21. Garden's Secret
Unbeknownst to the group, at about this time, the missiles had been launched, following Selphie's failure to stop them. They were high in the sky by now, heading over the ocean, with only one purpose. Had he known he had little over an hour to activate Garden's defences, Squall may have been in a more urgent frame of mind. As it was, he was standing in the lift, taking them down to the lower levels of Garden with his usual grim-faced determination. All three of them sat in silence, not wanting to think about the mission at hand, or the consequences should they succeed or fail…
The lift had only been descending for a couple of minutes, but it seemed like a couple of hours to the group when the doors to the lift finally opened.
"Nobody's been here in a while, so be careful!" Squall told them.
They were looking out through a large tunnel. The lighting was too poor to be able to make out much detail, though there was a noticeable smell of ancient oil present in the air.
"Do you reckon there are monsters down here?" Zell asked.
"Quite possibly, so be alert." Squall told him. Then a thought occurred to him. "If this is an oil stratum, chances are any monsters down here will be weak against fire." He told them both. They walked along a tunnel and at the end, was a huge hole leading down. It was very dark, but fortunately, there was still some kind of faint emergency lighting, so they could faintly make out the area around them, and find their way; yet it was still akin to fumbling through the dark, as they could not see where they were heading, or to what.
Eventually, they reached a dead end. Squall felt around the walls for any evidence of a door, but found nothing.
"Do you think we've come the wrong way?" Zell wondered.
"They wouldn't have a tunnel to nowhere." Squall reasoned. "Look around."
"There's a ladder here." Rinoa found a way down through a hole, scarcely wide enough for one person.
"This must be it then." Squall decided and started descending, without consulting the rest of the group. With no other immediate plan, the other two followed suit. They scaled down the ladder to the bottom of the pit. The only thing they found at the bottom was a single door, which, unlike the rest of the area had a lot of light pouring through it. With no other options, the groups decided to inspect it.
The lighting system was working fine in this room, but all they could see was a huge wheel, controlling a valve.
"Do we have to open this?" Rinoa wondered.
"Possibly. It probably opens a door somewhere." Squall guessed.
He tried to turn the wheel, but years of neglect had left it rusted and he could hardly budge it.
"Zell, Rinoa. Give me a hand." All three of them gripped the wheel, and pulled until they thought their arms would fall off. Finally, it yielded and the valve was open. After a couple of moments, with nothing happening, Squall decided to retrace their steps to see if any new routes had been opened up, or, as he hoped that they had just activated the system, whatever it may be. As they re-entered the circular room, they were all surprised to see that the floor had opened up, revealing an even longer descent, with a ladder leading down into the depths.
"Damn! How deep does that thing go!?" Zell looked down the pit. The emergency lighting was getting fainter and they could barely see down. They climbed down the ladder. As they couldn't see the bottom, it felt like they'd been climbing down forever. Squall prayed that the ladder was still strong enough to take their weight after all these years. With no idea how far down it went, he figured a fall down the pit would probably be their death. But finally, they reached the bottom. They stepped through a door and gazed at the room around them.
There were rows and rows of huge pistons and cogs. At the far end, was a walkway leading over a bed of oil into a room. Zell whistled.
"Man! This shelter thing must have been pretty impressive when it was working! Look at all this machinery!"
"Do you think it will work against the missiles?" Rinoa asked.
"Who knows?" Squall shrugged. "But we'd better find this control system and activate it just on case. I think it's probably in that room over there." He pointed across the walkway.
"Let's check it out then." Zell and Squall started heading over to it, when they heard a scream from Rinoa.
"Squall! The oil! Look!"
Squall looked to where Rinoa was pointing and he could see two huge bulges rising from the oil. Presently, two huge, slimy creatures crawled out. They crawled along on their bellies and they stank of oil. They saw the SeeDs and bared down on them.
"They're full of oil!" Zell whispered to Squall. "Cast Fire on them and they'll burn alive."
"And so will we!" Squall pointed out. "Look at all that oil in that pool. We'd blow up Garden ourselves."
"We gotta do something about them!" Rinoa backed off. "They don't look very friendly!"
As if in response, she fired her pinwheel weapon, which embedded itself in the forehead of one of the monsters. Squall had to admit she was a good shot with that thing. But the problem now was, getting her weapon back.
" If we can draw them away from the oil, we might be able to cast Fire on them." Squall shouted to the others.
The monsters kept crawling towards them. Squall cursed. They had to get past them to get to that room, but the two beasts obviously didn't want them to pass. He didn't know if they were hungry or what, but they clearly didn't harbour good intentions to them.
"Let's bait them then!" Zell agreed. He ran over to one of them and punched it several times to make it angry. The creature reared back and spewed thick, black oil all over Zell.
"AARRGHH!" Zell was dripping, slipping and could hardly see. He fell down and the two creatures bared down on him.
No choice then. Squall decided. He had to go in for the kill or they'd kill Zell. He ran for the nearest one, the one with Rinoa's pinwheel embedded in it, and brought his gunblade across its back, then sunk it into the face of the other. He was careful not to pull the trigger on them at such close range. He could see oil seeping out of the wounds, but other than that, the creatures seemed to be unaffected. They seemed to forget Zell, and bore down on Squall instead.
He backed off. His plan was working; the creatures were heading away from the oil pit, but then he noticed something else. They were dripping with oil so badly, that they'd left a nice trail back to the pit.
"I have Water magic!" Zell shouted at Squall. "Just burn the suckers alive before it's too late!"
Squall was about to protest, when Rinoa cast her spell. Not just normal Fire magic either, she'd acquired Fira somehow, a much more powerful version of the magic which she cast. That, however was even worse.
Squall jumped out the way as a trail of fire skimmed across the floor past him and straight towards the two creatures, which instantly ignited. Then Squall's fear came true. The fire spread along the trails of oil. Zell too, was enveloped in the inferno, which fortunately didn't manage to reach the pool.
Zell was running about, screaming at the heat, and smacking himself, trying to put the fire out. He was obviously in no state to cast magic himself, so there was nothing for it.
Squall found Zell's mind and drew his Water magic out, which he instantly cast on Zell. He waited until the two oil monsters were just charred remains, but as soon as they were dead, the oil inside them was burnt away and the fire died down, so Squall cast Water on the last few remnants until there was no more fire, just the smoke still lingering.
"Rinoa." Squall's voice was unnaturally calm. "I know you were trying to help, but don't EVER do that again."
"I-I'm sorry." She looked first at Squall, who had escaped unscathed, then turned her eyes to Zell. His body was dripping with both oil and water. His clothes were burnt away in places and there was ash all over his face and hair.
"EEUUCHH! Squall, when we've activated this shelter, I am NEVER coming down here again!" he moaned. Squall couldn't help but smile faintly. Despite the fact that he nearly died, now that the threat was over, he looked so funny. Soon, both he and Rinoa were quietly chuckling.
"Hey! Come on guys! Not THAT funny!" he protested, which of course, made it worse.
"Let's go activate this shelter!" he muttered.
"I have to ask though," Squall mused. "Where on earth did you get Fira from?"
"Seifer." She grinned. "You know how he loves his Fire magic. After he betrayed me, I drew some from him as they were leading us away. I thought it would be only fitting to use it back on him. I didn't use it there and then though, because the Sorceress was there and I didn't want to get into a magic fight with HER." She shuddered at the though.
Squall nodded in agreement. Vengeance aside, it was certainly resourceful thinking.
Rinoa retrieved her pinwheel, casting Ice on it first to cool it down and they proceeded across the walkway, cautiously, in case any more of the creatures should appear. Fortunately, none did. Inside the room, they found an enormous looking engine with so many cylinders and pistons and cogs and other things the group couldn't begin to name. At the end of the walkway, was a small control panel.
"Oh, man! What do we do with THIS!?" Zell stared up at the machine in awe.
Squall investigated the control panel. Around the walkway were other bits and pieces, which looked like they may have been levers at one point, but what they did, or how to activate them was beyond his guess.
"We can't just sit here and stare at it!" Rinoa said sensibly.
Squall pressed the largest button on the panel. Nothing happened, so he pulled the lever next to it.
"Squall, what the heck are you doing?" Zell looked at him.
"I don't know! What else can I do?" Squall felt way in over his head here. But all of a sudden, there was a rumbling noise and the engine started to spring into life, slowly at first; then, as the joints started to lubricate themselves, the cogs and pistons were working at full pelt. Then, they noticed that the platform with the panel they were standing on was rising as well. They all clung onto the railings as it moved up faster and faster. A panel opened up in the roof, and soon they were travelling up a shaft. A door at the top of that opened just before they reached it, and Headmaster Cid came tumbling out of it. Squall and Zell both caught him, and the platform stopped above the balcony of Cid's office.
"What's going on?" Cid was bewildered.
They felt the entire Garden shake and they held onto whatever they could find. It seemed like the entire Garden was rocking left to right.
"Are we moving?" Zell finally asked. Squall walked to the edge and looked down. The ground was moving along underneath them. Bewildered students who had got past the Faculty looked up at them. They weren't just moving; they were flying.
"We're flying!" He told them.
"So! This is the secret!" Cid laughed. "The Centra Shelters were mobile!"
Then they saw them. The missiles were incoming. Squall watched with fear as they descended mercilessly on the Garden. Then, to the surprise of all the group, the missiles surged straight past, seemingly ignoring their target, only to crash down into the crater where Garden had been. Unbeknownst to him, the officer who had re-activated the launch program had reset the Error Ratio back to zero. Squall instantly guessed the error ratio had been kept at zero, which struck another fear into his heart. Selphie and the others had obviously failed. If so, what had happened to them?
"OH WOW!! This is AWESOME! Garden can FLY!" Zell could hardly contain himself. "Hey, Squall! How do we steer it then?"
"How should I know?" Why does everyone keep asking me these things?
"Erm, I think we'd better find out soon." Cid noticed something. "Because we're going to crash into Balamb town soon."
With no other plan of attack Squall simply grabbed the main lever and moved it about.
"It's working! We're turning!" Rinoa shouted.
The Garden swerved away from the harbour and into the sea. Fortunately it floated, and soon, they were sailing along slowly. Panic over, they all breathed a sigh of relief.
"Squall, Zell, Rinoa. A job well done everyone!" Cid congratulated them.
"Where are we headed?" Squall wondered.
"It doesn't matter. We'll drift along for now, until we work out these controls. It'll also give us time to figure out what to do next." Cid answered him. Then he looked round and realised his office had become the bridge of the Garden. "So much for my room. Where am I going to change now?" They all laughed. The worst was behind them, and they could relax now.
"I'm off to my room then. I need to shower!" Zell moaned. They all watched him leave, still dripping with ash, oil and water and burst into fits of laughter again.