I guess people are slowly taking a liking to this story and I can't stop now just because I don't have enough reviews. The hits are incredible, so at least I know you people are reading it. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Chapter 8

The Hunt

Aichika sat gazing out of her hotel window, her brilliant teal colored eyes staring at the Ice City before her. She was here visiting friends when the entire city went on lock down and everyone was ordered to stay within the grand city steel walls.

The rumor was that the Northern Crater had become active and the City's best men were trying to defend the city from any possible floods of lava which were seen ten miles north of the metropolis.

She looked down at the small bodies moving back and forth in the streets below. It's amazing at how Icicle Village bloomed into a major capital known for it's lush snowy slopes and ski resorts. Her mother used to talk about Icicle Village a lot and how she had traveled to it on more then one occasion on her journeys.

She stared at the pink cell phone in her lap and pushed aside a stray lock of reddish brown copper colored hair. She had gotten off the phone with her father just a few hours before, his rules stating that her brother was going to come with a team to investigate the active crater. She was to stay at her hotel till he came to relieve her and take her back to Wutai...thing was that she didn't want to go back there.

It was always: "Princess this, Princess that, Princess please...e.t.c." It rather bored Aichika to such an extent that falling off the edge of the world was better then the nonsense back home. Yes, she was Aichika Kisargi-Donavan, the sixteen year old Wutain Princess and Daughter to Wutai's leading Empress, Lady Yuffie.

Her father? Hah, he was none other then Reno Donavan, an elite man of battle, also known as a Turk and an instructor at a major school across the world. Yuriel was a lucky bastard indeed to be allowed to train there while both her parents agreed that it was unlady-like for her to take up the arts of war.

A sudden explosion erupted in the city and Aichika jumped up as she pressed herself against the window to look at what was happening far below. She watched as the helicopters circled the smoky skies, thier black illustrious metal reflecting the bloody sunset.

"Aichika!" a girl shouted as she ran into the room,

"Master Yuriel is here on his way up. Grab all your things and be ready to depart at once Milady!"

Aichika had barely enough time to grab her cell phone when a mass of brilliant red hair stormed in, his gray eyes locked on her.

"Come on little sister we have to leave now."

"Yuriel! What's going on?" she demanded as he grabbed her hand and ushered her roughly out of the room.

"YURIEL!" she pleaded. He looked back at her, his eyes frantic; so unlike the normal calm and steady brother she had known all her life. Something must have happened to have scared him shitless like this.

"There's no time." He quipped as he lead her through the corridors down to the exit. People were running around frantically, some shouting and screaming and she emerged into massive crowds of fright among the city's denizens.

Yuriel snapped his head right and left, calculating on what to do when he saw a team jump out of the helicopter ushering for them forward urgently.

Another team set thier metallic beast down and yelled out orders to Yuriel. He turned to his sister and pushed her toward the first helicopter:

"Go with them and they will take you to safety. I have to help fight off the..."

"No Yuriel! I want to come with you!" she yelled at him.

"Aichika! That's a direct order from me!" He stated harshly and forced her into the arms of a few soldiers.

"Take her away from here now."

"Yuriel! No...let me go...YURIEL!" Aichika screamed as the aircraft thrust itself into the air. Yuriel watched her scream and cry as the helicopter flew off and he turned to the other men yelling for his assistance.

He raced with incredible speed, his halberd strapped tightly against his back. Seconds later, he too was up in the freezing smoking air and heading toward the lake of fiery lava miles from the city. He picked up the transmitter and shouted out orders to his men and the city soldiers to start casting ice upon the fire.

"Squad three zero: Cast Quake 10 kilometers from the cities walls. I want them as deep as they can get gentlemen; Squad one zero: Cast as many Ice three upon the oncoming fire immediately. Have emergency ethers at hand if you run low on your magic support."

"Sir, we have a slight problem." the pilot began as they flew over the lake of fire.

"What Samson?" Yuriel inquired as he placed Shiva, two level three cures, and a Quake within his Halberd.

"My monitors are picking up something and it's headed this way from Latitudes 30.9 and Longitude 54.6." the man replied.

Yuriel nodded and snapped a titanium fibered body lock around his waist as he opened the helicopter doors. The below freezing wind ripped through his skin as he squinted his steel colored eyes into the direction of the moving object.

Halberd ready, he cast Shiva upon the fire lake and waited as the deity turned the flames into solid unbreakable ice. He then jumped from the copter, the security chain-rope secured and landed gracefully upon the ice. He watched as three feet below the magical barrier the lava slowed down, moving at an agonizing pace.

He looked up, searching the horizon for the possible monster approaching; he could clearly sense his soldiers working madly away at the oncoming lava, quakes rumbling quietly even at this far out distance. There was a black dot on the horizon and it continued to grow larger, the helicopter hovering some sixty feet above him. He slowed down his breathing and concentrated his energy into a mental shield and waited as the seconds flew by. The winter wind mingled anxiously with the hot steaming fumes of the lava. In the far off distance, the Northern Crater glowed eerily in the smog.

His reddish locks whipped back, exposing his Wutain tan complexion, his eyes narrow until they widened in utter disbelief and fear. The black dot changed into a figure, the figure into a humanoid being, a human walking harmlessly upon the molten lava; silver hair drenched in the fiery cast, it's eyes a crisp clean green mints.

His studies, his images, his thoughts all collided and stopped as fear set in. Impossible. The demon was no more then forty feet away when it stopped to look at him:

"I've come for my child: Where is she?"

I know...short. But Good! I'll try to revise this a little bit more though.