For Brightspark, who's words of praise really lit a fire under my muse.


Revenant Chapter 7

Seifer, Irvine, Seifer


Seifer

Squall stood still a moment, letting his night vision return. He looked over to where Zell had been and shrugged a nonverbal 'whatever'. I wanted to choke him.

Irvine dropped to his knees beside me and started undoing the straps. At least he finally got off the fence.

"I'm trustin' you," he said, "because you seem marginally less crazy than Squall right now."

Nice to know I can still inspire confidence.

"Irv, this is the proctor's room. It has the hatch access to the lower levels."

He looked up at me, his eyes wild. "Seifer, tell me you aren't going to drop me down the duct to engineering."

"Once you are there, use the command override – I saw you get it from Squall when I did- to take the engines off line. That will buy us some time, and if we have to self-destruct, it will minimize the damage to Balamb."

"Self destruct?" He squeaked, but got his voice back under control. "It's not coming to that! …Is it?"

My hands were loose now. I flexed them and rubbed them together to get the circulation back while Irvine moved down to free my legs.

"After you get the engines powered down, evacuate the rest of the Garden. Squall got most of the kids out but there are still staff and anyone out on sick leave. Get everyone out of here, find Quis, and give her a full report."

"Saying what? Seifer and Squall went nuts, Zell is MIA and I decided to get the hells out of Deling?"

"Yeah, that should pretty much cover it." I stretched my legs for the first time in what felt like hours.

"Good, considering my choices of possible futures right now, a court-martial seems like the most fun." Irvine tossed aside the last of Squall's belts and looked sadly up at me.

I grabbed a handful of silky brown hair and pulled him close for a kiss. Irvine's hair isn't just brown; it's lighter and redder than Squall's. It's actually the exact color of a perfect bowl of chili. Thinking of food was making me hungry and Irvine melting against me was making me hungrier, but in a whole different fashion.

The flash of a Firaga and the sharp chill of a Blizaga from the hallway ended our clench in a hurry. Irvine winced at the screep of metal cutting metal. "What's he doing?" he whispered.

I pushed Irvine away, not an easy thing to do. "He's after Its key, that's embedded in the walls. If he gets it, he won't need the garden. Squall Leonhart can create plenty of blood and despair on his lonesome."

Irvine crawled over to the hatchway access and popped the lock like a pro. He took a deep breath and looked up at me. "Seifer, you can't fit in here. What are you going to do?"

I grinned and pulled Hyperion. "Distract our Fearless Leader, of course."


Irvine

I slithered down the dusty, dank and dark chute towards engineering. If I have to be in a close dark place, I want another warm body to rub against. Instead, I got weird tubes and aimless metal piping. The whole place looked like it was designed by that screensaver.

I tried not to think about Seifer or Squall or Hyne! Zell or the Garden going self-destruct. I concentrated instead on trying to remember if I knew a damn thing about the Shumite engines.

The answer was no. I wasn't even entirely sure I knew where the Hyne cursed things were. I knew spending all my mechanical classes giving blow jobs to the TA would come back to bite me someday. It already did, once, because he gave me such high marks Martine wanted to transfer me to Engineering where I would have gone completely stark screaming mad from boredom.

I found a cross bar with my head and cussed a bit. I sat back on my heels and let my ears stop ringing.

Was that a footstep I heard?

Hope and fear crowded and bumped elbows, each trying to get out. Fear won, there was no reason, no good reason, anyone would be down in the Engine room right now. No good for me reason, at least.

I crouched down and tried to fold myself into the small space under some slimy contector thing. There was no room to pull Exeter and I hated to think what I'd hit and the damage I'd do if I did try to use her. Ok, weaponless, unjunctioned, lost… yeah, this had crappy mission stamped all over it.

Then the lights went out.

I thought it was damn dark before, but there were little hi! I'm operating correctly green lights flickering here and there and a few odd blue and red ones. Not really enough light to do anything but damn I missed them when they were gone.

Ok, Kinneas. You are not blind, you are just in a big dark room with no idea where you are going. A big dark room filled with all sorts of things to crash into and trip over. Big weird metally slimy sharp stabby things.

Was that a footstep?

It can't be a footstep because the son of a bitch would be stumbling around falling over shit just like you are, Kinneas. And the dark is not touching you. It's just there. Or better, it's not there. That's all dark is, lack of light. It can't touch, it can't smother, and there's no reason, no reason at all, for it to be getting hard to breathe.

That was a footstep.

I held my breath and listened as long as I could. I didn't hear anything except what I supposed were normal creeks and pings and drips. It did help with the claustrophobia for a few seconds, until I starting thinking of the kinds of things I could be trapped down here with.

Something or someone scuffed along the metal flooring behind me.

I took another deep breath. I had to get some space. I scrambled forward and threw myself over a wide pipe, landing harder and lower down than I expected. Quiet wasn't an option, so I took a moment to say bad things about the pipe and whoever put it there and both their mommas.

Was that a high-pitched hysterical giggle? That wasn't me… was it? I wasted a few heart beats trying to decide which would be worse.

Stumbling forward, I found a large open area. That's just what I'd wanted, wasn't it? Something about being not as alone as I should be in the dark and in the open struck me as Not A Smart Idea. I felt around for a friendly shin barking pipe or and found a puddle of horrible, cold, sticky stuff. I jerked my hand back and sniffed, hoping it wasn't corrosive and that it wasn't going to eat my hand off.

Blood.

I staggered back and found a wall. I put my back to it and eased along, hoping to find a door out of this nightmare. My shoulder found, painfully, a panel of toggles and without stopping to consider the consequences; I turned and flipped those little darlings to the on position.

The emergency lights struggled on, weak and red.

Standing before me were two naked women. It looked like they had been pushed through a paper shredder.

One of them smiled at me.


Seifer

Squall was hacking away at the wall. If there had been even a glimmer of doubt that he was possessed, it was gone now. Squall might sacrifice Zell for the good of the mission but he'd never risk Lionheart the way he was.

Since I was spell free, I fell back on an older way to get Squall's attention. Taxi whistle.

"Hey, Puberty Boy. Most girls like it better if you just knock."

Ok, he's had lots of practice at ignoring me. And I've had lots of practice at getting his notice. Now was not the time to play nice.

I aimed Hyperion at Squall's lovely ass and pulled the trigger. He barely got Lionheart out of the wall in time to deflect the blast. Even so, he landed on his butt and there was a nice slice along his thigh. I hoped I'd get a chance to apologize for that scar later.

Squall cast Blizaga and I parried it. He's always been too slow at combat casting. I grinned at him. "Just like old times, eh, Leonhart?"

Then I rushed him.

We met in the ruined hallway, sliding on carpet scorched by fire, slicked by frost, and steeped in blood. Squall used to fight two handed, giving me the casting advantage, but that was before the war. He'd grown up some since then, and he was strong enough to go at me one handed. Fortunately, I learned never to underestimate Squall, so I was ready.

We fought for a while, blades sparking in the weird green light. It was the old give and take, a rhythm that came so easy it was almost relaxing.

Then a scream drifted up, muffled by distance.

Irvine.

Squall smiled and licked the blood off his teeth with a quick flick of his pointed pink tongue.

I brought Hyperion up and tried to twist the sword catcher to disarm Squall. He leaned into it and in a neat little move, wriggled away, nicking me and getting a shallow slice on his jacket in return. He was holding his hand like he was picking a spell, so I tried drawing off him to get some ammo back.

The monster had crowded back my own GF and disjunctioned him, so that didn't go as well as I would have liked. Squall did share what he had in his hand; not a spell but several of Rinoa's shooting stars. She tried to teach him a lot a things; I guess he only kept the lessons he cared about.

The stars hit and hurt like a bitch. Temporarily blinded, I slashed out just to keep Squall off me. True to form, he didn't do what I expected. Squall ducked under my guard and shot me point blank in the gut.

I hit the wall and Hyperion hit the floor. Squall was still there, too close, and he pressed himself up against me.

"I've missed this," he said, and kissed me hard. I braced myself up with my legs, trying to stay on my feet, holding my guts in and blessing Hyne that shock kept most of the pain away.

"Squall…" I have no idea what I was going to say.

"Can't have you getting away again." Squall scooped up Hyperion and hefted her. He hadn't gained enough strength on me to be able to wield her one handed, so Lionheart vanished into its hypersheath.

"Beautiful and deadly. Just like you. Just like us." Squall stepped back and drove Hyperion through my shoulder, pinning me like one of Raijin's bugs.

Dark waves that smelled like blood crashed over me. The last thing I saw was Squall, fishing something triumphantly out of the wall.