Chapter 4: The Burning City Of Fuyuki
Central Antarctica,
Chaldea,
"There's been an explosion in the central command room!"
The Head of the Medical Department, Romani Archaman spoke hurriedly into the comms, attempting to regain control of the situation and at the same time, order the rescue staff to do what was needed even as emergency sirens blared all over the facility.. An evacuation order had been issued to preserve whatever staff remained.
"Doctor!"
The red lights didn't manage to even perturb the doctor though, who instead hectically made way to the explosion site himself, followed by a frantic Ritsuka Fujimaru worried about the few acquaintances he did have in this new strange place.
The sight they arrived to, was one of chaos.
The central control room of Chaldea lay in ruins, the electricity dependent equipment had caught fire due to the explosion and the searing heat could easily be felt. Romani noticed Al holding himself up over the Director, clearly having protected her from the explosion somehow considering the latter was mostly unharmed.
"H..Hey, what's going on? Really...."
Olga herself seemed to be nudging the black haired man with a lack of any real strength in her hand, slowly losing herself to despair..
"..." Al would have deadpanned at the woman if he could, except the pain from having metal make love with his back didn't exactly allow him the luxury of having any expression other than a pained one... Still, the realisation that no one had stopped the rayshift dawned on him and he groaned, forcing himself up by pushing his one arm against the metal wall....
"Mash!"
He heard Ritsuka shout out the name of the demi-servant he was responsible for and he groaned again, the boy's personality was perfect for someone with Harem Protagonist EX... Still, there was Mash...
"Mo..ve." And so he spoke, addressing a fumbling Olga who was more worried about his condition than the chaos around her.... She wasn't listening to him at all was she? Sighing to himself, he grabbed her by the shoulder and once again deployed reinforcement, focusing it on his legs this time.
The effects of Time Alter, Square Accel were also yet to wear off and that allowed him to move faster than most could perceive.. Al kicked at the ground, practically throwing himself at Romani who was standing near the door... As a more combat oriented magus, he was used to moving while being in great amounts of pain and that helped him a fair bit when he had to twist his body midair and throw the woman he'd grabbed onto at Romani, knocking them both out of the Central Command Room just as the metal doors shut down, sealing the command room to start the Rayshift autonomously.
There was a reason you needed to be compatible with Rayshifting for it to completely work and Olga wasn't, they'd tested. It would destroy her body from the inside out, something Al wouldn't have if he could do something about it. He'd have left himself but Mash and Ritsuka were still inside and he was..... The truth was he was compatible with the technology, even if he kept the fact a secret.
Chaldeas, a blue holographic globe replica floating in the centre of the command room slowly turned red... That didn't bode well, not at all.. Al didn't notice it though, and kicked at the ground again, moving or rather, leaping towards where Ritsuka was kneeling down..
"..Shit.."
The doctor felt his heart drop... Finally seeing Chaldeas in it's new state... That thing was a perfect replica of the planet, showing the universal state of the world and by extension of humanity..A representation of it's status both in the past and the future. It being red meant that humanity was just gone.
What had happened?
No more like, what was the complete explanation for this?
Al understood that he didn't have the time to ponder on these thoughts and put his hands on the massive piece of rubble threatening to crush an already injured Mash... With an injured back, the strength he could exert was understandably limited, not nearly enough to lift what was essentially a piece of rock and so he failed to lift it, not that that managed to stop him or make him give up.
"Beginning Rayshift."
His hair stood on end, even with continued attempts
"Motherfucker, Ritsuka, run!"
"....I'm sorry."
Seeing the black haired teenager shake his head in denial genuinely annoyed the doctor, it didn't matter if it was just him. He'd be safe anyway!
"Damn it ki-"
Before Al could finish his words, all three of them faded away into blue wisps.
Outside the command room, Romani held back the Director even as she threatened to have him executed, "There isn't anything we can do, Director! Stop trying to-" An elbow smashed into his guts, making him gasp for air with wide eyes..., He fell to his knees with both hands on his stomach.
"You'll put all survivors at ri-" Romani reached out for Olga in a desperate attempt to stop her from destroying the doors, sealing the room.. It could have drastic consequences not only for them but also for, "If you destroy it, they'll pause mid rayshift! He might die!" He tried to appeal to her emotions, aware that the ashen haired woman treasured her first and only friend more than anything.
"I have to.... I have to sav-"
Olga Marie Animusphere was cut off by the metal doors simply sliding open, revealing a destroyed room with nothing but fire, rubble and bloody corpses either crushed or dismembered. The three 'survivors' nowhere in sight.
"E..Establish contact.." Her voice came out as nothing but a weak whisper.. She understood that the rayshift was successful but their safety was still a valid concern, who knew what they'd arrived at.
"Understood."
-
Unidentified Location,
"Ugh."
Al stumbled around, darkness crawling up around his vision... He'd never stopped losing blood, if anything he lost more due to his movement and the adrenaline coursing through his veins had begun to subside which also meant the pain was coming around full course..
He waved around his one hand in an attempt at getting a read on his surroundings before putting it to his chest, coming up with a temporary solution to his immediate problems.
"Time Alter, Triple Stagnate."
His breathing slowed down, as did his movements... Time Alter's stagnate spells did exactly as they implied, slowed down one's time.. Which in this case meant they slowed down all of his body functions except for his thoughts.. Sure the damage was slowly increasing but at a considerably lower rate. It also dulled the pain by dulling his senses.
"Racoon City but Walmart?" The medic only now registered his surroundings.. It made his jaw hang low.
A burning desolate city.
It looked like something that came out of some post apocalypse novel with ruined and cracked tall buildings, destroyed cars all over the road he was on, rubble on fire and not a single living being in sight...
What the fuck was this place?
If this WAS indeed an apocalypse setting, undead would come around the corner just about..... Al almost jumped at the slow heavy footsteps ringing in his ears...
"Me and my mouth."
He patted his pocket, releasing a relieved sigh when he noticed his gun was still there... Once more raising his hand to his chest, Al cast a simple healing spell to close up his wounds.. The metal was still inside but with possible enemies approaching, there was no opportunity to remove it... If only he had his prosthesis.
Healing Magecraft was easily learnable and not quite expensive, so Al knowing several healing spells wasn't really a big deal.
He cancelled the Time Alter acting on him and pulled out his pistol, pointing it in the direction of the footsteps with wary eyes.. To call a .357 Magnum a pistol wasn't exactly right considering the thing could blow a hole through a human.
And soon, the mystery footsteps were no longer mysterious, no they were coming from exactly what Al thought they were..., "Fucking undead.."
Brittle Skeletons wielding weapons and shields... His luck was great wasn't it?
They moved slowly and looked quite weak, the swords and spears they had were rusted and possibly blunt...
"Huh.." Maybe they weren't as much of a threat as he'd thought?
That line of thinking was cut short by the steel arrow that flew past his head, missing him only by a few inches.., "Nevermind." He raised his gun, pointed it at a skeleton's head and pulled the trigger.. The bullet blew straight through the skull, shattering it into a million pieces and even hitting the skeleton behind it..
At least they were brittle right? There was at least some plus to this..
The Medic smiled, pleased with the development.. As a doctor, he didn't much like fighting but there was one thing he accepted as a magus, "Killing is a hell of a lot easier than saving." Several more shots rang out and a few more undead fell down.. Not the ones closest to him no, he'd shot the ones with bows and arrows, judging them to be more of a threat.
'Time Alter...' He ducked under a sword, smashing the magnum into an undead's ribs, throwing it back, 'Square Accel.'
Two reinforcements and a square accel combined made him more than a match for these beings, even in his semi injured state. The recoil from shooting was something he barely registered.
The medic engaged his assailants upfront, firing countless shots that blew through them... It was strange that he wasn't running out of ammunition considering he'd fired well over three dozen rounds by now but it wouldn't really come as a surprise to any magus.
Al was a magus and magus were known to carry Mystic Codes of their own making. Best described as tools, these were constructs that were given properties using a variety of methods and had an output depending on said properties... More often than not, they required a supply of magic energy to work.
His 'gun' was a mystic code too, one that ran an alchemical operation each time a round was fired and directly converted magical energy into bullets which appeared in place of the used ones.. Their containers were just recycled each time.
It was a mystic code magus would scoff at considering their hate for technology but it was his Mystic Code, and it had saved him more times than he could count.
A few minutes of constant gunfire and inhuman moaning later, Al could be seen resting against a destroyed car, bones littered all around him.. The bones of the undead that had attacked him.. They were weak creatures and Al could only hope these were all this place had to offer.
He needed to scout, find out where he was and if possible establish contact with Chaldea the methods for which only the A-Team was privy to, as in, he had no fucking idea.. He rubbed his one hand on his dirty coat out of habit, staring at the crimson sky in thought..
Was this going to be his new life?
Hopefully not.
"Yo, magus... Don't try'n attack, you'll die."
"I'd prefer doctor... Who?" Definitely not human, Al hadn't felt the 'male' approach him at all. He'd literally appeared out of thin air and pressed what felt like wood against his neck.
"Doesn't matter."
"Al, do you need medical assistance?" Al's neck slumped as he sighed again, putting a hand on his knee, "I've had a bit enough.." He gestured to the bones all around him, "Of fighting."
The medic really wanted his prosthesis right now.
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