Chapter 4 (Monster)
Squall
Squall sighed as he continued to work on his computer. His luck never seemed to get
better, and work always took up his whole day. "It's worst enough that I have to work all
day, but to have people bother me…" said Squall in his head remembering his
conversation with Xu 5 hours ago.
Flashback (In Xu's point of view)
Xu entered the commander's room. The commander was at his huge computer, working.
All she could here was the sound of the keyboard keys going "tacketa, tacketa, tacketa."
Finally she sighed and decided she had to talk first. But then she heard the commander's
voice. "Who is it?" the commander asked in a sort of annoyed tone. Xu spoke up. "It's
me ,Commander Leonhart." Xu heard the commander sigh as he turned his chair around.
"What do you want?" he asked in a rather annoyed tone. Xu was yelling in her head
frantically. "How do I do it? How can I possibly ask him if Ms. Heartilly can stay here?
He'd probably think I'm nuts! I can't do it!…I have to do it! I promised!" said Xu in
head, still trying to find the best way to start the converstion. When she saw the
commander looking at her weirdly expecting a response, she shunned her thoughts and
quickly thought of a way on how to start the conversation. "Um…you've met Ms.
Heartilly haven't you commander?" she asked hoping it was the right thing to say. The
commander simply nodded. "Well, it's about her dorm, you know that the Trabian SeeDs
transferred last week right?" Xu asked again, relieved that this conversation was going
fine. The commander nodded again. "Um…well she doesn't have a dorm…" said Xu. Xu
was about to add more to her sentence when the commander interrupted. "You want me
to construct a dorm for her?" he asked in a smug voice, "Don't you think you can do that
by yourself?" Xu got a little steamed up. "Of course I can do it by myself! We're already
constructing a dorm for her!" said Xu trying to prove that she wasn't brainless as the
commander was portraying her to be. The commander rolled his eyes. "Well, if that's
done, the problem's resolved, why'd you come here?" asked the commander as he turned
his chair back and started to go back to work. Xu got even madder. "COMMANDER!
Listen to me!" she said almost yelling. "WHAT?" asked the commander in an even
louder and more annoyed voice. Xu took a deep breath. "Might as well tell him and get
right to the point," Xu told herself in her head. Xu lowered her voice and then started.
"She doesn't have a place to stay for the time being and all the dorms are pretty small,"
said Xu pausing for a bit, "so I was wondering since you have 2 bedrooms here, if she
can stay here for the time being." Xu was screaming at her head. "He'll probably think
I've gone mad! Or worst, my job might be at stake! OH! I shouldn't have promised!"
After yelling frantically in her head. Xu turned back to the commander. She couldn't see
him, for his chair was facing her, but she didn't hear the keyboard typing. Then suddenly
from out of the blue, she finally heard him say something. "Fine." Xu was surprised.
"Commander, does that mean, she could…stay here?" Xu asked excitedly and happily.
She heard the commander sigh. "Yeah, I guess, but could you possibly go now? I got
work to do," he said in a monotone voice, while going back to his work. Xu smiled.
"Thanks commander! You won't regret it, I promise!" said Xu as she exited the
commander's room.
Squall sighed. Well I guess it's okay, since it's only for the time being… He sighed again, closed his eyes and went back to work. He worked for about 10 minutes when he heard the door open again. "It's probably her," Squall told himself, "Oh well, let's get this over with."
Rinoa
Rinoa inserted the key cards one by one in the right order. After entering about 2 elevator
sized rooms, she finally entered the main room. It was huge. There were 2 doors on the
left wall, and 2 on the right side as well. There was a huge lcd monitor screen about 6 by
4 feet in size. There was a huge desk with lots of different electronics of some sort. There
were also file cabinets, on the walls. This didn't surprise Rinoa. She recognized some of
the electronics as the supercomputer's her father often used. She thought there was no
one in the room, but amidst of it all was a chair. The one that can spin and roll on wheels,
only about 2 times the size as her dad's. She wasn't able to see the person's head because
of the chair's height, but was able to know that someone was there because she saw
someone's feet underneath and heard typing noises. "I guess I have to talk first," Rinoa
told herself, "I wonder if he even heard me open the door?" She walked to the chair
closer. "Um…Commander Leonhart?" she asked hoping to get his attention. The chair
spun around and revealed Commander Leonhart. He got up. "Oh…Ms. Heartilly, right?"
he said in a cold voice. Rinoa nodded. "Thank you for letting me stay here," she told him
looking at the floor. He nodded and slightly smiled. "Smiled?" Rinoa asked herself, "Is
he happy or something?" He walked over to one of the doors motioning for Rinoa to
follow her. Rinoa followed. He took out a key card and opened one of the doors at the
left side and went in. Rinoa followed him inside. She looked around. She saw a big room,
about the size of the master bedrooms in the hotels. There was a huge king sized bed, a
nice chest of drawers, a full length mirror, a nice rug, and a big ceiling fan. There was
also a heater, and an air conditioning system set up on one of the walls.And best of all,
there was a black computer on a desk on one side of the room. And amidst of it were 4
boxes. "Oh…" Rinoa said recognizing the boxes, "Is that my stuff?" The commander
nodded. "They arrived here a couple hours ago," he paused, " This is your room. Feel
free to use anything that's already here. Since you're going to be staying here a while, I'll
show you around." He walked out the door and Rinoa followed him. He walked over to a
door right next to hers. "This is my room." he said as he walked over to the room right
across of it. He took out a keycard and opened the door. Rinoa saw a little room, with a
control panel, and some weapons on the side. "What's this room?" Rinoa asked
curiously. He cleared his throat. "This is my virtual reality training room," he answered.
"With this control panel, you can make any virtual monster appear, in any level. The
monsters aren't real, but when they attack or cast magic, it will hurt. But…the pain won't
be real. It would be only virtual pain," The commander explained. He picked up a helmet
from the floor. "This helmet will put you in a virtual world. You can see the monsters,
what's around you, and the climate with this helmet. You can control on where to battle,
and what kind of climate to put in by using the control panel. It will feel real. Everything
will feel real when you put on the helmet. The only thing you need is your actual
weapon." he said. He took a deep breath after explaining a lot and continued. "Even
though the monsters aren't real, you still gain real experience points for battling them.
This may be good for you since you're in the low level. Just remember that when it gets
too painful, to remove your helmet. Once you put the helmet on, you won't be able to
feel that's it's there. All you have to remember is that it's always there, so just go ahead
and remove it when you're feeling to much virtual pain." He finished. He handed her a
keycard. "You can practice anytime, so feel free to go in whenever you want." He said as
Rinoa took the keycard from him. "Thanks a lot, I'll going to need it!" said Rinoa smiling
at him. He nodded. He opened up the door again and exited the room with Rinoa. He
pointed at the last room, right next to the training room. "That's the bathroom, feel free
to use anything in there if you need it. Don't worry, it's cleaned daily," the commander
explained. Rinoa nodded. "Oh thanks a lot! You've helped me so much!" she said
smiling at him. To her surprise, she heard him say "You're welcome." He then started
walking to his computer. He sat on his chair and told one more thing to Rinoa. "That's
about all you need to know, make yourself comfortable. And just so you know, your
room is soundproof, so nobody can hear what your doing in there." Rinoa ran over to her
room and managed to say another thank you as she went in her room. She quickly ran to
the bed and sank down on it. "Total privacy…this is great!" Rinoa told herself, " I
wonder if the commander used this room? If he did, it must have taken him a lot of
trouble to get his stuff out. I just hope I didn't cause him that much trouble…" Rinoa
closed her eyes and opened them up again a minute later. She eyed her boxes still sitting
at the middle of her room. "I'm so sleepy, I'll unpack tomorrow," said Rinoa as she took
out her pink pajama's, put them on and went to sleep.
(This chappie's so long, you probably want it to be over now, but sorry I decided to keep going. Sorry it's boring so far, but I promise that after this message the story will get a little more interesting.-Ceres81)
Hours later, Rinoa woke up. It wasn't morning yet, more like 3 or 4 in the morning. She
wondered what woke her up and went back to sleep. She wasn't able to sleep, because
she heard something from under her bed. It was a scratching sound. Feeling a little
scared, Rinoa closed her eyes and tried to go back to sleep. Seconds later, she heard it
again. Then again and again. "It's nothing…I'm sure it's nothing! Go to sleep!" mumbled
Rinoa to herself forcing herself to sleep. But a few minutes later, she heard it again, only
louder. Then after a few seconds, she heard a sound. Kind of like a growl. "What was
that?" asked Rinoa quietly as chills went down her spine. "I have to check it out…it's not
a monster is it?" Rinoa asked herself as she sat up her bed. She got out of her bed, but as
soon as her left foot touched the floor, she felt something hairy brush through her leg.
The outcome was predictable. Rinoa screamed and quickly ran out of her room. Without
thinking, she went over to the door right next to hers and quickly pounded on the door.
Pounded. Not knocked. Only when the half asleep commander opened the door was
Rinoa able to get back to her senses. He had no shirt on, and that's when Rinoa
remembered that she had probably disturbed him a lot when she pounded on the door. In
the same monotone voice, he asked, "Yes? Is anything wrong Ms. Heartilly?" Rinoa
gulped when she remembered what happened back there. "There's something under my
bed…I think, It's a monster," Rinoa said in a throaty voice. Then she realized on how
stupid her statement was. "I just made myself sound like a 5 year old, thinking the
boogeyman is under my bed!" Rinoa said to herself, wishing she would disappear.
Squall
Squall sighed. "I'll go check it out," as he asked for her keycard. She handed it to him
and she went over to her room. Before he headed in, he motioned to her, to stay out, just
in case. "Something under her bed, she wakes me up right after I just got to sleep because
she thinks there's something under her bed!" Squall yelled in his head. He went inside
the room annoyed, and went by the bed. He swiped his hand under it and felt something
bite him. "Hyne! She was right! There was something!" he yelled in his head as he
quickly pulled away his hand. Holding the pain, he took out a small flashlight from his
pocket and shined it under the bed. What he saw surprised him. "Huh?"
Rinoa
Rinoa wished she was dead as she watched the commander go to her room. "I was so
stupid! Oh man! I pound at his door at about 3 o'clock in the morning sounding like a
five year old!" Rinoa yelled at herself mentally, "My first night at staying here and I
ruined it!" After scolding herself more and truly wishing she would disappear, she saw
the commander walk out the door holding something. It was a puppy. A brown puppy,
with a little white fur. He walked up to her. "I think this is the little monster under your
bed," he said actually chuckling a little, "I don't know how he got here though." Rinoa
looked at the dog. "Oh…I don't know how he got here either," she said as she took the
dog from his hands. She looked at it, it was so cute! Then she remembered the
seriousness of her situation. She quickly apologized. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! I woke you
up in the middle of the night thinking there was a monster in there…I'm so sorry!" Rinoa
yelled out, hoping he'd accept it. To her surprise, he laughed. "It's okay…" he said as he
headed back to his room. But before he opened it, Rinoa called out to him.
"Commander!" He turned around and looked at her. She looked down at the ground.
"This is probably ridiculous and you'll probably not want it, but can I keep the dog?"
Rinoa asked in a soft voice. She saw the commander think a while and then he answered.
"That's fine. I think he likes you anyway. Just make sure you don't take him out of this
room." Rinoa jumped and smiled. "Really? You mean it?" The commander nodded.
"Thanks a lot!" she said as she ran back to her room.
That's all for my 4th chappie. R and R. Sorry it was so long. Ceres81