Author's Note: Ha…you thought I would never come back, did you? Well, for a while I thought I wouldn't. It wasn't because of the reviews, it wasn't because I had writer's block, it was purely stress and anxiety. Oh…and the fact that I ran out of ideas. But then the idea for Outbreak came back. I got the idea while reading Lethally Hot over in the Yu-Gi-Oh fanfiction section. Go read. It's really good. But you have to search for it, because the author hasn't updated in a while. So..uh..let me run over the logistics of this ficcy.

Summary: It is several years after the eruption of Iifa and the final recession of the mist. As of lately, Gaia is in a state of relative peace, but someone holds a deadly secret. In mere days, the Forgotten Continent and the Mist Continent are seized by a mysterious illness with symptoms that no one has ever seen before. And then, it strikes down Kuja as he comes back from a business trip. In order to save him, the FF9 group must travel into the mind and body of a killer…and survive.

Rating: This chapter is PG-13, but the next chapter won't. Please, please, tell people about this fic if you like it. Because it's hard to see once I change the rating to R. Enjoy!

Prelude~Black Sunrise

Normal Point of View:

          It was a quiet, still morning in the tall marches of the Qu's. For Quan and Quina, this was the best type of morning to catch delicious green frogs. Yes, Quina thought to himself. It would be a good morning for a good breakfast. He glanced up at the seagulls ahead with his tongue lolling out of his mouth. Seagulls would be lovely too. But they be too far. Quina won't catch up.

          He shook his head somewhat as Quan stepped through the march grasses. Quina wiggled his toes in the mud, reveling at how good it felt. He continued wiggling his toes until Quan stopped some paces ahead.

          "Gods, look at all the frogs!"

          At the sound of his voice, Quina came running…and tripped. He fell face first into muddy/bloody water and sat up. Lying in front of him was the carcass of a crane. In the crane's mouth was a bloody frog. As he glanced around, this same scene was repeated tenfold.

          "What happened here? The frogs…they all spoiled."

          The slight movement in the crane in front of him caught his attention.

          "Quina, get up!" Quan shouted.

          Curiousity kept Quina's eyes transfixed on the carcass as it opened up…and squirted blood in his face. A scream…

I'll show you Gaia

I'll show you all…

And watch as you bleed your insides out.

There won't be anyone alive that can stop…

The outbreak…

Dali~Gaia

Noonday

Zidane:

          Somehow, I could never get tired of coming back to Dali. I mean Alexandria was an excellent city, but I would be there for the rest of my life. Dagger didn't seem to think so. Whenever I'd mention it, she would give me a look and ignore me. I suppose she knew as well as I did that our whims would keep us far away from Alexandria. Maybe that's why she stayed home. I placed my hands behind my neck as I walked down the cobblestone path, dodging little children along the way. It was time for the annual children's festival down here.

         I found it funny that just a few years ago, parents wouldn't let children play outside with all the mist. Ah, but the mist was the thing of the past. And it would stay in the past. Heh, that sounds like something Kuja would say. As of late, he's been really artistic while confined to the castle. Well, he wasn't confined now, thanks to me. Sure, I spent a few weeks in the guest bedroom because of it, but it made Kuja very happy. So much so that he painted a picture of us and hung it up in the front foyer.

          Ha, ha, it still looks good. I wondered where he was now. He said he had somewhere to be today. I turned the corner and continued my long deliberate stroll down the street. Children ran past me with balloons trailing, chattering excitedly about a dog they found in the street. Normally, I would have continued on with my business of walking down the street, but I was curious. As far as I've heard, curiosity never killed the genome. And so, I followed the children down the street until we reached a small crowd.

          "Alright, step aside," I said calmly, expecting to find a dead ooglop or something.

          The crowd of kids parted with a gasp revealing the bloody carcass of a kid and a dog. Both looked like they had been through hell and back.

          "Holy s…er…I mean crap! Listen kids, I want you to get the mayor quickly and go back home to your mothers!"

          A chorus of 'Aw…' greeted me almost immediately. I hate kids.

          "Now!" I shouted.

          The children gasped and ran down the street, leaving me alone with the dead. I knelt down and poked the small child. Somehow, I doubted the dog had committed such an atrocity.

          "Zidane Tribal."

          I turned around with a grim look on my face. It was Dali's Mayor…whom I tastefully disliked.

          "What happened here?"

          "Some children found it. I sent them home."

          "Do you think it was the dog?"

          I glanced back at the gruesome sight although it hurt my stomach to.

          "No. I think it was something else. I don't want to make it seem like I'm trying to run your town, but you need to cancel the children's festival just in case."

          The mayor's face turned beet red.

          "I can't cancel that. It will damage the town's reputation!"

          This was like talking to a brick wall. Literally.

          "Right, fine," I muttered as I walked past him.

          I'm no science genius, but I could tell something was unnatural about that child's death. I had a bad feeling about it…

Author's Note: Lemme know what you think. You know what to do.