Chapter 12: Evacuation Order

Previously on LOTHK: Book 3 - Rise of a Legend

"Hey blondie!" came a familiar voice. Naruto and Kyuubi turned to see Cid grinning at them. "We're back!"

"We?" asked Naruto before Nanaki, Yuffie, Barret, Cloud, Aeris, Tifa, Gaara, Nibi and Vincent walked onto the bridge.

"Hey guys!" Naruto welcomed. "You ready to kick some serious ass?"

"Hell yeah!" roared Barret enthusiastically.

"Well then, let's go!" shouted Naruto as Cid fired up the engines and throttled forward.

Or he would of if Cait Sith hadn't called for a halt at the top of his lungs.

"What?" growled Barret impatiently.

"I need your help first," said the mechanical feline.

"With what?" asked Aeris.

"With evacuating the top of Midgar," replied Cait.

There was a silence before Naruto spoke up. "He's right, you know. Those people will be in extreme danger if Holy's late to the party. Who knows what kind of devastation Meteor could cause if it gets close to the city."

Everyone seemed to ponder on this. "Well then we have no choice. We need to do this first before going to the crater," said Cloud. Everyone nodded.

Cid sighed. "Ok, I guess we're turning around back to Midgar."

The sky over Midgar was black and stormy. Flashes of lightning and thunder chased one another over the city. The wind howled and rushed strongly through the streets. All the reactors had been shut down. And ever present was Meteor. You couldn't actually see the rock, but what was seen was the red energy created from the contact of the spell with the atmosphere. The sight was ominous, as the tip of Meteor was poking through the storm clouds. There wasn't much time.

As soon as the group had arrived at Midgar, parking the airship on the highway that they used to escape from less than a few weeks ago, they had met Reeve Tuesti face to face. The 35 year old man was quite concerned for the citizens of Midgar, and it showed on his face.

"It's nice to finally meet you Reeve," said Naruto, holding out his hand. Reeve hesitated before smiling faintly and grasping the offered hand.

"Likewise, however we need to move. I realise that we are short on time before we need to act on the Northern Crater so we'll split off. Each one of us will be commanding a large platoon of men from MEMA (Midgar Emergency Management Agency) and then we'll sweep the plate, direct the evacuees onto transports and fly them down to the slums below." As he finished, twenty or so large land based transports drove up to stop behind the ex-Shinra executive. Following behind was 60 large air transports and in front of them was a single, black helicopter with the Shinra logo emblazed on the side. The chopper landed down between Reeve and the land transports. Then the doors opened and out jumped Reno, Rude, Elena and Tseng.

"Hey, told you they'd come," drawled Reno in his usual laid back tone. All of us tensed and readied for battle but Reeve waved his hand out. "Don't worry. They're with me. They are going to help with the evacuation order."

"What he said," said Rude, looking calm and collected as usual.

"Yeah, we're gonna help. Shinra is essentially dissolved so now we work for Reeve," explained Elena. Tseng just nodded.

Naruto dismissed his sword, as motion that everyone copied. "Very well. It's good to have you on board," Naruto said before he charged up some chakra and visualised a special group of foxes in his mind before slamming his hand onto the ground and calling out, "Kuchiyose no Jutsu: Scouting Party!" There was a small, but expansive puff of smoke, which was quickly blown away by the strong winds. In front of Naruto were 20 small, two-tailed foxes of varying dark colours. The one in front, a dark grey one, walked up to Naruto and bowed his head, which the others copied. The front one lifted his head and spoke.

"Good evening Taichou. I am Saito and am the Capitan of this scout party. What is your command?"

"No scouting will be done today, but I need your sense of smell. We need to evacuate all those on top of this city. You are needed to find anyone who may be hiding from this storm. Will you accept this mission?" Asked Naruto, hoping that they wouldn't be insulted to be demoted to simple doghounds. But to his surprise, the grey one nodded and smiled. "My force would be glad to help out. This isn't our first 'search and rescue' mission. We will carry this mission out with pride. What is the plan?"

"One of you will be placed on a team that consists of one of my friends and a platoon of men to sweep their designated area. Each of you is to help locate anyone in your area. We can't leave anyone behind! That is all," ordered Naruto in his commander voice.

"Hai!" barked Saito before he ran back to his squad and relayed the orders.

"Ok, now we need nineteen groups," said Naruto. Ignoring the awed looks from Reno and his group, he counted how many squad leaders there were. Including Kyuubi and Nibi, there were 18 people.

"Shit! We're one short," muttered Naruto before he realised that he could just summon one more fox. Again he gathered his chakra and visualised on a specific fox.

"Kuchiyose no Jutsu: Starscream!" Again there was a puff of smoke, but it wasn't Starscream who walked out of the smoke. It looked like him, but he had golden eyes instead of purple ones. That, and he was a five-tailed fox.

"Taichou," said the newcomer as he bowed. "I am sorry but my little brother is currently busy so I'm filling in for him. My name is Starkiller and I'm honoured to serve under you."

Naruto nodded. "Very well Starkiller. You're to command a search and rescue team. You up for it?"

"I would be delighted, however a past injury has dampened my sense of smell considerably," explained Starkiller.

"Not to worry. A scout specialist under the command of Saito will go with you," assured Naruto. The five tailed fox bowed again. "Very well."

"Ok, Reeve. How many men have you?" asked Naruto.

"I have 50 in each land transport," explained Reeve.

"Perfect. OK people, this is what we're going to do. Each of us is going to command 50 troops to aid in the evacuation. Three air transports will be assigned to each of you. Eighteen of us will actually be searching while Reeve sets up a medical and operation base in the slums to serve as an LZ. Each team will be codenamed Team 1 to 18 with Reeve's team codenamed Home team." Naruto then paused in his orders to look at Saito. "Do you have a form of communication between yourselves?"

Saito nodded and lifted his head back so that Naruto could see the thin collar around his neck. "All my subordinates have these on for communication."

"Very well," said Naruto before going back to addressing the whole team. "When your team has finished their sweep, radio Home Team via your assigned scout. Saito will be with Home Team to make it easier. Is everyone clear on the plan?" He received nods from all around. "Then let's get busy!"

From there three teams were assigned to Sector 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 as 7 was gone and 8 never finished completion. Naruto, Kyuubi and Vincent were assigned to Sector 1. Reno, Gaara and Nibi to Sector 2. Cid, Barret and Cait Sith were on Sector 3. Rude, Tifa and Aeris were on Sector 4. Starkiller, Cloud and Nanaki were assigned to Sector 5. Tseng, Elena and Yuffie were on the last Sector, no.6. Each team was then given 50 men from MEMA and a fox scout. As soon as everyone was ready, each team commandeered three air transports and spread out across Midgar while Reeve and his team readied the LZ.

After about four hours into the evacuation, Yuffie, Vincent and Naruto were finishing up their areas. They were the last three teams. However they hit a slight problem.

"Team 18's all done here! How bout you?" asked Yuffie through her scout's communicator.

"Team 1 is finished!" announced Naruto.

"Team 3 is done," said Vincent. "But Yuffie. I want you to check the Mako Cannon."

"But we already..." Yuffie trailed off as she scanned the cannon and was shocked to see that there was one life form on top of the cannon. "W-what?" she exclaimed.

"Just as I thought," was all Vincent said.

"Hold on! This is crazy! There's no way anyone could be up there. No!" And she was right. The whole area was the worst off as high speed winds and lightning heavily grinded against the cannon.

"Yuffie, rendezvous with Naruto and the others. It looks like I still have some work to do." At this point Vincent stopped transmitting.

"Wait!" called Yuffie but it was too late.

"Don't worry Yuffie. I'll go get him. You head to the LZ," said Naruto before he also cut his transmission.

"Vincent... Naruto... get out of there! I have a bad feeling about this!" Yuffie called into the air before she stepped onto her transporter and flew off to Reeve.

Vincent ran up flight after flight of stairs., the same ones he and the rest of the team had scaled to get to the control section. The wind got stronger and stronger the further he went up. Eventually he reached the top and saw a sight he thought he would never see again. A man with greasy, slick black hair, wearing a dirty lab coat, slowly typing away at the controls.

"Hojo!" muttered Vincent angrily before he drew Cerberus and angled the gun at the scientist. He was just about to fire before a lightning bolt struck a large tower above him. Vincent was almost blasted off the walkway from the explosion. He looked up to see that Hojo had disappeared from the console. He wasn't anywhere on the platform.

Vincent stood up straight and surveyed around him before he caught sight of a secondary explosion. One that sent a very large piece of heavy piping straight for him.

"Vincent!" called a person, and the red eyes man turned to see Naruto racing toward him on an air speeder. There was one in each air transport. Vincent quickly ran to the edge and jumped off, before grabbing Naruto and holding onto him as they sped away from the ruin behind them.

None of them noticed the monitor where Hojo was typing away, flash several words on the display.

Start -

- fragment program

"Damnit Vincent! At least wait for me next time!" yelled Naruto as they descended through the ruined remains of Sector 7.

"Sorry, but Hojo was there," announced Vincent.

"What? Hojo? Didn't we own him already?" asked Naruto, confused.

"I thought we did," was the answer he received.

"Well did you finish him off?" Naruto asked.

"I didn't get a chance to. The whole structure was falling apart around me. The next moment, he disappeared," said Vincent.

"Great! That's all we need. Ho-fricking-jo running around, causing destruction and mayhem once again," said Naruto sarcastically. "Maybe we'll get lucky and he'll die in the ensuing storm."

"Maybe," was all Vincent said as they landed at the LZ located near the Sector 6 playground. The place was packed. People running to and fro, trying to help everyone. Naruto spotted Saito and walked over to him.

"Saito! Is everyone in?" asked Naruto.

"All 18 teams have been accounted for," reported the fox.

"Good. You and your subordinates may return now," said Naruto.

"Yes Taichou," Saito replied before he, his team and Starkiller returned to the summoning realm.

"Hey there!" called a voice and Naruto turned to see the rest of his friends walk over.

"We'll rest here for tonight. We need to help set up shelters for these people and everyone's bound to be a little tired after that. We'll set out for the Northern Crater tomorrow," announced Naruto. Everyone agreed on this before they all spread out to help out.