Warnings: Violence & gore, Zack speaks and Chaos pervs

Chapter 53 : Destroy Everything You Touch

"You cannot fight your destiny, Vincent Valentine," Weiss stated as he blurred into his attack.

Again it looked like there was an echo of the Tsviet trailing after him, whirling its own dual blades. It was more than an echo, Vincent knew, because the translucent blades had impacted through his leather armour. The damage wasn't severe—blunt trauma rather than piercing or slashing—but it had infused his skin with Ice and the ex-Turk could feel the cold infecting his arm, slowing his movements.

"You must become Chaos who will lead me across the stars."

*Puh-leese* Chaos snorted inside him, *He sounds as pedestrian as that hack scientist ever did. Or you,* he mused, *with your maudlin regrets.* Vincent ignored him with the ease of much practice.

Vincent rolled to the side, firing continually but doing only minimal damage to the boy. He could feel the cold spreading but it was still within acceptable limits. Then he felt Tifa's Esuna tingling through his body and the cold disappeared.

Weiss moved in, swinging one set of blades in deadly arcs even as the second, ghostly, set followed a whirling pattern. It was dizzying; it was hypnotising and far too distracting; he kept trying to fill in the ghost so that it would be solid and real and something he could attack. The pale swordsman swung high and both bright steel and ghost blue flashed. Vincent blocked those swings but he missed the second set that came in low. The sharp steel blade landed on a buckle and slid along the metal with a harsh scree sound. The ghost blade caught him fully on the calf with enough force to numb the limb completely and to knock him off his feet and send him flying. He spun through the air but managed to twist himself around so that he landed with some grace despite his frozen leg. Again, Tifa's Esuna cleaned out the poisonous magic.

*Well that's a little worrisome, my Immortalis.* Genuine concern coloured Chaos' voice. Vincent knew it was justified-Weiss had hurt him—but he shrugged it away. He saw the dark void of a cast Gravity float down over the pale Tsviet and took the opportunity to reload his weapons. The bullets blurred slightly in his hand and he blinked rapidly to clear his sight. It took far too long for the room to sharpen and his vision to stabilize. *You are not doing well, I think.*

He heard Weiss laugh off Tifa's Gravity and he tracked the Tsviet as he assaulted his lover and companion. She tried to dodge, and managed it for several seconds, but inevitably she was sent flying. *He'd better not damage her too much for sex,* Chaos growled.

Vincent sighed.

"Your fight is with me," he reminded the Tsviet, pulling his attention away from his attack on Tifa. Chaos hummed his approval. The gunman followed up his statement with another volley. He wasn't sure that it did much damage but it did bring Weiss further away from the fighter's vulnerable body.

The DGS warrior sauntered towards him, mocking and slow. "You're getting old, Vincent Valentine." His blades whirled. "Without the power of the WEAPON locked inside you, you cannot hope to defeat me. Yet if you unleash Chaos, he will aid our plans and help Omega destroy the world."

"And if you kill me then Chaos dies too," Vincent pointed out. "What will Omega do without his Squire?"

Weiss cocked his head and it reminded the gunman of the dark Tsviet, Nero. "It will take longer," he answered unconcernedly, "and it's likely many of the souls will die before I find someplace to free them. Plus the world I choose might not be as perfect as it could be so more will die there." He smiled sadly but Vincent knew it was false, "but I will do it if it is my only option." Then he blurred and Vincent was knocked back, spinning through the air until he smashed into the wall.

*This is ridiculous,* Chaos grumbled. *The boy is fast but he isn't better than you.* It paused and Vincent could feel it reconsider its comments. *Well, maybe better than you, my host, but not better than I. Allow me to fight for you.*

Vincent thought a negative at the demon and pulled himself to his feet. To Weiss he said, "You will not get the chance."

It was the last coherent sentence he spoke for some time.

Zack jumped over one of Nero's Blue Beams of Death. "Odin's silver balls," he yelled down, "what a fucking rush!" Since he was up there anyway, he took a couple swings at one of Nero's protective crystals that circled around the Tsviet's Dome of Darkness. Zack had chosen names for everything since none of them had ever encountered anything like them before. They were stupid names but they made him happy. It made their situation seem a little less dire than it might otherwise. As if they might be in trouble but they weren't out of the fight.

Tseng had said nothing beyond one coolly raised eyebrow but Yazoo had smiled.

One of the diamonds shattered and the SOLDIER covered his face as the splinters flew out in a wide circle of destruction. He felt a stinging in his side and knew he'd been hit but it didn't take long before his SOLDIER-enhanced body forced the shard out and started to heal itself. Zack knew he'd heal better if he just stopped for a moment but he wanted this to be over. Yeah, it was fun, but his friends were out there fighting gods knows what gods knows where and he couldn't help them as long as they were stuck fighting this weirdo mutant dude.

A fiery meteor flew out from behind the spidery figure that was...ArachNero! Zack had also thought up the name for the newly distorted Tsviet that had crawled out of the darkness one extended limb at a time. He was pretty proud of it, actually, and even Tseng had admitted it was clever.

The three fighters easily dodged the falling rock but the wash of heat-soaked air that exploded out from it was draining. It clung to the skin and seeped in through the pores. Whatever was in the fire Nero was chucking wasn't natural. It was the tainted heat that finally forced Zack out of the air, his little bat wings unable to pump hard enough to keep them afloat against whatever it was. He landed heavily, jarring his knees in a bad way, and made Tseng wobble as the floor bounced a little under the First's considerable weight.

"It's a form of Gravity," Tseng said after he straightened from his protective crouch. Even the Turk was feeling it because he rose like an old man after hours of sitting.

"It would explain the effects," Zack agreed.

"Shortness of breath, limbs heavy, concentration weak," Tseng catalogued.

"Lack of verbs when speaking," Yazoo quipped as he dragged out another ether. He was the only one of the three with an Esuna equipped but he wasn't very good with it yet. It took a lot of his mana to keep them clean of Nero's magic, but he was doing it. Stubbornly drinking ether after ether—which tasted like ass, Zack knew—and casting Esuna after Esuna even as he kept shooting at the crystals that were part of Nero's Barrier. He wondered if Junon had an ice cream shop half as good as the one he and Aerith used to go to in Wall Market because, when they got out of here, he totally owed the kid a huge damn cone.

"I think we're whittling the bastard down," Zack said as he threw an Ice at one of the crystals before jumping up and attacking. The others fired their weapons at it and, between them all, they quickly broke it into shards.

Zack landed back beside them and picked up their previous conversation. "He's not regenerating as many of those annoying fuckers as before."

"And not as rapidly," Tseng agreed. "At this rate we'll have his Barrier down by the next moon."

"Sarcasm, Tseng? I'm shocked. Next you'll be smiling and telling fart jokes… I'm telling ya, it's the beginning of the end."

Tseng ignored Yazoo's soft chuckle in favour of reloading. He'd seen Zack's eyes and he knew the SOLDIER thought this was taking too long as well. It was only a matter of time before the First did something foolhardy to break the stalemate.

"Tell me what you cherish most," the creature said. "Give me the pleasure of taking it away."

Sephiroth ignored the abomination as he readied to cast Flare but Cloud responded, voice vibrating with the power of his emotions. "I pity you. You just don't get it at all; there's not a thing I don't cherish!" And then the young swordsman jumped to the attack, wings flaring.

He watched as Cloud used one of his own moves: Octa-slash. There were some variants to the way the Corporal performed it but that was only to be expected. First, his wings were out and that automatically changed how the soldier navigated the manoeuvre. Also, it was likely Zack had taught it to him and the First's fighting style had always been...unusual, and finally, Cloud had adapted it to his broader sword and smaller body. His slim but so very strong and healthy body...

The General took a moment just to admire his lover as he wove the swords into Octa-slashes deadly—yet elegant—design because he was the reason and the symbol and the hope that had brought the General here to this battle. It was good to watch the young soldier be so confident and strong. It renewed Sephiroth and made him want to be worthy of such a fine young man.

He cast the Flare once Cloud had retreated to a safe area. He waited a beat, letting its power fade a little, before moving into his own attack. A couple steps and he launched himself up, easily reaching higher than their enemy's wings. As he cut Masamune through the air he infused it with his will, listening to the blade sing as the air compressed and heated. It looked as if huge arcs of energy flowed out from it, moving like liquid sunbeams through the dimly lit space.

It was a magic unique to Masamune and only discovered by accident in the middle of a fight with Genesis in the VR room. They'd destroyed the room that day and possibly their friendship with it, though neither of them had known that at the time.

He vaguely aimed the cuts at the middle of their enemy's body wanting to damage or destroy the glowing orb as it would eliminate one of the creature's most powerful weapons. So far they'd had only minimal success.

Still, the energy tore great chunks out of the platform where it landed and it did similar damage to his old tormentor and his alien parasite. The abomination that was the two of them combined listed and dipped but recovered enough to snap one of its overlarge wings toward the ground. Sephiroth was high enough to avoid most of the effects of the manoeuvre and he knew that Cloud was well aware of how dangerous it was.

The displaced air had the force of a small tornado and the heat of blast furnace. It was almost as dangerous as the beam, at least to Cloud. Heat and fire didn't bother Sephiroth now—perhaps a side effect of being Ifrit's chosen?—but it did hurt Cloud and that was unacceptable. So he aimed his last swing at the shoulder joint and was rewarded by a screech and a copious amount of what passed for blood in the monstrous body.

"You are a traitor!" the Hojo part of the creature screamed at him. Sephiroth ignored him.

:You could have been glorious: the Jenova part whispered in his mind. He ignored that too.

He ignored it easily, actually, as there were only a couple people on the planet for whom he wished to be magnificent and neither of them were in the monstrosity in front of him.

As the thought drifted through his mind, he looked over at Cloud, his lover, so fierce and determined, so much force contained in such a small vessel. He felt the slow tingle of a Barrier being cast on him and raised his hand to acknowledge Cloud's action. The blond nodded in return.

The abomination chose that moment to shoot another beam from the embedded orb and Sephiroth was forced up once again. When the beam stopped, the General was looking right at it and that's why he noticed the flash, a brief moment, when the light dimmed and nearly died. It could be a vulnerability.

Then he noticed that Cloud wasn't getting up and his vision focussed in on the young soldier. "Cloud," his voice dissolved in the endless chamber.

The blond raised himself onto his elbows and gave his head a shake. "I'm good, Sir," he said before a shimmering green aura surrounded him. Sephiroth knew he'd used his Cura and the General frowned. Cura only worked if the person casting it had enough mana for it to convert. He wasn't sure, but Cloud had cast many materia already; he had to be running low on energy. His concern grew along with his determination to end this soon. He readied his Firaga.

Then a voice—her voice—thundered in his mind. :You were too afraid to accept what was yours by right:

Her voice was followed by his: "I created you. You would be an insignificant, weak nobody if it weren't for all my planning, all my work." Hojo's voice hadn't changed it was still the whining nasal irritant it had always been but, combined with Jenova's furious mental howling, it actually caused Sephiroth pain—physical pain as if someone was scraping down his spinal column.

:We could've ruled this planet, my son:

"For years I worked on reviving Jenova, recreating the greatest being to ever exist on this worthless ball of mud. You were the result of my brilliance and what did you do? Turn on me!"

It was like having dozens of throwing stars rebounding inside his brain. He raised a hand to cover his ears knowing the gesture was useless.

"General?" Cloud's worried voice was barely audible over the others. Sephiroth glanced up.

Cloud was looking a little pained but nothing that didn't fit with the obvious injuries: a little still, a little hunched, but mostly undamaged. Sephiroth squinted, trying to focus on his lover rather than the voices pounding in him. Cloud seemed to have a nimbus of blue light around him, which either meant Sephiroth's vision was impaired or Cloud was close to breaking. Or perhaps both.

:We can still conquer it all. It should be ours. It will be ours, just come to me, my son:

"I devoted my life to creating you, to making you perfect," Hojo spewed, "A living god, that's what you were, what I made you. And you threw it away for a blond brat and a brainless bag of muscle!"

Spikes and hammers, pounding, echoing down his spine into his legs. He fell to one knee.

"General! Sir," Cloud's voice was panicked and Sephiroth watched in distant horror as the blond ran straight toward him. It took Cloud right under the belly of the abomination; it made him vulnerable.

Sephiroth tried to stop him, to yell out an order or a warning, but his voice was a croak easily drowned out by Hojo's nasal booming. The creature's wing was already moving.

:Together we can claim your destiny. It is not too late:

"He is an insignificant fool!" Hojo raged at Sephiroth, "I shall crush him so that you will learn who your master is!" The wing forced the air down, turned the air into a burning, crushing force.

He watched helplessly as Cloud was caught up in the blast, a rubber ball being bounced by a petulant child. Even through Hojo's ranting, he could hear the sounds Cloud made, grunts of impact and pain. "No," he croaked. He tried to rise, tried to crawl but the voices pressed on him, turned his limbs to water.

:You will be ours, my darling boy. You belong to us:

'If you kill him...' he tried to think back at Jenova, he tried to make it sound forceful—his usual tone—but knew he failed.

Cloud rolled to a stop, coming to rest in a half seated-half leaning position against one of the rocky outcroppings that dotted the platform. His head wavered for a moment but, in the end, remained limp on his graceful neck. Sephiroth remembered how the skin tasted like over Cloud's pulse, how it heated his own blood. "Cloud," his voice was only barely louder than before. He hadn't managed to stand up. He hadn't even managed to crawl very far. "Cloud..."

Hojo wasn't finished with the young warrior. "Everything I've worked for, everything I'd planned, ruined! Because of him!" One wing extended toward the vulnerable soldier. One feather extended almost delicately from the rest. One long slow minute was all it took for Hojo to drive the tip through Cloud's shoulder. Cloud writhed, mouth open in a soundless scream.

At least he was alive; Sephiroth couldn't help the useless thought. Useless because, if Hojo had his way, Cloud wouldn't be alive for much longer and Sephiroth couldn't get to him, couldn't defend him.

:Don't fight. Don't resist. Why be lesser when you can be a god:

He couldn't keep his eyes off Cloud. He had to watch, to know if he was going to lose him again. He would have given in to despair except he had underestimated his blond lover. Perhaps they all had.

Cloud clenched his jaw and there was a look of such ferocious determination on his face that it was like looking at a stranger. "It'll take more than that to stop us," he said and then he pushed the wing out of his body, one agonizing centimetre at a time, bending the fibres when he couldn't force the wing straight back toward the enemy.

"Impossible," Hojo stated with certainty. "You are nothing but a pathetic failure." He was talking directly at Cloud. With his attention focussed on the young soldier and not on the General, Sephiroth could literally feel a weight lift from his body, his mind—perhaps even his soul. He rose from his hands and knees, still unsteady but determined.

As if realizing their advantage was slipping away, Jenova renewed her attack. :You deserve to be worshipped, my son, on this planet, on planets throughout the cosmos. We deserve it:

Sephiroth wobbled but stayed on his feet. Everything inside him narrowed and hardened. "I deserve Cloud," he said in reply. He lifted his hand and this time he didn't call on little Aero. This time he called up a maelstrom.

"You still won't give in to your destiny, Vincent Valentine," Weiss said in a soft puzzled voice.

Vincent didn't reply because he was too busy bleeding. Ribs cracked, he catalogued, almost certainly there were internal injuries, plus a broken arm and his left knee was dislocated.

Weiss walked toward him in a smooth confident movement. "I think I know a way to fix that," he smirked.

The floor undulated, turning into chunks of earth and small boulders that crashed against each other. It threw the Tsviet off-stride, knocked him off his feet and he was almost pulled into the grinding floor. Unfortunately he managed to jump up and away from the affected area without being hurt, not that that was unexpected but it would have been nice. *Still the optimist, my host,* Chaos sighed in disgust, something he had done frequently during the uneven fight.

The Tsviet half-turned to stare at Tifa, the only one in the room who could have cast the Quake materia. "That was annoying, little girl," he said.

With no more warning than that he streaked over to the dark-eyed fighter and impaled her, high on her stomach, right below the sternum, a slow and painful death. Weiss lifted Tifa on the tip of his sword until she was so high gravity slid her down the blade, cutting her deeper. "You really shouldn't get overconfident," He laughed at his joke and then he tossed her off his sword and into the wall as if she were trash, just a bit of gore he needed to clean off his blade.

She lay there, barely moving.

*No!* Chaos raged and he wasn't alone—all of Vincent's beasts started to howl. It was their outrage and fear that pulled Vincent to his feet as he hadn't the strength to do it himself. His mind was fuzzy. He couldn't focus. The world was wavering.

*Vincent,* Chaos used Vincent's name for the first time since they'd been forced together nearly forty years ago. It snapped Vincent out of his fog. *Vincent, you must let me fight. I promise that I will kill him,* Chaos' voice was cold. Galian's roar of approval was not.

"Well, well, you are a stubborn thing." The voice was mocking, condescending...and right beside him. "But standing up doesn't mean you can win—against me or yourself." Then the pale swordsman buried his arm in Vincent's chest. The pain was distant, just one of many infusing his body, but Vincent knew it had a purpose.

What was the purpose?

*She has drunk the elixirs, my host. She will recover.* Chaos whispered to him and the demon sounded almost as relieved by the news as Vincent felt.

Weiss was pushing his way into Vincent's body, digging through flesh and muscle and he realized that the Tsviet was aiming for the protomateria that was buried inside him. The boy wanted the strange orb that allowed Vincent to retain control of the demon—the WEAPON—that he housed.

*I believe you're right,* Chaos stated with anticipation. It wasn't reassuring. *Trust me, my host my own. I will take care of this.* Which was hardly more comforting.

And yet...

There was a part of Vincent that did believe Chaos, that did trust him—at least in this.

'Very well,' he replied silently. 'He is yours.'

Weiss removed the pale orb and shouted his triumph. His voice was overshadowed by Chaos' roar of exultation. Vincent could see that Weiss smiled in satisfaction and anticipation. The deluded boy stepped back and waited for Omega's Squire to emerge and take his place by his side.

Chaos had something else in mind.

Vincent sensed the furious conversation going on between Chaos and the others who were part of him. They all wanted this; wanted the fight, the destruction, the chance to change the world. They were agreeing with Chaos—although in Hellmasker's case it was more a matter of beating him into submission—but they were agreeing with whatever Chaos was proposing. The agreement flipped something inside the former Turk, altered it, and Vincent could feel the power building inside, starting from his core and spreading outward to his tips. It hazed his vision with red. It made his body burn. He was healing and he was transforming.

*When this is over, and this little piss ant is dead, we shall have to spend a week—naked—just enjoying our small warrior, don't you think?* Vincent only imagined his eyes rolling but Chaos laughed at him just the same. Then it wasn't him anymore. He was merged, joined, alone and together. Chaos was him. He was Chaos.

They were Chaos. Except this wasn't the Chaos they remembered.

They had Galian's talons and its tail, deadly weapons, and they could feel their body's health become something beyond resilient into practicably indestructible. Gigas' strength and endurance had been added to their own but it was Hellmasker's ability to change its form that allowed them to form jagged red and silver armour over Chaos' normal black. They'd also changed Vincent's gun. Death Penalty was no longer a rifle. It was longer, heavier, with four barrels forming a cross. The Cerberus bangle hung from it and, all together, it looked awkward and unbalanced and should have been far too heavy in the barrel to be practical. They wielded it like it weighed nothing.

They grinned at Weiss, showing sharp, sharp teeth, and the boy's look of excitement faded as he realized that Chaos wasn't reacting the way he was supposed to. "What—"

"Let's have some fun," they said and then they fired.

What came out of Death Penalty wasn't a bullet but a line of bright, killing power that caught the Tsviet squarely in the chest knocking him back, back and all the way across the huge room to smack into the throne with enough power to make the massive chair rock. Instantly, the little needles appeared, worming their way closer to the one they fed. They looked like hungry parasites.

Weiss didn't stay in the seat long enough for them to latch on. He stood, rolled his shoulders, and smirked. "Interesting. Let's see what you are capable of."

The Tsviet blurred into motion but Galian's senses had no trouble following their unseen prey. They shot again, and again Weiss was hit. This time they'd shot him in the leg and he went sliding across the slick floor. They saw a shimmer of materia coat the boy when he stopped and they realized that the small warrior—Tifa—had cast something on him. They tried to remember what materia she had in her arsenal but the information was slippery, incomprehensible, who cared anyway when there was a battle to be enjoyed?

When the DGS warrior stood up they realized what it had been: she had used Stop. It hadn't frozen the Tsviet but he was moving noticeably slower.

Excellent.

They grinned ferally and cast Haste on themselves then they moved in too quickly for Weiss to raise his weapons. They used talons and claws and the whip-snap of their tail, to slice and hit, bruise and cut, and they exulted in their power. They juggled the boy a little before they felt the Haste running down. It was over too fast, they thought in regret but, before it was completely gone, they tossed the swordsman in the air and shot him, once, twice because they could. Like target shooting but better because Weiss moved like a living thing and killing was more fun that way. They shot him once more before he landed in a heap. They waited but he didn't rise.

One brow lifted and they wondered if it was over already. Surely not, they replied. They walked closer to the fallen Tsviet, scenting the air for traps, gun at the ready.

They were right to be cautious because Weiss pulled himself up and sneered at them. He wasn't quite as immaculate as when this fight had began and they wondered how many other colours his body would display before they were finished with him? Monotone just wasn't vivid for this page of their existence. The thought was barely complete before Weiss moved. One moment wobbling in defiance, the next behind them...and poking his swords through their body. They looked down at the blades extending from their body and thought it was funny to be the one skewered rather than the one doing the skewering, which reminded them that the small warrior was waiting...

"Ow," they said because it was expected but it didn't really hurt. Besides, Weiss had just handed himself to them. They let themselves flip their body, back shifting to the front, front to the back, organs and tissues sliding through each other. They kept the swords inside them so that they'd know where the Tsviet was, keep him trapped because no swordsman would let go of his only real weapons. They looked him in the eyes and smiled at him in joy. The boy's face was amusing: full of shock and horror. "That tickles," they commented with a toothy smile. They aimed Death Penalty at the boy's head and pulled the trigger.

It should have killed the Tsviet, and it was tiresome that it didn't, but Weiss let go of his katanas, raised his arms and took the blast on his bracers. He flew backwards, flipping slowly head over feet, before falling to the floor and sliding back and back. He hit a low wall and bounced off, still sliding, until inexorably he slid into the lake of filtered mako.

'Huh,' they thought. 'Interesting,' they responded for they knew that mako could kill but it could also heal. It could alter a body's everything or do nothing at all. It could take centuries or seconds so, while they waited they cast their awareness at their small warrior, their Heart, their prize. She was perfectly healthy once again and busy destroying the few pieces of equipment that were in the room, making them unusable, unrepairable. No one would be recreating Hojo's Deepground experiments once she was finished with the machines.

They roared their approval.

Then Weiss rose from the mako, things spinning and clanking and pumping. 'Omega?' they asked. 'Possibly,' they answered but they knew the form wasn't quite right for it to be the final WEAPON, although they didn't know how they knew. It was unimportant, they decided. There was something new to fight, to destroy, to play with, and that's what they would do.

This time when they roared it was in fierce exultation.

In the end, it wasn't Zack who did something foolhardy. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that he wasn't the only one. Maybe, Tseng mused, insanity was designed into mako-enhanced warriors along with Jenova cells.

Nero's Barrier was broken and now they could easily see the odd metallic spider he'd become as it clung to the Dome of Darkness on the ceiling. Most of his magic was gone and there was just the mutated Tsviet. From down below Tseng and Yazoo kept up a steady barrage, which broke only when they had to grab more ammo from their bags or when Nero's Blue Beam of Death made them dodge out of the way. Tseng cast the occasional Ice and Yazoo tossed out a Bolt or two but now this was essentially a physical battle and Zack was determined to force the DGS warrior down, away from the source of his power.

Zack's wings were out, pumping hard, somehow keeping his massive frame aloft. Not only that, but the little hands were casting his darkened Ice so he could concentrate on chopping the legs out from under their opponent. Zack was finding it tough, however, because that black cloudy stuff was even thicker around the Tsviet than before and hitting it was like trying to cut through tar. Plus Nero's legs were sharp, hard metal and he swung them with lethal precision. Stabbing, slashing and just plain bludgeoning: those legs did it all.

There were also, unfortunately, eight of the frigging things.

Dodging all of them all the time was impossible but he'd expected that shit so he ignored the pain from his injuries for the most part. The thing that bugged Zack the most was that every time he knocked one, or even two, legs out from under the spider-like form, there were all the rest to keep Nero perched on his fucking pile of darkness; the pile that he fed on and gained strength from and it was really frigging annoying how the kid Just. Wouldn't. Go. Down.

Zack needed something that would take all, or at least most, of Nero's legs out at the same time but Comet, though fun, was too unpredictable to be of any help and there was no way in any of Ifrit's Hells that he was Summoning Shiva. He didn't think he could turn Nero into a frog either, though that would be sweet!

However, he had maybe another option...

Before giving himself too much time to think about it—and he did not hear Seph's snarky voice saying that he never thought anyway so why start now—Zack flipped himself upside down so his feet were firmly planted on the ceiling. 'I'm-a-bat, I'm-a-bat, I'm-a-bat,' he muttered as he activated Blast Wave. His wings strained to hold him in place as he built up the power in his Buster and then, with a shout, he brought the massive blade down (up?) on the ceiling and released it.

The power blew out in an arc, a wall of blue-white-orange energy that ripped across the ceiling blowing off the tiles and pipes. It hit Nero's Dome of Darkness and barely slowed down, running right through it and forcing the dark matter out and back and over until it was just wisps in the air. The effect didn't last long—the dark quickly regrouped and reformed into the massive pile—but it was long enough to force Nero from his perch. The Tsviet fell to the floor with a clatter and for a moment he lay there stunned.

Zack saw his companions brace for the next bit of their strategy but that's all he saw. His poor little wings, already tired from the long fight in the air, shuddered to a stop. Even the little talons' grip on his pauldrons was loose and exhausted.

"Oh shit!" he said and then he fell. 'Twist, twist, twist,' he ordered himself. It worked: his old training kicked in and he landed solidly on his feet. "Shiva's tits!" he grinned, "It worked!"

"Brace yourself," Tseng said from beside him. The damn Turk had barely wobbled when Zack landed and the SOLDIER decided he wouldn't be surprised to learn that they'd put cat DNA into Tseng at some point.

Then his brain caught up with what Tseng had said. "Wait! Already?" but it was too late. The Wutaian's ring glowed and he shimmered and faded and in his place was a huge freaking sea serpent nearly as big as the Shin-Ra Tower. "Odin's Balls," the First whispered in awe, "Leviathan."

From nowhere a wall of water appeared around the god. It hissed and the water went from still to tsunami in an instant. It poured directly toward the barely moving Tsviet with a thundering pounding howl that was a weapon all by itself. Zack covered his ears. It didn't help but it made him feel better. He heard a rumble from the other side of him and turned to see Yazoo's bracelet flashing as the young clone faded out. "Yah, okay..." he said out loud, "this is going to be fun." Even he wasn't sure if he meant it.

The tsunami hit just as Nero was crawling to his feet—two of them hanging limp and useless; yay, Blast Wave!—and it sent the fighter tumbling. Zack caught glimpses of the Tsviet's dark metal skeleton poking out from beneath the waves. As if that weren't enough, Ramuh appeared in Yazoo's place and his Judgement streaked from the skyless roof to strike the water, electrifying it and magnifying the damage caused by both elements by a factor of eleventy million. Zack could see the steam rising from the water where the lightning struck. Then he could see sparks from where Nero's suit was shorting out.

The smell of the sea and the smell of ozone combined in the suddenly small—very small—space and nearly overwhelmed the First. "Oh yuck!" he whispered. Breathing through his mouth sounded good so he did that while he dug through the packs to grab an elixir. They weren't as pleasant or as thorough as a Cure but they were quick and their taste washed away the whole 'duelling gods' thing happening at the far end of the room.

This was actually going pretty good, he congratulated himself, and if things kept going this way they'd be finished with Nero and out looking for the rest of their group in no time.

Of course, that's when the DGS army decided to crash the party.

AN: It took me quite a while to find Chaos' battle voice but, once I did, I had a lot of fun with it. I hope you enjoyed it too. =]