Chapter 7: The possessing Shadows
"How are we supposed to fight this thing!" Seiphie said nervously, taking a step back when she saw NORG's pod possessed by the monster deemed Shadow, covering it in an unnatural dark purple that could easily be mistaken for black.
"How do we fight anything else?" Quistis retorted, her voice filled with sarcasm. The Pod began to vibrate, charging a ray and causing the three orb embedded in the machine to obtain a red glow. The shadow knew they where there as soon as they stepped off the elevator.
"It's not so tough, as long as we keep our guard up." Rinoa reassured them even if she didn't know, casting a triple spell on herself and awaiting the attack, which she knew couldn't be avoided. The three orbs fired in unison, their rays mixing together and becoming a wall of red light that smashed in to the three girls. Knocking them off of there feet on impact.
"Ow…that thing hit's hard…" Seiphie said painfully, shaking her head to in attempt to shake away the daze while she unsteadily got on to her feet. She followed Rinoa's example, casing another triple spell on herself and readying for the next attack. Quistis did the same as Rinoa and Seiphie, casting a triple spell while studying a blue light shining out of the broken spheres.
A wall of blue came over them like a flash, smashing them in a compressing manner from all sides them as if it was a gravity attack, it over came then enough to force them to their knees. With another discarding shake, the girls got up, going on the defensive. Rinoa was the first to cast protect on all three of them, A blue shield forming in side in front of them. The process repeated itself two more times until it all three of the girls were under the protection of the spell.
Seiphie cast three Cureaga spells, a bright light shine from above there heads, developing into a light green/blue ring that descended over them, healing the damage from the previous two attacks.
A another red light shined from the three orbs, it seemed like as soon as they noticed it a wall of red was already rushing towards them. As soon as it struck them the previously invisible Protect spell made it self known, blocking most of the force, enough of it to keep standing this time.
Quistis finished with three Auras, covering them with golden light and giving their a golden tent of half induced limit break.
The Pod attacked again, this time a yellow light shined in the orbs. Each of the three fired off individually, the top orb struck Rinoa with a beam that seemed to be the radius her body. He lifted her hands in a flinching motion, ready to block--... "Huh?" She found that it did no actual damage, instead she saw the protect barrier that surrounded her break apart and fade away. The bottom two orbs fired at the same time, doing the same to Quistis and Seiphie, destroying the barriers around them.
"We have to hit this thing with something or we're dead." Rinoa said as she used the triple effect to cast three continuous holy spells. A ring of white spheres encircled the Shadow possessed pod, drawing in rays of holy of light from someplace above. The light pierced the blackness surrounding the orb, burning the unnatural darkness and making the possessing shadow flinch and ripple as if was water. That small motion revealed some of the old pod beneath it before it fell back in to place.
The orb started to shake a little, a green light flashed from the orbs in retaliation, engulfing all three of them in a sea of light, striking them with Non-elemental damage.
Quistis used the aura effect to draw on a limit break, not wasting anytime casting support magic to use her Ray Bomb. A thick beam fired from her extended hands, sweeping across the ground beneath the Shadow and erupting in to a massive explosion that shook half of the garden.
When the smoke cleared roughly half of the pod had been demolished and was laying on the ground in ruins, the shadow seemed to be blown off of the other half allowing the other scorched halve to be seen. But it started to creep over the rest of the halve of the pod from some unknown point until it covered it completely.
One more strong attack was all they needed.
Seiphie used Triple to cast Apocalypse, the same spell from the final form of Ulitaminca that she had drawn and stocked up on during the battle.
An emblem appeared under the Shadow illuminated in a white light, firing out 4 rays long in to the air from 4 different sides. The second Apocalypse started while the first spell was still in effect, sending 8 rays in to the air and hammering down on the Shadow.
Instead of exploding the rays shattered the two emblems, pulling the Shadow down in to a dark, empty void. When the spell cleared away the pod had completely disappeared with no trace of it left behind. Only the original Shadow that possessed it lay injured on the ground.
The dark furred wolf with red eyes panted heavily, unable to move before it was caught into the third Apocalypse spell, It became trapped in the emblem as 4 rays off sprung from it, slamming down into the creature and sending it plunging in to darkness with one distorted ripple in reality.
Seeing that nothing else was their to fight against them, Rinoa wiped away a small trace of sweat from her forehead. "I hope Squall is doing this good." Rinoa slowly walked area where the pod used to be, even knowing that their was nothing else to challenge them she was still nervous about it.
She fount a hole that looked to be only about a 5 inch opening.
Seiphie leaned over Rinoa's shoulder, noticing she was taking an interest in this hole.
"You think that could be something?" Seiphie asked, knelling down next to Rinoa to get a closer look inside. It was too dark to see anything.
"Nah." Rinoa crawled closer to it but immediately jumping back with a startled sound.
She saw an unusual sight, the darkness moved, retreating farther into the hole as if water through a drain and reveling the sliver steel under it.
"Oh man that was creepy!" Seiphie crawled back way from the hole quickly, fearing that something would creep up attack her. It had been another one of those Shadows, and it was in a hole that lead deep under the Garden. That had to mean something.
"Ok, what was that!" Rinoa hesitantly pushed her self on to her feet and took short, slow steps back toward the hole.
! - ! - !
! - ! - !
Squall climbed down from the elevator shaft, jumping down from a small ladder in to the passage to the underground shelter. He steeped to the side as Zell jumped down under after him, landing on the metal floors with a small clank.
Both of them looked around the familiar pathway, it seemed the only thing different from the last time they were here was that there were no monsters, anywhere, and the sounds were different.
"What is that?" Zell looked around nervously, hearing a the sound of water and waves breaking as if their was a tide.
"There is tons of oil down here, maybe that's it." Squall reasoned, leading down the path with the sudden wishing he was junctioned to Ifrit right now. Oil + Fire a sure win.
The path led to a large chain link bridge with a large pipe like pillar in the center of all, the ladder Squall had climbed up and fell off of in to the hidden control center of the garden still hung off of the pillar in the same spot. It lead to nowhere because the control center had ascended to a higher level.
Sound of agitated, choppy waters and crashing waves became louder now that the oil was right below them , making the source was apparent. Looking down through the chain link bridge, they could see the oil levels had risen since the last time they'd seen them, covering the bridge that used to be below.
"This is starting to get really strange, first the monsters disappear and now all of this oil just comes out of nowhere. Any ideas?" Zell knelt down, clinching the chain link floors while the oil shifted below him.
"None." Squall shook his head, knowing that they hadn't gotten any the last time they were in FH, how oil just come out of nowhere, and why was it moving around so much?
(Hey Zell, the walls are all black, there's no way that oil could have gotten that high.) Carbuncle pointed out. (Come to think of it, that doesn't even look like oil.) He was right, the oil wasn't as thick as what ever was on the wall, the oil was darker then it to. It looked more like a really dark purple.
Squall and Griever seemed to have come to the same conclusion also. "Whatever it is may have been what made the oil rise." Squall said, looking over the bridge's railing at the oil, there was definitely something below it, moving around and in turn making the oil stir. What ever it was it had to be large. "So what was that sound?"
Squall looked around below for anything that could be the source of such a noise, his eyes only found on the large pipe in the center of the room that ran down in to the oil. 'Where would that lead to?' Squall thought, trying to figure out the purpose of it.
(It must turn the ring under this facility.) Griever said, that would explain the oil.
"Hey Squall." Zell pressed his ear against the rusty metal, tapping it curiously. "Is it supposed to be clicking like this?" he asked, it was an erratic sound with no type of regularity.
"I don't know……" Squall began debating whether something was wrong of not, he didn't know how this place worked but he knew it could be normal.
Another, louder sound erupted from under them, it was similar to the sound of metal buckling. "Whaaaaa!" Zell flinched and scattered backwards, almost falling but managing to only stumble a little.
"That was definitely not normal." Squall said affirmatively, drawing his gun blade offensively toward the steel.
(Hey Zell, you sure you want to let him do this? What if he's making a mistake?) Carbuncle asked. "Squall hold on, are you sure this is the right thing to do?" Zell asked, knowing he was about to cut open the pipe. Squall gave him an acknowledging nod and pushed the tip of his blade in to the rusted metal. Cutting a small hole into the pipe, not more then an inch wide.
No oil came out of it like Zell expected, as it should have, instead a black liquid lay on the other side but it wasn't coming out of the hole as if it was a mold of some type of gel, it was completely still. Squall slowly slipped the tip of his blade in to the hole again, poking the substance. It jumped outward in a splash like motion, beginning to stir and cause that intensely loud grinding sound again.
(Wait, that's one of those things that attacked you up stairs.) Griever realized.
Squall relayed Griever's words to Zell, there was a shadow in there for whatever reason. "How do we get that thing out of there?" Squall took a step back, another look around made him realize that they were completely surrounded by the strange monsters. They didn't take physical forms, they were all over the walls and inside the oil, and judging from the size of the one Squall and Zell had fought there had to be hundreds of them here.
'Oh Hyne, how did all of these things get in here?' Lifting his gun blade above his head, he slice through more of the metal, turning the small hole in to a large gash. Inside they could see that the Shadows inside where swirling around a large piston counter-clockwise, trying to force the it to move the opposite way. That piston rotated the ring under the Garden, and the Shadows must have been trying to control it. But why? "There--,those things are trying to control the Garden…" Squall spoke as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing.
Zell looked at the melded Shadows around and inside of the piston then at the ones on the wall, "Why?"
Squall looked at him with a shrug. "I don't know."
(How can we stop a number this large?) Griever was right, to attempt to fight a number this large was suicide. After seeing what these monsters could do they all knew that. (They know we're here, we should probably get out of here if it's your duty to warn everyone upstairs.) Griever said, Squall repeated the message to Zell. He was right, the Shadows were most definitely making their way upstairs, one of them already had, two if the one Rinoa fought was counted.
Their was no way the students could fight an enemy like that, these things were too quick and that shape shifting ability was especially dangerous...What was he suppose to do now?
Carbuncle noticed something else. (Zell, is it just me or dose it look like that black stuff is bigger then it was before?)
Zell looked around at the walls and noticed what Carbuncle was talking about immediately, the Shadows had grown up to the ceiling and slowly but surely it covering that too. It was like watching and eclipse. "What the hell are they doing!" Zell examined the area around himself worriedly, that couldn't be good.
"Let's go. Now." Squall said firmly, walking with quick steps towards the tunnel where they had entered from to find that the whole structure was covered in shadows that were slowly starting to seep in to the hatch serving as their exit. They walked with a sense of alertness over the black, possed ground trying to agitate the shadows, making it to the hatch were they had came.
! - ! - !
"Squall! I was so worried?" Rinoa hugged Squall on sight as soon as he steeped off of the elevator. Squall softly pulled her off.
What reason did she have to be worried, she didn't know anything about it. Did she? "Why?" He asked, looking around to see Seiphie and Quistis were waiting with her. They looked like help, why did she need help? What happened?
"I went down to that room and there was this monster inside of NORG's old pod--"
Zell cut her off. "What did it look like?"
"It was a blackish dog or wolf with red eyes." She told him, watching Squall and Zell give each other a look before she continued. "When it saw me it did something really strange. It turn in to water or something and it was controlling that old machine. It turned all black and the next thing I knew it was attacking me."
"It took over NORG's pod…" Zell knew there was something to it that connected to what was happening downstairs.
Squall folded his arms, his eyes downcast as he thought.
(It must be doing the same thing to the Garden!) Carbuncle nearly shouted it in Zell's head when he figured it out.
"OH MAN! It's doing the same thing to the Garden! It coming to take it over and control it, WITH US INSIDE!" Zell yelled, clinching his head with light panic.
"What? What are you talking about?" Rinoa asked, becoming worried at the loud outburst.
"There are tons of those things down in the Shelter under the Garden, they're doing the same thing to the Garden from down there. That's why we came back, there's no way we can stop that may. At lest by ourselves." Squall said.
"What if we send all of the SeeD unites down there? Could they stop it?" Quistis asked.
"No. There's to many of them." Squall said plainly. "They'd be surrounded from the first moment."
"So, what do we do about it?"