Chapter Fifteen
Xu Loses Her Shirt
Selphie Takes the Cake
Squall suddenly felt the tiny compartment he was being housed in, being jerked forward and then lifted up and automatically realized he was being transferred to another part of the prison. After a few seconds, he recognized the procedure was completed, as the oblong box-like compartment settled down with a bang throwing him off his bunk.
Picking himself up quickly from the floor, he was standing when the cell door once again opened and two prison guards plus a Galbadian Secret Policeman, for Squall realized the black suited men were secret police, were standing outside the cell. One guard stepped into the cell and, ordering Squall to turn around, manacled the handcuffs on him. Squall allowed himself, without offering any resistance, to be whisked from the cell and along the D-District Prison floor. He wasted no energy on attempting to discern where exactly he was, because he realized it was impossible to discover, but instead utilized the time to fortify himself emotionally for the torture session he was certain would follow. He had been through this once before, and he recognized the true taste of hell it was.
He was marched into a completely empty cell except for two straight back chairs and was roughly thrown down on one by the accompanying guard. Almost immediately, the tall man from the previous day entered the cell. His identity was again hidden by the black mask and Squall assumed the torture session was to begin. In another minute, Squall discovered he was mistaken when the tall man offered the guards and the Galbadian Secret Policeman some orders in a voice too low for Squall to overhear. Squall was completely mystified when the guards and the secret policeman vacated the cell together and the tall man stood in the corner silently.
Quistis had initially lain on the floor in her cell following her first interrogation session, lapsing in and out of consciousness, due to the vicious blows she had sustained to her head. Later in the evening, she was able to pull herself over to a wall and rest against it. No one in the cell spoke to her or really glanced at her, except for the woman in the other corner. She would occasionally look at Quistis in an ironical manner and shake her head slightly.
Finally the guards brought a meal to the prisoners and, although it turned out to be only some extremely thin soup, Quistis drank it down greedily. Later on, she had finally fallen into a deep sleep.
She was awakened by a guard kicking at her feet. "Get up!" he ordered. Quistis struggled to her feet and turned around knowing the drill completely this time. The guard, who was again accompanied by another guard and a man dressed in a black suit, stepped forward and slipped the handcuffs on her. This time the guard then slipped the blind fold over Quistis's eyes in the cell, causing it to be that much more difficult for her to maneuver, as they pushed her along out of the cell and onto the main prison floor. She was able to recognize from the direction and the distance they traveled that they guided her to the same cell as previously. The guard pushed her into the cell and guiding her over to a straight back chair, he then pushed her down on it roughly causing her to gasp against her will.
Squall, who was sitting in the other chair in the cell, suddenly understood the full horror of the situation. They weren't going to torture him in order to force him to share the information they were seeking. They were going to torture Quistis in front of him until he talked!
"I'm sorry, Quisty," he thought desperately, "But if I talk, they'll kill us both immediately anyway." He realized the longer he held out, the more chance there was of them effecting an escape, either from an opportunity afforded him or possibly something accomplished by a Garden force. Squall instinctively recognized he should utter nothing or even allow concern to cross his face during the interrogation session or Quistis would suffer even worse torture.
The tall man crossed to Quistis and leaned down. Quistis could feel his hot breath on her face as he spoke "Quistis Trepe, are you ready to make a full confession?"
Quistis responded, "My name is Madoka Mitaka and I am a student at East Academy University."
Suddenly Quistis heard with mounting terror the deep voice order, "Strip her of her clothing."
Quistis felt the rough hands of the guard reach out and rip her blouse completely off her upper body, while she thought rather inanely, considering her life and death situation, "Oh, I'm so glad I thought to put on a clean bra at East Academy."
On the other side of the room, Squall steeled himself against instinctively turning his head realizing that would be the reaction the tall man would be searching for as a sign of weakness.
Quistis willed herself to not struggle as the hands reached down and removed her long skirt and boots from her body. Squall kept his expression totally neutral as he watched the tall man turn his head and look straight at him. Discerning absolutely no sign of emotion on Squall's face, the tall man suddenly ordered "All of it!" while continuing to search Squall's face for a sign of weakness or desperate concern.
"I'm so sorry, Quistis" Squall thought mournfully.
"Oh Great Hyne!" Quistis thought wildly as she felt the guard's hands reach down and remove her bra and panties displaying her totally nude body to everyone present.
Squall continued to stare straight at Quistis and literally felt sick to his stomach to witness such an indignity suffered by a person he cared deeply for and not be able to do anything about it. The tall man, still watching Squall from behind his mask, asked, "What do you think of that body, Squall?"
Suddenly Quistis felt a thrill of hope course through her entire body and she immediately forgot her vow to remain in her role no matter what occurred, as she blurted out "Squall?! Are you here?"
It made Squall heartsick to remain silent, but he realized he had to.
Suddenly Quistis sensed the deep voice standing closely over her and then heard in her right ear "So Madoka from East Academy University - you're acquainted with Squall from the Garden. How very interesting, indeed. I will ask you again, Quistis Trepe, what was your mission in Deling City and who commissioned it?"
When she declined to answer, she suddenly felt a tremendous punch to her midsection almost completely knocking the breath out of her and causing tremendous pain. She became frightened he had broken some ribs.
Quistis heard the deep voice angrily say, "I will give you one more day to consider your decision of silence, before the consequences become deadly serious. Take her back to her cell."
After Quistis had been led away, the tall man strode up to Squall and advised, "If you continue to remain obstinate in this manner, you will discover that today was just the beginning. Tomorrow rape will be the nicest thing that will happen to her!"
The tall man turned to the guards and the Galbadian Secret Policeman and ordered "Return him to his cell and don't be gentle about it." And then he spun and left the cell.
Zell and Mishima had returned to the car, after eating lunch and were driving down the highway toward Timber. Mishima exclaimed, "Wow! I can't believe you ate so many hot dogs."
Zell, glancing at her, replied, "That's nothing! That wasn't even close to my personal best."
"Unbelievable" Mishima responded, giving her head a slight shake.
Zell laughed and then declared, "A couple more hours and we'll be back in Timber. I can't believe it's only been a few days, it feels like weeks."
Mishima nodded in agreement and replied, "It'll be good to see Selphie again. I hope she's okay."
"Right on!" exclaimed Zell as he pressed down on the gas pedal causing the car to accelarate on its way down the highway.
Irvine had been waiting impatiently in front of the Galbadia Hotel for over fifteen minutes after arriving exactly at noon. He was beginning to become extremely worried concerning where Rinoa was, when she suddenly stepped up behind him and whispered in his ear "Wanna party, mister?"
As Irvine whirled around, Rinoa reached out and took his arm and began walking him rapidly down the street toward the other end of Deling City.
Irvine exclaimed, "Rinoa, you're late! I was getting really worried."
"Hush," she said, "I'll tell all on the train."
"The train?" he questioned.
"Yes," Rinoa explained, "The train to Timber. Now come on, I want to make the one o'clock express." And so saying, Rinoa and Irvine hurried down the sidewalk toward the Deling City Train Station.
An hour later, Rinoa and Irvine were ensconced in a private train compartment Rinoa paid for with, according to Irvine, an obscene amount of money. Rinoa was presently comfortably sitting lengthwise on a couch with her long legs crossed. Irvine was seated across from her.
"Rinoa, where did you get all that money?" Irvine asked.
"I have a trust fund left to me by my mother I never usually touch," she explained. "But I decided, in this case, to make an exception."
"Why are we going to Timber?"
"Because," Rinoa explained, "there's no train from here to the D-District Prison."
"So come on! Tell me!" Irvine prompted.
It took Rinoa a better part of an hour to relate to Irvine her adventures after leaving the mansion in the middle of the night. She had been extremely fortunate in locating an old friend, who knew someone who could hack into the main frame of the Galbadian Justice Department that, naturally enough, included the D-District Prison computer. Rinoa was now equipped with the knowledge of the location of both Squall and Quistis. She also had, in her possession, a false I.D. in the name of Kyoko Yamashita, who was an actual person on the visiting list of a prisoner now held in the D-District Prison. The hacker had been able to transpose Rinoa's photo over the actual picture of Kyoko in the Prison's database.
"What's our immediate plan?"
"For me to take a nap. I'm exhausted," confessed Rinoa. "Wake me when we get to Timber" she requested, while laying her head down on the couch and falling asleep almost immediately.
Forty-five minutes after returning from Trabia Garden, Xu stood in front of Cid's desk outlining to him her plan of attack. "Nida will set us down closely enough, so we only have a short run to the base, although the Garden will have to instantly leave the immediate area, because we're uncertain how large an explosion it will be when we destroy the base."
Xu continued, "Seifer, Fujin and I will enter initially and disable the guards at the front gate and open it. Raijin will lead the second wave of the attack. I have shown them a basic schematic Selphie drew up, when they returned from destroying the first missile base. I have every reason to expect this Missile Base will be very similar, if not identical. They will attack in every room in which they discover Galbadian troops, while we will search out the room that holds that self-destruct mechanism. We will set the mechanism for the shortest time possible and then basically run like hell."
Cid questioned, "When will you leave?"
"Immediately" was Xu's answer.
Cid stood up and replied, "Good luck, Xu. May you all return safely."
Xu offered the SeeD salute, which Cid returned.
Xu, Seifer and Fujin stood by the front gate of the Garden anticipating their landing momentarily. She had already instructed her subordinates as to what was expected of them, after they initially entered the Missile Base. She had stressed moving quickly to incapacitate the guards in the gatehouse, rather than wasting time going for the kill. Standing behind them was a force gathered from both Gardens of approximately seventy-five male and female SeeDs and upper-classmen led by Raijin. Everone had received full instructions from Xu and understood exactly what was expected of them.
When Xu glanced behind, she noticed some of them were breathing heavy and others were literally holding their breath. She could relate to the feeling. It had been a number of years, since she had led SeeDs into actual combat. She had only served as command post when the Galbadian Garden had attacked them. When Nida settled the Garden down on the Hawkwind Plains, Xu shouted, "Go!" and led the charge out the front gate.
Dashing into the Missile Base, Xu perceived it was exactly as Selphie had described it in her report. There was a gold-colored metal barrier connected to the gatehouse. The gatehouse was, at least, half glass and behind the barrier stood a large green gate that also allowed vehicles. Xu absently wondered if she shouldn't have borrowed a truck from Trabia Garden to use to spearhead the attack, but quickly realized it was far too late to be second-guessing herself. The outside of the Missile Base had twenty-foot high walls.
One of the guards in the gatehouse called out "Who are you people?"
Not wasting any time in answering and moving rapidly, Seifer charged up to the gatehouse, with Fujin following closely on his heels. Seifer, never hesitating, cast Fira on the window causing it to explode in a thousand pieces. Seifer jumped into the gatehouse through the broken window and quickly brought the butt of his gunblade crashing down on the heads of the two Galbadian soldiers rendering them unconscious. Fujin, having already entered the gatehouse behind Seifer, reached into a pouch she was carrying on her waist and took out two pairs of handcuffs and quickly manacled the soldier's hands behind their backs.
Rushing up to the gatehouse, Xu asked, "Fujin, why do you have handcuffs?"
Seifer glanced at her and said, "Trust me. You wouldn't want to know."
As Seifer operated the mechanism that allowed the barrier and green gate to open, Fujin jumped out of the gatehouse and ran back outside the Missile Base shouting to Raijin "GO!" She then quickly reversed her field and rejoined Xu and Seifer by the front gate.
Xu, Seifer and Fujin charged into the Missile Base's macadam paved yard, followed closely by Raijin and the entire Garden force. A chain-linked fence with barbed wire on top completely surrounded the yard, which also doubled as a parking lot as there were several Galbadian Army vehicles parked nearby. There were several observational towers with radar visible in other sections of the Missile Base and some missiles standing in silos.
Encountering no resistance, Xu, Seifer and Fujin led the rest of their forces quickly to the building in the back of the yard that was the entrance to the Missile Base proper.
They raced into the small building and, after running down a short staircase, they used the Galbadian I.D. Selphie had brought back with her from their initial Missile Base assignment. Xu inserted it into the mechanism's slot, which allowed the door to open. Seifer yanked the door open and galloped through quickly, followed by Xu, Fujin and then the rest of the Garden force.
Sprinting down another staircase, they encountered their first Galbadian soldier, who was standing in front of the Missile Base circuit room. Before the soldier could react in any manner, Seifer dashed up and rendered him unconscious with the butt of his gunblade. While Seifer, Xu and Fujin continued running down another flight of stairs that led to the main floor of the Missile Base. Raijin guided some of the Garden forces into the circuit room to check out any possible Galbadian troops that could be present.
Reaching the bottom of the staircase, Xu paused and waved some of their force by and pointed to the Galbadian soldier, who was standing guard in front of the room where the missiles were loaded. The guard was swarmed and five SeeDs burst through the door and began to fight with the enemy troops they encountered inside the room.
Meanwhile Xu, Seifer and Fujin raced up a short staircase to the central control room. Bursting through the door, they encountered their first resistance in the form of an officer, who was readily identified by his deep burgandy uniform and several lower ranked soldiers. Silently Seifer leaped forward and slashed at the officer wounding him severely in the rib cage. Fuijin threw her weapon at one soldier killing him outright and then again at another soldier knocking him down with a brutal wound to his left knee, leaving him incapacitated for the remainder of the fight. While Xu stepped forward and swung her bola directly down on top of a soldier's head knocking him unconscious, Seifer stepped forward and striking twice killed the last soldier standing.
Xu quickly guided Seifer and Fujin into the next room, where the self-destruct mechanism was housed. Xu ran up to the second computer on the left wall and turned to Fujin and ordered, "Tell everyone to evacuate! I'm going to set the self-destruct to go off in ten minutes. Tell them to carry the wounded. Go now!"
"DONE!" shouted Fujin as she dashed from the room.
Xu turned back to the computer and set the self-destruct mechanism to activate in ten minutes.
Immediately a loud speaker blared all over the Missile Base announcing "Evacuate! Self-destruct countdown has begun" accompanied by a loud siren followed by a countdown of the time remaining before destruction.
Xu ordered Seifer, "Let's go!"
Seifer spun and ran from the room followed closely by Xu. Running through the central control room, Seifer crossed the doorway and was already on the staircase when Xu ran through. As she was hurrying, she did not notice the Galbadian Officer was still conscious and as she crossed by him he slowly lifted his weapon and fired point blank striking Xu in the center of her back right under her shoulder blades propelling her forward. Xu stumbled at the top of the staircase and tumbled awkwardly down the entire staircase landing face forward at the bottom with a badly twisted ankle and blood flowing thickly from a substantial wound in her back.
Seifer, swiftly grasping the situation, reached down and tore a strip of cloth off his long military coat and observing the wound was high up on Xu's back and, not wanting to waste any precious seconds on social niceties, he tore Xu's uniform blouse off her back. He discovered the bullet had obliterated her bra strap on its path into her back.
Feeling the sudden cold air on her bare back, Xu gasped "Seifer, what are you doing?"
He answered, "Attempting to stem your wound" while stuffing the material from his coat into the gaping wound cutting the blood flow down slightly. He then cast several curagas onto Xu's wound helping to deaden the pain somewhat and further restricting the blood flow, but ultimately doing nothing to halt the loss of blood completely or to heal the seriousness of Xu's injury, because of the possible internal damage.
Xu felt herself drifting into shock and, with a great deal of concentration, whispered, "Seifer, my ankle is blown. I won't be able to walk. Save yourself. That's an order."
Seifer reached down and, placed the half naked young woman over his left shoulder, holding her in place with his huge left arm leaving his right hand to weld his gunblade.
He slightly staggered under Xu's weight, as he started up the staircase that led to the circuit room. When he reached the short walkway in front of the circuit room, he was suddenly attacked by a Galbadian soldier, who slightly wounded Seifer in the ribs. Seifer counterattacked and brought his gunblade BANG across the soldier's neck almost completely severing his head from his body! Seifer staggered past the falling body and began moving up the next staircase, which led to the first door they had entered.
As he was moving slowly up the staircase, Xu gasped, "Leave me, Seifer! You're going to get yourself killed too!"
"Shut up! You're distracting me," Seifer snarled.
Seifer ran through the door and up another short staircase and burst into the yard. There were two Galbadian soldiers waiting for him. He didn't hesitate, but jumped forward and, swinging his gunblade as wide as possible, BANG - SWISH he managed to knock both Galbadian soldiers off balance and, as they were falling to the ground, he raced by them and out the gate and into the snowfield. As he staggered several steps away, he heard the initial explosion from within the Missile Base and managed to take several more steps, before the entire base blew sky high propelling them further away into the soft snow banks. As Seifer lay face down in the snow with Xu resting on his back, the surrounding snow from around the Missile Base fell around them covering them completely and protecting them from the falling debris, which was all that remained of the Galbadian Missile Base.
Xu regained consciousness in the Garden clinic with Doctor Kadowaki standing over her looking down at her. She was hooked up to an I.V. feeding her glucose and another one giving her a blood transfusion.
The Doctor asked, "How are you feeling, Xu?"
"Okay" croaked Xu.
Doctor Kadowaki poured some water from the pitcher on the bedside table into a glass and bent down and allowed Xu to take a couple of swallows. "Not too much now," she cautioned.
While returning the glass to the table, the doctor explained, "Your surgery was a complete success. I was able to remove the bullet without doing you any serious damage. You're going to make it, Xu. But you are going to be on crutches for awhile, due to that bad ankle sprain. I had to cast it."
Xu questioned in a raspy voice, "Was anyone killed?"
"No" the doctor answered. "We have several serious wounds, but nothing worse than that."
"Thank Hyne" whispered Xu.
"There's something you need to know and I guess I'm the one who should tell you," the doctor explained. "Due to Seifer rescuing you at the risk of placing his own life in extreme jeopardy, Cid promoted him to a SeeD on the spot as soon as you two returned to the Garden."
Xu offered a faint smile and replied, while drifting back to sleep, "I guess you were proven right, doctor."
Selphie wandered around Timber despondently having no particular agenda in mind. She played several games of Triple Triad with the Rinoa groupie, who hung out on the trestle overlooking the train tracks, but won nothing of consequence. She visited the souvenir shop in hopes of locating some item to bring home to Irvine, but could discover nothing except for tacky knick-knacks.
Moving on further downtown, Selphie paid a visit to the Timber Maniacs Building and spent over an hour looking through past issues for any further articles by Laguna she might have overlooked in the past, but had no luck in this endeavor either.
After discovering herself walking by the Amphor Pub and being tempted to go in and have a couple bowls of sake, she recognized she'd better return to Sayoko's house.
Watts opened the door for her at Sayoko's and as she stepped into the house, she observed a strange looking cake in the shape of a train engine decorated with lit candles, sitting on the middle of the kitchen table. Gathered around the table were Brian, Sayoko, Sayoko's daughter and Zone, who shouted "Surprise, Selphie!"
Taking several steps toward the group, Selphie protested, "This isn't my birthday."
"We know that" Zone explained. "Realizing how depressed you were and loving you the way we do, we decided to do something nice for you so this is a cheer up party!" Zone boisterously replied. Suddenly a combination of conflicting emotions arose in Selphie. She felt overwhelmingly touched by their concern, but also overwhelmingly disgusted at the hideous way Zone had gone about it. Because of her fragile emotional state, Selphie began to sob and couldn't stop.
Glimpsing the shocked expressions of Watts, Zone and Sayoko and the looks of total disdain on the faces of Sayoko's daughter and Brian caused her to feel so embarrassed, she whirled and pounded up the staircase and into the bedroom slamming the door behind her.
Once Selphie was in the bedroom, she discovered, not only could she not cease her weeping, but, on the contrary, was racked with sobs even more violently.
A knock came upon the door and Zone called out "Selphie, are you okay?"
Selphie managed to say quietly, "Yes, now go away."
Hearing Zone retreat down the staircase, Selphie flung herself on the bed and continued to sob to herself.