[04] City Sector

[DA 2009]

CITY SECTOR

Time Of Day: Dusk

Bunker: Active

Starting Players: -none-

[Sage]

Sage’s legs gave out underneath her, and just as they bucked, she was teleported away from the grisly scene before her, so it was an undefiled plot of snow that her knees fell on. No shattered ice or blood, or... corpses.

She sucked in a shaky breath. At least it must have been quick. She must have flash-frozen the poor namek - Sage hadn’t known she was even capable of such a thing. And, mercifully, she knew at the back of her mind, that somewhere, he would wake up, whole.

Still, she felt... empty. Not the angsty teenage empty, but like...

Like she was coming down, from some incredible high. Had she been high? No, her last blue had been taken too long ago, and she never crashed like this. She let loose a gurgling groan, a little embarrassed at how nasty she sounded, and let herself fall over onto her side. The cool snow felt good against her wounded cheek.

She had cuts all over her body from that wretched windstorm the namek had assailed her with, and she was definitely hurting all over. At the same time, she was grateful she was forced against someone she didn’t know. She hoped Damon would be merciful enough to keep it that way, though she had her doubts.

The girl felt absolutely drained, and wanted only to sleep. She had nearly drifted off, when she fought against herself to rise. She stirred for a moment, rolling onto her back to stare up at the night sky.

It was gorgeous. Hundreds of stars happily twinkled up on the pitch black velvet. There was no moon to muddy up the scene, no clouds, no nothing. Just a big ebony sky. She watched one of the brighter stars for a time, marveling at how the pinpricks of light that leapt from the central dot seemed to slowly rotate around it, sparkling all the while.

Bunker, she reminded herself. Can’t sleep here, or I’ll die.

She almost laughed at the thought. Other people would have been worried about the deadly cold, and she was worried about some stupid metal ring around her neck. She tugged at the garish jewelry again, and grimaced uncomfortably. Her neck had turned bright red, rubbed raw by the ill-fitting device.

Finally, Sage forced herself to her feet, and took a dizzy half-step backwards. Gingerly, the hybrid made to rub her forehead, but only wound up whacking herself in the face with the charred hand she had frozen to ease the pain. With a bit of a grumble, Sage switched hands, and gingerly rubbed her now sore forehead, and her eyes, before dropping her arm to take a look around.

Right away, the crystal haired cryomancer realized she had no frame of reference to go by. She had been teleported to some nondescript location, and, as much as she liked the arctic sector, it all looked exactly the same. She had no idea where she was, so she had no idea which way to go.

She considered her predicament for a moment, but her thoughts quickly drifted to her friends. She wondered if they had made it out alright, or if they had been beaten. Or, she frowned, if they had been forced to fight one another.

Sage’s eyes flickered in epiphany a heartbeat later. Ashe and Sophia both would have just picked a direction and gone, and, as crazy and impulsive as she knew such an idea was, but after she shouldered her pack, it was exactly what she did.

The trek was... stressful. The conditions were perfect, but the wind. The howling winds, they made her cringe every time they got loud. Sage would see movement out of her periphery, and at least a dozen times did she either stop or do an about-face to see who or what was out there.

She gritted her teeth. She told herself she was just tired, and that she wasn’t worried that a certain namek was shadowing her. She put a hand to her still-bleeding cheek. He was dead. There was simply no way he wasn’t. Sage immediately blocked out the ideas of zombie nameks that flooded into her mind next.

The girl soldiered on, through the snow and the sleet, and pretended to hug herself from the cold. It was something she picked up as a kid. She always thought it was funny when other people braved the cold, especially the hilarious ‘brr-rrr-rrr’ sound some people made. Of course, as she grew older, she eventually felt sorry for them, but it was still a pretty strange thing to say.

The quarter saiyan smiled, and even let out a giggle as she recalled her mother’s reaction when she had caught Sage in the throne room - after she was done freezing it. Ice clung to the walls, on the furniture, on the floor and ceiling. Mom was not happy.

The girl’s rose colored eyes flicked up to see a city scape abruptly superimposed upon the arctic horizon. She must have walked farther than she thought. She sighed. Sage didn’t like this city, but, at least now she would know where she was.

Sage crossed the threshold from tundra to downtown, frowning at the immediate spike in temperature. Shrugging off her bag, she let it drop to the asphalt and rubbed her shoulder, before taking a knee to root through the bag’s contents.

Withdrawing a map, the azure haired girl closed up the pack and hoisted it back up, and made her way toward the bunker, her eyes glued to the map.

Time seemed to be bizarrely fragmented within Dante’s Abyss. Strange that she walked from darkest night to sunset just by crossing some arbitrary threshold. Then again, the terrain shifted immediately, why shouldn’t the time?

It didn’t bother her. At least the disturbingly empty city wasn’t full of disembodied sounds, like it had been last time. The walk was much more uncomfortable than it had been when she was in the arctic, though.

Regardless of wether or not there was nobody in the city, it was a city after dark, and there was nobody around. Who knew who - or what - could be lurking in one of the myriad alleys and side streets, just... waiting.

Sage sped up, stiffly walking ahead as her eyes darted to and fro. Eventually, though, she burst into a full sprint, and raced down the street as fast as she could.

The girl came to the bunker, panting and wheezing, but didn’t stop until she was through the door, and it had been safely slammed shut behind her. She fell against the door and slid down onto the floor.

She closed her eyes and let her head loll back, until it was resting against the metal door she was propped up against. Sage drew her knees into her chest and wrapped her arms around them, before burying her face in her knees. She was safe in the bright lights of the bunker. A happy click indicated her collar had been reset, so that was another worry put off for the time being.

Her heart pounded in her chest, but she forced herself to her feet, and carefully picked her way through the bunker. She was alone. She managed a small smile at that, and her heavy eyelids closed for a moment while she swayed on her feet.

She should have treated her injuries; she hadn’t even treated the burns she’d gotten during her fight with Belle yet... but they could wait. Sage turned to the beds, and then paused, before moving to face the entrance. She didn’t want to be caught unaware in her sleep.

Thinking for a moment, Sage raised her good hand toward the door, and watched carefully, as frost collected and swirled about, forming a little ball of ice that quickly began to expand and take shape.

Soon, right in front of the entrance to the bunker, she had constructed a frozen simulacrum of one of the fearsome Mershikali - the man-sized lizard monsters she had fought on Mercy-Sei, its claws outstretched, and its fangs menacingly bared... It was the most frightening-looking thing she could think of right then, and she hoped it’s appearance would at least garner a yelp of surprise that would wake her, before whoever entered realized it was just a statue.

With her monstrous sentinel in place, Sage climbed into the bed in the far corner of the room, and wrapped the thin blanket around herself. If nothing else, it would cover the sorry state her clothes were in.

When she woke, she decided, she’d raid one of the clothing stores. It wasn’t like there was anyone around to wear the clothes, anyway, and she’d rather not have her top disintegrate in her next fight. With that decided, she closed her eyes, and waited for sleep to claim her.

Sage moves from the Arctic Sector to the City Sector

Sage enters the City Sector bunker

[Belle Hibiki]

There was a soft fwzp, and in the next instant Belle was transported from the top of the mountain to the valley below. High above, the shimmering, spherical forcefield that had defined the edge of the arena flared with energy before fizzling into nothing.

A breeze swept across the dry, cracked plain, moaning mournfully as it passed him, flicking through his hair and continuing on its way. He waited; but, after half an hour, when Vale still hadn't made an appearance, he reluctantly decided that it was time to start moving. He would have liked to have talked a little with the saiyan warrior or to at least make sure that he had survived his fall before continuing, but if the beeping around his neck was any indication, the timer for his collar was fast approaching.

"Well," Belle gave the mountain a final, long look, "goodbye, whoever you were, Mister Vale. Maybe we can have a better fight some other time. Uh." Belle pulled a folded scrap of paper out of his pocket as he began to walk. Unfolding it carefully, he used his calloused fingers to smooth out the deep creases. It was a map of the island, complete with markers and, more importantly, pictures for notable locations. The words were as inpenetrable as they always were, but even he could use this map; maybe they had made it especially for him.

"Let's see," Belle murmured. "If the volcano is over there," he pointed, "and the safehouse is that way," he pointed in a different direction, "then I should be ... right about ... here!"

Belle flicked the map with his finger. "So, where should I go?" he mused, looking over his options. The idea of heading to the arctic again, especially without his shirt, really bugged him. He was tough, not stupid. He couldn't stay in the mountains any longer, that was for sure. Which left either visiting the city or paying another visit to the forest.

"Bah, oh well," he muttered, folding the paper up and stuffing it back into his pocket. The forest was probably still half-buried in the snow that Sage had deposited in her mad pursuit of a phantom Sol somethingsomething. The girl was crazy, and Belle had absolutely no intention of returning to the battlefield sooner than he absolutely had to.

He grimaced. At least since the competition was underway, the city region would probably be totally empty of people. That would mean he wouldn't have to deal with any other women, which was a huge plus. There were plenty of places to lose himself in, too.

Setting his sights on the distant barrier dividing the sectors, Belle sped up. Actually, now that he thought about it, the only city he had ever been in that hadn't had people in it had been being attacked by a monstrous alien force. It might actually be kind of cool to walk around a city without having to worry about other people for once.

~+~+~+~+~

"Whoaaa," Belle whispered, staring up at the giant shopping mall near the center of the city's shopping district. "This place is big."

Stretching nearly half a mile on each side and two stories tall, the front of the mall was constructed by an intricate laticework of metal frames and glass that glowed orange as it caught the fading day's light. The triple set of revolving doors that served as barriers to entry had been locked into place, but it was the simple matter of a few moments effort for Belle to snap the bolt in two.

He pushed his way inside, gazing around at the various storefronts as televisions flickered to life. Was he being watched, he wondered, or was the whole thing automatic? The interior lights were dimmed, but he had more than enough to go by, thanks mostly to the enormous, windowed entryway.

Belle cupped his hands around his mouth. "Hello?" he called as he started to walk. No one answered. "I guess it really is deserted. Funny," he noted as he tried the door to one of the department stores. "They left everything unlocked." He squinted at the names above the store across. More clothing inside, so probably some sort of competing market, but he couldn't be sure. He wished he could read some of the stupid things. He'd really have to look into learning at least a little bit if he was going to keep living in the world outside the forest.

There were more stores than he could count, with more things than he could ever possibly see anyone ever needing. He snuck a few snacks from behind the counter at an abandoned bakery stall, then visited a furniture store, where he lined up a set of a dozen mattresses down a long staircase and slid down to the bottom. The stairs were strange; metal, ridged, and looked almost as if they were disappearing into the floor.

"Fucking weirdo city people," Belle muttered, leaving as he tossed the final mattress back into place. He hummed a little tune to himself as he stopped to take a break near the center of the abandoned mall. The first and the second floor opened up into an enormous atrium, lit by an equally large skylight that seemed to share the same design as the entrance.

Everything was so big. He had noticed it in Central City, but had never really thought about it until now: city people were obviously really into largeness. They just couldn't get enough of it. Large scoops of ice cream, large beds, large clothes, large spaces, large buildings. He couldn't understand it. Maybe he was looking in all the wrong stores.

Deciding to continue on, Belle slowly picked his way through the rest of the mall, until finally, in a darkened corner down a softly lit corridor, he found a strangely darkened shop.

It was as if a ghost were running a chilly finger up and down his spine. He suddenly had a really bad feeling about what he would find inside. Steeling himself, he swallowed and entered the store.

The lights here, unlike everywhere else, were off. Barely visible in the gloom, Belle could make out the shapes of several racks and a counter against the far wall. Stretching out his hands, he started blindly fumbling his way forward. His hands brushed against soft garments that felt so thin that Belle wondered how in the world someone could ever stay warm. They were ... flimsy. There was no other way to describe them.

Curious, Belle reached up and detached one of the silky garments. It was small, like an upside down cap, almost, with two holes cut forward of the middle line.

That was when he realized the truth. It was so obvious, he didn't know why he hadn't thought of it before. Obviously this was a specialty store that catered to the animal people that roamed the Earth. The holes, he realized now, would be where the ears would go. And the thinness made perfect sense when you realized that the wearer's had enough fur as it was! "Aha! Man, that brat doesn't give me enough credit," Belle grinned in the darkness. "I'm a regular dialective!"

Shifting towards the counter, Belle reached around and started fumbling across its surface. There was a switch on the underside just behind the cash register. Belle switched it on.

The lights in the store suddenly flared to life, and Belle's eyes widened in shock. Shock, and slowly dawning horror.

Underwear. Underwear everywhere. Pink, blue, and even green. Frilly, silky, embroidered and not, lacy and not. Tops with straps so thin that they weren't even there, tops that most definitely were not for hiding a person's chest. Underwear with string, without string, some which were wrapped like candy.

Belle gurgled incoherently, and then froze. Slowly, very slowly, he looked down at his hand, in which the garment he had taken earlier was still clutched.

Panties.

He looked up. Lined in a row, a set of immobile figures beckoned coquettishly toward him. Their bodies were pure white, as if sculpted from porcelain, and though they had a human shape, they had no faces. Each of them were for the moment immobile, and each one was dressed in the scantiest clothing imaginable. And they were all clearly female.

Shapeshifters!

"AIEEEEEEE!" Belle screamed and bolted. He didn't bother to use the door; he went straight through the nearest wall and emerged out the other side in a shower of rubble and flying undergarments. Menstu Ration... ! Menstu Ration was here!

~+~+~+~+~

Belle didn't stop moving until he was in sight of the bunker. Spotting the sentinel guarding the door from a mile away, Belle slowed and approached cautiously. It looked fierce ... but strangely immobile. Moving closer, Belle realized just why the beast was so quiet and so still: it wasn't real.

"Huh," he murmured, staring at the magnificent ice sculpture. The connection didn't immediately click for him as to what that might mean. Putting his hands on the statue's cold flank, he gave a gentle shove and slid the figure a few steps to the right. Not wanting to get caught outside any longer than he had to, Belle eased the door open, peered inside, and sighed with relief. No one was there.

He slid inside and gently closed the door. It had only been half a day, but he was bone tired. Heading directly to the bed across from him that looked as if it had been used recently, he turned around and plopped down on the edge of the rumpled covers. "First some guy beats the tar out of me, then shapshifter witches try to jump me, now this... Man, I could use a good night's sleep."

Stretching his half-naked body and yawning, Belle smacked his lips and made a face. It felt kind of gross, but he could brush his teeth when he woke up.

Turning around, Belle spread out on the bed, then stopped and frowned. His nose twitched. There was someone nearby... A scent... A strangely familiar scent...

He shifted, and the lumpy sheets beside him shifted in turn. A terribly familiar head of hair emerged from under the sheets. Eyes blinked blearly around before fixing on Belle, then widening in shock.

Belle opened and closed his mouth, no sound coming out. Breath whistled from his suddenly corked throat. "Ngh...ah? Uh..."

It was Sage.

"AIEEEEEEE!"

Belle moves from the Mountain Sector to the City Sector.

Belle enters the City Sector bunker.

[Sage]

Sage stood on the edge of the deck, peering between the rails at the landscape beneath her. It was dazzling. She could see buildings and lakes and farms, all tiny little dots and squares far, far away. There were no people; they were too small. Same with hover cars. A few planes and ships could be seen, little specks flitting about beneath her.

There were, of course, planes and ships above them, too, but there was only sky above them. Much less interesting than what seemed to be the whole world stretched out beneath them.

The little hybrid had to admit that she was wrong. When her father told her that he was taking her and her sister on a ride on a zeppelin, she was more than a little nonplussed. Who wants to fly around in a glorified hot air balloon?

But the girl was elated. Still, on the other hand, she seemed somewhat disappointed. Her sister was afraid of being up so high. Or at least, that’s what Sage had decided. Zena wouldn’t go to the rails to look at the world beneath them. She was missing out. Instead, she just sat in the middle of the deck, reading. Bo-ring.

“Da-ad,” Sage called, looking up at the blond haired man, who seemed busy with something on his PDA. Her parents were always so busy. Her father shot her a sidelong glance, but his eyes stayed on the machine. Sage understood, though. Her parents were important people; they couldn’t help but be busy. Even so, it was disappointing to accept that she could only ever have half their attention. “How come the ground looks so... empty?”

Kirano sighed, and slipped his piece of shiny, black technology into his pocket. “Well,” he began, crossing to the handrails erected around the edge of the ship. He hefted up his daughter just high enough so she could see over the metal safety device. “Vegeta-Sei is... well, it’s not like Earth.”

“Where you and mom were from, right?” Sage interjected.

“...Yeah,” the blue eyed man confirmed. “The people here are... well, they’re violent. Destructive. Most settlements that get built - if they get built - are eventually destroyed from war or infighting-” he paused. His daughter was six, she didn’t know what he was talking about. “It’s not really their fault; it’s in their nature. Saiyans are just...” he sighed. “...I don’t know. I guess you could say they’re just angry people.”

“How come? Isn’t that bad for them? They’ll get hurt if they fight all the time, won’t they?”

“Well, yeah. But saiyans are a tough people. It takes a lot more to hurt them than it does most other people. But, you shouldn’t let that make you think they’re bad people, Sage. You’re part saiyan yourself. Saiyans are just... they’re very proud. They went through a lot to get where they are now,” Kirano smiled. “They’re good people, Sage. Strong, noble. They might fight a lot, but they stand up for what they believe in. You’ll have to do that, too, when you get old enough.”

“What should I stand up for?”

He laughed, and put her down. “Well, you’ll-”

- - - - -

She awoke with a start. Sage felt someone forcefully prodding at her back. But I just got to sleep, she silently whined. Still, the girl forced herself to stir, and rolled over onto her other side to see-

To see-

What?

Fuzzy became clear, and suddenly she found herself sure that Belle was there, in her bed, without any clothes on. He just stared back at her, before mumbling some kind of wheezing, unintelligible stammer, before he finally started shrieking at her.

Sage recoiled, and bashed her head against the wall behind her, as Belle twisted around on the bed, tangling his legs in the sheets as he tried to escape, only to topple forward, smashing chin-first onto the concrete floor.

The hybrid had curled into a ball, trembling in the corner of the room, on her bed. What... what was he doing?! She stared at his motionless form, and found herself relieved to see he was at least wearing pants.

Had he come to kill her? She had tried - very hard - to kill him, before. She had, Sage confessed to herself, totally lost her mind. The crystal haired girl wouldn’t have held it against him if he had decided to try to kill her in her sleep. She was a threat to him, and he to her. But still, Sage didn’t want to have to kill Belle, unless she really had to. The fact that she had terrorized him because she had allowed herself to indulge so voraciously her want for revenge bothered her more, in some ways, then murdering her two other opponents did. At least they fought and died without fear.

Of course, there was the other possibility. Belle might have been trying to...

Sage clutched at her head, fighting against the gathering snowstorm that already began to sprinkle flakes about the inside of the bunker. The thought that Belle might have tried to... to rape her struck out in her mind, as much as she knew it couldn’t be possible.

Why else would he have been in her bed, though? What other reason could there have been? If he wanted her dead, he wouldn’t have woken her. That meant that Sage had stumbled upon the only other possible explanation. Maybe that explained why he was so jittery all the time; he had singled her out at the start of the contest. He had groped her, and played it off as a bizarre accident. Sage had even believed it, then.

RUN!!!

The girl carefully slipped out of her bed, and stood over Belle’s unconscious body. He was still halfway in bed, his legs wrapped up in Sage’s sheets, his torso contorted uncomfortably, to connect to the rest of Belle, who rested his face and chest on the floor. Blood had spattered the grey concrete.

The idea was for Sage to run away without waking him up, but something kept her. To her quiet horror, she realized that, for once, her excitable terror had given way to reason, but it had done so out of malice.

She could run away from her would-be rapist, sure. Or she could kill him while he was vulnerable. Sage looked down at the redhead, still not offering any signs of consciousness. She would never get an opportunity like this again.

She watched him for a minute or so, sprawled out and helpless as he was. Finally, an unbridled sensation of fury, like the one she had felt when she thought she was fighting Sol, erupted from beneath her trepidation, and her paralyzing tomb of fear shattered around her.

In her good hand, a sinister-looking frozen spike materialized. She moved closer to Belle, got down on her knees, and carefully aimed her weapon. She would strike down, through his spine and into his heart, like a stake to a vampire. Sage would give Belle no chance to retaliate. He wouldn’t have given her the same chance, either.

Taking a deep breath, Sage raised up her hand, and made to plunge her spike into Belle’s flesh, but she froze. She stared, first at Belle, and then she shifted her focus to her hand - the one holding the spike.

She couldn’t look away, and for a long moment, she just sat there on her knees, until, finally, she cast the spike aside. Sage hugged herself to keep her hands from shaking, but it didn’t help. The girl bit her lip as her face contorted with guilt.

What was she becoming? Had she really just tried to kill a person because of something she thought he was going to do? Sage rubbed her eyes, and sighed. Just what the hell was she becoming?

She shook her head. She would find out what, exactly, Belle had been doing in her bed. She couldn’t just execute him. But first, he needed help.

Sage did her best to compose herself, and then pulled Belle’s legs off the bed, so he was at least lying in a somewhat comfortable position, before she held her hands over him. Her energy began to transfer to him, as her healing powers spilled forth from her palms.

[Belle Hibiki]

His hands were cold.

Belle opened his eyes groggily. His vision swam, and he closed them again. He counted to three, then, very slowly, peeked his lids up.

The lighting in the bunker was dim, just as he remembered it, though everything seemed to have a fuzzy outline now, as if slightly out of focus. His sight blurred, cleared, then blurred again, pulsing before finally finding purchase on the shape above him. Soft and indistinct, it shifted, then stepped out of the shadows.

Belle sucked in a breath. It was her.

"Hello, Belle," Sage said.

Suddenly it all came rushing back. The bunker, the ice statue, the bed... And Sage within it. Her clothes were the same, ripped in places, though her eyes held a quiet determination behind them that he hadn't ever noticed before.

He felt his mouth go dry. The last time he had seen her, she had been trying to ram an ice pick through his chest. "Hey, uh," he said, trying to sound casual, "what's up?"

Sage's fingers twitched and a long, wicked shard of ice formed in her hand.

"Oh. That bad, huh?" Belle broke out in a sweat and shifted his body, making to scoot back before he realized that his hands had been secured over his head and somehow bolted to the floor. A casual glance showed twin rings of ice wrapped around his wrists. Oh crap. "Look, before you kill me, you should know that Menstu Ration is probably following me right now; it's dangerous to stay here. He's probably attracted to your scent."

Sage stepped forward. "Or not!" Belle said. "I mean, I could be wrong! It's been known to happen. AHAHA. My dad is always saying, 'BELLE, ONE OF THESE DAYS YOU'RE GOING TO CATCH YOUR DEATH RUBBING YOUR ASS WITH POISON IVY,' but I never learn. Leaves of three, let it be! Ahaha! ... Oh God, what are you doing?!"

The woman paused just beyond the reach of his legs. "What were you doing in my bed? Trying to rub my... my... a-ass?"

She was trying to sound tough, but she was coming off more like a squeaky-voiced schoolgirl than an infuriated badass. It would have almost been funny if the tip of her ice spike wasn't lined up with his crotch. "What? No!" Belle jerked his legs up to protect himself. His ankles, at least, had been left free. "Why in the Hell would I want to touch your butt?! Don't be gross!"

"Then why were you there?!" she demanded.

"I told you, Menstu Ration and his shapeshifters were following me! I only just barely managed to get away. I wasn't even paying attention when I got here! And you were all under the sheets! And you're Hella small! I didn't see you!"

She slightly lifted the spike. "Not that that's a bad thing!" he blurted, "I know some great fighters that are small! I mean, you almost got me that last time, right?! Ahaha!"

"You still should've checked," she said accusingly, but the tension in her shoulders visibly eased. "I'm ... About last time ... I'm sorry."

Belle stared blankly at her. "Huh?"

"I thought you were... I was seeing... Someone else."

"Sol Badguy, right?"

She seemed surprised. "No, no! Just Sol. I ... Anyway," she waved her free hand. The cystalline restraints cracked and broke apart. "I know this is a competition, but you didn't deserve that..."

Belle rolled back and sprung onto his feet. Aside from his arms feeling numb, he seemed to be okay. No; better than okay. He ran his hand over his bandaged chest. "The wound is gone," he said.

Sage smiled wordlessly.

"Why?" he demanded. "I mean, you tied me up and shit, so you must've thought I could have been dangerous. Why did you heal me?"

"You needed help." She shrugged. "And I didn't know for sure what you were doing."

"What did you think I was doing, anyway?" he asked.

She blinked and then stared at him. "Y-you, well, I thought maybe you were trying to..." she trailed off, her cheeks going slightly red. "Force me," she finally mumbled.

"Force you to what?" Belle asked, curious. He honestly had no idea what the heck she was talking about. What exactly would he force her to do? "We're not in a fight. I'm not going to punch you or anything, especially not a girl, and TOTALLY not when she's asleep. You think I'm some sort of coward or something?"

"No, that's not what I meant!" Sage said, looking more than a little confused and slightly irritated. She continued to stare at him, and then a sudden look of realization dawned on her features. Her eyes widened. "Uhm, Belle?"

"What?" he demanded, rubbing feeling back into his hands.

She seemed to consider what she was going to say next very carefully. "Do you," she started, then stopped. "Do you know where babies come from?"

It was his turn to stare. Of course he knew. "Everyone knows that," he said.

"Oh," Sage said. She sighed. "Of course."

"The stork! Duh!"

Sage seemed to lose her balance and staggered back, reaching out to grab the nearest bed for support. She stared at him, mouth working silently as he blew into his hands. She recovered quickly. "The... The stork?" she asked, sounding slightly hoarse.

"Of course, the stork," Belle grunted. "Where else would babies come from?"

Sage shook, then suddenly laughed out loud. It was the first real, honest laugh he'd ever heard out of her, and the difference it made was incredible. "Wh... What's funny?!" Belle demanded.

"N-n-nothing," Sage hiccuped, holding her side with one hand as she doubled over, still giggling like crazy. "It's just that before I was thinking - no, nothing!"

"... Fucking crazy women," Belle grumbled, turning around. He couldn't put his finger on it, but he got the distinct feeling that he was being made fun of somehow. "Man, I really hope Menstu Ration gets you," he growled, stalking for the door. "I'm outta here." He paused at the doorway. "Thanks for the heal."

"H-huh? W-wait, Belle! I didn't mean - " Sage started to say, but he was already gone. She bit her lip.

Belle Hibiki moves from City Sector to Forest Sector.

Belle Hibiki enters the Forest Sector bunker.

[Jesper]

Sophia groaned…her head was pounding, each brain cell screamed with every turn her neck provided. It was an odd reaction to the state of pure bliss that she had experienced earlier, but that was how things tended to go with her. One moment things were going well, she had a good time, and all of a sudden she was sent hurdling down to a fiery death. Or, as luck had it, she was forced to fight some random girl after spending some quality recreational time with her. That’s how things went in a game like Dante’s Abyss, but that didn’t mean she had to like it.

Her happy hangover of sorts made it difficult for her to concentrate on much of anything. She had gotten used to the cold—whether that was because she had adjusted adequately to the temperature or if she was about to die was something she couldn’t tell—and had resolved to stand awkwardly in the new area her collar had provided. Snowflakes converged around her, falling on her hair and melting, streaming water into her eyes. She blinked hard, and nearly sank to her knees in a daze. Whatever had vexed her really took its toll from her vitality, and the thought of a bed, even the cardboard-like beds that the bunker provided, sounded like heaven.

Luckily, a quick glance around the area provided a familiar sight—she had traveled the path on her way to the bunker the first time. The trail she had left was almost gone, though slight dents in the snow provided her enough of a clue to make a guess as to where to lead her feet. She didn’t want to continue further into the arctic, figuring that she had experienced enough winter to last her another lifetime. Shrugging, she turned around and faced the city—the border was in sight.

It didn’t take her long to rediscover the City Sector bunker. Stumbling through its threshold, she didn’t even stop to see if any of her friends had made it there. As she plopped face-first onto the nearest bed she could find, she figured that if they hadn’t experienced a horrible death, they would be waiting for her when she woke up.

Sophia has left the Arctic Sector to move to the City Sector.

Sophia has entered the City Sector bunker.

[Tamsin]

Tamsin hopefully looked up as she heard someone`s footsteps at the entrance of the Arctic Bunker. But much to her dismay, it only turned out to be the multi-coloured girl she had encountered at the bunker in the mountains previously. With the way she looked at the maid, it was obvious that Maleficus`s lesson back at the mountain bunker taught her nothing and that she still thought of Suzaku the same way as she did before...as a sex slave. Of course, such an opinion was completely oblivious to the fact that it is biologically impossible for Namekians to have sexual intercourse. But the adolescent merely seated herself back, too preoccupied with other things to care about treating the ignorance of her fellow human.

"FML," came a mumble from the jacket-wearing female, but the prodigy payed her no attention as she did not understand the acronym....nor could she be bothered to think about it. Tamsin merely continued to lamentably stare at the concrete floor, pondering of what might have become of her master. She had been waiting for several hours, yet he did not arrive. Was he intentionally avoiding the maid, always being pursued by his demons? Was he hurt and forced into a different direction? Or could he possibily be....dead?

The silver-haired girl shook her head....she was not willing to even phantom the idea, it was much too soon to jump to conclusions. Ashe, who quietly observed her, noticed this strange behaviour. Partially out of fear and partially out of curiosity, she asked: "So....where is your green....friend?"

"I don`t know," the maid replied almost as an automatic response to her own thoughts. Suddenly, she got onto her feet. "I better go find him." Without another word, she stormed past her confused counterpart into the cold night.

**********

After a long and difficult journey through the winter steppes, the prodigy maid found herself back at the City sector. Ironically, she had come full circle, having landed in the sector at the beginning of Dante`s Abyss. It was barely dusk in the urban area, but the girl had long since stopped paying attention to the abnormal phenomenon that was the weather cycle. Running almost blindly through the streets, she looked for the area`s bunker. Finally, after recognising the area, she saw the concrete structure she had visited before. She stopped running at it`s entrance, catching her breath and then swiftly entering.

Not listening to her collar beep in deactivation, the silver-haired girl called out for her employer: "Maleficus!" But other then a peciluar gaze from the already existing occupant, there was no response. Nova was not there either....

Tamsin moves from Arctic Sector to City Sector

Tamsin enters the City Sector Bunker

[Ashe]

She stayed completely silence for a few minutes as the maid stared attentively out the door in hopes of her master's arrival, completely focused with no regard to Ashe's presence. Nervously, Ashe leaned around the door every few minutes, taking the lack of him as meaning that he was not anywhere nearby. Looking back at her, Ashe followed her gaze to the floor. "So... where is your green... friend?" she asked, unsure as to how to word it.

Her entire intention was to not offend her. She was hoping from the girl's previous smile that she was friendlier than the green assassin had been, but the near mechanical emotionless response that she recieved argued the contrary. "I don't know. I better go find him," she declared, rising to her feet and vanishing straight out the door.

Ashe ran to the door herself, but the girl had already mysteriously disappeared within the furious snowstorm that had been present behind her. "No, uh... wait!" she called, not sure what the girl's name was or how to get her attention. "Its dangerous out there! You could freeze to death!" she screamed at the top of her lungs.

It was pointless, however. The snow roared back at her, drowning out her concern with its wicked wails as she stumbled back into the room seeking shelter. "I guess she's..." she began before realizing that she wasn't sure how she wanted to end that sentence. Either the girl was like her master and actually not friendly at all, or she had been very offended by the unintentional private joke, or she may even be like Sage, able to withstand the elements in ways that Ashe could not.

She was left in search of ways to fill up her time without anyone else even entering the cold building. Searching the place from top to bottom had indeed revealed a fairly wicked snowboard that Ashe liked, but one look outside at the storm soured her mood, the girl knowing that it would be impossible in these conditions. More than once she had pulled out her touch screen cell phone, grumbling as she tried to find games to play on it through the cracked screen. What was usually a great time passer was proving to be yet another frustration as the phone dimmed and brightened for an odd reason. Thankfully, she managed to locate a cell phone charger in one of the dressers and plugged it in, at least giving her a way to pass the time.

Kaden never came for her. No one had, but she lamented the lack of Kaden's presence the most. She wasn't entirely sure what could have happened to him, but she decided to wait until she had searched another bunker before making any kind of assumptions. She was actually pretty worried about him. He had kept her warm and safe through her time here, but this also wasn't the first time that someone had just not been around either.

"I'll just keep occupied till I see him," she said out loud to herself. "I mean, who else is going to be crazy enough to come up here in this weather anyway?"

Her words rung true, as hours later, she awoke on the bed to find that she was still entirely alone.

***

Clearing up a bit outside, the snow had once more turned into a soft blanket, covering all tracks of anyone who might have come and gone. For a moment, the girl had considered carrying out the snowboard to have a bit of fun, but a glance at the timer on her collar told her that it would probably be best if she found another bunker quickly. The question remained, however... Where?

The most familiar place that she had been to, and the most likely for Kaden to go to, would be the City Sector, she assumed. Aside from her fun at climbing elevator shafts, escaping assassins through hotel rooms, and rock paper KITCHEN with Kaden, not to mention waking up in a trash dumpster once, it had been the place she could relate to the most. The trip was one that she had made plenty of times, and given that the fierce winds had calmed themselves for the dark of the Artic, it was not at all a difficult.

"Amazing," she found herself gasping, staring off into the clearest sky that she'd ever seen - especially in this weather torn region. Stars were dotting the sky from every point imaginable, but most interesting of all was the strange light display that seemed to guide her, stretching across the heavens like a veil as it flashed and pulsed to its own divine rhythem. It was almost like what she had seen when using Kaden's Sight to view Ki energy throughout things. Streaks of light would ebb and flow, moving like etherial creatures, the great lights of the actic maintaining their influence over all things.

It had been quite captivating, and if she hadn't been under such time duress, she would have greatly taken the opportunity to let herself get lost in its hypnotic dream, the great wisps of the night taking her captive. However, the thought of getting dusted is what lead her through the great blue veil and down the twilight streets of the City Sector.

For a moment, the thought crossed her mind to be wary of glittering vampires, but, she decided, some things were too ridiculous to actually exist, even if green assassins with laser beams could. She entered through the doorframe of the bunker almost as if it were a place she had grown accustomed to, looking immediately across the room at the table in hopes of another glorious dinner like the ones that she and the courier had shared, or even the one with Belle.

Instead, there was the silver haired mistress standing gloomily in the center of the room. Her stance was one of practice and obedience, that of those awaiting further orders without the militant anger. Ashe averted her eyes quickly and walked past her, mumbling a quick yet sincere apology, unsure whether to direct it at the possibility that she had been offended or at her interruption of the girl's search for her master once more.

Ashe moves from the Arctic Sector to the City Sector, entering the City Sector Bunker.