From a short distance where Lyn was snatched by the tendril monster, she opened a door leading back to the third floor. Lordran rested near the stairs where they had first descended, holding Alfaic by the handle and spinning it like a top, edge facing down. Lyn approached him, bare and nude while reaching for her blade.
"Lyn...!" Lordran cried, failing to realize that she was naked. He turned around and covered his eyes. "Shit, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to look. I was trying to get in to save you, and I couldn't. I wanted to wait."
Lyn, who grabbed Alfaic by the handle, reactivated its capabilities to retrieve her slender futuristic armor. Alfaic's sensors returned to tie her hair back into its elongated ponytail. She placed it on her back holster again, purposefully looking away from Lordran in the process.
"What happened in there? Are you okay?" Lordran asked, turning around and placing his hand on her shoulder.
Lyn remained silent, curving her eyebrows without a single thought in her mind. Alfaic still failed to speak, and what had happened to her was extraordinarily difficult to explain. "Nothing happened," She stated, staring at the opposite side of the hallway. "We go."
"Well, hey," Lordran mentioned, tapping her shoulder again. "I've been meaning to tell you something important. I just didn't know how you would take it."
"What?" Lyn asked.
"The rifle I gave you belonged to someone that came with me to scope out the area," He mentioned. "He was one of my best friends. He disappeared a day ago, and I was stuck here looking for him. Well... I wanted to be stuck here looking for him. But I realized that I can't save everyone all the time. It's either me... or them, right?"
Lyn stared blankly into Lordran's eyes.
"It's just... I don't even know how to feel right now. Losing someone or something that's been a big part of you is just... I can't even react to it. Have you ever felt something like that before?" Lordran asked.
"No," Lyn replied.
"Right..." Lordran replied sternly, shrugging his shoulders. He tilted his head to the side, examining Alfaic from a distance with his hands tensed up in fists. "Well... what about that sword you're holding? I mean, without that thing, you wouldn't even be wearing clothes. Losing that thing must mean a big deal for you, right?"
Lyn examined Alfaic carefully. Silence remained in the air. "I never thought of it that way." She bluntly stated. She only knew Alfaic today. There was nothing else that needed to be said.
"And that's the thing," Lordran continued. "We don't notice how much we miss things until we think about when they're gone. My friend never deserved any of this, and I know neither do I. What I really deserve is..."
A sudden screech halted their conversation on high alert. The head-bloated rotten creatures ascended the stairwell on the opposite side of the hallway, catching the two in mid-conversation. With their increasingly low intellect, they charged toward the two with violent tendencies, forcing themselves to trip and fall on top of each other's bodies midway.
Lordran tugged on Lyn's arm while firing a sniper bullet near an unstable glass window. The bullet opened a pathway for the two of them to descend with a well-timed and calculated leap. "Come on, we can get to those tunnels now if we just jump!" He commanded.
With a quick and steady leap, Lordran managed to land on the first floor with ease. Lyn followed soon after, and the two darted toward an open garage, leading toward the maroon-colored entrance to the tunnels. As Lyn slid through, Lordran shut the garage to prevent the creatures from breaking through. Lyn sprinted toward the entrance to the underground tunnels, catching more rotten creatures coming their way thirsty for their blood.
"Stand back!" Lordran cried, aiming his sniper at the locked door's electronic panel, requiring a heat signature or identification card to enter. A single bullet destroyed the system, leaving the door wide open to enter. Lordran pointed at a manhole on the far side of the emergency cabin. "Lyn, get that shit open right now! I'll hold off these bastards!" He cried, resorting to an assault rifle docked on his back.
"Okay," Lyn said, leaping over several transportation crates with elegance. She landed on top of the manhole and penetrated it using Alfaic's electrifying capabilities. She stabbed through, lifted Alfaic, and tossed the manhole on the opposite side of the cabin. A lethal frag grenade exploded where Lordran stood to defend the two from an onslaught. He yanked the door shut from inside and raced toward a storage cabinet nearby with his weapons on the floor.
"Lyn, help me move this!" Lordran requested, pushing one end of the cabinet with his mighty shoulder.
Lyn leaped back toward the entrance and helped pull the cabinet to block the door.
"All right, let's move!" Lordran exclaimed, grabbing his sniper as the two raced down to the manhole.
The manhole led the two down an elongated ladder toward the fire station's underground tunnels. At the end of the descent was a brightly lit corridor with a pushable door. Lyn and Lordran both combined their efforts to ram through. They were greeted with their primary destination; a singular colossal tunnel made to transport emergency vehicles through with ease. Fading and feeble shafts of warm light ignited the pathway to their exit, but their pathway was barricaded by a gargantuan-sized train preventing the two from leaping over with ease.
Lyn and Lordran rushed over to the train to examine it further. Blood flies laid enormous numbers of eggs around the opposite end of the train. They circulated the windows of the derailed train, indicating fresh corpses from within where they withdrew blood from. The rusted derailed chassis was unusually locked by a twisting vise that operated through a gear-based mechanism latched near the edge of the train. A slab of metal could be twisted to push the train aside, leaving enough space for the two to cross.
"Did you find a way out?" Lordran asked, checking their rear to make sure the rotten creatures were not drawing near.
"Possibly," Lyn said, jamming Alfaic into the gear-based mechanism. Through sheer improvisation and studying the layout of the train, Lyn pried the gears with Alfaic to push the train aside momentarily. However, it was only temporary, as the train would lock back and go against the wall with brute force once the gears reverted to normal standing. "Look. We can slip through here." She said.
"Oh, thank god," Lordran exhaled a sigh of relief. "We can finally make it out."
Lyn released her grip on Alfaic and peered through the small crevice. There was a few seconds before the train needed to be pried again. She moved toward the entrance, but Lordran forcefully stopped her with a tug of her arm. Lyn spun around in confusion.
"We did it," Lordran joyfully laughed. "We finally did it. We can get out of here now."
"I understand. Let's move, then." Lyn said, ignoring his happiness.
"Our conversation was cut short though," Lordran continued, refusing to let Lyn move through without another word. He grabbed his black goggles and removed them from his headband. He dropped them on the ground and slicked his black hair back. "I assume after this, we'll go our separate ways, right? The thing is... I feel that since I'm going to leave empty-handed... I wouldn't anymore today. Not after what I lost."
"What are you talking about?" Lyn asked.
"I've been interested... in that sword of yours," Lordran mentioned, eyes circling toward Alfaic stuck on the gears. "Where did you get it?"
Lyn, who knew of Lordran's immediate intentions, stepped in front of Alfaic to defend it. "It is not yours. It is mine." She firmly indicated.
"That may be true. But I can't let my journey here go empty-handed. Don't you understand that?" Lordran continued, shoveling through Lyn while oggling the beauty of Alfaic's tempered steel and golden arrangement of feathers. "If I were to go home empty-handed, what would the others think of me? Would they be able to look me in the eye, knowing that I sacrificed my friend for you? I want it, so give it to me."
"Sacrificed your friend?" Lyn mentioned. "You never said that."
"Look, it was a misconception, all right!?" Lordran yelled, snatching Lyn's arm to tug her away from Alfaic. "Now, give me the fucking sword!"
"Release me," Lyn said. "Now."
"Sword first, then we go our separate ways. Come on. Don't make this hard for me, Lyn."
Without any utterance of a word or peace of mind, Lyn dragged her arm away from Lordran's grasp. She turned around and ignored him, grabbing Alfaic by the handle. She began preparing to slip through the small crevice, and with a small leap, she made it toward the other side.
It was not until her ears twitched upon the deafening sound of his bolt-action sniper rifle chambering an extra armor-piercing round ready. Lyn froze herself from moving through the underground tunnel and turned toward Lordran, whose tactical laser dot sight aimed straight for her forehead. The two locked eyes with each other in a fierce battle of uncertainty and possession.
"I don't think you understand, Lyn," Lordran continued as he steadied his weapon. He shook his head as his voice dropped deeply in equanimity and tone. "It wasn't a request. Wasn't a question. Nor a favor. When I say that I want that sword, I want it. Now give it to me."
"It is not yours-"
"WHO GIVES A FUCK!?" Lordran spat maniacally while his blue eyes dilated beyond awe. He fired a warning shot near Lyn's ear on the opposite side of the tunnel. The bullet's severe impact caused a chunk of the wall to fall beside her foot. He immediately chambered another bullet and aimed it at her head once more. "Give me the fucking sword, or you'll feel that pain you dread so much."
"No," Lyn said, standing up for herself in the face of the threat. "I will not."
Lordran chuckled. "Lyn..." He said with a beaming smirk. "You can either do this the easy way or the hard way..."
"I choose neither," Lyn continued, holding Alfaic's grip tighter. "You are nothing but a stranger. I do not know you, or anything about you. All you have done is show me the way, and that is all I wanted. I do not need you."
"You don't need me?" Lordran laughed, centering his vision on Lyn's forehead with his sniper scope. He moved toward the edge of the train, where the gears would eventually lock once more. "Then I don't need you. This was all your fucking choice-"
From behind Lyn, Alfaic's halo-shaped sensors lunged themselves toward Lordran's eyes, blinding him momentarily. The sniper fired toward the ground, narrowly missing Lyn's feet. She jumped back as Alfaic's sentience returned and sprung to the rescue, slicing off the gear that held the train in position. The edge of the train slammed against the wall where Lordran's sniper rifle remained, yanking him forward until his right arm was crushed to bits by the colossal impact of the train's sudden velocity.
"F-FUCK!" Lordran bellowed undeniably loud, gnashing his teeth to subdue the undying pain. He clutched his beyond-fractured arm with his left hand, attempting to yank it out from the train's pressure. But all it did was further increase his pain to unbearable heights.
Lyn, who was on the opposite side of the train, fell back on her elbows as Alfaic suddenly returned to her. It floated by her side and remained that way, much like how they were when they first met. Lyn pushed herself up and grabbed Alfaic to use it as leverage for her improper balance.
"Lyn!" Lordran cried. Musty sweat dripped from his forehead down to his nostrils as the circulation of his right arm began to numb itself from the pain. "I... I think I'm stuck. My arm's stuck, Lyn. Can you... can you help me pull the train aside? I can't... I can't move. I can't feel my arm... and I don't want to stay here and die."
Lyn locked eyes with a desperate Lordran, witnessing how his entire right arm was irreparable. The overwhelming mass of pain returned to Lyn's tight chest, much like how it was when she witnessed the tendril monster's human sentience. She wanted to help, but something deep down inside her pried her into rejecting her ultimate decision. Without uttering a single word, she turned around to pave way for the exit through the tunnels.
"LYN!" Lordran's deafening scream echoed through the tunnel. His voice then divulged into a sinister, yet cowardly tone, where his fear of death onslaught his anger. "Where... where are you going, Lyn? Look... look... I admit it, okay? I was greedy. I wanted... I wanted more. I shouldn't have done that, Lyn. I shouldn't have done that to someone like you. I'm sorry, just... just come back and help me with this."
"No," Lyn replied without turning her head. Her eyebrows remained still, solidifying her decision to leave him.
"I saved your life, Lyn," Lordran used against her. "I saved your life, damn it! You... YOU OWE ME!"
His roar stopped Lyn in her tracks. She turned back to face Lordran, who was in total spite of her behavior to abandon him.
"You... you owe me," He continued. "That's right. You do. So come back here... and let me go. We can leave together... and we can pretend that I never asked you for that sword. Your secret... is safe with me."
Thunderous bellows and slams from behind Lordran resonated through the air. The rotten infected creatures had caught up to both of them. Their bloodlust remained unsatisfied, and their tenacity was waning. It was only a matter of time before they would storm the section of the tunnel, marking their permanent territory by shredding Lordran to pieces.
"Lyn, there's no time," Lordran cried. His salty and bitter tears mixed in with his sweat, echoing cowardice in his bellicose throat. "Please, please! Let me go. Let me go. I don't want... to die..." His voice trailed off as he turned his head toward the battered door.
With a widened blank stare into Lordran's eyes, Lyn had already chosen. "Goodbye, Lordran." She voiced deeply.
The door behind Lordran slammed open with mountains of rotten humanoids tumbling down the stairs. Lyn witnessed them arriving and sprinting back toward the end of the tunnel knowing that eventually, with their combined efforts, they could scale the train with ease. She clutched Alfaic in her right hand and darted toward the tunnel.
The rotten creatures took notice of Lordran and chased after his immobile body.
"Lyn, no, NO! STOP!" Lordran cried. "You FUCKING MONSTER!"
Lyn continued moving as the bloodcurdling echoes of Lordran's cries gave her reason to move even quicker. Some of the creatures had already begun climbing the train with their enhanced agility and grip strength. They charged at Lyn like a military brigade, seeking food to satisfy their appetite.
Yet Lyn was decisive and swift. Nearby, on top of the tunnel, a gear-based mechanism that allowed for the tunnel to close completely was hooked onto a pullable metal chain. She sliced the chain in half with Alfaic, causing the door to collapse down to seal the tunnel shut. With precise calculation, Lyn slid through the bottom of the tunnel just as the tunnel door toppled down. She reached the opposite side successfully, closing out the pathway to protect her from the creatures.
"Hey," Alfaic called as Lyn began catching her breath. "You okay?"
Lyn held Alfaic up to her face, examining it carefully with a scowl on her unamused expression. "You," She quickly voiced out with undeniable bitterness, hastening her words with each sentence. "What are you doing? Why did you not speak to me?"
"To protect us," Alfaic said.
Lyn had almost forgotten what Alfaic's cheerful voice sounded like. "Protect us? You are not protecting us by being quiet."
"No, you don't understand," Alfaic interrupted with a trailed-off voice. "The moment we got closer to that man... I realized that I've seen him before. He knew me, or... I had a feeling that he knew me. And that's because... ever since we got off the disc, he's been following us."
"What?" Lyn asked.
"He was lying about himself."
"What does that mean?"
"Pushing you away from the truth. Purposefully playing you for a fool. Deceiving. Trying to get at you. That's why you should never lie. Understand?"
Lyn's doubtful gaze on Alfaic turned to wonder. She nodded.
"Maybe if things had been different, then I would have spoken to you. But I chose to be quiet to protect us. Because you were right. That person wanted me for a reason and I had a feeling I knew it was more than just for profit."
"I see," Lyn replied.
"Before we go... I have a question. If you can't answer it, that's fine."
"Okay."
"Why... why didn't you give me away to him?"
Lyn curved her head to the side. "Because I did not want to."
"Heh, so it was as simple as that," Alfaic said. "I believed that my silence lowered my value, and I really thought you would let me go. But... you didn't, just because you didn't want to. Man, I'm always trying to see the bad in things..."
"I did not want to, because I believe that if he had you, he would have sold you," Lyn continued, lowering Alfaic's edge to her left hand. She wielded it with grace, embracing it with both of her hands. "If you were sold, then you would have no value. Your abilities, your voice, your ambitions... they would all have no value."
"Lyn... I never thought you'd say something like that." Alfaic chuckled.
"Therefore, if I were to continue holding you, then you would be of value." Lyn continued.
"So, you give me value? And you're the only one who can?" Alfaic asked. "Is that what you're trying to say? What a weird way of confessing your feelings to me, a sword out of all things."
"I do not know what you mean," Lyn replied. "Yet what I believe you did was acceptable. You provide me value as well, blade."
Alfaic was silent.
"Blade?"
"Sorry, sorry," Alfaic returned. "Just... soaking it all in. But to think… we let that man die…"
"He…" Lyn paused. What warranted death? Was it the idea of snivelingly profiting off an artifact whose purpose was for survival? Or was it the decision to leave someone to die for this purpose? Lyn glanced at her hands as she placed Alfaic on her holster. Those hands, from her perspective, had connected their hands with death. Although the pain was invisible, the blood on her hands was not.
"Don't… don't you think for a second that what you did was wrong!" Alfaic exclaimed. "We all had goals, and his was just too petty."
"But… to kill a human…" Lyn whispered, reminding herself of the moment she fired the fate-ending bullet that exterminated a monster that was once human. For the first time in her extremely short lifespan, she questioned her decision between monster and human.
"Humanity is already on its last legs," Alfaic responded. "One more dead won't change a thing. He was going to kill you. Would that have been worth it?"
"No," Lyn said, reverting to her usual dense state. "I think too much."
"No! It's…" Alfaic began, but paused shortly after. "Questioning your decisions is not a weakness. In fact, it just tells me that there's more to you than meets the eye, Lyn."
"I… see." Lyn whispered. She turned her head to the tunnel's exit and paced herself through. The overbearing goal of her mental to overthrow and kill her forebearers returned to impact her decision. Whichever decision would bring her one step further to her goal, she would take without a single regret.
Or so, she believed for a moment.