Watch out, it was written at 3 am!!
Sep. 23rd, 2005 10:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
croikAnother update! O_o Can you believe it? Special thanks to Domino for keeping me awake while I finished up and then beta-ing the results for me :D
Guilty Gear, its characters and settings are property of Sammy Studios, and are being used in this fanfiction without permission. This fic is rated R for violence and sexual content, and it contains yaoi material.
Thunder Falling
Chapter 14
“You’re not eating?”
Bridget glanced up from his plate, around which he had been moving his brunch with a fork for the past fifteen minutes. His brother Brandon was watching him from across the table with a look of familial concern. He heaved a sigh. “I’m not really hungry.”
Brandon tipped his head doubtfully. “You? Not hungry? That’s one I haven’t heard before.”
Bridget scrunched his nose in a childish face, though it was only half-hearted. With another quiet sigh he dropped his fork and instead rested his chin in his hands. He hadn’t wanted to bring up his troubles now, when his brother was about to return to England and they wouldn’t see each other for months. But there was no one that understood him like Brandon did, and no one else in the city he knew he could talk to, who wasn’t already…involved. He squirmed in his seat indecisively.
Brandon fixed him with a gentle smile. “Bridget,” he said, his tone prodding. “You’re going to tell me eventually. So it might as well be now.”
Bridget made the face again despite his relief. Brandon knew him too well. Licking his lips, the young bounty hunter finally divulged the cause of his unease. “It’s…Officer Kiske. I did something I shouldn’t have.”
A moment of silence passed, and when Bridget risked glancing back to his brother’s face, he cringed a little beneath the scrutinizing look fastened on him. His cheeks, which had already flushed red with his confession, deepened in color. “Nothing that dramatic,” he quickly corrected. “I…kissed him. On the mouth this time.”
“And he…?” Brandon continued to coax.
“And he…I don’t know.” Bridget frowned abruptly as he played the scene back over in his mind. “I guess I didn’t really give him a chance to react. He was…pretty surprised.”
He paused, watching Brandon for some greater reaction. His brother had always been sensible, in almost all things, and he could use some advice from him now. When it looked that this particular issue was giving him some concern, Bridget felt his heart sink a little. Not that he had been expecting overwhelming support….
“Bridget,” Brandon said, keeping his voice low so that those dining around them wouldn’t hear. “Do you think you can still be around him, as a friend, without it being anything more than that?”
Bridget squirmed again, a cold pit forming in his stomach. He had asked himself that many times by now, had considered all his options and predicted everything Brandon might tell him. Hearing the words spoken, however, was much harder. “Yes,” he said at last, lowering his eyes. His hands fidgeted together against the tabletop. “I think so.”
Brandon’s hand fell over his, warm and a little stern, stilling his movements. His voice was the same. “Then that’s what I think you should do.”
Bridget sighed. “I know,” he murmured as his shoulders sunk. “I know he’s too old, and too important, and too…everything. And on top of that he has someone else.” He curled his fingers around his brother’s, needing the familiarity. His lips fit themselves into a faint smile. “But…it’s just a little crush anyway, right? There’s no harm in that.”
When he glanced up, Brandon was smiling quietly. He was trying to be supportive and that was really all Bridget needed anyway. “No, there’s no harm in that.”
A few minutes later, Brandon insisted on paying their tab, and they left the café together. Bridget pulled his long white coat over his bounty hunting outfit, belt and all, with a quiet sigh. “Thanks, Brandon,” he said lightly, giving his brother a warm hug. “Say hi to Mom for me.”
“I will.” Brandon hugged him back, and as he pulled back ruffled Bridget’s hat. “Take care of yourself, okay? You’ll be fine.”
“Yeah. I know.”
They both pulled back, and were about to separate when a woman’s scream echoed down the street opposite them.
*****
Venom twisted in the narrow space, but there was no where to go, no way to evade beast suddenly clawing up at him. He couldn’t even see his attacker save for two thin crimson slits. Talons ripped at the soles of his shoes, and though his first instinct was to kick back his balance inside the tunnel was already tenuous at best. Instead he adjusted his grip on his weapon case, jabbing it down against Eddie’s face and hands. The creature hissed and snarled, but his body never stayed in one shape long enough for Venom to land any substantial blows.
Thick fingers pulled at his ankles, and one of his feet came loose, shifting he weight so that he felt back against the stale stone. Eddie was pulling himself higher up his body, trying to follow his legs up to something vital he could gouge. When Venom felt cold claws draw a shallow gash along his thigh he panicked a moment, kicking and swinging the case, unaware of the stones giving way at his back.
“Axl—” He couldn’t hear anything above Eddie’s enraged growls. Finally his attacker got himself a foothold, and what might have been the curve of his skull slammed hard against Venom’s healing stomach. With a weak cry his legs jerked, forcing all his weight—and some of Eddie’s—against the wall behind him.
The extra force was just enough, and with a dull clatter the stone crumbled and opened. By now desperate to escape the suffocating confines Venom kicked against Eddie’s chest, and found himself slipping over the lip of the newly formed hole. With a startled gasp he fell backwards, case clasped to his chest and feet kicking over his head as he tumbled out of the wall.
The impact was not as heavy as he’d feared; having crawled up through the sewers, he fell out of Paris’s blockade a mere three feet above the ground. It was his aching chest that made the sudden rush of ground up against his back feel like a lead hammer. Groaning, he forced his eyes open and winced in the light.
When Eddie didn’t follow immediately, clawing and roaring, Venom realized something was wrong. He twisted, blinking at his surroundings. He understood when he heard a woman scream—he’d fallen out back inside the city. As his sight cleared he could make out the blurred shapes of people scurrying about, backing away from him. Someone might have even spoken his name.
Venom rolled onto his knees, still breathless but needing to escape. Outside the city, he could manage. He could lose Kiske and his officers easily, escape even Eddie. But inside the walls there were no hiding places left for him, and more importantly…Axl was still down there, somewhere.
“You forget,” a voice hissed down at him, low and grating. “We were part of the Guild, too. Did you think I wouldn’t know you’d come this way?”
“Get out of my way!” Venom snatched up his weapon case, and with a growl of his own swung it heavily into the hole he’d put through Paris’s wall. He felt rather than saw it’s angular corner strike Eddie full in the face, heard his body tumble down into the sewers below. Though by now the voices behind him had risen to shrieks he climbed back into the wall and pounded against the other side.
“Axl!” Now that there was light streaming into the tunnel he could see the opening below him, where Eddie was beginning to right himself. “Axl, we have to get out of here!”
*****
“Um….working on it…?” Axl twisted his wrist to adjust the hold he had on Zappa’s jaw. The boy was stronger than he looked. Axl was already on his back, pushing at Zappa’s throat and snapping jaws, trying to keep the enraged teen from his goal of biting into his face. He couldn’t get a good enough grip to force him off with how flexible Zappa was. By now the woman’s face he had seen—or thought he had seen—was gone, causing him to wonder if he hadn’t imagined it entirely.
Zappa’s hair began to lift away from his skull, as if charged by some unseen magic, and Axl wasn’t about to wait long enough to find out what was coming. He slapped his hands over the boy’s face as he quickly amassed his own power. Teeth bit into his palm, breaking skin, but before Axl even felt the flow of blood a stream of fire swarmed from his fingertips. Zappa’s scream, cracking and unnatural, echoed painfully in the corridor as he threw himself back and covered his face.
Axl shoved the handles of his kama into his mouth and lunged for the escape tunnel. Zappa was still writhing on the ground, his flailing keeping Eddie at bay long enough for him to pull himself up into the passage. He feared retaliation from the Red Musician but it never came. He could even hear her laughing.
Axl was concentrating so hard on keeping his footing on the narrow metal bars that he barely realized when he reached the exit. A hand closed suddenly around him to help him outside. Startled, he glanced up and found himself staring into Venom’s one visible blue eye.
He grinned around his weapons, and tightened his grip on Venom so that the assassin could pull him out of the wall through another freshly broken hole. Together they collapsed on the ground in a heap of gasping breath. Axl chuckled as he spit out his sickles. “You waited for me?”
“Of course.” Venom pressed a hand to his side; he looked a little pale, but what Axl could see of his expression was focused with adrenaline. He dragged himself to his feet and pulled Axl with him. “Come on, they’re right behind us.” He started ahead several steps, adding, “Ax-man.”
*****
By the time Bridget and Brandon reached the origin of the panicked shouting, the city folk were backed away from Paris’s outer wall, talking amongst themselves in hurried, anxious tones. They were all shifting, pointing at the hole in the wall with agitation. Bridget quickly left his brother’s side to ask a pair of women in thick winter coats that were huddled under a shop awning.
“A man came bursting out of the wall!” one of the women exclaimed. “He had white hair, like that criminal Officer Kiske has been looking for.”
“Venom!?” Bridget was about to demand an explanation with another cry arose among the gathered spectators. He turned, just in time to see a hand appear through the unintended hole. Whoever it might have been was bracing himself against the ledge, and disappeared a moment later. It was visible only long enough for Bridget to spot a coarse red cuff, like a prison uniform.
“Zappa…” Bridget slipped out of his coat, pushing it against Brandon’s chest when he approached. “Brandon—call the police, call Ky. Tell him to come as soon as he can.”
Brandon accepted the coat, but when Bridget started to head towards the wall he jumped forward, grabbing his arm. “Bridget, what are you doing? If it’s really the assassin—”
“They’re getting away!” Bridget protested, wriggling free of his brother’s grip. “Someone has to do something!” He turned, sprinting to the wall despite several shouts from the other citizens. “Just tell Ky to get here!”
Bridget knew this was a bad idea. As he neared the wall he caught a glimpse of another flash of red—shiny and leather-like—and almost lost his nerve when he remembered all of Ky’s tales. But he was determined, the memories of that morning still fresh in his mind. No matter what Ky might have thought of him he was still a bounty hunter, and he could still help.
Bridget crouched down in front of the hole, and was a little intimidated to hear the small crowd behind him grow silent, as if expecting something to happen. He thought he might have seen a pair of tall boots on the other side of the wall, as Ky had described to him, but they were quickly gone.
Licking his lips, he glanced back over his shoulder, and saw Brandon staring back at him with a pleading expression. Praying his brother would understand Bridget shook his head, and with a deep breath climbed through the wall.
*****
The area just outside of Paris’ main wall was like a little taste of home for Venom. Throughout the long years of the Crusades the city had been the target of several Gear attacks, some of them headed by the great Gear general Justice itself. Fierce defense of the wall by each captain of the Holy Order had kept the creatures from terrorizing Paris’s citizens, but that had done nothing for the city’s outskirts. Seven years of reconstruction had not yet cleared away all the multi-layered wreckage of broken buildings, nor cleaned the soil of the Gears’ poisons. Stories of anguished ghosts, of hidden Gears among the hollowed out shells of old churches, frightened the children at night and kept the construction workers from venturing too far too quickly. The land would not be livable for some time yet.
It was all to Venom’s advantage. Though he had not passed this way before, there was something of an instinct that came when living in ruins. The arrangement of broken buildings, though random, had their own kind of order not unlike a maze of capillaries. Everything was connected, had a way through, over or under or around. It was just a matter of finding it.
Venom took a deep breath and tasted a change of pressure in the air, the unmistakable smell of snow coming. That would work to their advantage, too. If not for the pain sliding through his abdomen with every breath, he would have even been optimistic.
“What was it down there?” he asked, leading Axl into one of the buildings. It had once been a bookstore—the shelves had mostly rotted away, and a few moldy leather-bound volumes lay strewn about. “The Musician?”
“Yeah!” Axl had secured his travel bag onto his back once more, though he kept his weapons in one hand as he stayed on Venom’s heels. “Sure was. But she had someone with her, some kid in a prison outfit.” Axl frowned sharply as he and Venom slipped through a hole in the wall and into what might have been a garden shop at one time. “There was something…really strange about him.”
“Strange?” Venom paused at the store window, glancing out at the empty street to make sure Eddie and his “friends” hadn’t caught on to them quite yet. “How so?”
“Like…familiar,” Axl said, and Venom wasn’t sure what to make of the uncharacteristically disturbed tone of his comrade’s voice. “In a weird way.”
Venom paused to catch his breath, resisting the temptation to grab his healing side. He had hoped he would have recovered more completely by now, but his short fight with Eddie had stretched Faust’s stitches, reminding his muscles of their earlier trauma. He tried to cover it by continuing their conversation. “Must be the prisoner she let free. For whatever reason. Why would someone like that challenge Kiske just to come after us?”
“Buggered if I know,” Axl said with a shrug. Despite Venom’s efforts of concealment he mentioned it anyway; “Your side still hurt?”
“It’s not bad,” Venom said immediately. “The stitches haven’t pulled.” He forced himself to stand a little straighter. “We’d better get going before the….”
Venom broke off, his gaze drawn to movement just outside the shop window. It looked like a small dog, though its black fur appeared fuzzy, almost indistinct, and there were no identifiable characteristics to suggest a breed. Venom stared at it, bewildered into silence.
Axl moved to his side to see for himself. “That’s…one odd looking dog.”
As soon as Axl peered through the window the small dog barked sharply, showing unnaturally long teeth for an animal its size. It flattened itself against the street and Venom caught on only just in time—he snatched Axl by the arm, dragging them both to the floor of the shop just as the window exploded in a shower of glass above them. Venom shook his head to dislodge the shards from his hair, and in the process caught sight of the attacking object. It was a sword, the width of the blade as broad as a man’s chest, with a jagged division up the middle and dried blood staining edge and hilt. It seemed to hang suspended in the air over his head, weightless, before rushing abruptly out of view.
“Shit!” Axl scrambled to his feet, and this time Venom couldn’t warn him in time. A thin wire snapped around his wrist, jerking him to and over the now empty window sill.
Venom bit back a curse of his own as Axl disappeared from view outside the shop. No one should have been able to track them as easily as they had been. But those concerns were forced aside as Eddie took Axl’s place in front of him; Venom struggled upright, opening his case to retrieve his weapon. “Eddie…”
“You should have just died at the restaurant,” Eddie hissed, perched on his host’s shoulder. Zato-1’s corpse climbed somewhat awkwardly into the shop. “And saved everyone the trouble.”
Venom twisted his cue together and fell back a step so he could better brace his weight. “It’s going to end differently this time.”
Zato-1 charged, but the shop was small and he couldn’t build up enough momentum. Though in pain Venom’s mind at least was much clearer than it had been during their last confrontation, and he easily blocked the tendrils of twisting shadow mass against his cue. Eddie’s glowing eyes were gone now, hidden within the swirling false flesh, leaving no obvious target to hurt the beast itself. All Venom could do was focus his attacks on his old master. A jab with the blunt handle of his weapon caught Zato-1 between the eyes, forcing him back.
“We don’t have time for this!” Venom shouted, pursuing. “The police will be here soon!” When he swung the cue again Zato-1 caught it against his forearm, and a sudden surge of black matter caught Venom in the chest, throwing him back against the rotting shop counter.
Zato-1 shook his long hair out behind him. “So give up already.”
*****
Axl bounded to his feet as soon as there was ground beneath him again, forgetting that the wire was still tight around his wrist. He was jerked quickly forwards, and nearly ran headfirst into I-no’s green guitar. She made up the distance by smashing it into his face before finally releasing his hand.
“Bloody…bastards….” Having been thrown to his back, Axl groaned as he fingered his bleeding nose. “You broke my face!”
The sword that had nearly gutted him and Venom a moment ago reappeared, a blur of rusted metal that would have cleaved his skull if not for a quick roll to the side. He sprung to his feet and passed one of his sickles to his second hand as he faced the pair.
The Red Musician and her companion, the prison boy, were standing side by side opposite him. Axl grimaced a little at the boy’s face—the fire had charred long burns across his already slack cheeks, had burned away his eyebrows and parts of his lips. But then, to the British man’s surprise, the ghost he had seen in the sewer reappeared over Zappa’s left shoulder. In the full morning light he could make out her features even better, though there wasn’t much to see other than a head of long, knotted black hair and emaciated arms. Her crooked fingers passed over Zappa’s face, peeling the burns away as if they were stage make up, leaving a fresh layer of unblemished skin behind.
Axl gulped, involuntarily stepping back as the great sword floated to Zappa’s side as well. “I don’t know who you are,” he started, trying not to be distracted by the sounds of battle coming from within the shop. “I mean, you’re kinda familiar, but what you just did, that’s—”
“Axl Low,” the ghost warned, her head turning slowly to properly face him. “Don’t you walk away from me.”
Axl froze, the ball of his foot just barely braced against the ground in preparation of another step. Unobstructed by echoes and flowing water the woman’s voice was so familiar to him he felt ill to think he hadn’t recognized it earlier. Beneath the rasp of her cracked lips was the mixed accent of a woman from too many countries, one that had said his name so many times in the past.
His mouth went dry when he tried to reply. “Me…” He clenched his fists against his weapons. “Megumi…?”
“Hurry it up, will you?” I-no interrupted boredly. “I’d rather not meet Kiske again on this trip.”
Zappa gave a sharp quiver, for a moment the woman’s ghost flickering out of sight, until he calmed. “Are you happy to see me?” She drawled as her host stumbled forward. “Now, after all this time?”
“M-Megumi,” Axl stuttered, in shock. His hands were trembling. “What’re you…” He started to smile—after all this time, she was here—but the reality of their situation, of the condition she was in, set back in swiftly. “No, you’re still in the present—the past. That—”
“That’s right. It’s been…one hundred years.” Megumi shifted, moving away from Zappa’s shoulder so that her bare feet became visible. Her hand slid down to curl around Zappa’s, which he held in turn, almost…tenderly. “One hundred years since you disappeared….”
Axl licked his lips; when she started getting too close he took another thoughtless step back. He recognized her voice, and the half of her face that he could see was familiar, but he was still unwilling to admit this was really his Megumi, the lover he’d left behind. “It—it wasn’t my fault. It was this portal—”
“…Left without a word…”
“I tried to get back, but I—”
“…Abandoned me…”
“No!” Whether it was really her or not, Axl couldn’t let her—or anyone—think that. “I never would have—”
Zappa jerked his arm, sending the bloodied sword at him again. Axl lifted his weapons and dodged; his arms trembled with the effort of holding off the heavy weapon as their blades squealed against each other. It was disorienting to see the length of metal moving as easily through the air as it was. Axl was just fast enough to evade or deflect the attacks but Zappa was bearing down on him now, Megumi’s ghost having faded away again. The boy himself didn’t look as if he would strike but his spinning blade was more than enough to put Axl on the defensive.
Axl’s mind was whirling. It had been years now but he still remembered the last time he’d seen Megumi; stretched across the lumpy mattress of their shabby downtown flat. She had been dressed in a blue satin nightie bought the day before, her long black hair trailing over the bare skin of her back and obscuring part of her face. His nostrils filled with the scent of stale coffee and perfume. One almond eye had traced his figure to the doorway, and one blown kiss had served as a farewell. The memories of such simple intimacy had sustained him for so many months….
Zappa spun abruptly, his leg lashing out like drawn elastic to catch Axl in the side. The breath rushing out of him quickly drew his attention back to the fight at hand. As he stumbled back a twist of his wrist sent the chain connecting his sickles shooting forward to wrap around Zappa’s still extended ankle. Caught off balance Zappa dropped to his hands and feet like a startled cat, but before Axl could take advantage of the momentary lapse the sword was back, planting itself defensively in front of its master.
“If it’s really you,” Axl huffed, his voice tightening with emotion. “Megumi…Jesus, what happened?” When Zappa lifted his head, his face flashing briefly in the countenance of his former lover, a shudder ran through him that was nearly enough to send his knees buckling. “I don’t understand….”
“You never came back,” Zappa hissed. His eyes rolled in his head as he spoke in his mixed voice, and with his elbows twisted up he looked like some grotesque spider perched on the street. “That night…the day after…the years after…I waited and you never came back.”
Axl’s weapons clattered to the ground before he realized his grip had gone slack. By now he was convinced he had wandered into a nightmare. He’d even forgotten that I-no was there watching, and that the sound of shattering wood somewhere nearby had to have been Venom fighting an impossible enemy. He could only stare at the bizarre creature before him in hopes that he could catch a glimpse of something that more closely resembled his old friend and companion.
“You really…” He gulped, and when Zappa began to crawl towards him he didn’t back away this time. “…want me dead?”
“Yes,” Zappa growled, his body swinging upright once more. His arms lifted over his head as if drawn by a puppeteer’s wires to call his sword forward. “Die…and be mine again.”
For a single instant as the blade careened toward him, it didn’t occur to Axl that he should dodge. With his gaze still locked on Zappa’s contorted face he barely even noticed it. He was still staring when a spinning metal disc diverted the sword a few scant inches from his torso, causing a pinwheel that sent the sword’s thick handle digging into his chest. Already bruised and half out of his wits Axl was easily thrown onto his back, gasping weakly. He managed to get his composure back in time to see a young figure leap into the street to challenge Zappa.
“Zappa, I don’t know if you remember me,” a young voice said with determination. “But you’ve gotta come back with me now.”
Guilty Gear, its characters and settings are property of Sammy Studios, and are being used in this fanfiction without permission. This fic is rated R for violence and sexual content, and it contains yaoi material.
Thunder Falling
Chapter 14
“You’re not eating?”
Bridget glanced up from his plate, around which he had been moving his brunch with a fork for the past fifteen minutes. His brother Brandon was watching him from across the table with a look of familial concern. He heaved a sigh. “I’m not really hungry.”
Brandon tipped his head doubtfully. “You? Not hungry? That’s one I haven’t heard before.”
Bridget scrunched his nose in a childish face, though it was only half-hearted. With another quiet sigh he dropped his fork and instead rested his chin in his hands. He hadn’t wanted to bring up his troubles now, when his brother was about to return to England and they wouldn’t see each other for months. But there was no one that understood him like Brandon did, and no one else in the city he knew he could talk to, who wasn’t already…involved. He squirmed in his seat indecisively.
Brandon fixed him with a gentle smile. “Bridget,” he said, his tone prodding. “You’re going to tell me eventually. So it might as well be now.”
Bridget made the face again despite his relief. Brandon knew him too well. Licking his lips, the young bounty hunter finally divulged the cause of his unease. “It’s…Officer Kiske. I did something I shouldn’t have.”
A moment of silence passed, and when Bridget risked glancing back to his brother’s face, he cringed a little beneath the scrutinizing look fastened on him. His cheeks, which had already flushed red with his confession, deepened in color. “Nothing that dramatic,” he quickly corrected. “I…kissed him. On the mouth this time.”
“And he…?” Brandon continued to coax.
“And he…I don’t know.” Bridget frowned abruptly as he played the scene back over in his mind. “I guess I didn’t really give him a chance to react. He was…pretty surprised.”
He paused, watching Brandon for some greater reaction. His brother had always been sensible, in almost all things, and he could use some advice from him now. When it looked that this particular issue was giving him some concern, Bridget felt his heart sink a little. Not that he had been expecting overwhelming support….
“Bridget,” Brandon said, keeping his voice low so that those dining around them wouldn’t hear. “Do you think you can still be around him, as a friend, without it being anything more than that?”
Bridget squirmed again, a cold pit forming in his stomach. He had asked himself that many times by now, had considered all his options and predicted everything Brandon might tell him. Hearing the words spoken, however, was much harder. “Yes,” he said at last, lowering his eyes. His hands fidgeted together against the tabletop. “I think so.”
Brandon’s hand fell over his, warm and a little stern, stilling his movements. His voice was the same. “Then that’s what I think you should do.”
Bridget sighed. “I know,” he murmured as his shoulders sunk. “I know he’s too old, and too important, and too…everything. And on top of that he has someone else.” He curled his fingers around his brother’s, needing the familiarity. His lips fit themselves into a faint smile. “But…it’s just a little crush anyway, right? There’s no harm in that.”
When he glanced up, Brandon was smiling quietly. He was trying to be supportive and that was really all Bridget needed anyway. “No, there’s no harm in that.”
A few minutes later, Brandon insisted on paying their tab, and they left the café together. Bridget pulled his long white coat over his bounty hunting outfit, belt and all, with a quiet sigh. “Thanks, Brandon,” he said lightly, giving his brother a warm hug. “Say hi to Mom for me.”
“I will.” Brandon hugged him back, and as he pulled back ruffled Bridget’s hat. “Take care of yourself, okay? You’ll be fine.”
“Yeah. I know.”
They both pulled back, and were about to separate when a woman’s scream echoed down the street opposite them.
*****
Venom twisted in the narrow space, but there was no where to go, no way to evade beast suddenly clawing up at him. He couldn’t even see his attacker save for two thin crimson slits. Talons ripped at the soles of his shoes, and though his first instinct was to kick back his balance inside the tunnel was already tenuous at best. Instead he adjusted his grip on his weapon case, jabbing it down against Eddie’s face and hands. The creature hissed and snarled, but his body never stayed in one shape long enough for Venom to land any substantial blows.
Thick fingers pulled at his ankles, and one of his feet came loose, shifting he weight so that he felt back against the stale stone. Eddie was pulling himself higher up his body, trying to follow his legs up to something vital he could gouge. When Venom felt cold claws draw a shallow gash along his thigh he panicked a moment, kicking and swinging the case, unaware of the stones giving way at his back.
“Axl—” He couldn’t hear anything above Eddie’s enraged growls. Finally his attacker got himself a foothold, and what might have been the curve of his skull slammed hard against Venom’s healing stomach. With a weak cry his legs jerked, forcing all his weight—and some of Eddie’s—against the wall behind him.
The extra force was just enough, and with a dull clatter the stone crumbled and opened. By now desperate to escape the suffocating confines Venom kicked against Eddie’s chest, and found himself slipping over the lip of the newly formed hole. With a startled gasp he fell backwards, case clasped to his chest and feet kicking over his head as he tumbled out of the wall.
The impact was not as heavy as he’d feared; having crawled up through the sewers, he fell out of Paris’s blockade a mere three feet above the ground. It was his aching chest that made the sudden rush of ground up against his back feel like a lead hammer. Groaning, he forced his eyes open and winced in the light.
When Eddie didn’t follow immediately, clawing and roaring, Venom realized something was wrong. He twisted, blinking at his surroundings. He understood when he heard a woman scream—he’d fallen out back inside the city. As his sight cleared he could make out the blurred shapes of people scurrying about, backing away from him. Someone might have even spoken his name.
Venom rolled onto his knees, still breathless but needing to escape. Outside the city, he could manage. He could lose Kiske and his officers easily, escape even Eddie. But inside the walls there were no hiding places left for him, and more importantly…Axl was still down there, somewhere.
“You forget,” a voice hissed down at him, low and grating. “We were part of the Guild, too. Did you think I wouldn’t know you’d come this way?”
“Get out of my way!” Venom snatched up his weapon case, and with a growl of his own swung it heavily into the hole he’d put through Paris’s wall. He felt rather than saw it’s angular corner strike Eddie full in the face, heard his body tumble down into the sewers below. Though by now the voices behind him had risen to shrieks he climbed back into the wall and pounded against the other side.
“Axl!” Now that there was light streaming into the tunnel he could see the opening below him, where Eddie was beginning to right himself. “Axl, we have to get out of here!”
*****
“Um….working on it…?” Axl twisted his wrist to adjust the hold he had on Zappa’s jaw. The boy was stronger than he looked. Axl was already on his back, pushing at Zappa’s throat and snapping jaws, trying to keep the enraged teen from his goal of biting into his face. He couldn’t get a good enough grip to force him off with how flexible Zappa was. By now the woman’s face he had seen—or thought he had seen—was gone, causing him to wonder if he hadn’t imagined it entirely.
Zappa’s hair began to lift away from his skull, as if charged by some unseen magic, and Axl wasn’t about to wait long enough to find out what was coming. He slapped his hands over the boy’s face as he quickly amassed his own power. Teeth bit into his palm, breaking skin, but before Axl even felt the flow of blood a stream of fire swarmed from his fingertips. Zappa’s scream, cracking and unnatural, echoed painfully in the corridor as he threw himself back and covered his face.
Axl shoved the handles of his kama into his mouth and lunged for the escape tunnel. Zappa was still writhing on the ground, his flailing keeping Eddie at bay long enough for him to pull himself up into the passage. He feared retaliation from the Red Musician but it never came. He could even hear her laughing.
Axl was concentrating so hard on keeping his footing on the narrow metal bars that he barely realized when he reached the exit. A hand closed suddenly around him to help him outside. Startled, he glanced up and found himself staring into Venom’s one visible blue eye.
He grinned around his weapons, and tightened his grip on Venom so that the assassin could pull him out of the wall through another freshly broken hole. Together they collapsed on the ground in a heap of gasping breath. Axl chuckled as he spit out his sickles. “You waited for me?”
“Of course.” Venom pressed a hand to his side; he looked a little pale, but what Axl could see of his expression was focused with adrenaline. He dragged himself to his feet and pulled Axl with him. “Come on, they’re right behind us.” He started ahead several steps, adding, “Ax-man.”
*****
By the time Bridget and Brandon reached the origin of the panicked shouting, the city folk were backed away from Paris’s outer wall, talking amongst themselves in hurried, anxious tones. They were all shifting, pointing at the hole in the wall with agitation. Bridget quickly left his brother’s side to ask a pair of women in thick winter coats that were huddled under a shop awning.
“A man came bursting out of the wall!” one of the women exclaimed. “He had white hair, like that criminal Officer Kiske has been looking for.”
“Venom!?” Bridget was about to demand an explanation with another cry arose among the gathered spectators. He turned, just in time to see a hand appear through the unintended hole. Whoever it might have been was bracing himself against the ledge, and disappeared a moment later. It was visible only long enough for Bridget to spot a coarse red cuff, like a prison uniform.
“Zappa…” Bridget slipped out of his coat, pushing it against Brandon’s chest when he approached. “Brandon—call the police, call Ky. Tell him to come as soon as he can.”
Brandon accepted the coat, but when Bridget started to head towards the wall he jumped forward, grabbing his arm. “Bridget, what are you doing? If it’s really the assassin—”
“They’re getting away!” Bridget protested, wriggling free of his brother’s grip. “Someone has to do something!” He turned, sprinting to the wall despite several shouts from the other citizens. “Just tell Ky to get here!”
Bridget knew this was a bad idea. As he neared the wall he caught a glimpse of another flash of red—shiny and leather-like—and almost lost his nerve when he remembered all of Ky’s tales. But he was determined, the memories of that morning still fresh in his mind. No matter what Ky might have thought of him he was still a bounty hunter, and he could still help.
Bridget crouched down in front of the hole, and was a little intimidated to hear the small crowd behind him grow silent, as if expecting something to happen. He thought he might have seen a pair of tall boots on the other side of the wall, as Ky had described to him, but they were quickly gone.
Licking his lips, he glanced back over his shoulder, and saw Brandon staring back at him with a pleading expression. Praying his brother would understand Bridget shook his head, and with a deep breath climbed through the wall.
*****
The area just outside of Paris’ main wall was like a little taste of home for Venom. Throughout the long years of the Crusades the city had been the target of several Gear attacks, some of them headed by the great Gear general Justice itself. Fierce defense of the wall by each captain of the Holy Order had kept the creatures from terrorizing Paris’s citizens, but that had done nothing for the city’s outskirts. Seven years of reconstruction had not yet cleared away all the multi-layered wreckage of broken buildings, nor cleaned the soil of the Gears’ poisons. Stories of anguished ghosts, of hidden Gears among the hollowed out shells of old churches, frightened the children at night and kept the construction workers from venturing too far too quickly. The land would not be livable for some time yet.
It was all to Venom’s advantage. Though he had not passed this way before, there was something of an instinct that came when living in ruins. The arrangement of broken buildings, though random, had their own kind of order not unlike a maze of capillaries. Everything was connected, had a way through, over or under or around. It was just a matter of finding it.
Venom took a deep breath and tasted a change of pressure in the air, the unmistakable smell of snow coming. That would work to their advantage, too. If not for the pain sliding through his abdomen with every breath, he would have even been optimistic.
“What was it down there?” he asked, leading Axl into one of the buildings. It had once been a bookstore—the shelves had mostly rotted away, and a few moldy leather-bound volumes lay strewn about. “The Musician?”
“Yeah!” Axl had secured his travel bag onto his back once more, though he kept his weapons in one hand as he stayed on Venom’s heels. “Sure was. But she had someone with her, some kid in a prison outfit.” Axl frowned sharply as he and Venom slipped through a hole in the wall and into what might have been a garden shop at one time. “There was something…really strange about him.”
“Strange?” Venom paused at the store window, glancing out at the empty street to make sure Eddie and his “friends” hadn’t caught on to them quite yet. “How so?”
“Like…familiar,” Axl said, and Venom wasn’t sure what to make of the uncharacteristically disturbed tone of his comrade’s voice. “In a weird way.”
Venom paused to catch his breath, resisting the temptation to grab his healing side. He had hoped he would have recovered more completely by now, but his short fight with Eddie had stretched Faust’s stitches, reminding his muscles of their earlier trauma. He tried to cover it by continuing their conversation. “Must be the prisoner she let free. For whatever reason. Why would someone like that challenge Kiske just to come after us?”
“Buggered if I know,” Axl said with a shrug. Despite Venom’s efforts of concealment he mentioned it anyway; “Your side still hurt?”
“It’s not bad,” Venom said immediately. “The stitches haven’t pulled.” He forced himself to stand a little straighter. “We’d better get going before the….”
Venom broke off, his gaze drawn to movement just outside the shop window. It looked like a small dog, though its black fur appeared fuzzy, almost indistinct, and there were no identifiable characteristics to suggest a breed. Venom stared at it, bewildered into silence.
Axl moved to his side to see for himself. “That’s…one odd looking dog.”
As soon as Axl peered through the window the small dog barked sharply, showing unnaturally long teeth for an animal its size. It flattened itself against the street and Venom caught on only just in time—he snatched Axl by the arm, dragging them both to the floor of the shop just as the window exploded in a shower of glass above them. Venom shook his head to dislodge the shards from his hair, and in the process caught sight of the attacking object. It was a sword, the width of the blade as broad as a man’s chest, with a jagged division up the middle and dried blood staining edge and hilt. It seemed to hang suspended in the air over his head, weightless, before rushing abruptly out of view.
“Shit!” Axl scrambled to his feet, and this time Venom couldn’t warn him in time. A thin wire snapped around his wrist, jerking him to and over the now empty window sill.
Venom bit back a curse of his own as Axl disappeared from view outside the shop. No one should have been able to track them as easily as they had been. But those concerns were forced aside as Eddie took Axl’s place in front of him; Venom struggled upright, opening his case to retrieve his weapon. “Eddie…”
“You should have just died at the restaurant,” Eddie hissed, perched on his host’s shoulder. Zato-1’s corpse climbed somewhat awkwardly into the shop. “And saved everyone the trouble.”
Venom twisted his cue together and fell back a step so he could better brace his weight. “It’s going to end differently this time.”
Zato-1 charged, but the shop was small and he couldn’t build up enough momentum. Though in pain Venom’s mind at least was much clearer than it had been during their last confrontation, and he easily blocked the tendrils of twisting shadow mass against his cue. Eddie’s glowing eyes were gone now, hidden within the swirling false flesh, leaving no obvious target to hurt the beast itself. All Venom could do was focus his attacks on his old master. A jab with the blunt handle of his weapon caught Zato-1 between the eyes, forcing him back.
“We don’t have time for this!” Venom shouted, pursuing. “The police will be here soon!” When he swung the cue again Zato-1 caught it against his forearm, and a sudden surge of black matter caught Venom in the chest, throwing him back against the rotting shop counter.
Zato-1 shook his long hair out behind him. “So give up already.”
*****
Axl bounded to his feet as soon as there was ground beneath him again, forgetting that the wire was still tight around his wrist. He was jerked quickly forwards, and nearly ran headfirst into I-no’s green guitar. She made up the distance by smashing it into his face before finally releasing his hand.
“Bloody…bastards….” Having been thrown to his back, Axl groaned as he fingered his bleeding nose. “You broke my face!”
The sword that had nearly gutted him and Venom a moment ago reappeared, a blur of rusted metal that would have cleaved his skull if not for a quick roll to the side. He sprung to his feet and passed one of his sickles to his second hand as he faced the pair.
The Red Musician and her companion, the prison boy, were standing side by side opposite him. Axl grimaced a little at the boy’s face—the fire had charred long burns across his already slack cheeks, had burned away his eyebrows and parts of his lips. But then, to the British man’s surprise, the ghost he had seen in the sewer reappeared over Zappa’s left shoulder. In the full morning light he could make out her features even better, though there wasn’t much to see other than a head of long, knotted black hair and emaciated arms. Her crooked fingers passed over Zappa’s face, peeling the burns away as if they were stage make up, leaving a fresh layer of unblemished skin behind.
Axl gulped, involuntarily stepping back as the great sword floated to Zappa’s side as well. “I don’t know who you are,” he started, trying not to be distracted by the sounds of battle coming from within the shop. “I mean, you’re kinda familiar, but what you just did, that’s—”
“Axl Low,” the ghost warned, her head turning slowly to properly face him. “Don’t you walk away from me.”
Axl froze, the ball of his foot just barely braced against the ground in preparation of another step. Unobstructed by echoes and flowing water the woman’s voice was so familiar to him he felt ill to think he hadn’t recognized it earlier. Beneath the rasp of her cracked lips was the mixed accent of a woman from too many countries, one that had said his name so many times in the past.
His mouth went dry when he tried to reply. “Me…” He clenched his fists against his weapons. “Megumi…?”
“Hurry it up, will you?” I-no interrupted boredly. “I’d rather not meet Kiske again on this trip.”
Zappa gave a sharp quiver, for a moment the woman’s ghost flickering out of sight, until he calmed. “Are you happy to see me?” She drawled as her host stumbled forward. “Now, after all this time?”
“M-Megumi,” Axl stuttered, in shock. His hands were trembling. “What’re you…” He started to smile—after all this time, she was here—but the reality of their situation, of the condition she was in, set back in swiftly. “No, you’re still in the present—the past. That—”
“That’s right. It’s been…one hundred years.” Megumi shifted, moving away from Zappa’s shoulder so that her bare feet became visible. Her hand slid down to curl around Zappa’s, which he held in turn, almost…tenderly. “One hundred years since you disappeared….”
Axl licked his lips; when she started getting too close he took another thoughtless step back. He recognized her voice, and the half of her face that he could see was familiar, but he was still unwilling to admit this was really his Megumi, the lover he’d left behind. “It—it wasn’t my fault. It was this portal—”
“…Left without a word…”
“I tried to get back, but I—”
“…Abandoned me…”
“No!” Whether it was really her or not, Axl couldn’t let her—or anyone—think that. “I never would have—”
Zappa jerked his arm, sending the bloodied sword at him again. Axl lifted his weapons and dodged; his arms trembled with the effort of holding off the heavy weapon as their blades squealed against each other. It was disorienting to see the length of metal moving as easily through the air as it was. Axl was just fast enough to evade or deflect the attacks but Zappa was bearing down on him now, Megumi’s ghost having faded away again. The boy himself didn’t look as if he would strike but his spinning blade was more than enough to put Axl on the defensive.
Axl’s mind was whirling. It had been years now but he still remembered the last time he’d seen Megumi; stretched across the lumpy mattress of their shabby downtown flat. She had been dressed in a blue satin nightie bought the day before, her long black hair trailing over the bare skin of her back and obscuring part of her face. His nostrils filled with the scent of stale coffee and perfume. One almond eye had traced his figure to the doorway, and one blown kiss had served as a farewell. The memories of such simple intimacy had sustained him for so many months….
Zappa spun abruptly, his leg lashing out like drawn elastic to catch Axl in the side. The breath rushing out of him quickly drew his attention back to the fight at hand. As he stumbled back a twist of his wrist sent the chain connecting his sickles shooting forward to wrap around Zappa’s still extended ankle. Caught off balance Zappa dropped to his hands and feet like a startled cat, but before Axl could take advantage of the momentary lapse the sword was back, planting itself defensively in front of its master.
“If it’s really you,” Axl huffed, his voice tightening with emotion. “Megumi…Jesus, what happened?” When Zappa lifted his head, his face flashing briefly in the countenance of his former lover, a shudder ran through him that was nearly enough to send his knees buckling. “I don’t understand….”
“You never came back,” Zappa hissed. His eyes rolled in his head as he spoke in his mixed voice, and with his elbows twisted up he looked like some grotesque spider perched on the street. “That night…the day after…the years after…I waited and you never came back.”
Axl’s weapons clattered to the ground before he realized his grip had gone slack. By now he was convinced he had wandered into a nightmare. He’d even forgotten that I-no was there watching, and that the sound of shattering wood somewhere nearby had to have been Venom fighting an impossible enemy. He could only stare at the bizarre creature before him in hopes that he could catch a glimpse of something that more closely resembled his old friend and companion.
“You really…” He gulped, and when Zappa began to crawl towards him he didn’t back away this time. “…want me dead?”
“Yes,” Zappa growled, his body swinging upright once more. His arms lifted over his head as if drawn by a puppeteer’s wires to call his sword forward. “Die…and be mine again.”
For a single instant as the blade careened toward him, it didn’t occur to Axl that he should dodge. With his gaze still locked on Zappa’s contorted face he barely even noticed it. He was still staring when a spinning metal disc diverted the sword a few scant inches from his torso, causing a pinwheel that sent the sword’s thick handle digging into his chest. Already bruised and half out of his wits Axl was easily thrown onto his back, gasping weakly. He managed to get his composure back in time to see a young figure leap into the street to challenge Zappa.
“Zappa, I don’t know if you remember me,” a young voice said with determination. “But you’ve gotta come back with me now.”
