Wow, I like writing really random crossovers… okay then. Perhaps Terminator and FFXII is really weird. This story takes place post Terminator: Salvation. For those of you who just thought this looked interesting, but don't know what Terminator is:
Terminator Summary: In the not-so-distant future, man created a self-aware military computer database known as Skynet. It eventually became smart enough to think for itself, and realized that humans were not necessary and proceeds to initiate a "nuclear holocaust" known as "Judgment Day" of mankind. The remaining humans join together to form a Resistance, led by John Connor, and are constantly under attack by humanoid machines dubbed "Terminators" while they attempt to destroy Skynet and allow humans to peacefully inhabit the Earth.
Thanks to ElTangoDeRoxanne who said she'd support me in this enterprise— hopefully the storyline is understandable, but feel free to ask any questions.
Balthier turned his face upward to the rain, pattering down upon his face, a horrible substitute for the tears he should, but could not, shed. He could not bring himself to cry, as he stood alone with Fran before Ashe's tomb, black and weather stained and forgotten. The tomb itself was a marvel of white stone, but time had not been so kind as to grace the Dynast Queen's crypt with immortal beauty. The grass, that had been so tenderly taken care of, had shriveled up and died, and spiny weeds had grown up in its place. The only thing that remained was a Desert Rose, planted by Balthier and Fran themselves. The rose had overgrown the tomb completely, but made it look several times better than if it had stood alone, naked. Nearby was Vaan's grave- a hero's buriel.
Thirty years. He had come here, this day, Ashe's dying day, to mourn her passing, for thirty years. In a month, he would visit Basch.
"Balthier?" Penelo's voice, old and feeble with age, floated to out to him. She was being pushed toward them in a hover chair by a young man of thirty years, though Balthier's lip twitched. To him, the man was still a boy, and when the man was old and withered like Penelo was now, Balthier would still look twenty eight, and call him a boy. Though, he was no longer twenty eight- he was ninety-seven. Ashe, three years his junior, had died of a disease at the age of sixty four, and none had been able to halt her passing, not even Fran. Vaan had perished of the same disease.
"Please, forgive me." The thirty year old man, Penelo's son, parked her hover chair in front of Vaan's grave. "She has delusions that she sees people she knows everywhere…"
Balthier waved off the young man's worry, instead getting to one knee in order to take her hand. He kissed the wizened skin there, dazzling her with a smile.
"It is I, Penelo." He said, brushing a few stray hairs from her face. "I trust you are well?"
"Don't say that, pirate." She croaked, a smile deepening the crevasses of her ninety-year old face. "I know you've not aged a day since you got back to normal."
"Hmm… it's true, but that doesn't stop me from desiring to know the position of your health, my dear." He smirked.
"The doctor says I'm healthy as a horse." Penelo laughed, though she swiftly dissolved into a coughing fit. Balthier felt her forehead, knowing it was far hotter to him because of his deathly cold skin, but if the flaming heat of her forehead did not warn him, the sickly sweet scent of illness did. "I know he's lying." She continued. "Alas, this is the same disease that brought down Lady Ashe and took away Vaan. There is no Cleanse spell, no medicine strong enough, to stop my passing now. It will be within the next week— I feel it in my bones."
"Fight, Penelo. Do not give me another comrade to mourn." Balthier said wearily.
"Then don't mourn for us. You would think that thirty years is enough time? Surely Ashe, Vaan, and Basch want you to move on by now?" Penelo asked, her eyes sparkling knowingly. "You're a sky pirate, and you fly. You've folded your wings and let them be tied by our mortal weights— cast them off! Fly free like the eagle you are!"
"Cheerful, are we?" Balthier bantered with her. "Where shall I fly now? The pirate king needs a new sky to conquer, and the skies of Ivalice are mine."
"You'll find it. I pray you do." Penelo said as her son came up to them.
"Mother, it is time to go. Sir," he turned to Balthier. "The Viera there says it is time for you to go as well."
"Very well." He sighed, strolling down the path toward Fran, who nodded curtly before setting off for the aerodrome.
"She told you to move on?" the Viera questioned. Balthier nodded, and she smiled. "The past is something you always had a hard time letting go of, Ffamran." Fran did not miss the way his shoulders twitched.
"I want to move on, but I feel like I would be doing them all an injustice." Balthier said.
"A thousand years from now, will you still feel that way?" Fran asked. "Will you be so loyal then?"
"Humph." Balthier growled.
Fran dusted her hands off as the last Demon Wall crumbled to dust, showering them with rubble as it exploded. Balthier waved a little gun smoke away from his head, shouldering his Fomalhaut before patting his Yagyu Darkblade to make sure it was still there.
"That was easy." He grinned, bending over the tiara hovering in the middle of the room. They had gone to the ruins found deep within the Sochen Cave Palace to claim the treasures there before anyone else could, but found that three walls of the secret chamber were not what they seemed.
Now, the treasure's guardians taken care of, they were free to loot the place.
Or so they thought. The instant Balthier took the tiara from its pedestal, Fran gave a call of warning.
"Balthier!" An orb of purple light surrounded his body, and Balthier felt a Warp spell taking hold as a fourth demon wall peeled itself from its foundations.
It was not like any Warp spell he'd ever seen, however (granted, he'd only ever seen it in the tomb of Raithwall), and it was actually forming a solid, molten sphere around him. Then, to his terror, the sphere began shrinking. After a while, the pressure became unbearable, and he was reduced to crouching on the ground, curled into a ball, to be as small as possible, but still the ball shrank.
What followed was a very uncomfortable squeezing sensation, and with a pop, he vanished into thin air.
"Balthier?" Fran called desperately, backing toward the door as the wall advanced, the ground under its claws cracking ominously. Finally, she was forced to flee, or be crushed between the door and the wall. Though she hated herself for abandoning her partner, she fled. Better to live and keep him alive by their soul link no matter where he was, than to betray him completely and die.
Balthier emerged in a sterile, brightly lit white room that could have been a hospital ward but for the large, metallic skeletons wielding mini-guns standing guard at strategic points around the room and the array of mechanical arms and computers busily running tests and statistics.
"Scanning." A cool female voice stated.
Fran had once noticed that when truly terrified, he froze in place like a frightened deer, not even breathing. He did so now as the skeletons, every single one of them, swung their guns to bear at him. A mechanical arm extended from its housing, swiveling around with a beam of light that took in every inch of his body.
"This entity contains: Metal— identifying… Gold, lead, trace metals. Also contains proteins, liquids, and fibers such as— silk. Lacks facilities for life support, however. Identification complete. Entity is not human and/or not living. Clear." The gold was the pirate medallion that served as his heart. The lead? Balthier raised an eyebrow. Probably the scanner had identified fragmented bullets that could not be fully removed from his battle scars. All that lead was probably not good for him.
To his relief and simultaneous shame, when the voice said "not human", the metal skeletons lowered their guns. The shameful bit was that he was considered "not human". He liked to think of himself as being Hume, but apparently that wasn't the case. If he was not Hume, what was he? Balthier gave the room a thief's perusing, identifying it as a kind of laboratory. Apparently, these machines had been expecting him, as there was a large arch bristling with equipment exactly over where he was standing. Not liking to be put on a pedestal, especially in a lab, he stepped down from the platform, making his way toward the door.
There was certainly and eerie feeling to this place, especially in the way that there were no people, only these metal skeletons which were also machines of some sort. The place was also a veritable maze, far more complex than any ruin or palace he'd ever been in.
"What is with this place? Where am I?" he asked nothing in particular.
Suddenly, red lights began to flash, alarms wailing. Once more, he froze as a troop of machines went clanking by, but they turned the corner without even looking at him. Eager to find a way out of the lab, he followed them.
The source of the disturbance was a small group of people who had broken into a weapons storage room. While many of them began loading crates of ammunition and guns into their bags, another group came forward to battle with the group of metal skeletons that burst into the room.
"Intruders identified as human. Authorized to terminate." The cool female voice was saying. Without any hesitation, the machines attacked.
Balthier ducked behind a wall before he could be shot to pieces when the humans opened fire, laying into the machines with a hail of bullets. Many of them found their marks, but bounced off the metal casings on the skeletons. One lucky shot found its way into a machine's throat, blasting the head off completely. The machine's body collapsed to the ground, and a man raced forward to grab its gun, leveling at another machine.
There are too many machines, and the small group is overwhelmed, opting to flee through the hole they'd blown in the wall and into the open air outside. The machines gave chase, firing their guns as they marched through the rubble.
Balthier slid after them, silent as a shadow as he stepped into the cool night. The stars winked down at him, barely dimmed by a thin veil of clouds. They were so familiar…
Then he recognized it, that starry sky, the cold white moon that he had once hated and loved with vengeance and passion.
Earth. He was back on Earth. But it was not the Earth he'd known— Will, Elizabeth, and Jack's time did not have such sophisticated machinery, and the world also did not seem to be run by machines the last time he'd been there. Were they alive, somewhere? Or had they all been murdered by these apparently human-hating machines? The place he was now was a wasteland. A few, scraggly trees attempted to grow in the rocky soil, and the twisted remains of building poked up here and there. Behind him, the laboratory rose, a spire piercing the sky like a black, ugly needle. Using his increased vision gained from his unfortunate experiences, he could pick out more machines, armed with various weapons, patrolling the building's upper extremities.
He was broken out of his reverie when a piercing scream shattered the already broken night. A robot had managed to get pass the gunfire without being blown to pieces, and had grabbed one of the men. The man struggled wildly, screaming obscenities as the machine prepared for a most certainly fatal blow, curling its dexterous metal fingers into a blunt fist. Human hating, indeed.
Even if he was not a human anymore, or so these machines seemed to think, Balthier still took the human side. He sprinted down the shallow incline, using the inhuman speed and power also gained during his unfortunate adventures to his every advantage, vanishing into a swift blur. When he tackled the machine, using his shoulder as a ram, he was going so fast that for all its weight and armor, it could not withstand the blow.
The machine relinquished the man it had been about to kill and turned on Balthier, swinging its fist at him instead. He ducked, and the machine opened its mouth in some kind of hiss. But then he saw the flame thrower nestled in the back of its throat, the orange glow flickering in its depths. Quick as lightning, Fomalhaut was off his back and the barrel shoved in the machine's mouth. Allowing himself a triumphant smirk, Balthier pulled the trigger, and the machine's head was reduced to a pile of metal scraps on the ground. With a hum, the body powered down, going limp beneath him.
A few meters away, the man who had been assaulted by the machine was being helped to his feet by a few other members of the attack force. "Are you alright?" Balthier asked. In an instant, guns were trained on him, for the second time that night.
"Stay where you are, Terminator!" Balthier blinked.
"Terminator?" he asked, though he obliged them and did not move any closer. One of the men, a big African-American, gave a hoarse chuckle.
"They get smarter all the time. DON'T PLAY DUMB WITH ME, ROBOT!" he thundered. The sky pirate stood his ground, maintaining his calm composure. "The only way you coulda taken on that robot like that were if you were one yourself." the man spat, anger stretching his accent. Balthier flinched— the man had a point. Humans did not have the ability to move at blinding speeds and the strength to tackle down three hundred odd pound machines. A robot did.
"Believe I am a machine, if you will, but then also believe that I mean you no harm. Would I have saved you if I wanted to kill you? I would have just let that machine do it for me." He said.
"This could be a trick, Barnes." One of the other men whispered to the African American, who seemed to be the leader of the group.
"I know, another attempt for the Skynet devils to get closer to John and kill him. But I'm not gonna let you do that, Terminator. I'm not letting you near John unless you're tied up with chains and chained to a wall." Barnes growled. Balthier grimaced, but nodded. All he wanted to do was get away from this lab, and then find a way to warp back to Ivalice. Staying in the lab might work, but the machines, likely having seen him destroy their robot, would probably deem him a threat and try their best to kill him. The lab was not an option.
"Then do it. Chain me up, knock me out, I care not. Just take me with you to wherever you are going. I swear I mean no harm." Balthier placed a hand on his heart.
"There's no swear with a machine binding enough." Barnes said, but nodded toward his men. One came forward with a length of steel cable, pilfered from the laboratory facility, and the other with rather large gun. The one with the gun slammed the butt of it into the back of Balthier's head, with highly undue force. Needless to say, he dropped like a rock.
Reviews are highly welcome.