Chapter 21: The Chimera
We arrived at our destination a couple of days later. The occupants on the ship went through the same routine every day we were on it, that is Squall, Seifer and myself did. After every meal, we always went to the room and had sex like that first time. That, of course, didn't help my crush with Squall dwindle down any, if anything it made my crush worse since I was now sharing this intimacy with him. I'm sure some of the other people on the ship knew what was going on when once, Squall lost his composure and yelled during an orgasm.
We all exited the ship and walked down to the edge of the beach to wait for our new orders. While everybody had their weapons, I opted to not bring any since I could attack my opponents astrally with a wave of my hand. Seifer shouldered his bag, came over to where I was and wrapped his arm around my waist. Squall hanged out with Seifer and me while Zell tried to look cool by always staying near us like he was a friend or something.
I wouldn't mind having Zell as a friend, however he and I haven't really talked all that much on the trip here. He seemed like a nice enough guy to me, which made me question why Seifer was always making Zell angry. The group who came on this mission all made our way through a dirt trail to find ourselves in the middle of the island. It wasn't a big island, however it wasn't too small either.
Nothing happened on our trek to the middle of this island, no monsters or anything to that degree. Finally after a couple of hours of hiking, we came to our destination for the night. While the guys went hunting for food, us females began to prepare the camp for sleeping. We worked on erecting tents and gathering firewood for a fire later that night, and that sort of thing.
We heard a rustle in the woods off to the side and we all stopped and stared in the direction of the sound. Seconds later, a Chimera came out into the open. It had the head of a lion, tail of a serpent with a snake's head on it and a griffon's body. It roared and charged at us.
"SHIT!!" Keri cursed. She ran over to her weapon and picked it up. She held her handgun in both hands while she turned back toward the Chimera. Courtney stood beside Keri with her whip and she made the whip move swiftly in order to make a series of loud cracking sounds like thunder to try and scare the monster away. It didn't work unfortunately and I stood alongside them.
"Way to go, I don't see how you managed to forget your weapon at Garden Eternity," Courtney scolded me.
I laughed at that statement and replied, "I do not need any weapons."
The Chimera charged and the three of us stood our ground. I waved my hand in the air and a blast of blue energy hit the Chimera's face. "Bad news girls," Keri began. "This monster can absorb elemental attacks."
"All elemental attacks?" I asked. I turned to see Keri looking at her scan device on her wrist, which is used with the Scan spell. Keri looked at the screen once more and replied, "This one is weak against thunder." The Chimera seemed to be sizing the three of us up like we were doing to it.
"I know each different type of Chimera is weak against a different element," Courtney put in. "Do you girls have any thunder type spells?"
"No," Keri began. "I never did junction any."
"If the Chimera attacks again, let me take care of it," I ordered them.
"What?" Courtney asked. "You don't have any weapons...do you have GFs?"
I shook my head and replied, "I don't need either."
"You must be going crazy or something from your pregnancy," Keri told me.
The Chimera roared once again and began to advance. I threw my arms above my head and began to levitate in the air. The wind picked up as dark clouds began to fill the afternoon sky and it whipped my loose hair around my head and face. I looked up at the sky as thunderbolts began to rain down on the Chimera. It howled in pain as the bolts hit it repeatedly and I could see from my peripheral vision, the other two girls staring at me in shock. I saw Squall and Seifer emerge from the forest to stare as well. The Chimera fell to the ground and disappeared in a handful of lights, which travelled up into the sky.
Seifer ran over to me as my feet touched the ground and asked, "Are you alright Eternity?" I nodded and kept silent as I looked from Seifer, to Squall to the girls.
"What are you?" Keri asked me.
"I-I'm a Sorceress," I confessed. The others stared at me with their mouths open. I looked at Squall and seen the hateful expression on his face. "I'm not one of those evil Sorceresses who started the Sorceress Wars of our generation." I tried to tell them.
"You are still a Sorceress!" Keri exclaimed.
"I cannot help the way I was born!!" I screamed and I felt the tears starting to form at the corner of my eyes. I didn't care what the girls thought of me, but Squall was a different matter because he was starting to like me after all the years I was invisible to him.
"Sorceresses have always been evil," Keri started. "That is why Garden was started and why so many of us at Garden are orphans! I watched the Galbadian army come and kill my parents because they wouldn't do as the Galbadians say!!"
"You don't think my life wasn't affected by the war? In case you didn't know, I'm an orphan as well and I don't even remember my life before the White SeeD ship!!" I countered. "How would you feel if people harrassed you for being born different??"
"Hey, lay off of her!" Seifer started. "If an evil Sorceress were to gain some sort of power, we may need a Sorceress of our own to fight one."
"Does the Headmaster know about her?" Keri demanded.
"Oh my Hyne! You sound just like Johann used to!" I told her.
"Well Johann has some sense!" Keri yelled at me.
"He does now since he knows I'm not out to destroy the world!!" I screamed.
We all fell silent after that, so we all went and sat in our own space away from each other. Keri was glaring at me while Courtney had a confused expression on her face. Squall sat elsewhere by himself with a cold expression. He would look my direction every once in awhile and I could see the hate in his eyes. Seifer held me in his arms and I couldn't help but to start to cry silently.
Brett, Malachi and Zell emerged from the forest to the silence of the camp. It was beginning to get dark and nobody had started a fire. The three newly arrived must have felt the tension in the air because Brett asked, "What happened?" Nobody said anything so Brett asked, "What the fuck is going on?"
Keri pointed a finger at me and yelled, "That bitch is a Sorceress!!"
"There is no reason to use that language against her," Malachi began.
"Didn't you hear me???" Keri demanded.
"Malachi and I already know Eternity is a Sorceress and she is the reason hundreds of people are alive today, since she is the one who saved their lives," Brett told her calmly.
"What do you mean?" Courtney asked.
"He means that the citizens of Mysidia were able to escape because Eternity used her powers to see the enemy and spied on them in order to know when they would attack. Somebody had the whole Galbadian army after the town of Mysidia," Malachi explained.
"How can any Sorceress be good?" Keri asked.
"Believe it or not, not all Sorceresses are evil. Just because a handful of Sorceresses tried to take over each others' countries and start a war, doesn't mean they are all that way. You cannot blame the whole race for the act of a few," Brett told her.
"Now let's put all of this nastiness behind us and start a fire," Malachi told everybody, "I bet you're all starving like we are." He looked around and asked, "Does anyone know how to start a fire?"
"Dammit Malachi!" Brett laughed. "Didn't you learn that in the basic survival class?" Malachi shrugged. "Well, we have a pile of sticks to start the fire with," Brett began to walk toward the bundle and I waved my hand in the bundle's direction and used a Fire spell right before Brett got in the position to start a fire. Flames appeared out of nowhere which made Brett fall backwards on his rear and he yelled, "Shit!!" Seifer was laughing his head off at that little spectacle, as did Zell and Malachi.
Brett looked at me and replied sarcastically, "Very funny Eternity, if you keep this up, you'll certainly earn the title of evil Sorceress." I giggled a little at that comment.