The Defense of Balamb Garden
By The Other SeeD
Author's notes: This short narrative is told from the viewpoint of a Balamb Garden SeeD cadet during the defense against Galbadia Garden's attack. The beginning and ending may seem abrupt; that's because this is only the story of one minor character's contribution to a much larger story. The SeeD cadet's individual participation in the defense may or may not have done any good in the long run—but nevertheless, this is his story. Also, remember that although I will be referring to enemy soldiers as "Galbadians" in this narrative, I AM NOT PREJUDICED AGAINST ALL GALBADIANS!!! Irvine is a Galbadian, and he's one of my favorite characters! In this story, when I say "Galbadians," I mean hostile soldiers under Seifer Almasy's control, who drove the students out of Galbadia Garden to turn it into their base. :)
Warning: This is a purely action-based story. Blood and violence in large quantities!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'd known something big was up the second the rumors about Galbadia Garden being over Balamb town started going around. The other Garden had no reason to be over the area, and the assumption that Seifer Almasy had taken control of the entire Garden didn't help.
I was in my room, staring out the window at the other school floating level with us, when my squad leader Nathan came in. "Let's get it on, Dave," was all he said.
I was following him through the corridor leading to the main Balamb Garden rotunda when I heard the school's PA chime into life. Someone was about to make an announcement.
"This is Squall speaking. This is an emergency so listen carefully. We're going into battle against Galbadia Garden."
Commander Leonhart is not a man who kids around—that's one of the reasons I respect him. I held my sword more tightly. I think I was starting to wonder, at this point, when was the last time I'd had a proper training session…?
"If your student ID number is even, report to the quad. If it's odd, report to the front gate."
"Front gate for us both, then," Nathan said, and ran off without waiting for me. I started after him.
We were almost the last ones to arrive. A dozen or so other SeeDs and SeeD cadets—definitely more of the latter—had pooled together in a random mass at the front gate. Nathan bolted to the front and began shouting out orders.
As everybody was getting in formation, I was able to get a glimpse of Dierdre Heathen, a fellow cadet. She was holding both of her chakrams—circular wooden frames ringed on the outside with razor-sharp blades—at her sides. We locked eyes and she nodded grimly. If I knew Dierdre at all, I could be sure she was gonna have a bunch of fun today.
In no time, I could feel the ground shaking. I looked up. There was no roof to the front gate area, and I could see nothing but sky; but the ground kept shaking. Man, Galbadia Garden must've been right there, just out of sight!
"The enemy Garden is right by us!" Squall's voice shouted from the PA. "Quad team! Watch out!"
"Good God," I heard Nathan mutter. "They came in from the other side first!"
A few of the cadets in the group started edging towards the Garden doors, whether to rush to the quad and help out or to run like hell and hide, I didn't know. "Stay where you are!" Nathan barked at them.
I was so hyped up my teeth were chattering. Sweat was making my uniform stick to my skin. I held onto my sword so hard my hands started aching. I tried to listen carefully, and could just make out the sounds of loud fighting coming from the quad. What the hell was that engine growl? Motorcycles?
The ground rocked again. I really thought the floor was going to shake apart under my feet. Not a nice thing to think about when you're standing inside a building floating a thousand feet above the ground.
Another voice came in on the PA, the voice of that recent SeeD graduate—Mida or something. "Squall! Go to the second floor classroom! The enemy is coming in from the sky!"
From the sky? Oh, hell no!
Sure enough, when I looked up a second later, the sky was flooded in a mass of green. Dozens of Galbadian jet-troopers, wearing green flight suits, were hovering above us, descending. The whine of their engines was getting louder…!
"Gunners, open up!" Nathan roared.
Every gun-toting SeeD in the front gate area—not many—aimed their weapons skyward and let loose a hail of ammunition. The Entrance area walls lit up with orange flashes. Hot brass tinkled on the floor.
Several of the jet-troopers above were jerked brutally as the jacketed-hollow-point ammunition slammed into them. Seven or eight fell screaming from the air, scattering the cadets on the ground. I almost got crushed under the mass of humanity.
"Keep firing!" my squad leader bellowed. They're not even stopping, Nathan!
There were more jet-troopers than Balamb gunners, though, and many had landed and were attacking the cadets. This is it, Dave!
I waited until there was enough space to move, and then charged the nearest Galbadian as he was struggling out of his jet-pack. He looked at me in surprise before I rammed full-on into him, knocking us both to the ground. My peripheral vision told me, even as I was falling, that a frenzied battle was beginning around me.
I tried to scramble to my feet and bring my weapon up, but the Galbadian beat me to it. He brought his own sword down to stab me—but I was able to roll out of the way. While he was off-balance, I got up and head-butted him in the stomach. It didn't make him fall, though. He grunted and threw me off, then lifted his own sword.
I had mine ready as well. He attacked, and I was just barely able to block it—man was he fast! I ducked another slash and tried to stab him in the gut, but he side-stepped it. Dave, you fool, now you're WAY off balance…!
I'm almost sure that would have been the end of me had Dierdre not arrived at that instant. She leapt onto the Galbadian's back with a savage roar—no woman should have a voice like that!—and put him in a headlock. She didn't let up as he slowly ran out of air, arms feebly trying to throw her off. When he had stopped struggling, Dierdre snapped his neck. I never forgot the sound of that snap. It was like a branch breaking in two. No; more like a tree trunk.
Dierdre dropped the corpse and pulled me to my feet with more ferocity than concern. Up close, I could see that her chakrams were dripping blood, and that her face was smeared red.
"Watch your damn technique, cadet," she growled, and shoved past me, towards the more intense part of the battle. That was a nasty thing for her to say—she and I are both cadets, of the same rank. Dierdre was really something else, some kind of monster, whenever she got into a fight.
From this point on, I made sure not to fight any enemies on my own—I always helped someone else who was already in a fight. If you're practically helpless and have no experience whatsoever, you might as well try to outnumber the enemy.
It got bloodier as it went on. I joined Nathan in driving back two more Galbadians who were getting dangerously close to the Garden doors. Every now and then I got a glimpse of Balamb cadets ganging up on Galbadians, or jet-troopers landing on cadets and crushing them, searing them with the jet exhaust. I once saw Dierdre, spattered in blood, tearing one hapless Galbadian's head off with her bare hands.
When both Balamb soldiers and Galbadians had dwindled down to almost nothing, Nathan started roaring again: "FALL BACK! FALL BACK TO THE ENTRANCE HALL!"
Yes, sir!
I started retreating, walking backwards, keeping my eyes on the few remaining fights going on as the last of the jet-troopers went down. When there was almost nobody left, I turned and ran like hell back inside the Garden. Nathan sealed the doors behind me.
Panting, I looked around. I'd never seen such raggedness in my life. The remaining cadets were slumped over on the floor and walls, gasping and clutching bleeding wounds. Swords, machine-guns, jet-pack pieces, and spent ammunition magazines were scattered all over the floor—and the main fighting hadn't even been in this area. On my right, I saw Dierdre pull off her blood-soaked cadet jacket and fling it onto the floor. Her eyes and mouth were set in a murderous expression. Her hair dripped gore.
I fell onto my knees, holding my stomach. I had a really bad, sharp pain in my side, and my head was swimming. The oxygen couldn't get into my lungs fast enough. I didn't want to do this anymore.
That was when I heard Squall over the PA again.
"Everybody. This is Squall." He sounded totally exhausted.
"How's everyone doing? You're all probably too tired to even stand up after all the fighting."
Damn right. I wasn't even going to try.
"But I want everyone to listen to me... We still have a chance to win, and I need your help. This is going to be our final battle. We're going to attack them before they come in again. To do that, we're going to head straight into their Garden. So I want everyone to prepare for a major collision."
Are you serious?!
"Take care of all the junior classmen. Irvine, Quistis, Zell, and Selphie will lead the attack into their Garden. As for everyone else, please support them if you can."
I was tired. Tired and scared. But then I thought—what the hell? If Squall is willing to go on a freakin' suicide attack, I'm going with him. Least I can do for that great a man.
"SeeD was formed to fight the sorceress; at least, that's what I heard. And Garden was created to train SeeDs. So this battle is Garden's destiny and also our destiny. It's a grueling battle, and I'm sure you guys are all exhausted."
Nathan looked up at the ceiling, at the PA speakers, as if he was looking at Squall himself. Something I don't think I'd seen before came into my squad leader's eyes.
"But I don't want to have any regrets. I don't want anyone to look back and regret this day."
It was determination. A rock-hard determination had come over Nathan. I saw it in his hardened face, his straightened back, his grip on his sword.Looking at him, I started feeling that my pain and exhaustion were trivial. He, Nathan, had fought thrice as hard as I had, earlier. I was sure of it. And I knew, after hearing Squall's weary voice over the PA, that he had been fighting as well--with every molecule of strength in him.
"So just this once, I want you guys to give everything you've got! For yourselves and for me!"
Suddenly Nathan lifted his arm. Holding his sword high and hard, he turned his head skyward, eyes blazing. His clenched his other fist, and his entire posture radiated—something. I don't know. Like…pure will. A character intensity that seemed almost spiritual. Undefeated pride. And then, in a voice that would have roused an entire continent, he bellowed:
"SQUALL!"
The ruined cadets on the floor turned to stare at him. And then, one by one, they got to their feet. Faces bloody, clothes torn, the raised their swords and guns and fists, and joined in the cry:
"SQUALL!"
I straightened up, fought off the pain, and roared SQUALL!, adding my desperate voice to the throng of men and women who knew what had to be done, and knew the name of the man they were now ready to die for.
At that moment, the Garden doors burst open and an ocean of Galbadians poured into Balamb Garden.
No time was lost. Nathan swung around and sucker-punched the first Galbadian to approach him, knocking the man to the floor. In a blur he had sighted another and cut him nearly in half with his sword. Dierdre was screaming, whirling, fighting four at once and making them retreat so fast they were tripping over their own feet.
I let out one more battle cry and charged. Pain was gone. Exhaustion was gone. I wanted nothing but to fight and fight and fight, kill these intruders, push them back, hurt them, hold them off for as long as Squall Leonhart needed me to.
It was like a video game, the bloodiest game you could imagine, where the player had turned on God Mode and was going nuts. I can't remember how many of them I slaughtered, but it could not have been less than twenty. Once, a sword was stabbed right through my left arm; another time, through my right side. I don't remember feeling anything.
At one point I felt a jolting crash so hard that I was almost thrown into the air. I realized that we had crashed into Galbadia Garden, as Squall had said we would. The two Gardens were crunching against each other like huge, mechanical wrestlers. I kept up my bloody crusade.
After a few minutes of blurry blood and blades, I got it together and realized that we had managed to push them back, all the way to the courtyard outside the front gate—the very edge of our floating Garden.
I sliced another Galbadian's guts out, and then a loud bang made me look up. What I saw almost made me forget what was happening around me.
The emergency door on the second floor had burst open, and the auto-inflating slide had activated. Squall, grappling with a jet-trooper, came roaring down the slide and right off the end. For one soul-shattering moment, I thought Squall would fall and hit the courtyard seventy feet below him.
He managed to hold onto the jet-trooper, who was still wearing his jet-pack, and went into an airborne slugfest with the man. They exchanged vicious punches and kicks, each trying to knock the other off the jet-pack and into the chaos below.
I would have given anything—anything—to be able to help Squall, but there was nothing I could do except wince every time he took a punch. I almost panicked when the jet-pack, floating out of control, carried the fight out of my line of sight. But there was nothing to do but hope.
He'll make it. He'll win. He's Squall!
I turned back to my own fight. Both sides had pulled out all the stops. I saw Galbadian motorcycles, fire spells flying wildly, three SeeDs and three Galbadians in a huge hand-to-hand brawl, guns blazing, swords flashing and drawing blood. Someone had summoned a Guardian Force, and a handful of Galbadians were blown to ashes—literally ashes—by the ensuing lightning attack.
A minute later, I saw something that made all the tension worth it. The man I had been rooting for as I watched the airborne fight had come out the winner. Even now, Squall and a girl in blue were running like mad across the courtyard, through all the fighting. As I watched, they reached the edge of the courtyard and made the leap into Galbadia Garden.
Soon after they had jumped, the ground shuddered again. When the scenery started shifting, I realized that our Garden pilot was breaking off from Galbadia Garden.
The remaining Galbadians started panicking and jumped back into their own Garden before it got too far away. I tore through their retreating ranks, letting as few as possible escape.
When the two Gardens were far from each other, I allowed myself to fall onto my back. Now all the accumulated pain and weariness was washing over me. I became acutely aware of the pain in my left arm and right side. I gasped.
From my position on the ground, I looked around. It looked like someone had exploded a tanker of ketchup over the area. I'd never seen that much gore in my life, or even in the movies. A good number of our men and women were still alive, checking over themselves and each other. I got up, found Nathan, and staggered to him.
"This isn't over," he said as I reached him. He wasn't looking at me. His suddenly calm eyes were turned towards the receding form of Galbadia Garden.
"I'm inclined to agree," I said, almost sarcastically. It would be a while before the adrenaline roaring through my veins thinned out. "How are the others?"
"Lots are dead or wounded. There's gonna be hell to clean up. But we made them pay. Dierdre, especially, was going crazy. We made them pay." He gestured at the dozens of Galbadian corpses on the ground.
"Hell yes we did," I said. "So what happens now?"
"Now?" Nathan said, turning to face me. "Now it's up to Squall and the others."
"Squall?" I said, and I think I must have been smiling at this point. "In that case, this war's as good as won."
end