Chapter 7: The Fall
The city of Deling is in pandemonium, and things are going smoothly so far.
It was unexpected that the Sorceress could summon a shield quickly enough to repel sniper fire, but the plan has already accounted for that possibility. Squall is going in to take out the Sorceress personally, and Irvine will be his support. Once Selphie, Zell, and I join them we should be more than enough to take her on.
Hopefully.
There is an uncomfortable crawling sensation in my mind that we may have underestimated the Sorceress's power, but this is not the time for action, not doubt. Our feet pound frantically down the seemingly endless metal steps of the gatehouse tower.
We reach the end of the stairs and open the door to emerge into the city square, into the thick of the fleeing, gawking, pointing, terrified crowd that mills about the closed gates. But there it is looming above them, the Sorceress's parade float. I can just make out Squall and Rinoa closing in on the Sorceress while Irvine covers them both with his shotgun from further back.
As I make my way I watch the shadowy form of the Sorceress rise, a swirl of icy blue enveloping her form. The air grows colder as we get closer. I unfurl my whip as I run, eyes on the float above as I slip through the jostling crowd.
Irvine aims and fires, but I know even before the shot is complete that it will fail. He is too hurried and shaken, and the shot goes wide. Squall leaps aside, quick and lithe as a cat, simultaneously giving himself room to sidestep the Sorceress's intended line of fire and drawing attention away from Irvine and Rinoa with the sudden movement. In that split second I read his moves, approve the shrewdness of it, and become sick with fear for him.
Then the air explodes with magic, and the speed and ferocity of it is more than either Squall or I could have anticipated or abated. The air is suddenly sharp and deathly cold, and a streak of blue flies at Squall, impaling him so that he staggers back, hanging midair for an impossible eternity-
The breath rushes out of me and I stop dead in my tracks (dead) while Squall tumbles back and Zell and Selphie run past me, their shouts blurring into the incomprehensible roar in my ears.
"Squall!!"
Rinoa's terrified shriek snaps me out of it and into action. I force my feet to move again, rushing past both Selphie and Zell the last few steps to the base of the float. Squall's weight slams heavily against me as I catch him from his fall, but I have prepared for that and brace myself against him. I am careful to avoid the shaft of ice lodged in his chest as I lower him to the ground, but it is already dissolving. I can almost admire the vicious cleverness of the attack, leaving an open wound with no obstruction to bleeding or infection.
"Is he-" Zell comes to a skidding stop to crouch next to us while Selphie keeps on the alert on our other side, nunchuks at the ready.
"Elixir," I snap out as I ready a Full-Life spell and press my hands over Squall's wound. His blood rushes out over my hands, warm and sudden. He needs to stay alive until he sees a doctor, and there's no choice but to pump him full of cure spells and potions even if they will tax him physically. Zell takes out and opens the clear bottle in one motion, tips the whole thing into Squall's mouth and massages his throat and chin to make him swallow. At the same time the blue blaze of Full-life surrounds him, jolting his limp body.
"Seize them." The low but darkly melodious sound is clear over the din, the Sorceress's irresistible and maddeningly familiar voice. I look up just in time to see Rinoa being dragged away from the railing of the float above us. Shots ring out on the float, announcing Irvine's resistance, but I am readying another Full-life and helpless to go to their aid unless I abandon Squall. Zell makes Squall drink another full bottle of potion and I can see he is stabilizing.
"We have company," Selphie sings out with an edge to her voice. Galbadian soldiers are detaching from the shadows of buildings to carry out the Sorceress's order, guns and sabres glinting in the dim light.
"Selphie, guard. Zell, go." As Selphie steps closer to Squall and me, Zell springs up with a cry and launches himself at the nearest soldier, dispatching him in seconds in a flurry of blows. Then he turns to the next.
A Galbadian shot ricochets off a glowing blue shield when Selphie tosses a Protect Stone into the air, and sabre-wielding soldiers who get too close quickly fall to her nunchuks. I concentrate on the final Full-life, about as much as Squall can bear before his heart overloads and the last needed to stabilize his condition. My breaths come in quick gasps from casting exhaustion and my wrists ache from the beginning of mag poisoning, but I can do this.
There are footsteps above us, up on the float, heavy and deliberate. Selphie will take care of it and I need to concentrate for the spell, but something about it bothers me. My fingers begin to glow blue as the magic comes, along with a pounding heartbeat and a splitting headache. I close my eyes and try to control my pacing. Fail this casting, and I won't have the energy for another.
There is a soft thud in front of me and a whoosh of displaced air. I open my eyes, and trapped by the magic building up inside me, I can do nothing but watch as a tall blond man in a silver-grey coat straightens from his landing crouch. His eyes pass over Squall and me, dismissing us, before turning to Selphie as she knocks an approaching G-Soldier out cold and whirls around to face the disturbance.
"Squad B captain?" Her eyes widen, though her stance is instinctively defensive.
"Messenger Girl." Seifer brings up Hyperion in an underhand strike. Selphie leaps nimbly back, but Hyperion's return strike hits her hard on the side of the head and his foot slams into her midsection before she can recover. I grit my teeth as wavering concentration threatens a magical countercurrent, something I do not want with a spell as powerful as Full-life. Selphie crumples to the ground, and the soldiers rush in to bind her.
"What the- Selphie! Seifer?!" Zell must have made a move in our direction, because Seifer steps deliberately and swiftly behind me. The tip of a gunblade is suddenly cold and heavy against the back of my head.
"Wouldn't do that if I were you, Chicken Wuss." I dare not move, or even follow the blade with my gaze. My wrists burn with unspent magic that could flow in the wrong direction and quite possibly kill me at any moment. Squall is losing color again, his breathing growing shallow.
"Continue with what you were doing, Instructor." Hyperion taps gently against the nape of my neck, a taunt and warning. "And don't move, Dincht, 'less you want to see Puberty Boy here wearing the Instructor's brains."
Zell growls audibly while I close my eyes, sorting out the flow of magic. Outnumbered and then taken out one by one, we have indubitably lost this round. We have not died yet, though, and there is still a chance to turn this around. It is a relief to finally muster the concentration to release the magic into Squall, lifting most of the strain on my wrists and head.
"Good girl." I can hear Zell being restrained behind me as well, and it sounds like he is giving and getting bruises in the process. I check briefly on Squall--easier breathing, considerably slower rate of bleeding--and twist around to look at Seifer up the length of Hyperion, his figure looming over me in the light-studded city night.
"Squall needs to be seen by a doctor, with particular attention to possible stress to his heart from emergency infusion of medical magic and potions, aside from the obvious injury. I also request that you contact Garden about our arrest and arrange for the terms of our release."
"You don't give the orders here, Trepe." He lowers Hyperion and takes a step back, his eyes never leaving me, Hyperion at the ready for the smallest sign of resistance. He might as well not have bothered--I am exhausted and alone, in no shape to fight back at the moment. "Take her in with the others. Him, too. I want him alive." They bring in a stretcher for Squall, at least. Thank goodness for small mercies.
"Seifer." My voice fights its way out of me as Squall is taken away and Galbadian soldiers cuff my hands behind my back. The cold burns my aching wrists as they force me to stand. "What happened?"
Standing in that cocky pose with Hyperion tapping at his shoulder, Seifer cuts an almost familiar figure. Even the cuts and bloodstains where Squall must have gotten him don't seem to bother him. Stray fireworks go off in the sky above him, stirring an almost-memory before it is gone. Seifer meets my gaze with a sneer.
"I found my dream, Quistis." His eyes are aglow with some kind of inner fire, a fanaticism I have never seen in him before. He has always been a sneering bully, but never this particular kind of sneering bully. And that frightens me, even after everything that happened this evening. "Take her away," he tells the soldiers.
The thoughts do not stop as I am marched to the waiting military vehicle and stuffed inside. They never saw anyone take so much questioning without cracking... Steadfastly denied... No Garden was implicated... You'd rather see it in ruins?
Come with me to a place of no return. Red smile and mocking dead eyes.
What happened to him? What happened during his imprisonment that turned him against Garden, that brought this subtle and profound change over him? I don't know what to think or believe anymore. I know it makes me heartsick to imagine what Seifer might have suffered while he was believed dead, beyond all help and trapped in the consequence of his mad valor for a home he had never seemed to care about.
As the city falls away behind us I manage a small, bitter smile as I allow myself the coldest of comforts.
Look on the bright side, at least he isn't dead.
I was reminded by a review that I still had this project going. Thank you all so much for your reviews and kind words. All feedback is much appreciated.
An eponymous chapter sounds like it should be the last, but actually I have a few more to go. Two more chapters and an epilogue, if the plan holds. Please let it hold this time. (Crosses fingers) I tried to hold off on naming a non-final chapter the same as the story, but I couldn't resist the temptation of interposing Squall's physical fall with Seifer's metaphorical fall.
I've always kind of wondered how Edea, Seifer, and the Galbadians managed to capture the SeeDs after the failed assassination attempt when the SeeDs seemed so tough in-game. The easy answer is that it was for the sake of their getting to D-District Prison, but I wanted to have the process make sense, too. Hopefully this one does. It's arguable, in this version of events, that it was Quistis' determination to save Squall's life that led to the party's wholesale capture. If she'd let Squall be damned and gotten all the combatants together, they might have at least had a fighting chance. Whether she would have done the same, or at least done the same so fervently, for anyone else is the million-dollar question. The beauty of first person point of view is that it makes these questionable decisions come across as so right.
Mag poisoning I think was lifted straight from altol's Fire and Ice. Other descriptions of the drawbacks of magic and potions were largely inspired by the ideas and descriptions in F&I. I like the idea of convenient magic demanding a cost, and of characters having to weigh between different consequences, i.e. immediate death and possible heart damage.