//By Wonderful Failure and Julie (yaoifantasy)
//rated R for horror, gore, death, and cussing
// yaoi hints
//Disclaimer: Don't own Final Fantasy 8 (not the characters/world/etc) -- I wish, but it just isn't happening. And the movie "Pitch Black" - don't own that either. Just ~borrowing~ for creative out-lets.
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Breathing was hard with the golden dust so thick in the air. Ghostly shadows began to cough and moan, wondering to themselves why they had survived the violent crash.
The weak voices of survivors called out to others, desperate to discover if their friends had survived. Some voices spoke in English, others in Japanese.
"Shit…" Seifer murmurs, raising a shaky hand up to his right ear. It's bleeding.
Letting out an aggravated groan, Seifer stumbles, intent on getting to Squall's cyro-locker.
Cursing under his breath, Seifer drags his feet, his mind a daze after the crash had jolted him.
Raising up a bloody hand to stand himself up, Seifer peers into Squall's cyro-locker.
It's empty.
Reaching for his holster, Seifer raises his pale eyebrows in surprise at the fact that there wasn't anything there.
Gone. Torn right off his belt.
No prisoner…and no weapon…fuck, he thought, his mind pregnant with flashes of concerns.
Looking up from the high-tech compartment, Seifer's sky-blue eyes scan his surroundings area. As quiet as a Tonberry, he tries his best to find Squall's location. A prisoner with a weapon was not a good thing.
'Screeeeeeee…'
The loud metallic burn of a cutting torch sounded loudly in Seifer's ears. Looking away from his attempt at securing the area, Seifer noticed the hot blue flame burning on the door of a cyro-locker.
Must've been jammed.
Seifer watches from afar as they finally complete their work. He smirks when a small, brown-haired boy emerges from the remains of the broken cryo-locker. Stephen. He was unscathed, with eyes greener than the forests of Timber.
"Somethin' must've went wrong, huh?!" Stephen asks plainly, looking up at the person who had freed him from his temporary prison.
Seifer continues his search for his pistol, wondering to himself if Squall had somehow taken it from him.
Looking to his right, Seifer can see something behind him. In the corner of his eye, he sees two chained feet dangling in the air.
Chained feet…?
Before he could react to defend himself, Seifer's faceless assailant swung chained feet over the back of his head and around his neck, choking him with the lethal chain.
Gritting his teeth in determination, Seifer did his best to prevent his attacker from choking him. He couldn't die down now. He wasn't a weakling like that.
Powerful legs twisted angrily, forcing Seifer to writhe in pain.
The chain acted as a choke collar, and Seifer's breathing was becoming slow. He had to do something, and fast.
Reaching for his last hope of survival, his baton, Seifer got a firm grip on the small defensive stick. Swinging it up through the air, Seifer swung the baton up at…Squall.
Still locked in his old body chains and his mouth-bit. He looked down at Seifer from above, clinging to a ceiling beam for support.
He rode out the baton blows as if he weren't human. The blows kept coming, harder and harder, as Seifer's breathing became lower and lower.
Seifer was losing.
Only a few, pathetic seconds from blacking out, Seifer gives up on attacking Squall. Instead, he strains forward, frantic to escape the death-grip Squall has on him. Keeping a strong hold on the chained feet that had attacked him, Seifer pulls so hard that Squall fell from his hiding place in the metal-bound ceiling. Squall falls through the air, no use in trying to protect himself from the fall. He hits the steel floor headfirst.
Turning quicker than a Torama, Seifer shoves his baton harshly to Squall's neck, pushing it so that the convict could feel the pressure on his dry skin.
"You had one chance, Leonhart, one chance... One day one o' us is gonna get hurt, and it ain't gonna be me," Seifer growled, his sky blue eyes burning with anger, but a smirk on his lips shows his amusement. "You never cease to disappoint me…"
Looking down at his attacker with pity, Seifer sighed. He looks around the dark room, flipping on his flashlight. A bright streak of light sweeps through the dust-filled air of the cockpit. Seifer follows the beam of light with his sky-colored eyes.
The cockpit is filled with dirt. No signs of life whatsoever.
Ready to search elsewhere, Seifer turns away from Squall, but then he catches a glimpse of a spiky-haired youth in the beam from his flashlight.
"Hey," Zell calls out, his voice weak from the fear of nearly dying.
"Hey…who?" Seifer responds, raising a pale eyebrow in curiosity.
"Over here," Zell declares, trying his best to get Seifer's attention.
Seifer's light finds the back of a chair tumbled on its side, a swirl of thick dirty air twirling around it in the dark, muggy room. Crawling closer to get a better view of the survivor, Seifer checks the other side of the chair and finds him. Zell. He's nearly buried alive. There was so much fucking dirt.
"Wonderful," Seifer says. "I'm Seifer Almasy."
"Zell Dincht," Zell replies. "I'd love to shake hands, but…"
Seifer manages a meek smile and starts digging him out.
Zell looks up at the sky-eyed blonde, wondering if he could place his trust in a stranger.
"Seifer…are there any others?" Zell asks, not really sure if he wanted to hear the answer or not.
Seifer didn't answer.
After freeing Zell from his grave in the hot dirt, Seifer helped the spiky-haired youth through the ghastly carnage.
Zell's shocked by all of it…but especially by the blast of sunlight where a hull once was.
Realizing he's in the com room, Zell starts digging through the dirt like a search dog. After a few moments of digging, Zell finally uncovered…Xu.
She was still trapped to her chair. A long metal rod was piercing through her chest, close to her heart. Too close. She was dead. Feeling his eyes moisten a bit, Zell's bottom lip trembles. He couldn't believe it. Xu was…actually…dead.
Reaching out to touch his former comrade, Zell's hand is shaky as it gets closer and closer to his fallen companion.
"Out! Out, damn it! Get this goddamn thing outta' me!" Xu screams, her voice rich with pain.
Zell recoils back. Xu's still alive.
The other survivors fumble over, leading to ten full seconds of pure chaos.
"Pull it out of her!" someone cries.
"No, it's way too close to the heart…" another voice murmurs.
"If you gotta' do it, do it fast," a stranger says.
"Don't touch it! Don't you touch that fucking handle!" Xu yells.
"You'll kill her," a voice says.
"…She's probably delirious. You've gotta' have some drugs for this poor woman…" someone suggests.
"Don't touch that…fucking handle!" Xu screams.
"Aright, aright…Someone? Anyone…there's some…ah…Anestaphine in the med-lock. It's at that end of the cabin next to…" Zell glances to his right, realizing that there wasn't anything left to "that end."
In exquisite pain, Xu screams even more shrieks of pain.
Seifer looks down at Xu, a strange gaze in those sky-colored eyes of his.
A strange smile curved over Stephen's lips. It was his first time to see such raw suffering.
"Get away!" Zell cries, looking up at the people who stared in awe-struck fear. "Everybody leave! Except for Stephen. You can stay behind to watch the life seep out of Xu, if you'd like."
Seifer doubles back and grabs Stephen by the collar of his shirt. Leaving the scene of Xu's suffering, they unknowingly pass Squall, who's cuffed to a bulkhead. His eyes are still hidden by those dark goggles. Those strange, dark goggles…
Seifer and Stephen track toward the golden daylight, leaving Zell and Xu behind. The small group of survivors wandered outside, looking up at the golden air around them. The sunshine was so warm and bright around them…Almost ethereal.
Seifer looked at the survivors who stood around him. They were truly a group of rag-tag people. A dark-haired man who seemed obsessed with artifacts…A beautiful blonde escorting two young males and a younger female…A dark-haired girl with skin as white as snow…A tall man with light brown hair in a ponytail…And the12-year-old Stephen. Seifer sighed to himself.
The nine survivors looked out at the harsh land around them. The valley floor is relieved by weak hills to only one side, spiked with towers of earth. Scorching down on everything like hateful eyes are two suns. One glows red, the other yellow.
A dark-haired man named Nida forces a small smile.
"Well," he begins. "Teach me for flying coach"
Three youthful disciples fall to their knees. Two male, one female. Their eyes are moist with tears. They obviously had the shit scared out of them from that crash.
"Please…" the blonde woman, Quistis, declares. By the way the three young people looked at her with such awe, it was obvious that she was their leader of some sort. "Will someone please tell us the way to the Hyne Temple? We must know the direction in order to cleanse Gazna of his sins."
Seifer shakes his head, snapping open a compass. He lets out a groan when he sees the needle swaying awkwardly.
Xu's screams of pain finally ended…Was she dead?
Back in the ship, Zell looks at Xu with hurt eyes. His blue eyes were wet with tears, and it was evident that he wanted…and needed to cry…
Xu had died…the wound was just too bad.
He held her, not caring if her blood got onto him. He had just lost his comrade…a woman he trusted with all his heart.
Quistis made a quick motion with her hand, signaling for her followers to come together. And after a brief moment, the four of them had started their unique way of praying.
With their backs together, each of their faces signalized a different direction on the compass.
Quistis stood to the north, Nuvy to the east, Gazna to the south, and Zamzi to the west.
Climbing out from the back of the ship, Zell looks up at the survivors who were already there.
Seifer, Nida, Irvine, Rinoa, and Stephen were already there…
"There was talk about a scouting party looking for other people..." Rinoa said softly.
"No use in a scouting party…" Seifer mumbled, looking over at the tattooed blonde.
Zell turns and looks at the scar behind the ship. The huge scar cut onto the dry ground like a horrible scratch, splitting deep into the earth as far as the eye could see. Carnage of ship parts and smoke rising in the air scattered along the scar-line.
One glance at such a mark confirmed that there were no other survivors…
"I, for one, am completely grateful," Rinoa said to Zell. "The hunk-o-junk wasn't made to land like this, but... We're alive now because of ya."
"Yes, thank you ever so much," Nida said, placing his hand on Zell's shoulder.
"Yeah!" Stephen joined in. "Thanks for savin' our dicks."
"Well done," Rinoa added.
Zell held back a cringe, remembering what he'd tried to do. What he'd almost done. If it hadn't been for Xu. And now Xu was dead.
Seifer stays silent, watching the scene of thankful survivors. Thanking Zell.
Don't you touch that handle! The words of that Nav officer woman echoed through the large blonde's mind.
Seifer's eyes narrowed at the tattooed blonde, hiding a smirk behind his professional face.
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