"The Few Remaining Strands"
8. The Sorceress Rises, I
1
I hold Watts, and, with one hand, press on the gunshot wound. He screams out, his body strains to move, but I've cast Stop on him, and his limbs can't move without me dispelling it.
"Shhhh" I say, "I'm trying to heal you... fucking..."
A series of gunshots erupt and the window right on top of us is punctured. Little shards of glass rain down on us.
Zone whips out from his corner, aims his machine gun, returns fire. The rattle of the gun pounds in my temples. I try to concentrate, but with Zone trading insults with the soldiers outside, the owner of the home cowering in the corner with her son, and Watts slowly bleeding out under my palm, it's all I can do to keep from losing my shit as well.
I don't know where Irvine has gone – he vanished when we first scattered.
"Ri..." Watts chokes and spits blood. Oh Hyne, oh Hyne... "Rin, we're... not g... gonn... gonna make..."
I shut my eyes. Push it out, push it all out, all of the noise and the screams and the gunfire and the sound of everything I wanted falling to fucking pieces and...
2
I'm nine years old.
I'm staring down to the street from the top of the Timber Maniacs building. Behind me are the desks, stacked up and barely leaving any room for me to run, and down below, there are lots of people with the leaves on their chests. They're screaming out, holding colorful signs that I can't read. Not because I can't read, I can, my mother taught me how.
It's that I can't understand. There are big words there, long words that I don't know to spell. Totalitarian. Revolution. Dictator. Surrender. They are screaming and shouting, but not at my father's soldiers. It looks like they're singing.
My mother comes up from behind me and hugs me.
"Rinoa, you know you're not supposed to get close to windows."
3
"Zone, get away from the fucking window!"
"One more shot, one more shot I swear..."
I turn to Watts.
"Curaga."
I feel the spell rush out of me, travel from the core of me to my fingertips and disperse right underneath them, and from it, spill into Watts' wound. Watts breathes deep, and I see the wounded flesh slowly close up, almost by itself. I have seen Curaga spells in action before, but nothing this good... at best, Curaga makes deep wounds flesh wounds, but doesn't close them up.
"I'm..."
"Still wounded, Watts, rest, okay, you're not in the line of-"
Zone's body is struck and he collapses on the floor. The owner of our little bunker screams. A volley of shots follow, doing away with the last of the window. I instinctively take my head between my hands to shield myself.
I look.
Zone's looking right back at me.
He's not breathing.
"No..." I hear myself say, "No... no, no no no no no...
I crawl on my hands and knees and get to him as bullets tear into the kitchen and shatter tableware. With his machine gun still in his hand, there he lies. I can see the wound. A gaping hole on the side of his forehead.
"Zone?" Watts tries to lift his head.
I don't say anything.
The machine gun smiles at me. I pick it up. I dislodge the clip and check it, just the way Irvine had taught me. Little more than half-full.
A bullhorn-amplified voice calls from outside.
"Dissidents to martial law! You are surrounded! Lay down your arms and come out with your hands behind your head!"
Seeing what I intend to do, Watts can manage "Rin... don't..."
I don't care. I crawl to the door. Watts tries to stop me, but one little push and he almost passes out from exhaustion.
I stand up.
"Please don't." he says.
"This is when it stops." I reply.
I open the door and pull the trigger.
4
I'm ten years old and I'm pulling the trigger of the smallest caliber gun my father could find. The gun rattles in my hand. I miss the target by three feet. I frown. Despite everything, I still don't want to disappoint my father.
"I missed." I say.
"You'll get the hang of it." My father tells me, "The important thing is, you shouldn't have to use this."
"Why not? Doesn't it stop the bad guys? Like in the movies?"
He smiles and ruffles up my hair.
"Yes, but the bad guy is, after all, a guy. I would never want you to... uhh, stop, anyone."
5
I run towards whoever's in front of me, and fire at him. I hit, the bullets make the body twitch. I turn the gun and the hail of bullets find the guy next to him, and the one next to that.
They can't fucking hold me down. Nobody can hold me down, not anymore, not my father, not his fucking soldiers that always made life hell for my mother, didn't even rest when she was dead and under the ground. No, this is my fuck you – he has taken enough from me. He has taken enough!
I reach out for one of the remaining soldiers, a swordsman charging at me. I hold my fingers out like a claw and his body twists, limbs contorting in ways they shouldn't. I can hear the bones snapping.
I hurl his broken body to one of his comrades. He falls, his machine gun rattles and the bullets catch another swordsman standing in formation.
"Come on!" I shout, "This the best you can do!?"
I narrowly duck a blade coming straight down. The guy doesn't stop, he shifts grip and swings it, horizontally this time, and I step to the side to get out of his immediate range. I grasp his helmet and snarl the spell, Firaga and cook his head right inside the metal.
I let him go and pick up his sword. It's heavy, heavier than Squall's gunblade, but I can manage. I look to see a soldier crouched beside a portable com-unit, frantically requesting backup.
I call upon a blizzard, Blizzaga, and freeze him into an ice statue. With the sword, I slice his head clean off. It falls to the ground and shatters to a thousand pieces.
I listen in. In the distance, I can hear Timber crying out, screams, gunshots and the sound of my mother's city being subdued by my father.
I start to run in the direction of the outcry.
I'm coming. Salvation is coming.
