"-are all waiting for you in the Long Room sir. Sir?"

Melanthios glanced around at the nervous-looking aide before turning his attention back towards the painting. "Hmm?"

"The generals are waiting for you sir." The young assistant followed the man in black's gaze. "Quite something isn't it?"

"You could say that."

The painting went from the ceiling almost to the floor, covered in some ornate baroque monstrosity. Beautiful winged humans dressed in flowing white robes and little else surrounded a giant white-bearded man as he threw thunder down from roiling clouds onto a group of black-coated demonic forms sinking into a red mud. The expressions on the faces of the demons were of anger and pain. The faces of the angelic figures were full of righteous stoicism. On the face of the tall man there was nothing at all. It reached down into his core and jerked hard on something he would have preferred to ignore. "What is it?" he asked quietly.

"Hyne casting down the demons," the aide replied, taking an involuntary step back as a slow grin spread across the man's face. "Sir?"

How apt. "And you are"? Melanthios asked, turning away from the gigantic painting to face the boy full-on, the smile hardening on his face like some hideous tear. He barely registered the reply. "And what do you think of all this?"

"Sir?"

"SeeD, the war."

"S'not my place to say sir."

"I'm asking you," he said, and his tone brooked no argument.

"I was in Deling sir, here in the mansion, night that SeeD commander killed that girl and blew up the street. I saw that…that creature sir, the demon." The boy's hand whipped up nervously and made the Sign across his uniform's breast. "We can't allow that kind of thing to live sir, it's an abomination."

"An abomination huh?" the man said with a whisper. "Magic and all that?"

"It's not right," came the reply, with all the certainty of youth. When the boy looked up from his feet again the man in black was already walking past him and he rushed to catch up. "They're all waiting in the drawing room for you."

"And what's their mood?"

Mentally the aide shrugged and pressed on. "They're not happy sir."

"The bombings." It wasn't a question. "What are we up to now?"

"Umm, two vehicle depots, three ammunition dumps and a command post in the city. Two uprisings in Timber, another four in Dollet. Total losses fifty soldiers lost or wounded and-" the aide flipped pages on his clipboard and spat out the figures like a machine, a litany of the lost and ruined. "-and three more unexplainable occurrences sir."

Melanthios looked out a window and grinned inwardly. 'Unexplainable occurrences.' Soldiers waking up to find themselves sitting next to vehicles that had somehow split in two silently in the night. Patrols came back with men screaming from frostbite that had come from nowhere, just nowhere, on warm days. Gaps, holes melted through solid steel that extended through several walls as if something huge and unstoppable had barrelled through a half-mile of housing and military installation without anyone realising. Civilians woken in the night by winds that had picked up – picked up – APCs and dropped them meters away without disturbing the gardens they sat next to.

Light and magic.

"-and was asked to tell you that the flooding has finally been controlled in the lower levels of lab zero and we can begin reclamation. He said you'd know what that meant."

Melanthios nodded at the last point as the pair finally drew up to the large pair of oaken double-doors leading into the main dining hall. The corridor stank of pine and cleaning fluids and he resisted the urge to sneer in case he carried it into the room with him. Hands covered in blood but never a speck of dirt. Imbeciles. He sighed. At least this obnoxious part of his agreement with Caraway could finally be dealt with. "Let's get this over with." He rapped smartly on the door and walked into the room without waiting for a response, to meet the eyes of the men within.

"Gentlemen."

"Looks good from where I'm standing."

Squall cringed as Fujin shot a black glare at Raijin as Rinoa finished tying off the bandage. "Quiet, you."

Crashes and metallic sounds echoed through the small house as the rumbling subsided. The explosion would cover the sound of the quickly-packing guerrillas but Squall was still nervous, wishing for five sets of eyes but having to do with one as they packed up equipment and wiring and weaponry. The house had served its purpose but was far too close to the now-smoking ruin of the target building to be safe and wanted to be gone. "Seifer?"

The other man didn't bother turning away from the window. His normal jacket shrugged off for some black overalls he blended into the shadows effortlessly. The sounds of scuffling footsteps on the street outside were louder and more numerous than the last time they had done this. They were going to have to start being more careful. Seifer watched as the squads hurried past, not bothering to look into the buildings as they passed. "We're fine for now."

Rinoa stood shakily. "I'm fine."

Seifer looked around quickly. "You're not fine, I can practically smell it from here, sit down. We can wait a little longer."

Rinoa frowned but sat back down again, too tired to argue. Seifer was right. The smell of burning was still strong in the air as Rinoa's Sorcery had burnt away the steel walls between themselves and the guards, atoms (and steel and flesh, don't forget Rin, don't let yourself forget) vaporising in the air and leaving only the smell of burnt ozone that clung to her like a miasma. Every time she used the power it felt like it dragged out a piece of her soul as it left. She wished she could just stop and stay back, but she'd agreed to the rotation along with everyone else when Fujin had softly asked her at the beginning of their resistance.

We'd appreciate it Ms Heartilly, I don't have any other way to put it. Lady Shiva and Pan can help out but we'd risk bringing down the Espers on our heads if they got so much of a scent of Guardians within the city. Will you help us?

And how could she have refused and faced herself in a mirror again? She tried standing again and this time her legs didn't feel quite so much like rubber. "I'm fine, I'm- let's just go."

Squall looked across at Raijin, who gave a fast thumbs-up without looking around. "Alright let's go." The room flowed into motion and suddenly it was empty except for Squall and Rinoa. He put an arm on her shoulder. "How are you?"

Rinoa shrugged. "I'll just…I'll be fine Squall," she said gently. "Really."

"I'm worried about using it too much, I know Fujin asked and it made sense but-"

Rinoa's answer came out just a little faster and harsher than she meant it to. "Squall I'm not a little girl, can you just- I mean I know I'm not as tough as Quistis or Selphie but I'm no princess."

Squall's hand flinched back. "I know, I just-" I worry. I worry about your Sorcery, I worry about you somehow using it all up and all that's going to be left is some empty shell that looks like you but isn't. I worry about stray bullets and random bad luck and shrapnel from standing in just the wrong place and- "I just worry is all."

Rinoa leaned forward and kissed him in the darkened room as Galbadian soldiers shouted and gestured frantically to get the blazing ammo dump under control down the street. "I know," she whispered. "But not so much, okay?" They smiled at each for a second before the sound of hurrying footsteps in the street beyond.

By the time the Galbadian soldier was knocking politely at the door they were already gone.

By God you're a bunch of pathetic old men.

He stared across the long oaken table, hardly bothering to hide his boredom as the aide behind him grew visibly more nervous as the Galbadian generals haranged and questioned and demanded answers from the man in black.

"-asking why we have been unable to crush one measly rebellion-"

Because they're fighting for their lives and you're merely fighting for your positions.

"-spiralling cost of projects you haven't even explained yet. Caraway may have given you executive power but-"

Because Caraway at least understood the idea of a view longer than the end of the day.

"-answerable to the Galbadian people-"

The Galbadian people are sitting in their homes terrified of this war and that's just the way you like it.

"-refusal to share control of your…ahem…biological weaponry…is becoming-"

That did it.

"The Espers are mine to command gentleman." He leaned forward the there wasn't a single overindulged, prideful, supremely arrogant man in the room who didn't flinch backwards. "This was the understanding I had with your commander. This was what I brought to the table." He twisted the knife in a little more. "Of course, if you have some wish to alter or annul our arrangement…"

The army brigadier sitting at the other end of the table, and one of the only ones who had ever shown any spine in his presence, leaned forward. "The arrangement is fine. It is the results we are concerned with." The man grabbed a handful of papers and flung them at him. "Rebellions in half the conquered city-states-"

"Occupied city-states," one of the other generals said with a nervous tic, and both Melanthios and the brigadier couldn't resist a small sneer.

"Occupied city-states fine. But the massacre of fleeing troops and the…zeal…of your female partner are becoming tiresome. We're soldiers, not pillagers or guerillas." Unlike many of the men sitting around the table he at least had seen combat in the Second Sorceress War, and the man in black's methods insulted his honour.

Enough. Melanthios stood. "Enough."

"We're not done here yet," the man said. It really was going to be a shame.

"Yes we are." Power radiated from his body but he didn't bother to reel it in. "This nation has gone as far as it can under the current leadership."

The air began to shimmer like a fire had been lit underneath the floorboards. Several of the generals had already opened their mouths to complain, faces moving into the too-much-used forms of complaint and pompous argument. Only the man at the other end of the table remained silent and watchful. Not that it was going to help.

"Unfortunately what Galbadia needs now in the final stages of conquest is a strong and confident hand on the wheel."

He heard the aide behind him gasp as the air began to bleed. Black splotches stained the air like ink dropped onto invisible paper and the anger on the fat general's faces changed to confusion as they realised something was wrong.

"Something which you gentlemen seem unable to understand. I will therefore be-"

The smash of glass sounded through the room and it took Melanthios a second to realise what had happened: The brigadier, the only man who had stood up to him among all the Galbadian high command, had jumped from his seat and leapt out of the window as he had stood there talking. He stood stock-still for one second, his cadence thrown off by the sheer nerve and prescience of the man, and felt the unfamiliar anger rise as his grand soliloquey was derailed. "Fine, fuck it." He opened his mouth and uttered something no human throat should have been capable of.

The Esper emerged fully-formed into the room and he at least noticed with satisfaction the horror and fear on the faces of the men in front of him as the grinning skull-faced Esper materialised. Black steel armour covered a leering winged skeleton, one wing curving and transforming itself into flesh and forming the shape of a young blindfolded woman, a smile on her face and one arm draped adoringly across the body of the monstrous beast. Melanthios heard the door slam as the aide ran screaming from the room and the Esper stepped forward talons unfolding with a dull hiss of promised violence and darkness enfolded the room.

"Your services are no longer required."

"I'm worried about Rinoa."

They were sat on the roof, looking out across the city had become some kind of quiet ritual after operations, just coming up onto the roof in the dead of night and staring across Galbadia. From the roof it was almost impossible to see the damage they had wrought, no sign of soldiery on the streets below, or armed gurds harassing civilians out after curfew, or 'recruiting' parties combing the streets and bars for the last few young men and women that had not been caught by the last two drafts. Squall nodded a companionable reply as Fujin came up through the rooflight and rubbed some heat into her hands.

Squall looked across the roof at Seifer and bit back a reply. "What do you mean?" he settled for.

"What, you haven't noticed? Come on Squall." Seifer snorted in disblief and Squal felt his anger rise. "She's exhausted every night, can't sleep, using her powers practically every day-"

"That's a lie and you know it. Shiva is-"

"Shiva's doing the bare minimum she can and we all know why. She's barely a Guardian, more like a SeeD for all the power she's been holding back."

"And you'd prefer to have Espers breathing down our necks? Right, good plan. I'll take it under advisement," Squall said, even as he knew Seifer was right. The risk of an Esper locking onto her presence and tracking down the Resistance HQ was simply too great to risk. The Guardian woman was taking the bare minimum of power from their junction to maintain herself, and it showed.

Seifer flicked a cigarette off the roof and turned to look at Squall. "So you're perfectly happy with keeping Rinoa as our little lightbulb? Lightbulbs burn out Leonhart-"

"I know!" He sighed and kicked the wall in frustration, sending a small cloud of brick-dust onto the dark and quiet streets below. "I know! But what else can we do?"

They were running on a clock that was counting down and all three of them knew it. Every operation they undertook, every target destroyed or Galbadian action stymied brought with it an upsurge in security and recalled troops to the city. The equation was simple: At some point enough soldiers would return to Deling that it would become impossible to do anything anymore, and the lurking nightmare underneath it: What if Melanthios decides enough is enough? Decides he's just had enough of us and wants us gone? How long could we stay undetected if they simply brought back everyone and tore the city apart piece by piece, and one day we wake up with an Esper standing over our bed and no way out, no way out at all.

What then, Commander?

"What else can we do?" he asked again with a bite in his voice. "Because I'm open to any ideas you might have." Seifer remained quiet. "None? As I thought. I'm going back below."

The quiet below was unnerving, the only sound the constant whine of the generators stealing whatever power they could scrounge from the dug-out wires running under Deling. Squall looked around at the dusty crates full of recovered machinery and old weaponry and dusty maps. They had been able to get nothing better. We're really on the edge here. He tip-toed through the sleeping guerillas resting wherever they could until he reached the small room he shared with Rinoa. He hadn't asked but Raijin had insisted.

You're a symbol Squall, both of you. It's the least we can do, y'know?

"Still awake?" he asked as he sat down on the bed Rinoa was sleeping in.

"I can't sleep," she whispered back. "I feel so tired but…it's like it's keeping me awake." She didn't have to tell him what. "It wants to be used." She sat up and stared him in the eyes. "It's scary Squall. The more I use Sorcery the more I think one day I won't be able to stop." The haunted look in her eyes almost broke his heart. "Maybe this is how it starts. Adel, Ultimecia, the-"

Before she could go on Squall leaned forward and hugged her fiercly. "That's not going to happen. We're all here for you, me and Quistis and Irvine and Selphie and Zell." He felt tears come to his eyes and plowed on before his voice could go. "None of us are going to let you down ever Rin, ever. We're here for you to the end."

"It's just all so tiring Squall."

He made up his mind then. "One last sortie Rinoa, I promise, then we'll get out of here." He gestured outside. "There's uprisings in Timber and Dollet and a dozen other places. Everyone's working hard to throw these bastards out, all we need is the final piece of the puzzle and we can take them down and banish these two monsters back to whatever void they crawled out of. We can't get that piece here, we've done the job we came to do. The world's fighting back." He sat down on the bed next to her. "Tisiphone comes back to Deling soon, we know that. We'll make one last try to take her down, and then we'll make our exit."

Rinoa's eyes shined with reflected enthusiasm. Home. Garden. "One last attack, and then we go home?"

"Of course."

"All of us?"

And Squall only hesistated a second before he replied: "All of us."

"No matter what?"

"No matter what."

Rinoa smiled at him and finished the job of breaking his heart her tears had started. "Then that's all I need."

He drummed his fingers on the table and idley kicked away the hand of the dead man, the one who had tried to rush him as realisation had finally set in that no, this was really happening. A powerful man such as him who had ordered men to their deaths but had never expected to face it himself had been powerless as a grinning spectre had reached out and crushed him with less effort than it took to breath. They had all realised it, in the end. The brigadier was free to run. He at least had earned a reprieve, was smart enough to leave while he could. Melanthios pushed the chair back and stood, looking at the red walls and the blood that had started drying and soaking into the expensive carpets.

"Get me a car," he said quietly to the aide now stood stock-still and utterly terrified as the Esper faded back into nothingness. "Now." He watched as the boy ran off and felt a warm glow, the simple pleasure of absolute fear, fear of him.

The city was quiet as he travelled, the noise of Deling muted by the thick windows. He travelled in silence through the city streets-

-the gates of the military base and the salutes of the soldiers on guard-

-the whirr of the elevator on the way to the bottom level-

-and finally the nervous looks of the scientists as he entered the deepest levels of the facility, far from the reach of any light of warmth from above, the bleached and sterile corridors giving no sign of pleasant life. He liked it down here, his footsteps following his path as he looked through the bulletproof windows into the labs, where the only colour that interrupted the pristine sanitary white was blood-red. He walked the labs in silence, trailed by those hand-picked to perform the tasks he had set when the lab was established. All of them were nervous, all of them scared, a fear brought on by the unconscious knowledge that what they were doing went so far beyond morals that there was no light to be seen at the bottom of that well, and the extremely conscious knwoledge that with what they knew they would never be allowed to leave alive.

Melanthios looked in on the final prisoner and smiled, running his hands down the metal flanks. "Well?"

The scientists shuffled his feet and coughed as his hands flipped through pages and pages of dense data. "N- Not within the month sir. Not even within the year unless-"

He sighed in regret. Oh well. Just one more thing he'd never have the chance to finish. What a waste. He turned to look at the man. "Call everyone together."

"I…what?" the colour visibly drained from the man's face and he sputtered pathetically. "I can…I mean there are things we can…we just need a little more time."

The pathetic display made him want to grab the man's vocal cords and tear them out. "Just a change of schedule," he lied through gritted teeth as he restrained himself from gutting the man right there. "That's all."

The man scurried out with only one backward glance, and Melanthios was left alone in the huge chamber with his prize. Black tendrils extended from his body to wrap around the massive metal struct- thing inside, and he sighed. All he had needed was time. His thoughts ran unbidden back to the Sorceress bitch and her tame dogs and a black anger fell across him as he could still picture her standing before him, eyes blazing white and unafraid, and he felt his 'arms' contracted in a hard embrace around his metal prisoner and his sister's voice shouted in his head.

So screw it, let's burn the world. Time's winding down brother and all your schemes are for naught.

Let the sky rain ashes.

"It's damn good to see you two again."

They met Nida on the makeshift dock as the Blue SeeD ship turned and made its way back out into the ocean, Ellone waving goodbye from the deck of the White SeeD ship. The man looked haggard and overworked. "Good to be back," Quistis replied with a smile.

"Tell me you have something."

"It's that bad?"

Nida shrugged. "We only really have to worry about bad luck. It's a big ocean, and a small Garden. We've been dodging patrols pretty well but eventually we'll have to land and take on supplies at Esthar."

"If they have Esthar monitored…"

"They do."

Quistis sighed. "Then we'd better get to work." She hefted the backpack from her shoulder and her body groaned in relief at not carrying the heavy stone tablets. "We recovered these from the DSRF."

Nida picked one up and stared at it like a holy artefact. "These are…plans? They look old." He looked unconvinced.

Quistis shrugged. Suddenly the fatigue she had been ignoring since their departure all those weeks ago had made its presence felt again, and all she wanted to do was collapse into her own bad. "Get on them Nida, find us something we can use." She walked off towards the central elevator and her own apartment and felt Siren fall into step with her.

"You feeling okay?"

She smiled and shook her head. "I just need some real sleep, in a real bed." A group of students noticed her and waved and she waved back genially. One of them shot Siren a dirty look. "Ignore it."

She collapsed onto her couch in relief, the comfortable feel of something not hard stone or metal underneath feeling better than words could describe. Home again. She wiped a finger across the table and it came away dusty and she frowned. Have to do something about that. Then she realised the ridiculousness of the thought and laughed.

"What's funny?"

She looked up at Siren. "Nothing. It just seems so…peaceful here." She leaned back and closed her eyes. "I wonder how Squall's doing." She felt a breeze wash across her face as Siren opened the balcony looking out over the ocean. "Thanks." Eyes closed and with the sounds of battle far from her ears it was easy to believe the last year (it's been nearly a year?) was some nightmare she'd awoken from. She could already feel herself drifting off as Siren sat down next to her, and she put her head on the woman's shoulders.

"Quistis?"

"Shush. Just let me stay like this for a while."

The noise the Esper made was untranslatable, even if human ears had been able to hear it. More a burst of pure magical information that sang across the world than anything as common as mere speech. It wheeled and banked high in the air above the floating seashell, looking down on the tiny form. The small thoughts in the back of its inhuman brain was growing now, but still too small to have any effect on its actions as it sang back to its masters on the other side of the world.

I've

Found

Them