Chapter 10, Ooh, I'm going to hell for this one…

Squall awoke to find himself hanging on a wall in a very familiar fashion. The area around him was shrouded in a typical - probably merciful - darkness. At least save from a big spot of color in the border of his eyesight.

Rolling his eyes he rolled his head to the side and rolled his gaze towards Susan, who was caught in the act of digging for earwax with his little finger, and quickly straightened up under the commander's glare.

Squall took in a deep breath, let it out in a sigh and spoke.

"This isn't going to include Teletubbies, sugar, and other idiotic so called torture, I hope?"

Sandra's smirk cracked up in a moment of confusion.

"Eh?" he said, "I thought those things were only an urban legend or something!"

"I wish..." Squall grunted and slowly shook his head, closing his eyes to keep the stupid memories out.

"Random humor, ne?" Susan grimaced, waving a dainty hand before his pretty nose as if something was smelling bad.

"Hai," Squall grunted.

"I feel for you, Squall-kun."

They paused, quickly realizing that they were speaking random Japanese on top of everything.

The screams of disgust shook the lair.

*

In the dungeons, the wringing of hands, nervous pacing and fiddling with lock on the door ceased for a moment as everyone tilted their heads and listened, thoughtfully. Even the purple-green-blue carnivore cannibalistic aliens from outter space guards did, though what was head and toe on them was rather hard to figure out. They tilted some parts at least.

"That sounded a little off if I may say so," Seifer smirked and resumed pacing.

At least they had a lot of space this time. The big grotto was at least as big as a Garden classroom, lit up by torches set along the wall. The flames were strangely greenish, for reasons unexplained. But it sure added to the creepy atmosphere that otherwise wasn't given much respect. While Zell worked on the lock on the steeldoor - without the guards showing any interest in it at all even if a purple-green-blue tentacle now and then swept by past the little barred window - and Seifer paced like a caged animal, the other five prisoners were playing a game of Go Fish with a collective Triple Triad deck.

"Chill out, guys!" Irvine called at Zell and Seifer, irritated as all their moving around and stuff made him loose his concentration in admiring the picture of Shiva, "somebody will come and save us any minute now."

The fistfighter thought this over, shrugged and walked over to the center of the room to plop down with the cardplayers. They quickly finished their round so that he could join in.

But Seifer kept pacing, muttering about how he couldn't stop because it was in his nature and if whoever their rescuers would be didn't show up soon his legs would fall off.

Minutes passed and proved Seifer wrong. All was silent, save from the pacing and sound of cards hitting the ground, and of course the bland dialogue of the players requesting cards and ordering fishing frenzies. The lack of screams from the torture chamber were actually the scariest thing.

Suddenly everyone jerked up at a new sound, a distant humming that seemed to come from the corridor.

The purple-green-blue carnivore cannibalistic aliens guards apparently heard it too as they - if the sound spoke true - took off towards the humming, screeching eerily as they went.

A few distant disgusting sounds came from the outside, and then the humming resumed, quickly turning out to be a very silly song going "lalalala-la-la-la" etc sung by several voices.

"I... sure hope... this isn't what I think it is..." Quistis mumbled, grinding her teeth together.

"Nah, doesn't sound like Teletubbies or Barney, ya know," Raijin assured, though a little nervous.

"DISTINCT," Fujin agreed, drowning those fears at least.

But the other option...

Something moved outside of the window, but the prisoners were too nervous to inspect.

"Which one of you cuties wants the honor?" a female voice giggled.

"You can do the honors," a smooth man's voice smiled.

"Oh no my dear friend," another man's voice smiled even wider, "you deserve it better than I."

"But I insist," the smooth one said, "you need to work out your aggressions."

"But you have more agressions than I, for all your rabid fangirls! Please, I insist."

Pause.

"Oh, fine then," the smooth one smiled, "you always manage to make me see the right side of things my dear friend. Stand aside please, I don't want to hurt anyone."

And with that, the steel door was pierced by about six feet of a thin blade, for no apparent reason as the owner of the sword then kicked the door off is hinges and further off the blade.

A few hands met a few faces as into the grotto stepped a tall man clad in a black coat. Most of his chest showed as his clothing wasn't completely obscuring. Loooong silver hair flowed from his head and way down past his butt.

"Good evening everyone," he smiled, "I am Sephiroth, the misunderstood villain who has been brought onto the right track by an immense feeling of guilt after having killed my ONE TRUE LOVE and now travels through the worlds seeking for a way to resurrect her together with my dear friends here."

A man in a blue uniform, with the spikiest spiky blond hair in the history of spikiness stepped in, his arm snaked around the thin waist of a walking blow-updoll with long brown hair and a miniskirt. And a minishirt.

Despite their smiles there was something in the back of their eyes, a manic glint that proved that there was something inside of them that was desperately fighting to be let out and break them free of the situation they had been pushed into.

*

"I wonder what's taking them so long..." Squall muttered and tried to zone out the irritating sound of clashing chains as he lifted the cup of coffee to his lips.

"Yes, really!" Sandra nodded and delicatedly sipped from his own cup, little finger pointing outwards from the grip of the pink drink-holder. Of course.

The bishie scoffed slightly.

"Do they always take this long to break out?" he inquired.

Squall shrugged, causing the chains to complain even more.

"Depends, really," he said, "they might need backup I suppose."

"The plot compression should have sent something their way by now. Lazy thing, really... uh..."

Susan paused and put his cup down on the small pink plate on the table. The ribbons that claimed to be his clothing rose up and swayed around him - Squall desperately focused on the table, one sight of that cloth-dance had been enough - while the sorcerer muttered in a hoarse, inhuman voice for a few moments.

Eventually he finished and the ribbons obediently fell down to swirl a bit more modestly again. Susan even looked a bit pained as he spoke.

"We have a Final Fantasy crossover now," he reported.

Squall spat all the coffee he had had in his mouth back into the cup, wildly coughing and spluttering.

"Wha-wha-whate-ever!" he rasped, trying to maintain dignity despite the fact that Susan rushed to carefully smack the commander's back to help him get all the black liquid out of his lungs.

"Sorry about that, darling," Sandra said as the fit subsided.

He slipped forwards, hanging his arms over Squall's shoulders and leant his cheek against the brown, unruly hair.

"But we've finished the crossovers now at least," the sorcerer mumbled, "since there was that author's note about Trigun earlier."

"Don't... touch... me."

"Oops, sorry!"

*

Back in the grotto, everyone's full attention was on Rinoa, who just stepped into the circle they had all helped out with drawing on the ground, complete with thousands of mysterious symbols and obscure art.

Of course, since it was for tension, they even got to worry about whether the trick would work or not. Especially since nobody had any idea if any of the weird symbols meant anything at all.

Rinoa delicately stepped over the cold ground, having discarded her shoes and socks outside of the circle. Her arms were leant slightly back and an invisible wind moved her hair while the ground peacefully rippled like water under her feet.

'I have this sudden urge to get a staff and dance on a reversed whirlpool at sunset...' she briefly thought, but shrugged it off. She had a job to do.

As she reached the middle of the circle she paused for a moment, pressing her hands against each other as she assembled her will. Drawing in a deep breath she raised her arms, and the angel wings swept out of her back.

A pillar of light shot down through the cave ceiling - it's magic dammit! - showering over the young sorceress as she gracefully rose above the floor with one single, slow flap of her wings. From thin air the praising songs of a ghost choir sounded, a melody raising and falling in passionate, desperate praise of one name and its fury - until Sephiroth elbowed the ghost leader of the choir to make them stop singing his official theme. The singers stumbled on the notes for a few moments until they managed to get started on the "Hallelujah Chorus" by Händel. That worked as good as anything for this situation.

Rinoa was unfazed by the confusion, muttering words of summoning and life in a forgotten language she had never heard of before.

The light intensified with every word, and with it Rinoa's voice rose until the spectators had to turn away and clap their hands over their ears.

The explosion of light and sound flashed out of existence suddenly, and the choir overrode the rules of the song and fell into a long "AaaaAAAAAaaaaaaAAAAAhhh...".

Rinoa was now floating upright with wisps and bubbles of light dancing around her, all of them rising from the symbols drawn on the ground. Her arms were stretched out before her and bent as if she was carrying something.

Irvine was handing out sunglasses.

Slowly, and then faster and faster, the wisps and bubbles were drawn towards the sorceress' arms, swirling around as if caught in a body-shaped cage. More and more of them fled the circle, sucked into the more and more distinct form in Rinoa's grip until the light became unbearable again and the choir's song rose towards a crescendo.

As the song reached a new scream, the light flared up one last time and then died with the sound of the choir. Tifa pressed her hands against her chest, Cloud's arm secure around her shoulders while Sephiroth was busy watching the whole show in breathless awe.

Rinoa slowly descended towards the ground, securely holding a woman in her grip, acting as if she wasn't at all bothered by the fact that her burden was just about the size of herself and therefore must have been a pain to carry. The glow of the circle descended with the lowering of the pair.

Brown hair fell down over the sorceress' arm, set in a loose braid with a pink ribbon holding it together. Pink was also the color of the dress that the seemingly unconscious lady wore, pretty face peaceful and unmoving like the rest of her.

Rinoa knelt on the ground as she landed, Aeris letting out a soft groan as she made contact with the cold, hard cave floor.

Next thing the flowergirl knew, she was caught in a furious hug - from the man who murdered her.

The plot compression caught her before she managed to scream however.

"Oh Aeris, I'm so happy that you're back and I'm so sorry that I killed you and all, can you ever forgive me?" Sephiroth helplessly babbled, burying his face in the cherrywood colored hair to hide the hideous grimace that took over his face as his will desperately fought the sinister spell he was under.

"But of course Sephy!" Aeris just as helplessly cried, "I could never hate anyone and especially not you, my love!"

"My love! You love me!"

Tears formed in Sephiroth's glowing eyes - partly from joy and partly from the agony he experienced at saying those words. In THAT tone!

On the other side of the circle, focus was mainly on Seifer. Quistis was showering him with Curagas while Fujin threw Esunas at the speed of lightning (ironically enough). The boys stood ready in case they'd need help keeping the knight alive. Poor Seifer appeared to be the one suffering the most from the cuteness; he was on the floor, desperately kicking his legs along the floor while he clutched his throat, struggling to keep breathing through the heavy sugar-rate.

Cloud and Tifa came strolling over to the happy couple with matching length of hair. As he heard their steps, Sephiroth stood up and lifted Aeris with him. With a huge smile plastered over his face he presented her like a award-winning cat.

"I'm so happy to see you back!" Tifa squealed and hugged her once dead friend, then handed the flowergirl over to Cloud for a completely platonic hug.

Sephiroth meanwhile began to turn to Rinoa, who was getting up on shaking legs.

"I have to thank-" he began.

There was a wet "chink!" and Aeris groaned in a mix of sarcasm and pain, looking down at the Masamune that had dug into her side. Sephiroth's movemen had swung the massive weapon her way.

"Who didn't... see that coming..." Aeris whispered and slumped to the ground.

Her head rolled to the side, wide green eyes staring at nothing as the life in them faltered once again.

Silence ruled for a moment.

Cloud reached for his sword.

"Sephiroth!" he roared, brandishing the impossibly enourmous blade, "you bastard!"

Something went "clonk!" as the plot compression lost its grip of the FFVII group. A manically relieved grin flashed over Sephiroth's face as he drew the Masamune.

"Come and get me if you can, Strife!" he shouted, dashing past Cloud and Tifa and out through the door.

The two heroes dashed after him and sounds of clashing swords and curses came more and more distantly from the corridor, mingled with random shouts of "FREEDOM!".

The FFVIII group exchanged glances.

Seifer cleared his throat, stood up and brushed off his jacket.

"Well, shall we save Squall then?" he suggested.

"Does that involve putting an end to all this?" Zell hopefully asked.

The ex-knight shrugged.

"I don't know..."

He turned towards the exit, his eyes turning hard as steel.

"But I bloody well hope so."