Chapter 6: Road to the Evil Sorceress I

[ST]

The girls in Polaris' room

After drifting for awhile into sleep, you are suddenly awakened by loud, deranged-sounding screams, eerie chants and a smell so horrible most of you can't stand it without covering your noses. You try to switch on the lights, but to no avail. You realise after checking that the electricity has been cut.

Jun leaned against a wall to support herself against the pounding in her brains, only to feel her clothes and skin covered with something. "Argh!!! There's gooey stuff on the walls!" She yelled. "What the hell happened?"

Amidst all the screaming, you hear another distinctive sound outside the room and decide to check it out.

[Polaris Lyn]

OMFG XDD AHAHAHHAHAHAA Hadriannnnn!!! *ROLLS*

---

Polaris managed to open the door just as a loud voice blared into the hall, courtesy of the speakers.

"Members of the Trinity Mission report here immediately!" It was Xu, and she sounded extremely panicked. Or pissed. Polaris wasn't sure which emotion was getting through at the moment, but that didn't matter.

"Okay, I guess we're moving out," Polaris muttered to herself, trying to not look at the fact that the walls and even the floor seemed to be pulsing under her feet. It was just damn scary. Her slippers got stuck in the sticky mess but she kept moving, trying to ignore the feeling of the sticky floor beneath her bare feet.

< Sick sick sick...! > she thought to herself, hurrying down the corridor. It seemed alright - no monsters or anything beyond the crazy chanting voices and the weird walls and floor.

Polaris stopped a few feet from her door and turned her head, waiting for the others.

---

(Edited by Ani)
*hugs Pol* XD No no no sweet cakes, Hadrian is out of the view here. He swerved on a corner and is very far from Pol's dorm room. He's in front of his room. She's sweet though, thanks for the concern. ^.^ I deleted the part where she saw him, but it's no biggie.. You'll thank me later on. XD



(Re-edited by Bun)
Point taken and extra details added to make up for the faux pas. Sorry, Ate Rica!! LMAO @ the "sweet cakes" comment!! XD

[stardust]

Stardust had fallen asleep only to wake up that her cheek was sank in a stinky unknown goo, half of her body was tainted with it actually. She suddenly bolted upright. The smell was overwhelming.

"What is this? What just happened?" she said, her face swathed with confusion as she looked at her hands. She looked inside the room. It was rather noisy...and eerie. It was as if she was inside a nightmare.. Stardust saw Polaris pass by her and throw open the door.

"G-guys...." a shaky voice said behind her. Turning around, she saw Vanesse running her fingers along the wall. "This...." She quickly stepped back and looked around the room, her face coming into an expression of disgust. "The walls are made of flesh."

Stardust stood up and grabbed the clean blanket on Polaris's bed and wiped herself with it. Xu seemed to be summoning them. "We gotta get out of here and see what's going on outside." With this, she made her way towards the door. Amidst all that was happening, the eerie chanting never appeared to stop.

"Hey, wait." Vanesse grabbed her boomerang from their stuffs and followed the girls outside.

[ST]

Just when the three girls made their way outside, a evil sensation came to all of them and a fish-like monster appeared out of Polaris's door, destroying the door from its hinge with its powerful tail. It grew a feet and was able to stand on its own, exposing its fangs for the three girls to see. The monster's golden scales were flaring, and it stood like a rock, barring the other girls from the other room. In a split second, the fish secreted a venomous air around the whole surrounding, poisoning the status of all the girls whether outside or inside the room.

[Polaris Lyn]

< What the hell?! > Polaris didn't have much time to react before the fish monster began polluting the air. The smell became almost too unbearable and Polaris' head swam, making her stumble and fall against the wall. She drew back immediately - the fleshy feeling against her skin was sickening. She coughed. She could see Stardust and Vanesse just a few feet away from her, and the monster that was blocking her door. It had to be moved if the other girls were going to leave her room.

In the dimness she saw Vanesse holding her boomerangs. "V-Vanesse!" she coughed. "Hit...hit it!"

The Status-Mag Poison invaded her body just then. Polaris dry-heaved before she felt her knees buckle beneath her.

< D, damn, > she thought dizzily. < I shouldn't have unjunctioned Obsidian... >

[vanesse]

Vanesse coughed as soon as the gas poison was released in their environment. The other girls seemed to be experiencing the same feeling. They've all been poisoned. An Esuna would be really good right now.

"V-Vanesse!" Polaris called, coughing as bad as her. "Hit...hit it!"

Vanesse's eyes ache and she nodded, gripping for Black Wings and not wasting any second to throw it. The sharp edge of her boomerangs went straight towards the fish monster's face, but was quickly repelled by an unseen AT field. With sheer force, Vanesse's boomerangs zoomed towards the three of them--towards Stardust.

"You dumb idiot!!" Stardust managed to evade the boomerangs as they pierced through the wall where the pinkhead used to stand. "What the hell are you doing!" she proceeded to cough.

Vanesse frowned at Stardust, and replied. "It must have had a barrier in front, so it repelled my attack. I'm sorry." The girl pulled her large boomerangs from the fleshy wall, but completely flinched when the poison acted up in her body. She grit her teeth. "The others inside the room probably have a better chance of hitting its vulnerable spot!"

"Great, so do we just sit here and let the others kill it!?" Stardust pulled out three arrows and started aiming for the monster.

"Are you kidding! Stop that, it'll just repel your attack and we'll end up getting shot by your arrows," Vanesse exclaimed and tried to keep her from shooting.

"Let go of me, you brat!" Stardust tried to wring the girl off her and struggled to aim. "I said let go!"

[Polaris Lyn]

"Let go of me, you brat!"

< O, Obsdian...! >

KA CHANG!

It was the sound of metal against metal, the sound that Polaris always heard whenever Obsidian returned from the GF Dimension to meld with her mind. She blinked, her focus returning, and squinted through the darkness. Vanesse and Stardust were fighting--Stardust was trying to aim for the monster and Vanesse was trying her damndest to stop her.

"I said let go!"

Polaris rose to her feet, moving forward, and she grabbed Vanesse by the wrist and pulled her away from the pinkhead.

"Stop trying to change her mind and just duck!" Polaris told the Opps. Stardust was stubborn. It was best that she learn where that stubborness would get her.

[Blaze Sanaku]

Blaze stumbled against the fleshy wall but immediately stiffened and jumped back upon feeling it pulsate against her body. She whipped out her claws on instinct and sliced through it. Blood splattered upon the floor as Blaze tore through the flesh, but the wall regenerated itself within seconds.

<ohh... sick!!>

Blaze's eyes were burning from the smell. As Blaze was coughing, she felt herself growing sick to the point of dizzyness. The familiar effect of a poison status effect.

<Great, I can't breathe or see and now I feel like I'm going to throw up> Blaze felt her head swim. She saw Vanesse and Stardust begin to fight.

"How about you attack the fucking monster and not yourselves!!" Blaze barked. She let out a heavy and exasperated sigh and ran towards the monster with her claws bared.

Once she threw the first blow, she felt the barrier repel her.

<Oh, I don't think so>

Blaze violently pounded into the fish monster's barrier over and over again, destroying its defense. A couple more minutes and she could bust through the barrier easily. She felt herself weaken though, and the monster shot its fin out and pinned Blaze to the floor when she wasn't paying attention.

"A little help here!!" Blaze yelled. She rammed her claws upward into the fish's fin, coughing and feeling weaker by the second.

<There is something ODDLY familiar about this monster> Blaze found herself thinking as the fish screamed.


(Edited by Ani)

Ash The monster is blocking the doorway, so Blaze and the others are trapped inside Pol's room. I just deleted the part that says Blaze saw the monster on the corridor. Sorry if I'm a little confusing >.< *kicks self* So now, Blaze sliced her way through the wall and is now outside with the others. XD Feel free to edit yourself!! Sorry again

[Myacu]

The smell was the first thing that hit her. It was the putrid stench of rotting meat that hit Gemma with an indescribable force. Suddenly awake, the haggard look on her face quickly changed to one of horror as she saw the dripping slabs of flesh around the room.

Looking towards the other girls for any bit of explanation, Gemma was unexpectedly flung backwards as a fish-like monster battered into her right side. Quickly regaining her senses, Gemma managed to dodge another one of physical attacks, as she lunged for Paleruin. The moment its handle reached her fingertips, she released an onslaught of attacks on the monster. On the opposite side, just outside the door, she could make out the dark figure of Blaze who was wrecking havoc on it as well. With the power of their attacks combined, Gemma could feel the monster's defense barrier slowly beginning to collapse.

Then, from out of its viscous, sponge-like pores, it began to release a sinister green mist.

Bio...

She waited for the familiar wave of nausea to overcome her, and yet even as the green mist surrounded her, filling her nostrils with the vile substance, she felt nothing.

<<You have Bio junctioned to Elem-Def.>>

Of course...she remembered now because she had been so upset that she didn't have Thundaga junctioned earlier.

Gemma considered casting Esuna on those who were Poisoned. But she realized that the creature would only continue to cast Bio. And her Esunas were limited...

<<Ahem..may I be of any assistance?>>

Gemma flashed an oh-so "Jax-esque" smirk at the fish monster.

"How about a little taste of your own medicine?" She knew it was cliche but it sounded cool at the moment.

"CALYPSO!"

[ST]

The familiar mist surrounded the air as Gemma summoned Calypso from inside the room. The fish-like monster was quickly affected with different status effects and seemed to have weakened.

Stardust and Vanesse stopped wrestling at the sight and every girl in the area could take that as her cue.


------------------
Someone kill it!!!! XD

[Polaris Lyn]

The monster was weakened. Well, it had stopped screaming like a fucking banshee, so something must have changed.

Polaris didn't waste a single second. She released Vanesse and ran past Stardust, catching the monster by surprise when she rammed her shoulder against it. < Shit, > the brunette thought, feeling thick slime coat her arms, < I need another shower. >

But she didn't have time to be disgusted much. True, the monster was weaker, and yes, it had stumbled, but Polaris couldn't kill it with her bare hands. Hell, she wasn't a martial artist like Zell Dincht. So she caught her doorway and reached around, to the other side of the wall. Her waraxe hung on a pedestal nailed to the wall beside her door, for easy access before she ever left the room.

Polaris caught the newly-polished black handle and pulled the weapon from the pedestal and swung it around in front of her, barely missing Gemma as it arced through the air. Polaris hefted the weight of the weapon in her hands, and she was back on the mission - flesh walls, evil fish monsters, or whatever, she wasn't budging.

The fish monster balked. It was obviously messed up from whatever Gemma had done to it from her place inside Polaris' room.

Polaris moved.

She swung the axe with a shout, the blade moving in an upward, diagonal arc from her hip, slicing through the monster from the bottom of its left fin, cracking through the skull, and lodging itself into the fish's right eye. The fish went down, screaming again - it was a death wail, and the fish caved in on itself, bleeding out onto the fleshy floor.

Polaris pulled out her weapon, drenched in thick slime, and stared at it with disgust. "Sick," she muttered to herself, before turning away to face the others.

"Is everyone alright?" she asked, tucking a wayward chunk of hair behind her ear. She was practically covered in slime. Hyne, she stank. "Any injuries?" she continued, checking inside the room. "Jun, Jaime, status?"

It was then that she noticed something on her door. The monster had torn it off the hinges, leaving it to fall backwards into her room. She stood on it now when she checked in on Jun and Jaime, and she noticed the scrawls.

Black scrawls...

It was hard to tell what the picture was that had been drawn on her door, and most of the slime had covered it, but there were words. Polaris knelt down, wiped away the thick coating of goo, and squinted.

"MY...POL...LIKE TO THROW...FISH...ROAR"

Her heart caught in her throat.

She glanced back at the monster she had just killed. It had come out behind her door...

...no...FROM her door...

< Fish. Prank. > The words were in her brain, but her mind wasn't processing information.

She remembered Blaze demanding Killer back from a tall man with red hair, but the hacker shook his head, pocketed the fish...

It was him.

Polaris blinked, and she felt grateful that the electricity had died, and the lights were blown to shit, because while she was forcing her brain to function she had started crying.

< That...that bastard...I... >

She felt cold.

< I hate...them. >

Calmly, she drew her left arm across her eyes and rose to her feet, glancing around at the others.

"Xu's calling," she said, her voice oddly even, calm, quiet. Somehow she was hiding her fury, even from her. She was surprised at it. "We should go and head up to her office. We'll meet up with the others there, I'm sure."

It was like nothing had changed. Polaris glanced back at Jun and Jaime, and smiled. It was a gentle, sweet smile.

"Jun, Jaime, you guys better get your weapons. We might meet up with something else on the way."

Polaris wondered why she sounded so calm. At the moment, she hated her entire team.

[ST]

Thanks to Polaris, the monster was destroyed. Its body laid lifeless on the ground. Smoke seeped through its pores until it was reduced to its original form. It was just a harmless little fish--dead fish with a plaster on its belly.

The sting of the status effect struck all of you once again, and it occured to you that you need good curing spell right now. With a strike of luck, three men had stumbled upon the area particularly looking for all of you.

"Irvine, I found them," said the man with a slightly long blonde hair. His hair was soft, silky and was tied half-way, however, the tattoo on his face was terribly familiar. Yup, it was Zell Dincht clad in a SeeD uniform, one of the veterans from the previous sorceress war. Coming behind him was Irvine Kinneas who was shouldering his shotgun. His long flowing brown hair was the same as it was before. He still wasn't wearing his SeeD uniform, only his famous signature cowboy outfit--though the color and fabric were different this time.

"Female SeeDs nowadays are really something," Irvine said with a knowing smirk, smiling fondly at the girls. "Unlike the others back then...."

"Shut up, Irvine." Commander Squall Leonhart walked past the two, armed with his gunblade and eyeing the place constantly. "Are you ladies, all right?" He tossed a large antidote bottle to the nearest girl. "We don't have time to sit still here, so I'll be brief. A disaster has happened."

[Polaris Lyn]

"Oddly enough, we figured out there was a disaster all by ourselves, Commander." Polaris offered the grim man a smile, her tone light, playful. Inside she held cold fury. "Thank you for the antidote."

She had caught the bottle with the free hand; now she popped off the cap with her thumbnail and took a measured gulp of the antidote, feeling the potion perform its magic in the usual outward radius. The sick feeling left her. The smell, however, remained.

Polaris was still smiling slightly, turning to Gemma and Blaze and holding out the antidote. "Here, you two. Don't finish it all."

[Myacu]

Gemma glanced at the antidote Polaris extended to her and Blaze.

Smiling, she replied "Luckily I didn't get poisoned", but she did taken a tiny sip, just to remove any lingeriing side effects. Twisting the metal cap back on, she called out, "Anyone else? Blaze?"

[Blaze Sanaku]

Blaze gasped when she saw the monster transform into her little pet fish again.

“…. .Hadrian…” Blaze seethed between clenched teeth. She looked around the hallway suspiciously as if she expected him to jump out and laugh at them. She stepped forward and scooped up Killer, squeezing him something fierce. “Hadrian… when I get my hands on him…” Blaze shook her fish violently before being interrupted by the three most famous people in the Gardens.

Zell, Irvine and .. Squall stood before the girls. Caught off guard, Blaze found herself staring at Squall for a few seconds before she realized what she was doing. She immediately whipped her gaze towards his shoes. She stayed silent as the three guys talked about what was going on.

"Anyone else? Blaze?" Blaze heard Gemma say.

Blaze deftly took the antidote from Gemma when it was handed to her but found herself unable to do anything but hold it. She seemed determined to look at anything but Squall.

Damn it I hate it when he pops out of nowhere like that!! She thought, clutching the antidote rather tightly in one hand, and Killer in the other. She unscrewed the cap and took a quick sip.

“Uhh, anyone else need any?” Blaze asked.