Chapter 24
The Queen's Chamber

At the base of Odin's tower, Gravheine waited.

The last of Odine's men hurried out of the tunnels so recently dug beneath the ruined courtyard. She ignored the Estharians, instead gazing for a moment at the crumbling spire looming above her in the late afternoon sunlight. With its guardian gone, there was no further protection for its secrets, so long ago sealed beneath the earth.

Odin had long protected this crumbling ruin, and it had taken Gravheine many long years to find the means to dispose of him. Almasy had been useful in that regard, never knowing that she had been there on the Lunatic Pandora that day, watching and waiting from the shadows as she always had. A slight touch of her power at just the right moment, and Odin had been vulnerable. Almasy's gunblade had done the rest.

Sometimes the abilities of her people did still come in useful, as they had that day. Had she not retained the abilities of her Centra heritage, Gravheine might not have been able to affect Odin as she had. Even with those powers, it had been a difficult task, for guardians were formidable even in their temporary, physical forms. Normally, if such a form was killed, the guardian itself still lived on and could remanifest itself again later, as there were few things that could harm the energy beings in their native state. Gravheine's whispered incantation, however, had shattered the barrier between Odin's flesh and spirit, leaving both open for Almasy to destroy, and her unknowing puppet had done exactly as she had intended.

The other guardian placed here by the Centra was gone as well, although not dead as Gravheine might have hoped. It served Leonhart and his friends now, but it knew nothing of the chambers beneath the tower, only the compunction to stop anyone who tried to enter it. Hence the tonberries Gravheine had exterminated upon her arrival here. Even with their king gone, they had still followed their instinct to protect the tower, and several of the Estharians had already met bloody fates at the end of their infamous knives.

Those of the excavation team that remained waited off to the side, as per Gravheine's orders. She descended into the tunnels alone, H'soth curled around her arm and tasting the musty air with his forked tongue. Absently stroking his scales as she made her way into the outer chamber, Gravheine focused her thoughts on the task ahead and tried not to think about her conversation with Ellone in Esthar a few hours ago.

It was difficult, for the dying girl's words had stayed with Gravheine more than she would have liked. And a simmering ember of jealousy of Ellone's contact with Atrus. That and the doubts lingering in Gravheine's mind disturbed her. She knew her path, had chosen it long ago, and yet now… now she wondered for the first time if perhaps that might have been a mistake. Atrus would not have wanted this for her, she knew.

Yet to see him again, to hear his voice and feel his arms around her again… Gravheine had worked for so long to that end. Could she really turn aside from her task now that its completion was so near? And with it, the chance to be with him again, even if the world crumbled away around her. She didn't care. She couldn't forsake her path, wouldn't forsake it. Not when she was so close to its end.

Shaking off her thoughts, Gravheine paused as the tunnels branched off in a myriad of different directions. Yet another defense that the Centra had placed here, a cunning labyrinth surrounding the burial chamber. The sisters of the Coven had been wise in their caution, but Gravheine had spent centuries, millennia, in searching out and studying the Centra's often cryptic manuscripts, writings that told of the struggle against her Queen. Few of them mentioned Seddhira's chamber specifically, however, and of those that did, only one had spoken of the defenses put in place to keep it from being found. Yet even there, the secrets of the labyrinth had not been disclosed. Gravheine had found another way, however.

The crystal would guide her.

Reaching into her robes with her free hand, Gravheine withdrew the shimmering artifact, its completed form about the size of an apple as she grasped it in her fingers and held it before her. It glowed with a pale, white light that pushed the shadows away. Stepping into the entrance of each tunnel one by one, Gravheine waited for some sign, for the crystal to tell her where to go. She was just stepping into the next to last passageway on the righthand side—there had been about half a dozen in total, and she had gone from left to right when testing them out—when she felt the crystal suddenly warm in her hand. Its light flared just a little brighter than before, and Gravheine went deeper into the tunnel.

So it went, for what must have been hours. At every junction, Gravheine used the crystal to show her where to go. There were many tunnels, so many that even she would have been lost before too long had she attempted this on her own. Gravheine found herself appreciating the Coven's cunning in creating this place. There weren't any traps, because there was no need for them. No one who didn't know exactly where to go would ever get out of here.

As she went, Gravheine marked the way for the Estharian excavation team that would follow. It would take them at least a day, maybe two, to get the sarcophagus out of the burial chamber and through all the passages, many of which twisted and turned upon each other even as they descended deeper and deeper into the earth. The Estharians wouldn't enter the labyrinth, however, until Gravheine had emerged from it herself.

At the end of a particularly long and unbroken tunnel that wound around itself in tight circles as it sloped downward, Gravheine found what she was looking for. The tunnel ended at a wide wall of smoothed stone engraved with Centra writings. In the center of the wall was a fist-sized depression surrounded by etched lines meant to depict rays of light.

Gravheine placed the crystal within the depression, and light from the artifact traced a vertical line both above and below it. Suddenly there was the sound of rock splitting, and stone grinding against stone, as the wall divided in two and swung outward like a pair of thick double doors. The crystal shone brightly as Gravheine took it from where it lay in one half of the depression and slipped it back into her robes.

She went inside, slowly, oddly nervous although she could not have said why. H'soth hissed softly, his thoughts ones of anticipation and excitement. It wasn't often that he lingered outside of the warmth of her robes for very long, yet he had stayed looped loosely around her arm the entire time she had been underground. H'soth wasn't very big, as snakes went—he was only a few feet long from nose to tail—but he didn't need to be. He could kill easily enough just as he was. And like Gravheine, he too had waited a long time for this moment.

The sarcophagus lay before her, a stone coffin adorned with runes and glyphs and sealed shut by more than just age. Only the key would open it, the black materia that held the missing shard of Seddhira's spirit. Gravheine could have opened the sarcophagus here, now that she had that key, but it would be better done in a place more open, a place from where her Queen could more easily extend herself and her power.

Thus, the Sorceress Memorial.

Its highly-developed sealing facilities had been modified by Odine's men to be able to hold the sarcophagus without risking damage to it or to its contents, and to withstand the energies that would pour out when it was finally opened. Gravheine would make sure herself that it was transferred there safely by the excavation team, for she would risk no harm to it.

Gravheine reached out and ran a hand lightly across the cold stone, her eyes closing as she touched the object she had spent thousands of years trying to find. The Centra had hidden it well. Most of the writings that spoke of it had been destroyed, and those few that had survived had been incredibly difficult to find. But Gravheine had not been deterred. She had cheated death, manipulated history, all to this end. There was nothing that would stop her from finishing what she had spent so long working for.

Not even that girl.

----------

"Three days?" Squall scowled. "You sure you can't cut that?"

Kiros sighed and shook his head. He had arrived not half an hour ago, not long after Xu had done the same aboard Balamb Garden. She and Kiros now stood before Squall on the Garden's bridge while Cid, Barret, and the crews from Fisherman's worked on the repairs to the Shera. Which, Squall thought with a grimace, looked to take just as long as the preparations for Kiros' crazy rescue plan. Or rather, Laguna's plan.

"Modifying the shutdown code for those mechs is going to take time, Squall. I don't like it any more than you do, but it's our best shot."

Squall frowned. "And in the meantime, Sis is getting put through hell."

"You know we can't just rush in there without a plan for getting her and Laguna out. If you've got any better ideas, I'm open to suggestions."

"Looks like we've got no choice but to wait," Cloud concluded.

He stood to one side of the bridge with Tifa, Yuffie, and Vincent. Squall had invited them to come with him, Rinoa, and Irvine to see the Garden and hear what Kiros had to say. With things the way they were, Squall could use all the friends he could get. And he had to admit, Cloud and Kiros both had a point. It just tore him up inside to know that Sis was suffering and there was nothing he could do about it. Not yet, anyway.

Rinoa nudged him gently. "Don't worry, Squall. We'll save them."

"Yeah…"

Cloud nodded. "We go in, get them, and get out. We'll worry about Gravheine later. Elle seems to be the only one who can finish her, anyway."

"Right," Rinoa agreed. "Her and me, from what Matron said."

"Because you're both sorceresses?" Tifa wondered.

Rinoa shrugged. "I am, but I think Elle's power is different, somehow. She'll finish this, but I've got to be there to help her. I don't know how, though."

"We'll figure that out later," Squall said. "once Sis and Laguna are back safe with us here. We'll be better off taking a single ship to rescue them. With the Shera damaged, our best bet will be the Ragnarok, especially if we have to fight our way out."

"How's Laguna plan to set off that glitch?" Cloud wondered.

Kiros held up his wrist. On it was what Squall had first taken to be a watch, but now that he looked at it more closely, he realized it was much more than that. Kiros explained. "These things are one of the newest gadgets Piet's come up with. Aside from telling time, there's a built-in locator signal and a limited communications array. There's also a small, short-range transmitter for activating nearby devices. So far, only Laguna, Ward, and I have these guys. They're prototypes that we had made just in case something like this ever happened. We've never really trusted Odine that much, you see."

"No kidding."

"Anyway, I'm betting that Laguna's gonna reprogram his wristpad to activate the glitch when he touches the right button—it's not really that hard, even for him. I like to rag on him a lot, but he really is pretty smart. Most of the time, anyway."

Squall folded his arms. "You sure it's only close-range?"

"Yeah…" Kiros sighed.

"Damn. You know we've got to find another way."

Kiros shook his head. "There's no time. Just leave him to me and Ward, Squall. You guys concentrate on getting Elle out of there."

Wondering just what Kiros meant by that, Squall shrugged and nodded. It wasn't as though he had any other choice, really. He could understand Laguna's desire to save Ellone, even if it meant giving his life to do so, but… Squall realized he didn't want that to happen. It was still a bit awkward, sometimes, dealing with Laguna… his father. Come to think of it, it was still hard for Squall to believe that he and that sheepish clown of a man actually shared the same blood. Maybe Laguna wasn't as much of a moron as Squall had once believed, but… Hyne knew it wasn't easy dealing with a father he had only come to know over the past few years. Still, how could he let him disappear from his life again now that he'd found him?

Squall might not have felt the need to get to know the man at all but for Rinoa's gentle insistence. She could be damnably persuasive when she wanted to be, but she also understood to some extent Squall's uncertainty. Her relationship with her own father wasn't exactly on the best of terms, either, although it had gotten a little better after the war. But it had been mostly Sis that had worked to bring Squall and Laguna closer together, naturally. They were family, the three of them—at least, that was what Ellone believed, and so did Laguna.

Squall had no doubts about Ellone being family—she was his big sister, always had been—but accepting Laguna as a part of his family was a somewhat more difficult adjustment. Now that he was faced with the possibility of losing him, however, Squall realized that he didn't want to. Not when he had just started to get to know him a little.

"Alright," Squall nodded. "We'll be ready."

----------

Laguna watched helplessly from the upstairs lab as, in her cell just on the other side of the observation windows, Ellone twitched and lay still after her latest session in Odine's testing chamber. Or torture chamber, as Laguna thought of it. Odine had forced him to watch the whole thing since coming here. He'd seen it all through one of those two-way mirrors he'd heard about but never used, and it was taking every bit of his self-restraint not to leap up and strangle the little cockroach, armed guards or no armed guards.

The guards were some of the experimental mechanized infantry, just as Laguna had suspected. So far, so good. Now all he needed was just a few moments to reprogram his wristpad—Odine hadn't guessed at what it was, since it looked like nothing more than an ordinary watch with a few of the usual bits of Estharian technology added to it—they were fairly common in the city, if a little expensive. It had been Kiros' idea to make the wristpads as inconspicuous as possible, in case something like this ever happened.

They were still prototypes, but they had worked well enough so far. Laguna was sure the built-in transmitter array would do its job and send the shutdown code when he told it to. Whether the mechs would blow up all at once or one by one in a chain reaction, he wasn't sure, and he supposed it didn't really matter as long as they went off. Laguna knew Odine wasn't stupid enough to rely on the mechs alone, but blowing them up would at least cripple his forces and give Elle a chance to escape when Squall and the others came for her.

"Enjoying ze show?" Odine gloated.

"Hardly. I didn't know you were such a sadist."

Odine sniffed. "I am a scientist! And ze new ruler of Esthar! But of course, I have no interest in running a nation. So I vill let you handle zat vile I continue my research, unhindered by your preposterous demands!"

"I wouldn't get too comfortable just yet, man. Things could get pretty hot, you know."

"Vat do you mean by zat?"

Laguna shrugged. "Nothin'. But I ain't about to help a weasel like you, so you can forget it. I should've gotten rid of you a long time ago."

"But you didn't!" Odine cackled, "and now I am in control!"

He bounced off to confer with one of his assistants, and while they pored over the date streaming by on one of the computer monitors that lined the far wall, Laguna tapped a few keys on his wristpad as casually as he could. Setting up the transmitter wasn't all that hard, just a small adjustment here and a tweak there, but he had to make sure that it would be able to receive the modified shutdown code as soon as Kiros sent it. That wouldn't be until the rescue was well underway, but Laguna wasn't about to take any chances. He'd at least learned a few things from being married to Raine, a little prudence being one of them.

As he finished reprogramming the wristpad, Laguna let his arms drop to his sides as his eyes wandered through the windows to the unconscious form of his daughter in the cell below. She was in pain—Laguna had seen that already, what with the things Odine was putting her through, needles and electrodes and other stuff Laguna didn't even want to think about. Elle's face was drawn, haggard, and her skin was pale. Odine's assistants left her some food every few hours, but it wasn't much. Laguna hated seeing her like this, and only the knowledge that his son and his friends were coming soon to save her gave him comfort.

Hold on, Elle, Laguna reassured her, his fingers touching the glass. We're gonna get you outta here. Help's comin', okay? Just hold on.

----------

Pausing outside the Garden's infirmary for a moment, Tifa glanced nervously at Cloud. He nodded reassuringly and gave her one of his little smiles, but she could tell he felt the same flicker of anxiety. Not that he and Tifa didn't trust the word of their new friends—Rinoa was even now just behind them, having shown them the way here while Squall was busy with getting the Garden ready for the battles it would no doubt see in the days to come.

Tifa knew that once Elle was rescued and recuperated, she would insist on returning right back to Esthar to finish all of this and stop Gravheine. It's what Tifa herself would have done, and she was going to do what she could to help her friend. Just as the others were. Squall and Rinoa had told her and the others about the attack on Garden some two weeks ago now and the lives that it had claimed, close friends lost. It was a pain Tifa, Cloud, and the rest of her old friends knew all too well. Aerith, Dyne, and Shalua were just a few of the losses they had known over the years. Tifa hoped there would be no more.

But that wasn't why Tifa had stopped to compose herself. No, what was on her mind most was her baby. Rinoa had said that this Dr. Kadowaki was better than half the doctors in Esthar and Deling City with all their fancy offices and equipment. It reassured Tifa a little to know that Rinoa and Squall trusted this doctor, but even so… what could she do about the Jenova cells threatening the baby, something she couldn't possibly know about? Tifa had no doubt the woman would try her best, but would it be enough?

Shaking off her doubts, Tifa stepped inside the infirmary as the doors slid open with a soft hiss. Rather than the sterile, austere place she had imagined, Tifa was struck with the warmth of the place. It was spotlessly clean, of course, but the lights were softer than she had expected, bright but not overly so. And the woman who rose to meet them from behind her desk was slightly plump, dark-haired, and covered with a kindly, if somewhat stern, smile. Tifa guessed that Dr. Kadowaki wasn't one to tolerate any nonsense about her treatments but at the same time offered a surprisingly warm bedside manner.

"Ah, you must be the ones Squall was telling me about," Kadowaki said.

Tifa nodded. "That's right. I'm Tifa, and this is Cloud."

She motioned to her husband, who tilted his head toward the doctor before folding his arms expectantly. "Good to meet you. Squall said you could help us?"

"Well, that depends on what it is," Kadowaki said. "Care to explain?"

Tifa did so. "We're having a baby, but… I'm afraid there might be some complications. I've miscarried twice, both of my previous pregnancies."

"I see. Conventional treatments didn't work, I take it."

"No. It's not that I was sick or anything, it's… well, it's hard to explain."

Cloud sighed. "It's my fault. I was… injected… with alien cells years ago, against my will, and they're still there. They get passed on and… kill the baby…"

"You're just like Squall," Kadowaki reprimanded him, "always piling everything on yourself. It's not like you meant for this to happen. So I'd suggest you straighten yourself out, mister, and quit making yourself responsible for things you don't have one whit of control over. Brooding over this isn't going to help you or your wife."

"Yes, ma'am," Cloud blinked. Tifa stifled a giggle.

Turning to her, Kadowaki went on. "Now come with me and I'll take a look at you and the baby. We'll nab this thing, whatever it is. So don't worry, okay?"

"Thank you," Tifa smiled.

----------

Quistis paused with Seifer at the base of the ladder leading up to the inside of the Memorial Arch and listened. She heard soft muttering, just as she thought she might. It didn't sound like there were that many soldiers there, fortunately, and as she shared a nod with Seifer, Quistis knew he had come to the same conclusion.

"Two or three at most, I'm betting," he said softly.

Quistis nodded. "We'll have to be quick. You do remember how to fight unarmed, right?"

"Of course I do. You've pulled me and Squall apart enough times over the years to know that. I can handle a few Galbadian thugs."

"So can I. Just thought I'd check."

Seifer smirked. "I'm touched by your concern, Quis. Ready?"

"Whenever you are, Seifer. You'd better go up first. I'll be right behind you."

He climbed onto the ladder, going up the first few rungs but no further just yet. Quistis moved so she was right below him and grasped the sides of the ladder. He looked down at her over his shoulder, and she met his gaze, thinking for a moment of the kiss they had shared. Had that really happened? It seemed almost like a daydream, but it had been real. Quistis didn't understand how or why she had fallen for Seifer, or why he seemed to have fallen for her, but maybe it didn't really matter. It made an ironic sort of sense, she supposed, the two of them being together. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all.

Allowing herself to give Seifer a small, encouraging smile, Quistis nodded and let go of the ladder for a moment to hold up her hand for him to see. She curled her thumb and pinkie underneath and stretched out the other three fingers in a silent countdown. Taking a long, deep breath and slowly releasing it, Quistis flashed her signal up to Seifer, folding her fingers down one after the other until they were all curled into a fist and mouthing the numbers as she did so, followed by a single, commanding imperative.

Three… two… one… go!

Seifer shot up the ladder and through the opening, eliciting shouts of surprise from the guards in the room above. Quistis followed half a second later, springing nimbly through the opening and rolling easily to her feet as one of the guards—they were Galbadian troops, alright, but dressed in black rather than the usual blue or red—rushed at her.

Ducking under the arc of his steel katana, Quistis slammed her fist into his gut. Although the man's combat vest absorbed most of the blow, he still staggered slightly, just enough to knock him off balance. Quistis let fly with a volley of punches to his chest, then took him by the arm and threw him into the wall while Seifer smashed another guard in the face and sent him sprawling to the ground. He didn't get up.

The third guard charged almost at the same moment, but Seifer caught him easily, hammered him with a vicious jab to the solar plexus, and sent him staggering toward Quistis. She spun and backhanded the man across the face, and he dropped like a dead weight as Quistis stood in place for a moment, her arm still out and her heart beating furiously with excitement and adrenaline. It had been a long time since she had fought barehanded.

"Heh, we make a pretty good team," Seifer grinned.

Quistis smiled as she finally relaxed. "Yeah, I suppose we do, don't we?"

Seifer pointed to the far corner of the room. "Looks like you were right, Quis. There's our gear. Let's get it and get goin', shall we?"

He was right. Stashed on a rack was both his gunblade and Quistis' whip. She took her weapon with a sigh of relief and noted that Seifer did the same with his. It felt good to have Save The Queen back in her hands. She snapped it around experimentally a few times, satisfied at the thunderous crack of sound it made with each expert flick of her wrist, and once she was finished, she turned to Seifer, who was making a few slashes in the air with his gunblade. Testing it out just as she had her weapon, no doubt.

"Let's go," Quistis said.

She led the way outside, with Seifer just behind her, and as she had suspected, they emerged right beneath the towering Memorial Archway. Looking down the road to her right, Quistis saw the sprawling, gated marble structure that was the presidential palace. Hanging her whip from her belt, Quistis narrowed her eyes as Seifer stood beside her, his gunblade tucked into his coat. Good. Better that they get to the palace with as little commotion as possible.

Seifer eyed the place warily. "Any idea how we're supposed to get in there?"

"Back when the sorceress had her parade, Squall and Irvine found a side entrance from the roof. He told me about it later. I'm pretty sure I remember how to get there."

"Good enough, then. You ready?"

Quistis nodded. "Let's go, Seifer. It's time to finish this."

----------

Cloud braced himself for the news. "Well, doc?"

"I've done some preliminary tests," Dr. Kadowaki said, "and there are trace amounts of the alien cells within the baby. In an adult or even a child, the cells would pose no harm. But to an unborn baby whose immune system is still developing, they would indeed be fatal. From what Tifa's told me, both of her previous miscarriages happened before the third trimester. It seems that as the baby grows, the alien cells do too, and at a faster rate."

"That's why she miscarried before?"

Kadowaki nodded. "I think so. The alien cells don't seem to be all that active, but even in their inert state, they can be dangerous to someone so young. The alien matter seems to feed off of the baby's tissues even as it outgrows them, until the baby dies and forces a miscarriage. That kills the alien cells, too, but by then it's too late."

Cloud sighed. "Can you save the baby?"

"I'll do everything I can, Cloud. You're lucky I have some experience with xenobiology and microbiology and other, less traditional forms of medicine than you'll find in any old doctor's office. Comes in handy when you've got to treat these SeeD cadets for everything from malboro poison to bite bug stings."

While he was relieved that this Dr. Kadowaki wasn't as totally baffled by the Jenova cells as he and Tifa had feared, Cloud worried that even her expertise might not be enough. Still, he didn't have any choice now but to trust her, and from what Squall and the others had told him, there was no one else better able to help Tifa and the baby than her.

Cloud nodded. "Alright. Thanks, doc."

"You're welcome. If you want to see your wife, she's in the third room on the left. I wouldn't let her go with you when you go to save Ellone, though."

"What?"

Kadowaki placed her hands on her hips, but her reprimand was a gentle one. "She's in my care for the time being, and the baby's already in enough danger as it is. As a physician, my first responsibility is to the health of my patients, and sending Tifa out into battle with that baby inside her, even as early on as it is, still goes against what I'm here for."

"You're sure about this?" Cloud asked.

"I can't very well help her and the baby if they aren't here, you know."

She did have a point there. And to be honest, Cloud felt a lot better knowing that the baby was going to be out of the line of fire, at least for the time being. No doubt Tifa would protest, but Cloud figured he could handle that. And besides, with Squall and Cid and the others, they had more than enough people to go in and get Ellone and Laguna out of Esthar and still leave Tifa and the baby here under Dr. Kadowaki's supervision.

Cloud relaxed a little. "Okay. Just take good care of them for me, alright?"

"I will, Cloud," Kadowaki smiled reassuringly. "I promise."