| Phase 46 � I can,� was the snapped reply. � Now yes or no?� If I agreed . . . Do it. � No.� � Shut up, Roni. You don�t have a say.� � I do because Bartholomew told me to watch over her while he was gone! I won�t go back on that!� I looked up at Roni pleadingly. Please, I begged. I have to help him. Please, Roni, please. He looked from me to Lyn, then back at me and sighed. � Your loyalty is as strong as Lyn�s. All right, but I want you to be even more careful than normal.� I smiled. Thank you. I�ll cover for you. � Then it�s a fair trade.� Lyn cast the spell and I soon discovered that it was very uncomfortable to be lying on my back. I rolled to my feet and shook my whole body. � There. Now the healing is still going on, but you should be able to fight and still sustain a little bit of damage without being in serious trouble. When the healing is finished, the spell will automatically wear off and you�ll be human again. But you won�t be able to speak to anyone, mentally or otherwise.� I nodded and jumped into the elevator and poked at the controls with a claw. It started up, stopping at the next floor. I trotted along at a distance-eating pace, my nose to the floor as I followed the familiar scents to the fourth door in the wide circular hall. Entering, I immediately heard a startled voice. � What? A jackal? What�s it doing in here?� � That�s the biggest damn jackal I�ve ever seen. Aren�t they only supposed to be knee height?� I jogged down the hall, stopping and sitting in front of Bart. I woofed quietly and hoped he would understand. It seemed he did. � You know, guys, I think it�s going to help us.� He reached out and ruffled the fur on my head between my horns. � I just get that feeling.� � Don�t say I didn�t warn you when it turns on us,� Fei said. I went to my brother and put my front feet on his chest, then nuzzled his cheek with my wet nose. He pushed me away, but not hard. � Ick. Dog germs.� Returning to Bart, I sat on his left and looked up at him, waiting for a signal or something. He smiled and patted my head, then went for the door at the very end of the hall. Locked. � Ah, damn it!� Fei pointed. � What about that other door?� Bart looked over. � Why not?� He went in and glanced around. � Another scanning room.� Margie stood beside him and the scanner checked their retinas, then processed everything. This time, the door was unlocked. We entered and looked around. � Huh. No generator.� Margie pointed. � Over there?� So we went to the wall where there should have been doors and moved through the darkness cautiously, stopping when we realized that we�d found it. � Doesn�t look very big, does it?� Lyn snorted as she appeared on the walkway in front of the Gear. � Andvari can kick your ass easier than Brigandier can. If you�re going to insult him, scram.� Hearing his missing Gear�s name, Bart blinked. � Hey, wait. It�s not on.� � O~oh, you�re so smart . . .� � Then how can I be sensing its call pattern? And why is it like Brig�s?� � Brigandier is only a less powerful version of this Gear. Merging with the proper Anima Relic produced Andvari. The call pattern . . . Being an Omnigear, Andvari is never truly �off�. He is merely in a state of inactive standby, which means that all the systems are shut down for energy conservation, but his �conciousness� is still active.� � You mean it�s been half awake for five hundred years?!� � Exactly.� � Then why didn�t it try to take over the world?� � As Jesiah said earlier: guns don�t kill people, people kill people. The same rule applies to Gears. I�m sure Andvari would find ruling the world a very interesting idea, but he has no desire to do so. So he waits.� Bart humphed. � Gears can be so boring.� Lyn made a bothered noise and looked over her shoulder at thin air. � . . . I must go.� Once she was gone, we went over to the Gear. � There�s something here. Anybody have a light?� Fei handed over a flashlight and Bart tried to read the inscription at its feet. He frowned. � It�s in old Fatima . . .� He scrutinized the words for a while, then read: �Peace to all those who come here. Fearing great calamity, we sealed this legacy, entrusting it to you.� Once he was finished, the lights came on everywhere and there was a quiet power-up. Margie looked over. � I didn�t know you�d studied old Fatima.� He shook his head and shrugged. � I hadn�t. I just . . . knew it.� He shrugged again and made a �whatever� noise. � Let�s just figure out how to open the skylight so we can get this thing some fresh air.� We left and went straight to what was a bridge of some sort. Bart sat down and began playing with the consols, trying to figure out how to work it. There was rough shaking and I braced all four feet to stay up. Once the trembling had stopped, there was the sound of a lazer being fired. � Oops.� � What did you do?� Fei asked warily. Bart got up and moved to the other half of the bridge consols, shrugging. � I don�t know. Must have pushed a wrong button somewhere.� He played with some more controls. � This place is pretty old. If Lyn knows about it, it must have been sitting here at least five-hundred years. I like to call it Fort Jasper.� � What about the skylight?� Margie pressed. Sometimes it was necessary to keep Bart on track. That lazer firing had not been an accident. He was just showing off its power. � Uh, hang on.� He returned to the side he�d been on. � Well, I don�t know what it is. Might as well start pushing buttons.� He can be so stupid. What if one of them was a self-destruct button? See, Bart doesn�t think of these things, which is why so many people are with him. Not only because he�s their prince or they believe in his ideals, but just to keep him out of trouble in general. I mean, everyone knows the adage taught to little children: �Don�t stick your head in a rankar�s mouth without first making sure it�s dead�. That maxim was written specifically for Bart because not only will he willingly stick his head in a live rankar�s mouth, but he may just climb all the way into its throat if something there catches his interest. You can�t get much more reckless than that. � Very good, Bartholomew. I expected you to come here, but I was surprised when you broke the seal. I must thank you for that.� Bart snarled. � Shakhan! You son of a bitch! That�s the last straw!� He dashed out of the room and I followed on his heels with Fei, Billy, and Margie behind me. We went back to the fourth hall in time to get caught. As they closed in, Margie slipped away and ran for the generator room. � Margie!� � Don�t stand there, you fools!� Shakhan yelled. � Get her!� I leapt up and over the heads of the sentries around us and bolted straight for Shakhan, jumping into the air and aiming for his throat. His personal guards lifted their guns. I had no time to twist to the side, though I tried. One bullet struck me in the chest, one collided with my right front leg, and the other hit me in the right rear leg and I let out a loud yelp. My direction changed and I made a complete circle even as the healing form faded and left me human. I hit the floor and bounced and rolled helplessly. Everyone was surprised, to say the least. � Kris?!� Bart, Fei, and Billy chorused. Shakhan was amazed. � What kind of sorcery is this?� I struggled to get up, but with an arm and a leg shot, I wasn�t exactly in the best of conditions. I repeatedly flopped back to the floor and just as one of the guards was preparing to kick me, an invisible force knocked him away. Roni slowly phazed into being over me, glaring around at the others. � Anybody else want to try that?� Several other guards took him up on his supposed bluff. He pounded them all and even deflected the shots they fired with quick snaps of the whips he carried. Once they�d backed down, he said, � Is that really all you people have? Man, I�ve fought toddlers that were stronger.� I tried to get up for what was probably the twentieth time when he knelt beside me and held me down with one hand. � No, Kris. Don�t move. You�ll just make the injuries worse. Lie still.� Bart looked ready to break bad on the guards, but was stopped by a familiar voice. � That�s as far as you go, Shakhan!� I looked back down the hall, recognizing the two figures right away. � Sig! Citan!� Shakhan, for some reason, decided that it would be a good idea to turn tail and run. He did exactly that. Bart fell hard on the floor beside me. � Kris?!� He gently picked me up and hugged me. � Oh, why did you do that? Why?� I let out a harsh breath and took in another. � I wanted to help you.� His eyes started to get watery and he nuzzled into my hair. � You can be so stupid . . .� His voice broke and he didn�t try to cover it up. He sounded half traumatized. Sig came over and stroked my back as he spoke to Bart, proving that he wasn�t ignoring me. � Young Master . . .� � Yes, I know.� Bart picked me up and handed me over to Sig, acting as if I was fine porcelain. He ran to the door. � Damn! Locked again!� He rushed to the scanning room, stopping in front of the scanner and letting out more curses. � It has to be two people!� I felt a nervous shudder run through Sig right before he went to stand beside Bart for the scan. It came out positive and Bart and I looked at him. � . . . How?� � No time,� was Sig�s nearly snapped reply. � Hurry!� They disappeared out the door and a moment later I heard the other door slid open. Sig looked down at me and sighed heavily, allowing another nervous shudder to go through him. I blinked. � How did you do that?� He shook his head. � A story for another time, Kris.� I saw how uncomfortable a subject it was and though I normally would have pestered him about it, I let it drop this time and just tucked my head into his side as I was prone to doing when I felt weak. He went out to stand by the door that led to Andvari just as an explosion shook the hall. � Uh oh . . .� However, he didn�t do anything. Citan came over and began assessing the damage done by the bullets. I yelped and whimpered as he did his impromptu examination (then again, he might�ve just been trying to find them; my clothes automatically fix themselves when I�m attacked and it sometimes makes it hard to find injuries). Then I sensed trouble and flipped out of Sig�s arms. I ducked and skittered into the next room, avoiding any panicked grabs for my vest or pants. I found the energy to run and the strength to stay on my feet and dashed for Andvari�s private little bay. Unfortunately, I wasn�t looking where I was going and one of Shakhan�s guards shot my left leg, sending me down over the incline into the pathway. � Get her. We�ll take one of them to kill as an example.� Bart wasn�t going to let that go. Andvari stood menacingly and glared down at Shakhan and his men. They turned to run, catching me and taking me with them. I would have fought, but I hurt all over now. Pain was part of my bloodstream or something. Bart let out an enraged roar and Andvari came blasting out of his bay into the generator room. There was obviously no way to escape and survive. For Shakhan, I mean. Andvari, sleeping for five hundred years, had been awakened. I could easily tell that Bart�s thoughts and emotions transmitted themselves to the Omnigear. The �tiny� Omnigear was now aware of what was going on and not only had this puny Shakhan taken over his country, but the moron had also taken his pilot�s love. Omnigears, Lyn had told me, are very sensitive to their pilot�s feelings and thoughts. One basic emotion could send it into a killing frenzy. Shakhan had made his biggest, and final, mistake. Andvari was out for blood. Out in the outer area of the bay I was set down and left alone, presumably because I would lie there and not move. Boy are they wrong. <--Phase 45 Phase 47--> |