[7TS] Chapter Four
...and finally the moment you've all been waiting for.
Actually no, not really. I just wanted to say that.
SEVEN THUNDERS SPOKE
A Guilty Gear Alternate Universe
Previous Chapters
CHAPTER FOUR
The cathedral was magnificent, but there were few around who could appreciate its monumental beauty, and fewer still who would use it as a place of worship in the present conditions. Majestic arches of weathered stone lofted towards the skies as if to commune with the heavens; a pair of huge wooden doors, intricately carved, beckoned for worshippers where there were none. The building as a whole was fairly well preserved, unlike many of the other buildings reduced to rubble when the Gears first took the city. Some might have attributed it to some sort of divine protection, but Testament called it luck. Such was the vanity of humans, he reflected. They spent so much time slaving away at building things to ensure that they would last for ages, not stopping to realize that such efforts were meaningless if they ended up destroying themselves. That, he considered, was the fatal flaw of humanity: a lack of recognition of their own evanescent mortality. He looked upwards at the stone gargoyles, peering over an empty city, and shook his head briefly before stepping inside.
Unlike its outside, the inside of the cathedral, musty and dark, had changed much since its construction. Gone were the carved statues and painted depictions of religious icons; in their place were several strange machines, skewed out seemingly at random on the cold stone floor. They were numerous enough to crowd the vast expanse of the cathedral, giving the building a suffocating quality. The beautiful stained glass remained as it had been, but the gentle light filtering through it seemed quite foreign against the harsh shine of the metal of the devices. Testament didn't know what the machines were for, nor did he care much. They whirred quietly as he passed them, the only sounds in the ghostly building.
In the back of the cathedral there sat a young woman. She was sitting in a chair pulled somewhere from the decayed city, but her bearing in it made it seem like a throne. Her long hair and soft features were at odds with her provocative outfit, all straps and buckles and black leather, but both belied how dangerous she was. Dizzy sat quietly with eyes closed, looking more like an innocent pilgrim than the being who mercilessly held the last vestiges of humanity in her crushing grasp. She looked like she was sleeping, but Testament knew better - as the Command Gear, she was sending instructions even now to the millions of obedient soldier Gears scattered across the world under her control.
He stood there silently. After a brief moment, Dizzy spoke without opening her eyes. "What is it?" she said, to the point. Her voice too was innocuously light and airy, but there was a regal tone to it, one that demanded attention and obedience.
"The Order patrol we intercepted..." he began.
"Convert the suitable ones, interrogate the rest and kill them," Dizzy responded quickly. She opened her eyes then, seemingly done with her commands. Her red eyes bore into Testament and she spoke again, this time sounding irritated. "You know that's the usual course of action. There must be something else if you came to me. What is it?"
Testament cleared his throat; he had to tread carefully here. If she wanted to, a simple mental command from Dizzy could send him to his knees and rip the information straight from his brain. Luckily for him, she usually wasn't in that bad of a mood. "Our eyes in the Order report that they may have found something. Something related to...Sol."
Dizzy's expression froze momentarily at the name, a reaction that Testament understood well; she had been searching for quite awhile for any hints as to where she could find the one who had murdered her mother. Dizzy's surprise didn't last long, however. "May have found something?" she said, the line more of a command than a question.
"It seems that the Order has perhaps narrowed down a location for the potential whereabouts of Sol," Testament replied. "They feel that..."
"I want more than rumors," Dizzy snapped. "We have already had too many close reports of potential Sols. It's clear that the Order is desperate; they're grasping at any possibility they have to fight against us. Exhaust the leads as appropriate. Don't get overzealous, though - I don't want the Order knowing what we're after."
Testament bowed. "As you command. In the past week our armies have-"
Dizzy waved a hand dismissively. "Spare the general report. I know what's happened from the soldiers in the field. We haven't been pushing the armies forward; there's no reason for anything to be different. I am quite frustrated at our lack of progress." She looked up at the ceiling as if expecting a higher power to change things. "You may go, Testament. I need to think about the best course of action from here."
Testament bowed again and turned to leave, leaving Dizzy alone. She tapped her fingers aimlessly on the armrest to her chair. The information she gathered from her linked soldiers was less than satisfying. Though the Gears had made great progress in pushing the humans into an ever smaller area, they, like lesser animals, fought harder the more locked into a corner they were. The last string of battles had ended in disappointing sieges; for all their sheer numbers, the Gears were being outmaneuvered. She had to give the humans credit. Their resourcefulness was what kept her from crushing them utterly.
As it stood the war was at an uneasy standstill. If she had really pressed the advantage, she was confident that the humans would fall, but that would mean a large sacrifice in Gear lives as well. This concerned her, and was not a step she was willing to take. There was something about the Gear transformation process that changed the natural reproductive capabilities of humans. She had tried various breeding experiments as well as artificial fertilizations and surrogate bearers, but the rate of successful production of Gear offspring was dangerously low. She could not afford to make a last push to wipe out the humans if it would also mean many deaths among her own subjects. She had to find a way to improve the transformation process to allow for natural reproduction; until then, the conquest of the humans would have to be wait.
And now this new information. The Order might have information on Sol? The tapping of Dizzy's fingers increased in speed, in keeping with her emotional state. If there was one thing she wanted more than to eliminate the human scourge from the planet, it was to kill the man known as Sol - if he was still truly alive, of course - with her own two hands. Only that would avenge Justice, she was convinced. But how did the Order come across this information? Dizzy's irritation increased. Her Gear armies had the advantage of numbers, but as most were soldier drones, capable of fighting fiercely but not much else without her direct commands, intelligence-gathering was limited. If there were some way to extract information more efficiently from the humans they captured on a nearly
daily basis, maybe -
"I hope you're having fun," a voice said, snapping Dizzy out of her thoughts. In the corner of the cathedral, partially hidden in the shadows, was a woman. Dizzy saw the outline of an outlandish-looking witch's hat and scowled.
"What are YOU doing here?" asked Dizzy, in begrudged surprise.
"Oh now, don't be like that love," I-No responded, in her usual frivolous manner. "I'm glad to see you; the least you can do is be glad to see me." Flirtatious and nonchalant, that was what annoyed Dizzy about this woman. "I heard that you heard that maybe the Order heard... something about Sol. Am I right?" She began strumming a few idle chords - Dizzy blinked, had she been holding that guitar earlier? - and added "Perhaps you'd like some help on getting to the bottom of that?"
Dizzy's scowl deepened. It had been several months now since this "I-No" had first shown up. She wasn't a Gear - Dizzy would've sensed it if she had been - but she clearly wasn't quite human either. I-No had given her some useful information that had lead to the disruption of some of the Order's covert operations, but all the same, she didn't trust her. Not at all. She didn't know her motives, and far more troubling, she didn't know the extent of her power either. And for her to show up now and offer help about this Sol affair - it was far too convenient.
"I can manage just fine," Dizzy said, coldly.
"Suit yourself," said I-No, not a hint of disappointment on her face. She leaned against one of the marble pillars and began examining her fingernails idly, or so it seemed. "Best wishes on that, darling. I understand you've been looking for Mr. Badguy for quite awhile now."
Dizzy gave a begrudged nod. Her nearly obsessive search for Sol wasn't public knowledge, but there was no keeping anything from this woman in red. "I'm going to kill him," she said simply. "I hope you don't have a problem with that?"
I-No shrugged without looking up. "It's nothing that concerns me. But because I like you love, if I hear anything new about him, I'll be sure to let you know." Dizzy clenched her teeth. There was something about I-No's refusal to take anything seriously that set her on edge, and now here she was ignoring her statement that she didn't need help. I-No, seemingly oblivious to Dizzy's displeasure, slipped back into the shadows. "Can't stay for long dear, just wanted to see how you were doing." She blew Dizzy a kiss. "Look forward to my next visit. Ta-ta!"
And then she was gone. Dizzy went back to tapping her fingers restlessly. It was clear I-No knew far more than she was letting on, but the extent of her knowledge was something she couldn't fathom. She knew about Sol, perhaps she knew about Gears? Would she be able to solve the problem of Gear reproduction? Or maybe... Dizzy stopped herself in her thoughts. She couldn't afford to let I-No distract her from the issues at hand. There was too much work to be done. Other concerns would have to wait.
***
Testament slipped quietly out of the cathedral. It was not his intention to spy on Dizzy - he didn't want to think what she would do if she caught him - but hearing the conversation stopped him from leaving and piqued his interest. It was that woman in red again - I-No, her name was? Dizzy clearly didn't trust her. Testament did not either, but he was of the opinion that if she could be used to their advantage, she should. She had given them useful information before; this would be no different.
Dizzy did not want I-No's help in finding Sol before the Order did, but Testament didn't have any such qualms. And if he could find Sol, Dizzy didn't have to know how he had found him. That would both help her on her quest for revenge and allow the war to proceed more smoothly. Testament also had a more personal stake in matters. He had served Justice before serving Dizzy, and his loyalty to the child was matched only by his former loyalty to the parent. Therefore he, too, wished for revenge on Sol. One of his greatest regrets was that he was not there that fateful day at St. Peter's in Rome, when Sol had fought Justice to the death. If he had only been there... he shook his head. There was no use in asking these if-only scenarios. He had to do what he could do in the present. The first step would be to find Sol. But if the Order was only grasping at rumors, he could barely do any better. Maybe if there were a way to contact this I-No himself, he could arrange something on the side...
He arrived at his destination, a broken out shell of a building. Like most of the buildings in the Gear-controlled cities, they had kept the empty husks - this one apparently formerly a museum - and adapted them to their own use. It was a short and squat building, with wide open spaces, which made it perfect for conversion into its current function. This one served as a detention center as well as a factory of sorts. The spaces that formerly housed works of art now held laboratory spaces, machines, and holding cells. This was one of the places that they brought captured humans for their ultimate fates. Some would be killed, while others, whom Testament considered the lucky ones, would be deemed physically and genetically fit enough to undergo the Gear transformation process.
The process was not very efficient. Some humans died in the process regardless. Others turned into odd failures - there was that one Zappa that Dizzy seemed to keep around only for novelty value - and most became soldier drones, tremendously physically altered and only barely functional without the Command Gear's control. Only a very few, like Testament himself, retained their more human characteristics. There was also the other problem that occupied Dizzy. The ability to reproduce did not carry well, and most couplings between Gears failed to bear any offspring. Until that problem was solved, the Gears were for all intents and purposes an endangered species. They could live many times the lifespan of a human, but if they could not reproduce, their existence - much like the cathedral he had ruminated on earlier - was pointless.
As he entered, a Gear shambled up to him and gave a lazy salute. "Our orders for today?" he asked. His name was Gates, and he ran this particular facility. Like Testament, he was one of the few full successes in the conversion process - being endowed with all of the physical enhancements of a Gear while retaining his human shape, and more importantly, his intellectual capabilities. He had been some sort of medical researcher before his conversion; now he carried on much the same responsibilities, but with a much different goal. He had been known for being brilliant and driven, but also impatient and brusque, and the conversion had not changed that at all.
"The same as usual. There's no reason to believe today's batch is anything special," replied Testament. They had captured an Order patrol raiding one of the outlying facilities on the border with the Federation. It was a bold and dangerous move on the part of the humans, and here it had not paid off. "Have you gotten any information from them?"
"You know the Order," Gates replied. "Stubborn no matter what kind of interrogation we try. Of course, usually one or two buckle when they see their comrades undergo the process." He gave a ghastly chuckle.
"I expected not. Well, it's the usual; convert the suitable, eliminate the rest."
The other Gear saluted again and left to begin his work. Testament followed. Down a corridor, they arrived at what appeared to be some sort of control room. A glass window opened up a view into another room, brightly lit and looking like a surgical suite. There was already one of the Order humans lying naked on a table. Nothing appeared to hold him there, but in fact there was a force field generated by some of the whirring machines holding him in place. Several others sporting robotic arms surrounded him. Along the wall there stood the others from the patrol, bound and guarded by soldier drones. Testament could see the fear in the younger ones, whereas the more senior soldiers showed disgust and hate on their faces. Well, that would all change soon.
Gates took a seat and began punching some buttons in the control panel in front of him; in the other room, the machines surrounding the table sprang to life. The man strapped to the table began screaming, struggling against the field. Useless, Testament knew; those bonds could hold a Megadeth-class Gear. As the onlookers moaned and cowered, the machine arms went to work, injecting the man with sickly-looking fluids, drawing blood and tissue samples for analysis and further research, and other things. A few of the younger onlookers fainted. Quite soon, the man on the table convulsed and then just as suddenly stopped moving. Now was the moment of truth.
The man's arm began to distort oddly, growing massively in size while turning a greenish brown color. Testament sighed. This one would not become a human-type Gear. Another soldier drone for the ranks, then.
"Not bad," Gates said, eyes flickering over a display churning out data from the man's analyzed samples. "Not good enough for human-type, but hey! With enough luck he might make it to the flying squad." He rubbed his hands in anticipation and continued with his work, making small adjustments to the otherwise automatic process.
Testament nodded. "Well, I'll leave you to continue your work," he said. "I trust you'll finish things up here satisfactorily."
"The others are next," the other Gear responded, chuckling again. "I'm surprised nobody's gotten sick yet and vomited all over the floor. We usually get at least one every time."
Testament nodded again and left the room without a reply. Yes, the Gear conversion was not perfect, and it was also quite inefficient. It was fairly quick, but still any given facility could only process maybe a hundred humans in a day. Not every human was suitable, either. It was quite a waste, in his mind. Though of course he considered humans as inferior beings, Testament was not fond of needless slaughter either; if the process could be improved, then fewer humans might be unsuitable, and therefore they would have to kill less.
The sky was just beginning to turn dark when he exited. Was it already this late? Not that it mattered much to him - the enhanced physical abilities of a Gear meant that he did not sleep often. He began walking down the sidewalks, mostly empty save for the few Gears milling about their business, and headed towards the building he used as his own dwelling. He returned here every night, finding it hard to break the habit of just needing a good place to think quietly. It was on the outskirts of the city, far from Dizzy's cathedral or the Gear-packed facilities and cities in the town center, but he preferred it that way. Solitude sat well with him.
He rounded a corner and then paused. The street was empty and only a few flickering lamps - magically powered and left over from the humans - dotted the view. But there was something - no, somebody...
"Who's there?" he asked, turning towards the alley squeezed between his building and another. In response came a riff from what Testament recognized as what the humans called an electric guitar, though the 'electric' part was archaic and the instruments were now powered solely by magic, making amplifiers and other such equipment unnecessary. Nevertheless, such instruments were rare, even among the humans, leisure being a scarce commodity as a result of the long war. Therefore Testament had a good idea of who the likely owner of the guitar was.
He sighed and stepped into the alleyway. In what dim light remained of the day, he saw her there, sitting on top of a defunct trash can, leaning against the brick wall. She was dressed as she always was, clad in daring red leather, boldly displaying her feminine attributes. It was just one more reason to be wary of her. She continued to play her song, which Testament seemed to recall vaguely from long ago, when he was still a human. He couldn't place it, but the flash of memory was unwelcome and intrusive, and he gritted his teeth. "What do you want?" he asked.
I-No didn't turn to him, but continued playing. Her fingers expertly worked the frets as she reached what appeared to be a solo part of the song. In past times, before the Holy War, she probably would've been considered a rock star. Now she was just an idiosyncratic, mysterious woman with a guitar. Her solo appeared to draw to an end and she returned to playing some sort of rhythm chords for her song. "I heard you were looking for me," she said, without stopping her song, or even looking at him.
Testament grumbled inwardly. He had not discussed his plans with anyone, and indeed he had only come up with them earlier in the day. How did she know? Had she noticed him eavesdropping on her conversation with Dizzy? "I'm not sure. Should I be?"
"That depends on you, love," I-No replied. Her song shifted to a higher key, and she continued playing deftly. "You seem to have a lot of things on your mind. Maybe a lot of stress." She looked up and gave him a wink. "There's many things a woman like me can do for a man with... needs such as yours."
Testament ignored the innuendo; he had seen her enough times to know that that was how she talked, and that it meant nothing serious. Probably. "Such as what?" he replied, pushing her to see what she knew.
She laughed. "So uptight," she said. She reached the end of her song and set her hand against the strings of the guitar, silencing them. "No need to be coy, darling. You're interested in Sol."
Testament nodded. "That's pretty obvious."
"But your mistress doesn't want my help in finding him. A missed opportunity if there ever was one." I-No made a mock pout. "But that's okay. I know she's stubborn. That's part of her charm." She turned to him and smiled, eyes - a strange-multicolored hue - boring into him. "But let's say I find something and pass on a little information to you. She trusts you. And you can take the credit and the praise." She stood and walked up to him, closing the distance. "Sounds like a win-win situation to me, don't you think?" She patted his cheek, as if praising a child.
"And what do you get out of this?" he said, involuntarily flinching.
"Pride at a job well done?" She laughed again as Testament scowled. "A joke, hon. But don't underestimate the power of pride. Especially mine." A smile now, a few shades short of predatory. "Let's say that maybe you just answer whatever questions I have about you and the Gears."
Testament raised an eyebrow. "So you can pass the information on to the humans?"
"Oh, I'm hurt darling, I really am." Another mock pout. "I promise I won't ask you anything sensitive like that. For instance, I won't ask you why you sent 500 Gears to Madrid yesterday. Maybe I just want to ask you questions about you yourself, or Dizzy, or Justice. I'm not interested in your military maneuvers."
Testament started before he could suppress his surprise. Nobody was supposed to know about the Madrid patrol. "Well, I would hope not," he said, trying to feign disinterest, lamely. He remained silent as he weighed his options. It was clear that she somehow had information that he was not privy to. On the other hand, she wanted information in return. She wanted to know about him personally, or Dizzy, or Justice? Testament considered what she might want to know. Justice was dead; if Dizzy had important secrets, she wouldn't share them with him, and he himself had nothing he considered vital. If it came to it in the end, he could always lie. "Very well. But I reserve the right to not answer your questions if I think they would interfere with or otherwise harm our operations."
"Yes, of course," she responded, smile broadening. "I'm glad we came to an agreement. I'll be sure to let you know as soon as I find anything; I'll hold off on questions until then." She patted his cheek again. "Until next time, love!" She walked off and rounded a corner. Testament would've followed her, but he had a sneaking suspicion that as soon as he turned the corner, she would already be gone.
***
Dizzy sat alone in one of the rooms under the cathedral. It wasn't a secret room by any means, but Dizzy let it be known that she did not welcome interruptions when she was alone here, so nobody ever came. The room was bare, with no furnishings, and dimly lit; in the center of the floor there was a stone plate bearing faded inscriptions, time having eroded what the humans had left behind. Painted over the inscriptions, in blood red, was a single symbol - a flame-like glyph, the symbol of Justice. This was the final resting place of the former leader of the Gears.
When Dizzy took over the command of the Gears after Justice's death, the first thing she had ordered was that the bodies of the human saints under this cathedral that she now used as her home base be dug up and discarded. In their place, the Gears buried Justice. Dizzy was ruthless and efficient, but also sentimental; it was only fitting that the Gears honor Justice in the same place that the humans of old had praised their saints and their god.
There was one other fixture in the room; a rack of sorts prominently set over Justice's grave bore her blue and white armor. It was the only memento of her mother that Dizzy had. On the rare occasion that she joined a battle with the humans personally, she would always don the armor herself, both to invoke her mother's memory as well as demoralize the humans, most of whom thought the war would be over on Justice's defeat.
Dizzy usually came here to think when she needed to. It was cool and quiet, and the reminder of Justice's death steeled her will and resolve quite well.
One thing bothered her today. The humans were bottled up in East Asia, mostly. The Gears had efficiently cut off their supply routes. It was a siege situation, and in a siege running out of provisions and supplies was deadly.
That was where the problem was. With the supply routes under Gear control, they should have had the Federation's armies in a death grip. But the Federation showed no signs of weakening or reduced manpower or firepower. They were getting supplies from somewhere, somehow.
Dizzy sighed. Was her intelligence incomplete? Were they missing a major supply route? If such a route could be located and cut off, that would be the end of the war... She had spies both in the Federation and the Holy Order, of course, but nothing had turned up. This meant that the source of their continued supplies was not well-known. A secret source...did that mean the humans have supply reserves far in excess of what she had imagined?
Or, somehow, the Federation was receiving supplies from somewhere else. There were scattered human settlements all over the globe, deemed by Dizzy to be nonthreatening and not worth the time and effort to crush them while the war against the Federation raged. They generally had no military capabilities whatsoever and eked out enough subsistence for the time being on their own... or so Dizzy thought. She pondered. Was it possible that they were somehow getting supplies to the Federation? But what sort of supplies? They should barely be able to provide for themselves, never mind supplying an army as well.
But it was Dizzy's philosophy that it was better to exhaust all possible options and to take slow, steady steps. The war front wasn't moving in any case; perhaps it would be worth it to crush these scattered human settlements after all. If, somehow, they were the source of the Federation's persistent supplies, then cutting them off would also deal a fatal blow to the Federation. And if not, it was still one less human scar on the face of the planet. Dizzy rose and whispered a prayer of sorts to her mother's
spirit. It was time to go to war.
Actually no, not really. I just wanted to say that.
SEVEN THUNDERS SPOKE
A Guilty Gear Alternate Universe
Previous Chapters
CHAPTER FOUR
The cathedral was magnificent, but there were few around who could appreciate its monumental beauty, and fewer still who would use it as a place of worship in the present conditions. Majestic arches of weathered stone lofted towards the skies as if to commune with the heavens; a pair of huge wooden doors, intricately carved, beckoned for worshippers where there were none. The building as a whole was fairly well preserved, unlike many of the other buildings reduced to rubble when the Gears first took the city. Some might have attributed it to some sort of divine protection, but Testament called it luck. Such was the vanity of humans, he reflected. They spent so much time slaving away at building things to ensure that they would last for ages, not stopping to realize that such efforts were meaningless if they ended up destroying themselves. That, he considered, was the fatal flaw of humanity: a lack of recognition of their own evanescent mortality. He looked upwards at the stone gargoyles, peering over an empty city, and shook his head briefly before stepping inside.
Unlike its outside, the inside of the cathedral, musty and dark, had changed much since its construction. Gone were the carved statues and painted depictions of religious icons; in their place were several strange machines, skewed out seemingly at random on the cold stone floor. They were numerous enough to crowd the vast expanse of the cathedral, giving the building a suffocating quality. The beautiful stained glass remained as it had been, but the gentle light filtering through it seemed quite foreign against the harsh shine of the metal of the devices. Testament didn't know what the machines were for, nor did he care much. They whirred quietly as he passed them, the only sounds in the ghostly building.
In the back of the cathedral there sat a young woman. She was sitting in a chair pulled somewhere from the decayed city, but her bearing in it made it seem like a throne. Her long hair and soft features were at odds with her provocative outfit, all straps and buckles and black leather, but both belied how dangerous she was. Dizzy sat quietly with eyes closed, looking more like an innocent pilgrim than the being who mercilessly held the last vestiges of humanity in her crushing grasp. She looked like she was sleeping, but Testament knew better - as the Command Gear, she was sending instructions even now to the millions of obedient soldier Gears scattered across the world under her control.
He stood there silently. After a brief moment, Dizzy spoke without opening her eyes. "What is it?" she said, to the point. Her voice too was innocuously light and airy, but there was a regal tone to it, one that demanded attention and obedience.
"The Order patrol we intercepted..." he began.
"Convert the suitable ones, interrogate the rest and kill them," Dizzy responded quickly. She opened her eyes then, seemingly done with her commands. Her red eyes bore into Testament and she spoke again, this time sounding irritated. "You know that's the usual course of action. There must be something else if you came to me. What is it?"
Testament cleared his throat; he had to tread carefully here. If she wanted to, a simple mental command from Dizzy could send him to his knees and rip the information straight from his brain. Luckily for him, she usually wasn't in that bad of a mood. "Our eyes in the Order report that they may have found something. Something related to...Sol."
Dizzy's expression froze momentarily at the name, a reaction that Testament understood well; she had been searching for quite awhile for any hints as to where she could find the one who had murdered her mother. Dizzy's surprise didn't last long, however. "May have found something?" she said, the line more of a command than a question.
"It seems that the Order has perhaps narrowed down a location for the potential whereabouts of Sol," Testament replied. "They feel that..."
"I want more than rumors," Dizzy snapped. "We have already had too many close reports of potential Sols. It's clear that the Order is desperate; they're grasping at any possibility they have to fight against us. Exhaust the leads as appropriate. Don't get overzealous, though - I don't want the Order knowing what we're after."
Testament bowed. "As you command. In the past week our armies have-"
Dizzy waved a hand dismissively. "Spare the general report. I know what's happened from the soldiers in the field. We haven't been pushing the armies forward; there's no reason for anything to be different. I am quite frustrated at our lack of progress." She looked up at the ceiling as if expecting a higher power to change things. "You may go, Testament. I need to think about the best course of action from here."
Testament bowed again and turned to leave, leaving Dizzy alone. She tapped her fingers aimlessly on the armrest to her chair. The information she gathered from her linked soldiers was less than satisfying. Though the Gears had made great progress in pushing the humans into an ever smaller area, they, like lesser animals, fought harder the more locked into a corner they were. The last string of battles had ended in disappointing sieges; for all their sheer numbers, the Gears were being outmaneuvered. She had to give the humans credit. Their resourcefulness was what kept her from crushing them utterly.
As it stood the war was at an uneasy standstill. If she had really pressed the advantage, she was confident that the humans would fall, but that would mean a large sacrifice in Gear lives as well. This concerned her, and was not a step she was willing to take. There was something about the Gear transformation process that changed the natural reproductive capabilities of humans. She had tried various breeding experiments as well as artificial fertilizations and surrogate bearers, but the rate of successful production of Gear offspring was dangerously low. She could not afford to make a last push to wipe out the humans if it would also mean many deaths among her own subjects. She had to find a way to improve the transformation process to allow for natural reproduction; until then, the conquest of the humans would have to be wait.
And now this new information. The Order might have information on Sol? The tapping of Dizzy's fingers increased in speed, in keeping with her emotional state. If there was one thing she wanted more than to eliminate the human scourge from the planet, it was to kill the man known as Sol - if he was still truly alive, of course - with her own two hands. Only that would avenge Justice, she was convinced. But how did the Order come across this information? Dizzy's irritation increased. Her Gear armies had the advantage of numbers, but as most were soldier drones, capable of fighting fiercely but not much else without her direct commands, intelligence-gathering was limited. If there were some way to extract information more efficiently from the humans they captured on a nearly
daily basis, maybe -
"I hope you're having fun," a voice said, snapping Dizzy out of her thoughts. In the corner of the cathedral, partially hidden in the shadows, was a woman. Dizzy saw the outline of an outlandish-looking witch's hat and scowled.
"What are YOU doing here?" asked Dizzy, in begrudged surprise.
"Oh now, don't be like that love," I-No responded, in her usual frivolous manner. "I'm glad to see you; the least you can do is be glad to see me." Flirtatious and nonchalant, that was what annoyed Dizzy about this woman. "I heard that you heard that maybe the Order heard... something about Sol. Am I right?" She began strumming a few idle chords - Dizzy blinked, had she been holding that guitar earlier? - and added "Perhaps you'd like some help on getting to the bottom of that?"
Dizzy's scowl deepened. It had been several months now since this "I-No" had first shown up. She wasn't a Gear - Dizzy would've sensed it if she had been - but she clearly wasn't quite human either. I-No had given her some useful information that had lead to the disruption of some of the Order's covert operations, but all the same, she didn't trust her. Not at all. She didn't know her motives, and far more troubling, she didn't know the extent of her power either. And for her to show up now and offer help about this Sol affair - it was far too convenient.
"I can manage just fine," Dizzy said, coldly.
"Suit yourself," said I-No, not a hint of disappointment on her face. She leaned against one of the marble pillars and began examining her fingernails idly, or so it seemed. "Best wishes on that, darling. I understand you've been looking for Mr. Badguy for quite awhile now."
Dizzy gave a begrudged nod. Her nearly obsessive search for Sol wasn't public knowledge, but there was no keeping anything from this woman in red. "I'm going to kill him," she said simply. "I hope you don't have a problem with that?"
I-No shrugged without looking up. "It's nothing that concerns me. But because I like you love, if I hear anything new about him, I'll be sure to let you know." Dizzy clenched her teeth. There was something about I-No's refusal to take anything seriously that set her on edge, and now here she was ignoring her statement that she didn't need help. I-No, seemingly oblivious to Dizzy's displeasure, slipped back into the shadows. "Can't stay for long dear, just wanted to see how you were doing." She blew Dizzy a kiss. "Look forward to my next visit. Ta-ta!"
And then she was gone. Dizzy went back to tapping her fingers restlessly. It was clear I-No knew far more than she was letting on, but the extent of her knowledge was something she couldn't fathom. She knew about Sol, perhaps she knew about Gears? Would she be able to solve the problem of Gear reproduction? Or maybe... Dizzy stopped herself in her thoughts. She couldn't afford to let I-No distract her from the issues at hand. There was too much work to be done. Other concerns would have to wait.
***
Testament slipped quietly out of the cathedral. It was not his intention to spy on Dizzy - he didn't want to think what she would do if she caught him - but hearing the conversation stopped him from leaving and piqued his interest. It was that woman in red again - I-No, her name was? Dizzy clearly didn't trust her. Testament did not either, but he was of the opinion that if she could be used to their advantage, she should. She had given them useful information before; this would be no different.
Dizzy did not want I-No's help in finding Sol before the Order did, but Testament didn't have any such qualms. And if he could find Sol, Dizzy didn't have to know how he had found him. That would both help her on her quest for revenge and allow the war to proceed more smoothly. Testament also had a more personal stake in matters. He had served Justice before serving Dizzy, and his loyalty to the child was matched only by his former loyalty to the parent. Therefore he, too, wished for revenge on Sol. One of his greatest regrets was that he was not there that fateful day at St. Peter's in Rome, when Sol had fought Justice to the death. If he had only been there... he shook his head. There was no use in asking these if-only scenarios. He had to do what he could do in the present. The first step would be to find Sol. But if the Order was only grasping at rumors, he could barely do any better. Maybe if there were a way to contact this I-No himself, he could arrange something on the side...
He arrived at his destination, a broken out shell of a building. Like most of the buildings in the Gear-controlled cities, they had kept the empty husks - this one apparently formerly a museum - and adapted them to their own use. It was a short and squat building, with wide open spaces, which made it perfect for conversion into its current function. This one served as a detention center as well as a factory of sorts. The spaces that formerly housed works of art now held laboratory spaces, machines, and holding cells. This was one of the places that they brought captured humans for their ultimate fates. Some would be killed, while others, whom Testament considered the lucky ones, would be deemed physically and genetically fit enough to undergo the Gear transformation process.
The process was not very efficient. Some humans died in the process regardless. Others turned into odd failures - there was that one Zappa that Dizzy seemed to keep around only for novelty value - and most became soldier drones, tremendously physically altered and only barely functional without the Command Gear's control. Only a very few, like Testament himself, retained their more human characteristics. There was also the other problem that occupied Dizzy. The ability to reproduce did not carry well, and most couplings between Gears failed to bear any offspring. Until that problem was solved, the Gears were for all intents and purposes an endangered species. They could live many times the lifespan of a human, but if they could not reproduce, their existence - much like the cathedral he had ruminated on earlier - was pointless.
As he entered, a Gear shambled up to him and gave a lazy salute. "Our orders for today?" he asked. His name was Gates, and he ran this particular facility. Like Testament, he was one of the few full successes in the conversion process - being endowed with all of the physical enhancements of a Gear while retaining his human shape, and more importantly, his intellectual capabilities. He had been some sort of medical researcher before his conversion; now he carried on much the same responsibilities, but with a much different goal. He had been known for being brilliant and driven, but also impatient and brusque, and the conversion had not changed that at all.
"The same as usual. There's no reason to believe today's batch is anything special," replied Testament. They had captured an Order patrol raiding one of the outlying facilities on the border with the Federation. It was a bold and dangerous move on the part of the humans, and here it had not paid off. "Have you gotten any information from them?"
"You know the Order," Gates replied. "Stubborn no matter what kind of interrogation we try. Of course, usually one or two buckle when they see their comrades undergo the process." He gave a ghastly chuckle.
"I expected not. Well, it's the usual; convert the suitable, eliminate the rest."
The other Gear saluted again and left to begin his work. Testament followed. Down a corridor, they arrived at what appeared to be some sort of control room. A glass window opened up a view into another room, brightly lit and looking like a surgical suite. There was already one of the Order humans lying naked on a table. Nothing appeared to hold him there, but in fact there was a force field generated by some of the whirring machines holding him in place. Several others sporting robotic arms surrounded him. Along the wall there stood the others from the patrol, bound and guarded by soldier drones. Testament could see the fear in the younger ones, whereas the more senior soldiers showed disgust and hate on their faces. Well, that would all change soon.
Gates took a seat and began punching some buttons in the control panel in front of him; in the other room, the machines surrounding the table sprang to life. The man strapped to the table began screaming, struggling against the field. Useless, Testament knew; those bonds could hold a Megadeth-class Gear. As the onlookers moaned and cowered, the machine arms went to work, injecting the man with sickly-looking fluids, drawing blood and tissue samples for analysis and further research, and other things. A few of the younger onlookers fainted. Quite soon, the man on the table convulsed and then just as suddenly stopped moving. Now was the moment of truth.
The man's arm began to distort oddly, growing massively in size while turning a greenish brown color. Testament sighed. This one would not become a human-type Gear. Another soldier drone for the ranks, then.
"Not bad," Gates said, eyes flickering over a display churning out data from the man's analyzed samples. "Not good enough for human-type, but hey! With enough luck he might make it to the flying squad." He rubbed his hands in anticipation and continued with his work, making small adjustments to the otherwise automatic process.
Testament nodded. "Well, I'll leave you to continue your work," he said. "I trust you'll finish things up here satisfactorily."
"The others are next," the other Gear responded, chuckling again. "I'm surprised nobody's gotten sick yet and vomited all over the floor. We usually get at least one every time."
Testament nodded again and left the room without a reply. Yes, the Gear conversion was not perfect, and it was also quite inefficient. It was fairly quick, but still any given facility could only process maybe a hundred humans in a day. Not every human was suitable, either. It was quite a waste, in his mind. Though of course he considered humans as inferior beings, Testament was not fond of needless slaughter either; if the process could be improved, then fewer humans might be unsuitable, and therefore they would have to kill less.
The sky was just beginning to turn dark when he exited. Was it already this late? Not that it mattered much to him - the enhanced physical abilities of a Gear meant that he did not sleep often. He began walking down the sidewalks, mostly empty save for the few Gears milling about their business, and headed towards the building he used as his own dwelling. He returned here every night, finding it hard to break the habit of just needing a good place to think quietly. It was on the outskirts of the city, far from Dizzy's cathedral or the Gear-packed facilities and cities in the town center, but he preferred it that way. Solitude sat well with him.
He rounded a corner and then paused. The street was empty and only a few flickering lamps - magically powered and left over from the humans - dotted the view. But there was something - no, somebody...
"Who's there?" he asked, turning towards the alley squeezed between his building and another. In response came a riff from what Testament recognized as what the humans called an electric guitar, though the 'electric' part was archaic and the instruments were now powered solely by magic, making amplifiers and other such equipment unnecessary. Nevertheless, such instruments were rare, even among the humans, leisure being a scarce commodity as a result of the long war. Therefore Testament had a good idea of who the likely owner of the guitar was.
He sighed and stepped into the alleyway. In what dim light remained of the day, he saw her there, sitting on top of a defunct trash can, leaning against the brick wall. She was dressed as she always was, clad in daring red leather, boldly displaying her feminine attributes. It was just one more reason to be wary of her. She continued to play her song, which Testament seemed to recall vaguely from long ago, when he was still a human. He couldn't place it, but the flash of memory was unwelcome and intrusive, and he gritted his teeth. "What do you want?" he asked.
I-No didn't turn to him, but continued playing. Her fingers expertly worked the frets as she reached what appeared to be a solo part of the song. In past times, before the Holy War, she probably would've been considered a rock star. Now she was just an idiosyncratic, mysterious woman with a guitar. Her solo appeared to draw to an end and she returned to playing some sort of rhythm chords for her song. "I heard you were looking for me," she said, without stopping her song, or even looking at him.
Testament grumbled inwardly. He had not discussed his plans with anyone, and indeed he had only come up with them earlier in the day. How did she know? Had she noticed him eavesdropping on her conversation with Dizzy? "I'm not sure. Should I be?"
"That depends on you, love," I-No replied. Her song shifted to a higher key, and she continued playing deftly. "You seem to have a lot of things on your mind. Maybe a lot of stress." She looked up and gave him a wink. "There's many things a woman like me can do for a man with... needs such as yours."
Testament ignored the innuendo; he had seen her enough times to know that that was how she talked, and that it meant nothing serious. Probably. "Such as what?" he replied, pushing her to see what she knew.
She laughed. "So uptight," she said. She reached the end of her song and set her hand against the strings of the guitar, silencing them. "No need to be coy, darling. You're interested in Sol."
Testament nodded. "That's pretty obvious."
"But your mistress doesn't want my help in finding him. A missed opportunity if there ever was one." I-No made a mock pout. "But that's okay. I know she's stubborn. That's part of her charm." She turned to him and smiled, eyes - a strange-multicolored hue - boring into him. "But let's say I find something and pass on a little information to you. She trusts you. And you can take the credit and the praise." She stood and walked up to him, closing the distance. "Sounds like a win-win situation to me, don't you think?" She patted his cheek, as if praising a child.
"And what do you get out of this?" he said, involuntarily flinching.
"Pride at a job well done?" She laughed again as Testament scowled. "A joke, hon. But don't underestimate the power of pride. Especially mine." A smile now, a few shades short of predatory. "Let's say that maybe you just answer whatever questions I have about you and the Gears."
Testament raised an eyebrow. "So you can pass the information on to the humans?"
"Oh, I'm hurt darling, I really am." Another mock pout. "I promise I won't ask you anything sensitive like that. For instance, I won't ask you why you sent 500 Gears to Madrid yesterday. Maybe I just want to ask you questions about you yourself, or Dizzy, or Justice. I'm not interested in your military maneuvers."
Testament started before he could suppress his surprise. Nobody was supposed to know about the Madrid patrol. "Well, I would hope not," he said, trying to feign disinterest, lamely. He remained silent as he weighed his options. It was clear that she somehow had information that he was not privy to. On the other hand, she wanted information in return. She wanted to know about him personally, or Dizzy, or Justice? Testament considered what she might want to know. Justice was dead; if Dizzy had important secrets, she wouldn't share them with him, and he himself had nothing he considered vital. If it came to it in the end, he could always lie. "Very well. But I reserve the right to not answer your questions if I think they would interfere with or otherwise harm our operations."
"Yes, of course," she responded, smile broadening. "I'm glad we came to an agreement. I'll be sure to let you know as soon as I find anything; I'll hold off on questions until then." She patted his cheek again. "Until next time, love!" She walked off and rounded a corner. Testament would've followed her, but he had a sneaking suspicion that as soon as he turned the corner, she would already be gone.
***
Dizzy sat alone in one of the rooms under the cathedral. It wasn't a secret room by any means, but Dizzy let it be known that she did not welcome interruptions when she was alone here, so nobody ever came. The room was bare, with no furnishings, and dimly lit; in the center of the floor there was a stone plate bearing faded inscriptions, time having eroded what the humans had left behind. Painted over the inscriptions, in blood red, was a single symbol - a flame-like glyph, the symbol of Justice. This was the final resting place of the former leader of the Gears.
When Dizzy took over the command of the Gears after Justice's death, the first thing she had ordered was that the bodies of the human saints under this cathedral that she now used as her home base be dug up and discarded. In their place, the Gears buried Justice. Dizzy was ruthless and efficient, but also sentimental; it was only fitting that the Gears honor Justice in the same place that the humans of old had praised their saints and their god.
There was one other fixture in the room; a rack of sorts prominently set over Justice's grave bore her blue and white armor. It was the only memento of her mother that Dizzy had. On the rare occasion that she joined a battle with the humans personally, she would always don the armor herself, both to invoke her mother's memory as well as demoralize the humans, most of whom thought the war would be over on Justice's defeat.
Dizzy usually came here to think when she needed to. It was cool and quiet, and the reminder of Justice's death steeled her will and resolve quite well.
One thing bothered her today. The humans were bottled up in East Asia, mostly. The Gears had efficiently cut off their supply routes. It was a siege situation, and in a siege running out of provisions and supplies was deadly.
That was where the problem was. With the supply routes under Gear control, they should have had the Federation's armies in a death grip. But the Federation showed no signs of weakening or reduced manpower or firepower. They were getting supplies from somewhere, somehow.
Dizzy sighed. Was her intelligence incomplete? Were they missing a major supply route? If such a route could be located and cut off, that would be the end of the war... She had spies both in the Federation and the Holy Order, of course, but nothing had turned up. This meant that the source of their continued supplies was not well-known. A secret source...did that mean the humans have supply reserves far in excess of what she had imagined?
Or, somehow, the Federation was receiving supplies from somewhere else. There were scattered human settlements all over the globe, deemed by Dizzy to be nonthreatening and not worth the time and effort to crush them while the war against the Federation raged. They generally had no military capabilities whatsoever and eked out enough subsistence for the time being on their own... or so Dizzy thought. She pondered. Was it possible that they were somehow getting supplies to the Federation? But what sort of supplies? They should barely be able to provide for themselves, never mind supplying an army as well.
But it was Dizzy's philosophy that it was better to exhaust all possible options and to take slow, steady steps. The war front wasn't moving in any case; perhaps it would be worth it to crush these scattered human settlements after all. If, somehow, they were the source of the Federation's persistent supplies, then cutting them off would also deal a fatal blow to the Federation. And if not, it was still one less human scar on the face of the planet. Dizzy rose and whispered a prayer of sorts to her mother's
spirit. It was time to go to war.