In a room not too distant from this one lay Seifer Almesy, he himself enjoying blissful and undisturbed slumber. When the first shouts came he simply muttered something in his sleep and rolled over. But when the shouting wouldn’t stop he sat up in bed, blinking as his brain fought to process the assorted data from the outside world.
     “Seifer, are you in there?” came from the door, which was followed by frantic knocking. Seifer pulled on a shirt before sluggishly stepping to the door in order to open it. Standing on the other side was Irvine Kinneas and Laguna Loire, both in similar states of dress.
     “Did you know that there was shouting coming from Alex’s room?” Laguna asked before yawning wide enough to nearly dislocate his lower jaw.
     “So that’s where that was coming from,” Seifer said, scratching his head. He winced as his fingers caught a knot in his hair, which was quickly torn out.
     “Doesn’t that surprise you in the least?” Irvine asked, “Our friend could be being murdered and you were fast asleep.”
     “Did you go to check on him?”
     “We wanted to make sure there was enough of us to fight off any attackers that may be in there,” Laguna said, answering quicker than Irvine could.
     “O.K..... O.K.,” Seifer said as he stepped out of his room, checking the lock before closing the door. Once he had the door closed he, Irvine, and Laguna slowly stepped up to Alex’s door, knocking lightly to see if he was still O.K.. From the other side came more shouting and muttering, followed by intermittent periods of silence.
     “We gotta help him,” Irvine said as he took a key from around his neck. He slid it into the lock and turned it, unlocking the door and the gateway between their worlds. He nearly took the door from the hinges as he tore it open. The air that greeted him was burning hot, and for a moment he thought the room was on fire. When his eyes adjusted to the darkness he could see that Alex was flailing about, muttering oaths under his breath, whipping the covers off one minute, pulling them back on another minute.
     “What’s wrong with him?” Seifer asked, fear filling his voice.
     “He appears to have some sort of illness,” Laguna said as he cast a SCAN spell on the flailing form.
     “Can’t we just use Esuna on him?” Irvine asked as he felt Alex’s forehead. He pulled his hand away like he’d been burned, and commented, “Poor guy’s burning up.”
     “Go and get Quistis and a medical kit,” Laguna instructed, “Seifer, see if you can keep a concentrated beam of ice magic around his forehead.”
     “What’s that going to do?” Seifer asked as he began to summon the elemental power.
     “It’s going to keep his temperature down so that he doesn’t broil any of his insides.”

     Across the bounds of time and space, some of the occupants of a certain apartment were going through the same thing that Alex was. Gourry, Amelia, and Sylphiel all awoke feeling like they were about to burst into flames, then quickly huddled back up under their blankets because they were suddenly freezing. Lina, Zelgadis, and Celia were all awakened by their distress, and it took the chimera and the vampyress to keep the sorceress from blowing up the three who had awoken her from her sleep.
     About half an hour later Zel was running around the apartment, playing nursemaid to those who were sick and also providing coffee to Lina and Celia, who were online chatting with some of the others who were on campus.
     “Well I’ll be,” Celia said as she took a sip of coffee, “there are others who are coming down with the same thing.”
     “This is bad,” Zel said as he took a seat with the other two, “Gourry’s temperature is way up, Amelia’s is way down, and Sylphiel’s can’t make up its mind.”
     “Why do you think it targeted those three?” Lina asked as she stretched a few kinks out of her back.
     “Well, I’m half vampire,” Celia said, “Zel’s 1/3 human, 1/3 blue demon, and 1/3 rock golem... and as for you, Miss Inverse, you’re too much of a hot head to get sick.”
     “Why you!! I’ll make you pay for saying that!”
     Lina leapt out of her chair and dove at Celia, who vanished in a puff of crimson smoke. The vampyress appeared halfway across the room, taking on a battle stance.
     “What’s the matter, can’t hit a moving target?” Celia taunted, turning around and pointing to her butt, “C’mon. Hit me. I dare ya!”
     “No... not in the house,” Zelgadis began to protest, but half of the spell was already out of Lina’s mouth.
     “Mega.... BRAND!”
     The building shook as Celia was toasted to a crisp by a spell that she couldn’t dodge. Unfortunately Lina forgot to focus once again and wound up toasting herself and Zel to a crisp as well. As they lay in a twitching mass upon the floor she said, “Well.... I really need to learn how to focus better.”
     “Yes you do,” Zel mumbled as he began to straighten his hair out, “yes indeed you do.”

     “Seifer.... where are you Seifer? I need you.”
     In the distance he could make out a faint reply of someone calling his name. Yet the more he ran towards it, the further away it became. Horrible images flashed before his eyes, most of them from the battle with Ultimecia. Seifer appeared to get blurrier and blurrier as the scene replayed before his eyes. To his shock and horror the image that ceased the replays was that of Seifer being impaled by Ultimecia’s drain web needle. Tears streamed down his face when he saw this, since it could have meant that they had actually lost the battle with the sorceress, or that he hadn’t saved the Red cross knight in time, or that Amelia and Rinoa and Selphie hadn’t been able to bring them back from the brink of extermination.
     “Seifer.... don’t leave me,” he said as he slumped to the ground, “I don’t... I don’t want to be alone. Don’t leave me. I’m scared Seifer. I’m scared.”
     ‘You’re not alone,’ sounded in his mind in a comforting tone of voice, ‘you’ll never be alone. Not as long as you have me with you.’
     “But I don’t want you... I want Seifer.”
     ‘Just open your eyes... Seifer is waiting for you in the waking world.’
     “I....  I can’t wake up.... I don’t have the strength to wake up. Somebody please help me.”
     Angel feathers filled the sky around him, turning the desolate wasteland into blooming flowers and warm sunlight. More feathers swirled around one point, a pair of glowing angel wings forming and folding before someone or something. The angel wings parted to reveal Seifer, a warm and very concerned smile on his face. He approached Alex, the wings folding behind his back and vanishing.
     “I’m here for you,” Seifer said as he crouched next to Alex, “I won’t leave you until you get better.”
     “O..... O.K.,” Alex sighed as he curled up, his head resting in Seifer’s lap, “I’ll try to get...”

     “... better,” he said, opening his eyes into screaming daylight. Seifer was leaning on a corner of his bed, his back against the wall, his head resting on his chest in blissful slumber. His own head was resting on Seifer’s lap, and a cool breeze was blowing upon him thanks to the fan set up across the room. Irvine and Laguna were stretched out on his floor, both curled up in sleeping bags. Quistis was also in the room, her head propped up on her elbow as she snoozed peacefully in the desk chair. “Wow, I guess I raised quite a ruckus last night,” he said to nobody in particular as he tried to sit up. He immediately regretted that action since he began to hack and cough, which woke everyone else up.
     “Well, looks like sleeping beauty’s come to,” Irvine said as he stretched, several pops coming from his arms and legs as he got to his feet. “How are ya feeling?”
     “Like several dragons sat on various parts of my body,” Alex replied weakly, his tongue feeling like it weighed a ton. Quistis approached and handed him a glass of water, which he sipped on for a few minutes until it was drained. “So doctor, any idea of what I have?”
     “Well, according to the readings it’s not of this world,” Quistis said, “and it’s also not of your world either.”
     “And according to some of the messages you’ve been getting over your communications device,” Laguna said, handing Alex something that looked remarkably like a pocket calculator, “it’s been going around your school like wildfire.”
     “Looks like Lina, Zel, and Celia avoided it,” he said as he reviewed some of the messages, “Mackenzie’s keeping Nick warm, and Nick’s keeping Mackenzie cooled off... so those two have it. Darren reports that he doesn’t have it, but Will and Dawn came down with it, so he’ll be in touch.”
     “So aside from feeling like several dragons have had their way with you, how do you feel?” Irvine asked as he brushed a few strands of Alex’s hair from his face.
     “Like something very cheap,” he replied before coughing. Once he was over his coughing fit he said, “This stinks on ice.”
     “Well, the least we can do is make you comfortable,” Seifer said as he arched his back, several pops issuing from it as he moved around. “What can we do for you?”
     “Well, for starters....”

     Ami Mizuno sat at her desk, a cup of tea steaming next to her computer, a box of tissues sitting next to that. She was leaning back in her desk chair, staring at the ceiling as the digital thermometer in her mouth beeped out the seconds until her temperature reading would be ready.
     ‘This is just wonderful,’ she thought as the thermometer beeped. She sat up and read her temperature, sighing with relief that it was under 100 degrees. “At least I’m not nearly as sick as the others, and I plan to stay healthy this time.”
     A window opened up on her computer screen, a few lines of text appearing, followed by a small moving icon of a catboy with a large sweat drop on its head. She immediately read the message and sighed. “Wonderful.... Alex has it, and it’s worse for him than for some of the others.”
     She typed a quick response, which was answered by a string of symptoms and such. She sighed and went to her large bookcase of medical books. After looking through the titles she took one of the largest ones from the bottom shelf and returned to her seat. After taking a sip of her tea she flipped through the pages of the book, finding and matching the list of symptoms until she came up with three different things.
     “According to this, you have a chest cold, the flu, and an upper respiratory tract infection,” she typed back. The catboy on the screen fell over, holding a white lily to its chest as it puts its legs into the air. She quickly typed back, “It’s not that bad. You’ll get over it soon enough. Just drink plenty of liquids and by all means see a doctor and have them prescribe something to help you.”
     A second window popped up on her screen, this one with a super deformed Zelgadis icon. More symptoms were given, and the reply was the same: a combination of three illnesses. The Zelgadis icon had a large sweat drop form on its head moments before it was booted by a Lina icon. Ami sighed before putting up an AWAY message so that she wouldn’t get any more instant messages for a little while.
     “Now I can turn to finding out how the others are doing,” she said as she picked up the cordless phone from the cradle. She nearly dropped it when it rang. She turned the phone on and said, “Hello.”
     “Hey Ami, it’s Lita,” a weak and raspy voice said from the other end, “I guess you don’t have this thing that’s going around, do you?”
     “I only have the sniffles,” Ami replied, “but you sound absolutely terrible.”
     “Yeah... I’m burning and freezing, sort of like that virus the Negamoon spread over the city that time, and Mina was the only one out of the five of us who didn’t wind up getting sick until afterwards.”
     “I remember that. She tried to help all of us out and it was a disaster ten times over.”
     “Yeah.... this time she’s got it and Rei’s the only really healthy one, and she’s doing her best to make sure all of us get better.”
     “Is she doing any better than Mina?”
     “Yeah, to a degree. She has Nicole and Susana helping her with her duty, and you can find out how well they’re doing shortly, since they said your apartment was their next destination.”
     At that moment the doorbell rang, and Lita commented, “That must be them now. I’ll talk to you later Ami.”
     As Ami hung up the phone the door opened and in stepped Rei, Susana, and Nicole, all dressed up in nurses uniforms. When Ami saw this she sighed and returned to her seat before the computer, clinging to her cup of herbal tea for dear life as the three marched in.
     ‘What did I do to deserve this?’ ran through her mind as she was given the treatment.

     “Mother who nurtures all life, grant me your strength in my time of need. By the light of purity that I possess let all be cleansed by your pure breath. Detoxify!”
     A white light surrounded his chest, flowing into his body. He gasped loudly as the spell ran its course, his airways opening a bit as the bacteria in his system were eradicated. When the spell ended he collapsed back onto the bed, his breathing heavier than normal.
     “How are you doing?” Seifer asked as he set a wet cloth on Alex’s head.
     “A bit better,” Alex replied after a moment, “the spell casting wears me out, but if I can get rid of the things causing the infection then it’ll be worth it. Once those are gone I can use Recovery and Resurrection to get my strength back.”
     “And in the meantime?" Irvine asked as he took a seat on the corner of Alex’s bed.
     “In the meantime the two of you are going to keep me company,” Alex replied, wrapping his arms around Irvine’s waist. A moment later the cowboy found himself sprawled on his back on Alex's bed with the mage straddling his legs.
     “Aren’t you a little too sick to do that?” Seifer asked, blushing hotly.
     “You are such a pervert!”
     “What are you going to do about it?” Seifer asked with a mischievous grin.
     “Darkness beyond blackest pitch, deeper than the deepest night. One glowing golden lord floating endlessly upon a sea of chaos...”
     Seifer backed away from the bed towards the door when Alex began to speak the chaos words for one of the strongest spells in black magic. Irvine turned blue with fear and began to mutter prayers under his breath since he was point blank for the spell. Alex, on the other hand, collapsed forward onto Irvine.
     “Woah... easy there big boy,” Irvine said as he held Alex from his body. When he realized how limp the body was he quickly flipped out from under it and laid it on the bed. He then took a seat next to the body, took hold of one of the wrists, and checked for a pulse. With much relief he found one that seemed weak but stable.
     “Is he breathing?” Seifer asked as he leaned an ear to Alex’s mouth.
     “Unless you guys leave my body alone I shall kill you and resurrect you repeatedly,” Alex whispered in Seifer’s ear, “or I will when I get better.”
     “Well, it lives,” Seifer said. Irvine sighed due to the lameness of the line. Alex grabbed him by the collar and tossed him from the bed and onto the floor. He said, “Don’t be messing with the mage!” in the perfect imitation of a certain green haired elf.
     “You’re ruthless when you’re sick, you know that?” Seifer said when he regained his feet.
     “How do you cast that Detoxify spell again?” Irvine asked, changing the subject and placing his hands on Alex’s chest.
     Alex blushed before saying, “Repeat after me. Mother who nurtures all life...”

     In a dark dimension parallel to both of the worlds an evil form sat on a throne and laughed maniacally. A not so well looking raven sat perched on the back of the throne, one eye cocked on its master.
     “I have those sailor brats licked this time,” the evil one said, brushing some jet black hair out of his face, “I’ve made them so sick they have no will to fight!”
     “But didn’t Emerald already try something like that?” the raven asked.
     “Yes, but she only gave them the flu. I have given everyone a mix of three illnesses that will sap their strength and render them unable to do a thing!”
     “That isn’t just evil.... it’s plain sick and twisted!”
     “I know.... where Emerald failed I, Topaz, will succeed!”
     More maniacal laughter filled the air, leaving the raven to cringe as it echoed.