Chapter 23: All the little angels…
Author's Note: Neither Wind nor Rain nor Lost Power nor Downed Phone Lines shall keep me from writing when I'm in the Mood. There's nothing else to do, anyway.
Sheena's hand tagged the door of Zelos' mansion a half-second before Lloyd's. "Beat you!" the dark-haired woman crowed.
"Aw, man," Lloyd hung his head. "Can't we do it again? I almost had you…"
"Nope," Sheena's grin was like the sun coming up. "You lost."
Inside the house, they found Zelos staring at the chess board that was always set up on the table. He looked up when they came in. "Oh. Hi! How'd it go?"
"Pretty good. The King approved the Order of Yggdrasill. Now I don't have much to do."
"We figured we should take a vacation, since we have the free time now," Sheena added.
"Oh? Where to?"
"Altamira and the Monastery. Wanna come along?" she said.
"Hell yeah!" Zelos stood up. "Sunny beaches! Hot chicks! Bathing suits!"
"Cool it, Zelos. We don't need you getting so excited at the thought of the beach that you get confused." Sheena said primly.
Zelos was grinning enormously. "Alright! I'll go let the others know!" He dashed off.
It was a nice day to be flying. The trip on the Rheairds was almost leisurely. They flew through skies devoid of cloud cover—a blessing that they appreciated enormously. Anyone who'd had to fly a Rheaird through the maw of a thunderstorm had a very strong desire to never do it again.
It took them most of the rest of the day to get to Altamira. To no great surprise of Lloyd's, everybody had elected to come along on the trip. Elpida had been as excited as Zelos at the thought of the beach.
However, when the group touched down outside of the city, two things became apparent. Thing One was that there were alarms screaming inside the city. Thing Two was that there was a crowd inside the gate of the city. The group let Ribs get into his costume, then approached the crowd. One man was running back and forth in a panic, shouting incoherently.
His path brought him by Athan. The fighting monk stopped him by the simple expedient of sticking out an arm. The man ran full-on into the arm, folding over it. Athan's arm didn't budge an inch. It must have felt like running into a steel girder.
The powerful monk picked up the man and thumped him on the back until he got his breath back. "Sorry about that," he said perfunctorily. "What's all the excitement about?"
"Monsters! On the beach!" the man gasped. "We'll never get them off! They'll be on the beach forever!" He sounded hysterical. And not entirely sane, but that's not unusual for people who end a sentence with more than one exclamation point.
Athan set the man down, and watched him run off. He turned to look at his friends. "What do we do about it?"
"We could go down there and take care of the problem," Lloyd said with exaggerated casualness. He was fighting a smile.
Sheena, apparently with no thought, pulled out her cards and began fanning herself with them.
Raine sighed. "You're all a bunch of children. Did it even occur to you to find out more about the situation before you rush in and kill everything?"
In the past couple of years, Lloyd had gotten older and, he hoped, a bit wiser. He could see the sense in Raine's approach. "You're right, Professor. I'll go ask around before we go down there. All of you stay here."
He shouldered his way through the crowd, keeping an eye out. He was rewarded with the sight of a couple of Lezareno employees standing off to the side, watching the crowd. In his experience, Regal's employees had a very good sense of what's going on. Besides, he was sure he recognized them.
"Excuse me," he said politely.
One of the men squinted at him. "Aren't you Lloyd Irving? One of Duke Regal's friends?"
"Yeah, I am." That made this easier, certainly. "I just got into town. What's this talk about monsters on the beach?"
The man's face became disgusted. "There's several dozen dozen mermaids on the beach. We had to close the beach. The ladies pretty enough, I guess, but they try to eat anybody who goes down there."
Lloyd was startled. "Eat?"
"Well, I say eat. They have just enough to make sure the person won't have to worry about living. We were lucky this time. They didn't get anyone before we cleared the beach."
"It's happened before?"
"Every three or four years. We get people off the beach and get a bunch of mercenaries to come out and wipe them out. They won't leave otherwise."
Lloyd grinned. "Why don't we just save you the trouble? I'm sure we could take care of them."
The man grinned. "We'd be obliged, sir."
"Right. My friends and I will see what we can do."
He left the pair, going back through the crowd.
The employee who hadn't said anything looked at his friend accusingly. "Jeff! You didn't tell him that we have to hire only female mercenaries!"
Jeff looked stricken. "Er..." he said. He recovered after a moment. "Tom, I think he can handle it. That was Lloyd Irving. I heard that the King himself knighted him last week."
"He said they show up every few years, and the city has to hire a bunch of mercenaries to get rid of them," Lloyd told his friends.
Everyone turned to look at Raine. She threw up her hands. "All right! We'll go fight them. I guess there's no other way."
Grinning widely, Lloyd drew his swords. Athan began doing a few stretches. Sheena got out her cards smugly. Ribs drew his old sword and got his shield out of the Wing Pack. Zelos got his sword and shield together, then looked inquiringly at Elpida. "You should stay here," he told her.
"Awww! You're worried about me!" She gushed. "That's so sweet! But don't worry, Fred, I'll be fine. I can fight. In fact, I bet I'll account for more kills than you."
The party went down the steps to the beach. Down there, they could see the mermaids further down the beach. Some were eating what looked to be fish, others were just basking in the sun, and the rest were engaged in conversation in some strange, singing, inhuman tongue.
As the party approached, one of the gorgeous, red-scaled fish women looked up at the group. She pointed, and called something out to her fellows. The mermaids all focused on the group. Slowly, they grinned.
The singing began with one mermaid near the back. Her voice rose and fell in a melodious, almost seductive tune. Then a few more joined in. Within thirty seconds of the first one starting, every mermaid was singing.
"What are they doing?" Sheena yelled to Raine.
"I don't know!"
Elpida grabbed at Sheena's arm. "Look at the guys!" She shouted.
Lloyd, Athan, and Zelos were standing absolutely still, with looks of dreamy pleasure on their faces.
"It's the song! It's affecting them!"
"Screw that!" Sheena snarled. "I'm not letting them get at Lloyd!" She advanced towards the fish-women.
…The song became a little harsher, the tone a little darker…
Lloyd, his face still dreamy, ran at Sheena. Raine noticed the movement. "SHEENA! LOOK OUT!"
Sheena turned to see the Vorpal Sword coming at her face. She tensed herself—but the razored blue-glowing edge stopped a hairs-breadth from her face.
Jerkily, his other arm rose, swung Flamberge at her—and also stopped. Sheena, not daring to move, watched Lloyd's face.
He still wore that vague, happy expression, but a twitch was working at the corner of his faint smile. As she watched, it became more pronounced. Then his whole expression tensed. When it cleared, his eyes weren't glazed and he wasn't smiling. He lowered the swords, his face anguished.
"Sheena, I'm sor—" he began.
"There's no time! Look!" She pointed over his shoulder.
He turned to look. Zelos, his great sword held at the ready, was advancing on Raine. Athan was trying to get close to Elpida, but she was dashing around a table, keeping it between him and her.
"Help Raine!" Sheena told him, already dashing towards her brother.
Lloyd got a good run-up. Zelos, his back to Lloyd and his sword raised, didn't see him coming. Just as the charmed Chosen was about to swing at Raine, Lloyd tackled him from behind, knocking him into the wet sand.
"Professor! Help me!" Lloyd yelled, wrestling with Zelos. Skinny though the red-headed man's frame may have been, he had a wiry strength to him. Lloyd felt he was only barely stronger than the former Chosen. Somehow, Zelos managed to turn himself over and, his dreamy expression still serene, he grabbed Lloyd's throat. Lloyd gritted his teeth against the feeling of Zelos' fingers digging into his neck, and punched the redhead right in the eye. He felt Zelos' grip weaken for a moment, and hammered Zelos again—once, twice. Zelos' expression clouded for a moment, and he clutched at his face. Then Raine was there, grabbing Zelos' arms, and between the human and the half-elf, they managed to get Zelos on his front again, where Raine hauled his arms into a painful-looking lock.
"Go help Sheena!" Raine said. "I've got him!"
Lloyd levered himself up out of the sand, and ran over to where Athan was, without much visible effort, dodging Sheena's attacks.
Tackling Athan did not work as well as it had on Zelos. The man was a bit on the short side, yes, but he was naturally broad-shouldered and, furthermore, covered with muscles as solid as a plank. Lloyd felt like he'd tried to take down a tree. The impact managed to knock Athan off his feet, but Lloyd was more than smart enough to not try grappling with the tattooed fighter. He rolled away immediately, and scrambled up to his feet to get back into the fray.
Ribs was not affected by the mermaids' song. It appealed to instincts, urges, and, well, body parts that he didn't have any more. He thought about joining in with his friends, but concluded that attacking the mermaids would have more effect. He turned his attention to them.
He let his common vision unravel, and felt around with the inside of his skull, feeling for the mana….
Let's see…the big, glowing nebulous mana cloud that was the effect of the song made it a bit difficult, but Ribs perceived…yes, there it was! Each mermaid was linked to every other mermaid. Combining their efforts. Hah. There was a drawback to linking, Ribs knew. His gloved hand weighed his sword thoughtfully as he advanced, coat swishing, towards the nearest mermaid.
The poor monster was almost totally concentrating on maintaining the link and the song. She never saw Ribs coming, or saw the blow until it as happening.
Ribs could kill something quickly and efficiently, with a minimum of mess and noise. Right then, he didn't bother with such finesse. He jabbed his well-used, well-balanced weapon into the fish-woman, and then jerked it, ripping her open across the middle. The searing pain brought her back to the physical world, and her song went into a scream.
The other mermaids faltered, and a few others screamed as intensely as the wounded one had. Ribs felt a tight satisfaction, and kicked the shrieking mermaid onto her front with his hard boot. Then he lightly jabbed her with his sword—almost just a sharp poke, really. It didn't go very deep, but, then, on the spot he picked, it didn't have to. The mermaid ceased screaming—and stopped moving, as well.
The shock of the death ran through the others, and they stopped singing completely. Zelos quit struggling against Raine, and Athan stood up from his normal fighting stance. But it was only for a few precious seconds, until the mermaids began their song again.
Elpida, too small to help much with wrestling with the two guys, watched Ribs. A faint, reddish-purple glow flowed around him. Her attention now totally occupied, she watched the glow intensify, then slide up him and gather into his palm. When it finished, he lobbed the crackling ball of dark mana up into the air.
Then thin rays of darkness ripped up the beach, striking randomly within the gathering of mermaids. The enemies' numbers were such that each of the randomly-striking bolts couldn't help but hit a mermaid or two. Elpida grinned. She knew about that technique—Vengeance, a sort of Dark-magic version of Judgment. She ran to the revenant, and grabbed his arm.
"Ribs! Do that again! Combine it with my Judgment!"
Ribs nodded, and fell back into his casting, the reddish-purple nimbus coming back around him. He was almost halfway through when he happened to glance at Elpida. He almost lost the spell completely out of shock.
Elpida was glowing white, but that wasn't unusual for someone casting a Light-based spell. What shocked him were the spreading, white, transparent wings that had sprang out of her shoulders and spread almost to the ground. The hazy bottom tips of her wings would have touched the ground—if she had been standing on it.
Ribs wrenched his attention back to his casting. Elpida finished her incantation first, and waited for him to catch up. Her face dead serious, she said, "Ready? On three…"
When she reached three, they both hurled the spells into the air, high above the mermaids. Everyone on the beach—monsters, fighters, and casters, watched the two spheres of mana, one light, one dark--arc over the mermaids and touch.
The world became silent.
There was a sound like a marshmallow landing on a plate.
Then the world became searing bright, and the horrible noise clapped itself over the ears of everyone present.
Witnesses said later that the Altamira Hotel shuddered at the impact, rattling every window. And years later, geologists surveying the mountains at the other end of the island found that some great shock had caused avalanches and made the mountains settle—collapsing most of the caverns in there. They put it down to a local earthquake.
There was a silent moment while everyone's eyes adjusted to normal sunlight again. Then Zelos said, "Um, Professor Raine? As much as I like having you on top of me, can you let me up now?"
Cautiously, Raine released her lock and got up, wobbling a little from the memory of that moment when the whole island shuddered. Zelos got up, and gingerly touched his face where Lloyd had hit him. His eye was swollen nearly shut, and was fast turning into a spectacular shade of purple. Then his expression went flinty, and he retrieved his sword.
There were two mermaids still alive. Alive, but by no means intact. They were weakly trying to take up the song again. His face stony, Zelos finished them off with two well-placed chops.
He turned around to see everyone gathered around Elpida, who was grinning hugely and floating with her toes about six inches above the sand. He came back over just as Sheena asked, "When were you going to tell us you're an angel?"
"Well, I didn't remember until not even a couple of minutes ago. When I saw Bones over there use Vengeance, I remembered I can use Judgment. But I have to have my wings out to do it, so I remembered them, too."
"White wings?" Raine asked.
"Maybe it's a personality thing," the girl said.
"Amazing. I thought me and Yuan and Colette were the last angels left," Lloyd said.
Zelos coughed apologetically. "Um. Lloyd, about that…"
Every eye turned to him. Sheena crossed her arms, guessing what this was leading up to.
Zelos went on wretchedly. "Ah, you know how at first I was leaking information to Cruxis and the Renegades?"
Sheena raised an eyebrow. "It went further than leaking information," she stated rather than asked.
"Ah, well, watch…" Zelos concentrated, willing his wings to expand. He'd never really practiced doing it, but finally he felt them spread out. He moved them a bit.
"Ooh! Pretty! I like the color, Fred!" Elpida said. "It fits you. Flamboyant, you know? It's a shame they clash with your hair."
Lloyd tilted his head. "When were you going to let us know?"
"Ah, well, when I first met you, I didn't tell you because I didn't know if I'd have to fight you. And after the world was rejoined, it'd either slip my mind or the time wasn't right. I mean, I couldn't just go, 'Hey, everybody! Look what I can do!' "
Sheena sniffed. "Sounds like something you'd do."
Raine shrugged. "Anyway, you'd better put your wings away, both of you. People will wonder, and they'll be coming down here in a moment."
"Awww! Do I have to?" Elpida whined as childishly as she could.