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damned_lounge2009-10-31 07:40 pm
mugenreppa.livejournal.com) wrote in damned_lounge2009-10-31 07:40 pm
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Oktoberfest '09: Hell of a Different Kind by Jac
Please don't kill me for butchering your characters. *hides* Also no one saw my earlier posting fail. :|
Title: Hell of a Different Kind
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
idiosynacophony
Beta: None. Hopefully it isn't too bad. ;_; I'd actually sacrificed writing quality for plot, on account of being so busy this month. /)_(\ It's so apparent in the later parts, I'm so sorry ;;;A;;;
Word Count: 2912
Rating: PG for violence?
Main Cast, Supporting Cast: Sora, Soma Peries, Doumeki Shizuka, Homura, Kitty Pryde, Kurt Wagner
Cameos, One-scene Stars, Name-drops: Yuffie Kisaragi, Sokka, Fai D. Flourite, Senna, Tsukishiro Yukito/Yue, Edward Elric, Yamada Hanatarou, Maes Hughes, Celes Chere, Hitsugaya Toshiro, Lelouch Lamperouge, Monkey D. Luffy, Brook
Pairing(s): N/A
Summary: The Head Doctor is dead! ...Which prompts some kind of war by some mysterious enemy. (OF DOOM.)
Notes: Aside from characterization, one of the most blatant possible-errors is how people address each other. I...didn't really know what to do about that. ;_; Also, I was a little unsure on when some characters were taken from, so...some inconsistencies? ;_;
The flames sparked in midair and whirled in a tempest around him, magic designed to both protect and destroy. Most of the monsters flew back, but a few flame-resistant ones only stumbled, and resumed their attack. Sora blocked one claw, jabbed a flashy stomach, sidestepped a blade, swung at a head, and then turned too late against the glint of deadly nails, raking straight down—
The whoosh of displaced air, the screech of a monster in pain. Sora looked back and saw the glint a pointy weapon whirling around him before flying back into Yuffie's hands.
"Why are you surrounded in the middle of a wide-open space?" she asked, sending her shuriken out again without missing a beat.
"Got separated from the others." Sora turned to the now-nailsless creature, which was coming for him again. He'd expected a sarcastic or--something reply, but after a pause, he looked over to see Yuffie stumble upon landing, just before he himself was blown off his feet by a strong gust of wind.
They looked up at the thing that was messing with the wind—something of a cross between a tengu and a crow—and were prepared to attack when it was konked on the head by a boomerang.
Sokka ran towards them. "Retreat!"
Sora and Yuffie turned and cut through the swarm, making their way towards the building of Landel's Institute rising in the near distance.
-
Landel's Institute—once their prison, now their home base. The gentle light of healing washed over Sora's face as he concentrated on casting Cure, throwing his exhaustion into even sharper relief. Ideally, Cura would have been better, but though the dampening effect of Landel's held lighter sway, it still lingered like a heavy pall throughout the entire building. It was even worse out beyond the walls.
Sora moved to another, and was about to cast again when a hand landed on his shoulder. He looked up. Fai, with that sad smile on his face. "Don't overexert yourself," the magician said. "It won't do any good to burn yourself out."
They'd lost people already, and in the latest onslaught, they'd lost even more. Sora was about to protest when his swaying vision made the decision for him. He nodded weakly and sank into a chair as Fai took over the healing.
-
Soma stood on the now-familiar roof, watching as an army of enemies—they had no word for them but "monster," which seemed inappropriate, somehow—retreat as another force ("platoon," perhaps?) advanced.
Any let-up in the sieges were always brief, far-too-short breaths of air for the Landel's trapped prisoners. There was always someone fighting, or patrolling. Always, there was someone healing and someone recuperating. Always, their enemy advanced.
Unwilling to just give up--after they had survived Martin Landel, after they had survived this far, the Institute prisoners kept fighting.
Movement. Soma whirled, quickly following the deft movements of a bird in flight. The bird flapped for a moment, then cawed once.
Soma's eyes widened before she hit the floor. She flinched as the bird dived at the roof and exploded. "Attack!" she shouted at the other sentries, particularly the one standing just inside the stairwell leading into the Institute. That sentry would lock it, and depending on who it was, would barricade it. Soma and the other sentries just had to get there.
She reached the stairwell shoulder-to-shoulder with Doumeki, and tumbled in when the door opened under their frantic knocking. Senna closed it right away. "The others?" she shouted over the din of exploding birds.
"Saw Tsukishiro coming," Doumeki said just before he discovered what frantic knocking sounded like from this end. Senna opened the door to admit the other two sentries.
"Barricade!"
The five quickly reached for the various heavy things lying around and shoved them against the door.
-
Doumeki spread the blanket he'd brought over on Sora, who'd fallen asleep in the chair he'd collapsed in. Doumeki had considered waking him up—in that position, Sora was only going to wake up with cramp, but decided that Sora, like many of the others, would insist on getting up and run around getting more exhausted. Most of the Institute prisoners couldn't sleep properly, they only passed out.
He spotted Soma, and went over. "Our shift is officially over, but what do we do about those birds?"
"They will tell us, I suppose." Soma wrapped a cloth around the metal pipe in her hands. She'd learned a lot about grips the last few days. Bandages would be better, but they needed those.
A pause.
Soma looked up.
"Do you have a long-range weapon?"
"No."
It didn't quite matter, Doumeki supposed. The sentries watched for looming threats, but most of the time just the advancing armies, too many for the sentries to shoot. That didn't mean they couldn't back up their fighters, which they had been doing, but--
"Don't think too hard about it," Soma said quietly. He turned to her. "It's been considered—how to maximize the effectiveness of the archers. But there's only so much you can do." For a moment, Doumeki saw Soma's eyes rest on Sora.
He understood. "Thank you."
-
There was one thing Doumeki could do, though.
"So...where should I hold you?" Kitty Pryde asked, as they climbed the stairs to the roof. "Not your arms, because you'll need them really quick, right?"
"I will."
They stopped near the barricade while Kitty considered him. "Would this be okay?" Kitty stepped behind him and took hold of his collar.
It felt precarious. He was wearing the Institute clothing, none of which had proper, grasp-friendly collars. But they didn't have a whole lot of options. "It's okay."
"It'll only be for a second," Kitty reassured him. "Ready?"
Doumeki grimly flexed his fingers on his bow, stepped sideways into stance. "Ready."
Their feet left the ground, they floated smoothly up and through the roof.
They had phased up into a battleground. For a moment, disoriented, it looked hopeless. Then Doumeki picked a target and started shooting.
What seemed like hours but was probably minutes later, Doumeki caught movement at the corner of his eye. Startled, he very nearly braced himself for death when he realized the bird had passed right through him to hit the rooftop behind.
He turned to Kitty, who'd grabbed his shoulder. "It doesn't look like they're going to retreat anytime soon." She stared at a couple of birds that had gathered together, almost looking like a big bomb oh shi—
A jolt went through Doumeki's stomach as they suddenly went down. Still phased, Doumeki for a moment had a nice view of the exploded stairwell, and then they were down on the floor below. "Barricade's gone!" Kitty said to planners in this room.
"Quickly!" Homura ran for the staircase, all of the fighters in the room coming behind. Whirling around the corner, he reached the door just before the birds.
But he can't do anything— several of the fighters realized—
"Reflect!" A pattern of translucent polygons appeared before Homura and hovered there while a few birds ran into it. Then the explosion turned outward, blasting the nearby birds in the stairwell.
They turned to Sora, and Ed Elric behind him, who clapped his hands together and then laid his palms on the ground. The walls on either side of the stairwell doorway rippled and melted inwards as the floor rose up to meet them, creating a solid wall right before the door.
"That should hold them for a while," Ed said, grinning grimly.
"They might blast through the floor." Homura turned. Several of his fighters took off for the floor below. To Ed, he asked, "Can you move that wall?"
"Depends on what you mean by moving."
"If we can keep moving barriers, we could drive them out of the building," Homura explained. That was their priority for now; how they'd continue to fight off the birds would have to come later. "You come with me," he said to Sora.
-
Homura had considered having Ed create a window. Their sentry posts were gone; it only made sense for the enemy—whoever they were—to seize the opportunity and attack during that time.
"Ready?" he said to Sora as they stood before the front door.
Sora nodded.
The doors were pulled open, and Homura, Sora right behind him, ran through and—"Reflect!"—the doors closed solidly behind them.
As expected, the birds had been waiting out here, too. The small swarm that had descended upon the opening doors bounced off the Keybearer's little protective dome and hit their own instead, creating a little clearing—temporary, Homura knew. Ignoring that for now, he peered through the hive of birds.
"That's not good," Sora said from behind him, echoing his sentiments exactly.
-
"Sentinels?!" Kurt turned to Kitty, "Sentinels?!"
"Some of the enemies have been familiar to us," Homura said sharply. "Focus!"
Oh, they were focusing, all right. Kitty phased and Kurt bamf'd away as a fist came down on them.
"Sentinels?" Kitty muttered as she emerged from the giant fist.
"Is that what they're called?" Soma said from beside her, smacking her pipe into a wolf-like thing.
"Yeah," Kitty said, roundhouse-kicking something that looked like a small bear. Or maybe a yeti. "Why?"
Soma squinted up at where she imagined the cockpit might be.
-
"Hey!" Sora ran up to blue and fuzzy, "Can you get me up there?" He pointed up at a sentinel's head.
"Why would—" Spotting a whole mass of gelatinous blob-like things ready to descend on them, Kurt abruptly changed his mind. He grabbed Sora's arm. "Sure!" Bamf.
As they fell towards the sentinel's metal-coated dome of a head, Sora flipped and, hopping a few times before he could catch his balance, finally managed to stay still long enough to aim his Key at the latch he'd spotted.
"It's empty," Sora said as it sprang open. "It's empty!" he called down below.
As if sensing his presence, the sentinel lurched, and in a moment, Sora was falling. He managed to turn, and kick off the sentinel's shoulder, and would have made a perfect landing if the sentinel hadn't raised its knee, clipping Sora's ankle and unbalancing him. Kurt had been fending off a blob and didn't notice in time, and Sora landed hard on his back.
At least nothing felt broken, he thought, dazed. He noticed running footsteps, and raised his Keyblade.
Soma, who'd been about to veer away, saw the gesture and jumped. Using the Keyblade as a platform, she shot upwards. Mid-jump, she realized she wouldn't make it, until Kurt, who'd seen Hanatarou run for Sora and who'd made the split-second decision to assist Soma, appeared above her. She grabbed his outstretched hand. "Going up!"
And then they were falling down. Kurt pushed her shoulder, adjusting her fall just that much and then she was in the cockpit and Kurt bamf'd back down to ground level. Soma flicked the switch to manual, and in a moment she was in control. She covered Hanatarou and Kurt as they half-dragged half-carried Sora away, and then turned the sentinel against what it would have called its allies.
A fierce fight later, the enemy looked like they might be retreating. After another moment, it looked safe enough for them to call their own retreat.
Doumeki and the other archers had been saving their arrows for moments like these. He drew his bow and began firing, covering for their returning fighters.
Homura looked up at their hijacked sentinel. They couldn't exactly get that thing inside, but they couldn't keep it manned and guarded out here, either. "Leave it," he yelled up.
Soma had calculated for that. Grudgingly, but she had. Slowly, she'd been backing the sentinel toward the Institute, and, after sweeping a last burst of fire through enemy hoards, jumped out onto the roof.
Ed Elric reached it just as Soma landed, and as Soma turned, he clapped and leaned over the railing to rest his palms against the wall of the Institute.
A giant fist grew our of the wall, punching the sentinel solidly in the back and causing it to tilt forward, and slam into some struggling enemies.
As Ed restored the concrete so the Institute wouldn't fall down around their ears, a new roof patrol touched off with Doumeki and the others, and Soma, Ed, and Homura went back in.
-
"We know someone can open those giant robots, and we know someone can pilot them," Sokka said, pointing with his boomerang at the little wood chips that represented the sentinels.
"We have quite a few pilots, actually," Hughes, who'd coordinated a quick head count after Soma had described the sentinel's controls, chimed in.
"But only one who can open them?"
"Wagner tried, after he saw what Sora did," Hitsugaya explained. "The covers are seamless, and the latch requires a key. No way to open it otherwise."
"If we have one of those," Sokka said slowly, thinking, "we can send it after them. Think about it," he said into the resulting silence, "we can't hold this place forever, and our—" he paused briefly, "our numbers are dwindling."
"We don't know how far out they are," Lelouch said, considering. "But they fueled the sentinels to be able to retreat."
"We can locate their base, if anything," Celes said quietly.
The room became quiet as they all thought about who would become possible sacrifices—or possible survivors.
"...Who goes on this mission?"
-
Assembled into their various teams, they stood quiescent on the roof, watching the approaching enemy. They could see sentinels among them, which was good, for now, but if something went wrong, it could become very, very bad.
-
Sora ran at a sentinel, watching its footsteps, waiting until the sentinel began raising its leg before launching into the air, jumping off the sentinel's foot and then to its knee, making his way higher until he was on its head. Unlocking the latch, he pulled it open and then jumped off and out.
Yuffie swung in and caught him, grabbing his wrist, and flinging him to the next sentinel. Sora grabbed onto a protruding piece of the sentinel's helmet and hopped onto its head, unlocking this one, too.
Jumping off again, he ended up falling past the sentinel's torso when Yuffie delayed her jump, having been assisting a pilot get into the first open sentinel. But as she headed for him, a stray bird-bomb bumped into Yuffie's shuriken, and though she knocked it away quickly enough to prevent the explosion from hurting anyone, her flight path was thrown off.
"Gomu Gomu no Roketto!"
Sora was caught mid-freefall by Luffy, who stretched up to him and then tossed him up by the waist.
"Hey—!" Sora looked down at the now-falling Luffy.
"Don't worry about me!" Luffy called, grinning, as he held onto his hat. He pointed up.
Sora looked, and saw that he and Yuffie—who had flipped and somersaulted and bounced her way back—were going to miss each other. Sora was going too high, too fast. "Magnet!" Pulled together by the attractive force, Yuffie grabbed his outstretched hand and whirled him around, releasing him to zoom toward another sentinel.
-
"Hmm?" Brook glanced up at his falling captain, and jumped to catch him in his arms.
Homura came up beside them. "Can you go?" he asked quietly. Luffy had almost single-handedly taken down the first wave of enemies that morning. Even so....
"Yeah," Luffy, staring straight ahead at nothing in particular, replied. "Just need some...meat."
"Sora won't last much longer, either," Homura said as he swatted a swarm of vampiric bats away, "You're the last."
"Aye-aye!" Luffy grinned as some meat was brought up from the building.
Brook put him down to it, and then jumped to bring his blade down on the lupine creature Kitty had just phased through, saving her the trouble to having to kick it around herself.
"My pilot's in," she said to Homura.
Bamf. "So's mine," Kurt said, before falling to his knees. "The passengers are all on, too," he added through his exhaustion.
"Hey, uh, Kurt, right?" Sokka ran up. "Sora—!"
Kurt looked, and mustering all he had left, bamf'd away.
The two ended up collapsing when Kurt returned. "Take a rest," Sokka said, kneeling by their sides.
Kitty whirled as she was suddenly covered by a shadow, but it was only Luffy. "My pilot's on!" Luffy said as he came down.
"All the passengers, too," Yuffie added, landing next to him. She turned to look at the sentinels. "Only three, though."
Three should be more than enough. Homura frowned at the battlefield. They didn't have any intel on the enemy. Maybe it was enough, maybe it wasn't.
"Should we retreat now?"
Homura shook his head. "If they think they're winning, they might stay." He turned to Sokka, Yuffie, and Kitty. They could still fight. Homura turned and charged.
-
The fading light glinted off the metal of broken and discarded weapons and burning the bodies of the dead before leaving them to cool.
They watched from the roof as the enemy fled, unable to discern which of the sentinels contained their own, or whether they could find any clue of their circumstances or whether they would make it back at all.
The sun dipped below the horizon, casting Landel's prisoners into darkness.
Title: Hell of a Different Kind
Author:
idiosynacophonyBeta: None. Hopefully it isn't too bad. ;_; I'd actually sacrificed writing quality for plot, on account of being so busy this month. /)_(\ It's so apparent in the later parts, I'm so sorry ;;;A;;;
Word Count: 2912
Rating: PG for violence?
Main Cast, Supporting Cast: Sora, Soma Peries, Doumeki Shizuka, Homura, Kitty Pryde, Kurt Wagner
Cameos, One-scene Stars, Name-drops: Yuffie Kisaragi, Sokka, Fai D. Flourite, Senna, Tsukishiro Yukito/Yue, Edward Elric, Yamada Hanatarou, Maes Hughes, Celes Chere, Hitsugaya Toshiro, Lelouch Lamperouge, Monkey D. Luffy, Brook
Pairing(s): N/A
Summary: The Head Doctor is dead! ...Which prompts some kind of war by some mysterious enemy. (OF DOOM.)
Notes: Aside from characterization, one of the most blatant possible-errors is how people address each other. I...didn't really know what to do about that. ;_; Also, I was a little unsure on when some characters were taken from, so...some inconsistencies? ;_;
The flames sparked in midair and whirled in a tempest around him, magic designed to both protect and destroy. Most of the monsters flew back, but a few flame-resistant ones only stumbled, and resumed their attack. Sora blocked one claw, jabbed a flashy stomach, sidestepped a blade, swung at a head, and then turned too late against the glint of deadly nails, raking straight down—
The whoosh of displaced air, the screech of a monster in pain. Sora looked back and saw the glint a pointy weapon whirling around him before flying back into Yuffie's hands.
"Why are you surrounded in the middle of a wide-open space?" she asked, sending her shuriken out again without missing a beat.
"Got separated from the others." Sora turned to the now-nailsless creature, which was coming for him again. He'd expected a sarcastic or--something reply, but after a pause, he looked over to see Yuffie stumble upon landing, just before he himself was blown off his feet by a strong gust of wind.
They looked up at the thing that was messing with the wind—something of a cross between a tengu and a crow—and were prepared to attack when it was konked on the head by a boomerang.
Sokka ran towards them. "Retreat!"
Sora and Yuffie turned and cut through the swarm, making their way towards the building of Landel's Institute rising in the near distance.
-
Landel's Institute—once their prison, now their home base. The gentle light of healing washed over Sora's face as he concentrated on casting Cure, throwing his exhaustion into even sharper relief. Ideally, Cura would have been better, but though the dampening effect of Landel's held lighter sway, it still lingered like a heavy pall throughout the entire building. It was even worse out beyond the walls.
Sora moved to another, and was about to cast again when a hand landed on his shoulder. He looked up. Fai, with that sad smile on his face. "Don't overexert yourself," the magician said. "It won't do any good to burn yourself out."
They'd lost people already, and in the latest onslaught, they'd lost even more. Sora was about to protest when his swaying vision made the decision for him. He nodded weakly and sank into a chair as Fai took over the healing.
-
Soma stood on the now-familiar roof, watching as an army of enemies—they had no word for them but "monster," which seemed inappropriate, somehow—retreat as another force ("platoon," perhaps?) advanced.
Any let-up in the sieges were always brief, far-too-short breaths of air for the Landel's trapped prisoners. There was always someone fighting, or patrolling. Always, there was someone healing and someone recuperating. Always, their enemy advanced.
Unwilling to just give up--after they had survived Martin Landel, after they had survived this far, the Institute prisoners kept fighting.
Movement. Soma whirled, quickly following the deft movements of a bird in flight. The bird flapped for a moment, then cawed once.
Soma's eyes widened before she hit the floor. She flinched as the bird dived at the roof and exploded. "Attack!" she shouted at the other sentries, particularly the one standing just inside the stairwell leading into the Institute. That sentry would lock it, and depending on who it was, would barricade it. Soma and the other sentries just had to get there.
She reached the stairwell shoulder-to-shoulder with Doumeki, and tumbled in when the door opened under their frantic knocking. Senna closed it right away. "The others?" she shouted over the din of exploding birds.
"Saw Tsukishiro coming," Doumeki said just before he discovered what frantic knocking sounded like from this end. Senna opened the door to admit the other two sentries.
"Barricade!"
The five quickly reached for the various heavy things lying around and shoved them against the door.
-
Doumeki spread the blanket he'd brought over on Sora, who'd fallen asleep in the chair he'd collapsed in. Doumeki had considered waking him up—in that position, Sora was only going to wake up with cramp, but decided that Sora, like many of the others, would insist on getting up and run around getting more exhausted. Most of the Institute prisoners couldn't sleep properly, they only passed out.
He spotted Soma, and went over. "Our shift is officially over, but what do we do about those birds?"
"They will tell us, I suppose." Soma wrapped a cloth around the metal pipe in her hands. She'd learned a lot about grips the last few days. Bandages would be better, but they needed those.
A pause.
Soma looked up.
"Do you have a long-range weapon?"
"No."
It didn't quite matter, Doumeki supposed. The sentries watched for looming threats, but most of the time just the advancing armies, too many for the sentries to shoot. That didn't mean they couldn't back up their fighters, which they had been doing, but--
"Don't think too hard about it," Soma said quietly. He turned to her. "It's been considered—how to maximize the effectiveness of the archers. But there's only so much you can do." For a moment, Doumeki saw Soma's eyes rest on Sora.
He understood. "Thank you."
-
There was one thing Doumeki could do, though.
"So...where should I hold you?" Kitty Pryde asked, as they climbed the stairs to the roof. "Not your arms, because you'll need them really quick, right?"
"I will."
They stopped near the barricade while Kitty considered him. "Would this be okay?" Kitty stepped behind him and took hold of his collar.
It felt precarious. He was wearing the Institute clothing, none of which had proper, grasp-friendly collars. But they didn't have a whole lot of options. "It's okay."
"It'll only be for a second," Kitty reassured him. "Ready?"
Doumeki grimly flexed his fingers on his bow, stepped sideways into stance. "Ready."
Their feet left the ground, they floated smoothly up and through the roof.
They had phased up into a battleground. For a moment, disoriented, it looked hopeless. Then Doumeki picked a target and started shooting.
What seemed like hours but was probably minutes later, Doumeki caught movement at the corner of his eye. Startled, he very nearly braced himself for death when he realized the bird had passed right through him to hit the rooftop behind.
He turned to Kitty, who'd grabbed his shoulder. "It doesn't look like they're going to retreat anytime soon." She stared at a couple of birds that had gathered together, almost looking like a big bomb oh shi—
A jolt went through Doumeki's stomach as they suddenly went down. Still phased, Doumeki for a moment had a nice view of the exploded stairwell, and then they were down on the floor below. "Barricade's gone!" Kitty said to planners in this room.
"Quickly!" Homura ran for the staircase, all of the fighters in the room coming behind. Whirling around the corner, he reached the door just before the birds.
But he can't do anything— several of the fighters realized—
"Reflect!" A pattern of translucent polygons appeared before Homura and hovered there while a few birds ran into it. Then the explosion turned outward, blasting the nearby birds in the stairwell.
They turned to Sora, and Ed Elric behind him, who clapped his hands together and then laid his palms on the ground. The walls on either side of the stairwell doorway rippled and melted inwards as the floor rose up to meet them, creating a solid wall right before the door.
"That should hold them for a while," Ed said, grinning grimly.
"They might blast through the floor." Homura turned. Several of his fighters took off for the floor below. To Ed, he asked, "Can you move that wall?"
"Depends on what you mean by moving."
"If we can keep moving barriers, we could drive them out of the building," Homura explained. That was their priority for now; how they'd continue to fight off the birds would have to come later. "You come with me," he said to Sora.
-
Homura had considered having Ed create a window. Their sentry posts were gone; it only made sense for the enemy—whoever they were—to seize the opportunity and attack during that time.
"Ready?" he said to Sora as they stood before the front door.
Sora nodded.
The doors were pulled open, and Homura, Sora right behind him, ran through and—"Reflect!"—the doors closed solidly behind them.
As expected, the birds had been waiting out here, too. The small swarm that had descended upon the opening doors bounced off the Keybearer's little protective dome and hit their own instead, creating a little clearing—temporary, Homura knew. Ignoring that for now, he peered through the hive of birds.
"That's not good," Sora said from behind him, echoing his sentiments exactly.
-
"Sentinels?!" Kurt turned to Kitty, "Sentinels?!"
"Some of the enemies have been familiar to us," Homura said sharply. "Focus!"
Oh, they were focusing, all right. Kitty phased and Kurt bamf'd away as a fist came down on them.
"Sentinels?" Kitty muttered as she emerged from the giant fist.
"Is that what they're called?" Soma said from beside her, smacking her pipe into a wolf-like thing.
"Yeah," Kitty said, roundhouse-kicking something that looked like a small bear. Or maybe a yeti. "Why?"
Soma squinted up at where she imagined the cockpit might be.
-
"Hey!" Sora ran up to blue and fuzzy, "Can you get me up there?" He pointed up at a sentinel's head.
"Why would—" Spotting a whole mass of gelatinous blob-like things ready to descend on them, Kurt abruptly changed his mind. He grabbed Sora's arm. "Sure!" Bamf.
As they fell towards the sentinel's metal-coated dome of a head, Sora flipped and, hopping a few times before he could catch his balance, finally managed to stay still long enough to aim his Key at the latch he'd spotted.
"It's empty," Sora said as it sprang open. "It's empty!" he called down below.
As if sensing his presence, the sentinel lurched, and in a moment, Sora was falling. He managed to turn, and kick off the sentinel's shoulder, and would have made a perfect landing if the sentinel hadn't raised its knee, clipping Sora's ankle and unbalancing him. Kurt had been fending off a blob and didn't notice in time, and Sora landed hard on his back.
At least nothing felt broken, he thought, dazed. He noticed running footsteps, and raised his Keyblade.
Soma, who'd been about to veer away, saw the gesture and jumped. Using the Keyblade as a platform, she shot upwards. Mid-jump, she realized she wouldn't make it, until Kurt, who'd seen Hanatarou run for Sora and who'd made the split-second decision to assist Soma, appeared above her. She grabbed his outstretched hand. "Going up!"
And then they were falling down. Kurt pushed her shoulder, adjusting her fall just that much and then she was in the cockpit and Kurt bamf'd back down to ground level. Soma flicked the switch to manual, and in a moment she was in control. She covered Hanatarou and Kurt as they half-dragged half-carried Sora away, and then turned the sentinel against what it would have called its allies.
A fierce fight later, the enemy looked like they might be retreating. After another moment, it looked safe enough for them to call their own retreat.
Doumeki and the other archers had been saving their arrows for moments like these. He drew his bow and began firing, covering for their returning fighters.
Homura looked up at their hijacked sentinel. They couldn't exactly get that thing inside, but they couldn't keep it manned and guarded out here, either. "Leave it," he yelled up.
Soma had calculated for that. Grudgingly, but she had. Slowly, she'd been backing the sentinel toward the Institute, and, after sweeping a last burst of fire through enemy hoards, jumped out onto the roof.
Ed Elric reached it just as Soma landed, and as Soma turned, he clapped and leaned over the railing to rest his palms against the wall of the Institute.
A giant fist grew our of the wall, punching the sentinel solidly in the back and causing it to tilt forward, and slam into some struggling enemies.
As Ed restored the concrete so the Institute wouldn't fall down around their ears, a new roof patrol touched off with Doumeki and the others, and Soma, Ed, and Homura went back in.
-
"We know someone can open those giant robots, and we know someone can pilot them," Sokka said, pointing with his boomerang at the little wood chips that represented the sentinels.
"We have quite a few pilots, actually," Hughes, who'd coordinated a quick head count after Soma had described the sentinel's controls, chimed in.
"But only one who can open them?"
"Wagner tried, after he saw what Sora did," Hitsugaya explained. "The covers are seamless, and the latch requires a key. No way to open it otherwise."
"If we have one of those," Sokka said slowly, thinking, "we can send it after them. Think about it," he said into the resulting silence, "we can't hold this place forever, and our—" he paused briefly, "our numbers are dwindling."
"We don't know how far out they are," Lelouch said, considering. "But they fueled the sentinels to be able to retreat."
"We can locate their base, if anything," Celes said quietly.
The room became quiet as they all thought about who would become possible sacrifices—or possible survivors.
"...Who goes on this mission?"
-
Assembled into their various teams, they stood quiescent on the roof, watching the approaching enemy. They could see sentinels among them, which was good, for now, but if something went wrong, it could become very, very bad.
-
Sora ran at a sentinel, watching its footsteps, waiting until the sentinel began raising its leg before launching into the air, jumping off the sentinel's foot and then to its knee, making his way higher until he was on its head. Unlocking the latch, he pulled it open and then jumped off and out.
Yuffie swung in and caught him, grabbing his wrist, and flinging him to the next sentinel. Sora grabbed onto a protruding piece of the sentinel's helmet and hopped onto its head, unlocking this one, too.
Jumping off again, he ended up falling past the sentinel's torso when Yuffie delayed her jump, having been assisting a pilot get into the first open sentinel. But as she headed for him, a stray bird-bomb bumped into Yuffie's shuriken, and though she knocked it away quickly enough to prevent the explosion from hurting anyone, her flight path was thrown off.
"Gomu Gomu no Roketto!"
Sora was caught mid-freefall by Luffy, who stretched up to him and then tossed him up by the waist.
"Hey—!" Sora looked down at the now-falling Luffy.
"Don't worry about me!" Luffy called, grinning, as he held onto his hat. He pointed up.
Sora looked, and saw that he and Yuffie—who had flipped and somersaulted and bounced her way back—were going to miss each other. Sora was going too high, too fast. "Magnet!" Pulled together by the attractive force, Yuffie grabbed his outstretched hand and whirled him around, releasing him to zoom toward another sentinel.
-
"Hmm?" Brook glanced up at his falling captain, and jumped to catch him in his arms.
Homura came up beside them. "Can you go?" he asked quietly. Luffy had almost single-handedly taken down the first wave of enemies that morning. Even so....
"Yeah," Luffy, staring straight ahead at nothing in particular, replied. "Just need some...meat."
"Sora won't last much longer, either," Homura said as he swatted a swarm of vampiric bats away, "You're the last."
"Aye-aye!" Luffy grinned as some meat was brought up from the building.
Brook put him down to it, and then jumped to bring his blade down on the lupine creature Kitty had just phased through, saving her the trouble to having to kick it around herself.
"My pilot's in," she said to Homura.
Bamf. "So's mine," Kurt said, before falling to his knees. "The passengers are all on, too," he added through his exhaustion.
"Hey, uh, Kurt, right?" Sokka ran up. "Sora—!"
Kurt looked, and mustering all he had left, bamf'd away.
The two ended up collapsing when Kurt returned. "Take a rest," Sokka said, kneeling by their sides.
Kitty whirled as she was suddenly covered by a shadow, but it was only Luffy. "My pilot's on!" Luffy said as he came down.
"All the passengers, too," Yuffie added, landing next to him. She turned to look at the sentinels. "Only three, though."
Three should be more than enough. Homura frowned at the battlefield. They didn't have any intel on the enemy. Maybe it was enough, maybe it wasn't.
"Should we retreat now?"
Homura shook his head. "If they think they're winning, they might stay." He turned to Sokka, Yuffie, and Kitty. They could still fight. Homura turned and charged.
-
The fading light glinted off the metal of broken and discarded weapons and burning the bodies of the dead before leaving them to cool.
They watched from the roof as the enemy fled, unable to discern which of the sentinels contained their own, or whether they could find any clue of their circumstances or whether they would make it back at all.
The sun dipped below the horizon, casting Landel's prisoners into darkness.