XIV
"I just think... it's kinda ominous, don't you? Right there, right in the word 'soldiers,' it says 'die.' I just think it's a little creepy, is all."
--President Laguna Loire

Squall woke to the sound of klaxons screaming like demons through Garden's halls.

"Battlestations," ordered the voice over the intercom, battlezone-calm. "All hands to your assingned battlestations. This is not a drill, repeat, not a drill."

Squall sat up immediately, reflexes taking over as he slid out of bed and reached on instinct for his weapon. It took him a moment, looking around the infirmary, to realize exactly where he was.

Doctor Kadowaki stepped in. Looking him directly in the eye, she said "I just checked with Quistis, you're not needed on the bridge. You're to stay here, safe. We don't need you getting wounded again."

"Garden is being attacked?" Squall asked. "By who?"

"Sounds like that army," Kadowaki said as she headed into the back room. "It seems they have another mobile building, like our Garden. Don't worry, Squall--" she returned with a pile of sheets, readying the infirmary for incoming injuries. "You've trained these people well. They're ready for this, now."

If she had been trying to be reassuring, it wasn't working. Squall was confident in the training he had instated--necessary, after the Galbadia Garden invasion in the last year, a battle marked on Balamb Garden's side more by mass confusion and panic than organized resistance. But he was commander of Garden for emergencies just like these--and being confined to bed in the infirmary, even if it was standard procedure for wounded, left a sour twist at the back of his stomach.

A group of seven students, still in their cadet uniforms ran in, saw him, stopped and saluted. "Emergency Medical Team reporting, sir!" the first one said.

Squall returned the salute. "Report to Doctor Kadaowaki," he said. They nodded and ran towards the back room.

Squall spent several minutes pacing before the first casualties began to stream in. Most were bearing cut or bullet wounds, though a few showed bruises and what appeared to be clawmarks. Only a few at first, they soon increased in numbers.

Squall fidgeted impatiently--tried to perform some useful task, tried to gague the strength of the army and glean what information he could by mere observation. It didn't help.

Then the first messages began to come over the intercom.

"Nida to the bridge, repeat, Nida report to the bridge. Zell and Irvine, report to the Quad."

Moments later--

"Quitsis Trepe to the entrance, repeat, Quistis report to the entrance."

(Great,) he thought, restlessness rising. (Garden is being taken--and I'm stuck in here with wounded and noncombatants!)

Then the unwounded began to come into the infirmary, yelling. A huge, black-armored form pounded after them, weilding a blade longer than Squall's leg. The mass of students caught him in the hall's bottleneck and felled him, and Squall got his first glance of what was happening--a black mass was advancing down the hall towards the infirmary. Why, he didn't know. There were other, better targets.

Unless--

(Unless this is how it is everywhere.)

Turning, Squall saw that Kadowaki was so busy with the wounded that she hadn't been bothering to watch him. Reaching down, he grabbed the enemy's long blade. It was a heavier than he was used to, and he doubted he would ever get used to the lack of a trigger, but it seemed powerful enough.

The next wave of the army reached the door, and a well-aimed Ultima spell cleared the hall. Pointing to three of the students, Squall said "You three, follow me." They saluted, and followed him as he charged out.

He hadn't ordered them out without taking stock of their weapons--a blade, a long lance, and something that looked like an overlarge, one-barreled shotgun. Not ideal--a battering ram would have been ideal, or possibly a tank--but good enough.

"Will all available hands report to the second floor deck, repeat, will all available hands report to the se--" the intercom message was cut off abruptly. They reached the end of the hall, and, suddenly, Squall and his team were flighting through a solid mass of soldiers. Squall couldn't weild the blade as well in such tight quarters, and the man with the lance was almost completely useless. The gunman was firing randomly, most of his shots going towards the ground. (Hand to hand training,) Squall thought to himself. (I knew I forgot to incude something in those drills. Maybe I could expnand SeeD's basic lessons--this isn't the time!)

There was a roar from somewhere nearby, a staggering wave of heat, and Squall caught a glimpse of a red-maned form to his right, near the directory. (Ifrit,) he thought. (Zell must be somewhere over there.)

"Let's get to the entrance hall," Squall said, leveling an Ultima spell at the nearest group of soldiers. Three Flare spells appeared almost in unison just beyond the Ultima spell, and Squall wondered where the students had gotten such high-level magic. Almost immediately the gap was filled with more soldiers, and Squall took a moment to wonder where they were all coming from.

There were angry yells from his back, and Squall turned from dispatching an enemy to see that he had been cut off from his team. Managing to get his back up against the wall of the catwalk above the Garden stream, Squall tried to hold his own against the mass of soldiers pressing in on him from all sides.

There was a yell from his right, and Squall glanced over to see a tiny, robed green figure cutting through the troops. In one hand it held a lantern, in the other it held a chef's knife--dripping with some black ichor that might have been blood, but probably wasn't. (Tonberry,) Squall recognized. Half a human's height with huge yellow eyes, the thing would have been laughable if it wasn't so deadly. Weilding the chefs knife expertly, it was carving a path through the army with unnerving ease.

A flash burst stars in his vision, and he dodged on instinct. The hallway bucked, and as his vision cleared he found that the catwalk wall had disintigrated, and the carpet on which he stood was tearing off into the water below--

He didn't have time to leap to safety. It was all he could do to gasp in breath before he was underwater, pulled down by the weight of the sword and his suddenly waterlogged clothes.

Forcing his eyers open in the water, he saw three soldiers advancing on him ponderously, bubbles escaping in streams from cricks and crevices in the dark armor. Adjusting to his new weight and buoyancy, he swung the sword--and it sliced through the armor as if the men were clad in butter. Red blossomed from the wound, clouding the water.

(Air--

Kicking upwards with as much force as he could muster, Squall broke the surface gasping before one of the armored soldiers pulled him back down. Bringing the heavy blade down on his enemy's head as he sunk, Squall kicked the dead body away from him and headed to the surface again. Then the next one was on him--swinging his sword in a wide arc. Squall pushed his way backwards, under the entrance hall catwalk, and tried to surface on the other side just as the soldier fumbled and collapsed, breath exhaused.

Squall glanced at the catwalk, deciding against climbing up--a difficult task during which he would certainly be defenseless--as three more soldiers jumped in after him. One held a heavy, two-bladed axe whose blade was wider than Squall was, and he weilded it like a master. Suddenly all four combatants were literally frozen in place as a sheet of ice coated the water's surface and the catwalk above, then shattered and disappeared. Squall caught a glimpse of blue skin--Shiva. (Which means Quistis.)

A hard stab dispatched the soldier to the axe-weilder's right, and Squall swung at the axe-weilder himself. The two armored men were driving him backwards, up against a wall underwater. Another quick break for air and Squall killed the sword-bearing one, leaving him and the axe master alone. Taking another, deep breath, Squall pushed himself into a side passageway--the route to the training center.

The armored form came in after him, blocking the light. Squall tried to move backwards in the water, holding his blade out at the ready. When he decided that the man was certainly drowned, he turned and ran to reach the other end of the passage.

He met a wall. Without light, he couldn't tell if it was the end of the passage or just a corner. Feeling his way along, he came to another open area; it had been a corner. Three steps, then another wall and what felt like a grille. The grille, half again as large as Squall was, was open, and Squall forced his way through. He was running out of air.

(Concentrate,) he told himself. (Concentrate or you'll never make it out.)

He could feel pressure building up from the way he came, and half-turned when hard armor rammed up against him. He could feel the axe biting into his leg, not deep, but painful. Fighting blind panic and the impulse to breathe, Squall began to hack at the figure with his stolen sword as the soldier kept pushing him along the waterway, axe jerking spasmodically. Bubbles began escaping from Squall's mouth, and he wondered just how long the passage was--

Then, suddenly, light! Freezing air hit him, hurting his lungs, chilling his damp clothing. Impossibly strong hands caught him, lifted him from the water as he saw the silvery body of Leviathan sliding past, pushing the mangled soldier with his nose. Squall was almost crushed against a huge, furred body; dry heat emanating from it as if it was on fire--as if it was fire. Steam rose from Squall in billows, and within seconds he was completely dry. Turning just as his rescuer disappeared, he caught a glimpse of ember-red fur.

Stepping onto the grassy hill from the plank bridge, Squall noticed the air had warmed considerably. The Garden air conditioning was still too cold for comfort, but the lung-freezing cold was gone. Stepping into the entrance, Squall saw why: a black-armored man and two (tame?) Snow-Lions were pushed against a wall, dead.

The door to the hall burst open, and Squall watched Zell and Nida back in, fighting with a squad of soldiers. Nida was weilding a deadly-looking katana, and had what appeared to be throwing knives strapped to his side as well. With a moment of concentration, Squall sent an Ultima spell at the soldiers, startling the other SeeDs enough to make them jump.

"Whew!" Nida said as the soldiers fell. "I think that's the last of them here--Squall, where did you come from?"

Squall gestured back at the door to the stream. Zell shrugged.

"I thought you'd be by the parking lot."

"Why?" asked Squall.

"Because that's where Quezacotl was," Zell said matter-of-factly. Squall stared at Zell for a moment, then opened his mouth to say--something. It didn't matter; a moment later Garden dropped out from underneath him, throwing him into a wall. Zell and Nida landed beside him just in time for another jolt as the entire Garden keeled to one side, sending the Snow Lion corpses and the three SeeDs rolling.

"Will Helmsman Nida please report to the bridge immediately," came a voice over the intercom. "Repeat--"

"They got the Bridge back!" Zell said, struggling to stand on the tilting floor. "Let's go!"

The three ran through the halls, clogged with dead and wounded, fighting their way against gravity as the Garden bobbed and listed drunkenly. Upon reaching the elevator they were forced to drag out the body of a stabbed soldier, heavy armor making it much harder than it seemed it should have been. Punching the "3F" button, the SeeDs waited while the elevator rose. Stepping off and onto the lift to the bridge, Squall noticed that there were considerable number of armored soldiers lying on the ground, dead. A pile of blue-uniformed bodies rested against the wall, SeeD casualties. The lift rose well enough, despite the fact that one side was blackened heavily. Apparently there had been some pretty major fighting for control.

"Squall? I thought Dr. Kadowaki wanted you to--never mind." Xu said from the controls. "Take a look at this."

Taking the pair of binoculars Xu held out to him, Squall looked out over the--waves? The steep cliffs of the Balamb continent rose in front of them--whatever had happened, they weren't stationed any more. Plans were apparently changing.

"To your right," Xu said. Squall turned, and saw a close-up veiw of a rotating circle, much like the one that propelled Balamb Garden, except this one was pure silver. Raising the binoculars, he saw a black, streamlined building, heading towards them at full speed.

Hitting the PA, he snapped "Brace for impact!" into the mic. Then the black building rammed Balamb, sending another jolt through the Garden.

"They pushed us off the cliff," Xu said. "They've been ramming us since. There's a leak in the B1 level, I sent Quistis and her little fan club to fix it. The Trepies should be able to stop it before the Garden sinks, but we can't stand many more of these attacks."

"What are we supposed to do?" Zell asked, making a fist.

"Nida," Squall asked. "How fast can Garden? Faster than--that?"

Xu nodded. "Anything turns faster than that thing," she replied for Nida. "It's as bad as a T-Rexaur with a missing leg. It's got an incredible acceleration curve, though."

"That's fine." Squall motioned Nida up to the huge, bone-colored pillar at the front of the bridge: the steering device. "Nida, take us alongside it. Keep your distance, but try to stay either directly to one side of them so they can't ram us. If they turn, just move to their side and--"

"Yeargh!" Zell gasped, keeling over and grabbing his head. Squall bent to see if he was all right, when--

(--aaaagh!)

Whatever this was, it had to be an attack--it felt as if there were fangs in his temples, pounding burning venom, trying to rip his mind out of his skull, turning the world impossible colors...

Kneeling on the ground he didn't have far to fall, but he was unconcious before he hit anyway.