FN: I'd like to thank my editor thegr8sephiroth for dropping in and leaving me a review not to mention Reiko x 3 as always. The rest of you people with your as near 200 hits as doesn't make a difference still make me sick. Thegr8sephiroth just posted a quick 3000 or so word fic called I've Got No Beef With which even though its a post Twilight Perfection Fic, all you really need to know is that in Twilight Sephiroth redeemed himself as a hero, fell in mutually in love with Aeris, protected her life, while she protects his sanity, Sephiroth found out that Vincent is his father, and Sephiroth grew a pair of feathery wings (one white one black) while defeating Jenova in North Crater. After which Meteor gets blown up by Holy without doing any damage and the two (Aeris and Sephiroth) get married and move into to the house where she was born in Icicle Village. NONE OF THE OCS PRESENT IN TWILIGHT APPEAR IN IT!
Speaking of OC's this chapter should do a marvellous job of sending my hitcount plummeting like crippled rat with a brick tied to its tail tossed off the stern of the Titanic because one of the OC's in Twilight pops up in this chapter, and if there's one thing I've noticed its that nothing makes you readers abandon fic faster then including orrigional characters in your work for reasons that I suppose I can understand since 1) you came here to read about the characters in the game and 2) most of the exist only to hog the glory that should rightfully belong to the characters from the game. I'll admit that the OCs I use in Ronin Trip fall quite thoroughly in category number 2 since the entire fic is basically nothing but them systematically kicking the ass of each games villains since they're six nigh-immortal demigods who collectively have had more than two millenniums worth of practice when it comes to bringing Boot A to bear on Buttocks B without the actual main (five), but frankly I think there's something wonderful charming about a story that doesn't bother trying to hide the fact that the heroes are going to win when all is said and done.
What I can't understand is why you people think quality must differ so much from one story to another written by the same author. So here's your task, after you finish this chapter, click on the number which represents how many reviews this fic has gotten (at the moment 8) and then click on the name (thegr8sephiroth) and check out "I've Got No Beef With You" for a delightful romp through the soft and fluffy side of Aeris and Sephiroth hooking up, a concept that if you couldn't abide then you wouldn't have gotten this far in the fic. Then leave a review after you read that story, because I don't have thegr8sephiroth's log in password I can't keep track of who has read those stories beyond who has left reviews on them even just a "Good story" will do. If not one of the hits I get on chapter this chapter translates to reviews on that story I might very well try to chew my own face off with rage, Aira Slytherin I suggest you take that particular bullet since you actually enjoyed Twilight Apparently.
And now you can finally put away your bileproof umbrellas and prepare to enjoy the next chapter.
The Immortal Gunman chapter 4 Hungry Like the Wolf
Sephiroth closely examined the small half of a bronze coin on the bar before slowly picking it up, and sliding it into the box Zack had given him, leaving 11 coins uncompleted. He looked at the other three occupants of the bar, Vincent, Lucresia and Aeris, everyone else having fled. "This bodes both well and ill for our cause. We are no longer hunting Jenova, Jenova is hunting us. That said, she has just missed us with her first shot, the only one she had which could take us by surprise. We simply need to avoid her next eleven, and then we will have our shot at her.
Lucresia nodded as she adjusted the straps of her backpack. "I think whatever Jenova sends at us next will take considerably more than simply knives to stop. I think its about time I got to work building another briefcase." Recognition flashed in Sephiroth's eyes, and a hint of fear in Aeris'.
Recognition in Sephiroth's eyes quickly became recommendation in his voice. "You haven't needed one since I obtained my cross, but I think you're right. We all need to arm ourselves for what comes next.
This is the next evolution of war, huge standing armies were replaced by mechanized forces, and as of today, and then now they are all but obsolete against warriors like ourselves. I doubt Jenova will be stupid enough to throw any unenhanced opponents against us. This is to be a battle between angels and deamons, mortals would only needlessly crowd the battlefield. I'm going to go seek God's guidance for the coming battle, even information is a weapon when properly wielded."
Sephiroth stood alone far past the outskirts of town, watching the wind slowly change the features of the desert that surrounded him. His glasses prevented any stray speck of dust from getting in his eyes, though it proved slightly irritating to have small bits of sand continually slam up against his skin.
He leaned against his cross and closed his eyes tilting his neck downward slightly. "Lord, from your right hand was the seeds sown from which various worlds grew. Through your left hand is the thread of every life cut, may my life hand be at least a pale imitation of your own, for the dangers ahead are plentiful. Amen."
He opened his eyes then looked off into the desert. "I am finished. You can come out anytime now, I know your there." A man suddenly came into being amid the sandstorms, his clothes were forest green, but his hair was an unruly red. It was tied backwards in a lose rat tail.
Sephiroth scowled at him. "You aren't like the one my father faced, not even close." The man nodded slowly and spat in the sand. "Allow me to offer you my water as a show of respect. The man who your sire fought was nothing but a cowardly dog. I however intend to slay you in fair an honerable combat so as to gain glory such as you can not imagine. At least if I have been told the truth about you."
Sephiroth looked the man straight in the eye. "What have you been told about me? Because at the moment I think you are one very confused Cetra." The man pumped his arms in jubilation. "Yes! You can tell the difference with but a single look.. It might just be true that before me stands the last White Howler..."
Sephiroth shrugged, refusing to allow himself to be pigeonholed by Jenova or any of her servants. "Names come and go, what does that one imply?" The man smiled, his teeth glistening unnaturally. "A White Howler is one who has walked the Black Spiral, twice. Twice you've gone down that cursed path. The first time it ended as you came face to face with the Wyrm that being you know as 'Jenova' who embodies naught but suffering and hatred.
The second time is after having your mind violated by one who's very presence can make full grown warriors yelp like frightened puppies, you turned your back on her and walked right back out to your true kith and kin. I most sincerely doubted that there were any left in this world or any other."
Sephiroth couldn't help but smile. "You are correct, like our lord Jesus Christ I have visited the deepest pits of hell, and returned, at least metaphorically. So if you came hear desiring to meet a White Howler, why are you in Jenova's service?"
The man shook his head regretfully. "I am not in her services, only those weak of mind and spirit follow her. My heart would be filled with boundless joy to see her served the same dish in this life that she was in her last one. The weak are to be granted natures justice, to be cut off at the stem before their pathetic flowers can bloom."
Sephiroth held out his hands welcomingly. "Well then, we have a great deal in common, so who are you and why are you hear to kill me?" The man's green eyes slowly darkened to a amberish color. "My name is Alexander Diamondclaw, but given our situation you may call me "Alex" and as for why I'm going to kill you, do you know who Fenris is?" Sephiroth shook his head. "Forgive me for not knowing the customs and rituals of my hosts, please enlighten me."
Alex slowly ran his tongue along the front of his teeth. "It is a shame you don't know who he is, for he and you have a great deal in common. Fenris is the god of war, and the god of wolves. He was feared even by other gods, not so much because he was invincible, but because he refused to give up. Every time he was struck down he was reborn in the body of his greatest followers, and took revenge on those who had killed him. My people worship Fenris close to exclusively, though we still revere the planet."
That's when Sephiroth saw it, a small feral gleam in Alex's bright eyes. Something he had never seen in the eyes of a Cetra, it was a gleaming lust for battle. It was not an evil lust to cause pain as he saw in the eyes many of humans, it was simply a lust to test the strength of ones blade against that of a foes, to prove oneself superior, a lust he had gotten used to seeing whenever he looked in a mirror.
Sephiroth's glowing green eyes pierced Alex's soul for a moment, and then he knew. "Jenova told me that people like you were nothing but a myth, that the Cetra had no soldiers which was why I needed to wash humanity from the world."
Alex beckoned Sephiroth onwards. "The Wyrm killed all of us off in the last world, but in this one it was not the glorious death of battle, but a despicable act of fratricide. We were assaulted by our own 'brothers and sisters' if you can call them that. What stands before you is the last of the True Cetra."
Sephiroth's eyebrow twitched as he glared at Alex. "What gives you the right to define yourself as a 'true' Cetra?" Alex's smile did not diminish at all. "I'm glad you asked, I am a True Cetra, because the Planet has accepted me as one of its own, allowing me to take the shape and use the gifts of its children. In return, I and those like me, when they existed, kept the Lifestream stocked with fresh souls."
Sephiroth knew that if they did start trying to kill one another Alexander would be a harder opponent than he looked. "We don't need to fight, I am a man of God, and I have little use or respect for those who's minds are clogged with unneeded prejudice. Why don't you help me destroy Jenova?"
Alex growled, a deep guttural sound that seemed thoroughly out place coming from a Cetra. "It's so simple from where you're standing, you can still hear your god! I haven't heard from Fenris since the day I was reborn in this world!"
Sephiroth sighed, his voice low and coaxing. "Those times when you see only one set of footprints on the ground, are the days I carried you my child." Alex's balled his hands into fists. "I don't want to hear it! Do not wish to hear of Promised Lands, of Eden, or of anything else! I am a disciple of Fenris, the battlefield is my temple, the mixed cries of the dead and dieing my hymns! I wish for one thing and one thing alone, the honor of a victory from a well fought, and a well slain foe!"
Sephiroth did not give up. "Why? There are more then two paths to the future." Alex's fingernails dug into his fist drawing a small trickle of blood. "Be silent! You're the same as me, you've proven that you could have betrayed the Wyrm and time you wished! That look in your eyes, nothing could stop you from getting something you wanted, why not kill her and be a hero to your people?" Sephiroth looked down at the ground and for a moment he felt weak. "Too much pain. They had caused me too much pain, I couldn't forgive Shinra."
Alex's fist unclenched and his blood dripped along the ground. "EXACTLY! The Cetra cast out my kind long before any of you humans arrived! Even when the Promise Land was in full bloom, we were hated and cast out, and why? My kind where the last to fall prey to the wasting sickness which spread among the Cetra, we lead the charge when the others could barely walk, and do you know what we found waiting for us? The Wyrm was nothing but a facade, she is just like a polecat all perceived threat and no substance. We defeated her quicker then my pack could go through a heard of caribou. It didn't cure the sickness though; I died in my sleep, a horrible slow death, a death I never want to face again. That is why I'm here, this time I die with honor on the field of battle. This time my soul shall fly straight to Valhalla rather then being chained in these fields of slaughter!"
Sephiroth removed his glasses and put them in one of his robe's pockets. "If you wish a death on the battlefield, then I will give it to you." Sephiroth reached for his cross and Alex shook his head . "I can not call on Fenris' direct aid, if you an honerable foe, then you would refrain from using that totem to your god." Sephiroth's hand drew away from his cross as he mentally prepared to make use of a weapon.. "Very well, a battle between generals rather than between gods. You, me, our hands, and our gifts from the planet."
Alex's face was so saturated with battle lust that he was almost salivating. "Excellent, let it begin!" As he spoke, Alex waved his hands, and suddenly from underneath the sand rose up green vines that wrapped themselves around Sephiroth's arms pinning against his chest. Sephiroth was barely able to bite back a curse in response to this surprise attack. "You can grow plant life that easily, and you use it to fight?
"Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes! I take every weapon the planet can give me, just like you!" Sephiroth frowned slightly but not at his condition. "So this is what she could do if she truly focused... how interesting."
Sephiroth then stomped his right foot on the ground causing a small knife to emerged from the heel of his boot, on high kick later he was free to move his arms as he pleased. "On second thought, just because I'm not going to use my cross doesn't mean Ill refrain from any other weapon."
Alex leaped at Sephiroth as the silver haired man who somehow "kicked" the knife (probably due to some launching mechanism in his boot) directly at his foe. Alex twisted in midair and the knife sailed right by him. He came down towards Sephiroth feet first, except that even though Sephiroth had missed with his knife, he easily seized hold of Alex's feet and hurled him a fair distance across the desert.
Sephiroth looked down at his foe with a patronizing scowl on his face. "You never really bothered to train in how to fight before, you have no chance of defeating me." Alex's voice dropped another few octaves towards a growl. "I am aware of that, the way a salmon knows it will die after it lays its eggs, a bee will die after it stings, my own life means nothing next to the task I lay it down for!" As Alex spoke, his body seamed to shimmer in the sand and he rose to his feat he was, for lack of a better word, different.
He was now close to the same height as Sephiroth, and a strange reddish brown hair (a near perfect match for the color of the sand) grew all over his skin. Alex let out a powerful howl to the moon in the sky and it was answered. Five other wolves with fur the color of dust came into being, though such beasts would have been dreadfully hard to spot if he hadn't heard their call and known where to look. Alex gave them a cautioning glance and spoke calmly to them. "I die so that you can live brothers and sister, do not take part in my battle. Your alpha commands it."
The wolves knelt to the ground whimpering like scared dogs, lowering their heads, and watching Alex with intense glances. Alex raised his fist and a bolt of lightning might as well have struck it for blue electricity flowed through his body before it was discharged towards his foe. Sephiroth was blown backwards, but not off his feet, only the marks in the sand as he had skidded backwards were proof of the strike. Sephiroth leapt forward and glared right at Alex. "May god have mercy on your soul."
With those words the priest became a blur of liquid quicksilver as he came at Alex. Only the black of his boots, and gloves separated themselves from that blur as he struck. Alex rode out that storm of blows as if his body was made of rock instead of flesh. Then with complete precision as Sephiroth launched yet another strike, Alex dropped to the ground as if he had been wounded, but instead he swept his leg along the ground to trip up Sephiroth.
Even though Sephiroth's legs were nocked out from under him, he didn't land in the sand. Instead as he fell his arms shot out, and he balanced on them long enough to push himself back up into the and land on his feet again.
As he landed however he was assailed by a blast of frozen wind and chunks of ice. Small shards of ice stung his face even more painfully then the sand had. Through that storm a fist followed, aimed right at Sephiroth's face. Once again however even with a distraction to pave the way for it, Sephiroth managed to catch his foes appendage before he could land a blow. "I don't know how you can still see." Sephiroth raised his head, his eyes clamped shut. "Do wolves rely on sight alone to find their foes? I heard you coming."
A gloved hand slammed into Alex's chest and then a booted foot nailed the Cetra in the face knocking him on his back. Alex spat out some blood and smiled. "I haven't had to go all the way in a very, very, very, long time. Whatever happens next Sephiroth, smile for you will be the last being on this world to ever see it happen."
Sephiroth opened his eyes and pulled Alex from the ground by the ruff of his green shirt. "Get this show over with, your not as fast as me, your not as well trained as me, why keep trying?" Alex's smiled even as Sephiroth lifted him so his feet couldn't touch the ground. "Because I have not yet begun to fight."
Alex practically exploded in Sephiroth's hands, and Sephiroth let go just in time. Alex's body twisted and contorted on the sand, his clothing was reduced to shreds, and then anything that could have once been called a Cetra vanished.
Sephiroth's jumped backwards, getting some space between him and his foe was doubtlessly a very good idea at the moment. "That's the game you play, just like a wolf you want to weed out the old and the sick first.." The words that responded where barely understandable, as if the mouth that uttered them was not meant for human speech. "The true hunt... begins."
A huge paw the color of sand came at him trying to pin him to the ground, but Sephiroth dodged it. Then he followed on his evasive tactic by leaping right at the and slammed his shoulder into whatever he could find that wasn't made of dirt or sand. That was how Sephiroth found himself on top of a beast at least 10 feet tall, with fur the exact same color as the sand, and it was much more angry than hurt.
It rolled over throwing its unwanted rider onto the sand and then tried to leap on top of him, which was exactly what Sephiroth expected. He slammed his other foot into the ground, and a knife came out from his boot her wore on his left foot.
He drove that foot upwards, straight into the beast's chest as it landed on top of him, straight into the things heart. The beast smiled a horrible grin, its voice an unearthly growl. "You think you can kill me by piercing my body with steel? Your weapon hurts only a little more then a pinprick, now let me sharpen my claws on you!"
The beast's huge paw came arched downwards at a pinned target with force that could easily have split Sephiroth's skull in half. Luckily Sephiroth wasn't held completely immobile by the creatures body and by leaning to the right quickly the claws only left dug through sand instead of flesh. "You're more slippery then an eel!"
Sephiroth drove his hands into the ground and suddenly the beast was tossed backwards as a huge shockwave went through the sand below them. The entire world seamed to be shaking itself apart as Sephiroth managed to stand back up, and as his hands left the ground the tremors stopped.
Once again he around slowly trying to catch sight of a beast whose fur almost perfectly matched its surrounding. "This hunt ends now, I thought my days of killing Cetra was over, but since you go to your grave gladly I will make an exception." Sephiroth closed his eyes and he waited. Then a few moments later his stillness gave way to sudden motion as he raised his elbow upward sand jumped back, driving his into the creature's face before it had a chance to open its jaws.
Unlike without he knife this cry caused the creature to loose with a wordless cry of pain. Sephiroth opened his eyes, the red blood coming from the creature's broken nose gave it away. "CURSED MOON METAL!" Sephiroth nodded as he looked at the small crosses designs on the sleaves of his outfit. "My mother said that they should be made of real silver, which give me one more reason to thank her..."
Sephiroth then wordlessly fell on the beast, and drove the small cross on his outfit's left sleave sideways into the beast's chest as he fell like the hammer of God. He brought his other arm around and slammed it into the beast's jaw. Both times when the silver cross came into contact with the beast a horrible sound resulted.
It only took one more blow, Sephiroth struck with the middle of his right arm at the creature's already damaged face and this time he managed to force some part of the beast's shattered nose backwards into its own brain.
Sephiroth stood back up, and the five wolves slowly padded their way over to the side of their fallen comrade. They looked at him, and then at Sephiroth, and each of them went on their bellies before him.. Then they stood up, as they walked off they might as well have vanished into the sand.
That was when he saw it, a small half a coin glinting amid the turmoil. Sephiroth bent down and picked it up, he felt it over carefully, it was the same color as his hair. He leaned against his cross and spoke to no one who was present at the moment, but this time he was clearly not communing with god.
"You gave him a silver coin. It must have been on his mind every moment he held it, you have a real love of hurting people you bastard. That's what makes us different, I don't mind killing to make the world a better place, but you just want to hurt people. Your days are numbered, for a true servant of God cannot be stopped by any mortal force."
Sephiroth slowly fingered the coin with one hand as he removed his unbroken sunglasses and slipped them back on over his eyes. "I believe in God, but that does not mean I close my heart to the beauty of how Cetra view the world. Fenris, may your disciple be guided to your side, he was loyal to the end." With that Sephiroth picked up the cross, and he was soon gone from sight as well.