A/N: Hi! I'm back and you can't get rid of me so easily. I'm back to finish unfinished business, but I don't think I'll be able to finish just yet, so, you're stuck with me. Anyways, I don't own FF8, but it's a on a "To Do" list. See: #137: Buy FF8 and see #136… Anyways, On with the "show"!
~Dawn~It was 5:30 am and Irvine was knocking on Zell's door. He heard a groan, some stumbling and a few loud crashes. Finally, the door opened and a very disheveled Zell leaned on the doorframe.
"Oh Hyne! What time is it?" Zell asked, rubbing his eyes. To be quite honest, he didn't have a peaceful sleep. It was ridden with nightmares that no one should have the burden of seeing. To be quite frank, it wasn't about something normal either. It was about the mission that was about to start in half an hour.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
He dreamt that Johnny the Piranha got out of the Desert Prison in Galbadia even though he was supposed to be under extreme surveillance with rotating guards every twenty-four hours. Zell saw an explosion and some men walk through the hole in the wall and get the extremely dangerous mob boss out and his busty blond girlfriend give him a feel.
It was amazing how someone like that would walk back to him after being with seventeen other men through out the course of two months.
Much to her dismay, Johnny had read a few tabloid headlines over the shoulders of a few of his guards. All of which read that she was not faithful to him and did not wait.
He kissed her and shot her twice in groin and hit an artery and blood gushed out of her leg like a waterfall. The blond looked at him with a look of utter confusion in her eyes and fall over backwards with a thud. She was dead before you could say, "Hasta La Vista, Baby".
Next he saw some men running along the coast of somewhere and heard gunshots and someone crashing into the water. The body looked vaguely familiar, bur it was too dark to know exactly who it was.
Cut to the next scene he saw, it was a little less gruesome than the first. There was Johnny the Piranha and he said a few words of happiness about the death of a "pesky SeeD" and shot a man named Jasper? Jester? Japed? Who knows?
Then he saw Rinoa at her home being murdered by some assassin all dressed in black and had a very familiar physique but could not tell who it was. He saw Rinoa's body all disfigured and her head was twisted in an inhuman way. Her neck was broken and she had cut a few of her spinal cords. Her airway was cut of and the assassin had injected some sort of drug into her blood stream, alternating her blood composition. Acidosis. He tried to make it look like dry drowning with a spinal injury.
He shot up out of his dream and walked over to the sink telling himself that it was just a dream and splashed cold water onto his face. He walked back over to his bed and laid his head back down to go back to sleep. As tired as he was, he did not want to see those images again. He would rather face a T-Rex than see Rinoa dead in her bedroom again.
This time, he drifted off into a dreamless sleep and was awaken by Irvine knocking on his door.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"It's 5:30 in the morning and we have to get ready for a mission dude. Hey, you know what, I don't know how we never found out; but Johnny the piranha broke out a couple months ago. Cid must've stopped reading his paper and cut the TV signals because he never told us." Irvine stated, bringing Zell out of his trance.
"Really? And we're headed for the number one place to find Johnny, huh? Well, I guess we gotta be careful. Hey, by any chance, did he kill his girlfriend, Charlotte, or something like that?"
"Yeah. She was shot twice, right in her Femoral Artery. How'd you know?" Irvine was pretty confused. He thought that he was the one giving out the juicy information.
"Call it intuition, I guess. Anyways, give me ten minutes." And with that Zell shut the door to get dressed and ready to go for a three-hour drive to Dollet. He was going to miss the sight of Galbadia Garden and the tranquility of the ballroom where he could practice his martial arts.
He finished brushing his teeth and gathered his bags by the door. He opened the door and saw Irvine's tired face. The young cowboy stood straight up and muttered, "Finally". He and Zell then began to walk down the stairs towards the parking lot.
They took the keys for the Jeep and walked out the door towards the Jeep.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Lady Dawn had just awaken and began her walk across the sky in her deep purple gown lined with a deep pink trim. The moon was still out, observing the sleeping Garden and its surrounding area. The birds were up and about searching for food whilst the crickets chirped. Out in the horizon, the sun was nothing more than a blinding speck out in the distance. It was truly a sight to see. Gone were the crazy streets and in their place was a peaceful tranquility.
"Man, it doesn't get anymore peaceful than this. I think I'm gonna fall asleep." Irvine said as he climbed in the Jeep.
"Man, quit it. Just bask in it's beauty" Zell said, as he put on his seat belt.
Irvine started the engine and the drove off, disturbing the peace.
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Rinoa was still sleeping at six o'clock in the morning in a queen-sized bed in one of the guest rooms in her father's mansion. The Caraway mansion was never quite home to her. It was more of a place that was just there. It was nothing more and nothing less. Fact was, it is more of a home to the servants than to Rinoa.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Last night, she nearly killed herself just by walking up the steps to the door because someone decided to place a flowerpot right in the middle of the stairs, or maybe it was on the left…. Point is that there isn't supposed to be a flowerpot there.
It got even worse when she rang the doorbell and her foreign nanny answered the door. True, she did love the woman, but her hugs were enough to kill someone.
Ula, that was her name, would grab her and smother her in her many folds of flesh and Rinoa would normally end up gasping for air beneath her. Normally, after about a minute, she would let go because she would hear Rinoa gasping for air beneath her, but this time was different. She did not let go so quickly because she either did not hear her or she did not want to let go so quickly because she missed her so. After two minutes, Ula felt Rinoa leaning on her and almost pass out. That was when she realized that Rinoa was not getting air and decided to let go. It was then and there that Rinoa decided that ringing the doorbell was a bad idea.
That was not the only disaster that night. As soon as she set foot in the house, her dog, Angelo, ran up to her and pinned her to the floor and slobbered all over her. Sure she was happy to see her dog again, but nearly drowning in doggy drool was not her idea of fun. After a while, she managed to get the dog off of her. She got up and straightened up. She bushed all the dog hairs off her clothes and wiped the drool from her face.
She then walked up to her room, only to discover that her father had installed a Jacuzzi in it's place. 'Gee, I'm not even in college yet and he already replaced my room with something else. I wonder what he'd do if I decided to move back in.' Rinoa thought, making a bitter face.
That was when Nancy, the maid upstairs, brought her to her favorite guest room. Rinoa had once told her that if she, for whatever the reason, was not able to sleep in her own room, this was the room she'd sleep in.
The room was painted pale blue. The bed was to the left of the door and in the corner was a beautiful desk carved out of Rose Wood with tiny designs of pixies carved into the leg posts. Beside the desk was a matching armoire, but there were flowers instead of pixies. To the left of the bed was a bay window with a few panes of stained glass made into geometric shapes.
When Rinoa arrived at the door, she dropped he bags and collapsed on the bed, leaving Nancy to unpack her belongings for her.
Rinoa had pleasant dreams of Squall running back to her on the beach along the water and eating strawberries. In reality, she knew that Squall would never do that, but someone had to be the hopeless romantic in this relationship.
____________________________
Meanwhile, in the good doctor's home, Old Chap was still sleeping, but the doctor was not. He was sitting in the corner with a glass of brandy in his hand, reflecting on the events of last night. If there ever was such thing as doctor- patient bonding, that was it. After all, food was the way to a man's heart.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It all began when the good doctor decided to take his patient out to dinner.
"Wait a minute, aren't we still out at sea?" the patient had asked him.
The doctor laughed at him. "No, dear boy, we found you out at sea and after I finished patching you up to the best of my ability, we brought you back to my home where I finished treating you and let you stay until you awoke from your coma. Fact is, you never saw the inside of the boat. Actually, you never saw the boat itself." The doctor continued to chuckle at his patient's confusion.
"But my clothes are all ripped and torn! Wait a minute! I'm not even wearing a shirt OR pants!" Old Chap complained.
The doctor went to his armoire and pulled out some clothes. Surprisingly, they were his size. He gave them to his patient.
"I took your clothes one day and went to a clothing store and got some for you in your size. You know, the only article of clothing that had survived your encounter with the forces of nature and the brutality of men were these." And he held up two red belts that were covered with dirt, "But even they don't look so great. Judging from the rags that were once upon a time your clothes, I figured out your style and got you some clothes."
"Wow! Thanks. I don't know what to say you're like my Fairy God... father. Can you make me six foot five with blond hair and blue eyes? Wait, never mind, I'd end up looking too much like Seifer. Never mind. " His patient gushed. Technically, this was his first time ever receiving a gift that he could actually remember.
"Ha, ha. I just don't want to be seen walking on the streets with a naked man, especially a grown up one!" The doctor joked.
"Oh, thanks. I feel SO loved." His patient sneered at him.
"Just be thankful that I don't want to treat you for pneumonia or hypothermia. Amnesia is enough for me" The doctor joked some more.
"Excuse me while I go get changed." Old Chap said as he left the room. A few minutes later he entered the room.
"So, they fit? That's great!" The doctor gushed.
"Are you sure you got my style down pat?" He was wearing a pair of black pant and a gray T-shirt with a pair of hiking boots.
"Yup. Why? Is there anything wrong with it?" The doctor questioned. He was kind of nervous, thinking that his patient wouldn't like them.
"Nope. Just messing with your mind." The patient joked around with him.
"Jeez! Don't do that to me. I already have half of the top ten factors for heart disease. I can easily get a heart attack."
"Yeah, which ones?"
"Age, gender, exercise, second hand smoke and stress."
"Well, what would you say if I brought you to a spa, or something like that?"
"Well, I'd say that you'd have to rob a bank first because you're flush out of cash."
"Well, actually, I'll bring you out after I figure out who I am. Then I can go to whatever bank I'm using and take out some cash. James, I promise you that I won't forget about that. Then you'll only have four. Or, you know what, you could always grow a beard, it might set you free!"
"Gee, thanks. I don't know what to say. Four. I'd feel so much safer. Anyways, let's go! I'm hungry."
And they left the dingy little hut and strode down the path towards the main streets.
"So, what do you feel like eating?" the doctor asked
"I don't know. Surprise me." Old Chap replied.
"Alright then. Let's go in here."
"Whatever."
They stepped inside and were greeted by the maitre d.
"Hello. Welcome to Sam Wong's Seafood restaurant. Table for two?" The man said in an excited voice. He was kind of short for a grown man, he was even shorter than Old Chap. He had a professional air about him and looked very friendly at the same time.
"Yes, sir." Fisher said.
"Follow me, then." The short man replied as he led them through a sea of tables. They stopped at a small booth and gave them a menu each. He turned around to leave, but stopped when saw one of the young waiters and yelled at him in a foreign language.
"Léeah! Lee tun high ho ma fan! Fai di zao! Mm Jun fan lée! Ma fan yao!" he then turned around and smiled at the doctor and the patient and said, "He was not doing his job properly. Please, don't mind him." The manager said and walked off to the front of the restaurant to tend to other customers waiting in line.
"Don't worry, the food's better than the maitre d. He just drank too much and thinks he's all high and mighty. He's just going through with his daily 'Fire-Everyone-In-Sight' phase. Next, he's going to run through the restaurant singing 'Row, Row, Row Your Boat' or some other nursery rhyme." The doctor whispered to his patient.
Just then, the same waiter that the maitre d yelled at came over to take their order. "Hi, my name is Tim and I will take your order. What will you have, sir?" he said to Doctor Fisher.
"We're going to use this." He said, holding up a coupon that said "THE BIG BOWL. ALL YOU CAN EAT AND MORE. USE THIS ON SEAFOOD SATURDAY. OFFER ENDS ON JANUARY 31ST 2042"
"Yes, sir. Anything to drink?"
"A scotch please." The good alcoholic doctor said.
"Um, I'll have a Sprit, I guess." The patient said.
The waiter leaned down and joked, "So, you're the poor sap that gets to drive, huh?" the waiter laughed.
"Actually, no. We walked here. I just don't drink. That's all."
The waiter left and walked to the kitchen, leaving the doctor and his patient to talk about personal matters.
"So, tell me what you can remember." The doctor told his patient.
Old Chap closed his eyes and cleared his mind. He concentrated hard on remembering his past. He saw flashes that lasted no more than a few seconds. He saw people he had no idea he knew. And the very last image he saw was of her.
He screamed out in pain and held his head in discomfort. He shook violently and his eyes shot open. No longer were they pale blue, but cloudy and bloody shot.
People at the surrounding tables looked at him with confusion written all over their faces. After a couple seconds elapsed, they turned back to their dinners and conversations.
"Ok then. I won't ask you to do that again until you're ready for it, or, we're not in public. But be ready. The sight of anything, like a number or a license plate might trigger more flashes and memories." The doctor warned him.
Old Chap's eyes cleared and the pain subsided for the moment and he looked the doctor in the eyes and said, "I keep seeing her and every time, it's always the same image. She's about to tell me who she is, but I can't remember and the pain becomes over powering. The last thing I see is her looking back at me with the sunset behind her and then I open my eyes. I can't take it anymore. As soon as you let me, I'm going to Balamb to find out who I am, who this girl is and what she means to me and first and foremost, I'm gonna find myself."
"Well said, Old Chap.," the doctor said.
Just then, the waiter came with their dish. It was a pretty big bowl and it was pretty big and had to be at least the size of the waiter's arm's length just so he could hold it. A second waiter came over and placed down a Bunsen burner on the table and the first waiter, Tim, placed the huge bowl on it and lit the burner.
"Enjoy. Should you not be able to finish it, you may take the bowl home and keep it. There's no point in wasting seventy boxes on a 'doggy bag'." The waiter said and then he left the doctor and his patient to conquer the mount Everest of food.
"Gee doc, what is this?" Old Chap said as he pointed to a deep fried piece of food that came from the belly of the bowl.
"Um… I don't know if you'll like it, so I'll tell you later. Just eat it, whatever it is." The doctor said, looking at the object in question quizzically.
" 'Whatever it is'? Gee thanks, I feel so much more better now." His patient sneered.
"Just eat it. I mean, what harm can it do to you? This is a very prestigious restaurant. They would never, ever, ever try to food poison someone. It would tarnish their record. Just eat it." The doctor replied, "Besides, I need a guinea pig. If you fall over within five minutes, I'll know it's not safe." He muttered under his breath.
"Oh so that's how you think me, huh? A guinea pig. I feel so loved." He said as he took a bite of it, "Hmm, it tastes like chicken. You know what, I think this is an oyster. Hey, what's that green stuff?" he said as he pointed to a green circular hoop in the center of the oyster.
"Oh, I think it's the oyster's intestines." The doctor said as he observed the green hoop.
"Eat up, doc." His patient said as he dumped the remaining piece of the oyster in his plate.
"Oh, fine!" he said as e ate the intestines, "Hmm, tasty."
They went on as they pulled out different morsels of food. They pulled out duck, pork, dumplings, and vegetables. There was one in particular that the doctor could remember the most. The chicken.
"Hey, what's this?" Old chap asked as he pulled out a piece of chicken with his chopsticks. The chicken itself was red, a peculiar color for a piece of cooked chicken. Or was it?
"Oh, that's a piece of drunk chicken." The doctor answered his patient.
"Drunk chicken?" Old Chap looked very confused.
"Yeah, drunk chicken .It wasn't sober. While it was alive, the farmers gave it red wine to drink and when it was drunk, they killed it. That's why it's red." The doctor said while he stared at the chicken. When he looked up and saw the baffled eyes of his patient, he began to laugh, "Nah, I'm just joking, Old Chap. The marinated it with red wine. Eat it, it's good."
"Well, I'm not sure you want me to do that, Doc. I might end up standing on the table and belt out some obscure song at the top of my lungs." He joked, "Oh well, bottom's up!" and he ate the chicken. "Hmm, pretty good." He said as he took another piece.
They had successfully finished the bowl, astonishing the waiter and the manager. They called for the waiter to bring them the bill and the man eagerly walked over with the bill. The doctor looked at the bill and gave him his credit card. This was not a cheap meal. The waiter walked to the cash register and did his thing as he swiped the credit card through the card reader. He walked over to the dynamic duo and gave the credit card back to the doctor.
"Thank you for eating at Sam Wong's Seafood Restaurant. Please come back soon." The waiter said and turned around to leave.
The doctor and his patient got up to leave and the doctor placed a tip on the table. It wasn't much, only 100 Gils.
They walked back to the little hut in complete silence, save for their footsteps on the pavement. When they got back to the hut, they opened the door and collapsed on their respective beds and fell asleep the moment their head hit their pillows.
_______________________________
Meanwhile, in an old abandoned factory, Johnny the Piranha was having an emergency meeting. Such pressing matters were not ones that could wait.
He had been in a very good mood and had only killed one man since his escape. He had given his men some extra dough because he was feeling very generous. He treated them to a very fancy dinner in the trendy part of the restaurant called Sam Wong's Seafood Restaurant a couple of days ago. He had an arrangement with the owner of the joint (who was, after all, his best friend) that he would never turn against Johnny and hand him over to the cops, even if he was in desperate need of cash. In return, the owner would have protection, should someone try to kill him.
But, just last night, he had received a call from Sam saying that someone who looked a lot like the SeeD that was supposedly killed three weeks ago had just left his restaurant. He could not believe it! His men were so incompetent. Like they say, good help is so hard to find. He muttered thanks and told his friend that that there was going to be Hell to pay.
Now, his men were arriving one by one at a very slow rate. They were all groggy and were wiping the sleep away from their eyes. Their fearless leader was about to tell them something very important. It had to be important because their boss was never awake at six o'clock in the morning. He valued his sleep.
When the last man had finally arrived, Johnny cleared his throat and began another one of his long, boring, and pointless lectures about how important a job well done was.
"Good morning gentlemen. I have woken you up this early to tell you that a job well done is very important. It is the solid foundation of any mob in this wonderful world."
The men began to panic. Their boss never used the words 'wonderful' and 'world' in the same sentence, never mind in a row, one after the other. He said that they were an oxymoron because 'There is no way in Hell that the world is wonderful'. Now they knew that something was seriously wrong. It slowly began to make sense to them. The time, the place, the subject of the lecture and now the horrible omen. As he went on, they began to shake and shiver.
"As your boss, I would like to congratulate you on a job well done on disposing of that pesky SeeD so well that he walked into Sam's restaurant last night! I thought that I had drilled it into your heads that if you're going to do a job, you're going to do it properly! Anyone want to say something in your miserable defense?" Johnny shouted furiously.
A man named Jerry Evans stood forward and began to quiver. He was a quiet fellow and never defied his boss before. Being the first contender in the ring with Johnny was not his idea of fun. The short man had the poorest vocabulary when he needed it and always took a long time to get to his point.
"Well, you see sir, it goes like this. Three week ago, the whole lot of us had found that SeeD spying on us trough that broken window over there and so the boys and I went out side to shoot him, but he wasn't there. He was running away, so we chased him down to the coast and it all went 'Bang! Bang! Trrrrrrr!" Evans said as he jumped around making gun noises and he nearly wet himself out of fear that the boss would not believe him.
"Spare me the noises. I know what a gun sounds like!" Johnny snapped at him.
"Yes sir. Anyways, we chased him all the way down the coast and when we reached a cliff, we began to shot at each other. I myself got shot in the ass. It was very painful. Couldn't sit down for a week. Anyways, we shot him in the head and he fell off the cliff and into the ocean. He drifted away, further and further until we couldn't see him anymore." Evans said, concluding his story.
"Really, well then, how come he's alive?" Johnny roared.
"Sir, we don't know. There must have been some sorta boat out there that must've picked him up and healed him, I guess." Another man piped up. He was really muscley and had muscles popping out of his ears. He was a sort of modern day Achilles and was not the sharpest knife in the box. His name was T.J MacFarley and he was not someone you wanted to get in a fight with.
"Well, then I guess I gotta kill someone now. The only question is, who will I kill?" Johnny sneered. He pointed his gun at Evans' diaphragm and shot it twice. "Let me know if it hurts." And he laughed an evil laugh that scared the men so much; they nearly called for their mommy.
A/N: Well, another chapter written. I'm just another sap with nothing to do on New Year's Eve. Oh well, nothing like spending another day in my pajamas. If any of you were wondering, that whole food incident really did happen to me while I was in Toronto visiting family. Especially the part with the oyster. And to think that I actually ate half of the intestines. Eww. Anyways, please review. I mean if you can make it this far, why not just say either "wow! Great story!" or "Holy crap! That sucked!" Should you chose that latter, please say why. A happy author just might write more. Anyways, 'see' y'all in the New Year!
P.S: Should you have any questions, please write them in your review (I do happen to read those) and I will answer them to the best of my ability (I am after all the author). Now, what are you doing still reading this? Write your review! Go! Now! (Yes, I am cranky, if any of you were wondering)
