Seven Thunders Spoke

A Guilty Gear Alternate Universe

By Seishuku Skuld (skuldchan [a] gmail.com)

            and Skuld no Shinpu (chang.459 [a] osu.edu)

Prologue

It was a sunny, cloudless day but the air was heavy and the sky was gray.  President Chipp Zanuff stared outside his window at the buildings around him, so old and dusty they seemed to blend into the horizon, gray on gray.  He sighed and pulled his gaze back over to his desk, a veritable slab of mahogany that had somehow survived the war and made it over to this building.  It was of simple, functional make, like everything nowadays was simple and functional.  It was a flat plank with four thick, stumpy legs supporting it, and some drawers built into the side.  And that was that; the Presidential desk.  He would’ve imagined something better, something well-carved with nice aged wood and a thick coat of wax but there were some of his staff who were still working on the undersides of boxes because proper desks couldn’t be found.  Paper was also pretty scarce, so at least he didn’t have a pile to stare at, just a simple pad where he scribbled important notes once in a while—things that were too important to forget—and a map of the world.

There was unfortunately, not much left to this map on his desk.  It had been printed before the fall of the Federation, its cheery pastel colors faded and crosshatched by pencil marks.  Lost battles had been marked with a large “X” and victories with a circle.  There were many more X’s on the map than there were circles, waves and waves littering all of Europe, pushing the thin front line of circles further and further east.  Large circle marks were now found deep within his own country, if it could indeed be called that at all, and what worried him the most when he woke up every morning was the impending call he would receive that would inform him of a successful enemy invasion.

Chipp bowed his head and rested them in his hands, closing his eyes in deep thought.  He ran over the to-do list in his mind, something too long to ever be written down anywhere but in his head.  A rapping on the door brought his attention to the side of the room, and for a moment he forgot about all the political maneuvering and planning he’d have to do to prepare for the next Gear attack.  He was doing his best to stay in contact with Zepp, but with the air patrolled by Gears, his channels and their options were growing thinner and thinner.  The last attack had barely been a month ago, but his own Intelligence told him there’d be another one within six months.  For a dwindling society that was entirely too soon.  And he hadn’t heard from of Zepp since, nor had he any news of the Jellyfish Pirates who smuggled some of his weapons.  It was entirely possible that the Jellyfish had been killed or worse and Zepp sunk into the ocean, and there would be no way of him knowing until someone from the Intelligence division dropped him a memo. 

The knocking increased in volume and Chipp sighed, wishing that for once there wasn’t the possibility of bad news waiting on the other side of his door.  “Come in,” he said finally, sitting up straight in his seat and smoothing out the wrinkles in his shirt, trying to look the perfect picture of the President of a dying race.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Zanuff,” came the voice as the door creaked open and shut with a soft click. Anji Mito stepped inside, slightly breathless with sweat beading on his forehead and along his hairline.  A long time ago, Anji would have bowed and Chipp would’ve stood up, but they had been through too many meetings to bother repeating formalities and rituals like that.

“Oh, it’s you,” Chipp said with a shake of his head and relaxed visibly. It looked like Anji had run all the way up the stairs from the third sub-basement.  When the Chief of Intelligence was in a hurry, it must be important.  And important things were also usually very long.  Chipp propped his feet up on his table and leaned backwards in his chair, preparing for a long report.  He didn’t need to tell Anji to take a seat, the man simply strode across the room and took a seat himself.

“Tell me you’ve got good news.”

Anji snorted.  “If I didn’t have good news,” he replied, “I wouldn’t have run all the way up here to deliver myself.”

“Are you trying to tell me,” Chipp said, peering at Anji past his shoes, “that if we were fucked, you’d let some lackey spy do it for you?”

Anji laughed.  “Only because you’d swear up a storm, and I think every young agent in my employ needs to see that at least once.”

Chipp rolled his eyes, and let Anji’s comment slide.  “Please tell me you’ve had contact with the Jellyfish.”

“If it was anything else, I wouldn’t have come.”  Anji reached into his pocket and  produced a folded piece of paper.  The writing was small and it covered the entire sheet, but the ink was crisp, clean, and unfudged.  Chipp recognized the handwriting, and he had to avoid nearly snatching the thing out of Anji’s hand as the Chief handed it to him.

“It’s from Sharon,” Anji said, but Chipp only nodded absent-mindedly, already engrossed in reading as his eyes flitted back and forth from line to line.  “She’s got a new theory, from some documents the Jellyfish managed to dig up in a raid on old London.”

“They went that far into enemy territory, huh?”

Anji smiled grimly.  “Zepp can afford to pay them well for their services.”

“Sometimes I half suspect they’re paying our tab too.”

Anji said nothing but he the contemplative silence linger.  “There’s not much we know about Zepp’s finances, other than the fact that they’re better off than we are.”

“And that’s hardly hard to do,” Chipp snorted.  Finished, he folded up the piece of paper and put it aside.  He learned forward, planted his elbows on the table and folded his hands.  He stared right at Anji and spoke very firmly.

“You’ve found somebody,” the President said, his gaze boring right into his Intelligence Chief.  “Somebody who matches the description that Sharon just gave us.”

“It was luck really,” Anji replied, still a little unnerved by how well Chipp could read him.  And how quickly Chipp could switch between his old street punk personality and the commanding presence of the President of the United Federation of Free Peoples.  The instant he’d come through the door, Chipp had known he’d run all the way up for more than just a slip of paper.  “It just happened to remind me of a file I received three weeks ago.”

“You’ve got an agent with him already?” Chipp asked, hardly able to believe that something so fortuitous could happen.

Anji nodded.  “The Order’s been watching him for about three months now.”

“They’re taking an unusually long time with him, then.  Why?”

Anji shook his head.  “The agent’s not sure he’s trustworthy.”  Chipp raised an eyebrow and Anji continued.  “He claims to have amnesia.  Not too unusual for somebody who’s old enough to have survived the trauma of the loss of Western Europe, but this guy…” Anji paused, let it all sink in.  He couldn’t believe the report himself.  “This guy knows some BlackTech too.”

“That’s highly improbable,” Chipp said, but then he thought about it for a few seconds.  “So it’s kind of suspicious, then.  He may be from Zepp.  Either that, or the Order thinks he’s a Gear trying to infiltrate the population?”

“Not the first time it’s been attempted.  And probably not the last, either.  But we’re keeping an eye on him and we haven’t found anything unusual.”

“He could just be biding his time.  What’s the name of this guy?”  Chipp asked.

“Frederick,” Anji responded.  “And that’s all he knows about himself, apparently.”

“No age?”  Chipp asked.

Anji shook his head.

“And where is he?”

“Here in Beijing, actually.”

“That’s either too close for comfort, or it’s our lucky day.”  Chipp unfolded Sharon’s report and stared at it once more.  He went over the details in his mind and wondered how the woman could have jumped to such startling conclusions.  “All right,” Chipp said, after another moment’s pause.  “I want to see this report the Order’s agent has written up, and I want you to tell the Order that this man is to be recruited as soon as possible.”

Anji nodded.  “Understood.”

“Dismissed.”

Anji stood up halfway, and then paused.  “I also have a report from Commander Slayer.”

Chipp waved him off.  “You don’t need to tell me what he said, I have a feeling I already know.”  Chipp smiled wryly.  “He told us to wait?  Just a little longer?”

“That’s almost exactly what Johnny told me.”

Chipp snorted.  “Keep the Jellyfish here another day.  I need to compose a reply to Zepp’s Commander.”  Chipp picked up a pencil and flipped to a new page in his pad.  “At least I’m giving him the courtesy of writing more than two sentences.” 

Anji smiled.  “I hope it does something.”

“Most likely not.  He seems like a hard man to sway.  Maybe eventually I’ll get through.”

Chipp bent over his paper and began to scribble, and Anji took his cue to leave.  After a few seconds of furious scratching, Chipp paused and once more, Chipp pulled out the report that Sharon had written him.  At the top of the page there were only three letters.

SOL.