Chapter 13
Colonel Hargrove threw back the thick grainy tin cup of coffee in a single gulp and placed his well-chewed cigar butt back into the corner of his mouth. The deadline time that the strange Returners leader had given was becoming painfully near, and everyone that was stationed at their defensive posts were over anxious.
As he walked through the make-shift barracks in the hallways of the WRO building, he saw the faces of the young men and women looking towards him; each of them wanting to catch a glimpse that some sort of miracle was about to come about. Word had been sent that reinforcements were on their way, but if they didn't show up soon there wouldn't be much of a defense force for them to relieve.
Hargrove walked out onto what was once an executive's private balcony, now a small artillery station, and took the offered binoculars from a young lieutenant. When he surveyed the large city square before him, the level of carnage from the day before was still present. Burning rubble still smoked from the previous day, and many of the fallen from both sides of this conflict were still lying where they fell. At points that had defendable access routes, three-member teams of machine-gun operators sat at the ready. Though the guns were manned throughout the night, Hargrove had had them relieved an hour before dawn so the guns were now manned with men that were more alert.
All of the Junior Officers had their platoons at their defensive posts now, each defending a certain section of the defensive line. All of the WRO soldiers sat in anticipation of what was surely to be the final assault on their position. As Hargrove scanned the city square borders for any sign of movement, the final battle for control of Junon began.
Without a hint of warning, a streak of gray smoke raced out from a distant building's window and crashed into one of the machine-gun nests erupting it in a fiery explosion. Hargrove instantly looked at the window with his binoculars and saw the two-man rocket launcher team reloading their weapon before they took the next shot. In quick reaction, another machine-gun nest opened fire on their position, striking the surface of their building with a fury of red-hot lead that battered the building into finely chopped rubble.
But in answer, another rocket flew from another window, striking the machine-gun nest that was assaulting the previous rocket launcher point. The two other machine-gun nests turned to fire, but they were both silenced by yet more rockets. A team of snipers on the roof of the WRO building quickly fired, taking out the Returners manning the rocket launchers, but the damage had been done; the WRO had lost its front line of defense.
Hargrove cursed aloud and briefly thought about giving the order to begin an artillery barrage of the distant buildings, but the close proximity to his own position would present too much of a danger to his men. Now there was only one line of defense that would have to hold until the reinforcements came, and that line was the men and women who defended the WRO building themselves.
The Returners also could see this, and it wasn't before long that they soon began to move in. At first it sounded like someone was hitting a massive drum from the opposite end of the city, but once the lines of well equipped Returner Regulars began to pour out from the opposite side and entered the square, it became apparent that it was the sound of their marching.
As the ominous sound echoed throughout the demolished city square, the sweat began to pour out of the nervously waiting and heavily outnumbered WRO troopers. Hargrove took his cigar butt out of his mouth and spat on the ground. It didn't take an officer to realize that this was it, the end was surely about to come. But something did come.
From high above, the rapidly charging missiles came crashing down in a display of hellacious rain of fire and brimstone. Hargrove looked into the air and saw the rapidly flying forms of a dozen airships, each with smoking missile pods and rapidly firing machine-guns. The airships raced low, skimming the cityscape as their guns dealt out death to the Returners. The WRO troopers all stood and cheered at this new turn of events, but Hargrove knew that the battle wasn't even near being over yet. From the direction of the airfield, the sounds of troops transports dropping their loading ramps echoed and soon several thousand ground reinforcements were coming in, bolstering their defense numbers.
As the airships finished up their attack runs, a larger airship slowed above the city square long enough for eight parachutes to open before it sped off. The parachuting group soon hit the surface, and quickly they pulled off the cumbersome packs and stood before the WRO building in a face off with the massive numbers of the Returners. Hargrove recognized two of them, the same blonde and red-cloaked man who had fought yesterday. But with them was a strange rag-tag group that would have made any regular person question their sanity at the sight, but to anyone who knew about what had happened four years ago, they recognized this strange group to be that of AVALANCHE.
Cloud flexed both of his arms and removed one of the long serrated blades from the First Tsurugi and readied himself. Barret transformed his right appendage to the massive four-barreled Gatling gun and gave a wicked grin towards the Returners. Tifa pulled on her black fighting gloves and stood in her usual fighting stance. Nanaki hunched his front shoulders and growled at the enemy, showing his glistening fangs. Yuffie twirled her large shuriken and quickly went into a stylish battle pose. Vincent glared at the enemy horde and leveled the barrel of Cerberus at a particular nasty looking individual. Cid placed his spear on his shoulder and continued to enjoy his cigarette in a manner that showed that he really didn't care whether these Returners posed a threat to him or not. Cait Sith bounced around in his usual ecstatic manner, flashing multiple rude hand gestures in the direction of the enemy mob.
Cloud lightly nodded to his group and gave the word to attack. "All right, everyone, let's mos-"
"Oh come on, damn it!"
"All right, MOVE OUT!" And with this, the members of AVALANCHE were charging in full force.
Spurred on by the sudden movement of the group, the Returner Regulars too jumped into action, charging the group of eight with a bloodlust that was palpable to anyone within a twenty-mile radius.
Vincent was the first to strike, firing Cerberus at the menacing individual he had singled out before. The bullet caught the unsuspecting fiend between the eyes, making his head snap backwards before his limp body fell to the ground. Before the barrel of Cerberus finished smoking, Vincent fired another volley of shots, each one hitting its target true.
Barret soon followed suit and unleashed a deadly barrage of rapidly fired lead that struck the advancing line without prejudice. But even with Barret and Vincent firing into the advancing line, the distance between both Avalanche and the Returners soon closed and they entered into close quarter combat.
Cloud was quick to act, diving into the crowd of sword-brandishing Regulars with both of his swords making only a flash of reflected morning light as they found their targets and dispatched them to the Lifestream. A few of the Returners were able to block one of Cloud's blows, but the second one always caught them by surprise. Cloud spun once in an arching circle and sent lifeless bodies of the attackers flying away from him before he jumped again into a mass of incoming enemies.
Tifa ducked and weaved with a proficient speed that these enemies had never seen. She dodged one swing from a sword and caught an incoming baton before she swung her leg swiftly under her attacker, taking his legs out from underneath him. When he hit the ground, she mercilessly performed an axe kick and caved his chest in upon itself. Another Returner tried to swing a sword at her head, but she merely ducked and thrust upwards with her palm, striking the man in his nose and forcing the broken cartilage up into his skull.
Yuffie hurled her shuriken into the crowd and while it flew through the air, removing weapons from enemy's hands and occasionally separating their heads as well, she performed a few martial arts moves she had learned over the years. One Returner at first laughed at seeing a young girl trying to be in this fight, but a swift kick to his crotch sent him to the ground, sniveling in pain. Yuffie had time to let out a dry laugh before she caught her shuriken and jumped high into the air to release it again.
Nanaki bellowed a loud battle cry as he slashed at a Returner with his razor sharp claws. Though he only had one eye, his heightened reflexes alerted him that an enemy was trying to attack him from behind, so he shot his tail up into the face of his would-be attacker and blinded him with his flaming tail. Before the blinded enemy could react, Nanaki wheeled around and head butted him, slicing his abdomen in five places with his deadly headdress. Another Returner was about to swing his baton at him, but Nanaki glared at him with his eye and drove fear into the heart of this man, who then merely turned around and ran.
As this man ran, he didn't get too far before he was blasted with a searing hot bolt of lightning that shot through the air and zapped him dead on the spot. Cait didn't pause a moment after he did this though, and quickly jumped onto the shoulders of another Returner. As the man tried to fight him off of his back, Cait pummeled his head with a series of rapid punches, though they weren't strong enough to do much other than annoy the man. The Returner was able to realize this and turned his sword upwards in an attempt at driving the menace away. But Cait smiled widely as he turned his focus onto his Ice materia and quickly turned the man's head into a large lump of ice. As the man fell to the ground, Cait performed a back flip and landed in a crouch just as the man hit the ground and his frozen block of a head shattered into a thousand pieces.
Cid grunted as he thrusted his spear into the midsections of three Returners and then pulled the tip out. Cid took the moment to pause in the combat to take a long drag off of his cigarette, but he was soon cut short when another Returner Regular tried to swing his sword at Cid's head. Cid was able to evade the attack, but the blade cut off the end of his cigarette. Cid instantly grinded his teeth together and he jumped at his attacker with a new found fury. Soon he had jammed the end of his spear into the attacker's midsection, but before he removed the end of his weapon, he heaved the man into the air and flung the body at another group of Returners, knocking them down to the ground. Before they could stand back up, Cid was jumping high into the air, ready to bring the deadly point of his weapon down on their defenseless selves.
Cloud blocked a swing from an enemy's sword and pushed it away. This created a gap large enough in the enemy's defenses for Cloud to swing with the serrated blade, cutting the enemy down. By now, the Returners were learning that Cloud wasn't someone that they could hope of taking one-on-one and surviving, so a group of them now decided to attack him all at once. Cloud saw what they were trying to do, so he jumped back to gain some room and focused his energy onto the main blade of the First Tsurugi. With a tremendous crash, Cloud brought the energy-laden blade down, sending a Blade Beam racing out to hit the lead member of the group that was charging him. When the beam hit, the energy ripped through him and then separated into multiple other beams as it passed to the remaining members. When the energy finally dissipated, all ten of the charging group was now dead.
Barret continued to fire wildly into the mass of Returners, but soon a small group of them were heading towards him with the intention of silencing his massive machine-gun. After one of their shots missed his head by mere inches, Barret let out a long string of curses as he charged his central gun for a massive one-shot attack. When the Big Shot fired off, the recoil pushed Barret back several feet. The massive flying green ball of energy hit the charging group and sent their flaming bodies flying back. Barret again cursed at the now dead attackers and charged forward to fire at another group of would-be victims.
Tifa was now blocking rapidly flying punches from a Regular that seemed to know a bit about martial arts. As the two exchanged blows that the other was blocking, a small group of spectating Returners began to cheer for their man. The Returner sneered at Tifa as she tried to punch him in his face, but he only dodged his head out of the way each time. As if he thought that the woman that he was fighting wasn't much of a match for his skills, he tied to lunge at her and catch her in a bear hug. As his arms tried to close around her, Tifa ducked low and then jumped up with a tremendous cracking somersault that sent the man flying helplessly into the air. Tifa then jumped after him, grabbed him by the throat, and threw him back down at the ground. When he hit, he landed with such a force that the concrete shattered, and the shockwave rippled out, making all the spectators fall flat on their faces.
Nanaki now faced off against twenty Returners, all of which were being very cautious about taking on the strange menacing creature. Nanaki knew what he was going to do next, so he hunched down on his shoulders and let out a deafening howl that made his enemy's step back in both puzzlement and fear. Nanaki then called upon the strength of his ancestors and charged outright at the group. With a blinding speed, he darted all around them, slashing and cutting them with his claws and headdress. All the Returners could see was a blinding flash of red as he did this; all the while they were helpless to do anything. When Nanaki finally came to a stop, all of the attackers he had faced stood wobbling for a moment before they fell dead to the ground.
Yuffie quickly jabbed and slashed with her shuriken as she ran to and fro among the Returners. She ran so far into their ranks that she soon became separated from the rest of her group, and the surrounding Returners knew this. As they tried to advance towards her, Yuffie realized that she was surrounded. Quickly, she began to spin in a circle, and after revolving enough times to put the momentum into her shuriken, she let it go and watched as it flew around her in a circle, cutting down her attackers as it went. When she caught it, she gave them all a smug grin and ran back to where the others were.
Vincent rapidly fired Cerberus and reloaded with a blinding speed and efficiency. One of the Returners tried to get close enough to stab him with a bayonet, but Vincent grabbed him with his left hand, pulled the pin on a grenade that the man had on his belt, and hurled him towards the other Returners. When he was in mid air, Vincent put three bullets into him seconds before he collided with a group of Returners. When the grenade went off, the explosion took out several of the enemy. The shockwave pushed Vincent's hair back, but he continued to stand his ground and fired at the Returners.
Cid continued on his mad rampage, never pausing for a brief moment as he rammed his spear into random Returners. Now that he had no cigarette, he was becoming very irritated, and when he saw a Returner pointing at an airship that was flying by, Cid lunged forward and smacked the man with the broadside of his spear. When the Returner stood back up, Cid jammed the sharpened point into his crotch and then punched him in his face as hard as he could with his right hand. When the Returner was knocked out cold, both from the punch and the gaping wound, Cid spat on him and moved on for another kill.
By this time, the amount of impact on the battlefield that Avalanche was having was quite apparent. Now all of the WRO soldiers who had thought that the end was near for them, saw a beacon of hope shining in front of them. Colonel Hargrove tossed the butt of his cigar away and loudly gave out his order.
"CHARGE!!!" The ranks of the WRO soon answered with loud battle cries, and they poured out into the city square to take on the Returners. As they entered combat, the loud crashing sounds deafened the ears.
It wasn't long before the ranks of Returners started to break and fall, and Cloud could see that the WRO soldiers could handle finishing them off. With a quick waving motion, he gave the sign for the rest of Avalanche to meet at his location.
When they all got there, breathing heavily but otherwise uninjured, Cloud gave them a nod of approval.
"All right. The WRO troops can handle the rest here, lets head to the entrance of the reactor." And with this, they were now off to take on the true menace to the world.