Disclaimer: Joss, WB, UPN, M.E, and various other corporations own Buffy. They can keep 'em, too. Final Fantasy is owned by Square and their subsidiaries. Although I wish I owned the rights to those games, it's never gonna happen…
Title: Vampire's Final Fantasy
Author: Paradigm Shifter
Rating: R. What, you expect me to write something that isn't?
Feedback: Much appreciated, and craved.
Crossover: Final Fantasy/Buffy the Vampire Layer
Continuity: Buffy: Seasons 1 & 2, up to the end of Becoming. Final Fantasy: VIII, but the game hasn't been truly started yet. Set in the universe, but the time has not yet arrived… (it's starts when Squall and the others are around 8 years old.)
Notes: I'm going slowly insane… my writing time goes down, so what do I do? I start a new fic. Jeez.
*
Edea walked slowly though the flower fields near the Cape of Good Hope, Centra. The raven-haired woman was searching for her youngest charge for the seventh time in as many days. Squall had this habit of wondering off by himself, and it had gotten worse since the day his 'sis' had left.
"Squall!" Edea called, "Squall?"
A flash of movement caught her attention, and she turned to see a Death Claw, a horribly mutated relative of the grizzly bear standing over her charge and roaring in challenge.
Squall, for his part, stood his ground, and refused to back down to a monster that could have torn him apart in seconds. "Get back! Go away!" he shouted with childish determination.
Edea watched in shock and horror as the monster ignored the boy, and batted him aside as if he was nothing. "No!" she screamed, rushing forward, but knowing that if the monster chose, it would be far, far too late when she got there.
Squall struggled to his feet, and Edea's eyes widened as she saw the boy stumble back into to the same place he had been standing before… between the Death Claw and the unconscious form of another child, but one much older than Squall, at least twice his age. The long grass had hidden the body from her view when she was further away.
Edea summoned power she swore never to use except in defence of another, and raised her hand, feeling the cold of magical ice chill her digits before launching the strike against the monster.
The enchanted ice pierced the beast's hide, and skewered it. Squall watched in tormented fascination as the Death Claw collapsed in front of him, flinching away as one of the monsters razor sharp claws cut through the ground to the right of him.
He turned away, his near death momentarily forgotten as concern for the person he found took precedence once again. Edea reached his side seconds later, and looked with worry at her wayward charge.
"What do you think you're doing, Squall, so far from the Orphanage?" Edea tried to sound angry, but she merely sounded relieved.
Squall turned to her, and pointed at the unconscious body. "He's hurt… we need to get him inside, before more bad things come."
Edea nodded, and motioned with her hand, raising the limp form into the air. She nodded to Squall, who ran off ahead to warn the orphanage that they were going to have a visitor…
*
Squall rushed through the door of the orphanage, and ran straight into Seifer.
"Watch where you're goin' pipsqueak!" Seifer shouted and pushed him away.
Squall collided with the wall, and slid down it, before getting up from the floor. "I don't have time for this, Seifer."
Seifer put his hands on his hips. "Oh, so the great Squall doesn't have time for the rest of us puny mortals, is that it?" he leaned forward with a sneer, "huh?"
Squall controlled his temper. Getting into a fight with Seifer now would only be counter-productive, and end up causing Matron a great deal of grief when one or the other got hurt. "Seifer, I don't have time to fight with you now… I found someone outside; unconscious… he looks hurt. Matrons bringing him in."
"Oh, so now were a charity?" asked Seifer with a sneer. "Who knows, next it'll be we're wonderin' round, curing all the monsters we used to beat up!"
Edea's firm voice cut off Squall's reply. "Seifer. We are a charity. Or would you rather live life on the streets, having to do far worse than you think is possible to survive?"
Seifer's head whipped round, and he stammered as he saw matron standing there in the doorway. "I… I… I didn't know that you were there, Matron."
Edea shook her head. "No, you wouldn't." she waved him away, but signalled that Squall should stay. "Go and play with the others, Seifer, but don't make Selphie cry this time…"
Seifer hung his head. "Yes, matron."
Squall watched Seifer walk away with ambivalence in his heart. He hated Seifer for his actions, but couldn't bring himself to hate the person underneath. It was just that Seifer was a romantic… a romantic from another age. He believed in the tales of the Sorceresses from anther time, another place in the world… another paradigm, although he would not understand the word if it was told to him.
Edea motioned for the boy to float over the bed, and he did so. Then she lowered the unconscious form. "I need to ask you something, Squall… where did this boy come from?"
Squall shook his head, and shrugged. "I don't know, Matron. I was sitting in the grass, watching the birds in the sky, and there was this thump, a little way away. I went to investigate, and there he was… sleeping in the grass."
"Then where did the Death Claw come from?" Edea asked.
Squall shook his head. "I don't know that either, Matron. It just came."
Edea sat on the chair next to the bed. "Hmm…" she mused quietly to herself. "It is unusual for a Death Claw to come at the scent of anything other than blood… was he bleeding?"
"Not that I could see, matron, but I suppose he could have been… inside."
Edea shook her head. "No. It would have to be carried by the air… and that isn't. I don't understand…"
Squall looked guiltily at his feet for a second, before reaching into his pocket. "There was this, matron." He held out a scrap of a shirt, bloodied and torn.
Edea took it from him, but frowned as she did so. "This isn't his… none of his clothes are torn…"
"No, matron." Squall agreed.
"So it must have come from someone else…" Edea sighed. "Oh well, it is a mystery he will have to solve for us when he wakes up." She stood and left the room; safe in the knowledge her Sorceress powers would alert her if anything was wrong. The boy might be a little old, but her powers allowed her to sense children around her, their feelings, their hurts and thoughts and actions.
*
Squall sat in the chair vacated by matron, and watched the unconscious body.
Griever whispered in his mind. [He will not awaken]
Squall blinked. It had been many months since the Lion Guardian Force that inhabited his ring had spoken to him. [You are sure?] He asked back.
[Certain.] Stated the GF. [Things not meant to be known, not even to the Guardians, have ravaged his mind. it will not allow him to wake while in this state.]
[What can we do?] Squall asked.
[I can wake him,] said Griever, [but it will not be easy on any of the three of us… I must junction myself to him, and attempt to heal the damage done…]
Squall shuddered. Since Griever had junctioned himself to Squall, it had become a symbiotic relationship for the two of them. Griever grew and experienced through Squall, and Squall gained knowledge, insight and protection from the ancient GF. Breaking the connection would hurt them both.
[I don't care…] said Squall. [Wake him up. I think it's important that he wakes.]
[But…] began the GF.
[No 'buts',] thought Squall. [Do it. Now.]
Squall felt the long suffering sigh and imagined two catlike eyes rolling at his stubbornness.
[Very well] the GF said finally. [Prepare yourself.]
Squall felt his head hit the bed, next to the strangers, and blackness took him.
*