Chapter Three

 

 

            “MYLENE!”

            Basara fought with the parachute, raking his fingers at the straps like something gone mad as he struggled towards the trees and towards his fallen valkyrie.  The chute was large and confining, and as he pulled it’s dead weight after him across the abandoned streets, the fabric caught on a large metal reinforcement sticking out from a broken building.  He was moving so fast that when it was stretched taut, the lower half of his body kept moving as the top was restrained.  Needless to say, he ended up on his back, on the pavement, cursing very fluently.

            And this was supposed to save his life!?  He gave up trying to reason it off of him, and finally let a snarl of rage out to calm his pounding heart.  It was going faster then it had been even before - was this what a heart attack felt like?  He wouldn’t have been surprised.

            Continuing to rip the huge straps from his shoulders, Basara cussed and cursed them with every dirty word he could possibly think of; he only paused when the ominous drone of engines rumbled through the ground.

            He could barely see the seven other mecha surrounding his; all he knew was that they were bent down, snatching something up - Mylene!?

            No, all they resurfaced with were those metal barrels they had been shooting; there hadn’t been an explosion, so what could they have been...?

            It took his mind a moment to focus on the more important issue on hand, but when he did, Basara finally managed to rip his shoulders away from the ground and run faster then he had ever run before, towards his valkyrie as the others lifted off, bundles protected in their arms.  The ground trembled like nothing he had ever felt before, almost making him lose his footing, as the enemy retreated into the sky, the shell cracking as they blasted through it.  For a moment, the cold vacuum of space sucked all the air out of Akusho, sending a bone-chilling shiver into his body, before the temporary lock sealed over it.

            They wanted to get rid of song energy... didn’t they...?  They would have taken Mylene... wouldn’t they have...?  Unless...

            He was unaware of how many injuries he had gained from jumping, tumbling and scoring over Akusho’s scarred ground, but when he made it to the valkyrie kneeling on the ground with it’s massive head bent, he did not pause to catch his breath or observe the newly bleeding wounds.  Fingers scraped metal as he propelled himself up the smooth side and grabbed onto the knee plate.  He hauled himself upwards, gaining purchase on the shoulder in less then a minute; he hung a bit, eyes catching on where a large hole had been crudely cut in the chest plate.  Nothing was removed, though, except for the metal on the front...

            If not for the dents, he cried inwardly, and continued to climb until he was standing on the top, punching in his code with angered fingers.  Basara did not tend to grow physically violent in his rage, but now, he let a punch swing as he seemed to enter the wrong code three times in a row.  His knuckles crushed against the metal, and he bowed his back to cry down into the hollow below, although he was not sure if she would... could... hear him or not.

            “Mylene!  Just - hang on, I’m coming!”  Basara was very well aware of the angered, annoyed tone of voice he was using, and almost remonstrated himself for using it.  That was the tone he used when he wanted Mylene to do something - to sing, to calm down, to, hell, get angry at him just so he’d have something to do.  But, he noted to himself, if she heard him, he’d surely get a response; he’d almost never failed in getting a rise out of her with that tone.

            “Don’t think like that,” a voice at the back of his head growled, but it was silenced by the disturbing lack of reply.

            With a noticeably shaking, he carefully pressed each button and number in the sequence.

            The lid hissed as clean air was released, and Basara, who was pushing at it to make it open quicker, let himself slip down inside.  His feet landed on the arms of the pilot seat, and he caught the faintest trace of pink on the floor under the control panel.

            Shoving the guitar controls away, he jumped off of the chair arms and landed at her feet, kneeling to gather her instinctually into his arms.

            “Mylene!”

            The first thing he assured himself of was that she was breathing.  Rather loudly and quickly, in fact.  She was limp against his chest, and he used one hand to clasp her chin between thumb and forefinger.  “Mylene...!  Oi, Mylene!”

            For once in his life, Basara was at a loss.  She was breathing; she was alive.  “Good!” The voice, angry at his lack of sensibility, congratulated him on his idiocy.  “I’m glad you’re so astute!”

            Basara was one who, behind the cover of his attitude, had frequent inner monologues, and this was turning out to be one.  “Shut up, damnit!  What if she hit her head?”  His voice, seeping past grinding teeth and pursed lips, were airy yet strong.  The answer came quickly from the reasonable part of his mind; hospital.

            Still sheltering her in his arms, Basara levered them both out of the confining space below the control panel, drawing fresh blood from new cuts and gashes as he tore his shoulder against the jagged edge of the protruding visual screens.  He winced, but did nothing about it, only finding a way to wedge himself into the seat, the compact form passed out in his lap, and manage to control the valkyrie at the same time.

            His struggles were in vain, though; the engines would not engage, and suddenly a plethora of red lights and sounds were surrounding him, diagnostic scans on the machine’s interior flashing on the screens as he stared down at them in disbelief.  “Front stabilizers...?”

            Of course!  They must have broken something when they tore out the chest plate!  There had to be a way to get around it, though - manually stabilize the front?  Maybe, if there was a way to lower the rate in the back stabilizers - but, no, he was not remembering the arms, legs, feet, head, shoulders, he would have to readjust all those, too, just to be able to walk, nevertheless fly, and Mylene could be...

            For once, Basara let his shoulders sag as he took a deep breath, admitted defeat to the strategic, grounded side of his self; it was granted the chance to do as it would, but only to get Mylene to the hospital.

            And, without delay, he was scrambling out of the top hatch, feeling new pain in his limbs as he fell awkwardly to the ground below, half running down the smooth surface, half falling.  He landed on unsteady feet, and then shifted Mylene in his arms, checking to make sure she had not been injured in his uncontrolled descent; she seemed... fine... but there was something wrong...

            The van would do to get them to the hospital; it was parked at the apartment, he had seen it earlier today, and all he could do was hope that Ray hadn’t taken it out with Veffidas.  So, his legs started moving again, and past broken buildings and silent, dead homes he ran.

            She had had a headache before the alarms had sounded, Basara noted; maybe she had hit it, and the pain had just been too much.  Maybe they had just thought her for dead.  But, then, why the shells...?  Artillery... that hadn’t gone off?  Duds?  That could be it, but why would they have wasted time to gather all the extras they fired?  And why tear the valkyrie apart to get to the one that got through - if it did.  He hadn’t heard anything...

            He almost hurled himself over the edge of a building, about to jump a floor down to the ground, as Basara suddenly realized that hovering almost directly above him was a very familiar plane.  Stopping, he rocked back on his heels and took a few steps back, catching his balance as a human form suddenly appeared over the side of the opened cockpit.

            “Basara!  What happened?!” The aggravated and demanding tone of Gamlin; underneath him, the casually clad man, bleeding like he had got into a rather close encounter with a thorn bush and holding Mylene carefully in his arms, squinted up to get a better view.

            “It doesn’t matter!”  Gamlin let a frown pass over his face, although he was sure Basara would not be able to see it from down there.  “She’s,” hefting the limp form in his arms a bit, “sick!  She needs to get to a hospital!”  However loud Basara could yell, it took the ace pilot up above him a few seconds and a few more hefts of a deathly still Mylene towards the sky before he understood.

            Basara hugged the girl closer as suddenly the VF-11 dropped, one wing levelling with the top of the building; it’s backwash of air to keep it hovering threatened to blow him off the rooftop, but he held his ground.  His eyes, though, could not handle the fierce gust that stunk of fuel and energy waste, so he pressed them closed and turned his head away, only to find his arms suddenly empty.

            Gamlin, snaking precariously over the outstretched wing of his plane, felt a rather disturbing quell in his gut as he looked down to see the pink haired girl he thought he knew so well in his arms, devoid of life.  It was... wrong, somehow, to see her without that quick temper which she always managed to subdue just beneath the surface when she was with him, and which came out, full magnificent fury when she was with Basara.  It was more frightening then he would have thought it to be...

            “I’ll get her there,” Gamlin assured Basara over the rush of air; he heard an argument, but was already in the cockpit, nestling the form in the backseat carefully.  It was only when the protective shields came down, that he heard the raspy, unnaturally fast sounds of her forced breaths.

            Basara plastered himself up against the one standing wall he could find as Gamlin suddenly pulled off, the roaring next to his ears leaving him momentarily deaf.  Forceful would be the lesser word for describing the turbulence around him, he decided; sheer wind speed suddenly had the ability to knock his breath away.

            And, as soon as Gamlin’s jet flew off at a relatively low speed that still seemed supersonic to the eyes, Basara let his knees grow a bit weak and ran a hand through the front of his hair.  Leaning up against the wall, a small moan of what might have been exhaustion slipped past his lips; he had been up all night touching up that song, and then, this...

            A second sigh wracked his chest, and he pushed himself away from the stone support behind him.  He would have to get to the hospital quickly; they had no idea how stubborn Mylene could be.  At least she would be better now, Basara thought as he jogged to the end of the building and softly jumped off.

            Just as he arrived, sidestepping newly fallen pieces of broken buildings, Ray and Veffidas pulled up in the van.  Good think Gamlin had showed up, he taunted himself arrogantly; if he hadn’t, Mylene would have ended up at the hospital a few hours late.

            “What happened?” Ray asked calmly, noticing the disarray of Akusho and where the giant red head of Basara’s downed valkyrie rose from the peaceful rooftops and where, above it, the shell had been cracked through.

            “It,” the younger one said while hiking a thumb towards where the machine kneeled, silent and powered down, “needs to be repaired.”

            “Why?”

            “Got attacked,” he shrugged, adopting his calm and cool manner quickly even though his mind was a blur of worries and concerns.

            “... where are you taking the van?”  Ray queried as Basara opened the front door and lifted himself in to the seat; he got no reply, except for a grunt when he joked, “you know you can’t drive well.”

            The fact was proven as the van lurched forward towards the garage; Basara snarled through the windshield as Ray smiled knowingly at him.  As soon as he shifted gears into reverse, the van peeled out of the area.

            Putting it into drive, Basara ignored the signs at the sides of the road stating that he was clearly going over the speed limit - they were a blur to him, anyway.  They couldn’t expect him to read something that he couldn’t make out in the first place.

            Gamlin surely would have taken her to a hospital...