Lost Emergency Protocol
As the Turks and Infantrymen (all but two who were left with the civilians) headed for the edge of the slowly-advancing battle zone, Donnel asked the Wutain, "Are you sure you can handle combat after draining yourself?"
"I already told you, I can still shoot my gun," the younger Turk replied. "How did you get into that mess to begin with?"
"I was scouting the slum docks to see if I could find theirs, or a pattern to their loading and unloading. Some kids were playing in the area and panicked when they found me, which drew them to see what the screaming kids were all about. I wasn't quite able to get out of sight, and needless to say—they preferred to be actively on our hit list for killing one of us than to let me interfere in their shipments," Donnel said, then sighed. "Apparently, when some of the slummers saw me fight and take down a number of the smugglers, they joined in because the smugglers had been—tormenting them for several months. This mess was the result. Believe me, I tried to keep it where it started, but—there was no way that was possible within ten minutes of when the kids screamed and ran from me."
Tseng rubbed tired eyes and said, "The death toll will be huge, either way, but because we found your alert so soon, at least we'll be able to do more to keep it in check. You should have used the emergency alert which would actively ring, though."
"My life wasn't in that much danger," Donnel shrugged.
"...Did you read the valid uses for the emergency beacon?"
The Infantrymen with them began to snicker quietly as the older Turk glared, but they came to a point where they could see the fighting between smugglers and townspeople, the screaming and flames from the burning buildings now more than obvious. The Infantrymen formed ranks and began to move forward, readying their rifles and shooting at the men they knew were the smugglers. When the civilians realized they had Infantry support, a few broke and took shelter behind them, stopping by the two Turks, but the others turned to take down other smugglers alongside other civilians.
Once the immediate area had calmed a bit, one of the Infantrymen called to the Turks, "We can manage this, Sirs, so you'd better go find your fellow!"
Donnel turned to Tseng, who nodded and turned to lead the way to a nearby series of very narrow alleys. Using those, where they found a few more frightened civilians hiding, they made their way past the worst of the fighting towards the docks, and only left them when they got to the end of the path at the warehouses. An explosion not too far from where they were caused both to run towards it, and because there was still fighting going on in the area, they both had to remove the obstacles. Tseng used his gun, taking a smuggler down with each shot, and Donnel fought with his fists and feet (mainly the latter), each blow a death-dealing strike. They traveled down two wide warehouse alleys in that way, but the battles weren't very intensive by that point, and their intervention gave the fighting civilians a chance to rest.
When they reached the corner of the second warehouse they passed, they could see a wide space between a factory, office, and warehouse, where the three were linked to one another in a U shape, creating a trap for someone not familiar with the town. Kariya was backed against the wall and surrounded by a good twenty smugglers, and at least three bombs had gone off in that area—but it was obvious the older man was tired and probably out of bombs...Except for one last one he wouldn't dare use in the middle of a residential area. Tseng knew he had the bomb, but it was meant to be used against monsters in the wilderness, not in close quarters like these.
"Donnel, get to him—he's out of ammo!" Tseng said urgently as he raised his gun and began shooting the smugglers from behind.
As some of the men realized their buddies were falling, they turned to the two, but not soon enough to stop Donnel from launching himself over them, using the men as stepping stones to reach Kariya. Some of the men at the front of the pack had rushed the man without realizing they had two more Turks to deal with, and those ones were Donnel's targets. Just before the one at the front hit Kariya with a raised crowbar, Donnel landed on his back and forced him to the ground on his belly, crushing his chest in the process. He then lashed out with a high roundhouse kick which he'd charged with the Fire 3 spell, pretty much incinerating the four men he hit with it. The other two who had been part of the rush pulled up short to stare.
At the back of the group, Tseng was still shooting men down as fast as he could pull the trigger, and at the front, it was Donnel's turn to join the fight, easily taking down opponents with flaming kicks. What was left of the group went down quickly between the pair, but Tseng swayed as the last man went down—and would have fallen again if Donnel hadn't steadied him.
"I told you there was no way you'd be fit for battle after holding a Limit Break for over fifteen minutes, Tseng!" Donnel told him with an angry glare.
"What's a what now?" Kariya asked in surprise and exhaustion as he joined them.
"There they are!" someone yelled from nearby. "Damned interfering Turks!" The three Turks turned to face the snarling man, only to see another twenty or so men coming up from the corner around the factory.
"Oh, for—!" Donnel sighed, turning to face them and bracing himself.
At that moment, someone else called, "Let us clean this up, Turks!" The smugglers and Turks all looked back at the corner near where Tseng and Donnel had come from, where the civilians they'd helped on the way to Kariya came up with various weapons they'd hijacked off the bodies of the smugglers.
A moment later, the civilian combatants surged forward and collided with the smugglers—and it was obvious within a minute that the civilians were winning.
"...Well, I daresay that takes care of things here. How did things go when you managed to get out of the water?" Kariya asked tiredly.
"We called the Infantry to set up a barricade, as planned, but because the enemy's numbers kept increasing, rather than helping with the barricade, we came to help you," Donnel answered.
Kariya's brow rose, but he nodded and said, "Good, that takes care of the spread, and if your passage helped the civilians that much, they'll probably take care of the rest themselves." He then turned to Tseng—and reached up to slap the side of his head hard enough to jolt it sideways and cause a yelp. "Don't you ever do something so reckless again, Baby Turk, or I swear I'll kill you myself!" Donnel gaped at them in surprise.
Tseng rubbed the aching spot and replied, "It would help if you told me which part was reckless when you already knew I was going to be jumping, probably into the water."
"Not onto a dock, with one of my bombs or an extended Limit Break," Kariya glared.
"Wait, what?" Donnel asked with wide eyes. "That wasn't part of the plan?"
"We saved the tanker, too, though, didn't we?" Tseng shrugged the scolding off. "And Kariya, at that moment, there was no other way around the situation, and I knew what I was doing, knowing how strong your bombs are."
"A bomb you took without my permission! And the Limit Break could have killed you!" Kariya glared, gaze sharp and hard.
"I know," Tseng glared. "I was in a hurry and knew there was nothing else at hand I could use. Just be thankful I knew not to touch your plasma bomb. As for the Limit Break, I knew what I was risking, but it was a chance I was willing to take."
"You know what happens to people who over-extend with Limit Breaks?" the older man sneered.
"I have one childhood friend whose mother died from over-extending a Limit Break while trying to protect her from—terrorists. Don't tell me I don't know!" Tseng snarled back. Donnel stared at them with huge eyes, Kariya sighed, and Tseng's eyes widened before he shut them. "At this rate, I'm never actually going to get enough sleep to be functional again, though..."
"You were the one who insisted we do this instead of calling Veld and telling him to send people," Kariya snorted in amusement. "Damn, has no one ever actually helped you before, you think you always have to do everything yourself?"
"Hold on...Did you—not plan anything at all?" Donnel asked in shock.
"Yes, and no," Kariya answered. "We were in too much of a rush to plan properly, but had developed enough of a plan to work with, and yes, Veld was aware of the situation. Speaking of, I have to call him."
"Can we get back to the chopper first so I can sleep, please?" Tseng asked tiredly, swaying again. That time, he fell against Kariya, who suddenly lifted him in both arms as he yelped. "Put me down!"
"You won't make it that far yourself, Tseng," the older Turk answered dryly, turning to head for the chopper. "Donnel, call the Infantry and tell them to move into the area by closing the blockade so they can clean it up. If they find living smugglers, they can either kill them or lock them up to wait for the Execs to decide what they want to do with them."
"Right," the twenty-one-year-old agreed, pulling out his PHS to relay the orders.
While Donnel was busy, Kariya asked softly, "Was it really a Limit Break?"
"No, but the effect was similar in everything but the likelihood of death—what I did stood no chance of killing me, I'm just not used to doing it yet. And I won't go into details here or I'll say something we'll both regret," Tseng answered softly, relaxing against the older man when he realized he was too tired to fight him. "I really am over-reaching myself..." he sighed softly.
"And you'd better stop before you end up on suicide watch for a completely different reason," the orange haired Turk answered dryly. When he felt Tseng tense, he informed him, "I know Leviathan's Blessing and what you experienced has made you feel like you have to act, and act fast. The truth is you can only do so much at a time, and no amount of fast action will fix the things you most need to. If you don't forcibly pace yourself, you'll end up killing yourself. You already know that."
"...Thank you," Tseng whispered as Donnel rejoined them.
"I'll call Veld once we're in the air—you'll have to take the chopper controls for a bit, just enough to keep us straight, Donnel," Kariya told the other Turk.
"I can fly a helicopter, Kariya, probably better than you," Donnel answered dryly in amusement.
"You can?" the orange haired Turk asked in confusion.
"I'm from the plains north of Mount Nibel—where nearly all the mechanics and pilots come from. You don't grow up there without learning mechanics, engineering, and the controls for such machines by default," the red-blond haired Turk answered. "Let me fly the chopper while you report in and take care of Tseng. Though, I didn't even know you two had met, but you're obviously really familiar with each other..."
The reply and final comment made Kariya snort, then laugh, and he informed Donnel, "We met about two years ago, actually. And if you're really as good as your word, the controls are all yours."
Donnel easily gave agreement to the words.
MB
Genesis woke abruptly as he felt something shift in the Lifestream energies, and quickly looked at the time—it was only six forty-one in the morning. Even with his new habit of waking up earlier thanks to Weiss' early morning habits, this was still far earlier than his usual waking time, which was around eight. Was there something which had happened at this time to cause him distress, or was he literally just reacting to whatever it was that had affected the Lifestream? For that matter, why was he sensing a shift in the Lifestream while in Midgar, where all of the Lifestream was diverted to the Mako Reactors? He shouldn't be able to feel it there at all, regardless of his bond with it.
Searching back through his memory, he had a sudden thought about an upset Angeal—and the Turks reporting Donnel's death! Remembering how Tseng had assigned Reno as his contact and the sixteen-year-old Turk was aware of the Blessing, he grabbed his PHS and put in a call to his new Turk contact.
Soon after, a very much awake Reno asked, "What can I do for ya, Commander? Wait, why're you even awake at this time, yo?"
"Why are you?" Genesis asked in reply, tone vaguely amused.
"Touché," Reno agreed.
"I have a vague memory of a Turk having died today," Genesis said before Reno could answer. "Where's Donnel?"
With a low, impressed whistle, the red haired Turk on the other end of the line answered, "If Tseng and Kariya hadn't gone after 'im, he'd be dead, yo. We're just waitin' on word of the result now—but they got us all jumpin' just past dawn." Reno then sighed and whined, "I coulda really slept longer..."
Genesis had to chuckle at the last, but he said, "Frankly, so could I, but it's good to know they're okay this time. You don't sound like waking early has done you any harm, though."
"Just wait 'til it gets to noon, yo—then you'll wish they'd let me sleep," Reno replied in a mullish tone.
"...We really are a lot alike," the red haired SOLDIER commented in faint amusement, and Reno snorted.
"If that was all, I got work ta get back to, yo," the Turk pointed out.
"Alright. Thanks for filling me in," Genesis agreed, then hung up.
As he got up, knowing he wouldn't sleep again now, Genesis' eyes went to his walls as he kept trying to adapt to them not being covered in LOVELESS posters. Seeing the actual wall color was strange to him, but not in a bad way, and even though he was still adapting, he felt better being in his own rooms. There were also about two dozen copies of LOVELESS on one of his bookshelves, each of them a different variant, but only one truly held any meaning to him, and now—he realized the meaning it held was for the tie to his past it gave him. His first ever copy of LOVELESS, where all the thoughts and notes he'd written in it as a child and teenager were...All the rest were merely for comparisons of differences in presentation, what things had been changed from script to script and focus to focus.
Abruptly, he realized he wasn't really ready to deal with those books, so turned his thoughts to what he was going to do with the extra free time he had now.
Of course, that led to him thinking about the paperwork he had to hand in that day, and to Kunzel. It would only be four or five days before the Cadets would become Thirds, the lowest official rank in SOLDIER, and for Kunzel to still be in the program at this point, it was safe to say he'd be staying to the end, as drop-outs pretty much stopped at the half-way mark of the three-month program. At this time of day, Director Lazard Deusericus wouldn't be in his office, but there would be a secretary there to take papers and missions for him, but what could he do after that? After all, anyone sane and not working at this time of day would be sleeping—even Sephiroth and Angeal.
Last time, he'd slept in late today (he was pretty sure), only getting to his office to check mission schedules around noon. The secretary would have missions with her besides the new ones Lazard had to assign, including any which were given by other departments for immediate acceptance. He had at least two hours to kill before he'd be able to find Kunzel at the main Cadet training room, so maybe there would be a short mission in Midgar, like to clear out monsters infesting the no-man's-land between the Slum Sectors. It was worth a try.
That decided, he got ready to go, making sure both Rapier and his red leather coat were firmly in place before he grabbed the stack of mission report folders he had to turn in and headed to the Director's office on floor fifty-one.
When he got there, three Thirds and a Second were gathered at the secretary's desk, looking irritated as the Second asked, "Look, can't we just go before the situation gets any more out of hand? You can send a First after us once you've found one."
"I can't do that," the secretary answered tensely. She held up the paper in front of her and added, "It's in the instructions from the Infantry at the source of the problem, and they aren't fools—without someone at a First's level of skill, you won't be much help."
Curiosity piqued, Genesis asked, "What seems to be the problem?"
The others jumped and spun to look at him as the secretary stared with her jaw hanging open. After a momentary pause, the woman asked, "Commander, what are you doing awake at this hour?" Her eyes, however, were focused on the sizable stack of folders in his arm, as were the eyes of the SOLDIERs, he was sure—but he couldn't tell for sure since they all wore the—optional—uniform helmets.
At the look, the red haired man smiled in amusement. "It's just not my week for peaceful nights. And this—don't expect it to happen again anytime in the near future." He dropped the stack on her desk, watching as her eyes followed it in shock, then asked, "Now, what's this situation you apparently need a First for?"
"Here's the report from the Infantry," she said, handing him the paper she'd held up for the Thirds and Second. He took it as she began flipping quickly through the folders—and gaped, "The General and you Commanders should take a day off more often."
Genesis snorted and said, "No, those aren't due to that—those are a side-effect of something else which won't happen again, hopefully ever." His eyes quickly took in the data on the page, seeing the time (less than half an hour ago), and the urgent request for SOLDIER numbers. In short, a gang war in the Slums had gotten out of hand, and had hit the fledgling walls being built—which had, in turn, attracted monsters not native to the region to attack the source of the disturbance. His brow rose as he recalled the incident, having heard about it from Sephiroth—a notably irritated Sephiroth complaining largely about how long they'd waited to contact him, and there was already pretty much nothing left to save.
"Commander?" one of the Thirds asked a hopeful tone in his voice.
Looking at the secretary, Genesis asked her quietly, "You were going to wait until Sephiroth got to his office at eight, weren't you?"
"What else could I do?" she asked with a scowl. "The three of you are the only Firsts here right now, and he's the one who always arrives first."
"Do you not know the meaning of the word 'urgent', or proper procedure when you receive an Infantry or Turk request with 'urgent' or 'emergency' status?" At the deathly calm tone in his voice, the woman's self-righteous anger died and she turned shocked and pale. He went on, "We're combat personnel housed here in this building so we can be first responders. We're on permanent on-call status as long as we're here. The first thing you should have done when you got this in is called one of us, even during the middle of the night, and told us you got in an urgent request for assistance—even I have to suck it up and respond to those situations. If you have any other 'urgent' or 'emergency' ones there, you'd better start calling people, and when you get them in future, do your damned job or you won't have it anymore!"
He then huffed and dropped the request back on her desk as he turned to the others and asked, "Do any of you have a friend or training partner you can drag out of bed to join us—hopefully a Second, but a Third will be fine as well—for us to meet our required quota?"
"I could go see if Essai is in one of the training rooms like he usually is," the Second offered.
"If you think he's already awake, that's our best option, since he won't have to try to wake up first. Go see if he's there—if you can bring him back with you, we'll head out right away," Genesis nodded, and the Second—he was sure it was Sebastian (1)—headed away quickly. Damn, it was good to see them alive again.
He then pulled out his PHS and called Reno, producing an irritated, "This had better be good."
"We need to borrow a chopper and pilot to reach the Sector Five city wall, where there's both a gang war and a monster breach to handle," the red haired man said in his usual working tone. He wouldn't call it 'professional', though, because it wasn't.
There was a moment of silence, then a chuckle. "I'll tell Veld and meet ya at the landing pad soon as your unit's together, yo." Reno then hung up.
As he hung up his own phone, Genesis gave a small smile and nod and said, "Good, that secures our ride and saves us time."
"Who did you call?" another Third asked curiously.
"When you reach First, you often end up with a stable contact in the Turks. One of the more—peculiar—things that happened yesterday was for me to find my replacement for the one I lost about a year ago," Genesis answered, and he could see their surprise.
A minute later, two Seconds ran up, and the first said, "I found him, Commander. We're ready. How are we getting there?"
"We're borrowing a Turk and one of their choppers," Genesis replied and turned to the elevators. "Come on—to the landing pad." The others followed him and were soon in the elevator. The red haired man stayed near the door as he hit the '59' button, then faced them and asked, "Names?"
"Sebastian Flounder (2)," one Second said, and Genesis couldn't resist a snort.
"I have to wonder what your parents were thinking," he commented.
The other man gave a wryly amused smile and replied, "I feel the same."
"Next?" the First asked of his team.
"Essai Calloun."
He had nothing to say about that one, so just nodded to the first of the three Thirds, who all gave their names in quick succession.
"Luxiere Vale."
"Arcon Morden."
"Kenston Broder."
With a final nod, Genesis was already running the names through his mind as he tried to recall their primary skills—and quickly found that he only had two with quick movement as well as power—Essai and Luxiere. He'd have to see the battlefield, but he already knew one thing.
"Once we get to the battlefield, I'll be able to give us an actual plan of action, but as things stand now, Essai, you're responsible for Luxiere, and Sebastian, you're responsible for Arcon and Kenston." They gave agreement.
He led the way off the elevator on their floor and out to the landing pad, where there was a chopper already revved and waiting for them. When he saw Reno lean out the hold door and make a 'come here' motion, he headed for it and climbed in—Reno was already back in the cockpit—the others following him. The last one in pulled the door shut, then most of the SOLDIERs yelped as they were airborne before any of them had sat down. Genesis and Essai looked amused by that.
"A word of advice—don't close the chopper door unless you want the Turk to take off," Genesis called to them as they sorted themselves into seats. He could hear Reno's laughter from the cockpit, so headed into it and said, "Thanks."
Reno gave him a thumbs-up with his free hand as he said, "Got me away from that hoard a' paperwork for awhile, yo. We got 'bout five minutes 'til we're at the wall. What do ya want me ta do there, yo?"
"I need to get a good view of the situation, but I'll be getting it from the hold door, so your best bet as we come up is to find the best angle to show most of the battlefield at once," the red haired SOLDIER answered. "And we SOLDIERs may be able to jump safely from heights you think are insane, but even we go 'splat' when we fall from the Upper Plate, so don't be too careless with your height."
Reno snorted and laughed again, saying, "Good one, yo!" He then gave a nod and said, "Pretty much same instructions as the Turks have, yo, but I can fly higher. Want me ta land nearby, cover you, or head back to HQ until ya need to be picked up?"
They were almost to the edge of the Upper Plate, Genesis noted, as he thought about Reno's question. Finally, as the chopper tipped to fly towards the ground one hundred and fifty feet below the Plate, he said, "Take a minute to decide if you should be covering us or just landing nearby." He got a nod to the words.
Notes:
(1) Essai and Sebastian (and Luxiere) exist in either the Before Crisis or Crisis Core FFVII games, so they aren't OC's, but their family names were never given, so I created those. The other two Thirds are random OC's whose names you don't need to remember.
(2) Even though it was accidental, most people should recognize Sebastian and Flounder from Disney's version of The Little Mermaid. Assume his name came from a similar story on Gaia, since their family name was already Flounder.