Markus
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“Urgh…what in the name of Shiva happened…?” Markus groaned as he lifted himself to his feet. He had the distinct groggy feeling that he had been unconscious but he had no way of telling how long for. “Eden?” He took a step forward but his legs wobbled, still unfamiliar with the concept of walking, and he fell sideways into the wall. Cursing, he slid to his rear. Awareness seeped slowly into him, bringing with it a throbbing pain in his right leg. He cursed again. “Feels like I got run over by a damn chocobo.” He looked across the floor and discovered the source of his pain. “Or I landed on a sledgehammer. Of all the places to fall into I gotta land on a freaking sledgehammer. Odin damn it!”

There was a moan to the left. Looking across Markus saw another male, about his age. After a few moments he realised it was the guy he’d seen with Nova during the attack. Returning to his feet – with more care this time – Markus wandered over and nudged the man’s shoulder. “Hey, you okay there?”

The man’s head rolled to the side. “What happened?”

“No idea.” He looked around. “Can’t even say where we are. Definitely ain’t the beach.”

There was a moment of silence before the man shouted, “Nova!” and jumped to his feet. A little too quickly it turned out as he stumbled and Markus had to offer a hand of support. “Thanks…”

“Don’t worry, we’ll find Nova. And the others. They all got sucked in. They all gotta be around here somewhere.” He took his hand off of the man’s shoulder and picked a direction, keeping his steps slow. Despite his anxiousness to find Eden he knew nothing about the place in which they found themselves, what dangers might lurk in the shadows. He needed to be prepared for anything and that meant doing his best to keep his mind off of her.

“So you’re in the Defence Core?”

It sounded more like a statement than a question but Markus chose to take it as the latter. “That’s right.” He looked back at his travelling companion and noticed the accursed sledgehammer had come along too. “You’re Nova’s friend, right?”

“Kite. You know Nova?”

“Know him? I trained him – for a while anyway.”

“Was he always so-”

“Reckless?”

Kite nodded.

“Yeah. Not his fault though, one of them genetic things. His sister’s the same.” He slowed his pace enough to let Kite walk beside him. “He’ll give you the run around.”

“Yeah…” Kite looked distant for a moment, then his eyes caught Markus’ gaze and the bigger man thought he saw him blush. “Not that I run around after him or anything. I just – I get what you mean, about Nova.”

Markus chuckled. “If you say so.” He paused to rub the back of his still aching leg. “It’s worth it though. All that running around feels exhausting and you have to fight so hard for so little but it really is worth it.” He started walking again. “Come on, the others have to be around here somewhere.”

*
Somehow they all made it into the immediate safety of the elevator. The doors closed and the army of fiends – make that ceith – disappeared. Markus let out a breath of relief but he knew they weren’t safe. As the elevator descended, a tense silence gripped the group. After seeing those cieth, what horrors could be waiting for them below.

The girl draped over his shoulder stirred and her hands brushed his rear.

“Hey are you-”

“I once knew a man – such a tease
“Who charmed off a girl’s panties with ease
“I walked up to that man
“And readied my hand
“And gave his large cock a good squeeze.”

Fortunately for Markus, the woman wasn’t in any position to grab his manhood but that didn’t stop her from taking advantage of the situation and grabbing a handful of his rear. The soldier yelped and momentarily lost his footing, almost dropping the woman in the process. Somehow he managed to recover and slid the woman to her feet before passing her over to Eden.

“You take care of her.” He slipped into a corner of the elevator to nurse his pride and his backside in peace.

*
There are some things in life that no amount of training could ever prepare you for, things that are so sudden and unexpected that the only thing you can do is hope that your instincts are sharp enough to save you. When the floor started to shake, Markus had immediately braced himself, drawing his body into a crouch and shifting his weight against the movements as best he could. He felt the inevitable collapse of a section of the floor moments before the cracks began to show but it was Eden who ordered them to move. She had always had a way of reading a situation better than he ever could. He wasn’t sure whether he admired or envied for the skill.

Everyone moved away from the dangerous section of the floor, all save for Kite. Jin rushed to the boy’s rescue only for the added weight of a second body to force open the already fragile cracks. As Kite stumbled towards the main body of the group, the ground beneath Jin’s feet vanished. Without pause for thought, Markus made his move. He gained as much momentum as he dared and dropped, scraping across the rough surface. The uniform did little to protect him from the coarse ground and he winced as pointed debris scratched at his skin. He reached the edge of the floor and, ignoring every fibre of his being, let himself fall over the edge. Opening his arms as he rolled over, he managed to grab hold of Jin’s wrist and succeeded in a tentative grip on the crumbling edge of the floor. His chest roared in agony at the sudden stop and he almost lost his grip on both Jin and the floor above.

“You okay, Jin?” He managed to ask through gritted teeth.

“Y-yeah. Thanks.”

“Thank me when we’re on stable ground.” He tried to pull Jin up but the strain was too much. Must’ve landed here harder than I thought. Better see a healer if we ever make it out of here. He felt hands on his wrist and looked up. Eden’s face peered at him from over the ledge.

“Having trouble?”

“Just admiring the lovely scenery. Any chance of a pull up?”

“The floor’s too unstable for more than one person right now. I can probably keep you from dropping but that’s it.”

Markus sighed and tried to ignore the ever-growing strain in his muscles. “Jin, I need you to climb up me.” He waited for some kind of acknowledgement but received none. “Jin?”

“There’s something there.”

Markus froze as he pictured a horde of cieth lumbering beneath them. Or worse… “What is it?”

“I can’t tell. Can you swing me over a bit?”

“Are you crazy?”

“I can almost reach it. I just need you to swing me a little closer.”

“We don’t even know what it is.”

“It might help us.”

“Odin help you if you piss something off.” Gritting his teeth against the pain, Markus began to swing Jin. His muscles were burning but despite the pain and the frustration of the situation he refused to let Jin go. A few moments later, his ached eased a little and he looked down to find Jin had managed to get himself some footing on a protruding piece of flooring. Markus couldn’t tell whether it was another floor or the remnants of a single room but something inside had clearly taken Jin’s interest.

Several silent moments passed and Jin shouted up that he was ready to ascend. Markus braced himself, warning his body of the impending strain, and told his friend to climb. The trip was slow and painful. More than once the soldier thought his arm would come free of his shoulder and drop them both into oblivion but somehow the joint held and as Jin disappeared over the top, he felt relief rush through him. Markus threw up his dangling arm and pulled himself back into the room. Once he was clear of the potentially fatal ground, he took a deep breath and turned to Jin. “So what did you find?”

The younger man rooted out a small object and held it out to the ground. Everyone gathered a little closer to inspect the object nestled in his palms. It was a crystal, barely the length of Markus’ hand. It was blue, with five perfectly cut edges, a pointed top and a rounded bottom. On the surface there was nothing unusual about it and Markus almost felt the urge to punch Jin for risking both their lives for something that didn’t appear to pose any help to them at all. But then he looked closer and he saw what it was that had made Alex’s eyes go wide. In the heart of the crystal, something was stirring. It had no real form or shape; at first he had thought it was smoke or some kind of vapour but there was something unnatural about its movement that made him question that decision.

“It’s beautiful,” the young songstress whispered.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” added Kite.

“We should-” Eden began to speak but her words were cut off by the ear-splitting sound of something heavy grinding across the floor. The group looked over and saw the door on the other side of the room had opened.

From a piece of stone that appeared to resemble a desk came Nova’s voice. “I didn’t do it, I swear!” The machines on the “desk” were turning, humming lightly as they moved. Nova’s head appeared above the contraption. He looked at the group and then over at the door, his face lightening to a smirk as he realised that his curiosity appeared to have actually helped them for once. “Oh hey, I did it.”

Eden sighed. “Let’s get going before something else decides to surprise us.” She took Markus’ assaulter by the arm and started leading her towards the door.

“What do I do with this?” Jin asked, nodding towards the crystal.

“Keep it if you want,” Eden replied, refusing to look back at them. “But so help me, if anything bad comes of that crystal I will personally feed you to Humbaba.”




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