"The President is dead! Now I'm doing things my way!"

-Martin Heidegger, first Military Consultant and Head of Public Safety

Chapter 5: Monster Chunk Rally

Word spread through Junon quickly. Paer Rolfe had left Wildlands. No one knew where he had gone, only that he had not shown his face around the phoenix's roost. At first, people thought he had died in the battle on the hillside, but those prone to poetics said "The Falconer wouldn't fall from such a high peak."

Resentment infiltrated the ranks. So many of them had died for Paer's insurrection, and now no one would get revenge for Sergeant Goddard and insert-name-here.

Private Marty Heidegger was sick of hearing about Paer Rolfe. Good riddance, he thought. If he was such a damn problem, then it didn't matter how he left, just that he did. No one in charge thought very clearly, which was why Marty was still a private.

Jeremiah Flint used to go a long way keeping Marty's outbursts—as he called them—in check. Whenever Marty wanted to wave his hand at platoon meetings in the mess hall or scribble graffiti of himself on walls—it was nothing personal; he just found himself attractive—Jerry put his arm down or slid a finger along his throat. To an extent, Marty had to agree with Jerry. No one liked a show off, so Marty would let his actions speak for themselves.

Then Jerry took a steel-tipped Wuteng dart to his neck. Marty still remembered the red guzzling down his front, and the way all he could do was clutch at his collar bone as he sunk into the dirt. Nothing glamorous about dying in war, Marty thought, so he'd live and make something of himself. He needed to get noticed, and maybe being loud and annoying was a good enough way as any. After he wrote the note to Jerry's next-of-kin, he sent in an application to train in Tarnish, the secret operations division that sent most on the path to officer-ship, but he'd never make his way in without a fuss.

A couple days later, he sat in the mess with his platoon, his tray piled in mash because that was the only thing no one bothered to ration. A growing boy needed his starch and his padding to burn through on march. Marty, you'll be a giant of a man, he told himself. If only they had margarine. As it was, he had to roll the cigarettes he got in his rations and trade them for salt to avoid getting his dinner wet in the ocean—he had considered it. Not smoking paid off in flavor. He never had enough salt. Salt put hairs on a man's chest, and at fifteen, he didn't have nearly enough.

"So, for the next assault," Private Hansen started, "I hear they're splitting and looking for the entrance to that hill undercover. I say it's the best way. That's how they win, right? They know the layout of this place."

Silver clacked against the steel, and mouthfuls of agreement and speculation poured out. Marty licked a stray lump of potato from his fork and cleared his throat. "I don't know why we're still trying to get to that thing," he said.

One could say many things about Marty Heidegger, but to argue with the carrying capacity of his voice would be to err. Half his platoon, those sitting nearest, dropped their forks and raised their eyebrows. The silence lasted only a moment before Hansen started talking again.

"Anyway, I was saying, they might even try an' send in Tarnish to get 'em at night and pick off a few in the tunnels. Maybe try to light fires and smoke them out."

"Seems to me"—Marty began molding the potatoes with the handle of his fork, creating a model of the terrain from the mash—"we've gotten so obsessed with Paer Rolfe, we've forgotten why we're here in the first place."

"All right, Heidegger." Hansen sighed, shook his head, as if already tired of talking to him. "Why are we here?"

"To roll chivvies," Marty said, indignant. "You know how many of those sea snakes have anything to do with Phoenix? I'll give you a hint. Starts with 'n,' and rhymes with 'one,' but there ain't. If you know what I'm saying." Then Marty chuckled. He thought himself hilarious.

"We're here to expand our Nation," Hansen said. "You're a moron, Heidegger."

"You might be here to expand our Nation, but we're supposed to point-n-shoot, and if we aren't getting that mountain in the middle of nowhere, you can bet chivies aren't." Marty shook his head. "So why can't we move on?"

The doors to the mess creaked open. Some genius Paer Rolfe was. Couldn't even make quiet door hinges. The musk of outside came in with Captain Reiner. Reiner didn't keep his boots or his uniform clean, and dried mud flaked from the bottoms of his slacks and his galoshes into the mess. He didn't shave, either, but few did. Marty wished he had hair to shave.

Whenever Captain Reiner came in, he stalked by the 23rd platoon, Marty's, and nodded to the privates like he wanted them to feel more valued than bodies lining the front. Then he got his plate of mash, corn, and black beans before he sat at the officer's table and tried to schmooze with the General.

Hansen gave Marty a look as the Captain strode by, as if to tell him "don't even think it, keep your head down," but Hansen wasn't Jeremiah. Jeremiah was dead.

"All I'm saying is, I think the higher ups are wasting their time ramming us up that mountain and watching us roll down it." Captain Reiner paused. Marty could smell dried mud behind him. "Idiots, if you ask me. What's the point in dying when we already have materia? The chivvies don't have anything. And if so many people die on the way up, against that Kjata, what is the Phoenix going to do for us anyway?"

The Captain remained standing only for a moment behind Marty before he resumed his stride toward the mess line. Hansen almost stepped on Marty's foot, but Marty had anticipated it and scooted aside in time.

"You're lucky," Hansen said.

"No I'm not," Marty grumbled. "He didn't say anything to me. I wanted him to say something."

"You're a piece of work." Hansen spooned mash into his mouth. "Keep talking like that, and he'll say something, all right. He'll have you feathered."

"Maybe I'm a bird he might have a chance of killing."

Marty remained committed to getting noticed. Every time Reiner passed the 23rd platoon mess for the next two weeks, he barked about how much of an idiot the Captain was. It never provoked a greater reaction than the first time. At one point, Marty even insulted Reiner's sense of cleanliness and his "bird legs," but Reiner didn't so much as change his pace.

As his attacks grew personal and less effective, Marty realized that, should he draw any attention, he would have to make himself more persuasive to his compatriots. No one in the 23rd platoon, however, seemed interested in disavowing officers when they were in earshot. Marty spooned his potatoes, two weeks later, noticing that their appeal seemed to lessen every day, and felt a sense of defeat spread over him—after, of course, he considered flinging his food at Reiner's head and discarded the idea.

The mess hall was packed with so many platoons that the chatter scraped into the walls. The fires of the kitchens left creosote stains. Men rattled on through their corn, not appreciating it. Gold didn't have a hard line on frivolous talk. After all, Paer Rolfe never said a damn word before he assassinated an officer, stole supplies, and started wearing red feathers.

Hansen eyed Marty across the table, expecting him to launch into tirade, no doubt, but Marty held his tongue and ate his silence.

At least Marty had drills to keep him occupied. Platoons took shifts on march. When they weren't scheduled, the platoon leaders ran them through drills as if they were still in basic to keep them in top form. Well, at least Marty's platoon leader did; he heard the regs weren't standardized.

The 23rd Platoon stood in lines beside the harbor, running in place, dropping to their stomachs, burying their chins in the dirt, scuffing their knees on the way back up, and calling out numbers. Marty liked drills. He never had to work extra hard to keep up, and the strain made him feel like he was getting somewhere. He ate more potatoes so he could feel himself squeeze them out in drops of sweat.

They went through the motions forty meters away from Junon, near the coastal cliff, but away from the harbor. The sea kissed their backs, and the sunshine bore down just away from the shade cast by Junon's walls.

Sergeant Bishop supervised their drills and lead the march. He curled up his lower lip and nodded approvingly at synchronization. If one man couldn't drop in time, everyone dropped. Everyone did pushups. Everyone whined about the aches in their backs, but not aloud. Marty supposed it was designed to instill camaraderie, but he always imagined bayoneting the man who failed his timing and chewed his bottom lip when they finished their twenty.

The 23rd platoon had just completed a round of camaraderie-instilling pushups when a private first class, his white stripes flashing on his boots, trotted up to hand Sergeant Bishop a missive. He gave a salute and rushed back to Junon. Bishop unrolled the missive and called attention.

Every private ceased jogging in place and gritted their teeth through sweat to keep their spines as straight as the stick up Reiner's ass.

"Early dismissal," Bishop declared. "You're welcome to head to the mess before the rush. At ease."

The 23rd Platoon slumped and started walking, straight-legged, in case they were being graded, back to Junon.

"Heidegger," the Sergeant called.

At the moment, Marty had his back to the Sergeant. He felt his last name pull a string at the base of his neck and root him. Sergeant Bishop never singled anyone out after drills. If there was a specific missive, he found the man in mess where babble about puppy litters back home and cigarette trades cloaked him.

"One moment, please."

Marty did not bother to turn around. He thought it safer not to appear anymore out of line than freezing away from the platoon already had. He took a deep breath and suddenly felt smugness seep into his countenance. He marveled a moment at where it might have come from, but then he soaked it up and felt his chest swell.

He must have made Reiner mad after all.

After the rest of the platoon had advanced several meters ahead, huddled and whispering conspiratorially about Marty's impending notoriety, no doubt, Bishop cleared his throat. Marty turned on his heel to see Bishop standing only a couple steps in front of him.

"It's your bid to train for Tarnish, Heidegger," Bishop began. "It's been discarded, and I thought you should know why."

Not expecting Bishop's words, Marty felt heat rush across his face. He itched for a bayonet again. "All because I said a couple lousy words to Reiner?"

This time, Bishop was surprised. "What does Captain Reiner have to do with anything?"

Marty swallowed. He had wanted special attention, but not the kind that denied him training in Tarnish before interview process even started. No one got promoted above Sergeant without a stint in Tarnish, and everyone knew that. But if it had nothing to do with Reiner—that just meant Bishop had no idea what he was talking about. Marty wished he had decided to fling his potatoes up Reiner's nose after all.

When it became clear Marty would not respond, Sergeant Bishop sighed. "You'll be able to bid next year, but the fact of the matter is—"

As Bishop opened his mouth to deliver what Marty would likely consider red herring, the ground shook, and both their breaths seized.

"You felt that, Heidegger?" Bishop said, closing his eyes and scratching at his ragged neck. "I wasn't imagining it."

Marty prided himself in having a fight over flight response and turned toward Fort Condor. Even though the shaking of the ground reverberated at his feet, it could only come from one source.

Kjata stood, his feet stalking the ground and sending crashes and splits in the dirt around them. He pulled back his head and shook out his mane, sending flashes of red tinsel and violet horns to shock the Sun. The creature grew larger every time someone summoned him. He cast a shadow that covered the gates of Junon, and he blocked passage between Marty and the Sergeant. Marty trotted out toward the beast, not sure what he would do when he got there. Kjata had appeared out of nowhere, only meters away from where the Sergeant and the private had their powwow. He tried to scan the plains for The Chief of the Phoenix Tribe, but he saw no one.

The smug air crushed in Marty's chest and practically concaved his ribcage.

Though Marty had reached for his gun instinctively, platoons didn't even bring straps to drills. Only the task masters had them. He stopped running and looked behind him to watch Sergeant Bishop yank up his musket and rub his hand over one of the two materia slots in its hilt. Blue light careened out the muzzle. Marty recognized a Blizzard spell, and he ducked to avoid the cold. Ice nearly skimmed his stubble.

As light erupted from the end of Sergeant Bishop's musket, it kinked and swelled into the giant bull, tossing an ice pick at its flank, the remaining stragglers of the 23rd platoon fled through the gates of Junon toward a modicum of safety.

Kjata yanked back his mane in what Marty could only guess was mild agitation, for he took another quaking step forward and lost no time retaliating. Lightning from above Kjata's horns drilled a hole in the ground, bowling out the shore near the harbor right behind Marty into a sheer rock face at least fifty feet high.

Marty felt the shock at his back and held onto his breath, thankful that the Kjata had poor aim—until he remembered where Bishop had stood. He turned in time to watch Sergeant Bishop promptly lose his balance and catapult over the edge, leaving his musket at the cusp.

Marty swore and dove for the ledge—and the weapon, blast—just in time for the new cliff to shake below him. His jaw hit the ground, and the dirt scraped against his front teeth. Petrichor everywhere, as thick as a second layer of hair on the beast. He rolled onto his back to spot Kjata's wide breastplate, rent so low he couldn't stand.

Brilliant. He had managed to trap himself in a four-post cage. Thick, beefy—literally—legs bested careening onto rocky toothpicks with Sergeant Bishop, so he would take it.

Marty touched his raw jaw and tried to regain his sense of direction. Petrichor made him choke, and he swore he was beginning to smell smoke and salt. Heat, mist, and pins began to jab at once. Kjata may as well be a phantom who drifted through men and ghosted their insides into sludge.

Then Marty rediscovered Bishop's musket, the red glisten in its base beside the green glimmer of the Blizzard materia, and got the strength to lunge for it once more as Kjata reared onto its hind legs to slam down again.

The man who had slain Kjata had turned the tide of this war from man verus man to beast versus beast. It had been Bishop's mistake to call Blizzard when, in all appearances, he was in possession of a summon materia. Marty wouldn't survive if he couldn't reach Bishop's weapon.

Marty slid to avoid Kjata's hoof as he drove it down again, aiming for the tiny man. He found himself beside Bishop's weapon and lifted the musket with some difficulty, feeling the stick legs that held him buckle. Smoke billowed from Kjata's nostrils as if he shared the native's substance problem. The horns growing from its head might as well have been grill prongs for Suckling Marty. Were they shaped like lightning? Was its mane really made of fire? The beast pulled back its head to roar, calling more lightning—and fuck, how did this thing work?

Marty beat at the side of the musket and aimed, shaking it so hard he almost fell over.

"Please—something come out of this."

Something came.

The ruckus began at Kajata's backside. Something massive came trampling from behind, interrupting Kjata's roar and turning it into a veal squeal. Its feet ticked up dirt like drills. Something terrifying, powerful, just what Mar—oh Ifrit, did it just squawk?

Trampling grew louder, and Marty saw a train of dirt emerging between Kjata's forelegs. Two crests of sand parted, and the dust settled.

A mog. Riding a chocobo. The mount skid suddenly and nearly fell, beak first, on top of Marty. Marty craned his neck around the great yellow bird in hopes that maybe something else could have made the loud noise he heard.

"Wark!"

Anything at all.

"Kupopopo?"

A long gash trailed in the dirt behind the pair and down between Kjata's back legs.

Nothing else was coming.

Having recovered from its apparent shock, Kjata raised its head again—this time, it seemed to be laughing—and let loose a sky-splitting bay.

Marty decided he could no longer take this—literally—lying down. Kjata snorted, and its eyes began to glow, signaling the approach of another devastating lightning bolt. Marty latched onto the wing of the chocobo, prompting a pained "Wark!" He threw himself, lugging the musket, onto the bird's spine. The mog fluttered and flopped off the chocobo's rear, hovering in the air.

Marty drove his heals into the chocobo's sides the way he had seen the natives urge them to move. The chocobo cocked its head and didn't budge.

"Just get me out of here!"

The chocobo spun on its heels and barreled back the way it came, just as Kjata's lightning obliterated the space where Marty had lain. Smoke drifted from the once cliff face. The countryside around Junon certainly had shrunk, shorn off and split to the sea.

Ground shook as Kjata began to shift around after him. Marty imagined it would take the great boar a significant amount of time to perform an about face, but he proved swift for his size, and ornerier than ever. His eyes shifted an orange hue, and fire actually erupted from his nostrils.

"That can't be a good sign."

The chocobo began to jostle, and a slight turn of his head revealed that Mog had begun to bounce exuberantly on its mount's tail feathers. Marty felt he would also exhale flame if he had the power. He leaned back, forcing Mog to fly off the chocobo again. This time, however, Mog flew high and dove for the face of Kjata.

Marty cringed. He had no affection for the Mog, and it was a phantom of a creature already dead, after all, but this would not be pretty.

Mog barreled headfirst toward Kjata's snout, bouncing off. Kjata worried its head as if it desired to itch its nose, and Mog fluttered away, wobbling through the sky, dizzy.

Most days, Marty would use this opportunity to make his escape, but if he fled for Junon, Kjata would surely follow. It would trample him and other Gold Citizens at the fort. He would have to find a way to stall until the summon wore off.

He gripped the hand cannon, and he aimed it at Kjata's throat. The flint clipped in his hand, and he almost lost hold of it, but a spark, a whiff of sulfur, and a burst made a black spot on Kjata's neck just as it had reasserted itself.

Instead of becoming further dazed, however, Kjata once again rolled back on its heels to trample the ground. This time, the chocobo raced to the side without Marty's prompting. The quaking had an unfortunate effect on Marty's backside, but he'd live.

He surveyed the bird below him with dismay. "Damnit. Why aren't you bigger?"

Just as he lamented the small size of the chocobo and mog duo, he felt his hamstring muscles stretch. He began to slide off the chocobo, unable to remain astride. Instead, he grabbed a handful of feathers at the back of the chocobo's neck as it grew. The distressed "Wark" deepened in pitch, and Marty wondered if he would develop altitude sickness as a broad expanse of yellow fluff began to fill his vision.

Finally, the chocobo ceased to swell. Marty felt as if he were a tag on the back of a fat bird's shirt. He could only see yellow feathers, and they began to fill his mouth and nose. He spat them out and turned his vision to the side.

As Marty could no longer see Kjata, he did not expect to have his balance disturbed. The bird rocked backwards as Kjata rammed it, squawking despondently, and Marty careened dangerously toward the ground below.

Just before the back of the fat bird hit, Marty let go and rolled aside. The ground was not a good place to be when a giant hooved beast continued to rear back slam the earth. He stood and bolted away, almost falling face first as he tripped over Bishop's musket strap.

When Marty turned, cringing in expectation, to view how the bird had fared, he had to raise an eyebrow. Instead of falling on its back, the chocobo had merely rocked to the ground and swung, reverting to a sitting position. It seemed the giant bird had grown so bottom heavy that Kjata could not unbalance it.

For good measure, Kjata rammed his skull against the bird's fat face again. Once more, it rocked back with a loud thump and immediately righted itself, issuing a resigned squawk.

Kjata snorted in frustration and appeared about to ram the bird again. All the while, the mog remained hovering around its horns, appearing disgruntled. It looked to Marty, and he swore he could feel it glaring at him from afar.

"Hey, Kjata!" Marty bellowed, feeling as if the mog expected him to do something.

He immediately regretted it when Kjata roared and switched its head, blasting smoke from its nostrils. The skies darkened. Embers glowed. The whole damn shebang.

Fumbling with frozen fingers and the brittle hammer of the musket, Marty found himself actually kneeling as Kjata began to stomp assuredly toward him.

Out the corner of his eye, Marty saw the mog flap its way over to a fat tuft of hair atop the chocbo's head and pinch it between its lower paws. He wiggled and flapped his wings with gusto, as if he were actually trying to—

Dear God what is that thing?

Marty nearly dropped his musket when he saw the fat chocbo which Kjata could not unsettle rise visibly from the ground. The grass below its rump had flattened into mulch tiles. Marty could smell the freshly broken blades, even through the sulfur, as they aerated.

All the while, Kjata remained oblivious and continued stalking toward Marty. The musket shuddered in his grip as a charge went off and vanished into a space of sky between Kjata and the chocobo. Marty had fired it absent-mindedly in view of the spectacle.

"Damnit." He bit his lip so hard it bled, the taste of salt stronger than his knees giving under him. He had no choice but to wobble to his feet and abandon the musket in an attempt to run before Kjata got too close.

When Marty looked again toward the chocobo, it had vanished, leaving a dark spot on the grass where it had sat. Mog had managed to lift the giant chocobo, at least the size of two Kjata's—it had grown as well—above the pronged horns of the bull beast.

Instead of running away from the bull, Marty decided to dash toward it.

Lightning bolts cascaded down, sparking across the ground, heat-seeking shockwaves Marty had to leap over in order to keep his forward motion. The heat seared through his boots, and he could feel the rubber burning as the grass caught fire. Still, Marty kept running forward, and as he drew closer, Kjata raised his hooves rhythmically, trying to land them.

As Kjata's left hoof grazed the top of Marty's head—he could actually feel the tremors on the ends of his hair—he heard the loud screech of Mog above Kjata.

"Kupopopo!"

Marty interpreted the call as a signal and turned on his heel to his left, running the belly of the beast, intent on freedom.

As soon as he had begun the clear the shadow of Kjata, a shard of ice pierced up through the ground, and he tripped over it, falling face first in the dirt and rolling over on his back.

Sunlight had been completely obscured by shadow. Even as Marty looked, this shadow began to shrink.

"Wark!"

A loud crash echoed just above Kjata, forcing a bay. The beast's knees buckled, unable to sustain the weight of the giant bird which mog had dumped on his spine.

One knee bent forward. Marty realized, suddenly, that if he didn't move in less than a second, he would be crushed under the weight of Kjata and the giant chocobo.

Marty latched onto the ice spike, letting the freeze burn his bare hand and pulled himself quickly up, using the momentum from his hold to dive hard away from Kjata and pray to whatever god would hear him that Kjata would not fall to its right.

Luckily, the left knee of Kjata buckled first, and the beast wobbled that way. It lost its footing. Marty watched as the small mog creature beat its bonboned head against the side of the fat chocobo in an effort to encourage the yellow and red conglomeration to meet its catastrophic crash away from Marty. Whether it helped or not, Marty felt he could rely on some semblance of competency from the thing, so his desire to cause it harm had abated.

A few moments of trepidation, then the beast came down. The Planet shook below Marty, nearly tossing him airborne. It ground uncomfortably into his back, and he felt something snap as the ice pillar crashed against his leg. Dirt—not dust, actual lumps of dirt—flew and flecked the sky in the wake of the crash. Then, for a moment, silence.

He couldn't move. He couldn't see a thing.

The breeze wove between pockets of dust, and Marty could only see the one, fat, egg-shaped obelisk through milky air.

When Marty awoke, he was in Reiner's quarters. Well, he assumed they were Reiner's quarters because he recognized the flecks of mud on the boots by the door. The contents smelled like outside. The sheets chafed. And, well, Reiner was at the desk.

Reiner cleared his throat. "We think the natives sent Kjata at the walls of Junon to try to break them down," he said. "It was a sneak attack, no men at risk, very much their style—or Rolfe's. Instead, a private gave us a show."

Marty couldn't feel anything but the ache in his back and the chafe of the sheets, so he didn't have time to register any implications of Reiner's words. "A surprise attack?" he mumbled.

"No one is sure, but it was unexpected. There was no reason for Kjata to be on the plains when we haven't made a move toward Fort Condor. We couldn't find anyone who would have summoned him, either, when we sent several armed squads out to patrol." Reiner flipped what Marty could only guess was a piece of dried grass between his fingers. He had sock-less feet splayed on his desk and his back braced against a creaking wooden chair.

"I suppose we should have expected it," Reiner continued when he was met by silence. "Or that's what you would say, isn't it? We've been focused on beating down the natives, and it never occurred to us that, once they got their footing, they might strike out at us with Kjata."

Marty still couldn't bring himself to say anything. He was trying to comprehend the realization that he was, indeed, in Captain Reiner's office. He nearly fell out of bed trying to stand to attention. His back seemed to be trying to scrape itself off his spine. His bare feet hit the wood and encountered pebbles of dirt. A tiny piece of gravel bit into his right pinky toe. He looked in the back corner and saw a barrel stove. Would he fit if he decided to hide?

Captain Reiner rolled his eyes. "So now you're respectful. I get you one-on-one, and it feels more like I can kill you, doesn't it?"

Marty narrowed his eyes and lowered his hand from his salute. He worked up a pocket of saliva in his mouth, but thought better of it and swallowed it down with a gulp.

"You pulled Kjata off Junon with a summon materia most of us considered worthless. If you wanted to talk, now would be the time, Hero."

Again, Marty swallowed. He had imagined what being singled out might feel like. He imagined steeling his courage and calling out bluffs. He imagined having to do pushups or spending a few meals in barrack solitary.

He was getting recognized. For something. Good. Something he did.

It had not occurred to him that he might have low self esteem until that moment, but really, he was all hot air. How revealing.

For the life of him, Marty couldn't figure out if it had been heroic. He remembered feeling flabbergasted and fighting for his life, but he hadn't really thought of Junon for a second. If it had occurred to him that Kjata might be more interested in ramming in the walls, and Marty could have tempted him toward them, he probably would have. Maybe that's what heroics were: misunderstandings. Considering the people in charge, that would explain a lot.

"Well, Boy," Reiner said, picking at what appeared to be black chewing tobacco under his nails, "Bishop's dead, unfortunately. There was one casualty when there could have been scores. How would you like to have his job?"

Still, Marty couldn't think of anything to say. He tried to come up with a thank you or pull out his trademark—well, he considered it trademark—bravado, but he just stared at Reiner.

"I'm going to assume that's a yes, considering how full of yourself you are, and the fact that you think the rest of the officers are idiots. That means you'll do better than he did, right?"

Marty swallowed and scratched at his nose, trying to pry the daze off his face.

"You're dismissed, Sergeant," Reiner said. "Your paperwork's at the front office."

Marty gave a half-hearted salute and shuffled from Reiner's quarters. He nearly tripped on the boots on the way out.

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