Lurking Danger

Angeal was walking down the street with Felicia to one side of him and Zack to the other. Halo and Delta were right behind them (though, Tyra also should have been but wasn't), and several others—SOLDIERs and some of AVALANCHE's members—were following behind. As much as he was glad Veld had found his daughter (and that she was in shockingly good shape after a sudden return of memory), walking with former enemies down the street lent the whole takeover a surreal feeling. Especially because she was showing them to the other place in the city where AVALANCHE had been housed, though it was a smaller one where their main training dojo was.

His units may have been late to the city, but there had still been plenty of work for them to do—one of the first had been eliminating a rush of Crescent Unit soldiers trying to get out of the city. And he was sure it was 'trying to get out', not 'running to Tamblin's support', as his people had caught all the messengers going both ways and cut off all the electrical lines running on open ground from the Capital to Tamblin. As Azul had really not needed his help, they'd moved on to Wutai City itself, and Crescent Unit had given them their first challenge—deserters like these ones deserved their deaths.

Now, they had been tasked to help Felicia clean out Fuhito's loyal followers, which meant going to this dojo and to their main building by the Statue. However, as they were approaching the place they needed (though they were still most of the block away), one of the walls was broke right apart as a Turk fell backwards out of the building and onto the street with one of AVALANCHE's fully black-clad members on top him. It was obvious the Turk was not in a good way, and Angeal was about to run forward to help him—Viney, he thought it was—

The ground pitched below him, all of them, causing shouts of alarm, shouts which were muffled by an explosion and flames and a shock wave so strong every one of them was thrown over a block away. The SOLDIERs were able to turn themselves enough to land...well, not fatally, though they all suffered injury, and some of that was from burns from the explosion. Felicia and some of the AVALANCHE members were the same, either as skilled, or just lucky, but some also died. Halo managed to catch Delta by the scruff of her neck and drop her gently beside Zack as she landed safely.

It took over a minute for the smoke to start clearing and the debris to stop falling, and nearly as long for the ground to stop shaking, forcing all of them to stay down. As the noise of the explosion itself passed, they started to be able to hear the sounds of people in the area but outside their view as they moaned and groaned or wept with pain. The heat—that was another thing that lingered, and buffeted them in the wind which had sprung up as the fighting was ending.

As he started pushing himself up—another explosion in the direction of the Da Chao Statue followed.

He twisted to look in something like horror as the pagoda by the Statue blew out in much the same way as the building they'd been heading for—only that explosion was much bigger, and sent another shock wave of heat down all the nearby streets...Including one right at them. "Down!" he yelled as loudly in a pitched tone as he could, hoping a lot of people in the area would hear and be able to do so.

"No good!" Felicia hissed beside him, both of them realizing this larger shock wave was carrying the flames of the explosion with it.

Suddenly, Halo ran forward towards the wave, then stopped just past the last of the fallen men—and glowed a brilliant white-gold color which spread rapidly to everyone else nearby. That included people around corners, even in homes, as one bright light glowed against the side of one of the buildings between him and Halo. Before he could even think to call her back (not that it would do much good), the wave hit her, hit them, washing over them as they all braced themselves for agonizing pain—

Only to realize as silence fell that they hadn't felt anything at all.

Looking down at his hands, Angeal realized the white glow was just fading, and as it faded, the buffeting heat began to get through. He looked up again at Halo in shock as she flexed her wings and the light disappeared from around her. (1) Delta barked from beside Zack, and Halo turned back to them to make her way placidly back to Angeal's side.

What was horrifying about what they could now see past the smoke and dust was direct damage to the Da Chao Statue and a rather large crater in that sector of the city. The edge of the crater was actually visible from where they were, and they could see blackening around that area from the explosion force. Debris was scattered, some of it coming from the now-vanished buildings which would have been around AVALANCHE's pagoda or from the pagoda itself, and some of it from the resulting damage to the surrounding city blocks. Some of the buildings were collapsed completely, some partially, some even with roofs or walls gone to who knew where.

And people. While the military had been out in force on the streets, most of the civilians had not, and now there were scattered civilian bodies laying around alongside military from both factions, probably thrown from their homes by the explosion. It also followed that they had probably been thrown from the worst-damaged of the buildings nearest the blast zone. And they were all scorched, adding a scent of burnt meat, hair, and cloth to the scene.

"Um, maybe this is a stupid question, but what did Halo just do?" Zack asked, his tone utterly stunned.

"A type of Shield, I think...?" Angeal murmured, patting her head absently as she pushed her head against his hand.

"Damn, that's one powerful dog..." Felicia commented in shock.

Then he remembered what they'd first seen as they'd been nearing the dojo and gasped, "Viney!" as he turned to look at the place where the Turk had fallen...Only to see a blackened hole spreading right out to where he and Felicia had been standing, about half a block from it. Even if Viney could have been saved, neither he nor his opponent were anything like alive right then. There was nothing left of them. It was just like the other hole by the Statue.

"...Who do we report this to?" one of the Seconds with them asked tiredly. "Because from where I'm standing, not only did Fuhito get away, he just declared open war on both Shinra and Wutai..."

Rubbing his eyes, Angeal said, "That's probably a fair assessment. Veld, Argento, and Lazard are at the top of the list. Felicia, you probably need to talk with any of your commanders who are left."

"I definitely need to get in touch with Shears, but this was supposed to have only been a last resort tactic if we were found out here or betrayed by the Wutain government. And, I was supposed to be the only one with the activation codes. The only thing I can think of is that Fuhito took my support of you as a betrayal and used that as his premise for activating them. Likely by hacking them and force-starting the sequence."

"So Fuhito got away, is that it?" Zack asked apprehensively.

"By where the bombs were, yes," she sighed. "We could check the exit point of the underground path, but he's probably long gone by now. And he just annihilated a quarter of Wutai City by doing that, so I'm not of a mind to just leave these people to themselves—most of them are civilians."

As his PHS rang, Angeal realized the truth of her words as his gaze went back to the hole in the city ahead of them. Answering it, he asked, "Yeah?"

"Commander, were you near enough to see the explosions and the cause?" Argento's voice asked with a cold tone he knew came from her brutally shoving all emotion into a box so she could function.

"Yes—I was at the edge of one of them. Most of our team is alive, though some too injured to be much help in the immediate, and we need to get forces to this area for emergency search and rescue and healing. The two places that just went up were AVALANCHE's hideouts here, and Fuhito blew them to kingdom come as he hightailed it—or so Felicia says, and I have no reason to think she'd lie," Angeal explained.

The woman on the other end of the line sighed deeply. "It would have been too much to hope we would actually get him just now. Regardless, I can keep Weiss as the general commander for military operations and send the General with the rest of his troops to help you clean up. Call the rest of your units to help you. Tell Felicia she can do the same—things are under enough control that we don't actually need the extra hands for that part now. I'll pray the rain begins now so any fires will start going out, but you'll still need to find a place to take the injured to. Once you have a destination, I'll send our mages there to do healing, as well as the military doctors we brought with us."

"Either Felicia or I will let you know when we have a place, then," he agreed. "Later." He then hung up and looked at Felicia to ask, "You wouldn't happen to know of a place nearby where we'd be able to shelter the injured, especially once the rain starts, would you?"

She made a face. "It's Wutai. They don't make many very large, open buildings...Though...Maybe we can break down the doors of the announcement hall. It's not too far from here but should have survived the blast. It's only used when there's bad weather and the Emperor needs to make a speech, and in the current circumstances, it's not going to need to be used for that purpose."

"Then go check it out, and if it's suitable, let Argento and all of us know that's where we're taking them to. Maybe send some of yours back to us as guides, since we have no idea which building you mean?" he asked.

After a pause, she nodded and rose, rubbing one of her injuries as she did—a burn by the looks of it. "Once we've established it, I'll keep some to guard and the rest can help find people. The Wutains in the city know me, so having me in command there will probably help them feel better, especially since I can tell them in Wutain what happened. Just be careful of some of the people you pull free—they still might try to attack you until they realize you're trying to save them, not finish them off."

"I'll alert our troops. Thanks, Felicia," he agreed as he felt healed enough to push himself up as well—but then he realized by the stinging sensation of some of his burns that they really weren't healed at all.

Putting that out of his mind, he sighed and used his PHS to send a message to his troops to divert them all to search and rescue in the blast zone. It was going to be a very, very long time before any of them would be able to rest now, and as much as rain would put out fires—of which there were a good number burning—working in it was going to be miserable. He couldn't just refuse because these people needed help, but for all the rest, he'd have just as much stuck to basic military procedures and been done with it by the time the rain started.

As the rest of his troops and Sephiroth's joined in the search, the rain began falling, at first slowly, then heavily. At first, it hissed as it hit the ground, creating steam—many of the streets were paved on the paths the shock waves had followed and were still heated. Then, as the pavement cooled and the rain came down harder, the smoke and heat cleared, creating cooling, and the hissing came from fires in wooden homes and businesses burning—and being slowly put out as they met wet wood, wood they couldn't burn.

Small mercies, Angeal realized as he saw one of those fires nearly backed against another house with no damage to speak of. If that one fire had hit the next house over and set it burning, it wouldn't have been long before the whole, mostly wooden, city was burning. In that case, he'd take the rain with as good a grace as he could.

But still, his wounds twinged painfully and refused to heal, and still, he put that aside to do his duty...

MB

Genesis knew Cloud had returned, but otherwise knew nothing about the mission in Wutai or whether or not the boy had succeeded. No airship had yet been returned to them—not to Midgar, at least—and the group in Wutai were likely still working to get things under control. It annoyed him a great deal that his Firebird chick was too young to actually take out to a battlefield, and had only just started making fire a few days prior, something Kunsel was still amused over. Fireproofing the apartment had been fun, in a very trying way, but they still had the major problem of really not being able to fireproof things like blankets, which she adored sleeping under.

That morning, he'd woken even before Kunsel and Sierra, so he'd taken his little chick to the cafeteria to eat while she hopped around the table nearby, looking for fruit scraps on others' plates. Not that she didn't have her own, she just apparently wanted a variety that morning. Other SOLDIERs came and went, often checking in with him as they did, and very often admiring his chick now that she was actually starting to look like a Firebird and do a bit of fluttering around. And he was completely annoyed by how she still refused any name he offered her.

When it got to a more reasonable time for breakfast and the cafeteria suddenly filled up, including several others sitting around him at his chosen table—including Kunsel, with Sierra at his feet—the chick began peering around curiously. Then, to his surprise, she began singing, rather than the chirps she'd been voicing so far that morning...And at the sound, all eyes near enough to hear it turned to look in surprise—and in awe as she sang for some time, even doing what was obviously some sort of bird dance to go along with it.

"She's a bloody diva..." Genesis gaped at the bird, who paused to eye him for a moment before hopping over to his shoulder, perching there, and going back to singing.

That produced several laughs from around the table as one guy commented, "In other words, even if she was an accidental pet, she's actually ideal for you, Genesis."

"I still don't know what to name her," Genesis sighed faintly.

"Um...I'm pretty sure you making random comments about her doesn't usually attract her attention," Kunsel pointed out in amusement. "So there were only two words you said which could have attracted her, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't 'bloody'."

Blinking, then blinking again, Genesis turned to look at the bird in amazement. "Really? You like 'diva' as a name?" The bird stopped singing again to give him an affirmative chirp and begin grooming his hair with her beak...Which, of course, set off another round of laughter from the other men at the table. "...Okay, then," Genesis sighed, lips twitching in amusement. "Diva. Finally." The newly-named Diva gave another happy chirp, then began singing again.

"No protest about that?" Kunsel asked in amusement.

At the question, the red haired man raised a brow and replied, "My name is Genesis. Do I really have the right to complain about a bird liking the name Diva?" More laughs rose at the question as Kunsel just looked amused.

"Point," the younger man agreed. "Hard to argue that one."

Abruptly, the chair to Genesis' other side (since Kunsel always sat beside him on one side) was pulled out and—Kariya dropped into it, folded his arms on the table, and put his head down on them, causing everyone, even Diva, to silence for a long moment. Then, as Diva started singing again, Genesis blinked and reached over to pull a patch of bright, reddish-brown fur out of the man's hair to examine it for a moment, even as all the other men watched him in apprehension—no one touched a Turk in a bad mood. It took Genesis a long moment of looking at the fur to realize what it belonged to, and he suddenly felt bemused.

"Okay, so why does it look like you lost a fight with a Trickplay, Kariya?" Genesis asked as he set the patch of fur on the table.

"That would be Sly challenging Rogue. Again. And I was unlucky enough to be present for the fight," Kariya replied without lifting his head.

That just left the red haired young man feeling even more bemused. "Who are Sly and Rogue?"

"Sly is Reno's raccoon. Rogue is Derin's Trickplay. Sly also got into Derin's locked room and Rogue declared eternal enmity on him, and Sly takes it as a personal challenge to insult Rogue now," Kariya sighed tiredly. "Bloody brats, both of them."

"Um...How could a raccoon get into a locked room?" Kunsel asked in surprise.

Lifting his shoulders in something like a shrug, but still not lifting his head, Kariya offered, "My best guess is the vents. Hex loves those, too, but she usually doesn't create quite as many problems as Sly."

"...And who's Hex?" Genesis had to ask with a sigh.

"Sly's sister, Tifa's pet," the Turk replied.

"...Turks have thieves for pets?" one of the SOLDIERs at the table asked in confusion.

"If those pets are raccoons, yeah," a new voice put in, and the others looked up to see Reno as Kariya gave a heart-felt sigh. "No, Sly's not here, yo—Cloud's got 'im. Sorry 'bout that, though. I had no idea Sly'd just pounce on Rogue like that. I'm'a get some collars Cloud'll use ta make us somethin' to maybe keep 'em from goin' at each other, yo."

"I really, really hope that works," Kariya replied.

For a long moment, Reno paused, then sighed and asked, "Did they hurt ya at all, yo?"

The older Turk gave a dismissing wave. "Not really. I already healed what they did. That just wasn't a very relaxing place to be to work anymore."

"Probably good since ya'd been there all night, yo," Reno chuckled. "Get some sleep, 'kay?"

"Not much choice now—my focus is broken," Kariya answered flatly.

"Then why are you here instead of your room?" Genesis asked, still feeling utterly bemused.

"Point," Reno nodded in an impish tone. "I'm off for them collars, then. Later, yo!" he added, then headed out.

After a startled silence, Genesis began," Kariya—"

Only to get cut off by the Turk saying, "Shut up, Genesis." Then, the Turk's stomach rumbled hungrily, but Kariya made no motion to get up and get something to eat.

Finally, Genesis sighed, shooed Diva onto the table—except she perched on Kariya's arm and began singing from there—and got up to head for the servers. When he returned, much to the other SOLDIERs' surprise (other than Kunsel's), he had a tray of food with him, which he set down in front of Kariya. He then picked up the cup of coffee from the tray, grabbed the Turk's hand (which made nearly every SOLDIER at the table openly flinch), and stuck the coffee cup in it.

That actually roused Kariya enough to make him lift his head and stare uncomprehendingly at the cup for a minute. In annoyance, Genesis said, "It's coffee. You drink it."

The older man's lips quirked in vague amusement before he lowered the glass to the tabletop and commented, "I must be in pretty bad shape if you're actually doing things like this for me."

His stomach rumbled hungrily again and the Commander asked sharply, "Exactly when was the last time you ate?"

"Uhm..." the older man began in confusion. "Should have been this morning, except I guess I never got around to it if I'm hungry now..."

"Which means?" Kunsel asked tentatively as Genesis glared at his father in annoyance.

"Supper yesterday...Maybe around six or seven in the evening?" the man asked, sounding puzzled by that himself. "I know I ate as I was getting started yesterday, but not exactly when that was."

"And then you spent all night awake and working?" Genesis asked him, looking very, very annoyed.

"Shouldn't I?" Kariya blinked. "You left me to deal with Shalua and Shelke, so I had to get to my actual work later, which ended up being around the last three days of work because they needed help getting settled. Next time, I'm telling them to go bother you for help and see how you like not getting any work done."

"You do realize Genesis just ignores any paperwork he doesn't want to do, right, Kariya?" Kunsel asked in amusement. "And he'd use that as an excuse not to do it even more. The only thing he does reliably is the martial work, not the report work."

Genesis and Kariya both snorted, but neither got to reply as one of the other Firsts at the table asked in a completely puzzled tone, "So...Would someone mind explaining what in the world is going on? You could start with who Shalua and Shelke are."

"Those would be my younger sisters who I didn't know about until recently," Genesis shrugged. "And Turks don't talk about family, so no more needs to be said."

There was a long silence as Kariya said, "Do you really think that's enough to way-lay them?"

Genesis recognized that for what it was—an insult to SOLDIER intelligence—and turned his gaze to the man as he said sharply, "Maybe we're not totally into the whole 'subterfuge' thing, but that doesn't mean you and I haven't dropped enough clues for them to figure it out. And kindly don't assume SOLDIERs are stupid just because they're not Turks, because that's an insult to me, too."

Kariya actually held both hands up in a placating and warding motion, dislodging Diva in the process (she fluttered down to his plate and hijacked an apple slice to eat), and said, "I already know you're not stupid, and I don't think SOLDIERs are stupid. They aren't. Their minds just usually don't work in that specific way."

The First from before actually looked annoyed at that point as he leaned forward and said softly to Kariya, "For your information, you weren't actually being all that subtle, and with the Commander's explanation of who Shalua and Shelke are to him, your comments very easily say pretty damned clearly that you're their father, which also means you're the Commander's father, too. Don't think we can't do something as simple as put together the meanings of obvious statements, Turk."

That left Kariya staring in shock, Genesis smirking smugly, and Kunsel looking amused. A look around the table showed no surprise at all about what the First had just said, only curiosity and amusement. Then, Kariya's attention was drawn as Diva stole another apple slice off his plate. "I stand corrected, then. And Genesis, your bird is a thief."

"Not like you're trying to stop her," Genesis replied in amusement.

"How did this happen, though?" one of the Seconds asked. "I mean—if your real parents were still alive, how come you were raised by a different family?"

"Someone obviously didn't want my own parents to raise me," Genesis shrugged.

"That probably has an awful lot to do with your father having been the Death God of the Battlefield until the Turks caught up with him around a year ago," Kunsel commented, and most of the SOLDIERs blanched as Kariya sighed and actually took a sip of coffee before he began eating, deliberately starting with the only two apple slices he had left on his plate.

Which, of course, made Diva give him an annoyed chirp, and made all the men laugh

"Hey, Commander, did you hear about those attacks in the Slums?" one of them asked as the laughter died off.

"I did," Genesis agreed, expression turning dark. "That's targeted at SOLDIERs on solo clears more than anything, and the one thing I checked on after the raid we did in the Slums for Heidegger was the death roster. One of the people I know was in the photo we had was definitely not on the death roster, and if I'd peg anyone to be doing something like this out of spite, it would be him."

"Who's that?" Kariya asked in surprise.

"Dante, the Cadet we threw out for an infraction so severe cleaning duties wouldn't cut it," Genesis scowled, and Kunsel paled. "So far, Kunsel and I have been going there together for his training and we haven't been bothered, and I really don't like the idea of Kunsel being bait when there's already bad blood there. But, that leaves the question of what to do about it. Especially since it seems Dante got some other sort of enhancement which makes him as strong as individual SOLDIER Firsts."

"We'll all have to put some thought into actually catching the guy, then," one of the other Firsts at the table commented, and got agreement from the others. From there, it turned into a sort of informal planning session lasting until around noon, when a few of the men at the table were sent requests for missions. By then, Kariya had left to rest, and after eating lunch, Genesis and Kunsel (along with some of the others at the table) headed out to do some volunteer clearing missions.

Notes:

(1) No, Halo can't just keep doing this repeatedly in a very short span—she can only use it once every so often (about 4 hour intervals), and using it successively would make it less likely to work. In theory, the second use in a very short time would probably work (it would have a high likelihood), but after that, it would be almost useless. That means this isn't a use-all, and her default setting is to use it only when nothing else will protect who- or whatever she really wants to protect at the time—and it will spread automatically to everyone else in her range. That range is only about 25 feet in all directions from her, so while she could protect a decent number of people with it in a large city (like Wutai or Midgar), its usefulness drops elsewhere unless she's in the middle of a crowd. That also means she only protected the people in a relatively small area of the blown up part of Wutai City.