Hello and welcome to Chaos Dragon's enormous fanfic, "A New Breed of Darkness." Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in this story that belong in a game, movie, TV show or book. All other original characters are mine, so no stealing please! Please send feedback--reviews help the story grow :-)-- and suffer through the very beginning--I know it's a little wordy. As a last note:

"What do you do when you cannot build a machine to combat the ultimate evil?

You build a machine to bring you someone who can."

-The Industries

Genre is no longer a barrier.

1. New World, New Darkness: the Heroes Converge

He was well built and strong, possessing sharp, electric blue eyes. He was dressed in dark blue pants and top with an armored left shoulder. A dark red cape billowed out behind him and settled over his shoulders; the neck of it draped over his chest and covered half of his face. The spiky-haired blonde climbed shakily to his feet and found his sword within easy reach. That was a condolence- even if waking up in an enormous steel room wasn't. He reached down and lifted the enormous blade, testing its weight and feel; satisfied he swung it up and let it rest on his right shoulder. Glancing around he noticed bodies strewn on the floor...and another man standing amid them all.

He was younger than the blonde and a hair taller- same build, similar piercing blue-gray eyes. An old scar ran down over the bridge of his nose. His hair was dark brown and-- (because he had recently let it grow)--brushed his shoulders in the back. He was dressed in a short-cut black jacket and white shirt with dark jeans that flared out at the bottom. A lion head pendant hung on heavy silver chain around his throat. Like the blonde he rested his sword on his shoulder, though his had a pommel that looked the butt end of a pistol. The blonde didn't really care what the brunette looked like--he just wanted answers.

Their eyes locked at the same time.

"You--why did you do this?" The blonde questioned. His voice was quiet and commanding. The brunette readied his sword, just as coolly confident.

"I was about to ask you the same." Their blades rang against one another in the next second as both of them lunged forward.

In an office that overlooked the steel room, a young woman swore vividly and roared "I told you to separate those two!" as she raced out the door.

Sounds of steel grating steel echoed heavily off of the walls in the large chamber as the blonde and brunette struck and dodged. The blonde twirled his enormous blade in a silver arc, pulling it out and down in crescent too quick to be seen. He was fast- but the brunette was faster. The larger blade should have sliced him on the shoulder as he dodged a previous hit; instead both blades met, edge to edge, as the brunette protected himself.

"You're too slow," he told his opponent simply, holding his sword stationary in their stalemate. The blonde scowled and applied himself. The brunette began to strain under his power.

The blonde continued to force the brunette down, eventually making him sink to one knee, knowing he'd eventually break through the other man's defense. The brunette's left leg was in front of him, his right knee holding all of his weight as he was pressed down. He acted in a split second, lashing out with his free leg. His boot met the blonde's knee and it buckled. Panting, he went down, losing his advantage. The brunette rose and pivoted, whipping his sword around as he spun. The blonde barely managed to block, turning his sword so that it's width saved him. Sparks flew as the gun-handled sword slid across the blonde's much larger blade. The brunette swore quietly and leapt away as the blonde swung to retaliate.

"Cloud!" A female voice called, drawing the blonde's attention to his left. The moment could have cost him his arm, and as it was the brunette scored a shallow cut across his bicep. Cloud countered quickly, slicing the back of his opponent's thigh. "Cloud, stop!" The female voice cried again. The speaker was a slim girl that stood about four inches shorter than the blonde she'd called Cloud. Her long brown hair was pulled into a ponytail that spiraled down her back, and her spiked brown bangs framed a pretty face and emerald eyes. Her brown boots clashed with her long, buttoned pink dress, though she didn't seem to care--she was more worried about the blonde, for she rushed to him and latched onto his shoulder. "You're bleeding," she commented as he readied himself again. The brunette was ready to charge again-- the cut down his leg didn't seem to have bothered him much. Ignoring the girl, Cloud lunged forward at the same time the brunette did, sword poised and ready...

...and landed flat on his back with a crash, his sword sliding away across the smooth metal floor. Slightly dazed, Cloud looked up at his newest adversary: a man quite a bit older than him glared down at him over a pair of small, dark sunglasses. A red scar stretched from the man's hairline down over his right eye, rendering it useless. Streaks of gray flecked his black hair at the temples; a long, thin ponytail was visible past the high collar of his blood red overcoat. The man's long, thin-bladed sword was held point-blank in front of Cloud's face.

The brunette had similar problems. He too had been struck down from a blind spot as he'd rushed his foe, and was now sprawled on the floor. He, however, still had his sword. Lurching to his feet and pulling his gunblade with him as he did, he readied an attack. Striking at the person that'd knocked him down, he found himself locked body-to-body and hilt-to-hilt with a man that looked like he was from another century. He was dressed in a black tunic with a chain mail shirt underneath and black breeches to match. His abused cloak was gray-green and seemed to change color as the light played off of it. His sword was of normal human length and well crafted. He regarded the brunette evenly with deep, regal blue eyes. His black-brown, shoulder length hair matched his closely cropped mustache and beard.

"A nice recovery, but you stare too much," The man told the brunette and swept his foot in an arc at the same time that he grabbed the gunblade's pommel. "Do not leave yourself open," He instructed the younger man, who now lay scowling and disarmed on the floor.

"I see I had no reason to worry," A new voice- another female voice- chimed in. She spoke loud enough for everyone to hear her. "Thankfully the rational people were here to step in before Cloud and Leon killed each other. Auron, Aragorn, I thank you. You have no idea of the tragedies you may have just averted." The speaker was the same girl from the room upstairs, the one that had cursed when she'd seen two of her guests fighting. She was about twenty-two and possessed intelligent hazel eyes with a touch of green in them. Her chin was stubbornly set in a nicely shaped face; her brown hair fell about two inches past her shoulders. Dressed in a pale blue tunic over cream colored shirt and breeches, she too looked like she was from someplace long past. A thin scimitar hung at her belt, along with some nasty looking shuriken: four-bladed throwing stars that took a lot of practice to master. She looked around her, nodding approval that all eight of them were on their feet, however unsteadily. "Well, I'm pleased to see no one got too abused on the trip here. If you'll follow me, we'll find someplace a little less--daunting." Realizing a few of them didn't mean to follow her, she added, "You won't find out where you are or what you're doing here if you stay in this chamber. I hate it in here, and do not intend to linger. This way." She started to walk away and was followed somewhat hesitantly by eight very mismatched people. Up a flight of steel stairs and down a long metal hallway they walked, finally ending up at a room with a wooden door.

"These are my quarters," The brown-haired woman explained, "Though thankfully I'm almost never here." She opened the door and led them inside. It was a large room with several chairs arranged in a semicircle, and unlike the rest of the building they had seen, everything was wood and cloth. There was no metal to be seen, outside of a large double-bladed broadsword that laid on a shelf on the wall. Their guide motioned for the eight to sit down and headed for a large trunk that sat at the foot of a small couch. From it she drew two small rolls of cloth and a small packet of something. "Since you two decided to spill blood first and ask questions later, you get to patch yourselves up." She tossed them the bandages. "We don't have healers- at least not yet- so you're on your own. The packet of wound cleaner you'll have to share." She tossed it to the brunette at Cloud's side. "I figure you'll end up patching him anyway, Aerith. As for the rest of you, I apologize right now for all of the trouble this is going to cost you."

"Trouble?" One of them asked. The speaker was a tall man with a modest build, light brown eyes and hair of the same color that fell in a ponytail halfway down his back. His breeches, shirt, tunic and cloak were all made in shades of green from olive to hunter to emerald. His voice was light and melodic for a man's, his speech careful and well bred. More than one of the others noticed by his soft features that he was not a veteran warrior. Nevertheless, he carried a long, smooth shafted javelin with a beautifully crafted silver tip.

"Trouble, Albert. If none of us die I will thank every god in turn for a month."

"What do you mean, 'If none of us die?'" The young man she'd called Leon asked. "What is so dangerous about this place? In honesty, I see no reason to worry myself-- I actually know how to fight." That jarred some angry murmurs from some of the other people in the room. Their guide scoffed.

"Your arrogance will get you killed quickly here, Leon, so stop playing at it. We don't need you putting on a show just to keep up your image. Regardless of how good you think you are, in Technica you are not quite what you used to be." She paused, giving the statement time to sink in, then went on. "That goes for all of you. This world poses certain limitations on visitors. As you may have expected, this is not your time, your era or your world. It is none of your worlds; nor is it mine. This place is in danger of destruction and has no one to turn to. No natives, anyway--that's why we're here. Do you see? They used machines and brought us here, from our worlds to Technica. I don't understand how--they don't have this kind of devilry where I come from." She sighed. "The men that brought us...they told me when I came that my world froze in my absence, that it would wait for me as long as I remain alive. Should I--or any of you--perish, we will no longer exist anywhere. Our worlds will go on without us, and considering most of us are instrumental in protecting our homes, I doubt the results would be much to anyone's liking." That got a few more murmurs from her audience. "Now, as for the limitations..." She reached behind her, into the trunk, and produced a map that she spread out on the table in the middle of the group. "You all probably felt an odd sensation in your bodies when you first woke up. A kind of tingling. That's the limitation I was talking about. For a while-weeks, actually- you won't be up to par. Your judgment, technique, strength, fighting style...everything will be sluggish for awhile. It comes from being drug across dimensions, I suppose."

"What is a 'dimension?'" One of the group asked. This time the speaker was female; she happened to be the only other girl besides Aerith and their guide. She was young and petit, around eighteen, and much like Albert she didn't look like she had the build of a fighter. She was dressed in a white top and a long blue skirt- very unconventional clothes for fighting. The colorful staff she carried looked to be more for show than substance. Her light, airy brown hair was trimmed a bit above her shoulders; one of her eyes was blue, the other green. She was fair-skinned, and her voice was quiet and hesitant. The guide smiled at her question.

"Honestly Lady Yuna, I don't know. They just said it's hard to recover from. They're right...I think it took Trace and I around two months to get even remotely back to normal." Before anyone bothered to ask who Trace was, she pressed on. "Now, you all can see the three small black dots on the map, and the larger one farther north, here." She pointed. "Now, the three smaller dots represent the three smaller power sources, the larger the major one. Simple enough, correct?" Mutters of agreement came as a reply. "Good. Now, the four dots--called Spheres-- are the outlets of the evil that is so threatening this world. The Spheres are the centers of the negative energy; the people here call the energy the Dark."

"How creative," Cloud said dryly. Their guide nodded, then continued.

"The Dark, namely the Spheres, creates minions to do its biding. It does this by emitting a black, gooey substance that at first has no shape. When the Dark is in this form it can perceive possible forms in the thoughts of people."

"It can read minds?" Albert questioned, aghast.

"Unfortunately, yes. That's just the beginning, though. The Dark seems to acquire new tricks all of the time. It's been trying to trip me up for two years now."

"Two years and you still haven't gotten rid of it?" Leon asked nastily. The young woman scowled at him and said.

"Jeer all you like. It is impossible to attack the three lesser Spheres simultaneously, and that is what must be done. I am one and only one, mage or not."

"What happened to that Trace person you mentioned?" Aerith asked. Their guide sighed louder; a look of regret entered her eyes.

"I wish I knew. We gave the Dark everything we had in a battle about four months after they drug us here. He was a friend from my world, so we knew each other and were able to work as a team. We nearly destroyed the Dark--the larger Sphere--in its entirety then. Needless to say, though, I gave out before we got the job done. I didn't have all of the...resources that I needed."

"You mean you're weak as hell and got your friend killed." Leon offered.

"Your manners are impeccable," Albert told him sarcastically. A tall, lean blonde man on Aragorn's left nodded agreement. He was the only one of the group that had yet to speak. He was dressed much like his shorter comrade, though his clothing was grayish-brown. His hair was thin and fair, long enough to reach just past his collarbone. His blue eyes were bright and keen and his ears, oddly enough, came to a point at the top. A beautifully carved longbow and quiver, along with two ivory handled knives, rested on his back.

"Thank you Albert, Legolas, but I'm afraid he's partially right. You all wouldn't be here risking your lives if I'd just been able to..." She cut off and cleared her throat. "I do not think Trace is dead, however. For all that I can't sense him, I don't think he perished."

"Where is he, then?" Yuna wanted to know.

"I imagine the Dark has him. An unpleasant thought at the very least. Anyway," she seemed uncomfortable and anxious to change the subject, "-as I was saying, the Dark takes its shape from a human's memories and thoughts. Should it take the form of one of your personal enemies, do not fight it. It will automatically know what to do against you. Handle anyone else's foes, just not your own; you will be at a huge disadvantage with the limitations against an enemy that knows your weakness. Just avoid a fight like that at all costs. It also helps if you don't brood on your foes. For example, if you have, say, powerful enemies to worry about when you return home, try not to think about it. All you'll do is give one of your teammates a nasty creature to deal with, and we don't need that. It's going to happen anyway--don't help it along." She rolled up the map and stowed it away. "That's enough for now, I think. One last thing, though-- men cannot use magic here."

"What!" Leon demanded.

"May I inquire why?" asked Yuna. Their guide shrugged.

"I don't know. That's just how it is here, I suppose. Men just can't do spells, and I'd advise you males not to try. I hear doing so causes fitful headaches."

"Well then, what disadvantage do we have to deal with?" Aerith wanted to know.

"We're very outnumbered here. I believe that the last census taken revealed numbers of something like eight to one," She grinned wickedly, "I imagine it causes problems. At least the ladies here get to pick and choose a little more extensively than we do." She glanced at her audience and changed the subject again. "Well, I suppose you'll be wanting fed. After that, I'm afraid we have to move out. Time is of the essence, after all." Scowling at her own cliche, she led them out.

To be continued...and it DOES get exciting...

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