Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, its characters or storyline. This story is mine, as are the OCs. Not much foreword on this chapter. Enjoy.
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147 – Zero
Cloud awoke to rain falling on him and the sound of a fire alarm droning through his head. For the first, sluggish moment, his limbs felt heavy and his brain was fuzzy. He opened his eyes to see a horizontal view of Cid's body shop floor, where he'd landed after…after what? Passing out? With a frown, he tested his limbs, found them responsive, and managed to lever himself up onto his knees, looking around.
The 'rain' was actually the sprinkler system, which had been activated by the fire that had caught onto some flammable material when a welding torch had been dropped. The welder, along with a handful of other people, was also lying on the floor, just like Cloud had been, as though they had all just…fallen unconscious simultaneously.
The fire alarm was the only sound in the garage, and Cloud uncomfortably got to his feet, maneuvering toward the exit. He turned off the welding torch and hastily doused the fire before moving on. He passed by the office, where he could see Cid doubled over at his desk, also unconscious. A quick touch to his neck found an even pulse, but he was unresponsive. With the disorientation quickly diminishing, Cloud's stomach began to twist into knots as he looked out the window.
A shadow had fallen over Radiant Garden.
"Shit." He cursed, shoving through the front door and out onto the street.
Bodies littered the sidewalks, slumped in chairs, leaned against walls where they'd fallen. His heart shot into his throat and pounded his pulse through his brain. This was it. It was happening. Time had caught up to what he had seen with Agent Mike.
As soon as that thought slid into place, Cloud turned on his heel and sprinted for the main sect of town. He passed several civilians, none of which looked physically harmed beyond their state of unconsciousness, and finally reached the square, not running into another awake person.
"Stop…You can't!" A voice suddenly reached him from a few blocks away. Agent Mike's voice.
"She could be hurt." Another voice. "I have to help her—"
The second voice was…was him. He and Agent Mike were here, from the past. His head reeled, but the context of the situation overrode the vertigo of hearing his own voice outside of himself. All that he could think was: the Jeep is on fire, and Tifa and Mikayla are inside.
The bodies on either side of him began to stir as he turned onto the main street, and at the end of it he could see the green Jeep, t-boned against a white truck on the corner. Flames were eating at the passenger side of the vehicle. Mikayla was crying. The sound echoed.
Cloud bolted down the street, reaching the Jeep in seconds and instinctively throwing out an arm. "Blizzaga!"
The ice spell warped across the gap between his hand and the fire, swallowing the flames and locking them into stillness, like icicles. Steam rose from the engine of the Jeep and the scorched sides of the vehicles. Cloud barely slowed down, skidding into the fender of the Jeep to stop himself. He clawed at the driver's side door, finding Tifa as he remembered, unconscious and slumped sideways against a deflated airbag. A bruise was rising on her jaw, but she was otherwise unharmed. He found her pulse regardless before immediately moving to the back door on the driver's side, where Mikayla's cries had tapered off.
More people around him were starting to stir, awaken, and rise, reaching out to each other and shakily trying to understand what had just happened. Cloud ignored them; the door was jammed, so he got a grip on the handle and violently wrenched it forward. The door latch was torn from the mechanism and hung uselessly there. Shoving the door open, Cloud leaned inside.
Mikayla was whimpering and making distressed noises in her car seat. The fire had broached the interior of the vehicle, and horror swam through his chest to see that he'd been too late. The child had sustained some burns on her left arm, and her clothes were singed.
"Shit. Shit. Hey, hey, sweetie." Cloud tried to sound like he wasn't freaking out, reaching inside and undoing the belts on the car seat. "It's okay. You're okay. Oh God. Here we go."
She had gone into shock, and the sight of the burns and bleeding, although minor, on her tiny arm, was almost too much for him to handle. He held a hand over the wound.
"Curaga." He quickly cast the healing spell.
Mikayla's crying returned as the unfamiliar sensation of a healing spell replaced the pain. Tifa was suddenly animated, going from the sluggish rousing to bolt upright. Someone else was there though, consoling her as she fought disorientation: Rinoa.
"Cloud's got her." Rinoa was saying. "She's—"
Cloud gently looked at Mikayla's arm as the Cure spell faded and more panic lanced through him. He carefully lifted her out of the car seat. Mikayla cried, but it was more out of fear than pain. Acknowledging that difference hardly made it easier.
"Cloud—" Tifa was staggering out of the driver's seat. "Mikayla—"
"She's alive. She's okay…We need to get her to a hospital." Cloud stammered.
Tifa's face was red and chaste tears were pouring down her face from fear and panic as she reached for her daughter. Rinoa looked bewildered from her own waking and situation. Cloud touched her elbow.
"Find the others. Keep everybody calm and make sure no one's hurt." He instructed.
Rinoa nodded, darting toward the Borough to Merlin's house.
Cloud made sure Tifa was steady and let her take her daughter back as they hastily made their way to the hospital a few blocks away.
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148 – Zero
"Yuffie. Wake up." A hand was shaking her shoulder.
Yuffie groaned from where she was lying on the floor, having fallen out of her chair when she passed out. Why had she passed out? She rolled sorely onto her back and found herself looking up at Merlin. The old wizard was kneeling between her and where Aerith was in a similar state a few feet away, shaking both of their shoulders with a hand each.
"Mph." She grunted, sitting up on her elbows. "Wha'happened?"
Merlin frowned, glancing toward the window, "I'm not sure. The sky has gone dark, but it's not an eclipse. As far as I can tell, everyone in Radiant Garden has collapsed."
"Huh?" She got to her feet, moving shakily toward the window and finding his words true. "How is that possible?"
Aerith was stirring, and Yuffie turned back, seeing that Jake Alms was also in the house, having collapsed onto the couch and obscured from view. He was waking on his own. As Merlin coaxed Aerith back to awareness, Yuffie squinted at the window again, rubbing her shoulder.
Outside, it looked like late evening, only with no directional indicator of where the sun should have been. It wasn't like the sun was behind any clouds or that it was setting. It was like it had been simply dimmed. You couldn't dim the sun! Was this what had happened in the Sun Kingdom and Traverse Town? Before she could vocalize her thought, however, the front door of the house blew inward and Rinoa's form barreled inside.
"Is everybody okay?" The woman looked as far from dazed and confused as you could get; in fact, she looked panicked.
"Everyone here is all right. What's wrong, child?" Merlin helped Aerith to her feet.
"The square…" Rinoa lifted her hands, "Everyone is down. They're waking up now, but people collapsed in front of moving vehicles and behind the wheel and around sharp objects. We have to get this organized before people panic."
"Like you are?" Yuffie touched Rinoa's shoulder to try and calm her down.
Aerith steadied herself. "The others…"
"Tifa was in an accident. With Mikayla." Rinoa was breathless. "Cloud's taking them to the hospital now, but I think they're okay."
"Cid? Leon?" Aerith prompted.
"Tabaeus?" Jake joined in, climbing off the couch, bewildered.
Rinoa lifted her hands, "I don't know. Nobody knows what's going on."
Noises were picking up outside: sounds of people panicking. The whole town was waking up scared and confused. That wasn't going to lead to anything good.
"First things first." Aerith took charge. "Yuffie and Rinoa, go out there and quell the panic. Let them know that the Alliance is handling this. We're not under attack. We're not in danger. As long as we all keep our heads, we'll figure this out calmly." She turned, "I'm going to the hospital to make sure the administration is booting back up and ready to take in any casualties. Merlin, can you ensure that the security system hasn't been compromised? Work with Tron, he knows the system inside and out. Jake, get to the Alliance headquarters and find Leon. The phone lines are probably down. He needs to know about Tifa and Mikayla."
Jake was out the back door a second after Aerith stopped speaking. Rinoa and Yuffie exchanged glances and both moved out as well.
"What happened to Tifa and Mikayla? Why the hospital?" Yuffie asked.
"They were in the Jeep when Tifa passed out. There was fire…Cloud handled it, but—" Rinoa lifted a hand to her mouth.
"Okay." Yuffie snapped off. "Let's get back into the square. That's where the most people will be."
The darkness around Radiant Garden was eerie and raised gooseflesh across Yuffie's arms as they moved through town. They stopped briefly along the way to help anybody who was struggling to steady themselves, but if the passersby were otherwise all right, Yuffie and Rinoa continued to push into the main square.
A crowd of twenty or so people was already on their feet or kneeling beside their friends who were struggling, and Cid was standing on a low-rising brick wall, arms spread, trying to get everybody's attention.
"What's happening?" Someone was yelling.
"Why is it so dark?"
"Is it the Heartless? Are we being invaded?"
"Everybody calm down, damn." Cid spoke over them. "Just shut up and look around. We're all okay. A few bumps on the heads and some bruises. We ain't being bombed or attacked. Chill the Hell out."
"You can't ignore this!" Someone yelled. "Don't say nothing happened!"
"A'course something happened." Cid said. "We're gonna get to the bottom of it, but only if everybody keeps a level head and doesn't do anything stupid." He spotted Yuffie and Rinoa navigating toward him. "What's the news?"
"The Restoration Committee is on it." Yuffie gave him a thumb up.
"See?" Cid gestured to her, looking at the crowd. "No need to panic."
Nevertheless, the gooseflesh on Yuffie's arm didn't go away.
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149 – Zero
"The security system around the Southern perimeter is down." Tabaeus stood in front of Commander Leonhart's computer, leaning over his desk to read the information on the monitor. "The scanner is showing increased levels of activity around the old castle ruins."
Leonhart was standing half in his office and half in the hallway, barking out orders to the rest of the department as they worked to re-establish order. She plucked a few keys on the keyboard and skimmed down the streaming data.
"A group of Kisaragi's soldiers are on patrol near the Great Maw. Should I send redirection orders to cover the Southern perimeter?" She asked.
Before he could answer, the radio transmitter on his desk crackled and Highwind's voice spoke. "Yuffie and Rinoa are keeping order in town. Nobody's lost their heads yet…Whatever that shadow is outside, it's short-circuited half the damn system down here." He cursed through a buzz of static. "We're gonna have to fuckin' reboot the whole system."
Tabaeus glanced to Leonhart, who lifted a hand and pressed his thumb and index finger against his eyes before giving a short nod. She snapped up the radio.
"This is Private McCallister. Roger that, sir."
"A'right, y'better get your shit together up there. Heartless might try to storm the town once the system goes down. It'll only be down for five minutes tops." Cid responded.
Commander Leonhart stepped back into his office and took up his Gunblade before barking at the general department floor. "Everybody arm up and head to the Southern perimeter. Cid is initiating a full scale reboot of the security system." He looked back. "McCallister, you're with me. We're going to the castle ruins to find out what the Hell is going on out there."
She gave a curt nod, hooked the radio onto her belt, and followed him out of the office. The entire headquarter building of the Alliance was in a state of emergency. Everyone was accounted for and unharmed, and as soon as the disorientation had faded, they had all snapped into combat mode, desperate to find an explanation for what had caused the worldwide loss of consciousness and the inexplicable darkness that had muted the daylight outside.
Tabaeus kept close to her superior officer's back as they crossed the department and opted to take the stairs down to the lobby rather than the elevator. They reached the first floor lobby and were halfway to the doors when Jake Alms' voice cried out.
"Leon!"
Both Tabaeus and Commander Leonhart drew up short as they spotted Jake bobbing and weaving through the bustle of soldiers in the lobby to reach them. He was pale.
"Something's happened." He was breathless.
"No shit." Leonhart replied, hand flexing around the Gunblade.
"No, not—" Jake waved a vague hand. "During the blackout, Tifa was behind the wheel. There was an accident." When Leonhart's spine straightened, Jake lifted both hands. "She's okay. Mikayla is…she's alive. Cloud is taking them both to the hospital. I don't know what exactly happened but—"
"Go." McCallister gestured to the doors.
Jake and Commander Leonhart looked at her, respectively in surprise and in seriousness.
She nodded to her superior officer. "I'll handle the ruins. I'll take a few soldiers from the Sorcery Department. I've got it covered. Go."
Wordlessly, Leon held her gaze for a moment before nodding and leaving the building.
Jake looked at her. "Are you sure you can handle—"
She cut him off with a raised hand, scanning the moving heads around her. "Roberts, Denner, Peters!"
The three soldiers from Merlin's Sorcery Department looked up at their names.
"With me." She snapped her fingers, "Jake, stay in town. Help Rinoa keep the calm."
He looked torn, "Tabs, it might not be safe out there—"
She gestured to the loaded holsters at her sides, "Exactly. I don't have time for this conversation." The words came out cold, and she tried to recover it with a small smile.
The three magic soldiers were moving to her side, and she gave Jake a parting look before leading the small squad through the front doors. The darkness was persisting throughout the mid-afternoon hour, with no sign of letting up. The cries of panic and fear had trailed away slightly as the hub of the Alliance got its feet back under it, and Tabaeus swiftly led the squad away from the main town and toward the old castle ruins.
"There's some kind of activity at the ruins." She rattled off to the three men. "Could be Heartless. Could be Nobodies. Could be something else. The security system will be down for around five minutes. We need to make sure that area is secure."
"Yes, ma'am." Roberts involuntarily replied.
They climbed into one of the all-terrain military vehicles, Tabaeus taking shotgun and Peters driving while the other two piled in the back. The truck spat gravel as it shot out of the transport garage and across the Great Maw toward the ruins.
The darkness yawned ahead of and all around them, raising the hairs on the back of Tabaeus's neck. She checked the clips in both of her guns, found them loaded, and exhaled, looking out toward the old castle with a growing sense of unease.
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Preview for next week: The countdown had begun.
