Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Of Shadows and Dust: The Story of Kyrie ❯ First Impressions ( Chapter 3 )

Chapter III: First Impressions

*Yet another Disclaimer (come on you knew it was coming): All Disclaimers from previous chapters apply. Also, the creature mentioned by Shadalexia is from the Star Trek Universe and is thus property of the owner of that fine series (Paramount I think). Don't know if that really needed a disclaimer, but better safe then sorry. Also the characters depicted here from FFVII don't belong to me, but I probably already mentioned that once. Just don't sue me, please.

*Last Chapter, we left Kyrie and her newfound friend Celes in a bit of a jam. The Shadowmancer Shadalexia had managed to find the young Esper and was about to have her minions strike down Celes when Kryie decided it was time to take a stand…

The energies swirled around her, empowering her essence with pure mana. Even the shadows could only stare in disbelief as she transformed before them. Her hair seemed to lengthen to her ankles, and grow increasingly thicker to the point where it seemed like a large mass almost as large as her. Her eyes seemed to grow slightly larger, and the colors became more defined. The whites of her eyes seemed to be transformed into flawless ivory, the corneas to brilliant Star Sapphires, glowing brightly. The pupils of her eyes, also expanded slightly, and their darkness was like flawless onyx. A thin layer of white fur seemed to grow over every inch of her body, giving the impression of some catlike animal, certainly not anything menacing looking to Celes… or Shadalexia for that matter. Her hair turned to striking silver, starting at the roots and seemingly burning its way to the tips. Her Aura exploded into a blue energy field burning away the hospital gown in an instant, but due to her fur, nothing of her body was visible.

As she held the Atma weapon before her, a bright blue energy blade extended almost 4 feet long. Her right foot slid backwards slowly as she changed her stance to something more like that of a samurai, both hands clutching the blade above her head with the sinister point directed towards the Shadowmancer.

She spoke, and her voice burned into the minds of all who heard it. Her lips didn't move, but the mental voice spoke volumes. It was obvious she was quite pissed.

"I don't care who you are or what you want with me," she growled, "but this madness ends now. I have not the patience for your insolence."

Shadalexia's face turned from sinister to almost disgust. "This is your true form? You have got to be kidding. You look like the tragic result of a gene splicing experiment with a goddamned Tribble! Yes, much too cute." With that she drew a blade from beneath her dark cloak. "Some ultimate being," she grumbled.

"You mock me but you have yet to realize that looks are and always will be deceiving," Kyrie retorted. "I have yet to realize my full capabilities, but if the last 4 years are any indication, I can kick your inky, dandelion eating ass." Her eyes seemed to gain greater focus as she began to cast her first real spell. "Jen'sareth Marakorin Hienmordan…" The energies began to cycle into white. "Burn away evil with the glory of the light! Luminos!" At the final word a bright flare of light was expelled from her aura. Shadalexia shielded her eyes in time to avoid the effects, but the shrieking from her summoned shadows made it quite obvious, there was no defense for them from such an attack.

Celes dropped to the floor covering her eyes as the shadows were burned away almost instantly, leaving nothing but the echo of their tormented screams behind.

"Next," her gaze upon Shadalexia seemed to say. But it was obvious she wasn't very fond of continuing the conversation. For such a powerful spell, Kyrie didn't even seem a bit fatigued, and that scared the Shadowmancer. She knew that less than 48 hours ago, she suffered though a very traumatic incident, yet, after all that, she seemed to be full of energy, and have the will to use it.

Shadalexia held her sword defensively before her. The wicked curved blade contained a hook-like portion 9" from the tip on the underside that curved inwards then down again. The weapon seemed to be covered in a sickly green liquid. Kyrie surmised that it was some kind of poison, and knew instantly she didn't want to be on the receiving end. Although she didn't know what it would do, she knew for a fact she wouldn't like it.

"Be careful Kyrie!" Celes shouted. "You just transformed into your true form. You may not have total control over your powers yet!"

Shadalexia lunged forward into the attack, but the young Esper easily blocked her sword swipes. It was also obvious though, that Kyrie lacked close combat experience. Her speed had to pick up the slack left by her unskillful attacks, but it was evident it more than made up for them. Kyrie's sword strikes were wild and unguided, but her speed and berserk fury made any attempt at a counterstrike impossible.

The battle raged for a grand total of 40 seconds before a well-placed strike from Kyrie caught Shadalexia across the abdomen. She stumbled back, grasping the wound with her left hand and muttering words Kyrie did not understand, but knew they must be curses.

"I'm not going to let myself be beaten by an oversized Q-Tip," she growled. "This is far from over young one. I'll soon return to claim what is mine!" With that she began to fade into misty shadows. Kyrie lunged forward attempting to slash though her, but her sword simply separated the mists that were quickly dissipating.

"Damn!" she mentally shouted. "I almost had her." Kyrie relaxed her posture as Celes began to rise to a standing position.

"Don't worry about that," she replied. "Judging by how bad she wants you, I'm sure she'll make another attempt. Kyrie, your speed and magical strength are quite impressive, but…"

"I know Celes," she sighed. Her sigh was vocalized sounding quite close to the coo of a Tribble. "I… don't really know how to fight. I need to learn quickly, she certainly won't be so easily beaten next time."

Celes walked towards her. "You do look… cute."

Kyrie turned towards her. "Did I look like this when I was a baby?"

Celes chuckled. "Actually yes, but you were a lot smaller then."

Kyrie chuckled in reply, once again vocalized. It sounded to Celes like the chuckle of a young girl, light and almost musical. She smiled at this, but inwardly she was sad. She knew she would have to take Kyrie to a place that would probably depress her more than this world ever could…

"Kyrie, its imperative that you learn as many as the old spells as quickly as possible." She sounded stern, almost like a teacher. "I know of a grand library in my old world that has all of the material you need… but I don't think you will like the setting."

Kyrie knew what that meant. She was going into a world where death was all that was left. Kyrie adored life, and vibrant things, but where she was going, such things were but a quickly fading memory. In her mind, she mentally threw her shoulders back and resolved she would face the nightmare wholeheartedly. "Then lets go," she said with resolve.

Celes knew she would have to soon get used to that mind speech that seemed to be her only form of verbal communication.

An hour later, after finding Kyrie some new threads, they passed though the ether between worlds and faded into existence on a flat plain. Kyrie looked around and realized that she was not totally prepared for what she saw.

The plain was a wasteland, and endless, rocky field of nothingness. In the distance, she could see mountains peeking across the center of the horizon, and dark swirling clouds weaving like an angry sea overhead.

"My God," she gasped as she took it all in. "This is what happened to your world?" At that a cold wind assailed her. Since she was only wearing short jean shorts and a tube top, along with her obligatory high-top sneakers, the wind felt like it was biting into her. She shivered a little, uncontrollably.

Celes saw her discomfort and removed her cloak. "Our world used to have a name once," she replied, not entirely ignoring the question. "But now, we simply call it `The World of Ruin'. I have friends here, from another dimension that have been trying to evacuate the remaining survivors of this world into their own. Their world is also getting over a cataclysm of sorts but is still quite capable of supporting life. They'll help us reach the tower."

"Tower?" Kyrie questioned as Celes draped the cloak over her shoulders. Kyrie wrapped it around her slender frame and instantly felt the cold lessen. "But I thought we were going to a library."

"We are. You see, after the catastrophe that devastated this world ended, a group of people came together to worship the man who caused it. They managed to save most of the Empire's records and data before Vector completely sank below the seas, storing it within the tower. It is in fact, a library of everything this world has ever accomplished.

"I realized just what they had managed to save when Terra and I along with 2 other comrades stormed the tower to rescue a mutual friend, and find an ancient artifact guarded by the insane leader of the cult. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to study the imperial records since our main focus at the time was stopping the insane plans of Kefka."

"Ah yes, the man who would be god," she replied with an almost dark tone.

Celes nodded. "My friends should be here soon. We'll take their airship to the tower."

"Celes, had I not been created… would the same thing that happened here, happen in my world?"

"No, not yet. There are still other talents that cling to the power of magic. But once they have past on, your world's days are numbered, unless the power of magic manifests in others and spreads."

Kyrie nodded, signaling her understanding. Just then a loud sound, like whirling propellers on a heavy helicopter began to echo down the valley. Kyrie turned towards the sound and saw something she had never laid eyes upon before.

It was some kind of aircraft, long and graceful with huge rotors extending upwards from what appeared to be wings. It was slim, but had multiple levels, almost like a flying fortress. Its colors seemed to be multiple shades of gray, but along the starboard side, a set of large black letters spelling out "HIGHWIND" could easily be seen.

Celes smiled as it approached, appearing to be getting ready to land. "They're here." And at that, she began to approach the ship. Strangely, Kyrie noted as it slowed its decent, there did not appear to be any form of landing gear at all. Then as it approached the ground it simply stopped, several feet about it. From the side of the lowest deck, a long gangplank extended and touched down. Celes approached it waiting for her friends to disembark, but realized they were not all there.

First down the ramp was a large, cat-like creature with an Indian headdress. Kyrie examined the unique creature as it carefully made its way down. Its fur was a neutral red, and on its left shoulder was a marking that said "RED XIII". The tip of his tail was lion-like and seemed to be composed of fire, but she couldn't be sure. Behind it, came a huge creature that looked like some kind of giant stuffed demon, but it was white with wings much too small for its body. Riding atop this comical looking beast was a small black and white Calico Cat, wearing a crown and carrying a bullhorn. The effect the two creatures made reminded her of old cartoons, and she wondered just how strange the world they come from is. Last of the three to disembark was a tall man with stark white hair and pilot's goggles. His clothing seemed to indicate he was in fact the one at the helm of this amazing vessel. In his mouth was a lit cigarette and in his left hand, swung over his left shoulder was a large spear of some sort.

As they touched down, Celes immediately questioned them. "Where are the others? Are they on board still?"

"No," answered the pilot. "They decided to take a trip out in the middle of fucking nowhere. They saw some ruins in that desert near Miranda and of course that pain-in-the-ass of a thief Yuffie wanted to see if there were any artifacts or materia there. Hell even Cloud wanted to check it out, so everyone save Red XIII, Cait Sith, Vincent and myself went into the ruins. Vincent is on the stern as usual, ponder existence or something equally fucked up."

Celes smiled as she turned towards Kyrie. "You'll have to excuse him, his use of slang terminology is quite frequent."

"Yeah," the cat-thing on top of the giant white demon agreed. "You might even say he curses like a sailor."

The red cat, that Kyrie surmised was Red XIII seemed to sigh at that then to her surprise, spoke. "I don't know what I find more difficult to tolerate Cait; the smell of the chocobos, or your puns."

"You… you talked!" Kyrie said in surprise.

"Yes," he replied. "And so did you… amazingly without moving your lips at all. I assume you are using some form of telepathy?"

"Umm, yeah… actually." Kyrie was still shocked that the creature spoke. Of course, the other cat-thing speaking was rather odd as well.

Celes chuckled at Kyrie's expression. It brightly showed her feelings of wonder and amazement. "You'll get used to them Kyrie. Oh, where are my manners. The one that resembles a large game cat is Red XIII, but I'm sure you figured that out. The cat riding the huge plush toy is Cait Sith, and our dirty-mouthed pilot is Cid Highwind. Cid is the worlds greatest aviator, not to mention navigator, ship captain, information gatherer…"

"And a partridge in a pear tree," Cait sung without missing a beat. Red XIII and Cid groaned as if in pain at that one, but Kyrie chuckled, momentarily showing her two cat-like canine teeth.

"Hey," Cait responded, "that sounded extremely cute… kinda like someone tickling a Tribble!" Even Cid chuckled at that one.

"Well, shall we get going?" Cid asked. "We still gotta find the other nimrods and get going. We still don't know if the tower is really abandoned or not."

Celes nodded. "Yes, lets go." With that, the 5 boarded the Highwind and headed for the bridge.

Kyrie took in the sights of the inside of the ship with awe. She had never seen technology like this before today. The bridge was huge, and most of the front was dominate by a huge window, allowing a wide sight range. Front and center was the navigational wheel, and Cid quickly made his way there. The bridge crew was only made up of four people minus Cid, but it was adequate. Immediately, Cid began barking out orders.

"Raise the Gangplank and close the main hatch," he shouted.

"Hatch closing, Sir!" came a reply from his left.

"Navigator, give me a direction heading for Miranda Desert."

Another man quickly spoke up. "Calculating, one minute Sir!"

"Give me helm control."

"Aye Aye, Sir!" Then seconds later, the navigator spoke again.

"Miranda Desert as requested, Sir! Make your course 64 degrees Starboard, Sir! ETA 57 minutes at standard cruise."

"We're going flank speed Navigator, how long to the desert?"

"ETA 32 minutes at flank speed, Sir!"

Cid threw the butt of his cigarette into a nearby ashtray and quickly lit another one. "You heard the man, we'll be there in half an hour." His comment was directed at Celes.

"Quite a tight ship you run," Kyrie commented.

"I have too," he replied. "I'm used to running combat missions since the fall of our own world. I'm as much a commando now as I am a pilot. Timing is critical and discipline is important. After 6 months of running missions with Avalanche, my crew learned not to fuck with me." He smiled at that. "But don't let that fool you sweetheart. I'm really an ok guy once you get to know me."

Kyrie chuckled at that. "I don't doubt that at all Cid."

*End of Chapter

*Next Chapter: A surprise awaits the Highwind Crew in the ruins.