Trigger Warnings: Suicidal ideation, themes on toxic relationships that includes sex, references to past torture, and character death
A/N: Life stuff happens. Good stuff, but it kept me busy. I plan on crossposting this to AO3 in the next week or so. I'm not sure I can keep with weekly updates but will try my best.
Chapter 6: Army of Darkness
Thin twisted tubes of pink, blue, green, and orange neon lights hung as art against cinderblock walls surrounding floor tiles of the same cinderblock gray in the third and smallest square of the world. Cid flexed his arm back, fist clenched, before leaning into a rounded punch to the head of a toddler-sized black creature. Its head burst into a puff of dark mist, and the rest of it dissipated. Three spherical creatures wearing brown and tan spandex, with black knives for arms, materialized from the same mist that had spread. Two feet taller than Leon and as wide as they were tall, the creatures wobbled, surrounding Cid in a triangle that occupied half of the square. A dozen or so smaller creatures appeared and scattered like cockroaches caught in the light until they all stopped. Four of them swayed and jerked synchronously around Cid.
"When they get so big?" Cid looked from one sphere to the next. "I can't punch those gosh darn things down."
"Oof, not so little guys, huh, those are some fatties." Yuffie ran to Cid and pulled her boomerang out from behind her back. She looked between Cloud and Leon. "We said we weren't going to kill them, right Cloud?"
"When in the heck did you figure that killing them's a bad idea?" Cid said.
"The kid said that they hold human hearts. When he kills them." Leon pointed at the spheres. "Bigger ones replace them."
"The freak you just say? They're eating hearts? Aw, frick," Cid said. "Wait, aren't those critters called heartless?"
"Ooo, let's call them hearteaters," Yuffie said. "Or heartbreakers? Heart bakers? I am the best at coming up with names. How many of these did you punch dead, Cid?"
"I don't remember, gosh darn it. I wasn't thinking straight back then. Not too many though. I ain't got no weapon to fend these shoots off with."
"You'll get hurt if you can't punch them down with a one-two punch, Cid. Leave these little guys to me." Yuffie swept her boomerang across to block a black claw from reaching Cid. "We'll show them who's boss. Wait, how do we do that if we can't kill them?"
"Do you know anything about using swords?" Leon said.
"Who? Me?" Cid said, concentrating on the creatures rather than Leon's words. "I mean, I used a couple here and there. Can't be much harder than using my spear."
"You could use this to block them."
"That thing? I don't know how to use a gun like that. Is it loaded? Why're you giving me this?"
"It doesn't shoot bullets. But don't pull the trigger, you'll only waste energy doing that."
"You're kidding me. It don't shoot bullets? But that there's a barrel. To a shooter. You calling a gator a lizard, son? Hey, Cloud, get a load of this. It'll give you a run for your money for funny swords."
"You know what," Leon said. "Never mind."
"Wait, dang it." Cid jumped to avoid a green beam shot from one of the creatures. "Wait just a dang gone minute. At least that thing looks real nice. Shiny and all. A real beaut."
Leon walked around the swaying creatures and held the grip of his Gunblade towards Cid, who took it and examined the blade. "Hold on to it. Don't attack with it. Don't kill them."
"Are you bonkers, Leon?" Yuffie said. "What are you doing?"
"He can use it for a few minutes. They're not going to attack me." Leon stepped away from Cid, careful not to step on the black creatures. "Watch."
Two infant-sized faceless creatures wearing witches' costumes flew around Leon. One turned upside down and circled his head so that its pointy hat would have fallen off and its green dress would have flipped, but its clothes didn't move or flap like they were connected as part of its body. Its stubby legs moved so quickly that they worked as propellers, and Leon thought it would be funny to watch them walk.
"Let me try that." With her free hand, Yuffie reached for a dancing creature with claw-like hands and cloth patches all over its lumpy doll body.
Leon recognized its helmet from what knights, heroes, would wear in old movies. The creature clunked and danced before it stiffened inches off the ground, its arms and legs splayed out as a cross as its head in its helmet hung. Its body flipped and spun, turning into a propeller itself. It launched itself at Yuffie. She blocked it with her boomerang. It bounced away and skidded onto the floor.
"Shoot, why didn't it work for me, Leon? I'm way nicer than you are," she said.
"This fellow's from some other world, right?" Cid said. "They eat human hearts. You think he's human?"
"What else would I be?" Leon said.
"You know, I don't think the key kid came out and said 'human' anything. The duck and dog probably have hearts." Yuffie smirked. "Leon probably has a heart in there somewhere. A teeny tiny one. Probably the size of a gil."
Cloud, who hadn't drawn his sword, stepped into the middle of a separate group of creatures. One human-shaped, muscled creature with antennas that looked more like pigtails than parts of a bug squatted next to him and blinked.
"They're kind of cute," he said.
"Cute?" Yuffie laughed. The humanoid creature looked at her, but she didn't notice. "What kind of weird taste in cute do you have? Look, they're not attacking you either. Aw, come on, I'm nicer than you, Cloud."
"I meant, like a Chocobo," he said. The creature looked at Cloud.
"These things look nothing like Chocobos," she said.
The creature looked at Yuffie then looked at Leon. It jumped onto a raised platform in the middle of a fountain in the corner of the square. A dozen more creatures with knights' helmets appeared and dangled as crosses in the air.
Cloud bent down next to a black creature that wore no clothes but didn't look naked. Yellow eyes blinked on an oversized head on a stick-thin body. "Still kind of cute."
"They're not attacking Cloud because he's a weirdo," Cid said. "Then this fellow's probably a weirdo, too. You think they're cute? Is that the gosh darn trick to all this? Alright you little shoots, you're cute."
"Cutie patooties?" Yuffie said. "Yuck. These things are so not cute. So not cute."
"I said." Cloud stood and crossed his arms. "Kind of."
"They're not cute," Leon said. "They're more active when you have a weapon out. Or if you punch them. Or try to chase them down."
The humanoid creature raised its arms. In front of the fountain, six evenly spaced dots appeared on the ground and grew into manhole-sized swirling holes.
"It's been watching us," Leon said. "Like it was listening."
"Think they can hear?" Cloud looked between the dark holes and the creature.
"Why wouldn't they?" Leon said.
From one of the swirling holes, an orange monkey with yellow dots for eyes, the only feature on a black, smooth face, jumped and landed in a clear spot in front of the fountain. Wearing golden earrings and a red bow on top of its head, the monkey did a cartwheel and tripped over its feet. When it fell to the ground, it rolled automatically and stood.
"Aww, it's a monkey," Yuffie said. "Now that's cute."
The monkey waved a slingshot over its head before getting on all fours and swinging on its knuckles while running. It barrelled towards Leon, and he stepped back to avoid it. Standing on just its legs, it pointed to itself then at Leon.
"Sure seems like that thing's taken a liking to you," Cid said. "Do you know the monkey?"
"No," Leon said. The monkey put its hands on its hips before pointing to one of its earrings.
"Is it showing off its earring?" Yuffie said.
It nodded, jumped around, and pointed to its eye.
"Eye? Eye ring?" Yuffie said. The monkey shook its head.
"Eye ring? What're you thinking, Yuffie?" Cid said.
"I'm thinking it wants to play a guessing game," Yuffie said. "Ooo, charades."
The monkey flipped in the air and nodded. It ran around her and Cid in circles, raising its arms. When it stopped running, it reached for Yuffie's hand.
She shoved her pointy boomerang in the monkey's face. "No monkey business, got it?"
The monkey covered its unseen mouth, and its eyes turned from yellow dots against a black face into two yellow horizontal, upsidedown curves.
"It understands you." Leon looked at all the creatures lining up, circling them. "Do you think they all do?"
"Who freaking cares? They're eating hearts. Aerith, that kid, those animals, they're all saying we got to get rid of them to save the world," Cid said.
The monkey shook its head, ran back to Leon on all fours, and pointed to its chest.
"Heart," Cloud said.
The monkey shook its head, but kept pointing to its chest.
"Chest," Yuffie said. "Insides, heartless, monkey, boobs? Are you a girl monkey? You have a bow. Do girl monkeys have boobs?"
The monkey shook its head and reached for Leon's hand, but he pulled away. It pointed to itself again.
"The gosh darn thing keeps pointing at itself. That dumbbutt probably can't tell nothing from nobody," Cid said.
The monkey tilted its head at Cid and nodded.
"Nobody," Cloud said.
The monkey shook its head.
"Nothing, butt, dumb, itself," he said.
The monkey nodded and jumped.
"Itself," he said.
It clapped, but no sounds came from the monkey's hands. It brought its clawed index fingers together. Then held up two fingers and tapped them on its forearm.
"It?" Cloud said. "Or self? Self?"
It clapped soundlessly again, pointed at its earring then the corner of its eye.
"Self," Cloud said. "Earring? Ear? Self? Eye?"
"Selphie?" Leon said.
The monkey stood up and ran to Leon on two legs holding out its arms. He stumbled back.
"Squall, look out," Yuffie said.
A large bell rang once overhead, resonating longer and louder than Leon had heard it, and all the creatures in helmets stiffened and spun. They hovered above the humans in the air, twelve to fifteen creatures with metal helmets spinning like sawblades. Leon had miscalculated. He didn't have time to call out, just move. He grabbed the monkey's arm, and the sky lost its stars and turned navy blue. The monkey squirmed and batted at his hand but he tucked the whole monkey under his arm and ran.
All the buildings lost their doors and windows, their shape, and melted into the navy blue sky to form one shadow, one darkness. The cobblestone under him dissolved into more fuzzy navy blue but his feet hit invisible, solid ground. The direction, distance, and effectiveness of Leon's steps were no longer, but he kept ahead of the creatures. The tops of surrounding stairs lit up into long, pale rectangles of neon brick, and floated, moving over Leon's head until spiral floating steps was all that was left of the town. They led to the sky, to nowhere, and the space between him and the creatures shortened little by little. He put the monkey down, and it jumped around, shaking its clawed fists in the air.
"Stand still," he said. "I'm not going to hurt you."
All the other creatures, a group of twenty, twenty-five, thirty wearing different costumes in a parade, not in straight lines or formations, but scattered, jumping or flying rather than running straight towards Leon. The humanoid black creature held its arms up and black swirls appeared in the air.
The bell rang a second time all around them, causing Leon to vibrate inside. He stood between the creatures and the monkey, thinking about how he could escape. He couldn't let them turn into propellers before he moved, but the closeness of the staircase and the vastness of everywhere else, where the sky and ground never met, led him to one solution. Run up the floating stairs. The stairs led up to a light, one pinprick of refracted light. And from below the ground, tissue-paper thin, translucent, white doves flew up in a conical spiral around him, all aiming for the light.
The monkey tugged at Leon's jacket, and he stepped closer to the stairs. All of the creatures stared at him, blinking their yellow eyes. Each eye served as a source of light. A handful, ones furthest away from the humanoid, muscular creature looked out at the nothingness. Helmets clanked and squeaked, breaking the silence. The monkey looked between the group of creatures and Leon, wringing what could have been her hands. The point where they connected with her arms were undefined, but the ends, her claws, were sharp.
The monkey ripped off its bow and threw it, but it flew back to the same spot on top of her head.
"Selphie," Leon said. "Is that you?"
The monkey nodded. The yellow dots of her eyes turned into horizontal curves, the ends pointing up like smiles but with the opposite effect.
"How?" he said. "How did you end up like that?"
The monkey, Selphie, shrugged. She held her hand out but Leon didn't take it.
"We have to find a way to turn you back," he said.
Selphie nodded, kicking at nothingless.
"Did you do anything you weren't supposed to?"
She crossed her arms, her claws extending beyond her elbows, and shook her head.
"Are you sure you didn't eliminate a target you weren't supposed to? You didn't try to skin anything here, did you? Or anyone?"
She shook her head vigorously and jumped around again.
"Fine. We'll figure a way out of this, alright?"
Selphie shook her head and pointed to herself. Then she held out her arms for a hug.
"A hug?" Leon said. "That's… inappropriate."
She kept holding out her arms, thrusting them out in front of her dramatically.
"Stop that. I'm not hugging you."
Selphie held out one hand, pointed to it, and thrust it out to Leon for a handshake.
"I'm not holding your hand. This is serious, Selphie."
She pointed to her hand in succession, shaking it and running around Leon.
"If I shake your hand, will you stop jumping around?"
Selphie nodded and held out her hand.
"Fine." Leon grabbed Selphie's hand, and splotches of colors spread over all of the navy blue around them, reminding him of when he first shined the sunlight from a window through a prism, but he was inside looking out. Inside invisible glass walls, pure colors faded in and out and shined all around them. The creatures loosened from their group, tumbling away and hopping closer to Leon.
"Are they your friends?" Leon said.
Maybe, thought Selphie. He tried to jerk his hand away, but she put her other hand on his and held tighter.
Don't go, she thought. Stay.
She was in his mind. His initial panic dulled, but his uneasiness didn't go away. She was in his mind.
Connected, she thought. Weird, she thought.
"Yeah. Weird," Leon said, trying not to think. "So I need to hug you to turn you back?"
Yes, she thought.
Leon frowned and looked at the other creatures. "Do I need to hug them so that they turn back? Can the others hug them? Can't they hug you?"
No, just me, Selphie thought. You hug me.
"Are you sure this is going to work? I don't like hugs."
Hurry up, Selphie thought. Always, she thought. Annoying, she thought.
But hugs scare me, Leon thought. And he felt from her orange pink, the color of an early sunset.
Me, too, she thought. They used to. Me, too.
And all the other creatures peered at Leon, each one stretching their necks or on their toes, blinking their yellow eyes. And it made him think that Cloud could be onto something, that they might be kind of cute.
Totally cute, Selphie thought. But think we're weird.
"We probably are to them. Alright, I'll do it. Ready?"
Yes, she thought, and he closed his eyes, got on his knees, and hugged her.
She wasn't warm or furry, like a monkey, but smooth like a balloon. He counted the seconds, waiting for her to grow or feel different, but nothing happened.
The bell rang a third time, distantly now. He didn't understand how, he didn't notice when, but the town, the starry, endless purple-blue sky and brown brick and gray stucco walls and gray cobblestone streets that turned blue depending on the shadows cast on them, returned to normal. But the creatures did not.
And he held her again, hugged her, kneeling and hugging her like a child, while she and all the other creatures writhed and shook and twitched. A flood of feelings without words come through to him, in images that narrowed to an end, their friend with a cowboy hat smiling at her with an expression that Squall had never seen on him and a declaration that Squall did not understand and a bloom in her chest that everything was alright, that everyone would be alright and she would be so happy because she had been waiting so long, so uncharacteristically patiently to feel so complete, even if just for a moment. The edges of the image turned orange into tiny flames, wrinkled and curled until the image was just their friend's face with a gentle smirk and that was gone.
And there were colors of warm reds and oranges and yellows and when he felt cold blue, he thought he felt his name. His office, his uniform, a stern look that didn't belong on him, his slight change, the constant slight changes, good changes at first but the distance between them stretched more and more over a green field and the feelings turned from green to pale yellow to when they were younger and fought and nearly died together. Somewhere, he felt her singing that stupid song that never ended, then humming it, then air around her breath and the feeling of an engine on tracks rocking them back and forth, hitching rhythmically under her toes, a memory of her favorite thing, being on a train.
At the very point, he saw Selphie as a child, they were all eight or seven or six or five and her mouth moved and she whispered, 'But I thought we were friends, Squall.'
Leon found Sora sitting in the same alleyway after he had hurt Cloud, not crying this time, but with the same look, and he wondered when he had reached the beginning of another dead-end street.
A/N: I would love a comment even if it's critical or a fav if you do happen to enjoy my fic!