Chapter 10: Last Man Standing

The fury that had possessed the frenzied soldiers had long since faded. An entire battalion, fully armed and equipped, had run out to the last known position of the intruder only to find what remained of a mangled corpse inside a melted magitek armor. His skin was totally rotten and bubbling, attracting flies in swarms. It was now midday in the southern continent of Neo Vector. Summer was upon them and the sun's unforgiving rays pelted the squads of soldiers with unbearable heat. Each soldier had since involved themselves in a search and destroy mission vital to the survival of the entire city . . . that is if they could find their target.

Finding one person amongst the rocky plains surrounding the Empire's capital city was proving harder than it sounded. The bright sun, tall grasses and fierce wind was a mixed blessing, so in order to be most effective, the battle group of one hundred split up into smaller groups. There was one "tin can" and two or three soldiers per group and after very little preparation, everybody separated from the main group and spread out to start their search.

"We got a lot of land to cover," one of the M-tek pilots told his subordinates, "lets spread out even more in case he tries to slip through the gap in our ranks."

The men mumbled some inappropriate words under their breath just out of range of their superior but carried out his orders anyways. Not too far ahead, the vibrant green tall grass of the Vector Plains awaited them. It was a welcome change of scenery from the over-mined dust-bowl region around the city where they were usually stuck on patrol. Endless fields of soft green swayed back and forth with a mere suggestion of breeze, the air flowing through the giant blades of grass crisp and clean.

Then men crossed into the miniature jungle, putting their guns on their shoulders as they used their hands to part the grass, "I could go to sleep in these fields and never wake up!" one of the privates yelled to his buddies that lived in the same dorm he did back at the bunker. He didn't have the slightest idea where they were going and it didn't help that the grassland towered well over all their heads, spreading for countless miles and masking everything. If he ran into any problems though, a shout would alert everybody to his location.

"Ha ha, hell yeah!!" his friend Hunter responded heartily, not too far off from his right side.

"If it wasn't for that ass in the armor back there I would!" the other person in the group added in, yelling at the top of his lungs. He was far to the upper left of the others and was starting to sound distant, but the other two soldiers still gave his joke a good laugh.

"Don't stray off too far now James!" the first guy screamed at him. He waited for a minute but only the wind answered him with a small gust, "James?" Still nothing. He began to walk towards his buddy's area but stopped suddenly when something in the brush made a noise. The sound of dead grass rustling and crunching right in front startled him and caused him to raise his guard, but whatever it was, it was beyond his line of sight. Moments later there was a dull thud landing on the ground close by. The soldier became even more frightened, raising his rifle and unlocking the safety, aiming it at any noise he heard. More rustling occurred and again more noise filled the shaken soldier's ears, followed by the same distinct thud from last time, only now it came from the opposite direction.

"Hunter, is that you?" The private cried out as he spun around, facing the direction of the last sound. He continued to walk cautiously backwards, waiting for a response but only hearing the far off noise of Magitek armor's moving and a few shouts from the rest of his battalion over the periodic whistling of the wind. The soldier would have continued to walk back to his friends but instead clumsily tripped over something, falling on his ass, "Stupid rock," he moaned as he rubbed away the dull pain in his butt.

Well, at least he THOUGHT it was a rock. The soldier's demeanor darkened when he brought his hand back close to his face and saw it was covered entirely in blood. During his mini-retreat, he had tripped over James' body and accidentally landed in a trail of his friend's blood gushing from a massive head wound. The skull had been split open and a dull gray matter seeped out through the canyon that had been created in his head. It was fresh . . . James' body was still warm and his heart was beating. The private was finding it hard to stomach being covered in blood and seeing brains bubbling out of another person's head.

He felt dry heaves telling him to throw up, but he fought them back and sucked it up, instead turning his head away. Something deeper inside his gut told to do otherwise and run. Maybe it was his instinct for survival, maybe it was fear . . . but whatever it was, he began to run as fast as he could towards the end of the grass were his superior waited in a powerful Magitek armor.

Each of the hulking war machines was equipped with a two-foot wide cannon capable of firing elemental blasts of fire, ice, and bolt. It created these devastating blasts through purely scientific means, using a variety of lasers, magnets, and different types of cores to achieve the desired beam. These walking tanks hardly got a chance at action since the end of the second Magi War. Nowadays, the cannon sat dormant underneath the steel cabin of the pilot, untested and unused. Its presence alone was usually enough to intimidate its foes.

The armors varied in color. Some were black; others a metallic green and a few were even shiny chrome. Each of the hues were indicators of model and make date, and a few were even custom jobs for some long-standing officers. The frames were even more impressive, towering twelve feet high, easily dwarfing their foes. The cockpits extended about five feet in length and three feet in width, designed to act as a countermeasure to the rest of the Magitek armor and keep its balance. A quick look-over of the body showed it was supported by two hydraulic legs bent like gazelles' to create maximum mobility and wide platforms attached on the feet to distribute the machine's overbearing weight.

If the soldier could make it to a M-tek armor, he would be safe.

The grass was proving difficult to run in and his gun was getting caught on it time and again. As he sped up, leaping over puddles and ditches, the strap of the gun got caught on something and was tugged out of the private's hand. It landed in the soft dirt without a sound. The soldier stopped quickly and looked back anxiously at the black gun lying against the green and brown grass. Should he risk his life to get it or should he let it lay and continue to run? His split second decision was interrupted by a swift figure passing behind him. Startled, he drew his small saber and raised it to its ready position, his hands shaking uncontrollably as he held it tightly.

The soldier listened for anything . . . a pounding of footsteps, talking, and even heavy breathing. He needed something to alert him, but all that could be heard was the whisper of wind flowing through his short brown hair. Somewhere in the distance of the seemingly endless fields, he heard a scream. A bloodcurdling scream that you'd hear coming from a person getting their insides ripped out . . .

Further off in the tall grass . . .

Gau slashed feverishly at the soldier's stomach until the skin parted, spilling his intestines onto the ground. The man screamed and fell to the ground, clutching his insides and throwing up blood. Gau was about to mutilate the body even farther but his cover had been blown and his spot found.

"He's over here!" a trooper close to Gau yelled to his comrades. The soldier raised his gun and fired repeatedly at the green skinned boy, but Gau was too fast and the color of his figure blurred with the grass, making him almost invisible to the naked eye. Each of the bullets penetrated harmlessly into the dirt around him or pounded through a thousand blades of prairie grass before stopping. The wild boy quickly dodged each shot, sprinting into the foliage with ease and disappearing out of sight. Without hesitation he darted towards the soldier that had shot at him, staying low to the ground like a monkey before jumping out of the brush and snatching the gun away. The soldier gasped in surprise as the small 'beast' then proceeded to throw it far away from their position. Before the gun had even landed, the soldier had his sword unsheathed, swinging furiously at Gau's body. His technique was erratic, whistling through the air with great power but with no accuracy. If the slash was high Gau leaned back, low he did a back flip, all the while moving back in closely to wait for his moment of attack. There was something feral about his movement, almost like he moved on instinct alone, easily managing to avoid every slice and stab thrown at him as though it was second nature.

"Stand still!" the desperate trooper wheezed as another swing missed the green monster. All of the unnecessary movements were taking their toll and he was getting tired very quickly. If he kept up his insane pace, he'd be at the mercy of his assailant in no time. With a lucky move, he somehow landed a deep cut on his freakishly fast foe's shoulder. Stunned for a moment, Gau jumped back and clutched his injury, screaming in pain as he examined the open flesh. Curiously, he drew a finger over the wound and brought the salty blood from his own body into his mouth.

"He he . . ." Gau laughed as a drop of it collected at the corner of his mouth and fell. Blood had begun to trickle down his arm as the lonely intruder lifted his weakened arm and beckoned the soldier to attack again. With a raised sword the soldier came down hard on Gau from above, but was surprised as he felt a radical power suddenly surge inside of the boy.

Gau caught the sword with one hand and cleaved it in two with the claws of the other. The soldier gaped in horror, his mouth wide open at the jagged piece of metal that was his last line of defense. While the infantryman stared in disbelief at the small kid's show of power, Gau made his move and jammed razor sharp claws directly into the man's chest. The soldier dropped the hilt of the sword to the ground as the monster's hand broke through his rib cage, pushing fragments of bone into his vital organs. Cringing in pain, the soldier felt Gau's hand drive deeper into his body and rupture his lung, squeezing it with a look of sadistic pleasure. He breathed in deep as Gau retracted his blood-covered limb from his chest. When the trooper went to exhale, blood spewed up and sprayed all over his uniform. He looked down, crying as he saw massive amounts of it shooting out of his body . . . he was dead before he hit the ground.

Two speeding objects came extremely close to Gau's head as he relished in the violence of the moment. He turned around and heard a group of men hurriedly approaching him. A second volley of bullets whizzed by, shredding and destroying the grass behind him. Too many things were happening at one time and yet another sound joined in the cacophony that was growing around Gau. The delirious boy saw a huge object approaching him but all he could see was the grass folding and flattening out in the near vicinity. It didn't take long to find out that the grass was being crunched underneath the wide metal structure of a single Magitek armor. Soon enough it parted the tall grass away and targeted Gau.

The soldiers on foot were extremely close. The stench of sweat and body odor hung heavily in the air and were easy to make out with the animalistic senses of the wild boy. A high-pitched whirring noise followed by a click came from the armor, thousands of points of light collected in its maw. The sulfur-like smell told him it was charging up its Fire Beam as Gau ducked low to the ground and backed away from the machine quietly.

"There he is. Get him!!!" one of the unsuspecting soldiers yelled. They rushed forward firing wildly, narrowly missing Gau and falling into his trap . . .

The final click was heard and a spark ignited the flame. With a grin and relative ease, Gau pushed off the spongy ground and leapt high into the air. A wide arcing burst of flame shot forth from the M-tek armor like an angry dragon and engulfed a hundred foot area in its fury, including the soldiers chasing Gau. The men screamed and clutched at their bubbling flesh as the flame continued to spread. The last soldier of the group that had lagged behind saw the vengeful fire swallow his friends before coming straight for him. The flames reflected off his glassy blue eyes and then quickly incinerated him.

Another sly smirk filled Gau's face as he relished in the chaos he had given birth to. He lowered himself to the ground slowly, barely hovering over the ground. He kept himself suspended a couple feet in the air above the still smoldering field, surveying the destruction. The grass had burned terribly fast and in a few minutes, and only embers and ashes now remained. There was nothing for Gau to fear anymore. The black materia had lent him its power for the moment and he was invulnerable to any attack these peons could throw at him. His attention rapidly shifted back to the pilot of the armor that had fired at him. The monstrous evil inside Gau elevated his body ten feet above the cockpit and stared down as the pilot scurried to charge up his next shot.

'Stop messing with these weaklings . . . destroy them already,' a voice boomed inside Gau's head. The boy's mind screamed in pain.

'Bring the stone to us . . . we'll show you its true power,' a different voice bellowed. Gau gripped his hair and tried to rip it out as another flash of pain overwhelmed him.

"Yes," Gau replied to thin air, "Me understand . . . " He now acted without emotion . . . Gau was on a mission and would stop at nothing to complete it . . . even if it killed him. He went into a rage and became infused with the power of Proto Armor, mimicking the strength of the far superior brother in the family of Magitek armors.

"Shit . . ." was all the pilot could murmur as a laser beam cackled inside Gau's throat and bore down on him from the skies. With deadly accuracy it seared a 5-inch diameter hole through his chest and into the power core of the clunky machine as well. No sooner did the energy blast pass through the armor did the machine itself go critical. Steam shot out the sides and gas sprayed all over the tall grass, and in a chain reaction, the power core blew and ignited the highly volatile fuel. A second explosion blasted chunks of the chassis apart and sent red-hot shrapnel flying in all directions, killing a squad of men that were running to investigate the commotion.

Feeling cocky, Gau rose a couple hundred feet higher into the air and surveyed the mass of his entire opposition. About forty men were moving slowly to flank his last position and the remaining 29 armors had formed a makeshift parameter around the whole area making them easy targets.

"Weaklings," Gau snickered, "just like they say . . . they're all weaklings," He aimed his palms at the soldiers and let go a barrage of laser blasts from the palms of his hands. Pure energy seemed to collect out of nowhere for each deadly shot, flowing through his body like blood. Some of the beams hit their targets dead on, liquefying the bodies of soldiers while others were incinerated by the superheated shockwave that ran along the ground if the beams missed. Not one of the ground troops had a chance of surviving . . .

The hides that used to cover Gau's small frame were now tattered and barely hung on his slim body. His arms had veins jutting across them like the tributaries of a river, pumping constant surges of power and energy through his body. The poor boy's eyes had become bloodshot from the constant punishment he was putting on his body and it felt to Gau that if he had to fight anymore that his arms would fall off and his body would literally explode.

The next attack would almost succeed in doing so.

Gau had kept track of most the positions of the armors during the last bout but realized that he missed one as it discharged a bolt beam that hit him directly in the back. He winced in great pain as the cannon's beam coursed through his nervous system, shocking his heart and singeing his nerve endings. He tried to grab his back as a dark colored burn instantly formed on his skin, but during the frantic struggle he fainted from the pain and began to fall. The green, shoulder-blade length hair flowed uncontrollably behind Gau as his body went limp and fell into a freefall towards the earth. The pilots in their Magitek armors watched the boy fall like a rock, relieved that it was over but then also saw that he slowed down and almost stopped halfway to the ground.

The body of the boy shook violently as he curled himself up into a ball, digging his sharp nails into his body to the point of injury, "AHHHHHHHH!!" Gau screamed in anguish as he hovered defiantly in the air. He tensed up his arms, putting them to his sides and watching them pulse as the miraculous black materia healed his broken body. Gritting his teeth, Gau grunted and dealt with the unbearable boiling of his blood as the gash on his shoulder healed first. Soon after, his recent cuts and scratches sealed up, followed by a lightening of his dark bruises. After almost a minute of excruciating torment, he finally felt the bubbled blisters from the burn on his back sooth and disappear, his skin tightening and forming an even tougher layer than before.

"Kill him now!!" the Lieutenant yelled into his com, his voice screeching over everybody's controls. All twenty-nine cannons charging and clicking at the same time created a nightmarish symphony that was carried and intensified by the wind. In a matter of seconds the wrath of the Empire's Sixth division was released against the lone intruder. Beam upon beam struck Gau as he crouched into a ball, hoping to blunt the attack.

Each time a blast connected it sounded like thunder and looked like a miniature nuclear explosion mushrooming out in all directions. God knows how it felt inside the sphere of light and intense fire far above in the sky. For a couple minutes it seemed as though the planet had another sun, a sun whose blazes of hell punished the wicked. The few lucky infantrymen that had survived could barely stand against the heat and ran away from its path. The three different elements collided with each other over and over when they hit their target, creating a shockwave that fell down towards the ground and stirred dust and dirt in its wake. The planet itself began to cry out in pain as the explosions merely met another explosion and manifested itself further outward. Grass disintegrated from the unholy flames of the Magitek battalion and the ground spilt apart in some places, churning heavy rocks into the air. Well after this day passed, it was said that some of the blasts could be felt all the way back at the stalwart walls of Neo Vector . . .

"Cease fire!" the Lieutenant ordered his remaining pilots. His uniform was soaked in sweat from the intense heat given off when his cannon fired. Focusing his sight below the dirt cloud that had formed from the fighting, he waited for the demon to fall. The officer waited longer and still longer, but nothing fell. Once the dirt clouds had finally dissipated with the returning breeze, Gau could be seen still in his fetal position, not a mark on his body . . .

He uncurled his form and stared hatefully at the commander of the attack. A grainy black mist flowed from Gau's palms and rose like smoke from a smoldering gun into the air. Had he somehow managed to deflect the entire barrage of energy beams with brute force? The pilots could do nothing but watch as their guns cooled down, overheated from their overzealous assault. Some anticipated what was going to happen next and tried to escape from the battlefield before it occurred. Others waited from within their cockpits, more faithful in their weaponry in hopes that they could launch another attack. They were foolhardy however, and knew that even if they managed the same volley as last time, it would have no affect. They would die as soldiers in battle . . . and not as cowards.

"Such power . . . "the captain gawked as he absent-mindedly assessed the situation.

Gau closed his eyes and raised his hands over his head. A mist suddenly converged into a black vortex in the skies above and undulated ominously over all of them,

"It's impossible to have attained it . . ."

Those that looked into the vortex saw nothing. It was as if it contained the form of the cosmos before the universe itself had been born. Like dark waves of silence and death, it grew exponentially until if overshadowed all of Gau's enemies. All it took was a matter of seconds to reach an adequate size and Gau moved his hands downwards, dragging the spell slowly over his head. In moments it moved towards the ground with horrifying speed . . .

"Unless . . ."

Some of the soldiers that hadn't run away stared blankly into the entrancing spell as it approached them, perhaps to try and see its mysterious beauty right before their undoing. Or maybe, just maybe, to come and realize the secrets of the universe in the fleeting second before it hit.

"It's magic."

The borders of the anomaly curved and spiked before finally encompassing the surface of the fresh earth that had just been laid to waste. As it did, the blackness shrunk and took everything inside it like a small black hole. Even a chunk of the planet couldn't get away from the unknown dimension known only as the X-zone. A second later the spell collapsed and swallowed everything it touched. The men, the Magitek armors, and an island of land would float forever in oblivion, never to be heard of again.

Back at area of first sighting

A young man in his early twenties lay crying in the undisturbed tall grass. The whole time he had hid himself from the battle so that his own screams wouldn't intertwine with those of his friends. It was now a couple hours later, and all that met his ears was silence.

"I'm such a coward," he belittled himself, "I should have helped them . . ." He knew it would have been futile if he had, and that's why he chose to run away and hide instead. Somehow, amongst the deep, eerie silence which surrounded him in all directions, the man collected enough courage to take a look around. He saw a stubby tree in the distance and it didn't take a long time to climb up to the top, "Oh my god," he said in disbelief. The private thought that his eyes were playing tricks on him as he surveyed the area. Gau was gone . . . and so was everybody else for that matter. All that remained was a gigantic crater, void of plants, machines, and humans. There were still a couple charred corpses noticeable from his vantage point but not a single piece of heavy artillery was visible. He was the last man standing.