Broken Mirror
act one - shatter
IV - elements (of waking dreams)
Make a whole new religion,
A fallen star that you cannot live without.
And I'll feed your obsessions
There'll be nothing but this thing that you'll
never doubt.
You're not the only one.
-- Supervixen, Garbage
***
Drip.
The water dripped.
The water dripped from the eaves of a roof that was nameless. Buildings in the city are never named, unless their builder is rich enough to merit the privilege of forcing others to use one. Usually his own. Isn't that how it always is? Men with power or wealth or charm or the deadly trinity united burned so brightly they needed a way not to die. Any way - to preserve the name that became their lives, and mark them apart from the rest of the pack for eternity. A selfish immortality bred of fame. Different, but no happier than any anonymous structure of brick or stone to dot the landscape of your generic metropolis. Some villages, granted, were different - but they were small enough for even the tiniest shanty to be seen on the landscape. A moot point in any case, because the world of field and toil were far away from the simplicity of concrete.
And the water dripped, regardless.
It wouldn't have met his notice if he hadn't been in the throes of anonymity. The man, you see, was used to buildings with names and leaders with power and the grand dance of war and revolution. Caught, perhaps, in a the throes of a waltz so seamless that motion looked to be silence, and normality was naught but constant struggle. He didn't like laying prone there with the fall of water as vicarious escape from immobility. He wasn't used to alleyways in the dark of dawn, fresh with the smell of dewdrops and coal and cooling blood.
Blood. Ah yes, the blood. The water dripped into the blood. Made waves in a pool of scarlet, effect invisible but for the tiny ripples and a crash as loud as thunder. Such noise was audible only because the alley was quiet - too quiet for a Monday morn by far. The man knew the reasoning behind that, though.
He couldn't say the same for why he was alive. The pool of blood an rainwater bathed his hair as the shadows of the day appeared. The man - nay, the mercenary - had been prepared to die in the moment of his own fall. Just like the water, fated to plummet from the sky through no fault of it's own, that it's vital essence might be submerged in whatever undoubtedly greater state was to follow. Squall had been prepared to die since the day he was born.
Or maybe just for everyone to leave him. Was that the same thing?
The water dripped. It annoyed him. Everything hurt too much to move, and far more than he should be caring about. The job was done, his strings were cut, and the puppet lay discarded in an alley simply waiting for the motion to begin again.
It wasn't supposed to be this way. The water was supposed to met a cool, clean, and pleasing stone. This man should have died - indeed, he had died - in a place with a name. And when he fell there should have been a woman there to catch him, and spare the drop of water it's sojourn in metallic red fluid.
Breathing was becoming less labored. A miracle recovery - and he was owed one by some deity of a guardian. Lions take care of their own that way. Even grieving ones.
Could he move now?
No... there was pain.
Were his companions alright?
... irrelevant?
It was that morning, of all mornings, that a stream of water droplets bore witness to the denial of one Squall Leonhart. The ruthlessly independent loner who - without a goal, without a quest, without motion, without someone to back him - had no idea what to do on his own. Said lion was without his pride in the hinterlands, and his job was done. He'd never had to do anything more than the job. It wasn't part of the contract. Cura was easy, bones mended after the half-mystery of resurrection, but the mercenary still felt... off.
Squall decided that he must be injured. That was all.
He couldn't have known that a raven-haired someone was supposed to have been there to wish him awake from beside a hospital mattress. Someone to tell everything was alright, Balamb still stood, and his companions awaited him. Whisper to the man who his companions were, that they awaited, and that their quest had just begin. Make sure that he knew that this was both the job and something greater, that the mission wasn't over and all would be well if he just fought. Regardless of whether he wanted to hear it the message would have come through in snippets of worry and stilted conversation.
But he was alone. There was no way for the lion to know what his pride wished of him or if he still actually had one.
And so he lay there, motionless.
Eventually the water stopped dripping.
The mercenary, awkwardly rising then, started walking.
Squall didn't know where he was going, but it was better than staying still.
Even if one place was as empty and grey as another.
***
Robert Carroway was fixed in place - almost a statue of any robust and undaunted military commander. Except he wasn't quite so robust and undaunted at the moment. Understandable, given the situation.
Rinoa. It was always Rinoa, wasn't it? Always the one to be left behind.
Carroway was a patriotic sort of man. Rare, really - the fabled great commander without any agenda beyond the security of the nation. Almost a fairytale figment, embodied in one stolid man with a starched frame and broken heart.
The sunrise was empty that morning. It always was. Yet it hadn't been so hollow forever. The general could remember almost everything about her, and she had loved watching the sun come up. It was an act she hadn't had much time for as a lounge singer. Late nights with lonely men mending alcohol-soaked souls. And Carroway had loved her all the more for it - loved her since he could rescue her from that.
She'd sang this song there, the one time he had gone to see her. A very pretty something that the general knew was never meant for him. Hyne knew he hadn't cared that much, thinking there would always be time. Maybe it was selfish, or rash, or a mistake - and most likely all three - but she had seemed happy, as he proposed under the rising sun. That might only have been him, though. You could never tell with Julia. She was so much more used to subtleties than he was, able to read in him what he had never been able to fathom in chocolate eyes...
He'd been on a mission when she died. Consumption, the doctors said. Julia had.. asked for someone, on her deathbed, and Carroway knew better than to ask his name.
And then it was just him and Rinoa. It always came back to Rinoa. She'd had a hard time, with mummy dead and daddy gone. But he'd had a mission, a job to do. There were so many people depending on him - there would be more time for her, wouldn't there? At some point? Robert Carroway had always believed that.
Stone was supposed to have all the time in the world. It tended to forget the quicksilver nature of elements surrounding it. And though there probably was an actual stature of the man somewhere or other, General Carroway put nature to shame.
The light of dawn was refracted in a cup of scotch the general clutched in callused, battle-worn hands. He didn't often indulge, given it's inappropriateness during duty hours. It was so much more indicative of the true soldier or leader to bottle feelings up instead of drown them. But honestly, at the moment, he didn't give a damn.
Wanting to be loved hadn't done it for him. Neither had wanting, quite desperately, to be a good father. Both had abandoned him, and the statue still stood.
Or was that because he abandoned them? Shouldn't he have been looking for Rinoa last night, instead of concerning himself with a nation of strangers? It wasn't as if he hadn't paid his dues - Esthar bastards. It wasn't as if he hadn't sacrificed Julia and Rinoa along with his heart for the mythical greater good. And world be damned, he was tired of it - the distaste in his daughter's eyes, and the emptiness in Julia's gaze. He hadn't wanted things to be this way, he hadn't wanted...
This right thing always seemed to put plush carpets under his feet, and cheering crowds in the alleys. But it was never right for anything he cared about, and throwing himself into his work at death or flight never helped on mornings like this.
When he'd locked her up, she'd been crying. She looked so much like Julia - always had. Not like him, with bony, craggy features and a profile more suited to the trenches than fashion magazines. If he had not been a man of stone, they might have loved him, though.
"Lieutenant Xen?"
The statue stood, composed, to form a pooling shadow against the streaming sunlight.
"Sir?"
"Tell Almasy I'll make the trade."
And in glow of morning, solid stone finally broke.
"But sir, I hardly think that...."
"I have plans, don't worry. Just do it."
"Yes sir."
***
The exchange, so significant historically, ended up occurring three blocks of the right of where historians would peg it. A sad fate for the structures that bore witness to the event to endure, for surely they had earned their place on the tourist maps. It wasn't often that ordinary residential streets had a shot at fame.
On the day of the exchange, said byway was unknowingly paying dues to forever remain unacknowledged. Snipers lined either side, prepared to kill or die for a scrap of an armband.
Soldiers are like that.
"He's fucking late."
Seifer Almasy was not a soldier. He killed for much better reasons.
"I- I 'm sure that there was simply a miscommunication sir. If you'll just..."
"Excuse me?" the previously speaking technician, looking up, found that Seifer was grinning. Over the past twenty-four hours he had learned that this was never a good sign.
"I.. apologize, sir. I was out of line."
"Good. You got through to the Garden?" the blonde questioned rather aggressively. His technician had also discovered that during a distinctly hellish evening, and pointedly decided to ignore it. There was only so much metal turmoil one could derive from such an overwhelming personality. If a guy thought about it to much, he got the feeling that he would be consumed by whatever grand vision smoldered in those green eyes.
Burned up. Burned out.
"Yes, sir."
Reduced to ash and scattered to the wind.
***
Fujin Asher woke up wearing her steel-toed boots.
Not really all that uncomfortable, actually. She'd broken the things in ages ago, and it wasn't like the albino hadn't spent quite a few nights in them. One always had to be ready, when one was a soldier, and fighting without her steel-toed boots would bloody well be like cutting out her right eye. Again. And who the hell know what would be expected of here here? The soldier hadn't even meant to go to sleep - though the necessity for rest in the face of the day she'd had was obvious. Not getting enough sleep was just an invitation to terminal mistakes, and she damn well knew it.
But she was.... waiting. Not like she cared. But for instructions.
Said boots, worn but adequately polished, were slowly stretched as the commander yawned and realized that it hadn't just been her footwear that had stayed. Fujin was decked out in full combat gear with the addition of a long black coat that probably owed more of it's existence to Headmaster Martine's mid-life crisis.
Well, former Headmaster Martine. Right. She'd killed him. Dammit, morning was annoying that way. Grogginess was something that the soldier strongly disapproved of. People did stupid things when they were still blinded by sleep. Like getting up out of the chair they'd managed to contort themselves to sleep in, and wobbling unsteadily within the folds of an unfamiliar badge of command.
But if she'd had a bout of uninterrupted sleep...
Seifer hadn't called. Fuck. She'd waited half the night, and he hadn't bloody called. That the hell had happened to him? Wasn't he supposed to be fine in Delling Palace? Hadn't he said that if he couldn't make it back to take command he'd at least fill her in?
Bah. Mornings were not Fujin's forte. Gentle breezes, pretty sunrise, the awakening of the world - screw that. She always seemed to wake up to find things ten times worse than they had been the night before.
So Seifer hadn't called.
Not that she was worried, of course. Seifer could handle himself. Really, he could.
Really.
And at least that goddamned sorceress was dead. She'd learned that much from one of her people hours ago.
But what the hell did he expect her to do with an entire Garden? Seifer was supposed to have returned and relieved her of command eight hours ago.
Body stiffening into working form once more, Fujin rubbed her eye and made for the light switch she half dreaded turning on. On the one hand, it meant that she'd have some relief from sitting around and thinking useless worried thoughts. On the other....
Backlights were joined by the real thing, spartan opulence of the chamber once more visible. And three point five seconds later, the door opened.
"Heya, Fuuj! It's actually pretty nice out, ya know? Hope ya got a good sleep and stuff, " beaming brighter than the overhead light fixtures was a freshly scrubbed Raijin, obviously out of bed hours ago. He was carrying, as always, a tray of assorted healthy breakfast treats. Leave it to Raijin to worry about eating right at a time like this. The woman he addressed, in the mean time, was nothing if not bleary-eyed with mussed hair, clogged pores, and teeth that felt like they hadn't been brushed in a week.
"..."
Raijin was a morning person. Fujin was not.
"Have some tea, ya know! They've got some great stuff here, " the fighter's visage grew a bit clouded as he handed her a steaming mug. He'd been trying to wean her off coffee for months - yammering on about antioxidants or some other stupid bodybuilder thing - with limited success. " Any word from Seif? He call ya last night while I put the kiddies ta..."
The albino didn't bother to dignify that with a RAGE.
".... no?" inch by inch, the bronze face fell.
"No," the commander muttered, taking a swig of now liberally sugared beverage. Damn, she wanted some coffee.
"I... I don't wanna sound mean, 'cause he's our friend, ya know? And we're a posse. Posses aren't supposed to stick together, right? But, ya know, just lately, ya know, with everything that's been..."
He'd always babbled when he was nervous, ever since they were little kids. Hell, he babbled even when he was fine. Mostly because they'd been all each other had, abandoned in the homeless shelters. Funny, that two scared kids who became family at random were in all likelihood descended from opposing sides of the same orphan factory.
"I know, " the commander softly interrupted.
And as much as she hated it, the albino needed him still. Fujin wished that she could have needed Seifer, but he wasn't the one who had brought the porcelain between her lips to calm nerves with chamomile. Seifer was blind and unreliable, and Fujin couldn't afford to ignore it any more. While Raijin...
Was her best friend, whether she liked it or not. If soldiers had best friends. She was pretty sure they didn't.
" Don't worry. I'll make things - we'll make things right with him. We'll get him back. The real Seifer wouldn't have done any of this," the soldier ventured a tiny, unaccustomed smile.
"Yeah, you're right. And with that Sorceress gone he might be better, ya know!" Raijin smiled too, though his was far more easy and uncomplicated. Unconflicted. Whatever.
"WORK, " Fujin nodded, setting down the teacup which managed to look more delicate dwarfed in his hands than hers. She refused to get his hopes up - and hers never had been to begin with.
Damn, she wished that Raijin could be right. But an orphan could never count on fate when the world was so large, wind dwarfed to insignificance by fickle humanity. Fujin had been left behind - discounted - too many times for that.
Now it was time to eliminate any professors who might attempt to take back a position of authority or overly irritate a touchy student body. She'd need to appoint people to positions of command more competent than those Galbadian Disciplinary morons. SeeD candidates were likely - they at least had the training, though inexperience and arrogance would have to yield to discipline. Supplies needed to be worked out and troublemakers had to be chastised and watch rotations to be organized and a group of children surprisingly her age waiting to be convinced that she was their Commander. There were a thousand and one things better to do than worrying about the man she was unsure could ever love her, and work had always been a draught sweeter than weakness.
And so she did them.
***
The unscried destination of Squall Leonhart was not a street unfairly ignored by history, or Delling Square for that matter. Despite his proximity to the latter place and it's adjacent palace, he knew better than to wander out into the open in his injured state. Riots and half-finished coups did not make for the most stable of situations - especially in the eyes of a trained mercenary.
It really was just as well. If Squall hadn't stuck to the back alleys he might have missed the barricades which blocked off half of the city. He also probably would have been captured and summarily executed in ritual combat with a blonde pyrokinetic, but that was besides the point. If the mercenary hadn't seen several squadrons of armed men - sporting some distinctive, improvised, and apparently defining blue armbands - he might not have turned around.
And we all know the difference a second makes, now don't we?
One could say that the man was dazed, and most likely the soldier actually was in clinical shock. Cura doesn't do anything for that, and a person doesn't really think about the subtleties of healing spells when recovering from a near death experience. That, however, was also not the point. Neither was the disconcerting feeling that Irvine must have done something to Rinoa. That particular gnawing of the gut had been folded up and banished away to whatever dusty cupboard Squall shut most feelings of hindrance to the mission in. Betrayal didn't really sting in the numbing shock of morning, and he had never trusted the sniper in any case.
He should have known better. That was unprofessional. He'd be on better guard next time.
Still not the point, but close.
Peering around a corner to the stark glory of an impromptu blockade, Squall realized that wandering about the city fall into the realm of the pointless. Which it most assuredly would. There was no way to find his employer despite the eerily clear streetscape, and his companions were in the inaccessible part of the city. Captured? Maybe. The mercenary's problem?
... maybe.
Squall didn't care about them, of course. Really, he didn't. He cared about himself - the aching in his bones, the job to be done, the empty, meaningless role to play in someone else's useless conflict. Orphans never really had a choice about that, but the lion made a point of not needing any orphans or their leechlike benefactors - mostly for vague reasons that didn't really bear pondering but surely involved the avoidance of hurt. Concern too was locked away. It slept forgotten in a coffin sealed with a dash of unremembered loss.
What, then, was a SeeD clad in shining black leather carrying a rather large gunblade to do? Conspicuousness in possible enemy territory was never a good plan, and his apparel certainly wasn't suited to camouflage.
This problem had never come up before. SeeD had never lost.
SeeD. Orders. That was what the lion needed. Instructions as pertaining to possible countermeasures against the fallen Sorceress's remnants. The directive to kill or bring salvation to those he refused to regard as friends. Verification of a contract signed with what must have been pity or machiavellian skill.
Squall had no job to do. The mission was over. Untouchably blue sky loomed above and he was....
Alone. He should be less uneasy about that. He should be a lot of things. Why wasn't he?
But there was one place he could go to get his orders, collect reinforcements, and get into fighting shape again. Not to mention figuring out what on earth was going on. Completion of the mission demanded a briefing on the next.
Taking care to avoid the less skilled military chaff, the mercenary quietly slipped away from the front lines in a war soon to end.
Obviously, the only way to contact Cid on a secure channel would be through Galbadia Garden. It seemed to be unguarded, hopefully signaling at least a partial SeeD victory in whatever conflict had split the battleground in two. There was no logical way that the under-trained Galbadian Army could take a Garden by siege, even if they did have a less than conventional backer.
***
"Finally," Seifer couldn't help but mutter as a small procession approached their position from the other side of the street. Patience had never been his strong point, though he'd never admit it.
An old man led them - too frail to stand up to Seifer. And, make no mistake, the knight was not going to let his sorceress be used by the deluded dinosaur who was probably responsible for half the orphans in Galbadia.
People like Robert Carroway where what was wrong with the world. Honorless scum.
" A pleasure to see you, General Carroway, " the Knight smirked, surrounded by his bodyguards and with a cloaked, diminutive figure in tow.
Carroway gave all the reaction of a piece of granite, refusing to bend to any sort of charisma. It was just as well that he didn't want to play games. Seifer had a sorceress to protect - and much as he hated to acknowledge it, his one last hope.
"Where's Rinoa?"
Seifer, still smirking, shook his head, " I'm not stupid, old man. Your precious little girl doesn't come home to daddy until that stretcher is being held by my men. Understand? "
"Now you listen..."
The Knight raised his gunblade, abruptly tiring of the facade, " Now, you honorless dog. "
Warily, the general motioned his followers towards the center point twixt sides of the street. The men had deposited a frail looking blonde there, who was soon to be scooped up by Seifer's own troops. He checked the sudden urge to rush to his Sorceress's side with the knowledge that all his soldiers knew exactly what awaited them if they harmed a hair on her head.
"Rinoa?" that bitch Carroway, looking discomfited, rasped impatiently from his pole of the alleyway. "You bastard. You said that..."
"Yes, I did, didn't I?" laughable, laughable old man.
"But... why would you want to keep her?"
"To keep you from striking back at me, old man," this was frigging hilarious. The pansy looked like he was about to cry. Idiot.
The general, now looking more fragile under layers of regalia, spat a reply, "Ands you talk of honor. I was ready to.."
"Honor? Honor!? " now he was laughing, this was absolutely priceless. "This is honor, fucker. You took the parents away from hundreds of kids I met, and it was your fucked up war with Esthar that robbed me of mine. I grew up alone, do you understand that? Do you know what it's like to have nobody?"
The trees burst into flame - a dramatic effect worthy of a knight, but more of an emotional by product. When the laughing stopped, Seifer growled.
"I grew up like this because of people like you, you honorless fucking bastard. Shipped off to some war factory of a Garden because you didn't want to bother with the brats whose parents you murdered. And now you have the audacity to protest my being. What the hell do you think gives you the right to have your family all nice and shiny and cozy, with all the ones you've ruined? Why are you special? You daughter is with me, Carroway . She might even still love me, and there's nothing you can do about it. This is poetic justice, old man. This is my honor."
And as the foliage fell to inferno, so did the blood of an impossibly white knight.
"Welcome to our hell, General Carroway. Welcome to the fucking inferno."
The eyes of a hundred soldiers were fixed on him, and he devoured their attention in the absence of the wind. Fueling the scorching heat of a blaze too unnatural to die, their features lit in it's intensity. No one was surprised when it started in General Robert Carroway's clothing as well, one outstretched - ivory clad hand beckoning his death.
Fire consumes, and burns the purer for it.
"This is for the orphans."
And when the screaming stopped, Seifer's visage was back to that omnipresent smile. His voice had moderated and the wind was deathly still.
"You there - Carroway's bitches. You join the crusade or you die. Is that clear to you?"
When the bloodshed ended he had no shortage of volunteers. It wouldn't be long until they took the manor.
***
At a time like this, there was one word that came to mind.
Shit.
Hella shit.
Hella, hella shit.
'Kay, so those were multiple words. The meaning got across, right?
Right.
So what the hell was going on?
"Yo, Selph, " a tattooed youth prodded, peeking into the room across the hall from his own. Carroway Manor was pretty posh compared to home - but then, pretty much everywhere was nicer than him an' Ma's house. They weren't exactly drowning in money, even if Garden tuition was free.
Ma always said that if she'd been able to afford it he would have gone to a proper school. Ch'yeah - like that wouldn't have been insanely boring.
However snobby surroundings, though, Selphie still wasn't answering him.
"Seeeeeellllph.... c'mon. I didn't mean to call your hair hella weird last night, I just was tired and stuff. It's really pretty, I promise."
Hella yeah right.
"I know you're awake in there! I heard your alarm."
'That was meeeean, Zell, " Selphie pouted from behind a half closed door. Only Selphie could make a pout sound chirpy. Not exactly the kind of pal he was too enthused to have, but who else did he know here? All those Galbadians were weird, and the martial artist still had no clue what to do without his buddy Squall around. This was so not good.
Okay, so he was worrying a liiiiiitle too much...
"I said I was sorry.. geeeze, Selphie," it wasn't his fault her hair sucked immensely.
""Kay!" grinning cheerfully, the petite young woman popped out to meet him.
"Turn that frown upside down, Zell! We got the Sorceress, right?"
"Yeah, but..." this whole thing was giving him bad vibes and stiff, that was what. Instead of making slight, nervous motions to burn off excess energy, the fighter was for once slumped against the wall. A wall with better wallpaper than at his house. It looked kinda girly and flowery, but that was probably Rinoa's mom's ...err... mom-type influence stuff.
"But what, Zell? It's a great daaaay, the birds are..."
"Selphie, " the blonde interrupted, face just a little bit grave, " Rinoa's dad's gone."
"But.... why would he leave? Maybe... "
Startled, the mustard-clad spellcaster found herself pulled by one of far superior strength into his room. He didn't like pushing girls around - them not being so strong and all. Grandpa would have disapproved. But what the hell else was he supposed to do?
"Squall and Irvine and Rinoa aren't here either. I reeeealy don't like this, " his normally buoyant voice had descended to a harsh whisper.
"If they're not here, they must be at the Garden. I'm getting hell bad vibes, Selph.. you think you could take care of Instructor Trepe on your own? There's, like, lots of other soldiers here and stuff... and I reeealy think we outta find Squall. There's no way they're letting us into the com room and..."
Selphie giggled. What the hell was that? Stupid rude Selphie... his Ma woulda never put up with that during a serious conversation.
"Selph," rolling his eyes, the blonde silently begged for a comprehensible answer. He didn't get chicks at all.
"No problem! Yeesh, Zell... I can blow up anyone who gets near the Instructor!" she flashed him a v sign with her hands for victory. In fact, Selphie looked about to burst into 'booyaka's any minute. What did booyaka mean, anyways? Zell reeeealy didn't get chicks. " Make sure to call back, hey? "
Nodding, Zell night jogged out into the hallway and waved goodbye, " No problem! Even if these doofs won't tell us anything, I can get a phone from Martine and fill ya in!"
***
He'd come back to the house to see Selphie.
He didn't know why he had come back to the house to see Selphie, but he had come back to the house to see Selphie.
Notmyfoultnotmyfaultnotmyfault...
It was a simple matter to slip in one of the windows. A sniper was trained in stealth, and the guards seemed occupied.
Her fault? Is that why you wanted me to come here?
No. She smiled a nice smile. Like you did. At the beach.
Irvine hadn't slept that night, and it was noticeable. Bloodshot eyes lolled their way across the room - panning. This wasn't the one where she had been. He would find the one where she had been - it had girly pink wallpaper.
She didn't remember.
But must be their fault. Not mine. Not yours or hers. Nononononono....
Quistis would be somewhere too, wouldn't she? She had had a nice room too.
Her fault.
Big sisters are s'posed to make things right.
Grinning, he headed off to find his two objectives. It was funny, though - he thought he heard Selphie in Quistis' room. And some men.
We can go to the beach together, can't we Matron?
They weren't going to hurt her. Their blood spattered all about the room, and their uniforms shredded just like Matron's had. but that was okay. If they had their bayonets raised like that they must want to hurt Selphie, and that meant that it was their fault.
And when the last crimson rivulets of their life were flowing down a very socked Selphie's dress, she smiled at him. The good kind. It wasn't long until she ran up and hugged him as powerfully as a tiny frame would allow.
"Irvy!!! Thank goodness you're here! Instructor Trepe is gone, and all those mega-crazy Seifer followers were gonna try and hurt me."
"Quisty isn't here? That's horrible," a touch of concern colored his voice. It was her fault and she was just wandering around out there, doing who knows what to innocent..
Her fault. Not mine.
"Isn't it though? Look, Irvy, we've gotta get out of here. Getting, like, exploded and stuff would be mega uncool."
Yes. The beach! You were right about her, Matron. Maybe she does kinda remember...
But the rest is their fault.
"Yeah - we should find the others, eh Selph? And may I say that the new color scheme suits you."
She giggled. It was cute. Just like when they were little.
"You're silly, Irvine. Now lets get my nunchaku and go kick some ass! Booyaka!!"
You were right, Matron. You're always
right.