10-Jan-2002
Twisted Fortune - An Escaflowne Fanfiction
By Bonnejeanne and Nixers
Contact: bonnejeanne@yahoo.com and nixerchan@aol.com
Warnings: Spoilers
Notes: Set a little over one year after Vision of Escaflowne's end.
Chapter Ten - Mission
Part 21
Entering the waiting vehicle, he felt an odd relaxation creep up on him as something stabilized.
Dilandau slipped inside a moment after the king, after snapping off the sector and coordinates to the soldiers waiting. With another clear glance of irritation, he slammed the door shut before one of the soldiers could step forward, to act as an escort. Settling next to the king with an unconscious ease, he turned his attention again to the interior, waiting for the vehicle to begin its journey.
As the vehicle moved off, Van found this sudden and unexpected sense of stability gave him the space to turn his thoughts to where he was going to need to go very soon. Closing his eyes, he began to build a picture in his mind of the white guymelef known as Escaflowne.
The trip passed, made quicker by their preoccupation. The machine had stopped in front of a building that had been obviously out of use. A massive slate gray structure managed to give the impression of squatting, despite its formidable height. The windows were barred and the portal shown only the faintest hints of recent use.
Disembarking, the Captain was careful to preserve that illusion to some degree. Aware that their journey was likely tracked, the pretense at least would be appreciated.
The interior was vacuous. The space normally for the repairs necessary of fleets of guymelefs, now housed only one, the sizable machine dwarfed by its surroundings as it hummed, held steadily afloat by the railways surrounding it. The preparations were near completed, Dilandau noted with satisfaction, despite how early the Captain suspected that they were.
Van blinked out of a slight trance as they vehicle stopped and quickly followed Dilandau, mimicking the taller boy's caution. His face held a scowl, which had come upon it when his eyes opened. He took in the building and its contents almost absently, part of his mind still elsewhere.
The Captain approached the guymelef at an almost lazy pace, a certain contentment at the sight of the familiar lines and sound of the weapon entering his stance. Approaching the distinctive figure of Jajuka, who had come to attention with regal patience at the first sound of their arrival, he glanced from the beastman back up to the Alseides. "Are there any modifications I should be aware of?"
Jajuka shook his head in the negative. He regarded the young Captain with a slight impression of presenting a surprise he was proud of. "This is your old machine."
Dilandau blinked, before scrutinizing the mecha more closely. His eyes found familiar signs of wear, battle and singe that even a repaint and refurbishing couldn't entirely diminish. "So you recovered it," he said, with veiled delight in his voice.
The beastman nodded. "Long ago. It was kept in storage when you were given the Oracles."
Tearing his attention away from the welcome sight, he said, "Everything seems in well order." His mood buoyed even further. He glanced at Van. "How are you planning on doing this. I doubt carrying you to the destination holds any more appeal to you..."
Van appeared not to hear the words. He too was staring at the red melef, with a somewhat different expression. His attention was fixed. Suddenly, he moved with alacrity, running to one of the ladders and climbing it lightly, circling the catwalk until he could stretch an arm forward and place his palm on the red-painted skin of the metal beast. He almost shuddered as he touched it, and held his hand against the metal as if holding it in a fire.
Dilandau scowled fiercely as Van approached, then touched *his* melef. With a hand on the hilt of his sword, he stared up at the king with narrowed eyes. "Van," he drawled in a warning tone, his eyes flickering from the melef to the king, even as he as of yet, made no move to approach, to break the darkly fey scene above.
This time the voice penetrated and Van pulled back, continuing to stare at the red giant for a moment before climbing back down to the floor. His expression was strained, and he passed his hand over his eyes briefly. Cinnamon eyes, that almost seemed to reflect the color of the guymelef behind him, seeming somehow almost scarlet, met the garnet ones of the other boy.
"I used to wake screaming from nightmares about that thing," Van said in a low voice. "I had to." The last sentence was obscure, but Dilandau sensed it was a reference to the king's actions, not his words.
He was still bristling slightly, and unnerved. The resemblance to his own actions a year ago with Escaflowne were setting him off balance and defensive.
"What. Exactly. Did you do to it?" he asked, his tone strained as he looked from the strange hue of the boy's eyes to the surface of the machine behind him. In a detached way, he recognized that a part of his alarm was fueled by worry, but for the boy or the old melef, it was uncertain, and not important to the Captain.
Van blinked at the question, and a little of the crimson seemed to fade from his eyes. "Do? Nothing, how could I?" he answered guilelessly. His eyes dropped and then he looked back up. "I just... wanted to make sure it was a machine, not a... not something else." He looked away again, feeling a little like a child whose night terrors were about to be ridiculed.
"It's *not* a machine," Dilandau agreed, walking past the other boy to run a hand affectionately across the surface of the metal hovering a few feet above him. He didn't seem to noticing the heat radiating from it. "It's a weapon, a beautiful one."
"As you wish," Van muttered, taking a few more steps away and not turning around. Another beautiful weapon slipped easily into his mind and he closed his eyes, suppressing the slight shudder.
Dryden Fassa stared again at the fruit of his labors. Everything else in the room seemed to go unnoticed, the flickering of candles, now impotent in the morning light, the soft sounds of the market and courtyard outside his window, even his own exhaustion. Merle had tried, with no avail to get him to come to bed last night.
He'd been riding on that wave of exhilaration as the code in front of him had begun to crack, sometime around the moon's zenith. The text had been recovered from the mystic valley, and was in the language of Atlantis. This would normally have been a difficult challenge, but had been made impossible by the fact that this particular Atlantian had abysmal handwriting.
He'd drug it out again, attacking the translation with renewed determination the day after the dragons had.... quelled Escaflowne. It was a vague memory that had prompted him, a recollection of two symbols that he had recognized about half a year ago, before he'd pushed the text aside in frustration: dragon and draconian.
Under such fervor that the display had inspired, he had defied all of his expectations, and managed to do in two days what he'd floundered on for months. There was no sense of accomplishment in the man now, just a growing sense of dread and the irrational wish that he hadn't managed to uncover the secrets of a section, little more than two pages.
The beginning had started simply enough. He didn't have to look at the translation anymore to recite it word for word.
//One wish.
That was all that the machine that controlled our fate, even as we presumed control it, would grant us, on that day when our wings could not only bear our own weight but hold aloft another. We could have our fondest personal wish, in return we gave to our brethren our selfless mind, adding our hearts to the collective dream of our people, whatever it may be.
I dream sometimes, that I had spent my wish more wisely, more selflessly in my moment of selfishness. Perhaps my lone heart could have forestalled disaster. No, I am still not so presumptuous, but I do dream that I had asked for youth with my reckless wish for long life.//
It had begun predictably enough. To the point where Dryden had seriously wondered if the words were worth the struggle. He'd heard of the concept mentioned, one of his earlier studies coincided very strongly with a Draconian belief. A heartwish they called it. Though there was superstition about ever voicing it or bringing it to life. Apparently the Atlantians had no such reservations.
//Now, I am perhaps the last of those who can rightfully call themselves Atlantians, though my kind lives on, and I am but a shallow figure, hardly able this moon to inch my hand across this parchment.
It is ironic, to my wandering mind, that it was in the shadow of our ascension to the power of gods, that the gods themselves had seemed to throw us down from that lofty precipice. We had forgotten the most basic of our own laws, that fortune rights itself, and the more twisted the fortune, the more dramatically the straightening becomes.//
That had begun to convince the merchant that perhaps his first instinct was right, as well as a sense of foreboding rare to him, rising into his conscious. It was what had prompted him, the night before to brush aside the insist paws and pleading tones of Merle. He'd taken the night wrestling with conjugations sentence structure, cross referencing each strange symbol and cursing how the handwriting of the author managed to make one appear so closely like so many others.
//We had rested, after Gaea hung in the sky, adding her obscured orbit to the circling of the heavens. It was another earth, another paradise, created by none but our want and our device. When the backlash had not struck, we had merely dreamed that the process was so complete that it was balanced, or even worse that we were following the true and straight course of destiny. As if we could predict such things!
No fortune bided her time, waiting for our strength to return and hubris to swell. We were not satisfied with the birth of a world, we needed to tamper further, to change the very rules upon which the universe operated. We sought to give her the breathe of wishes and dreams, but the balance was broken... and fire was our answer.
No, I will not berate the dead, for I in that time was no wiser. It is not fair of me to judge them thus in the light of time, when I was standing with them, with the same hope, optimism and pomp. My one and only difference is that I survived the storm.
There were others as well, many those who'd wished on their day, for fortune, who'd survived the flames. We agreed upon one thing, we no longer wished to see the twisted rubble of Atlantis, our beautiful home laid low by our own mistake. It was upon that fresh soil of Gaea that we could no longer be of one mind.//
The long section had taken the entire day. It was an interesting slant on the history they had discovered, but not, to his frustration what he was looking for. That same instinct had pushed him forward again, diving into the next day, and immersing himself between weary audiences with the kingdom. Things had settled again and common sense had taken the hysteria from the peoples' eyes. There were woodworkings of earth dragons and Escaflowne, the striking scene rendered with artisans hands, but the speculation of it was silent, confined to taproom rumors spoken after the days work had done.
//There were those who believed that the gifts we had should be sealed away, forever inaccessible. History's mistakes unrepeatable as the means were taken away. And those such as I, who believe we should use that same power to prevent, to teach. We could use our own potency to spread what fragile lessons we've gleaned.
Then there are those who are lost. They are Atlantian in blood, the potency of their dreams has not diminished, nor do I suspect will it ever. These were those of us, children who'd not yet made their wish. It was granted in that rush of destruction, a final benevolence from the machine. Their wish was to be away, to forget the memory of their friends and parents, consumed. They are called, Draconians... Dragon Gods, but they are both fit for the name as they are little better than humans with wings. They are spiritual, but they are no longer us... I do not know whether to pity or envy them. That I could too sacrifice my power for the divine wind of forgetfulness.//
Closer, closer. He'd nearly hummed with anticipation. He hadn't noticed Allen's coming and going, nor the worried eyes of a feline on him. Somewhere in that time he realized he'd forgotten to eat, but such worries weren't as important seeming.
//It was over a little kingdom, the first to rise upon this land, built by the races formed of our wish, that the conflict of our dreams came to a head. We had sought to give this little kingdom, this Fanelia, a gift. Our own was a new race, intelligent and instinctual at once, dragons like no other that flew or swam Gaea's winds and seas. These dragons are fierce to those who have a fierce spirit. They are a reflection of the soul.
The others.... I cannot speak of how distraught we were. It was one matter to have taken such a well of power and bury it in the southlands, but this machine they and their Ispano have made was of no benevolence. It seeks out those distortions of fate, and defends against them, seeks to destroy them. But.... it needs the blood of the ruler of this country... and a stone found by the heart of a still living dragon.//
He'd veritably raced through the translation of this part. Hours pealing aside sentence after sentence. Escaflowne. And the Earth Dragons.... the ancient was talking about the machine like it was a fearsome monster, not the guardian it was commonly believed to be. The images the words inspired as they unfolded was of nightmares, of Van, a crazed look in his eye still trying to fight, bloodied and wounded almost beyond recognition. Even after the trauma of the repairs... There wasn't a *want* to fight. Not that Dryden could see. It was a soul-deep *need* to be back on the battlefield, to kill the infamous Captain in the red guymelef.
//To prevent a slaughter of our gift, we had a compact with those noble beasts. They will either teach the young king peace or submit to the blade. My heart aches at their sacrifice, but they had chosen. I have but one fear, that the blood of one of the lost ones never joins with that of dragon and metal. Powered by the lifeblood of wishes, and the fruit of one who'd forsaken peace for power of dragons, who knows what such a device could become. I would fear for the soul of such a king.//
The last sentence was pathetically easy to translate. The words slid so easily into place that he wanted to deny them, to question their accuracy. Desperately, he scanned the next pages, only to find that the wandering rambles of the ancient had turned towards mourning the extinction of some birds called "crows" and an obsessive fondness for them.
It seemed almost cruel, to give him that much. So little to know and so much to worry about. How much danger was Van in, had been in for who knows how long? How much of the danger was real, and how much was a dramatic and fanciful wording of a long dead Atlantian with too much time and too much guilt?
He tucked the translated copy beneath the original, finding it the only way to tear his eyes away from the damning words. He stood and stretched, feeling the vertebrae realign itself with faint pops.
Whatever contentment the move had offered him was drained away suddenly by a flash of red from the corner of his eye, the slightest movement from beyond the sill of the window. He quickly turned fully, peering out of the pane of glass. Again there was a pulse of red, and its source was unmistakable. /Escaflowne was awake again. There were no dragons./ His mind hurried along that path. /He's calling it./
Dryden's eyes widened as he stared, shocked, a moment longer. Then grabbed his coat, and spurred on by a feeling of dread, took the hallways at a rush, hardly noticing the half awake Allen or startled Merle as he passed both by without greeting or comment. His entire focus was getting to the courtyard. So much so that he hadn't stopped to wonder what he'd do when there.
He was only vaguely aware that the other two had followed him, and that they both stopped short. Escaflowne, still standing poised where it had been stopped, was emitting a bright, pulsing red glow from within the energist's housing gem. Its stance had only changed slightly, almost minutely, from a posture of reluctant attention to a tense upward gaze. It almost looked as if it were struggling with something.
What had caused Dryden's stylus to fall through nerveless fingers was the reactions of the people in the courtyard. More to point, the lack of them. The energy coming off of the machine was hot and red flashes burst from the scintillating gemplate at regular pulses, burning the eyes as if Dryden was staring straight at the sun. Yet not a single person looked up or stopped their morning chores and travels. In fact a young couple had stopped at the feet of the massive guymelef and were talking animatedly.
Before the Regent could turn to his companions and confirm the vision in front of him, the color of the light shifted subtly, the bright crimson seemed to drain away into a reddish brown hue, disturbingly familiar. A faint hum came from the machine, almost as if in satisfaction.
The color seemed to swirl again and a faint, almost little more than a pinprick of pure white blazed from the center of the gem, overtaking the rest in a flood of white energy. Across the smooth surface, a single red feather fluttered lazily down and disappeared, as if projected from the inside.
The inner light flickered, then faded, replaced by a faint hiss. Murmurs of the courtyard became alarmed cries as the guymelef straightened rigidly, pain somehow conveyed through its posture. His heart missed a beat as Dryden found the source, the faceplate of the Ispano machine was melting along one side, dripping and hardening in a strange parody of a scar.
It stopped just as suddenly. Silence fell over the normally bustling courtyard as everyone stared, afraid to breathe.
The grind of metal and hiss of steam was deafening in the wake of it. The guymelef transformed into the white dragon, wings outstretched. People scrambled frantically out of the way as the beat fiercely, lifting the machine off the ground and causing little tornadoes from the force of it. The dragon hovered a moment and then circled gliding once around Fanelia. Another flexing of its wings and the dragon had departed, gaining speed as it hurtled northwards.
There is a certain numb, impotent feeling that occurs in the wake of such spectacles, particularly when it is known, in the heart of hearts that what was witnessed was a disaster wearing the trappings of a miracle. That feeling had an unshakable grip on Dryden's heart.
With a slow, brittle air, he turned, head lowered to the swordsman and catgirl who'd stayed a pace behind him. Not truly looking at either, he summoned his voice at last. "Tell me, that you just saw ALL of that."
Merle walked over slowly, her face still turned to the sky. Almost absently she brushed against his side, unconsciously seeking reassurance in the brief contact. "Something was wrong for a moment," she said softly.
Allan turned his head sharply and looked at Merle, then at Dryden. He settled his hands on his hips. "What are you both talking about?"
Dryden shook his head. Just as reflexively he'd smoothed Merle's hair once before resting a hand on her shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. "You didn't see it then," he said, turning his head slightly in the direction the melef had taken. "The energist. It changed, rather dramatically for a moment..... before it went back to normal..."
The tone of voice was almost flat, the sort of conviction felt when the world went crazy. He was still trying to comprehend that something so incredibly visual could have been missed by so many people.
Allan's eyes narrowed. He considered for a moment. The he crossed his arms. "What does it mean?" he asked Dryden directly.
"I don't know," Dryden answered honestly, ducking his head. "I have misgivings though," he said after a few moments, the last paragraph of the text all to clear in his memory. "No dragons visiting the city again, so I can hope."
Allan considered this with a reflexive frown. When no more was forthcoming from the Regent, the swordsman made a noncommittal noise and eventually left the area. He'd something in mind and needed time to consider its implications.
Dryden shook his head as the swordsmen had parted company. With a bit of a half smile he lamented. "And here he'd become almost good company. Miracles never last forever I suppose."
He frowned again slightly looking down at the catgirl at his side. "Though I should apologize. I doubt I've been much better."
Merle was looking out at the empty courtyard now, and her paw was rubbing unconsciously at her cheek as if trying to soothe a real or imagined hurt there. "Van-sama," she said softly, her voice sad and lost. She'd worked hard to be a support for Dryden and even somewhat for Allan but it meant the maturing catgirl had been hiding most of her own worry and stress behind a barrier of practical assistance.
The softly called name seemed to work to pull together thoughts that had been scattered in the excess of information that had presented itself this morning. The Regent stepped back a moment, then offered his hand, a more solemn mimicry of their old habits.
"If the Lady wouldn't mind," he said, burying his own apprehension sunder a lighter tone and the familiarity of the gesture. "The kitchen has informed me that you are as due for a meal as I am."
Merle sighed, curling her arm around his, though her other paw did not leave her cheek. "You were due for one yesterday," she said with a touch of her customary admonition.
"As were you if I understand." Dryden said. In all the times she's pressed a tray on him, he hadn't seen her get anything for herself. It was still possible she was grabbing snacks when the cooks weren't looking, but he doubted it. In a much quieter tone he said, "He'll be okay, you know." Not taking his gaze from the hallways, he gave her paw a reassuring squeeze. "Whatever happened there, he managed to win again. It did go back to normal."
She made a little sound that could have been acknowledgment or denial. "Something's wrong," she repeated softly as if to herself alone.
"There is," he admitted. "I found something today that might be the key to if not fixing it, then at least where to start."
Merle looked up at him, as they sat at one of the tables. "What you were looking for?"
He nodded and then smiled as one of the house staff put a plate down in front of both of them. "It was what I was looking for, but it was just enough to give me more questions." He picked up one of the utensils provided and took a few bites of the breakfast laid out. "It appears the Atlantians were not as unified when it comes to Gaea as the stories make it seem. There were two sides to their argument and both of them are in Escaflowne."
Swallowed by the hum of the giant machinery, the statement never made its way to the other boy's ears. After a few more moments of examining the condition of the Alseides, Dilandau turned, again entering easy speaking range. Glancing at Jajuka, who'd been forgotten in the odd spectacle, he straightened his uniform brusquely. "Approximately when will everything be prepared for our departure?"
The beastman glanced from Dilandau to Van and back. "Half an hour, perhaps less. I will expedite. Is the... king... going to need a guymelef?"
The Captain glanced at Van. From what he remembered of the brief time Escaflowne's cockpit was open on the Vione, the interface of the guymelefs were very different. Even if they were to provide a second, it took years of training to master the basics of just keeping it balanced in flight. Uncomfortably, he realized just how much he'd been depending on the king being able to call his own guymelef.
Van however had not been oblivious to the words being exchanged, he was simply preparing himself. He turned around and looked at the silver-haired Captain.
"I need the pendant that you have, for a few minutes."
Dilandau's eyebrows furrowed slightly at that. With a hint of reluctance, he fished the chain out from his high collared neckline and offered the pendant to the king, glancing from the gem to Van with a bit of curiosity.
Van took the chain, reluctance detectable. A part of him wanted to enlist the other boy's help in this, but knowing what had happened before, that he'd touched the guymelef's energist and been blasted, he didn't dare.
Glancing around, he walked to am empty corner, not hard to find in the mostly unused building. He sat on his heels and bowed his head forward, letting the pendant dangle between his clasped hands.
The mental image he'd been preparing for this focused in his mind. There was something... wrong, and he'd sensed as much in the vehicle on the way. Escaflowne was not where he'd left her. He'd only a faint sense of the difference but it was enough to be disturbing. His mental picture adjusted from one of the guymelef seated to standing, and a sense of open sky above. The pendant began to swing at the end of the chain, back and forth like a clock pendulum. Bowing his head a little more, eyes closed, he sharpened the picture even further and reach out for the pulsing red energist on her breast.
The moment his visualized hand made contact with the glowing red facets, there was an explosion of heat that ran through his body, and something even more unexpected happened. He'd expected a contact like the one before, when they had been trapped in Dornkirk's laboratories and the technicians had begin trying to wrench the energist from the melef. Through the pain, and with Hitomi's help, he'd reached the heart of the Ispano device, and she'd responded to his call to free herself and come for him.
This time, however, he felt suddenly sucked *into* the energist, as if the guymelef were trying to incorporate him with her. It happened so quickly he was literally knocked breathless and the pendant almost fell from his hands. He fell to his knees, one hand reaching unconsciously for the floor to keep him from falling.
To the outside, it looked as if the king was fighting off a faint. His eyes opened and stared out, unseeing. The pendant, still dangling from his single fist, swung wildly.
Dilandau had crossed the hanger, at first with the intent of simply trying to understand what the other was doing. Calling the dragon was the first thing that had come to mind, but how and why with jewelry were questions he couldn't answer. Then with a quicker pace as Van had half collapsed.
"Van?" he asked, but received no answer. The only sign that the boy had reacted was the slow opening of his eyes. Unconscious of the stares of those who would have to have been watching the scene, he reached out to try and snap the king out of the trance.
The pendant sparked, sending a warning flash as the air around the king crackled once with invisible energy. A searing pain, through just his fingertips, forced the Captain to take a hasty step back.
Somewhere in a world surrounded by sparkling red walls that tilted at all angles, Van looked out and saw the distorted figure approach, saw a hand move out and tried to cry a warning, succeeding in reaching the pendant somehow. The hasty reaction of the pale figure, tinted red by the world around him, started a fierce reaction inside Van, and he turned inward, fighting to master the presence that had pulled him in.
His hand rose, gripping the chain with whitened knuckles, and moved suddenly, bringing the sparking red gem to his face. Pressing it to the curve of his cheek, the pendant sparked again, and he felt a flare of pain from the contact. Instead of jerking away, he held it there, feeling a distant reaction as the faceplate of a white guymelef suddenly reddened with heat and began to melt.
Something snapped and he was back, out of the red world. The pendant cooled and he dropped his hand, blinking. Following quickly on this victory, he sent his will to the guymelef. /I need you, Escaflowne. Come to me./
Slumping a little, he took a breath and looked up, lifting his hand to offer the pendant back to Dilandau standing a few feet away. His cheek throbbed and an angry red blistering of the skin was rising but it was easy to ignore. "She comes."
The gloved hand curled around the pendant almost reflexively. Distracted, the albino was looking at Van with degree numb shock. After a few moments he looked down at the pendant cradled in his hand, the faint weight of the stone almost not noticeable in comparison with the ache of his fingers, then back up at the other. "Your face," he said quietly.
Van shrugged, getting to his feet. He brushed absently at his clothes and settled his swordbelt. "I didn't want to disable her. We have to fight," he answered, as if it made sense. He looked around absently. "Unless you want her to land here, we should go away from the city."
The idea of the dragon landing in the middle of his city shook Dilandau out of the stun. Pushing aside the persistent feeling that something was very wrong a moment ago, he hung the chain again around his neck, tucking it inside the uniform.
He glanced from the Alseides to Van, unwilling to ask the same question again, just in case something he'd said had set the boy off the first time. "I can arrange transportation for you outside," he offered.
"Take me," Van said. "Just not in the metal. Please."
Dilandau nodded, a little surprised at that. He finally shrugged and turned back, walking to where the supplies had been gathered. "You'll have to balance, this model doesn't have a spare hand. I'll do what I can."
Van looked up at the guymelef and nodded. "Crook your arm," he said, demonstrating with his own against his chest. "I'll manage. Make it a short trip."
"It will be," the other boy said. "The mantaeux is too much of a drain on the energists with what she'll be carrying."
Van shrugged, waiting for the other boy to enter his 'weapon.' He seemed to have a little bit of detachment that had not been there before, during any of the time Dilandau had been with him.
Quickly checking the lines securing the relatively small cargo with a glance, he turned and ascended the steps, following Van's earlier path with a renewed eagerness. Opening the hatch, he settled into the harness, enjoying the sheer familiarity of the machine around him before flipping the controls to active and flooding the compartment.
Watching the other boy enter the guymelef and then be swallowed up in it, Van kept his emotions under tight rein. The truth was, he didn't want to be doing any of this. He wanted to grab the other by the hand and somehow take him back to Fanelia and forget all the other things that he'd learned about Basram, and Zaibach herself, and everything. But he was careful not to let those thoughts become wishes.
After a moment, while Dilandau with a semblance of patience, allowed the workers there to disengage the supports and retract the platforms, the guymelef transformed briefly, landing with a shallow earthquake on the concrete floor. The arm of the machine went up in a swift assured movement, and liquid metal shot out of one of the slots where the hand should have been.
A few feet from the cargo, it seemed to pause and spread as other strands of the crimina metal joined it wrapping around the cargo carefully before drawing it up and close to the body of the guymelef, and securing it there. The machine shifted, balancing for the moment before approaching one of the platforms, the free arm was moved to hold the position Van had demonstrated, on level with the metal riser.
Van ran over to the platform and jumped on it, sure-footed as a cat. He approached the red guymelef with no signs of his earlier reluctance and jumped up, grabbing the mecha's arm and hoisting himself up. He wrapped his legs around the metal limb and balanced, bracing himself with a hand on the Alseides' chest. Cocking his head at the pilot's compartment he nodded curtly.
THE END OF PART 21!