Two.
Squall had not been feeling himself lately, and he was fairly certain that most of it had to do with Rinoa. It was hard for anyone else to notice the changes in her recently, how she wasn't quite herself anymore, just as he wasn't himself. Squall knew that he wasn't the one guiding this change-- sure, he clung to Rinoa like a survival blanket at times, but if he was going to be smothered by something, he preferred it to be her.
A small part of him hated the power she held over him.
The other parts of him belonged to a Knight and therefore to her entirely. When she said she was leaving, that tiny bit of his own pride allowed him to let her leave. She wasn't going to stay away, he knew. She never did.
It didn't help the fact that she wasn't there. She wasn't there.
With a snarl, Squall pitched his phone against the wall and resisted the urge to let his fist follow it. It was obsessive, it was crazy. But she wasn't there and it was driving him to do insane things. He left the room and paced angrily.
He couldn't feel her around. It was like he'd been cut adrift in the ocean.
Squall wasn't generally prone to freaking out, but she wasn't there. Moving around the house did absolutely nothing to make him feel closer to her. He'd paced every room countless times like a hungry, caged lion. His head was swimming by the time he made it back to the bedroom to clean up the bits of phone.
A sudden pain exploded in Squall's head, driving him to his knees.
And then the world melted away from him.
xx
"Squall...wake up."
Her voice was gentle. The sharp, jarring pain against his ribcage was not.
"Wake up, Squall."
Something kicked him in the ribs again, and he rolled onto his back, forcing his eyes open. "Rinoa?" he mumbled, his voice sounding scratchy and disused, as if he hadn't spoken for a long, long time.
"It's alright, Squall. It's time to get up."
Sharp nails dug into his forearms, and Rinoa hauled him to his feet. He stood, warily, and she let go. When he looked down at his arms, Squall realized that she had drawn blood.
"Rinoa, what's--"
She smiled at him, and it was Ultimecia's smirk that stretched across her lips. "It's time to start fresh," Rinoa said, and when she lifted her hand to brush a lock of hair out of his face, the soft blue knit of her armwarmer glided against his cheek, and her thoughts were just as feather-soft at the edges of his mind. It's time for a new world.
He blinked at her, his mouth half-open to ask her what the hell was wrong, but she kept her eyes fixed on him, and he found that he couldn't speak. Suddenly and with perfect, calming clarity, Squall's whole purpose stretched before him. It was a humble, simple existence behind the attention.
He would stand to protect her ideals and her glory and her needs. Squall would do what he wanted to do in the long run. Melt away into the greater good. He would melt away for her, and do anything she needed him to do.
He was her Knight, her protector and she forever commanded his loyalty.
The world wasn't any of Squall's concern, it never had been. He was always driven to do what needed to be done. He could feel in his soul what was important in the world.
Now his world was so simple. All he needed was what he had, Ultimicia was Rinoa, and she was his world.
Good boy.
Rinoa's smile widened, and almost immediately, it disappeared. Her eyes narrowed-- for a moment, it felt as if she was looking through him.
"There are others here," she said, her voice gone absolutely cold. "Find them."
She turned away, the trailing end of her bright blue duster fluttering behind her, and his Sorceress disappeared into the inky black shadows.
xx
When Ellone opened her eyes, she couldn't see anything.
There was only darkness surrounding her, and an ache in the back of her head, almost like she'd eaten ice cream too fast. Her temples were pounding with her heartbeat, and when she raised a hand to run her fingers over her hairline, she was at least pleased she had control over her limbs. Her other hand was lying on something cold and hard- stone tiles, she determined, after feeling around a bit and letting her palms lay on the mortar.
She didn't know what had happened, but she remembered the explosion of color and then--
--Rinoa.
Ellone turned over, ignoring the pangs of pain that ran down through her arms, and pushed herself up onto her hands and knees. She needed to know where Rinoa was. If she'd somehow lost control of her power, or sent her flying into the past, there was no telling what could happen, and the younger girl had been so unstable in Ellone's kitchen anyway...
Ellone swallowed hard. She still couldn't see anything, so any hopes that her night vision simply hadn't adjusted yet were gone. Wherever she was, it most definitely was not the hardwood of her apartment, and the realization gave her a twisting sensation in her stomach. Something bad had happened, something very, very bad, and she didn't know what it was. She didn't know where she was, or where Rinoa was.
And the worst part was that she could still feel the tingles in the back of her mind. She was still connected to something, and she couldn't sever it. Whatever she was doing subconsciously, it was trickling over now, and the consequences--
--she had to push the thought from her mind. It was too disastrous to think of what could happen with her mind still connected to the ribbons of time and Rinoa's Sorceress abilities out of control.
She had to find Rinoa. That was the most important thing.
Ellone steadied herself, and stood up.
xx
His first thought was that the chick from the bar must've slipped something into his beer. Seifer blinked hard against the dusty air as he opened his eyes, and found himself not on the world's most uncomfortable mattress, but flat on his back against stone. He stared in blank incomprehension at absolutely nothing for a long moment.
"Son of a bitch..."
He held out his hand in front of his face, and discovered that he couldn't see it.
"...Who's there?" A woman's voice, slightly breathless, moderately panicked, and sounding very familiar. Where the hell did he know that voice from?
Seifer swore again, and sat up, wincing at the sharp pain in his spine. Never again, no more Trabia fire whiskey, never fucking again. Gingerly, he ran his fingers over the back of his skull. They came away clean--at least he hadn't busted his head open on the stones.
"Seifer?"
He turned his head carefully. "Give the girl a prize."
Ellone pursed her lips to show that she was decidedly not pleased, but he couldn't see the action anyway. He sounded, for the most part, like she felt-- haggard, and in a bit of pain. The idea of not being alone had more merit than anything else had so far-- even if it was with perhaps the most uncooperative person she could have been stuck with.
"Where are we?" he asked, and she wished she had an answer for him.
"I don't know," she answered honestly, for there seemed to be little use for lying when it was clear neither had any idea of wherever-- and, she thought with a shudder, whenever-- they were. "It's-- I think it's a room of some kind."
"Brilliant," he quipped, and she bit back a scathing retort, and instead busied herself with feeling along the walls and floors, hoping that her palms would eventually graze over a crack or a portal rather than more mortar and tiles. It seemed to be a lost cause without a light source, for she couldn't see if she was moving in a circle or not, and the room could extend for miles and she wouldn't know it.
"We need to find a way out," she told him. "We need to find Rinoa."
"Rinoa?" he asked, and she didn't care for the way his voice went cold.
Seifer got to his feet, and then abruptly, Ellone could make out his heavy boots stomping away from her.
"Wait!"
The boots stopped, and with the absence of sound, Ellone moved tentatively in the direction that she thought he had gone. "Do you have a lighter or something?" she asked.
"I didn't know Leonhart's sister smoked," he said with mocking accusation, and she could hear the smirk in his tone. Ellone frowned.
"To see which way we're going," she informed him, taking a few more steps sort of in his direction, and running smack into him. "Sorry."
A glowing blue square appeared out of the darkness to her right, and Ellone nearly jumped. Seifer chuckled near her ear-- he had never been this much of a jerk, had he? He tilted the cell phone so that he could see the screen.
"I don't have much power, but it'll do."
There was a scuffling nearby, and Seifer whirled away from her, moving the phone out of Ellone's field of view. It was very black again.
"Who's there?" Seifer called, his voice challenging.
xx
The blue spot of light came closer to her, and it was then that Yuna was convinced that this was the Farplane.
The pyrefly stopped, a bit away from her face, and Yuna stared at it. She didn't recall pyreflies having numbers on them, nor them being shaped like blocks. She must have hit her head harder than she thought. On the one hand, it meant she probably wasn't dead. On the other...
"I am Yuna," she said, schooling her voice in the way that Sir Auron had shown her. "I am the high summoner from Besaid."
The man's voice was dry, sarcastic. "Summon us a fucking candle or something, then," he replied. He sounded like Gippal-- all barbs and wit.
Yuna nodded, and doubted that he could see the motion. "Stand back," she said, and held out her hand. She didn't know if she could hold it for very long, like Lulu could, but at least it would give them a moment of light. Give her a moment of light.
The light that erupted around her was far, far more than she had anticipated, and for a long moment, Yuna was convinced that the sudden jerking sensation she'd felt had altered her magical abilities. It took her a second to find that the light was not coming from between her cupped palms as she had anticipated– instead, it was coming from the space next to her, the open area which had previously been completely black.
There was a young woman there, smiling in a slightly smug manner with one hand outstretched, fingers curled back around a glowing ball of fire that gave the room a distinctly orange glow.
"I've got it," the newcomer said, and Yuna dropped her hands back down to her sides. The woman with the light glanced to her side and took in the two others, the sarcastic one and the smaller girl, without much surprise. If she was shocked at all by the strange surroundings, or the oddity of not knowing anyone else, she did not show it. "You wouldn't happen to have an explanation for all of this, would you?"
"You– are you a Sorceress?" the girl with the blue sweater asked. She sounded worried, and Yuna did not miss the emphasis on the last word.
"Something like that," the girl with the light said dryly.
xx
Ellone was not pleased.
It was obvious that something terrible had happened as a result of her and Rinoa's ability test– the two newcomers seemed to be just as confused as they were, and particularly odd. The girl with the brown hair was wearing strange clothing, her shirt adorned with a symbol Ellone did not know the meaning to, and the girl with the light had hair the color of molten emeralds that curled in waves around her shoulders. They both gave off the distinct feeling of magic, making the ribbons bend and jerk around them, but neither seemed particularly dangerous.
"Seifer, you can close your phone now," Ellone said, gesturing to the now overpowered blue glow from his cell. "I don't think they're going to hurt us."
"You don't think," he said, sneering. "I'm so glad you're here to tell me these things."
"Watch it," the girl with the green hair said, and Ellone didn't want to press anything as long as she had the fire still contained in the palm of her hand. She might not be a Sorceress– not in the same way Rinoa was, for Ellone didn't feel the same essence of magic coming from them, but she had a great deal of power. They didn't need more enemies, the situation was enough of one.
"We need to find a way out," Ellone said, deciding that since the situation was half her responsibility, she should probably step up.
"I don't even know where we are," the girl with the fire said, and tilted her head to one side. "Where are we?"
Seifer's eyes narrowed as he completed his look around the room, thanks to the green-haired girl's light. Ellone sighed. She had a feeling that he knew something the rest of them didn't.
"Seifer?"
"Ultimecia's castle," he said darkly, and turned away from them, heading for a set of massive doors. Ellone took a deep breath, then moved after him.
"Seifer!" she called.
What on earth had she done?