Wild ARMs: Off on a Tangent
By: Chibi-chan
Part 14: “… For the Lonely”
*
It was a quiet afternoon in Court Seim. A cool breeze was blowing, an indication of the cold night that lay ahead. Nicholi Maxwell was at home, waiting for the young lady who had left her ARM with him for repairs to return. Instead of the young lady, his son was the next person to enter the residence with the treasures from the Volcannon Trap. “Dad, I’m home,” Nicholi’s son said.
*
Cecil walked out of the Magic Guild office with a couple of new spells in tow. He looked up at the sky and, not liking the looks of something, muttered, “Calm before the storm. I just know it.”
*
As for Allison and Elmina, well…
Elmina poked the arm of the strange man in the bar for the umpteenth time. The man still said, “*sigh* Times are tough.”
Allison, studying the man, thought out loud, “That is all he says? Most peculiar…”
“Want me to kick him to see if he’ll say something different?” Elmina suggested all too cheerfully.
You can guess what happened next. If you can’t, this summarizes it:
*PUNT!* “*sigh* Times are tough.”
*
“… so you found the golem and your friend woke it up, but the shield mechanisms don’t work right, hmm?” Nicholi said, summarizing what his son had just told him.
James nodded. “But there’s one more thing you should know. You see, this crazy woman from Adlehyde…”
The boy didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence, for there was a knock on the front door. Nicholi left the kitchen where he was talking to his son and got the door. The young woman from earlier had returned for her ARM. “Ah, Miss Sommers, how nice to see you again,” he said sincerely. He did have a bit of a fancy for the lady although she was only about five or six years older than his son. He went back to the kitchen door and asked James to get Miss Sommers’s ARM from his apprentice downstairs. The ARMs
meister turned back to the lady. “So, Miss Sommers, how has your day been?”
*
James was grumbling complaints as he returned with the ARM. “Why couldn’t you just get it yourself? It’s not like you to send someone else to-“ He stopped short when he heard the sound of a woman’s laughter. The boy took a peek out the door and saw something he didn’t expect to see. Dad? Flirting with some woman? And one who can’t be much older than me?! he thought.
James left the kitchen and with one swift move put the ARM directly between the lady and his father. “Here,” he said blandly.
Nicholi, with a nervous little laugh, gestured to the weapon and told Miss Sommers, “Well, here it is! If you still have any problems with it…”
“I’ll come back,” Miss Sommers finished for him. She took the ARM and said, “Thank you, Mister Maxwell. It was… nice… talking to you,” arching her eyebrow and smiling at Nicholi before taking her leave.
“Ta…” Nicholi uttered, still very much under her spell.
“Gee, dad, I didn’t realize you were training yourself to be a dirty old man already,” James said sharply.
Nicholi sighed. “Son, you know I loved your mother, but it’s been eleven years, almost twelve, since she disappeared. She’s not coming back, and it’s unrealistic of you to think I’ll just sit around pining away for her until the day I die,” he told his son. “Besides, it not like she’d be the first woman I’ve been with since that day…”
James blinked. “WHAT?!?” he shouted louder than he had intended.
“Well, I’m an widower, not a priest,” Nicholi said with a shrug, “It’s not like there were all that many, anyway.”
The boy held his head in his hand, a gesture indicating his exasperation and mild disgust, and groaned, “I am so not hearing this…”
“What?” the ARMs meister asked. “You act like I’m going into details or something!”
“Da~ad! Just stop talking about this, OK?!” James protested.
“Nicholi! It’s been a long time!”
Both men turned to look at the source of the voice to find one Allison Hazad (and just between you and me, it’s best that there’s only one). “Allison? Yeah, it has…” Nicholi said. Not long enough for my tastes, you old slave driver… he thought.
*
Well,
Laine left the Rune Driver she and the others found at the old lab east of
here…
Good,
good, so where’s the other?
In an
old shrine southeast of here. It’s
protected from monsters there.
All
right, so we’ll get it and fix up the golem… *sigh* rather, Ringo
tomorrow, Nick?
Yeah. Then you’ll be able to go back home,
Alli. Your home far, far away…
Why,
Nicholi, I’d think you didn’t like me, the way you talk!
*
Quite a while, rather late at night, after that minor chat went on in Nicholi’s house, Cecil was out of the house, sitting at the left bank of the stream that went through the town. Funny, how watching water, I seem to see things about myself I didn’t before… he thought, tossing a small stone into the water for no reason but to tell the water to cram it. Stupid water, I don’t want to be effing introspective! He heard another splash. “Eh?”
He looked to his right and saw that it was James who threw the second stone. “So here’s where you went off to,” James said. He seated himself nearby. “What are you doing up and out at this hour?”
“I need a reason? And since when you my keeper? You’ve been acting like it since we left Tripillar,” the prince asked him in trademark bitter little snot fashion.
The bounty hunter “hmph”ed and said, “Is it so wrong to care about another person’s life? You were hurt during that ordeal, you know. Seeing someone dear get… hurt… ah…” He trailed off as soon as he realized what he was saying and looked away, trying to hide some of his embarrassment.
“’Someone dear’?” Cecil repeated. “I’m dear to you?’
Still not looking at the prince, James told him, “Well, maybe not dear, but I’d be a bit upset if you, like, died or something.”
The blond boy gave him a quizzical look. “Mmm hmm… You know, last time we were both out here, I was only saying things to piss you off. It’s OK if you really are…”
The darker-haired boy gave Cecil a confused look in return. “Am what?”
Cecil wasn’t sure if he should be annoyed that James was that dense or amused for the same reason. “Never mind, it’s not important.” He thought of a different topic. “You said back at Adlehyde that you lost your mom a long time ago. What’s your story? If you wanna hear mine first, my mother… she was a wall in the way of those who wished to do some rather dubious things, so those people decided destroying the wall would be best in the long run…”
“… poor thing,” James said, looking at the boy with sympathy, “But at least you know that she’s dead. I don’t even know if mine is or not…” He paused for a moment, trying to make sure he wouldn’t fall apart saying what he was about to say. “My family, mom, dad, and I, we were run out of Milama when I was eight years old because momma was…”
“Was what?” Cecil asked, curious as to what could turn a town against what he guessed was a typical, nice little family.
“… she was what most people in this world would call…” James said, wincing a little as he prepared to say the last word of the sentence, “… a ‘Metal Demon’.”
The prince did a double take. “She was a what?! You’re not messing with me, are ya?!” James gave him a look that said he most certainly was not. “Wow. She didn’t do anything to invoke it, did she? I mean, if she was living with you and your dad, I would imagine she wasn’t trying to cause trouble…”
The dark-haired boy shook his head. “Not a single thing. Once word got out about what she was, people went nuts. We got separated from her during the flight. We’re not sure if she ended up getting killed or is just staying away from us for some reason, maybe to protect us from a repeat occurrence.”
“… I see…” Cecil said. It was about that time he noticed that it was lighter out than when he had first come outside. “Sun’s rising. Maybe we should go back…”
“Good idea,” James agreed. He was the first to his feet, so he offered a hand to Cecil for help up.
The prince accepted the hand, but no sooner had he gotten about halfway back up, the fact that his foot was asleep was made quite apparent, for it caused him to stumble conveniently forward. Luckily for him, James caught him before he fell all the way down. “Nice catch,” Cecil said, feeling rather silly.
“My, isn’t this cozy?” a vaguely female voice crooned.
James dropped his head. “For the love of… Tell me it wasn’t some floating thing wearing a sheet that just spoke, Cecil,” he muttered.
Cecil took a look and said, “I can say that only if you want me to lie, buddy.”
“Please, don’t let me interrupt your little romantic moment here. I can wait,” Emma, the floating thing wearing the sheet, said, adding a lecherous chuckle at the end.
“What do you MEAN, ‘little romantic moment’?! He slipped and I caught him before he fell flat on his face!” James yelled in his defense, letting Cecil go in the process.
“That’s what they all say, darling,” Emma told him. “Well, if that’s all that’s going to happen there, I should get to my point. It wouldn’t do for me to stay around here all day.” She cleared her throat, then got to the point. “The Rune Drivers. I believe they might be useful to me, so I want for you to bring them here at 8 o’ clock sharp. If you don’t, well, I might feel the urge to destroy this nice, peaceful town. I can be quite the bitch before my morning latte, you should know. Ta ta!” She turned into a ball of light and vanished, her demand made.
“… well, this is turning out to be a great day already,” Cecil quipped.
“Never mind the wisecracks, we have to got tell dad about this!” James said, already on his way back to the house.
“’Never mind the wisecracks’? There’s always time for wisecracks!” the prince said to himself before following James.
*
It wasn’t a pleasant morning for the people of Court Seim. Being awakened with the threat of eminent death and destruction wouldn’t make your morning a cup of tea either. A hastily-thrown together plan of attack was cooked up by Nicholi. The plan? Nicholi, Allison, and James (the last going only grudgingly) would escort the people out of town to a safe place, a sacred shrine a short distance to the southeast, while Cecil and Elmina would stay behind to see if it was an idle threat or not. If not, they’d have to deal with whatever was going to come at them. If so, they’d go to the people and give the “all clear” to go back to town.
The people gone, Cecil and Elmina waited…
And waited…
And waited some more…
“It doesn’t look like they’re coming,” Elmina said at about nine that morning, “Think sheet chick was just messing with you?”
Cecil shook his head. “I don’t think so. At least, it didn’t seem like it. Maybe she’s got something else planned… but what? What would be the point of scaring the crap out of everyone?”
“Herding,” the small voice of Zed replied. “You tell a bunch of people their home’s gonna be destroyed in a way that they’ll take seriously, they’re gonna flock to a safe place.” He paused, then added, “And wouldn’t one keep potentially dangerous stuff in a safe place…?”
Elmina looked at Zed and asked, “But what could possibly be in the shrine Nicholi took the…!” She stopped before she finished the question and gasped. “The other Rune Driver! I overheard him and Allison talking about it being there last night! We gotta…” She turned her head in the direction of where the prince was, but His Highness wasn’t there anymore. “Stupid kid, always rushes ahead without waiting for his friends… KID! WAIT!” she said before going in the direction of the shrine.
*
Contrary to what Nicholi had told them, the shrine was not that safe. Well, not anymore, anyway. Monsters roamed the halls, forcing the people to hole themselves up in the few monster-free rooms. Stories about how monsters appeared suddenly after they entered, that it was strange how the dimensional barrier had failed them somehow, and even a story from a little kid about a monster turning into a human and putting on some pants, ran rampant among the survivors of the sudden monster attacks.
The group of Cecil, Elmina, and Zed made their way to the largest of the monster-free rooms and found James, frazzled and not in his standard armor due to the short notice, reloading a small ARM. “I don’t get it,” James told them, “They shouldn’t have been able to get past the barrier. Allison even checked it and said it was working fine…”
Zed chimed, “Maybe they found a way to get in with the humans; that’s how I got in.”
James gave the Wind Mouse an evil look. “Don’t be stupid; no one in town would be crazy enough to willingly help a monster get in here, let alone a big group like the ones that did get in here.”
“Now, now, Casanova, don’t be so rude. The mouse is absolutely right about one thing,” the now-familiar vaguely female voice of Emma chided. “… but then again, you’re right too.”
Elmina, recognizing the voice from a bad memory from a long time ago, held a firm grip on the hilt of her sword, ready to draw it at a moment’s notice. “What do you mean by that? And show yourself, you sneak-attacking witch!”
Emma “tsk”ed. “Temper, temper, young lady. I merely used the same means by which I, in my second greatest experiment ever, turned the population of Saint Centour into monsters. It’s very simple; get one of my special ‘seeds’ to be ingested by a human, wait a while, press a button, and poof! Instant monster. It’s lovely in its simplicity, just like my greatest experiment. Of course, you can’t truly appreciate what I did for him, young lady, but I can see why you fought so hard to try to get him to come with you. He’s quite adorable in his denseness.”
“You…” Elmina growled. The little voice in the back of her mind was screaming for her to control her temper, that revenge was not the way, and she knew that, she really did, but there was no telling her heart that. “Come out here and fight like a ma… er, woman!”
“Love to, young lady, but I have a date with a certain human about a certain piece of machinery. Ta ta!” That was the last Emma’s voice was heard saying in the room.
“A certain human…?! DAD!” James cried out. He checked to make sure the ARM in his hands was loaded properly, then ran out of the room, followed shortly by Elmina and Cecil.
*
By the time Elmina and Cecil caught up with James, the guard in front of the room where Nicholi was had been turned into multiple monsters. No sooner had the pair attracted the bush-like creatures’ attention away from the bounty hunter had same bounty hunter barged into the room before his allies could go with him. “He’s just as reckless as you, Cecil!” Elmina yelled to the prince while neatly slicing an arm off the monster she was dealing with.
Swiftly incinerating a second monster, Cecil replied in complete innocence, “Me? Reckless? How so?”
“Not quite as dense as you, tho’…” she muttered under her breath.
*
Inside the room, James was quite surprised to see Nicholi and Allison were holding their own against Emma and some pint-sized (relatively speaking) fly-like familiars she had with her pretty damn well. James nervously chuckled to himself and said, “I keep forgetting Dad’s been using an ARM a lot longer than I have…”
Unfortunately for the boy, Emma heard him and sent some of the familiars to get him. Also bad for him is that they were a lot faster than he was. They disarmed and snatched him up faster than you can say “I think that someone had put a hat on some ham.” Emma cackled in a Naga-esqe manner and said, “Put down your weapons, both of you, or something nasty might happen to this boy.”
Allison lowered her REALLY big ARM a bit, cocked her head to one side, and asked plainly, “It wouldn’t happen to involve tentacles, would it? Because if it does…”
Emma made a face behind her mask. Nicholi glared at Allison. James complained, “I am damn unsatisfied to be in a position like this.”
Something finally sort of went James’s way when Emma and familiars came under attack from behind by the Multi-Colored Disco Balls of Doom ™. I say “sort of” because the dear boy was dropped most suddenly and painfully shortly after impact. “Er, oops,” the Crest Sorcerer who had cast the spell said sheepishly, “Didn’t think she’d drop you like that, Jamie.”
“It’s… OK…” the bounty hunter said, trying to get back to his feet. “At least I’m not the poor little hostage any more.” Getting to his feet, he soon realized he wouldn’t be there too terribly long. A sharp pain ran through his ankle the moment he put pressure on it, making him go back the floor rather quickly to relieve the pain temporarily. “Lovely. From helpless hostage to woman in horror movie…” he grumbled to himself.
Emma, already looking back to her attacker, also saw an extremely angry sword-wielding woman from her past. Realizing that not only were the odds against her, but against her quite a bit, she decided a tactical retreat was in order. “Well, not that this wasn’t a little slice of heaven, since it wasn’t, I must take my leave. The Rune Drivers will stay with you humans a little longer, I suppose. But this isn’t the last you’ll hear of me! Far from it!” She did her little disappearing act, leaving most relieved and one person angry and disappointed.
Nicholi was soon kneeling next to his injured son. “Are you all right?” he asked worriedly.
“Yeah. Nothing broken, I think, but probably sprained all to hell,” James replied. With a nervous laugh, he added, “I was going to ask you the same question.”
“Heh, well, I’m doing fine. Your old man still can fight halfway decent if he has to,” James’s father told him.
Cecil leaned down some and looked at James. “You wanna see if my magic can help you any? Just remember it’s not perfect…”
A short distance away, Allison approached Elmina. “My, you look upset. She kick your Wind Mouse in the past or something?”
“HEY! I’m not ‘hers’! I’m not a damned pet!” Zed yelled, only to be ignored by everyone.
“I’d… rather not talk about it, if you don’t mind,” Elmina hesitatingly said to the professor, “It’s a painful story…” You won’t get away with this, sheet chick. I will get Garrett back or die trying, she thought.
*
End Chapter 14
Chibi’s notes:
Irony and angst: Our dear, dear friends. And denseness, someone else’s confusion about their sexual identity, and cappuccino obsessions are fun to write about. ^_^
Rudy: That’s because you’re evil.
No, I’m *Badly-dubbed* EEEEEEEVIIIIIIIL! Mwhahahahaha!! Iiiindeeeed!
Rudy: … shoot me. Shot me now. -_-;;;
(o/~ If you lose your one and only,/ There’s always room here for the lonely./ Watch your broken dreams dancing out on the beams of a neon moon…o/~ [-“Neon Moon”, Brooks and Dunn])