Chapter 23: Run to the Dead Zone


Character Change: Kairi-Tsugumi Basil - Viralious

Location: City of Mantle: Meteion Warehouse


Moments after Ifiral fired the shot the speaker fell backwards, aura shattering and smacked his head on the hard concrete making up the stage. A scream echoed from the warehouse from the multiple citizens gathered to watch the speech. Ifiral stood there onstage, shotgun still extended forward.

Suddenly, Viralious notices a figure dropping from the rafters towards Ifiral. The figure is wearing all black and has black flowing hair. Angled downwards was a long katana, nearly 2 meters in length with the tip heading directly for Ifiral's neck. Before the blade can make contact, Ifiral is suddenly pulled through a blue shatter that places him with the rest of his team. The figure looks confused for a moment before seeing all four members of Team VIEW standing in the entryway. He simply raises his blade to point at them.

"Viralious, get the door!" Ifiral suddenly yells, pulling Viralious from his shock. Unsheathing his weapon Viralious shifts his weapon to its SMG mode and fires at the latch on the door. Connecting after a quick spray of 4 bullets the latch breaks and causes the rolling door to fall, cutting their vision of the inside of the warehouse. Seconds later, a blade goes through the door nearly hitting Winter causing all of them to jump.

"New plan! FUCKING RUN!" Viralious says prompting the four of them to book it away from the warehouse. With one last glance to the warehouse Viralious sees the blade slowly starting to cut open the shutter.

"Ifiral do you care to explain why you just did th-" Winter starts to ask.

"We can discuss this after we get away!" Viralious orders before turning to Ifiral, "Ifiral, call for pick-up at the nearest location… tell them to be prepared for combat." He says, fully serious.

"Already done. Come on, we've got to get away from this sector and towards a spot where the Bullhead can actually land!" Ifiral says putting his scroll away. "We've got maybe 1 km to lose them."

"Oh, this is a great fucking plan." Eckhart says upholstering his weapon. "Best chance is to split u-"

"No offense, Eckhart but I don't think splitting up is a great idea here." Winter says reaching for her saber.

"I agree, we don't know how many we're up against, if worse came to worst we could hold up in an abandoned building and call for help." Viralious says loading a cartridge of electric dust in each of his SMGs, giving a soft yellow glow around the barrel.

"Fine, then let's make our pa-" Eckhart starts before a Ifiral unsheathes his blade blocking something flying straight at him.

A singular executioner round falls to the ground… Rounds meant to tear through aura… and highly illegal. Seeing this just reaffirms to everyone that they need to act with caution.

"We've got contact! Watch your backs!" Ifiral says shifting his weapon back into its shotguns and firing a quick volley behind them towards their attacker.

"Through here QUICKLY!" Viralious calls, opening a gate in front of him that links to an alley around the corner. Quickly the rest of his team pushes through before taking an immediate left to go a different way from that corner hoping to lose their attackers.

There is about 3 minutes of uninterrupted running before Ifiral recognizes a familiar house… or a familiar set of bunny ears sticking through the window. Shaking his head he calls to the rest of his team, "We need to take a different route! If we continue on this path, we're going to put civilians at risk!"

"Someone should have thought about that before shooting a goddamn speaker in the head!" Eckhart calls coldly.

"Eckhart! Ifiral's right, we need to not make this worse than it already is!" Winter says angrily.

"There's our path then." Viralious says pointing to a high street that has multiple bulbs burned out. It's more open but it's unlikely that anyone will actually be out at this time… what's more there doesn't seem to be any obvious apartments or houses.

With a silent nod, Ifiral rushes ahead, coming to the street… It's quiet… seemingly empty. The rest of his team catches up and they take a quick moment to catch their breath.

"Ifiral, how far is the evac zone?" Viralious says catching his breath.

Ifiral pulls out the scroll and quickly looks at the navigation software, "About 0.4 km left… taking those side paths slowed us down considerably."

"Keeping this from the general's desk will make that worth it." Viralious says checking the alley that they came from… there's no one there.

"I think we lost them." Winter says resheathing her saber.

"Hopefully but we can't be too cautious." Eckhart says checking his weapon.

"Right let's get a move on-" Viralious says before suddenly tackling Winter to the ground. As he does this a wave of fire flies to where Winter's head was a moment ago.

"Shit." Ifiral says gritting his teeth and as he takes aim and fire from where the wave came from. The hot slag misses and only creates an outline of their attacker as they jump into the air closing the distance landing in the middle of the four of them.

Eckhart is the first to react by opening a gate in front of him to catch the target's katana just as it's about to come down Viralious and Winter causing it to get stuck in the ground. Seeing this Viralious opens a gate below him and Winter that spits them out a good 5 meters away. Getting off the ground they get into fighting stances.

Ifiral in the middle of this shifts his weapon back into its two-handed blade mode and swings it down towards the assailant. Suddenly, the blade stops right in its tracks. Viralious looks and sees what happened.

The black-haired assailant caught Ifiral's blade with one hand and was preventing him from swinging it down anymore. The man just smiles a cruel grin before saying "Now, that was pretty fucking rude what you did back there." he then pushes upwards with the blade forcing Ifiral back.

Pulling his katana from the ground and adopting an odd stance, he's holding the katana with two hands but close to his face with the blade angled towards the ground. He then looks at Ifiral, "I guess I should teach you some manners." He says rushing towards Ifiral who only has enough time to raise his blade to block the strike but is obviously struggling slightly.

Seeing this Viralious fires a quick burst from his weapon and makes sure that the electric dust is flying as well. Winter also summons a glyph and fires a few projectiles at the assailant.

Seeing this the enemy in black turns and spins his weapon in a way to block the incoming shots before jumping to dodge Winter's projectiles. Capitalizing off of this, Ifiral rushes forward in a focused thrust towards the enemy's midsection.

Connecting, the assailant in black is sent flying back before finding his footing by landing on a wall of a nearby building; he is then shot by a multitude of bullets flying through a gate behind him. The force sent him crashing to the ground.

"You're welcome." Eckhart calls out reloading his weapon, just as he finishes, "We really don't want to be stuck in one spot we need to get moving!"

"Agreed!" Viralious says firing more rounds at the assailant covering for his team to start running.

The assailant in black is forced to block the oncoming fire giving Team VIEW a moment to run towards the evac. The assailant touches his ear before smirking.

"Thordan, don't interfere, those kids are mine."

On the other line a voice rings out, "Sephirot! I don't believe that-"

"That's not a suggestion… I will kill anyone you send to get in my way." Sephirot says with a smile and licks his lips, "The hunt is on."


"How much fucking farther!" Viralious calls out after they had been running for a good minute. So far, the crazy guy in black had yet to catch up to them.

"0.25 km!" Ifiral calls out.

"Great keep- LOOK OUT!" Winter calls out.

Viralious turns before he's hit by a slash of overwhelming pressure that causes him to fly into the wall.

"Shit's got to be gravity dust!" Eckhart calls out turning to where the slash came from seeing no one. Suddenly he hears the sounds of boots hitting pavement behind him. Quickly turning around he's struck in the side of the head by a hilt of a weapon before being kicked to the ground.

"You're the one opening those portals… You go first." The assailant says smirking and is about to thrust his blade into Eckhart when a purple shatter opens next to his head and a familiar boot strikes the assailant sending him flying.

Viralious lands on the pavement next to Eckhart, "You alright?"

Eckhart gives a quick nod just as Winter and Ifiral join them. "Thanks for the assist… What's the plan?"

"He's just going to keep chasing us… We should try and use gravity dust to slow him down." Viralious says quickly loading two cartridges of purple dust into his weapon causing for a soft purple glow to emanate from the blades.

"Understood." Winter says following suit and loading a cartridge into her weapon.

"I don't have that stuff, but I'll give you guys covering fire." Ifiral says shifting his weapon to be its dual shotguns.

"I'll scan the area for any more enemies or the Bullhead, then provide covering fire with my gates."

"Alright… Break through!" Viralious says rushing towards the assailant who has just gotten up.

Winter immediately summons a large glyph behind her and fires a large amount of projectiles at their target. She's also summoning more glyphs in front of her to skate on.

Ifiral took this moment to fire volley after volley of fire Dust to give Viralious the support that he needed to engage with his foe. Eckhart, meanwhile, was taking aim with his weapon and drones scanning the area for any more hostiles.

Viralious' blades connected with the long katana and began pushing against their attacker's strength before digging his heel in and shifting his weight low before disconnecting and trying to slash their midsection. Seeing this the black clad swordsmen jumped backwards, then Viralious heard what sounded like a revolver spinning. Looking at his target's weapon he sees the long cylinder in the hit with the tell-tale multicolor of dust chambers.

"Shit." Is all Viralious is able to say before his enemy is back on him having rushed forward with a lunge. The two are locked in a dance of blades. Viralious is able to get a few slashes in between blocks but mostly he's been bleeding aura to his opponent. Viralious gets a horrible idea before throwing the blade in his right hand towards them.

Doing the obvious, the swordsman dodges the blade as it really wasn't flying that fast. It embeds itself in the ground about a meter away. "Was that supposed to hit me? That's pathetic." The swordsmen said with a frown.

Viralious gives a smirk, "No, just giving him an opening." Suddenly a purple shatter appears before a Ifiral's ignited blade comes from it and swings into the swordsman's chest causing his aura to flash. With a grunt, Ifiral sends him flying backwards. Before he lands against a wall and is stuck in place by Winter using an attractive glyph.

"I can't believe that worked." Winter says breathing a heavy sigh.

"Oh, trust me it didn't." The swordsman says pulling the trigger on his weapon causing a large explosion. The force breaks Winter's focus causing the glyph to drop. A moment later the swordsman rushes forward and slams his katana into Winter sending her flying, she's only saved from a rough landing on the pavement by Eckhart opening gates to slow her fall.

"This isn't fucking working." Eckhart says while making sure Winter is okay, with a groan Winter gets up and grits her teeth.

"I know that…" Viralious says glancing down at his scroll to view everyone's aura levels

Viralious: 60%

Ifiral Phenrix: 65%

Eckhart Slate: 45%

Winter Schnee: 30%

Gritting his teeth, Viralious barely is able to block the first slash from the swordsman when they rush him.

Through an angry face the swordsman said, "You're the leader of this rabble… I must say I'm mildly impressed." Before attempting to slash Viralious' chest when he's struck in the back.

Looking behind him he sees that the Viralious' blade that was stuck in the ground had flown into him and was currently being grabbed by Viralious. Seeing his opening Viralious performed a light backflip gaining momentum and landed on a glyph that he summoned before rushing through the swordsman in a powerful shadow strike.

The swordsman's aura flashes again showing that it had taken some real damage. But didn't break like Viralious was expecting. The soft purple glow from his weapon faded after that last slash signaling that he was out of gravity dust.

Viralious attempts to jump backwards to flee before a hand grabs his mouth. Looking at the swordsman in black he just attacked had an extremely pissed off look on his face.

"YOU LITTLE SHIT!" He says before throwing Viralious into a wall with overwhelming strength. Getting Viralious' aura to flash. Shaking his head to recenter himself Viralious looks to the swordsman and sees that he's rushing towards him before

"VIRALIOUS!" Winter suddenly calls out getting the swordsman in black to stop for a second

The swordsman looks confused for a moment before muttering, "It couldn't be-" He's interrupted by Eckhart opening a gate for Ifiral to step through. Ifiral immediately takes this opening to do his best impression of a homerun bat and sends the black clad swordsman flying back in the air where he's then sent through one of Eckhart's gates giving him a wider angle of launch.

Winter runs up to Viralious and helps him up, "Viralious are you alright?" She asks, concerned and placing a hand on his shoulder.

Viralious stands and winces a little, "I'll be fine… We have to get out of here." He says shaking her hand off.

"Agreed, this guy's angry and persistent. Hopefully a 30mm chain gun from the Bullhead will dissuade him." Eckhart says in a serious tone.

Winter nods and Ifiral covers the rear as they run. Viralious ejects the cartridges from his weapon and digs in his bag for a minute before loading two into his weapon. No glow emanates from the edges of the blades. He then glances down to his scroll to catch everyone's aura level and finds them in rough shape.

Viralious: 32%

Ifiral Phenrix: 65%

Eckhart Slate: 45%

Winter Schnee: 30%


Character: Viralious - Thordan Skobeloff

Location: : City of Mantle: Meteion Warehouse


Things were not going well for Thordan at the current moment. He stood on the stage of the warehouse and was contemplating what had occurred this night. First he's told that there are four unknown huntsmen chasing off some of his 'recruiters' in mantle meaning he's going to have to lay low for a little while. Next only a fraction of the projected new recruits actually showed up to the meeting. At this rate he wasn't going to meet the quota that Juno had placed. meaning he was going to have to start sending in some actually useful members to Juno. If tonight wasn't already going poorly, one of his main speakers was just shot while giving his speech inducing a panic causing all the new possible recruits to flee before he could get them entrapped!

To recap he was already having a bad night, and now had zero new recruits after a week of planning this fucking demonstration. If things couldn't be any worse Sephirot was the one going after the party crashes and told him that he would kill anyone he sent to help. Fucking it's a wonder that Sal-

Thordan's thoughts were interrupted by a groan on the stage next to him glancing down at the speaker who was starting to wake up. Walking up the stage were the two 'recruiters' that had informed him of the news of the huntsmen.

"Tonight's a fucking mess." He says gripping the bridge of his nose.

"Hey, wasn't that one with the shotgun one of the ones that chased us off?" One of the guards says to the other.

"Yeah, though it was a huge blade at that point… Huntsman weapons are weird." the other replies.

Thordan looks at the two with a death gaze, "So you're telling me that you lead them here?" His tone is poorly hiding his thinly veiled anger.

"But there was a delay they couldn't have f-"

"THAT JUST MEANS THEY GOT HELP!" Thordan yells at the guard before pulling out his revolver and shooting him straight in the head.

The body falls to the floor with a thundering splat reverberating through the empty warehouse. Both the speaker and the other guard look at their leader shocked, he then points his weapon at the other guard.

"Wait, boss, it won't happen again!" The guard pleads

"You're right it won't." Thordan responds coldly before pulling the trigger.

The other guard's body falls on top of the others. Thordan gives a sigh before starting to walk away; he stops when he hears.

"Y-you… you just killed them in cold blood!" The speaker says still on the ground looking at him in shock.

"Oh, I forgot you were awake." Thordan says coldly before pointing his revolver at the speaker, "A shame two you were a great speaker… but now instead of leading us in sermon, you'll be a martyr for the cause." he says pulling the trigger sending a single executioner round through his skull.

The stage stood the lone Thordan Skobeloff standing there as the blood from his former comrades' pools around him. Looking towards the shattered moon he curses.

"Shiva… Why couldn't you just cooperate… Life would have been so much simpler."

He then walks off the stage leaving the bodies for someone else to clean up.


Character: Thordan Skobeloff - Sephirot

Location: City of Mantle: Back alley


Sephirot landed on a pile of garbage and grit his teeth… Those kids were fucking annoying! Their teamwork seemingly made up for their weaknesses, but the truth was he could kill them… He would have been able to kill the one in purple if he didn't…hesitate

"There is no possible way… It was Vacuo… He can't be here…" He says crying madness as he gets up. The Schnee bitch's voice was still echoing in his ear.

VIRALIOUS!

VIRALIOUS!

VIRALIOUS!

"VIRALIOUS!" Sephirot cries before breaking down into horrible, deranged laughter. After a minute or so… he calms down, "No, he cannot be my lost son… Summer would never have brought him to Atlas… It must be a coincidence." He says spinning the revolver chamber on his weapon and checking his dust reserves. Grimacing he sees that he only really has the wind and electric dust left. Beginning to walk away towards the most obvious 'evac zone' that those four could be going to he checks his aura on his scroll.

Sephirot Rustiva: 50%

Smirking, he thinks to himself,

I'm impressed they got 50%... they may be useful puppets.

He then looks to the moon and smirks for the hunt had found new vigor.


Character: Sephirot Rustiva - Viralious

Location: City of Mantle


The last few minutes were agonizing, not because it hurt to run or that it was a long distance, but it was the panic that came from it. They were truly running blind here; they didn't know anything about their assailant rather than their weapon. This pressure of the unknown was easily dragging them into the further reaches of madness and if they weren't in Mantle would surely have attracted Grimm to their position. Luckily for Viralious the only thing he had to contend with while running was his own mind.

You're weak; a burden on those around you.

"Shut up." Viralious mumbles under his breath

You're holding them back. You'll get them killed.

"SHUT UP!" Viralious mumble yells loud enough only Winter hears him.

Just like your mother.

"Just out of this alley here, I can hear the Bullhead!" Eckhart calls from the front of the group. Looking forward Viralious sees a silver bullhead swing out in front of them and land in the small roundabout in front of them.

"Fucking finally." Ifiral says rushing towards the bullhead before suddenly a katana blade lands between Team VIEW and the Bullhead. Landing on top of the blade is the swordsman in black looking straight at Viralious rage burning in his eyes.

"I believe we have some unfinished business." the swordsman says, giving a sickening grin.


Character: Viralious - Kairi-Tsugumi Basil

Location: City of Mantle: GS1 Bullhead


"Sir, we have a visual of them on." The pilot says pointing to a team of four running towards the roundabout they were landing at.

Basil breathed a sigh of relief; she had started to panic after the emergency evacuation order was given… even more when she realized that they were at the warehouse district when they triggered it.

Smirking, she was ready to give them an extreme dressing down when she saw a long katana slam into the pavement and a black clad figure land on it.

Her smirk falls hard and memories flash through her.

The flash of long black hair followed by the swing of a katana. Her friend, Sada looks on in horror as he places a hand on her shoulder. He mumbles something before Sada points her gun to her head and-

Basil had started hyperventilating and only says one thing "N-No… H-h-he c-can't b-b-be h-here."


Character Change: Kairi-Tsugumi Basil - Viralious

Location: City of Mantle


Viralious looked at the black clad swordsman in anger. Shaking his head, he looks at Winter, "I need you to trust me."

"Viralious what are you doing?" Winter asks in concern

"Something stupid, but it should buy everyone time to escape." Viralious responds.

"We're not leaving you behind." Winter says stoically.

"Good, 'cause that wasn't the plan. I'm simply going to distract him while you guys get on the Bullhead… I might need Eckhart to portal me up there but that's really it." Viralious deadpans.

Winter blinks once before softly saying, "oh…. make sure you're safe Viralious."

"I will… Everyone got the plan?" Viralious says to the rest of his team

"Yes, and it's a stupid one, but it's a plan." Eckhart sighs out.

"Just don't get killed." Ifiral says

"Oh, believe me Ifiral… We have a lot to talk about so I'm not dying tonight." Viralious says through grit teeth.

"So sure of yourself huh… Well then Viralious let's see if you live up to that belief." The swordsman says, looking at him with a hungry expression.

Viralious doesn't say a word before rushing forward using a glyph as a springboard. Seeing this the swordsman uses his feet to lift the katana from the concrete and block Viralious' attack. Before he collides with the swordsman he switches to Eckhart's semblance and opens a gate behind the swordsmen leading to behind Winter and the rest of his team. The force of the collision sent them both though.

Winter, Ifiral and Eckhart all run towards the Bullhead which is opening its door for them to get inside, Winter spares one more glance at Viralious and sees that he's slowly losing ground.

Each of Viralious' slashes are being blocked and countered with viscous slashes or a strong punch. Viralious realizes that it's a losing battle and decides to gamble on one last attack. Jumping back slightly Viralious switches his weapon into SMG mode and prepares for the swordsman to rush him.

Not giving Viralious time to center his shots, the swordsman runs towards him and is about to perform a slash at Viralious' neck when it's suddenly stopped.

The swordsman looks at what is blocking his blade from cutting at Viralious' neck and sees what looks like a geist with a white cloak. A long claw-like hand is holding the weapon protecting Viralious like a mother would their child.

The swordsman mumbles, "Summer?" so quietly that Viralious doesn't pick up on it. Instead, he pulls the alternate fire trigger on his weapon causing a cloud of yellow smoke to explode out of his weapon, engulfing the two. Viralious then jumps backward leaving the swordsman in the cloud. A few moments later both collapse on the ground writhing in pain.

Viralious lays there on the ground writhing in pain as what feels like bolts of electricity shoot through his body… he quietly thinks to himself.

This mix had a little TOO much lighting Dust… FUCK that hurts.

A blue shatter quickly opens under him causing him to fall into the non-cushioned floor of the Bullhead as it begins to take off. The large door shuts behind him and he looks out the window at the swordsman writhing in pain on the ground, a tinge of sympathy goes through before he remembers this bitch tried to kill them.

"You could have been a bit softer on the landing Eckhart." Winter says, annoyed.

"Excuse me for making sure everyone got out of there alright… I think a small bruise is better than losing their life."

Winter shakes her head before looking down at Viralious, "Don't ever do that again… Seriously your aura's at 9%! Well beyond the evacuation threshold for students." Winter responds worriedly.

Viralious tries to give a response but is currently still writhing in pain almost looking like he's caught in an electric net.

"Here, use this on him… It should counteract most of the poison in his system." A familiar shy voice says tossing a vial of purification Dust to Winter. She then proceeds to apply it to Viralious.

After a moment or two Viralious stops and is able to sit up. Looking at his team he asked, "Is everyone okay?"

"Yeah, you got the worst of it but we made it out of there in one piece somehow." Eckhart responds, giving a sigh.

Viralious gives a nod before turning and looking at Ifiral "Now then, now that we're safely out of the hands of that lunatic… Ifiral, what the fuck was that?"

"Yes, Ifiral The fuck was that?" The voice from the cockpit says again stepping into the passenger's seating. Standing there with a royally pissed off look on her face is Professor Basil.

"Ah shit the bed" Viralious says upon seeing the mouse professor.

"Crap baskets." Winter says upon seeing her.

"Oh bollocks." Eckhart says

"Fuck… Could this night get any worse?" Is Ifiral's reply.

Basil looks at Ifiral and glares at him, responding with "Yes this night can in fact get worse."

A/N

This chapter was fun to write and presented an interesting challenge as it was basically one big fight scene the whole time. It was hard to make everyone feel useful and their attacks be meaningful when it was a four on one fight. Now then since it was basically one big fight scene there isn't much to talk about… although the scenes that interrupt those fight scenes are really important. Let's start with Sephirot.

There is a reason my editor calls him Wish Dot com Sephiroth, his fighting style and weapon are based off of him. In fact, his moves and attacks in this chapter were based off of his fight in the FF7 remake. His semblance was kind of revealed in this chapter but not really, so I can't explain that yet. What is more important is his connection to Viralious, he's his biological father. Many of you might have picked that up in Chapter 16 when Juno mentioned the one who took the boy and ran. This is an important part of the story and will play a huge role moving forward. After all he is the BBEG for this story so expect a lot to happen.

AmoebaHewdraw's Note: You forgot to mention that their names are LITERALLY ONE LETTER APART FROM BEING THE SAME!

… It's a FFXIV reference… and a biblical reference.

AmoebaHewdraw's Note 2: Etymology Boogaloo: Not entirely biblical. It's a part of Jewish Kabbalah and roughly translates to "emanations." It's actually plural in case you didn't pick that up in the rough translation. Also I picked up on the FFXIV reference, but I'm only seeing two arms. Fun fact: most of Sephirot's attack names in FFXIV are references to the ten sefirot themselves. The more you know! (As an etymology enthusiast, you should've seen this coming.)

… What the fuck… let's just ignore that and go on

Up next is Thordan's section. It's really just to build a bit more character to Meteion and break the fight up a bit more. It also does confirm that it is the same Thordan from Eckhart's flashback in Chapter 11 (Jesus, that was a long time ago I don't blame you if you forgot him.)

The scene after that is meant to establish Sephirot a bit more as a character and lean into his insanity and bloodthirst for the hunt, this will be developed more in coming chapters and connects with Basil's memories… I can't wait to show you everything.

This chapter was literally 2 lines in my notes, but you can see how important this chapter really was as the climax of the second half of the arc. There are two more chapters in the second Arc then we can get into the fun stuff. I hope you all have been enjoying the story so far and be ready to tune in next week for Basil's amazing dressing down of Team VIEW.

This is where I would like to thank my editor, AmoebaHewdraw, for making this story actually legible. Without his comments and feedback, I wouldn't have had to split the story into multiple documents.

Side tangent: Why does google docs save resolved comments for longer than a day? Wouldn't it make more sense to delete them?

Until next time, Xcom Out.