ext_188920 (![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
the-404-error.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
moogle_workshop2011-03-12 11:53 pm
the-404-error.livejournal.com) wrote in moogle_workshop2011-03-12 11:53 pm
Entry tags:
(no subject)
Username: ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
the_404_error
Class: Black Mage
Title: A Most Indecent Theft
Summary: For the Fic Prompt Party at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
ff_minigames, lightofeilia requested a jail breakout fic with the characters being sent to prison for a humorous reason.
Characters/Pairings: Zidane, Eiko, mentions of others, minor characters like >Queen Stella.
Word count: 3,056... um, yes, were these supposed to be short dabbles? D: I don't know how this happened.
Rating/warnings: I guess PG for partial nudity and references to alcohol. Nothing major. The greater warnings should be how this is un-beta'ed and part of it is rushed.Eight minutes before the party ends, yes? DX
A/N: Takes place a couple of years after the events of FFIX. I know the first half contains a lot more detail than the second, but considering how lengthy it already is... I'm not sure which half I should apologize for. DX I also have no idea how it's possible to turn someone into a Qu... or an oglop for that matter, so hopefully that's not too outlandish.
Treno had always been a haven for thieves. The perpetual darkness made it easy to plunder without being seen, and the class divisions enabled any thief to steal from the richest of the rich then quickly seek refuge with their fellow robbers by escaping to the other side of town. In the noble quarter, two figures were crouching behind the bushes, preparing to take their target. Their features were barely distinguishable in the dim light, but one had a characteristic tail and the other was smaller in structure with a short horn. The taller one rubbed his hands together; Zidane was certain this would be easy.
Requests such as this, directly from Regent Cid, were rare, but the Regent’s ties with Tantalus aided them both. The Lindblum ruler often struggled with temptation, and he had once again fell victim to his desires. His time as an oglop had apparently not taught him a lesson, and in retribution Hilda had taken even extremer measures than the last time and turned him into a Qu. It did not take long before Cid began to lament his present state, especially after the strange cravings and seeing the impact on their adopted daughter. For Eiko’s sake, Hilda had not left this time, and after she observed her husband consuming a soup consisting of their city’s infamous reeking pickles, frog juice, and potatoes, she decided Cid had suffered enough and told him how to reverse the process.
As it took a complicated mixture to cause Cid’s current form, the items they needed to combine to reverse it were scarce. They had already found one, a Horn of an Ash, and the information they gathered all said that the other two, a Silver Dragon’s Talon and a Shard from Matoya’s Mirror, were being held by Queen Stella, an eccentric noble known for collecting bizarre items. Zidane had helped her collect coins before, but she was not about to easily part with what she’s acquired over the years, even if he came in boasting about the prior help he gave her and how he was on a mission from Regent Cid. The tailed man had already tried that, and it failed miserably.
“Ready?” He asked Eiko somewhat excitedly.
“I’ve been ready! What are we waiting for?” the young girl retorted. Since the moment she heard that her adoptive parents were going to ask Tantalus to seek out the items, she hastily decided to go along with them, and then insisted that Zidane be the one from the group to take up the task. Zidane appreciated the company, but now she was slightly on edge as he wasn’t that enthusiastic about what she insisted on doing to help. Since the power of the eidolons had devastated many major cities, not everyone viewed summoners in a positive light to begin with, and he preferred if she wouldn’t draw negative attention to herself. Eiko stubbornly kept vowing that no one would even see her.
On cue, Eiko began to summon Phoenix as Zidane dashed from the bushes to the back of the house they were targeting. The moment the eidolon’s radiant light lit up the sky, Zidane pushed open the back window and jumped inside. As they had hoped, the presence of an eidolon brought quite a crowd, and even the usually sedentary Stella was peering out her doorway by the time he entered. Not wasting any time, the thief jumped in the pool of water the duck-woman filled part of her house with. Admittedly not as apt in water as in the air or on land, he was still confident this would be a simple task, after all, all he had to do was unlock a couple of her half-submerged cages. The first lock opened almost effortlessly in his fingers, and he placed the shard securely in the item sack on his back. Swimming to the second, he thought he heard something below him, but wrote it off as a misjudged sound from the commotion outside. Entirely underwater, the second lock wasn't as quick to open, but still proved easy to pick he got a clear view of the keyhole. Right when the genome was putting the talon in the bag, a force began to drag him down. Looking in its direction he saw that a large crap-type monster, a Clipper, with a collar around his neck and a nametag reading “Bubbles,” had lunged for him and now had the back of his pants in one of its claws. Zidane tried to stab it and free himself, but the angle made it impossible for him to get a proper attack in. As he struggled, the yells from outside were getting louder, and one in particular he recognized loud and clear; Eiko had been discovered. The aristocratic voices commenting on finding a summoner in their city only confirmed this fear. While Zidane was distracted, Bubbles used its other claw to attack his front side. Seeing it just in time, the thief’s swift dodge caused this one to miss as well, and the effort had caused him to be free of the first claw, albeit at the price of the back of his trousers. Deciding they were ruined now anyway, he fought out of his pants and left them for Bubbles to have. Quickly swimming to the center platform, the only area of her house not underwater, he instinctively gave up any concept of stealth and rushed past Stella towards the door, unknowingly knocking her over with the force behind his speed.
Outside, their stunt had now drawn a crowd larger than any Tetra Master tournament he had seen. The summon now dispersed, all of their attention was directed towards two people in identical uniforms who had a squirming black bag where sounds of “Unhand me!” and “You’ll regret this!” could be heard coming from.
“Let her go!” His weapons now secure in the tailed man's hands, he was expecting them to fight all of the way; instead, one of her captor’s took one look at him and laughed. The other was trying his best to prevent himself from responding like his partner, but barely contained snickers kept on getting through. The murmurs of the crowd switched from a frightened tone to one often reserved for gossip, and one particularly loud noble who was observing the situation called out “Oh, the indecency! I never!”
Confused, Zidane noticed where they were looking--the monster’s hold had gotten through to more than just his pants. The first claw left a gaping hole on his backside, while the second took care of his front. Only a very small piece of fabric was left of his undergarments, and it concealed nothing.
To Zidane, this wasn’t much of a setback. He thought to take out the summoner’s imprisoners while they were preoccupied with his predicament, but right then he heard Stella quack and yell “thief!” from behind him. Then everything went dark.
When he awoke, he found himself on a coarse and cold stone floor. He also was conscious of how he once again had pants; someone had clothed him in a plain, white, scratchy pair of trousers with moth holes. Jumping up from the floor, he saw Eiko leaning against the side of the wall, one arm fastened on her hip as she eyed him.
“What kind of guy faints when saving the heroine like that? I overheard them say the crazy duck woman used some rare explosive item on you, and I had to use Life to get you up just now!” While the young girl’s crush on Zidane had lessened over the years, thanks largely to how she was now part of a community, a family, and no longer felt the intense loneliness and desperate longing that once plagued her, she still couldn’t resist trying to get a reaction out of the guy.
“Oh, sorry, say Eiko, do you know where we are?” he asked quite casually, as if nothing too far out of the ordinary had happened.
“In a prison cell, dummy!” There was a touch of annoyance in Eiko’s voice. She may not feel as she once did, but how he ignored all her efforts still frustrated her.
“Yeah, I see that, but in a prison cell where?” To this question, the horned girl shrugged and looked away. Glancing around again, Zidane scanned for any way out. Aside from the section where food was given through that was too thin to see that far out of, their cell had only one visible opening, a small slot on the door for the guards to peer into. Getting on his toes to gaze into the slot himself, he saw a single guard, a scruffy black haired man who had been neglecting to shave was standing right outside their cell. While he couldn’t see the man's entire body, he could make out a sword swung across his back and that he was covered in armor from the torso on down. The corridor seemed to be empty otherwise, but at this angle he couldn’t get a view good enough to know for certain. Putting both of his feet back down, he put as much distance between him and the door as possible and motioned towards Eiko. The summoner eagerly took a few steps forward, all that was necessary to get to his position in the small room, and gave him a questioning look.
“I’ll lure the guard in,” he was whispering while keeping an eye on the door to make sure the guard didn’t suspect anything was up, “…and once he steps inside, knock him out!”
“With what?! In this cramped space I can’t summ—“
“Shhh!” Zidane cut her off as Eiko was making little effort to keep her voice down “Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll think of something.” The frown now on Eiko’s face said she was not convinced.
Getting up, the thief went to the door again, this time kicking it. “Hey, over here! We need help!” he yelled upwards towards the aperture. Anyone in Zidane’s line of work knew how easy it was to trick guards. From Rusty to the guards of Lindblum, it was a near universally accepted fact that only gullible fools were ever hired for that profession.
“Help the prisoner?” the guard scoffed, “Why would I wanna do somethin’ like that? I dunno what you want, but you don’t deserve any help.” His coarse voice was like listening to sandpaper scratch together, and his word choices relayed that he was from the less wealthy half of Treno, likely someone they employed only because of the meager pay he was willing to receive.
“… but there’s an oglop in here! You don’t want to make a little girl spend her days cowing in fear in a cell, do you?” The genome looked towards Eiko, expecting her to pretend to be frightened for this little act.
“I’m not afraid of an oglop! And I’m not a little girl anymore!” she declared instead, which caused Zidane to mouth “play along,” to her, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“I know this game. You’re findin’ excuses to bring me in, and then you’re gonna jump on me and steal my uniform. You know how many stories we’ve heard about that? It’s just a bug. Squash it yourself.” The dark-haired man snorted, and turned to go back to staring at the hallway.
Evidently, his background also made him a bit more street-wise than your run of the mill guard, but Zidane wasn’t about to give up. “We can’t! Do you want us to catch oglantitus? It’s so contagious; you’ll get it for sure if we do! The only safe way to kill oglops these days is with a blade.”
This caused the watch to direct his attention back at him, “I’ve never hearda this oglantitus.”
“Really? It’s new, but spreading fast. Haven’t you seen anyone staggering through the street recently?”
“There’s always been people straggerin’ in the streets here.”
“But even more lately, right? That’s how it starts. You start out dizzy and your eyesight won’t focus. After that, you start vomiting, fainting… Sound familiar? Really nasty stuff. Many die from it.” He was describing Treno’s interminable supply of drunks, but with any hope he would at least sow the seeds of concern.
“Now that you mention it, there has been alotta that goin’ on…” he was quiet for a second as he thought it over “Even if you’re tellin’ the truth, how do I know you’re not just tryin’ to get me in there?”
“What would be the point?” Zidane replied smoothly, “Your uniform wouldn’t even fit me. I’d get caught again the moment I step outside the door!”
Their captor made a grunting sound, and then admitted “I guess you’re right. I’ll check it out, but try anything, and you’re toast, you hear me?”
While he unlocked the door, the guard mumbled half to himself, “I dealt with a couple of guys fittin’ that description just the other day. Do you think… I don’t wanna catch no oglantitus.” When the door opened and the disheveled man stepped inside, Eiko had plans of her own and rushed out of the door.
“Well, that works,” Zidane mused. Dashing out of the entryway himself, he easily lifted the keys off the guard on his way past. Quickly shutting the door behind them, he locked it before the now imprisoned man even realized what all had transpired.
“Dammit! I should’ve known!” The man’s voice boomed from inside the cell as he began to pound his fists against the door.
“Never doubt the gullibility of clunky guards!” Zidane called back, which caused the bearded man to stop pounding and instead let another low grunt.
Looking around, all three of the other cells in their hallway were empty, and there were no guards by the stairwell. They faced no further threats here, but it was impossible to be sure of what waited for them on the floors above.
“There’s enough room to summon eidolons now.” The summoner beamed up at him, anticipating how they would have to fight their way through the floor above.
“Yeah, but we should still try to find our stuff,” Zidane looked down at his empty hands, “Being without my daggers like this makes me feel even more naked than when I really was naked.”
Eiko gave him a quizzical look and about to ask why he came to her aid pant-less to begin with, but he had already begun running for the next floor. Shaking her head, she sped to catch up to him. The ground floor was significantly larger, and contained numerous winding corridors as well as multiple descending stairwells, presumably going down to smaller cellblocks like their own. Right then, they heard someone exclaim “Halt!” and saw two more guards heading their way. Without any delay, Eiko summoned Fenrir and the armored women went down before she ever got close.
“Why did they have to be women? Couldn’t we have just talked it out?” Zidane remarked to no one in particular, which was met by a glare from Eiko. Many prisoners were now at the front of their cells, and some were trying to catch their attention in an attempt to convince them to open their own cell doors. Most appeared to be either failed thieves or drunks who had wandered into the wrong side of town, which made their decision to focus only on their own escape easy.
Several turns and even more fallen guards later, they found a room with a sign reading “Storage,” above it. Fighting their way inside, they discovered just what they were looking for. Locating their items, they equipped their weapons first, and then Zidane reached for the item bag.
"Hey, look here!" Zidane almost jumped in disbelief as he opened it, "The shard and talon are still here!"
"Yeah," Eiko replied unsurprised, "I overheard them talking about that too. None of them trust that crazy duck-woman, so they ignored her when she demanded to search you. We were lucky."
While relieved, Zidane was now perplexed as to why he was arrested to begin with. Just for helping Eiko? Or because of his...?
"We'd better take some of these ethers too. I've had to do almost all of fighting for you, it's tiring!" Eiko's sudden interjection distracted him from his train of thought, and reminded him that he didn't have time to ponder that at the moment either way.
"Good idea," he nodded, "We're almost outta here. Quickly take whatever you can, the guard at the exit is always the strongest."
Exiting the storage room, they entered the final hallway. The air suddenly seemed tenser. They had both been through enough caves and enemy buildings in their lifetimes to know what Zidane said was turned-- no matter where you are, if there are enemies, the strongest is always last. Eiko was clutching her flute and Zidane stood ready to bring his daggers into combat in an instant.
The man at the end was younger than most of the guards they had seen, presumably in his late 20s, and much to their surprise, greeted them with a friendly smile. "My, if it isn't the exhibitionist! Good show, good show."
Eiko was the first to speak up, "You're not going to attack us?"
"No, no. Those aristocrats need a good rifling up once in awhile, and you little summoner did no damage. Just wanted to give them a shock, did you?" He paused, studying Eiko for a second, "You don't look like you want to do any harm to anyone. Carry on, I'll pretend I never saw either of you."
A cool wind hit them as he opened the door and then stepped to the side. Zidane looked over to Eiko, "That was anti-climatic."
Eiko almost skipped towards the exit, while Zidane shook his head, for once taking a slower pace than the young summoner. The great thief Zidane had stolen from the best of them, kidnapped princesses, and even saved the world. When he did finally get imprisoned, it wasn't for any of the acts he was proud of, but for indecent exposure. An "exhibitionist," the guard had called him, not "master thief" or "kidnapper of royals." The other members of Tantalus were never going to let him live this down.
the_404_error Class: Black Mage
Title: A Most Indecent Theft
Summary: For the Fic Prompt Party at
ff_minigames, lightofeilia requested a jail breakout fic with the characters being sent to prison for a humorous reason.Characters/Pairings: Zidane, Eiko, mentions of others, minor characters like >Queen Stella.
Word count: 3,056... um, yes, were these supposed to be short dabbles? D: I don't know how this happened.
Rating/warnings: I guess PG for partial nudity and references to alcohol. Nothing major. The greater warnings should be how this is un-beta'ed and part of it is rushed.
A/N: Takes place a couple of years after the events of FFIX. I know the first half contains a lot more detail than the second, but considering how lengthy it already is... I'm not sure which half I should apologize for. DX I also have no idea how it's possible to turn someone into a Qu... or an oglop for that matter, so hopefully that's not too outlandish.
Treno had always been a haven for thieves. The perpetual darkness made it easy to plunder without being seen, and the class divisions enabled any thief to steal from the richest of the rich then quickly seek refuge with their fellow robbers by escaping to the other side of town. In the noble quarter, two figures were crouching behind the bushes, preparing to take their target. Their features were barely distinguishable in the dim light, but one had a characteristic tail and the other was smaller in structure with a short horn. The taller one rubbed his hands together; Zidane was certain this would be easy.
Requests such as this, directly from Regent Cid, were rare, but the Regent’s ties with Tantalus aided them both. The Lindblum ruler often struggled with temptation, and he had once again fell victim to his desires. His time as an oglop had apparently not taught him a lesson, and in retribution Hilda had taken even extremer measures than the last time and turned him into a Qu. It did not take long before Cid began to lament his present state, especially after the strange cravings and seeing the impact on their adopted daughter. For Eiko’s sake, Hilda had not left this time, and after she observed her husband consuming a soup consisting of their city’s infamous reeking pickles, frog juice, and potatoes, she decided Cid had suffered enough and told him how to reverse the process.
As it took a complicated mixture to cause Cid’s current form, the items they needed to combine to reverse it were scarce. They had already found one, a Horn of an Ash, and the information they gathered all said that the other two, a Silver Dragon’s Talon and a Shard from Matoya’s Mirror, were being held by Queen Stella, an eccentric noble known for collecting bizarre items. Zidane had helped her collect coins before, but she was not about to easily part with what she’s acquired over the years, even if he came in boasting about the prior help he gave her and how he was on a mission from Regent Cid. The tailed man had already tried that, and it failed miserably.
“Ready?” He asked Eiko somewhat excitedly.
“I’ve been ready! What are we waiting for?” the young girl retorted. Since the moment she heard that her adoptive parents were going to ask Tantalus to seek out the items, she hastily decided to go along with them, and then insisted that Zidane be the one from the group to take up the task. Zidane appreciated the company, but now she was slightly on edge as he wasn’t that enthusiastic about what she insisted on doing to help. Since the power of the eidolons had devastated many major cities, not everyone viewed summoners in a positive light to begin with, and he preferred if she wouldn’t draw negative attention to herself. Eiko stubbornly kept vowing that no one would even see her.
On cue, Eiko began to summon Phoenix as Zidane dashed from the bushes to the back of the house they were targeting. The moment the eidolon’s radiant light lit up the sky, Zidane pushed open the back window and jumped inside. As they had hoped, the presence of an eidolon brought quite a crowd, and even the usually sedentary Stella was peering out her doorway by the time he entered. Not wasting any time, the thief jumped in the pool of water the duck-woman filled part of her house with. Admittedly not as apt in water as in the air or on land, he was still confident this would be a simple task, after all, all he had to do was unlock a couple of her half-submerged cages. The first lock opened almost effortlessly in his fingers, and he placed the shard securely in the item sack on his back. Swimming to the second, he thought he heard something below him, but wrote it off as a misjudged sound from the commotion outside. Entirely underwater, the second lock wasn't as quick to open, but still proved easy to pick he got a clear view of the keyhole. Right when the genome was putting the talon in the bag, a force began to drag him down. Looking in its direction he saw that a large crap-type monster, a Clipper, with a collar around his neck and a nametag reading “Bubbles,” had lunged for him and now had the back of his pants in one of its claws. Zidane tried to stab it and free himself, but the angle made it impossible for him to get a proper attack in. As he struggled, the yells from outside were getting louder, and one in particular he recognized loud and clear; Eiko had been discovered. The aristocratic voices commenting on finding a summoner in their city only confirmed this fear. While Zidane was distracted, Bubbles used its other claw to attack his front side. Seeing it just in time, the thief’s swift dodge caused this one to miss as well, and the effort had caused him to be free of the first claw, albeit at the price of the back of his trousers. Deciding they were ruined now anyway, he fought out of his pants and left them for Bubbles to have. Quickly swimming to the center platform, the only area of her house not underwater, he instinctively gave up any concept of stealth and rushed past Stella towards the door, unknowingly knocking her over with the force behind his speed.
Outside, their stunt had now drawn a crowd larger than any Tetra Master tournament he had seen. The summon now dispersed, all of their attention was directed towards two people in identical uniforms who had a squirming black bag where sounds of “Unhand me!” and “You’ll regret this!” could be heard coming from.
“Let her go!” His weapons now secure in the tailed man's hands, he was expecting them to fight all of the way; instead, one of her captor’s took one look at him and laughed. The other was trying his best to prevent himself from responding like his partner, but barely contained snickers kept on getting through. The murmurs of the crowd switched from a frightened tone to one often reserved for gossip, and one particularly loud noble who was observing the situation called out “Oh, the indecency! I never!”
Confused, Zidane noticed where they were looking--the monster’s hold had gotten through to more than just his pants. The first claw left a gaping hole on his backside, while the second took care of his front. Only a very small piece of fabric was left of his undergarments, and it concealed nothing.
To Zidane, this wasn’t much of a setback. He thought to take out the summoner’s imprisoners while they were preoccupied with his predicament, but right then he heard Stella quack and yell “thief!” from behind him. Then everything went dark.
When he awoke, he found himself on a coarse and cold stone floor. He also was conscious of how he once again had pants; someone had clothed him in a plain, white, scratchy pair of trousers with moth holes. Jumping up from the floor, he saw Eiko leaning against the side of the wall, one arm fastened on her hip as she eyed him.
“What kind of guy faints when saving the heroine like that? I overheard them say the crazy duck woman used some rare explosive item on you, and I had to use Life to get you up just now!” While the young girl’s crush on Zidane had lessened over the years, thanks largely to how she was now part of a community, a family, and no longer felt the intense loneliness and desperate longing that once plagued her, she still couldn’t resist trying to get a reaction out of the guy.
“Oh, sorry, say Eiko, do you know where we are?” he asked quite casually, as if nothing too far out of the ordinary had happened.
“In a prison cell, dummy!” There was a touch of annoyance in Eiko’s voice. She may not feel as she once did, but how he ignored all her efforts still frustrated her.
“Yeah, I see that, but in a prison cell where?” To this question, the horned girl shrugged and looked away. Glancing around again, Zidane scanned for any way out. Aside from the section where food was given through that was too thin to see that far out of, their cell had only one visible opening, a small slot on the door for the guards to peer into. Getting on his toes to gaze into the slot himself, he saw a single guard, a scruffy black haired man who had been neglecting to shave was standing right outside their cell. While he couldn’t see the man's entire body, he could make out a sword swung across his back and that he was covered in armor from the torso on down. The corridor seemed to be empty otherwise, but at this angle he couldn’t get a view good enough to know for certain. Putting both of his feet back down, he put as much distance between him and the door as possible and motioned towards Eiko. The summoner eagerly took a few steps forward, all that was necessary to get to his position in the small room, and gave him a questioning look.
“I’ll lure the guard in,” he was whispering while keeping an eye on the door to make sure the guard didn’t suspect anything was up, “…and once he steps inside, knock him out!”
“With what?! In this cramped space I can’t summ—“
“Shhh!” Zidane cut her off as Eiko was making little effort to keep her voice down “Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll think of something.” The frown now on Eiko’s face said she was not convinced.
Getting up, the thief went to the door again, this time kicking it. “Hey, over here! We need help!” he yelled upwards towards the aperture. Anyone in Zidane’s line of work knew how easy it was to trick guards. From Rusty to the guards of Lindblum, it was a near universally accepted fact that only gullible fools were ever hired for that profession.
“Help the prisoner?” the guard scoffed, “Why would I wanna do somethin’ like that? I dunno what you want, but you don’t deserve any help.” His coarse voice was like listening to sandpaper scratch together, and his word choices relayed that he was from the less wealthy half of Treno, likely someone they employed only because of the meager pay he was willing to receive.
“… but there’s an oglop in here! You don’t want to make a little girl spend her days cowing in fear in a cell, do you?” The genome looked towards Eiko, expecting her to pretend to be frightened for this little act.
“I’m not afraid of an oglop! And I’m not a little girl anymore!” she declared instead, which caused Zidane to mouth “play along,” to her, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“I know this game. You’re findin’ excuses to bring me in, and then you’re gonna jump on me and steal my uniform. You know how many stories we’ve heard about that? It’s just a bug. Squash it yourself.” The dark-haired man snorted, and turned to go back to staring at the hallway.
Evidently, his background also made him a bit more street-wise than your run of the mill guard, but Zidane wasn’t about to give up. “We can’t! Do you want us to catch oglantitus? It’s so contagious; you’ll get it for sure if we do! The only safe way to kill oglops these days is with a blade.”
This caused the watch to direct his attention back at him, “I’ve never hearda this oglantitus.”
“Really? It’s new, but spreading fast. Haven’t you seen anyone staggering through the street recently?”
“There’s always been people straggerin’ in the streets here.”
“But even more lately, right? That’s how it starts. You start out dizzy and your eyesight won’t focus. After that, you start vomiting, fainting… Sound familiar? Really nasty stuff. Many die from it.” He was describing Treno’s interminable supply of drunks, but with any hope he would at least sow the seeds of concern.
“Now that you mention it, there has been alotta that goin’ on…” he was quiet for a second as he thought it over “Even if you’re tellin’ the truth, how do I know you’re not just tryin’ to get me in there?”
“What would be the point?” Zidane replied smoothly, “Your uniform wouldn’t even fit me. I’d get caught again the moment I step outside the door!”
Their captor made a grunting sound, and then admitted “I guess you’re right. I’ll check it out, but try anything, and you’re toast, you hear me?”
While he unlocked the door, the guard mumbled half to himself, “I dealt with a couple of guys fittin’ that description just the other day. Do you think… I don’t wanna catch no oglantitus.” When the door opened and the disheveled man stepped inside, Eiko had plans of her own and rushed out of the door.
“Well, that works,” Zidane mused. Dashing out of the entryway himself, he easily lifted the keys off the guard on his way past. Quickly shutting the door behind them, he locked it before the now imprisoned man even realized what all had transpired.
“Dammit! I should’ve known!” The man’s voice boomed from inside the cell as he began to pound his fists against the door.
“Never doubt the gullibility of clunky guards!” Zidane called back, which caused the bearded man to stop pounding and instead let another low grunt.
Looking around, all three of the other cells in their hallway were empty, and there were no guards by the stairwell. They faced no further threats here, but it was impossible to be sure of what waited for them on the floors above.
“There’s enough room to summon eidolons now.” The summoner beamed up at him, anticipating how they would have to fight their way through the floor above.
“Yeah, but we should still try to find our stuff,” Zidane looked down at his empty hands, “Being without my daggers like this makes me feel even more naked than when I really was naked.”
Eiko gave him a quizzical look and about to ask why he came to her aid pant-less to begin with, but he had already begun running for the next floor. Shaking her head, she sped to catch up to him. The ground floor was significantly larger, and contained numerous winding corridors as well as multiple descending stairwells, presumably going down to smaller cellblocks like their own. Right then, they heard someone exclaim “Halt!” and saw two more guards heading their way. Without any delay, Eiko summoned Fenrir and the armored women went down before she ever got close.
“Why did they have to be women? Couldn’t we have just talked it out?” Zidane remarked to no one in particular, which was met by a glare from Eiko. Many prisoners were now at the front of their cells, and some were trying to catch their attention in an attempt to convince them to open their own cell doors. Most appeared to be either failed thieves or drunks who had wandered into the wrong side of town, which made their decision to focus only on their own escape easy.
Several turns and even more fallen guards later, they found a room with a sign reading “Storage,” above it. Fighting their way inside, they discovered just what they were looking for. Locating their items, they equipped their weapons first, and then Zidane reached for the item bag.
"Hey, look here!" Zidane almost jumped in disbelief as he opened it, "The shard and talon are still here!"
"Yeah," Eiko replied unsurprised, "I overheard them talking about that too. None of them trust that crazy duck-woman, so they ignored her when she demanded to search you. We were lucky."
While relieved, Zidane was now perplexed as to why he was arrested to begin with. Just for helping Eiko? Or because of his...?
"We'd better take some of these ethers too. I've had to do almost all of fighting for you, it's tiring!" Eiko's sudden interjection distracted him from his train of thought, and reminded him that he didn't have time to ponder that at the moment either way.
"Good idea," he nodded, "We're almost outta here. Quickly take whatever you can, the guard at the exit is always the strongest."
Exiting the storage room, they entered the final hallway. The air suddenly seemed tenser. They had both been through enough caves and enemy buildings in their lifetimes to know what Zidane said was turned-- no matter where you are, if there are enemies, the strongest is always last. Eiko was clutching her flute and Zidane stood ready to bring his daggers into combat in an instant.
The man at the end was younger than most of the guards they had seen, presumably in his late 20s, and much to their surprise, greeted them with a friendly smile. "My, if it isn't the exhibitionist! Good show, good show."
Eiko was the first to speak up, "You're not going to attack us?"
"No, no. Those aristocrats need a good rifling up once in awhile, and you little summoner did no damage. Just wanted to give them a shock, did you?" He paused, studying Eiko for a second, "You don't look like you want to do any harm to anyone. Carry on, I'll pretend I never saw either of you."
A cool wind hit them as he opened the door and then stepped to the side. Zidane looked over to Eiko, "That was anti-climatic."
Eiko almost skipped towards the exit, while Zidane shook his head, for once taking a slower pace than the young summoner. The great thief Zidane had stolen from the best of them, kidnapped princesses, and even saved the world. When he did finally get imprisoned, it wasn't for any of the acts he was proud of, but for indecent exposure. An "exhibitionist," the guard had called him, not "master thief" or "kidnapper of royals." The other members of Tantalus were never going to let him live this down.
no subject
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR WRITING THIS
JAILBREAK FICS ARE ALWAYS AWESOME LOLOL
no subject
~Haha, this fic had me smiling throughout the entire thing. I loved the little nuances you put into the fic such as "Bubbles" and the fact that Zidane got arrested for indecent exposure of all things. The characters were written perfectly in it: Zidane and Eiko felt like they came right out of the game, and even some of the characters you created for the fic (such as the guard Zidane cons into opening their door and the later one who lets them go) just really felt like they could easily have been NPCs in the FFIX world. Your description and characterization were awesome, and the story really flowed nicely. The ending was perfect! :D
no subject
POINTS
122 points to Team Black Mage
no subject
no subject