The Gunblade Saga Prologue
Branding
By Peptuck3
Author's
note: Ever since I first finished Final Fantasy VIII, I thought how great
a novel this game, and just about any other Final Fantasy or RPG, would make.
Then, while I was wandering around the net about a year and a half ago, I
found a site by the name of Fantasysquare.com. It was an excellent site,
complete with walkthroughs, guides, downloads, information, merchandise,
and of course, fanfiction. Fantasysquare first piqued my interest in fanfiction,
and ever since I read my first bit, I was hooked.
Then, I was directed to a site known as Fanfiction.net, and later, another
site named Icybrian.com, both IMMENSE fanfiction libraries. My love of fanfiction
grew even more.
Then, I thought, "Hey, why doesn't someone write a fanfiction in which they
novelize an FF game?" I thought this would be a great idea, and thus, this:
The Gunblade Saga, an in-depth novelization of Final Fantasy
VIII.
Unfortunately, it seems some people (specifically, Prodigy and Nique on
Fanfiction.net) beat me to it. Well, poo, I'm gonna write my own
anyway!
This novelization is almost entirely faithful to the script, except I do
rip off Prodigy by including extra scenes and thoughts. A few things are
changed, like that somewhat pointless bit in the Galbadia Garden waiting
room. Many of the "optional" conversations are either left out or changed
somewhat. And lots more is added too! I hope you enjoy this novelization
of
FFVIII!
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The Gunblade Saga: An In-depth
novelization of Final Fantasy
VIII
Prologue:
Branding
Fithos . . . Luces . . .
Vithos . . . Vinosec . .
.
"I'll be here . .
."
"Why?"
"I'll be 'waiting'
here."
"For
what?"
"I'll be waiting . . . for
you . . . so . . . if you come here . . . you'll find
me.
"I
promise."
* * * *
*
She was alone. He wasn't
there, in the field, where they would meet. And somehow, she knew, deep in
her heart, he wasn't
coming.
They promised. They'd be
there, together, but he
wasn't.
Why?
Had he failed? Or had something
happened to him? She didn't know, and the lack of knowledge tore her, left
her weak with
wondering.
She looked across the field,
lost and alone. A cold, silent wind whipped across the meadow, tossing up
flower petals. one floated in front of her, and she absently closed her hand
over it.
No, he would never come.
He couldn't, somehow . .
.
She released the petal, and
her mouth opened in wonder, for it had changed, to a white feather, which
the wind caught and blew into the sky. Her eyes followed it, her head turning,
a hand coming up to brush her black hair out of her eyes so she could follow
its movements into the darkening clouds . .
.
* * * *
*
Sparks flew as the two blades
intersected, the slender, black-bladed Hyperion being turned aside by the
parry of the heavier, silver blade of the Revolver. Their weilders backed
off slightly, eying each
other.
A warm spring breeze weaved
its way among the two combatants, ruffling one's long coat, and the other's
long hair. They stood atop a hill, surrounded by gray rocks. In the east,
the sun would be rising as it always did in the morning, but dark clouds
and high mountians to the east blocked the bringer of day from shedding any
more light than that of a bit of silver on the horizon. Overhead, these dark
clouds occasionally boomed with thunder, punctuated by the flashes of lightning.
Periodic bursts of rain had occured, although no precipitation had yet fallen
during the duel. Down below, all around the site of the battle, thick forests
marked with morning mists provided a backdrop for the duel. The two combatants
were alone up here, in the early morning
hours.
"Not bad," said Hyperion's
weilder with a smirk. He was tall, over six feet, with short, slicked-back
blonde hair, except for a small lock that hung stylishly down over his face.
He posessed a regal bearing, like some ancient knight from ages hence, that
belied his eighteen years. He was clad in a long white trenchcoat, immaculate
and spotless, emblazoned with blood-red sword-crosses on the sleeves. Underneath
his white coat he wore a sleeveless blue vest, also featuring a cross, this
one sliver. His black pants matched his boots and gloves, and around his
throat hung a silver necklace. The blonde warrior arced his head back slightly,
his blue eyes regarding his foe with a combination of respect and determination.
He raised his blade up again, pointing it at his foe and putting his right
foot forward, his free left hand held out to the side, a modified fencing
pose.
His foe stood ten feet away,
and also regarded the blonde man with the same determined, respectful blue-eyed
look. He was much shorter, a couple of inches above five and a half feet
tall, with long, messy brown hair, hanging down around his face, a few strands
in his eyes. He was only a year behind his opponent in age. He wore a short
black leather jacket with thick, soft white fur around the collar, underneath
which there was a plain white muscle shirt. He wore a trio of belts, one
around his waist, the other two lower down, crossing diagnolly over his groin.
One held several small pouches, for items and equipment. The other seemed
to be like a combination of a swordbelt and gunbelt, featuring a hybrid of
a holster and a scabbard. The hybrid weapon holder was angled forward, as
if its weapon was to be drawn like a sword, yet was shaped like a gun's holster,
except it was longer, like a sword's sheath. Around the man's right leg were
a trio of small bandoleers, each containing many small cylinders, like ammunition
for a revolver. Like his foe, this man had black pants, these made out of
leather like his jacket, and also, like his foe, his boots and gloves matched
his pants. Around his neck was a chain, leading down to a crafted lion's
head at the
end.
The two opponents stood still
for a few seconds, each watching the other, waiting for their foe to make
the first
move.
They broke as one, both
advancing, blades clashing with the solid ring of metal on metal. Hyperion's
weilder came across in a slash, to which the Revolver rose to block. Hyperion
deftly rose over the blocking blade and knocked it down. Even as the Revolver's
weilder began to bring his weapon back up, Hyperion weaved underneath the
blade and slammed up. The Revolver, already with the momentum of rising up,
went flying high out of its weilder's hands at the strike. The weapon spiraled
up into the air, turning end over end. Its weilder quickly leaped back out
of the blonde man's range, but his foe didn't advance. He simply stood there,
Hyperion at his side, as he waited for the Revolver to drop back
down.
"You need to learn to tighten
your grip," he remarked to his foe with a superior
smirk.
The brown-haired man took
a step to the side, observing the Revolver and where it would land. The weapon
reached the apex of its flight and came down, end over end. It drove down
into the ground, standing straight, handle up. The chain on the end clinked
slightly as it waved back and forth. A rumbling blast of thunder emerged
from the clouds above as lightning flashed, illuminating the battlefield
for an instant. Then, rain began falling upon the two
warriors.
The brown haired man glanced
back up at his foe and then reached down for his weapon. His hands closed
around the custom-made grip, and he pulled the unique hybrid weapon out of
the
ground.
The Revolver was a gunblade,
a strange and exotic hybrid of gun and sword. The Revolver, as its name would
suggest, had the handle of a six- shooter magnum. Where the barrel would
be on a magnum, however, there was instead a long, broad blade, marked with
an engraving of a crouching lion, with powerful wings sprouting from its
back. The blade tapered until the last few inches, where the tip was shaped
like the end of a scimitar, the curved edge excellent for slicing, yet straight
enough for a powerful thrust. On the end of the handle of the Revolver was
a short chain, at the end of which was a small sliver lion's
head.
Drawing the Revolver and
feeling the solid weight of the gunblade in his hands, its weilder turned
to his foe. Hyperion still waited by his side, the smirk still on his face
as he waited for the duel to resume. Hyperion, like the Revolver, was a gunblade,
although this weapon had the handle of handgun as opposed to a magnum revolver.
Hyperion was long and slender, like a fencing blade or saber, and was straight,
with a shining, silver
edge.
"Come on, let's get this
over with," the blonde man said. The brown- haired man nodded, then raised
the Revolver and charged. The blonde warrior grinned and his own weapon rose
to point at his
foe.
The two dueled ferociously,
blades clanging and scraping in the spring air. Hyperion and Revolver met
repeatedly, sparks rising and falling at each intersection. Hyperion's weilder
backed away quickly, and came back in, pulling a dazzlingly fast spin. Hyperion
came around fast and hard, aided by the momentum of the spin, but was met
by the Revolver. The Revolver came in behind the slash, striking at Hyperion's
blonde weilder, but the man spun around and back, away from the slash. Hyperion
came out of the spin striking down on the Revolver, knocking it down and
away. Revolver's weilder came back in, his gunblade slicing down at the blonde
man, who stepped forward and unexpectedly ducked under the blow, ending up
behind Revolver's brown-haired weilder. The brown-haired man spun around
quickly to face his opponent, who stood calmly. He held Hyperion straight
up at shoulder level, smirked again, and then raised his left hand, beckoning
with his
fingers.
Revolver's weilder accepted
the offer to come on. He charged, only to see Hyperion come down from its
perch by the blonde man's shoulder and thrust out. The brown-haired warrior
ducked aside from the first thrust and sent the Revolver across to prevent
a slash down into his skull, then blocked a follow-up thrust, and then a
third thrust. The Revolver came overhead in a cleaving stroke, only to be
met by Hyperion. The blonde warrior bent his knees slightly at the blow,
absorbing the power behind that strike, but didn't fall. He smiled as he
pushed up and forward, forcing his brown-haired opponent
off.
"Good," the blonde warrior
said. "This is fun." The smirk on his face and a dangerous glint in his eyes
told the brown-haired warrior that despite the "fun" his foe was having,
he did not at all consider it to be a
game.
"Well, are you just going
to stand there?!" Hyperion's weilder shouted. "Come
on!"
Revolver responded to the
challenge with an overhead cleave, to which Hyperion blocked. The blonde-haired
warrior disengaged his blade from the Revolver, then smacked the weapon across
into the Revolver, forcing the weapon aside. The brown-haired warrior backed
away as Hyperion came up in a rising slash, and then another rising strike,
both aimed for his neck or
head.
The brown-haired warrior
came right back in after dodging the slashes, his gunblade swinging in rapid
succession. The first swing missed as the blonde fighter backed away, but
the following slice didn't. Hyperion swung up vertically to block the slice,
its weilder putting his free hand across the gunblade's flat side to help
absorb the shock of the hit, and the subsequent trio of strikes that shuddered
his weapon. A sixth slash came in, but he parried it aside, and followed
up the parry with a slash that forced his foe
back.
"Enough of this bullshit!"
Hyperion's weilder hissed as his enemy backed away. "Time to end
this."
Revolver's weilder came back
in again, gunblade behind him and ready for another powerful
slash.
"Dodge this!" Hyperion's
weilder shouted as his hand shot forward, a ball of fire forming in his open
palm. The brown-haired warrior barely had any time to respond before the
magic spell went off, the incasdascent ball of flame erupting from his foe's
hand. He brought the Revolver up in time to absorb the brunt of the magic
attack, but was hurled back onto his rear by the shock of the
blast.
'Shit!' Revolver's weilder
thought. 'He had magic! I should have seen that coming . . .' Even as this
thought went through his mind, training kicked in, telling him to get up
and on his feet before his opponent took advantage of the moment of weakness.
The brown-haired warrior began to rise, only to see his foe towering above
him, Hyperion raised
high.
'Oh, damn . . .' he thought
as he saw the look of insane glee in his foe's
eyes.
Then, Hyperion slashed down
across the warrior's face. Pain erupted along a line running from his forehead
down to the left side of his nose. Blood streamed out of the wound and stained
the ground. Droplets of the red liquid got into his left eye, blinding him
there.
The warrior turned his attention
back up to his blonde enemy, who stood there, smiling. Rage twisted its way
onto the brown-haired warrior's features, and he rose suddenly. His fingers
tightened around the gunblade's handle, and then he stood. The blade of his
weapon drug along the ground, kicking up sparks and shards of stone, and
then the weapon rose up into his opponent's surprised and satisfyingly shocked
face, slashing the man from the right side of his nose all the way up to
the left side of his forehead. Blood spurted forth, and the brown-haired
warrior stumbled back, looking at his stunned, bloodied
opponent.
Then things got hazy, and
darkness engulfed the Revolver's weilder as he fell back to the ground. His
gunblade clattered down beside him, the sound of metal on stone the last
sound he heard before he blacked
out.
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Well, what do you think? Not bad, huh? Took me a while, as I had to make
sure I got EVERY slice and thrust from the intro cutscene in. Since I've
only got the PC edition, and the PC the game is installed on is the same
one I'm writing the story on, it took a while, as I had to watch the intro,
type in the moves. Watch the intro, type in moves. Watch the intro . .
.
You may notice a few slices and thrusts aren't actually in the intro, as
well as some of the character's lines. I wanted to connect the different
sequences in the battle, since at several points the video cuts to Rinoa
and Edea, and then back to the battle at a different point.
If you're wondering why I didn't use any names, I wanted to recapture the
feel of watching the cutscene for the very first time. Where you didn't know
they were training, or anything about Garden, or even their names. You just
knew two men were fighting, and it seemed to the death. That was the feeling
I wanted to empart, just like the guys did at Squaresoft.
By the way, anyone catch the Matrix reference? I'm a HUGE Matrix fan, after
all! :D
Chapter 1
Peptuck3's Fanfiction