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The vast, untamed wilderness outside of Materia and Spiritus's towers reminded the Onion Knight of the Realm of Discord from Cosmos and Chaos's world.
Setting foot in Chaos's Realm of Discord used to be like setting foot in an airship engine room. The Knight remembered the active volcano that constantly spewed choking, black volcanic ash into the air, making it difficult to breathe. The heat was sweltering and nearly unbearable, and he remembered the way his eyes dried out and his throat burned whenever he had the misfortune of traveling there. The air used to be so thick and warm that it was smothering, and the sulfurous smell made it no easier to bear.
The only thing that Materia and Spiritus's wildernesses was lacking was the shaking, cracking ground, and the lava that pooled and bubbled and poured its own heat over the area.
"By the gods," the Emperor hissed, raising a purple-clawed hand to shield his face from the harsh rays of the beating sun. As the Knight turned and looked at him, he saw the way that the damp hair on the top of his head was falling flat around his cobra headpiece. The long pieces that framed the sides of his face were plastered there against his cheeks, and beads of sweat coated his hairline.
The Knight knew he looked no better. Sweat was actively rolling down his scalp under his helmet, down his face and neck, and down his back. He could barely touch the surface of his armor it was so hot. The unrelenting sun and the complete lack of shade provided by the dead, barren trees had super-heated it, and if he looked carefully he was sure he could see wobbly lines rising up off of him. Either the loose sand was getting softer or his feet were getting heavier, because it was getting harder and harder to take another step each time his foot sank beneath the surface.
"We are nearly finished," the Warrior of Light huffed. He sounded winded, or breathless. As the Knight looked to him next, his mouth was locked open. He was sweating as well, panting in his shallow breaths around cracked lips, and his pale complexion had taken on an almost ghostly white appearance except for the violently red patches on his cheeks. His features were drawn downwards in exhaustion, heavy black circles under his eyes. "One more Teleport Stone, and then we can return to Spiritus's tower."
"Assuming we don't melt first," the Emperor grumbled. "This is what I get for my generous mood."
"'Generous'?" the Knight mocked. "Spiritus volunteered you for this. It's not like you were jumping at the chance to do something helpful."
"No, I was not," the Emperor said. The Knight paused, stunned that the Emperor agreed with him, until he continued. "What I wanted was the chance to exercise my tactical intelligence. So when you informed Spiritus of your desire to set up Teleport Stones, he immediately turned to me - likely because he recognizes my brilliance." The Emperor drew the back of his hand over his forehead to wipe the sweat away. His lip curled, and he snorted. "Even Chaos knew better than to try and order me about like an underling, and Spiritus is merely a cheap imitation of him."
"Uh huh," the Knight grumbled, too fatigued to come up with a counter argument. The Emperor could think whatever he wanted. "So where should this last one go, Your Tactically Brilliant Majesty?"
The Emperor's eye twitched at the Knight's clear sarcasm, lips quirking down into a frown. But apparently he was too overheated to fight as well because he turned and pointed into the distance to their northwest. "I've performed reconnaissance on much of this world. The edge of these Wastelands is approximately eight miles in that direction. I believe that is the proper place for one considering the user could either turn back and return to the towers with minimal trouble, or continue into the terrains beyond."
The Warrior of Light's next exhale came out heavier than the others. It almost sounded like a sigh, which was an uncharacteristic sound to hear from him. Even when missions were hard or exhausting, he was the type to muscle through them without a single compliant. The Knight stared up at him, noting the hunch to his shoulders and the way his shield loosely dangled in his fingers, the bottom poking into the dirt.
"Hey, are you alright?" the Knight asked him.
"Yes," the Warrior said quickly. He instantly straightened up, squinting his eyes to scan the horizon where the Emperor had pointed it out. He visored his eyes with his free hand, and as the shadow fell over his face, the Knight saw the way they flicked rapidly back and forth, back and forth. Even though he was supposed to be looking into the distance, the Knight would have said he looked unfocused.
"You sure?"
"Yes. Let's get this finished."
The Emperor watched their exchange, staring down his nose between the two of them. His gaze lingered on the Warrior for another moment before he shrugged one shoulder. "Very well. We will have to pass through one Gateway on our way. Hopefully it leads to a world more temperate."
There was little to occupy the Knight's attention as they traveled except the passing of the sand drifts under his feet. With each step, he kicked up fine granules behind him, and they crunched between the plates of his armor. The Emperor was able to dodge that misfortune by floating above the ground. He trailed a little ways in front of them, gently swaying, occasionally peeking over his shoulder at them and chiding at their slow pace. The Knight trudged next to the Warrior, the only sounds echoing over the dunes the scraping of their armor and the Warrior's panting. He sounded like he was really struggling.
"Are you sure you're okay?" the Knight asked him. "We should take a break if you're getting too hot-"
"Where would we do that?" the Warrior replied. He lifted his arm for a second to gesture to the world around them, then let it slap down against his side with a sharp screech of grinding metal. "There is no shade anywhere in sight. If we rest anywhere, it should be in the Gateway and out of this heat."
"That's so far away," the Knight said. "I can't even see the Gateway entrance yet."
"We will make it," he said simply, matter-of-factly. Despite how tired he looked, the Knight trusted his words and decided to let it go. The Warrior was incredibly strong, but realistic in that strength. The Knight didn't believe that he would endanger himself if he didn't have to. After all, he hadn't been appointed Cosmos's right hand for no reason, and the Knight had always enjoyed being paired up with him for missions.
The Warrior treated him like a real knight, and not like a kid. He respected the Onion Knight's skills in battle and trusted him to watch his back. He also trusted the Knight's opinions when he weighed in on the issues at hand. The Warrior took himself and his tasks seriously, which the Onion Knight respected right back. He was mature. Calm under pressure, and calculated in his decision-making. His humble acknowledgement of his weaknesses was something to be emulated.
The Knight's foot stuck in the sand harder than he thought and he tripped, catching himself by planting his hand to the piping hot ground. He let out a sharp cry and wrenched his hand away, shaking the searing pain out of his palm. The Emperor whirled around and raised his staff, expecting a threat. His head whipped back and forth, and when he didn't see one, his features slumped into disgusted frown, his jaw grinding.
The Warrior of Light stopped as well, this time planting his shield into the sand. He placed both hands on the top lip and leaned over it, lowering his head between his shoulders.
"Hmph!" The Emperor glared down at them another moment before turning and continuing on their path. The Knight followed after him, but the Warrior didn't move right away. The Knight paused to watch him, and when he finally did take a step, the toes of his dragging foot caught a loose drift in front of him. He stumbled forward a few steps to catch himself.
The Knight ran towards him. "Warrior, I think we need to stop-"
"We cannot," he stressed, tearing away from the Knight. "Just as soon as we - we finish this mission," he panted, "we can - we can move against Chaos. I will consult with Cosmos on our - our plan, and-"
"Against Chaos?" the Knight asked. "And Cosmos? Don't you mean Spiritus and Materia? And we're not 'moving against' anybody, remember? We only battle the other warriors to generate energy for this world."
It was like the Warrior didn't even hear him. His rapidly blinking, unfocused eyes were fixed on the ground, but he didn't appear to be actually seeing anything. He continued forward after the Emperor, stumbling and struggling up a taller dune than the others. He swayed, each step off track and taking him further to the right. The Knight knew what was about to happen before it did. He tried to run up the dune after him, but his feet slipped and slid on the loose surface. The Knight scrambled up the dune on his hands and knees right as the Warrior of Light crested the top. Before his eyes, the Warrior's ankles wobbled. His legs bent, then buckled. He fell to his knees, body jolting, then slumped to the right into the sand.
"Hey! Warrior!" the Knight yelled. He knelt over him, shielding his face from the sun with his body. The Warrior's eyes were barely open, glassy and dazed. The Knight brushed his silver hair away from his neck to put his hand against his throat. The skin on his neck was cool and clammy, and the Warrior's pulse was weak, barely a twitch against his fingers. The beats that he felt were unnaturally fast. Warrior's breaths were rapid and shallow, the sharp sound of clanking armor punctuating the ends of each one.
The Knight gripped the horns trailing from the Warriors helmet and tugged it from his head, depositing it into the sand next to them. He looked for the clasps on his chest plate next, but couldn't immediately find them to remove his heavy armor from his body. The Knight tore instead at the pouch hanging from the Warrior's hip and grabbed the small water skin that he kept in there. The Knight had been the one to fill it up for him before they left. He pulled the cork out of the small leather bag and touched the edge to his lips, but as he tilted it more and more until it was vertical, only a few drops trickled out.
The Emperor had drifted back over when he heard the commotion. He glanced at the water skin, then at the Onion Knight, his sharp gaze piercing through him. "How long has he gone without water?" the Emperor demanded, almost accusatory.
"I have no idea," the Onion Knight answered. He reached for his own canteen, shaking it gently to gauge how much water he had left. The sound was lighter and much more shallow than he would have liked, but he knew Warrior needed the help. He unscrewed the cap and moved to trickle some into his mouth, but the Emperor's purple-gloved hand shot into his periphery and circled around his wrist, squeezing so hard that the Knight felt bones gnash together.
He wrenched his arm away with a sound of pain.
"I wouldn't do that," the Emperor said.
"Why not?"
"You need it for yourself."
"He needs water. I gotta give him something," the Knight protested. He leaned to the side and looked past the Emperor. From the top of their dune, he could see well into the distance of where they intended to travel. His heart sank at the look of nothing but more dunes, small piles of shale, and other rock formations. No ruins in this part of the Wastes, or anywhere that had any shade where they could rest. He nearly abandoned the search when he spotted the edges of a white, swirling portal distorting a pocket of air a short ways into the distance. "There! The Gateway! It's like you said - maybe we'll go somewhere that's cooler."
The Knight crawled to his feet and hooked his arms under the Warrior's, hefting him up so his head rested back against his chest. He was heavy - ridiculously so. His armor easily added an extra 25 pounds to him, and just like his own it was scorching hot. The Knight had to grab a length of his own cape and wrap it over the bare skin on his arms to hold the Warrior, and his muscles strained and burned to even get his chest off the ground. As soon as he realized how difficult it was going to be to haul him like that, he lowered him back down.
"Help me."
"Excuse me?"
"You gotta help me! He's too heavy for me!"
"I think not."
"But- but- but," the Knight stammered, shocked at the Emperor's glib refusal. "But you've got magic! You can lift him with magic!"
"That takes effort, you ignorant fool! Effort that I need to conserve in order to defend myself against manikins or overexcited comrades of yours! Effort that I am unwilling to expend on insects like you-"
The Emperor's eyes lifted, then widened. His mouth dropped open and he lifted his staff again, pointing it towards the threat below them. The Knight followed the direction of his staff to see three brightly colored shapes lumbering towards them with their jerky, not-quite-natural movements. Their crystal bodies shimmered and glinted in the harsh sunlight, stabbing into the Knight's gaze each time they moved a certain way. He could barely make out the shapes of their bodies from the intensity of the heat lines rising off the dunes, but as they drifted closer he recognized them.
One was unmistakably Exdeath. It was teal in color and stood ridiculously tall compared to the other two, so the Knight knew it was him even before he spotted the sword clenched in his clawed hands. The second was a deep violet color, which would have been pretty if it wasn't on a manikin. The manikin had a long coat that trailed behind it and ankle-high boots, with shorts on underneath a short skirt. Its long hair and the projectile weapon cinched to its arm identified it as Rinoa, the girl that Squall knew. The last one was an orange copy of Yuna, complete with her long sleeves and staff.
"We need to go," the Emperor said. "A fight right now is unwise given the state of our supplies."
The Knight glanced over his shoulder. "Alright, fine. I'll drag him. But at least hold them off until we get to the Gateway!" He stood and tried to lift the Warrior again. As his weight sagged against the Knight's chest, he was knocked backwards onto his back. He pushed the Warrior off of him and stood again, grabbing two fist fulls of the Warrior's cape. He was hoping to drag him that way, but the Warrior's weight trapped his cape underneath him. The Knight couldn't pull enough of it out to get a solid grip. He strained against the effort, a loud groan escaping from the deeper parts of his throat.
The manikins were drawing closer, fanning to the sides to surround them. The Emperor's eyes flicked between each of them, and the Knight could tell the gears were turning in his mind as he tried to strategize. After a moment, he shook his head.
"Our wisest course of action is to flee until we can resupply," the Emperor said. "Look at who we face. I can certainly hold them in place with traps, but all three can still batter us from afar. You will need to be able to leave the radius of their spells quickly if you hope to survive, and that will be impossible with his dead weight slowing you down. If you value your own life, you will leave him behind."
"Leave him?! I can't just leave him!-"
"Then perish here!" the Emperor screamed back. His weight rocked backwards, and he trailed away from the Knight in the direction of the Gateway. "I've explained our odds. I've informed you they are against us. If you choose not to heed them, that is entirely your prerogative, but I refuse to meet my demise due to your idiocy! Good luck!"
"No, no, wait!" the Knight pleaded. "Please don't go! Please don't leave us here!" Before his eyes, the Emperor's form blurred at the edges. There was a sound like a whoosh, and he became transparent, then faded completely. "Come back!"
The Rinoa manikin raised her arm, and a razor-sharp projectile shot towards him, hitting the dune just next to the Warrior. The Knight's heart took a leap into his throat, and panic surged within him. He ignored the way he panted his own breaths and the way the hot, sweltering air buffeted against his face and neck. He renewed his efforts to drag the Warrior down the dune towards the Gateway, hot tears of despair and betrayal suddenly blurring his vision. He did his best to blink them away, but the Emperor's words echoed in his mind.
He was in trouble.