by H J Peterson
“Dear citizens of Vorbereich,” the king began, looking out at the crowd. “It pains me to address you at such a time of grief and sadness.”
A few of the men around Adelric began to grumble, making jokes about the emperor under their breaths. Adelric wasn’t too concerned about it: if making crude jokes about the royal family were a crime, the entire country would be in jail.
“As all of you already know, tragedy struck our great city when shots were fired at a peaceful protest,” Manfred II continued. “We are here to honor the two police officers that were killed in the line of duty, a day before we honor the members of our community that were also killed in the protest.”
“BY YOUR BLOODY OFFICERS!” Someone in the crowd shouted. Adelric didn’t see who it was, though.
Manfred II almost seemed to jump when he heard that. He began to scan the crowd, looking for the person that said that.
“Yes, some of our own police officers were involved in the initial shots that were taken that spawned the incident, but I can assure you, it’s been taken care of,” Manfred II said. His grip on the podium was tight, nervous. “The inspector in question is under administrative watch, and the moment the case involving the Archangel is closed, he will be tried for this insurrection.”
The crowd continued to grumble about what happened with Brooks, but nobody else shouted out anything.
“And now, to begin, I wish to ask Inspector Hiro Ikeda, a close personal friend of one of our fallen officers, to offer a quick prayer.” Manfred II stepped away, leaving the podium open for Hiro to give a prayer.
It was very, very apparent to Adelric that she hadn’t been expecting that. Even from where he was standing, he could see the color in her cheeks disappear the second he said it, the way her eyes just about tripled in size. It was kind of odd: most people felt rather uncomfortable praying in public, but Hiro looked down right scared. She didn’t have stage fright, did she? She was in the public eye far to much for that, he would’ve thought.
Unless…
Oh, sweet heaven! She wasn’t Gerechtist, was she? She was born in Hanjai: odds were, she was a Hikari.
Did she… did she know how to pray? In the Gerechtist sense?
Hiro finally stood up and bowed her head. “Dear, Almighty God, hallowed be thine halls and all the saints that inhabit them. Thank you for this day and for the opportunity we have to gather and mourn the lives of men who now live with you. We ask you to be with us this day and to grant us your holy blessings. In your name we pray, amen.”
Hiro backed away from the podium and sat down. Adelric didn’t even realize he’d been holding his breath until he let out a sigh of relief.
Manfred II stood up and walked back up to the podium. “Thank you, Inspector Ikeda.” He looked out at the crowds, again. “Thank you all for coming out. I know that the roads were a little… challenging, this morning, and I appreciate all of you braving the roads to be here to support the families of our fallen officers. I think I can speak for all of us when I say that this tragedy has really hit home for me.”
“Bollocks!” One man shouted.
“My brother’s dead because of your stupid officers!” Someone else shouted.
Adelric began to look around, suddenly very uncomfortable. He could feel the heat rising in his hands from his nerves: it was a miracle he didn’t accidentally light a spark.
“It’s at times like these that it’s so very important for us as a citizenry to band together in such a time of crisis,” Manfred II continued with his speech. “I know that we haven’t had the best relationship as of late, and I’d rather like to change that…”
Adelric didn’t hear the rest of the conversation. He was too busy listening to another one he was hearing nearby.
“Damned liar,” a man nearby muttered. “Damned, bloody liar. He don’t really think we’re falling for this horse shite, does he?”
“You want to shut the hell up about that?” The man’s friend asked. “I agree with you, but I’m getting damned sick and tired of all this yappin’ from you.” The man looked back up at the king as he shifted his weight between his feet. “Besides: we’re not going to have to worry about him for much longer.”
Adelric looked over at the pair of men, but didn’t say anything. What were they talking about? He liked to think that they were just spouting off, but he had a nasty feeling that they weren’t.
“When are we supposed to start?” One of them asked.
“Just follow my lead, and don’t mess up,” the other man said. “Bator said he’ll have the balls of anybody that screws up, today.”
Adelric looked forward, pulling the collar of his jacket up in the hopes that they wouldn’t be able to recognize him. Bator was planning something for that day; they knew that much. From the sounds of it, it was going to happen in that square during the funeral.
He began to look around, searching for some sort of sign to see what was going to happen. Bator would want his people to act at the same time, so it would be harder to stop them. He would have some sort of signal to tell them exactly when he wanted them to do… whatever they were planning on doing.
He felt like someone was sitting on his chest as he began to descend into a panic. What was he going to do? Did he signal Hiro somehow? What was he supposed to try and tell her?
He had to get more information on what was happening. He didn’t know how he was supposed to do that, but he had to do it.
And so, he did the one thing she could think of: he began to push through the crowd, attempting to get out so he’d have a little more room to do… well, whatever it was he was supposed to do.
Adelric began to look around, trying to see anything that might be out of the ordinary. There had to be something…
“… and with this joint cooperation, we can change the world,” Manfred II’s voice rang out through the square.
The tone in the square changed. Everyone around Adelric had this look in their eyes: everyone looked like men on a mission.
And then, in unison, nearly half of the people in the crowd reached into their coats and pulled out what looked to be…
He felt the blood drain from his face. Pistols. They were pulling pistols out from their coats.
That’s when he saw it. There was a man on the rooftop behind the stage. It looked like he was setting up with some sort of weapon, as if he were some sort of…
Sniper.
There was a sniper on the roof.
“Oh, sweet heaven,” he whispered under his breath.
A shot went off.
Manfred II’s body jerked as a bullet passed through his chest, and he slumped down on the podium. Adelric had the awful feeling that he didn’t live long after that.
The man on the roof stood up, raising the gun he’d just used to kill the king of Vorbereich over his head. Now that he wasn’t crouched behind a gun, it wasn’t hard to see the plague doctor mask he was wearing.
The Archangel.
Adelric’s heart just about stopped.
“You heard the man,” the Archangel called. “Let’s change the world together!”
LXI. FRIEDRICH
All Friedrich could do was stare at the fallen emperor as chaos erupted around him.
Everything around him was a wash of sound. The loudest was the sound of Lady von Braun screaming as she rushed to her husband, shaking him, despite the fact that she knew as well as the rest of them that he wasn’t going to get up. The next was the shouts of the people around him, mainly the police and the guards as they tried to organize themselves. And the shouts of the rebellion as they fought against the disorganized, horribly confused police.
It was chaos: absolute chaos. It felt as if they’d been dropped right in the middle of hell…
Maddox grabbed him by the shoulders and yanked him out of his chair.
“Friedrich, listen to me,” he ordered, turning Friedrich so they were looking at each other. His face was a mask of calm, but Friedrich knew that it was a lie: he co
uld see the wild look in his eyes, like a trapped animal. “You’re going to stay close to me. I’m going to get you and Katalin out of here. And you’re going to keep from panicking. You’re going to focus on what we need to do. Got it?”
Friedrich managed to nod. “R-right. We need… we need to leave. Right now.”
“Maddox, allow me.” That was Katalin. What was she talking about?
Maddox nodded and let go of him.
And that was when Katalin slapped him across the face. Hard.
He felt like he’d just woken up from sort of dream. Maddox looked at them like they had something crawling out of their ears.
“Friedrich we need you here,” she said firmly. “If we’re going to get out of here, we’re going to need everyone’s brain power. Understand?”
Friedrich nodded, then looked over at Maddox. “What’s the plan?”
“Figure out how to get the hell out of here, hold off those bastards as long as we can,” Maddox said.
“Good luck with that.” That was Hiro, who was starting to fire into the crowd at the people that were attacking the other officers. Friedrich knew the look on her face all too well: it was the look of a woman whose mind was racing, trying to find a solution to this massive problem. “This crowd is too damned thick to just shove our way through, and if we try to push through, we’re going to find ourselves in a whole lot of hurt. Unless you have some way to plow right through or can see an escape route that isn’t blocked.”
More shots were fired from above them, a shot that went right through one of the men guarding the stage from the rioters. The shot went right through the man’s chest, dropping him.
Hiro cursed, looking up at the roof. “Maddox, you’re a Dodger, right?”
“And so is Lady von Thurzó,” Maddox said, taking a shot at the nearest aggressor. “What are you thinking?”
Hiro looked at Maddox. “Get me onto that roof. I’ll take out the Archangel. Once I have his gun, I’ll try and clear a way out from up there.”
“Hiro, you’re going to die doing that,” Friedrich said quickly. “Besides: I think we need every man we can possibly get down here-“
“All the men in the world won’t matter if we’ve got someone shooting at us from the sky,” Hiro snapped. She turned to Maddox. “Maddox, you’re either going to get me up on that roof, or damn it, I’m going to climb up there, myself!”
As if to add emphasis to the point she was trying to make, another shot went off. Friedrich felt something wiz right past him. It took him a moment to realize that it was a bullet, one that had been fired by the Archangel, himself.
It was a miracle that Friedrich didn’t soil himself.
“Fine,” Maddox said. “Hold on tight: you have ten minutes before I improvise.”
With a flick of Maddox’s wrist, Hiro flew up into the air as fast as the bullet that had just nearly killed Friedrich. She didn’t flail, didn’t panic: she seemed to focused on what she had to do.
“My lady, make sure that damned inspector doesn’t get herself killed up there,” Maddox ordered.
Katalin nodded and turned her attention to Hiro.
Maddox pulled his rifle off of his shoulder and began shooting at the people trying to come up onto the stage, while Katalin took Maddox’s pistol from his holster and began to shoot, as well.
“W-what do you want me to do?” Friedrich asked.
The answer he got wasn’t the one he wanted. It was the one he knew he was going to get, but he didn’t want to hear it.
“Start shooting,” Maddox said.
LXII. ADELRIC
Adelric couldn’t remember the last time he ran so fast.
He’d seen the sniper. He knew that he had to get up there, somehow, take him out.
And he thought he had an idea of how to get up there.
The building next to the one with the sniper didn’t have anybody around it. Maybe he could get up to the roof, jump the gap and then… and then…
Well, quite frankly, he didn’t know what he was going to do after that point. He guessed that he would improvise. Against the Archangel. Who could easily kill him, whether or not he had a plan of attack.
“Well, look at what we’ve got here,” someone called out from behind him. And, sadly, he knew full well who that person was without even looking over his shoulder. “A little nark, thinkin’ he gonna get away scot free, again. When we all know he ain’t gottt chance in hell.”
Adelric turned around, letting his hands catch fire.
It was Klara, holding twin pistols. And she looked so, so pissed.
“I don’t want to fight you,” Adelric said. “Really: please don’t make me do this.”
“Do what?” Klara asked, walking towards him. “Let’s face it, Adelric: you and I both know that you couldn’t hurt a fly.”
Adelric threw flames at her as hard as he could.
Klara, of course, wasn’t fazed. At all. The Hazer ducked, putting her arm up to protect herself from the flames. The coat was probably singed, but she was fine.
“I-I can hurt more than a fly,” Adelric said, slowly backing up towards the building. “I threw you off the ladder a little while ago, didn’t I?”
He shouldn’t have said that. He should not have said that!
With a shout, she lifted her guns and went to shoot.
Panicked, he focused on the powder in her guns, allowing water to seep through the powder-
Klara cursed as she pulled the trigger. The shots didn’t go off.
That was his opportunity. He turned around and began to sprint towards the door, hoping that she’d be distracted long enough for him to make his mistake.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw flames coming towards him. It seemed that another Alchemist had decided to join the fun.
He ducked, rolling towards the door of the building, and blindly threw flames in that direction.
Aki, of course, wasn’t fazed, either. He hadn’t even tried to duck away from those flames. It just went to show just how pathetic his attempts at fighting were. Even with all the practice he’d been provided over the past few months.
Adelric didn’t know who to focus on, anymore. He kept one hand aimed at each of them, hoping that he’d be able to fend off whatever attacks were coming his way.
“Really, Adelric: you’re pathetic,” Aki said. “You know, with all that time you spent with Bator, I would’ve thought that you would be a hell of a lot better at all this than you are.”
Adelric didn’t say anything. He was too focused on making sure that he wasn’t about to die.
“You mind steppin’ back on this one, boyo?” Klara asked, looking over at Aki. “I got a bit of a bone to pick with this one.”
“Be my guest,” Aki said, looking around. “I think I’ve got bigger fish to fry, anyway-“
He cursed.
“What?”
“My sister’s going after the Archangel,” he said.
Klara cursed. “I’ll take care of it.” She began to storm off. “Keep this one occupied: I’ll be back to take care of him, soon.”
Oh, hell! Hiro was in trouble!
He threw more fire at her. He had to help her; he had to help her-
Aki allowed a bunch of water in the air to condense right above the flames, putting them right out.
Adelric turned towards Aki, his heart pounding in his chest. This was it: he had to win this fight, or he was going to die.
“Now, where were we?” Aki asked.
Adelric held his fists up like a boxer, trying his best to not look as scared as he felt. “I-I think we were about to fight. And I was about to b-beat you.”
Aki looked at him for a moment, then started laughing. Frankly, Adelric didn’t blame him: he didn’t need to be able to see himself to know that he looked absolutely ridiculous.
“Kid, I don’t think you could beat a toddler like that,” Aki said. He put his own hands up in a very relaxed stance, flames still licking at his hands. “Pay close attention:
maybe you’ll learn a thing or two before Klara comes and kills you.”
Aki threw a flame-filled punch, launching a massive ball of flame right for Adelric’s chest.
LXIII. HIRO
Ever since she first saw a Dodger courier flying high over the streets of Königstadt when she first came to Vorbereich, Hiro wondered what it would be like. Flying high above the heads of everybody must have been so fun, she’d thought as a child. Did it make one feel like a bird? Did they forget about all their troubles while they were up there, just like those penny stories on the street corners said it did? Was it just absolutely terrifying? How did they manage from screaming while they were whizzing through the air like human bullets?
Well, Hiro got the answer to all of that as Maddox launched her into the air to face the Archangel.
It was exhilarating. Exhilarating, yet absolutely terrifying. A silent scream filled her throat, both in excitement and in fear. Her mind was a blank slate there for a few moments: all she could really think about was how exciting that was, and about saying every prayer she could think of to keep her from getting killed. She didn’t much care about which God she prayed to: the Hikari God, the Gerechtist God, the Viasanctist God; one of them was bound to be right, right?
Finally, though, she forced all of that out of her head and made herself focus on her target: the Archangel. He was still shooting into the square from his little nest: he wasn’t looking up at the flying woman over his head. He didn’t even seem to realize that she was even there.
Which was good: she wanted the man to shit his pants when he saw her.
About five feet above the Archangel’s head, she got a weightless feeling, her body seeming to hang in the air for a few seconds, and then she began to drop back down to the ground. Her Orientation had changed.