Disclaimer: I do not own FF8, it would have gone quite differently if I did.
A/N: Chapter re-edited for clarity and flow 08/25/20.
Saving the world. Nothing is quite like the party when you can legitimately claim that as your accomplishment. The party lasted twenty-two hours, all told, until the music finally stopped and Balamb Garden returned to relative normality. The tale woven by the Fated Children of their adventure in the end of time itself was something that beggared belief, but there was enough evidence to back it up in the end for the student body to accept the truth. All the same, the world kept turning, and the state things were left in it would not hold.
It was a further two days before the first messages found their way to Balamb Garden where it hovered temporarily at FH. Garden's previous infrastructure, built around Balamb Island proper, was a shamble and the exclusively hardline cable connections meant that the routing through the city of Balamb was a mess. Balamb found itself back aboard Fisherman's Horizon for a while, in the aftermath of everything, using their central position along the major railway connection east and west as a staging area to see what needed to happen next. Needless to say, communication was a priority amongst priorities.
It took a week to fully reorganize the Garden, the troubles had left it a wreck. With the desertion of the Faculty, and the abdication of Headmaster Cid, atop the loss of NORG's funding, Garden was running on it's own steam. Money would become an issue quickly, and the question of what to do with SeeD now that its intended purpose had been fully completed had to be answered. There were voices on both sides. The world was a bit of a mess, the greatest military power had been shivered by the loss of its dictator. What's worse, Esthar was in the midst of the artificial Lunar Cry, and Trabia's disparate tribes were still reeling from the other artificial Lunar Cry not thirty years before, coupled to the loss of Trabia Garden as a defensive bulwark against the monster population leaving them nearly helpless.
The world was in turmoil and it looked like having a highly trained, competent force of troubleshooters would be needed still. It was rather more difficult to sort through the many different files and systems, Squall had to build a new faculty more or less on the spot. SeeD cadets began to be pulled away from the combat program and into bureaucratic and logistical lines as Garden found out what it knew. There was oceans of data to sort through, from client data, intelligence reports, banking information, budget reports. Squall was quickly overwhelmed. As much as he tried to shoulder the burden himself, Xu, Quistis, and Dr Kadowaki all cornered him to force him to delegate more. It was hectic, and it became impossible to know what ended up falling through the cracks in the reorganization at the end.
The largest structural change was taking on faculty from Esthar, the president's enthusiasm for the Garden project's success was odd (to all who didn't know about Squall and the President's personal history), but a diversion of a small number of clerks in exchange for discounted peacekeeping missions as the evacuation to Esthar city proper was fully underway from outlying settlements seemed reasonable enough recompense. This ended up being a fairly even exchange though as the relatively small military of Esthar was being badly stretched, holding out against the Lunar hordes.
Meanwhile, Galbadia, never a strong client previously, was begging for attention. Squall got back to them and in a brief conversation with the former Secretary of Urban Affairs, the short of it was there was war brewing in Galbadia. With the fall of the sorceress, and the death of the charismatic Vinzer Deling, Galbadia was effectively decapitated.
When the small nation broke away from Dollet, it was nothing and only rose to power under the guidance of Deling. His sudden death left the vast military-industrial complex he had built headless. The sycophants and generals looked like they would be turning on each other and grabbing for whatever piece of the former nation they could hold with the citizenry caught in the middle. It was decided by a counsel of senior SeeD that intervention for the betterment of the people was preferable to letting civilization lose even more ground.
"So it's decided." Squall said to the three others in the room: Xu, a natural choice, top SeeD before the end of the world; Quistis, still one of the greater minds in the Garden, especially since Cid Kramer has vacated his post; the final being Selphie Tilmett, nobody had believed it when she stepped forward to head the budgetary committee, but she proved herself quickly. Her head for logistics and numbers was remarkable. Nobody should have been surprised, there was a reason she dove as hard as she did at the festival committee. Nonetheless she sighed and was first to comment.
"They have the funds, or rather, we think they do, we'll know more after the first round of negotiation." Xu nodded, she'd taken to the diplomatic role quickly and with aplomb, "I'll give them the run around for the first. It should do well for us to remind them of the recent… troubles that we've had with Galbadia, especially with Galbadia Garden going missing. It had lost, what? Seventy percent of its faculty with the military takeover?" she asked, largely rhetorically but Squall responded anyway.
"Near as our estimates can follow. Corroborating with Martine, he insists that more than half walked, and it's unreasonable to think none of them were lost in the battle. It's not as though there weren't significant losses, nearly all of the first year cadets were slain, and a third of the remainder, there weren't enough stocks of magical energy to go around to keep everyone fully junctioned with GF. So many of them are picky enough they will not split their power between multiple users, we were lucky with Ifrit, Shiva, Quetzalcoatl, and even Diablos to an extent. Though the latter respects few of us enough to work with him." Squall mused aloud, they had forty one SeeD or at least sufficiently advanced cadets to be considered for missions.
Without Galbadia and Trabia as feeders for promising cadets, they were working with only those cadets that survived the conflict. There was real potential danger there, especially if Garden was to remain mobile; which was in debate as well. Quistis raised the next point smoothly enough, one could almost imagine that somebody wanted to talk about it, "are we going to resume training?" She questioned, most of the instructors were still in Balamb, only two had participated in the conflicts, and only one had chosen sides in the internal matter even before the battle of Gardens. It was possible for them to go back to being the premier military academy of the world. As the sole practical users of GF-Junction, and with the absolute lack of trust placed in Dr Odine by anyone with sense. Garden had sole control over arguably the most powerful resource in the world, actual super soldiers. Everything Galbadia had been trying to do with their war machines, and Esthar had been pursuing both with their cybernetics program and monster breeding projects was embodied in the SeeD warrior. They could shrug off high caliber rounds, stand toe to toe with the worst demons the world can throw at them. Garden was safe from anything short of an intercontinental ballistic missile attack, that much was proven when the very best Galbadia had to offer bounced off the Garden's SeeD forces at twenty to one with only three SeeD killed in the action.
"We'll say a tentative yes." Squall commented after a long moment and Xu sighed audibly. Silence reigned for many moments before Squall broke it.
"We'll look at dispatching a maximum of five teams to Gabania. That's hard maximum. And Xu? Get us the feeling in the capital when you're there. We want to know what the people think of the sides in this one before we commit to supporting one." Xu nodded and made a mark in her notes as the meeting continued on, to a discussion of budget for the next four months.
The meeting continued interminably though when night finally fell the internal system pinged in Squall terminal. He smiled subtly. "Excuse me, Rinoa is reminding me to actually sleep at some point." he said standing up while ignoring the smirk on Xu's face as well as Quistis' long suffering sigh and Selphie's giggle. He walked out of their meeting with a clearer picture of the path forward and a genuine hope for their future.
Fisherman's horizon was a refuge for people who didn't have anywhere else to go and, for people who wanted no part of the troubles of the greater world. Sometimes both. But even here there was judgement. She sat on the dock, under a hole-filled parasol, quietly repairing a fishing net. Slightly curved needle and thick waxed thread in hand working with slow motions, unpracticed but intent. Beside her sat an old fisherman with arthritis gnarled hands.
"Yes, just like that. You learn quick, young'un!" he said as he reached over and clapped her on the shoulder nearly knocking her over with the vigor of it.
"Patience." she said simply as the old fisherman bobbed his head. "We'll make a fisher out of you yet." he said simply with a gap-toothed smile. She offered back a small, unpracticed one and continued working. Pausing a moment, she looked out at the water where Raijin was trying his hand at fishing. Strangely enough he had taken to the skill with remarkable passion. She shook her head thinking about it and nearly let out a laugh.
"Found some solace in the net have you?" the old man asks leaning forward onto his knees, looking out at the endless, sparkling ocean.
"Many before you have." He let out a melancholy huff and leaned back against a support pillar. Leaving her to consider what was said. She had been trying not to think about it, but now she could not help it. Her smile faded away into a quiet frown, her eye looking down at the net as she slowly stitched and wove it back together, bit by slow bit. Her mind wandered, as it had not before, when she was so focused on doing the task correctly. She considered the last week, the long walk out of Esthar, the war the two of them had fought together.
Two. That word brought a bitterness to her. Seifer, they had been so close for so long. Only, once he had what he wanted so close at hand, he rejected them. Even after the sorceress' control lapsed, he still strove. He fought further even after the battle had been lost. She had told him he was being a fool, and he'd just smiled. Smiled that stupid, arrogant, selfish smile he had. Once she'd admired that smile, that wolfishness, the unwillingness to let go of even the shadow of potential victory. She remembered grabbing his arm and having it yanked away from her. She remembered pleading, shouting, screaming. And he just let her. He only said one thing…
"Hold up girl." the old man's concerned voice pulled her from her thoughts. She looked down at her hands and saw the mess she'd made of the last few loops, then blinked, pushing an unshed tear out of her lashes that rolled down her face, giving her clarity to realize the mistake was far less than she'd first seen and hung her head.
"It's alright, you have years to practice." the old man said solemnly. She almost laughed again, this time from anger. Seifer's last words to her echoed in her brain, reverberating like a tuning fork.
"Before I let my dream go, I'll die." Her teeth were clenched so tight her jaw ached, her hands were balled white-knuckled, staring out at the sea.
"Here." she felt something tap her shoulder, a small bottle. So old the labels had worn off entirely, glass. She brought it to her lips expecting something sharp, but only clean water hit her tongue. She drank greedily as though it could wash the anger, and painful introspections away. The old man waited for her to hand the empty bottle back and said nothing for a long moment.
"Sorry." she said quietly. He patted her shoulder. "It's fine, there's enough. For all of us." he said simply and his words settled on her like a blanket. She considered them as her hands started to move again, weaving the net. The feeling of restlessness inside her retreated, just a little.
It was just getting dark when the boats came back in, She was there to meet them as the catch of the day was unloaded and the take parceled out. She met Raijin with a hug and helped him with his share. The two of them walking home a small lean-to near the outer edge of the platform. They had gotten it sealed more or less against the wind, with a single long bulb lighting the tiny hovel. Two bedrolls, a small hand-filled basin that was both sink and top tank for the sanitation system. They cooked on an electric stove, Power being as abundant as water and fish on the little man made solar cell they called home.
Fisherman's Horizon was a quiet place where people could disappear. Strange miracle that there were no true sea monsters. Maybe there was no water on the moon? She walked to stand in the doorway, looking up to the first bright stars showing through the sunset. Meanwhile, Raijin showed off his domestic skills as he got the induction cooker going and the pan heated with a little oil before laying on the fillets. She was tired of fish. She was tired of fishing, she was tired of pretending she didn't want to do something else. She crossed her arms as she looked up at the pale shadow of the moon. It was many long minutes of Raijin's quiet chatter. He mostly talked to himself, knowing she had little to say these days.
Neither of them had shared their names around the place. It was almost taboo here to ask about the past. They had distinctive enough appearances, though that they'd been recognized by some. She'd caught some evil glances, enough to give her the creeps a few times.
Avoiding the confrontation seemed to be working so far though. "Hey, food's gonna be ready in a second, ya'know?" Raijin called out to her, making her jump.
"Right." she said, walking back to retrieve the metal plates and let Raijin pile it up with the day's catch. She ate mechanically, her mind elsewhere, best not to focus on what you ate, or the monotony of it would grate before too long. They ate in companionable silence. Just about the only thing that could make Raijin quiet was food, even back at Garden.
She sighed to herself, pushing bits of quickly cooling fish around her plate.
"What's up, girl?" he asked as she started and looked up at him. She considered a few answers with her mouth full before settling eventually to mumble.
"Change." he leaned in and seemed to consider what she'd said, mulling it over.
"You thinking about Seifer again?" he asked, and she bristled, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up and her teeth showing. Neither of them looked at the cloth wrapped bundle in the corner. The few effects they had kept from the ruins of Lunatic Pandora at the end of the war loomed large in the peripheral. He raised a hand trying to forestall violence.
"Okay! Nope! Not that! Um…." he trailed off, bringing a hand to his chin as she calmed herself down.
"We don't have that much gil, I guess we could throw some at some rice…." he said thoughtfully and she sighed hanging her head.
"No. Quiet." she said sweeping an arm and his eyes opened wide.
"Oh! Well… I guess it is pretty peaceful, but that is what we agreed we wanted, ya'know?" he asked, looking sheepish. She hung her head.
"Yes…" He sat up straighter, "I guess we could move on, there's a whole world out there still!" he said with a smile.
But she could see the strain at the edges of it, he might not even know it himself. She set down her plate and walked over to him putting her hands on his huge shoulders.
"Stay." she says and his face rapid fires from a more genuine smile to a concerned frown.
"Wait, you saying You're gonna go?" he asks, jabbing a finger at her middle, forcing her step back. "We're all we got! I ain't…" he started as she held up her hands, took his and set it back in his lap.
"Happy?" she asks quietly and he scratches the back of his head. "Well… yeah kinda. I… but you…" he started and she puts a hand on his chest.
"Unhappy." she says forestalling him.
"I ain't wanna lose my li'l sister." he says quietly, his eyes getting misty, which has her eyes getting misty right back. She turns her back on him and wraps her arms around herself.
"Change." she says as she walks to the door and sits down next to it. He's left standing where she was, arms open only for them to drop despondent.
"Deserve." she says definitively as she looks up at him.
"...Oh." Is all the massive young man can conjure.
"...what are you gonna do?" he asked softly, dropping back into the rickety scrap that held the rough functionality of a chair. Outside, the wind picked up a strong gust, whistling quietly in the cooling night.
And she thought about that, she thought about it so long that Raijin decided to finish his meal though his desire was just as gone as hers. As he carefully cleaned off the plate into a slop bucket she spoke barely above a whisper.
"Purpose." Her eye on the moon. He stopped, his head flicking around, but when he saw the distant, empty look on her face his question died on his lips. He finished cleaning off his plate, then reached over to pick up her cold food, walked over to where she had sat down next to the door and slid down to sit next to her putting the plate in her lap.
"Well, I'm not gonna let you do it with an empty stomach, y'know?" he said with a beaming smile that coaxed a small one out of her as she picked at the food.
"Dislike." she muttered. "You choosing beggar!" he said, throwing an arm across her shoulders with a laugh.
Squall sat at his desk reading the after actions reports, a now familiar activity. It was a slow process, picking over decisions and second guessing everything. He sat across from Xu, Quistis, Selfie, and their latest addition to the SeeD board, Rami. He'd been a cadet in the class behind Squall's and in the last three years he'd proven himself, and subsequently been pulled from active duty when he lost a leg from about mid-thigh down. Cybernetics didn't play well with guardian force usage, so he'd taken the retirement and been pressed into an administrative role.
"Housekeeping first, Selphie?" Squall said flicking over on his terminal as the others tapped similarly. The waifish woman kept a tight but warm smile on her face, dancing slightly in her seat as she brought up the pertinent details.
"With the payout from the West Galbadian job completion we are in the black for the quarter, hurray!" she said easily as she pulled up some quick summaries for the rest of the table. The meeting had become routine, anything could be if you did it 12 times. There was little enough humor these days, and Selphie provided more than her fair share of cheer.
"Has the team recovered?" Rami asked, looking up toward Squall who shook his head.
"Even with Restore you can't fix amputation. Tina's being retired from active." That pronouncement brought an uncomfortable silence to the group. Losing a SeeD was becoming disturbingly regular.
"There's only ten active SeeD left outside this room until the next graduating class and we're pretty sure there's only one or two likely candidates even then. Unless we relax standards…" Xu started only to see Quistis and Squall sharing the same sour expression, and even Selphie looking fairly green.
"Can we really afford to though?" The bubbly brunette asked softly. "I mean, the jobs are only getting more dangerous, feels like…"
"We're not raising Fodder. We'll have to raise prices and be more selective. I'll step back into active, Selphie you will too. No offense Quistis, but instructors will only be more important going forward to have you reactivated right now. Any objections?" Squall asked smoothly, Xu looked hesitant but she saw the numbers the same as anyone and Rami looked like he'd swallowed a particularly sour bug.
"Twelve then, for the time being, four full teams. Teams one and three are still on long term assignments; we're looking at five contract bids and two teams." Rami commented pulling up the dossiers for consideration.
"We've got another standing request from the Shumi village asking for a clearance team to assist with the ongoing lunar incursion." Rami elaborated. "The pay's still well below average." Selphie shook her head.
"Can't afford to do that or we'll get a shortfall in the next quarter if there's any serious wounds or delays in the mission. East Galbadia's request is far more pressing and pays better, they have the woodlands and the metal mines." Selphie explained pulling up the dossier.
"East Galbadia is definitely viable. What's the status of Timber looking like?" Squall asked, looking to Rami.
"Their independence is pretty assured, East Gal doesn't have the military presence to occupy the state at this point. Not with the West breathing down their necks. Speaking of, I see the West withdrew their request, do we know why?" Rami asked, looking to Xu who frowned.
"No confirmation… but…" she trailed off into an uncomfortable silence. It brooded in the room for a long minute.
"So we agree that the E.G. is our next contract?" Selphie bubbled back into the conversation as the bitterness was just hitting a pitch.
"As long as they haven't lost Sawton." Squall commented dryly, his tone venomous, but not at the fledgeling Galbadian splinter state.
"I'll head the team." Squall volunteered.
"Good luck commander, who're you taking?" Rami asked pulling up the roster.
"Probably Selphie..." Quistis muttered, drawing a chuckle from Xu as Selphie looked her excitable self. Squall gave Quistis the evil eye that she weathered unflappably.
"Whatever. Fine, Selphie, and…" he trailed off looking at the mission dossier.
"Szeth. We could use a more range-oriented compliment." Squall said tapping on the terminal to send an alert to the SeeD to prepare for a mission.
"We'll prepare transit!" Selphie exclaimed as she shot up and veritably sprinted out of the room, as the door closed behind her, the faint sound of "I've got a Mission!" could be heard even through the heavy reinforced doors of executive offices.
"I hope she never changes." Quistis says with a smile as Squall stalked out of the room.
"Let's look into this other team's assignment then, the Centran villages are getting fairly insistent…." she trailed off as the doors closed behind Squall.
Inside, he was celebrating too, he'd taken on one mission in three years and the stress of administration was getting to him, watching other people do the work he'd trained his whole life for was slowly getting on his nerves. He kept his weapon close at hand, he trained daily. Practicing against the monsters of the training center and the local threats whenever the mobile Garden traveled to a staging area not to mention pitting himself against the other SeeD in nearly full contact.
He had never surrendered his stocks of magic from the war three years back, nor had many of the Forces that they had collected on their world spanning nightmare allowed themselves to be placed with others. Unshocking perhaps, considering the proving that many of them had required to consent to be junctioned in the first place.
His personal quarters were much as spartan as they had been. The communication system would have to be hooked up to make outside calls, so they would need to stop in at a dock point to confirm their involvement and the payment. Squall had time to figure out how he wanted to proceed. His old style had waned a bit. He still prefered reinforced clothing, but leather was difficult to repair, he'd transitioned to a lighter cloth material with Galbadian stab resistant fibers woven in, it worked well, and kept the garments from constantly needing to be repaired. He'd opted for pants of the same material. Heavy boots that covered to above his ankle were just sensible for field work, he'd done away with the fur lining it was ostentatious and too hard to keep clean on extended missions. Checking over his equipment he lay out the crystalline Lionheart blade beside the rest of it. Once he was satisfied his tactical gear was set, the inside of the jacket having padded spaces for potions, ammunition, and sundry other items as needed.
He set them out and sat down heavily on his bed, pressing his hands into his eyes. Then pulled them back and looked at the lion ring on his finger bitterly, turning it with his thumb as he considered it. Rinoa, it had started with Rinoa. Sorceress Rinoa had made him Knight, to look after her heart and soul. Too bad it never really worked out for them. He still had the letter he'd found on his bed the day she'd left.
In retrospect he'd seen it coming. The signs were just something he'd been unwilling to see. As her powers settled and the magic swirled around her more and more easily he'd walk in on her with new creatures. The first time it had caused a panic, the fiftieth less so. It was said every Sorceress had a specialty, a power no other had before and no other would have in the same way. Rinoa could create life. It was wondrous, remarkable, even if the creatures were often fairly ugly.
She'd described it as wishing them into existence. She'd have something she wanted to happen and with a bit of willpower a being would appear to do as she wished, not that it vanished afterward. She ended up with a small cloud of creatures waiting on her as she needed. He'd talked to her about it, how the displays of power bothered people around her and how she shouldn't advertise her status. She'd brushed him off with good humor and explained why he shouldn't care. He'd felt enchanted, he'd listened, he'd let it happen even as she grew more distant from their friends.
He was forced to acknowledge it after her first rage. It had been over something small, one of her creatures had taken something belonging to a cadet. Though she had eventually returned it it had become a full blown argument before she did.
It was painful to think about how badly he'd failed. In part because he cared for her, like he hadn't cared for anyone before her really. Every indulgence, every time he let her get away with something, it grew. When her body began to twist it had been the last straw. He'd ignored her helpers for the sake of their feelings, deflected for her excesses to the others. The wings were the last straw. She was so proud of her great feathery wings, she could literally fly with them and was not shy about taking to the air.
The fight had lasted three hours, everything had come up. All the little annoyances, all the differences. Eventually they had come to a stubborn compromise and she had descended from the statue to take his hand, they had slept apart. But the next morning, when he went to talk to her about it, all that had been left of her was a note, and his ring. That was six months after the end of the world.
The disappearances began right after. The jobs Garden was taking on were getting more dangerous, the margins tightening, leave was curtailed frequently. Then a team sent to the Dollet area failed to arrive at rendezvous. In total five teams over eighteen months. Desertion had never before been a problem for Garden. They began cropping up in the employ of warlords and criminals, of the twenty three missing SeeD, eight were accounted for, all of them in body bags. Draw is an unreliable means of removing a GF as any experienced SeeD can tell. No, the only surefire way to contain someone who might be faster on foot than a train, or strong enough to burst through a solid brick wall is elimination.
It was crushing to the Garden's morale. It had been a year and change since the first encounter. It was a mission assessment now, something they looked for and prepared to handle. They'd had to break up their more experienced teams, to ensure that there were combatants rated to be able to deal with the involvement of the so called Bad SeeDs. The acronym BS only made the name more popular, to Xu and Squall's dismay.
Squall withdrew from dwelling on history, they were docked down at Balamb so there was easy access to the East Galbadian State and would almost certainly be traveling via train. Garden's arcane generators and propulsion were ancient and at best poorly understood, the wisdom had been not to strain them with constant movement where possible.
The communications team would already be in negotiation probably. They would be moving out tomorrow if Xu had anything to say about it, and she usually did.
He lay on his bed looking at Lionheart catching the light from his small window. It had only been three years.
His terminal pinged, he glanced over at the wall mounted screen, It read Bid accepted. That was fast. "Offered 30% over initial for expedition, BS confirmed in WG." Well. that changed the calculus. His jaw was tight, coming to grip with some of the deserters himself was a startlingly welcome notion.
"Deploying to Sawton by tomorrow evening for war room. Expedite preparation." Squall stood up and dressed, so much for a rest before moving out. He didn't think he'd be able to sleep much anyway.
Swathed in camouflage; a wrap around her face and covering all but her eyes she lay in wait with a team of four commandos. She reached within, holding onto the gentle pulse of magic from the being she shared her body with, It had taken some time after it was ripped away but Pandemona eventually found its way back to her. It had almost been a surprise, and they worked so well together.
She reached into the magic of the wind with only a moment of focus and an invisible blade of air cast out with a tiny susur of hidden motion and the soldier's head neatly came away from his body sliding around his reinforced gorget like, well, wind. The battle was over in moments, four sharpshooters and a Junctioned fighter. Even at five to one odds it was a slaughter.
Surprise and shock took the convoy without issue. The supplies bound for the forward outpost in East Galbadia would never make it. She wiped off her blade. A long, straight, single edged sword. She wiped off the blood from her jacket on the cloth of one of the fallen troopers. It was still jarring to see how mixed the equipment was these days. A few heavy troopers in full combat armor, some even with non-standard reinforcements. Still preferring ranged weapons like assault rifles and sub machine guns over melee tools. Probably the best decision they'd come to. Guns had one big advantage over powered linear frames and that was in the ability to focus on a single target without interfering with each other. She pulled down her face covering picking at the hole in the material. Fast and strong she was, but evasion was a learned skill and being fast enough to dodge a bullet was no guarantee of seeing it fast enough. Another close call in a long line of close calls.
The commandos slipped amongst the bodies securing weapons, ammunition and intact armor, stripping the convoy of anything they could fit in the trucks. She merely climbed into one of the trucks and waited. This was just work. The group she was working for called themselves the Red Geezard Battalion. Former Galbadian army irregulars, a good number of Galbadia Garden cadets and grads working together. They preached about reuniting Galbadia but in practice they mostly were especially effective bandits. Equal opportunity highwaymen. They attacked both east and west troops. She'd never been to their headquarters but she'd been through a few safe houses, as long as she made Gil she gave it little thought. She made a fairly reasonable share of the bounty of each action she was involved in. Today they were pushing into East territory, rumors of a renewed offensive were echoing. There was word that the West had SeeD, probably non-garden SeeD, but even Bad SeeD was SeeD. She was as much one of them by her own reckoning. When the trucks got moving the short range radio crackled and buzzed but she caught the word Sawton. Their destination, a pretty important town to the Eastern Galbadians.
She settled in cradling her arm and her sheathed sword. Digging through her tactical webbing she pulled out a meal bar and chewed quietly while perusing a small printed letter, it had been waiting for her. She read it silently with a small smile on her face. Raijin had his own boat, he'd grown a beard. He looked so little like his old self, the serious tough guy cast to him had faded to an amiable face, lined by exposure and sun. Already dark skinned he was even darker now with a truly massive fish on his line standing pointing at the camera. His letter was long, rambling, and completely syntactically and grammatically fraught. However it was charming, pulling her knees up to her chest, her one eye vicariously experiencing the small trials and minor tribulations of the sea and sun on Fisherman's Horizon; through the rambling stories of the man who was like her brother.
"Changes." she muttered with bitter irony. Three long years fighting other people's fights, She had a dark feeling though. Like as bad as things were, they were about to get a lot worse.
A/N: This is the result of approximately 12 hours of chain smoking over a few long nights, like tonight, of On Call work. Finished up on a cold, miserable, rainy mess where I got up way too early to go too far from home to make too little money while the world ends (04/29/20). Decided to come back to this because I'm mentally stonewalled on HB,CS,BT and have been for way too long after way too many rewrites. I can't even look at the doc right now without getting unreasonably angry and sad. So here, the infinite mess of starting a new project while trying to get another one done. Written in part in a truck in the middle of nowhere midwestern US. Turns out I can only write when I'm miserable. Personal revelations while soaked to the bone with refrigerant burns on my fingers and stamped metal cuts burning with a diluted bleach-based anti-bacterial hand wash are the best ones I suppose.
The long imagined rewrite begins. Remembering only the skeleton of the plot and bringing a decade of improvement as a storyteller and writer to bear on it. Hope it works out. Next chapter guaranteed more violent. The plot will be off to the races in a big way. What better way to start a major subplot than with its subjects literally at each other's throats? I hope the 10 of you likely to see this enjoy it.
P.S.:Don't get bleach in your wounds kids. It's unpleasant (and that's underselling it).