Nightmares
by TacomaSquall
Part Nine: REM Stage
She stood in front of
her throne. Facing her were three of
her former friends. She could not
understand why they betrayed her and her knight. They had suddenly attacked her. Her knight's gunblade lay on the floor, shattered by the cunning and
skill of her former lover.
She felt the sting of a
blow as the brown-haired girl attacked her. Selphie's nunchaku telescoped, whipping out well in front of the Trabian
girl's body. The sorceress snarled in
reply, and reached out with one hand, calling upon the might of one of her
Guardians.
All of the air in the
throne hall was sucked away, as an huge entity appeared. Beneath the feet of the treacherous foes,
the planet appeared, diminishing rapidly, as they were seized by the forces the
hold the stars in place. They flew
outwards, until they were outside of the solar system. There, they headed towards a region of space
that held only darkness.
As the three traitors
neared the darkenss, they felt the pull of gravity increase, and they were
sucked into the maw of the being that lay within the darkness – insane
Atomos. As the maw closed, they felt
the energies he commanded press down on them from all directions momentarily,
and then found themselves released to the Sorceress' throne hall.
The Sorceress smiled
briefly as she watched Atomos do his work. The smile was quickly replaced a scream of surprise and pain as the
traitorous master of the gunblade used his least Limit Break, the Fire
Cross. She turned to Seifer Almasy and
spat. "You had your chance for glory
and turned aside. Now, you will pay for
your lack of vision!"
Before the Sorceress
could call upon her magic, she felt the grasp of a Guardian upon her. She had forgotten Zell! The martial artist had turned away from his
usual punching attacks to call upon the power of the synthetic Guardian. She felt it drag her, unwilling, above its
hulking form.
Eden's topside flared
into incandescence, and the Sorceress was rocketed out of the solar system,
streaking through the stars towards a giant orange star. She struck the star, creating a massive
disturbance in the star's photosphere. As she hurtled towards the star's core, she felt the fabric of the star
tearing behind her, as it became less and less stable. Just as she reached the star's core, it exploded.
The Sorceress' form
collapsed before her throne. As
consciousness began to fade, she saw her ever-faithful companion and friend run
forward and scratch frantically at the ground beside her. A fluff of orange-yellow down was revealed,
and the massive dog quickly gave it to its mistress. The Sorceress rose, exultant.
She called for her pet,
and gave him a command. She hurled a
treat upwards into the air, and Angelo caught it. The faithful beast gathered its muscles beneath itself and leapt
high into the air. The full moon shone
behind the faithful dog, and Angelo called upon its power as he howled. The moon's power suffused the Sorceress, and
she felt invincible.
Her enemies rained blows
upon her – all ineffectual. "Now, you
shall pay for your insolence and treachery!"
The Sorceress called
upon Hell's Judgment, and her enemies were blasted backwards, grievously
injured. While Zell called upon
Cerberus to allow the three to use a loophole in Hyne's laws governing Magic,
Selphie sought desperately for the right slot to enable her companions to
recover. The massive triple-headed
Guardian appeared and twisted the rules of reality, allowing the three traitors
the ability to cast more than one spell at a time.
Little did it avail
them, as the Sorceress called upon the arcane might of the Apocalypse before
Selphie could find the magic that would have cured them all.
Rinoa Heartily screamed
herself awake. She lay in her bedroom
in Deling City, in the bed that she had not slept in since that fateful day
more than a year before, when she argued with her father about the right way to
oppose the madness of Vinzer Deling.
Her nightgown was soaked
with sweat, as were the sheets of the bed. The gown stuck to her skin's contours, revealing far more of Rinoa's
pale skin than she would have ever done in public. Her hair was disarrayed from her thrashings while in the hold of
the nightmare that had awakened her.
Thank Hyne! It was only a nightmare…
Rinoa sat up in the
bed. The sheets slowly slid down her
form, revealing more of her pale skin to the moonlight that shone in through
the window to the east. Angelo looked
up from his post at the foot of the bed at his mistress. Rinoa smiled at her four-footed companion,
and the dog, relieved, replaced its head on its paws. It slowly went back to dreams of gigantic fields with bunny
rabbits to chase after all day.
It must be the talks for
Timber's emancipation that are causing these nightmares. The talks were long and
tedious. As the leader of the Forest
Owls, Rinoa was in attendance, with Quistis, Irvine and Xu as her bodyguard. Representatives of the Forest Foxes and the
Forest Cats were present, along with the current Galbadian triumvirate that had
seized power after the defeat during the Second Sorceress War. Her father was one of those triamvirs.
The talks had stalled,
as the factions of the Timber Resistance were unable to agree upon their
demands. The Forest Foxes demanded not
only independence but also reparations and the release of all resistance
members. The Forest Cats were willing
to accept independence, as long as all resistance members were freed. The Forest Owls were demanding fair trials
for all resistance members currently imprisoned, for some deserved to be
punished, having stooped to lows that were below the methods of even the
Sorceress Ultimecia and Vinzer Deling.
Meanwhile, the triamvirs
of Galbadia were being obstinate, refusing to budge on the issues that the
resistance leaders were trying to address. They seemed to be united in the position that they were granting Timber's
independence, and that should be enough. Earlier today, she had gotten into a fight with her father over the
unwillingness of the Galbadian Government to make any recompense for the more
than fifteen years they had controlled Timber.
When she had been
fighting with him, she had wanted to call upon one of the Apocalypse spells she
had Drawn from Ultimecia during the final battle in Time Compression, and try
to blast some reason into his thick, reactionary skull. And her father was the reasonable one of the
three triamvirs…
She walked slowly to the
window that looked towards the country beyond the city. Looking eastwards, she let her mind reach
out over the miles towards the man she loved. Squall, I miss you.
She wondered what her
knight would be doing now. It would be
morning in Balamb, and doubtless Squall would have already finished his morning
workout and breakfast. Squall was
probably sifting through all of the administrative details that had consumed
his time since the end of the War.
Cid had never let Squall
step down from his position as the commander of Balamb Garden's SeeDs, which
enabled Cid to spend more time focusing on teaching people – his first
love. However, it meant that her
beloved had little free time, and no time for most field missions. That was why she found herself being
escorted by the Instructor/SeeD who used to pine for her beloved, Squall's
aide-de-camp, Xu, and the sensitive sharpshooter, Irvine Kinneas.
She sighed. It would have given so much more weight
to our cause if Squall had been able to be here, showing that Balamb Garden
unequivocally stood behind the cause of Timber's independence. As it was, the Galbadians chose to interpret
it that we have hired an escort from Garden, to avoid assassination attempts.
Not only did the leader
of the Forest Owls miss Squall's presence for the political advantage it would
have given her. It had been a year
since the celebration of Ultimecia's defeat. After that party, she felt certain that Squall would propose to
her. But circumstances had dictated
that they spend most of their time apart. She thirsted for his presence much the same way a man who had spent
three weeks in the Kashbakald Desert thirsted for water.
Reaching out with her
magic, she grasped hold of the thin clouds of vapor in the sky above. She quickly worked the vapor into a tenuous
resemblance of her knight, using two stars in the sky above as his eyes.
About halfway through
crafting his likeness, she felt the clouds shudder, and the image she was
crafting changed. The set of the eyes
was the same, the hair was similar, but was lighter and longer. The features were more feminine, and lines
marked the face in the sky above. Lines
of cruelty.
Rinoa gasped as she
realized that the face she had drawn in the sky was the face of the Sorceress
Ultimecia, who had died beneath Squall's Lionheart.
The vapor drew closer,
and the likeness gained solidity, until Rinoa could see the Sorceress standing
before her. The Sorceress' form
vanished, and Rinoa felt a sensation akin to every cell of her body being
dipped in acid. She screamed in terror
and collapsed.
Angelo awakened from his
dreams in time to see his mistress fall. He ran to her side, sniffing the ground as he went. There were no items nearby for him to use to
help her. He whimpered and licked her
cheek. There was no response. The devoted dog whined, and nosed her with
its muzzle. Still nothing. He licked her face again.
Rinoa's eyes opened
wide. Blazing within them, however, was
the burning red fire of someone other than Angelo's mistress.
The Sorceress smiled as
she stood. This Sorceress should
serve me quite well.
The Sorceress turned,
hearing the sound of a door slamming open. It would not do for her to be discovered before she were ready. She turned to the bed-side, full-length
mirror and walked towards it. As she
reached it, it shimmered. The Sorceress
stepped through the mirror, going bridging space to reach the Tower of Heaven,
in this era.
Angelo whined in fear as
his mistress departed into the mirror. Unwilling, but seeing no other choice, the dog followed after his
mistress.
When Rinoa's SeeD
escorts reached her bedroom, both girl and dog had vanished.
To Be Continued…