Disclaimer: Yeah, yeah. I own Hideo and Delta, nothing else.
Author's note: in this story, even cadets can use higher level magic, though it's more difficult for them to acquire it and they tend to have far fewer stock than most SeeDs.
Chapter Three: The Fateful Test.
Soft rain batted against Hideo's dorm window. It was past midnight, yet he knew he had to finish this. Time was running out.
He took a deep breath to calm himself before typing in a rapid series of imputed code into the holographic terminal. It was a top of the line holographitron portocomputer, not even available to the public yet. It, and the Fly Hideo was reprogramming, were part of the few possessions he brought with him to the Garden from Esthar. It looked like an aluminum armguard, but it was actually a computer that created a holographic interface.
The Fly, on the other hand was shoddy as far as looks went. It was little more than a steel rectangle with a small antenna, about the size of a pack of cigarettes. It didn't look like much, but it was one of the best hacking devices in Esthar. Mere possession was grounds for years in prison.
Hideo was trying to better the Worm he programmed into it. Hacking was how he got by in Esthar after he got out of the slums. He could still hear his mentor Liam's voice, lecturing him on tricks and codes, telling him how fast he was learning.
The sandy blond Estharian sighed and leaned back against the wall. Three and a half months and he still wasn't successful. None of the available terminals had access to Headmaster Kramer's personal computer, meaning he'd have to be physically there at the mainframe itself for the Fly to work it's magic. The Fly would have to be within two inches of the machine. If he didn't finish this soon, they sure as hell wouldn't be pleased. That's why he was working so feverishly tonight, he would have to do something drastic soon to get to that computer.
Clearing his head, he continued typing into the holographic terminal.
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The next day, Hideo was in the Training Center sparing with Delta. The first time they sparred, Hideo learned just how effective 'being trained since childhood by the best money could buy' really was, and he was beaten miserably several times. He had finally asked what she meant by 'the best money could buy', and she hesitantly answered that her family was part of the Dollet aristocracy. Knowing his short private lessons with Malek wasn't going to be enough to pass the SeeD Test, he talked her into becoming his sparring partner, and thus his first friend in the Garden.
Hideo went in for a stab, but Delta deflected it with her left hook sword, then hooked her right one around it to lock it into place. With a quick step backward, she turned her hips to pull Hideo off balance, and pressed the bladed crescent moon hand guard of her right hook sword against his neck.
"That's five to two now, Hideo." She said, triumphantly.
"Not again." Hideo grumbled lightly. Suddenly, Delta threw her grip of Hideo's sword over her head and to the side in an attempt to throw him off balance. He wasn't going to be caught unprepared for that move THREE times, so he yielded to the action, and used the momentum to sweep at Delta's leading leg.
As expected, she lifted her leg into a crane stance, but was caught unprepared when Hideo turned and rammed into her, pinning her to the ground underneath him.
"Damn it!" Delta said with a laugh. Hideo looked her in the eyes. She was a beautiful woman, chocolate colored hair, green eyes, and an almost perfect, slender body. Hideo wasn't used to such non-violent contact as this.
"Attention: all SeeD Candidates are to report to the First Floor Lobby in thirty minutes in uniform. This is not a drill." The intercom blared.
As the person on the intercom repeated himself, Hideo looked down at Delta, and quickly got off her. "Real smooth, ya dumb ass!" He berated himself.
Delta did a kick-up, and helped Hideo get back on his feet before they raced back to the Dorms.
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Twenty-five minutes later, Hideo met up with Delta at the lobby. In the last year, they changed the dress code to where female Garden student's could wear pants.
Everyone stood at attention when Headmaster Cid, Commander Leonhart, and Zell Dincht, who was cracking his knuckles, walked out of the elevator.
"Everyone," the Headmaster address the crowd, "this mission will involve twenty members from squads A through E. You will be accompanied by twelve SeeD members. Should you fail, they will get the job done, they always do." After that, Cid gave a little speech about 'the Pride of Balamb Garden', and so on. After he was finished, Commander Leonhart stepped forward.
"As the Headmaster said, there will be five groups, each with four members." He then called out four names. "You will be Squad A." He called out four more. "You will be Squad B. Hideo Masters, Marshal Kinrath, Delta Locke, and Keado Markos, you're Squad C." He finished the other squads assignments. "Everyone will proceed to the Ragnarok. Left FACE!"
Everyone turned to the left.
"Forward, MARCH!" Everyone marched forward towards the Quad, where a landing pad had been installed for the Estharian spacecraft.
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Ten minutes after they got airborne, the different squads were each in turn brought into the passenger compartment, where viewing screens had been installed on the back of the seats, to be given the briefing on their assignments.
Finally, it was Squad C's turn. Commander Leonhart started speaking as soon as they were all seated. "Our client for this mission is the Republic of Galbadia." A topographical image of Deling City appeared on the screen. "Twelve hours ago, the city was invaded by an army of monsters, all acting in groups. These are not just random acts, they are moving in calculated attacks, and working together. The Galbadian military forces were able to fortify the Presidential Residence, but they can't spare any to wipe out the groups that are elsewhere."
The commander pressed a button on the console under the screen, changing the image to show streets and buildings. "We have yet to identify any specific target. If you spot anything unusual, report it in immediately!"
Xu walked down the isle, handing out head set communicators. "There are two frequencies to your communicators." Squall continued. "The first is your squadron frequency, use it to communicate if you're split up. The second frequency is Squad E's frequency. They are the intelligence gathering team, and they can communicate with the individual squadrons. Report to them your position, where you see the enemy, and where you and the enemy are going whenever you can."
Commander Leonhart continued. "Defeating the individual groups of monsters quickly and efficiently is your mission, use whatever means you need to get the job done, within mission parameters. Squads A, B, and D will be taking different sectors of the city, with Squad E to take up camp in the Presidential Residence and act in place of intelligence. If you need assistance, report to them to relay a message to one of the other Squads. You'll be expected to render assistance to other squadrons as well. If you discover where or how the monsters are infiltrating the city, report it immediately. Any questions?"
Keado raised his hand. "Sir, what do you mean the monsters are working together? Isn't that a little strange?"
"So far, the only theory as to how this is possible is that they are somehow being controlled by a another party." Xu answered.
Squall continued. "Your mission parameters are to cause as little property damage as possible, do whatever necessary to protect the citizenry, and to follow your orders should they change. Marshal Kinrath, you're the squad leader. Good luck, you are all dismissed."
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Two hours later, the five teams were all in the docking area. The adrenaline in the cadets' blood was starting to thin out, several of them were yawning.
Marshal was the senior Garden student among them, sixteen years old, and a Garden student for ten years. He was tall and slender with a military cut to his light blond hair.
Keado was slumped against the wall with his scoped bayonet propped up. He was the eldest amongst them, eighteen years of age. In sharp contrast to Marshal, he was the same height as Hideo, broad shouldered, long black hair that hung in spike in front of his face, with no qualms about grease on his face or going unshaven, and he always had a stress bullet in his mouth. Numerous jokes were made due to the stress bullet, but Keado never paid any attention to them.
Suddenly, the intercom buzzed. "We are T-minus three minutes from the landing zone. Repeat, T-minus three minutes."
No one in the room were yawning anymore. The senior Garden students looked, for the most part, like they were soldiers in a war film, ready to fight full of valor. The rest of the student, on the other hand, were anxious and nervous.
Hideo took a deep breath, which proved difficult due to how tense he was. He tried to take his mind away from the upcoming battles by calculating how fast the Ragnarok must have been flying to get to Deling City in this much time based off estimations of distance.
"T-minus sixty seconds." The intercom buzzed, startling a few of the students.
Hideo took a deep breath, trying to feel the GFs inside of him, feeling their energies coursing through him. He could feel them, a warmth inside his blood with an electric pulse in synch with his own heartbeat. The sharpness and focus of the thunder GF Ixion, and the calm serenity of the water GF, Krakken.
He looked over to Delta, next to him holding onto the balance bar on the wall, to find her looking at him as well. He remembered when he first saw her, nearly bursting with excitement. Now she was in a space ship, in a blue Balamb Garden uniform, flying onward to battle, and scared.
"Don't worry, I'll protect you." Hideo silently promised.
"Look sharp, people!" Marshal shouted as the ship started to rock from it's decent, though he did not sound half as confident as he was trying to be.
Every passing second felt like minutes as the fear welled up within Hideo. He was going into a real battlefield.
Finally, with a lurch and a thud, the Ragnarok landed, and the hanger bay opened, shining brightly against the poor lighting.
"Squad A, engage!" The SeeD supervisor commanded. The ordered group of cadets ran towards the exit.
As soon as the ramp was clear, the SeeD supervisor continued. "Squad B, engage!"
Hideo felt sweat trickle down his temples. He realized, with a deep feeling of dread, that now there was no chance of turning back, there was only the option of going forward.
"Squad C, engage!" As soon as those words were said, all fear within him vanished. All that remained was his mission.
Marshal took the lead, brandishing his katana, followed by Delta, Hideo, and Keado. They had landed a hundred meters from the gates leading into Deling City. "Move out!" Marshal ordered.
They closed the gap within a minute, running past the high walls that surrounded the city. Squad A went west bound on Jensen Court, Squad B went north on Deling Avenue, straight into the heart of the city. Squad C was to go east bound on Jensen Court.
The city was ripe with the songs of chaos, with sirens for instruments, gunshots as vocals, and explosions for percussion. The urban parts of the city were covered in smoke, painted red by the numerous fires.
As they ran across the street, passing crushed, over-turned cars and mutilated people, they saw their first quarry. Two chimera's and a death claw. The chimera's were fighting over a corpse, treating it like a rag doll, while the death claw was trying to get a scared senseless man out of his blue car. In unison, all three monsters turned from what they were doing, and approached the Garden students.
Keado stopped and kneeled down to steady his sniper rifle bayonet. He got off two shots before the monsters got too close, the first in the leading chimera's dominate head, the second in the death claw's haunch.
Repositioning his hands so he was holding his bayonet like a quarterstaff, Keado rolled out of the way as the remaining chimera jumped at him. As soon as he got back on his feet, he swung the butt of his gun at the monster's hind leg's knee, hearing the tendons snaps. The chimera roared in pain, allowing an ample distraction for Marshal to cast blizzara on the monster's heads, turning them all to ice.
At that time, Hideo and Delta were handling the death claw. Delta deflected the monster's top left spike, then hooked her other sword around it, sinking the hooks into the bone. With the power coming from her turning her hips, she pulled the large monster forward, just like she had done to Hideo earlier that day. In that moment of unbalance, Hideo rushed in, too close for the long claws to pierce him, and ran his blade all the way through the creature and twisted it. After a few seconds of the death claw convulsing, he pulled his sword out and jumped away so the monster wouldn't crush him as it died.
Marshal ran over to the car, and told the man that the way to the exit of the city was clear, and that SeeDs were there to protect him. Not waiting to see what the man did, he marched forward. As soon as they started moving on, Hideo shot a fire spell at the chimera popsicle, turning the front half of it's body into shattered ice.
As they continued on, they came close to the sounds of destruction; gun fire and the breaking of wood and glass came just around the corner. Four burning cars blocked the way.
They turned around and got into an alleyway, then climbed a fire escape to the roof. Marshal quickly got to the edge, followed by the others to survey the site. One car was upside down and on fire. A man was keeping two thrustaevis's away from his wife and small child with a two-by-four on the other side of the street. Another car was turned over by an ochu, and a couple of armadodo's were on top, apparently trying to crush it in some way by jumping up and down on their tiny legs.
"Okay…" Marshal said, looking like he was evaluating the situation. "Okay, we go after the thrustaevises first, then the ochu, then the armadodos. Remember, fast and efficient." He stepped up to the edge.
"Wait!" Hideo said, grabbing the squad captain by the arm. "That the only tactic you can come up with?"
"What? Can you do better?" Marshal challenged angrily.
Hideo looked back at the situation. "Yeah. Keado, throw a flash-bang at the thrustaevises, and take one out while they're stunned, I'll take out the other. Marshal and Delta, you jump right to the armadodo's, get them off the car. And throw a frag grenade into the ochu's mouth when you get the opportunity."
Marshal looked back at him with a stern expression, as if evaluating the plan's worth. Or maybe he was angry that he, the captain, didn't think it up himself like he was supposed to.
"On your orders, of course." Hideo followed up.
Marshal's face darkened. "We'll go with that plan."
Holding his bayonet against his shoulder, Keado pulled a flash-bang grenade off his belt, and pulled the pin out with his teeth while holding the clip on. "Just give the word." He said simply.
Marshal looked back at the group. "Execute."
Keado threw the stun grenade, and the squad members looked away while covering their ears. The grenade landed near the thrustaevises, and after a second, it exploded, sending off a blinding flash with an ear shattering boom, disorienting the two flying monsters enough for them to crash on the ground.
Hideo jumped off the ledge, flying a good fifteen feet away from the building before hitting the ground, where he rolled to break his fall. As soon as he pulled Lunar Edge out of it's sheath, a gunshot went off, blowing a hole the size of a fist through one of the thrustaevises. The Estharian held the other one to the ground under his foot before running it through.
The man dropped the two-by-four, apparently formerly a ceiling beam, and heaved a sigh of relief.
Hideo stepped up to the nearby building, and with the added strength his GFs gave him, kicked the reinforced locked door open. "Take your family and barricade yourselves in there!" They didn't waste any time.
Suddenly, Hideo felt a tingling. A sense of both tugging and pulling from a very distinct angle. He knew this feeling from his training with GF. Immediately, he turned around swinging his sword, right before hearing Marshal and Delta shout his name. By mere luck, or subconscious guidance by the GFs, his sword pierced through the pad of the ochu's right tentacle's paw. A second later, the monster's left tentacle connecting solidly with his shoulder.
His Garden trained reflexes would've made him roll back onto his feet if only he wasn't blinded by pain at the moment. The ochu's blow dislocating his shoulder. Instead, he skidded ten feet across the pavement.
As Hideo got onto his knees, he saw the ochu lumbering towards him, mouth wide open, facing away from the Estharian's teammates. And he didn't have any grenades on him. Hideo then noticed his sword was still imbedded in it's paw.
"Might as well use one now." He reasoned, though he had hoped to save them for later. He lifted his good arm up, and cast a Flare spell into the monster's gaping maw. Hideo felt the explosions report in his chest as pieces of the ochu's head flew away from it's stump of a body.
He looked over and saw Delta manage to get one of her swords hooked into the underside of an armadodo, and pull it onto it's back, where Marshal drove his katana into it's soft underbelly. Hideo gave them a thumbs up, then put his foot on the dead ochu's right paw and pulled his sword out.
Keado landed softly on the ground and walked over to him, looking at his teammate's shoulder "Dislocated?" He asked.
"Yeah." Hideo answered.
Keado put his bayonet on the ground before carefully feeling Hideo's arm. He then pulled a wood block wrapped in twine out of his pocket. "You'll want this."
Hideo held it, and clenched it in his teeth. He then nodded to Keado. His teeth sank deep into the twine as Keado popped his arm. As he bent over groaning, Keado cast cure on his shoulder to reduce the inflammation. Delta cast cura as soon as she got to him.
Hideo slowly swung his arm in large circles, trying to work the soreness out. He grabbed the twine wrapped block and offered it back to Keado. He took one look at it before saying, "Keep it."
Static then filled their head communicators. "Squad C, report position."
Marshal pressed a finger to the headset. "Squad E, this is Squad C captain. We are at…half a block north from Jensen Court and Benson Lane."
"You'll have to do. Report to the Presidential Residence on the double! We need backup! Two blocks north, then take a left all the way to the Grand Archway, then follow the road north."
"Move out!" Marshal commanded.
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Along the way, Hideo noticed by looking between the buildings and through the alleyways that several monster groups were going opposite their vector. "Gotta follow orders!" He thought, resisting the urge to go after them. A few minutes later, he noticed the groups were running along side his squad, easily outrunning them.
He took note of the street names, and estimated how many blocks they had run before the monster groups switched course.
Within ten minutes of receiving the order, they arrived at the Presidential Residence, where they witnessed a swarm of nearly a hundred monsters outside the mansion.
Keado passed a few frag grenades to his teammates. As soon as they were in range, they all let loose. The explosions helped thin out the crowd, but Delta used one of her few ultima spells, clearing out a huge portion of the monsters, sending many of them flying over the student's heads.
Just before they could dive into the thick of the horde, Delta ran out in front. She took her double hook swords and hooked them together, so that she could swing the bladed crescent moon hand-guard in a wide arc. She then cast fire on the hilt of the outside sword, turning the thin rope covering ablaze. The swinging fire caused the monsters to hesitate to approach them. The squad stayed behind her with their heads down as she swung the swords out, keeping the monsters at two arms length.
Finally, they made it to the gate, where they climbed the vertical poles as fast as they could before the monsters snapped at their heels.
As Hideo was swinging over, he noticed three groups of anacondaurs, blitzes, and Raldos moving past the Presidential Residence. The horde of monsters were so thick, no one would have seen them! Hideo quickly landed on the ground, and pulled out his .45 pistols, and started firing through the gates and into the crowds, along with the remaining Galbadian forces and Squad E.
"Fasties!" One of the soldiers cried out. Hideo looked up, and saw several fastitocalons flying over the gates. Redirecting his aim, he started firing at the flying sharks.
Suddenly, Hideo felt fingers wrap around his ankle, and with a sharp pull, he fell on his back.
"We've got creeps!" Delta shouted.
Marshal ran over the Hideo, and stabbed his katana through the flat, shadow like creature, nailing it to the ground. Hideo kicked up, and spent the last remaining bullets he had into the few creeps that came in under the gates.
"We got them!" A soldier from the back of the ranks yelled, as if he were trying to warn them.
A member of Squad E grabbed Hideo and pulled him hard to the side. Suddenly, the sounds of machine guns spewing fire filled the air. Covering his ear, Hideo looked back and saw two antiquated hand-cranked copper gatling guns firing into the horde of monsters. It was over in a minute.
"Were did you get those relics?" Keado asked.
"We don't keep heavy artillery here in the Presidential Residence." Said a middle aged soldier, who's insignia showed him to be of high rank. "But these were display pieces in the museum. Thank the heavens they still work."
Hideo didn't waste any time. "Sir, are you the officer in charge here?"
"Yes, I am. Chief of Urban Development, Colonel Two Star Jaden Kendal."
"Colonel, I need to talk to you and the captain of Squad E. I think I noticed something out there that could prove vital."
Without a word or any other reaction, the colonel signaled for the Garden student to follow him into the nearby tent, where two SeeDs from Squad E and Marshal were studying a map.
"Pardon me," Kendal said, "but this cadet here claims to have information that could be important."
"And you were going to tell me this when?" Marshal asked, annoyed.
"I wasn't going to give this report without you, sir." Hideo told his captain, then addressed the main group. "Do you know how the monsters are getting in the city yet?"
"No, we're still trying to figure that out."
"Can I see that map?"
One of the SeeDs moved, allowing Hideo a good view of the expansive map, displaying building shapes and sizes, with writing for the businesses and street names. After a minute of searching, Hideo found the streets he was looking for. "I noticed about half a dozen monster groups coming from this district. What's around there?"
Kendal leaned over the map. "There, the East Central Park? A couple of arcades, there's a storage shop, but they could barely contain a behemoth cub, let alone hundreds of monsters. Nothing I can think of that would be a potential subterranean insertion point, and we have extensively scanned the sewer system. Nothing."
"Hey." One of the SeeDs called out, looking at another map. "This may just be a coincidence, but topographically, that area is the lowest spot in all of Deling."
"What?" Kendal asked.
"Deling City's not flat?" Marshal asked.
"No." Kendal answered. "When the city was built, the area was much larger than any other cities at the time, so they didn't bother to mow down the big hills or fill in the dips." He went quiet after that, deep in thought.
Finally, he turned to the door. "Lieutenant." He called out. A subordinate showed up in the tent a second later. "I want you to go through the archives, find sewer maps that are at least twenty years old."
The lieutenant saluted, then quickly left.
"Mind filling us in on what this is about, sir?" Marshal asked.
"Because of the decreased demand on military funds when the Sorceress War ended, Deling City had the money to install a new sewer system, but I don't believe it replaced the old one. It's possible that these monsters are entering from the old sewer system. I'm pretty sure it worked on a series of underground aqueducts, using gravity to drive the water out, and directing it to the ocean, less than a mile from the city. As such, they should be long cleared out by now."
"And you think they're using these aqueducts?" Hideo asked.
"It's just a theory." Kendal replied. "I don't even know if these aqueducts are big enough for a person to travel through, let alone monsters. But it would make sense that one of the main aqueducts would start at Deling's lowest point, since they run off of gravity."
"Sir, I also noticed another thing." Hideo mentioned. They gave him back their attention. "I saw a few larger groups of monsters running right past the Presidential Residence. They didn't even slow down."
Kendal looked confused. "You mean the Presidential Residence wasn't their target?"
"It makes sense." Squad E's captain said. "If overrunning us was their main objective, they would've had every unit biting at our heels. Yet everything we've seen so far has indicated this is all one big coordinated attack."
Kendal thought about that. "So they're trying to keep us in here while they tear the city apart?"
"Or they could be blinding us to what their true target is." Hideo mentioned. "Have you been keeping track of where the teams and military forces have intercepted the enemy units?"
Kendal looked a little confused. "Affirmative. Standard operating procedure."
"Can I look over those files? If they kept sending reinforcements to certain areas, that might clear things up."
"Wait a sec." Squad E's captain said. He grabbed a walkie-talkie, set it to a frequency, and spoke into it. "This is Squad E, report your current status."
The radio feed coming back was heavy with static and explosions. "Nothing's changed, thank you very much!" A voice yelled before cutting off.
"That was Squad B, they're currently here." The captain pointed to a spot about ten blocks away from the Presidential Residence. "They've been taking in constant barrages of attacks since they got there. It seems whatever's there, whoever's controlling the monsters wants to get to it."
"What is there?" Marshal asked.
"I don't know. The maps states it's a rent-out complex."
"Manitech Corporations Headquarters." Kendal answered. "They've been renting out that complex for near ten years now."
"What's their field?" Hideo asked.
Kendal shrugged. "They don't go public about their research. It's energy related, as best I can tell. They are a privately funded corporation, after all."
Hideo looked back at the map. After a little thinking, he asked, "Do you know who funds them?"
The Colonel brought his hand to his chin. "Come to think about it, no. I never heard anything about who supported them."
At that moment, the lieutenant returned with large rolls of paper. "Sir, here are the maps you requested."
Kendal took the maps and dismissed the lieutenant before laying the maps out across the table. "Son of a bitch." He murmured after scanning it. "Kid, I think your theory's a keeper." He bent the map so that the area Hideo had pointed out was at the edge, with the same location on the other map right next to it. "That's the beginning of the main line for the sewer drainage system, and look what's still there now."
Hideo, Marshal, and Squad E's captain leaned over and saw what was labeled on the map. Old Sewer System Control Center, with "under renovation" written in parenthesis below.
"Colonel," Hideo spoke up, "you didn't get any distress calls from there before the attack happened, did you?"
Kendal shook his head. "We didn't get anything out of the ordinary before the strike started. And that building had been bought years ago. It's no longer government property."
Hideo sighed and stood up. "So captain, what do we do?"
Marshal stood up straight as well, not looking at anything in particular for a few moments before addressing Hideo. "We take out that building and collapse the tunnel under it."
Hideo coughed, obviously saying that his captain forgot something. Marshal just moved his eyes around, not catching what it was. The Estharian mouthed "chain of command", in hopes he'd catch on. It took several moments of silence before Marshal finally got it.
He turned to the Colonel. "That would be my suggestion for a plan of action. It's all up to you, of course."
"Well," the colonel said, "that building is right next to two apartment complexes, and most people are still inside their homes right now. And collapsing the aqueduct could destabilize the surrounding area. This map shows the aqueduct itself has to be at least twenty feet by twenty feet, who knows what that kind of sudden collapse would do."
"And let's not forget the possibility of hostages." Hideo mentioned. "We haven't proved yet that the owners of the property were involved in this attack."
"So does anyone have any good ideas?" Marshal asked with annoyance.
Kendal and Squad E's captain started talking about setting up a perimeter around the building, but it was pointed out that they couldn't spare those kind of troops with all the monsters already in the city.
Ignoring them, Hideo looked at the old schematics. They reminded him of some of the old, dusty plans he used in his short stead as a liograt exterminator.
Liograts were worm like creatures, normally a little smaller than a typical woman's wrist, that fed off of and lived in cable lines. Not only did they ruin the lines, but they were freaking hard to catch. They could move through the lines at nearly twenty miles an hour when fully grown. Just about the only way to catch one was to…
"…Choke them off." Hideo whispered.
Marshal stopped his argument. "What was that?"
Hideo smiled. "If you can't hack an alarm into not going off, then cut the alarm off from anything that would set it off." The old hackers saying went.
"We choke them off!" Hideo answered. "If we can't stop them from entering the city from the exit, close off the entrance! Instead of doing something about the Old Sewer System Control Center, take care of the their entrance into the drainage system itself!"
Kendal looked surprised. "Instead of collapsing the aqueduct here, collapse it just before it hits the ocean. And that way, they won't be able to send in any more, and those already in it will be trapped!"
"Hey!" Marshal addressed the Squad E captain. "Based on what we know, how much manpower will it take to collapse this tunnel?"
He looked at the schematics for a second. "It shouldn't take more than a couple people. A few detonators will easily take care of that tunnel. A single squad would be more than enough."
"Colonel, how far away from the city do the aqueducts end?" Hideo asked.
"Three quarters of a mile, give or take. They're about half a mile east of the city's shipping docks. They should be rather easy to find if they just went along the coast."
"So do you think this will work?" Marshal asked Hideo.
"I think it's better than what we're doing now."
"It's your call, Colonel." Marshal stated.
Kendal stood up tall, straightened out his uniform, and said, "The operation is a go."
End of Chapter Three
Author's Note: Due to many people saying the original chapter three's length was intimidating, I've decided to split it up into two. The next chapter will, technically, be the rest of this one. There, you'll find out Hideo's true agenda, and why he's in the Garden.