Author's note~ I'm leaving University tomorrow for the Christmas Hols... (I get a whole month off) My dad wouldn't come and pick me up so I have to leave my computer behind :-( I probably won't be posting up any fics over the month that I don't have to be here... so I'm finishing this one off very quickly, it's not how I would have liked to finish it but you can't help that ^_^ So... imagine that Marielle has been at Balamb for several weeks and she and Rinoa have been training together.
Rinoa reached deep inside, the spells rushed to meet her touch as she breathed them in. Her skin began to tingle as she tried to combine them, as the threads of the spells began to get more combined and complex they became slippery, she couldn't grasp them. As the spells lost cohesion she was glad it was shell that cast itself first, it protected her from the small explosion that got triggered when the slow and float spells met each other. The shriek of frustration that rose in her throat came unbidden, it wasn't the first time that day she had ended up floating upside down in midair. It was just unfortunate that it was Zell who had heard her and came to see if she was okay. A small smile touched his lips as he cast dispel on her. His first rush of laughter came as her head slammed down on the wooden floor. She stood up and held the rapidly rising bump. 'It's not funny.'
'What were you doing?' He asked, the smile on his face growing wider.
'Bit complex... it was a spell I felt cast a few days back, it combined together shell, float and slow... It did something and I just can't figure out what it is supposed to do.' He nodded and frowned.
'Marielle?' Rinoa shrugged. 'I mean you said she has a lot of power... is it possible she could do something you can't?' Rinoa frowned, why didn't she like the sound of that?
'She tells me she's been a soceress for a little under a year, it's unlikely, but spell combining might be her talent...' She frowned, her own talents had taken a little longer to manifest and they had been along the line of Edea's, because she was the principal person who had bequeathed her power to Rinoa, nobody had ever discovered Adel's talents... except for being able to use the forbidden magics freely. That was one aspect Rinoa would have liked to have gained, unfortunately it wasn't to be.
'She's a very complex little girl... if only she would snap out of that childish melancholy...' Rinoa interrupted him.
'Just because she is a child, doesn't mean that the things she feels are childish... I personally think she is doing remarkably well for someone who has just lost her father.' Zell grimaced.
'Okay, consider me suitably told off.' He told her. 'Speaking of Marielle, didn't you have to talk to her today?' Rinoa glanced at the time, winced and ran out the door.
*
Marielle stared at herself in the mirror, she got paler everyday, almost as if she were disappearing. She was almost a ghost of her former self. She remembered the days when she had been a robust child with dark colouring to her face. It seemed as though the world wanted her to be different, she was being drained of colour so that the world could paint her the way it wanted. The people in the corridor walked past her and stared, if they had known her they would have run, they would have screamed. She smiled and wondered just how many would lose control of their bowels. She looked up at the knock, she knew it was Rinoa, the ability was strong in her, for a sorceress that only had the combined power of two others. They had quickly become friends. The woman came in through the door and smiled, then she glanced at the book open on her bed. 'You reading about Ultimecia?' She asked and Marielle nodded. 'It's not wise to think too much on her... not for a sorceress anyway...'
'It's not something I can help I'm afraid.' Marielle told her with a slight sigh.
'The woman was evil Marielle, don't judge all soceresses by that woman.' She smiled and Marielle thought it was supposed to be reassuring.
'But what made her... will make her I suppose... as she's from the future. What made her evil? What events in her life will bring about this desire to destroy all mankind?' Rinoa raised her eyebrows at the girl and a thoughtful look passed across her face.
'I never thought about it that way I guess, all I could do was try and save time. Save the people I loved. Perhaps she never found any kindness in her life?'
'No, there is kindness everywhere... Do you believe in destiny?' Marielle's stark white eyes turned to her.
'No, I can't, we make our own future.' Rinoa stated clearly.
'But... Surely there are some things that are just meant to be... like Ultimecia. Some time in the future a girl has to be born and a certain set of circumstances befall her, she'll begin to hate the world... she will be Ultimecia. It's is predetermined because it is part of this times history.' Rinoa couldn't say anything. She was right of course. 'You can't do anything to change that girls future because it's part of your past. She has no choice but to become what you made her.' Rinoa frowned.
'Time is a linear feature. I can't affect the future. I don't know where I would be if we didn't face Ultimecia.' She shrugged. 'It's hard to think of that woman as a human being.'
'Time isn't linear, it's just a jumble of events with a continuum that keeps it from all bumping together. How else could Ultimecia reach back to the past... or Ellone for that matter.' She looked at Rinoa pointedly and then flushed, it was the only touch of colour she had ever seen on the girls face. 'I sort of have a time sense, it's part of my power.' Rinoa smiled and nodded, finally understanding.
'I see. You can't mess about with the past you know?' She said to her.
'I know that... It's all about determinism and causality.' She shook her head. 'Come on, I want to practice.' Rinoa grinned and led her out into the courtyard.
*
Every time the two women practiced a large crowd gathered, for the most part nothing could be seen, all that they knew was the two women were fending off each others defenses. But occasionally colours and bright flashing lights surrounded them in a shower of rain, or lightening crackled off them in sparkling patterns. When their training really began to hot up it was fairly difficult to be around them because of the bright white lights, the rouge lightening bolts, the intense heat and the freezing cold. Becuase of this Squall had restricted everyone apart from his friends from actually watching. The whole group had turned out for this one, it was normally only Irvine and Quistis that bothered turning up, but they were training in the quad and Selphie wanted to make sure her garden festival decorations weren't damaged and Zell had decided to eat his lunch there. Squall still didn't trust Marielle... there was something strange about her.
Marielle was busy fending off Rinoa's attacks and she was getting frustrated, because everytime she threw something at the woman it was turned back at her double force. It wasn't supposed to be this way, she was so much stronger than this woman. Marielle stopped and straightened, she began to lift her hand very slowly, her white eyes began to throb. Something wasn't right, they all felt it, they began to stand up in unease. Rinoa shook her head and started to back away. The bright light that began to gather at the teenagers fingertips lit her colourless face up like a becon, she was no longer controlling what she was doing, merely acting on instinct. She cast glowing eyes heavenward and let her hand fall to point at Rinoa. They all recognised the ultima spell when they saw it. As the bright pale green bubble began to rise up to envelop Rinoa, the rushing sound silenced their ears. Nobody could hear Squall shouting for Rinoa. Nobody except for Marielle, who stood outside the spell. She could feel herself doing this unspeakable thing, this woman was her friend, as much a friend as she had in her whole life. A woman that would eventually be part of the group that would cause her death. The tears that began to well up in her eyes drowned out the blurred out the image of the screaming woman.
She let the spell drop... and tried to blink away the after image the light had left her with. She barely felt it when Squall's gunblade slid into her hip. Her head smashed on the concrete tiles that covered the quad and she groaned. She looked up and met Squall's eyes, he was being held away from her by Quistis, he was screaming something, but Marielle couldn't understand what he was saying, it was possible he was yelling something incoherently, but she doubted it. She cast mighty barrier around herself and tried to crawl away from him, the blood slid slicky down her thigh. Her breath caught in her throat as she tried to move, she had never known real physical pain before and it frightened her. It was Rinoa's voice that cut through the silent din in her head.
'Stop!' She cried out, Zell was helping her up, ultima never left a mark, it hurt you from the inside. Squall turned to look at her without words he closed the gap between them in three strides, crushing her against his chest. She accepted it for a moment and them made him let her go. The steps she took towards Marielle were uncertain. She knelt down next to the weeping child, because in spite of this, she was a child. 'I thought there was something familiar about you.' She told her.
'I'm sorry, I never meant to.' She whispered. 'I didn't come back to hurt you.' Rinoa shook her head and turned to look at Squall and the others.
'She's Ultimecia.' Was all she said to them, their reactions were a mixture of fear and surprise and anger.
'No.' She wailed. 'I'm not her yet. I don't want to be.' She pushed herself to her knees and buried her face into her hands.
'I don't understand.' Zell said. 'She's a kid.'
'I don't get why she came here. She should have known what would happen if she came here.' Irvine said taking a sight down the barrel of his gun. Rinoa stood between them. 'You can't be serious Rinoa, she's a killer.'
'She's a child, she hasn't done any of the things she will do that makes us kill her.' Rinoa knelt next to the girl. 'I'm sure you had a reason for coming to us.'
'I did... I wanted your help.' Selphie snorted in disbelief. 'I just wanted to know... how I come to be the way I will be, I thought that coming here might let me know.' She shook her head. 'It was after the seventh time they tried to kill me, I couldn't deal with it, all the people in the future have done is tried to foist on me all this pain and suffering.' She sighed. 'I don't know how to explain. My mother was a sorceress, one of your line actually Rinoa, she died last year. I got her power, it's been that way for generations. From that point all I have done is run and hide. I know what I'm going to become, but... I can't just let them kill me. I thought you might know... I thought you might know what makes me evil.' Squall frowned.
'How are we supposed to know... we met you for an hour? Why did you come to the people who kill you? If you are so concerned about everyone else... why don't you kill yourself?' He titled his head at her.
'How would you feel if I did? I'm only fourteen, I don't want to die... I've done nothing wrong... Not yet. You can't know what it's like for me... I know I'm going to grow up into this twisted monster... And I'm going to foist on pain and anger and hate to everyone I meet for years to come. The worst part of that is not that I'm going to offer an ugly death to every soul that comes into contact with mine. The worst part is that I'm going to do it with a smile on my lips and a song in my heart. Look at me, even now I'm changing into what I'm due to become. I have the power of twelve different sorceress inside me now, when I go against you it will be more like twenty. I'm so frightened of you, how would you feel if you spent time with your murderers? Why did this happen to me? Why?' She screamed out in pain and rage and hurt that was way beyond her ability to control, greif poured out of her in a torrent. Rinoa reached her hand out and laid it on her shoulder until the girl subsided into tears.
'My mother once told me that we are the sum of all our yesterdays and the hope of all our tomorrows. You don't know how your tomorrow is going to deal you. I forgive you for what you are going to do.'
'I've tried so hard to be good.' The youngster whimpered.
'When you stop trying that's when you become Ultimecia. But right now... you are Marielle. Try and hold on to her for as long as you can.' Marielle nodded.
'I guess I should go back.' She said to them.
'Ya think?' Zell asked ironically.
'I'm sorry, you know, I trained to be a SeeD in the future. It's how they realised who I was going to become. They threw me out and began the hunt. I'm sorry. It's hard.' She sighed.
'You guys seriously aren't going to let her go are you?' Irvine asked.
'I won't stop her, we've already beaten her Irvine. She's known that since she found out who she was. All she did was go down fighting. She's already done all the damage she can, nothing we do will hurt her. She can't die... I believe in destiny Marielle, at least I do now, I believe in yours.' Rinoa looked at her sympathetically.
'You should believe in yours as well.... Your life is part of my history... But don't let fate push you around.' She cast a cure on herself and the wound Squall inflicted was healed slightly. She inclined her head at Rinoa. 'One of us had to fall... I'm glad it was me.' She shook her head and began to draw in three spells. Rinoa smiled, float, shell and haste, presumably the last combination brought her back to her past, this would speed her to the future. The float spell triggered first, then shell and haste combined to create a vortex. Marielle was sucked through it with an unlikely speed. When it winked out Rinoa sighed....
'So that's how she did it.'
*
Marielle spilled out the other end and the float spell kept her from breaking her neck, it had taken her weeks to figure out that half of the spell. She looked upwards in a daze, when she focused she began to scream. Two Odine bracelets were forced around her wrists and she squealed higher as her power was cut off from her. 'Sorceress Ultimecia, for atrocities you will commit SeeD will hold you in it's maximum security prison, where you will undergo a series of tests to minimise your power. Welcome home.' The SeeD sneered at her and she began to sob. How did they know? How did they know? She repeated like a mantra as she was carried off as a prisoner to a place where they tested her to her limits, where they broke her. It was alone in her cell in the dark of night when her heart began to turn black, where her thoughts turned bloody. She struggled with the Odine braclets, knowing that one day she would be free, she may be killed but nobody would ever cage her again. SeeD created the very thing it was fighting against. Every night Marielle asked herself how they knew that she would be arriving back in the site of old Balamb garden. It was years before she figured it out, even more years before she got the evidence in her hands, a precious keepsake from the age of heroes.
*
Rinoa sat down at her desk and opened her diary.
Author's note~ Argh... if I had, had the time it would have been better than this, I had the twists and clues all mapped out... Oh well, that what comes from not having enough time. C'est la vie. Sorry it was so rushed, hope you liked the idea anyway ^_^
See you guys after new year sometime. Thanks for reading Merry Christmas and a happy new year... or at least a better one.
Marilyn/ Meekychunky