Guardians
Part One: Lost
Chapter One: Dreams
It is time. It is time for you to awaked us. It it time for you to awaken us and take your place. It is time for you to awaken us and take your place beside the sorceress. It is time for you to awaken us and take your place beside the sorceress, the one you love. Awaken us. Awaken yourself. Awaken Her. Awaken. Us, Her, You. We are Power. We are Love. We are Anger. We are Trust. We are Time. We are Strenght. We are Sarrow. We are Magic. We are Loyalty. We are Courage. We are Life. We are Death. We are. We are. You are. You two are. With us. In us. In you. Together. Awake Now.
He looked at the sleeping form next to him. Rinoa. His love and his life. And the sorceress. In the four years that had passed since their defeat of Ultimacia, the world had undergone some drastic changes. His father, Laguna, had opened Estar for trade with the rest of the world. Now even the small Timber looked much like Estar. Only Windhill had not changed. Taribia Garden was rebuilt, but not from the remains. It was built from scratch, courtesy of Estar. The other two had gotten total refits. They were more mobile, stronger, and larger than ever. The "fourth garden", the White Seed ship, had been replaced with a grand ship that made the old one look like a toy.
Irving had finally had luck with the ladies. He and Selphie had been going out for just over a year, and at the party the previous night, he had purposed. She excepted instantly. Zell had been going out with Lauren, the girl from the library, since only a few weeks after Ultimacia's defeat. The two of them had tied the knot just over nine months ago. She was expecting a child in another few weeks. Siefer had been cleared of all charges by a unanimous vote of the seed military council. Members included Sid, Eada, and Squall himself. He was a jerk, but only a jerk. He had been under Ultimacia's control, just like Eeda and Rinoa. If they were to be not held accountable, neither should he. The previous night's party was Siefer and Quintis's wedding reception. As for Rinoa and Squall, well, Rinoa never took her engagement ring off. Squall had gone to a jeweler and had a replica of the griever ring made, except set in it was a diamond. He had asked her two months ago. Eleone, who for all purposes was his sister - despite not being related by blood, had gotten engaged to a guy in Windhill several months ago. They were considering a double wedding.
"That dream again?" Rinoa asked sleepily as she woke up.
"Ya."
"Where was it this time?"
"The one place I can think of that I know but hadn't seen in the dream before. The bottom of the undersea ruins. Except it wasn't ruins. Like the Castle, it was new. New and populated. But still under water."
"This has to be something. You have been having the same dream every night for a month. It's a message, a prophecy, something."
"It isn't exactly the same. It kind of builds up. The first one was just 'It is time.' The next was 'It is time for you to awaken us.' And so on."
"Well, I say we should do something about it."
"I know, but what can we do?"
"Go there."
"There?"
"The ruins."
Three days later, the Rangnarok landed at the ruins laboratory. Estar continued to study the ruins once they learned that Squall and the others had removed the threat from Weapon that liven at the bottom.
Their reception was normal for them. They were the heroes that defeated Ultimacia. They were the Sorceres and her knight. They were the son of the president of Estar and his fiance. They were Seed Commanders. They were two of the ones that made the ruins safe to study. They were welcomed happily by all workers at the facility. They also asked to look around without a guide.
At the bottom of the ruins, where they had fought with the Weapon, they notice that there was a passageway that was blocked by rubble the last time that they had been there. It lead to a long and ornate tunnel. Marble walls, gold torch holders, ancient bio-orb torches that still gave off a slight white glow.
At last it opened up into a large chamber. The only person who wasn't at the landing pad to great them, the project manager, was sitting in a chair against the wall, looking at sensor data.
"Oh, Mr. Lionheart, Miss Hartilly. Is it that late already. I must have lost track of time here. I apologies for missing your welcoming ceremony."
"No need. Frankly we would prefer not having one."
"Yes, I guess it must get tiring."
"So what is this?"
In the center of the round room was a round pool. About forty feet across, there was a ten foot drop into the liquid. It definitely was not water.
"Darned if I know. I can tell you what it isn't. It isn't any material ever seen before. It is liquid. It is denser than air, but is not denser than water. We dropped a weighted ball on a rope into it to see how deep it was, but we ran out rope. We tried again with a longer rope and a sensor attached to the end. The pressure does not change, even at as deep as we could get it. It was only one atmosphere, anywhere within that. Which should be impossible, as even this room is pressurized beyond one atmosphere. The temperature does not change either. We took a sample from as deep as the rope would let us go, and the substance is the same everywhere."
"How deep is it?" Rinoa asked.
"Again, darned if I know. We connected every available inch of rope, chain, and wire together, and the only thing I can tell you is that it is farther from here to the bottom of that then it is from here to the surface of the ocean."
The three of them stepped up to the edge and looked down. Too bad non of them noticed Squall's griever ring glowing.
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