Disclaimer: Last Halloween, a group of strangers got together over frosty pints and masked faces, thinking to themselves 'You know what? Someone really ought to have a fanfic contest to pay homage to everyone's favorite RPG characters, not to mention the scariest night of the year'. The bunch of someone's turned out to be us, and the product of fiction you're about to read is, well, the least deserving. The other entries were no less twisted (quite the opposite, in fact) and I'd urge everyone else to seek them out for yourselves. Get in contact with me if you want the URL's. This piece is rated R for course language, sexuality, and zombie violence. All characters herein are the properties of Square-Enix, except Dante and Vergil who belong to Capcom.

One Last Time, With Feeling

"You ain't just in here by yourself, boy."

Locke's head lulled to one side of where it was propped up on his fist. He wasn't altogether sure he heard the barfly the first time, or even if the straggler was addressing him at all, until the voice repeated itself. Even then, the treasure hunter's head had taken too much of a going over from his last four canters of ale to fully comprehend what it was the man was saying. Or, perhaps, it was the going over which the barfly's ale was doing on him. Either way . . .

"I'm not in the mood," he groaned.

"You'd best listen up when someone's speaking to ya, boy. There's been talk of some strange folk abroad."

The former Returner's head abruptly straightened on his shoulders when he heard that. He suddenly knew precisely who was looking to be humored, and it didn't surprise him in the least.

"Arvis, you've been in here every night since the Ruination, and every night you're muttering something about strange folk abroad. When are you going to take up a hobby?"

"I mean it this time," he replied, dauntless. "There've been some bizarre goings-on out there in the hinterlands. Carrier pigeons gots the messages to prove it too. It's something out of Daryl's Crypt I tell ya, folk with nary a breath left in their lungs or an eye in their head. They shamble about feasting on the innards of the living, and some even say they've already reached our shores. Their numbers grow every day."

Locke started to motion to the bartender for his last order, who only shook his head and muttered something about 'ten minutes ago'. With travel clothes itching and his back teeth afloat, he finally rose shakily to his feet. He was scarcely able to get a handful of gold coins onto the counter, however, when Arvis accosted him by the arm. For one fleeting instant, Locke found the eyes of the Arvis he remembered.

"You'd do well to remember my words, Locke," he warned him. "They are beyond reason, no matter what face they wear."

Locke grasped his hand in earnest before shrugging it to one side. "Thanks for the warning."

He didn't bother waiting around for a reaction, or even pausing to make sure the old man had taken stock of how little he truly cared. Locke was in need of some fresh air, and the cool night breeze of Albrook Bay would not disappoint.

"My ear!" cried a panic-stricken woman, clutching a hand to the side of her bloodied head. "Some . . . thing from the wild bit it off! And there's more of them! They're coming!"

He pushed his way passed the commotion the woman was causing, his own adrift mind state dismissing the ruckus as something trivial. He was soused, for one thing, and so the whole fuss could have very easily been imagined. She had also said something about the wild, and Locke grinned in retrospect as his thoughts returned to his favorite Veldt child. He's probably on the sauce tonight too, he uttered quietly to himself, snorting with amusement.

Making his way around the last bend between him and the inn, heartache was suddenly able to break past the barrier of his drunken stupor. That had been their rail, he thought, his and Celes' rail. It looked just as it had back on the night before first setting sail for Thamasa, a night which now seemed an entire world and whole other lifetime away. The treasure hunter took one unsteady step forward, but couldn't take another. It had been too long since they had last spoken, yet he still remembered the way she had looked at him that night, her eyes shaded with darkness and doubt toward him. And her voice. He could never forget that voice . . .

"Locke?"

Oh great, he thought, now I'm imagining 'her' as well.

"Locke, it's me! Celes!"

He only had his head halfway turned before the former general wrapped her slender arms around him. Locke wasn't altogether sure what was real or conjured anymore, but figured that this was simply too sweet a mirage to shirk away from. The scent of her was impossible to resist.

"Cel . . ." Her name was a strangled sob, barely able to escape from his throat. "It's really you."

"Of course it's me. Are you okay?" She sniffed at the air around him. "Have you been drinking?"

He pursed his lips at the question, feigning sobriety. "Oh, no. I mean, one or two . . . here and there. But, uh, not . . ."

She put a finger to his lips, and he was silent. "I thought I'd never see you again. I've missed you."

"Really," he said, sounding unconvinced. "And . . . what about all that talk . . . about finding yourself out there . . . fighting the good fight, and all that."

She seemed visibly shaken from his response. Celes was a woman who had been a soldier most of her life. She had flirted with disaster, held hands with pain, befriended the Reaper himself. And yet, when it came to affairs of the human heart, she was ever at her most vulnerable. When Locke picked up on this from the look in her eyes, he started to soften.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I'm just . . . I'm stupid."

"I wasn't ready for you then," she told him, moving closer, "I wasn't ready for us. But things have changed, I've changed. I know where it is I belong now."

"Oh?" Locke felt a shortness of breath as their lips drifted mere inches away from each other. "And where would that--"

He abruptly found himself uttering half-words between the seal of her lips. So deep and passionate was her kiss that the treasure hunter found himself melting into her arms with no hesitation whatsoever. All sense of time and reason faded, all sense of self, all sense of everything but the feel of her moist, full lips sucking and lapping against his own. The moment lasted for both an eternity and a heartbeat, leaving them both fighting for air when it was over.

Her labored breath warmed his face, while her nose grazed along the sides of his own. "Say something."

The backs of their hands teased one another's face, seeking some other frontier to explore.

"So what are you doing tonight?" he finally asked her.

She smiled...

One tossed the other almost violently into the oak walls of the inn, their hands fumbling in a frenzy across each other's body, kisses running untamed across one another's face and neck. Celes held nothing back, half-removing and half-ripping the sleeves of Locke's jacket from his arms. Impaired though Locke might have been, they had waited too long, far too long. And neither of them had even reached his room yet!

Hair awry and already perspiring heavily from their treacherous ascent up the inn's stairwell, their need for release suddenly made them tear into each other's clothes like two people possessed. Buttons flew directionless and fabric gave way as Celes shoved the treasure hunter against the wall, raining moist kisses down along the ripples of his bare chest. Locke felt the room start to spin, already dizzy as he shucked what was left of his tunic. Then, he moved to untie the knot in his bandana. Celes stopped him.

"No," she hissed between kisses. "Leave it on."

She rose back to full height, again kissing him long and hard. Her tongue wrestled and spiraled around his own, and Locke felt braver. The Magitek Knight let out a startled murmur as her breasts suddenly fell free from her corset.

"Oh God . . ." she started to say, but Locke lulled her into silence.

It took every ounce of strength she had to steel herself against the agonizing slowness of the relic hunter's touch. While she fought her own losing battle, Locke's hands wandered - probing the firm curves of her supple body, his fingers only acutely aware of the places where she felt the most exquisite pleasure. Her arms seem to hang outstretched by her sides for the briefest of moments, as though unsure as to where she was supposed to put them. Then, they moved again, forcing the belt around his waist out from the loops of his pantaloons.

"Now," she growled, jerking the belt towards her and the treasure hunter with it. A grin spread across her face as she felt the muscles of his pelvis stiffen against her thigh. "No more waiting."

"What will it mean for us if we do?" he asked, catching even himself off guard with such an unusual question.

It was not a question that invited any honest answer. Celes knew. He was just getting nervous again. So she swallowed what was left of her own fear, letting the last of her own garments slide soundlessly down her legs.

"Make love to me . . . thief."

And with that one retort, that one 'word', their passion reignited with a vengeance. Locke's lips met hers as they descended upon the bed. Things stopped happening of their own accord, driven now only by desire and the pure, motorized instinct that came with it. Locke took her hands into his own, their lips never parting, never slowing. Body and soul became joined, thought and energy converged. Sweat beaded across the vision of both in a frantic cascade as their tender moment's tempo culminated.

And then, Celes screamed - in terror.

"What? What is it?" Chest heaving and muscles quivering, Locke stared down at his better half in stark confusion. "Come on, it couldn't have been that bad."

"Locke . . ."

She gestured with her chin towards the door, throwing a sheet across her bare chest in the process. In the heat of their moment, neither had apparently heard their door getting broken into until the snarl of some pasty-faced woman accompanied the sound. Turning askance, Locke recognized her as the same woman who had complained earlier in the alley about getting attacked in the wild.

"Don't you got an ear to look for?" he growled in annoyance.

The woman said nothing, only lunged for the bedded couple where they lay.