War 1

[center][b]Chapter 1: Building Chaos[/b][/center]



(Remake this with it being a training session.)

====================

[i]In the horrid future...[/i]

(Start with Greg and Kyn's agreement.)

The couple nodded, and took off running, heading in the direction they needed to go. After several minutes, they found two figures, one familiar, the other not.

"Black Paladin!" Greg greeted, making his presence and that of Yumigami's daughter known. "Who's..." The young man recognized the blade wrapped around the cloaked man's arm. "Oh. Martel damn it all."

"Shut it, kid," Dolor told him.

"I'm not a kid!"

Isaac ran up to them from a nearby room. "Greg? Kynthia?" He shook his head. "No time. We have to go, now. I just saw a Karsath. That's not a good thing this time for any of us. Any idea how to get out?"

"Kaith just told us," Kynthia replied. To the shocked expressions, she added, "Yes, he is good. We were just heading toward an exit he told us about."

Another young man limped quickly into the area. He had his eyes closed. His dark brown hair was unkempt, his pale skin showing that he had not spent long outside any time recently. The young man was about the age of Greg and Kynthia. He held a scoped pistol in his right hand. His left arm draped over a floating metal orb. His pants and shirt had cuts and burns marring them. "Greg? Kynthia? That you?"

"Fixer, it's us," Greg confirmed. "Do you want to get out of this time, back to ours? We can stop this."

"Hey, that's that lightbulb that knocked us out!" Dolor shouted.

"Don't attack it again!" Isaac pleaded. "We need to work together."

Beeps could be heard from the robotic sphere, then a depressed toot.

"Don't listen, Sparky," Simon "Fixer" Goodman said. "He's a jerk."

Greg smirked at Dolor's incredulous, inaudible response of throwing up his hands. "We can catch up on what's happened as we run. You can do that?"

"No, of course not," Goodman said sarcastically, and they all took off again, Goodman going as fast as he could to keep up.

---

Some time later, Hayabusa walked into a secure room, one only those with clearance could enter. Why he had it... Well, what did it matter if he did? He couldn't do anything against the forces against him.

Kira now resided in his head, thanks to the computer chip's interface with his metal implants for the armor he wore. She had been surprised by his identity, but they had quickly exchange. Plans from the rebels Kira led, and from the ex-soldier. But this one... This was not sane at all.

[i]"Why have you come, meddler?"[/i] The voice echoed within the bodyguard's mind. It could not read him as Reaper could, but did not need to open its mouth. [i]"Have you embraced your own evolution?"[/i]

"Seraphim, how about a deal?" The man walked to the computer console near the hovering bubble, ignoring the six yellow eyes staring into his back. "You cause a riot among the Chimera, I let you loose?"

[i]"This is completely insane,"[/i] Kira told her operator from inside his helmet. "Didn't you learn from Gravemind? These guys don't--"

[i]"Agreed,"[/i] the Seraphim stated.

[i]"...I stand corrected."[/i]

"I'll open this gate, but you don't attack me. Or those you know as heroic Interferences. Not once." The bubble disappeared, and yellowed tentacles reached out, steadying the monstrosity.

It had a human body, with the tattered remains of a shirt and pants. Its six-eyed head had no nose, the mouth twisted into a crazed grin. Two wings that would befit a gargoyle were on the back, if it could be called any gender at this point. The tentacles, eight in all, were also from the back, between the wings and below them. It began to float as an alarm went off, tentacles waving as it walked to the door.

An Omega soldier ran to the source, a group of troops with him.

The beast looked to the adversaries, and they slammed against the walls instantly. Necks snapped, and it walked calmly on its way.

"You're welcome," F. Kaith said, walking in the opposite direction, ready to teleport away.

[i]"He's not making it out of here, is he?"[/i] Kira asked.

"Louis!" Kaith called, making the Seraphim stop. "Thanks for the help, kid."

---

Alexander was not happy.

He had been in this reality all of an hour, maximum, and had been abandoned two times in five minutes. Even with his precautionary Haste spell, the young man still was taking quite some time to see any but the soldiers wandering the halls. That Isaac Zivaku boy had stared at him, almost [i]through[/i] him, it seemed, and had run off in terror. Perhaps it was the same technique that his future self, that "Reaper" man, had used once.

The remaining Karsath knew little of the workings of this incredibly cliched empire outside of its organization as told by its nominal ruler. Okay, so he was strong. That much was true. But a strategist with a goal he could respect and good planning as an overlord? Not so much. It was only a matter of time before the Interference returned to his usual routine. Maybe he could rework that device that so rudely took him from his own reality to send him back. But first, why not have some fun causing chaos here?

These were the Lockshield wielder's thoughts as he searched. He heard fighting up ahead, metal striking metal, and came to a door, flattening against it and opening it inward, slowly. Inside of a gray, room with a computer console, he saw a familiar figure fighting an unfamiliar one in a duel of swords. the familiar one was the angry partner of the first person to abandon him, that "Hayabusa" person. What was his name? Right. Marathon Eva. The man had a longsword, probably taken from the bloody corpse of a man in a robe marked with a crescent moon, if his empty sheath meant anything.

The other person was a muscular man of about twenty. He had short brown hair and similarly colored, focused eyes, and wore a black shirt with his dark pants. In his only arm, his right, he held a broadsword. This was probably that fighter from the obligatory rebel group who Reaper had mentioned.

Rather than cut in, Alexander decided to wait for one of the combatants to come out on top before making his presence known, even as the alarms started up.

He watched as the combatants traded blow for blow. Stab to slash, horizontal to vertical to diagonal. Sparks flew from the clashing blades. Several cuts marked the unarmored warrior. He was losing by the time he jumped to the side to avoid a thrust, coming between Marathon and the door.

"Give up, Strongarm. You know you can't win. I've beaten people twice as strong, as crafty, as..." Eva then seemed to notice the spectator. "...Karsath? You again?"

The distraction was enough. The broadsword sliced through the armored neck, decapitating Marathon Eva.

Generally, Alexander assumed that when a head is cut off, the decapitated person should spout blood from the neck, followed shortly by the body dropping. Sparks and oil from the neck remains and a retaliatory smack with the blunt side of a blade, however, were usually not seen. Having the headless figure run to a computer console, let out more sparks and light into it, and then collapse in a heap was not common either. This was no ordinary opponent.

Strongarm grunted, then turned to the source of the distraction. "Thanks."

"It was nothing," was the reply, the young man putting his hands behind his back. "You just needed a [i]Decoy[/i], was all." If the slight emphasis or brief purple mist around both of them was noticed, Strongarm made no sign of recognition. The previous Haste spell, though almost finished, helped hide the charge time for the Ivalice Arcane Magick.

The sound of metal on metal, rushing footsteps toward them, caught their ears. "Think you could help?" Strongarm asked.

"Of course." The Lockshield wielder waited for the opponents to come, ready to draw his Ivalice-made Arcturus firearm or a Lockshield design in an instant.

The enemies finally came. They were two young women, possibly in their late teens or early twenties. The armored suits they wore looks like more movable diving bells, with the same boots and bodysuit. The only way Alexander could see that they were female at all was by their body types. A helmet with a red light in it was on their heads, very large, forearm-length hypodermic needles on their left arms. The Interference heard a sucking sound behind him, and turned, seeing two more of the enemies appear from flashes of blue light.

"Hunters," Strongarm told his assumed ally. "Big Sisters."

In this time, Alexander internally changed designs on his Lockshield. Armored enemies would be more vulnerable to electrical strikes. He summoned the weapon in a cloud of smoke, and spoke as the opponents charged. "Lightning 2!" Orbs of electricity surrounded the young man, harming everyone in range. Luckily, that worked wonders. Or luckily for him, anyway.

Strongarm was severely damaged by the strike, smoke rising from his body afterwards as one of the "Hunters" collapsed, dead. "Watch your fire!"

"I apologize," Alex said, feigning sincerity. All three remaining enemies turn their attention to the one-armed swordsman, thanks to the Decoy spell.

"What's going on?" The rebel was unsure who to blame for this turn of events. In the end, that did not matter.

The beating began when one Hunter grabbed him telekinetically, pulling him to her and ramming her weapon straight through his chest, draining an unknown red liquid--it did not seem to be blood--out of him. The woman seemed rejuvinated. Strongarm was, by contrast, weakened greatly. The rest of the fight, if it could be called as such, did not take long. One more Big Sister died, but it was a poorly aimed fireball barrage from another that did it, not their enemy. Finally, they backed off briefly.

"Help...me..." the fighter begged Alexander reaching toward him with a bloody, burned hand. The Arcturus pistol was leveled between his widening eyes, the Lockshield still in Mr. Karsath's other hand.

"If you insist." The gun was fired, reloaded, and fired again at the corpse to be sure before a second reload. Then, the holder pointed it at the other opponents.

A golden flash occurred beside the headless ex-body of Marathon Eva. Deposited was Hayabusa. "I assume you came too late, then? Where's Marathon?"

"Just help me deal with these two."

"Sure. But just a few questions." The strange man--was he a robot as well?--held up a double barrel shotgun from Rapture, circa 1970, aiming at the figures as they jumped to surround the two on either side. Both males went back to backtoward see both in case of teleportation.

"Make them quick." This was no time for talk.

"Alex Karsath didn't have an Ivalice gun." The mysterious man turned to face Alexander. "Or the Lightning Guard. And Big Sisters don't use guns." He apparently saw the two bullet wounds in the rebel warrior.

Briefly, Alexander looked to the design he had chosen, which this stranger had named. It became covered in smoke as he switched designs, altering to the Heartless Seal for increased reflexes, the Ivalice gun begin put away as he jumped, turning 180 degrees to face the man. His Haste spell had run out, so he needed the speed for this. "Clever." All four combatants charged.

This was going to be close.