Ceestar: Sigh, new chapter. 'Nuff said.

Chapter 8: Things are Getting Serious

: MY POV :-

My breathing was really heavy. Each breath taken hurt me. I felt a little weight around my mouth, like something was on it. I could also feel warmth, like there was something blocking the air from escaping.

My chest felt great pain as I took in a deep breath, and I heard people around me shuffle. I scrunched up my eyes (like this , is that called scrunching?), and opened them slowly.

Everything was really blurry at first, and the bright light really hurt. I couldn't make them out, but I saw a couple of figures around me. I think they were people, they just looked like coloured globs to me. I squinted my eyes against the light and blinked several times.

The something on my mouth turned out to be one of those masks that help you breathe. I could hear voices echoing, and the voices sounded familiar, but I couldn't make out what they were saying. The ceiling….well, I think it's the ceiling. It was white, and really really bright!

" Tee…," a voice echoed. It sounded really familiar, and I felt I knew it. I just couldn't pin point who it belonged to. "Hey, you there?"

I opened my mouth slowly, but I couldn't get anything out. It was as if the sounds I wanted to come out were tearing away at my throat. I only managed a little squeak. I let out a long breath and tried again. This time I let out a bit of a croak, before actually managing a word. "Zell?"

The room seemed to have a lot of people sigh, relief? I don't know, I was just really confused. All I knew, I was in a lot of pain, and Zell was standing to my right.

"You can hear me right? Can you understand everything that I'm saying?" I heard Zell said rapidly.

"Slow down Mr. Dintch! She is still in a state of shock, you are feeding her too much information." The voice of Dr. Kadowaki said.

Feeding me too much information? What am I? A cruddy computer?

My eyes had begun clearing a little bit, I could make out most of Zell's face now, and Dr. Kadowaki had her back turned, she seemed to be mingling with something. Slowly, my vision became clear. I could now see Zell's beaming face. His face wore a huge smile, this caused the pain to go away a little. The I truly saw his face.

It was battered, bruised and bleeding! He had a huge cut on his right cheek, almost intersecting with his tattoo. I only saw this when he turned to look at something behind him. His lip seemed to have been bleeding, not to mention several other places. A deep purple bruise was to the left of his left eye.

"What happened?" I asked while still slightly dazed.

"It's nothing," He said, noticing the concerned look on my face. "Really. How are you doing?"

I was so sick of that question, everyone always asked me that question. They were always over reacting. The again, the question probably wouldn't pop up as much if I stayed out of trouble. It was a bad habit.

I nodded slowly and closed my eyes. A couple of memories filled my mind. It was just a heap of gloggy memories, and it took a while of thinking before I could actually make sense of anything.

"…..the Quad…."

Bodies. Fighting. Pain. Blood.

"…hurry…!"

Squall….Selphie…Quistis…Irvine...Zell….Tiffany…!...

"Yuki!" Two voices echoed.

Darkness

I snapped my eyes open and bolted into an up right position. Dr. Kadowaki lost hold of the wet cloth she was holding, and it flew up into the air and then it fell flop on her head. Zell jumped back a little, he had been leaning pretty close. I snapped my head around to the left and saw Tiffish waving at me.

I let out a large sigh of relief to see her safe. She was just beaming at me and smiling. I waved back a little when I saw Yuki sitting in the bed across from Fish.

"Feeling ok?" She said.

"You know I hate that question Yuki."

"Yeah I know, that's why I asked." She giggled.

It took half an hour of complaining before Dr. Kadowaki let us out of the infirmary. She never believes you when you say that you are ok. She always insisted that you had to stay. Doctors, sheesh.

Tiffish explained to me that the white thing I saw was just some bandages that Quistis had used to cover her bleeding arm. I shivered at the mention of the world blood and the other two laughed.

We bumped into Selphie while walking around Balamb. A lot of the debris had gone, but there were still some large broken pillars here and there. Fire had burnt almost two thirds of the garden and there was still a little blood splattered around the random places.

"I don't know. They appeared out of no where." Selphie said as we sat by the broken stairs just outside Garden.

We had asked Selphie what had happened, and that it was essential she gave us every last bit of information.

"We asked them what they wanted. They had their weapons ready but Headmaster Cid told us not to attack and see if we could sort this out without blood shed.

So we asked them like eleventy million times! We asked what they wanted, where they came from and other stuff like that.

They just kept mumbling cyborg, and X. It made no sense."

My muscles tightened and I took a deep breath in. Project X was my code name before I joined the Zero-zero team. Black Ghost called me that because I was his first little experiment and it was thought I was going to be the only one, so they (the scientists) didn't bother with numbers. Not only was I Scarl's first project, I was…am…the only cyborg project that he never finished.

"Squall, me and the others were in the front line, something about being Balamb's top SeeD's. Irvy and Rinoa aren't even SeeD, and I'm not from Balamb. I was still kinda happy you know? I just didn't think too much of it then. I wish I took it more seriously. I didn't think they were much of a threat, and I was hoping they would leave so I could get back to planning the next garden festival."

"Then it all just happened. We were having some sort of stare off, no body was moving. Headmaster Cid didn't give any commands, so we all stood our ground, a lot of good that did us. Without any sort of warning, they just jumped forward and began attacking!" Selphie sniffed and took a deep breathe in as if just remembering the moment was tearing her apart. "Everything was screaming and blood after that. Irvy and I fought together; we were both hurt after a while. Everyone was getting tired, but the enemy didn't stop. They kept on attacking; and the more we defeated, the more kept coming."

"Later that scary black thing came. It appeared out of…well…the ground. It was almost like it came right out of the shadows themselves. It just came out of the ground and started…started…."

That's all Selphie could say, she broke down in tears afterwards. I had seen Selphie upset before, and I knew she was a very caring person so it was easy for her to get upset when the ones close to her were hurt. But this was a totally different kind of break down; she looked like she had given up all hope. I shouldn't talk though; I can't say I feel a whole lot of help right now.

We could guess what she was going to say next anyway. That shadow took out everyone else and she came to get Squall for help.

Quisitis came out and was comforting Selphie when we left. It was back to the world of Final Fantasy for us, we had to take the others home. That trip to Balamb had shown us truly how dangerous the worlds were becoming, we couldn't let them stay. I didn't plan on letting anyone stay.

When we arrived, the conditions were completely opposite. The sun was shining and a gentle breeze blew against out faces, the sea was calming rocking upon itself and peaceful. It felt weird enough to for a split second I wondered if we were in the correct world.

The three of us walked silently back to the huts so that we could take all the others home. None of us wanted to talk, there was nothing to talk about. At the rate things were going, I only prayed that there would soon be a world left to save.

"Project X"

I froze as the voice echoed throughout my mind. It sounded so fresh, as if he had just spoken to me telepathically or through the brain communicators all we Cyborgs wore. But I'm sure it was just a memory.

We still wore the injuries from the battle, that's how bad everything was getting. All our wounds would now travel between worlds along with us. I don't even know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

Well with the reaction from everyone else, it at the moment seems to be a bad thing. The moment we entered Wakka's hut (Lulu's out…..I don't know where) the three of us were bombarded with….

"Heya….WHAT THE H!"

"WHAT THE F HAPPENED!"

"OH MY GOD!"

"WHERE DID YOU GUYS GO!"

"YUKI!"

Tidus rushed up to Yuki and grabbed her shoulders, scanning her from top to toe, causing her to blush a crimson red. The others rushed up to us too, eyes wide and jaws dropped.

"Look," I said calmly. "All that matters now is that we get you guys out of here."

"What!" Karina snapped. "I don't want to go yet!"

"That wasn't a request ." I said coldly now. "It was an order."

In an instant, we were all back on the school oval. Tidus and Wakka were left in their own world, Tidus –who had been hugging Yuki and sort of leaning on her- tripped forward and looked back to only see Wakka and a long Blitzball.

Everyone looked at us (as in me, fish and yuki), confused dazed a few of them a little upset.

"I really wanted to go meet Luffy! Didn't you want to meet Sanji?" Lusi questioned.

I chuckled, "At the rate things are going, just the ocean may be even worse than the Grand Line right now. And don't turn Sanji against me!"

I looked at Yuki for a second and she sighed sadly, "What about Fish?"

Fish turned her head quickly between Yuki and myself (she was in the middle) as if she was watching a game of table tennis (coughcarmencough) "What?"

Yuki looked at me, I looked at Fish and Fish continued looking at the both of us. I was pretty surprised her head didn't snap right off.

"Leave her. She's gained the right." I said simply.

Yuki nodded and then turned to look at the rest of the group. Yuki raised her left hand and prepared to click her fingers.

"1…2…." She stumbled. "Uh, can I not?"

I rolled my eyes and Fish laughed. "Ai…."

"Ok…3….2….1…"

Snap!

The group stood on the grass and looked at each other. Why in the world were they there? Weren't they just at the train station? Yuki, Fish and I had already left.

We decided to retreat to the cyborg world, I was only following a hunch.

"Did you erase everything?" I asked Yuki and we walked through the forest towards Dr. Kazumi's home.

"Yeah, everything since they were at the station." Yuki said sadly.

"What in the name of Rain are the two of you talking about?" Fish said with an anime question mark above her head.

"We erased the group's memory, but we left yours." I said.

"You did what!"

When we arrived in the home of the zero-zero team, we were greeted with a happy Dr. Kazumi

"Well to what do we owe the pleasure Jade?"

I smiled, "I just need to talk to Albert and Jet for a second professor."

I ended up dragging Albert and Jet into my room and told them about the whole Balamb thing. I had to literally tie Albert to my bed post to stop him jumping at me to check my wounds.

"Things are getting serious. He's hurting too many people. I can't let him get away with this."

"Him? Who's him?" Jet asked.

"I think Black Ghost has something to do with this." I said softly.

"There's no doubt then." Jet said. "It seems like something he'd do."

"That leaves one question doesn't it?" Yuki said. Though she didn't really know much about Black Ghost, she was still taking all this in like I would.

"Why is he doing it?" Albert finished.

"Because I want to finish my little X"

Surrounded by darkness again, I squinted my eyes and when I opened them, the five of us were……in darkness. There was basically no floor, sky, walls, no nothing. Everything was dark, but somehow we could still see each other.

"Where are we!" Tiffish yelled.

"Welcome to my world..." A deep voice replied.

Ceestar: Sorry bout the rushiness! Next chap up soon!