Draco: Man, I severely underestimated how hard thirty extra levels is.

Final Fantasy Type-0 © Square Enix

Fangs of Retaliation

=Gelumens XXII, 841 RG=
Encampment for Militesi renegade V&W Faction
Berith Desert

The Gamma team was all lying against the desert sands, in a three-pronged formation straight ahead of the gate. Cater's original idea for 'Classmates who can move fast' proved extraordinarily unnecessary with the single-file gate that the camp had, and the Camouflage Cloaks had a bit of a shorter range than Cater had thought; consequently, her plan for having Eight and Nine flank any outgoings and keeping her magicite pistol trained on the gate turned into the two of them lying about three paces to either side while they kept low to minimize the noticeability of their movement-ripples.

Unfortunately, lying against something hot makes it harder to notice when you feel something hot.

Cinque's idea for keeping the newly-dispersed soldiers busy had worked brilliantly. All the renegades in one place when the automated weapons started firing was wreaking havoc like nothing Class Zero had done before. Cater found herself giggling when she saw supersoldiers making panicky retreats into the guntowers. "That let a coeurl in the flan's nest," she observed.

"Yeah, pity the flans, yo," Nine dismissed. "Now what?"

"Now we wait," Eight mused, rising on one knee to get a better look. "If Sice can't be there to deal with them herself, they're gonna start thinking-"

Cater's reflexive turn towards someone talking strategy made her double-take when she realized she could see Eight. "Wha-? We're visible!"

Nine glanced at his sleeves - his cloak was the one on. "Oh, damn, yo!"

Unfortunately, the patrol noticed them, too; half a second passed before the Striker fired a pair of missiles at them, causing the Gamma team to break ranks as the projectiles landed all of half a meter from where Cater had been lying. The blast was close enough to throw Cater's pistol out of her hands, and the troopers were charging them; Nine leapt forward, his spear aiming for one soldier as Eight landed a nasty set of punches on the other; the soldier managed to tank the melee and loose a few wild shots that caused the brawler to hop away.

Nine's target had dodged his leap outright and was charging Cater; before the ranger could recall her weapon, he was bearing down on her, the bayonet on his gun slicing the straps on her magicite pack. She managed to kick him away, her pistol reappearing in her hand as she scrambled to her feet and fired.

The weapon gave an ineffectual click.

Cater glanced down to see her pack lying on the ground.

The Militesi renegade acted first, grabbing the pack and throwing it aside before Cater could whip her pistol across his jaw. The other trooper, trapped between Eight and Nine, was felled in short order, and the brawler quickly extracted the soldier's phantoma. Nine saw the other soldier coming and tried to hurl his lance at him, but a sideways tumble meant the attack nearly struck Cater; the trooper quickly charged into the camp, shouting, "Close the gate!"

"Stop him!" Cater shouted. "He's got my pack!"

"What?" Nine recalled his lance as he turned to the closing gate. "Not on my watch, hey!"

Cater quickly triggered the phantoma link. "This is Gamma! We've got trouble! One of the renegades took my magicite pack!"

Deuce came through on the link, sounding panicked; "This is Phi! They've captured Ace!"

"Shit," Sice muttered through the link. "Eta, inside. Covert's out the bag, let's murderize 'em!"

"Hey!" Nine had managed to get his spear braced between the gates. "Get in here!"

Eight and Cater quickly charged the gates. "What's your score on Mother's unarmed simulator?" the brawler asked.

Cater turned to him, disgusted. "Are you kidding me?!"

"Then you're gonna have to grab the Tiger's guns and start counting," Eight insisted. "Last time I saw a whole volley, they've got twenty shots to a clip. And watch for the recoil."

They quickly ducked under the lance holding the gates. Jack, Queen, and Trey rounded the corner just as the brace slipped; remembering that the charge only went through the gate when it was properly closed, Nine got the head of the weapon in the way of one of the locking mechanisms as the Eta team got close. "Climb it, yo," Nine insisted.

"What about you?" Queen demanded as Jack started climbing.

"Eight's going for Cater's bag, and she's boned without her 'cite, hey," Nine insisted. "That means I gotta watch the perimeter. If they try and deploy with Class Zero rainin' down on 'em, that's news to me, yo, but I'm still gonna break 'em for trying."

"Alright," Trey mused, letting Queen start ahead of him. "Good luck."

"Same to you, hey."

+x+x+x+

With covert no longer ideal, Omicron team getting through the electric fence maze consisted of finding the fewest fences for King to blow a magazine at. Detonating the remaining interior diversion kept the renegades off the gates long enough for Eight and Cater to chase the Militesi who had her bag, but Jack and Queen quickly had their hands full cutting through soldiers. Trey found himself on the rooftops to snipe troopers with his bow as the two of them started slicing through, but it wasn't long before the soldiers noticed that there was someone on the roof and tried to deal with him; a mis-aimed leap had Trey falling through the same roof that Cinque had used to her advantage, leaving him separated from the others.

Queen's quick thrusts were skewering soldiers left and right, and Jack's precise swings had renegades falling in short order; but there's only so much that two fighters can do, and it wasn't long before they were cornered in the fence maze.

"If we could null the charge on the electric fences, it would be a simple matter to cut through them," Queen observed.

"Hey, you're the one who's got the skills for Thunder magic," Jack protested with a chuckle. "Why don't you try zapping them, I'll cover you."

He quickly parried an off-shot bullet from one of the troopers, lashing out with a lunging counter-slash as Queen turned to the fences. The charge originated from a power source in the corner of each warehouse, and with a mutter of "That just might work..." the fencer prepared her magic.

Jack realized too late that she had taken his joke as legitimate advice. "What?!"

He glanced over his shoulder at the same time she loosed the blast; SHG-class magic had range enough to hit the fence and the source at once, and before Queen could step away, they reacted - violently. A discharge that looked like Thunder BOM threw Queen straight across and into the opposing fence, which shocked her with enough force to throw her to the ground; Jack quickly hurled his katana into the rush of soldiers and rushed to the fencer's side. "Queen! Are you alright?"

It was like clouds had been cast over the blazing sun; the area around Queen went dark, and she slowly forced herself to her feet, grasping her sword such that the blade was in line with her arm, and when she spoke, her voice was ridged with a growl.

"You'll regret that...!"

Jack leapt back as she charged at the oncoming soldiers; it was a shower of blood as she whirled through them, blade in hand, every swing leaving a renegade dead, and all that Jack could do was wait until she was clear and extract the phantoma from the corpses left in her wake.

"Shit..."

+x+x+x+

Cater and Eight arrived at the training hall to find Deuce and Cinque coming around the northern corner. "You guys see where the guy with my bag went?" Cater asked.

"The only place he could have gone was to the leader's base," Deuce insisted. "But we can't get in there."

"What do you mean?" Eight demanded.

Cinque pointed at the southern corner. "There's hundreds of MAs that way, twenty dozen auto shooters that way," - here she pointed at the northern corner, "and this one's full of soldiers!"

"Hey, you!" Everyone turned to see a supersoldier standing with his rifle levelled on them. "Hands up!"

Eight wasted no time in charging at him with all the speed he had, landing a solid kick that left his gun behind before he could pull the trigger. Eight quickly kicked the weapon towards Cater as the renegade got sparked off an electric fence; Cater grabbed the weapon as he hit the ground, rifling through the guy's pockets until she found a spare clip.

"Alright, this'll work," she mused. "Is that door locked?"

A rattle of the doorknob told Cinque the answer was yes. Deuce quickly drew her flute, playing a very high-pitched note; in no time at all, a shock trooper threw the door open, leaving Eight to slug him across the jaw. The room inside was full of soldiers, just as Cinque had claimed; Cater quickly raised the Militesi rifle with a straight-armed grip as the only three soldiers with firearms and a clear shot took aim.

One bullet struck a soldier through the bridge of his goggles.

Another hit the one next to him through the neck.

Still another tore through the next guy's mouth.

Cater quickly ejected the clip, kicking it into the training hall as she loaded the next one.

Then she charged in, both hands on the gun, firing eight shots at everyone with a firearm of their own - closest to the center first. A bunch of shock troopers went for strikes with their thunderhatchets as she got into melee range - and met an unpleasant surprised when she turned the rifle sideways and used the recoil of five consecutive shots to throw herself into a spin as she swept between them. A couple supersoldiers rushed towards her, but Cater leapt into the air with a spinning flip as she launched three shots at them; then she landed, hopping back as she fired at the magazine she had kicked in - and causing it to blast, taking out everyone left.

Deuce, Cinque, and Eight all had their mouths open as she tossed the gun aside, turning to her classmates as she did so.

"You were right about that recoil."

Eight chuckled, shaking his head. "Hate to admit it," he mused, "but that looked pretty awesome."

"Finally gonna admit that weapons are worth something?"

Deuce and Cinque both spun at Jack's comment, but the brawler only let his smirk fade into a sideways glare. Not even turning around to face the class clown, the brawler snapped, "I said that what Cater did looked awesome."

Cinque looked around. "Where's Queensy and Tre-Tre?" she asked.

"Trey was sniping on the rooftops," Jack insisted, the jest in his voice completely gone. "Queen went lucid."

"Oh, no," Deuce murmured. She quickly triggered the phantoma link. "Omicron, where are you?"

"Courtyard," was King's reply. "We've got Trey."

The four of them quickly charged through the training hall, finding Sice, Seven, and King waiting in the courtyard with the archer. Cater glanced around, finding no soldiers in any place to be watching - not surprising, given Sice's tendencies - before turning to Eight. "I'm not getting my bag back, am I?"

"Probably not," Eight admitted.

"Actually," Seven mused, "I saw them take it inside with the guys who had Ace."

"What?" Cater demanded. "They've got Ace with it?"

Sice blinked. "What do you mean 'with it'?"

Cater groaned. "They took him to their leaders, right?"

Deuce nodded. "Yes," she insisted. "I heard them mention they were going to have Biggs and Wedge interrogate him."

"Damn it," Cater muttered. Triggering the phantoma link; "Nine, get your ass in here. We're gonna need you."

"I'm still watching the gate, yo!" Nine argued. "They're talking about sending Strikers! Lorica ain't ready to get fought, hey!"

"What do you need Ninesy for?" Cinque demanded.

"We gotta get Ace out of there before I set it off," Cater demanded.

"Hold it," King insisted. "What are you talking about?"

Trey glanced at the building before turning back to Cater. "Your magicite," he realized. "Even refined for use with your pistol, the very essence of magicite makes it volatile enough that you should be capable of creating-"

"Trey," Cater snapped, "you're rambling again!"

The archer glared at her. "Am I wrong?"

"Yeah," the gunner mused, "you're wrong. I carry around a Rubrumite high explosive on my back and didn't make plans for a theft. Of course you're not wrong!"

"You're going to blow the magicite," Deuce realized. "Can you do that at this range?"

Cater nodded. "I've set it up on my pistol," she insisted. "But I can't trigger it when he might be in range! Mother's gotta extract us if she's gonna wake us up!"

"This is Ace..."

+x+x+x+

"He was carrying a card. He can't possibly be a danger."

"He's not Lorica. If he's not Lorica, that means that we don't know who he is. He could be from Ingram. Or he could be from Rubrum, or Concordia!"

Ace drifted out of unconsciousness, still tingling from the aftershocks of the voltage that knocked him out, to the sound of two men arguing. His hands were restrained behind him, and he seemed to be upright - though not on his feet. As his eyes opened, he found himself in what looked like a war room; there was a small table next to him, and a larger desk with a chair before it. Between him and that desk were two men - one slightly larger than the other - in imperial officer's uniforms streaked gold, with masks on their faces - the V&W leaders, Biggs and Wedge.

"He can't be Azure," the larger man insisted. "Azures don't get that tall."

"Tell that to those corpse things I ran into on our last mission in the kingdom," the thinner protested.

The larger laughed. "Listen to you!" he taunted. "Wedge Shiro, scared of dead men!"

"They weren't dead," the thin man, Wedge, argued. "They looked like they were dead. They looked like they were monsters."

"Concordians control monsters!" the larger man, who must have been Biggs, reprimanded.

"Not like this," Wedge insisted. "They looked like people. And they were laughing, all creepy-like. It was-"

Both of them fell quiet at the hum of magic.

They turned to see Ace, a glow on one of his hands; the gambler triggered his phantoma link. "This is Ace..." he muttered under his breath. "I have visual on V&W-"

"What the hell!" Wedge snapped, charging forward; Ace had no time to react before a fierce right cross landed across his jaw, stunning him enough to drop his magic.

Biggs cursed loudly. "He's a Vermilion!"

"Ace!" Deuce's voice came over the link. "Where are you!?"

"Core building-" Wedge struck him again, but Ace managed to hold the link long enough to breathe, "War room-"

Another strike took out his focus. "Stop!" Wedge roared. "Stop it, damn you!"

"Ace," Cater prompted, "they took my magicite backpack. Do you have visual?"

The gambler glanced around, catching sight of the knapsack hanging over a chair immediately behind the leaders. "Confirmed."

He barely held the link long enough to get that out before he got another fist. "Stop it!" Wedge roared.

Biggs glanced around. "What the hell is your magic even doing?" he protested.

Cater's voice came over the link again; "Ace, where is the pack now? How close are you?"

A confused hum passed through Ace's lips; before he could even trigger the link, he was struck again, this time from Biggs. "Dammit, shut up!"

"Ace, listen to me." Cater's voice was insisted. "How close are the leaders to the magicite?"

A realization struck Ace, and he raised his gaze. They had him against the long wall; there wasn't ten paces between him and the opposite wall.

"Close enough."

He barely got that out before Biggs punched him once more. "Damn you!"

Wedge had grabbed a rifle, and levelled it on Ace's face. "Try to cast again, and I swear to Lindzei I'll blow your vermilion face off!"

"If you can move," Cater warned him, "get something between you and my bag. This is gonna be big."

Ace smirked weakly, raising an eyebrow at Wedge. "From one professional to another," he mused, "when your hostage is wearing something this concealing, you should really take it off first."

Biggs shook his head with a grimace that indicated he was displeased by the mental image. "I'm in a committed relationship," he insisted.

"I'm not interested in little boys," Wedge reprimanded, pulling his rifle away.

"Detonation in T-minus fifteen, fourteen, thirteen..."

"Oh, Pulse, that's not what I meant," Ace corrected. "I'm not naked under this thing."

"What a hostage is or is not wearing is really irrelevant," Biggs informed him. "Whatever you've got under there, you can't get at it with your hands tied above it."

"...twelve, eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven..."

Ace angled his head. "True enough," he admitted. "But you mentioned that the fact that I 'wasn't Lorica' was a problem. If you're trying to figure out who your opponent is, you should take a good look at what they're wearing. And if they happen to be wearing, say, an Agito Cadet uniform with a vermilion cape..."

Both of the renegade leaders stepped away at that.

"...it might be prudent to find and get rid of their communications."

Wedge scoffed. "The entire camp is on alert," he insisted. "Who could you possibly call for backup that might be able to do anything for you?"

"...six, five, four, three..."

"I'm not talking about backup," Ace insisted. "I'm talking about strikes."

"...two, one..."

His hands were bound, but only to each other; with a quick motion, he threw himself aside, using his legs to knock the table down so that it was between him and the magicite before either of the renegade leaders could move.

+x+x+x+

"Close enough."

That statement had Cater - and the rest of Class Zero - nervous. Ace wasn't exactly the most cautious Classmate, and although they could trust that the blast would, at the very least, wound Biggs and Wedge, they had no reckoning for how much trouble Ace was going to be in.

With a groan, Cater only triggered the phantoma link again. "If you can move, get something between you and my bag," she insisted. "This is going to be big."

To ensure that it wasn't accidentally set off, Cater's 'contingency detonation' was a multi-step process. First she drew back the hammer on her pistol, holding it drawn while she popped the cartridge. Both of those components were unused during normal operation; behind the hammer was a dark gap, and the cartridge didn't drop much further than it would take to slide a fingernail in there. This caused a small rod to emerge from the gap behind the hammer; Cater quickly pulled that, extending it to the length of her middle finger. The trigger guard promptly detached, and she slid it down the pistol, rotating it and arcing it up so that it blocked the end of the barrel.

"Detonation in T-minus fifteen..."

She didn't expect Ace to come breaking out the window as she counted down; she was simply giving him ample time to analyze his surroundings and find some way to guard himself - if that was an option. Given his position, they were fortunate he was even able to tell them he could see the bag and leaders; it was more than likely that he was very sharply bound, and the link was the only magic he could even use.

"...three, two, one..."

The rest of the class covered their ears as Cater aimed her pistol at the building and pulled the trigger.

Explosions from unrefined phantoma were big enough. Given that the war room was more-or-less centered in the building, Deuce was rather impressed that the blast from Cater's bag actually had fire coming out the windows as they shattered.

The moment the last echoes of the detonation faded, the entire class was moving, heading into the building to recover the gambler.

Draco: Cater's round with the Militesi rifle is more-or-less the firearm special move Trigger Happy from Bravely Second... as accurately as I can, anyways. I saw that thing and all I could say was "I gotta write that some time."