A/N: As mentioned in the previous chapter, since I prefer that all characters have names, my "Onion Knight" will be the alternate form, the silver-haired and violet-eyed Luneth. But even though Final Fantasy III's Luneth was 16 years old, whereas Dissidia's Onion Knight is 10, I will keep Luneth at 10 years old.

I – I can win this! (intro, Onion Knight fighting with low HP)

Curses! What was I going to do? I didn't have a healing potion on me, and I really needed one. Not only was I bleeding from a bad cut on my face where Sephiroth had slashed me when he kidnapped Terra, but that awful Cloud of Darkness had come along for a fight and knocked me around with her tentacles. My left side hurt so much, I wouldn't be surprised if I had a cracked rib. I wasn't even to the edge of the Lunar Subterrane yet, and it was really getting hard to walk on my twisted right ankle. But I had to keep going…I had to find help! I had to find someone who could heal me, but more importantly, I had to find someone who could help me rescue Terra.

I'd promised to protect Terra when she needed me…and I had failed her the moment Sephiroth threatened me with that scarily long sword of his.

Even when I saw what looked like a way out of the Lunar Subterrane and into another piece-of-a-world (it might've been the Rift, or at least part of it), I couldn't help but look despairingly around me. Cosmos help me, for all I knew, I could be going in completely the wrong direction! I could be running away from help instead of towards it! But there was nothing for it. I took a deep breath and plunged through the portal when I got there.

This desert-like area felt familiar, somehow…but just thinking about it seemed to roast me alive. I stopped, and with great effort, I focused my will enough to cast a Blizzard spell that would cool me off, at least for the moment. I kept going; I don't know how long I walked or how far I got.

Then there was movement out the corner of my eye. I turned, and there was a figure of a person that seemed to be moving in my general direction. Was it real, or just a mirage? And if the shape did belong to a person, did he (or she, for that matter) serve Cosmos or Chaos? Gods, I hoped it was someone who served Cosmos!

Bracing myself, I took a few more wobbly steps in the sand. It wasn't helping that the bright sun and blowing sand were making it hard to see. Walking was painful, but I would have even more sand blinding me if I tried to crawl instead of walk. And that figure…it seemed so close, and yet so far away…I had to at least find out who or what the figure was…not that I could have hidden anywhere if that shape was another enemy…

I finally climbed to the top of the dune, but then I hit my head hard just after I felt the world slip out from under my feet—

—running footsteps that got louder as they came towards me—

"Luneth. Luneth! Luneth, are you okay?"

I felt a strong arm lift me up from wherever I'd fallen as I heard that male-sounding voice, and I felt the opening of a bottle, or a canteen, press my lips in a way that urged me to open my mouth and drink. I dizzily opened my eyes. The water in the canteen was warm, but it was water when I was so thirsty, and for that I was grateful. I looked up at my rescuer to see that he wore a sleeveless dark-blue sweater with a shoulder-guard harnessed onto his left shoulder, and that he had a longish face and blond hair that stuck out in all directions like ruffled feathers. His blue eyes glowed as brightly as the gleaming desert sky…and I knew right then that he was the Warrior of Cosmos I needed most.

"Cloud!" I cried out with relief. Cloud Strife. He was the only one who could truly help me. "Thank—thank Cosmos it's you, Cloud! I—I really need—really need you to help me…"

"Calm down, Luneth. I know you're hurt and I'm here to help." Cloud was shifting, using his body to block some of the blowing sand, and reaching into his pants-pocket to pull out a small green-tinted sphere. The relief that washed over me as Cloud touched the sphere to my chin where I had been cut told me that it was a device for casting healing spells. With painful effort I removed my right boot, indicating to Cloud that I needed him to heal my ankle too. "Luneth, what happened?" he asked. "Did you get lost or attacked, or something?"

"I was with Terra—on the Lunar Subterrane," I began to explain. "We got attacked by a bunch of manikins—we beat most of them, but one of them hit Terra with a sleep spell and…" But then I choked on some sand and started coughing, making my injured left side hurt so bad that I couldn't help curling up to try and make it hurt less.

Vaguely I was aware of Cloud unbuckling my armor on the left side to get to the bruised area with his healing sphere, pulling me to sit up when he was done. "Okay, one of the manikins cast a sleep spell on Terra…then what happened?"

"Someone cast a Meteor spell and destroyed the last two manikins with it," I went on, worried because Cloud seemed scared a bit by my explanation. "I tried to wake Terra up when the manikins were gone—but that's when S…"

"You mean Sephiroth attacked you?" Cloud cut me off all of a sudden, tightening his grip on my shoulder, not needing me to say Terra's and my attacker's name.

"And he's kidnapped Terra!" I burst out, trying hard not to cry. But I was failing. "I tried to stand up to him—but he had that really big sword…" Now tears, rather than sand, blinded me and I felt like curling up and begging the desert to swallow me whole. I could never have fought an enemy with a sword that long…I didn't stand a chance!

And because I didn't stand a chance, Terra didn't stand a chance either.

"Don't cry, Luneth; none of this is your fault." Cloud was talking to me in a calm voice again as he got up and pulled me to my feet. He was trying to soothe me, but I could tell he was afraid of what would happen to Terra. And why shouldn't he be, if he's had to fight Sephiroth before? But now he bent down to my eye level again and turned my face toward his with a leather-gloved hand. "Just listen to me, Luneth. No matter what it takes, we'll find wherever it is that Sephiroth took Terra. We'll rescue Terra, and if she's injured, we'll heal her. And then I'll destroy Sephiroth for ever even looking at you, or her—and nothing, not even Chaos himself, is going to stop me!"

"Not even Chaos himself!" I repeated—and now I even smiled through my tears. Cloud's vow gave me the strength to fight again, and now I was sure. "Let's go back to the Lunar Subterrane—it seems like the best place to start looking." I had no idea where to go from there, but I knew that Cloud and I both had to keep going.

Whatever happened, we couldn't let Terra down. We had to find her.