Author's Note: Not much to say, just that I have a ton of stuff happening at once here! It was super fun to parse out. Anyway... as for as time placement for this chapter, it's been quite a while since the last time we saw Rinoa. Several months, I would say. As in comparison to everything else that's going on, I'd say this happens fairly simultaneously with what happened last chapter, maybe a week or two after if we're being picky. Anywho, that's all I'll say here, the rest will go in the blog.


Timber: Rinoa, Age 17

"Now would be a really good time for some magic!" Zone growled as they came up against a dozen darkness monsters.

Unlike average monsters that showed up in groups of three or four, these darkness ones came in droves.

"I don't have any!" Rinoa called back.

"What do you mean, you don't have any?" Zone asked, panic seeping into his voice.

"I haven't been by any Draw Points recently, I haven't picked any up. I'm not some Sorceress with unlimited magic at my disposal!"

Rinoa had done research on para-magic, to see if maybe she could utilize it, since she obviously wasn't a Sorceress. A person could get para-magic from a Draw Point, but they needed a Guardian Force to even see the Draw Point in the first place. No one in the Forest Owls actually had a Guardian Force (though everyone but Rinoa thought that Angelo was one) so no one was going to question Rinoa saying that she hadn't seen any.

Amy was quietly killing the darkness monsters with her knife and Zone went back to shooting them. Rinoa made sure her pinwheel blaster edge was loaded correctly and shot it off. It hit one of the monsters and killed it. The pinwheel came right back to her and she smiled. She'd finally perfected that part.

When all the monsters were gone, Rinoa passed out potions.

"Well, at least you're still good for something," Zone muttered.

Rinoa sighed. Sometimes, Zone made her feel so useless now that she didn't have magic anymore. Sure, she still got sent on missions, considering she was still the best person to go into Galbadia, hands down. Still though, she felt that with the lack of magic, she was letting the group down somehow.

"Just ignore him," Amy told her. "He's just upset that these monsters are interfering with our plans to stop Galbadia's plans."

Rinoa's mind started whirring. "What if we had help?"

"What?" Amy asked. "With the monsters, or with our political issues with Galbadia?"

"Both!"

"Are you talking about SeeD's again?" Amy asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I talk about them?" Rinoa asked.

Amy nodded. "All the time. 'The SeeD's can do this!' and 'The SeeD's could help with that!' Rinoa, we're in Timber, the SeeD's don't come around here."

"That's because they're not asked!" Rinoa argued. "I've got an idea. I'll announce it at dinner."

Rinoa started putting the pieces of her plan into place. She'd been thinking about it for a while, about getting SeeD help. Actually, she'd been thinking about trying to become a SeeD herself, but then she kept getting distracted with Forest Owl operations. Now, however, with the darkness monsters stopping up all of their plans, and the political turmoil between Galbadia and Timber not getting better, Rinoa realized that she needed SeeD help. She'd announce her idea at dinner, where everyone could put it to a vote.

xx

"I really think it'll work, guys," she said, making sure she didn't talk with a mouthful of food. Zone got on Watt's case for it and Rinoa didn't want any distractions if she could avoid it.

"The SeeD's could certainly help us with monster maintenance. Then we could spend more time on our operations against Galbadia. Better yet, maybe we could contract the SeeD's to help us with that, too. There's not enough of us to do both, all of us can see that. We need just a little boost of help and we can do this."

"But that's hiring people to do the dirty work for us," Smarmy argued.

"Newsflash," Reggie interrupted. "There's not enough of us and Rinoa just said that. She's the strategist and if she thinks this idea will work, I'm all for it."

Smarmy shrugged. Rinoa looked at Amy.

"I think it could work," she said. "But we'd need to get SeeD support."

"Let me go to Balamb by myself. I surprisingly have a connection there, I think."

"You think?" Zone asked.

"It's complicated. I tried to become SeeD before I came here, but my dad messed that up. I know a person who might be at least willing to listen to my case."

Technically, she had messed it up with that outburst of magic, but they didn't need to know that.

"All the way to Balamb though," Watts mused. "Will you be good by yourself?"

Rinoa sighed. "Yes. I'll be fine. I'll take Angelo, and hey, maybe I can find a Draw Point and get some magic while I'm at it."

"Seems like the best shot we've got," Amy said. "We can't keep going on like this. We're getting nothing done."

Rinoa looked between Zone and Watts.

"I think it's a good idea," Watts said. "To be completely honest.

Zone nodded and Rinoa breathed a sigh of relief.

"You should consider renting a Chocobo or a car, though. Balamb's a long way."

"I'll get a car," Rinoa said. "I'll leave in the morning, if that's all right?"

No one had any arguments.

xx

So, in the morning, Rinoa hefted her bag and headed out. She took only the necessities: a couple changes of clothes, her blaster edge, some potions, lots of munny. Then she rented a car and told Angelo she had to sit in back. The dog didn't seem to mind too much. Then Rinoa drove off.

Thankfully, the car prevented her from running into too many enemies. Most monsters were afraid of the car. However, the darkness monsters didn't seem to care that Rinoa was in something larger than them. It probably had something to do with the fact that a lot of them seemed to be made of machine themselves. This was a new development, and one Rinoa wasn't sure she liked.

The darkness monster problem across the World might actually be worse than the political problems in Galbadia. The monsters didn't stop as she neared Balamb. They were everywhere. It made Rinoa uneasy.

She got to Balamb City with more or less no problem. She turned the car in to the rental car place there and walked to the Garden itself from there. It wasn't hard and no one gave her any trouble. However, once she walked into the Garden, she realized she didn't really know what she was doing. She'd been so focused on getting too Balamb Garden that she hadn't really planned out the rest of her idea.

A blond boy with a tattoo on his face came up to her.

"Hello, there," he said, grinning. "Can I help you with something?"

"Um, yes," Rinoa said, trying not to fidget. "I'm looking for Quistis." Rinoa stumbled over the name a bit. It had been a while since she'd last seen the girl. Was Quistis even still here?

The boy looked at her a tad skeptically, then motioned for her to follow him.

"That easy?" Rinoa murmured.

"Well sure," the boy said. "If you're here to see Quistis, there must be a reason."

Quistis must get this a lot.

"I'm Zell, by the way," the boy said. "And you are?"

"Rinoa."

He nodded. "Pleased to meet you."

"Likewise."

He led her through several hallways and courtyards and Rinoa realized there was no way she was getting out without help, lest she get lost. Angelo padded along by her feet, looking pleased about the adventure she was on.

Zell stopped in front of a classroom and peered in.

"Shoot, she's teaching. What do you need to speak to her for?"

"It's nothing terribly urgent," Rinoa said, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. "Just a potential commission in regards to a small political group and some darkness monsters."

"Darkness monsters!" Zell exclaimed. "Why didn't you say so before?"

He slipped into the classroom. Rinoa strained to hear him.

"Hey, Quistis!"

"Zell! What have I told you about interrupting me?"

"But darkness monsters! Someone's here to talk to you about them!"

Rinoa caught a glimpse of Quistis moving out from behind the podium and then follow Zell out of the classroom. Rinoa bit her lip and smoothed down her jacket.

"What's this about Heartless?" Quistis asked, pushing her glasses up on her nose as she came through the door. Then she got a proper look at Rinoa.

"Do I know you?" she asked, frowning.

"You tried to recruit me a couple of years ago," Rinoa said timidly. "But I had to go do something else at the time. I actually came here as a representative for the Timber Forest Owls, hoping I could get some SeeD help with our… Heartless, did you call them?... problem."

"So it's not just in the Balamb vicinity," Quistis said gravely. "It's the whole World."

"I had wondered that as I drove over here," Rinoa said. "So are you saying you won't be able to help?"

"Not yet, no," Quistis said. "Come, let us speak to the Headmaster. Given how the Heartless appear to be all over the place, we may have something big on our hands."

"Mission?" Zell asked, perking up. "I haven't been out in the field since my field test!"

Quistis rolled her eyes.

"If you would come with me," she said. "We need to speak with the headmaster."

So Rinoa and Zell followed Quistis through more hallways to an office that Rinoa could have guessed was the Headmaster's office even if Quistis hadn't already mentioned that it was.

Quistis knocked on the door. There was no response.

"Sir," Quistis said. "This is important."

"Come in, Quistis," came the Headmaster's voice.

Rinoa wasn't quite sure, but she thought she saw Quistis roll her eyes. The three of them walked in the room.

The Headmaster was staring at a TV screen, almost in shock. Rinoa recognized the city of Galbadia, specifically the main city square. She saw President Deling as well as the lady who had recently started becoming popular: Edea. She'd allied herself with the president for some reason. Why, Rinoa and the rest of the Owls had yet to figure out. It was certainly something they were working on, but they hadn't gotten any information on it yet. They were hoping they could use Edea as a means to take down the president, but they weren't sure if Edea would work with them on that or not.

"See," Edea was saying. "Look how they listen to my command! I can teach you how to do the same!" She was petting a Heartless on the head. It just sat there, almost trance-like, not doing anything else.

Someone in the crowd must have asked a question, for Edea's response was clearly an answer.

"What do I do if they stop listening to me? Well, I kill them, just like you all have been doing." As she said this, she killed the Heartless sitting next to her with a swift Blizzard spell.

Rinoa almost felt bad for the little thing, it wasn't causing any trouble and she said she had it under control…

"What's going on?" Zell asked.

"Sir, I believe that woman just used magic," Quistis said. "Not para-magic, either, otherwise I wouldn't bring it to your attention."

"Oh, she's a Sorceress," the Headmaster said, his voice strained.

"Sir, what should we do?" Quistis asked.

"She must be stopped," the Headmaster said, turning to look at them for the first time. If he thought anything odd of Rinoa standing there, he said nothing.

"Just say the word," Quistis said. "I'll go out there and…"

The headmaster shook his head. "Quistis, she cannot simply be killed. Sorceresses must be contained."

"Headmaster Cid," Quistis began. "This entire Garden is trained to deal with Sorceresses appropriately. You could send any one of us…"

Headmaster Cid stopped her again. "Quistis, this is a special case. She has too much darkness surrounding her. Not only will handling her require the knowledge of several SeeDs, but also someone who has experience in handling darkness."

Rinoa pursed her lips. From the sounds of it, the Owls needed to not approach Edea. She wanted to volunteer the Owls to help in a take-down, but none of them were really all that equipped to handle darkness, considering they were struggling with it so much as it was.

Headmaster Cid dug around in his desk drawer. He pulled out a little crystal shard and handed it to Quistis.

"This is a star shard, they are known to be able to take the holder across Worlds. If you choose to take on this mission, I want you to go looking for someone who has the experience of handling darkness. I must stay here and ensure that no one goes after Edea and gets harmed."

"Sir," Quistis said, looking skeptically at the crystal in her hand. "Are you sure this will work?" She sounded like she almost wanted to laugh.

Rinoa didn't blame her, she was skeptical as well.

"Sounds fun," Zell exclaimed, before Headmaster Cid had a chance to answer. He linked one arm around Rinoa, and another arm around Quistis while simultaneously grabbing the shard out of her hand. Rinoa had just enough time to grab a hold of Angelo before she felt a tug and they were pulled away.

Whether or not the crystal was going to take them to someone who could help, it was certainly taking them somewhere.

Rinoa could only hope it was somewhere useful.