Ragna knew well that there were usually two ways for those who wanted to travel from one Hierarchical City to another around the world. The first way was the most-publicized: Pay a decent amount of cash to buy a ticket, and you could get a ride on a large, seithr-powered airship that could safely cross the wild streams of magic that sometimes caused difficulties in most purely-mechanical things trying to fly through the air. It was relatively safe, and some of the ships even had luxury cabins for those who wanted to travel in style. Usually, if you had enough cash to buy a ticket, the ship's crew didn't bother asking too many questions about you unless you went out of your way to draw attention or an agent of the NOL was lurking nearby, but if you were caught there wasn't much room to escape and a drop of several kilometers for anyone who tried to jump off.
A combination of the latter and the fact that the port in Kagutsuchi was somehow damaged recently led Ragna to take the slightly longer route to reach that city. This route involved walking across the very Earth itself, the parts that hadn't been completely destroyed by the Black Beast or the Library during the war anyway. There were a few people who ran older shuttles, rusty metallic deathtraps that rolled on wheels along the ground. These catered to thrill-seekers, self-styled monster hunters, and those who for some reason couldn't or wouldn't use an airship to travel. It was much cheaper to go this route, but there were occasional monsters along the path, animals that had absorbed too much seithr for their own good and became insane.
Ragna decided to take the initiative as he descended to the lowest levels of the city he was currently in, and asked a few people for the hidden door. However, his version of asking involved walking into a nearby pub, grabbing a bartender by the collar, and demanding the answer through gritted teeth. After threatening the unfortunate civilian in his path, he finally got the answer he was looking for. Ragna decided to drop a few coins on the counter out of courtesy for the information, then left after tossing the bartender back behind the counter. The bartender rubbed his head, scooped up the coins and wondered just what kind of madman he just dealt with.
As soon as Ragna found the ground-level exit with a rusty shuttle idling nearby, he found himself facing a small group of poor vigilantes armed with relatively low-tech weaponry. A few clubs, bats, one rifle, and one sword that had probably been scavenged from some battlefield judging by the bland design on the sheath. In retrospect, he probably should not have threatened the bartender so publicly. One of the problems when announcing where he intended to be was that every two-bit joker with a weapon thought they could take him on, the lure of money winning over the prospect of a painful death.
"Ragna the Bloodedge!" One of them shouted, a man with a pompadour. Ragna fought the urge to laugh back at him. He couldn't believe anyone would take that hairstyle seriously. "The Library's gonna pay us a lot of money for taking you down! How about you make it easy on yourself and surrender now?"
"Look guys," Ragna replied, more out of annoyance than fear, "Do you even know how to handle those weapons? I mean…you're full of openings, you don't have the guts to use that bat on a real person, you haven't even take that blade out of its sheath, and the safety is still on that rifle you freakin' moron!" He pointed to various members of the posse as he spoke, causing them to readjust their grip or look at their own weapons. "I just want to get out of the city, and I'd prefer not to have to run my sword through all of you."
"Sh-shut up!" Another person stepped forward, this time a kid wearing a baseball cap. "You're just afraid of us!"
"And you!" Ragna pointed at the newest speaker who also happened to be holding a bat. "Have your balls even dropped yet?"
"Hey!" Another thug shouted, "Don't insult my little brother like that!"
Ragna shook his head. He could not believe people were so desperate for money they would throw themselves at him. "Fine, you idiots want to die? I have no problem with that. Come at me one-on-one or all it once. It won't matter." Most of the group decided to charge in unison. Ragna obliged them by ducking the swing of the two front-most attackers and kicked at someone's kneecap sending them to the ground. The second man was in too close and tripped over him. A third attacker wielding a billy club found himself facing the ground when Ragna used his mechanical hand to twist his arm around and send him into the dirt.
A fourth attacker took a club and swung down hard. Ragna simply sidestepped the attack, then stomped on his foot before he could regain his balance. As the man cried out in pain, Ragna struck him in the face with the palm of his mechanical hand, then let out a large burst of energy from his Gauntlet Hades, melting a good portion of the man's face off.
Pompadour-head walked up slowly, the sword at his side still in its sheath. "This will be a glorious battle!" He shouted while pointing theatrically. "I shall avenge my br—"
He never got to finish that sentence as Ragna took his sword out and in one swift motion created a "Death Spike," cutting off the man's weapon arm with a strange mass of reddish-looking energy that appeared to have a very evil face to it. Or maybe it was a hallucination? A vision of his last moments on this world? The man suddenly regretted his choice as he begged for mercy.
"Some advice for your next life, you fucking idiot." Ragna growled as he picked the man up by the collar with his mechanical hand and held his sword in the other. "When a well-known killer offers you a way out, you should take the damn deal." He gently tossed the man a few centimeters into the air and stabbed him with the sword before he hit the ground.
The man with the rifle flicked the safety in the opposite direction and began pulling the trigger, but only heard a clicking sound as he began to panic from the sight of his comrades being broken or outright killed. Why wouldn't the gun fire? Was it jammed? Out of ammo? The man didn't think to check, and turned to run.
"HELL'S FANG!" Ragna shouted, skidding forward and punching the would-be gunman hard with his seithr-charged mechanical hand. "You think I wouldn't know how to deal with people like you?" He shouted at the wounded attacker, who was currently trying to crawl away. "You people just don't fucking get it, do you? Any idiot can hold a gun or a club or a blade…it takes training to use it against a man, let alone someone like me."
"P-p-please! Don't kill me man, I've got…"
"Save the excuses for your god." Ragna stabbed him through the chest with his sword, then flicked off the blood with one swift motion before returning it to the sheath strapped to his back. Having finished with that little sideshow, he decided to continue heading towards the hidden door to the outside. The gang members that were still alive would serve as a warning to the others.
A large blast of wind emerged from the open door as Ragna yanked it open. Outside the door was a small campsite of people who either couldn't or wouldn't live within the city. An assorted mix of war refugees, failed experiments and homeless people, living off the garbage that the residents had thrown out without really caring about where it landed. As Ragna walked among them, he felt the seithr slowly flowing around his entire body. He remembered the lessons of his teacher, and let the seithr flow without trying to use it or oppose it directly. Doing either would lead to madness. Assuming he wasn't already mad, anyway.
Eventually, he found the stand with the shuttle stop, and the man behind the counter simply appeared forlorn in a dusty jacket and tan cap as he listened to a sad song on the radio.
"Going somewhere, son?"
"Do you know who I am?" Ragna asked.
"Ragna the Bloodedge, right?" The man spoke without looking up from his radio. "Yep, the Library's been tossin' around fliers of you everywhere they can. Such a waste of paper, considering how many natural trees we have left you think they'd save time with a good ol' fashioned broadcast."
"You're…not afraid of me?"
"Does it matter? Not like I've got much left to do on this planet." The man shrugged, "wife and daughter died in Ikaruga during the war. Thought I could fight against the Library myself, didn't work. Now I just sit here, selling shuttle tickets."
"You've seriously given up fighting the Library?"
The man shrugged again, keeping his gaze on the radio. "Even if I somehow had the power to destroy the Library and everyone in it, what would be the point? God, or Nature, or whatever will always find a way to fill the vacuum of power by creating another evil to fight." The man finally looked up, and Ragna noticed that the man's eyes had no color in them at all, like some kind of freaky cyborg eyes. Maybe he was another failed experiment. "Might be you. Might be Sector Seven. Might be another Black Beast. Another villain will always come, until the day when the balance is thrown so far out of whack that we all kill each other in the process. Now you gonna buy a ticket or just talk with this sad old man?"
Ragna simply dropped some money on the counter, and the man scribbled something on a piece of paper before tearing it off and handing it to him. "Here ya go," the man said, "enjoy your journey and hope the monsters don't get you first."
Ragna said no more, and simply hopped aboard the shuttle with his ticket.
In a hospital run by the Library, Jam and her two associates walked through the front door in their generic lab coats they purchased from the eccentric weapons and armor dealer. The Jellyfish Pirates were amazed at the state of this hospital, as it seemed a lot more clean and well-lit than any they could remember. Then again, it wasn't like they could always visit a hospital whenever one of them got hurt. Usually they had to make do with battlefield medicine or find a private doctor who would just take some money and not ask too many questions. But the Pirates that had scattered about the city knew that Johnny was taken into this place, so they had no choice but to infiltrate it.
The trio of ladies passed by the receptionist desk and headed through the double doors to her right, and found themselves within a waiting room. Marzo, the tall one, decided to ask a nurse about the location of Johnny.
"Johnny-who?"
"Just Johnny." Marzo said.
"I'm sorry…you're going to have to give a little more information than that."
"Blonde hair, six pack, black coat and large hat?"
The lady thought about that for a second, "Well, I'll have to check. Can I have your name?"
"Doctor Marzo." Marzo replied.
"Doctor? Okay, hold on one second."
Jam kept her smile until the nurse turned her back, then hissed at Marzo, "Are you crazy? This is never going to work!"
"Of course it won't work if you keep up that attitude!" Marzo replied, "Now shut up and play along!"
"Doctor Marzo, was it?" The nurse turned back after a minute later. "They're waiting for you and your co-workers at 5B. Just follow the map here."
Jam did a double-take. She didn't expect that to actually work, but Marzo simply nodded her head and followed the nurse's directions. It seemed all too easy to Jam as the group passed by the elevator and went to the stairway.
"Wait, aren't we going to take the elevator?" Jam asked her partners-in-crime.
"Not a chance." The shorter girl with the unibrow replied, "We get in there, they trap us, it's game over."
"I thought I was pretty convincing." Marzo said.
"She didn't ask for ID or anything, I think we're being set up!" The girl with the unibrow bounded up the steps. Marzo followed her close behind, and Jam sighed before deciding to follow the two up as well.
Eventually, Jam was just one flight of stairs away from the fifth floor, when the girl with the unibrow suddenly appeared again, being unceremoniously thrown down a flight of stairs, covered in bruises and twitching. Jam managed to catch her before her head hit the stairs, though her back became sore from the impact.
"Shit…" the wounded girl muttered in between raspy breaths, "Looks like I was right, this was all a setup…damn that hurts…"
Jam looked up to see Marzo fighting against a few blue-suited policemen on the stairwell, all armed with electrified clubs. Marzo was at a disadvantage: not only were the stairs right behind her, but she was unarmed and overmatched. Jam laid the wounded pirate down on the steps as best as she could, then took a deep breath.
And here I was hoping to get through this without needing to unleash my power.
Jam let out a loud kiai and jumped towards the wall, then sprung off of it to reach the top flight of stairs, kicking the rear-most policeman in the face before his mind could even comprehend what was happening. Jam yelled out loud again as she kicked the second policeman, who stumbled into the third, who then tumbled down the stairs with his electrified club on top of Marzo.
Jam gritted her teeth as she looked at the sight. "Ooooh, that looks painful. How about I find Johnny for you guys and meet back here?" The pirates and the policemen on the stairs only groaned in pain. Jam decided to take that as an affirmative response, and she kicked open the door to the fifth floor of the hospital.
Well technically, it was already open, but it seemed so much more of a dramatic way to begin her search.
Back outside on the upper level of Kagutsuchi, the NOL troops were sealing off the area as Hazama and Noel Vermillion approached the perimeter. Apparently, the Library was still trying to figure out how exactly to get the gigantic monster called Iron Tager off the ground and secured for transport to a research lab.
As Hazama and Noel both stepped past the barrier after flashing their credentials to a nearby NOL trooper, they saw a little girl crouching near the body of Tager, as if she was trying to talk to it.
"Ah, there's our hero now." Hazama yelled excitedly as he gestured with open arms in the girl's direction. "The little girl who saved this town from the flaming Red Devil of Sector Seven…what was her name again? Oh, that's right, May! Come here, May, don't you want to give your boss a hug?"
May shuddered in horror after the events of the past few hours. She didn't want that man anywhere near her.
"Hazama, sir! This isn't the time to be joking, the little girl's probably traumatized!"
"Oh, I'm sure you'd know all about that wouldn't you Noel?" Hazama muttered.
Noel was about to ask what he meant when she saw the smoldering wreckage that was once Mr. Black's home. Noel gasped and ran over to see if she could find any trace of her former mentor. While she was busy with that, Hazama continued talking to May. "That was real good work. I never expected you of all people would be able to defeat the Red Devil of Sector Seven himself. I don't suppose you ever considered working for the Library?"
"I've done what you asked!" May snapped in a petulant manner, though Hazama merely found it amusing considering the words came from a little girl. "Now give me what I want!"
"Oh trust me, you'll be seeing your beloved Johnny very soon. But you haven't done all of what I asked, there's still one more job I have in mind…"
"That's not fair!"
"Fair? You, a self-proclaimed pirate, think this world is built on fairness?" Hazama chuckled, and then slowly escalated his voice into full laughter. "Oh, that's just so rich! If only I could spread those words on an omelet and eat it, I would have the best breakfast in the whole world!"
"Shut up!" May grabbed a piece of stone that had come loose from a nearby building during the battle and threw it at Hazama. Hazama somehow dodged it without even seeming to move, then she saw what appeared to be a giant, greenish dagger protrude from his chest and pull her closer to him without even thinking. She felt the impact as if she'd been stabbed in the chest, but no blood seemed to come out.
"Perhaps you need to learn some manners, little girl."
Hazama slipped a knife out of his sleeve and prepared to go to work when he saw Noel gesturing wildly towards him. Hazama sighed and simply let May drop to the ground, shoving the knife back up his sleeve and putting on a smile as if nothing had happened. May just sat on the pavement, dumbfounded. Somehow, she could take out a giant, metallic beast, but this strange man with green hair and an unreadable face seemed way out of her league. Why? Why couldn't she kill him?
As May sat on the street, Noel screamed as she looked at the charred corpse of what appeared to be Mr. Black. A slightly-melted pistol was held tightly in his dead hand. It was a horrible sight, for Noel as Hazama simply put his hat over his chest and said a brief prayer for the deceased.
"Why, Mr. Hazama?" Noel cried, "Why would Sector Seven do this to him?"
"We may not know all the ways of our enemies," Hazama replied, putting on as much of a serious tone as he could muster, "But we do what we can to make sure that no more lives are lost in service of peace." As he looked at Noel crying, he patted her on the shoulder and said, "Remember our motto?"
Noel looked at him with tearful eyes, but said nothing.
Hazama started off. "Dispatched in mankind's darkest hour…come on, you know the rest."
Noel nodded her head. "Dispatched in mankind's darkest hour…we are the Knights of the Blue Flame." She wiped away the tears as her sadness was replaced with resolve.
"Mr. Black's sacrifice will not be forgotten. I'm sure the Librarium will hold a funeral service in his honor, but we have to make sure it was not all forgotten. Do not worry, once we deal with this Red Devil, we'll be able to strike down the evil of Sector Seven once and for all. Now Noel, I have given you this chance to pay your respects, it is time for you to rest." Hazama said, putting his hat back on his head. "Oh, and take that May girl with you, won't you dear? We could use her help in tracking down Major Kisaragi later."
"Aren't you coming back?"
"I just have to check on something first. I am the head of the NOL's Intelligence Division, after all. So much to be done, so little time…" Hazama almost seemed to be dancing away as he trailed off, leaving Noel, May, the body of Tager and the workers who were trying to disassemble him on-site to make it easier to transport him. To Noel, it all felt so surreal. Her mentor was dead, her supervisor seemed pretty jovial, and now she was in charge of a strange little girl with enough power to topple the Red Devil himself? It made no sense at all.
"...what the hell do you mean, captured?" Kokonoe screamed as she crunched her teeth down on yet another lollipop while she berated the poor Sector Seven engineer at the other end of the phone. Her dentist was probably going to complain about her teeth again, but that wasn't her main concern at the moment.
"Iron Tager cannot be captured!" Kokonoe continued to rant. "He has the power and size of a goddamn tank! I designed him that way! And now you're telling me…" Kokonoe paused for breath as she shook her head. "Oh, you fucking engineers are useless! Did no one teach you about proximity and overheating? Or is Sector Seven so desperate that they just picked you up out of a fucking high school shop class!" Kokonoe paused for breath again, her face absolutely livid, or so she imagined if anyone other than that subject in the containment cell could see her right now. "Look, we need to get Tager back now! I don't care who you ask or how you do it, we need to recover him right-fucking-now, or that's several hours worth of my time and yours down the fucking drain, not to mention what will happen if the Library somehow recovers his code!"
Kokonoe shut off the connection before the engineer could protest, then banged her fist hard on the nearest table in anger. She blamed herself for sending Tager on that mission to the upper-class neighborhood. She had overestimated how much the NOL would prepare for his arrival. She would not make that mistake again.
She opened the door to her lab and stepped outside to grab another pot of coffee, stopping once to glance in the direction of the subject who had called herself Dizzy. She was going to have to find a way to study that girl, get Hakumen out of the Edge and into her lab, and recover Tager all in one night.
This was going to be a very fun few hours, Kokonoe thought sarcastically to herself as she poured herself a cup of coffee.
[A/N: I originally thought about ending it just after the Ragna bit, but I had a few other ideas lying around and thought they were too short to warrant their own chapter, so hey, I combined them all into one chapter for your enjoyment. Hope 2+ fight scenes makes up for the delay in updating this thing.
Also, Continuum Shift is coming out very soon. I can't wait for the story of the sequel to suddenly screw up the canon I've built here, but then again we're already in unfamiliar territory what with the whole crossover and the events described above, so let's just call it one potential revolution on the wheel of fate and leave it at that for now.
As always, I appreciate those who take the time to leave their comments/criticisms in the reviews section. Keep 'em coming.]