A/N: Since I don't know who reads profiles and who doesn't, I'm letting all my readers of my two current works know I have to move at the end of April (the landlord sold the place, and they wanted us out so their son could live here while they do renos). Unlike last time I put up a notice like this, this is the real deal and we definitely have to move. As such, updates will be sporadic (may not be on Tuesdays, and may miss weeks entirely) and will probably stop entirely for awhile around April/May, maybe into June, while we try to get out from here and set up in a new place.

No, these stories won't be abandoned if I can at all help it! That means, if they end up in such a state, it's because we didn't find a place, which we don't want, either. Well wishes and prayers (depending on how religious you are) are welcome—it's hard to find a place here at the best of times, and two and a half months isn't much time to do so. :(

Unexpected Enemy

No one had really known what to expect from the northeastern pass through the mountains into the new land held by the Gaians, but Weiss certainly hadn't expected to play diplomat between two groups of what were essentially barbarian groups. In a way, that was utterly amusing—he'd never actually met anyone with this sort of 'Clan' mentality or lack of civilized development before. However, neither had yet managed to establish what they wanted from him, other than (questionably) a mediator.

Part of him went with the view that they were annoyed by his intervention but accepted it because he was too powerful to dismiss, and the other part felt they were relieved to have someone powerful enough to enforce them sitting down and talking rather than fighting.

The first group had come up about two days after they'd gotten there, and were really a rag-tag sort of group which wasn't especially large and was over half women and children. Because of that, Weiss had given the order to not kill unnecessarily, so many of the men had been beaten down, but were still alive. In this group, the women and children hadn't fought—the whole group had also been stunned stupid to realize about a quarter of his force was women. Not just women, but combat-capable women who trounced the men just as easily as the men did. About the only thing the barbarians had grasped was that he, Weiss, was the most powerful and tactically able in the group, so he was the leader there.

About a day later, once the first group had somewhat settled in Weiss' camp with his unit, a second group had turned up. This one was markedly different from the first in that they were overall more slender rather than on the stocky side, and there were women in the ranks of the combatants. Actually, after Weiss had forcibly broken up the instinctive fight the two Clans had started upon seeing each other, he'd realized most of this new Clan's fighting force was women, and they were shockingly lacking in men from age fifteen or so and up. In other words, it was a group almost solely composed of women and children.

He'd debated the idea that maybe this was a 'women's Clan' in the literal sense, but the fact was that the leader of it was still a man, and there were still some adult men in it. Though he wasn't sure if the 'leader' was more in charge, or if his lady second was. She sure seemed to give most of the orders, and everyone in their Clan followed them; the agreement could well have been that she was in charge unless the 'leader' had a reason to protest, and so far, he hadn't. The group also had a kind of forlorn and lost look to them which made him think they'd either fled a worse fate or deliberately been forced from their homes.

In that, he was very thankful Minerva had apparently given them all a common language, and he was sure it wasn't Standard or Amestrian. Or Ishbalan. That left the language of one of the Clans (maybe both?) or some random alternate which wasn't anyone's actual native language (of those present). Either way, it meant Weiss could talk with them, as could his people, but no one was saying anything—at all. They talked, but it was mostly to argue with the members of the other Clan, or for children to play together, or for some of them to do tasks like prepare meals or set someone to watch over the children. Even the children wouldn't share anything about where they'd come from or why.

Of course, that brought him right back to what they wanted with him. Neither group had made any motion to leave, not in any direction, and if they weren't going to talk with him, what was he supposed to do? He'd asked that of Lady Shinra, too, and she'd told him to wait for them to be ready to share so he could assess the best way to handle them from there. In the end, that was also really all he could do, unless he wanted to just toss them back out the way they came, and something made him hesitate to do so with both Clans. For him, that was more than a little odd.

It wasn't all bad. The men were large and strong, and readily helped to build homes, cut wood, build fortifications, and hunt. The women from the other group who were combatants readily agreed to scout and hunt as well, and some helped with other tasks. Children ran errands, and once shown how to keep things clean, did a lot of that around their playing. They were also very sturdy children, and some of the older ones even did some scouting—though that was more accidental as they explored the surrounding mountains and forest. All of the combatants learned very quickly from his two Turks, Anki and Quis, how to handle the monsters in the area as unenhanced people.

The one major sticking point was in them trying to get used to the two Motos he also had in his group. Large cats were predators to them—they'd made that clear as soon as they'd seen the pair—but large talking cats with burning tail tips alternated between 'demon' and 'god' to them. The two had done nothing to change their behavior, which meant they sometimes intervened in things to stop a fight, but they also ended up helping with random chores, hunting, or saving a stray child who had wandered off. Some of the people were starting to get used to them, but most still watched them with a wariness Weiss had never seen before.

That all changed when a frantic scout came back just before sunset to yell, "They're coming! They're coming! The largest force I've ever seen! We have a day at most to run!"

Both Clans froze, paled, and—panicked, jumping up with shouts and screams as they reached for possessions and children—

"Enough!" Weiss ordered in a 'command shout' which had never failed to make everyone nearby freeze in shock, then turn to stare at him. Which it also did just then. "Stay here, and stay calm. If it makes you feel better, make sure all your things are in order to move—calmly—but you're safer with us than elsewhere." They blinked at him, so he faced the scout and said, "Show me this group. I want to see what we're dealing with before I make a decision about our best course of action." He then turned and called, "Anki, Quis, you're with me!"

"Right," both agreed, joining him as he turned back to the surprised scout—one of the women in the 'women's' Clan.

"Lead the way—the fastest one you know," he told her.

She drew in a breath, then steadied herself, nodded, and turned to lead the way up the mountains beside the pass, where there were several good lookout ledges. It was obvious she'd trained to get the most out of every action with no wasted energy or motion, and she was both swift and sure-footed. In a way, she reminded him a lot of a mountain goat, the way she climbed. The only reason he and the Turks could keep up with her was their own training—and in his case, his enhancements. Turks were trained to climb, former members of Deepground and SOLDIERs were not.

Finally, they reached the point she'd seen them from, and pointed down at the far side of the pass. Weiss, Anki, and Quis all looked down at what she had pointed to—and blinked in surprise at what seemed to be an army including creatures which looked like brown, wolf-ish lions (more wolf-ish than the Motos, but similar enough to cause them chills, though they didn't have tail fires) and humans who were obviously both soldiers and the wolf-lions' handlers.

He couldn't put his finger on why, but he was sure there was something not right about those things, and it was in the same sort of way he'd have perceived anyone who was one of Jenova's children who hadn't been adopted by Minerva. Like Nero, in a way...

"That's going to be problematic," Quis commented. "We could collapse the pass, then clear it up later. At the very least, it would give us more time, since they'd have to climb or stop to clear it themselves."

"And call Lady Shinra and tell her to get us help—now," Anki added in a flat tone. "Our force alone can't hold that for more than a day, and a lot more than a couple barbarian Clans is at stake now."

"I can see that. Have you seen a mark we can identify them by to see if someone at the town knows it?" Weiss asked, still scanning the group for such a common mark.

Anki sighed and pulled out a small, extendable spyglass, which she handed to Quis, and he put it to his eye to get a better look at the ones to the back of the group. After a bit, he said, "They have some people at the back who are mounted on those—horses, I think the Ishbalans and Amestrians called them? They have banners which are all uniformly red with black text which sort of looks like the Wutain characters for 'Supreme Emperor'. Historically, Wutains killed anyone making a claim like that."

"Even their actual Emperor?" Weiss asked in bemusement.

"Especially their actual Emperor, actually," Anki replied. "Emperors are supposed to work for the people, which someone so arrogant most certainly won't do. There, you've got a mark, so make the call. Quis, let's go cause an earthquake ahead of them."

"Right," the blond Turk agreed, and followed Anki away.

Weiss sighed and sat back to pull out his PHS. He moved away from the edge of the cliff, sitting beside the shaking woman out of sight, and let the device auto-dial Lady Shinra as he settled. Soon after, she asked through the PHS, "I gather something's happened, Weiss?"

"Something," he agreed. "We need more forces up here, and we need them now—we have an army of thousands, easily, coming through the pass, and it's definitely not Drachmaran. Anki said plainly we can only hold against them for a day, and I agree by what I was just looking at. They have red banners with marks which sort of approximate 'Supreme Emperor' in Wutain on them in black, and their shock troops are a few hundred wolf-lions and their handlers. Those wolf-lions don't seem right to me in a way like how Nero and Azul were 'wrong'. Anki and Quis will block the pass, which should slow down the bulk of the army, but we still have the problem of the wolf-lions bypassing it, and they have a large enough force to clear it within a day, maybe up to two depending on how much the Turks bring down."

"All right, I'll see what I can do—Minerva permitting, you'll have help there later tonight or sometime early tomorrow. Just do your best until then, and if it gets too dangerous, head back this way. See if you can stir up some of the monsters in the area on your way. Yes, that means heading back with those two Clans you've acquired. If something goes horribly wrong on our end, I'll let you know to retreat immediately," she replied tersely.

"All right, thanks," he agreed, and hung up. He then turned to the woman scout and said, "That's what both your groups were running from." She stared at him uncomprehendingly for a moment, then made a pained face and nodded. He rose and said, "Well, let's go catch up with Anki and Quis."

She was about to rise—only to freeze and stare past him in shock and horror as he felt something coming up from above and to the side.

Spinning to meet the attack, he drew his blades and blazed with light as he unleashed all the power of a Limit Break he'd been holding back—and only briefly saw a massive bird of some sort before it was reduced to ash in the explosion of energy. Part of the cliff in front of him also fell, and the forces below all paused to look up at the location. Because he'd had the sense to duck back down after the attack, the pause didn't last long, as they hadn't been able to see him, so he grabbed the woman's arm and pulled her with him as he headed back to friendly territory, staying low to the ground.

As the two Turks came into sight, the entire pass rocked and an entire swath of the cliff on both sides fell into it. All right, if they'd brought down so much of it, maybe it would take closer to two days for the army to clear it, since only so many people could be in the pass working on it at any one time. It wouldn't stop the wolf-lions, but it was better than nothing, and those were powerful animals indeed—a pair could probably take down a Behemoth, and they were no bigger than the Motos. At least they were only animals, not independently intelligent like the Motos...

The dust had started settling as he reached Anki and Quis with the scout, and Anki asked, "What happened?"

"You heard it from here?" he asked in bemusement.

She pointed down at the pass and said in a flat tone, "That's a sound tunnel. It causes echoes if you're not careful. So, what happened?"

"Some sort of strange bird attacked me—I wonder if that was another of their animals or if it was actually just one of Earth's animals which decided I'd make a good meal right then," he shrugged. "Of course, that meant I met it and obliterated it, then ducked out of sight before the light cleared. Let's get back to camp. Either Lady Shinra's going to get us help—today if she can—or she'll call back and tell us to retreat."

"Fair," Anki agreed. "So we get back to camp and prepare to face the wolf-lions and possibly some or all of their handlers, but otherwise, we have a bit of breathing room."

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Quis asked cheerfully. "I'm betting on help arriving in time, so we're all good." He then turned to head back to the camp, leaving the other three to follow after him either bemusedly or apprehensively.

FoWD-HC

Lady Shinra sighed as she put her PHS away and glanced over at the little tiger cubs Nina and Doriss had found—one of the people there who knew tigers well had affirmed they were indeed the large cats, just tweaked a bit. They were babies and would still need to be fed milk for awhile, and she had no idea how they'd get any such thing. But, in the immediate moment, she actually was wishing they were already grown to help with the new and unexpected army at one of the passes Edward had thought would be less problematic rather than more.

Looking for the blond now-boy, she found him nearby with Rashad, Genesis, Roy, Alphonse, and Winry, so she called, "Edward, we have a situation at the northeastern pass." The others nearby all blinked and turned to look at her, including Ed, so she added, "In all your vast memory, have you ever heard about a group led by someone calling themselves the 'Supreme Emperor' in Wutain, or a similar title? I don't think the Xingese Emperor uses that term, so is it safe to assume this is a different group?"

"It doesn't sound familiar, but that doesn't mean there wasn't such a group," the boy told her. "Remember, before Minerva landed here, this whole place was a nearly uninhabitable desert cutting the east off from the west other than in the far north and far south. If they were stuck between Drachma and Xing, they may never have been able to go anywhere else where Amestrians and Ishbalans would have heard about them. Do you know anything else about the group?"

"Weiss tells me an army of a few thousand, including a few hundred wolf-lion combat animals, is at the pass," she replied.

"Wolf-lions, perhaps similar to the Motos?" the Xingese Lord asked, gaze disturbed.

"We don't have an actual description just now, but I assume they're similar," she offered slowly. "Though I'd strongly suspect both that they don't have burning tail tips, and that they're probably a bit more wolf-ish in appearance for him to specify."

"That sounds as though it may be the Mongols," he said warily, and the rest of his people had similar expressions. "They are the reason we have tigers guarding our children—their wolf-lions were made, not born or bred, and are exceptionally heavy and powerful. I suppose the method of making one would be similar to a chimera as Amestrians define them, but this is a specific form of it which has been perfected to create the war-beasts the Mongols use in battle. While they have a slight intelligence, they generally only take orders from their handlers. The Mongols have wanted the surrounding lands for a long time, something we have prevented by protecting our satellite nations."

"How likely are they to attack, and using what kinds of tactics?" the woman asked in a thoughtful tone.

"If they brought an army to your pass rather than a negotiation party similar to ours, they intend to attack and take possession of the land, much like Drachma's traditional stance of attacking first to take as much as they can without trading—or paying—for it," he answered, his tone turning flat. "As to tactics...They live primarily in high mountains with long, scattered, meadow-valleys, and a good many of them are horse riders and breeders. Did he mention mounted troops? Because if this was intended as a full-scale attack to take the land, more than half their army should be mounted."

She blinked, then shook her head and said, "He didn't mention them being mounted or not, but they had some banners in red with the text for 'Supreme Emperor' written on them in black. For our purposes, if he didn't mention mounts, at least the ones he could see weren't." She paused as the Lord's expression turned into a bitter smile, and her eyes widened as she breathed, "He could see thousands, and he saw less than half the force."

"Yes, because every rank of their cavalry carries banners, from the first to the last. He only saw the first rank, at best, to have seen the banners and not mentioned cavalry," Lord Long affirmed. "And as to their tactics...They tend to fight a great deal like bandits, but bandits who are well-trained, well-provisioned, and with quality gear and mounts, which are also trained to fight. They also have aerial patrols made with a method similar to the war-beasts, and with similar terms—precise creation, handlers, intelligence or lack thereof. Your best bet to actually stop them will be in the pass, as long as you have forces above on the mountains to catch groups bypassing the pass."

With a nod, she turned to Genesis and said, "Are you game to take some Mages into battle with you against them, Commander Rhapsodos? And can you get yourself out there with your troops now, not in a week's time?"

"I can, if I can take Sephiroth and Ed with me, the General to handle the aerial troops and Ed to shield the far end of the pass so they'd just meet a wall and have to stop. And he can shield the civilians as well," Genesis answered. "And Roy and Shiro, since creating a firestorm at the level they can do would wipe out a good many troops at once. I also don't think we want to tip our hands too soon, just in case they decide to retaliate with an even larger force later—I want this group to show them the power of a small number without showing everything we have or our real numbers."

The woman sighed faintly and said, "Then don't take Roy and Shiro just now, wait until we know if they're going to send a larger force. Kunzel is still here, so you could include him and some other Mages for the simple fact that they can obliterate anything that gets too close to them, even if they can't quite spread it over the same area you can. I also don't mind sending the General with you, as long as you can get him back here for morning."

"You would allow them to take a child—and a so-called Avatar—into battle? Onto a battlefield?" the Lord asked in shocked horror.

"Actually, he said he wanted me to put up obstacles and shield people, not fight, or even really be where I'd see much of it," Edward threw in, his tone dryly amused. Lady Shinra also thought the Lord's response was amusing.

"But shielding is a soldier's—" the man began.

The boy cut him off by stressing the word, "Magically." When the Xingese man stopped speaking to stare at him uncomprehendingly, he clarified, "I'm also a Mage—an alchemist. I can use it at any distance, and in ways even Genesis can't. I don't need to lift a hand to make this side of the pass pretty much inaccessible to anyone not a Gaian, Amestrian, or Ishbalan. I also don't need to lift a hand to put near-impenetrable shields around the civilians Weiss picked up. And, just like Genesis and most of our Mages, I can move myself and others instantly to another location, as long as I have a place or a person to aim for."

Lord Long stared at him like he'd grown another head, and Lady Shinra out-right laughed, feeling better about the situation. "Good, then you and Genesis can arrange what you need and take care of what you need to do—"

"I'm going, too! I can heal people who are hurt or killed!" little Alphonse suddenly put in, hands glowing as water drops—the healing water—fell to the ground and some small plants immediately began growing.

"As long as you don't revive the enemy this time," Ed answered flatly.

"If I'm on this side of the pass, I probably won't see many people who need to be brought back, anyway," Al replied. "But this time, I'm going. Last time I didn't, you got kidnapped, and the time before that, we thought that nasty guy fire-blasted you!"

When the Xingese Lord's expression became rather constipated, Lady Shinra wanted to laugh again, but instead schooled her expression into a more shrewd look as she faced Edward again and said, "Apparently, you neglected to tell us a good many details we should know, Edward."

"They aren't relevant," the blond boy replied, and she raised a brow at him. He shrugged and said, "Ask Gran about Kimblee if you want—that's the guy who thought he had fire-blasted me. And the other was because the Führer sent people out to kidnap me around the same time the Amestrian army was given the order to march on the Ishbalan city where their primary Temple is—the same march Gran was sent on which led to him being here now.

"Everyone else either had to get into hiding or head for the battlefield, so the only one left with me was Shiro, and I sure as Hell wasn't going to stay there to turn the town into a target while they tried to tear it apart to get to me. And Major Armstrong was exactly the worst person to pit him against because he literally combines physical attack with alchemy and has a habit of closing with a target to fight physically while Shiro has a habit of attacking from a distance. None of that would have changed if Al had been there, and technically, he was there for the Kimblee incident, just not right beside me."

"So, should he go with you?" she asked with a raised brow.

Ed's gaze lifted to Nina as he commented, "Actually, if I had to pick a healer I'd want there, it would be Nina. If I'd let her come, I'm not sure I could stop Al."

"I'll help! Thanks a bunch, Ed!" Nina grinned, hopping to her feet, then climbing on Alexander's back. "Even though I went with Aeris and the others to the Northern Crater and fought there with them—or healed while they fought—everyone's still way too protective of me."

"Good, if you're picking the main healer—and I agree with Nina's active healing being the best we could ask for—then I'm aiming for Mages, so Sonna and Kunzel, and—" Genesis began, going on with a list of names of people in SOLDIER or the random merc forces who counted as Mages. By the time he'd listed the ones he wanted, there were a total of twenty Mages, plus Sephiroth, Ed, Al (since Ed was right to say they couldn't leave him behind if they were taking Nina), and Nina (and Alexander by default). The major difference between Al and Nina was that Nina was going to be on the battlefield as she healed her allies, and Al was going to be with Ed at their camp and defending the pass.

Those ones also quickly finished eating, then moved into a circle, with Ed resting a hand on Alexander and taking Al's hand, Nina reaching for Genesis' hand with one of hers, and Genesis taking Sonna's—and so on around the circle until everyone had linked up with the others. It was in that circle when they focused on going to Weiss—the only real target they had—and vanished from view. Lady Shinra once again began laughing as Lord Long's jaw dropped in shock at how they had literally just blinked out of existence, but she decided not to say anything.

"...That should not be possible. Not even with alchemy or alkahestry," he commented finally when he (and his fellow Xingese) had gotten over the shock.

"It is if you know the arrays to make it work," Roy commented from his place, and Lady Shinra just gave him a smile. "As it so happens, not only do Materia have a variant on that—nominally called Exit, though that's a bit of a misnomer—but Ed has the arrays in his books."

The Lord's eyes closed tiredly, and Lady Shinra actually began to wonder if he was going to collapse under the weight of all the insanity he'd been exposed to that day. Ed was sure he would be fine, and so would the other Xingese, but still...Would they?