The blades of a Knuckle Claw, wreathed in electricity, just barely skimmed past Nia's head as she rolled out of the way. Its wielder, an Urayan boy no older than eight, stumbled past her, only barely keeping his balance.
Avoiding the attacks from the Blade Eaters wasn't difficult. These were children, either barely possessing or completely lacking the training to use the weapons and abilities that they now possessed. Even under the direction of the Blade controlling them, their movements were wasteful, inefficient, and clearly telegraphed.
But there were also close to thirty of them, engaging the group in a narrow corridor. That provided very little space to dodge and even less to maneuver.
The moment that the children charged them, Tora had thrown himself in front of the group, his Drill Shield out (with the Drill rather noticeably retracted), in an attempt to bar their path. Unfortunately, while the corridor was narrow, it wasn't that narrow; the nopon's shield only blocked maybe a quarter of the hallway's width at most.
Nia was kind of regretting not speaking up when Lyta had decided to take the group they had rescued back to the surface right about now. The dark Blade's lance, when in shield configuration, would have blocked most of the corridor, and the gap that it wouldn't have could have easily been covered by Tora.
Well, there wasn't really any way they could have known that in advance, and they had needed to do something with those kids…
Dealing with this was going to be a pain, though, no matter who they had with them. She and Dromarch had plenty of experience dealing with swarms of enemies—it was a necessity with how frequently they had needed to rough it out in the wilds while on the run—but pretty much all of those instances were against wild animals. Arachnos, Skeeters, even one particular run-in with a pack of Skwawors on the hunt. Things that they could happily kill without repercussions.
Against mind-controlled children, who they needed to be careful not to hurt, on the other hand? That was something she lacked any frame of reference to work with.
She batted aside a clumsily-hurled Bitball, foaming with water ether, as she considered their options. The best choice would be to take out the Blade controlling them. While the ability he demonstrated was… a little outside of her own experiences, skills like his always required a constant input of ether and, most likely in this case, control in order to function. Without either, the children would most likely snap out of it.
The problem with that, though, was how. The easiest way to incapacitate a Blade was always to kill their Driver, but that wasn't an option here. It was pretty obvious that the doctor wasn't the Driver, and even if he was, she doubted that anyone was in the mood to kill him.
After everything that he had done here, that would be far too merciful.
Knocking the Blade out was the only real alternative, but with him more than content to stand back and watch from the rear, doing that would require them to make it through the crowd of children barring their path.
Nia was forced to parry another blow, this time from a burning Megalance, as she considered the options. These kids were Blade Eaters, so they had to possess some level of durability. Maybe she could have Dromarch blast a hole through their ranks with Wild Roar? If he kept it weak enough, the attack shouldn't cause too much damage—definitely not anything permanent, but at the same time…
"Ah!" Tora called out in alarm. "Rex-Rex! Nia-Nia! Baddiepon getting away!" He waved his free wing frantically, gesturing over the crowd of children.
Indeed, just as he claimed, Castrofari was sprinting down the corridor in the other direction, towards a heavy metal door on the far side.
"Titan's foot!" Rex spat, parrying a strike from a child wielding a pair of short swords. "We can't let him get away!"
"Poppi!" Tora yelled, taking cover behind his shield as one of the Blade Eaters launched a weak blast of ice ether at him. "Activate pursuit mode!"
"Roger, Masterpon!" The robot replied, curling her legs in a crouch. A high-pitched whine began to echo through the corridor as her built-in propulsion system spooled up, forcing Nia's ears flat in discomfort.
On a trail of flame, the artificial Blade shot toward the ceiling, arcing over the attacking Blade Eaters. The mind-controlled children looked up at her, some of them trying to grab her, but the child-sized Blade was too high for them to reach.
Behind the mass of children, the controlling Blade looked up at her as well. It was impossible to determine his exact reaction with his face concealed, but the Blade didn't look particularly pleased with this turn of events.
Wordlessly, he raised his free hand, fierce licks of flame leaping from between his fingers as he tracked the flying girl. A tendril of fire lashed out into her path, attempting to lead a hit on her.
Poppi flared her jets in response, juking back from the attempt to hit her. The fire attack missed, but as she attempted to maneuver around to continue after the doctor, a volley of ether shots, courtesy of a group of children hefting Ether Cannons larger than they were, further dissuaded her from pursuing.
The artificial Blade wove around the incoming fire, but there wasn't enough room for her to maneuver effectively. As she twisted to avoid a wide burst from an earth-element blast, the ether hardened into dense crystals that resulted in a buckshot effect, another attack from the corpselike Blade tagged one of her jets.
It wasn't enough to cause severe damage to the thruster, but the equipment was delicate enough that even the glancing blow was sufficient to misalign the bell cone.
She pinwheeled her arms wildly, trying to regain control, as one of her jets suddenly began producing thrust on a vector she wasn't expecting. Being a robot, she was quickly able to compensate for the change, but not fast enough to stop her from slamming into the nearby wall.
Nia couldn't help but wince at the sound of Poppi's metal skull impacting the stone, sending chips of rock flying as she skidded back toward them, her face dragging against the wall. She twisted her body, her engines carrying her away from the surface, but there was a noticeable crater where she had made contact.
Her thrusters sputtered out as the mechanical Blade dropped to the floor, her eyes averted as she reported to Tora. "Poppi apologize to Masterpon." She said sheepishly. "Poppi fail to pursue baddiepon."
Tora shot her a brief look of concern, struggling to keep his attention on blocking the incoming attacks from the Blade Eaters as his worry diverted his focus. "That not important!" He exclaimed. "Is Poppi okay?!"
In response, the artificial Blade brushed a hand against her face, where it had been dragged against the rock. "Poppi not detect any physical abnormalities." She stated, her brow furrowing slightly. "…But feel lingering sense of discomfort over performance."
"Nothing bruised but your pride, then." Azurda commented, casually leaning out of Rex's helmet even as the boy parried a strike from a Shield Hammer.
The artificial Blade's face shifted to a considerate look, but an attack from a trio of Blade Eaters that had gotten past Tora didn't afford her a chance to ponder any further. Nia watched as the mechanical girl engaged them, snapping the haft of a Gormotti boy's Megalance in the same fluid motion that she used to deflect a strike from a Chroma Katana.
A whistling sound snapped Nia's attention back to her own fight as she deflected a strike from a pair of long, thin swords, held by a ten-year-old Ardanian girl. Motes of black light leapt from the blades as they struck, seeming to pull in the dust floating in the air around them.
Before the girl could follow up, Nia tossed one of her rings into the air, using the brief moment her hand was free to chop the little girl's wrist hard enough to make her drop the sword.
She wasn't able to do anything more, as another Blade Eater charged in just moments later. The Gormotti girl hissed in annoyance as she deftly caught the thrown ring, parrying the incoming strike with her other hand.
"Anyone got a bright idea on how to deal with this?" She called, weaving around a fireball from yet another child. "Because I'm not exactly flush with non-lethal takedown options!"
"Meh meh!" Tora squawked as an electrified whip wrapped around the Drill Shield, shocking his wing and nearly forcing him to drop the artificial Blade Weapon. "Tora not know; never add such option to Poppi!" He replied. "If live through this, must rectify at once!"
That was about what she had expected, and it didn't fill her with confidence. If they didn't figure out something to do soon, then capturing the doctor was going to be the least of their worries.
"Damn it all!" Jakup hissed, leaning against the door of the observation theater. "They're not supposed to have reached us this quickly!"
The door, a solid block of steel purchased surplus from a decommissioned Ardanian Battleship, was firmly locked. In theory, so long as neither of them unlocked it, the door would be staying put no matter how many Drivers their opponents had.
Lynette knew better than to take that at face value, though. While she was hardly a combat Driver, a lifetime of research into the nature of Blades and their connections to Drivers meant that the Indoline woman was intimately familiar with the capabilities of both. Yes, a normal Driver or Blade would be unable to breach the door, but outliers existed.
The wind Blade that one of Jakup's men was bonded with? She would be able to breach with ease, if the brief rundown Lynette had been given of her capabilities was anything to go by. As would the robotic knock-off their opponents had with them, based on the method they used to enter the sewers.
While it was far from common, superstrength wasn't a particularly rare ability for Blades to possess either. Although the door was technically rated for the sorts of forces a Blade like that could bring to bear, the same could not be said for the door frame. Or the hinges.
Or the wall both were set into, for that matter.
If their intruders wanted to get inside, they already would have. No, the only reason they were currently 'safe' was because Tokiha and her helpers were more focused on rescuing the test subjects than hunting the two of them.
She knew that they had already located the holding cells. The subtle tug at the passive bond between her and Delphus, a sign that he was maxing out the amount of ether they could cycle out of affinity, made that clear enough.
He wouldn't be able to keep them occupied for long, though. Sooner or later, her Blade would be overcome, and the intruders would begin searching for anyone who had remained behind. She needed to be sure she was gone by then.
"Comport yourself, Jakup." The Indoline woman chided him, deftly packing away the last few components of the inducer into a transport crate. "Complaints will get us nowhere."
The Lindwurm officer shot her a glare. "The doctor's 'brilliant' plan to neutralize the opposition has failed, my men have most likely either been killed or captured, and there are intruders in the lab." He said in a dry tone. "Intruders that are cutting off our line of retreat, may I remind you. Exactly what more do you think I can do at the moment?"
Lynette couldn't help but smirk at his tone. The man hid it well, but beneath the aggravation, she could detect a note of fear in his voice. It was almost a shame that the doctor was currently having a face-to-face encounter with Tokiha right now; she had no doubt that, with the enmity they held for each other, he would have savored the look.
"Do you truly believe we didn't anticipate such an eventuality?" The Indoline woman replied, sealing the crate containing the results of their work. "That we were so arrogant to build a secret laboratory beneath one of the world's largest academic institutions without a plan to escape, should we be discovered?"
Jakup's eyes narrowed. "You have another exit." He surmised.
She nodded. "We do. There's an escape shaft on the far side of the surgical theater, inside the closet labeled 'medical supplies', down the hall from the temporary holding cells."
He let out a soft sigh that Lynette was quite certain he would insist wasn't of relief. "Good." He replied, some of the stress leaving his voice. "At least one of you had a good head on their shoulders when laying this place out."
The Indoline woman suppressed a slight titter. "I would not have survived the internal politics of the Praetorium for as long as I did if I were unfamiliar with contingency planning." She stated.
"I see." Jakup replied noncommittally. Leaning up from the door, he grabbed a boxy radio handset from his belt. "Your escape route," He began, looking down through the glass overlooking the surgical theater. "Where does it come out?"
"Beneath the Burun Clocktower, behind the senior dorm wing." She said. "Besides the stairwell we used for the entrance directly from the Department of Biology, it was the only one of the dungeon's original entrances that was still intact." Shooting an amused look at his uniform, she added, "Unfortunately, I suspect that your… attire will stand out among the more fashion-conscious students."
"That isn't a concern." The Lindwurm officer waved her off. "I will not be departing the tower on foot. We kept a Cetus-class Titan weapon in reserve on the transport; I will merely have it pick me up at the tower."
He flicked on the radio, relaying the orders to the operator on his ship, while Lynette considered how it would affect their logistics. Cetus-class Titan weapons were single-operator fighters with limited passenger space on the harness. Assuming it was being piloted by one of Jakup's subordinates, there would only be room on it for him.
On the other hand, they did have a decent amount of cargo-carrying capability, including a utility tow hook attached to the harness. While that wouldn't help with transporting her, it would allow them to move the one piece of equipment that they couldn't afford to leave behind.
Lynette wasn't concerned about the possibility of being left behind; she had prepared an escape plan almost the moment she had set foot on Tadbir. The local Indoline embassy, like most of those on smaller, less important Titans, was a common place to 'promote' officials that had earned the Praetor's ire but were too important or visible to dispose of with more… permanent means.
She had a number of contacts within the embassy's staff, some placed high enough that they would be able to pass her off as a member of the ambassadorial party without tipping the Praetor off until transport off the Titan could be arranged. They would probably require her to actually work during that time to sell the story, but that was hardly an issue. She could play the part of an archivist or a cleric for a few weeks if it meant avoiding capture.
The crackle of a radio receiver cut out as Jakup concluded his call, stowing the device back on his belt. "Good, that's one fewer problem to deal with." The Lindwurm officer said, shooting her a glance. "Now, I will need to warn you that-"
"I am aware of the passenger capacity of your means of transport." She cut him off. "Do not worry about that. I was not intending to use it to escape; I have already made my own arrangements."
Jakup raised an eyebrow. "Oh?" He inquired, curious. "I will admit, while I was already aware that you were more forward thinking in these regards than Castrofari, I did not anticipate that you would have predicted how poorly events would turn."
She laughed lightly. "That is because I didn't." She corrected him. "I made my arrangements long before we received our first batch of test subjects."
"Ah, yes." The Lindwurm officer said dryly. "More of your contingency planning. How silly of me to have not considered it."
"Quite." The woman nodded sagely. "That being said, the… nature of my plans means that I will need to dispose of anything incriminating on my person before departing." Reaching into the bag hanging at her side, she pulled a thick bundle of files and offered them to the man. "I will be entrusting them to you."
He grabbed the papers, giving them a confused inspection. "These are…?" He murmured, reading the label on the top file. "...Your research notes?"
"My copy, yes." Lynette confirmed. "As well as the blueprints for the inducer. I do not know if Castrofari will be a recoverable asset for you at this point, but between these notes and the inducer prototype, your organization should be able to continue the work on the project even without him."
A smile broke out on his face at her words. "That… is incredibly useful." He said, carefully stowing the files in his own bag. "Are you sure that you…?"
"I will be fine, Jakup." Lynette insisted. "There are a few final tasks I must complete before departing, but I would recommend you depart. Your transport will not go unnoticed for long."
The Lindwurm officer frowned, but didn't contradict her either. "I suppose I cannot disagree with that." He said, before offering her a hand. "I wish you luck, Lynette."
She took the hand, giving it a shake. "You as well, Jakup."
Without any further words, the Lindwurm officer turned away from her, donning his helmet, before lifting the crate containing the disassembled inducer. Lynette couldn't help but grin at the grunt of exertion that he gave as he lifted the box. It really wasn't that heavy; even with the weight of the box itself added in, she doubted it weighed more than fifty pounds at most, a manageable load even for a non-Driver.
Shaking her head, the woman pulled her attention away from the Lindwurm officer as he disappeared through the door leading down to the surgical theater. She hadn't been lying when she said that there were a handful of tasks left to do before she followed him.
Most of it was destroying evidence. With Jakup in possession of a completed copy of their research, it was important that she dispose of the originals before they fell into the intruder's hands. While she was confident that she could evade capture, leaving behind a trail wouldn't be a wise idea. It was bad enough that the nature of their work here had already been revealed; if word were to get back to the Praetor that she had used his own secret research as the basis for their work here…
Well, she had worked in the labs on Indol that didn't officially exist long enough to know exactly what sort of assets he had available, should he decide that she knew too much to live.
Or worse, decide that she knew too much to die.
Fortunately, the doctor had been of a similar mind, and one of the tasks he had assigned to his assistants was to gather all of the lab's paperwork together, ostensibly in preparation for transport. It was all filed away in a series of crates piled in the corner of the observation room.
Drawing on some of Delphus' ether, she conjured a fireball in her hands, preparing to torch the documents. This sort of work was ideal for the Blade that she was bonded to. It may take a few passes to ensure everything was thoroughly destroyed, but she was confident that Tokiha's band would be-
There was no warning, no sound of a door opening or footsteps behind her. One moment she was preparing to destroy the evidence; the next, a massive hand grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back.
Lynette let out an undignified yelp of alarm as she lost control of the fiery ether in her hand, causing it to flash harmlessly across her resistant skin. Before she could even think of retaliating against whoever had grabbed her, a second hand grabbed her other arm, the strength of both pinning her in place.
"W-what in the?! Release me at once!" She yelled, struggling against her sudden captor. She quickly found, however, that despite the strength her bond with Delphus provided, whoever was holding her was stronger still.
A loud, boisterous voice laughed behind her, amused by her attempts to resist. "Do you really think those piddly sticks you call arms could break outta my grip?"
"Cress, enough." A second voice called out, this one smooth and calm but carrying an undercurrent of anger.
She attempted to turn in the direction of the second voice but quickly found it to be unnecessary, as the speaker walked into view. It was a blonde-haired man, probably of Ardanian stock, wearing a set of black and burgundy armor whose design tickled something in the back of her mind.
He walked up to her calmly, an almost amused expression on his face as he inspected her. "So…" He began, "You're one of the ones behind all of this." The man chuckled, shaking his head. "I'll admit, I wasn't expecting an Indoline to be involved, but I suppose I shouldn't be surprised."
Lynette locked eyes with the man, glaring at him. "You… You're not one of Tokiha's followers." Delphus had given them a fairly exhaustive review of everyone that the damnable vigilante had recruited before the Blade had departed to facilitate the transfer of the test subjects. This man had definitely not been among them.
"Oh, please." He replied mirthfully. "They're hardly the only ones after you. Did you really think your little science project here would go unnoticed?"
Her blood chilled at the insinuation. While she didn't doubt that there were several groups with the capability to find them, especially considering that a vigilante had managed it, there was one in particular that was at the forefront of her mind. "You… there's no way you're with the Praetorium!" She rebutted, refusing to believe it was possible. "H-he…! Praetor Amalthus doesn't employ-!"
"I am not with that man." Her captor hissed, fury visibly simmering behind his eyes at the sudden accusation.
His denial didn't do anything to comfort her. If anything, the vitriol behind his words only left her feeling more worried. The speed at which he had gone from sinisterly genial to furious told her whatever issue he had with the Praetor ran deep. Given his apparent age, his anger may be generalized to the Indoline people as well, which, considering that she was currently at his mercy, was not a good thing.
"Make no mistake." He hissed, placing a finger against her chest. "I know your type. The sort of cowardly weasels that will happily take whatever liberties you want with whoever you think will advance your 'research', and discard them at a moment's notice. I've had that knowledge burned into my flesh every bit as much as any of the children you butchered here."
Lynette's eyes couldn't help but drift down to his neckline, where a distinct gap in his armor created a plunging-V toward his clavicle. While the skin beneath was covered by a layer of cloth padding, she could swear that there was the outline of something pushing up from beneath it. Could he be…?
"I have wanted to do this—to have a particular one of your ilk at my mercy like this—for centuries." He continued, unknowingly answering her question. The man glared at her, anger smoldering in his gaze, before he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
"But… this isn't about me." He said, turning away from her and looking toward one of the side doors. "It's about her."
At the angle she was being held, Lynette couldn't see who it was that he was referring to, but she could hear the footsteps. The sound, naked flesh against the stone floor, was reminiscent of her own Blade, but it was quieter, as if the source were lighter.
Her captor grinned, taking a step back, and allowing the new entrant to walk into view. The Indoline woman was forced to double-take at the sight—a thin, dark-skinned teenage girl in a threadbare dress, the back of her hair matted with dried blood Lynette immediately knew the source of.
That… that was Subject 91, the girl that Castrofari executed as a warning to Tokiha! She couldn't possibly be here; she was supposed to be dead!
Even as the thought crossed her mind, though, she was realizing what must have happened. That idiot… he must not have properly checked to ensure the girl was dead! Even without actively reinforcing their bodies, both Drivers and Blades had a baseline resistance to physical trauma; especially against a hardened target like the skull, a point-blank shot from a low-caliber handgun wasn't necessarily lethal, and that was before taking regeneration into account!
"You remember her, don't you?" The man mocked, watching the dawning recognition flash across her face. "After all, how could you not? The condition she was in when I found her wasn't the result of indifference, but intentional malice."
He placed a gentle hand on the girl's shoulder as she came to a stop beside him. She shrank back slightly, fear and anger warring across her features as she stared at Lynette, but the sight of her immobilized state seemed to be pushing the latter to start winning out.
Looking down at the girl, the unknown man gave her a permissive smile. "Well, kid?" He said cheerfully. "She's all yours."
She looked up at him, confused, as she processed his statement. "I-I…" She began, her eyes widening as she suddenly seemed to understand what he was implying. "Y-you mean…?"
"Yup." He confirmed, taking a step back. "Go wild."
The uncertainty vanished in an instant as the girl turned to look at her again, any trace of fear being subsumed as she was given free reign to exact whatever measure of revenge against the Indoline woman that she desired.
Lynette watched as Subject 91 approached, her eyes burning with hatred as she fixed her gaze on her former captor. Literally burning, as a matter of fact; tiny licks of flame leapt from her eyes with every step she took, an unconscious release of what must be building ether within her.
"S-stay back!" The Indoline woman begged, fear gripping her heart as the child continued to approach her. She had considered many potential ways for this project to end, from being thrown in a prison cell for the rest of her natural life to being dragged back to Indol to be subjected to the Praetor's nonexistent mercy, but being intentionally left to the mercy of one of the test subjects had not been something she had even considered!
If anything, her begging only served to further incite the girl. The anger in her eyes flashed over to molten fury as she lunged the remaining distance between them, her hands erupting in flames as they clamped around her neck like a pair of vices, a wordless scream tearing from the girl's throat.
The Indoline woman howled in turn, her Driver constitution doing little to protect her against either the hellish flames searing her skin or the grip squeezing the air from her throat. Arms bound, she flailed her legs desperately, trying to kick the girl off of her, but her feet found no purchase.
Black spots filled her vision, but she couldn't tell if they were the result of hypoxia or the smoke of her skin being cooked off of her neck. In a final, desperate panic, she reached out to her Blade, trying to summon something, anything, that could save her.
She felt the beginning of a weapon core manifesting in her immobilized hand, but it was far too late. As her vision faded, the last thing to cross her mind was the sight of her killer's face, locked in a furious rictus, as the blond man watched impassively from behind.
And then, she knew no more.
"This is-" Rex grunted, parrying a strike from a greatsword. "-Not looking very good!"
"Less talking, more blocking!" Nia shot back, releasing a healing Art on the three of them. "Unless you've got a plan, wearing them out is all we can do!"
He felt the handful of nicks across his arms fade as the soothing ether washed over them, but didn't have the time to relish the feeling. Almost immediately, another blow came at him, this time a crystalline dagger thrown from the back line.
Winning by attrition was basically their only victory condition at this point, seeing as none of them really had a way to deal with the children that wouldn't involve harming them. But as the fight continued to drag on, Rex had begun to notice a rather sizable flaw in that plan.
"…Nia," He began, sidestepping a strike from the greatsword again. Combat instincts honed by years of Azurda's tutelage screamed at him to take advantage of the opening the telegraphed strike provided, but he clamped that down. "Have you noticed that they're not slowing down?"
He hadn't really wanted to say anything earlier, largely because being a Blade Eater was still new enough to him that he wasn't completely familiar with his limits, but he couldn't actually think of an instance since becoming one where he had even gotten winded in a fight.
To be fair, that was rarely a problem even beforehand; most of his combat experience was killing off Crabbles and Crustips that had followed him up from a dive, and even in more strenuous engagements, he was normally fine. You don't make a living out of diving to the sea floor without learning how to control your breathing, after all.
The longer the fight was progressing, though, the more he was beginning to think that it was a Blade Eater trait.
"…Yeah, I did." She admitted, ducking under an ether blast. "I was kinda hoping I was imagining it."
Rex shot a look over at Tora, who was blocking a blow from a Shield Hammer. The nopon was holding out well, but the salvager could see that he was breathing heavily. Considering that they had spent the last half-hour alternating between running through the sewers and fighting, that wasn't exactly unexpected, but it was yet another nail in the coffin of the idea that they could win a battle of attrition.
Behind the horde of Blade Eaters, a loud, rasping laugh cut through the din of battle. "Foolish children!" He taunted them, even as he directed the kids under his control to press forward. "Exhaustion… it does not matter… to my thralls! If you… try to outlast them… I will merely… puppet them until… they break!"
Well, that was certainly ominous.
"Rex!" Azurda called out from his helmet. "You need to take the Blade out!"
"I kinda picked up on that, Gramps!" Rex shot back at the Titan, blocking a coordinated attack from two Blade Eaters. "But I don't have a shot on him!"
As if to prove his point, three more children leapt out from behind the two he was currently holding back, charging mindlessly into his engagement range.
Parrying the double attack, he spun around to face the new attackers, only for them to be stopped short as Dromarch leapt into their path. The tiger Blade roared, projecting a barrier angled to keep all five of the attackers at bay.
"Dromarch? What are you…?" He gasped in surprise. Shouldn't the Blade be at his Driver's side, keeping her covered?
"Master Rex, you have the most well-developed ranged Art among our current group." The tiger stated, maintaining the barrier. "Use it. I will endeavor to keep the children at bay."
"Right." The salvager nodded. Glancing in the direction of the fire Blade, he began gathering ether for the Art, while considering his approach.
When Poppi tried to bypass the crowd, that Blade used the children to pin her in place while he damaged her thrusters. If that was the case, then if he tried to hit the Blade with a Sword Blast, then one of the children would probably end up being used as a human shield.
If he wanted to avoid that, then the best way to do this would be to position himself at an angle where none of the kids could reach him, and the only one in here would be…
Looking up at the ceiling, he could see that a number of power conduits for the corridor-side ether inhibitors were anchored into the stone. They were secured fairly tightly, but the brackets themselves had enough space on the ends to give him some options.
Without a word, Rex jumped onto the tiger's back, using it as a springboard to propel himself over the crowd. Even with the added height, it wouldn't be enough to make it the full distance, and the enemy Blade knew it. Already, he was arraying the children further back to swarm him upon landing.
But that wasn't the full extent of Rex's plan. Bracing his left arm with his right, the salvager aimed at the next bracket forward and fired off his anchor shot. It was a difficult shot to pull off, hitting such a narrow gap while on a ballistic trajectory, but Rex was an old hand with the device, and his newfound Aegis-granted skill with mathematics made predicting the shot trivial.
The anchor arced through the air beautifully, easily threading the gap between the bracket and the ceiling. The moment it did, Rex yanked back on the cable and hit the motor on the reel, pulling himself forward and up.
As he moved, Rex leveled the Aegis Sword at the fire Blade, ether continuing to build within the weapon as he focused. His target had caught on to what he was trying, directing the Blade Eaters with ranged weapons to fire at him, but the mind-controlled children lacked the facilities to react to his sudden change of trajectory.
He fired off his Sword Blast, already preparing to follow it up with another. The fire Blade was no doubt going to stop the first with a barrier, after all, so if he wanted it to have any effect, he would need to be ready to attack the moment the barrier fell.
Just as predicted, the corpselike Blade raised his free arm in front of him. "You will… have to do… better than-" He began, the barrier forming in the path of the attack.
But before it hit, the Blade exploded into a cloud of ether, his darkened Core Crystal clattering to the floor as the Art passed harmlessly through the air where he had been a moment ago.
As if they were puppets with their strings suddenly cut, the mind-controlled children collapsed to the floor, unconscious. Nia and Tora looked around in surprise as their opponents suddenly slumped to the ground.
"That…" Nia started, taken aback as she tried to gather her thoughts. "… Rex, did you snipe his Core or something?!"
"I didn't even land a hit on him." The boy replied, dropping to the ground. Unhooking his anchor had been a simple affair, as it wasn't twisted around anything. "He returned to his Core Crystal before the shot connected."
"Great." The Gormotti girl scowled. "Then that means that somebody got to his Driver before us."
"That is hardly our greatest concern right now." Azurda reminded them. "Unless you've forgotten, you have yet to capture the perpetrator of this operation."
Rex's eyes widened. "The doctor!" He cried, turning to face the rear exit. "Right! We need to…" He trailed off, glancing down at the unconscious children. "…We're not going to just leave the kids here, are we?" He asked.
"We'll have to." Nia replied, climbing onto Dromarch's back. "They're in less danger of being snatched away now that they won't follow literally anyone that asks them to, like the other group, and we can't afford to let that doctor guy get away!"
He hesitated for a moment, before glancing at the door they had entered through. While Nia was probably right, he would rather avoid the risk entirely.
"Poppi," he began, looking over his shoulder at the artificial Blade. "Can you, um, do a repeat of what you did to lock the doctor's assistant up?"
The mechanical girl nodded. "Is easy enough." She stated, walking over to the door. With a quick squeeze, the thick handle crumpled in on itself, rendering the device inoperable.
"I suppose that's one way to do it." Nia observed, shaking her head. "But we've got to get moving. No sense in giving doctor who's-it a bigger lead."
"Right." Rex agreed, turning towards the back of the cell block. He began to run, the others following beside him, as they pursued the fleeing doctor.
Charging through the door, they were greeted with a similar tunnel to the one they had used before. There were no split paths or doors lining the walls, just a straight shot several hundred feet long that terminated with a thick metal door at the end.
A metal door that a familiar figure was desperately trying to open.
"Come on, you defective piece of…!" Castrofari growled, furiously pounding the access code into the keypad beside the door. "I know this is the correct code, so why are you…?!"
The keypad accepted the code, the indicator light glowing a cheery green as it let out a positive chime, but the door refused to budge.
He reared back a fist, slamming it against the cold metal surface of the door. "Damn it all!" He cursed. "I can't allow it to end like this! There's still so much work to be done on my-!"
"Poppi! Resume pursuit mode!" Tora called out as the group charged down the hall.
"Roger, Masterpon!" She cheered in confirmation, before blitzing forward. The artificial Blade had already been more than matching Dromarch's sprint, but the sudden burst of speed as she closed the distance between her and the doctor put it to shame.
Castrofari jolted at the sound of Tora's voice but barely had the chance to so much as turn his head before Poppi was upon him. She grabbed his arm and twisted it up behind him before shoving the man to the floor with no small amount of force.
"Capture successful!" She chimed, beaming at her Driver even as she applied pressure to the doctor's arm.
"Very good, Poppi!" Tora cheered, practically bouncing as he ran up to her. "That textbook takedown! Tora is proud of Poppi's performance!"
Nia slid off of Dromarch's back as the tiger came to a stop, a frown on her face. "Huh." She mused. "He's quieter than expected. With how up his own ass he seemed, I woulda thought he'd be a lot more mouthy."
"Poppi make sure to knock out during takedown." The artificial Blade smirked. "Not want repeat of fishy Blade capture on Gormott."
It took Rex a moment to recognize who she was talking about, but based on Nia's shudder at the reference, he had a pretty good idea. "…Yeah, she was a little…" He scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "…So, are we going to tie him up or something?"
"That would probably be for the best, Master Rex." Dromarch agreed. "It would be unfortunate if he were to escape after all of the trouble he has caused."
"Do we have anything to use, though?" Nia asked. "Because I sure don't have a rope."
Rex frowned, digging through his satchel. "Not a rope, no." He said. "But I think that… ah! Here it is!" The salvager said, pulling out a spool of wire.
Tora tilted his head. "What that?" He asked.
"It's a spare reel of cable for my anchor shot." He replied, tossing the spool to Poppi. "I picked it up at that salvaging shop the other day."
The other two nodded, turning their attention to Castrofari, who was being deftly bound by Poppi. A certain part of Rex, deep down, almost wished that the doctor would wake up, just to see his face when he realized that there was no escaping his bonds.
He put the thought out of his head almost as quickly as it had come, though; unrepentant though the man may have been, Rex had no interest in enjoying his suffering. That wasn't the sort of man he wanted to be.
Instead, his focus shifted to the door that the man had been trying to escape through. Where did it lead? There had been a bunch of other doors in the lab's main hallway, but unless he had missed his guess, they were on the wrong floor and angle for it to lead directly back inside. Did that mean there was more to the complex?
Perhaps the answer to what had happened to the tracking Blade's Driver was within? At the very least, it might be worthwhile to make sure there wasn't another escape route that any potential accomplices they had missed had used.
"All done!" Poppi announced, standing up. "One baddiepon ready for transport!"
"Good work." Nia congratulated, looking over her shoulder down the hall. "Now let's get back to the kids and fix that door."
"Actually," Rex cut in. "Poppi, do you mind getting this door open?"
"Huh?" Tora looked up at him. "Why Rex-Rex want go through there?"
The salvager crossed his arms, frowning. "It's just… there had to be more people here." He said, explaining his previous thoughts. "Castrofari obviously wasn't that Blade's Driver since he's still alive, but we haven't seen any sign of whoever that could have been."
"...And considering the Driver must have been killed, that begs the question of what happened to them." Nia concluded, suddenly looking a lot less enthusiastic about their victory.
"Right." Rex confirmed, glancing warily at the door. "The doctor obviously wasn't a fighter, and when we showed up, he ran this way… how much do you want to bet that the Driver was somewhere on the other side?"
"I suppose it's worth checking out." Azurda agreed.
"Exactly how much farther did you say it was?" Alexandria asked, her calm demeanor at odds with the frantic pace at which they were sprinting through the tunnels.
"I don't know for sure." Lyta admitted, directing the group around a corner. "I didn't want to risk leading those children closer and risk any additional enemies taking the opportunity to recapture them, but the men we rescued them from were leading them in this direction."
Their encounter with the ghostly Blade had come at an opportune time. After interrogating Vandham and Tokiha, an event that mercifully only took a handful of minutes (the Urayan in particular was invaluable in that regard—decades of operating a mercenary company meant that he knew how to convey a situation report in the most optimal fashion possible), Alexandria had determined that they were most likely being truthful, and took them at their word for the time being.
No sooner had they begun to follow behind the other members of their party, when Lyta showed up with a group of children in tow. After briefly verifying that she was a member of Vandham's organization, she had prompted the dark Blade to update them on what had occurred deeper within the sewers.
What she had to report wasn't heartening news. While the remaining members of the group had indeed managed to infiltrate the lab, they had also confirmed that the mysterious group responsible for obstructing them had already loaded most of the children onto a transport Titan.
That put them on an obvious timer. Considering how poorly the circumstances were turning against them, the logical course of action for their opponents would be to withdraw as quickly as possible, securing what little of their work here that could be salvaged. There was no way to know if the crew of the transport ship had realized the situation they were in yet, but even if they had not, it would only be a matter of time.
And once they departed, the chance that any of the kidnapped children aboard would be rescued was incredibly slim. It was imperative that they reached the ship before that occurred.
Lyta put on a burst of speed as she led the group out of the tunnel, emerging into one of the outflow pipes beneath the academy. Alexandria cast a quick look around, assessing the surroundings.
As the ghostly Blade had told them, there was a concealed passage cut into the wall at one end of the pipe, the open door revealing a set of stairs leading up into the lab. A pair of men, in the same Ardainian-style equipment bearing unfamiliar heraldry as the Drivers Vandham and Tokiha had fought, were laid out on the ground.
It was tempting to inspect the scene—the equipment the soldiers were using was interesting on its own. Was this a group making use of surplus equipment, or a deniable operation being conducted by the Ardainian military? Regardless of which, she would be having an extended conversation with the Ardanian ambassador in the near future—but they needed to move. Instead, she turned the other direction, following Lyta down the outflow pipe.
"This is as far as I got!" The ghostly Blade stated, falling slightly behind Alexandria as they proceeded. "All I know is that they were headed in this direction!"
"Don't concern yourself with that." The light Blade replied, taking the lead of the group. "I believe I know where their ship is docked."
Really, there was only one option. The original sewer system had six primary outflow shafts, radiating out from beneath the center of the original colony's citadel. Owing to the network's dual purpose as a way of both removing waste and serving as a concealed means of moving defenders around the colony, the exits of the outflow pipes had been designed to serve as concealed docks to house submersible Titan ships. In the event of a siege, they could be used to offload supplies run through a theoretical blockade with minimal chance of detection.
By the time Tadbir became independent, those concealed docks had become exposed by the Titan's growth, spoiling their intended use. Instead, they had been converted to support the large transport ships ferrying in the materials to build the academy, allowing the project to proceed without disrupting commercial activities in the main port.
Once the construction was finished, though, the ports had been abandoned and the massive outflow pipes had been largely sealed. A single one had remained in use as a private dock for special academy business, but even in that case, the outflow pipe had still been sealed and a new path had been cut into the cliff of the Titan's brow.
But even if the others had been abandoned, the infrastructure was still present. For a sufficiently dedicated group, refurbishing one of the sites would have been a trivial affair, and based on the testimony of Vandham's group, the organization behind this had dedication in spades.
Reaching the site didn't take long, especially at the speeds they were moving at. A group of Drivers and Blades could make astounding times at full sprint, and the outflow pipe was a straight line. After little more than a minute, they had reached the end: a flat, metal wall, unornamented save for a small grate at the bottom to allow any fluids in the pipe to escape.
Beside it was a smaller, more traditionally-shaped door, although still made of metal. It wasn't disguised like the entrance to the lab, but it was clearly a later addition than the seal. Considering that it hadn't been listed on the maps that Alexandria was familiar with, it had probably been added by their opponents.
Without breaking a stride, the light Blade pulled her sword free of her back, ether flowing into the weapon as she locked her eyes on the door. Distantly, she could feel the discomfort of drawing ether with her Driver so far away, but she was easily able to ignore it. Her Driver had retired from the battlefield decades ago; that had given her ample experience working by herself.
Light ether wreathed her blade as she segmented it, lashing the weapon at the door barring their way. The thick metal structure offered only token resistance as the bladed whip sliced clean through, knocking the door off of its hinges in the process.
Her companions, both temporary and permanent, followed behind her as she charged through the spot where the door had been a moment before and exited onto the dock.
As she suspected, there was a ship pulled up beside the structure—a submersible-type Titan supporting a superstructure of Ardainian make. A large cargo door at the back of the vessel was open, giving her a clear view of the cavernous cargo hold. By and large, it was empty; there were cages deep inside, most likely to hold the children, but there was a reasonably sized space between them and the hatch that was most likely intended to house the felled Archeleon.
Unfortunately, it seemed that the crew of the ship had become wise to their precarious position. Perhaps it had been because the children and their escort, the group that Lyta and her friends had stopped, had never shown up, or perhaps they hadn't figured it out until Alexandria had kicked the door open, but by the time they had made it onto the docks, the vessel was beginning to pull away. Crew members could be seen within the hold, hastily pulling up the ramp as the ship began to move.
"They're getting away!" She called, even as she assessed the potential of boarding the transport before it got too far from the shore.
Vandham didn't hesitate. With a burst of speed that belied his massive size, the burly Urayan raced past her, carried forward on a column of air.
All of that speed would be needed, too. The ship was only a hundred feet away from them, a trivial distance to cover even without that speed boost of his, but almost half of that was thin air, and the gap was widening as the ship picked up speed. Drivers could perform amazing physical feats, including massive leaps, even straight up, but there was a limit to how far they could jump!
He was pushing it as he reached the end of the pier, throwing that momentum into a mighty leap as he soared across the gap between the dock and the departing transport. The mercenary pulled back his arms as he flew, readying his scythes to dig them into the hull.
But even from here, Alexandria could tell that he wasn't going to make it. The ship was picking up speed too quickly, and based on the arc his body was following, he would be a foot or two short at his closest pass. His Blade was already diving after him, so she wasn't concerned that he would fall to his death in the clouds far below, but she doubted that the avian Blade would be able to catch up with the ship while weighed down by his Driver.
She began trying to work out a way to stop the ship. Directly boarding it was off the table, but what about slowing it down? The docks were set into a narrow cove in the Titan's brow, so triggering a rockslide might force them to stop. But how would she do that? If they had an earth Blade with them, it would be a simple affair, but none of them had an ability that would be useful for that. If they were closer to the cloud level, Tokiha might have been able to freeze some of the moisture in the Cloud Sea to obstruct their path, but that wouldn't be possible here.
But perhaps her powers could be used to trigger the necessary rockslide? Even if they had been exposed to the air for centuries, the rocks lining the cove should still have some degree of water saturation just from normal weather. Freezing the rocks to expand the water trapped within could be an option, then. Granted, on the time scales they were working with, it was more likely to merely cause spalling of the surface layers, but if she used her own light ether to flash-boil the ice, the two of them could potentially employ a rapid thermal cycle to-
Whatever line of thought had been running through her head was quickly and decisively derailed as a massive ether fluctuation rippled through the air, mere moments before the sky practically exploded with light.
A titanic bolt of lightning descended from the clear blue sky, striking the Titan ship as if it were the Architect's own fist. In the corner of her eye, Alexandria saw Lyta and the guards flinch away from the strike, their eyes not protected by an elemental affinity as hers were.
It didn't protect her from the deafening clap of thunder that followed a heartbeat later, though. The sound, as much a physical force as anything else, drove her to her knees as it washed over the group. The light Blade felt a warm wetness in her ears as the delicate membranes of her eardrums ruptured, briefly robbing her of her hearing.
Shakily, she pushed herself back up, noting the overpowering aroma of ozone filling the dock as she took stock of the lightning bolt's effects.
A large, blackened hole had been burned into the armor of the transport, directly above the engineering compartment. The Titan was still moving, but it was no longer going in the same direction. Rather, it was banking toward one of the cliff faces, as if the method used to control the Titan was stuck ordering it to turn.
The crewmen who had been in the process of closing the cargo door had been affected as well. They had all collapsed to the deck, small streamers of electricity arcing between the metal fixtures of their uniforms and the hull beneath them. Nobody aboard was going to be resisting arrest at this point.
Rather importantly, Vandham and his Blade had apparently been mostly unaffected by the strike. She watched as the crimson birdman lifted his Driver up to the half-closed ramp, the only sign that either had suffered being the telltale streaks of blood dripping from their ears.
As the Urayan began securing the ship, she paused, looking away from the vessel in favor of the cliffs above them. That was an ether attack, no question about it. But… who had cast it?
"Magnificent showing, Pandy! That was absolutely fantastic!" Zeke cheered, peering over the ledge as he inspected his Blade's work.
"Mrghh…" The green-haired Blade moaned, using her wand as a crutch while she waited for the world to stop spinning. That was, by far, the most ether she had ever attempted to handle at once. Her Core Crystal had been able to manage the load involved, but even cycling ether through their affinity link, she felt as if she had spent an hour spamming Arts without Zeke's help.
Which was an almost alien feeling these days, considering it was impossible for them to be out of affinity anymore.
"Why couldn't we have just handled that the normal way, Zeke?" She asked miserably. "All we had to do was stop the ship from leaving until those guys caught up! We could have stonewalled the crew in the bridge or something; it's not like they had any Drivers left onboard!"
Zeke laughed boisterously, leaping down from his perch. "I already told you, we can't tip our hand this early!" He explained. "If we involved ourselves directly, put boots on the ground and all that, the guards would've dragged us off for the investigation." The exiled prince crossed his arms behind his head. "Chances are pretty good we'd run into the kid there, and it'll be harder to test him if he knows we're on his side."
"Hmph." Pandoria replied, gently testing her balance without the support of her weapon. "We're still doing that? I thought we'd already established that he's not the Aegis' Driver after all." She wobbled slightly at the experimental step, forcing the Blade to cling to her wand again.
Her Driver let out another laugh. "I wouldn't be so sure about that!" He proclaimed. "Didn't you get a good look at his weapon during the fight?"
She nodded. "Yeah, I did." The electric Blade confirmed. "And the weapon core wasn't green."
"You were looking at the wrong place, then." Zeke explained sagely. "Because that weapon core wasn't real; it was a cover."
Pandoria blinked in surprise. "Wait, what?" She said. "I didn't notice anything like that!"
"Well, I guess that makes sense," her Driver admitted. "You didn't have it practically shoved in your face. But I did, and it definitely was loose enough to wobble a bit when we got into a blade lock."
If true, that was a pretty strong indication that he was hiding something. There wasn't a lot of reason to cover a weapon core beyond concealing the appearance—a tactic that was used almost as frequently by Flesh Eaters as it was by assassins—but making a cover that changed the appearance? That was even more suspicious. No wonder Zeke was still interested.
Shaking his head, her prince looked back down into the cove. "We'd best get moving." He decided. "They'll try to figure out who helped 'em out sooner or later, and as much as I want to announce to the heavens that the Bringer of Chaos was their salvation this day," Pandoria could practically hear the capitals on the title, "we must remain in the shadows a little longer!"
"Ah, about that…" The green-haired Blade replied awkwardly. "I seem to be having a teensy bit of trouble standing. Do you think that we could, you know, wait a minute until I'm feeling a little bit better?"
Zeke shot her a concerned look. "Did you overdo it?" He asked gently, walking over to her.
She nodded, averting her eyes. "Ah… a little bit." Pandoria admitted, her cheeks reddening in embarrassment. Normally, he was the one who needed someone to fret over them, mostly after doing something stupid or getting really unlucky. She didn't appreciate the shoe being on the other foot for once!
Well, mostly, at least. It was nice to have Zeke being so concerned about her health—as a Blade, she didn't get sick, so it was a novel feeling.
Adrift in her thoughts, she almost missed the mischievous smirk that was growing on his face as he circled around her, the one that he normally reserved for when they were- "Wait, Zeke…!" She began, dizziness preventing her from turning around. "Don't you dare-!"
The electric Blade let out a squeak as her Driver suddenly scooped her up into a bridal carry, grabbing the wand lodged into the ground with the same smooth, practiced motion.
"W-w-wait!" She sputtered, her stomach roiling at the sudden motion even as her blush deepened, no longer purely out of embarrassment. "P-put me down! I can walk on my own if you just give me a minute!"
"Come now, Pandy," he said mirthfully. "You know there's no time for that. Those Drivers could be up here at any moment!"
Shifting her to a single arm (yet somehow still keeping her steady—she was beginning to realize that he had far too much experience carrying her like this), the Tantalese prince walked away from the cliff, flourishing her wand in his main hand. As he walked past the blade portion of their shared weapon, Zeke almost casually thrust the piece he was holding into the larger portion, locking them together.
He swung the weapon onto his back, bringing his now-free arm to support her again. "What do you say?" He asked, giving her a brilliant grin. "Shall we head back?"
"I-I guess." Pandoria replied in a small voice, poking her index fingers together. "I mean, I…"
She trailed off as she realized exactly how they would be getting back, considering the rough terrain around them. "W-wait, I'm actually not ready!" She insisted. "We can start moving, just give me a little longer to recover before-!"
"And away we go!" The man laughed, leaping toward an outcropping above them before bounding higher up the cliff. The pair quickly vanished into the hills above the cove, only the lingering echo of Pandoria's shriek a sign they had ever been there.
"Got it." Poppi reported, a sharp shriek of tortured metal echoing her statement as the artificial Blade ripped the door off of its hinges.
"Thank you, Poppi. Good work." Azurda said, hanging out of Rex's helmet.
She beamed at the praise, placing the detached door against the wall before returning to her Driver's side.
Nia and Rex poked their heads through the door, quickly taking stock of the interior. It was fairly unremarkable—the same bland, blank stone walls as the rest of the lab, just with a few extra doors. Beyond that, there wasn't anything of note. Unlike the hall near the entrance, there weren't even any boxes lying around, ready to be transported to whatever ship they were planning on fleeing on.
"Well, that's a little underwhelming." The Gormotti girl stated, looking around. There weren't any indications of where they would want to be going; except for the door at the end of the hall, they were all closed, and that one seemed like it led back in the direction of the entrance.
"I am not sure what you were expecting, my Lady." Dromarch noted as he padded along behind her.
She rolled her eyes. "Something more conclusive than a generic hallway." The girl replied. "It doesn't really give us much of a lead, after all."
"Well, mostly." Rex pointed out. "I mean, the door at the end's open; that's as much of a lead as anything else."
"True," She admitted, "but that doesn't mean that's the most important thing, either. For all we know, there could be more kids locked up behind one of these."
A contemplative look crossed Rex's face as the boy crossed his arms, mulling over the situation. "…What do you think, Tora?" He asked, looking over at the nopon.
Rather than looking around the hall, Tora had zeroed in on the electronic lock of the now-removed door. One of his wing-fingers was tracing the wires leading away from the keypad, while the other was massaging his chin thoughtfully.
"…Tora think more going on." He replied. "See definite sign of sabotage."
"Huh?" Rex tilted his head slightly. "What do you mean?"
"Look here." Tora said, pointing at the connection leading away from the lock. "Wire cut from inside. That why baddiepon doctor not able to open door when chasing."
Nia frowned. "Is that really so surprising?" She asked. "We know that something happened to that tracking Blade's Driver, so it makes sense that they'd be sabotaging the rest of the people here too."
"Of course, that begs the question of who is doing the sabotaging." Azurda pointed out. "Are they another group trying to take down the doctor, or are they a competitor trying to snap up his work?"
Silence fell over the group as they considered the possibility. Internally, Nia was beginning to regret pushing to pursue the doctor over securing the children; she hadn't considered that whoever killed that Blade's Driver might be after them as well. It was a good thing Rex was forward-thinking enough to have Poppi disable the door.
As she pondered, she began to realize that she could just barely hear a faint sound in the distance. Her ears twitched unconsciously, trying to focus on the noise.
The motion was visible enough that it drew Rex's attention. He gave her a quizzical look, but she pushed it out of her mind for a moment as she focused. Although faint, the sound was familiar… it almost sounded like…
"What do you hear?" Rex asked.
She furrowed her brow. "It… almost sounds like crying."
Rex's demeanor hardened. "More of the children?" He asked.
"I don't know." Nia admitted. "It's pretty faint."
"We should probably investigate." Azurda stated, crossing his arms. "Can you tell which direction it's coming from?"
"Yeah." She nodded, turning to face the open door at the end of the hallway. Because of course it was. How silly of her to think that the closed doors could possibly be hiding something important. "It's coming from in there."
Carefully, they proceeded through the door, mindful of their surroundings. It opened into another hallway, lined with cells similar to the ones they had seen back in the room they had fought the tracking Blade in. Unlike those, though, these cells lacked the ether inhibitors built into the walls; the bars instead appeared to be as old as the stonework they were anchored to.
They were also much smaller, as if they were designed for a single person rather than a group, nor did they seem to be equipped to house anyone long-term. Most likely, they were intended for temporary detention, but the why wasn't clear until they moved to the next room.
Within was what could only be described as a modern torture chamber. It was a medium-sized, square room with a tall, arched ceiling and a pair of narrow staircases flanking the sides. Like the rest of the lab, it was constructed from ancient stone but had clearly been modernized more than the others.
It had been set up as an operating room, from the look of it. Long metal tables ran along the walls, covered in surgical supplies. Rows of tools—scalpels, scissors, bone saws, and forceps—were laid out for easy use, all centered around a long, padded bed with straps.
Above, bright, focused lights were suspended from the ceiling by chains, illuminating the workspace, but with an obvious gap in the coverage. That was apparently to allow whoever was inside the observation theater above to observe the procedures being performed.
Nia's ears folded flat against her head as she looked around, taking in the sights of the room. This was where that doctor must have been doing his work. Even mostly empty, something about the abandoned surgical equipment—some of it still caked in dried blood—made her uneasy.
Perhaps it was because she was aware of what it had been used for? Taion hadn't been particularly detailed when he explained what had happened here, but her mind could more than fill in the blanks now that she had seen this place.
She wasn't the only one feeling that, though. A quick glance at Rex told her that he was every bit as disturbed by the setup. The way that his eyes lingered on one of the uncleaned scalpels with visible unease made it clear.
"We're getting close." She said softly, glancing upward slightly. It probably wasn't necessary to say; they were close enough to the source of the crying that she had no doubt the others could clearly hear it by now. Based on the direction, Nia was fairly certain it was originating from the observation theater above them.
Though the Gormotti girl didn't deal with children frequently enough to be sure, she was fairly certain whoever was crying was outside of the age range of the kids they had seen, maybe closer to her and Rex's. It definitely sounded like a girl, though, although she would be the first to admit that she hadn't really been in a position to hear many boys cry before.
Seeing that Rex was already headed for the narrow staircase on the left wall, Nia swung to the one on the right. Depending on what was inside the observation room, it could be worthwhile to enter on different sides, so they could potentially flank whoever was inside.
You never know what you'll find, and experience had made her always opt for the paranoid response to a situation.
As she crept up the stairs, making sure to keep silent, she mentally prepared herself for whatever they might find. Ideally, it would just be one of the children, lost and afraid with the tracking Blade's control cut, but considering the lengths that these guys had been shown to be willing to go to, she wouldn't put it past them to have left something truly heinous behind.
She prepared herself to find anything, and yet, as she peeked around the door, she still found herself surprised.
The room itself was pretty unremarkable. Like many others in the facility, most of the contents had been hastily packed away, leaving only a messy assortment of boxes behind. In particular, there was a large stack of documents and files piled neatly in one corner, away from any of the doors.
What was important, however, were the figures in the center. Sprawled out on the floor was the corpse of a woman, Indoline based on the color of her skin. It was hard to tell, though; she had been burned badly enough that the results practically made Nia gag despite her extensive experience as a healer. It wasn't exactly hard to tell what had killed her.
Beside the body were a still-living pair. One, a dark-skinned girl that Nia could swear looked familiar, was the source of the crying. The girl had her face pressed into the shoulder of the other figure, sobbing in relief as he gently patted her on the back.
It took a full three seconds for Nia's brain to catch up as she recognized the man. How could she not? Even though she had only been with Torna for a few months, the armor that the group favored was distinct.
"Mikhail?!" She exclaimed almost before she realized she was speaking. "W-what are…!? How are you…?!"
She felt a rush of panic run through her. What was a Torna member doing here!? It couldn't be a coincidence, could it? Had they been following her and Rex this whole time? Or…
The blond perked up at the sound of her voice, turning as far in their direction as he could without disturbing the girl. "Well, well, would you look who the cat dragged in?" He said, his typical smarmy grin plastered over his face.
"Nia-Nia know this man?" Tora asked, poking his head out from behind Rex's legs.
Her expression hardened as she collected herself, falling into a defensive posture. "Yeah, I know him." She replied darkly. "He's with Torna."
Something seemed off, though. Where was Cressidus? It was rare for a Driver and Blade to separate, especially if they were in a place like this, but she couldn't see any sign of the massive, Garlus-like Blade.
A spark of recognition crossed Rex's face at her words. "Wait, 'Mikhail'? Isn't he the…?"
"Why, Nia! Have you been spreading other's secrets around?" The Blade Eater teased, a flicker of amusement flashing across his expression. "How very rude of you… What would Jin think if he heard that?"
"I don't give a toss what that asshole thinks!" She snarled, a curl of anger reaching deeply inside of her. The sting of the elder Flesh Eater's betrayal was still a fresh wound in her heart. How dare he bring it up!
Mikhail looked genuinely confused at her reaction. "Huh. There must be something I'm not getting here." He said. "Weren't you practically head-over-heels for him like a month ago?"
The Gormotti girl glowered at him. "Not like that I wasn't!" She hissed, clenching her fists. "And even if I was, that would have gone out the window the moment he tried to kill me!"
"Wait, really? He didn't mention that part." The blonde stated, so taken aback by how unexpectedly his dig had gone that he wasn't even attempting to maintain his normal suave demeanor. "All he said was that you flipped sides."
She growled, clenching her fists as she stared him down. Facing down with a member of Torna was the last thing she had expected to do today. Why did they, of all people, have to show up?!
"Why are you here?" Rex asked, not quite accusingly, but definitely with a hint of caution in his voice. He held the Aegis Sword in his hands, but it wasn't ignited, or even in a combat position. Instead, it seemed to be more of a warning.
Mikhail glanced at him briefly before turning his attention back to the girl. Her crying had mostly petered out, instead becoming soft, miserable sniffles. "The same reason you are." He admitted, giving her an uncertain look.
"You really expect us to believe that?" Nia accused, narrowing her eyes. "How did you even figure out the kids were here?"
The man looked over at her, his expression almost… disappointed? "Of everyone here, I would have thought that you would have been the one to understand, Nia." He said softly. "I may not have the full story of what went down between you and Jin on the ship, even if I can guess what set you off, but surely you remember why you joined Torna in the first place?"
She gritted her teeth, averting her eyes at his words. Despite the anger she felt at Jin for what he had tried to do, the image of him standing above her, a hand held out in salvation, still crossed her mind. Whatever else they had done, whatever else they were planning on doing, that didn't change the fact that Torna had and did go out of their way to rescue Flesh Eaters. Why would they do anything different for Blade Eaters?
Ignoring her, Mikhail slowly rose to his feet, taking care to make sure he didn't knock the girl away as he moved. She pushed herself away from his torso, sniffling slightly as she came to her feet as well, revealing her face to the group.
Nia heard a gasp rise from the others, and she couldn't blame them for the reaction. That girl… she was definitely the one that Castrofari shot on the communicator. She had survived? How?
The girl shot a glare at her, the puffy red skin beneath her eyes only enhancing the hostility of the look as she stood next to Mikhail. The man glanced down at her briefly, before looking up at the group.
"I'm going to guess that if you've made it here, then you've already rescued the rest of the kids?" He asked.
"Well, the ones that are still here." Rex replied, suddenly looking a little sheepish. "Those soldiers already moved some of them onto a ship."
"Then you'd better get going and rescue them." The blond said, waving a hand at the thick, steel door set into the side of the room. "If that ship leaves, then good luck finding them, because whoever's behind this won't make it easy."
"And what are you going to be doing?" Nia asked, taking a half-step forward. "You're here to rescue the kids too, right? Surely you're not gonna just kill one person and run off!"
Mikhail scoffed. "Hardly. I know who you're working with, and neither of 'em will take my presence well." The man explained. "I'll be better served making myself scarce, especially if you've got things handled here."
Without another word, he turned around, facing toward a different door than the one he had pointed them at. He paused for a moment, shooting a look over his shoulder. "Anyway, I'm not really in the mood for a fight, so seeing as I don't have any orders from Jin, I'll leave you two be this time." He said. "But make no mistake; next time we meet, it'll probably be as enemies."
He began to walk toward the door. "Come on, Etene." He said, nodding forward. "Let's get out of here."
The girl looked up at him, the last embers of anger in her eyes burning out. Without it, she seemed exhausted, almost… hollow, in a way. She didn't question anything he had said, instead meekly following behind the older Blade Eater as he headed for the door.
"Wait a minute!" Nia called out. "Why are… we can't just let you leave with one of the kids!" They were here to rescue them, dammit! Not let Torna swoop in and recruit them!
Mikhail chuckled. "I don't think that's up to you, don't you think?" He asked. "She's old enough to make that decision for herself."
Rex rushed after him, holding out a hand. Without a second thought, Nia followed after him, intent on stopping Mikhail from leaving.
The only warning that they received was a sudden ether fluctuation from the other side of the door before the floor between them erupted, thick columns of stone slamming up through the ancient brickwork and piercing the ceiling, blocking the path between them. Nia just barely managed to slide to a halt in time to prevent herself from running into the stone.
On the far side, she could just barely make out the sound of Mikhail speaking. "Thanks, Cress." He said as a door slammed shut behind the stone.
She pounded a fist against the rock, cursing. "Mikhail! Get back here! Mikhail!" She called, furious at the man. It was funny in a way; in the months that she had known him, she had always wanted him to just shut up with the flirting and the goofy, obviously fake suave demeanor. Now that he had actually shown what he was like when being serious, she kind of wished it was back.
"Damn it!" Rex cursed, glaring at the wall of rock. "Tora, Poppi, do you think you can get us through?"
The nopon looked at the obstruction warily. "Tora not think so." He replied, pointing at the ceiling. "Rex-Rex see cracks? Rock damage ceiling; is now supporting. If Poppi break rock, ceiling could come tumbly down on friends!"
Nia glared at the jagged stone as if it had offended her personally. She wasn't sure what to do now. Should they try and go around, hoping to find a way out, and cut him off? Or should they risk breaking through the rock and catching up to him?
Fortunately, she wasn't the only one here to make that decision. "Come on!" Rex called, turning around. "Let's see if we can find a way around!"
"And what about the other children?" Azurda asked, even as he shot an uncertain glance back over at the rocks. "We can hardly afford to not pursue the ship."
The salvager grimaced at the reminder. "Titan's foot." He spat as he unlatched the lock on the heavy steel door. "Let's at least get out of the lab. With luck, we'll run into the others, but we might have to split up."
Following behind him, Nia shot a final glance over her shoulder at the rocks. As much as she wanted to believe that they would be able to catch up to Mikhail, she got the distinct impression that they had seen the last of him on this Titan.
Author's Notes:
And that's a wrap on the arc! Well, technically we have a conclusion chapter next, but the action is all over now.
In the original version of this arc, there was supposed to be a short battle against Mikhail, but due to how long this has ended up stretching out, I ultimately decided to scrap it. Sorry, Rex and Nia, but you'll have to wait to settle affairs with Mik until later in the story.
I forgot to mention it in the previous chapter's notes, but the next few updates will be every other week. I'm working on a small side project that I want finished for the end of the month, so that's slowing things down. Hopefully, I should be good to resume weekly updates in May.