"I'd say it's great to see you guys, but…"
Almas was barely listening. The fire in hearth was all her mind registered.
They had stumbled the last few miles to Trabia Garden half-starved and – in one case- delirious with borderline hypothermia. Trabian SeeDs had intercepted them on the drifts as the massive structure had rose into view, rising up from the snows like ghosts. Heavily-armed ghosts. They had been escorted quickly but not unkindly into Trabia, where Leonard had been taken away to see what could be done for his arm, Li following closely behind, and Almas had sought out Selphie and Irvine.
Selphie had hugged Almas like a long-lost friend and insisted on taking her on a tour of the once-ruined Garden, now restored to its former glory. Almas had allowed herself to be led around the massive structure. The Centrans who had built the Trabian Shelter had clearly been intimidated by the sheer hostility of the environment; the massive structure had interior walls proof against even the worst snowstorm. Even in the Galbadian missile strike all those years ago, only the flight halos and outer structure had been ruined. The Shelter itself was untouched and in the peacetime years since Trabia had worked hard and tirelessly to rebuild and its efforts had finally been rewarded only a year ago as the third Garden had carefully and quietly taken its maiden flight.
Selphie turned the blade in her hands and watched it catch the light. "You really think it can do what the Shumi say?"
Alas shot a glance at Irvine before turning back to the fireplace. "Diablos was scared of it. That's good enough for me."
Irvine sighed. "Shame you couldn't have taken care of Kayes back in the Shumi Village."
"We had other things on our mind," Almas said tightly. Leonard had barely made it to Trabia. Slipping in out of consciousness as they made the long and arduous journey, the only blessing had been that it was far too cold for the ruined limb that was his arm to become infected with anything.
The trio were in the headmaster's office. Selphie's office.
And why not? Nobody else knows Trabia like Sephy does, Irvine had said – not a little reproachfully – upon seeing Almas' expression. Selphie had insisted Almas tell her everything that had happened, and she had been a one-woman audience to Irvine's measured, questioning calm. She had ooh'd when she'd heard about the Shumi blacksmith, and cursed along with Almas when the tale had reached Kaye's ambush. Then she had asked to see the sword.
"And did you find anything out, Jordin?" Irvine said.
Almas nodded and tapped a finger at her chest. "Yes."
"Anything we can use?" he asked quickly.
"Not like you're hoping sir. It's not some anti-Esper weapon hiding inside me. More like…a blueprint. Something we can use. It's hard to explain. Like a message in a bottle." A message from beyond time.
"Well, we're glad you made it back here. Even if the sword was all you really found (All we found? Almas seethed quietly) it'll be a great help if we can get it back to Odine. You did good kid."
"I should have done something."
Leonard looked over at Li, and the expression on her face of sadness and wretchedness would have broken his heart, if it wasn't already so. "You did all you could."
Li stared morosely at the stump where Leonard's left arm used to be. There was nothing that could have been done, the very bones and muscle of the arm squeezed and compacted by fierce gravitational tides into a ruined hulk that had hung from his body. "I should have done something."
Just cut it off, Leonard had said tersely to the Trabian doctor. Get it off me. "And I'm telling you not to worry so much." He tried a cocky grin. "I can still fire a pistol with one hand."
Li didn't look convinced. Leonard knew she blamed herself for his condition, blamed herself for everything since that day in Dollet. First her best friend; taken by some distant and unsympathetic political machine and used to power the engine of war. Then her father; killed by the same agents of that machine to extend an already-bloated and rotten empire. Her friend returned to her but not as she was; some strange being a part of which would always be beyond her reach now. Her friends were all she had left and even those were tenuous, capable of slipping away in a second if not corralled and watched like a hawk.
"I need you, Leo," she had admitted, that same day they had kissed in the Balamb corridors. "You're all I have left."
"And you'll always have me," he had replied instantly. But even an anchor will only keep a ship in the same place in choppy seas, and it won't stop the ship from rolling in the storm.
Their gloomy reverie was interrupted by a knock at the door. "Come in," Li said before Leo could open his mouth, and it slid open to reveal a heavyset man dressed in the near-mandatory Trabian outfit of SeeD uniform covered by a heavy coat.
"The Headmistress needs your advice," the man said.
Li's eyes flashed and she opened her mouth to retort, but before she could Leonard had already put a hand over it. "Tell Headmistress Tilmitt we'll be with her shortly."
Li swung around in shock as the man left. "Leo-"
Leonard pushed Li's hand away from his arm and began to swing himself out of bed. "All hands on deck Li."
"But you can't…"
Dressing with one hand was a skill he'd have to master, and fast. "Where you go, I go." He coughed. "That is, as soon I get some pants on."
Li looked into his eyes and saw that they brooked no argument. "Fine." A small spark returned to her eyes. "Take your time."
"What are you, my nurse now?"
The sound of gunfire could be heard across the horizon. Trabian pathfinders whittling down the advancing Galbadian troops as they made the long cold slog across the tundra. But all of them knew there were too many to stall the advance, and that was not the only problem. Selphie winced as light flashed in the sky, and thin beams of force rained down onto the landscape, and whatever luckless Trabian SeeD had found himself uncovered and targeted by the Esper that danced through the sky. "I really hope that's the only one of those here," she said wistfully. The Esper had escorted the advancing army from the coastline across the frozen continent, a vengeful light leading the invaders onwards to the sanctuary.
"They must have raced the stormline to get here so fast," Irvine whispered. The heavy clouds were even now rolling in the sky over Garden. He did the maths in his head. If Kayes had radioed in just after the trio's escape from the Shumi, then the Galbadian army must have had this battalion ready to go within the day. Three days since the Shumi escape, less than a few hours since Almas and Co had reached Trabia.
It had been that close.
Of all of them stood on the balcony overlooking the tundra, Selphie looked the grimmest. Irvine put a hand around her shoulder. "It will be fine," he said.
"They just want to knock us down because they can," Selphie whispered. There was bitterness in her voice Irvine only ever heard when the young woman talked about her home's destruction. "We have something they want so they just come and take it."
Almas was painfully aware of why the Galbadians were here. "This is our fault Headmistress, if we had just-"
Selphie shook her head. "Don't worry about it Almas. You're a SeeD, we look after our own." She wiped a stray frozen tear from her face. "We'll protect you all until the end, I promise."
"Is it really important, what you found out in the Shumi village?" Irvine asked.
Almas didn't bother to lie. "Yes." The message sang within her, aching to burst out. But she knew she couldn't. Not yet. "Everyone has to know, everyone."
"Can you just tell us what it is?" Selphie asked, just a little plaintively.
Almas shook her head. "It's not…that kind of message," she said. "I have to get it to Esthar. Esthar will know what to do with it."
Irvine nodded. "Then we'll make sure you deliver it."
Li felt herself tense, like a string inside her heart being tightened by the mere presence of the ethereal monster near her. One hand had gone automatically to her side, to the Shai'en.
"I hope Kayes is with them."
She didn't realise it was her that had spoken until Irvine clapped a hand on her shoulder. "Nah, he's probably way back there, behind the lines with a pair of binoculars. Not like him to get his hands that dirty," he said, dead wrong.
Kayes was having trouble with Tisiphone's glare. Most people did. She looked at people like there would be no sweeter thing than to reach across and tear a hole in them. In this case it was literally true. He shivered at the cold. And the very recent memory:
You fail to hunt down a single waylaid brat and her childlike bodyguards and then you crawl for my help? Be warned, you are both on very thin ice with me. We are going to Trabia, to clean up my idiot brother's little failed project and smash their fortress back into the rocks it came from, and I have every anticipation of success.
We'll be with you in expecting that success ma'am.
You're going to be with me in every way imaginable.
The rear hatch swung open and a biting wind flew into the metal box on wheels as the man leaned into the metal box on wheels. "We're on final approach now sir."
Without a word or a glance backward the woman in red stormed out into the freezing Trabian air and walked around to face the wind, Kayes following closely behind. The Garden must still have been several dozen miles away, but the flight halos shone in the distance like Christmas lights over a particularly large present.
Could you at least use a little of that gravity-control you're so proud of? Bend the wind away from us? Kayes asked testily.
No, was Diablos curt reply. We're facing a Garden of trained soldiery; I'm not going to waste my power on keeping you dry.
"You, traitor."
Kayes gave his full attention to the woman. "Yes?" And screw you.
"Advise us." She waved a hand idly behind at the massed battalion of Galbadian infantry and artillery.
Kayes' mind spun as he desperately tried to remember what he could about the snowbound organisation. "Err…Trabia Garden's strength was always how hard it was to get to. If we can reach it on one piece there should be nothing more than a few students and over-the-hill mercs there. It was always the backwater of the SeeD system. They have no Guardians to defend them, no magic to send out against us." He was getting into a comforting rhythm now. "It's barely operational as a shelter or a war academy. Give it one good kick and the whole thing will fall down," he said confidently.
Dead. Wrong.
"Let them come."
Selphie stared across the meeting hall, and the SeeDs beyond who had gathered to hear her speak. Apparently war councils in T-Garden were a more communal thing than the measured calm of Balamb's meeting of leaders. Leonard stood in the front row, overcoat hiding the bandaged stump of his arm. Li hovering next to him, more a protective parent than a lover.
"Sephy, are you sure…" Irvine began.
Selphie nodded as she stood on the small raised dais, the breath steaming out of her mouth as she talked. "We're not Balamb, we don't have powerful Guardians to help us, and we're not like Galbadia, we don't have any advanced machinery or numbers on our side." She punched the fireplace. "But Trabians are the toughest people on Earth!"
Irvine could hear approving murmurs coming from behind him. When they had arrived the pair had been feted like returning heroes. Which they were, sort of. But Selphie had practically been carried in on people's shoulders. She had saved the world, and she was one of them, no matter she had been helped by some wussy plains-dwellers. She was a Trabian, and nobody was tougher than a Trabian.
Selphie was still talking. "I got through to Sir Laguna earlier. Esthar is sending help but it'll be days before anyone can get here and the storm is going to make any airships unusable. We're on our own until help can arrive." She grew louder as she talked and the audience responded to her. "Squall and Rinoa have been to Deling, and they've met friends there, friends who want to help us, and they've killed an Esper!" The whispers increased tenfold at the declaration. "We have to hold out against the Galbadians for a few days. Just a few days!"
"Hell, we'll drive them out ourselves!" an anonymous voice shouted from the front to great assent.
"What about this Esper?" Li asked over the noise. "That thing can bombard us from the air and we have to just sit and take it." She hefted the Shai'en. "This thing can't cut jack if it can't reach, and we don't have a Sorceress of our own."
Selphie grinned. "That's the easy part." She tapped the walls of the Garden. "When we rebuilt Trabia Garden after the Galbadians attacked we swore it would never be as bad if there was a next time." The sound of her fist hitting the walls was a dull thud. "T-Garden is built heavy now, and we built outwards as well. There's half a mile of corridors and rooms stretching out under the ground that we built to spread people out if there was another attack." She gestured around the room. Even inside most of the SeeDs and cadets were in still in overcoats, and the walls were cold to the touch. A note of anger entered Selphie's voice as she outlined her plan. "We get them inside, where they can't use their cannons, where they have to fight for every scrap of ground they want. T-Garden is ours; let them come in here up-close. That Esper can't kill anything if it can't see anything from above. It'll have to come in here, and then we'll have it, and everything else they send in here."
"We'll bury them in the ice."
"Send everyone forward," Tisiphone said. "Drive through the frontlines and smash down the gates if you have to." She turned to zero in on Kayes. "You, take your Guardian toy and-"
Diablos unfolded silently into the world, snowflakes diverting their passage around him as he extended his wings. Galbadians nearby edged away nervously, some making the sign of Hyne across their chests, others just looking scared to even be so close to the Guardian. "I'm not your tame demon, woman," he hissed through his twisted mouth.
With a smash and a billow of snow, the ice Esper descended from the sky and landed between Diablos and Tisiphone, lance pointed straight at Diablos' throat.
"Don't speak to me like that again, creature," Tisiphone whispered, and her whisper carried more menace than her anger. A promise of savage violence only just held in check. "You could advise me just as well if you were a head on a limbless torso you know."
For several seconds the deadlock continued. Icicles whirling around the Esper ready to strike, the air and space itself bending around Diablos, still powerful even junctioned to someone as magically untalented as Kayes.
It would be a close fight.
Diablos folded his wings back up and stepped back. "Of course," he said. Diablos had blinked first, Kayes would always remember later.
Tisiphone turned back to the Garden. She could almost feel the presence of the interloper. The one like them but not like them, who had tied her colours to the enemy's mast. She felt a red mist descend even thinking about her and the confused signals her existence fed into her brain. An unfortunate legacy of her creation; the need to seek those like herself and the need to rip and destroy and tear everything not. The mission must be fulfilled. Her brother would help, and would be spared (for now). The girl would not, and would die because of it.
"Send the troops in. Tear down the walls," she hissed.
"We'll bury them in the ice."