Legacy of Gaia
Chapter 1: Home, Sweet, Home
Author: Shadow@ngel
superpinay@hotmail.com
Summary: (AU) Quistis, one of the most elite soldiers in the high-profile alliance known as the Garden, is sent to destroy the rebel org. of the Forest Owls. But upon capture she is caught in a web of lies and conspiracies that may destroy her very way of life. Will she be able to find the truth and reveal it to the world before it's too late for the ff8 gang? (Queifer)
Main couple: Queifer
Secondary couples: Squinoa, Selvine,

Author's Note: Sorry. One of my first ff8 ficcies and not very good... I'd appreciate if you guys would help boost my confidence with sending some reviews my way. hehe. This chapter's just to get the background in. If I get enough reviews I'll post the next chapter. I guarantee the next chapter is when things really start to heat up. ^.^ Thanks guys!

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The Garden. A Military Tactics center built to develop young men and women into perfect soldiers for purposes unknown.

Recruiters are dispersed out among the population to watch and observe. Their findings are brought back to a committee. If they are approved, they are sent up to a High Council that decides whether or not they are worth the trouble of 'kidnapping.'

I was recruited when I was 11.

They came to my house to ask permission to take my parent's daughter and train her in the most elite organization of our time. They came in and found chairs overturned, mirrors broken, windows shattered and the lifeless body of my mother laying on the dining room table. A little girl rushed out and found sanctuary with the strangers and her father came bounding out screaming explicative comments about young girls needing to be well behaved. I rushed over to the recruiters and hid behind them. Anything was better than staying with father. Even strangers that seemed to regard me with ice-cold stares and a stiff reserve that I later learned was the proper behavior of real soldiers and elite SeeD's.

"I don't want to die! Don't let daddy hurt me like he hurt Mom!" I pulled the woman's shirt violently. Her expression didn't change when I ruffled her uniform. She picked me up and she let me hug her neck for dear life while she pointed her finger at my father like a death sentence and told her subordinates to arrest that man.

I never saw my home again.

That woman who let me hold her. She told me her name was Edea. She was the only mother I knew after father killed my real one. I didn't see her often, though. She was high in rank and position. That meant she would often be busy with her own tasks and little Quisty, as she called me, wouldn't be able to spend time with her.

That's when I decided I would be up there too. I decided I wanted to be with her. I'd get promoted and I'd always be with mother. And I'd help save people like she did. They wouldn't have to suffer abuse like I did. If they had to, then the whole world was damned. I'd be someone's savior. I'd be someone's Edea too. And I'd take them in and they would never have to watch someone die like mother.

After a long trip on a train, more namely 6 hours, to the training center which they called a garden, I was brought to a dorm right away. Apparently, I was one of the rare recruits who were pre-selected by the High Council and that granted me immediate enrollment in the Garden. I wasn't sure I wanted it.

For about a year, I didn't speak a word to anyone except Edea and her husband Cid. I thought that maybe they would get sick of me and put me back at my home and give me a new mother. I knew it was far-fetched, but I wasn't too sure of what was right and wrong anymore.

My ambitions were blinded by my hate for the others. They were too goody-goody. They had no idea what things were all really like in the real world where father's bonding time consisted of me getting him a beer while he ranted drunk and spaced out in front of the television, hoping his gambling would pay off.

But they liked me. And they wanted to keep me. So they reduced the tasks assigned to Cid and Edea. Their next assignment was to get me to straighten out and to get me to talk to everyone.

I started speaking to others after three weeks with them. My grades skyrocketed and I went on to advanced classes faster than most of the students combined.

By the third year of enrollment, when I was fourteen, I was made a SeeD. The High Council ranted and raved about their star student. I even developed a fan club. But it was a bit unruly, seeing as I was only fourteen going on fifteen very soon. But no one dared to try anything on me. I was dubbed 'Ice-Queen' and 'She-Bitch' by my peers. The second one used rarely, seeing as I beat the crap out of anyone I heard using it.

One day, I somehow gained the friendship of a stoic SeeD named Squall. Unspoken friendship was earned and shown when we walked together in silence to any classes we had together. We didn't speak much, but we didn't really need words, nor had any words to say, having our own dark pasts to deal with.

Then, some weeks later, he came to me shaken and scared. I had never seen him show any emotion whatsoever so I was scared out of my wits too. We pulled into an empty classroom where he told me he had witnessed something horrible and that they would find him.

I asked who and he shook his head.

"I've already said too much…If I tell you, you're gonna die too."

He told me to forget everything he told me and to pretend like everything was the same.

It wasn't. I didn't. Time passed.

He promised me that once his Commander knew what he had seen, he'd take care of everything. And it'd be okay.

Two days inched by before there was an announcement over the PA system to rally the students in the hall for a funeral. Everyone was shocked. No one knew.

Suicide. It was a closed casket. Apparently, he had jumped off a balcony and it was only three hours later that it was considered a suicide.

I didn't cry for Squall.

But that didn't mean it didn't hurt either.

But I still thought he was alive somewhere because when I returned to my dorm room that day, I found his ring on my desk. Inside the ring was a rolled up piece of paper that told me, Wait for me. I'll be back, I promise. Whatever happens, don't say a word. I'm going to find a way to make them pay for hurting Xu.

Yes, Xu. A computer whiz about two years older than me. She looked me over one day, wanted to see for herself just how supposedly great Balamb Garden's prodigy really was.

Over time she found me worthy and she taught me the ropes on hacking at my request.

But of course, she didn't last long anyway. She disappeared. Never seen again.

Life went on.

They taught me that people died every day.

They had a point.

They taught me that SeeD's were elite soldiers in the battle for freedom and justice.

They knew we believed in them.

They taught me that if I was going to survive, there were times when I had to keep low, stay smart and be sharp.

By God, they were right.

Well?? Whadda ya think?