Author's Forward:
Blunt honestly? Shiva and Siren were hot and I was a teenager at the time who had just finished Final Fantasy 8. Still, beyond just that, the Guardian Forces were such a strange entity that went relatively unexplored in the game that I couldn't help but wonder about them and how they actually bonded with the users. Were they contracts? Pacts? Rituals? A few of them were shown to be intelligent speakers, so this story was also trying to explore that concept a bit more.
I'm pretty sure that the ultimate idea was to tie the whole separation of spirit and body plot into something that one of the Garden Masters figured out how to do, with some of the spirits simply being grateful for their newfound freedom, while others wanted revenge on the humans for what they pulled, leading into a confrontation between Squall, the spirits, and Bahamut.
Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy VIII or Square Enix so don't sue me. Please?
A/N: First fic alert! I had this idea banging inside my head for a while so I finally decided to put it down on paper. Tell me what you think. Oh and a little warning, I am going to bet that you never would have seen this coming.
Duck. Roll. Dodge. Swing. Retreat.
Squall backed away from the T-Rexaur to catch his breath, his Lion Heart gunblade in a defensive position. After catching his breath he charged at the monster again.
Jump. Swing. Trigger. Duck.
He jumped back to avoid another head butt. Running forward Squall jumped over the tail and jumped again to strike at the T-Rexaur's face. Timing his swings perfectly Squall unloaded the Renzokuken into the dinosaurs neck, killing it almost instantly.
Sensing another presence behind him Squall lifted up one hand and drew fire magic from the fading T-Rexaur. With the other hand he unloaded the fire magic into the Grats that were trying to sneak up behind him.
Sighing to himself he picked up the gunblade from where he dropped it and cleaned it on the grass. After carefully examining it he placed it in the sheath on his back and slowly walked out of the Balamb Garden training center.
It had been 6 months since Ultimecia's defeat and the end of the Time Compressed World and things had settled into a rut at Balamb Garden. Galbadia was quiet and Timber had stopped most of their revolutionary activities for the time being.
Even the most troublesome monsters had been quiet as of late, and lets face it, Squall was bored. It seemed that recently his job as a commander had him taking up pens and pencils as his weapons instead of his gunblade. He trained in the Training Center constantly to escape the monotonous lull of the daily life he was living but not even the mighty T-Rexaur seemed to be a challenge to him anymore.
He found himself jumping at almost every assignment he could, whether it was a field test or a rumor, just to find something interesting to do.
So lost in thought, he bumped straight into Zell, knocking him straight to the floor.
"Sorry Zell," he mumbled quietly.
"Owwww! Damn man, I felt like I just ran into a brick wall. Do you have the Brothers junctioned again?" he whined.
"No, just Shiva."
Zell picked himself off the ground and rubbed his forehead a little bit, "Oh yeah! Cid wanted to see you by the way. Said he had an important assignment for you."
Squall perked up a little at this, "Did he say anything about it?"
"He said to dress warmly."
Giving his thanks Squll headed towards the elevator. He met Seifer there in his white trench coat followed by Fujin and Raijin. He had come back to the Garden after Ultimecia's defeat and made a public apology for his actions. Cid had reinstated him as head of the disciplinary committee and he had joined 'Squalls crowd' as a good friend.
He still hadn't passed his Seed examine and he still fought dirty but Squall wouldn't have it any other way.
"Where you headed today Squall?" asked Seifer as he passed.
"Away from here." He said simply.
"That boring huh? I feel ya man. The boredom is so thick here you can cut with a gunblade."
"INDEED." Spoke Fujin.
"I'm heading down to Balamb to enter the card tournament." Explained Seifer.
"…You play cards?"
"Aint nothing else to do on this island." With a swish of his coat he and his friends walked towards the front gate. Squall took the elevator to the headmaster's office.
Cid greeted him from behind his desk, "Thank you for coming so quickly Squall."
"…Whatever."
Any normal commanding officer might have reprimanded Squall's attitude but Cid had been around him too long to be affected by it any longer.
"So how have you been lately? I heard that we needed to order a double shipment of monsters for the training center due to your activities in there."
Squall said nothing in his typical 'I could care less' manner.
"How have things been with your fath…"
"If you don't mind sir, I would like to know the reason why I was called up here." Said Squall cutting him off.
Cid sighed, "You were never one to beat around the bush. Very well here are the facts." Cid unrolled a world map on his desk. Squall noticed that there was a big red circle around the Shumi Village Island.
"There have been reports of an ice monster prowling around Shumi Village. The townsfolk of the area have requested Seed aid."
"So what does this have to do with me?"
"Ahem. I'm sorry, they did not request Seed aid, the village elder requested your aid specifically."
"Why?"
"He said that you were the only one that the people in his village trusted. I'm afraid that your going to have to go solo for this mission, if you accept that is."
Squall didn't even hesitate, "I'll go."
As he turned to leave Cid called out to him, "Oh, by the way, how have things been with Rinoa?"
"…Don't ask."
It wasn't until Squall was actually in the Ragnarock before he remembered that he didn't bother to junction any GF except Shiva. Not an ideal GF to use against an ice monster.
'Guess I'll just have to do this one myself,' thought Squall to himself.
Squall expertly navigated the skies towards Shumi village. It did help that there was no air traffic. As soon as he reached the island disaster struck. A blizzard came out of nowhere, completely covering the front window. He tried his best to regain control but the wind made maneuvering difficult.
Despite the difficulties he was able to make a pretty good landing.
Well…okay it was an OK landing, I mean, any landing that you can walk away from is a good landing right? Oh forget it. He crashed the damn thing right into a mountain and had to cast a cure spell on himself.
(Back to the story)
'Where the hell did that come from?' thought Squall as he headed towards the emergency exit. The front of the ship was buried in a mountain of snow and Squall assessed that there would be no way to move it until the blizzard passed. As soon as he hit the button that released the air lock he was assailed by a blast of cold wind.
Tightening his jacket around him Squall stepped out into a winter nightmare. The snow was coming down fast and hard and the wind was blowing right into his face. Again he wished that he had remembered the junction a better GF for the situation.
'No time to dwell on the past, better start roughing it.'
Progress was slow. It seemed the harder he tried to walk into the storm the more fiercely it blew at him. It was getting so bad that he could barely see his hand in front of his face. Fortunately there were no enemies. Not even they were stupid enough to go out in weather like this.
'Guess that makes me an idiot then.' Thought Squall to himself. He couldn't help but chuckle at his own words.
'Man, look at me. Near death and here I am laughing to myself.'
He had no idea where he was, and he had lost the Ragnarock a while ago.
'This is pointless. I could pass Shumi Village and not even know it.'
He didn't know how long he walked. Feeling was lost in his feet and hands and the meager jacket he had on was little better than nothing.
'When the headmaster said dress warmly I wasn't expecting dress for the ice age.'
And then, it stopped.
'The hell?'
Squall looked around. Directly behind him and directly in front of him he could see the storm raging around him. But not in this clearing.
'I must be in the eye of the storm. That's lucky.'
Feeling the hairs on the back of his neck raise Squall drew his gunblade. During the time he and his friends had went around the world and defeated Ultimecia he had honed his danger sense. He could usually tell when a monster approaching and it had saved his life on countless occasions.
Suddenly, the snow in front of him shot up like a geyser, knocking Squall back and throwing his gunblade from his hand. The snow died down and Squall looked upon the ice monster.
The thing looked a lot like the Abadon he had fought in Esthar's Great Salt Lake except this one was made of pure ice. The thing stood three times taller than him, its limbs a steely blue with two red eyes near the top of its head.
Right where its chest area should have been was a blue…something. It looked like a type of fog but it was colored a lighter blue from the rest of the monster.
The thing reared back its head and let out a roar that chilled Squall's very bones. Finally it looked directly at Squall and opened its mouth, letting out a barrage of icicles, each one as thick as Edea's special.
Cursing to himself Squall dove to the side, narrowly avoiding the icicles and retrieving his Lion Heart. The thing pounded the ground sending a shockwave through the snow, knocking Squall on his back.
Picking himself off the ground he had just enough time to roll out of the way of another volley of ice. Moving back to get some room he used scan.
Briefly his eyes filled with 1's and 0's of computer information.
Monster Data- ?
'Fat lot of help that did.'
The thing had stopped firing off icicles and was moving towards him again. Squall readied a Firaga spell he had gotten from the T-Rexaur earlier that day.
Running forward and jumping over the shockwave the thing produced he shot the spell right at the monsters leg. Aside from slightly melting the ice the spell did nothing.
The monster however, seemed to be in pain. It let out another roar and brought down its fist where Squall was standing. Squall managed to avoid a direct hit but the resulting shockwave knocked him back several yards. He was able to hold on to his weapon though.
Getting up once again Squall faced the monster only to find that a flurry of icicles was coming at him. Not having time to dodge squall tried to deflect them. He was able to get most of them but a few of them got through his guard. One went directly through his leg.
Biting back a yell Squall gripped the icicle and pulled it out of his leg. Furious, he threw the thing back at the monster. Surprisingly it scored a direct hit right in the midsection where the strange mist was. There were now several fine cracks running along the ice that encased it. The monster let out another roar and jerked the icicle out of its chest.
"Don't like that do you?" Squall told the monster. Forcing himself to ignore the pain in his leg Squall ran towards the monster again. He ducked under some icicles and jumped over another shockwave. As the monster brought its fist down again Squall jumped on it.
The thing brought its fist up in the air, preparing to fling Squall off but before it could jerk its fist he jumped off the limb, straight for its midsection.
"Rough Dive!" he shouted out just before striking the chest of the monster, shattering the ice around the mist. The mist immediately seeped out and the monster fell to pieces, dropping Squall onto the ground.
He lay there for a few seconds with his eyes closed. The storm had died with the creature and the wound in his leg, aggravated by his final actions, was making him feel lightheaded.
'Oh well,' he thought to himself, 'At least I took that bastard with me.'
Opening his eyes he saw that the mist was still floating in the air above him. Before he could say anything he felt a pulling inside his chest. With a mighty tug that almost made him scream a blue ball of light shot out of his chest and collided with the mist.
Staggering to his knees Squall witnessed a small tornado in the air where the two things met.
He nearly fell over when he heard a woman's voice shout out:
"FREE AT LAST!"
The tornado finally died down and Squall got a look at the speaker.
There were not many things that could shock squall. However this nearly made him faint.
"S…s…Shiva!"
There in front of him stood the GF Shiva in all her icy glory. There was something different about her though. A smile was on her lips instead of the usual cold expression she was wearing when she was called into battle. Squall had never heard her talk, or make any noise for that matter but now she was speaking to him plain as day.
She looked directly at Squall, "Hello Squall. Yes, I am Shiva. It is nice to finally meet you."
"Bu…but your still junctioned to me! How can you be talking to me?"
"No Squall. I am the true Shiva.
Squall didn't respond. Passing out can do that to a guy.
A/N: Your probably going to be breaking your arms holding on to this cliffhanger. Please leave a review and tell me what you think.