V

Quistis

_____________________________

Centra Ruins,
Centra





As far as she could tell, nothing was wrong -- everything was going more-or-less as was planned; all squads were in position, and the SeeDs were on alert to act at once if anything got out of hand. And it was a field exam, so it was natural that certain things were going slightly awry, but it was nothing that strayed from the meticulously made contingency plan.

The mission, according to all the rule books and procedures and trainings -- down to the very last section, paragraph and line -- was going perfectly well.

There was nothing that could justify the niggling sense of unease Quistis had at the back of her mind even before the start of the mission.

She had this nagging feeling that something was off-balance, out of place. She couldn't pinpoint it, and it was slowly getting on her nerves. And from everything that had happened last year, she knew better than to just ignore it, like she would have done before. She did wish, though, that she had more substantial evidence as she was finding herself running low on patience as she was trying to reason out her half-fledged worries to her colleague.

"Yes, I know," she tried again, fuming at the silent scepticism practically oozing from her communicator, "but something is wrong, Nida, and I think Zell is right -- we should call the mission off."

There was a long pause on the other end. She could almost imagine Nida stabbing the pieces of paper in front of him with the pencil he was holding. His respect for her (and the knowledge that Zell outranked him in this particular mission) eventually won out, and he sighed. "Okay, okay, I get it." A short pause and some static. "Or rather, I don't get it. But I'll broadcast the order to withdraw on all channels. 1300 at the Command Centre. You'll have to tell the teams in the Ruins yourself -- I'm not getting through to them. There seems to be some sort of interference."

"Yes, I copy that. And Nida?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

She cut off the connection before he could answer, and hurried up the stairs. Almost immediately she bumped into a cadet rushing down, and the younger girl just managed to cling to the railings to keep herself from tripping. Quistis blinked at her, and was about to launch into an automatic reprimand about going around without observing your surroundings when the girl cut her off.

"Oh, Instructor Trepe! I'm sorry, but we're not getting through to Nida on the communicator and I thought it would be better if I tried here and there's this really weird interference on all our channels and in all the equipment and we're not sure what to do--"

"Slow down," Quistis said sharply. "There's no need to panic."

That seemed to ground her. Quistis wondered absently if she had been that jumpy during her own exam -- she honestly couldn't remember. It was odd, really, the memories the GF chose to wipe away. "Okay, Cadet. You've been given orders to withdraw. 1300 at the Command Centre. You're to relay the information to your squad leader and to act immediately upon that order."

She saluted, a sharp and precise movement, in control once again. "Yes, ma'am! 1300 hours at the Command Centre!"

Quistis looked after her for a moment. She flicked the 'transmit' switch of the comm device and heard nothing but white noise. Another oddity. There shouldn't be problems with radio transmissions here. There should be slight interference due to the fact that they were within a building, but the radio signals should powerful enough still to be picked up. She mentally added another checkmark to it as an extra point to append to her report.

She reached Squad B as they were packing up their equipment. One of them, the cadet in front of the monitor, hesitated. Quistis instantly recognised her as Lyana Arman, the shy, polite librarian who had a crush on Zell, of all people. She turned to look at Quistis. "Instructor -- there seems to be some odd activity in the upper chambers of the ruins. Should we check it out first, or at least report back about it?"

Quistis shook her head. "No, remember what you were told about orders to withdraw?" The three of them looked at each other. "So you better finish packing your gear and go."

"But -- but someone might be in danger--"

Quistis just looked at her, and she went red. "Yes, ma'am," she murmured, and began unplugging the cables. There was a strained silence for a while before the squad leader suddenly started.

"Hey, the line's cleared up."

Quistis's own line crackled to life, and she heard Nida's voice, loud and clear. "--draw in twenty-three minutes. I repeat, withdraw from your post and assemble at the Command Centre in twenty-three minutes, at 1300 hours. Do you copy, Squad C Leader? Over."

Irvine's voice came over the line. "Squad C Leader here, I copy. Withdraw at 1300 hours. Over and out."

"Squad B Leader, do you copy?" Pause. "Do these people even listen to me?" she heard Nida grumble. "Squad B Leader!"

The girl gave a muffled 'eep' and immediately responded, and Quistis shook her head wryly as she headed up the stairs.

*

She found Zell arguing with Nida on his comm device, along with Irvine and his team in Odin's throne room. Irvine was looking slightly amused, but he was obviously wary of his surroundings. His eyes kept straying towards the ceiling, as if he expected something to pounce on him the moment he let his guard down. She didn't blame him.

"Yeah, I know, Xu. Of course we've looked there! There's just one more room left, and if they're not there, I don't know where they are." There was a pause as Zell listened to something Xu was saying, nodding vehemently all the while. "I don't like it either, but we still have to save 'em, remember. Yeah." Zell looked annoyed. "Yeah, yeah! Geez, I am SeeD, you know."

She could swear she could hear Xu laughing softly on the other end.

Zell looked slightly disgruntled as he disconnected. "Xu thinks the researchers are somewhere on the top-most tier of the pyramid. She told us to be careful of some fire-elemental up there." He pulled at his gloves. "C'mon, Quisty."

"Can we help?" Reese asked eagerly.

"The order to withdraw--"

"Yeah, yeah, takes priority," Irvine drawled, laughter in his voice. "I swear, you guys drilled it so much into my head I'll continue to hear that 'til the next century." He looked at his squad. "Let's go, team."

Zell hesitated for a moment, giving Quistis a glance. "Irvine, you're with us," he said, and Quistis saw no reason to disapprove of the order. Irvine gave a slight nod at that and he would have tipped his hat at them had he had it on. "Reese, you're the squad leader now, so don't do anything stupid."

"Hey, but--" Reese protested, looking startled, glancing at Irvine for help. Hathaway shook her head, but Quistis wasn't sure if she was telling Reese to stop protesting or whether she was agreeing with Reese's protest.

The cowboy shrugged, and pulled out his earpiece. "Just go, man. You don't want any marks deducted." He was grinning faintly, almost as if it was a joke. Reese started to say something else, but Irvine just handed the communication device to him and he took it with a slight sigh. "Come on, Rissa," he said. "We have twenty minutes to make it to the command centre."

Both of them saluted, and Quistis watched as the two left. Irvine muttered something under his breath about squad leaders and Zell looked at him, puzzled. "I think you did good enough."

"I think I know why Squall always has that frown on his face, now."

Zell snorted. "Squall always had a frown on his face, even when he was just sitting in class staring at nothing."

"Enough of that, you two," Quistis chastised and both of them had the grace to look contrite. She found herself being mildly irritated at Zell -- he was in command, but he still automatically deferred to her. Quistis wasn't sure if Zell will ever be able to forget that she had been his instructor one. Zell was right about one thing, though -- Squall had always been serious, even back in the days when he didn't have the burden of command on his shoulders. Rinoa had managed to get him to relax a little bit. Not much, but in some ways, it was enough. Quistis cast off the thought of Squall from her mind, and headed towards the door.

"You gave the command to withdraw?" Irvine asked as he followed her out.

Zell was defensive. "Yeah. What, you think it was a bad call?"

Irvine shrugged, an expressive gesture on his part. "Hey, you're the field commander here, not me. I'm just a lowly cadet, remember?" He gave a Zell a wry grin, and the hand-to-hand combat specialist looked somewhat puzzled as to whether or not he should find the remark insulting. Quistis wondered idly if Irvine was purposely irritating the other SeeD or was merely being honest. Irvine was such a puzzle, sometimes. She suspected he was a lot more smarter than he let on, and if the mission was a success, there was no reason he wouldn't make SeeD this time around.

Selphie's going to kill both him and Zell if he doesn't pass the exam.

Quistis felt Shiva's amusement at her thoughts, very cold and very sudden. Before she could form a question in her mind to address her, her presence vanished, leaving Quistis puzzled at the sudden withdrawal.

Irvine was shifting Exeter from one hand to another. He looked preoccupied. Zell was leaning against the doorway, for all the world looking like he was carrying a conversation with himself. He started and shook himself when he realised Quistis was studying him and abruptly headed up the stairway.

"I think it's that way," Irvine said, gesturing downwards. "We have to climb the ladder at the landing to get to top-most chamber, remember?"

Zell frowned a bit at that. "Tch. You're right, I s'pose," he muttered. "You're the one with the better memory, anyway." Irvine actually looked discomfited at the comment and Quistis just shook her head.

Irvine cleared his throat. "Don't you guys feel something . . . different . . . about this place?"

Quistis turned to look at him. Zell had stopped moving and he was regarding Irvine carefully, a curious expression on his face. "You feel it too?"

"Yeah. It was creepy before, but now I swear it's . . . well . . . haunted." Irvine gave a self-patronizing smile. "Now tell me it's just my imagination so that we can just go rescue those people and get the hell outta here."

Zell continued down the stairs with a wave of his hand. "I don't care if it's just your imagination. I still wanna get the hell outta here."

Irvine gave a short bark of a laugh as they came to a stop in front of a ladder. "This leads to the topmost tier, right?" He gave it a shake. "Here goes."

"Be careful," Quistis called out, and he shook his head at that. She thought she heard him mutter, "women", under his breath, but chose to ignore him. She watched as Zell scrambled up after him, agile as a monkey. As soon as she was sure that they were both safely off the ladder, she climbed up herself, and was slightly discomfited when the ladder creaked under her weight.

Irvine gave an impressed whistle as he stood on the out-jutted platform. Zell, right behind him, poked him in the ribs and Irvine stumbled into the small room. Quistis turned her attention from them to the machinery in the room, all of them rotating smoothly, without a hitch. Garden, even with expert maintenance done by the people in Esthar (and some fist-banging by Zell), didn't have engines that ran as quietly as these. Zell was staring at everything with his mouth hanging open.

"Guys," Irvine said quietly, "I think we've found them."

She turned sharply to face him, and saw that he was kneeling behind a slab of rock near an opening by the east wall of the room. The wall looked as if it was blasted open, perhaps by the members of the research team themselves. Irvine was gently shaking one of the researchers. Zell immediately checked for a pulse on the second man -- half-hidden under some debris -- before nodding in relief. "They're just unconscious," Irvine said, looking up to her. "I wonder what happened."

"Wonder about that later," Zell said. "Help me out here, will ya?"

Irvine shrugged and Quistis searched the small chamber as Zell muttered words for a Cure spell. If spells didn't work, one of them had to get down and get some help -- stretchers, medical help, the like -- perhaps Irvine could do that. She studied the wall, and the faint runes etched on them. Did they mean anything or were they just decorative text? If only there weren't any interference here -- she could have just radioed in to Nida for help. Why was there interference, anyway? Was it because the structure, or was it something else entirely?

Her eyes followed the runes as they trailed to the floor. One of the researchers was awake. Zell was still trying to revive the other one. "There was something here!" His voice was hysterical, and Irvine's reassurances didn't seem to placate him. "I swear, it was here!"

"What was here, sir?"

"I . . . I don't know -- it . . . it was a beast of some sort . . . ." he trailed off as Quistis squatted to look at something at the base of the wall, a half-finished looking rune that almost made sense to her. She traced it with a finger, and watching as the dust flaked off the dry wall and drifted to the floor.

"Hey, hey. Calm down. What's your name?"

"Name? It's -- my name's Tomassen. I didn't -- I never . . . I never thought that it would turn out like this." He voice had the desperate quality of someone who had just awoken from a nightmare.

"Where's the rest of your group? Five of you were reported missing . . . ."

The man's voice quavered. "It got them, I swear -- we tried to stop it, but--" He grew hysterical again. "We have to get out of here!"

Quistis stared at the dust on the floor and gently brushed away the debris that had been collecting on the cobblestone right beneath the rune. Her fingers caught a protruding edge of the overlay and she yanked it away, revealing a depression in the floor.

"Sir, if you can calm down and tell us what happened, maybe we can find your friends--"

"It got to them, I'm telling you! You won't find them here!"

She reached into the hollow, and her hand brushed against a thin chain. Quistis's fingers curled around it and she pulled it out. The chain seemed to be made of silver, and there was an amulet -- it was white, and it seemed to glow in the shadows of the ruin; ivory perhaps -- hung on the chain. She blinked, and let the crescent-shaped amulet slide along the chain to rest on her palm.

The world seemed to disappear for a while. There was complete darkness, and nothing else. There was no light at all, and everything was the same colourless void. This existence only compromised of this unending void and her own consciousness. Nothing else. Nothing else at all.

"Quistis?"

She started at the sound of her name. Irvine was staring at her, one hand outstretched, almost as if he wanted to shake her awake. Zell was surprisingly still, all his nervous energy had dissipated somewhere.

"Uh, whatever it was, I think it's gone." Zell slowly stood up, dusting his knees. Tomassen laughed, a wild light in his eyes, and Zell eyed him warily. "Let's get out of here, okay?"

Quistis nodded. After all, there was no more reason to stay there. Her grip on the amulet tightened before she slipped it into a pocket and went to help Zell with the still-comatose man.

They headed out of the room without a word, none of them aware of the invisible eyes watching their departure.







----------------

Author's Note

Is it just me, or is FF.Net not allowing us to have white spaces in our fics? Whatever's causing it, it's definitely messing up the formatting. I hate it when the formatting gets messed up.

Thank you, for the . . . uh . . . enthusiastic responses. I am glad to know that this is actually being read.

That was rather anti-climatic, ne? Sorry about that.

I can't promise scheduled updates, simply because I don't stick to a schedule and I often get sidetracked by other stuff. But this fic isn't going to be abandoned, not yet. A few chapters are already in the works, so you can be assured that a new chapter will be up soon. ^_^