Wild ARMs: Off on a Tangent

By: Chibi-chan

Part Three: “When Demons Attack!”

*

The day of the Ruins Festival had arrived in Adlehyde! The whole city was buzzing with excitement because it was the first big event they had seen in years. The Ruins Festival was here! What could possibly go wrong today?

*

Elmina was the first one awake. After knocking Zed off the pillow and onto the floor to wake the little Wind Mouse up (he’s a notoriously deep sleeper…), she left the room to go wake up “Rudy”.

The door was unlocked when she got there. Hmm, I thought Rudy was more responsible than to leave his door unlocked… Elmina thought. Without thinking, she opened the door to find that not only was “Rudy” changing, but that “he” had a little secret… “You’re a GIRL?!” Elmina exclaimed in shock.

Zed muttered, “Not a bad lookin’ one either, for a human-“ Elmina knocked the Wind Mouse off her shoulder for that little comment.

Laine quickly pulled her shirt on and blushed. She muttered to herself, “So this is how she had to find out. Great…” Laine spoke again, this time, loud enough for Elmina and Zed to hear. “Yes, I am a woman. Sorry to have deceived you, but no one seems to have any confidence in my abilities except when I pretend to be a man…”

Elmina shook her head. “Kid, you didn’t have to hide that from me… I take it Rudy’s not your real name either.”

“It isn’t. My name is Laine. Laine Roughnight,” Laine said.

“Well, Laine, maybe we should go down to the festival after you get finished dressing. You still need to get paid for the work you did yesterday, right?” Elmina said. She then closed the door and waited off to the side. I knew there was something strange about that kid! she thought triumphantly.

*

Cecil absently ran a hand through his long hair. He was still trying to figure out why on Filgaia would “Rudy” want to hide her gender. She was obviously a competent fighter, and she seemed nice enough, if not a little too quiet… She had the loveliest eyes…

He shook his head. Now was not a time to be thinking about this. He had to get ready for his appearance at the Ruins Festival…

*

The festival was a pretty happenin’ place to be that day. Sure, there were plenty of games, but the main attraction was the relics of the past on display. ARMs, strange machines and metals, even the mysterious skeleton were on display. The displays that everyone was swarming around were the excavated golems. Diablos, Barbados, and the center of attention, Adlehyde’s own Lolithia, were looked at in awe by the masses. “How on Filgaia could anyone make such marvels of magic and technology such as the golems?” they wondered.

Away from the crowds waited Professor Allison Hazad. When is that person going to get here? I wanna see if I can hit the center of the target in Strike Ball this time! she thought.

The familiar figures of Elmina and Laine were heading toward the good (albeit slightly deranged) professor. “Ah, so you’re finally here!” Allison said cheerfully, “Good, now I can finally pay you and go on to my *cough* other business at hand!” She quickly went up to Laine, shoved a bag of money into the Dream Chaser’s hands, and went off to the Strike Ball booth. “I will win this time! Khhk, khhk, khhk!” she shouted, prompting the people around her to cringe. No one in Adlehyde was used to that awful chuckle of hers, nor did they want to get used to it.

*

Elmina and Laine were just milling around through the crowd when a woman cried, “Billy?! Where are you?!” The woman made her way through the crowd, asking everyone if they had seen her missing child. She eventually made her way to Elmina and Laine. “Have either of you seen my little boy? He slipped away from me when I was looking at the Barbados exhibit. He’s about so tall,” she held her hand to a little above her waist, “has dark hair, and was carrying a red balloon!”

Elmina replied, “Sorry, haven’t seen him. If I do, I’ll be sure to tell you.”

The mother sighed and went back to asking everyone about her missing son.

If this were a cartoon, a lightbulb would have appeared near Laine’s head. “Hey, I think I saw that child she was looking for head back towards town,” she said to Elmina. “Maybe we should go and bring him back…”

Elmina nodded and the pair headed back to the main part of the city…

*

Smack dab in the middle of the town was where Elmina and Laine found the lost little boy. He was clutching the string of his red balloon and crying about not being able to find his “mommy”.

Surprisingly, Laine was the one to speak to the child. “There you are,” she said soothingly, “Your mother was looking for you back at the festival. Would you like Auntie Laine to take you back to your mother, little boy?”

The child stopped crying and looked at Laine. He slowly nodded and reached out for Laine’s hand with the hand he held the balloon’s string in. The balloon escaped the boy’s grasp and floated higher and higher into the sky. “My balloon!”

*

A storm seemed to be brewing in the sky. The child’s balloon was burst by a bolt of lightning. This was no ordinary storm, as the inhabitants of Adlehyde soon discovered. They watch in a fearful awe as the nightmare spread over their heads. The sky was cracking. A purple-hued acid-trip-like swirling portal was visible from the places the sky had cracked. Beams of light struck down from the sky to the earth and faded just a quickly as they came, leaving behind monsters and the fires that the burning light had created.

Laine recoiled as the child reaching out to her was struck dead by one of the monsters. Her thoughts quickly turned to her associate. Was Elmina OK? She found that out quickly enough as Elmina dragged the girl away from the monster that had killed the child.

Behind one of the burning buildings (not exactly the safest place to be, but it was the lesser of two dangers), Laine asked Elmina, “Do you know what’s going on here?! The sky just cracked like ice, and then monsters…!”

Elmina looked down for a moment. “This is similar to what was rumored to have happened in Arctica years ago…” she said softly.

Laine blinked twice. “Then what are we supposed to do?! Should we go and see if there are any survivors? If there are, perhaps we should head for the castle. It doesn’t look like the castle itself was attacked; it should probably be safe!”

Elmina sighed. “Yeah, we should do that…”

*

At the entrance of the castle, Cecil was surrounded by monsters. “You think you scare me?! I’m not as weak as you think I am!” he nearly screamed at the monsters, “I won’t go down without a fight!” He took out his staff (the weapon, not that…) and took a step back.

Elmina and Laine were leading the survivors to the castle when they saw that the path was blocked by monsters. The monsters were converging on a single familiar person…

Laine gasped. “That’s… that’s Cecil they’re after! C’mon, Elmina!” she said, drawing her short sword instead of her ARM. She didn’t want to risk hitting Cecil with misaimed fire by accident.

*

One brief, unimportant battle later…

“’Mina! Rudy! Thank the Guardians you’re all right! Great timing, I must say!” Cecil exclaimed in relief. He turned his attention to the people behind them. “Those are other survivors? Well, we’d better all hurry into the castle; they’ll be closing the gates soon.” With that, he turned around and went back into the castle.

*

As soon as everyone was relatively safe and sound, Cecil received some horrible news. The king had been wounded severely in the attack, and it was possible that he would not live much longer. Father… Cecil thought. “’Mina, Rudy…”

“Laine,” Laine corrected. Cecil had already told her that he figured out her little secret earlier.

“Whatever. Would you two come with me to see my father? I… I don’t want to go alone,” Cecil said, his voice wavering.

“Your father…? The king is your father?” Laine whispered in ashtonishment.

Cecil merely nodded and turned to walk away.

“Well, you heard him, he doesn’t want to go by himself!” Laine said in a rare showing of assertiveness. She grabbed ahold of Elmina’s arm and started to drag her along and Laine went to catch up with Cecil.

*

The extent of the king’s wounds weren’t as severe as the group had assumed. “I’m not dead yet!” the king declared, “I’m getting better!”

Minister Johan interjected, “No, you’re not. You’ll be stone dead in a moment.”

Zed muttered, “Why do I feel like I’m in a very strange episode of Monty Python?”

“What’s ‘Monty Python’, mousie?” Elmina whispered to the Wind Mouse.

“Never mind, it’s not important…” Zed replied.

Just then, one of the knights that were guarding the castle rushed into the room. “Sir! There’s a message from the demons! They demand that we give them the Tear Drop crystal or they’ll tear this place apart!” he said.

Cecil took out said crystal and looked at it sadly. “It was the last gift mother gave me, but if giving it up will help the people…” he said softly.

“NO! You must not let them have the crystal! If they get it, the entire world will be in great danger!” the king exclaimed. “Don’t worry about the people; my knights will protect them. Please stay in your room until this is over.”

*

The prince’s room was not particularly nice and neat. By not being “nice and neat”, I mean it was very, very hard to find a place to stand on without standing on a pizza box or something else that wound up on the floor. It was so bad- (Audience: How bad was it?) It was so bad, even roaches won’t even live there! *rimshot*

“Eheh, excuse the mess…” Cecil said as the two ladies and himself entered the room.

“What the hell are we supposed to stand on; the table?” Elmina complained as she pointed to the surprisingly clean table, “It’s clear the floor’s out as an option.”

Cecil retorted, “Hey, it’s not like I asked you to come with me to my room. Leave, if that’s what you want.”

“Please don’t fight…” Laine pleaded softly. “We have to figure out what we’re going to do now…”

“It’s obvious what we must do next!” Cecil exclaimed, “We have to get the Tear Drop out to the demons so they’ll stop the attack!” He reached in his pocket the take out the Tear Drop, but… “It’s gone!”

Elmina calmly said, “You probably dropped it somewhere in the castle. It’s no big deal, someone’s bound to find it and return it.”

Cecil paused for a long time. He looked at Elmina and asked, “Would you go look for it for me? They’re not going to let me out of the room and I don’t want to attempt an escape until I have what the demons want…”

Elmina tilted her head to one side and looked at the prince strangely. “You really wanna go through with this?” She sighed. “Aw hell, I must be as crazy as you. Sure, I’ll go look for it. I’ll be back as soon as possible.” With that, Elmina left the room.

The whole time, the crystal was in the room. It was in Laine’s possession, to be precise. Forgive me, Cecil, but I can’t let the demons get the crystal. It is my duty to protect this world to the best of my ability… she thought. “Why don’t I go look too, Cecil?” Laine asked of the prince.

Cecil turned his back to her. “Why bother? You already know where the crystal is,” he said icily.

Laine recoiled. “W-what do you mean, ‘I already know’?”

“Come on, you honestly don’t think I wouldn’t be able to sense the presence of the Tear Drop or to realize I’ve been pickpocketed, do you?” he said with a sneer. To be stolen from was one thing, but to be stolen from by someone he was beginning to care about? For him, that was the worst thing she could ever do to him. “Why’d you do it? For money? Power? Did someone put you up to it?”

Laine bowed her head and whispered, “It is my duty to protect this world. If the Tear Drop falls into the wrong hands, many will be hurt or even die.”

Cecil was a bit skeptical about her answer. “It’s your duty?”

“I was created to defend the world from the demons. It is my duty to keep them from succeeding in the plans,” she said. She looked up at Cecil. “If you wish to regain the crystal, you will have to go through me.”

All Cecil could do was gawk at the young woman in utter confusion. “Excuse me? I’ll have to fight you for the Tear Drop? And what’s with this you were ‘created’ business? What color of crack have you been smoking, lady?!” He was too busy asking questions to realize that Laine had picked up a book off the floor and was about to hit him with it. The last thing he heard before everything went black was, “Forgive me, Cecil…”

*

“Yo, Princey, there’s no sign of- what the…?!” Elmina said as she entered the room. Cecil was flat on his back on the floor and seemingly unconscious. Laine was nowhere to be seen. “What in the name of the Guardians do you think coulda happened here, Zed?” she inquired.

Zed shrugged. “Maybe someone kidnapped Laine?”

“I doubt that, mousie. I don’t think Laine would have gone willingly with a kidnapper,” Elmina said.

“Willingly? Why do you think that?”

Elmina shook her head, not believing Zed would be so dense as not to see why. “Mousie, there’s no signs of a struggle. All there is is a knocked-out prince.”

Finally, something clicked in the mouse’s head. “You don’t think…?”

Elmina nodded. “I think we had a thief in out midst,” she said. She turned her attention to the fallen prince. “And hopefully Princey will have an answer as to why…”

*

A great distance away from Adlehyde, Laine finally stopped to rest. Not that she was all that tired, however. She was still shaken by what she just did. Cecil, I’m sorry, but I had to stop you. Filgaia’s future was at stake! As the last of the Holmcross, I have a duty to uphold…

The Holmcross, successors of the Golems, ancient weapons created by human mages (magi?) and the Naga, made to survive under any conditions, created only for the purpose to combat the Metal Demons. Laine found this out by reading her grandfather’s scientific journals (he never told her about it, which kinda hurt Laine…). Fortunately (unfortunately?), Laine took that “combat the demons” fact as “protect Filgaia from the demons” instead. Right now, however, her thoughts were with Adlehyde. The people of Adlehyde… The demons probably will… But I can’t let them get this crystal! I just CANT! Oh grandfather, what should I do now?

She received no answer. She felt more alone that she ever had before. She had just betrayed the only people besides her grandfather that sincerely treated her nicely, she had practically sentenced the people of Adlehyde to death with that same betrayal… All in all, she wasn’t having a good day and she knew that painfully well.

With a heavy sigh, she picked herself up and restarted her trek to Milama…

*

Back in Adlehyde, a covert evacuation of the people who made it to the castle in time (all ten of ‘em) was underway. Prince Cecil was leading the was through the Adlehyde sewers as Elmina guarded the rear.

I hope the demons don’t find the entrance to this place… Elmina thought, That would be very, very bad…

I hope we can find Laine after this, Cecil thought, Maybe she could explain things a little better then…

*

End Part Three

Chibi’s notes:

Finally, we have divergence from the source material. ^^

Peasants: *Blandly; waving flags* Yay.

Who let them in here?!