Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, its characters or storyline. This collection is mine, as is McCallister. Following the fluff of the last chapter, this ditty has a slightly darker tone and if there's any humor in it, it's very dry. Enjoy!
..:-X-:..
017 – Out of Body Experience
(For Taquiner; Prompt: 'Survival/Hunted with Lefa')
Something was wrong with Private McCallister. Tifa gathered that between the snippets of consciousness that she managed to grab. This…person who had captured Tifa sure looked like the soldier, but she didn't move like her or talk like her. It was like she was possessed. Tifa had been manacled to the stone wall of the old entrance hall of the castle ruins in Radiant Garden. The iron was strong but the wall was weak. If she hadn't been drugged half a dozen times in the last 24 hours, Tifa could have torn herself free. As it was, however…
"Strange how magic can misfire sometimes." The woman in front of her said.
The soldier had her back turned to Tifa, fiddling with the random baubles and pieces that she had spread out on the rotting wooden table in front of her. Tifa kept her breathing even and tried to force her mind to recollect itself. The sedatives were wearing off again; if she played slow and stupid, this impostor might think she was still heavy under its effects.
The woman spun on her heel and leaned against the table. Definitely Private McCallister, there was no doubting that it was physically her. She crossed her arms and tilted her head.
"I've been doing this for over 200 years now and never missed a mark." The woman said, offering a slick, unpleasant smile. "Yet, for some reason, yesterday, when I was aiming for your healthy, desirable body, I managed to hit this one—" She gestured down to herself with a grimace. "Not exactly Miss Universe, is she?" She sighed. "Feels so…common."
Dying rays of sunlight were spilling through the broken windows, signaling sunset. Tifa could barely remember from her earlier stirrings that this stranger who was—for lack of a better word—'possessing' Private McCallister had been using a spell to transfer his or her soul to a host body. And something about needing moonlight to carry out the spell. That made sense as to why Tifa was being held captive and sedated instead of getting it over with. That gave her time to come up with a plan, and for Leon and the others to find her.
"What…are you?" Tifa managed to say around uncooperative lips.
'McCallister' smiled, looking up from inspecting her callused and gun-worn hands. "I'm human, like you. I'm just a little…older."
"How can you be human, you don't have a proper body." Tifa asked.
"Now, really, I agree that this little soldier isn't the most attractive, but she's definitely human, therefore I'm human." She chuckled. "Two hundred years ago, I was a simple person of magic who happened upon the key to immortality." She spread her hands. "Ta da."
"That's not immortality. It's body snatching." Tifa growled.
"I believe the myth refers to me and my apprentices as 'body jumpers', thank you very much." The impostor snickered, unbuttoning the front of the soldier's uniform to further inspect the new body. "Oh dear, this just won't do at all; hardly any curves." She looked back over to Tifa. "But we'll correct that soon enough when I take your body, as I originally meant to."
"Over my dead body." Leon made his presence known, stepping into the entrance hall.
The body jumper half turned toward him. "And the valiant knight has arrived to save his lady fair." She looked down to Tifa. "You have excellent taste."
Tifa growled and struggled against her bindings. The ancient mortar cracked slightly.
"Who are you?" Leon stalked into the room like a lion with its prey in sight.
The person using McCallister's body stood lax, one hip cocked. "Just a wanderer, nothing to concern yourself with, I'll be out of your hair in a moment." She moved almost nonchalantly back to the table where her instruments were laid out. "Just one little spell I have to cast."
"Get out of her." Leon demanded, drawing the Gunblade. "And let Tifa go."
"Now, see, I can do one but not the other, sweetheart." The impostor looked at the weapon in Leon's hands. "Now this is a twist."
Leon kept his eyes on the impostor and the Gunblade in both hands. "Tifa, are you okay?"
Tifa pulled against the chains again and felt the bolts in the wall give slightly. "I will be as soon as you take down that bitch."
"Tsk, tsk, mind your manners." The impostor chuckled and looked back to Leon, "You won't harm either of these two bodies, and quite frankly I'm not interested in this one farther than I can throw her." She snickered, "But I can see inside her thoughts, her mind, and she seems to be quite sure that you won't harm her."
She took a step directly toward Leon, well within the sword's reach. Leon didn't move, and Tifa saw the conflict in his eyes. It was true; if he could avoid hurting McCallister while still tearing that thing inside her to shreds, he would.
"At least…" The woman took another step toward Leon, whose eyes narrowed dangerously. "That's what I'm banking on."
She shot forward like a bullet, drawing up her forearm and smacking it into Leon's wrist. Leon back stepped but the attack was so sudden that the Gunblade fell from his grasp, clattering to the ground beside the table. Leon reacted immediately, clamping both arms around McCallister's forearm and slinging her around, off her feet and shoving her face first against the concrete wall.
"This is your last warning," He hissed. "Get out of her."
The impostor grunted, "You didn't say please."
She dropped her legs out from under her, and the small gap of slack in the give gave her the leverage to roll away from Leon's grasp, tucking and rolling several feet to the right. Tifa managed to wrest one of the manacles from the wall, causing a shower of old mortar and brick to rain over her. She grunted and got to work on the other one.
Across the room, the impostor had clearly gotten into McCallister's mind, tapping into those years of training with and against Leon, as she let the soldier's body fall into an instinctive stance against her mentor. Leon did the same and they faced off. The Gunblade was on the floor across the room, where neither of them could readily access it. As long as Leon could keep her hands off of it, he could handle her in a physical fight.
And a physical fight it became, quickly, as the impostor launched herself at him again, swinging up with her left fist. Leon blocked with his right arm, and she immediately brought her right fist around. He blocked with his left and reversed the grip to grab her wrist. She grunted as her wrist was twisted and she violently spun around, angling her body sideways, in order to lift her leg, plant one boot against Leon's ribs, and shove him against the wall.
Leon felt the impact against the wall reverberate from his spine all throughout his body. He pushed away from the concrete and ducked another punch from the body jumper. This time, he counter attacked and his fist made solid contact with the soldier's jaw. McCallister staggered sideways, blood flying from a busted lip, but her muscle memory kicked in full gear. She spun with the blow and dropped to one foot, swinging her other leg around to catch his ankles.
He jumped to avoid it and she immediately dropped to her back, spinning like a dancer to drive her sweeping leg up higher, this time at his midriff, where he couldn't jump out of the way. Her knee slammed into his hip and knocked him out of the air. He re-oriented himself just as he hit the floor, rolling hard several times and feeling his teeth rattle in his skull as he ended up back on his feet, kneeling forward to balance himself with one hand on the floor.
McCallister was on him again, punching, kicking, swinging, slugging, always on the attack. This body jumper was enjoying the newfound power; clearly the body selection was usually based on appearances rather than skills or substance. But the fatal mistake was that this was like a puppeteer using an unfamiliar puppet. The impostor could let McCallister's body take the wheel as far as the fight went, but without the trained mind behind it—
Leon grappled with the woman and got the upper hand, yanking her into a violent headlock and slamming her into the floor.
-the impostor was just another trigger-happy psychopath with no control.
Tifa got the other manacle out of the wall and braced her foot on the chain binding her hands together, applying hard pressure to free herself from the iron cuffs. The body jumper drove her leg backwards off the floor, colliding with Leon's bruised ribs just enough to dislodge his hold on her. McCallister threw him off and rolled back and up…her hand landing across the handle of the Gunblade. Leon was on his feet in a flash, and he saw Tifa getting to her feet too.
"This is your last warning." Leon hissed at the impostor.
The body jumper, however, lifted the Gunblade with McCallister's hands, eyes widening as she looked from the weapon to Leon. "She knows how to use this." She sounded startled. "You taught your little monkey how to handle this weapon." Her expression darkened. "Which means now I know how to use it."
Her grip shifted expertly onto the base position that Leon had taught McCallister. Tifa could see Leon mentally swearing, and she let loose a few of her own. Leon had never told her that he had trained any other soul to use the Gunblade, but it made sense. It was a bad idea to have only one person know how to use any kind of weapon. And if another weapons specialist knew how to use it properly, then that provided a way for Leon to train against it…for just these kinds of situations where he was facing down his own weapon, in his own intern's hands.
But that also meant…
The impostor tripped the mechanism on the Gunblade, and the blade of the weapon glowed and extended to over twice its normal length. Tifa scrambled to her feet. No matter the sense of it, Tifa cursed the fact that Leon had taught McCallister about the Gunblade at the moment. The body jumper looked from the blade to Leon, the glow of it glinting across McCallister's eyes.
"Oh, this will be fun." She smiled and attacked.
Tifa and Leon could only duck as the woman swung the overlarge weapon in a circle. The dungeon chamber was shorter in length than the blade, and the glowing tip of the Gunblade sliced through the concrete walls with a scream of metal. Tifa rolled hard to her left, ending up beside the upturned rotten table. The body jumper's instruments had fallen to the floor, along with whatever ingredients and ritualistic items that she had brought for the spellwork. Among the knives and leaves and broken bowls of…stuff…Tifa spotted McCallister's side holster. The impostor must have removed it, for whatever reason, but the gun was still in it.
While Leon grappled with trying to stay alive, keep the weapon away from Tifa, and try to incapacitate the body jumper without seriously hurting McCallister, Tifa yanked the holster toward her and pulled out the gun. It was loaded and ready to go. Tifa removed the safety and tried not think about aiming the thing at the soldier.
The Gunblade sank deep into the wall above Leon's head and jammed there. The woman yanked on it, but it was stuck fast. Leon scrambled sideways and sprang back to his feet. With the Gunblade immobilized, now he could take her down.
"Not so fast!" She barked, activating the trigger on the weapon.
The entire body of the Gunblade vibrated as the trigger blew. The action caused a small explosion of concrete and mortar dust to flood the air in the chamber. The glow from the magical extension faded; even with McCallister's training running through the body jumper's mind, she didn't have the stamina to keep the weapon charged like that. The Gunblade clattered to the floor, and she knelt to snatch it up again.
Leon surged forward, knowing he wouldn't be able to beat her to it; she was too close. Instead, he ducked her involuntary, haphazard swing and lashed out, kicking her square in the shoulder and knocking her back. She cried out in pain and rolled hard, ending up on one knee.
"Fira!" She lifted one hand.
The fireball shot across the chamber and nailed Leon in the stomach. He left his feet with the blow and slammed into the far wall, just a few meters from Tifa. He hissed as the flame spell faded and started to get back to his feet. Instinctively, Tifa tossed him the gun, so at least he would have SOME form of defense.
The impostor charged again, Gunblade raised, and Leon reacted and tried not to focus too hard on the implications of what he was about to do. He lifted the gun, aimed, and fired.
The bullet punched through McCallister's uniform just below her ribs on the left side, dropping her like a stone. The Gunblade dropped to the floor with a heavy thud, as did the gun in Leon's hand. He staggered upright and darted to the private, who was choking and gasping in pain. The bullet had gone completely through, digging into the wall behind her. Leon dropped to his knees and quickly applied pressure to the entry wound.
"Get out of her." Leon grit his teeth. "Now."
The body jumper looked up with pain glazed eyes, trembling. "Y-you shot her. You shot your own soldier." Her mouth twisted into a sick smile. "That's so heartless that it's kind of a turn on."
Tifa reached them, also in shock at what had just happened. "Leave her now."
Impatiently, Leon straightened, "We don't have time for this." He lifted a hand. "Neutro."
The air popped and crackled. The impostor suddenly screamed, back arching off the floor as a mist of blue vapor poured out of her mouth. It faded in the air and the body fell slack.
Tifa waved a hand in front of her face. "Was that a…spell?"
"Neutralizing spell." Leon muttered, checking McCallister's pulse and breathing. "Neutralizes any magic or magic entities in a ten foot radius."
Tifa gawked, "Well that would have been handy to know sooner!" She took a step closer. "Is she okay? I mean, she's still been shot."
Leon stood, lifting the soldier up in his arms. "Flesh wound; I just needed to shock her. She should be okay." He glanced down at the unconscious soldier. "I'm sorry."
Tifa picked up the Gunblade and followed him out, shaking her head. "Why is it always shapeshifters?"
..:-X-:..
A/N: The last line is a nod to my Mercy Trilogy, where…let's just say…there's some shapeshifting involved. They're just fun XD
Also, this is probably the closest I'll get to writing a fight scene between Leon and McCallister, even though it wasn't really her, but I digress. I mean, clearly Leon would thrash her to bits, but it would still be fun to write sometime maybe.
Anyway, hope it was entertaining!