Chapter 8: Battle Against Hell's Beast

Once the elevator doors were fully opened, Zack all but ran out of it and into the floor committed solely for the director's office. It was from there that he drew his sword from behind him, Cloud and Adeus right behind him with their guns at the ready. Fully armed and prepared for what was to come, they ran forward a bit so they could get around the wall that was in their way. Once they passed it, they were able to see the area where Director Lazard normally worked at. Unfortunately, it was just as they feared; a monster was on this floor and was moving towards the director, who had his back towards the wall, with the intent to kill.

"Director Lazard!" the SOLIDER shouted hastily as he brandished his sword threateningly at the monster that had its back towards the trio. "We're here to help you! Are you okay?"

"Zack!" the man yelled from his spot in front of the monster, causing it to turn around to see the three new people. It looked almost identical to the one they saw a few floors down, sans the blade-arm being immensely caked in blood. "Thank Gaia you're here! I thought no one would have been coming up here to help me! Go and do away with this monstrosity!"

"No problem!" he exclaimed with a cocky smile. "Just let the three of us handle this thing. You go ahead and activate the emergency plan. Yes, things have gotten that bad in here. I'll explain it to you later, though."

"Wh-what?!" Director Lazard stuttered in shock at what he had just heard and was instructed to do. "Are you saying there are more of these things roaming around inside this building?!"

However, he did not have a chance to say anything else to the SOLDIER because the said person now had his full attention on the monster that had been threatening to take his life moments ago. The monster was also looking at the swordsman with a murderous, almost hungry, gaze.

"Come on, you big ugly thing!" he taunted the monster as he quickly changed his attitude and attempted to draw its attention to him and away from the director. "Why don't you pick on someone who can actually fight you? Yeah, I'm talking to you, you amazingly creepy thing that somehow managed to come up here!"

Whether the monster was able to comprehend the taunts being thrown at it or not, it did not matter. It readied itself in a pouncing stance much like the one from earlier. It then lunged at the SOLDIER, its deadly sharp arm poised for a slash. Preparing to take the strike head-on, he waited until the last minute to bring his sword up to his left side and parry the slash aimed at his throat. Once it was successfully parried, both the monster and Zack jumped back; the two cadets took advantage of this and let loose their bullets onto the retreating monster.

"Keep covering me with those bullets, you two!" Zack instructed the two as he readied himself to rush the monster. "Don't engage yourselves in close combat with it unless you absolutely have to!"

"Way ahead of you on that, Zack!" Cloud remarked as he continued to pummel the creature with his regular bullets.

"Just don't go so crazy that you end up getting yourself killed!" Adeus reminded the SOLDIER as he quickly switched out his empty clip with a magnum one from his pocket.

"As if I would ever let that happen to me!"

With that said he ran right at the monster and swung at it, stopping about a foot-and-a-half away from it. The monster, though, was smarter than it looked and actually half-parried, half dodged the blow aimed at him. This caught Zack off-guard and he hesitated in his movements.

"Smart little bastard, aren't you?" the teen SOLDIER cursed silently as he stared the creature down for a second or two.

At the very last moment, he managed to recover from the slight shock and just barely dodged the next slash directed at him. He then heard the sound of more bullets being shot out and the slight sound of pain emanating from the creature's lips. Despite these noises, it still kept going at Zack in full force as if nothing was wrong, causing him to back up while dodging and parrying each strong blow accordingly. He could not even try his hand at a counterattack because the monster's normal arm was swinging menacingly at its side, moving for a strike in time with its slashes.

"Damn!" the swordsman cursed as he nearly lost his footing from the constant repetitive strikes he was absorbing and dodging. "This thing knows how to keep itself away from my sword. I can't even throw a slash at him unless he stops swinging his normal arm or stops attacking altogether!"

"These bullets don't seem to be doing much, either!" Cloud exclaimed as he tried to replace his empty gun with a new cartridge. "It just doesn't seem to be slowing down no matter how much lead we put into it!"

"I doubt these bullets are even doing anything to it!" Adeus growled as he placed his gun back into its holster and made a move to reach for the heavy sword on his back. "I'm going to try something new."

"I said to avoid close combat, Adeus!" Zack reminded him as he managed to sneak a glance at the two cadets.

"Who said anything about me going face-to-face with it?" the long haired teen said in a somewhat smug tone as he held his sword tightly with his right hand and started to bring it over his left shoulder. "I'm going to be throwing this thing at it. Let's see it stand up to something like this being thrown at it!"

Figuring out what he had meant to do; Zack quickly parried another swipe at him and dodged under the arm, rolling himself safely away from the creature. It was at this point that Adeus threw his sword like a Frisbee right at it during this one small moment of distraction.

Too busy keeping its eyes on the SOLDIER; the monster twisted its body in turn to his evasive maneuver, swinging its blade-arm over the teen so as to prevent him from taking a slash at it. Because of this, it failed to notice the slight glint coming from the blade that was flying towards it. Just as it saw Zack get up onto his feet, it gave out a loud roar of pain as the dull sound of the sword embedding itself into the regular arm sounded just a moment earlier.

"Direct hit!" Adeus shouted as he threw his arm up a victorious gesture. "That's one arm out of commission!"

"Good one, Adeus!" Zack shouted happily as he threw a slash at the monster's torso, which was left exposed as it tried to comprehend what had happened. "That was just the opening I needed!"

With another roar of pain, the creature staggered a few steps back in both shock and an attempt to get away from the SOLDIER. As its eyes quickly scanned the room, it kept its gaze on where Adeus and Cloud were at. In a fit of rage, it took out the sword embedded in its arm and threw it right at the pair.

"Adeus, watch out!" Cloud exclaimed as he immediately threw his weight onto the other cadet, causing the both of them to fall straight to the ground as the sword whistled by them just centimeters above Cloud's head and the sound of his gun falling onto the floor.

"Whoa!" the pushed cadet exclaimed as his back hit the floor with a thud. With a small groan, he said, "Jeez, that was so sudden, I didn't have time to even react. Thanks for that, Cloud."

"No problem," the blond replied as he made to get off of Adeus' chest. "I'm sure that you'd do the same for me, too."

"The thing's coming right at you!" Zack's rushed voice suddenly shouted as the sounds of his shoes striking the ground in a rush were heard.

In response to the shout, both cadets turned their heads to where their mentor was shouting at. However, something else immediately took over their attention. The monster was now dashing towards them with a murderous look in its eyes. If it were not a monster, they would have actually thought that it had revenge set on its mind.

Without any warning, Adeus quickly pushed Cloud back, who was just about to get onto his feet, and caused him to quickly stumble backwards towards the wall and away from the monster's path. He then quickly rolled over onto his stomach and pushed himself up with such strength that there was ore than enough momentum to ensure that he would keep moving back even after he had gotten to his feet. However, this movement came just a second too late, for the monster had slashed at him with its blade-arm and the very tip of it made contact with his left arm.

"Damn it!" he exclaimed as he quickly examined his arm and noticed that the wound was nothing but a small gash that looked like it was made by a small protruding needle. "The thing barely grazed me!"

"You stupid monster!" Cloud shouted in frustration as he quickly peeled himself off from the wall, took his sword firmly into his right hand, and made a quick slash at the monster's exposed ribs while it was still recovering from its attack. "Just go down and stay down already!"

Roaring in both surprise and pain, the monster immediately swung its blade-arm at the blond with intent to kill, but he was quicker and managed to duck under it, making sure to slash at the underarm while doing so.

"Nice one, Cloud!" Adeus all but laughed in triumph as he made to grab his sword that was lying a few feet away on the ground after being thrown earlier. "You definitely have it on the ropes now!"

"It still looks like it got fight in it, though!" the blond speculated as he the monster quickly recover and throw another swipe at him, this time with him parrying the blow. "At least that other arm of his is dead!"

"It just doesn't know when to give up!" the long haired cadet grunted in frustration as he held his sword firmly. "Well then, let's just see how it likes this for a change!"

And with that, he began to charge head-on towards the monster, swinging his sword a couple of times in the process. Seeing this, the monster quickly suddenly pushed Cloud backwards, their blades still connected and thus allowing it to do so. However, it fell it bit short in recovering its blade-arm in time, so it opted to jump back a safe distance so as to avoid the downward slash from the heavy sword. Unfortunately, that proved to be a bad move for right when me moved back about a foot, the dull sound of something inserting itself into flesh was heard and the monster gave out another roar, this one filled with such pain, one would have been able to hear it from a mile away. In the next moment, a blade was seen protruding from the creature's chest, the blood, a deep red and coagulated, almost in the consistency of half melted Jello, dripped slowly off the tip and onto the shiny metal floor.

"Heh, forgot that I was still here, didn't you?" Zack asked smugly as he had a smile plastered on his face of the same caliber. "That'll end up being the biggest mistake of your life."

With that said, the SOLDIER quickly pulled his sword out from the monster, causing a sick squelching noise to emit from the action. The creature collapsed and was forced to rest on its blade-arm as a means of support, the blade plunging into the metal floor and causing a few sparks to fly out in the process. It threw a death glare at the two cadets with what little strength it had left after being run through like that.

"How about we put the poor thing out of it's misery, guys?" the SOLDIER asked as he positioned his sword for another strike.

"I have no objections," Adeus simply stated as he prepared his sword for another attack.

"After all we went through to bring it to this state, I'll be damned if we don't kill it now," Cloud sighed tiredly with a huff of his breath.

"Then let's get this over with," the spiky raven haired teen answered as he made a move to run his sword through the monster again just as it was attempting to lift itself up from its slump.

His sword went right through the creature's lower spine and came out from the other end through the stomach area. With a gurgle of pain, it spasm a bit as its muscles twitched in pain. Adeus then took this chance to quickly stab it right through the chest, this one quite possibly right where he supposed its heart was at, making sure to position it so that the blade would not harm Zack. Another squishy, bone crunching moment later, his blade had made it all the way through to its back. Now steadily weakening, all the monster could do was watch as the pain seemed to have completely engulfed it. It just plain refused to die on them.

With a release of a deep breath, it was now Cloud's turn to run down this creature and hopefully put it down for good. With his sword positioned for a stab, he quickly aimed it right at the creature's throat and thrust it right towards his target. Being that it was the neck area and his blade was quite thin, he had no trouble running it cleanly through without any hitches. He, too, made sure that his sword was slightly angled so as to not cause damage to his fellow comrades.

And with that last strike, the monster shuddered once more in apparent pain before it completely fell limp, or as limp as it could be with three swords practically skewering it like it were a shish kabob on a grill. All three of them pulled out their swords at the same time and the creature fell face-first towards the floor with a loud thud. They all stood still for probably a minute or so, waiting to see if this was all just a farce and the monster would jump back to life again and start to attack again. It never came back up again and they all breathed a sigh of relief, happy that this crazy monster was now officially down for the count.