was glad that he was beginning regain his composure as he came to terms with their situation. Getting out of Heaven was going to be nearly impossible as it was, and fighting with each other would make their odds even slimmer.
Hugging the ground to make it more difficult for their pursuers to spot them, they lanced across their Celestial home as fast as they ever had. Behind them loomed the ever growing cloud of smoke rising from the Council Halls. Looking briefly at the darkened column rising over the horizon, it truly hit her that there was no going back. She just hoped that they could evade capture long enough to get away.
"I take it you have a plan," he said sardonically.
She smiled at him confidently. "Of course!" Sephiroth eyed her suspiciously for another few seconds before looking behind them, checking for pursuers. Unseen by the God's sharp eyes, Urd sighed as her grin lost its confident shine. "I just hope it all works out," she muttered under her breath.
An instant later she found her momentum reversing as something jerked her from behind. A pained grunt escaped with most of her breath as her fellow fugitive grabbed her around the abdomen and pulled her up and into a nearby tree, crashing through the branches until they were deep within the foliage. Sucking in a new lungful of air, she was about to let him have it but found a strong hand covering her mouth before she had the chance. An urgent whisper came from right behind her right ear, "Quiet or they'll hear us!"
She stopped struggling against him just in time. They both watched intently as two white beings floated by. The two creatures looked somewhat like children of living porcelain. Small wings trailed out from behind their ears, and they had no legs, only a tapered sort of tail. In their hands they each carried a long golden staff, intricately engraved along the shaft. A powdery blue sphere sat at the head of the object, with several flat golden arcs surrounding it, almost like a disk with several parts missing.
Her green eyes narrowed as she watched the Sentinels pass. Once they were out of view, Urd began to impatiently renew her effort to free herself from Sephiroth's restraint, but he held her firmly in place, still looking in the direction the white beings had gone. "Wait until they're farther away. They might still detect us if we start moving now."
It was all well and good to her mind that they avoid those two Sentinels, but she was in no mood to spend any more time in one place than she had to. Mildly annoyed that they were still stationary, she quickly formulated a plan to get them moving again. Reaching her hand up, she carefully pulled his hand from her mouth.
"Is that really it," she whispered with a smile over her shoulder, "or do you just like holding me like this?" She patted the arm he still had tightly around her stomach to accentuate the point.
He looked at her blankly for a moment, probably unable to believe she would say something like that at a time like this, before he regained his stern visage. Quickly releasing her, Sephiroth dropped down to the walkway below, looking about for pursuers. With a quiet clearing of his throat, he spoke without looking up at her. "Let's go," he said with only the slightest discomfort in his voice. "The sooner we get out of here, the better."
She smiled a little at his reaction, but it gave way to survival very quickly. "Right, it won't be long before they swarm all over Yggdrasil." Dropping out of the foliage herself, the pair sped toward the great tower near the Crystal Sea. Yggdrasil would be their ticket out of Heaven, but getting there was only half the battle.
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Peorth stretched her arms over her head with a quiet groan. Her eyelids barely more than half open from lack of proper beauty sleep, she had a sour look at the prospect of yet another fourteen hour shift in the command center.
Since the beginning of the war, she and Ceres had been stuck with this horrendous schedule. Ceres would show up one hour before crew change, observing everything so that she would have a perfect view of the current situation. When she relieved Peorth as the System Watch Commander, the Goddess of Roses was required to go to an hour long debrief in the System Administrator's office to discuss any problems with Yggdrasil and possible solutions.
After that, she was on her own. At first, she had just gone home to rest, only to find that the travel time to and from work cut into her sleep. Ceres had discovered the same problem, so the two commandeered an office room at Yggdrasil after the first week. They set out beds and a few plants to try to make the place as comfortable as possible. Now they could get enough sleep, though only just.
Unfortunately it brought up another problem. Peorth hadn't been without stiffness in her neck for almost three weeks. Their beds, in her opinion, were hardly much better than the floor, and it was making her quite irritable. Ceres was apparently completely unaffected by the lack of comfortable sleep. Peorth couldn't figure out how she did it.
Rotating her head around slowly and deliberately, she smiled as her vertebrae popped loudly. Two young Goddesses working at an access terminal nearby looked up with a wince at the noise her neck made, but she was too worn out to care. Heh, worn out already, and I haven't even made it to work yet.
Not feeling any desire to rush, the brown haired Goddess looked around as she made her way closer to the command center. The normally smooth walls were now marred by removed panels. The plants, paintings, and sculptures that normally decorated the halls had been replaced with bundles of cables and circuit boards. Occasionally the feet of a technician would be sticking out from a mess of wires in the walls, their whole bodies hidden from view as they did repair work or modifications to the hardware.
Gone was the warm and welcoming feel that most other structures in Heaven shared. Now everything looked as harsh and haphazard as the situation on Earth. Some of the workers made jokes here and there, sarcastically predicting that some system or another would crash just to spite them. Peorth half grinned as she watched one of the techs try to extract herself from one of the access hatches. She stood up before she had fully removed herself from the wires, tripping her and causing her to fall back into the mass of cables, bumping her head on the wall on the way down. Peorth kept smiling as she walked by the struggling Goddess, who was now rubbing her head and halfheartedly kicking at the wires in revenge. Normally the Goddess would have offered a hand, but with all the different problems crowding her mind, the thought simply didn't occur to her.
Every few minutes she would see a very young Goddess, a year or two short of getting their license, whose arms were full of paperwork or supplies, floating down the corridors. She felt sorry for these girls. They should have been studying how to use their powers, or playing with their friends. Instead they were put to work, in Yggdrasil and elsewhere in Heaven, wherever the Eternal City was short handed. She admitted that it would have been nearly impossible for the adults to take care of everything alone, and the presence of the young ones had certainly made things easier, even if only a little. Peorth suddenly shuddered, thinking of what it would be like without these youths to take care of the more menial tasks.
Realizing that there were only a couple more turns until she arrived at work, she took a deep breath as she began to get her brain moving and ready. She had discovered that even during the pass down, things could still happen that required her full attention. Well, there's always something. So what's going to go wrong today? The moment she completed the thought she cursed her luck, seeing her question running down the hall toward her.
"Lady Peorth!" Commander Daedalus called to her from halfway down the corridor. "There is an emergency and I need Yggdrasil's sensors immediately!"
What now, dammit? "Is there something wrong Lord Commander?" Peorth's irritation at having yet another thing to deal with wasn't obvious per se, but it was there.
Her curiosity spiked, however, as Daedalus and two other Templars slid to a halt before her. She hadn't noticed it until he came closer to her, but the commander looked like a house had just fallen on him. His clothes were marked with dark streaks and a few tears, and it looked like ash was smeared on his face and in his disheveled hair.
"Sephiroth has escaped," he told her, his face twisted into a scowl.
All her previous thoughts and annoyances vanished in a heartbeat. "What? How could he have escaped from the Great Hall? Didn't somebody there try to stop him?"
His face darkened even more. "He had help, it seems. Lady Urd attacked us. It was all I could do to shield the Council members from the blast."
"Urd?" She felt a little lost, her mind spinning at this ridiculous statement. "Surely not! Urd may have done some reckless things in the past, but I can't believe she would ever do something as foolish as attacking the High Council! She has more brains than that even when she's completely drunk!"
Daedalus shook his head. "I saw it with my own eyes. She almost destroyed the entire building. She and Sephiroth disappeared before the smoke cleared. We have everyone scouring Heaven right now, but they are proving quite elusive. We need Yggdrasil's sensors to find them."
Peorth was barely listening anymore, her mind beginning to race with ideas. Urd a terrorist? I can't believe she would do something so stupid! Even Urd would need a good reason to stick her neck out like that. There has to be a reason… "You'll have to talk to the SWC. Ceres is still on watch, so you'll have to talk to her. You know the way to the command center, I trust?" He nodded. "Well, you should probably get going. I think corridor 32-G is undergoing major work, so you should take 57-C instead to avoid any dead ends from equipment in the halls."
"Thank you for your help, Lady Peorth," he said before turning his head to the two Templars behind him. "Let's go." Peorth didn't watch them go, instead quickly marching the opposite way.
She knew in her heart that something was wrong here. It had been hard enough to believe that Sephiroth was a traitor, but Urd? The Goddess of the Past may have always been at the center of trouble, but she had a good heart. What are you thinking, Urd? What's your plan?
Stopping abruptly at an intersection, she seemed to ponder each path. Taking the corridor to her right, she began to float at what would have been a running speed. She had to find Urd before the Templars or Sentinels did. At least her fictitious detour for Daedalus would buy her a few minutes.
Her mind was filled with possibilities, and she wanted to know which one was the truth.
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Considering that it was the day before Christmas Eve, Keiichi sure hadn't expected to be feeling so down. He had expected the temple to be filled with warm voices. To hear Bell humming contentedly in the kitchen as she prepared a surprise for everyone or the sounds of metal clacking against metal as Skuld built another one of her contraptions. He would have even welcomed the sound of an explosion from Urd's room, as often happened when an alchemical experiment went awry. He wished for anything that would make it feel like it might be a real Christmas.
But none of those sounds reached his ears, only the solemn quietness of an empty home. Skuld never came home, Urd had disappeared, Keos was out on a raid, and Bell had left with Marler. Even Odin was gone, out commanding the troops as they reorganized for their new, more offensive style of operations. It left him very much alone, the only person in the temple house.
Looking around the empty tea room, he sat heavily next to the table. A small twinge of depression struck him as he thought of everyone who was out and about, doing the important work to save the world. The war had taught him just how little power he really had. It was something that he had always known since the Goddesses had come to live with him, but back then he had lived a relatively normal life. There had never been any need to do anything aside from going to school and worrying about the next Motor Club project.
"You don't look so good, kid." Keiichi turned from his thoughts to see a tall, skinny man. He was dressed in the same camouflage outfit as when they first met days before. The hard looking Marine looked at him with some small amount of concern.
"It's nothing, Gunny Taff," he replied with a weak smile. "I was just thinking."
The older man nodded as he entered the room just enough to close the door behind him. The Americans didn't usually enter the temple. They didn't like going through the trouble to take off their boots just to put them back on a few minutes later.
"So where is everyone?" He gave a cursory look around the room. "This place sounds pretty quiet."
"Everyone's gone," Keiichi replied glumly. "A bunch of stuff came up and they all had to go take care of it. I was just waiting for them to come back."
"I see," Taff replied. "Well, I came by to see if any word had come back from Yokusuka yet. I suppose I stay here and wait with you. Looks like you could use the company, anyway."
Keiichi chuckled a little at that. "Do I really look that depressed?"
"I recon that depends on what you're depressed about," he answered, his Japanese sounding strange thanks to his Arkansas accent. Sitting cross-legged near the door, he looked at the younger man patiently.
Feeling a little self conscious, Keiichi sighed a little before giving voice to what had been bothering him. "Did you ever get the feeling that you were useless?"
A short huff of a laugh came in response. "Is that what you're worried about?" His grin made Keiichi feel decidedly uncomfortable. He was about to tell the man to forget it, but Taff spoke again. "No, I haven't, and you shouldn't either. I'm sure that Miss Urd would have had a hard time without you around. She's a strong woman, but everyone needs a friend to talk to from time to time."
"She's got Marler," he countered. "About the only thing I can do to help the war effort is to make tea for the real players."
The Marine was silent for a moment before speaking again. "When I was a kid, my daddy never let me use the chainsaw." Keiichi looked at the other man strangely, wondering where this was coming from. "He said it was too much for a little guy like me. All I got was a hatchet and a hand saw. I hacked away at everything in sight. Got me in trouble a few times, too." Taff chuckled a little as he thought of his past. "Still, I could never help my daddy gather firewood like I wanted. Then one day he told me that I'd been helpin all along. I'd been cuttin off the little branches from the logs so we could get them into the fireplace. You see what I'm saying?"
Keiichi had to admit, he didn't have a clue. He had no idea what the strange analogy was supposed to mean. Shaking his head, Taff continued with a small grin. "The moral of the story is that even though I didn't do much, it still helped. Even if you think you aren't doing anything flashy or big, that doesn't mean that it isn't important to somebody."
"I see what you're saying," Keiichi nodded, a sliver of a smile showing. "Still, it feels like I could do more, like I should do more. I should be out there helping to fight, or getting ready to fight if it comes down to that. Though, I suppose if it comes down to me joining the fight, we're in pretty deep trouble."
The two men laughed a little before the Gunny spoke again. "You sound like you might have made a good Marine. We have a saying in the Corps, 'Nobody wants a war, but if one comes, someone has to know how to fight it.'"
"That sounds like a pretty good saying," Keiichi replied, looking a little wistful. "I wish I'd heard it before all this started."
Keiichi suddenly realized that Taff was staring intently at him. He was about to ask what it was when the Marine suddenly stood. "You have any boots?"
"Uh, yeah," he blurted out in reply, "I've got some that I ride my motorcycle with."
"Get em on and meet me out in the yard."
He spoke with such a commanding tone, Keiichi found himself moving for the door before he realized it. "Are we going somewhere?"
The older man clapped a surprisingly strong hand on his shoulder. "You have a warrior inside you, struggling to make himself known. We're gonna see if we can't draw him out."
Keiichi would normally have scoffed at such a statement, sounding like something his sempai would have said. For some reason though, he felt a little excited now. The Marine spoke with such confidence, it was impossible to doubt him. "How are we going to do that?"
Taff smiled at him again. "Just a little hand to hand combat training. You're going to have some bruises, and you're gonna be sore as hell, but you can handle it. Remember, pain is just weakness leaving the body."
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"Where are you going?" Sephiroth asked in a whisper. "It's this way."
"This is a short cut," she replied. Noticing the doubt on his face, she added curtly, "I was the System Administrator, I think I would know the fastest way."
He nodded begrudgingly, following her as she crouched and snuck across the hallway, careful not to alert the techs working on an open panel five paces from them. She sped up as she rounded the corner, happy that they were almost home free. "The panel is just up here. It'll take us all the way down."
Looking back in front of her, she almost ran straight into someone. Yelping in surprise, she fell back against Sephiroth, who kept her from ending up on the ground.
"Urd!" Peorth somehow combined a yell and a whisper. "What the hell is going on here? Why are you helping him like this? He's a convicted traitor!"
"I know," she said, standing upright again and trying to placate her friend. "I know this looks bad…"
"Looks bad?" The other Goddess didn't seem ready to calm down. "Urd, you almost killed the High Council of Heaven. The entire Council! This doesn't just look bad, Urd, it is bad! It's very bad!"
"Thanks for the update, Peorth," Urd snapped. "I'm well aware of what I did."
Peorth shook her head in disbelief. "Have you lost your mind, Urd?" Sephiroth cleared his throat briefly as soon as she said this, but when Urd turned angry eyes on him, he was already turned the other way. "This is really serious stuff. Give me one reason I shouldn't turn you in before things get worse."
Urd hesitated for a moment, wondering how she could explain everything. Her fellow fugitive didn't give her very long to think. "They're coming down the hall." She saw him against the wall, peering around the corner where they had come from. Turning toward the Goddesses, he stepped forward. "I'm sorry, Lady Peorth, but we have no time. Either let us pass or I will go through you." Peorth shirked back a little, looking very nervous about the choice.
"Listen, I know we haven't always seen eye to eye on everything," Urd said quickly, "but this is kind of a bad time to explain everything. All I can do is ask you to trust me. If you were ever going to do me a favor in this life, let it be now."
The Goddess of Roses looked at her, considering the tremendous request. Stepping aside, she spoke seriously. "I'm not going to cover for you, Urd, but you still owe me big time for this."
Rushing forward, Sephiroth tore the access panel from the wall, motioning for Urd to get in. Floating forward, she spared a smile of thanks to the other Goddess and dove into the crawlspace. The Templar followed quickly after, silently replacing the panel.
As soon as it was in place, Urd could hear muffled voices in the hallway, but couldn't understand them. Leaning closer to the hatch, she tried to listen in but Sephiroth nudged her back silently.
He was right, they had to keep moving. Nodding, she turned around and began to make her way down the cable and circuit lined tube.
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Still watching the panel as it returned to its place, she heard a strange voice come from behind her. It was strange, like two children speaking in near unison with a split second lag between them.
"Lady Peorth," one of the two Sentinels spoke, "We know you have been informed of our mission by Lord Commander Daedalus. Do you have any new information to report?"
She felt a little unnerved by the creatures. Their totally white bodies broken only by their strange eyes, it was as if they had the power to stare directly into her mind. She had met Demons that she felt better around.
"I still haven't been to the command center," she answered neutrally.
Their gaze seemed to bore into her for a moment before they suddenly turned in unison. Her stomach dropped when she followed their eyes straight to the spot that Urd and Sephiroth had disappeared. "Who is in that access tube?"
Trying her hardest to keep a calm exterior, she shrugged as if it didn't matter. "I don't think anyone is supposed to be working in this corridor until next week. Why?"
The Goddess backed out of the way as the pair silently floated across to the panel in question, staring at it intently. One of them turned back to her. Its strange voice was no different from before, yet it now seemed to hold a trace of impatience. "There is someone in here. Tell us who it is!"
Peorth put her hands up to placate the seemingly angry Sentinel. "Nobody as far as I know, but the work schedules are always changing. If someone is in there, it's probably just a technician."
The second creature reached forward, tearing the panel from the wall and flinging it several meters away without even touching it. It rushed into the now open tube, leaving the first Sentinel to turn again to the Goddess. "You are free to return to your duties, Lady Peorth. The others have already been alerted." With that, it too disappeared into the hatch.
Peorth sighed. She had forgotten that they could communicate telepathically with each other. Every Sentinel in Heaven would now know where Urd and Sephiroth were now. She had said that she wouldn't cover for the pair's escape, but she found herself quite vexed that it was impossible for her to keep their pursuers at bay. That doesn't mean I'm powerless, though.
Flying down the hall to the nearest access terminal, she quickly logged on and activated an encryption program she had created in boredom several months before. Taking a roundabout path through the system she evaded several firewalls guarding the central core and breached the main control systems command route. Accessing one of the three main consoles in the command center remotely, she sent her encrypted message.
Chrono? Are you there? Peorth's communication traveled through the system. Waiting several, extremely long seconds, she wondered if Chrono was indeed at her console.
Lady Peorth? Why are you sending me an encrypted message? Is something wrong?
She smiled a little in relief. Chrono had recognized the encryption and deciphered it in short order, even if it seemed to take forever. Nothing less from one of my subordinates.
Her fingers flew across the console, rifling out her return message in less than a second. I need you to make this connection secure. This is for your eyes only.
Chrono replied much more quickly this time. Everyone is busy trying to eavesdrop on Commander Daedalus and Lady Ceres. No one else will see.
Trusting that Chrono had enough awareness to know if she was being spied on, Peorth took a deep breath and typed. Urd is trying to escape with Sephiroth. I don't know why she's doing this, but I believe that she must have a pretty good reason. Something is going on here that we aren't seeing. She's heading for the Haguruma, and I think the Sentinels already know that. Don't put yourself at risk, but if you can do anything from there to help her out, please do so. It's not an order, just a request.
Don't worry, Lady Peorth. Just leave it to Ere and I. After all, Lady Urd still owes me for all the sake I paid for the last time she was up here!
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Sephiroth felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. Spinning around, he threw up a modified shield program that Masamune had taught him. The familiar blue magic circle appeared in mid air, but the arcane runes that could be seen on it were constantly rewriting themselves.
The intricate barrier appeared just in time. Two energy blasts, like bolts of lightning, slammed hard into it, ricocheting into a large gear nearby. The massive wheel shifted out of alignment from the blasts, causing a loud whine to issue forth as the huge machinery of the Haguruma tried to continue its work.
The two Sentinels seemed somewhat surprised that their attacks were deflected. After all, there was only one type of shield that could stop their lances, and only the Almighty knew it, or so they thought.
They were even more surprised when the unarmed God rushed them. Ramming his metal plated shoulder into one of them, it flew backward as he stopped in mid-air. Rotating around, he brought his right leg hard into the body of the other Sentinel. It took the blow with little effect, swinging the six foot golden rod it held at him. Bringing his left arm up, he narrowly kept it from striking his head. The pain he felt caused him to fall back, rolling away from the follow up blow. Growling at the solid white creature, the pain in his forearm reminded him why the Guardians of Heaven were so feared and respected.
The thing lunged forward with a thrust as he dodged to the side, ramming his elbow into the back of its neck as it passed with a sickening crack. Feeling a power charge behind him, he sprang upwards, flying over the blast that destroyed the grate he had been standing on. Twisting in flight, he saw the first Sentinel charging him. Gathering energy in his right hand, he hurtled a force ball at it.
Swinging its golden weapon at the small blast, it cut the force ball in two, the halves crashing into a catwalk below. This was what the Templar wanted, however. The Sentinel's weapon was extended to the side, leaving it quite vulnerable. Taking full advantage of the opening, Sephiroth darted head-on at the surprised creature, his fingers crackling with energy. It could do nothing but watch as he put his hand through its chest.
They hung in the air for a few seconds before the grim faced God yanked his hand free. The white creature fell limply to the grate flooring several meters below, very dead. Turning his head, he saw the other one unmoving against a large, slow moving cogwheel. Satisfied that the danger was gone, at least for the moment, he floated around the corner and through a door to the room where Urd was busy working on their escape.
"How much longer?" His voice was neutral, though he had to force back a groan as he massaged his arm where the Sentinel had scored a hit.
She was darting about the control node for the Haguruma's machinery, hitting toggle switches, adjusting dials, pulling levers, and hitting buttons as she went. The place was as analog as the current Yggdrasil was digital. Clicks were sounding every time something moved, and she was working so fast that the sounds never stopped.
"It'll be a few more minutes," she said tensely, pausing long enough to wipe the sweat from her brow. "Just a few more minutes and we'll be able to get out of here."
"Damn," he cursed under his breath. He knew that those two were just the beginning. The Sentinels knew where they were now. In a few more minutes there would be twenty of them bearing down on the two fugitives. It was hard enough fighting two at once, and he might be able to fight off four or five if luck was on his side. Beyond that, there was virtually no chance that he could win. And that's assuming that no Templars show up. "Urd, they're going to be swarming us any second. Once they arrive in numbers, we're finished, I won't be able to hold them off."
She frowned as she continued her work, not looking back at him. "There isn't anything more I can do. Creating a gate is bad enough with the Yggdrasil computer system, and this place just wasn't made for speed."
"Criminal Sephiroth! Criminal Urd!" Urd paused as she and the God looked at each other with trepidation as they heard the strange double-voices of the Sentinel. "You are surrounded. Come out now and surrender."
Sephiroth nodded to Urd, who resumed her work as he tried to buy more time. "What have you been ordered to do with us once we have been captured?" he called out to the unseen Guardians of Heaven.
"We have received orders that the criminal Urd is to be taken alive to face trial before the High Council," it replied without emotion. "The criminal Sephiroth is to be executed on sight, as per the outcome of his trial and the orders of Chancellor Marduk."
Looking back over at Urd, she put up her index finger. One more minute. I suppose that there's no choice then. Sighing heavily, the God moved over to the console. "Escape as soon as you have the gate ready. I will hold them off, and follow you if I can."
Her movements stopped as she looked at him, almost as if she had just realized he was there. "What are you saying?" Suddenly waving a finger in his face, her voice betrayed a nervousness in her angry words. "You are not going to die here! We're leaving this place together, and that's that! I didn't put myself through all this just so you could wind up dead anyway! Do you understand?"
He could only respond with a weak smile. She's always so demanding. Reaching over, he picked up Masamune from its resting place against the nearby console. His voice held a twinge of hope as he started for the door. "I will…do what I can."
"You'd better survive, you jerk!"
As he neared the door and the clicking sounds returned behind him, he realized that this was the most important fight of his life. Looking back at the furiously working Urd, the words of another Goddess came to mind.
'As often as the person may do things that bother you, it doesn't change the fact that you don't want them to come to harm, right? As long as you want to keep that person safe, then you will find your true strength.'
He pondered Belldandy's words in those few seconds. If I fail here, Urd will pay the price. I cannot let that happen, no matter who my opponents are. Striding confidently around the corner, he lost sight of the Goddess, turning instead to the enemies outside the control room. He counted seventeen Sentinels floating before him, and no Templars. That made things easier.
All of them stared at him coldly, without pity for the one they were ordered to kill. They were an intimidating sight, every bit the creatures that few had ever dared challenge in the long history of Heaven. His sharp eyes, however, saw them edging away ever so slightly. They knew what their fallen comrades knew, and they were not looking forward to this fight.
His lips curling upward, he looked at them as a predator would. They shifted back further as he grasped the Masamune. With a deliberately slow motion he brought it before him as the black sheath disintegrated. The long blade shone in the dimly lit Haguruma, its deadly edge ready to take first blood.
He felt a tingle in his fingers as Masamune spoke to him. I know. This is just a holding action. I just need to stay alive until the gate opens. Another tingle. Killing these things does not weigh on my conscious. They are out for my life, and if they capture Urd, her life is forfeit as well. I will not allow that to happen.
Flexing his shoulders, the single white wing extended from his back. Pain shot through the bleeding wound where his other wing should have been, but he stubbornly refused to show it to his opponents. As he raised his head once more, his eyes narrowed and focused on one of the white beings. Letting out a tremendous roar, his power spiked, and the Sentinel burst into flames. The others spread away from their fellow, startled by their fellow's demise.
Taking his chance, he jumped forward and sliced the nearest one before quickly pivoting to drive the weapon into the head of the next. A flurry of lighting struck at him as he almost seemed to teleport out of the way.
He quickly realized that he had lost the advantage of surprise. The fourteen remaining creatures were now quite focused, zooming this way and that in an attempt to flank their target. However, for every strike they made he parried with speed that amazed even himself. How is this possible? I've never been this fast before. Two closed in on him from his flanks as another fired a bolt from right in front of him. The fugitive Templar smiled.
Flinging up his shield program, the bolt was deflected at just the right angle to strike the Sentinel rushing in from the right. It made a disturbing sort of scream before becoming rigid and grey, falling silently to the ground and shattering. With a spinning slash he brought the blade around, decapitating the one to his left.
Feeling a powerfully sharp pain in his back, he fell to the metal floor. Instinctively turning onto his back and bringing Masamune up, he just blocked another strike from the Sentinel. It bore down on him, pressing the lance hard against the huge blade. It's cold, expressionless eyes belied the fierce effort it was putting forth to kill him. He stared back at the vacant expression for several seconds before ramming his head violently into its face. As it fell back into the air he swung with all his might upward, cutting the golden rod in half and giving it a deep laceration from the abdomen to just under the chin.
"Sephiroth!" Urd's voice echoed out of the control room, loud enough to be heard over another clang of steel against steel. She had activated the gate. Now was the time to escape.
Flying straight up and out of the way of two more attacks, he easily cut the metal shaft of a huge cogwheel overhead turned on. The gear, a little less than five meters across and nearly half a meter thick, plummeted downward. The Sentinels scattered at it fell, tearing through several catwalks and platforms as it clamored out of sight. It might have even caught one of the enemy beneath it, he wasn't sure and he didn't have time to check.
Lancing across the battlefield in the confusion, he rushed into the door. Just as he rounded the corner, a blast struck the entrance and knocked him forward. Struggling to keep his balance, he suddenly realized something that he should have known from the start.
The Sentinels would follow them. If he didn't stop them here, then he would have to fight them on Earth, and he didn't know if he could keep Urd safe in that event. All it would take is one energy blast from their lances and she would be gone. I have to stop them here.
Even as he thought that, he knew it wasn't possible to win. He had been fighting harder and faster than he ever had. He had taken a painful hit to his back, which already hurt from his missing wing, and his breaths were coming shorter. He wouldn't last against what was left. He couldn't win, but he could force a stalemate.
When the Guardians of Heaven rushed around the corner to give chase, they found Sephiroth waiting. Masamune was strapped over his back, and the gate was swirling and glowing behind him. His arms were over his head, sweat pouring down his brow, with electricity arcing between his hands. They could feel the tremendous power he was bringing to bear, and they knew what he was about to do with it.
A force ball was one of the most simple attack programs, as well as being very versatile. While most programs had a limit to how much power could be put into them, the force ball had no such limit. The danger of overcharging the attack was that it had an explosive blast radius. Putting too much power into a force ball attack was as likely to kill the user as it was the opponents. But then, Sephiroth knew all that.
The Sentinels, while being totally devoted to their mission, did possess a degree of self preservation, and that was what kept them at bay now. They knew what would happen if his attack went off, and they didn't seem interested in seeing it firsthand. Floating in place, they watched him carefully. Sephiroth knew they were communicating with each other, deciding what course of action to take. He wouldn't have much more time.
A sphere of blue energy blinked into existence between his hands. The Sentinels charged forward to stop him. Yelling, he knew this was it. They wouldn't capture Urd, at least not today. He brought the energy down, hurling it to the plate metal floor just a meter in front of him.
Everything seemed to go in slow motion afterward. The flash blinded him, though he didn't really care about that. It was just as well that he didn't have to watch what his attack did to the Sentinels. He felt the pressure from the explosion against his skin, stretching it back as the heat scorched him. He vaguely felt himself flung backwards through the air, and the energy wave that washed over him as he hurtled through the gate.
After that, everything went black.
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She had been able to hear the battle as she worked. Every moment that ticked by she thought of a new curse for the clumsy and archaic controls for the Haguruma. Finally, after what seemed like forever, the gate finally appeared. Yelling to Sephiroth to let him know it was time to leave, she dove though. Now she was just waiting for the God to follow.
Urd was standing in a clearing, somewhere in a forest of Japan. She hadn't been very specific on where the gate would lead in order to save time, but she really didn't know where she was or where they would go from here.
The gate swirled and resonated with a deep hum, but nothing was coming through. She was starting to worry about what was happening in the Haguruma. She could only pray that he would make it back. She got her wish very abruptly, though not in the way she wanted it.
The smoking form of the white haired God flew from the portal like a rag doll. The gate flashed brightly and vanished with a loud bang. Blinking a few times as her sight began to focus again, she saw Sephiroth slumped on the dead grass beneath the tree he had slammed into.
Kneeling beside him she removed the Masamune, which was still strapped to his back. Rolling him over, she winced at the second and third degree burns over every inch of his exposed skin. Blood was coming from his nose and mouth, and as she leaned in she could hear his labored breathing.
"Damn it, damn it!" Summoning all her powers, she threw it all into a minor first aid program she had learned as a child. Without her potions, she could barely do any healing at all. Several minutes later she finally relented. With all the running and evading, and now this, it felt like she had worked a muscle too hard. Now her powers felt, for lack of a better term, almost rubbery.
For all the effort she had expended, very little was accomplished. His burns seemed to have lessened slightly, but his breathing hardly seemed better and he was still bleeding. Tearing away parts of her battle uniform, she tried to do her best to fashion bandages, but she knew there was little she could do right then.
All Urd could do now was wait and hope that he could pull through on his own.
Doing her best to collect herself, she began to sit back when she finally perceived them. In a flash Masamune was in her hands, and she stood ready to fight, tired as she was. The Goddess couldn't see her enemies, but she knew they had surrounded her. Sentinels? No, it feels different. The Cruel Angel's monsters?
Sweat beaded on her brow, rolling down her cheeks. Her emerald eyes were darting this way and that, trying to see the enemies that she had so carelessly allowed to ambush her. Something was odd, though. They weren't attacking, just watching.
"Come out and face me already!" She yelled in anger, refusing to be toyed with. A rustle from behind a nearby tree drew her attention. Dead leaves crackled underfoot as a shadow moved out from behind it.
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A/N:
Sorry this one took so long. My classes are cutting into my writing time. Still, it's really interesting stuff. My aircraft accident investigation course is awesome. I'll be doing my research paper on American Airlines 191 (just type in 'aa191' in wikipedia and you'll get the scoop on the crash).
Anyway, we're closing in on the last chapters that I wrote prior to this incarnation of the story. The rest of the story is starting to come together in some of my notes, so I've got direction and an ending. All that's left is to actually write it all. It'd be awesome if I could finish before the end of the year, but I'm not ready to make that prediction yet.
Thank you to my reviewers. For NavyPolice83: I'm pleased that you like it so much. As far as Sephiroth goes, I haven't actually said it yet, but I pretty much have. Of course, that may or may not matter now (evil laugh).
The Sentinels are the creatures in the OMG movie that came after Celestine when he turned bad guy in Heaven. They were the things that Bell knocked the snot out of before she went all depressive. Their 'lances' are the golden rods that they used in the movie, and I think were used by Bell at the end of the movie as well. I don't know the names, so I just made them up.
Hopefully next chapter will put Zankoku over 100K words. Personally I'm amazed that I've managed to write so much. On the other hand, who knows just how much farther I have to go before I'm finished?
Anyway, thanks to all for reading and staying with me for so long. I hope I can keep you all with me to the end.
Katamari Damacy