AN: another crazee title I know - it's early, for me - 7am O.o, I don't wake up til bout 9pm - which kinda sucks for working at college

Rating: R (I tried to keep it lower, but it just wasn't destined to happen - unlike other things [which are responsible for the rating])

Disclaimer: SG characters are (c) MGM (thankie to Morrigan for that :p).  FF8 characters are (c) Squaresoft, original characters are mine – ask nicely and I might let you play with them, s'long's you don't break them...

Warnings: SxS - Yaoi (guyxguy) later - if u don't like, don't read.  Character death.  Maybe angst (I do like to torture my characters sometimes :p), language (prob nothin u aint heard b4, but still...)

~Chapter Twenty-Six: Degenerator~

Laguna arrived in Centra to scenes of complete chaos.  Once, when it had been the resting place of lunatic pandora, Esthar had built semi-organic robots to aid its soldiers in defence - the Gespers and Elastoids.  The idea had been that once the replicating creatures had gotten themselves established, the soldiers could withdraw.  Of course, Laguna mused, he, Kiros and Ward had managed to accidentally corrupt the central data-core controlling the friend/foe recognition systems of the machines.  The Estharian soldiers had been driven out, and the Gespers and Elastoids had taken over anyway.

It was one of the reasons so many SeeDs had been posted there.

After a few minutes random drifting through the milling SeeDs, Laguna managed to find the person he was looking for.  Irvine.  The Trabian headmaster was standing in a 'Squall' pose, arms folded, with a resigned frown of irritation on his face.  He was, however, paying attention to something in front of him.

"Irvine!"  The younger man turned as Laguna shouted, and he was struck by how worn the SeeD looked.  With a brief aside to someone Laguna couldn't see, Irvine unfolded his arms and strode over.

"Laguna."  He frowned.  "What brings you here?"  This time Laguna frowned.

"I got your message.  Said to come immediately, so I did."  Irvine rolled his eyes and turned away.

"SELPHIE!"  He bellowed.  Laguna winced.  He'd never heard Irvine shout before, had always assumed that he was a mild-mannered, laid back guy.  But then, he'd thought Squall was quiet until they'd gotten into the blistering row about what was happening to Rinoa.  He often wondered if that was what had driven Squall and Rinoa into hiding.

Selphie bounded into view, a change coming over her the minute she saw Irvine's expression, and Laguna standing behind him.  All bounce gone out of her step, she walked hesitantly towards them.

"What's Sir Laguna doing here, Irvine?"  She asked, curiosity and worry large in her wide brown eyes.  Irvine frowned at her, unable to see any lie to her surprise.

"Well if you didn't send him a message, and I didn't send him a message, that's a bloody good question."  His frown deepened as he spotted Quistis and Zell making their way over.  "You two are supposed to be keeping things under control."  He snapped.

"What happened?"  Laguna asked, nearly wilting under Irvine's glare.  Then  he remembered who he was, and standing straighter, glared right back.  "What happened."  He repeated, more forcefully.  Sensing that the last thing the situation needed was for the two most important people in the room to start fighting, Quistis stepped in.

"We have some, visitors, from through the gate.  A Gesper wandered in and someone panicked."  She shrugged.  "Nine times out of ten a fire spell's all you need to take out a Gesper..."

"Let me guess, this was the tenth."  Laguna interrupted.  Quistis nodded.

"Gesper got pissed, cast degenerator at one of our guests."  Zell continued.  "In the confusion, from what we can tell, another SeeD pushed the guest out of the way and was killed..."

"By the degenerator spell."  Laguna finished, nodding.  "Oh."  He sighed.  "Sounds like an unfortunate accident, so why all the fuss?"

AN: why all the fuss indeed?  I'll let them tell u when I know...  *giggles* - sorry, still only 7.40am *sighs*  This chapter didn't go how I wanted...  *sulks*  Still, got the main scene and questions across... :)