11 - X's Suffering

[Sephiroth X]

*Bax, Zack Strife, and Sephiroth X decided to call it a night in their cozy dark alley after there long discussion, and X’s attempt to telepathically talk to Bax once. They all decided to camp out on the corner of a building, Zack slept on one side and Bax slept right around the corner. Sephiroth X propped the Masamune up against a wall and slept in a corner created by two buildings, the corner also provided a nice shadow of cover for Sephiroth X.

Zack Strife – Night everybody, see ya in the morning.

Sephiroth X – If you can tell its morning that is… this whole city seems to be dark.

Zack Strife – True.

*Zack propped himself under his massive sword and went to sleep very quickly, Bax was already asleep… X didn’t blame him, he was going through a lot and sleep would probably ease him. Then X himself got comfy and slowly went into his own realm of sleep.

- - - - - - - - - -

*Raindrops woke Sephiroth X up. He looked up from the alleyway of Midgar and saw dark clouds pouring rain down on him.

Sephiroth X – This area of Midgar’s supposed to be covered by the upper city… how can it rain?

*Sephiroth X looked to see if Bax or Zack had awakened too, but he was then shocked… they were gone!

Sephiroth X – Bax…? Zack…?

*X felt trouble around him, he reached for the Masamune… it too was gone.

Sephiroth X – What the hell is going on here?

*Then X noticed something else troubling around him, the walls of the buildings around him. They weren’t ‘normal’, they were bleeding… fleshy… like they were almost alive. X looked down and the solid brick alley he was walking on was now steel grading. What kind of hell was X in? X looked up to the rainy sky again and just then the rain stopped… and the clouds formed some dark symbol that glowed red down upon Sephiroth X. X didn’t recognize the symbol, but it didn’t look like something you’d see in an everyday church that’s for sure.

The symbol then suddenly shot down a fiery flare into the alley X stood in. The fire gathered for a moment and formed a fiery man who was much larger then X. The fire-man turned into an airborne projectile of fire as he flew towards X and slammed into him. Sephiroth X felt the burn of the fire but didn’t physically feel hurt, the force of the impact slammed X into a fleshy wall behind him and X could smell the flesh of the wall burn behind him.

The fire dissipated and the fire being left as quick as he appeared. Sephy X quickly stood and looked at the charred flesh-wall behind him. A perfect silhouette of X was charred into the wall. But suddenly the burn marks of the fire just magically healed within the wall… you couldn’t even tell anything touched it. Then X heard a voice from down the alley.

“You!...”<br>
*Something charged at X from the darkness, it was a vivid blue color… X recognized the color… it was the color of Zack’s eyes! This all-blue character charged at X holding a massive weapon at his side, a huge sword that glowed the same vivid blue color of the figure who held it. Sephiroth X had no defense against it, no sword, and he felt extremely sluggish in this evil looking environment, not to mention the fire being exhausted him. The blue-man charged right up to X and swung heavily at him, the massive blue sword slammed into X and took the wind out of him and X flew towards another flesh-wall from the impact. But what was strange is that upon impact with X, the sword and the blue man both disintegrated and disappeared just like the fire-man did.

Sephiroth X shook the cob-webs out of his head again and stood up and looked around. He peeked around alleys to survey every direction, it seemed like ALL of Midgar was turned into some fleshy disaster area. Suddenly, X heard the sound of a gun click near the side of his head. He saw some figure standing at his side with a pistol pointed straight at X’s temple. X instinctively swung a forearm at the figure, but the figure disappeared before any damage could be done. X heard another ‘click’ and now the figure was on his other side with a different gun pointed at him. X this time quickly spun a roundhouse kick and it connected with the threatening figure, and that person too disintegrated away into nothing.

Sephiroth X – What is this…?

*The fleshy walls suddenly gave off some low moaning kind of roar, and everything around Sephiroth X slowly faded away until X was standing in a giant black void. X walked around slowly for a few moments wondering what was going on, and he stopped the moment he heard another low roar. X felt a cold wind breeze past him suddenly, and turned in the direction it came from. The moment X turned, two giant cat-eyes opened in front of him and that was followed by a huge roar of a tiger-like animal. X saw a purple pulse of energy fly at him and knock him off his feet. And with that, the eyes closed and X was left in darkness…<br>
Sephiroth X stood up and dusted himself off, and the isolation slowly started to get into X’s skin.. he didn’t know what to do, he felt too alone, helpless. Suddenly, X heard footsteps slowly walking towards him from behind. This was followed by a low, maniacal laughter. Sephiroth X felt a cold heart behind him, and slowly turned… what X saw made his blood run even colder then it normally ran.

The same dark cloaked man slowly walked towards him, this time with a double bladed kind of swallow weapon in his hand. The cloaked figure was looking at a downward angle, so the hood of the cloak kept him concealed. The cloaked man stopped less then fifteen feet in front of X and laughed one more time. Then the man slowly looked up, from whatever light source there was… X could see the outline of a face under the hood, but when the figure lifted his head straight up X only saw one thing… and knew it would haunt him… he saw one of the man’s eyes, it glowed a vivid gold kind of color. But this eye didn’t seem kind like the eyes of Zack or Bax… this eye looked like it had evil within it, evil right down to the soul. X panicked, he charged at the cloaked man screaming and dove at him with his fists ready to make contact. X got closer, and closer, and closer…<br>
*Sephiroth X woke up in a heated sweat and was still in panic from the dream. He quickly grabbed the Masamune and quickly swung for the first thing he saw, which was Bax laying on the side of the building near the corner. X’s swing connected with the brick of the building, inches from Bax’s head. The loud ping of the sword instantly woke Bax up and Bax quickly saw the sword, and then saw X’s sweat covered face in rage. Bax quickly stood up, and with that X pulled his sword out of the brick and held it at his fighting position.

The loud impact of the sword also woke Zack up, he quickly knelt up and banged his head against his huge sword. But ignored the pain and quickly stood up and saw what was happening. Then X pointed his sword at Bax and yelled in a rage.

Sephiroth X – “Both of you stay away! You.. You Bax! Ever since you got here my dreams got worse and worse! What are you doing to me! Why is this happening! STOP IT DAMNIT! GET AWAY!

*Bax stared into X’s eyes and saw the look of fear, panic, and evil. This was the first time Bax ever saw the evil side of Sephiroth X. He knew he felt a dark side within X, but didn’t think it would manifest in this way. From what he could understand from X, X apparently had another disturbing dream… it had to have been extremely more vivid and darker then previous ones if it would drive the good temporarily out of X like this. Bax held one hand at his sword just in case.

Bax – “Sephiroth X… calm… down…”

Sephiroth X – “NO! NO I WONT CALM DOWN I WANT MY ANSWERS! KEEP AWAY! I’LL FIGHT YOU IF I HAVE TO!

*Zack stood back, not knowing if he should get involved… Bax felt sad, he to a point knew what X just went threw… but didn’t know what to do.

[ZaCloud]

Zack looked between the two men in shocked confusion for a moment. He was holding Fjalar by then, but not in a battle position. Its tip was on the ground to his right. He slowly raised his empty left hand in an appeasing gesture toward Sephiroth. His voice was firm but not angry.

"Sephiroth, just calm down... I don't think Bax did anything just now. Did he? A bad dream is nothing more than a bad dream! There's gotta be an answer to that without attacking someone you barely know..."

Then his voice and expression suddenly shifted. He now seemed a bit emotionally hurt and very tense as he added, "I know he's been trusting you! I have been too! Even though we just met and never formally introduced yet..."

Another shift, now very sympathetic. "I'm sorry you had such an awful dream... Do you want to talk about it? Just please don't take it out on Bax; poor guy's had enough of his own troubles."

[Shadow Phoenix]

Bax may have appeared to be sleeping well, but the contrary was true. After the exhaustion of the telepathic exchange, Bax merely collapsed and allowed his thoughts to consume him. He had been told on several occasions that he'd had a telepathic spark in him – the potential that is – but he had never really explored it. It had become quite apparent to Bax in those few minutes that his telepathic potential was much more potent than such people had initially let on. He understood everything that Sephiroth had told him and tried to communicate back. Unfortunately, Bax practically screamed with his mind and flooded Sephiroth with such an intense burst of words and images that it was enough to produce a physical effect. Clearly the power was there, but it had yet to be harnessed. All of the thoughts that had been awakened upon the telepathic communication then tormented Bax as he tried to sleep. Finally, after a couple dark and cold hours, Bax's consciousness loosened its grip and he drifted off into a dreamless sleep.


***


The loud clang of tempered steel slicing into brick roused Bax from his sleep. As his eyes flickered open, he took in the full view of Sephiroth's awesome Masamune and then saw the fury and fear-filled face of the wielder of the blade. Everything began moving much faster than Bax could comprehend and Sephiroth began screaming. Bax couldn’t wrap his still-weary mind on the language and only heard unintelligible profane shouts, much to his dismay. He did manage to pull his thoughts together enough to grab the hilt of his sword, however.

Sephiroth continued shouting and then Bax saw Zack stand up in an effort to calm Sephiroth down. Bax also attempted this, but he soon saw that all of this was pointless. Frivolous. Nothing would come of it. Sephiroth was scared, panicking, and just not himself – at least not the Sephiroth that Bax had come to know when their minds connected the previous night. What if this was the real Sephiroth?

Moreover, what if it was Bax’s fault that Sephiroth was having such wicked dreams? Bax recalled every instance that he had been told of the untapped powers of telepathy lying deep within him. Some said that it was just a part of the royal genome and that both his brother and father before him had possessed the power to utilize their minds beyond that of the general Phoeniyan. Some said that it was in the nature of all Phoeniyans to use a greater potential to meld flames from nothing more than the air itself and create hulking creatures. Some said that it was just something that they felt in Bax alone.

Whatever the case was, Bax realized that whenever his mind had been under great stress, he had suddenly unleashed powerful flames – uncontrolled at best, but still there nonetheless. It was like when the gang had attacked him just the previous day and he had shot powerful flames out to attack them. Certainly, Bax could channel his inner energy to create balls of fire to use as could all Phoeniyans and do rather simple actions with flames, but he had never known other Phoeniyans to stream fire from nowhere to attack their enemies unless they were in the heat of a battle. Was telepathy the cause, or part of the cause, of these powers? And were these afflictions also affecting Sephiroth?

Bax felt something click in the back of his mind, and his awareness grew a bit. He looked at Zack and spoke to him without moving his lips – only his mind. And it came out perfectly clear.
“Zack, stay out of this fight. I need to help Sephiroth X right now. If you enter the fray, I cannot guarantee your safety.”<br>Zack looked all around before locking eyes with Bax. The flames in Bax’s eyes were now very focused and controlled, and Bax was certain that Zack must have felt as though the eyes were piercing through him. Bax felt that Zack understood what Bax had ‘told’ him, and he then turned back to face Sephiroth.

Bax was now a much different person: not scared, but aware and calm. Slowly and methodically, Bax drew his Star Fighter with his right hand and formed a small ball of fire his left. His hair was not raging now, but almost reflected the same look that Bax held in his eyes: focused and controlled. It flickered now and then, here and there, but did not expose the power that Bax was now concentrating on. There was no way that he could avoid this fight as Sephiroth was too far gone to do anything but fight and subdue him.
“Let’s go,” Bax said simply as he slammed the ball of fire into the sword, which instantly ignited into an intense flame.