Chapter 9: The Fast and the Furious
Bullets ripped through the air, and Zell threw himself behind the vacated receptionist's desk. The Shinra soldiers outside continued firing staggered bursts as they crouched behind the cover offered by dozens of armored vehicles. Beside him, Rinoa crouched behind the desk as well. Red XIII was somewhere else; Zell had no idea where.
"Shit!" Zell muttered, shaking his head. "Too many of them. No way in hell we're getting out the front door!"
"I'm sorry, Zell," Rinoa muttered, shaking her head. "I got you mixed up in this. You and Red should try to escape, I'll stay here. Its me they want."
"That's stupid talk!" Zell retorted. "No way in hell I'm leaving you behind! We're gonna find a way out of here!" Rinoa's eyes widened at Zell's proclamation.
"Zell . . . ." Rinoa said after a moment. "Thank you."
"No need to thank me just yet," Zell muttered, peeking his head over the desk. A bullet ricocheted off it, cutting through the collar of his new military vest. The martial artist cursed and ducked behind the desk.
"There is only a matter of time before they come in," called a voice behind Zell and Rinoa. They turned to see Red crouched behind one of the vehicles on display, a blue pickup truck. He gestured to the truck with his head. "We must escape while we still can. This vehicle is still fueled."
"Squall and Quistis are still up there!" Zell stated, shaking his head. "We have to hold until-"
"We're here!" came a shout from the upper levels, and Zell glanced up, to see Quistis running down the stairs from the second level of the empty lobby.
"Where's Squall?" Rinoa asked, to which Quistis gestured over her shoulder to the upper levels.
"He's hot-wiring a ride of his own," she stated. "He wants us to find something fast but can hold all of us and get up there."
"Upstairs?" Zell echoed. "I know Squall's nuts, but still, that's insane!"
"No time to argue!" Rinoa replied, pulling Zell up. She pushed him forward, toward the blue truck. "Get inside! Can you hotwire it?"
"Easy," Zell replied. "But I don't think we'll make it to that truck without getting shot. They've got a perfect shot in here. We'll be picked off before we can reach it."
"Not if they won't shoot," Rinoa replied, leaping over the desk to stand in the doorway. For an instant, Zell thought she'd be gunned down, but none of the Shinra soldiers opened fire.
"Go, now!" she called, and Zell nodded, rising up and bolting toward the door. From her vantage point, Rinoa could see the soldiers outside twitch momentarily, over a hundred and more men's fingers moving toward their triggers, but they held their fire, Rinoa standing in their fields of fire and shielding Zell. None of the Shinra soldiers wanted to face Heidegger or Rufus' wrath if the accidentally killed the one target they were supposed to capture alive.
Behind her, Zell ducked into the truck and pulled out a small utility knife. He popped the bottom of the dashboard off, revealing a tangle of wires. A couple of cuts and a pair of twists later, the truck rumbled to life. He leaned out and waved for the others to come on. Quistis bounded down the stairs, while Red leaped into the truck's bed and took cover. Zell glanced to Rinoa to see her turn back toward him, but at that moment, a pair of Shinra soldiers came into view, having hid just outside the doorway as a means to reconnoiter the lobby. She stepped back, drawing and extending her staff, intercepting one man's tonfa as it dove for her head. The other man thrust out with his weapon, jabbing her in the stomach. Rinoa doubled over in sudden pain, and the other soldier winded up for another hit with his club.
Then, he was dead, a bolt of freezing ice striking down at him from where Quistis stood on the stairs and blasting the soldier away. The other man looked up momentarily, and then ducked behind Rinoa, using her as a shield. He grabbed her as she was recovering from the hit, spinning her around and throwing and arm around her neck. He began to pull away, dragging Rinoa outside the building, while other Shinra soldiers began edging forward from their cover, now that the Ancient was secured.
Up on the second level, Quistis cursed, unable to use magic upon her opponent. She looked down at her comrades below, but saw that they were unable to help, none of them possessing a weapon precise enough to pick off the soldier as he retreated with his prize in tow.
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"Oh, no you don't," he whispered, looking down on the battlefield below from one of the huge Mako pipes that were scattered around the Shinra Building. His current spot had, until several minutes ago, been occupied by a Shinra sniper, but the man was no longer in any position to cover the building, or even to be in a position to breathe. The figure had appropriated the dead man's rifle and now lay quietly, unnoticed, peering through the scope.
He saw Rinoa being dragged away by the soldier, the man obviously too strong for her to break his grip as he pulled her to the Shinra lines. Those inside couldn't do anything, except possibly to charge out in a brave but suicidal effort to rescue her. Even worse, the Shinra troops were cautiously moving forward, preparing to end the siege. The situation had gone belly-up in the blink of an eye.
Or rather, it would have been belly-up, except that he was in the perfect position to render a bit of 'aid'."
He leveled the appropriated sniper rifle at the Shinra soldier. He had to still his breath before firing; it had been a while since he'd used a rifle. He zoomed in, settling his quivering sights over the man's head, and willed his body to remain motionless. The sight stilled momentarily, and he gently squeezed the trigger as it settled over the back of the soldier's head.
That head exploded like a can of tomato soup, and he fell back, Rinoa scrambling forward. The Shinra soldiers moving forward shouted and surged forward, and a number of men around the barricade looked around in confusion as to where the shot came from. Long before they had discovered one of their snipers was no longer reporting in, however, the one who had intervened was long gone, melting into the Midgar night.
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Rinoa rushed forward into the safety of the building, a squad of fast-moving Shinra troopers hot on her tail. She rushed into the building, the soldiers only a few steps behind her, and turned to the right, leaping over the desk. The soldiers turned to follow, some moving to go around the desk, others scrambling over it, when a pair of them simply flew away.
Then Zell Dincht, who had leaped out of his car the moment Rinoa had been grabbed, smashed into the back of the group of soldiers from his hiding spot beside the door, mimicking the soldiers who had been lurking outside moments before. Zell's fists, feet and forehead struck with brutally fast strikes, smashing one man's helmet in, shattering another's neck, and pulverizing a third's ribcage. He swept his opponents aside as if they were mere children, throwing them around the chamber to land in crumpled, mangled heaps. Ahead of the martial artist, Rinoa spun around, scooping up her staff and meeting the lead soldier head-on, deflecting his tonfa and jabbing the staff in the opening, right into the man's mouth. She laid him out flat, and twirled the weapon over to smash the next man's tonfa into the floor as he thrust forward with it. The opposing head of her staff smashed across into the soldier's helmet and threw him down.
Most of the squad had been devastated by Zell's clever reversal of their own maneuver and subsequent sneak attack, but one man managed to fall back beyond the martial artist's rampage, and leveled his rifle at Zell as he twisted another soldier's arm around to the point where it was dislocated. He was about to fire when Red XIII leaped onto his back, bearing the soldier down under his surprising weight. Red's fangs tore into the back of the man's neck, and the fiery creature tasted blood as he shattered his opponent's vertebrae with a twist of his powerful neck muscles.
The initial squad was dealt with, but Red and Zell were in the open and easy targets, a fact enunciated by the sudden sheets of bullets ripping through the air toward them. The two warriors were already moving, however, Zell flipping out of the way while Red simply seemed to vanish without whisper of sound, as if he had never been there in the first place.
Behind them, the pickup truck started moving, Quistis now in the driver's seat. She accelerated, pulling forward, and Red seemed to leap from nowhere to the back of the truck, taking cover in the bed once again. Zell, in his hiding spot, watched the truck move forward, Quistis looking back through one of the mirrors at him. With a shrug to himself, the martial artist burst forward, running past the doors. The Shinra soldiers outside, now much closer as they advanced, opened fire in the middle of their run, but their poorly aimed shots never got near Zell, excepting another shot that tore through his open green vest but missed his skin. Quistis slowed the truck as she turned toward the stairs on the right side of the lobby, and Rinoa dashed in, opening the door and getting inside. Halfway to the moving truck Zell leaped, his enhanced muscles hurling him across the gap to land in the back of the truck as it started to accelerate up the stairs. Bullets pursued the vehicle as it rose, Shinra soldiers bursting into the lobby.
Zell's teeth rattled in his mouth as the truck bounced up the stairs, bullets storming around them and throwing chunks of concrete and sparks from metal about like a raging blizzard. It was even cold, Zell noted as he threw himself to the floor of the truck bed. A moment later, he was confused by the thought of the cold, as the lobby of the building had actually been a bit warmer than normal.
His question was answered in the form of shouts of fear and awe as the Shinra soldiers looked upon a beautiful, shapely figure exploding from within an icicle that had suddenly formed in the center of the lobby. The blue-skinned, hairless woman seemed to float in the air, a shimmering blue light forming in her hands as she gestured with them in the air.
Then, a shockwave of pure cold ripped across the lobby, directly into the charging Shinra soldiers, freezing them where they stood and icing over the entrance, sealing the remainder of the charging force outside. The entity of ice vanished a moment later in a whisper of frigid cold, and the lobby returned to its normal temperature.
"What the hell was that?" a confused Zell asked, looking around the lobby for the source of the icy entity. An instant later, the source came into view as the truck rolled up to the top of the steps, where Squall was waiting, his left bracer showing only a faint red glow, the after-effect of his usage of one of his Guardian Force materia. More importantly, Squall was straddling a powerful-looking military motorcycle, which he had stolen from its display along the wall. Squall revved up his stolen vehicle and drove it around the truck, near where a massive window displayed a highway running past the Shinra Building. Without a word, the ex-SeeD leveled a hand at the window, and ice erupted from his fingers, freezing the glass. A single swing of his gunblade shattered the icy glass, and then he drove the motorcycle back across the room. Quistis had already driven the truck to the far side of this level, and turned it around.
"Squall, you're completely insane," Zell muttered from the back of the truck, looking at the window and the open stretch beyond it.
"It's our only option," Squall replied with a shrug. Zell didn't reply with words, instead hunkering down in the bed of the truck and muttering a prayer. Squall revved his engine, as did Quistis with her vehicle, and the truck shot forward first, toward the open window. It accelerated rapidly and seemed to veritably leap from the window, flying out across the Midgar night, Squall's motorcycle a second behind. They flew past the shocked faces of hundreds of Shinra soldiers, and directly underneath the helicopter where Rufus was directing the whole operation. The young president watched in shock at the daring move, the quintet's vehicles somehow landing safely on the highway and speeding off. He snatched up a radio from one of the soldiers flying with him and contacted Heidegger.
"Heidegger, dammit!" he called.
"Sorry, sir!" the general replied immediately. "We just saw the escape, and we didn't expect them to be so . . . er, resourceful."
"I'm saving blame for the next staff meeting," Rufus replied coldly. "For now, just capture them! Do not let Squall and his group escape, do you understand?"
"Yes, Mr. President!" Heidegger replied. "I understand completely!"
"Then get on it, now." Rufus handed the radio back to the soldier and tapped the pilot on the shoulder. "Hey! Get me down on the ground at Heidegger's command post, right now!"
"Yes, sir!" the pilot replied, sending the helicopter down toward the area behind the lines of trucks and tanks positioned outside the Shinra Building. Within moments, the pilot had maneuvered the helicopter into an open area near the command post where Heidegger was barking orders furiously to his men. Nearby, Reeve was talking into a headset with someone, while Scarlet simply stood to the side, overlooking the entire operation. She turned toward Rufus as he stepped off the helicopter, shielding her eyes from the whipping winds generated by the rotors.
"What's going on?" he asked her, rather than interrupt Heidegger or Reeve from their tasks. Scarlet had been observing the whole thing, and he knew that the woman was a very perceptive and analytical person, part of the reason why she had been promoted to her current position. The other part of her ascension, Rufus knew, came from the fact that she had bedded half the men in the company . . . at least.
"Heidegger is attempting to get units in pursuit," Scarlet stated easily, putting emphasis on the word 'attempt'. "Reeve is coordinating and attempting to get roads cleared for the units, though he's not going about it with the most eagerness."
"Trying to minimize damage to the city," Reeve commented, apparently having overheard the short briefing. "Unlike your father." Scarlet glanced back to Rufus, expecting him to be angry, but the young president actually smiled faintly.
"Mr. President!" Heidegger called, striding over as the last of his underlings scurried off to initiate the pursuit. "I've set the Shinra military into motion. We won't have much in the way of close air support, as Sephiroth did a number on our aircraft hangars in the main building. I've got some LRVs and as many motorcycle scout units as I can give orders to moving onto the highway in pursuit. Unfortunately, the majority of our other armored and robotic units aren't fast enough to get onto the highway in pursuit."
"What can?" Rufus asked, and Heidegger threw his head back and bellowed a laugh.
"I've already sent the orders to the one operational unit we have available," Heidegger explained, not directly answering the question. "The others are on standby near the Mako reactors, and we can't pull them off guard duty in time to reprogram them with new targets, so we've only got the one unit."
"Another Black Widow?" Rufus asked, and Heidegger laughed again. Somewhere in the distance, a familiar pounding of metal jackhammers sounded.
"Its heading off in pursuit," Heidegger reported. "Don't worry, sir. I've given it orders to use nonlethal force against the Ancient, and to try to take the others in a reasonable state of life. World'll be happy to see their executions, I'm betting."
"Indeed," Rufus replied with a nod. "Good job. Get whatever aerial units we have on hand and get them airborne in pursuit, right now. I also want all our mobile armor moved in pursuit."
"Sir?"
"Why, Mr. President?" Scarlet asked, as confused as Heidegger.
"Once you've sent those orders, I need you to work with Reeve and get maps of the highway system," Rufus added. "I want them herded back into the city, where our armor will be waiting for them."
"Great plan, Mr. President," Heidegger replied. "I'm on it!"
"An Scarlet," the young president added, turning toward her. She looked over to him, and he nodded toward Heidegger. "Keep an eye on this. Make sure he doesn't screw up."
Scarlet gave a dark smile and nodded, understanding her role as watchdog as Rufus turned away and strode back into his helicopter.
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Squall eased off on the accelerator, falling back behind the blue pickup. He glanced back into the vehicle, to see Rinoa and Quistis in the cab, both of whom gave him nods. He fell back a bit further and saw Red in the bed, standing tall, his short crimson fur flying in the whipping wind. Zell was nowhere to be seen at first, and Squall feared he had somehow been lost during the desperate jump. His fears were silenced an instant later as the martial artist poked his head over the rim of the bed, looking around with obvious relief on his face. He tuned to Squall and gave the ex-SeeD a slight grin and a shaky thumbs-up.
"Don't relax," Squall shouted over the whipping winds as they accelerated down the highway. "Shinra's following!"
A staccato of gunfire could be heard and a trio of bullets struck the rear of the truck, bouncing off the tailgate.
"No shit," Zell replied, ducking for cover once more. Squall looked back to see a lance, totaling five men, of Shinra motorcycle scouts in hot pursuit, rapidly closing. Squall cursed; the slower speed of the truck meant that the bikes would have an easy time catching up. It looked like he would have to play interference. Reaching down to his gunblade, Squall knew that this wouldn't be easy. He would have to use his left hand, which wasn't his dominant hand, making things even more complicated. Magic wasn't an option; in this high-speed situation, it would be difficult to concentrate even for the instant he needed to conjure magical energies, and he only had one hand free at any given time anyway. No, he was going to have to play this with sheer speed and ferocity.
The Shinra bikers were getting closer, and each of them was carrying a light machine pistol with an extended magazine, as well as heavy gauntlets on their forearms that Squall knew from experience concealed arm-mounted blades for drive-by attacks and grappling onto vehicles. Their motorcycles were sturdy and durable vehicles featuring heavy armor and powerful engines, and could take significant gunfire and other types of trauma and still remain running. By contrast, Squall's vehicle was lighter and actually faster and more agile, more of a crotch-rocket than a military model, which might just give him an advantage.
Squall nodded toward Red and Zell, who poked his head out again, and released the accelerator for a single heartbeat. In an instant, Squall was slowed down dramatically, his left hand tearing his gunblade out as he seemed to stop in place. The motorcycle scouts flashed past him as well, excepting one, who took the gunblade in the chest as Squall slowed, the blade biting into his lungs and throwing him off the bike. Squall was then accelerating again, right behind the remainder of the Shinra motorcycle lance. He closed into their ranks as the scouts were still trying to figure out what had happened, the ex-SeeD coming alongside the scout in the rear and smashing across with his gunblade. The weapon sliced into the soldier's side, the weight of the blow throwing him from the motorcycle. The vehicle skittered across the pavement and smashed into one of the walls alongside the highway.
One of the scouts looked back to see the sudden death of his comrade, and shouted something over his radio even as Squall accelerated and sideslipped toward the alert scout. The man extended his left arm-blade and sideslipped as well, toward Squall, stabbing out. Squall pulled aside briefly, the blade slashing into where he'd been an instant previously, and then slipped right back in, slashing across with his weapon into the enemy motorcycle's handlebars. There was a powerful blast from the gunblade, and the handlebars blew apart in the soldier's hands. The bike spun out of control, throwing the unfortunate soldier off to roll, bounce, and slide across the highway.
The two scouts ahead slowed, dropping back to engage Squall, one leveling a machine pistol while the other closed with blade extended. The nearer soldier tried slashing across at Squall's face as he closed on the ex-SeeD's left, but Squall deftly ducked his skull beneath the slash and sideswiped into the soldier's bike, knocking it aside. The Revolver slashed up into the armor plating and the engine beneath, firing once more, blasting the motor apart. The motorcycle was also blasted sideways by the shot, dropping on its side and spilling the rider off.
Squall accelerated even as he was hitting his foe, closing with the pistol-wielding soldier swiftly. The man had already leveled his weapon and opened fire, however, prompting Squall to go into an emergency sideswipe away from the scout's line of fire. Bullets tore past him as he skittered across the highway, and Squall pushed his motorcycle to full speed, accelerating past the Shinra soldier. The man held the trigger on his weapon, sweeping it after Squall as he pulled up even with him, then ahead. Then, suddenly, Squall sideswiped across the highway back across to the scout's front, and released his accelerator again. The scout dodged aside immediately as Squall closed very quickly, managing to get out of reach of Squall's gunblade if he attempted to repeat his initial maneuver. However, rather than slice across with his gunblade as he had before, Squall instead kept his weapon by his side, instead accelerating even before he had dropped behind the soldier. He immediately matched the man's speed and swerved across into the Shinra scout, gunblade slashing up into the rear wheel of the motorcycle and blasting part of it away, and cleanly severing the rest. The bike and rider seemed to simply fly apart as the vehicle instantly went out of control, spilling parts and soldier along the pavement.
Squall watched the man and his vehicle fall apart, and then glanced back behind him, to see more bikers closing in the distance. He muttered something under his breath and accelerated, trying to catch up with his comrades ahead as they sped down the highway.
It was then that he saw his friends were already engaged.
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"Yeah, kick some ass!" Zell cheered as Squall began to cleave through the motorcycle scouts. He should have kept his eyes on the road and their surroundings, however, as his first warning that pursuit was coming from other directions was when another bullet grazed along his neck as a pair of motorcycle troops pulled out of an onramp onto the highway very close by, followed by the remainder of their lance, plus another lance and a pair of LRVs. More Shinra vehicles were behind, and scattered through the city, Zell could see the headlights of more units inbound.
"This doesn't look good," Red stated, watching the oncoming enemy. Beside him, Zell nodded.
"Wish I still had some grenades," the martial artist muttered as the motorcycles closed in.
He looked past to the LRVs, and noted one that featured a mounted machinegun on the back, manned by a Shinra soldier. "Actually, I wish I had that too," he added.
"No time for that," Red replied, his tail twitching anxiously as the motorcycles closed in.
The scouts began to raise their pistols, but then paused and lowered them, instead extending their arm blades and edging closer, near enough that Zell could see his reflection in the visors of their helmets. One of the scouts pointed at them and made a slashing gesture, apparently a signal for them to surrender. Zell scowled and gave a one-fingered response.
The soldiers must not have taken that well, as they suddenly accelerated and closed in. One got very close to the truck, close enough to touch it, and he did so, jabbing his left arm claw down toward the truck's right tire. Zell, realizing what the target was, bolted forward a pair of steps and shot a leg out at the scout's head. The foot connected and smashed his helmet in, throwing the adventurous soldier off his motorcycle before his blade could cut the tire.
The other leading soldier swung around the truck, coming at the other side with a raised machine pistol, trying to gun Zell down as he rose from cover. That scout suddenly found a red blur that bolted from the truck and landed on the front of his motorcycle, before kicking off with incredible force, throwing the bike aside and spilling the soldier across the highway at lethal speeds. Red XII managed to land back in the bed of the speeding truck as another scout drove up with a readied blade, accelerating toward the front tires as opposed to the rear one. He neared that tire, and then his arm rose to his neck, where a quivering crossbow bolt had lodged itself in his throat. The man fell off his bike, which bounced along the highway. Rinoa leaned out of her window, readying another bolt as the two surviving scouts accelerated toward the truck.
A burst of bullets struck near her head as one of the scouts fired a precise burst of covering fire. Rinoa ducked back into the truck as the other biker closed, keeping a safe distance away in order to avoid any retaliation by Zell or Red. That men readied his own pistol to shoot out the tires.
The pickup suddenly seemed to leap across the highway like a pouncing predator, sideslipping directly at the Shinra scout. The man's eyes widened under his visor and he began to pull away when the truck slammed into him and threw both the soldier and his bike across the road.
Quistis decelerated the truck, and then it fell back toward the fifth soldier, who barely swerved out of its way. However, he passed closely enough for Red to reach out with both his claws and tear the man from his bike, throwing him down onto the highway to roll along the pavement. His body bounced among the advancing motorcycles of the next lance and was smashed under the tires of one of the reconnaissance vehicles. The lance began to move up, but then broke apart, three of the riders falling back, one moving forward, and one falling from his bike as Squall hit the back of the formation, his gunblade chopping a piece of the soldier loose. Both of the armored jeeps accelerated toward the pickup as the three scouts engaged Squall.
The Shinra scout biker swung out wide, getting far to the left of the truck and readying his pistol. By comparison, the two jeeps got much closer, on the opposite side of the truck. Zell was nearly thrown of his feet as the driver of the unarmed jeep sideswiped their pickup, pushing it across the road. Quistis countered by quickly breaking away and moving further across the road, straight at the scout. The motorcycle scout had leveled his weapon when he suddenly realized Quistis was moving directly at him, and he began to brake. It was too late, however, and the pickup smashed into him as well. The soldier was hurled from his bike, but managed to squeeze off a burst just before impact, the bullets stitching the side of the truck and puncturing the front left tire.
The ex-SeeD had to deflect two stabs with a pair of arm blades, smacking and waving his gunblade around defensively as the three scouts attacked in unison. Under normal circumstances, most men would have fallen back, but Squall accelerated, surprising the Shinra soldiers. The ex-SeeD thrust out with his gunblade as his bike touched that of one of the scouts, and the blade dove into the man's kidney. Squall then cut his speed before the other two men could counter. He fell back and swerved around the side, accelerating anew around the remaining pair as their wounded comrade crashed to the pavement, sparks flying madly from his bike. Squall swerved to the left, slipping around beside one of the scouts, who dove toward him. The other moved away, drawing his pistol.
Quistis' maneuver had eliminated the threat on their flank, but she knew immediately from the way the vehicle shuddered and list slightly to the front and left that one of the tires was gone. There was no way they'd be able to escape under these circumstances; they had to either fix the damages or obtain a new vehicle, though both of those avenues would be near impossible in this situation. Especially with the unarmed LRV repeatedly slamming into the side of her truck.
She tried to counter, pushing against the jeep, but the military vehicle was too powerful for her small truck. Rinoa tried to assist, firing a bolt from her crossbow into the cab of the jeep. However, the arrow simply dug into the bulletproof glass of the window and stuck there. The driver, undeterred, pulled away and slammed them again. Meanwhile, the armed LRV began to advance ahead, trying to box them in while the unarmed jeep would smash them against the wall of the highway. Eventually, they would be stopped, at least long enough for the remainder of the Shinra army to catch up. The armed vehicle managed to get ahead, one man on the back and aiming the machinegun, but holding his fire. Just beyond the jeep was an exit from the highway, a possible road to salvation.
"Not today!" came a shout from outside, and Quistis looked back to see Zell and Red leap onto the bed of the unarmed LRV as it came in for another sideswiping attack. The landed easily, and the sudden invasion caused the driver to look back in shock and pull away. Zell shot forward, wrapping his arms around the driver's neck, choking the man, while Red put his claws and fangs to deadly work on the passenger. Quistis, taking the opening, decelerated as she neared the exit and pulled off. Rinoa looked back outside, just in time to see the armed jeep open fire with its machinegun at the invaded vehicle.
A instant later, the LRV exploded in a brilliant fireball as the armor-piercing rounds of the machinegun penetrated the gas tank and blew the vehicle apart, with both Zell and Red still on board.
Quistis' jaw opened and she looked back in horror as the husk of the destroyed vehicle rolled down the highway past the exit. An instant later, another jeep, also unarmed, rolled down the exit in pursuit. Quistis stared at the jeep and suddenly steeled her jaw.
"Quistis, stop!" Rinoa shouted, and Quistis immediately hit the brakes in response. She looked ahead and suddenly understood, as the exit had not been completed, the road hanging a good fifty feet above the plate.
"Rinoa, get out," Quistis quickly said, her tone urgent but otherwise emotionless as she opened the door. Rinoa hesitated, then nodded as Quistis stepped out of the truck, turning to face the oncoming jeep with an uncoiling whip. She held the whip ready, stepping away from the truck and into the middle of the highway. Behind her, Rinoa quickly stepped out of the truck as well and moved to the side, realizing the danger of Quistis' daring plan.
"You bastards killed Zell," she muttered, clutching her whip by its handle and head. She narrowed her eyes, and her legs tensed. the jeep, its driver apparently recognizing Quistis as one of the terrorists they could kill, accelerated even faster, intending to run her down. She waited, watching the vehicle approach, her blue eyes promising a death which made the driver falter slightly as he came in.
Then, when the vehicle was perhaps a full second from impacting Quistis and crushing her, she snapped the whip out wide and spun to the right, out of the jeep's path with surprising swiftness. As she came around, safely out of the jeep's path, the whip snapped up and into the front left tire, slicing through it and up, through the armor plating and out the side of the driver's door. The LRV spun on the damaged tire, flipping over as the driver hit the brakes, and Quistis spun, her wrist flaring.
"Now I'll kill you!" she shouted as she discharged the fire spell, the magic blasting out and into the jeep's underside, igniting the gas tank. The LRV went up in a sudden fireball that lit up the night sky of Midgar.
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Squall was still engaged with his opponent, having deflected one slash and dodged another. The scout came in again, stabbing in at his right side, one which was difficult for the ex-SeeD to defend considering the dubious situation. Squall pulled just out of reach, and then crossed his left arm over his chest, pointing his gunblade directly at the Shinra biker and sideslipped directly at the man. The scout swerved away from the attack to avoid getting impaled, and Squall pursued, chasing him across the highway. The biker suddenly stopped as he realized he was close to crashing into his comrade, who began to accelerate to get ahead of his fellow soldier and fire upon Squall.
Squall, however, continued moving across the highway as his target stopped, and the Shinra scout's chest exploded in pain as the gunblade dug in. Squall then pulled the trigger on his weapon before the scout's comrade could pull too far ahead. The wounded man's body was blasted almost in half, gore exploding from the far side of his body and splattering the accelerating soldier. The man's visor was covered with dark red blood and bits of blasted, smoking organs, and he did not see his doom coming until Squall closed and the Revolver bit into the scout's chest. He tumbled off his bike and bounced to a high-speed death along the highway.
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Quistis glared at the ruined, burning husk of the destroyed jeep as it rolled onto the truck, setting their vehicle ablaze as well. Rinoa stepped around the inferno, using her arm to shield her eyes from the intense light of the blaze.
She watched the twisting flames for a long moment before hanging her head, slowly shaking it as the fires consumed the transport. She had enacted vengeance, but how useless it seemed, especially now that Zell was clearly lost to her.
"Quistis?" Rinoa asked, approaching her comrade and putting a hand on her shoulder. Quistis glanced up at Rinoa, and then back to the inferno.
"He's gone," she muttered, shaking her head again. "Zell and Red are both dead-"
Quistis' words were cut off as the rumbling approach of yet another Shinra recon vehicle sounded behind them, coming from the direction of the onramp. Both she and Rinoa spun, readying their weapons as the vehicle closed. An instant later, they stood down, their weapons lowering as they saw the driver of the vehicle.
It was Zell!
"Sorry for the scare!" he called as his stolen vehicle rolled up, Red crouched in the back.
"Zell!" Quistis exclaimed, echoed by Rinoa a split second later. "We thought . . . ."
"Yeah, I did too," Zell replied with a shrug as he opened the door of the vehicle and stepped out. "When that gun back there was pointed at us, I thought we were toast. But Red had the bright idea to take a little leap of faith, just like with the elevator. Landed right on the back of this Shinra piece of junk and took over before they could figure out how we got on board." Zell glanced at the burning remains of their vehicle, and frowned.
"Looks like I managed to get a new ride for us," he added.
"A superior mode of transport," Red commented as he hopped off the back of the LRV. "Faster, and armed as well. But we cannot wait any longer; Shinra is closing in." To accentuate this statement, a motorcycle entered the onramp, Squall straddled along the back of the vehicle. He quickly approached, pulling his bike to a stop as he neared.
"Shinra is closing in," he reported. "Not much time left. I spotted a helicopter and a large force behind us. We have to get moving, now."
"No sweat, Squall," Zell replied, leaping into the back of the stolen vehicle. He stood behind the machinegun, hands resting on the triggers. "Let's see Shinra mess with us now!" The others nodded, clambering into their new vehicle, Rinoa and Quistis entering the cab while Red hopped into the back along with Zell.
"You know how to shoot that thing?' Squall asked dubiously, to which Zell shrugged.
"Can't be that difficult," he replied as Quistis began to back the LRV up and turn it around. "If Shinra goons can use it, I can-"
Zell's speech was cut off as a sudden sound assaulted his, and everyone else's, ears. To Rinoa, Quistis, and Red XIII, the sound was new, but to Zell, and especially Squall, who had been escaping the Number One Reactor days previously, the sound was all too familiar.
The thunderous report of metal jackhammers could be heard far below, in the streets of the Midgar plate some fifty or so feet beneath them, and suddenly the sounds stopped. An instant later, however, from beyond the raging inferno of the burning vehicles, the sound was heard once more, now frightfully louder as the highway shook with a slight tremor. Then, the jackhammers started anew, much closer, and growing louder with each step.
"DRIVE!" Zell screamed, and Quistis turned the LRV around and began accelerating back toward the main highway. Squall was right behind them, following in his self-appointed covering position. As they approached the onramp and began to pull back onto the highway, Squall glanced behind, and saw a massive, armored spidery shape burst through the fires, the flames licking at its black shape as it thundered through the wreckage and raised its bloody red sensor in their general direction.
X-ATM095, brother to the destroyed X-ATM092 unit, crouched low to the ground, readying its pistons, and then leaped in a mighty pounce that carried it through the air to land with a tremendous crunch on the highway behind the escaping quintet of Shinra fugitives. It turned as Squall and Quistis pulled away in their vehicles and gave chase, clawed limbs pounding into the ground as Shinra motorcycles and jeeps swerved around it.
"Suck on these, tin can!" Zell screamed, pulling the triggers on the machinegun. The weapon suddenly rattled, the barrel bouncing around as it spewed armor-piercing bullets wildly around the highway. Zell gritted his teeth and tried to regain control of the weapon, but was unable to fully master the machinegun. He was a martial artist, and not trained or experienced in firearms, and his lack of skill showed as his shots went wide, throwing up chunks of asphalt and ceramics and generally missing whatever he aimed at.
"I thought you said you could handle that thing!" he shouted at Zell. The brawler must not have heard him over the pounding of the machinegun. The good news, however, was that Zell's haphazard firing was keeping the enemy at bay, and after one of the Shinra scouts suddenly dropped from a lucky pair of bullets that sliced through his chest, the rest started to shy back behind their monstrous mechanical ally.
That didn't make things any easier for the group, however, as they saw the huge, spider-like war machine closing in, its massive legs chipping away at the highway as it rushed forward. It steadily advanced as the pursuing Shinra forces fell back, and within the jeep, Quistis and Rinoa overheard shouts on the radio to fall back and "let the Black Widow deal with them." It didn't sound particularly promising to either of them.
Squall looked back to the pursuing weapon as it closed to within three car lengths of the fugitives, bullets pinging off its armor as Zell screamed and waved the machinegun around desperately.
"Concentrate your fire!" Squall tried shouting, but once again, Zell didn't hear, instead whipping the weapon around and scattering bullets across the war machine's exterior. He wasn't doing any serious damage, or at least nothing the dozens and dozens of tiny, insectile repair robots couldn't fix. Squall's fingers tightened once more around his gunblade, and he knew that it was up to him to slow this beast down.
Squall cut the accelerator for a hair of a second, and dropped back to a point beside the spider machine's front right leg. He raised his gunblade, and ducked once as one of Zell's bullets got too close, then twitched the bike a few feet closer before lashing out with his weapon. The Revolver cut into the piston-like appendage as it rose, and a blast from the weapon's concussive shells blew apart gears and metal within the leg. The spider machine stumbled forward, and Squall had to sideslip to the right and accelerate to avoid eating the weapon as is fell forward and to the left, directly at him. He managed to squeeze past it and catch up with the jeep as the war machine fell on its side, momentarily stopped. Beside Squall, Zell's fingers eased off the triggers slightly, and the gunfire faded.
"Wow!" he shouted over the roar of the engines. "That was insane, Squall!"
"Its part of my job," he replied, and then the highway behind him exploded in a nova of yellow light.
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X-ATM095 rose from its position, leg already restored within a matter of seconds, and charged up its ray bomb weapon a second time as it pounded off in pursuit. Behind it, the Shinra forces slowed to a stop, blocked by the gaping hole in the highway that their robotic ally had blasted. Undeterred by its destruction, X-ATM095 leaped clear over the breach and swept after the fugitives. The Shinra troops considered moving off to find another way to the highway, when Heidegger cut in over their radios.
"All units move to secure the exits from that highway!" he shouted. "That thing dead-ends a mile down the road, and no one's getting off that street, even if the Black Widow doesn't bring them down. The president is en route with air support. Do not let them escape!"
The Shinra troopers replied with confirmations of those orders and immediately moved out, eager to please Rufus Shinra.
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"Bastard is still on our tail!" Zell shouted, pulling the triggers on his weapon once more. Bullets streamed out toward the pursuing weapon but did nothing to slow X-ATM095's dogged pursuit. Squall steeled himself for another delaying action when a shining yellow bolt ripped past him and just ahead of the jeep, smashing into the highway and blasting it apart. Both Squall's motorcycle and the jeep were caught in the blast and hurled up into the air, flying forward past the breach to crash heavily into the pavement. Squall, Red, and Zell were thrown clear as their vehicles hit, only their superhuman toughness and ki focusing saving the humans, while Red managed to land roughly, rolling along and using his animalistic agility to bounce with the impacts and take minimal damage. The jeep flipped over once, then twice, then smashed heavily into the pavement and rolled onto its tires. Within, Rinoa looked dazed from the crash.
Quistis was nowhere to be seen.
Squall rose shakily, his left side burning from the impact. He wiped an arm across his face, and his leather sleeve came away torn and bloody. His right arm reached for his gunblade, only to find the weapon was not on hand, instead having been flung across the highway. He turned to run toward it when a tremendous impact almost threw him from his feet, and the metal jackhammers warned the ex-SeeD of the war machine's arrival.
Squall looked back over his shoulder, and saw the bloody-red sensor behind the machine's grating glowing at him ominously at a mere thirty feet away, far too close for comfort. It started forward at Squall, and he turned and scrambled for his gunblade. Armed, he might be able to fend off the machine, but as he was, survival would be impossible. Squall didn't know how Zell was, or if Red was in a position to help, and Rinoa didn't seem to be able to render any aid at the moment. He was alone in this desperate fight.
The gunblade was perhaps twenty feet away as he dashed across the highway, but it might as well have been in far-off Wutai. The war machine was closing in too quickly, its pinchers rising to smash him down into the pavement and finish the ex-SeeD off. Having no choice, and giving in to desperation, Squall leaped, diving for the weapon. Even as his feet left the pavement, Squall knew it was a futile gesture as the pinchers rose for their killing blow.
Then, the weapon was stalled in mid-strike as a sheet of armor-piercing bullets tore into it, precision firing ripping into the armor plating and shredding internal components. Squall hit the pavement in a roll, scooping up his gunblade and whipping around to face the robot as it was pushed back from the sheer volume of deadly metal cutting and tearing into its body.
Squall spun toward the LRV, expecting to see Zell in his gunnery position, but instead saw Quistis a ferocious resolve stamped upon her features as she ruthlessly pumped bullets into the spider robot. Blood poured down the side of her head as she held the triggers down. Hundreds of holes now dotted the machine's outer body, the metal slugs tearing apart electronics and ripping through power cores. The AI computers began issuing repair orders even as the weapon made its final lunge, but then they fell silent, and the weapon stopped thinking, as Quistis's bullets tore apart the computers. The weapon's interior quickly came to resemble shredded cheese as more bullets stuck it, and continued to hit it even as it fell down. Smoke issued forth from the dying machine's shredded corpse, and fires erupted within.
The war machine, one of Shinra's mighty weapons of destruction, toppled to the pavement, wreathed in an inferno that blossomed into a massive fireball a moment later, components and slagged metal hurled into the night sky.
As the fireball settled down, Squall limped over to where Quistis stood at the gunner's position, and nodded his thanks to her. She let out a breath she didn't know she was holding, and returned the nod. Moments later, Zell hobbled up to them, as did Red. Squall checked Rinoa, to see that, aside from a minor cut along her face, that she had made it through the crash just fine.
"Thank Hyne we're all in one piece," she commented, looking over the battered but otherwise intact group. Squall quickly handed around a series of restorative potions, which helped bind the wounds and dull the pain, before turning and taking stock of their situation. He saw the end of the highway ahead, and the construction equipment intended to lengthen the route. He quickly dashed over to the edge and peered down, before nodding.
"Shinra will be here soon," he called as the others followed him. "We can use this crane to go down to the surface, and from there its easy walking out of Midgar's slums and to safety."
"And then?" Zell asked, to which squall gestured out into the distant night, and the rolling plains far away. Halfway to the horizon, the barren ground gave way to grasses, and beyond those, on the horizon, were lush, green fields that remained untainted. And beyond them was the outside world, a place promising refuge from Shinra.
"Sephiroth is out there," Squall replied grimly. "I know it. I have to find him and put a stop to whatever it is he's planning to do."
"He's more important than dealing with Shinra?" Zell asked, and Squall nodded.
"Shinra can't touch how dangerous he is. You saw what he did back there in the headquarters," Squall stated. "I know he's got something terrible planned for the future, and we have to stop him."
"I'm with ya on that," Zell replied, clapping Squall on the shoulder. He turned to the women and Red. "What about you guys?"
"There's more out there," Rinoa stated after a moment. "Beyond Midgar . . . I can find what I really need. Answers."
"To what questions?" Squall asked. Rinoa didn't immediately reply, instead looking to the horizon.
"Many things," she replied. "The Ancients, the Promised Land, the planet . . . and myself. I can only find those beyond Midgar . . . and only with all of you."
"I guess its goodbye to Midgar," Quistis added. "I thought we'd be here longer, but If this is where our road takes us . . . ." She looked to her comrades, and smiled faintly. "I'll walk it with my friends." She looked pointedly to Squall. "All of them."
"I will travel with you to my homeland," Red added quietly. "At least that far. I will render what aid along your road as I may. It is the least I can do to repay the debt I owe for your assistance."
"Then its settled," Squall stated, turning away from Midgar's grimy skies and to the cleaner lands beyond. He stepped toward one of the crane wires running down to the surface.
"Never did like it here," Zell added, and unlike Squall he looked back, while the others moved to the crane as well. "Biggest city on the planet. Don't think I heard of anyone naming it twice, and sure as hell that nobody left their heart here, but there's one thing you can say about this place." He glanced back to his friends as they descended and stepped forward to join them.
"This is one hell of a town."
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It was perhaps a few hours later. Rufus Shinra sat back behind the desk his father had once occupied, his face aglow from the dozens of monitors feeding him data. He sat silently, replaying the entire escape incident and nodding at each point. He reviewed the data that had been captured from the assault by Sephiroth and memorized everything. He watched his media team handle the spin on the escape, labeling the escaping members of AVALANCHE as terrorists, and glanced over the plans for the memorial for his father and his subsequent inauguration ceremony in Junon. No detail escaped his watching eyes as he observed everything. While he was certainly not omniscient, he seemed to be, looking in on every corner of his new empire.
"Sir," came a quiet call, and Rufus glanced up momentarily, seeing a humbled Heidegger standing before him.
"I regret to inform you that we have lost track of them," he stated quietly, quivering faintly in fear. Rufus speared the heavyset man with his cold blue eyes, and then turned his gaze back down to the monitors around him.
"Last location?" Rufus asked a she called up a chart of Mako price fluctuations in the west.
"Southern end of Midgar, on the highway," Heidegger replied. "But where they are now is uncertain. We found some construction equipment that the may have used to get to the surface. We're combing the slums now."
"They probably know that," Rufus replied, analyzing the graph. "Its no longer safe for them in Midgar, and they know it. I want you to dispatch search parties into the regions around Midgar, especially the northeast. There are a lot of smaller towns in that region, places where they can hide, but only temporarily."
"Yes sir," Heidegger replied immediately. "I'm also putting our garrisons outside Midgar on alert. Should I recall the contingent preparing for the next assault on Condor?"
"No," Rufus replied, closing the graph and typing up a quick note to the director of the Corel Mako Reactor. "I want you to reinforce it. Extra troops. Take the fort."
"But I thought we were simply laying siege to it," Heidegger replied. "Starving them out."
"That will work, but it will take too long," Rufus replied, finishing the note and mailing it. "Condor has been a thorn in our side for too long. Crush them before Squall and his people get there. Have there been any updates on that sniper?"
"No sir, we never found him," he replied. "But two of our MPs patrolling Sector Four were found dead and their vehicle stolen. He may have fled the city." Rufus mulled over that for a moment, before nodding. He glanced at a request for more funding for the air force base in Junon and approved it.
"Find out what you can," he ordered. "Also, I'm restarting the SeeD Officer Candidacy Program. My father shut it down by your own request a few years ago, but the need for senior level officers with competency is more critical now than ever before." Rufus looked up pointedly at Heidegger, whose face had gone slightly pale. The young president knew precisely why Heidegger had requested that the SOC program be shut down; he had feared a more competent SeeD officer would come along and supplant him, a general who had risen from the regular Shinra army. While there were plenty of merits to such a useful program, one advantage that was not so apparent was that it would certainly motivate Heidegger to do his best.
"Shinra has no place for incompetence," Rufus added, looking back down to a report of protests by the lower populace of Junon. He sent an order to squelch the demonstrations with maximum force required. "That may have occurred under my father, but not under me. I'm increasing the budget for both military training and the SeeD program. Put them to good use."
"Yes sir!" Heidegger replied, his crispness motivated partially by newfound fear of his replacement.
"And find Squall and his people," Rufus added. "Now."
"What about Sephiroth?" Heidegger asked, and Rufus glanced back up.
"Dispatch the Turks," Rufus said after a moment. "I want them to find him. Once we've pinpointed his location, I want the entire Shinra military to crush him like the bug he really is." Heidegger saluted and turned away, striding off, glad to be done with his meeting. Rufus glanced back up at his departure, and shook his head.
"These are gnats," he muttered to himself. "And this company is a bumbling giant that has let them sting it for too long. AVALANCHE's threat is minor, except the damage they have inflicted to our pride and image. Even Sephiroth is nothing but an inconvenience. A large and dangerous one, but an inconvenience nonetheless. They have survived because were we slow and complacent."
Rufus smirked darkly, a mirthless smile.
"Its time for all of them to realize that this giant is awake," he added. "And once it is awakened, this giant is much, much more dangerous."
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"So, where to?" Rinoa asked as they trudged across the barren wastelands beyond Midgar. The ground was a dull gray, not even the brown that would indicate it could possibly support life. It was as if the land itself was dead.
"There's a large town about seven miles away," Squall replied. "Named Kalm. We're heading there now."
"I'm glad to see Squall takes the leadership position so well," Quistis remarked, to which Squall shrugged. Zell had been quick to relinquish the leadership role to Squall, and no one else had really argued. He hadn't exactly accepted the job very readily, but he was the best qualified for it.
"I'm not the leader," Squall replied after a moment. "I just know where I'm going." He paused and looked back to the others.
"Its going to be dangerous out here," he stated, and the others quickly nodded. "Shinra will be after us, and the person we're hunting is no less dangerous. We'll have to be quick and smart about this. Rufus is not the complacent and slow man his father was." He looked over each of his comrades.
"We're not soldiers," he added. "I was trained extensively in small-unit tactics and guerilla warfare. That's why I've always led up until now, but out here things are different. We're fighting Shinra on the strategic level now, not the tactical. There's no real hierarchy here. I'm not in command, I just know what I'm doing."
"Seeing as how we're just a group of civilians, I gotcha," Zell added. "Big advantage of small groups like us is we can think independently. You want us to put our heads together, right?"
"That would be best," Squall replied with a nod. "We're in this together. We have to fight together and rely on each other."
"You suggest that we should be like the sahaguin," Red stated, drawing curious stares. He elaborated. "The sahaguin are a predator that lives in my homeland. They are man-like beasts, but possess no intelligence like we do. They have a linked mind, and work together as one entity to fight their foes. While we lack their communal mind, the principle is the same. Together we are one enemy that is more powerful than five separate warriors."
"That's sort of what I'm aiming at," Squall said with an understanding nod. "We've survived this long because we stand and fight together. We're going to have to act on our own initiative and fight as one."
"If I didn't know any better, I'd say Squall is trying to dodge being in charge," Quistis added with a smile. Squall didn't reply, instead turning away, refusing to admit that Quistis had hit pretty close to the mark.
"So, when are you gonna tell us what this thing is with Sephiroth?" Zell demanded.
"In Kalm," Squall replied, his thoughts suddenly flicking back to the past. "I'll tell you there."
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"Yeah, I'm safe now," he stated over the radio as he ran across the dry, barren lands. "Shinra pursuit hasn't begun yet. I'm shadowing them right now.
"No, I haven't made contact yet. Was going to wait until they were outside the Midgar area. I was thinking of getting them at least to Junon and making contact there."
He paused and listened, turning his gaze to the north and the distant quintet of escapees. He nodded after a moment, pressing the earpiece tighter into his ear.
"I understand. Shinra would not be happy if they found out. I'll have to keep quiet about it so they don't know. The less they know the better."
"I understand," he added after the man on the other end finished. "I'll keep in touch."
He stopped a moment later, looking back over his shoulder. from the top of the ridge he was positioned on, he spotted the very distant shapes of Shinra soldiers and vehicles beginning a search to the south of Midgar, doubtless hoping to catch the fugitives. Grinning, he pulled out a radio detonator. The mines he had left to the west were right underneath the clomping feet of the searching Shinra forces checking in that direction. With a silent salute to the unfortunate soldiers, he detonated the trigger. A very, very faint tremor ran through the ground as the distant mines detonated, reducing two unfortunate platoons to vapor. The remainder of the large force combing that area practically jumped out of their boots and scrambled to the location, vehicles blasting over the dirt as they converged on the explosion.
"I think I just redirected the pursuit," he muttered with a smile.
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Whee, that was much fun. I enjoyed that. Car chases are awesome.
What to comment on in this chapter? Hmm, not much. Obviously, I want to make the Shinra thugs and higher-ups have more personality to them, so expect to see them plotting and planning in the future. Also, Quistis' jeep-killing scene was taken from The Matrix Reloaded, and obviously, the part where she kills X-ATM095 is the scene from FFVIII where she did the same from the boat.
Shout-out time!
Daniel Wesley Rydell: Good guesses. Laguna was one of my original ideas for replacing Cid, but I came up with a much, much better one. Your other guesses are good but not on the money. Selphie as Yuffie was another idea I had, and same with Seifer and Zack, so I can see your logic.
And yes, Seifer will be appearing within the next few fics. Though, obviously, we've already seen him a bit before. Writing Sephiroth's massacre was a great load of fun. I watched some hellsing before I did that to help get the feel of the killing and violence in that sequence. I don't mind spell-checking, actually.
Also, I try to get in updates once a week, but if i miss a week, its usually because I'm pretty busy. I tend to save additional chapters I've finished for the next week so I can have something to fall back on if the next week is either really busy or unproductive. I would have uploaded another Gunblade chapter but some inspiration for a Resident Evil fic has been striking me lately so I did a bit of work on that instead. Resident Evil 4 cannot get here fast enough. .
Angel-brokensorrow: Yeah, I like doing bloody battles, but I only went hardcore with the blood and gore this chapter because it fits Sephiroth and the massacre. Synthesis is going to be bloodier than Gunblade, mostly because of the darkness of the storyline.
Yeah, I noticed that I don't write her doing much, but then again, for a large part of the story she is mostly baggage to a degree. She and Quistis don't get too much combat, as they don't have the combat potential of Squall or Zell or Red XIII, mostly because they lack the superhuman abilities of any of them. At least, for now. Rinoa's abilities will grow later, and Quistis will become more powerful too outside of Midgar.
Xenogears: YOU! Have you gotten my emails? I've had no responses from you. Did you change addresses or what? My AOL account is defunct now, but my Hotmail acocunt is working.
Akira Stridder: Thanks. I enjoyed writing this whole thing, and I'm nowhere near finished yet!