title: escape from the nachtmer
authors: emily, teri, stana, ian
Date: Sun, 20 Jun 1999 11:11:47 EDT
***
The castle shuddered again, rumbling. Cumul snarled. The theif had
fallen
on top of the book, Estela just to his side. Cumul leapt away before
Clip
could impale him as well.

No one noticed the remains of Cirrus slowly pulling together under the
think carpet of mist.

* * *

Shinji looked at the growing carnage from within the flickering shield
around
him, and smirked. The shield flickered longer this time. He waited, his
eyes drifting shut. It reformed for a second, then dissolved again. His
eyes
opened. The shield reformed. Now.

His hand came up into a fist, black fire dancing across his forearm and
focusing into his clenched fist. The shield shuddered, trying to
compensate
for the sudden rise in energy. Shinji pulled back and hit the
shieldwith
all the force he could muster. It broke apart like mirror, fragments
raining
down onto the ground around him before dissipating, their magic spent.
His
feet touched the stone ground, and the fortress gave another lurching
groan,
debris falling from the darkness-veiled ceiling. Now free of the
prison, the
battle song was even stronger, as was another feeling, something that
was at
once repulsing and alluring. Death. Death was in this place, spilled
upon the
floor and adrift in the minds of its visitors,
human and non-human alike. The Other closed his eyes and relished it.

"Can you feel that, boy?" It asked Shinji. "Can you hear it?"

Shinji would have scoffed, would have spat in it's face and then
attacked
without mercy, but he didn't. He -did- feel it; it was tugging at his
soul. It's promise was glorious battle, it's call was the battle cries
of
desperate warriors. For a moment he wasn't in the fortress, wasn't in
this
nightmare. He was upon a wide field, surrounded by fierce shouting and
the
clashing of metal against metal. There was the sound of creaking gears,
the
hum of
machinery, and the stench of magic. He opened his eyes, and found that
he
wasn't
on the battlefield at all; he was above it. Below him shapes fought and
fell, the dusk kicked up from their battle obscuring their true forms.
Then
he noticed there were other things here, and the sound of battle was
drowned out by the beating of wings...and then he was back in the
nightmare,
still trapped in his conciousness while another controlled his actions.

"Yes, the call of battle is strong here," the Other nodded, "But it is
not
our battle, and these are not out enemies."

"Those are my friends!" Shinji exclaimed angrily, "I can't abandon
them!"

"Precisely," the Other sneered, "They are YOUR friends, and I can
sympathise
with your desire to stand by them, but they are also human," that last
word
was dripping with hate, "and meddling with them, for good or ill, will
only
get you killed." With that, Shinji felt them beggining to walk again,
heading
towards the door. The fortress shuddered again, the crumbling plaster
and
chunks of marble falling in a fine mist. Shinji was trying to pull
back,
trying someway to keep them here, to fight
someway, but  it was like trying to stop a storm . "Quit arguing,
you're
better off
without--" Suddenly he stopped, his words getting cut off in
mid-speech. He
saw something, and through his eyes, Shinji saw it too. What he saw was
this.

Estela tackling the thief, the book skidding from her grasp. The
elemental rose face to face with something completely horrible. He
watched as
it
ripped the wings off her back. He heard her scream, and saw her fall.
He saw
the blood. He saw the feathers. He saw the feathers. The feathers
turning
crimson with the blood. No more. No more. It was happening again. He
was
oblivious to the hammer beat of his heart, oblivious to the throb at
his
temples, and oblivious to the
clenching of his hands into tight balls of rage.

"STOP!!!" Shinji and the Other screamed. Suddenly their minds were as
one,
pulled together by an anger that seemed as old as the world itself. The
wall
that had kept them seperated was crushed. They were one, and each's
anger was
amplified by the other. "Stop it NOW!"

Teri moaned and clutched her head as the very ether of the place
trembled at
the blast of rage, tearing at her senses. Stana roused, shaking her
head in
bewilderment. Cumul looked up, blood still dripping from his claws.
Shinji's
eyes
locked with his, and for a brief moment thunderous silence seemed to
fill the
fortress. Then Shinji screamed and rushed towards Cumul. Flying might
have been a better description, because Shinji couldn't recall feeling
his
feet ever touching the floor. At the speed he was going, he was amazed
when
he was able to crouch below the arch of Cumul's claws. The reptilian
creature
let out a pained gasp as Shinji leapt up and drove his knee into it's
midsection, the air forced painfully out of it in a brief whoosh. Cumul

staggered back, his hand clutching his chest.

"You, you would dare..." the creature hissed, feral eyes gaping. Cumul
stood
a full foot taller than Shinji, and the boy was drowned out by the
creature's
monstrous shadow. Not even pausing to answer, Shinji charged again, his
brow furrowed and face set in stone. Two punches, both to the same area
he had hit before, followed by a swift roundhouse kick that sent
Cumul's
head snapping to the side, blood and spittle flying from his clashing
jaws.
The Nachtmer monster roared furiously, blood from gums shorn on his own
teeth dribbling down his jaw, and began to stalk towards his opponent,
hands
and claws flexing. He swung his right arm in a deadly arch, and Shinji
backpeddaled to dodge the blow. Cumul's left arm thrust forward, claws
extended. Shinji sidestepped, but winced as the claws dug through his
suit and gashed the skin beneath. He filled once, landing several feet
away.
He readied for another attack, but then he noticed Cumul was smiling.

"Boy," Cumul began, "You aren't the first who has dared to attack me,
but
you are the first one to have angered me this much. I would have been
so
pleased to have ripped you to shreds with my own hands, but it seems I
won't have to."

"What are you babbling about?" demanded Shinji. His chest wound had
begun
to burn dully.

"My claws," Cumul raised his left hand, showing off the blood, Shinji's
blood, that coated them, "are laced with poison." His grin was huge and
terrible. Shinji's eyes widened slightly. The burn had increased.
Things were beggining to lose destinction, he noted. Blinking did
nothing to
restore it. He knew that if he removed his suit, he'd see red lines
slowly spreading out from the wound, until they reached his heart. And
from
the place the wound was, he knew that wouldn't be a very far journey.

Suddenly, the ground beneath him luched and surged up. Shinji barely
contained a scram of pain as the liquid-like mass consticted around
him,
tightening like a boa around it's prey. He turned his head and saw
another
figure standing behind him. The stuff that was binding him was
seemingly
flowing out of this other creature, like the spudopod of an amoeba.
Damn it,
he cursed agrily. Cumul's talk had been a distraction to let this one
get
close, and now the pain in his chest had grown into a crimson throb.
Rivulets of blood were dilluting into the body that wrapped around him
as if he were in water. Cirrus chuckled throatily.

"This one will make a good meal," he gurgled, his dull eyes rolling
madly
wide. The two began to converge. Suddenly Cirrus's extention was sliced

through, dropping Shinji to the floor. He struggled to stand, but he
felt
dizzy, dissoriented. He
cluthced  his head and turned to see the attacker. Teri was clutching
Estela's
sword  with weak and shaky wrists, the remains of Cirrus's "arm"
sinking
slowly into the floor.

"Get the fuck away from him," she snarled, the red heat of her
indignant
anger rippling the air around her. These creatured dared, DARED touch
him!?

"Teri..." Shinji muttered, trying his best to resist the urge to fall
to
the floor.  Cirrus retracted what remained of his arm, and launched
himself at Teri. She parried his attack, but the move was unpracticed,
and she
was left in a no position to counter attack. Cirrus hurled a glob of
viscous material at her, which she sidestepped with not much
difficulty. Her
eyes  widened in shock as the glob began to sizzle upon hitting the
floor,
acrid  smoke rising up in waves. However, when she had moved, she
landed in
Cumul's attack range. She heard the snarl, turned, and saw the claw
racing
towards  her. Two seconds, she figured. In two seconds those things
will rip
into me and it'll be all over. She felt something slam into her, and
for a
brief moment she thought herself dead. Then she noticed that the
sensation of
pain she should have felt was instead something foreignly akin to
weightlesness.

She allowed her eyes to crack open. She found herself self being
carried by a
form in a black and blue harlequinn suit.

"Shinji...?" she muttered. Then they were on the ground, and he lowered
her down. He turned to go, muscles tensed against the two waiting,
hunched
figures. He looked back-- she thought his look was to say, "I'm
sorry..."  Then he ran towards the two Nachtmer creatures.

"We have him, Cirrus!" Cumul rapsed victoriously. Shinji reached them,
ducked
under Cumul's claws and dodged Cirrus's acid, then running past them
towards
the wall. Cirrus and Cumul frowned, confused, before they saw his hand
flare,
saw his leap into the air, and suddenly realized his intention. They
both let
off yells of suprise and turned to flee, but they were too late. Shinji

punched the wall, which cracked and split. A section of stone fell
inwards,
burrying the two monsters in the rubble and leaving a large, gaping
hole in
the wall.

"Come on! We have to go!" Shinji called to the others. The fortress,
now
lacking support, began to shift and tumble. Stana scooped the book from
the floor, where the loose fingers of the thief had dropped it while
tackled.

Then Teri and Stana lifted Estela onto Clip's back, and they began to
run towards the exit, rocks raining on their heads. Abruptly Stana
tripped
on a large outcropping as they climed over the rubble, and the Book of
the Prophecy fell from her grasp. Ignoring the pain in her slashed
knee,
she reached for the book, and then screamed as a large, clawed hand
erupted from the rubble and grabbed the back cover.

"No...escape...!" Cumul rasped, his crimson eyes flashing from beneath
the
pile of stone.

 Stana grabbed the other cover and pulled hard.

"NO!" she screamed, and pulled as hard as she could, straining
backwards against the rubble strewn hall. The book gave a ripping
sound, the old skin of the leather-bound cover splitting, and suddenly
there was slack, sending Stana stumbling once again. She looked down at
the
torn
part in her hand, and then to the final sections, clutched in Cumul's
claws.

"Stana, the whole place is coming down!" Teri shouted over the roar of
the fortress. She grabbed Stana's hand and hauled her to her feet.

"But the book-" the irony of the words escaped her. She should have
cared less about the mission. But she did.

"Fuck the book, let's go!" Teri interupted, pulling Stana to scale the
remains of the pile towards the light of the hole. As they cleared the
edge,
the fortress gave a final groan before it all came crashing down. The
sound
was like thuder, or an earthquake, and as the stone came down, it sent
out clouds of dust that blinded the survivors. The sound carried for
innumerable miles, as if the very Aethyr itself was giving forth a
grief
filled
wail.

The small, wounded group coughed fitfully at the dust, made thicker by
the heavy fog already in the air. Estela was slumped, bleeding, on
Clip's
back- the unicorn pranced nervously. Teri looked up from where she was
crouched, trying to calm the racing of her heart, and saw Stana,
unmoving,
clutching the torn book to her chest and staring silently at the
remaining
rubble
of the fortress. Her mouth formed a sigle word. *Ramdek* Teri was about
to
speak when the air swirled around her, the dark of the Nachtmer growing
into
a brilliant white-- she felt a sudden impact knocking all breath from
her and
her distant cry of Stana's name--

Snapping her eyes open, she saw the form in palace livery bending over
her.
Closing her eyes again, overwhelmed with relief, she surrendered
herself to
the ministrations of the servants. They were out of the Aethyr.