FINAL FANTASY VII: Destiny's Call

Chapter 9 written by Noble....

Transformation of the 5th Power

"Yuffie, w-what's going on? Why are we evacuating Rocket Town and where is the Captain?"

"The old fart is just on the outskirts with the others. Something is one it's way and we don't know what, but from the way Aeris has been acting it sounds very dangerous".

"Oh god, Captain. He's going to get hurt or worse!" spoke a frightened Shera.

"Don't worry about Cid. He may curse and smoke himself to death, but the old man can handle whatever the Planet can throw at him", smirked the ninja.

"I hope so Yuffie...oh by the way did you-"

"....Tell him about your 'mystery' date? Oh trust me, he knows and to think he believe's me!" giggled the ninja, trying to lighten up the grim mood.

"So he DOES care about me?" questioned Shera, her curiousity growing even more.

"As long as Cid doesn't know about our little scheme, and that he thinks your with your non-existant 'date'. He's most definately gonna bust his ass over asking you".

"I can't thank you enough Yuffie", whispered the female mechanic, her thank and words geniune as were her feelings for the unoffical mayor of Rocket Town.

"Save the thanks till later. We've gotta hope that they pull through first, c'mon let's go!"

At the same moment in time, on the outskirts of Rocket Town stands that very same man who has been the object of Shera's love and deep desire's for as long as her heart can remember. The first pilot to ever fly into the vast void of space and to return with a thirst for more. A man who never forgot his dreams and had only so far in his life, a small sample of that which was practically impossible to grasp. But he had achieved it and with it came a far greater accomplishment, that made kicking the tar out of the legendary Sephiroth seem simple. Now all he had to do was deal with the next cosmic threat and get home for a cup of tea. Easy, if kicking Sephiroth's butt was Mission Impossible, then this should be a walk in the park...hopefully. But the man known as Cid Highwind was less than bothered by the next big threat, he had other things on his mind...no more than usual. His train of thought would usually consist of his dreams, smokes, cups of tea and his need to accomplish everything before it was even thought of or invented. Typical Cid mannerism, always trying to be one step ahead of the game then the rest of the Planet, it's a great way for a person to act nowadays. It shows determination and that the person of this stature is always focused on his goals....and Cid was definetly that sort of person, just in a 'cursing so loud till all hell broke loose' sort of way. With his Venus Gospel gripped in one hand, whilst the other was holding the remains of a smouldering cigarette to his mouth. He was prepared for anything.

Cid was always used to battles and at times he enjoyed them occasionally. A slight moment of tension would grip him as he anticipated and awaited the next attack, then their newest adversary would appear and there was blood.

The pilot would always enjoy a good fight, the thrill of risking it all just for a bit of fun, for the adventure...and to feel completely free. But when it came to the final battle or crunch time in Cid's case, things became deadly, more serious when it came to deciding the fate of the Planet. And now once again the fate of the entire world and everyone that lived on it was in peril once more, but this time said to be far more dealier than the almighty Sephiroth.

"A threat remains", spoke Aeris the newly ressurrected Ancient. 'And it appears to be by far the worst threat yet....Even more worse than Sephiroth and the evil spawned creature Jenova combined'.

In reality all their efforts only resulted in the spawning of an evil force greater than before. Yuffie knew all too well about the balance of good and evil from her father Lord Godo. If an evil dies a greater evil comes forth, there has to be a balance there always should be. It's just that the members of AVALANCHE didn't actually have a choice in the matter, it's either destroy Sephiroth and deal with Meteor...or don't do any thing and be annilated by the fireball from hell.

So what now? With the odds once again stacked against them that seemed so impossible to defeat, would the old cliche of good always winning against evil help them? The pilot really wished there was some truth in old sayings and war stories as he glanced up towards the skies that he had flown through and loved so much, trying to look past the blue sky to the stars that were hidden by daylight. He will succeed he declared silenty. Then maybe, just maybe he can tell Shera how he feels about her.

Another reason not to think of anything on a battle field. There was no need for a single thought, only action. Soon their unknown enemy would appear from beyond the Nibelheim mountains and then body and mind would both be needed to work in one fluid motion if any sort of survival was possible. The battle for the Planet, life and everything else that was important to Cid and the others would be up for grabs.

"Shera....please wait for me". he whispered.

Ahead of Cid was Vincent and Elena looking ahead, anxious for the battle to begin in earnest and to end as quickly as it would have started. Both were silent as no words were needed to acknowledge the fears and doubts that plagued them. Soon it would begin, god only knows how it would all end. For Vincent, its just another obstecle to him. A man with a heart and body that's grown as cold as his pale complextion, gives him reason to fear nothing. He's seen many battles in his time and always lived through them despite the outcome or despite how powerful and cunning the adversary would be, he always prevailed and completed the mission. An enemy after his life was just another target to be elimanated, nothing more.

But despite the cold exterior of the man and mental walls that blocks all from getting too close to know him, lies a single fear. One that Vincent considers to be very personal and to this day unforgetable. His sworn oath and duty to carry out the wishes of his lost love Lucrecia. With every battle that lies ahead, Vincent has constantly perserveired because of his love and determination to never fail her, and the memory of her that was etched into his mind and heart forever. He had kept her memory alive when she was forgotten and his strength and solemn vow to vanquish whatever evil that threatened to consume their planet would fall. Vincent swore it would with a passion that never died, he would not fail her again.

As for his partner Elena, she appeared more worried than Cid. Of all the times she fought in battle and won, this was the first time for worry and concern. As confident and battle hardened as Elena was, she like all the others was human and fears and doubts do tend to slip through. It's just human nature that in the most difficult of times we worry about what the next day will bring, the female Turk just couldn't handle the fact that she and the others had been thrown into a struggle which many would believe to be a fate worse than death, especially because of the fact that the new threat was said to be a thousand times more powerful than the legendary Sephiroth.

But then again never in her career as a professional assassin did Elena think she would ally herself with the rebel faction called AVALANCHE. The one group of people on the entire planet that was Shinra's most hated enemy and she was stuck fighting with them entirely out of choice. In small amount of time, Elena had already formed a steady friendship and understanding with the group, although there was some grief from Yuffie at first, she accepted her judgement but continued to plan and work with them with a straight head, as if it were the first time they had all met. The only real friendship she had recieved from the group was from Vincent. Strangly enough as the dark but silent man always kept his space and thoughts to himself, he had accepted her as an ally and could be trusted like the other members. Since he too was a former Turk, Elena understood why he would accept her as she is. If Vincent had readily accepted her as she was, maybe he would understand her concerns for worry also?

Thinking deeper about the bond between them, Elena decided it was time to question if he cared for her, just like she did for him. But what would his reaction to it be, would he really even care?

"Does the man standing beside me, who I look up too and care for so much feel the same way about me? For anyone other than me?" she mused deep in thought.

Nervously placing a hand on his shoulder, Elena composed herself and glanced at his handsome features. Vincent did not turn to face her, not even acknowledging that her hand was on his shoulder, he only cared to stare ahead.

"Vincent?"

"Yes?"

"I just want to tell you that...I've enjoyed our time together".

"?....You enjoy being with me, being in my company?"

"Yes, I thought you would understand since you were a Turk before".

"....The feeling is mutual Elena. Under the circumstances I wish it could have been on different terms".

"I know...." she whispered.

Elena knew what Vincent was talking about, this battle no matter the outcome could be very tragic indeed. For all she knew for AVALANCHE facing Sephiroth and Jenova was hard enough, but to prevail and win over evil that powerful was amazing. But with a new threat, being much darker and seductively corrupted, there stood little chance of victory, of anything. Death's cold grip would take them now or later. Battling emotions of fear and angst, tears became apparant on her beautiful features,(So little time left, I don't want to lose him), she cried inwardly.

Plucking up her courage and wiping the tears that stained her now rosy cheeks, she whispered into Vincent's ear, "Vincent...I have something that I've wanted to say to you for sometime now and since we may not live through this I-"

"Yes?"

"I just wanted to say that...."

But before Elena could finish, her lips were silenced as he placed a finger on them.

"Quiet! He's here!"

Suddenly the ground beneath them began to shake violently, bringing destruction and Chaos in it's wake as the earthquake serged towards them.

"Move!"

A quick command and the team dodged the rubble and shaky grounds effortlessly, darting form one side to the next and quickly back into a ready fighting stance, slowly the tremors subsided.

Puzzled but even more angry Barret belowed into the direction from which the attack came from, "What shit are you tryin to pull? Get the %£&* out here and show yer punk ass!"

Barret's outburst was rewarded with the destruction of the Nibelheim mountains. A blast so destructive that a mass of rock and debris were hurled at the team from the vast onslaught. Once again our heroes dodged and ducked as best they could, but Vincent stood rooted in his place, shrugging off the hailstorm and flying debris, he payed no attention to such small things and cared only to stare ahead....he would not be so easily intimidated.

All that remained of the age old Nibelheim mountains was a huge gaping hole of fire and smoke, the very air around the gaping wound of the mountains was heavily scented with the stench of death, polluted with the smell of charred corpses and brimstone. It was all unnatural and sickly evil. And from the remains of ashen stone came forth a shadow, stepping through the smoke and into the light.

"Holy Shit!" gasped Cid.

There standing mere metres from the group was a dark and foul creature, wrapped in black robes and stained with the blood of it's victims, those who were foolish enough to get in it's way. It's face remaining hidden with the blackness of the hood worn over its disfigured head, revealing only sinister emerald green eyes flashing immensly. It's hands disfigured, showing only charred bone, no flesh apparant on its clawed hands. This indeed was a dark creature, but not the one Vincent had been expecting.

"......This cannot be! You look nothing like 'dark hellfire eternal' who are you monster?"

"Dark hellfire eternal? So you know of my master? Intriguing....." hissed the creature.

"....Master? So you are not him! Then what are you, a demon?"

"I serve my master. I am Ranter of the Fallen and I am your death!"

"Why did you kill innocent people? you ugly bastard!" cursed Cid.

"With each soul I claim and collect in his name...Lord Zarathos will become strong enough to rule over all souls, and then take this world!"

"Zarathos? He is the devour of souls?" questioned Vincent.

It suddenly made sense. This Zarathos was weak. Somehow he gained access to their world, but for some reason his eventual transcendance to the realm of light drained him, so he sent out his servants to claim souls to gain him power. For him to live, he needed to feed on the souls of the living. That....monster! Another Sephiroth seeking godhood!

Acting on pure rage and honed instincts, Vincent grabbed the Death Penalty from his side and with in one swift act, he took one clear shot at the monsters head.

Expecting to see their enemy fall to the ground in a bloody heap, they instead were greeted by the shrieking of insane inhuman laughter.

"HA HA HA.....mortals. Do you honestly think you can harm me?! ME? Lord Zarathos as given me power, HIS power to take whatever he wishes. No mere weapon can harm me!" he laughed mockingly.

With that said and a simple movement of his grotesque claws, the ground beneath them erputed once again, knocking the members of AVALANCHE to the floor, startling them. Then with speed impossible to grasp or to watch by human eyes, Ranter of the Fallen charged at them, striking Cloud with a fist of pure energy, tearing at his SOLDIER uniform and armour effortlessly and drawing blood.

"Cloud!!" screamed Tifa.

The girl rushed to her lover's side, but was greeted by searing pain as the creaure latched a vice like grip on her arms, burning the girl with claws of hellfire and then by throwing Tifa in the air with great strength. She hit the ground hard and broke her left leg. She lied there trembling in agonising pain as held the broken leg tightly as if to pressure the pain to stop. But the pain intensified and her vision became fuzzy, causing her to pass out, but as she did she whimpered her lover's name in a desperate plea for help, "C-Cloud...."

Ranter laughed insanely again and decided to leave her, he would make sure that she would die very, very slowly. Turning his attention to his first victim Cloud, he lifted his claws to ensure a deathblow, but was stopped very abrubtly when a huge sharp spear peirced into his side. For the first time since the battle started, it was Ranter who let out a scream of unholy agony and pain as he felt the offending weapon being twisted and cutting sharply within his abdomen and then begin yanked out very hard and forcably.

Turning to face his attacker, he met Cid's dark glare and cheeky grin of amusement that was plastered all over his face. The Pilot was enjoying his game of torture.

"So no ordinary weapon can hurt your demonic ass eh? Well from the way you were screaming like a woman I'd say that hurt. Did it hurt you ugly &$£*?"

Before Ranter could counter-attack the smart mouthed pilot, a fierce blow connected to his jaw, breaking it, followed by a hard kick to his gut and ribcage. The creature stumbled back a few paces and as the hot spots in his line of vision cleared, he got a good look of what struck him. Towering above Ranter was a man with his own sinister glare, but this eyes burned with pure hatred and a thirst for vengeance. The eyes of one who had lost everything. It was Barret.

Gritting his teeth, Barret growled angrily like a wild bear and shoved his gun arm right into Ranters chest like he did before with this kick and shouted, "This one's for the Planet!"

The big man then unloaded the Missing Score in repeative succession in the monsters chest. Each blast shooting out a hailstorm of bullets so destructive that it caused Ranters body to become further disfigured and severly bloody as black gore was spilt on the ground below. Finally charging up a final blow Barret unloaded his Big Shot technique point blank on the Ranters chest, making the monster fly through the air and to land on the floor very painfully, causing a small crater to form around the ashen and burnt body of Ranter.

Satisfied with pelting successive amounts of well spent amunniton into the creature, Barret lowered the Missing Score and turned to Cid grinning evilly. They both in turn continued to grin even more evilly as they looked upon the smouldering corspe of Ranter...Nothing of this Planet could survive such an attack.

To their disbelief and shock, the creature rose from the ground, shrugging of the attack and glanced down to the gaping holes in his chest and stomach, "Impossible....Such power! HA HA HA...fools! Lord Zarathos will feed well on the energies of your souls!"

"Shove It!" cursed Cid.

Barret and Cid once again charged at the enemy without fear. The towering goliath was already blasting the Missing Score in repeative bursts as he charged even closer, with his fist clenched so tight it caused his knuckles to turn ghost white. Barret would mke sure that his punch would take off his head this time. The pilot followed suit and ran beside Barret, Venus Gospel clenched tightly in both hands as he prepared to shove his spear right through the monsters chest once again.

But what happened next was completely unexpected. With the smallest gesture of his disfigured claws, Ranter violently scythed the air infront of him, striking the very wind infront of him. The resulting movement caused both Cid and Barret to be thrown backwards into the air, as a sudden shockwave hit them both square in the chest. It was like a runaway train had hit them at full speed, but it wasn't even there. Both fighters hit the ground very, very hard. It pained the two to try to even move, something was pinning them down.

"Shit!" cursed Barret growling.

"!%$@£!" cried the pilot.

Ranter laughed again in amusement, he was definetly enjoying this. For all their efforts were in vain, for all the power that they possessed, they still didn't know how to use it properly. Preparing to char and tear their bodies asunder, Ranter was stopped once again when suddenly a feirce and belowing roar echoed all around him, but more importantly...above him.

He glanced upwards, only to make his eyes grow wide in fear and astonishment, as a huge purple dragon dived through clouds of lightening and serged towards him at death defying speed. Ranter could not believe such an ancient monster would come to these pitaful humans aid. But he did not get a second to ponder why the dragon had come forth, as that very menacing looking dragon open its mouth, showing gleaming teeth and energy that pulsated and grew within its very mouth. Ranter froze in the place where he stood as the King of dragons energy pulsated and continued to grow larger and larger, and then suddenly becoming released and shot at him with amazing speed and power. Ranter braced himself for the impact, but it did little as the energy hit him in one deadly and very huge blow. The fragments of energy swirled and charred his demonic form as he tried to block it, but as he kept trying to form a barrier of defense, the flames of mystical fragments and light only continued to sear his form further, causing him to scream louder than ever before. With one final blast the great dragon sent down a parting mystical ball, causing the remaining unknown energies that surrouded Ranter to grow even further and create a dome of elemental power all around him, and then finally explode and surge upwards towards the skies as the attack ended and was released.

What remained in the wake of Bahamut, was a flash of white light that covered and blinded everything. Causing a further, more bigger explosion to release upwards. The effectiveness of Bahamuts destructive Mega Flare caused the human equvialant of a nucleur bomb going off. And the detenation of a nucleur bomb is very destructive indeed.

Ranter whimpered and howled as he gripped his wounded body and tried to get back on his feet, he looked upwards towards Bahamut again with deeper fear, only to see the eternal dragon dissappear in a flash of light. Ranter then glanced forwards to see two figures materialize back into thin air, staring right back at him with their own fierce glare.

Annoyed and dumbfounded the creature growled menacingly at Vincent and Elena, the two humans that caused him great pain by somehow summoning a great dragon to their aid.

".....Monster, I give you a choice. Leave this world now....or die in unending agony!"

"Never mortal! It will be you and this wretched woman who will die in agony!"

Lifting his arm and enlosing his disfigured claw into a fist, hellfire began to serge and form before him as he fired a destructive blast. Ranter shot a blast so powerful towards Elena that it tore up the very earth beneath it, energy pierced the air as it flew closer and closer to the female Turk's Poised position. Such a blast like this would cause a horrible and bloody death for anyone foolish enough to stand in it's way, she would burn and scream in unending agony as her flesh would melt and bubble all over her body, but only if Vincent had not seen this first.

Reacting with as much speed as he could muster, Vincent ran infront of Elena, knocking her away...just as the impending shot of Hellfire hit him. From the impact Vincent was sent flying through the air, fire burning all over his body and with blood that stained Elena's face as she looked on in horror as the charred corpse of Vincent smashed clear through what remained of the rocky mountains of Nibleheim. And then as the dust settled, another huge explosion erupted once more within the mountains remains as fresh tears of sorrow flowed freely down the beautiful features of Elena.

Vincent sacrificed his life to save Elena, but in doing such a noble act rewarded him with a horrible death that no mere human, not even Vincent could survive.

"V-Vincent, n-no, No.....NO!!" screamed the woman crying even harder.

"HA HA HA....how noble, how pathetic. To think he could save you. Do you want to join him mortal?"

Elena was at a loss for words, her whole world was slowly crumbling around her. She had lost the only man that she cared about and loved with all her heart. And now he was gone....

She didn't care if she died now...."Y-you MONSTER!!!"

Holding her hands to her face to hide the tears and the constant screaming of emotional damage, she cried even harder begging for him to come back. But as she glanced upwards, in her distraught state she looked deep with the soulless eyes of Ranter of the Fallen.

"Goodbye mortal! HAHAHA!"

Then out of nowhere came a voice, deep and cryptic, not of this world echoing all around them, sending a chill of fear down the spines of our heroes and even more chills through the very being of Ranter, as the voice came to them all at once....cold and detached...

"Do no more evil......."

Author's note: It's happened. AVALANCHE fights bravely only to fall....but when all hope is lost, something else enters the fray....but who could it be? Is it Vincent? You don't want to miss out on Chapter 10 as the battle for the Planet continues....READ & REVIEW if you would all be so kind and send your Comments/Suggestions and questions to this humble writer...

Noblekaleomnislash1@hotmail.com

Take care all and farewell, see you in chapter 10!

Signed Noble....