((I've decided to enter a second thing. It's something I wrote before the competition was announced for my own amusement. It's a sequel style thing to SR. Whether it becomes canon or not depends how the RP ends, may rewrite it to make it canon once everything is known. The character called Ryan is me, altered slightly to make him synch with the story a bit better.))
Firestorm
Chapter1: The Mine.When the group split Dave wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. He knew he could get home if he really wanted to but what would be the point? There would be nothing there but a hollow, burned-out shell. Dave decided he would make his way south, in to America. Alone. He split from the main group and hiked most of the way.
On the first night Dave found he was having trouble starting a campfire to keep warm and keep any dangerous animals away. He must have spent almost an hour trying to start it with two sticks and some dry grass. Eventually he got annoyed and kicked the pile of logs.
“Stupid thing, why won’t you catch Fire!”
At the last word the entire pile was engulfed in flames so quickly Dave fell over backwards in shock. He looked around and saw no-one else, then realised he had cast the fire himself. He had drawn the magic from the ground he was standing on, that meant there was materia in it. Dave quickly began digging, using his sword as a scoop to remove large chunks of the ground. When he felt he was getting close he dropped the sword and began pushing the dirt away with his hands. Then he felt his fingers brush against something smooth. He dug around it until he was able to pry it free. Fire materia. Dave quickly pocketed it and replaced the earth as best he could before settling down to sleep in front of the roaring fire.
The next day he woke to the sound of an explosion, followed by the noises of heavy machinery and shouting. Quickly rubbing the daze from his eyes he made his way towards the noise, stopping as he crested the hill. A big vehicle with a large drill emerged from the hole as men with hard hats ran around shouting orders to each other. Dave sneaked closer, close enough to hear one of the conversations.
“We need to get this hole filled up! If the Canadian government find out about this there’ll be hell to pay.”
“But there’s so much materia here, so close to the surface! I know we’re after this Mako thing, but you know there’s a sweet payoff for materia too.”
“Not the point! If they find out we’ve dug under the border they’ll close the mine at best. At worst who knows? Now get that digger back in there and start digging down!”
Dave held his breath, Mako mining. This reminded him of the game, and not in a good way. Cloud was silent as usual, but this silence was different, a little bit more worrying. Dave decided to go in for a closer look. He stood up and walked over to the man he assumed was the foreman.
“Excuse me, what’s going on?”
“Buzz off kid, this is- is that a sword on your back? And by your waist? And behind you?”
“Yeah. I believe you’re looking for this stuff.”
Dave held up his green ice materia.
“I can help you, I found this one in Ireland. I can help you look for them. All I want is to cross the border without passing any checkpoints, and maybe keep one or two for myself.”
“That…. Seems fair.”
The foreman’s thoughts were running wild in his head. Just one kid, they could keep him here and force him to help. They’d find more materia, and find the Mako. All they had to do was get him inside the mines, then they’d have him.
“Okay kid, follow me.”
The foreman led the way in to the mines, drawing glances from everyone else as he brought a stranger in to the mines. Dave looked around.
“Alright, tell me where you’re keeping the materia you’ve collected so far. And where you’ve been getting the highest concentration.”
“Alright kid, this way.”
The foreman led Dave through the mine, thinking it was best to act friendly for as long as he could, the kid would work better when he was willing. Eventually they came to a little cabin in the mine. The foreman opened the door and gestured inside. Dave stepped through and looked at the materia they had collected. They’d gotten quite a lot and had separated them in to their different colours. They had lots of blue support materia and a reasonable amount of green spell and yellow command materia. There was a very small amount of red summon materia, but Dave wasn’t interested in summoning. He walked up to the green materia and picked one up.
“This one’s very interesting, do you know what it can do?”
“Uhhhh, no.”
Dave had a small smile on his face, the foreman was getting a little anxious.
“What about this one?”
Walking along Dave picked up a yellow one.
“No idea? Then let me tell you. This one lets me use Manipulate.”
The yellow materia glowed, then the foreman’s eyes glowed blue.
“Tell me which way is the way out.”
The foreman pointed.
“Good. Now pick up that wrench and knock yourself out.”
The foreman walked over to a wrench, picked it up and smacked himself in the head. He keeled over backwards. Dave knew he needed to hurry, it shouldn’t be long until someone would come to ask the foreman about him. Dave pocketed as much green and blue as he could. It was a shame there was no purple independent materia here, it could have been useful. Dave picked up the summon materia and immediately noticed it was all for the same summon. He only pocketed one. Then the door opened and someone stepped through. He immediately saw the foreman and opened his mouth just in time for a fireball to enter it. He screamed and collapsed. Dave wished the guy hadn’t screamed, no doubt someone heard that. Dave quickly left the hut and ran in the direction of the mine exit. He skidded to a halt at one point and looked at the sign on a door.
“Oh no, they couldn’t be that stupid could they?”
He pushed open the door and his jaw dropped. The room was packed with enough explosives to make a pyromaniac grin with glee. Dave grinned. With Glee. He gathered some small sticks up and began running towards the exit again, dropping one every now and then. Eventually he ran out of sticks and he still wasn’t close enough to the exit. With a shrug he distanced himself from the stick as far as he could and threw a small fireball at it. Then he summoned immediately as the chain reaction started. He hoped he was right in which one he thought it was.
The sticks began exploding one by one, reaching back to the room full of explosives. The door was propped open by a barrel that had been taken from the room. That exploded too. Then the room went off at once with an explosion so large the flames began expanding throughout the mines.
Dave almost gave a cheer when his summon ran out from the stick explosions. It was a Chocobo with a Moogle perched on it’s back. Dave quickly swung himself on to it’s back and urged it to leave the mine as fast as possible. The mana burn was pretty bad, but he was still able to move a little. He turned and watched as the fireball from the room expanded and began gaining on them.
“Faster! Faster!”
Choco increased his speed as Mog squeaked. Dave saw daylight ahead and urged the summon for one final push. Choco/Mog burst out of the mine entrance and disappeared. Dave dropped to the floor as flames roared out in to the sky. The mine entrance began collapsing as Dave dragged himself away. Looking at the sky he saw that it was getting dark, he’d spent most of the day walking in that mine. Dave dragged himself to a sheltered outcrop of rock and collapsed, huddling in on himself. He let sleep claim him, he was too exhausted to bother looking for firewood.
The next day he woke up still feeling drained, so he spent most of the day resting. He gathered some wood for a fire and managed to kill a wild boar by throwing his short sword at it. He mustered enough energy to cast a spell to start the fire and cooked the boar. After eating he felt much better and settled down for another night. The day after that he woke up and felt great. He cooked some more boar for breakfast (he’d wrapped all the uncooked meat in the skin) and felt like he could continue his journey. Just as he was leaving he heard a car pull up. He hid himself and watched as two people stepped out of a car.
“The boss isn’t going to like this.”
“Nope, what do you think happened?”
“...It might have been an accident.”
“Oh come on, you know as well as I do that this was the work of those terrorists.”
“Not necessarily, how on Earth would they have found out about this?”
“You’ve heard the rumours of a mole, haven’t you?”
“…Whatever, let’s just get back to New York. We’ve confirmed the accident, there’s little chance of survivors.”
“Tch, fine.”
They got in the car and drove back the way they had come. Dave thought to himself that this was worth investigating. With a grin he set off… only to be stopped by the local law enforcement about two hours later. They asked him if he knew of the pillar of fire seen two days ago from the direction he had come in. He said no but, for some strange reason, they seemed to think he looked suspicious. Soot-blackened hair, large conspicuous weapons and an Irish accent might have had something to do with it (remember, the Irish are famously affiliated with fire). When they expressed the desire to take him in for questioning he tried to leave. They shot him with an electric gun that should have paralysed him, after crying out he ripped off the pad and tried to run. That’s when they shot him with a real gun. He collapsed on the floor as the bullet hit his thigh. The bullet bounced off but it had enough force behind it to bruise the bone. Unable to get away with the large amount of pain in his leg he was forced to accompany the police back to the station. They took his mugshot, fingerprints, DNA samples and all the other stuff they had to, as well as confiscating his weapons. They even took away most of his lucky rocks, but they let him keep one of his green rocks because it amused them that he referred to them as his ‘lucky charms’.
Just before daybreak there was a jailbreak. Afterwards no-one knew how he had done it. He hadn’t done anything as far as they could see, except disappear. If someone had been watching they would have seen him shrink in size, then escape through the bars, picking up his weapons and materia (which they had even put in a bag for him) on the way. They combed the countryside but couldn’t find him. Coincidentally a motorbike was stolen, however the owner was on holiday and wouldn’t be able to report it for a couple of weeks.
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InterludeAbout a week after his run in with the law Dave stood outside a skyscraper in New York. The building bore the same symbol Dave had seen in the mines a couple of times, he was going to have a meeting with the CEO, shame they didn’t know it yet. A small fireball appeared in Dave’s hand as he looked at the entrance. He only had his short sword and some materia; he had left almost everything else with the bike, hidden in a safe place. He took one step forwards and suddenly a white van pulled up behind him. Two people wearing balaclavas jumped out, grabbed him and dragged him inside it. He let loose the fireball accidentally and it soared away, striking the building, setting one of the rooms on fire. The door of the van closed when Dave was inside and the van screeched away. Dave shouted at his kidnapper
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Shut up Foo’”
Dave shut up, he recognised that voice, but it couldn’t be. The balaclavas came off and Dave stared. Mr. T had just kidnapped him.
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Chapter2: The Avalanche TeamOver the next 6 months Dave learned about what he had come to think of as The Avalanche Team. By strange coincidence the people with Biggs, Wedge, Jessie and Barret as their gheists had found each other and joined together against a company they found was endangering the life of the planet: The Marsden oil company. It appears someone in the company had discovered Materia and Mana and was planning on harvesting it. Currently the leader of the Avalanche team was the only man Dave could imagine having the Barret gheist: Mr. T. However, seeing as how he was such a familiar face and such a public figure he was unable to lead people in the field, he was too recognisable. That was why they wanted Dave. They had heard about him over police frequencies and had been watching the Marsden head office in the hopes he would turn up. As soon as he did they were watching him, trying to decide if it was really who they were looking for. It was the fireball that had convinced them so they snatched him, explained things and brought him to their base of operations in L.A.
“So you’re saying you want me to do all the dirty work while you lot work behind the scenes? Well I see only on obstacle. Do you remember why Cloud helped Avalanche on the first bombing mission? He was getting paid. I could do with some cash.”
“Quit with yo jibber-jabber. Course we gonna pay ya!”
“Then it’s settled, I’ll do it. What do you want me to do first?”
“You can keep yo head down and wait, Foo!”
And so Dave spent his time getting to know people, training with his weapons and materia and helping with the group occasionally in various ways. Eventually it was time to hit the company.
“We jes’ got word that some Government official is gonna be meeting with the head to talk ‘bout something. Somethin’ bad. You gotta do it now.”
“Alright, how are we getting up there? We gonna fly?”
“I ain’t getting’ on no plane foo’! You’ll be taking a bike we bought ye.”
Mr. T led Dave to a shiny new bike. It was a big bike. It was similar to Cloud’s bike in the Advent Children movie that had been released about a month ago. When Dave opened the front, however there was only one slot for his big sword on the right and a box to keep the others in on the left, he would be unable to wield anything except his greatsword while on the bike. He put in an earpiece Jennie (the girl with the Jessie gheist) handed to him and sat on the bike.
“And how will you get there?”
“We are going in the mobile centre. We’ll see you there, later foo’.”
Dave began the ride across the country, heading northeast to New York. The Avalanche Team following behind in a big black vehicle.
Upon arrival he pulled up to the gate and… realised he hadn’t thought about how to get in. Then he heard Jennie’s whispered instructions in his ear.
“I have an appointment with Mr. Ragtime. I believe he’s expecting me.”
“…Yes sir, I have your badge here. Take this and go right on in.”
“Thank you.”
Dave took the badge and hid his surprise that it held his face. He rode in as the black vehicle pulled up around the corner. He heard more instructions in his ear.
“The CEO doesn’t have an office on the top floor any more, after that fireball you threw fell short by two floors he decided to move to a different office, one less conspicuous. He thought it was an assassination attempt it seems. Your appointment is with the guy whose office you torched. I’ll set off the fire alarm in a minute and you need to get out of the elevator you should be on the right floor for the CEO.”
Dave pulled in to a parking space in the garage. As he dismounted all the lights went out.
“Quick, grab your weapons now and turn around and run directly ahead.”
Dave did so in the total darkness and stopped at the wall as the emergency lighting came on. He reached the elevator as the mains came back on and pressed the button. The elevator arrived quickly. He got in and swiped his card.
“Okay, now I’ve set the doors so they wont open again until I tell them to. Now open the bag.”
Dave opened a bag he had brought with him from the bike and pulled out what was inside. He then followed Jennie’s whispered instructions in setting it up. When he was done he said so. He grabbed his sheaths and clipped them on, then slid his weapons in to them and stood in front of the door.
“Okay, now.”
The fire alarm went off instantly, the elevator stopped and Dave ran out. The door slammed shut behind him and rocketed down to stop at one of the lower floors, where it stuck and wouldn’t move or open. Dave followed directions and eventually found himself standing in front of a door labelled CEO Marsden. Dave opened the door and saw a well-built man in his early thirties, stood beside an open iron door, piling papers in to a briefcase.
“It’s a false alarm Mr. Marsden, there’s no need to leave.”
“Who… Who are you?”
“My name is… well, it’s not important. You can just call me Firestorm.”
“Well Mr. Firestorm may I ask what this is about? And may I ask whom you have in your head? I can see your mark very clearly.”
“Of course you can see my mark clearly, it covers half my ******** face. I have Cloud. And this is about putting a stop to all that mining business, and I’m not talking about oil or coal.”
Dave’s eyes flickered, he could just see a part of a tattoo on Marsden’s neck.
“Who do you have?”
“President Marcus Shinra. And would you be the Irishman who destroyed the one up north?”
“Aye…. Interesting, it seems we’re in a situation similar to that of the games. The outcome will be the same, but it will be from my hand that the killing stroke falls. Not Sephiroth’s.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it!”
Marsden dived in to his walk-in safe as Dave fired a fireball at him. The desk caught fire and burned quite well. Dave dived over it, rolled and got to his feet. He followed Marsden in to the safe and almost gasped. It was huge in there, it must take up half of this floor. Dave saw Marsden’s foot disappear round the corner of a shelf and he gave chase. When he reached the end of the shelf he ducked just in time to hear a katana whistle over his head. He quickly brought out his greatsword and met the next strike with a clang. It seemed Marsden wasn’t going to go quietly. Dave hopped backwards and immediately lunged. Marsden sidestepped and brought his katana around again in another horizontal sweep. Dave ducked once again and charged in to Marsden, knocking him over. Both swords skidded away across the floor as Dave brought Marsden down and tried to hit him. His fist slammed in to a barrier as Marsden cast it. Marsden tried to scramble away but Dave cast Ice instead. Dave fired an icicle through Marsden’s chest, he howled in agony. Dave stood over him and held out his hands. Marsden reached up and grabbed them. Dave wrapped his hands around Marsden’s wrists and cast fire. The room filled with the smell of burnt flesh as flames ran from Dave’s palms down the CEO’s arms and over his body. Dave let go and walked to where the swords had slid. He picked up and sheathed the greatsword, then picked up the Katana. He looked around and saw where the sheath had been thrown, he picked it up, slid the blade in and lashed it over the shoulder his greatsword did not occupy. He then walked back to the smouldering body of Marsden and prodded it gently with his foot to make sure the body was lifeless. It was. Dave left the office and climbed to the top floor, then the roof where a helicopter was waiting. He climbed in and gave Rob, the man with the Biggs gheist, a thumbs up. The helicopter lifted off and flew away. The mobile centre left as well. When they were just within view of the building it collapsed in on itself. The bike and the device in the elevator had blown up and brought down the building. Dave quietly pray that everyone had left due to the fire alarm.
One week later, back in LA, Jennie entered a room looking a little sheepish.
“Uhm, Dave? We have a problem.”
“…I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“The Government issued a press release today… They know it was you who blew up the Marsden building, and the mine. They also say you burned down your village in Ireland and a high school in Canada as well as decimating an Irish church. Is that true?”
“Yes, but it’s not like it sounds. There was no-one in the school at the time and everyone in the village…”
“…Dave?”
“Sorry, they were all dead already, and not by my hand. It was a priest who did it, he also destroyed the church as we killed him.”
“We?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Well anyway, you’ve been named a wanted terrorist. ‘The terrorist calling himself Firestorm, David O’Cloud.’ They’ve said the attack on the Marsden building was an attempt on the life of the government official that was supposed to be there later that day. I’m afraid you’ll have to leave the country. Mr. T has already organised a way out for you and somewhere to go.”
“They called me Firestorm? That means the office was bugged. I’m glad I didn’t say too much.”
“Dave, are you going to be okay?”
“I’ll be fine, it’s you lot I’m worried about. I don’t like the sound of this government official, promise me you’ll look into this whole business.”
“We will, now come on, it’s time to go.”
Dave stood up and grabbed all his things, strapping his weapons on. He picked up another sword and slotted it in to the last free holster. He turned around and, very slowly, fell over.
Under the cover of darkness, minus the sword, Dave left the states while his face was plastered over every news show in the country and quite a few outside of it. He shook his head, he didn’t know where he would go or what he would do. He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life in hiding, but he didn’t want to turn himself in either.
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Chapter3: HuntedAlmost a year later…
Dave was in Paris, sipping some coffee on a café terrace, deep in thought.
When he left the states Dave had been sent to Russia. He spent a month there and didn’t really do much. Eventually he went to Egypt and, through sheer coincidence, met Jack’s uncle. Bob, as the man was called, knew about Gheists even though he had none of his own thanks to seeing Jack not too long ago. Dave spent some time there helping Bob excavate some of the pyramids but unfortunately was forced to leave when one of the other workers recognised him and tipped off the authorities. Dave only just managed to escape in time with Bob’s help and made a run for Venice, Italy. His time in Egypt had changed his strawberry-blonde hair to a brilliant golden-blonde, much more similar to Cloud’s colour. Dave had changed his hairstyle enough that his face looked different from before unless someone was looking closely. He spent some time in Venice, making a forgotten basement his home, using underwater materia to slip about in the canal. After only two months he tired of this and left for Paris. Using Avalanche connections he was able to get a job with a Private Detective agency and had been with them for about a month. He was currently dressed in a short-sleeved black shirt with dark blue jeans and had covered the visible parts of his tattoo with make-up. He was thinking about a missing persons case, one the customer wanted to avoid getting the police involved with if at all possible. That suited Dave just fine, or rather, it suited Seamus Craven (Dave’s assumed name) just fine.
“Seamus, we’ve got a lead!”
Dave looked round at the guy he was working with, an Englishman named Angelo.
“We do?”
“Yeah, it seems Marie visited her aunt the day she disappeared, maybe the aunt can tell us something.”
“Okay, let’s go.”
Angelo led the way to a car and climbed in to the drivers seat. He started the engine and waited for Dave to get in. With one last glance around he climbed in to the passenger seat and the car drove off.
Later Dave and Angelo sat in the car at the end of the street and watched a body being wheeled out of the building they had been in not too long ago. Blue flashing lights illuminated the scene as Angelo sighed and spoke.
“Poor old girl.”
“Poor old us, that’s our lead gone.”
“Someone shut her up, that’s a lead, sort of.”
“The only thing left to do is bust in there later and look for clues. When no-one’s around.”
“That’s your department, you know I hate stuff like that.”
“I hate when you call the cops immediately, you could have waited you know, it wasn’t like she was going to get any better, you saw the state of her head.”
“…Don’t remind me.”
“Okay, well, you’d better go on. Tell the boss what I’m up to then go and get some sleep.”
Dave popped open a hidden compartment and took out his short sword.
“I’m off to do something illegal.”
“Dave… be careful, you know Jennie would kill me if I let anything happen to you.”
“Yeah, I will. Catch you later.”
Dave got out of the car, grabbed a coat from the back seat and shut the door. With a wave Angelo drove off before Dave remembered to correct him about the name. With a shrug Dave strapped on the short sword and put on the long coat that concealed it. He moved in to the shadows, crouched and waited for everything to die down a little.
After about 2 hours there was only one squad car left with a single French officer in it. The officer happened to be snoring like a baby. Dave slinked out of the shadows, made his way to the door and picked open the lock. He pushed the door open gently and stepped through, avoiding the police tape. Shutting the door behind him he pulled out a small flashlight and turned it on. He looked around and got his bearings, then turned it off. He’d been in here earlier and knew where he wanted to go. He walked silently through the house and made his way to one of the back rooms. He stopped just before he reached the door and listened. He heard a noise in the room. Dave’s heart beat a little faster, he wasn’t the only one in here! By the sounds of it the other person was searching the room just as Dave had been planning to do. Dave poked his head round the corner. The figure, who was dressed all in black, had his back to Dave. Dave took advantage of this and began to walk softly up behind the other person. About a meter and a half away Dave’s foot crunched down on broken glass, making a tiny noise that seemed 100 times louder than it was. The figure spun round and drew a knife in one movement, they threw the knife as Dave whipped out the short sword. He knocked the knife to the side as he stepped forwards and slashed. The figure dodged to the side and produced another knife from nowhere, they lunged at Dave’s head. Dave leaned back and sliced back towards the person. They grabbed the blade with a gloved hand and pulled. Dave let go to avoid an oncoming strike with the dagger. He backed away as the figure advanced, closed his eyes and summoned a bright fireball, dismissing it quickly. He opened his eyes again and the bright light that had appeared briefly had dazzled the figure. Dropping Dave’s short sword the person ran and jumped out of the window, shattering it. Dave ran to the window and watched the figure run away in to the night. He cursed and turned back. As he picked up his short sword he felt his boot brush against something on the floor. He picked it up and looked at it in the weak moonlight. Excellent, this was exactly what he had been looking for. There was a loud bang as the door was kicked in, they had woken the policeman outside. Dave decided rather than getting caught he should make like the other person and jump. So jump he did, right out the window. He twisted in the air and landed on his feet. He immediately got up and ran as far from the house as he could. Eventually he made his way back to where he was staying, making sure to take the long way just in case.
The next morning Dave walked in to the office, sat down in his chair and waited for Angelo. About an hour later Angelo walked in and slumped down in his chair.
“Have you read the papers this morning?”
“Angelo, you know I can’t read French.”
“Your little break-in is an addendum to the story of this aunt’s murder! What happened to being subtle?”
“Subtlety went out the window when I met the person who was already in there. Well, they went out the window to be honest. Then I did.”
“There was someone already there?”
“Yup. Looking for this.”
Dave pulled a diary out of his pocket.
“Actually found it too, but I ended up with it instead. It says Marie was going to the Eiffel Tower and was very worried about something. And this was the evening she disappeared. We’re getting close and someone doesn’t like that. I say we go to the Eiffel Tower and we go armed.”
“No. You are not bringing that huge sword of yours, I absolutely forbid you to get that out in public.”
“I was thinking my short sword and the one I got from that jester. I can hide them with my coat.”
“Suit yourself, you know how much unwanted attention you’ll get.”
Dave opened a safe in the wall and removed the jester’s sword; he put it in to a hidden sheath in the coat that was hanging by the door. He closed the safe, put on the coat and invited Angelo to lead the way.
After stopping for breakfast they went to the Eiffel Tower and rode the elevator as close to the top as they could. They disembarked and looked around, there were very few others up there with them. Angelo shivered.
“Brrrr, it’s cold, no wonder no-one’s up here. Let’s hurry.”
Dave nodded and began walking around the edge of the platform, looking out over Paris. After making a complete circle of the tower he went back to Angelo, who had been looking up.
“Nothing here.”
“What do you suppose is up there Dave?”
“Seamus.”
“Sorry, Seamus.”
Dave looked up. He couldn’t see much thanks to the large amount of steel obscuring his view.
“I think we should go up and find out. I’ll lead.”
Dave led the way to a set of stairs and began climbing them, looking up regularly. As he was looking up his hand brushed something with odd texture on the rail. He looked down at it and saw blood.
“…It can’t be more than a week old, something definitely happened up here.”
Dave began running up the steps, Angelo close behind. Dave caught a glimpse of movement to his left and turned just in time to take a shotgun blast to the chest. He was knocked back in to the rail where he crumpled and would have fallen off the edge of the stairs if Angelo hadn’t caught him. A second person dropped from above and grabbed Angelo, forcing him to let go of Dave who then lay sprawled on the steps. Angelo was picked up and thrown off the edge of the tower with a scream that followed him all the way down to the bottom. The person started to pick up Dave and was rewarded with a sword stabbing out through the back of the coat and in to their gut. Dave pulled the sword out as he got up, painfully, and freed the weapon from the coat. Dave slashed twice and the figure fell backwards, tumbling down the stairs spurting blood. Dave dived up the stairs as the first figure fired the shotgun that had just been reloaded. Dave managed to separate himself from the unknown person with a big steel girder and pressed against his ribs lightly. He gasped with pain, at least two of them were broken. Dave heard his assailant’s feet hit the staircase where he had just been. He quickly stepped around the girder and slashed. He hit the gun and knocked it out of their hands. They lunged forwards and tackled Dave to the ground, then hopped off above him and began to run away up the tower. Dave got to his feet and gave chase. At one point he saw Marie’s corpse wedged in a gap to the side of the staircase but didn’t stop, there would be more time later. Dave heard a bang from above and saw a long wire shoot from the top of the tower in to the distance. Dave reached the top of the stairs as the attacker left on a zip-line. Dave saw some duffel bags on the floor, he looked in them and found a zip-device. Dave hooked up and left the tower in the same way the other person had.
With the wind whistling past his face Dave rode the zip wire to its end: The Arc de Triomphe. Dave landed on the Arc and rolled to his feet to face the one who had attacked him.
“Well done Dave, I knew you’d figure it all out and come to the Tower, especially since I had that diary planted in that old lady’s apartment.”
Dave recognised that voice, it spoke with a heavy Irish accent. The other person pulled off the balaclava they were wearing.
“Ryan? But you should have died in the village.”
“Not necessarily, you see, I have this.”
Ryan turned his head to the side and folded his ear over, revealing the small tattoo that marked him as a gheist user.
“I have Ultimecia. It was she who convinced me, and then that priest, to turn our village in to a village of mindless puppets. We wanted more power so we took control of them. Eventually we would have taken over Ireland, then Britain, then Europe, then… well, you get the picture.”
“You… were responsible for the village?”
“Yes, then you burned it down, you took away my best chance of power and killed my family!”
“NO! You killed them all when you let them get turned you b*****d!”
Dave ripped his sword out of the coat and lunged for Ryan. Ryan hopped backwards and drew his own sword.
“Since then my only mission has been to kill you! That’s why I set all this up, I finally tracked you down, kidnapped that girl and hired you to find her! Now I will finally have my revenge!”
“YOUR REVENGE?!?”
With a roar Dave charged at Ryan slicing and slashing. Ryan met each stroke and held his ground, then delivered a flurry of strikes.
“Yes, that’s right, get angry and you’ll become a sloppy fighter. You should hear what I did to your undead sister before you returned. I enjoyed her time and again.”
Dave blocked the strikes furiously. At that last comment something snapped in Dave’s head. Orange ripples ran along the ground beneath his feet and he leaped in to the air, sword over his shoulder and brought it crashing down with so much force it sliced Ryan’s sword in two, sliced in to him as easily as a hot knife through butter and slammed down in to the Arc with enough force to crack it all the way through straight down the middle. Ryan staggered back and collapsed. Dave sank to one knee and panted, his ribs were aching terribly now. Ryan raised his head and spoke.
“Okay Mr. ‘Firestorm’, how about some fire as a going-away present. From me…to…you.”
He raised his hands, then dropped them. The Arc began to tremble, Dave could feel heat growing from the crack he had made. He knew he had a better chance if he did something insanely stupid so he took a running leap off the Arc. He fell as the top exploded, flames cremating Ryan’s body. He tumbled through the air and landed in the back seat of a bi-plane that had just flown beneath the Arc. He looked up and saw a cat looking at him, then looked further and saw the back of a familiar head. He passed out from the pain then, convinced he was hallucinating and was really falling to his death.
Dave woke up with a pleasant tickling sensation in his chest he recognised as a cure spell stitching together his ribs. He opened his eyes and saw he was in the Detective Agency office. Jack was sat beside him with his arms raised.
“You’re a hard Irishman to track down ya know? How are you feeling? Good I hope because we have to leave. Open the safe so you can get your stuff, then Selphie will lead you to the plane.”
Jack pointed to the cat from earlier, a tabby, and it miaowed. Then it spoke.
“C’mon! Open the safe! I wanna get back in the plane!”
Dave got up, opened the safe and emptied it. He then followed the Selphie cat to the roof where Jack’s plane had landed.
“How the hell did you land on a roof with a plane?”
“You’ll see, now get in.”
Dave climbed in, Selphie jumped in and Jack started the engine. The plane began to hover upwards, then shot forwards.
“So, how’s things been since the split?” Jack asked
“…You’re not gonna believe this.”
THE END
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