Disclaimer: I don’t own Final Fantasy VII nor The Crow. They are the property of Square Enix and James O’ Barr.

A/N: It would seem that it was a good thing that I didn’t finish this fanfic before Dirge of Cerberus came out. Thanks to that game, I’ve gotten better inspiration for the following two chapters, including this one. Yes, that’s right, folks. I’m actually almost done with one fanfic. XD!!! For those of you who have been reading this fanfic, thank you for your patience and continually reading my work; also, I’d like to let some who have brought this up that Sephiroth will not appear in this, as this is an A/U, but that doesn’t mean the One-Winged Angel won’t show up later if people request a sequel of this. It’s up to all of you for that! Now then, let’s get back to the fun and mayhem!!

Chaos Unleashed

Upon the destruction of Sector Seven’s Mako Reactor, Sector Six’s Reactor followed within the next hour, then Sector Five’s and so on, until all the reactors in Midgar were consumed in flames and Mako vapors, surging up from the earth like blood to clod the wound made in its flesh. Reports were being flown from every source back to the Shinra Building of the red caped gunmen seen before and after the Reactors were demolished into oblivion. Driving the president of Shinra stir crazy…

“Why haven’t any of these worthless men caught or stopped this bastard!” Rufus shouted at Heidegger, who was quivering like a fish out of water.

“I…I don’t know, sir! My men have reported that nothing can stop him! Reports have stated that bullets won’t slow him down. Magic only makes him madder and when we send out monsters or machines at him, he sends them back full of holes!” Heidegger proclaimed.

“Those are not reasonable or rational answers, you fat lard!” Rufus growled, scratching the butt of his double-barreled handgun. “I want to get to the bottom of this. Is this man using some kind of new materia that we haven’t discovered yet?”

Scarlet was busy applying lipstick, looking in a small mirror in her hand. “That could be. If he has such a materia that gives him this much power then it should be in our hands and not in the hands of some vigilante. Power like that doesn’t deserve to be in the hands of someone so lowly.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Rufus agreed. “We cannot let this man keep this kind of power, it must belong to Shinra.”

“To you, love,” Scarlet whispered with a secret smile at him.

He returned it with a dark one. “…Quite right, again.”

Heidegger figured now was as good as any to make his exit before Rufus remembered he was in the room. He quietly stepped out of the office with a stealth unknowing in someone as large as him. When he was safely out of dodge, he snarled and marched down the stairway where some of his men were waiting patiently for him. Without warning, he punched the nearest one for what appear for no other reason than to vent his anger. The soldiers, being used to these bursts of anger, remained silent as Heidegger kicked the fallen man until all his anger was spent, glad in the knowledge that it wasn’t one of them that received a beaten from him…this time.

Heidegger grabbed the man by his collar and lifted him with one hand and threw him at the other men when he was done making him hurt. “Get your sorry asses out of my sight and get me that terrorist!!”

The soldiers fumbled to keep themselves up and their beaten comrade and quickly get away from their angry commander.

“Seems Rufus isn’t the only one that likes to beat on his subordinates,” an aged, manically voice giggled.

Heidegger turned to the side of the stairs and spotted a man in a white lab-coat with long black hair tied loosely in a ponytail and pushing his round glasses back up the bridge of his nose.

“Hojo? What are you doing here? Don’t you have some poor critter to cut open or something?” Heidegger grunted, eyeing the scientist with disgust as he knew what this mad man liked to do in his spare time.

“No, no! I have much better things to apply my genius on than some vermin…which is what I was just about to go tell Rufus that I’ve finished with my recent experiment, but I couldn’t help but overhear some trouble with some fool that’s slowing down my experiments. His annoying attempts to stop our energy supply is troublesome, if not for the backup reactor in here, all my experiments would have been ruined!” Hojo said.

Heidegger stared at the man with grim discomfort. “…What a pity that would have been.”

“Exactly!” Hojo exclaimed. “Which is why I will give you my services in dealing with this fool.”

“Your services?” Heidegger grunted. “I don’t need my men becoming lunch for whatever monstrosity you’ve spliced, Hojo.”

“No, no! I wouldn’t let my precious creation get a sour stomach with devouring your grunts,” Hojo countered. “I will help in the extermination of the fool. You see, I need to show Rufus just how exquisite my pet is for him to consent in allowing me to make more of my lovely Dragombie!”

“Dragombie??” Heidegger gawked at him.

Hojo spared him a disgusted, impatient look and waved him away, marching back to the elevators. “I have no time to explain to a simpleton. When you’ve caught this fool, bring him to me and I will dispose of him…” He stopped for a moment to rub his chin, then continued walking. “Maybe I can use whatever is left of him for my next experiment! Oh yes, that would be interesting, indeed….hehehehehehe!!”

Heidegger watched as he began sweating in fright of the mad man, paralyzed by his maniacal laughter, until the elevator doors closed behind Hojo and he waited until the floor number above the elevator stopped on the sixty-seventh floor, where the main laboratory was…and where most of the horrifying noises that Heidegger ever heard in his life echoed from. Even then, he waited until he was sure the elevator wasn’t going to move for a moment before he dared let go of the breath he had been holding.

He sighed then growled at the elevator door. “Fucking freak…” He turned on his left heel and marched to his office to send out orders to every available man…and find out what the hell happened to all his best Turks! He had just put down the phone when it immediately rang. Thinking it was some idiot that didn’t understand the orders he gave him, he grabbed the receiver angrily and shouted in it. “What is it?! I thought I’d….what? Repeat that? You have him?! Then bring that bastard here at once!”

It was the oddest thing for the patrol unit that was investigating Sector 1, where the last Mako reactor was just recently destroyed. They were surveying the total damage of the reactor when Vincent Valentine appeared out from under the rubble and dusted himself off. The soldiers and two of the Machine Guards they brought along for backup aimed their weapons at him.

“Halt! You are under arrest!” The officer of the unit shouted.

Vincent ignored him for another moment, working on getting the dust off his shirt, then he looked up at them with menacing eyes and smiled at them. He rose up his hands, and the unit assumed he was going to attack them and readied to open fire, but then stopped when he raised his hands above his head and rested them on the back of his head.

“You got me…” Vincent said, dropping to his knees.

Befuddled, the unit cautiously approached him and the officer himself disarmed him of his gun and his materia. He tried to remove his clawed hand, but Vincent growled at him and said it was attached to him permanently. He then handcuffed Vincent and lifted him up with the help of one of his subordinates, giving the order for them to report the capture to HQ and led the dark gunman to their vehicle. They threw him in the back, cuffing him his feet to the floor and proceeded to take him in once they received confirmation. What none of them noticed as they handled Vincent was the smile he hid behind the cowl of his cape...

They did exactly as he knew they would do. Arrest him and take him straight to Shinra building where Rufus Shinra himself would most likely be, and once there, he would complete his mission and bring Shinra down onto its knees in flames forever.

It didn’t take long for them to reach the Shinra Building, and deposited Vincent with five waiting units ready to handle him, with Heidegger standing in the front. He stalked up to Vincent and glared at him and was startled when he saw that Vincent was glaring back at him with more ferociousness than Rufus Shinra. Finding this offensive, the general of Shinra army clinched his fist and threw it up and dug it as deep as he could in Vincent’s gut.

Vincent keeled over but didn’t make a single noise of pain or discomfort. His body simply reacted out of reflexes from the punch. Seeing this was the case, Heidegger quickly took a step back from him and tried his best to keep a fierce expression on his hairy face, then turned to his men and pointed a stubby finger at them. “Take this criminal to Hojo...”

At the mention of the scientist’s name, some of the men went wide eyed. Even Vincent when he heard the name, but only out of curiosity at all the men’s reaction to hearing it. If just the name could cause soldiers of Shinra to act nervous, what else made this man so feared?

Heidegger glared at his men and growled slightly at them, and the men immediately moved to carry out his order. Vincent let them led him to the elevators and looked over his shoulder once to see his crow perched on top of the vehicle that carried him here, watching him till he entered the elevator and it took flight and flapped at the same pace that his elevator was moving. The crow sent its vision to him, letting him see all the floors and the kind of security each one of them had. When he reached the sixtieth floor, he saw, through the crow’s eyes, a man with brunette hair, a neatly trimmed beard and mustache holding a cat doll and placing it on top of a really fat moogle doll. Seeing this as more bizarre than anything, Vincent quickly pushed the weird image from his head. Soon the elevator reached its destination and some of the men around him began to snicker.

“Man, what rotten luck you have to be given over to Hojo,” one of them said.

“Yeah! Anyone or thing for that matter sent his way is never seen again….not in one piece, anyway,” another added.

Vincent remained quiet and simply stared straight ahead when the doors opened. The men all filed out, pulling Vincent along, and took him to a huge observatory. One of the soldiers walked up to one of the busy scientists and said something to him. The scientist quickly looked at Vincent and began shaking his head sadly, then walked off. A moment later, the scientist returned with Hojo walking right next to him. He pointed at Vincent and whispered something to the senior scientist. A twisted smile appeared on Hojo’s face and he quickly dismissed the scientist with an impatient wave of his hand and marched over to Vincent.

“So…this is the one that’s been causing everyone problems, eh?” Hojo said, walking around him. The soldiers that were guarding Vincent quickly backed away from the scientist to let him inspect. Hojo circled him twice and murmured to himself rather excitedly and stopped when he was standing on his left side and lifted his clawed hand up for closer inspection. “Amazing! I’ve never seen this model before…but this symbol…” He turned the hand around so he could look at his back palm better. “Seems I’ve seen this somewhere before…Ah! It’s of no importance now. If this arm of yours survives then I can examine it to my leisure later.”

He let go of his hand and glanced up at the soldiers standing around him. “Well?! What are you empty-minded fools waiting for? Get him in the test arena, now!”

At once, all the soldiers moved and took Vincent to a large area in the observatory. The area was pitted, much like an arena that Hojo called it and he could make out entrances on either side of the walls making up the arena. One of the soldiers led him to the edge of the arena, then kicked him into it. He landed ungracefully on his side in the arena and quickly flipped to his feet and glared up at the soldier. The soldier gave him an innocent look and shrugged his shoulders and walked off, laughing. The dark gunman was getting very impatient and was about to just jump back up there and end his ruse, when Hojo appeared and looked down at Vincent.

“Don’t bother trying to climb up,” Hojo warned. He tapped his finger in the air, and a force field hummed where he touched it, and a green light flashed over the arena’s opening. “It’d be amusing but I need you fresh to test out my latest experiment. Oh, and as a sign of fair sportsmanship, I’ll be giving you an ally to help you fight…course, that’s if it doesn’t decide to make you its meal, too. Hehehehehe!”

A compartment door opened up in the floor near Vincent and a cage rose up from a lift. Inside the cage was a reddish orange furred beast that looked almost like a wolf and a great cat. The tip of its tail was lit aflame, and it had a red mane spiked up like a Mohawk. It stalked around in its cage and when it turned, Vincent spotted that one of its eyes had a nasty scar over it and on its left front leg was a tattoo number on it, labeling it “XIII”, probably its test number. The beast growled some and stopped its stalking and locked its one eye on Vincent, regarding him sternly and baring its fangs some.

“This particular specimen happens to be the last of his kind,” Hojo said, adjusting his glasses. “Sadly, all my attempts to get it to mate with my other specimens have proven faulty and now I’ve grown tired of it, so I’ll let you use it to help you battle my Dragombie. Though, the likely-ness of it aiding you is ninety-nine point nine percent slim for you. Leaving only a point-one percent chance of it helping you out.”

Vincent regarded Hojo with great distain and then looked back at the animal. The poor thing must have gone through hell thanks to that mad scientist above him. He really didn’t want to hurt it, but if it attacked, he have to defend himself, and if whatever this Dragombie thing Hojo just mentioned proved to be a greater threat, he might have to kill it so he could focus on the greater threat. But from the way that Hojo talked about it, it must have had some great importance for the scientist to want to breed more of its kind. Deciding on taking that point-one percent chance, he approached the cage and kneeled down on one knee.

“I don’t want to fight you…” Vincent said calmly. “If you can understand me, then know that I’m not a threat to you and I won’t harm you.” He paused and waited for a reaction from it, it gave none except the stern stare it had on him. “…If you do understand what I’m saying then please…don’t get in my way.”

The red beast cocked its head up at him and he could have sworn it nodded at him. Figuring it did understand him, he looked up at Hojo, who was eyeing the beast questionably. “So? Are you going to stand there all day or are you going to send out this thing you’re so anxious for me to fight?”

Hojo glared down at him angrily. “If you’re so anxious to die then be my guest!” He raised a hand and snapped his fingers.

Vincent and the red beast turned their heads when another door opened up in the floor fifteen feet from them, and another cage, a larger one, rose up. In this larger case, thrashed a huge dragon…or what used to be something similar to a dragon. The thing in the cage had a body like one, four legs, a tail, wings, and a long neck with a head with a crown of horns adorning it, but that was where the similarities ended. Varies parts of its body exposed the things skeletal structure, but where one expect to see empty rotten meat, there was in its stead hard muscle and teeth! After seeing that feature, Vincent saw that instead of scales, the thing had teeth for skin! At the end of its wide tail were four blades longer than a man’s torso, and those four blades were flexing together like it were really an extra claw. Then there was the matter of its head. The thing had nothing but a bare skull for a head, no tissue or any flesh covered this things bony face. Where its beastly eyes would be, there were red spheres glowing in its eye sockets. As for the wings of the thing, they just looked like wings; the pair on its back weren’t might to let this thing fly as it should have been granted with them. No, these were given to it for the sole purpose of killing. Each wing was bare like its skull and the ends were as long and bladed like the things tail, looking more like an extra set of legs and talons than wings.

“Horrible thing, isn’t it?” a calm and intelligent voice stated.

Vincent looked around for the source of that voice, but only saw the red beast and Hojo. Knowing the voice couldn’t belong to Hojo, he looked back at the cage containing the red beast. The lion-like creature was looking right at the Dragombie with disgusted fascination, then looked at him directly.

“Just when I thought Hojo couldn’t do worse, he puts that thing together…what a horrible fate for what it once was,” the red beast said.

“You can speak?” Vincent almost gawked, staring at the beast in a new light.

“Yes, but that’s not important. We have a fight on our hands and we best do our best to win…and please don’t call me ‘it’ like that man up there does. Call me Red XIII…or something else if you rather but not ‘it’…” the red beast asked politely.

Flabbergasted by his politeness and by its mannerism, Vincent just nodded to it and returned his full attention on the monstrosity in the other cage. “…My name’s Vincent.”

“Please to meet your acquaintance, brief as it was…” Red XIII murmured, turning his head also to the monster.

Hojo was furious by the sight of the two communicating. He never could make Red XIII talk to him whenever he was around it. His only replies from the beast were threatening growls and a few close calls with his fangs and claws. He glared at the control booth sitting above the test arena.

“Open the cages, now!” Hojo demanded.

The man operating in the control booth obliged and unlocked the cages. Red XIII quickly stalked out of his and joined Vincent by his side. The Dragombie roared and ripped open the door of its cage, ruining it and stormed out of its cage and all the teeth on its skin flared up like quills on a porcupine and roared at the two.

“I hope you’re a strong one,” Red XIII said, hunching down and baring his fangs to the monster.

Vincent smile behind his cowl and flexed his clawed hand. “I was just about to ask you the same thing.”

Red XIII chuckled and took off like a bullet at the monster. Just as he neared it, a red glow surrounded the front of him and he leapt straight at the things skull. On impact, the energy surrounding Red XIII ignited and blasted the thing’s head back and he kicked off of it and ran back up to Vincent, smirking at him in a feline manner.

Vincent shrugged and chuckled some. “Answer’s that question.”

The Dragombie roared out in fury and cocked its head back at the two, its red eyes glowing brighter. It reared its head back and its wing-like arms folded behind him. Vincent instantly knew what it was about to do.

“Watch it! It’s about to use some sort of breath weapon!” Vincent warned.

Red XIII nodded and the two separated, knowing that by staying together when it unleashed its breath weapon would hurt them both. This way, the thing had to pick just one of them to attack. It choice Vincent because its head turned to him and it opened its great jaws and a beam of dark energy came out. If it weren’t for his enhanced speed thanks to the power of the crow, Vincent wouldn’t have dodged it. He had pivoted out of the way just in time to miss the beam. He rolled to his feet in a crouched position and looked at the spot he once occupied and his eyes widen. Where the beam touched the metal of the arena, there was a huge mass of rusted metal.

“Like my pet’s Death Breath?” Hojo beamed. “As you see, it rusted the metal…but that’s not all it does. If anything comes into contact with that beam, whether it be flesh or metal, it’ll rot or rust it away in seconds!”

“Grand…” Red XIII murmured, coming over to Vincent.

“This thing is going to be hard to beat with a breath weapon like that…” Vincent said, keeping his eyes locked on the monster.

“Yes…and it doesn’t help that we have no materia at hand to use,” Red XIII added discouragingly.

“Nice to know that you can use materia, too…but we’ll just have to do our best with what we have,” Vincent said, and faster than Red XIII, he darted up to thing and slashed its neck with his clawed hand, cutting through the layer of teeth protecting it and damaging muscles underneath it.

He backed a step away from it and ducked in time to miss having his head taken off by one of its wing-like appendages and jumped away from it. To his dismay, the wound he inflicted on the thing was rapidly healing. Hojo was laughing madly where he watched.

“You can’t hurt it like you could other inferior creatures!” Hojo stated. “It can repair any damage inflicted on it…thanks the corpses it eat before this fight.”

“Corpses?” Vincent echoed, then his eyes widened in horror. “You don’t mean…”

“Yes! You are a sharp one, after all. I feed my beauty fresh corpses…curtsey of Shinra’s Military…and Turks. It’s easy to find food sources for them to supply my pet…when the slums below are full of it.”

Red XIII growled at the mad scientist. “So you’ve been feeding this thing innocent people that you killed in your own city?!”

“Ah, so the kitty isn’t as dumb as you pretended to be with me, eh? Well, it’s too late now. You’re both about to become its next meal in just a few seconds,” Hojo replied, pushing his glasses back up the rim of his nose.

Red XIII was truly disgusted and was about to make a remark to Vincent, but halted when he sensed something menacing and it wasn’t coming from the Dragombie. Vincent was glaring at the monster, his eyes were glowing a deeper red than the monster’s and the symbol on his clawed hand was glowing just as deep.

“This thing is an abomination to the Planet…” Vincent said in a dark, threatening tone. “It will be destroy along with everything else Shinra has touched.”

Hojo began laughing more. “How, huh?! How will a weakling like you be able to stop my invincible creation?”

As if agreeing with its creator, the Dragombie lunged at Vincent and spun around and impaled him with one of the blades on its tail and lifted him off the ground. Red XIII cried out to him, but Vincent lay limped on the blade and the beast flung him off its tail. He crashed on the other side of the arena and stayed where he landed for the longest time. Hojo smiled confidently and adjusted his glasses again, but that smile quickly vanished when a look of disbelief replaced it. Vincent pushed himself up from the ground and unsteady got back up on his feet, with a huge gaping hole in his chest, right where his heart would be, slowly beginning to close and a heart beginning to reform.

Now it was Vincent’s turn to smile up at him confidently and reached into his cape and drew out the vial containing the essence of Chaos. “I was saving this for later...but it seems that you’ve pushed my hand to do it, Hojo. I can’t waste any more time with your pet or you.”

Hojo stared at the vial. “W-What is that?”

Vincent held up the vial for him to get a better view of it, and then he twisted the top off it and brought the vial to the hole in his chest. “…I hope this works…Lucrecia.” He then poured the contents from the vial inside his wound.

A burning pain ran throughout his body like quicksilver, filling his veins with molten pain and boiling his brain. He collapsed to the ground and clutched his rapidly healed chest, gasping for air with lungs that refused to take in any. His vision began to turn pure red and his whole body began to glow with an eerie purple light with a reddish tint to it. Then his body began to rapidly change. First noticeable change was his cape burned away into the light surrounding him and a pair of huge demonic red wings unfolded from his back. His hair spiked up above his head, except for one of his heavier locks that stayed where it was, and hardened into back horns and the bandanna around his head split some and ran up over some of his horns and hardened over them and down between his eyes and curved under his right eye and grow back up to harden into another red horn. His clothes changed, too. The cowl of his cape expanded over this torso and spiked out over his shoulders and formed a sort of chest-plate. The leather clothing on him changed colors, turning darkish purple and looked more like scaled skin than clothing now. The belts around his waist morphed into twisted metal bands around him and his golden boots changed slightly; growing blades up and over his knees and a blade on the back of his heels and the pointed end widened and became pointer and curled up some. His normal hand remained this same for the most part, except it changed coloring and twisted metal like around his waist formed around his forearm. As for his golden arm, the plated cover to his arm grew out into a blade from his wrist to his elbow, and his hand grew slightly bigger along with his taloned fingers. In his left breast glowed a spiraling bluish-white sphere, where once was a gaping hole. When he raised his head up to face the Dragombie, it revealed that the skin was cracked around his eyes, he still had the black tears and the dark smile painted on his face, and his eyes were golden in place of the red and glowing like lanterns.

The being that once was Vincent Valentine roared, a set of fangs showing themselves as he cried out like a wild beast. The transformed Crow fixated his burning eyes on the monster and roared again, this time, its body radiated with dark energy and it collected at the center of his chest and formed a dark sphere. It grew to the same size as he and a black beam fired from the sphere and struck the side of the Dragombie, burning away its wing-like appendage.

“I-Impossible!?” Hojo uttered, backing away form the test arena. “That can’t be…that can’t be….Chaos!?”

The being referred to as Chaos stared down at his hands in awe. In a distorted voice, he said, “So…this is Chaos, huh?” An evil smile spread over his cracked face. “Nice…”

Red XIII stared in both awe and fear at his beastly form. “…What did you do to yourself?”

Vincent glanced over at him. “What I had to do.” He returned his gaze to the roaring monster. “…And what I must do is put an end to all of Shinra’s nightmares.”

He folded his wings behind him and walked up to the Dragombie. It locked its red eyes on him and reared back, getting ready to expel another breath attack on him, but Vincent kept on approaching the thing, unafraid. It let its attack loose and just before it enveloped him, Vincent raised his normal hand and a reddish aura surrounded his body and dispersed the deadly breath attack. He dashed at the Dragombie so fast that his feet didn’t touch the ground when he slashed at the monster’s neck with his clawed hand. Like before, it struck and slashed deeply, but this time, the wound was doubled as his clawed hand was surrounded with dark energy. The energy rippled from his claws and sliced the so-called invincible monster’s head right off. He followed up by flapped up halfway above it and brought his fists together and came down with a mighty beat of his wings and slammed his bound fists down on the Dragombie’s horrifying body. Upon taking the blow, its entire body exploded and began to disintegrate into nothingness around Vincent, who was hovering over the floor and slowly looked up at the ceiling.

His eyes glowed intensely and once again his body radiated with dark energy and he dashed up and thrust his clawed hand this time up. He slammed against the force field and it held strongly…for five seconds, then shattered and short circuited some of the systems in the control booth above the arena. Hojo, not believing his eyes shrieked out in fright and ran off to the elevators, knocking one of his assistants out of his way, and almost fell to his knees when he reached it. He fumbled in and rapidly hit the closed button for the doors. They slowly started closing but not before he saw Vincent turn his head and glare straight at him and bore his burning eyes forever in the scientist’s mind.

Vincent lowered himself to the edge of the test arena and looked down at Red XIII. The red cat was still staring at him in complete bafflement. “Are you going to stay down there or are you like it there?”

Red XIII growled lightly and pounced up and landed next to him. “…I never would have imagined what I just saw…but all I can say is that I’m glad I picked your side.”

Vincent grinned slightly and turned his head to the elevators. “I’d help you get out of here…but I have unfinished business here.”

“I wouldn’t go after Hojo or Rufus just yet, laddy!” an accented, cheery voice warned.

Vincent and Red XIII turned to saw and gawk at a cat sitting on top of the head of a overstuffed moogle. The cat was black and white in fur, with a small crown and little red cape and holding a megaphone in one hand, which was currently resting against his hip.

“Who are you?” Vincent demanded, flexing his clawed hand.

“Hold ye self, lad!” the cat said quickly, waving his arms at him. “I’m na’ a threat to ye. I’m ‘ere to help ye!”

“And how do you plan on doing that?” Red XIII asked curiously, regarding the toy with mild interest.

“Believe what ye will, but know that while ye’ve been busy playing with Hojo’s pet. Rufus sent a bunch of nasties to Sector Seven to round up your friends!” the cat said.

“Yuffie!” Vincent murmured worriedly.

He started to move to the elevators again, when his body started glowing red and his body changed back to his original self. Back in his old form, a wave of fatigue came over him, but he sensed the Crow revitalizing his lost energy, so he only stumbled for a moment then regained his balance.

“…Guess I’ll need more practice with getting a hang of Chaos’s powers,” Vincent remarked, looking at his hands.

“Chaos? Who’s Chaos?” the cat asked him.

“Never mind,” Vincent said quickly. “…How many of Rufus’s men have gone out?”

The cat lowered its gaze and avoided looking at him. “…He sent a small army to capture them, I’m afraid.”

“No…!” Vincent said with panic clear in his voice. He was torn with two choices. The first one should have been the one he took, going after Rufus and completing his revenge, but he went with the second choice, go help his friends. “I need to get my gun back…and my materia if possible.”

The cat perked up on top of the stuffed moogle and waved its megaphone. The moogle below him reached behind it and withdrew Death Penalty and his armlet from some hidden compartment within itself. “Made a quick detour before I came up here to give you lads a hand.”

Vincent took his gun and his armlet back with a grateful nod. “Just who are you?”

“Me name’s Cait Sith!” the cat proclaimed, performing a back-flip on top of the moogle’s head. “Please to meet ye acquaintance!”

Vincent eyed the talking doll and a memory resurfaced. “I saw you with a man earlier when I was being taken up here…Do you work for that man?”

Cait Sith started looking around frantically, waving his arms for Vincent to be silent. He motioned for Vincent to lean in close and cupped his hand on the side of his mouth. Vincent did as he motioned and Cait Sith moved to whisper in his ear. “Me real boss wants to put an end to all this craziness, just as ye and yer laddies ‘re trying to do.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” Vincent demanded.

“Wha’ other choice do ye have?” Cait Sith retorted, pulling back and crossing his little arms over his furry chest.

“I guess I’ll just have to…but this better not be a trick, for your boss’s sake,” Vincent said with a threatening tone.

The doll shook as if really afraid, then made the large Moogle turn and start moving to the elevator, waving a arm for them to follow. “H-Hurry! We don’ have much time!”

Vincent looked to the large cat and saw him looking back at him and shrugged. Vincent nodded to him and the two went to join the animated doll and rode with it down the elevator, down to the lobby, where Red XIII gave them an easy exit when he roared and scared all the employees out of their wits. Vincent made short work of the few security men working the lobby, and the odd trio left Shinra Building and disappeared into the streets leading to Sector Seven.

“Damn it!” Cid cursed loudly, dodging a barraged of hailing bullets by ducking behind an old train. “How did these assholes find us so quickly?!”

They had been hiding out in the Train Yard to avoid Shinra and to keep innocent citizens from ending up getting hurt by Shinra’s soldiers. In the hopes to give them some time to plan for a counterstrike. How Shinra anticipated this and had arrived just as they had.

Cloud moved next to Cid so he could hear him over the roaring bullets. “They probably sent units everywhere in Sector Seven to track us down. Now that they found us, they’ll call for all the other units in the area to converge here and cut us off from any escape route.”

“Oh that’s just great!” Barret roared, returning some of their fire with his machinegun hand. “What the hell do we do now, huh?”

“Pray we find a way out of all this,” Tifa said, crouched down next to Barret with her hands covering her ears.

Aeris looked to be doing just that. Kneeled down on her knees near Cloud and Cid and looked to be deep in concentration. She suddenly opened her eyes and looked to the sky. “Help is arriving…”

“Really? How did ya…?” Barret’s answer came when something roared and a blur of red fur zoomed out of the darkness right behind them and attacked the soldiers.

Right behind the beast came bolts of lightning shrouded bullets blasting away Soldiers that tried to lock on the creature attacking them. Vincent darted out of the darkness and joined the beast in its battle frenzy, cutting down soldiers and hounds with his claws and silencing them with his firearm. The Red XIII was a red comet of fur and fangs. He leapt on the soldiers and tore into them, then moved on to the next unlucky sap that tried to put a bullet in him.

“Vincent?!” Cloud gaped, staring with mixed reactions to Vincent’s carnage.

“Glad to see the boy made it…though, I wish I wasn’t seeing that stuff…fuck!” Cid cursed bluntly, lighting another cigarette.

Vincent ignored him and stalked over to Cloud. “Where’s Yuffie, Cloud…” It was a demand more than a question.

“Er…” His tone took the Ex-Soldier by surprise for a moment, then he composed himself. “…We left her at the bar. We figured she’d be safe there if we left and kept Shinra busy occupied from bothering Sector Seven for a while.”

“…You left her by herself?” Vincent growled at him.

Cloud held up his hands defensively. “Hey, calm down, Vincent. Shinra doesn’t know about Yuffie and since they know us, she’d be in more danger if we let her tag along with us with all this heat from Shinra. We did what we thought us in her best interest by leaving her in Sector Seven.”

“Yeah, but the brat threw a huge fit when we did that,” Barret remarked, rotating gun arm, rubbing out the shoulder. “Man! She is the loudest, brattiest, self-centered….duh…uh…”

The reason for Barret’s sudden lose for words was when he saw Vincent’s eyes glowing fainting along with the Crow symbol on his golden hand. The dark gunman returned those blazing eyes on the Ex-Soldier, seeing him visibly flinch from the angry gaze.

“Go back and make sure she stay’s all right. I’ll deal with Shinra on my own,” Vincent stated.

“Whoa, hold up, bud!” Cid growled, shouldering his spear. “You think you’re the only one that wants to fight Shinra. We all have our own reasons that are just as important to us as your reasons are to you. So don’t treat us like we’re some wet-nosed bunch, asshole! We’ve worked hard to get to this point, and we’re not about to be put on the sidelines for no one.”

Vincent regarded everything the pilot said, lowering his gaze away from everyone. Then he brought him back on Cloud. “I know how you all feel…but I’m the only one that can stop Shinra for good. I cannot waste anymore time. The planet is weakening and every second I waste…Lucerica is an inch closer to being…”

Cloud put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Vincent…I understand. We’ll pull back and make sure Yuffie will be safe, then we’ll all head for Shinra Building, together…and then we’ll see about things then….is that all right?”

Vincent remained quiet for several moments, gazing at his sword-wielding friend with a blank gaze, then he faintly nodded.

“Okay,” Cloud said, looking at everyone else. “We’re heading back to Sector Seven, and then once we’ve made sure everything’s fine, we take on Shinra full-force.”

They all agreed.

“So, Vincent….where’d you pick up the mutt and cat toy?” Cid grunted as they started leaving the Train Yard.

Red XIII growled his annoyance at being referred to as a mutt. Cait Sith began shouting words that even impressed the bad mouthed pilot. Red strolled up to the pilot and stared at him with his eye. “My name is Red XIII, and do mind in the future who you call…a mutt.”

Cid yelped and jumped a bit into the air. “Fuck! He can talk?!”

“And use Materia, so be cautious when insulting him,” Vincent informed, glancing over his shoulder at the pilot.

“Damn….fucking corpses coming back to life…now talking animals and toys…what next?” Cid grumbled to himself.

Sadly though, as they were just leaving the Train Yard, a group of Shinra’s Soldiers were tearing up Sector Seven and rummaging through every place, including Seventh Heaven Bar. Yuffie was just beginning to relax after tiring herself out with yelling at nobody for leaving her behind and alone to tend a dirty, beer-selling bar, when the Soldiers stormed into the place and found her sitting on a barstool.

She smiled nervously at them as they leveled their guns on her. “Heh…uh, hi fellas!”

“Where are the terrorists?” one of the demanded.

Yuffie raised her hands over her head. “What terrorists? The place was empty when I got here.”

They hadn’t bought into her lie. The Soldier that barked the question at her walked up and slapped her face. “I won’t ask again, you little bitch. We did the terrorists go and while we’re at it, what is your connection with them?”

Yuffie refrained from showing whimpering in pain and turned her head to glare hatefully at the Soldier. “I told you, I don’t know anything about whoever you’re after, and what makes you think I have anything to do with them?”

“We’ve gotten reports of a young girl with descriptions that match up with you. Black hair, grey eyes and Wutainese and looking to be in her late teens, early twenties,” the Soldier grunted at her.

Yuffie cursed loudly in her head.

“If you aren’t going to answer us then we’re gonna arrest you and take you where you will get the information out of you,” the Soldier threatened.

“You’re planning on arresting me, anyway. So let’s cut the crap,” Yuffie grunted.

The Soldier snarled at her and grabbed his handcuffs and cuffed her, tightly for that matter. “Get this little cunt out of my sight and take her to HQ!”

Two Soldiers stepped up and took Yuffie by the arms and dragged her out of the bar and into one of their transporters. Yuffie groaned loudly and slumped in her seat. ‘Vinny…where are you when I need you?’

A/N: Again, pardon for the delay with this chapter. With all I have on my plate, it’s hard to get these chapters done and posted…and even more so as I also have to take the time to beta-read them myself and I know I miss a lot because I’m so tired after writing them, and with other things that take up my time. So please forgive any mistakes I made if I hadn’t noticed them and corrected them.

Things are really getting heated now. Vincent has obtained Chaos and Yuffie has been arrested by Shinra’s men. What could this lead? Will Vincent be able to save Yuffie and put a stop to Shinra once and for all, or will Shinra win and forever doom everyone and the Planet? It all comes to a climatic ending now in the next chapter. The final battle with Shinra and Vincent’s revenge coming to an end…don’t miss the anything and check out the next chapter!!

If you’re all excited and really want to see the next chapter, then please review and tell me your thoughts, opinions, feelings; I really want to know them. If I get some soon, then I’ll be more inclined to have the next chapter out very soon, so please make them good and drop one off.