FN: Thanks to Aira Slytherin and Reiko for their reviews and this fic has now officially surpassed my seventeen chapter long Suikoden one when it comes to the number of hits (we're now up to 523 whopdeeee freaking do!) Also still not one more review on ANY of my or thegr8sephiroth's works. So all of you who are reading besides Reiko please except my "two fingered salute". Aira I suggest you go read and review "I've got not beef with you" so that my life, or at least this fic can have meaning once again.
And with that in mind, time to move into another mind numbing segment of the adventures of those who will remain nameless.
--
Air conditioning. It was one of those nice little gifts that man had given himself over the years, the ability to stay cool inside regardless of what eth temperature was outside. There wasn't much of it in this world and it seemed like Red J's father had a monopoly on it.
The drafts of cool air made his ears flick back and forth as he sat crouched before a giant rectangular black monolith. The other nine where there as well, and White M was sitting was sitting directly to his right, with Brown C to the right of her. Unable to discern the purpose of the object before him, James whispered a few choice words in her ear. "What is that thing?"
White M looked back at him, and then gave a sigh of irritation. "It's a television. Granted this particular one is almost more of a home theater system, but you obviously wouldn't know about that. It's a device for transmitting the images from one place to another so someone can witness first hands what's happening halfway across the world."
He had known what it did from the moment she had told him what it was, but before he could tell her that, Red J's father walked out before them and coughed once to clear his throat. "None of you are to leave this room, and you are to blink as few times as possible during what comes next. After the first two of you failed, I have decided that a very special type of training might be in order to make sure we do not see any more down the line.
This machine will receive the signal being broad cast by the special nano transmitters I installed in Black M's eyes, and whether or not you are aware of it, you all have similar devices installed as well." James winched and shut his own eyes, he didn't like to think of anyone playing around with his ocular organs not even (or was that especially not) his father.
"Through them, you will be able to see everything he sees, and should he not be successful, you will see exactly what fate awaits you if you follow in his footsteps. There is no backing down, there is no middle ground, our foes seek to destroy us, so we must destroy them! Watch, and learn their every through Black M's eyes. Learn their every movement, learn their every tactic, learn to hate them from the very bottom of your souls!"
Then he walked out and the screen turned on. Red J turned and whispered what he felt was another very important question to White M. "If our survival depends on us killing them, why doesn't daddy just have us all attack them at once?" White M buried her own face in her gloved hands. "Because Red, some people are never satisfied until they've inflicted ever possible ounce of pain that they can."
FN: And now back to our heroes.
Chapter 10: The ancient one has tranquil eyes, and a voice that's seldom heard, above the reckless fury that surrounds him at his worst.
Vincent and Lucresia finally managed to walk into town as the sun was going down, after having walked something around fifty miles or more on that one day. The two merely paid for their room and collapsed onto the bed, much to his chagrin in hindsight. However when the next day dawned the two were both fully rested and ready for the task that lay before them. That particular task was gathering information and Vincent had a running theory of where the best place to gather information was, so went about applying it to yet another town.
--
The town of Roaring Fire boasted more than one saloon, but Vincent was never at a loss for this particular problem. His high tech "whichever one is closest" approach haddn't failed him yet. He strode into the bar confidently, sat down, ordered a drink, and got to work listening to the information getting passed around.
Quite quickly Vincent picked up on a few things: the town used to be just a general non descript villiage until about a decade ago. It was an entirely human notion, but then humans where by and large always quick to cease whatever good possible from a situation.
They had replaced the previously employed bartering system with the traditional gill, not the Cetra seamed to mind that much. Mainly because (one of the things Sephiroth liked most about this place) all human life was dependent on Cetra at the moment. Only Cetra could make food grow in the generally nutrient-less soil, so it was hard to imagine a city fo any reali size lasting long without them.
Thus Cetra who could grow more food than they could eat would sell the rest to the humans, and those humans handed money to the Cetra. Cetra were at first adverse to spending money, normally being able to get all they needed from nature, but as the Promise Land became a harder and harder place to live they also began to employ some human ideas, like mako power.
No one was able to draw out mako the way they could back on the planet with huge machines, but instead most involved small single owner well like structures. Such "Mako Wells" could provide enough mako to get buy on given the minmal demands for electricity, Sephiroth had personaly dug one such well outside the house he, Lucresia, and Aeris had stayed at.
Surpringly even his son didn't seem particularly averse to using mako power in this world, probably because such there was no end to mako in this world. The stuff practically shot out of the ground and no one doubted that it would continue to do so, the Promise Land was filled with mako because the Lifestream wasn't needed.
Cetra magic could provide the power to bring things to life instead, such as when they grew the plants that people ate. So by now even Cetra had some idea of the value of money, and of course, with the influx of money, came people who would rather try to steal it than earn it. That was what had made this city famous, it had been practically built around one huge bank that was used to store money from other banks.
Its walls where built from wood, but it had been strengthened by Cetra magic to be harder than any stone. It was staffed with guards, some human, some Cetra, and no one ever thought about trying to steal from it. To do so would bring down the entire town on them, and because it was safe made it a town where people came from all over to stay.
It was also a town with more then a few blacksmiths and gunsmiths (not that Vincent felt the need to shop around) and Lucresia had said she was determined to spend her day showing the residents what real weapon making was all about.
Strains of music broke Vincent's concentration and he turend his head towards a man with blue eyes and brown hair who sat in one corner of the room playing a guitar. He was not the first musician Vincent had seen in a tavern, but he was by far the best.
His hands danced across that guitar's strings with a grace comparable to that with which Vincent handled firearms. It was quite clear that he had spent several years practicing his craft, and Vincent couldn't help but show the man his respect by flipping him a hundred gil coin as he headed towards the tavern's exit.
The mans deft hand caught the coin out of midair and a small smile split across his face "Thanks; a guy doesn't get enough application doing a job like this." Vincent gave a small nod thinking of other jobs one could do very well without being appreciated.
"It's just not an easy world for us true artists any more, is it?" The man hung his head, his fingers of his empty hand touching, but not actually strumming his instruments strings. "I blame it on the lack of communication, instead of being a star, you just becomes a folk legend." He began to flip the coin back and forth across the knuckles of his palm. "By the way, my name CD, just CD."
Vincent looked at the muscian, wondering if he was making some kind of joke, but apperently CD was serrious. Which left Vincent nothing to do but contemplate how a man would doubtlessly end up going at least a little insane if he devoted his life to doing only one thing, in fact Vincent could have had a very good five sided inner monologue on the subject..
--
The sound of gunshots instantly woke Vincent, he reached for Redemption and Death which should have been in their respective holsters, strapped to the belt he never took off his pants. When he didn't feel them it took him a few moments to realize that the problem was not an abberation in his weapon keeping system, it was just that he didn't have his pants on.
He rolled out of the bed that he and Lucresia shared, grabbing them and yanking them on as quickly as possible. Whatever feelings of emarsement Vincent had were banished to the furtherst reaches of his soul asdonned his customary black suit coat and red scarf.
The suit coat was buttoned in a flash, and he adjusted his scarf so that it hid his weaponry (in retrospect he realized, it only hid Redemption, it'd been a while since he'd holsters to worry about on the left side of his body) before surveying the room.
Much to his chagrin, by the time he was discoverd that by the time he'd gotten up dressed and armed, Lucresia had managed to the do the exact same thing. He mentally kicked himself for not being the faster of the, before the first word left her mouth. "Don't worry too much about it Vincent, the previous shots got me up only about half a minute before you."
As ussual the ex-Turk was harder on himself as anyone else cared to be. "I should have guessed that no amount of the trianing I'd been giving myself before I 'died' would be a match for the real thing." Lucresia gave him a small wink. "That, and you had fourty years of getting used to sleeping with your pants on."
Vincent felt the start of a blush creeping along his face, it figured that after four decades of sleeping in his clothes and never needing to wake up fully armed only now that he was taking them off did things start to go wrong while he was sleeping. Which, of course, was all the proof he needed to be sure of one thing, fate still was using Vincent Valentine as a chew toy.
He didn't bother to ask what was going on, he just grabbed Lucresia practically yanking her out of the room on his way towards the sound of the gunshots; she didn't protest.
--
A huge crowd gathered around the left side of the bank. Whoever had attacked the thing had done it in the dead of night, and had used very heavy weaponry. A hole had been blown in the side of the wall, a wall which would had resisted the flames of Sephiroth's cross, and barely been dented by Vincent's bullets. While guns were fairly plentiful Lucresia had been quick to explain that explosives (espeically ones that packed that kind of power) were extramly rare in the Promise Land.
Mainly because a lot of people who tried to make their own using materials they weren't familiar with didn't survive their first mistake. According to her explosives that had used on the bank were not only very powerful, but very well made. The holes they had left behind were perfectly round, instead of looking like something out of a rorschach test.
The crowd watched hesitantly, a pair of men where crouching behind that hole in the wall with only their hands and the automatic weapons they held in plain sight. Even though most town people had pistols, they where no match for men with such weaponry in well defended positions, and they knew it.
Lucresia and Vincent both looked over the crowd of people (many of which looked like they had spent even less time or at least achieved less in the way of results than the two of them when it came to getting dressed) milling about in states of near to complete confusion, abd Lucresia's eyes sparkled as a wicked idea occurred to her.
She spoke in a perfectly calm tone of voice but she whispered softly enough that only Vincent could hear. "Would you look at all this Vincent, seems like total chaos." At the same time the two men behind the wall peeked around and released a small spray of bullets that made the crowd back up slightly, even if none of them where hit.
Her heavy emphasis on the last word made her idea painfully obvious, leading him to scowl back at her. "Thank you, that idea never would have occurred to me on my own. By the way, I knew what you where thinking just by that look in your eyes, that's what happens when you truly love someone, now stand back."
Vincent had done what he was about to do so few times that he could count them on one hand, (which was good, because up until recenntly, he'd only had one "hand" to count on) but after today he'd need his bionic left hand to help him keep track. He closed his eyes and began to search into the deep reassesses of his mind. /Come on out you bastard, don't waste our time trying to hide from me, I'll rip apart all seven circles of hell to find you!\
His face tightened slightly as he heard the voice he was looking (if not exactly hoping) for. "You know, I may have misjudged this emotion called 'Love', in the last few days you have been closer to calling me then you have in the last decade." /Shut up Chaos, just because you and I have to share this body doesn't mean we have to like each other. Now I made it clear years ago which of us is master and which of us is servant.\ "You know she made me." /That's that not the kind of thing you want to say to a man who was thinking about letting you to have fun.\ "But then maybe that was because she was upset over what a pathetic weakling you had become and wanted a way to remind you of what you once where."
/Guess what, I don't care, you're nothing but a figment of my imagination, even when you exist, I control you, not the other way around.\ "Just continue to tell yourself that." Vincent gritted his teeth, some things never changed regardless of how much better his life seemed to be getting. /Apparently I haven't taken you to task for a while, ready for another turn as my personal whipping boy?\ "If you can humiliate me that easily you would spend more time with me." /That's because unlike you I don't enjoy causing others pain.\ "I beg to differ." /Fine then, let me add a qualifer, unlike you I only enjoy hurting people who disserve it.\
"Funny I thought you would include me in that group." /Fine, I only really enjoy hurting people who have hurt me. You're only a mild irritation, I've had sun burns more annoying then you, and now its time for you to get dragged out like the beast you are to perform the one trick you know.\ "Well we are all miserable, at least I enjoy my work." Vincent's eyes opened with the fires of hell in them this time, and he drew Redemption into his right hand.
"MY NAME IS VINCENT VALENTINE, FATHER OF GENERAL SEPHIROTH! NOW FOR ANY OF YOU WHO HAVE DOUBTS TAKE ONE LOOK AT MY LONG HAIR, MAKO ENHANCED EYES, AND START FREAKING OUT!" As Vincent spoke his left pulled his red sunglasses from his face (tucking them into a pocket of his black suit coats) so that they could all get a good long look.
"NOW I'M ABOUT TO GO DO TO THAT BANK WHAT SEPHIROTH DID TO NIBELHIME, UNLESS YOU WANT TO DIE, GET OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW!" It was at that moment when a pair of leathery purple wings sprung from his shoulders. After seeing that it didn't take the crowd long to decide they would rather be some place else.
In a few moments the two stood stood alone, and even Lucresia took a few steps away from Vincent as the rest of his body began to shift. He grew taller and broader, his gloves disappeared into his discolored skin and his fingernails turned into claws.
His teeth sharpened and grew larger to accompany his now expanding mouth. His ears became pointed transformed into claws. Vincent stepped forward, his vocal cords where no longer capable of producing human speech, but the growl he let out was quite universal.
The two men looked out from behind the wall and their jaws went slack at discovery of the monster they now faced. That slackawed shock only lasted long enough for them to instinctivly birng up their guns and jerkily pull their respective triggers. Saddly for them, Vincent's now leathery skin was a far better protection then a kevlar vest.
Unless, by some incredible chance once of their bullelts struck Vincent in the eye, they might as well have been shooting blanks, and Vincent had made sure to squeeze his eyes shut as he walked forward. When the two men finally realized that their shots had been wasted (and that they were out of bullets) they threw down their guns, at the same time Vincent raised his arms.
Sand kicked up as if a horrendous wind storm suddenly manifested, and that sand was aimed right at the two men. The stuff slammed into their eyes blinding them, sand filled their noses and mouths choking them, and sand struck into their bodies with such force that they where knocked down, head first onto the floor with such force that it was clear they wouldn't be getting up any time soon.
Vincent folded his wings into his back, and then they merged with his flesh. His leathery skin retracted becoming gloves, boots and clothing, his claws became fingernails. His eyes where once again the color of blood instead of hellfire, and his entire body was once more human, or what passed for human.
He turned back to Lucresia who was quickly drawing even with him. "Those two were in a heavily defended psoition with no way to take them but head on, I'm sorry you had to see that." Lucresia shook her head. "I believe in personally seeing all of my work tested first hand, Chaos is a weapon, nothing more and nothing less. An exceptionally smart weapon, but not evil on his own. He can be used for good or for ill just like any weapon. When this is over remind me to make you a coat, I've already made one for Sephiroth."
Vincent could have argued with her on her first point, have spent many hours getting to know just how sadistic Chaos was, but now was cleary not the time. He stepped inside the bank and slowly looked down the halls. "I don't any idea which way it is to the vault, but I'm pretty sure that's where whoever is in charge of this thing will be." Lucresia pointed to the hallway that lead to the right. "Well then, you go that way, I'll go left, we can get em all that way."
Vincent raised an eyebrow "You're sure that you'll be able to handle any trouble you run into?" Lucresia calmly clicked the two catches of her briefcase as if she was going to open the thing, but it didn't open. Instead a small portion of the briefcase began to rotate, and then part of it retracted, before a small barrel extended out of it.
"The thing is clip fed from inside, its bullets are small but they explode on impact throwing shrapnel around inside the targets body. Couple rounds from it will make someone look like they got nailed by a shotgun at point blank range. The trigger is built into the handle, if I hold it tightly while holding down the back for leverage, it starts shooting."
"You know, I keep forgetting the entire thing that underneath the sweet little girl look, you're a psycho bitc now." Lucrecia blushed and swooned slightly. "Oh Vinny you always say the niceset things!" Vincent turned his back with a smile one his face. "Look after yourself, I know Sephiroth wouldn't be able to stand knowing that one of his parrents parents to get taken down by pathetic human thieves like these."
--
There were lots of places to take cover, that was the one good thing about a building that was only a few notches behind being a medieval castle, and of course such a place was all the more defensible when defended by people with automatic weapon, but it had it's weakness.
Vincent pratically flew around the corner as the men began to spray lead at him, and he didn't bother to shoot back. Instead he tucked his shoulders in and managed to roll underneath a desk that was clearly constructed for less spartan purposes. Bullets ripped through that desk but automatic weapons weren't much good against a target you couldn't see.
Ironically those bullets holes were more then enough for Vincent to see the people who were shooting back at him through. He rolled out from under the desk and jumped back over the desk in the opposite direction, both of his guns blazing away. Blood splattered on brown wood which might as well have been steel from how hard it was.
By the time he landed the four men who had been shooting at him were already dead from two bullet holes each, one in the head and one in the chest. Each bullet had landed in almost exactly the same place on each man, Vincent smiled as he stood back up. "I've been around for over a century now, and I still have it. I guess they're right, these really are the golden years."
--
The two guards held up their rifles questioningly as they heard the sound of footsteps coming down the hall. "Who's there?" Receiving no answer both men carefully braced their guns against their shoulders even if they couldn't see their target yet. When their target finally did come into range they paused for a moment in surprise.
Then the woman's right hand held the briefcase down so that it was pointed up at them and her left gave it a sharp tug. The gun flew from the man's hands as if it had a life of its own and he felt something tear at his face like a piece of melted wax splashed on his cheak.
The pain was brief however, because just then a single round flew straight through his eye socket. The small bullet exploded, and that was all it took to tear through his brain, killing him before he could scream. His partner wasn't as lucky, the shot that did him in struck his for head so the bullet needed to take the time to work its way through his skull before it could probably kill him.
Lucresia nodded as she examined the results of her work. "Kickback was a little strong, I even missed with my third shot, needed five shots instead fo foor. Good thing I didn't bring much equipment special equilment out here, means I can afford to waste some ammo." With that she continued down the halls, the hair on the back of her neck slowly gone on end. These guards where getting farther and farther apart, and that could only mean one thing.
--
Vincent carefully reloaded his guns and then with both of them drawn stepped over the dead bodies of the guards. The vault had apparently been blown apart by the same force which had destroyed the wall, something that left a perfectly (or very close to it) round hole in whatever it was aimed at.
As Vincent stepped into the vault itself, money was still perfectly stored on shelves, which made only made him privately wonder what the hell was going on. Then from around the corner, he heard a voice echo. "You think this is the coda? It's just the refrain."
A familiar looking man dressed this time in a black robe with golden trim and a cape with similar color scheme stepped forward. Vincent scowled in surprise as it took his brain a few moments to comprehend what he saw. "I knew you were hard up for money, but don't you think this is a bit much?" CD sighed as he gestured to the untouched stacks of coins.
"This? What is money to a true artist? My actual name is Melkore, Melkore 'The Six String' Morningstar, and this is my, as well as your retirement gig. Mine, because after this I'm gonna go back to just singing, your's, because you're going to be playing a golden harp. You see this is a trap, just so that I can kill you."
Vincent scowled again. "Why? Last time I checked it was Sephiroth who everyone had the grudges against." Melkore slowly ran a hand along the guitar that he had strapped around his chest. "I believe you gave me a coin last time we met, here's mine." With that Melkore's hand deftly flicked a half coin into the air and it landed on the ground with a metallic cling, it was in fact only half a coin.
"I guessed as much, but I'm surprised that you people would do something like this just to get my attention. I suppose that leaves me only one option, I'll just have to take you down.
I don't suppose I could convince you that you don't have a chance against me." Melkore shook his head his right hand drawing close to the strings of his guitar like a man's hand going for his gun's trigger. "I don't think that would be fair. Not when I've spent all day getting tuned up for this!" Vincent sighed and holstered Death, figuring that he'd only need one gun to take care of this particular shoot out.
"As a Turk there are only two things that can truly irritate me, one of them is bad beer, the other is bad puns. You're only making things worse for yourself, I'm not going to shoot to kill, yet." Melkore's left hand moved with all the speed of a desert snake and it twisted one of the small knobs by the top of his guitar. A moment later the guitar began to emit an odd noise that Vincent noticed just in time as the top of the guitar moved forward the same way Vincent once seen his left hand move.
A moment later six barrels emerged and Vincent jumped as Melkore ran his hand along the guitar's strings, carefully caressing each one. Each of those barrels spat a round at where Vincent had been before he jumped, and they only imbedded themselves in the wall.
Vincent landed on one of the lower shelves and wedged himself behind one of the numerous piles of coins. Then he kicked that pile of coins out at Melkore, the gil coins a blinding cascade of gleaming metal. Melkore, however, simply drew his cape around himself and weathered the storm, not bothering to try and protect any part of himself in particular other than his eyes. When it passed he gave an irritated sigh.
"Okay then, now that I've played the opening chords its time to start a song!" His hand didn't bother to gently caress the strings this time, it was a hard stiff stroke that went from one cord to another and then back in an never ending pattern. The results where as predicted, a stream of bullets from varying barrels headed in his opponet's direction. Vincent rolled off the shelf to the floor and hit the ground with his feet first and leaped again.
He landed on another pile of coins and once again kicked them at Melkore, making him stop playing for moment. This time coins where not all Vincent sent at Melkore, he also snapped off a quick shot at Melkore's chest. Melkore, however, heard the gun's roar and this time he did not grab his cape, instead his left hand went back to the strings while his right grabbed the end of his guitar.
He held the thing before him as if the wooden instrument would stop a bullet that could have quite possibly penetrated any sort of normal body amour at close range. There was the clang of metal on metal and the bullet fell to the ground, the dent that it left on Melkore's guitar was barely visible.
However Melkore's face filled with rage all the same. "You know, the funny thing about trees is, the harder it is for them, the better they are. Out here practically no trees grow, and those that do can grow as little as a millimeter every year. But when they're that close together, not only are they very strong, they produce a truly marvellous sound!
But when that hardness is enhanced with Cetra magic, stopping bullets is child's play. My wonderful little Sasha didn't get a dent stopping the rounds those pathetic guards used, but then you had to go do that. Well now I'm mad, forget finger style guitar, it's time for heavy metal!" Before his left hand could make the guitar let loose with a true blaze Vincent fired again, and it was already halfway to Melkore's by the time he started playing.
No bullets emerged from the guitar this time around, instead when Melkore's left hand moved with an odd serenity to it, an odd deep sound began to resonate from Sasha (if you can name a gun or sword you can name an instrument.) a sound that grew louder with every passing second. Redemption's bullet was stopped in midair and Vincent was thrown backwards against a pile of coins on the shelf with a small grunt of pain.
Melkore blew on the top of his guitar as if it was a smoking gun. "It's a shame, when I play with my left hand the sound always seems distorted to my ear, but if I use it to aim it turns out incredibly erratic. It's true horror for a master to watch a fool play, and even worse to hear that sound come from his own hand."
Vincent glanced back and saw that the wall behind him had been dented, at least that explained the "explosives" Lucresia had wondered about earlier on. Vincent sighed as he got back up and Melkore just smiled again "That the real power of Sasha, most people don't see it which is why I'm called "The Six String" but you've just experienced first hand my sonic wave.
Now I'm gonna push the bass and make you wave bye-bye!" Vincent didn't repeat his statement about how much he hated bad puns, he jumped as Melkore's left hand ran down those strings. The wave of pure sonic energy kicked up coins like a raging bull and this time Vincent was caught in a storm of hard metal.
He barely managed to see Melkore's hand once again running through the strings caught inside that storm. He jumped to avoid being caught straight in the middle of that sonic blast, but did it too late, and that was worse then not at all. The energy slammed into his legs tossing him backwards as he tried to go forward. The two competing forces caused Vincent to spin in midair and fall like a bird struck by a large stone.
He didn't manage to brace this landing, he fell flat on his chest. Sasha face was lit up by a malicious smile "TIME FOR THE CHORUS!" However Vincent's right hand suddenly went from being trapped under his body to shooting straight out in front of him. He fired one shot as Sasha's hand went down the strings and then suddenly it snapped back as Vincent's bullet skimmed across his hand.
However, it was not his hand which Vincent had been aiming at, instead it was the lowest string on Sasha that was split apart. That bullet finally struck the back of Sasha's frame and stopped, once again leaving only a minuscule dent. Melkore spat out a curse as he took a moment to shake Sasha around till finally the bullet fell out from it to the ground. Then he held the guitar above his head as if he would bash Vincent's head open with it "YOU BARBARIAN! YOU CAN KILL ME, BUT TOUCH Sasha AND YOU'RE DESECRATING ARTWORK THAT SHOULD BELONG TO THE AGES!"
He lowered the guitar and his left hand shot forward as his right hand came back to the strings, ready to blast Vincent. However while Melkore had been removing the bullet, Vincent had gotten his feet back under him. Only five barrels blazed this time, but Melkore's hand moving with a vengeance that made it seam like he was playing a tweleve string version of his weapon.
Bullets spiraled from all directions and Vincent had saw only one way to dodge Melkore' blaze. He fainted left and right before managing to find enough ground not covered with coins to get nice solid hold on the ground. He leapt over Melkore releasing a single shot that made the musician (if you wanted to call Melkore that) jerk his hand back to his shoulder in pain.
It ripped through the black and golden fabric and a thin trickle of blood began to mix with the black and smear the gold. Melkore bit back a curse and returned his hands to his instrument and weapon tracing Vincent's path as his jump came to an end. Vincent felt several bullets rip through his own black suit coat, stinging him in places far more important than a mere shoulder grazing shot.
Vincent blocked out the pain, and he pointed the gun backwards, hoping that his memory wasn't being distorted in pain. He pulled the trigger as he dropped to the ground as a bullet slammed into his right leg below the kneecap. Melkore blocked the shot with Sasha but holding it in front of him vertically meant his barrels where pointed straight up, and he couldn't shoot.
Vincent braced himself with his hands as he hit the ground (thankfully not skidding on spilled coins) and suddenly he realized just how much he had been taking his body for granted, not only did he know, not think, know, that he wouldn't be killed by this much damage, but that he would get better in no time flat.
However that wasn't what really mattered, what mattered was that his body wasn't going into shock, he was still in this fight. His feet found themselves flat on the ground again and they pushed up as Vincent spun around. At the same time Melkore brought Sasha back down ready to finish Vincent with one more stream of bullets.
Melkore spoke one word as his hand came to the chords and as Vincent's hand whipped around with Redemption in it. "Refrain." In that frozen moment the two where like gentlemen duellists fighting at twenty paces instead of two men in a wild fight. If "fight" wasn't too civilized word for it, and then in a hail of lead that moment was shattered like a mirror.
As Vincent's hand whipped around, he not only fired, but then, in what could have been thought of as an accident, his grip loosened. The pistol flew out of his hand following not far behind the bullet, and with just as much force. Vincent fell to the ground as even more bullets tore into his arms and legs, but his chest was left largely unhurt, and managed to fall on his chest keeping his eyes on Melkore.
Melkore on the other hand blocked the bullet aiming for his heart with complete ease, and then Redemption struck. The pistol was not a light thing, and Melkore was not the strongest of men. Regardless of how strong his weapon was, because it was magically enhanced wood it was still very light, the metal gun was not.
The impact knocked Melkore backwards, and a torrent of bullets tore through the ceiling as his hand finally lost contact with the strings. He fell on his back, eyes looking backwards instead of at Vincent as he forced his rather wounded left arm take Death into a not so shaky hold.
However Melkore didn't see the gun come up at him, instead he saw a briefcase open on the ground before him several feet back, and the women who had dropped it. The women pressed a button on the watch she wore, and the briefcase spat out a metallic cube at him. Melkore's eyes filled with fear, as if he somehow knew what was about to happen, and he only had time for one action.
With both hands he threw Sasha away from him and backwards towards Vincent with reckless abandon and the words "Fallen, forgotten" played on his lips. Then the metallic cube flew so close to him that he could have touched it, and then it exploded in a shower of flame.
In the blink of an eye Melkore Morningstar vanished into a screaming inferno of flames, and the only thing left of him was ashes. Lucresia slowly picked her briefcase back up and gave Vincent a smile. "I came to a dead end, so I though I'd come and give you a hand. Besides, I couldn't miss a chance to try out my newest remote mines.
Most people don't expect you to detonate them in midair, and that's why their such great weapons in the heat of battle." Vincent sighed as he looked over his body, he only had been shot about a dozen times and none of them in the chest, but now that the adrenaline was gone they did hurt. "You could have been a little bit faster." Lucresia winked at him.
"But then you might have thoguht you couldn't take him on your own. Even shooting offhand he had no chance against you." Vincent took in a painful breath wishing that he would have used both guns and ended the fight quicker, then a horrifying thought struck him. The words practically fell from his mouth as he looked down on the floor. "You realize that we have to sort through this to find his half coin don't you?"
Lucresia in complete silence didn't even bother to go down on a knee, she just bended down and picked up a small half coin among the glinting golden gil coins. Vincent let lose a small laugh at the sight of it "Lucresia, you really are a lifesaver," before he once again allowed his body to slump with relief.
--
Vincent Valentine was dead to the world for the next day, literally. He crawled into bed, and slept through not only the hours of the night that where left, but the day and the following night as well.
When he finally did wake up, a quick check confirmed his hopes that all of the bullet holes he'd gone to sleep with had vanished not even leaving scars behind. He knew part of it was because of his Jenova cells and mako injections, the other (smaller part) most likely getting an inordinate amount of sleep. As he pulled his black suit coat back on from the desk where Lucresia had left it after working on it for a good portion of the day he noticed it was a little bit heavier.
Considering that Redemption's and Death, each over ten pounds felt only a little heavier than he thought a normal pistol should have he could make his own guesses. His gloves now also had a small latch located directly in the center of the palm that proved a far more intricate puzzle.
Lucresia would later tell him that it was an idea based of what she had seen him do with Redemption and that she had salvaged Sasha to get the necessary parts for it. A thought that was slightly less than pleasing to Vincent until he realized that "use the abilities of your foes against them" had already been decided as one of the prime rule of the battles to come. Running a hand down the wounds whose complete healing was only possible because of the 'mirical' of Jenova cells reminded him of that fact quite nicely.