Twilight perfection

Chapter 18: I had visions, I was in them, I was looking into the mirror, to see a little bit clearer, the rottenness and evil in me.

FN: I should warn you, as soon as you step into this chapter, it will not stop. That and the Firecat note at the end of the last chapter was a little misleading. Alex translated a small part that I should have deleted to the best of his ability. To be frank, the reason I wrote Twilight Perfection was because I just couldn't cut writing a normal FF7 fic at the moment I wrote it (I've got a "Semi regular" piece in the works now that is shaping up well) because I didn't quite have a handle on all the main characters. I can write Cloud, but as you'll discover in whatever me and Alex decided to call our Phantom of the Opera FF7 crossover, both he and I are fond of Cloud bashing. For him its a more personal thing as a fan of Sephiroth, for me, I feel that it's sort of weird that we have Cloud build up into this romance with Aeris, she gets killed, and before the game is over, Cloud is scoring (what do you think they were doing on that island the night before North Crater?) with Tifa, who he hadn't spent that much time building up an actual relationship with. Also, to be fair, I never got a good handle on Tifa's character, I don't enjoy bashing her the way I do Cloud, but probably because I never played her in my party (I've played through the game a few times, but I prefer Vincent and Nanaki, as you can probably guess) so I didn't see that much of her dialogue, and I never quite got what made her stand out in the group, yes she was out to get personal vengeance on Sephiroth, but so was Cloud. Anyways, as to the last note, let me take a moment to put on my magicians hat and tell you how I do my tricks. For those you who haven't read my blog and LJ (you should) the character of Mirri Catwarrior is based off of my (and James who is the personification of me in the story, though I don't think I get carried away with this) a composition of pieces, that come together based on what I find attractive. As you may have noticed, I'm not the most passionate man in the world, but the one thing I know for sure is that strong women turn me on. Mirri is a composite of a cat I own of the same name who must kept inside because of how vicious she is, and several other noteworthy female figures from more animes than I could name, and the character of Honor Harrington from the works of David Weber, who's series (it starts with On Basilisk Station) you should read if you get the chance. Thus in my mind, Mirri has always had a kind of animal sexuality about her, or in my minds eye she usually wears some combination of clothes that completely cover her body, and thus shows of her sexuality through the what she does, and what she says. For those of you who are unable to grasp my concept from that alone, I'll barrow a line from Maskerade by Terry Pratchett, the line is written about a male cat named Greebo (who if he was real probably would have been the father of Mirri (the cat who we own)) who turns into a human being. "Greebo fully clothed still managed to communicate the nakedness beneath. The insouciant mustache, the long sideburns and tousled black hair combined with the well-developed muscles to give the impression of the more louche kind of buccaneer or a romantic poet who'd given up on the opium and tried red meat instead. He had a scar running across his face, and a black patch now where it crossed the eye. When he smiled, he exuded an easy air of undistilled, excitingly dangerous lasciviousness. He could swagger while asleep. Greebo could, in fact, commit sexual harassment simply by sitting very quietly in the next room." If there was a female version of the lines above, it would be how I would describe Mirri (The character in this story and my LJ and blog) for sure. Now that all that is said, leave your common sense by the door, you won't need it for this chapter.

OWAN: I don't just bash Cloud because I'm a Sephiroth fan. I also find him to be staggeringly insipid, as well as only marginally competent. The bastard's just lucky as all hell(kind of like James, actually, but James knows he's barely competent, not to mention being far more pleasant and intelligent than Chocobo Brain over there gestures to a fencing dummy that's missing an arm and has a lot of holes in it

The group set out again at sunrise. Laying around on op of the Eagle or holding onto it, the group passed the time needed to take the Eagle from Cosmo Canyon to the island that the Temple of the Ancients should be on. By the time they docked and tied up the Eagle the sun was already starting to set in the sky.

But for the enhanced members of the group, dark proved no true reason to simply set up camp, they had laid around on the Eagle all day and were ready to go. So Sephiroth had gone with the majority consensus and the group struck out for the temple. It wasn't hard to find, the thing towered over anything else on the island.

Strange marks were etched on the steps leading up to it, and Alex was the only person who could read them since they were in Cetra. "Know that those who partake from the corruption of Jenova and enter this temple will be struck down by their own daemons." Alex didn't care to make his pack members aware of this fact, they would experience it first hand soon enough.

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There was a bright flash of light, and then James suddenly found himself alone. Not only was he alone, but he was nowhere near where he had just been. He wasn't even anywhere he had been before.

He was standing in the middle of nothing. The only thing that he could see was this weird silvery-gray mist that shifted everywhere. He walked forward for a bit, but he didn't find anything, it was hard to even tell where he was going, or if he had even gone some place. Everything looked the same. "Hey!"

James spun around, he didn't care who it was, anybody was far better then nobody. He spun around and came face to face with a guy who looked a lot like him. He was shorter then James by about a foot, though this was probably because he looked like he was also a few years younger than James.

He was wearing a rather formal brown shirt with short sleeves and buttons, along with brown shorts. He had electric yellow eyes, and ears that looked just like James', except in brown. With those facts in mind, James was hopelessly captivated with the fact that whoever this was regardless of how much he looked like him, (at least round the ears) he was wearing a tie.

James had never quite been able to figure out ties, they were even worse than buttons for him. At least buttons would help keep his jacket shut if he cared to use them, ties were totally bewildering to James, their function completely eluded him. Once he finally managed to get over the guy's tie, he noticed one other odd thing. He was wearing an armband that had some kind of symbol James couldn't understand, it looked like a bunch of zig zag lines, well whatever.

"So who are you?" The guy gestured with his right hand (he had white gloves, which all things considered looked very weird with short sleeves) out towards the gray mist. "My name is Schrodinger, and here is, well, here." James paused, took off his hat, revealing his cat ears, and took a moment to scratch his left ear with his left hand. "Okay then, if here is here, what am I doing here, and what are you doing here?"

As Schrodinger spoke the gray mist seemed to start solidifying into a room with iron walls. "Don't even bother asking why I'm here, I'm everywhere. You're here because you just walked into a trap. This temple has precautions designed to keep Jenova beings out. But, things hit a slight snag where you're concerned. You see the spell is designed to draw power from hate, fear, anger, you know, all those emotions you never feel?"

James could follow Schrodinger so far. "So, I'm in some kind of magical prison?" The grey mist continued to give way to the metallic room. "Yeah, if you want to think about it that way. The most exact way of saying it is that you're in the box. You see the spell is designed to put you in a prison of your own mind. Sadly building a prison out of your mind is like making a bungee cord out of epoxy, it just doesn't work."

James was actually able to get most of the drift without too much trouble. "An open mind is a fortress with the portcullis up, drawbridge down, and battlements undefended, right? I don't have any doors to lock to keep people out or in." As the room began to come into focus a third figure also began to take shape.

"Yeah, more or less. So as things are more or less coming apart at the seams, I got called in. So all you have to do to get out, is beat this guy." It was at this point that the third figure finally took visible shape. He was tall, very tall, it looked like he was even taller then Sephiroth. A single piercing blue eye glared out at James from beneath a gray hat tilted over the other eye.

He wore a gray outfit that covered, his entire body, and had tail coats that drifted back and forth like Sephiroth's in the wind. At one hip he had a holstered one handed automatic gun, and a sword at the other. The little of his hair that James could see was a bright blond that matched Schrodinger's hair color.

"He's, well I couldn't say a manifestation of your fears/hatred, but an empowered manifestation of everything you dislike. The good news, is that since neither of us are suppose to be here, and the laws of quantum mechanics are currently being bent into a pretzel, if you win I'll teach you a few things. Some free advice though, Captain's got something of an axe to grind against guys who fight with wires, goes back over half century now, have fun!"

James took another moment to examine "The Captain" and when he looked back Schrodinger had vanished. James would guess that it was back into the grey mist except that there wasn't any grey mist left now. Nor where there any walls.

Instead they were standing on, something, with the air blasting James so hard that his hat blew right off his head (James having returned it to its normal place) and instantly it vanished from view. Cursing his rotten luck, James returned his attention to the Captain. The man was slowly advancing towards James, looking like he wasn't even tempted to go for either of his weapons. This couldn't be too hard, could it?

It was just one guy, and his eyes weren't glowing with mako enhancement, James should be able to take him with one hand, in fact he could do it fighting right handed! To prove that particular hypothesis, James pressed down on his right gloves releasing the wire from the glove into his hands. Then it was a simple move to toss a coil of wire out at the man.

James could see how fast the Captain moved, but that didn't make what happened next any less spectacular. Captain reached out, grabbed the wire as it sailed towards him, and held on. A trickle of blood poured down his hand as he held onto the wire, but other then that he seemed perfectly at ease with doing what Melkore said was impossible. Of course there might be some kind of special layering in his gloves, but that was a remote possibility at best.

James got his second unplanned surprise when the Captain gave a sharp yank on the wires, which were still attached to James via his gloves. The Captain yanked the wires so hard that James lost his footing on whatever he was standing on, and went flying straight towards his foe, who was waiting with opens arms. Or to be exact, he looked more then ready to get a good throttling grip on James' neck with his other hand.

To be fair, it was hard to say the man "looked" like anything, his eyes and body language said nothing, they just were. So in this case James was guessing what the man's intention would be. Thankfully, he managed to avoid the Captain's grasp by ducking between his long legs. He went under the Captain's legs, and tried to rip him apart with a vertical yank up on the wires that connected them.

Sadly the Captain had a grip like a steel vice and the wires never left his hands. Failing to have grabbed James once, he pulled yet again, and once more James went flying across whatever he was standing on. This time, he failed to land on his feet. He also failed to land on his side, or his back. Really, the only thing he didn't fail at was a face plant. It was a spectacular one, if James had been slammed like that into concrete he probably would have bounced off it with a plethora of broken body parts.

As it was, he still bounced, but found it a much more welcome sensation as his skull wasn't damaged. On the rebound he managed to land on his feet facing the Captain, though he was still connected to him by wires. Okay, James had another glove full of wires, why not use them? But how? Captain would just catch them again if he threw them at him. Wait a moment, James had an idea!

Sadly he had this idea while he was currently sailing through the air because his wires had been given yet another yank. But if the ground was so forgiving..? Rather then try to go under the Captain, this time James went down to go over him! All he had to do was throw himself against the ground, then use the bounces momentum to lift him over the Captain!

It worked perfectly, and then James implemented the second part of the plan. James released the wires from his left hand, and then threw them with complete concentration. The wires from his left hand sliced apart the wires from his right hand that bound him to the Captain. The Captain tossed aside the cut wires and turned to face James.

The two locked gazes with each other again at this point. The Captain still showing absolute nothing, man this guy wasn't even alive! He was like, well he kind of reminded James of those stories about golems. Magical beings made from rock, or metal, melded together in human shape. That would certainly explain why this guy was barely even bleeding when he grabbed the wires and held onto them. So how did you beat a golem? He seemed to stand perfectly still, but he had grabbed James' wires, proving that he race lightning.

James thought for the moment as the Captain slowly drew closer to James with "murder in his eyes" except James could only see one eye and it was glassily blank. Maybe it was only his hands that could move at such lightning speed, that would without a doubt give James an edge in mobility.

Sadly James had to abandon this theory when the Captain suddenly covered the distance between them between them in the blink of an eye, before he slammed a booted foot into James' misdirection. James was thrown backwards onto the ground, air knocked right out of his lungs.

It was sort of appropriate when James had to think about it as he tried to breath again.. The Captain was the perfect study in solid motion. He would stand perfectly still except for lightning quick motions, but he clearly didn't follow through with his blows. Which meant what exactly? Well James was the perfect study in fluid motion, there was only one thing for it.

He rolled to the side, got his breath and footing back, and started to act. He danced around Captain, first left, then right. He dashed back and forth keeping the Captain at several arms distance as he circled him constantly. Granted James wasn't exactly sure what he was hoping to accomplish. James was getting far more dizzy then his opponent, (if he was even capable of being dizzy) but at least for the moment it was his move.

Sadly, he couldn't think of anything to do with it, the exact answer of how to kill a golem was still eluding him as much as he was eluding the Captain. Suddenly in the blink of an eye James had his answer completely by accident. He danced a little to close to the edge of the, well whatever they were standing on. Looking down he could see the lights of a city, a very long way down. Well that explained how to beat the Captain.

James just stood there, and waited for the Captain to come to him. With his entire body prepared for action, he waited. The Captain rushed forward, James jumped over him, and then James delivered his own kick. It was a snap kick while James had yet to land, and James instantly regretted it.

It was like kicking a brick wall, he was surprised his foot didn't hurt more afterwards. However, regardless of what the Captain was made of (James was starting to guess scrap metal welded together with touches of superglue) the blow still transferred a good amount of momentum.

Regardless of his toughness(the man could play Bloody Knuckles with Sephiroth, quite likely), the man's density and mass were apparently still normal, so the equation James had calculated for conservation of energy held true. The Captain went over the edge of what they were standing on. Before he could fall far however a strand of wire shot from James' left hand, and wrapped around the Captain left hand.

If James had been thinking more he might have wandered if this wasn't getting into a Vincent situation all over again, but he didn't. It was also an unfounded fear, whatever the Captain's body was made of it didn't weigh more then a normal human, (as James had previously had been pretty sure of) and James' enhanced strength saw him in good stead.

The Captain however was not about to be rescued, with his right hand, he drew his sword and cut the wires; he soon plummeted from view. James watched with bemusal.

Then he suddenly found his right hand being raised into the air. "The winner, paws down, by ring out, the challenger!" Schrodinger was suddenly back right next to James. At seeing the look in James' eyes he further explained. "Don't worry, a fall like that would only tick the Captain off." That knowledge made James feel a lot better, and so did when Schrodinger handed him back his hat from wherever it had gone.

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Sephiroth was suddenly nowhere near the temple. Instead he was standing on top of some kind of airship, and though there was no sign of the group, he was not alone. "Ahh General Sephiroth, my Chief Warrant Officer told me you might be arriving." The man's voice was completely dissonant with his appearance.

The man stood with his back to Sephiroth, Sephiroth noticed one thing at a glance: the man was short. Shorter then James, not short in away that seemed to suggest he wasn't full grown the way James was, the man was just short. Sephiroth was sure he was at least half again this man's height. Still for all the disparity in size, the man's voice had an unmistakable power to it. "Come, and look upon the spoils of war!"

Sephiroth stepped forward, and carefully examined the man's face, after seeing the man's face, his voice had even less to do with his appearance. The man was not only short, but plump, a pair of glasses rested across his face as well. Despite these things, and despite the fact that the man's white outfit bore no military insignia of any type, Sephiroth could not dispel his first impression of the man. His odd accent that took Sephiroth a few moments to fully understand, his piercing blue eyes, his short blond hair, somehow Sephiroth knew this was not a man easily dismissed regardless of his body.

Looking down, Sephiroth found himself hypnotized by what he saw, an entire city the size of Midgar being annihilated. Fires burned out of control everywhere he looked, those buildings not reduced to conflagrations had been blasted into pieces of rock and stone.

Blood rushed in the streets, and the screams of the wounded had become an ever present addition to the battlefield. "Magnificent, isn't it General? I may never command the sheer number of men you have in battle, but behold my men's sheer audacity! It has always been my dream to see this, the dead walk in the streets, march in the uniforms of my men!

Behold, the wonder of it, my wonderful perpetual war machine! Those struck down, will only rise again to serve me, both friend and foe alike, only a lack of enemies to slay can stop this now, and that will not be swift in coming. Is it not majestic to watch, war, eternal!"

Sephiroth finally pried his eyes away from the destruction below him to meet the man's eyes. That's when Sephiroth discovered that there were still things that could frighten him. This small chubby man, smiled at Sephiroth, and looked like it was all he could do not to laugh at the unmitigated destruction he had created. "This is disgusting. War is about killing the people who disagree with you strongly enough to take up arms against you. This isn't a war, it's a slaughter."

The man returned his attention to the unperceivable horrors below him, still smiling. "General, you know nothing about war. This war is a child who I have labored for over half a century. It was such a pathetic thing at first, a frail thing almost strangled to death by those who killed its parents. But I protected it, I nourished it, I planned so that it might grow strong, and now this war can fend for itself. It makes my eyes water with crimson tears to think that something this glorious could have almost been killed before it had a chance to breath."

Sephiroth at least now understood what it was about this man that was so horrific. Hojo in his own mind would justify anything he did in the name of science, but this man had no need of justification. Justification was for those to afraid to admit to themselves, this man gloried in his own monstrosity. He raised his hands (which still failed to rise higher then Sephiroth's neck) and moved them back and forth with gusto, as if to orchestrate the chaos below.

"Listen to the sounds of it General! Listen to the arias composed by the screams of the dead and dieing who know they have no chance to survive! Listen to the percussion section of tank shells slamming against amour and buildings and new ones are loaded into place! Listen to the flutes of rapid fire automatic weapons being fired and tearing into flesh! Listen to the high shrill whistles of shells tearing through the air! Listen to the tubas as my zeppelins' weapons lay waste to entire buildings with a single blow! Listen to the magnificent drums of men marching in formation off to do battle with their foes! Listen to the crash of cymbals when a vehicle reaches speeds so great that the sound of it's approach will not be herd by corpses of it's victims until after it arrives! Listen to and watch my masterpiece General, is it not beyond comparison?"

Sephiroth could agree with that last comment, this was without a doubt, beyond words. It was beyond reason. It was beyond human understanding, he doubted even Jenova could grasp this. While Sephiroth was deep in thought his companion began to examine another airship just like the one they were on.

"Your Firecat is a most spectacular monster General, I congratulate you on recognizing his talents. The way he dances with his own insanity, I have only seen one other as remarkably evil as him. The fact that he is in complete ignorance to his own bestiality, it is so horrific it gives me shivers.

He is the base material I think, from him could come a race which is truly superior to all others. Single minded in their devotion to survive regardless of their situation or cost to others. A race that would never war upon themselves, but slowly expand and make unknowing war against all others as they secure lebensraum, excuse me, living space for themselves."

Sephiroth looked in the direction the man was looking, and he could vaguely see a figure in red who might be James. How this man could make out James if Sephiroth couldn't clearly see him was a mystery. So was most of what the man said, but he managed to grasp one thing to say. "James is sterile."

The man still did not look away from what he could somehow see even though he was wearing glasses. "What a pity. But nature will find a way to make sure the strongest survive and bury their lessers. I would watch that one closely General, there are great things ahead for him. Of course he is no match for the other devil in red, but then age must be taken into account.

Behold, General, a monster that makes even immortal vampires shiver. It's sheer speed, not just in battle, but in life. A vampire requires two decades to fully mature as a human, and then requires time to become moderately proficient with all his newfound abilities. His speed, it puts even the Angel of Death to shame, how soon he has become not only combat worthy but accustomed to war. We witness a being that clearly an improvement on the human method, 'a natural killer' beyond doubt. Oh, they couldn't replicate you, but this wonder has no ethical restraints, he follows orders and survives, a lesser weapon, perhaps, but he will never turn in the hand of his wielder.

Humanity is pathetically weak because of how long we take to mature, and vampires share the same weakness even if the strength they acquire over time is exponentially greater. This Firecat, ready to kill from the moment he is created, like a tank rolling off the factory lines, instantly ready for its task.

What does it matter if he is sterile, he was made by science, that science perfected, not single units, but in battalion and armies. General imagine if you can, an army that materializes in mere months from nothing, it is fantastic. He desires self preservation but has no understanding of its nature, amazing.

Say his name is not Firecat, but Blitzcat, for his nature is not that of fire but of lightning. He needs no careful stacking of materials, or accumulation of resources to cause his creation, he simply is. Unpredictable in the extreme, destructive to any who find themselves in his path. Materalized in the sky above us, coming and going so fast that we see him coming before we hear him, and even then we can only catch a glimpse. He will strike the highest object until he levels everything to the ground.

How can humanity ,even with technology, or vampires, with all our power, fight lightning? It comes and goes as it pleases and leaves us to find shelter if we have no wish to expire. General, it makes me salivate with desire to harness lightning as you have."

Sephiroth was still a couple steps behind the man who loved war because of the destruction it caused and thought James was the pinnacle of evolution. He was still so off guard at suddenly finding himself alone with this man that he had no clue what to truly make of what he said. Nor did he have any idea of how he could leave this place and get back to the temple.

Then the idea suddenly came to him in an instant, like a battle plan after gazing at a map for hours. "What is your name?" The short chubby man in white turned around and gave Sephiroth a smile that he would always see in his nightmares as he spoke with that impossibly powerful voice. "My name is Krieg." Everything got blurry after that.

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As soon as Mirri drew her first breath she knew something was wrong. Looking out through her eyes she knew something was very wrong. Somehow she was wearing that stupid helmet again, that would have to be dealt with. In a single smooth motion she half took, half tore off the Shinra guard helmet she was wearing.

Once she did that it was a simple matter to remove the black gloves that covered her white ones, the rest of the uniform could be removed later. First she took a moment to look around and see what was happening. Shinra guards raced about everywhere, some of them pulling civilians, others prodding them at gun point, still others emptying canisters of flammable compounds onto houses.

It was the not the activity that was most familiar to her, but the setting, it was Corel. She didn't ask questions, that would give her away, so for that moment, she just waited, and watched. The orders being barked about by various men were quite clear. Herd all the people away from the houses and the mine, burn the houses to the ground, destroy the mine and equipment, don't be shy about making the people move faster.

Mirri watched it all with the traditional stance with emotions one level removed that Sephiroth prided himself on in battle and out. Mirri generally showed it in neither, but the sheer level of rage that she was starting to feel was so hot that it was cold. She could see several houses that were already ablaze, and more that were being doused in flammable in preparation for the torch and grenades. She notice in particular that her house had already been burned to the foundations.

"Stop."

The men were probably so surprised at Mirri's words that they actually followed her commands. She slowly sized up the entire contingent, at least two score of Shinra guards. "Every single one of you Shinra fs has exactly five seconds to the get the hell out of my sight with your lives and limbs intact. After that I start teaching you how it feels to be helpless."

As Mirri spoke she removed the rest of the Shinra uniform revealing her white bodysuit and pants. Men laughed at her at that point, and Mirri laughed mentally at them. They stopped laughing when five of them dropped to the ground with blades driven through their foreheads.

Mirri loaded new blades into her right glove, and smiled. "My name is Mirri Catwarrior, my blades will make no distinction between riffraff!" The guards opened up on Mirri with their guns figuring sheer weight of lead would end her life. It was as foolish as attempting to stop a flood with a handkerchief. At the time Corel was attacked SOLDIER was not widely implemented, and those Shinra had were busy fighting an actual war.

These men were nothing but extortionists who could deal with unarmed civilians. Their aim was not all that good, or their reflexes all that fast. Nor were they armed with the right tools, to take down SOLDIERS you needed mako tipped bullets, regular lead ones hurt, but it took a lot of them to take down a first class SOLDIER.

Not that many of them hit Mirri, you had to shoot very well and make sure to lead if you wanted to hit a SOLDIER. Even if you did try to lead, you had to know in which direction they would move. That only helped you if you the SOLDIER didn't have access to cover. It was short, sweet, and bloody.

Mirri had all the cover she wanted in the shapes of houses that hadn't been set on fire. Her second attack took down seven men, and then she ducked for cover momentarily. In that short time, she reloaded her gloves and poked her head back out to fire again. That took down some more guards. After repeating this process four times, there were only two guards left.

Mirri rushed right at them, easily dodged their startled shots, and killed one instantly with a punch that drove five blades into his skull. The very last one she had some fun with. She sliced his arm off before she drove her blades into his heart. After that she fired the blades, wreaking even more havoc on the already dead man's chest, just because it felt right.

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Aeris was suddenly in a room, that was more of a prison then a room. She was seated in a chair, and across the table from her sat another woman. She was wearing a black bodysuit similar to Mirri's white one except with no sleeves of any kind. She was wearing white gloves, and had white pants, but there was something just wrong about the women.

This was caused by the fact that half her body was covered with tattoos. Tattoos of various words that seemed to blend together in impossible combinations. Her left eye was red, and seemed to never move from its position nor fully open, her right eye was blue. Her blond hair was cut short, and a lit cigarette was gripped in her mouth. "Where am I?"

The question was out of Aeris' mouth before she had time to even think about what could be going on. The women smirked at Aeris, managing to grip her cigarette with her teeth, her teeth that did not look right for some reason. "Simple, your doing the same thing everyone else is doing, facing their worst fears."

As the women spoke a thin line of smoke left her mouth, and Aeris' eyes were helplessly drawn to the wicked looking scythe that the women had leaning nearby. This was not a scythe like James used to have, this monstrosity clearly needed to be wielded in two hands, and its blade gleamed in the low light. Regardless of whether or not Aeris' face betrayed her fears, the women knew them.

"Oh, don't worry about me killing you, that's too simple. Death is a release for your victims unless you do it right. What I'm going to do is show you a few things that your going to remember for the rest of your life, which won't be much longer."

Aeris tried to scream at what happened next, but suddenly discovered that her vocal chords no longer worked. All she could feel was a sudden piercing mental pain, as it happened. Her mind was scorched beyond recognition in flames.

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Alex pawed at the ground in irritation, nothing good could from this. The Silver Fang would be most upset about this. After all, Alex was a member of the pack and the Silver Fang was his alpha, he should have warned them about this. But then, a warning would do more harm then good in this situation. There was no defense against this threat, except to face it straight out.

Any attempt to prepare would just bring the more dangerous ideas to the forefront where they could do the most damage. So Alex did the only thing that he could do, wait, and how he hated it. He thought that the Child of Gaia would be unaffected as well, but such was not the case.

It made sense in retrospect, the magic was designed to keep anything but Cetra out, as a half Cetra the Child of Gaia would be affected as well. That left Alex watching the other seven members of the pack as they fought the spell.

The Ragabash of course looked like he was busily chasing a ball of yarn, or pouncing on a mouse. What chance was there that the spell would overcome him? The Black Fury's body was slightly tensed, but her face had the pleased smile of one who was dealing with problems the way Black Fury's had been trained to do from birth; slice it's balls off, then follow with the head.

The Silver Fang's face showed only disgust, but no danger. The Child of Gaia's face was frozen in wordless fear, and pain it caused Alex was the same he felt every time he killed a chocobo, sacrifices must be made for the rest to survive. The Shapeshifter showed no emotion.

The vampire, Alex did not need words for his expression, he was apparently finding out what it felt like to be the hunted rather then the hunter, something Alex greatly approved of. Last of all, the Glasswalker seemed to be enjoying himself for some odd reason. But then, who could understand a Glasswalker, Alex had no intention of trying to.

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Niro discovered what it was like to personally experience hell on earth. He was walking through a city that had apparently been personally targeted by God's wrath. Everywhere he went he saw people fighting each other, if they could even be called people. One side looked like medieval knights in shining armor, except that they were armed with automatic weapons.

Another side was made up of men in black uniforms with red eyes, vampires if Niro was not mistaken in his guess. The third side was the most enigmatic however, they defied description.

Each and every single one of them however was surrounded by a strange black glow, but that was the only thing they had in common. This army was made up of men of every type Niro could imagine or heard of. Soldiers riding on odd animals like chocobos but with four legs, wielding lances dashed here and there.

Men with scimitars fought against their foes who should have mowed them down with their automatic weapons. However the beings with black glows around them refuse to stop. Whenever one of them fell, another three would immerge from the shadows themselves.

A group of knights in shining amour would mow them down with their guns, only to have another wave of them rush over their fallen comrades and tear their foes limb from limb. After they died, the knights to would rise and be surrounded by the black glow.

Helicopters shone lights from the sky, but it was as if the entire city was covered in a black fog. Occasionally Niro caught a rare glimpse of the man who apparently led the third army. He was not surrounded by the black glow, he was the black glow. He was death personified, Niro wanted his soul more then he had ever wanted any other. But the moment Niro saw his eyes, it happened.

Those eyes focused on Niro, like nothing else had, in those man's eyes he existed, and they had a clear message for him. "You think my soul would look good in your collection? I think yours would look rather magnificent in mine." Niro pulled back into the shadows and away from the man, he knew when he had met a better monster.

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Vincent was in a garden of death. Dead people were everywhere he looked, but those directly in front of him were the most important. Master and the others were dead. James and Mirri had been impaled on the same pike, Mirri was on top and the pike apparently had gone through both of their hearts. That cat had been annoying, he had been so sure that leaving him underneath the huntress would dampen his spirits.

Oh well, apparently the cat had expired the same way he had lived, with an annoying smirk of satisfaction on his face, at least the huntress had screamed incoherently for a while. Aeris had been impaled, through the chest. Only sure fire way to make sure that not only did we kill her but also deal with that whelp she was carrying. Wasn't the first time doing it that way, good, well practiced method, and why should you deviate from what worked? She deserved it and more for making me remember the source of my pain.

Alex was hung upside down, his skin blistered, he had taken his time to burn to death, but that werewolf was dealt with, and his howls of pain had been quite amusing, creatures of the night made such wonderful music whether alive or dieing. Niro had been beheaded, and his eyes held open by some invisible force. Only way to make sure a Shapeshifter was dead, check to see his eyes stayed one color, in this case black. He had died without uttering a word.

Melkore had loved machines, he would be pleased to have one kill him. In this case, his entire body, neck included, had been stretched on a specialized rack. That Doctor would have been pleased by the simple yet efficient design of the contraption that had done him in. But the master piece (literally) of it all was Sephiroth.

He lay on the ground dead, his entire body from head to toe marked up with wounds. He had taken a long time to die, but, eventually the sheer number of wounds he had been dealt had finally ended his life. His face would ever be frozen in an impotent scream of rage, the man had finally come to the realization that it wasn't fun to have what happened to others happen to you.

Vincent wanted to scream with sick rage, but he couldn't. His eyes were drawn to the one living person he could see looking around the garden of bodies killed in every possible manor of depravity. The women wore a green suit that fully concealed her figure, her platinum blond hair was well accented in the moonlight.

She grasped a lit cigar in her right hand, and took a calming inhale from the small cigar, then she spoke. "Most magnificent servant, you followed my orders to the letter. You dyed their blood itself a deeper shade of crimson, not a single one of them who set foot on this island is still alive." The women was looking at Vincent, who slowly realized why that was. Vincent had killed them.

He had killed every single person here, and he taken his time in dealing with these seven in particular. He suddenly felt strands of invisible wire tie him tight leaving him unable to speak his mind. Instead his mouth parted and a voice that was not his spoke. "It was a pleasure my master, I haven't had so much fun since the turks!" In his mind, where he still could, Vincent screamed in his own powerless rage.

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Melkore was on stage playing with his partner. They where M. H. and M. M. the greatest musicians in the world, any audience in the world that they couldn't please might as well be dead, in more ways then one. They were well into their sixth number, Melkore playing guitar and his partner in his purple suit and pink shirt playing his saxophone. The only thing missing was the cheers and applause of the crowd.

Of course, this could be attributed to the fact that somewhere along the line, neither of them knew exactly when, both were too deep in the music, every member of the audience had slumped over dead. Technically some of them had been thrown to the ground dead, slain either by obvious bullet holes, or by a more insidious force that smashed their skeletons to mush.

Thus despite their lack of an audience, the two of them saw no reason to stop playing, after all, both of them could hear the wonderful sound echoing from each other's instruments, that was all the audience they needed. As the two stopped playing however, a voice spoke. That was disconcerting as everyone in the saloon should have been dead, what he said was even more so.

"Beautiful! Truly murder music! Outstanding, the dieing screams were glossed over by your notes, giving them no value at all! Best, you leveled an entire tavern just to get one person! I like your style." The man had bright blond hair, and too bright blue eyes, not to mention being dressed in a completely outlandish style.

"What are you doing here?" Melkore's partner asked the question, but both of them where thinking it. The man smiled as he looked at them. "I'm collecting knives, sharps ones, capable of mass slaughter."

End chapter

FN: We are now reaching normality, anything you still can't cope with is your own problem. The characters from James', Sephiroth's, Aeris', Niro's and Vincent's daydream all belong to Kohta Hirano. The characters from Melkore's daydream belong to Yasuhiro Nitow. And I would like to say that personally I have nothing against arians, but sadly, they make good villains. Other people made the path, I'm just following, that's the kind of society we live in.

OWAN: I think he means Aryan supremacists. He'd better mean Aryan supremacists. He's just bad with words(but you all know that, it's the reason I have such a big stake in the creative process here).