IX
"The worst enemies make the best allies."
--Centran saying

"We're in danger," Squall said for the fourth time, glaring at Seifer. "If there's any way to contact SeeD, or Esthar, or Galbadia, we have to. Otherwise this entire city is going to be overrun."

"So tell me what you're going to do about it," Seifer sneered, tapping the tip of his gunblade, Hyperion, against the floor. "Wnt to walk to Esthar?"

(I have before.) "I don't know," he admitted. "Doesn't this city have any communications relays?"

"Why should they?" Seifer asked with a sneer. "They don't care about the outside world. Too violent for their tastes."

Squall closed his eyes. (Hyne help me with xenophobic pacifists and inexplicable armies--) "We have to send someone to Garden--"

"Who? Me? They'd kill me before I got within a kilometer. And with that," Seifer pointed to the bandage wrapped around Squall's stomach, "you aren't going anywhere. You'll probably take three steps and faint. And if you're going to ask Mayor Dobe, well, I hope you know how to swim. And we can't leave this place defenseless, or they'd fall on their faces and surrender before the first person stepped ashore!"

"Hey, look what I found, ya know?" called Raijin, walking into the room holding up a shark's carcass. "I just found it, ya know? Floatin' on the water all dead an' all."

"STRANGE," said Fujin, readjusting her eyepatch.

Something caught Squall's attention. "Let me see that," he said. Raijin tossed the shark towards him, almost bowling him over as he caught it. Opening the shark's mouth, he saw a scrap of red-tinted roasted fish, and a scrap of orange skin. "Badamb fish," he pronounced--and a thought struck him. "...I have an idea."

Seifer crossed his arms. "Yeah?"

"Raijin?"

"Yeah?"

"How many Badamb fish can you catch?"

Raijin shook his head. "Oh, no. You want Balamb fish, ya know? Badamb fish are poisonous, ya--"

Seifer got it--and a grin was spreading across his face. "That's the oldest trick in the oldest book in the world," he said. "Hell, wasn't that in Hyne's Bible or something?"

Squall shrugged.

Raijin looked lost. "Huh? I dunno what's--"

"If you can't beat 'em..." Seifer turned to Raijin, gesturing imperiously at the fishing shed. "Let's play pacifists with Mayor Dork. You're gonna cook up a welcome feast for them."

There was very nearly a glint of vindictive amusement in Fujin's eye. "AFFIRMATIVE!" she snapped.

"Hey, this'll be fun, ya know?" Raijin said and ran after his fishing pole. Seifer turned to Squall, hauling him to his feet.

"Well, I guess even you get lucky and have good ideas sometimes," he conceded. "Hope you don't mind a bit of a walk. This place isn't exactly known for its public transport."

"Whatever," Squall said. (We're going to Galbadia if we have to walk the wrong way around the globe to get there.)

-

The Cape of Good Hope and its grey-stone orphanage slid swiftly into the massive dragonship's view, but it wasn't the other thing. Gliding across the waves, stately and dangerous like waterlocked raptors, a flotilla of black ships skirted the land. Onemades its way towards Edea's orphanage, the others--nine at a quick count--held in tight formation still nearly close enough to spit.

"Whoa!" Zell breathed, staring out the cockpit windows. "We better not be trying to take all of them on..."

"No," Quistis said, voice steely. "This ship is armed."

Irvine nodded. Moving over to the weapons panel, he glared down at the approaching ship. "Readying main beam cannon," he said. "Arming..."

Eneggy thrummed through the systems, cracking and hissing as it gathered before the cannon's mouth. It burned a searing blue, bright as a young star--it pulsed as it charged, a heartbeat and a dire warning.

"Firing," Irvine said, and the energy burst forth, hunting the black ship at inescapable speed...

Nothing happened. The ship was pushed several ship-lengths back in the water, but other than that, nothing.

"Damn!" Zell yelled.

"Beautiful, just beautiful," Nida said.

"Nida," Quistis asked hesitantly.

"Yes?" he asked, turning to look at her.

"If you extend the ladder now, can you get us close enough to board that ship?"

Nida turned and nodded. "Yeeeah, hold on a sec." Sending the ship into a shallow dive, he said "I'm extending the ladder now. If you want to go wait by it, I'll get you close enough. And good luck."

Quistis motioned to the other two to follow her onto the lift, and headed for the exit.

"Hopefully a show of strenght here will mean we won't have to engage the others," she said, not really believeing it.

The ladder stuck out like a finger, pointing to the hull of the sturdy, black ship. Zell guessed it was a better class of ship than the one the had been at Fisherman's Horizon; that one had been smaller, raftlike, and broke in half with a Flare spell, while this one was sleek, fast, and stood up to the Ragnarok's artillery. The thing he didn't want to know was how many people they would have to fight to stop the ship from getting to shore and Edea.

The deck of the black ship loomed closer, and Zell made a fist nervously. What was taking Nida so long?

"We're close enough," Irvine said once the end of the ladder was about eight feet above the hull. "Jump!"

The three companions jumped, each one landing with a thump on the dark deck.

There was silence.

The rushing of the waves continued around them. Gulls called, circling out from land. The wind, heavy and wet with the scent of brine, rolled over thier arms and their noses and their ears. Hatches rose like huge dropped coins on the fore- and aftdeck, but remained solidly closed. "No one wants to come meet us?" Zell asked, moving lithely in attack posture. "Hell's--"

"Whoa--look out!"

Zell spun at Irvine's outburst--and spun again, twisting to avoid the harpoon that hissed just beside his skin and slammed into the deck beside him. With incalculable swiftness a second ship had come up behind them, and the rest were circling--a hitherto-concealed weapons port on its nose had shot, and it was dragging the boarded ship closer. Within moments, the two hulls met with the dull scrape of slate on slate.

Within moments, both hulls swarmed with armored men.

Quistis didn't know how they moved so fast, so encumbered--at the moment, she didn't want to. Her attention was focused on not letting them overwhelm her, chain whip cracking and singing like a living asp, seeking any weak point in the armor. They came at her with long swords and staves, fencing her in, herding her towardthe ship edge and the bitter cold of southern water.

"GFs!" Quistis yelled, focusing her mind to summon Shiva. Shiva had been Squall's GF--and the thought of it made her cold with anger, focused her mind with force and hate. Shiva appeared, ice blossoming from her like vicious vines, snapping around the soldiers' legs and slamming them with blizzard winds. A line of men fell and Shiva disappeared, taking her ice with her.

As soon as Quistis opened her eyes, she saw more armored warriors rushing towards her--and two more ships sliding in. She was separated from Irvine and Zell, afraid to use any sort of powerful magic lest it hit one of them. Her chain bit out, but wasn't a match for armor and long weapons for long--and she knew it.

Had she ordered her team into a deathtrap?

Irvine had loaded his shotgun and was shooting anything he could see that wasn't one of his friends, but it was obviously a losing battle. A Firaga spell engulfed a mass of people to one side, and Irvine looked over to see Zell stepping back into a fighting stance and dealing out blows left and right. The sharp crack of the chain whip sounded out, and another man went down--to be replaced by two fresh ones as a third ship anchored on and drew up.

Zell struggled to keep his footing as the mass on people cut him off from his friends, but he was being pushed back too quickly. The edge of the deck had no handrails; he had pushed several people off the side himself. "Quistis!" he called, trying to cast a Haste spell on himself so he could maybe, maybe summon Ifrit. Then an armored opponent lunged at him, arms lockingaround him in a crushing embrace--and Zell dodged too late, and they stumbled, and they fell.

"Zell!" Quistis yelled--and caught only the fleeting tail glipse of him, weighed by the soldier, disappearing over the edge into the deep water below.

Irvine had been knocked to the deck and was trying frantically to get up, paralyzed for a moment unsure whether to try to aid Zell or defend himself. A stave came crashing down upon him, and for a moment the world went dark--

The water closed around Zell with an audible gulp, and the armored man didn't let go. Zell struggled, thrashing in the seawater, trying in vain and with rising panic to extract himself from the soldier's grasp. The world was darkening--they were going down, away from the light and the warmth of the sun and the breathable air into the cold crushing depths and try as he might not to panic completely his mind was drowned out in a chorus of (No no no I don't want to die here I don't want to die here I don't want to die--)

Strong hands grabbed his shoulder, clamped around his mouth. He was ripped from the soldier's arms in a great rush of water, what air hadn't escaped from his lungs already held in as cold fingers clamped shut his nose and mouth. The soldier fell away as someone bore Zell upward at surprising speed, clearing the surface with a splash, and forced him onto the deck. Someone called down a Meteor spell--then another--and a third, the huge stones missing the SeeD party as if they knew who was who. Another spell, and another, in an apparently interminable chain... Zell gasped and coughed up seawater onto the deck as the sounds of fighting stopped around him. Then someone was pounding him on the back, and he coughed.

"We thought we'd lost you," Quistis said from somewhere above him as he opened his eyes. As soon as he thought he could speak, he responded.

"Uh..." he swallowed. "Almost did." He glanced up at Irvine. "...thanks."

Irvine looked confused. "Huh? What did I do?"

Zell glanced at him. "You didn't jump in after me?"

"No," Irvine said, gingerly touching a bruise swelling beneath his battered hat. "I wanted to, but I got hit..."

"Quist--?" Zell asked, turning to his former instructor.

"No," she said. "I couldn't even get to the edge. Then you cast Meteor, and--"

"I never cast meteor," Zell said. Quistis looked at Irvine.

"Neither of us did," she said.

"Then--"

"Wait a beat," Irvine said. "You have something on your back."

"What?" Zell said as Irvine picked it off and showed it to him. It was a silvery-blue scale the size of his palm, durable and hard glinting as if from some inner warmth--one that could only come from one creature that anyone could guess.

Zell looked at Quistis. Quistis glanced at Irvine, and back.

"Bahamut?" Zell said.