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year 5, quarter 3
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Post by Caius Dragelion on Feb 22, 2020 14:54:51 GMT -6
The Dragonglaive
Cloud Strife Word Count: OOC: Oh god. Dialogue Color: 196fd1
Just outside the outer wall of Sonora, the sun was just beginning to set as the tundra region seemed relatively peaceful at the moment. A slight chill, but nothing that warm clothing wouldn't fix. From a small abode just down the road from the huge, walled off city, jutted many pipes and cables. Along with three roofs for some reason, all emitting exhaust at once. The sound of gears spinning was prominent as something seemed to be well at work in there.
But a cry resounded, and crashing through the door of the abode was...
"Alright, Vordun. You know the drill" Caius spoke with a gentle tone, giving a warm smile to comfort the Fire Drake in front of him. "I'm going to head into town and procure some supplies. You'd best get to that warm cave we dug out for you, and I'll meet you back at our meeting spot in the morning" Caius instructed the dragon, giving the blue-scaled lizard a pat on the head. The dragon let out a low whine, and Caius wrapped his arms around the dragon's neck in another attempt to comfort it. "I know, I know. One day, we won't need to hide. One day, the world will understand. One day, the world will see you for who you are."
One day.
"I'll try not to be too long when morning strikes. If you get hungry, there should be wild game to hunt. I'll be sure to bring back some cup noodles as well" Caius promised. Caius never liked this. It was no wonder he continued to travel as much as he did, even when he had a base back in Torensten to come home too, and people waiting for him. Though at least back in Torensten, Vordun had a home to go back to. A safe, calm and warm place where he wouldn't be disturbed and wild game was plentiful, until Caius returned. Sometimes he even snuck him into the base to interact with the other Dragonblades. But in Sonora... All they could do was hide him. Sonora's military was far more strict than that of Torensten, and they had nearly been arrested after that wretched woman had screamed at the top of her lungs at them. "Oh, dragon! He has a dragon!" She had cried for the world to hear after kicking him between the cores, after he and the dragon had only a minute prior run off her "Flower Gang" pursuers. Caius had to be more careful here now, in comparison to Torensten. Even Provo was safer, everyone was too busy dealing with the plague to give much thought to a poorly made disguise made to pass a dragon off as an oversized chocobo.
With that, he would bid the dragon goodbye and climb down from their meeting spot as he headed for the checkpoint on foot. He would soon reach a checkpoint, though as he waved to the patrol units, a loud noise would catch his attention. He turned his head toward the source of it, and saw...
"What the hell...?"
A mechanical creature, that resembled a very small house, was... Running? On two legs? It had two legs, two sets of arms, a hand with a full set of fingers and... Was that a claw hand? Whatever it was, it was shaking violently as it ran, and Caius as well as the patrol guards would slowly step back, in complete shock from what they were seeing. The thing's arms were swinging violently, and the mechanical house continuously let out a series of loud , uncontrollable whirring noises as it headed straight for the checkpoint...
Caius took a deep breath as his sword materialized in his hand. He was sure he could take it alone, but it didn't help he had no idea what in the world he was dealing with.
Post by Cloud Strife on Feb 23, 2020 23:03:30 GMT -6
The chill in the air didn't bother him. Cloud Stife was a Nibelheim boy. In the dead of winter the village was gripped by the kind of cold that seeped into the marrow of your bones. Anything less than that was t-shirt weather.
He should have been counting his days on the road but he hadn't, and so he hadn't any idea of how far he'd come. In the solitude his mind wandered. He thought about the relation between distance and time, how the latter became the measure of the former. Miles didn't matter much when you replaced chocobos with trucks and trucks with ships and ships with planes. The trip from Midgar to Nibelheim was so many hours by air, and to the Northern Crater was so many more. Distance became time. And now he, with no measure of either in this world he didn't know, felt like he existed outside of both. A point in space devoid of tethers to the rest of existence.
His tethers had to be somewhere here. A rusting metal road sign told him the city of Sonora was five kilometers away. He'd enter the city, and somehow he'd find them all. Tifa, and Barret, and Nanaki, and Cid, and all the others. And maybe Tifa would smile at him and Barret would admonish his #@$%&*! spikey ass for waltzing in late and they'd continue on like nothing ever happened, because it didn't matter that they were in a different world as long as they were all together.
A vehicle drove past him, coughing exhaust. The gravel of the shoulder crunched under his boots. Visions of the collapsing crater flashed in his mind and for a moment he screwed his eyes shut tight like that would be enough to block them out. No, everyone was here, somewhere. They were alive. Had to be. He had to hope, because if he didn't have hope all that remained was despair.
Cloud went down that road already. He didn't much care to walk it again.
----
Time and distance passed. The sun began its slow descent and he watched the city rise up before him in the waning golden light. The miasma of industry grew stronger, but there was something strangely comforting about it. A dark haze looming. It reminded him of Midgar. For good and for ill, at least it was familiar.
A sign warned him of an upcoming checkpoint. He suddenly felt a heightened awareness of the sword on his back and the materia at his disposal. After he woke up he took inventory of what he had on him -- a waterlogged PHS, useless. His sword, his armour, a few pieces of materia (missing, he noted, Odin and the Knights of the Round). He didn't imagine any of this would be a comfort to the guards he was bound to meet. Cities didn't set up checkpoints because they were welcoming to armed strangers.
After everything, you're worried about some city guards?
...I'm not making trouble before I even know why I'm here. Or why you're back.
Who else are you gonna talk to?
The checkpoint stood a hundred-odd meters away, and Cloud ignored the lingering doubt in his head while mako-blue eyes assessed the city guards. The uniforms and weapons definitely weren't Shinra. Posture read aware but not anxious. Another man approached the checkpoint ahead of him, and so Cloud slowed his pace to watch the interaction. That was, until the squeal of metallic joints and the clamor of heavy moving metal caught Cloud's attention.
That can't be a Hell House.
He could have been back in Sector Five, on the way to Wall Market with...
One of the city guards shouted, and without thinking Cloud grabbed the sword from his back and dashed on an intercepting path, a streak of steel and blond hair. He swung six feet of metal like a baseball bat, felt the edge drive through the steel plating of the robot-house's exterior. All this in half a second, maybe less. Cloud wasn't sure. Time and distance.
He halted, a contrail of dirt drifting gently to the ground behind him. The house rolled end over end ahead of him and came to rest on its side, hissing steam like an angry metal snake. A chunk of it lay twisted and mangled in the space between it and where Cloud stood, but it wasn't done.
The house planted one of its arms on the ground and with a piston-like motion shoved itself back upright. It faced Cloud. A red light began to glow.
Post by Caius Dragelion on Feb 29, 2020 16:57:20 GMT -6
The Dragonglaive
Cloud Strife Word Count: OOC: Dialogue Color: 196fd1
Caius had taken his shot without thinking much of it. He hadn’t seen the spiky-haired man until he had raced past him while Caius had been moving at a brisk jog as he’d tried to think of a plan. At first he just watched, until the man with the large sword would send the house toppling over. When the light shined though… Caius knew that his opportunity had arrived. No thought, no further planning needed. Caius acted, and that was that. As it had gotten up and aimed its shot at Cloud, the monster had presented itself a potential weak spot – a target – and Caius would take advantage of that.
No sooner had his gunblade materialized in his hand had he aimed and fired, hitting the monster right where the light had been shining. The source of the light would explode and the creature’s arm would go flying back. Not out of its sockets just yet, but Caius saw the opportunity and tossed his sword forward. Closing his eyes, he would disappear, warping forward and catching his sword as he would re-appear above the machine’s arm, slicing his blade through it. The arm would fall, and the machine’s weapon with it. But that still didn’t stop it. Caius would be forced to pull up a barrier and block as another arm would come spinning toward him and sending him flying back. While the damage was mitigated by the barrier, it wouldn’t stop Caius from hitting the ground hard as the barrier then disappeared.
Springing to his feet, Caius would charge forward once more, firing a shot that hit the creature’s front before sliding down under the walking house to keep its focus on him, trying to disorient it so that the spiky-haired man could deliver another attack and hopefully take the thing down. If he could hit it like he had before, then they might just have a chance.
Post by Cloud Strife on Mar 1, 2020 20:45:29 GMT -6
Instinctively, Cloud swung the flat of the assembled fusion sword in front of him like a shield; at near a foot wide and more than five feet long, it might as well be. Sunk into a low, stable stance, he braced himself for the impact of the blast. In those tense milliseconds he thought he heard the high crackle of energy as it powered up, but the attack never came. Instead, the sudden thunderclap of a gunshot roared past Cloud's ears and he looked past his sword to see the mechanical creature jerk violently backwards in a spray of shards and shrapnel.
Something small in the back of his mind lit up. Vincent? But the thought disappeared as quickly as it came. He lowered the blade back into a fighting stance as the blur of an attacker warped past his peripheral vision, appeared in full bringing the fight to the hostile house.
The man he saw earlier.
Cloud tightened his grip on the sword, launched forward, and entered the close-range melee. The other man held the machine's focus, hacking it up efficiently enough that Cloud thought he didn't really need the assist. Sparks crackled and sprayed from the house's severed arm joint like the bloody stump of an amputee. Gobs of oil and hydraulic fluid spattered in wild patterns on the ground. With an open shot at its back, Cloud swung the fusion sword in a violent downward strike, splitting open the metal plating with a high metallic screech. The house jerked violently. Cloud followed with an upward strike along the same axis, the momentum carrying him into a corkscrewing vertical jump.
High in the air, time slowed to a slideshow. He became acutely aware of the smell of grease and metal and burning plastic or rubber. The cool air on his skin. The weight of the blade in his hands. The calm, steady beating of his heart and the breath moving in and out of his lungs.
Then, with his sword raised high over his head, Cloud came down on that machine with the force of a meteor. A streak of silver in a halo of blue energy. The blade cleaved the house in two and the impact of his landing made the earth around him rumble. The two halves of the house hissed steam and fluid, glowed orange at the site of the split, and fell sideways to the ground.
Quiet descended over the scene. The pieces of the machine smoked but lay still.
Cloud spun his sword with a flourish in one hand, almost reflexively, then slipped it into the sheath on his back. He looked from the mechanical corpse to the other man who'd been fighting the thing and nodded to him. The gesture covered the time it took for him to think of something to say.
"Nice shooting," he said, wishing he'd thought of something better.
Post by Caius Dragelion on Mar 8, 2020 23:48:40 GMT -6
The Dragonglaive
Cloud Strife Word Count: OOC: Dialogue Color: 196fd1
It was done. The house was done and dusted, cleaved in two.
Power. Pure power. That was what the spiky-haired man before him exemplified. Caius had maneuvered past the thing, dodged and ducked around, dismantled it piece by piece, slowly weakened it to get ready for the kill... And this guy just brute forced this thing into nothing.
Caius casually whistled. His physical strength was impressive, as was that massive sword he carried. That sword... It was an interesting thing. Could be make something like it, perhaps? Caius wasn't the smallest guy. He stood at 6'4, and knew how to swing a greatsword. He just preferred to specialize in his smaller weapons to compliment his warping abilities. He'd have to ask if this guy made his blades a certain way, or if he had a buyer. If he could study the blade... Hmm...
Oh! Right, the guy was talking to him. Caius looked from the cleaved house to the spiky haired man and nodded his head in response. "Nice housekeeping" Caius punned, referring to the way he took care of the house. But they wouldn't have long to banter before a scrawny looking man in a long white overcoat would come running, nearly tripping over himself as he stopped, somehow not managing to drop the notes in his arms. He stared at the mechanical creature and let out a groan.
"Man, you had to completely cleave it in two? Now I have to scrap the thing for parts and start over again" The man remarked, his grimace growing worse the more he surveyed the condition of the mechanical monstrosity. "This particular beauty was one of mine. Homes that could move about, and able to defend themselves if need be. Perfect for housing the homeless and protecting them... If I could manage to iron out the bugs" The man mused in what seemed half introduction, half reflection on what he had been doing thus far, as if starting to very much regret this whole thing. "There was a glitch with the AI and now all of them are rampaging about. If I could just disable them, I might be able to figure out the problem and fix them, but... Well, there's no saving this one after the number you two did on it."
"Hold up. Did you say there's more than one?" Caius inquired, quirking a brow. "That... Sounds like a more pressing issue right now."
"Oh. Yeah, I suppose that is a big problem" The man agreed as he looked to the two of them. "They know where the city is, so I suspect they're heading for..."
As if on cue, Caius would spot two of the house-bots running at a full sprint toward the next checkpoint. And they didn't look like they were stopping...
Post by Cloud Strife on Mar 18, 2020 12:51:01 GMT -6
A rare swell of pride rose up in his chest from forgotten depths. Cloud flashed a cool, deliberately restrained smirk. After everything he'd been through in the fight against Sephiroth, every trial he overcame, the validation of his ability -- even from a stranger -- still meant something to him. A reminder that it didn't matter that he never made SOLDIER. Bone-tired and hungry, worn out from who knew how many days on the road, he still cut a house in half without breaking a sweat.
He hardly had time to lower his hand after returning the sword to his back before he heard frantic breathing and hurried footsteps bearing down on the pair of them. Like a reflex he reached back and his fingers tightened around the handle of the Fusion Sword and his stance shifted just so as he faced the unknown running towards them. He was like a coiled snake, his posture a warning. But he didn't strike.
Instead, his Mako-blue eyes sized up the man. The rumpled labcoat, and the stack of papers, and the skin of a man who only knew the sun by second-hand account. Good to know mad scientists never changed no matter where you were. The line of tension running through Cloud's body eased, but only just. The scientist's story made his eyes narrow in a look of age beyond his years. At twenty-one, Cloud felt too old for this shit.
"You're kidding me..." he muttered, half to himself but loud enough that the others could hear.
What kind of idiot thinks AI combat houses are a good idea?
When the scientist conveniently remembered that there were more of those homicidal domiciles running around, Cloud followed his would-be comrade's line of sight to the lumbering mechanical beasts sprinting for the next checkpoint, all squealing metal joints and deep, thumping footsteps. He grit his teeth.
Just leave. This isn't your problem. This guy looks like he can handle it himself.
....
The truth was it wasn't his problem. This wasn't his city and these weren't his people. Every fiber of his being screamed at him to resume the hunt for his friends. Nothing mattered more than finding them. But if he learned anything about himself in the fight for the Planet, it was that he wasn't that guy. He couldn't turn his back.
I'm here now, so this is my problem.
Once more he drew the Fusion Sword from his back and swung the massive blade out in front of him. He shot a look at his temporary ally and nodded towards the moving houses.
"You take the one on the left, I'll take the one on the right."
He took one hand off the grip of the sword, clenched it into a fist. The Time materia slotted in his Mystile glowed, and a brief blue aura of Haste enveloped him. The smell of ozone hung in his nose for a second. Then, both hands on the sword again, he shot forward like a rocket and left a blue streak and a trail of dust behind him.
"You take the one on the left, I'll take the one on the right."
"Right."
Well, it looked like spiky would be joining him. That was comforting, even if Caius was sure he could handle himself. He'd spent years doing just that, after all. Things were simpler back then. Not as fun, and not as healthy, but... Simpler, all the same. Working with others was still something he was getting used to. It was funny... For someone who had been a Kingsglaive for two years, he never did get used to that. It was only now he was just starting to.
He was definitely still just starting to.
Either way, they had a job to do. Spiky shot forward ahead of him, and Caius couldn't help but flash a one of a kind grin as the mercenary would take his speed as a sort of challenge, suddenly zipping forward with his Warp ability to gain speed and momentum as he dashed toward the opposing house. He would leap upwards and lunge for it, but this time it was ready for him. The sound of beeps and whirs indicated that it had initiated self defense mode as it would block his blade with its claw hand.
"Well, this is a hell of a house party."
Caius kicked off the hook as he would drag his blade down the house's walls while he went down. He rolled to the side as the thing would attempt to stomp him out of existence, and Caius let out a quiet curse at how close it was. He would quickly sit up and slash at the thing's leg, making a dent in it but not managing to cut it down yet. The small house would try and stomp down on him again, but Caius would hold out a hand. "Blizzara!" He called out as the spell would hit and freeze the leg in place just before it hit him. Caius took the initiative, turning his focus to the other leg that was now stuck with a huge loss in mobility, while the frozen one couldn't move at all. He would toss his blade at it and warp to it, catching the blade and executing a series of slashes that would soon cleave the leg in two. This came just in time as the other leg would finally escape from the icy prison...
Post by Cloud Strife on Apr 20, 2020 21:33:43 GMT -6
He was a streak of bright blue against the gunmetal backdrop of the city's outskirts. A formless blur too fast for all but the most trained eyes to follow. He sliced through the air, kicking up dirt and grit and dead grass in his wake and held the Fusion sword singlehanded, out to his side like a great razor-edged wing. The rush of air past his ears seemed to drown out all other noise. Even his breath, his heart. The mechanical house lumbered along in incongruous silence and slow motion, while Cloud closed the gap and broke that tenuous relation between time and distance.
His left hand balled into a fist and flames grew from the space between his fingers and he hurled a great orb of fire like a curveball pitch. The flame collided dead center with the house's paneled exterior and burst into greater tongues of fire that ran along the structure's surface with a low roar leaving a scorched black pattern on the plate like a flower of ash. The lumbering house stopped in its charge and began to turn, robotic arms bursting forth from its side windows in a shower of glass shards.
Cloud did not slow. In fractions of seconds he thumbed the release on his Fusion sword and flicked his wrist and launched one of the small folding blades into the air. It spun in a smooth arc, daylight glinting off mirror-polished metal and a razor edge, and Cloud caught it in his left hand just as he made to baseball slide under the house, between its stomping metal legs. He drove the blade up into the underside of the house and dragged it through like he was gutting an animal, severing hydraulic lines and wiring in spurts of liquid and a shower of sparks and a long, piercing metal scream that Cloud felt carving into his eardrums.
The house twitched violently and Cloud slid out the other side and rose back to his feet with a catlike grace. His pantleg and his side were streaked with dirt. Face smeared with it like hastily applied camouflage paint. Mako-blue eyes narrowed just so. He smirked.
He hurled the small folding sword like a dagger and drove it through the house's outer panel to the hilt and then he jumped, planted one boot on the handle of the sword, propelled himself into a front flip and landed hard on the roof of the house. It raised its arms and swiped at him. He ducked and felt the wind of the passing claw-hand an inch above his head. It swiped again and he jumped over a glimmering blade at the end of a bulky and dirtcaked metal arm.
"Try harder," he said, as though the robot house might react to taunting.
As the first arm came around again seeking his head Cloud raised the Fusion sword and hacked it apart at the elbow joint. The half of the arm fell in the dirt and the steel stump leaked oil and hydraulic fluid. Cloud jumped sideways down to the ground on the house's armless side and swung low and cut down its leg and it tottered sideways and the ground shook where it dropped.
Cloud wrenched the small blade out of the house's back panel and clipped it back into the Fusion sword. He felt the exertion of the fight like a pleasant awareness of his whole body tuned to a singular purpose. He was neither tired nor hungry nor lonely nor in pain. He felt alive in a way that words couldn't do justice to.
The crippled house shifted on its broken foundation. Mechanical whirring of its innards. Its one remaining arm jutted out further from its side panel with a hiss of hydraulics and took another swipe at Cloud. He jumped backwards and landed light on his feet and cast a sidelong glance at the man he fought with, gauging how his new ally fared against the other house.
Caius waited for the other leg to crumble without the other to support it, but to his surprise, the leg would suddenly be shot from the house and rocket toward him. Quite literally, rocket fuel and all. Caius took a deep breath. While surprised, he would remain calm and hold his position as he watched it with cold, patient eyes. "Come on, then" He spoke in a cold whisper. The detached foot would be beset upon him, but the mercenary would suddenly blip to the side in a burst of blue light, narrowly dodging the attack. Caius wouldn't hesitate, tossing his blade forward and warping to meet it, catching it and bringing the blade down on the centerpiece in hopes of crippling it while it was still collapsed from not having a leg to stand on. Caius was able to deal some solid damage, though he would be forced to jump back as the leg came back for another round before he could deal too many blows.
Caius glanced toward the other house, and noted that Spiky seemed to be faring well himself. If they kept this up, they might be able to pull this off...
Or perhaps he had spoken too soon. Both houses would suddenly begin to shift, with the one that Caius had been fighting hopping about on one leg. The houses would move and crash into each other, floating in the air as their parts began to come off and be placed in other spots, as the houses steadily merged into one...
From two small houses to a regular sized house, now on three legs and with three arms jutting from them. Caius brandished his blade as he made his way toward his new ally, thinking they might be able to handle this thing regardless, if they acted fast. But not even Caius could prepare for what came next.
An explosion caught Caius' attention as he looked back toward where the scientist had originally ran from. The lab down the road had been sent soaring upwards in a large explosion, soon after crashing to the ground. But it was what followed it that caused Caius to take a step back. It was yet another house. This one the same size as the combined two that they had just witnessed.
"Look out!" Caius called toward Cloud when he realized it was heading straight for them. The thing didn't attack, instead it ran on both legs right past them and it didn't take Caius very long to guess what was to come next. They must have triggered a failsafe when they crippled the mechanical houses, he realized. In the case of damage, taking themselves apart and promptly merging with the others to continue to be able to defend themselves. It was genius, from a defense standpoint. But it didn't make it any less dangerous when implementing this sort of technology on a HOUSE. Nor any less annoying to have to deal with.
The end result was the equivalent to a small manor, which now held two very large and very long legs that catapulted the height of the malfunctioning house. They did look a little uneven, which Caius attributed to his crippling of the second one earlier. The arms hadn't come out yet, but Caius knew from before that it had them. And god knows what else. He noticed there were sockets on its sides with something sticking out of each, which he guessed were the arms of the combined houses once put together. Except for one hole, which seemed to be lacking anything. He remembered that Spiky had taken the arm off one of them earlier.
Caius looked to Cloud. "We need to end this soon, it's too close to the city" He remarked as he would take a step toward the thing, preparing another Warp-Strike. But just as Caius brandished his blade, the thing would suddenly turn its long legs and...
... Make a run for it. At speeds he wasn't expecting, the thing had decided to run from them. Another emergency mechanism, perhaps? But Caius' eyes widened when he realized that the monstrosity was heading straight for the gate. Even with Haste, they would arrive just as the mechanical beast would crash through the main gate and head into the city, continuing to run at full speed as it towered over much of the city, crushing stalls and vehicles as people screamed and ran for cover.
"Gods..." Caius whispered, almost rendered speechless by the destruction. They needed to stop this. They needed to stop this now. Caius took a deep breath as he would take off into the city, summoning a special bullet that he began to load into his sword's stocks.
Nearby the gate was a parking lot, where a motorcycle had been thrown from its chain by the kicking legs of the rampaging mechanical monster, though it looked as though it might still work...
Caius meanwhile, would finish loading the item into his gunblade and would quickly point it into the air. A flare would be fired upwards over the city. This wasn't ideal, but... There was no time for worrying about that now.
Post by Cloud Strife on May 6, 2020 19:26:04 GMT -6
Cloud was under the distinct impression that he and his comrade had this situation well in hand. Then the situation changed. His expectations did not match reality. He thought that after all the things he'd seen and done and endured in his life it said something positive about him that he was still capable of being surprised. When the houses began their violent metamorphosis it was all he could do to cease his gawking and duck under a flying piece of sheetmetal that would have clipped the top of his skull otherwise. Carried on the gust of wind in its wake the smell of hot metal and the chemical tang of machine oil. He brought his blade up to shield himself from further shrapnel and peered past the edge and watched the colossus of homes assemble itself.
These were not the Hell Houses of the Midgar slums.
He felt the explosion from the scientist's lab like a dull beat in his chest and accompanied by Caius's warning Cloud looked and he saw yet another of the mechanical monstrosities lumbering for them. Cloud leaped backwards and landed in a low fighting stance but the thing veered away from the pair of fighters and the machine-mass of the towering house-colossus grew. Its shadow stretched out over the battlefield, its bulk obscuring the low sun. Hiss of hydraulics, squealing of gears and joints, the low thrum of engines like the beating of its machine heart. Cloud craned his neck up and up until his eyes took in the full scale of it.
"...Dammit."
He cursed its maker, cursed scientists with more ideas than sense. But it didn't matter. If this was the thing standing between him and continuing the search for his friends then he wouldn't leave it standing. Everything had a weakness and few of them stood up to his sword. Bring it, then.
Caius didn't have to tell him twice. He offered the man a nod and then set his sights back on target, mako-eyes narrowed, battle-focused. His Fire materia bathed his arm in a green glow yet before he could even conjure the spell from it the gargantuan house took off at a dead run for the city, the ground shaking with every sprinted step. It moved faster than should have been possible. The spell faded before it was cast and Cloud took off after it.
Even haste-enhanced, the house gained ground on him too quickly and all Cloud could do was watch as it crashed through the city. Chaos and screaming. A construction crane toppled over, its arm smashing through the facade of a building like a dull knife. He thought of Sector Seven and a rage bubbled up in him like bile. No more.
He closed the distance to the gate and his eyes swept over the area and landed on the motorcycle. Instinct took him. He put his sword on his back and righted the bike and cranked the starter until the engine rumbled to life. The paint scratched and mirrors a spiderweb of cracks, but it ran all the same.
He sat the bike on the road into the city and turned his head and called back to Caius: "I got a plan! I'm gonna need you to hit it with something big! You'll know when!"
He took off, throttle up, pushing the bike as fast as the engine could muster. It was no Hardy-Daytona but it would do. It would have to. The engine growled like an old dog with fight left in him. It handled rough but Cloud found his balance, learned the language of this bike, nudging it just so until each was tuned to the other, rider and machine. He saw the construction crane laying across the road ahead, half propped up on the shattered frame of a building to block his path on a diagonal. On the other side of it the cable and the hook laying in a heap on the road.
Cloud laid the bike into a skid and drew his sword and slid seamlessly underneath the crane and emerged from the skid on the other side with the crane cable in hand cut cleanly at the end. He sheathed his sword again and drew up the cable into a spool around his arm until he held the large hook in hand. He handled the bike as though it were an extension of himself, weaving between heaps of rubble on the street. He took a fallen sign like a ramp and launched himself over a burning vehicle and landed on the rear wheel and eased the front back down to the pavement. The house up ahead, stomping, arms flailing. Close enough to spit on.
Cloud swung the crane hook over his head like a lasso and threw it, hooking it around one of the house's legs. Immediately he pulled the cable taut. The momentum threatened to wrench him out of the saddle but he held tight to the motorcycle and matched the house's speed.
Then he throttled up.
He sped between the house's legs and began driving figure eights between them, wrapping the cable around and around until the house's stride began to stutter and falter. The gears screaming. A high strained metallic noise like nails on chalkboard.
Cloud fell back again holding the end of the cable with all the strength he could muster. His arms burned. The bike engine groaned in protest. He yelled at the top of his lungs: "NOW! HIT IT!"
