Chapter Twelve
Dollet at Last
Nida Saves the Day
Nearing the end of morning staff meeting, Xu announced, "We should reach Trabia Garden sometime in the late afternoon, although, just before I came into this meeting Nida informed me the Garden was losing some power. He told me it was nothing of major consequence as of yet, but it felt a little sluggish on turns. Would you like me to call him in, so he can elaborate?"
"No, that won't be necessary," answered Cid. "Just be certain to monitor the situation closely with Nida today" he ordered.
"Of course," Xu promised.
Cid asked, "If we continue to lose power, do we have anybody that can remedy the problem?"
"Not really, Cid. It's too bad we're so far from F.H., because I know their technicians could help. If we can arrive at Trabia Garden and, the fault somehow lies in our computer system, I think their Tech Squad could help us."
"Well, then let's hope we can make it all the way there" Cid replied. "Tell Nida to cut the speed down and not push it so hard. Anything else? Okay, the meeting is adjourned."
Selphie woke up still not feeling a hundred percent due to her drinking experience of the day before. "Never again!" she thought. "I hope Irvine never hears about this!"
Selphie, noting that Brian was still sleeping thought to herself "This guy certainly likes to sleep. Oh, well. I may as well get dressed." Selphie quickly donned her usual apparel and after checking her boots, she went into the bathroom and performed her necessary duties.
Coming downstairs, she greeted Sayoko, "Good Morning." Sayoko turned and greeted her in return and then offered her breakfast, which Selphie declined claiming an upset stomach to which Sayoko nodded knowingly having heard the entire story from Zone earlier in the morning.
As Selphie moved toward the front door, Sayoko informed her, "Zone was by early this morning and he and Watts will be out of town all day."
"Did he say why?"
"No" Sayoko answered, "Actually he was quite mysterious about the whole thing."
"Well, you know Zone - he's always mysterious."
As Sayoko laughed, Selphie declared "I think I'll go out anyway and take a look around town."
As she opened the front door, Sayoko called out "Be extra careful!"
"I'm always careful" Selphie answered as she shut the front door behind her, but then found herself wondering if that were really true.
Selphie strolled all around Timber and discovered nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, she thought ruefully, she didn't even observe anything interesting. Due to her present debilitated physical condition because of her recent drinking episode, she tired quickly and decided to return to Sayoko's house. It was already past noon and she was hungry, but assumed she had already missed lunch. She was just going to have to wait until dinner.
At high noon Zell, Kasumi and Mishima stopped and ate their noon meal of nuts and dried fruit, while Zell maintained a close eye on the horizon, since there was absolutely no land cover in the area. When they had finished eating and were taking a short break, Kasumi asked resignedly "How much further?"
Mishima answered "A couple of hours."
"You've been saying that for days" Zell smiled.
"Sometimes I say it for weeks" Mishima quipped back.
Zell stood up knocking the dust from his body. "I could use a shower."
"Well, why didn't you say something yesterday when we passed that lake? Kasumi and I could have stood guard while you bathed. Of course, we would have had to keep a close eye on you since those lakes can be dangerous" Mishima replied while winking at Kasumi.
Zell blushed and said curtly "Let's go" and set off once again being followed by the two giggling young women.
Mishima proved to be as good as her word, because two hours later they entered the general vicinity of the City of Dollet.
"Oh thank Hyne," whined Kasumi. "Now I can take a shower!"
"Wrong!" Zell replied sternly. "I think you've already proven that staying at the hotel is a bad idea."
Zell glanced back at the young SeeD and recognizing the hurt expression on Kasumi's face softened somewhat and said, "Sorry, I didn't mean to come down on you."
Mishima immediately stepped up behind Kasumi and began to massage her shoulders while saying, "You know Zell has always been overzealous! Get it? - Overzellous."
Zell moaned at the weak pun and Kasumi managed a small smile. Mishima explained, "I have some childhood friends who are involved in the resistance. I'm going to go in and try to find them. They may know what happened to Shinji."
"Okay" Zell agreed. "We'll be waiting in those woods over there" he explained while pointing due north.
"Good luck," Kasumi called out to Mishima as she began striding down the highway toward Dollet.
Squall was lying on a metal bunk in a cell in the D-District Prison. Actually calling it a cell was a misnomer - it was actually an extremely small oblong box with just enough room for his metal bunk, which was attached to a wall and a metal toilet with no lid that stood in the corner. There was barely enough room to stand, much less walk around.
Every part of his body ached with massive bruises already forming from the savage beating he received after being forced to drop his weapon. In fact, he believed, if Kyoko (that bitch) hadn't finally pulled herself together enough to apply a tourniquet to the bleeding man's arm and then come out in the hall to pull them off him, he'd be dead now.
How was he going to escape this? Last time he was an inmate in the D-District Prison, he received help to escape. Now it was only him. "Or was Quistis here too?" he wondered. He hoped she'd gotten away, but in his heart he realized that was probably a pipe dream, because of the ruthless efficiency that led to his capture. "I just pray she's alive" he thought drifting off to a much needed sleep.
Quistis was actually more fortunate, even though at the moment she didn't realize it. She was in a cell with four other women and there was plenty of room to walk around. Referring to this as a cell was also a misnomer, because there were no bars to provide a view. There was no way of knowing about anything outside of the huge compartment that consisted of twenty foot metal walls and no bunks or any other places to sit or lay down, other than the hard metal floor. There was one toilet sans lid open to public view in the corner of the room. The lights, which were located high up along the wall near the ceiling, were on twenty-four hours a day causing it to be extremely difficult to sleep.
So far Quistis hadn't said a word to her cellmates. Three of them were sitting along a far wall communicating in low tones among themselves, while the fourth one sat as solitary as Quistis. She could only recognize what one of them had probably been arrested for, since the woman in question was wearing a dirty blonde wig and a extremely short blue skirt similar to the one Rinoa favored except she had forgotten to add the long shorts Rinoa wore. Quistis considered herself fortunate, as she sat across from her, that at least the woman in question was wearing a thong beneath the short skirt.
Quistis wondered how the Galbadian Secret Police has discovered them so easily in such a short time. "I hope Squall was able to get away," she thought. "I never thought the end would come this ignominiously," she thought resignedly, "but I guess it will."
Entering Sayoko's house, after the daughter opened the door for her, Selphie noticed immediately that Brian had finally arisen for the day. Greeting him briefly, she went straight up to the bedroom, but, unfortunately as far as Selphie was concerned, he followed her upstairs and spent the afternoon attempting to make small talk with her, which she ignored as much as possible because he mostly was asking her questions about the pigtail girl.
After dinner, Selphie announced she was exhausted and was going to bed. She decided to take a quick shower in an attempt to feel better and, after toweling off haphazardly, she slipped into bed still damp. She wondered if everything was going okay with Zell, Mishima and Kasumi. Before drifting off to sleep she thought wearily "This certainly was a wasted day."
Irvine and Rinoa were sitting at a table in the coffee shop late in the afternoon before dinner.
Rinoa said, "I wonder where Akane is? I know her classes are over."
Irvine asked, "Should we wait until the last dinner shift is called to see if she shows up?"
"Yeah, let's do that. I still feel badly about the way I came off at her this morning. I hope her not showing up has anything to do with that."
Irvine asked, "Did you notice how weird she acted this morning when she saw Cid and Edea? I still say there's something going on with her."
Rinoa's voice took on a hard edge when she answered, "She's just fifteen years old! Isn't that strange enough for you? Or don't you remember being fifteen and particularly with her always being around older people like us. She really needs some friends her own age. I wonder what happened to that boy Arnaz? I haven't seen him since that day at the beach in Centra."
Irvine exclaimed, "Yeah, that's another strange thing about her - that kid Arnaz disappears and she doesn't even seem to notice."
"Okay, okay" Irvine replied throwing his hands up in self defense as Rinoa lunged at him across the table and punched him hard in the bicep. "I won't say anymore about it."
Rinoa smiled sweetly at him from across the table. Suddenly the Garden lurched and then swerved drastically to the left throwing Rinoa off her chair and down to the floor, while it flung Irvine face down on the table.
"What the hell?!" Irvine shouted.
Up on the bridge, Xu was shouting to make herself heard over the unpleasant loud whine the Garden was producing and the sound of the wind rushing by the shatterproof circular front window that wrapped around three-fourths of the bridge, as the Garden plunged earthbound.
"More to the right! Keep going! Now try to level it up some" Xu shouted at Nida.
"Try the brake!" she screamed. "Try it again. Good, now try to level it up again."
Nida stood at the controls, which were twice again taller than he, pulling one and then the other and then back pushing one. The Garden's speed downward had decreased somewhat, but it was still headed down!
"Okay!" Xu shouted, "Keep trying to level it up. Watch out for those woods on the right!"
"Okay, okay" Xu continued to shout, "You missed the woods! Good, keep trying to level it up!"
The Garden landed with a hard jolt that threw Xu off balance crashing into Nida, who spun and caught her forward progress.
"Good job, Nida" Xu complimented.
"Thanks. It appears that Trabia Garden is two miles due west of us."
Xu reached down and pressed the bridge intercom button.
Once the Garden settled on the ground, Irvine crossed quickly to Rinoa's side and helped her regain her feet. "Are you okay?" he asked.
"I think so," Rinoa answered.
"Wow!" Irvine exclaimed, "What the hell was that?"
"We crashed" Rinoa replied quietly. All around Rinoa, students and SeeDs were picking themselves and tables and chairs off the floor.
Suddenly the intercom clicked on and all activity ceased in the coffee shop. "Seifer Almasy and Rinoa Heartilly, please report to the bridge immediately. I repeat, Seifer Almasy and Rinoa Heartilly, please report to the bridge immediately. That is all."
Irvine stood there with his mouth agape for a second before protesting, "Hey, what about me? Why am I always the one left out?"
Rinoa thought "Me and Seifer?! Good Grief! Now what?"
All around the cafeteria, students and SeeDs were still picking themselves and tables and chairs off the floor, where they had been thrown. Seifer, Raijin and Fujin had remained comfortably seated at their table and, in fact, Seifer hadn't even missed one bite of his hot dog during the forced landing. After the intercom message was delivered, Raijin said "They just called you to the bridge, no da."
"I know" replied Seifer flatly while preparing to stuff half a hot dog into his mouth.
"What'cha gonna do, no da?"
Seifer stood up. "I'm going to report to the bridge."
Raijin exclaimed, "Good luck, no da!"
"UH, OH" Fujin declared.
Seifer leaned down over Raijin and asked, "What did I tell you about luck?"
"Uh, uh" Raijin stammered attempting to remember, "Oh, yeah. Luck is only for the incompetent."
"That's right" Seifer replied while pinching Raijin's cheek. "I don't need luck."
Seifer turned and walked out of the cafeteria, while Raijin shouted behind him, "Well, it couldn't hurt to have some, no da!"
Rinoa was already waiting in front of the first floor elevator, when Seifer came sauntering up the staircase. Rinoa glanced at him out of the corner of her left eye and perceived he was standing staring straight ahead.
She thought, "How long does it take this elevator to get here?"
Finally she spoke "Hi, Seifer."
"Hi."
"How are you?" Rinoa asked.
"Fine."
The elevator landed on the first floor and the doors opened. Rinoa stepped on first and moved to the back. Seifer got on and punched the #3 button. They rode up in complete silence. When the elevator stopped on the third floor and the doors opened, Seifer stepped off and then Rinoa. Xu was waiting for them.
Xu explained, "We are two miles due west of Trabia Garden. We are leaving immediately to walk there."
Rinoa asked, "Do I have time to change out of this skimpy uniform?"
"No, it is imperative we arrive there before it grows too late. The later it becomes, the more dangerous the snowfields will be. Now let's go."
Seifer and Xu appeared to be vying for the position of point man, as they moved across the Bika Snowfield toward Trabia Garden with Rinoa lagging behind a poor third. It had been a few months since Rinoa had been involved in any sort of fighting outside of hand-to-hand combat class and she was feeling more than a little anxious. Plus she was already starting to freeze in her short skirt. "Darn that Xu," Rinoa thought, "wouldn't let me change into my warmer outfit. What does she care? She's wearing that long woolen skirt."
A sudden thought occurred to Rinoa, who asked, "Xu, why didn't we just travel in one of our trucks?"
"Because" Xu answered, "without special snow tires our trucks would become immediately bogged down to their axles in this snow."
Rinoa continued to grumble to herself, so when a Gayla and two bite bugs attacked she was caught slightly off guard and was nearly hit by a spew of poison from the Gayla. A Gayla was a particularly nasty flying monster with the ability to place a person asleep and then hit them with a fiery poison that could conceivably kill a person. The bite bugs were mostly annoying, although they could hit a person with a minor poison that was not pleasant.
Being slightly off guard, Rinoa allowed Seifer and Xu the opportunity to leap forward and attack the Gayla while she remained back and killed both bite bugs with her Shooting Star. After the Gayla lay dead at Seifer's feet, Seifer turned and glanced at Rinoa. As she had been slacking off, she felt instantly guilty and glanced away.
Suddenly three Mesmerizes, who resembled giant unicorns, except the growth in the middle of their foreheads was long and curved and deadly sharp, bounded out of one of the forests right in front of their path. Seifer leaped forward killing the one on the far right and then moving quickly sideways avoided the attack of the middle one, while Xu swung her bola and brought it down on top of the head of the middle one breaking its horn off, but not finishing it. As Rinoa threw her long range weapon Shooting Star at the one on the outside left killing it, the middle one dashed past Xu and Seifer and head butted Rinoa in the pit of her stomach slightly breaking her skin and knocking her roughly to the ground. When Seifer finished the last one, Xu jumped back and quickly cast a cura on Rinoa healing her injury.
The main trouble with fighting, Rinoa realized, was that it caused her to perspire heavily and then once the fighting was finished, the perspiration froze leaving her even colder. As they continued their journey towards Trabia Garden, Rinoa's teeth chattering became even more pronounced until Seifer paused, spun around and walked back to Rinoa. Shrugging his opened long military coat off his shoulders, he handed it to Rinoa. "Here put this on."
"Oh, Seifer. I can't wear your coat. You need it."
"Look, your chattering is driving me crazy. You sound like a one-woman band. Now put this on right now."
"Thank you" Rinoa expressed donning the coat. The coat was so long on Rinoa, it was dragging through the snow and Rinoa realized she needed to pay close attention now or she might trip on the coat and fall head long onto her face.
Suddenly Trabia Garden sprang into view. It sat glistening in the winter moonlight, as if something out of a fairy tale. Rinoa immediately recognized there had been immense renovation on it in the months, since she was here last. For one thing, there was a front gate that one could enter rather than having to climb up a wall to enter their Garden.
They quickly hurried to the front gate, where they encountered two SeeDs acting as guards. Xu quickly identified who they were and the SeeDs allowed them in and one of the SeeDs offered to escort them to the Headmaster's office. Xu turned to Rinoa and Seifer and advised, "You two wait here. I'll try to do this as quickly as possible." And then Xu was escorted down the corridor.
Rinoa took the opportunity to return Seifer his coat and to scrutinize all the changes that had been wrought since her last visit there. There was now a complete ceiling on the first floor and, from her vantage point near the front gate, it appeared as if the entire first floor had been completely renovated.
From a couple of doors being left ajar on the first floor, Rinoa could perceive that these rooms were now bedrooms. Xu was as good as her word and she returned to the front gate in a very few minutes. Rinoa asked "Well?"
Xu responded, "They understand our situation and they are going to send their Tech Squad over tomorrow to help us. But there's something better than that - they're going to give us a ride back to our Garden in one of their trucks."
"Oh, thank Hyne!" Rinoa thought.
Far later in the evening, after three of Quistis's cellmates had lain down and fallen asleep, the quiet woman in the corner stood up and approached Quistis. "What are you in for?" the woman asked. Close up, Quistis could see the woman didn't look as young as Quistis had originally thought, but she was still an attractive looking red haired woman in her mid-thirties. Not knowing who might be a Galbadian plant, Quistis remained in her role.
"I have no idea what is going on. I'm a student at East Academy University and they seem to have me confused with a woman, who is some kind of mercenary."
The red haired woman replied in a flat tone "Uh, huh. Yeah, I know kid. It's funny, there isn't a person in here that's guilty of anything. It's all been a horrible mistake."
Quistis protested, "No, I mean it. I'm really just a student."
"Save it for the interrogation room" the red haired woman responded cynically. "When you're ready to be honest, I just might be able to help you."
The red haired woman returned to the far corner and reseated herself.
Night had fallen completely and Mishima still hadn't returned. Zell had built a large fire to keep the wild animals and monsters at bay, while Kasumi slept on the forest floor. Zell felt sorry for the small, young female SeeD, whose first assignment had been so dangerous and demanding and promised to possibly become worse. He was also worried about Mishima.
Suddenly hearing some rustling in the woods near by, he sprang into his attack position when Mishima walked into the slight clearing around the fire.
"Don't scare me like that," she laughed.
"I'm so glad you're back. I was really worried."
"No need to worry" Mishima reassured him, "I know my way around Dollet."
Mishima was carrying three bundles that she laid on the ground. She leaned down and lightly shook Kasumi awake. "I've brought dinner," she informed them.
Kasumi heard the word dinner and quickly sat up wide-awake. "Oh man" she moaned, "I can't believe it. It smells so good."
Mishima handed one of the bundles to Zell, who quickly opened his. "Hot dogs" shouted Zell.
Mishima warned "Zell, keep your voice down."
As they sat voraciously eating the first real food they had had in the last three days, Mishima offered them a detailed account of her day in Dollet.
"I was finally able to make contact late in the day with one of the resistance members. Naturally enough, these people are extremely paranoid. There are Galbadian soldiers and Secret Police everywhere in town. Although I don't know what it is, but something has changed. The trains seem to be running on a limited basis now and they're no longer checking everybody's I.D. all the time. Anyway, like I was saying - I've arranged a meet with their leader for tomorrow morning early."
"That's great!" exclaimed Kasumi. As they were finished eating, Zell gathered their trash and began to dig a hole with his hands. Kasumi glanced at him and said glibly "Afraid to be a litterbug?"
As Mishima giggled, Zell growled, "No, I don't want to leave any evidence we were here, Kasumi."
"Oh" she responded in a small voice.
"Well, I don't know about you all, but I'm going to sleep" Mishima declared lying down on the forest floor.
"I'll take the first watch," Zell volunteered as Kasumi stretched out on the ground.
A few moments later, as Zell sat on the forest floor observing the two sleeping, beautiful young women, he hoped the morrow would bring them happier news.
Mishima was as good as her word. By the time the sun had risen, she had left on her trip returning to Dollet. Kasumi was on watch as Mishima left and she wished her luck. As Zell was still sleeping, Kasumi decided to allow the excitable boy to sleep late, since there was nothing they could do until Mishima returned.
The resistance people mainly resided close to the water down by the beach area in Dollet. Dollet was a seacoast town. Prone to being attacked from the direction of the sea, many years earlier the City of Dollet had erected huge metal batteries that were built along almost the entire length of nearly half the city. There were some small docks near the entrance to the city, but there was no harbor deep enough for anything other than a small craft to berth at. This left a small beach area that only small crafts could land at. Because many of the people in the resistance earned their living from running weapons to other resistance groups, it was only natural they lived in the immediate area of the beach. It also allowed them an opportunity to escape by boat, if a Galbadian sweep suddenly occurred.
When Mishima entered Dollet that morning, she strode down, what many people who resided in Dollet refer to as the back way, but in actuality it lay parallel to the main business district. The beach area itself was actually the back of Dollet.
Mishima walked down a curving road by a small dock area. Looking out toward the water, she observed a variety of larger vessels bobbing up and down on the water. The sea was rough that morning as the wind had increased. It was cold by the water. Mishima shivered in her skimpy outfit.
As she moved down the red-bricked streets, she kept a close eye out for anything suspicious, but it was so early yet there really wasn't any activity to speak of. She walked almost all of the way down to the beach area and then stepped inside a large church, the site of the assignation. She had only received this interview, because she had known the resistance leader since childhood.
She stepped inside the church from the front foyer and distinguished him kneeling in a back row. Mishima entered the row he was in and knelt beside him. She had already been instructed to not use his name because of security reasons.
"I hear you're working for Garden now" he said. "How is it?"
"It's good" Mishima answered. "it's exciting. It's never boring."
"Would it be exciting, if you were hired by Galbadia?" he cynically asked.
"Galbadia would never hire us, because they consider us their enemy and, even if they tried to hire us, we would never agree."
"Good answer" he replied. "Now what do you need to ask me?"
Mishima went on to explain to him the entire original mission and the consequences from such. "So do you know," Mishima finally asked, "anything about where Shinji might be?"
"As a matter of fact, I do" he answered. "I know where he's at."
Mishima's heart skipped a beat when she asked "Can you take me to him?"
"Certainly, but he won't know you. He was badly injured in the police raid. If it wasn't for the fact the whoe situation was completely chaotic in the hotel that night, plus your comrade running drew a lot of attention from the Secret Police away from Shinji, he would probably be dead right now. As it was, we have personnel in the hotel and they were able to whisk him out of there. But he has suffered severe internal damage and we don't have much of a doctor here."
Mishima replied, "We have a very good doctor at the Garden."
"Where's your Garden now?"
"I'm not sure" Mishima admitted. "But if we can get to Balamb, I think we can get to it."
"Oh, we can certainly transport you to Balamb. In fact, the sooner the better, because his health is continuing to fail and it's growing increasingly more difficult for us to keep him hidden."
"Okay" Mishima informed him. "I'm going to go back and inform my comrades and then we'll all come in. Can I meet you back here in, say, four hours?"
"Yes, that would be fine" he answered.
"Okay, thanks, see you then."
Mishima arose and left the church.
Xu was explaining in morning staff meeting. "The upshot of our visit to Trabia Garden yesterday evening is I talked to their Headmaster, who was very cooperative."
Cid interrupted "Yes, I've known him for years. "What is his name. It's-."
"Dyne Barrett" interrupted Xu in return.
"That's right."
Xu suggested, "I think it would be nice if you went over to visit him during our stay here and offer him personally our gratitude."
Cid replied, slightly frustrated "Since I don't feel as though I want to trudge through two miles of snow, fighting monsters as you all did last night I think I'll pass on that."
Xu, completely understanding this was just an excuse, so Cid could remain reclusive as ever, replied, "You don't have to do that, Cid. You can take one of the Trabia Garden trucks over. They're going to be traveling back and forth all day."
Cid answered, "Well, we'll see. Go ahead with your report."
"Their Tech Squad has already arrived and is currently working on our problem. At my suggestion, some of Trabia Garden's upper-classmen are sitting in today in some of our more advanced classes and I have sent some of our students and SeeDs over to Trabia Garden to help with their construction. They have made great strides in the last few months. They have completely renovated the first floor and are framing the second."
"Good, good" Cid commented rather absent-mindedly. "Is there anything else?"
As Xu and Fujin remained silent, Cid announced, "Meeting adjourned."