Final Fantasy ~X~
Disclaimer: See the prologue, I own my characters, and that is it. Oh, and Kyaro is NOT the guy from Suikoden, I've never played that game. Anyway, on with the story!
Part One
Strato Tagran bolted upright in the small cot he was using in the resistance, cold sweat moistening his forehead and matting down his normally spiky, pure white, hair. That dream again…his family getting killed… "Stop that, Strato!" he muttered to himself. "Dreamin' about them won't bring them back to life…or save your country from the barbarians…get a hold on yourself!"
He groaned as he glanced at the clock beside him. Breakfast for their group was in little more than a half-hour…he needed to get ready. Strato tossed the thin sheets—even though it was excruciatingly cold outside, the small band could not afford much—back and swung his legs out of bed. He stood up and stretched, his left bicep sore from the duel yesterday with some raiders.
About a quarter of an hour later, Strato walked out of the small shower adjacent to the quarters that he shared with the large Grik Chorovich, a towel wrapped securely around his waist. He bent over and pulled his black combat outfit from the small table at his bedside. Strato had just finished pulling his shirt on when someone spoke from the doorway. "Ahem."
Strato whirled around to see a small girl standing in the entrance to his quarters. She looked fairly young, Strato would have placed her around 18 or 17, and she wore a red, well-worn, pilot's jacket over a black jumpsuit. "I was wondering how long it would take for you to notice me standing here, Strato."
"How long have you been there?" Strato felt his face going red. He had just been changing! "And I'm sorry, I…don't exactly remember your name…"
The girl giggled. "Long enough…and that's okay. I $*(&ing suck with names too…I'm Cyria Highwind!" She offered her hand to the beet-red Strato.
Strato accepted her hand and shook it. "Highwind? Are you by any chance descended from Cid Highwind?" And that name seemed very familiar to him for some reason as well.
Cyria nodded. "He was my great-great-great-great-grandfather…or something like that. I dunno…come on, we're already eating!" She turned and walked out of the room. Strato followed closely behind.
****
When Strato and Cyria arrived, there were two others seated in the makeshift kitchen that their cell of the resistance had haphazardly slapped together, and they were as unalike as possible. One, Strato's room-mate—Grik Chorovich—was incredibly huge, towering over the others at a height of 6'9", or 202.5 cm. Grik was a quiet man, very shy and inward when it came to his thoughts. He had a thick mane of scruffy black hair, and both a mustache and a beard. The strongest in the group, Grik preferred to fight using brute strength, capable of smashing almost anything with his gigantic mace. He frequently and adamantly stated how he did not like the cold, which is why he was wearing thick clothing, with a fur vest over his jacket.
On the other side of the table, Zun Kos was Grik's exact opposite. No one knew how this had happened, but Zun was a puppet who had been animated, freed of his marionette's strings. Being a puppet, he naturally was quite small, only 3', or 90 cm, tall. He was totally bald, but then again, his scalp WAS made of wood. Zun was the loudest in the group, very boisterous, and Strato preferred Grik's silence to Zun's talking, shouting, or ranting about whatever he cared to speak about at the time. Strato had to admit however, when it came to fights, Zun was one of the craftiest people he knew, attacking with his axe using pure finesse and strategy. And also, since he was made of wood, the marionette hated fire, and didn't hesitate to make that known…which is what he did with most other things, though.
Strato poured himself a cup of herbal tea from the pot on the stove and walked over to where Zun and Grik were sitting. "Good morning." Cyria sat down next to him.
"Mornin'…" Grik mumbled, then took a bite from the sandwich he had made. Strato thought that eating a sandwich for breakfast was rather odd, but he didn't mention it to the larger man.
Zun didn't need to eat, he just leaned back in the chair. "Heya! How are you guys doing?"
"I'm fine." Both Cyria and Strato said at the same time. Strato took a sip of his tea, and made a face. It was ice cold.
Grik swallowed the last bite of his sandwich. "The stove's burner isn't working, shoulda' told you sooner, I guess."
"Yes, that would have !@%^ing helped…" Cyria said sarcastically, after having her own encounter with the frozen tea. "Oh, sorry about that…" she blushed. "I'm a bit irritable in the mornings occasionally…"
Zun chuckled, a high-pitched, wheezing sound. "We noticed!" He was rewarded by a light smack on the back of the head from Cyria. "Ow, what'd you do that for!" he complained, rubbing the oak surface.
A whisper of fabric sounded as a woman in a blue dress entered the room. She flashed a quick smile at the group as she poured herself a cup of tea and sat down. That was Shu, the resident strategist and as close a thing to a leader as they had. Although aside from Zun, she was the shortest in the group, she was an expert in the martial arts, and a master at stealth techniques. She wasn't too bad with magic, either. Shu had a strange silver pendant around her neck, with a sapphire amulet. None of them had asked what it was for, and if they had, they doubted even she knew. "Good morning…" she said brightly. Her cheery mood vanished, however, when she took a sip of tea. "Ugh!" she said, looking at her mug like it was a poisonous snake. "What's wrong with this tea?"
"The #%$!ing stove burner isn't working…" Cyria said apologetically. "Sorry."
"Hey you guys!" Zun said, still rubbing the area where Cyria had smacked him, as the final two members of their group sat down at the round table.
Cid Rollins twirled one of his energy pistols around on his index finger. "Hello." Cid was clearly a fan of the color black. Every single item of clothing he wore was that color, his shirt, his pants, his belt, his boots, even the trench coat that he wore over the whole ensemble! And then there was his flattened cowboy hat…that, true to form, was also colored black. Strato knew Cid from the academy where he had studied to be a warrior. Cid, although not a registered student, had been a frequent sight at the gun range, and spent virtually his entire time there—for good reason, he was the best shot that Strato had ever seen. He was armed with two energy pistols that packed a punch, and was the group's sniper.
The final member to the little band of freedom fighters was Strato's best friend since he had been a young child, Stise Creski. "G'Morning, Strato, everyone," he yawned. Strato still held a miniature grudge against his friend, for being accepted into the elite academy a few months previously to Strato himself. He deserved it, however. Stise was probably the most powerful warrior when it came to Ice magic on the planet! And his skills with his weapon of choice, a large broadsword, were to be envied as well.
Stise sipped his tea, and then sprayed it out of his mouth again. "Agh! Watch it!" Grik rumbled. "The stove burner's broken…" he said, before Stise could even ask what was the matter with the tea. Cid just laughed.
Several minutes later, the gang had finished their meager breakfast, and Shu rose to her feet. "Okay, let's get down to business. We have two targets to attack today." The group shifted almost imperceptibly from their happy-go-lucky 'breakfast easy mode' to 'serious mode'.
The diminutive woman spread out a map on the table everyone was sitting at. She marked a spot on the map with a pencil. "This is where we are." Then she brought the pencil down a bit to an island in the middle of a lake. "There is an Empire Power Plant here…it serves one of their armories," Shu pointed to yet another locale. "Which is located here." She traced a heavy black line from where she had identified the armory to an endpoint in the mountains. "And this is a supply route to the armory, it uses a train."
Shu rolled up the map. "We are going to eventually make a run on the armory, but right now the defenses are too great for us to possibly overcome. So we are going to break into teams, and simultaneously hit both the supply line and the power plant. After that, we will rendezvous in our secret munitions dump—Cid, Grik, and Cyria, you know where that is—to attack the armory itself." Apparently subconsciously, Shu fingered the deep blue amulet around her neck. "The teams are as follows: Cyria, Strato, and Cid, you take out the supply line—and see if you guys can't grab a thing or two, we could use some extra items and replacement parts—while Grik, Stise, Zun, and myself hit the power plant. Are there any questions?"
"I have one…" Strato said, and Shu turned to him. "What are the defenses like on the places we're gonna attack?"
"Oh, don't worry!" Shu waved a hand nonchalantly. "There may be a few guards, but nothing you should have any trouble with…"
Strato muttered under his breath, "I have a bad feeling about this…"
*****
"That's it?" Cyria looked through a pair of binoculars at the simple railroad track that was the basis of the supply route. "That's what we have to take out?" Cid nodded, and she smirked. "This'll be too goddamn easy!"
Cid pulled out his high-tech pistols and checked to make sure the energy level was full. "I wish you wouldn't say that…" he said while adjusting the sight, not even looking at the girl. "It gives me a nervous feeling."
Strato was silent, testing the balance of his two longswords. He was an expert fighting with two weapons, but something could always go wrong, and he was ensuring that it didn't. "When's the train going to get here?" He asked at last, impatient.
"Whoa, calm down…" Cid said, glancing at his chronometer. "We have about five minutes…let's set the explosives!"
The older man walked out of the brush they had been hiding in and calmly strode to the tracks as if he had all the time in the world. Cyria and Strato watched for Empire forces while Cid pulled some plastique out from under his long trenchcoat and affixed it to the track. "Okay, done! Let's get out of here!"
The trio sprinted away, and were barely back under cover of the trees when the track erupted in flame. The shockwave hurled them all to the ground. With the fluid motion of true warriors, they rolled and ended up on their feet. Cid drew his pistols and crouched down as the train appeared in the distance. "D'you think they'll see the explosion?" Strato asked. If the engineer on the train had indeed seen the blast—and how could he have not?—than the train would stop before jumping the rails.
"Yes, in fact, I'm counting on it…" Cid hissed through clenched teeth, concentrating on the task at hand.
Cyria understood what he was planning. "Yeah, Shu told us to try and steal some stuff from them, how would we do that if the $%(*ing train was destroyed?" A knife seemingly materialized in her fist, but Strato knew she had gotten it from one of her many holsters, with her lightning speed.
Catching on, Strato started to grin. "Now now, stealing is such a harsh term! I prefer…borrowing for an indefinite period of time!" Cyria chuckled and Cid snorted with barely restrained laughter.
The train operator apparently had indeed seen the explosion, and the screeching as the train attempted to halt before the breach. Strato didn't know who he considered luckier, those on the train for avoiding certain death, or the three for accomplishing their goal.
Cid took careful aim, resting his gun hand on his other arm. He brushed the trigger, and a bright green light spat from the muzzle, burning a hole through the cab window of the train, and into the brain of the operator, who slumped over the controls, dead. Cyria whistled through her teeth at Cid's accuracy. "Damn nice shot…"
"C'mon!" Strato leapt to his feet and was running to the halted supply vehicle in a blink of an eye, Cyria right behind him, and Cid bringing up the rear. But the trio stopped short as the doors slid silently open. And then, not so silently, barbarian guards started to emerge. One raised his battle-axe high above his head and charged for Strato, who felt his feet rooted to the spot. But a well-aimed Ninja Star from Cyria ended his rush.
Cid opened fire with both barrels, and many of the guards either dove for cover or hit the ground, bloodied. Meanwhile, Cyria and Strato charged into the oncoming throng. Strato sliced open one guard's neck, only to be pushed on the defense by another eager to avenge the death of his buddy. Using both of his swords, Strato parried the blow, and then an aura of fire surrounded him. "Flame!" He cried, using one of the magic attacks he had learned at the academy. His opponent fell to the ground, and burned to a charred skeleton. But Strato had no time to pause before another was on him…but this one fell backwards, one of Cyria's knife handles protruding from his back. "Thanks…" Strato breathed.
"No problem!" the girl winked before ferociously attacking another of the Empire Soldiers. "!&*# it! DIE you !@#%&%@#**ing BASTARD!"
A few minutes later, the battle was all over. Cid blew on his gun barrels to cool them down, and flipped them into his holsters. Strato leaned, panting, on his swords. "Well, shall we go in?" Cyria asked, looking at the two men.
They climbed through one of the doors, into a gigantic car filled with crates. Using a sword as a prybar, Strato opened one and gasped. "Hey guys! Look at this…" Dozens of Materia crystals had spilled out onto the floor.
Cid opened a pouch that he had been carrying. "Quickly! Put as many as you can into here!" But it was then that every single door slid shut. "What?"
"I don't like this, you guys…" Strato drew his swords again.
"Join the club!" Cyria shot back. And then the lights flipped on, revealing a huge, half-robot, barbarian guard, who stared down at them with mean, beady, black eyes. "Uh-oh…"
BOSS BATTLE WITH…CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD!
The Captain grunted something unintelligible, and the room started to fill with an eerie emerald light. "Storm of Destiny!" Came the guttural roar, and Strato, Cyria, and Cid were all thrown backwards. Cid flipped in midair so that he hit the wall feet-first, and started to run across it, drawing his guns as he sprinted. Leaping off, Cid brought the weapons up and let loose a hail of bright green spears. The energy stabbed deep into the Captain, who stumbled backwards.
"My turn!" Cyria shouted, picking herself from the ground. "He can cast magic, well, so can I! Summon Quetzalcoatl!" She raised her hands, and outside, suddenly, the sounds of a thunderstorm were heard. An enormous lightning bolt slammed through the roof of the train, and a huge yellowish bird with red plumage appeared. Quetzalcoatl flapped his wings and arched his back. He screeched, and shot a stream of electricity into the Captain's chest. Then, his job done, the bird vanished.
Before Strato could do anything, the Captain recovered from the two assaults and brought a gigantic steel hand around, crashing into Cyria and sending her reeling. Strato caught her, and the two tumbled into a crate.
Cid threw a glance at his two comrades, and then raised his guns again. He emptied both of them into the Captain's steel armor, and was rewarded with a hissing as the power ate through. The Captain flashed brightly and exploded.
"Nice one, Cid!" Strato congratulated, getting up.
Cid nodded. "Thanks…now that we're done here, let's go meet up with the others..." he shivered. "I don't like this place much for some reason."
"Yeah, lets…" Cyria looked around. "We found some materia, anyway, I think we can use that…"
Strato sliced one of the doors open and kicked the other half out of its position. "Yeah, we can. Now we just have to hope that our friends were as lucky, and then we get to go do something that's twice as suicidal! What fun!"
TBC….
So what do you guys think? Always R/R!