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jukeboxhound_backupImperfect Tense - Chapter 5
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Pairings: Squall/Seifer; Sephiroth/Cloud
Canon: FFVII + FFVIII (no CC, BC, AC, DoC, or any other spinoffs)
Rating/Warnings: R – Battle violence, implicit sexual content, foul language; time-travel, of sorts. Unbetaed.
Summary: Jenova's legacy, living on through the Sorceresses, is forcing Squall to face an unstable Seifer, Cloud Strife, and yet another potential end of the world. Maybe paperwork really wasn't so bad
Word Count: 2,763
5.
Thursday evening.
Life, Seifer decided, pretty much sucked ass. Abandonment at an orphanage, failed the SeeD exam three times, got seduced by an evil Sorceress wearing the face of his surrogate mother – and he really didn't want to examine the implications of that too closely – had his ass kicked by one of the pretty-boys he used to bully, and now he couldn't tell right from left or remember what he had for breakfast.
Well, maybe the last was to be expected, since it wasn't long afterwards that a horde of monsters, entirely out of the blue, decided that Dollet would make an awesome slaughtering ground. He, Fujin, and Raijin stood on the front porch of their rented cottage and watched the approaching apocalypse. Because of the late hour, fortunately, there were few people out, and the monsters didn't seem interested in busting down doors or windows so much as just rampaging through the empty streets.
"Fuck my life," he muttered.
"IDIOT."
Seifer shot Fujin a sulky look before looking back down the road. The horde didn't even begin to approach the Lunar Cry in terms of sheer monstrous volume, but damn if it wasn't still intimidating as hell seeing a roiling mass of mutated flesh lit up in stark shadow by the streetlamps.
"Coulda been worse, yanno," said Raijin. "They might've been T-rexaurs."
Oh, the optimism of youth.
"Where's Leonhart when you need him?" Seifer sighed rhetorically as he hefted Hyperion and shot the nearest monster point-blank to the face. The thing squealed piercingly and twisted through the air, landing awkwardly on its side, but rather than stay dead it started to struggle back to its feet.
Seifer had quite clearly seen his bullet splatter skull and brain over the pavement.
"…FUCK."
"Holy Hyne, what the fuck are these things?" he snarled, leaping off the porch and ducking a swipe of claws that tried to take of his head. He heard Fujin and Raijin follow him (they always did) and he fell into the old pattern of shootslashparrydodgehit that was so comforting in its familiarity. If he was no longer capable of daily life, well, at least he knew he could still kick some serious ass.
But even ass-kicking gunbladers get tired and eventually he slipped in spilled viscera, sending him to the ground just as a tentacle (seriously, what the fuck) lashed out over his head, and he was emptying a clip into what looked like the bastard child of malboro and grat when a set of brassy claws gripped his arm. Seifer was hauled upright so quickly that his head spun, and it took a moment to realize that the claws were at the end of a human limb.
"Did I mention my life sucks ass?"
"Can you still fight?" the stranger demanded harshly, and Seifer might not have been in his right mind but it was instinct to respond to such authority with a sneer.
"If you didn't have your fucking hands all over me," he snarled, and he was instantly released. The man just gave him a flat look from under long dark hair before unceremoniously raising an impressive-looking gun. He fired into the monsters with an accuracy that would make Kinneas green with envy.
Pissed off and confused, Seifer went back to what he did best and sliced a monster in two.
…
It took a will honed by centuries of patience to resist the bloodlust of the demons in his head. The smell of the dead beasts was thick and cloying in Vincent's sensitive nose, a sickly-sweet stench of blood and shredded meat with the underlying sting of mako, and it made the company in his head howl with maddened glee.
When the last of the monsters ended up in pieces on the ground, Vincent idly flicked the gore off his claws and holstered Death Penalty under his new cloak. A little ways off, the gunblader kicked at a corpse and muttered a string of heartfelt curses that would've done Highwind proud. Both he and the two others with him had fought with admirable skill that spoke of experience, although the woman was now limping from a wound in her lower leg. When the gunblader suddenly hissed and hunched over, hand going to his temple, Vincent's eyes narrowed.
"Oi, Seifer, you all right?" asked the larger man, putting a hand on the gunblader's shoulder in concern.
"I'm fine," this Seifer snapped before he straightened and fixed a baleful glare on Vincent. "Who the fuck are you? And what the fuck are these?"
A stunningly diverse vocabulary. Vincent raised a brow at him, deeply unimpressed by this bluster, and instead bent to examine one of the monsters, ignoring the large man's sound of disgust as he rolled the corpse over and prodded at one of its gaping wounds.
"You deaf, buddy?"
The blood that came away on his fingers was the typical purple of several monster species. Same thick viscosity, same stench, but when he rubbed his fingers together the blood developed the slightest of shimmers. Mako, or something very like it. Just as he'd started to suspect after crossing the strait and terrorizing the poor fishermen.
When he stood, Vincent felt every one of his years settle over his shoulders. He gave himself a moment to wonder if this was how Cloud had once felt. Isn't it ironic, Hojo, that in trying to destroy what you hated most, you created the weapons that brought about your downfall. Although it seemed that Jenova was just as difficult to kill as Turks and failed SOLDIER experiments, and while attributing this attack to Jenova was more than far-fetched, it did make a horrible sort of sense. The distinct mutations, the coordination of this attack – monsters never attacked in such a mixed horde unless there was an outside factor controlling them – not to mention the disturbing similarity of Seifer's little fit to a certain other blond kid.
Other explanations included someone having found any of her remaining cells, or another one of her kind.
"These monsters aren't natural," Vincent said softly. The gunblader opened his mouth, no doubt to make some smartassed comment, but then shut it again with a sharp click of teeth.
"WHO?" asked the woman, apparently unconcerned by the blood streaming down her leg.
"The Calamity of the Heavens." He went back to poking thoughtfully at a corpse.
Seifer looked ready to either argue or throw something, but then he hissed and once more grasped at his hair with one hand. The other tightened around the hilt of his weapon.
"We should get you inside, yanno," the large man muttered, slipping an arm around his shoulders while the woman ducked under his other side. Vincent followed at a distance as the three limped awkwardly past a number of dead monsters and several houses, in which people pressed their terrified and awed faces against the windows. Should get a count of the dead, Vincent noted automatically.
The three stumbled up the steps of a tiny cottage and fumbled their way inside, Seifer managing to throw a dark glare over the woman's head that threatened bodily harm if Vincent tried to get away. The Turk pushed the door closed as Seifer was wrestled, with much swearing and general verbal abuse and liberal soaking of clothes in gore, onto the sagging sofa. The woman sat beside him while the third of their party went in search of a medical kit.
"We'll try this again. Who the fuck are you and what the fuck were those?"
"My name is Vincent Valentine, and those monsters have been mutated into something stronger and faster than their natures intended." He saw no need to share his thoughts on mako or Jenova. Besides, he could be utterly wrong about all of this and the answer was simply a freak coincidence of nature. Stranger things had happened.
"WHY?" the woman demanded, and Vincent shrugged a shoulder.
"Great," the blond growled under his breath, "just when you thought things couldn't get more screwed up – and I swear to Hyne that if I don't stop hallucinating Leonhart standing over in that corner then my boot is saying hello to someone's ass. Shut up, you're glaring too loudly, Princess."
The woman and the man that reappeared from the bathroom exchanged looks.
"I'm Raijin, and this is the Fujin," said Raijin as he kneeled in front of Fujin and took out a roll of bandages and a potion. He cast a glance at the gunblader scowling poisonously at a corner of the room. "Thanks, yanno. Normally Seifer wouldn't have had much of a problem with such weak monsters, but, uh, he hasn't been feeling too great lately."
Accepting gratitude tended to imply some sort of responsibility from one person to another, but Vincent just tilted his head in acknowledgement and didn't argue.
…
Seifer sat with his arms crossed and tried to remind himself that what he was seeing wasn't real.
Fujin's leg was bleeding and he needed to help her. To be fair, all three of them had sustained their share of scuffs and scrapes, but Leonhart was leaning against the far wall streaked with sweat and battle-filth with Lion Heart swinging loosely in one hand. The voice inside of him was saying kill him, kill the SeeD –
What crawled up Leonhart's ass and died to make him scowl so deeply? "Shut up, you're glaring too loudly, Princess."
Leonhart's pretty eyes narrowed even further and he shifted his stance, making his belts clink. Which didn't really help, because Seifer had once gotten to see exactly what was under all that leather and he knew the real thing smelled as much like gunpowder and weapon grease as this hallucination…
…but he was also standing right there and oh, Ice Princess, seems you're fucking up in your old age. The Sorceress isn't dead, I felt her call her Knight, but it isn't just me she's after…
If you didn't have more brawn than brains –
Fuck off, Princess, this ain't my Hyne-damned fault. I know you're jealous of this prime piece of flesh, but please, try to contain yourself. Think of the children.
Lion Heart was rising in a double-handed swing that Seifer recognized immediately as the gesture that had nearly split his head in two –
It was storming, wasn't it, and for a moment I thought you were part of it, Squall-the-squall. Ha.
Lion Heart was coming towards him and Seifer couldn't allow him to win like he always, always did; Hyperion flashed outwards –
– then Raijin was pinning him down and Seifer watched Lion Heart rip through him, and the once a Knight always a Knight screamed, You idiot, you motherfucking moron, did you think Leonhart wouldn't kill you, that cold son of a bitch, what were you thinking trying to save me, Rai?
And why was Fujin standing there, doing nothing, looking as impassive as that bastard Leonhart save for the sadness in her eye? And who
has the red eyes of a devil
"Seifer," Raijin cried, who was still alive even though Lion Heart was sticking through his back like an overlarge toothpick, "Leonhart's in Garden, yanno, no one's there!"
Seifer was about to point out that everyone was apparently really fucking blind, except someone cast a spell and he couldn't do much of anything.
…
The blackness slid along Squall's flesh, sucking away the warmth and life, violating his body and his mind until he wasn't sure where he ended and it began. A poison-green tendril glowed in the darkness, wrapped itself around his heart, and it felt like drowning.
Through the pain and the terror he dimly recognized a person, a man, with narrow feline eyes as green as the poison and hair as pale as Shiva's snow.
"Mother will tear you apart."
Squall woke up and promptly tumbled off the bed in a heap of flailing limbs and sweat-soaked sheets. He scuttled backwards to press his back against the wall, wrapping his arms around his knees with his chest heaving.
After long minutes of his harsh breathing sounding unnaturally loud in the silence of his quarters, Squall closed his eyes and let his head thump back against the wall. The ghostly sensation of Shiva's arms slid around his waist, giving him the comfort of the cold in the face of dreams that were starting to seem a little too real. Although he'd never heard Rinoa's voice sounding so inhumanly furious.
Get a grip, Leonhart, he sneered at himself.
He must have sat there for a good hour before the vid-phone started beeping, and the gun he kept under his pillow was in his hand and trained on the damn machine before he realized what it was. As Shiva's presence melted away, he stiffly managed to get to his feet and untangle himself from the sheet before falling heavily into his desk chair, setting the pistol to the side of the phone.
"Leonhart," he snapped. When he saw his father's face, he resisted the urge to go ahead and shoot.
"…Squall? Did I, uh, interrupt something?"
Bemused, he glanced down at himself, belatedly realizing that he was wearing nothing but sleeping boxers and the bed behind him was suspiciously messed up. He scowled at the screen and was vindictively satisfied when Laguna choked on a swallow and said, "Ah, right. Well, I have someone who wants to speak with you. He even broke into the capitol to do so, and seriously, who does that?"
Desperate people. "Fine."
Laguna stepped aside. Squall would later deny that his jaw dropped when Cloud Strife sat down.
…
Cloud had to admit that he was amused when the normally apathetic Squall looked absolutely floored.
"Leonhart."
"…Strife."
He was justifiably incredulous. The kid didn't seem like the type prone to much imagination, Cloud thought dryly, no doubt he'd convinced himself that he'd just dreamed up the whole Lifestream thing. But then the blond's gaze sharpened, noticing the sweat on Squall's brow, the shadows under his eyes, and the way he was tapping a handgun in an unsettled tic.
"Listen," Cloud started quietly, "Ultimecia wasn't the last Sorceress."
Suddenly the kid was Commander Leonhart, all business and no hesitation. "Explain."
"Years ago an alien called Jenova came to the Planet. She was defeated when she tried to destroy the world, but her…essence infiltrated the Lifestream. As far as I can tell, she's the one that's been creating these Sorceresses. Not consciously, more like – a virus, infecting them and still trying to destroy the Planet."
"Sorceresses were created by Hyne," Leonhart said sharply, "not…space aliens."
Well, gee, when it was put like that… "Does it really matter? Either way, there's another one."
"And what's your relation with this Jenova?"
"I…was there, when she tried to kill everything."
Laguna made a sound of incredulity behind him, but Leonhart just looked thoughtful, if still disbelieving of the whole story. "Why now?"
Cloud hesitated, having seriously not considered that. The Cetra hadn't exactly been very forthcoming (they never were, let their favorite weapon wallow in guilt and misery for a few centuries and suddenly he'll be easier to mold into what they really want, but don't think like that, it'll lead to madness).
"Maybe it has something to do with whatever Ultimecia did. I don't know." The fact that Leonhart didn't seem to be having an issue with the inconsistencies of timelines suggested it wasn't a new idea to him.
…Huh.
"Laguna," Leonhart said suddenly, making the president jump, "I'll be sending the Ragnarok as soon as possible to pick up Strife."
The vid-screen went abruptly dark. Laguna sighed gustily.
"I guess hoping Squall was in bed with someone was too much."
Cloud stared at him and the man flushed. "I mean, he's just so closed off from everyone, the only time he ever reacts is when he's confronted with someone he thinks is being less than efficient – "
("Don't worry about it, Cloud, if he gets mad, it means he likes you. Usually he just ignores the rest of the world.")
("I didn't mean to anger him…")
("Hey, we've still got that mission to Nibelheim, right? You can make it up to him then.")
The winters in Nibelheim had always been particularly cold.
