'Leos were born to lead and are most effective when in a position of command. Leos are straightforward, uncomplicated individuals who know what they want and pursue it with enthusiasm and a creative spirit.'

Zodiac Signal

A Final Fantasy Tactics fanfic

By Tenshi no Ai

I don't own the characters and locations in the game that are presented in this work, Square-Enix does.

V. The Lion, Leo

The sun had not yet even begun to rise before the voices began to speak to Vormav Tingel.

As he got out of bed, he was told that he lived a pathetic life, playing the guard hound for indulgent and faithless men, their guts bulging with their rich lives while the worshippers starved in the midst of the war and the countless famines. While he put on his armor and adjusted the royal purple surcoat over it, the cruel voices would complain that he was nothing more than a man seeking just the ideal of strength, for he was too much of a coward to face up to the fact that he was undeserving of true strength.

With his armor on, Vormav left the room while vile comments were thrown at his family. He was harped on constantly for having such a soft, worthless son, for having a daughter who played the man so often that it was obvious there was something wrong with her mind, for having a wife who had amounted to nothing. He strode through Murond's hallways while the good name of his dead wife was heckled by the voices, who so loved to cackle that he must have been taken for a cuckold not once but twice, and who knows how many more times there would've been if she had not so rightfully met her end. Other voices called for him to break from this wretched path, to bathe the shining blade of his sword in the blood of his children and to give into his deepest desires of butchering those pompous fools that thought to control him.

He listened to these voices, amused by their meaningless prattle. Did the demons that haunted him think that he could possibly be seduced by such pathetic claims? He was a Shrine Knight for the Holy Father and His Son, he was a father himself of two good children who strove to follow his beliefs to the letter, and his lost wife had been nothing short of an angel during her short stay on Earth. He followed the holy men because he believed in them and their mission to make Ivalice become the paradise it should've always been. After all, he was a Zodiac Brave.

He even had the stone to prove it.

--------

Vormav Tingel stood at the end of the battle, his sword dripping scarlet onto the barren earth.

He had failed.

It was supposed to be a simple mission. He and a few Temple Knights were to infiltrate the pathetic hole a couple cultists had squirreled themselves into after their failure to convert villagers into their bastard religion. It was decreed by High Priest Funeral that these forsaken creatures should stand at a heresy trial, but most of the capable heresy examiners were burdened with other cases. Vormav accepted the case, knowing that it could be completed before the end of the fortnight. His choosing of the magically-inclined Temple Knights was seen by many to be a smart move, for though Commander Tingel was known to be arrogant about his own skills, he still understood strategy. And so the four left Murond, heading over to the cult's easily divulged headquarters in southern Fovoham.

Every move was made correctly, every pre-battle preparation considered. The Shrine Knights' commander would've bet his life on it. Murond's intelligence was always accurate, always trustworthy. And yet, when the Temple Knight on Vormav's right took an arrow in his neck as they approached the small hut on the outskirts of a small village south of Riovanes Castle, it had never occurred to the commander that their information could be wrong. It took the next arrow, skirting over Vormav's shoulder to plant itself directly into the second Temple Knight's throat, before he entertained the idea.

Vormav Tingel did not take lightly to being taken for a fool.

He turned forty-five degrees to his right, where the first arrow had been fired, his sharp eyes catching the glint of the arrow point in the light of the sinking sun. Thrusting out his sword, he roared wordlessly as he unleashed a Shellbust Stab at the hapless sniper, inwardly pleased at the archer's pathetic cry as the cultist's armor was crushed by the Divine Knight skill, the shards tearing their own paths to his heart. Another arrow flew, striking Vormav's back and bouncing harmlessly away due to his Shrine Knight armor. Vormav turned at this, barely noticing as he strode toward the high grasses that hid the other archer that the last Temple Knight had been taken down.

It wasn't as important as the battle.

With the dying sun as his guide, Vormav could see the archer in the midst of the grasses, struggling to fit a bolt into a cheap crossbow. Nonchalantly, he aimed his sword at this spectacle and channeled his energies through it, causing the crossbow to be torn asunder by the Hellcry Punch, and indulged in a short bark of laughter as his enemy shrieked when the force of the skill caused the splinters of the former weapon to lodge themselves into the sniper's hands, arms and face.

With only one good eye now, the cultist looked up and saw the Shrine Knight before him, the dying light revealing the purple surcoat and the knight's role as a Shrine Knight commander. Trembling, the archer held up his bleeding and numb hands in supplication. "O'God, please don't kill me, pleea--"

"Even God Himself can't help you escape from me," Vormav bluntly stated, taking up the massive Ragnarok with one hand and plunging it deep within the man's chest. The last cultist died with just the smallest croak, tears of blood flowing from his ruined eye. Distastefully, Vormav pulled out his sword, surveying the area. His men had died by the hands of two pathetic men?

It was one thing for the mission objective to end up dead if they were just mere heretics. It had happened to him many times before, and no one in the Church cared any. However, it was absolutely unacceptable to the Shrine Knight commander to lose his own troops, even from something as cowardly as a pincer sniper attack.

He had failed his mission, and as he contemplated on what this could entail back in Murond, he reached into his surcoat and pulled out the Leo stone. If only I had been stronger, more aware, he thought sullenly, I would have never lost.

The stone glinted in the dying light of the bloody sunset.

-------

Faced now with his own failure, with the possibility that he even could fail, odd doubts burrowed into his mind and chipped away at his sizable self-pride. If he could be wrong on the battlefield, or if he could fall by trusting completely in someone else's mistake, what else could he be wrong about?

The voices kept talking to him every morning and soon, instead of taking them as mere entertainment, he began to listen in earnest.

-------

His son stood before him, eyes downcast and one hand holding his cheek, which was already starting to turn purple from the force of the blow. The boy, barely fifteen, hadn't uttered a noise, though he visibly winced when he first touched the growing bruise. Vormav was inwardly displeased by such a show of weakness and resolved to wring it out of his son soon. "Well then," Vormav said gruffly, narrowing his eyes in distaste as his son froze at the sound of his voice, "have you learned your lesson? You, of all people, are not to question my orders."

Izlude nodded, his eyes fixed on his father's gauntlet-covered hands. A blow was nothing new to the young Tingel, but his father had never hit him while wearing the golden armor before. He swore that he was bleeding from the cold, sharp metal but didn't dare move his hand to check. "Yes, Father, I am sorry. Forgive my impudence." He tried to say these words strongly, but his voice cracked with the force of puberty and he winced, hoping his father would not think that as a weakness.

Vormav said nothing for a long moment, having noticed everything. It crossed his mind to punish the boy again, but he quickly decided against it. The more he had realized how truly weak his son was, the more he felt that the effort wasn't worth it. Perhaps he really had been cuckolded after all. "Go," he growled, annoyed that he had to work with such chaff. Keeping his eyes downcast, Izlude quickly left the room.

The voices cheered for Vormav's good intentions, and beseeched him to keep improving.

---------

Throughout Murond, there were whispered rumors about the continuing cruelty displayed by Vormav Tingel. To send him out on after an accused heretic was like condemning the accused to death. Many had seen him as an arrogant, prideful man before, but now those qualities had a much, much darker tint to them. His own men trembled before him, though they tried so very hard to make sure that he didn't notice. Lately, he hadn't been above wantonly punishing his own men for their supposed weakness.

Vormav heard these rumors, and he enjoyed the fear. It was the respect he reveled in, knowing that his name invoked such hushed terror. Even the holy men tried not to cross him, knowing that he was a lion constantly in search for his next prey.

This was power, the voices said, this was what he should've grasped from the very beginning. Forget his weak, foolish children. Forget the stupid, indolent holy men. Forget the morals that held him back from this addictive high of strength. What did he need all that for when he could have power in their stead?

He agreed.

---------

Power. What a delicious word. Two syllables, the first harsh and forceful, the second carrying the word through with a seductive resonance. Power is wanted, craved for, absolutely desired by the ambitious. It unnerves the weak, for they know they can never bear it, making them resent their own nature. It is brusquely passed aside by the kind, for they cannot see its worth and therefore do not deserve it. It is a word that tears apart families, peoples, countries since time uncharted, and it is a word that will exist to the end of humanity. Those who have power have the world.

Do you wish for this power?

Vormav stared at the stone, intrigued by this new voice. It sounded familiar, and yet it was far more ancient.

Do you crave this?

The man exhaled slowly, goose bumps forming underneath the golden armor as the voice washed over his consciousness again. The very air seemed to crackle with fire, enticing him.

Someone like you can understand true power...

Yes, Vormav cried out in the depths of his mind, I want this. I need it!

Then, you shall have it, holder of the holy stone...you shall...

The stone in his hand glowed brightly, an ochre tinge cast upon his entire room. He did not flinch as the light blinded him, and inside his mind he heard a laughter like the scraping of dead leaves against the stone ground of Murond.

I am Hashmalum, the devil...your wish is granted.

The last vestiges of Vormav Tingel's good soul cried out in fear at the name, the name of the regulator who served as the bloody angel's right hand demon. As the malignant force ripped through his meager mental defenses and tore into his soul, he thought that the voices that had been cheerfully subverting him into evil might have been from the demon Hashmalum. To this, he could hear the demon's derisive laughter shredding his mind into wet slices.

What need do I have to play such a petty game? I only need to ask for men to give themselves to me. Do not blame the devil for your own misgivings, Vormav Tingel.

Now, you are mine.

As Vormav's soul was mutilated by Hashmalum's fierce taking, there was a small bit of ancient poetry that occurred to him just as the demon assimilated the very core of his being.

'Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.'

Yet, even the sun must set at the end of the day.

-Leo fades into Virgo...-

I'm of the mind that the Vormav Tingel we get in the game is 'Hashmalum in Vormav Tingel's body' the entire time. The reason his own children couldn't figure that out was because he was already like the persona he is in the game. This leads to my second point, that if this first point is so, it wouldn't be because the stone manipulated him. As we can see from Wiegraf's own taking, all the devil the in the stone does is ask, if you are of that mindset. I'm fond of this idea of not blaming the devil for your own sins.

Onto the analysis. Vormav and Alma are very true to form Leos. Vormav's the stereotypical strong leader, while Alma takes on the cheerful, friendly, helpful sort of Leo. My best friend, who happens to be a Leo, is very much like the Alma-type of Leo; henceforth, she's an awesome person. There really isn't much more that I can add that the game doesn't already show. Leo is the fixed fire sign, which is why we see strong leader Vormav and stubborn Alma.

Other Leo: Alma.

-The poem snippet is the last two lines of 'Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night' by Dylan Thomas. While that poem is about old age and death I think it works wonderfully here as well.

-Leo is ruled by the sun, which accounts for the last line of Cancer as well as the last line of this story.

Reviewers!

Actually, TobyKikami, I thought that the line you quoted was one of the weaker ones in the story. Well, I feel the story itself could've been stronger, unfortunately. Thanks for your comments.

Yo, Hawk of Death. Nope, I'm sorry, Wiegraf is always a Virgo, and in fact converts the Aries stone demon Velius into a Virgo.
Heh, I only beat the game recently myself. I was having fun killing things with my uber-Reis.
It's really a coincidence that I've been writing so much of Zalbag lately. I like the guy, but he's not one of my absolute favorite characters.
Heh, let's not talk about what characters I should write about in the later stories, or else I may just write about another character just to spite everyone.

Hey, Luna. I'm probably going to base my attitude on Square depending on how I like FFXII, since it's made by the same people that worked on FFT and Vagrant Story. If that game turns out to be more pretty videos and easy gameplay, screw it, I'll fully support Atlus. With the FFVII movie and that game based on Vincent (why?) and nothing really new...give me a break.
Glad you liked the story. I looked around for Zalbag-centric stories, but there aren't any. Hell, there's a Dycedarg-centric fic in this section, and a Kletian-centric story on IcyBrian's site, but nothing really about Zalbag. Though...Zalbag has a fair amount of importance in the IcyBrian-hosted fic What Makes A Hero by Nanaki. Eh.

Supremia, it's not exactly like I'll die if I don't get reviews. :) I appreciate that you do review because it makes me happy, but don't put yourself out for me. With that being said, I'm glad you liked Gemini, since I remember that you are a Gemini, and I'm happy you liked the last chapter, because Zalbag's pretty cool.
Ah, so that's what it is about Sephiroth. Well, that's an odd coincidence. Yeesh, FFVII fangirls...I'm best friends with one, so I understand the sentiment. My first Final Fantasy was VI, years and years ago, so I'm unfortunately lumped in with the oldschool fans.
And believe me, you're doing more for the FFX shoujo-ai field than...well, anyone else that I can tell. Unless you can recommend something for me?

The Burning Misery, I believe that you write some of the longest reviews, though I'm very honored to receive them.
See, that's the main problem I had with Cancer, that it seemed like a rehash of Gemini. Well, at least the age difference between Zalbag and Olan is just a couple of years as opposed to Elmdor and Izlude's fifteen or so years. Still, twice is once too much.
Heh, candle symbolism. I couldn't say myself, as the quote goes at a writer's convention panel, "What would she know about the symbolism? She wrote the thing!"
Ah, thanks for the clarification on Sephiroth. Unfortunately, since I've had the whole plot spoiled for me, I'm probably never going to pick up the game.