After her latest battle with Squall finished in a draw once again, both warriors were called back by their allies. Ultimecia, however, seemed bothered with the thought that her battle ended the same way again.
While resting in her castle, a thought came to Ultimecia that had never occured to her before. "I am getting bored of this endless cycle of pointless battles and destruction." the witch thought. "I wonder what the Cosmos clowns are doing. Surely there's something I'm missing out on. Perhaps it's time for a change of tactics."
She plotted for the next hour or so, making plans of infiltrating the Cosmos warriors, without any of the battling sides noticing. She had to be very precise of her choice, some of her own allies could notice her absence. On the other hand, the Cosmos warriors knew each other very well and they could possibly recognize her. After a few plans and lots of mumbling, she finally exclaimed "Ah, that should work." and quickly disappeared from her castle.
After having returned and recovered from the last battle with Ultimecia, Squall went to meet with the other Cosmos Warriors in the Order's Sanctuary, where Cosmos resided. However, not all of them were there.
"Where's Cosmos?!" Tidus was the first one to notice her absence. The warriors jumped surprised at Tidus' sudden question. Squall, however, was more worried about someone else's absence, rather than Cosmos'...
"Calm down, everyone." Warrior of Light answered. "Cosmos as well as Lightning and Tifa have gone on a mission in a neighboring world. If it were to get destroyed, it might influence our world as well, she will simply restore its balance, while the others are guarding her. They will be back soon enough, however for this time we should seize all battles between our enemies, for it is riskier without support from Cosmos."
With that, the Cosmos Warriors all felt relieved. Some disagreed with Warrior of Light's decision to stop battles, others were pleased about the break they're getting. Squall, however, seemed bothered by something. Just as he was starting to get lost in his thoughts, he suddenly felt the earth shaking.
All the warriors were astounded when they saw at least 100 mannequins running towards them, invading Order's Sanctuary. Everyone prepared to fight.
Everything was going fine until something strange happened. When about 20 mannequins were left, they stopped fighting and started withdrawing instead. The Cosmos Warriors chased and defeated as many as they could, but some had managed to escape.
"Hey, where'd they go? Why are they running all of a sudden?!" exclaimed Tidus.
"Could it be they were sent as a warning?" suggested Firion, puzzled by the situation.
"I fear it is something much worse. The manikins were most likely targeting Cosmos but realized she was missing and retreated to report to the Chaos Warriors." explained Warrior of Light. "If that was really the case, I suggest we split into groups and be ready for an assault at any time."
With that the Cosmos Warriors scattered, Zidane heading off with Bartz and Tidus, Warrior of Light teamed up with Cloud, Firion tagged along with Cecil and Laguna, Vaan, Yuna and Kain left together and, of course, Terra and Onion Knight accompanied each other, as always.
"Squall, wanna come with us?" asked Zidane happily.
"Great idea!", added Bartz, "We can travel together and make a campfire, and-"
"No. I'm going by myself." answered Squall, turning his back, ready to leave.
"Squall, I understand you prefer being alone, but you need to be careful right now. You need to team up with someone." explained Warrior of Light.
"I can handle anything that comes my way, why don't you worry about yourselves first?" said Squall coldly and walked away.
Squall wandered off alone to the nearest Moogle Shop to restock on potions and settled down near a lake in the forest where the chances of finding him were low. The truth is, this was his favourite spot because he had hung out there with Lightning a few times before. He started a campfire to keep himself warm and gathered leaves to sleep on.
He sat down and sighed dramatically. Things were actually starting to pick up with Lightning, during his time in this world she had been the only person he could talk to freely, he felt like they actually understood each other, and Squall doesn't get that feeling very often. She was honest with him too, even telling him she was glad to talk to him during one of their conversations. Not that he cared, of course, but knowing she'd be gone for a while made him feel...strange.
Squall unpacked some of his provisions and ate quickly, staring at the beautiful lake. It was a small, round lake. It didn't seem very deep but it was still gorgeous, the moonlight was reflected on its surface and almost made it seem like it was magical. After watching the beautiful scenery and trying to figure out why he felt so empty at the moment, the Cosmos Warrior quickly put out the fire and lay down, thinking to himself that he should focus more on the battles than his feelings.
Weell, this was my first ever work, even though I abandoned it about 2 years ago...and I decided to continue it after days of contemplating. Unfortunately I'm just making up the plot as I'm going along, I'm not really that good of a writer and I'm just experimenting right now, I hope in this chapter I've managed to set the mood or something so I can start up the real action in the next chapters. All suggestions for the plot are appreciated though.