"Hmm... Maybe you just weren't near any of them at that moment, or perhaps Diablos 'boosted his own signal', so to speak, at a critical moment to cut through the interference. Of course it's just as likely that I'm wrong, that was just a theory off the top of my head. I wouldn't give it too much consideration unless we can find more evidence to substantiate it.", he said. His facial expression betrayed deep thought, more than this conversation really required, but that's because his thoughts ran far deeper than his words. He cleared his throat and stood up. "If you'll excuse me, I'd like to go somewhere quiet for a bit to... assimilate all of this new information.", he said, walking away from the team without looking back. He went back outside into the empty corridor they had found him in, and returned to his window, and watched as the scenery rushed past him with the motion of the train.
"Spira...", he thought. "Kyra was sent to Spira by Time Compression. Time Compression creates a link between these two worlds. Pyreflies come from Spira...", he continued. A small, yet visible amount of magic built up in his hand again as he raised it to watch the energies swirl about his palm. "Could all of this be... my fault?", he asked himself quietly. "The first reports of missing SeeDs that I heard about came in about a week after that time...", he said, trailing off, as he began to focus on his memories.
He stood in a large metal room, far beneath the original location of Balamb Garden, the ruins of the Facility, a forgotten testament to the evil that men do in the pursuit of power. He often returned to this place, for it was where his only memories lived, and I suppose it's just human nature that he would rather cling to bad memories, than to have no memories at all. This room in particular held meaning, the place where he was during the test subject's attempted escape. This is where he lost one of the only two friends he could remember. During their training, test subjects were sorted into three man squads, to learn to act as a strike team. His team consisted of a man named Jakob, about 4 years older than him, by his estimation, and Reya, a girl a few years younger. The three of them had tried to escape together during the riot, but were quickly intercepted and outnumbered by NORG's mercenaries. They fought as hard as they could for their freedom, but ultimately, Reya was killed here, and then he and Jakob were knocked out by anesthetic gas shortly thereafter. Jakob himself had perished sometime later when several of the cryogenic stasis chambers malfunctioned. While Jakob's death was an accident no one could have prevented, Steele held himself responsible for Reya's defeat. He and Jakob were both very capable combatants, but Reya was attuned to healing magic, and she was ill-suited to combat. He blamed himself for not doing a better job defending her. He often came here to contemplate that failure, and to test himself.
"Hasteja!", he yelled, as a flash of magic enveloped him. He stood in the exact place he was when he first noticed the men converging on Reya. He visualized their positions, and hers. Back then, he was only capable of Hastega. Back then he wasn't fast enough to save her, but now... maybe now... He sprinted towards the position of the nearest enemy, and slashed the empty space where he had been, just as he had back then. He moved on to the next, and the next. Before, this was where she had been killed, but this time, this time he was faster... he reached the position of a mercenary he had failed to kill last time, he slashed at the image of Reya's killer, but still, this wasn't enough. He recalled two more soldiers on the other side of her, and rushed towards them... but even now, he wasn't fast enough to reach both of them before they would have been able to kill her. Even now, he was still too slow to save her. He fell to his knees, sweat dripping from his brow. "Damnit! Even Hasteja isn't enough! I'm still too weak!", he shouted in anger, pounding his fist against the floor. He forced himself to his feet, and raised his hand into the air. "Then I'll just push even further beyond! I know there is still power out of my reach!", he declared, as he began drawing in as much time magic as he could. He could feel the magic for miles, there was so much, but still his range wasn't enough to achieve the next level he would need to finally put this nightmare to rest. But he wasn't willing to accept that limitation. He knew he could force himself even further. He strained as hard as he possibly could, pushed further than he ever had before... And then he felt it. A magic he had never tasted. It was time magic to be sure, but it was like nothing he had ever experienced. It felt impossibly massive, yet condensed. It was so close to being within his reach, if he could push just a little bit harder...
He felt disoriented, unsure of what had just happened. He opened his eyes, and the world came back into focus... But what he saw next, we could not have been prepared for. "Reya?", he asked, as looked upon the very scene he had just finished reliving. In far more detail than he could recall, but more than that, this didn't feel like a memory. It felt like he was really there. The moment appeared frozen in time. He could see the look on her face, the looks on the men who had killed her, and when he turned around, he could even see himself, and Jakob, fighting back to back just as they had back then. "What is this?", he asked himself. Before he could spend any more time thinking about it, he heard gunfire. The moment wasn't frozen anymore. Almost instinctively, he readied his weapons, and charged into the fray. "Hasteja!", he yelled, as the flash of light once again brought him to the limits of his speed. He had failed even at this speed in his visualization, but this wasn't quite the same. He was closer to the enemy, and there was still another one of him fighting the others. He wasn't sure what was happening, but he didn't care. He went for the furthest enemy this time, expecting his past self to have started with the closest. He struck once, twice, a third time, and a fourth... He glanced over to his past self, but he hadn't moved, he was just watching him. Fortunately, the mercenaries were just as surprised, and they had shifted their attention to him. In a moment, he finished off all six of the men that had come after Reya... and Reya was still alive. In that moment, he felt the weight of his failure lifting from himself. But this was short lived. When he turned to meet his own gaze, he realized that his past self had dropped his guard, and the man that he had been fighting was about to strike. Just before the man could kill him, Jakob pushed him out of the way, and found himself impaled on the mercenary's blade instead. Just then, once again, William became disoriented, dizzy. The world began to fade, and everything went black.
He woke up on the floor of the room, not during the riot, but back in the present. "I must have pushed too hard and passed out...", he concluded, as he brought himself to his feet. "But damn, that sure felt real... what a cruel dream", he said, regaining his composure. He sighed, deciding that he still wasn't ready to reach the next level of his mastery over time magic. But, the dream had inspired him to go back into the stasis room, and pay his respects to Jakob. He walked past dozens of stasis chambers, dozens of other test subjects, many now deceased due to stasis failure, but many still frozen and asleep. Towards the back of the room, a single chamber door was opened, his own. Just across from it was the chamber where he had discovered Jakob's body shortly after he woke up. The glass of the chamber that held his friend was once again fogged up, but he wiped some of the fog away with his sleeve... But what he saw wasn't his friend Jakob. His eyes widened at the realization. "It wasn't a dream?!", he exclaimed, as he stood before the deactivated stasis chamber, now the final resting place of Reya Evans.
He managed to bring himself back to the present with a little effort. He shook his head, and allowed the magic in his hand to dissipate. "No... it couldn't be. My Time Compression is nowhere near Ultimecia's. Surely I couldn't have done this much damage.", he said to himself. He let out a sigh. "Of course, now the question becomes... Should I tell them?", he asked out loud.
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks