Chapter One
The eighteen-year-old SeeD gritted his
teeth as the Flare spell hit him and forced him back ten feet. He quickly rushed
forward, his gunblade in his left hand, his right hand raised in front of him in
an all-out charge. As he approached his opponent, he swung his gunblade down,
aiming for the throat. His opponent simply raised his own gunblade and easily
parried the blow. The SeeD (whose name was Davis, in case you were wondering),
seeing no other option, raised his palm and cast Thundaga on his opponent. The
spell simply bounced off of his opponent's Reflect spell and hit him instead.
Davis shook from the shock, and rushed forward again, this time feigning an
upward swipe, and going for the midsection. His opponent saw this coming,
blocked the attack, and tripped Davis with a foot-sweep. Before Davis could get
up, however, his opponent's gunblade was at his throat. He had lost, again.
Which wouldn't be so bad if he hadn't lost to his commander. But what made
it worse was the fact that the commander was his father, Squall Leonhart.
"You're getting better," said
Squall, helping Davis up. "But you need to work on your timing."
"Gee, thanks," Davis replied,
pushing away Squall's hand and standing up. He brushed himself off. "Are we
done yet?" he asked. Behind them, somebody clapped, and Rinoa got off of the
rock that she had been sitting on while she watched the training session.
"He's just like you at that age,
you know that, Squall?" she said, smiling. Davis looked at his mother, the
Sorceress Rinoa. Sure, she wasn't about to turn evil and destroy the world,
but it was weird, having a Sorceress as your mother. Maybe that was why he had a
First Class Para-magic rank.
"Whatever," Davis said. "Excuse
me, but I have a class to attend."
Davis didn't even bother to wait for
an answer before walking off back to Balamb Garden, which was now stationed just
outside of his hometown of Winhill. When he was gone, Rinoa turned back to her
husband.
"See what I mean?" she said,
grinning widely.
"Whatever," Squall replied.
"Now, if you'll excuse me, I do have a Garden to command."
Rinoa giggled. "You haven't change
a bit in 22 years, you know that?" she said. "When will you come and visit
me again?"
"Why don't you just stay at
Garden?" Squall asked. Rinoa shook her head.
"The students there don't trust
me. They think that I'm out to kill them."
"But you're not."
"Try telling them that."
Squall gave up. "I'll be back
soon, OK?" he said. Rinoa smiled.
"Sure," she replied. "See you
soon."
They embraced briefly and Squall
headed back to Garden.
------------------------
Felicia Kinneas sighed. She was trying
to put together her new weapon, the M203 machine gun, complete with a grenade
launcher. She slapped the clip of blank bullets into the chamber and fired for
the sixteenth time. The gun jammed.
"Dammit!" she said in frustration.
If she didn't get this gun together soon, then she would not have a weapon for
combat. Then again, she could always use the grenade launcher. She loaded a
paint grenade into the launcher, turned to the target, and fired. The launcher
worked a little too well: the paint grenade went straight through the cardboard
target, and out of the open window. She winced as she heard a familiar voice
screaming outside.
"FELICIA!!"
"Uh-oh"
she thought. "I must've hit Brandon!"
Sure enough, two minutes later a tall,
blonde-haired, blue-eyed SeeD ran into her dorm, his SeeD uniform covered in red
paint.
"Do you have any idea how much these
uniforms cost to be cleaned?" he said, his blue eyes locking with Felicia's
emerald green eyes. Felicia laughed and stroked her long, toffee-brown hair.
"What're you laughing at?"
Brandon asked. Felicia picked up a jug of water and threw the contents all over
him. The paint washed away with the water.
"It's paint used for paint-ball
guns," she said. "It comes off with water."
Brandon grumbled. "Shit. Well you
could have told me that before you threw the water on me!" he said.
Again, Felicia laughed. Brandon Dincht had been her friend for as long as she
could remember, and he had not changed at all. And the fact that they were both
top SeeDs meant that they often ended up working together, which was fun.
"Excuse me?" said a female voice
behind Brandon. Brandon turned, and saw a beautiful blonde-haired, blue-eyed
girl standing in the doorway of Felicia's dorm. He stared at her wide-eyed.
She had to be one of the sexiest girls he had ever seen. Her long blonde hair
fell in waves to her waist, and you could easily get lost in her deep, sea-blue
eyes. Her slim figure fit perfectly into her SeeD uniform. The girl looked at
him.
"Have I got something on my face?"
she asked. Brandon went red and looked down.
"Erm…no," he said. He turned to
Felicia. "I have to go."
Felicia chuckled. "See you," she
said, waving. Brandon left, and the girl turned to Felicia.
"Hi, I just transferred here and I
seem to be lost. Can you tell me where dorm number…34 is please?" she said.
"Sure," replied Felicia. "It's
two doors down, and to the right."
"Thanks," replied the girl. With
that, she picked up her bags and followed Felicia's directions. She soon found
her dorm and unlocked it. She looked around. It was…different from her dorm in
Trabia Garden. Smaller, more compact, but comfortable nonetheless. She decided
to walk around Garden for a while before unpacking her things, but she did put
her gunblade, the Hyperion, against the wall. She had been carrying that weapon
all day, and it was getting tiresome.
Sophia Almasy sighed and walked out of
her dorm to explore Balamb Garden.
