Chapter 11: Fight and Flight
It was early the next morning when Squall awoke. He sat up in his bed in the inn, and scanned the room, feeling somewhat ill at ease. Something was wrong, but what, he didn't know. He glanced to the window, and saw that Red XIII was gone. That didn't alarm him; he'd heard the creature get up in the middle of the night and move off into the city, apparently not taking that long with his rest.
Quickly, Squall stood up and moved to the window, stepping quietly and cautiously as he did so. He pressed himself against the wall and peeked out the window.
Kalm was still calm, filled with peace and tranquility. No one had risen during these early morning hours, and the town was quiet. The silence was enough that he could hear Rinoa's breaths from the bed near the window over the ambient noise of distant bird calls and lightly blowing wind. Squall continued his scan, momentarily worried that perhaps Shinra had come looking, but he saw nothing to indicate any Shinra presence, although the corporate army could be filling the entire village, lurking in the shadows and waiting to strike. But somehow, that didn't seem to be the case for Squall. There was this definite feeling of unease, but Squall would have known if Shinra was in town.
He turned his head, craning his neck as he searched, and then paused as he looked south. No more than a mile away, atop a hill just barely visible over the rooftops of the village, was a solitary figure. Squall could not make him out at this distance, but he could feel the green eyes piercing him from even that far away. He felt a momentary spike of fear that the figure would advance, but it did not come. Rather, the silhouette simply remained where it was for a long moment, before seeming to vanish into the morning wind, as if it had never existed.
Sephiroth.
Squall stared out at the distant hill for a long time, before finally, slowly, moving away from the window. He almost moved toward the stairs, but stopped, realizing that any chase he gave now would be fruitless, and he would be leaving his comrades behind. Finally, after a long moment, he sighed and sat back down on his bed.
Sephiroth, Squall knew, would already be long gone by the time he'd be able to get out there with his gear. And knowing what he did, Squall could never defeat Sephiroth by himself. Even with his comrades it would be questionable, and they'd never get up and be ready in time to catch him anyway.
Squall laid back down on the bed, but as he did so, Squall told himself that even if Sephiroth had gotten away for now, they would eventually catch up with him in the end.
A couple of hours later the rest of the group had begun to wake up, but Squall had never fallen back asleep. Instead, he had simply stared up at the ceiling, waiting for the others to rise, and running back through his painful memories.
Rinoa was the first to wake up, and almost immediately, she had sensed Squall's unease and anxiousness. She sat up in her bed and glanced over at Squall, seeing his blue eyes glowing in the darkness. It took her a moment to figure out why he was so tense, but she quickly determined what the problem was from her other senses.
"Was he here?" she asked quietly, almost startling Squall. He turned his head to where she was sitting up, her face framed in the soft early morning sunlight, and finally nodded.
"Moving south," he said in a low voice. "I'm not sure . . . But I think he wants me to follow him." Squall rolled over and began to sit up, and heard Rinoa doing the same behind him. He glanced back at her to see her already getting together her gear together. When he glanced at her quizzically, she simply shot him a quick glance and returned to getting dressed and ready.
"What are you waiting for?" she asked. "This is your mission, isn't it?"
"I wouldn't call it that," Squall answered, but followed suit, getting his gear together, When Quistis and Zell awoke later on, Squall filled them in, and the pair were also quick to get their gear together and be ready for pursuit. Within a matter of minutes, the quartet were outside the hotel, not even pausing to sign out.
"We'll need to stock up on some extra equipment," Squall added as they moved out. "Survival gear, rations, the usual."
"On it," Quistis replied. "I had a hand in getting all our gear together with AVALANCHE, so I can probably dig something up."
"I'll go with you," Zell added. "No sense in use getting separated. Shinra's after our asses, after all."
"Alright," Squall replied with a nod. "I'll see about getting a vehicle or some other transport. Rinoa, stay with me."
"What about Red?" she asked, and Squall shrugged.
"Knowing him, he'll find us when he's ready," the former SeeD replied. "Let's go." The group began to split up, moving around the village, Quistis and Zell headed for the freshly opening stores on the north side of town while Squall and Rinoa moved off, looking for some form of transportation.
"What are we looking for?" she asked him as he ducked into an alley.
"Something not being watched," he replied evenly.
"You're going to steal a vehicle?" Rinoa asked, and Squall nodded.
"Let's just hope they have insurance," he said quietly, almost sounding dead serious, but not quite. Rinoa already knew how to pick out his jokes, however well-hidden they were.
"If you're looking for a vehicle, you'd best hurry," came a quiet voice from above them, and the pair stopped instantly, looking up.
"Red," Rinoa breathed, a bit startled by the sudden voice. The fiery beast was perched on a rooftop directly above the alley, looking west. Rinoa heard a faint sliding noise next to her, and glanced down to see Squall sliding his gunblade back into its sheath. Apparently, he had been as startled as she.
"What's the problem?" Squall asked quickly. Red nodded toward the west.
"Shinra is approaching," he hissed. "I count more than twenty vehicles, laden with men. I estimate . . . ." He squinted his good eye, focusing on the distant enemy. "About eighty men. We have less than fifteen minutes before they get here."
"Then we've got to move," Squall said quickly. "Red, go and alert Zell and Quistis. They're north of here, where the shops are located." The creature nodded his head and bounded off over the rooftops, seeming to vanish.
"We've got to find a way out of here," Squall added to Rinoa, who nodded, and they broke into a run down the alley.
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"Water, flares, long range encrypted radio, protein rope-" Zell gagged at the sound of that. Quistis glared at the brawler momentarily, before going back over everything they had outside the survival store. "Medical supplies, potions of every kind we could need, binoculars, and two compact sleeping tents, camouflaged, as you wanted. That should be everything."
"Blew through half our savings," Zell commented.
"Better than sleeping in the rain with no food."
"Protein rope, or no food?" Zell replied, crossing his arms and pondering. "Y'know, starving actually sounds preferable."
"Hush," she replied, looking west.
"Why?" Zell shot back. "I can complain all I want, can't I? Trust me, Quistis, you haven't heard me-"
"I said quiet!" she hissed. Zell paused, and Quistis nodded toward where she was looking. "Don't you hear that?"
"Yeah," Zell muttered after a moment. "Vehicles. Sounds like a big convoy. You're thinking Shinra?" She nodded. "Good. Great minds think alike."
"Doesn't sound like we have much time," Quistis said as she slowly took out her whip. Zell nodded grimly.
"Need to meet up with Squall," he said, and the two moved off, away from the shops and into the town. They traversed the alleyways for a short distance, before Quistis paused again.
"They're here," she said grimly, and Zell paused to look outside, into the town center, and spotted a transport with the Shinra logo roll past and come to a stop nearby.
"There's one at every party," Zell muttered.
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The convoy rumbled into the middle of Kalm, two dozen heavily armed combat vehicles. Assault vehicles much like the jeeps that Squall and his comrades had battled and stolen inside Midgar ringed a series of troop transports, and a pair of oblong command and control transports rolled into the center of the village. The Shinra troops deployed smartly, fanning out as other assault vehicles moved around the town, closing off all other exits. Within minutes, the troops had Kalm surrounded and isolated.
One of the command vehicles opened up, and Tseng stepped down the ramp, followed by a green clad officer. The Turk's katana rested on his shoulder, sheathed and secure, as he surveyed his men deploying swiftly.
"Initiate house-to-house searches," Tseng ordered. "The profile on this village points to some citizens being anti-Shinra. Treat them as unfriendly." The officer nodded quickly and rushed back inside, while Tseng shook his head.
"Two platoons?" he muttered darkly. "Eighty men is not enough, Heidegger, and you should know that, you fool!" But no, the fat slob had ignored Tseng's recommendations for three times that number in his hunting force. The general wanted to put a large force outside Fort Condor. Under the new President's own orders, he was going to crush that fortress with all the might he could muster. Only a paltry force had been sent to the villages surrounding Midgar to search them, and Tseng knew that if he encountered Squall and his comrades, things would be rough with only eighty men. While Tseng was confident that they couldn't stand against that many Shinra troops directly, he had no doubts that if they were doing the smart thing, they would nibble away at his men until there were few enough that they could escape. He'd seen what they had done to the response team in the headquarters building. Twenty-seven men in under a minute.
Did Heidegger realize who they were up against?
The Turk shook his head after a moment. He had to work with what he was given. To that end, the Turk commander moved out into the village.
"Sir?" asked the officer, coming back out. "Where are you going?"
"Where else?" Tseng replied. "I'm joining the hunt." The Turk strode off into the village, his katana bouncing on his shoulder.
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Squall had found what amounted to the strangest means of escape from Kalm Rinoa could imagine. Still, she said nothing, instead simply looking up in surprise and a bit of wonder at the pair of huge yellow birds he had "procured" and led into the new alley they were sheltering inside.
"Chocobos?" she asked, and he nodded as he fitted a saddle onto the creatures. They were huge, twice a man's height, with short but thick wings and long, powerful legs. Thick yellow feathers covered the birds' bodies, and their heads were held high, muzzles over their beaks. One warbled quietly as it looked around with big black eyes.
"Domesticated, don't worry," he added.
"I don't even know how to ride one," Rinoa commented, but Squall shook his head.
"I'll drive," he stated. 'The others should have some idea of how to ride them as well."
"What about Red?"
"I can handle myself," came the creature's quiet call, starling Rinoa again. She spun around, to see him at the end of the alley, crouched low to the ground.
"Will you stop that!" she hissed as loud as she dared. She relaxed a moment later. "Zell and Quistis?"
"They know," Red commented. "I could not reach them in time, though. Shinra is already here."
"Damn," Squall hissed. He turned to Rinoa. "Keep an eye on them." He handed her the reins to the pair of birds, which she took hesitantly. "Red, stay here with Rinoa."
"Where are you going?" Rinoa asked insistently as Squall moved off. He paused and looked back to her.
"We need a distraction," he stated as he pulled out one of his combat knives. "I'll be making one."
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A three man fire team strode down the street, sweeping the area with their rifles. The Shinra soldiers were awake and alert, and had been for some time. They suspected that the enemy was present in this town, and were mentally prepared to engage them on sight. The three men moved with hair-trigger alertness, fingers hovering over the triggers of their rifles, ready for anything.
That was the problem, Zell mused as he crouched behind the chimney stack of one of the buildings, looking down at the men. He'd expended all of his grenades in Midgar, and even now, he doubted he would have used them. Yes, he wanted to kick Shinra ass, but he wasn't stupid enough to risk alerting the entire enemy force just to kill three men. He needed an opening to take these soldiers out, and it would have to be quick and silent.
Zell leaned back and sent a nod to Quistis, who was crouched on the rooftop across the street. She nodded in reply, and he waved a hand for her to stay back. She shied back behind the cover of her chimney stack as well as the soldiers passed. The enemy was smart, and using good tactics; one was sweeping before them, and the other two kept checking to the sides and directly behind the group. The fact that two men were in position to cut down an enemy coming from behind meant that the group was ready for an ambush.
Zell waved again, and tapped his ear, followed by a slashing gesture with one hand, cutting diagonally. Quistis nodded in understanding at the signal, one they'd devised when AVALANCHE had first been formed. She took out her knife and dug it into the tiled rooftop, prying one of the ceramic tiles off. Zell rose from his crouch as the team passed beneath them, and Quistis threw the tile down hard, off the edge of her roof and directly across from Zell as the Shinra troops passed before him. The tile hit the pavement with a loud crack and shattered into smaller pieces.
The soldiers whirled and leveled their rifles. They hesitated for a brief moment, seeing the shattered tile, and stood down a second later. One man raised a hand to his radio to report the contact while the others began to turn away, scanning the area.
A balled fist slammed into the back of one man's neck as he turned, shattering his vertebrae, and the second man was being spun around, his chin grasped in Zell's left hand and turned one way, his shoulder in the other hand and going the opposite direction. The soldier's neck snapped like a twig in the brawler's hands, and he darted forward at the last soldier, who was only just becoming aware that something was wrong behind him. He began to turn, when Zell's arm wrapped around the soldier's neck and squeezed hard, crushing his windpipe and silencing the man. The other hand shot low, to the soldier's rifle, and with a single flick of Zell's fingers, the brawler broke the man's wrist. The rifle clattered to the pavement. Another twist to the man's neck, and Zell finished the shocked and breathless soldier. He let the body slump to the pavement, and looked up at Quistis, giving her a thumbs up at the silent elimination.
Then an armored light assault vehicle rumbled around the corner, a heavy machinegun mounted on its rear. The driver and gunner gaped at the scene for an instant, and then the headlights flicked on to blinding high beams.
"Freeze!" came a shout from the driver, and the gunner leveled his weapon at Zell. The brawler let out a loud and heartfelt curse and backflipped, kicking up into the air, and was chased a moment later by gunfire from the machinegun. The rattling of the heavy weapon filled the air, and beneath the noise's cover, Quistis dropped off the rooftop, right beside the assault vehicle. She jumped up to the side of the vehicle, drawing another knife from her belt, and stabbed it into the gunner's throat before he'd registered her approach. The man cried out in terrified shock and pain and fell away from his position, the gun going silent. The driver looked back up in time to see Quistis uncoil her whip and snap it at him. The chain shot down beneath the machinegun, and struck the soldier in the side of his head, almost tearing it off. The man toppled halfway out of his seat, blood gushing from the side of his helmet.
Quistis heard shouts over the vehicle's radio, and could hear men approaching from the street this vehicle had come from. She turned and checked in that direction, to see a half-dozen Shinra troops coming down the street, rifles raised. Thinking fast, Quistis grabbed the machinegun's controls and rotated it in their direction. She sighted one man in the weapon's sights and pulled the triggers.
The gun roared, and the man in question was ripped apart. She turned the cannon, pouring fire into the on coming enemy, who quickly scattered in shock and confusion, and cut one more soldier down before the others found cover. Quistis kept firing, keeping them pinned down, but then caught movement out the corner of her eye. She glanced that way, ready to duck away in case it was another enemy soldier, but relaxed when she saw it was only Zell, grabbing a bandoleer of grenades from one dead man's belt. He pocketed the bombs in his vest, except one which he popped the safety pin off. The brawler moved toward the vehicle's gas tank, and Quistis nodded. She kept up the fire for a moment, and then released the triggers, hopping off and moving away as Zell removed the arming pin and stuck the grenade into the gas port. Then he was running as well, counting down the seconds.
The Shinra troops came running as the gunfire slackened off, not hesitating to pursue the enemy, and as they neared the assault vehicle, one climbed up into the back, ready to use the machinegun against their enemies.
Then the grenade detonated, and the vehicle, the corpses, and the soldiers vanished in a cloud of fire and violence.
"I think we got their attention!" Zell shouted as they ran down the street, away from what was doubtless more Shinra troops coming in response to the major disturbance.
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A rifle poked around the corner on the transport as the soldier checked a sound from the other side of the vehicle. Squall's hand closed over the rifle's muzzle and pulled it hard, yanking the weapon out and pulling the surprised soldier with it. His left hand, clutching one of his knives, stabbed out and in, into the soldier's visor, and his right hand moved forward, pushing the corpse down as he yanked the knife out of the suddenly dead man's face.
Behind the dead soldier were two equally shocked Shinra troops. Squall smoothly released the knife with his left hand, the right reaching up to grasp the knife's tip. His right hand whipped across as his left grabbed the closer man's rifle and pulled it to the left and forward, away from Squall. He released the knife with his right hand, and it whipped into the second soldier's faceplate. Squall spun on the third soldier, whose rifle he still clutched, and grabbed the other knife of his belt. It flashed out and across, slashing the man's throat. Squall slammed his elbow into the man's chest and guided the dying soldier to the pavement while his other hand kept the rifle from clattering to the ground. Once the soldier was down and dead, Squall set the rifle down and stalked forward, silently moving into the ring of troop transport trucks, pausing only to recover his other knife.
He moved soundlessly, like a ghost moving among the graves in the stillness of night, his eyes open and senses primed, always alert. Movement and noise surrounded him: the laughter of two guards, the reports from search teams, static on radios, the cocking and loading of guns, and an officer barking orders. Shadows danced between vehicles as men moved about, but none of their owners came along Squall's path as he moved in silence.
He paused at the next truck, listening intently, and heard the sound of a patrolling soldier nearing his position. Moving fast, Squall ducked and rolled under the truck, onto his back beneath the vehicle. He grasped the undercarriage and pulled himself up, putting his body flush against the bottom of the vehicle, becoming almost invisible in the shadows beneath it. The guard passed by a moment later, never noticing a thing. After he passed, Squall dropped back down to the pavement and crawled out from under the vehicle and out into the open once more. He moved to the edge of the truck and peeked out, seeing another pair of enemy soldiers on guard a short distance away, on the other side of the collection of trucks. The former SeeD turned his head, scanning his surroundings, and spotted another vehicle close by, this one laden with crates and boxes. A supply vehicle. That might have what he needed.
Squall detached himself from the truck he was hiding behind, and crossed the short distance between the two vehicles, his silent footfalls never heard by the enemy. Thirty seconds later he had reached the vehicle in question and hopped up silently inside the covered cargo area.
Rifles, ammunition, rations, gasoline . . . The truck had a lot of stuff in the back, everything a small army would need to keep operating, but what Squall really needed was hidden at the front of the cargo bed, under a box of flares: C4 detonating charges and timers. Squall grabbed a half-dozen blocks of C4 and an equal number of timed detonators, and synced them for ten minutes. He also made sure to grab a remote detonator so he could trigger them early if necessary. Once that was done, he hopped back out of the truck when no one was around, and slipped underneath the vehicle, attaching one bomb to the underside of the supply truck.
Five minutes later, Squall had successfully placed bombs on two more supply vehicles, a troop transport, a communications truck, and a command vehicle. He armed the final bomb, and began to move away from the command vehicle, when he heard the cocking of a rifle. Squall spun toward that sound, in time to see the pair of guards he'd seen earlier standing over the corpses of the slain men. One was hastily speaking into his radio while the other was scanning the area, looking for the killer. It didn't take him long to spot Squall, standing in the open. He let out a shout and raised his rifle.
The former SeeD grimaced. Things were about to get messy, he realized, and he pulled out the remote detonator as he scrambled toward an unoccupied LRV.
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"Where did they go?" Tseng demanded, one hand holding the sheath on his shoulder, while the other grasped the handle of the katana. Before him was the owner of the small hotel where one Kalm citizen had reported a group of people with a red beast in tow had spent the night.
"I don't know, I swear!" the terrified innkeeper replied as the trio of Shinra soldiers held him place in his chair. Two men held his arms and shoulders, while the third one was standing behind the man, using his tonfa to choke the innkeeper. Three other Shinra soldiers towered over the man, doing nothing more than appearing intimidating, which was something they succeeded at.
"Did you hear anything?" Tseng demanded, fingers opening around his blade and closing again. "Did they say anything about plans or destinations?"
"No!" the man cried quickly. "They didn't talk about going anywhere! Please, let me go, I don't know anything important about these people-"
"We'll decide that," Tseng replied, scowling. "How else do I know you're not a sympathizer with them? Did they mention anything important? Any odd names, or people?"
"No," the man replied, and then stopped. "Wait, wait, they did! I overheard them mention a man's name."
"Who?" Tseng asked.
"I think it was Sefer . . . No, Sephiroth! Yes! That was his name! One guy was talking about him to the others. I heard them say something about following him."
"They're hunting Sephiroth too?" Tseng mused, and then nodded. "Release him." The soldiers immediately let the man go, releasing his arms and pulling the tonfa away.
"You have my thanks," Tseng stated. "You cooperation is appreciated." The innkeeper nodded after a moment, and then Tseng made a slashing gesture. The soldier behind the man nodded and pulled his sidearm. He stuck it to the back of the man's head and pulled the trigger. The bullet blasted into his skull and shredded the innkeeper's brain.
"They mentioned Sephiroth," Tseng hissed. "We can't let that knowledge get out. Clean up this mess, we'll blame it on Squall." The soldiers moved to dispose of the corpse when one man paused, checking his radio.
"Sir Tseng, there are reports of a disturbance! North side of town!"
"Get all available units up there right now!" Tseng snapped. He pulled out his radio headset and put it on. "How many hostiles?"
"Just two, sir!"
"Belay that last order!" Tseng snapped. He activated his radio. "Cordon that area and don't let them run! But keep your eyes open, we may have more to deal with outside that region!" he moved outside and ran toward the center of town, where the trucks were positioned. "Captain, keep your men on alert, this may just be a distra-"
Tseng was cut off when a massive wave of force slammed into him. The ring of trucks and command vehicles exploded an a roiling ball of yellow fire and destruction. Pieces of vehicles and men were hurled out of the blast radius, smashing into the surrounding buildings and raining around the Turk as he rolled across the pavement. Tseng stood immediately, and shook his head in an effort to escape the ringing sensation in his ears, and heard, very distantly, the sound of an engine starting He scanned the destruction, narrowing his eyes in the yellow light, and saw a single LRV burst free of the destruction, its sides on fire as it rolled out. A Shinra trooper was clinging to the rear of the vehicle, dragged along on the ground, and driving it was-
"Squall!" Tseng roared, and unsheathed his blade. The former SeeD must have heard the Turk's roar, as he turned his head toward the man. Squall shifted directions, turning sharply and flinging the hapless soldier on the back across the ruined town center, and came to bear on Tseng. He accelerated his vehicle, driving toward the Turk, who narrowed his eyes and grasped his katana with both hands. Tseng crouched slightly as Squall drove towards him, and as the vehicle neared, the Turk took a quick step forward and leapt, flipping his katana over for a downward stab.
Squall had been expecting Tseng to move aside quickly and try to get on board the vehicle, but hadn't been expecting the daring leap into the air by the Turk. The Shinra assassin landed lightly on the hood of the LRV and stabbed forward, into the window of the vehicle. The curved blade of Tseng's sword smashed through the bulletproof glass and almost struck Squall in the head, but he ducked and rolled to the side, out of the vehicle. Squall hit the pavement hard, but rolled with the impact and came up on his knees. The LRV drove on, out of control, and Tseng worked quickly to extract his blade. He managed to remove the sword and leap off the hood of the vehicle an instant before it smashed into the front of a store.
Squall was up and running as fast as he could, toward the shakily rising Turk. Tseng saw the former SeeD rushing at him and grasped his katana in both hands, holding the blade low to the ground behind him. He roared a challenge as Squall closed in.
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Quistis and Zell rounded the corner of another street, an ran headlong into a quartet of Shinra soldiers. Both sides were so surprised by the impact that Zell and Quistis were able to bull straight through them, knocking a pair of the enemy down before wheeling around to face the Shinra troops.
Quistis' rante snapped up in a sudden strike, the blade stabbing into one soldier's chest as it did so, and ripping out the other side of his torso. Zell, as he spun around, raised one of his feet and planted a devastating kick into another man's faceplate. The impact was hard enough to send the man into a spinning backflip. The other two soldiers, the pair the two fugitives had knocked down, had finished scrambling to their feet and were raising their weapons when a red blur dropped down behind them. One man screamed and toppled, blood flying from his backside, and the other began to turn when he was bowled over, Red XIII leaping onto his chest and his fangs finding the man's jugular. An instant later the soldier was silenced.
"Red!" Quistis said, obviously relieved to see a comrade. "Where are the others?"
"Squall is buying us some time," the beast explained. "Rinoa has your means out of town."
"'Your'?" Zell echoed, but Red didn't speak, instead simply bounding down the street.
"Follow me!" he hissed, and the pair chased after him. They ducked through a couple of alleys and down one street, moving across the town. Midway through a shuddering blast shook the ground, and Zell almost fell flat on his face from the tremors.
"What was that?" he demanded.
"Our distraction, I suppose," Red replied, looking in the direction of the town center, where plumes of smoke could be seen rising high into the sky. He began moving once more. "We must hurry!"
Zell and Quistis followed Red XIII through the alleys for a short distance, hearing the distant shouts of Shinra troops. They rounded another corner and entered another alley, within which was Rinoa . . . And a pair of huge birds.
"Chocobos." Zell's word was neither a question nor an exclamation, but a simple statement. "Squall grabbed us a pair of chocobos." Rinoa shrugged helplessly.
"All he could find," she replied. "I hope one of you knows how to ride these things." Zell grinned and tapped his chest.
"Grandpa Zangan showed me how to ride a few when I was younger," he replied. "Not too hard, though I don't think I'll have time to show you how to ride. You'll just have to hang on tight."
"Those birds are strong, but they can't carry too many passengers," Quistis added. "Only two people per bird. And I don't know how to ride them either."
"I'll take the lead," Zell replied, moving to one of the birds. He met its eyes for a second, and reached up, patting the side of its head a few times. The creature warbled a moment, and lowered its head slightly, Zell accepted the invitation and climbed up onto the creature's back, setting his feet in the stirrups.
"Someone care to join me?" he asked. "The other person will have to get on the other bird. I'll grab its reins and lead it on, you'll just have to hang on." Quistis glanced to Rinoa, who waved for her to get on with Zell. Quistis did so hesitantly, but with a helping hand from the brawler she got up and settled in in front of him.
"Don't get any ideas," she joked.
"Wouldn't dream of it," Zell replied. Rinoa mimicked his earlier motions, and when the other chocobo dipped its head as well, she climbed on. It was a bit difficult for her at first, but the large bird helped her by dropping to its belly once it figured out she couldn't climb up very well. Rinoa settled herself into the saddle, and handed the reins to Zell when the bird rose again. Zell gave them to Quistis, bidding her to hold on tight. She did so, and Zell was about to start when he paused and looked to Red.
"Go on," Red replied with slightly bared teeth, something that seemed to amount to a grin. "I'll keep up, don't worry."
"If you say so," Zell replied. Red kept on surprising him, but if he thought he could keep up with a pair of chocobo at full speed, Zell wouldn't argue. He tapped the side of the chocobo's ribs with his heels, and the bird immediately moved out. The second one followed suit as Quistis pulled its reins, apparently knowing the routine. Both women held on tightly as the birds left the sheltered alleyway and burst out onto the streets.
"Hold on to your butts!" Zell roared, and with a harder tap to his bird's ribs, the riding animal burst into full gallop.
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Squall normally kept his cool and didn't respond to challenges. But, here, now, some warrior's impulse overtook him as he closed with Tseng. He opened his mouth and growled an answer to that challenge, raising his gunblade high for a cleave. As he neared to within a few steps of Tseng, the Turk suddenly stepped forward, and viciously slashed up with his katana as Squall came in. The former SeeD tucked in his belly and came to a complete stop, the deadly edge of Tseng's weapon cutting the air in front of him. As the narrow blade passed before Squall, he chopped down.
Tseng snapped his sword across faster than Squall imagined he could, slamming it into the cleaving gunblade and knocking it away. The katana flipped over and slashed back across, but Squall quickly ducked, the blade cutting the air over his head, and cleaved across with his gunblade. Tseng managed to bring his blade back around, the blade pointed vertically at the pavement, and intercepted Squall's gunblade, stopping it cold. Squall saw the impact between the slender sword and his heavy weapon, and knew there was more to Tseng's sword than met the eye.
The Turk flicked the blade up, trying to slice into the still-ducking Squall's face. The former SeeD spun to the right, twisting his body out of the way as the razor-sharp edge flew past. Tseng brought the sword to stop in mid-cut and slashed across with blinding speed, almost cleaving into Squall's head. The Revolver shot up and caught the blade bare inches from Squall's nose, the metal ringing clearly in the midst of the burning flames and screams of dying and wounded men.
Squall broke away from the attack and came back in with an arcing slash at Tseng's head. The Turk caught the attack with a quick, measured parry and deflection with his katana, throwing the Revolver up high, and then quickly angled his blade forward for a stab. Squall ducked and twisted, his skull barely getting out of the line of Tseng's deadly thrust. The Revolver smashed down hard onto the katana, driving it down into the pavement. The blade actually dug into the street, partially wedging itself in for a brief moment. Tseng tugged furiously, and the blade began to slide out, but in that moment, Squall struck with a brutal left cross that smashed into the Turk's chin. He came up with a hard smash with his right hand, the butt of his gunblade impacting between the Turk's eyes and throwing him off his feet to crash to the pavement, groaning in pain. Tseng began to rise, but the tip of a gunblade gave him pause. He looked up the weapon, at Squall, towering over him.
"Finish me, then," the Turk growled, understanding and accepting his loss of this battle.
Squall didn't reply, any words he would have said cut off by the pounding of feet on the street. He glanced in the direction of the approaching charge, expecting Shinra reinforcements had arrive, and was partially correct. Half a squad of Shinra troops were rounding a building nearby, but a pair of huge yellow birds chased the men, running them down and crushing them into the pavement. Squall spun back to Tseng and smashed his boot into the side of his head, blasting him into unconsciousness, and spun back toward the oncoming chocobo.
"Squall!" Zell roared, urging his bird on. The former SeeD skittered to the side, near the one Rinoa was riding. As they neared, he sheathed his gunblade and held out a hand, grasping the bird's reins as it rode past and kicking up into the air. The momentum of the charging bird lifted him up into the air, and he pulled hard, bringing himself over and onto the bird's saddle. The running mount wasn't perfect, and Squall grimaced as some pain rolled up from between his legs, but he didn't complain as he settled in behind Rinoa.
"Let's get out of here before they figure out what the hell happened!" Zell shouted, and Squall honestly agreed with him. The pair of chocobos, Red bounding along beside them, galloped out of Kalm while the remaining Shinra troops were still converging on the site of the cataclysm in the middle of town.
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Three hours had passed since the escape from Kalm, and with no sign of Shinra pursuit. Squall had taken the lead as they rode their chocobos south, in the direction he had seen Sephiroth headed for. After the first hour they had slowed down somewhat, mostly because Squall figured Red could use the slower pace. However, the fiery beast had seemed more irritated with the slower pace than grateful for a breather, and so Squall had accelerated once more. Red never tired, it seemed, as they moved through a long, wide valley between two mountain ranges.
Zell had been keeping an eye to the north and west, in case Shinra troops would begin pursuit, but nothing came as the distant city of Midgar disappeared around the mountains. Or at least, nothing came before noon.
As the sun reached its apex, Red suddenly stopped, and looked up to the sky, narrowing his good eye. He turned back to the others as they brought their birds to a stop and circled back.
"Helicopters," he hissed, and leapt out into a full run past the others. Both Squall and Zell understood the danger immediately and turned their chocobos back to the south and urged them on into full gallops as well.
"How much longer will these things last?" Quistis yelled to Zell as he rode his bird hard.
"Not sure," he replied. "At full speed . . . ." he shook his head. "We have to get as far south as we can before the helicopters catch us!"
"There's a big open plain past this valley!" Squall shouted, pulling a little closer. "If my geography's right, the grasses are tall enough to hide in!"
"We're still not going to lose 'em," Zell replied. "Once they spot us they'll have an army all over that plain trying to find us." Squall frowned, and looked back, thinking of a plan, some advantage they could gain. Their chocobos were still strong, but how much longer would they last? They were fast, but they couldn't outrun helicopters.
As if to punctuate his thoughts, Squall spotted a pair of distant black specks appear over the mountain and swoop in their direction, growing larger every minute.
"Helicopters!" he warned his comrades, and both he and Zell spurred their chocobos on even harder. Still, the helicopters closed in with frightening speed, apparently spotting the pair of chocobos at long range. They made an unswerving line directly for the group as they dashed across the valley. The mountains began to give way around the group, but nonetheless, the two helicopters continued to close in. As the minutes passed, Squall could hear the thwip-thwip-thwip of the aircrafts' rotors beating against the air as they got closer and closer. Squall looked back over his shoulder and could make out the shape of the vehicles as they closed in. And to the north, moving through the valley, was a column of motorcycles and armed jeeps, rolling over the plains in pursuit.
Squall cursed, roving through his mind for plans or methods to evade this overwhelming enemy that was doggedly chasing them. No immediate ideas appeared in his mind. There was no cover nearby, nothing except grasses on a wide, open plain. There was a large-scale chocobo ranch to the south, far away, but they couldn't hope to get there in time, and there was no other cover for miles beyond that point, making it a futile gesture to hide there. The only other direction they could go was to the southwest, but Squall quickly remembered a very good reason why they couldn't go in that direction. The Midgar Swamps were in that region.
The two helos were closing in, approaching near enough that Squall could tell they were light troop transport helicopters. He make out the machineguns poking out of their sides, manned by Shinra soldiers, and could almost see the pilots behind the plexiglass cockpits.
"What do we do, Squall?" Zell asked quickly as the helos grew larger and larger, the beating of the rotors almost deafening. A booming voice sounded over the thunderous rotors.
"Surrender now!" came the voice of one of pilots, broadcasted over a loudspeaker. "We have control of the situation! Stop your animals now or we will be forced to open fire!" Zell gave the Shinra pilots a one-fingered response in defiance, but he knew it was a futile gesture.
Squall looked back to the helicopters, thinking of a means of attack. Maybe he could use magic against them. It had worked before in Sector Five . . . .
"Don't worry, Squall," Rinoa suddenly murmured, almost too quietly for him to hear. He looked to her, to see her head bowed. He couldn't see her face, but if he could, he would have seen that her eyes were closed in concentration. "I'll take care of this."
"What?" Squall stated at her sudden assurance, and was confused by both it and her confidence. She turned her head back toward him, opening her eyes momentarily, and smiled.
"The open land," she stated quietly. "I can hear it speak to me. And I can talk to it."
"What are you talking about?" Squall asked, wanting clarification, but then words became meaningless as Rinoa raised a hand, letting out a cry as she looked into the blue afternoon sky. As if in response, the wind suddenly began to wail around them and around her, gathering and blowing, a hoarse rumble of storm-like gales in the sky above. Rinoa clenched her fist, and turned, opening it in the direction of the helicopters. The pilots began to swerve, anticipating blasts of magic.
They weren't disappointed, but the source of the magic, and the direction it came from were not what they had expected. Wind hammered the helicopters with sudden, brutal and overwhelming force, striking them as hard as if a stone wall had been erected in front of them. As Squall watched, the roaring winds seemed to simply shear off the rotors from one helicopter, and at the same time shattered the cockpit windows, launching hundreds of shards of glass into the interior of the vehicle, shredding the pilot, copilot, and soldiers on board. The helicopter flipped, end over end, and smashed into the open plain, rolling along on sheer momentum as it bounced over the ground.
The second helicopter was spun around as the winds smashed its tail, ripping the rear of the helicopter completely off. The aircraft spun around wildly as the winds pummeled it, crushing the metal frame and hurling soldiers and crew from the vehicle. Within moments it, too, met a similar fate as its comrade, crashing and rolling along the open plain, a crushed and broken thing.
Rinoa closed her hand and opened her eyes, letting out a breath she apparently hadn't realized she was holding. She looked to Squall, who regarded her with amazement, and then to Quistis and Zell, who had similar expressions. Silence filled the plains, excepting the bounding of the chocobos and Red's near-ghostlike run, until Zell finally spoke.
"Can you show me how to do that?"
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The group had stopped for a short while, letting the chocobos get a reasonable rest as they weighed their options.
"We can cut through the mountains," Zell explained, pointing out a spot on their map. "Go straight over them and out the other side, and get on the western end of the continent."
"That'll be slow going," Quistis replied, shaking her head. "Not very many mountain passes, and Shinra's likely going to be covering all of them. If they catch us with helicopters again, we'll be stuck."
"There are fishing villages," Zell continued, running a finger along the wide coast edging the plains. "We can grab a boat from one of them." Squall shook his head as he chewed on a bite of protein rope. Rinoa nodded in agreement.
"We don't have much time before Shinra's army catches up with us," she explained. "They'll catch us before we get halfway across the plains."
"The boats are no good," Red said in agreement. "We cannot cross the mountains, and we cannot use the ocean. Perhaps we go beneath the mountains? I know that there are mythril mines running below these ranges."
"Most of 'em are closed," Zell said, frowning. "Not to mention the tunnels won't reach far enough to get to the other side of the mountains. The only exception is . . . ." He traced a finger west of their current direction across a grayed-out region of the map, and toward a red dot. "There. That mine runs all the way to the other side of the mountains."
"That crosses the swamps," Squall replied, and the others looked up at him. He shook his head. "Those swamps are very dangerous."
"Why?" Zell asked.
"Zoloms," the former SeeD replied. Zell paled.
"You serious?" he hissed. Squall nodded grimly.
"What are zoloms?" Quistis asked.
"Big-ass snakes," Zell replied. "About fifty feet long, tough as hell. And, if the stories are right, they can breath fire or use magic or something. Not very many people have met 'em and survived." He frowned. "I didn't think that there were any in the swamps, though."
"Well, there are," Squall replied. He shook his head after a moment. "But we'll have to deal with it. I'd rather risk running from a zolom rather than take on the Shinra military head-on."
"Let's saddle up and move out," Zell added, and the others quickly moved back to their chocobos. Within moments they were sitting securely and had their gear squared away, Zell pausing only to take an unhappy bite from the protein rope.
"Hyne, this tastes like crap," he muttered.
"Get used to it," Quistis replied as he snapped the reins and hit the chocobo's ribs. "It's all we'll be eating for a while." Squall's chocobo moved ahead as Red moved out to the perimeter, keeping his eye open and ears primed.
Within the hour, they had passed from the green, grassy plains, and headed into the darkening gloom of a gray, empty, wet wasteland. The Midgar Swamps stretched out before them as their chocobos splashed across the shallows, into one of the more perilous regions of this continent.
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"Shit." He looked down from his high vantage point with the long-range binoculars, and shook his head. "They're going into the swamps. Fuck."
He had seen the whole incident in the valley from up here as he had moved up the mountains. It was really the only way he could dodge Shinra after that stunt he'd pulled outside Midgar. He hadn't seen what happened in Kalm, but he could guess what had passed in the village. It was hard to tell what had happened to the helicopters pursuing the group, but he knew something weird was going on.
He could see them in the distance, traveling into the swamps, and shook his head again. Nothing he could do for them here. It would be better if he could get across the mountains as fast as he could; Shinra would be up here soon enough, he guessed.
"Hyne, you better have something up your sleeve for them," he growled as he trudged up the mountain path. Still, he knew that if anyone could get through the swamps, it was that group. And with a little help from him, who knew how far they could get?
"You're still not paying me enough," he complained to his distant employers as he continued up the mountain.
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I apologize for the delay. A combination of both the awesomeness of the last few chapters of Gunblade and writer's block when it came to the battle in Kalm killed my ability to write this chapter for a while.
I'm surprised this chapter turned out this long. I was originally planning to have some minor conflict in Kalm, where the heroes had to run off and then run from Shinra, but it grew into this monster. I honsstly didn't feel like I could just let the heroes walk away from Kalm without a nicerousing battle.Was quite enjoyable to write however, including the bits with the chocobos, and Squall and Tseng's brief duel. I plan to let them have a much longer one later on.
The Squall and Tseng duel was heavily inspired by samurai fighting styles. If you've seen The Last Samurai, then that movie was what partially inspired the battle there. A very quick, intense conflict with lots of deflection parries and such, not to mention the samurai-style charge at the beginning.
And now, the long-delayed shout-outs!
-Angel-brokensorrow: You still out there? XD Sorry about the subtle clues in the previous chapter. They slightly line up with FFVII's subtle clues in the same sequence, I'll admit that.
-Daniel Wesley Rydell: Squall's flashback is actually one year previously, not five or ten. In FFVII it was five years, though.
-Cloud Strife 2004: Who knows who will replace whom? XD I've got plenty of ideas here.
-Ilopan: Oh, the story won't be a Quall, I can guarantee that. Well, maybe slightly, but it will for the most part be a Squinoa. Their relationship will be very important throughout the storyline, too.
-Akira Stridder: No, Squall lived in Midgar for most of his life. Most of it. I won't tell where else until I'm good and ready.
-JamieLike: hey, its my goal to make Squall seem like he's home here in FFVII. And yeah, I wanted Sephiroth to be a psycho. Because that's what he is, darn it! No innocence or redemption for him!
I ran into a problem early on, thinking about how to have X-ATM092 in both the reactor and the streets of Midgar during the escape, but I finally shrugged and went ahead and did it anyway. And getting dropped into the sewer, yeah, I hated that segment, so I had Squall drop the Don instead. Hee.
Seifer will come. Who will he be? Hm. You'll see. Or maybe not immediately. Oh, I love being vague.
The Corel/Dyne bit will definitely be a challenge for me. I've got some ideas, though. That's one bit I haven't fleshed out completely yet.
I actually looked back, and there was some alternating between Skotch and Kotch (who are two separate characters) Thanks for letting me know, I totally missed that, especially considering Kotch gets killed so quickly in the battle. XD
SSJ4-Bejita: I will admit, Synthesis has fallen by the wayside in the wake of Gunblade. Of course, to make up for that I spent all my time from the last chapter of Gunblade on working on this. These next couple of chapters may be a bit more difficult, but once we hit Fort Condor and Junon it'll probably speed up.
Who knows who the mysterious sniper may be? Is that a weathered trenchcoat I see on that mountain?
That all? Good. Well, keep reading, my faithful fan peoples, and work diligently. Spell-check and quick-edit are your friends! Until next chapter . . . .