Spurious Serpent, Chapter 6

[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: I probably should have added that warning from Fallacious Deity that Cloud gets an unfair distribution of awesome in this fic. Penultimate chapter! A bit of a hasty fic overall but I'll be glad to finally have it out of my head.

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5

 

It didn’t take long to find Onion Knight and Terra – or more accurately, for Onion Knight to find them.

The red-armoured knight dashed up to them, speaking rapid fire as soon as he was in ear-shot. “Thank Ifrit you’re still in the area look I’m sorry I took off like that but it was important and I found Terra and she’s better but you really need to know we found this weird gateway and I think Cosmos was reborn?”

“Good to see you’re okay, squirt!” Tidus said, patting the kid’s helmet far more roughly than called for with a slightly vicious smile.

“I said I was sorry!” he repeated, then narrowed his eyes at them. “You’re not surprised about Cosmos.” He peered around the blitzballer, spotting Cid. “You found the Mured Moogle?”

“He was the one who warned us Cosmos and Chaos might still be around,” Cloud added stiffly. He softened his expression and nodded at Terra, who walked up to join them at a far more sedate pace. “Feeling better?” he asked in a low voice.

“Yes. I’m sorry if I worried all of you,” Terra said.

Cloud was mostly relieved that issue at least had worked itself out. He’d felt bad about not going immediately after her – maybe give her a durable target to release some of her energy on - but Onion Knight’s injuries had been the more pressing concern at the time, even if the knight in question hadn’t agreed.

Then Terra caught sight of Cid, and her eyes grew starry, and she was lost to them.

“Oh, uh, nice to meet you. My, this is awkward,” Cid squeaked as Terra caught the moogle in a fierce hug.

A warning clambered in Cloud’s throat – he’s a scientist, he’s the scientist – but didn’t escape beyond a clenching of his knuckles. He would settle for keeping his distance, and watching him for the slightest misstep.

They took the time to exchange information as they made their way towards a teleport crystal Cid knew of that could bring them to the Northern Islands to track down the rest of their missing number. While Onion Knight was brimming with questions for Cid, Terra’s fawning over the moogle didn’t give him much time to ask. Cloud was mostly relieved they at least knew where Cosmos was. So long as she remained sealed within that gateway her influence on the world, and more importantly his existence, stayed null.

None of them expected that could last forever.

It was less than a day’s travel to the crystal – and it was barely in sight when it flashed, revealing two familiar silhouettes.

“Cecil! Squall!” Onion Knight perked up, dashing ahead of them.

“The gang’s all here, huh?” Tidus said, though his grin faded into a thoughtful frown. He shared a look with Cloud, who nodded minutely in response.

Onion Knight and Terra hadn’t been far away to begin with, and knew where Cid’s gateway had been – running into them so soon wasn’t particularly suspicious. Squall and Cecil, though? They’d separated weeks ago. Even with a functioning teleport crystal nearby, he’d been prepared for a search of days, not hours.

Cloud eyed the moogle hovering alongside them with fresh distrust.

When the rest of them caught up, exchanging eager greetings, that concern deepened. Squall’s clothes were torn and blood-stained, though no visible injuries remained. Their nature was obvious at first glance, though. Claw marks. Far too large for any known manikins.

Squall met his gaze, and wasted no time explaining.  “Chaos is still alive.”

“Revived!” Cid corrected in a squeak. “He never could have been sealed away at full strength.”

Squall’s stare shifted to the diminutive scientist. “You found the Mured Moogle after all then.”

“He knows a lot,” Tidus supplied, and squinted at Squall, poking his shoulder experimentally. “Are you okay, though? Did you actually try to fight Chaos?”

Squall ignored him, turning his attention back to Cloud. “When you fought Chaos, what was it like?”

They all went quiet, awaiting his answer in rapt attention. Cloud averted his eyes. All things told, it had been a miracle he’d survived, never mind won. “You saw the fight with Cosmos. It was a lot like that, but more… physical, I guess.” He shifted uncomfortably. It was the first time any of them had asked about that battle so directly. “He was… overwhelming. To him, it was just sport, until suddenly it wasn’t. And that’s probably why I won.” He shrugged. “He underestimated me.”

“Sport,” Squall muttered, then shook his head. “Chaos wasn’t – he was like a wild animal. Feral. All power, no reason.”

“Cosmos too,” Onion Knight added, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. “I grabbed Terra and ran for it before she could do anything but the impression I got was, I don’t know, machine-like?” He shook his head. “She was different. She didn’t resemble the Cosmos we knew. Didn’t even try to speak. It was a bit scary, actually.”

“…How different are we, without memories?” Terra wondered. “When we first came here… all we did was fight. We didn’t start to question it until so much later.”

Cloud remembered Tidus, when he first arrived. Barrelling after Jecht with single-minded ferocity, barely bothering to even learn his allies’ names. Terra’s blank gaze as she followed Kefka mutely. All of the warriors he’d fought, freshly summoned by Cosmos, throwing down to fight the second they realised he was the enemy. Never stopping, never asking, beyond the odd taunt in battle.

It took time before they started to think, started to plan, started to act on anything more than base reflexes and instinct and orders from their patron deity. Even longer before they started to question.

Cloud had seen the dragon’s coming more than once before he’d started.

“Then this is…” Onion Knight murmured.

“They were revived,” Cloud repeated Cid’s earlier words, and his stomach churned as the depth of that revelation hit him. “They’re – the same as us. They were revived, and lost their memories.”

The seven of them stood in awkward silence. Cid’s wings fluttered a nervous beat in the background.

“What do we do, then?” Onion Knight asked eventually. “They’re sealed for now, but if they break out-”

“We deal with them, obviously,” Squall said. “That’s the whole reason I came back here. As a group, we can do it.”

“But if we fight them what’s to say they won’t just revive again?” Tidus argued.

“No,” Cecil spoke up for the first time.  “No more fighting.”

Cloud focused on him for the first time – Squall’s torn and bloody clothing had taken all the attention in their arrival. Cecil had seemed fine in his dark knight armour, his expression hidden to them, his voice deep and echoing within his helmet.

Something was wrong.

“What else can we do, though?” Terra asked softly. “If they break free…”

Cecil’s posture tensed. “You would put them down again? Isn’t that just repeating the cycle?”

“We just want to go home,” Onion Knight said. “We wouldn’t have had to fight the first time if Cosmos didn’t-”

“I fought for Cosmos,” Cecil reminded them abruptly.  “If you won’t listen, then I will show you the strength of my conviction!”

Cloud had drawn his sword on pure instinct – those extra few seconds let him catch the wicked black blade driving for his stomach and push it aside. He leapt back, barely keeping ahead of the dark knight’s rush, the ghostly memory of another cycle having him twist aside, avoiding the burst of dark miasma thrown off the tip of the blade.

“Cecil?” Onion Knight yelped. “What are you doing?”

“What I should have done from the start,” he replied, whirling and stabbing, each vicious strike punctuated by a burst of dark magic. Cloud swept it away with his buster sword, and the dark knight stumbled from the force of the blow.

Then a flash of silver caught the edge of his vision, and Cloud stepped back, barely in time to avoid the gunblade bearing down between them. “Did you lose your mind?” Squall spat.

“I know what I’m doing,” Cecil replied coldly, twisting away as the gunblade fired, the heat and light of the flash absorbed by his armour.

“I know what you think you’re doing, and it’s stupid,” Squall hissed. “You don’t mean this. If you did, you would have left me to die outside that gateway.”

“It was different, before I knew Cosmos had revived.” Cecil gathered dark energy in his spare hand, flinging it towards Cloud. The SOLDIER rolled to the side, and it sailed past, crackling in the air until it fizzled into nothing. “Even if it’s a fool’s errand, I choose my side. And I’ll fight for it.”

“Cosmos is- was- dead!” Onion Knight shouted. “You say you want a world without fighting, but the only one fighting is you!” He blinked at that.  “The only one-”

“Don’t force us to do what Golbez forced you to!” Squall snapped, and slammed the flat of his blade against Cecil’s head. The dark knight stumbled from the force of it, and for the first time, stilled.

“I…” His voice echoed strangely in his helmet, a whisper emboldened by its own reflections.

Onion Knight ran in front of him. “Cecil, just stop and think. You wanted a world without fighting, right? But what do you think would really happen if you won?”

His grip tightened on his sword.  “It’s not about winning.”

Squall took advantage of his hesitation and knocked him to the ground, pinning him with his gunblade. Tidus followed up, grabbing the dark knight’s free arm and holding it down. Cloud stayed carefully back, sword at the ready, just in case.

Cid, on the other hand, flew closer, hovering above the fray, watching with now-obvious scientific analysis.  “I should have seen this coming,” he said.

“Seen what coming?” Cloud asked.

The moogle shook his head in worry. “This is ShinRyuu’s doing.”

“Huh?” Tidus asked from where he and Squall were fighting to keep a struggling Cecil safely restrained.

“ShinRyuu doesn’t want the cycles to end,” the moogle explained. “He needs conflict. The pact he made with Chaos and Cosmos ensured it. But for the first time, everyone left was working together.”

Finally, Cecil stopped his struggles, though neither Tidus nor Squall let him up. “Can he do that?” Onion Knight asked. “Just… influence us like that?”

“Cosmos and Chaos could,” Cloud remarked, eyes narrowed in thought. He looked to Tidus. “It’s been bugging me, what you said before. About how everyone was splitting off.”

Cautiously, Tidus released Cecil’s hand, seeing that the dark knight was now paying more attention to the conversation than fighting. “You think it was more than just personality coming through?”

Cloud didn’t answer. Instead, he turned to Cid. Suspicions he’d been slowly nurturing since they met the scientist were beginning to take shape. “It’s not Chaos and Cosmos who summon us directly, is it? Otherwise Cosmos would have known how to return us home, and Chaos could have returned to his homeworld for revenge whenever he wanted.”

Cid hesitated, but admitted. “No, it isn’t. It is their power, but navigating the interdimensional rift like that is beyond them.”

“That’s Lufenian technology, right?” He stared hard at the moogle, who wilted under his glare. “And you made a pact with ShinRyuu.”

“Wait.” It appeared Onion Knight had caught on. He stared at the moogle with wide eyes. “You mean…”

Cid sighed, bobble drooping. “It’s as you guessed. The pact I made with ShinRyuu, to allow me survival in this world… I gave him my knowledge. Of how to search the dimensions, and find suitable champions for his conflict.”

Terra covered her mouth in silent horror. “No…”

This was why Cloud hated scientists.

“Wait,” Squall said. “Doesn’t that mean he can get us home? Who cares about Cosmos and Chaos if we can just leave right now?”

“But if ShinRyuu can summon us back whenever he pleases,” Onion Knight said, voice hitching higher with every word. “It wouldn’t matter! We get home only to be yanked back here all over again!”

They all fell silent at that. Trapped in a cycle, with no way out. Pulled back and forth at the whims of the gods.

“…What can we do?” Terra asked softly.  “Is there even anything we can do?”

Cloud stared up at the sky. Endlessly roiling grey clouds, trapped in an eternal dusk.

"It's obvious, isn't it?" Cloud asked, hefting his Buster Sword back onto his shoulder.  "We have to kill ShinRyuu."

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