Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Ryou Bakura: Game Master! ❯ Imperial Fortresses and old Friends ( Chapter 13 )

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh or Final Fantasy 6. Takahashi owns Yu-Gi-Oh, and he doesn't approve of Ryou threatening helpless bards. SquareSoft owns Final Fantasy, and they agree. They MADE a helpless bard.

 

The grasslands were easy to navigate through, as the three bards led Ryou, Yugi, and Malik due east, away from the coastline and the deserts and toward the imperial city. That part, Ryou found to be acceptable; getting lost seemed to be a good thing so far. For one thing, there didn't appear to be many monsters here. For another, it did give him time to think. What the bards had said, it didn't seem like Falnika was the real problem anymore. In fact, ever since Mt. Koltz, he barely seemed to really think of her. Sure, he mentioned her, but most of his worry was on Mello. Mello knew where the threat was, and Mello knew why Sith was involved in it. Mello was also the one who told him to watch Sith. That part, he didn't entirely mind too much.

 

But what he didn't like was the look of the sky when they came closer toward the city. Though it was quite a ways away, its influence on the environment was incredible; the grass began to dry out and wither, and the sky itself was darker, almost stormy in the horizon. It didn't particularly scare Ryou. At that point, he'd seen enough evil to know the signs that it held a high regard in a region or two. But that didn't mean he had to like it. And he had no intention to, either. All he wanted to focus on was getting through the city as soon as possible, hopefully with Sith alive and with Mello on their side.

 

“Okay, so we're heading toward death and we're not going to avoid that,” he heard Malik saying to one of the bards, as they continued on, “You guys want to tell us what's left of the city? You said it was ransacked.” Jimmy D. nodded, and for once, his normal merriment vanished. He stopped for a second and squinted as he tried to make out even a tiny outline of the vast empire they were heading toward.

 

“Aye, it was. Vector has weapons that not even Kratz would know of,” the bard said seriously, distantly, “Two of them, we know of, are capable of destroying this world. One is Atma. The other is… the Light of Judgment. And while Atma is powerful, I actually fear that perhaps Falnika is using this light instead.”

 

“Would she actually use something that powerful?” Ishtar asked, sitting as he watched them all crossing the hills. Jimmy D. nodded; he didn't appear to notice the giant screen that depicted Ryou's living room. And if he did, he didn't care.

 

“It wouldn't surprise us. These Mystics… they never leave anything to chance,” he replied, and stopped abruptly, “That may be why they're intent with eradicating lady Sith. She alone threatens their existence, and if she remembers her own past, she may come across something that would harm Rath.” Malik's glance flickered to Ryou, and the boy caught it. They both understood now. If that was right, it was no wonder Amber's own attacks had been so jerky; she was growing desperate to see Sith die. Falnika only seemed to be taunting her, but maybe there was truth to her words to Sith.

 

“Bards,” Ryou began, and all three of them turned to him, “What happened back then? What did Sith do? What does she know?” Eric looked down sadly.

 

“We don't know,” the bard replied regretfully, “The problem is that it happened over three thousand years prior. No one would remember. Not unless they were with Sith when it happened.” Ryou's immediate thought went to both Bakura and Yami. They'd have been around when she was alive, and it was clear at least Yami knew some level of who she was. But when he looked up at Bakura, the old thief already knew what he was thinking. And he frowned.

 

“You're asking us to remember something that happened right before we died,” Bakura reminded Ryou firmly, crossing his arms, “It's possible we know what happened, but we don't remember either.”

 

“But you don't deny knowing her,” Ryou pointed out, and everyone fell silent. Then, after a moment, he said, “Bakura… you did, didn't you. That woman you told me about, the knight. That was Sith, wasn't it?” The silence dragged on, and Bakura didn't do anything. He didn't blink, and he didn't nod or look away. But then his eyes flickered, and watered. And slowly, he did nod.

 

“Yes. It was her,” he said slowly, “She does not know, and I don't intend to tell her. Not yet.” Ryou said nothing, and it was a long moment before Bakura spoke again, “Ryou, she was my closest friend. Right now, so are you. But if Sith dies…” He didn't finish the sentence, and he didn't need to. Ryou understood. He nodded patiently, and his expression softened as he saw the pain on Bakura's face. Sith was the very friend he had been missing for three thousand years; it must've hurt when she didn't even recognize him. Now Ryou knew why he was overwhelmingly patient with her. Then again, he was most likely to argue with her, too.

 

Knowing that the only answer lay in Vector, Ryou led the way again, with the bards around him, and with Yugi and Malik taking the rear. After the revelation Bakura gave him, Ryou found it hard to even speak, so he let the silence come along as well. The journey seemed so short, with no one willing to say anything. Malik and Yugi must've been just as shocked as he was; they took turns carrying Sith, but they never once spoke of her health or her expression.

 

The coast was far behind them, and the hills began to decline to flat land when the city finally came into view. Ryou had to stop. Even from here, the structures were terrifying. The sky at that point was black, the clouds thick and gray above them, giving the metallic cranes and rusting iron a dark glow. It smelled thickly of rust and blood, and even from so far away, Ryou could hear the creaking of old hinges.

 

Inside the city, it was far worse. The cobbled streets were littered with corpses and stained with blood, and the rats and other vermin made it clear this was their new home now. Trash was heaped in various, sporadic piles, and the houses that dotted the streets were burned, many still standing, but some torched completely to nothing. The streetlamps flickered on and off, giving dim, often inadequate light to wander through this city, and Ryou understood now that this city wasn't just ransacked: it was utterly destroyed.

 

“Falnika… did she really do this?” Ryou whispered, as Malik put Sith on the ground gently, “My god… will we even find answers in this town!?”

 

“Vector not only holds the records for many of the Espers in Oblivion, but Sith Winchester in particular was an ally to the Imperial weapons development,” Eric said grimly, “If there's any record of her, it would be inside the imperial base.” Malik just turned, looking to see what would actually constitute an imperial base. He did see a stairway leading to a higher section of the city, but his guess was that they'd see the same thing as they were seeing now. He frowned. For that matter, the base might not even be there any longer.

 

“Imperial base, eh?” he repeated, raising a brow as he turned slightly toward the bards, “Any idea where the base would be?” The bards shrugged, but Malik didn't notice. Something moved in his peripheral vision, and when he glanced, he saw it was Sith. She seemed stiff as she tried to wake up. She managed to open one eye.

 

“…Sith?” Malik whispered, walking toward her and bending down, “Are you okay?”

 

“Mello… where is… Mello?” she asked, her voice sounding so coarse to Ryou, “Mello… did he…”

 

“He's fine, Sith,” Ryou said gently, and Malik looked back at him warningly, “No, it's okay. Sith, he's in the Imperial base, I think. Do you know where that is?” Slowly, the older woman nodded. Her head pounded terribly.

 

“It… it's in Vector…” she said, holding her hand to her head to try and steady herself, “But… but why would he go there?” Malik and Ryou exchanged worried glances.

 

“Sith, we're in Vector,” Ryou told her calmly, and she looked up at him seriously, “We made it. But Mello might be in trouble. The bards think that whatever we're looking for is in the Imperial base, but we don't know where that is. Do you?” Sith groaned a bit, as the pain in her head worsened. She wanted nothing more than to stab herself with Zealacht. But her friends needed her, and she needed Mello. She nodded and pointed to the stairwell Malik saw earlier. Now he saw that beside it was a burned tapestry of a symbol, most probably the Imperial insignia.

 

“Up there… go up there, and we'll find it,” she told them with strain, “But… but why are we here? What about…”

 

“Sith, Mello needs you,” Ryou said firmly, and Malik's brow rose with worry. Sith just blinked slowly, and Ryou continued, “I'm sorry, Sith. I'm sorry for what I said to you. But he needs you, and so do we. Please, help us.” Sith stared at him for a long, hard minute. Her eyes never left his, and he could tell she was judging what he said to her. For once, he didn't care. This wasn't about him, and he knew that if he did care about her, he had to help her no matter what the outcome was. Even if it meant it wasn't involving him. She seemed to already know this.

 

“Help me up,” she said to Malik, who obliged, “We're going to get that idiot out before he kills himself.” Malik just snorted. Mello was crazy, and he was unreasonable, but he wasn't an idiot. At least, not to Malik. Then again, Malik knew he'd done some stupid things, too. Slowly, he hoisted Sith to her feet, and she turned a grim eye toward the tapestry. It had been fifty years since she came here last; the place, she saw, had changed for the worst.

 

“My guess is, Gestahl is dead,” she said grimly, her frown setting deep, “Damn it. Entering the base will be quite difficult. I knew him when he was just starting as a commander.” Yugi looked over at her as she spoke.

 

“Were you in the imperial army?” he asked. She nodded grimly.

 

“Unfortunately, I was. Back then, it wasn't about hunting down the Espers. Back then, we wanted peace,” she replied distantly, and shivered, “No… this didn't start happening until Kefka joined. If Falnika or Rath found this out or knew this in any way, they'd no doubt use it for their purposes.”

 

“Which is to kill you and everyone you know,” Ryou concluded, and Sith nodded, “But why? I don't get it, Sith. Whatever you did back then, it couldn't be this bad, could it?” Sith gave him a long glance, and her tail lashed quickly, striking the side of a house.

 

“I'm trained as a warrior, Ryou. Not only that, but I'm considered one of the strongest Espers in existence. There is a good chance whatever I did nearly destroyed everything,” Sith stated seriously, and crossed her arms, “The problem is I don't remember. But Gestahl… he would.” Everyone turned to her sharply, and she looked away for a moment.

 

“Why is that?” Malik asked her after a long moment. A rush of wind caught her hair, and Ryou found that suddenly, he didn't want to know the answer. It was as if the dark night itself wanted to conceal it; the lamp right behind them blew out.

 

“Because I told him,” she finally said, and Ryou's mouth dropped. Sith… told someone what happened!? Someone might actually know who she was! Someone might even tell her! But then again, if he was alive, why hadn't Gestahl looked for her when she vanished from this world? Mello did it, after all.

 

“Lady Sith?” one of the bards said, when the silence became too much, “What of us?” Sith turned to all three bards and looked at them critically. For a moment, she did not even seem to acknowledge that she had once known them. Then, she nodded.

 

“Go on,” she said calmly, “You've done more than enough for us.” Eric nodded, and with that, the bards turned and left the city through the broken gates. Sith watched them go until they were no longer in her sight. Then she turned back toward the higher ledges of the city. Her eyes hardened as she said, “Once we have what we need, it's best we never return here again.”

 

“Sith, what happened to this place? How do you remember?” Yugi asked her, and faintly, Ryou heard a large bell chiming in the distance, as if it were a precursor to danger. He wasn't so sure it wasn't the gaming aspect of this world. Sith's lips thinned before she spoke again.

 

“As time goes on… my memories begin to return,” she said slowly, and her eyes narrowed softly, “Mello is purposely reawakening them.”

 

“But if he does that, won't that make this situation even worse?” Ryou reasoned, and frowned, “What's his plan?”

 

“Whatever it is, it's stupid,” Malik mumbled, and when Sith glared, he said, “Look, Sith, I understand he misses you. But he's putting us all in danger because he wants you back to your old self! That's really stupid, especially since this could've been avoided.” Sith's glare worsened, and before actually killing him with one thought, she stepped forward. Her lenses glinted in the dim, flickering candles, giving her a sinister appearance.

 

“They would have found me,” she said gently, and walked away, “Eventually.”

 

As Malik thought, the rest of the city was in just as much a shambles as the common quarters. But as Sith said, they didn't miss the Imperial base; it took up almost every part of the upper city, with the exception of two towers. And those towers, she explained, were Vector's security. But now, they were nothing more than rusted monoliths, crumbled with age and damage. And the Imperial base fared only slightly better. While the main structure still stood, Ryou could see it was barely doing so. Who knew what actually lurked in there.

 

But as usual, Sith had no fear of the place. She had been there before, hell, she'd even fought for the place at some point in her long life. Anything in there that'd try to kill her, she knew she could handle. Except for Atma, of course, but for whatever reason, not even that caused fear in her. Was it because he was an Esper? Was it because she was one? Or was it because Mello was in there? She didn't know, but she gave herself no time to ask about it. She just walked up the long stairway to the old, rusted double-doors. The sky crackled with lightning, but to her, it only illuminated the terror that Vector had become. The once beautiful empire she had come to respect, she knew was no more.

 

“Wow, this place is the pits,” Malik commented, snapping her out of her thoughts. Sith turned to him, and nodded grimly, but she said nothing. What more could she add? She turned away again, looking instead at the fortress that loomed before them all. That was the pride of Vector. The pride of the Imperials.

 

“Do you think anyone's even alive?” Yugi asked, as lightning crashed through the sky again. Sith took a deep breath. Then she stepped up until she was right in front of the door.

 

“Atma is alive,” she replied, and put her hand on the old doorknob. It creaked under her fingers, and the doors would not give at first. Then, they flew open, nearly taking Sith in with them.

 

“She acts like that's a good thing,” Malik mumbled, but neither Ryou nor Yugi replied. To her, it might just be.

 

The inside of the Imperial fortress wasn't what Ryou had expected. In fact, it wasn't a fortress at all; it was a factory of some sort. All sorts of machinery, both old and new, littered all sides of the rooms. Chains and cranes hung from the ceiling in haphazard patterns, some swinging, some creaking, all throwing dark shadows across the room like some demonic dancing that was just on the edge of their realm. And to make matters much worse, there was little light; the only source of the godsend was the slit through the doors. There were no windows to see, and Ryou guessed none of the lights in there even worked. And because there were no windows, the air was stale and dry. Malik coughed.

 

“Dear Ra, what is this place?” he asked, and wrinkled his nose, “Smells worse than a thousand camels' asses!” Sith just snorted as she pushed a thick chain out of her path. It crashed into the wall with an earth-shattering slam.

 

“The Magi-Tek research facility,” she replied grimly, and lit a fireball with which to see, “Or… it was.” Now that she could see, Sith saw that shattered glass littered the floor, and beneath that glass were puddles of liquid. She didn't dare to assume they were water. She knew, and could even sense, they were something much different.

 

“Sith, I think you might just want to run away,” Bakura offered seriously. Yami turned to him in surprise, but Sith wasn't the least bit thrown by his suggestion. She expected it. Just as he expected her to shake her head.

 

“I'm so close to what I once was,” she said slowly, and frowned gently, “I can't run, Bakura. Not any longer. I've done my share, and it's time I get back what's mine.” Bakura nodded with understanding, but in his mind, he'd have warped right out and left the world to rot. Then again, Sith wasn't him. And she never would be.

 

“What's she talking about?” Yugi asked, as Malik snorted and said, “Sounds like shit that Mello would say.” Yami looked at them both, and gave them a cynical smile.

 

“It's a long, complicated, boring story to you, so we'll let Sith tell it when she learns it,” the old spirit said, and Bakura just laughed. To him, that was so unlike Yami, and so like himself, that to hear the pharaoh say it was just priceless! He clapped Yami hard on the back, so much so that Yami nearly buckled over.

 

“So I guess we three are more alike than we thought!” he laughed, and turned to Ishtar, “Say something deep and meaningful and maybe you'll join the ranks.” Ishtar's eyes narrowed dully, and he did something so obscene, so offensive, that even Bakura's mouth dropped at it: he flipped Bakura off.

 

“Fuck you, and see you in hell, asshole,” the youngest spirit said, and turned to Sith, “Okay, you'd better at least tell us the crap that'll help us.” Once again, though, Sith's annoyance shone through. She grunted in dismay.

 

“You act like I can remember it,” she pointed out flatly, “The very basic story is this: I remember maybe fifty years into the past. Until Mello reawakens everything, or until the other Espers help me, I won't remember too much more. It's dependent almost entirely on Mello's ability to help Aeon.”

 

“Can you at least tell us how to get out of here?” Malik asked her, raising a mildly amused brow. Her eyes went flat as she regarded him. Again, that meant she'd have to remember it, and she'd have to see, too. Right then, neither one of those would be happening.

 

“No,” she said simply, and when she heard Bakura laugh, she continued, “Listen, if I had even a clue, I'd tell you. Right now, all I remember is that I knew Gestahl and he knows who I was. But I definitely don't remember how this all happened.” Even though they couldn't see her, everyone had a good guess she was gesturing toward the room at large. Malik just regarded the broken vials and shattered glass with a raised brow.

 

“Looks to me like this place was blown up with a bomb,” he reasoned simply. Sith looked ready to hit him over the head, but a movement behind him stopped her. She blinked, and when Malik noticed that she wasn't looking at him, he turned to see what she did see. Whatever was behind him froze immediately; it looked like a young man.

 

“Uh…” he said blankly, and backed away a bit, “Shit. You guys weren't supposed to see me.”

 

“And just who the hell are you!?” Bakura demanded, half amused, half furious with the would-be ambush. The young man blushed a bit and continued backing away. Except that Sith, with her newly regained powers, stopped him. By warping time. Which was something Ryou didn't remember her doing before.

 

“I think you'd better answer us before I kill you,” she warned him calmly. The man blinked slowly as she held the fire toward him to see. Then, her mouth dropped a bit. He was not that much bigger than herself, and his eyes were hidden in a huge pair of goggles. Why… did that seem so damn familiar?

 

“Man, Mel was right. You haven't changed at all, Sith,” the man said, holding his hands up in mock surrender, “It's me. Matt. You remember me, right?”

 

“No,” Sith replied flatly, staring as if he were some psychopath she picked up on the street, “You know Mello?” Matt looked back at her, and considered just laughing right then and there. Except that he knew if he did, he'd be without a head shortly after. Wisely, he refrained.

 

“Yeah, and I know you, too. But I'll explain later,” he told her, and grinned, grabbing her arm, “Come on. I have some cool shit to show you.” Sith would've really rather not seen anything Matt would want to show her, but she had to trust that Mello, if he even knew about this, knew what he was doing. Besides, Ryou and the others were right behind her.

 

Matt led them through the water-drenched room and down a narrow, winding stairway that took them to a sub-basement, where the air was thin and the temperature freezing. Here, the traces of magic were much stronger; even Yugi mentioned that he felt something in the air beginning to tear apart. Sith seemed acutely aware of this, for she couldn't just feel magic, she also smelled it, too. Matt seemed to be the only one who wasn't entranced by the feeling, for he kept walking without so much as a word. They went through a narrow corridor, past a large room with three cells, and into a huge chamber where many old machines, long since having been used, sat. Here, Matt stopped. And when the others entered, more than half of them were ready to die with terror. Those machines were easily twenty feet in height, and nearly as big in length, too.

 

“What are those things!?” Ishtar asked, as Malik shivered at the sight of them. Dust covered their exteriors, and he could see cobwebs on the bottommost parts. Matt just beheld them with awe, and grinned when he saw Sith alongside him.

 

“These are Magi-Tek armors,” he said proudly, “The pride and joy of Vector. You remember this part, don't you, Sith?” Sith wanted to promptly tell him to go jump off a cliff, but the mere fact that he had anything to do with Mello kept her from pushing him off the cliff herself. Instead, she focused on the machine itself. It was a hulking, unattractive thing, with turrets and lasers coming out of its back. From the looks of it, it moved primarily on two enormous legs that were capable of crushing the life out of its victims. If shooting high-velocity laser blasts didn't do them in first.

 

“Is it really as dangerous as it looks?” Malik asked, eyes widened at the sight of the horrible iron monstrosity. Matt nodded, and the younger man said, “Cool! Physics, fun, and ballistics all in one!” Sith just snuck him a narrow glance.

 

“Jump in one of those and I'll blow it apart,” she growled, “This isn't a game, Malik. Those things are capable of killing all of us.” Never mind that this world technically should have been a game.

 

“Yeah. These babies are what eventually led to this world's downfall,” Matt said, and Sith turned to him with worry, “You didn't know? Falnika didn't cause this much devastation, Sith. I mean, she caused enough, but she utilized these things to do it. I hear they're going to export these to other worlds, too.” Sith cursed angrily. If they did that, then the Mystics would have no trouble conquering Oblivion as a whole. No world she knew of even understood the basics of a Magi-Tek armor; they'd be hard-pressed to even lift a hand if Rath wielded one, or one thousand, of those.

 

“Should we try stealing these?” Yugi suggested, sensing Sith's dismay. Sith just looked down at him. At first, she was about to dismiss the notion. Then she actually thought of it. She knew how to pilot them, and chances are, so did Matt. Ryou and Yugi could easily learn, and Malik might not kill himself in the process. She nodded.

 

“Might as well. If we're unlucky enough to meet Atma down here, being in one of these might keep us alive a little longer,” the older woman said, and looked up at the screen, “I'm not sure what Falnika will do next, but keep an eye out for anything that might come through to our world. It's not impossible for Mystics to summon otherworldly creatures.” Bakura nodded, remembering Amber's little tricks all too well, along with the subsequent damage caused to Domino from it.

 

“No worries on our part, Sith,” he replied seriously. Sith nodded and gave a grim smile. It was nice to know Bakura was on her side. For once. She turned to Ryou.

 

“Not much to do except go on. You ready?” she asked. Ryou nodded.

 

“If ever a time, now's it,” he replied. With that, they each climbed into one of the armors. Ryou found the controls easy enough; press one button, and the machine acted accordingly. Pull one lever, it moved accordingly to its direction. Not too hard to figure out. But what he didn't expect was the shock of movement. Every time his machine stomped forward, he was nearly thrown off. Yugi and Malik were similarly affected, too. But neither Sith nor Matt were, and Ryou learned to watch them. They were moving with the machines. And that made the difference between riding in it, and fighting with it.

 

Ryou wasn't exactly sure what Vector was like, but seeing the underground of the Imperial base, of the research facility, made him glad Sith had left the place at all. It was no place for a human, and certainly not a place for an Esper. They had found many, many more broken testing tubes, and had seen tools hanging from the walls and the ceiling. Many had blood rusting the edges of the tools' blades, and Ryou cringed to even think of what they were. To even know that Sith might have shared the fate of many of these Espers was frightening enough; but to know she supported the Empire… Ryou was beginning to have mixed feelings about her personal alignment. She appeared to be neither friend nor foe to her own race at large.

 

But for Sith Winchester, this was a nightmare of a memory. The more she saw, the more she remembered it. The tools… the other Espers… part of her wanted to justify what happened. They were the ones who held her responsible for what happened so long ago. But she hadn't been captured. She hadn't stayed with the others long enough to know that another Esper world had flourished. She hadn't known it was ransacked. Not until it was too late. But she knew nothing could justify what had become of Vector. That was why she left; Kefka had come to poison them all, and she no longer found interest in it. So then… why didn't she kill him? She shook her head. That part, she couldn't recall.

 

What could've stopped her? It was her job to make sure men like Kefka were eradicated. Yet she let him live. Slowly, her eyes darted to Matt. She couldn't quite remember him, but maybe he knew what was going on. He knew Mello, and Mello seemed to know all about her. Did Mello stop her? Or was it… another Esper?

 

“Sith, are you okay?” she heard Malik ask, and she stared at him blankly, “You're slowing down. What's wrong?”

 

“I'm thinking,” she replied seriously, “I remember this place. I should've destroyed it when it was corrupted. Why didn't I?” Again, she looked at Matt as she spoke. The young man frowned.

 

“Don't look at me, and don't think it was Mello,” he told her, “We met you after the shit in Vector happened.” Sith's glance went a little askew. Something wasn't right. Mainly, the fact that Vector hadn't changed too much, if that was the case. Kefka was still alive, and so was Terra, Celes, and all of the other main `characters' of the supposed game they were in. If this was another real world, and she had left it just prior to what happened, then Vector shouldn't even technically exist except as a bunch of ruins. Why was everything still… the same?

 

“…Matt, what do you know about Vector?” she asked him suspiciously. He seemed to understand her question.

 

“According to what you told us, you left Vector when a man named Kefka poisoned the Empire with the notion to capture the other Espers,” he said, and Sith's mouth dropped, “Yeah… are you thinking what I'm thinking?”

 

“Not only are we in another world, we're in the same time as when I should have left,” Sith concluded, and Matt nodded grimly. Neither one of them seemed particularly happy with this revelation. Yugi, Malik, and Ryou just stared at them both. None of them were particularly good with how time worked, but this had Aeon written on it; the man was a timekeeper, after all.

 

“Does this mean there's a second Sith running around then?” Yugi asked. Malik moaned miserably. Living with just Sith was bad enough. Another one, and he'd want to commit suicide.

 

“God, I hope that's not the case,” Malik said pointedly. Sith snorted.

 

“You act as if we can meet myself. If we did that, it might just create a temporal paradox,” she said to them, “I don't know much about how this world works, but if it isn't magic, then perhaps all worlds have a separate flow of time. Sort of like different countries, but on a much larger scale.”

 

“But we're talking years here, Sith,” Bakura reminded her, and she looked up at the screen, “Technically, we're talking about time not even moving. Think that's possible?”

 

“The only one who'd know is Aeon,” Sith said sadly, “I really don't think we traveled back in time. I'd have felt it. This feels different. Nothing feels wrong, and time's acting normally.” Ryou nodded. Again, he had experience with time moving backwards, and again, he hadn't felt that experience either.

 

“Maybe you did leave,” Ryou said suddenly, and Sith looked at him critically, “Listen. Time might still be flowing here, and you might have already left. But, and this is a very big but, time might move very slowly here, and only a few short weeks since you left could've passed. A year or two at the most, but not much longer than that.” Sith tapped her chin. That wasn't an impossible gap; Kefka did say he led the Empire, and Sith did remember leaving just before that. A year or two… that might also explain why everyone else looked the same, and why Vector itself hadn't collapsed fully yet. She grinned.

 

“It's a nice fit,” she commented thoughtfully, “Okay, so at the very least, we don't need to fear a temporal paradox. That's… good, I think.” But something in her tone clearly said it actually wasn't. Neither Ryou nor Malik were in a position to argue, either. They left the subject at that; Sith had some sorting out to do, anyway. All they could really do was focus onward, and get inside the base. Maybe that might actually clear up all of their new questions.

 

-----------------------------(End Chapter)

 

After the Bards Three lead them toward Vector, Ryou and his team make their way into the Magi-Tek Research Facility. Not only is Sith back for the fight, but now they've found yet another piece to her shrouded past: a young man named Matt. Armed with extensive knowledge of the M-Tek Armors, and with the ability to reawaken Sith's memory, can Matt lead our troupe into the Imperial Base, and will they find the weapon to beat Falnika? Or will Atma come to claim their lives? Find out next chapter, so click that Review button!