Chapter CCLIV: Vae Victus ~Kyanosa/Kaye
Dirk sat in his black, high-backed black chair, with his chin on his
hands and his elbows resting on the obsidian desk in front of him. It was his
thinking position, and he'd been like that for somewhere around an hour now.
Though you couldn't tell it behind the sunglasses, his eyes were closed, and
save for the slow rise and fall of his back and shoulders due to breathing, he
was totally immobile. He had been since he teleported into his office
immediately after the replosion, and he thought he
was finally at a solution. He opened his eyes, took out two pieces of paper,
wrote on them with a pen from his desk, and leaned back.
"Bune. Bifrons. Murmur."
Three people teleported into the room in flashes of fire - a man on the left, a
woman in the middle, and on the right a girl who looked roughly six years old,
all very pale. The girl wore a black dress that reached to her ankles and
seemed like it would fit better in the nineteenth century, complimented by
black shoes. Her straight, black hair reached down to her knees, and the only
real color she seemed to have on her was a bright red rose in her hair. The
woman sported an open leather jacket and a black leotard that ended in boots,
the tops of which came nearly to her knees. She had short black hair that came
a bit forward just below her ears, wore a bright green choker, and was more
beautiful than you'd expect from an upper demon. The man's dangerously thin frame
towered over the other two, giving him a more ghastly look, and was covered by
heavy pants and shoes and a black sweatshirt with the
sleeves rolled just above his elbows. His hair was a desperate tangle, only
held out of his eyes by a bright blue headband.
Dirk handed one piece of paper to the girl. "Check the deathstream.
Find the bodies of these two individuals. They should have my preservations
spells on them, so get them back in this office in material form."
He pointed to the man. "Find Mister Kyanosa and
Mister Canopus and have them both read the
documentation on Postmortem Acceptance and Refusal of Opportunities for
Revival. If they won't make a decision, I'll make it for them. When they're
done, bring them here."
He gave the woman the second piece of paper. "Give this to the boss. Then
call up Miss Sterling and have her locate those two people for you." He
tapped the bottom of the sheet. "I want them both in here, alive."
"I expect that everything will be finished by the time I get back. Understood?"
Three nods. "Excellent." All four teleported out of
the office.
* * *
Dirk appeared in front of Gundam Condemnation,
immediately revealing himself to the mecha's radar
system. Rebdok looked down at him, his laugh ringing
through the microphone and out of the mobile suit's speakers. "Leaving me
alone was a mistake. Now I know how this thing works. And since I know how it
works, I can work it, and so it was a mistake to leave me alone with it, the
mistake made by you that let me work the machine because I will fight you with
it and win because I was alone but now you are here to fight me in a machine I
know how to work."
Quite familiar with the Twilighter tendency to ramble at the most inopportune
times, Dirk quietly waited until Redbok had stopped
cackling, then simply said, "We're somewhere else."
"Very good. I applaud your dramatic capacity for
reason and insight. Bravo." Condemnation clapped.
Dirk waited again, then spoke. "Since the arena
has changed, our deal is moot. This can be a perfectly valid fight to the
death, and you are free of your obligations to me after losing."
Condemnation got into a fighting stance. "There's no way I'd lose against
you."
"Oh, there's always a way. Anybody can beat anybody. But regardless, since
our deal is null and I'm looking to end this quickly, I won't be fighting your mecha."
"Get anybody you want. I'll stomp them just as well."
Dirk nodded. "Perfect." He looked to his side. "He's all
yours."
A third figure Rebdok hadn't noticed before right
then, despite the fact that it was right next to Dirk, grinned.
"Excellent."
* * *
A storm raged over the ocean. The water was incredibly turbulent, tossing back,
forth, up, down, and around, nearly soaking Bifrons
as she zoomed through the air. The red ball in front of her was zipping back
and forth pretty rapidly as it flew, and in the wind and blinding rain it was
hard to keep up with it. But following her corpse-light's activity was the
quickest way to track it to the grave she sought.
Suddenly the light looped through the air and plunged directly downward. She
followed, reluctantly splashing under the waves and into the dark, cold depths
of the sea. She sank down after the light, hair trailing behind her as the
corpse-light led her to the ocean's bottom. Its red outline gradually got
harder and harder to follow, and Bifrons found
herself squinting harder and harder through the water into which she was going.
Eventually, the ball slowed and stopped, then entered an object, lending its
glow to something on the ground. Bifrons swam to it
and looked it over, deducing that the light had found its way to a black
coffin. She placed two hands on the box, giving it a stronger red glow, and
flew up. The box followed her through the water, out of the ocean, and over the
clouds. Only there could she open the airtight box to check if Dirk's earlier
spell had worked correctly with her corpse-light. In fact, it did. Bifrons grinned.
She teleported back to Dirk's office with the body of Joshua Renil in tow.
* * *
Dirk blinked, then looked up a bit to see the figure's
face. "You're taller than usual."
"I like being tall."
"What's wrong with your normal height? Do you really need to be seven
feet?"
"I prefer being the tallest person in the room. Head and
shoulders."
"The mecha's taller than you are."
"I can fix that."
"But you won't. You're going to fight him like this."
"But I want to beat him hard. Really, really hard."
"And imagine the humiliation he'll face when he gets beaten by
something a fraction of his size. Think of the damage to the Twilighter
ego."
A moment of thought. "I like it. But this height
stays. Seven feet is a good height."
Dirk shrugged and started walking away. "Fine.
I'll come back when you're done."
Rebdok, watching the exchange from the cockpit,
stared at his new opponent. "Are you ready yet?"
The man removed his coat, leaving the black pants, grey boots, and dark green
sleeveless shirt. "You had a while to train. I was ready before that. I've
been itching to fight one of you for a while, and this almost makes it
fair."
"Why you pesky-"
Man versus mecha, they launched themselves at each
other.
* * *
Black skin crashed against blue shield over and over. A swipe of blue energy
draw black blood, but a low shot brought red blood into the open too. Two
shadows jumped away from each other, and the black beam met the blue one in
mid-air, both disappearing at the contact. The shadows pounced again,
themselves meeting yards above the ground. A white flash ricocheted through the
area, and both shadows fell with their backs to the middle. Both fell to one
knee, then turned to face the other. In the center of
their vision, a flash of light green fire erupted, and a woman became visible.
She looked at one figure, then the other. "You don't look so great."
The shadow on her left stood. "who are you and
what are you doing here get out were in the middle a very important fight as
you see"
The woman laughed, clapped, and put her hands to her mouth. "That is so
cool! You really talk like that! I just thought your writer bit!"
"what are you talking about and you havent
answered question who are you?"
"Oh, right." She bowed. "I am Murmur, and I've been sent here to
retrieve you, Sebastion Ebask.
We'd like your help with something in the underworld."
Sebastion made a face. "i would like to go because i
am very old and i have lived through a lot death is
the only thing left for me but first i must win this
fight"
Murmur looked at the other shadow. "So you're fighting him?"
The other stood. "yes i
am and i would like you to..." It stopped, then coughed violently. "Forgive me, madam. One might
acquire certain unfavorable traits from the company they however reluctantly
keep. I am Drax. When your quarry and I found
ourselves together after an extended separation, we decided it best to settle
our difficulties in a form that fits our similar advantages."
Murmur sighed. "Okay, here's the thing. I need to being this guy back. So as
much as I love honor and victory and stuff, I can't let you finish your
fight."
Drax cracked his knuckles. "Then I'm afraid I
shall similarly regard you as an opponent." He pounced at Murmur. The
woman, however, pulled a scythe out of thin air and, with a few well-aimed
swings, cut Drax into six or seven much smaller
pieces. I say six or seven because when they hit the ground, they all kinda fell into one big icky puddle, no nobody
ever really counted.
Murmur unsummoned the scythe, turned to Sebastion, and smiled. "Ready?"
* * *
Condemnation swung a giant metal fist down at its new opponent. Now I want all
you mechaphile writers to pay close attention to this
move here, especially all of the ones who think their characters can beat
anything else with or without their personal custom godly mobile suit. It
pretty much sums up the entire reason for having a Gundam
and the point of creating your own. When the massive fist was just a few yards
away from the comparatively diminutive man, the latter wound up and hit right
back, aiming his own punch for the exact center of the mecha's
fist. The two attacks collided with a loud clang, very much like when two
robots hit each other...and the mecha's left hand was
knocked clean off its wrist.
Condemnation hopped back, gingerly tapping its handless arm. Rebdok fumed. "Why you insignificant, little, pesky
excuse for a gurk-"
That last word wasn't really what he meant to say, but it was the sound he made
when the mecha jolted again, subject to a hearty
punch in the shins by its opponent.
The Gundam took to the sky, using the four cylinders
on its back like rocket boosters. The man looked up at it. "If you're
going to b****, don't do it during a fight." He summoned a large, green
dragon skull around his wrist and aimed it at the Gundam.
"You leave yourself open to attack!" The skull rocketed at the Gundam's midsection.
Condemnation whipped out the long staff on its back, triggering the energy
blade of the beam scythe and cutting through the oncoming projectile.
"You're supposed to sit there and listen during it! Fights stop during
gloats!"
"Yeah, well, shove it." He summoned two more skulls, one on each
wrist, and started shooting purple energy balls at the mecha.
Condemnation put up its shields, blocking the attacks, and landed. Instantly
the four cylinders that had previously been rocket packs extended over
Condemnation's shoulders and around his sides, then
started firing bullets like a series of machine guns.
Rebdok giggled. "Beam scythe, free flight, four machine
guns, giant evil beam shield things...this mecha is a
killing machine! There's no way you can beat it!"
"Shut up." The man pressed the sides of both skulls together and
fired a massive purple beam through the storm of bullets. Incinerating every piece
of lead it touched, it worked its way back to the Gundam's
chest. Immediately before blowing a hole in its middle, however, the beam split
into two, each half arching toward a shoulder gun and putting it out of commission.
The Twilighter growled. "Now you face my full wrath!" The crosses on
the shields started glowing.
The man blinked. "You bore me." He unsummoned
the skulls and charged a green ball in his hands. At the same time, both sides
fired.
* * *
Kyanosa and
Kyanosa shook his head. "The underworld doesn't
look as happy now as it did when we flew through it." Bune
shrugged.
Kyanosa shook his head. "We got Josh involved
and killed. Without us, he'd still be in the Spectrum watching everybody. If we
go back, we might get other people killed. I don't want to deal with
that."
Kyanosa rubbed his temples. "And living's been
more fun than sitting around here. Plus we never did finish getting those
marbles."
The twins stared at each other for a while.
Kyanosa watched the floor. "One
or none."
Another minute of silence, then
* * *
The green ball shot up, hovering in the sky. It did nothing else. The grey beam
Condemnation shot, however, collided with its target with great power, the full
fury of a writer who has suffered severe head trauma and doesn't yet realize he
hasn't relearned how to speak. The grey explosion radiated in all directions,
leaving a decently-sized crater where the man stood. Yes, stood. Because he was still standing.
Rebdok cackled. "Your power is no match for me!
You may have survived one shot, but I can sit here and do this all day! Your
time is running very short."
"Dude, shut up. You're a plank. You can shoot as
many unholy beams as you want. As long as you're shooting them at an unholy
target, they won't do any damage. Duh." Rebdok opened his mouth for the standard incoherent retort,
but the man in the crater raised a finger. "And before you bore me
further, note the green ball in the sky. You left it there too long.
Good-bye."
The next instant, the clouds around the battlefield turned green, and acid rain
began to pour from them. Every drop that hit the Gundam
burned away a small part of its exterior, and within seconds the entire mecha was a smoking mass of dripping metal and collapsing
parts. None of Rebdok's controls worked, no weapons
would fire, and once the feet were seared off, the whole thing just collapsed.
The Twilighter quickly ejected from the cockpit and unsummoned
the Gundam, causing the Creation Weapon spoon to
reappear in his hand.
He then turned and laughed at the other man. "You fool! My suit can be
repaired anytime I wish! You got lucky by having one attack that can destroy a
mobile suit, but now you have to beat me, and no move you have can destroy me!
You have yet to see the full extent of my power. You won't live to see another
sunrise!" Rebdok charged.
The man sighed and braced himself for the oncoming demon.
* * *
The red corpse-light flew through the sky, Bifrons
right behind it. It zipped back and forth seemingly randomly, searching for the
signal it had lost. Bifrons sighed. It had been a
long enough day when the thing worked properly, and now it was confused. Not
that anybody could blame the corpse-light for it. There were
enough death, life, good, and evil auras flying around now to dizzy anybody who
didn't live with it.
The light stopped, hovered for a bit, and sank under the cloud cover. Bifrons swore mentally. They were out of sight for a
reason. Below the clouds, they could be spotted by anybody hanging around close
enough to see. But these were her orders, so down she went.
Kyanosa's coffin was in plain sight, sitting on the
top of a large structure. The light ran into the coffin, causing it to glow
red, and Bifrons took a short look around. Right near
the structure, there was an intersection of road, a large circle with a small
garden in the middle. Across one road was a massive white structure that
measured against anything she'd seen in the underworld, and a short distance
away were tall, pointed buildings and a nice, open area. Over a few buildings
in another direction was a very strong, but pleasant aura of death. Not angry
death or vengeful death, however...peaceful death. Despite the noise, the peace
radiated over everything, dampening bad auras and replacing them with peace.
That must be what made the corpse-light confused. The
overwhelming peace of mind.
Bifrons took a deep breath. It was a good place.
She turned and placed her hands on the coffin.
* * *
Rebdok jumped at his opponent and held his scythe in
both hands behind his back, ready to give an overhead slash aimed at the man's
head. However, his scythe was suddenly wrenched from his grip, and he has to
resort to slamming both fists into his adversary's forehead. The latter didn't
even blink. As soon as he landed, Rebdok sprung to
the side, looking for his scythe, and found it in the hands of a skeleton
standing a few feet away.
Rebdok chuckled, and with one jumping kick shattered
the skeleton into tiny bone fragments and recovered his weapon. "You need
these pitiful creatures to fight your battles for you?"
The man blinked. "So speaks the mecha
pilot." Redbok charged again, swinging the
scythe horizontally, but the man summoned another green dragon skull on his
hand and blocked the oncoming blade. Ever-resourceful, Rebdok
ducked under the skull and aimed a hearty kick at the man's knee. Again, the
man didn't flinch. Instead, he tapped Rebdok lightly
on the head with the skull, then pushed him away.
Rebdok fumed, a Twilighter favored class skill.
"Stop hiding behind your shields and fight like a real man."
"So speaks the noseless fellow hiding behind a
stick with a pointy thing."
The demon threw his weapon to the side. "So be it! A pebble has more power
than you! I can rip you apart with my bare hands!" Acting on blind rage, Rebdok rushed his opponent. The man held up both hands and Redbok immediately grabbed them, locking the two fighters
in a vicious game of mercy. Slowly twisting the man's arms out of joint, the
Twilighter grinned sadistically. "Any last words?"
The man smiled, then grinned right back, then laughed.
With a concentrated effort, he doubled the squeeze he was putting on Rebdok's hands. From there, he gradually pulled his arms
back upright, then twisted Rebdok's
in a highly uncomfortable position. As beads of sweat broke out on the Twilighter's face and his arms started screaming for help,
he tried to pull away, but his adversary's near-literal death grip kept him in
place. Suddenly the man thrust his arms to the sides, pulling Rebdok right up to him, and kissed the demon forehead. He
then let go of one hand, brought the other in front of him, placed his foot and
Rebdok's side, and kicked hard. The grip on the hand,
the weakened arms, and the vicious leg thrust all added together were too much
for the poor overpowered Twilighter, and his arm separated totally from his
body.
Rebdok staggered back a few feet, staring unbelievably
at his empty, and quite messy, arm socket. When he finally broke the gaze to
look back at the man who had inflicted the injury, the last thing he saw was
his own arm, held by the perpetrator and coming straight for his head.
* * *
A cliff.
Kaye wasn't sure how she had gotten there, but she stared out over the
landscape. There was a large city settled in the depression of the valley. She
could be back on Earth for all she knew, but she didn't care anymore.
There was a glint of light in the side of her eye as the sun peaked out from
behind one of the clouds that had been covering it. Kaye turned to see a dark
purple stone about the size of her fist laying on the
ground next of her.
She reached down towards it, but stopped when her hand was still a few inches
away. She could feel a dark aura surrounding the jewel. The dark part of her
mind tried to urge her hand forward, to pick up the glittering stone. She
reached into her pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. She laid it over the
stone, and picked it up.
It sparkled at her as she moved it back and forth to catch the light. She tried
to drop it, but found herself instead wrapping it up carefully and placing it
in her pocket.
"Ah good, right on target. Kaye Glenwater?"
Kaye looked up to see a strange woman in black standing next to her.
"Leave me alone."
"Sorry, I didn't come all the way here just to be turned down. You're
supposed to come back with me."
Back? thought
Kaye. She must mean back to the train. I
guess C.R. sent her out for me. "I don't want to go back to the
Spectrum. There's nothing there for me anymore."
"I wasn't planning on taking you there." She replied. "I'm
allowed to give you two options. One, I can take you back to your home on
Earth, or two, you can come with me."
"Three, leave me here."
"That's not a choice, and I don't think you'd want that anyway."
"And how do you know? Because you read Kyanosa's book? Or because somebody who did told you
what to think?" Kaye snapped.
Murmur ignored her first two responses and spoke the third. "How
about if I informed you that you could see Kyanosa
again?"
Kaye's eyes narrowed. "If you are joking..."
"Not right now."
Kaye stood up. "Then let's go."
* * *
Dirk sighed. "You never do anything halfway, do you?"
"Not when I don't have to." The man picked up Rebdok's
head from where it landed. "This goes on my wall."
Dirk extended his scythe. "Need the body?"
"Not immediately."
Dirk kicked the headless, one-armed body of Rebdok
into the air and sliced in two with his scythe. A glint of light caught his
attention, and he started shifting through the demon's innards.
The man looked back at him. "Moonlighting as a biology teacher?"
"Might as well." He pulled a jewel from the remains, holding it in
his gloved hand. "All Twilighters keep these
handy. It would be better that one of us held onto it. Better at least than
anybody else I've met on this trip."
"What's it do?"
"Grants overrated Twilighter powers. But if I know Rebdok,
this could come in handy for me later on down the line. As
long as nobody else gets it. Especially you."
"I'm hurt."
"Yeah, well, you don't need this anyway. Trust me." Dirk pulled out
the spoon and flipped it to the other man. "That, however, you
might."
The man snorted, wound up, and threw the spoon at an upward angle, sending it
sailing beyond the planet's atmosphere and to some long-distant realm. "Or not."
Dirk pocketed the jewel and placed his hands on what was left of Rebdok, setting it on green fire. "Murmur talked to
you about my requests, right?"
"Yes, and I don't wholly approve. But I never have, and whatever you say
usually works out alright in the end. So I've granted it all."
He looked at the Twilighter's pyre, noting that the
corpse was almost totally gone. "Excellent. I'll need all of them for a
few hours, maybe a few days at most. Then everybody's back in your care but
me."
"Just call me if you need anything, alright?"
"Don't I now?"
"Never."
"And it usually works out alright in the end." Dirk and the
remains of Rebdok disappears
in two flashes of green fire.
* * *
One second, Sebastion was standing in Dirk's office,
staring at Josh's body. The next second, everybody teleported
in at once. Murmur, Kaye, Sebastion, Bifrons, Josh's body, Kyanosa's
body, Bune, Kyanosa, Canopus, and Dirk all regarded each other with some
surprise. Then, as if on cue, they started talking.
Kyanosa looked at Kaye. "What are you doing here?
Kaye pointed at Kyanosa, Canopus,
and their body. "Why are there three
of them?"
Bifrons looked at Kyanosa
and Canopus. "Why do we need them both?"
Murmur looked at Bune and Bifrons.
"Why do we need them
both?
Canopus looked at Sebastion.
"Why does anybody need one
of him?"
Sebastion looked at Josh's body. "who is that i havent
seen him before?"
Josh's body, however, said nothing.
Dirk clapped once. "Okay, great, everything's done. Now we can finally go
through with this. Everybody grab hands!"
Once they were all in a circle, Murmur looked up at Dirk. "So why did we
need to do all this?"
"Because." Dirk smiled the biggest smile
he'd had in days. "I have this cunning plan!"
They all disappeared in a flash of green fire.
* * *
What have I done?
What have I done?
How could I be so blind?
All is lost, where was I?
Spoiled all, spoiled all.
Everything's gone all wrong.
What have I done?
What have I done?
Find a deep cave to hide in.
In a million years they'll find me.
Only dust and a plaque
That reads, "Here Lies Poor Old Jack".
But I never intended all this madness, never!
And nobody really understood, how could they?
That all I ever wanted was to bring them something great!
Why does nothing ever turn out like it should?
Well, what the heck, I went and did my best,
And, by God! I really tasted something swell.
And for a moment, why, I even touched the sky!
And at least I left some stories they can tell, I did.
And for the first time since I don't remember when
I felt just like my old bony self again...
Author's Notes: The following characters
are now completely out of TCIS: Kyanosa, Canopus, Dirk, Sebastion, Josh,
and Kaye.