Featured Author ocs:

Hikari-Angel143- Carmina Sanchez
Lucas Bane- Lucas Fedrick
Pikpixie03- Rally Nightshade
Roseria Slyvester- Rosetta "Rose" Sonoma
Zalger248- Shuyan Chao
TheUndyingCrystal- Cynthia Gordon
AWESOME AUSSIE GURL- Isabelle Smith


Chapter 29: Redemption

Opening Theme: "Raise your Weapon" Deadmau5

(Lucas POV)

What happened back there? I fell head over heels like some amateur insecure teenage girl meeting a shitty emo singer back stage at an alternative concert. For someone like me to make such a mistake, despite how beautiful that goddess was. She was still an enemy, I'd endangered the my life and the life of my comrades with that...the only way I see I can make up for that mistake is completing this mission.

We posted up together in a small cylinder shaped elevator riding from the 67th Lab floor to the 68th Lab floor where Professor Hojo was sure to be. According to my knowledge of the Final Fantasy VII world, Hojo's actions create serious problems for the here after. So it's best to kill him right now, I'm 100 percent sure he has not injected himself with Jenova Cells just yet. Which would make killing him that much easier.

As we road the elevator up to the 68th floor there was a brief silence, everyone had grim looks on their faces. Carmina looked like her soul had left her body, Izzy was alittle disturbed by the images she saw as well and Rose was seemingly falling to pieces. Not that I'm sexist but that's why I'd much rather prefer men when it comes to the battlefield.

Women especially if they weren't bred on the battlefield like these three, aren't emotionally stable enough to handle stuff of this magnitude. We'd arrived at the 67th floor to find Lecter, the estranged Alucard-esque SOLDIER who claimed to know Kel in his past life on Earth. Not only did he reunite with her, he also saw a clone of himself floating in a test tube. Fucked up stuff, but he still kept himself together enough to tell us to press on.

Above all else, the mission is priority. We must rescue Aerith and kill ShinRa's department heads, though I haven't seen any. I was assuming that Heidegger and Scarlet had both evacuated. They don't matter in the long run, the only ones that actually impact this world at large is President ShinRa and Professor Hojo.

Neither of which were to escape this building alive.

The doors to the elevators opened with a pressure release of steam as we boiled out into a more advanced lab filled with computers, flashing walls and many lab tables holding hundreds of beacons. Before us was a massive clear tank with Aerith striking at the glass constantly.

"Aerith!" I called out to the pretty flower girl.

"Aerith? Oh is that her name? What do you want?" Hojo the old wrinkled man in a white coat with a witch-like face and bent nose. He pressed away at the console infront of him speaking to us like we were a mere nothing.

Carmina surprised me with her fast movement, she leaped into the air and sent her knee crashing into Hojo's face causing him to spit up blood and his body to lean backwards and slid across the floor like a limp noodle. "I've about had it with the bad guys getting their WAY! Let's cut the gawddamn chatter! GET AERITH OUT NOW!"

Hojo laid on the floor. "Wait...What are you going to do? Kill me? Heh...heh..." He tried to speak between gasps of air. "This equipment is extremely sensitive and only I can operate it." He gasped bleeding from his nose, the gushes of blood splattered onto his lab coat in a red inky mess.

WHAM!

Izzy struck Hojo over the side of the head then grabbed him by his bloody lab coat. "Who cares about working the tech, all we need to do is bang it up abit and Aerith's free. Like presto!"

Rose marched up to the glass tube and raised her large ring blade. "Aerith step away from the glass." She ordered and Aerith hopped to the opposite side covering her head and bending down into a ball. In the very center of the ring formed a ball of ice, she fired it like a missile and it shattered the glass without making too much of a mess to damage Aerith.

And like that our flower girl was free.

"Rose, Carmina, Izzy!" Aerith came out and with that the four hugged.

I was left dumbfounded, here I was judging them before as being too emotionally weak yet they managed to bust Aerith out while I stood here like an idiot. But there was something I could do, during the girls reunion hug I marched towards Hojo whom was trying to crawl towards the console to release what was Specimen H0512. Before he could reach it however I drew my katana from it's scabbard with both hands.

"Decades of suffering, ended with one swoop." I said.

Hojo stopped crawling then looked up at me as I swung my blade from right to left, slitting his throat and splattering his blood across the floor of the lab. Hojo, the very pinnacle of this world's future suffering...his life ended in only afew seconds. It was nowhere near satisfying, I wanted him to suffer more than that...he of all people didn't deserve a quick death. But I was running low on time.

In 5 minutes the President's Chopper was gonna be here and he was going to get away.

I turned towards the girls noticing there was a pepper red wolf like creature with a flame at the end of it's tail. The monster had indian like feathers in it's head and one of it's eyes seemingly gouged out. Red XIII, I'd completely forgot about him. I was abit weary at first but I knuckled down and approached them and the talking dog-lion creature.

"We have Aerith now, phase one of the mission is complete. You guys are gonna have to get outta here now." I ordered. "I'm going after the President."

"Let us go with you, Lucas. I'm tired of leaving friends behind." Carmina placed a palm on her chest squeezing the silver dogtags hanging from her neck.

"Carmina don't. We're on a mission here and we're given our orders." Izzy said placing a hand on the sullen Carmina.

It gave me somewhat of a fulfilling feeling inside having these girls care about my life like this. It made me want to come home safe to them, it gave me drive, motivation. I kind of see why Kel keeps them around. "Is Kel here?" Aerith asked me and I nodded.

"Yeah, but he's fighting his own battle right now. He sent us to get you...but now we're parting ways." I walked over to Hojo's corpse and dug into the lab coat pulling out an all access ShinRa ID card then tossed it to Rose. "Use this to get out of here. Find the basement level and steal a car then get going back to the Slums."

Aerith murmured. "So he did come for me."

"You got it." Rose nodded.

Aerith bowed her head. "Thank you so much for saving us."

"I am also in your debt." RedXIII bowed his head which was totally weird. I don't care what I've been through up til now...having a dog talk to you is one of the most game-changing, bone chilling, eye popping experiences ever.

"Pay me back by keeping these ladies safe." I said to the dog.

He nodded and with that they were off taking a different elevator down. I inhaled then left Hojo's lab advancing upstairs from the lab and into an alternate hallway where I could see afew gazebos. From there I took the filtered stairs upward until I'd finally reached the golden level which was where the top level executives of ShinRa conducted their business.

I bolted through the massive office of the executives who watched the war from the windows in horror. Then made a turn into the President's Office where I kicked in the double doors seeing the all marble office. The President had his back turned to me staring out the window with his cane to the floor.

Standing at his side was Tseng who was ready to defend the Prez at all costs. The moment I'd appeared Tseng started to unfasten his tie alittle as he walked around the President's massive circular desk.

"Well if it isn't the outdated samurai." Tseng said keeping his hands safely tucked away into his pocket.

"Tseng...heh fate is a silly girl sometimes. Ever since you made your cheap shots at the plate dropping kicking your ass has been all I could ever think about." I lied.

"Who're you?" The President asked turning to face me. "And where did you come from?"

"Heh...I'm Lucas Fedrick. And I came from hell...to tell you we've got room for two more assholes." I said pointing at both him and Tseng. The President then began to panic, he began to limp from using his cane to get to the patio outside. I gathered a fire spell into my left palm and blasted the ceiling above the patio door shutting it off with rubble. "Nobody leaves you fat fuck..."

POW!

Before I knew it Tseng had shoved his elbow into my face sending me flipping backwards I went flying out of the door I just kicked out. I flipped back in mid air and went sliding backwards on one knee. Tseng walked to the mouth of the door leading to the President's office as he took his tie off he tossed it into the air behind him.

"That's as far as you go samurai. I'll give you two choices because I am such a forgiving man. You can choose to either lie amongst the rubble of Sector 07 from whence you came... or you can die a miserable and slow death by my hand here." Tseng raised a fist then slowly clenched it and I could hear his knuckles and bones snap and pop.

With that I smirked, stood to my feet and took off my Bleach Shinigami Haori, I undone the upper part of my shihakushou and tied it around my waist leaving my chest bare revealing my washboard abs and pecks. With that I drew my katana and tomahawk and bent my knees. "I like the third option where I hack your sorry ass us and scatter you across the city then lop off your President's Head and shove it up his ass."

"Then I'll show you no mercy." Tseng replied.

"I'll have it no other way." I grinned.

Time for alittle payback!