This hasn't been beta-read so... sorry for errors

Claire charged the now transformed Dysley holding Blaze Edge at her side ready to slash. Barthandelus swung a mighty hand at her making the pinkette sidestep and crouch under the giant hand. She slashed at his arm but her sword merely glanced off the steel-like skin of the beast. Growling her displeasure with Blaze Edge being rendered useless, she tried to think of a way to harm the man turned monster but knew she did not have nearly enough information.

Zack was right behind the pinkette but he went the opposite way Claire did. He heard his friend's sword glance off the large beast-like thing and rethought his attack. The black haired super soldier got an idea, which he would admit was not a very good one. Swinging his large sword like a club, he aimed for the legs of his giant enemy. The steel blade met the steel-like leg with a crash, Zack felt the hit in his wrists and partially regret the action. But as he recovered he noticed that Dysley, or rather Barthandelus, had stumbled from the hit.

Fang followed the other two by leaping high. With all the force she could muster, the huntress brought her double bladed lance down at Barthandelus. Her red and black weapon collided with the massive head of her giant enemy, forcing it down sharply. Transformed Dysley's head slammed into the floor as his feet slid out from below him from Zack's effort and the steel floor cratered from the impact. Claire and Zack were amazed by Fang's raw strength.

Hope switched the assault rifle he had to single shot and did his best to shoot Barthandelus in the eye. Sazh joined the young man in shooting. Their bullets harmlessly slammed against the thing's steel-like flesh. Some shots ricochet, drilling into various places and objects around the room. Even though they knew their efforts were entirely useless, the two men had to do what they could to help.

Vanille was at the back watching everything unfold. She knew she was next to useless at the moment but she still held her binding rod, really just a glorified fishing rod, in front of her as if it were a weapon. A green glow enveloped the prone form of Jihl and the PSICOM commander began getting to her feet, only Vanille witnessed the event. The redhead was stunned into silence. Everyone else that had been hit by Dysley's attack before he transformed had been killed.

"How-" Vanille began but was cut off by her own shock. Jihl looked at Vanille then turned and tapped Hope and Sazh on the shoulder. They had the same reaction as Vanille when they looked to the blonde.

"You three, you're with me." Nabaat commanded the trio.

"But-" Hope began.

"Save your ammo, we need a bigger gun against him." Jihl stated, interrupting Hope.

Hope looked to Sazh, waiting for his judgement call. The middle aged pilot nodded to the silver haired young adult prompting them both to hesitantly turn away from the fight. Vanille did not want to leave Fang but she knew there was nothing she could do to help her or the two soldiers fighting Dysley. She soon turned and followed the other three to the elevator.

"How are you alive?" Sazh asked when the doors of the lift shut.

"Bangle equipped with Shield, Protect, and Cure materia." Jihl reply as she lightly patted her left thigh to subtlety tell them where the bangle was "Keep the first two on low power so it's not obvious I'm using them." The three listening nodded their understanding.

"Now," Jihl stated a few seconds later "When the doors open, if there is anyone there, open fire."

When the elevator stopped descending the doors slid open to reveal an empty hall. The four stepped out, Sazh and Hope sweeping the room at Nabaat's command. They slowly crept towards the door to the flight deck constantly checking behind and around them to make sure no PSICOM troops got them by surprise. Once on the flight deck they were hit with the ocean wind, though it was much more gentle then when the fugitives were underneath the flight deck. Jihl lead them over to a medium sized aircraft and instructed them to release the straps that held the craft down. The craft itself looked like it could passengers, had a large propeller on each side mounted in its wings, two jet engines in the back, and a minigun just below the nose of the cockpit. Nabaat opened the door on the side bit before they entered the aircraft all four of them heard glass shattering.

Hope, Sazh, Vanille, and Jihl looked over in time to see Barthandelus tumbling through the air. The very large hole in the glass wall of the bridge explained what happened. Zack and Claire, or rather Lightning to them, were right behind the giant beast on the way down. Fang leaped from the bridge a second later, going into a dive with her spear leading her. Barthandelus hit the deck and an instant later Fang slammed into him. The steel flight deck fractured and cratered from the impact, Barthandelus cried out from the hit. Fang leaped away from the giant as he began thrashing around while finding his footing and Jihl ushered the other three not fighting into the aircraft.

The now former PSICOM commander directed Hope and Sazh to the chain guns on either side of the aircraft. She told Vanille to buckle up as she sat in the pilot seat, strapped in, and switched the aircraft on. The dual propellers quickly spun up to speed, lifting it off the deck. Jihl turned the craft towards Barthandelus and pushed a button on the flight sticks. Being on the sides, Sazh and Hope witnessed the wings with the turbine-like propellers turn and twist to help the craft maneuver and an instant later the front mounted minigun began spraying bullets at the giant. Once the three that had been fighting the transformed Dysley regrouped, Jihl released the trigger.

Barthandelus was now focusing on the aircraft and infuriated but unharmed. Jihl spat a curse and pushed the trigger again to force Barthandelus into a defensive position. The blonde moved the flight sticks to make the propellers turn and twist to make the craft creep towards the other three. It slowly spun giving Hope the chance to fire on the giant, which he did. Zack, Fang, and Claire exchanged looks before racing to the aircraft. Their decision to flee was motivated solely by the fact of they were not truly harming the giant Dysley. Sazh, more than anything, wanted to leap from the craft and go get his son but the chances of a successful rescue of the boy became zero the moment they encountered Dysley.

Jihl commanded the fighters to close the door and buckle up. They followed the order just before the blonde roughly spun the craft and shoved the flight sticks forward. The jets on the rear of the craft fired up with a roar and the passengers were shoved into their seats as the craft shot forward.

An alarm screamed and the craft turned completely sideways, its left wing pointing at the water. Less than a second later a large aircraft, that looked like a giant insect, raced past them. The bigger craft took a wide turn to come at them again, the craft holding the fugitive group took a much tighter turn to gain a lead. Once again the craft turned completely sideways to dodge a charge from the insectoid aircraft. Another tight turn and twist and the craft was soaring towards land. Jihl pushed the craft to its throttle limit and made sure to fly erratically to keep the other craft from locking on.

The passengers of the small craft Jihl was piloting were being tossed around in their seats. Although annoying, they knew Jihl's insane flying was keeping them from being shot down. Claire admitted that even though she was trained to endure such actions like Jihl's flying, she was getting nauseous. The equivalent of coming to a screeching halt nearly forced the contents out of the pinkette's stomach, only for them to be shoved back down as the craft rocketed upward. A quick look around told Claire the others were about to vomit as well. Except Zack. He looked like he was having the time of his life, making Claire think Zack was completely out of his mind.

Thanks to the unique design of Jihl's craft, she was able to bring it to a full stop just as the pursuer locked onto her. While she came to a full stop, the pursuer raced ahead and to take a wide turn around. Jihl aimed the craft up and made a run for the clouds. Once above the fluffy moisture formations, Jihl angled the craft and shut off the engines. Gliding into and through the clouds, the blonde military officer hoped she would lose their pursuer. But the radar revealed a blip traveling towards them. Fast. Assuming the other aircraft was at a different vertical coordinate Jihl kept her craft on its gentle glide. The blip on the radar passed them and the pilot released a breath she wasn't aware she was holding. They broke through the edge of the cloud allowing them to see the insectoid aircraft waiting for them.

Jihl threw the craft into a dive as she fired up the engines. The other larger airship was right on their tail as they rapidly accelerated towards the ground. With a silent prayer, Jihl switched on the propellers, swung the craft to the left, and turned off the jets, in an attempt to make another full stop. The giant insectoid craft reached towards the smaller aircraft as it rocketed past, its clawed legs made contact with the right side wing, obliterating it and the clawed legs forcing both into a spin but only the insectoid recovered quickly.

The smaller craft spun wildly because of the sudden loss of its wing. Alarms roared for every problem caused by the lack of a wing. Jihl fought the spin by making the remaining propeller go against it and shutting off the jets. The passengers fought the contents of their stomachs coming up. Vanille had started screaming, Sazh was crying out something indecipherable under the alarms, Zack took to shouting anything he could think of to calm the others, Fang was shouting curses, Hope and Claire were silently holding onto their seats for dear life. Jihl managed to get the spinning under control, pointed the craft to the clouds, and gunned the jets in a futile attempt to slow their terminal velocity descent to the forest below.

The nimble aircraft exploded on impact.


"Reunion..." the one armed, sword wielding, Cie'th growled. It turned to look at the stunned rebels, giving Serah a disturbing sight.

In the middle of the monster's upper body, the face of the man was still visible. His skin had become just as gray and stone like as the rest of the body but one eye was dominating his face. It was large, positioned vertically, had an almost glowing bright green iris, and a slit pupil like a cat's eye. The pupil dilated as it looked over the rebel group, muttering the only word Cie'th knew, as if waiting for them to prove if they were a threat or not. For the simple reason of only having seen one Cie'th die, then shortly resurrect, the rebels didn't dare move a muscle.

Out of short sighted panic, Elena drew her pistol and started wildly shooting at the Cie'th's back. In response, the Cie'th gave an ear splitting shriek making everyone cover their ears out of reflex. The monster spun and charged at the Turks, Elena specifically, sending a horizontal slash at the three which they all dodged. Serah quickly knocked two arrows and released them, not thinking clearly due to her friends being in danger. The arrows harmlessly bounced off the stone and crystal skin of the monster. It turned back to the rebels and spotted the bow, then sprinted at Serah, flipping the immense sword around to a regular grip mid-stride. The pinkette froze as the blade was swung down at her but in the blink of an eye abs with the crash of steel on steel, Cloud was between her and the monster using the Buster Sword like a shield.

Snapping back to reality, Serah quickly grabbed an arrow from her quiver and drove it deep into the monster's huge eye. It shrieked, kicked Cloud in the chest launching him back into Serah sending them both tumbling, telegraphing to them the eye is vulnerable. The monster dropped its sword to pull the arrow from its eye and Snow took the opportunity to rush the Cie'th.

The behemoth of a man shoulder tackled the one armed mutant bringing them both to the ground. Snow scrambled to the staggered monster to grab its single arm with a vice grip to pin it. It violently thrashed and kicked to be released but the blond giant persisted. At least, until the Cie'th let out another of its ear splitting screams. While it was painful for everyone else, Snow took it full force. Involuntarily he released the Cie'th, stumbling back with his hands over his ears. In an instant the monster was on its feet and was being charged by Tifa, Rude, and Reno. The spear wielding pilot was keeping his distance from the freak of nature.

Tifa and Rude somehow wordlessly agreed to keep the thing of balance and distracted. Reno took to attacking the monster's elbow and knees with his baton but it seemed to be having little effect. However, the only damage the fist fighters were doing was to their own hands. Ignoring the brawlers the Cie'th held out its hand and its large sword leapt off the ground, rocketing over to its owner. Tifa and Rude immediately fell back to get away from the long blade, however the Cie'th decided to pursue Tifa but Cloud was right there to defend her.

Serah had an arrow ready but was unable to fire it at the eye. The reason being Cloud. The blond was fighting hard against the Cie'th, which had fallen into the defensive and was falling back. Without warning the monster shifted its feet and began fighting back in a relentless assault. In an instant the roles of the two sword fighters were traded, Cloud was now defending and retreating. It became very clear that even with only one arm the Cie'th was overpowering the blond wielding the huge sword. Soon Cloud abandoned the thought of trying to dodge or avoid the attacks to settle for defending them. Serah began to see the pattern in the Cie'th's attacks and felt she recognized it but discarded that thought as she focused on finding the precise moment to let her arrow fly. Only three seconds later her fingers slid off the shaft.

The alloy tipped arrow, coincidentally the same one that killed the man in the pagoda, spun like a drill as it took flight. Soundlessly it flew over the blond's right shoulder, passing by his ear with a handful of centimeters to spare. It threatened to pierce his arm but missed it by the width of a single hair as Cloud began moving to block the next attack. The Cie'th's shoulder was the next obstacle for the elongated drill bit but the Cie'th moved its arm back for its next attack, clearing the path. Extremely sharp alloy steel drilled into the white of the monstrous eye, the soft organic material barely resisting. For everyone else, the arrow's trip took less than half a second.

Almost as soon as the arrow slammed into its target the Cie'th released another ear splitting scream. The iris of the giant eye changed from glowing green to a light radiating red as the eye focused on Serah. Cloud attacked the distracted monster but it deftly danced around the blond to start its charge at the pinkette. Snow sprinted towards the Cie'th aiming to bulldoze it but without even a glance his way the Cie'th countered. It paused for just a moment, stepped back, sweep kicked Snow's legs, and sword butted his back, driving him to the ground and winding the large man. As it stepped over Snow, Serah fired another arrow but the monster blocked it with a slash.

The Cie'th thrust its blade at the archer, she mistakenly dodged left and quickly had to drop to dodge the follow up slash, then had to roll to avoid the following downward slash. Rising to her feet Serah knocked an arrow to join the one still embedded in the giant eye but as soon as she had the string pulled the Cie'th's blade smashed through the bow. The compound bow exploded from the hit and the string was fragmented by the razor blade slicing through it in several places. Serah was left with the arrow she was going to shoot and an injured wrist. The Cie'th stared her down as it raised its sword, the blade came down but was halted by Cid holding his spear horizontally.

"Damn kids dunno when ta run." The pilot grumbled "Hey! Get yer useless punk asses over here!" He then shouted at the other fighters.

Reno was first to reach the Cie'th, driving the electro-rod into the monster's back which had no effect on it. Snow was next, the giant grabbed the thing's arm and wrenched it back. Tifa and Rude took hold of two of the odd appendages sprouting from the bulbous upper body. Cloud swung the blunt side of the Buster Sword at the knee, making a loud crunch ring out from the Cie'th's limb. Yuffie slid into place between Cid and the Cie'th to drive her shuriken into the large eye. The one armed Cie'th opened its mouth to scream, prompting Yuffie to drop to the ground leaving an opening for Cid. The pilot slammed the blade of his spear into the monster's maw, cutting off the scream. The monster fell limp, gurgling as a black fluid spilled over its jaw as it sank to the ground. Everyone decided to take a break.

Serah opted to retrieve her arrow, even if she no longer had a bow. She knelt down beside the creature and leaned over to get good leverage on the arrow embedded in the large eye. The pinkette grabbed and pulled, and the arrow slid free with little resistance. She sat back on her heels to clean off the arrow head and happened to notice something. The Cie'th's pupil contracted when she moved away from it. Her eyes widened as she recalled that time in the Nibelheim Reactor with Vincent, when they learned Cie'th revive after a short time.

Turning to shout to the others, Serah's call got caught in her throat. A large crystalline and stone hand closing around her slender neck was what halted the call. Somehow it was able to stand up from laying flat with only its legs and it lifted Serah off her feet holding her at arm's length. She wildly kicked her feet and clawed at the unnatural hand with a vice grip on her throat. Cid and Reno cursed loudly, prompting everyone else to stand and take in the scene. The response from the Cie'th was a bellowing bestial roar. Serah felt the monstrous fingers closing tighter around her neck, fully cutting off her breathing.

"Reunion!" It growled.

It dropped the girl and stepped on her back forcing Serah flat against the ground. Once again she could barely breathe but she was thankful she was able to after being choked. The Cie'th held out its hand and its sword leapt off the ground, soaring over to its owner. Without missing a beat, the creature swung its single powerful arm and threw its very long bladed sword at the others. They all easily dodged the sword but with a flick of the wrist the Cie'th made its sword begin returning before it hit the ground.

Seeing an opportunity Cloud spun and purposely stood in the path of the flying sword. He raised the Buster Sword as a shield and with a crash the Cie'th's sword was flipping end over end away from the group and the blond was thrown off his feet towards the monster. When the blond hit the ground he threw himself into a roll, landing on his feet near the Cie'th. Cloud thrust the Buster Sword, sharp side of the gargantuan blade directed to the sky, at the radiant red eye but the Cie'th stopped the attack by slamming its one large hand onto the end of the blade. Both Cloud and the Cie'th trembled as they struggled to overcome each other. The tie breaker was Snow charging into the fray and palm striking the hilt of the Buster Sword with all of his strength and weight thrown into the hit.

The Cie'th gave an inhuman cry as the massive blade pierced the eye until it slammed into the creature's back. Its arm broke and bent into revolting angles and the hand was driven into the large eye with the blade. A blue haze enveloped the blade before Cloud bent his knees and pushed off. The Buster Sword cleaved through the Cie'th as Cloud leaped high. In the air he flipped the sword around, raised it above his head, and swung it down just as he began his descent. The Cie'th was cleaved vertically in half and the ground beneath it fractured from the force of the Buster Sword's sudden introduction. Both halves of the creature tumbled to the ground, soon starting to disintegrate into black dust.

"What the hell was that!?" Elena shouted after a few moments of silence.

"Cetra writings called them Cie'th." Serah told the blonde Turk, repeating what Vincent told AVALANCHE and NORA.

"Nibelheim is full of them." Cloud stated in his usual somber tone.

"There's more of that thing!?" Elena shouted again, making Reno look at her incredulously. Rude looked too but his expression was unreadable.

"This one was special." Tifa reply simply.

"Might want to get Shinra to start cleaning up the Cie'th mess." Snow said with a smirk. Reno glared at the blond giant.

"You're lucky this one is off the books, yo." Reno said, surprising Serah by not using a comeback.

The rebels and the undercover Turk watched the Turks walk away, Elena kept glancing over her shoulder at them. Once they were far enough away everyone relaxed with a deep sigh. Cloud slid the large Buster Sword onto his back and spoke without looking to his comrades.

"Let's get back to the others finally."

"Let's get our materia back first." Tifa said with a smile as she grabbed Yuffie's bicep in an iron grip. The young Wutaian grinned sheepishly at the group as they started back to Wutai's capitol.

So for those of you that don't follow Gaming Industry news, Square Enix revealed an official Final Fantasy VII Remake at E3 last weekend, you can find the announcement video on youtube. Go watch it.

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