Chapter 23: Twisted Fate
Dominos POV
“I’m reading a reduction in speed on the Hildagarde V,” said Eryan “I think he’s about to change course.”
I looked up, ahead of us, the Hildagarde V, now just a speck on the horizon seemed to be getting larger, something bothered me in the back of my mind, something wasn’t right. Fury was almost home, safe and sound and suddenly he was stopping…what was he doing?
“All ships come to full alert, prepare to open fire.” Ordered Cid from the Vigilance.
My eyes went wide in alarm.
“Zidane we can’t…!”
Zidane turned around and put his finger to his lips.
“Domino, we may have no choice…but we’ll try to disable the ship first.”
I sat back, faced with the prospect of losing my husband yet again.
No, I forced myself to rethink He’s not your husband…you lost the man you loved in that fireball…hell, BEFORE that fireball.
“Be careful Zidane, remember Thunderchild rewrote the book on airship tactics…why do you think Cid promoted him to captain of the Hildagarde so quickly?”
Zidane nodded but said nothing.
“She’s coming about sir!” warned Eryan suddenly.
“Full power to the starboard engine, port engine full reverse, starboard ailerons down by 15%, port ailerons up by the same.”
“Ailerons…what the?” Rhiana asked, staring at her station in complete confusion.
Sighing I stalked over to her side and pointed at the aileron control station.
“That knob turn right full.” I said
She nodded and carried out my orders, I returned to the ships wheel and swung it hard to my left.
“Hold on to something!” I warned as the Hildagarde entered an extremely steep turn to port, within seconds the Lindblum fleet was in view in front of us and I turned around to issue new orders.
“Ok, full power to both engines, ailerons at normal…Lawrence bring us to battle stations.”
Lawrence nodded, confused but obedient.
If only he was like this all the time I thought
“My god that was a steep turn!” remarked Eryan as the Hildagarde V suddenly swung 180 degrees and headed straight for us.
“What’s the man doing?! This is a suicide run!!” shouted Zidane
I still sensed danger, something niggling at the back of my mind.
“Something’s wrong here Zidane…very wrong.” I warned
I focused my telepathic powers and sought out Ilvian.
<Ilvian?>
<I am here.>
<Are you in position?> I asked, if he wasn’t this would be the shortest battle in history, looking ahead I was staring down the barrels of at least fifty cannons which would shred this ship in a matter of minutes.
<Yes.>
<Excellent…begin your run.> I commanded, feeling something different as I gave the order…almost as though someone was listening into my thoughts, I suspected that damn genome…but there was nothing she could do now…there was nothing any of them could do.
I walked forward to the front of the bridge and felt the wind smash into my body, it was an exhilarating experience.
“Rhiana increase power to the engines!” I said, wishing to crank every last drop of power out of this airship.
“We’re already running at 110%!” she warned
“Then get me 115!!” I shouted
She frowned but said no more, I could feel the ship surge forward beneath me, the strength of the wind almost knocking me off my feet.
“Faster! Faaaaaaster!!!”
<Excellent…begin your run.> echoed a voice in my head, I knew only too well just whose voice it was.
“It’s an ambush!!” I quickly warned, Zidane snapped his head around to me quickly, disbelief in his eyes.
“You’re sure?” He asked
“Now, turn back now dammit…we’re flying straight into an ambush!!”
“Hildagarde V closing extremely fast sir!” warned Eyran as the Hildagarde V grew larger and larger in front of us.
“Stand by all cannons!” ordered Zidane, in front of us I could see the two large cannon mounts swivel around and aim at the Hildagarde V.
A green beam of light flew out of the clouds behind the Hildagarde V and struck the airship next to us, burning a hole straight through it, in the next shot it was gone, exploding in a bright fireball which plummeted out of the sky.
“What the hell!?” asked Nagy
I could only watch in horror as I realised what was happening, Fury had this planned down to a T.
T for Thunderchild…
A motley collection of airships emerged from the low level cloud around the Hildagarde and took formation behind her, the airships ranged from cargo ships, to old Mist freighters and there was even an old Lindblum battleship in there. In an ordinary situation this fleet would have been wiped out in a standard ship vs ship battle…but Fury knew this and he had upped the ante.
These ships had been outfitted with particle cannons, weapons of the Terran army, weapons that simply outperformed Gaian weapons by centuries.
“They don’t stand a chance…” I muttered with an evil smile on my face.
Rhiana and Lawrence gasped behind me as ship after ship of the Lindblum fleet exploded into flame and sank out of sight.
“My god…it’s a massacre.” Muttered Lawrence
“And you’d know all about them wouldn’t you Lawrence?” I said with a sharp edge to my voice, Lawrence shot me a look and returned his gaze to the viewscreen where another Lindblum ship burst into flames, its engines dropping off before the entire hull of the ship splintered and fell apart, plummeting out of sight.
<Hold your fire on the Hildagarde…she’s mine.> I thought to Ilvian.
I left the bridge, the sound of exploding ships and the firing of particle cannons echoing in my ears. Walking briskly on the top of the ship I looked up and to my right to see one of the enhanced airships open up with its cannons, the green blast flashing through the sky before impacting on an airship out of view behind me.
I walked into the weapons control ball and swivelled the cannons around to face in front of the ship, then I picked up the communication tube for the bridge.
“Rhiana, set both ailerons to –20%, dive us underneath the Hildagarde III” I yelled before bracing myself for the rapid descent.
Suddenly the deck lurched forward underneath me, I rolled forward slightly but quickly steadied myself and got ready as the underside of the Hildagarde III appeared before me…carefully lining up the shot I squeezed the trigger and was temporarily deafened as all of the ships cannons opened fire, before being rewarded with a heavy explosion on the underside of the older airship, the fiery debris from it falling around me.
“Hit!!” I snarled with a smile of victory as the Hildagarde III began to emit heavy amounts of smoke and slowly fall out of the sky.
The Hildagarde buckled under my feet, throwing me to the floor despite my advanced agility, we then entered a steep nosedive which slid me across the floor towards the front of the bridge, I grabbed onto a chair which had been secured to the floor and hung on for dear life.
“We’re losing altitude!!” warned Nagy as he bent over the limp body of Eryan, I could see Xola and Kitiara holding onto the side of the map table and Zidane steadied himself at the front of the bridge.
“Sound collision alarms…we’re going down!!” he yelled
Barely audiable over the death throes of the Hildagarde, several sirens began to wail as we fell towards the ground at a rapid rate.
“Helmsman, pull us up…we’ll all die if we hit the ground like this!” yelled Nagy as he took command of the situation.
I saw the Hildagarde slide into the ground, it had managed to pull up at the last minute and so the damage wasn’t as high as I had hoped, but it was still completely out of action.
“Excellent,” I muttered as I walked from the gunnery station to the bridge “They know the meaning of fear…and I shall show them what it means to be terrified.”
As I walked onto the bridge I could see the Lindblum fleet retreating, disorganised, in chaos, I smiled…fear fed on chaos and I grew strong on fear.
“The Lindblum fleet is retreating, shall we pursue?” asked Rhiana from the helm.
I shook my head
“No…we’ve shown them our power, let those soldiers live…let them return home with fear in their hearts and let them pass on that fear to the entire Mist Continent!!!”
I chuckled and indicated the burning wreck of the Hildagarde III
“No…we shall take some prisoners back with us to Oeilvert.”
Rhiana looked confused
“Prisoners? Are you serious? We haven’t got the genomes to guard them!”
I shrugged
“I don’t think they’ll put up much of a fight if they’re unconscious, do you?”
I held out my particle rifle and indicated a small switch on the underside
“Stun or kill…I suggest you use Stun, I want them alive…not dead…yet. Come child, let us depart.” I said with a sly smile
We walked from the bridge to the outside deck where our ship had docked alongside the stricken Hildagarde III, I smiled watching the flames eat away at the crashed battleship. Another threat neutralised.
This is too easy I thought to myself
Looking up at a nearby rope I slung my particle rifle across my shoulder and grabbed the dangling rope, swinging effortlessly across from one ship to the other I dropped to the deck and swung the rope across for Rhiana and her fellow genome team.
Once they were across we made our way down to where I knew the bridge to be, and where I knew I would see her again.
Standing up rather unsteadily I accessed the situation.
The bridge was damaged beyond any form of repair, broken timbers lay scattered across the deck which itself lay at a strange angle, I saw a Lindblum crewman lying dead on the ships wheel, a wooden splinter poking through his back. Above all of the stimulation that assaulted my senses was the smell and sound of fire. Immediately I knew I had to get the survivors out before the fire reached the bridge and consumed us.
“Anyone awake?” I asked
A groan from the far corner indicated Domino was still alive, and Nagy sat up too quickly nearby and nearly passed out again.
I looked around some more, Kitiara had been flung into the wall and now lay crumpled in a heap at the base of it, her leg at an odd angle and blood trickling from her mouth, but I saw her chest rise and fall indicating that she was still alive.
Xola had fared better than her friend, she was beginning to stand up now, a gashed forehead making her continually wipe her face to keep the blood out of her eyes.
I wondered what it was like for a vampyre to be losing blood, perhaps it was like being sick?
I heard footsteps echoing down the corridor leading to the bridge, assuming it was more survivors from the crew I made my way to the door, when I finally wrenched the broken door open, knocking it off its hinges in the process I came face to face with the business end of a Terran weapon of some sort, I didn’t know the precise type but everything about it suggested that whatever its type it was just as likely to blow my head off if I made the wrong moves.
Slowly I put my hands up and backed away, taking the opportunity to study the genome behind the weapon, she was a silver type like Kuja…
In all the chaos and confusion I had forgotten about my silver type brother, looking frantically around I couldn’t see him anywhere in the debris around us. Deciding not to betray him should he be hiding from these aggressors I didn’t ask for him out loud but returned my gaze to the genome.
“You don’t have to do this…” I said to her “We are all brothers and sisters here…”
“You will be silent or you will die.” Warned the silver genome, I backed away some more.
“Would you at least tell me your name…your designation?” I ventured
She glared at me and said nothing as more genomes arrived on the bridge, some of them silver types but the majority gold. I supposed that the gold types were from Black Mage Village but I didn’t know where the silver ones were from…they looked familiar.
They fanned out around the door, weapons held ready. I saw Nagy and Domino stand up, Nagy helping Domino to her feet, she winced as she placed her left leg on the floor and her tail looked like it was broken. Nagy on the other hand seemed to have fared the best out of all of us, taking only a few cuts and bruises here and there.
Another set of footsteps echoed along the corridor and Fury entered the room. It was the first time I had seen Fury without his mask and I couldn’t help but betray my shock at seeing someone who had been one of my closest friends since his arrival on Gaia, standing in front of us as evil as they came.
He took a good long look around the bridge and then started laughing.
“What a pathetic bunch of worthless idiots you look.” I snarled, enjoying the moment of victory, reminding myself that by the end of the day there would be much to smile about.
“Thunderchild…?” hissed Zidane, he looked shocked to see me, and I chuckled at his reaction.
“Zidane…the genome reject, and where is your useless brother?” I asked, noticing Kuja’s absence.
“In Lindblum…he didn’t come with us.” Said Domino quickly, I could tell she was lying by Zidanes reaction but it didn’t concern me, from what I knew Kuja knew nothing of his past and a confused and lost genome was no threat to me. Perhaps, should I have the opportunity, he could be brought into the fold like his brethren or perhaps I could have him hunted down and killed. I decided to leave that decision until later.
“We are probably better off without him anyway,” I said, turning to my silver haired genome colleague “Rhiana, take them prisoner.”
Rhiana and the rest of the genomes moved forwards with the restrainers, Zidane didn’t put up a fight, neither did Xola or Nagy, I suspected they were too stunned to grasp what was happening to them.
Domino, as usual, was a different story, as Rhiana moved towards her, she bared her teeth and lunged at the genome with a guttural snarl. Rhiana quickly brought her rifle up and shot Domino mid lunge, conscious but paralysed Domino carried on her lunge but missed Rhiana and fell heavily to the floor.
“Your resistance is amusing but futile…from now on, you all serve me…if you behave, then I may go easy on you…if, however, you don’t behave then you will learn a whole new aspect of fear.”
With that warning hopefully ringing in their ears, I ordered our prisoners to be taken back to the Hildagarde V, as the genomes picked up the unconscious form of Kitiara, I ordered them to take her to my cabin on the airship, I had a plan for her.
I paced angrily around the prison cell I shared with Zidane, Nagy and Xola had been put in another cell and I didn’t see where they had taken Kitiara.
“Why did you lie about Kuja?” he asked
“Because I didn’t want Fury to start looking for him…he was probably…hopefully, thrown clear during the crash and while he is out there…we have hope.”
The whole ship trembled and the engines changed from a quiet background rumble to a louder roar.
“We’ve taken off…heading for Oeilvert I presume.” Muttered Zidane as he swung his legs off the bed he had been lying on. I sniffed and continued pacing, feeling very confined in this small cell. When Fury had locked us in here he had warned against using any magic because of a confinement field he had erected around the room which would amplify the magic and return it to its user, I had used the opportunity to perform Curaga on the door which promptly reflected the spell back at me and reduced the pain in my foot and tail.
“What do you think he’ll make us do?” asked Zidane, I stamped my foot, inwardly cursing as I realised I had stamped the wrong foot and only rewarded myself with a sharp stabbing pain up the inside of my leg.
“I don’t know Zidane and quite frankly I don’t care!!” I shouted at him, my temper at full peak.
He sighed and leaned back, infuriating me more, how could he be so calm, how could he remain so collected…we were captured, imprisoned, slaves almost! To a mad man who seemed gratified with destruction, and it still hurt, the emotional pain was still raw that that man was my husband…my husband, the same man who had given me so much and who was now threatening to take it all away.
“Look at you,” I yelled at Zidane “So calm and unshakable…listen to me Zidane, we are prisoners!!!”
“I know…but what can we do about it…there is no window in this room, that little lamp provides us with all the light we’ve got…the door is bolted securely shut from the outside and there is a magic repulsion field around the room…what else is there to do but wait?”
I sighed and turned away, then I remembered my teleportation powers.
“Zidane…perhaps I can teleport!” I quickly said and focusing my mental powers I prepared to teleport outside the door…hoping not to teleport into something solid.
“Domino! No, don’t…” cried Zidane but his voice was drained out as I entered the white void of teleportation, the world around me faded away, I was able to see faint outlines of objects around me, the walls, the bed, the door, enough for me to orientate myself. I ran forward at the door, I began to pass through it but then I felt myself rapidly coming out of the teleportation world, jerking my whole body back before I could materialise inside the door I returned to normal space staring at the wooden frame of the door which I had so nearly entwined myself with.
“…teleport.” Finished Zidane uselessly.
I sighed and kicked out at the door, creating another protest of pain in my injured foot as I failed to control my temper.
“DAMMIT!!” I shouted, losing control over my rage there and then and kicking out at everything I could see, the door, the walls, the chair, the bed and then when I was exhausted and everything began to ache again I collapsed into Zidanes arms, sobbing like a little girl.
Emerging from the shadows of darkness I opened my eyes carefully, the last thing I could remember was the airship plummeting towards the ground. There had been a violent impact, everyone had been thrown around, I had fallen backwards into darkness.
Looking around I could grasp I was in a small but lavishly furnished room, there was a window but red curtains were drawn across it. The only light came from a bright lamp which was above the small bed I lay on, around me were shadows, and here was I in a small circle of light in the middle of the room.
“Do not be scared.” Said a voice in the shadows
“I’m not scared…” I lied as I began to sit up and take a proper look around me, the edges of my vision were blurry and my joints ached as though I had been in a deep sleep for a long time.
“Perhaps you are, perhaps you are not…that does not matter.”
I tried looking for the source of the voice but failed to find him.
“Then what does matter?” I asked, looking down I saw that my clothes had been changed, instead of my usual black leather I was wearing a thin black gown with lace on the arms and skirt bottom. I felt very vulnerable.
“You.”
He walked out of the shadows right in front of me, one moment there was nothing but darkness the next a tall brown haired man wearing black and dark red clothing.
“Thunderchild…?” I whispered, it was the first time I had seen him in ages, since before the Jara Gedyen debacle in Ankh-Morpork, during which time I had been hunting in the Uberwald villages. He had changed so much, he seemed older now, more secure.
“If you like…I prefer the name Fury now…but if you insist on keeping to outdated traditions…then, Thunderchild it is.”
I shook my head
“But this is wrong…you’re evil now…”
He held up a hand to interrupt me, then with a smile he corrected my presumptions.
“Evil is in the eye of the beholder Kitiara…you should know that. I simply wish to bring order to chaos, the only way I can do that is to control chaos so I bring my own order to it.”
I frowned
“Control chaos? What do you mean?”
He shook his head
“What I mean does not matter, this is you we are talking about…Kitiara, I am offering you something very precious.”
I raised a sceptical eyebrow but let him continue, he sat on the edge of the bed and offered a hand to me.
“Join me Kitiara, join me and bring your own particular form of order to the chaos around us and in doing so awaken the power I can see sleeping within you.”
I stared at him for a moment, the offer was tempting…very tempting, the lust for power which fuelled me was drawn towards him like a moth towards a burning candle. As my hand reached out to join his I felt a small jolt of power within me, as though, like he had said, a hidden power within me had awoken. Drawing slightly closer to him, I could feel the uncontrollable power in him, it was intoxicating, exhilarating.
“I accept your proposal.”