Chapter18: Hidden with in.
Zell charged out of the out of the elevator and on to the second floor, he was just barely fast enough to catch a glimpse of Carbuncle down on the first and since the last time he saw him was near the elevator, the 2 floor was the next logic place to look. He moved with a heightened pace down the hall and into the second floor classroom, coming just in time to glance back and see Cho head out the emergency exit into the city.
"Carbuncle?" Zell called out, moving with quick steps through the neat rows and making sure to look underneath each desk. Something he'd wished he thought of doing yesterday, Carbuncle could easily stay under one of these and avoid being found.
Zell grunted in frustration after checking the last desk in the back of the room with no sign of Carbuncle. 'I lost him again...' His mind frantically raced to think of a place Carbuncle would go on the second floor, at first he couldn't think of anything, but then he remembered seeing Cho leave out of the emergency exit. "He probably went out in to Fishermen's horizon.'
Running out of the empty class room, Zell pushed his way out of unlocked emergency exit and stumbled on to the bridge connecting the garden to FH in his disoriented hurry. He nearly ran into Cho was standing in front of the door, Shadow had finally stopped just a few feet ahead of him. "Damnit, stop following me!" The wolf growled fiercely in an audibly unnerved voice.
Zell questioningly paused to watch.
"Stop running! Listen to me!" Cho shouted, he didn't even seem to notice Zell standing directly behind him. He was completely focused on Shadow who just scowled at him and began charging abruptly in the opposite direction. "Stop!" A highly motivated Cho waisting no time ran after him on the narrow bridge, his focus and determination gave his speed an edge.
"Huh?" Zell scratched his head in confusion. "What was that all about?"
Seifer and Nida came charging through the doorway behind Zell so unexpectedly it made him flinch. "Where did Cho go?" Nida announced, Zell had to admit, he moved fast to be on crutches.
Zell pointed forward across the bridge."He just ran in to the city after that wolf." he said, as soon as the two got their answer they ran past him and after Cho. "What is going on around here today?"
Nida and Seifer were both much slower then Cho, that lack of speed would make it that much harder to follow him and Shadow.
! - ! - !
Zell made to end of the bridge in to the city limits at about the same time as Seifer and Nida, which was mostly the painfully slow lift's fault, by the time they arrived there was no sign of Carbuncle, Cho or Shadow.
"Damnit, Were the hell did they go!" Seifer shouted in aggravation, he looked both ways across the railroad tracks that surrounded the city and separated the bridge from the sun panel, neither way held any trace of either of them. "How the hell do we lose both of them?"
Nida leaned heavily on the crutches with his balance being fully extended, panting heavily from fatigue. "I'm slowing you down..." Nida sighed. "Your stronger and faster than me Seifer, you should go ahead, I'll catch up."
"Hn, maybe..." Seifer paused, first he peered forward as if he'd just spotted something, then glanced over at Zell. "Zell, weren't you looking for Carbuncle?"
Zell looked up at him questioningly, he did mention it sometime during the course of the day. "Yeah, why?"
"Because I see something green under those panels." Seifer pointed ahead where he'd seen seen the spot of green in the lines between the sun panels.
"What? Really?" Zell anxiously stepped closer, when he really looked he could see something green streaking under the panels near the top, it had to be Carbuncle...or at lest he hoped. Zell sighed and glanced reluctantly toward Seifer, rubbing the back of his head. "…Thank you." He said uneasily, then quickly jumped over the edge in to crimson bowl beside the bridge before Seifer could utter another word to him. He seemed kind of embarrassed.
"Yeah whatever." Seifer said discardingly, he barely paid attention to him.
"If your gonna leave me behind anyway then we're gonna have to split up, you go left, I'll go right." Nida suggested.
! - ! - !
The smooth, flat surfaces and the steep incline made Zell slide down if he wanted to or not, but with his balance he managed to turn to the side, one foot before the other and stayed upright. His head was constantly staring down, watching himself slide over the retreating green figure underneath the panel. 'It's moving...that must be him."
There was no way whatever it was didn't know he was there, the sound of rubber soles sliding against hot metal was so loud that it couldn't not be noticeable.
Finally ahead of the green form, Zell jumped in to the air and felling in-between an elongated gap that had worked it's way into the panels over time. He landed on the hard concrete under them, directly in front of exactly who he thought it was, Carbuncle.
When he saw his friend he couldn't help but draw back in surprise. "…Oh man…." He couldn't believe his eyes, though very few amounts of light came down from the surface, just passing through the small lines between each panel and lining the ground in a checkered pattern. What light there was was enough to show Carbuncle's whole body.
His eyes were glowing a deep red, and his body was a darker shade of green making it apparent that he would eventually turn black if this trend continued. " What happened to you? Why are you running from me?"
"Damnit, Stay away from me!" Carbuncle growled in an animalistic manner with fangs bared, quickly creating a barrier around himself. It wasn't a regular one, 4 mint green orbs about half Zell's size began to revolve around the small GF. This type of barrier could be used for offense and defense, more so a defensive attack.
The harshness in his voice surprised Zell, he had never heard anything remotely this cold from him even when he was mad. It didn't matter, Zell refused to back down until he got his friend back. "No! Tell me why your running from me!" He demanded firmly.
Carbuncle only grunted in response, his body tensed and he rose off of his heels as he sent one of the green orbs flying at Zell.
He didn't expect him, enough to catch him off guard. "!" It struck him in the chest, knocking him to the ground and sending him sliding farther down the incline through the jungle of poles holding up the panels. Zell drove his hands on to the sloped ground behind him and slowed his body to a stop. "What are you doing?" He shouted, noting how hard he'd actually been hit was surprising considering Carbuncle's nature all of his skills revolved around protecting and defending. Feeling a bruise forming he grabbed on to one of the poles and climbed to his feet.
Carbuncle launched a second orb at Zell, it move so fast that it left him barely a second to roll to the side and avoid it.
"Stop it!" Zell demanded, running up the concrete slope towards Carbuncle in the hopes he could make it past the two remaining parts of the Barrier. The third orb launched at him mid way, but he jumped over it, his back bumping in to the panel above him from the narrow evasion. Zell rolled in mid air so that he was facing the bottom of the same panel, kicking off of the steel and speeding his decent to the ground. He strategically gained enough speed to fall under the fourth orb just as Carbuncle released it.
"What's wrong with you?" Zell sprang up from the ground and charged at Carbuncle while his defense was gone.
"Diamond Shield!"
Zell found himself running into a translucent wall that came out of nowhere. It shined and sparkled brilliantly in the patchy sunlight that made it down, a one foot thick barrier made completely out of pure, completely cut and shaved diamond. An amazing talent that wasn't just for show, this was the best physical defense he could possibly generate and the next best thing to being physically invincible. "What happened to you Carbuncle?" Zell pleaded for an answer. "Why are you acting so strangely?"
Carbuncle was silent and unmoving, as if he didn't want to say anything at first. They just stood there for what seemed like an eternity, until Carbuncle lowered his head and screamed, it wasn't clear why though. "I…I-I HATE YOU! Stay away from me!" The Diamond Shield grew and expanded outward, slamming in to Zell and forcing him backwards while it decimated the pools in it's path. If he didn't have such tight reflexes and blocked with his arms before he was hit, he would have taken a lot of damage. Though he didn't expect the rain of heavy steel panels that came falling on him from their loss of support. He was able to knock them away...
He stood speechless, now much farther away then he'd been before the barrier expanded. 'Carbuncle…really hates me?…… No he couldn't! This isn't him, it's something else inside of him…I have to save him…' He told himself, trying his best to convince himself that was all there was to it. It had to be.
Zell's pause of thinking gave Carbuncle enough time to drop the shield and jump to the surface.
"Hey wait!" But Zell wouldn't give up that easily, he grabbed a hold of the edge of one of the panels, climbing up once again in front of Carbuncle and blocking his path. "Your not going to run from me!"
! - ! - !
"Shadow stop!" Cho shouted, watching the agile wolf move easily through the mass of people walking directly in his path. Cho was having a much harder time maintaining his speed and pace in this large obstruction then the GF was, he persistently pushed and shoved his way through the pedestrians blocking him.
The number of other people lessened when the railroad tracks came to what used to be a train station next to the bridge leading to Esther. Now the only thing in Shadow's path was himself, Shadow unfortunately wasn't focusing his full attention on running and missed at step on the uneven ground, causing him to come tumbling on to the line of wooden placards and banging his head on the metal rails in a painful looking manner. He was barely focusing on moving, it was no wonder why he fell.
Cho caught up to him with in what seemed like the second he'd fallen, waisting no time knelling by his side and wrapping both of his arms Shadow's body. He knew he was taking a big risk, considering that he could be stabbed to death or even impaled doing this. "Stop running!" His voice trailed off immediately after he spoke those words, worry flooded into his speech. "…Are you alright? You look like you hit your head kinda hard, that's twice today."
"What do you care?" Shadow turned away from Cho and managed to stand despite the boy's grip on him.
Cho still wouldn't let go despite the fact that he was barely hanging off of his neck… It allowed him to get a quick glimpse of Shadow's face while the wolf was turning from him... Did he see what he thought he saw? "Are you…crying?" Though the look was only a small glance, Cho knew he saw tears.
"I-I can't control it." Shadow's voice was shakily, something Cho didn't notice the first time, he clinching eyes shut tightly and sent a spike shooting outward from his neck.
"Uhaaa!" It just barely missed Cho's head, forcing him to let go and fall face first on the uneven ground.
Before he even realized it Seifer and Nida were behind him, lifting Cho on to his feet by whatever piece of him they could grab. By then Shadow was gone, disappearing on the only route possible, toward Esther.
"We'll never catch him now." Seifer grunted in annoyment with a small shake of his head.
"We should just let him go, it's too dangerous to keep following him. He'll try and kill us if we get close, and we can't beat him." Nida sighed defeated as he eased himself into a sitting position next to Cho, setting his crunches together no his shoulder. Cho's determination was something to be admired 'Maybe I just think to much...'
Even with his injures he still was able to get here at the same time as Seifer, it made Seifer wonder how fast he was with out a cast.
"No, he wasn't trying to kill us when we got close. He was just trying to get away from us." Cho told them.
"Cho, you have to understand-"
"He was crying." Cho cut him off.
"What?"
"He was crying, I saw it when I grabbed him."
A long pause in responded to him. Nida and Seifer each gave each other looks undecipherable by Cho, speaking in silence. After that Nida and Seifer seemed to think to themselves about something while Cho brooded in his own contemptment for losing Shadow.
"…Come on." Nida sighed, taking a crutch under each arm and trying to push himself on to his feet. Seifer grabbed a hold of his waist and helped him up seeing he couldn't do it on his own. "Thanks."
"Huh?" Cho looked up at him with confusion. "You still wanna keep going?"
"He's moving toward Esther, We may be able to head him off with the Ragnarok."
! - ! - !
Zell stood firmly atop the sun panels nearer to center, the ground was even down here so he had no problem keeping his balance. Or blocking Carbuncle's path, "What happened to you? Tell me!" Zell shouted.
Carbuncle yelled in anger, feeling tears burning at his eyes and his vision bluing. An orange, sphere shaped barrier surrounded his body, it twisted and swirled at the center, extending a drill towards Zell. Then he charged forward, driving the drill towards Zell.
'He's quick.' Zell barely had time to react at such a close distance. "?" With out hesitation he dived outward to the left, just barely evading Carbuncle, though the spinning blade managed to graze his forearm and draw blood.
That's when Zell realized it, as he hit the ground on his side and he clasped his scared arm with his opposite hand. It was the undeniable truth that Carbuncle was actually trying to kill him now, none of this seemed real to Zell, his mind rejected the thought say that it couldn't be true. Until he realized that the drill was actually aimed at his head.
'He's crying…?' Zell said to himself, seeing tears falling from the falsely red eyes. 'What the...' Even more unreal to him he watched the green body grow a little darker at that moment, it was like an incoming tide that washed over him completely. What ever was happening was enough to make Carbuncle clinch his eyes shut and cry out. Though Zell couldn't tell if it was a sound of pain pain or whatever emotion he was feeling at the moment.
With out a word of warning Carbuncle turned abruptly and ran away as fast as he could, heading towards the East edge of the sun panel.
"Carbuncle stop!" Zell wasted no time going after him with every bit of speed he'd acquired over his life time, trying his best to catch up even though it was hard running up hill on a smooth surface like these panels. "Stop running and tell me what's wrong with you!"
Carbuncle couldn't help but hear him, making him pause only for a second to look back, his face showed a slightly concentrated look on the strained expression.
'Wait...I know that look, he's-!' Zell was suddenly lifted off the sun panel and shot in to the air, the cause a wide green barrier lifting him off the ground the ground like an elevator, only at a much faster rate. "Whoa!" He nearly fell from the expectedness of it, by the time he caught himself he seemed to be about 30 feet in the air. "Oh man...:" Even worse, when he looked up he could see another barrier coming down on him. 'What do I ...' he knew he had no choice but to jump before he was smashed. The drop wasn't small either, Carbuncle's power was strong enough to lift Zell's weight into the air easily so he could take him very high very fast. 'Here goes nothing.' Without another thought to make him more nervous about it then he already was, he jumped.
Zell managed to land on his feet, as soon as he came down he stumbled forward and fell, the fact that he was near the top and the panels and they were almost completely vertical from here on up didn't help. 'Damn that hurt...' He grabbed on the edge of a panel before he could slid down too far, and luckily he landed close enough to reach forward and get a tight grip on Carbuncle's body. "Why are you running away?"
"Let me go!" The small body began to struggle, squirming to slip free, but it was no use. Zell's grip was too tight. "Just leave me alone!" Carbuncle's body tensed beneath Zell's fingers, he expanded a shield from his body to pry away Zell's hand. "I hate you Damnit! Do you even know what you've done to me!" He shouted furiously, giving his shield one last boost to expand and knock Zell away.
"Carbuncle!" His body was pushed outward by the shield with enough force to send him flying, his body was knocked outward over the dish and crashed down in the center where the Mayor's house stood. 'D-Damnit...'
His head hurt so much that he could barely think, and his ears rang inexplicably, but he was able to focus enough to see Carbuncle climb to the top.
The GF stopped, taking one last, small look back at Zell before diving in to the ocean.
'C-Carbuncle...'
! - ! - !
"Zell, are you alright?"
He must have passed out, because when he opened the eyes he didn't even realized he'd closed, he saw Cho standing over him, Nida and Seifer directly behind him.
He couldn't have been out for that long..."Not really." Zell shook his head as if to dispel the small daze, then with stumbling steps he picked himself off the ground and climbed on to his feet, rubbing his head lightly. "Carbuncle is gone." He spoke with audible disappointment, more at himself for not stopping him.
"I saw." Cho sighed with a saddened tone, he'd been watching from the railroad tracks surrounding the area. "Couldn't catch him?"
"No." Zell shook his head in defeat.
"Come with us, you might be able to." Nida suggested.
"Where are you going?" Zell asked.
"After Shadow, he's heading towards Esther." Nida told him, "From where Carbuncle jumped, it looks like he's heading that way to."
"I guess..."
Zell followed the three with a discarding shrugged, the Ragnarok was docked on the far side of the mayor's house so it was clear why they came this way. Zell noticing that Seifer hadn't said anything the whole time, he looked as if he was thinking. He didn't even realize that Zell was watching him, or was too busy thinking to care.
! - ! - !
Despite his injures Nida was the one that piloted the Ragnarok, being much better then Cho even even with them.
Cho sat down under a windshield next to the edge of the control panel "What's wrong with Carbuncle?"
"I'm not sure…he said he felt empty... no, like something was hollowing him out, then he just disappeared for a day." Zell sighed, he leaned against the wall next to Cho with his arms folded tightly across his chest. "When I did find him again this morning he was crying, then he just ran away from me... What's really weird is that he's turning black and his eyes are red, it's really creepy. I think he may have been possessed by one of those monsters."
Cho shook his head, "He wasn't possessed, he seemed just like he was still Carbuncle only... angrier. When your possessed you wouldn't act like that." Someone possessed by a shadow would have no will or strong emotions present, Cho knew from experience. Carbuncle's emotions were definitely strong, and he was still conscious.
"Well something happened to him, why dose he look like that?"
"Maybe something is making him act different." Nida said, he slowly leaned forward, releasing the throttle for a moment since he could only use one arm, and pressed a flipped an unknown switch on the dashboard. "He's been off ever since he went after you in Time Compression."
Time Compression?...wait a minute- "Didn't Shadow say he came here through Time Compression." Cho realized. "If he did then all of those other ones must have too."
Now things were starting to make a more sense. "When Carbuncle went into Time Compression to find me, one of those things must have gotten in him on there way there." Zell reasoned. "But if that's true, how come he's not possessed? And what about this whole week, if something was inside of him it had more then enough time to show up."
"Carbuncle is a GF of defense, Physically and Mentally. A shadow could probably never get past those defenses completely..." Nida paused, maybe that wasn't unnecessary true. "Or at lest it would take some time."
So that's what Carbuncle had meant."But it got through enough…" Zell pounded the metal wall in a burst of anger from something unknown to everyone else, if this was true then that would mean this whole thing was his fault...
"Well….I don't think all of this is the Shadow…" Nida released the throttle again to pull a small lever down half way. "Carbuncle had a lot of things he was keeping in while you were gone, and I think the Shadow was bringing that out."
Zell folded his arms again and hung his head down, "So he really hates me after all." He said low to himself. "I thought something was just saying that, dammit, of course it was him."
"Nah, I don't think it's that bad, it's probably just exaggerated." Nida told him, "I'm sure he's actually mad at you, but hate you? He couldn't, not the way he talked about you."
Cho agreed. "Yeah, if something really was doing to him what he said it was-"
"Hollowing him out?" Zell interrupted.
"Yeah, all of this would come out one way or another." Cho said. His eyes scanned over the room anxiously, taking special notice of Seifer, who still hadn't said a word this whole time.
Seifer was waiting stoically in the co-pilot seat, just in case Nida's injuries got the best of him and he ended up crashing, that may of just been exasperating thinking though. He couldn't help but feel guilty about giving Shadow a drink with that much alcohol proof , but he was too busy thinking to worry about that.