//By Wonderful Failure and Julie (yaoifantasy)
//rated R for horror, gore, death, and cussing
// yaoi hints
//Disclaimer: Don't own Final Fantasy 8 (not the characters/world/etc) -- I wish, but it just isn't happening. And the movie "Pitch Black" - don't own that either. Just ~borrowing~ for creative out-lets.
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Upon leaving the graveyard of giant bones, the scouting party reached a large cleft in the hills. Ahead is a canyon. A big one.
"Hold on," Seifer commanded. He jumped onto a large rock, and put the scope to a sky-colored eye. "Didn't bite."
"What?" Zell asked.
"I thought he might be relaxin' in the bone yard…could either double-back to the ship or sneak up behind us. I left the alcohol bottle back there as bait," Seifer revealed.
Seifer scanned the graveyard with his scope until he found the battle. It's still got one swallow left.
"But nah…didn't bite," Seifer replied.
And with that, the small group left the graveyard, leaving the bottle behind. Little did they know that the bottle was no longer filled with scotch, but now with sand.
*******
With the spiraled hills around him, Irvine dug up a communal grave under the shade of a tarp.
Xu's corpse in a body bag was ready to be buried.
He kept a close watch on the crash ship.
Rinoa waved at him, and Irvine waved back to the dark-haired woman.
*******
The scouting party traveled through a narrowing canyon. It was lined with huge rib bones, and they were obviously in the stomach of some long-dead beast. Zell squinted at the ridged tops of strange hills. More and more of those spires were visible on the canyon rims, looming like silent sentinels.
"What are they?" he thought. "Just mineral deposits?"
"Captain!" a voice called. "Captain…"
Zell looked away from his view of the strange structures and then saw the only female of Quistis' followers. Nuvy.
Nuvy lured Zell a few footsteps away to where the other Trepies gathered. They had found some kind of a toy. It resembled a robot of some sort, heavily dirtied by desert sand.
The three companions asked each other questions in Japanese. Zell stood, trying to figure out why such a device would be in the middle of the desert.
Zell took the toy from Zamzi, staring at it with his sapphire eyes. He dusted off some of the sand, trying to get a better view of it. His attempt was futile.
"We're…not alone here, yes?" Quistis inquired.
They all looked ahead of them, wondering what was beyond. But rather than looking forward, Seifer looked behind him.
"Never thought we were," Seifer mumbled.
*******
The survivors continued trekking, and noticed an old weather cock creaking in the wind.
Zell, Seifer, Quistis, and the Trepies arrived at a small settlement of sorts. The Japanese greetings of the Trepies echoed through the confined area. The settlement was strange, built from stacked shipping containers. Tattered sunshades flapped in the wind. A rusty bike lay on the ground, covered by a thin layer of desert sand. The Trepies began to call out more Japanese greetings.
"Long gone," Seifer muttered "Whoever they were."
The small group moved around a building, and pulled up short. Before them they see a large moisture-recovery unit. It was a hulking machine, tragically in disrepair. Empty jugs littered the ground around the huge machine.
"Water…There was water here…" Quistis declared, astonished.
The Trepies began to speak in Japanese.
Zell nor Seifer had any idea what they were trying to say. Luckily, Quistis was there to translate for them.
"God is Great, yes?" she spoke.
"I'm reborn," Seifer replied in a sarcastic tone.
Zell simply managed a nervous smile, but then found his eyes trailing back to the abandoned buildings.
"Who were these people?" he wondered. "Why did they leave so much behind?"
*******
The group of survivors, minus Zell, found themselves searching through the main building of the small settlement. Seifer and the Trepies crawled over the moisture-recovery unit, assessing highly needed repairs.
Zell stood in the settlement, carefully inspecting the Refectory table. Years and years of dust layered up on the table. Old photos lined the walls. Settlers working at modest gardens. Some were playing baseball. Others posed with children.
Leaving the room, Zell entered a small room, dark despite the blazing sunlight outside.
"Lights," Zell called out, hoping for the lights to come on to his voice.
The darkness remained.
"Lights on?" Zell asked, wondering how the hell he could get the lights to work.
Giving up on using his voice, Zell felt around for old-style wall switches. Yet he noticed thick blinds on the walls, blocking out the iridescent sunlight. Zell fumbled with them until they were open.
Seifer was standing right outside.
"Hey," Seifer replied. "Don't go too far."
Zell simply nodded, trying to catch his breath.
Seifer smiled at him, and then left.
Trying to get his heart to settle, Zell took a quick breather. But he heard something creaking behind him. Turning from his view outside the window, Zell saw…an orrery. It was a mechanical device that showed the motion of the planets around their suns. Solar powered, the orrery started turning due to the sunlight that poured in from the open window. It creaked as it slowly moved, building up the pace just a bit. One of the planets seemed to have nothing but sunlight.
"No darkness," Zell realized. "There's no lights because there's no darkness…"
*******
Zell left the strange building, walking out to the porch. He looked out over the rear of the settlement. He saw nothing but more merciless terrain.
He prepared to go back inside, but something glinted at the edge of his vision. Zell turned back and saw parted clothes on a laundry line. He noticed the source of the glint. Excited hits on his breather.
Zell leaps off the porch, and started walking quickly. It was as if he were on some magnetic bearing. He started running, breaking out into a full sprint.
While running, Zell heard cries in Japanese from the Trepies.
Seifer and the Trepies exchanged glances.
Zell stopped on a groomed runway, out of breath. The others caught up. They too marveled at…The skiff. It was a light-duty vehicle of hybrid technology. It was part bush plane, part spacecraft. It was dust covered and looked like it had been laid up for years, but the hull still looked intact.
*******
Nida added a bit of caviar to the toast he was snacking on. A strange scrabbling sound stopped him in mid-bite. He reluctantly eased out of his chair, and moved to the rear edge of the ship he was perched upon. He looked down…and saw a shadow ducking under him. Small rocks trickled down a dirt rampart that was obviously just climbed by…someone.
"This now qualifies for the worst fun I've ever had," Nida muttered. "Stop it."
No response. Absolute silence.
Grabbing his war-pick, Nida eased himself to ground level. He checked the perimeter, looking inside the ship.
Nobody.
Was he being fucked with?
"Stephen?" Nida calls, hoping it was the 12-year-old who had been creeping around outside. "Oh, Stephen…"
"What?" Stephen's voice asked.
Nida spun around. The voice had come from the cargo hold…and not where he had expected it to.
Nida enters to find Rinoa and Stephen cutting open containers, searching for usable goods.
"Tell me that was you," Nida pleaded.
"Okay, it was me," Stephen replied. "So what'd I do now?"
"Assailing my fragile sense of security, that's what," Nida snapped.
"What're you goin' on about? He's been right here with me for the last…" Rinoa trailed off.
They all saw it. Sun-blades are momentarily blocked by something…or someone passing outside.
"Irvine?" Rinoa whispered.
Stephen sprung to the other side of the hold, putting an eye to a crack there.
Faraway, Irivne could be seen finishing digging a grave. He started towards the ship.
Inside the hull, Stephen whirled back, mouthing a silent alarm.
"Squall!" he mouthed.
Nida went bloodless. Rinoa grabbed the war-pick out of his frozen hands, moving catlike to the main doors and poised there. She stood ready to strike.
Stephen followed with the hunting boomerang.
All their eyes watched carefully as the sun-blades winked off and on, charting Squall's approach.
Suddenly he appeared, and Rinoa swung hard.
"No!" Stephen cried.
Facing them was a total stranger. He was burned and half naked, one hand still clutching to the emergency-release lever of his cyro-locker.
Rinoa had stopped one inch short of killing him.
"I thought…Hyne," the stranger murmured. "I thought I was the only one who…"
He lurched towards Rinoa, trying to embrace her, and then saw an explosion of blood and brain-bits slamming against her. His own.
The stranger sunk lifelessly to the ground.
Irvine stood in the background, a pistol leveled. He read Rinoa's terrified face, and understood what he'd done.
"Oh, Hyne…" Nida whispered.
"It was just somebody else," Stephen mumbled. "From the crash. He was just…"
"Shit," Irvine growled. "I thought it was him. The murdern' dog. I thought he was…"
Irvine rushed over to check the dead stranger. Bending down, the foursome looked over the dead body, coming across his ID. They learned that he was a man by the name of Cid.
While learning about the man Irvine had accidentally killed, Squall sat in Nida's chair, sipping the scotch Nida'd left behind.
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// Wonderful Failure: The script I used was really funky, so I apologize for that. I got the past/present terms right this time. And if you haven't seen the movie, I highly recommend it. Not only will it let you know which character plays which role in the movie, but it's also a really great film. Uh...Well, enjoy. And special thanks to Julie who's letting me write with her. *Mwah!*