.

10. Turnip Boy and the Vampire Ninjas

.

It wasn't really a cabin, but it wasn't really a cave either. It was what you might get if a cabin and cave had an illicit love affair, produced an offspring and then abandoned it in the woods. The roof and floor were solid rock, providing shelter from the storm, if not heat to warm anyone inside. The front wall of wooden planks needed repairing, allowing Zack to see inside. The broken gaps in the back planks showed a tunnel that seemed to go on and on, deep into the labyrinth interior of the mountain.

If Zack could have, he would have whistled. Puzzling over who had made the place wasn't top priority right now, however. His acute senses told him it was long-abandoned and Alpha told him it was what they had been looking for.

Safe. Den.

How do you even know about this place if you've been stuck in the labs with me this whole time?

Alpha has knowledge of all alphas. Wolves live in mountains.There was no more explanation, as if this was all that was needed.

Zack sighed inwardly. This was far from the weirdest thing ever to happen to him, and far from the worst. The prospect of shelter was a tantalising one. Plus, he was eager to find out whether Alpha's promise held true, and he would be able to resume his human body once they were safe and he wasn't likely to die of frostbite.

The door opened with a jiggle of the latch. Zack nosed the gap carefully and closed it with a push of one hind paw. The furnishings were sparse and definitely opted for functionality over charm. The space was divided into two distinct areas, with a pallet-bed on one side and an old-fashioned stove on the other, its spout stretching up out of the ceiling like a submarine periscope. A pile of cut logs and twigs for kindling were stored in a sealed storage container to keep them from getting damp. A few quick sniffs also unearthed a closet with items of clothing inside. They smelled musty, as if they hadn't been worn in a long time, but still beat being buck naked in winter. A single pair of boots sat in the bottom, sturdy as stone but ugly as hell. They were men's boot, which begged the question: why was there a skirt next to the oilskin on the hangar above?

Zack shucked Cloud onto the pallet with difficulty and some very bendy moves. Glancing around and sniffing to make sure the scents here really were as old as they seemed, he mentally gathered himself.

I need to change back now.

Very cold. Alpha didn't disagree, but did call attention to this point. Fur is warmer.

Regardless, I … need to be me again. This would be the test. Last time he had forced the issue. Would Alpha keep the promise to relinquish this wolf form for Zack's human one?

In reply, Zack felt something unclench. His body suddenly loosened, as if suffering the after-effects of adrenaline or a muscle relaxant. He bent his head, things inside beginning to slurp and crunch. Wolves couldn't grit their teeth against pain, so when he could he knew his face had started to revert to human. He panted and whined, vocal chords some of the last things to turn back. It was intensely surreal to watch your snout turn back into nose and lips, to feel your fangs blunting and have colour return to your vision, and be more concerned with the fact your ass was bare and it was cold.

Zack swore as he scrambled for some of the clothes in the closet. They were either too big, too small or too female, so he opted for a mishmash based solely on fabric thickness and heat retention. He looked more like a hobo than not, but after years of living in a glass tube at someone else's behest, he could deal with that. He sighed in relief as he wrapped himself up in layers.

Shaking out tingly hands, Zack turned his attention to Cloud. Cloud hadn't moved since being dumped on the pallet. His hands were still linked together, as they had been to stop him falling off while Zack loped across the countryside. He stared at the ceiling, blinking slowly. His skin seemed even paler than it had in captivity. Picking out items from what was left in the closet, Zack crossed the room and manhandled his friend into a sitting position.

"C'mon, Cloud. Have some decency, huh?"

Cloud's head flopped onto his chest; a chest that didn't rise or fall. If he hadn't kept up that blinking, Zack would have thought him really dead.

He is dead, thought a traitorous bit of his brain. Cloud's a vampire, remember? Ergo, deader than a doornail but still walking around. Zack shook him. Cloud didn't respond. Just without the walking around part.

"What did they do to you, buddy?"

Cloud didn't reply.

Don't freak out, Zack told himself sternly. Stay practical. Take this situation one step at a time. You broke out. You got away. You found a hiding place. You're back to being human. You're dressed. Next, dress Cloud. Find or make a heat source so you don't freeze to death. Figure out everything else after that. Don't focus too long on the big picture. Stick to the small stuff first.

Good plan,Alpha agreed.

Zack paused in raising Cloud's arms to wiggle a shirt over his head. He swallowed, mouth dry. "Thank you." Thank you. He thought and said the words in tandem, not knowing which would be better now he could talk using his mouth.

Alpha looks after own pack.

"Not for that. For … changing me back."

Not Alpha's work. Zack turned for own self. Alpha's strength and body, but Zack's own power.

Zack wasn't sure he understood, but there was lots he didn't understand; like exactly who or what Alpha was. He pushed that thought away and went back to focussing on immediate matters.

When he had finished dressing his friend, Cloud looked even more like a hobo than Zack himself did. even so, Zack tilted his head and nodded, satisfied at his handiwork. He reached out on impulse and smoothed Cloud's damp hair off his forehead. Cloud wasn't sweaty, but he gave off no body-heat to dry his hair after being outside in the snow. His skin was cold to the touch.

"This is going to be tough," Zack murmured.

He had to alter his way of thinking to compensate until Cloud was back on his feet. Even then, Cloud wouldn't be the guy Zack had known before Hojo took them. Zack was used to thinking of vampires as enemies. It was ingrained into him; every encounter he had ever had with a vampire was adversarial. Yet Cloud was still Cloud. He wasn't some blood-sucking leech bent on slaughtering people.

Zack remembered things that had happened in the labs; things both he and Cloud had been put through; things that had been done to them, or that they had seen done to each other. He recalled Cloud's reactions when they had dragged Zack out of his tube and tried to force him to shapeshift however they could. Cloud had battered his fists bloody against his tube, and actually cracked the glass before they got him under control. By the end of that session, Zack had found it difficult to tell which side of the glass had more blood on it. Nobody who reacted with that kind of anger and grief could be the kind of creature Zack had spent his career eradicating. Vampires were remorseless predators. Cloud was still Cloud.

Or he had been, until they broke him. Now he wasn't a predator, but he wasn't Cloud anymore either. He was a vegetable.

Zack shook his head. Stop that. He'll recover. Remember how he latched onto you when you broke him out? He responded to the situation. That's a good sign. He's still in there; he's still Cloud, he's just gone inside himself for a while. You hear stories about people who cope with traumatic events by going into a vegetative state. It doesn't mean they're actually vegetables.

"You're a temporary veggie," he said out loud. "I'll call you Turnip Boy until you wake up and tell me not to."

Faith good, said Alpha. Different strength still strength.

"Yeah." Zack's throat bobbed. His mouth didn't seem any less dry despite the compulsive swallowing. I just hope it's enough.

Zack had seen blood before, but it had never seemed as red as the stuff coming out of Angeal. He fought the urge to throw up. SOLDIERs didn't throw up on the battlefield. They didn't throw up at all, but especially not on the battlefield.

"It's okay," he said, fumbling in his pack. If he could just find his Phoenix Feather, this could be fixed up in a jiffy. Every SOLDIER was issued with one in case of emergency. This definitely counted. "Just hold still, Angeal and let me –"

"Get down!" Angeal shoved him aside.

Zack hit the dirt. It wasn't a good landing. Air whooshed from his lungs. First-year cadets could have done better. He scrambled back to his feet, but Angeal's sword was already clanging against those of the Wutaian guerrillas who had leapt out of the trees. Angeal grunted in a combination of pain and effort. Meeting the blow that would have taken off Zack's head meant he had released the hold he'd had on his stomach wound. Blood poured forth, streaming down his uniform and onto the ground. He whipped around, decapitating one opponent and moving onto the next in a single move, but a bloody trail marked his progress.

Zack yanked his own sword from the magnetic brace strapped across his back. Mimicking Angeal's swing, he waded into the fray. He managed to reach his mentor so they could adopt their tried and tested back-to-back stance, which let them protect each other while cutting chunks out of any enemy who approached. Since they were both skilled, if not exactly parallel in combat-experience, this usually worked to finish fights quickly. This time, however, Zack was acutely aware of every move and sound Angeal made – including the splash and drip of blood and sweat that only a SOLDIER's enhanced hearing could pick up.

This was supposed to be a simple mission. For a long time, Shinra had harboured suspicions that the Wutaian royal court had secretly been infiltrated by vampires, but there had been no proof. The royal family themselves were human – they went out in daylight, ate regular food and didn't need to disguise red eyes that even shone through coloured contact lenses – but several top-ranking members of their court had fallen to the virus. Those vampires had executed an equally secret coup, according to intelligence agents Shinra had dispatched overseas, and were mobilising the Wutaian army to start a war that would, they planned, not kill a single adversary, but instead infect them and so spread the vampire disease exponentially. Zack and Angeal were part of a covert team to locate and cut off the head of the snake – easier said than done when dealing with a nation that had already been ninjas before they were vampires.

"Vampire ninjas?" Zack had said when presented with the mission brief. When Angeal didn't laugh too, he had followed up with a disbelieving, "Are they serious?"

"Never underestimate the unbelievability of the truth."

"This isn't unbelievable; it's just incredibly bizarre – like something out of a late night B-movie."

Except that the blood hitting the ground right now wasn't ketchup and the screams weren't part of a pre-recorded soundtrack. You could train very day for ten years and it wouldn't prepare you for real combat – not really. The smell was the worst thing. Zack's super-sensitive nose was filled with the scents of mouldy leaf litter, gore and … gunpowder?

"Bomb!" he yelled as he added two and two together to get an explosive four. "Angeal, get –"

The world lit up bright white. Moments later, Zack felt the impact. It was like being hit by a train. The force slammed into him, lifting him of his feet. He was already in the air before the noise arrived, late to the party but no less deafening. Zack lost all sense of time and place. Moments telescoped into hours. Then reality crashed back around him in a flurry of movement too frenetic and scattered for even his senses to track. He smacked against a tree and slid to the ground, dazed, as bits of foliage and other debris thumped down around him. His ears rang and spots danced before his eyes as his spine screamed and his whole body shuddered with the aftermath of being caught in the blast.

"Angeal …" he murmured. His voice sounded like he was speaking through layers of wet cotton wool. His lips were bleeding, filling his mouth with the taste of blood. He swallowed it and tried to get up. Would vampire senses be as badly affected by an explosion? "An … ge …al …" He coughed on another mouthful of blood. Apparently he had bitten right through his cheek and loosened some teeth. His gums were bleeding and his hairline was also wet and sticky. One cheek stung like his knees used to when he fell over and skinned them on the dirt roads around Gongaga.

How close had he been to the bomb? He hadn't seen the actual thing, just felt its effects. Maybe that meant it had gone off too early. Maybe the vampires had done the job and offed themselves. Maybe –

No such luck.

Someone gripped Zack's shoulder and roughly dragged him to his feet. Zack swayed, forced to brace one hand on the tree that had nearly snapped his spine. The bark was knobbly and strafed with gashes that oozed sap where debris had slashed past. A piece of corrugated metal had dug into the trunk. It was smoking. Zack realised that it was part of a headband Wutaian warriors traditionally wore to identify their clans and ranks. He hadn't kept hold of his sword, which he also realised at that moment. He raised his fists, trying to look threatening and thinking about the stakes on his belt and boots. Could he whip them out before a vamp bit him?

"Idiotic child."

The voice was as welcome as it was unanticipated. Zack squinted at the blurry outline walking away from him. "Genesis?" He had never been glad to see the man before. It was a new and disconcerting sensation.

All around them was a web of destruction. Things hung from the trees, strips of stringy … something-or-other stretched between them. Zack had made taffy with his mother once, before she realised he was a menace in the kitchen. The saltwater candy stretched and bowing between his hands and his mother's came back to his mind now. Except that the taffy had been rolled in flour to stop it sticking to their hands, so it hadn't dripped like the streamers on these broken and leaning trees.

Genesis knelt next to something on the ground. With a sickening lurch, Zack understood what it was, and also what was scattered around them. The smell of gore lay thicker than ever under the scent of burning, as dismembered body-parts caught light from the forest around them. The damage he saw as his vision cleared was not the kind inflicted by an explosion, but the kind dispensed by a blade and a righteous fury. Zack squinted at the taffy-things, and then had to look away. The discarded face of a dead Wutaian stared up at him from the ground. There was nothing else; just his face, set forever in a rictus of fear. He may have been a vampire, but he had died in agony. Zack's gorge rose. He locked his legs to stop himself from falling to his knees.

Genesis said something to Angeal. Zack's breath caught, but released when his mentor replied haltingly. Angeal was alive!

And Genesis had done this. He had attacked those vampires. Had he caused the explosion? Surely not, if the way he was tending Angeal now was anything to go by. He wouldn't have put his friend in the way of a blast like that.

He had attacked the vampires, though, and in only a few minutes he had literally ripped them apart. Angeal's style of fighting – and Zack's by corollary – was to end battles quickly and cleanly. He had spent months getting Zack to perfect victories in a single sword slice or a single stake stab, and spent extra time making sure Zack could throw a stake using his SOLDIER strength to punch through a ribcage and pierce a vampire's heart from a distance.

Genesis punched the ground with that same strength, his voice rising. Zack had never witnessed Genesis's fighting style before this. He was almost glad. This wasn't combat; it was carnage. How could a man show that kind of concern for his friend and also be capable of this? It just didn't add up. Genesis didn't add up.

"I told you!" Genesis snapped. "But would you listen?"

Angeal said something that only seemed to enrage him.

"Their fight isn't ours! You'd sacrifice yourself for them, and for what? They don't even know who you are! You're just another tool to them. They don't know what you'd be throwing away! And if they did, they probably wouldn't care!"

Angeal coughed. There must have been words in it, since Genesis replied in a voice tight with fury.

"I came looking for you, of course. Their rules mean nothing to me. Not anymore."

Angeal coughed wetly. Genesis cursed.

"This is the last time, old friend." What should have been a term of endearment instead came out as a sneer. "I told you I wouldn't die with you, but I'll give you once last chance to live along with me." He pressed both palms flat against Angeal's upturned chest.

Zack focussed and nearly threw up for real. Angeal's breastplate was mangled, bits of torn flesh melted into the metal. He hadn't been able to distinguish the level of damage before, thanks to a thin layer of black dust, but sharp white ribs poked through at different angles. Angeal's wet coughs made much more sense now. It was a miracle he was alive at all, let alone able to talk. Could a Phoenix Feather cure that? Zack took a juddering step, looking for his pack before thinking that it must have been destroyed in the explosion too –

Angeal gasped. Zack took another few steps towards his mentor, but stopped as a soft glow filled the crater. It was nothing like the bright light from before. The hairs on the back of Zack's neck stood on end. His mouth fell open as Genesis's hands flared white, then blue, then a colour too hard to look at. Angeal gasped out a word. It sounded like 'no', or maybe 'don't', but something like static electricity washed over Zack, blotting out everything. He tried to fight it, but it was too strong.

He awoke on his side. The blood on his face and in his hair had dried. He sat up, then rolled sideways and immediately threw up. Dragging a wrist across his mouth and breathing hard, he looked around. He was still in the crater, still surrounded by the destruction of the bomb and Genesis's attack, but the small fires had either burned out or been doused.

"Angeal!" Zack spun to where he had been laying, but there was nobody there. Both Angeal and Genesis were gone. "No, no, no," Zack mumbled, clambering woozily to his feet. He stumbled a little, but managed to turn in a small circle until his gaze came to rest on a figure just inside the tree-line. "Angeal? Angeal!"

The figure turned. It was Angeal, alive and whole and … wait a second. Zack stopped. Angeal's breastplate had been removed. It lay where he had before, still twisted beyond repair and coated with dry blood. It had been warped right into Angeal's body. No way could it have been extracted and Angeal's chest be as whole and uninjured as what Zack was looking at. Even a SOLDIER's enhanced healing would have taken days, weeks, maybe even months to heal a wound like that, if it could have healed it at all. A vampire's healing ability, on the other hand …

Zack backed off. He wished he had his sword. Spying the short curved blade Wutaian ninjas used, he snatched it up from the ground and held it out. It wasn't a sword, but it was better than nothing. He also got out a stake of his own, saw it had been splintered, tossed it and took out another one. This one was fine and he gripped it tight.

"Please don't be a vamp," he prayed softly. "Don't be infected. Not you. Don't be infected. I can't stake you. I can't –"

"Zack." It was Angeal's voice, but filled with a tiredness Zack had never heard from him before. It was more than just physical exhaustion. "It's fine. I'm not a vampire."

Zack swallowed. "Prove it." He remembered his lessons. Vamps were wily. They tried to trick you however they could, especially if they had known you while they were alive. He shut out images of his father, but a few slivers leaked through. He couldn't do it again. He couldn't face down someone he was close to and see the bloodlust in their eyes as the virus twisted their genes into unnatural shapes. "Prove to me you're not infected."

Angeal took a step.

Zack brandished the blade. "Stop right there!"

Angeal held up his hands. "I'm unarmed." It was true; the Buster Sword, which he always carried, was no longer on his back.

Zack frowned. "Where's your sword?"

"On the ground." Angeal nodded to the side of Zack. "Just over there."

Zack risked a glance. Indeed, the sword was there. He looked back at Angeal, who hadn't moved a muscle. Zack's eyes narrowed. "How come you're not injured anymore?"

"Genesis did it," Angeal said simply.

"He used Phoenix Feather?"

Angeal shook his head, but didn't offer further explanation.

"What was that weird light?"

Angeal hesitated.

"What was it?" Zack's voice rose despite himself. The traumas of the last few hours weighed heavily on him, creating hairline cracks beneath his surface. This was his first combat as a Second Class. It was nothing like the missions he had been sent on as a Third Class. Right now, he could have happily quite SOLDIER altogether, if it meant never being in this sort of situation again. "Tell me!"

"His special talent," Angeal replied. "Or one of them."

"What?"

"He used some of his own life force to heal me." Angeal's eyes lowered. "I was dying, Zack. He saved my life."

"He … what?" Zack had never heard of anything like that before. "People can do that?"

"He can."

Something niggled at the back of Zack's brain; a half-forgotten memory of long ago, when he first met Angeal. "Can you?"

Another hesitation, though shorter this time. "I used to. I don't have the strength anymore."

Zack stared at him, this man who had come to mean so much to him in a relatively short time. Zack knew he had craved a parental figure since the vampires destroyed his family and home, but more than that, he had longed for a friend and confidante. Angeal seemed to fulfil all those roles. His respect and approval had come to mean more to Zack than anything else. He relied on the stability Angeal brought to his life. This threatened that, and something deep within Zack rebelled at the idea. It brought down shutters in his mind, refusing to let him contemplate the idea that Angeal could be more or less than he seemed. Angeal was Angeal. As long as he was still the Angeal Zack knew, not a vampire, then that was good enough.

"Are you human?" Zack asked bluntly.

This time there was no hesitation. "Yes."

"Still?"

"Yes, Zack, I'm human."

Slowly, Zack edged forward. He didn't need to be right next to Angeal; just close enough for his superior sight to see …

"You don't have red eyes," Zack sighed with relief. "And you have a pulse." He could see the vein in Angeal's exposed neck, beating rhythmically below the surface of his skin. "You're alive." Finally, the pressure weighing on Zack broke through. He dropped to his knees, not thinking about how there might be other ninjas in the forest, drawn by the noise; or that anything else horrible could happen to them today. "You're alive, Angeal."

Angeal swept over and put his hands on Zack's shoulder, shaking him slightly. "Yes, I'm alive, Zack. Don't you space out on me." He stared into Zack's eyes. "Your pupils are dilated. That's to be expected. Concentrate on the sound of my voice, Puppy."

"Don't … call me … that." Angeal shook his shoulders some more. Zack bent his neck, realising that it wasn't Angeal, but him. His whole body shook, as if in the middle of an epileptic fit. "What about … Genesis?"

"He's gone," Angeal said.

Zack shook his head. "But later, what about –"

"No, Zack, he's gone. He deserted."

"Deserted … Shinra?"

Angeal nodded, anguish in his face. So many emotions that Zack had never seen in him before today. "He's gone," he said again. "For good."

Zack watched him. "He asked you to go with him, didn't he?"

Angeal nodded again.

"But you didn't."

"No, I didn't."

"Why not?"

"Because, although Genesis and I once agreed about most things, our beliefs have grown with us over time, and it seems they've grown in different directions."

"But you're … friends. He … saved … your life." Zack's teeth were chattering. He dropped the blade and stake, wrapping his arms around his middle. "I'm so cold …"

"You're going into shock," Angeal said briskly. "PTS, probably. Come on, Puppy. We need to get you to medical attention."

"But Genesis –"

"Made his choice." Angeal hauled Zack to his feet, pulling one arm over his shoulders and around the back of his neck, so as to support him as they both walked. For a man who had been dying only a short time ago, he was now the pillar of strength while Zack crumbled – again. "And I made mine."

Zack didn't say another word as they stumbled off into the forest, stopping only for Angeal to pick up the Buster Sword.

"Here," he said, attaching it to Zack's magnetic brace. "My harness isn't much use anymore. You carry it and I'll help carry you. Just you make sure you look after it. That sword is very special."

"A gift from your family?" Zack remembered some story about relatives and sacrifice in order for Angeal to get the sword.

"Something like that."

.

To Be Continued …

.