"Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient ethersized upon a table;
Let us go, through certian half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats."
--T. S. Eliot

For When You Return
Part XX

"This is Irvine Kinn---, Qu--tis, can---hear me? I've lost Zel--and---Est--we--I--don--k--"

The scratchy message closed with a battering of chaotic sound, something that was a mixture between the screech of metal and a scream, gunshots, and a crescendo of cracling static that rose to climax, and then cut off in an ominous silence. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The quiet scared Quistis Trepe more than Irvine's breif message ever could. Something had happened. Something terrible. She could feel it, a darkness in the pit of her belly that rose into her lungs, made her breath toxic and black. Noxious.

She had thought that the worst was over. She thought that she had dealt with enough distress in her life, hadn't she made up for the rest of it already? The situation with Edea was enough, but now...

(Squall.)

If only he were here. If only she weren't so confused. Ellone had said that their companionship, that their union as a group would keep them infalliable. As long as they stayed together, everything would be okay. And everything had been okay. Everything. But now... she could feel her reality shattering, being torn apart to the tune of Irvine's distress call from the top of the communications tower. They had recieved it the night before, and a few quick, desperate desicions took them onto the next train to Esthar.

She sat in their cabin, back straight against the red plush of her seat, one leg crossed stiffly and professionally over the other. If anyone had looked, she would seem to be the picture of composure and sanity. It didn't matter. Nobody looked. Nobody spoke. Rinoa's coldness had intensified since their last enounter, and the dark-haired girl seemed listless and lost where she sat in an equal stony silence in her nearby seat. She'd put up a small, firm fight to come along. Quistis gave in without much of a retaliation. She didn't feel like battling with the girl, and deep down she knew that she needed her. With Irvine, Zell, and Squall all in states of question--

(We're breaking, breaking, breaking apart...)

--there didn't leave a whole lot of their group left. Selphie was the only other person in the cab, and she was the only one moving, really -- her leg twittered and shook, but it was a nervous shake, something that was almost as bad as the fact that she had hardly spoken since they'd boarded the train. She didn't look out the window, just at it, and that strange shift in her character was like a punctuation mark to the stillness in the room. The floor vibrated beneath them as the train glided down the tracks, and made Quistis' insides constantly jostle and churned. She was going to be sick.

She had unjunctioned her guardian forces, just as the rest of them did, but she could still feel them swimming in her brain, lost. No, wait, lost wasn't a good word...

(Waiting. This wasn't confused, this wasn't innocent. This was Predatory.)

"I can't take this anymore," Rinoa said, and her voice against the silence was like a bullet. She rose to her feet and set her hands on her hips, looked at the window. Paced. They were reaching the outskirts of the city, and would enter in a few moments. The lights of Esthar gave off an ominous, dreadful glow. "I mean, we have no idea what we're walking into."

"Yes we do," Selphie said. "We're walking into Esthar."

Rinoa cast her a cold little look, and Selphie immediately lowered her eyes to her hands. This was probably the worst of it all, Quisis thought, the veil that seemed to have swallowed up the once vibrant, optomistic girl. There was no mirth in Rinoa's black eyes, and the chill there was enough to almost kill what little hope that Quistis had left. Maybe everything would turn out okay, perhaps they'd find what they needed to safely in Esthar... but Rinoa was already lost. There was a different woman pacing on the other side of the cabin, and Quistis didn't like it.

"This is our best chance," she said. "For everything. Odine will be able to help us."

"Odine wouldn't take a piss outside of his own agenda to get his own mother off her deathbed," Rinoa retorted. "You know that."

"You have to find a little faith, Rinoa," Quistis said quietly. "I know, trust me... I know that we don't have much. But if we don't hold on to what little we do have, we're going to fail before we even get a chance to try."

"I know that," Rinoa said quietly, and Quistis saw some of the stiffness leave her jaws, her shoulders, her gaze. "I'm just so scared."

And although scared was a terrible thing to be, especially now at a time when it was essential to keep a cool head, Quistis felt a wave of relief. This was a touch of the old Rinoa, the innocent, empathetic Rinoa who always said what she felt, said what they didn't want to say for themselves. This was a woman who wasn't afraid to admit to her fears.

"Quistis," Rinoa said out of the blue, and the tone of her voice was heartbreaking. "Do you think that Squall loved me...?

Quistis never got a chance to answer. She never even got a chance to think about it, because it was then when there was an earthshattering explosion, and everything around them ceased to, for a moment, exsist.

The sound made her mind go blank, and then Quistis realized that she was flying from her seat. She saw Rinoa's eyes widen, her mouth take on a similar shape. Her stomach rose up and jumped into her chest. Perhaps Selphie screeched, but it was in such perfect harmony with the squealing of slicing metal that Quistis could not pull one scream out from another. She couldn't even discern her own, although her mouth was open, and she could feel it. It pulsed up out of her lungs like a thick, electrified iron rod.

She saw the opposite wall come hurtling towards her, heard--felt--the crunching and crumbling thunk of Rinoa hitting the upholstery nearby (the whites of her legs, flailing), and then she herself crashed into oblivion. The world spun, and with a shock she realized far in the back of her brain that the train was whirling off the rails. She felt a dull, bone-jarring thud as it hit the walls of the entry-tunnel to Esthar, and her head snapped up just in time to see an amazing spectacle of crushing metal pop into the side of the room like thousdands of deflating aluminum cans. Smoke, fire, the pulp of bodies. It was hurtling towards them at an alarming rate.

She squeezed her eyes shut, and waited for the wave of death to hit them.

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

The sound of the crashing train resonated throughout the entire city. Every person on the streets rose their heads to see a billow of smoke rise, and then curl against some unseen barrier in a beautiful and yet odd arrangement of swirls and wave-like churns. The first twinges of panic began to rise in the population's bloodstream, and as small children clung to their equally confused mothers, a voice boomed out from everywhere and nowhere at once--

"People of Esthar..."

And something about the quality of the tone made every single person who heard it's blood run cold.

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

Deep within the bowels of the city, an old man babbled to no one. His face was pulled down by gravity, his eyes were yellow and stale, and his teeth rotted from his head. He looked like he had been sitting in that corner of the tiny jail cell for centuries, and something in his gaze suggested that his mind had, ha-ha-to-them!, found a means of escape.

Irvine Kinneas watched him warily from his own corner of the cell. The basement prison seemed cruelly primative to him, with cast-iron bars, metal floors, and a narrow dank hallway that connected the rows of open cells together. He could hear, from his and Mumbly's neighbors, sounds of huffing, cussing, and down at the far end of the hall, constant and insane screaming.

He sat with his back against the wall, wearing only his t-shirt and the soldiers' pants that he had come in with. They had taken his coat, and the basement was kept at a freezing temperature. He kept himself still, but beneath his flesh he could feel his cells shaking in an effort to keep warm, his lips and lungs felt numb. His nose was running.

Luckilly, though, he had something to keep his mind off the cold.

(Goddamnattentiondeficitchickenwussbastard.)

And he even muttered some of this, which he knew was slowly putting him in the same league as his cellmate, who was animatedly having a conversation with no on in particular at that very moment. His head was throbbing from where a Galbadian soldier had put the butt of his rifle into it, and his left leg felt stiff and sore where he had fallen the last ten or so feet from the tower in his effort to avoid the gunfire that had been aimed at him. They took him alive. Irvine waited for the time to come for them to take advantage of that, and he wasn't looking forward to it. He was going to be interrogated, and it was going to be painful. SeeD or not, training and real-life instances were two very different things, and he was twittering and anxious.

He sucked on his lips and looked over his surroundings for another hopeless moment. It was simple, and yet very efficient. They had searched him, taken everything but the clothes on his back--and even some of -those-, Irvine thought with a shiver--and the bars looked sturdy. Old, but sturdy. Ominous. Dangerous. They were the kind of bars that surrounded someone that wasn't going to live very long within them.

Suddenly, the floor rose up in a cry of unison as the entire place shook and the bars rattled, punctuated with the dull roar of a distant explosion. Irvine felt himself sprawl the short distance to the floor, more out of shock than actual lack of balance, and the afterjolts radiated through his flattened body like a poison.

"HOO-haaa!" The old man croaked.

His mouth had gone dry, and Irvine lifted his head to watch the people in the closest cells do the same. His eyes met a young man's on the other side of the hallway, and for a moment they shared a mutual emotion, before the other man's gaze went cold and impersonal again. Shakily, he withdrew back into his own boundaries and tried to stand up. Irvine eased himself back into his seated position as well.

The dull sound of a booming voice filled the air all of a sudden, and Irvine strained to hear it over the babbling of his roomate, who had gotten more excited by the strange event. Irritated, Irvine tried to block him out, and then noticed an intercom on the far end of the hallway. The screen had popped out, it was broken. He knew, however, that someone was speaking on it now. Someone important, something important.

What was happening?

The door opened on the other side of the hallway, the side that he couldn't see from where he was in his cell, and the sound of laughter was sucked into it as someone--or was it more than one person?--entered the area. The heavy clomp of booted footsteps, definitely a small group now, Irvine had discerned, moved down the hallway and towards his cell. There was something powerful in those steps, something confident. Something cocky. The pace was slow and enticing, like a snake trying to disarm its victim, making him feel helpless and trapped in the poison-dripping fangs of danger.

They were coming for him. Something in his heart knew it.

(It's time.) Irvine thought with a breath of resolve. (Time to be strong.)

But then one of them spoke.

And at the sound of that voice, all strength left Irvine Kinneas.

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

Rinoa lifted her head. It was wet, and she knew that she was bleeding. Something had stripped off the wall, and she could feel it heavy on her back. Groaning, she tried to move. Her body was stiff, but everything seemed essentially intact. With a wince she shifted her hips, tried to wriggle out of the rubble that was consuming her. It wasn't too heavy, and she was able to ease herself up into a semi-seated position.

Quistis was kneeling next to Selphie. Her hair was in disarray, and her arm was smeared red. It seemed to glow. Selphie was dazed, and Rinoa watched detachedly as Quistis tried to get her up, moving. Keeping her conscious.

They were alive. There was no reason that they should have been.

Rinoa looked off to her left. There was a wall of rubble, chaos fixed in time, just paces away from her. Sliding forward a little, she moved her hand to touch it. It was smooth, like glass.

It -was- glass.

Or something like it, at least. Curious, frantic with it now, she ran her hands up and down the wall of damage and rose to her feet. There was something between them and the other half of the train. With a creak, as she shifted her weight, she felt their side of the cab groan and slide down a little. Part of the ceiling pulled away, and from there she could see sky.

The sheilds. The shields had cut the train in two.

A few seconds earlier, and they would have been on the other side of that wall. They would have smashed into it like an accordion under the weight of a semi-truck tire, and there would have been no chance for them. A small river of blood ran through the tightly packed metal on the other side of the sheild. Rinoa watched it from the corner of her eye, felt her heart stop in terror and wonder.

Someone had turned on the sheilds. But they weren't material, were they? Weren't they just supposed to cloak the city from view?

Rinoa didn't know. But as she touched the chaos-warmed invisible barricade, something else came to her realization to make the latter part cease to matter.

"We're trapped." She said.

"Rinoa?"

"We're trapped in the city. Everyone is."

"I don't understand." Quistis said.

Selphie mumbled something, and then shook her head, cleared it. "They must have did something to the cloaking sheilds, they..."

"People of Esthar..."

The three women raised their heads. Reality was still shaky for them, and they had to exchange glances to assure themselves that the strange, booming voice was real. Someone was addressing the city.

"You are now the prisoners of the Galbadian army. Your city has been sealed."

From the shattered sanctuary that had been their train, the muffled sounds of what was starting to be a panic started to tingle in the air. Rinoa, breathless, stared at the ceiling, as if the voice were really coming from the sky.

"You have seventy-two hours to give us possession of Doctor Odine, alive and in decent health. If we fail to aquire him by this given time, we will allow Esthar's oxygen to continue to deplete, as it is beginning to now, and every man, woman, and child will die."

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

Screams filled the air, but they were distant in the city's electronic mall. The area was vacant and dark, as the entire sector had been shorted out by the nearby train accident. The young teens that had populated the area had quickly gotten out, panicky--this sort of thing never happened--and the terrifying public announcement to the city cleared out the scragglers. Only two lone soldiers walked down the wide corridor, weapons in hand and eyes peeled.

They had already pretty much taken care of those that they considered a threat. The Estharian law enforcement men who were not part of the takeover were quickly and easily disposed of, as they were not aware of the fact that their comrades were enemies in their uniforms. These men were all trained together, they all volunteered towards the same cause. A new life, a new city. Never would anyone had thought that it would come to this.

One of them, Granger, secretly hoped that they would stumble onto Odine and save the day, although he had a feeling that the shopping area would be the last place that a crazy guy like that would hide. And hiding he was, he must have known that they were coming, for his lab was vacant--not only of the man himself, but of all of his notes and documents as well. Iskuya was furious when he found out.

Their leader kind of scared him. There was something about the man, the way he behaved sometimes, that just set him on edge. Not that Granger got a lot of chances to actually see him, but he heard stories. And he'd watched from afar, as Iskuya, in the middle of a speech, would start to twich and pulsate, his eyes wide and yet pinched at the same time. And then he'd be fine, like it never happened. Sometimes his voice changed, like he became a different person in the same body. People said he was crazy.

Wouldn't be the first general to have that behind him, though.

His partner, Led, was a stocky man with a twittery way of looking around. Funny, though, as much as his eyes darted about, he never seemed to actually see anything, like he was too excited to know how to focus correctly. It was no surprise--although it sent a jolt through poor Granger--that off on Led's side there came a loud creak, a softer bang, and a hint of motion that the stockier man didn't even seem to notice. Only when Granger lifted up his rifle did the other man snap his head up, and they both looked to see a dirty man in chocobo boxers come pulling up out of the floor. His blonde hair was messy and strewn all over around his head, tinged greasy and black in places. He was obviously heaving, exhausted. He barely seemed to notice them, or maybe he was at a point where he didn't care.

"What the hell?"

It was so ludicrous a scene that Granger forgot what he was doing, exactly. He just stared at the man, the man stared back, and for a moment there was a confused stillness between them. Eventually, though, Granger snapped out of it and belted a harsh. "Get your hands up!"

The man complacently complied. However, when his palms lifted to face them, the two soldiers were suddenly struck with a blast of radiant blue light. Granger hardly had time to realize that something dangerous was happening, and before he knew it every bone, tissue, and organ in his body was petrified. A chill numbed and stopped his brain, and then the ice inside him shattered his innards into what seemed to be millions of sharp shards, pushing out, in, sideways--oh, the pain! He crumpled.

The violent pain was blinding, and then Zell Dincht, survivor of the tunnels, emerger from the depths, was at him and pummeling with his fists. Granger could hear Led's cry, and then, eyes squeezed shut, he swung his rifle at the attacker--having forgotten for a moment that it was meant to be fired, not weilded as a club--and he felt a satisfying smack of skin. Zell fell to the ground, heaving and stunned a little, which made him an easier target. Granger swung his rifle again, cracked the half-naked man on the side of the head, and then kicked him firmly in the side. His shoulders rose and fell haggardly, his blood still felt jagged in the aftermath of the spell, but adrenaline kept him upright and firm.

Led cocked his rifle and pointed it in Zell's face. With slow, deliberate motions he used the tip of his toe to ease the groaning man flat on his back, and then he firmly ground his foot into the top of his chest. "I think I'm a decent shot at this range, don't you, Granger?"

He held his side tenderly, even though the waning ache was everywhere. "I'd like to hope."

"Don't make me find out," Led said down to Zell.

"Oh, I trust your capability, believe-you-me." The blonde croaked in reply.

Furious at his lack of an adequately fearful response, Led bent and forced the barrel into the soft flesh of Zell's cheek. It pudged up humorously, and his mouth made a little sideways fish shape in its wake, one eye squished. His pale, bare legs shifted and kicked a little on the ground.

"I'm going to give you three seconds to tell me why I shouldn't kill you." Led didn't care actually, he just liked to talk when he had a gun pointed at someone, it made him feel like he was in the movies. Honestly, he planned to kill the man at two. However, he never got around to it, as his gun was suddenly gone out of his hands. Shocked, he looked at his empty palms, and then up at the sound of the clatter of the both of their weapons on the other side of the hallway. What he saw, though, was not that, but the cracking aftermath of a whip, and three armed women.

Quistis snapped the far end of her whip back into her ready grip. "I think you should hand that man over, before we start taking away parts that are attatched to you."

Selphie squished her face up, and, added. "Speaking of parts.... Um...Quisty, while you're at it, maybe you should snag a pair of one of their pants, too."

Zell, flaming red all of a sudden, put his hands over his scantily-clad self..

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

"I didn't think they had earthquakes here, ya know?"

"EXPLOSION."

Irvine's heart pounded in his chest. No way. No goddamn way.

"I don't know what's up, but I don't like it. They never tell us anything here. Heh. They're going to be sorry someday." That voice, especially, so cool and self-absorbed, resonated in Irvine's head like a foghorn. He could almost taste the tone, could close his eyes and picture--

"SHOCK."

Irvine didn't need to close his eyes. One slow, wary upward glance, and he saw what his ears had told him would be there. And, sure enough, pale-faced and askew stood Seifer Almasy, just as speechless as Irvine himself was. Like a bad colonge, his posse wafted behind him. Raijin's eyes were bulging, and Fujin... well, was Fujin.

All were in soldiers' uniform.

Part 20/?
To Be Continued.