Chapter 6: Remnants
Smoke stung Kirin's eyes as she sprung through the cloud rising from below. She and BB were hopping rooftops as quickly as they could to avoid the chaos below.
"Shiron, we're nearly on the target," she said. "If you've got that intel, now would be the time."
"I'm doing my best, Kirin," Shiron said, "but with everything going on, the internet's lagging out the ass, here."
They were responding to the third primal dragon appearance since that morning, and half the team was aiding evacuations besides. Kirin's yellow cloak had accumulated several more dark stains and much of her skin was similarly marred with bruises. Her feet hurt, and she was tired. She wasn't the only one.
"Are we gonna get any good news today?" BB whined.
"Wouldn't count on it," Kirin said.
"C'mon," Shiron said, "load you son of a– There it goes! Ok, we're looking at one Yuna Miyasaki. Septima: Envenom. Pretty self explanatory: she produces venom from her mouth… but it looks like the dragonization has also given her a scorpion tail."
"Awesome sauce," BB said.
"How bad is this venom we're talking about?" Kirin said.
"Small doses cause hallucinations," Shiron said. "Enough of it will trigger respiratory failure. Looks like she's legally required to keep the antidote on her person, so if you get infected, you'll have to act fast."
"You get that, BB?" Kirin said.
"Don't play with the tail; got your drift," he said.
"Well, this sucks," Shiron said. "Seems all the mandates on her have made her really scared of infecting someone. You can expect her to be evasive."
Just then, a laser swept the street below them. As Kirin skidded to a halt and peered into the scattering dust, she perceived a set of yellow lights flying toward her. She threw herself to the side, narrowly avoiding the point of a stinger, before the fall shook her bones.
Yuna landed on all fours at the center of the rooftop, her scorpion tail coiled around her. As she rose to her feet, her tail swished and arced above her head in a crescent. The intermittent light of the dark, rolling clouds cast shadows over her dragon exoskeleton, shades of lunar white, caustic yellow, and deep black. Something like a gas mask was over her mouth, and tubes ran from it around to her tail.
"Six feet back or six feet down; what do you not get about that?" she said, her muffled voice cracking. "Need me to measure it for you? It's this far!"
Yuna lashed her tail at Kirin again, but when Kirin dodged, a zombie leapt from somewhere behind and stuck itself on the stinger instead. Yuna flicked her tail back and slung the zombie off the other end of the roof. Blood and venom dripped from the searing yellow of her stinger. The same sickly light radiated from several other points on her armor, and her eyes, the only uncovered part of her face, quivered with a similar fever.
[Splitting Fool– Devil May Cry 5 ost]
"Aaaand she's already snapped," BB said.
"Do you people have a death wish?" Yuna said. "I could literally kill you with a sneeze, and it's allergy season! And now there's zombies, and I don't know which plague is worse! Wait, I didn't cause that, too, did I? Did the sickness evolve?"
"Relax," Kirin said. "I've got your shot right here. My radiant fetters will–"
Before Kirin could finish, Yuna flipped a hooked blade out from her arm and swung it to send out a wave of energy. Kirin leapt over the attack and drew her sword as it crashed behind her. She glanced back and saw that the roof was slowly dissolving from the corrosive blast.
"Oh, God," Yuna said. "I need a doctor, a real doctor!"
She turned and bolted.
"Not doing this again, today," Kirin said. "Cut her off, BB!"
"On it!" he said.
BB strafed in front of Yuna and scattered a wave of phantom flames, forcing her to halt. As Kirin came from behind, BB swooped in for a scissoring slice from his scythes. Kirin and BB struck in tandem, but with equal swiftness, Yuna drew a second sickle to halt BB's scythes and met Kirin's blade with her tail. Pincered between the attacks, she trembled in strain and let out a hot breath, the sound of which filtered menacingly through her respirator. The venom she released seemed to surge through her with power, and she forced the pair back with a spinning strike.
As Kirin landed on the back foot, Yuna took a low stance. Her bladed right arm she held straight down, and she crossed her left arm, reverse gripping the second sickle, over it. For many adepts, their septima heightened under stress, and Kirin and BB were bringing the pressure. Kirin's hand hovered over her sheathed blade. Yuna made the first move.
The stinger was in Kirin's face just as soon as she could draw to deflect it. She brushed the toxic lash away, and the corrosive crescents both came cutting from the same side, leaving an acidic streak. Kirin leaned under the slashes and twirled back around with her own cut. Yuna stepped back to narrowly evade it and flipped her offhand blade around to come back with a cross cut. Kirin, however, rapidly pushed the scabbard back over her blade and, in one motion, thrust the staff back forward to gut punch Yuna with the counterweight, but on the backdraw, Yuna hooked the ringed guard and began to snatch the blade back out.
"Tag!" BB said as he dove in from the side.
His skeletal claws were already positioned around a swirl of energy as he thrust his arm forward to send the floating bits which composed his wings out as a dotted line beneath the contested blade. Energy burst from the bits in a series of phantasmal uppercuts and sent the sword spinning into the air as Yuna sprung back.
Yuna slashed to send out a cross of energy as she landed, and BB rushed in while Kirin dodged. Yuna whipped her tail at BB, but he caught it in one skeletal hand and punched her with the other, jostling the tubes of Yuna's mask. As he drew back his hand to strike again, Yuna combined her second sickle into the gauntlet with the first to create a large pincer from the two hooks. She used her new weapon to deflect BB's second punch and clasped his arm in the vice. He gasped at the sudden adaptation but kept a tight grip on the deadly tail.
As Kirin's sword landed point down into the roof, she focused deeply to call on an image pulse. One of Tenjian's frozen shuriken may have been able to swerve around Yuna's back. Kirin's eyes flashed as the memory of the icy warrior took form, frozen star in hand, but just as he brought his arm forward to sling the shuriken, the image pulse flickered and dissipated.
"What?" Kirin gasped.
"A little help, here?" BB, under strain, said.
Yuna's tail was getting harder for him to restrain.
"Bet you haven't even been tested," Yuna hissed. "Say, 'Ah.'"
BB disconnected his real arm from the skeletal arm formed of his folded scythe, leaving it in Yuna's pincer as he pulled back from the stinger. His other skeletal arm unfolded into a scythe the moment he released the tail, and he swung to catch Yuna's retaliatory lash in the crook of the scythe. As Kirin snatched up her sword to hurry to his aid, BB continued his swing to push the blade of the scythe into the roof, and he brought his knee down onto the bony handle to pin Yuna's tail under it. Yuna threw down BB's pincered arm in fury and aimed to guillotine his neck, and though he rolled away in time to avoid decapitation, the pincers did chop one of the horns off his helmet.
Kirin rushed in from the side and cut across to carve Yuna's first real wound into her torso. While Yuna reeled from the attack, BB reached out and called his severed arm back to him. It rattled against the roof and came spinning through the air to his hand, unfolding into a scythe as he caught it. He met Yuna's fevered eyes as his wings returned, and in a streak of ghostly green, he launched toward her and swung his scythe two handed, slicing another gash through Yuna's exoskeleton.
Infuriated at their touch, Yuna cried out and flexed her tail, ripping BB's scythe out of the roof, and raised her stinger with a searing light. A laser beamed from the glowing point, and she swept it toward Kirin and BB. They both leapt from the attack, but the subsequent blast from the laser's trail snuffed out the flame wall they had been using to contain Yuna.
Seeing her chance, Yuna rushed by them and sprung through the breached barricade. Kirin, however, turned and threw a talisman which hit Yuna squarely in the back. In the instant that it took Yuna to flinch and cut her eyes back, Kirin had already arc chained to her and slashed with enough force to spin Yuna the rest of the way around. Yuna's tail, however, came whipping back around the other side and, though the stinger missed Kirin's heel, the tail wrapped around her leg and snatched Kirin past Yuna.
Kirin slammed against the roof of the adjacent building and rolled. Before Kirin could reorient herself, Yuna pinned her throat against the roof with her left forearm while her pincer sunk into the roof on either side of Kirin's left wrist.
"You call that a shot?" Yuna, raising her tail, said.
Kirin tilted her head just enough to avoid being lobotomized by the needled stinger which vibrated the roof on impact. To her right, Kirin's sword was just beyond her fingertips. She stretched and fumbled for it as Yuna's tail raised back up and playfully swished back and forth behind her to prevent Kirin from predicting the strike again. Kirin finally got a grip on her sword, but just as she picked it up, BB came from behind Yuna and grabbed her tail in a skeletal hand while wrapping a scythe around her head from the opposite side.
"What's up, doc?" he said.
BB pulled back to draw Yuna off of Kirin, but as he did, Yuna thrashed, slipping the scythe from her neck. The scythe made a cut in her respirator tube, causing a burst of faintly yellow gas to spew with a hiss right into Kirin's face. Kirin immediately broke into a coughing fit. Yuna leapt back, thrashing, and launched another caustic crescent at Kirin's feet. It landed with a burst just below Kirin and caused the corner of the roof she had been pinned against to collapse and crumble into the alley below. Kirin went tumbling with it.
Kirin coughed into the crook of her arm and waved away the dust cloud as she crawled out of the rubble. She checked her phone to track BB's position; he was already fighting Yuna several buildings away. Kirin stepped forward to pursue but stopped as a sudden pain in her chest forced her to cough again.
"Poison," she said. "Dammit, BB."
Struggling to catch her breath, Kirin walked from the alley back into the street and looked up for any sign of BB or Yuna. The sky was dark save for a single, pale light. She squinted her eyes at it. The moon? It couldn't have been. It was barely noon. Another light, just above street level, flickered into her vision. It floated like a butterfly and disappeared into the smoke, which appeared to be thickening, further ahead.
"Kirin," a familiar voice called.
A blue light dispersed within the smoke.
"Kirin!" the voice cried. "You have to kill me!"
A zombie charged from somewhere behind Kirin. She turned and presented the point of her sword to intercept it, but the face atop the body which rammed itself onto the blade was no twisted corpse. Gunvolt's blue eyes, positioned above a bloody, yet serene smile, met Kirin's. Kirin inhaled sharply, clasped her hand to her mouth, and promptly wheezed. Her eyes stung with water as Gunvolt's lips, some word lingering on their edge, faded to ash with the rest of him.
"You couldn't save him," a voice whispered in her ear.
"This isn't real," Kirin said to herself. "The sickness is turning my mind against me."
More screaming came from somewhere else nearby. A group of people, running, terror on their faces, emerged from the smoky delirium consuming more and more of the street. Kirin was about to call out to them, but she perceived danger in their movements. Instead, she used a chain lamp (which, thankfully, proved to be real) to zip to a half collapsed fire escape. The crowd was trying to pile onto a car that had crashed into the side of the building. Kirin knew they had to be zombies, but the looks on their faces….
"Help us!" they were screaming. "You have to help us!"
"You couldn't save any of them."
Kirin knew that the voice had to be her own. She had no answer for it. She scaled the fire escape and pulled herself over the railing around the roof. As she stood up, she had to brace herself against the railing to keep from collapsing into another coughing fit.
"Dragon Saviors?" a more mocking voice said. "You're no one's savior."
Kirin looked up to see Elise sitting on the opposite railing, spinning a knife on its point.
"Certainly not mine," she added with a wicked smile.
"You aren't really here," Kirin said. "You're not real."
"Funny," Elise, hopping down from the railing, said. "My other half used to say the same thing. 'Shadow Elise isn't real; she can't hurt you.' Well, look at me now!"
The shrieks of more undead came from below as Elise cackled.
"Then you admit it," Kirin said. "You caused this, not me."
"Well, look at you developing self-awareness," Elise taunted. "I didn't even have to bring it up."
Elise's tail swayed behind her as she strode forward, and the knife she had been spinning morphed into a snake beside her.
"Of course," she continued, "I could remind you how you summoned me, how you didn't help the other me, how you couldn't stop this me."
Out of the corner of her eye, Kirin glimpsed the light of an explosion a few buildings away and felt the atmospheric pulse of septimal surge rock the air.
"Kirin, where are you?" BB's desperate voice crackled into her communicator.
"Lunatic Fever*!" Yuna shouted from somewhere in the background.
"Oh," Elise said, "and let's not forget how you're having some kind of psychiatric breakdown while you leave your friend to get stung to death."
An ethereal set of pallid scorpion tails weaved and wormed its way through the building where Yuna presumably was. Though Kirin was unsure if the attack was real or just another hallucination, she saw BB's phantom light darting above them. She tried to rise to her feet, but the snake suddenly coiled around her throat.
"Don't worry too much about that one, though," Elise said.
Her voice distorted as she knelt down in front of Kirin. More than her voice, her entire form morphed into a dark reflection of Kirin with blacked-out, pink-pupiled, laughing eyes.
"You know he was never much use anyway," she continued.
"No," Kirin squeaked. "He needs me."
"For what?" the other Kirin said. "Your Radiant Fetters? Your fetters are choking you out. So, what will it be? Will you lie down and die for your failure? Why not give in to the madness? Become a dragon yourself, and finish what we started; it's not like anyone could stop you."
"The antidote," Kirin whispered hoarsely. "BB, come get me."
"There you are!" BB answered. "Let's finish this!"
Kirin snatched the snake off her neck and pulled herself onto the railing as BB bobbed and weaved through the net of energized tails.
"It won't fix you," the other Kirin said.
BB, midway across the street, stretched out his hand.
"Trust me!" he said.
Kirin yanked her hand out of her other self's grip and threw a talisman to BB. It slapped right against his palm, and Kirin chained to him, hand in hand. With Kirin in tow, BB threaded the needle through more stingers and threw Kirin high into the air. Kirin gritted her teeth, gripped her sword in both hands, and set her sights on Yuna who was in the center of a biohazard emblem made of scorpions. She plunged down onto Yuna and pierced the sword through her armor to pin her against the roof and shatter her exoskeleton in a burst of dragon radiation. Everything went white for a moment.
Kirin pulled the point of the blade from Yuna's shoulder; she had narrowly avoided causing lethal damage. With Yuna back in her normal clothes, Kirin laid her eyes on the syringe hanging from Yuna's neck. Quickly, she cut the antidote from its cord and, falling into another coughing fit, rolled off of Yuna. The other Kirin was standing over her. Kirin met her eyes as she exposed the point of the needle.
"Go on then," the other Kirin said.
Kirin punched the needle into her leg without hesitation. She inhaled sharply from the pain of the puncture. Her breath began to return, and her vision started to clear. Kirin's counterpart slowly faded along with the delirious haze but not before she spoke a final warning.
"You can't cure what you are."
Kirin's neck slackened, flopping the back of her head against the hard, gritty rooftop. She gazed up at the dark, rolling clouds as her burning lungs strained to suck the chilly air down her throat. She closed her eyes for a moment. The wind was blowing, and she heard the whir of BB coming to a landing followed by his approaching footsteps and the click of his mask opening.
"About time, Kirin," he said. "Thought I was gonna have to finish that fight all on my lonesome. What happened back there, anyway?"
"What hap–"
Kirin's eyes shot open, and she sat up forcefully.
"You almost got me killed, BB!" she said. "That tear you made in her respirator shot venom straight down my throat."
"Oh," BB said. "Sorry about that."
"We've been in life or death situations all day," Kirin said. "I can't deal with any more screw ups."
"Screw ups?" BB said. "She was about to screw up a horror game QTE on your face; what was I supposed to do?"
"You could start by paying attention to what's going on," Kirin said.
"Man," BB said. "Here I thought I might actually get some credit for holding my own for once. I practically handled that one myself!"
"If you had any idea what I just went–"
"Go ahead then," BB said. "Tell me about it."
Kirin looked away. She propped on her staff to get back to her feet and knelt back down to put a seal on Yuna.
"I'd rather not," she said.
"And what about earlier?" BB added. "Even before the poison, something was off with you."
"Look," Kirin said, "Yuna needs medical attention. I could probably use some myself. Why don't you go cover one of the evacuations while I take her back to HQ. We'll meet when you're done."
BB shrugged with his elongated arms.
"Whatever you say," he said. "I'll meet you there."
BB turned, walked to the edge of the roof, and spread his wings as Kirin picked up Yuna. He turned back.
"Just… take care of yourself," he said.
BB's mask flicked back down. He crouched and sprung into flight, leaving ethereal trails in place of feathers. Kirin watched as he flew further away. She sighed and looked at the clouds again. The scent of rain was in the air. A storm was at the doorstep.
. . . . . . . . . .
"You're certain you aren't hurt?" Nori said.
She and Mytyl were cautiously moving between the rows of reflective, tightly parked cars in the dimly lit garage.
"I'm the one who should be asking you," Mytyl answered.
Their previous encounter had cleared them some space to move unassailed, but they knew better than to think their breathing space would last.
"I came here on the motorbike," Nori said. "It's our best chance for maneuvering the roads until we can join the evacuation."
Nori checked the map on her phone.
"They're close," she said. "We should move."
Just as soon as they picked up their pace, they found that the rescue wasn't the only thing that was close. A large group of zombies yet to find a target lingered on the path ahead. One turned its rotted head and shrieked, baring its teeth.
"They're more perceptive in death than life," Nori said. "You know what to do."
Mytyl nodded and raised her weapon in tandem with Nori. They opened fire on the most pressing threats, but Nori, knowing it was unwise to take on another group so soon, searched for another option. Seeing a blocked-in car, she got an idea.
"Get ready to move," she told Mytyl.
Nori took out a smoke grenade, the only throwable in her kit, and bit the pin out of it. She turned and shot out the windows of several outlandishly expensive cars, shattering the glass to pieces and setting off multiple alarms before she tossed the smoke grenade in front of them. As the smokescreen dispersed, Nori took Mytyl by the hand and pulled her between some of the parked cars.
With the zombies thrown into confusion, Nori helped Mytyl over the wall dividing the center of the garage. The one zombie that had kept track of them through the smokescreen squeezed between the cars and reached for Nori. Nori, however, grabbed its wrist and struck the back of its shoulder with her palm, putting it at her mercy. She quickly kicked the back of its leg to bring it to its knees, wrapped her hands around its head, and snapped its neck to the side. While the other zombies swarmed to the car alarms, she lifted her hands, letting the body drop to the floor, brushed off her shoulder, and took Mytyl's hand to climb over the wall.
When Nori's boots touched down against the asphalt on the other side, she crouched down and peeked over the rear of the car they were next to. Ahead, some zombies were clambering over the wall to get to the source of the sirens. Others were still swiveling their heads in twitching motions. Mytyl took aim at one, but Nori put her hand on Mytyl's arm.
"They're distracted," Nori said. "Allow me."
She unsheathed her knife and shifted forward between the rows. Two of the four closest zombies had their backs to her. The one to the right turned just as she approached. Before the ghoul could get out so much as a screech, Nori swiped its throat with a reverse-gripped cut, hammered the blade through the other zombie's neck, and ripped the blade back out, dropping the corpse onto its other.
The third zombie lurched toward her, but Nori went low and stabbed it in the groin to obviously paralyzing results. She raised back up and ran the knife through the underside of its chin. As soon as the third dropped, the fourth lunged at Nori. Swaying away from its grip, Nori grabbed the back of its snarling head and slammed its throat straight onto the knife's edge. She pulled the razor like a ripcord and spilled the zombie's purple blood over the yellow parking lines. The bodies turned to ash, and Nori motioned to Mytyl.
"Were you always this scary?" Mytyl said as she approached.
"I wasn't as nice until I met you," Nori answered. "The bike's just ahead."
Indeed, their escape was in view. Nori had kicked down the parking break in the center of the lane, and the helmet still hung from the handlebar. Nori clicked her last full magazine into the submachine gun as they approached the sleek, black bike shining in the dim sunlight just reaching it from outside.
"They'll be on us as soon as I start the engine," Nori, strapping on her helmet, said. "Get ready to–"
A zombie's screech interrupted Nori as the creature crawled out from under a car. Mytyl immediately turned and halted it with two shots. More shrieks came from the other side of the wall. Nori shoved the key in the ignition and revved the engine. As more zombies came pouring over the walls, Mytyl hopped on the bike and wrapped her arms around Nori.
"Hold on tight," Nori said.
Nori hit the gas to evade the claws of a pouncing zombie. More zombies vaulted the wall and obstructed their path. As Nori swerved the bike back around to face the exit, she pointed the submachine gun under her arm and let out a burst to knock down two of the charging corpses. Lining up the bike with the exit, she aimed sideways over the handlebars and held the trigger to clear a path as the bike accelerated. Mytyl's grip tightened, and Nori dropped the gun to get a tight grip of her own on the handlebars as she swerved between the zombies' teeth and claws.
Clearing the crowd, Nori pushed the engine to full power. Mytyl's long white hair, bow, and jacket fluttered furiously in the wind while the submachine gun, dangling from its strap, clattered against the side of the bike. The overhead lights, reflected against Nori's dark helmet, zoomed by faster and faster as the light from outside drew closer. Nori's eyes shot wide beneath the visor as several pairs of dead, violet eyes reflected against it.
Nori slammed the brakes and cut the bike sideways as it screeched to a halt. Another horde of zombies was pouring in from the exit. Mytyl looked behind. A smaller but still heavily threatening group was approaching from behind as well. Nori raised her submachine gun, and Mytyl pointed her gun back as well, but before either of them fired a shot, something whizzed past them and carved through the zombies like a buzz saw. It boomeranged back around the bike as an identical spinning blade came from the other side and collided with it. A streak of green trailed through the air as BB caught his bone scythes in the air over the bike.
"Hang tight!" he said.
As the zombies closed in from either side, BB wrapped his hands around a swirl of energy, and the floating feathers of his wings took on an intense glow and arranged in a spiraling pattern around him. The foremost zombies leapt like pouncing panthers, but BB pushed the ghostly energy down with his hands, and the feathers spiked down into the zombies, erupting into a chaotic spiral of phantasmal bursts which eviscerated the hordes on both sides.
BB dropped down into the ash on one hand and knee as Nori and Mytyl lowered their weapons. The mask over his face split and opened, revealing his friendly smirk and bright eyes.
"Name's BB," he said. "You gals alright?"
"The Dragon Saviors!" Mytyl cried in excitement.
"Finally, some recognition," BB chuckled as he scratched the back of his head.
The shrieks of another group of zombies directed everyone's gaze back to the front.
"I dig the ride," BB said. "Check mine! Death Procession!"
BB jumped high into the air and did an unnecessary backflip as his feathers surged with energy and assembled into a giant, flaming motorcycle adorned with a gleaming, dark horse head. BB landed on the seat and stretched his elongated arms to grip the high handlebars.
"Let's ride!" he said as his mask flipped down.
BB revved the ethereal engine and burned more than just rubber as he rocketed forward and popped a wheelie. Nori and Mytyl followed in his path. BB plowed through the zombies like a snow plow, burning them to ash in his wake. He blew aside several crashed cars and crushed some of them as if he were at a monster truck rally. The dim garage gave way to the cloudy sky, and BB's reckless driving cleared a somewhat straight path through the parking lot for Nori to follow behind.
The evacuation convoy, composed of three armored personnel carriers, was pulling to a stop at the other end of the lot. The commotion all the vehicles were causing summoned all the remaining zombies outside the building into a single horde. As BB and Nori screeched to a halt in front of the military vehicles, the horde came cascading over the cars as a tide of corrupted flesh.
The backs of the APCs popped open, and the heavy guns on top of them swiveled to face the threat as several squads of soldiers poured out and formed firing lines.
"Get down!" Nori shouted as she practically tackled Mytyl behind the line and covered her ears.
"Open fire!" the Summeragi leader screamed.
Without hesitation, the heavy guns opened up, firing a thunderous barrage of massive shells into the crowd. The ground and air shook and bodies went flying by scores like sand on the shore. The soldiers made little effort to control their bursts, having a target like the broadside of a barn before them, as they held the triggers on their automatic energy rifles. Nori's hearing gave way to a pulsating ring as several explosions went off and floods of purple blood coated the windshields of the few cars that remained intact. The zombies fell in droves, the projectiles ripping through them one after the other. Finally, the last line of the horde collapsed mere yards away from the soldiers as they cleaned up the stragglers.
When the guns went quiet, Nori finally looked back. As the ring in her ears gradually died down, she observed a massive pile of ash like the dune of a desert. It was as if a volcano had erupted in the parking lot.
"That's the last of them," the squad leader said at length. "Let's move! We've got to get those people out of there."
"Don't waste your time, sarge," BB, floating down next to him, said.
The sergeant flipped up his visor to make eye contact with BB. BB shook his head.
"You're sure?" the sergeant said.
BB looked back to the building and focused his spiritual perception on it. He took a deep breath and sighed.
"Nothing but ghosts and echoes," he said.
"Your orders, sir?" one of the soldiers said.
The sergeant took a deep breath of his own and flipped his visor back down. He motioned with his hand.
"Load 'em up. We're RTB."
Nori finally let go of Mytyl and breathed a sigh of relief. She saw, however, that the front of Mytyl's shirt was stained red.
"When did you–" Nori gasped.
"Nori," Mytyl said, "it's yours."
Nori looked down and swallowed. The wounds on her back must have caused the stains while Mytyl was holding on to her. She helped Mytyl up, and the soldiers helped them into the APC. Nori looked back at the sound of BB's footsteps. He was eyeing her strangely.
"Hey, uh," he said, "have I met you ladies somewhere?"
"Nowhere that I remember," Mytyl answered.
"I imagine we'd remember you," Nori added.
"But we'll never forget you now," Mytyl said. "Thank you so much!"
"No prob'," BB chuckled. "Good luck."
While the APC door closed, he raised his skeletal hand in a casual wave. The convoy began to drive off, but BB kept looking at their APC. When he had focused his spiritual perception, he had sensed something strange behind him. Though he couldn't place his finger on it, there was something… odd about both of their auras. He shook his head. He had more important things to worry about. He took flight, and followed the convoy from above.
Nori and Mytyl stood in the middle of the APC while the soldiers took their seats. The tires hummed loudly as the vehicle bounced around. A medic they had brought with them stood up to assess Nori and Mytyl. He looked at the gashes on Nori's back.
"It's not pretty," he said, "but I've seen a lot worse today. We'll need to get your clothes off, so I can dress the wound."
"Wait," Nori said. "Take care of her first."
"Nori. . . ," Mytyl said.
"You're sure, maam?" the medic said. "Neither of you have taken any life threatening damage, but your wound is clearly worse."
"I'm sure," Nori said with a nod.
The medic acquiesced and went to Mytyl instead.
"I'll need to do a full assessment," he said. "Could you take your shirt off?"
Mytyl glanced at Nori, nodded, and followed the medic's instructions. She saw that reptilian look come over Nori's eyes again.
"If any of you so much as glance at her wrong," Nori said, "believe me, you won't make it home."
The soldiers glanced around at each other, shrugged, and looked at the floor or inspected their weapons. Nori smirked and pulled out her phone. She sent an all clear signal to Copen.
. . . . . . . . . .
Copen dashed forward and fired his boosters to rocket his knee into a zombie's chin, snapping its neck backwards. He front flipped off of it, landed into a low CAR stance, and quickly swiveled to gun down two zombies to his left and right. His comms beeped. It was Nori's all clear signal.
"Thank God," he sighed.
"I knew Nori could handle it!" Lola chimed.
Copen waved his hand and called over the group of people he was escorting. Summeragi was setting up a safe zone at the church of all places, the same church he had been in that morning. They were just passing the marble pillars of the courthouse which wasn't far away. Lola gave everyone an encouraging word as they passed by. She was still singing one of her songs.
"Lola," Copen said, "don't you think this song's a little upbeat for the situation?"
"C'mon, boss," Lola said. "Dark times are when people need bright music the most! Besides, you were fine with this song when you were headshotting terrorists a few years ago."
A woman screamed ahead, and Copen had to react with a quick shot to keep a stray zombie from chomping her throat.
"Fine. Point taken," Lola said, "but this is kind of my style, you know. Unless, of course, you're up for a little channel change?"
Copen boosted to the top of the courthouse, knelt down, and looked out with his scanner eye. There was practically a sea of zombies on the streets between there and the church. Further ahead, he saw Summeragi troops struggling to secure the church perimeter.
"It's a target rich environment if I've ever seen one," Copen said. "Let's do it. Dark Trigger!"
Copen made a series of inputs on his gauntlet to authorize a complete limiter release. A wicked smile climbed Lola's face as a deep purple light spread over her bright colored idol form. Her clothes turned black and spiky, her hair and eyes darkened, and her holographic wings transformed into two geysers of violet flame.
"Dark mode engaged!" she said.
She threw her head back and let out a semi-musical scream that was equal parts excitement and fury.
[Devil Trigger- Devil May Cry 5 ost]
"Gotta let it out! Gotta let it ooouuuuuut!"
Copen's afterburners fired at full blast, and he rocketed as a monochrome blur toward the huge horde of zombies. Lola's unlimited dark mode was designed to push maximum power to special weapons by siphoning energy directly from the White Tiger armor's shielding systems and emergency power reserves. Lola's programming was coded to increase targeting priority in this state. An unintended consequence of Copen's coding caused a drastic increase to Lola's aggression, such that his research notes described her dark state as "maniacal and bloodthirsty." It turned out to be the perfect combination.
She started charging another Prism Break crystal drill which expanded significantly faster than before as the pair turned themselves into a speeding bullet. They hit the horde head on and drilled a path straight through to the middle of the crowd. As Copen performed a long slide to a halt, Lola turned the drill's momentum upward and looped it back around to drive the crystal spike into the ground. It expanded into a multi-faceted amethyst pillar, and two identical pillars rose to create a triad around Copen.
His camera eye flashed a series of advanced calculations through his vision in an instant and marked an exact target on the first pillar. Copen aimed and hit it with perfect accuracy, causing the photons to bounce and ricochet between all three pillars, perforating dozens of zombies in the process. He fired more precision shots into the other pillars, amassing a multitude of kills before the pillars shattered.
A single zombie managed to breach the laser net before the next wave arrived. As it charged at Copen's back, he readied his bayonet, and it surged with energy to briefly grow into a full-sized blade. He turned and chopped the zombie's head clean off.
The next wave closed in, and Copen rushed forward to meet them. While he raised his gun and fired, Lola assembled six Hailstorm Blades of black ice in a winged pattern behind her and set to chopping wildly, sending frozen blood flying. A zombie pounced at Copen while Lola covered his flanks. In response, Copen fired his boosters as he uppercutted its chin and flipped back with another kick. Before Copen was even rightside up again, Lola zigzagged across the airborne zombie several times, slicing it into more than four less than symmetrical pieces.
Copen shanked a zombie's throat as he landed on it, and Lola spread the pod's floating energy conduits in a ring around Copen. She lit them up with the Vantage Raid and pulsed the ring out from Copen. Zombies all around were caught in a web of sticky yellow. Lola caused the ring to condense clockwise, gathering the caught zombies into a ball of bodies. Completing her spin, she slung it into the crowd, snowballing it over more zombies. Copen cocked back the hammer and took aim. Once he determined the ball had traveled far enough, he pulled the trigger. The glowing shot hit the ball of zombies and ignited it, triggering a messy detonation.
Copen grinned and pulled his fist back in a celebratory gesture, but the floating bits aligned in a chaotic sphere around him and siphoned his suit energy at an alarming pace. The danger of the dark trigger was that it forced Lola to find and attack targets until Copen hit the kill switch. So long as they could keep the offensive, the special weapon output was almost perfectly efficient, but without a target, Copen himself would become the target.
"You're throwing off my groove, boss!" Lola warned. "Fuel me with violence!"
Copen didn't need a second warning. With a sharp-toothed smile, he rushed back at the horde to resume his onslaught.
. . . . . . . . . .
The many-windowed facade of the skyscraper where the Dragon Saviors were stationed rose like a glass pillar against the dark, stormy sky. BB rose and flew over the safe point gate, reminiscent of a torii, while the APCs pulled to a stop in front of it. Gliding high above, BB surveyed the vaguely organized chaos below. Summeragi had set up a series of generators, powered by the same technology as the country-wide Kamishiro barrier, to surround the building in an anti-septimal field which served both to hamper zombie attacks and block radiation. An encampment of medical tents and hastily assembled command posts sprawled throughout the courtyard and perimeter. The nervous crowds were churning like choppy waters while the soldiers marched in line like ants.
He spotted Kirin, Apollo, and Cayman next to one of the medical tents. Since all but Kirin were in their armored state, they were probably the most colorfully dressed trio in the crowd. They must have just got back. It seemed that BB wasn't late for once. He swooped down and landed next to them.
"You're back awfully soon," Kirin said.
"Didn't have much to help with," BB said.
The others, catching his meaning, let their faces fall.
"All the convoys are back then?" Kirin said.
"Mine's all set," Cayman said.
"All accounted for," Apollo added.
"BB's was the last," Shiron confirmed.
"Ok," Kirin sighed. "Let's take a breather."
Everyone deglaived, returning to their civilian clothes in a flash. As BB straightened his hat, he looked at Kirin. She had a few bandages wrapped around her leg and wrist, and she had washed her face, but it didn't take much more than a glance to tell she was far from her usual self.
"How about you, Kirin?" BB said, getting her to lift her dull eyes. "They get you fixed up?"
"The toxins are clear, and nothing's broken," she said, "but… something's wrong with my septima. I can't use image pulses."
A look of concern came over everyone's faces.
"Kirin," Apollo said softly, "you know what that kind of problem stems from."
"Yeah…," Kirin said. "Doesn't mean I know how to fix it."
"Get some rest," Cayman said. "We'll carry our own weight."
"No," Kirin said. "You guys are all good fighters, but I'm the only one who can seal primal dragons. You know that. If any more dragons show up or if we find Elise, it's up to me."
"This may be a bad time to say this," Shiron said, "but I just got a reading."
"Another one?" Kirin said. "That's it for our break, then. Send me a location."
Kirin rose hastily to her feet and strode toward the gate.
"Kirin," Apollo, catching her arm, said, "you can't take every–"
Kirin cut her eyes back with razor sharpness. Apollo's eyes widened behind his glasses. None of them had ever seen that look on Kirin's face. She may as well have been holding a knife to his throat. BB put himself between them as Apollo slowly released her arm.
"We'll come with you," BB said. "The whole squad."
BB gave the others a desperate look. Cayman nodded first then Apollo.
"Then let's go," Kirin said.
They put their glaives back on while Kirin readied a talisman. With the others close behind, she threw it and zipped away.
. . . . . . . . . .
The APC pulled to the gate with a hydraulic squeal and shifted everyone forward as it stopped. From where she was standing, Nori heard the radio crackle from the front of the vehicle as the sergeant requested clearance to enter the safe zone. He didn't seem to like the answer he got.
"The hell do you mean full capacity?" he roared. "I've got orders to get the civies in this zone!"
"Your orders have changed, sir," the voice on the radio answered. "Captain Suzuki is on his way out to brief you personally."
"Son of a—" the sergeant said as he threw the door open and pointed back to the driver. "Stay on comms."
The loud rumble of the diesel engine drifted in before the slam of the door overtook it and muffled the deep murmur. Nori shifted forward enough to look out the windshield and listen in. In a moment, the gate opened partially, and a higher ranking officer stepped out. They saluted each other, and the sergeant stood at attention.
"I have your new orders, staff sergeant," the captain said. "More civilian traffic made it to this zone than expected, and the other convoys brought in full loads. We're retasking your convoy to safe zone echo at the cathedral; Colonel Yamamoto's the CO there. They're struggling to secure the perimeter and could use some fire support."
The roar of a jet engine overtook the APC's running noise as a VTOL lifted off from behind the gate and set the captain's coattails flapping.
"That's Zodiac squad moving to reinforce now," the captain added.
The VTOL's twin engines turned, and the craft rocketed overhead.
"Sir, could I get a repeat?" the sergeant said. "Did you say Zodiac?"
"Affirmative, sergeant," the captain said, "and they're weapons free."
"My God," the sergeant whispered.
A murmur passed through the APC as the soldiers looked at each other.
"They're sending Zodiac to the church?" one said. "Those psychos will get struck by lightning a mile out!"
"You can pray when you get there, son; you have your orders," the captain said. "You're dismissed."
The two officers saluted and turned to go back to their posts.
"And, sergeant?" the captain added. "I wouldn't call for any danger close if you follow my meaning."
"Loud and clear, sir," the sergeant answered.
He climbed back into the APC and sighed before looking back to Nori and Mytyl.
"There's been a change of plans," he said. "We're moving to a different safe zone. It may not be a smooth ride, but just follow our orders and we'll get you there safe."
Mytyl gave Nori a worried look. Nori couldn't quite hide the concern on her face either as the sergeant gave his orders. The heavy vehicle shifted into drive, and they turned and went back down the road.
The sergeant had told the truth when he said it would be a bumpy ride. Occasionally, they heard something bang against the side of the vehicle. The sound was often followed by a disturbing squish under the wheels. On a few occasions, the APC stopped so the gunner could open fire. Nori could barely stand not being able to see what threatened them, but she suspected it was to Mytyl's benefit. A voice came over the radio asking how soon they would be there.
"ETA is less than three mikes, echo 7," the sergeant answered. "Be advised, we have civilian passengers."
"What the–" the gunner said.
A barrage of some kind, accompanied by a deafening pop, clanged against the outer armor and shook the APC. The gunner went limp and slumped out of his raised seat. Something like a circular saw blade was stuck in his helmet.
"Hostile adept ten o'clock!" the radio blared.
"Driver, get us out of here!" the sergeant said.
"I can't move this thing!" the driver said. "That attack must have blown the tires!"
"The gun's shot, sir!" another soldier called from the back.
The gunner's body began to writhe on the floor. He was turning. As the soldiers looked in panic, the sergeant promptly stepped out from the passenger seat with his pistol drawn and put a single shot through the gunner's chest. The gunner went completely still, and the sergeant snatched up his dog tags while the body fell to ash. Mytyl had her hand clasped to her mouth.
"We're sitting ducks here," Nori said. "We need to move."
"Everybody out!" the sergeant ordered. "Move up with the APCs!"
The back of the APC opened to the grey street, and the soldiers rushed out into the humid air with guns up and Nori and Mytyl in their midst. They ducked behind the next APC, and Nori looked to the sky behind. The dark clouds rumbled as Nori spied the adept that had attacked them, cloaked in black and red, preparing to launch another salvo of blades at them. Nori was about to dive in front of Mytyl, but a blast of spiraling energy came from a rooftop to the side and knocked the adept out of view. Two Summeragi specialists leapt across the street in pursuit, one propelling himself with another sonic blast, the other zipping to the courthouse roof on a crimson thread.
Nori looked further ahead and broke into a cold sweat at the sight of another swarm of zombies.
"Steady, people," the sergeant said. "We're almost home."
One of the soldiers crossed himself and started whispering a prayer. Nori snatched out her phone and offered a plea of her own.
. . . . . . . . . .
"Two hundred thirty-five. Two hundred forty-three," Lola chanted while she and Copen kept carving through zombies. "New record! That's your highest kill count in one day!"
Copen's comms beeped sharply in his ear. Nori had reactivated her emergency signal. Without missing a beat, he picked up the line.
"Nori, what happened?" he said.
"They rerouted the convoy," Nori, sounding more desperate than usual, said. "We're almost to you, but they got hit."
"Can you handle it?" Copen said.
"I don't– It looks bad."
Copen's blood went cold. More zombies were charging him, but he saw the brunt of the horde shifting its focus.
"Mytyl!"
The wave closed in on him like a ring, but he boosted straight upward and fired the double drills of the Twintail Bunker at the ground to launch him even higher into the air. Thanks to dark mode, the impact also sent out a pulsating wave of drills from the ground, skewering the zombies. Immediately, Lola changed to the Ferrous Fangs, covering each hand in a pair of feral claws, and Copen rocketed toward the crowd. Lola made two upward slashes to send out twin waves of crimson energy which carved a path ahead of Copen as he expended all of his boost bullits to chain frantic dashes in the attack's wake.
Copen rolled and kept running and shooting while he shoved more shells into his booster. He had come into the hoard at an angle, and more were closing in from behind him. Lola was back at his side in a flash, Hailstorm Blades in hand. She stacked the blades and cut around Copen, severing the zombies horizontally, before spiking the blades into the asphalt to cover Copen's flank with a wall of ice. In the same motion, Lola twirled back to his front, threw the pod bits in line, and fired the Broad Circuit. Multiple rays of violet energy launched from the spheres and swerved and twisted into a pattern like circuit board, piercing and vaporizing zombies in droves.
Like a silver bullet piercing through, Copen kept up his desperate charge at mach speed. His heart was pounding like it hadn't in decades. Voices of the past were shouting from the back of his mind.
"How could you let this happen?" he had cried to the sky. "She was the only family I had left."
He couldn't lose her. Not again. His mother had gone first, then his father. How could he live as the last of them?
"What should I tell her that her brother would think?" Nori had said.
It was so clear to him. She meant more to him than anything. He would sacrifice the world for her. She was their father's legacy, his true purpose, the last light of Copen Kamizono.
Copen saw smoke rising against the thunderous clouds. He sprung off a zombie's back to get a view. There were the APCs. They were surrounded. Summeragi specialists were supporting them with heavy weapons, but the horde was already spilling over some of the soldiers. Their line was breached. He saw the white of Mytyl's hair, the silver bell on its bow, Nori's back turning to shield her.
"Give it everything!" Copen ordered.
Copen's armor overcharged in preparation to expend its entire power reserve. Half of the pod bits assembled around Copen and half around Lola. Energy blades like claws emerged from each one. Lola's projected form destabilized as her static crept into her voice. Copen himself wasn't far behind. His cyber eye traced a chaotic flight path.
"Colossal Maelstrom!" they said in unison.
Instantaneously, they became like two comets of black and white. Only the trail they left could be seen. They zipped back and forth through the zombies as if the horde were frozen in time. The energy blades ripped through them like speeding bullets, bisecting dozens of the monsters before a drop of blood hit the ground. They struck again and again, swift as the lightning flashing overhead. To the soldiers' eyes, they were everywhere at once, a deadly, monochrome grid all around them. The whole horde fell in an instant, as if smited by the hand of God.
Copen and Lola crossed each other's path, making a huge X of black and white trails, and came to a sudden halt. At just that moment, the thunder cracked, and the zombie horde exploded into a huge cloud of ash. While the ash fell, Copen's eyes turned toward Mytyl. Her eyes met his. He stood, frozen, as he watched the slightest movement of her lips.
"Copen?" she said.
Amidst the scattering dust, Copen's eyes darted to Nori's and back to Mytyl's. Lola, out of power, fell out of her idol form and began to drop. He turned and caught her like a ball. A drop hit the ground, and the rain started to fall. Copen glanced back at Mytyl one more time and dashed away.
"Wait!" Mytyl cried.
Nori grabbed her and held her back.
"Lady Mytyl, we have to go!" she said.
"Let me go!" Mytyl said. "That was him; you saw him! That was my brother!"
Copen dashed past the buildings and ran through the puddles coalescing on the roadsides. In his haste, he nearly tripped going into a dark alley, but braced himself against the wall and stopped there. The rain fell heavier on his hanging head. Gasping for air, he stared down at his rippling reflection, illuminated by the lightning flash, shaken by the thunder crack. In the dark, he could see the dim point of light at the center of his cyber eye, evidence of the machine that had come to replace Mytyl's brother.
The light returned to Lola's eyes as her emergency reserves brought her back online. She floated out of his hand with a start.
"Copen-kun, are you ok?" she said. "We kept Mytyl safe didn't we? Wait, don't tell me she–"
Without a word, Copen dashed upward and kicked off the walls to clear the roof corners.
"Boss, wait!" Lola said. "What are you–"
Copen strode over the rooftops and flew through the rain right back to the church bell tower. The Summeragi colonel in command of the safe point and the other highest ranking officers present were standing around a table under the bell, debating their next move. Copen holstered his gun and flew straight up to them, prompting them to point a number of weapons at his rain drenched face.
"Can you keep these people safe?" he said.
"Drop the weapons! On your knees!"
"Can you?" Copen repeated.
"Hold your fire!" the colonel ordered.
He took a step toward Copen. The lines on his wizened face were akin to the topographical maps he had spent much of his career pouring over. Just next to him was a heavily armed soldier. Evidently a specialist, his armor configuration varied notably from the average Summeragi soldier. Copen's focus, however, was on the man in charge.
"Sir," the armored soldier protested, "this man is a wanted criminal. His body count is–"
"Higher than yours Lieutenant Morningstar?" the colonel said. "I doubt it. Now get your dogs on a leash."
Begrudgingly, the soldiers lowered their weapons.
"You fear God, son?" the colonel asked. "I do."
Copen nodded.
"Then you're lucky we're in His house," the colonel said. "There's bigger things going on than you and me, but once we get this… infestation under control, you better pray you don't ever see my face again. Now, unless you're surrendering, get the hell out of my sight."
Copen glanced at the lieutenant again. The patch on his breastplate read, "Zodiac." Copen felt like he had seen him somewhere before, but for the moment, he had no choice but to trust the colonel. He turned and leapt back down the tower before dashing back into the rain.
The dark clouds rolled as lightning sliced the sky. The rain fell heavy on the living and the dead, on the righteous and the wicked, on glass sanctuaries and a city of sinners. Deep thunder rumbled, shaking the foundations as the storm engulfed a world in shambles.
[Fine- Mike Shinoda]
End Act I
Footnote
*Lunatic Fever Haiku
Paranoia's sting,
"Run from invisible death,
Heat of endless night."