Disclaimer: I don't own FFX or FFVII, nor do I stand to make any money off its creative property.
The Fall of Gaia
Chapter Two: Aftermath
When Zeitu realized that he was awake, he forced his eyes firmly shut, afraid to open his eyes again and see how terrible things might look. He lay there, alone, in the ashen silence, feeling the soothing feeling of cold stone beneath his face and taking a mental inventory of all his limbs and extremities. He heard movement to his left, and he slowly opened his eyes. Zeitu made a soft noise as he immediately shut them again in horror. He had seen a a man kneeling over a child's body: a body which had been cut cleanly in half by a falling piece of concrete that had once been a road. He heard shuffling, and then footsteps as the man took the body away. A thick liquid seeped down onto his face, and he slowly opened his eyes again to look above him. A hulking metal construction robot had apparently grabbed girders and formed a triangle over his body, and then held them in place while a huge pile of debris collected over the two of them. Zeitu wanted to thank the robot, but as he tried to find the words, he realized that his savior was no longer functioning. The strain had been too great for the poor thing. He pulled out its memory core and pocketed it. The least he could do.
He was on his feet. He did not remember getting out, nor did he remember when he had started walking, but he needed to leave the city as soon as possible; the pile of wreckage wouldn't hold up forever. He kept his eyes firmly on the ground as he walked, not bearing to bring himself to look up at what could only bring more despair. Footsteps. He turned, looking to see who it was. Brown dress. It was her. He forced a smile, waving meekly. She smiled back, speaking in barely a whisper, "I think I owe you my life. I was considering not coming, but it saved me." Zeitu tilted his head. "Huh?" She held out her hand, "Cirri." Zeitu blinked, "What?" "My name, clueless." "Oh. Zeitu," he said, taking her hand. It was supposed to be a handshake, but he didn't let go.
She didn't seem to mind.
As they reached the edge of the city limits, they were walking among the survivors. Many were injured beyond recovery or insane, and hundreds of people were too shocked to speak. A large group had gathered around a battery radio, a cheap little thing that could fit into your pocket. "The Spiran Republic does not regret the use of Vegnagun II, as the use of it ejected most of the extrasolar object into space and into decaying orbit around Spira." Zeitu wrenched his gaze upwards and gasped in surprise; a ring of rock now spread across the entire sky, glowing bright with a green, burning aura. Every couple seconds, he would see a streak burn up in the sky as another shard entered partially into the atmosphere. If Zeitu were not currently standing in the burning heap that used to be his home city, he might have even called it beautiful. "Reports from military aircraft and local governments are coming in from all across the globe. Early reports estimate that the hardest city hit was Bevelle, due to the combined impacts of the meteorites and the firing of Vegnagun II." An old man spat at the radio, kicking it over with his foot. "Damned Al Bhed. Ever since the New Yevon Party was forced to disband, those idiots have been making too many major decisions without public involvement." "Now, come on," replied another older man as he set the radio upright again, "They obviously didn't have time to get the public involved." "...I still don't like it."
Zeitu tuned out the voices of the old men talking politics, which he had no interest in. Instead, he focused on the radio. "Early studies indicate that the extrasolar object may have been a rogue planet! Fossilized remains found in the center of one of the surviving meteorites show that it may once have contained life! Scientists are already preparing operations for a spacewalk to collect samples from the matter still orbiting the planet."
Cirri still hadn't forced the issue of letting go of Zeitu's hand as they walked back to his home. Truthfully, he was far too worried about his sister to enjoy the moment, but his house was too far away for running to be a viable option and the girl's hand was extremely comforting as they walked. He held his breath as he turned the last corner in the path through the jungle. In just a few more steps, his home would be visible.
"No!" A tall green spire of what looked like some sort of crystal was now jutting straight out of the twisted wood and sandy hill that used to be his family's house. "What is that?" asked Cirri, turning to Zeitu. He didn't know either, but he wasn't going to bother telling her this. No, he was too busy sprinting to the remains of his house. "Sis!" he yelled out as soon as he got within earshot. He continued to yell out for her as he overturned rubble and searched through the remains of his home for any sign of his sister. Frustrated, he turned to face the green spire. He walked up to it, picking up a hefty looking rock and smashing it against the spire in his anger. "Why!?" he asked it. "Why here!? Is this some kind of cruel joke!?"
A large cracking noise drew his attention upwards.
The spire had split cleanly in half, releasing a flood of eerie shrieks and screams. Bright orbs that glowed green began to stream out from it and float upwards towards to the sky before spreading outwards in all directions. He turned around wildly, trying to get a grasp on what was going on. "What the...? Pyreflies?" he thought aloud. Cirri, who had stood at the bottom of the small hill to give Zeitu some time alone, finally came up. "What happened, Zeitu!? What did you do!?" she shouted to him, coming closer to the spire. The lights had completely filled the air above like a bright fog when a few of them started coming down to gather into large, bright, semi-solid spheres a few feet away from them. Cirri and Zeitu stared, struggling to comprehend. Suddenly, with a howl, one of the spheres turned into a monstrous wolf-like creature that spared no time in lunging at them. "Fiend!" Zeitu yelled out. Despite the fact that no one had seen one in years, no one ever could mistake that ancestral feeling of indescribable fear that came with meeting one face to face. He grabbed Cirri's hand and began to run, howling and screeching signaling to him that more fiends had appeared behind him. He sneaked a peek backwards over his shoulder, and immediately regret it. The sight of the hundreds of flying and running fiends slowed his legs with a feeling of inevitability that made escape seem impossible. The color drained from his face as he saw fiends beginning to emerge in front of them. "No!" he heard Cirri cry, and they slowed to a halt, finding that they were surrounded on all sides. Zeitu backed up next to her, raising his fists halfheartedly.
'We're going to die.'
But just as the first fiend began to strike and Zeitu closed his eyes in anticipation of pain, he heard a loud male voice crying out from behind; "Lightning!" Thunder and arcs of lightning filled the night air on all sides, and he heard fiends cry out in collective panic as their bodies were destroyed and the pyreflies floated back up into the bright fog above. Zeitu turned around, looking for the source of the voice that had made the pack of fiends reluctant to strike, his eyes resting upon a strangely dressed man garbed in blue, with spiky blond hair and a giant sword that looked like a glowing blue and white tooth. "Who-" Zeitu began to ask, but the man cut off the question with one of his own. "Can you use a sword?" the older, stronger man asked, taking a longsword from a strap on his side and sticking it into the ground beside Zeitu as he turned to face the regrouping fiends that were taking up positions around them. Zeitu shook his head, but he grabbed the sword anyways and turned his back to the older man. "Sorry, I don't carry three," Zeitu heard him say to Cirri, who stood in the middle and picked up a hefty-looking metal rod from the surrounding wreckage that would probably make a good club. "Let's go." The calm in the man's voice filled both Cirri and Zeitu with new confidence in their chances of survival, and the three raised their weapons as the fiends began to draw closer.
A/N: Thank you for reading.