Disclaimer: The actions in this fanfic arenot condoned by the author. And now I'm writing a disclaimer anyway. All these fellows are property of Squaresoft.
Squall felt how his mind and body materialized again. He did a step back, his gunblade ready. As he felt Cactuar slowly receding towards the depths of his mind, taking a little more space than before he was summoned. Squall knew he had probably forgotten something now. But what? He didn't think about it to long however, but focused his eyes on his two opponents. The man with the tanned skin color, the purple clothes and the large amount of amulets was already down on the ground, softly moaning and complaining. Rajin. He than looked at the gray-heared, one-eyed woman before him. Fujin. She had a hard time . Though she had a strong spirit, and the illusions of magic and the GF's attacks didn't harm her as much as they could, but she had received many blows. Squall looked to his left. Rinoa. When Rajin had fallen Fujin had become really angry. She had hit Rinoa once, just once, but the black haired girl had gone down as if after a long session of pummeling. Squall still felt particles of rage burning within him. He had immediately done a Renzokuken. It was the longest he remembered doing. He had even been to angry to concentrate for the Blasting Zone technique, instead just following his rage in a Rough Divide. He was calm now. HE had to be calm for this mission, and Rinoa would soon be allright. The wound had send Rinoa to the ground, but he was well equipped with Phoenix Down potions. A bit of magic would heal the wound, though Rinoa would be hard to wake the next night. After healing people often would sleep trough explosions. After too much healing, some people had never waken up at all. Squall was inhaling. Fujin was still standing. Should he prepare to strike at her, or should he summon a GF? Than Zel jumped ahead. He punched the woman, twice. In the beginning Zell had been a little reluctant to hit her, but when he remembered that she had terrorized his home he had stopped holding his punches. Fujin took one hit against her chin, and one against her jaw. The punches could break trough stone, as Zell's strength was raised by years of training and magic. But so was this woman's endurance. Yet it had been a long battlle, and she was getting tired and worn down. She too one step back, tried to focus on Zell, weakly raised her weapon, and than fell trough her knees, and than flat on her belly.
Zell cheered. "YEAH, we kicked their asses. Ain't that right Squall? Never stood a chance! That's what happens when you take on REAL SeeD's! Hah." Squall put his sword on his neck. Each time he had won it seemed to weigh heavier to him. At least he hadn't killed this time. He turned his eyes to Zell.
"Go get Irvine, Quistis and Selphie. We'll need them here."
"Huh, why? Why would we stay here. We gotta search Ellone." Squall looked at Zell. Zell sighed and left. Squall walked up to Rinoa. She looked so peacefull asleep. He wondered if he should let her sleep. He didn't want her to see what was gonna happen. But that would be keeping a secret from her. He had vowed to himself that he would stop keeping to much things secrets for her.
He looked around. Noone was here. He moistened his lips with the vile tasting liquid. It was a drink used to wake people up. Good taste wasn't neccesary for this, and it even helped them to wake up faster. Squall softly kissed her on the lips. Her body reacted by licking her lips and swallowing. Squall put the small vial against her mouth. Rinoa swallowed the dink, her face contoured for a moment. "Yuck, sometimes I think they make it taste so foul just to make sure we don't go down to easily." Squall's mouth showed a very small shadow of a smile. For him that meant the joke was a riot. "hmm, strange I had a little dream, I never have dreams while I'm KO. It was really nice, you were a prince and I was..."
"Sleeping beauty" Squall interupted, rubbing his lips to get rid of the taste, than changing heart and sucking the moisture from his hands. Rinoa looked at him and blushed.
"YO Squall, we're back, what's what we're gonna have to do now?" Zell and the other fighters arrived. Quistis looked worried at Rinoa, who still looked in pretty bad shape, and at the two former garden-students. Selphie seemed a little irritated because she had to leave her pilot seat, but Irvine was cheering her up by telling her improbable stories. Squall face darkened. Everyone seemed so happy, except Quistis. She looked him in the eye. She feared what she thought would come. He hoped she would soon be appeased.
"Rinoa, heal yourself. It's still dangerous here." His voice sounded cold suddeny, he noticed. He put his sword in the scabbard. It had drawn blood but not killed. Maybe that was a good thing. Maybe not. Fujin didn't look concious. Rajin was.
Squall grabbed him by the front of his clothing. Rajin clearly was too weak to use magic but Squall didn't want to take chances. "Release the magic." Rajin didn't answer. "I know your awake Rajin, your complaints can be heard even in the middle of a GF summoning. Release the magic, or am I gonna have to draw it out of you.?"
"Ca...calm Ya know. I...I'm releasing it." Rajin raised his hand. It was only a symbolic gesture to help concentration, magic leaked from Rajin's whole body. Light blue spheres flew to all sides, into space, magic nodes, monsters, or wherever magic goes. Squall threw Rajin on the ground. Without magic, there was little chance that he'd be any danger.
"Cura" Squall said, and the wounds on Rajin's body started to close. Though he looked as healthy as before the battle, Squall knew that it would only take him 5 seconds to knock him out, or even kill him. "Now, where is Ellone?"
" I ain't telling ya know. I'm not a stoolpigeon ya know."
"You sounded different on Balamb Garden. Now I'm only going to ask this one more time. Where...is...ELLONE?"
Rajin sneered. "Not gonna happen Squall ya know. ...I don't even know ya know." Squal heard the hesitation. Unlike his idol Seifer, Rajin had never mastered the art of lying trough your teeth. Squall dropped him.
"Irvine, guard him." He said and walked to Fujin.
Fujin was still unconcious. She wasn't the type to go horizontal unless absolutely impossible to stand. Unlike Rajin. He grabbed her by her hair. Behind him he could hear Rinoa gasp for breath. He took another vial, pinched her nose while holding her face back with the same hand and poured the liquid in her throat. When the vial was half empty, he stopped. Fujin slowly opened her eye.
"WHAT?" she asked. Even dazed and confused she spoke in a loud voice.
"Release your magic Fujin. I can't let you stay here while you'll soon be able to attack again." Fujin looked rebellious, but she knew he could draw the magic out of her, but that it would be much more painfull, not to mention the magic would be his. Just like Rajin, blue globes floated out of her.
"Where is Ellone?" Fujin looked at him angrily.
"NEGATIVE" Squall sighed.
"Don't try to tell me you don't know where she is. Rajin doesn't know but he told me as much.
"FOOL" she said.
"Indeed, now where is Ellone?"
"RAGE"
"I'll take that as a no than" Squall answered. He brought his hand to his forehead. Why, why does life always makes us do things the hard way? He released her and she fell down. Still to weak to stand up.
Pandora was a big construction, and, strong as they were, they needed the surprise element on their side, they should hurry. He walked past his comrades and took Zell by the arm. When they were out of hearing distance Squall started to speak. "They don't want to talk Zell."
"Man, that sucks, but I have to tell you, I'm not surprised, they're so damn loyal to Seifer not even our first class trashing could convince them." Squall sighed. On Battleship Island he had realized he wasn't giving Zell enough credit. He was...loud, but he knew how to fight and obeyed orders pretty well, except the ones to shut up. Zell would probably don't like this show of faith however.
"Than we'll have to try harder to convince them." Zell's eyes first indicated confusion, than understanding, than horror and than fear.
"Squall...yo man...you...you don't mean..."
Squall snapped at Zell "Yes I do mean torture!" He had said that last word too loud, and the others looked startled. Squall couldn't bring himself to watching Fujin's and Rajin's eyes.
"Squall..." Quistis began.
"I'm talking to Zell now Instructor, I'll get back to you in a minute."
He turned to Zell. "Look Zelll, we can't search this whole bloody buiding, it's bigger than Deling city. We need information and they are probably the only ones who know where Ellone is."
"But...Squall...torture is..." "Vile? Depraved? Immoral? Evil? I know, but so is giving up on our mission, and that is worse. We're here to do what has to be done. And this has to be done."
"But...why me?" "Quistis is to emotional, Irvine can't handle the pressure, Selphie is to naive and even if Rinoa WOULD do it, I wouldn't let her. She's not a SeeD. It's not her duty. Taking the sprit of Ultimecia is enough for one mission. I NEED you to do this for me Zell. I'm counting on you."
Zell bowed his head down. In a broken, barely audible voice he said " 'kay'
They went back to the others. Squall calmly issued orders. "Irvine, Selphie, take Rajin with you and assist Zell in the Ragnarok, he'll brief you further, Quistis stay with me. Rinoa....I ...I don't know if you want to see this, and I know I don't want you to see this."
Rinoa's face was as snow. "You're not gonna do this Squall, tell me you're joking...No it's bluff, I know, pretending that you'll .... 'accidentally' saying ...that word.... loud. Brilliant plan, and you acted so good, I almost believed you'd really...., you'd really..."
"torture them, sorry Rinoa."
"Squall they're Garden students."
"ex-garden students. I warned them last time I'd treat them as enemies next time I met them. And now I do so." With these words he turned to Fujin. Her face was icy calm, but her eye seemed to burn. "BEGIN" she said. Squall sighed. Rinoa ran away.
Selphie and Irvine were dragging Rajin with them. He was trying to break free but Irvine and Selphie had magic junctioned in their strength, and he was only hurting himself. "Ya know you're kidding right? Gottabe kidding. You can't force me to tell anything ya know. My mouth is sealed. I won't say a word ya know. And ...and I couldn't say it to ya if I wanted to ya know. I know nothin' ya know." There was no response. Than Selphie left Irvine carrying the struggling Rajin and ticked Zell on his shoulders.
"Zell, are our orders really to...., I mean," Zell let his head drop in his typical fashion. He didn't know what to say, and for once didn't feel like saying something, so he just nodded.
"But...but...but...we can't do that. We're the good guys, we don't do that. We can just look around till we find her, the building isn't that big..."
Irvine took Rajin over his shoulder and joined them. "And don't forget. What if we accidentally kill him. I don't now if I can do that, deliberately driving a man to his limits, just one thing to much and he's cold meat." Zell kept walking. Selphie is too naive, and Irvine can't handle the pressure. That's what Squall said. I'm counting on you. Zell had always wanted to be the hero, but every problem seemed to go to Squall, and Squall got the thanks. How Zell wished to be like Squall. And now Squall had shown that he couldn't handle a problem, and needed his help. He could have asked Zell to attack a T-Rexaur armed with nothing but a hairpin and both hands tied behind his back, and Zell would be eager, but this was the task. Zell still had a broken voice,, but it was becoming more steady.
"You just cure him and make sure he doesn't try anything funny....I'll do the...torturing..." Squall asked me, I won't try to escape an order from Squall. Not even this one he thought.
Squall felt how his mind and body materialized again. He did a step back, his gunblade ready. As he felt Cactuar slowly receding towards the depths of his mind, taking a little more space than before he was summoned. Squall knew he had probably forgotten something now. But what? He didn't think about it to long however, but focused his eyes on his two opponents. The man with the tanned skin color, the purple clothes and the large amount of amulets was already down on the ground, softly moaning and complaining. Rajin. He than looked at the gray-heared, one-eyed woman before him. Fujin. She had a hard time . Though she had a strong spirit, and the illusions of magic and the GF's attacks didn't harm her as much as they could, but she had received many blows. Squall looked to his left. Rinoa. When Rajin had fallen Fujin had become really angry. She had hit Rinoa once, just once, but the black haired girl had gone down as if after a long session of pummeling. Squall still felt particles of rage burning within him. He had immediately done a Renzokuken. It was the longest he remembered doing. He had even been to angry to concentrate for the Blasting Zone technique, instead just following his rage in a Rough Divide. He was calm now. HE had to be calm for this mission, and Rinoa would soon be allright. The wound had send Rinoa to the ground, but he was well equipped with Phoenix Down potions. A bit of magic would heal the wound, though Rinoa would be hard to wake the next night. After healing people often would sleep trough explosions. After too much healing, some people had never waken up at all. Squall was inhaling. Fujin was still standing. Should he prepare to strike at her, or should he summon a GF? Than Zel jumped ahead. He punched the woman, twice. In the beginning Zell had been a little reluctant to hit her, but when he remembered that she had terrorized his home he had stopped holding his punches. Fujin took one hit against her chin, and one against her jaw. The punches could break trough stone, as Zell's strength was raised by years of training and magic. But so was this woman's endurance. Yet it had been a long battlle, and she was getting tired and worn down. She too one step back, tried to focus on Zell, weakly raised her weapon, and than fell trough her knees, and than flat on her belly.
Zell cheered. "YEAH, we kicked their asses. Ain't that right Squall? Never stood a chance! That's what happens when you take on REAL SeeD's! Hah." Squall put his sword on his neck. Each time he had won it seemed to weigh heavier to him. At least he hadn't killed this time. He turned his eyes to Zell.
"Go get Irvine, Quistis and Selphie. We'll need them here."
"Huh, why? Why would we stay here. We gotta search Ellone." Squall looked at Zell. Zell sighed and left. Squall walked up to Rinoa. She looked so peacefull asleep. He wondered if he should let her sleep. He didn't want her to see what was gonna happen. But that would be keeping a secret from her. He had vowed to himself that he would stop keeping to much things secrets for her.
He looked around. Noone was here. He moistened his lips with the vile tasting liquid. It was a drink used to wake people up. Good taste wasn't neccesary for this, and it even helped them to wake up faster. Squall softly kissed her on the lips. Her body reacted by licking her lips and swallowing. Squall put the small vial against her mouth. Rinoa swallowed the dink, her face contoured for a moment. "Yuck, sometimes I think they make it taste so foul just to make sure we don't go down to easily." Squall's mouth showed a very small shadow of a smile. For him that meant the joke was a riot. "hmm, strange I had a little dream, I never have dreams while I'm KO. It was really nice, you were a prince and I was..."
"Sleeping beauty" Squall interupted, rubbing his lips to get rid of the taste, than changing heart and sucking the moisture from his hands. Rinoa looked at him and blushed.
"YO Squall, we're back, what's what we're gonna have to do now?" Zell and the other fighters arrived. Quistis looked worried at Rinoa, who still looked in pretty bad shape, and at the two former garden-students. Selphie seemed a little irritated because she had to leave her pilot seat, but Irvine was cheering her up by telling her improbable stories. Squall face darkened. Everyone seemed so happy, except Quistis. She looked him in the eye. She feared what she thought would come. He hoped she would soon be appeased.
"Rinoa, heal yourself. It's still dangerous here." His voice sounded cold suddeny, he noticed. He put his sword in the scabbard. It had drawn blood but not killed. Maybe that was a good thing. Maybe not. Fujin didn't look concious. Rajin was.
Squall grabbed him by the front of his clothing. Rajin clearly was too weak to use magic but Squall didn't want to take chances. "Release the magic." Rajin didn't answer. "I know your awake Rajin, your complaints can be heard even in the middle of a GF summoning. Release the magic, or am I gonna have to draw it out of you.?"
"Ca...calm Ya know. I...I'm releasing it." Rajin raised his hand. It was only a symbolic gesture to help concentration, magic leaked from Rajin's whole body. Light blue spheres flew to all sides, into space, magic nodes, monsters, or wherever magic goes. Squall threw Rajin on the ground. Without magic, there was little chance that he'd be any danger.
"Cura" Squall said, and the wounds on Rajin's body started to close. Though he looked as healthy as before the battle, Squall knew that it would only take him 5 seconds to knock him out, or even kill him. "Now, where is Ellone?"
" I ain't telling ya know. I'm not a stoolpigeon ya know."
"You sounded different on Balamb Garden. Now I'm only going to ask this one more time. Where...is...ELLONE?"
Rajin sneered. "Not gonna happen Squall ya know. ...I don't even know ya know." Squal heard the hesitation. Unlike his idol Seifer, Rajin had never mastered the art of lying trough your teeth. Squall dropped him.
"Irvine, guard him." He said and walked to Fujin.
Fujin was still unconcious. She wasn't the type to go horizontal unless absolutely impossible to stand. Unlike Rajin. He grabbed her by her hair. Behind him he could hear Rinoa gasp for breath. He took another vial, pinched her nose while holding her face back with the same hand and poured the liquid in her throat. When the vial was half empty, he stopped. Fujin slowly opened her eye.
"WHAT?" she asked. Even dazed and confused she spoke in a loud voice.
"Release your magic Fujin. I can't let you stay here while you'll soon be able to attack again." Fujin looked rebellious, but she knew he could draw the magic out of her, but that it would be much more painfull, not to mention the magic would be his. Just like Rajin, blue globes floated out of her.
"Where is Ellone?" Fujin looked at him angrily.
"NEGATIVE" Squall sighed.
"Don't try to tell me you don't know where she is. Rajin doesn't know but he told me as much.
"FOOL" she said.
"Indeed, now where is Ellone?"
"RAGE"
"I'll take that as a no than" Squall answered. He brought his hand to his forehead. Why, why does life always makes us do things the hard way? He released her and she fell down. Still to weak to stand up.
Pandora was a big construction, and, strong as they were, they needed the surprise element on their side, they should hurry. He walked past his comrades and took Zell by the arm. When they were out of hearing distance Squall started to speak. "They don't want to talk Zell."
"Man, that sucks, but I have to tell you, I'm not surprised, they're so damn loyal to Seifer not even our first class trashing could convince them." Squall sighed. On Battleship Island he had realized he wasn't giving Zell enough credit. He was...loud, but he knew how to fight and obeyed orders pretty well, except the ones to shut up. Zell would probably don't like this show of faith however.
"Than we'll have to try harder to convince them." Zell's eyes first indicated confusion, than understanding, than horror and than fear.
"Squall...yo man...you...you don't mean..."
Squall snapped at Zell "Yes I do mean torture!" He had said that last word too loud, and the others looked startled. Squall couldn't bring himself to watching Fujin's and Rajin's eyes.
"Squall..." Quistis began.
"I'm talking to Zell now Instructor, I'll get back to you in a minute."
He turned to Zell. "Look Zelll, we can't search this whole bloody buiding, it's bigger than Deling city. We need information and they are probably the only ones who know where Ellone is."
"But...Squall...torture is..." "Vile? Depraved? Immoral? Evil? I know, but so is giving up on our mission, and that is worse. We're here to do what has to be done. And this has to be done."
"But...why me?" "Quistis is to emotional, Irvine can't handle the pressure, Selphie is to naive and even if Rinoa WOULD do it, I wouldn't let her. She's not a SeeD. It's not her duty. Taking the sprit of Ultimecia is enough for one mission. I NEED you to do this for me Zell. I'm counting on you."
Zell bowed his head down. In a broken, barely audible voice he said " 'kay'
They went back to the others. Squall calmly issued orders. "Irvine, Selphie, take Rajin with you and assist Zell in the Ragnarok, he'll brief you further, Quistis stay with me. Rinoa....I ...I don't know if you want to see this, and I know I don't want you to see this."
Rinoa's face was as snow. "You're not gonna do this Squall, tell me you're joking...No it's bluff, I know, pretending that you'll .... 'accidentally' saying ...that word.... loud. Brilliant plan, and you acted so good, I almost believed you'd really...., you'd really..."
"torture them, sorry Rinoa."
"Squall they're Garden students."
"ex-garden students. I warned them last time I'd treat them as enemies next time I met them. And now I do so." With these words he turned to Fujin. Her face was icy calm, but her eye seemed to burn. "BEGIN" she said. Squall sighed. Rinoa ran away.
Selphie and Irvine were dragging Rajin with them. He was trying to break free but Irvine and Selphie had magic junctioned in their strength, and he was only hurting himself. "Ya know you're kidding right? Gottabe kidding. You can't force me to tell anything ya know. My mouth is sealed. I won't say a word ya know. And ...and I couldn't say it to ya if I wanted to ya know. I know nothin' ya know." There was no response. Than Selphie left Irvine carrying the struggling Rajin and ticked Zell on his shoulders.
"Zell, are our orders really to...., I mean," Zell let his head drop in his typical fashion. He didn't know what to say, and for once didn't feel like saying something, so he just nodded.
"But...but...but...we can't do that. We're the good guys, we don't do that. We can just look around till we find her, the building isn't that big..."
Irvine took Rajin over his shoulder and joined them. "And don't forget. What if we accidentally kill him. I don't now if I can do that, deliberately driving a man to his limits, just one thing to much and he's cold meat." Zell kept walking. Selphie is too naive, and Irvine can't handle the pressure. That's what Squall said. I'm counting on you. Zell had always wanted to be the hero, but every problem seemed to go to Squall, and Squall got the thanks. How Zell wished to be like Squall. And now Squall had shown that he couldn't handle a problem, and needed his help. He could have asked Zell to attack a T-Rexaur armed with nothing but a hairpin and both hands tied behind his back, and Zell would be eager, but this was the task. Zell still had a broken voice,, but it was becoming more steady.
"You just cure him and make sure he doesn't try anything funny....I'll do the...torturing..." Squall asked me, I won't try to escape an order from Squall. Not even this one he thought.