Chapter 1

Becoming visible on the horizon were an intimidating fleet of ALIEN soldiers heading towards Kalm. Their mission was to seize control of the small town. ALIEN had recently overthrown the government after many years of secret planning, and was planning to dominate the world by force. The ALIEN president was a man named Rufus Alien. Rufus had only been president a year and was nineteen years old, his father, who was the ex-president, had died of a heart failure whilst still in power.

There were fifty-one recognised cities and towns in the world. Only seven, including the second largest city, Ultima Town, had stood up to ALIEN's demands. The others had crumbled, choosing safety with oppression, rather than individuality and freedom. Danny had memorised the towns that stood against ALIEN. Kalm, Nibelheim, Greenville, Ronine, Ultima Town, Cosmo Canyon and Elento. Most of these towns were strong; Kalm was rather small, as were Greenville. Greenville had sent over members of their defence to help Kalm, helping quite a lot.

Standing at the front of Kalm's defence were Danny Whise and Jim Gildard. Both renowned in the town for their fighting ability, they had been expecting this attack for a long time, and weren't surprised to see it happening, although their fear and dread still was as high as it could be. Danny was Twenty-One, Jim was a year younger. They had been best friends since a very young age, and had achieved many goals together, defending Kalm from this attack seemed impossible, but one they were determined to achieve. Danny pulled out his sword as the ALIEN army got nearer, they were almost there. Jim brought out his sword as well, and glanced nervously at Danny, who returned the nervous glance with a grin. They both ran at ALIEN, the other seventy or so people behind them followed, roaring and screaming cries of war and hate. Seeing the size of the ALIEN army seized both Danny and Jim with fear, although they didn't let it show. It had been predicted ALIEN would send about forty troops to take control of Kalm, but they had underestimated ALIEN's value of Kalm significantly, it seemed, as the army ahead of them contained one-hundred, perhaps more, with many high-tech weapons such as guns,

The battle started quickly, and was over quickly. One by one the Kalm soldiers fell, until just Danny and Jim remained. Outnumbered and surrounded, the backed into the centre of the circle the ALIEN soldiers had made around them and looked at each other with pure fear, realising their deaths were now terribly near,

"Stay back!" Shouted Danny in desperation, his voice still stern.

The troops sniggered. What appeared to be the captain stepped forward. "You gonna tell us what to do, rebel?" He said with a voice full of bitterness.

Danny didn't reply. The hopelessness of the situation had overwhelmed him as his mind desperately searched for ways out of this mess.

"What do we do now?" Jim whispered, he couldn't come up with anything either.

"Not much we can do!" Replied Danny, he shook his head and growled. "I guess we should go down…fighting."

Jim nodded. "Yeah, lets go down fighting for Kalm!" The patriotism they showed would have inspired their troops had the troops not been killed and splattered all over Kalm's outside grasslands that were temporarily stained with red.

Both rushed in opposite directions at the surrounding troops, but were soon defeated again, yet not killed. The ALIEN troops were simply amusing themselves with the two final Kalm rebels. Three troops held a weary and coughing Danny in front of the captain, the others kicked Jim on the floor, seeing who would be first to crack two ribs.

"Well, rebel. You put up quite a fight. I must say I'm impressed. However, that will not save you now. You chose your hometown over your Government. Truly patriotic and I assure you I am touched, but, you made a big mistake, and now you die for that mistake. Die in the name of Rufus Alien!"

Danny closed his eyes and waited for the sword to smash into his skull, prematurely ending his confused existence upon the planet. As the seconds passed, nothing at all happened. Silence had replaced the jeers and movements of the ALIEN soldiers. What was going on? Danny slowly and cautiously opened one eye, then the other…then gasped in shock and bewilderment. The once-cocky captain of this army lay on the floor…dead, a large gash across his chest. Looking around with wide-eyes, Danny noted that all the troops had been killed similarly. He and Jim had not. Jim rose to his feet, wearing the same stunned expression as Danny.

"Danny, what the hell is going on?" Jim cried, not expecting an answer from his friend, but needing clarification anyway.

"I …I don't know! The captain was about to kill me … then … he's dead. I had my eyes closed, so, I didn't see!"

"Me either." Jim replied, shaking his head at the massacre of bodies around them.

"So, what do we tell everyone back at Kalm?" Danny asked, trying to think rationally.

"Not sure, I guess we should go back to Kalm and tell them we won…if you can call this winning."

Danny agreed. However, upon arrival to Kalm, Danny and Jim were dismayed to find it in flames. Burning buildings crackled, the flames stretched dangerously up to the sky, almost as if heaven was being challenged by hell. Bodies, mercilessly burnt, lay all over the streets, a few twitching, but way beyond help.

"Oh my god, what's happened?" Gasped Jim.

At this point both were beginning to wonder how much more murder, death and suffering they could intake without losing their minds to sorrow and anger. Danny noticed a movement in the house closest to them, it was on fire, but only on top, a man was crawling out, he was blubbering madly, burnt badly but not on fire.

Danny and Jim rushed over, they tried to talk to him but he just repeated three words over and over.

"Sephiroth…not…Alien…" Looking up helplessly, the man managed a haunting grin, and then died. Sighing, Jim clenched his fists and turned to Danny.

"Wasn't Sephiroth that guy that went crazy whilst in training at ALIEN's recruitment centre?"

Danny thought for a second. "I think so. Yeah … it was big news at the time. He caused a lot of damage, heard he killed a lot of men, too."

Sephiroth was a brilliant veteran, according to ALIEN he was their best soldier, he disappeared from the ranks only 1 month before ALIEN started the attack on the Government and defeated it.

"It must have been ALIEN. That fight must have been a distraction." Figured Danny. "We should have seen it coming." Sadly, Danny closed his eyes. "Everyone's gone…all our friends and family."

The realisation that Jim's subconscious had been trying to hide from him then hit. His family too were here. He choked in fear, and ran to his house, but couldn't force himself to go inside and see the charred remains of those who he most loved. He wiped the tears from his eyes and stumbled back to Danny.

"What do we do?" Jim said, his voice barely above a whisper and yet still shaking.

"Midgcar. That's the only place left to go,"

Jim looked in the direction of the largest and most powerful city in the world, Midgcar. "The city of dreams, it's not far from here. Let's go."

Jim's strength in such a tragedy amazed and impressed Danny. He knew Jim was probably ignoring all his feelings and pretending that this wasn't real, but, it was better than Jim breaking down, for the moment he was alright. How long he would be able to hold back his emotion, Danny didn't know. He wasn't about to talk to Jim about it, it was the wrong time. He kept on the subject at hand.

"There'll be tight security, better make sure we bring our weapons, and we can hardly go like this. We'll have to stop in at the convenience store on the way to get different clothes." Danny wiped some of the blood on his uniform, it hadn't dried and he doubted it would for a while yet. The heat of the flames certainly wasn't helping. Turning around, shivering despite the warmth, Danny and Jim left Kalm, for what they thought would be the final time.