From now on thoughts will be marked with italics only.

And here comes the suckiest chapter of them all!

Chapter 3: The fall aka Zell rides the dragon

The forest, that was were they were now, Squall, Selphie, Zell and Seifer. That bastard.

It was the same forest where Zell had first seen the dragon, but he was quite positive that it was nowhere near the excact place. However he also believed that they would see the dragon anyway, no way it would leave him alone even if he had the others with him.

They were all standing there in the woods, in the shadow of some larger trees, not doing much anything yet. They were waiting for Squall's orders, but the stoick brunette was occupied by some of their gear at the moment. This gave Seifer a perfect moment to look at Zell, several times. He didn't try to hide it, even Selphie noticed him doing it and Zell would have too if he hadn't been trying to avoid any action that included any action that had anything to do with the taller blond. That included avoiding looking back at him.

It was easy to see that Zell was still mad at him. Zell kept huffing and turning away from him, the younger males cheeks were stil brightl red too, that was bullet proof evidence of his anger.

Seifer himself was getting pissed at Zell as well, at Zell and everything else. He hated being ignored and being ignored by the chickenwuss of all the people felt even worse. It was like a stab to his already bleeding heart. He growled low in his throath and crossed his well muscled arms. This wouldn't do at all.

He began walking across the small glade they were located in and towards Zell, but before he got very far Squall called out. "You all know what we are here for and have done missions like this before, so I will skip the briefing. I want this thing down as quickly as possible." Squall took fous walkie-talkies out of a bag he had been carrying and then continued. "You all take one of these and for your knowledge, I checked all of them so I won't accept any excuses if you break them." He gave a pointed look at Zell who just smiled sheepishly as the small machines dissappeared from his hold. "Now lets spit up and kill this monster."

Nothing happened. They all remained standing there, feeling weird and waiting for someone else to pick which way to go first. Selphie grinned.

"Zell and I are going to look from there!" She said, sounding excited as she pointed to a random direction with one hand while grabbing at Zell with the other. She got a hold of his sleeve and didn't let go before they got out of the hearing range, not even when Squall shouted after them that they had to go to different ways so that they could cover as much of the area as possible. "Are you okay?"

"Huh? What do you meand Selph? I'm fine." Zell answered, looking bewildered with his sky blue eyes wide open. He hadn't been expecting her to ask that.

"Your face is all red. What happened, someone asked you out or something?" The brunette giggled, but didn't stop looking out for any dangers that might reside in their path.

"No! He just-" Zell blurted before he slapped one gloved hand to his mouth. A blush rose to his already red cheeks.

"He? Was it Seifer? He asked you out?! I knew he did something, but that..."

"NO! I already said-. How did you know it was him?" He shot his friend a suspicious look.

"Oh, hee kept glancing at you so I knew something was up. Did he call you names again? If he did I'm going to kick his ass 'cause it's mean!"

"It wasn't that, he was just being the regular bastard. He asked me to go somewhere with him, I bet he would have laughed his ass off if I had said yes!"

"But Zell..." Selphe whined. "What if he meant it and you broke his heart!"

"Hah! As if, I doubt he even has a heart and if he does, he deserved it."

"Zell, don't be such a-" Selphie was cut off by a massive roar that came from behind some nearby bushes. They turned around in a heartbeat and prepared themselves for the fight to come.

-

"This is Leonhart, do you copy? Over." Came the scratchy voice over Selphie's walkie-talkie and she reached for it with her left hand. Her right one stung from the fight, but they knew it would be just fine soon.

"Yeah, Zelly is still with me too. Over."

"If you are done with your area getback to the starting point, I will be there. Over."

"We'll come right over. See ya there! Over." Selhpie stuffed the thing back to it's place on her belt. For once she had chosen to wear pant on to a mission.

"Let's get going then!" Zell said and brushed few strands of hair from his eyes. For some reason he was feeling nervous and he didn't want the other to notice that. The girl was too nosy and bright for her own good sometimes, but that also made her a good friend, she cared. She flashed him a smile and then they left.

-

Later, when they were back to the glade where they had begun their mission, there was no sign of Seifer, but Squall was standing near the trees on the other side. Like there was any questioning welther or not their fearless leader would appear.

"Where's Seifer, did you get it?" Selphie asked instantly and hopped over to Squall.

"Not here, apparently. And no, I didn't even see anything that could have caused the damage."

Selphie pouted at him. "Bugger, we only got this huge grat-like thing. It was SO dumb... I wonder where Seifer is..." She had a far away look in her eyes.

"That jerk must have run off again. Doesn't suprise me." Zell commented. Alas, he didn't notice the glare that Selphie gave him. "Ouch! That hurt, why did you do it?!" He exclaimed when Selphie hit the back of his head, quite hard too.

"Don't be like that, he's our friend!"

At this point Squall rolled his eyes and stepped away from the fighting two.

"Like hell he is!" Zell snapped. "I hate that fucking dragon, if it weren't for it we wouldn't even be here!"

"But Zell..." Selphie complained. "Dragons are awesome." The blond winced as the memory of what happened to him in this particular forest returned to haunt him once more. "Too bad those stupid knights and princes always have to kill them." The girl pouted at Zell too now and made silly puppy dog eyes as she tried to get him to agree with her point of view. Oh, she's talking about fairytales and stuff... I feel so sorry for all those maidens.

Not seeming to get an answer out of her friend Selphie shrugged. She was sure that Squall would need some cheering up because of their search had been fruitless, unless Seifer killed it of course. He fould be mad not only because he failed at something, but also because there was still a threathening his cadets. They were a part of Balamb Garden, and his Garden was one of the few things Squall cared about, even if he didn't show it. She saw her target and she charged.

"Squall, wait!"

Zell sighed at her and eyed the area, Seifer was still missing. Maybe he got hurt?

The blond ckocked his head to one side and stared into the forest. Nah, he can take care of himself... unlike me.

He stood there thinking for a while, but started bouncing in place soon and then hopping around shadow boxing. The stillness of the forest was getting to him, it felt like there was a monster watching him, taking in his every movement, waiting. This time he was sure it was mere paranoia, but he couldn't shake off the feeling. He was trying to distract himself from thinking too much by being on the move all the time, but because of that he accidentally overlooked few facts about the moss on a large boulder he jumped on.

The moss was moist and slippery so it naturally caused Zell to lose his footing on it. The blond slipped, fell on to his ass and slithered down the other side of the rock, all the way into a dark hole on the ground. As he dissappeared he groped around to get a hold of a root or anything to stop his fall, unfortunately there was nothing. All he got was two handfulls of grass.

He fell for a couple of very long seconds before he hit the hard bottom with his back with his arm twisted under him. The force of the impact threw his head back and hit it against the dirty ground, his head hurt and even in the dark he could feel his eyes blurr and sight darken. There was nowhere near enough of light down there to see, but some light did pour in from the entrace several meters above him, if it had been earlier that light might have been just fine. He didn't stay still to wait for his sight to get adjusted to the dark, but fumbled around in hope of finding an escape. Zell found out that the small cave did continue two meters or so behind him, but ended there.

Damn.

He couldn't get back up, not with his head hurting like this and the ache building up in his right hand. He was nothing without his hands. So he yelled.

"Squall! Selphie! Heck, SEIFER! Help!"

There was no answer, not even the smallest sound even after more failed attempts. How far did I wander? Why can't they hear me? Are they worried?

The light above him was blocked for a second and then some loose earth and pebbles fell on him. Actually, make that a lot of earth, the hole got larger. Squall?

Just as Zell was about to open his mouth to call out the light was blocked again and something pushed past him. Something that he could swear on Hyne was not a Squall. There was a rumbling noise from behind him and before he even thought about turning around he was grabbed by the back of his jacked and swung on to a back, between two, huge, feathered wings. The dragon?

He had barely enough time to grab a hold on it as it suddenly got on its hind legs and started climbing, its large, clawed, hand-like paws and strong muscles easily lifted it out of the hole even with the added weight on its back. The blond let go of it and rolled off of his saviour's back as soon as they were steadily on safe ground again with no holes to fall into, hitting his head once again in the process. He "oofed" as he contacted with the grassy earth. He hurt and he ached, but this time it wasn't the dragons fault (1).

He opened his eyes that he didn't know were closed in the first place and gazed into a set of very intelligent green eyes. A small, whisphered, "thanks" was all he had the strenght left to say before he passed out.

The dragon that was left standing there changed its shape and with a small smile it picked Zell off the ground.

Tbc...

(1) Well, it was never the dragon's fault to begin with, it was Zell's for running away.

Author's excuses for the lateness:

Does anyone even read these things? Pfft. So, I hope you all who bother with this don't hate me for the wait or the shortness of this chapter... And I forgot what else I was supposed to write... Anyway... I had small writer's block, so I apologisize if the chapter seems too forced. Another reason for that is that I stayed awake till 6am twice while writing this and to explain the shortness... This was the leftover from the last chapter.

It was late because when I once didn't have a writer's block I was sick and every time I looked down I was about to throw up. I didn't feel like buying a new keyboard. And then there was Christmas and visiting relatives who don't like me and painting and stuff, and then our computer crashed. My dad tried to fix it, but it only got even more messed up. He never gets a professional to do anything. Then I went and broke our Internet. Very fun. But now I have already started on the next chapter so hopefully it will be up before Easter.

I would also like to say sorry that the quality of the conversations is bad, I rarely talk to people. And for anyone who is still reading... go to review!