The Haunted Swimming Pool

A Final Fantasy VIII Fan Fic

Game and characters owned by SquareSoft

Orginal Plot Copyright RobertDogwood 2002

With apologies to Wayward Tempest
Check out her Fan Fic Sorted Laundry

By RobertDogwood@aol.com

Rated R for nudity

Some say the basement of the Garden has been haunted from the time that Gardenmaster Norg died there. At least, that's the official Garden version - that Norg suddenly died.

Others say that it goes back a lot further than that - back to when the Garden had been some kind of weird flying fallout shelter - long before Cid and Edea were even born. But all agree that Cid should never have ordered the basement renovated and then had a large swimming pool installed. It was just disaster waiting to happen.

It initially began when they were first building it. Huge cracks kept mysteriously developing in the pool's bottom causing the Garden to spray out hundreds of gallons of swimming pool water into the air, if they happened to be in flight - and it never happened when they weren't in flight. This put a real damper on the Deling City Winter Festival one year.

Then they finally got that taken care of, but new problems arose. Every morning when the swimmers would come out, the crystal blue water of the night before had turned a putrid dark green, as though every bit of the chlorine had just vanished overnight. The doctor had plenty of ear aches to treat before that particular phase was finished.

Next, every time someone would attempt to use a diving board it would snap in two. Some near fatal accidents occurred because of this. After that, the lockers in which swimmers stored their clothes would often jam shut and could not be opened without dismantling the entire structure. And then, the electricity would often go off at the most inopportune times as far as the people, who were showering and dressing were concerned.

But it wasn't until one night near the very end of last October - on the thirtieth or thirty-first, I can't remember the exact date - that the swimming pool wreaked its final revenge.

"Who am I? Oh, I prefer to remain anonymous. The word came down from both Headmaster Cid and Commander Leonhart that the swimming pool debacle was never to be mentioned again."

All I can tell you is that it began that evening after dinner. We decided we wanted to go for a swim, before they closed the pool for the evening. And to think I almost went to the Training Center instead - man, what I would have missed!

Riding the elevator down to the basement with Selphie, we made our way past the baths and the laundry area and I went into the men's locker room, while Selphie went into the women's. There were locker rooms for both sexes.

Anyway, after taking off my long cattleman's coat and cowboy boots and hat and placing them in the locker, I removed the rest of my clothing and put on my red speedo. I'm not much into hiding my attributes.

When I reached the pool area, I observed a handful of people had had the same idea that we did. Rinny was there, of course. She's always in the pool, if she's not in the library and the library closes before dinner. Zell and that Library girl were there, along with Nida and Quistis.

"No! I didn't mean they were there together. How can you ask such a dang fool thing like that? Don't you know Quistis has Seifer completely hawgtied?"

Anyway, a couple more girls showed up a little later, but I'm getting ahead of myself. I jumped into the water - I just like to get the initial shock over with, rather than putting myself through the torture of getting use to the water little by little. But that's just the way I am - just jump into everything without really looking. Works for me!

I hadn't been in the water very long at all, when the swimming pool began to exact its final revenge. It happened when Zell began to pull himself up the steps attached to the side of the pool. As he stepped up the metal rungs, somehow his blue swim trunks got hung on something - later no one was able to find anything that he could have hooked them on.

Anyway, like I was saying - as Zell stepped up the ladder, his trunks snagged on to something and his suit was pulled completely off him. Well, I tell you - you never heard such yelling and laughing and carrying on. His trunks were not only off - they were now nothing more than a small piece of material floating in the center of the pool. There was no explanation for that either. No other traces of his suit were ever found.

Naturally Zell was completely stunned for a few seconds. As he stood now on the tile floor beside the pool, I was able to get a pretty good look at him. He was a lot bigger than I would have expected. Usually those big muscular types have something that resembles those little wieners on crackers - if you know what I mean.

As my girlfriend was standing right next to him abjectly staring with her mouth agape, I called out to her to take a picture - they last longer. Sefie immediately responded by sticking her tongue out at me and turning her back to the naked SeeD.

Naturally Zell was yelling like all get out and had turned completely red. I was laughing my butt off, by the way. I will say this for Rinny, she just casually turned her head and acted as if nothing had happened. No wonder they call her the Princess! On the other hand, the Library girl was running back and forth like a chicken with its head cut off. She didn't know if she should go comfort him or turn her back.

Quistis, on the other hand, stood in the shallow end of the pool and closely inspected Zell; in fact, it looked as if she were attempting to memorize every nuance of his body. Maybe she was trying to decide what she would do, if something bad ever happened to her and Seifer's relationship. She was laughing outright at the entire situation, as Quistis is easily amused anyway.

By this time Zell had leaped into action and ran like a crazy man over to the men's locker room door - but it was locked! No matter how hard he pulled, it wouldn't open. I thought he was going to pull the damn thing off its hinges, but in the end that door wouldn't budge.

So then our blond bumpkin gets the idea of running over to the women's locker room. Which turned out to be another one of his brilliant ideas, because just as he arrives there, the door opens and two young SeeDs come out. One of them was Ai - an attractive young blonde and the other was Kasumi - a very petite, very beautiful black-haired young woman. I'm telling ya - these women were built!

I did notice that they didn't appear the least bit shocked or displeased with Zell's total nudity, which I filed away for future reference - but they just casually stood there and looked him over from head to toe. Kasumi whispered an aside to the young blonde standing next to her, which I couldn't hear but it caused Ai to laugh.

Then they both began to laugh, while Zell attempted to pull open the women's locker room door to escape the entire fiasco. But guess what? It wouldn't budge either! Even though Ai and Kasumi had just come out, the door wouldn't open. Zell finally solved the problem by running down to the deep end of the pool and jumping in, where he remained for the rest of the evening.

The next thing that happened was Quistis was sitting quietly in one of those Jaacuzzi whirlpools in the shallow water, when it suddenly began whirling with the force of a typhoon. Naturally Quistis began screaming and everybody turned to look at her. When she was finally able to stand up to move away, it became readily apparent that her entire orange bikini had just disappeared. And you know - no trace of that was ever found, either.

I will say this for Quistis - she kept her cool and just stood there, as if nothing had happened. I mean, I guess when you look at it - what could she do? Her bikini had obviously just disappeared and, you know, Quistis always did have such a straitlaced presence. Hyne! I can you tell you this - that woman is just plain beautiful beneath that rather staid outfit she usually wears. She has these enormous breasts and I'm here to tell you - she's a natural blonde too. Man, did I envy Seifer at that particular moment.

So I'm standing there drooling when all of the sudden - WHAM! - Selphie comes upside my head with a few well placed blows, while screaming at me until I finally have to turn my head.

So you know what happened then, of course - Quistis ended up at the deep end of the pool a few feet away from where Zell was hiding. At least he had somebody to talk to now. Meanwhile Rinoa had organized a party to attempt to open the locker room doors, but they still wouldn't budge.

All was calm for the next few minutes, because Rinny had been able to convince everyone that sooner or later they would be missed and someone would come looking for them and get the doors opened.

Ai and Kasumi decided that they wanted to jump off the high diving board which, I remember thinking at the time, was insane. I mean - with all that was going on and everything - why would they want to press their luck?

Well, when the two young women were climbing up the ten foot ladder that led to the high board, the same thing happened to Ai that happened to Zell. Somehow something on the ladder hooked her bathing suit and pulled it off - clean as a whistle - and there she stood poised to jump off the end of the board with nothing on. Great Shiva! I thought I had died and gone to my eternal reward - she was one purty filly, let me tell you. Naturally everyone had been watching them as they made their way up the ladder.

I watched as her bathing suit floated all the way down and hit the water and then sorta disappeared. Kasumi, who, by this time, was also out on the board, was laughing to beat the band. She was laughing so hard I'm surprised she didn't shake the board enough to throw Ai off.

Of course, the young blonde woman had no choice at that point, but to jump off into the pool. I guess she was so agitated that she miss-stepped and fell rather awkwardly into the water, hitting it rather hard. Man! I bet that hurt with not wearing anything! But she resurfaced eventually and went down to the deep end of the pool to wait out the rest of the evening's activities.

Kasumi was still giggling to herself as she stepped up to the end of the board and executed a beautiful three point dive. Somewhere between the second and third point, her bikini just vanished into thin air - I still have no idea how. Kasumi realized it halfway down, but what was she going to do at that point? Great Hyne! I gave that dive a score of 10.0 It was perfect - until Selphie started going at me again. This time I swear it felt like she cracked a few ribs.

So now Kasumi's down there too - at the deep end with most everybody else. And they're all laughing and talking and having a great time. Down at the other end, Nida looked as if he was talking Rin's ear off and she did not looked pleased. Selphie was standing next to me, tapping her foot in impatience at me. Well, between those choices, I didn't have of a decision, did I?

So I just jumped in the deep end with everybody else. I already told ya I was impulsive. Of course, all the women started yelling at me and threatening me with bodily harm if I tried anything - darn it and Selphie was screaming at me from the side of the pool. So I amused myself by swimming around underwater for awhile. Great Shiva! That old guy we studied - Jacques Cousteau or something like that - never saw such sights underwater like I did that night.

Of course, my lady companion finally jumped in and tried to catch me, but I was too quick for her.

Well, I guess that eventually Squall finished his paperwork for the day and went to search for his sweetheart. When he couldn't locate her, he began to ask around and discovered she had gone to the pool.

I guess when he got down there and couldn't enter the pool area through the locker room, he called down a squad of SeeDs and upper-classmen and they were able to bust through the locked doors.

Well I'm here to tell you - when all those nude young women and Zell began to scramble out of the pool and race to the locker rooms, Squall appeared redder than a beet. Although I couldn't tell you if it was from embarrassment or anger, I do know that he exploded angrily.

Probably from not knowing who exactly was responsible, when his gaze fell upon Rin - who, of course, had nothing to do with any of this - he began yelling at her. You know the way you'll have a hard day at work and then go home and yell at your wife? It was like that.

But of course being the personality that she is, Rinny started yelling back - telling him in no uncertain terms that he needed to brick up that whole monstrosity of a swimming pool until there was nothing left.

The dark-haired young woman began to pull herself up the steps to get upclose and personal in her argument with Squall, when the final disaster of the evening struck. Unknown to most people Nida wears contacts. Naturally he doesn't wear them in the pool and as he was thrashing around almost blindly behind Rinoa, his hands fell inadvertently on her bikini bottoms and as he pulled himself up, he pulled 'em down to her ankles!

Hyne! I have never laughed so hard as I did at that, although I did take time to check her out - whew! But I laughed almost as hard at her angry reaction, as Rinny dealt Nida a karate chop right across his Adam's apple. It was a clean blow along classic lines and I think if she hadn't pulled her punch slightly, she would've killed him. As it was, he couldn't talk for a month. Think of that - a whole month without Nida's insipid announcements from the bridge. We were all grateful to Rin for that - I'm telling ya.

Anyway, that was it for the swimming pool. The next day Squall had it filled in with cement and it was history. But then Headmaster Cid had the brilliant idea of putting an ice skating rink in its place. Is this the end of this thing? Who knows, but if I were you - I'd stay tuned.

The End?