The man looked across from the ashen-faced and dusty SeeDs to the building. Concrete chunks lay scattered across the floor where the outer hull had been penetrated and metal rebar twisted from heat and pressure poked through the floors.
"The hell kind of party did you throw while we were away?" Irvine asked, holding out a hand.
Squall shook it gratefully. "You missed most of the fun, where were you?"
Irvine shrugged as the two moved aside to admit the rest of the ship's passengers to the balcony. The aircraft shuddered as it continued firing outwards, supporting T-Garden's assault. "We got a little held up. Snowed in. You know how it is."
Squall felt a smile spread over his face. "It's damn good to see you guys again." Selphie and Rinoa were already hugging tearfully nearby. The sound of guns and the faint but chill-inducing whoosh of the Zodiark's beams still sounded from outside. Squall could hear the sharp sound of metal glancing off metal from the lower-level as the Guardians fought an Esper. "I just wish we could give a better welcome than this. We're a little hard-pressed."
Irvine grinned. "Speaking of which. Got a present for you. Several in fact."
Almas, Li and Leonard dismounted and gave quick salutes. Li was the first to step forward. "Sir."
"Tell me you have something."
Li looked nervous and Squall saw her eyes shoot sideways at Almas, who stepped forward. "Something like that," the young woman said.
Squall looked Almas up and down. She seemed…different. They had parted as soldier and commander but the look in her eyes now was something else. She's not a SeeD anymore. "Well?"
Almas nodded. "Yes, sir, I have something."
"Can you tell me?"
For a moment Almas' unworldly air dropped and she was again the teenager he'd first met at the intake ceremony. Has it really been so long? "It's not what you were hoping for, but it's good enough."
The sound of far-off gunfire could still be heard in the distance, and the pounding of the Garden's guns was ever-present. Squall felt his patience slip a notch. "Jordin, I don't think you quite understand the situation we're in here-"
"Squall!"
He glanced around at the interruption and felt his mouth drop open. You're kidding me. Squall watched open-mouthed as Laguna jumped from the ramp of the Ragnarok. "Mr President." He turned to Almas. "We'll deal with this later."
"Oh come on Squall I've asked you how many times now?" Laguna adjusted the machine-gun on his back. "I had to be here," he said.
Squall sighed. "Fine Mr- I mean Laguna." He looked at the ancient machine gun. "Does that antique even fire?"
The man looked hurt. "You could throw this baby into orbit and pick it up a year later and it'd work," Laguna said. He rubbed his eyes as if to clear sleep from them and sighed. "I've wanted to use it a few times before we even got here as a test, believe me."
"What do you mean-" Squall stopped as he saw movement and the two men looked back towards the airship. Oh you've got to be kidding me.
"Commander!" Odine announced grandly. Ward and Kiros stood behind the tiny doctor and gave almost-simultaneous shrugs. Ward had a huge trunk slung over his shoulder and it hit the deck with a loud crash. "Vhere do you vant us?"
Squall was jerked out of his disbelief as the engine-wash of the Ragnarok swept over them. He looked back at Irvine. "And Zell? Or did you leave him behind in Esthar?"
Irvine grinned. "Well, that's two of our presents in one." He grabbed the wall for stability as the Garden rocked. "Talk later, fight now."
Squall motioned at the trio of young SeeDs. "You three stay here. Ask Nida or Quis- shit. Ask Nida for instructions."
The elevator ride was quiet. As they descended back to the second level the sound of battle increased until it was a crescendo of screams, clashing blades and gunfire on their ears. "GO!" Squall and Irvine were low and running for the well-lit defensive position. No lights were on. The roof had simply collapsed into the central elevator well and now sunlight streamed in through the outer hull. Squall caught a bright flash as the Ragnarok screamed past pursuing the Zodiark. On the central bridge Shiva held court with a bizarre half-human half-equine Esper with massive scythes for arms that spit fire from where it's hands should have been.
"It's pretty bad then?" Irvine shouted over the sheer volume of noise.
"We lost the first level to the water!" Squall shouted back. "Leviathan's working on taking out approaching landers but-"
Irvine saw instantly and nodded. "Espers in the water. They're still getting through. They must have the entire damn army in here!" He tipped back his hat and levelled his rifle at the sky. "Well, let's even the odds." He fired.
Squall looked up as the flare roared out into the sky and burst. Seconds later a wall of red appeared as the Ragnarok hovered over the ragged tear. He turned to Irvine as the rear-bay door opened. "What the hell do you-" He looked back up as he caught the flash. A bright blue-and-black dart threw itself from the bay of the Ragnarok, angled straight down with incredible accuracy onto the clash between Shiva and the Esper. Squall took only a second to realise what it was.
Zell you're insane.
They saw it coming. Shiva took one look up and dodged backwards as if shot out of a cannon, the floor freezing under her as she slid over to Squall and Irvine's position on the ramps. "What-?" she began.
The Esper was slower. It turned and swung a massive blade behind it and Squall cursed futilely as he saw Zell fall directly into its path, one foot outstretched in the biggest dive-kick the world had ever seen. He looked away as he saw the blade perfectly swing up to meet it.
And shatter.
If Shemhazai felt surprise or shock it was only for a moment as Zell kicked down and past the shards of the Esper's blade, the magikiller metal in his boot devouring and rending apart the Esper's hand, arm and finally face as he smashed through it like a hot knife through butter, to land with a resounding crack onto the concrete floor. Time seemed to stop and the gunfire withered as the Galbadians crouched behind cover on the opposite side of the elevator shaft stood in shock as Zell emerged from the smoke and ruin of the dissolving Esper's body and raised his hands in triumph.
"YEAH!"
The cry was short-lived. As one man the Galbadians opened fire on the blonde fighter, and only a quick burst of speed stopped him from behind riddled with holes as he ran to their hidey-hole next to the elevator. "'Sup?"
"Nice work," Irvine said as Squall just stared at Zell, unable to find any words. He felt a shape crouch next to him and turned to see Laguna. "You did it," he said simply. "You turned that dumb chunk of metal into a weapon we can use. You have more of it."
Laguna grinned a crazy grin. "Not exactly. But we found out something just as good. Tell you later." He glanced over the parapet and begun to shoot. To Squall he looked far happier than he ever had behind an Esthar desk.
The sharp sounds of gunfire became more scattered as the Galbadians pulled back. Whether out of fear or confusion or ordered to do so Squall didn't know. SeeD sharpshooters took pot-shots but most put their weapons up, some residual unwillingness to kill overriding heir battle-lust, and maybe just the basic unwillingness to shoot running men in the back. Soon only silence and reigned in the second floor of Garden.
"They're gone," Zell said, not a little disappointed.
Laguna shook his head and clapped the youth on the shoulder. "Only to regroup. You'll get your chance son, don't worry." He turned back to the spot where the decaying Esper had been. "Although I think you got a pretty big tick-mark on the scoreboard already."
She raged. Four down, four down, and only one day!
She heard and felt her hands cracking in their death-rictus as she squeezed the life out of the unlucky SeeD and tossed him to the side where mercifully the man's neck broke instantly. She spun to face the nearest Galbadian soldier. "Why are you retreating?" she snarled.
The man looked back passively. He was a survivor of the lower-level battle and his soaked uniform was caked with blood where his comrades had died next to him, smashed and pierced by Guardian demons or burned beyond recognition by SeeD para-mages, or simply riddled with bullets from the sharpshooters from their fortified and elevated position. "The men need to rest and regroup."
"Your men need to annihilate the enemy," Tisiphone snarled back.
The man no longer cared for his fate. Taken from his nation and forced to fight for these creatures against people he would probably have happily bought a drink for if circumstances had been different. "I won't order my men into a meat-grinder."
You arrogant little ape. I'll break you for that. Tisiphone found the control within herself to suppress her rage and find a smile. She looked up. Moonlight streamed in through the ruined hull that was now more holes than not. At least one man would still be fighting somewhere, she knew. Maybe two. "As you will." She spun back to face the luckless man. "But you will lead tomorrow's assault."
"Ma'am." The man saluted and walked away.
Tisiphone waited until she knew no-one was looking, and collapsed to her knees. Her teeth ground together with the sheer effort of control. Keeping reign over the Zodiark was exhausting, especially now. She could feel the influence of the new one that had arrived on that damnnable ship and it was taking all the energy she could spare to keep the Espers under control and docile to her wishes. She could feel herself breaking up, piece by piece, as finally the reservoirs ran dry and her life began to slip away. No. Not yet. Not before we wipe them out. I still have time!
Leave the traitorous bitch to her brother. He would surely have felt her arrive, and he had his orders. From her. That thought brought some pleasure at least. She'd marshal her last reserves and then take whatever pleasure she could from slaughtering the SeeD drones.
Even if the ruin of the world was beyond her grasp now she could still manage that.
"It's a beautiful night." Irvine looked up through the window and shrugged. Selphie sighed and took him by the shoulder. "Come on Irvy, don't be so glum."
He dropped the mask, safely away from everyone else. The room was more of a closet than a bedroom but it had been all that was available. Most of the remaining SeeDs hadn't even gotten that, packed together in whatever unexposed classrooms were still available. He shuddered. He had expected it to be bad but not this. He could still hear the thud of Trabia Garden's guns but they were intermittent now as crews rested by some mutual consent. The small sun of the Zodiark flew across the night sky, beams lancing down to catch the unwary moving shape spotted through Balamb's patchwork hull. A nightmare scene.
Selphie was still talking. "After Sir Laguna's plan works and this horrible war ends there'll be so much to do! We're gonna have to repair Garden of course. Yeesh but Squall made a mess of it while we were gone. We'll have to do something about Galbadia but I think Laguna can handle that on his own, he knows more about that kind of thing than us-
"Selphie…"
"-Have to have a celebration obviously. We probably can't do it here if the quad is underwater but I think that Trabia's big enough for all us to fit in, and even then Levvy can do something about all the water-"
"Selpy, did we come back here just to die?"
He felt the slap before he'd finished the sentence.
"Don't you dare give up now Irvine Kinneas!" Selphie shouted at him. "We've came this far together. We've lived through Deling City, missile attacks, base explosions, the end of time, and we're gonna live through this!"
Irvine rubbed his face and looked up at Selphie. "You're a lot tougher than me you know. Always were."
Selphie blushed a little but held his gaze. "Well one of us should be," she shot back. She stood from the bed and walked over to the small window. Irvine looked up in panic and tried to pull her back but his fingers caught only air as she looked out into the night sky, moonlight streaming past her into the room. "We've got so much to do, there's no way we'll be stopped here."
"To the stars?" Irvine asked. Selphie looked around at him and he imagined he could still see them reflected in her eyes.
"All the way to the stars."
"Ms- I mean Ins- I mean Headmaster." Leonard saluted nervously.
Quistis shook her head. "Leonard, for now at least we've passed the time for honourifics, don't you think?"
"If you say so Hea- Quistis."
They were in a small recovery room off from the main corridors. Li had almost exploded when he had tried to walk off to join the other soldiers before he got his stump looked at, and he had entered the small room to find a very overworked young medical staffer trying to care for SeeDs with everything from bullet wounds to spasms from some form of electrical exposure. In light of his own lack of pain or immediate expiry he had sat in a corner and tried to stay out of the way, where he had looked at the person sitting next to him and found it was the Headmaster. He'd saluted a greeting before realising in shock she couldn't see him from her bandaged left eye.
"Are…I mean, is it…"
Quistis sighed. "No," she said quietly. "It's gone." She touched the bandaging and winced.
Inwardly Leonard shrugged. His lack of or insistence on manners might not matter come dawn anyway. "What happened?"
"I looked up at the wrong time," Quistis had replied. She had idly stroked the hair of the blonde woman who lay asleep across her right shoulder. "That's all. Just bad luck."
It shook him more than he liked to admit. He had always been in awe of these people. Barely his age they had become members of the most elite fighting organisation in the world, killed monsters across every landmass on the planet, fought demons and unreal creatures if half the stories he had heard were true and had transcended time itself to save the world. Literally, save the world. If after all that these demigods – warriors and heroes he had looked up to since he had first picked up a pistol and stood next to Li as a bodyguard – could still be felled by something as horribly mundane as bad luck, what chance did he stand?
"You shouldn't think like that."
Leonard looked up to see Quistis staring at him. "Ma'am I-"
She smiled. "You're an open book Leonard, so don't bother lying about what you're thinking. When you're a soldier you don't think about the what-ifs. You should know that by now." She gestured down at his own stump where Diablos had crippled him, what seemed like years ago in the Shumi village. "When you joined SeeD did you think that would be the result?"
"I…I always knew it could come to this, but-"
"You protected your friends and completed your mission. Do you regret it?"
He answered instantly. "Not for a second."
Quistis smiled beatifically at him. "My answer's the same. Squall's would be to." She looked down at Siren's sleeping form. "However this ends none of us will have regrets." She glanced past him. "Looks like you have a visitor."
Leonard turned to see Li's stern visage, Almas standing behind her and looking faintly puzzled. The warmth he felt at seeing her face was the opposite of the anger that was on her face. "Li, hey listen, I-"
The young woman grabbed his arm. She didn't miss a beat when she looked over at Quistis, except maybe a slight widening of her eyes. "Sorry for the interruption Headmistress. You! Did you get seen to yet?" Leonard opened his mouth to reply and she talked over him anyway. "Of course you didn't. Excuse me! Can you take a look at these-"
Quistis smiled as Li dragged Leonard off, the young man's face burning with embarrassment. She turned as Almas walked up to her. The look of puzzlement on the teen's face remained, like she trying to put a name to Quistis' face. Or listening to a voice no one else could hear. "Ms Jordin."
"Quistis Trepe." Suddenly Almas blinked and shook her head and once again she looked like a SeeD. "I'm sorry! I don't know what-"
"Don't worry about it Almas." She coughed and a shot of pain stabbed through her face. "Welcome back."
Relief coursed through Almas' body. "It's good to be back." She looked nervous and Quistis raised a hand to forestall her.
"Squall already got to you," she said. "He wanted to know what you found out. He grilled you mercilessly and you didn't tell him anything. Either because you genuinely don't know-" there was no reaction from the SeeD "-or because what you know now isn't what he wants to hear." Ah. Bingo. She sighed. "Don't blame him Almas. He wants this to end. He wants you to tell him you have a weapon that can sweep away the Espers and make it all alright again."
"That's not what I have."
Quistis smiled up at the woman. "Of course not. It's about control isn't it?"
Almas looked shocked. "How did you-"
Quistis smiled at the look on the poor girl's face. "Squall is a good man but he never was one for finesse." She sighed. "Siren and I found out a lot when went to Battleship Island. Worldshells are about controlling power, not using it." She looked up at Almas. "You have a way to control the Espers, don't you?"
Almas hesitated for a second, looked around again to make sure Li's attention was firmly on Leonard, then looked back at Quistis and nodded. "But…it's hard. There are…others…stopping me."
"Tisiphone and Melanthios have to die," Quistis said shortly.
"Yes."
"And then what? Command the Esper's back into their cage?" Quistis and Almas looked around in surprise to see Siren's eyes open and looking directly into Almas'. "You don't want to do that."
"But…"
"It got us nowhere Almas. Nowhere at all," Siren said dreamily. "Only this mess we're in now. Just murder and death when they got out in the end." She snuggled up closer to Quistis. "Just…find a way," she said sleepily. "Don't make our mistake. Or it will be your children who suffer."
Quistis looked back to Almas. "I don't know if I agree," she said softly. "But do something Almas. If you want to help us end this ludicrous war."
Almas nodded and saluted. "Yes ma'am."
Quistis smiled at the eager young woman. "You're an interesting person Almas. I wish I'd gotten the chance to know you better. Both of you."
They looked out across the ocean from the uppermost balcony of the garden.
A red moon floated in the air, whipping around and through Galbadia Garden. The second, squatter shape that was Trabia Garden floated serenely nearby. Reflective dots in the ocean as landing craft ferried to and fro between the war-torn islands, wakes churning in the moonlight as the entire grim procession steadily moved east towards landfall. The three pairs of flight halos reflected from the ocean water and lit up the night. The Ragnarok hovered at sea-level as it was resupplied and recharged after its skirmish with the Zodiark. From up here men were invisible in the dark, and the entire tableaux looked like some unearthly machine mating ritual.
"It's a hell of a thing," Seifer said with relish. "And more to come tomorrow."
"God, you're bloodthirsty," Zell muttered, rubbing his hands to keep warm.
"What, you can't be tired already, after your magnificent entrance," Seifer said mockingly.
"Just warming up," Zell said. He frowned. "Hey wait a minute, aren't you gonna call me chicken-wuss?"
Seifer shrugged. "All gotta grow up some day."
Squall felt an arm hook under his own as Rinoa looped her arm through his. "You cold?"
Rinoa nodded. "Just…let me stay like this," she whispered.
Shiva cradled Carbuncle in her arms, the two Guardians looking out into the sea as Laguna, Kiros and Ward stood back away from the edge and watched the others. Quistis and Siren stood silently holding hands, Irvine and Selphie in a similar position nearby. All of them watched the ocean. Rinoa was the first to notice.
"Squall, look."
Squall looked out into the lights. "What, I don't-"
Seifer leaned against the railing and pointed. "There!"
The lights on Galbadia Garden were going out.
"CARAWAAAAAAAY!"
The doors buckled but held as Fury Caraway looked up into the grinding machinery of the Centra Shelter, and smiled. Idly he tossed away the key he had kept around his neck since taking office, where it tinkled down into the shadows.
Gears ground against each other and slowed as the cogs and wires and ancient technology of the dead race responded to its master's command:
Stop
The door's seam crumpled and a pair of jagged fingers prised their way into the metal, pushing apart with a grim screech to reveal Tisiphone's face furious and inhumanly cracked and broken, beyond any rational thought.
"My good woman," Caraway said with a smile.
"YYYYOOOOUUUUUUU!"
His hand came out from behind his back and he relished, delighted, indulged in the confusion followed by the glorious look of disbelief and horror on the monster's face before he threw the thin package of explosives and timer into the bowels of Galbadia Garden's flight systems.
Tisiphone closed the distance between them quicker than any human speed, hands reaching out for his throat and an insane snarl of rage on her face. Caraway reached for the pin on the device at his belt, the other half of the bomb. He has been so many things. Many of them bad. But he would not allow himself to die at the hands of something worse.
Goodbye Rinoa.
"I will not be the father of death."
Light. And then nothing.
"Oh my God," Zell whispered, as Seifer punched the air in triumph.
Galbadia Garden was sinking. The massive halos were dimming as they watched and a dull noise could be heard even from the top of Balamb Garden as men grabbed onto whatever they could and vacated their base in a panic. Some of the launches headed for Trabia Garden, but most were going in another direction. Theirs.
"They have nowhere to go," Quistis said calmly, and caught Squall's eye. "They have to know the only way back to Galbadia is on one of the Gardens…"
"And we're the best target," Laguna finished. He looked at Squall. "It's your ship," he said calmly, before settling back to watch.
Squall turned. Everyone was looking at him. So be it. "We're all in a battle for survival now. Most of the Galbadian Army is down there, and we're headed towards Esthar as fast as we can go. All they can do is hope to get control and turn us around before we get there." He took a deep breath. "If we can keep their army all here the rest of the world will be free to fight back."
"We'll make sure of it," Laguna said with a nod, already reaching for the communicator on his belt, their link to the outside world. "We'll get word to the outside world if I have to- if Kiros has to fly the Ragnarok out of here singe-handed."
Squall looked in the night air at his friends and family. "Win or lose, we can't let them take B-Garden."
Seifer chuckled grimly. "Sun's coming up."
"Then let's get to work."
