Purgatio

by Marcus1

Email sponger42yahoo.com for Location of Most Recently Updated Purgatio Website

5. Seceleris

Chapter 5:

Seceleris

The red and yellow parasol bobbed back and forth as the two-wheeled cart to which it was attached bounced over the uneven pavement. Rolling his burden into a bit of shade that was out of the glare of the searing midday sun hanging in the robin's-egg blue sky, the portly little man paused a moment and pretended to wipe the sweat from his brow. Looking left and right to ensure that no one was paying any particular attention to him, the man snatched a pair of tongs which hung from a rack mounted on the little cart and dipped his beak-nosed face low to a steaming opening of one of the cart's internal compartments. The tongs disappeared into the opening. After a bit of prodding and inspection, the tongs emerged, clasping a plump, juicy-looking frankfurter. Casting about with one last furtive glance, the man expertly popped open a toasted bun from a rack on the cart; slathered the frank with relish, ketchup, and mustard; and popped the whole assembly into his mouth.

Chewing with his eyes closed rapturously, Zell leaned against the cart whose garishly painted sides indicated that it was: "Bob's Hotdog Emporium—stand #5."

After a few more moments of chewing, the disguised SeeD wheeled his cart out from under the shadow of the massive gateway that stood in the middle of Deling City's central park and proceeded to look—reluctantly—for customers as he made his way slowly down one of the parks many walking paths, gravel crunching dustily underfoot.

Jeffery "Duke" Putersal was looking forward to the sixteen ounce T-bone steak he had just ordered at the Prairie Star Steakhouse in one of the blue-collar sections of Deling near the city's center. He was also looking forward to the return of that 'purdy young thang' who had taken his—and his two friends'—orders. "Yup." He said to himself, it was lookin' to be another nice Friday night of unwinding with good food and pretty women.

"Whazat, Duke?" Randy Jerrolds asked from across the table.

"I was just thinking about that there waitress who done took our orders." Duke affected what he thought was a pretty good impression of a western drawl. "Mmm-hmm, purdy as a…" grasping for a suitable country expression, he elbowed Decar Ranyold for assistance.

"…As a little red wagon goin' up a hill." Decaur offered.

"Yeah, tha's right." Duke smiled. "She's shore easy on an ol' cowboy's eyes. That's fur darn shore."

"You a cowboy?" Randy snorted. "Imagine that, and me thinking you was a inhabitant of the capital of Galbadia all this time."

Duke put on an expression of injured pride. "Why, I may be." He pointed to his heart. "But deep down, I'm as country as… as…"

"Tumbleweed, cowboy boots, the west itself." Decaur shrugged.

"Yeah." Duke smiled up at the waitress arriving with the table's orders. "Ain't that right, darlin'?"

The waitress favored duke with a particularly joyless smile. "I ain'tcher darlin', cityslicker."

"Easy on thar, honey." Duke patted her arm as she laid his meal out before him. "No need ta' be all insultin' like."

"I'll thank ya to keep yer hands to yerself." The waitress said, pulling her arm away and turning to leave.

A bit chagrined, Duke rose to his feet. "Aw, c'mon babe, just tryin' ta show ya a bit o' cowboy friendliness 's all." He said as he gave her rear a playful slap.

A split second later, Duke found himself bent over, facedown on the table staring at a pair of ten-gallon hat shaped salt and pepper shakers, held there—the offending appendage twisted painfully behind his back. A suspiciously unpleasant coolness at the base of his skull served to increase his consternation. The clicking of a hammer being drawn back confirmed his fears that that 'purdy young thang' was none too happy about his 'bit o' cowboy friendliness.'

"I've been leered at, poked, prodded, and humiliated all night long by damn fools like yerself." Irvine growled. "I'm feelin' a bit less than pleasant right about now, so yall pardon me takin' offense atcher actions." The SeeD paused for just a second before taking his finger off the trigger of his weapon. "'Cause all I'm askin' for is a little gawd-dammed respect."

Seifer glared at the woman in front of him. "I purchased a ticket for this boat, now I intend to get on." He responded, answering her question.

The stocky ticket-taker blocking the gangway shook her head. "Not without a life-jacket, you're not."

Seifer's teeth ground together. "Fine, where do I obtain one?"

"Why, from me, of course." The woman smiled.

"Then give me one, and I shall board." Seifer had a hard time understanding how some people could be so dense.

"Give? Give?" The woman grinned slyly. "I'm sorry, but there's a 20 gil rental fee for life jackets."

Seifer's gloved hand tightened on the handle of his gunblade—hidden by the disguising spell. He fought down an urge to cast Dispel on himself and show this pudgy little trollip just whom she was dealing with. Instead, he silently thrust a 25 gil note at her.

She snatched the money, handed him his jacket, and smoothly ushered the next person in line up to the gangplank, making no move to return Seifer's change.

As he angrily made his way to the rear of the touring ferry, Seifer caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror behind the tiny onboard bar. His scarred visage was livid with rage. To see the commander of the Galbadian military in such a state would have struck fear into even the most stouthearted soldier, but Seifer knew that was not what everyone around him saw. To them, he appeared no different from any other irate teenager—angry over the loss of a few gil.

As the tour boat got underway, Seifer found an inconspicuous space along the starboard railing where he could observe the Galbadian naval shipyard of North Ricorn—Galbadia's largest deepwater port city.

The sight of the massive battleships of the Galbadian fleet sliding by during the quiet afternoon tour did nothing to lighten Seifer's mood. Look at them. Every one of those vessels was once under my command. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers used to execute my every order—no matter what the cost. I, Seifer Almasy, used to be the second most powerful person on the planet. Seifer cast a disparaging glance toward the front of the ship, where his fellow sightseers clustered, snapping dozens of photos of the steel behemoths of the sea. Now I'm reduced to this. Hiding among my disloyal subjects. Spying on what should still be my own forces. Following the orders of that nobody instructor and her pitiful band of fools. Seifer drew a breath, looking down at the disturbed, oily water, bubbling in the wake of the ferry. Not only that, but she insists on relegating to me the most demeaning tasks. Get Seifer out of the way by sending him on meaningless missions. Of course, Seifer understood the reason Quistis had sent him to the northern naval base—nearly one-hundred miles away from Deling on the first day of the mission. You don't trust me, instructor. You're right not to.

A thought occurred to Seifer, which made him smile. But it doesn't matter, Miss Trepe. You could order me a thousand miles away, it would do nothing to prevent what is going to happen. You and your friends cannot protect them. Not forever.

As the tour progressed, the drone of the guide's voice over the ferry's public address system served only to drive Seifer deeper into his silent musings. They still don't understand the truth. I can see it in the way they act, the way they talk, the way they sit and silently stare at me. They still believe the lie.

Only for the briefest moment did Seifer's eyes close. Only the tiniest splinter of his shattered heart sparked deep inside his chest. You said they would believe it, my love, and you were right. "Seifer's not really evil, he's just confused. The sorceress is just using him, he has no free will. You can't blame Seifer for what happened, if he knew what he was doing, he would fight on our side, Ultimecia just has him bewitched."

Ultimecia had told him—when the SeeDs had been rampaging through the corridors of Galbadia Garden, drawing ever closer to her chamber—she had told him they would believe what they wanted to believe.

"They will not know us, and they must not, my knight." Ultimecia whispered to Seifer through the fluttering white of the diaphanous veils, which coiled sinuously around knight and sorceress alike. "They must be allowed to believe that you are my puppet."

Seifer closed his eyes as the enchanted silken material wrapped him in a lover's embrace. This was the touch of his sorceress, this was how he could feel her soul—not through the body she controlled—for that was not her, merely a vessel through which she spoke to him, through which she did her work in this time. "Why? Let them know. Let them see me for whom I truly am. I never want to hide my love for you."

"Nor I, you." And in the sorceress's voice was the slightest desperate quaver. "You must understand this above all else. But…" The voice paused, and the rustling folds of floating silk shifted. "…they are coming for me, my love. And you cannot stop them. How I wish I could convince you not to try."

Borne along by the feathery touch of the sorceress's enchantment, Seifer found himself drawn face-to-face with the corporeal form of the sorceress in this world. Edea's yellow eyes gazed deeply into his own. But they were not Edea's, for in their deepest depths, Seifer could see the spark of another consciousness, the sign of the one whose soul he shared. "Never. I will defend you to the death."

At this, the sorceress's eyes widened slightly with fear. "You must not! Even if I am defeated in this form, I will live on in my own time and return as another." She placed Edea's hand upon Seifer's own. "Please. You must save yourself no matter what. Promise me." The sorceress's hands were cold.

The look of anguish on the sorceress's face pained Seifer like a blade through his heart. All he wanted was to put an end to anything that caused her worry. He had no choice. "Yes, my love."

The machinery of the elevator at the far end of the chamber began to hum. "They are here! You must go! Run!" But Seifer did not move.

"First you must also promise me something." He placed his left hand over that of the sorceress, still holding onto his right, though she bid him leave. "Promise me we will be together again. No matter what happens, I must see you again!"

The sorceress lifted her hands to Seifer's face, laying her fingers beside his high-boned cheek. "I swear it will be so, my love." Seifer saw the single teardrop sparkle as she turned her head from him and lowered her arms. "Now go, my knight."

As he turned, Seifer heard his sorceress whispering from her soul to his, though the only disturbance of the silent chamber was the chiming of the arriving elevator. No matter what I say. No matter what I do. I love you, Seifer Almasy. Believe in this truth above all else. "I do, my love. I do." Seifer whispered as he turned toward the opening elevator doors. "And that is why I must do this." Seifer drew his gunblade in challenge to those who would threaten his sorceress.

Shaking his head, Seifer grimaced. He had relived every moment they had been together in his mind, searching for he knew not what. Why had she lied to him? Living in the future, she must have known what happened in the past. Seifer stared down into the murky water. She must have known that they would never see each other again. "Why? Why, my love?" He whispered into the muted growl of the ferry's engines, a question who's answer Seifer knew all too well.

He had fought gloriously. Infused with the intoxicating power of his sorceress. Seifer had shrugged off injuries as one brushes away mosquitoes. Seifer unleashed devastating blows on that group of seeds. If only they had not had the Guardian Forces at their disposal…

But they did. And slowly, the combined might of so many magical beasts had begun to tell on Seifer.

He drove his gunblade into Squall's heart, but too late. For the SeeD's body was already beginning to fade. Seifer dodged back, raising his arm, as if the gesture could offer any protection against the magical assault of the GF. Though the sorceress's power still coursed through his body, Seifer could feel himself weakening. He could taste the coppery tang of blood in his mouth, feel the stabbing pain of cracked ribs, and did not know how much longer he could hold on against the relentless assault.

Suddenly, like a sodden wool blanket, something fell upon Seifer, and he was driven to his knees. Struggling against the weight of this unknown force, Seifer saw an ice stalagmite materialize against the floor. Had his arms not been pinned to his sides, he would have beckoned the frigid Guardian. "C'mon, Popsicle, show me what you've got." But the stifling force prevented him from speaking.

Shiva's eyes flashed as she hovered over the kneeling knight. The guardian drew her elemental power from the surrounding environment, preparing to strike. Seifer braced himself as best as was possible for the blow, clamping his eyes tight against the coming freeze. It never came. Instead, the magical blast washed over a bubble, centered on the beleaguered knight. Shiva's eyes narrowed for just an instant before she disappeared again.

It was then that Seifer realized what was happening. He tried to cry out. He tried to struggle forward as the SeeDs reappeared. Instead, the force bearing down upon him increased, and Seifer fell to the ground. "No." He managed to whisper between clenched teeth. Be still, my knight. It will save you.

But she can't face them alone! Seifer tried with all his might to move a single muscle, but he was completely paralyzed.

I must, my love. I can't tell you why, but some day you will understand. Seifer clung to the voice in his mind even as he heard to sorceress speaking behind him. He did not hear what she said, but he saw how Squall turned his blade away from him and toward the sorceress.

Seifer knew she was gone even before the SeeDs turned to run back to the elevator.

Seifer released the unyielding railing he had been unconsciously twisting. I don't understand. I don't understand at all. Surely, together we could have defeated them. Why did you push me away, my love?

Seifer's grip tightened again as he remembered how he had managed to cast the Ensuna spell upon himself as the elevator doors were closing, how he had dropped down the secret passageway that lead to the auditorium, how—a second time—the sorceress's magic had prevented him from finishing the battle with the SeeDs. But as he had lain there, crushed under the weight of the protecting magic, Ultimecia had returned to him, this time in the form of Rinoa. She had leaned over, gathering him up in her arms. As the sorceress held Seifer to her breast, she had whispered a single word into his ear.

"Pandora."

A small coronet perched atop the rusted surface of the roller support. Beneath it, a bloated and bleached fish bumped gently against the barnacle-encrusted beam as it was rocked by the wake of a passing tour boat. Ruffling its feathers, the coronet looked left, and then right, scanning the high, stained walls of the partially submerged floating dry-dock. Suddenly, it sprang from its perch into the air. Wheeling, it floated above the row of u-boat docks. Lost in his musings, Seifer failed to note the soaring flight of the small seabird, nor did he notice the row of dry-docks from within which the bird had appeared, nearly every one left empty as all operational craft in Galbadia's submarine armada had departed for terra incognita nearly two days prior.

"Nothing." Zell rolled off of his elbows and onto his back as he pushed himself away from the tripod-mounted binoculars he had been using to observe the presidential mansion. "Sheesh! I swear they haven't left that building for like, three days or something."

Selphie folded the old issue of the Deling Tribune she had been reading. "I wonder if there's any way we could get a closer look." She indicated the shabby studio of the condemned apartment building in which the SeeDs had set up their primary observation post. "This place doesn't have a very good view of anything but the front gate."

On his back, Zell shrugged. He let his arms fall on the dusty old mattress he had dragged over to the binoculars for more comfortable viewing. "Maybe, but we might have to pay for it. There aren't many other abandoned buildings near the presidential mansion.

"Whatever." Selphie re-opened the paper. On the front page was a not-so-flattering photograph of Squall. He had both arms out and was pushing back a crowd, a dour look on his face. "Boy, Galbadia sure isn't smoothing over what happened at the negotiations in Dollett."

"Hey, is that me?" Zell said, pointing to another black-and-white photograph below a caption that read: "Galbadia Meets Unreasonable Demands to Achieve Peace".

"Probably. There's lots of pictures of all of us—haven't you seen this issue yet?" Selphie looked up again.

Zell shook his head. "No, I've been working. Lemme see it."

"You mean you've been getting fired." Selphie pointed to the unmanned binoculars. "You're supposed to be watching the mansion. You can read it when it's my turn at the binoculars.

"Slave driver." Zell muttered as he returned to his post. "Your almost as bad as Bob." He pulled a moldy pillow under his arms, and rested his head on his hands, staring through the binoculars. "He just doesn't understand the value of good advertisement."

"Is that what you call it? Eating all but four of what your supposed to be selling?" Selphie giggled.

"Hey, at least I didn't get fired from a toy store. I mean, how do you do that?" Zell twiddled the focus knobs on the binoculars.

"I think employees playing with the toys constitutes a great advertisement scheme! It's not my fault the owner didn't see it that way." Selphie shook the paper open again.

"Well, I guess what we did isn't as bad as punching out your foreman." Said Zell.

"Yeah, Rajin's lucky he didn't get thrown in jail for that one." Selphie propped her feet up on a roll of ruined carpeting. "We're not doing so well in the 'don't attract attention to ourselves' department."

"Or the 'try to keep expenditures to a minimum' one either."

"Well, that's not my fault. I got a new job after being fired." Selphie grinned, dropping the paper onto the floor. "Speaking of which, I got something that might make our watch a little more pleasant." She reached for a good-sized bag behind her chair.

"Hey!" Zell looked back as a large piece of chocolate fudge bounced off his head.

"Oops, sorry." Selphie giggled.

"Holy cow! Where'd you get all that stuff!?" He pointed to the mound of sweets Selphie had piled before her.

"Um… well… since I spent the whole day making thousands of these things, I didn't think anyone would mind me nicking one here and there. Try one, they're good." Selphie popped a piece of fudge into her mouth to demonstrate.

Zell took a cautious nibble. "Hey, they are!"

"Pretty neat, huh?" Selphie smiled slyly. "And to make sure people keep coming back for more, we put caffeine in them. We'd use nicotine, but then they wouldn't taste very good."

Quistis sighed as she climbed the stained staircase to the fifth floor of the team's observation headquarters. Irvine had arrived back at their base in one of the low-rent sectors of Deling and informed her tersely that he was no longer employed. The murderous look in his eyes had told her not to pursue the matter any further. Apparently the sharpshooter made about as good a waitress as Rajin made a dockworker, or Fujin a secretary; she rolled her eyes—or Zell a hotdog vendor. With only Selphie and herself working part time, money would get tight in a hurry, and she doubted she could count on the Garden to wire any additional funds—even if there was an inconspicuous way of picking them up.

At the top of the stairs, Irvine showed a surprising level of deference, as he held the door open for Quistis. She stepped into the abandoned studio.

"Boingaboingaboinga! Hi, Quis isn'titagreatnighttobealive?! NothingatallhappenedthewholetimewewereonwatchexceptthataspiderscaredZellbylandingontheendofthebinocularsitwashilarious! Zooooooom!" Selphie shouted to Quistis as she swooped around the room, arms outstretched as if she were ready for takeoff. She was.

Zell wasn't in much better shape.

After a few moments, Quistis and Irvine managed to calm Selphie and Zell down enough to keep them from ricocheting off the walls while they gave their uneventful report. Quistis then confiscated the remainder of Selphie's candy and sent the two SeeDs back to base to get some rest.

Several more uneventful hours passed. Quistis and the mute Irvine switching watch every half-hour. A quiet knock at the door startled Quistis. In a quiet flash, Irvine was out of the chair he had been napping in and poised beside the door, his short rifle held at the ready. Pulling her coiled whip from her belt, Quistis looked over to Irvine. It was nowhere near time for their relief watch to arrive. Irvine looked back and shrugged.

"Who is it?" Quistis called, unlimbering her weapon.

For answer, the door swung open on its creaking hinges. A short figure stepped into the room. She was barely over five feet tall, with shoulder-length black hair, flat gray eyes, and a neutral expression pasted across her unexceptional face. Beneath a dark gray jacket, she wore a heavy-looking green vest. A wide black belt with a tarnished brass buckle looped below her waist, covering the top of her kaki-colored pants. A matte-black semiautomatic pistol with a rubberized grip rested easily in her left hand, which was steadily directing the weapon at Irvine's chest. "I'm Dahyte." She said. "You can put that thing away, cowgirl, I'm your contact."

"No offense, darlin', but I'd prefer if you holstered your pistol first." Irvine's aim didn't waver for a moment as he spoke.

Dahyte shrugged and tucked her weapon away somewhere inside her jacket. "Better?"

"Much obliged." Irvine nodded, but didn't take his finger off the trigger. "Quistis?"

"Just a moment, Irvine." Quistis held up a hand, signaling the sharpshooter to remain on guard. "You have the papers?"

Dahyte nodded. "Signed and sealed by the Cid." Irvine tensed as her hand disappeared below her jacket once more, but relaxed when it emerged holding nothing more dangerous than several folded sheets of paper. She shook out the sheets for Quistis to inspect.

After inspecting the proffered documents, Quistis waved a hand. "It's ok, Irvine, she's really one of ours."

Irvine holstered his weapon in a single smooth motion. He tipped his hat. "Irvine Kinneas, pleased to meetcha, darlin'."

Dahyte's expression remained neutral. "Let's stick with Dahyte, …Mr. Kinneas." An eyebrow crept up a fraction of an inch. "I assume you're in disguise."

Irvine shrugged. "Yup."

Quistis finished coiling her weapon, and offered her hand. "Quistis Trepe." Dahyte gave her hand a perfunctory shake. "I'm in command of this squad."

Dahyte nodded. "So I gathered from the headmaster's orders." She gestured toward the room. "Preparing to observe the subjects?"

"We've had the mansion under 'round the clock surveillance. So far there's been no activity. We were planning a way to set up an observation post closer to the mansion so we could get an idea of what's going on inside." Quistis answered.

"I'm not surprised you haven't seen anything." Dahyte frowned slightly. "The subjects haven't been in Deling."

Irvine's eyebrows shot up. "What??"

Quistis frowned. "We received information that they would be staying in the Presidential Mansion…"

"Your sources must be out-of-date." Dahyte reached into her jacked again. "They're partially correct." She withdrew a folded sheaf of newspaper. "The sorceress and her bodyguard will be staying in the presidential residence once they return." She shook out the newspaper and pointed to the headline. 'Sorceress Candidate Returns from Week-Long Tour'

Quistis felt her mouth drop open as Dahyte handed her the article.

"Don't worry about it. They left before you got here anyway. I've been tailing them for the past week. They'll—"

"Wait a minute! This is tomorrow's news!" Quistis pointed to the date on the newspaper page. "How did you get this?"

Dahyte's features shifted from frowning back to neutrality. "I have my sources." She shrugged. "The government's been keeping it quiet, so I'm not surprised you didn't know." She paused for a moment. "As I was saying; they'll be arriving tomorrow."

Irvine spoke up. "I thought you said that you were following them."

Dahyte turned. "I took the train. They'll be arriving by airship."

The first rays of morning had begun to turn the high cirrus clouds a cotton candy pink in the aqua sky. The snow blanketing the highest peaks of the serrated alpine horizon was shining a brilliant silver. Squall turned his head slightly as he felt the now-familiar pressure of a pair of slender arms wrapping around his waist.

"Did you ever know anything could be so beautiful?" Rinoa sighed in his ear.

Shunning the spectacular view afforded by the plate-glass windows of the zeppelin's forward viewing deck, Squall smiled happily down at the sorceress. "Yes."

"Ooh, you're turning into a pretty good flatterer, Squall Leonhart." She said, giving his side a squeeze and turning to look out at the view from fifteen thousand feet. "How long have you been up?"

Squall checked his wrist chronometer. "For the past hour or so."

"Ugh, and you still look rested." Rinoa shoved him away. "You're a disgusting morning person. Blech!"

Turning, Squall regarded Rinoa, taking in her sleep-tousled hair and the oversized soft shirt and pants she wore as a nightgown. "And you most definitely are not."

"That's right." She confirmed. At least… not when I'm alone. She sighed slightly.

Squall frowned at her slightly. "Rinoa? Is something bothering you?" Besides the fact that you've been recruited by the man you seem to hate to serve as sorceress for a country you hate and you can't seem to say no?

A slightly forced smile returned to Rinoa's face. "No, everything's fine." She drew very close to Squall standing on tiptoe as if to peck him on the cheek. Beneath her breath, she whispered: "I'll tell you later."

Squall's training kept his expression from changing even by one iota as his mind raced furiously, translating the message. A whispered 'I'll tell you later' means we can't talk here, means we're being watched, probably means that we're bugged, and that means that something is very, very wrong—besides the obvious. He searched Rinoa's face for a clue.

She simply smiled at him. "I'm going to get changed. Want to meet me in the dining room in a few minutes?"

Squall smiled opaquely—as he had been taught. "Of course."

If Squall had hopes that Rinoa would let him know what was happening over breakfast they went unfulfilled. Nor did she speak anything to him—besides the usual light banter—during the airship's descent and docking at the single mooring tower of the airfield of Kodiak Springs—the tiny skiing village at the base of Little Grendel Mountain—their first stop during the week-long tour of Galbadian territory.

After alighting from the airship, a limousine whisked the couple away to the base of the resort nestled at the base of the mountain. Wrapped in heavy but warm nylon-and-fleece jackets, skiing overalls, and thick gloves, the two crunched out onto the deep, icy snow that coated everything in the high alpine environment. Around them, the open snowfield of the base of the ski area was filled with bustling skiers and snowboarders dressed in multicolored winter apparel. Their deferential, but ever-present attendants conjured up—from parts unknown—a rack of skiing and snowboarding equipment that drew envious stares from passing winter sports enthusiasts.

Having spent a semester at the garden's alpine warfare center—hidden high in the mountains of Balamb's northern coast—Squall had fairly extensive training on skis. He selected a pair of long red boards with traversing bindings.

Rinoa chose a white snowboard with a large blue circle inscribed with the letters 'BG' on the base, and a pair of hard step-in bindings.

Once they had selected their equipment, the attendants and the equipment rack vanished. Throughout the entire process, Rinoa had done an excellent job of keeping up a steady—if one sided—light banter. Squall feared that his participation in the conversation was lacking, as he couldn't keep his mind on the topic at hand. Instead, he noted the two skiers who followed them as he and Rinoa pushed themselves across the base area. They were dressed in drab coats, meant to be inconspicuous—which immediately made them stand out from the garish colors of the rest of the snow-loving crowd.

Pushing herself along with one foot, Rinoa suddenly broke off and dragged Squall toward a slow-moving double chairlift. "Over here."

Squall nearly fell as he was dragged into the path of the cable-driven bench. He recovered just in time to sit down hard on the chair as it swung under him, slamming into the backs of his knees.

As the chair towed them into the air, Rinoa turned to Squall. "What was the first thing you said to me after we kissed for the second time?"

Squall frowned. "Rinoa, this isn't the—"

"Please, Squall." Rinoa grabbed his hand. "Just tell me."

Squall sighed. "You're never going to let me forget that, are you?" He paused, but Rinoa just looked at him. "I said that I didn't agree to go to Timber just to get you to kiss me." He sighed. "Or something to that effect."

"Oh, thank god! It really IS you!" Rinoa twisted around and hugged Squall in an awkward embrace that threatened to send them both plummeting to the ground—thirty feet below.

"Woa! Careful!" Squall's ski pole clanked against the metal of the chair as he grabbed the rail to stabilize himself.

Rinoa released him. "And no, I'm not going to let you forget that."

"I didn't think so." With a flick of his head, Squall indicated the seat a few chairs behind them—now occupied by two skiers in exceptionally drab garments. "We're being followed."

Rinoa grimaced slightly. "I know, those are probably our bodyguards—if that's how Galbadia's government still works, but there's something else going on here."

"I don't understand; something else?" He frowned. "And how could I be anyone but myself?"

"I'm not quite sure. I noticed it during the negotiations in Dollett. Galbadia—at least, the Galbadia I remember—would never make the kind of concessions their negotiators were making. It was almost as if their representatives were instructed to give in to our demands."

Squall blinked. "You don't think they were sincere?"

Rinoa shook her head. "No. Not in the slightest." She shrugged slightly. "I'm not really surprised at that. I mean, Galbadia's notorious for not keeping promises… but there was something else that's been bothering me."

Squall finished securing his poles under one leg, and held up a hand. "Hold on, we might be bugged. Before you say anything more…" He trailed off as Rinoa shook her head.

"We're not, I checked."

"You… checked?" Squall cocked his head to the side.

"Yeah." Rinoa didn't elaborate.

"Okay… but why didn't you think I was myself?" Squall frowned.

"That goes along with what I think is wrong…" She smiled. "But now I'm sure you're you. Nobody else could be so…"

"Stupid?"

"Endearing." Rinoa giggled.

Squall sighed. "So how could I be somebody else?"

"Well… this all started when we got to Deling." She frowned. "When we met with that man—the Pro-Tem President, and he asked me to take over as sorceress…"

"You mean your father? General Richard Caraway?" Squall wanted to be sure they were talking about the same person.

Rinoa's expression hardened. "That man is not my father."

Squall spread his hands. "Rinoa, I know you and your father have your differences, but you can't change blood. You're going to have to—"

Rinoa shook her head violently. "No no! That's just it. He's really not my father!" She looked up. "Whoops, we're going to have to get off soon. How fast can you ski?"

"I'm well trained, how fast can you ride?"

"When I was younger, me, my mother, and my father used to come up to this exact resort on vacations together. I can manage." She paused. "Anyway, if they haven't changed things, there's a place we can go from this lift… just follow me."

Squall had his poles out in preparation for unloading. "Whatever you say."

As they stood, sliding over the ice-encrusted unloading platform, Rinoa stomped down with her free foot, latching herself into the bindings, and shoved off of the chair for added momentum. The chair swung back, and hit Squall a glancing blow across the shoulders as he slid down the offloading ramp.

Rinoa was fast. Despite the fact that she had no poles, Squall was hard-pressed to keep up with her. She streaked down the steep slope, skimming within inches of trees, rocks, and other skiers. Crouching, and bent nearly double, Rinoa picked up speed down a long decline, then straightened, and threw her arms out to her sides. Leaning left so far that her gloved hand touched the snow; she carved a deep trench across the face of the slope as she sailed into the entrance to a narrow side trail.

Bearing down hard on his downhill ski, Squall's knee dug into the slope as he hauled the high-speed turn right behind Rinoa. As he dropped down onto the relatively flat surface of the cross fall-line track, he saw Rinoa jump off a small lip on the downhill side of the traversing trail. As she dropped down into the woods, Rinoa showed off a bit by kicking her snowboard up and grabbing the edge with one hand. She straightened the board before she landed in the deep off-trail powder. Ramping off the same lip, Squall crossed his skis behind his back, throwing both arms out to his sides for stability. As he plowed into the waist-deep snow, he lost his balance for a moment, and fell over backwards. He managed to pop back upright a moment later without sacrificing too much momentum. As he regained his feet, he saw Rinoa disappear into the thick forest.

For a moment, Squall was concerned by the fact that he could no longer see Rinoa, and had only the deep trench her snowboard cut through the powder to follow, but then her trail cut sharply upward after wrapping close around the trunk of a large pine, and his skis clattered noisily on rock as he slid into the entrance of a rather large cave. Rinoa had already stepped out of her own bindings. Hands on hips, she regarded him. "Finally."

"You… are… pretty… fast." Squall panted, unlatching his own bindings. He looked around. The cave was actually more of an indentation in a large, rocky ledge, bounded on the sides by tall, deep snowdrifts that reached up to the bottom of the overhanging rock, which formed the ceiling.

"Yeah…" Rinoa took a seat on a small outcropping of bare rock. "…I used to really enjoy this."

"You're not now?" Free of his equipment, Squall sat beside her.

Rinoa shook her head. "Look at this, now it's that ditsy little non-SeeD who's insisting on being serious—ruining everybody's fun."

"Rinoa…" She was seated with both hands gripping her knees. Squall tentatively tried to lay a comforting hand on hers. "…I never thought you were ditsy." His glove was in the way. Squall removed it. "…and I'm not a SeeD anymore."

"I know, Squall. I'm sorry to bring it up." She removed her own glove. "I'm just scared, I don't want to talk about… things." The air was bitingly cold; Squall's hand was not much warmer. "I wish, just once, that we could be together." She turned her head toward him. "Not fighting together, not planning together, just together for the sake of being near each other." She shivered.

"We are now." Squall retrieved Rinoa's glove with his free hand. "You'd better put this back on, it's cold."

"I know…" Rinoa pulled the heavy three-fingered mitt over her numb hand as squall donned his own glove. "…but we shouldn't be. There are things we need to talk about."

Squall nodded, lifting his gloved hand and flexing his cold-stiffened fingers. "Circumstances."

"Yeah." Rinoa had hoped to place her hand in Squall's again, but it was not meant to be. She sighed. "Well, now that I've spent so many of our few moments together moaning about how we're never together, I guess I'd better tell you what's going on."

Squall blinked and waited.

Rinoa took a breath. "When I said that that man we met in Deling wasn't my father, I really meant it." She closed her eyes, remembering the night of their arrival, their meeting with the de-facto head of the Galbadian government. Remembering how profuse his apologies had been, how sweet his words had been, and how reasonable his offers. She also recalled how absolutely insincere everything he had done had seemed, how forced his penitent expressions were, how false his mannerisms. "That man is a fraud."

Squall's brow furrowed. "You're sure? He looked exactly the same as when we met him before… he acted the same, spoke in the same way."

"He's close, he's very close. I know you're trained to recognize this sort of thing, but I know the man. I know how he acts, how he speaks, all the little tiny details that make my father who he is… and that man was not my father." She drew in another breath. "Whoever he is, he's very good. He's studied my father; knows his mannerisms, his inflections, even knows about nearly everything that's happened between us." She opened her eyes. "And he looks exactly like him." Rinoa shook her head. "But he's different." Seeing Squall's expression, Rinoa continued. "No, really. You saw my father, how he acted toward me. Do you really think—after the way he treats me—that he'd send me on a week-long luxury airship cruise for two with you?"

Squall gave her an innocent look. "What's wrong with that?"

Rinoa blew out an exasperated breath. "Oh, that's right. I forgot. You're the one who told Irvine and I to 'have fun.'"

Squall shrugged. "And Selphie too. But I don't see what that has to do with anything."

Rinoa shook her head to hide a small smile. "Never mind."

"Well… so the president of Galbadia is an imposter… what does that mean for us?" Squall cocked his head.

Rinoa swallowed, looking down at her feet she closed her eyes. "He's not an imposter."

"What?" Squall was taken aback. "But you just said—"

"It's not that simple, Squall." Rinoa shuddered. "General Richard Caraway, commander of the Galbadian military, acting president of Galbadia… my father… has been possessed."

Squall's eyes widened. "How can that—" He felt an icy chill, that had nothing to do with the air temperature, grip his heart. "Oh no…" His mouth was dry. "Oh no…" He repeated. "Ultimecia's castle—we were so intent of killing the sorceress—"

"We never thought to look for Odine's machine." Rinoa finished.

The silence that fell was iron-clad. In the snow-stifled forest not a single bird chirped, the wind was still, nothing broke the suffocating silence.

At last, Squall felt he had to speak, so he gave voice to the fears that ran through their minds. "Now I understand why you had to ask me those things." He shook his head. "It could be anyone, anywhere. It's not just sorceresses."

"I know."

Squall's mind raced. "If they've come back, they must want something. Because they've tried to deceive us, then they must see us as threats. If they see us as obstacles to their goals…"

"They'll kill us, or possess us and force us to kill ourselves." Rinoa turned her head from Squall. "It's happening again, Squall." One hand came up to guard her face from him. "They're going to want to use my powers again… they're going to take control again." Rinoa gasped as she fought to hold down her fear. "You can't… you can't stay. I'm going to become a danger again—that's why they want me to be sorceress. You can't trust me any more."

Squall placed a hand against Rinoa's own, she tried to pull away but Squall's mind was already made up. "No. Not this time, not ever." He gently pulled Rinoa's hand away from her face until he could look into her frightened, brimming eyes.

She tried to reason with him. "But they can—"

Squall cut her off with a kiss. Not hard, not stifling, not intense and passionate, but gentle, quick, and startling in its softness. Rinoa blinked. Squall smiled and didn't draw back, instead—as if someone might overhear, he whispered quietly into the secluded space between their lips. "You are what I care about Rinoa, and even if it's dangerous, even if it's foolish, even if it's the last thing in the world I should do, I have to be with you." He still held her hand. He drew it to his chest. "For me, there is no other way."

"I know. I can't stand when we're apart, I'm just so afraid I'll hurt you, Squall."

Squall moved Rinoa's hand over his heart. "This is the only way you can do me hurt, Rinoa."

Squall, no. Please. You know I'm not strong enough to do what has to be done. Why now? Why is it you have do all the right things at exactly the right time?

"No matter what happens, we'll be together through this." Squall was still gazing directly into her eyes.

Rinoa bowed her head in acquiescence. As she felt Squall drawing her close, she sighed. I'm sorry I couldn't stop you, I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough to protect you. Squall…

…

He was pacing again. But of course, he couldn't do it in the proper manner—or better yet, in a room far from here. No, instead of a rhythmic tap-tap-tapping, he sounded instead like a drunken three-legged duck. Tap-clomp-tap-clomp… clomp, clomp, clomp-tap-tap, tap. Kiros's pen tore into the paper he was in the process of signing at a particularly loud clomp. He threw the heavy writing utensil down in disgust. It rolled across the desk, teetered on the edge, the embossed seal of Esthar pointing toward the ceiling. Kiros snatched for it. As if making up it's mind, the pen toppled off the desk and promptly disappeared down a ventilation grate just ahead of Kiros's grasping fingers.

The door to the private office of the president of Esthar banged open. "Laguna! For the good of Esthar, for the good of yourself, and most importantly; for the good of my sanity, go and see the damn boy!"

From the far end of a long polished streak of ornamental floor tile, the president of Esthar looked up at his old friend. "Huh?" He said. A bit more presidentially, he added: "I, uh, don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes you do, Mr. President. You know exactly what I'm talking about. It is the very reason you are up and pacing your office instead of reclining in your oh-so-comfortable—and quiet—chair behind the desk." Kiros stepped over the threshold and into the office proper as he spoke.

"No, that's not it… I, um… I was thinking about some very important legislation—uh, trying to decide whether I should sign it into law or not." Laguna gestured to his desk. It was bare.

Kiros shook his head. "Old friend, you've been signing into law—without more than a cursory glance—every bill I've Okayed for nearly a decade now. That's not what's on your mind. Why don't you just go and see him?"

Seeing that he was not fooling his compatriot in the least, Laguna waved a hand to the window. "I can't, Kiros. Esthar needs me. After the Lunar Cry—after the Galbadian attacks—these people need me."

"No, Laguna, you can't use those excuses any more. You've done all you can, for the moment, to help Esthar recover from those things." Kiros's mouth quirked up in a small smile. "My friend, you are a great leader in times of trouble, but those times are past for now. Esthar has benefited from your leadership, but now—like ten years ago—the time for leadership is past. What Esthar needs now is a good legislator." Kiros spread his hands. "And you, my friend, are not a good legislator. I can fill in for you while you're away." He rolled his eyes. And keep things running a lot smoother without your constant interruptions. "If Ward were here, he would agree with me."

From behind Kiros, just joining the conversation—yet knowing which of the pair of Estharian officials tended to be more rational—Ward nodded.

Laguna spread his hands. "I can't go, you guys. He hates me. You should have seen how he acted in Timber."

Kiros was about to deny Laguna's claim when he felt a heavy hand on his shoulder. Turning, he looked up at Ward. On the large man's face was a sad smile. Ward blinked, once, slowly.

"See? Even Ward agrees with me on that." Laguna placed his hands on his hips.

Kiros sighed. "I can't deny the possibility." He shook his head slightly. "But that's not going to change if you stay here and hide from him."

"I'm not hiding, Kiros… It's just… he doesn't need me—he never did." Laguna frowned.

"If that's what you want to believe, my friend…" Kiros dropped his hands to his sides. "…then only tell it to yourself, Ward and I prefer not to be lied to."

"Aw, come on, Kiros. I'm not trying to justify what I did…" Right? "I mean, I can't—I've got to bear that, you know?" The president of Esthar scuffed a foot on the floor. "How would it look? After all this time, when—yeah, maybe he did need me to be there—and now… now that he's a big shot over in Galbadia, I come waltzing over, wanting to be friends." He shook his head. "I can't be that kind of a…" Laguna trailed off.

A frown formed on Kiros's face. "Appearances? You've changed again, man. And I don't like it at all." With that, Kiros turned and left. Ward went with him.

Left standing alone by the echoing slam of the door, the president of Galbadia looked down at his feet. I can't go back to him, I don't deserve it. He whispered to himself. "I'm sorry, Squall." But he's doing fine. He's through all the trials now. I wish I had been there to help… but that's in the past—can't do anything about it. Laguna sighed. "He probably doesn't even care anyway."

…

The flash of sheet lightning and accompanying rumble of thunder—muffled by the doubly insulated Plexiglas window caused Anthony Wecheck head to snap up from the spot on his chest where it had descended as he had begun to nod off. Rubbing his tired eyes, he glanced down at the flat, glass-covered schematic table before him. Unfolding his arms and then extending them high above his head in an exaggerated stretch, he threw his head back and yawned gapingly. The graveyard shift was boring with a capital 'B'—but such was the life of a Galbadian special agent. Or at least that of a special agent assigned to baby-sit two kids on some nonsense tour. He rolled his eyes, and slowly let his arms fall down to his side. Focusing at last on the horizontal display below him, he noted with satisfaction, that both subjects were still in the main observation lounge, most likely asleep on one of the posh leather couches. He sighed, they would certainly be a lot more comfortable than he was at the moment. Despite his discomfort, special agent Wecheck's head began slowly nodding downward toward the top of his collarless Kevlar vest. Eventually he drifted off into a deep, dreamless unconsciousness. Even the bumping jolt that ran through the giant airship as it was struck by a particularly violent downdraft failed to wake him.

Seconds after the automatic dampening servos along the skin of the Zeppelin's main helium bag flattened the vibrations of the pernicious air currents inside the thunderheads through which the ship now cruised, Rinoa Heartilly stepped out from the doorway behind agent Wecheck. "Sir?" She stepped forward and shook his shoulder lightly. "Sir? Can you hear me?" Satisfied that the man was fully under the influence of the sleeping spell, she stepped over to a small cabinet attached to one of the room's walls. Squall Leonhart entered the room as the sorceress unlocked the cabinet with a wave of her hand.

"Are you ready?" Squall asked, quietly, as he took the tiny ear bud and throat microphone that Rinoa had removed from the cabinet.

Rinoa pressed the activation switches for her own microphone and earpiece. "I should be the one to go."

"No. You have to be the one to stay here. If you see anyone about to discover me, you can direct their attention elsewhere." Squall pressed the sticky side of the wafer-like microphone to the spot below the chin where jaw and neck meet.

Her earpiece securely in place, Rinoa shook her head. "I just don't like controlling people like that… It's…"

Squall laid his receiver on the table and placed a hand on Rinoa's shoulder. "We don't have to do this." He raised his other hand, palm up. "We can wait for another opportunity to try finding out what's going on—they may not even have the information here, aboard the ship." He spread both hands. "It's ok if you want to hold off."

"No. No… We need to know as soon as possible." She picked up Squall's ear bud. "I'm just being nervous."

Squall nodded as he placed the receiver in his ear. "Okay. We need to move fast." He looked up. No goodbyes.

Rinoa closed her eyes and held up a hand. "Go."

And Squall was gone.

But not really. As she walked over to the electronic surveillance schematic table, Rinoa heard Squall's voice in her ear. "Are you reading me?"

"Yes." She placed a finger over a moving red dot on the blueprint-like diagram of the airship laid out before her. "I can see you too."

"Right, I'm on my way to the aft airlock. If I remember this design, the only way to get to navigation is to go around the outside of the gondola." Squall checked his wrist chronometer as he jogged down the narrow, carpeted hallway. The upper corners of the square hall were lit by peach fluorescent lights set behind frosted acrylic panels. The bottom corners of the hall were lined by tiny floor lamps that cast a soft white glow on the spongy red carpet. He noted the yellow lamps placed intermittently among the white, indicating the path to the airlock exit.

"If you don't want to be seen, yes." Rinoa's voice was rang clearly in his left ear.

Squall stopped in front of a hatch. On the wall to the left, a red light winked at him. "Ok, I'm there."

"I'm pressurizing the chamber for you now. It will unlock in a second." Rinoa's voice paused. "I've disabled the airlock's sensors, so it won't show up in the other security lounge."

Squall spoke to the hatch. "Is there anyone inside that room?"

"No. No movement, except on the bridge. I think everyone else is asleep."

"In the crew quarters?"

"Yes." Rinoa paused again. "There aren't any sensors on the outside of the gondola—I won't be able to see you when you're out there."

The red light blinked green, and the hatch slid open. Squall stepped inside the small chamber. "I won't be gone long. Don't worry."

"Who said I was worried?" Rinoa's voice came after a lengthy silence. "Don't forget to grab an oxygen mask and a harness before I depressurize the chamber."

"Already got it on, can you still hear me?" Squall snapped the buckles of the yellow safety harness closed over his black jumpsuit.

"Yes, loud and clear. The outer door will open once the pressure has equalized." Rinoa's voice said in Squall's ear.

Squall yawned widely to release air from his inner ear, as the pressure in the chamber dropped. The outer door slid back on its tracks, revealing the inky blackness of the storm-darkened night sky. Outside, lightning flashed, dim in the light from the chamber's bare bulbs. Holding on to a safety rail, Squall reached around the outer hatch's frame and snapped his harness's wires into a roller rail attached to the outer hull of the airship's gondola. Taking a deep breath, he swung himself out into the storm. There was a moment of panic as he flailed about wildly for a support bar with his free hand and foot. At last he made contact with the metal rungs, and pulled himself in close to the rain-slickened hull. Clinging tightly to the metal bars, Squall was buffeted by the gusty wake of the gondola. On his face, he felt the heavy mist that passed for rain this high up in the thunderstorm. Through his gloves, he could feel the cold of a thin sheeting of ice that was beginning to build up on the outside of the airship.

"Squall? Squall? Are you okay?" Rinoa's concerned voice asked in his ear.

"I'm outside. Shut the airlock. The lights are keeping my eyes from adjusting." Squall squinted, trying to make out the shape of the next rung of the ladder leading to the upper deck airlock of the airship's gondola. The intermittent white, red, and green flashes of the airship's running lights were—besides infrequent pale lightning—the only illumination available on the windowless aft hull.

"Okay. I'm going to open the upper airlock now. You'll be able to see it when you climb up." A bit of static crackled along with Rinoa's voice. The tiny receiver/transmitter devices were nearing the limits of their range—the thick metal hull of the gondola and storm interference weren't helping the situation either.

His night-vision sufficiently recovered, Squall reached up for the next rung of the ladder. "I'm going to stop talking until I reach the top of the gondola." He needed to concentrate.

"Okay. I'll wait for your next signal…" Rinoa trailed off. "Be careful."

Instead of responding, Squall levered himself up a step on the treacherously slick ladder. The sooner he reached the upper airlock, the better.

It was only a single story climb up to the second level, but the darkness of the night, and the ice on the ladder served to slow Squall's progress to a crawl. He allowed himself a look downward—there was nothing but blackness below him. Twenty thousand feet of blackness.

Squall reached the top rung of the ladder after a few moments of very slow climbing, and peered over a small metal ledge. Ten feet in front of him, the open upper airlock doorway glowed invitingly. Very carefully, he unhooked his safety cables from the guide rail on the side of the gondola, and reached up, snapping them into another guide rail, which ran along the bottom of the steel-reinforced fabric of the Zeppelin's gasbag. He waited a moment for a particularly violent storm-induced shudder to die out before pulling himself up onto the ledge.

The Pendiak glacier is a massive river of ice that wends its way down from the range of Galbadia's central mountains almost all the way into the foothills east of the range. One of its most remarkable features is located at the point where it terminates in a wall of ice, nearly one thousand feet tall. The wall is caused by the geothermic action of the Menthour calderas—an ancient volcanic basin located at the foot of the Pendiak Glacier. The hot springs in the calderas radiate a large amount of heat into the surrounding environment. This heat serves as a barrier to the ice flowing along the Pendiak. At the point where the glacier ends, waves of heated air rise up along its face, melting and cracking the ice. Normally, these hot air-drafts form a thermal about two miles high. During the day, the thermal is soaring grounds for hundreds of Thrustaevis. Occasionally, tourists to the hot springs will spy a Ruby Dragon or Elnoyle soaring in giant spirals high in the clouds.

About once every week, a section of rotten ice at the foot of the Pendiak will calve off and fall into the bubbling hot pools of muddy water formed by the geothermal cavities and the normal runoff from the Pendiak. When this happens, the meeting of boiling water and frozen ice creates a giant blast of steam that can rise as high as seventy thousand feet.

This particular night, the rain from the early fall thunderstorm, along with the constant heat from the Menthour hot springs conspired to send a two-hundred thousand ton chunk of ice plummeting into the bubbling hot springs. Unfortunate, indeed, that this event happened at night, for tourists, asleep in the lodges scattered around the Menthour caldera's rim would waken in the morning to see the towering cloud of steam streaming east on a steady wind and sigh at their missed opportunity to see the spectacular display of nature's power.

At twenty-two thousand feet, as Squall Leonhart placed his second booted foot on the last rung of the ladder on the outside of the airship's gondola, the giant Zeppelin nosed into the giant updraft of heated water vapor and air. Immediately, the nose of the airship was pushed upward, bending the ship like a soft noodle. Computer-controlled servos in the gasbag made automatic adjustments, redistributing the strain on the fabric skin. Basketball-court sized elevators on the airship's tail changed position, pushing the airship's tail down to even out the flexural stress on the gasbags. As the airship slowly tilted, Squall's left foot slid on a patch of ice, and he fell.

Squall dropped less than half a foot before the safety cables attached to his harness stopped him. Now supporting Squall's entire weight, the roller bar in the rail began to slide downhill—toward the rear of the airship. Dangling from the harness, Squall made a desperate grab at the top rung of the ladder attached to the rear of the gondola. His fingers barely brushed the bar as he slid out of reach. As the airship tilted upward, Squall's roller support began sliding faster down the increasing slope.

As he was swung out of the lee of the Gondola, the sixty-mile-per-hour slipstream caught Squall, and sent him whizzing downhill—away from the gondola and airlock.

Careful not to panic and accidentally hit the release lever—even as his speed increased—Squall reached up and pulled down on the braking lever of the roller support. The icing mist had frozen it solid. As his moving harness twisted in the wind, Squall caught sight of the rear of the Zeppelin—illuminated by a quick flash of lighting. The roller rail down which he now slid terminated abruptly in front of one of the airship's giant turbofan engines.

No choice. Still strangely calm, Squall reached up toward one of the cables—used for controlled motion—that ran parallel to the roller track. At nearly fifty miles-per-hour, his gloved left hand tightened around the cable.

Oddly enough, though there were no de-icing mechanisms on the ladders at the rear of the airship's gondola, the handhold cables leading to the engine maintenance catwalks were heated.

The warm, dry cable bit into Squall's glove. Adrenaline pumping through his arteries allowed Squall's nervous system to override the synaptic release signal that his spinal cord automatically sent to his left hand as the cable burned through the Kevlar palm of Squall's glove and tore into his hand. Holding the cable in a death-grip, Squall slid toward the end of the roller rail and the whirling fan blades of the engine. Twenty feet from the maw of the turbofan, a thought wended its way past his gritted teeth and tensed muscles. I'm not going to make it. Squall was not slowing down fast enough—he would be sucked into the airship's engine.

Time slowed down, allowing Squall—now facing away from the engine—to count off the feet remaining before the end of his life. Ten… fifteen… why can't I think of anything else? Eight… five… …Rinoa… Squall felt a sudden jolt… then nothing.

And then Squall felt something, though he almost wished he hadn't. His entire left side seemed to be on fire… no… it was really just his arm and hand—though they were providing enough pain for five bodies. Not even realizing that he had closed them, Squall forced his eyes open. A yellow stop-block on the roller track, illuminated by the blinking yellow lights above and below the inlet of the engine had a few words stenciled on it. 'Ensure fuel lines to engine are closed before performing maintenance.'

Squall read this line over a second time, then a third. Suddenly, a sharp jolt from his left side reminded him of more pressing matters. Gritting his teeth, Squall waited for the burst of pain to subside. It did not. In fact, the pain worsened. Squall's feet and lets curled up beneath him in unconscious agony. So tightly were his muscles clenched, that both his hamstrings cramped at the same time. The additional hurt cleared Squall's mind for a moment—long enough for him to remember a tiny bit of training. Think! Do you want to die up here?

Squall reached up with his good arm and tried to probe his dislocated shoulder. He tasted blood in his mouth as he bit down on his tongue. It helped a little. Thinking that he had identified both ball and socket, Squall pulled his right arm back. Before he could think about what he was doing, he slammed the flat of his right palm into his left shoulder. There was a horrendous popping. The last thing Squall felt was his left front molar chipping as his jaw locked.

Someone was screaming in Squall's ear. No words, just an incoherent shriek. His eyes snapped open. Everything was black. Where the hell am I? Or maybe that was correct. I'm in hell? His left side did indeed feel like someone was grinding fire and brimstone into it. His legs hurt like hell too. A flickering yellow demon danced before his eyes. As his eyes focused, Squall noted the peculiar rectangular shape of the demon, and the words written on it. No such luck. He turned his head away from the stop block. The inflow to the shrieking turbofan was pulling Squall's dangling body toward the jet intake at a seventy-degree angle. His right foot bumped against the outer cowling of the engine—inches from the spinning blades. He gazed at the hub of the engine, painted with a white swirl. That swirl was spinning. Spinning… spinning… spinning…

The tiny anemometer at the top of the mast whirled round and round. Squall watched it, mesmerized by patterns of light playing off the sailcloth reflecting the warm glint of the sun on the sparkling aquamarine sea. A cool, wet toe poking him in the side brought him out of his reverie.

"What'cha thinking about?" Rinoa cocked her head to the side.

Squall regarded her. Like himself, Rinoa was clad in swimwear, appropriate to Raio De Sol—the warm, sunny, white-beached, paradise that was their second stop on the 'tour.' However, unlike Squall, she had chosen that which was intended to reveal more than conceal—much more, in fact. Squall again managed to keep from gulping, but he did look away. "Oh, nothing." Or at least, I wasn't thinking about anything in particular…

Rinoa sighed. "Must be nice." Why did I say that? I know out here is one of our only chances to talk in private, but why can't I just relax for a little bit? She frowned. I'm turning into a regular…

"Squall Leonhart?" Squall was looking at her with a quirky expression.

Rinoa was taken aback. "How did you…?"

Squall shrugged. "It just came to me. Is that what happens when you…"

"Finish your thoughts?" Rinoa smiled a small smile. "Yeah, I guess so." Maybe some day, we'll have time to figure out what's going on with us.

"But for now, we'd better save the world." Squall sighed.

Again. Rinoa nodded.

"Again." Squall confirmed.

"Okay…" Rinoa paused as her mind shifted gears. "Well, it's obvious this tour we're on is just an excuse to get us out of Deling." Rinoa stopped suddenly as she felt a pair of sun-warmed arms wrap around her. The trampoline deck of the tiny three-hulled beach skiff they were sailing in sagged slightly under their combined weight as Squall slid up next to her.

"Rinoa, let's not save the world this time." Squall said quietly into her ear. "Let's just save ourselves. Let someone else do it this time. Haven't we done enough, been through enough?"

"Squall we can't…" Rinoa began.

"Yes we can. We could point this sailboat straight out, and just keep going." Squall waved out at the deep blue line where sea met sky. "Centra's out there somewhere. A whole continent with hardly a single person on it. We could disappear forever in a place like that."

"Yeah, by getting eaten." Rinoa turned to him. "Squall, we haven't got any weapons, or food, or water, or anything that we'd need to survive."

Squall looked into her eyes. "But you'd go if we did?"

There was a long pause. Rinoa looked down. "…No." She said quietly. "I… I can't run from this, Squall. I'm afraid, but I can't run away. If I do, I'll be running for the rest of my life. Whatever's going to happen, I've got to face it."

Squall tilted his head slightly. "A long time ago, you said you didn't think you were as strong, or as fast, or as skillful as a SeeD." As Squall spoke, Rinoa lifted her eyes to meet his. "But, Rinoa, you're the strongest person I know. And not because you're a sorceress."

"Because I have to be." Rinoa said.

"Maybe… but you don't have to be alone." Squall paused. "What I mean is; you can always count on me. No matter what, I'll always be by your side." Squall was having trouble phrasing his thoughts. "So… if we need to talk, if we need to plan, if we have to fight… no matter how I feel, I'll be there talking, planning, fighting with you."

Rinoa's eyebrow and the side of her mouth quirked up.

"Oh crap! That's not what I meant to say… I mean, fighting beside you." Squall belatedly amended.

"I know." Suddenly, Rinoa was very, very glad to have Squall's arms around her. My silly little knight, you make me so happy.

"Me too." Squall whispered ever so quietly as Rinoa sighed and leaned against him. "Me too."

Squall jerked suddenly as he regained consciousness. Again, it took a moment before he realized where he was. Even the slight motion of turning his head into the howling wind and looking toward the front of the airship caused tiny sparkles to worm their way around the outer regions of his periphery vision. I must be in shock… losing consciousness like that... my hand!

Squall slowly uncurled his right arm from the position instinct had told it to return to—wrapped protectively over his injured left hand. Even in the dimness of the intermittent warning lights placed around the engine intake, Squall could see that his hands were abnormally pale. Though, by some miracle, his oxygen mask was still strapped over his nose and mouth, Squall was having trouble catching his breath. The edges of his vision blurred into smoky blackness. He felt a moist warmth across the right side of his chest where his injured appendage had curled. I must be bleeding pretty badly… it sure feels like it. Despite the numbing cold, Squall's hand still felt like he were holding hot coals. As he shifted position, a sharp wave of pain shot up his left arm—adding to the tight ache in his shoulder. Squall's vision faded. His words slurring, he weakly waved his right arm in the wind and mumbled a Curaga spell. As the electric blue sparkles of the healing spell beat back the darkness, Squall's mind cleared slightly. He needed to apply a tourniquet to his left arm before he lost too much blood—if he hadn't already. To do that, he'd need to remain conscious long enough to dig the medical supplies out of their pouch in his equipment belt. However, this seemed an unlikely prospect as his vision began to fade again.

Drawing as deep a breath as he dared, Squall cast a second, slightly more coherent healing spell. In the illumination from the magical energy, he grabbed hold of a length of slack in his harness cable and one-handedly looped it around a buckle on his belt. Reaching up, he opened the top catches on his safety harness. Squall dropped six inches before the slack in the cable was taken up, and his belt hook prevented his rapid descent from turning into disastrous free-fall. Kicking off the cowling of the Zeppelin's still-running engine, Squall flipped himself upside down. Blood that had been pooling in his legs and feet suddenly rushed to his head and the dark tunnel that Squall's exertations had reduced his world to slowly widened, allowing Squall to become acutely aware of the whirling turbofan blades, now inches from his head.

Even with his knees bent, Squall's feet bumped the bottom of the Zeppelin's gasbag. He straightened his legs, and took an experimental step forward. The thin buildup of ice in the roller rail crackled as Squall's lifeline support moved an obliging few inches forward. The howling winds now blasting into Squall's face shoved his un-aerodynamic body backwards, his boots lost purchase on the slick fabric, and Squall fell back the few inches he had managed to move forward.

At twenty-seven thousand feet, in an icy mist, hanging upside-down from the bottom of a giant Zeppelin, inches away from certain death, kept alive only by the tensile strength of a quarter-inch thick steel cable, Squall Leonhart was completely stuck.

In the blue glow of the fly-by-wire controls of the mostly automated airship bridge, second lieutenant Paicheli Ceitek gazed idly at the screen of the computerized autopilot as it compensated for the airship's increase in altitude. He sighed, and reclined his conning chair back a few degrees as the ship's computer cranked the aft elevators down, forcing the tail of the airship up. This watch sure is boring… He thought longingly of his bunk back in the crew quarters. Still, since everybody else is probably asleep, I'm doing the most exciting thing on this oversized balloon—watching the autopilot.

Nearly one-eighth of a mile behind lieutenant Ceitek, hanging upside down, trying to dig his heels into the now steeply-sloping gas bag, Squall Leonhart might have taken issue with Paicheli's assumption, had he not been concentrating on controlling his wild slide toward the nose of the airship. This time, the slipstream flowing around the Zeppelin's gondola assisted Squall, and he managed to slow himself down enough to suffer only a jarring ten-mile-per-hour collision with the rear of the gondola. Wasting no time inspecting the results of the return trip, Squall instead pulled himself into the inviting brightness of the still-open upper airlock. As he did so, from very far away, he heard a tinny voice.

"Squall! Where are you!? Answer me!!" Over the ringing in his ears, Rinoa's voice was most decidedly the sweetest sound in the world, Squall thought.

Amazed that his earpiece was still in place, Squall reached up to the base of his throat. Sure enough, his own transmitter was still securely nestled against joint of his neck and jaw. He tried to respond, but managed only a noiseless croak.

Very worried now, Rinoa failed to notice the tiny red light that winked on inside the upper deck's airlock. "Squall?! If you can hear me, stay where you are. I'm coming out to get you."

Coughing violently, then swallowing twice to clear his throat, Squall managed a light rasp. "No. I'm in the airlock. Close the door."

"Oh, Squall! Thank God! I was getting really worried!" Rinoa's transmission paused, and the airlock door slid shut.

Swallowing to equalize the pressure in his ears, Squall pulled off his oxygen mask as the chamber pressurized. "How long was I out there?"

"Almost twenty minutes. Are you okay?" Rinoa traced her finger across the touch-pad situated beside the security schematic, unlocking the inner airlock door.

Sitting up, Squall dug into his small package of medical supplies. "I'm fine." He shook his head. "Only twenty minutes? Seemed like an eternity."

"Tell me about it." Rinoa's voice sighed in Squall's ear. "You've only got ten minutes left before the shift change."

Threading a plastic tie-strap just below his left bicep, Squall pulled the strip tight with his teeth as he dumped a handful of first-aid supplies out on the airlock floor. "No worries." He growled around his clenched teeth.

"Maybe we should call this off. I've got a quick route back for you." Rinoa paused. "There's an escape chute to the lower level with one-way doors. You can use it to get down, even if you couldn't to go up."

"No, I'm almost there. Just got to take care of something here first." Squall squinted in pain as he forced his clenched left fist open. His hand looked like an ill-cut piece of raw steak. Blood oozed from under a large flap of flesh that hung loosely over the deep channel the wire had cut through his palm. At least it's oozing and not spurting. I haven't cut any major arteries. Squall didn't have time to do a proper job of disinfection—besides, that would have left telltale drippings of blood in the airlock, so far he had been careful not to smear any on the walls or floor. Instead, he tore open a small packet of alcohol and dumped the contents onto an entire roll of cotton swabs. These he pressed into the bloody gouge in his hand, holding his arm up in order to allow the blood squeezed out to flow down and soak into his sleeve. After the pain subsided a bit, Squall pulled the roll of spongy fabric tape he had been biting down on out of his mouth and wrapped a sloppy bandage around his injured appendage.

Flicking the cap off the single-use hypodermic, Squall squeezed the clear plastic pouch of elixir until fluid ran down the sides of the slender needle. Finding a vein brought to the surface of his left forearm by the tourniquet, Squall plunged the needle into his skin and squeezed the hypodermic's contents into his bloodstream. He then loosened the plastic strap on his arm to allow the mixture of coagulants, stimulants, and painkillers to flow freely through his body. As he rose unsteadily to his feet, he noticed the way his hands shook as he replaced the first-aid supplies he had used for his slapdash bandaging job.

"Rinoa?" His voice was barely a whisper.

"Squall, are you sure you're…" Rinoa's voice was hesitant.

"Fine, fine. Could you find the nearest head for me?" Squall stepped through the open hatch and into the second floor hallway.

"The nearest what?" Rinoa queried.

"Bathroom." Squall panted.

"Oh, uh… Second door on your right." Rinoa sounded surprised.

Kneeling in the darkened lavatory, Squall felt the breeze from the pressure-suction toilet and smelled the strong chemicals that washed around the stainless steel bowl before the valve closed again. The harsh components of the elixir were never kind to the stomach. He stumbled over to the sink and spent a few precious seconds scooping water to his mouth with his right hand to wash away some of the taste of bitter bile.

"Squall, you're down to six minutes." Having realized that something had gone seriously wrong, Rinoa was doing her best to keep quiet and calm—trying hard to allow Squall to handle the situation as he was trained.

"Okay." Came a strangely weak voice. "Lead me."

"Five doors down the hallway on your right, make a left turn." Rinoa closed her eyes. I'm so helpless, I don't want to leave you alone up there, Squall.

"I'm here."

Rinoa bit her lower lip. "Go forward past two hallway intersections. There's nobody around you." I'm a sorceress… but what good does that do me, what good does it do you? "After the second hallway, go in the second door on your right." What does it get us, but more trouble, more burdens? "You're in the antechamber now. There's a second door ahead of you. Give me a second to unlock it." And now, when I can tell you're hurt, when I know you need me… what can I do with my powers?

"I made it. Be back in a moment. Out." Squall signaled for radio silence.

Rinoa closed her eyes. Nothing. I have to hide them, keep them under control. Because if I don't… I might end up… Rinoa's eyes snapped open. "Oh no!"

"What is it?" Instead of alert to the danger, Squall's voice sounded infinitely tired.

"One of the agents… I think. He was sleeping separate from the crew—he's coming toward you." Rinoa transmitted. "You should go, now!"

"I haven't looked at everything yet, just a few more seconds." Squall's reply was staticky.

"Squall… please! Go!" Rinoa placed her finger on the red dot closing in on the entrance to the room Squall was in as if to hold it down—slow it's progress.

"Rinoa… can you… distract him for a minute?"

Rinoa drew back, looking down at the red dot. She shook her head. "I, I'll try…" She placed her finger back on the moving dot. Go away. The dot continued to blink forward, undisturbed. What the heck am I doing?

Special Agent Rance Pecano shook his head as he made his way down toward the chart room. He had the strangest feeling that he should look down the hallway he had just passed for some reason. Funny. He shrugged, and stopped before the right door.

Rinoa felt her attempt to draw the person's attention away from his destination fail. She saw the dot converge on the room occupied by Squall. She fought down a wave of panic. If we're discovered… if they know we know… they'll come for me… She swallowed, and reached out toward that foreign mind again. …I can't let that happen. This time, in her mind, instead of a tenuous, delicate grasp on the fragile consciousness, Rinoa allowed the power she felt, pressing against the back of her mind, to flow—as if over a dam—past her wall of self-control. Her grasp on Rance Pecano's reality tightened.

"I am the sorceress Rinoa." She whispered without realizing she had spoken a word. "You will heed my will." Eyes closed, Rinoa was seeing though the mind of Agent Pecano. She could feel his will fighting against her own as she forced her hand away from the door knob, as she turned back down the passageway, as she flung her body away along the hallway, as she slammed head-first into a solid metal bulkhead.

Rinoa gasped and opened her eyes. She looked down at the display table. The red dot that was Rance Pecano glowed motionless at the far end of the hallway. Tiny frozen phantom worms crawled up from her fingertips, burrowing through her arms, into her chest. Rinoa frantically rubbed her hands over her forearms, trying to dispel this horrible slimy feeling as the aftereffects of this strange new manifestation of her power washed over her.

Numbly, Rinoa guided Squall to the emergency escape chute. She had to sit by and wait for Squall to make his way down past the double set of hatches in the escape way. They could only be undogged manually from above, but not below. Leaving the observation room, Rinoa made her way to the bottom-level door on the chute. Even as she reached out to pull the release lever, she heard a clanking from the other side of the hatch. It swung open to reveal a much worse-for-wear Squall.

"Oh my god!" Rinoa's hand flew to her mouth. Squall seemed to be covered in blood. There were dark brown smears of it across his face, arms, and hands. Parts of the black jumpsuit glistened darkly, hinting at spots where even more of the vital liquid was escaping his body. "You're bleeding everywhere!"

Squall dismissed this comment with a shake of his head, even as he allowed the sorceress to pull his good right arm over her shoulder, allowing her to assist him in walking. "It's just a little cut. I just managed to smear it everywhere."

Rinoa was not convinced. "Squall, you need medical attention."

"Can't. They'd know what happened." He waved his right hand with a flick of the wrist. "Besides, this is just another technique I learned at the garden; sympathy injuries." Rinoa caught him as he stumbled. "If you… make yourself look pitiful enough… the nurses…" Squall trailed off as his mind lost its focus.

Leaving Squall hanging onto the doorframe, Rinoa replaced their purloined equipment and cast about the room for anything they might have left that would give their nocturnal activities away. Please, please, don't let me be forgetting something! Rinoa knew she should check more thoroughly—especially now that things had gone somewhat awry, but she was worried about Squall. He had obviously suffered some sort of trauma while outside, and whatever drugs he had used to keep himself going were beginning to wear off. So much blood and bandages… He needs more than first-aid… but what can I do? As she, once again, ducked under Squall's arm and lead him away from the spying chamber, Rinoa caught a glimpse of Squall's wrist chronometer. I can run! "We're out of time! Less than a minute before shift change!" Rinoa placed an arm around Squall's waist, urging him to teeter forward just a little faster. "I've got to wake up the agent! We've got to get back to my room!"

"Uh-huh…" Squall mumbled in a far-away voice.

"Wecheck! Hey, Wecheck!" Darius shook the sleeping form of his colleague and friend. He was getting worried, there was something unnatural about the agent's deep slumber. "Wake up man!"

Like a light switch turning on, Anthony Wecheck suddenly snapped awake. "Yah! What? Huh?" He jumped to his feet, hand dropping to the holster of his sidearm. Realizing where he was, and who he was with, he sheepishly dropped his arm to his side. "Oh man! Was I asleep?"

Relieved, Darius smiled. "Yeah man, you were really out of it! I couldn't wake you up for nothing!"

"Aw man! Damn if I'm not lucky it was you, instead of Hub." Agent Wecheck blew out an explosive breath.

"Yeah, he already hates your guts…" Darius's gaze drifted to the light-covered schematic. "So, anything happ—hey!" He pointed. "What's that guy doing in hallway one-B?"

Anthony shrugged. "Dunno. Maybe takin' a nap?"

"If that's Rance, He ought to be in navigation." Darius touched a spot on the pad set into the table. "Better check in with him."

As he stood, gently fingering the angry bump on his head, Agent Pecano's earpiece crackled. "Yo, Rance. What's going on up there? Why aren't you at your post?" His heart skipped a beat. Oh no! Were they watching me? How much did they see? "Uh… nothing… just, um..." Rance's mind blanked as he stumbled for an explanation. Damn this messed-up brain of mine! So many years in this service… passed over for promotion so many times because of the effects of that damn nerve gas...

"Rance? You ok? You need to report an incident?" Came the voice. Rance concentrated. Baler… no, Bailey, agent Darius Bailey was that kid's name—if he recognized the voice.

Two months away from a retirement with a decent pension plan, one more mental health black mark away from an unceremonious discharge, Rance Pecano was not about to report incidents of any sort. "Nope." His mind finally focused on an excuse. "Just checking some lighting. A panel in this hallway was flickering."

"Well get off it, you old geeze. Leave that crap to the maintenance crew." Agent Bailey cut the transmission. He turned to Anthony. "I swear, that guy is totally senile." He chuckled. "It's a race to see whether they retire the old fart first, or toss him in the nuthouse."

Agent Wecheck smiled uncomfortably. He thought Rance was a pretty good guy—for an old geezer. Too bad about that condition he had picked up on a mission. He shuddered slightly. Hope that kind of shit never happens to me…

"Damn, man!" Agent Bailey was pointing to the table again. "You slept through a lot. Look at those two. They're camped out together in… what is that? The main bath of her suite?" He raised an eyebrow. "Is that where they were before you…"

"No." Agent Wecheck shook his head. They were sleeping on the observation deck last time I… uh… checked."

"Sheesh, why can't they just sleep in beds, like normal people?" Agent Bailey sighed. "Well, we'd better see what's going on." He reached over and pressed the touch pad again. The sounds that issued from the small speakers set into the table made both special agents relax and grin at each other.

Rinoa had the water in the giant ornate bath running full blast in the hope that it would cover the sound of the medical magic she was casting. Over the gurgling of the water, she spoke loudly. "What? Take a bath with you? Ooh, Squall… you have a dirty mind!"

Lying half-conscious, in the bottom of the ceramic monster that had no place aboard an airship, Squall opened his eyes dazedly. "Huh?"

Rinoa leaned in close to him. Pointing to the ceiling, she whispered: "Bugs."

His eyes clearing for a moment, Squall nodded and leaned back.

Rinoa worked quickly and efficiently. With the supplies available in the pair of first-aid kits she had opened on the tub's rim, she set about cleaning Squall's wounds, moving from the right side of his body to the left. She found that what he had said earlier to be mostly true. As Rinoa cut open the neckline of Squall's jumpsuit, looking for the source of the blood that saturated his clothing, she found his chest and shoulders unmarked. She winced and cast a Regen spell on the huge purple blotch that was already turning green around Squall's left shoulder, but it wasn't until she reached his left hand that Rinoa found anything she wasn't prepared to deal with. From the look of the mess underneath the rude bandages, Rinoa was surprised that Squall's four fingers were still attached to the rest of his body. She was almost afraid to try to clean the injury, but she knew there were no alternatives. First, however, she pulled the cap off a small, one-dose hypodermic of morphine. As she reached down below Squall's waist with the needle, his right hand suddenly wrapped around her wrist.

His pain-tinged gaze met her own. "No." Squall whispered. "No painkillers… I might start to babble."

After a second, Rinoa nodded and put the needle away.

"Besides," Squall mumbled quietly. "That's for vaccines, Morphine doesn't go in the gluteus maximus."

"I know…" Rinoa whispered back. "I just really hate veins."

"Yeah sure…" Squall took a breath and attempted a smile. "Crazy voodoo sorceress just wants to stick needles in my butt."

"Now you be a good little patient." Rinoa patted Squall's head and smiled sadly. "You can bite down on this." She placed a rolled and dampened washcloth between Squall's teeth as she filled a bowl that had previously held assorted shampoo bottles with hydrogen peroxide. "Ahh…" Rinoa sighed loudly and passionately, partially for the benefit of any outside listeners, partially to distract Squall's attention.

It worked. Opening his eyes again, he looked at her—brow furrowing. Rinoa quickly pushed his hand into the bowl of hydrogen peroxide. Squall bit down hard on the washcloth—muscles tensing, right fist balling—as he grunted loudly.

Agent Wecheck pushed a spot on the touchpad that turned the speakers off. "Okay… I think that's enough."

"Aw… and just when it was getting good." Agent Bailey pouted.

"Whatever." Agent Wecheck waved a hand as he stepped out the door.

"Goodnight." Agent Bailey sank into Wecheck's vacated chair. "Wish we had video feeds in there."

"I'm afraid."

"You can do it, Rinoa. I know you can." Squall whispered.

"But I might hurt you." Even as she said it, Rinoa slowly lifted the remains of Squall's left hand. She made sure to keep her eyes averted from the gouge where—clear of the clotted blood, gauze, and pieces of glove—the cable had ground most of the way through Squall's carpal bones.

"I've already done enough of that for the both of us." We were so lucky before. "Now you have to clean up my mess." Sure, we got hurt… but nothing like this… Squall's stomach churned as the realization hit him. God, I'm going to lose that hand!

But, perhaps not. There, knees on the tub's floor between Squall's legs, oblivious to the water that was filling her boots from the running faucet, ignoring the blood that stained her clothes, his angel knelt, her only concern—his well-being. If I ever questioned leaving the garden for her… did I ever imagine anyone could care this much about me? Squall felt a twinge not associated with his damaged appendage. Once he had. But I'll never let anyone take her away.

"Okay, but let's not make a habit out of this." Rinoa placed her other hand over Squall's. Heal!

Nothing happened. Rinoa bit her lower lip. Looking up into Squall's pain-filled eyes, Rinoa drew in a short breath. He did this for me. Did I ever think that anyone would risk so much, just to be with me? Did I ever believe anyone would sacrifice themselves—not because they believed in my cause, not because they were ordered to… Yes she had. A lifetime ago she had believed in someone. But he'll never turn on me…

Ever so slowly, a tiny, flickering fringe of blue-white fire crept around their clasped hands. As the pale corona of cool flame encircled her hands, Rinoa could feel the magic begin to flow down her arms from somewhere inside of her. At first, it was just a trickle, gently tugging at the splinters of rusty wire strands and Kevlar embedded in Squall's hand. Gently, gently Rinoa concentrated. Gradually, the trickle increased to a stream, permeating the flesh where infection was already taking hold, and drawing it to the surface. Suddenly, without warning, a torrent of power washed down into Squall's hand, tearing the bits of foreign matter from the wound with reckless force.

Rinoa gasped and released her hold on Squall's hand. She looked down in horror at the lifeless body of her knight, the last dregs of his blood seeping from the damage she had caused. The vision passed in a flash of terror. Squall blinked at her as he began to speak, but Rinoa, already pulling away, cut him off. "Oh God, Squall. I'm making it worse! I can't do this! We've got to call for help!" Even as she tried to stand, Squall's right hand grasped weakly at her left arm.

"We can't give ourselves away, Rinoa!" He tugged feebly. "Try again."

Rinoa shook her head as two of her tears dropped and mingled with the water and blood in the basin. "I don't want to kill you, Squall."

Slowly, he managed to draw her back. "I don't want to be an amputee." His eyes were pleading. "Again"

Before she knew what was happening, Rinoa felt herself throw her arms around Squall. There was a blinding flash of light…

Diamonds made from pure sunlight sparkled on the surface of the azure water racing between the three hulls of the tiny sailboat. A blunt-nosed shadow glided into view just below the surface of the sea, like a fat gray torpedo. Water frothed around the sleek sides of the dolphin as it surfaced just beneath the leading edge of the watercraft's trampoline decking. Rainbows shimmered in the exhalation of the grinning finned mammal, and it winked at her as Rinoa reached down to pat its cool wet skin.

Gripping the mast of the sailboat as it's speed caused it to roll up onto one hull, Rinoa looked back at a smiling Squall—one hand holding the sail line tight, the other pulling the tiller further into the wind. His worries blown away by the play of the dolphins, the warmth of the sun, the exhilaration of speed—for the first time in a very long time—Squall threw his head back and laughed.

The wind whipped Rinoa's happy sigh away as she turned back to gaze out at the flat cobalt-against-navy horizon. The sun flashed brilliantly off of the waves again…

…And Rinoa was standing on the hard tile of the master bath in one of the Zeppelin's luxury suites. She stumbled, unbalanced by the shift from leaning at forty-five degrees to standing upright. Squall sat where he had landed—right hand still holding an imaginary tiller, left hand wrapped around an imaginary rope. As the happy grin he had worn in the memory slowly faded into a confused expression, Squall turned his head to look from his now-unbruised left shoulder down to his, once again, whole left hand.

Still clad in a pair of knee-length swimming trunks, Squall took in the absence of wounds, blood, medical supplies, and the clean, empty bath. "….?"

…

The tiny rivulet was more scum than water. Wending its way between the worn cobblestones at the side of the street in one of the lower-class sectors of Deling city, the dirty stream meandered around small piles of refuse. Sailed only by soggy cigarette butts, the water gathered in a stagnant pool over a hole partially filled with shattered mossy mortar chips before disappearing down the rust-and-filth encrusted grating set into a crumbling stone curb. Soiled, though it was, the small cesspool still reflected the smoky glow emanating from behind the grime-coated window of the tavern.

Gazing into the establishment through narrowed eyes, Seifer could barely distinguish the blurry forms of comrades drinking together—celebrating the end of another long day's work.

But of course they weren't friends. The people at that bar didn't know each other, didn't want to know each other. Seifer knew it was self-delusion to imagine otherwise. Just as I fooled myself into thinking that my own companions could ever understand the true nature of… But that was unfair. Seifer knew he had never given them the chance, never explained why he had to do the things he did. How can you? How can you explain something like that to them? He shook his head as he moved on past the dirty glow of the tavern's window. They were lost in the past. I could feel it, even as they did as I bade them. They didn't believe in me any more. They stayed, hoping, praying, that the 'old' Seifer would come back to them. "And they still hope." Seifer whispered to the burnt out streetlight at the corner. A secret from one useless, lonely sentinel to another.

He paused, wondering which way to turn. It really did not matter. There was only one direction Seifer would not go—back. He could no more turn away from the path set before him then he could stand to return to the cramped apartment the SeeDs had chosen as a base of operations.

She had not spoken kindly to him on their first meeting. She had been truthful. And something in her eyes had told him to run, to flee and change the course of destiny. He had never asked her why she had greeted him so in that city so far from this place. He had been afraid. He liked to think that it was the only thing that had ever frightened him—that look of pain in her eyes when he had asked about their future, her past. She knew, even then, she knew. Seifer no longer held any doubts. That first strange and wonderful evening when she had—seconds after stepping through the spatial distortion that returned them to her chambers in Deling's presidential mansion—turned and thrown her arms around his neck, collapsing against him. Even as Seifer, confused beyond words, had instinctively wrapped her in a supporting embrace, she sobbed into his chest. "It really is you." She had clung to him, like a soul—lost at sea—clings to the dying hope of rescue. "I thought I would never see you again."

Seifer shook his head. She had never explained those words.

As he had stood, supporting the shuddering sorceress, Seifer knew. He knew nothing about who she was, where she had come from, what her words meant, but he knew that he was, had been, and forever would be—her knight. His dream was reality.

Eventually, she had quieted, and slowly, as if not daring to believe in his existence, she had turned her face upward to his. Seifer had felt a tug at the back of his mind, an emotion that had no place being there. "I don't understand… I've seen you before… but I…"

She had held a trembling hand over her face. "No, not this body. Close your eyes. See who I truly am."

Nearly one year in the future, Seifer stumbled. He opened his eyes. He had never seen the young woman who materialized in his mind before, but he had known her all his life. Once, when he had tried to tell his sorceress this, she had smiled sadly at him.

"I've done something terrible, Seifer."

He shook his head. "No, they're just frightened of you. The SeeDs must have some hidden agenda, and you probably stand in the way." He had struck his most dashing pose. "But don't worry. I won't let them harm you. They may have escaped from the prison, but I'll hunt—"

The sorceress raised Edea's hand. "No, no. That's not what I meant." She sighed, her eyes downcast. "I've messed everything up. I've brought a terrible evil here, where it doesn't belong, in your time."

"Stop." He shook his head. "No. Don't listen to what the SeeDs say. They're mercenaries. They'd cut their own mother's throats for a few gil—if they even had mothers." Seifer placed his hand on the sorceress's. "You brought no evil into this world. You saved me from becoming one of them."

"You don't understand…" Seifer's sorceress began.

"Then tell me! Please!" Seifer could not keep the anguish from his voice. "Who are you? I know that I've loved you forever, but I don't even know your name!"

A single tear had rolled down her cheek and cut into Seifer's heart.

Did you really bring evil into the world, my love? Seifer stopped, laying a hand on the tarnished surface of a tiny plaque in the decaying park into which he had wandered. He looked down, trying to read the inscription in the anemic light shed by a single flickering streetlamp a dozen paces away. It was no use. Time had scoured the words from its surface.

He had never wavered; not through the bombing of the gardens, not through the failed attack on the last remaining SeeD stronghold, not during the Lunar Cry, not even when sacrificing a girl he had once cared for to Adel. Rajin and Fujin had waffled, the myriad Galbadian military officers had cut and run, but he—Seifer Almasy—had always stood by the side of his sorceress.

It had been a hard moment, when his two closest friends deserted him. Seifer shook his head to the darkened street. But I can't blame them for it. The entire world had turned against her, and she seemed to be fighting against it in some battle I could not share.

A few faded chips of paint fluttered to the dirty concrete as Seifer leaned against the rotten frame of a neglected doorway. You seemed so different…

Deep inside the scorched and deadened shell of Seifer's heart, thawed by the slow heat of his final fond memories, a last capillary of pain burst. Instantly, Seifer's breath was choked off and he squeezed his eyes shut. His despicable, accursed weakness assailed him once more. Seifer dealt with it the only way he knew how.

Had anyone been watching, they would have been amazed at how a gleaming black gunblade suddenly appeared in the lone vagrant's hand—as if by magic. They would have been shocked at the frenzied violence with which the man swung the weapon as Seifer fought against the maddening pain, cleaving gouges through the solid stones of the street bed and chopping chunks of masonry from the graffiti-covered facades of the abandoned buildings lining the lost street.

As always, it was not his skill with the weapon, rather the strength of his hollow despair that finally beat back the painful memories.

Seifer forced his thoughts to continue, grinding the sharp salt-crystal of his memories into the open wound of the heart—some penance, he thought, for his lapse of self-control.

Yes. You seemed so different… after I failed you in the garden.

She had been gone, but Seifer could still hear her voice in his dreams. What dreams they had once been! His sorceress had shown him an entire lifetime without care, without worry. Before, each night had been an eternity of happy companionship. He felt that—without ever once touching her body—he had become closer to his sorceress than even the most passionately intimate of lovers could ever hope to be.

Dreams had turned to nightmares. Not the heart-pounding terror of horrors untold, but rather long disturbing nights lying awake pondering the few short words his dream-companion now had for him.

Seifer knew what the Lunatic Pandora was for. He knew what would happen when he brought it to Tear's Point. The devastation it would unleash upon Eshtar was not lost on him, nor were the implications of Adel's revival. His sorceress had begun a battle with the world that he saw no sense in. Her nightly visits no longer brought him comfort. Once, they had strolled together through sweet-smelling pines. Their footsteps hushed by the carpet of soft needles, they had shared a oneness Seifer had never imagined possible.

Now they met on fields of barren rock, or in a black void. His lover no longer slipped her hand quietly into his own, rather she always stood at a distance—no matter how he tried to move closer to her, she was always out of reach. She kept one side of her face hidden from him and spoke only in the harshest of whispers. It was as if a second soul were fighting for possession of his sorceress.

But under the veneer of whatever it was that made you distance yourself from me, I felt your heart. I always knew it was you—I could dream of no other.

He had tried to ask his sorceress what troubled her, but she would cut his concern off with a commanding jerk of her head and vanish, leaving Seifer awake to roam the decks of the salvage fleet; awake and alone under the moon that had witnessed so many shared lovers' secrets. Seifer had felt the weight of the moonlight on his shoulders—the brush of the thousands of innocent souls that would die if he fulfilled his sorceress's wishes.

That was not what tore at me though Seifer let out a long, painful breath. My love… why did you feel you had to hide your secret from me—me? Did you think I would ever turn away from you? Seifer shook his head to himself. Never! Never, not even if you wanted to destroy us all in the time compression, would I do anything but stand beside you. -- Oh, I pretended you would save me even as you destroyed the world, but the truth was: I didn't care. No matter how terrible, your will was always my command.

But she had hid her plans from him, and her mistrust cut him to the quick. Why? Why, after all our dreams together, could you not see that I would destroy everything everywhere if that was your wish? Why did you not understand that I would throw my life—and the lives of all the world into the apocalyptic fire at the wave of your hand?

She had not trusted him, but he was still her devoted knight. Nothing, not even her betrayal of his soul could ever change that.

No, nothing… "…not even death will change that, my love." Seifer whispered into the darkness.

"You say sumpin' to me, Punk?" Said a shadow that separated itself from the dark masses of back-alley detritus.

Seifer almost—almost mumbled an apology, so automatically did he slip back into character. But then he noticed the stirring shadows to his left, right, and even—as his periphery vision told him—flank.

There were seven of them—more than a match for this young fool—who had obviously drank too much and gotten lost down the wrong city street. They were armed with an assortment of nasty-looking, but not particularly lethal, weaponry. Short knives, chains, steel pipes. No firearms—and from the uncoordinated way the pack of robbers tried to cluster in on him—Seifer noted, no formal weapons training.

Smiling a hidden, vicious smile, Seifer slurred his voice a bit more, cultivating the impression of an easy, inebriated target. "Crave pardon… couldja please… gimme a directions… ta Vanton Heights?"

"Huh. Uptowner wants us to give 'em something!" The nearest bandit sneered.

"Sounds like 'ee's getting uppity on ya, Warp."

"Maybe 'is 'onour would like it if we called 'im a cab."

"More like he wants a limousine." From their jeers, Seifer identified the positions of the remaining members of the small group.

"Hey now… gentlemen… I wasn't looking for any trouble…" Seifer spread his hands, and began backing away from the one called Warp.

"Well mister dandy…" Warp flicked his wrist and a long switchblade appeared in his hand. "…you found it." He said. They would be the last words he ever spoke.

Seifer killed every last one of the band of would-be muggers. Some had tried to fight, some had tried to run. All had died. Hyperion had traced a screaming arc through the air when Seifer had thrown the weapon—neatly pinning the last fleeing bandit to a crumbling alley wall. He frowned. It had been an end that the scum—who's jerking corpse he now kicked free of the blade—had not deserved. Better that he should have felt at least a few seconds of bone-searing agony—at least a shadow of the pain Seifer carried every day. Seifer almost shrugged as he wiped the gore from the dark weapon. There was no point in being selfish.

…

From a small slit in the gossamer curtains, the finger of moth moonlight sifted into the room. It traced a ruffled path across the royally plush carpet, tumbled upward in a waterfall of glimmering silver, and fell upon the two silver circlets that lay in the snug hollow at the base of Rinoa's neck. Those rings—presents from a friend long absent from the lives of the sorceress and her knight—lay, not forgotten, merely held in reserve, waiting to seal their own special moment in the lives of their owners.

The moonbeam shivered and fled as a figure interposed himself between the sleeping sorceress and the window. The luminescent arrow disappeared as the glowing nighttime eye hid itself in a cloud bank.

Only the slightest rustling of the figure's cloak betrayed his movements as a gloved hand appeared, slowly reaching out toward the helpless Rinoa. She shivered in her sleep as a cool leather finger traced out the line of her chin with a feather's touch.

The figure drew closer, and the sorceress's eyes snapped open. She gasped.

"Seifer!" Rinoa's hand knocked away that of the cloaked figure. She shrank from him.

As he threw back the cloak's hood, the dimness of the cloud-enshrouded moon revealed the figure's shock of long brown hair and blue eyes set below a hawk-like brow. "No, Rinoa, it's me, Squall."

"Squall!" Rinoa lowered a defensive arm. "What are you trying to do? Frighten me to death?"

Squall shook his head. "I'm sorry. I was just watching you. You looked so peaceful…"

Rinoa sighed. "Well, I wasn't—peaceful that is."

"Bad dreams?"

"Yes." She shuddered, but did not elaborate.

Wanting to help, Squall considered what would be the best thing to say. "Do you want to tell me about it?"

Rinoa shook her head, and turned away from him.

Strike one. Squall sat on the edge of the bed and tried a comforting gesture. She dodged his gloved hand, and pulled herself back from the folds of the cloak—the cloak he had been given by some aide somewhere with some explanation of its significance that he couldn't seem to recall.

"Do you think, maybe you could take those off?" Rinoa indicated the long garment and gloves. "It's kind of creepy."

Strike two. "Oh, sure, sorry." Squall pulled off the offending fabric as if it were infected with the plague and tossed it into the darkness—out of sight. As he turned back to her, he found that Rinoa had buried her head under a pillow. And somehow, strike three—you're out, fella. Squall sighed; he was never going to get the hang of this.

A single brown eye peeped out from under the pillow. "Um… Squall? Could you, uh, pick the cloak up and put it somewhere I could see it?"

Squall almost, almost frowned in annoyance. He nearly spoke. What? Do you think that it is… He paused. …going to come floating out of the darkness… At last Squall noticed the paleness in Rinoa's one exposed cheek—a colorless hue that could not be blamed on the moonlight. …hood up, reaching for you with its gloved hands… Squall slapped a hand to his face. …just after you've awoken from some horrible nightmare? He stood, and flipped on the bedchamber's lights.

Squinting into the brightness, Rinoa removed the pillow from her head. "What are you doing?"

Instead of replying, Squall kicked off his boots, and clambered onto the bed. Rinoa frowned, but let him slide a few down-stuffed pillows out of the way in order to slide in between her and the bed's headboard. Threading his arms under Rinoa's, Squall gently drew her up to a sitting position, her back resting against his chest. Dark brown hair tickled his chin as Rinoa turned her head. "Squall…" she began, then trailed off as his fingers began softly kneading away at the tension in her shoulders.

Squall slipped his right hand through the cascades of Rinoa's hair as she let her head turn back until it was facing forward. Light as butterfly footsteps, his fingers traced slow patterns on Rinoa's scalp, sending pleasant shivers down her back. As his left hand expertly smoothed the kinked muscles between Rinoa's left shoulder blade and her side, Squall spoke quietly. "I'm sorry for waking you. I wasn't thinking."

Or perhaps, it would have been better to say that he had been thinking too much. Eyes half-closed, Rinoa mumbled something and snuggled against him. Squall smiled; apparently his apology had been accepted. He watched as Rinoa's head slowly nodded back as—deftly as his own hands now worked at loosening the muscles of her lower back—fingers of sleep coaxed her consciousness slowly back into slumber.

She needed the rest, Squall reflected. He had no real business interrupting these few precious hours they could manage to spare for sleep. Between the crash-course lessons in being a figurehead and the ever-approaching, now-present, day of Rinoa's coronation as Sorceress of the Realm and his own as Knight, the myriad government functionaries had barely left them a few moments to be alone together, let alone catch up on their rest. Apparently, they had been expected to do that on the pseudo-tour of Galbadia.

Squall grimaced inwardly. Of course, they hadn't been catching forty winks. Instead, he had nearly lost his life, clambering about on the underside of a giant zeppelin in the middle of the night. And for what? After all the hardship and danger of getting into the files of the government agents assigned to shadow them, he had found not a single clue as to what was occurring within the Galbadian government. He had only confirmed what they had already known—the "tour" was merely an excuse to get them out of Deling for a few days. The crew of the airship had been specifically instructed to avoid at all cost, any Galbadian military installations, local seats of government, communications hubs, major metropolitan centers—in short, anywhere the sorceress and knight could obtain further information about the country they were now supposed to help serve.

Squall would have shrugged, had there not existed the possibility of waking his sorceress—now sleeping peacefully, her head resting against his right deltoid. At least he had managed to memorize the location of the Lunatic Pandora and Galbadia Garden. Both were being kept as far from the public eye as possible; anchored in the wastelands near the desert prison. The only apparent reason for there to be mention of the two important structures was to allow the airship to give them as wide a berth as possible while taking the sorceress and knight on their useless tour.

Though it might not have been as productive as he would have liked, the past week had given the couple the opportunity to snatch a few priceless hours of solitude, away from the prying eyes and ears of their escort. During this time, they had managed to work out a semblance of a plan for dealing with their current situation. Squall frowned. Unfortunately, their plan called for the collection of as much data as possible, before taking any action. In order to do so, they would have to continue with their preparations for assuming their assigned roles in the Galbadian government and act blissfully unaware that anything might be amiss. This cut against the grain laid into Squall by years of strategic tactics training. Allow your enemy to take the initiative away from you, and you endanger yourself by taking only reactionary steps—you allow your enemy to lead you wherever he pleases, because provoking a reaction is much easier than predicting spontaneous action. Squall blew out the gentlest of breaths. So far, he had been a good little reactionary, yet managed to collect no useful data. We're being kept in limbo. Something is brewing. If we don't find out what it is soon…

Of course, Squall had already been running the reactionary treadmill tonight. He had tried to stand firm against allowing Rinoa's participation in the traditional parade that took place during the coronation of a new sorceress, but to no avail. In the entire recorded history of Galbadia, a ruling sorceress had never come to assume her position of power without attending the grandiose procession through the seat of Galbadia's government. He had protested, pointing out the recent assassination attempt at the last of such parades, but had failed to change the minds of those in charge of the coronation ceremonies. Instead, he managed only to acquire from them promises of heavily beefed-up security, and a switch from a nighttime parade, to one held during daylight. Eventually, his entreaties to forgo the tradition must have neared the line of betraying their knowledge of things amiss, for Rinoa had turned to him, patted his hand, and in a voice of forced levity, assured him that everything would be fine. Squall knew she would not have done so for any other reason.

Still, he had stayed up late into the night, creating a new parade route and setting up security checkpoints with Delphi Matchgar—head of the Galbadian secret service. Hoping somehow to throw off any assassin's plans. He knew it was hopeless, however, as even the Secret Service man could be in league with those now controlling General Richard Caraway, and the government which he lead. Squall suppressed a shudder. The head of the Galbadian SS certainly seemed to be the type of person who could be a viper in sheep's clothing. Despite his outwardly pleasant comportment, he had the eyes of a man who had ordered enough lives ended that he no longer held any reservation in killing a person—or an entire city of people. But change the parade route he had—and without complaint. Squall did not know to assume good or ill of this.

So he had, instead—taking the glowing blue blade that had rested in its case for far too long—climbed to the very highest rooflines of the sprawling presidential mansion. Poised on the knife-edged apex of the mansion's upper stories, the city's diesel-and-murder tainted night wind tugging at his back, Squall Leonhart had prepared for tomorrow's uncertainties the only way he had left. Even there, alone on the jagged rooflines, sparring without an enemy in sight, the power of the sorceress had infused him. He had dashed along precipices too narrow for sparrows' perch, whirling his gunblade before him in blazing blue-white arcs. He thrust, parried, riposte with speed faster than the lightest fencing foil in the hands of the master swordsman, all while letting the agility and power that flowed through his body carry him in great leaps from turret, to pinnacle, to chimney that would have left the most acrobatic squirrel agape with awe.

There, underneath the gibbous traitor moon, he had managed—if just for a moment—to recapture the feelings of invulnerability of his days at the Garden. When he had been just another bright-burning SeeD, he had been untouchable. Sure, he had received his share of minor injuries—including the scar that no plastic surgeon would ever erase—but even through such close calls, Squall had known that he could rely on his own strength, speed, and stamina to make sure things turned out right. He had only himself to look out for, and he was very, very good at that.

Leaping from the parapet above the rooftop walkway Edea had used while possessed by Ultemecia, Squall swung the Lionheart over his head and down, pulling back from the follow-through milliseconds before the gunblade would have cloven into the hard tile. Rising from the one knee he had fallen to under the impact of his landing, he brought the weapon up to rest on his shoulder and turned away from the sweeping view of Deling's central park and victory gateway. Holstering his weapon, Squall returned to the history-laden confines of the presidential mansion, intent on stretching and showering.

Even then, some sleepless attendant had—while he scrubbed away the sweat and shingle-grit he had accumulated during his sword-practice—bustled off with his discarded clothing, leaving, in their stead, the same ceremonial dress and cloak that he had been introduced to earlier in his re-education.

Squall had trained himself not to become annoyed with such facets of Galbadian political life managing to wend their way into his own personal routine. It would—undoubtedly—prove to be nothing compared to the way in which Galbadia would take over their lives in the future. Fortunately, both Squall and Rinoa had some prior knowledge as to the system of government to which the new General Caraway was attempting to return Galbadia, Squall through his SeeD training, and Rinoa through her various manners of schooling during her upbringing.

Of course—Squall grimaced at the thought—this was all assuming that they had been brought to Galbadia to serve as sorceress and knight, and that the entire situation was not just some elaborate set-up.

Even as these thoughts coursed across Squall's consciousness, his fingers slowly fell from the long strands of Rinoa's dark hair, which they had been caressing. His head nodded back, gently coming to rest against the headboard of the bed. Slowly, slowly, these worries seemed to recede into some distant place—as if he were merely watching them played out on a television screen—a screen that abruptly winked out as Squall joined his sorceress in her dreams.

The bright sunlight plying its way under Rinoa's eyelids only served to increase her sense of contentment and security. She knew that the place where she and Squall had rested—that place of flowers and sunlight, cool grass and warm leather, gentle breezes and laughing butterflies, had been a dream. Somewhere deep inside, she knew that the escape from their worries was only temporary, that their time alone fleeting, but as she smiled at the risen sun, she still felt as light-hearted as they both had been during the dream.

Her blissfulness lasted a full seven-and-one-half seconds before she sat bolt-upright in bed, causing Squall to start slightly. Even as she turned to face him, she felt—along with the crushing weight of everything that was happening—a twinge of regret as she watched that calm, far-away look recede into the farthest corner of her knight's eyes. Once again hard, sharp, and alert they regarded her.

"Are you ready?" Of course, he knew the answer.

"No."

…

The four disguised SeeDs defended their tiny knoll from the thronging crowd around them with the same vigor they had put into the repulse of the Galbadian attack on their adopted home nearly a year ago. Despite the masses of humanity all fighting one another for a good view of the sorceress's parade, despite the hot sun compressing the people against the warmth radiating up from the dusty ground, despite the still-painful memories of the police riot that had followed an attempted assassination at the last such event, a carnival atmosphere still prevailed among the thousands of Galbadian citizens who had gathered to witness the coronation of their new sorceress.

As the parade began, the crowd settled down, and the four SeeDs found that they had a good view of the procession from the small hill. The sight they beheld was markedly different from the last such parade they had witnessed. Gone were the masks and belled dancers, gone were the braziers burning with sinister orange flames, and—by order of the sorceress's bodyguard—gone were the celebratory fireworks that had found their way into the crowd at the last nighttime procession.

Instead, the parade was a much lighter affair. The procession began with white-clad attendants marshaling along a giant, helium-filled chocobo which 'wark-warked' loudly at random intervals, drawing delighted screams from the children present. Behind this less-than-serious introduction, the joint marching bands of the Galbadian armed forces strutted in time to a suitably patriotic tune blaring forth from the array of brass instruments bobbing below tall, plumed, gold-buttoned hats. Stately open-top limousines carted various governmental heads—elected in the recent regional pollings re-instituted by President Caraway. Buried within the parade—more similar to a founders-day celebration than to any inaugural event in historical memory—the massive mobile pedestal from which sorceress Edea had surveyed her subjects carried the new sorceress of Galbadia—Rinoa Heartilly.

Keeping with the light-hearted nature of the parade, the large vehicle was now covered in frosty pink roses, the luminescent tentacles that had infused the float a year ago were now buried beneath mounds of sweet-smelling petals. The upper deck of the float had been removed—throne and all—to make space for a dozen bright-faced Galbadian youth who were busily throwing armfuls of rose petals into the warm sunlight.

Quistis noted that the clouds of petals seemed to be thrown with the intention of floating down around the sorceress and her knight—who were positioned, tucked away almost, on a lower section near the rear of the vehicle. Her lips pressed into a thin white smile. Squall—recalling certain past events—no doubt had a hand in designing the unobtrusive location for the Sorceress's pedestal. In fact, she noted, the clouds of petals filling the air would make it quite difficult for a sniper to draw aim on either Rinoa or Squall.

Still, the thought was troubling enough that Quistis let her gaze slip for a second over the heads of her own squad—intently gazing at the sorceress's float—and down to where Dahyte, inconspicuous in her drab garments and neutral expression, watched the parade with a disinterested look. That I even suspect the headmaster would… In spite of the dry heat of the day, Quistis shivered and turned her attention back to the sorceress.

Even from her innocuous position at the rear of the lowered float, Rinoa still made a commanding figure. Alternately brushing rose petals from her hair and waving—almost timidly—at the masses, she was garbed in her own personal variant of a Galbadian sorceress's traditional array—colored and shaped according to the nature of the sorceress. Her long, moderately-cut, silver dress, shot through with veins of electric blue gave way around her shoulders to the elaborate latticework of spidery silver-and-glass formed in the shape of two folded wings. The sparkling criss-crossing feathers of the wings were intricately carved precious stones, sliced as thinly as frost on a windowpane. Dancing patterns of white Holy magic rippled across them, giving the impression that the stone feathers were ruffled by an unseen wind.

Quistis's breath caught in her throat. Certainly, the array of precious metals and magical stones Edea had worn to help her channel her sorceress powers had been impressive, but nothing like the delicate beauty of the creation the Galbadian master stoneworkers had created for Rinoa.

Beside the sorceress, Squall seemed merely another member of the parade. His own white cloak unadorned with any symbol of Galbadia—his induction would come later—he was simply one more invisible bodyguard. Still, Quistis's practiced eye caught the way his hood was thrown back—giving him an unobstructed view of the crowd. She saw how closely he kept to the side of his sorceress. … She noticed, also, the look she had come to recognize as conveying that Squall would rather be anywhere else at the moment. I've certainly seen that enough. Of course, this time it's not because of the company he's in. Quistis wasn't about to let personal matters cloud her judgment. Undoubtedly, Squall simply was concerned about Rinoa's security.

As the procession passed by their vantage point, Quistis became aware of a low, throbbing hum. Instantly, her attention was turned fully upon this unexpected sound. Before the first heads in the assembled crowd even began to turn skyward, Quistis—along with Zell, Irvine, Selphie, and presumably Dahyte—had already identified the type, heading, and altitude of the approaching aircraft.

The five heavy-lift transport planes held a tight echelon formation as they passed over the heads of the crowd, several thousand feet below. Shouts of surprise vied with the roar of the aircraft's multiple engines as long streamers of a smoke-like nature poured from the open rear cargo doors of the aircraft.

"Ready masks." Quistis tried to whisper loudly enough so as to be heard by her SeeDs alone even as she dug into the concealed pouch that contained her own mouthpiece, nose plug and twenty-minute air supply. She looked down to where Dahyte stood, seemingly unperturbed by this latest turn of events. What the hell is going on? Her pulse now racing, Quistis shot a quick glance toward the sorceress's float. Squall's face had turned ashen and his hand had unconsciously pushed back the folds of his cloak and now rested on the exposed handle of his gunblade. As Quistis looked on, Rinoa placed a restraining hand on Squall's arm and said something to him.

"Hey! It's flower petals!" Someone shouted. Surely enough, as the glare of the hot sun was broken into dappled patches by the spreading cloud, Quistis could make out the fluttering pinks, reds, yellows, and whites of millions of petals descending from the sky. The crowd broke into enthusiastic—if somewhat relieved—cheering as realization dawned.

Quistis discreetly closed the pocket, which hid he gas mask as the lowest fringes of the cloud of flowers began landing lightly among the crowd.

Zell, happy for the shade afforded by the drifting petals, tilted his head up to the coolness and promptly inhaled a white rose petal.

As Zell sputtered over the unwanted foliage, Irvine took the opportunity—as many other young couples had chosen—to wrap Selphie up in a long-limbed embrace, garnished with a less-than-platonic kiss, forgetting his disguise. Nearby families hastened to direct their children's attention elsewhere.

When, at last, the rain of flowers had ended, Quistis noted that the sorceress's float had stopped at a point that allowed Rinoa to face directly, a large portion of the gathered crowd. Looking like he were chewing on tinfoil, Squall had taken a step backward, to allow Rinoa to move forward, making her visible to the maximum number of people. Though they had maintained a low profile throughout the parade, the large number of—armed and unarmed—security personnel was distinctly noticeable as they slowly shuffled into a defensive perimeter, as per Squall's designs.

Raising her arms, the sorceress addressed the assembled crowd.

Nearly a quarter-mile away, an ancient, hunched figure tottered into the shade of Deling's Victory Gateway. With a sigh like wind through crackling parchment, the old woman bent painfully, as if to massage the aching bunions on the soles her feet. Instead, she withdrew—from a small pouch hidden in the folds of fabric that fell over her shoulders as she bent—a ruby-red stone. From within the depths of the stone, a misty swirl of bloody flame flickered. The old woman breathed on the gem, and the light burned brighter.

As Rinoa opened her mouth to speak, a brilliantly red ruby nestled in the small of her back—at the base of her ornate wings—flickered slightly. She paused, and then spoke. "My friends, my neighbors."

"Citizens of Galbadia." The old crone hissed. She gestured with her left hand, even as her right held the stone in a claw-like grip.

The crowd erupted in cheers.

Rinoa's brow furrowed, but she continued. "There has been so much fighting, so much bloodshed. All in the name of sorceresses who came before me."

"Galbadia has suffered grievously at the hands of the aggressors in this world." The woman rubbed the red stone furiously.

The expressions of the crowd darkened.

"But no more. For I come to you with a promise." Behind his sorceress, Squall smiled.

The old woman drew in a rattling breath.

"A promise, not of conquest, not of a Galbadia that sends your sons and daughters to fight and die at home and abroad, but of a Galbadia at peace." Rinoa paused again.

"A promise that never again shall Galbadia bow to the heel of any oppressor. A promise of a strong Galbadia, a Galbadia that shall take what is rightfully ours—what was robbed from us by the sham of a peace treaty rigged by the technophiles of Esthar, the traitors of Timber…" The crone's claw tightened on her stone. "…and the terrorists of the Gardens!" She hissed.

Even as the crowd erupted again into wild cheering, Quistis felt a sickening sense of dread envelope her. She looked around at the SeeDs of her squad. The stricken expression on Zell's face was heartbreaking, Irvine simply stared, open-mouthed, across the heads of the assembly toward the sorceress, and Selphie looked nearly ready to cry. Even Dahyte's features were crossed by a small frown.

Quistis felt the tug of the sorceress's power in her own mind as the crowd was magically goaded into shouting at a new proclamation of Galbadia's strength.

"Like the rose petals that have now fallen at your feet…" Rinoa's voice could be heard above the din. "…so shall all the enemies of Galbadia likewise fall before our righteous armies!"

Quistis closed her eyes. I can't believe this is happening! She wished that she could plug her ears as well. "Oh Rinoa… what's happened to you?"

…

It was that particular time of morning, just before the dim hint of dawn on the horizon brightens into twilight. The time when the early ocean mist still obscures the darkened waters, while the sky slowly fades from black to gray. The time when tiny wavelets from the calm waters gurgled quietly to themselves as they broke on the exposed surfaces of the long spars of Balamb Garden's upper propulsion rods—now sessile as the garden lay at anchor.

It was also the time of day when Poul McCammon truly loathed his dawn watch. Despite the fact that he had risen at midnight to relieve the forward starboard watchman on one of the catwalks ringing the lower decks of the garden, he was having a hard time keeping his mind sharp and alert as he patrolled his sector of the garden. Of course, this time of night, body temperatures were at their lowest, sleepers slept the soundest, and tired sentries wish they were those sound sleepers. He sighed and scratched underneath the headband of his light-enhancing night-vision goggles, currently turned off to save their battery.

Poul was just about to turn back from the end of the catwalk when a dull clank from below reached his ears. Instantly alert, he pulled the goggles over his eyes and switched them on. Had he been a bit more experienced; had it not been such an early hour; had he, the afternoon before, forgone that last chapter of the novel that now lay next to his bed—in the dormitories far on the other side of the Garden—in favor of some extra sleep; Cadet McCammon might have remembered not to look at the brightening horizon with the goggles turned on. As it happened, however, he failed to remember that particular part of his training, and blinded himself temporarily as he groped for the brightness controls. Between the dazzling afterimages of glaring horizon, Poul thought he saw a brief flash from the dark, misty waters below. He was not distracted by the peculiar noise of metal puncturing behind his head as he peered in the direction of the flash. Poul reached for his radio at the same instant as he saw a second flash from below. In the split-second before the sniper's bullet prevented Poul from ever thinking again, his mind connected the flash, the noise of an armor-piercing round striking the garden's hull, and the sounds wafting up from below his position. He would have said "Oh my God! They're shooting at me." But Cadet Poul McCammon died from the silenced rifle round before the words could form on his lips.

It was a full five minutes before the first of the garden's searchlights were switched on by another alarmed sentry, thirty more seconds passed before the initial alarm went out over the radio, and the security officer on duty wasted a full fifteen more seconds before the sickening thud of a bullet striking a second watchman convinced him to sound the general alarm.

Headmaster Cid Kramer jumped to his feet, ink from the paper on which he had fallen asleep tattooing his cheek. For a moment, the blaring klaxons confused him into ignoring the chirping of his personal radio. He took three uncertain steps backward, nearly tripping over the chair he had upset while waking before the sleep fully cleared from his head, and he snatched at the communications unit. "Kramer!" What the hell is going on?! He added silently, knowing full well that he was about to find out.

"Headmaster! Galbadian soldiers on the lower Starboard decks--" the voice was abruptly cut-off by another, stronger transmission—presumably from a closer radio.

"Sir! Galbadian submarines surfacing off our bow and stern!"

A third transmitter chimed in as the second finished. "—emy soldiers on the propulsion sys--" the signal abruptly terminated in a squeal of static.

Even as he shouted up to the bridge, "Who's on duty up there!?" Cid flipped through radio channels—each jammed by the same screeching signal.

"Nida, Sir! Orders?" Came the nervous reply.

"Start the main reactors! We have to get out of here!" The headmaster stepped onto the bridge lift. Looking out through the huge windows that bordered his office, Cid's heart sank as he saw flotillas of rubberized assault boats bearing down on the garden from a dozen black shapes riding low in the water, caught in the Garden's searchlights. As the first black-clad figures gained the lower catwalks ringing the garden's prow, volleys of small-arms fire extinguished the few feeble fingers of light lancing out from the Garden's upper decks.

"They're already online sir!" Nida shouted as Cid stepped off of the lift's platform. He hauled back on the lever that would engage the Garden's main drive.

Headmaster and pilot stumbled as a grinding shudder ran through the Garden.

Several stories below, the great fins of the propulsion system lurched forward a few feet, crushing the Galbadian frogmen still tightening the last of the braces they had shepherded into position between the rotating discs. The braces already in position screamed with metallic protest and buckled slightly, but held.

"Again, Nida, Again!" The headmaster shouted as he regained his footing.

"But, sir, we'll burn up the gears!" Nida pointed to the large 'clutch temperature' gage, whose needle had delved deeply into the red sector of the dial.

"Burn them up, then! We have to get moving!" Reaching the public address system, the headmaster slapped the 'all garden' transmission button. "This is Headmaster Kramer speaking. The garden is under attack by Galbadian forces. Students assigned to Defense teams Alpha through Hector: assemble at the Quad and prepare to repel boarders! Teams India through Lima: defend the main gate. SeeD team X-Ray, prepare to--." The headmaster paused as a horrendous screeching ripped its way to his ears from deep within the Garden's bowels."

Nida shook his head and pointed to the flashing red lights that appeared all over the large control wand. His attention was quickly diverted, however, by a bright flash from the deck of one of the Galbadian submarines. Seconds later, the naval shell screamed overhead and detonated a few dozen yards off the Garden's stern in a towering fountain of seawater.

"Check that!" The headmaster corrected himself. "X-ray, maintain open corridors to the wet garage from all levels of the garden." The headmaster spoke of the newly created internal docks for SeeD assault landing craft that had been installed below the garage.

Seeing that he could no longer be of any use as a pilot, Nida reached for the set of headphones connected into the intercom system, and began jabbing the lit buttons that indicated incoming reports. Scribbling furiously on the pad of paper clipped to the board, he handed summaries of the incoming calls to the headmaster, allowing Cid to keep up his monologue of orders.

Nodding his thanks, the headmaster continued. "All ferry pilots, man your craft. Instructors fifteen through twenty, escort underclassmen to the boats!" He grabbed the first sheaf of paper Nida thrust at him. "SeeD team Zulu respond to hull breaches on MD-level decks, sectors three, five, six, eight…" As he read off the list, Cid was vaguely aware that he was ordering the SeeD team to more locations than it had members.

The first scattered students to arrive at the Quad—most still wearing the clothes they had slept in found themselves confronted by a solid wall of heavily armed Galbadian marines. Those who were too inexperienced, too sleepy, or just unable to cast protect spells on themselves were cut down by a hail of bullets as the Galbadians opened fire at close range. Surrounded by arcs of blue light, the few students still able to fight quickly fell back—pulling their fallen comrades up the first flight of stairs and behind the sparse cover afforded by the foliage and new—now overturned—benches of the first landing.

Almost immediately, a storm of grenades showered the beleaguered students. Only the quick thinking of a fourth-year saved them, as her Aero spell blew the hand-held explosives back in the faces of the attacking force. In the tiny reprieve that existed while the Galbadians closed ranks, and began advancing again, a few inexperienced Guardian Forces appeared above the heads of the marines, managing to do little more than singe, chill, and annoy the heavily armored soldiers.

Cid's order to evacuate the infirmary was completed only seconds before the line of defenders was pushed—by Galbadians pouring in through the main entrance—past the side corridor, nearly all the way back to the cafeteria, before the half-dozen blasts of—until now, carefully hoarded—Ultima magic from the experienced SeeDs struggling to hold the main hall, drove the invaders back, allowing the defenders to re-form a defensive line.

Feet spread widely, Xu braced herself as another precious ball of the gravity-distorting Demi magic blasted from her fingertips and careened down the wide hallway leading to the Main gate. She winced as the beautiful tiled flooring shattered under the stresses of the battle spell, but smiled at the way the ultra-dense magic scattered the line of advancing Galbadians like bowling pins. Though she had never been one to enjoy wholesale slaughter of any kind, Xu bared her teeth at the number of Galbadians that still moved after the spell passed. She snarled viciously and ducked behind a stone planter as the heavy-caliber machine gun at which she had aimed the spell began firing again. Exposing one hand, she reached up and slapped the button on an intercom station just above the top of her makeshift shelter. "Galbadian forces are about to take the main elevator!" She had to scream to be sure she would be heard above the din of combat.

Two more shells exploded on both sides of the Garden, bracketing the giant structure. Nida scribbled something in very large print on the next sheet of paper he handed Headmaster Kramer. 'YOU GO NOW!!'

Still giving out orders, Cid shook his head emphatically. "All squads on the main floor, fall back to the garage and board the transports. We are evacuating the Garden." He released the 'talk' button for a moment in order to chide Nida who was again scribbling in very large lettering.

Nida gave him no time, instead, thrusting the headphones at Cid, along with the paper that had 'EDEA' written on it. As the headmaster accepted the headset, Nida stepped up to the public address system. "Send one landing craft around to the emergency second floor exit to pick up the headmaster! Attention, all pilots! Galbadian submarines are at the following location bearings taken from the front of the garden…" Nida proceeded to rattle off a series of two-dimensional coordinates.

Placing the headset over his ears, and adjusting the microphone, the headmaster pressed the direct-link transmit button. "Edea? Where are you? You should be aboard the transports!"

"Cid, I'm with a group of underclassmen. We were cut off from the others by Galbadians. I'm bringing them up to the second floor through the emergency crawlways." Listening to Edea's voice, Cid failed to hear the ripping-fabric sound of the incoming artillery. Suddenly, he felt as if an Iron Giant were sitting on his chest. There was a brilliant white flash of heat and noise.

Cid was lying on the floor on his face. There was a coppery tang in his mouth, and he couldn't seem to catch his breath. Like a fish out of water, he was blinded, deaf, and gasping for air. With horrible slowness, he regained the ability to draw air into his lungs. Dazedly, he pushed himself to a sitting position. Vision slowly returned, but only in his right eye—his left remained dark, was it closed? Cid looked around. He was sitting on the floor of his office, below the bridge. How had he gotten here? He looked up. He could see that the first rays of dawn were beginning to tinge the sky pink through the smoking ruin that was all that remained of the Garden's bridge. Still stunned, Cid shook his head. Hadn't there been a SeeD with him?

Clarity slowly returned to his mind. "Nida!" He wheezed. His was loud in his head—in fact, it was the only sound he could hear. Somehow, someone had stuffed his ears with cotton balls. He placed a hand to one. He felt a warm, sticky wetness running down the side of his face. "Nida…" he began a second attempt to shout, but trailed off. As he turned toward the elevator, he saw a crumpled form, crushed against one of the office's walls by a twisted and blackened iron girder. He tried to stumble over to the fallen SeeD, but had to turn away. Rising to his feet, he had seen what lay underneath the remaining tatters of the SeeD's uniform. Nida… graduated with the most famous class of the garden. Not a phenomenal talent when stood beside Squall, Selphie, Zell, but still, one of garden's top in-house SeeD operatives. Navigator, first class, he could take this garden through spots too tight for a Creeps… now. "Damn." The word rang hollowly in Cid's head. But it's more of an epitaph than some will receive today. And Headmaster Cid Kramer, at last, with this final blow, hardened his heart.

Limping over to his desk, he pulled a key from around his neck—snapping the metal links that had held it there for so many years. Inserting the grooved metal into a hidden slot under the surface of his desk, he twisted the key and strained to lift the heavy mahogany planks covering the desk's hollow interior. Papers that had lain undisturbed through the bomb blast above slid to the floor as the desktop was lifted away.

Rusty from years of disuse, Cid still managed to cast the Curaga spell on himself as he reached into the desk's large hidden compartment. His fingers slid carefully over the razor-sharp blade, across the cruelly hooked spike, down the long metal shaft, and closed around the familiar, leather-wrapped grip. Leaning backward, Edea's knight pulled the Bec de Corbyn from its resting place. Holding the raven-beaked weapon brought back a flood of memories Cid had once thought forgotten, but he had time for none of them. Instead, still limping slightly, he made his way to the elevator. His sorceress would be waiting.

Private Harrison Bearer had not been having a good month. In fact, it had turned out to be one of the worst—and quite possibly last—months of his life. He had thought the garrison post at one of Galbadia's most heavily guarded ports would be one relatively free from danger. After all, both Eshtar and the gardens had been ravaged during the events of the past year, Dollett hadn't posed a threat to Galbadia for nearly an entire century, and North Ricorn was about as patriotic a city as you were likely to find in Galbadia—thus ensuring that there would be no trouble similar to the stirrings of rebellion in the southern provinces.

Harrison threw himself to the floor, pulling the supposedly magic-repelling shield over his body as the dark blast of Demi came careening down the hallway. The shields really didn't work, he had noticed this when a soldier from another squad had been incinerated—shield and all—by a Firaga spell, but the damn thing still offered some small psychological comfort. So much for garrison duty. So much for getting paid just to stay in shape.

Once he believed the magical counterattack to be over, Private Bearer risked a look down the corridor toward the inner sanctum of the garden. Most of the lights were no longer functioning, and smoke blocked the early light of dawn from reaching down to illuminate the murky interior of the massive floating structure. Shoving his assault rifle out in front of his body, he squinted into the dimness, searching for motion. He saw none. Perversely, this was a bad sign, as it meant the squad leaders might call for another charge soon. Harrison grimaced. About thirty men had managed squeeze into the interior of the garden in the last charge before their advance was cut off by an echelon of SeeDs attacking from the hallway to their right. The brilliant flashes of green light that had illuminated the interior of the garden had been testament enough as to their fate. Harrison was not looking forward to meeting a similar end. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he detected motion…

Yes! A diminutive SeeD! He could just make out the gold, blue, and red uniform. Though it would only take a moment for him to aim and fire his weapon, Private Bearer decided that discretion was indeed the better part of valor, and threw himself flat against the nearest hallway wall. Even as he cowered beneath his ineffective shield, his mind justified the action. If it had just been a student… but those SeeDs are bad news! His thought was proven correct a second later as the hallway lit up with three successive bursts of the incredibly powerful forbidden magic; Holy.

Harrison resisted the urge to check if all his body parts were still attached. He had not been in the path of any of the devastating magical attacks. Screams issuing from behind his position told him that other soldiers had not been so fortunate. Once again, risking a glance down the blasted hallway, he saw the same SeeD that had cast the spells dashing madly toward the stairs leading up to—what he assumed to be—the central column of the garden's interior, headed toward a set of elevator doors. Screwing up his courage, he stepped away from the wall. Dropping his shield, he fell to one knee and aimed his weapon at the SeeD's back. He squeezed the trigger.

Private Bearer's first two shots, low and to the right of his target, punched additional ventilation in the bullet-riddled map of the garden's interior that stood before the flight of stairs leading to the elevator. His second set of shots fell wide of the fleeing SeeD's right side. His third volley would have been right on target, had Xu's luck junction not caused the rifle to jam. Harrison swore and worked the action on the gun, ejecting two live shells.

Ignoring the gunfire, Xu dashed up the pockmarked stairs. The dented doors of the elevator slid open invitingly. Skidding on the glass from the elevator's broken fluorescent light, she mashed the second floor button. As she turned to face the narrowing gap between the closing doors, she spotted a lone Galbadian gunman aim his weapon directly at her. The muzzle of the rifle flashed three times. Xu's Protect spell sparked twice. The third bullet spanged off the lift doors and buried itself in the wall of the elevator car. As the compartment rose, Xu slumped against the far wall with a sigh of relief.

Careful not to be last, but even more cautious not to be first, Private Harrison Bearer added his own set of hands to those of the other marines attempting to pry open the recalcitrant elevator doors. Slowly, the half-dozen soldiers forced an opening to the elevator shaft. "Alright! Ladder's on the left! Follow me!" An overeager squad leader—probably just stepped off of the attack boat—shouted as he swung himself into the open shaft.

Private Bearer wasn't the only marine who hesitated to follow the enthusiastic order. A split-second later, the elevator car fell with a grinding screech, putting an end to the squad leader.

"That won't hold them for long." Xu panted. Seeing the dried blood trailing from the headmaster's ears, she shouted and gestured to make sure she was understood. "You should go! They'll be coming up soon!"

Headmaster Kramer pulled his bec de corbyn away from the severed cable. "I can hear you fine." He waved a blood-covered hand toward the hallway that ringed the second floor. "Help Edea get the rest of the children out, I'll hold them here."

Xu almost began to argue, then realized they had no time. "Right." She dashed off.

Cid shook his head. He still couldn't believe Edea had managed to shepherd her group of injured underclassmen all the way up through the service crawlways to the second floor. Neither could he believe the horrendous injuries the stray grenade had inflicted upon the youth. There were more reasons than one why Cid hadn't wanted to leave his post at the elevator.

The headmaster's musings were rudely interrupted by a snub-nosed submachine gun muzzle that poked its way over the edge of the open shaft. As it fired wildly into the air, Cid threw himself to the ground. With surprising agility for a man of his age, he slid forward and kicked the gun from the hand of the soldier below. Rising to his knees, he brought his spear-tipped weapon down on the head of the surprised Galbadian. The sharp end of the bec de corbyn skipped off the side of the man's skull and found its way around his body armor, burying itself between his neck and collarbone. With a cruel twist, Cid caused the raven-beaked blade attached to the weapon's shaft to dig into the man's neck. Even as the marine grunted in pain, the headmaster pulled back on the shaft of the bec de corbyn, using the lip of the elevator shaft as a lever. The force exerted by the headmaster yanked the marine from his tenuous perch on the metal ledge lining the shaft, and he fell, screaming, to his death.

Pushing himself to his feet, Cid prepared for the next attacker. However, instead of a second attempt to scale the elevator, the Galbadians below responded to this new threat by lofting three grenades onto the open-air walkway joining the elevator shaft to the second floor hallway. The headmaster barely managed to throw himself around the corner of the hallway before flying pieces of shrapnel filled space he had just occupied.

Looking up from where he lay—sprawled against the wall of the second floor hallway—Cid beheld his sorceress. Even in the midst of the chaos, even with the blood of injured children staining the front of her dress, even with patches torn from both knees, and her outfit disheveled from crawling through the dark service shafts of the garden, she was a beautiful and imposing figure. During the initial phase of the assault, Edea had managed to slip into her sorceress garb—complete with magic-channeling backing. The network of precious metals and stones had been knocked slightly askew, but Cid knew the powerful array would still assist his sorceress with her spell casting. In the months since she had voluntarily given her powers to Rinoa, Edea had discovered that some residual powers had returned to her. She could cast magic without junctioning herself to a Guardian Force, and she still had the ability to control certain sorcery that was impossible for ordinary magic users to master. All this passed through Cid's mind as he used his weapon to lever himself to his feet.

Passing the opening to the crawlspace in which—Cid knew—a few injured underclassmen still lay, Edea ran to him, and placed a steadying hand on his shoulder. "Cid, get the children out. I'll stop the Galbadians."

Instantly, at the touch of his sorceress, Cid felt his myriad bumps and bruises fade. He shook his head at Edea's words. "No, Edea. I can hold them here. It's too dangerous for you."

Edea placed her other arm around Cid's shoulder and time seemed to slow down. Still my brave little knight. She smiled sadly. You still think you can win all battles with that little stick and that huge heart. Edea wished there were time to shed tears enough for all the injustice of the world. You and your heart were never meant for such trials, my love. She drew her knight into an embrace to end all time. But no matter how hard you hold on, time, it escapes you. You've done everything I've asked of you. You've suffered so many of these; your children's deaths. You've ordered your lover killed, and crushed your own soul for me. Her dirt-streaked face pressed closely into the warmth of Cid's neck, Edea closed her eyes. So I know you can do this one last thing. For me. "My love. Take the children out of here." Take yourself away from here. Edea paused for just a moment, nose-to-nose with her knight, then she felt his familiar lips, his familiar soul, his familiar kiss one last time. One last stab at your strained heart. I pray this does not break it... Without you, all will be lost. "I'll be right behind you." She lied.

Edea's heart leapt one final time, as Cid graced her with that happy, boyish grin from behind slipping spectacles she had fallen in love with. "I hear, and obey, my love." He turned, and she was gone.

Private Harrison Bearer flipped the pin from his last grenade, counted to three, and then lofted it up onto the second floor catwalk. Any excuse, he thought, to not be one of those huddled by the open shaft, waiting to make a second attempt on the garden's upper stories. He waited for the sound of the exploding device. It never came. Instead, the clouds of smoke drifting through the interior of the garden began to turn an unpleasant shade of green—reflecting the light blazing from a point on the catwalk—near where he had thrown the hand-held bomb. Suddenly, the world exploded.

Not the entire world exploded, just the worlds of those Galbadian marines unlucky enough to be standing near the central elevator shaft of the garden. Great arcing bolts of Thunderaga rained down upon the marines pouring through the supposedly secured main entrance, blasting craters out of the crowded walkway and sending broken bodies of soldiers flying in all directions. Like a cylindrical steel dragon, the elevator shaft breathed great gouts of flame that incinerated those waiting to begin the assault on the second floor. The floor cracked underfoot, and impossibly, geysers of hot liquid magma spurted up from the fissures in the quaking ground.

Under these circumstances, Private Harrison Bearer did what any sane human being would—he threw down his weapon, and ran, screaming, for the nearest exit. He was nearly across the infirmary walkway, when a great blast of Ultima erupted from the floor behind him. He felt the shockwave pick him up, then the world became an insanely blurred collidescope of noise, light, and heat.

Surprisingly, Private Bearer's personal nightmare spat him out next to a Galbadian radioman. This wouldn't have been quite so surprising, had the radioman not been missing his head—though his helmet was still firmly seated on his shoulders. Instead of recoiling in disgust, however, a strange calm descended on Private Bearer. He gently removed the headset from the headless corpse's helmet, and carefully dialed in the emergency naval frequency. At the clicking of the open channel, his calm broke. "IT'S THE SORCERESS EDEA!!" He screamed. "SHE'S KILLING US ALL!!" Still, despite the panicked state of Private Bearer's mind, his weeks of training had managed to grind into his head a little voice that told him how to transmit useful information. He proceeded to follow his ingrained training, and screamed out his best guess as to the coordinates of the second floor catwalk.

Three quarters of a mile away, the deck gunner of the GNS submarine, Equus, took notice of the flashing 'immediate' icon next to a set of coordinates that appeared on the screen of the nine-inch gun's tactical computer. As a new round cycled into the breech of the heavy weapon, he dialed the new location over to the targeting system. Squinting out into the light of early dawn, he whistled. These new coordinates were on the garden itself. Up to this point, he had been trying to pin down the illusive hydroplanes that had fled the garden, and were now milling about, attempting to pick off assault boats, while still avoiding the heavy guns of the submarines closer in. "No more big fountains. Time to blow shit up." Maybe the brass had changed their mind about taking the garden in one piece. As the 'ready' light flashed, he jabbed the firing toggle.

One last kid. One last youth, pale with shock but still trying to be brave like a SeeD should. Look what you've done to this child, Cid. No time for self-loathing. Besides, I can't care anymore… Right. You don't care, just like Squall doesn't care.

The last of the wounded away down the inflated slide, Xu motioned for the Headmaster to jump. "You're next, Sir."

Cid shook his head. "Go on, Xu, I'll g—"

A thunderous explosion threw both the Headmaster and SeeD to the ground. Lying on the floor among bits of the mortar and plastic that had showered them, Xu saw the headmaster stagger to his feet. He turned, and was faced a horrible sight.

The naval shell had completely removed nearly a quarter of the second-level of the garden, as well as blowing out a good-sized section of the higher deck. Half the second floor classrooms were gone, the hallway simply stopped in a jumble of twisted steel and scorched tile. The main column of the garden had snapped off twenty feet above the first floor, and the catwalk had simply ceased to exist.

Cid stumbled forward. A voice was screaming Edea's name. He realized it was his own. Still stunned from the blast, he didn't understand what had happened. Where was the second floor? Where was his sorceress?

It was only Xu's Stop spell that kept the headmaster from stepping off of the broken edge of the hallway. A shot rang out from below as she grabbed his stiffened form under the arms, and pulled him away from the gaping hole that had been torn in the garden. Though her magic had frozen the confused expression on Cid's face into an immobile mask, she could see the realization dawning in his unblinking eyes. Xu dragged the headmaster's body to the edge of the escape slide.

Looking back at the devastation caused by the artillery blast instead of at the single tear that had forced its way from Cid's frozen eyes, she shoved him out the hatch. Tearing her gaze away from the awful sight, she watched as two SeeDs manhandled the headmaster through the transport's open doorway. Xu then grabbed Cid's fallen weapon, and prepared to jump, herself.

What's going to happen to us? She dug the weapon's sharp hooked spike into the slide as she descended. Without the headmaster, we'll be lost. She gratefully accepted the assistance of the two SeeDs as they pulled her from the deflating slide. But without Edea… will we lose him?

Chapter 6