Teammates Ch04 - Into the storm (part 1)
Title: Teammates
Summary: A Glee/ Final Fantasy crossover; Brittana and the gang as fierce warriors, mages, guards and more. This chapter: Brittany is hurt and healed, Rachel is loud and helpful, Quinn is lost and the board computer strikes worse than livejournal. *eep*
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Nah
A/N: I know it's been a long time since my last update. I got sidetracked with Dear Brittany, a companion piece to lizzylizbian's Unconventional Assistance.
And then, when I had finally finished this chapter, my computer died.
Ch 01 | Ch02 | Ch 03 |
Chapter 04: Into the storm (part 1)
“Rachel, can you see anything?”
“I’m just as blind as you are, Quinn.”
Brittany heard the two shout to each other, but the sandstorm didn’t allow her to see further than a few inches. She couldn’t even make out her hands right in front of her eyes. When she heard her friends starting to cough she yelled:
“We have to take shelter somewhere. Quinn, can you clear a path for us?”
With sand soaring her eyes and heavy wind pulling at her hair and whipping it in her face she could only guess Quinn’s location. Brittany’s assumption was confirmed when a strong hand grabbed her right arm.
“I think so. Can you hold onto Rachel? We cannot get separated in here!”
Stretching out her free hand Brittany searched the sandy curtains behind her. A few seconds later a soft palm found hers.
“I should have known these would come in handy. Pass one over to Quinn.”
Two patches of stiff fabric were stuffed into her hand and she was relieved to find out she was indeed holding dust masks, the simple kind. Not a huge help considering her eyes were already burning from millions of grains of sand shooting right through her lashes, but definitely better than having no protection at all. Breathing became immediately easier.
“You don’t happen to have goggles with you, do you?” It was worth a try.
Two hands were now clasping her waist from behind and the thief could sense Rachel’s anxiety. They had to move and they had to move fast.
“Sorry. That’s all.”
Reaching out with both her hands into the brown blur before her she felt Quinn’s dress and held on to it. The scenario would surely have been embarrassing if anyone would have been able to see them, holding onto each other as if they were about to start a polonaise.
“Quinn, now would be a good time to…”
An immense pain shot through Brittany’s rib cage and cut her off as she found herself struggling to regain some of the air that had just been forced out of her lungs. She knew something had hit her when her feet failed to find contact to the ground beneath her and she lost orientation completely.
She could barely hear Rachel scream and it was impossible to guess how far she had been flung across the arena with her limbs helplessly flailing through the air.
Her body hit the ground right before her head and the last thing she felt was the heat from the rough sand emerizing her skin.
Her last thought was a simple “No.”.
---------
“What the hell is going on?”
The shrieking alarm and wildly flickering lights on every engine made it almost impossible to focus. Artie was barely aware of principal Cid grabbing the back of his wheelchair when the Garden’s bridge shook heavily.
“Unconfirmed, sir!”
As of now only one thing was certain: Something had happened. Something that made all computers on board go crazy.
“Artie! What the hell is going on?”
Cid wasn’t usually one to raise his voice. His slightly chubby figure and gentle features of his face made it hard to believe he could be a man of authority. Yet he was. And right this moment Artie understood why no one ever dared to question his decisions.
“Sir, we’re under attack!” The pilot had shouted this.
“Another Garden?”
It was exactly then when all screens in front of Artie went black and his eyes went wide in shock. In what he could only describe as a hilariously desperate attempt to wake the computer back up he slammed both his fists on the console. A few lights flickered briefly as if to mock him, just to die down simultaneously with his hopes of ever being assigned to another job on the bridge.
It was his first day here and his first real job. A sudden headache made his head swell and the pulse in his temples topped every other noise. Nervously he ran both his hands through his hair and over his face before declaring: “Whatever attacked us, it successfully destroyed the power supply to our board computer. All scanners are off. And…” He gulped.
Principal Cid frowned. “What, ‘and’?”
“And… this computer also controlled the arenas. All doors are slammed, our SeeDs are trapped. The weather control system, fiend summoning… even the program I wrote to enable an emergency stop… it’s all gone and I have no idea why our two standby sets won’t work.”
Cid stood there with his lips pressed tightly together, gritting his teeth, for what seemed like an eternity. When he finally opened his mouth Artie was confident it was only to consume his sorry ass. Fortunately the pilot interrupted the scene:
“I have a message coming in, sir! No visual display, though.”
Turning away from the boy who was still half expecting to be wheeled off the bridge through the next open window, Cid commanded:
“Turn off the alarm. And get a line open.”
Three engineers had already stormed the deck and went to work on the engines. Together with the alarm all yelling stopped and everyone on the bridge was now staring silently into the empty space, waiting for the intercom to crackle.
When it did a female voice became audible.
“Hello?.... is this… no, DAMMIT SANDY, GET OFF ME NOW!!!”
Crickets. Confused expressions were exchanged and eyebrows were furrowed. Then the intercom started once again:
“Well, hello Cid. It’s been a while.”
The principle lowered his face and buried his forehead in his right hand.
“Terri! I should have known it’s you.”
---------
Muffled voices.
Blurry shadows.
Air.
What had happened?
Slowly Brittany’s eyes fluttered open. She could hear Rachel shouting somewhere in the distance. The storm hadn’t calmed down one bit and made it that much harder to move her legs, let alone stand up.
Struggling to keep her eyes open, she reached up in an unavailing attempt to clear her vision by rubbing her eyes. She tried to breath, but sand and a stitching pain to her left side stopped her from sucking in much of the well needed oxygen. Thankfully at least her mask hadn’t been ripped off.
Blue and yellow rays of light shot through the storm and just for a second she saw Quinn, arms spread in a V above her head, thunderbolts emerging from her fingers, blonde hair whipping wildly into all directions.
It was a picture Brittany could use to regain some sense of orientation and she guessed she had been thrown at least 150 meters across the arena. Finally coming to she pushed her hands into the ground, effectively lifting her upper body off and getting back on her two feet.
Her hearing had definitely been impaired and as she tried to walk a few steps a hot pain shot from her right ankle through her leg and made her tumble. With her face soar from grains of sand, the left side of her rib cage aching where she had been hit and her ankle stinging, Brittany had exactly one thought: She needed to find shelter, now.
The sky was lit a second time. This time Brittany could see Quinn in flames, fiery lambencies shooting at something in front of her. The image only lasted a few seconds and her fiend remained invisible. It had, however, been long enough for Brittany to get an impression of her surroundings:
The vast majority of their arena was covered in sand, but there were large rocks spread around on the ground. Especially one not far to her right had caught her attention. It would make a great shield. To both her sides, maybe 300 meters away, there were stone walls framing their battle ground. This was without a doubt a valley or a canyon.
Right as she was about to head for the rock she had spotted something large hit her and she was forced into the sand below her yet again. “Ugh.” The pain from her wounds almost made her lose consciousness a second time.
“Isolation!”
Within a radius of three meters all sand abruptly fell to the ground and allowed Brittany to inhale deeply a few times. The body lying on top of her suddenly didn’t bother her as much anymore.
“Sorry.”
Rachel quickly climbed off of Brittany, who started another attempt to clean her eyes just to give it up when she realized she was only rubbing more sand from her hands in.
“Are you hurt?”
“No, but you are!” Rachel’s eyes went wide as she took a closer look at Brittany, who only now noticed she was bleeding. Three parallel deep scratch marks adorned her side and there was a fair amount of blood running down from each of them. Before she could panic or even let her brain comprehend the impact of her injury, Rachel was reaching out.
“Here, let me take care of that.”
Brittany hissed as the spellsinger carefully placed her hand on the wound and began to hum a soft tune, but the pain only lasted a second.
The melody seemed familiar, but not in the way that Brittany could have recognized a song and sing along. More in the way that tugged at something deep inside her, made her feel warm and safe.
It reminded her of this one time at practice when Santana had accidentally bumped her elbow into her face. The Latina had immediately dropped everything and cupped both of her cheeks with her hands to examine the damage.
It reminded her of when she had woken up at night after a bad dream and although she knew exactly Santana would slash anyone who had the courage to wake her before it was time to get up she had poked her awake. “San, San, wake up. San! I had a nightmare!” She had half expected her friend to just kick her out, but to her surprise she had turned around and opened her arms without a word, without even the lightest of frowns. With her face buried in Santana’s shoulder and Santana’s arms wrapped around her all bad thoughts had soon been forgotten.
That was what Rachel’s tune reminded her of: Santana cupping her cheeks, Santana holding her tight, Santana placing a soft kiss on top of her head. It was a musical analogy for comfort and safety.
When the brunette removed her hand the pain had vanished and so had the scratches. Rachel repeated the procedure with her ankle and her face, which apparently had suffered some injuries from the impact earlier.
“Thanks.”
Rachel’s eyes smiled at her. It was hard to believe how anyone could ever hate this girl. She was so kind and considerate.
Looking around, the spellsinger asked: “Isn’t it wonderful?”
Brittany turned her head and had to admit: It was. The bubble Rachel had summoned kept all hints of storm out. There were millions of grains of sand grazing the walls of their see-through shell. It was miraculous and threatening at the same time. Weirdly enough, Brittany started to feel slightly claustrophobic.
“The oxygen in here isn’t going to last forever. We need a strategy.”
Rachel was right. It would be impossible for them to fight under these conditions without a good plan at hand.
“Where’s Quinn?”
But Rachel only shook her head.
“I don’t know. Last time I saw her she was trying to clear a path for us. I can’t even say what we’re fighting. But”, her eyes went dark “it’s huge and extremely fast. Quinn wasn’t able to land a single hit.”
---------
Continue to Chapter 5: -->
Summary: A Glee/ Final Fantasy crossover; Brittana and the gang as fierce warriors, mages, guards and more. This chapter: Brittany is hurt and healed, Rachel is loud and helpful, Quinn is lost and the board computer strikes worse than livejournal. *eep*
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Nah
A/N: I know it's been a long time since my last update. I got sidetracked with Dear Brittany, a companion piece to lizzylizbian's Unconventional Assistance.
And then, when I had finally finished this chapter, my computer died.
Ch 01 | Ch02 | Ch 03 |
Chapter 04: Into the storm (part 1)
“Rachel, can you see anything?”
“I’m just as blind as you are, Quinn.”
Brittany heard the two shout to each other, but the sandstorm didn’t allow her to see further than a few inches. She couldn’t even make out her hands right in front of her eyes. When she heard her friends starting to cough she yelled:
“We have to take shelter somewhere. Quinn, can you clear a path for us?”
With sand soaring her eyes and heavy wind pulling at her hair and whipping it in her face she could only guess Quinn’s location. Brittany’s assumption was confirmed when a strong hand grabbed her right arm.
“I think so. Can you hold onto Rachel? We cannot get separated in here!”
Stretching out her free hand Brittany searched the sandy curtains behind her. A few seconds later a soft palm found hers.
“I should have known these would come in handy. Pass one over to Quinn.”
Two patches of stiff fabric were stuffed into her hand and she was relieved to find out she was indeed holding dust masks, the simple kind. Not a huge help considering her eyes were already burning from millions of grains of sand shooting right through her lashes, but definitely better than having no protection at all. Breathing became immediately easier.
“You don’t happen to have goggles with you, do you?” It was worth a try.
Two hands were now clasping her waist from behind and the thief could sense Rachel’s anxiety. They had to move and they had to move fast.
“Sorry. That’s all.”
Reaching out with both her hands into the brown blur before her she felt Quinn’s dress and held on to it. The scenario would surely have been embarrassing if anyone would have been able to see them, holding onto each other as if they were about to start a polonaise.
“Quinn, now would be a good time to…”
An immense pain shot through Brittany’s rib cage and cut her off as she found herself struggling to regain some of the air that had just been forced out of her lungs. She knew something had hit her when her feet failed to find contact to the ground beneath her and she lost orientation completely.
She could barely hear Rachel scream and it was impossible to guess how far she had been flung across the arena with her limbs helplessly flailing through the air.
Her body hit the ground right before her head and the last thing she felt was the heat from the rough sand emerizing her skin.
Her last thought was a simple “No.”.
---------
“What the hell is going on?”
The shrieking alarm and wildly flickering lights on every engine made it almost impossible to focus. Artie was barely aware of principal Cid grabbing the back of his wheelchair when the Garden’s bridge shook heavily.
“Unconfirmed, sir!”
As of now only one thing was certain: Something had happened. Something that made all computers on board go crazy.
“Artie! What the hell is going on?”
Cid wasn’t usually one to raise his voice. His slightly chubby figure and gentle features of his face made it hard to believe he could be a man of authority. Yet he was. And right this moment Artie understood why no one ever dared to question his decisions.
“Sir, we’re under attack!” The pilot had shouted this.
“Another Garden?”
It was exactly then when all screens in front of Artie went black and his eyes went wide in shock. In what he could only describe as a hilariously desperate attempt to wake the computer back up he slammed both his fists on the console. A few lights flickered briefly as if to mock him, just to die down simultaneously with his hopes of ever being assigned to another job on the bridge.
It was his first day here and his first real job. A sudden headache made his head swell and the pulse in his temples topped every other noise. Nervously he ran both his hands through his hair and over his face before declaring: “Whatever attacked us, it successfully destroyed the power supply to our board computer. All scanners are off. And…” He gulped.
Principal Cid frowned. “What, ‘and’?”
“And… this computer also controlled the arenas. All doors are slammed, our SeeDs are trapped. The weather control system, fiend summoning… even the program I wrote to enable an emergency stop… it’s all gone and I have no idea why our two standby sets won’t work.”
Cid stood there with his lips pressed tightly together, gritting his teeth, for what seemed like an eternity. When he finally opened his mouth Artie was confident it was only to consume his sorry ass. Fortunately the pilot interrupted the scene:
“I have a message coming in, sir! No visual display, though.”
Turning away from the boy who was still half expecting to be wheeled off the bridge through the next open window, Cid commanded:
“Turn off the alarm. And get a line open.”
Three engineers had already stormed the deck and went to work on the engines. Together with the alarm all yelling stopped and everyone on the bridge was now staring silently into the empty space, waiting for the intercom to crackle.
When it did a female voice became audible.
“Hello?.... is this… no, DAMMIT SANDY, GET OFF ME NOW!!!”
Crickets. Confused expressions were exchanged and eyebrows were furrowed. Then the intercom started once again:
“Well, hello Cid. It’s been a while.”
The principle lowered his face and buried his forehead in his right hand.
“Terri! I should have known it’s you.”
---------
Muffled voices.
Blurry shadows.
Air.
What had happened?
Slowly Brittany’s eyes fluttered open. She could hear Rachel shouting somewhere in the distance. The storm hadn’t calmed down one bit and made it that much harder to move her legs, let alone stand up.
Struggling to keep her eyes open, she reached up in an unavailing attempt to clear her vision by rubbing her eyes. She tried to breath, but sand and a stitching pain to her left side stopped her from sucking in much of the well needed oxygen. Thankfully at least her mask hadn’t been ripped off.
Blue and yellow rays of light shot through the storm and just for a second she saw Quinn, arms spread in a V above her head, thunderbolts emerging from her fingers, blonde hair whipping wildly into all directions.
It was a picture Brittany could use to regain some sense of orientation and she guessed she had been thrown at least 150 meters across the arena. Finally coming to she pushed her hands into the ground, effectively lifting her upper body off and getting back on her two feet.
Her hearing had definitely been impaired and as she tried to walk a few steps a hot pain shot from her right ankle through her leg and made her tumble. With her face soar from grains of sand, the left side of her rib cage aching where she had been hit and her ankle stinging, Brittany had exactly one thought: She needed to find shelter, now.
The sky was lit a second time. This time Brittany could see Quinn in flames, fiery lambencies shooting at something in front of her. The image only lasted a few seconds and her fiend remained invisible. It had, however, been long enough for Brittany to get an impression of her surroundings:
The vast majority of their arena was covered in sand, but there were large rocks spread around on the ground. Especially one not far to her right had caught her attention. It would make a great shield. To both her sides, maybe 300 meters away, there were stone walls framing their battle ground. This was without a doubt a valley or a canyon.
Right as she was about to head for the rock she had spotted something large hit her and she was forced into the sand below her yet again. “Ugh.” The pain from her wounds almost made her lose consciousness a second time.
“Isolation!”
Within a radius of three meters all sand abruptly fell to the ground and allowed Brittany to inhale deeply a few times. The body lying on top of her suddenly didn’t bother her as much anymore.
“Sorry.”
Rachel quickly climbed off of Brittany, who started another attempt to clean her eyes just to give it up when she realized she was only rubbing more sand from her hands in.
“Are you hurt?”
“No, but you are!” Rachel’s eyes went wide as she took a closer look at Brittany, who only now noticed she was bleeding. Three parallel deep scratch marks adorned her side and there was a fair amount of blood running down from each of them. Before she could panic or even let her brain comprehend the impact of her injury, Rachel was reaching out.
“Here, let me take care of that.”
Brittany hissed as the spellsinger carefully placed her hand on the wound and began to hum a soft tune, but the pain only lasted a second.
The melody seemed familiar, but not in the way that Brittany could have recognized a song and sing along. More in the way that tugged at something deep inside her, made her feel warm and safe.
It reminded her of this one time at practice when Santana had accidentally bumped her elbow into her face. The Latina had immediately dropped everything and cupped both of her cheeks with her hands to examine the damage.
It reminded her of when she had woken up at night after a bad dream and although she knew exactly Santana would slash anyone who had the courage to wake her before it was time to get up she had poked her awake. “San, San, wake up. San! I had a nightmare!” She had half expected her friend to just kick her out, but to her surprise she had turned around and opened her arms without a word, without even the lightest of frowns. With her face buried in Santana’s shoulder and Santana’s arms wrapped around her all bad thoughts had soon been forgotten.
That was what Rachel’s tune reminded her of: Santana cupping her cheeks, Santana holding her tight, Santana placing a soft kiss on top of her head. It was a musical analogy for comfort and safety.
When the brunette removed her hand the pain had vanished and so had the scratches. Rachel repeated the procedure with her ankle and her face, which apparently had suffered some injuries from the impact earlier.
“Thanks.”
Rachel’s eyes smiled at her. It was hard to believe how anyone could ever hate this girl. She was so kind and considerate.
Looking around, the spellsinger asked: “Isn’t it wonderful?”
Brittany turned her head and had to admit: It was. The bubble Rachel had summoned kept all hints of storm out. There were millions of grains of sand grazing the walls of their see-through shell. It was miraculous and threatening at the same time. Weirdly enough, Brittany started to feel slightly claustrophobic.
“The oxygen in here isn’t going to last forever. We need a strategy.”
Rachel was right. It would be impossible for them to fight under these conditions without a good plan at hand.
“Where’s Quinn?”
But Rachel only shook her head.
“I don’t know. Last time I saw her she was trying to clear a path for us. I can’t even say what we’re fighting. But”, her eyes went dark “it’s huge and extremely fast. Quinn wasn’t able to land a single hit.”
---------
Continue to Chapter 5: -->