Author's Note: OMG! I'm so sorry! This is my husband's birthday weekend and I was completely distracted and forgot to upload for you all! Please forgive me! T-T

Markin: I think Seph has a few regrets right about now...

I do not own FF7 or any of its characters. Talin, Unit 28, and some other side characters are mine.

As always, I hope you enjoy and please R&R.


Chapter 62

Locked within his own mind, Talin was as helpless as someone watching a horror movie in a dark room as his body moved without his consent. The one thing that had always kept him from deluding himself into believing what he saw was a lie, that it wasn't really him doing these terrible things, was that he could still feel everything. His muscles were screaming from the constant sharp movements. Something in his shoulder felt close to collapse from the recoil of his overpowered attacks. All the while, he continued to slam against the shell around his mind, franticly trying to contact his General.

Rald's voice was the only thing that could cut through the static in his ears. "I think you've had enough fun, my boy. Kill him and be done with it."

NO! His horror at the command, and knowing that he would follow it, or die trying, made his desperate struggle more violent, more frenzied. I can't! I won't! He no longer cared what damage he might do to himself. He needed out! Needed to break free, if only for a moment, to tell Sephiroth how to end this. To tell him that, even if he killed Rald, the compulsion was too strong and would remain as long as the pendant his step-father wore was still intact.

The same day he'd been dropped into the Well, Talin had unknowingly sealed his fate by finding that flawed and cracked Materia stone. It should have been useless, unable to do anything more than provide a dim glow or cast an unstable protective spell. What magics Rald had woven into it, he didn't know, but the end result was the leash and the loss of more than the teen ever thought possible.

And here he was again. Poised on the edge of losing everything for the second time in his life, but he wasn't a child anymore. Now, he had a reason to fight back, had the knowledge to make a meaningful attempt at breaking his chains, ... and he wasn't alone.

In the milliseconds that he'd taken to gather his thoughts, Talin had missed the start of the renewed fight, but quickly honed his concentration when he felt another muscle in his leg starting to seize. He needed to hurry. If he was in too much pain, he wouldn't be able to focus, and that was going to be hard enough as it was.

Knowing the clock was ticking, the redhead withdrew his consciousness to a single point, pulling himself into a tight ball, much like he would have done in the Void to form his shadow.

Sharp and fast like an arrow... Not allowing himself to hesitate or think of what might happen if he failed, the young SOLDIER launched himself at the barrier. For the first time since his mother died, he whispered a prayer to any divine that might hear him. Pl... Please... Just let him hear me...

For the first time in a long time, the great General Sephiroth didn't know what to do. Rather, he knew what he needed to do, but couldn't find the will to do it. He'd promised not to leave Talin behind. Promised not to hurt him. Promised to take care of him. To help him fight his demons. All of those were in conflict now.

What he needed to do was to knock the teen out and carry him far away from this place, but that would hurt him, no matter how careful he was, and be detrimental to his goals of facing his past. He could kill Rald, but, again, Talin needed to be the one to end that wretched man and he kept using Talin as a shield. His best option was to wait out the timer that had started ticking the moment Mako started burning down his Lieutenant's arms. His young charge had a limit to his amplified strength and speed, Sephiroth did not.

The 1st just didn't know how crucial that limit was. The normal exhaustion of Mako would have knocked Talin out like a light running out of power, but Rald didn't need the teen to be conscious to keep controlling him. While his attacks would lack the strength he now had, they would continue, and he would keep fighting till he completed his assigned task, or his body was too damaged to keep going.

The gauntlet of nightmares Talin had lived, things he'd pushed as far into a corner as he could and repressed for years, had crept back to the front of his mind. The parade of horrors, seeing himself attacking the silver SOLDIER, and knowing that this wouldn't end unless he found a way to end Rald's control, was like adding gas to a fire.

Holding tight to his mental image of an arrow piercing the armored shell around him, Talin shot his mind towards that barricade. The shock of impact rocked him and, for a moment, he thought he was going to pass out as spikes of freezing cold pain shot through him. Then... heat as he collided with something that wasn't a hard shell, and he felt the brush of something much like a hand against his face.

Pain bloomed in the back of his head and with a violent yank he was being pulled back into his prison but the hand he'd felt followed. ~Talin?!~ Seph sounded more alarmed and almost fearful than the teen had ever heard him and it jarred him back to his senses.

Blindly, he reached for his mentor's mind, caught the hand that kept losing its grip on him, and was able to push one word across their link before he was torn from the warmth and familiar touch of his General.

~AMULET!~

It was all but screamed into the Void and the anguish that was condensed down into that one word burned the sound forever into Sephiroth's memory. The force of whatever Talin had done to escape staggered the teen as he charged and the General took his chance. In the instant it took him to dodge around the redhead, he located Rald and saw the glint of a silver chain that disappeared into the man's thick jacket. If Talin had used all his strength to deliver that one word, then he would do everything in his power to make it worth it.

Seph saw the fanatic's eyes go wide as the silver 1st closed in, sword held low to run Rald through, and then a blur cut across Masamune's path. The scuff and scrape of boots as they dug into the ground to halt his momentum couldn't muffle the sound of steal screeching against steal, but another sound was covered. Even if Sephiroth hadn't heard it, he knew all too well that his blade had made contact, that its magic-honed edge had met resistance.

Talin, one blade slanted to deflect the great katana, had only been partially successful. The other, however, had hit its mark and Seph winced at the burn of the blade that was embedded in his shoulder. A sick feeling twisted in his gut as they stood locked together, not from the pain, but from the sight of tears flowing freely from expressionless eyes while blood dripped to the stone floor.

As fast and accurate as possible, the SOLDIER pulled his sword free from Talin's side. The tears continued but, still responding to the orders given, the teen was back on the offensive. Decision made for him by the need to treat Talin's wound, Sephiroth followed his original plan. The Lieutenant's injury was more than enough to slow him down, but he wasn't going to risk a repeat, and instead of going for Rald, he went for Talin.

It only took a moment. A twist to avoid the cutting strike that would have hit him in the ribs, a heavy crack to the back of the head, and his trainee went down. To the warrior's surprise, the teen wasn't unconscious and continued to try to get up, but his coordination was shot from the minor concussion he probably had. Silently, the 1st asked Talin's forgiveness for putting him through another head injury, but he would cure that as soon as they were out of this place.

Taking his chance, Seph practically flew at Rald once more and, with nothing to stop him this time, used his sword to hook and shatter the chain about the man's neck. Yanked free was a pendant, an amulet, of silver vines surrounding a small, green Materia. As he caught it, Sephiroth could feel miniature thorns poke his glove and saw that they not only covered the vines but that several were angled to dig into a fissure in the stone. Like they were keeping it flawed...

"NO!" The angry shout from Rald as he reached for the confiscated pendant ended in a sharp gasp as Shin-Ra's General grabbed and then tossed the zealot hard against the cave wall.

For a moment, Talin felt nothing but relief as the leash relaxed from around his mind. Then the world flooded into focus and the agony nearly pulled him into unconsciousness. Everything was swimming as his head ached and his side... Hands shaking from the rapid onset of shock, he crushed them over the front and back of the wound and took in a deep breath before looking up to see his mentor holding what he himself could never touch.

"Destroy it!" His shout took all the strength he had and, feeling his world starting to fade at the edges, let himself slump to one side. From the floor, he watched as Sephiroth casually tossed the pendant high in the air and then sliced up into the fissure with a glowing Masamune. The explosion of the stone was violent but beautiful with the vaporized particles floating down through the air and the shockwave of power dispersing above their heads.

The silence lasts only moments before two screams rend the air.


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