"Come back here, meat!" Seifer screamed as he boosted after a pack of black Ultima Demons who seemed quite scared of his beam saber...that is until they reached the main focal point.
Up until now his tactics had worked. Hunt down demons, slice them and their points to bits. Good right? Now some sort of energy barrier was deflecting his beam saber and keeping the suit a good five feet away from the targets. Seifer swore and cursed kicking the field, while the demons hissed something that sounded like a laugh.
Meanwhile Squall had found no signs of Adamantite anywhere, and he was getting dangerously close to the main focal point on the surface. He did notice something different though, there were no other smaller focal points at all, and he'd boosted a good distance around the moon. Instead what he saw was something that uncurled a tendril of worry in his stomach.
The demons and their focal points were retreating inside the main focal point, making it bigger.
If he and Seifer were going to make it out of here alive, they'd better find the stone.
It took a few minutes, but Seifer had boosted around the main focal point and found Squall, scanning away. He would have laughed at the stupidity of it all had Squall not pointed up at the top of the point getting bigger.
"Okay, the other points are clear," Seifer confirmed.
"Not okay," Squall said monotoned, "they're merging with the main point, accelerating it's preparation. We need to find that stone now!"
Seifer without hesitation, flicked on his scanner, and quickly spun the mech about checking the surface for Adamantite anomalies.
Squall commed him, "I'm modifying the array to five feet below the surface."
"Copy," Seifer said, "Modifying array....God this is boring as hell!" he whined.
"Confirmed! I've got a lock on our Moon Stone! 30 meters due east." Squall shouted and transmitted the coordinates back to earth.
Back on earth, Laguna received the transmission and relayed the information to the braves. Rinoa was overjoyed that Squall was all right, so far, both surface objectives had been met; now it was just a matter of getting the stone and getting home. But the concerned look on Laguna's face told Rinoa that time was short and that they needed to get that stone home and it's brave in position quick!
Squall and Seifer had quickly boosted over to the coordinates and were readily prepared to dig up the stone. During the search, Squall commented, "Seifer, keep watch, if the demons see we have this stone, they'll be on us in a heartbeat!"
"I'll kick ass and take names!" Seifer grunted eyes glancing around. Then asking Squall, "Hey puberty boy, what's your sign?"
Squall sighed, not even bothering to look in Seifer's direction,
"Mmmm....Leo, or so Rinoa tells me."
"Ha--and they thought you were one of the missing braves, I could see it plain as day on their faces, what a bunch of dumb--"
"Attention--" boomed Laguna's voice over both comm links, "Launch control to Strike team, do you read? Over."
Squall held the stone in his hands tracing the hourglass shape carved on Adamantite with a metallic hand.
Suddenly it seemed as though a whole swarm of demons sensed the unearthing of the stone and left from behind the barrier to obtain it.
Seifer quickly activated his beam saber, stepping in front of Squall as he secured the stone inside a container attached to the mobile suit. Then Squall quickly activated his saber as well. And the battle began.
The fight wasn't actually that difficult at first, the demons struck one at a time, kamikaze fashion, trying to knock the mechs into orbit. But both Squall and Seifer saw these coming and sliced them in half before they were even close. It was when the demons attacked in groups of five or six that Squall had trouble, as they knew he had the stone, and were clawing at where he had placed the container.
Rinoa watched in horror as she saw the contortions of combat scrawl across Squall's face, she didn't want to see the horrible creatures he was fighting, but something in her gut told her the tides had turned against them.
Seifer was beginning to realize the attacks weren't aimed at him, but at Squall, and it was all he could do to keep the strikes to a minimum, he even had to fire a missile or two to thin the numbers. So many. It was very hard to maintain a speed to keep up with them and hit solidly with his beam saber.
Squall leapt for high ground and use what reserves of boost he could spare to maintain his distance. It wasn't their strength that was difficult to deal with, it was their speed and sheer numbers that kept him moving, dealing with them. The numbers began to thin, and the demons began to retreat. And Squall knew it wasn't because he or Seifer posed a major threat.
That's when he saw it...
Globs of grayish brown matter floating out of the mobile suit.
Seifer landed next to him and stared in utter shock.
