a/n: Long time, no update! Sorry, I'll try to make 'em quicker...
~
His grey eyes focused in sharp jolts, zipping from tiny to coin-sized, and with an intent stare on the young lady who held him. Her thin arms were bound tightly around him, and she rested gently against him, covering the gaping tear in his favorite shirt. Her smile was bright, and her eyes a bit teary, and wide with amazement as she gazed at his own.
Aren could not help but crack a smile. He slowly blinked, but made sure he returned to the inviting gaze. "You can look away any time now," he said quietly.
"Now, why would I do that?" smiled Selphie, and she thinned her dark eyes a bit.
"Well," said Aren, "They're not exactly the norm, are they?"
She nodded slightly. "No...I guess not! In fact," she replied cheerily, "I think it's safe to say I've never seen a set of peepers like yours!"
And she drew closer. It was unnerving, this closeness, and the nakedness of his eyes after so long. But strangely, he was finding it rather easy to get used to.
"But, you know what?" she winked, and her brown hair touched his scarred forehead. "I think they're beautiful..."
Swoosh! A few yards down, the steel door to Quistis' room quickly opened. She emerged, her folded hands devoid of the food she had set out to find.
Aren and Selphie turned quickly to face the young lady. Quistis noticed them, in the rather akward moment, and gave a smile and a short gasp. She took a step back, and glanced this way and that.
"Oh my, uhm, sorry!" she laughed. "I was merely...eh..."
Aren cut her stammering short. "What?!" he snapped.
Her smile disappeared. "Um...just going inside...I guess..."
"Go on, then," he said tightly. A quick look towards the door, and stretched his palm in its direction. A shrill scream sounded, followed by a series of beeps, and the door slid open for Quistis.
She nodded nervously, stepping through the doorway and shutting the door behind her.
Aren sighed. "Why me?" he laughed.
"Aw, go easy on her!" Selphie giggled. "She's really sweet."
"Yeah, well, we're not on the best of terms right now. She ripped up my best shirt, and I am kinda partial to my forehead too..."
She patted his cheek. "You're just jealous 'cause a chick beat you up!"
"Hey!"
~
Quistis leaned against the red-papered wall. "What a mess," she sighed, and buried her face in one hand.
Irvine's easy-going call startled her. "Why's that?"
She snapped up her head, to find him seated at the sofa on the far wall. "Oh, I didn't know you were in here!" she half-smiled.
"Where else'd I be?" he shrugged. "Not outside, that's for sure! Aren and Selphie are out there, you know."
"I know, I know!" Quistis stepped tiredly across the room, and collapsed onto the couch beside him. "My, I've sure messed things up for everyone, haven't I?"
He shrugged. "Nah! It ain't your fault! We just got caught up in a little misunderstanding, I guess, and it's kinda made it a little akward for ya."
"I suppose," she sighed. "I really am sorry for all this."
"Hey, don't worry about it!" laughed Irvine. "It's just, like, really cool bein' able to catch up with you!" He pointed toward the door. "Plus, I was slowly becoming the third wheel on this little adventure!"
"I see!" Quistis smiled. "Not used to that, are we?"
He chuckled back. "Well, let's just say it'll be good having someone to talk to!"
"Agreed."
~
Aren sat arm-in-arm with Selphie, against the wall of the train's hallway. They watched the treeline whiz by outside the big glass windows, passing in the darkness in a powerful force. They felt the cold wind of an open window down the hall, and the warmth of each other's company.
The trees stopped, and together they viewed a grassy farmer's plain. Waves of grain blew back and forth in the night's breeze. An old tractor was parked carelessly nearby the track, and it streaked by at lightning speed.
Selphie turned to Aren, and lay her chin on his shoulder. "Hey, Aren?" she asked. "Where's Terra? Seems like everyone I've talked to has a different answer."
Aren smiled, and looked down to her. "Maybe they're all right. There's not just one Terra. There's a few dozen, really."
"Really?" she awed. "And they're all..."
He nodded. "All underground. They connect through Terra-bays. But each Garden has a Terra-bay, too. And not one of those bays are the same. They all connect to different parts of Terra."
"Wow," breathed Selphie. "All this time, I thought it was just a cave, or something..." She quickly caught herself. "Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't mean that!"
"I know, I know," he laughed. "That's how most people see us Terrans. You'd be surprised how far we reach around the globe."
Aren felt a gust of ice wind blow upon them, and he noticed a shiver in Selphie. He waved a hand toward an open window down the hall. The window slid with the motion of his palm, and gently shut.
"You know," he said, "once this whole Stratagem thing gets wrapped up, I've been thinking of going back home for a while. I need to visit some people. Maybe...you'd come with me?"
She nearly leapt. "Really? Wow, that'd be so much fun! Could Irvine and Quistis come too?"
Aren nodded. "Sure, Irvine's been there a few times, so he'd probably wanna say 'hi' to some people." He rubbed at his forehead. "We'll have to watch out for that Quistis character, though!"
"Oh, come on!" she laughed, and he flashed a thin smile. But she stopped short, with a quizzical look. "Say, when's Irvine been to Trabia?"
"Well, that's a pretty long story..."
Another cold rush of wind snapped at them. Selphie shuddered once more. "W-wow, guess I'm not used to Trabian weather anymore!"
But Aren thinned his eyes. I just closed that window, he thought. And I locked it, too...
Selphie cocked her head. "Something wrong, Aren?"
"Shh," he hushed her. With a quick spin, he set her back against the wall, and turned to face down the shadowy hallway. The window was still closed.
"Selphie, you felt that breeze, right?"
"Um...sure!" she replied from behind him.
Aren stood amid the hall. "Odd," he cocked a grey eye, and unzipped two pockets on his baggy jeans. He retrieved his set of forearm clasps. "So did I," he said, and locked them in place.
Tap-tap-tap-tap, he heard feint snaps against the cold ground. "Selphie," he whispered. "I think someone's coming."
She gave a nervous look, but smiled it off. "Well, we are on a train, silly!"
Tap-tap, the snaps came closer. "Yeah, but it's too late." He glanced back to Selphie. "I think you oughtta go inside."
"Aw, come on!" she stood, and shivered, as another gust of wind blew over them both. "I think it's just your imagination!"
Clink, kuh-chink! The metallic noise echoed in his head. He knew it well, it was as distinct as the blood to him. A six-hundred round clip locking into a Galbadian AC-78CC automatic rifle, and the double-click of the gun's two safeties being unlocked.
Panic filled his heart, and thinned his grey eyes, as his fists tightened in preparation for one of his waves. And the next sound, Selphie heard as well.
A string of thunderous claps tore the night silence to pieces. The end of the hall lit in strobelike flashes of fire and smoke, and lit up the body of a blue-clothed man behind the trigger. Bullets tore in constant stream down the hall, none too precisely. Windows shattered away; pieces of the floor and walls cracked and splintered.
Aren met the fire with tightly concentrated eyes. The shells halted short of his body, disappearing abruptly in an invisible wave that screamed a shrill cry. Even the bullets that strayed to either side of him were trapped.
Over the bursting shots and the banshee-screech of his protective warp, he heard a sharp squeal from Selphie. But her panic had struck later than Aren's and his was already through. He knew this feeling, being under fire, from much experience. He had stared down many barrels. It startled and unnerved him, but no longer caused fright.
Stagger waves, he flashed a quick thought. Can't waste time! Wait for the sign...
He strained to hold the shield up, as the fury of bullets rained on him hard. But the sound and flashes halted, and echoed down the hall. Smoke fizzled into the light where he stood, and the man once again disappeared into the shadows.
Another echo met his dome-covered ear. Click-clank.....click-clank......click-clank...it faded.
He's out! He's switching clips!
Aren loosened the grip on his fists, and the screech was gone. He thrusted forward his open palms. Skree! Skree! Skree! Deafening shouts pierced the air, and he watched as space warped around his hands, and released blasts of sonic energy that distorted the atmosphere around them. The bursts careened down the bullet-reeled hall.
He fired the stagger waves relentlessly. Screeches of collapsing sound pounded his head, more piercing than any gunshot. He listened carefully into the dark, and heard the thunk of impacts, and a rocking bwoom! as each shockwave met some end.
A few seconds passed, and Aren stopped the shockwaves. He lowered his arms, glancing back to Selphie. She was nervously pressed against her room's shut door, eyes wide, and chest heaving pants. Not a bullet from the machinegun had touched her.
He waited, stone-still in the eerie silence, for a confirmation of safety. Drip...drip...drip... A nearly inaudible sound returned to him.
"We're safe," he sighed.
The metal door swished open, and Selphie tumbled, screaming, back into her room. She returned to the hall a split-second later, accompanied by a battle-ready Quistis and Irvine.
Irvine slid coolly into the hallway, his shotgun raised with one arm. "What happened?" he asked.
Quistis tugged a coiled chain-whip in her hands. "Were you attacked?"
Aren nodded. "Fired on. We're okay, I think." He raised a hand for them to stop. "Don't...don't go over there," he warned. "I'll check it out."
"What'd you do?" Irvine lowered his weapon some.
"Stagger-waved him," Aren cracked his pale knuckles. "I had to."
"Yeesh!" Irvine grimaced. He dropped the gun to his side. "Well, there's no way we're in any danger now, that's for sure!"
Craaash! A trio of armor-clad men smashed through the cracked windows beside them, spraying glass their way. One kicked Aren off his feet as he swung through, and sent the SeeD slamming into the wall.
Aren shook off a dizzying knock to the head, and opened his eyes to the attacker. The man was dressed in blue, and had armor on his forearms and lower legs. An elongated helmet stared him down, a set of three red dots threateningly in his face.
A steel-clad fist swung to Aren's face, but he grabbed it short. Quickly he twisted it behind the attacker's back, and landed a powerful uppercut punch to the unguarded chin. The blue-garbed man stumbled to unconsciousness on the ground.
"They're soldiers!" he shouted to his friends.
The remaining two armored ones leapt through the crowd of attacking SeeD's around them. One was blue, Aren noted, but the other was dressed in red, and had thicker armor. They sent heavy punches to Aren's face and stomach. He blocked a few, but many hit their marks.
He quickly dropped to the ground, and slid his leg in between those of the blue soldier. Aren swept him, and grabbed the man by the metal shoulders as he fell.
Above, he watched a clean swipe of Irvine's shotgun butt slam the back of the red soldier's head. The burly trooper fell to the ground, and Aren hopped up. Wham-wham, he double-bashed the blue helmet to the wall, and the soldier was knocked cold.
Aren looked to the pile of defeated attackers. "Familiar?" he asked.
Selphie and Quistis gasped, and Irvine tightened his eyes. "They're Galbadian!" he said. "Galbadian Army!"
~
