Starseed, part 1

Starseed, by Michigami aka Michelle P.

pg13 warnings present!!  Bad language, gore, and naughty deeds contained herein!

^^^

1- It was a dark and stormy night…


It was a dark and stormy night in a town called Kalm.  It had been many, many years since the last fragments of The Meteor had cooled, and nearly two years after Sephiroth’s clones, Kadaj, Loz and Yazoo had rampaged their way into a footnote in the planet’s history.

No one but those directly involved in the incident understood where the strange platinum-haired men with their obsession with destruction had come from, but the majority of the populace had come to realize that silver hair was a definite sign of trouble in a stranger.

Which was why Vincent Valentine was en-route to Kalm, along with two of the Turks, part of ShinRa’s Special Investigations corp.  He didn’t intend on having two ShinRa dogs following his tail, but it couldn’t be helped, they were the ones who’d asked him for help to begin with.

The blonde one driving was some new kid named Roziel, or Rose.  Or Ross.  Or Russ.  Either way, he wanted to be called Roz.  Something like that, He’d been quiet the whole trip since they’d left Midgar, and Vincent didn’t feel like speaking to him anyway.   The other was Reno, feigning sleep in the back seat of the car as they stopped in front of an inn on the edge of town.  Reno was saddled with the trainee Roz while his old partner Rude was in the hospital.  

Two more Clones had surfaced, and taken out a ShinRa team that had been investigating some sort of forgotten facility in the mountains south of Midgar.  Rude had been seriously injured, and three scientists and two other Turks killed.  Being given this mission was considered therapy for Reno, who had been displaying a disturbing and uncharacteristic seriousness the past few weeks since the attack.

At any rate, their “mission” wasn’t even that well defined.  There had been sightings of another clone poking about in the area, and ShinRa wanted confirmation.  Vincent wanted nothing to do with it, but since Cloud had vanished again, and Tifa had asked…

Reno switched into Turk-mode as they entered the hotel, striking up a conversation with the innkeeper and asking the usual necessary questions.  Roz kept near Vincent, eying dismally lit hotel lobby as they waited.

“Room 3” Reno said, holding out a key as he approached.  “Sorry, we’re gonna have to share, they’re full-up.  Hope you don’t snore,” he said, sounding the most like his old self that he had in a while.  

“I suppose bad weather brings more customers,” Roz said, snatching the key from Reno.   Vincent gently took the key from him, turning it over in his palm as Roz frowned curiously at him.

“Bad things bring bad weather,” Vincent said, handing the key back to Reno.  Reno nodded slightly, then gestured to the stairs.

“The innkeeper says there was some sort of monster attack in a nearby village.  A giant creature burrowed its way up out of some farmland and started breathing acid on people and eating houses.” Reno said as they arrived at their room.  “Said it happened just yesterday, but most of the survivors here left before the creature was stopped, so he’s not sure if there’s anyone left over there.”

Reno gave Vincent a crossways glance.  “You feeling all right?  You haven’t said two full sentences since we left Midgar,” he asked.  

“Fine,” Vincent said as Reno opened the door.  “It’s just the weather,” he added, walking past the others to enter the room.  Reno looked at Roz, then shrugged, following Vincent.  Roz sighed.

“Yeah, a little rain bothers the guy who changes into monsters when he’s mad.” Roz muttered sarcastically, then followed the others.

2-.

Vincent felt no better the following morning, as they arrived at the ruins of what was barely recognizable as a village.  A gaping chasm nearly 20 feet across lay in the center of what had once been farmland, but was now pockmarked and scorched of almost all life.  A few people moved about the sodden lunar landscape, poking through the mud for anything of value from their former homes.

They entered the town to bewildered and wondering looks from the townspeople, completely lost for speech among the ruins.

“You!” one of the people cried, pointing at them.  “You’re from ShinRa!  Aren’t you?” he said, coming toward the trio.  “Where were you?  Where were your people yesterday, when your monster was eating our homes?  Where were the soldiers when it came up from the ground and trampled our livestock?”

Roz raised his hands placatingly.  “Hey! Not every monster is ShinRa’s fault, old man!” he retorted.  The other man spat on the ground.

“Nah, just the silver-haired ones telling them what to do, right?” he growled.  “ShinRa created the reactors, and the reactor created the monsters, now it’s monsters killing monsters!” he said, pointing into the nearby hills. A dark shadow was visible against the side of one of the foothills, vaguely mechanical in form.   

“It’s them that created it, and it’s one of them that had to stop it!” the villager said, then stormed off down the muddy street.  “Leave us the hell alone!” he yelled from a good distance down the street, then walked off into the ashen remains of a house.

“Well, at least we know where to go next,” Roz said.



--

The drive to the dark spot was rough and unpaved, but as the foothills approached, they soon found the head of an old, unused but stable roadway leading further up into the lightly wooded hills.  Roz was still complaining about their treatment in the village on the way, annoying both his traveling companions.

The path of destruction from the village continued to the object on the hillside above them.  Uprooted trees, acid burns, and a few scattered trees that seemed to have been broken diagonally at far too clean an angle to be rampage damage.  Vincent’s concern deepened as the dark, spiky shape that had attached itself to the hillside became clearer.

Roz pulled the car to a stop at the next clearing.  “Oh my god, look at that thing!” he said in awe.  Reno climbed out of the car, followed by Vincent, then Roz, whose jaw hung open in shock.

The headless remains of a giant creature, part insect, part beast, part squid, and all hideous, sat perched in the chasm between two mutilated cliff sides.  The indefinite mass of spikes, tentacles and claws still had one chitinous appendage dug into the cliff, as though it had been trying to climb over the rocks.  

The beast’s head, or at least a portion of it, lay to one side, lopped off at an odd angle.  The remainder of the head was probably represented by the chunky kibbles of gore surrounding an apparent blast zone near the creature’s neck.  A long, insectile leg lay nearby as well, claw-end also sliced off in an obvious weapon strike.  

Steam rose from the interior of another gaping blast hole in the creature’s side, and one of the hacked-off trees they had noticed earlier was driven like a lance through the creatures’ midsection.

Reno whistled, surveying the scene.

“Well, it’s definitely dead,” he said, then looked to Vincent.

“It would seem that someone went though a great deal of effort to make sure it stayed that way,” Vincent said.

“Is that a tree?” Roz asked, squinting at the leafy spear protruding from the creature on both ends.

They were silent for a few moments before anyone spoke.

“Whoever did this isn’t human,” Vincent said.

“You really think a person did this?” Reno asked, incredulous.

“I thought even Sephiroth was only rumored to have that kind of power?” Roz said, stepping sideways a bit for a better view.

A long silence followed, as Reno and Vincent looked at each other, thinking over the myriad of unpleasant possibilities.  

“Hey, wait a minute,” Roz muttered, running back to the car.  He pulled a GPS unit from under the seat, checking the map.  “Look at this path, this thing was headed somewhere,” he said, punching keys.  He showed the screen to Reno. Reno frowned, then turned the unit for Vincent to see.

The path of destruction pointed somewhat west-north-west.

“Midgar?”

“The President is not going to like this,” Reno said, breathing out slowly.

^^^
3- Monster Hunter
--

Reno drove on the trip back along the road until it turned toward the pass north.  Roz argued over his cell phone with someone back at headquarters, someone who obviously thought he was an idiot, and apparently the feeling was mutual.

“Just put the damn call through or I swear I’ll make sure you get transferred so far down on janitorial that toilets will smell like roses to you for the rest of eternity!” Roz demanded at the person on the other end.  Reno reached back with one hand and snatched the phone out of his hands.

“Hey, asshole, this is Reno.  Put me through to the boss NOW, and maybe I’ll let you keep your knees when I get back,” he said, shouldering the phone as he returned both hands to the wheel.  He winked at Roz as whoever was on the other end hurried to fulfill his ‘request’.

“Mr. President, I’m sorry to bother you, but I think we’ve got a problem….”

Suddenly, the world seemed to turn itself upside down with a screeching roar followed by a sickening crunch and a bone-jarring lurch into directions unknown.  When the world stopped swimming, Vincent found himself lying on the car’s ceiling, his shoulder screaming in pain.  Reno was nowhere in sight, and Roz hung limp and semi-conscious in his seatbelt in the back seat.  

Vincent moved to check his pulse, then scrambled for a moment as the car spun sideways, a dark mass suddenly noticeable to one side through the shattered windows.  He managed to unbuckle Roz and lower him to the floor before the car was nudged sideways again, and to his horror, Reno became visible from his current position.  

Reno lay outside the car, in the middle of the road, the side of his head covered in blood and glass.  Thankfully the creature investigating the car didn’t seem to have noticed him yet.  Vincent  unholstered his weapon, leaving Roz in the car as he kicked out one of the smashed windows.  The creature outside noticed, and stopped moving the car.

Once outside, Vincent realized the magnitude of the beast menacing the car, and the truth of what had happened.  A circular wasteland lay in the trees near where they’d been struck.  Another crater lay within it, the jagged gash in the planet’s crust revealing a deep cavern, just like the one in the village.  The treeline had been too dense for them to notice the monster lurking behind the bend in the road ahead.

Although much smaller than the first creature, it was still massive, how big was only a guess at this point. This creature was far more insectile than the corpse they’d encountered.  It roared at Vincent, the sickening stench of its breath withering the remaining grass nearby.  Reeling with nausea, Vincent barely had time to roll out of the way as a barbed leg stabbed into the ground at his previous position.

His favorite weapon, no matter how powerful, suddenly felt grossly inadequate next to the 3-story monster menacing him.  Another leg slammed into the dirt next to Reno, and the creature took a step toward Vincent.  He fired three rounds into the first spiny leg that moved toward him, running and sliding behind the trunk of the car as the creature roared in pain.

He heard a shuffle and looked up to find Roz awake, still inside the car and looking terrified.  A sharp leg stabbed through the trunk of the car, blocking his view.  Roz screamed, and Vincent bolted out of the way.

A sharp cry came from the monster, and it back-stepped.  He hadn’t heard the first shot, but the following three were clear as the holes they punched through the monster’s chitin-covered torso from behind.  It turned in search of its attacker with a roar or rage and pain.

There was a flash of silver far above the creature, and for a vague moment, Vincent hoped Cloud had somehow managed to stumble across the scene.  The hope turned to confusion as a red and silver blur descended upon the monster, bringing a shriek of pain from it as it made contact.  The blur solidified into a humanoid shape, hanging on to the creature by the hilt of whatever he’d stabbed the beast with.  He withdrew a sword almost certainly a good bit larger than Cloud’s from the creature’s carapace, then stabbed it back in further up in it’s shoulder.

The person fired a silver pistol at point blank against the creatures skull at least five times, hanging on to the sword for support as the creature bucked and shrieked, bloody pieces of it’s shell flying away from the firing zone.  Finally, the humanoid figure pulled something from his belt, pulled part off with his mouth, and jammed the object into the hole he’d made in the creature’s body.

He yanked the sword back out of the creature, and then back-flipped off the monster’s shoulder, landing on the ground near Vincent.  He looked up at Vincent, and Vincent just stared in shock.  

White hair.  Not silver, not gray, but white.  Whiter than snow.  He was wearing a well worn and filthy red leather trench coat, the strap from his pistol harness holding the front mostly closed across his bare chest.  Still breathing heavily, the person smirked at him, then rushed across the ground, grabbing Vincent and dragging him under the back end of the mangled car as the shrieking creature towering above them exploded in a shower of gore.

After a few moments of silence and sickening thuds of falling monster-flesh, the white-haired man looked up to Vincent, out of breath.  He nodded at Vincent’s gun before speaking.

“You ought to know better than to use a slingshot against an office building, pal,” he said, then winked.  They heard a faint noise, and the other man crouched lower to look through the back window of the car.  “Holy shit, there’s still a person in there?!” He exclaimed, crawling out from beneath the car’s trunk.  Vincent followed, still stunned.

The man in the red coat yanked the battered car door off its broken hinges easily, tossing it aside.  He crouched down next to Roz, checking for a pulse.  Roz was curled in a fetal position, smelling vaguely like he’d lost bladder control at some point and shivering.  

“He’s in some kind of shock.  Where’s the other one?” he said, looking around for Reno.  Vincent looked to where he’d seen him earlier.  Thankfully he was still there, but still hadn’t moved.

“Reno,” Vincent said, crossing the area to kneel next to the badly battered Turk.  “He’s alive.  Barely.” Vincent added, looking over to find the white haired man pulling the shattered remains of a cell phone from beneath the dashboard.

“Don’t people know it’s dangerous to drive while talking on these things?” he said, tossing it aside as he returned to coaxing Roz’s semi-conscious form out of the wreckage.  Vincent moved to help him, and they laid Roz next to the car.

Vincent rooted through his pockets, searching for his phone.  The white haired man had moved on to checking Reno’s injuries as Vincent dialed the emergency number the ShinRa people had given him.  He managed to get through and give them a vague description of their location to send help.

“Just tell them to look for a crater in the landscape with a giant cockroach-spider-tarantula-thingy from hell lying dead next to it.” The other man said, listening to Reno’s shaky breathing.  He stood, dusting his hands off on his pants as he approached Vincent.

“He’s bleeding internally.  It’s bad.  I hope your friends have access to a medevac or a helicopter or something.” He said.  Vincent sighed heavily, holding up a hand to signal him to silence.

“Reno’s dying, Roz is in shock.  Get here as soon as you can,” Vincent said into the phone, then nodded a response.  “I’ll be watching.  Please hurry,” he said, then hung up the phone.  The white haired man had returned to Reno’s side.  Vincent watched him for a moment, and then spoke.

“Who are you?”

The man turned, then grinned and held out a gloved hand.

“Name’s Dante.”

Vincent didn’t have time to shake his hand as the sound of several approaching helicopters reached his ears over the hills.

“Vincent” he said shortly, crouching next to Reno.  

“So, what are you?” Vincent asked as the ShinRa choppers closed in and began looking for landing space.  Dante looked surprised, then smiled.

“Monster Hunter,” he said, then stood, flagging the chopper toward the scorched clearing to land.

Vincent stood, helping the medic team as they inspected Reno and Roz and readied them for travel.  It wasn’t until the injured men were safely aboard the helicopter that he realized Dante had disappeared.


Then all of a sudden, the man from the village’s words seemed to make sense.  

“It’s them that created it, and it’s one of them that had to stop it!”

One of them.

Dante.  He’d been the one to slay the other monster as well.

It was easy to see now.  White hair, superhuman ability, massive weapons, it wasn’t hard to understand how they’d thought Dante was one of the clones.  Up close, though, the differences were clear.  His hair was too white, probably bleached it to get the smell of blood out.  No Jenova-tainted cat-eyes, they were actually an interesting shade of strange, piercing blue.  Very tired, but very human.

No, not human.

‘Monster Hunter.’

Landing into a monster with a six-foot-sword, ripping off the car door like cardboard, using a tree as a skewer on the first monster.  No, there was no way this man was human.

Either way, he’d saved their lives, and possibly uncounted others today.  


"why" was the puzzlement.
---

to be continued...