sinnatious

Title: Spurious Serpent

Summary: Sequel to Fallacious Deity. With both Chaos and Cosmos dead, the surviving warriors try to find a way home.

Author's Note: Was out of town over the weekend so didn't post. But this chapter was ready to go with minimal reformatting to do so here it is, hope you enjoy.

Chapter 1
Chapter 2

The Mirage Desert stretched out far before him, an endless expanse of white sand, ringed by distant looming black mountains.

Had there been any sunlight, it might have sparkled. In the endless dusk of this world, it was cold, and dead, and even more starkly lifeless than the snowfields.

Cecil trailed the tip of his scabbard through the fine sand. Something about it bothered him. The desert felt unnatural, nearly ethereal.

It might have just been a side effect of the Northern Islands. It had been Chaos’s stronghold, and even now, with both Gods dead, he felt unwelcome. In his memories – those he possessed, at any rate – he had only been here once before, when they had sought out agents of Chaos to end the war once and for all.

When they had sought out and killed Golbez.

‘Is peace what you desire most?’

He rehung his blade and walked deeper into the desert, white cape billowing behind him. He felt unworthy of the Paladin armour, now. Yet the Dark Knight helm constricted his view, and even in the cool desert breeze felt hot and stifling. He pushed his white hair from his eyes as a sudden gust of wind sent sand swirling in his wake.

The world certainly was peaceful now.

He could no longer tell what colour of guilt dogged his steps in the seemingly endless desert. When he sat to rest atop a dune for a few hours, and fell into a light, troubled doze, whose voices taunted him; Golbez, or the comrades he had abandoned without a word?

They wouldn’t have understood. Or perhaps worse, they might have, and might have delayed their own mission to help Cecil with his.

He could not bear the further shame of others sacrificing for his benefit. This search he needed to perform alone.

After a restless few hours of shallow napping, he rose and set forth again into the emptiness.

‘I fear there can be no place for me in the light.’

On the glare of the horizon, a form began to take shape. Cecil’s breath quickened as it grew closer, and the silhouette took on a familiar form.

A mirage?

The form was solid, however, and only gained definition as he moved closer. Cecil found his feet moving faster, until he was almost running. Could it be true? Had he revived after all…?

“Golbez?” His voice cracked on the word.

The form turned around, and his hopes were dashed. What he’d thought was the glint of armour merely dark crystal.

Manikin.

No rumbling words greeted him – only eerie silence and the faint glassy chink and grind of the manikin’s movements. Cecil stared, dumbfounded, as it moved towards him suddenly, murderous intent clear.

Why had he been granted those memories, of all of the ones he was missing? It would have been so much easier if he were ignorant…

The manikin let loose a barrage of dark magic – weak, nothing like the salvos of malicious energy Golbez had hurtled at him, but it finally shocked the paladin from his stupor. He dropped to the ground, rolling away, pulling his sword free as he went.

It was a shade. A copy. This wasn’t his brother.

Yet he could not quite bring his sword to bear – merely retreating in the face of each new attack, blocking and parrying, then hesitating a second too long on every opening.

The manikin remained bold – a fireball at his feet blasting Cecil into the air. It rose beneath him, an ominous shadow, razor sharp crystalline staff bared.

‘Then show me the strength of your conviction!’

With a gasp, Cecil twisted midair and slashed. His blade struck true.

The manikin shattered.

He crashed back to the desert, dropping to his knees, breath coming in shallow pants. Weak. It should not have taken him that long.

Yet Cecil could only stare in dull horror as the remains of the manikin crumbled to dust before him, scattering across the ground.

Blending seamlessly with the sand beneath his feet. An entire desert of crystal dust.

……………………

It had taken weeks, in the end, but they had finally made it to Melmond Fens. It had been days of searching after that until they finally stumbled across a gateway not quite like the others – where most would be but a glimpse into another world, this one seemed to stack them together in a never-ending patchwork that spiralled into what felt like infinity.

Terra didn’t like it, not at all. Unlike many of the other gateways they’d searched, this one was still full of manikins.

And even worse, manikins of him.

She felt a bit sorry for him in the end, though she couldn’t remember why.

His taunts she could remember, however, still stung, and they rung in her ears in place of the warbled, synthetic growls of the manikins. And while a great many of the dimensional patches were foreign to her, there was one in particular, dank, brown, and filled with pipes and tubes, which sent unpleasant shivers down her spine. It took all of her self-control to hide her distress and not to hurry recklessly through it in her rush to transition to a friendlier space.

“You okay?” Onion Knight asked, face upturned and filled with concern instead of the usual shining eagerness.

Terra took a deep breath, and managed to twitch her lips into a weak smile. “I’m alright. We should keep going.”

It was so silly, that he was so young and so small, and sought to protect her. Shame clouded her face once his bright eyes had turned away. It should have been the other way around. He was wonderfully strong, she knew, even if his arms were not long enough to wield a broadsword, or his body quite large enough to carry the heavier armour Cecil favoured. But Terra wanted to. He’d become important, someone she could rely on, and who she wanted to one day rely on her in turn.

Except… could she really? Was she even capable of being anything more than timid and weak, or worse, a monster? Was there no middle ground she could hope to occupy?

Since Squall left… well, something so small shouldn’t have set her off. And Squall hadn’t even been talking about her. But the seed of doubt had crept under her skin like a splinter.

“There’s nothing dangerous left, aside from us.”

She was dangerous. Her control of her magic felt so tenuous. It didn’t seem to matter so much when they’d been travelling the countryside, and the moogles had distracted her - she’d always liked moogles, they were so cute and just one hug could calm her, there was no stress with moogles…

And then to learn that once upon a time she’d fought for Chaos…

Freedom, she reminded herself. She’d been on Chaos’s side because she liked freedom, not destruction. She couldn’t remember how – or why – she’d come to Cosmos’s side, but did it matter? Tidus had been there too. And Cloud – he could be a little scary sometimes, but he wasn’t a bad person.

“I just… want…” Her whispers trailed off. She closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.

It didn’t help. The dank, metallic air only reminded her of shadowed despair. Glimpses of terrifying memories that made no sense.

“There’s a lot of manikins here,” Tidus mused. “How did this many get missed?” He peered through the tubes, searching for an ambush. They’d been set upon nearly immediately after stepping into the Gateway and had been subjected to frequent assaults since. It was the most fighting they’d needed to do in weeks.

“Manikins inside gateways would have been easy to overlook when they were gathering the army for the assault on Cosmos,” Cloud said. “…But you’re right that this many is an anomaly.”

"Maybe it means we’re on to something!” Onion Knight enthused, then glanced to Terra to see if that had cheered her up. She summoned a small smile, and hoped it didn’t look as forced as it felt.

It dropped from her face as an eerie warbling impression of a laugh echoed off the walls. Through the tubes, she glimpsed only a flash of cartwheeling crystal before suddenly he was there, complete in crystalline approximation of clown outfit.

“There’s more!” Tidus called out in warning, even as he drew his sword and rushed to fight a translucent, glittering version of Ultimecia. Onion Knight and Cloud turned to engage others, leaving Terra backing away from the nightmarish facsimile in front of her.

“Don’t-” The words had barely left her lips before she instinctively threw out a barrage of fireballs. The manikin skittered among them, dodging and weaving, slashing angrily at her. She brought up her short sword barely in time, and the block shuddered along her arm with a glassy ring. Frantic, she summoned a flurry of ice, frost drifting around her hands as she formed barrier after barrier. The manikin crashed through them recklessly, until she couldn’t tell whether it was shattered ice or shattered crystal falling to the floor.

She whirled away, wind spinning around her with enough sharpness and force to slice shivers of glass from a nearby tube. She flinched away from it, and then the manikin was coming again, and ‘Destroy them!’ whispered in her ears.

Magic crackled like static across her skin; her fingertips burned with it. Her breath came in short gasps, she couldn’t get enough oxygen, her power, she couldn’t…

One last well-placed Blizzara, and the manikin finally shattered.

Terra still stood there, trembling from exertion, frozen in place. A slither of a memory snaked through the back of her mind, poisonous words. A clown in terrifying colour instead of refracted light and minerals.

“There’s nothing dangerous left, aside from us.”

“Terra?” Onion Knight ventured behind her.

“Stay away!” she yelped, magic lashing out instinctively in her fright.

Except instead of a small thunderspark, a blinding burst of pure energy exploded, knocking Onion Knight clear across the room. He slammed into the wall and fell to the ground, unconscious.

“Squirt!” Tidus yelled in alarm, rushing to his aid.

Terra could only stare in horror, fear mounting as her magic only increased again, writhing and wild, thrumming madly beneath her skin.

“Terra, you-” Cloud started to say.

Terra just shook her head, tears forming in her eyes. She spun on her heel and ran back the way they came, magic whirling and sparking around her.

She was too dangerous, too out of control.

“Terra!”

………………

Cloud watched the half-esper flee with concern, forced to give up the chase – SOLDIER gave him many abilities, but flight wasn’t among them.

He doubted Terra even realised she had shifted to her esper form to escape. Considering the past cycle, it might have been the first time she’d ever done so.

He ran a hand through his spikes, sighing. Another thing he’d overlooked. Given what he’d known of Terra on Chaos’s side, he should have seen this coming. Especially once they started encountering manikins of Kefka.

Nothing he could do for now. He turned back towards Tidus and Onion Knight.

“How is he?” Cloud asked once he was close.

Tidus glanced up at him, eyebrows knit with concern. “Unconscious.”

“Do we have any elixirs?”

Tidus grimaced. “Cecil was carrying them. It’s not that bad though – his armour’s not just for show.” He tapped the bright red helmet with a bit of fondness. “He’ll have some bruises and some light burns, but nothing that a bit of rest won’t heal up.”

Cloud glanced around the gateway. They were near the border of another space, one hopefully more hospitable than this one. It was too easy to be ambushed in this place. “Can he be moved?”

“I think we can risk it. If we make anything worse… well, I guess then we’ll have to go track down a moogle to get new elixirs ourselves.” With more gentleness than one normally attributed the brash blitzballer, he scooped up the small knight, adjusting him carefully so that his head was pillowed against his shoulder. He huffed. “You’re heavier than you look, squirt.”

“I’ll take care of any manikins we come across,” Cloud said. “We’ll find somewhere to make camp. Let me know if you want to swap.”

Tidus grinned at him. He seemed to have an unending capacity to bounce back from any disaster with a smile that Cloud was reluctantly beginning to admire. “Carry that sword and the squirt? I doubt even you’re that strong.”

Cloud’s lips twitched upwards in response, but he was already focused on leading the way to the next area, keeping an eye out for any more manikins. Luckily he only needed to dispatch two before they transitioned to a new part of the gateway – this seemed to be some grand wooden open air stage, set high above a sprawling city. The wide open space made it easy see any approaching manikins, and the weather was pleasant enough that the lack of shelter hardly mattered.

Tidus appeared to agree, as he lowered Onion Knight carefully to the ground.

“Still unconscious?” Cloud asked. That wasn’t a good sign.

“Yeah.” Tidus worked his helmet free, checking his head for damage. “Nothing obvious. We might have to go find a moogle anyway-” He cut himself off as Onion Knight’s face scrunched with pain – clearly in reaction to Tidus’s prodding. “Squirt!”

“Don’ call me tha,” Onion Knight slurred, eyelids dragging open. Cloud knelt down next to him, hand over his eyes, checking the irises. “What are you-”

“Doesn’t seem too bad.” Cloud remarked. Generally people summoned to this world were made of sterner stuff than most even if they weren’t of the science experiment variety. “We can wait it out, at least until he’s well enough to cast some cures on himself.”

Tidus made an exaggerated sigh. “The one person here with any healing magic would be the one injured.”

“…What happened? Where’s Terra?” Onion Knight asked weakly.

“Gone,” Cloud said. Onion Knight’s eyes widened at that, and he moved to sit up, but Cloud pushed him back down. “She’s powerful, she’ll be fine. I think she just needed to… let off some steam.”

“No,” Onion Knight mumbled. “She has to know… wasn’t her fault. I need to-”

“The only thing you need to do right now is rest up,” Tidus interrupted.

“This is a good a place as any to make camp. There don’t seem to be any manikins near,” Cloud observed. They hadn’t rested since before entering the gateway. He couldn’t help wonder if the weariness has frayed Terra’s emotions and control, especially after having both Cecil and Squall strike out on their own. Better not to make that mistake again. “Terra will be alright on her own for a while. I doubt she’ll stay gone long.”

“You don’t know her,” Onion Knight argued.

Cloud probably knew her better than the young knight did, and that she definitely wouldn’t want to see the person she accidentally injured with bruises and burns still fresh, but figured that wouldn’t be welcome commentary when the knight could barely keep his head up, eyelids fluttering. He stayed silent.

“We can’t catch up anyway, squirt. She transformed and took off faster than a cactuar. And you have at least a mild concussion so don’t go aggravating it, alright? If you make yourself sick catching up to her she’s just going to feel worse. Heal up first. Use that big brain you’re so proud of.” Tidus seemed to know the magic words to make Onion Knight settle down, however mutinously. “Two watches, then, I’ll take second watch if that’s cool with you Cloud.” Cloud nodded in assent. He was good for a few more hours yet.

“Make it three. I’ll take last watch,” Onion Knight said sullenly.

“You’re injured-” Tidus tried to interject.

“I’ll be recovered enough by then,” he replied stubbornly. “You guys need to rest too. At least let me do this much.”

Over his head, Cloud and Tidus exchanged a glance. Tidus shrugged.

……………….

Cloud wasn’t terribly surprised when Tidus shook him awake some hours later and said, “The squirt’s gone.”

He rolled to his feet, scanning the area out of habit. “When did he go?”

“No idea. I was going to let him sleep through his watch but he woke up. Then I figured I’d just sit up with him to keep an eye on him in case he drifted off but I’m think he cast a sleep spell on me, wouldn’t surprise me if that’s in his giant bag of tricks. When I woke up he was gone. No guesses what he’s gone to do.”

Chasing Terra, then. Even if he wasn’t surprised by this turn of events, Cloud had hoped that Onion Knight, being the most logical of the lot of them, wouldn’t be that hasty to take off with a concussion. And that with their diminished numbers he wouldn’t leave them sleeping and a prime ambush target.

“We would have gone with him, once he recovered,” Cloud said. “The Mured Moogle can wait.”

Tidus sighed. “I know. But knowing the squirt, I’m pretty sure that’s exactly why he waited to sneak off. Didn’t want to compromise the mission or something.” He scratched the back of his neck, holding back a yawn. “Should have seen it coming. He’s got a cool head except when it comes to Terra.”

Cloud stared into the distance, where the wooden stage merged nonsensically into the dank laboratories they’d left behind. “Should we go after them?” Chasing down Terra hadn’t been practical with an unconscious Onion Knight, but this was a different matter. Even with a head start, they might be able to catch up to him.

Tidus shrugged. “Is there any point? Even if he’s not thinking with his head, he was evidently recovered enough to cast spells. And if he does catch up with Terra, they’ll be fine. We’re this far in, right? Might as well see if there’s anything to this Mured Moogle first, and go meet up with them after.”

“…Sure,” Cloud agreed. But he couldn’t quite chase away the hollow feeling, that six had become five had become four had become two.

Whether he’d had the same thought, or Tidus was better at reading people than he’d given him credit for, the cheerful blitzballer slapped him on the back. “Don’t worry about it. Same as with Chaos’s lot, right? They summoned a bunch of leaders from a heap of different worlds, of course they all want to do their own thing. Probably the only reason they ever managed to get that many lone wolves and egomaniacs and princes or whatever united to a cause was, well, y’know…”

Chaos and Cosmos’s influence. Without a common enemy, they splintered.

It didn’t make Cloud feel any better about it.

“Does that include you?” Cloud asked.

Tidus laughed. “I was never a leader, more of a tagalong. As far as I can remember, anyway.” He fidgeted, staring at his hands as though checking for something. “It might be a bit more risky for me to strike out on my own, anyway, so uh, hope you’re okay with me sticking around!”

It was an odd sentiment – Tidus back in Chaos’s camp had been perfectly comfortable wandering around on his own, and for all that the self-proclaimed blitzballer didn’t have the same fighting background as the rest of them, he was still a formidable opponent, perhaps especially because of his unconventional style. “It’s fine,” Cloud assured him belatedly, when the silence had become awkward. “Just… different. Before, you…”

Had been focused on fighting Jecht. Cloud left the thought unfinished. He sighed, and stared to the edge of the wooden stage, to the dimensional fragment beyond.

Something about it all still didn’t sit quite right.

This world had taught him to trust his instincts, above all else.

“Let’s hurry then,” he said. “Better not to keep them waiting.”

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