"HOSTILE FORCES! DEFEND THE TOWN!" he shouted at a couple of infantrymen who had also become transfixed. "GET ALL CITIZENS INSIDE!"
The infantrymen jumped, saluted, and took off at run. A moment later one of the emergency sirens for the coal mines began to blair, its thin, feline wail piercing the air. A moment later his spiky-haired second came racing up the street.
"What we got?" he asked, slightly breathless, flipping a hasty salute.
"Scramble the SOLDIERs to engage," Sephiroth told him, already striding toward the invaders, forcing Elfe to trot in order to keep pace. "Keep the rookies here to hold the defensive. Vincent!"
The man with the colored contacts had appeared as if by magic at the General's elbow.
"Tell Tseng what's going on," Sephiroth continued. "You and the other Turks engage or support as needed. See if you can put the former President's explosives to good use."
Elfe tried to keep the red-eyed man in sight as he saluted and ran in the other direction, but soon lost him amid the rush of troops and the general controlled panic that had enveloped the village.
"We'll help," she put in. Avalanche might be made up of vigilantes, but they were not about to let a village full of innocent people suffer.
"Do what you do best," Sephiroth told her without looking away from the advancing troops. "Avalanche is far better at guerilla tactics than SOLDIERs are. We have the armor and the firepower, we'll take point. Have your people assemble and support us from the sides and the rear."
Elfe fought the instinct to salute and shout 'Sir!' She had fought for Avalanche for ten years, commanded it for the last three, but all of their military forays had been covert. Open engagement was not something in which her people had much experience. Instead she nodded and confirmed her agreement with a simple "Right!" before darting for her own camp.
It didn't take long to assemble the troops. Sephiroth was right. What had once been a vast and seemingly undefeatable army had been sadly depleted. Many recruits and conscripts had resigned shortly after Wutai. The defection of Sephiroth's fellow SOLDIER officers Angeal and Genesis and their respective units had put a further dent in the military population. It didn't take a genius to realize at a glance that even with Avalanche and the Turks as auxiliary, Sephiroth's remaining troops were pathetically outnumbered. Sephiroth had seen live combat at just fifteen and had become a General at twenty. He had to be good at more than just piling up corpses. If he was going to prove his military brilliance, now would be the time to do it.
This was bad. This was so bad. The cold feeling had settled in Sephiroth's gut again; not so much for himself, but for the men around him. Shinra would retaliate, he had known that when he'd left and taken the army with him. He had not, however, expected this. There were more, far more than he ever could have imagined. Where they had come from he could not begin to guess. Behind the armor, below the uniforms, these soldiers looked more like beasts than people. Indeed, many of them galloped up the rocky slope on all fours.
"HOLD FAST!" he called back, drawing Masamune from her sheath. "DO NOT BREAK RANK, DO NOT GIVE GROUND! IF SHINRA WANTS ITS ARMY BACK, I SAY WE GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT!"
Battles for Sephiroth were made up of beginnings and endings. If he was lucky, time to plan, to strategize, to train and prepare. Otherwise all he could do was draw steel and charge in head-first.
There was a zen-like quality to battle. The concussion of heavy artillery, the barrage of gunfire, the clash of steel on steel and the cries of men and beasts blended together into a cacophony so deafening it diminished in his ears to mere white noise; silence born of chaos. His sword arm rose and fell, hewing down men and beasts as if they were no more than dry grass. Most of the soldiers he cut down barely registered unless they put up a fight. Few of them ever did. They were not people but obstacles; a hostile force there to put an end to both his men and himself and the village if he let them.
On either side of him SOLDIERs and Shinra infantry did their best to follow suit, carving a bloody path through flesh and armor with steel and lead. In Wutai they had mown down the native troops in their wood and copper armor like dry grass, but were having a hard time of it now. For every soldier cut down, three more seemed to spring up to replace them. Gunfire echoed off the mountains, the sound magnified by the bare rock loud enough to deafen. Bullets chipped at treebark, buried themselves in flesh, sending splinters and blood spraying in all directions. Muttering to himself, Sephiroth extended his free hand, sending a column of fire into the oncoming horde, the better to clear the field. The gap left by the charred bodies remained open for perhaps ten seconds, closing rapidly as more faceless soldiers poured in like water into a trench. They were fast, as easily as fast and also as strong as the SOLDIERs. Most were armed with rifles, but several carried swords. It was almost like fighting machines; their movements short and precise with the force to back them up, but strangely lacking in style. While their speed and strength made them more annoying to combat, what was becoming increasingly alarming was the sheer number of them. There seemed to be no end to the gray-clad figures still charging up the mountain toward Corel. It was as if his own troops had not even put a dent in them.
Leaping out of the way of a mortar shell, Sephiroth chanced a quick look around. Although there was no trace of the red-headed woman he had fought before, the leader had to be somewhere. There. Back a bit and holding one of the short-range cannons as if it were no more than a rifle was the biggest person Sephiroth had ever seen. He had to be the one in charge.
"FOCUS ON THE LEADER!" he bellowed above the roar of battle. "CONCENTRATE ALL FIRE ON THE GIANT!"
A Giant he was. The man had to be close to ten foot tall. Stranger things had been bred in the depths of the Shinra lab, but Sephiroth had not seen anything like this man before. He was absolutely enormous with legs and arms as thick around as tree trunks. Although he wore body armor, he had not bothered with a helmet. Piercing gold eyes stared from below brows and short-cropped hair of SOLDIER-blue. Clearly he'd been infused with an absurd amount of makou. Stripes of the same brilliant blue had been painted down his cheeks. It took him a moment, but at last Sephiroth was able to place the design: tattoos unique to Costan natives. Very curious. He wasn't given any further time to ponder what a ten-foot-tall aboriginal was doing wielding a cannon on the battlefield. The Giant had fired straight at him and Sephiroth had dive out of the way to avoid both the shell and the shrapnel it threw upon impact.
Okay, now he was getting annoyed.
The Giant grinned, turning to face him again. Although the time it took to swing the canon around slowed him somewhat, clearly his own size was no hindrance for the enormous soldier.
"General Sephiroth," the big man boomed in a voice so deep it must have begun at his toes. "What an honor."
Sephiroth ignored the taunt. Only recruits too green to know any better engaged in a verbal duel while crossing live weaponry. Instead he dove forward, past the six-foot barrel and aimed a slash at the Giant's unprotected arms. To his mild surprise the Giant swung the canon up, just blocking Masamune's long blade. She bit deep into the metal, but did not sever the barrel completely. The cut had not been meant to kill, only to injure. Yanking Masamune free, Sephiroth took a step back, careful to remain too far into the Giant's personal space for him to use the canon as intended, forcing him to swing it like a bludgeon. Although he hated to dull her blade on metal, Sephiroth swung Masamune in a series of feints, making the Giant use his canon not as a firearm but as a shield. In a matter of seconds the weapon was fizzing and sparking, the barrel sheared off at its base, utterly useless. The Giant hurriedly tossed it aside before it could explode. It landed amid a cluster of gray-clad troops, leaving behind only a smoking crater. Sephiroth blinked, horrified. Did the lives of the Giant's men really matter so little? Leaning in close, the Giant took a swipe at him. Although his upper arms were bare, his hands and forearms were protected by studded gloves and thick gauntlets. Striking the Giant's knuckles with Masamune's blade did little more than produce a shower of sparks. Even still, bare knuckles were no match for a blade.
"Surrender," Sephiroth advised. "You and your troops will be well-treated."
The Giant laughed, a sound that would have been chilling if Sephiroth hadn't so often heard the same hollow bark from Vincent's throat.
"Isn't it you Shinra lot who say that failure is not an option?" the Giant replied, charging toward him.
It was the ones who'd lost their conscience that were the most dangerous. They didn't care; not about their men, nor about themselves. If the Giant had nothing left to lose, it would not occur to him to pull his punches, as it were. It wasn't easy to dodge his attacks, to sneak his own in past the rapid fire of the Giant's fists. It was almost like fighting Angeal and Genesis; would have been a delightful match had present circumstances not been so deadly serious. At last Sephiroth managed to land a blow, Masamune's blade raking a long cut up the Giant's shoulder. The Giant jerked in pain, bellowed in rage, and Sephiroth took the opportunity to bury his sword deep in the Giant's flesh. Unable to yank Masamune free in time, the Giant's wrist caught him square in the middle, sending him tumbling to the dirt.
Embarrassed and not a little annoyed with himself, Sephiroth managed to land on his feet, sending up a huge cloud of dust as he skidded to a halt. Unable to lift his dominant arm, the Giant snarled at the sudden press of gunfire from the Shinra troops now that their general was out of the way. Many of the shots met their mark, sending rivulets of black blood trailing down his uniform, but the Giant just stood there laughing. The sound eerily familiar, Sephiroth could only stand and watch as realization clicked into place:
He wants his limit break to trigger.
It was surreal, like watching Vincent but magnified. The Giant threw back his head and howled, his blue hair seeming to flow and waver like grass in the wind, traveling down until it covered his entire body. His skull contorted, horns sprouting from his heavy brows, fangs and claws appearing where there had been none. Half a heartbeat later a King Behemoth stood where the Giant had been. The beast roared, throwing back its head before charging straight for him. Sephiroth readied Masamune, but started as a familiar voice penetrated the noise.
"No," Vincent said, holding a hand out for him to stay back. "I've got this."
It took Sephiroth half a second to make the leap of logic. "Going to show him who's Alpha Male?"
"It isn't him," Vincent rumbled and charged toward the raging beast.
"STAND DOWN!" Sephiroth shouted, signaling with one hand for the troops to halt. "HOLD YOUR FIRE! HOLD YOUR FIRE!"
This of course did not stop the opposing forces from firing on Vincent or anyone else. While Vincent had to absorb the damage necessary to trigger a limit break, Sephiroth didn't want him to die on the way there.
"CONCENTRATE FIRE ON INCOMING!" he bellowed. "DO NOT ENGAGE THE BEAST!"
Leaving the monster to Vincent, Sephiroth readied Masamune for a fresh assault. Dealing with the infantry and four-legged troops was simpler than combatting the Giant; requiring less ingenuity and more brute force to keep the seemingly endless onslaught under control. A good thing too, since the bulk of the Shinra forces consisted of recruits carrying rifles. Spraying the enemy with a barrage of bullets took down more soldiers at a time than engaging hand-to-hand individually with swords.
Although Avalanche and the Turks had entered the fray, it didn't seem to have made much difference. Zack's unit was still largely intact if the knot of blue and purple uniforms were any indication, as were most of the other units hacking away at the endless gray. With no armor to speak of, the Turks had fallen back to act as snipers, picking off any enemy troops that had somehow managed to penetrate the line, or who were making a nuisance of themselves to the soldiers who already had their hands full.
Avalanche, as he'd mentioned himself, were much better at fighting dirty and were giving as good as they got. Not bothering with more formal military tactics, they did everything from simply shooting to employing more ingenuous strategies such as triplines, falling rocks, and other simple yet effective traps. Elfe's white cape shone starkly amide the wash of gray, black, and blue, which was strangely reassuring. However, lacking the heavy armor and high-quality weapons of the Shinra troops, it was easy to see that it wouldn't take much to overwhelm them.
"FENRIR SQUAD, GIVE AVALANCHE A HAND!" he hollered, already making a run for the knot of vigilantes. "GET THEM OUT OF THAT CORNER!"
A savage growl brought his attention back to Vincent and the Giant. Chancing a glance over his shoulder, he looked just in time to see Vincent undergo his own gruesome transformation. The Behemoth seemed surprised at this, but recovered quickly. The two beasts stared each other down, ears flat, hackles raised, jowls curled back in twin snarls. Vincent- Gallian- struck first, lunging in to latch his jaws around the Behemoth's thick scruff. To Sephiroth's surprise, the larger animal stumbled at the impact, rolling onto its side. The beast struggled to stand, but Gallian grabbed it with both of his hand-like forepaws and shoved it to the ground again. Gallian, despite being about half the size of the King Behemoth had the advantage of thumbs and the ability to stand upright. Clearly the larger animal was struggling to fend off something that fought with the combined strength of both man and beast. The larger animal growled, jaws snapping, finally throwing Gallian off. It lunged at him, all teeth and rage, but Gallian met him head on. Standing on his hind legs, he howled, unleashing a burst of fireballs. Sephiroth blinked. Gallian knew magic.
"Little help, Boss!"
It was Zack, stumbling back and almost into him as he cut down another anonymous soldier. Sephiroth shook himself, refocusing on the task at hand. Although he had not been idle while he watched Gallian fight, he hadn't truly been giving his full attention to the battle. Corpses were piling up thick on the ground, making it difficult for his men and the never-ending onslaught of enemy combatants to walk.
"The hell are they all coming from?" Zack demanded, slicing yet another one of the four-legged attackers in half. "There's too damn many of them!"
"Vincent's got the leader well in hand- er- paw," Sephiroth told him, twirling to catch two at once with the sharp side of Masamune's blade. "Once the commander falls they'll retreat if not surrender."
"Here's hoping!" Zack agreed, charging forward when an opening finally appeared amid the endless flood of gray uniforms. Like the point of an arrow he tore through the wall of gray, black and purple following behind him, hewing down troops on either side. It did not take them long to force their way through, the green of Avalanche uniforms rushing forward to push the gray back.
"ABOUT DAMN TIME!" Elfe shouted, stabbing one of the beast-like soldiers and shoving it away.
"SORRY!" Zack shouted back. "WE'RE ALL A LITTLE BUSY!"
Elfe's unit was higher up, occupying a narrow pass between the cliffs that would not allow sufficient access for a large number should the enemy troops discover it, but was a vulnerable spot nonetheless. From this vantage it was easier to see what he could not farther down the hillside: they weren't just losing, they were drowning. Although the vast majority of the dead wore gray, there were too many Shinra and Avalanche uniforms among them; spots of color beneath a thick layer of blood and dirt. Zack was right. There were simply too many.
"Tell me you have a plan," Elfe panted, making her way over, cutting down a few additional troops as she went. Sephiroth opened his mouth to reply- a wise-crack befitting Zack on the tip of his tongue- when another voice split the noise of the battle.
"TASTE MY STEEL, SHINRA LAP DOGS!"
"What the everloving fuck?" Zack asked, voicing Sephiroth's thoughts. "Are you kidding me?!"
Sephiroth stared open-mouthed as a ghost and several more like him descended from the ledge above.
"WHEN THE WAR OF THE BEASTS BRINGS ABOUT THE WORLD'S END, THE GODDESS SHALL DESCEND FROM THE SKY!" the ghost cried, and plunged his burning blade into the earth as he landed, sending out a shockwave that knocked several dozen of the gray-clad troops flat on their backs.
Well, if he needed any further proof, there it was. Only Genesis Rhapsodos would charge into battle quoting "Loveless". Still very much alive, he and a small platoon of men who looked enough like him to be related rushed into the fray. The oncoming hordes seemed a bit taken aback by this as well, for they paused momentarily in their attack. The dogfight still raging between the King Behemoth and Gallian was also making it a bit difficult, the two massive animals rolling over one another as well as anyone unfortunate enough to get in their way. Taking a precious second, Sephiroth grabbed his PHS and flipped it open.
"TSENG!"
"Sir," Tseng replied, the wince audible in his tone.
"Time to put the President's explosives to good use!"
"Copy that. We've placed the explosives immediately behind you, out of range of the town. Pull everyone back as far as the tree line."
"Copy," Sephiroth agreed. Even if some of the enemy soldiers made it behind the line, if there was a finite number of them, Sephiroth felt confident they could be taken care of. But that still left them with the problem of Vincent. Then again, animals were more canny than humans when it came to matters of earth and weather. Gallian wasn't stupid. With any luck he'd be able to sense what was going on and get himself to safety.
"FALL BACK!" Sephiroth called out, raising Masamune high above his head. "FALL BACK TO THE TREE LINE! RETREAT!"
His troops, bless them, seemed confused, but did as they were told. Overhead fire increased as the Turks did their best to keep the endless waves of gray-clad troops at bay.
"Are we back far enough?" Sephiroth asked into his still open PHS.
"Just a little more...there!" Tseng confirmed. "Get the rest of your people over the line and move back another twenty yards at least! We don't want anyone else getting caught in the explosion."
"Copy. Over and out," Sephiroth told him, closing the phone with a snap. He barely had time to pocket the thing before one of the four-legged creatures lunged at him, all teeth and claws. Masamune sliced it in half like a ripe piece of fruit, the two halves falling to the ground in a cascade of black blood. Rather than run further up the slope, he stayed put, ushering troops past him towards the relative safety of the trees.
"BACK!" he shouted, hearing himself rasp as he did so. "EVERYONE BACK!"
Avalanche was already mostly within the treeline. Several members had climbed into the branches and were assisting the Turks in picking off any of the enemy troops that got too close. Halfway down the mountain side Gallian and the King Behemoth were still going at it fang and claw. No longer surrounded by a wall of gray, a cloud of dust ringed them as they fought, their coats streaked with lather. Black blood spattered the ground around them liberally. Sephiroth could only hope it wasn't Vincent's.
The last of the stragglers were panting up the hill, among them a familiar mop of spiky blond hair.
"MOVE IT, STRIFE!" Sephiroth barked, shoving the boy with one hand up the slope. Was that everyone? Gods he hoped so. They couldn't afford to wait any longer. The wall of gray was gathering itself like a wave, preparing to crash into them and drown them in their own blood.
"NOW!"
It was not the explosion that was deafening so much as the mountain itself. The blast echoed from every cliff and boulder, magnified over and over again so that it seemed to shake the sky. First there was a shifting of sand, the trickle of dust, and then a rumble. Like steps of a herd of stampeding Chocobo it grew, gathering speed and volume. If the oncoming horde heard it, they gave no indication, but continued to charge up the hill, shouting a battle cry of their own.
Until they ran out of hill to charge up.
The entire mountain shook as the wave of earth and gravel washed over them, sweeping them away. Most of them did not even have the chance to scream. Sephiroth grabbed a convenient tree branch with his free hand, watching, heart in his throat as the wall of earth swept toward Gallian and the King Behemoth.
Gallian was breathing hard but seemed unhurt. The Behemoth, by contrast, was bleeding freely from several wounds, the black blood matting his coat. Gallian roared and snarled, lunging once again. This time, when the Behemoth fell to the ground, he stayed there.
"VINCENT!" Sephiroth shouted, his voice collapsing halfway through the last syllable. He knew it wouldn't do any good, that Gallian could not hear him. The beast, however, did look up.
He barked at the larger creature, but the Behemoth just laid there. Standing on his hind legs, Gallian delivered a savage swipe of his claws to the Behemoth's hind quarters. The beast started and jerked to all fours. Gallian growled again and snapped at its tail, forcing the other animal to move forward. The huge creature cowered at the oncoming tsunami of earth, ears flat and tail between its legs. With a bark and another snap of his jaws, Gallian chased the creature straight toward the flood of earth. Sephiroth held his breath as first the Behemoth then Gallian leaped over the crest, galloping on all fours up the cascade as best they could.
"C'MON VINCENT!" Zack shouted at his elbow. "YOU CAN DO IT, BOY!"
Four legs churning the moving earth, tongue hanging out a mile, Gallian gathered himself and leaped. He landed panting and soaked in lather among the trees, the Behemoth following a moment later. A cheer went up, not just from the troops, but from the village as well. Taking a deep breath, Sephiroth closed his eyes and briefly leaned against the tree, breathing a heavy sigh of relief.
Padding over to him, four legs shaking with exhaustion, Gallian sat down with the air of one victorious. The Behemoth followed several steps behind, stopping a pace or so behind Gallian and laid down with its nose between its paws. Pushing away from the tree, Sephiroth placed his free hand on its nose, accepting its surrender.
No sooner had he laid a hand on the blood-spattered fur than the shaggy coat began to quiver. The Behemoth shivered and shrank until the Giant knelt on all fours like a peasant bowing to a lord.
"Do you surrender?" Sephiroth asked him, lifting Masamune just in case.
The Giant did not look up, but pressed his forehead to the ground in obeisance. "I do."
Sephiroth nodded to Zack. "Fair. Take him into custody."
Zack blinked. "The hell am I gonna do that?" he hissed behind one hand. "He's like eleven feet tall!"
"Just do it!" Sephiroth whispered back. "Commander Verdot? Tseng?"
Both of them appeared from amid the crowd of mingled Shinra and Avalanche troops and saluted.
"Take a head count," he rasped, his voice scratchy from so much shouting. "Avalanche, Shinra, Turks. Make sure all the villagers are present and accounted for as well."
Turning, he looked out over the mountainside. There were indeed hundreds of corpses half-buried in the loose rock and soil. He had never been told why, only that it took longer for the corpses of SOLDIERs to degenerate into pyreflies. Now, however, he thought he knew why.
"Tseng, once the slope settles, take your people and look for survivors. Put anyone in gray out of their misery if they haven't gone by morning."
"Sir," Tseng saluted and turned to do just that.
That took care of everything except… Sephiroth looked around, but Genesis and his own small unit were nowhere to be seen. Had they been caught in the landslide? Perhaps he'd only imagined them after all...
"Dismissed," he finished tiredly.
Only now did he notice how long the shadows of the pine trees had become, and how low the sun was hanging in the sky. Gods, how long had they been at this? Although he would have liked to lean back against the cliff wall, Sephiroth continued to hold himself straight and tall. It was not the physical exertion so much as the emotional strain of worrying about people he'd learned to care for more deeply since the last battle: Zack, Vincent, Veld, Aeris, even little Strife and his friend Tifa. There had been a moment when he thought he'd lost every friend he had. Angeal and Genesis were gone, the empty spaces they'd left would never be filled. However, that did not mean there weren't other spaces waiting to be taken up by new friends. He waited as they all filed past until it was only Commander Verdot, Tseng and himself who stood in the midst of the gap. This was one instance in which it would not be appropriate to be first. A general's first duty was to his- or her- men. People? Something. Either way, he would not be able to rest himself until he knew that all his subordinates who were yet alive had been seen to.
"Thank you," he said, turning to Tseng and Commander Verdot. "Both of you."
"You too," Commander Verdot replied. "You could have let us get massacred, but you didn't."
"You thought I would?"
"It crossed my mind," she admitted.
"I hope we've each proved ourselves to the other? At least a little bit."
Commander Verdot smiled crookedly. "A little bit," she agreed and offered her hand.
Allowing himself a smile, Sephiroth took it and shook.