Avalanche revenge.
Chaos, destruction, death and fear.
These are the words that describe the world
humans live in today. After meteor hit the world and Sephiroth became one with
the planet, humans became engulfed in a never-ending struggle for survival.
The
lands were crawling with various monsters; there was no place left on the
planet where one could live without fearing for his life every day.
Very few of the animals survived the
collision, and the few that had were now starving because of the lack of plant
life. The collision caused the sun to be blacked out due to the dust clouds
thrown into the atmosphere, causing the plant life to wither away.
Right after Sephiroth obtained the
knowledge of the ancients, he learned to call upon the power of the planet.
Using his new powers he summoned an army filled with hideous monsters to hold
the humans that survived under control. Terrified by the monster armies, the
humans lived in fear in the villages created by Sephiroth.
After the initial shock, one man formed a
resistance faction named after the former terrorist group Avalanche. This new
Avalanche fought against the suppressing armies and eventually challenged
Sephiroth at his fortress. Sephiroth had build his fortress on top of the enormous crater left
after meteor collided with the planet.
Having learned more about his powers,
Sephiroth now had full access to the planets powers, so to stop the coming army
of humans he called upon the greatest powers the planet had to offer: the power
to create WEAPONS. Using the powers of the planet, Sephiroth created three WEAPONS
to eliminate the rebellion and to lead his army of hellions.
After this devastating blow to the
rebellion, Sephiroth gave each WEAPON control of a different continent to make
sure that no one would form another army to oppose him.
In control of the west continent was FRAVARDIN WEAPON. The north
continent was in control of AVERILL WEAPON. The third and strongest WEAPON was
AJIT WEAPON; it was also the main protector of Sephiroth's fortress. Each
WEAPON had it's own army with humanoid soldiers.
It was
raining; it always did here, as if the planet itself was crying. Three humans
stood on top of a hill and gazed down upon the enormous fortress inside the
crater.
They
where all dressed in the same clothes: sturdy, leather boots, baggy army slacks
and army sweaters. The oldest of the three wore a leather jacket over his
sweater. They carried various weapons with them, as if they where planning to
take the fortress by themselves.
"You all
know what to do, so let's stop wastin' time and get this show on the road!"
Said the
oldest, he was about 36 years of age, was the leader of the small group. His
name was Kyrios and he was one of the survivors of the collision. Kuno, a 22
your old man, nodded and loaded his gun.
"…Let's
rock!"
He
placed a sound record in his player and jumped off the hill.
"Damn,
he's really anxious to die, isn't he?"
Sarita, the only female, said.
Kyrios simply nodded,
"You know his reason. Like everyone else,
he's lost people that where close to him, he just couldn't handle it."
Sarita watched Kuno storm towards the
fortress and looked out to see if AJIT was anywhere near.
Kuno stormed directly towards the fortress,
shooting monsters and machines. Killing monsters and humming along with his
music; this was the only way he could feel free. The gun he handled was one of
the finest ever made by man, it was said it could even kill a WEAPON. This
didn't matter to him though for he would be with his loved ones soon. When he
made up this daring plan, he convinced the others that his sacrifice would be
the only way for the others to reach the fortress alive.
Suddenly he felt the hot breath of a
monster in his neck; he dropped himself on the ground, rolled over and blasted
the thing to pieces. Parts of the monsters gut splattered on his clothes.
Completing his roll he jumped back on his feet, his mouth curled to a grim
smile; maybe this piece of junk had the power to kill a WEAPON. It surely had
enough power to disintegrate any monster that came to close.
A blinding bloodlust took control over him
and he was getting more and more reckless. His shooting attracted more and more
monsters, coming from all directions, but still no WEAPON. Kuno jumped over one
of the monsters he'd just shot and opened fire on the newcomers, energy beams
burst out his weapon and ripped the front group in pieces. A second group came
from the left and a third from the right. One single monster approached him
from behind. Kuno turned to the left group and while shooting he rolled over
and opened fire on the monsters that approached him from the right. Kuno stood
up and wiped some sweat from his forehead and grinned; he never thought this
would be this easy.
Just as he started to walk further,
something grabbed his left-arm and ripped it off.
"Aaaaaaarg… wha the fuck? Aaaah, my arm…"
Kuno backed away from the beast held his
arm in between its massive jaws.
"Wrrrruuaaaarrrrgg…"
Kuno raised his weapon and just as he
wanted to pull the trigger another monster jumped him, forcing him to the
ground.
"Ugh, shiiiii…"
His words died suddenly as the behemoth bit
of his head. The rest of the monsters swarmed over the remains of Kuno,
severing his body into a million pieces. His weapon flew through the air and
hit the ground with a thud. The attached materia started to glow and final
attack summoned Bahamut.
The skies cleaved open as Bahamut entered
this dimension. The lord of dragons opened his mouth and unleashed his mighty
flare; torching every monster in his adjacent. The cries of hundreds burning
monsters could be heard miles away and the smell of burning flesh filled the
air. Some of the monsters could evade the first wave of flames but Bahamut
turned and fried them on his second pass.
The flames of Bahamut's flare lighted up
the dark skies and turned the rain into a suffocating warm mist.
"This is our signal! Let's go!" Kyrios
jumped out of hiding and moved towards the fortress. "C'mon, git a move on!"
"…………You think he's dead?"
"I'm sure he's dead, if he wasn't… we
wouldn't be moving now, now would we? He knew the plan, hell he even proposed
this part, now git going!"
Sarita looked over the outstretched Bad
Lands in front of her and recalled the Kuno she knew, for as long as she could
remember he was as solid as a rock.
This changed when his entire village was used for some kind of
experiment and he was out to investigate, and his wife lost her life during a
raid on the town they where residents in. He always blamed himself for both
incidents; he was convinced that he could have saved both his wife and hometown
if he'd only been there. Eaten by guilt, he changed into the person that
planned and executed the first part of their scenario to rid the world of
Sephiroth's repression.
She
shook the memory off and focused on what she had to do.
"……You're death will not be in vain, I
promise!"
She ran after Kyrios.
Secluded by the fog they made their way to
the fortress, encountering nothing but the bloody remains of what used to be
the ferocious monsters they used to fear. A cold shiver ran down her spine as
she imagined Kuno running through here, towards his death. (Damn, where are you
AJIT? You never let anyone get this close before.) She stopped running when she
reached the edge of the crater. Kyrios was getting their climbing gear ready.
"Kyrios?"
"…What?"
"Why isn't AJIT breathing down our necks?
And all these beasts… normally if you'd kill one, four others will take its
place. Somethings wrong, I can feel it."
"We're lucky, I guess. No need to think too
much about it. Focus on our mission, when we get back, we can start thinking
about stuff like that."
She nodded and climbed up the mountain that
had formed when Meteor struck the planet. After a final glance over the
wastelands, she started the long, hard climb to the top.
After a long climb up the cliff, and some
near fatal accidents on the way down, Kyrios and Sarita stood in front of the
main entrance of the fortress.
"Okay Sarita, you know what to do, see you
later!"
Kyrios ran to the left side of the gates,
fired a grappling hook up to one of the enormous windows right above the gates
and climbed up.
Sarita watched how he entered the window,
turned and slowly walked to the right of the building. She looked around to
make sure nobody had seen her, crouched and waited in the shadows. She waited
there until she was absolutely sure that no one had seen or heard her.
Being certain of this, she got up, stepped
out of the shadows and made her way to one of the small doors at the back of
the fortress. She examined the locking mechanism of the door and frowned; she
knew Sephiroth feared man nor beast, but to leave an open invitation like this.
She shook her head; why should he have a high quality security system? Only
lunatics and suicidal maniacs would try to break in here, the overlords own
fortress, where the supreme Hellion army is stationed.
But still, a little voice in her head told
her that everything went too easy. She never imagined that Kuno's suicide
mission would clear a path directly into the lion's den.
Many times before people had tried to defy
the overlord, and they all ended in an early grave. Why should this time be any
different? When she broke the locks code, she looked over her shoulder to see
if no one had spotted her yet. Sarita took a deep breath and slipped through
the opening.
As she entered the hall, her hart missed
one beat; right in front of her stood seven of the elite Hellion warriors: the
Cyrus.
The Cyrus, none of the other Hellions where
more feared by man. Not because they where the strongest or the most vicious,
but because they used to be human once. And because of their human form, they
could easily infiltrate resistance camps and slaughter all the humans inside.
This tactic was used on almost all of the bases owned by the resistance. After
a while humans started to mistrust each other because anyone could be a Cyrus,
so the resistance against Sephiroth slowly bled to death. That was the reason
that they didn't let any outsider get involved in their plans.
The Cyrus hadn't notice Sarita yet, and she
didn't plan to stick around until they did. As fast possible and without making
a noise, she turned and tried the door: it already fell in its lock.
(Dammit… not now, it can't end like this!)
She pressed herself against the wall and
tried to hide in the shadows. The hallway was badly lit so she could easily
hide herself for now. From her hiding place she searched the hallway for a
better place to hide. She couldn't find one: slowly the sound of her own
heartbeat filled her ears, leaving no room for anything else. (Gotta be a way,
gotta be… then where the hell is it… c'mon girl, pull yerself together, this
isn't the first time… No don't think about it!) Sarita blocked away the
memories of her first encounter with the Cyrus and focused on the Cyrus in the
hall. They hadn't noticed her yet, but if one of them turned, she would be seen
for sure. She tried to make herself even smaller that she already was and
started to tremble all over. Suddenly she heard a sound coming from the door:
it sounded as if someone entered a security code to open the door. She held her
breath and prayed to the Gods whom abandoned them a long time ago. But they
didn't answer, the door opened.
Kyrios found his way through the many
hallways and corridors the fortress had. He'd encountered some patrols, but not
as many as he'd expected, maybe Sephiroth was overconfident and didn't expect
that anyone was stupid enough to sneak in here or maybe it was something else.
Whatever the reason, Kyrios was glad things were the way they were. He heard
the sound of another patrol coming his way, and rushed through an open door. He
carefully closed the door, after that he looked through the room: it looked
like he got himself in a heap of trouble busting into this room, the room had
one huge window in it and outside the window was AJIT WEAPON'S rest room, and
AJIT was home.
"Oh shit!"
Kyrios opened the door but just before he
could go out the room, he heard some voices outside:
"Why do we have to feed it again?"
"Just do as you're told for once."
"Yeah but, we fed it yesterday and the day
before, so why do we have to do it again?"
"Just shut up will ya!"
"Okay, but I still don't see why I have to
feed it again. I wasn't summoned out of hell just to feed a WEAPON! I am one of
the most feared Hellions of all time, I am…"
"Shut up, I don't give a damn who you are
nor do I care if you are the most feared Hellion or not! Just feed the damn
beast and stop you're yapping!"
Kyrios jumped over a small table that stood
close to a wall and laid down besides it. The two minions entered the room and
the one that didn't stop complaining pushed a button and a small cage got
lowered in AJIT'S chamber. Inside the cage where seven humans, all of them saw
AJIT and they began to scream.
"Ok OK, I know that I complained a lot on
the way down here, but I must say that this never gets boring."
Kyrios tried to see what was going on in
the other room: the humans where still screaming and AJIT didn't move.
"What's wrong?"
"Uuuuh dunno, it isn't moving. Think it's
dead? Can't be! Hey AJIT! Kill them will ya, their screams are getting on my
nerves!"
"Shouldn't we report this?"
"Huh? Yeah guess you're right. Lemme kill
them first OK?"
"NO!"
"Huh? What? No? Wadda you mean no? Why not?
Dammit man, you're no fun!"
The minion turned to face his partner, but
instead of seeing the, even in their standards, ugly face of his comrade, he
stood eye in eye with a human. The human gave him a grin and wiped some blood
from his face with a Hellion claw. He placed his hands on his hips and spit on
the floor. The minion blinked and looked at the floor; there laid the remains
of his pal.
"Whoa man, that doesn't look to healthy,
you know!"
The minion looked Kyrios in the eyes and
growled.
"Say you're prayers, there's a funeral
coming soon."
"Yup, yours!"
Kyrios used one of the claws of the Hellion
he'd already killed and chopped off the others head in one swift blow, the head
of the minion hit the floor with a thud.
"Damn man, do you have any idea how long it
will take until my head is attached firmly on my body again? And aren't you
supposed to run like hell when you see one of us?"
Kyrios cleaved the minion's body in two.
Both halves fell on the ground and dissolved.
"Oh man, now I need to breed a new body.
Get over here so I can bite you're toes off."
"Shut up!"
Kyrios walked to the window and looked at
AJIT: it still lay there, motionless.
"So the feared AJIT is dead eh, so that's
why it didn't attack when Kuno raised hell out there."
"Don't think I'll let you get out with this
information!"
"Didn't I tell you to shut up?"
Kyrios kicked against the minion's head: it
flew across the room and splashed against the wall, it fell on the ground
behind the door.
"Shit man that hurts, you know."
Kyrios walked to the door, took hold of it,
and bashed it several times against the head. He looked at his handy work: all
that remained of the head was one big messy spot on the floor.
"Well, I guess this would have hurt even
more. Now where is Sarita?"
When the door opened, Sarita hid herself
behind it. A man walked in, something about him wasn't right; the way he
sneaked in indicated that he wasn't one of the Cyrus and judging his appearance
he couldn't be a Hellion. He stood there a few seconds to let his eyes adjust
to the light in the hallway. After that he closed the door, leaving Sarita out
in the open again. The man didn't notice her or he merely ignored her presance
because he walked directly towards the Cyrus. He grabbed the huge sword he
carried on his back and prepared to attack them.
Sarita moved somewhat out of the shadows to
get a better view; the stranger must have heard her move because he looked over
his shoulder and searched the hallway for any type of movement.
Not knowing if the man standing there was
good or bad, Sarita held her breath and tried not to move. He didn't see her
and focused on the Cyrus again. There he stood, holding his sword ready to
attack but he didn't move a muscle; all he did was observe the Cyrus.
"…………………Dead?"
Sarita heard these words and sighed: the
Cyrus where dead. The man walked over to the Cyrus and inspected the bodies.
"………How?"
Sarita let go of a nervous giggle; she was
on edge and the reasons of her fear turned out to be dead bodies, standing in a
bad light hall.
"Who goes?"
(Really smart move girl, giggling like mad
on a time like this. Now let's hope this is one of the good guys.)
Decided to take a chance, Sarita slowly
crawled out of her hiding place. She made sure the stranger could she her
hands, so he wouldn't attack her out of fear that she was hiding a weapon of
some sort.
"Erm… I go. Well, you know what I mean."
The man walked towards her, never losing
her out of his sight.
"Friend or foe?"
"Friend… I guess."
Sarita could see the man's face clearly
now: he wasn't her age, he seemed to be younger. Like 19 or so, but his posture
told a different story, like he was a mature warrior. She looked at his eyes
and let out a terrified cry. His eyes glowed, just like the eyes of the Cyrus
did. Kyrios once told her that was caused by the large amounts of mako energy
the Cyrus where exposed to.
"Y… you… you're… a… C… C… Cyrus!"
Sarita turned and ran towards the door as
fast as she could. Only to bump into the closed door and cursing herself to be
so stupid for running towards a closed door, with no other way out. She turned
to face the man and shouted:
"Don't come near me! I have weapons and I
know how to use them!"
"Then use them."
"Wha… what!?"
"Use you're weapons or don't use them, it's
you're call. But whatever you decide, stop screaming, you'll alert every
monster in this building if you keep screaming."
"Huh… o, right… sorry, I freaked. I thought
you where one of the Cyrus."
The man gave her a blank expression.
"You know, the Cyrus, the monsters that
appear to be humans but are not."
The man didn't response to her words; he
just stood there, looking at her.
"Come on, you must have heard of them
before, they've killed almost all the members of the rebellion."
The man placed his feet slightly apart and
moved his sword in a position so he could strike her down at any moment.
"Hey wait a minute. I said I was a friend,
don't you believe me?"
Without saying a word, he leaped forward
and threw her aside, at the same time the door behind her swung open and three
Hellions walked in. The first one got cleaved in two by the huge sword of the
stranger. He kicked the second one against its head and pressed it against the
wall with his foot. The third one had a second to understand what was going on
and attacked the stranger. The blade of the man's sword cleaved through the air
and chopped off the arms of the third Hellion. The Hellion cried out in pain
and tried to run. The man beheaded it before it got out of range. The Hellion
that was still pressed against the wall tried to break free, but the man simply
raised the pressure on its throat and soon the Hellion's struggle for freedom
ended as its throat was crushed. The stranger cleaned the blade of his sword
using a piece of cloth ripped from the clothes of one of his victims.
"Whoa, what happened? It all went so fast.
What are you? One of the Cyrus that turned against its masters?"
Sarita was amazed how fast the man had
eliminated the Hellions. Never had she seen anyone oppose the Hellions like
him, it was almost as if he didn't fear them.
"You can speak, can't you, of course you
can, you did it a minute ago. So what's you're story? What are you doing here?
How come that you're eyes glow like that… I'm sorry, I think these are my
nerves speaking, usually I don't talk so much… not that I don't talk at all,
more like I don't talk as much as I do right now…"
The man sheathed his sword, and looked at
her with a frown on his forehead. Sarita felt a little uncomfortable after
making such a fool out of herself, and the way this man looked at her didn't
make her feel any better. There was something about this man that made her feel
like the small kid that needed to be saved again. Sarita took a deep breath and
shook of the feeling.
"Again sorry for my behavior, let me
introduce myself, I'm Charity, Sarita Charity. Um… So who are you?"
Sarita held her hand up for the stranger.
He looked at it and sighed.
"I'm Cadwgawn."
After he
told her his name, Cadwgawn turned and walked towards the Cyrus again. Sarita
raised an eyebrow and shrugged; she kind of expected that he didn't fully
introduce himself, but that he would be this blunt. She turned to close the
door and after that she walked to Cadwgawn and stared at the bodies of the
Cyrus.
"Why did
you think I was one of them?"
Sarita
stared horrified at the maimed bodies of the Cyrus and didn't hear what
Cadwgawn said. She crouched and examined one of the bodies, the body didn't
show any cuts or bruises; it seemed that it had died a natural death.
"Well?"
Sarita
suddenly remembered that she wasn't alone there and looked up to Cadwgawn.
"Well… I
think they died a natural death."
Cadwgawn
stared at Sarita and sighed.
"That's
not what I meant. Why did you think I was one of them?"
Sarita
got up slowly and looked Cadwgawn directly in his eyes.
"Well,
you see… it's you're eyes. They have a distinct glow in them, just like the
Cyrus have. A friend of mine told me once it had to do with the high amounts of
mako energy they are exposed to in order to grant them their power."
Cadwgawn
thought about what Sarita just told him, he never thought that his eyes could
be the reason that most people have been avoiding him. Thinking back on the
days he spent in the slave villages, this made sense; everyone there had
encountered the Cyrus before, and seeing the same glow in his eyes made them
think that he was one of them, just like this girl did just now.
"Ok, so
it's the eyes. But tell me this then, why could the Cyrus be used to infiltrate
the resistance camps if they are so easily to detect?"
Sarita
frowned as she thought about this.
"Maybe
they used contact lenses? I'm not sure, but someone that could tell us all
about this is here with us in this fortress."
"You
mean there are more humans here? And here I was thinking I was the only one
stupid enough to go here."
"We're
not stupid, only despaired. We came here to slay the one that holds us in his
tyrannical grasp. We're here to kill Sephiroth! And what is you're reason to be
here?"
Cadwgawn
stepped over one body that lay on the ground and walked further into the
fortress.
"That's
none of you're business."
Sarita jumped over the body and mumbled; 'o
now isn't this great, the only human being we probably find in here alive is
the lone wolf type'.
