The hulking form of Durandal rolled on, getting ever closer to its goal.
The first thing to actually notice the experimental tank was a light-armored MEDUSA reconnaissance mecha, doing a typical run over the shattered remains of the world's cities.
The appearance of DA-000001 on viewscreens was not, however, unexpected, as Renaku had already told the perimeter guard mechs to be on alert for a abnormally large tank.
It didn't take much to order a MEDUSA command strike on the offending blip in the radar screens. There was no such thing as overkill, after all.
Scarcely fifteen minutes had passed before four Beta-class MEDUSAs were scrambled with pilots and launched, armed with incendiary explosives and plasma cannons.
But the path of the tank still continued on... Renaku sighed. There was no choice but to assume that Tara had failed in her mission. A disappointment, too, as he had paid her a lot to carry out the hit. Oh well, better to eliminate them all in one quick strike. MEDUSAs hardly ever failed, with the special fighter squadron 'ShadowDragons' having a 98% success rate.
He paused, and then ordered the computer to calculate the trajectory path of the tank. If it kept going at this rate... His eyes widened. If they kept going...! They were headed straight for the Reality Engine installation!
He punched up a communications link to the President, and reported his findings. As he expected, the President was not pleased. Nothing ever pleased him.
Then, he made a second call. To someone called Catherine Shaw.
Seconds later, he smiled. What was he worrying about, anyways? The MEDUSA strike would decimate the rebels once and for all, but it was good to be prepared, in case that plan went up in smoke.
f i n a l f a n t a s y : r e a l i t y
FINAL FANTASY REALITY
an angelhawk studios production
original concept by redshadow
written by chaosrayne
disk one: 8ight: kn1ght VS dr4g0n
Alex leaned against one wall and sighed. Why was she so torn up over this one guy? It wasn't like she was going to score with Rain, anyway... he was just a loner at heart. He wouldn't let anybody near him - he was too emotionless for that. A cold, efficient killer, trained to do his job and nothing else.
But still...
Her mind flashed back to the time he had admitted he was not completely emotionless. And he had enjoyed the massage she had given him...
"Dammit!" She cursed out loud, unlike her. Rain could go and screw Tara senseless for all she cared...
She did care. Didn't she?
Recognising the beginning of tears, she closed her eyes, trying to block out the image of Tara naked atop Rain.
She was sobbing quietly before she could help herself. Half-blinded by tears, she stumbled to the 'living quarters' and hid herself in her blankets. She couldn't let anybody see her cry.
Somebody did see, but not exactly the someone she had in mind. As before, Durandal saw and recorded all.
What was left of the human in Durandal was sadly mechanised, searching for mathematical solutions and logistics, black and white, in a world where there were just too many different shades of grey.
But the human mind that was Dave still knew feelings. Pain, sadness, friendship, hatred, and most importantly, love. Dave knew the pain that Alex was going through, and knew she needed to be alone.
Filing the information away for later and locking it under five levels worth of firewalls that would take a hacker a year of Sundays to crack, he went to see Patch on matters of a different importance.
As always, Patch was shocked out of his reclining position in his chair, not used to having a disembodied voice talk to him out of midair.
"What the...?" He muttered incoherently, still half asleep. Durandal's smooth, oddly comforting voice soon woke him up fully, however.
"Lieutenant Patch Randall, I need to speak to you on a matter of the gravest importance."
"Eh, think nothing of it." Patch groused, feeling the comforting weight of his service revolver against his hip. "I told you to wake me when we got there, but I won't get back to sleep now anyways. What is it now? Kids get in trouble again?"
Dave was not amused. "I wanted to show you this before we arrived at the installation you are planning to attack. Walk to the corridor and follow the lights."
The main corridor that connected all of the main rooms in the tank lit up, a small thread of lights leading the O7 trooper through it and then down a short flight of stairs.
He found himself in a room that was much larger than the others, even the lounge he had grown accustomed to. The loud whining of the tank's engine could be heard audibly here.
"What the hell is this place?" Patch said, rubbing his eyes blearily. He thought he could make out some shapes in the darkness, but...
Then the lights flickered on, showing a shape that the trooper gazed on in shock. Then wonderment. And finally complete joy. All thoughts of sleep vanished from his head as he looked at the machine in front of him.
He was all business now, eyes shining eagerly. "Call Rain down from wherever the hell he is. I'll need his tech skills on this."
The redhead gazed down at me with a look in her eye that said "I'm going to wrap you around my little finger and lick you like a ring pop" louder than words.
I would have panicked, but I was too shocked by the kiss she had given me earlier. And... hot steaming hells, that was a kiss. I'm too glad Alex didn't see this: she would have murdered me on the spot. As if I'm not in enough trouble already.
Thankfully, Durandal gave me an excuse to escape.
"Rain?" The voice said from the speaker grille in the wall. "Patch desires your presence in the cargo hold. Follow the lights."
My first thought was 'We have a cargo hold'? And then I pushed the naked girl off me, grabbing her shoulders, and ONLY her shoulders, mind you. She looked peeved, but I disappeared faster than a pizza at a house party. I was gone, outta there, kapow. No way was I staying around that girl.
I think she was called Tara. Tara? That's a nice name.
No, you idiot, wrong thought. Stupid fallible brain.
Wait a minute... if there was a speaker grille in the bathroom... I cursed Durandal in my mind, knowing instinctively that the small sensor 'eye' had probably recorded everything that had just happened. Good thing Dave wasn't human any longer. I wouldn't leave any chance of that with blackmail material.
Following the small trail of lights, I trotted down the stairs and wondered whatever the hell he was doing. Must have been really good stuff to wake him up, huh?
I mean, yeah. He snores. I have enough trouble with it already. Alex sleeps on the bunk above him, but she doesn't complain. I wonder why.
He turned and waved as I shuffled towards him, Tara still fresh in my mind. Then I looked at what he was working on and my jaw dropped.
"Come on, kid. Let's get this hunk of junk up and working again."
I all too self-conciously agreed. Anything to get my mind off that girl.
Later on, Alex stumbled in. Her eyes were red. I wonder if that girl gets enough sleep: she sure doesn't look good. She has dark rings around her eyes, and she looks depressed.
Hopefully this time it isn't my fault.
We worked on, Alex helping where she could, according to the schematics that Durandal had stored in his database. Sparks flew, laser torches welded together where hands held, grease stained our bodies.
Tara came in later on, her eyes growing wide as she saw what we were working on. Her expression was unreadable. Shock? Surprise? Anger? I put it between those three, although why was a mystery.
She was dressed in Alex's tracksuit from the sports day at the academy, a universe away. My mind flashed back to that day... the closest our lives had ever came to normal.
The redhead filled out Alex's uniform well, despite being a little loose, Tara being smaller than Alex. Her expression returned to one of cheerful happiness and she asked. "What're you three doing?"
"A secret." Patch's eyes didn't come off the schematics. I copied him, paying attention to my work. I couldn't let this... girl distract me. Wire A met the green socket, the pulse generator was connected to all three, etc...
Tara explained that her own outfit was being cycled through the onboard wash, while hardly anybody listened. We were so close to finishing, after all, and Patch said it would be useful...
Then the radar alarm siren wailed through Durandal. Alex didn't move, continuing to weld the last plates of carbon-composite on the machine. But Patch rose to his feet, as did I. Tara leaned against the wall, fiddling with a sai, the perfect picture of casual indifference.
"Report!" Patch boomed over the siren.
Durandal chimed in. "Four signals, traveling at a speed of approximately... 300 mph. Medium sized. Possibility that intruders within radar range are MEDUSA mechanized armor: 87%."
"Okay then." Patch groaned silently. "No time for a test run, then. You confident, kiddo?"
I paused before realizing that he was referring to me. "Me? But..."
"Mecha piloting experience is good for you. Now get out there and kick some ass. You helped build this thing, you know the controls better than I do."
I looked at him and his confident grin, ready to back off.
Then I heard the whine of plasma engines overhead and steeled myself. I had to do this. Patch needed to manual pilot Durandal, after all.
Durandal added to the pressure. "Subjects within radar range identified as Beta-class two MEDUSA aerial attack mecha."
I sighed, looking at Tara and Alex. Tara gave me a comforting nod, but Alex only frowned, looking at me through pristine blue eyes.
With a groan, I complied. The hatch swung open with a comforting hiss and as I strapped myself in, I began to feel a strange sort of exhiliration. The others long since departed to the bridge, I prayed silently to myself. "Lord... please don't let me fuck up."
I heard a quiet chuckling in my comlink, before realizing it was Durandal's voice. "Don't worry. I'll watch your back."
As the back door to the cargo hold swung open with a loud 'kachunk' I felt rather than heard the roar of the powerful plasma engine behind me and smiled grimly. "Let's do this."
There were four MEDUSA pilots in the ShadowDragons battalion. None of them were very happy to be on this job. One of them was now making his annoyance verbal.
"I mean, no way! The Chief told us it was gonna be a Rebel mission. Most of them are dead neways, don't put up much of a fight. Now we have to bust a tank - a freaking TANK, and they call it a MEDUSA worthy mission?"
"Shut up, Maverick." The female leader of the group, codenamed 'Shade', sighed and armed her plasma cannons. "I know its a crappy job, but after all, these are Rebels we get to kill here."
A third chimed in over the comlink: the group's left winger, Iceman. "Are you sure that's a Rebel tank? Looks like an Imperial war machine to me..."
"Too big to be a tank." The right winger responded, his codename being 'Wedge'. "Waaaay too big."
"Got that right." Shade responded. "Arm incendiaries on my mark."
"Check." Iceman dragged his fingers over the weapons control panel. "3... 2... 1..."
He never finished that sentence.
"SAM on my tail!" Maverick yelled, as he pulled the metallic dragon that was the MEDUSA upward, spiralling into space, a surface-to-air missile streaking after it
Somewhere below, Alex gripped Durandal's weapons systems tightly, a fierce grin on her face. "Durandal, tube three, fire!" Another SAM launched, hot on the tails of the MEDUSAs.
"Iceman, gimme a check!" Shade yelled into the comlink. "Split up!" Then she took her own advice, dipped a wing downward and cut the engines to the other, spiralling the mecha away from the approaching missile.
Maverick grinned fiercely. "Now THIS is more like it!" He whooped, dropping his MEDUSA to the ground low, kicking up a small dust cloud. The missile following him, sensors blinded, crashed into the sand and exploded in a fireball.
The explosion was felt throughout the tank, the force of the shockwave shaking DA-000001 slightly.
"I got it!" Iceman muttered into the comlink. "Shade, they're heat seeking! Dump plasma engine heat NOW!"
"A step ahead of you." Shade replied, engines dead, wings adjusting the mecha's flight downward. "Heat seeking, you said?"
Maverick was oblivious to the crackle of his comlink as he warmed up his plasma cannons and opened fire, in a strafing run, blue energy designed to pierce battleship armor slashing all around the tank as Patch swerved the vehicle from side-to-side to avoid getting hit.
Alex swore as a stray plasma bolt struck the tank at an angle, knocking her about in her seat. She brought the anti-aircraft-guns online, though, and returned fire.
The ShadowDragon pilot swung his mecha away as bullets peppered the body of the MEDUSA. It was tough, though, and he wasn't unduly worried...
Shade jammed the incendiary release button. Tens of tiny explosives ejected out the back of her MEDUSA, exploding in a fireball. As she had hoped, the SAM on her tail looped around and hit the fireball, its heat-seeking capabilities coming into effect.
Warming up her engines again, she flexed the MEDUSA's limbs. "Wedge, Iceman, kill that tank."
"I think Maverick's on that already." Wedge laughed as he watched the other MEDUSA pilot swing his mecha around in graceful arcs, dodging nearly all of the tank's anti-aircraft-fire.
Iceman, for once, wasn't the calm one. "Shit shit SHIT!!! Target is deploying mecha, I repeat, target is deploying mecha!!!"
Shade opened her eyes wide. "What?"
"See for yourself, boss."
A white and gunmetal-grey mecha dropped unceremoniously out of the back of the tank, before its engines fired and the thing jetted up.
"Where the HELL did they find a Chaos Mech?"
"They are Rebels after all." Shade responded. "Maverick! Get out of there! Enemy mecha!"
Maverick was lost to the world.
Comlink hanging loose on a wire next to his side, he laughed maniacally. For him, nothing existed but the target, the mecha around him, and the blaze of plasma fire coupled with the sounds of the machine guns trying to dispose of him.
He was lost in the sound of battle. He had to kill and kill and kill and kill....
Then a mecha-sized plasma rifle fired and blew a chunk out of his left shoulder.
Rain hovered the Chaos Mech unsteadily, his hands inside mechanical sensor limbs. "Come and get it."
Maverick screamed in incoherent rage. His MEDUSA mirrored his fury, roaring, a sound of metal on metal.
The dragonlike mecha twirled with the impact, and headed straight for the Chaos Mech at above 400 miles an hour. Rain, being an SFMA cadet, did the smart thing and killed his engines. The humanoid Rebel mecha dropped nearly fifty feet, the MEDUSA skimming uselessly past him.
Rain moved the Chaos's arm and swung the large plasma rifle, where it flew through the air to impact firmly on the MEDUSA's back.
Shade watched. "No chance. Maverick is pissed off. You know how he gets when he's pissed off."
"Oh, are we taking bets now?" Wedge teased.
"To be serious..." Iceman replied. "Whoever's piloting the Chaos doesn't know his machine well enough. Mav has flown more missions than I've done training exercises. He's gonna win."
The mecha battle was getting tenser. Rain was knocked back against his seat when the MEDUSA slammed into him again, the pilot inside obviously getting frustrated. He kept flying with the impact, and winced when the MEDUSA's dragonlike head reared up and chomped down on his shoulder, trying to get at the cockpit.
Rain clenched his fist, and the Chaos did the same, servos whirring as the hand balled into a fist that slammed hard into the neck of the MEDUSA. Once. Twice. Again. One last time, and the slim draconian neck of the Imperial machine snapped loose. With a yell, the teenager ripped the MEDUSA's head off.
Pushing the now immobile war machine off him, Rain whooped in victory. The salvaged Chaos Mech echoed his thoughts, its eyes glowing a bright, clear green.
Alex cheered, watching the fight through Durandal's screens.
Tara, meanwhile, was calculating her odds. If she knocked both the big, beefy Rebel and the other girl out, she could hack into the comlink system that the MEDUSA's used and tell them the tank was ripe for the taking, as well as the Rebels. Alive.
A few hundred feet up, Shade did the same. Whoever was piloting the Chaos Mech wasn't that good... but Maverick had let his rage get the better of him. If Wedge and Iceman attacked together, they could still kill the tank. And she herself could see how the Chaos's pilot stood up to a real challenge.
Rain sighed in relief, and then proceeded to clear his mind. Within seconds, he became emotionless, the pure, distilled, calculated killer that covered his human self. Feelings were pushed to the back of his head, as he concentrated.
The Chaos Mecha was just another weapon, that was all. To master it, he had to become accustomed to it, as he did his body.
As a result, Shade, Iceman, Wedge, Alex, Tara, Patch, and Durandal were treated to the infinitely bizarre sight of a humanoid white-armored mecha doing a kata, a simple martial art training routine.
Rain followed up a pair of punches with a twisting kick, and another in midair. Jumping up with the aid of the booster engines, he somersaulted the mecha in a odd flail of arms and legs.
Satisfied, he stopped.
That exercise was the simplest of cadet combat training types: also one that was known for using every single muscle in the body.
Rain was ready.
"Durandal, fire tube two and thr-" Patch started, but stopped when Alex looked at him. "What?"
"I have a feeling that Rain will be just fine." Alex replied, keeping her eyes on the sensor camera and firing controls.
The teenager in question breathed deeply, relaxed, reached behind its back, and with a sharp 'clack', a staff folded open, extended to mecha proportions, of course. The Chaos mecha twirled it around once, then raised one hand in the 'come hither' gesture.
Shade grinned. "Time to part-ay. Wedge, Iceman, get the tank. I get the Chaos."
They agreed, and zoomed off, plasma cannons already firing.
Shade dived down, but the other mecha was already firing its engines, coming up to meet her at around 50 feet up. Stopping at equal heights, the Chaos clenched its staff tightly, facing the opposing MEDUSA.
A soft hum emanated from the staff as plasma blades sprang from both ends.
Rain smiled mirthlessly. "Bring it."
Patch pushed the tank's engine to the max limit, but the two MEDUSA chasing it still caught up almost effortlessly.
'Okay'. Tara thought to herself. 'If I need them to trust me, I need to pull my slack'. She tapped the blonde girl on the shoulder. "Hey, is there any way I can get on top of this junk pile?"
Alex, knowing that a war zone wasn't the time or place for her own conflict with the redhead, nodded. "What are you going to do?"
"Come with me!"
Leaving Patch and Durandal to keep up the driving, Alex popped the ceiling hatch, and led Tara up the ladder, ducking near the entrance as a stray plasma bolt from the attacking MEDUSAs nearly took her head off.
The redhead was clutching her sai, as a fierce smile adorned her face. "Can you cast?"
"What?" Alex nearly asked before the tank swerved sideways, nearly throwing both of them off the top of the vehicle.
"Magic!" Tara yelled over the roar of the engine and the soft zap of plasma discharge. "You know, spells?"
"Yeah!" Alex nodded, holding on to one of the guns mounted atop Durandal for support. "But I don't know anything other than a Cure spell..."
"Great." Tara replied, turning her sarcastic comment into a curse as the tank swerved again, forcing her to hold on to the other girl for support. "Lesson time!"
"Don't you think this..." Alex paused as a plasma bolt hit the tank armor scarcely a foot away from where she was. "...is a bad time?"
"Never a bad time for learning new spells. Let me see!" She pulled Alex's knife from her grasp. "Good! You got a Thunder materia! Now repeat after me!"
She continued, holding her own sai, concentrating her will through a gleaming green materia on the hilt.
"Untamed ferocity..." Tara felt the buildup of magical energies in her.
"Untamed ferocity..." Alex copied, feeling the tremendous power at her disposal. This, then, was True Magik, where technology paled in comparison to the power that came from the planet and the gods themselves.
"...drawn from the limitless skies above..."
"Drawn from the limitless skies above!" Alex screamed, eager to let loose the energy.
"DIBOLT!!" They both chorused, as twin bolts of lightning streaked like jagged forks out of their hands and struck the nearest mecha to come in for a strafing run.
Wedge, several hundred feet above, felt the electricity pass through his mecha, coursing with magical power. It hit him too, and he spasmed wildly.
More importantly, his mecha went dead. Comlink, controls, engines, weapons, the like, all shorted out.
"Oh, shit." Wedge stuttered, twitching.
The Imperial MEDUSA mech fell from high in the sky to impact the ground, where its ordinance of incendiary bombs and unspent plasma exploded in a large fireball, consuming the metal dragon in flame.
"Lesson two!" Tara continued, gasping for breath. "You haven't got a Wind materia, so let me do this..."
Alex just held on to Durandal, her knife in the other hand, awed with the power she had just unleashed. That her hands had actually released a bolt of energy powerful enough to kill was beyond belief. But she had done it.
"Okay..." The redhead lined up her sights on the last Mecha, that was about to wheel off. "No, you don't!" She took a deep breath. This would use up the last of her magic, but if she failed, the MEDUSAs would kill them all anyway.
She let the magic build up again, on a far greater scale than it had before, so much that she felt she could just burst from all the power she held. "...winds of the west, winds that carry the stench of death, gather here and form a tornado... the perfect storm!" She took a deep breath, until her sai knives literally glowed with the magic. "TRI-AERO!!!"
It started as a small breeze.
It grew larger and larger, whipping around the sandy terrain, until a tornado formed of pure magic power rose up into the sky, whipping the small, tiny, insignificant MEDUSA around like a tennis ball.
Wildly out of control, Iceman was battered around. He felt like he had been stuffed into a safe then shaken around, kicked, dropped, and a whole load of other things painful.
Incredible g-forces flattened him to his control harness as he grew nearer the eye of the storm, winds buffeting his machine to incredible heights.
"...Shade..." The pilot muttered into his comlink before the stresses of increased gravity became too much for him and he passed out.
Which was a good thing, since it meant he wasn't concious when his MEDUSA crashed to the ground in another fireball.
Totally drained, Tara slumped on Alex for support. She was totally at the Rebels' mercy now, too weak to snap off another spell, too tired to fight, so tired....
She spiralled into unconciousness.
I was glad that I had constructed the beamstaff. It felt right, even through the mechanical hands of the Chaos.
The dragonlike MEDUSA watched me through a pair of eerily red eyes, watching, waiting for the first move.
I charged.
As I had predicted, the other pilot flew away from the all-out attack and opened fire with a pair of shoulder mounted plasma cannons.
Whoever was piloting the other mech may not have been as good a hand-to-hand fighter as I was. Whoever it was, he probably knew it. So he was planning to finish me off from long range with his superior weaponry.
A good strategy. Too bad I couldn't allow it.
Thumbing the engines, I manuevered myself up close. Twin blurs of white and red flashed across the landscape, the red firing at the white (me) as we continued.
I was close enough, and it was worth a shot.
Praying for luck, I killed my engines and dropped down atop the MEDUSA, knocking it off its flight path.
It worked as I had hoped, the heavy Chaos crashing down onto the other mecha. Not wasting a good chance, I grabbed my staff with both hands and slammed the plasma blade downwards.
Not enough time, though. Before I even had a chance to cut deeply, the draconian mecha did a barrel roll. Now it was me falling through the air, the MEDUSA atop me. Stubby dragon 'arms' swung back to be replaced by another set of smaller plasma cannons.
Firing at point-blank, the plasma explosion blew me away. I hit the ground, making a sizeable crater as I crashed. Had I not been strapped in, I would have made a nice smear across the the front of the cockpit.
The other pilot pressed the advantage, swooping down, intending to stomp me further into my own crater.
I rolled, swinging out the staff as I did so, managing to catch the MEDUSA's clawed 'feet' and bring it to ground level. It used its booster engines to spring back up into the air, where it knew it had the advantage.
I was having none of that.
Grabbing the fallen plasma rifle, I bring it up to my shoulder in a classic sniper's pose, and let loose a single shot.
My aim is still good, despite being shoved through a magical portal into another world. Her left wing engine explodes in a flare of plasma energy. He is smart, though, and instantly kills the power to the right, preventing the mecha from going into a downward spiral.
"You're good." A voice rings over the comlink. With a shock I realize two things: that the voice is the other pilot in the MEDUSA, and that it is distinctly female.
"Not so bad yourself." I reply, as the MEDUSA, engines dead, uses its wings to control its fall, before coming to a rough landing. "Nice landing."
"Last hit?" She asks, and I nod before realizing that she is in a mecha nearly a hundred feet away.
"Yeah. And by the way, what's the name?" I ask.
"Shade. And you?"
"Rain."
We stop for a few moments. Perfectly still, never moving, and then we both burst into motion, charging at each other.
I feint out of the game of mecha chicken at the last moment, ducking low to swipe at the left leg, then the right arm, then the right wing, and finally up to dismember its head.
It stops for a classic moment.
Then, the MEDUSA mecha falls to pieces, divided into its extremities by the plasma staff.
Silently, I hope the pilot is still alive. She did give me a good fight, after all.
With that, I finally sigh and power the Chaos mecha down.
"Not bad. Not bad at all." I mutter to nobody in particular. "I think I'll call you Bob."
"I have a name already." Durandal speaks over the comlink. "It's Dave."
"...I was talking to the mecha."
"...Right." Was it me, or did I detect a hint of sarcasm in the computer's tone? "We managed to down the other two with the help of the thief."
"Tara. Her name is Tara."
"Yes, Rain. We'll be coming back to pick you up, now."
I sigh. Just another day in a screwed up alternate universe.