Aeris winced as a strong light shone into her tent. She covered her hurting eyes with her hand, and waited for her eyes to adjust before trying to identify the intruder. But he identified himself with his annoying voice. "Rise and shine, sweetems," Ash said in a mocking voice.

Aeris peeked out from behind her hand. She glared in mock anger at the boy that was entering her tent. "I will rise, but I refuse to shine," she said.

"Come on," he gently urged. "We are almost ready to get going." Aeris eyed the boy waraly. "Sure, I'd love to get up, but first you have to leave so I can get ready."

"Ah, sure, right." Aeris laughed to herself at her annoying friends emberasment. She leaned over to her small bag of belongings and bulled out her normal clothes; a white t-shirt, and purple skirt. After she put her clothes on, she stood up and reached for her sword. For a bit of practice, she took a few practice swings with the blade. Although it felt light in her hands, she knew that the blade heald an amazing attack power.

After a long gaze at her weapon, she put it into it's sheith, and strapped it to her back. When she finally emerged from the tent, she could see that the others were waiting for her. She looked at Nanaki appoligetically. "Sorry it took me a while to get ready."

Nanaki nodded. "That's alright. But we should get going to Midgar." Aeris looked to the distance, where she could see the ground become black and lifeless. Although she couldn't see any, she knew that there were monsters living in the crage of rock, and deep within the ruined city.

They had left the chocobo's at camp and decided to make the journey on foot. It took almost two hours before they were within reach of the city. And strangely enough, there had been no monsters attack them. Aeris was about to voice that thought to the others when the need to do so vanished. Swarning out of the crags of rock were about twenty wolf-like Kalm Fang monsters.

"Shit," Aeris heard Ash swear. She heard curses out of Jet and Alan too, but not from Victor. She cast a quick glance in the boy's direction. He had brought out his Death Penilty and was aming it at the monsters that were begining to circle the group.

All of the others had likewise drawn their weapons. "So what now," Jet asked to no one in particiular.

Ash charged his night stick. "We send them back where they came from," he said as he sent a jolt of electricity into a beast that he had thought was moving in too close. It triggered a responce from every monster; they all jumped in and began attacking everyone.

Aeris swung her sword fluidly through the air, slicing a monster. It fell at her feet and couldn't hardly make nipps at her ankles. She began swinging her sword left and right. Because she was such a skilled fighter, these beasts fell easily to her sword.

But one managed to get through her defenses, and it bit her arm. Although it didn't hurt much, it made her very angry. So she focused her energy into her blade and let it swing. The blade sliced cleanly through the beast. She sighed. She felt much better now.

Alan saw one of the monsters attack Aeris. He felt afraid for her when he saw it actually bite her. However, before he had a chance to react, Aeris swung her sword with a fierce energy he had never seen. He battered another monster away form him as he called to Aeris. "You alright?" he asked.

"Never been better," she called as she cut down another beast.

Alan smiled to himself, and resumed pounding in the head of a beast that had falled at his feet. "Stay down!" he growned at it. The monster kept trying to get up, even though ht was repeatidly hitting it on the head.

Finally he got fed up with hitting this single beast. "Thunder Fang," he yelled. It was the command for his dog, who was attacking beasts on it's own, to come and attack whatever was attacking him. Thunder raced over quickly, and lept onto the Kalm Wolf, sinking it's teeth into the monsters neck. After a few pathetic attempts to release itself from the jaws that were around it's neck, it went limp. Alan quickly gave the dog an affectionate pat, before going back to batteling another of the monsters.

Just then a shot rang out. He quickly whirled around and saw one of the monsters with a bullet hole in it's head. He cast a quick glance around and saw Victor pearched on a rocky overhang, Death Penilty in hand.

Victor quickly turned his attention away from Alan. The beasts that had origionally paid attention to the others, were only now begining to focus on him. Perhaps, because he was small they didn't think that he was a threat. However, he certainly had their attention now, and he planned on not letting them get close enough to hurt him. His main concern at the moment was to maintain his position while killing some of the monsters that the others missed.

Victor fired another volly of bullets into the fray of monsters. They were almost all dead. Normally it wouldn't have been such a big deal because they were so weak, but their numbers far outnumbered the group. But there was only a handful left. As he shot another Kalm Wolf that was trying to jump onto his overhang, he saw that Jet was about to be attacked from behind. Victor couldn't react fast enough, and the monster launched itself onto Jet's back.

Jet wasn't having a good day. First, they had to get up super early so they could guard the camp. Then they left the chocobos behind at the camp. Now he was tired and cranky, and they had to fight these beasts. He had spent the last few minutes driving his spear into the oncoming monsters. He was so absorbed in the monsters in fromt of him that he pretty much forgot about the ones behind him.

So when he had jabbed his Flayer into another monster, he was taken off guard when one of them landed heavily on his back. It knocked the wind out of him, and he couldn't yell for help. But apparently he didn't need to call help to him. Because just then, Ash had ran up to him, and kicked the monster off his back.

Jet scrambled to get up and back away from the monster. He grabbed his Flayer, and turned his attention back to the monster. But the monster was after Ash now. Jet watched as the monster stalked his friend. He wished he could help, but another monster was trying to attack him.

Ash now had the monster's full attention, and it was leaving Jet alone. He looked around and saw that the others were on their last monster. They had done it! They had almost beatten all of these monsters.

Ash wanted the monster to stop circling him and attack. But it was just watching him. As he watched the monster, he saw that it was a bit bigger then the others. It would be a bit harder to kill. So in preparation for it's attack, he charged his nightstick as high as it would go.

He threw another quick look at the others. They were finished and watching him. "Do you need any help?" Nanaki asked.

As Ash shook his head, the monster bared it's fangs and launched itself at him. But it never reached it's target. As the beast was flying through the air, Ash shot it with an enormous jolt of electricity.

The Kalm Fang now lay on the ground having spasms. It was trapped within a pyrimid of electricity kept sending jolts through the monster. Finally when the energy disperced, the beast lay still.

Chapter 8