Very very very VERY sorry about the wait. College and work have been a bitch and three quarters, and I'm in the process of completing FF IX whilst playing VII. So my schedule is seriously...welll...I'll let you decide.
Oh, and just to let everyone know, I'm planning on having more of those dream sequences like we saw in the last chapter. It's an integral part of the storyline, and will be explained in due time. Squall and co won't be the only ones having the dreams either; I'm planning on writing a dream scene or two for Rose and the Doctor as well.
DISCLAIMER: The only thing I own is a used PS1 and two controllers that came with it. Oh, and a snazzy lookin' Yamaha PSR-290 keyboard. So there.
Pandora Tomorrow
Chapter I: Dinner Guests
The bridge - if one could call it that - of the Lunatic Pandora was dark and silent save for the occasional beeping of the consoles used to operate the gargantuan craft, and the glow from said consoles' screens. The constant whirring of the anti-grav drive used for the Pandora's navigation didn't even register this far from the engine room.
A heavily-accented voice, vaguely female-sounding in origin, broke the near-silence. "Range to target?" it inquired. A junior officer (who wore no indication of rank to speak of) never even looked up from his console. "3.5 klicks and closing." The owner of the strange voice smiled, though the motion went unseen. "Prepare for full stop. Raise shields." It was then that the mystery figure chose to emerge from the shadowy recesses of the bridge, revealing himself for those crew members who chose/dared to look.
He had been human, once. By human standards, he'd been quite handsome and charming. Dashing, even. Now, however, was a different tale altogether. His electric blue hair matched the pulsing blue veins on his slightly-scarred face and hands. He still sported the white coat he'd worn in his previous life - not that he considered what he'd had back then as "life" - and the coat, in turn, still sported the red crosses patterned on the sleeves. He had discarded his weapon long ago, however. He had something far more deadly he could use in combat...his mind. Only a fully junctioned SeeD could withstand the mental assault he was more than capable of unleashing, and even then said SeeD would have to be highly skilled in magical defense to even dream of holding their ground with a Dark Magi such as he.
He glared malevolently at the person manning the weapons console, and uttered the four words that would spark a chain of events leading to the eventual/ultimate destruction of SeeD and, more importantly, ensure that the nations of this pathetic planet would be at war for a very long time to come.
"Charge the main weapon."
------o0o0o------
MEANWHILE
Earth, January 2nd 2006
The debacle with the Sycorax invasion had left the British government in chaos as the BBC still continued to issue reports concerning the "health" of Prime Minister Harriet Jones. The blue-suited man known only as The Doctor watched idly as yet another speculative reporter came on with news that not only had the Tory party found the PM unfit to lead Britain, so too had the Labour party. As the supposedly shocking news of PM Jones' imminent departure from 10 Downing Street played on, the Doctor turned his attention towards the door of Rose Tyler's bedroom and sighed. Aren't they finished in there yet? The Doctor fully understood that Rose would want to spend as much time with her mother as she could before she and the Time Lord left for parts (sometimes literally) unknown, but he was anxious to return to the familiarity of his beloved TARDIS.
Damned apes are too clingy someti- The Doctor's train of thought was cut off as Rose's bedroom door opened and two figures emerged. His eyes lit up at the sight of the younger of the two women, and he grinned slightly. Ever since his ninth incarnation had picked up the 21-year-old all those months ago she'd brought... well, something to the TARDIS. Life, perhaps? A spark of needed energy, certainly.
His eyes shifted to regard the other of the two approaching figures. Back when the Doctor had first met Jackie Tyler, he'd thought her a typical human: annoying yet absolutely terrifying. He swore he could still feel the sting of her slap when he (in his ninth body) had brought Rose home a year late by mistake. And what a mess THAT turned out to be, he mentally chuckled. Over the next few visits he'd gained a bit more respect for his companion's mother - not that he'd ever admit such a thing. The fact that she was willing to let her daughter fly into danger with someone she barely knew spoke volumes about how much she cared for her child's happiness.
"Right then. You ready?" Rose's voice brought the Doctor out of his reverie. He smiled and rose from the sofa. "Born ready." He turned to Rose's mother, who could barely restrain tears at having her first and only child taken from her yet again. And I doubt this'll be the last time, either. "You bring her back safe, Doctor. You hear me? Safe," she said tearfullythen did something she normally wouldn't have. She hugged him.
Shocked, and a little surprised, he hugged her back. "She'll be back before you know it," the Doctor promised. As they let each other go, Jackie wiped her eyes and put on that face he'd seen all those months ago. She cleared her throat and said, "Right. If you're gonna go you may as well go now. I'll tell Mickey you said goodbye." Before she could say anymore the phone rang, and she went to answer it, apparently back to normal again. She waved goodbye and stepped out of the room. The Doctor turned to Rose and nodded towards the door, and they made their way downstairs to where the TARDIS lay waiting.
-----o0o0o-----
Lunatic Pandora
Centra Continent
A faint green glow emanated from the bottom of the large flying monument-like object. Within moments, that faint glow had turned into a pulsing light that shaped itself into a nearly cone-like beam. The beam then grew to the point where the tip was "buried" beneath the ground and the full width of the beam was covering a small diamond-like structure.
Within the "bridge" of the Pandora, technicians and officers alike were frantically trying to keep a consistent power reading so that the weapon would have it's desired effect. The once-man turned his dull red eyes to the viewport and smiled. This will be a day to remember. Within seconds we will see the end of this dead land mass; so too will we see the end of SeeD and peace. He barely looked at the weapons officer as he uttered the one word that would kick off everything he had planned.
"Fire."
-----o0o0o-----
TARDIS Control Room
Somewhere in the Jelthrain System
The central column of the timeship's control room pulsed and her engines wheezed as Rose and the Doctor scurried about, pulling levers and pressing buttons. "Hold that one down for a few seconds...Now twist that knob and grab this handle-" Rose interrupted with a mock-weary sigh of slight complaint. "Mind telling me where we're going?"
The Doctor grinned at her. "It's a suprise. Trust me, you'll like it. No, not that one, that one!" he replied as he dashed to another side of the hexagonal control panel and pointed to a button just centimetres from the handle Rose had had her hand on. Not for the first time, he shook his head at the junk-pile that made up the controls of his beloved craft. "I've gotta do something about this junk cluttering up my instruments-" He stopped as the TARDIS shuddered violently.
"Easy, old girl. I didn't mean it, I swear." The Time Lord had a hunch that of all his incarnations, his most recent body had been the favorite of the temperamental timeship. It was he (well, his ninth regeneration) who had cobbled this current array together out of spare odds and ends, though not even the Prophet Gohss could figure out why. Heaven knows he tried-
The TARDIS shuddered again, this time more violently. As if to add insult to injury, the familiar groaning wheeze of the engines had gone up a few octaves. Rose, picking herself up from the floor for the second time in as many minutes, looked more than a little apprehensive. "Um...Is it meant to sound like that?" The Doctor didn't answer right away; instead he hurried to the nearest monitor and paled when he saw the cause of the TARDIS' upsets.
"Someone's blown a hole in the STAR-field!" he cried as the timeship shuddered yet again. Rose staggered beside the Doctor and stared at the screen. "The what field?" The Doctor turned and made a few corrections as he replied. "Space, Time And Reality. STAR" - another violent shaking - "You know about the space-time continuum, right?" Rather than make some half-witted remark about having skipped class that day, Rose simply nodded, and let the Doctor continue. "Basically, they're the set rules that all realities follow to some extent or another. The STAR-field is what separates all realities from one another. Like parallel universes. They're all separated at a certain point, and what this person has done, whoever he is" - another quaking, quite possibly the most violent yet - "is tear open a hole at the weak point separating this reality from its neighboring reality, where none of us can technically exist."
"...So that's bad, right?" Rose asked after a slight pause. The Doctor shook his head. "It gets worse - Hang on!" The high-pitched wheezing had gone into a full-blown siren-like sound during his impromptu lecture, and was now dying down to its regular pulsing groan. The shaking, however, remained and had in fact worsened slightly. This latest jolt threw Rose off her feet and into the nearest wall. As she attempted to clear her head, she swore she could hear a high-pitched whining noise that seemed to emanate from her skull. She blinked and attempted to fight off an inexplicable wave of drowsiness. "Doctor..." she managed weakly, before succumbing to darkness.
-----o0o0o-----
Pandora
The massive energy surge from the weapon had actually caused some of the lights in the bridge to dim slightly, and a few of the non-essential consoles had switched off because of it. Outside, a brilliant green flash lit up the landscape, its effect diminished only slightly by the bright sunlight. The creature - no man alive...no true man...could have that air of malice that this one possessed, nor the grotesque appearance - smiled as, for a blinding instant, the world went greenish-white.
The flash slowly faded, and where the ruins of Centra once floated now was occupied by nought but a boiling section of ocean. He grinned. An adequate test, he thought. Once word of this "accident" spreads, no-one will dare oppose us... "Our work is done here. Set a return course for the Pandora Lab," he said aloud.
A junior officer - the "man" could care less what rank this one was - rushed up to him. "Sir," he said breathlessly. "We have an intruder in the lower levels. Readings indicate some sort of..." he hesitated. The trench-coated man did not. "Some sort of what?" he snapped. "Um...a blue box, sir. About ten to fifteen feet in height, six feet acro-"
The crewman never even finished his sentence before gasping in pain and collapsing on the floor, dead. The blue-haired being turned to the nearest console operator. "Inform security that we have a...guest...aboard." The operator saluted and set to his task.
-----o0o0o-----
TARDIS
The shaking had stopped only seconds ago, and the Doctor heaved a sigh of relief before realising that not only had the shaking stopped; there was no noise at all coming from the TARDIS. Only the emergency lighting was functioning, and even that barely so. Never mind. I know this ship like the back of my hand...ah... "I think we're in trouble," he said lightheartedly.
Silence reigned for a few seconds more before a concerned and slightly panicky voice rang out. "...Rose?" Still hearing no response, he cast his eyes around the control room and spied an unconcious form against the wall by the hallway. The Doctor cursed silently and hurried over to his companion's side. "Rose? Rose, wake up. C'mon." He attemted to shake her, but got no response. "This is a really bad time to be napping, y'know?"
If there was any response, it was drowned out by the loud pounding on the outer door. "Open up! Estharian security! We have you surrounded! Come out, drop whatever weapons you may have, and surrender! Resistance is futile; you will be arrested on charges of trespassing and non-cooperation if you fail to comply!"
The Doctor turned back to Rose's slumbering form. "Again, really bad timing for a nap..."
----------o0o0o0o----------
Holy molten mothers...six pages...OO;
So the TARDIS has landed inside the Pandora...What awaits a certain Time Lord and his companion? Find out in the third chapter of Final Fantasy VIII: Pandora Tomorrow.