Quistis clenched her teeth with exertion as her fist slammed into the training dummy. She received no small amount of satisfaction as the human-shaped object started spinning. Finding its pattern, she struck again, darting within the perimeter of the movement of the dummy's whirling arms and then back out. As the object started to swing more wildly, she kept with it, integrating the rhythm of its movement into her own. She continued to lash out at it, the tempo of her punches increasing, but never losing their controlled focus.
Her movements carried her around all sides of the dummy, so that she attacked it from every direction, ducking just out of its reach when it whistled past her head. Satisfied, she varied the height of her attacks, causing the dummy to whirl even more and raising and lowering itself at random. When this bored her, she added kicks into her repertoire, her long legs lashing out at the machine. She assaulted the dummy with increasing fury until she could feel its central support rod starting to react to her barrage. Dancing away from the flailing dummy, she walked over to the wall and pressed the "stop" button. The thing stopped moving and reset itself to its initial position. She'd broken training dummies before, and Cid hadn't appreciated it.
Panting a little, Quistis mopped her brow with a towel and took a long drink of water. Turning, she moved to leave the room, heading towards her locker. Once there, she pressed her palm against the panel, and the door opened, allowing Quistis access to her combat gear.
She pulled on the long black gloves she traditionally wore, designed to protect her arms from minor scrapes and abrasions. Quick application of a few clips pulled her hair back and out of her eyes. Then, she pulled out her massive whip, Save the Queen. The coiled monstrosity looked like the tail of some great poisonous beast. It had the rubbery elasticity of a tentacle and a formidable-looking stinger decorating the end.
With a sense of purpose, she strode down the hallway toward the training center. As the doors slid open, the climate-controlled regularity that marked Balamb Garden gave way to the verdant jungle-like training center.
The center existed so that SeeDs and cadets could hone their skills at any time, using live monsters as practice. With real combat, and dangerous results, the ever-present danger kept visitors to the training center alert and on guard. By engaging the monsters in a replica of their native environment, trainees could get a feel for the unpredictability of battle, how things like weather and terrain condition could affect the flow of combat. The jungle aspect also made the training center a valuable location for special operations training. Higher-ranking SeeDs often engaged in stealth combat training, hiding themselves from the monsters and each other as they waged guerrilla war within Garden's walls.
None of the monsters that made the center their home appeared, so Quistis commenced traveling at a slow jog, keeping her senses alert for any attackers.
She didn't have to wait for long.
After rounding the first corner, she felt the ground tremble. Smiling in satisfaction, she began scanning the trees, trying to discern her opponent's location. As the trees splintered, the massive black and orange form of a T-Rexaur came into the clearing, roaring in rage.
In theory, Quistis should have been petrified. She, however, had fought enough of them, both by herself and as a part of various groups, that they had lost some of their menacing quality. Looking forward to the fight ahead, her face broke out into a full smile. She detached Save the Queen from her belt and unfurled it.
As Quistis whirled the whip over her head, she delighted in the high-pitched whistling sound it made. Reacting to the sound, the ancient dinosaur whirled around and roared at her. Bringing her whip down, Quistis snapped the whip on the ground, the resounding sound a challenge to the enormous beast.
The giant creature lowered its head and rushed at her, seeking to smash her with the bony plates atop its skull. Well prepared for this attack, Quistis rolled to one side and flicked her wrist out, her whip leaving a long bloody trail on the T-Rexaur's neck, eliciting another roar from the monster.
The enraged dinosaur, still in the process of charging at Quistis, stopped running and swung its tail, which would serve as a very effective and lethal club if it made contact.
Quistis ducked under the tail and struck out with her whip again, this time wrapping it around one of the beast's legs. With all her strength, she pulled backward, throwing the creature off balance so that it toppled to the ground. Quistis ran to the head of the monster and delivered a carefully placed blow to its eye, effectively blinding and disorienting it.
With the T-Rexaur almost out of commission, Quistis went inside herself, and began weaving her hands into one of the complex thaumaturgical patterns that made up her special brand of sorcery -- the one she had dubbed "blue magic." Other magic found its basis in intuitively drawing forces from the natural world. Blue magic found its basis in long hours of arcane research. Quistis would observe an enemy in battle, and then spend many a night pouring over massive tomes in the library. Eventually, she discovered that, after acquiring a piece of a certain creature, she could create and enact a ritual allowing her to replicate its skills. She could use the other forms of magic too -- the spells and summons taught at Garden -- but she kept blue magic as her personal trump card.
As she finished chanting the words of the spell, the dinosaur began thrashing violently. It writhed in terror as the space around it started to collapse. The dinosaur, thanks to Quistis's magic, had become an intense sinkhole of gravity. It roared in agony as its body folded in on itself, making the beast smaller and smaller. Momentarily, the T-Rexaur winked out of existence. One moment it lived, the next it did not, and nothing to marked its disappearance save a small "pop" as air rushed in to fill the void left by the dinosaur's disappearance.
Quistis coiled up her whip, and turned to walk away from the site of the combat when she heard a scream come from the almost the other side of the training center. Without hesitation, she ran toward the sound of the screams, only to find a pair of monsters backing Rinoa back towards the training center's thick metal wall.
Rinoa spotted her and called out, "Quistis, help me!"
Unfurling her whip, Quistis quickly appraised the situation, running through the encyclopediae in her head. Rinoa stood threatened by grats -- large carnivorous plants with tentacles. They captured their prey by putting it to sleep using a sweet smelling gas, or poisoning it with gastric acid. Having pacified its foe, the grat then digested it, inside the sac that made up the bulk of its body or, when faced with a sizable meal, through the tips of its tentacles.
She struck out with her whip, catching the first one directly around the middle. The whip coiled around its digestive sac three times before the thing burst, spilling steaming purple juices to the ground. The whip had no sooner struck the monster then Quistis moved again, on her way to pull Rinoa away from the second grat.
Before she could reach her friend, though, the monster did. Having sensed, on some plantlike level, that its meal bordered on escape, the monster exhaled a gout of brown, viscous, digestive fluid. Although the creature had only rudimentary sense organs, its aimed well, and Quistis saw Rinoa crumple. Rinoa must have taken a direct hit to the eye, ear or mouth, for grat poison took time to reach full effect.
Doubling her speed, Quistis interposed herself between Rinoa and the monster. "Okay, Mister Grat," she said, cracking her whip loudly on the ground to get the attention of the monster. "You just done a bad thing."
First, Quistis used her whip to flick away the tentacles that searched for Rinoa's prostrate form. Three artful flicks, three severed tentacles. Next, she called up a fire spell -- part of the standard magical repertoire -- and launched it at the creature. The plant melted away before Quistis realized she'd used one of the most powerful spells she had stored.
Quistis picked Rinoa up and threw her over one shoulder, keeping Save the Queen gripped tightly in the other hand. Quistis, having performed military extractions in situations far worse than this one, felt rushed, but not imperiled.
As she ran towards the gate, Quistis stopped only to kill the few grats drawn out of the brush by the scent of the gastric juices on Rinoa. In search of an easy meal, they lurched forth, hoping to find some wounded animal. Instead, they found Quistis, one of the most dangerous warriors in the history of SeeD, fighting with all her ferocity.
In a short time she reached the exit, still carrying Rinoa, but not tired. She propped her friend up against the wall and did a quick check of Rinoa's vital functions. Her pulse and breathing seemed normal, but Quistis felt the girl slipping away. Rushing across the room to the communications panel, Quistis punched in the number for the infirmary. It rang twice, and then Dr. Kadowaki, Balamb Garden's chief physician answered the phone.
"Infirmary, this is Dr. Kadowaki speaking." Although Dr. Kadowaki's voice sounded as warm and matronly as ever, Quistis didn't feel she had the time for social niceties.
"Dr. Kadowaki, this is Quistis. Rinoa's been poisoned by a grat, I'm bringing her in immediately."
"I'll be ready for her."
She next called Selphie, since she had to pass the dorms on the way to the infirmary, and Quistis could use the help carrying her friend. As the phone call ended, Rinoa's breathing suddenly went shallow, impelling Quistis to redouble her efforts. Taking a deep breath, she again shouldered Rinoa, and began running fast as she dared, trying not to shake the other girl's body too much.
"I sure hope you live through this, Rinoa," Quistis muttered. "If I get you killed, I doubt he'll ever go out with me."
Quistis and Selphie met up wordlessly in the hallway outside the dorms. Quistis could read the concern etched into her smaller friend's face, as they lifted Rinoa up between them. Together, they made their way straight to the infirmary, trying to outpace the venom seeking to dissolve Rinoa.
* *
While Dr. Kadowaki worked on Rinoa, Quistis and Selphie occupied the main body of the infirmary, using their first aid training to mend the few wounded students that entered the clinic. All SeeDs had to know some medicine, so Selphie and Quistis found setting bones and bandaging wounds relatively simple.
When they had time to themselves, the two women adjourned to one of the treatment rooms to await word from the doctor. They sat next to each other on one of the examining tables as Quistis recounted the preceding events to Selphie.
"I just feel so helpless," Selphie said, after Quistis told her the story. Selphie's legs dangled over the edge, and she looked at the wall as though trying to see Dr. Kadowaki treating Rinoa. "This should be so minor, but even by the time I met you in the hall, she looked like she was on the verge of death."
"I know. I've treated grat poisonings before -- hell, I've removed bullets, but I don't know why Rinoa went unconscious so quickly."
Both women found themselves looking again towards the room containing Rinoa's sickbed, wishing they could observe the treatment, wishing they could take some part in healing their friend. As they drew strength from the nearness of one another, Quistis and Selphie -- longtime friends and comrades-in-arms -- found themselves holding hands, awaiting Dr. Kadowaki's news.
Neither one could be sure how much time had passed when the diminutive doctor entered the room. They'd almost fallen into a stupor, but the sound of the door opening revitalized them. Their training immediately took over as they jumped off the table and stood at rigid attention.
Dr. Kadowaki chuckled at their precision and mopped her brow. She looked somewhat weary, but the expression on her face brought immediate relief to the two young SeeDs, and they knew Rinoa would survive.
"She should come out of it in a few minutes," Kadowaki said. "She'll be a little groggy at first, but other than that, good as new. The marks from where the gastric juices got her should go away in a few days. I'm going to go do rounds now, but you tell me when she wakes up, since I'll need to talk to her."
"Thanks, Dr. Kadowaki," Quistis said. "You should know by now that everyone here at Garden really owes you."
"Yeah!" Selphie chimed in, tackling the doctor with an enormous hug. "You're the best!"
"Thank you, girls," said the doctor, embarrassed, as always, at receiving attention for doing her job.
"So, doctor, what was the problem? Why did she get so sick?" Selphie asked. "From what Quistis said, there wasn't enough of the juice to cause that kind of damage."
Dr. Kadowaki made a small face at what she perceived as Selphie's gaff. "Selphie," she said, "you know I can't tell you that unless Rinoa's present and says it's okay."
Chastised, Selphie nodded, still curious about the condition of her friend. She knew, however, that Dr. Kadowaki would not bend on matters of professional ethics.
"Now, you go look in on Rinoa, and call me when she wakes up," said the doctor, understanding that Selphie's concern had just gotten the better of her.
Quistis and Selphie headed for the sick bay and gasped, noticing that the treatment must have been a closer call than Dr. Kadowaki would have liked to admit. Rinoa lay on her bed, her breathing shallow, and her skin ashen. Across her face, and down her neck, she had patches of reddened, irritated skin. Normally, grat juice just left some minor itching, but it seemed to have started eating the flesh off Rinoa's face in places.
"Oh my god," Selphie said, leaning into the frame of the door for support. Maintaining her composure as best she could, Quistis crossed to the intercom and opened the general channel.
"Commander Leonhart to the infirmary please. Commander Leonhart, please report to the infirmary."
Quistis moved closer to Rinoa and took the chair next to the bed, sitting close enough that she could see where individual droplets of the acid made contact. Quistis pulled her face down next to Rinoa's, her ear close enough to the pale girl's mouth to hear her quiet breathing.
"We did it, Rinoa," Quistis said, tears starting to cloud her eyes. "We got out of there in time..." Her words came in sobs. Quistis took another deep breath and looked out the window for a moment, ordering her words before she continued. "You just need to wake up now. Selphie and I are here, and Squall's on the way, and we're all going to stay right here until you come back to us."
Selphie placed a hand on Quistis's shoulder, trying to comfort her. "It's not your fault, Quistis. You know you did everything you could to save her. You can't blame yourself for everything." Quistis looked up with tear-filled eyes, feeling the burden of her shame.
"But if I'd just gotten her out of there more quickly. When it came down to the wire, I just froze. All of a sudden, it's like I was operating in a fog, and I couldn't think of what to do. If I'd been more clearheaded, she'd be okay right now."
Selphie fixed her friend with a look that she hoped would bring Quistis back to reality.
"Look, you got her out of there quickly. You also know that when a crisis strikes, you are the most levelheaded of any of us. So, don't tell me that you froze and couldn't react. You called Dr. Kadowaki and brought her here as soon as you could. Don't you think your guilt is motivated partially by the fact that you're in love with her boyfriend?"
A gasp escaped Rinoa's lips as her eyelids fluttered opened. She lurched, as though awaking from a bad dream.
"Quistis, help!" She screamed, her consciousness still back in the training center.
"It's okay, Rinoa. You're in the infirmary. We got you out of the training center."
"What... what happened?" Rinoa asked, her eyes starting to come into focus.
As Quistis retold the story, stopping occasionally to pass a damp washcloth over Rinoa's forehead, trying to keep the girl's temperature stable, Selphie went in search of Dr. Kadowaki.
"God, I feel like an idiot," Rinoa said. "Here I'm so busy watching you thrash a T-Rexaur that I get ambushed by a couple of grats and almost lose my life over it. Does Squall know?"
"I've already called him, and he should be on his way here."
Rinoa's hand flew to her face, where she could feel the patches of reddened skin. She gasped as she felt the skin crumble beneath her fingertips.
"Rinoa, I have to ask you: what were you doing in the training center unarmed? I know you could have protected yourself if you were carrying your Shooting Star."
Rinoa moaned slightly and winced as she tried to recall the motivation for her actions. Her recall was hazy at best, and she wanted nothing more than to take a nap.
"I wanted," she began, the words coming slowly to her, "to ask you about the dance. What happened? Was Squall okay with my not being there?"
Quistis swallowed in apprehension, unsure of how to proceed. She decided to settle for the truth, knowing Squall would tell Rinoa the same thing.
"He spent most of his time hanging out with the usual group. He did seem a little distant because you weren't there, though. I did ask him to dance, so if you count that as moving in on him, I apologize."
Rinoa mustered a smile, then laughed a little.
"Don't worry, Quistis. I know you wouldn't take Squall away from me. He loves you like a sister."
Those six words struck Quistis with brutal force, and she wished herself back in the training center, trapped between the jaws of a hungry T-Rexaur. Quistis forced a smile back at Rinoa, certain that it didn't look convincing.
The doors slid open, and Squall strode into the room. He took in the scene, moved over to Rinoa's bedside and turned to Quistis, looking at her as if he expected to hear a mission report.
* *
"...And so here we are." Quistis concluded, growing weary of telling the story.
Squall nodded, stroking Rinoa's hair with one hand. "Thank you for saving Rinoa."
He bent down and kissed Rinoa's forehead as Selphie brought Dr. Kadowaki through the door.
"Well, it looks like everyone is here," the doctor said, sitting down in her chair and taking out Rinoa's file. "Rinoa, do you want to discuss what happened one-on-one, or are you comfortable talking about it with your friends here?"
"They can stay," Rinoa said, looking around the room, smiling at each of the people there.
"Okay. It seems you have a very serious allergy to grat venom. While it is toxic to the human body, it is normally only dangerous in large quantities over long periods. In your case, however, it's dangerous even in very small doses. If Quistis hadn't gotten you here as soon as she did, the damage would have been permanent."
"What is this leading up to, doctor?" Rinoa asked.
"Well, for one thing, you can't go back into the training center. Right now, even breathing grat pollen could have adverse effects on your respiratory system."
Rinoa nodded, and her face fell a little. Although she rarely went to the training center, it did serve as one of the focal points in the lives of her SeeD friends, and now she'd be forced to stay on the outside, watching.
"Am I going to need to take any pills or anything like that?"
"Well, I can give you a prescription for some pain medication, just in case something starts to hurt as a result of all this. Other than that, you shouldn't need any medicine, but I do want to keep you here for observation for a day or two..."
"No," Rinoa said, her echoing against the chrome of the infirmary. "I don't want to stay here. I hate hospitals."
"Rinoa, it really would be best if..."
Tears began welling up in Rinoa's eyes. She turned to Squall, holding out her small pale hand to him, offering up a silent plea. He knew Rinoa's fear of hospitals stemmed from the car accident that claimed her mother's life. Most of the time, she felt anxious in such settings, but the thought of prolonged stays petrified her, and found surgery the stuff of nightmares.
"She'll stay with me," Squall said, holding onto Rinoa's trembling hand.
"I'm sorry, Squall?" Dr. Kadowaki replied.
"She can stay with me. If she's not in any danger, than there's no reason she needs to stay here. I'll take care of her."
Dr. Kadowaki opened her mouth to argue, but stopped when she saw Squall did not intend to give way on the issue.
"Okay," she sighed, "just make sure you tell me if her condition changes at all."
Squall nodded in assent, then, rose out of his chair and pulled Rinoa out of her bed. She looked small and fragile in his arms, but relieved to leave the infirmary. Without taking the time to brook further discussion, Squall thanked everyone present and left the room.
"She sure has changed him," Dr. Kadowaki said, shaking her head and turning back to the file to make more notes as she left for her office.
Selphie glanced over and couldn't help but notice the weary look on Quistis's face as she stood.
"Quisty?" she asked. "You doing okay?"
"Yeah," Quistis said, the hint of jealousy in her voice almost eclipsed by the sorrow. "I just wish I were allergic to grat venom..."