A/N: For the assault on the trainyard, I would recommend "Sara Ni Takatau Monotachi" off the Advent Children soundtrack (the music when the heroes are fighting Bahamut Sin) For Rinoa and the Chimera vs. the Requiem, I recommend "Stricken" by Distrubed off the Ten Thousand Fists album. And when the truth is finally revealed, "The Prisoner" by Mothergoat.
Chapter 6: Scarred
"It didn't work," he snarled, walking back into the room. Nash blinked, and leaned back against a wall, crossing his arms.
"What do you mean?" he asked, and the man spun on the scientist, and jabbed a finger at his forehead.
"This thing? What else do you expect?" Nash's eyes widened at the man's snarling tone, and he shook his head.
"Impossible. The Requiem's system's can't penetrate-"
"Not the requiem," he snapped. Nash stared at him for a second, and then suddenly understood.
"What happened?" he asked, now concerned.
"I nearly killed her, that's what," he responded to the scientist's question. "It was subtle, but it was there. I almost lost control."
"The Elemental Restriction System should have held it in check . . . ." Nash managed to say.
"Well, it didn't," he replied viciously. "And at this rate . . . ."
"I'll find a way to fix it, to further suppress it," Nash managed to say, but his guest shook his head.
"No amount of technology can contain this," he replied. "Eventually, it will consume me and drive me insane. But there are things I need to take care of before that happens."
"Killing the Requiem," Nash said, and he nodded solemnly.
"Good afternoon," said the man sitting across from him in the booth, as he sat down. Alucard, Guardian of Existence, smiled as he saw the face of someone he had not seen in many years. The Guardian settled into his chair, and a waitress came by to ask them for their drinks. Wine and Dollet brandy, came the usual responses, still remembered from decades ago, and she went to fill their orders.
"Its been a while," remarked the man sitting across from Alucard. The Guardian chuckled, and nodded.
"How many decades?" the Guardian asked.
"Three," came the immediate response, and Alucard chuckled again.
"You haven't aged a day, my friend," he remarked. The man shrugged.
"You know who, and what, I am," he replied. "Not a Guardian, of course, but as close to immortal as a mortal can get."
"Of course," Alucard replied. "So, what brings us together again?"
"Mutual enemies, and mutual acquaintances," answered the man. "We both know what is coming, don't we?"
"Hyne," answered Alucard, and the man nodded. He let out a tired sigh, and shook his head.
"I'm tired of hiding my history, of who I am and who I was," he explained. "Its time to put an end to this." He shook his head. "Immortality is not all its cracked up to be. How do you people do it?"
"Mortals are not meant to live forever," Alucard replied. "But then, that is why humans die eventually. It's the natural order of things. That project you participated in broke the fundamental tenets of humanity. You, my friend, are the ultimate result of that. A mixture of man and monster, the ultimate warrior."
"A Chimera," the man replied quietly. "A twisted monster who should never have existed."
"But even if you are a monster," Alucard explained, "You can correct your mistakes, am I right?"
"Maybe," the Chimera answered.
Daniel Tomweather was the local manager of Timber International Transit's #87 train maintenance yard, and he did his job well. He showed up to work every day, exactly on time, to oversee the routine maintenance of every single train that was left at his facility for repairs and upgrades. With a hundred and seven engineers and repair crew, fifteen security officers, and a half-dozen lower-level clerical staff under his direct command, he had quite the handful of work to do, which was why he always arrived with perfect punctuality to the station so he could get to doing what needed to be doing.
The train yard seemed unusually quiet this morning, but he passed that off as being the result of many of his workers being late. He passed by two repair crewmen working on one of the two dozen parked trains stretching across the large complex, and walked up a staircase leading into the office building overlooking the train yard. He walked into his office, turned the laptop screen to face him, and started booting it up.
The first thing he did was check his inbox. He opened it, but was surprised to see what looked like sixty mails, all from his workers. A quick check showed Daniel that they were all confused messages regarding him sending out mails about "stopping work for the day." A quick check of his outbox showed that they were right; he had sent a mail out to many of his workers telling them to take the day off. But he'd never sent that mail . . . And it came from this computer.
"What the hell . . . ." he muttered, and looked out his office window. He saw what looked like the remainder of his crew, the repair and maintenance people, and the security officers, moving around, but then noticed something shocking.
They weren't carrying tools; they all had weapons. Plasma rifles and shotaxes, the kind of gear Estharians used.
"Relax," came a voice, and Daniel looked up, to see someone had slipped through his door with utter silence. The huge, musclebound man twirled a knife absently between his fingers and stared at Daniel calmly.
"Sit down, shut up, and you won't die," he explained. "The trainyard is being taken over for the day. You don't do anything stupid, and we won't have to kill you."
Daniel started to say something, but then finally nodded. He moved toward his chair-
The glass of his window shattered, and something leapt into the room. Daniel turned toward it, and his chest exploded in twin blasts of agony. He felt sharp, icy blades drive up into his lungs and lift him up off the floor.
"I got tired of waiting, Malachi," the creature, a monster in chitinous armor, hissed with its harsh electronic voice. It then spun and hurled Daniel Tomweather across his office to smack into the wall with a wet crunch.
Ragnarok's engines pulsed as it cut over the forests of Timber, flying as fast as it could toward the #87 Timber International Transit trainyard. Quistis had assembled the a strike team of all the on-alert SeeDs in Galbadia garden, totaling at about fifty troops. Along with these soldiers were Irvine, Zell, andRinoa, with Seifer in command. The briefing had been brutally simple.
"This trainyard is occupied by enemy forces," Quistis had explained. "We anticipate a force of largely Elemental soldiers present. Expect between sixty to seventy hostiles, likely trying to recover this device." She showed them the schematics of a cylindrical device. "This is an aerosol bomb that will release a chemical that will transform anyone who breathes it into an Elemental. The enemy must not get their hands on this device, at any cost."
This was followed by the most recent maps and layout of the trainyard, and an explanation as to how they would be inserted. Since finesse and subtlety were out of the question, they were going to fly straight in with the Ragnarok, and use its overwhelming firepower to suppress the enemy. Ground troops would drop in, locate the package, and secure it. They didn't have any intelligence on where the bomb was or exactly how many hostiles they would face, whether there would be civilians present, or any of a hundred other factors. They were almost going in blind.
"This plan kinda sucks," commented one of the SeeDs, and Seifer shrugged.
"You got a better one?" he asked the SeeD, and he shook his head quickly.
"Just making a learned observation, sir." The beeping of the ship's intercom cut in.
"Everyone, stand by," came the call from Mike, the airship's pilot. "We're twenty minutes from our target! Get ready!"
While the Ragnarok cut a crimson trail across the skies of Timber, another figure sliced through the shaded back-wood roads of Timber's forests, his black motorcycle blazing a far less obvious trail.
"SeeD is twenty minutes out from the trainyard," came Nash's voice over the Chimera's cell phone, and he nodded.
"I won't be able to get there in time to make a difference," he muttered. He paused as he drove down the road, turning gradually to his left. "But I can intercept the train if it leaves."
"We're going to do our damndest to keep any trains from leaving," Nash added.
"See that you do," the Chimera finished, and hung up his phone, and gunned the engine as he came out of the turn. The motorcycle roared like a hunting cat and jetted ahead, leaving a swirling trail of leaves flying in its wake.
The Ragnarok leapt into view directly over the trainyard with such speed that the terrorists below barely had time to raise their weapons before the airship was positioned directly overhead. Plasma fire stuttered up toward the airship, slamming into the glittering crimson hull plates and etching cloudy trails across the armor.
"LZ is hot!" Mike shouted over the intercom, and his gunner activated, lowered, and aimed the heavy anti-personnel machinegun mounted beneath the dragon-head bow. The cannon swiveled toward their attackers and opened fire, the deafening roar of the heavy cannon blasting down at the rising plasma bolts, easily able to locate the shooters from their trails of energy. Heavy rounds slammed into the terrorists, blasting off arms and legs and ripping bodies in half, sending gushing splatters of maroon blood across the trains and equipment they were taking cover behind.
"Be careful!" Mike shouted as the entry ramp lowered and he brought the airship close to the ground. "We have Elementals on the ground!"
The entry ramp finished lowering, and Zell, as always, was the first one out, with a roaring shout of "Go! Go! Go!" His feet hit the gravelly dirt between the train tracks, and the train cars rose up on either side of him. He immediately ran forward, hearing the discharge of plasma fire on the other side of the car to his left. Seifer landed right behind him, followed by Rinoa, several SeeDs, Irvine, and finally Quistis, as the rest of the SeeDs piled off.
The plasma fire grew louder, and Zell stopped at one of the train car's doors. He spun and swiftly kicked the door in, and burst through the empty passenger car, knocking down the door on the opposite side and leaping out. He found himself staring directly at an Elemental soldier, clad in the blue overalls of a maintenance worker, and rushed ahead before the man could react. His right leg flew ahead in a powerful forward kick that smashed the man in his nose and sent him flipping backwards through the air, maroon blood gushing from his face.
No one had told Zell, or any of the SeeDs, to take these guys down alive, and Zell promptly chose to smash the terrorist's skull in as he rose, smashing purple-red blood and skull fragments across the ground.
"All SeeDs, be advised," Mike's voice cut in over their radio. "We have heavy concentration of enemy forces roughly two train cars ahead of your position. It looks like they're trying to get the train started."
"That's our target!" Quistis shouted as she, Seifer, and a dozen other SeeDs rushed through the opening Zell had bashed. "Zell, pave us a path!"
"Booya!" Zell shouted, and charged at the next train car, slamming into the door with his forehead, his blood pumping in excitement. The door was blasted off its hinges and smashed into an enemy soldier standing in the train car, knocking him over. Zell rand over the door laying atop the terrorist and shoulder-blocked the door on the opposite side clean off, with a pair of SeeDs right behind him. Seifer was behind them, stopping to stab his gunblade into the fallen soldier's throat and fire a blast from the weapon.
Zell landed outside, directly facing a shotaxe-wielding soldier. The man slashed down viciously, the blade stabbing into the charging brawler's left shoulder and cutting deeply, despite Zell's defensive junctions. The brawler twisted, tearing his shoulder free, and punched the man in the chest with a deadly uppercut. A resounding crunch echoed off the parked trains, and the Elemental was launched up and backward to smash against the far train car. Zell rushed ahead to finish the enemy soldier off, but then he pitched backward, his chest erupting in searing pain.
The thunderous echo of a rifle followed Zell as he fell back to the ground.
"Sniper! Sniper!" came a shout from Seifer as the two SeeDs following Zell rushed out. One grabbed Zell, while the other fired a burst from his rifle into the stunned Elemental's face as he started to rise. Another roaring blast filled the trainyard, and the firing SeeD spun around, blood flying from his throat. The SeeD carrying Zell pressed himself up against the far train car as Seifer rushed out of the car, a bullet smacking into the wall directly behind him.
"On it!" came Mike's shout, and the Ragnarok's anti-personnel machinegun began to fire. An instant later, there was a pulse of blue-white light, and a bolt of plasma the size of a man slammed into the Ragnarok's port engine. Fire erupted out of the wound, and the airship started to list to the side.
"We're hit! We're hit!" The airship started to drop down, sidling to the side to avoid crashing into the train cars. "I'm bringing us down! Shit! That was anti-air fire! Keep your heads down!"
"I'm on the sniper," came Irvine's voice, calm and quiet. Another shot filled the air, nearly decapitating another SeeD, as the remaining forces took cover behind the train cars. Seifer moved over to Zell, as Rinoa risked moving ahead, drawing another shot that arced over her shoulder.
"Son of a bitch," Zell muttered, pressing his hands to the injury. Rinoa pulled his hands back, and saw blood gushing through his wound.
"Medic!" she shouted, seeing how serious the injury was. She quickly pulled out a small first aid kit, and poured a healing potion over the injury. Zell winced as she worked fast to try to keep him from bleeding out. Another sniper round cut through the air. In the distance, they heard Ragnarok settled down hard with a dull whumph and a faint tremor running through the ground. Rinoa looked back for the medic, and saw a barrel poking over the top of the train car behind them.
The resounding crack of Irvine's sniper rifle struck their ears. There was a moment's hesitation.
"Got him," Irvine called. "Not as much of him as I wanted, but I got him."
"Medic, move up!" Seifer shouted, and turned toward the door leading into the next train car. He reared back and kicked it, knocking it partially off its hinges. He kicked again, throwing it down. Rinoa leapt into the gap, drawing the Revolver and chopping viciously against the door on the opposite side of the car. As the blade hit, she pulled the trigger, and the concussive blast blew the door in half, launching it out and away. She charged through the gap, and found herself staring down the barrels of half a dozen plasma rifles.
Irvine's rifle cracked again, and one of the glass windows of the passenger car shattered, and a terrorist's head exploded in a cloud of purple mist. Rinoa lurched forward, gunblade arcing across, and another flashing concussive detonation blasted one man's rifle apart in a stroke of blue light and erupting green coolant gas.
Seifer and his blades were next, the saber and Hyperion leading as he leapt out of the train car and stabbing into one man's chest. Hyperion fired, shattering the man's chest and launching him back, and the saber arced across, slicing the wrist of another enemy Elemental. Rinoa rushed ahead, slamming into an elemental with all her strength, staggering the soldier back with a solid shoulder-block. The Revolver flew across, slashing into the soldier's side, and it fired again, blasting the man in half.
Over the din of battle, they could hear a train starting up, the chug-chug of its engine propelling the train ahead.
More SeeDs rushed out of the train car behind them, with several vaulting and leaping over the top of the intervening car. Two, carrying rifles, landed atop the train car and opened fire on the enemy train as it started to pull out. Seifer, Rinoa, and their backup finished off the remaining Elemental rear-guard as Quistis and the rest of the SeeDs began emerging from the previous train car.
"They're pulling out!" Irvine shouted as he leapt over the intervening train cars, exchanging his sniper rifle from his Valiant rifle. The train started to pull away, gaining speed, as the sharpshooter dashed toward it. Moving fast, Seifer, Rinoa, Quistis, and the SeeDs started after the train as it pulled away, steadily gaining speed. Those with rifles and other firearms fired as they charged, covering the rest of the group as they neared the train. Irvine was closest, and as he drew near the rear of the passenger train, he worked his rifle quickly, modifying it to machinegun fire. He drew closer to the departing train and leapt up onto it, grabbing onto the rear of the train with one hand and clenching his Valiant in his other. He kicked open the rear door viciously and swept the rifle across the interior, firing it in its machinegun configuration.
Brass casings flew, and several terrorists cried out in pain as rounds ripped through wood, metal, and plastic seats. The sharpshooter rushed forward into the room, and saw one Elemental dead, and ducked beneath the slashing fire of another terrorist's plasma rifle. He dove behind a seat, ejecting the spent magazine of his rifle and loading a grenade shell into it. The sharpshooter poked the rifle over the top of his seat and fired blindly in the direction the shots were coming from, and was rewarded by a resounding explosion and the distant, final screams of the Elemental.
Boots impacting metal could be heard over the roar of the train as it picked up speed, and Rinoa swept into the room, followed by Seifer and Quistis, and several more SeeDs as they leapt aboard.
"Clear!" Rinoa called as Irvine stood up, reconfiguring his rifle to shotgun fire and loading it.
"Sweep and clear," Quistis ordered. "The bomb is on this train, and they're not going to let us get it."
Major Eric Malachi winced as he moved through one of the passenger cars further up the train from where the SeeDs had breached. The sniper - Kinneas, it had to be - had gotten him good in the shoulder, but at least he had managed to snipe one SeeD for certain, and had badly wounded Dincht.
"Major!" called one of his soldiers, and Malachi looked back to the insurgent. "Sir, several SeeDs have taken the last car!"
"Hold them off," Malachi ordered. "Get everyone to the rear cars and keep those bastards back!" He paused for a moment, and added "Get a team together to detach the rear train cars. If we can't kill the SeeDs, we can lose them. Everyone else, fend off the SeeDs and keep them from advancing."
"Everyone?" the soldier asked, and Malachi nodded.
"Everyone." The soldier nodded and brandished his rifle, and turned to relay his orders. Malachi turned and moved back up the length of the passenger car, and entered the next one, where the chitinous-armored figure stood, holding the silvery cylinder in its hands, looking over it with an almost childlike fascination.
"We're away," he told the Requiem, and the armored figure nodded.
"Make sure none of them interfere," it said in its harsh electrical voice, and Malachi nodded.
"I've already given the orders."
"Good," the Requiem replied, and turned to him. It extended a hand toward Malachi, holding the aerosol bomb out to him. "Take this and secure it, Malachi. This bomb is the key to everything. Do not let it fall into enemy hands."
"Of course," Malachi replied, taking the cylinder in his hands. "And you?"
"The blood on these claws has nearly dried," the Requiem answered, and beneath the mask, it smiled. "I must remedy that."
The Elemental was hurled back, blasted in half by Irvine's shotgun blast, and the sharpshooter pumped his rifle's action and ducked behind another seat. Beside him, Quistis coiled her whip around an opponent's shotaxe and twisted it aside. Unable to put her weapon to its deadliest work in the tight confines, she instead drew the knife at her waist and stabbed it up into the Elemental's throat, and tore it out, before kicking the soldiers down. Seifer leapt up and over one of the passenger seats, diving atop another Elemental with both blades flashing. Rinoa bulled past the opponent Quistis had felled, firing her sub-machinegun as she advanced, the rounds riddling and tearing apart the enemy soldier and throwing him to the ground in a puddle of maroon blood.
"Clear!" she called, but her words were instantly countered when she saw movement outside the train car, u ahead. At the connection between this car and the next, someone was rappelling down the side of the car, and accessing what looked like the security override that held the two cars together. She blinked for a second, surprised that someone was using such a desperate tactic, and remembering the risky technique that she and Squall had used over four years ago.
Rinoa calmly slid the window open, poked her weapon out the opening, and fired a sustained burst that slammed into the ballsy soldier. One of the rounds cut through his rappelling rope, and he fell away, bouncing along the train tracks. Rinoa quickly stuck her head out, to locate anyone else standing atop the train can, and caught a flash of chitinous armor. Her heart spiked, and she moved back inside, and ran toward one of the exterior doors.
"I'm going up top!" she shouted.
"Rinoa! Seifer called as she threw the door open and started climbing up the exterior ladder. "Rinoa!"
"Less worrying about our emotionally scarred friend, more worrying about saving humanity!" Irvine muttered, rushing past Seifer. He reared back and kicked down the door connected the next car to this one, and rushed into the next room. He raised his weapon, leveling the rifle at the next terrorist he saw, an oddly diminutive figure.
A wall of blue-white ice shot up between them. Irvine froze for an instant, not understanding, and then a sudden flash of horrified thought cut through him. He fired, the shotgun blast smash into the wall of ice. He pumped his rifle, firing again, smashing more of it. A third blast blew the last of the ice barrier away, and it crumbled before him.
As the ice fell away, he saw the small figure again, and equal amounts of shock, horror, and elation went through him. She was clad in the blue overalls the terrorists were using, and her hair no longer had the bouncy curls it once held previously, instead hanging limply past her shoulders. Her icy blue eyes, transformed by the change she had undergone, stared back at him, and her nunchaku were held in tightly gripped hands.
"Selphie?" Irvine whispered.
She stared back at him, and managed a slight smile.
"Irvine," she replied, her voice sounding happy, yet . . . somehow subdued.
He started to speak again, but then her left hand pointed toward the sharpshooter. Something slammed into him, and an icy cold shot through his left chest. He looked down, to see a long, serrated icicle spear having stabbed through his upper left chest. His left leg went icy cold too as a second spear stabbed into his upper left thigh. He looked back at her, not understanding, and his knees went weak. Irvine collapsed to the left, and Seifer leapt into the room after him. He stopped, as well, upon seeing Selphie.
"Selphie? What the fuck-" A blast of icy wind hurled Seifer off his feet. Quistis was behind him, and was hurled away as well, back into the previous car. Selphie looked down at Irvine, almost sadly, and shook her head, before turning and walking toward the far end of the car.
"Detach the train cars," she ordered coldly, and a wall of ice shot up behind her, cutting the SeeDs off from stopping the train car's detachment.
The train continued to pick up speed as Rinoa climbed up on top of it. By now it had already passed the trainyard and was now driving down a train track line in the thick woodlands of Timber's countryside. But she wasn't paying attention to the waves of green surrounding the train as it moved along, the passing winds buffeting her hair and clothes. She was instead focused on the figure before her, the faceless mask shielding what she knew lay beyond.
The Requiem stared at her for a moment, cocking its head to the side, brown hair flying around wildly, and managed a short, barking electrical laugh.
"You again," it remarked. "You . . . You seem familiar, somehow."
Rinoa almost felt the urge to burst into tears at those words, but she stuffed them down, reminding herself over and over again that this wasn't Squall . . . Just a monster of armor and machine using Squall's corpse.
She said nothing, but instead just drew the Revolver and advanced. The Requiem stared at her for a moment, and the claws mounted on its forearms slid out, and it dropped into a combat stance, low to the ground, tensed and ready like a hunting animal.
The Revolver slashed across in a quick cut that the Requiem ducked under. A descending diagonal cut forced it back a step, and Rinoa followed through with a high kick that rang against its mask. The Requiem shot ahead, stabbing both claws at her, and she spun away, gunblade slashing before her and warding away the striking blades. She rushed in with another arcing slash, but the Requiem backed up, left arm flying out wide and parrying her strike, while its right arm stabbed ahead. Rinoa dropped low and into a sweep, nearly taking its legs out from under it, but it leapt up and over her leg. Both of its legs shot forward, and the armored boots of its feet slammed into her chin, launching her backward. She rolled along the top of the train, and the Requiem spun and ran toward the next car. Rinoa was up and after it, and only faintly heard the sound of this car and the next one uncoupling.
Dammit! They couldn't secure the bomb. But still, if I kill Squall . . . If I kill this thing, it'll all be over . . . .
She rushed toward the Requiem, but as she advanced, and the train started turning, she saw a bridge up ahead, rising up over the train. And standing atop that bridge was a man in black, sword strapped across his back.
The requiem turned to face her as she jumped onto the next car, and crouched again, baring its blades. Rinoa prepared herself, holding her blade out before her, ready to intercept its strikes. It edged toward her, and then they passed beneath the bridge. Darkness sheathed the train for an instant, and the Requiem readied to pounce, when it sensed a shadow descending over it. It leapt backward in a deft evasion, and a slicing blade cleaved through the train rooftop where it had been standing.
The Chimera extracted his blade, holding his hat in place with his left, gauntleted hand as she sheathed the weapon.
"Sorry I'm late," he apologized.
"Better late than never," Rinoa replied, and he chuckled. He turned his red eyes toward the Requiem. "Come on. Let's finish this. Are you ready to kill it?"
Rinoa walked up beside the Chimera, sword in hand, and nodded. The Requiem glanced between them, and straightened, and then managed another electrical snicker.
"Two against one isn't exactly fair," it remarked. "Sorry, but I can't play under these rules."
With that, it spun and leapt off the side of the train, into the woods. The Chimera whirled to instantly give chase, leaping off the train.
"What the-" Rinoa managed to say, and ran to the edge of the train. She gritted her teeth and leapt off the top of it, hoping her junctions would shield her from the fall.
"You are not escaping that easily!"
The Requiem's footsteps crunched through broken branches and leaves, and the Chimera was right behind it, darting between the trees. The Requiem ran forward, leaping up into the air and planting its feet against a tree, and then kicking off, flying toward the Chimera. His sword flashed out, intercepting the striking claws, and his left hand shot ahead, punching it in the chest and tossing it backward. The creature flew away, its feet digging furrows in the soft forest floor, and it dashed away. The Chimera charged after it, smashing through undergrowth in pursuit.
The Requiem dropped down from above without warning, but the Chimera's sword cut out, blocking its striking claws. His left hand flew up, wrapping around the Requiem's throat, and he spun, spiking it into the ground with an impact that shook leaves from the trees. The Requiem bounced up into the air, and its feet found purchase on the trunk of another three, and it kicked off again, leaping into a wild spinning kick.
The armored boot slammed into the Chimera's gauntleted left hand, and his arm threaded inside the kick, closing around the requiem's foot. He spun around, launching the armored creature into a tree hard enough to shatter straight through the trunk and fly on. The cracking collapse of the broken tree resounded throughout the forest as the Requiem planted itself against another tree and kicked off.
Sword and gauntlet slammed into the Requiem's claws, stopping it a foot away from the Chimera, and he spun into a kick that impacted solidly against its flank and launched it away. It smashed into the trunk of another tree, bark exploding from the impact.
"Dammit," the Requiem hissed.
"Just sit still and die," the Chimera replied. "It will be a whole lot less painful."
The Requiem managed a barking laugh, and stood up, when the flashing blaze of gunfire struck it. Bullets rang and ricocheted off its armor as Rinoa rushed through the undergrowth, her sub-machinegun firing. Snarling,t he Requiem turned and retreated,a nd Rinoa charged after it.
"Rinoa!" shouted the Chimera, but she rushed past him, slinging her sub-machinegun and drawing the Revolver. He cursed under his breath as she charged after the fleeing creature, and reached into his hat, pulling his bandana over his eyes.
"You're going to get yourself killed," he hissed, and pursued.
The Requiem burst into a clearing, and, in a move that was rapidly becoming common for it, it whirled suddenly on Rinoa and leapt at her, claws slashing viciously. The Revolver snapped left and right, somehow managing to parry both claws, and head snapped forward, smashing into the Requiem's mask. It was launched back by the vicious headbutt, and Rinoa winced, rubbing her forehead. It didn't look like it hurt Zell when he did that . . . .
The Requiem recovered quickly, charging toward her once more. It leapt toward her, claws sweeping out wide to crash down upon her. Rinoa readied her blade, raising it into a guard-
And the black-clad Chimera shot between them, left arm shooting out and stopping the Requiem in mid-dive, hand planted against its chest. His right arm shot across, punching it in the gut and throwing it backward.
"Rinoa, get back!" he ordered, reaching for his sword.
"No!" she responded, gripping her blade more tightly. He turned toward her, and she saw that his eyes were no longer visible, blotted out by the bandana he had pulled over his eyes.
"I said get back!" he snarled violently, and she firmly shook her head. The Requiem was recovering from the blow, and charged toward them, and the Chimera shook his head again.
"I have to-" Rinoa began to say, and then his fist slammed into her face, hurling her backward across the clearing. The Requiem closed in, crying its horrible electronic cry, and the Chimera drew his sword. He spun, the blade flicking out wide, and his left foot swinging up in a powerful side kick that launched the Requiem across the clearing. It slammed into the ground with a pained cry, but this cry was no longer the harsh metallic screeching from before, butt he natural grunt of someone with an unamplified voice.
The armored figure stood up shakily, blood tracing across its exposed forehead, and the pieces of its mask scattered across the clearing, sliced off by the flick of the Chimera's blade. Armored fingers reached up to the creature's face, touching it, and it cast an eyeless gaze upon the Chimera as he pulled the bandana off his eyes. Rinoa, dazed from his strike, sat up, shaking her head, and looked toward the Requiem.
"What did you do to me?" the Requiem hissed, and Rinoa's eyes widened. That voice . . . .
"I removed your mask," the Chimera answered. "Nothing more . . . Illarra."
The eyeless gaze on the armored creature, a beast that had once been named Illarra Varines, stared at the Chimera.
"That name . . . ." she whispered, and reached up, clutching her face, at the twin gouges that had taken her eyes. "That . . . That name . . . my name . . . ."
She let out a sudden, piercing cry of pain and understanding, and whirled, leaping away toward the treeline and disappearing.
Rinoa stared at the spot where the Requiem - Illarra Varines - had fled, her jaw open and still trying to make sense of what had just happened.
It wasn't Squall. That creature . . . It had been Illarra. Not Squall.
She stood up shakily, her emotions a turmoil of confusion, shock, and disappointment. She had . . . Honestly, she had been expecting to see Squall. And this sudden shift, the discovery that it was not Squall, but his freakish, self-styled twin sister she had been hunting . . . .
"I am sorry," the Chimera managed to say. He crossed the empty clearing, toward her, and placed a hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him, and closed her eyes, shaking her head.
"I was . . . After what I saw, I was expecting him to be in that armor, not her . . . ."
"You wanted to see him again even if he was just a monster," the Chimera whispered, and Rinoa nodded. She looked across the clearing, and saw the dropped gunblade. She walked across the clearing and scooped it up out of the grass.
She looked down at the gleaming silver edge of the gunblade, Squall's gunblade, and closed her eyes. Lowering the weapon, she remembered his reflection in the sword, his smile, his features. Rinoa let out a shuddering sigh of sadness and regret, and opened her eyes.
She could still see his image. His long brown hair, dropping past his chin, the short beard and mustache he had taken to growing. She could see the angry triad of scars, criss-crossing over his face, marking out his eyes. And yet, the image was distorted; where his eyes should have been destroyed, cut out by Illarra's weapons, they stared back at her. And then, she realized something.
Those eyes staring at her weren't blue.
They were red.
For several heartbeats, there was only silence in thatbright, sunlitclearing. She stared forward, not certain what she was seeing. She blinked through the bloody-warm tears that she had been crying, trying to piece together what she saw before her.
Before her stood the Chimera, his hat removed and in his hands, a silver metallic bandana upon his forehead, with three scars cutting across his face, one stretching across his right eye, another cutting down over his left, and one across the bridge of his nose, high right to lower left.
She found herself unable to inhale; her breath escaped her in an instant as she stared at the man before her. Rinoa stumbled a step forward, raising her left hand, touching the hair on his chin, and tracing it up his face, over his nose, across the rough skin of the scars, and the cold metal of the bandana.
He was real.
Thirteen months of pent-up grief came crashing down. A cataclysm of emotions, disbelief, shock, confusion, wonder, and pure white joy swept over her, and a waterfall of tears erupted from her eyes as she wrapped her arms around him, pulling him in tightly, absolutely refusing to ever let him go ever again. He did just the same, pulling her in tight, listening to her sobs of shocked happiness, and whispered three comforting words in her ear, words she'd always wanted to hear but had never dared to hope she'd hear them.
"I'm back, Rinoa," said Squall Leonhart.
Thenoon sunshone down on them, the forest was silent, she was crying, he was whispering in her ear, and all was once more as it should be.
"So, they don't know anything, then?" Alucard asked, and the man across from him shook his head.
"The man who called himself the Chimera is an imposter, using the name for his own ends, as a cloak to hide his true identity while he went about his work," replied the man on the other side of the table.
"And the real Chimera?" Alucard asked. The man chuckled.
"The Chimera is dead. The real one is dead and gone. All that's left of him are a few of his descendants, both direct and indirect. But the man himself is gone and buried." He narrowed his eyes. "All that is left of that man is his genes, living on in me and those based off who I once was."
"In other words, you were him. Long ago." Alucard puffed his pipe, and the man sighed.
"Yes, I was. But not anymore. I'm just another soldier now."
"Not just a soldier," answered Alucard. "A General."
General Randolph Almasy, who once bore the name "Chimera,"stared at Alucard from across the table, and was silent for a long while.
"Just a soldier," he finally repeated. "Nothing more."
-
What? Oh come on! There's a reason Randolph is so badass!
Wow. I've been wanting to write this chapter since I started the Legacy segment of the Chimera saga. I got finished with this chapter fast. Under six hours. Damn, I'm good. :P
Until next chapter...