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Chap 8

Of course.

Cloud was...gone, or the Heartless would've been pursuing him. Instead, they were going after a different target, and a heart locked in a prone body was by far the easiest mark. The creatures of darkness had no qualms about cutting off the weakest member of the herd. They were predators, and all predators cared only about was where their next meal was coming from.

The flock of wyverns charged as one then, spiraling down on the dais like they had done the Highwind. Aerith leapt back to her feet and assumed a guard position over Squall's inert form.

"Come on!" the girl cried defiantly. There was a fierceness in her now, a voice crying out for penance. The first of the wyverns that reached her got its head beaten in with one hard strike of her staff and fell from the air off the side of the dais. The two behind it, though, she couldn't hit--her spells had slowed her down far too much for effective combat. The second creature raked her arms with its talons and pulled away as she faltered. The third, though, was headed straight for her face, strong legs forward and claws outstretched.

She heard the popping sound and was left facing a sharp edge-- the point of a spear. Aerith exhaled sharply, startled at the speed the blonde man possessed despite his size. He turned and cut down another two Heartless in one figure eight before shouting, "Don't just stand there...move, damn it!" Yuffie caught the hint--he'd aimed the order at her-- and hobbled up the ramp into the ship, dragging the Buster sword and carrying her Shuriken and the Lionheart. "You too," he commanded, nodding after Yuffie. "We gotta get the hell outta here now."

"Right." She bent to grab Squall as the man destroyed another pair of wyverns. Hardly through his attack he bent and grabbed Aerith's arm, pulling her back up and giving her a shake in the process.

"I said move, damn it! We ain't got all day. Bat 'em out of the way so I can get through with him, then go!" She sized him up for a moment, then nodded. It was no time to start doubting him now, not when he'd swooped out of nowhere as their only escape. She set her feet shoulder's width apart--just like Cloud had always said to, to keep her balance-- and began swinging at the diving wyverns. She was too busy fighting to have time to think about him, and she would only have time to mourn later if they made it out in one piece.

The blonde pilot knelt beside the downed youth, carefully rolling him over. He grimaced at what he saw: Squall's entire right side was saturated with blood and there was a thin line of it running from each side of his mouth. Kid's not got long, he realized. He lifted him as circumspectly as he could, tying to be quick but delicate as well. It was not a reasonable combination, he knew, but he had little choice as he hoisted the youth up as he stood. He expected a cry, at the very least a whimper of pain, but he got nothing but silence. Shit...this is worse than I thought.

"Come on!" Aerith ducked under another wyvern strike and hurried to follow the man carrying Squall. They ran up the ramp and the man turned sharply left, reaching for a handle on the wall. As he pulled it a shelf-like a cot lowered near the floor. "Close that door, girl!" Aerith winced--he shouted so loud--but she saw his point. She managed to get the sliding metal sheet shut just before a wyvern got through. As it was, the creature slammed into the door head first, denting it visibly on the inside. "Mick, get back here and help this kid. He's in really bad shape, and we gotta go before these bastards tear up my ship any more."

"You got it." The new voice was high pitched and slightly annoying, nasally but oddly regal all at once. The pilot's chair spun around and a figure only about as tall as Aerith at the waist hopped off, relinquishing the seat to the blonde man. This new male was, in all look, a giant mouse caped in black. A heavy chain and pendant not unlike Squall's Griever hung around his throat, though his was set with a crown. His large eyes shadowed as he took in Squall's condition. Brow furrowed he asked, "Where do you keep the medical kit, Cid?"

"Above the left middle panel," Cid--the pilot--replied. He was pressing buttons all along the ship's enormous front consul with amazing speed and precision, and the girls, unused to flying, nearly fell as the Highwind lurched into motion.

"Grab the kit for me, will ya?" the mouse-man asked, pointing. Aerith followed his direction and, opening a large cupboard that was as high on the wall as her shoulders, hauled out a large metal box with a red cross painted sloppily on the side. She set it down by the mouse's side, opening it for him. "Thanks," he gave her a brief smile before his brow furrowed again and he started rummaging through the kit. He stopped searching when he found a small, sharp knife. "What exactly happened to him?"

"A Defender's shield bit him," Yuffie piped up from her place in a seat along the opposite wall. She'd sat down hard when the plane had surged into life and now was clutching the bench for dear life. "The chunk out of his shoulder was from a Blizzara shard." The mouse nodded, leaning over Squall with the knife poised. Aerith was a little nervous from the noticeable turbulence as they flew; the wyverns were still in pursuit. He had no trouble, however, deftly cutting a perfectly straight line from the neck of Squall's shirt to its waist. When he peeled the ruined fabric away, there was no sign of any knife-made cut on Squall's torso.

There was, however, a set of wounds in the shape of a crescent gouged out of him on his right side, in what was a clear definition of a dog's frontal teeth, as well as an array of long, thin cuts. The bite holes were elongated, a testament to how hard Squall had struggled against the Defender. Aerith gasped in pity; Yuffie, already feeling green from the motion of the airship, closed her eyes and tried to think happy thoughts.

"I need some towels, quickly. I don't have enough magic for this right now," the mouse muttered, apparently thinking aloud. Aerith called forward the request to Cid, who yelled back the location of some in another random shelf in the cabin. By the time Aerith had fetched them and brought them back, the mouse was lifting a bottle of what looked to be wound cleaner. "Thanks," he murmured offhandedly. "You perform Cure, right?"

"That, as well as Cura," Aerith responded, a little snappish. It felt like he was belittling her--any idiot could learn Cure, as easy as the chant was, and applying it wasn't that hard. She was at her nerves' end and the stress of the situation had left her attitude bare and capricious. "They didn't teach upper level magic in my village--I picked up on Cura by experimenting with Cure," as a side thought she added, "I have no energy left-"

"-I know. I have little myself." Then...

"You were the one setting off the fireballs. Was that really Firaga?"

"Yes. Hand me another towel." She obliged him, realizing she was thankful that he was there. Slowly, carefully, the mouse was mopping out the teeth wounds on Squall's side, using a combination of the fizzing liquid in the bottle and the towels to clean them out and soak up the seemingly endless flow of blood. Aerith knelt at his side, doing what she could to assist him. She was drained physically as well as mentally, not to mention magically. That still struck her as being very bad, given the increasing saturation of the towels and the inhuman white of Squall's complexion.