The Color of Blood Chapter 6
The Battle of Midgar
By Brady Bryner, Bill Shofstall, & Anthony McKinley
Midgar, Shinra Building 4:35 PM July 26
Reeve looked out the window into the sky. Rain. He sipped his coffee and walked back to the machine for more. Cid sat in a corner, drinking a cup of tea and smoking a cigarette. Several other CEOs and various important company members were also in the break room. Angus walked in. Angus was a tall man, with dark black hair, gray eyes, and always seemed to wear the same blazer and jeans to everything. "Reeve. There was just a report. Some one sighted a few airships not more then a mile away. They're heading in pretty damn quick."
"Uh... Set up an interception team. See what they want, but keep the men ready for battle. Give them orders to avoid casualties when possible. Capture all supplies and then imprison the soldiers." Angus nodded and ran out of the room. Palmer, who had been sitting quietly drinking coffee with lard, ran to the window.
"Hey! What the hell is that thing?" Palmer pointed to a large red airship out the window. Cid looked up.
"What is it, fat man?"
"Don't say fat!"
"What the fuck is it!?!"
"It looks like an airship, but..."
"Oh shit..." The Hellbender. "Reeve! Get your men moving! That ship isn't friendly. I know what it is." The Hellbender's main laser was charging. "One shot from that thing leveled Wutai." Reeve mouthed several words, and ran to give the orders for an all out assualt against the incoming ships.
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Interceptor, Cockpit 4:43 PM July 26
"Hey... What is that?" The pilot cocked his head to the side. Before he could scream, a wave of light annihilated the ship in a brilliant flash. The crew and the hundred and fifty soldiers all perished in the explosion.
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Midgar, Airspace 4:46 PM July 26
Literally thousands of planes and airships took to the air in a climatic air battle. Among the many airships, the Highwind and the Hellbender both fought in the battle. Anything that was shot down crashed into city streets or just outside Midgar. Cid and his men fought frantically to keep the Hellbender from firing. Anti-aircraft weaponry blazed, azure and red beams streaking through the sky. Finally, the Hellbender's laser began charging. As it fired, aiming toward the Shinra Building, a jet pulled into its way and took the charge of the laser, incinerating the pilot to atoms, and melting the plane into nothing. The Highwind launched a barrage of missiles into the laser barrel, making it impossible to fire. Rufus's air force pulled out, and the ground forces came in.
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Midgar, Sector 7 7:21 PM July 26
Biggs and Jessie flipped up their bar table and crouched behind it. Biggs would pop his arm over and fire several rounds occasionally. Men poured into the city, shooting and firing guns wildly. Jessie jumped over the table with a shotgun and emptied several shells into enemy soldiers. She turned a fired again, blowing a bloody, gaping hole through a soldier not but three feet away. Biggs jumped to the door and emptied rounds from his gun-arm into soldiers, cutting holes in their defense and offense. Various slum thugs and residents were shooting and stabbing the soldiers. They were winning against highly trained Shinra soldiers. Biggs emptied more ammunition into the soldiers. One stray bullet, however, caught a man in the back, killing him. Biggs paused. He had just killed a man who was trying to help defend his city. Shaking his head, he went back to firing. These things happened. Jessie didn't see it. She was busy pumping shells into men. Biggs popped his gun-arm off and revealed a large work of metal pikes and gears, hooked to the tendon is his wrist. He put his shotgun arm on, and grabbed some shells from Jessie. "How much longer can we keep this up!?!"
"Not much..." Jessie jammed a knife through a soldier's head, and went back to shooting. "...longer..." Biggs fired again, ripping another soldier's arm from his body in a spray of blood. Jessie threw Biggs her shells and picked up a machine gun from a dead soldier, and fired into the endless stream of soldiers. A shot blasted forward, shooting through her shoulder, breaking the bone. She shrieked. "My arm... My fucking arm!" With one hand, she fired the machine gun. Biggs ran to cover her. When her ammuntion ran out, she grabbed the last gun she had. A small pistol. Standing, she walked slowly past Biggs. Biggs ran to stop her, but a hail of bullets made him get on the ground. She aimed the gun forward and began firing. "All of you... I hate all of you..."
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"Wedge... Oh god... Wedge..."
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"You will feel my pain..."
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"This damn reactor... All of those Shinra..."
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"Die..." She fired more, gun fire cutting through her. Blood gushed out onto the ground. She didn't limp. She kept walking as if those bullets weren't there.
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"How many died?"
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"DIE." She fired again. "DIE!" More gun fire. Jessie pulled out a grenade. Walking blindly into a group of soldiers, she looked around at their faces. "What do you do when a blonde throws a grenade at you? Pull the pin and throw it back. What do you do when I throw a grenade at you?" She pulled the pin. "I don't throw very far..." She dropped the grenade, killing herself, and almost fourteen soldiers. Biggs screamed and fired at the men. He saw the commander, wearing a red suit. A shot to the leg, and the man fell. Biggs picked the man up by the back of his suit and put the gun barrel to his face.
"When you die, my voice is the last thing you'll hear." The gun fired, and the man's face ripped out the back of his skull, and his brains shooting out over Biggs's hand. Biggs sighed as the soldiers retreated, but fought his urge to cry.
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Kalm, Town Square 3:32 AM July 27
Missiles rained down onto Kalm. The city lit ablaze. Elmyra choked in the flames. The Pyre Light's laser cannon, like the Hellbender's, but too weak to destroy a sector, rained death to the quiet town. Bombers raged out, leveling the city. No one survived.
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Midgar Area, Midgar 5:34 AM July 27
The battle still raged. Airships were destroyed, planes sent spiraling into fantastic, brilliantly colored explosions. Helicopters with guns on the doors and missiles came in, destroying what they could. Tanks and various other large vehicles came rolling near the city, blasting at it, making walls collapse. Dying men's screams filled the air in blood soaked fury. No one was spared by Rufus's men. The old and young, male and female, all slaughtered. The two armies continued clashing, screaming, blazing. Such incredible zeal had never been seen. Men killed themselves in amazing attempts to annihilate the enemy. Blood soaked walls. Fire enveloped structures. Great fireballs that had once been ships crashed into city streets. Citizens ran in terror as the battle kept burning. Anti-aircraft guns kept firing. The machine gun towers kept shooting.
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Midgar, Sector 6 4:45 PM July 27
Tifa screamed in pain. One piece of shrapenal in her arm. She ripped it out, smearing a sticky vial of liquid onto the hole. It sealed. Tifa didn't hesitate to punching a soldier. She jumped over gun fire, landing next to three soldiers. She punched one in the groin, and then crushed his neck with her foot. One of them prepared to shoot her. She rolled to the ground, his bullet hitting the other man. He threw down his gun and put his fists up. "Come on, ya' bitch." He threw a punch that Tifa caught. She threw her own punch, through his chest. His heart and lungs were ripped out his back. She held his heart and yanked it back through the hole. He looked at the hole and the viens trailing out to his still beating heart. She twisted him around and his back filled with bullets from another soldier. She grabbed his gun, dropping his bloody, bullet ridden corpse, and fired back, cutting enemy soldiers apart.
"Ya'll are really..." She shot another shot into a different man's head. "Really...pissin' me off..." She grabbed a knife from her bag and threw it into a man's chest. She brought her foot around in the air and broke another's neck with one hit. She threw a soldier into a tank, crushing his head off the main cannon. Using her advanced knowledge of aikido and judo, she threw another man, and twisted his arm off in less then half a second. She saw a member of SOLDIER carrying a shinai. Tifa had studied tendo for several years, and was well versed with the weapon. She leapt at him and grabbed the shinai. Swinging the blade into a circle and spilled the man's organs onto the ground. She began swinging the bamboo pole around, and checked the blood soaked blade. Still sharp. Acid edged. She twisted around and brought the blade into another SOLDIER's head. She threw the shinai into the barrel of a tank's cannon. It sank the whole way into it, but stopped the shell. The tank exploded, incinerating the crew. She threw her fist forward, useing another form of martial arts. Taido. She leapt to a somersault and rolled forward on the ground, axing her foot into a soldier's face, and breaking his neck moments later. She ran to the train station. The train was loaded with people trying to escape the sector. A plane crashed not more then twelve feet away, making a car explode, sending more metal shards flying.
She collapsed against the interior wall of the train. As it pulled away, gun fire erupted, making people drop. Tifa fell to the ground, ducking the fire. She played dead beside a corpse. A man came and kicked her to see if she was alive. She broke his ankle and punched him in the face, crushing his skull. The train began to explode. "Shit!" She dove out the window and rolled into the tunnel.
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Midgar, The Inquistor 3:45 PM July 28
Tseng's new airship rocked and swayed. Constant missile blasts were sending it wild. The ship began to shake horribly. Tseng tried to get it close to another airship. As he did, he leapt on board of the Katana. The huge airship was slamming the Inquistor's hull with rockets, lasers, and gun fire. Tseng got the uzi from his coat and began firing at the crew. The crew fled, but armed gaurds jumped him. Most of the firing stopped, but Tseng was sorrounded by armed soldiers. "Guys guys GUYS! I'm really busy here. I mean come on. You don't think you can actually kill me, do you?"
"Get im'!" They were about to open fire when one gaurd fell. Vincent stood up off of his back.
"Am I late? Did I miss anything?"
"A little."
"Damn!" Vincent's shotgun quickly ended a soldier's life with a hole in his stomach. Vincent punched another with his claw and jumped up into the air, avoiding the gun fire below. Tseng opened fire and killed several other soldiers.
"Hey Tseng!" Rude jumped down after. "Thought ya' two might need some help." Rude punched a man and threw him off the ship. He turned and met a punch to the face, cracking his shades in half. Rude began shaking as his shades fell to the ground. "THOSE ARE EXPENSIVE, DAMN IT!" Rude drilled the man's nose into his brain, and grabbed his gun. While firing, he lit a cigarette and pulled another pair of shades from his pocket and put them on.
I don't like your face..." Vincent grabbed the soldier's head and began to squeeze. "And you no what else? I don't like you." The man's head crunched and collapsed inward. "Do not piss me off." Vincent wiped the skull fragments and blood off of his claw and hand. "Worthless." An anti-aircraft gun took off part of the hull of the Katana.
"Oh damn... Rude!"
"What?"
"Get some parachutes or something!"
"Kay, man. Don't piss yourself." Rude ran off to the lower deck to find crew members frantically grabbing parachutes. He stopped in front of three of them. "Get your own, ya' pansies." Rude shoved two back and punched one unconscious. Grabbing the three packs, he ran back to the deck. "Ay' guys. Got the chutes, man." He pulled out his silvery liqour bottle and took a drink. They each slid one on and jumped.
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Midgar, Highwind 1:34 AM August 1
Cid drank more coffee as the battle began to clear. The airships were pulling out. Soldiers ran away, many loading into APCs or ships to cross the mountains and oceans back to safe territory. Cid sighed. Almost seven days of pure fighting. His ears were still ringing with explosions. Just two nights prior, the Hellbender was blown off the Planet, permanently. The Sector 7 plate fell when the Hellbender's laser cannon tried to fire with the deformed barrel, causing the plate to go down with a fireball, once a gallant airship. Cid wiped more alcohol onto the cut over his eye. The last airship was blown apart in the sky. The battle was over. The battle held amazing costs. Two million soldiers killed. Almost a sixteenth of the citizens were killed in the battle. It would be near three years before another major battle or discovery would be made. Things would move slowly for the next three years.
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Valhalla, Rufus's Office 5:00 AM August 1
"SHIT! WHAT DO YOU MEAN!?!"
"I mean we failed. Lost. Got fucked over! We didn't know they were ready for us. We did however destroy Kalm."
"I don't care about that. They weren't ready for us is what worries me. They are always too prepared. I may be changing offices to Junon next week. I want defense built up heavier there. We can not have another slaughter like at Midgar."
"But we were the ones who were doing the slaughtering."
"I don't care! We can't have that happen to us! I'm sorrounded by idiots!"
"Ya... Yes, sir."
"And lose that tie. You look like a shmuck."
"Yes, sir."
"Now... OUT!"
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Cosmo Canyon, Anthony's Room 12:34 AM December 14
Anthony lay awake, staring at his two cubs, resting peacefully on top of Kianki's side. He smiled calmly. Shutting his eyes, his heart filled with love for his two sons. They were intelligent, though they couldn't speak. They were quick learners though, and loved their father and mother dearly. Anthony fell asleep, dreaming only of his new family.
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Cosmo Canyon, Observatory 4:34 AM December 14
Erik sat dormant in the corner. He had been collecting dust for quite a while. His sensors flipped on, the red lights he had as visual sensors lit up. Erik moved his body, scrapping and squeaking. Finally, his gears began working properly. He rose his right arm, which had an automatic rifle on it. The other was a rotating claw. He ran a diagnostic. He was running perfectly. All of his tools worked properly. He walked out of the canyon and into the jungle, still not quite aware of his sorroundings. He began running diagnostics and mapping, still not able to find where he was. The Planet had changed so much, he was unable to pin point his location, and wandered off into the deep jungle.
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