FINAL FANTASY VII-VIII
TWO WORLDS
AN:Well this is a bit longer than I was expecting. Still, I think it came out way better than the last chapter. Of course as usual I hope you all enjoy it.
Chapter 12
"We'll be arriving in Balamb in fifteen minutes." The driver spoke, and Squall nodded his understanding.
He double-checked his weapon to make sure it was ready. Aside from training he had not used this weapon once since Ultimecia. The chambers were all loaded, and seemed in good condition. The trigger didn't appear to be stuck, or to loose.
Satisfied that his weapon would not fail him, he looked between his various companions. He was glad to have Irvine and Selphie along. The two worked together remarkably well, between Irvine' sharpshooting and Selphie's skill with para-magic the two could best almost any monster.
Then there was Quistis. She could keep her cool in almost any situation, and had good leadership skills, even if she did let her emotions get the better of her from time to time. If Squall ever stepped down, he was confident that Quistis would be the ideal person to replace him.
He couldn't help a slight scowl when his eyes turned to Rinoa. He knew she was powerful. Her abilities as a sorceress meant that in terms of magical ability she was by far the most powerful person in SeeD, maybe the world. But he still didn't want her on this mission. It would be extremely dangerous he knew, any mission that involved a lack of information generally was. The only reason he hadn't argued the point was because he knew she wouldn't back down, and it would make her angry which would make teamwork that much harder.
Deciding it was best to think of something else, Squall now turned his attention to Cloud. What did he know about this blond swordsman? He seemed to carry a sense of guilt, and was very serious. What troubled Squall was the mans connection with Sephiroth. He hadn't said what caused it, and Squall hadn't asked, yet. He wondered now if such information could be important. He decided to find out.
"Cloud." Squall said.
"Hm?" Cloud looked at Squall.
"We have a few minutes until we arrive, why don't you tell us how you know Sephiroth." Squall invited.
Cloud blinked in suprise, then leaned back as his face took on a stony expression. "In my world, Sephiroth was considered a hero. He was known as the strongest SOLDIER."
"SOLDIER?" Selphie asked.
"It was an elite military organization. Anyway, as a child I looked up to Sephiroth as sort of an idol. I joined the army in the hopes of being like him. One day we were sent to my hometown of Nibelheim along with another SOLDIER named Zack, who was a friend. During the mission Sephiroth learned that he was created with an experiment and went insane, burning the town. Zack tried to stop him, but failed. I managed to take Sephiroth from behind and he fell into a pit." Cloud explained.
"I assume Sephiroth survived." Rinoa said.
Cloud nodded. "Thats right. Some time later Zack died and I inherited his weapon." Cloud gestured to the Buster Sword on his back. "Five years later Sephiroth returned, intent on obtaining godhood. My friends and I tried to stop him, and confonted him. During the battle a massive spell was released form inside the planet, and as near as I can tell thats what brought Sephiroth and myself from our own world, to yours."
The others began muttering amongst themselves, once they were satisfied that Cloud had finished. But Squall strongly suspected the blond was not being entirely honest. He didn't doubt the blonds words, but he suspected he was leaving something out. Based on the look she had, Quistis had reached a similar conclusion. Squall met her gaze, and the two silently agreed that it would be best to worry about it later.
A moment of silence passed before the car began to slow, and the driver spoke. "Holy shit."
Squall rose to his feet and moved forward to look through the windshield. Outside there was blood splattered everywhere, and a couple of badly torn corpses. A man whose face had become severely elongated, and his hands turned into like whiplike appendages was trying to force its way through the garage door of the car-rental shop. Some mechanics on the other hand were trying to keep the creature out by forcing the door closed. One of the whip-like arms lashed out, and Squall saw a spray of blood.
Cloud cast a glance past Squall's shoulder, saw the same thing, and moved like a lightning bolt to the car door and sprang out otno the street, the Buster Sword almost seemed to materialize in his hand.
"Hey!" The blond shouted, gaining the creatures attention. It whirled and charged towards him with incredible speed, arms whirling into a deadly frenzy. Cloud braced himself, and met the things charge, swinging his sword down diagonally. The creatures arms whipped around entangling the blade and nearly wrenching it out of Cloud's hand, while the tips lashed out at Cloud's head so fast that he was barely able to duck in time.
With a snarl, Cloud slammed his foot into the former humans stomache knocking it off balance, then shoved forward with his blade impaling it through the chest. Black goo and rotten sludge gushed form the wound, but despite the damage the creature was still alive. One of its arms wrapped around Cloud's neck and lifted him up while the other flicked out in an effort to slice into Cloud's stomache. Seeing the incoming attack, Cloud brought his sword around to bat the limb aside.
By this point the others had all exited the vehicle, weapons in hand. Irvine raised his gun, and fired. The bullet tore through the arm that held Cloud up, and the creature dropped Cloud to the ground as its arm dangled limply, and a pained shriek emerged from its throat.
No sooner did the blonds feet hit the ground than he pivoted, bringing the flat of his blade crashing into the creatures head so hard that it exploded into a spray of gore. The creature stumbled for a minute, then fell dead. A moment of silence came, and everyone was able to hear the similar shrieks and roars coming from deeper in the city, in addition to human screams and the occasional gunshot.
Irvine quickly jogged over to the grage door and glanced under it. Two men in mehanics uniforms were attending to their wounded comrade, whose leg had been sliced off at the knee.
"Shit!" One of them exclained as blood gushed everywhere.
"You hang in there Jerry!" The other growled as he cast a glance around for something to stop the bleeding with.
"Let me help." Rinoa said as she too came to the door along with Squall. The others kept a look out for any more creatures.
The two men looked at them sharply, terror and anger in their eyes. "Stay back!" The first shouted, looking like he was ready for a fight.
However, the second seemed to recognize Squall, who had personally rented cars here on one or two occasions.
"No Frank, its fine. We can trust these guys and they can help." The second said. Squall noted his nametag which identified him as Tom. Tom was an older man with a scraggly beard and a grizzled look to him. Frank was younger with a five o'clock shadow and blue eyes, maybe in his thirties. Jerry had brown hair and green eyes, and generally was a very unassuming looking person, or he would've been if not for the grievous wound he had.
"Tom, whats going on here?" Squall asked while Rinoa set to work on Jerry, using her magic to mend the wound.
Cloud moved close enough to listen in as the old mechanic let out a weary sigh. "Fuck if I know man. Few hours ago everything was normal. Had some customers, tourists visitng from Dollet, rented a nice blue car. Then people started acting strange, had one dude start rambling like a lunatic on the street. Heard somebody went nuts at the Coffee House and killed somebody. Before you know it, people are turning into monsters and killing everything around them. I think there might be survivors down at the harbor, and maybe the train station. More gunfire coming from those directions than anywhere else anyway."
Squall glanced briefly at Cloud, who offered a slight nod. It was Jenova's virus, any doubt the blond had had was gone, and Squall felt a cold knot form in his stomache. Would he and his friends be infected? A shiver ran down his spine, but he ignored it for the time being. He couldn't let himself worry about such things now. He needed to focus on more immediate problems.
Squall walked out of the garage and withdrew his cell, quickly selecting Xu's number. A moment passed before she picked up. "Xu here."
"Xu, I'm placing you in command of Garden. I want you to place Balamb under quarantine immediately, and all trains or ferries that may have left Balamb are to be recalled immediately." Squall allowed no emotion into his voice as he spoke, Cloud noted.
"Why?" Xu asked, sounding startled.
"We have good reason to believe that an exceedingly dangerous virus has been recently released in the town. It seems to be turning people into monsters." Squall explained.
"I see. I'll get on it right away." Xu replied.
"Keep me posted." Squall said.
"Likewise." Came the response, and then Squall hung up.
"Yo man, whats goin' on?" Zell asked as Squall looked back to the group.
"Yeah, whats with the quarantine?" Irvine asked.
"Its the Jenova virus." Cloud said before Squall could anwser. Seeing everyones attention shoot to him in an isntant, Cloud ran a hand through his hair and explained "It drives people mad and turns them into monsters. Sephiroth never used it in my world, but he inherited many of Jenova's other abilities after Nibelheim so I see no reason why he couldn't."
"And whats going on in Balamb closely enough matches the symptoms Cloud just named, that I am unwilling to take any chances. None of us are to leave Balamb until we can either confirm that this is not the result of the virus, or until we can find a way to cure it."
There was a moment of silence before Rinoa moved out of the garage, and the mechanics promptly closed the door.
"Jerry should live." She said.
"Ok then, its time to move out." Squall began. "We'll split into two groups. Myself, Rinoa, and Zell. The other group will consist of Quistis, who will be in charge, Irvine, Selphie, and Cloud." Squall waited a moment for everyone to move into their assigned groups. "My group will move towards the train station and see what we can find out. Quistis, take your group down to the harbor."
"Understood." Quistis said with a nod.
"Hey, Squall?" Zell asked, sounding concerned. Squall glanced at him. "I need to check on my family man. I gotta make sure ma is ok."
"Your house is on our way, we can check it on the way." Squall told him.
"Thanks man, means a lot." Zell replied. Squall nodded, and the two groups parted ways.
–
Cloud payed close attention to his surroundings as he walked, on guard against the possibility of an ambush. But he was also paying attention to the town itself. The architect, the layout. The town was different from anywhere he had been in his own world, but he suspected it would have been a comfortable and quiet place if not for the nightmare Sephiroth had brought upon it.
"So Cloud, you got a lot of combat experience?" Irvine asked.
"Yeah." The blond replied.
Silence resumed as the group focused on their surroundings. An obscuring fog was rolling in from the water. Cloud slowly began to notice an itch in the back of his mind. As he focused on it, it grew stronger, and his hand tightened on his sword.
"They're coming." He whispered. This statement was punctuated by a loud roar.
–
Squall pulled his gunblade out of his latest attacker. The thing had legs that had swollen up to three times their former size, and one arm resembled a giant lobster pincher. This was the third creature they had encountered. Squall had expected to run into a lot more than this, but aside from the three they had killed, and the occasional distant shriek, the only sign of trouble was the gore splattered across the streets. Very little of the corpses could be recognized as having once been human.
"Holy shit." Zell muttered, with none of his usual energy. Squall could easily understand his shock. Knowing that Zell's adoptive family lived here, Squall couldn't even begin to guess how the martial artist felt.
They turned down the street which had Zell's house. There was less gore here. Zell immediately shot off towards his house. Squall moved behind him, gunblade raised. A shriek came from the top of one of the houses, and Zell looked up in time to see a twisted mishapen humanoid leap down at him. He threw his arms up in a lightning quick defense, but the force of the impact slammed him to the ground and he felt a horrible pain in his side.
"Zell!" Rinoa cried, while Squall quickly took in the things appearance. It had once been a woman, and had seemingly grown an extra set of arms from just under the rib cage. They both ended in hooked blade like things, one of which had hooked into Zell's side. Only the young mans skill and strength was keeping the thing from tearing him in half.
The gunblade specialist charged forward and swung his weapon cleaving the arm that was cutting Zell off, then as the creature shrieked in agony he plunged his blade into its chest. It seemed unfazed as its human arms grabbed him with inhuman strength, and hurled him twenty feet through the air where he landed in a hard roll which carried him back to his feet.
The creature moved towards him, but Zell used the distraction to roll sideways, bringing his foot around in a round-house kick that slammed into the things side with tremendous force throwing it to the side. Rinoa's hands shot out and the creature was engulfed in a roar of fire. Before anyone could think of feeling relieved, no less than a dozen other similiarly misformed creatures emerged from the alleys.
Squall lifted his weapon in preperation.
–
Cloud brought his sword around cleaving another creature in half before casting a glance at his companions. Irvine's main gun had run out of ammo a while back, and the man had pulled out a pair of uzi's and was pouring fire into the horde. It was scary. One second they had had near total silence, the next they were surrounded by dozens of the things.
While Cloud and Irvine engaged with their weapons, Selphie and Quistis poured spells into the combat, burning many of the creatures to a crisp. But some seemed to shrug off the magic as little more than a nuisance. Cloud grimaced as he threw himself back into the fray. A dozen minor wounds covered him, and the pain was getting really bad.
"Theres to many of them!" Irvine shouted as he dropped the guns and resorted to throwing fireballs into the nearest monsters. Cloud found he agreed with that assesement. It seemed like every single mosnter in the town was trying to kill them, then he realized something that he should have noticed sooner. Most of the creatures were coming at him specificly, and the ones that didn't attack only failed to do so because they were killed before they reached him. Sephiroth must be directing them, Cloud thought. His eyes narrowed as he realized what he needed to do.
"Guys, they're coming for me!" Cloud shouted as he swung his sword in wide arcs, trying to clear a path for himself.
"What!?" Quistis cried.
"I'm gonna lead them off, I'll meet up with you later!" Cloud shouted back, then sprang over the enarest monsters and ran. Just as he had expected, almost all of the mosnters turned and chased after him.
–
Squall frowned as his gunblade was deflected off of a claw. His preformance was slipping. He knew why, he just couldn't bring himself to use full force against the former people of Balamb. But he had to, he thought as the creatures other claw left a gash on his arm.
Rinoa didn't hesitate, though her face was grim. Blasts of arcane power were quickly wiping out all of the creatures. Zell however was even worse off than Squall. Having lived in Balamb for several years, Zell knew many of these people by their first names. Still, he thought as he finally cut down his opponent, they were almost done with this fight. Rinoa fried the last of the enemies.
Zell looked around, breathing hard. "This is all kinds of messed up man!" He growled, then looking at one of the fallen enemies he said "That was Mr Gibson, he ran the gift shop on the pier."
Squall sighed as he raised a hand to his forehead and looked around. These had been people such a short time ago, now there was nothing left of their humanity.
Rinoa rested her hand on Zell's shoulder. "Hey, lets go check on your family, all right?"
Zell looked up. "Yeah, lets go!" He dashed down the street, not caring at all about his injuries as he reached his Ma's house and threw open the door, vanishing into the interior.
"Ma!" He shouted running from the living room and into the kitchen. No trace. "Ma!" he shouted again, dashing upstairs. By the time Squall and Rinoa entered the house, Zell was walking slowly down the stairs.
"She ain't here." He muttered as he fell into a chair.
"She could still be alive." Squall tried to be supportive.
"Yeah, she definetely is. Ma's tough, wouldn't let a virus stop her. No monster could get her either." Zell said. He desperately clung to that belief, he needed it.
Squall allowed him a moment while Rinoa quietly healed their wounds. Finally he said "We need to keep moving. Your mother could be among those at the train station.
"Alright." Zell said as he sprang to his feet. Squall led the way back outside. As soon as he cleared the door his danger senses screamed a warning. Before he could say anything to his friends a shockwave of telekenetic energy lifted them off the ground and sent them flying through the air.
Squall saw a man with long silver hair and a black cape seem to materialize on the ground between them a second before his head struck the ground, and everything went black.
