I feel obligated to work on The Siege of Grandville for no apparent reason: mayby I crave the game more than ever? eye twitch But I’m fine. I swear, if I have to go work at Wal-mart to make enough money to pay for it on my own, I will! Anyways, it’s not your problem: Chapter, um, 4? Yeah, Chapter 4:

Chapter 4: Comatose

Ultima

Ultima woke up dreary eyes and with a raging headache. Stiff and sore, he was surprised to find himself truly in his armour, that the last few days hadn’t been some sort of nightmare. There were smudge marks from the grime in the crate, and his visor was clouded. He wiped the grease off the visor, and futilely tried to rub the sleep from his eyes. Titan was sprawled out on his stomach from where he’d collapsed inside. Ultima was careful to step over him, and came out onto the typical grey-skied shore.

Yawning heavily, Ultima looked at the devastation the hurricane had inflicted upon the buildings. They were strewn asunder, foundations ripped apart and debris scattered all over. The young soldier realised that he and Titan had been lucky: they escaped the storm with their lives. The denizens of the buildings along the eastern shore were most likely dead.

But the west was hit hard too, and yet there was a building that had not been shaken in the least. Not very tall, and a little ways down the main street, was a small chain of buildings with their whole exterior intact. Ultima was about to go investigate when he saw a great many fliers landing in Darwin. He heard their hatches open from the ground, and that was all. He pondered where Keys was.

As if in answer there came a small host from the main street, with two white figures in the front: one with a Sabre and one with a rifle. Behind him was Eclipse, and several less important people. Keys’s helmet was down, revealing his golden-blonde hair and sea-grey eyes. They scanned the wreckage with pity, and grave sadness. His gaze fell upon Ultima, and he jogged up casually.

‘Rather queer lodgings for a hurricane,’ he said. ‘Where’s Titan?’

‘Inside,’ Ultima said, stepping aside.

Keys motioned for Eclipse; the medic bolted up and Keys stepped aside. Eclipse took off Titan’s helmet and put his hand to the boy’s throat. After feeling for a pulse, he put his hand onto Titan’s forehead and closed his eyes. They sat in silence, when Keys said ‘Eclipse?’

Eclipse twitched his nose in Keys’s direction, as if motioning him to shut up. Suddenly Eclipse drew a sharp breath, and a light-green blast flowed through his hand onto Titan. Titan moaned, but did not open his eyes or show any signs of consciousness.

‘What’s wrong with him?’

Eclipse’s face went grave, and closing his eyes as if fighting a mental battle, he raised Titan’s head so all could see. The back was bloody, and the skin was bruised badly around a small bloody, black mark.

‘What happened?’ Keys said to Ultima.

‘I don’t know!’ Ultima said. ‘He was fine when he passed out last night.’ Eclipse put his hand onto Titan’s wound and heaved his chest forward, and suddenly a great spark of green shot from his hand into the wound. Titan screamed in agony, and his eyes opened. They were bloodshot, and darting around in panic before he lost consciousness again.

‘He suffered severe trauma to the head,’ Eclipse said, ‘and is suffering from a major concussion.’

‘H-How?’ Ultima asked. ‘His helmet was on!’

‘I don’t know,’ Eclipse said. ‘But it sure wasn’t fastened on tightly.’

‘I think I can guess what happened,’ Keys said. He cast his gaze to a large plank laying to the side, with a dash of blood on it.

Titan

Titan woke up to the wind howling outside, and stood. He had barely slept three hours, and it had no healing effect on him. He was still sore and with a headache from the noise of rain against his suit. The rain against the crate was not pleasant either, as the sound echoed and magnified. The whole crate was vibrating, and it appeared the others around were resonating with it. It would have appeared cool in any other situation.

Lifting his visor, he surveyed the wreckage as well as he could. He stepped out of the crate and took his helmet off. He looked for his lost mace; it sat not far from the coast. He noticed a swaying black figure near it. Slowly Titan approached and crouched. Grabbing the mace, he called out ‘Hello?’ He gripped the weapon tightly in both hands.

Titan glimpsed a cape as the figure laughed and sprang away, sparks erupting from where it had been. Titan shot twice after it; both bolts missed. He watched for the figure again, and his soreness disappeared and was replaced with adrenaline. After no sightings of the figure, Titan turned back towards the crate.

Upon the wind there came a strange note, a chanting song from a low-pitched male voice. It was growing in intensity, until at last, with such strength to cause an avalanche, it cried in one primal cry. Titan stopped dead when first he heard this, but he noticed the winds growing faster. He looked back and saw a wooden crate rattling. He ran towards his own metal crate, but a small rupture could be heard. A flash illuminated the scene as a loose plank sailed and cracked into his skull.

One searing moment of pain ensued, and Titan struggled to place his helmet on in case another debris shot off. Once back on, however, he found that he could not see straight. The world was spinning. He fell to his knees, and then face first upon the ground. The world faded, and he knew only darkness.

But, later, he felt a tingle in his wound and he temporarily regained thought. His eyes snapped open, obscured by blood and the pain ripping at the back of his head. One futile gasp he drew, in an attempt to speak, but then he felt the tie to his mind and the real world snap, and he was sent sailing through his subconsciousness.

He heard faintly a voice in his head: Can you speak?

No.

Can you move?

No, I can’t.

Do you know where you are? What do you remember?

I . . . I can’t remember everything. Anything, really.

Start with your name: what is it?

Keys – wait, no. My name . . . Vin . . . Vincent. Vincent Low.

No, that is not your name.

Wha – what? How do you know? Who are you?

Your name is Titan now. Do you remember anything else?

No.

Well, I’m here to help.

Are you an Angel?

Ha! An angel help Arachnos? Nay, I’m not.

You’re a demon?

Well, you could say that. I’m not from your world, and I know the Dark Arts. You can call me a friend.

Alright. Now, help me.

Okay, okay, don’t rush ahead. Take it slowly. Piece by piece, I’ll help you.

Ugh . . . so much pain.

Don’t worry; it’ll pass. It’ll hurt at first – but once you place your memory together, you can come back.

How long will that take? Ultima and Keys, and Eclipse; they may need me.

To one who can see fragments of the future, you’re right; they will need you very soon. We can go slowly, but we must hurry. Do you understand? If we do not hurry, all Arachnos’s efforts have been in vain.

I get the basic message, but I don’t know how I figure into that.

HA! You’ll see. Just take it easy. Now, try and remember where you were born.

At home. In . . . Mercy Island.

Good. Now, what were your parents’ and sister’s names?

Mom was Sarah Low; Dad was Harold Guntram; sis was Mary.

Why was your mother’s maiden name your last name?

Dad . . . was in trouble with Longbow. Relocated – AAGH! God, the PAIN

Slowly. How old were you when your parents were killed?

Mercy Island.

No, how old were you

Ugh . . . n-nine.

You’re doing good. Oh dear, we need to hurry. Ok, now when were you admitted into Arbiter’s School . . .

Keys

‘WAKE UP!’ Keys cried to Titan as he lay prostrate in the in the infirmary bed. ‘Titan, wake up. Please, wake up!’ Keys put his helmet on to hide his tears.

And wept.

Ultima came in and looked at his friend once. Shaking his head, he walked out. Keys was beside the comatose boy for hours, silent, praying for the boy to return to them. It was midnight when Wolf Spiders came in and quietly jeered from a corner. Keys brooded silently without a word, but ultimately he had to get a drink. Standing he went to a vending machine and put his Arbiter coin in. He hit Dark Fury and a can of the liquor spilled out. The coin slid out and he reclaimed it.

He stood there, drinking the spirit, and he heard one of the Wolf Spiders walk over to Titan. Another snickered, and Keys felt his fury building. He silently peered around the corner: a Wolf Spider had his anus on Titan’s face, and the others were rooting him on. Stepping back, Keys charged into the wall. The wall caved, and Keys sailed through it right next to the Spider harassing Titan. Keys was a tall man, and his dramatic entrance made him seem menacing as he slowly stepped towards the Wolf Spider. Rearing back, Keys launched his arm in a curved arc to hit the Spider in his cheek. The helmet broke and then the bone, and the young man was sent flying into the wall headfirst. He broke the wall but not all the way, and fell down limp. Now doubt he was dead.

The others got their maces out. Keys chuckled behind the mask, and leapt over Titan’s bed to the young ruffians. Two of them. No match for an Arbiter. Keys grabbed his left arm and slid a panel up on his suit, revealing a blue, pulsing plate. The Spiders shot. Keys swooped his arm down and absorbed the energy, and then backhanded the nearest Spider into the wall. The explosion broke the helmet and the wall.

The last Spider ran away; Keys shot after him with a small Sig that he had carried all his teenage years. No shot hit, but the Spider didn’t come back. Holstering the firearm and adjusting the plate, he returned to Titan’s side.

It was then that a Spider charged in with his mace. Keys turned with his Sabre out, but no hit came. Instead, he recognised Commander Arnold Jones’s voice.

‘Keys!’ he said. He ignored the dead bodies. ‘We’re under attack!’

‘What?’ Keys asked.

‘Heroes. Longbow and Superheroes. We didn’t know they were attacking. We think they may have had a spy in Darwin’s Landing last night. Anyways, they’re attacking Mercy right now. Darwin’s of no use, it seems, but the Mercy guard is slipping. All the Arbiters we could pull have made it for the defence, but we can’t hold them. Keys, we need you.’

‘What about Titan?’

‘Who?’

‘#742,’ Keys said with annoyance. ‘What if they attack him?’

‘He’s just a Wolf Spid–.’

‘The Fortunatas decreed that he and Ultima were “special.” I don’t know anything about it, but I know they need protection.’

‘ “Ultima” is in the guard. He’s fighting as we speak.’

‘What!?’

Ultima

Explosions.

Gunfire.

Orders.

The only thing you could hear in the vicious assault on Mercy. Ultima was on a street called Ippul Street, and he was with sixteen other Wolf Spiders. Their commander ordered them to fire away. Not only did Ultima have a mace, he now had a large riot gun. Each trigger pull knocked him back, but devastated any Longbow it hit. As he loaded it with shells, a bomb went off at the end of the street.

The fires prevented any Longbow from coming in that direction, so the force could focus on the southern section of the street. Longbow flooded them.

‘Fire at will!’ the commander screamed as thirty Longbow rushed them. Ultima let out a loud cry and leapt forward, blasting as he ran. Six Longbow were devastated by his riot gun, and ten others were taken down by the snipers behind him. Throwing the riot gun down (he was out of shells) he grabbed his mace, and swung it as hard as he could against the Longbows’ newly designed shock rod. His mace connected first, and the Longbow’s hip shattered. Spinning around he swung it again. After the next went down, the other Spiders were full melee, and the Longbow were all dead. But the battle raged on around them.

The commander called his troops to him, and they moved out. Towards Burk Avenue. Fires covered every building it seemed, and the Villain’s were aiding – you could hear it. Loud ruptures of energy, robots tramping through the streets, crunching of stone against bone; Villains of all types were fighting.

So it was that Ultima’s unit came upon Grand Arbiter Eclipse, still clad in street clothes, yet it seemed as if a veil had been lifted off Ultima’s sight. Instead of a gentle man who only wished to heal, Eclipse, in a rare occurrence, had revealed his true strength. The demon that Eclipse hated – the unconquerable god of destruction that granted Eclipse Grand Arbitership – it was now visible for all to see. The shape and sound of a man, yet its power was beyond anything the Wolf Spiders or Longbow, the Heroes or Villains, or any of the other Arbiters, had seen. Enormous blasts of green fury shot from his hands, tearing foes asunder. Yellow balls of matter crushed his foes; a very aura of poison was about him. Ultima was taken aback at how . . . malicious Eclipse appeared. A Hero came around the bend; Eclipse turned his gaze upon him, and green death shot from his eyes, searing through the Hero. So ended many Longbow and Hero’s lives.

‘Eclipse?’ Ultima whispered. He was awestruck. Eclipse turned to look for foes; his X-Ray gaze scanned and found Ultima. The veil was returned. The golden fire faded from Eclipse’s eyes, and he seemed an ordinary, golden-skinned man. Eclipse turned away, hung his head, and threw his hands to the sky. Green energy swirled about him; it collected in a massive orb above him. Then it shot down into him, and he released it in a deadly ray at a convoy of Longbow making an escape.

But despite Eclipse’s deadly power, Longbow was still winning.