He winced as he lifted his head from the cold metal surface. A low dull noise thumped inside his skull like a jackhammer on concrete and he shook his head to try to clear it, to no avail. Something bright and hot glowed across one side of his skin and he risked a glance to see a white squareon the wall that blazed light at him. His hands slid across the surface his upper body was laid across and he could feel patterns on the metal surface under his fingers. Gently he raised his head over the merciless headache in his skull and saw it for what it was; a table out of some mad sculptor's nightmare, covered in intricate carvings and lines. Somewhere behind him he could hear a person crying softly, like they didn't want anyone to hear but were too distraught to contain their grief.

Was he in a diner? Some experimental new café in Deling? No. It felt wrong. The ground was undulating up and down softly, almost rocking him to sleep again with its gentle motion. He rubbed his eyes to try and clear them and slowly more detail came into focus, not least directly across from him another white square, and in front of it another table with facing seats carved out of the walls. Realisation finally dawned through the fog of not-quite-gone unconsciousness. I'm on a train? "Wha…"

"Awake at last Squall?"

He looked up as his mind returned to some semblance of normality to see the figure sitting across from him. Like a patchwork man the figure shifted and changed as he watched, like trying to see a person through a frosted-glass window. One hand stirred a cup of something while he/she/it looked across the table at him. Something roiled inside his stomach as his vision returned but his questioner refused to come into focus, remaining a blurry shape sat in front of him. "What the-" he said quietly.

A ghost of what might have been a smile flitted across the blurry figure. "Hey." The figure lifted the cup to the place where it's lips should have been and as it did so Squall saw the cup shift and lose focus, like passing into a field which disguised all detail. The shadows thrown off inside the train were weird or the light was in a different place than he thought it was because try as he might nothing even resembling eyes was visible. It troubled him more than he would have liked to admit.

He sighed. "Tell me this isn't Ellone messing around again or crap like that." The light coming from the square was blinding. "Turn that damn light off."

"There's nothing to turn off. Take a closer look," the voice replied calmly. It sounded like nothing at all.

Squall raised a hand against the glare and turned to examine the bright light. As his eyes adjusted the light was swept away to reveal a landscape made of glass. Something resembling white sand flowed away as the train travelled on to its destination. Hills covered in clumps of tall grass waved softly in the wind. Trees made of some faintly translucent and glowing material surrounding a pool of water so blue it looked like painted ice flowed past as he watched. Dim shapes that could have been refractions of the light from that blinding sun or could have been shadowy animals stalked the landscape. The stars above glowed and moved (moved?) as he watched, light washing across the landscape.

"We're in the desert," he/she/it said calmly as they sipped on whatever was in the cup. "It's not actually a desert of course but it will make a decent stand-in for now. We're coming close to the Edge."

"I don't understand," Squall whispered. "What are you-" His next question was cut off as the light dimmed suddenly. The woman across from him turned away from the window with a grimace as the white landscape suddenly tore in ragged black strips and gave way to a flat and featureless plain of nothing.

"Where are we? What happened here?"

"Containment," came the one-word reply.

"Containment of what?" he asked as the white desert vanished behind them and the view turned to nothing but black ground outlining a clear star-studded sky.

"Me."

He could still hear the other occupant of the train behind him weeping softly. The sound stirred in his memory, a voice whose owner's name was just out of reach. "Who is that?"

"Someone who needs help," the reply from the nameless shapeless figure came.

Squall put a hand on the ornate carved surface and tried to stand as his SeeD training pushed and shoved its way past his confusion to the front of his mind. "Then I should-"

"Not here."Another ghost of a smile. Squall had no idea why he was so sure the figure was smiling. "I know you want to help, that's one of the things we always liked about you Squall. But you can't help her from here." A waved hand outside the window as the black nothing (presumably) flowed on. It was impossible to discern motion anymore. "You're not here in the way I need you to be."

"Where's this train going?" Squall asked suddenly, the question forcing itself up and past his concern for the unnamed out-of-sight mourner, or the spectre of his dead sister talking with him calmly, or the dream-landscape that they had passed through.

"To the end of time and space." It dropped the spoon in the teacup and the noise seemed to echo through the train. "Unfortunately we don't have the time to explain further right now. We'll talk again, before the end. Now though you'd better wake up or Seifer might do some serious damage."

"Seifer? What does he have to do with-"

"-UP!"

Squall's hand came up before the blow connected and he caught Seifer's palm as it descended towards his face.

He knew he was awake when his vision came back with enough speed that he caught Seifer exhaling in relief. "I'm back." He felt something soft behind him and put a hand against the wall to hoist himself up, only for his hand to grab something slippery and slide off. "The caves."

"The caves," Seifer said as he stood and brushed moss from his jacket. "Quite a knock you took there. Thought we'd have to leave you behind. No such luck."

Squall rose up from the cold ground and checked himself. "What, you wouldn't have carried me to safety like a good SeeD comrade?"

"Not me. She might have, though," Seifer said with a nod past Squall.

Squall turned in time to catch Rinoa blushing and smiled. "What happened?"

"The ground was awkward and you were-"

"You tripped and fell and hit your head," Seifer said with a grin.

Memory flowed back as he recovered his sense. Of course.

They had descended into the cave system underneath Deling City's military labs with not a little trepidation, searching for whatever was rising up out of the shadows, killing and stealing as it went, and for the missing Shiva. Seifer had led them confidently through the underground system. It was clearly a heavily-trafficked route; moss had been flattened underfoot and formed into green mats where heavy boots and machinery had been dragged through the bigger corridors. Gas-lines leading to rows of flickering and spluttering torches lined some others. Everywhere there was the dull stink in their noses of a place submerged in filthy water too long and then suddenly drained, and sometimes worse as they stumbled across bodies that had been swept out of the labs as Famfrit's deluge had rose and caught and carried them down into the depths. Light bounced across the slime-covered walls and threw treacherous shadows everywhere. It was reacting to one of them that Squall had been the one to finally put a step wrong and his feet had slid out from under him.

God, how embarrassing.

"You alright?" Rinoa asked quietly.

Some of the cold seemed to dissipate with her concern. "Just a scratch," he replied. He looked around at the cavern they were in. "Where are we?"

"We're pretty far down," Seifer said. His eyes didn't leave the blackness ahead of them. "We dragged your ass into here until you could wake up, and you did, so we need to leave."

The urgency in his voice surprised Squall and after a second's thought he knew why. "We're not alone." Suddenly the walls of the cavern seemed to move in a little closer and the staccato drips of water from the ceiling to the puddles below sounded a little louder. "Something's down here with us." He felt for Rinoa's hands and grabbed it.

"We've been followed since we got down here," Seifer said quietly. "It's just trailing us for now. We're getting closer to something down here."

"What?" Rinoa asked, nearly whispering.

Squall shook the last of the cobwebs out of his head. "Let's go find out."

"So this is where you were all this time?"

Seifer didn't look around as Rinoa asked the question, focussed on keeping his footing in the dank caves as they went onwards and downwards. Rusted metal stairs and handholds made the going easier in some places but the Galbadians had never valued comfort over function, and they were all beginning to feel the strain. The only light at the end of the tunnel was that there seemed to be more signs of human habitation as they went down, not less. "More or less. Esthar needed boots on the ground and there's no boots that can walk farther than mine."

"Laguna's lapdog." The words escaped Squall's lips before his brain could haul them in and he cursed himself for being such a fool. The air turned even colder for a second and Rinoa tensed, ready to break up any argument either of them might press.

There was a long pause before Seifer spoke. "You might say that."

"Seifer I…" Squall began.

"No, forget it. Long day for everyone," Seifer cut him off with a wave as he clambered over the filthy rocks. There was a stench in the air as they went down further that at first tickled and then outright assaulted the senses. Debris from the surface littered the floors, as well as…other things.

"So this is where the sewers drain down to?" Rinoa asked, her voice muffled and made faintly ridiculous by the hand she was punching her nostrils shut with.

"Yes," they replied in unison. Seifer talked over Squall, who shrugged his shoulders and bowed to the man's superior knowledge. "Deling City's sewer system is great but the city's built on plains, miles from the ocean. It never really expected to have to deal with flash floods, not to put too fine a point on it." He gestured around. "Water never would have made it down this far unless…"

"Unless we suddenly caused a flash flood in the city," Rinoa finished, thinking back to the battle against Famfrit and Melanthios. Her fault. "How far down are we anyway?" she asked quietly.

"About three hundred metres probably. These caverns would have been bone-dry any other time, perfect to hide anything Caraway didn't trust the populace to know about." He gestured ahead of himself as if revealing a clever magician's trick. "Ta-da."

The cavern ahead suddenly stopped. Squall was about to ask what Seifer was looking so smug about when-

"Can we get through?" Rinoa asked.

The dead-end ahead was a wall, so covered with rust, moss and slime that it was almost indistinguishable from the stone around it. Only certain mirrored strips of moss eating away at the metal beneath revealed there was a door at all. A big door. Squall was about to reach out and touch it when a sound in the darkness behind caused him to look around to see what Seifer was up to, just in time to see the shadows move in a way they shouldn't.

Seifer was faster than Rinoa. He caught the widening of Squall's eyes before Squall had even opened his mouth to shout a warning and was already turning to meet the threat, hand reaching over his shoulder for his holstered gunblade. He was surprised then when there was nothing there. He looked back. "Getting jumpy? Are you sure that knock you took didn't shake something loose?"

"No. I- no," Squall said. I could have swore…

"We're all jumpy," Rinoa said. As if to back up her words one of the lamps on the walls sputtered and finally died, and the claustrophobic cavern became a little more claustrophobic. "We need to go on," she said firmly. "We have a friend in danger somewhere." She took a deep breath and faced the door. "Stand back."

Squall was already moving behind her as he opened his mouth to ask what she intended when suddenly the cavern lit up with an inhumanely bright light that bounced from the slimy and extremely reflective walls and stabbed into his eyeballs. He heard Seifer shout out in a similar pain as he threw an arm over his eyes.

When the light faded he lowered it and blinked stars out of his eyes to see Rinoa stood panting heavily, in front of a now much less claustrophobia and now extremely opened door. Where the metal hadn't bent inward under the force it had simply shattered, and pieces of it decorated the cavern and the room beyond. A room painted all white.

Jackpot.

"We're in," Rinoa said with a smile.

Seifer shook his head. "Princess I…"

They all felt it, and with some instinct born of the same training they had all had they leapt past the ruined steel and into the pristine chamber beyond a mere second before suddenly the floor of the cavern solidified and lost all friction, and a wall of ice rose up from the slippery surface to seal the breach.

Squall gave an inward sigh of relief as finally his boots landed on something they could grip and turned to face the enemy as a deep layer of dread began to form. A shape moved on the other side of the thick icy wall that now trapped them inside the dungeon, barely visible through the inches-thick barrier. The outline was one he recognised instantly though.

Rinoa was the first to speak. "Shiva? Shiva!" She raced up to the wall to get closer and yelled out in pain and surprise when she touched the wall. Her hands came away and she massaged them quickly with a hiss, a thin layer of ice had already formed on them where her skin had made contact with the ice-barrier.

"She's not screwing around," Seifer muttered as he watched the shadow of the Guardian move back and forth beyond the wall. "Hey! Your brain still in there you icy idiot?" The figure didn't reply.

"This isn't right," Squall said quietly as he watched the woman move. He glanced around the room. Steel cabling snaked underfoot and panels hid the cavern walls. Like the labs above this place had been carved from solid rock. But unlike the ruined military facilities there was the hum of electricty in the air. "There's power down here." He approached the ice wall and touched it with a gloved hand. Even through the leather he could feel the cold try to suck out the moisture from his clothes and shivered. "Shiva?" he asked softly. "Are you in there somewhere?"

There was no reply. Only a dark-blue figure pacing back and forth on the other side of the wall.

You poor woman, Squall thought. Like a puppet on a string. You deserve better. "We're going to get you help Shiva." He said calmly. "I promise."

Seifer didn't take his eyes from Shiva's shadow as he backed away from the ice wall. "There has to be another way out of here. Whatever this place was." He looked around at the still-working machinery on the walls and floor. For all the world it looked like everyone had just stepped out to take a break. "Whatever this place is."

They walked for what seemed like hours through the twisting corridors, weapons in hand, the memory of Shiva's abortive assault still at the forefront of their minds.

We have to help her. Rinoa had been the first to speak up as they had gathered their wits and made their way inside the hidden labs.

We have to help ourselves first, Seifer had replied. Would you trust anyone to find us, in all those twisty goddamn caves? Would you expect them to get past a mind-controlled Guardian?

To that the young woman had had no reply. The rest of the journey had passed in silence as they walked through the deserted labs and beheld horrors.

Medical beds surrounded by invasive machinery and drills. Waste-disposal carts filled with bloodstained clothing and bandages. Bins filled with discarded surgical instruments, all covered with blood and just left to rust. Propaganda pictures on the walls all following the same lines and rousing imagery Squall had seen a thousand times before in newscasts and textbooks; raised fists and proud soldiery with slogans to exhort the proud servants of the great state of Galbadia. Pictures of greenery looking obscene and out-of-place when set against the clinical cruelty of the labs. They looked through gathering halls where food had been left abandoned, as if people had left their stations mid-meal. Cigarettes left to drip ash onto the floor.

They stood in the lab. Pictures of women and children sat in picture frames in their desks. Like any office. Flowers had died in their pots from lack of watering. The deathly quiet of the room felt like a physical force against his eardrums and Squall found himself coughing unconsciously to hear some, any noise in the quiet. Idly he looked through the reams and reams of paper but he could barely stand to read the titles before dropping them back onto desks.

Natural Human Para-Magical Resistance Levels by Age (Practical Tests III)

Surface Tension Problems in Flesh/Metaphysical Interfaces

Mortality Rates of Ley-Line Injection Locations

Testing the Limits of Subcutaneous Prana Infusion

Effective De-Limiter Substances in Cerebral Tissue

"What were they doing down here?" Rinoa asked quietly as she looked through a viewing window down into a circular room. Tables set around the outside all looking down on something a cross between an operating table and a torture chair. "What were they doing?"

Seifer rose from the desk he was sat over. A computer screen glowed softly. The look on his face was nothing Squall had ever seen, or hoped to see again. Some cross between disgust, hopelessness and anger. "Look."

Squall stared down at the collection of dated pages and felt bile rise in his throat as he read the clinical words of long-dead (he hoped, for their own sake) scientists.

-research conditions and staff habits have been woeful. The wild theorising and lack of responsibility stops now. With the loss of the offshore facility we can no longer afford to maintain such research at arm's-length and the general has given strict ins-

-inability to duplicate 'sorcery' under any circumstances leaves us with two approaches-

-that Dr Brill has proposed. Unfortunately with the loss of the last 'blue' bloodline (note; we'll talk about your safety precautions later Dr Geras) and the final subject remaining unreachable at the Kramer academy (see doc: 28273) I must regret to say our only option remains-

-no progress can be made unless capture can be arranged, the twin-linked existences at location 343:286 still resist all attempts to-

-original purpose or evolution of the GF life-form cannot be ascertained, however the physical makeup is easily understood, if not so easily replica-

-raconic (You know I don't like that term Alan) life-form far from co-operative simply ignores all attempts at communication. What staff remain alive in the offshore facility have been re-tasked by the being itself with buildi-

-esearch on A1 gives us several avenues of approach to-

-illing subjects would obviously be of help but the large amount of war-prisoners and university cadavers should be more than enough to-

-ile mass-production will likely never be possible the goal remains of a small cadre dedicated to-

-interests of the lab more instruments will be needed, special consideration given to sharps and cleaning flui-

-hile the nature of A1's decay will hold us back we anticipa-

-within a year-

-deployment-

"They were trying to make Guardians. Guardians out of humans," Seifer said through gritted teeth.

Squall jerked upright from his reverie as a hand slammed into the wall He turned to see what Seifer had found but the man was staring out at the labs, and it had been Rinoa's hand that had hit the desk with enough force to dent the metal. "Rinoa? Rin." As he walked over he saw tears drip onto the papers and he drew her close. "Hey."

"He did this," Rinoa said as she cried into Squall's chest. "He did- he knew about all these things and…and…"

"Shhh, it's alright," he whispered into his wife's ear.

"He made humans into monsters!" she almost screamed at him.

"No." They both looked up at Seifer, who looked back at Rinoa calmly. "I knew Caraway. He was proud and vain and not a little power-hungry but he was still a soldier. No soldier would have done this."

"But…all this…"

Seifer shrugged. "Galbadia's a big place. Shit, I doubt he even knew this place was here. Did you ever meet his generals?" Rinoa shook her head. "They were slimy pieces of shit and they'd kill a man for a few gold if they needed the pocket-change. And who do we know who was the slimiest, and came here when all this mess started up? This was Melanthios' work Rin. He was good, he would have got this moving and they would have loved him for it and Caraway would never have known." He snorted in amusement. "Shit, ask your new spouse if he knew everything that was going on in Balamb Garden when he was commander." He looked up at Squall, who nodded in support of the man's argument. "Hell I bet he never even knew Zell made bets on which of us would win in a fight."

"No, I- he did what?"

Rinoa laughed and wiped tears from her eyes. Squall took the chance to nod at Seifer. Thanks.

The cocky grin came back: No problem. "We have a job to do Rin. Shiva's not herself. Some piece of shit is controlling her and making her kill. We need to find out who and why and how we can help her."

She waved Squall's piece of paper. "Who's A1?"

Seifer shrugged and tapped the wall. Lists of labs and names were listed directory-like by location. "We have another floor to go. Let's go find out. And then we get out of here and tell Esthar to burn this place all the way into the bedrock."

"All the way," Rinoa replied, with fire in her eyes.

Squall tapped a button and the door slid outwards on invisible bearings. Seifer examined it as it went past and made noises of appreciation. It was inches-thick steel. "They didn't screw around," the man said in admiration. The anger had slowly leaked out of his voice as he walked, reduced from a snarling anger at the people who had worked here down to a more subdued fury at Galbadia in general. Squall didn't know which was more dangerous.

There's no use getting mad at metal and paper. Just give me ten minutes when we find these people though.

The corridor beyond was different. Clinical white gave way to a riot of colour, like a child had taken a dozen paintbrushes and been locked in with orders to empty them. The red paint gave way on the walls to blue and green and white strips of wallpaper that hung loosely from the wall, and-

That isn't paint. Or wallpaper. "Oh my God," Seifer whispered, forgetting to keep up his image in Squall's presence as the trio flipped their perceptions around and saw the colours and tapering strips for what they really were.

Blood covered the walls from floor to ceiling, a solid sheet of gore. Peeling wallpaper was clothing drooping from the remnants of the bodies plastered in a thin layer onto every surface. Desks, papers, everything lay flattened against the wall, leaving only dull patches of metal where steel had been ripped away from fittings and thrown against the surfaces and crushed there. Squall could hear Rinoa retching behind him as he stepped over the thick blast-door. His feet landed with a sickening sound as he walked and he kept his voice level as he looked around at Seifer. "Well, we found the scientists." There was a thin breeze against his face and the air was full of the scent of blood and decay.

"What's that noise?"

Squall and Seifer fell silent as they listened. They didn't have to listen long. "There's someone alive down here," Squall said, and began to move, ignoring the bloody mess underfoot.

They moved through the final corridors without speaking. They were beyond shock or surprise now, drained of it by the stench of secrets best left buried. Squall didn't halt at the final door. At some unconscious agreement with Seifer the pair drew their gunblades and slammed them as hard as they could into the hinges, and pulled. The door fell away with a crash as a blast of air howled against their faces and the light from inside the final room blinded them and the laughter rose up and he was right in front of them.

"Mr Leonhart."

Squall caught a blur of motion in his peripheral vision and reached across to stop Seifer before he could run forward and bury his sword in Melanthios' chest. His head didn't turn from the man in black's eyes. Eye. "Seifer, stop. He can't get to us."

"The fuck you say," Seifer snarled.

"He doesn't have any legs, Seifer."

The chamber was so large Squall couldn't see the other side of it from the entrance, a room shaped like a huge cylinder that reached up and down and seemed to go on forever. Steel-mesh walkways criss-crossed the massive steel machine that sat in the centre of the chamber and went down, down, farther than Squall could see deep into the black depths the lights on the walls couldn't penetrate. Melanthios sat in front of it, steel chain looping around the machine and holding him against it like a sacrifice propped up and waiting for the monster to come and feed on it.

His arms hung above him, pinioned there by his chains. Both legs ended just above the knee and one eye had been smashed away. Cracks and jagged edges radiated out of every wound inflicted on the man's torso. If Squall had seen him in any other circumstance he might have taken the broken creature for a ruined china doll. One eye remained whole, and whatever remnant of the man's poise or sanity remained stared out at him.

Squall looked across at the man and tried to resist the urge to walk over and simply stab the Lionheart into his pathetic excuse for a brain. "So this is where you ran to." Melanthios laughed, and in the laughter there was no mistaking his mental state. Squall went on; "Almas killed your monsters and you ran and hid down here, in your little Galbadian nest."

"More or less," the man in black replied with a voice like a broken and static-filled radio. He shook his head sadly, as if looking back over a treasured memory and not a total defeat. "It was all to nothing in the end."

"You came here to die," Rinoa said quietly as she stared with some mixture of disgust and pity at the creature. "You had no power, you were falling apart." She blinked with realisation. "The scientists were talking about you. You're A1."

Melanthios laughed again and his one good eye stared at her with alien intensity. "You're a good woman Heartilly but you're no soldier. I'm not A1. No, no."

"This doesn't matter," Seifer said shortly. "You have something we want. Someone we want."

Melanthios turned his gaze as if seeing him for the first time. "Do you seriously think I can 'hold' anything here, like this with my arms chained up and powerless, you stupid man?" He paused for a second. "I've met the woman in question but I'm not the one pulling her strings."

Squall paused for thought as some light of understanding began to shine. "You're a prisoner here."

"Yes! The lion has brains to go with his brawn!"

"If you're not the one controlling Shiva then who is?"

Melanthios leaned forward beckoning Squall further into the room and closer. "Help me," he said urgently. "Get me out of here. Do what you want with me but don't leave me here like this. I'd rather die than stay chained up here like someone's broken trophy. His trophy."

Don't trust him. Don't let him out of here or it'll all start over again somehow. Look back in those rooms. Look at what they were trying to do and tear his head off right now. But another part of Squall was only thinking of his warped friend. "Tell us what you know and we'll consider it."

But Melanthios wasn't looking at Squall anymore. "NO!"

Squall spun around as he felt the temperature drop, and Shiva's lance met the Lionheart before Squall even realised he had raised it. Squall jumped back and caught Seifer and Rinoa doing the same as all three tried to put some distance between themselves and the Guardian of Ice. For a second everyone in the chamber froze in surprise and Squall finally got a good look at the woman he had once called friend.

Shiva stared back at him and she was a ruin. Her light blue skin had warped and darkened until it looked like a bruise covering her body, purple-streaked hair faded into black. Her eyes looked like they were clouded with cataracts and there was no expression on her face. No recognisance or sorrow came from those dead eyes, her face expressionless and unmoving.

My God Shiva what did they do to you?

Squall glanced across at Rinoa and Seifer who were already moving to flank the corrupted Guardian as she stepped into the room, lance held ready.

"I'll give you this one for free Leonhart, what weapon do you remember her using most?" Melanthios hissed urgently from his metal shackles.

I remember Shiva as a close friend, not some dim soldier, not some cold killing machine. Squall thought in frustration. But then a second thought rose up alongside it. But she could be, when she really needed it. The memory appeared of Shiva facing off against the Espers in Balamb, weapons forming out of the ice.

The black woman in front of him shifted imperceptibly on the balls of her feet and suddenly the air flowed around her hands into a long lance of an icicle. Squall paused in surprise until he realised what Melanthios had done. Oh screw you.

"That's your first clue human," the man in black cackled.

Shiva spoke and it sounded like a death-rattle. "Squ…all…"

"Shiva, speak to me," Squall pleaded. "You can fight this."

"Not…Sh-"

She struck. The lance flew forward as Shiva almost slid towards them across the floor and Squall ducked as the sharpened death stabbed past his head. Seifer roared a challenge and charged forward, ducking aside a kick aimed at taking his head off and slamming down the flat of the blade trying to knock her unconscious. Shiva's arm came up and she stepped back like a dancer as the pair swung their gunblades together, Seifer's bouncing harmlessly from her forearm and Squall's missing entirely, rending the metal grating where it struck. By the time they had hurriedly withdrawn them and brought them up to defend against a counterattack Shiva was already out of their range.

She watched them at a distance, placed between them and the door. She tilted her head as if listening to a voice only she could hear. Suddenly and without warning Squall saw red appear across her body. Did we get her? It only took a second however before he realised he was viewing the bloodstained corridor behind the woman. As the trio watched second the Guardian woman they had known for so long had faded out of view. The entire conflict from Shiva's first strike to her abrupt departure couldn't have taken more than a minute, but he felt exhausted.

Seifer was the first to speak. "That was quick."

Squall felt a headache coming on as he turned with a sinking feeling in his gut. "It wasn't us she was after."

Shiva's first strike that had missed Squall had in fact been aimed perfectly, stabbing Melanthios through his broken eye and up through his brain, hard enough that it had penetrated all the way through and into the great machine behind the chained-up man. A dull rasp came out of the worldshell's mouth as Squall approached.

Melanthios stared at Squall with loathing as hairline cracks appeared across his skin and his face began to shatter. "No…no…time…Leonhart." He laughed and the sound in the quiet cylinder echoed for seconds. "Finish the job."

"What do you know?" Squall asked urgently. "What the hell is going on here?"

"Sun…sunrisssssssse…makes monsters go awayayay.."

"Just tell us, you obtuse prick!" Seifer shouted. "Who's doing this? The shadows in the night! Who's got Shiva on a leash! Did Galbadia succeed in making artificial Guardians! Who the fuck is A1!"

"Look…look above for your…answeeeerssssssss…"

"What does that even mean!"

But the creature was beyond hearing. With a final death-rattle Melanthios slumped down. The arms held down by the chains shattered and his torso fell to the metal grid, where the impact broke it like a glass ball. Finally all that remained of the once-feared magical adversary was a dull clump of rapidly-fading shards on the ground.

"Squall," Rinoa said quietly. "Look."

"What?" he replied as he turned. Rinoa was staring up at something above him. He turned but all he could see was the giant machinery. He walked over to his wife. "Rinoa, what is it?"

"'Look above.' He meant it literally."

Squall turned. "I don't see…" his voice trailed off as he looked again and saw what he was seeing.

Seifer joined them. His eyes widened as he realised what he was looking at. "No fucking way."

The machinery above wasn't a machine. The central metal body hung down past them and vanished into the darkness below. What looked like two massive flywheels attached to either side attached twin cylinders onto the main part of the machine, themselves ending in something that could have cannons or segmented steel drums. Perched on the top of the central body was some kind of elaborate viewing machinery, and on the back was what could have been the world's biggest pipe-organ. The entire structure was beautifully carved with ornate scrolling and words in a language Squall could and would never recognise.

Torso.

Arms.

Head.

Armament.

"It's A1," Squall breathed as Rinoa grasped his hand for reassurance that he wasn't in some crazy nightmare. "The men trying to make artificial Guardians. They were taking all their research data from a specimen. That's why they thought they could do it. They had a Guardian corpse to study."

"It's Alexander."