"Get up
Put the body in motion
Get up, get up
Put the body in motion
Don't stop--
Just start the commotion."
--Wiseguys
"For When you Return"
Part VII
For the life of them all, Selphie Tilmitt would not stop screaming.
Squall was building up a sweat from holding her, and wondered how she was managing to hold out
this long. Selphie had indeed gone mad, and Squall wouldn't have been surprised if she thrashed
and cried herself to death. He thought all of this methodically, not because he didn't care, but
because this was how he always thought during dire situations. Irvine's face, on the other hand,
had a liquidy sheen to it and he looked positively stricken.
"She's crazy," He kept saying. "She's gone mad."
"Selphie," Squall said to her, trying to keep his face reassuringly close. "Selphie, it's
okay -- everything is fine, every--" Selphie had broken out of Irvine's hold and her opposite
shoulder snapped into his face, thus painfully silencing him. Squall managed to retain his grip
and Irvine let out a yelp that sounded like a sob while managing to grab her again. Selphie,
wild-eyed, continued to shriek in unabashed terror.
Quistis snapped something over her shoulder at Zell, although the man couldn't hear what she
said over the noise. This small cavern caught the cries and held them quite nicely... Zell's
ears were ringing at the sound. He couldn't hear himself think -- not that he took the time to
do so that often.
Nevertheless, he saw the panic in Quistis' eyes and felt a sudden snag of a rare idea. Lifting
his hands, he said, "Sleep!" And from his already glowing palms came the tiniest sprinkle of
light... Selphie did not do as he commanded, but something in her shifted a little, and it
seemed that she suddenly thrashed a little less for a brief instant.
Fed by this observation, Zell put his back to the screams and placed his fingers against his
temples, as if in deep thought or concentration. Some of the abilities that came with
junctioning were reflexive, while others had to be controlled. Zell had to mentally force
himself to strengthen his sleep spells.
He turned, shouted out the command again, and thrust his downward palm in Selphie's direction,
concentrating on her with a narrowing of his eyes. This time the radiant dust caught, digging
into her nostrils and jerking her head down with a ~thunk~. Her eyes flew wide for a moment and
her chest heaved in a final attempt to thrust out a cry, and then with a rattling hiss of breath
she lost consciousness.
Squall and Irvine looked down at her as if they couldn't believe their eyes, faces dripping.
Warily, shaking, Squall released his hold--his hands hurt!--and pushed himself up to his feet.
The cave still vibrated in the manner of a rapid heartbeat. Trembling, he pushed his hair back
from eyes and saw that Quistis had risen as well. Irvine was still on his knees next to Selphie,
looking lost and shocked, holding his own hands.
"What the hell..." Zell whispered. His ears hurt so much, he didn't want to add to the noise
any more than he had to.
"This isn't very fun anymore," Irvine murmured.
Squall ran his hand down his face and exchanged a look with Quistis. The blonde woman was biting
worriedly at her top lip, and when she released it there was a dry stoic quality to her voice
that told them all, quite frankly, that she was just as frightened as the rest of them.
"Something did that -- it wasn't just Selphie."
"Slugs aren't -that- ugly," Zell said jokingly. Irvine shot him a glare, and Zell instantly
looked at his feet, his pathetic attempt to try at humor instantly slaughtered.
"I say that we go on," Quistis said. Everyone looked at her with a mixture between anger and
dread. However, she took that opportunity to explain herself. "Didn't you guys hear me?
Something -did- this. It was an attack, just like fire or ice. I can't think of what else it
could be."
"Do you think she'll be better when we wake her up?" Irvine asked, oblivious to what Quistis
had just said. He was still sitting at Selphie's side, and looked paler than the fallen girl
did, almost. Quistis closed her mouth and looked over at him, unable to snap a reply... Not at
that forlorn face.
"I agree with Quistis," Zell finally said, looking humble so to not offend anyone. "We should
just look a little further. It'd be a good idea to scout out the bridge, at least."
Quistis and Irvine looked at him, and then as a unit they all turned to Squall. At this, Squall
resisted a sigh -- why did it always have to come back to him? All he wanted to do was go home,
to get back to Rinoa. However, he found himself saying something entirely different than what
his mind told him. "Whatever is there, it's dangerous. I don't think we should just leave it
for someone else to find."
How was he to know that these words would be the spawn of a dire tragedy?
Irvine had been right. The fun and excitement was gone. This became a chore, a dreadful task
that no one, not even Zell, wanted to go through with. Their anxiety went from pleasant to
gut-wrenching under the turn of events, and no matter how hard they tried to push the feelings
out of their minds and bodies it still remained.
One thing was for certain -- Squall had realized that Rinoa was the lucky one.
Irvine was the one who ended up carrying Selphie, hoisting her on his shoulders as if she were a
backpack. She was breathing comfortably, in a sleep too heavy and thick for dreams -- which was
a good thing, for her pale face made it clear that if she had dreamed, they would be nightmares.
Squall was leading now, with Zell at his back and Irvine in the middle. Quistis acted as a
cover from behind. The distance to the bridge was short, and Squall set his gloved hand upon a
post warily as he touched the wooden slats with his foot and then looked up. Having set up a
lantern-spell of his own, he lifted his arm to let the light reach across the bridge. With his
free hand he warily shielded his eyes, and as the light licked across the darkness he felt that
inner twittering escalate. Never had he felt this much fear before, and now he knew why -- a
spell of some sort. That had to have been it.
The bridge, however, was empty. Beneath it was a gash in the earth that stretched endlessly
from side to side and was void black, no matter how far the light reached. Fatal. The fear was
waning on his confidence painfully, and Squall was beginning to doubt himself. Perhaps they
-should- just leave...
But before he could make up his mind, he set his feet upon the bridge. It creaked, but held.
Holding one hand behind him in silent signal for the rest to stay back, he crept forward with
his light extended. Eyes burning and heart pounding, he carried the feeling that a ten-year-old
did when alone in a haunted wood. His insides jumped every time he heard a noise, even if it
was just the bridge. And the way that the light jumped... every crevice, every nook in the stony
wall seemed to come alive.
A wall was just what he came to. When his feet finally set upon solid ground he found that he
was about eleven paces away from what looked like a dead end. He didn't take much time to look,
however... for he turned the light and thus his attention to everyone else on the bridge.
Irvine and Selphie came next. Zell had light on one side and Squall extended his own on the
other, although Irvine almost wished that it wasn't there. The bridge looked old--why did they
always have to be so rickety?!--and the gap endless. This was not a pleasant sight to amble
ever-so-slowly across.
"...Next time I see someone try to build a wooden bridge, I'm pushing him right into the
river," Irvine huffed breathlessly as he finally reached solid ground. Zell was on the bridge
at the moment that Irvine left and Quistis was at his heels. Squall visibly winced at the sound
that the bridge made, but it hardly swayed and held.
Zell got off the bridge and immediately began to jostle about, as if he were discarding an army
of insects. "I can't believe I just -did- that?!" He cried, and everyone shot him a look as his
voice burst and echoed through the air. Zell's face fell and his arms followed.
"Sorry." He whispered.
Irvine shifted Selphie around on his back and nervously shrugged his shoulders to ease the
tension out of them. No such luck. He was coiled up like a spring. Selphie's head fell off to
another side. Squall watched her, and musingly realized that she was the calmest of them all at
this point.
Quistis was holding her hands together, they looked cold and tight. Her blue eyes shifted from
side to side in an open stare, and yet she seemed afraid to be looking at anything at all. It
was odd, seeing that even she was threatening to loose her composure.
Squall was the first to actually start moving, although he didn't want to. The light was
restricted -- he could see the opposite wall and faint outlines of a curve on the other side,
but everything in the opposite direction was pitch. However, between him and the far wall he
spied a large stone--perhaps waist-height, and with an unspoken gesture to the rest he
approached it, everyone clustered alongside.
He ran his hand over it in a measured sweep, and the entire cave hummed with a crest of sound.
Quistis, who had fallen alongside him, actually threw on the beginnings of a smile, albeit
twisted with her tension. "A draw point."
"Empty." Squall said. "I suppose we'll have to fill it up?" And, having gotten an idea, he held
the gleaming orb that hovered upon his palm over the source. A purple-tinted glow swam up from
the stone and latched onto it with smoky tendrils, taking it in. The mild absorbing quality of
the draw point thus stole the light from him. Only someone with a powerful draw spell would have
been able to retrieve it -- but Squall did not want to draw, not this time.
And, in that manner, he filled the magical whirlwind until the shadows whispered away into the
stone walls that were around them -- trapped on every side but one. It seemed, oddly, that they
were in a small shelf that had been gouged out with time. The walls made a clean, angular curve
that left them no corners... and, of course, on the other side was the sheer drop of the
crevice and the bridge that they had crossed.
Squall looked down at the draw point and was quite pleased with himself, despite the
circumstances. However, no one said a word to him about it -- in fact, no one said a word at
all. Squall narrowed his eyes and looked up from the light to Quistis, and saw that her eyes
were fixated onto a point beyond him.
His innards liquefied and sloshed into his kneecaps at the expression on her face, and it was a
battle of wills to keep his face pointing toward her. Squall's neck muscles twitched as he
reflexively started to turn in the direction that she was looking, as if he were fighting to
stop himself from doing so. However, his instincts wore out, and like a grossly manipulated
puppet he turned his head around and looked over one shoulder, horrified before he even saw
anything:
And at first, he -didn't- see anything. It took a while to let his eyes adjust, and his terror
still put up a good fight, temporarily making his vision swim. But then, finally he saw it --
and realized that it had been there all along. At first, he thought that he was looking at a
pillar, and as his eyes cleared he realized that it was a statue, and finally...
It was a person. Human. The fact that he didn't look upon a monster made this scene all the
-more- horrible -- because Squall knew, deep in the pit of his trembling belly he knew that this
was the source of what he was feeling. A monster was understandable; he would have shrugged at
a freak of nature... But this?
-It- was a -she-, Squall saw this right away. But she was facing away from them at this point,
simply standing near one of the walls with her hands clasped in front of her and her head
lowered slightly. There was not a sign of strength about her; she was of Quistis's height and
build with slender, bony shoulders and white flesh that seemed dull and dead in the light. Her
hair ran down to the middle of her back, it was blue-black and had a sheen that was almost
liquefied, like dank water.
She radiated a chill that almost transfixed Squall into place. He was like stone, and yet
everything inside of him swam dizzily. Next to him, Quistis was starting to breath again,
horrid, rattling little hisses that stung in Squall's ears.
And then she started to move. This was signaled by the shift of her bones beneath the flesh of
her shoulder-blades and arms, the way that her watery hair spilled off to one side and there
came the first glimpse of a sharp, white nose. At this sight everything suddenly erupted, for
Squall felt his fear escalate into mind-numbing terror--finally, he began to understand just
what Selphie had gone through--and Quistis let out a shriek.
At first he thought that she had lost her mind, too. But then he realized that inside of her
cry were actual words, and those words were, "Don't look!" At first Squall did not understand,
but when the group erupted into movement, his body followed. Everything seemed slow and
sluggish, and somehow he knew that something terrible was happening. For the first time, he had
not an inkling of control.
From the corner of his eye he saw Irvine throw himself to the ground with the rock between him
and the woman. From the sound of it, this must have been a painful fall, especially with
Selphie on top of him. He heard her let out a little squeak, and thus realized that her
peaceful slumber was drawing to an end.
Squall never found out what Quistis or Zell did, for he quickly threw his arm over his eyes and
shrank into the leather of his coat with a twist of his torso, squeezing his eyes shut. He felt
a definite wave of energy, a chill that froze his spine into ice and shattered it, and realized
that this creature had just looked at him.
"What the hell are you doing?! Quistis, I can't see!" Zell had let out a shout, and Squall
looked out from his arm just in time to see the blonde woman's pale hands swim out toward him
in a spell. His arm dropped in shock as a light flickered into his irises and stung at him
painfully. Letting out a cry, he put his hands over his eyes and tried to rub it out -- and
when he pulled his hands away, he found that he couldn't see them.
Bewildered, he tried to open his eyes -- and realized that they were already open.
"Quistis, I can't see anything!" That was, of course the point.
Meanwhile, Irvine had gotten Selphie off his back and got her lying down with the rock between
most of her body and the creature that was somewhere else in the cave. He glanced around from
side to side warily, heard Quistis' shouts, and pulled his rifle out from the holster at his
back. Prepping himself in a low crouch now, he cocked the weapon and rose, flipping off his hat
and putting it over his face with his free hand.
Aiming in the direction that the creature had been in with the stretch of one arm, Irvine
fired. There was a ~ping~ as the bullet hit rock, and the a shrill scream that unbelievably
had come from Squall -- the side of the barrel had came to rest right over his left shoulder,
and the gun went off right next to the bottom of his chin.
Clutching the wound, Squall didn't hear Irvine blanch through the ringing of his ears. The
trench-coat garbed man lowered his hat enough to catch sight of a few burns on his friend's
face, and despite himself he glanced in the direction that he had shot. There was a charred
chip in the wall -- and a flash as something black and white came hurtling toward Quistis, who
was obviously unable to see anything.
"Squall, two o'clock!" Irvine cried. But it was then when the moving form took shape, one arm
in front and the other outstretched. Her fingers were inhumanly long and tipped in something
that looked unpleasantly sharp -- obviously a weapon. However, when he caught a glimpse of her
profile he found himself caught in the limbo between fear and unabashed terror. He was unable
to move his feet.
Squall meanwhile, acted without thinking. Blind and disorientated by the gunshot, it was luck
that allowed him to get a hold of the hilt of his gunblade and draw it. Mentally throwing
together an image of what was there when he was first able to see, Squall set his teeth in a
fury-laced grimace and brought the blade around in an upward swing. He actually felt something,
a pressure that swam around his weapon for a second, and then nothing. The sensation rose like
a mist and whispered in his ears--
"...Not far enough..."
And then it was gone.
"You missed!" Another, more material voice cried. Squall felt his heart burst at the sound of
it -- Selphie. He whirred around to look in her direction, although it was just as dark as it
had always been, and he turned in a little circle in bewilderment. There was too much
commotion, too much noise going on in his head.
The next sound was less pleasant. There was a dry, dull ~thunk~ and a cry, as the creature
connected with Quistis and she was sent hurtling to the ground. Squall's nostrils were
immediately filled with the smell of blood, and he gripped his gunblade more tightly, at a
sudden loss.
"Quistis?!" He called out. Zell had done the same, in unison.
Selphie had risen and gotten her arms around Irvine with a dragging heave. It had been narrow,
for the creature had put her eyes upon him just an instant afterwards. However, Selphie could
not avoid it -- they met gazes for a moment, Selphie's green to the woman's abyss-like black...
And although her terror ripened, she found that there was no great effect. Somehow, she was
able to meet the creature's face.
They exchanged a glance for a moment, the woman straddling Quistis and Selphie holding Irvine
down on his knees with her arms wound about the front of his face. Both pairs of eyes widened
for a moment, time seemed to have stopped, and then Quistis was lashing out with her fists, the
creature was stiffening it's oddly human-like claws--fingers tipped with bony knobs of sharp
flesh, Selphie could see this clearly--and Selphie was throwing one hand back and screaming out
the first spell that came to mind.
Nothing happened.
Selphie's heart sank. There was a heavy arc of blood, and then Quistis had managed to get her
hands about the creature's throat. There was no grace in these motions -- they thrashed and
rolled for a terse moment, and then Quistis was heaved away. She landed with a thud onto the
floor and rolled to an arm-flinging halt.
Squall and Zell were unable to do anything, for they stood about blankly, their eyes glazed
with darkness. Selphie saw the creature push itself to its feet -- the motions were so....
human, she found herself thinking. Were monsters that awkward? But she felt no sympathy, and
with a cry she thrust her finger in the woman's direction.
Irvine tried to lift his head. Selphie, who was practically on his back by then, pushed his
face down onto the surface of the rock again. Realizing that pointing wouldn't work, she worked
to vocalize her intent. "Zell! Squall! Behind you! It's all open!"
Indeed it was. The woman was between the two men and a wall. Quistis was, on the other hand,
between them and the gap. The dust was turning a ruby-black around her face, matting into her
hair... but despite this Selphie knew that she was safer than she could have been.
Both Squall and Zell whirled about to face the direction that Selphie had pointed them in. Zell
was the first to summon his Guardian Force, and with a rush he felt a warmth in the form of a
ringlet of light rise up around him. The air hummed, and then buzzed.
But things didn't go as they were supposed to. Zell's face twitched as a sudden burst of relief
hit him. For a moment it seemed that the air of fear had been lifted, but then, as Ifrit burst
into his veins he felt it come anew, stronger than he had ever felt it before. His mind drew a
blank and drew into a fetal little ball in the corner of his head, and then...
Selphie's face fell as she saw the light fade out and away from Zell's frame. The young man
stood blankly there for a moment, his shoulders stooped and his body swaying... Suddenly,
with a buckle of one knee, he fell over on his side and was still.
Blackness. It was endless and had no limit. Squall looked from side to side with the definite
swish of his hair against the top of his eyes, lathered in sweat and trembling despite the fact
that he held his gunblade steadily. Zell had fallen quiet, and Squall sidestepped warily, his
feet shuffling.
Selphie watched the woman eye Squall and shift from side to side for a moment. Her gaze then
shuffled over to Quistis. The woman had stopped moving, and Selphie was beginning to fear the
worst. She wanted to go to her, but Squall was the top priority at this time. "She's right in
front of you, Squall!"
Again, worriedly, Selphie tried another spell. Again, it didn't work, and she warily touched her
hand to the side of her head. With a start she realized that her junctions had been broken.
"In front of me?" Squall said.
The woman was looking directly at Selphie now. Despite the fact that the girl could see her
face, she still felt a wave of terror at the sight of her. However, it was not enough to drive
her mad. Selphie did not have much time to ponder this, however, for the creature disregarded
Squall and started moving in her direction.
"Mmph." Irvine was mumbling under her arms. Selphie, with widening eyes, pushed his face down
harder with an elbow and reached behind her to unwind her nunchaku. Her fingers were shaking so
hard that they vibrated.
However, Squall unknowingly saved her from a confrontation. Gritting his teeth and thinking,
~to hell with it~, he lifted his hand and cast Esuna. With a flare of a radiant light his
vision returned, and he found himself staring bewilderedly at a stone wall. Blinking against
the light, he scuttled around and found himself facing Selphie -- and the back of the creature.
Setting his teeth, he brought his gunblade up and charged.
At the sudden burst of movement Selphie was able to finally tear her eyes away from the
creature's, and she saw Squall sprinting towards it in full-fledged attack. Her heart stopped
in shock, and that expression gave it away. The creature whirled to face him.
Squall was ready. He launched off his front toe and squeezed his eyes shut at the moment she
turned, slashing blindly in a practiced arc. Selphie watched the creature shy away with a
rolling twist of her shoulder. Ducking, hair-flying, she avoided his second sweep.
Selphie didn't watch any longer. She pushed Irvine down under the rock, hissed for him to stay
there, and sprinted over to Quistis' form while she was still hunched over. Dropping to her
knees, she looked over her shoulder a final time and directed her attention to Quistis,
touching the side of her neck and then patting her cheeks. An entire side of her face was
crimson and dusted in sand, her hair matted on that side.
Quistis groaned. Selphie breathed a sigh of relief.
After avoiding Squall's twin blows, the wiry woman lifted herself and slashed at him furiously.
Squall, still pinching his eyes shut, could only strike air. His leather coat was ripped down
to his flesh, and with a sudden rush he was knocked to the ground. The air around him whipped
with that Feeling, and he had the sensation of his spirit being worn down with heavy sandpaper.
He landed with a huff, his breath jolting up into his ribcage, and then he felt her heaviness
on top of him, her claws in his shoulders
Squall waited for the attack, but it never came. She was waiting; he could feel her right on
top of him. Pressing his head back against the earth, he found his cheeks trembling with the
effort of keeping his eyes closed. Above his eyelids he could feel her face getting very close
to his own, could feel the inklings of... was that breath? Perhaps. The mist whipped into his
head again, and he could feel her voice in it, rattling and eerie.
"...Open your eyes." It told him.
No.
"Look at me."
-No.-
"You can't have me without seeing me."
...-Have- her? Squall's breath drew into his throat and locked there, intermingled and tickling
with dust from the floor. Everything seemed to float for a moment as the realization hit him --
this was Zenkamuka! This human, this bony woman was the Guardian Force that they had come for!
...And it would be the death of him.
The air split and cracked, not even two feet away from his head, as a bullet exploded in
Zenkamuka's left shoulder. She cried out and twisted up on top of him, and Squall used this
opportunity to heave her off with a push of his legs. Keeping them moving, he scuttled back and
opened his eyes a crack. She had fallen sharply, arching her back and writhing, and Squall
looked over his shoulder with wide eyes.
Irvine tipped his hat at him. "Glad you stayed down this time."
"Glad you aimed."
The air was as still as Zenkamuka was. Squall wanted to keep his eyes on her just as much as he
wanted to look away, but he decided on the latter for his friends' sake. Warily, he looked over
his shoulder at Quistis and Selphie. Selphie lifted two fingers, signaling an all clear, and
Quistis's head rose a little. She looked dazed.
Zell, however, was another matter entirely. Squall cast him a glance while he pushed himself to
his feet, toggling between him and the fallen Guardian Force. Blood was pooling up under her in
gross amounts. Did they bleed...? Squall had never seen this before, and it crossed his mind in
the form of worry... And, although the air had become still it was no less tense.
With silent motions he caught Irvine's eye and motioned to Zell with one finger. Irvine nodded,
hoisted up his gun, and stepped out from behind the rock. Squall, meanwhile, took his gunblade
tightly into both hands and slowly advanced on Zenkamuka.
Everyone else in the room faded and was zoned out. It was only the body that he saw, lying
twisted and mangled on the floor. Her long throat was arched back and one arm was bent and
cocked at the wrist over her breast. Squall thought of a bird that had been stunned by a house
window when he saw her, and although this was a sadder image he kept up his guard in the form
of a raised blade.
It took heavy concentration not to look at her face, which seemed to have been the source of her
radiating terror. Squall trusted his gut on this one, quite literally. Every time he took a step
closer his stomach knotted more tightly. Warily, he ran his eyes up her legs, to her shoulders,
and finally her chin. His heart was pounding, but the creature was still.
And then her face was snapping into his line of vision. The air screamed with a thousand voices
and Squall followed, throwing his arm up over his eyes with a clumsy swing of his gunblade. He
felt her eyes boring into him and then she followed physically, barreling into his stomach and
sending him hurtling backwards with a force that kept him moving even though she was no longer
there.
Squall soon realized that she was -never- there. She had risen, yes, but something else entirely
had struck him. The wailing air had taken on an embodiment of its own, intensified to the point
where it knocked him off his feet. Squall winced as he thudded across the ground on one
shoulder, and bounced--
Onto nothing. He had struck the edge of the pit.
"Squall!"
His stomach dropped and his feet went first. The edge jostled painfully at the bottom of his
ribcage and he huffed downward, toward nothing. A foot scraped against a smooth surface, and
Squall did all that he could do -- he threw out his hands. He still held the gunblade, and with
a swinging thrust he drove it into the ground at the edge of the pit. He felt his arms jerk and
his shoulders pop at the sinews, but the blade held tight.
Pebbles dropped and clattered against the vertical slope. Squall, wide-eyed, looked over his
shoulders. He was dangling with the edge aligned with his throat, which he soon arched upward
with his effort. Desperate now, he heaved and tensed his biceps in attempt to get himself up --
but there were no footholds to support him. The bridge, he saw with a glance, was a frustrating
distance away.
And he couldn't help but think: I didn't watch.
...I deserve this.
Irvine was groaning, three paces to his left. Whatever had struck, it had hit him too--and he
was one roll away from toppling off the edge himself. His trench coat hung open and danced in
the stale wind that spiraled up from the pit -- it smelled of death, dank and dreary... Squall's
flesh was beginning to chill again, worse than it already was. He was literally gagging on his
fear.
Zell had been shoved into a far edge of the wall. Selphie was lying with her back against the
rock in the center of the room, and Quistis was basically where she had fallen -- incidentally,
right between Squall and Zenkamuka, who's eyes were flashing (although Squall did not allow
himself see this) and her arm was extended with its long, bone-tipped fingers dangling in the
hollow, whispering air.
Yes, it certainly had quieted again. Squall didn't have time to ponder this -- he simply tried
to ease himself up again by the use of his gunblade -- which literally groaned and shifted a
little in the ground. It held him dangling at an odd angle, and like a lever it threatened to
flip over under his hold. Squall's eyes widened at it, not liking this at all, and he carefully
tried to ease himself into a position that didn't put so much weight on the weapon...Although
that was quite impossible.
Zenkamuka's left shoulder was dangling awkwardly and dotted with bits of flesh and gore -- not
at all a pleasant thing to look at, actually. However, what turned Squall's already frigid
blood into ice was the way that her good hand flew back and began to acquire it's own radiance.
Quistis was shakily pushing herself to her feet. Squall could tell by her motions, even though
his fear, that her eyes were still blank and blind. The voices in the air picked up, and she
put her hands to her ears, bending her knees in a standing cower. She didn't see Zenkamuka bring
her hand around, nor did she see the sharp crescent of light come hurtling toward her.
Squall didn't know who Zenkamuka was aiming for, although there was no doubting that he too was
in its path, and could do nothing about it. Quistis, however, was another matter entirely. He
let out a short cry, shouted for her to get down as best he could through the thickness that
had settled in his throat. It was strangling him, but he had been heard. Quistis, who had always
been rather quick, dove for the floor and landed flat. Her hair blew back and twirled in
tendrils as it rushed past her. Squall could only brace himself and wince.
There was a squeal and a snap as his gunblade was severed in two. Squalls arms would have been
next, and that would make the end of it. Squall, however, felt his hands go loose and release
the handle just before the blade snapped, and in a final attempt to keep a hold he let his body
act as an anchor and painfully bring his grasp down the edge of the weapon. His fingers clung
more and more deeply as he went, until his fists pounded into a grip right where the blade met
the earth. He jerked and swung sharply against the cliff.
The hilt of his weapon snapped and fell harmlessly onto his shoulder, before bouncing back into
the pit. He never heard it hit bottom. His mind was driven by other things, now, as another
flash of light went hurtling past his head and ricocheted off the wall across from him. His body
weight was dragging him down onto the blade itself, and he felt the leather of his gloves split
and then a warmth and pain, as his weapon cut into the joints of his fingers. Driven by a will
to hold tight, Squall grit his teeth and begged himself to bear it to bear it. His hands were
putting up a better fight, however, working to uncurl themselves against his will. And Squall
could only watch this happen, dangling at an arm's length away.
"Hey! Hey you! Over here!" Selphie cried. Zenkamuka looked over one shoulder and caught sight
of the girl. Selphie's brown hair was messy and lopsided, and one entire side was covered in
dust... but still she waved her skinny arms around wildly, with bravery that she didn't have.
Meanwhile, Squall felt a pair of hands clap onto his wrists. The sight of a fluttering brown
coat flap blocked off his vision, and then he was blissfully being lifted out from the gap.
Irvine, puffing, dragged him onto solid earth, and Squall found that he was unable to move for
what seemed to have been a long while. Curled up and shaking, he was finally able to peel a
glove away from a hand. It stuck to his skin, and he saw with a grimace that deep cuts lined
his fingers where they met his palm.
"I'm not afraid of you!" Selphie cried. Literally. Zenkamuka was walking toward her by then,
herding her toward the violent edge of the cliff. Selphie couldn't do anything but scuffle
backwards with a stricken look on her shaking face, unable to take control. "I'm not! You can't
scare me! Irvine, some help here!"
"Get her away from Selphie and Quistis, Squall. I can't cast anything with them so nearby."
Irvine said. He had apparently misplaced his rifle -- which was a good thing. Squall didn't
trust the man's marksmanship, not tonight.
"What about Zell?" Squall asked. The fallen man was by far the furthest from the melee.
"Guuuuys..." Selphie was saying in the background.
"I don't know," Irvine said.
As this response, added to the sight of Quistis warily easing her blood-caked head up from the
earth again, drove into Squall a wave of fury that sent his muscles into lock -- in the manner
of a caged animal with nothing left for it but failure. Fuming, enraged, and at the end of his
fuse, he locked his eyes into the back of Zenkamuka's head and pushed off into a sprint. He had
tried this before and failed, but this time was different in two ways: he had no weapon, and his
mind had shut down. Irvine winced at the sight of this, but braced himself with a single step
to one side, positioning himself.
She heard him coming, but it was too late. As she whirled Squall drew up his chest but kept
moving, bringing his hand around in order to push her head away when he got near -- anything to
avoid her face, although Squall's eyes, in his temporary madness, remained open. Like a snake
she drew her head back and whipped it around, and her body whirled to meet him. However, what
she did -not- expect was the fact that Squall's hands were drenched in his own blood.
Suddenly, just as she turned to lock her eyes into his own she felt a spray and a sting, as
something warm and wet snapped into her inhuman, depthless orbs. And, much like a small child
she let out a wail and covered her face.
Blinded.
Squall scuttled and almost fell over, as he had planned to simply keep moving into her. However,
at this turn of events he found himself surprised, and as she continued to claw at her
face and whine he took two steps back, his eyes wide.
A white-blue circle of light began to spin wildly around her. She never saw it coming. Selphie
ran back as far as she could go and pressed her back against the wall, and Squall, covering his
eyes, moved away as well.
This was done just in time, and a blast of ice came bursting up, shaped by that circle of
light. Squall felt his face burn with cold, and then with a wary glance he looked out from
under the sanctuary of his elbow.
Zenkamuka stood, frozen in a column of blue-tinted ice. She was trapped in the motion of
hunching over and covering her eyes with both hands. If Squall didn't know better, he would
have thought that she was crying.
Zell heaved a long and pain-laden groan. Wincing, he put the back of his hand over his eyes and
rubbed them, before rolling them open drunkenly. He drearily found himself face-to-face with
Irvine and Selphie, who were looking down at him with victorious little grins. Squall stood
behind them with his arms crossed, and Quistis was at his side. She had been cleaned up a
little, but a trio of scars ran up from beneath her jaw -- they still oozed a little, and she
looked pale.
He took his eyes away from her and winced again, rolling up onto his back. Taking a few short
breaths, he finally uttered, "What in the -hell- just happened?"
"Your Guardian Force, that's what happened." Squall said. Zell did a double-take right there
where he lay, and then was surprised all over again. Everyone else waited for it to sink in,
just as Squall had done when he first delivered the news.
"-What-?!" Zell finally said.
Squall repeated himself. Zell couldn't believe it.
"But..."
"I've got to hand it to you," Irvine said bitterly. "That was certainly a challenge, buddy."
"...Sorry?" Zell tried.
"And lucky to be talking to us," Selphie said with a wink. She took his hand and helped Zell to
his feet -- which was tough in itself, on account that the man was still wobbling. He was as
white as Zenkamuka had been, and still looked mildly out of place.
"Are you alright?" Quistis finally asked.
"...I think so." Zell replied.
"Do you remember what happened?" Irvine asked.
And as they began to chatter about the battle that they just had, Squall decided that he had no
interest. He was lucky to be alive. It was hard, remembering the last time that a Guardian
Force did that to him... Zenkamuka had no special attacks, not really... but rather, a way of
shredding his confidence. He still felt it. Weak.
While Zell spoke of not remembering himself going down and squabbled with Quistis over the
stupidity of casting blind on them all, Squall wandered over to the small prison cell of ice
and looked up at it with his arms crossed over his chest and his hands under his jacket for
warmth. Carefully, his eyes wandered about the strange pose that she had been captured in, and
again he wondered, wondered....
He was so lost in his thoughts that he nearly jumped at the feeling of a hand on his shoulder.
It was just Irvine, however. Next to him was Quistis, who was unconsciously touching the wounds
on her face and Selphie, who was supporting Zell. He looked less disorientated, although Irvine
was the one who ended up speaking. "Are you okay?"
"I've been better," Squall admitted.
"Tell me about it."
They all stood together in silence for a moment, feeling like a unit once more, no one better
or worse than the person they stood beside. There was a bit of awe about it all, although in a
few days they all would be admitting that nothing good came from this adventure -- that they'd
lost more than they had gained.
But there, on that day, at that moment... They were at their peak.
Irvine was the first one to speak up. "...The most compatible gets it." This was a fact, the
method that they'd always used to decide over these matters. They all had fought equally; they
all had contributed to the cause... And in the end, it was the Guardian Force itself that
decided who was best suited for it.
Squall frowned a little at the comment. He wasn't sure how much he actually wanted this
creature, and had a feeling that everyone felt the same way. It was a bittersweet affair. And,
as if exchanging their thoughts, everyone cast each other a glance and begrudgingly put their
fingertips toward the column of ice and the creature within.
No one knew quite how the process worked, or how it was that one person was more fitting than
another. It was simply the way that it had always been and what they had been taught. Their
blood began to tingle and boil, a small light danced at the tip of their fingers and up in a
narrow line to their elbows.... When the sensation reached its peak and the air began to hum
pointedly, they slipped open their eyes and slid them about.
Squall looked down. His light was the brightest by far.
"Junction it, Squall." Irvine said.
"You trapped her." Squall said.
"With your help."
Selphie rubbed at a bare and chilly shoulder, thus eliminating the meager beam of light that
she had created. "She's yours. It's already decided." Zell and Quistis nodded at this.
He didn't make a sound, but inwardly Squall heaved a long and weary sigh. Wetting his lips with
a little roll of his tongue, he turned his eyes up toward the pitiful creature that was
temporarily frozen in time, posed like a miserable and sobbing child that had blood in her eyes
instead of tears. Zenkamuka. Another Guardian Force among many.
He put a finger to his temple.
End Part 7/?
To be Continued.
Put the body in motion
Get up, get up
Put the body in motion
Don't stop--
Just start the commotion."
--Wiseguys
"For When you Return"
Part VII
For the life of them all, Selphie Tilmitt would not stop screaming.
Squall was building up a sweat from holding her, and wondered how she was managing to hold out
this long. Selphie had indeed gone mad, and Squall wouldn't have been surprised if she thrashed
and cried herself to death. He thought all of this methodically, not because he didn't care, but
because this was how he always thought during dire situations. Irvine's face, on the other hand,
had a liquidy sheen to it and he looked positively stricken.
"She's crazy," He kept saying. "She's gone mad."
"Selphie," Squall said to her, trying to keep his face reassuringly close. "Selphie, it's
okay -- everything is fine, every--" Selphie had broken out of Irvine's hold and her opposite
shoulder snapped into his face, thus painfully silencing him. Squall managed to retain his grip
and Irvine let out a yelp that sounded like a sob while managing to grab her again. Selphie,
wild-eyed, continued to shriek in unabashed terror.
Quistis snapped something over her shoulder at Zell, although the man couldn't hear what she
said over the noise. This small cavern caught the cries and held them quite nicely... Zell's
ears were ringing at the sound. He couldn't hear himself think -- not that he took the time to
do so that often.
Nevertheless, he saw the panic in Quistis' eyes and felt a sudden snag of a rare idea. Lifting
his hands, he said, "Sleep!" And from his already glowing palms came the tiniest sprinkle of
light... Selphie did not do as he commanded, but something in her shifted a little, and it
seemed that she suddenly thrashed a little less for a brief instant.
Fed by this observation, Zell put his back to the screams and placed his fingers against his
temples, as if in deep thought or concentration. Some of the abilities that came with
junctioning were reflexive, while others had to be controlled. Zell had to mentally force
himself to strengthen his sleep spells.
He turned, shouted out the command again, and thrust his downward palm in Selphie's direction,
concentrating on her with a narrowing of his eyes. This time the radiant dust caught, digging
into her nostrils and jerking her head down with a ~thunk~. Her eyes flew wide for a moment and
her chest heaved in a final attempt to thrust out a cry, and then with a rattling hiss of breath
she lost consciousness.
Squall and Irvine looked down at her as if they couldn't believe their eyes, faces dripping.
Warily, shaking, Squall released his hold--his hands hurt!--and pushed himself up to his feet.
The cave still vibrated in the manner of a rapid heartbeat. Trembling, he pushed his hair back
from eyes and saw that Quistis had risen as well. Irvine was still on his knees next to Selphie,
looking lost and shocked, holding his own hands.
"What the hell..." Zell whispered. His ears hurt so much, he didn't want to add to the noise
any more than he had to.
"This isn't very fun anymore," Irvine murmured.
Squall ran his hand down his face and exchanged a look with Quistis. The blonde woman was biting
worriedly at her top lip, and when she released it there was a dry stoic quality to her voice
that told them all, quite frankly, that she was just as frightened as the rest of them.
"Something did that -- it wasn't just Selphie."
"Slugs aren't -that- ugly," Zell said jokingly. Irvine shot him a glare, and Zell instantly
looked at his feet, his pathetic attempt to try at humor instantly slaughtered.
"I say that we go on," Quistis said. Everyone looked at her with a mixture between anger and
dread. However, she took that opportunity to explain herself. "Didn't you guys hear me?
Something -did- this. It was an attack, just like fire or ice. I can't think of what else it
could be."
"Do you think she'll be better when we wake her up?" Irvine asked, oblivious to what Quistis
had just said. He was still sitting at Selphie's side, and looked paler than the fallen girl
did, almost. Quistis closed her mouth and looked over at him, unable to snap a reply... Not at
that forlorn face.
"I agree with Quistis," Zell finally said, looking humble so to not offend anyone. "We should
just look a little further. It'd be a good idea to scout out the bridge, at least."
Quistis and Irvine looked at him, and then as a unit they all turned to Squall. At this, Squall
resisted a sigh -- why did it always have to come back to him? All he wanted to do was go home,
to get back to Rinoa. However, he found himself saying something entirely different than what
his mind told him. "Whatever is there, it's dangerous. I don't think we should just leave it
for someone else to find."
How was he to know that these words would be the spawn of a dire tragedy?
Irvine had been right. The fun and excitement was gone. This became a chore, a dreadful task
that no one, not even Zell, wanted to go through with. Their anxiety went from pleasant to
gut-wrenching under the turn of events, and no matter how hard they tried to push the feelings
out of their minds and bodies it still remained.
One thing was for certain -- Squall had realized that Rinoa was the lucky one.
Irvine was the one who ended up carrying Selphie, hoisting her on his shoulders as if she were a
backpack. She was breathing comfortably, in a sleep too heavy and thick for dreams -- which was
a good thing, for her pale face made it clear that if she had dreamed, they would be nightmares.
Squall was leading now, with Zell at his back and Irvine in the middle. Quistis acted as a
cover from behind. The distance to the bridge was short, and Squall set his gloved hand upon a
post warily as he touched the wooden slats with his foot and then looked up. Having set up a
lantern-spell of his own, he lifted his arm to let the light reach across the bridge. With his
free hand he warily shielded his eyes, and as the light licked across the darkness he felt that
inner twittering escalate. Never had he felt this much fear before, and now he knew why -- a
spell of some sort. That had to have been it.
The bridge, however, was empty. Beneath it was a gash in the earth that stretched endlessly
from side to side and was void black, no matter how far the light reached. Fatal. The fear was
waning on his confidence painfully, and Squall was beginning to doubt himself. Perhaps they
-should- just leave...
But before he could make up his mind, he set his feet upon the bridge. It creaked, but held.
Holding one hand behind him in silent signal for the rest to stay back, he crept forward with
his light extended. Eyes burning and heart pounding, he carried the feeling that a ten-year-old
did when alone in a haunted wood. His insides jumped every time he heard a noise, even if it
was just the bridge. And the way that the light jumped... every crevice, every nook in the stony
wall seemed to come alive.
A wall was just what he came to. When his feet finally set upon solid ground he found that he
was about eleven paces away from what looked like a dead end. He didn't take much time to look,
however... for he turned the light and thus his attention to everyone else on the bridge.
Irvine and Selphie came next. Zell had light on one side and Squall extended his own on the
other, although Irvine almost wished that it wasn't there. The bridge looked old--why did they
always have to be so rickety?!--and the gap endless. This was not a pleasant sight to amble
ever-so-slowly across.
"...Next time I see someone try to build a wooden bridge, I'm pushing him right into the
river," Irvine huffed breathlessly as he finally reached solid ground. Zell was on the bridge
at the moment that Irvine left and Quistis was at his heels. Squall visibly winced at the sound
that the bridge made, but it hardly swayed and held.
Zell got off the bridge and immediately began to jostle about, as if he were discarding an army
of insects. "I can't believe I just -did- that?!" He cried, and everyone shot him a look as his
voice burst and echoed through the air. Zell's face fell and his arms followed.
"Sorry." He whispered.
Irvine shifted Selphie around on his back and nervously shrugged his shoulders to ease the
tension out of them. No such luck. He was coiled up like a spring. Selphie's head fell off to
another side. Squall watched her, and musingly realized that she was the calmest of them all at
this point.
Quistis was holding her hands together, they looked cold and tight. Her blue eyes shifted from
side to side in an open stare, and yet she seemed afraid to be looking at anything at all. It
was odd, seeing that even she was threatening to loose her composure.
Squall was the first to actually start moving, although he didn't want to. The light was
restricted -- he could see the opposite wall and faint outlines of a curve on the other side,
but everything in the opposite direction was pitch. However, between him and the far wall he
spied a large stone--perhaps waist-height, and with an unspoken gesture to the rest he
approached it, everyone clustered alongside.
He ran his hand over it in a measured sweep, and the entire cave hummed with a crest of sound.
Quistis, who had fallen alongside him, actually threw on the beginnings of a smile, albeit
twisted with her tension. "A draw point."
"Empty." Squall said. "I suppose we'll have to fill it up?" And, having gotten an idea, he held
the gleaming orb that hovered upon his palm over the source. A purple-tinted glow swam up from
the stone and latched onto it with smoky tendrils, taking it in. The mild absorbing quality of
the draw point thus stole the light from him. Only someone with a powerful draw spell would have
been able to retrieve it -- but Squall did not want to draw, not this time.
And, in that manner, he filled the magical whirlwind until the shadows whispered away into the
stone walls that were around them -- trapped on every side but one. It seemed, oddly, that they
were in a small shelf that had been gouged out with time. The walls made a clean, angular curve
that left them no corners... and, of course, on the other side was the sheer drop of the
crevice and the bridge that they had crossed.
Squall looked down at the draw point and was quite pleased with himself, despite the
circumstances. However, no one said a word to him about it -- in fact, no one said a word at
all. Squall narrowed his eyes and looked up from the light to Quistis, and saw that her eyes
were fixated onto a point beyond him.
His innards liquefied and sloshed into his kneecaps at the expression on her face, and it was a
battle of wills to keep his face pointing toward her. Squall's neck muscles twitched as he
reflexively started to turn in the direction that she was looking, as if he were fighting to
stop himself from doing so. However, his instincts wore out, and like a grossly manipulated
puppet he turned his head around and looked over one shoulder, horrified before he even saw
anything:
And at first, he -didn't- see anything. It took a while to let his eyes adjust, and his terror
still put up a good fight, temporarily making his vision swim. But then, finally he saw it --
and realized that it had been there all along. At first, he thought that he was looking at a
pillar, and as his eyes cleared he realized that it was a statue, and finally...
It was a person. Human. The fact that he didn't look upon a monster made this scene all the
-more- horrible -- because Squall knew, deep in the pit of his trembling belly he knew that this
was the source of what he was feeling. A monster was understandable; he would have shrugged at
a freak of nature... But this?
-It- was a -she-, Squall saw this right away. But she was facing away from them at this point,
simply standing near one of the walls with her hands clasped in front of her and her head
lowered slightly. There was not a sign of strength about her; she was of Quistis's height and
build with slender, bony shoulders and white flesh that seemed dull and dead in the light. Her
hair ran down to the middle of her back, it was blue-black and had a sheen that was almost
liquefied, like dank water.
She radiated a chill that almost transfixed Squall into place. He was like stone, and yet
everything inside of him swam dizzily. Next to him, Quistis was starting to breath again,
horrid, rattling little hisses that stung in Squall's ears.
And then she started to move. This was signaled by the shift of her bones beneath the flesh of
her shoulder-blades and arms, the way that her watery hair spilled off to one side and there
came the first glimpse of a sharp, white nose. At this sight everything suddenly erupted, for
Squall felt his fear escalate into mind-numbing terror--finally, he began to understand just
what Selphie had gone through--and Quistis let out a shriek.
At first he thought that she had lost her mind, too. But then he realized that inside of her
cry were actual words, and those words were, "Don't look!" At first Squall did not understand,
but when the group erupted into movement, his body followed. Everything seemed slow and
sluggish, and somehow he knew that something terrible was happening. For the first time, he had
not an inkling of control.
From the corner of his eye he saw Irvine throw himself to the ground with the rock between him
and the woman. From the sound of it, this must have been a painful fall, especially with
Selphie on top of him. He heard her let out a little squeak, and thus realized that her
peaceful slumber was drawing to an end.
Squall never found out what Quistis or Zell did, for he quickly threw his arm over his eyes and
shrank into the leather of his coat with a twist of his torso, squeezing his eyes shut. He felt
a definite wave of energy, a chill that froze his spine into ice and shattered it, and realized
that this creature had just looked at him.
"What the hell are you doing?! Quistis, I can't see!" Zell had let out a shout, and Squall
looked out from his arm just in time to see the blonde woman's pale hands swim out toward him
in a spell. His arm dropped in shock as a light flickered into his irises and stung at him
painfully. Letting out a cry, he put his hands over his eyes and tried to rub it out -- and
when he pulled his hands away, he found that he couldn't see them.
Bewildered, he tried to open his eyes -- and realized that they were already open.
"Quistis, I can't see anything!" That was, of course the point.
Meanwhile, Irvine had gotten Selphie off his back and got her lying down with the rock between
most of her body and the creature that was somewhere else in the cave. He glanced around from
side to side warily, heard Quistis' shouts, and pulled his rifle out from the holster at his
back. Prepping himself in a low crouch now, he cocked the weapon and rose, flipping off his hat
and putting it over his face with his free hand.
Aiming in the direction that the creature had been in with the stretch of one arm, Irvine
fired. There was a ~ping~ as the bullet hit rock, and the a shrill scream that unbelievably
had come from Squall -- the side of the barrel had came to rest right over his left shoulder,
and the gun went off right next to the bottom of his chin.
Clutching the wound, Squall didn't hear Irvine blanch through the ringing of his ears. The
trench-coat garbed man lowered his hat enough to catch sight of a few burns on his friend's
face, and despite himself he glanced in the direction that he had shot. There was a charred
chip in the wall -- and a flash as something black and white came hurtling toward Quistis, who
was obviously unable to see anything.
"Squall, two o'clock!" Irvine cried. But it was then when the moving form took shape, one arm
in front and the other outstretched. Her fingers were inhumanly long and tipped in something
that looked unpleasantly sharp -- obviously a weapon. However, when he caught a glimpse of her
profile he found himself caught in the limbo between fear and unabashed terror. He was unable
to move his feet.
Squall meanwhile, acted without thinking. Blind and disorientated by the gunshot, it was luck
that allowed him to get a hold of the hilt of his gunblade and draw it. Mentally throwing
together an image of what was there when he was first able to see, Squall set his teeth in a
fury-laced grimace and brought the blade around in an upward swing. He actually felt something,
a pressure that swam around his weapon for a second, and then nothing. The sensation rose like
a mist and whispered in his ears--
"...Not far enough..."
And then it was gone.
"You missed!" Another, more material voice cried. Squall felt his heart burst at the sound of
it -- Selphie. He whirred around to look in her direction, although it was just as dark as it
had always been, and he turned in a little circle in bewilderment. There was too much
commotion, too much noise going on in his head.
The next sound was less pleasant. There was a dry, dull ~thunk~ and a cry, as the creature
connected with Quistis and she was sent hurtling to the ground. Squall's nostrils were
immediately filled with the smell of blood, and he gripped his gunblade more tightly, at a
sudden loss.
"Quistis?!" He called out. Zell had done the same, in unison.
Selphie had risen and gotten her arms around Irvine with a dragging heave. It had been narrow,
for the creature had put her eyes upon him just an instant afterwards. However, Selphie could
not avoid it -- they met gazes for a moment, Selphie's green to the woman's abyss-like black...
And although her terror ripened, she found that there was no great effect. Somehow, she was
able to meet the creature's face.
They exchanged a glance for a moment, the woman straddling Quistis and Selphie holding Irvine
down on his knees with her arms wound about the front of his face. Both pairs of eyes widened
for a moment, time seemed to have stopped, and then Quistis was lashing out with her fists, the
creature was stiffening it's oddly human-like claws--fingers tipped with bony knobs of sharp
flesh, Selphie could see this clearly--and Selphie was throwing one hand back and screaming out
the first spell that came to mind.
Nothing happened.
Selphie's heart sank. There was a heavy arc of blood, and then Quistis had managed to get her
hands about the creature's throat. There was no grace in these motions -- they thrashed and
rolled for a terse moment, and then Quistis was heaved away. She landed with a thud onto the
floor and rolled to an arm-flinging halt.
Squall and Zell were unable to do anything, for they stood about blankly, their eyes glazed
with darkness. Selphie saw the creature push itself to its feet -- the motions were so....
human, she found herself thinking. Were monsters that awkward? But she felt no sympathy, and
with a cry she thrust her finger in the woman's direction.
Irvine tried to lift his head. Selphie, who was practically on his back by then, pushed his
face down onto the surface of the rock again. Realizing that pointing wouldn't work, she worked
to vocalize her intent. "Zell! Squall! Behind you! It's all open!"
Indeed it was. The woman was between the two men and a wall. Quistis was, on the other hand,
between them and the gap. The dust was turning a ruby-black around her face, matting into her
hair... but despite this Selphie knew that she was safer than she could have been.
Both Squall and Zell whirled about to face the direction that Selphie had pointed them in. Zell
was the first to summon his Guardian Force, and with a rush he felt a warmth in the form of a
ringlet of light rise up around him. The air hummed, and then buzzed.
But things didn't go as they were supposed to. Zell's face twitched as a sudden burst of relief
hit him. For a moment it seemed that the air of fear had been lifted, but then, as Ifrit burst
into his veins he felt it come anew, stronger than he had ever felt it before. His mind drew a
blank and drew into a fetal little ball in the corner of his head, and then...
Selphie's face fell as she saw the light fade out and away from Zell's frame. The young man
stood blankly there for a moment, his shoulders stooped and his body swaying... Suddenly,
with a buckle of one knee, he fell over on his side and was still.
Blackness. It was endless and had no limit. Squall looked from side to side with the definite
swish of his hair against the top of his eyes, lathered in sweat and trembling despite the fact
that he held his gunblade steadily. Zell had fallen quiet, and Squall sidestepped warily, his
feet shuffling.
Selphie watched the woman eye Squall and shift from side to side for a moment. Her gaze then
shuffled over to Quistis. The woman had stopped moving, and Selphie was beginning to fear the
worst. She wanted to go to her, but Squall was the top priority at this time. "She's right in
front of you, Squall!"
Again, worriedly, Selphie tried another spell. Again, it didn't work, and she warily touched her
hand to the side of her head. With a start she realized that her junctions had been broken.
"In front of me?" Squall said.
The woman was looking directly at Selphie now. Despite the fact that the girl could see her
face, she still felt a wave of terror at the sight of her. However, it was not enough to drive
her mad. Selphie did not have much time to ponder this, however, for the creature disregarded
Squall and started moving in her direction.
"Mmph." Irvine was mumbling under her arms. Selphie, with widening eyes, pushed his face down
harder with an elbow and reached behind her to unwind her nunchaku. Her fingers were shaking so
hard that they vibrated.
However, Squall unknowingly saved her from a confrontation. Gritting his teeth and thinking,
~to hell with it~, he lifted his hand and cast Esuna. With a flare of a radiant light his
vision returned, and he found himself staring bewilderedly at a stone wall. Blinking against
the light, he scuttled around and found himself facing Selphie -- and the back of the creature.
Setting his teeth, he brought his gunblade up and charged.
At the sudden burst of movement Selphie was able to finally tear her eyes away from the
creature's, and she saw Squall sprinting towards it in full-fledged attack. Her heart stopped
in shock, and that expression gave it away. The creature whirled to face him.
Squall was ready. He launched off his front toe and squeezed his eyes shut at the moment she
turned, slashing blindly in a practiced arc. Selphie watched the creature shy away with a
rolling twist of her shoulder. Ducking, hair-flying, she avoided his second sweep.
Selphie didn't watch any longer. She pushed Irvine down under the rock, hissed for him to stay
there, and sprinted over to Quistis' form while she was still hunched over. Dropping to her
knees, she looked over her shoulder a final time and directed her attention to Quistis,
touching the side of her neck and then patting her cheeks. An entire side of her face was
crimson and dusted in sand, her hair matted on that side.
Quistis groaned. Selphie breathed a sigh of relief.
After avoiding Squall's twin blows, the wiry woman lifted herself and slashed at him furiously.
Squall, still pinching his eyes shut, could only strike air. His leather coat was ripped down
to his flesh, and with a sudden rush he was knocked to the ground. The air around him whipped
with that Feeling, and he had the sensation of his spirit being worn down with heavy sandpaper.
He landed with a huff, his breath jolting up into his ribcage, and then he felt her heaviness
on top of him, her claws in his shoulders
Squall waited for the attack, but it never came. She was waiting; he could feel her right on
top of him. Pressing his head back against the earth, he found his cheeks trembling with the
effort of keeping his eyes closed. Above his eyelids he could feel her face getting very close
to his own, could feel the inklings of... was that breath? Perhaps. The mist whipped into his
head again, and he could feel her voice in it, rattling and eerie.
"...Open your eyes." It told him.
No.
"Look at me."
-No.-
"You can't have me without seeing me."
...-Have- her? Squall's breath drew into his throat and locked there, intermingled and tickling
with dust from the floor. Everything seemed to float for a moment as the realization hit him --
this was Zenkamuka! This human, this bony woman was the Guardian Force that they had come for!
...And it would be the death of him.
The air split and cracked, not even two feet away from his head, as a bullet exploded in
Zenkamuka's left shoulder. She cried out and twisted up on top of him, and Squall used this
opportunity to heave her off with a push of his legs. Keeping them moving, he scuttled back and
opened his eyes a crack. She had fallen sharply, arching her back and writhing, and Squall
looked over his shoulder with wide eyes.
Irvine tipped his hat at him. "Glad you stayed down this time."
"Glad you aimed."
The air was as still as Zenkamuka was. Squall wanted to keep his eyes on her just as much as he
wanted to look away, but he decided on the latter for his friends' sake. Warily, he looked over
his shoulder at Quistis and Selphie. Selphie lifted two fingers, signaling an all clear, and
Quistis's head rose a little. She looked dazed.
Zell, however, was another matter entirely. Squall cast him a glance while he pushed himself to
his feet, toggling between him and the fallen Guardian Force. Blood was pooling up under her in
gross amounts. Did they bleed...? Squall had never seen this before, and it crossed his mind in
the form of worry... And, although the air had become still it was no less tense.
With silent motions he caught Irvine's eye and motioned to Zell with one finger. Irvine nodded,
hoisted up his gun, and stepped out from behind the rock. Squall, meanwhile, took his gunblade
tightly into both hands and slowly advanced on Zenkamuka.
Everyone else in the room faded and was zoned out. It was only the body that he saw, lying
twisted and mangled on the floor. Her long throat was arched back and one arm was bent and
cocked at the wrist over her breast. Squall thought of a bird that had been stunned by a house
window when he saw her, and although this was a sadder image he kept up his guard in the form
of a raised blade.
It took heavy concentration not to look at her face, which seemed to have been the source of her
radiating terror. Squall trusted his gut on this one, quite literally. Every time he took a step
closer his stomach knotted more tightly. Warily, he ran his eyes up her legs, to her shoulders,
and finally her chin. His heart was pounding, but the creature was still.
And then her face was snapping into his line of vision. The air screamed with a thousand voices
and Squall followed, throwing his arm up over his eyes with a clumsy swing of his gunblade. He
felt her eyes boring into him and then she followed physically, barreling into his stomach and
sending him hurtling backwards with a force that kept him moving even though she was no longer
there.
Squall soon realized that she was -never- there. She had risen, yes, but something else entirely
had struck him. The wailing air had taken on an embodiment of its own, intensified to the point
where it knocked him off his feet. Squall winced as he thudded across the ground on one
shoulder, and bounced--
Onto nothing. He had struck the edge of the pit.
"Squall!"
His stomach dropped and his feet went first. The edge jostled painfully at the bottom of his
ribcage and he huffed downward, toward nothing. A foot scraped against a smooth surface, and
Squall did all that he could do -- he threw out his hands. He still held the gunblade, and with
a swinging thrust he drove it into the ground at the edge of the pit. He felt his arms jerk and
his shoulders pop at the sinews, but the blade held tight.
Pebbles dropped and clattered against the vertical slope. Squall, wide-eyed, looked over his
shoulders. He was dangling with the edge aligned with his throat, which he soon arched upward
with his effort. Desperate now, he heaved and tensed his biceps in attempt to get himself up --
but there were no footholds to support him. The bridge, he saw with a glance, was a frustrating
distance away.
And he couldn't help but think: I didn't watch.
...I deserve this.
Irvine was groaning, three paces to his left. Whatever had struck, it had hit him too--and he
was one roll away from toppling off the edge himself. His trench coat hung open and danced in
the stale wind that spiraled up from the pit -- it smelled of death, dank and dreary... Squall's
flesh was beginning to chill again, worse than it already was. He was literally gagging on his
fear.
Zell had been shoved into a far edge of the wall. Selphie was lying with her back against the
rock in the center of the room, and Quistis was basically where she had fallen -- incidentally,
right between Squall and Zenkamuka, who's eyes were flashing (although Squall did not allow
himself see this) and her arm was extended with its long, bone-tipped fingers dangling in the
hollow, whispering air.
Yes, it certainly had quieted again. Squall didn't have time to ponder this -- he simply tried
to ease himself up again by the use of his gunblade -- which literally groaned and shifted a
little in the ground. It held him dangling at an odd angle, and like a lever it threatened to
flip over under his hold. Squall's eyes widened at it, not liking this at all, and he carefully
tried to ease himself into a position that didn't put so much weight on the weapon...Although
that was quite impossible.
Zenkamuka's left shoulder was dangling awkwardly and dotted with bits of flesh and gore -- not
at all a pleasant thing to look at, actually. However, what turned Squall's already frigid
blood into ice was the way that her good hand flew back and began to acquire it's own radiance.
Quistis was shakily pushing herself to her feet. Squall could tell by her motions, even though
his fear, that her eyes were still blank and blind. The voices in the air picked up, and she
put her hands to her ears, bending her knees in a standing cower. She didn't see Zenkamuka bring
her hand around, nor did she see the sharp crescent of light come hurtling toward her.
Squall didn't know who Zenkamuka was aiming for, although there was no doubting that he too was
in its path, and could do nothing about it. Quistis, however, was another matter entirely. He
let out a short cry, shouted for her to get down as best he could through the thickness that
had settled in his throat. It was strangling him, but he had been heard. Quistis, who had always
been rather quick, dove for the floor and landed flat. Her hair blew back and twirled in
tendrils as it rushed past her. Squall could only brace himself and wince.
There was a squeal and a snap as his gunblade was severed in two. Squalls arms would have been
next, and that would make the end of it. Squall, however, felt his hands go loose and release
the handle just before the blade snapped, and in a final attempt to keep a hold he let his body
act as an anchor and painfully bring his grasp down the edge of the weapon. His fingers clung
more and more deeply as he went, until his fists pounded into a grip right where the blade met
the earth. He jerked and swung sharply against the cliff.
The hilt of his weapon snapped and fell harmlessly onto his shoulder, before bouncing back into
the pit. He never heard it hit bottom. His mind was driven by other things, now, as another
flash of light went hurtling past his head and ricocheted off the wall across from him. His body
weight was dragging him down onto the blade itself, and he felt the leather of his gloves split
and then a warmth and pain, as his weapon cut into the joints of his fingers. Driven by a will
to hold tight, Squall grit his teeth and begged himself to bear it to bear it. His hands were
putting up a better fight, however, working to uncurl themselves against his will. And Squall
could only watch this happen, dangling at an arm's length away.
"Hey! Hey you! Over here!" Selphie cried. Zenkamuka looked over one shoulder and caught sight
of the girl. Selphie's brown hair was messy and lopsided, and one entire side was covered in
dust... but still she waved her skinny arms around wildly, with bravery that she didn't have.
Meanwhile, Squall felt a pair of hands clap onto his wrists. The sight of a fluttering brown
coat flap blocked off his vision, and then he was blissfully being lifted out from the gap.
Irvine, puffing, dragged him onto solid earth, and Squall found that he was unable to move for
what seemed to have been a long while. Curled up and shaking, he was finally able to peel a
glove away from a hand. It stuck to his skin, and he saw with a grimace that deep cuts lined
his fingers where they met his palm.
"I'm not afraid of you!" Selphie cried. Literally. Zenkamuka was walking toward her by then,
herding her toward the violent edge of the cliff. Selphie couldn't do anything but scuffle
backwards with a stricken look on her shaking face, unable to take control. "I'm not! You can't
scare me! Irvine, some help here!"
"Get her away from Selphie and Quistis, Squall. I can't cast anything with them so nearby."
Irvine said. He had apparently misplaced his rifle -- which was a good thing. Squall didn't
trust the man's marksmanship, not tonight.
"What about Zell?" Squall asked. The fallen man was by far the furthest from the melee.
"Guuuuys..." Selphie was saying in the background.
"I don't know," Irvine said.
As this response, added to the sight of Quistis warily easing her blood-caked head up from the
earth again, drove into Squall a wave of fury that sent his muscles into lock -- in the manner
of a caged animal with nothing left for it but failure. Fuming, enraged, and at the end of his
fuse, he locked his eyes into the back of Zenkamuka's head and pushed off into a sprint. He had
tried this before and failed, but this time was different in two ways: he had no weapon, and his
mind had shut down. Irvine winced at the sight of this, but braced himself with a single step
to one side, positioning himself.
She heard him coming, but it was too late. As she whirled Squall drew up his chest but kept
moving, bringing his hand around in order to push her head away when he got near -- anything to
avoid her face, although Squall's eyes, in his temporary madness, remained open. Like a snake
she drew her head back and whipped it around, and her body whirled to meet him. However, what
she did -not- expect was the fact that Squall's hands were drenched in his own blood.
Suddenly, just as she turned to lock her eyes into his own she felt a spray and a sting, as
something warm and wet snapped into her inhuman, depthless orbs. And, much like a small child
she let out a wail and covered her face.
Blinded.
Squall scuttled and almost fell over, as he had planned to simply keep moving into her. However,
at this turn of events he found himself surprised, and as she continued to claw at her
face and whine he took two steps back, his eyes wide.
A white-blue circle of light began to spin wildly around her. She never saw it coming. Selphie
ran back as far as she could go and pressed her back against the wall, and Squall, covering his
eyes, moved away as well.
This was done just in time, and a blast of ice came bursting up, shaped by that circle of
light. Squall felt his face burn with cold, and then with a wary glance he looked out from
under the sanctuary of his elbow.
Zenkamuka stood, frozen in a column of blue-tinted ice. She was trapped in the motion of
hunching over and covering her eyes with both hands. If Squall didn't know better, he would
have thought that she was crying.
Zell heaved a long and pain-laden groan. Wincing, he put the back of his hand over his eyes and
rubbed them, before rolling them open drunkenly. He drearily found himself face-to-face with
Irvine and Selphie, who were looking down at him with victorious little grins. Squall stood
behind them with his arms crossed, and Quistis was at his side. She had been cleaned up a
little, but a trio of scars ran up from beneath her jaw -- they still oozed a little, and she
looked pale.
He took his eyes away from her and winced again, rolling up onto his back. Taking a few short
breaths, he finally uttered, "What in the -hell- just happened?"
"Your Guardian Force, that's what happened." Squall said. Zell did a double-take right there
where he lay, and then was surprised all over again. Everyone else waited for it to sink in,
just as Squall had done when he first delivered the news.
"-What-?!" Zell finally said.
Squall repeated himself. Zell couldn't believe it.
"But..."
"I've got to hand it to you," Irvine said bitterly. "That was certainly a challenge, buddy."
"...Sorry?" Zell tried.
"And lucky to be talking to us," Selphie said with a wink. She took his hand and helped Zell to
his feet -- which was tough in itself, on account that the man was still wobbling. He was as
white as Zenkamuka had been, and still looked mildly out of place.
"Are you alright?" Quistis finally asked.
"...I think so." Zell replied.
"Do you remember what happened?" Irvine asked.
And as they began to chatter about the battle that they just had, Squall decided that he had no
interest. He was lucky to be alive. It was hard, remembering the last time that a Guardian
Force did that to him... Zenkamuka had no special attacks, not really... but rather, a way of
shredding his confidence. He still felt it. Weak.
While Zell spoke of not remembering himself going down and squabbled with Quistis over the
stupidity of casting blind on them all, Squall wandered over to the small prison cell of ice
and looked up at it with his arms crossed over his chest and his hands under his jacket for
warmth. Carefully, his eyes wandered about the strange pose that she had been captured in, and
again he wondered, wondered....
He was so lost in his thoughts that he nearly jumped at the feeling of a hand on his shoulder.
It was just Irvine, however. Next to him was Quistis, who was unconsciously touching the wounds
on her face and Selphie, who was supporting Zell. He looked less disorientated, although Irvine
was the one who ended up speaking. "Are you okay?"
"I've been better," Squall admitted.
"Tell me about it."
They all stood together in silence for a moment, feeling like a unit once more, no one better
or worse than the person they stood beside. There was a bit of awe about it all, although in a
few days they all would be admitting that nothing good came from this adventure -- that they'd
lost more than they had gained.
But there, on that day, at that moment... They were at their peak.
Irvine was the first one to speak up. "...The most compatible gets it." This was a fact, the
method that they'd always used to decide over these matters. They all had fought equally; they
all had contributed to the cause... And in the end, it was the Guardian Force itself that
decided who was best suited for it.
Squall frowned a little at the comment. He wasn't sure how much he actually wanted this
creature, and had a feeling that everyone felt the same way. It was a bittersweet affair. And,
as if exchanging their thoughts, everyone cast each other a glance and begrudgingly put their
fingertips toward the column of ice and the creature within.
No one knew quite how the process worked, or how it was that one person was more fitting than
another. It was simply the way that it had always been and what they had been taught. Their
blood began to tingle and boil, a small light danced at the tip of their fingers and up in a
narrow line to their elbows.... When the sensation reached its peak and the air began to hum
pointedly, they slipped open their eyes and slid them about.
Squall looked down. His light was the brightest by far.
"Junction it, Squall." Irvine said.
"You trapped her." Squall said.
"With your help."
Selphie rubbed at a bare and chilly shoulder, thus eliminating the meager beam of light that
she had created. "She's yours. It's already decided." Zell and Quistis nodded at this.
He didn't make a sound, but inwardly Squall heaved a long and weary sigh. Wetting his lips with
a little roll of his tongue, he turned his eyes up toward the pitiful creature that was
temporarily frozen in time, posed like a miserable and sobbing child that had blood in her eyes
instead of tears. Zenkamuka. Another Guardian Force among many.
He put a finger to his temple.
End Part 7/?
To be Continued.