BROTHERS IN ARMS
by Digintegrated - Hunter Bill
Disclaimer : Yeah yeah... I know... I don't own any of this, Squaresoft does, and deserves it well! So... shall we proceed now?
-~-
CHAPTER 8
FULL CIRCLE
-~-
"Tifa? Rinoa? Where are you?", Squall called from the room with the lock.
The two girls looked at each other for a while.
"Well then, I think we'd better return there...", Rinoa said.
"That's nothing. Thanks for the chat!", Tifa replied.
"You're welcome..."
They went back downstairs. Squall and Cloud were on the right side of the moat, near the door. Barrett, Selphie and Irvine were about to go back upstairs.
"Tell me, Squall...", the machine gunner asked. "Do you have an idea about what's on top of the stairs, behind us?"
Squall thought. This staircase, this passageway... he noticed them both too, just before he went on the rescue of his friends, trapped in the cell. He remembered about the inner courtyard.
"I think you'll get through a sentry-box, leading you to the left wing of the castle. Your friend Cid must be around there at the time, with two of our team members.", Squall answered.
"All right. When you're through, find us back at the entrance.", Barrett continued.
He went away, followed closely by Irvine and Selphie.
Cloud tried to open the door, unsuccessfully. However, he noticed its keyhole.
"Hey... with that key Irvine has found out."
He inserted the key and turned it into the hole. Le lock of the door opened with a metallic noise. After that, the door opened by itself, allowing the four friends to discover what was behind.
It was a real arsenal. The room, middle-sized, was taller than the cell, with stone walls too, but was containing an incredible number of weapons and suits of armour. On the walls, halberds were vertically stored. Short swords and shields were put here and there... This stock was hardly interesting to our companions who were attracted by something else...
At the centre of the room, on the ground, was a monster head, a sort of skull, with greyish stripes, and two hollow and black eye-sockets in which two yellow eyes were shining. This head was alive. On each side of it, two hands, grey-striped too, had popped up from the ground and looked as if they were searching for some victim to grab. Cloud and Tifa had never seen such an abomination, but Squall knew perfectly what it was.
"Vysage, Righty and Lefty...", he explained them. "We should normally have no problem, since we already met some of them before. It must not be difficult to destroy."
"Don't delude yourselves too much...", Vysage announced in an eerie voice.
"Whatever...", Squall retorted, running to the head to slash it with his Gunblade.
Rinoa took back her Blaster Edge and cast it to the left hand. Tifa was battling with Righty, who had slapped her. As for Cloud, the fighter wasn't fighting anyone for the moment, but summoned a Wall-All on his team members. Four prismatic and multicoloured walls appeared between the fighters, then vanished. They were feeling more secure after this, but Lefty made them think the contrary and sent a Bio on Cloud. The swordsman collapsed but was quickly saved by an Esuna from Tifa, who got immediately after grabbed by Righty. Rinoa intended to use a spell to set Tifa free from the right hand's grasp but lost her momentum as Lefty summoned Reflect upon its partner. Squall and Cloud were not to stand without doing anything and rushed to the right hand and hit it twice in the wrist. The blow forced it to release Tifa who took opportunity to strike Vysage, who remained impassive since the battle began. Lefty, who seemed to have many cards left in its hand (in a manner of speaking that is), summoned a Quake on the group. The heroes saw the ground crackling and waving at a breathtaking speed. Big pillars emerged from the ground and made the team jump and fall, again and again... A few seconds later, it went back to normal but the fighters were heavily wounded by the quakes.
Rinoa was the first person to get back up.
"Too much is too much!", she said, staring at the hand. "SILENCE!"
A magic mist formed around Lefty and condensed. The hand wanted to take action but no matter how hard it waved, nothing happened. It couldn't summon spells no more.
"Well played, Rinoa.", Squall said, relieved. "Now we're taking it easier."
Him and Cloud took it upon themselves to give the final blow to each hand. The two organs nimbly sunk into the ground. Now there was the head left... Vysage was watching them four, with its machiavellian look.
"You haven't seen it all yet.", it said.
Squall didn't took time to say his usual "Whatever..." and struck his enemy the best he could. Cloud wanted to do the same but was stopped by a series of flashing lights that hit straight into... "AAAARGH!", the swordsman shouted. "My eyes! I can't see no more!"
He dropped his sword, perturbed by the Blind spell Vysage had just cast upon him. Tifa, shocked to see her companion in such a deprived state, cast Esuna to make him recover his lost eyesight. Rinoa made the next stroke with a Holy. Vysage couldn't stand this holy glow and sunk underground. After this, Squall immediately cast a series of Cura upon the team members and Cloud took his sword back.
"Finally, it's over.", he said.
"Not yet." Squall said. "These monsters usually explode when we finish them up."
Vysage's eerie voice could then be heard.
"Really surprising from you! I should be the one to surprise you by coming back to battle when you were not expecting me. I'm quite... disappointed in a way, but I haven't lost it all yet!"
The ground was shaking. Vysage, then Lefty, then Righty emerged from it. Both hands stuck to the ground, made it collapse around the creature that went taller and taller. At that time, the four team mates saw its torso and its arms getting out of the ground. The arms were of the same greyish colour, the body of the creature was covered with a dark blue vest. The creature measured at least sixteen feet. The fighters were impressed, for sure, but not surprised.
"Here's someone who's never out of means.", Tifa commented.
"Yeah, but unity makes strength, not size.", Cloud added.
Squall and Rinoa said nothing, but seemed to agree.
The huge creature talked to them with the same eerie voice:
"My name is Gargantua and even if you have won the first round, nothing proves you're about to win this time."
"Why are they contenting themselves in believing they'll succeed in fooling us with words?", Squall thought, as he gripped tightly the grip of his Gunblade.
~~
As Quistis, Cid and Zell were going through the left part of the castle, walking through a long stone-walled corridor, Selphie, Irvine and Barrett were following the way along the sentry-box. The gunner noticed the entrance of the chapel, the two towers, the stopped clock.
"Man", he said, "he's really right, your boxer, what's his name already... Zell? 'Gotta be nuts to live in this!"
"Hmmm, yes, plus, this place freaks me out a bit...", Selphie added, more and more frightened.
Irvine turned back and winked at her, saying: "Don't worry, I'm here." The girl was comforted a bit, but was still afraid.
The group arrived at the end of the sentry-box into a really odd room, lighted as the others were by candelabrums. They were standing in a balustrade alley, carpeted with red. Down the balustrade, the ground had stone tiles. There was an exit, behind another balustrade, facing them, that seemed inaccessible. They saw then on their right side, two sort-of elevators. The first was on their balustrade, right at their level. The other one was linked to the other balustrade, and could be accessed by the lower level.
"Looks like these two elevators are linked to each other...", Selphie observed. "To get to the other balustrade, there's no other way than taking the ground-based one."
"But how could we make it go up?", Irvine wondered.
"No idea.", Barrett answered. "But... what the..."
The giant, then Selphie and Irvine were surprised to see, turning up beneath them, Quistis, Zell and Cid.
"Hey, down there! How's it going?", Irvine said to them.
"Irvine?", Quistis answered. The SeeD instructor raised her head and noticed them all three.
"Glad to see you again, guys.", Zell answered them. "How was it over there?"
"We've already beaten two minions", Barrett proudly announced, "even if Squall and Cloud helped us a bit against the second one."
"Yes, and not just a bit.", Selphie precised, as she tried to recover as well as can be expected from the hard blows the Red Giant had inflicted her.
"The four other people are still in the dungeon, but they're about to come back to the entrance hall.", Barrett added. "By the way, have you seen this weird lift?"
The six people turned to the double elevator. Barrett put his foot on the upper one, and noticing that it was going down, came rapidly back upon the balustrade alley.
"Eh, this is crazy! Barrett, you've seen it?", Cid asked. "The lower one has raised at the same time!".
Quistis didn't need more than ten seconds thinking to find the suitable course of action
"Well, if I have understood it right, we must act together to allow us three to see what's hidden up there. Cid, Zell, you follow me into the lift shaft, on the bottom left."
The three took place in the shaft.
"Good. Selphie, Irvine and Barrett.", she said to them. "Would you please get into the lift facing you to make us go up? Oh, by the way, don't get out of it before we're back."
"Before we're back, and what else?", Barrett growled.
However, he made up his mind and joined Selphie and Irvine in their lift. The two groups started to move slowly, in opposite directions, Quistis' team upwards, Irvine's team downwards, while the elevator squeaked.
Once arrived at destination, Quistis, Zell and Cid headed to the opposite exit. They discovered a small room, strongly contrasting with the gigantic chandelier hall. A small chandelier, equipped with small candles, was lighting the room. The three people could see sets of shelves, along with some other furniture. Everything was very tidy. Nevertheless, they found nothing interesting, nothing but ...
"Another key!", Zell noticed. He came close to a small table, near one of the sets of shelves, and took the key that was put on it.
"Yeah... At least, we haven't come here for nothing.", Cid said, lighting another cigarette.
The three left this room, now useless, behind them and took their place back into their elevator.
"You may leave.", Quistis announced.
The three other people, who stayed at the lower level, got out of their shaft. The machinery started up again, still squeaking. In a few seconds, the six were at the lower level of the room.
"Well... you've been fast!", Barrett said in an astonished voice. "There was nothing in this room?"
Zell showed the key.
"It might open the door we've seen on our way, in that corridor.", he told them, pointing at the corridor. The six people went into it.
"All right Zell, but if there's a monster in this room, I'd like not to fight it, you see... we've already put two minions to death and the second one was a bit too much... Ouch, my back!"
"In that case, wait for us at the entrance.", Quistis suggested. "Walk to the end of this corridor and you'll be there. We'll take care of Ultimecia's servant if there's one."
They were standing near a heavy iron door, located in the middle of the corridor. Quistis' team stopped there, while Irvine, Selphie and Barrett kept on walking.
"I hope nothing bad would happen to them...", Selphie declared, anxious.
"No worries, Selphie!", Barrett answered with a half-reassuring voice. "As long as Cid is with them, they're out of danger. Gotta tell you: that guy may be a little bit strange but he can do a lot of things among fighting. This Cid is a good guy, you know. Your friends are safe with him, believe me."
They arrived at the end of the corridor, in the entrance hall
"So, we've made all this way round ?", Selphie noticed.
"Looks like we did.", Irvine said. "A full circle."
~~
The door that was locked by the key recently found in the tidy room was quickly opened by Zell. He was exceedingly rejoiced to find in it...
"One of Ultimecia's minions, for sure! Cool, I knew we had to come here!"
Zell squeezed his knuckles, excited by the idea to fight again. Quistis and Cid were not looking reassured though. The room had a medium size, around seventy square feet, and was dimly lightened by four torches, placed on the wall opposed to the door. Right in the middle of the room, a quadruped creature was standing. It had a crimson red skin, a long tail, a white mane and two long horns that were attached to his forehead. Cid seemed to know this kind of creatures.
"We have already seen some of that kind before battling against Sephiroth.", he commented to Quistis with a low voice. "It's a Behemoth. Very hard to kill these filthy creatures!"
"So they are in your world? In ours too...", Quistis answered.
"I have perfectly heard you.", the monster announced. "Indeed I am a Behemoth but Ultimecia has took a particular care of me to allow me to serve her as she wishes. By the way, it might be useless to know it since you're about to die by now, but I'm going to say it anyway: my name is Catoblepas."
"Let's hope that he won't be as problematic as Tri Point!", Quistis continued, in a low voice. She couldn't forget the electric discharges coming from the deceased dragon-like creature.
Cid used his Materia.
"Hard luck, Quistis...", he thought. "It appears that this monster loves electric attacks, too. But don't worry, I'm not about to let you down, neither Zell, nor you..."
He was staring at the beast, right into its eyes, gripping his spear pointing upwards with both hands.
~~
Gargantua was not a tough opponent, but his poison, sleep and confuse attacks were starting to annoy our four heroes seriously. Rinoa tried to Silence him... unsuccessfully. Tifa was busy casting Esuna upon the group. Cloud and Squall were managing to fight quite well, but were taking most of the physical and mental blows coming from the monster.
"We got to do something, Squall... EH! YOU JUST STRUCK ME!"
Indeed, Gargantua had just made Squall confused. The Gunblader, believing he was attacking the monster, had thus hit Cloud who made him quickly recover his senses with a Remedy. The young SeeD could hardly stand.
"Let us take care of it.", Rinoa suggested.
The girl started to attack with her Blaster Edge, while Tifa started a 4-hit combo. Gargantua sent them packing to the back of the room with the back of his hand.
"Rinoa!", Squall shouted.
The girl had no problem to get back up though.
"Don't worry, Squall, I'm all right.". She looked at the monster with an avenging stare. "Very well", she thought, "but don't think I can't do more than this!". Rinoa pointed her hand, shaking with rage, towards her enemy.
"Rinoa? What's happening?", Tifa asked.
She answered in a high pitched voice: "Ultima!". A bright flash sprang from her hand and sledge-hammered the creature in his body to explode. For a while, the room was bathing in emerald green. Gargantua couldn't stand it. Tifa rushed towards the monster, avoided his hands who were trying to block her and gave a violent kick on his grey-striped face. To conclude the fight, she cast a Thundaga, at the same time Rinoa sent a Firaga.
No matter how loud Gargantua could growl, shout, howl, it was done for him. The two girls were no longer paying attention to him when their opponent went into dust, and were already by Cloud and Squall's side.
"Squall? are you okay?", Rinoa asked.
Squall put some time before getting back up and answering:
"Why did you risk it? You could have been killed!"
"Well...", she said. She had put her hands behind her back and was swinging her leg from the left to the right, hesitantly. She couldn't confess that she was worrying about him, as well as he was worrying about her. Squall understood that she could hardly express herself and hugged her.
"Don't fret because of it, that's not important finally. If you were really endangered, I could have... Whatever, most important is that we're still alive."
~~
In the entrance hall, Selphie and Irvine were doing Triple Triad duels, while Barrett, fascinated by the card game, observed them both.
"I won again! Woohoo!", Selphie announced.
"Really...", Irvine said, frustrated. "It makes three times in a row I'm losing a card game today."
As Selphie was taking a Mesmerize card from Irvine's hand; Barrett quickly turned his head towards the big entrance gates.
"What's wrong, Barrett?"
"I heard something behind this door.", the juggernaut answered them. "Have you heard something too?"
The three turned to the big gates. They could hear a sort of gentle scratch behind it.
"What could it be?", Selphie asked.
"Not one of Ultimecia's servants, sure not.", Irvine replied, in a self-trusting voice. "It can't be one, to my opinion..."
He pulled the door wide open. Angelo turned up and immediately rushed into the room.
"A DOG?", Barrett shouted, astonished. "How on earth did he come here?"
"It's Rinoa's.", Selphie explained. "She has trained him to use him during battles sometimes. Don't worry, he's very affectionate."
Angelo had already drawn himself up on his back paws and was leaning against Irvine, trying to get caresses and shaking his tail vigorously.
"So this girl in blue breeds this dog? How could she leave him behind until now?"
"I dunno...", Irvine replied, as he tried to calm Angelo down the best way he could. "As time compression started... yes, Angelo, I know you like us!... Angelo, that's his name, disappeared. Even Rinoa didn't know where to find him."
"A stroke of luck, then...", Barrett said. "But, I'd like to see how Rinoa could take advantage with this animal during battles."
~~
Cid was rapidly drawing on his cigarette, looking at Catoblepas straight into his eyes. The beast tried to bring him down but Cid, very nimble, leaped in the air, dodged the monster's assault, fell back and planted his spear into his body. Zell annoyed him a bit more and kicked him in this left eye before getting swept by the monster's tail. Quistis didn't know which magic to use, but she tried her luck and cast Water. Catoblepas couldn't stand water and, mad with rage, prepared a Thundaga and cast it upon Quistis.
"NO!", Cid shouted. He jumped between the creature and Quistis and took the electric discharge head on.
Quistis expected anything but this.
"What... why?", she asked, surprised by the spearman's reaction.
"We'll see that later.", he replied briefly. "For now, we have a sizeable opponent in front of us."
Zell had just been brought down to the ground again by Catoblepas' tail.
"Okay, guy...", he said, exasperated. "Wanna play this way? We gonna play this way."
He struck the ground with his fists and summoned a Quake. The whole room started to shake. The creature bounced like a ball on the floor and ceiling, while the three people watched him, still on guard. Before he could ever recover, he got sprayed again by Quistis, and Cid pierced him with his spear.
As all the former servants of Ultimecia, Catoblepas went to dust and in the hereafter.
As she saw Cid in a dreadful state because of the electric shock, and Zell wounded by the tail of the now-dead monster, Quistis healed them with White Wind. Then she came across Cid and asked him:
"By the way, it was nice from you to take this Thunder spell for me, but you could have been killed!"
"I know, I know...", Cid answered, after he took back his cigarette. "But I've got my reasons, Miss Quistis. First, since our missions are common missions, we all have to do the necessary so that none of us ten dies. Secondly,..."
"Secondly what?"
"You remind me of my companion..."
"You're joking...", Quistis said.
"No I'm not!", Cid continued. "She has almost the same face expression as you have... although she's not blonde like you, but she has dark hair instead. You know... I've done everything to allow her to stay by my side, I even cancelled the launch of my rocket to prevent her death."
"How?", Quistis asked, interested to know more.
"This space program... It was a damn awesome project at the time... I had prepared myself until D-Day... but when the launching day came, a few minutes before launch time, I knew that Shera - her name - was still at the oxygen reactors level in the rocket, on the pretext that one of them was malfunctioning. It was impossible to make her leave this place. At the last second, I pushed the emergency stop button. It was a catastrophe. ShinRa Inc. has dropped this project since this incident... but at least, Shera's still alive..."
He hesitated.
"I wasted the entire space program just to save a life. Incredible..."
Quistis came closer to the spearman.
"Don't worry, I'm sure you'll succeed in making this space program back up and running.", she said, reassuring.
"No need to, now. I had made a space trip after this. This stupid ShinRa head had trapped us in this piece of nuts and bolts, Cloud, Tifa, Shera and myself, by the time we were about to extract a mega-Materia from it. 'They' wanted to use my rocket to destroy the Meteor with this Materia on board."
"Looks odd... You prevented them from doing it, right?", Zell asked.
"For sure: you really think you could burst a meteor with such a small rocket? 'They' succeeded in launching it anyway, but at the time it was about to crash into the Meteor, we made our way out of it in an emergency pod, with the mega-Materia.". Cid took a dreamer look. "I finally went into space..."
"Yeah, now we'd better get back on Earth and meet our pals at the entrance.", Zell said, with a taunting voice.
"Thanks for helping, Cid." Quistis finished in a smile. "Come on now..."
The three people went out of the room and made their way back to the entrance hall of the Castle. Everybody was here. Squall, Cloud, Tifa and Barrett were discussing about their fights, Rinoa was caressing Angelo, as the dog was running around her, glad to have found his mistress again, Selphie and Irvine ran and greeted them.
"You were the only people left. Woohoo, we're all here now!", Selphie said, delighted.
"So? how's it been?" Irvine asked them.
"Friggin' hell hard one...", Zell answered.
"That monster was indeed a tough one, but we managed to burst him however.", Cid said.
Squall didn't know why, but he felt comforted to see them all, especially as Rinoa was still alive. How could he explain? Was it since the girl's long coma that he started to think that way, that he was paying more and more attention to his friends? Why was he now more determined to protect them... and to protect her, whatever the price to pay could be?
The young SeeD Gunblader tried to forget about these questions, and gathered the other fighters for a debriefing.
Author's note : Sorry if I got too close to the game but I had to anyway... I also know you're expecting to see more of it and you're right... I can tell you right now: next chapter will deal with NEW enemies... I promise!
'Konnichi wa' to: Sadia Fiore from CBB, Rejeanna Maleski from FFF, Gemini83 (I'm still waiting for more. Go on, you have talent!), Yuffie143, Raven and Valerian for having read and dropped very cheerful comments about my work.
Now may everybody receive friendly feelings from me,
~~ Digintegrated Hunter Bill ~~