Squall took a second to gasp at their nearly dead bodies before ordering Laguna to help unchain them. Laguna took careful aim with his gun, and with one swift bullet, he broke the chain tying Quistis' arms to the walls. He did the same for her legs. He repeated his actions for Zell. "Good job dad." Congratulated Squall as Quistis fell into his arms, and Laguna caught Zell.
"Squ…Squall…! I knew you'd come…you wouldn't leave me would you..?" Quistis barely managed to whisper.
Squall gave the two some a couple of elixirs and they magically became better. "OH YEAH! Time to go kick some ass!" Zell announced as he punched the air. "My gloves and I are ready commander Squall!"
Quistis also stood up, posing seductively, 'I'm ready too!" She high-fived the boys. Laguna blushed a bit, but straightened up as he remembered he already married once.
The group of four continued on through the other door in the prison. Squall had his Lionheart Gunblade ready for anything that happened. As they trudged along another descending staircase, all they could hear was Zell kissing his gloves. He needs to get another girlfriend, thought Squall. As they came to yet another door, Squall prepared to kick it down, Laguna stopped him. "Can't you hear the growling sound? He warned.
Squall stood there and listened carefully. He did hear some sort of growling sound. "Hmm, let me think about this." Zell wasn't pleased with this action.
"Why wait?" He demanded, "Let's just go in and kick some ass! My gloves are ready." He caressed his gloves.
"Zell shut up and let Squall think. This isn't the time for any of your nonsense. We need to think of a plan because just about anything could be in there" Quistis snapped. Squall thanked her in his head. This was one of the reasons he loved Quistis. She knew when to speak, when to be quiet, and was generally a good person to have around. He wished Rinoa wasn't so competitive; things would be so much easier. If they could all just get along, then they could-
"Squall, are you even thinking about the plan?" Zell was getting impatient.
"Umm, duh, what else would I be thinking? It's none of your business anyway." Squall lied and he started to actually think about the plan. Within two seconds he had a plan.
"Alright here's the plan." He began, "I'm going to go in first. Since anything could be in there, I don't want any of you involved. I'll fight whatever beast that's in there. I want you guys to guard this door in case anything comes behind us."
"Hell no! You're in over your head Squall, we should come too!" Laguna argued.
"No! If I call for help, you can come, but if I don't say anything, you guys stay put out here!" And with that, Squall cast Haste on himself, smashed the door, and entered the next chamber.
"That stupid idiot." Zell pointed out, and he went in too.
"Laguna, we'll take care of Squall, you stay put here okay?" Quistis didn't wait for a response and entered the chamber.
"Dammit! I want some action too!" Laguna loaded up his gun and stood facing the way they had come. "Bring it on bastards." He smiled.
As soon as Squall entered the chamber, he was immediately swarmed by a horde of monsters. He swung his gunblade at some and they died, but more monsters took their place. Squall panicked, he wouldn't be able to kill them all by himself. He got knocked to the ground. He was about to let out a cry for help, but he didn't need to as he heard a voice yell, "Burning Rave!" An earthquake sent all the monsters flying. Behind him stood Zell with a grin that reached his eyes. Quistis walked beside him and gave him her hand. He eagerly took it.
"Thanks Instructor."
"Don't mention it." Quistis smiled sweetly. The moment didn't last very long though, as a dragon burst through the walls of the chamber and roared.
The blue-scaled dragon stood a towering ten feet high, with 6 inch long claws and talons and yellow eyes. It had rows of sharp teeth ready to shred anything that came along its path. Surprisingly though, the monstrous dragon had no wings. Making it look less sinister. It made up for it though with its deafening roar.
Squall, Quistis and Zell jumped back and unleashed their attacks. Zell ran up to it and gave it some punches, Quistis repeatedly fired her Laser Cannon magic attack, and Squall jumped up high to charge up his Fated Circle limit break. The dragon roared, and with one fell swoop, knocked Zell and Quistis to the ground unconscious. Blood splattered everywhere Squall released his wave of energy. The dragon only flinched a bit. Squall rushed to his companions, elixirs ready, but he didn't have enough time as the dragon swung its claw again, blood splattered from Zell and Quistis' bodies again as Squall stop, dropped, and rolled out of the way.
Squall rushed the monster, and with his Haste spell still in effect, swung his gunblade in a gigantic arc at the dragon, which let out another deafening roar as a huge wound had opened up on its front left claw. Squall ducked and barely managed to escape another attack from the dragon. He ran around the dragon, slashing at everything. He ran to the back of the dragon, but the dragon swung its tail, and knocked the air out of Squall as the tail collided with his chest. Squall fell to the ground, and coughed up some blood. He slowly stood up, panting, and cast a Curaga spell on himself. He ran up to the beast, dragging his gunblade on the ground, jumped up and gave an upward slash. He called this move the Rough Divide. The dragon roared and fell on its back. Squall jumped onto its chest and while running on it, dug his gunblade into its stomach all the up to its neck before jumping off. Blood sprayed onto Squall's shirt.
The dragon rolled itself over and this time instead of roaring, it just stood there, staring Squall down with its yellow eyes. Something was happening to the dragon. White wings protruded from its back, its claws shrunk back two inches, its talons shrunk back into normal…human nails? The dragon itself was shrinking in size. Long black hair sprouted from the back of its head. Its sharp teeth shrunk back down. When the transformation, Squall gasped as he saw a very bloody Rinoa fall to the ground. But it didn't really look like Rinoa. She was stark naked and it looked like she had many blue scales on her body. Did the dragon do something to Rinoa? Thought Squall. He rushed to her side and caught her in his arms before she fell to the ground. He held her there for a minute before she finally opened her eyes, but these eyes weren't the dark brown eyes of Rinoa. They were the feral yellow eyes of the dragon he had just defeated.
Rinoa jumped right out of Squall's arms and started firing Meteor spells at him. Squall dodged all the meteorites. "What are you doing Rinoa? Don't you recognize me?" He yelled over the sound of meteorites falling to the ground.
A voice not Rinoa's answered, "I, the dragon Ruby, have merged with this sorceress' mind. She did it willingly."
"No! I refuse to believe that!" Squall yelled back.
Outside the chamber, Laguna had heard everything, but he was too cramped up to do anything. "Damn leg." He kept saying to himself. He wanted to help out Squall and Rinoa, but he just couldn't. At that moment, his cell phone rang. Since it was an Esthar manufactured phone, it still could receive deep underground. The call was from Kiros.