Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Zell's Story ❯ Release & Resolution ( Chapter 4 )

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Zell's Story - Chapter 4






Zell's Story
By Elysia Erianthe
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Chapter 4: Release & Resolution
"Zell! Over here!" The angelic voice wailed from somewhere out of view as the blonde entered the Training Center. Suddenly, the doll-like woman came sprinting towards him in ambush. "What'd he say? What'd he say?!?" She looked and sounded not too different from a lovesick teenager as she excitedly beat her fists against his chest.
"Whoa ... w-warn me next time you do that okay, Selphie?" Zell asked softly as he took her wrists and gently lowered them to her sides. "Well, first of all, he was a pain to get to talk and tried to start a fight with me when I actually did get him to talk--"
"Ooh! I don't care too much about that! Tell me what he said! Pleeease!" She begged desperately and pleaded with starry emerald eyes.
Unfortunately, her excitement only added more weight to the young man's leaden heart though she did not know it, but Selphie did hear his sigh before he continued. "He said that he had to figure some things out for himself so he left, and in no uncertain terms, Irvine admitted that he loves you," he answered gravely and conveniently failed to mention his own admission.
Four pairs, both youthful and a more mature set of eyes widened in response. Selphie lowered her slightly watery eyes, wishing that her companion would pay no heed to the tears forming there. But her wishes were not granted as the nearly heartbroken man looked on with a multitude of questions running through his confused mind. He tentatively encircled her with his comforting arms, and she began to sway and fell weakly into his embrace.
"Selphie! Selphie! Are you okay?" Luckily, he had caught her before she fell to the ground, and now she looked at her protector through half-closed and dazed eyes. He grunted angrily toward himself as he lifted her light body and balanced her weight easily in the cradle of his arms. "Geez, Sef! You're a lightweight. We just need to put ya on an all-hot dog diet! Now, off to the Infirmary!" He masked his worries as he spoke to his half-conscious friend.
"Here we go again!" Joshua exclaimed in anticipation after moving several leaves out of the way of his mouth.
"You know, we are never going to pass this mission if we continue to follow these psychopaths around instead of looking for clues," Eereiah mentioned rather nonchalantly as she adjusted the position of her glasses on her face.
"Heheh," the impish boy cackled hideously, "we don't need to worry about that," and produced an envelope labeled 'Last Clue' from his pocket. "All's we have to do when this soap opera is over is use this baby to find whatever is waiting for us at the end of the line!" The brunette gushed and arrogantly kissed the seal on the back of the envelope.
"Yepop!" Nessa burst in agreement and flicked a lock of light red hair away from her face.
"Say what?" Eereiah questioned bewilderedly then realized her mistake.
"What did you say, Eeia?" Joshua asked raising an eyebrow suspiciously.
"Eep! I can't help it! It's contagious!"
"Ooh so does this mean you are secretly in love with Instructor Dincht?" The odango-adorned redhead asked curiously.
"Uh ... how about I just leave that to your imagination ... by the way, when are we going to get out of this thicket, oh great leader?" She asked the boy and shifted uncomfortably.
"Shh! Someone's coming, you two!" Nessa harshly whispered before taking in a deep breath and holding it.
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Irvine was walking briskly through the paths in the Training Center, hoping no one would take notice of him as he completely emerged himself in his thoughts. 'If someone starts to bug me, I'm gonna be pissed off! For the sake of the students here, they'd better hope they don't annoy me,' he thought, placing a hand on the butt of the sawed-off rifle hidden in the lining of his coat. 'But then again, who wouldn't notice a stud like me, huh? Damn it, Irvine! Stop thinking like that! That's exactly what would make Selphie doubt your love for her, you fool!'
While the cowboy wannabe was in the middle of mentally assaulting himself, he neglected to notice the three feet protruding from the underbrush edging the dirt path. With a loud thunk, he made contact with the ground and groaned loudly. "This is just not my day," he grumbled as he raised himself to see what had gotten in his way. What he saw were three feet clothed in three different varieties of shoes. The smallest foot was wearing a girlie, brown leather doll shoe. The second foot was sporting an oversized black leather boot as was the gothic fashion throughout the Balamb area. The third foot, obviously masculine and much larger in size, was adorned by an old and well-scuffed sneaker. "Hmm? Junior classmen having a threesome?" Irvine asked just loud enough for the bush-ridden group to hear after standing up.
"AHHHHHHHHHH!" Eereiah let out a battle cry as she flew out of the bushes and landed a punch on the left side of the man's face. "Pervert!" She screeched, and continued to adjust the armored gloves that had not been there a few minutes before.
'Damn, Zell is teaching his students too well,' Irvine thought to himself and resisted the urge to put the kid at gunpoint as he rubbed the increasingly obvious red blotch on his cheek.
"That'll show you for treating Mr. Dincht poorly!" Eereiah stated with no small measure of pride while dusting off her gloves.
"Treating Dincht poorly?" He thought aloud but was interrupted by the rustling of Nessa and Joshua. "You mean that you saw that in the dorms?" The surrounded SeeD asked in a surprised tone.
"Yepop."
"Uh ... I'll take that as a yes," he mumbled after sending a weird look in Nessa's direction. "and all of you are students of ...?" The deceitful gunman questioned.
"Instructors Dincht and Tilmitt!" The girls responded enthusiastically.
"You?" Irvine asked Joshua again since he hadn't answered.
Instead of orally offering an answer however, Joshua took his wallet out of his pocket and handed the pony-tailed man a picture of his beloved Seifer. He was oblivious to the fact that something else had dropped out of his pocket as well unfortunately.
"I see," he commented and handed it back as a flock of jelleyes approached them.
"Well, I won't report you for goofing off, but you guys better get out of here before these beasts attack!" Irvine managed to yell over the jelleyes' battle calls. In all truth, the flock had just been an excuse for him to make the students leave, and he defeated them in a matter of minutes. Though somewhat grief stricken, the cowboy still looked upon the bodies of the slain jelleyes with pride, and in the process noticed something white underneath one of the bodies. He picked up the envelope and read the label.
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"Damn," Zell thought aloud, "I wish I was carrying you over the threshold of our new house rather than to the Infirmary," speaking to the silent and seemingly unconscious girl in his arms. Temptation, passion, and a sacred emotion called love beckoned him to speak his mind, freely and without risk, about the three feelings to the unknowing innocent, but somehow, he was able to break free of the control of his own fervent emotions. The automatic doors parted as soon as the sensor acknowledged his presence, and the blonde was blasted with the headache-inducing scent of his sterile surroundings as he stepped into the Infirmary. As he laid the sleeping Selphie in an empty cubicle, he looked quizzically at the security camera across from him. That's odd,' he thought blinking rhythmically as the red light on it flashed, 'why are they recording in the middle of the day?' He questioned as numerous pairs of eyes looked on from the other side of the machine.
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"I hope I'm doing the right thing. Even if I'm not, it doesn't matter anymore," the melancholy man told himself under his breath, but his voice was inaudible due to the obnoxious clicking of his boots on the marble floor. Such deep thought inhibited his sensory skills however, and he plummeted to the uncompassionate floor after making contact with a rather large woman.
"Oh my goodness! Are you alright darlin'? Did ya need som' help up? How 'bout we just step inside the Infirmary, and I can--"
"No, no. I'm fine, ma'am. Really, I am," the klutzy cowboy replied to the overly cordial nurse as she looked upon his place on the floor doubtfully.
"Well, alrighty then. Just be more careful, ya young stud," she said in a Southern drawl and continued on to whatever destination she had intended before.
Irvine rose with a groan and dusted off his pants, oblivious to the fact that his hat remained in the spot where it had fallen off his head as he proceeded to the only location he had not checked yet.
As he stepped in the Infirmary, he foolishly took a deep breath of the cleanly stale air and coughed in response. Ever so discretely, he tipped his head up to try to sense if anyone had noticed his presence. 'I wouldn't normally want to be caught dead in here,' Irvine thought with a sideways glance. "Well, especially not dead," he mumbled aloud with a tremble that was quickly interrupted by the sound of someone shifting in a cubicle bed. Thankfully, the cowboy was not so klutzy as he silently headed over to the cubicle at a pace that could best be described as a gait.
Much to his surprise, he found his love awaiting him unknowingly. He knelt beside the bed and his ponytail slid over his shoulder. There lay his beautiful doll, the only visible movement being the gently rhythmic rising and falling of her chest and the slight parting of her lips between breaths, as he sat in silence watching, the minutes slipping away from him unregretfully. 'She looks so vulnerable,' he mused as his thoughts drifted. 'How could that chicken-shit Zell leave her alone like this?!?' A growl emerged from deep within his throat as his brows knit themselves together tightly and his lips puckered in distaste and perhaps, hatred. The sudden noise resulted in Selphie's awakening, and her heavy eyelids opened unannounced.
"What are you doing here, Irvine?" She asked the wide-eyed and guilty looking SeeD after giving her eyes time to adjust to the light.
"Uh ... I ... uh," he stumbled, "I found three of your students with this," Irvine finally managed to get out into the open and produced the labeled envelope from inside his coat. He gently laid it in the only one of the woman's hands that was not underneath the bedcovers, and unannounced to him, she looked fondly upon the top of his bent head as he did so. "So I'll just be going now, Sefie--," he stated in a subdued tone as he made to stand up, but a sudden pain in his head wrenched him back toward the floor.
"Not so fast, Irvine," she whispered as a warm smile overtook her face. The smile, a clear indicator of her mood, radiated understanding and compassion but its edges were unmistakably turned down, a sign that might be interpreted as sadness or nostalgia. She sat up on the bed and patted the spot next to her in invitation.
"Uh, Selphie dear, could you please uh ...," Irvine grimaced and gestured to his head.
"Oh! Geez, I'm sorry Irvine!" She exclaimed between laughs and released his ponytail from her clinched fist.
He took his place next to her respectfully and made no attempt to touch her as she continued to speak.
"I don't know what happened or ... or what I did to make you leave, but," she said bravely, swallowing her fear in order to relieve the burden on her tender heart. "But I'm sorry, and I hope that we can put that behind us, because I don't think I can stand these hurt feelings much longer," she admitted hurriedly and took in a deep breath. She looked at the man that had once been the most important person in her existence, preparing herself for his rejection of her apology. Much to her surprise, however, in his eyes lingered a sentiment that was much different from what she had expected, and she smiled, causing her tear-brimmed eyes to overflow in trails down her cheeks.
"What's wrong, Sefie?" Irvine asked, worried about her sudden outburst of tears.
"Nothing ... nothing at all," she whispered between sniffles, and Irvine pulled her into his embrace.
"We're friends again, right?" Irvine asked a little slyly, and he was answered by Selphie's head hitting his shoulder as she nodded her response.
After an elongated period of time, the brunette raised his head and moved away from Selphie so he could look her in the face. "By the way, whatever happened to Zell, Sefie?"
"Oh well, I fainted in the Training Center, and he carried me in here so when I woke up, I told him to go back to the Training Center just in case one of the students had a run with a monster down there. There's supposed to be one of us stationed there at all times you see and--" Abruptly, a scream echoed through the hallways of the Garden and ended her attempt at an explanation.
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"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" A student's voice pierced the air over the heavy footfalls of a T-Rexsaur.
"I told you not to use that @#$&*$% whistle, Roger! It attracts monsters!" Joshua yelled over the chaos and foreboding thuds.
"I just thought it might be fun to fight something, ya know?" He stated, and followed it with a scream as the beast loomed over the group.
"Alright! You asked for it, you %$#&*$!!!!!" Joshua challenged the monster and pulled out his gunblade, Madhouse. After a moment of trying to digest their comrade's foul language, the others pulled out their weapons: Nessa with her Gattling gun, Innocent's Massacre; Eereiah with her gloves, Mastermind; Fiona with her shuriken, FLING, and Roger with his club, Wombat.
"LOOK," Fiona pointed at Joshua's rapid-fire attacks upon the oversized dinosaur, none them causing significant damage. The monster easily threw the boy aside with its tail after Joshua was spent, and the rest of the group took action. The muscle-bound Roger carried an unconscious Joshua out of the way as the girls jumped into the battle.
"FIGHT!" Fiona raised her usual monotone into a shrill battle cry, and all three petite femme fatales attacked the beast.
Groans, growls, cries, and whimpers were heard all around as each girl took more than her fair share of blows from the seemingly immortal Stone Age pest, and each had hit her limit break, but there was no avail to the one-sided battle.
"LOOK!" Fiona announced between breaths then was knocked off her feet for the fifth time and fainted.
"Back off, everyone!!!" The chocobo-haired hero yelled just before entering the battle, and no one challenged his authority. "C'mon baby! Try me!" Zell taunted the monster nearly twenty times his size and cast Triple on himself. It moved to knock him down with its tail, but he easily evaded the attack. "Well, if you want to play dirty, I can kick your ass that way too!" He sneered and as he cast Aura, Haste, and Blizzaga. "Oh how I love to watch them writhe," he spoke to his students while sporting an impish grin, but his opponent caught him off guard and swung his body and potentially lethal tail 360 degrees. "Ha, what were you tryin' to do, the hokey-pokey?" Zell taunted again while dodging the move with a few gymnastic tumbles. "Hey, hey! What do ya know? It's my turn to attack again! Here it comes!" He exclaimed and summoned Shiva. "That's my girl! Love ya, Shiva!" The blonde winked and blew a kiss at the ice goddess, and she proceeded to boost her attack to 250%. "How'd you like that, you ancient bag of bones!?! Come here, and I'll give you a little kiss too," Zell beckoned and motioned with a finger to come closer.
"Yeah! The kiss of death!!!" Eereiah cheered from the sidelines.
"He really has gotten a lot better since the Sorceress Wars, hasn't he?" Irvine questioned as he and Selphie arrived at the scene.
"Actually, I haven't even seen him fight since then. Both of us have been teaching rather than going on missions," the brunette doll replied just as shocked, but neither the fighter nor his opponent took any notice of the two new arrivals.
"That's it, come here ...," he cooed as the thoroughly exhausted beast took a few shaky steps forward. "Heh," he laughed sarcastically, "here's your kiss!" Instantly, the young warrior disappeared and was replaced by a blur of blonde hair and SeeD blue. The limit break was something similar to My Final Heaven but "supercharged" in the sense that it was significantly faster and more powerful in addition to having twice as many individual attacks for a longer total limit time. But what was the name of this never-before-seen attack? Much to everyone's surprise, he announced the name of the limit break, between breaths, as the creature fell in defeat, "And that attack is called My One and Only. Selphie ..."
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