10. Hospital Visit
It was in fact almost a week after Asukhon's visit and the events that had followed that Kyon and Maria's breakout attempt began. The student's nightmares had been getting worse and more vivid, not only including what had happened to him so far (which was bad enough), but other things as well. He saw palaces of bones stretching from the ruins of North High School, lines of captured espers being herded into hatchways like yawning mouths, and at the centre of it all, Haruhi screaming into the darkness as a grinning, shadowy figure slowly stripped away everything that made her human. At times, things got so bad and so vivid that he suspected some form of outside influence at work.
They had taken the bandages off halfway through the week, leaving a throbbing, purplish bruise that he dimly recognised as having been received when the Koizumi-thing slammed his head into the coffee table before – no, best not to think about that. It repeated itself often enough in his sleep as it was.
There was a rapping at the door, and Maria's voice called out softly.
"It's time, Kyon."
Finally... "All right – I'll just get ready, shall I?"
He went to get dressed, pausing at the wardrobe for a moment to decide precisely what one should wear when engaged in a suicidal attack against sadistic gods. In the end, he picked the dinner jacket he had received at his first meeting with them, deciding that the unasked-for gift would provide just the right 'screw you' message. The bow tie was fiddly as ever, though.
He retrieved the Noisy Cricket from beneath his pillow and tucked it into his trouser pocket, marvelling yet again at its diminutive size. Not for the first time, he wondered if he was being deliberately set up for failure, but decided it didn't matter. Whatever the case, he was determined to give a good account of himself before he went, if only to see the expressions on the gods' faces.
Walking back into the lounge, he checked himself out in the mirror. Pale, nervous, and sweating profusely, but his hands were steady and his eyes calm. Best I can hope for, I suppose. He turned to the door, ignoring the drone as it flashed a few interrogative symbols at him.
"Right then," he said. "Let's do this."
Maria opened said door with one hand. The other held an enormous black rifle. Following Kyon's gaze, she grinned.
"Hellgun. Basically, a very powerful rapid-firing laser. Borrowed it from a friend in the armoury – he owes me a few favours."
"How come I don't get one?"
"Well, I could offer several reasons – training requirements, for a start – but mostly because I couldn't get the damned thing through the flap, and carrying two at once is a really good way to attract suspicion." She glanced up and down the corridor. "All clear – let's go."
The drone chirped a warning, and buzzed in threateningly. She levelled the hellgun at it, there was a sharp crack, and the little machine fell to the floor in pieces.
"Did I ever mention how much I hate those things?" she asked nobody in particular.
Kyon set off after her. "So, where are we headed?"
"The gods' private quarters – they're a little way south of here. They're changing the guard at the moment, which means lots of coverage of the outside of the Palace, but not much inside. We should be able to get there relatively unopposed, and once we've done so, I've got a few little surprises prepared for them." She patted the webbing slung over her armour.
It was at that point, of course, that they rounded a corner and met an entire squad of palace guards going the other way.
Maria didn't bother trying to talk her way out of the situation. Instead, she simply unslung her rifle and sent a barrage of invisible shots into her erstwhile colleagues. They tried to respond, but she was moving too fast to target, hammering into them in the confined quarters with the force of a freight train. Kyon, meanwhile, could only hide and stare.
She grabbed a guard by the arm and pulled. Kyon had seen this manoeuvre in playground brawls – normally, it either overbalanced your opponent or earned you a punch to the face. He'd never seen it rip a limb off before. He turned around, tried very hard not to get reacquainted with the morning meal, and almost succeeded.
Sometime later, he straightened up, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and looked back at the corridor. There wasn't much left of the patrol – just organic debris scattered across the floor. And the walls. And the ceiling. His stomach heaved again.
Maria looked up, idly scraping something sticky and reddish-brown off her gloves. "They know we're here now. We should get moving."
Kyon remembered the drone. "I think they already knew. Look, how did you do that?"
She grinned, and broke into a loping run. "Didn't think the gods would want ordinary humans as guards, did you?"
He struggled after her, trying to ignore the unpleasant squelching sensation under his shoes. "No, I suppose not, but they didn't seem very-"
"Less talking, more fleeing," the renegade guard growled. "Do you want to get caught?"
"R-right..." Sense of impending doom... rising.
They actually managed to get quite some distance before they ran into another of the palace's inhabitants. This one was a solitary guard, who appeared from one of the passageways behind them as they exited a Y-shaped junction. He stared at them for a moment, before taking aim at Maria's back.
Kyon acted on pure instinct, tugging the Noisy Cricket out of his pocket, pointing it in the general direction of the soldier, and pulling the trigger. The tiny gun let out a deafening roar and he was hurled backwards by the recoil, missing the wall by scant inches. Once he had regained his senses, he got back to his feet and assessed the damage.
It had been intended as a warning shot, more to throw the man's aim off than anything else. Instead, the roof had collapsed around the area of impact, and everything of the guard above the waist was simply... gone. If he hadn't already lost his breakfast, he would have done so then.
As he stared blankly at the dainty wisp of smoke coming from the Cricket's barrel, Maria gave him a thumbs-up. "Nice save, Kyon."
"Don't... umm... don't mention it. Maria, you mentioned fleeing earlier. Fleeing would be a very good idea right now, I think."
Another grin. "Looks like you're starting to catch on."
Kyon said nothing in response – he was too busy remembering the brief spray of red he had seen as the Cricket fired. Something else to haunt my dreams. Lovely.
They continued onwards, more slowly this time, with Maria checking the angles whenever they came to another intersection. Though they all started to look the same after a while, Kyon was pretty sure he recognised this one.
"Maria, would I be right in thinking we're near the hospital?"
"Yep. Why'd you ask?"
He remembered a child's face, staring at him with terrified blue eyes. Vita.
"We... need to stop by there. I've got a friend-"
"Look, if this is about that kid you met when they were patching you back together, Kyon, it sounded like the gods got their claws pretty deep into her. I'm sorry to say it, I really am, but they've probably turned her already. Even if they haven't she's too far gone for you to save. Trust me – I've seen this a dozen times by now. The toughest of them lasted a couple of weeks. A child? She doesn't stand a chance. Just think of it as another thing we need to pay those twisted freaks back for, that's my advice."
Kyon shook his head. "No. I need to find out for myself. If there's even a chance-"
"There isn't! That's what I've been trying to tell you! Besides, what would you do even if she is recoverable? We're in the heart of the gods' domain – there isn't any way out. Were you intending to hide her in a closet or something?" She was simmering with barely-controlled anger, the scars on her face turning white.
"Look, if you don't want to-" Why is she getting so agitated about this?
"I don't want to see some white-knight teenage idiot dying pointlessly. Is that so hard to understand?"
"We're going to die anyway, Maria," he replied with a calm he hadn't known he possessed. "I thought that was rather the point of this, in fact. Now I've been given the option, I'd prefer to go doing something constructive than facing down an eldritch abomination with a high-explosive pea-shooter."
"You talked to her for five minutes and you're prepared to throw your life away on some kind of quixotic rescue attempt? Kyon, there's chivalry, and then there's flat-out idiocy."
"They had her strapped to a hospital bed for weeks. Everything they did to me, she got three times over. Nobody deserves that – creepy not-quite-children included."
Maria's eyes flared, and it wasn't just a figure of speech. Her skin reddened, and flickers of motion appeared on her face like worms under her flesh.
"You idiot," she snarled through rapidly-growing fangs. "You spineless, pathetic moron."
Kyon backed away, fumbling for his gun. "Maria-"
"Don't 'Maria' me, brat!" Her voice had an animalistic snarl to it. "I spend day after day trying to be your friend, soaking in your pointless, juvenile bullshit, and offering you sweet revenge on a silver platter, and what do you do? Try to crawl out of it at the earliest opportunity just because you can't bear the thought of getting blood on those lily-white hands of yours, am I right?"
A pair of horns had emerged from her forehead, and there was a deafening crack as two vast, leathery wings smashed their way through her body armour. Kyon could only stare, paralysed.
The thing that had been Maria grinned horribly. "Come on, Kyon – I'll show you what you've been missing out on. You're far too weak to admit it, I'm sure, but there was a bit of you that enjoyed watching that mortal die, wasn't there? That sweet, addictive rush of power... me and my sisters feed on it, you know? I felt it bleeding off you. I know what you're capable of. Let me show you how the experts do things..."
She raised the hellgun... but it wasn't a gun, not any more. In its place was an enormous, spike-hafted axe, its blades engraved with unholy runes. She took a few experimental swings, the weapon softly moaning as it cleaved the air, and advanced towards him.
Kyon had been in this situation before, when the insane Humanoid Interface Ryoko Asakura had cornered him in a classroom with some precision reality-warping and a very large knife. Maria, though, didn't need any special powers to immobilise him – those burning yellow eyes did the job quite nicely. She left charred hoof-prints on the carpet as she walked forward, the axe tracing ever-more-complex patterns in front of her.
Yuki, if you're planning on staging a dramatic rescue, now would be the time...
His fingers brushed against the warm metal grip of the Cricket, jolting him out of his mesmeric trance. He leapt backwards, eliciting an outraged howl from the daemon, and drew the miniature pistol. He fired and turned as he did so, letting the momentum propel him into a running start. Not looking back, he sprinted down the corridor, trying to remember the route to the hospital.
I have to get her out of here. I have to.
***
Tzintchi whistled in appreciation as the daemon who had employed the cover identity of 'Maria Vargas' was explosively atomised.
"And that, my dear," he said smugly to Asukhon, "is why you don't use daemons with self-control issues for a job like this. You know, I would have happily provided one of my own Black Pharaohs if you'd only asked."
She snorted. "And have you steal the thunder? Not bloody likely. I wanted a shot at turning the runt myself – would have worked, too, if that digitised whore hadn't squirreled away sweet little Mikuru before we could get our hands on her. Besides, I figured that you'd have a backup plan anyway – you always do. So what is it?"
Tzintchi leaned back, all four of his current mouths stretched into broad smiles. "Simple. We do nothing."
The other gods stared at him – except for Reigle, who was busy doing something unpleasant and probably unsanitary in the corner.
"I... don't follow," Mislaato said eventually.
"We let him carry on his merry way, think he's foiled our plot. No need to pull back the guards, either – we need a bit of verisimilitude, after all, and what he did to poor old Maria raises some interesting possibilities; it might be that placing him in mortal peril could trigger an ascension. Asuka, dear, I want you on station in case that happens."
"On it," she acknowledged. "You're not expecting it to, though. Happen, that is."
"Nope – it's a possibility, but not a real likelihood. There aren't that many patrols between buddy Kyon and his objective – he might even get through unopposed. Once that happens, well... how's Vita doing?"
"Ready to be moved out, last I checked," Mislaato replied. "We were thinking of having her stationed to the Divine Assassin training camp in Greece. She's become a lot more tractable of late – think Asuka's intervention really helped."
"Glad to hear it. Ladies, grab the popcorn – either we're about to get a new god on our side, or an entity capable of killing a god. That, I believe, is what's technically known as a 'win-win situation'."
***
Kyon scuttled through the corridors, clutching the Cricket tightly. He'd encountered a few guards since Maria's attack, but a few shots in their direction had proven an adequate deterrent. He'd mostly tried to aim for walls and ceilings, attempting to block their pursuit, but the little weapon was horribly inaccurate, and it didn't help that he'd never fired a gun before that day. He hoped he hadn't hurt too many of them.
Eventually, he turned a corner and saw the sterile whiteness of the hospital ward ahead. He charged in, setting off about a dozen alarms as he did so. Wonderful.
Medical staff closed in from both directions, brandishing either nasty-looking surgical implements or their own natural weaponry, which was generally even worse. He pointed the Cricket at them, fervently wishing that he had been given a more intimidating-looking weapon. Given the way they recoiled from it, though, they had presumably seen one in action before.
"Vita! VITA!"
"Kyon?" The voice was faint and slightly muffled, coming from some way down the left-hand side of the ward.
Kyon rushed towards it, waving the gun at the advancing staff in what he hoped was a threatening manner. He tugged aside the curtain... and saw a girl apparently in her mid-teens, sitting up in bed. She was wearing a standard-issue hospital gown, and her head was shaved. About the only thing he recognised was those strange, elongated eyes.
"... Vita?"
She smiled. "Hello, Kyon. The gods told me you were coming. They've done so much for me, you know – let me see the world in a whole new light. I can't wait to help my friends learn about it, especially Hayate. She won't like it at first – I certainly didn't – and I might have to hurt her a little to get the message across, but she'll come around in the end. Then we'll be together forever."
The smile vanished, and her eyes narrowed. "But you don't want that, do, you, Kyon? You want to take me away, try to 'save' me, ruin everything the gods have done. It's because you're scared. Scared of what they can do for you. You aren't worthy of their love. That's why you have to die – they told me that, too."
She extended her arm outwards, and a long-handled hammer appeared from it. It seemed to be a product of the same design school as Maria's axe – lots of dark iron, jagged spikes, and glowing runes.
Kyon backed away. "Vita, seriously, snap out of it. This isn't funny. Didn't you say you didn't want Hayate to see you as a pet?" Christ on a bike, am I some sort of magnet for girls with psycho weapons or something?
She stood up, holding the hammer nonchalantly in one hand. "That's the thing, though – I'm not a pet. I'm a follower, a worshipper. I was wrong, and I'm going to teach Hayate that as well, even if I have to engrave the truth on her body."
"You say it like there's a difference," Kyon replied, trying to play for time. Last time, she mentioned a reset code or something. Come on, what was it again? Think, Kyon!
Vita didn't take the bait, though, instead simply swinging the hammer at him and forcing him to take a few more steps back. By now, the hospital staff had formed a ring around them, their faces alight with savage anticipation.
He ducked under a second swing, and felt his shoes slip against the vinyl flooring. He fell, and felt hands grab his left arm while a claw closed around his right, causing the Cricket to fall to the ground. Thus immobilised, he could only watch as Vita raised the hammer for the killing blow.
"Stahlwind B-2!" he screamed. "STAHLWIND B-2!"
The effect was instantaneous. Red light poured from the transformed girl's body, and she let loose an ear-piercing shriek. When it had faded, the red-headed child he had seen on his first trip to the hospital stood in her place, wearing a simple black dress. Even the hammer was different, a gleaming steel affair devoid of its former unsightly decoration.
She looked around, her gaze lashing into the assembled medics like a whip. "What did you do to me?"
They shuffled backwards, gradually picking up speed, until the shuffling developed into a full-scale rout. Kyon, meanwhile, was unceremoniously dumped to the floor. Vita glanced down at him, and the edge of her mouth lifted in a typically un-childlike expression.
"Kyon, right? I owe you one, kid."
He got up awkwardly, stuffing the Cricket back into his pocket as he did so. "No problem. Umm... are you all right?"
"Been better," she replied absently, looking around. "That's the thing I hate about resets – well apart from the potential data corruption, anyway. Hayate spent ages making my clothes, and now they're likely gone for good. Hospital freaks probably burned the physical copies too, knowing them."
She tugged the hem of her skirt. "I hate this default design – the shoulder-straps really chafe after a while. S'why it became tradition for our masters to provide their own. Hayate always did the best ones, though."
Kyon cleared his throat as she continued into a reminiscent grumble, and she gave a guilty start.
"Crap – getting distracted in the middle of enemy territory? Those deific bastards are going to pay for what they did to my head. Come on, kid – let's go. I don't want to spend a minute longer in this shithole."
She stumped off, hammer at the ready. Kyon followed, smiling in relief. He might have still been in the middle of a gigantic, monster-filled stronghold that didn't obey the laws of reality, but he suddenly felt a whole lot safer.
***
Meanwhile, in the Eye, Tzintchi stared blankly at the display.
"Didn't see that coming," he said. "Really should have, but I didn't."
"So what do we do now?" Asukhon asked.
"Reinforce the top floors of the Palace, and deploy three air legions into the Geofront. Orders should be to redirect the fugitives downwards if possible, and employ lethal force if not."
All three of them looked at Reigle. Eventually, Tzintchi shrugged.
"What she said."
The goddess of despair smiled, revealing row after row of decayed teeth.
Author's Notes: Well, I'm back. Thanks for the reviews, those who have posted them - always happy to receive more if you are so inclined. Hope I'm successfully managing to bring the creepy - believe me, there's a lot more of it to come in later chapters. A whole lot more. For now, though, let's see whether poor old Kyon can actually catch a break for once.
For the record, I don't see Chaos (in its specific 40K definition) as being an explicit incarnation of anarchy, illogic, and disorder. Otherwise, its servants would simply not be capable of the complex, intricate plans they are so known for. Instead, just as the Warp is a manifestation of sentient thought processes, so is Chaos a manifestation of instinct and emotion... which just happen to quite often be anarchic, illogical and disorderly. Its name is a label, not a definition.
