A/N: Sunday funday! Here's the new chapter. B-) Not much else to say here, so enjoy!

After a moment of thought, the teen seemed to shrug it off, filing his mentor's words away for later consideration. He brightened, turning to me.

"Hey, sorry we got cut off like that. I guess I should practice more with the controls...I really wasn't expecting Sephiroth to show up like that. He's usually on the hardest settings."

"I didn't even know there was a simulated Sephiroth," I lied, sheathing Kerberos.

Zack shrugged. "The only people that can take his sim out are Angeal and that Genesis guy. Everyone tries, but he's just too tough, you know?" He grinned. "Well, someday I'll beat him. I'll have to if I'm gonna make First!"

"...Is Sephiroth in Wutai?" I asked.

The teen nodded. "Yeah, he's been there for two months now. Genesis just went as backup. I'm betting the war will be finished up pretty quickly now." His smile fell slightly. "Man...I'd been kind of hoping to go. Make a name for myself and all that..."

I averted my gaze, frowning. Suddenly I was very glad that Zack hadn't been deployed; he wouldn't have any innocent blood on his hands. Shinra couldn't mislead him to kill an enemy he really knew nothing about.

"Well, you don't have to go to war to do that," I offered, finally looking back up at him. At the look on his face, I couldn't resist the urge to try and cheer him up. I shrugged, smiling. "Besides, you wouldn't get a chance. I bet Sephiroth and Genesis are glory hogs anyway."

His laughter was as infectious as his smile. "Yeah, no kidding!"

We exited the training room, the door sliding shut behind us as we walked out into the hallway. Late afternoon was melting into early evening; the large windows in the lounge revealed that the sky over Midgar was turning a pinkish-orange.

My smile fell slightly. Tomorrow...my first assignment loomed closer. I wasn't overly concerned about that, but what about what happened afterwards? How long was I going to let this go on? When would I get to go home?

"Hey, I almost forgot." Zack stepped into my line of vision, forcing me back into the present. "What's your schedule for today, anyway?"

"Off duty," I replied. "Tomorrow's my first mission."

"So you're free for dinner then?" He asked. "Why don't we grab a bite to eat? My treat."

Mini panic attack. How to avoid social interaction? Jesus! I needed to prepare excuses in advance! And worse yet—I knew Zack was the flirty type, but was he asking me on a date? It was hard to tell from his casual tone, but I had to seriously hope not.

Please just see me as one of the guys, I thought. A really feminine looking guy...with boobs.

I averted my gaze. "I've still got a few things to get done before tomorrow. Sorry."

Saying it felt awful, mostly because I wanted to accept his invitation. He was so easy to talk to and get along with, and it had been so long since I had met someone that I felt I could really relate to. I had gotten along with a lot of people back home, but as far as deep friendships went, ever since Sylvarant I found myself painfully lacking. And in this place I barely even had friendly acquaintances. At least at home I'd had my family, if nothing else.

Zack frowned. "Oh, right. That's okay, no big deal. I guess I'll see you around?"

"Yeah," I replied unhappily, rubbing the back of my neck. "I—"

"Buttering up the Seconds now? You're pathetic." A new, very unwelcome voice cut me off.

I glanced up. The glance quickly turned into a glare. "...Jace."

He was sauntering up from the direction of the elevators; he must've been out doing something for part of the day, which explained why he had waited till now to grace the SOLDIER floor with his presence.

The man smirked cruelly, his snakelike eyes gliding over my form and making me feel dirty. "The higher classes have better things to do than talk to the likes of you. If you think you can fuck your way to First, you have another thing coming, hun."

"What was that?" Zack stepped in front of me, livid. "What's wrong with you? That's no way to talk to a girl!"

To Zack's credit, Jace actually backed off, surprised. The asshole had expected backup, for crying out loud.

"I don't know what the hell your problem is," the Second continued, eyes flashing, "but—"

"Zack." I cut him off, my heart pounding. Surprised, he looked over at me.

I wasn't going to lie—it felt really good to have someone finally stick up for me like that, to make Jace look like he'd been slapped. Getting chewed out by a Second was no joke. But still, having a man defend me would just reinforce my 'victim' image, and I needed the people here to take me seriously. I didn't need anyone fighting my battles for me.

"Let me handle this," I murmured.

I looked at Jace, and felt white-hot anger build in my stomach. Fuck my way to First, eh...that was a new one. I was sick of this bullshit. I was not fucking weak. Maybe I didn't have military experience, but I had infiltrated bases, fought monsters, dueled angels, and endured countless physical and mental trials. I hadn't risked everything and clawed my way to this point just to be called pathetic by some dumbass with a superiority complex.

Now that Zack had actually backed off, Jace's confidence returned. He offered me a patronizing smile. "What is it, babe? Need to get something off your chest?"

"Listen, asshole," I started.

"Hoo boy, here we go," he instantly said, snorting.

I responded by grabbing the front of his uniform, yanking him forward and then slamming him into the wall once he was off balance. The man gaped, taken completely off guard.

I was not the overly assertive type. I wasn't a fan of confrontations. But I could honestly say that after facing Yggdrasill, I wasn't going to be intimidated by some low-class SOLDIER. Sephiroth, maybe, but this guy? No chance in hell.

"Every time you open your mouth, I want to reach in, rip out your intestines and strangle you with them," I seethed. "I'm completely out of patience. Fight me, right now. First to draw blood wins. Loser has to go back to his douchebag friends and admit what a tool he really is. In case you don't get it, you're going to lose."

For a moment the man just stared at me in shock, but he seemed to regain his bearings enough to shove me away.

"You're gonna regret this," he said in a warning tone, his eyes flashing.

"If I'm gonna regret anything, it'll be that I didn't kick your ass hard enough," I shot back.

"Whoa, whoa." Zack jumped in, holding his hands up. "Are you guys serious? Look..."

"First to draw blood, right?" Jace said, not tearing his eyes from me.

The Second made a face, and then sighed. "Okay, fine. I'll oversee the match. Let's get back into the training room."

As it turned out, my first mission was fairly simple—an extensive monster extermination in the slums, similar to Kunsel's mission from yesterday. He informed me that this one was going to be a bit trickier, so we'd have to be on our toes.

When he told me we would be going to a train station, I nearly died of a nostalgia attack. Thankfully I survived, and now we were heading down to the Sector 7 slums. If it was in the slums, that meant it couldn't be the station from the game, at least.

"This shouldn't take more than a few hours between the two of us," Kunsel noted, checking the time on his phone. He had donned his helmet once more so I couldn't see the look in his eyes, but I couldn't miss the way his lips quirked up. "Your first few missions won't be too tough. The Director's still keeping an eye on you, at least until Sephiroth and Commander Rhapsodos get back."

"I don't get it," I said, stretching as we walked along. Privately I tried to figure out what Kunsel was finding so amusing. "I've been training under Angeal just like everyone else. Why's Lazard still breathing down my neck?"

He glanced over at me briefly and then returned his attention to the dirt road ahead. "All of your tests came back fine, but I guess there's some concern over how the mako will affect you considering your gender. I'm surprised the Science Department hasn't called you back yet."

I shook my head. "That was one of my conditions on joining SOLDIER. No more tests."

"Really?" Kunsel frowned. "You sure that's for the best? I mean, I get it, but…you are sort of a guinea pig."

That nearly made me scowl; at least he hadn't said 'test rat.' "I'd rather not be. But if the mako's gonna kill me or something, better out here than in the labs."

"That's a pretty grim outlook," the Second remarked, seeming to stare at me for a moment.

I kept my gaze focused straight ahead, just shrugging in reply. It wasn't really something I wanted to elaborate on. He would understand in time.

"Over here." Kunsel let the subject slide, instead guiding me into the outskirts of the sector. I could see train tracks now; the station had to be close by.

"By the way, I heard about what happened yesterday."

I cringed involuntarily and snuck a glance at him, only to see that smile on his face again. Now I understood where his amusement had come from earlier. At least he was okay with me tearing Jace a new one.

"Yeah, about that…"

"Zack said you won fair and square," he offered.

"That's not what Jace is telling everyone," I muttered with a scowl.

I wasn't gonna deny it—it had been extremely gratifying at first to let out all of my pent-up anger at the guy. But in the end, like all impulsive decisions, it had just made things worse.

We had fought, one-on-one, with no simulation going. Just the training room and Zack standing to the side with his arms crossed, ready to intervene if things got out of hand. Jace hadn't been a bad fighter by any means—he had all the necessary training and skill to become a Third. But he hadn't been a Third for much longer than me.

In the end my advantage had come from experience. All that time fighting Cruxis and the Desians had paid off in the end. And although I had received some military training since joining, my fighting style was comparable to Kratos, and completely different from that of a typical SOLIDER operative. It had thrown Jace off-balance, and that combined with my already acquired skills had quickly given me the upper hand.

The battle didn't last very long. Jace eventually left an opening and I lunged for it, giving him a shallow cut, and Zack called an end to the match.

It was also gratifying, to an extent, to see the look of pure indignant anger in his eyes. Of course, he immediately sputtered some excuse—that I'd cheated or something—and walked out. But looking back, I knew now that I hadn't done myself any favors. That look in his eyes…I had wounded his pride. He was going to take it personally now. Which meant my dealings with Asshole Jace were probably about to get much, much worse.

"Don't worry too much about it," Kunsel said, interrupting my thoughts. "Zack used to get some trouble because Lieutenant Hewley is his mentor; you know, people thinking he was playing favorites and all that. Once the initial rumors die down, everyone kind of forgets about it."

"Hm…hopefully," I mumbled. Speaking of Angeal…

"Ha! Did you see the look on his face? That was great! Nice and clean, too—you're pretty good. I was worried that jerk was gonna gouge you on purpose."

"He probably would've if I had let him."

"No kidding. Hey, you showed him, yeah? I don't know how many of the guys have been giving you trouble, but this ought to shut them up."

"Maybe."

"Hey, maybe you should—huh? Oh, Angeal, back already? What're you…wait, it's not what it looks like!"

Needless to say, we had both gotten quite a long lecture. One of the Seconds had tipped him off—said something about being annoyed that people kept hogging the training room. Angeal was less than pleased that his student had blatantly ignored him. It took a little while to convince him that we hadn't actually been using the training room's VR.

Throughout the entire lecture, whenever Zack thought Angeal wasn't looking, he kept sneaking me these hilarious conspiratorial glances. He was such a kid.

…Oh, Jesus. Just thinking about it now made me want to grin. This was impossible; I wanted to keep myself distanced from the guy, but if I ended up having to work with him, there was no way. I was bad at maintaining the cold, aloof persona, especially when someone like him came along and took it in stride. Most people back home would've just written me off as a bitch and left me alone.

"Well, this is the old station," Kunsel remarked, pausing and looking around. We had already passed a platform; what was before us looked more like a dump than anything else. There were old, run-down trains everywhere, littering tracks that looked like they hadn't been used in a while.

"The Train Graveyard…?" I murmured before I could stop myself.

My companion smiled a bit. "So you've heard the little nickname that's been going around. This used to be an actual stop up until a year or two ago. Then there was a big construction accident next door in Sector 6; these tracks don't lead anywhere anymore."

"They didn't just repair it?" I asked, curious. It was strange, hearing about these events now; by the time of the events in FFVII, it had seemed like the Train Graveyard had been there for a while. I had never really considered how it came to be.

Kunsel shook his head. "Not with the war going on, no. Sector 6 construction has been halted for a while; Shinra's focusing their resources elsewhere. In the meantime, this place has fallen into some serious disrepair. Unfortunately, all of the old trains make the perfect hiding places for monsters. That's where we come in."

"The cleanup crew, huh?" I drew my sword, rolling my shoulders a bit to work any stiffness out of the muscles.

"You could call it that," he replied with a smile, pulling out his blade from its magnetic holster.

We entered the maze of trains, moving slowly. They were in various stages of disrepair; the deeper in we moved, the older and uglier they got. Some of them were covered in graffiti, the windows smashed in; eventually even those dwindled out, though. Even troublemaking teenagers weren't willing to go in too far.

"Keep on guard now," Kunsel advised in a low voice. "Easy to get ambushed around here."

I nodded, noting the dark windows of the trains around us. Too many hiding places.

It wasn't long before we heard growling. A pack of indigo colored, wolf-like creatures surrounded us, their eyes glowing red. Each one of them had a long, whip-like tentacle growing from their backs; I vaguely remembered their appearance, but it was strangely nostalgic to see them in reality.

"Guard Hounds," Kunsel murmured. "Easy enough."

"Well, let's get this over with," I said, and lunged to the left end of the pack.

Four of the monsters saw my movement and reacted in turn, leaping. I dropped into a slide at the last second, falling below their fangs and claws, and then used my momentum to swing around and get back to my feet. With their flanks exposed, the beasts were then open to the fire attack I threw their way. One of them fell instantly; the other three were taken off guard, tripping over each other and snarling.

Kunsel, meanwhile, had dodged out of the way and taken on four of his own. He threw two off with a single powerful sweep of his sword, using Bio to distract the others. In less than two minutes, all eight of the beasts were down, and Kunsel and I were none the worse for wear.

As we brushed ourselves off and continued onward, I had to fight a grin. What a difference…what a difference from the way things had been back then. I had really improved since my days of fighting giant grasshoppers and the like. These kinds of monsters were nothing now.

"What exactly are we trying to accomplish here?" I asked. "Do we have some kind of quota to meet?"

Kunsel shook his head. "Sometimes that's how it works, but not today. An Eligor has been sighted around here; they're particularly troublesome, so we've been ordered to dispatch it before it starts causing problems."

"Eligor…?" I frowned. It didn't ring a bell.

"It's a specter riding on the back of a beast," the Second said. "I guess that's the best way to describe it. They're not exactly on par with your other kills, but they're definitely of the nastier breed. They use Sleepel and Silence, so I hope you've got some remedies on you."

"Yeah, I'm stocked up," I said, patting my bag. I had purchased a smaller one yesterday morning for short-term missions, just so I could carry the absolute necessities.

Onward we went. Even though we were here in broad daylight, I couldn't help but find this place a bit creepy. It was still pretty dark down here due to the plate being overhead, and the bulk of the trains created shadows everywhere. I remembered getting lost down here on both of my playthroughs of FFVII.

Eligor, Eligor…had I ever fought one of those? The name didn't ring a bell, but I must've, right? Hopefully the fact that I didn't remember it meant it was unremarkable and not too difficult to beat. The mention of status effects made me cringe, though. I'd had enough of that with that stupid Malboro.

We fought a few more packs of Guard Hounds, dispatching them with relative ease. There were also some flying lizard-like creatures—Deenglows, Kunsel called them—that we had to take out, but they were more annoying than anything else.

When the monster finally showed itself, it did so by crashing through the side of a train and scaring the living hell out of me.

Kunsel and I dove out of the way, readying our weapons. I saw now that Kunsel's description had been accurate; though it wasn't a monster that really stood out in my mind, it did look vaguely familiar. The specter stared us down with a single menacing red eye before delivering a swift kick to its steed, sending it running right at us.

While I readied a Fire spell (I was really trying to get the hang of materia), Kunsel lunged. Despite the monster's size, he managed to hold his own. Of course, I got a little concerned the minute it started shooting lasers at him. Dammit, Final Fantasy…

Right, so it was time to give him some backup. I raised one hand, pleased to see it glowing with red magic. Materia was actually pretty—

Da-da-da-da daaa da da-da-daaaa!

Huh? Shut up, phone! I haven't won the battle yet!

It rang again in reply, breaking my hold over the spell, and I nearly swore. Jeez, that was what I got for setting Victory Fanfare as a custom ringtone on my phone…my dumb inside jokes always managed to bite me in the ass.

Frustrated, I glanced up to make sure my companion was holding up all right, and then I checked the phone to see who was calling.

Director Lazard, the screen told me. Wait, what? I had his number, yeah, but I hadn't even met him yet—what could he want? He had to know I was on a mission…

Gritting my teeth, I flipped the phone open and answered.

"Hello?"

"Ah, I'm glad I caught you. Kunsel hasn't been answering."

"He's a little preoccupied right now, sir," I said, feeling horribly useless standing on the sidelines like this.

"I see," Lazard replied. "I'll get right to the point then. New mission objective—return to headquarters immediately."

"What?" I gaped in disbelief. A little late to be telling us that! "Director, we're already—"

"Use an Exit materia—it can wait. We have a monster loose on the SOLDIER floor, and the rest of the Seconds are on missions. Angeal will be there shortly; hold it off until he arrives. Understood?"

I had a lot of questions, but his tone clearly communicated the urgency of the situation. I managed a quiet "Yes, sir" and hung up.

"What is it?" Kunsel called. He had managed to wound the Eligor's steed, but the monster was being annoyingly persistent.

"Monster loose in headquarters," I yelled back. "Forget the Eligor. Director's orders."

He nodded, one of his hands glowing immediately as he powered up a spell. He jumped backwards to avoid an attack, and then cast Stop. The Eligor froze in place and the SOLDIER rushed over to me.

"That's not gonna hold," he said with a scowl, noticing how the monster was already starting to shift a bit. "Do you still have that materia I gave you?"

"Already on it," I replied, remembering Lazard's words. I closed my eyes, concentrating for a moment and focusing my mind's eye on a train stop I remembered passing on the way here. It should be close enough to work…

I gave the Exit materia a mental push, casting Escape. The world around us faded as we were enveloped in a cool blue-green light. Wow…that was pretty cool. Better than the warps I'd used so much in Sylvarant and Tethe'alla—this didn't make my stomach want to empty itself.

When the light faded, we were in the place I had focused on. Here we would be able to board the train and make our way back up above the plate.

"Not bad." Kunsel nodded approvingly. "You've been practicing, haven't you?"

"Some," I replied.

Of course I'd been practicing; not only was it cool to be able to use magic, but there were some things that I needed to be able to do if I was going to be flying solo. Fleeing battles that I couldn't win was one of them; being able to heal myself was another. I was definitely going to master those two materia as soon as I could, even if it meant hours of grueling practice and the headaches and mental fatigue that followed.

"Keep it up. Exit materia has saved me quite a few times."

Kunsel was about to say something else, but the sound of the approaching train cut us off. The trains through Midgar ran like a sort of subway system; they didn't go down below plate quite so often, but this time of day there were shuttles every twenty minutes. We had gotten lucky and arrived here right on time.

The guard on the platform didn't even ask for ID; our eyes and gear were enough. He waved us on.

While I stood to one side, gripping an overhead bar for support, Kunsel walked to the front of the train and started punching some things in to a terminal. There didn't seem to be a cab for an engineer to sit in, which led me to believe this train was entirely automated.

When he was finished, he came to stand next to me, and a female voice came on over the speaker.

"Attention passengers: new priority first stop—Sector 8 station, upper city."

"You reprogrammed it?" I asked.

He nodded. "Firsts and Seconds have clearance for this sort of thing, but only if our orders call for it. If there's a monster loose in HQ, we can't afford to waste any time."

I nodded. "Right."

Since the train had been rerouted, it only took us just under ten minutes to get back to Sector 8. From there we ran the short distance to headquarters, moving straight to the elevators.

"The SOLDIER floor?" Kunsel frowned when I pressed the button on the elevator. "I wonder how something managed to get up there."

I shook my head. "The Director didn't say…but are we really spread this thin that he needs to call us in from a mission?"

"Yeah, we've got a bunch of Thirds out on a training exercise, and a lot of our forces are still in Wutai," he replied with a frown. "You said Lieutenant Hewley is heading here?"

"Mm. We're supposed to hold it off until then."

"Just how strong is this thing?" His frown grew. "I'd get ready if I were you. If Lazard's calling in a First, we'd better prepare for the worst."

The light above the elevator doors moved closer and closer to the forty-ninth floor. We drew our weapons, tensing up. What could possibly be waiting for us up there? It would've been nice if the Director had told me what type of monster it was.

Finally the doors opened, revealing a clear view of the hallway. The first thing I registered were some blood spatters on the floor; they belonged to an unfortunate SOLDIER Third that was leaning against the wall nearby.

"Shit! Are you okay?" I ran up to him, shocked at the amount of blood gushing out of the wound on his shoulder. I immediately began powering up a Cure spell.

"J-Jace…" He choked. I realized with a shock that it was Brad.

"Jace? What about him?" I pressed, my hand flashing with pale blue light as I fed the healing spell into his wound. Our animosity didn't matter; I didn't like Jace or his friends, but that didn't mean I was going to let them die.

Brad opened his mouth again, but only coughed a little before collapsing.

"Damn," Kunsel muttered, kneeling over him and pressing a hand to his wound. "That's not pretty. Still bleeding…my Restore materia's not mastered. We won't be able to close a wound this big."

"I've got some bandages in my room," I offered. "That should hold until we can get him to the infirmary, right?"

He nodded. "Go. I'll wait here—if you see our monster friend, come back here. Don't fight it."

"Got it," I said, and took off at a run. My room wasn't far from here; I ran down towards the lounge, turning off into the next hallway.

I was at the door within a minute. I reached into my pocket to grab my card so I could scan it, only to discover that my door was already cracked open a bit. What the…?

Nervous, I pushed it open a little more and reached in to turn on the light. The room was empty.

Maybe I had left it open this morning? That didn't sound like me…

It didn't matter. Shaking my head to clear it, I walked over to the spot beside my bed where I always kept my old EMS bag—

Oh.

Oh, shit.

It wasn't here. Where was it? Where the fuck was my bag?! Not good, not good, not good!

Panicking, I immediately began tearing through the covers on my bed, searching in the bathroom, beneath the desk. It was nowhere to be found. The door had been open…someone had taken it? But who?

My heartbeat was escalating out of control. The Turks. They must've gotten suspicious and come in here to search my things—what would they think when they found my Earth identification? It was over. It was all over. They were going to—

I shook my head again. Stop thinking about it. There was still the monster to deal with; after that I could freak out, but the last thing I needed was for this thing to come kill me while I had a panic attack in here.

Bandages. I had some extras in one of my desk drawers. Not enough to redress the wound if it bled through, but this would have to suffice. Just something to stop him from dying. If Jace was hurt too, though…hopefully he wouldn't need these.

Taking a deep breath, I grabbed the bandages and ran back out the door.

Kunsel was waiting in the same spot when I returned. He nodded to me, taking the bandages and doing the best he could to dress the wound. Then he dragged Brad over to the door that led to the briefing room, leaving him just inside the antechamber where he would be out of harm's way.

"All right," he said. "Let's go track this thing down."

It didn't take long. We just followed the blood trails; there were a few other fallen SOLDIERs, but thankfully none of them were as badly wounded as Brad had been. We did our best to heal them up, and they told us which way they had seen the beast go.

"Be careful," one Third told us. "It's…it's way stronger than it looks."

"Noted," Kunsel replied. We nodded at each other and moved on.

Our search eventually led us to the hallway containing the Third Class barracks. There were slash marks along the walls. I shifted my grip on Kerberos, tensing. Somewhere…I could hear the sound of dragging footsteps…

A dark shadow appeared around the corner.

"There," Kunsel hissed, dropping into a battle-ready position.

We watched as the shadow grew, the footsteps becoming louder. I heard the sound of a long, low groan, and my blood ran cold. A groan? That wasn't what I had been expecting…it almost sounded familiar—

The monster came into view. I grew very still, shock flooding through me, threatening to shatter my composure.

It was a tall, exaggerated humanoid shape. Its forearms were too long, knuckles dragging along the ground as it walked. It had skin that was deep green in color, run through with sickly yellow veins. The digits on its hands and feet ended in sharp claws.

Exbelua.

Who?! My mind screamed. The single eye on the creature's head glowed blue with Mako. The veins clustered around a single point on the monster's hand, where a deep blue gem rested. My Exsphere.

Then I remembered how Brad had mentioned Jace. He hadn't been talking about Jace getting hurt, had he? He had meant…

The events that had surely transpired flashed through my mind as clearly as if I had been there. Jace, out for revenge, breaking into my room. Taking my bag. Snooping through my things. Picking up the Exsphere, having it fuse to his skin, foolishly trying to take it off—only to…to…

My first thought was that this was entirely my fault.

My second…

"What is that?" Kunsel murmured, watching as the monster drew closer. "I've never seen or heard about anything like it. It looks almost…is that a SOLDIER uniform it's wearing?!"

My second thought was a single, crystal-clear image of Genesis. The unicorn horn. What was and what could have been. In saving one life, I had damned another.

My fault.

I opened my mouth, couldn't find any words, and closed it again. What could I say? I knew exactly what this was, but couldn't explain how. Dread settled in my stomach. My sword suddenly felt immensely heavy.

"Looks like it," I said in a very quiet voice.

Kunsel shook his head. "I don't know what this is…but let's play it safe until the First gets here."

I nodded. The Exbelua—Jace—came closer and let out another groan, and I felt sick. He sounded like he was in pain. No, no, no…

Then he lifted one arm, drawing it back. I instinctively backed away, but my companion braced himself and lifted his sword. My eyes widened as a sudden thought hit me—an Exsphere on a SOLDIER. That explained why we needed a First…

"Kunsel!" I yelled frantically, but it was too late.

The Exbelua swung, hitting Kunsel so hard that he lost grip of his sword and went flying. He flew all the way to the other end of the hallway, hitting the wall hard enough to leave a mark. He slid to the floor, dazed.

Swearing, I turned back to Jace, noting squeamishly that the SOLDIER-issue blade was now embedded in his arm.

He lumbered closer. I knew he was going to attack again soon. What could I do? There was no cure. No cure without the unicorn horn. Was I just supposed to…

He swung again, and I jumped backwards to avoid the attack. Kunsel was still conscious, but gathering his bearings. I needed to hold Jace off while he recovered.

Gathering my resolve, I powered up a Fire spell and fed the magic into my sword. Then I swiped the blade out, delivering a fire-charged Demon Fang. It hit Jace dead on, but he just kept lumbering forward.

Another swing, this time with the wounded arm. I had to dodge out of the way as the sword came dislodged in a spray of blood, flying in a dangerous arc through the air. Kunsel rolled to the side just in time and avoided being hit with the blade as it collided with the wall behind him.

Gritting my teeth, I ducked under one of his attacks and thrust Kerberos out, catching it on the side and only managing a shallow cut. I winced when I saw the blood, feeling a stab of guilt—and then I was hit hard and slammed into the wall.

Jace loomed over me, and I understood then that I had intentionally missed, redirecting my sword so that the wound wouldn't be life threatening. I was being too soft and now I had put myself in a vulnerable position. He was going to kill me and I deserved it for letting this happen. Christ…

He was drawing back his arm, and I could see his long, deadly claws flex. It was over.

Then he froze. I heard running footsteps. One second he was about to kill me, and the next he was being hit with a wall of metal, being knocked back. Angeal was in front of me, twisting the Buster Sword to hit with the flat end of the blade, delivering a hard hit to the Exbelua's head. Jace screeched and stumbled backwards.

"Are you all right?" the SOLDIER asked without taking his eyes off his opponent.

"Fine," I croaked, getting to my feet. Kunsel caught up to us then, ripping his helmet off and throwing it to the floor. It had a dent and a large crack in the metal.

"Do you have any idea what this is, sir?" the Second asked, grimacing a little.

Angeal shook his head. "Not a clue. It has…SOLDIER eyes…?" His face darkened. "Could it be…"

He didn't finish the thought, instead straightening his posture and holding the Buster Sword vertically in front of him. He bowed his head to it, closing his eyes briefly. When he opened his eyes once more, they were hard.

"I'll take care of this," he said. "Kunsel, cover me if I need it. Brittany, tend to the wounded. When you're finished, I'm trusting you to report to Director Lazard and ensure his safety until this is over. Understood?"

"Yessir," I said. His tone left no room for argument, and there was no way I could argue without looking suspicious...but all I could think about was Jace. Nobody knew that was him. What if I left and Angeal—

I turned and ran. I ran away from the situation because I knew there was no other way it could end. There was no cure, and Jace was going to die. I had hated him, but this whole thing left me with an awful, sick feeling in my stomach.

…And despite my nausea, before I even entertained the thought of treating the wounded, my mind pounced on the idea of damage control. I sprinted for the opposite end of the Third Class barracks, where I knew Jace's room was, and where the slash marks on the wall started. His door was torn off completely, lying in a dented, crumpled heap on the floor twenty feet away.

I looked around, checking for cameras. There was one at the corner between hallways, but it wasn't pointed at me. I gritted my teeth and ran into Jace's room, immediately finding my bag and ripping it off the bed. A quick survey of the room revealed that nothing of mine seemed to be scattered around. Nodding to myself, I quickly left the scene and ran as fast as I could to where I knew Brad was lying unconscious.

For the next hour, I allowed my thoughts to be consumed entirely by what I was doing. I took SOLDIER after SOLDIER to the infirmary, throwing them over my shoulder and running at full speed. By the time the job was finally done, I was covered in other people's blood.

Of course, I wasn't done yet. I got on the elevator and pressed the button for the fifty-first floor. Time to report to Lazard…what a nightmare this day had become.

A/N: And of course, we all know that it's about to get worse, because OC Brit is forgetting one crucial thing here. B-) Not that there's much she can do about it at this point anyway!

Review and maybe I won't ship you off as a sample to the Science Department 8D

Next time: Debriefing. Turks. The war ends.