Disclaimer: we all know I don't own anything from FF7. No characters. No locations. No vehicles. No Chocobo.All I own is myself, and I'm not even sure about that one.

Oh well, at least this story's mine. See, I can see the silver lining to every Cloud ...:-p

Sorry, couldn't help that one :-p

Don't upset the Lifestream... I want to share the fun too. Wait for meeeeeeeeeee!


Part 1: Blaze of Chaos.


Bullets ripped through the air, bouncing off the target's armor. The beast roared in rage, punching the ground with its powerful mandibles. A wave of solidified earth blew up in the air, swirling overhead in a cyclonic movement. If he had had time to say something about this, the gunman would have commented that this was the point where the earth finally met the sky.

But he was otherwise preoccupied, namely with the matter of his own survival. The situation was not looking good: his munitions for most of his weapons were low, Cerberus included; he was out of regenerative items; he had no ether or MP left, and worse of all, he couldn't escape this battle nor transform in any of his forms. His opponent, a twelve foot tall mass of hard blue-grey shimmering exoskeleton, wicked black spikes, enormous sharp mandibles and deadly intent had so far resisted all of his attacks without suffering as much as a scratch.

Instead, each and every one of his offensive actions had maddened the creature. The giant insect roared again, gathering up energy between its wide-open mandibles, spikes crackling with red electricity. It furthermore anchored itself to the ground, shaking the spikes running along the length of its spine up to the tip its scorpion-like curled tail.With each passing second, the chunks of earth levitated overhead was whirring faster and faster, building enough kinetic energy to reach the damage capacity of a proton torpedo at the very least: anything coming in contact with it would get pulverized to space dust.

They were moving in an orderly way, forming distinct rings of varying sizes and power. The friction with the air was heating up the earth; the inner rings, closer to the vortex, were already throwing up sparks, ready to burst into combustion any moment.

'Damn!'

If he didn't stop it now, he would not be able to walk away from this fight.

He had heard of the existence of such a beast; they were intelligent creatures, powerful, notoriously rare and presumed to be almost indestructible. Almost. Therefore, the beast had to have a weak spot in its armour; up to now, he had not been able to find it. Maybe…

That was when the monster decided to release its first salvo. The outermost ring shot out of formation and torpedoed at the crimson-caped man. His unnatural instincts saved him, once again. Vincent dove to the left, sprinting to take cover behind a rocky formation.

'…Quicker…!'

He did not make it; the outer ring made contact with the earth. An explosion of gigantic proportions followed the impact and a shock wave of sienna earth ripped through the air. It caught up with the gunman, picking him up from the earth as if he weighted nothing and projected him violently into the cliff, more than ten feet away from the ground. Vincent felt all the air leave his lungs as he crashed into the solid wall of stratified rock and tasted the metallic tang of blood in his mouth. Instinctively, he plunged his clawed left hand into the rock, anchoring himself in place. However, this was only a temporary measure; already, he was starting to slide down. If he did not find a stable position soon, he would fall. Wheezing, a searing pain in his chest, he sought a proper foothold around him but found none.

'Time to get creative.'

Vincent literally dug his feet into the rock, using the metal tips of his boots to force the crumbling material apart, effectively stopping his descent. With his free hand, he wiped away a trail of blood from his eyes, coming no doubt from a cut he had received on the head. More worrying was the fact that he had in all probability broken some ribs, which limited his movements and spelled out the possibility of collateral damage to some of his organs. As Cid Highwind had once so delicately phrased it during their journey together during what was being now known as the JENOVA war, the pain was going to be "…a bitch to work with…"

Turning around as best as he could, Vincent looked behind him as the beast continued to gather power. An immense swirl of fire brighter than the sun now danced above its head, casting a fiery glow of doom all around. The beast's eyes, located just above its mandibles, were now awash in purple energy, glowing with an insane light. The vortex it had created was so powerful it had had to dig its six limbs deeper into the ground to hold itself down, while the upper crust of the earth around it lifted up into the air, to be engulfed in the inferno overhead.

About midway between them lay a large crater, marking his previous position. So the beast was not only powerful, it was also a dead shot.

Too bad he was too.

Single-handedly, Vincent rearmed the Cerberus for a long distance shot. He had just glimpsed something interesting, and if he was right, he should be able to take it down with a single shot. Cape flying around him, he sought to aim at it; but he was badly positioned for such a delicate shot and the wind buffeting him further decreased his accuracy. He could not shoot from here.

His other option was to climb up, about a dozen metres from his current spot. There was a narrow ledge that should serve his purposes. He started his upwards progression, hissing in pain as he reached up to grab a new handhold to hoist himself up, but he held on and continued. Vincent completed his task in an agonisingly long minute and reached the ledge dizzy with pain. Yet, he still picked himself up and propped his battered body against the cliff, aiming at his opponent's head. Through his sniper scope, he trailed the spot he had marked, waiting for an opening.

He got it.

The bullets exploded forwards as his finger pulled the trigger, followed close by a second salvo. The gunshot stilled the monster momentarily and it caught a glimpse of more metal projectiles coming its way.

'Impudent fool,' it thought, 'these cannot harm me. Nothing can penetrate my exoskeleton!'

'Exactly'.

The bullets struck the beast just above its eyes. Its scale-covered eyelids had already snapped shut, shielding its eyes. That prevented him from seeing the second barrage coming. As the eyelids had moved upwards, they had exposed dark blue membrane beneath, just between mandibles and eyes. Three bullets penetrated the exposed area, burying deep into the flesh.

Taken aback, the monster momentarily lost its concentration and that proved to be its downfall. It lost control of the vortex and the latter started to spin crazily on itself. No longer on a straight axis, fiery projectiles were shooting out of it, raining all around.

The horrified beast could only scream as its own solar storm descended on him, burning and ripping its exoskeleton away, and disintegrating the flesh beneath to greasy cinders and finally, nothing. Only, this was not the end. The firestorm seemed to implode for a moment, tightening around a core of pure white hot energy, before releasing its power.

In a final explosion, the inferno expanded in a flashover effect, washing over the land in fiery hunger.

High up above the sea of destruction, Vincent watched, fascinated; the hot air was burning his parched throat, choking his inflamed lungs. He coughed up blood, confirming that one of his ribs had at the very least lacerated them. Vincent lay down, exhausted and out of options. He had won, but he was going to die here.

No one knew where he was; he had no potions left to patch him up or enough energy to call up a decent curative spell. Too bad he had had no time to find out whose voice it had been…

He closed his eyes. And he smiled. Maybe it wasn't so bad after all; this was a typical rookie Turk's dream.

To go in a blaze of Chaos…


Author's notes:

Some of the promised action at last, even if this chapter doesn't describe the battle from a-z. Some people I know should be happy now ;-) /wink, wink, nudge, nudge/

The monster here is one of my creations. i drew him up as i was writing this and boy, wasn't i happy i remembered those biology classes. It doesn't have a name, because i wasn't bothered to look, but anyone wishing to christen it, just tell me. i'll look your proposition(s) over and incorporate it later on, promise ;-)

as for the reason why Vincent doesn't transform here, it's simply because he didn't have the proper item to cure his status ailment. hence the reason why girls carry enormous bags; we're always prepared for anything!