Disclaimer: I in no way own any portion of the Final Fantasy franchise except the spiffy stuff I've purchased and the Squall plushie I snuggle with regularity. I also don't own any song by Linkin Park, especially not 'Shadow of the Day' which provides not only the chapter titles for this story but also the inspiration for this fic in its entirety. Please don't sue – I'm simply an E6 in the USN, therefore I have no money. Ha.
-BEGIN FIC-
Chapter 5
Cards and Flowers
It's now been one month.
One month since I've written anything in this journal. To say things have been a bit hectic and chaotic would be an exceptional understatement.
At least with everything that's been going on, Rinoa's backed down on pressuring me about the wedding preparations. She's recognized that I need some rest. She's also allowing herself to consider my wants and desires a bit more, actually giving some consideration to my 'oddities' as she calls them. Recently, she's actually been drawing on pictures of the park we'd visited in color gel markers, asking me what I think of the decorations she's considering. Her last crisis about cards was handled between herself and that Delilah character I've never met. I don't know the result – right now, I could care less.
I can barely read what I'm writing right now. I can't bring myself to focus enough to reread what I'd written previously in my journal. The migraines that are pummeling my brain to paste are more painful than any I've ever experienced before, driven not by my own nerves and worries but by the ravenous screams, hideous laughter and ceaseless unrest of the Guardian Force in my head.
I'm playing hooky from work – I tried to go earlier, but it was so hard to concentrate that I was accomplishing nothing. So much for my first day back on Balamb Garden and catching up on what I've been missing over the last thirty-odd days. I know the Headmaster's going to be disappointed in my lack of performance, and I know normally I'd be striving to do my best and to quell that disappointment before it could form, but right now I could give two shits. My head feels like it's literally going to split in half. The ringing telephone doesn't help it any.
In fact, the telephone hit the trash today. I unplugged the bastard and threw it in the round file. We'll see if anyone dares to restore it to its proper location in my office before I go back to that hellhole of paperwork and racket.
The few things I got accomplished on this, my first day back at work, were pretty miniscule at best. Seeing as how Rinoa and I accompanied Quistis and Zell back from Esthar, I really had no reason to process a mission report from them – everything they'd told me has already been forwarded to the departments that require said information, Intelligence so they can properly close out the issue and monitor the results, Accounting so they can charge Esthar in accordance to the contract we've drafted, Payroll so they can properly credit my friends for their expeditious performance of their duties with the bonuses that were written into the agreement between Garden and the nation we'd just served. I'd already had Quistis call the Headmaster to inform him of their success, my patience for the phone at record lows.
The report from the SeeDs I'd sent to Trabia took only a few minutes to draft, their job having been exceptionally simple and lacking in any problematic situations. The man with whom we'd drafted our agreement had been quite honest and forthcoming about the problem he was facing, and my SeeDs had performed as expected. They had taken me a total of fifteen minutes.
Then the official start of the workday had rolled in as I was finishing my signature on their success report. The phone had instantly started with its incessant cry. My brain felt like it wanted to either explode or dissolve into nothing and ooze right out of my ears.
Eden was restless. She'd had the opportunity to taste freedom. She wanted to come back out, and was understandably more than a little pissed with the fact that we were returning to the mediocrity of day-to-day life. She didn't want me answering a phone and dictating where people would go – she wanted me back out on the field, gunblade in hand and her song singing from the heavens and lending its strength to my veins. She wanted her ferocity channeled through my body, rending my opponents asunder and devouring them to supplement her presence in my mind. She wanted me surrounded by foes, summoning her into reality, letting her craft her massive form in the sky and decimate the planet as she saw fit. She wanted to bathe in the energy of reality and space, to spread her massive silver wings and demolish everything that lived throughout time.
Her quiet in the last months, my dwelling in the mediocrity of office slave, had come to an end when Rinoa and I had traveled to Obel Lake. It was as if she was asleep prior to that event, resting in my mind without care of the passage of time – her recent activity awakened her and left her dissatisfied with our current reality, leaving her craving the opportunity to truly destroy the world as she claims she's crafted to do. And it seemed as if her dissatisfaction was to be taken out on me.
It was a continuous struggle all morning today – trying to answer the phone, trying to focus on what whoever was on the other end of the phone was saying, trying to ignore the screams for death and destruction and action that ring in my ears. Most of what I was able to transcribe onto memo sheets from those conversations read like gibberish when I could even read them – my writing degraded to the point that I couldn't read it at all, looking more like hieroglyphs than any legible scribing.
Of what I could read, I can barely remember a few of those messages. One concerned those blasted floating cows around Winhill again, this time accompanied by some odd head-statue. Another was from Timber once more – something about the monsters seeming to flee the Obel Lake region and starting to raze nearby towns, and what I did to so upset what was originally there. Esthar's president contacted me to ask me about some weird phenomena his country's satellites picked up – Odine had already briefed me on it, I'd passed it on to my Intelligence department, and we still had no response. The message from a man in Dollet was unreadable – I'm sure he'll get back to me when I fail to get back to him. Someone in Centra was requesting SeeD to scout around a mountain range or something. Cactaurs seem to be drifting from their little island to the Centran mainland along a land-bridge that was exposed by some weird gravitational shift that Estharian scientists are blaming on a large explosion that may have had something to do with me (much to their lacking knowledge). Our Intelligence department presented me with a report on the odd energy spikes they'd detected during their routine tapping into the satellites and monitoring systems world wide, the taps performed without anyone else's knowledge or concession. I have yet to read it, as it's quite thick and has very small writing. They'd already told me they have yet to discern its true nature and the packet was ninety percent speculation.
Speculation and energy spikes be damned. Eden's racket and the sensation on my mind literally being reduced to mush made it hard for me to care about them. Even though everything seemed to coincide with her disturbance, even though she pressed for planetary destruction before 'one less worthy' could rise in her stead, I could begin to think about the issues on hand.
By lunch time I was torn between stabbing myself in my eye socket with my letter opener to relieve the pressure building in my head or simply hurling into my garbage can as a migraine rocked my world and roiled my innards. Given the fact that I'm blindly scribbling in my journal right now, it's easy to ascertain that I chose to throw up over killing myself. And right now, I'm not certain I'm pleased I made that decision – yes, I have a future with Rinoa waiting for me and a wedding to get to and happiness promised in my future days, but right now the misery of Eden raping my brain is making my not only physically ill but driving me crazy.
Rinoa was so busy with her own delving into wedding preparations that I was actually left to my own devices for the day, her not showing up when my head was threatening to explode and Eden was screaming in rage for me to move out of my chair and kill the entire world.
My salvation was actually brought not by the woman I love, but by Selphie.
She'd come in, her face pale and shining with worry as she closed the door behind herself and skipped without enthusiasm to my side. She'd asked me if I was alright. I think I'd grunted in response.
And Selphie being Selphie, lacking respect for personal space as much as her boyfriend (maybe that common trait they share ties them together?), she immediately stepped around my desk and rested a palm on my forehead. After surmising that my head wasn't actually on fire, she just frowned and told me that 'Doomy' had said that Eden was being a 'punk' and that her screams for destruction could be heard by every Guardian Force on the planet.
I'd never known that Guardian Forces could commune with one another when they weren't junctioned to the same mind. Selphie had assured me she hadn't either, until she was able to confirm Doom Train's proclamation concerning Eden's uprising and subsequent lack of ability to settle peacefully back into slumber.
I recall vaguely leaning against Selphie's cool hand, the very light pressure against my skin soothing and comforting even as Eden burbled in my brain. I'd asked her if she ever had trouble with Doom Train – if the demonic mechanism from the fires of Hell itself ever tried to rend her mind asunder or break free of her control.
Selphie told me she's never had any real problems with Doom Train – the two of them apparently get along swimmingly. Never a headache, never a muscle spasm that she can attribute to that Guardian Force's continual inhabitation of her mind. Only the threat of her memories being consumed, permanently eradicated and stripped from her mind with the revoking of her junction with the monster that's chosen her brain as its perpetual abode creates any disharmony between them and forces her to retain her connection with him whether or not it coincides with her own will.
She'd actually crawled into my lap at that point, grabbing my head and forcing it down against her chest despite my panic. As she pet my hair, I found I could relax.
Let it be known right here and now that I hold nothing but a friendly acquaintance with Selphie Tilmit. I would never abandon my love for Rinoa to her, no matter how much she understands the agony of having a Guardian Force forever docked inside a brain and the tumultuous nature of being a SeeD. And I would never, ever in a million years give either Rinoa or Irvine a reason to slaughter me for eliciting an affair with the bubbly, warm girl that sat on my lap.
Alright, that just came out wrong. And I can't believe I just wrote that in pen.
(Please, Rinoa, know you eternally have my heart. I will never stray. And Selphie's just playful and would never sleep with me – I'd never allow that to occur in the first place. Please don't rake me over the coals for letting her sit in my lap when Eden was kicking me square between the eyeballs and ripping my brain to shreds – you were busy, and she was just trying to help my headache fade.)
I think Eden likes her, because as she pet my hair and held my head against her soft breasts the headache that had been popping capillaries in my eyes began to recede. Or maybe it's because she was distracting me from the frustration of work that I was able to finally get control of my nausea and simply close my eyes, focusing on the black of oblivion rather than the harsh light of my computer monitor and the blaring yellow of my memo pads.
I don't know how long we were like that – all I know is that she moved away, the phone rang, and I ripped it right off my desk and tossed it into the trash after unplugging the demonic device. She'd laughed at me and told me to go home to 'Rinny' and relax.
I'd complied with her demand.
So… here I am, my migraine quite present and horrible, my head awash in pain and misery and my stomach too empty to have anything to quell the queasiness that's warring with my senses. It's been a full month and she still hasn't settled.
I know she wants the freedom she'd finally tasted once again. I just can't in good conscious grant it.
She wishes destruction and the eternal devastation of the planet – I can't grant her that wish. She screams her apocalyptic song in my brain, every syllable crying for the obliteration of all life upon the world and the dissolution of the world itself.
Dormancy followed by action has enraged the beast within my head, giving her a small savory bite of rampage followed by an immediate return to mortal imprisonment. I guess I can understand her rage. I simply can't abide by her wishes and relinquish my control.
One month ago, Rinoa and I had headed out to Obel Lake.
We'd rented a car in town, paying a considerable amount to ensure it was filled to the brink with fuel (run out once with a cowboy who refined all of your spare fuel canisters into fire ammunition he didn't need, and you learn to top off your tank before you leave civilization) before hitting the wilderness.
In less than ten miles of travel from Timber's capital city, we'd noticed the oddities.
Monsters weren't immediately frightened off by the vehicle. Rather, they'd sit and stare at it, sometimes salivating, sometimes giving chase and giving up only after they realized that a car was prey that would never tire.
Typically the pitch of the turbines that drive our vehicles is beyond painful to monstrous ears. While silent to our own, the decibels put out by the whirring turbine blades can be detected by any creature sensitive to that range, which fortunately includes most of Hyne's foul deliverances to the planet's surface. Hence why monsters tend to steer clear of highways and populated towns, the racket of vehicular traffic usually enough to keep them at bay. Cars have always been a safe way to get from point 'a' to point 'b' without confrontation. The huge turbines that power our trains keep the rails clear and provide confidence in goods and personnel transportation.
The monsters of the wilderness we were driving into, however, weren't driven away. They cringed in pain, alright. They drooled and scratched at their heads. They roared at us. They ran after us rather than running away.
To make matters more odd, we weren't simply seeing wendigos, cockatrices, thrustaevi, ochus, grendels and the sort. What we were seeing brought fear to me.
T-Rexaurs.
Blue dragons.
Even a malboro.
Everything we'd faced on the Island Closest to Hell was here, all of them wandering through the vast forests that made up most of Timber's territories.
No wonder we'd received the call.
The deeper we drove into the woods and off the beaten path, the more dense the monsters became. Rinoa was gripping her armrests, her face pale, as we finally burst free of the woods.
"I think I know where the Senator's concern comes from," I remember lamely stating.
She'd actually laughed at me, even as I put the car into park and we both got out. "Thinking of drafting a contract with him?" she'd playfully asked even as she had grabbed her Angel Wing pinwheel out of the trunk.
"Maybe," I'd stated as I grabbed my gunblade. "Let's see if these things are from the region I'm afraid they're from, or if they're a bit more on the 'reasonable' scale.'
The monsters we were facing were indeed of the region I'd feared they'd be from. Even so, we'd managed to beat them away from our location, Rinoa unharmed despite their best efforts, my wounds more or less superficial in nature.
"What's driving them?" Rinoa had asked.
I still can't answer her question. To this day, a month later, I have no idea.
All I know is that the enormous ruby dragon that suddenly landed on Obel Lake's peninsula and bathed us both in its fiery breath had shocked the hell out of me.
Rinoa had screamed, covering her face with her arms and letting her pinwheel take the brunt of the attack that would have bathed her head. The flames had parted around her moments later, a white aura surrounding her while sparks of electric energy flared around her delicate frame.
"No!" I clearly remember shouting. "I'll take care of it."
I didn't want her unleashing, after all.
I understood the cost of her tapping into her power and the impossible strain that was placed on her. It was something that seemed to come innately, just as the bond between us was formed.
I understood the devastating power at her hands, the roiling magic of Hyne himself seething in her blood and whispering for destruction just as fervently as Eden herself screamed for the like in my mind. I understood that tapping into that power stripped Rinoa of her sensibilities, stripped her of the very essence that made her herself.
I'd come to know through the time I'd been her Knight what my role truly was.
I am here to keep her grounded in reality. To hold her in the present rather than allow her consciousness to wander throughout all time. To keep her human.
To keep her from becoming what Ultimecia became. The Sorceress without a Knight from the future had lost herself to time, her sanity eroded completely by time's infinite march and Hyne's incredible power flowing through her veins, her humanity dissolved by the moon's cold touch in her heart. Whatever woman she may have once been had been destroyed by her delving into the power the moon's banished deity imparted onto her, by harnessing the inhuman and alien strength that flowed through her body.
While Rinoa certainly had the might to demolish any threat that would stand against us, the cost of her harnessing that power, the threat of her losing herself and me losing my precious love, was too high for us both. I would always strive to accomplish my purpose as her Knight.
I would defend her.
Out there on Obel Lake, trapped between the waters of Obel Lake and the ruby dragon that gnashed its teeth at us, I had released what power I had burning within me.
My junctions that day were set up incorrectly when it came to facing ruby dragons. Flares tethered to my gunblade for elemental attacks, Regens on my status attacks, and everything plowed into health, vitality, strength and speed wouldn't let me stand a chance. My gunblade would be useless.
The magic I had brought with me, that I was willing to cast without crippling myself by stripping away my junctions, was similarly not going to be conducive to effectively battling the monster off. I had a full array of Full-Lifes, some Thundagas, a plethora of Scans (after all, it was a recon mission – Scans, while otherwise useless, are actually handy on those) and a pittance of status spells like Sleep (useless on these dragons), Break (also useless on these), Float (ha ha – won't stop breath attacks and won't protect us from them), Shell, Protect, and the like. I hadn't really been set for battle that couldn't be handled without my gunblade – and junctioned as I was, even Aura was effectively stripped of its usefulness.
And be damned if I'd cast Aura on Rinoa – without Angelo nearby, she'd be forced to fall back on the power I was attempting to prevent her from having to tap. That was perhaps the only time I regretted not having the yappy fuzzball with us.
So I had decided to tap into the one power I had that could settle the entire fiasco in the blink of an eye.
Eden had come surprisingly quickly when I'd summoned her, shocking regarding our recently degrading compatibility with one another (turns out that if you refuse to summon her to take care of small issues and decide that devouring your fellow humans because they piss you off is actually a bad idea makes her cranky and not exceptionally happy with you). I guess she just really wanted to get free and into the battle.
She'd blown the ruby dragon off the planet in the blink of an eye. The garish flash of white light, the grid of colors that appears whenever she appears, had blinded me momentarily. I still remember the gasping draw of breath I found when I'd been released from her constraining grasp and appeared with Rinoa once again on the peninsula, that odd lack of air that always remained after Eden's profusely powerful attack always taking its toll.
When it'd crashed down into the center of Obel Lake, its return to the planet's surface from wherever it had been sent violent and devastating, the water blew straight out of that craterous hole.
I still remember – it looked eerily familiar.
A dark, muddy-bottomed crater with a peninsula jutting straight into it.
Where had I seen such before…?
I can't rightly remember. I'll search my journal once I can read properly (actually, I'm hoping I can read this reminder later – my hand's simply moving on autopilot right now).
But the corpse of the ruby dragon was still, buried halfway in the mud as the water of the emptied lake began to rain down upon it and the forest surrounding it.
I vaguely recall that Rinoa was holding my arm, crying for me to stop – I don't know why. I think I was about to either go into the lake and devour the creature there, or I was going to blow the woods to pieces and clear them.
Eden was screaming for it, after all. Even now she seethes in my mind, growling about my lack of obedience and how I'll suffer for my lack of compliance with her demands.
Ever since that day, those events, I've been having hideous headaches that leave me nauseous and weak. We'd been intending to return to Balamb after that event (I still don't know what I was going to reply to Timber with – what I'd encountered was so odd and unsettling I wasn't certain who I could combat the situation with), but… something happened.
Esthar had contacted me via my cellphone just a few hours after our battle with the ruby dragon while Rinoa and I were driving back, her behind the wheel as I was feeling dizzy and horrible with Eden roiling in my brain.
They'd asked that I come immediately to them, professing that they were willing to send an aerial transport to my location.
I don't know why I told them where I was – I don't think I was in my right mind. Rinoa didn't say anything to stop me, either. I think her concern for my wellbeing was overriding her good judgment, and Eden's screaming in my head was overriding my own.
We were taken to the capital city of Esthar. We went to Odine's Laboratory (more appropriately, I went there – Rinoa stayed in the palace, not keen on visiting the crackpot scientist with his ruffled collar).
Seems when I'd summoned Eden, some strange phenomena was picked up by Estharian surveillance equipment. A surge of energy that had never before been sensed by their equipment had been captured and recorded, coinciding with her summoning and subsequent attack. That in of itself made me worried – with their technological prowess, the Esthar nation did in fact have the most powerful and accurate equipment of any nation, very unlikely to give false indicators or erratic readings like anything else surrounding our planet.
And it seemed as though the energy spike they'd sensed was a continuous stream, very much depleted in strength but present all the same.
Eden was howling in my head as I watched images in the Laboratory, staring at a column of green that trickled into the refilling lake and simmered in the crystalline waters.
The odd little doctor had noticed my discomfort and questioned me at length about it.
For the next few weeks, he had me under surveillance, using me as a guinea pig for his ongoing Guardian Force research. Guess ever since his research that proved the depreciation of memories could in fact be tethered to Guardian Force usage he's been lacking in persons willing to junction to further his studies.
What he told me didn't make me happy, though.
He'd revealed that Eden was much unlike any other Guardian Force he'd studied. She was more powerful than any other force he'd encountered, to be certain; barring that, she was… different. He'd explained it as if she were not of the planet itself, whereas all other Guardian Forces were simply immensely powerful, natural results of planetary forces. Winter culminated itself in Shiva. The planet's fiery magma congealed in Ifrit. Its gravity was compiled in Diablos' might. The king of the Tonberries, so removed from its followers by its power, had become a deity among them and long lost its physical form, becoming the existential energy mass that all Guardian Forces were compiled of.
Sounded like a bunch of bull to me, but I don't know anything more than Odine about them.
Anyway, he stated that his studies into the true nature of Guardian Forces had lead him to his conclusions, and Eden was shattering every thesis he'd proven. She was above and beyond all the rest, compiled not of the planet's forces but of a force that would destroy the planet itself.
She'd agreed with him, her soft whisper barreling through my mind without mercy as she professed that she was the end of the world, her true power dormant until her time truly came. That she was the destroyer of all. That I was her servant and would kill for her.
He'd waved me away from medications, professing that anything that would dull the pain of my migraines would also dull my senses and subsequently my perceptions of what she was doing in my brain. He surmised (quite correctly, I'm certain) that if I were to lose my control over her and my retention of my own senses, that she would be able to control me directly. That she could move my body against my will, using my magic, my gunblade and her own power to rend everything I encountered asunder.
I'd asked him if it would be possible to remove her, to place her into storage like any other Guardian Force utilizing Esthar's more advanced technology. He'd cackled with his squeaky little voice and told me that with the grip she had on my mind, he'd only be able to strip her from my corpse.
So I was in an understandably foul mood when I'd finally returned to the palace after those glorious weeks under Odine's microscope.
Quistis and Zell were there to greet me, having arrived in Esthar's capital a week prior to report the successful completion of material transfer to President Loire. They'd decided to stick around once they'd learned that Rinoa and I were there, Quistis and Rinoa shopping to their hearts' contents on my credit card and using Zell as their pack animal, judging by the sheer amounts of shoe packages, bags of clothing and cosmetics and other assorted items that awaited me when I returned to the room I was normally assigned when we visited.
Quistis had given me her report, Zell had bequeathed upon me his disappointment over having 'Quez' in his head and not being able to utilize her might, and Rinoa had insisted that I look at every last outfit she'd bought and summarily praise her good taste.
But between my headaches, the proclamations Odine had made concerning Eden's permanency and odd alien nature and the strange string of green that snaked through space into Obel Lake, I couldn't care less.
I need to return to Timber.
I need to find out just what Eden brought to our world.
I need to silence her screams.
Cloud's eyes narrowed as he stared at the only other living being in the huge room he was trapped in.
The other blond bounced lightly on his toes, his red sneakers squeaking intermittently on the metal floor. His hands, tightly clenched and wrapped in red gloves, were held before him and primed to strike. Long shorts stopped just below the knees, bulky and billowing and looking like they were multitudes of sizes too big for the man who wore them. A tight black muscle shirt hugged a well-toned upper body, flashes of extreme definition visible beyond the fists that were held before it and below the flapping fabric of the short-sleeved jacket tossed over it. Blue flames marked black sleeves. A snaking black tattoo, reminiscent of those that marked Red XIII's flanks, slid along the man's cheek and forehead.
Only one thought could process through Cloud's head as he stared at the man before him, his hands tightly gripping the weapon he'd acquired. He'd never heard such a ridiculous profession before – not only in the fact that the spiky-haired tattooed stranger had suggested he give himself up without a fight, but that his apparent doom now rested upon the fact that he was standing between this man and something called a 'hot dog.'
A second passed by, the two of them sizing one another up. Cloud's narrowed eyes noted with a sliver of anger that the man before him seemed almost lackadaisical and relaxed, as if he didn't consider Cloud a viable threat.
Cloud, on the other hand, began to see the danger in the man before him. The way he was built suggested a decent amount of strength. The fluidity of his movements accompanied by his stance immediately triggered the realization that his opponent may very well be a proficient fighter. Noticing the metal that laced the red gloves on his hands, Cloud's mind suddenly informed him that he was facing an opponent who'd fight much like Tifa did – punches and kicks, using the body as a weapon and needing nothing else. The way he danced clued Cloud in further – the youth was likely a boxer.
Dipping the tip of the sword he held in the direction of his enemy, Cloud's narrowed eyes flickered with exhilaration as he realized fighting an unarmed, young opponent might not be as problematic as he was thinking. A boxer would go down easily when faced with a swordsman. All Cloud would have to do is keep himself out of range of those powerful fists and keep on the offensive – his sword had greater range, making such a possibility.
They simultaneously sprang into action.
The sword in Cloud's hands swung in a wide arch, flat turned to collide with the young man he was battling, strength moderated and controlled. As it was, Cloud had no idea where he was, who he was facing, and what was going on – he wanted answers, not a corpse on his hands.
The opponent he was facing wouldn't give him the opportunity for either – just when Cloud had prepared his arms for the oncoming shock of impact of sword against flesh, the tattooed blond had ducked underneath the sword's arc and lashed forward with a fist.
Cloud barely dodged the flung limb, feeling the brush of wind against his side through his tattered top.
He wasn't swift enough to avoid the foot that immediately followed that punch.
Tripped by the foot that suddenly caught his ankle, Cloud stumbled and lashed with one hand to maintain his balance, choosing once he staggered another step and had to simultaneously dodge the tattooed man's suddenly executed kick towards his head to roll instead, his sword tucked close to his body as he tried to not collide with one of the park benches that circumvented the huge fountain in the room's center.
Cloud's eyes were huge as he rolled back to his feet and hopped backwards, attempting to put distance between himself and his opponent and failing miserably as the youth pressed his attack.
He realized he wasn't dealing with a boxer.
He was dealing with a very proficient martial artist.
A hop backwards, a spring off his left hand while his right maintained its grip on his sword, and Cloud gained necessary moments to breath. However, the time he needed to reassess his situation was eradicated as his opponent pushed in, rolling underneath a swiftly executed swing of the sword and punching for Cloud's shin.
Stepping out of the way, Cloud lashed forward with the flat of his weapon again.
The vibration rattled his arm as the younger blond punched the blade, his metal-laced glove clanging loudly as it connected with the weapon that was streaming towards his head.
As Cloud whipped his other hand to the sword to maintain a grip on it, he barely ducked under the foot that came for his face. He took his opportunity.
The mako in his blood, that was laced integrally into his muscles, let him surge forward with inhuman speed and dexterity. With a blast of motion that took his opponent off guard, Cloud forwent the sword and simply dashed into the younger blond, taking him right off his feet.
His opponent didn't stay down. He rolled right out of the hit, his sneakers squealing as he slid across the metal floor, and immediately launched himself back at Cloud.
The green fire surging in his vision burning his limbs and veins, Cloud leaped directly for his attacker, sword leading the way.
Fist and sword connected time and time again, the rapid blows ringing throughout the huge empty room. Pressing continuously, Cloud picked up the pace and speed of his strikes.
The cocky smile finally fell off of his opponent, replaced instead by sheer determination and concentration. For the first time since the fight began, Cloud's antagonist scowled, light blue eyes narrowing and teeth grit.
The fists that came for Cloud suddenly burst rapidly into motion, almost faster than Cloud would have thought humanly possible. His offensive streak brought to a premature end, he quickly brought his sword before himself, defending himself from those deadly punches as well as he could.
A swift backwards hop landed him into the surprisingly shallow water in the fountain, giving him only a bare half-second before he was backpedaling once more when his opponent followed him and continued his assault.
Cloud swallowed his first quiver of fear as a fist that barely missed his head, brushing past his wildly spiked hair, collided with the fish statue that was behind him and shattered it completely. Water wildly sprayed around them and over them, blinding them both as their soggy spiked hair flopped onto their heads.
It seemed his opponent wasn't pulling any punches any longer.
A dash away from a kick that took out the remainder of that statue with a sickening crunch of stone disintegrating into nothing, and Cloud rolled to his feet, the edge of his sword finally turned towards his attacker.
"That serious, huh?" Cloud growled.
"Ha! I've hardly begun to get serious," the tattooed blond snarled.
"Then maybe I should," Cloud responded.
They surged once more, water splashing violently around them.
The metal-laced gloves struck with unerring accuracy, deflecting every swing that Cloud launched.
Then, shockingly, Cloud was hit.
He'd swung for the blond's torso, the sharp edge of his sword slicing the air with a clean and sharp whistle. He'd expected the blond to lash a fist into the way, perhaps to dodge and roll.
Instead, he'd immediately swung his foot into a high arch, ignoring the weapon that was seeking his side, and kicked Cloud so hard in the chest that he was lifted right out of the fountain's water and slammed back onto the steel floor that circled it. His sword never connected.
Just as Cloud was lifting his head, he stared and rolled, narrowly avoiding a fist that was aiming for his face.
He was nailed, however, by the second fist that predicted the direction of his roll – Cloud's shoulder screamed in pain as he heard it crack audibly, adrenaline all that kept it mobile as he retained his grip on his sword and surged to his feet.
Cloud was only able to maintain his feet for a few precious seconds, a sweeping kick taking them back out from under him even as a second kick spun right into his side mid-fall. Colliding with the hard, permanently mounted bench nearest to their battle, Cloud fell to the ground, his head swimming with pain and his eyes seeing poison green stained with red.
His instincts moved him.
The fist that was coming for the back of his head smashed instead onto that bench, bursting the wooden planks to pieces.
Turning sharply, Cloud sprang at his opponent.
The younger blond, still recovering from the recoil of hitting wood rather than flesh, attempted to dodge the blow that was coming for him. He barely dodged out of the way, his offensive surge brought to an end.
Cloud spit blood, his lip split and dribbling, as he snarled and thrust with his sword, growling in agitation as the youth spun to the side and kicked towards him.
Time slowed.
Mako burned.
And Cloud surged.
His sword wailed as it sliced the air, moving faster than even those devastating fists. Tearing through the atmosphere with such speed and ferocity that it was ignited, Cloud slammed his weapon into his antagonist and immediately leapt into the air. With a scream tainted with rage, he crashed down upon the fighter he battled, his sword burning the air as it slid through the pittance of resistance it offered, Climhazzard finding its target and slamming the youth solidly into the floor. A quick stab downward nearly nailed the tattooed blond to the ground, his quick roll the only thing that saved him from the sharp point of Cloud's sword.
Both blonds snarled, blood dribbling from noses and eyes and mouths, as they glared at each other.
All pretense of fighting to submission gone, the two of them circled slowly, both mens' eyes aflame with promises of death.
Cloud's heart thundered in his chest as he stared down his opponent, staring at slashes in flesh that were instantly cauterized by fire and the blood that dribbled from them, those wounds reopening when he'd slammed into the ground. He felt his own injuries thunder achingly against his senses, partially urging him to surrender but for the greater part crying for him to put his attacker down to ensure his own survival. He saw green, feeling mako blend with adrenaline and seep into his muscles.
He was determined to end it. And for his own sake, he realized, he'd have to end it quickly.
They once again moved in synchronous motion with one another, each stepping into a burst of motion simultaneously. Both lashed forward with right hands, sword blocked once again by fist, foot coming once again for shin, hop dodging the sweep.
The suddenly flung fist to his stomach nearly caught Cloud. If his senses hadn't pinpointed the attack, if he hadn't been taking his opponent as seriously as he was, he certainly would have been struck.
Instead, he saw it coming for him. A mid-air twist and a handspring launched him towards the center spire that dominated the room. With a scowl, mako fire searing his muscles, he launched himself from that spire towards the opposing wall.
His young opponent, dumbfounded by Cloud's sudden change in tactics, was caught entirely off-guard as Cloud's booted feet touched the wall and thrust him immediately at the tattooed fighter.
To his credit, the martial artist managed to roll and diminish the severity of the strike – it caught his side rather than piercing him directly through his torso. With a cry of pain, he'd swung his fist directly for Cloud's head – Cloud ducked under the swing, wrenching his weapon loose and swinging it in a backwards arch.
Caught by the flat of the sword, the youth screamed as he was lifted off the floor and flung into the blast door that separated the room at the end of the blue arrow from the circular steel walkway. He collided with it, the thud of flesh striking metal music to Cloud's ears.
Determined not to be caught by surprise once again, Cloud continued the attack. His opponent, after all, was getting to his feet, fists clenched and prepared to resume the battle.
Running full speed, Cloud launched into the air at the end of the walkway that stood between him and the tattooed fighter. A spin in midair aligned him to plummet onto the younger blond.
Seeing the attack, the martial artist rolled.
Cloud had predicted he'd do such.
His foot touching the railing that lined the walkway, he changed his trajectory, instantly sailing right for his opponent. A swift swing of his sword, barely blocked by a hastily raised metal-laced glove, nearly put the tattooed blond on his face.
Overshooting the younger man, Cloud twisted in mid air. The moment his foot touched the ground, he dashed back towards his now befuddled opponent.
Moving as fast as a man with a Haste cast upon him, Cloud pressed his attack, dashing circles around the younger blond and swinging whenever he had the opportunity.
Cloud had to give the younger man credit – he certainly could hold his own, impressively so considering that Cloud was giving his attack everything he could.
However, his opponent was flagging.
The next punch that swung, brushing lightly against Cloud's arm, had none of the impressive strength or speed of the first few blows to land in their battle.
Cloud's eyes brightened with realization.
His opponent, indeed, had zero mako in his system.
He was tiring.
Redoubling his efforts, letting the burning in his veins take control and pushing every last ounce of strength he had into his swings, Cloud wore on his younger opponent, pushing him back towards the center of the room. Soon he had the other man using his fancy footwork not for any further attacks but rather to defend himself, trying to attain some distance between them so he could regroup.
Cloud didn't afford him the opportunity.
Moving with inhuman speed, Cloud's sword striking with impossible strength, he finally managed to slam that sword so heavily into the tattooed fighter's side in a broad, sweeping arch that he threw him into the centermost spire of the room. The metal bent with a sharp crack, a human-sized crater marring its perfection. The younger blond fell limply into the fountain, the statue he fell upon cracking at its base and nearly falling even as the fighter's body slammed into the water.
Cloud lowered the tip of his sword, his arms shaking with exhaustion and exertion as he cautiously approached the fountain.
Cloud stared in amazement as the blond before him stirred, one hand clenching and relaxing even as the fighter's bloody face rose from the shallow water it was bathed by.
"ZELL!" he heard another voice shout from above.
Turning sharply, Cloud's eyes widened.
He'd never noticed the auburn-haired man perched on the circular walkway that connected to that center spire a good twenty feet up.
"Junctions!" that man shouted.
"Just shoot him!" the man in the fountain – the man Cloud could only assume was named 'Zell' – shouted back.
Cloud grit his teeth, his senses suddenly burning once again.
'Just shoot him.'
The man above was armed.
The man in the fountain was getting back onto his feet despite all that Cloud had just put him through.
His fight for freedom was going to be harder than he'd originally surmised.
"Pulse ammo. No can do!" the auburn-haired man shouted. "'less you wanna explain why Garden has a bunch of holes in it with your next batch of cards and flowers."
"Just gimme the junctions," the blond groaned.
A flash of purple energy sweeping from the auburn man above to seep into the tattooed blond in the fountain set every one of Cloud's nerves on edge.
Something had just occurred, and he couldn't begin to fathom what it was.
Suddenly, motion erupted.
Cloud barely brought his sword up in time to defend himself, his mako-infused senses being all that clued him in to the oncoming attack.
The punch that struck his weapon had more force that even the first blows in their fight. The next blow that swung, blocked by the hilt of his weapon, shattered the high quality sword Cloud had attained.
The third punch, faster and fiercer than any Cloud had ever seen, collided with his chest.
Cloud would have cried in pain if any breath had stayed in his lungs. His sternum cracked under the pressure of the collision. His heart felt as if it missed a beat, momentarily held still by the fist that struck him.
The foot that suddenly crashed onto his head, coming faster than even his enhanced senses could detect, put him square into the floor. The next kick lifted him right off the steel ground, lining him up for the fist that launched into his gut.
As Cloud's vision swirled, he stared. The ground itself was surging up to meet him, the metal warped and bent as the tattooed youth slammed his fist into it.
Cloud's body bounced. His frame burned, aching with more pain than he knew was possible to feel and retain consciousness. The next kick, keeping him aloft, sent new spikes of pain surging through his side.
A punch to the head, a kick to the thigh, a kick to the ribs to lift him once more and a punch to his solar plexus left Cloud gasping, incapacitated and helpless. He couldn't see, much less dodge, the punch that surged for his face.
As Cloud struck the ground, he attempted to roll, attempted to get away.
His efforts were brought to a sudden halt as he heard the crunching of bone, pain roaring through his body as a sharp elbow slammed into the square of his back.
As black whirled over his vision, his breath failing him and the fire of mako seeped from his veins, Cloud welcomed the embrace of oblivion.
-to be continued-
A/N: Zell has one of the cheapest limit breaks on the planet. It's so easy to abuse! I love this guy. XD