Final Fantasy VII: Lifestream - Book 3: Pursuit

ELEVEN

Grandhorn was huge, a twisted mechanical nightmare that looked more like a monster than a machine. Its metal skin was reddish-purple, and it must've been twenty feet tall with arms and legs like tree trunks. They ended in a cluster of viciously sharp white claws, and it had a pair of long, curved horns on its bull-like head. It stared at the gate with its small, bright green eyes, then started slamming its large fists into it one after the other, over and over and again while the armored grunts fired at us and the drakes swooped overhead.

"Jessie!" Aerith yelled, quickly pulling me aside.

I felt a cold wind brush past me as one of the drakes flew toward us along the ledge, just missing me and moving so fast we couldn't stop it. The drake grabbed two of our men with its talons, tossed them up over the wall, and shot blasts of ice from its long beak, destroying one of the outer turrets before we could retaliate.

The anti-aircraft guns started firing, taking down drakes one after another and blowing them apart, but there were still more, seeming to fill the sky above the fort as they swooped in and tore at everyone here on the wall while their screeches filled the air. We had to fight off their relentless assaults along with the Shinra forces outside the wall. Beams and bullets flew through the air in both directions, and people on both sides were dying every second. It was chaos.

More grunts and elite grunts sprang onto the wall, using the claws of their metal gauntlets to hang on and climb. I blasted a couple with a fire spell while Cloud shocked another one and Barret shot off a bunch of them. But there were more, like big metal bugs. Another turret went up nearby as beams from several armored grunts and gunfire from the Shinra soldiers amongst them blew it apart and the guy operating it as well. I sighed even as I readied my talons.

Through it all was the Grandhorn, pounding on the gate again and again like some twisted gong. Barret fired a stream of bullets at it, but it didn't do much more than flinch. Cloud, Aerith, and I hit it with spells, and while they did some decent damage to the Grandhorn, the drakes, grunts, and gunfire from Shinra weren't helping. We had to constantly dodge and take shots at them ever few seconds.

"No way we can kill that thing from up here!" Cloud said. "And it's gonna break through the gate any second."

I saw what he meant. "Then let's go kick its ass!"

Aerith tore through a drake with a piercing beam from her staff as it snapped at us. "You've got my vote! Come on!"

"Right behind ya!" Barret agreed. "Red!"

He raced down the stairs after swiping a grunt that had gotten over the wall, then looked at us. "You coming?"

Our forces were barely hanging on as they fought, but they weren't finished yet. They kept fighting, firing at the enemies in the ravine, the drakes flying overhead, the grunts still climbing inside, and also at the Grandhorn. We had to trust that they'd hold out, even as outnumbered as they were. The fastest way to end this nightmare was to destroy that mechanical nightmare, so we rushed down into the courtyard together and got ready to do that very thing.

— — — — — — —

I backhanded a grunt that leaped up over the wall at me, sending it flying backwards the way it came. Biggs shot another off my back with his shotgun while Lena fired at the enemies outside with her turret. So far, she'd been lucky in that hers hadn't been targeted yet, but I knew it was only a matter of time. Two others on this side of the gate had been destroyed already. The turrets couldn't shoot at the Grandhorn, either. Their firing angle only went so far. And as hard as it was pounding on the gate, I knew it would get through.