Combat Diary Chapter 1
By EmperorSteele
She ran.
Ran as fast as she could. She and her child were the last of their race, one sacrificed so that others -those like the ones who were now seeking to oppress her- could live.
She held her child in her arms, one not even a month old. The Cetra woman ran amazingly well through the snow that covered the northern continent, especially for one who had given birth not even a month earlier. She prayed to the Planet for strength; But even there, so close to the Northern crater, where lifestream pulsated and the Planet's voice was strong, she received no answer.
Gunfire rang out. The woman let out a cry as her shoulder burned of hot lead which had entered her at roughly 150 miles per hour. She staggered, but continued her pace, and decided that some more evasive maneuvering would be preferable to a straight line. She twisted her body as she came to a tree and turned, narrowly avoiding more gunfire. The young sapling of a tree was torn apart by the bullets, and the woman could feel it's life-force scream to the Planet in agony.
Cold.
It was also very cold, and yet she was building up a sweat. She paused only briefly to look behind her. The two men in the blue MP uniforms and the scientist, "Hojo" she believed his name was, were walking -not running- overly confident that she would soon be theirs.
The woman removed from her pocket a Restore materia. She used it, closing her wound, but not doing much else. The pain still pulsated from her shoulder and down her arm. Shots rang out again, narrowly missing her.
"Listen to reason, Cetra-or may I call you Ifalna? We do not want to hurt you, and yet you insist on making us instigate conflict. Please, surrender and you will not be harmed." Hojo had said.
Ifalna, among all things, found it highly curious as to how the scientist could withstand these cold temperatures with just a lab coat on. Not minding Hojo, She sprinted towards some nearby trees...
"She's getting away," One MP turned to Hojo and said. Hojo glared at the MP and raised an eyebrow.
"Your abilities of deduction astound me. Tell me, what is two plus two?" Hojo replied sarcastically. "Force her to vacate the trees by randomly firing... you..." he continued, turning to the other MP "...when she runs again, use a tranquilizer dart."
"Yessir!" The two MPs replied in unison. The first one shot madly into the small gathering of trees, and just as Hojo predicted, Ifalna dove out, but not before taking a bullet to the ankle.
Ifalna hit the ground hard, but shielded her baby from the impact. She tried to get up, if to just be able to dodge, or do SOMETHING... but then she felt the tranquilizer dart hit her in the neck. The child in Ifalna's arms let out a cry as they hit the ground again.
The two troops came up to Ifalna, their weapons pointed at her. Ifalna glared at them angrily...
A wave of bright energy suddenly emitted from Ifalna's body, circling her. As it began to dissipate, she thrust out her hand, yelling out "EXCHANGE!" at one of the troops. He started to fall, feeling the cumulative damage of bullets and tranquilizer and all the pain Ifalna had been feeling before. Ifalna got up quickly, renewed by the energy of a fully healthy youthful soldier, grabbing his night-stick and thrusting it at the second MP's crotch. As that one keeled over, grabbing himself in pain, Ifalna put Aeris softly on the ground, then turned to Hojo, who just stood a few feet away, smiling.
Ifalna dashed at Hojo. Not that she was an overly violent person, but invigorated by the energy of a young soldier, she became even more angry at this man who had just killed her husband -Professor Gast- and sought to imprison her and her daughter Aeris for his own sadistic pleasure.
Suddenly time seemed to slow down. Ifalna found moving to become difficult, then impossible. She was still standing and breathing, but something prevented her from doing anything else. She became mortified at the realization that somehow a STOP spell had been placed on her...
Hojo looked down at his time materia and smiled. He walked up to Ifalna, and taking advantage of the situation, kissed her sloppily on the mouth. If she could, Ifalna would have puked, but instead she was knocked out a second later by Hojo's impossibly fast and strong fist...
***
I look back and think about the war. The whole thing's stupid. On one hand, Wutai is one town on a relatively large continent, but they don't feel like giving any land up. On the other hand, That Shinra weapons company thinks they're so badass that they can send in their super-SOLDIERS and claim all the land.
They're a damn company. Why should they need any land? They already have that half-built floating city, Midgar or something. It doesn't make sense to me. Then they built that huge cannon over the Fishing port at Junon just in the past few months. You should see the size of this thing, it's bigger than the town! Why they need a canon that huge which doesn't even point at anything is beyond me. Wutai would be stupid to attack from that direction, anyway. There's a frickin continent and two oceans between Wutai and Junon.
I'm just lettin off steam here, I mean hey, that's what a diary... er, journal is for, right?
Anyway, I'm writing this after-the-fact in my combat diary because this whole Wutai/Shinra war lead to many great adventures and battles...
Sadly, my greatest battle is also the one I lost...
***
"I can't believe I'm actually LOOKING at this... it's unbelievable..."
"Get a hold of yourself, Byran old friend..." Dio commented with a smile. Dio and Byran, two lifelong friends stood before Midgar, glory of the Shinra Weapons Manufacturing Company. At over 50 meters tall, it dwarfed all the nearby towns, the half completed "plate" casting an ominous shadow over the land. The land itself seemed afraid of the city, as trees and grass had become suspiciously absent in and around the city. There even seemed to be a clear "line" where the grass just stopped.
Byran composed himself. Normally, he didn't let things get to him. After all, he fancied himself an adventurer. He wasn't even 30 and he had already been the first person to discover "Master Materia", and even had the last Gold Chocobo. Despite all these accomplishments, he still only lived in an unassuming small house in the township of Kalm, which he shared with his fiancé, Noel. His skin was slightly tan, and had short light-brown hair which was just starting to fade away, both in color and position. And although he was only 5'6", people still did not mess with the world-renowned adventurer. Yeah, he was a great warrior, but what's more, the powerhouse known only as Dio always had his friend's back.
Dio stood well over 6 feet, and there was no part of his dark body which lacked intensive exercise, giving him and extraordinary physique. Long curly brown hair made it seem as though he possessed a maim instead of just a normal head of hair. His large mustache actually looked small in comparison to his broad jaw and the rest of his gargantuan self.
Midgar shone in the background, eager to impress. Dio wasn't so taken.
"Hey little buddy, we gonna stand here all day?" Dio asked his friend.
Byran simply smirked. "Come on. I just wanna get a good look at this thing before that plate falls down and kills everyone. It'll never stay standing..."
"The plate fall down? NAAAHHH. That'll never happen," Dio remarked. Dio was about to get into all the scientific specs he had heard about Midgar when he was interrupted by an impatient "WARK"...
Byran turned and began to pet his Golden Chocobo, Zelda. "Okay, okay. I get the picture." He turned to Dio, "Wanna return to Kalm?"
"Sure," Dio said plainly with a slight shrug. He turned to get onto the Chocobo, but then looked back at Midgar.
Something didn't seem right. Like beneath all the shine and glamour, something hideous lay. Dio shook his head, thinking that nostalgia was messing with him again. Ah, the good old days of adventure when everything had something hideous beneath... Dio thought to himself.
With a grunt, the Chocobo took the two friends back to Kalm.
Noel sat in her kitchen, sighing. She looked at the diamond ring which adorned her hand, given to her by Byran only a few months ago. They had known each other for years, but marriage had never been an option until now. This was due to Byran's adventurous nature, and his tendency to get into trouble. At any moment, he would be gone, and possibly forever. However, Byran recently swore off adventuring, content to spend the rest of his life with the woman he loved.
Despite the fact that she had convinced her future husband to leave adventuring behind, Noel still felt anxious for his return. That no-good friend of his, Dio, always managed to talk Byran into doing something stupid; and although Byran said he would only be gone for a few hours to look upon Midgar, Dio was with him, and trouble always followed that man around...
Suddenly there was a knock upon the door.
Noel stirred out of her worrisome thoughts and looked across the house and at the door. She thought it was strange that someone was knocking, especially considering that people just tended to waltz in and out of each others houses without invitation. Also, her soon-to-be husband was the LAST person who would need to knock.
Noel suddenly became very justifyingly panicked. She slowly walked up to the door...
"Hello?" She ventured.
No one spoke.
She walked to the nearby window and looked out. She didn't SEE anybody....
Then without warning, a hand came around her and grabbed her arm, and she was forced around. She used the momentum to swing her fist at her assailant (hey, being the fiancé of a world-renowned adventurer, she's picked up a few moves!) and WHAM!
...right into the face of her soon-to-be-husband, who stumbled backwards while holding his nose.
"BYRAN! What..." Noel tried. She could hear Dio laughing from the stairs, but paid no attention to him. She saw that she had broken her future husband's nose...
"...'ice hit..." Byran complained, trying to keep blood from spilling all over the floor... This was followed by more of Dio's laughter.
"What the heck do you think you're doing?! You scared me! You deserved that!" Noel defended, waving her arms around. Her face then softened a bit, "Uhm, are you okay? Do you need a cure spell?"
"I' o'ay..." Byran said as well as he could, given he couldn't speak through his nose for the moment "I wa'ted to sup'ise you..." He walked into teh den, and sat in his favorite chair which was located next to the fireplace.
"Well surprise me you DID! You REALLY scared me!" Noel said as she threw her hands in the air, then pointed at Dio, "Did YOU make him do this?"
Dio simply smiled.
"AHG! You two are GROWN MEN! Pranks like this are so below you!" She turned back to her husband, "Would you at least like a tissue?" But she saw that her husband was glowing red... the glow slowly pulsated from dim to bright... The blood on Byran's self simply disappeared, and his nose regained it's correct shape before Noel's very eyes.
Dio observed this as well, "Regen?! Isn't that over-kill, er, over-heal?! Ha ha..."
Noel gave Dio a sharp look and was about to say something, but decided he wasn't worth it. She again looked at her fiancé... "How'd you get in here?"
"We climbed up the side of the house and entered through the bedroom window." Byran replied matter-of-factly.
"I heard a knock at the door... how did you get up there so fast?"
"HA!" Dio cut in, "We paid that rascal Jonathan Reeve to knock and run. Hey, neighborhood kids are good for something, after all! Ha, ha, ha!"
"Well, that was immature! Making that sweet boy do your dirty work... Say, how much did you give him?" Noel asked as she looked between the two men...
"Uhm... 20 Gil..." Byran finally confessed, starting to trail off.
"20 GIL?!?! Money's tight thanks to that stupid war! Giving away money isn't a very good idea!" Noel complained. shaking her finger as though scolding a child.
"Hey, we didn't give it away! We paid him for services rendered!" Dio interjected.
"You shut up!" Noel turned and snapped. She turned back to her future husband, then said more sweetly, "Don't you think 20 was a tad much?"
"Well, it was the smallest coin Dio had on himself." Byran replied.
"Oh, well, so long as it came out of HIS pocket, I have nothing to worry about." Noel said, then smiled.
Dio dared to venture to the bottom of the stairs, and declared "I'm going to my room!" With that, he plopped himself down on the couch adjacent from where Byran was sitting.
Noel simply ignored him, but still put her hands behind her inconspicuously as to block Dio's view of her posterior. While she knew he had at least enough honor to stay away from his friends' women, Dio still liked to look...
As it was, Noel's concerns were unfounded. Dio took out some sketches from his jacket pocket and simply looked at them for a while.
Byran spoke up after he realized no one had said anything for the past few minutes. "Hey Dio, those the plans for that 'Fun Dome' you're thinking of building?"
"Yeah, I..." Dio spoke, but he was interrupted when the door opened. Someone they had never seen before waltzed in, and opened up the closet and grabbed an Elixir from the shelf. He turned to the trio...
"Hey, you guys usin' this?" the young man asked. He was dressed in strange clothing, and looked like just another young fool looking for adventure. Byran just waived his hand as a gesture of saying the boy could have it. "Thanks!" he said. He waved at the trio, and walked out the door.
"I hate it when that happens..." Noel commented.
"Hey, what comes around goes around." Byran said.
"Heh. Remember when we pulled stunts like that? Oh well, at least the kid asked... ha!" Dio contributed.
"That's what I'm saying!" Byran retorted.