WHO: Gunnar Song WHAT: What happened after the fight. WHERE: Training Center, Lobby, Library. WHEN: Backdated to early morning of Friday, June 26. WARNINGS: N/A
Put it one way, what they did was a miniature, controlled version of the Lunar Cry. Looking down to his jungle -- his “turf” so to speak -- from the upstairs office with the hard glass that gave them a fantastic, almost panoramic view of their responsibilities, Gunnar was reminded of some wartime movie he must have seen as a child, or as he was flipping channels in one boring night. Patches of the land looked charred by smoke but those who’d seen it all knew those were the spiders -- or whatever they turned out to be. Some of the arachnids were lucky enough to die with more or less their form intact but others were less fortunate -- in fact, the majority was reduced to a pile of hairy limbs.
Gunnar couldn’t really remember where exhaustion hit him but it must have been when he stumbled backwards and J had to catch him before he cracked his skull on the floor. He had a bandage wrapped hastily over his forehead and more on one hand and one arm. “Y’okay?” J asked him and he nodded, in a daze. “Come on, someone’s gotta go down and check out the real sitch. You up for this, Gun?” Again, Gunnar nodded.
If the Training Center was the battlefield, then he was the ghost of the battle past. His was a state of mind which should not be left alone with a loaded gun, much less two. But fresh from the trials of the evening, the irony was that everyone felt better seeing both his hands anchored by his precious sidearms. Foot by foot, they inched their way in a snaking file around the stifling jungle, shuffling on the dirt and kicking aside various body parts. Now and again, he looked up to see where a net once dangled with a thrashing spider about the size of a child until someone ate it -- or freed it only to have it be eaten, anyway. All in all, he and Mjrn’s hard work brought together three preys that were placed in strategic locations in the middle of the artificially created dim spots. This was not a tactic he employed with a clean conscience but between killing and being killed, as a man who had a wife and a daughter waiting cluelessly for their husband and father to come home, the choice was obvious. If Gunnar could be honest, he didn’t know if that plan worked at all but ever the optimist, he decided it could have been much worse.
A long stretch of a discolored, patterned log interrupted their progress. The low groan of a dying creature turned Gunnar’s head to the T-Rexaur’s. Recognition shocked him to life and then he was running, hopping over corpses and appendages until he felt next to the majestic beast’s neck. All around her were tiny minute scratches from a hundred enemies which must have overworked themselves just to put her in this position.
And yet, she was still alive...but not for long. Gunnar always said that it was the female T-Rexaurs who wore the pants among the species but even these fierce creatures of Hyne had a limit on what they can do.
A cautious hand reached carefully to its bloody jaw, and stroked it gently. If she ever thought to bite Gunnar’s hand, he thought, he hoped she could at least remember the hand that fed it. “Hey, girl,” Gunnar began as his party crowded around him. “What’s up, girl? You did great out here, you know? We were seriously rootin’ for you! Sometimes, just when we think you were down for the count, you’d be up again and showing them who’s queen. And you know what, that’s the Tyra we know. That’s the only queen I’ll be bending my knee to!” It would have been much better, Gunnar thought, if she could unerstand what he was telling her.
Then again, it was a lot easier on him that she couldn’t respond in time. She knew she was dying and was fading fast and letting go and to the beastmaster, that was enough.
That was more than enough. “You did amazingly well, Tyra. It’s gonna be okay now, we’re gonna look after your folks and the kids are gonna grow up big and strong like you! Take it easy now, girl. You’ve done a good job and we’re so damn proud of you!” If only pride could save a life, but very rarely did it do anything valuable at all. As the archeodino’s eyes grew heavy with death, Gunnar started to hum an old song he’d learned from his foster father when he was still young. Music soothed those who sought to be and he was counting on that to have a similar effect on Big Bad Tyra here.
When she closed her eyes for the final time, Gunnar let loose a sniffle and stopped his singing. He’d done what he could and that would have to be enough. Wiping his tears on the stained, ripped sleeves of his jacket, he stood up and was offered a tissue from K just next to him. He raised his hand and revealed his own handkerchief. Gunnar dabbed it at the corners of his eyes gently.
“We gotta do somethin’ about this mess,” he said to his team. “I wonder if there’s anyone out there who’ll be willin’ to help us clean this up.”
“If you agreed to let them burn the bodies, we can,” suggested someone who belonged to the managers of the TC. “We’ll close up shop for a week. Focus on rehabilitating the center and the monsters. We’ll seal them up for a few days and then let them roam free with no human intervention after. They’re not stupid. I’m sure they’d have felt some animalistic trauma.”
“Wouldn’t that affect their dynamics once we do let the hunters in?”
“That’s why we have to rehabilitate them before that happened,” she said. “We’ll be fine. We’ll get through this one at a time.” Nodding, she said, “You can go now, Song. Don’t forget to time out. You always forget to time out.”
“Really?” Gunnar blinked. “I mean...this is a lot of work!”
“The day shift is coming in any time now. It’ll be fine, don’t worry.” She smiled.
The lobby had that awkward post-menace mood setting in. Bruised fighters and those who limped gathered together to start setting the place up despite the lack of rest and boost. It was like everyone knew they didn’t have to pull their weight now and no one could stop working anyway. With guilt nestling deeply in his heart, to be forgotten later once he was back in the arms of his family, Gunnar adjusted the strap of his messenger bag over his heavy shoulder and pretended to pass without having seen anything.
“Hey, Gun!”
That didn’t explain why he was too eager to turn and face the man by the corridor leading to the library. “Yeah, hey, what!” he asked in rapid successions and before he could stop to curse himself, his feet were already moving. “What is it, Nate?”
“We found a spider hiding in the corner of the library. It’s trying to shapeshift but uhh...well, just come on and help us with it.”
The library was a wreckage, hardly reminding him of the quiet ambiance and the neat rows of books around him. Now shelves and pages were strewn here and there and chairs and furniture were shifted around rudely. Gunnar followed after Nate, passing a pair of familiar-looking women seated on the floor with their legs sprawled out. The pink one was busy trying her phone while the other was receiving treatment to one side of her face by Kadowaki’s interns -- or those he proposed. On the way to the library, he’d seen an entourage of men in dirty white clothes carrying a stretcher between them, loaded with the sleeping form of Hynia Kadowaki. Strays of white silk still clung to her like whiskers and others like...cats.
“What happened to her?!” he’d demanded, tempted to follow them.
“Severe head trauma, and that’s just the first findings,” said the young man in front who looked new. “We’re converting her dorm room into her own personal suite until we finish taking care of the clinic.”
“You know,” began the blonde patient, “I once read about a woman who bludgeoned an entire army of stupids who tried to infiltrate hrr town to death while her husband was on a lunch break. She used a weapon much like yours and she died after because of shock. I hope you won’t die on me, Pippa.”
“That means a lot coming from you, Irma.”
“We found this spider hiding away from human contact and we thought you’d know what to do,” said a young SeeD who looked more or less unscathed despite what just transpired. “Should we kill it?”
It was as high as a child, Gunnar noticed, and pressed itself more closely against the wall as he approached with perfect ease. He couldn’t believe it but something about those eyes reminded him of a human plea and Gunnar shuddered just at the thought of it.
“Couldn’t we just release it to the wild?” Nate suggested. “See, look at it, it doesn’t even want to be anywhere near us. It’s perfectly safe!”
“We don’t know that for sure,” Gunnar said, scratching his head. “It’s still young, it hasn’t had time to grow up. But in the name of common sense, I don’t think we should even be debating about this. You know what should be done, Nate. Sorry.” The apology was supposed to be non-existent but he really felt bad towards Nate and the cowering spider. It was kill or be killed, though. Alone or among friends.
It was too bad they had to take down this utterly harmless spider but it was also too bad they lost Tyra. He ordered the execution with a nod of his head, then stepped aside to lead the procession and the bound up spider through. Gunnar watched their receding backs.
He didn’t join them to watch and make sure Nate didn’t suddenly run away with the arachnid. The thought of sending a spider that young…previously threw a wrench to Gunnar’s heart. Hyne, it was just a monster!
But he’d seen what these monsters could do up close, and he wasn’t keen on doing what he just did again. He had a wife and a daughter waiting cluelessly for him in Balamb.
Put in this way, there were to be no questions asked.