Disclaimer: Final Fantasy and everything related are the property of Square Enix. This work is a fan fiction, and the author receives no material compensation for writing it.
Author's Note: This story is a continuation of my earlier story Love Beyond Death, also posted here on FanFiction(dot)net (I would post a link to it, but do not wish to violate the site's TOS). I HIGHLY recommend you read Love Beyond Death before you begin this one; otherwise, this story and its situations (taking place years after the end of Final Fantasy VIII) will make little sense. Also, while my earlier story may be a few years old, feel free to Review it if you haven't already.
PROLOGUE
Alexa stared at the sunset, holding Tracker up off the floor of the balcony, to keep him from running around as little children often do. While Alexa was no more than a little child herself, at least physically, her mind was strong and developed enough for her to recognize that this was neither the time nor place for other little children to be running around unattended. Why the adults couldn't see this, she didn't know. They were too busy talking about stupid grown-up things like Uncle Nida and changing a course, whatever that meant. Still, she tried to make Tracker look at the sunset with them, despite his wordless infantile protests.
While the boy struggled to escape her, something tugged at the edge of her consciousness. The psychic pull was strong enough that it took her attention away from holding her grip on the boy. Tracker immediately broke free and ran away from her, mocking her clumsy grasp by sticking out his tongue and blowing her a wet raspberry.
She didn't care. She'd been standing on the balcony of Balamb Garden for several minutes with her parents, Tracker's parents, and their adult friends, and each of them had a distinctive presence that she could feel whenever they were near. As the daughter of what was once history's most powerful Sorceress, she had inherited a great many powers. Or so she'd been told. So far she'd just been able to feel people who were nearby, and to hear the occasional voices of long-dead Sorceresses whispering to her in her sleep. She had lived with both for so long that they felt like home to her. However, none of what she had felt, aside from the occasional nightmares of witches like Renault, Adel, and Ultimecia, had seemed particularly threatening.
The presence she now felt was not like any other she'd remembered, and at least vaguely more malicious. It was coming from behind them, from the door leading back into the corridors of Garden.
She turned around, but saw nothing but a closed door. She examined the whole platform, finding nothing of what she'd detected. As quickly as the feeling had appeared, it had vanished.
She'd had visions before, from what her parents had told her. She couldn't really remember them, but somehow this one felt vaguely familiar, as if it had visited her before. After a few seconds, she shrugged and turned back to the sunset with everyone else. If it were important, she'd worry about it later. She joined her parents Rinoa and Squall, and new brother Jarod, at the railing, losing herself in nature's beauty.
The presence, however, had not vanished. It had realized that it had been detected, and had hidden behind the powerful aura of that disgusting creature, that puppet reborn of the Sorceress' powers, Rinoa Leonhart. Alexa's mother, the presence knew. After all, it had been there for the child's conception, her birth, and her mother's death. Now, the mother's existence as…what did they call it…a "human Guardian Force", generated an aura so strong that the presence had no difficulty using it as a shield from the child's senses. It watched as everyone, and now even the Sorceress child, gazed into the setting sun as if it were somehow worthy of their attention.
The presence had not looked upon a sunset in decades, nor did it have any specific desire to do so in all that time. It regarded these people as fools for watching something as mundane as the setting sun, while allowing to sit idle the abundant powers within them.
The Sorceress Quistis Almasy and her unholy progeny. That monstrosity and its filthy whelp. The thought of them and how they had wasted the Sorceress powers within them would turn the presence's stomach, if it had any of its anatomy remaining.
They had slipped from its grasp on several occasions, but the groundwork was being laid. Sooner or later, their pathetic human compassion would tilt the scales against them and would lead them to lose those precious powers.
When that happened, they would die neither quickly, nor painlessly. The powers they had stolen would be returned to their rightful owner, and all would despair.
The Era of the Sorceress was coming.
