Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Another Titleless Fic ❯ And the two worlds crashed into one another... ( Chapter 1 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

It was dark outside. The area was abnormally quiet, for it was the Forbidden Hour. The time where only spirits and ghouls dared to lurk outside. And the brave. A lone man stood in the midst of the gloom, his long silver hair whipping about him. He looked up towards the blinking red light that cast a dark red line through his dark clothes. With a quick flick of his wrist, his small knife sliced straight through the sign, making it break into two perfect halves. His mouth curved up in satisfaction as he watched the two pieces crash down to the floor.
It would be soon. It was almost the time for his revenge to be complete. He had only two motives. One was to rid the world of some certain persons who had murdered his loved ones. The second was to be rid of the world itself...
-------
Chapter 1.
And the two worlds crashed into each other...

Selphie bolted up from her fitful sleep as she felt the ship lurch forward quickly, and then stop. She rubbed her eyes from sleep and stood up unsteadily. As soon as she did so, she felt the ship move once again and she quickly grabbed onto whatever was next to her to steady her balance. She then walked inside of the cockpit of the Ragnarok, keeping her balance with one hand and shielding her eyes from the lamp-light with another. Sure enough, everyone else was awake and there as well.

"What's going on here?"
"I wish we knew." Rinoa said softly, standing up as soon as the other woman entered the room. "You're the last to wake up."
"I see." Selphie looked over to see who was piloting the ship. It was Irvine. Somehow, she couldn't get herself to trust him with it. She walked over and put a hand on her hip. "Why are you the one sitting there?"
Irvine glanced up towards her and gave her a dismissing wave. "I've been watching you do this for a while. Don't worry about it, I've got it down."
"It sure didn't seem that way when I felt those jolts back there."
Quistis spoke. "That wasn't exactly his fault. Look." she pointed towards the control panel screen.
The course of their flight was blinking red and in between the red dots, there was a green symbol. Selphie recognized it as a symbol of another ship. Judging by the direction it was going, it was heading their way. She frowned. "What are you planning on doing about that?"
"We'll have to dodge it." Irvine said.
Selphie immediately slumped her shoulders and disagreed. "Let me handle it. I'm more used to this than you. I can make sure that we won't collide!"
"You don't trust me enough now, do you Sefie?" he quickly adjusted the seat and pressed a few buttons. After he was done with that, he stood up and motioned for her to sit. "She's all yours."
Rinoa was anxiously looking at the directional screen. "What are you planning on doing?" she directed at Selphie.
The other woman sighed. "I don't recognize its signals. I doubt that it's a ship that we know, so we can't really contact it ahead of time. Hopefully they have the same equipment as we do, at least. That way, they'll see that we're here too." she glanced away from the controls in order to smile to the others. "Don't worry about it, I'll take care of it from now. You guys get some sleep. Tomorrow's gonna be a long day."
Rinoa and Irvine both looked doubtful as they left the deck. Quistis trailed after them. Squall followed. Still, Zell insisted that he stay and watch, just in case something went wrong.
"Only a few more minutes until contact..." Zell said, and Selphie gulped.
She flipped a switch, then another. She gulped once more and then tried another set of switches. Nothing different seemed to be happening.
"What's wrong?" Zell finally asked, as her movements became more and more urgent.
The woman attempted a feeble smile as she turned to him. "I...think we're going to crash."
"WHAT?!"
"Well, the controls aren't exactly working and..." she gestured helplessly towards the switches. "I turned them all on at the right time and right order, too! See, red first, green, then blue. And our direction should change, like--"
"WARNING." a loud computerized voice said, as the control panel went strictly red.
She started to panic. "And when the switches don't work like this, the whole thing collapses, like BOOM! And KABAM! And then we fall and and and and--
"In short, this isn't good..." Selphie squeaked after a short moment of silence.
"Oh s***...I'm gonna go tell the others!" Zell said, running out of the deck.
Before he left, Selphie saw the ship heading their way. It was something like she had never seen before, something she might have wanted to pilot if she had the chance to. If she would stay alive...
Images flashed by her head, images of her life in Trabia, then Balamb...her SeeD missions...almost everything that could come to mind...
And then there was only blackness...and the sickening sense of falling...
***
The world was black. Its depth unseen. Unending...black...
Selphie's eyes shot open. There, she saw...black.

::Black...:: she mused to herself as her thoughts finally registered. ::Wait a minute...:: she sat up abruptly, then felt a faint pain stinging her sides and especially, her arm. Almost afraid to look, she raised the injured arm towards a flickering yellow light, the only way she could see. Her arm was cut, most likely from the glass from the front window of the ship. It was an ugly wound, large and unsightly, and she cringed by just looking. She would need to fix it up as soon as it was possible. With a small groan, she picked herself up out of the rubble and glanced about. There was only silence. She could see no one...nothing but the pieces of broken ship underneath the flickering light.
::What...happened?:: the pain was almost unbearable. She could tell that she was quickly losing blood. If she didn't die from the crash, would she just die from a simple wound? "Cure..." she mumbled softly to herself, aiming towards the wound. Just as she thought. Magic would not work wherever she was. She took a few steps from where she stood, to whichever direction she was facing. "Squall? Zell? Rinoa? Quistis...? Irvine...?" she felt weak and she finally sat down where she was, losing all of the hope she had started off with. ::Did they all die? If they did...it would all be my fault...::
"Yes...all my fault..." she mumbled to herself, as her eyes began to close once again. "All...my fault..."
::Whaddya mean, all your fault?:: she laughed unhumoredly to herself as she imagined Zell mocking her for thinking such a dumb thought. ::It's not all your fault...::
"But it is." she argued softly, as she continued to laugh inside, wondering what had brought her to even try to disagree with someone who wasn't there.
She bit back her tears, standing up once more. "I have to at least make sure that they're..." she trailed off as she walked painfully across the rubble left on the ground. "I wonder if there are any other people who survived from the other ship." she chuckled to herself. "Maybe it wasn't even a ship that I rammed into. Maybe it was just a tree..." she walked around in a small circle, digging through the rubbish and trying to see as much as she could with the flickering light. She could find nothing, no indication of life or what used to be alive before.

"I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE!" she finally exclaimed, throwing her arms up in the air in frustration. She leaned against a large piece of the broken ship, not even cringing as glass from it pierced her hand. "I...can't..." she sank back down to her knees, then covered her head with her arms. "So this is how people felt when they were still in Trabia...when I couldn't help them either..."
She felt blinded, both physically and mentally, sitting there without anyone to comfort her or give her any advice. She had always been surrounded by her friends and there, she was able to act freely, but without them...
"Selphie...!!"
The woman blinked away her tears and looked up at the sound of the all too familiar voice. A bright light zipped across the area. It must have been her imagination...
"Selphie! You're safe!" Zell called out, waving his arms about like a maniac. The flashlight in his hand illuminated the whole area that she was in. "Thank God! Everyone else is alright, too! We were looking all over for you!"
She looked towards him with an awestricken look on her face, as though she had seen him for the first time. He blinked back at her, then gave her an uncertain smile. "Come on, let's get back to the others." he said, gesturing behind him.
She stood up slowly then, all sense of pain fleeing from her. "Everyone's okay?"
"Yep. They're all fine."
Selphie smiled finally, as she stumbled her way over to him. "I can't believe it..."
He looked her up and down as soon as she got closer to him and he frowned. "You have some serious getting better to do, you know that? You're bleeding pretty bad."
She took another step forward and before he could turn to lead the way, she grabbed a hold of him and hugged him tightly, tears flowing slowly down her face. He looked slightly uncomfortable but held her there, patting her gently on the back until she calmed herself down. As soon as she did so, she pulled away. "I'm sorry." she said automatically. She looked slightly surprised, for she had thought he would push her aside as soon as he had a chance to.
"Don't worry about it. Let's get back to the others before they start worrying, okay?"
"Okay!" she exclaimed, the usual cheeriness returning to her voice. She took a step forward enthusiastically and toppled over.
"You're a big mess." Zell reminded her, rolling his eyes. "Be careful now." he helped her up and lead her back to the group awaiting her return.
***
The group was stationed in front of a small fire, and they all looked up anxiously as Selphie and Zell walked in. The woman saw Rinoa and Quistis both breath a sigh of relief and Squall shake his head in what she could see as mock annoyance. Irvine immediately noticed the arm that Zell had around Selphie (which was trying to steady her) and stood up.
"Noooo~!" he wailed. "You're getting too close to my Sefie!"
"When did I become yours?" Selphie shot back, sticking out her tongue. As soon as she got close enough to the fire, she flopped down onto the floor, exhausted. "I'm so glad that you guys are all safe!" she breathed, shutting her eyes.
"I guess that's everyone, eh?"
Her eyes shot open as she heard an unfamiliar voice. "Huh?" she blurted out.
Irvine took it upon himself to introduce her to the other figures whom she had paid no heed to before. "These are the people from the other ship." he gestured with a wide swing of his arm. "This here is Cloud, Tifa, Cid, Vincent, Yuffie, Nanaki (or Red13), and Barret." It had been Nanaki who had spoken.
Selphie's eyes swept over each of the mentioned people (and one animal). "Hello." she said politely. "I'm Selphie...nice to meet you." She had wanted to apologize for all of the trouble that she had caused; she knew that the crash was mostly, if not all her fault, but she couldn't get herself to say anything about it. She suddenly felt very weak and there were hazy red and purple lines distorting her vision. She rubbed her eyes hastily and shook her head, trying to make them go away. They were awfully persistent.
Rinoa raised an eyebrow as she saw this movement, then noticed the severe wound on Selphie's arm. She quickly pulled a band of gauze out of her purse and began wrapping it around the arm. "I don't know why, but magic doesn't seem to work around here." she said apologetically. Selphie shrugged as reply; she already knew.
A slightly deep muffled voice spoke, "There's a barrier around here. I sensed it a while before, as soon as we entered into this section of the continent. It's not natural, either. It must have been placed by someone who didn't want any magic users wandering around this place." the voice sounded snappish, annoyed at the concept that the owner of it might have to suffer the consequences of not using magic just because of an unjust twist of fate. Selphie looked up weakly to see who was speaking.
The man who had spoken was now looking aside, away from the group and towards the stars with a slightly faraway look on his eyes. He had long, jet-black hair and was wearing dark clothes as well, along with a red scarf-like object draped around his shoulders. It was covering his mouth, thus making the voice sound muffled. She felt slightly uneasy as she noticed that his eyes were a piercing color of red. The next thing she noticed was that one of his arms wasn't exactly an arm. She flinched as she saw the claw and Rinoa frowned at the movement, for she was still working on wrapping.
The dark haired man seemed to be distant from his other crew members, almost as though he didn't acknowledge their presence at all. He also seemed to be the most moody of the other group.
As Rinoa continued to wrap, Selphie took her time to notice the rest of the members. Cloud, who had spiky blonde hair and unusual clothes, Tifa with her long hair and captivating deep brown eyes that seemed to glow a strange ruby color at times, Vincent, whom she had analyzed a while before, Yuffie with a bright but fidgety smile on her face...was she hiding something?...Cid who was smoking his pipe and staring off into space and Nanaki who was a cat?! tiger, maybe. She noticed that on his tail sparked a small flame and she wondered if that was normal. Finally, she looked over at Barret, who was standing besides Cloud now, and waving his arms about in what seemed like anger. The two were fighting, now. About what, she didn't know. She didn't even care to know anymore. She strained to hear, but her ears failed her. She was feeling very drowsy. After a while, even her eyesight began to fade. She fell forward and into a state of unconsciousness.
***
Rinoa cried out as soon as Selphie fainted. She had known that the other woman's wound was not just a scratch, but she had not anticipated so much blood loss from it. The rest of the group immediately stopped what they were doing to look back at her.
Irvine was the first to realize what happened. "Sefie?" he stood up, walking over to the unconscious woman. He then turned a questioning gaze to Rinoa, who was shrugging and looking helpless.
"Blood loss." Zell spoke softly, and Rinoa nodded at that. He sighed. "I knew that she was bleeding bad, but this...Rinoa, is there anything we can do about it?"
Rinoa looked back down towards Selphie and then shook her head. "I think we should just let her rest up for now. We can't use magic, so--"
"How about potions?" Irvine interrupted.
"A potion can't heal a wound, Irvine." Quistis said matter-of-factly. "It can regain lost hit points, but can't heal a wound in its entirety. I agree with Rinoa on this part. Let her rest. She won't die from that kind of injury."
"How can you be so sure?"
Quistis stopped, then spoke once more, now in her instructor's tone of voice. Calm but crisp, ordering...but patient, as though she was talking to a disbelieving child. "I used to be and am still an instructor. I know this kind of thing. I've helped Dr. Kadowaki a countless number of times." The ordering seemed to have worked. Irvine stayed silent.
"If she rests enough, she'll heal automatically." Quistis continued. "I'm not sure of anyone else, but I sensed something in the barrier around us. Yes, it is stopping magic from seeping through from the outside, but there are certain areas...although I have yet to see any, that have small magic points on them. If we could just get her there..."
"What do you mean?" Tifa questioned, flipping aside her hair. "So there are certain places where we can use magic?"
"I'm not sure. I just know that there is magic concentrated in those areas."
"I wonder how you know this without seeing a place like it."
Quistis had resorted back to her instructor tone. "I wonder why no one else can sense it."
The place grew silent, and suddenly, Vincent stood up. Quistis glanced towards him, without speaking.
The man took a deep breath, then let it out. He faced the group around the fire with the usual cool, composed expression on his face. He was eying Selphie. After noticing that everyone else had their eyes on him, he turned to Irvine. "You. You're coming with me." he said slowly.
Irvine didn't look too thrilled at the prospect. "What do you mean?" he drawled, narrowing his eyes.
"Bring the girl. I know where to take her."
"HUH?"
Vincent had begun to take a few steps away and now he turned and glared at Irvine with dark red eyes. "I know a place where we can heal her. Are you coming or are you not!?"
Irvine was now glaring back towards the other man, seeming slightly offended. "How do I know that I can trust you?" he was saying, taking a step back. "I don't think I can really trust any of you, actually." he finished up slowly, looking the other man up and down. His eyes swept through the group, almost as though he was analyzing them all from inside and out.
Squall stood up as well, then, along with Zell. The latter spoke. "If Irvine's not planning on taking her, then I will. It was partly my fault for taking so long to bring her back here."
Squall immediately took this time to turn on Irvine. "You...! We don't have the time to consider about trusting. If you're going to trust them, now's the time. If you aren't, then you'd better get out of this place right now. Or better yet, know how the h*** we get out of here in the first place! We have no ways of getting back to Balamb at this rate. We don't know where we are. We're completely lost! Do you understand this!? And if you do, then tell me why you're hesitating now!"
Irvine flinched at the heavy words but stood his ground. Zell was picking Selphie up and slinging her over his shoulder. As soon as that was done, he turned towards Vincent, who looked very unhappy. "Well, are we going or not?" he asked. "If we are, we'd better hurry."
Rinoa pulled on his sleeve before he could start off. She was looking at Selphie with a concerned expression on her face. "Let me go with you." The man nodded and the three (along with the injured) started off.
As they left, Irvine continued to stand in his spot, his arms crossed and his back turned to the group. Quistis finally walked over and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned to glare at her. "What do you want?" he growled softly and she narrowed her eyes. Any normal person probably would have been slightly frightened by the look on the man's face then, but she had been conditioned to expect anything. Still, she was frowning.
"What I want," she began, "Is an explanation on why you don't wish to trust these people. What bad have they done to you! You're not a young child anymore. Learn to trust, won't you!?"
"Trust!?" he hissed at her, "Don't go lecturing me about trust. You don't even know the gist of it. You haven't been betrayed like I have before. ...you haven't been through what I have. Don't try and talk to me about it. And let me tell you the reason of not trusting 'these people'! You say that they haven't wronged me. Well, they haven't done anything right in my eyes yet!" he swatted her hand away from his shoulder with an unusually hateful expression on his face.
"We don't quite have the time to learn about each and every one of them, okay!?" the blonde woman asked, frustrated. "If we had the time to, then I wouldn't be pestering you about this. But right now is an emergency. We need to work together in order to survive out here. You heard what Squall said before, didn't you?"
Irvine finally shook his head, obviously annoyed at the subject. Before the woman could speak out again, he started walking off, the opposite way of where Vincent and the others had gone.
"Where are you going?" she finally asked, and he wouldn't reply; just kept going until his figure faded out along with the darkness surrounding them. Quistis frowned again, but when she started after him, Squall stopped her.
"He'll be back. Count on it."
She nodded slowly and took her seat once more. "But I still wonder what he meant by not having been through what he has. There must have been something about his past..." she trailed off and looked into the flames.
The group was silent again, basking in the warmth of the fire in between them all.
"We're going to have to do something about this. Soon." Cloud said, lying down on the ground. "I propose that we split up into groups. That way we can get help quicker."
"But it'll be harder for us to communicate with one another. If one of our groups gets found, how do we find the others?" Tifa asked then.
"We're gonna have to take the chances. It's better than us getting into a big group and having to retrace steps."
***

"Tell me one thing," Zell was saying, "Why would you know where to take Selphie in order to heal her?"
Vincent continued trudging his way on in the half dark, as Rinoa was the one with the flashlight and she was behind the others. He stayed silent for a moment, then muttered, "This isn't the first time I've been here."
"Ah."
"So, how far away are we from 'civilization'?" Rinoa asked jokingly, even though she was not enjoying the trip through tall grass very much. "And did we have to take this way? I think there was a flatter road over there somewhere." she made a gesture with her hands.

"A week on foot. Maybe more." Vincent said, in the same muttering voice. She gasped.
"A week!? You're kidding!"
He stopped in his tracks and turned to her, his dark red eyes illuminated slightly by the moon. "It's not too far. I've been through worse."
Zell finally began to complain about an achy shoulder and Rinoa begged for the other man to continue leading. Vincent did so, reluctantly.
Once they reached the spot, both Zell and Rinoa could feel the barrier slightly loosen and a soft wind blow gently by. The man lay Selphie onto the soft grass and rubbed his shoulders. "Gee. Now what do we do?" he asked after an almost unbearable silence.
Rinoa leaned down then, concentrated on her abilities and whispered, "Cura."
The two men watched as a faint light surrounded the unconscious woman and then fade, seemingly into her body. To Rinoa's concern, when she unwrapped the gauze from around the other woman's arm, the wound was still there. She tried again, in vain. She finally looked up towards Vincent, eyes pleading. "What's wrong with it? My magic doesn't seem to be working."
"Don't worry about it. It will heal when she wakes up." he said simply, turning aside. "That should have been enough." he leaned down suddenly, and when he stood up again, the two others saw that there was liquid dripping from his hand. "Although this isn't much, it should heal her if your magic didn't work all of the way." he added in, stepping aside.
Rinoa noticed that he was standing in front of a small fountain, which seemed oddly mismatched with the surroundings around the small group. The fountain was covered with small foliage, but the water was clear and shining. She blinked. "Owl's tear?"
"No. This is just a healing spring." Vincent said softly. "But it will only work here. If you take it away from the place where magic is blocked, its curing ability will simply fade away. It will become pure water."

Rinoa exchanged skeptical glances with Zell, but decided to take the other man's word for it. He didn't seem the kind to lie, anyways. She pulled out a small plastic cup from her purse (which seemingly contained many odds and ends) and dipped it into the water. Feeling the icy cold water made her cringe, but in an odd way. Not like her hand was freezing, but like it was burning. But it was cold.
She shook her head, hoping it was just her imagination and that it wasn't some cursed water. With that, she leaned down and put the cup to Selphie's lips. As soon as the woman got one swallow through, she bolted awake and thrashed around for a while in the thick grass. Rinoa immediately turned to Vincent questioningly, but the man wouldn't say another word about it. Soon, though, Selphie calmed and sat up, though her eyes were watering. "What was that?!" she demanded to know, coughing slightly.
Rinoa was relieved to see that the wound on the other woman's arm was closing slowly and it continued to do so until it left just a tiny scar. Selphie was still whining about the water. She wanted to know what had been in it and no one there could exactly explain.
Zell shrugged his shoulders and then said something about never wanting to drink that water either, even if it healed him, at least after seeing what Selphie had done afterwards. And finally, after a moment's rest, they headed back towards the other group.
***
The next morning, Irvine was, sure enough, back at the small camp, seemingly as if nothing had happened the day before. Selphie had questioned about his mysterious disappearance the night before, and no one could give her a clear enough explanation that she soon gave up and fell asleep. This day, she was as bright and cheery as usual.
She was also the first to awaken. She immediately set upon the task of waking up everyone else, and none of the others appreciated the favor. As soon as the group gathered around, Squall spoke of the plans.
"We still need to investigate this place further. Vincent seems to know this area the best out of all of us, but his memory of it is still not very clear. We'll split up into four groups or so and have each group go a different direction. There seems to be four cities around here, according to him, one in each direction, and so if we just keep walking in a direction without wandering around, we'll eventually get to a place and possibly get help.
"I know that this seems slightly impossible at the moment, since we don't seem to really know anything about anyone who was on the other ship. Cloud came up with the idea of having each group have people from both ships divided equally amongst us. Are there any objections?"
Quistis shook her head but spoke anyway. "What I want to know is why this barrier has been put here. If Vincent has seen this place before, I'm assuming that the place had the barriers before, but--"
"Don't assume that." Vincent cut her off, "It never had barriers before. I was wondering about it myself."
"What do you mean by that?"
He hesitated, then decided to speak. "I was here before, on a mission...for certain reasons. I had never seen any barriers here at all; the only reason I knew about the small 'magic patches' as you call it, is because there were certain areas where the magic was concentrated even more than in other spots. I thought that if the magic was concentrated there enough, the barrier would fall apart from its intensity. Luckily, that seemed to be correct." his mouth closed and his serious eyes looked away into the distance.
"So, there may be a reason for this...barrier."
"So the crash may not have been really accidental." Cloud finally said, scratching his head in confusion. "This is definitely losing me. All in all, there may be someone who had anticipated this crash and had placed the barrier up in order to prevent us from using magic. Maybe this person has a grudge on one of us or--"
"That's logical but it isn't really...sound." Quistis pointed out. "If this person has a grudge on one of us, why would this person go after every single one of us and not just that individual?"
Irvine looked lost as he whispered to Selphie, "Now this is why I didn't take philosophy." The girl giggled, but shrugged as well, showing how he wasn't the only one confused by it all.
"Wait. So in other words, you're saying that it wasn't Sefie's fault at all, right?" Irvine asked after a moment of silence. "Like, this was all 'planned' out by someone...?" a few people nodded and he made a gesture with his hand. "Then who could it be? If anyone! Is it another Ultimecia or something?"
"No way!" Zell exclaimed.
"Ultimecia...?" Cloud was exchanging confused glances with Tifa.
"No one you'd know about." Quistis said curtly, trying to change the subject. "Well, shouldn't we--"
"Anyways, I think that we should start heading towards the cities as soon as possible, before we run out of supplies. Luckily, it seems that we were all able to get a few supplies from the remaining of our ships..." Squall spoke above her and she quieted down in order to listen.
"We can't waste time on choosing who goes to what group." he finished up. "Anyone have any quick ideas on who should go with who?"
Selphie pumped her arm in the air, a bright smile on her face. "How about picking out of a hat?" she pointed at Irvine. "He has a hat, and I'm sure that someone was able to keep paper and pen somewhere, right?"
Rinoa pulled a few memo papers out of her purse and waved a pen around. "Will this do?"
Squall didn't look too thrilled as he took the paper, pen and hat. "As long as no one complains." he muttered finally.
"How many people are with us?" Tifa questioned then, pushing hair away from her face.
"There's Squall, me, Irvine, Rinoa, Selphie, Quistis...Cloud, Tifa, Nanaki, Cid, Barret, Yuffie, and Vincent...right?" Zell pondered aloud. "That'll be 13 people, so we have someone extra." he pointed out. Squall shrugged at the comment and mumbled that it'd work out somehow.
"Maybe we should just work as pairs." Quistis suggested, watching Squall writing everyone's name down on the pieces of paper. "That way, we won't have to worry about people getting lost and slowing us down. We could go to different places. How many of those...(walkie talkies, was it?) did we have left?"
"Six." Cloud answered.
Quistis looked towards Squall anxiously, drumming her fingers upon the tree she was sitting next to. When she got no reply, she impatiently repeated her suggestion.
Squall looked uninterested. "You decide, then. I don't mind what we do. Just as long as we all get out of here alive."
"I think I should go alone!" Yuffie then announced, pouting when everyone glared at her. "I'm an honorable ninja and I work best alone anyways." she said in a huff.
Rinoa and Selphie had been chatting away in a small section away from the group and they both turned when Squall reported, "I'm done. I'll call out the pairs now, then."

"So we're working in pairs now?" the blonde woman asked, glancing towards the man holding the cowboy hat.
She got no reply, to her disgust, and so assumed that it meant yes.
"First of all, Cloud...and Quistis. I want you two to head south. Although I don't know what exactly you can do, I'm trusting that you, Cloud, can handle yourself fine, am I right?" Squall asked, his voice slightly irritable.
Cloud looked back at him with a matching annoyed glance. "I'll be fine."
"Okay. Second, Zell...and Yuffie. You two head east."
"HUH!?" Zell blurted out and Yuffie shot him a dirty look. "I have to go with her!?"
"You gotta problem with that, Mister!?" Yuffie demanded, standing up from her spot to glare at him. "As I said before, I might as well go alone!"
"Third." Squall said, ignoring the two's incredulous looks. "Selphie...and Vincent. I trust that Vincent, you'll lead the way to somewhere safe. I don't mind what direction."
Selphie and Rinoa exchanged glances and the latter patted the former on the back. "Good luck, Selphie."
Selphie looked unhappy. She hadn't really wanted to go with someone who seemed as moody as the dark-haired man. She shrugged though and mumbled, "I'll try my best."
"Fourth." Squall reached into the hat and pulled out a paper. "Irvine...and Tifa."
Irvine looked overjoyed by the concept of getting to go alone with a woman. Tifa didn't look so thrilled.
"I want you two to head west."
Tifa nodded at the instructions, although she seemed slightly reluctant to be taking orders from someone other than who she was used to. She just hoped that she was doing the right thing.
"According to this, it seems that I'm going with Barret..." Squall finally announced after a moment of sustained silence.
Barret slapped him on the back with his unarmed hand and gave him a grin. "You'd better not let me down, then, man."
Squall made no reply on the comment, just leaning forward because of the harsh impact of the blow. Barret didn't seem to know how strong he really could be. The former turned to Rinoa and said, "Rinoa, you're going with the other two, Cid and Nanaki. I trust you'll be okay?"
"I'll be fine." the woman replied quickly.
"I want you to go north." he scanned the small group to see if anyone disagreed with his thinking. Besides an annoyed looking Zell and Yuffie, he saw no other disagreement. "I guess it's settled."
"Let's move on out then!" Selphie said, her normal enthusiasm for any new adventure returning. She pumped her arm in the air like usual and checked her boots when she stood. She wandered over to Vincent and asked cheerily, "So, which way are we going?"
Vincent turned from where he was to look at her and then ignored her question as he started walking away from the group. Selphie looked slightly frustrated. She looked to Rinoa for advice. "Does this mean that I'm supposed to follow him?"
"I guess so." Rinoa said with a shrug. She gave the other woman a small walkie-talkie. "Don't forget this and don't be afraid to use it whenever you need it okay?" she smiled. "I'll see you later."
"Mm-hmm. Good luck!" Selphie called out as she trotted back over to her new partner. The two were the first to leave.
Tifa stood up then, stretched, and turned to Irvine. She nodded towards him and the pair was off as well. The next to leave was Cid, Nanaki, and Rinoa. The latter ran over to Zell before she left and handed him the remaining walkie-talkies so he could pass them out. After another wishing of good luck, the remaining members of the group dispersed.