Soundtrack: For the vehicular portions, I recommend "Chase of the Highway" off the Advent Children soundtrack. For the fight scenes, I'd recommend your choice of combat music, as I really can't decide one for myself.
Chapter 9: Rushdown
Ordinarily, the three white vans would be inconspicuous enough, but the fact that one had a gaping hole in the back door and that two black sedans, a black motorcycle, and three burning Dollet humvees were trailing behind it told Zell, Irvine, and Seifer all they needed to know. This was their target, and Irvine and Seifer accelerated their respective vehicles, Zell holding on to the top of the pickup's cab as the truck picked up speed.
It took the enemy all of half a second to spot them in pursuit, and the sedans and motorcycle slowed, positioning themselves to the rear of the vans as they roared down the cobblestone streets.
"Zell!" Irvine shouted out the window of his pickup as they drove toward the fleeing vehicles. His voice was barely audible over the whipping wind. "In the back there's a black tarp! Pull it back!"
"What?" Zell asked rhetorically, but then ducked down. The thunder of Seifer's motorcycle filled the air as he accelerated far faster than Irvine's truck could, and pulled ahead. The enemy motorcycle driver swerved to meet Seifer as Zell grabbed the tarp Irvine mentioned and pulled it back. The brawler suppressed a whistle.
"Looks like something Selphie would be using," he remarked to himself.
"It was supposed to be her birthday present a few months ago," Irvine remarked with all seriousness.
The Elemental on the motorcycle pointed his left hand back at Seifer as he shot ahead, leveling a machine pistol at the CITU commander. The pistol barked, and bullets lanced out at Seifer, smashing into the ground and one round pinging off the armored motorcycle he rode. Gritting his teeth, Seifer ducked down lower to his bike and accelerated, right hand holding the handlebars of his bike while his left drew his saber and readied it at his side. Bullets continued to flash past him as he juked back and forth. A sudden flash of pain bit into his upper left chest, but he banished the pain, ignoring the bullet; it was just a flesh wound. More rounds bounced off the armor, and the terrorist's magazine ran empty. Seifer jumped his bike forward, closing in.
The Elemental dropped the spent weapon and drew a second machine pistol, and started to point it back at Seifer as he edged up on the man's left. Suddenly, Seifer jerked right as the barrel was leveled at him, and his saber flicked across, slicing through the motorcycle's rear tire. The bike jerked and bounced for an instant, slowing down as Seifer accelerated up beside the Elemental, and stabbed his blade into the man's throat. His eyes widened, and Seifer pulled away as the bike went out of control, the terrorist falling from the back of his vehicle. Maroon blood splashed over the cobblestone road as the man hit the pavement, but he managed to live through the rolling impact.
The terrorist stood up shakily, shocked that he was still alive, and then Irvine's pickup plowed him under.
"That's one way to save ammo," Zell remarked from the pickup's bed as he scooped up Irvine's special piece of equipment. He thumbed on the sights, and set the double-barreled rocket launcher on his shoulder as Seifer drove toward the two sedans.
On suddenly cut in its brakes, and shot backward at Seifer. Seifer jerked aside, evading the doubtless painful impact with the vehicle, and drove up on its right side. His bike pounced to the left, and his saber stabbed through the window and into the front passenger's chest. The Elemental howled in pain as Seifer withdrew, purple blood flying from his saber. He shot ahead half a meter, and his sword stabbed down into the front right tire, popping it.
Gunfire from the rear right passenger lanced out at Seifer, and he cut the brakes for an instant, dropping back behind his opponents.
"Seifer, swerve right now!" Irvine's shout came in over Seifer's radio, and he did as suggested, and an instant later a rocket flew past him, heat washing over Seifer's body. The missile slammed into the back of the other, undamaged sedan, blasting it apart in a thunderous flash of light and fire, debris flying everywhere. Seifer drove past the burning, flipping hulk as it shot into the air, lifted up and tossed aside by the detonation.
The damaged sedan tried the braking trick again as Seifer closed in, and he jerked aside once more, coming up on its right side once again to hit the vehicle a second time. This time, however, the rear passenger door swung open as he neared, and slammed into his bike, knocking him across the road. He cursed as he tried to regain control of the bike as it drove onto the sidewalk.
Then a lamppost brought his motorcycle to a sudden, painful stop, and Seifer Almasy was launched headfirst through the windshield of a parked car.
"Ow," Zell remarked as he saw Seifer's impact.
"Dammit, Zell, fire!" Irvine ordered, and Zell shook his head, raised his weapon, and sent a second rocket through the rear of the remaining sedan, with very satisfying results. Irvine bucked his vehicle to the left to get around the flaming wreckage that resulted, and Zell grabbed a second pair of rockets to load into the weapon.
Gunfire erupted from the rear van and Irvin jerked his pickup to the left, and the lead pair of vans shot around a corner. The rear van made to follow suit, but Zell had finished reloading the rocket launcher, and leveled it at the third van. He depressed the trigger, and watched the missile erupt, flashing toward the rear vehicle.
It punched through the rear doors of the van, jetted ahead to the driver's compartment, and detonated in a brilliant yellow fireball. The brawler pumped his fists in the air as the blazing wreckage flew out of control, and Irvine swerved around the corner to pursue the other two vans.
Something burst from the flaming wreckage, blackened, charred skin visible, and dove toward the pickup as it passed the destroyed van. Zell spun around, only to take a flying kick to his chest that launched him backward, out of the pickup's bed, and slamming him into another parked car. He hit the pavement, rocket launcher skidding away across the road, and quickly stood up, shaking his head. He heard boots hit cobblestone pavement ahead of him, and looked up, to see his attacker, shirt and hat burned away and leaving his upper body as a blackened, charred smear of skin and piercing blue eyes.
"Dammit, I knew it was you again," hissed Malachi, as his skin started to slowly heal itself, the charred epidermis turning slate gray as he drew his knife. Zell chuckled, straightening himself and sliding into a guard as he stepped away from the car and circled around Malachi.
"Figures. Guess we can't end this without settling once and for all, huh?" Zell asked.
"I won one, you won one," Malachi replied, flipping the knife over in his hands. "Come on, Dincht. Let's put an end to this."
"Boo-fucking-ya, asshole."
"Bitch!" Nash screamed as he slammed a fist into the ground, hurling himself toward Hyne, his gunblade drawn in an instant and flaring up with white god-killing light.
"A pleasure to see you too," she remarked, smiling at his single-minded attack. The energy-draining barrier rose in an instant around her small body as Nash shot in. "Hades, take care of Serra."
"Fo' shizzle, my nizzle," Hades replied, and melted away into a pool of blackness. He drifted through the floor and reappeared behind Serra, his face burning away as he rippled up from the pool of darkness, and then took a beam of light to the face as Phoenix objected.
The Guardian reeled backward as Serra spun, drawing and extending her bo staff. Diablos and Phoenix manifested around her, feathery and leathery wings extending from her back, and Hades shook his head.
"Right, forgot," he muttered. "Built-in point defense system. Gotta remember that."
Diablos sent a wave of shadow forth with a sweep of its wing, and Hades bulled straight through it, drawing his scythe off his shoulders. He chuckled as the energy passed over him harmlessly, and his scythe slammed into her staff. Serra blinked in shock as he training took over, spinning the staff over and forcing his scythe down, and then sending it forward into Hades' face. It slammed into his skull, and he took a half-step back, before vanishing into shadow.
"How did-"
"Pu-lease? Death?" Hades said as he reappeared above her, slashing down viciously, only to have his scythe bounce off the protective warding of Diablos' wing. "You think shadow and life-stealing powers will hurt me? Guardian of Death? Nu-uh. Not happening." Her staff met his scythe's haft, and he was shoved backward. His feet skidded along the ground, and he leapt ahead into a spinning scythe slash. Phoenix intercepted, and Diablos shot forward, wing slamming him in the gut and tossing Hades backward.
Nash, meanwhile, saw his flames dissipate before they touched Hyne, but he knew that would happen anyway, and sprang aside, snarling even as he had to break off the attack for an instant. The white light surging around his weapons focused, and he dove in at the small girl, even as she watched him with her typically infuriating detached amusement. The gunblade fell, and slowed as Hyne's barrier sapped away the power behind the swing, despite Nash's healthy enraged roar.
The gunblade slowed, and Hyne hopped back a step, and a silvery strip of metal materialized in her hand. A flick of her wrist opened the Destruction Fan, and Nash halted his forward momentum immediately, remembering the deadly power in that weapon. He began to retreat and come at her from another angle, when Hyne gestured with the fan with an air of absolute boredom.
The floor beneath Nash exploded like a minefield, and the scientist was hurled backward, smashing into the memorial at the center of the courtyard, his skin erupting in intense pain.
Hyne's childish laughter echoed over Hades' battle with Serra, and she floated forward, delicate shoes never touching the floor as she closed in with Nash.
Fires erupted around him, setting the draped flags on the monument ablaze, and the scientist launched himself forward with another inarticulate thunder of pure hatred.
Zell was gone, but Irvine didn't have time to worry about him. He sped after the two fleeing vans as they swerved through the city streets, cutting around corners and through intersections. Something within him wondered why they were bothering playing the car chase game in the first place, rather than release the gas right away.
They clearly had an objective, an ideal release point, and he would be damned if he's let them drop the bomb there, or anywhere within the city, for that matter.
But then, as was wont to happen in life, the enemy threw a curve ball at him.
The vans thundered toward and intersection and split off, going in opposite directions toward the north and south ends of the city. Irvine was less than a second behind, so he had even less time to consider his options, and, almost instinctively, he turned to the north, pursuing that van.
More gunfire greeted him, and the SeeD cursed as he drew a handgun. He accelerated up on the van's right side, toward the passenger seat, and drove up alongside the vehicle, the superior engine of his pickup easily defeating the larger and slower van.
Of course, the fact that the van was larger gave it an advantage as well, as the driver sent it across the roar, slamming into Irvine's pickup and knocking him across the roar with a screech of metal. Loosing more irreverent curses, Irvine pulled away, tapped the brakes, and changed plans, instead leveling his pistol at the rear passenger tire. The pistol barked, and the tire erupted in a flush of escaping air.
The van jerked toward Irvine's truck, partially due to the disruption of its tire, and partially due to the driver directly attacking him. The sharpshooter tapped the brakes again, letting the van pass before him, and loosed the rest of his weapon's magazine on the rear doors of the van, shattering windows and leaving a nasty series of pockmarks in the back of the vehicle.
"Kinneas, be advised," his radio chirped. "Support incoming. Stand by."
"Copy," Irvine breathed as he tossed the spent pistol into the passenger seat and grabbed a new one from his coat. He leaned out the window of his truck, looking for a target, when his windshield took on an icy blue hue, and then shattered into a thousand fragments of glass and ice. His eyes widened, and he raised his left hand to shield his face as shards of glass and ice buried into his sleeve and chest, shredding his clothing.
A thousand tiny bites of pain went through his body as he drove after the van, and Irvine then understood why he had instinctively chosen to follow this one. Without any hesitation, the sharpshooter scooped up his Valiant and, with one hand on the steering wheel, he cocked open the chamber of the weapon. Reaching into his coat, he pulled out a grenade round and slid it into the weapon as he rounded another corner, doggedly pursuing the van.
Over the rumbling engines and squealing tires, Irvine could heart he sound of rotors overhead.
Bullets bounced off the hood of his truck, but he paid them no mind as he clicked the chamber shut, pulled back the rifle's bolt, and hefted it in his left hand. He leveled the rifle out the front of his broken windshield and fired.
The grenade round lanced forward, smashing into the pavement next to the van, and the deafening explosion sent searing cuts along the length of Selphie's vehicle. It jerked to the side, and icicles formed on all sides of the vehicle, bladed spears that shot back toward Irvine even as he became aware of their presence. He jerked the wheel back and forth, trying to evade the frigid projectiles as they shot past his vehicle, trailing ice crystals and cold magic that washed over his skin.
An icicle spear flew through the broken windshield and lodged into the seat next to the sharpshooter. He didn't even seem to notice as he fought to hang on and avoid being impaled once again.
Then, as the van neared an intersection, and Dollet attack helicopter shot overhead and spun around, facing the van. Instantly, a dozen rockets lanced down into the van's path, and Irvine slammed on his brakes as swerved to the left. Shining balls of yellow-white fire engulfed the van as the missiles hit the pavement, and then Irvine's pickup hit something - debris, another car, he had no idea - and went tumbling through the air, spinning around, and crashed down onto the top of the cab. The truck flew down the street for a moment, rattling and screeching as metal fought against cobblestone pavement, and then the truck came to a dead stop, upside down.
The chopping rotors overhead and the distant gunfire in the city drowned out the poignant silence, and Irvine, hanging upside down in his pickup, looked out the window to see Selphie's van, crumpled, blasted, and slashed by shrapnel, laying on the passenger side, maroon blood leaking out the bottom of it. Shakily, the sharpshooter hit the release for his belt, and dropped onto the roof of his truck's cab. He kicked open the door, almost knocking it off his hinges, and stumbled out of the truck.
"Kinneas, this is Echo Two-Niner-Niner overhead. We've got you covered," came a voice in his ear, and Irvine nodded, clutching his Valiant tightly in hand as he moved toward the blasted van.
"Echo, hold position," the sharpshooter told the pilot as he edged toward the van. "Let me check the crash-"
The driver-side door was ripped off and launched away, and a slender figure emerged, red blood - the blood of a true Elemental - running from a gash along her forehead. She looked up at Irvine as she climbed out, with icy blue eyes and an unreadable expression.
"Kinneas, do we engage?" came Echo-299, but Irvine didn't answer, instead staring at Selphie's face. Emotions he couldn't identify ran through him as they met eyes, and somewhere, deep down inside him, Irvine knew he wasn't looking at the woman he loved, just a dominated mental puppet of the Requiem armor.
Icicle blades formed around her as she stood atop the van, and then hopped down to the street, nunchaku griped in white-knuckled hands.
"Kinneas, I repeat, are we clear to engage?"
Irvine understood what he faced, and he also understood, as he looked at Selphie, that the woman she was was still in there, buried under the Requiem's technology. He remembered what Seifer had said about Squall regaining control during the Griever possession. Selphie, he believed . . . no, knew, could be saved just the same.
"Kinneas, are we clear to engage?"
Then Irvine saw something on her back, strapped over her shoulder, and he knew why she hadn't leapt out of the van right away after it had been destroyed. He saw the canister strapped to her back, and knew that Selphie Tilmitt now carried the aerosol bomb that could doom the entire city and all of humanity.
"Sir, are we-"
"Negative," Irvine muttered into his radio. "Hold position, Echo. I'm taking her down myself." Irvine raised the rifle, and leveled it at Selphie's face.
Selphie, I'm not going to give up on you. I never will. You've never given up, and I can't either. I'm going to save you, Selphie, no matter what it takes, and at the risk of my own life. But if I have to die . . . .
"Echo, if I go down," Irvine added. "Engage. Shoot to kill."
"Copy that."
The alarms were roaring in her ears as Quistis stumbled forward, the Garden shaking under a second wave of RPG fire. This barrage was less powerful than the first; clearly the enemy was using hit and fade strategies. She steadied herself and hurried up the corridor, shouting orders into her ear-mounted microphone. Seeds and soldiers ran past her as she neared Galbadia Garden's control center, and moved toward the door.
Her radio chirped, and a new voice cut in.
"Headmaster Trepe!" came a SeeD's voice. "Ma'am, there's something happening in the courtyard!"
"What?" she asked, stopping and shutting out the klaxons from her mind. "What's happening?"
"The CITU agent, Nash," replied the SeeD. "He's fighting some intruders-" There was a wash of static that cut over the radio, followed by a distant roar of anger and the raging blast of blazing fire somewhere in the background. "He's warned us to keep back, something about Hyne, and -"
"Hyne?" Quistis interrupted. "You said Hyne?"
"Yes ma'am," came the SeeD's immediate answer.
"Is one of the intruders a small girl? Brown hair?"
"I think so, yes," came the reply.
"Evacuate the Garden! Do it now!" Quistis ordered. She switched her radio's frequency to the general Garden intercom and cut out all other communications. "Attention, all SeeD and Dollet military personnel! This is Headmaster Trepe. All personnel are to evacuate Galbadia Garden! This is a direct order! All personnel are to abandon the Garden immediately!"
As she finished the order, Quistis was nearing the elevators to the first level, and recalled it. It slid up to her level, and the doors began to open, when a hand came down on her shoulder. Quistis spun, and a wave of harmless smoke drifted over her from a pipe.
"My dear Quistis," Alucard remarked, and he grabbed her by the arm. "I'm sorry I don't have time to discuss this with you. This way."
With a sudden tug on her arm, Quistis was moving through a shimmering white portal behind the Guardian, still off-balance by his sudden appearance-
"HYNE!"
-and saw Nash shoot past, fires blazing around him as he zig-zagged toward Hyne's position, halfway across the central courtyard of Galbadia Garden. A rush of white light flashed, and the annoyed squeal of pain she head testified to Hades' presence. She looked around the courtyard, still bewildered, and Alucard drew his rapier from whatever pocket dimension he kept it in, and turned to face Hyne.
"Quistis, assist Serra. I shall deal with Hyne," he declared, and vanished, skip-teleporting directly in front of Hyne as Nash bolted in, fires rampaging off his skin. She snapped out her Void fan and flicked it at him, canceling his fires, and spun around the enraged Elemental, slapping him with the Destruction fan. The pulse of annihilation slammed into his flank, and Nash went flying away.
Without missing a beat, the small Guardian whirled on Alucard, waving her Void fan at him. He raised his right hand, sending a pulse of countering energy, the force of life and existence, and the two waves impacted, canceling each other out with not even a whisper of protest. Flying through the anti-climactic impact of opposing energy came Alucard, stabbing his rapier at Hyne's face. Destruction snapped across, parrying the longer blade, and Hyne leapt up into the air with a burst of her hovering power. The Void fan dropped down at Alucard, but with a wave of his right hand he surrounded himself with a shield of existence, once again stopping the attack cold. Rapier stabbed up at Hyne as she floated overhead, but then she dropped back and shot forward, collapsing the Destruction fan into a thin metal strip and jabbing it into his chest.
With a deviously childish smile, Hyne reopened the fan, and Alucard was swept back as a semi-circular wave of annihilation shattered the floor and blasted apart the very air itself. Alucard skidded along the floor many feet away from the blast, shaking his head.
"More formidable than I anticipated," he hissed. "Even with those Death Fans . . . ."
"Indeed, Existence," Hyne answered, hovering close to the ground again, fans by her side. "Come now. Destroy yourself against them, so we can get this last gasp of resistance out of the way, shall we?" Alucard nodded, and readied his weapon.
"I should not have delayed in waiting until you revealed yourself again, Hyne," he muttered to himself, and Hyne shrugged.
"You would have been nullified like all the other Guardians if you had stood against me. But come. Let us put an end to this, once and for all."
Alucard made to reply, but his words were cut off as Hyne was wreathed in flames and Nash leapt in behind her, screaming another inarticulate declaration of his hatred and raising his god-killing blade over his head.
"Excuse me," Hyne hissed, and turned to deal with Nash. Alucard, however, teleported in right as she turned, stabbing viciously.
"No time for civility," he replied as she spun, both fans whirling in a frantic defense. Void silenced Nash and Destruction parried rapier, and then alternated, stopping Alucard's assault for an instant and launching Nash away at the end of another existence-shattering wave of destruction. He fans locked together
"Okay then," Hyne growled, glaring at Alucard with baleful eyes, and then her expression shifted to one of sadistic amusement. "If you want it to be that way, then, let's get downright fucking brutal."
Hades, meanwhile, had been caught off-guard when Quistis' whip stabbed into the side of his head. He tore the blade free and melted away, reappearing a safe distance beyond Serra and Quistis' striking range. He glanced between them, and then to the roaring, unsubtle Nash and precise strikes of Alucard against Hyne, and cocked his head to the side.
"You know, I think it says something about the state of the universe and whatever cosmic author is writing this whole thing when the kickass black-cloaked bishonen badass Guardian of Death gets two-on-one action with the hot chicks, one wielding a phallic symbol and the other armed with a whip, while the two old fucks get to double-team the little eight-year old girl. Wouldn't you two agree?"
Quistis and Serra looked at each other for a moment, blinking.
"What?" Quistis asked, having no idea what Hades had just spoken of, and the Guardian of Death sighed.
"Oh, screw it," he said, shaking his head. "Let's just get back to more pointless fight-scene filler and fourth-wall-breaking quips, okay?" He flourished his scythe in a wild, arcing swing. "My name is Hades. You have killed my father. Prepare to die. Well . . . die more than normal, anyway."
The third and final white van had avoided pursuit, for the most part, and had closed in with the central plaza of the city, which was the whole convoy's original destination anyway. Most o the soldiers in the central plaza had departed, pursuing the terrorists who had attacked minutes before, leaving only a small command staff and defense force to protect the command center. They hadn't even been able to put out all the burning humvees yet, which cast the center of the city in a ring of burning vehicles.
Even with their depleted numbers, however, the troops protecting the command post were still alert, well-armed, and ready when the white van careened around the corner. Without a moment's hesitation, four soldiers had leveled rifles at the van and opened fire, rounds tearing through the hood and ripping at the engine. The van burst into flames as rounds pockmarked the vehicle, and the windshield shattered. It swerved wildly out of control and flew off the road, careening into the window a shop down the street and crashing through the glass.
The soldiers had barely any time to begin to report the contact when the rear doors of the van flew open, and Illarra Varines, trenchcoat flying out behind her, emerged from the vehicle and spun on the soldiers. They froze as they saw her, and perceived her poise and control, like a hunting animal stalking its prey.
Then, the hunter pounced, baring its claws, and in half a second, four men were dead, two gutted, another with a blade in his throat, and the last one toppling to the pavement, his helmeted head rolling down the road past her. In a heartbeat, Illarra bolted toward the command post, leaping over a burning vehicle and landing in the midst of the plaza, bloody claws raised as she hit the ground, cackling with insane glee as she searched for more prey. Dozens of soldiers raised weapons: pistols, rifles, even a few rocket launchers, and leveled them at her as she sough the quickest and most efficient path by which to slaughter them all.
"Stand down!" came a sudden order, and she turned, to see one of the soldiers, and officer, advanced toward her, a bayoneted rifle in hand. She frowned as she noted his rank insignia; a General.
"I'll handle this," General Randolph Almasy told his men. "Call in all available forces to converge on this position."
"But sir-" one soldier protested, and was swiftly cut off by Randolph.
"None of you should throw your lives away needlessly fighting this thing." He stared hard at Illarra. "None of you can handle it. And you'll just get in my way."
After a few moments more, the soldiers began to fall back, calling for reinforcements, leaving Randolph alone with Illarra.
The grin on her face became a predatory snarl, and Illarra began to crouch, the claws on her forearms pointing out of the trenchcoat's sleeves threateningly, promising pain and spilled blood.
"You must have a death wish," she said, chuckling to herself. Randolph shook his head calmly, not adopting a defensive stance, instead simply holding his rifle in an easy, relaxed pose.
"I simply have to delay you until reinforcements arrive," he replied.
"Reinforcements? Like who? Your soldiers? The Chimera? SeeD?" She barked a laugh. "It doesn't matter who you bring. I'll kill them all just the same . . . But first, I'm going to gut you, old man, for presuming you could even begin to slow me down."
Randolph's chuckle stretched across the distance between them, and Illarra's smirk faltered slightly at the confidence he exuded.
"Perhaps," he answered. "But this 'old man' isn't just any ordinary person. You may be an Elemental, and you may be gifted with Zanshin and the Requiem armor, and you even possess Chimera genes, but you still lack one single, important factor."
"That being?" she asked.
"Your blood, though it is strong, is diluted." Randolph's smile cut into her in that instant. "The simple, undeniable fact is this: you aren't the real thing, just a descendant of the true, original Chimera. A shadow of what he himself is capable of."
"And this matters why?" she asked. Randolph shook his head, as if pitying her.
"You don't get it, do you?" he asked. "You don't understand? You're a lot thicker than Squall, for certain. Disappointing."
He narrowed his eyes, and finally raised his rifle, bayonet extended, toward her.
"You're just a shadow, and you can't hold a candle to the real thing.
"Me."
-
Yes, another relatively short chapter. I'm not happy about it either, though I did get some inspired Hades dialogue in there :P
Now, the good news is that the next couple of chapters are going to be big. And I mean big. As in, true-final-battle big. Yeah, that big. The climax approaches...
Until next chapter...