Hey guys, fast update here right? Sorry, i was just so bored that i decided to update my FF story.

Enjoy and review XD

Chapter Five

Fall

Éclair looked at the oncoming soldiers that were arriving toward them with their weapons drawn, as she stood there, her blue eyes taking them in.

"Guys," she called behind her.

"Let's do this," Vaan said, taking hold of his weapon.

"By the orders of the Sanctum, you will put down your weapons immediately," one of the soldiers said, speaking through a radio, "and turn yourself in…"

Paine pulled out a grenade and tossed it toward them.

"Eat this," she yelled.

The small but powerful ammunition arced through the air as yells of "Grenade" echoing around them and then they were an explosion knocking down soldiers and even killing some.

"Now, open fire everyone," Vaan yelled.

His gun started to spit bullets followed by the people who wanted to fight along them and even Paine was in the action shooting at the soldiers. They returned fire causing them to take cover as bullets and Paine noticed that the girl, Éclair, was simply staying hidden.

Sighing, she pulled out a small handgun and said.

"Hey, crazy girl,"

Éclair's eyes snapped toward her, showing surprise and she caught the weapon that Paine threw toward her, making her look at the girl in confusion.

"Make yourself useful and shoot somebody," Paine called at her before getting out of cover and opening fire.

Éclair glanced down at the handgun in her hands and pulled up, pointing the muzzle toward where the soldiers were and pressed the trigger. The recoil surprised her as she let out a slight gasp, but she held it strong in her hand and continued to fire, and she even hit one of the soldiers on the other side of the battlefield.

Then above them, a craft was getting closer to them causing her to look up and pointed the gun at it when the craft opened fire on the soldiers who hadn't bothered to look up since they had considered it one of their back-up.

"Finally," She heard Paine said.

Then the craft lowered itself unto the now cleared pathway and touched down as Paine approached it as the ramp came down, letting out a young woman with long dark hair.

"Tifa," she yelled.

The girl, Tifa returned the greeting as a blond haired man stepped out.

He bears a slight resemblance to Vaan now that Éclair looked at him, dressed in a black outfit with a gun on his side. He was dressed similar to a soldier with a shoulder pad which had two glowing yellow band on them with a gun in his back pocket that was hanging from behind him.

"Everything went alright?" he asked.

"As normal as it could have went," Paine told him as she turned her attention toward the still robed peoples.

The man approached them.

"C'mon everyone, we will take you to safety."

"Who…who are you people?" one of the robed man asked.

"We are AVALANCHE," Paine said, "You might have heard the name somewhere before."

Éclair turned her attention toward Vaan to see him looking at the new arrival with dislike in his eyes making her raise her eyebrow slightly at the gesture. She approached him.

"Are you alright?" she asked him.

Vaan turned his attention at her.

"Yeah, everything is fine," he told her.

"You're sure?"

Vaan nodded at her.

"Alright," Éclair said returning her attention back to the blond man who was now speaking again.

"We will take all of you one the craft and get as far away from the Hanging Edge as possible," he was saying, "The Army will send back-up any minute now, so let's get moving."

Paine put a hand on his shoulder drawing his attention and whispered something to him, causing the blond to turn his eyes toward where Éclair and Vaan were standing. He nodded to her before walking toward them.

"Vaan…" he said.

"Why are you here?" Vaan snapped at him angrily.

The man sighed.

"Vaan…listen, I just had to protect you,"

"Protect me?" he yelled, "From what?"

Before the man could answer, an explosion shook the ground they were standing on, and they noticed more Sanctum soldiers arriving along with two large ships.

"Basch, we've got incoming," Tifa yelled.

The man, Basch turned his attention toward Vaan.

"We'll continue this conversation later," he said to him, "C'mon."

The trio ran toward the ship and noticed that Paine was already throwing some cover fire.

"Tell Barrett to take off immediately," he said.

"We're not going to leave you behind," Tifa said, surprise and shock in her voice.

"You're going to have to," he said, "Or those ships will take ours down."

Tifa looked at him, indecisive for a few second as if battling herself but Basch made the decision for her pushing her into the ship.

"GO," he yelled pulling out his weapon from behind him.

He ran on to the front of the ship as he opened fire upon the Sanctum soldiers as the ramp closed behind Tifa's form on the ground.

"What the hell are you doing Soldier Boy?" Barrett's voice said from the communication piece that was in his ear.

"Take them out of here at once Barrett," Basch yelled back.

"If we leave you out there, you're going to die."

"Don't worry," Basch said, looking back at the craft, "Get the ship out of here before the Sanctum opened fire on it. We will meet up with you guys in Palumpolum."

"You better be here when we get there Soldier boy," Barrett told him, "or I'll kill you myself."

"Duly noted," Basch said, "Now go."

From behind him the ship had started to rise from the ground heading off into the air.

From aboard the Sanctum craft

"Sir, the stolen ship is taking off," a Sanctum soldier said.

Rygdea narrowed his eyes slightly.

"Then destroy the bridge," he said simply.

The Sanctum soldier faltered slightly.

"Sir?"

"Destroy…the bridge," he repeated in a slow voice.

"But sir, our men are still out there," he said, "Shouldn't we pull them out first…"

Rygdea glared at him, silencing the soldier in front of him who let out slight gulp.

"Are you refusing a direct order soldier?" he said softly, thought his voice carried a hint of warning.

"N…No sir," he said.

"Then execute my order," he said.

The soldier gives him a salute and walked off.

Éclair looked up as one of the ships opened a canon which was charging power, something she knew that something really dangerous was about to happen.

"Everyone falls back," she heard the man, Basch yell, "Don't stay here…Run."

Éclair didn't need to be told twice.

She took off running away from the ship and its canon hearing Vaan yelling.

"Paine…we've got to go."

She turned toward the voice seeing Vaan pulling the silver haired girl with him and noticed that the girl was nursing one of her shoulder, blood seeping through her fingers.

S…she was hit, Éclair thought.

Then an explosion wave hit Éclair's side, pushing the girl down as she slammed on the ground from the force of the blast, her head smashing against the earth. Then she felt the ground moving beneath her body, lurching forward causing her to glance at it and Éclair feel her eyes widen.

The entire bridge they were on had been split into two pieces, the two ends falling toward the infinite darkness below and feel her body sliding forward and she quickly tried to hang on to something…anything but she was slipping…slipping down toward certain death…

"NO, VAAN," Basch screamed.

She glanced down seeing the young boy slid down into the darkness holding Paine to him his eyes showing pure fear seeing that he was falling to his death and she was next falling down into the abyss, her heart jumping seeing nothing but darkness below her…

Falling down…

Hearing peoples screaming around her…

Seeing part of the train falling …

Then a light, a strong light covering her all around causing the woman to glance around herself…

W….What's happening?

Then the darkness covered her all.

The darkness grew around him, as he continues to slide down, his brother's terrified face appearing in his mind…

"VAAN,"

"VAAN,"

Basch eyes snapped open quickly seating up.

The soldier looked around himself, feeling his heart thundering in his ribcage.

"I'm…alive?" he whispered, shocked.

He glanced around himself, taking his surroundings in. He took notice of the armored pink haired woman lying a few meters away from him, and turned his attention toward the scenery seeing the large murals that looked hundreds of years old, with large amount of abandoned buildings around him, and he realized where he was…

The Bresha Ruins.

He stood up, feeling his body trembling in shock.

H…How can I be still alive? He thought, we should be dead…

Then groaning sound made him glance around, just noticing Vaan and Paine laying a little way away from him and he ran toward them.

"Vaan," he called, "Vaan are you alright?"

The younger man opened his eyes, blinking slowly looking at him as if he couldn't believe he was seeing him right now.

"Basch…?" he asked, surprise in his voice.

"Yes," Basch said, relief in his voice, "Yes, it's me little bro."

"Are…Are we dead?"

"No," Basch said, "We're not."

He helped him seat up as Vaan glanced around himself.

"How….?"

Basch shook his head.

"I have no idea."

Vaan turned toward Paine.

"She was hurt," he said.

"I know," Basch said taking hold of the silver haired girl, "I've got some things in my pouch that could clean that up soon enough…"

"Éclair?" Vaan suddenly said, standing up looking over Basch shoulder.

The pink haired armored woman was approaching them, her blue eyes looking all around them.

"W…where is this place?"

"The Bresha Ruins," Basch answered her, "The oldest place on Cocoon."

Éclair glanced around herself, digesting that information as Vaan asked.

"How are we still alive?"

"I've been asking myself that same question," Basch told him as he worked on Paine's wound.

Vaan glanced up toward the sky, finding the Hanging Edge high above them.

"We fell from here, and into the ruins?" he repeated, "There is no way we could have survived a fall that high."

He turned toward the group that was around him.

"Maybe…maybe something happened during our fall?" Vaan said to them, "C'mon people work with me here? Did any of you seen anything?"

Basch finished enveloping Paine's wound in bandages before standing up.

"Vaan, as much as I want to seat and ponder with you," he said, looking at the younger blond, "We need to find a place we can rest…and since we're miles away from any form of civilization, we're spending the night around here in the ruins."

Vaan showed an annoyed face as Basch turned around and picked up the still unconscious Paine.

Watching them go, he glanced toward Éclair who was silently gazing around herself, taking in the ruins around her.

"Did you see anything Éclair?" he asked.

The woman glanced toward him, her blues eyes looking as mesmerizing as he had first seem them. And then, the woman shook her head.

"No, I haven't seen anything," she answered.

Then she walked off following where Basch had gone.

Vaan sighed before following her.

Éclair hearing Vaan following behind her slow herself down so that the young man could walk side by side with her.

"Your brother called this the Bresha Ruins," she said.

"Yeah," Vaan told her, "The oldest city to date in all of Cocoon's history. My great-grandfather's journals is filled with his studies of the ruins and even believed Dr. Cid's theory about the connection between Cocoon and Pulse. He was the second man to ever willingly go to the lower world of Pulse."

Éclair nodded.

"It sounds like you're a fan of his work," she said.

Vaan chuckled.

"Yeah, he was the one that's inspired me," he said, "Thanks to him I grew to love finding old relics and places that had been forgotten through time. Just something about them seems majestic when you look at them. Makes you wonder about the history of the place, how its people lived and what caused it to become ruins."

Éclair glanced at him.

"But my brother and I don't exactly see eye-to-eye because of this," Vaan continued his tone changing, "We argue about that a lot."

Éclair frowned.

"What of your parents?"

Vaan shook his head.

"We don't have any," he said in a solemn tone.

He walked faster now, living Éclair to look at his retreating back.

The pink haired woman sighed softly before walking after him.

Yeah a small party is set up...where will their journey lead them?

And what of the Colonel Farron?

All those question will be answered next chapter: Fate

Jacques0 out.

R&R.

AN: I know Basch and Vaan aren't brothers in FFXII since i've played part of the game...but they are in this story so bear with it. i was going to use Reks, Vaan canon brother but i decided not too, Basch fit more the soldier role and what i've got planned for him. Anyway See ya guys next weekend.