The Outlaw of Madain Sari
Adventures of Fenrir

Hi guys! Another update! So, this story would have been up yesterday but I wrote like three chapters and realizing I was getting waaay out of characterization so I re-did all of the dialogue and most of the description to fit everyone. I don't know why I went so out of character...ugh. Probably just a bad day or something. Anyway, HOPEFULLY, we're all up to speed and Eiko sounds like Eiko, Blank sounds like Blank, etc. By the way, I enjoy criticism of any kind and my main obsession is characterization so, if I get out of character, PLEASE TELL ME!

As usual, feel free to flame. I don't care XD It's not everyone's cup of tea.

I am motivated to finish this story! So, expect updates! And this one's a longer chapter. Yaaayyy. haha.

VII
Unmasked

When they got onto the airship dock and onto Alexandria, they saw no one. That's never a good sign. They all looked at each other and no one said a word, but they all were thinking the same thing.

Where were all the guards?

Normally, there were around twelve guarding the airship dock. They were gone. And that could only mean one thing. The guards were off defending a…problem.

Running into the throne room, they hear a scream. This causes them to run even faster. "That was Dagger's scream," Eiko exclaims as she runs even faster.

"Are you going to explain to me just how exactly you know the queen?" Blank yelled, huffing and puffing. Eiko and Marcus exchanged glances. "Marcus knows?" Blank stops running and Marcus and Eiko, unhappily, stop, as well. "Tell me what's going on, right now."

"Do you want me to tell you before or after Dagger gets slaughtered?" she yelled at him. Blank glared at her with a look that said 'then tell me quickly'. Eiko groaned. "The jewels he's after are the final jewels of Alexander, which are equipped by Dagger. She'll die along with thousands of others if he gets what he wants!"

Without another word, Marcus and Eiko ran extra fast to make up for lost time and Blank followed closely behind, trying to put all the pieces together but, obviously, failing. Thank God Tantalus men were not left brained or Eiko's identity would have been revealed so quickly.

What Eiko saw when they arrived was something she was not expecting. There were guards on the ground, bleeding, including, she noticed, none other but Steiner. Eiko felt her jaw clenching. Sure, Rusty was a pain in the ass back in the old days, but he was on her team. They'd been through a lot. It only got worse. In the middle of the room was Zidane, guarding the body of Queen Garnet who was lying on the ground, bleeding but breathing.

Gilgamesh was at the top of the stairs with a bow and arrow standing next to Lani, whose axe was stained with fresh blood. Eiko could have gagged at the sight.

"Let go of my son, you son of a bitch!" Zidane yelled at Gilgamesh. Eiko looked up and, sure enough, Gilgamesh had a dagger at the throat of young eight year-old Prince Leon, who was staring at his father in horror.

"Give me the jewels," Gilgamesh demanded.

"What jewels?" Zidane demanded.

"Don't!" Eiko screamed and the trio ran towards the group. Zidane looked back and seemed somewhat surprised, seeing his two buddies and the new kid here.

Zidane frowned. "To hell with you, he's got my son. Blank, control your recruit!" he yelled.

"He'll kill THOUSANDS of people if you give him that, Zidane," Eiko yelled.

"Don't act like you know me!" he boomed. Eiko opened her mouth in agony but no words came out. No, Gilgamesh couldn't have them all…

"Ah…Fenrir," he said with a slight smirk. "So glad you could join us. I see you got my letter." Everyone looked at Eiko and her jaw clenched. "Looking for something?" he asked with a small grin. Gilgamesh made a small kick to the bag that lay on the ground in front of him and Eiko's eyes went to it. It must have her flute in it.

"I didn't come for that," she said, sure of herself.

"Of course you didn't. I was just taking safety precautions in case you didn't value the life of your friends."

"He's not my friend," Zidane snapped.

This caused Gilgamesh to laugh and Eiko was emotionless. Clearly, the irony was too much. "I'm afraid I have no patience for this, Fenrir." Eiko watched as Gilgamesh began to dig the blade further into the neck of the boy and Eiko gritted her teeth in terror.

"You four-armed bastard!" Blank yelled. "He's just a kid! Even I know not to rob a child!"

"Gilgamesh, you idiot! That summon is more powerful than Odin and Bahamut combined! You want them so badly; you might as well steal a coffin while you're at it!" Eiko screamed. Gilgamesh only laughed. Of course he wouldn't take this threat seriously. Who would?

"The jewels or he dies, kid," Gilgamesh assured. Eiko cursed under her breath, trying to come up with something. But how could she get close to him without Gilgamesh slicing Leon's throat?

All of a sudden, Eiko felt a grab at her leg. It was Dagger. Eiko looked down at her with tears in her eyes. Dagger had a large gash in her stomach that was bleeding badly and as she looked up at Eiko, she held her hand out. It had the two jewels. Eiko bit her lip. No…she couldn't. She couldn't give these to Gilgamesh!

"Please," she begged. Eiko expressed a momentary look of pity towards the injured Queen. Eiko didn't really know what it was like to have your child in danger. Her thoughts went briefly to her father, Regent Cid, back in Lindblum. Did he think she was dead? How did he take her disappearance. If Eiko ever had a child who did that…she tried to put herself in their shoes. This needed to stop. Leon was more important right now. She could deal with everything else later; even if Gilgamesh identified her, publicly. With a sigh, Eiko grasped her hand around the jewels.

Marcus grabbed her shoulder. "You can't."

"I must," she hissed. "I have a plan. Somehow…get Leon back while taking one of the jewels. And at the same time, get Gilgamesh the hell out of here. I don't know-" Marcus and Blank shared a mutually strange look and gazed forward at the scene ahead of them. Marcus put a hand on her shoulder.

"Leave it to us, Princess," he whispered, very quietly, in her ear. She had no choice but to trust them.

Zidane looked from Dagger to Eiko in disbelief. "What, you give me two fake ones, then? What the heck, Dagger?" Dagger didn't respond. She was simply staring at the man who had her son captive.

"Fine," she said, loud enough for Gilgamesh to hear her. "I give you these on the promise that you will let Leon go! Your word?" she commanded.

Gilgamesh smirked. "My word." Gilgamesh may be a thief, but he understood deals. He would keep to it, strangely enough. Slowly walking, Eiko made her way towards Gilgamesh who looked slightly pleased with himself. "I knew you'd come," he winked. Eiko scrunched her face together. "First, you give me the jewels, kid."

With a sigh, Eiko slowly held her palm out revealing the final Alexander jewels. There was a large gulp at her throat and when she looked at the others for at least approval, she saw that Blank and Marcus were already gone. Blinking, she tried not to draw attention to herself. To their disappearance.

Gilgamesh grabbed her wrist hard, causing Eiko to whimper a bit, and once he carefully examined them and verified them to be authentic, took them and then lifted her wrist up, turning it around and kissing the top of her hand. Eiko tried to make him let go, but he held it tight.

"Get your lips off my hand, you sick piece of-"

"I will have you back, my sweet," he smirked. With that, he shoved Leon into her grasp and she grabbed him with her other hand. Leon clung to her like an older sister and Eiko backed away slowly. Gilgamesh was staring at the scene with amusement, probably deeming the boy to be a coward. Eiko had to protect him.

The rest happened so fast that Eiko was proud she was able to keep up. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Marcus grabbed Leon and handed her her angel flute. Gilgamesh looked at the scene in outrage and, while he was distracted, Blank snatched at least one of the jewels out of his hand and made his way out. Before he or Lani could go after them, Eiko screamed, backing up.

"Go!" she yelled. Blank and Marcus were tending to Leon and Zidane was carrying Dagger out of the throne room. Eiko quickly played her flute summoning her favourite summon. Fenrir.

Along with the howl from a wolf, the ground started to shake and Eiko began to run. But something happened. A huge pounding pain came into her forehead and Eiko screamed, falling to the floor, clutching her forehead. Her forehead felt like it was on fire as the entire summon was performed. As the huge fist came out of nowhere and punched Gilgamesh and Lani into the air, barely missing Eiko by inches, it felt like needles were digging into her skin. Her fists clenched through the pain.

Everything was quiet. Her eyes were almost squinted shut as she saw members of the group coming over to her. Marcus kneeled down next to her with his hand around her shoulder.

"What happened? Are you okay?" he asked, worried.

Eiko coughed, blood coming out of her mouth. She felt the spot where her horn was with her index finger and winced, reacting similar to what would happen if you touched a recently burned injury.

"I'm fine," she murmured, coughing slightly. "Just a small reaction to the amputation. It's not quite healed yet." She rubbed her forehead with the palm of her hand until she was brought back into reality. "The jewel?" A hand was instantly in front of her. A patched up hand appeared with a small crystal in it causing Eiko to smile. "Good to know your many years in Tantalus have not gone to waist, Blank. Ugh," she said, interrupting her thoughts with another jabbing heart throbbing pain in her forehead. "Damnit!" she cursed.

"Damnit!" Leon repeated. Everyone looked at him and started laughing.

"Sorry," Eiko murmured. "Not like he wouldn't have picked it up from Zidane, anyway."

Speaking of Zidane. When she released the hold on her palm and got a proper look at him, Zidane was staring straight into her eyes, making her feel a bit uncomfortable. Before anything else could be said, Zidane had tackled her into a very tight bear hug, stroking her hair softly with his left hand.

"I thought you were dead," he said. Marcus and Dagger were smiling, warmly, at the interaction while Blank and Leon sat there staring blankly. They had no idea what was going on. Zidane released Eiko and he immediately began to finger to where her horn was.

"Surprise," she said with a light-hearted smile.

"What happened?" he asked, desperately.

"I amputated it," she told him like it was nothing. Taking her back pack off of her back (yes, she still has her pack all this time), she reached in towards the bottom and pulled out something: her summoner's horn. She handed it to Zidane. "I thought I'd keep it. For memories sake."

Blank began to grow impatient. "Does everyone here know something I don't know?"

Zidane smirked. Marcus held out a hand for Eiko as she stumbled up and Zidane attended to Garnet, putting her arm around his shoulder.

"You didn't tell him?" Zidane asked with a smile.

"I didn't tell him, either," Eiko said, pointing to Marcus. "I don't even want to know how you found out, actually," she said with a small laugh to Marcus who returned it. Marcus was the one who had bandaged her chest up after she had been poisoned. Yeah, she definitely didn't want to know.

Blank was growing impatient. "Blank," Zidane said. "Meet Princess Eiko."

Blank's jaw slightly dropped. He studied Eiko, squinting at her. "You're the missing princess?"

"In the flesh," she said, not very proud. "Though, Fenrir was kind of growing on me."

Thanks goes out to Midnight the Black Fox, Lady of the Semicolons, Terra Cloud, and Janny-chan for reviewing. Thank you so much! I don't think I've credited reviewers before so...that is my credit. Thank you!

Special thanks goes to sup3rl0z3r for coming back even when I leave and for giving me advice in and out of this story. If you get a chance, check out her profile and read some of her stuff. She is a great writer!

Also, I got inspired to write this story from a story that Lady of the Semicolons wrote. Check out hers as well and special thanks to Lady for inspiring me!

Thanks again everyone! Your past, present and future support means a lot. And thank you to all the shy people who read this but don't leave a review. haha. XD