Night's Struggle

A seemingly peaceful night neared its end. It only needed a few short hours before it could rest. However, rest would not come. Restlessness stirred into action and then the crimson veil fell. Splitting the horizon in two, a green pillar rose from the camp. All within the sight turned in questioning amazement. It became a beacon. A call to arms stood before each man and woman.

Yumi’s display brought in even more soldiers toward her. Reacting without orders, it turned into utter chaos. The strictly controlled camp became a ruined battlefield. Soldiers endlessly seemed to offer up themselves for Yumi. Yet none reached her.

Outside the camp, Fumiko and Seiji witnessed Yumi’s attack. They knew the plan, but they had no specifics. Fumiko turned a little worried at the sight. “I think that’s a little more than just a signal.”

Seiji pounded his fists together with excitement. Even though he fought in the morning, he already felt eager and restrained to have to wait so long. “I think it’s damn perfect! It’s the damn perfect tone to set!”

“Only you would think that way,” she commented, looking out of the corner of her eye. “I wonder if you’ve become a negative influence on everyone with your reckless behavior.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being reckless! You sure as shit should have pride in it!”

She could only present a disbelieving expression to him, rather the excited one he wished to see. “Pride in recklessness? Sounds like only something you could achieve. Honestly…”

“Careful, you’re starting to sound like the brat!” He charged off for the camp’s entrance, as was their plan.

“I guess that would be a bit of a problem having two Chiharus, huh?” Fumiko worked up a bit of a grin, feeling a little better. She ran after Seiji to catch up to him. Ahead of her, the destructive sounds of Seiji told her that he already began. “Time to start!”

Chapter 142 – Night’s Struggle

Deep in thought, Simonides didn’t hear the noise from outside of his tent. He had matters that weighed heavier on him. The new mission he ordered he knew would buy him the time he needed, however he feared that even with the time he might not gain the answers that he sought. He still had too many questions about their intruders. They held too many unknowns.

‘I saw it! Their world…it’s not like us!’

The words from Athene still haunted him in his thoughts. He didn’t understand the meaning of her words. At the moment that she came out, he saw that she learned something. He considered forcefully waking her up for the answers such was his desperation. However, he waited. All he could do was wait. The waiting ate at him as much as the questions. He stood so close to answers. The mysteries that surrounded their foes might be unveiled finally.

‘H-he-he…knows…every…thing… …no… …long…er… …hu…’

Simonides tightened his fist against the table. “What does it all mean? What does he know? And what is he?” His prisoner turned into something more fearsome than he thought. The one selected was supposed to be a non-MP user. Since he remained in their custody, he didn’t have any reason to think otherwise. He knew if the boy had abilities, he could have easily escaped. However, something he couldn’t plan for happened. “What is the answer here? Do I even know the right question anymore?”

“Captain! Captain Simonides!” shouted a familiar voice, through the tent. Barely waiting on an answer, the man barged through the tent. He turned toward the seated Captain. “Captain Simonides!”

The yelling finally snapped Simonides from his thoughts. He reset his expression immediately, forced to become abruptly aware of the situation. Shouting from outside still hadn’t made it to his notice. Abeiron distracted him. Through narrowed eyes, he glanced from his chair at the Commander. “What is it?”

“Captain Simonides! We’re under attack!” As though to emphasize his report, debris ripped through the Captain’s tent dividing the two men. The carelessly tossed block of wood cast out the lantern killing the light. However, through the collapsing tent cloth the warm moonlight bled through renewing the glow on Abeiron’s face.

He spun his head around through the hole in his quarters. The chaos finally presented itself to him and caught his eyes widening in surprise. Simonides stood up, his full attention gained. “How have you let them get this far inside?!”

“Sir, everyone that’s gone has been taken out! They appeared in the middle of camp! Our defenses didn’t account for them to fly around the entrance.”

Simonides stepped out of his tent through the tear. His men ran about in fear and confusion. None of them knew what was happening. ‘Plans seem pointless with them. But the timing is strange…’ The sight of his camp so deeply penetrated bothered him. ‘They aren’t used to being on the defensive…’ He didn’t think they would allow someone in so far.

“Captain!”

“Since when were you so useless, Abeiron?” Simonides tilted his head back over his shoulder to the man. “We already know that it is them. Order the nearest MPs to engage them. They’re here to rescue their comrade.” A column of fire blasted up in the distance after he finished speaking. The searing light darkened the shadows on his head to harden his features. It gave him a severe expression of steel resolve. “As I thought they would…”

Near the edge of the camp, a path of ruin laid out starting from the entrance. The men, unfortunate to have been standing guard, laid on the ground, unconscious from Seiji’s first punch. Following the signs of destruction, two more men came out hearing the noise only to be dealt with equally brutishly. Afterward, it became more difficult for Seiji to handle them individually with care. He made use of a makeshift fence to wipe out a row of men before casting his weapon aside. It destroyed the nearby tent and signaled even more men to come after him.

Seiji eagerly took the fight to them and charged onward. The current path carved by him left more than thirty men unable to fight. None of them understood how outclassed they were. They charged for him in defense of their home and fallen comrades. Their only hope was that one of them could bring him down.

Catching up, Fumiko finished dealing with the soldiers that spotted her. Her fire was enough to make them turn away. It gave her a little relief to know that they didn’t press for a fight. ‘…it’s still under control…’ She tightened her hand around her staff to stop the shaking. In front of her, she found Seiji decking a few more soldiers. It made her sigh a little to witness the eager idiot fighting. “You really are true to yourself…”

He tossed a soldier off his back into a neighboring tent. His grinning face looked back at Fumiko. “All part of the plan!”

Distracting him, Fumiko was the only one that saw someone in a white uniform quickly approaching him with dark intent. “Seiji—”

Before Fumiko finished her words, Seiji’s fist ran through the man’s face. He flew several meters through the path before unintentionally caught by a group of soldiers, the hard way. “Can’t sneak the hell up on me!”

Fumiko touched her hand to her forehead feeling a little distressed. “That was one of those like Yuki, be more careful!”

Seiji looked at her confused and then over at the unconscious man. He finally noticed the white uniform that stood out in the night, especially against all of the black from the standard military. “Dammit!” He slammed his fists into the ground pounding out a heavy tone through the earth as he depressed the dirt.

“Seiji?” Fumiko uneasily reached out her hand towards Seiji, though still several meters away from them.

“I can’t believe it!” he shouted to the moon. “Punched him out before I had a chance to fight him with his powers!”

A drop of sweat fell down on Fumiko’s face upon hearing why he was angry. “You fighting idiot! Do you even remember why we’re here?!”

Taking a silent moment to recover, Seiji stood back up. Only the battle cries of a new wave of soldiers came to him in his silence. He spun his arm around driving it through them and sending them away. “Of course, I remember,” he replied, appearing oddly serious. “All the more reason I need to fight as many of them as possible. So she has less trouble…”

Mirroring an oddly familiar scene, deep inside the camp an array of at least twenty soldiers laid strewn about the grounds. Furious winds kept a constant stream of torrents bleeding off the tatters of fabric remaining from ruined tents. Further within the maelstrom of wind, rotating and shifting blocks of the green barrier protected Yumi to keep any foe from reaching her. Those that the invisible forces didn’t deal with faced cracking her defenses. It slowed them down until she personally dealt with them.

However, she hadn’t moved for more than two minutes. Her defensive stance stalled her from her primary task. ‘I’m wasting time… I need to look for Yori and Chiharu…’ She scanned the area taking in the destruction. It took her a little bit of time, but she finally realized all of the fighting she started meant she put them in danger as well. Though it confused her a little that she hadn’t seen Chiharu appear. ‘I guess this really does prove that she’s been captured, but how? I can’t imagine that she made a mistake…’

Yumi found a break in the fighting, with no soldiers coming after, to start moving. Her powers didn’t require her to be in a good position. So she felt comfortable in leaving her spot. ‘There’s so much destroyed already…I think I would have sensed him if he was amongst this…’ Yumi walked out of the radius of her destruction into an untouched part of the camp. The force of her winds still managed to loosen parts of the tents.

She found a random soldier in the area coming from a tent or running about, but it was strangely empty in her search. Yumi even used her powers to rip up tents, since stealth was pointless. It started to bother her. “Where is everyone? Shouldn’t I be meeting more resistance?” A cracking rang out to the side of Yumi. Even in spite of the softness of the noise, it alerted her. She saw one of her barrier pieces crumbling away. “What’s going on? My barrier!”

Suddenly, Yumi’s internal sensor went off and she spun around. Down across the dirt path stood a teenager in a white Atlantean uniform. Yumi immediately took a step back understanding that she finally ran into one of them. “You’re…” Another piece of her barrier shattered suddenly for no reason followed by another. She darted her eyes around trying to understand it.

“So you’re the much talked about rebel,” commented the boy, “I won’t allow you to attack anyone else!”

“And that’s ten!” Seiji declared, as he hefted a three-meter long length of broken off piece of wood to his shoulder. He looked over his shoulder to see how Fumiko fared.

She threw out a couple of minor flames to keep the soldiers off her. Once freed up, she spun around to look at Seiji. “So you can’t count either? You’ve dealt with more than fifty so far!”

Seiji shrugged to her with the block of wood still on his shoulder, acting like it weighed nothing to him. “I didn’t start counting until ten ago.”

“Then why bother! I can’t—“ Fumiko came to a stop when he raised his hand up to her to interrupt her.

He turned his head back to the new arrivals. “Looks like we have more damn fun!”

“Fun?!” Fumiko clinched her fist to shake it at him. She wanted to punch him for thinking what just approached them to be fun. “How can you say that?! Those three are like Yuki!”

“Huh? They are?” Still not noticing, he looked back and forth at Fumiko and the three white dressed Atlanteans. “How can you tell? They all look the same.”

“Damn, short-term memory…there must be a limit to stupidity!”

“Oh! Are you talking about them wearing white? I just didn’t want to assume, you know! It’d be rude to be prejudiced based on their appearance. That’s just good manners!”

“Ergh…” Fumiko forced out a frustrated sigh. She started to regret that she agreed to work with him. ‘I’m starting to understand Chiharu’s side of things…’ After requiring a few moments to recover, Fumiko straightened back up, though still not taking the situation as serious as she should have. She blamed Seiji’s stupidity for it. Fumiko rested her hand back on her forehead while talking to him. “Well normally, you’d be correct. And knowing that you actually have good manners is actually pretty surprising. You really do pick the strangest things to be good about…however…”

She hoped that talking it out would calm her anger, but it only seemed to be bottling it up. Everything pent up inside grew in pressure. If she didn’t release her emotion she might collapse (probably exaggerating, Seiji has that effect on people). Fumiko lowered her hand and started walking over to him. Once she stood next to him, she reached over and grabbed his ear pulling him up to her height. “Ayumi already explained to us that all of those like Yuki are required to wear white uniforms! It’s the standard! So of course they are! And there’s three of them and only two of us! So get serious!”

“Damn it!” yelped Seiji, jumping away from Fumiko. “You don’t have to yell in my damn ear!”

“Yes, I do when you act this stupid! We’ve got three of them to deal with! It won’t be easy!”

Seiji pulled further away from Fumiko, as her image scared him more. He rubbed his bruised ear and looked over at the three white clad soldiers. “Well if that’s what you’re worried about…” Seiji lifted up the wood and chucked it quickly at the three soldiers. It ran between the two women in the group and disappeared from their sight, giving them a shock.

Crumbling into a broken heap of fabric and wood, the third figure was barely visible behind the hunk of wood that hit him. He didn’t have a chance to pass out. The impact did it to him before the fall. It left the two women for them, evening the odds. One stood surprisingly taller than the other and a fair competition for Fumiko and her unusual height.

“There, now there’s two!”

Fumiko slapped her hand to her face. “If you did that to one of them, you could have done that to all three of them.”

Seiji crossed his arms suddenly looking very proud. “What are you talking about, the other two are women. I’m not going to hurt them!”

She sighed again. Fumiko felt like she might die from sighing her life away. Her eyes glanced over at him. “You realize that you have to fight one of them, right?”

“Huh?” Seiji looked over at their two opponents and then the third further away, not in any condition to fight. He pressed his hands to his head. “Crap! I can’t fight a woman! I should to have knocked out one of them out instead so I could fight the guy! But if I did that I would have hit a woman…”

“You really are something else…” commented Fumiko, through a flat expression. She didn’t have much more of a chance as a flame erupted at her side. Fumiko jumped away to put some distance between her and it. The flame immediately disappeared, but another jumped out at her. “…fire from nothing…” She glanced along the path at their opponents. Flames grew up to surround the shorter of the two women, completely engulfing her.

Fumiko’s eyes widened in shock to see the woman consumed in flames. However, it suddenly divided and calmed. It covered her body, but left her head and some of her shoulders exposed. The flames did nothing to the woman. In fact, it looked as though it became clothing to her. Another second later, the woman charged past Seiji and straight for Fumiko trailing embers behind her. The woman collided with Fumiko, throwing her backwards through an already collapsed tent. Not letting up for a moment, the woman’s hand rose toward the spot where Fumiko collapsed. A tall column of fire burst up from the ground wiping Fumiko from sight completely.