by C. S. Cooper
“Don’t they know those won’t kill homunculi?” exclaimed Eriol.
“There aren’t any more Kakugane available!” replied Astrid. She thrust the Silver Key box into Eriol’s arms and raced forward. The surviving officers saw her advance and cheered desperately, alerting the homunculi to her presence. The one nearest the cowering group, having taken the shape of a wolf, snarled and galloped to meet her. It lunged, and tilted its head to ensnare her in its open jaws. Astrid slipped onto her backside, and slid under the beast. With her blades outstretched either side, she sliced through the homunculus’ legs, leaving the creature to hobble on four stumps. It leaked black blood from its stump legs as Astrid skidded to a halt, and then leapt back over the monster and stabbed it through the head.
Amid the battle, Eriol leaned toward Nathan and muttered, “God, I miss watching this.”
“Too right,” replied Nathan.
Astrid turned and charged the other homunculus. The hulking mass of vines resembled a metal Venus flytrap, whose wide jaws clapped together as it snared one of the unarmed officers. The vines constricted the man, constraining his flailing arms as they brought him near the creature’s gaping mouth. Astrid sliced through the vines, and then launched herself onto the creature. She hacked and slashed until the wailing being was no more.
Eriol and Nathan moved into the hangar toward Astrid and the other technicians. It was then that Sakura started to stir, and realised she was clinging to Nathan’s back.
“You can put me down,” she mumbled. Nathan released her, and Eriol handed her the Silver Key box after checking her condition. She yawned, “Was just tired. It felt almost like changing a Clow Card.”
Eriol eyed Nathan and said, “It’s a lot worse than that. Keep the Silver Key close, and get ready to use your magic.”
Sakura’s eyes darted around the hangar, and noticed the decaying homunculus nearby. Everyone else was still on high alert. Sakura activated her Star Wand reluctantly, and resonated with the Cards in her pocket. They stood at the ready, and she gazed toward the entrances.
“How many more hostiles?” Astrid asked a nearby officer.
“Two came into the hangar,” said the officer. “We’re getting word of more from else where in HQ. They have micro incubators for homunculi embryos.”
“Moonface must’ve swallowed them before getting captured,” Eriol concluded.
“The bastard planned this,” snarled Astrid. She glanced at Nathan. “You able to fight.”
“I doubt it,” said Nathan. “I don’t think I’m centred enough to activate my Arms Alchemy without going Victor.”
“Going what?” asked Sakura.
“I’ll explain later,” said Nathan.
Astrid turned to the officer. “Any transports able to fly?”
“Them beasts smashed the engines of every plane we got,” said the officer.
“Shit!” bellowed Astrid.
Suddenly, the wall of the hangar exploded. Debris and rubble rained down upon the small group. Sakura quickly cast out the Guard Card, and the shrapnel harmlessly dinged against her shield. She then cast out Gale to clear away the smoke, which earned her a round of applause from the smartly-dressed figure standing in the middle of the destruction.
“Moon! Such marvellous magic, Madame!” exclaimed Moonface. He held out his hand and beckoned. “Relinquish the riches!” Sakura gripped the Silver Key box tightly. She raised her wand with a hostile expression. Moonface sighed with disappointment. “Oh well, I’ll come and coerce you then.”
Eriol held up his wand and shot a beam of energy straight through the homunculus. The smiling creature promptly vanished in a puff of smoke. Before anyone could relax, another Moonface emerged from the hole in the wall. This one had a different shaped head.
“Moonface has an Arms Alchemy!” yelled Astrid. “Everyone, fall back.”
The group started to move away, as Moonface advanced. More emerged from the hole, some of them splitting into more Moonface copies. The different phases on the copies’ heads grinned wider and wider, as they drew nearer to the group.
“Can you kill us all in one go, Scotsman?” chuckled the Moonfaces in unison.
Eriol’s eyes darted between the encroaching army of clones. Sakura’s wand shuddered in her hands, while Astrid growled with frustration and mounting fear. Nathan rubbed his chest, making the unarmed technicians nearby even more nervous.
The group heard footfalls to the left, and glanced over. They saw a female Regiment officer charging from one of the hangar entrances. She was alone.
Warrior Peterson, thought Astrid, recognising the woman as the sole survivor of Moonface and Shaula’s first attack. But the woman seemed almost delighted.
Astrid glanced at the Moonface army, who giggled. A horrific realisation set in.
“Everybody watch out!” Astrid yelled.
It was too late. Warrior Peterson leapt into the air, and her body contorted and split at the seams. A mass of metal and entrails burst from her unhinged mouth and folded in on itself, forming a mechanical cephalopod. The ballistic creature lashed out with its tentacles, knocking the group over as its beak vectored for Sakura.
“Launch!” Sakura screeched at the last minute. Her shoes sprouted wings and she soared out of the squid’s grasp. She landed on the wing of a suspended plane, the Silver Key box held tightly in her white-knuckled hands.
One of the Moonface clones leapt onto the wing and sauntered toward her.
“Stay away!” cried Sakura, unleashing the Lucis Card. A searing laser beam blew Moonface away. But another just appeared, grinning even more maliciously.
“Now, now, munchkin,” said Moonface with a wave of his finger. “It’s time for you to be a good little girl.”
“You’re not getting this key!” snapped Sakura.
“Do you even know why you’re guarding it?” chuckled another Moonface who appeared from the other direction.
Sakura was being boxed in. She quickly cast out Flight, and flew away from the aircraft. Suddenly, one of the Moonface clones leapt from the floor below, grabbed her, and threw her against a wall. The horrific creature held her there.
“You cannot escape, little cherry blossom,” giggled Moonface. His jaw started to widen, and Sakura’s body thrashed with panic.
Astrid looked up from battling the squid homunculus to see Sakura at the monster’s mercy. Using her mechanical limbs, she launched into the air and sliced the Moonface clone. But she didn’t see the other Moonface clone that leapt from outside her field of vision. The clone brought his fists down on her head, propelling her into the floor.
Sakura tried to fly away, saturated with panic and anxiety. It interfered with her resonance link with the Flight Card, which lost energy and sent her to the floor, right amid a quartet of Moonfaces. Between them, she could see Eriol and Nathan wrestling with the squid homunculus. Astrid struggled to stand after that last attack. The technicians, though unarmed, did their best to wrestle with the remaining Moonface clones.
Sakura gasped in horror as one of the Moonfaces gripped one of the officers. His jaw unhinged like a snake and clamped down on the man’s head. The man’s flesh was practically sucked off his bones. The horrific sight was too much.
Sakura stood, her wand in hand, with nothing but her survival instincts to drive her. She cast out the Flare Card, enveloping the Moonfaces around her in a firestorm. They disintegrated, but another nearby Moonface re-spawned them. Sakura cast out Spark, only to witness the same futility. She prepared to cast out another Card. Suddenly, a Moonface clone raced forward and kicked her in the stomach. She flew into the wall, the wind knocked out of her. She staggered to her feet, only to see one of the clones pick up the Silver Key box and chime, “Moon!”
“No!” she cried weakly. She raised her wand, but couldn’t summon enough focus to send out any Cards. The Moonface clones glanced at her and clicked their tongues in an expression of faux sympathy.
By this point, the squid homunculus had knock
ed Eriol out of the way and had Nathan up against a wall. Its arms had twirled around his arms and legs, and its beak snapped at him. He grabbed the creature’s mandibles and gripped them tightly, cutting himself on the sharp edges. He held tightly, even as the tentacles prised at his limbs. The squid’s head thrashed and flagellated with frustration, while the surviving officers looked on in awe of a man fighting a homunculus with his bare hands.
Nathan heard one of them stammer, “How?”
He chuckled, “I’m the Starlight Lancer! This is my power, given to me by Astrid Rachelle, so that I can protect the ones I hold dear.” He started to pull the squid’s mandibles apart. “And as long as those people exist, there isn’t a sorry shit alive who could possibly beat me!” With a roar, he tore the creature in two. Its black blood sprayed across the hangar floor, and disappeared like water on a hot stove.
Nathan marched forward. He hoisted up Eriol and confronted the Moonface clone holding the Silver Key box. Astrid approached the closely-knit group of clones.
“You’re beaten, Moonface,” she yelled. “Hand over the box.”
“No,” said the Moonfaces.
Nathan touched his chest and said, “I’m sure the others won’t mind me going Victor right now.”
“Just give it back, ya Ruskie bastard,” snarled Eriol.
One of the Moonfaces checked his watch and muttered, “Three, two, one!”
The roof of the hangar suddenly caved in. A saucer-shaped craft plunged through it. Girders fell from above and crushed the rest of the planes and support systems. Sakura was in such a daze she didn’t notice the debris falling directly toward her. Astrid shielded her from the debris with her Valkyrie Skirt.
The Moonface carrying the box chuckled as he strutted toward the ship, which extended a boarding ramp for him. Meanwhile, the rest of him charged Nathan, Eriol, and Astrid. Their efforts were merely for distraction. They didn’t re-spawn, nor did they put up much of a fight.
As they fought, the ship soared into the sky and out of sight.
Nathan gazed up at the hole in the roof, and growled with frustration at the loss. He glanced over and saw Sakura, doubled over and hyperventilating. Tears were rolling down her face as she cried, “I lost the key!” Astrid leaned on her knees and panted with exhaustion. Eriol leaned against his staff. Everyone else just sat on the floor in utter shock.
Nathan could still hear chaos echoing through the complex. He nudged Eriol and told him to look after Sakura. Then he tapped Astrid and muttered, “Let’s clean up the stragglers.”
Neither of them felt terribly enthused at that.
Chapter 17: The Blame Game
Bravo’s team reached the Regiment headquarters, finding it in ruins. EMTs and rescue teams raced through the wrecked corridors, searching for survivors. They were all on their toes for fear of running into a camping homunculus ready to strip the flesh from their bones. When Bravo arrived, armed with all their Kakugane, the teams moved with far more confidence.
Sakura and Eriol sat in the wrecked infirmary receiving medical treatment. Nathan and Astrid had their Kakugane-powered healing, which Astrid shared when she had recovered. When Bravo and Xiaolang entered, shouldering an exhausted Franklin, Sakura threw her arms around her father. Her tears flowed freely over the man’s dirtied shirt.
“I’m back, Sakura,” cooed Franklin. She helped him hobble to one of the vacant beds, and the doctors set to work on him.
While holding her father’s hand tightly, she turned to Xiaolang and said, “I’m so sorry. They took the box. I let them get away.”
Xiaolang’s expression softened and he embraced his girlfriend. She was still trembling at afterimages of Moonface’s unhinged maw ready to chomp.
Maka, Soul, and Spirit marched into the room. Having heard Sakura’s words, Maka snarled, “You let them get both parts of the key?” Sakura pulled away from the blonde and repeatedly apologised. “Sorry doesn’t cut it, you damn incompetent!” snapped Maka.
“Oi, lay off her,” yelled Nathan, putting himself between the blonde and her target. Soul stepped forward to try and pull Maka away, but the girl was furious.
“You have no idea what you’ve unleashed,” Maka yelled. She glared at Franklin on the hospital bed and said, “Tell them. Tell them what your research revealed.”
Franklin pursed his lips with shame. He regarded Bravo with a twinge of anger and explained, “The Silver Key appears to be a magical device, designed to manipulate space and time. With both parts and sufficient energy, it can be used to travel anywhere in the universe, and anywhen in time.”
“Theoretically, someone could use this to change the past,” muttered Eriol.
Bravo slowly stepped back and rubbed his lips gauchely.
“You knew about this already, didn’t you, Costable?” asked Spirit.
Bravo stammered, and covered his chest defensively. At that moment, General Rodrigo appeared at the door and ripped off the metaphorical Band-Aid.
“Yes,” he proclaimed. He dismissed the medical personnel, and closed the door behind them. “When we discovered the Silver Key fragment in Antarctica, it came with tablets describing what it did, but not how to activate it. We hoped that it could, at some point, be used as a means to undo the mistakes of our past.” He glared at Bravo. “I did not, however, sanction Bravo’s secret research project.” He bowed to Franklin and Sakura. “I deeply apologise for what happened to you,” he said.
“We need the Silver Key,” growled Bravo. He still crossed his arms tightly and glared at Rodrigo. “You put it on me to find a solution, and I bloody well found one.”
“One that alters time?” asked Astrid.
Maka strode across the room to Bravo and bellowed, “What events were you planning to change? Give the Regiment power over the Reaper? Fix the massive screw-up when you created the homunculi?”
Bravo diverted his eyes evasively as more people accused him and interrogated him. Some even had mixed feelings about the prospect of changing the past. Astrid finally yelled, “Why do you even need to change the past anyway?”
Bravo exploded, “Because of you!” His finger was outstretched at Astrid and his gaze fixated upon her. Then he pointed at Sakura. “And because of you!” The room fell silent. “Two years ago, Astrid Rachelle was sent on a routine mission to clear a homunculus infestation. An idiot raced in and interfered, getting himself killed. And because she liked this idiot, she sacrificed a precious Kakugane to bring him back to life.”
“Nathan’s life was worth saving,” protested Astrid.
“And what did it end up as?” asked Bravo rhetorically. “His best friend finding out, his face in the tabloids, a wrecked school, dozens of PTSD cases, and a freaking viral video of an Arms Alchemy activation!” He turned to Sakura. “And speaking of viral videos, did you really think everyone would think that was CGI? Let’s not forget the fiasco at Tsukimine Shrine, then also Tokyo Tower that same bloody night! And don’t even get me started on the airplane incident!”
“Those people would have died if I hadn’t flown in,” exclaimed Sakura.
“They would not have been in the mess if you hadn’t bought a goddamn book of tarot cards,” growled Bravo. He looked at Rodrigo, Spirit, and Maka. “Thanks to them, and the incompetence of the people supervising them, we have been exposed on an unprecedented level. Before long, people will be charging through our organisation. Governments’ll regulate us, we’ll be put up to scrutiny we can’t afford, and then we’ll have fucking ‘homunculus rights’ organisations protesting and flinging Molotov cocktails at us.” He glared at Maka. “And you know who they’ll be coming after next?” Maka pursed her lips and wrapped her arms around herself. Then Bravo looked at Rodrigo. “We need to fix this! Just one change to the timeline, that was all I’d been planning.”
“Could you imagine what sacrifice that would take?” interjected Franklin. His body trembled with horror. “The Silver Key requires energy to run. Guess what kind of energy?” He looked at Soul and
Spirit. “It’s the same kind that you grow strong on.”
“What? Asura Eggs?” asked Spirit.
“No, human souls!” interjected Maka.
“Exactly,” said Franklin. “And Shaula has all the know-how to power it.”
“Dad, why did you help her?” cried Sakura.
“She threatened you and Touya,” said Franklin, his lips trembling. “I couldn’t bear to see that happen.” He looked at Bravo again, but didn’t hold back his anger. “And you assured me you wouldn’t drag her into this mess.”
“I didn’t,” retorted Bravo. He accused Nathan and Astrid. “These two broke out of security and went to Hong Kong and brought her back.”
“Excuse me a sec, Tristan,” spat Nathan. “While you shitheads were carryin’ on in the conference room, Astrid and I decided to act on the intel you had and stopped Moonface from getting the Silver Key. We even brought him back for you to interrogate.”
“You wouldn’t have saved Doctor Avalon if we hadn’t,” said Astrid.
“And I wouldn’t have needed saving if you hadn’t been meddling with the Silver Key in the first place,” said Franklin, hopping off the bed and glaring right into Bravo’s face. “And I wonder how good your security is if they were able to find out where the Silver Key was? Shaula and Moonface knew exactly where the key was and who I was.”
“How would they have known that?” asked Xiaolang.
“Moonface mentioned an informant,” said Franklin, his gaze still fixed on Bravo. “And since you had intel on the other Key’s whereabouts, someone obviously tipped them off and sent them to Hong Kong.”
“Might have been DWMA?” retorted Bravo, which earned a vociferous tirade from Maka and Spirit. Soul banged his hand against a bedside table and yelled, “Everybody shut up! It couldn’t have been DWMA. And plus, didn’t the intel say that Moonface and Shaula could work out where the other Key was just by having one of them. They must’ve found the other one that way.”