Chapter XXXII
Zeitmacht
“You are about to embark upon a Great Crusade, towards which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.
Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped, and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely.”
-D-day statement to soldiers, sailors, and airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force by General Dwight D. Eisenhower
The blinding light faded while Terra heard muffled voices nearby. Her vision cleared as she struggled to stand. As her eyes came into focus, she realized she was inside a large cylindrical tube that moved around her. She stood on an iron walkway in the center. The machine hummed as the moving parts slowed. Terra looked behind her to see a dissipating green portal. She had jumped into the portal as it had begun to vanish and as a result of temporal dilation, arrived a few seconds after Hanns.
“Soldiers of the Zeitmacht!” Hanns's voice echoed through the machine. “We are victorious!”
Cheers followed. Thinking quickly, Terra sent a signal to Saturn City so they might find her and send help.
“Alban, please escort Brigadeführer Emmerich Klein to the field hospital,” Hanns said in a condescending tone. “I think he needs his rest after our little adventure.”
Terra readied her aeon edge as she marched out of the machine and into the open building ahead. It was a wide open bunker three stories high with metal railing on the side. She stood on a large ramp leading up the machine. Several squads of soldiers stood in front of her with Hanns at their head.
He turned and smirked. “Oh look. I even get a prisoner.”
A few of the soldiers laughed upon seeing a girl with a sword stand before dozens of armed men. Others tensed and pointed their weapons at Terra while steeling themselves for sudden movement.
Hanns smiled and stood with confidence. “I didn't think you would try to follow me. Such a foolish display of bravado. Ironic isn't it? You captured me and brought me to the city beyond time. Now I capture you in the past.”
Terra raised her aeon edge while the soldiers itched at their triggers.
Hanns held up his hand to stop them, his smirk vanishing. “Stop! Think about this, Terra. You can't beat all of us. You don't have to die here. This isn't even your fight. What do you owe to a decadent city of stagnant imperialists?”
Terra lowered her blade, still standing on the iron ramp. She gazed at the floor.
Hanns relaxed. “Wise choice.”
Terra moved the switch on her aeon edge, changing it to the nonlethal setting. After all, if she killed anyone here by accident then that might affect the continuum. This was standard procedure since lethal force had not been authorized.
Hanns stepped forward. “There is no need for you to buy into lies and propaganda. If you hand over your shieldwatch and blade, I can even take you home. I am a man of my word.”
Terra looked up at Hanns who halted. She then pointed her aeon edge at him “Hanns Speer, you are in violation of the Temporal Accords! You are ordered to stand down and return all contraband! You will return to Saturn City or I will use force if you do not comply immediately!”
“Very well soldier,” Hanns said evenly.
Terra saluted Hanns and his soldiers with her aeon edge.
Hanns turned to his men. “Fire at will!”
Terra did her best to dodge, Speeding her reflexes. The soldiers hesitated upon seeing Terra move so fast. Using the opening, Terra jumped onto a nearby catwalk in a blur of Sped motion.
She knocked aside a single soldier with a submachine gun who stood in her way. The man tumbled off the high catwalk with a loud yell before smacking and sliding down the top of the cylinder shaped time machine. The soldiers below fired, but the shots went wide while trying to hit a fast moving target above them.
Terra reviewed her objectives. First she had to destroy Hanns's shieldwatch before he accessed the information within it. Second, she needed to neutralize Hanns's time machine to prevent or slow further illegal temporal incursions. Last, she had to arrest Hanns so he can stand trial for his crimes, but another darker thought crossed her mind. In circumstances like these, she was authorized to use lethal force against Hanns. If she couldn't arrest Hanns then she might have to kill him.
Hanns was not famous in her time. His death would not likely affect history as much as if Hanns succeeded in his goals. She had learned in the Academy that Time could endure most deaths without changing too much. He was already well past the point where lethal force was authorized even if his men had not yet crossed that line.
Terra forced this thought from her mind. Right now she had to focus on more important problems. She stood over Hanns's time machine. This massive metal beast was as long as a Manticore and almost as wide. Most of the soldiers had yet to storm the catwalks, leaving the time machine vulnerable.
Terra switched her aeon edge to the lethal setting and jumped on top of the metal monster. She then plunged her aeon edge into the machine. It sliced into the metal with little effort as she ran along the outer shell. As she ran, Terra pulled the trigger of her aeon edge, sending bursts of energy ripping through and smashing large chunks of the time machine into twisted metal. When she reached the end, a ball of flame shot from inside the machine, forcing Hanns and the other soldiers to scatter
Terra jumped down to where she had emerged from the machine. Soldiers took shots at her as they fled. Using Sped vision and reflexes, she blocked the normal bullets and only dodged upon spotting green tipped projectiles. As the soldiers regrouped in front of her, Terra switched her aeon edge to nonlethal and slashed at them while pulling the trigger. The aeon edge burst washed over them and turned their skin and clothing gray as they collapsed. The force of the blow pushed back the others not caught in the burst, knocking them out. Many of the soldiers fled.
Her aeon edge went dark. Terra then ejected the spent stasis cell clip and loaded in her last one.
Hanns retreated further into the building and Terra followed. She chased him into the maze of iron rigging that made up the underbelly of Hanns's burning time machine.
It was dark below the time machine, casting a wide shadow. The only light came from flicking flames above. Around Terra was a maze of iron beams and scaffolding. She swept her gaze across the iron pillars, but did not see him in the shifting shadows even with Sped vision. The shifting lights would also make night vision useless here.
“You have come far. You are a soldier now,” Hanns said, his voice echoing. “It didn't seem that long ago that you were a cowering civilian.”
Terra turned, still searching. “You are still the same, one evil cackle away from becoming a Saturday morning cartoon villain.”
“Accusations mean little coming from a mercenary. What did they offer you to fight for them? Immortality? At least I fight for something greater than myself.”
Terra stalked around the next pillar as she tried to follow the sound of Hanns's voice. She switched her aeon edge to lethal again. She spotted a flicker of movement and charged. Her attack sliced through a metal beam. The beam slid and smashed into the floor, revealing empty space. “I won't be lectured by a Nazi!” she said as she looked around the next beam.
A shot rang out. Terra dodged the glowing green bullet. Before Terra found him, Hanns hid again.
Terra moved forward with careful footsteps. Sped vision let her see in low levels of darkness, but the extra detail did little to reveal Hanns as he hid amongst twisting shadows. The detail, in this case, worked against her. She needed a way to flush him out into the open.
Movement flashed nearby. Terra charged, slicing through several iron beams before pulling the trigger and sending an aeo
n edge burst rippling through the metal pillars. The machine above her groaned as it shifted position. Terra scowled. If she tore apart this area too much then the whole machine would collapse, killing both her and Hanns. A shieldwatch would do her little good with so much mass collapsing on top of her. She glanced down to see she had only a few stasis cells left before her aeon edge went dead. She couldn't waste them on bursts.
Hanns took two more shots at Terra, forcing her behind a metal beam.
“Shieldwatch energy low,” came Minerva's voice from Terra's shieldwatch.
Terra grimaced. Hanns was winning a war of attrition. All he had to do was to wait for Terra to run out of ammo and energy. Then he and his soldiers could move in for the kill. She looked down to Zaid's aeon edge still in its sheath and her eyes widened as a plan came together.
Terra froze her aeon edge in stasis. It hovered in the air just behind a metal beam. She then moved away, leaving the aeon edge in place before drawing Zaid's aeon edge and waiting in the shadows.
Hanns moved around the corner to get a better firing angle on Terra. He maneuvered around the beams, coming into Terra's view while keeping his own eyes on the aeon edge that hovered in the air. When Hanns drew close to the hovering blade, his eyes went wide before turning and darting to the surrounding shadows. He was too late. Hanns had already missed Terra who was charging towards him with the last of her shieldwatch power.
Hanns fired several shots as Terra advanced. She blocked the shots with Zaid's aeon edge, not bothering to dodge them. When she was almost on Hanns, he tossed aside his gun and grabbed Terra's aeon edge at the guard.
They both pulled at the aeon edge. The tug of war went on for a few seconds before Terra overpowered Hanns by shifting her stance to unbalance him. Twisting her hands, Terra jerked the aeon edge out of his hands before grabbing his shieldwatch. She flung the shieldwatch in the air and sliced it in half.
Hanns made for the broken shieldwatch, but stopped when Terra pointed her aeon edge at him.
Terra's aeon edge had the safety off.
Hanns knelt on the ground with a confused expression as he stared upward at Terra.
Terra gritted her teeth as she sweated. She didn't have enough energy to bring Hanns back with her. It would take another half hour before her shieldwatch was charged enough to time travel and she couldn't hold Hanns for that long before his troops rescued him. He had to die. She could kill him. Her knowledge of protocol knew that it allowed, even encouraged her to take life in this situation.
Hanns sighed. Then he smirked. “Well. It seems you are soldier now. Go ahead then,” he said before closing his eyes.
Terra thought he looked smug even as he faced death. He held a look of contentment, as though he had challenged Olympus itself and almost won. It was the look of a man who had, for a single moment, held all of human history in his hands.
Terra tightened her grip on Zaid's aeon edge. She had to kill Hanns. There was no other way. If she let him go now, then he would menace Time again. It was her soldier's duty to kill Hanns.
She sighed before sheathing Zaid's aeon edge.
Hanns opened his eyes, his face betraying confusion. He struggled to stand. “Seems you are not much of a soldier after all.”
Terra pulled the frozen aeon edge out of stasis and sheathed it. “You're right, Hanns. I'm a heroine.”
Hanns took a weak step forward. “I won't stop, you know. I will win an endless history for the Third Reich!”
Terra turned to Hanns. “No you wont. History has already damned you and next time we meet Hanns, I'll drag you to Tartarus myself.”
She grinned. For the first time since she had seen him, Hanns looked insulted. She pitied Hanns. He leaned against an iron beam, ragged, with the shattered remains of the stolen shieldwatch at his feet, the history it contained unrecoverable. Above him, Hanns's time machine burned while the fires spread to the rest of his base. Now he stood lost in darkness as she left him behind.
It proved easy to sneak out of the base. Most of the soldiers were busy putting out fires. Overcast night skies shrouded most of the land in darkness though fires reflected a reddish orange light on the clouds overhead. That darkness deepened as she moved away from the burning base. The rumblings of a thunderstorm sounded in the distance as she took shelter in a nearby building.
Building was a generous term for this structure. It was still under construction as steel beams stood from the ground in a dense grid pattern. Terra could tell that this would be a smelting plant as large empty metal pots lay nearby next to piles of unprocessed ore.
It was several stories high with much of the first floor completed. Extra steel girders lay in heaps nearby and the clutter along with the dim lighting made it a good place to hide. Terra decided to lay low there until her shieldwatch recharged enough to time travel and return to Saturn City or until reinforcements arrived. Too bad she didn't have enough energy to go back and take Hanns with her, but in her current state she could barely escape on her own.
It was then Terra saw movement in the shadows. She drew her aeon edge, but had only a single stasis cell remaining. Terra let her eyes adjust to the dark. After a moment, she noticed a figure standing in shadow, watching her.
“I see you there,” Terra said. She knew it was pointless to hide now. At least she could draw out the watcher and identify him or her.
The figure did not move.
“I know you are hiding there. Show yourself!”
Footsteps echoed on the metal floor as the watcher stepped out of the shadows.
Chapter XXXIII
Shadows of Steel
Alya, you were right. I have seen the steel in her. However, even steel has its shadows.
-Final entry from the personal logs of Praetor Lycus Cerberus
She walked out of the shadows of steel, footsteps echoing on metal as she stepped into the dim light. The orb of her black shieldwatch glowed red which shone through the darkness. Her armor was of Legion design, though matte black with red edges. The torso plate displayed scratch marks where she had scraped the Aeon Legion emblem off her armor. Dark smooth hair hung several inches past her shoulders with a single lock bleached white on the left side of her face. None of these are what made Terra's skin crawl. The mask did that.
It was a Kalian mask, black, smooth, and oval in shape with a red symmetrical glyph on its front. The mask covered from the top of her forehead to the chin, obscuring her face save for two dark, sunken eye holes. Two pairs of sweptback, horn like antenna decorated the side of the mask just above her ears.
Terra stepped back and tensed when the black clad woman peered at her through those hollowed looking eyes. Every sense in Terra's body screamed at her to run. All Terra could manage was to lift her aeon edge to defend herself.
The woman in black charged, appearing in front of Terra with movements too fast for Terra to track. Terra slashed at the woman, but she blocked the blow before grabbing Terra's shieldwatch arm and smashing it on a nearby steel beam. Terra screamed as both her shieldwatch and arm broke. The woman then grabbed Terra's throat in a vice like grip.
The black clad Legionnaire stared at Terra for a moment, body tense as though expecting more resistance. None came as Terra gurgled her own blood while trapped in the woman's steely grip. Terra's unbroken hand tried in vain to pry the grip loose.
A ring formed above a puddle. It rotated clockwise to reveal Roland. He landed on the puddle with a small splash before focusing on Terra. His expression turned to horror when he saw Terra in the grip of the woman in black. “Terra!”
Another ring formed near a bin filled with Coal. It turned to reveal Hikari who bared her teeth upon witnessing the scene.
Roland drew his aeon edge and made to say something to Hikari. Hikari ignored Roland, instead drawing her aeon edge and charging at the black clad legionnaire.
The woman in black did not even glance at Hikari as she swatted her aside with the back of her left hand while keeping Terra's neck locked in her
right. The blow sent Hikari skidding along the ground, unconscious, like a rag doll.
Roland rushed forward and swung his aeon edge. The legionnaire in black dodged the strike before jamming the sheath of her aeon edge into Roland's stomach. He gasped, falling to the ground unconscious.
With her strike team down, Terra would have felt more panicked if not for her more pressing problem of breathing.
A third ring formed in the shadows of an unfinished building. As the light faded, it left a figure standing partially shrouded in shadows. Praetor Lycus Cerberus stepped forward. His gaze passed from Hikari to Roland and then to Terra whose face had paled. He then turned to the legionnaire in black. “That tiro you are strangling belongs to me.”
The woman tossed Terra aside like a broken toy. When the she spoke, her voice carried a distorted mechanical edge. “Praetor Lycus, wielder of the aeon edge Cerberus, eighth member of the Legendary Blades. I have come here to challenge you to a Trial of Blades. To the death.”
Terra coughed and gagged while crawling away from the black clad Legionnaire. The taste of blood filled her mouth and her arm screamed with pain.
“Who are you?” Lycus asked.
“I have no need to answer a dead man.”
Lycus grinned. “Dead man? Well if I am a dead man, then may I at least know the name of the blade that is to slay me?”
She glanced down to her aeon edge. “This blade carries the name of my burden. It is what I am now. Exile.”
Lycus's wolf like grinned widened, the beast within him beginning to show. “Exile. Oh that was almost good. Well then, Exile. Why do you wish to slay me?”
The black clad woman who called herself and aeon edge Exile stepped forward. “I am not interested in talking with the scholar nor the Captain. Show me Cerberus. Your other faces do not interest me. The only thing you need to know, Cerberus, is that I am here to make you pay for your sins in full.”
Aeon Legion: Labyrinth Page 41
