Chapter 6 – To Dollet
Squall, Rinoa and Irvine sat in the office listening to Selphie's report, about the business she had been doing in Dollet.
"The weapons that you got last week I had a buyer for, that lives in Dollet," Selphie started to explain. "As Rinoa knows, we agreed a price and the buyer was to pay on delivery. Anyway, I set up the transportation and we set off to deliver the weapons. When we got there, they surrounded us and threatened to kill us if we didn't give them the weapons. So we had no choice but to do what they say…" Selphie said, his voice trailing off at the end.
"What?" Irvine shouted jumping from his seat, this was the first time he heard this. "The bastards! We sacrificed lives for them and then they screw us over." He kicked the wall in a rage.
Rinoa stood up. "Calm down Irvine," Rinoa said to him peacefully. "I do think we should do something to get our money back though."
"Too right we should," Irvine exclaimed. "They're lucky they didn't touch Selph, otherwise they'd be real trouble."
"I think we should set off as soon as possible," Rinoa said, her mind starting to create a plan. She turned to Squall. "Okay, Irvine, Squall and me will set off now. We'll try to reason with your buyer, we'll need some weapons in case. Irvine you sort that out. Selphie, you organise our best men. If we can't reason with them, we'll just have to kill them."
~*~*~*~*~*~
Squall stood in Deling City train station; Irvine stood between him and Rinoa separating them, so that he could not talk to her without getting an angry glare from Irvine. Squall could feel the small gun underneath his jacket, which he had been given by Irvine before they had arrived here. Squall knew he had the power to do anything to get this job done, but he wanted to try to avoid the situation where he would have to kill someone.
The train pulled up after several minutes of waiting and before the three could even start moving, large crowds of people emerged from nowhere, blocking the way to the train. They pushed their way through the large crowds, dragging themselves to the train they wanted. Finally they got there, thanks to Irvine pushing a young man out the way into the crowds to ensure they got on.
"Hey," the man shouted as he pulled himself back to his feet. The doors closed just before he reached the train and much to his annoyance he had to watch the face of Irvine smirking at him as the train began to move. "Damn," he said to himself. "If I don't get in soon my boss is going to kill me. This is the second time this week I'll be late."
Rinoa began to walk down the train, finding an available room that the three could enter. She found one at the end of the carriage and she quickly slipped in, closely followed by Irvine and Squall. "Not bad," she said to herself, inspecting the room they had entered. She looked out the window to see they were now moving out of the station and into the outskirts of Deling. She knew that soon they would be moving on to the plains of Galbadia.
Irvine threw himself into one of the large seats that lined the carriage, from beneath his coat he pulled out his gun. "Soon you'll get justice," he spoke, stroking the gun.
"Shit Irvine," Rinoa said, turning round to see him. "Put the gun away. You could get us all in trouble for that you idiot!"
Irvine obeyed Rinoa, placing it back where it had come from. "So who was the buyer?"
"What?" Rinoa said looking at him.
"Who was the buyer?" Irvine repeated the question.
"It's just an old friend I used to know. Does it really matter?" Rinoa said, slightly avoiding the question.
"Actually, yes, it does matter. If they tried to kill Selphie I want to know who it is."
"Fine," Rinoa said. "His name is Seifer. He's an arms dealer that supplies to various groups throughout the world. He told me that if I could get these weapons for him he'd give us a very good price for them. But he screwed us over…just like before…"
"What do you mean 'just like before'?"
"It doesn't matter," Rinoa said shaking her head. She sat down on one of the seats near Irvine. "It doesn't matter anymore," she reiterated to herself.
During this conversation Squall had been stood beside the door listening to them. When the name Seifer was mentioned it ran a chill down his spine. It couldn't be him Squall thought, hoping that he was worrying unnecessarily.
~*~*~*~*~*~
The rest of the train went mostly uneventful. Irvine sat in silence, watching the land fly past through the small train window. Rinoa spent much of her time either in deep thought or lying asleep, the latter Squall took the opportunity to admire her sleeping form. It was hard, by looking at her asleep, to imagine that she had ever done anything wrong in her life, almost an angel in his eyes.
The hours passed until the intercom came to life, echoing its voice around the carriage. "We will be arriving at Dollet in about 10 minutes. Please gather all personal belongings and prepare to leave once the train has come to a full stop."
Irvine stepped up to Rinoa placing a hand on her shoulder, rousing her from her sleep. "Time to go," he said to her. She quickly straightened herself up, pushing her hair behind her ears. The three gathered up all the things they had brought and fifteen minutes later were stepping out on to the streets of Dollet.
"Where to now?" Squall asked Rinoa.
"Selphie said he owns the Blazing Past Hotel, so I guess we should start there," Rinoa told him.
"Right. Let's go get our money," Irvine smiled.
The group walked through the streets of Dollet trying to find the hotel. Down the central street of the town the found it, the tall name across the building. The three stepped through the doors into the hotel. In front of them was the reception desk, a short dark haired man stood behind it. "Hello. How can I help you?" he asked sincerely.
"We're here to see Seifer," Irvine stated plainly, before Rinoa had a chance to answer.
"Do you have an appointment to see-" the man was cut off before he could finish.
Irvine slammed his hand down on the desk. "No we don't have an appointment. We just want to see Seifer, now get him out here!" Irvine shouted.
"Very well," the man said, slightly startled. He quickly ran from his position to a door on the right of them.
As soon as the man disappeared Rinoa turned to Irvine. "I can't believe you. You better hope that you haven't pissed Seifer off now."
Before Irvine could answer, the man returned, poking his head through the door. "Please come this way," he said. "Seifer will see you now."
Squall followed behind Rinoa and Irvine as they walked into the room following behind the man. As the door closed behind them the lights switched off leaving them in the darkness. Before Squall could react he felt a heavy object collide with his head that knocked him to his knees. He felt the world spinning around him, until his body gave in and he fell to the floor unconscious…
Authors Note: Hey thanks for reading. Sorry if there are a few mistakes in here but I wanted to get this chapter up today otherwise I won't have time to put it up for a while. I'll probably do some editing for the last 2 chapters to sort out any problems later on. Anyway while you're hit you may as well just hit that lil review button and tell me what you thought.
Thanks to The Angel of The Lion, Ma/eRiCk, Keiry (thanks for adding this to your fave stories list), Phoenix Blade, Sandra Leonhart and Sammy-Chan for reviewing Chapter 5.