This one's a bit off the main line, but it opens the door for the prequel…hmm. Please R&R!
--Chap 12--
'The dark clouds pitched and rolled, thunder sounding in a tumultuous chorus amid the flashes of lightning. It took a few moments more for the sky to break but when it did it did so with a vengeance, releasing a cascade of raindrops that quickly became a torrential downpour.
Squall Leonheart walked through the threshold into his small home, completely drenched from the rainfall and handling it with a stoicism only he could manage. Pushing dripping brown hair out of storm gray eyes, the youth hung up his ragged jacket and tucked his gunblade and sheathe--his only valuable and, truthfully, most prized possessions-- into the corner beside the door, hardly turning to do so. The shanty was more than unimpressive, but for the most part it functioned as he needed it to. The single room he had entered served as foyer near the door, kitchen near the small fireplace on the right hand wall and bedroom on the rear opposite side. It was from behind him, from the tattered mattress he slept on, that the voice came.
"Something on your mind?" Squall hissed in surprise and spun, pulling the small knife he kept hidden in his jeans' pocket into a ready position; his entire body shifted into a tight defensive stance in a breath. The response from the bed came as little more than a giggle. Squall, understanding but not relaxing, muttered a well-rehearsed word. A small, glistening fireball took shape before his extended left hand and launched, on his unspoken command, into the open hearth. The Fire took hold on the wood within and lit the dark hut as thunder shook the place from rafters to floorboards. The figure on the bed rose and stretched lazily, still giggling. "So tense. You really have to lighten up some." Squall did relax a bit then, slipping the knife back into its concealed sheath and planting one hand firmly on its corresponding hip.
"I thought I told you to stop sneaking in here," he muttered, angrily but abashed--he hated being taken by surprise and trained against it, yet somehow she always managed to catch him unaware. The thin figure laughed heartily at that, ambling over to him with a distinct sway to her walk.
When she reached his side, Rinoa turned her face up to look Squall in the eyes. "I know you did but...surely you wouldn't deny a poor girl shelter from the rain?" she questioned innocently, smoothing her sky blue over-dress. Squall sighed at the cherubic cheerfulness shown so blatantly in her liquid brown eyes. Her skin, as perfect and porcelain as any doll's, flickered vividly with the light from the storm outside as lightening split and crackled across the sky.
"No," he conceded, looking out through the open door at the rain pounding the ground. His lean, muscled form tensed again visibly as Rinoa snaked a thin arm around his waist.
"See, was that so hard? It's easier to be kind than to shut me out." He always tried to do just that, but she managed to disarm every defense he tried to erect between them. "So good with Fire..." she whispered, holding onto him while glancing at the roaring hearth, "...and yet so cold." Her thin hand settled against the hard line of Squall's jaw, pushing against it until she forced him to look at her. Rinoa's smile deepened as she brushed that same hand against his cheek, tracing from just beneath his eye to the tip of his chin. "You have such a handsome face. I wish I could see you smile--I'll bet you're even cuter." Before the detached warrior in him could react, Squall felt the slim woman beside him rise to her tip-toes and lean in closer, all while he seemed ensnared in some spell from those eyes of hers. It was a breath later when he realized her lips had closed over his own. Some distant part of him cried for him to pull away, to retract and run from this strange experience; much more loudly, however, the unequivocal warmth that was coursing through his body argued otherwise.
Rinoa melted against his chest, wrapping her thin arms around his neck and burying her slim hands in his thick hair. As he normally did, Squall felt detached from the world around him, though for the first time in his life he was not alone in that: Rinoa was there with him, and somehow the two of them had stepped out of the realm of reality and into a place where location didn't matter and time held no sway. Something deep within Squall (though he was by no means fully aware of it) wanted everything to freeze, keeping the small, pretty female in his arms forever. He had truly managed to relax in Rinoa's arms, and closed his eyes. It felt to him like an eternity had coerced itself into the breath that the kiss actually took.
Squall felt his head snap back on his neck, torn backward by fingers interwoven into a fistful of his hair. Sharp nails dug into his scalp; by the feel of it, those fingers had become little more than jointed claws.
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Rinoa's form stretched, shifting out of a shape that could be called anything remotely human. Arms lengthened, shoulders spiked upward, all vital signs disappeared. She grew a good three feet as her beautiful brown eyes glassed over and her clothing melted into one being with her skin. Her new body's color was a mix of light purple and sky blue and, barely distinguishable as skin, held a texture and elasticity not entirely unlike that of rubber. All of this transpired in an instant; Squall had no time to snap out of his trance and recoil.
The hands that had been cupped behind his head doomed him. Just as Squall had assumed they, too, had changed; even as he struggled those claws were put to work holding his head back as Rinoa's free hand, out now in his line of sight, shifted to become a single, deadly spike. Her—its—right arm was now a feasible weapon, drawn back and poised for a kill. There could be no doubt about where it was going to end up, either: the monster had a clear opening to the flesh of Squall's exposed throat.
Squall tried to wrench loose as that needle-sharp point descended and couldn't, so he chose in that same instant to fight instead. Rearing back further, he snapped his right leg into the creature's midsection. The creature's aim was thrown off; as he had hoped, and the unforgiving point on the end of its arm swung out wide as it narrowly missed tearing open his throat.
It did not swing out wide enough.
The very edge of the tip caught the soft tissue under Squall's left eye, cutting a deep and perfect line over the bridge of his nose. Wincing in pain, he forced his eyes open through the blood to see the monster poised again, this time with its lance of an arm in line with his chest…'
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Well, there's just 1 left! It's open-ended, I'll warn you now, cuz I have the sequels in the works! They take liberty w/ the story too…ah well. Thanks for reading, please R&R!
-K-