A.C.: Yesh... I have been gone for a long time haven't I...
Disclaimer: don't own it -.-
Warnings: As always, watch out for the rampant use of grammar
For reference...
Ian as Ivan
Spencer as Sergei
Bryan as Boris
Boris as Balcov
Tala as Yuriy
Hiro as Hiroshi
Tyson as Takao
Hilary as Hiromi
...And I think that's it
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He dreams of flames because that is where he imagines he would be, in hell with the temptations of the saffron sky stretched above him. He can't help but dream because it is the only thing he's known in his life, always falling an inch too short, denied the bonds he should have made, those he should have had. So he dreams and continues to look up thirstily up at the skies almost as if they could fill his stomach, free him from his cage. The fires always leap high, not hot enough, and never enough to give him the pain he craves and surely deserves. So he dreams and dreams, he dreams of the walls melting, the sky falling and the world drowning.
He dreams of flames that would set him free.
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Sergei fell sideways accompanied by a meaty thud, his face pressed against the floor and hidden from view. With an exultant snort Miriam straightened her skirt, the front of which a darker red from the squirt of blood. Colleen's fingers barred her wide, green eyes. Dunga got up, his arm gently cradling his side as he watched the blunette bathing in the afterglow of her first kill. It was something they had all been prepared for after all. What was the life of one against millions who would suffer both directly and indirectly should the gods turn upon them? So he turned his head and faced the remaining Russian and a half, shell-shocked and glued to their spot.
"Watch Colleen," Miriam addressed the whimpering girl, her hair magnificent blue waves against her face. "Honor the fallen," it was an adage, preparing one's transition throughout one's life. Sharkrash spun around with a low hum. Boris didn't bother looking at it but Kai tilted his head and twitched, the garnet-eyed teen was listening. Dunga mutely directed his bey forward, "be proud of what you are..."
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Hitoshi drummed his fingers restlessly against the steering wheel as the traffic around them passed by in a crawl. At the back of his mind, he felt a modicum of guilt for the three teenagers (two brats and one girl) quivering in each other's embrace. But Hitoshi had never felt the tugs so strongly before. For an ephemeral moment, it was as if a supernova had gone off in his stomach with only the fragile layers of his skin to contain it. It was like having twin light bulbs stuck to the back of his eyes, showing him where he needed to go and what to do.
As he took the next exit leading off the ramp, he briefly wondered if Takao could feel it. Or had his caution in breaking off the boy's contact with the rogue phoenix shattered what bonds they might have created between them. Takao's eyes –as he held a squirming Daichi out to shield himself- were blue, not red.
He relaxed, about an inch.
Not like his, even less like Kai's.
"Stay here ok?"
Rain fell in thick, fat droplets. Heavy clouds spun above their heads until it looked like an entire herd of muddy, gray sheep had been thrown into the sky.
Hitoshi dug into his back pockets and threw a roll of balled up yen into the cushioned passenger seat in the middle of the van. The teenagers flinched visibly as the wad of paper landed with a mute plop.
Opening the door, Hitoshi could already tell that they were close to the ocean. He tasted the salt in the wind as he felt the rain soak him down to the skin. Making sure that the three seemed as though they would stay put, Hitoshi ran towards the docks.
Takao, Daichi, and Hiromi could only watch anxiously as the man disappeared into the rain.
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Had the rain grown harder?
The sound of water droplets rattling the tin surface of the warehouse was distracting, disturbing. The lantern above swayed with the wind, hypnotically expanding and contracting the shadows by their feet. And still they had not moved, or at least he had not moved, even when it became evident that the Saint Shields were not satisfied with the killing of their oldest member.
'Foolish...'
'Let's...'
'...Stay...'
'Me'
The words came to him in broken fragments with the torrent of rain. Bile rose in his throat but he fought it back down, his fists clenching and unclenching in cadence to the silent bell still ringing mournfully in his ears. He had seen people die before, many more because of him, but never one who he considered a brother, a friend. Never one whom he believed was so invincible.
'Let... go...'
Kai hadn't realized that Boris had drawn his arm back before thrusting forward. He hadn't noticed the shout of warning, the sharp whistle as the knives flew through the air.
'Let me go...'
Miriam screamed as the knives tore into her right hand and lower arm. The first two shaved the tip of her right pinky and the ring finger off as the third blade struck her in the elbow and the fourth buried itself in the wood between her armpits. She dropped the gun. Immediately, Sharkrash took a defensive position in front of her, Vortex Ape providing the much needed back up to the exhausted bit beast.
'Stop'
Boris launched Falborg. The sky-colored raptor screeched her challenge in answer to her master's call. The blue bey quickly ran loops around Vortex Ape, hook-like claws sinking into the image of the bit beast above.
A dun bey crashed into the side of the blue falcon. The raptor screeched indignantly as she was ground between the two tops, Colleen's bit-less dun and Dunga's Vortex Ape. The simian bit beast wrapped its hand around Falborg's right wing and began to pull. Boris staggered sideways as if he had been hit. With an audible crack, Falborg's right wing dislocated and hung uselessly down at her side as she screamed obscenities at her opponents. She then lashed out, clipping the bit-less bey and sending it spinning across the dust covered floor. However the victory was short lived as Vortex Ape tackled her, intent on bringing her down.
The sound of grinding metal spurred Kai into action.
"Yuuya!"
The phoenix's cry was crass and hollow compared the sonorous tone of his counterparts but it effectively brought the one-sided battle to an end. The iron-gray bey downed Sharkrash before cowing Colleen's into a corner. With a sweep of its metallic wings, Yuuya crashed into Vortex Ape and wrapped himself around the other bit beast as if he was a serpent rather than an avian.
'Let me go, let them die... it doesn't matter'
'... You'
The last word came out as a half-whine but he wasn't sure if he had said it out loud. Kai put a hand on Boris' shoulder and wrenched it backwards, turning the platinum-haired man's attention towards him. A fist struck him in the face as Boris lashed out. Seemingly just as astonished to see the dual-haired blader nursing his fast darkening jaws.
"We have to go. We..." he couldn't continue. How could he when finishing the sentence would have been admitting that they had failed. He had failed. He had failed against a bunch of nobodies with a rock. He watched warily as Boris reached out tentatively to tap his fingertips against the bruises. "It's not worth it, Sergei might still be alive."
"Why haven't you gone to him then?"
'Stay...'
A finger ghosted over the curve of his neck.
Impossible, it would have had to go through his scarf first.
'Let go.'
'...Let me stay...'
"What?"
'Let's stay...'
Kai shook his head in confusion.
'Stop it'
"You can't save everyone Hiwatari." Kai stumbled as Boris pushed him away. The pale-haired young man pivoted on one foot and caught the knife in mid-spin. Miriam growled as she scrambled to her knees and rolled sideways, a second knife held in her good as she sucked on her bleeding digits.
'You did the right thing.'
Then why was everything going so wrong?
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"Yuriy!" Ivan shouted, momentarily forgetting their work protocol as he tackled his redhead leader and forced him down against the metal platform. A bey landed on the safety bars, leaving a dent on its surface before hopping down. Yuriy and Ivan immediately took their guns out, Ivan shooting backwards at the spinning top while Yuriy shot into the empty darkness upside down.
Ivan got off the redhead to examine the downed bey. A single bullet had gone through the center but it wasn't the body that he was interested in, it was the top gear. Yuriy flipped onto his stomach and reloaded his gun. The cartilages fell from the magazine and rolled off the platform.
"Ta..."
Yuriy rolled his eyes.
"I know."
Ivan pocketed the damaged bey.
"Anything interesting?" he asked casually miming a shot before reaching for the ladder above.
They heard the quick footsteps over the roar of the rain. Yuriy looked towards the clouded sky.
"Well... we know that they're not playing around."
"Neither are we."
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The fighting beys scattered like fish in a pond when Miriam's second knife scored the ground before them. Gritting his teeth, Boris tossed his knife again but missed. The blunette quickly hurdled over the spinning beys, picked up Sharkrash and launched it in midair.
Sharkrash swallowed the knife and deflected it before snapping her jaws at Falborg. Miriam tore off her shirt sleeve and pressed it down on the stub of her fingers as Yuuya gave a chase, spitting out balls of water and electricity at the girl. As they passed by, Vortex Ape took a hold of the tapered tail with a strenuous heave and threw the cyber-organic bit beast into the crates.
Boris appeared in front of the green-eyed blunette and kicked her in the stomach. She stifled a gasp and stumbled backwards. He snorted when she fell backwards, her arms around the middle as she rolled onto her knees. She glared angrily when she saw the faint light reflecting off the object in his hands, the gun she had dropped earlier.
"Get away from her!"
Through the corner of his eyes, he saw Dunga barreling his way towards him. Boris pulled the trigger and watched impassively as the hazy silhouette floundered in the dust. He rubbed his face and saw that his fingers were pink and dripping. "Fuck I can't see a thing" Their fighting had stirred up all the accumulative dust and spread it through the air. In the fogged atmosphere, he could hear the light hum of grinding gears as Miriam and Kai shouted at their respective bit beasts.
Boris' eyes widened, where was the girl?
"Kai!"
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"This is taking too long..."
The green-eyed leader of Saint Shields sighed as he stared at the bare steel beams around him. One hand, in his pocket, toyed with a violet bey. The other hand was placed against the rain-soaked bars as if trying to get a feel as to what was happening around him.
Footsteps came like muted gongs on the metal platforms. When nothing but slow breathing and the sound of rain greeted him, Ozuma slowly turned around.
"O... Ozuma..."
Ozuma stared in shock as the latest member they had incorporated for their little mission gave a sobbing whimper. The black-and-red haired leader held his launcher out, a furious look crossing his face as he took a step back. The boy's eyes rolled backwards as Wyborg gave an experimental squeeze with its ambidextrous tongue. The forked end stretched towards him almost playfully.
"So this is where you've been hiding."
A face emerged from the shadows, from behind the giant snake that currently had its red-stained tongue around the teen's torso.
"H... how..."
"How I found you? Or is that how Wyborg is going to eat the blubbering wonder here?"
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The bulb shattered and left a hole in the ceiling. Rain poured through and along with it came the smell of the cold sea and the corrosive salt. The dust settled. The sparks licked at the various grates, unperturbed by the spray of salty rain. Kai cocked his gun back, an empty cartilage chiming against the dirty floor. Sharkrash tilted on its axis before whining to a stop, Cyber Dranzer soon followed suit. Under normal circumstances this would have signaled the end of their confrontation, perhaps they could have left, the Saint Shields would have thrown enigmatic words at them before departing. But this was far from ordinary, the opponents they were facing less than real.
Kai leveled his gun and aimed it at Miriam's forehead. The blunette froze, a strip of cloth twisted between her bloody fingers as she tightened the knots with her other hand and teeth. He made a slight keening noise and faltered, one knee bending but not quite touching the ground, his hand lowered his head bowing. Colleen stood behind him, trembling as she held a dagger with both hands; the blade deep within the back of Kai's ribs.
With a cry, she wrenched the blade up and bore his back open. The knife cut through the leathery material of his jacket and half way through the length blood speckled scarf before stopping. When met with resistance from the white cloth, she promptly dropped her knife as if she had been scalded and burned. He choked, blood spilling out of his lips as the wound frothed angrily on his back. The girl backed away, both hands on the side of her face as her impossibly large green eyes grew blank in horror.
"Run Colleen!!" Miriam shrieked.
The girl wasn't fast enough, she wasn't moving at all. So shocked at the audacity of her own act her body had forgotten how to move. She stayed glued to her spot as Kai stretched his arm back; the cold tip of the muzzle pressed against the right half of her forehead. He stared defiantly at the rest, daring them to stop him, goading them to make him drop his gun.
Colleen had begun to cry at the touch of the gun against her head. Droplets of salt rolled down her cheeks and hit the dust-riddled floor, much like the rain the storm had brought. The same rain washing over him as he smiled bitterly and bit down on his lips.
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Joseph fell on his stomach, a foot holding him in place. Vanishing Moot, useless in his pockets, flared angrily at the close proximity of another bit beast.
"Ivanov," the boy sputtered out as he floundered under Yuriy's foot. The redhead craned his head in surprise and sneered, seemingly indifferent to the difficulties Joseph experienced breathing.
"Tell me what's going on? Or would you prefer to join your friends?"
"What?" this time it was Joseph's turn to be surprised as he realized just how the redhead snuck up on him without anyone noticing. The foot ground against his back painfully. He yelped and flailed but the red-haired Russian held his position. Yuriy slid a knife under the boy's throat. Though the rain had licked the metal clean, the green-eyed boy could still see the pink-tinged water run down its length. He cried out, "He's dangerous!"
Yuriy cocked his head almost thoughtfully and muttered,
"Tell me something I don't know."
"You know he's dangerous! He does not fit to hold Suzaku, no human does."
"So you've gone around trying to seal them. But you let them go once, why the sudden change of heart?"
"He'll corrupt her." Joseph replied insistently,
"But you're not going after any of the others..." Yuriy pondered as Joseph squirmed beneath him. "You wanted Suzaku and to draw Kai out you took Sergei... A piece of advice kid," Joseph gasped as the knife cut through the fragile fold of skin. "There are painless ways to die." And as the redhead prepared to slit his throat, Joseph pulled out a bey stuck onto a launcher.
"A piece of advice," the green-eyed boy wheezed out, "doesn't be so talkative!"
There was no way for Joseph to launch his bey in the position he was in with one hand caught beneath his stomach. So he improvised and held the launcher vertically pointed at the steel beam below them. Gravity did the rest as he held on to the ripcord and watched Vanishing Moot land safely. It wasn't by far the strongest launch he had ever made, the white bey wobbled, too unstable too do much but stay on the lower levels. But with a puff of frost from the white bit-beast, the rain became needle-sized lances.
Yuriy turned his head and winced as a piece of ice struck him in the eye. Joseph rolled onto his back and kicked one foot sideways. The redhead slipped as the green-eyed Saint Shield got up into a sitting position and head butted his stomach. With a surprised gasp, Yuriy stumbled and fell. Joseph turned around; trying to pinpoint his leader's location when fingers shot out snagged the corner of his red and orange collar.
Joseph again fell, this time on his side. He tasted blood in his mouth as he accidentally bit down on his tongue. He tried to get up, his body in agony as he tried to figure out if his ribs had broken or were simply bruised. The redhead was unrelenting as he held on. With his other arm, Yuriy held onto to the metal beam his face carrying a smug smile.
"Hey, forgot that cornered rats bite."
And stuck his knife into Joseph's hips whe the boy tried to roll out of the way. The green-eyed boy said no words as he drew a knife from his boots and ran it down Yuriy's arm. The edge sliced open the thin layer of skin and a small amount of blood squirted out, disappearing beneath his sleeves. The redhead let go of the shirt collar and slipped, his torso sliding off the slippery metal. Joseph cried out as the knife was wrenched out of his body with a sharp pull. Before Yuriy could reach for him again, he raised the knife over his back and quickly drove it into Yuriy's hand. The redhead howled as his hand was briefly pinned to the steel beam. Cursing the fast fading back of the green-eyed boy, Yuriy slung his other arm over the metal and quickly climbed back up. He extracted the knife out and dropped it over to the side, not giving it much thought as he went back into what bereft protection the unfinished building offered.
He stumbled halfway through, the reddish orange beams multiplying then dividing as he swayed on his feet. He shook his head and got on a platform as quickly as possible and examined his hand. He couldn't tell if anything had gone wrong externally in the poor lighting. He stood up, almost throwing up in the process as he tripped over a cold body. He squinted, trying to see if it was someone he knew. Right, he had killed whoever it was a while back, actually minutes, but still dead, no threat. His hand shot out reflexively and saved his face from becoming a permanent fixture on the metal surface.
"Shit what the hell was that?" Yuriy mumbled, his vision blurring with spots of black dancing across his eyes. He narrowed his eyes and dangled his punctured hand in front of his eyes. Poison, he thought, not too dangerous or otherwise he would have probably passed out by now. He leaned against the rough wall, gashing his teeth as he made a makeshift tourniquet around his wrist and hand. He didn't know how much of an effect it would have in slowing the poison down, but at the very least, it was comforting to have it on.
His cheeks were warm he could feel it even at a distance. He waved his hands, too dizzy to coordinate his body into doing anything else. A wave of soft energy pillowed him as Wolfborg bound his wrists in a layer of ice. He touched his cheeks then his neck; he saw that there were minute, bubble-like knots from fading scars. It was odd how he could barely make out his feet on the floor but still see the finer details of his skin.
"Hey..." He said hoarsely,
'Yuriy?!' Something loud, perhaps Ivan.
"What are you doing here..."
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A.C.: Uhh this wasn't supposed to drag on this long... but it somehow did... -glares-
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Pikke Wood- I just could –offers Sergei free vodka and painkillers- hah, English isn't my first language either and I know I'm getting worseeeeeee... so uhh it's probably not just you ;.; and everyone's being nice by not mentioning it
Miako6- sorry -.-;; will add names at the beginning from now on, I've never seen the English version so I don't really know how to use the Americanized names...
Valenciadarkness- heh thanks
Ayatsuji- 18 isn't all that it's cracked up to be x3
Driving? Country rules or something. Thou shalt try to obey the signal lights until your graduation from high school and admission in to a 'great' college, which by that time your parents would have bought you a Mercedes or something from sheer joy and you can finally 'practice' your driving by crashing it into the first tree you see. Nice country, no really.
Hehe... can't draw anymore these days -wiggles fingers- can't really write either but I had some stuff lying around –shifty eyes-
GabZ- thank you –tries to make a smiley face but fails-
Do you really spell 'smiley' with an 'e' really? 0.o