12-01-2005, 11:23 PM
I'd meant to work on SSS and the Katsu sidestory for TXY ... and sideswiped into this, for some reason. Don't ask me, I have no idea why. It just happened. A sweet jam that had me scribbling down around 30K in one sitting. There's likely still some bugs to work out, but here's the first draft.
In all honesty, I blame the Advent Children soundtrack.
Begin.
------
Midgar
Shin-Ra Building
A peal of thunder shattered the rain drenched silence of the night, rolling clouds churning above like an ocean during a violent storm, which, in a way, they were.
To the uniformed men in the front lobby of the building - or would complex be a more apt way to describe said place? - paid it no attention.
Uniformed ... that word does not, perhaps, convey the full import of the statement.
Standard issue though it was, the uniform was both effective and made to intimidate. A helmet and torso armor atop fatigues, complete with heavy combat boots and gauntlets that were underlined with armor as well. The cloth of the fatigues was exceedingly tough, and could only be cut by the sharpest implements, or pierced by the most potent of bullets.
It was the helmet that did it, though. Covering the upper portion of the face, the triclopean lenses of the standard issue image enhancement visor seemed to extrude malice in their own right.
The men wearing those uniforms were soldiers, trained by the largest military and industrial force of the world. They had focus, they had gear, they certainly had motivation.
At the moment, that focus was attracted by the figure standing in the midst of their half circle, seemingly ignorant of the submachine guns and assault rifles pointed its way.
Powerfully built and tall, his clothes resembled those of the soldiers. The fatigues and combat boots did, at least. He wore no armor save for a shoulder guard, and a sleeveless shirt covered his torso. His face was carefully kept blank, no emotion visible on it, but what drew most attention was the unearthly glow of unnaturally intense blue-green eyes.
Or, should that be, what drew the most attention about his face?
Certainly, what drew the most attention, in all, about the man was the way he effortlessly held in his hands a blade as long as he was tall, and wide enough to give the impression of being a slab of metal that somebody had slapped sharpened edges on for the sheer heck of it.
The smears of red that ran along said blade's length, drips of it falling down to stain the lush carpet along with the rainwater dripping from its wielders sodden form, as well as the dismembered bodies of several of the soldiers' comrades that lay haphazardly strewn around the glass-paned main entrance of the building, gave enough of an indication that it was far from being merely a tool of intimidation.
"SOLDIER, First Class ..." the voice had been cool, controlled, and used to command. It rang out throughout the expanse of the lobby, halting the melee that had been taking place not moments ago.
A SOLDIER, First Class, was never unarmed. Their bodies were the weapons they always had with them. Enhanced speed, agility, strength ... even if the huge sword _were_ merely a showpiece, anything in a SOLDIER's hands was a lethal weapon.
The men keeping him in their sights knew it well enough, since SOLDIERs were supposed to be their compatriots - the Elite Enforcement of the Shin-Ra Electric Power Company.
"What you are doing is pointless," the voice continued, after the noise of the thunderclap had passed away.
Its owner, a lean, long faced and longer haired man in a plain black suit, black tie, and white dress shirt, stood on the small landing that the wide stairs at the back of the lobby led to, placing him in an overwatch position of the situation.
If Tseng, the head of the Investigation Sector of Shin-Ra's General Affairs Department, otherwise known as the Turks, were more arrogant, he'd be tempted to consider his relative position as befitting of his station. As things stood, though, in his mind it was merely a tactically advantageous position for him to take.
Balefully Mako-glowing eyes of the SOLDIER were firmly fixed upon the Turks' leader's face, though the men surrounding him were wary enough that they didn't mistake that for inattentiveness on his part.
"Maybe," the SOLDIER spoke, his voice a nearly violent hiss of breath that, nonetheless, carried well enough. Even against the backdrop of rainfall. "But it's a ..."
The impact was tremendous. In fact, it was powerful enough to not only warp and twist the metal of the Plate right outside the main entryway of the Shin-Ra Corporate Headquarters, where whatever it was had come down, but also to send cracks through the armored glass of the front of the lobby.
"... very good distraction! Cloud! Now!"
The SOLDIER moved, sword spinning ...
A fan of flaming projectiles shattered through the already weakened glass, tearing into the lobby from outside and turning it into a fiery abyss. At least for a moment.
***
Rain cut inside, soaking the floor of the laboratory, coming in through the jagged hole in one of its walls - which was also part of the building's outer wall.
He ignored it. Rain meant little to him these days.
The sound of armored boots hitting metal floor and weapon safeties being released was not so easily ignored ...
His attention, though, was elsewhere, seemingly riveted by the flashing skies beyond the rainfall.
In a moment, a decision was reached ... or perhaps merely affirmed. One hand tightened on the grip of the long barreled revolver it held, the other curled, appropriately, as if clawing at something.
Eyes narrowed.
A step turned into a jog, turned into a run, turned into a full out sprint ...
There was no hesitation as he made the leap.
The only thing the rushing guards got to see was a fleeting glimpse of a tattered red cloak, before even that was swallowed by the night's gloom.
From some sixty floors below, the echoes of an explosion could barely be heard over the staccato of raindrops against metal.
***
Cloud Strife, former Shin-Ra trooper, recent Shin-Ra guinea pig, and current ... well, whatever you'd call people who'd just done the mystical equivalent of blowing the hell out of the lobby of Shin-Ra's home office, lowered his hand.
The green glint of an orb of Materia, crystallized Mako energy, could be seen between his fingers.
Breathing heavily, the blond man returned the orb to its place in the stock of his rifle.
Materia made magic possible, accessible for humans ... but after whatever it was the experiments he'd only fully recovered from a few weeks ago had done to him, it seemed to respond to him more naturally than to anyone else he'd met.
Neither he nor his traveling companions knew exactly why this was so, though the theory was that the enhancement granted to a person by the SOLDIER process had something to do with it.
The irony being that Cloud hadn't been a SOLDIER before the experiments, and neither of his companions showed quite that level of affinity for magic, even though one had been a SOLDIER prior to the experimentation, and the other ...
... well, some things were best left unsaid.
The aftereffects of the blast of Fire he'd unleashed started to clear, even as whatever it was that had slammed down in front of the lobby started to visibly shift, despite both the fall and the result of having what amounted to passing through a wall of flame.
***
Whatever Works
presents
***
The air within the lobby was thick with smoke, dust, ash, and the smell of burned flesh.
Sound returned slowly, from the dull roar that was another thing to mark the passing of the flames to a ringing, finally resolving into a faint sound of raindrops on metal 'ground' and groans of the injured.
Tseng coughed, hauling himself upright from behind one of the heavy reception desks, eyes squinting against the acrid smoke.
The blurry shapes finally sharpened in his tearing eyes, resolving into a scene of destruction.
And an nearly unscratched Zack, ex-SOLDIER, First Class, the fading energies of a Barrier spell sparking around his form.
The Turk raised his sidearm.
***
a FINAL FANTASY VII altaverse story
inspired by FFVII: Last Order
***
The thing reared, tatters of clothing still clinging to its mishapped and burned form, flesh stretching and crawling across limbs as if wanting to ...
It recoiled as bullets struck it on the side, the barking of an automatic rifle suddenly oppressive even with the falling rain.
Turning, a forearm that suddenly became thicker than it had been just moments ago moving up to cover its head ... or what passed for it. It lacked hands, thick tentacles trailing from the wrists instead. The one not protecting the head rose up, curling back like a whip about to strike ...
A rolling, putrid greenish mass seemed to suddenly rush along the appendage's length ...
Cloud ducked, rolling aside as the creature lashed out, the tentacle smashing into the ground where he'd stood non moments ago and leaving the metal plating a corroded mess.
Even as more bullets suddenly rained down from above.
***
FINAL FANTASY VII:
Insomnia
***
He fell, body angled downwards for maximum velocity, the air rushing past him on the way.
Fifty floors, forty, thirty ...
Right into the bedlam below.
Not smooth. Not quiet. Certainly not like what he'd have preferred this to be like.
Then again, who ever said redemption was easy?
Ten floors.
His right arm came forward, the weight of the revolver in it a comfortable one. His thumb cocked the hammer.
Five floors.
Six shots, in rapid succession. Six high caliber bullets traveling straight down. Six jerks of the monster in his sights.
There was no more time to reload. He rolled, curling around his center, cloak snapping with the motion. Right hand replacing the revolver in its holster in the middle of it.
He felt the soles of his armored boots slam into the monster's body, its bulk buckling with the impact.
His left hand flashed from beneath his crimson cloak, the amber of mythril-admantine composite covering it.
The clawed metal gauntlet that adorned his left forearm and hand sunk its talons into the creature's neck.
***
by Griever
***
***
***
... verse, the first ...
... fire ...
Nibelheim
Three Months Ago
A sleeping mind wanders, bared to the shades floating below its surface, with thoughts streaming chaotically, twisting around in a manner not dissimilar to that of a whirlpool.
But when the waters calm, coming to a halt, and even the rippled disappear. When the surface is perfect in its stillness ...
... the mind delves deeper. Into the depths, on long neglected paths. The mind descends, the mind sees, and the mind remembers.
Or, one does, at least.
It keeps itself occupied. Keeps itself busy.
The shudder that went through the mind's physical extension was small. Diluted. Suppressed by stone and distance.
It was no different, in some ways, from similar ones that had come and gone at various times in the years prior.
In another time and place, which were the same time and place when viewed from a certain metaphysical point, the ripples it created would have faded without any noticeable effect, and the mind would have been lost in its reminiscences for some time to come.
Here, in the grander scheme of things, it mattered little.
Sort of like a pebble.
***
Panting.
Staggering.
Boot-clad feet on dirt ground, pressing forward with determination borne of desperation more than anything else.
Hope is a powerful motivator. Freedom, equally so. Combine the two, and ...
There were two figures, one supporting the other. Or, dragging, really.
Two figures, two sets of faintly glowing blue-green eyes, but where the blond one's gaze was distant, vacant, as if he were little more than a prisoner within the shell of his body, his dark haired companion's shone with more than just the results of Mako treatment.
His head was full of questions, his guts churning with a miasma of emotions from outright rage to fear strong enough to almost shake his determination.
He knew better than to let them actually come to the fore.
With dogged perseverance, step after step, all the while fighting against the pain just moving gave him.
It was the rule that had been pounded into his head repeatedly early on in his training. It was a rule that stuck, enough that it overshadowed all the fear and doubt he had. Even in a situation as bleak.
Survive.
And whatever else you said about them, First Class SOLDIERs were certainly survivors.
"C'mon, Cloud," Zack repeated for the n-th time, pulling the unresponsive blond man in the battered remains of a Shin-Ra trooper garb after him. His ears were still ringing, his words slightly slurred, since the aftermath of his breaking free of containment had been rather violently explosive. Enough that he'd need a bit more time to recover fully.
Not that he was likely to actually _get_ that time, but it was nice to dream a little.
There was light ahead, and although faint, it was also the only indication of a possible exit from this ... this nightmare.
The blond man tensed suddenly, eyes fluttering closed as muscles that had been cooperating with ... or at least not actively hindering
their trek flexed, veins shining through the pale skin for an instant. And shining with a pale blue-green color.
Zack moved, bringing his shoulder underneath the suddenly collapsing Cloud, hoisting him up ...
"Oh no you _don't_, buddy," his own flesh felt like it was moments away from melting off, but he gritted his teeth and barreled through the pain. "Still need to pay you back for the Reactor, so don't die on me now. Still need to make godsdamned Hojo pay for what he did to us ..."
The light, dim before, became brighter. Coming from above ... as Zack manhandled an unconscious Cloud into the bottom of a vertical shaft. A wooden walkway spiraled upwards, along the walls of the shaft, to terminate at what looked like the faint outline of a door.
A door which suddenly opened, bright light stabbing through the darkness from the other side.
The triclopean mask of a Shin-Ra trooper's helmet, or rather, the red glow of the optics thereof, was the only discernible thing .
"... right. What do you want to bet it was one of those damn bats the quack keeps as pets. _Again_. There's nothing else down there that'd have triggered the silent ..." the word 'alarm' died on the trooper's helmet-obscured lips as his optics adjusted to Low-Light ... and let him see down into the shaft.
It wasn't even a conscious thing. Zack merely went to one knee, depositing his companion on the ground and coiling to spring ...
... the trooper's surprise gave him a chance, and his muscles obeyed, even if they screamed in protest at the prospect. More so, when he unlimbered his sword, which he'd found, cast aside in the madman's laboratory, from its place across his back
A moment before he uncoiled in a leap that would have taken him a third of the way up the shaft, an unmistakable sound came from directly behind him.
The sound of a hammer being cocked.
Followed by the boom of a firearm discharging in a closed space.
The Shin-Ra trooper fell forward, and off the walkway, scarlet spraying behind him from a hole that gaped outwards from where the back of his neck had been.
Even before the noise of the discharge had passed, a crimson cloaked form threw itself past the startled SOLDIER, then upwards at one of the shaft's walls. The sound of metal on stone could be heard before the form shot upwards again, disappearing into the light of the doorway above ...
... Zack was brought out of his momentary pause by the head of the dead Shin-Ra trooper rolling to a stop against his boot.
***
He felt anger. Not just the hot, burning fury that called forth a rumble from deep within the recesses of his mind.
No. It also called an older, more familiar sort of anger.
Cold. Cold to the point of freezing.
And it had taken only one word.
One word, one name, had managed to sear past the apathy he'd shrouded himself in for the better part of the past three decades.
His hand had moved almost of its own volition, the motion as natural to him as pointing a finger was.
Then he was moving. Onwards. Upwards. Brushing past the two bedraggled ... escapees? Victims?
Both sounded accurate enough, in conjunction with that _name_.
He alighted at the top of the rickety stairway without as much as a sound, even with the armored boots on his feet, and was stepping over the target of his shot before the Shin-Ra trooper gave his final twitch.
It all came back.
The smell of gunpowder and liquid copper, heralded by thunderclaps and the clinking of brass.
Someone around the corner. The faint tinge of weapon oil, the sound of cloth against body armor.
Fast, efficient motion. Giving in to what the senses said, not what the mind could discern from them, and acting without thought.
Foot forward, a normal step with a slight twist. Lean into the turn, keeping momentum.
Always keep momentum.
Lead with the left, knock the gunbarrel aside. Press forward with the right, jabbing the extension of the hand until you feel resistance ...
... the bullet and muzzle gases tore through even the ballistic cloth, the only sound made by the discharge being muffled by flesh. The body falling back with the lead projectile coming out and pulling on it when the ballistic cloth kept it from penetrating back _out_.
He yanked the submachine-gun from the collapsing dead man, not even noticing when the bronze claws that adorned his left hand left deep gouges in the weapon's surface.
Vincent Valentine halted, and waited, in the room beyond, taking the anger and putting it away for later use.
Anger at the world, anger at the madman, and anger at himself.
Now that it had been awakened, though, it would not be put back wholly.
Restrained, yes. Delayed, yes.
Buried underneath the veil of apathy again?
No.
Not bloody likely.
Well, perhaps just bloody.
Some of the oldest life lessons he'd ever learned, all focused on one thing, came back to him.
When wronged, you don't get back at the person who wronged you. You get even with them.
Footsteps, staggering slightly with added weight and drag, could be heard coming up the stairs.
'Enemy of my enemy ...'
Red eyes glowed faintly in the gloom, the heralds of things to come.
***
High in the Nibel mountains, a lone pebble rested.
Shuddered slightly as the wind momentarily shifted.
Teetered.
And lost balance ...
... rolling downhill.
***
... verse, the second ...
... shadows ...
That the place was in disrepair was a serious understatement. The smells of crumbling tapestries and sodden carpets, moist wood, old paint, and the near-taste of dust in the air were all factors in making the realization an obvious one.
He could hear soft creaks of motion, even from the distance, and despite the obstructions that should have stopped or at least seriously muffled the sound. Like walls.
This was not really a surprise. Vincent Valentine knew well enough that his senses were just as human as his body.
Inhuman, that is.
Dust motes which were barely visible in good lighting - would have been all but invisible to him once upon a time - were now as obvious as grains of black sand floating around in a glass of crystal clear water.
The first thing he'd known after that fateful initial awakening, when he'd first born witness to all that had been done to him by the madman who called himself a scientist ... once upon a time he'd thought he'd been overwhelmed by the roar of the monster Hojo had burdened him with. Only afterwards did he become aware of the fact that the terrifying sound had been a beast's rumble only in his mind. He'd simply been unaccustomed to hearing the blood in his body rush about, to listening in on his own heartbeat.
Things he'd learned to once again subconsciously filter out by now.
Not that he'd not heard and felt the rumbling, challenging roar that drove his very soul into a rage later on.
But that was a different story altogether.
Right there and then, his concern - what there was of it - lay with the matters at hand.
One of which was stepping over the still warm corpse of the Shin-Ra trooper he'd emptied his pistol into.
Whatever tableau could have resulted was broken by the distinctive click of a magazine sliding home. The metallic digits of the graft-slash-gauntlet on Vincent's left arm pulled back the slide, letting a round into the chamber.
For a moment, the former Turk and the dark-haired swordsman eyed one-another, combatants judging a possible threat ...
The swordsman's eyes, glowing with the sort of radiance Vincent recalled seeing on one or two of the Shin-Ra operatives whom he'd observed during a past foray out of the coffin, seemed to be mockeries of his own once-brown and now crimson optics.
Mako poisoning ... it was not hard to tell on sight, yet the other signs - the ones he'd learned about during the few times Professor Gast had needed an assistant, and the ones he'd seen when surveying the site of a newly finished Mako reactor - were conspicuous in their absence.
In fact, there was an undercurrent to the way the swordsman ... 'felt' was the best way Vincent could explain it, this extra sense he'd found he gained after Hojo's experiments ... was familiar as well.
Like a distorted mirror image.
The blue-green eyes flickered down to the clawed gauntlet as the slide returned to its initial position, then back up.
Vincent considered. Then lifted the arm so that the light flickered along its surface, presenting it.
Eyes met again.
"Hojo," the former Turk said flatly, flexing the limb's digits.
The swordsman remained cautious, but nodded in reply.
***
A single snowflake, floating down from the night sky, landing to rest on top of the palm of his hand, melting away almost immediately.
Uzuki Eisen looked up into the starry sky, his eyes tracing the invisible lines between constellations with the ease of a person prone to mental wonderings in times of boredom. The dove flying from the coils of the serpent, the hare leaping in front of a charging bull ...
He really had far too much time on his hands, and it was something he himself realized easily enough.
For what it was worth, this had seemed like an important project, but he could see neither hide nor hair of what constituted this supposed importance. The whole town was Shin-Ra sponsored, had been ever since ... well, ever since something had happened here a number of years ago. What exactly that had been, he had no idea. He'd still been in grunt training back then, and that left precious little time for things like rumor or news unrelated to what the damnably sadistic drill sergeants the Company employed would come up with for them for the next day's training regime.
The occasional whispers spoke of monsters, the town burning down, and once he'd even heard about some trouble with the Mt.Nibel reactor which had taken place sometime in the past. When? Again, no idea.
Though sifting wheat from the chaff, as it were, of the Shin-Ra Armed Forces Rumor Mill - and those capitals were justified, considering it was almost an official institution in its own right - was a more arduous task than someone with any sort of job could manage without severe loss of sleep.
Uzuki hadn't bothered.
The half-wutaian may have been second generation Company, his father having been a part of the Armed Forces and even fighting in a few of the Wutai conflicts that had taken place before General Sephiroth had claimed ultimate victory there, but this afforded him precious little slack. In fact, in some ways, it made things even harsher. The Heidegger administrative machine of the Military Arm of the Shin-Ra Power Company wasn't known for its leniency.
Not even for a SOLDIER, Second Class, like he was.
He sighed, trudging onward through the sleeping outskirts of Nibelheim.
Well, it _was_ customary to give members of SOLDIER a bit of time to fully develop the physical enhancements that each level of Processing granted them. What he remembered of it wasn't pleasant in the least, though other than an intense burning of nearly all his muscles and skin, there really wasn't anything definite there that his mind hadn't blacked out afterwards. No matter the injections that the Shin-Ra eggheads had claimed would lessen the discomfort of the somewhat lengthy procedure, Mako bombardment and whatever else was involved (certainly, a lot of wires and drips) were by no means a pleasant experience.
Even being in the small percentage of eligible SOLDIER candidates without actually being given the chance for 'promotion' meant that you were in the mental and physical top 5% of the Shin-Ra troops. Half of those chosen would respond partially to Processing, gaining partial abilities and enhancements, and being ranked Third Class. A quarter of that number had potential that would let them handle further Processing, meaning more Mako treatments and chemical balancing injections, and they would be able to make Second Class in a year or so of intense training.
Uzuki still thought he smarted from some of that particular regime.
And then there was First Class, who were the cream of the crop. It was what he was working towards. What he'd been working his way up to ever since he'd been told he could join SOLDIER. The best pay, the most challenging assignments ... and the highest Clearance, which meant he had to prove he could handle sensitive information and assignments that demanded more than just simple guard duty or shooting the shit out of people.
Which was why he'd been freezing his hindquarters off at this backwater shithole of a town for the past several months ... which, admittedly, was far longer than the job should have taken. Meaning someone in the administrative branch probably messed up. He'd forwarded that concern to an old friend of his father's who still worked for the Company, and in the admin branch as well, and was hoping he'd be called back from this soon.
Patience was patience, but other than the occasional signs of a wild animals prowling along the perimeters in the spring, there was literally nothing to do here. Other than pretending that nothing was or had ever been awry about the town to passing tourists and other vermin, which, Uzuki grumbled, wasn't really pretending from his point of view.
Well, it could have been worse, he supposed. He could have been assigned to play babysitter on one of the Professor's newer projects. From what he'd heard, and it was pretty much uniform no matter from where he heard it, meaning there was some truth to the information, Professor Hojo was not someone you'd like as your immediate superior. He was rumored to be ruthless, amoral even, and borderline manic ... and those were the most positive statements the grapevine had to deliver about him.
Still, it wouldn't hurt to have a little excitement around once in a while, he thought ...
... before the flare of an explosion and the feeling of vast amounts of energy being released were both perceived, one by his eyesight, the other by his body.
He ran.
***
Zack rose unsteadily, the blade of his Buster Sword being used as an impromptu crutch as he levered himself away from the wall. Or rather, the hole in the wall.
Then the SOLDIER steeled himself, gritted his teeth, swung his weapon back up into a position of readiness, and charged.
The lobby of the Manor hadn't looked very good the last time he'd seen it. It looked even worse now. Dust, flaking pain, more dust, splintered wood. Moth-eaten carpet and a chandelier that looked like it was being held together by rust alone, and would fall down if somebody sneezed a little too hard.
Add the hole in the wall he'd just made, a splintered and broken railing of the grand staircase, the holes in the floor ... oh, and the great purple and red monster rampaging straight through the middle of it.
Of _course_ Hojo had contingencies beyond the grunts stationed to keep guard. The damnable thing had come charging down the corridor at them, and he'd barely managed to tug Cloud out of the way. The guy in red, who'd called himself Vincent Valentine and had almost literally popped up out of nowhere down in the 'dungeons', had drawn its attention away from them for a moment.
Whatever else he was, he was fast. The sort of speed SOLDIERs had to work at, and an agility that seemed to reach beyond that ... but even with that, the monster seemed to shrug off the bullets and occasional claw swipes.
When it had hurled a bolt of electrical energy at the crimson clad man, Zack had decided that they weren't going to be running away until this thing had been put down. Basic tactics, really. Don't turn your back on something that's got the ability and inclination to shoot it.
That Valentine had lured it to the lobby, arguably the most spacious place in the Mansion, was more likely quick thinking than dumb luck, especially since he seemed to know the place's layout.
Yet another question.
There seemed to be a lot of those going around. The only thing Zack actually knew about the guy was his name, and that he seemed to have a matter to settle with Hojo. Give the metallic limb ... well, the swordsman could guess at least a bit of what that matter entailed. He wasn't sure he wanted to know more.
The monster had been reeling from a shot that had struck its knee when Zack had leapt from the landing the main stairway in the lobby led to, burying the sword in its grotesquely large head and down ...
Then he'd been shaken off, complete with sword, and backhanded into a wall. Even as his target had shrieked an oddly, disturbingly human cry of pain.
Valentine bounced from the wall, coming in low and fast, ducking under the creature's swing and planting an armored boot in its face. He pressed his gun's barrel down alongside the boot, and fired, before pushing off and away in a flurry of scarlet cloth.
The creature took a step back, grabbing at its head and shaking it, and Zack planted his feet, adjusted his grip, and swung the slab of sharpened steel he called a sword in a wide, powerful arc ...
... which was deflected by a purple forearm. The beast had lost its red coloring somewhere along the line, it looked like, and as his sword blade skittered from its block without leaving more than a moderately deep gash when Zack's mind was screaming at him that it should have cut the limb cleanly off, the SODLIER realized it was more than just a cosmetic change.
He brought the flat of the blade between himself and the creature, in time to catch a meaty fist on it and have the force of the blow hurl him up and back. His feet skidded, kicking up trails of dust, when he landed, bleeding off the last of the kinetic energy the attack had imparted on him. Still, he managed to keep his balance.
And why the hell had Valentine just _sat_ there, not moving, ever since that last attack he'd made?
The beast seemed intent on charging him, throwing its center of mass forward ...
... when a red flash erupted form off to the side, and Zack's eyes widened as he saw Cloud standing on the landing above the lobby, oblivious to the drop he'd take if he were only an inch further because of the lack of railing on that particular portion of said landing.
The blond man stared at the creature, but the SOLDIER got the impression the eyes were still looking past it, towards something he couldn't define. They were still flat, seemingly soulless ...
... the red orb Cloud clutched in the hand of his outstretched right arm glinted in the dim light, and then seemed to spark with power that was suddenly saturating the lobby.
Tendrils of azure and aquamarine energy wound their way along the blond man's arm, merging with the materia orb's surface, even as Cloud seemed to be overshadowed by something.
The sound of hoof beats.
A crack of thunder.
A ghostly shape formed, armored and mounted atop a white steed with far too many legs to be a normal horse. It reared, the mounted figure drawing back an arm that held a long, wicked ended spear.
The form, the weapon, the very presence seemed too large for the confines of the available space.
It was then that Zack realized what it was. He'd seen something similar a few times, most notably when he'd been to Wutai early in his career.
The sight of a huge serpent bearing down on him, a veritable tsunami in its wake, was not one he'd ever likely forget.
Time seemed frozen, like it had on that day years ago, as the summoned Odin cast his spear.
***
Reality snapped back around them almost violently, leaving Vincent with a brief feeling of vertigo as the creature below reeled, a deep gouge in its hard skin and flesh, purple blood splattering to the floor from where the summon's weapon had struck it.
The spiky haired swordsman was rushing, not to finish the job but towards the form of his comrade, the one who'd summoned, who was in the process of falling to the lobby floor after he'd crumpled as a result of the mana expenditure.
He didn't waste time, slamming the last magazine he had on him into the butt of the Shin-Ra P55A Quicksilver pistol.
For others, the perch that the rickety wooden railing of the landing above the lobby, the part of said railing that was still intact that is, would have been too unsteady. He felt no such thing.
The reeling monster was in his sights momentarily, shaking its head wildly and shuddering for some reason, and he depressed the trigger.
It seemed to tense as the hammer fell, bulbous eyes flickering towards the weapon and body moving ...
The shot that would have hit otherwise merely grazed it ...
He spun, then, stepping closer and out of the possible arc of fire before Vincent could compensate. The gun went off. His sleeve tore at the elbow, loose cloth billowing in the momentary draft of the rubber bullet's passing.
Vincent shook his head in bemusement, thumbing the safety back on and popping the magazine, replacing it with loaded with live ammunition before sliding the weapon back into its holster.
The man wasn't as tall as Vincent, standing at somewhere between five nine and five ten, but he was stocky and had a brawler's build.
"I never thought I'd see you miss," came a voice from off to the side. Both suit clad men turned, though not with the sort of sharpness that the motion would have been carried out with had they been unaware of the observer. "Not at this range."
"Actually, it'd be harder if he were farther off," the stocky man said. "I'm just seeing where he's pointing it and trying not to be there. It takes less effort to adjust aim when you're farther off. And Vince would still kick my ass seven ways from Sunday if I actually got close enough."
"Was there something you needed, Professor?" the gunman asked, nodding his affirmation to the other Turk.
"Now that you mention it," Gast rubbed his chin thoughtfully, the nodded. "Yes, Vincent. I was wondering whether you could help me with something."
"Of course, Professor," the addressed man replied, then turned to his collegue. "We'll continue this another day, Emil."
"Right, boss," Emil Vachon, junior member of the Turks, nodded. "No problem."
The creature went down, one huge hand clutching at the bleeding wound, the other digging its fingers into the skin on its head hard enough to draw blood from there as well ...
The gun in Vincent's hand jerked once, twice ... momentarily, the shuddering of his target stopped, body moving on its own accord as the thick forearms took both shots, bullets hardly penetrating where they should have struck vulnerable eyes.
The crimson clad man shot forward like a bat out of hell, cloak making him seem little more than a blur of motion, outstretched gun the only discernible portion of his body as the sidearm barked, making his target twitch and twist its bulk in evasion and defense against the projectiles with each shot.
One huge arm shot forward, fingers reaching to crush the attacking man, only to miss him as Vincent threw himself to the floor, rolled, and came up with his left arm leading. Mythril-admantine alloy claws took the opening that wouldn't have been there had the opponent not still been reeling from the injury the summon had inflicted, ripping and slashing at its armpit, splattering further arcs of purple blood in their wake.
The monster roared, staggered ... and fell to its knees, eyes to muzzle with Vincent's pistol.
There was the oddest expression that crossed its face, disbelief, fear, worry, pain ... but a warped form of relief seemed to overwhelm all those.
Vincent Valentine had always had an excellent kinesthetic sense. Reading body language had come easy for him, and after a year with the Turks he'd honed the ability so that he was able to recognize someone by the way they moved alone. Mannerisms, little clues. In a way, it was more accurate than a fingerprint.
In that moment, he wished it wasn't.
He pulled the trigger, the last round of the magazine leaving his weapon at near point blank range.
The sound of the weapon discharging seemed deafening.
***
Uzuki stared.
The demolished Manor lobby, walls marked with bullet holes and slash marks, and the occasional ... well, huge hole, as if someone had been thrown clear through ...
... a corpse, definitely not human. Purple blood.
Three Shin-Ra grunts who'd arrived before he had lying on the front lawn, two cut apart and one looking like he'd been on the wrong end of something with claws.
The SOLDIER shook his head slowly, then blinked. Twice, for good measure.
Nope, still not going away.
How was he ever going to explain this?
***
The truck roared to life, wheels biting into the packed dirt road as the driver put his foot to the floor.
Two figures rested in the back of the three wheeled pickup, one prone and unresponsive, the other burning the image of the receding town into his mind's eye, even as his crimson optics looked for signs of pursuit.
None seemed forthcoming.
"Goodbye, Emil," the figure spoke, its voice little more than a whisper.
***
------
NEXT UP, ... dust ... , where Our Heroes try to gain headway in their run from Shin-Ra pursuit, but run into unexpected complications in a place of rock, sand, and knowledge.
Coming ... err, sometime this year?
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm
In all honesty, I blame the Advent Children soundtrack.
Begin.
------
Midgar
Shin-Ra Building
A peal of thunder shattered the rain drenched silence of the night, rolling clouds churning above like an ocean during a violent storm, which, in a way, they were.
To the uniformed men in the front lobby of the building - or would complex be a more apt way to describe said place? - paid it no attention.
Uniformed ... that word does not, perhaps, convey the full import of the statement.
Standard issue though it was, the uniform was both effective and made to intimidate. A helmet and torso armor atop fatigues, complete with heavy combat boots and gauntlets that were underlined with armor as well. The cloth of the fatigues was exceedingly tough, and could only be cut by the sharpest implements, or pierced by the most potent of bullets.
It was the helmet that did it, though. Covering the upper portion of the face, the triclopean lenses of the standard issue image enhancement visor seemed to extrude malice in their own right.
The men wearing those uniforms were soldiers, trained by the largest military and industrial force of the world. They had focus, they had gear, they certainly had motivation.
At the moment, that focus was attracted by the figure standing in the midst of their half circle, seemingly ignorant of the submachine guns and assault rifles pointed its way.
Powerfully built and tall, his clothes resembled those of the soldiers. The fatigues and combat boots did, at least. He wore no armor save for a shoulder guard, and a sleeveless shirt covered his torso. His face was carefully kept blank, no emotion visible on it, but what drew most attention was the unearthly glow of unnaturally intense blue-green eyes.
Or, should that be, what drew the most attention about his face?
Certainly, what drew the most attention, in all, about the man was the way he effortlessly held in his hands a blade as long as he was tall, and wide enough to give the impression of being a slab of metal that somebody had slapped sharpened edges on for the sheer heck of it.
The smears of red that ran along said blade's length, drips of it falling down to stain the lush carpet along with the rainwater dripping from its wielders sodden form, as well as the dismembered bodies of several of the soldiers' comrades that lay haphazardly strewn around the glass-paned main entrance of the building, gave enough of an indication that it was far from being merely a tool of intimidation.
"SOLDIER, First Class ..." the voice had been cool, controlled, and used to command. It rang out throughout the expanse of the lobby, halting the melee that had been taking place not moments ago.
A SOLDIER, First Class, was never unarmed. Their bodies were the weapons they always had with them. Enhanced speed, agility, strength ... even if the huge sword _were_ merely a showpiece, anything in a SOLDIER's hands was a lethal weapon.
The men keeping him in their sights knew it well enough, since SOLDIERs were supposed to be their compatriots - the Elite Enforcement of the Shin-Ra Electric Power Company.
"What you are doing is pointless," the voice continued, after the noise of the thunderclap had passed away.
Its owner, a lean, long faced and longer haired man in a plain black suit, black tie, and white dress shirt, stood on the small landing that the wide stairs at the back of the lobby led to, placing him in an overwatch position of the situation.
If Tseng, the head of the Investigation Sector of Shin-Ra's General Affairs Department, otherwise known as the Turks, were more arrogant, he'd be tempted to consider his relative position as befitting of his station. As things stood, though, in his mind it was merely a tactically advantageous position for him to take.
Balefully Mako-glowing eyes of the SOLDIER were firmly fixed upon the Turks' leader's face, though the men surrounding him were wary enough that they didn't mistake that for inattentiveness on his part.
"Maybe," the SOLDIER spoke, his voice a nearly violent hiss of breath that, nonetheless, carried well enough. Even against the backdrop of rainfall. "But it's a ..."
The impact was tremendous. In fact, it was powerful enough to not only warp and twist the metal of the Plate right outside the main entryway of the Shin-Ra Corporate Headquarters, where whatever it was had come down, but also to send cracks through the armored glass of the front of the lobby.
"... very good distraction! Cloud! Now!"
The SOLDIER moved, sword spinning ...
A fan of flaming projectiles shattered through the already weakened glass, tearing into the lobby from outside and turning it into a fiery abyss. At least for a moment.
***
Rain cut inside, soaking the floor of the laboratory, coming in through the jagged hole in one of its walls - which was also part of the building's outer wall.
He ignored it. Rain meant little to him these days.
The sound of armored boots hitting metal floor and weapon safeties being released was not so easily ignored ...
His attention, though, was elsewhere, seemingly riveted by the flashing skies beyond the rainfall.
In a moment, a decision was reached ... or perhaps merely affirmed. One hand tightened on the grip of the long barreled revolver it held, the other curled, appropriately, as if clawing at something.
Eyes narrowed.
A step turned into a jog, turned into a run, turned into a full out sprint ...
There was no hesitation as he made the leap.
The only thing the rushing guards got to see was a fleeting glimpse of a tattered red cloak, before even that was swallowed by the night's gloom.
From some sixty floors below, the echoes of an explosion could barely be heard over the staccato of raindrops against metal.
***
Cloud Strife, former Shin-Ra trooper, recent Shin-Ra guinea pig, and current ... well, whatever you'd call people who'd just done the mystical equivalent of blowing the hell out of the lobby of Shin-Ra's home office, lowered his hand.
The green glint of an orb of Materia, crystallized Mako energy, could be seen between his fingers.
Breathing heavily, the blond man returned the orb to its place in the stock of his rifle.
Materia made magic possible, accessible for humans ... but after whatever it was the experiments he'd only fully recovered from a few weeks ago had done to him, it seemed to respond to him more naturally than to anyone else he'd met.
Neither he nor his traveling companions knew exactly why this was so, though the theory was that the enhancement granted to a person by the SOLDIER process had something to do with it.
The irony being that Cloud hadn't been a SOLDIER before the experiments, and neither of his companions showed quite that level of affinity for magic, even though one had been a SOLDIER prior to the experimentation, and the other ...
... well, some things were best left unsaid.
The aftereffects of the blast of Fire he'd unleashed started to clear, even as whatever it was that had slammed down in front of the lobby started to visibly shift, despite both the fall and the result of having what amounted to passing through a wall of flame.
***
Whatever Works
presents
***
The air within the lobby was thick with smoke, dust, ash, and the smell of burned flesh.
Sound returned slowly, from the dull roar that was another thing to mark the passing of the flames to a ringing, finally resolving into a faint sound of raindrops on metal 'ground' and groans of the injured.
Tseng coughed, hauling himself upright from behind one of the heavy reception desks, eyes squinting against the acrid smoke.
The blurry shapes finally sharpened in his tearing eyes, resolving into a scene of destruction.
And an nearly unscratched Zack, ex-SOLDIER, First Class, the fading energies of a Barrier spell sparking around his form.
The Turk raised his sidearm.
***
a FINAL FANTASY VII altaverse story
inspired by FFVII: Last Order
***
The thing reared, tatters of clothing still clinging to its mishapped and burned form, flesh stretching and crawling across limbs as if wanting to ...
It recoiled as bullets struck it on the side, the barking of an automatic rifle suddenly oppressive even with the falling rain.
Turning, a forearm that suddenly became thicker than it had been just moments ago moving up to cover its head ... or what passed for it. It lacked hands, thick tentacles trailing from the wrists instead. The one not protecting the head rose up, curling back like a whip about to strike ...
A rolling, putrid greenish mass seemed to suddenly rush along the appendage's length ...
Cloud ducked, rolling aside as the creature lashed out, the tentacle smashing into the ground where he'd stood non moments ago and leaving the metal plating a corroded mess.
Even as more bullets suddenly rained down from above.
***
FINAL FANTASY VII:
Insomnia
***
He fell, body angled downwards for maximum velocity, the air rushing past him on the way.
Fifty floors, forty, thirty ...
Right into the bedlam below.
Not smooth. Not quiet. Certainly not like what he'd have preferred this to be like.
Then again, who ever said redemption was easy?
Ten floors.
His right arm came forward, the weight of the revolver in it a comfortable one. His thumb cocked the hammer.
Five floors.
Six shots, in rapid succession. Six high caliber bullets traveling straight down. Six jerks of the monster in his sights.
There was no more time to reload. He rolled, curling around his center, cloak snapping with the motion. Right hand replacing the revolver in its holster in the middle of it.
He felt the soles of his armored boots slam into the monster's body, its bulk buckling with the impact.
His left hand flashed from beneath his crimson cloak, the amber of mythril-admantine composite covering it.
The clawed metal gauntlet that adorned his left forearm and hand sunk its talons into the creature's neck.
***
by Griever
***
***
***
... verse, the first ...
... fire ...
Nibelheim
Three Months Ago
A sleeping mind wanders, bared to the shades floating below its surface, with thoughts streaming chaotically, twisting around in a manner not dissimilar to that of a whirlpool.
But when the waters calm, coming to a halt, and even the rippled disappear. When the surface is perfect in its stillness ...
... the mind delves deeper. Into the depths, on long neglected paths. The mind descends, the mind sees, and the mind remembers.
Or, one does, at least.
It keeps itself occupied. Keeps itself busy.
The shudder that went through the mind's physical extension was small. Diluted. Suppressed by stone and distance.
It was no different, in some ways, from similar ones that had come and gone at various times in the years prior.
In another time and place, which were the same time and place when viewed from a certain metaphysical point, the ripples it created would have faded without any noticeable effect, and the mind would have been lost in its reminiscences for some time to come.
Here, in the grander scheme of things, it mattered little.
Sort of like a pebble.
***
Panting.
Staggering.
Boot-clad feet on dirt ground, pressing forward with determination borne of desperation more than anything else.
Hope is a powerful motivator. Freedom, equally so. Combine the two, and ...
There were two figures, one supporting the other. Or, dragging, really.
Two figures, two sets of faintly glowing blue-green eyes, but where the blond one's gaze was distant, vacant, as if he were little more than a prisoner within the shell of his body, his dark haired companion's shone with more than just the results of Mako treatment.
His head was full of questions, his guts churning with a miasma of emotions from outright rage to fear strong enough to almost shake his determination.
He knew better than to let them actually come to the fore.
With dogged perseverance, step after step, all the while fighting against the pain just moving gave him.
It was the rule that had been pounded into his head repeatedly early on in his training. It was a rule that stuck, enough that it overshadowed all the fear and doubt he had. Even in a situation as bleak.
Survive.
And whatever else you said about them, First Class SOLDIERs were certainly survivors.
"C'mon, Cloud," Zack repeated for the n-th time, pulling the unresponsive blond man in the battered remains of a Shin-Ra trooper garb after him. His ears were still ringing, his words slightly slurred, since the aftermath of his breaking free of containment had been rather violently explosive. Enough that he'd need a bit more time to recover fully.
Not that he was likely to actually _get_ that time, but it was nice to dream a little.
There was light ahead, and although faint, it was also the only indication of a possible exit from this ... this nightmare.
The blond man tensed suddenly, eyes fluttering closed as muscles that had been cooperating with ... or at least not actively hindering
their trek flexed, veins shining through the pale skin for an instant. And shining with a pale blue-green color.
Zack moved, bringing his shoulder underneath the suddenly collapsing Cloud, hoisting him up ...
"Oh no you _don't_, buddy," his own flesh felt like it was moments away from melting off, but he gritted his teeth and barreled through the pain. "Still need to pay you back for the Reactor, so don't die on me now. Still need to make godsdamned Hojo pay for what he did to us ..."
The light, dim before, became brighter. Coming from above ... as Zack manhandled an unconscious Cloud into the bottom of a vertical shaft. A wooden walkway spiraled upwards, along the walls of the shaft, to terminate at what looked like the faint outline of a door.
A door which suddenly opened, bright light stabbing through the darkness from the other side.
The triclopean mask of a Shin-Ra trooper's helmet, or rather, the red glow of the optics thereof, was the only discernible thing .
"... right. What do you want to bet it was one of those damn bats the quack keeps as pets. _Again_. There's nothing else down there that'd have triggered the silent ..." the word 'alarm' died on the trooper's helmet-obscured lips as his optics adjusted to Low-Light ... and let him see down into the shaft.
It wasn't even a conscious thing. Zack merely went to one knee, depositing his companion on the ground and coiling to spring ...
... the trooper's surprise gave him a chance, and his muscles obeyed, even if they screamed in protest at the prospect. More so, when he unlimbered his sword, which he'd found, cast aside in the madman's laboratory, from its place across his back
A moment before he uncoiled in a leap that would have taken him a third of the way up the shaft, an unmistakable sound came from directly behind him.
The sound of a hammer being cocked.
Followed by the boom of a firearm discharging in a closed space.
The Shin-Ra trooper fell forward, and off the walkway, scarlet spraying behind him from a hole that gaped outwards from where the back of his neck had been.
Even before the noise of the discharge had passed, a crimson cloaked form threw itself past the startled SOLDIER, then upwards at one of the shaft's walls. The sound of metal on stone could be heard before the form shot upwards again, disappearing into the light of the doorway above ...
... Zack was brought out of his momentary pause by the head of the dead Shin-Ra trooper rolling to a stop against his boot.
***
He felt anger. Not just the hot, burning fury that called forth a rumble from deep within the recesses of his mind.
No. It also called an older, more familiar sort of anger.
Cold. Cold to the point of freezing.
And it had taken only one word.
One word, one name, had managed to sear past the apathy he'd shrouded himself in for the better part of the past three decades.
His hand had moved almost of its own volition, the motion as natural to him as pointing a finger was.
Then he was moving. Onwards. Upwards. Brushing past the two bedraggled ... escapees? Victims?
Both sounded accurate enough, in conjunction with that _name_.
He alighted at the top of the rickety stairway without as much as a sound, even with the armored boots on his feet, and was stepping over the target of his shot before the Shin-Ra trooper gave his final twitch.
It all came back.
The smell of gunpowder and liquid copper, heralded by thunderclaps and the clinking of brass.
Someone around the corner. The faint tinge of weapon oil, the sound of cloth against body armor.
Fast, efficient motion. Giving in to what the senses said, not what the mind could discern from them, and acting without thought.
Foot forward, a normal step with a slight twist. Lean into the turn, keeping momentum.
Always keep momentum.
Lead with the left, knock the gunbarrel aside. Press forward with the right, jabbing the extension of the hand until you feel resistance ...
... the bullet and muzzle gases tore through even the ballistic cloth, the only sound made by the discharge being muffled by flesh. The body falling back with the lead projectile coming out and pulling on it when the ballistic cloth kept it from penetrating back _out_.
He yanked the submachine-gun from the collapsing dead man, not even noticing when the bronze claws that adorned his left hand left deep gouges in the weapon's surface.
Vincent Valentine halted, and waited, in the room beyond, taking the anger and putting it away for later use.
Anger at the world, anger at the madman, and anger at himself.
Now that it had been awakened, though, it would not be put back wholly.
Restrained, yes. Delayed, yes.
Buried underneath the veil of apathy again?
No.
Not bloody likely.
Well, perhaps just bloody.
Some of the oldest life lessons he'd ever learned, all focused on one thing, came back to him.
When wronged, you don't get back at the person who wronged you. You get even with them.
Footsteps, staggering slightly with added weight and drag, could be heard coming up the stairs.
'Enemy of my enemy ...'
Red eyes glowed faintly in the gloom, the heralds of things to come.
***
High in the Nibel mountains, a lone pebble rested.
Shuddered slightly as the wind momentarily shifted.
Teetered.
And lost balance ...
... rolling downhill.
***
... verse, the second ...
... shadows ...
That the place was in disrepair was a serious understatement. The smells of crumbling tapestries and sodden carpets, moist wood, old paint, and the near-taste of dust in the air were all factors in making the realization an obvious one.
He could hear soft creaks of motion, even from the distance, and despite the obstructions that should have stopped or at least seriously muffled the sound. Like walls.
This was not really a surprise. Vincent Valentine knew well enough that his senses were just as human as his body.
Inhuman, that is.
Dust motes which were barely visible in good lighting - would have been all but invisible to him once upon a time - were now as obvious as grains of black sand floating around in a glass of crystal clear water.
The first thing he'd known after that fateful initial awakening, when he'd first born witness to all that had been done to him by the madman who called himself a scientist ... once upon a time he'd thought he'd been overwhelmed by the roar of the monster Hojo had burdened him with. Only afterwards did he become aware of the fact that the terrifying sound had been a beast's rumble only in his mind. He'd simply been unaccustomed to hearing the blood in his body rush about, to listening in on his own heartbeat.
Things he'd learned to once again subconsciously filter out by now.
Not that he'd not heard and felt the rumbling, challenging roar that drove his very soul into a rage later on.
But that was a different story altogether.
Right there and then, his concern - what there was of it - lay with the matters at hand.
One of which was stepping over the still warm corpse of the Shin-Ra trooper he'd emptied his pistol into.
Whatever tableau could have resulted was broken by the distinctive click of a magazine sliding home. The metallic digits of the graft-slash-gauntlet on Vincent's left arm pulled back the slide, letting a round into the chamber.
For a moment, the former Turk and the dark-haired swordsman eyed one-another, combatants judging a possible threat ...
The swordsman's eyes, glowing with the sort of radiance Vincent recalled seeing on one or two of the Shin-Ra operatives whom he'd observed during a past foray out of the coffin, seemed to be mockeries of his own once-brown and now crimson optics.
Mako poisoning ... it was not hard to tell on sight, yet the other signs - the ones he'd learned about during the few times Professor Gast had needed an assistant, and the ones he'd seen when surveying the site of a newly finished Mako reactor - were conspicuous in their absence.
In fact, there was an undercurrent to the way the swordsman ... 'felt' was the best way Vincent could explain it, this extra sense he'd found he gained after Hojo's experiments ... was familiar as well.
Like a distorted mirror image.
The blue-green eyes flickered down to the clawed gauntlet as the slide returned to its initial position, then back up.
Vincent considered. Then lifted the arm so that the light flickered along its surface, presenting it.
Eyes met again.
"Hojo," the former Turk said flatly, flexing the limb's digits.
The swordsman remained cautious, but nodded in reply.
***
A single snowflake, floating down from the night sky, landing to rest on top of the palm of his hand, melting away almost immediately.
Uzuki Eisen looked up into the starry sky, his eyes tracing the invisible lines between constellations with the ease of a person prone to mental wonderings in times of boredom. The dove flying from the coils of the serpent, the hare leaping in front of a charging bull ...
He really had far too much time on his hands, and it was something he himself realized easily enough.
For what it was worth, this had seemed like an important project, but he could see neither hide nor hair of what constituted this supposed importance. The whole town was Shin-Ra sponsored, had been ever since ... well, ever since something had happened here a number of years ago. What exactly that had been, he had no idea. He'd still been in grunt training back then, and that left precious little time for things like rumor or news unrelated to what the damnably sadistic drill sergeants the Company employed would come up with for them for the next day's training regime.
The occasional whispers spoke of monsters, the town burning down, and once he'd even heard about some trouble with the Mt.Nibel reactor which had taken place sometime in the past. When? Again, no idea.
Though sifting wheat from the chaff, as it were, of the Shin-Ra Armed Forces Rumor Mill - and those capitals were justified, considering it was almost an official institution in its own right - was a more arduous task than someone with any sort of job could manage without severe loss of sleep.
Uzuki hadn't bothered.
The half-wutaian may have been second generation Company, his father having been a part of the Armed Forces and even fighting in a few of the Wutai conflicts that had taken place before General Sephiroth had claimed ultimate victory there, but this afforded him precious little slack. In fact, in some ways, it made things even harsher. The Heidegger administrative machine of the Military Arm of the Shin-Ra Power Company wasn't known for its leniency.
Not even for a SOLDIER, Second Class, like he was.
He sighed, trudging onward through the sleeping outskirts of Nibelheim.
Well, it _was_ customary to give members of SOLDIER a bit of time to fully develop the physical enhancements that each level of Processing granted them. What he remembered of it wasn't pleasant in the least, though other than an intense burning of nearly all his muscles and skin, there really wasn't anything definite there that his mind hadn't blacked out afterwards. No matter the injections that the Shin-Ra eggheads had claimed would lessen the discomfort of the somewhat lengthy procedure, Mako bombardment and whatever else was involved (certainly, a lot of wires and drips) were by no means a pleasant experience.
Even being in the small percentage of eligible SOLDIER candidates without actually being given the chance for 'promotion' meant that you were in the mental and physical top 5% of the Shin-Ra troops. Half of those chosen would respond partially to Processing, gaining partial abilities and enhancements, and being ranked Third Class. A quarter of that number had potential that would let them handle further Processing, meaning more Mako treatments and chemical balancing injections, and they would be able to make Second Class in a year or so of intense training.
Uzuki still thought he smarted from some of that particular regime.
And then there was First Class, who were the cream of the crop. It was what he was working towards. What he'd been working his way up to ever since he'd been told he could join SOLDIER. The best pay, the most challenging assignments ... and the highest Clearance, which meant he had to prove he could handle sensitive information and assignments that demanded more than just simple guard duty or shooting the shit out of people.
Which was why he'd been freezing his hindquarters off at this backwater shithole of a town for the past several months ... which, admittedly, was far longer than the job should have taken. Meaning someone in the administrative branch probably messed up. He'd forwarded that concern to an old friend of his father's who still worked for the Company, and in the admin branch as well, and was hoping he'd be called back from this soon.
Patience was patience, but other than the occasional signs of a wild animals prowling along the perimeters in the spring, there was literally nothing to do here. Other than pretending that nothing was or had ever been awry about the town to passing tourists and other vermin, which, Uzuki grumbled, wasn't really pretending from his point of view.
Well, it could have been worse, he supposed. He could have been assigned to play babysitter on one of the Professor's newer projects. From what he'd heard, and it was pretty much uniform no matter from where he heard it, meaning there was some truth to the information, Professor Hojo was not someone you'd like as your immediate superior. He was rumored to be ruthless, amoral even, and borderline manic ... and those were the most positive statements the grapevine had to deliver about him.
Still, it wouldn't hurt to have a little excitement around once in a while, he thought ...
... before the flare of an explosion and the feeling of vast amounts of energy being released were both perceived, one by his eyesight, the other by his body.
He ran.
***
Zack rose unsteadily, the blade of his Buster Sword being used as an impromptu crutch as he levered himself away from the wall. Or rather, the hole in the wall.
Then the SOLDIER steeled himself, gritted his teeth, swung his weapon back up into a position of readiness, and charged.
The lobby of the Manor hadn't looked very good the last time he'd seen it. It looked even worse now. Dust, flaking pain, more dust, splintered wood. Moth-eaten carpet and a chandelier that looked like it was being held together by rust alone, and would fall down if somebody sneezed a little too hard.
Add the hole in the wall he'd just made, a splintered and broken railing of the grand staircase, the holes in the floor ... oh, and the great purple and red monster rampaging straight through the middle of it.
Of _course_ Hojo had contingencies beyond the grunts stationed to keep guard. The damnable thing had come charging down the corridor at them, and he'd barely managed to tug Cloud out of the way. The guy in red, who'd called himself Vincent Valentine and had almost literally popped up out of nowhere down in the 'dungeons', had drawn its attention away from them for a moment.
Whatever else he was, he was fast. The sort of speed SOLDIERs had to work at, and an agility that seemed to reach beyond that ... but even with that, the monster seemed to shrug off the bullets and occasional claw swipes.
When it had hurled a bolt of electrical energy at the crimson clad man, Zack had decided that they weren't going to be running away until this thing had been put down. Basic tactics, really. Don't turn your back on something that's got the ability and inclination to shoot it.
That Valentine had lured it to the lobby, arguably the most spacious place in the Mansion, was more likely quick thinking than dumb luck, especially since he seemed to know the place's layout.
Yet another question.
There seemed to be a lot of those going around. The only thing Zack actually knew about the guy was his name, and that he seemed to have a matter to settle with Hojo. Give the metallic limb ... well, the swordsman could guess at least a bit of what that matter entailed. He wasn't sure he wanted to know more.
The monster had been reeling from a shot that had struck its knee when Zack had leapt from the landing the main stairway in the lobby led to, burying the sword in its grotesquely large head and down ...
Then he'd been shaken off, complete with sword, and backhanded into a wall. Even as his target had shrieked an oddly, disturbingly human cry of pain.
Valentine bounced from the wall, coming in low and fast, ducking under the creature's swing and planting an armored boot in its face. He pressed his gun's barrel down alongside the boot, and fired, before pushing off and away in a flurry of scarlet cloth.
The creature took a step back, grabbing at its head and shaking it, and Zack planted his feet, adjusted his grip, and swung the slab of sharpened steel he called a sword in a wide, powerful arc ...
... which was deflected by a purple forearm. The beast had lost its red coloring somewhere along the line, it looked like, and as his sword blade skittered from its block without leaving more than a moderately deep gash when Zack's mind was screaming at him that it should have cut the limb cleanly off, the SODLIER realized it was more than just a cosmetic change.
He brought the flat of the blade between himself and the creature, in time to catch a meaty fist on it and have the force of the blow hurl him up and back. His feet skidded, kicking up trails of dust, when he landed, bleeding off the last of the kinetic energy the attack had imparted on him. Still, he managed to keep his balance.
And why the hell had Valentine just _sat_ there, not moving, ever since that last attack he'd made?
The beast seemed intent on charging him, throwing its center of mass forward ...
... when a red flash erupted form off to the side, and Zack's eyes widened as he saw Cloud standing on the landing above the lobby, oblivious to the drop he'd take if he were only an inch further because of the lack of railing on that particular portion of said landing.
The blond man stared at the creature, but the SOLDIER got the impression the eyes were still looking past it, towards something he couldn't define. They were still flat, seemingly soulless ...
... the red orb Cloud clutched in the hand of his outstretched right arm glinted in the dim light, and then seemed to spark with power that was suddenly saturating the lobby.
Tendrils of azure and aquamarine energy wound their way along the blond man's arm, merging with the materia orb's surface, even as Cloud seemed to be overshadowed by something.
The sound of hoof beats.
A crack of thunder.
A ghostly shape formed, armored and mounted atop a white steed with far too many legs to be a normal horse. It reared, the mounted figure drawing back an arm that held a long, wicked ended spear.
The form, the weapon, the very presence seemed too large for the confines of the available space.
It was then that Zack realized what it was. He'd seen something similar a few times, most notably when he'd been to Wutai early in his career.
The sight of a huge serpent bearing down on him, a veritable tsunami in its wake, was not one he'd ever likely forget.
Time seemed frozen, like it had on that day years ago, as the summoned Odin cast his spear.
***
Reality snapped back around them almost violently, leaving Vincent with a brief feeling of vertigo as the creature below reeled, a deep gouge in its hard skin and flesh, purple blood splattering to the floor from where the summon's weapon had struck it.
The spiky haired swordsman was rushing, not to finish the job but towards the form of his comrade, the one who'd summoned, who was in the process of falling to the lobby floor after he'd crumpled as a result of the mana expenditure.
He didn't waste time, slamming the last magazine he had on him into the butt of the Shin-Ra P55A Quicksilver pistol.
For others, the perch that the rickety wooden railing of the landing above the lobby, the part of said railing that was still intact that is, would have been too unsteady. He felt no such thing.
The reeling monster was in his sights momentarily, shaking its head wildly and shuddering for some reason, and he depressed the trigger.
It seemed to tense as the hammer fell, bulbous eyes flickering towards the weapon and body moving ...
The shot that would have hit otherwise merely grazed it ...
He spun, then, stepping closer and out of the possible arc of fire before Vincent could compensate. The gun went off. His sleeve tore at the elbow, loose cloth billowing in the momentary draft of the rubber bullet's passing.
Vincent shook his head in bemusement, thumbing the safety back on and popping the magazine, replacing it with loaded with live ammunition before sliding the weapon back into its holster.
The man wasn't as tall as Vincent, standing at somewhere between five nine and five ten, but he was stocky and had a brawler's build.
"I never thought I'd see you miss," came a voice from off to the side. Both suit clad men turned, though not with the sort of sharpness that the motion would have been carried out with had they been unaware of the observer. "Not at this range."
"Actually, it'd be harder if he were farther off," the stocky man said. "I'm just seeing where he's pointing it and trying not to be there. It takes less effort to adjust aim when you're farther off. And Vince would still kick my ass seven ways from Sunday if I actually got close enough."
"Was there something you needed, Professor?" the gunman asked, nodding his affirmation to the other Turk.
"Now that you mention it," Gast rubbed his chin thoughtfully, the nodded. "Yes, Vincent. I was wondering whether you could help me with something."
"Of course, Professor," the addressed man replied, then turned to his collegue. "We'll continue this another day, Emil."
"Right, boss," Emil Vachon, junior member of the Turks, nodded. "No problem."
The creature went down, one huge hand clutching at the bleeding wound, the other digging its fingers into the skin on its head hard enough to draw blood from there as well ...
The gun in Vincent's hand jerked once, twice ... momentarily, the shuddering of his target stopped, body moving on its own accord as the thick forearms took both shots, bullets hardly penetrating where they should have struck vulnerable eyes.
The crimson clad man shot forward like a bat out of hell, cloak making him seem little more than a blur of motion, outstretched gun the only discernible portion of his body as the sidearm barked, making his target twitch and twist its bulk in evasion and defense against the projectiles with each shot.
One huge arm shot forward, fingers reaching to crush the attacking man, only to miss him as Vincent threw himself to the floor, rolled, and came up with his left arm leading. Mythril-admantine alloy claws took the opening that wouldn't have been there had the opponent not still been reeling from the injury the summon had inflicted, ripping and slashing at its armpit, splattering further arcs of purple blood in their wake.
The monster roared, staggered ... and fell to its knees, eyes to muzzle with Vincent's pistol.
There was the oddest expression that crossed its face, disbelief, fear, worry, pain ... but a warped form of relief seemed to overwhelm all those.
Vincent Valentine had always had an excellent kinesthetic sense. Reading body language had come easy for him, and after a year with the Turks he'd honed the ability so that he was able to recognize someone by the way they moved alone. Mannerisms, little clues. In a way, it was more accurate than a fingerprint.
In that moment, he wished it wasn't.
He pulled the trigger, the last round of the magazine leaving his weapon at near point blank range.
The sound of the weapon discharging seemed deafening.
***
Uzuki stared.
The demolished Manor lobby, walls marked with bullet holes and slash marks, and the occasional ... well, huge hole, as if someone had been thrown clear through ...
... a corpse, definitely not human. Purple blood.
Three Shin-Ra grunts who'd arrived before he had lying on the front lawn, two cut apart and one looking like he'd been on the wrong end of something with claws.
The SOLDIER shook his head slowly, then blinked. Twice, for good measure.
Nope, still not going away.
How was he ever going to explain this?
***
The truck roared to life, wheels biting into the packed dirt road as the driver put his foot to the floor.
Two figures rested in the back of the three wheeled pickup, one prone and unresponsive, the other burning the image of the receding town into his mind's eye, even as his crimson optics looked for signs of pursuit.
None seemed forthcoming.
"Goodbye, Emil," the figure spoke, its voice little more than a whisper.
***
------
NEXT UP, ... dust ... , where Our Heroes try to gain headway in their run from Shin-Ra pursuit, but run into unexpected complications in a place of rock, sand, and knowledge.
Coming ... err, sometime this year?
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm