AN: Well, chapter 36, about uh, six or seven chapters left to go :) Oh yeah, for any observant SG fans reading chpt 33 - SG-7 is actually a medical unit in the series, so uh, call it writer's licence ne? ;p

Rating: R maybe PG-13 (R in standing with ff.net's policy of picking the highest rating)

Disclaimer: SG characters are (c) MGM (thankie to Morrigan for that :p).  FF8 characters are (c) Squaresoft, original characters are mine – ask nicely and I might let you play with them, s'long's you don't break them...

Warnings: SxS Maybe angst (I do like to torture my characters sometimes :p), language (prob nothin u ain't heard b4, but still...)

~Chapter Thirty-Six: Twilight Fading~

It was hot work, and getting hotter as the light faded to the West.  The only consolation of the false twilight – evening hastened by the distant mountains – was that the sun couldn't quite gleam over the mountain peaks to dazzle and blind the defenders.  Still, with the ability to discern heat and scent forms rather than requiring normal sight, the monsters were definitely getting the better deal.  It was time to fall back, and the SeeDs all knew it. 

This was the time when their discipline and training would be tested to the full.  This was the time when one false move, one small mistake, and they would be lost.  The reserve SeeDs already lining the inner defences would become the last hope of those within the excavation site, and their ranks were too thin to do more than hold for a few minutes.  As the flares arced into the gathering gloom – green and glaring – the front rank SeeDs cast their protection spells, turned, and pelted a hundred yards closer to the inner defences.  There half halted, turning smoothly, junctions ready, summoning the mighty destructive power of their GFs.  The other half continued forwards another hundred yards, then they also turned, unleashing their own summons as the first SeeDs reappeared and began retreating once more.

So it went, rank leapfrogging rank all the way back to the inner defences.  Then they waited once more for Harena's monstrous army to come crashing down upon them.  The time was used wisely, heads counted, losses noted, plans adapted accordingly.  But there was also just enough time for already-weary fighters to throw back elixirs, and for those with minor wounds to cast healing magic, or swallow potions.

But the brief respite was only that.  Soon the monsters were upon them again, and the fights were short and ugly, especially down in the narrow channels where most of the fighting was now taking place.  There was no time now for any 'chivalry' that a SeeD might have shown their enemy.  Now it was about survival, pure and simple.  No quarter was given on either side, but the SeeDs were holding their own once more.  These were all seasoned fighters, not just fresh out of Garden's SeeD graduation ball, but veterans of the last sorceress war.  They were proud to be trusted by Squall to the extent where they had no overall commander, and they were all determined to prove that his trust was not misplaced.

The fighting was the most intense at the breaches, but it was by no means non-existent elsewhere along the lines.  Whilst the darkness was nearly upon them, the SeeDs were steeling themselves for that brief pause between day and night when the magic would suddenly cease to exist.  That would be the make or break moment.  If they could, in that briefest of instants, rout the monsters before them, they might be able to keep them running even when the sorceress tried to reassert her control.  Of course, that was a slim to null hope.  What the SeeDs really expected to happen was that, briefly, the monsters at the back would lose interest and begin to drift away.  That would indeed allow their vicious charge to push the monsters back, somewhat.  But they would then have to retreat rather hastily, or risk being trapped against their own defences.  That situation was not one that any of them wished to contemplate too deeply.

***

Joachim waited silently for the moment when everything around them seemed to slow.  It was a phenomenon that all SeeDs were familiar with, a heady sensation that made you feel invincible, because in that moment you seemed to be so much faster, stronger and more intelligent than whatever monster you were fighting.  It was euphoric, and one of the primary causes of death in SeeD.  After a taste of seeming immortality you would do anything, ~anything~, to feel that way again.  Drugs, sex, or breaking all the unwritten rules and deliberately getting into a fight with a nocturnal monster.

Then it came, the air seeming to suddenly dance with a million points of light.  He knew it was madness, they all knew it was madness, but it was the twilight madness, and they were gods within its embrace.  Dimly he heard himself screaming a wordless challenge, echoed by dozens of throats around him, and then they were moving as one, an unstoppable wall of humanity.  And then there was nothing but the sheer adrenaline of the moment, watching the malboro in front of him move, reduced to physical attacks, and seeming to know where each tentacle would go before the creature even did.  He danced within its reach, casually lopping parts of tentacles off as he blocked blows with his double-bladed sword.  It was easy, so easy, and he laughed at the simplicity of it all.  Perhaps, in a few moments, the world would be back to its status quo, but for now, he and his kind were kings – no, gods – and they saw fit to end the reign of such abominations as those before them.

The malboro was dead, utterly destroyed, unrecognisable except for the few limp tentacles that twitched reflexively even in death.  He stared around, looking for another, denying the rational part of his mind that screamed that now was time to pull out.  Along the line the other SeeDs, keeping their cool even in the heat of the moment, the ecstasy that surrounded them, refusing to let the feeling drag them under and to their doom, were retreating back to the relative safety of the defences.

Joachim didn't care.  He laughed again, the chilling laugh of the insane, and darted after another malboro.  That too was dead when the moment finally passed, reality returning with the darkness that was true night.  He stared around him in horror.  The monsters had fallen back, but he had fallen with them, blinded by the twilight madness to the consequences of his actions.  Now...  There was not enough time to get back to the defences...  Not enough time...

Still, he turned and ran, casting haste on himself in a last ditch effort to make it to safety.  There were other SeeDs there, waiting, urging him faster but unable to cast magic as his pursuers were too close behind.  Slowly, slowly the creatures were gaining.  A pack of them, hunting him down.  They skittered noisily on the hard earth, their pointed claws making a rustling, scratching noise that only added to the terror.  So close...  So close...  Hands reaching down towards him, ready to haul him to safety.  Others ready to block with magic should the grand mantises try to follow...

So close...  So close...  His fingertips brushed those of Sara, his eyes caught Rien's and then...  Then his mouth was opening wide in a soundless scream as blood burst forth in a bright crimson flood.  A moment's disbelief, and then Sara's mouth too was wide with a scream of despair and denial, and the tears were falling to splash on the bloodied spikes that had pierced Joachim through both lungs.  A moment longer he hung there, and then he was gone, dragged back into the darkness to the sound of tearing flesh and cracking bone.

AN: *big grin, pats muses* um, oh yeah *tries to look sorrowful* poor Sara...  Mind you, Joachim should've known he had it coming when I let him brag about his record for malboro kills ;p  sort of a malboro too far ne? :p