CHAPTER 34

"Oh for the love of my brother. Step aside infant." Livia hissed at Avalena

"No I will not. I already told you that you couldn't have him. So back off bitch!" Avalena snarled.

Death smiled showing pointy teeth, "Are you challenging me?"

"No, I'm not that stupid or that gullible. I'm telling it to you straight. If you try to take him I will kill you!" Avalena stated matter of factly.

"Ha! Ha! Ha! Oh please, you think that threatening to kill me will stop me?" Death sneered.

Avalena's eyes had gone flat gold, "That's not a threat. I will kill you."

"You believe that you can?"

"Oh yeah."

"How precious. Fine infant, I challenge you. If you win you can keep your 'love' but if I win I get you both."

"Avalena no." Squall gasped out from behind her. "You need to live for Tristen."

"Done." Avalena replied with a smirk. She knelt down and pressed her lips to his, "It's alright, love. Besides since she challenged me I get the choice of weapons."

"What?" This came from death.

"Rules of combat. You challenged me so therefore I get to choose the weapon. One more thing, since I am going to win you constipated corpse, you can not retaliate against my friends or family and I want long healthy life for all of us."

"There is no way this side of heaven and hell that I will grant you immortality."

"I already have it in my son and the other children that Squall and I will have together."

"Very well infant what is your weapon of choice?"

"You will except whatever I choose?" Avalena questioned.

"Of course."

Avalena glanced over at Seifer, "Pull it out Seifer. Get that piece of shit out of my Lionheart's body."

Seifer sheathed Hyperion and knelt down by Squall and grasped the ice javelin and yanked it from the fallen knights chest. There was a fresh flow of blood that followed its removal.

The sight of the blood caused Death to laugh, "Oh goody." She clapped her bony hands together. "How nice of you to help. You just sped along the process." She said jubilantly.

The room was filled with a deep booming laugh, and a figure dressed in black leather appeared in their midst.

"Now what?" Seifer and Squall muttered together.

The man was incredibly tall and had long flowing hair that blended from one color to another and his skin was almost opalescent. His eyes twirled color like an oil slick on water. "I heard challenge given and accepted and you my dear sister Livia are a fool. This woman truly believes that she can kill you, and you know what our laws state since you did help write them."

The tall leather clad figure walked over to where Squall was lying. "Your woman is fantastic."

"Thanks." Squall replied. He could heal now the death magic that had been in that fucking piece of ice was now melting on the floor. Shiva and Griever had been trying to heal him but to no avail. Every time something was cured something worse melted into his body to take its place. But now that it was gone he knew that he could heal himself.

"What do you mean I'm a fool? I get to harvest two new souls today, hers just for the pure de ol' fun of it, and his because he's an annoying pain in the ass and has escaped me far too many times. I thought I had him when his back was broken. But no that little wannabe sorceress just had to heal him. No brother of mine. I am not a fool. I will finally have Squall 'Lionheart' in my trophy room."

Avalena kissed Squall one more time stood and sauntered over to where death was waiting. "Well wasn't that sweet kissing him goodbye. Come on kitten choose your weapon. I'm proficient in all." Livia sneered.

"Nobody but Seifer Almasy calls me kitten you cantankerous cadaver, and you aren't him. My friends call me Avalena, but you're not one of those either. So you may call me Miss DeMarco. And another thing Squall is 'my' Lionheart not yours, so come up with your own nickname."

Avalena rolled her eyes upward and let out a long deep breath, and placed a manicured nail tip up to her mouth in mock ponder. "Hmmm what to choose for a weapon?" She tapped the finger against her lips.

"Now you're just stalling for time. Hurry up and choose." Livia yelled.

"Oh for the love of me." The Great Hyne turned to Avalena and brushed his warm hand down her cheek, "Tell her, tell her what your choice of weapon is Lady DeMarco." He brought his hand up to his mouth to try and cover the smile that had formed on his lips, he figured he knew and when she said it he was proven right.

"A kiss!" Avalena answered and smiled smugly.

"A kiss? Since when is a kiss a weapon? A kiss is not a weapon." Livia said and started to laugh.

"Yes it is you haven't you ever heard the expression not to use sex as a weapon?"

Livia snickered, "Oh now that's grasping, a kiss is not sex."

Squall pulled himself up to a sitting position and slowly got to his feet, Hyne he was proud of her, only Avalena could think of something so clever and devious, "Actually, a kiss can be considered sex. You have obviously never been kissed by my Avalena." He licked his lips slowly, one to taste the feel of her mouth on his again and two to moisten his dry lips. "Believe me, her kisses are like sex."

Livia turned a startled expression on her face, how in the name of all that was holy and unholy had he accomplished living through all the shit that Ultimecia had thrown at him? She knew for a fact that the ice javelin had been laced with enough poison to kill dragons as well as containing death spells and a variety of other forbidden magic, that would have, should have killed him instantly. Somehow he had managed to survive it. "No! Unfair, brother of mine, I had already issued challenge, you had no right to heal him." She pouted.

The great Hyne shook his head in the negative, "I didn't interfere my sister. I in no way healed Squall Leonhart. The weapon has been chosen."

That pissed her off even more then she already was, "Bullshit, nobody's kisses are like sex." She bellowed at him.

"Bullshit right back at you." Squall replied. Which brought Livia's attention back to him.

He would never under normal circumstances talk about his and Avalena's sex life. It was a very private thing that was between him and her. But hell nothing about this day had been normal so far. "She has made me come with her kisses, without sex involved intercourse or oral."

He didn't add that he had been around 16 at the time. And she had bet him that she could make him come with her kisses. He had readily agreed. He felt that he had ironclad control over his body and he would win the wager.

What he didn't realize was that she was going to give him a very erotic striptease, which was followed with a lap dance. She had been bumping and grinding her pelvis against his, her breasts rubbing against his chest. Her nipples where hard little nubs and caught against his own as she moved her body up and down his. Her nimble fingers stroking up and down his back or tangling in his hair while her body undulated against his. She had been kissing him the entire time. her tongue either playing along his lips or plundering his mouth. He was hard pressed not to carry her over to their bed and bury himself deep inside her.

He was actually starting to win against his raging lust but when she sucked his lower lip into her mouth and nibbled gently on it, he had exploded. The force of the orgasm had left him breathless.

He made sure that he never made a bet with her after that unless he was positive that he would win. Losing that had made him her 'beck and call boy' for the rest of the day, and of course having to shave his legs. All in all it really hadn't been that bad. He rose to his feet and did a mild stretch and walked over to where Avalena was putting his arms around her and kissed her neck.

"Please, that's only one example, it's going to take more then that." Livia sneered. She wasn't only pissed at Squall Leonhart for somehow managing to survive, she was more pissed at herself, her brother was right she was a fool.

Avalena smiled up at Squall kissed him softly and whispered for him alone, "Trust me." She then turned to Livia, "You didn't let me finish, whichever one of us can kiss oh lets say three of the men in this room and have them survive the kiss is the winner."

"WHAT! That's not fair everybody knows that I kill with a kiss." Livia screamed.

"Oh that's to bad, I guess that means that you lose and it just proved that yes a kiss can be a weapon since you kill with it." Avalena said with a sarcastic smile.

Livia was flabbergasted, she had actually lost a challenge. Shit if word of this ever got back to the Underworld she would never live it, or would that be die down Mythos would give her a ration of shit that would be hip deep. Damn but Avalena DeMarco was good. Livia would give her that she had manipulated her into making that ridiculous challenge. She swore that she would never be that gullible again.

With a cloud of smoke and a pertinacious clap of thunder Hyne and Livia vanished.

Cid was by now just a writhing mass of on the floor. He could no longer scream his last transformation had ripped his throat out, which was actually a blessing for him since his body was being turned inside out over and over again.

Zell and Raijin had helped Quistis and Rinoa to their feet and they walked over to where the others were waiting for them to complete the circle that they had formed around Cid.

Holding up their talismans each of them softly say one word. "Love!"

Cid sees the power of true love. It had started when Squall had so selflessly shoved the woman aside and had taken the ice spear for himself. It had continued when she faced down the Goddess of Death to keep him. And now the finality was the binding that they had formed with the talismans they each held aloft.

The power surged in multicolored lights from their stones melding with the one that had burned so deeply into Cid's hand. The different stones shatter leaving a cloud in their wake. When the dust had settled around them, the weary combatants see that their former Headmaster had vanished the only thing remaining was the rainbow hued rock that had been on the talisman that had been given to him, that precious little stone that had bound him and his evil for all eternity.

Renée Hillside had silently observed the events unfold around her. When that woman had faced down death to save that bastard Squall Leonhart she sent Cid's creation to fetch the child. She watched with morbid fascination when they bound her stupid sister's husband into that stone. She wanted that rock. In her twisted mind she was positive that she would gain untold power if it were in her possession. She was hard pressed not to growl out her anger when she saw Squall bend down and pick it up by its gore soaked cord.

She had always hated her sister Edea. Always. She had been the one who had been born with the beauty and the brains in the family. It was unfair that the mewling idiot had somehow managed to inherit the power of a sorceress. And then there was her wanting to use all that power to help people? What a waste! But Adel and Ultimecia had sit her straight quickly enough using and manipulating her as easily as pulling the strings on a marionette.

Yes she would get that stone of power and make them pay. Make them all pay starting with the child of Raine Leonhart.

Before Squall or Avalena could ask about the whereabouts of their son he was drug in by Irvine Kinneas and thrust into Renée's arms.

"Mama! Daddy! Help!" Tristen cried out and started to struggle.

Squall started to leap forward and yank his son out of that evil bitches arms. But stopped in mid jump when she twisted his son's arm up painfully behind him causing him to cry out in pain.

"Hold Leonhart. Or I will rip this brat limb from limb." She turned to the doppelganger and snarled, "Kill them. Kill them all." She looked at Squall and laughed, "Give me that stone or your 'immortality' will end here and now."

A low feral growl started echoing in the room. It soon became louder and more ferocious. Renée glanced quickly around to see where that noise was coming from. In the next instant the child was torn from her arms and she was flat on her back with a snarling angry Avalena DeMarco sitting in the middle of her chest. A razor sharp knife pressed against her throat.

Even though Avalena's emotions had run high before, her son had never been in serious danger. It had started at home when Laguna had told them what had happened and now it was cumulating. The power that she had inherited from her great grandmother, which had lain dormant for so long, was now surging off of her in wave after wave.

She was now truly Squall's lioness. The lioness that had meet with his lion so many years before, the one that had been present the night they had created their son. And now she was the lioness protecting her cub.

Her honey rich brogue was gone and was replaced by a deep-throated growl, "I'm going to kill you bitch. I'm going to slice you open and when I'm finished, I'm going to bathe in your blood and use your guts for garters."

Squall had wanted to comfort his terrified son but when he heard what Avalena threatened, a sense of dread built in his chest. He knows his Avalena as well as she knows herself. And he knew that if she followed through will killing that bitch that she would be changed forever. That special place in her that made her who she was would die. The innocence that was her spirit would be gone forever. He gently removed Tristen from his arms and left his son knowing that Seifer would comfort him for the time being, he tread softly over to where the two women were.

"Avalena," he said softly.

Avalena turned at his voice and snarled at him her lips curled around her teeth and a savage look on her beautiful face. Then turns her attention back to Renée. She held the woman pinned to the floor with one hand and raised the knife up and was getting ready to slash into the helpless woman's throat. She was stopped when Squall puts his arms around her.

"Avalena, no." He whispered to her.

"Yes." She growled.

"No. I can't let you kill her. If I do something in you will die. I can't allow that."

"Our son, she threatened our son, my lion." Avalena husked out.

"I know my love, my lioness, my Avalena. Look at me!" His voice was soothing yet still commanding. She tilted her head back and looked up into his face. "I know you want her to be punished for what she has done, and she will be, but not by you my sweetheart. Do you remember what I told Geoffrey?" He ran his fingers own the side of her face. At her affirmative nod he continued, "Then come love, let me be the one that does it." He said and removed her from Renée Hillsides chest and puts her into Seifer's waiting arms.

Squall looked down at Renée Hillside his eyes had turned ice blue. All the love that had been there for Avalena was gone and in its place was something cold and hollow.

Before he could bury Lionsbane into her heart she sneered up at him, "Before you kill me I think that there is something you should know. I killed her. I killed that mewling bitch mother of yours."

"Your mother came to me grieving over her precious fucking Laguna." She started to laugh, and it was bone chilling, "Oh I gave her a sympathetic ear and a shoulder to cry her heart out on, I didn't care. I hated her and I let my hate for her continue to you. Do you even want to know why I did it?"

Squall remained quiet and she took his silence for the go ahead, "My husband was hot for her, hot for that auburn haired bitch and she was so stupid she didn't even see it. So when she came to me, I let her wail out her misery for your moronic father and how she needed to let him know about his son. Then I gave her a cup of tea. It was a special cup of tea laced with enough poison that no amount of antidote could counteract it." Her breathing was short and shallow.

"I wanted to kill you too, but that stupid sister of mine had come to visit me. She had been out calling on friends in the area but returned before I could wring your scrawny little neck. So I let her take you with her to her orphanage. When she asked me to come and watch over her children for her, I readily agreed. Hoping that you would still be there. And you were. Oh how I loved beating you, scarring that perfect flesh of yours. Every time I let that lash fall I imagined it was that bitch mother of yours that I was hurting. Hyne that woman was so stupid. I promised her that I would mail her letters to Laguna but I never did. I also made sure that if any mail arrived from that bumbling idiot that I intercepted them and destroyed them." She had started to laugh again.

Squall let her words sink in, he despised her for what she had done to him, but for the murder of his mother and threatening his son, that was what he hated her for. The secret place in him where he held his dark side was empty because right now it had consumed him. Drawing Lionsbane over his head, he drove it deep into her chest. Right as she dies he said coldly, "You go to hell!"

What no one noticed was that the real Irvine Kinneas had made his way up from the detention block. He picked up Avalena's rifle from where she had flung it when she had gathered Squall into her arms.

Everyone turns at the sound of the rifle being cocked, weapons at the ready.

Irvine Kinneas put the rifle to his shoulder took aim and blew his doppelgangers head off. Spraying blood and brain matter all over the place. "Mother fucker, bet you won't be hitting any more little kids now will ya?" The rifle fell from his hands and he toppled over in a state of exhaustion.