Chapter 43 - Dead Center

Dead Center
Chamber and Void looked back at the pursuing Rokiahi. Contrary to her condition before being carried by Remilia, Rokiahi was noticeably struggling, her running a little wonky and was red in the face, Rulia's armlock round her neck far too tight.

"Rokiahi, get on my back," offered Chamber, "We'll make much better time." Rokiahi took the offer, stepping onto one of his lower wings and taking a hold of one of his higher ones. Void began to attempt to release Rulia's hold of Rokiahi. "You need to be my eyes," continued Chamber, moving forward, "I can't turn to look around quickly with passengers and the radar jammer is stopping my other detection functions from working. And I can barely see."

Reimu was overlooking the city, watching the ongoing battles on the ground and in the air with her yellow eyes. None of the fights were nearby, her opponents deliberately trying to keep their distance from her. With a few exceptions.

Several loud explosions from above caught Reimu's attention, looking up. The enormous body of the Pillar of Autumn spacecraft passed by her as it plunged towards the ground, its back engine in flames. Reimu could only watch the ship strike the ground, crushing all the buildings around it, her expression annoyed but with a hint of regret. She looked back up again.

"Yo," saluted Marisa with a grin, her green eye glowing brightly as she hovered her broom.

"You need something?" Reimu asked, sounding a little bored.

"Funny you should should ask that, Reimu," replied Marisa, lowering herself to Reimu's level, "Because I need to beat the living daylights out of you."

"Go ahead." Marisa did not move, having lost her smile. "What are you scared of, Marisa?" Reimu's neutral tone was grinding Marisa's nerves but she did not reply, fixated on something behind Reimu. Curious, Reimu turned to look for herself, to see the giant purple Truth and Reconciliation spacecrusier of the alien Covenant faction speeding towards them from the east. It did not seem like a deliberate flight path as the ship was tilting, missing its front tail. The cruiser suddenly snapped at the neck, breaking into two pieces. The head passed by their left, the body sinking underneath, emitting metallic howls and the whizzing of debris past them. The Truth and Reconciliation dropped onto the Pillar of Autumn, fire erupting all across the hulls. There was a brief pause before the fusion reactors exploded, rocking the entire city, levelling all the buildings in a considerable radius.

"An eye for an eye, Marisa," began Sanae, hovering down next to Reimu. She smiled, yellow eyes glimmering.

"Why is Rulia so strong?" groaned Void, still trying to pull Rulia's arms apart, "I thought she was a normal human!"

"Well," noted Chamber, "She did something on Doomsday to convince Yamaha to imprison her. Did they ever tell us why?"

"Accio Chamber!" shouted a male voice. Chamber was involuntarily lunged forwards by the summoning spell. Rokiahi lost her grip from the sudden jolt unable to support the combined weight of her passenger and herself, tumbling off Chamber's back. Void had only barely held on. She looked ahead to see Harry Potter, wand outstretched at them.

Void drew back her right arm, a baseball-sized jet black sphere appeared in her hand. She threw it with a underarm toss towards Harry.

"Flipendo!" cried Harry, with another jolt of his wand. There was a flash of red, a crimson beam striking Void in the chest before she could react, sent flying off Chamber. "Wingardium Leviosa!" he followed, the black ball slowing down in the air. With a flick of the wand, the ball was launched in the opposite direction towards the oncoming Chamber.

"Whoa, whoa!" shouted Chamber, extending every cable he had in his back to try to get a grip of the road surface to stop his flight. "That thing better not be dangerous, Void!"

Without warning, the road began to morph, parts of it stretched up, forming walls. One wall formed in front of Chamber, who stopped the collision with his cables, the Accio effect disappearing. "Phew, that was-" There was the sound of a collision on the other side of the wall with a low hum, Chamber made the smart decision to back up as the wall suddenly exploded, black particles floating around. "... Close..." With a quick look around, he could tell they were in a maze, Harry was nowhere to be seen with plenty of walls in the way.

Void jumped down from the top of the wall behind him, taking the clever way over the walls. She was followed by Arma, the labyrinth golem, capable of generating mazes with her surroundings. Arma was carrying Rokiahi and Rulia, Rokiahi being unable to climb over the relatively high walls with any sort of comfort with Rulia on her back.

"Run," advised Arma simply, "There is not much time."

"Accio Firebolt!" called a familiar voice from the east. This was suddenly followed by wild ground shaking and the lagging but deafening sound of an explosion to the east. Rokiahi stumbled onto a knee in instability. Despite the strong rocking, the nearby buildings stood firm, proudly displaying their anti-earthquake natures.

"We're going," ordered Chamber, picking up Rokiahi. He charged through the front door of the block of flats to the north, leaving Arma behind, "Keep your heads down." Smashing through the back door into the backyard, he then took a right turn, heading back east, flying over the gardens separated by fences, another row of flat to his left. "This should be safe," commented Chamber. Suddenly, there was the sound of a guitar strum, "Or maybe not." He took a sharp left again, crashing through an upper floor window. As he left, air tremors from the east shot through the gardens, ripping apart the fences and cutting through the ground in six parallel lines. In the east, Yui sighed in disappointment holding her guitar, Gitah.

"What are you afraid of, Marisa?" repeated Reimu.

"Please don't talk, Reimu..." groaned Marisa, "You're giving me a headache."

"... Are you waiting for something?" asked Reimu, being serious.

Instead of responding, Marisa kicked her broom, shooting straight into Sanae, caught off guard. As the two tumbled downwards, Reimu watched them, deciding whether to intervene but her thoughts were interrupted by a loudening hum. She turned round, a rainbow coloured Hakurei Barrier box forming round her. The rocketing projectile landed on top of the box. With a grin, Miku raised her fist. Reimu took an educated guess at what she was holding, and forced the Barrier to go down of her own accord as Miku attempted to slam her fist down. Miku began to fall, with to stand on. Reimu grabbed onto Miku's collar and planted a facedown spell tag on Miku's abdomen. As soon as Reimu let go of Miku, the tag activated, Miku knocked downwards as though she was hit by a cannonball. As Miku attempted to regain control of her flight, Reimu took a moment to gaze towards the east at the approaching Normandy SR-2 and Halberd holding up the USS Enterprise.

Seeing this, she took out the Yin-Yang Orb and adopted a baseball pitcher stance. With great power, she threw the Orb with all her might, it slinging across the sky, straight into the front face of the Halberd and out the back engines. The Halberd howled, the entire ship beginning to destabilise and spin round, the back burst into flames. It released its cables, the Enterprise and Normandy sinking for a moment due to less lift. The Halberd continued spinning round, dropping height until it hit the ground.

The Normandy began to turn to avoid passing by Reimu but it had lost its agility due to the Enterprise's extreme weight. Reimu caught the returning Orb and was winding back for another throw when Miku flew up from below, grabbing Reimu's hair and her right wrist, preventing the throw. Miku was no longer smiling, fury on her face. Reimu turned and punched Miku in the abdomen, her fist embedding into the Vocaloid's body. "Fantasy Seal!" she called.

Miku's abdomen exploded with the extreme close range energy blast. But despite being in two halves, Miku was completely operational, her legs still flying, her upper half stick holding onto Reimu. "I was once the weakest Empress," began Miku, her shiny silver insides morphing and rippling. "But how times have changed, Reimu." The metal began to repair itself, rejoining Miku's two halves. While Sora had greatly enhanced her self-repair system, the Vocaloids had leaped even further forward with mimetic polyalloy liquid metal. Miku's polyalloy began to crawl up Reimu's arm, covering her clothes and skin.

Before Reimu's face could be covered by the metal, she screamed out, "Bring down the Enterprise!"

Chamber crashed through another window into another road before turning right, to go eastwards once more when a UNSC Gauss Warthog raced in from a junction ahead. Marcus Fenix was at the wheel with Master Chief stood at the mounted Gauss Rifle on the back. As they drove towards Chamber, Master Chief pulled the trigger, the white hot projectile shooting towards his green eye. Void quickly waved her right arm upwards, the bullet abruptly changing its path straight up, just before it could hit its target.

"I think my life flashed before me," murmured a stunned Chamber.

"Chamber, drop me," called Rokiahi. Chamber did so allowing Rokiahi to throw a grenade, quickly followed by dropping deployable Covenant cover, an energy shield erecting in front of her. With a burst of energy, the explosive longbow grenade shot to its target location immediately, right in the middle of the road that Marcus could not avoid. Both riders jumped off the vehicle, just as the grenade exploded under it. The warthog was launched upwards, inelegantly spinning round. Marcus rolled onto one knee and, drawing his chainsaw lancer rifle, began firing, just as a blue Metagross slammed down from the sky in front of him. The bullets bounced off his forehead, not very effective against Metagross' steel body. With a leap forward, Metagross zen headbutted Marcus, Marcus rolling backwards from the impact. An object suddenly hit and stuck to the side of Metagross' body. The Pokémon turned to see Master Chief on his feet and facing it. The object exploded with little warning, the Convent fragmentation grenade shooting out yellow hot spikes upwards. While these had no effect on the Metagross, the explosion left the burning shell of grenade stuck to its head. The Metagross roared, the fire super effective against him. Metagross stumbled enough, disoriented, as Yui landed from the sky further down the road to the east. She threw the rest of the strawberry cake she was eating in her mouth, taking Gitah and her pick in a playing position as she chewed. She swallowed and took a deep breath before speedpicking frantically, full of spare energy. Six air currents ripped down the road, then another six, and another with each strum, producing dozens of such currents each second. Master Chief extracted two back flaps, compressed air shooting out, this jet pack taking the Chief to the top of the nearby house. The Metagross, slightly recovered, attempted to magnet rise off the ground but was suddenly slammed on the head by a lamppost, Marcus having sawn halfway through the bottom of it with the lancer and pushed it down with force. Now unable to get out the way in time, the Metagross bellowed, producing a clear light screen in front of it to soften the impact of special attacks, such as Yui's. The light screen cut down the attack's power but still allowed a considerable portion though, Metagross taking the brunt to protect the four people behind it. Rokiahi's deployable cover began to shake and flash, blocking the remaining power of the air currents but was coming close to breaking.

Yui suddenly stopped playing, with a glance upwards, and jumped back as a large bright blue beam struck the road where she had been standing, the tarmac freezing and cracking by the absolute zero blast. Everyone looked up towards the west to see-

"Omegamon X," recognised Chamber. The digimon was firing from his left arm cannon, the Garuru Cannon, following Yui's movements across the road ahead. Yui was too agile, curling round the beam and flying and closer to Omegamon when she could. When Yui came to close for comfort, Omegamon ceased the cannon fire and raised his right arm, his Grey Sword extracting out the hand. He swung at Yui, who dodged underneath with unusual grace.

"We need to get moving," reminded Chamber looking back east, "We need to get to the Enterprise."

"You mean that one?" replied Rokiahi, nodding at the sky. To the east, while still far away, the Enterprise could be seen in the sky, dwarfing the Normandy and Halberd, carrying it with thick cables. Without warning, the Halberd began turning, its engines on fire. "... That can't be good." The Normandy began to swerve north when a massive beam of light bombarded the spacecraft from the sky.

"That's the Icarus satellite!" recognised Chamber, "Focuses light from the sun into a powerful energy beam."

"Now's not the time to be explaining stuff, Chamber!" shouted Rokiahi, running back towards him, "We need to make more ground, quickly!"

"Rokiahi, stop!" cried back Void. Rokiahi stopped in place just as the warthog hit the ground between them with a metal clunk, the flimsy and light vehicle far too indestructible for common sense to comprehend, finally coming down from the grenade blast. Master Chief landed in the gunner seat from the roof, aiming the gauss turret at Rokiahi, pulling the trigger.

"NO!" shouted Rulia, shocking Rokiahi. She was still unconscious and was resting her head on Rokiahi's shoulder. However, the gauss projectile had been frozen in midair, surprising Master Chief as well. Marcus, who had jumped into the driver's seat put the pedal to the metal and turned the vehicle towards Chamber and Void, barely avoiding a white sheet of metal bashing into the ground.

To the east, the Enterprise fell to the ground and skipped to a stop on its side, its huge body dominating the skyline. The Normandy was in flames, debris falling off it and quickly losing height. Yui, who had managed to pull Omegamon's cape over his head, flung him over the road. Omegamon threw the cape off his face only to be slammed by the large Normandy, smashing his into the ground. The left wing detached and fling down the street, Rokiahi diving away to avoid it. As she recovered and turned, she saw the warthog chase Chamber down the sideroad, Void still on his back.

Rokiahi realised she was, essentially, alone.

Quickly recovering from the demoralising thought, she ran down the pavement to the east, realising Yui was still in the vicinity. Rulia had slightly loosened her grip round Rokiahi's neck allowing Rokiahi to run more comfortably. Rokiahi frantically looked around for something to aid her, the sound of Yui flying behind her clearly audible. Then she spotted Shikieiki standing in the middle of the road, a comforting sight for her.

"Is the Enterprise still functional?" she called as she ran past.

"The Enterprise has survived worse crashes than this," Shikieihi answered, as wooden platforms rose from the ground, forming a court judge's supreme desk. Rokiahi did not stop to watch. The desk towered over the low-flying and now amazed Yui. Shikieihi glared down at Yui, "Danzai!" she shouted, brightly coloured beams of light shooting from either side of her.

Relieved of her most immediate concern, Rokiahi was watching the body of the Enterprise get bigger as she ran towards. However, being a little distracted, she couldn't react fast enough to dodge Youmu's downwards sword strike from above. Something smashed out the ground, colliding into Youmu, stopping her slice. Teto, her drill hair still spinning at high speed and holding Youmu's sword wrist, elbowed her in the ribs and kneed her sword elbow with strength, forcing Youmu to drop the sword. Rokiahi backed off to keep her distance, noticing Youmu had yellow eyes and, more interestingly, was lacking Myon, her ghost-half spirit, that usually floated around her.

Rokiahi looked beyond Teto and Youmu to see a fast approaching wall of fire from the east, "Err... Teto?"

"It's being dealt with!" exclaimed Teto, using a hair drill against Youmu's drawn second blade, sparks flying in all directions. A green beam of light shot down from the sky into the fire, which stopped immediately. Gumi, back in her Append form, cartwheeled out the fire, her colour slightly grey from the fire's heat, though the colour returned very quickly. She threw an electric leash into the fire and pulled out Fujiwara no Mokou, who Gumi had landed on a moment earlier. Gumi kicked Mokou in the chest, Mokou unable to stumble back due to the leash. Mokou drew back a fire covered fist but was shocked by a sudden electric surge through the leash, making her body twitch and lose her focus, allowing Gumi to fling Mokou over her head to slam into the tarmac.

Rokiahi was unable to continue, the road ahead on fire. But then someone else landed on the road to her left with a crash. She turned to see Victor von Doom, a hand raised at her. Looking into Doom's yellow eyes, Rokiahi was reminded of something else, "Doom!" she shouted, "What did you do to Naluri?!"

Doom's hand emitted blue sparks when a shimmering transparent portal appeared between them, Beast Ganon galloping out with a tremendous roar towards Doom. Having to stop charging his electric weapon, Doom caught onto Ganon's head, stopping the beast in his tracks with inhuman strength. It was apparent that just like The Humour Society, The Anti-Humour Society had also been splintered.

"Rokiahi!" bellowed Ganon, the Triforce of Power glowing on his right paw, "You must go!"

Rokiahi took Ganon's words very seriously, seeing how quickly everyone seems to just appear out of nowhere. She turned right to faced the large shopping centre. Running towards it, she summoned her grappling hook from hammerspace and with a single hand, threw it up at the metal security gate hook above the open glass doors. Once inside, Rokiahi gave the grappling hook cable a strong tug, the security gate lowering and closing shut behind her, drastically reducing light levels in the building. There was an abrupt impact from the outside of the gate, shattering all the glass and creating a huge dent in the shutter. Rokiahi was breathing heavily, realising that her surroundings were completely silent, aside from quiet scraping. She turned round slowly, noting the complete absence of people, and walked forwards, her footsteps echoing in the mall. The only way to continue through the shopping centre was to take the stairs or deactivated escalators to the upper floor, the rest of the building at a different level to the entrance. Rokiahi climbed the stairs, adjusting Rulia's position and catching her own breath back. The upper floor seemed better lit, the roof of the building being made of glass.

As Rokiahi continued upwards, she could help thinking about Naluri, the shooter in black, Rulia and the status of Void and Chamber, and the condition of the Enterprise. And the conflict.

When she stepped on the final step, she froze. "No. No... No. No. No, no, no, no, nononono. Nonono," she mouthed in fear, sweat dripping down her face as the sobbing undead Wandering Witch stumbled towards her, her long blood red claws unsuccessful in hiding the Witch's dark yellow eyes.