For Zell and Zuko

[noblerworld]

Rapture was in chaos and Seifer couldn't be happier. With Ryan pulling out all the stops to defend his kingdom and any exit back to Tabula Rasa cut off it meant war, desperate backs against the walls war, and that meant glory.

He wiped the blood off his blade, left from the last party of splicers they'd encountered, and turned to his partner with a smirk.

"Enjoying yourself, Zell?"

Comments

[irisewiththesun.livejournal.com]

The Splicers are still coming, and even with the three of them they can't keep this up forever. What they need is to get out of this area, into somewhere hopefully safer.

Seifer gets ahead of them, calling out an order, but even Zuko isn't stubborn enough to try and challenge authority at a time like this. He picks off stragglers with efficiency, focusing all his energy on getting all of them out of this alive.

[spirited-hero.livejournal.com]

Zell was following in Seifer's wake. The guy was pushing forward more than Zell probably would've. He was takin' hits left and right, but it looked like they were gonna make it out of there!

Zell had the urge to help him, but there really wasn't much room with his gunblade slashing around in the tight quarters. Zuko had the rear, so Zell took a moment to catch his breath. But he kept an eye on Seifer. If the Splicers got him to stop, Zell intended to step up and support him.

[noblerworld.livejournal.com]

It was funny how quickly plans changed in battle, Seifer had only wanted to hold off the new comers long enough for Zell and Zuko to recover and deal with the Splicers they were already fighting but instead they'd followed after him, turning his rearguard action into the vanguard of a push.

He understood the wisdom of it, though, a joint attack by the three of them, bursting through their enemies as one, would scatter the splicers and leave them free and clear in the passage on the other side.

It didn't quite suit him, he wanted to fight until either he was dead or all his enemies were but he understood it and sped up his attack, slashing away at one splicer and another, body and blade thrusting forward as he tried to gain himself the space to move. He stumbled from his wounds at first but sped up as he pushed them back until the splicers close to him backed up for a moment to pick him off properly.

He paused for a moment to allow Zell and Zuko to join him and then he charged, his gun-blade slicing through a splicer that choose that moment to drop from the ceiling and then decapitating one in front of him. He was dimly aware of battle on either side of him but he kept moving, kept running, through the splicer line and then away from then, through chambers, passageways until he was well clear, in open space, back towards the rest of the group from the island and any surviving splicers were just a whisper in the distance.

And then he stopped and turned to see how Zell and Zuko were doing.

[irisewiththesun.livejournal.com]

Zuko isn't keeping track of how many Splicers he's killed. Later, he's sure, he'll have time to actually think about what he's done, what he's become, the killer he's sure his father always wished he would be. He knows, on some level, that it's not the same as killing normal people, but Zuko doesn't think it feels much different. He hopes he never has to find out for sure.

Either way, he doesn't have time right now to dwell on it, and right now he's employing that razor-sharp focus he'd used to hunt down Aang for so long, slicing and blazing his way forward through the continuing Splicer attacks. There's no room now for anything but action.

He doesn't stop, not until they're well clear, and it doesn't take him long at all to catch up with Seifer. He doesn't know what to say to the guy, the anger still burning inside him, but quieter now. Instead, he turns to make sure Zell's clear.

[spirited-hero.livejournal.com]

Zell took a moment to kick a burly Splicer in the jaw. Being on the ADAM stuff, he was able to go from having his left foot in the air to spinning around to finish it off with his right. Not wanting to stay too far from the others, Zell caught up again. He briefly looked up to Seifer for orders. It was too chaotic to do anything else but follow his lead.

[noblerworld.livejournal.com]

Nobody was saying anything, which meant Seifer could fill the silence with a reprimand about how Zell had ruined his plans, or a smug comment about how dangerous the splicers were and how lucky they'd both been that Seifer had saved them.

But he didn't want to. He still felt the pains from both Zell's blow and the battering he'd took from the splicers and he still felt somewhat cowed by how poorly he'd fared against a man he'd never thought as anything but an inferior. And so the smirking arrogance that normally came so easily for him, was a struggle to reach for.

In the end all he said was "We need to get back to Barnes," in a gruff voice as he holstered his gun-blade and started moving and then he focused entirely on the passage ahead, not even checking to see if Zell and Zuko were still with him.

[irisewiththesun.livejournal.com]

Captain Barnes, Zuko's mind supplies, but he keeps his mouth shut on the correction, not wanting to get into it over yet another thing with Seifer. He takes a deep breath, the only indication he's even been breathing the last little while being that he's still alive, and heads off behind Seifer and Zell, moving swiftly to keep up.