Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, its characters or storyline. This collection is mine, as are McCallister and Major Banks.
Not so much on the humor for this chapter. It actually gets a little dark there for a minute or two…Oh and a language warning: couple of f-bombs and other lovely verbage in this one. Enjoy anyway!
..:-X-:..
005 – Abandon Ship
(For Taquiner; Prompt: 'angsty, hero-rescue')
The ship was dark and quiet. It smelled like rusty metal and burning material. Leon held the Gunblade aloft as he squinted, forcing his eyes to adjust faster to the darkness. Aside from the dying lights of the control panel in the cockpit down the corridor and a few wires spraying sparks against the wall, there were no other light sources in the Gummi ship.
Beside him, he couldn't even hear Yuffie breathing. The girl had her overlarge shuriken in her strong hand, covering his left side. Cid was at his right, Uzi in one hand, radio monitor in the other hand. The ship was a three level cargo freighter, that much was obvious from the outside. But the interior was a mess. It looked like it had been abandoned for nearly 50 years…but that wasn't possible.
Six hours earlier, Cid had picked up on a weak radio signal coming from out in space. The identification numbers on the link didn't match any of the Alliance's vessels, nor any other known spacecraft. Upon location of the signal, they had found this ship. After half an hour of failed attempts at communication with any crewmembers onboard, they had sent a squad of five soldiers up to recon the ship and take in the status of the crew.
They had lost contact with those five soldiers barely twenty minutes into the recon.
So now here the three of them were, searching for the team that had been sent up here to search for the crew. Leon stepped forward, deeper into the ship. He didn't like the way the floor of the hallway seemed to compress under his feet, like foliage or something organic instead of iron and steel. Yuffie and Cid moved along with him, and all three of them tugged out their flash lights.
The three beams illuminated about what Leon had expected: rusty walls, spilled boxes of cargo and broken bottles, a few smudges of blood here and there. It wasn't exactly a slaughterhouse, but something violent had happened up here. There weren't even any bodies. Hardly any blood at all.
"Hot damn." Cid whistled behind Leon. "The Hell happened here?"
"Heartless?" Yuffie hypothesized, inching forward past Leon to investigate the overturned crates.
Leon cast a wary eye around the walls. Grime and some dark rust had accumulated on all of the surfaces it seemed. Cid moved past them both toward the cockpit, where the communication signal had been coming from.
"This blood is dry." Yuffie remarked, having squatted by one of the dark stains on the floor. "Looks like it's been here a while."
Her flash light beam went wobbly as she stood back up, zig zagging over the wall and right into Leon's eyes before briefly slipping across the corner of the ceiling. Leon, having averted his eyes from the blinding light, caught sight of something above them. He swung his own beam up to illuminate it.
A pair of sightless white eyes looked back at him.
"Yuffie!" Leon called out an alarm, reversing in two long strides and gripping the Gunblade.
"Huh?" Yuffie flashed her light over to Leon, then up to the ceiling.
There was nothing there. Just rust and cobwebs.
Leon felt his pulse spike. Something had been there. "Nobodies." He hissed.
Yuffie drew closer to him. "You sure?"
"Shit! Banks." Cid barked from the cockpit.
Before either Leon or Yuffie could respond, Cid popped out of the cockpit. "Major Banks is on the security camera monitor on the second level."
"Is she alive?" Leon asked.
"How did you get power to work those old cameras?" Yuffie gawked.
"Can't tell." Cid answered Leon. "Get down there and check it out. Watch your asses. I'm gonna try to rig up these other cameras to find the other four members."
Leon nodded, still feeling a chill at the nape of his neck from…whatever…he'd seen earlier. He and Yuffie made their way to the second level of the freighter Gummi. It was just as dusty and rusted out as the first level. However, where the first level had had the benefit of sparking wires and a dying control panel, the second floor was completely devoid of light.
"Well, crap on a stick." Yuffie fumed near his left elbow. "I can't see anything."
Leon flatly turned his flash light back on, casting the beam across the second level corridor. More overturned crates, a few damaged pipelines, and more blood…fresh. Yuffie spotted the body before he did, and she bolted over to the limp form, lying on its side against the wall. Major Valerie Banks, one of Cid's top aeronautical interns, had been the most experienced member of the recon squad, and had the most senior rank. She also had the most vulgar language in Cid's department, excluding Cid of course. If she was in this bad of shape, Leon was reluctant to think of the fate of the other four, two of which were from his own department.
"Banks." Yuffie turned her from her side to her back gingerly.
The response was immediate. Banks groaned and lifted an arm to fend off whatever she thought was attacking her. Yuffie batted her away easily enough, speaking to try and calm her down while also assessing her injuries. From where he was standing, she didn't look to be in a fatal position, so Leon cast his eyes and his flash light around the rest of the corridor for any signs of the other four soldiers.
The idea of Nobodies attacking a Gummi Ship wasn't far fetched…but they usually just destroyed the entire vessel and killed the crew outright. This looked more like the Nobodies had trashed the interior of the ship, killed the crew, and then, instead of destroying the Gummi, had simply decided to hide out in it. It was bizarre for Nobodies to establish a base or a hide out like this. Maybe this was some kind of new—
"Ack!" Yuffie squawked suddenly behind him.
Whirling back around, Leon's flash light just caught the length of Yuffie's leg as she was torn from her feet and up toward the ceiling. Then she disappeared.
"Yuffie!" He crossed back over to her, swinging the beam up toward the ceiling.
Two blank eyes stared back. The ceiling was canvassed with undulating silver coils, spreading in webs up and down the hallway, beyond the light of his flash light. The mass seemed to root itself around those two eyes, like some head of Medusa. The coils had wrapped around Yuffie's torso and leg, so that she was hanging like a ragdoll and flailing like a monkey.
Three gunshots rang out, and Leon felt the heat from one of the bullets sizzle past his shoulder. The blank eyes sunk into the mass and disappeared with a shriek. Leon dove forward, grabbing onto where he had last seen Yuffie. His fingers closed around her knee and she jerked.
"Yuffie, it's me. Grab onto me!" He ordered, gripping the Gunblade with his other hand.
Her hand swatted at his arm and then grabbed a fistful of his jacket shoulder. His flash light had clattered to the floor, barely illuminating Banks, who continued to shoot her Glock revolver toward the grey mass at the ceiling. Leon couldn't try to cut Yuffie down when he couldn't see where she ended and the grey coils began. Luckily, she still had her shuriken. Keeping herself rooted with one hand to Leon's shoulder, she thrashed around until the sharp edges of her weapon slashed through the mess. She dropped with a sharp squeak and Leon caught her, easing her to the floor.
"Are you okay?" He asked, hastily snatching up his flash light and scanning the ceiling.
"Wha—Fine—What the heck was that?" She wheezed.
"The devil's dick is what." Banks snarled, having recovered from her semi-conscious state. "And it's been fuckin' us since we landed on this damn ship."
But Leon hardly heard her. The beam of his flash light had landed on two other bodies, strung up in the same way that Yuffie had been. One was clearly dead—Private Kent, one of Cid's other recruits—with his neck snapped by the silver coils. The other body was—
"McCallister." Leon scrambled back to his feet and darted over to where the soldier was hanging.
The Nobody's coils had formed a noose around her neck and one of her arms, which was stretched over her head. She was hanging by the throat and her head was tilted back. When she didn't respond, Leon reached out and shook her. She didn't feel cold, but she also wasn't stirring at all. With the soldier's knees at his eye level, Leon got a hold around her legs and hoisted up, trying to take her body weight off of the noose around her neck.
"Yuffie, Banks, cut her down." He yelled.
Yuffie started to get up, still shaken from her encounter with the silvery vines, but Banks raised her gun and popped off two more shots. One of which blasted apart the coil around McCallister's neck. The Nobody maintaining the coils hissed and retreated with a slither. McCallister's body folded bonelessly over Leon's shoulder and he staggered to keep from sending them both to the floor.
Recovering, he knelt down and lowered her to the floor, hastily tearing away the constricting coils around her neck.
"Is she—" Yuffie started.
"Radio Cid. Kent's dead. Harris and Baron are still missing. Banks is alive." Leon rattled off, tugging away his glove and pressing two fingers to McCallister's red neck.
"They're dead." Banks grunted, dragging herself to her feet and holding her left arm to herself painfully. "That—that big fuck tore them apart…Shit." She hissed.
Leon pushed at McCallister's throat a few times before finding a weak pulse. But the soldier wasn't breathing, and her lips were turning blue from the lack of oxygen.
"Cid?" Yuffie said over the radio. "We found Banks…and McCallister…Kent's dead. She—Banks says that Harris and Baron are dead too."
"Balls!" Cid cursed distinctly over the static.
"C'mon." Leon mumbled, as though to will his soldier to breathe on her own.
A quick hand from the base of her skull under her back showed that her spine was intact. A few ribs were broken, but other than that, he just needed to get her breathing again.
"It's still here." Banks was saying.
"Ya'll need to get your shit outta there!" Cid barked.
Leon tilted McCallister's head back, forcing her jaw open. He felt a momentary relief that her mouth wasn't red; that her throat wasn't being clogged by blood or anything. He hurriedly pinched her nose closed and leaned down, blowing air into her mouth. He sat up just long enough to notice that she wasn't responding, and then he applied mouth to mouth resuscitation again. And again. And again.
"She's dead too. She was hanging up there before I was knocked unconscious." Banks was rushing Yuffie past Leon and the soldier. "You heard Highwind. We need to haul ass."
"She has a pulse." Leon growled between breaths. "As long as—"
McCallister suddenly animated, choking and gasping like the devil was on her. Leon turned away from Major Banks and grabbed the private's shoulder.
"Easy." He made sure none of those grey coils were still choking her.
McCallister continued to hack and desperately pull for air, and Leon hastily rolled her onto her side in the recovery position, holding onto her shoulder so she wouldn't thrash.
"Commander." Banks sounded impatient.
"She's alive." Yuffie sounded relieved.
There was a high pitched screeching noise that jarred across the ceiling. Kent's body was dropped to the floor, where it landed with a disgusting noise. The Nobody that had taken over this ship was planning on doing to them what it had done to most of the recon team, and probably the original crew of the freighter—consume them.
McCallister was still immobilized with choking on her own throat, so Leon pointed one hand at the ceiling.
"Fira." He called out.
The incantation caught and the fire spell hissed down his arm. A bright red spiral of fire flew in a cyclone up toward the ceiling, catching a mass of the Nobody's hide in the flames. The creature screamed in pain and fury, doubling back for another attack. Wherever Leon had dropped his flash light must have been smashed, because darkness overthrew them again.
"Leon!" Yuffie cried out as Banks started shooting.
McCallister had lapsed into wheezing, one hand moving at Leon's knee, trying to figure out what was going on. There was another hiss of the nothingness coming toward them and, unable to do anything else, Leon curled forward, shielding as much of Private McCallister as he could before the blow landed.
Instead of the searing pain, however, Leon only felt a burst of warm air and then the entire corridor lit up with an explosion. The Nobody roared in anger, but its noise was drowned out by two more explosions in almost rapid succession. Seeing the small window of opportunity, Leon hastily scooped McCallister up and threw her over his shoulder, clamoring backward out of the corridor.
He ended up nearly bumping into Cid, who was swiftly aiming and firing a grenade launcher at the mass of fluid Nobody that was contorting around in the hallway. Yuffie and Banks both grabbed Leon to redirect him out of Cid's aiming sights, making him nearly pinball against the wall.
"Get to our ship." Cid barked back. "We gotta blow this thing to Hell!"
None of them needed further prompting. Yuffie led the way back up to the first level and toward the docking port where they had connected their Allied Gummi to the abandoned one. Leon followed after her, keeping a firm hold of McCallister, who had regained enough awareness to be clinging back to him. Banks was close behind them, and Cid was bringing up the rear, firing after the pursuing Nobody just as fast as he could reload his weapon.
They barreled into the Allied Gummi and Banks immediately took pilot in the cockpit, preparing to jettison away from the other ship as soon as everyone was in. Leon staggered in, dropping the Gunblade to the floor and nearly hitting his knees himself. As soon as Cid cleared the door, Yuffie slammed it shut and Banks hammered the accelerator.
The Gummi pulled away from the infested ship like a bullet, sending everyone to the floor of the hold. The simultaneous veering and tilt of the floor was an indication that Banks was bringing the ship around, to fire directly onto the ship that the Nobody had taken over like a parasite. While Cid and Yuffie got their bearings back, Leon sat up and checked McCallister again. The soldier, now in the light, had dark burns from the coils around her neck, and her knees were both cut open and bleeding. But she was breathing, albeit raggedly, now, and her eyes were wide as she looked to Leon from her supine position on the floor.
"S-sir?" She coughed.
Leon felt an unexpected surge of relief and exhaled, reaching out and giving her shoulder an assuring shake. She looked bewildered and grimaced as she rubbed her tender throat. He knew he should say something to reassure her, but ended up just giving her a gentle shake again.
Banks released two missiles. "Suck balls, you piece'a shit!"
The old rusty Gummi exploded on contact, and the Allied ship shuddered slightly under the shock waves. On Leon's left, Yuffie let out 'whew' and dramatically flopped to the floor.
Cid dropped his grenade launcher and leaned against the wall. "I'm too old for this shit."
..:-X-:..
A/N: Valerie Banks was a minor OC who popped up in my LeonxTifa story As the Sun Sets on Mushroom Clouds. She has a nasty mouth. I think I was on a Dexter kick when I came up with her character; her foul-mouthness was inspired by the Deborah Morgan character from that show. Banks can't hold a candle to Deb though XD
And Cid is just Cid. 'nuff said.
I am still taking prompts, so please keep 'em rolling in!