--- - 6 - ---
(Author's Note:
Ahh, the eternal question. This is an FF Seven through Ten crossover, right? So... where is FFIX? Nine is between eight and ten, right? Right?
Allow me to reassure you. my friends, FFIX will have a very crucual part in the story as the plot unravels. I'd take you there now, but it's a rather dull place at present.
Actually, at this point you have seen one FFIX character... you could try to figure out where, and who. Eheh... why, though? You'll soon see another.
But, I guess that I could write a IX section... on request ^.~ )
The Centran landscape was unwelcoming at the best of times, and now--the middle of the hot season and ravaged by Cries--it was even more so. The rank smell of monster and decay wafted across the landscape whenever a breeze could stir the still air, and every step taken sent a plume of dust rising upwards. If there was a bright center to the world, this was the place farthest from it.
Certainly not the setting one would expect for the death and probable burial ground of Squall Leonhart, the SeeD Commander... the Hero.
Adjusting the glasses on the bridge of her nose, Quistis looked around her. There was no sight of any monster nearby, and no sounds disturbed the quiet except those which the SeeD party themselves were making. The sky was a daunting blue, not the red-orange of a Lunar Cry, and the place seemed very nondangerous at the moment. However, this was the region Squall had last been seen in--which testified to the existence of something. Something which, hopefully, they would be able to find.
Quistis turned to the rest of the team--Nida, Zell, and a younger SeeD named Aeshka who had come from near the Esthar region. Each of them was eyeing the area with the same mix of feelings she was--apprehension, wariness, and a certain amount of bored surprise. There was far too little out here.
"The last communications Squall's team sent back mentioned an overflow of monsters," Nida observed. "I know it's been a month, but shouldn't there at least be skeletons here or something if they're all dead?"
"Maybe they migrated," Aeshka suggested. "Some species do."
"Lunar cry. All types of species would be running around down here. And not all of them would move away--compared to the lunar surface, this place is a lush haven. Something would want to stay here," Nida said, kicking at a tiny weed with his boot.
"Maybe whatever got Squall got them too," Zell said grimly.
Quistis shook her head. "I don't want to think about that," she said. (The fact that Squall was... killed... here is bad enough. I don't want to know that there's something capable of taking out him and the monsters.)
"Hey, do you hear that?"
Quistis glanced at Aeshka. "I didn't hear anything," she said.
"It was a weird noise--like a Demi spell. Are you sure you didn't hear it?"
"Are you sure you did?" Nida retorted.
"Where was the noise?" Quistis asked, cutting off Nida with a look. Aeshka shook her head.
"I couldn't place it," she said. "It might have been--"
The noise came again, obviously louder. Everyone turned, scanning the small crevice from which it had come.
"I'm assuming this means we investigate?" Nida asked.
Quistis nodded. "Weapons ready, just in case," she said, skillfully unwrapping her chain whip from around her waist.
"Just in case whatever it is can't kill us in a hit if it wants to," Nida muttered, but readied his katana anyway.
Progressing carefully, the party made slow progress over the landscape. They were soon rewarded for their search, however, when Nida stumbled--quite literally--over a figure lying sprawled out face-forward on the ground in the lea of a small ridge.
The figure was apparently that of an old man--thin, greying hair spilled back from his receding hairline to scatter on his shoulders and half-bury a pair of strangely-shaped ears. The man was dressed in a strange black suit--halfway between a body suit and a coat of armor--and a stiff black cape lay over him, top edge disappearing into the raised collar and armored shoulders of the coat. He was breathing, but a quick check found him freezing to the touch.
With a quick glance at Quistis, Nida rolled him over. "Are you all r--" he started, when a quick glance at the man's chest forced the words to be swallowed back into his stomach. The mam didn't have a chest in the most typical sense of the word--sharp protrusions bent across a massive cavity, from which a single red light gleamed menacingly. The air in front of the light and behind the riblike spikes warped and shimmered, radiating heat that seemed to be absorbed into the rest of the man's deathly chilled form.
A faint glow emanated from behind the closed eyelids, and the face tensed for a moment. The lips underneath the man's beard moved for a moment as if to speak, then the man's face relaxed. Gingerly, Nida felt for the man's pulse. He didn't have one.
"What do we do now?" Zell asked quietly. All eyes turned to Quistis.
Quistis eyed the man, uncertain. On one hand, he might be a clue to what had happened here--on the other, he might be the thing that caused what happened here. She considered the options for some time, wondering what the best response to the situation would be.
"...we take him back to Garden," she said finally. "We'll leave him in the Infirmary under guard. Whenever he wakes up, we can ask him a few things."
"Sounds passable," Aeshka said. Any idea who he is?"
"None," Quistis said. "But I have a feeling that we--"
The eyes opened. The chest cavity expanded, red orb glowing brightly. A ghastly white light spilled out of the pupilless orbs, bating the party in a sick radience. The mouth opened again, and the glow of the red died down,
"Gaen," he whispered. "Answer me. Is this Gaen? Is this Gaen?"
Quistis turned to Nida. Nida turned to Zell. Zell shrugged.
"It is," Aeshka answered. The man's eyes dimmed and closed, and he nodded.
"Thank you,' came out in a voice that was more air than words. "Thank you."
"Gaen?" Nida whispered urgently. "What's he talking about?"
Aeshka shrugged. "Gaen is the name of this world, according to ancient Grandidan mythology. I have no idea why he would ask for it, though--it hasn't been called by that ame for over six thousand years."
"Six thousand?" Zell asked. Aeshka nodded.
"Since the day of the first Lunar Cry, when the Grandidan empire collapsed," Aeshka answered.
"So, what you're implying is...." Nida started, waiting for her to fill in the blank.
"Absolutely nothing," Aeshka said, raising a hand to her chin. "The only things old enoguh to remember those days would either be a GF, or a Weapon. What does that tell you?"
"Way too much," Nida muttered quietly.
It was shaping up to be an interesting week....