[Author's Notes: Dedicated to Rob, who has pointed out, over and over, that evil never wins. I thought it was time for some change.]

…

Sic Luceat Lux

Thus the Light Shined…

…

Squall watched silently as Irvine fell to his knees. The self-proclaimed cowboy speared his rifle into the ground-that-wasn't-really-ground barrel first, leaning against it for support. He looked up at Squall from under the rim of his hat, grinning ironically, before tossing the party's last Hi-Potion at him. Squall didn't have time to protest, to do much of anything really, before Ultimecia finished Irvine off with a single blast of magic.

Irvine tipped over backwards, his gun clattering to the ground at his feet and his hat rolling to the side. His eyes gazed upwards, ever upwards, and his jaw went slack. Blood-soaked strands of auburn hair streaked his forehead, his cheeks. His hands were open, palms pale and empty in the odd light cast by time compressed.

The Sorceress murmured in her eerie way; Squall didn't pay any attention to her. Irvine's last-ditch effort at healing had barely closed Squall's gaping wounds. Another strike from Ultimecia would have them opened all over again. Squall couldn't let that happen.

Zell's last move had been to Triple-Aura them, and Squall was still feeling the spell's effects. Raising his gunblade and staring into the blankness that was the Sorceress' face, Squall submitted to his Limit Break, letting the surge of strength, of emotion, carry him up and up, faster and faster, until his movements were more his blade's than his own. And then it was over; too quickly, was it over.

In his head, he could hear her voice, mocking, "Is that all, khild?"

Then she was glowing, burning with the sheer force of her power, and she was aiming it all at him.

Squall watched her light, weary, until it covered every bit of him. It ate away at his skin, his eyes; tearing at his very soul. Until the light had devoured every bit of him, he stood there, hoping beyond reason that his body would be able to take this; that with his next Limit Break he could finish her.

But hope had died the moment past and future joined as one.

Squall gasped, choking, as blood gurgled up his throat. His eyes grew very wide, straining to burst out of his skull. And for several moments, as the light died down around him, Squall was suspended. His legs had not yet realized that they could no longer support him and held him straight, rigid, as bits of his torn clothing fluttered like butterfly wings to the luminescence at his feet.

"And you shall fall into shadow into space into nothing but a name to be forgotten lost ripped from the pages and I shall laugh sing live in the world I've stolen from you…"

The words covered his mind like dew, dulling his senses as he fell fell fell…

He wasn't sure he had stopped at all until his head fell to the side, to the left, to Zell. Curled into a fetal position, his hands curved into claws at his lips, the blonde stared at Squall with blank black sockets. Shadow had consumed his face and spit him out skeletal. He was too pale, like bone; his features glowing strange, unnatural. His mouth hung open, and a bright-it was funny how bright it was-trail of red dribbled into a puddle beneath his chin. His wounds had long since stopped bleeding, but the plasma that had pooled in his mouth after he had fallen was still leaking out.

Squall watched the corpse, waiting for that last minute rescue that always came, always came… Waited for those limp shoulders to shake, to stiffen as muscled arms lifted a body almost ruined by rigor mortis. Squall waited for those black sockets to blink awake, to blink ice blue, to focus… On him maybe… Zell would grin as he was rising, wink perhaps, or flash a thumbs up, before immediately tossing a phoenix down over his shoulder.

And then Irvine would rise and then…

The last rescue wasn't coming. The others had already been dissolved, Squall realized, they weren't coming.

"Run out of friends out of lives out of pretty green immortality lost to the winds the stars the union of all time into one into me me me…"

"Shut up." His vision was fading; darkness ebbed at the edges like a peripherally glimpsed specter. He was cold…cold, cold and drifting. His thoughts were becoming jumbled, lost, confused… And she was laughing. That witch was laughing.

"Sifting sifting all the souls are mine in my hands through my fingers like sand like water flowing screaming screaming your friends are screaming krying kalling your name kan you hear them? Yes…you kan hear them…"

And as she said it, he did. He heard his name uttered a million million times, an impossible amount of times-he had never known so many people-drifting to him from the edges of the Sorceress' shifting void. Over and over…A keening, a wail, a million million voices condemning him for letting them die.

…

Sing sing, khildren of fate, as I turn your heavens to evil.