BROTHERS IN ARMS
by Digintegrated - Hunter Bill
Disclaimer : none of this is mine, all of this legally belongs to Squaresoft. Everyone okay?
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CHAPTER 4
CO-OPERATIVE WORK
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"Well, what are we doing now, lads?", Cid finally asked, once the Sphinxaur was completely disintegrated.
"We should part into three groups.", Cloud suggested. "Squall and myself are going to the center door."
"I come with you.", Tifa said. "Me too.", Rinoa added. It was obvious that the two girls wanted to remain with their respective partners at all costs.
"Selphie and I are going right.", Irvine suggested. "However, in my opinion, Mr Machinegun's help would be very appreciated..."
"The name's Barrett, in case you've forgotten.", the concerned man precised.
"All right, Mr Barrett. I've understood."
The three people left looked at each other, consulted each other, then Quistis declared:
"We take the lower left door. Good luck to you all!"
The seven other people all answered by a "Good luck!" nearly in chorus, then each group rushed into the doorway of its choosing.
~~
The room on the right was lighted by the same candelabrums found in the entrance hall. It also had a balustrade, upon which Barrett, Irvine and Selphie were standing. A staircase was going down to a paved floor. A rope was dangling from a hole in the ceiling and could be pulled from the bottom of the stairs. The three people went down and examined the place. They saw a plate, set on the wall near the rope and read:
When the bell you will ring
The black death I will sing
"Hmmm... that's quite enigmatic...", Barrett said.
"Shall we pull the rope?", Irvine asked.
Selphie was not very delighted about it.
"Er... tell me, guys... The black death...you're really not afraid of it?", she said, a bit frightened.
"Don't worry", Irvine answered in a confident voice.
"Even if it's coming closer, it won't stop me.", Barrett added, determined.
So he pulled the rope. The gloomy, haunting, doleful sound of a bell rang out. A minute later, silence came back. Nothing had happened. Irvine seemed relieved, but Selphie remained suspicious.
Apart from this bell, nothing showed any interest in the room. Barrett followed the two other SeeD members, already rushing under the balustrade to the next room.
~~
After they went through a small corridor well-furnished in tapestries, the group made of Quistis, Zell and Cid arrived at a large room, a little bit smaller than the entrance hall. The ceiling was dome-like. A huge chandelier was hung up on it. The room, however, was a real mess. The balustrades looked inaccessible, since the stairs leading to them were blocked or partly destroyed. A trap door was set right in the middle of the room, just beneath the chandelier. Zell was curious to know what this trap concealed.
"Stand back a bit, guys, Zell the destructor will clear the way!"
He put all of his force upon the trap door. It didn't budge.
"Zell the destructor, hunh?", Cid said sarcastically. Quistis was laughing up her sleeve.
Zell was quite disappointed but regained his rage. "Hah, you think it like this! Try this, you too, try!"
"Cool, keep your rage for Ultimecia's minions, man. I was about to give you a hand."
They tried once again to move the trap door but couldn't move it one inch.
"This damn trap won't open. Must be blocked or something...", Cid noticed.
"We're wasting our time here.", Quistis added. "Should better... watch out!"
The chandelier was falling upon them!
Zell, Cid and Quistis had just enough time to flatten themselves against a wall. The chandelier landed in a deafening noise, blew up the trap door and ejected Squall and Cloud who had trodden upon it from the upper floor.
"Any damage?"
Tifa was talking to them from the balustrade.
"No, looks all right...", Cloud replied.
"Damn, can't you figure this out! We were almost done for, with this dangling head-chopper!", Cid shouted.
"Could we know what would happen?", Cloud retaliated.
"Whatever...", Squall said, with his usual laconic tone. "We're all alive, that's it."
Zell saw that the trap was smashed.
"Hey Squall! You gave us a heck of a hand there, look!"
They all looked to the opening. They could only see from it a spiralling staircase, goin deep through a kind of cellar. "Hey, wait a minute, lads...", Zell thought, "The chandelier was not upon it a second ago...? But..."
"...What the heck is this?", he finally said. "This gizmo's gone back up!"
Indeed, the chandelier had taken back its original position.
"What did you made fall from up there?", Quistis asked them.
"We just wanted to cross the chandelier in order to get to the other door, up there.". He showed them the balustrade. It went from the door Quistis and her team had taken and covered half the dome, being almost touched by the chandelier. Two double doors, the first up, the other one down, were the two exits, the trap door excluded. Squall and his team, as they had taken the centre door, located right behind the Sphinxaur, found themselves on the upper part of the room. They wanted to get to the other upper door but the shaky chandelier had broken off their track.
"This thing will go down and up every time?", Quistis said.
"Maybe with this lever...", Cid said, thinking. "I saw it moving while this cursed thing was falling upon us."
He showed them the aforesaid lever, located on the right side of the doors. He pulled it. A mechanical noise could be heard.
"Tifa! Rinoa! Are you still there?" Cid asked.
The two girls answered.
"Try to walk upon the thing now.", Cid ordered, as he was clinging to the lever for fear of seeing it going off his hands. So they did. The chandelier remained motionless. They reached the upper door without any problem.
"Hey, well done!", Zell congratulated.
"Okay. Cloud and me are going back up the chandelier. Cid, wait for our passage before letting go. Where have you come from, by the way?"
Quistis showed them the left door with her whip.
The two swordsmen hurried, went through the tapestry corridor, went back upstairs in the main hall and were, without a problem, by Tifa and Rinoa' sides on the balustrade in a moment.
"Okay, let go. I guess you go down, right?", Squall asked.
"Right.", Quistis answered.
"Well, see ya."
Quistis, Zell and Cid went down the stairs leading to the cellar, while Squall opened the upper door.
~~
"How superb pictures!", Irvine said admiring.
Barrett, Selphie and him had entered another room provided with a balustrade. This room had approximately a dozen paintings hung on the walls. The paved floor was painted with a quite particular pattern. The left wall was covered by the biggest painting, the smaller other ones were divided up on the other walls and on the upper floor.
Selphie examined the paintings. During this time, Irvine and Barret took the opportunity to chat.
"How did you do this to your arm?", Irvine asked, intrigued by Barrett's machine gun arm.
"I lost my hand in an attempt to save a friend. These scum shot on me while I was trying to pull out of an abyss.", the juggernaut answered.
"Who?"
"The ShinRa armed forces. The ShinRa's a bit liable for all this... But now, they've had what they deserved."
"ShinRa?"
"Oh yeah, I see you haven't heard all the history yet..."
Barrett explained Irvine, whose attention was ever growing, the history of the ShinRa, their link with the planet energy and Sephiroth a.k.a. the man in black, "the guy who summoned the Meteor and the Weapons."
"The big meteor floating over the super-mega-iron-fortress, right?"
"What... you were there?!"
"We just passed by. Then we came upon this castle."
"Man..."
Barrett was struck with surprise.
"This fortress, as you say, is Midgar. The ShinRa resides here and from here they idiots are absorbing the planet energy."
"Is it how the land becomes so dry?"
"Exactly! You understand it quickly. You're a good guy, eventually."
Irvine was hesitating. This iron-fisted giant could be less threatening that he seemed? He had some apprehension when he asked him for help, but he was fearing less and less.
"How about your frined?", he asked.
"I had seen him again. He had blown up fuses. He had a shotgun implanted on his left arm and wanted to provoke me for a duel... He lost, I left him alive but he committed suicide..."
Barrett thought again about his ex-friend, then to Marlene, his adopted daughter. "Hope that she's still alive..."
"I may help you if you want it to.", Irvine suggested. "I can do special bullets for my shotgun. I never tried it for a machine gun yet but I think it could be feasible."
"You think so? I'd be glad to see it..."
"After all, if that guy's got knows about firearms", Barrett thought, "I've been right when I joined him..."
Selphie went back down the balustrade.
"Hey men! Come and see upstairs!"
Irvine and Barrett went upstairs. They looked down as they were shown by Selphie. The pattern painted on the floor was a clock with three hands and roman figures.
"8 hours 30 minutes 20 seconds? And what?", Barrett said.
"No! Look at the pictures!", Selphie replied, a bit annoyed.
Each picture had a Latin noun for caption, each one started by an I, a V or an X, as for...
"...the roman figures!". Irvine had understood. "Eight, Six, Four."
"VIII, VI, IV.". The trio looked at the biggest picture. Under it was a row of switches, each one had one of the twelve Latin words.
"Well, if you say the truth, you have to push the..."
He pushed three switches. The picture changed. Behind him was some kind of hovering yellowish-coloured robot, with no legs, twice as tall as Barrett. On its side was etched this word: "Trauma".
Selphie drew her Nunchaku out. The other two reloaded their weapons.
~~
Halfway through the stairs, Quistis could see the basement room better.
There were an alchemist desk, potions, bottles, a library... interesting... She would have enjoyed going down there, if the weird blue and orange monster was not there floating at the bottom of the spiral staircase, with its three red stings and keen eyes pointing towards the three mates.
"Bad luck, I have no Scan left...", whispered Quistis.
"Scan? In order to detect the enemy forces and weaknesses?", Cid said. "Wait, I'm gonna check."
Cid checked his weapon. One of the yellow stones inlaid on it was faintly shining. Satisfied by this, the spearman twirled his weapon, making some particular moves with it, then concentrated.
Ten seconds later, he could finally declare:
"Let's see... Tri Point, dragon-like creature... Vulnerable with Ice... or Fire... I don't know which one of them, it's quite blurred... Watch out when it uses el... I can't see what's next. My sense materia hasn't all of its efficiency."
"Efficient or not", Zell said, as he was getting impatient to fight, "here we go!"
~~
From the chandelier room, the four remaining people had come outside the castle, on a balcony. They could see the nocturnal sky for a while, then were caught by surprise by a flying, crystalline monster. All but his body was made of a solid precious stone. From this sparkling block came three arms, ending with claws, and a head that was crystalline too, and could remind them of the Grendels.
"Well done, miserable humans.", the monster said. "I'm Krysta and you won't last long here."
"Whatever...", Squall answered him coldly.
Him and Cloud had drawn their big swords out. Rinoa and Tifa, standing a little on the back, were expecting their assault.
Author's note : Now it's getting serious. The 10 people fighting three enemies at the very same time. Something that hasn't occurred (as far as I know) in an RPG... Well something like this did occur in FF9 (in the 4 shrines quest) but you only had to fight one enemy, the Earth monster.
How will it end up? The answer is in the next chapter! But now, ladies and gents, the GREETS time:
Ethrial, Double Bass: thanks for reading my Rinoa story, I'm glad you find it sweet :-)
Belphegor (the Weird one): nice review you left me. I hope you'll manage to get through your HP fic. I'm all with you, don't give up! ;-)
Emaeleigha: now I understand your point of view when you told me about your interpretation of the word "insane", remember? Just to tell you: it's a bit because of my family, they've all read the four HP books and I'm the only one not interested in them, so they had kind-of reproached me, you see... that's why I took this "defensive" stance while I reviewed you. That's it. Thanks for reading my "In-&-Out" by the way :-)
Callo(Me!): didn't registered, right? No, I don't blame you for that. Thanks for your visit. I'll think about reading your FF9 stories as I have the time :-)
Little Miss Anarchy: Really nice support, L.M.A.! I would also add: nice to encourage other people to review. I'll keep it going... By the way... Zell and Tifa together... now I have an idea for those two, being the heroes for a chapter. Which one, I still don't know but it's a project I'm not ready to scrap, sure! :-)
To you all, I'm about to write Chapter 7 in Frenchie. I hope I would not take too much time until I'm through with the translation of this one. Hope you enjoyed this and see ya later!
~~ Digintegrated Hunter Bill ~~