*Explodes and dies* @_____@
Geez Louise, I'm REALLY sorry that it's taken so long to get this next chapter up, and I'm even sorrier that it's written from… from… *urk* Rinoa's point of view…! X___X *Apologies apologies apologies* T__T Okay, first things first, before you all pack up and leave: XD This type of chapter will NOT be a very regular occurrence, so don't worry – what I felt was needed though was SOME sort of explanation as to what was going on, and I felt that the best option I had was to show you inside the mind of the enemy. As much as I'd like to resort to Rinoa bashing, *drooooooool* XD I grudgingly decided to be civil… but hopefully, this chapter will help lay out the plans which I have, and will give you a better idea of what's in store for Squall and Selphie… *nod* Also, some of the italics have been messed up during the upload, so where there is bold lettering there are supposed to be italics! ^.^;;
Well, I won't keep you, I'll have some more to say at the end of the chapter… *steps to the side*
One final note – I'll be changing the genre to 'romance' with the next chapter, so don't be looking for me in 'drama' first from here on… just so that you know where to find me! ;) *Steps to the side for real this time* XD
CHAPTER 11 – Enemy of mine:
"SHIT!"
The high pitched shout bounced across and around the bleached white surface of the walls and floor of the cavernous laboratory… and the clean solitude was shattered further as a figure clad in black and blue bolted upright from between crisply laundered sheets, mouth open wide as her lips still curled around the sour remnants of her uttered curse. The rattle of a multitude of wires snaking around her torso accompanied the swish of swept–aside cloth, followed by the hard clomp of rubber heels upon protesting tiles.
"Rinoa! Slow down!" An edgy voice sounded from the far side of the vicinity, sharp and masculine with the air of one who was accustomed to being obeyed. She ignored the speaker, blinking back the roaring pain that was speeding unchecked throughout her unblemished brow. Rinoa squeezed her eyes shut and focused… something within her mind shifted, as though a bottle within her had just been unstoppered… and with a small sigh of relief, she felt the soft and heady rush of blue honeyed healing flowing through her veins, sanding away the sharpness of the pain and levelling it down to a more subdued – yet still irritating – ache.
Opening her eyes again, Rinoa finally felt ready to spare a withering dark glance for the approaching figure of General Caraway, his marching gait checked by the stiffness of the bells and whistles practically adorning his military uniform; with uncloaked distaste, she thought that it was a wonder he didn't chime with the hour… golden tassels tossed across the shadowy silk of his elaborately embroidered tunic, while his coat collar was buttoned tightly around the funnel of his neck, forcing his chin to hover cocked in mid-air at an awkward angle which gave his gaze an unusually upwards vector… surely this man with his stern yet professional aura was a walking epitome of military accomplishment, a man worthy of the title of…
A clown. A mere, military clown caught up in playing Soldier all these years, not even realising where the power lay until now... how could I acknowledge kinship with this idiot? Mother, bless your soul, what the hell did you ever see in him?
The past year had not been particularly kind to Caraway, the grey roots of his cropped mop of heavily oiled hair squirming into view, never mind the pungent aroma of expensive dye that swirled around his ears and shoulders. With a practiced eye, Rinoa noted the more pronounced lines settled across her father's forehead as he paused at her side, deep as trenches scoring a prominent path across the remotest seabed. His tanned skin, baked to a crisp brown in the heated forge that was the nation of Galbadia, seemed paler than she recalled… with some interest, Rinoa peered closely at the chiselled planes of Caraway's face as he leaned forward with paternal concern, and her eyes widened slightly as she spied the faint dustings of tanned powder upon the ridges of his cheekbones.
Oh my, you're vain as a cat alright… even now you can feel the aches in your joints and the creaks in your throat, but every morning, your naked face betrays you to the one person that you would never want to admit weakness to… a Sorceress cannot age, of that you're most definitely aware. It pains you, doesn't it? It pains you to have birthed something as offensive as me, yet you also know that a portion of my blessings is something that you could never share. Nearly two decades of aspiring military conquests, two decades of your life shrivelled away to nothing with the onset of sunspots and silver hair… who will respect you now, father? They will all turn on you, like colts upon a stallion past his prime, evidence of what you were scrubbed clean by evidence of what you've become.
"Rinoa…" General Caraway ventured again with a hesitant catch to his voice. A gloved hand wavered uneasily by his side, as though he were deliberating whether it was such a wise idea to touch the tight-lipped Sorceress seated rigidly before him. Rinoa suddenly remembered why it was that she was feeling extremely put-off, and the heated scowl that she had been previously wearing returned to mar her otherwise finely-crafted features as the memories came flooding back.
"Don't just stand there! Help me out of these things!" she snapped, rolling her eyes in childish frustration. She tore a cluster of coloured wires away from where they hugged against the fabric of her woollen cloak, and with equal force, ripped away another closely entwined bunch from where they encircled her brow like a blue and red tiara. The machinery to which the numerous cords were connected shook unsteadily as the wires were flung carelessly in various directions by a pair of angry hands.
"Rinoa, that's expensive technology," Caraway interjected with a reprimanding tone, stooping to collect the fallen wires almost as quickly as they were being dropped, "We can't afford to have anything here damaged in the immediate frame of time that we've allocated to the Takeover, and I'm sure you're mature enough to realise the consequences should anything be destroyed…"
Rinoa abruptly levered herself off the hard mattress and hit the ground striding, pointedly turning her back upon the General and deliberately scuffing through the tangled mess of cords, scattering them even further with the front of her boots.
"That's enough," General Caraway said, a steely brittleness solidifying his carefully uttered words. He straightened, setting the collected wires in a multi-coloured bundle upon the rumpled bed sheets, and swivelled to face the haughty, retreating form of his infuriating offspring. "You're being purposely difficult, and that's no attitude to take in any sort of military operation, do you understand? I'd hoped that this mission would have… brought us together on common ground for once. You're no longer a girl, a teenager… you've experienced warfare, taken part in it and observed it, you're a hardened warrior for heaven's sake, and a grown woman! Act like what you are for a change, instead of regressing like a…"
"You dare to lecture me?!" Rinoa snarled, pivoting to blast General Caraway with the full force of the fire that was erupting from the black pools of her eyes. Her delicately boned fingers were jammed into two extremely tense balls of blanched flesh, skin stretched tightly across the rolling hills of her knuckles as a reflection of her bubbling indignation. "My motives are not to be questioned, ever! Your stuffy little military games are nothing compared to what I have to ensure, what I have to put up with, what I have to worry about!" Rinoa's eyes narrowed, as though lining her glare upon the sight of a dangerous crossbow. "Do you have any idea what it's like to be me?" she hissed.
"No," Caraway replied honestly and without missing a beat, "But what I do know is that the needs of the state outweigh the needs of the few – that's my duty as a military man, and furthermore, it's not my duty to set my personal needs and wants over what would benefit the greater majority. Of course, that leads me to question exactly how you managed the situation with the Commander of Balamb Garden, and if your personal relationship with the boy had any influence on the proceedings that I strictly constructed for your benefit? If you bear any grudge, this is not the time to raise dispute; any bone you might have to pick with the boy can wait until the objectives of the Takeover have been successfully executed, do I make myself clear? There is far too much at stake for your personal emotions to jeopardise the implementation of Galbadia's latest conquest and…"
Oh, what's the point? Nothing's changed, even after all this time. I'm still a little girl in your rheumy eyes.
An internal shrug of dismissal saw Rinoa's mood switch seamlessly from outraged affront to a blank sort of contemplation, upon which she chose to ride out the wave of the familiar lecture that was bearing down upon her back. It was not very different from anything she had heard before; at the very least, the core of meaning within Caraway's words had evolved very little even over the span of the past few years. Duty, maturity, duty, maturity… now and forever more, Amen. With bored repose, Rinoa turned away from the source of the verbal volley and instead directed her attention to the sight of the awesome pillars, structures and dizzying designs of the city sprawled behind the broad sheet of glass that flanked an entire wall of the laboratory. In the few moments before dawn, the buildings and skyscrapers seemed to rise from the ground like gigantic monoliths, their brilliant range of colours temporarily cloaked in the indigo shadows of receding night. As she gradually filtered out the background drone of her lecturing patriarch, Rinoa wondered if Esthar, in all of its years of splendid isolation from the outer world, had ever known the oppressive darkness to be alleviated only by the illumination of the overhead stars… most of the city's generators were currently dormant, with only the Presidential palace and skystations having the privilege of a continuous supply of energy… had they ever known such a magnitude of quietness, the sort of hush that was the result of the absence of living sound? Beyond that barrier of polished glass was a silent-footed night, a man-made world emptied of its creators, a city rendered… mute. Dead. No, not dead. Death was too final, too feared. Esthar was different.
Esthar… slept.
Setting her jaw firmly in place, Rinoa was only too aware of the tiny, pallid figure strapped to the low bed only metres away, knowing that if she turned her eyes ever so slightly to the left that the very same figure would be mirrored in the shining glass like a mocking double reminder of what it posed… what it posed for Galbadia… for the world… what it posed for her.
That was something that nobody could ever understand.
Rinoa laughed ever so softly underneath her breath, watching the unblemished glass before her face fog with the warm moisture of her exhalation. How to explain… to herself, even? The words could not come, refused to come… an indescribable… feeling? emotion? fear? … of what could tentatively be described as… dread. A dread so chilling, so draining and rancid… that the bare thought alone of bearing the weight of it any longer made her feel incredibly weak in the knees. Not just one feeling? emotion? fear? … rather, a horde, a tapestry of voices whose bodies were long since ash and dust, pitiful fragments of remembrance of those who had once existed but now scrabbled for a hold on the fading memories of the others who had rendered them real…
How to explain… this inheritance?
I can hear them all the time… Sorceresses dead and gone… you want me to remember for you all, you want me to remember what you once were… but dying brings death, death brings such terrible removal, this power we share is all that remains… a never ending daisy chain.
……
I don't want to die.
Rinoa averted her eyes, dragging them away from the window's reflections and onto the safe emptiness of the perfectly tiled floor.
This power… is mine. To keep.
"Rinoa?"
Death will not take it. Death will not take me. Squall, you taught me that… I know you'd never want to admit it, but screw what you think. I won't be reduced to a memory. Nobody understands… what it's like to be hounded for blood, persecuted for what I've been blessed with… how could I stay with you in that Garden of death? Death… everywhere… etched in the words you preached, written in all your precious little dogmas… how could you brainwash people so? Is life so cheap to you after all, Squall, that you must teach others to think the same way? I won't be like the others. I will never submit to the creed of death… but you'd never appreciate my outlook anyway. You'd never appreciate what I'm doing for you, what I'm doing for Ellone. How sad.
"Rinoa? Did you hear me?"
"What now?" she seethed irritably, her train of thought having been untimely derailed.
"I asked whether they called your bluff?"
Rinoa casually flicked a raven lock of hair behind her ear as she brought her mind back to the present. "No father, they did not," she replied a little too sweetly, finally turning her back on the city outside to look General Caraway in the eye. The frown that was plastered on his face did not abate, indicating that he was still far from impressed with the frivolous attitude of his daughter.
"Are you certain? How much optional information did you discharge to the boy? What sort of resistance did he raise? You certainly sounded upset when you pulled out of junctioning…"
Rinoa impatiently waved Caraway's concerns to a dead stop. "Cool your jets… Squall didn't suspect a thing. For all he knows, we could be holding all of Esthar at knife point and…"
It was Caraway's turn to be edgily dismissive. "That's not the most important issue here! Tell me, does he know anything about Ellone's current condition?"
Rinoa's stomach tightened at the mention of that name, while the muscles of her face involuntarily tensed to form a mask of surly displeasure. The General may have fallen prey to the clutches of old age, but his vision was not so far gone to disregard the subtle changes in Rinoa's now hardly forthcoming expression. Instead of responding immediately, Caraway took a moment to restrain his rising trepidations with a mental lash of military discipline, interpreting Rinoa's silence as a disastrous indication of Galbadia's best laid plans going awry before his very eyes.
"Rinoa… please," he began carefully, keeping his eyes trained on a random patch of immaculately sterilised floor. "I've told you time and time again that Ellone is our highest stake, our most valuable bargaining chip… the only card in our hand that could win this city for our nation…" Caraway's voice cracked slightly as he struggled to maintain a guise of an overly calm demeanour. "We can't afford to let anybody on the outside guess what is happening in here. Why do you think I went through all of the trouble to barricade our forces, cutting all of the city's communication lines… essentially alienating Esthar even more efficiently than anything the citizens themselves could have hoped to manage?"
The General paused, trying to take a measure of his daughter's reaction, but her face remained passive while her dark eyes appeared glassy in thought. Gritting his teeth, Caraway stepped forward and took Rinoa firmly by one shoulder, trying to shake a portion of the anxiety he was feeling into her stubbornly irresponsive body.
"Rinoa! Did he guess?!" Caraway practically all but yelled, remembering in the nick of time to pull back his shout as he realised that the troops he had stationed down the corridor were not that far out of earshot.
"You're worried over something as trivial as that…" Rinoa finally said, a tinge of bitter laughter colouring her voice black as it trailed away into ambiguity. With a simple flick, she dislocated herself from her father's grasp and slid past him, her feet gliding along the smooth gloss of the floor as though the surface were coated with frost.
Before Caraway could reply, Rinoa spoke again with a more definite tone. "Squall knows nothing of the truth. He believes Ellone to be in danger, and that's all that matters is it not?" She abruptly stopped before the foot of the bed that lay only inches away from her own, forcing herself to look upon the ghostly features of the deathly pale young woman strapped securely against the hard and uncomfortable mattress.
… but how much did you tell Selphie, you conniving little bitch?
"What you should be more concerned about father…" Rinoa began, pausing as she stared intently at those inert eyes, almost challenging them to flip open to intercept the revelation she was about to utter,"… is what Ellone is getting up to behind the scenes."
The General didn't answer straight away, taking a moment to scratch at his frowning brow and appearing less than willing to be briefed in a military operation by of all people, his own daughter… however, after a few heartbeats of fleeting thought, curiosity and duty seized a hold of him and he finally pivoted on his heels to march across the room in his usual agitated fashion. "What on earth do you mean?"
"I tested her today," Rinoa muttered enigmatically. She did not turn her head even as Caraway joined her at her side, at first appearing to be talking mostly to herself and hardly rejoicing in her tiny victory in their ongoing battle of words and wills. Something stirred in the black pools behind her half-lidded eyes, as though finally conceding to the decision to admit the General into the circumference of her thoughts. "Don't be fooled, father. She may be dying, but she's fully capable of finding loopholes around my barriers, like she managed today…"
"What?!" Caraway exclaimed, his eyes bulging as he whipped his head around to blast Rinoa with the full force of his alarm. "You were only supposed to lend her energy… that was the whole purpose of junctioning you to that blasted machine… what did you do on top of that? You deliberately went against authoritative orders, didn't you?!"
Rinoa still refused to look at him, keeping her face bowed beneath the protective curtain of her ebony hair which was effectively concealing the twisted snarl that was marring her usual girlish visage.
If we were all going by your orders, daddy dear, we'd have been dog food even before getting halfway to this stupid city… and you're enough of a prick to think that all I've done so far was just for kicks? A little girl playing empty games, and Squall, a little boy leading an army of toy soldiers? You think of us as children. That's dangerous. But what's worse is that you also think Ellone is still a child… and if not for me to think otherwise for the both of us, this plan would've blown up in your snooty face a long time ago.
Rinoa was thinking this, but chose not to inject the vehemence that she was feeling into a series of worded barbs, instead opting to remain as composed as a trembling body of water on a windless day. No way am I letting you know how you've gotten to me… I'll let you think the way you want to for now… seeing your face when you finally realise who holds the cards will make it all the more sweeter…
"I've told you already how tapping into scraps of Ellone's powers of traversing distances allows me to boost my own." Rinoa smoothly picked up the remains of her broken sentence, clearly ignoring her father's heated accusation and giving no obvious indication of having been affected by it. "I may not be able to breach the Dreamworld, but I can still pick up traces of what lies inside, even if Ellone is barring the way… today I tested the range and limits of what I can borrow from her… transposing her memories and of those she's currently hiding in the Dreamworld into reality is easy enough with the help of my own abilities. The illusions were not very permanent, but they could be useful in the future as psychological weapons…"
Hide where you will, Ellone. Even if I can't get to where you are, I'll do everything I can to make it that much harder for you to maintain your stupid little Dreamworld… you and Esthar can't hide forever. I'll force you to live yet.
"Fives times I junctioned with Ellone today, and three of those times she slipped around me to… to try to Connect with her heir," Rinoa admitted with difficulty. It somehow felt more humiliating to hear her incompetence structured in words, but with a sudden surge of responsibility, she reluctantly knew that it was best if Caraway had some sort of inkling of what was going on in terms of magic – as a disciple and veteran of the military way, magic was still a force that he co-existed uneasily with, and Rinoa was all too aware of the possible consequences arising from limited understanding on any issue.
If my father with all of his brick headed mentality can bring himself to ally Galbadia with another Sorceress, even after the events of last year… what does that say about you and your precious SeeDs, Squall? Knowing what I was and knowing who I was to you… your Garden was that much more important… and the continued existence of your so-called traditional ideologies which suppress this power that I wield. Oh, I have plenty of leeway to be angry at you… at all of you…
"You stopped her?" Caraway's voice was flat as week-old soda, and he was either not impressed at all by the wily actions of his daughter, the unforeseen pluckiness of the seemingly helpless Ellone, or both. Nonetheless, he prudently permitted Rinoa to continue her explanation.
"There was no real need to, on my part at least," she replied, finally adverting her gaze from the pallid girl before her and idly picking at a fastidiously filed nail. "Try as she might, she's far too weak to establish any sort of Connection outside the Dreamworld for as long as she continues to hold it together. What I'm more concerned with though is that she's still trying to juggle the two tasks anyway…"
Caraway visibly tensed. "And is that contributing to the burning out process?"
Rinoa did not lift her gaze, as though half afraid to admit the truth. "Sort of," she compromised. "I'm lending Ellone energy, just like we decided…"
'We'. Keep that in mind, father. You're not making the sole decisions here. Nothing is done without my approval first, and you know it.
"… but she's using at least ninety-five percent of what I give her to strengthen the barriers she's set up around the Dreamworld, and the remaining five percent to try to communicate with the outer world. She's set on neglecting herself…"
Why are you so determined to die? Fool.
"Then that has to change," General Caraway said with a steely edge to his voice, crossing his arms in the small of his back and settling into a stance as stiff as a newly starched shirt. "Find a way to re-direct the energies, force-feed her the stuff if need be… do whatever it takes to preserve the girl until the heir arrives, using anything at your disposal – I will not tolerate failure. I'm certain anyway that you've realised that in the worse case scenario, I cannot guarantee your safety should anything happen to this girl before the appointed time arrives."
The thinly veiled threat cut itself along Rinoa's ears like a dull, blunt blade and she glowered heatedly at her infuriating father as he glanced briefly first at Ellone then flicked his eyes curtly over his daughter's head, completely oblivious of the scope of her underlying feelings. "It's dawn," he observed as he turned on his polished heels and marched briskly towards the door. The conversation had ended in an unusually abrupt fashion, possibly due to the onset of bad humour on the General's part or maybe the incessant nagging of an empty stomach. "Rations will be distributed in thirty minutes. We'll stand on ceremony with the troops."
"I'm not one of your soldiers," Rinoa whispered ominously beneath her breath, the words fanning against the long black tresses that were draped around the circumference of her face. Hot air rushed past her tiny lips, a heat that paled in contrast to the bubbling temper that was frothing within her bones, making her skin crawl with scratchy heat.
From the far right of the room came the sound of parting air and an accompanying creak as the laboratory door swung open. For a split second, a gap appeared in the previously sealed boundary between the awakening palace and the cold, sterile room… familiar sounds, muffled in texture but still recognisable, eagerly traversed the temporary breach and brushed against Rinoa's hearing. Voices, soft but distinct, the rubbing of cloth against leather and the usual thumps and bumps of groggy humans… sounds which the morning brought apart from the usual sunshine and crisp autumn air.
Now… a world apart.
In the time that it took for Rinoa to formulate a blink, the squeak of rubber soles and the metallic chorus of clustered buttons announced General Caraway's departure, the cloud of noise which wafted around his animate form being snuffed like an extinguished candle with the swish of the door. The heavy steel panel clicked into place, swallowing the sounds that emanated beyond, clamping down with a sort of finality upon the rift that had bridged the world of the laboratory and the outside for a sprinkling of mere moments.
Rinoa turned to glare at the now closed door as though it were a greatly offensive individual. "I'm your daughter," she hissed, her ears straining to pick up on the receding steps of the General as he forsakenly left his child to carry forth an impossible bidding…
"I'm… I'm a Sorceress!" She spat with a swell of indignation, "I'm a woman!" The childish stamp of a foot which followed threatened to reveal the hypocrisy of that remark. Rinoa hugged her clenched fists close to her body, as though fearful that they would start throwing punches of their own accord.
"So… why don't you treat me like I am?!"
And what if I don't want to stay here, flogging a horse that might as well be dead? What if I don't want to play your stupid war games? What if I can't do anything to stop the bitch after all? What if I fail at everything you've expected me to succeed in? What if what if what if…
A rasping laugh erupted from Rinoa's throat, the humourless peal echoing around the scantily furnished room and thus clashing back against her ears with twice the dripping mockery.
What difference does it make if I win or lose? You don't view me as an equal. You never have. Oh, I'm your daughter all right. I'm a Sorceress. I'm nothing but a woman… or a girl, as you still see me… girls aren't soldiers. Not to you, anyway. I've figured that much out. But really, what am I to you father, apart from those things? A child? A tool? The end of your military inheritance?
Rinoa shook her head.
In your eyes… I'm a disappointment.
With a surge of shame, Rinoa felt hot tears prickling ominously behind her tightly shut eyes but fiercely shook them down from whence they came.
"Same to you, father…" she murmured as she mooched back to her wire-strewn bed, "Same to you…"
Believe what you want. I'll turn the tables yet… a Sorceress is no puppet to be pulled. A Sorceress does the pulling. I'll show you. You'll find no reason for me to disappoint.
I'll show you.
Ignoring the less than comfortable protuberances of the cords scattered across the sheets, Rinoa clambered upon the rickety bed and laid herself down, curling herself into a compact ball against the chill of the room which was settling on her immobile body. The drumming of the blood pumping through her ears gradually settled, paving the way for tendrils of silence to flood her hearing with waves of white noise. She did not close her eyes, instead looking directly ahead at the rise of a milky shoulder, the limpness of a tawny mop of hair where the closely cropped strands hugged the barely visible curve of a sunken cheek…
… but most importantly, the vaguely audible rise and flutter of a strapped and buckled chest…
Do you really think they'll understand, Ellone? Do you really think they'll understand why you wish to die? You're only fooling yourself, thinking that they'd let you go… Squall will probably be on his way to save you as soon as he recovers... how funny it'd be if he knew that's exactly what I want from him…
Breathe in…
It pains you to find yourself on my side, doesn't it? You don't want to see Selphie dead anymore than I do… the tests I forced you to take today are proof enough of that. Keep it up, darling… together with Squall, the two of you should see Selphie safely home… though judging from the resourcefulness displayed today by the ditzy little heir, she'll be sure to keep herself in one piece of her own accord…
Breathe out…
… and nobody has to die.
Rinoa closed her eyes and snuggled into that comforting thought, a small smile of genuine happiness hovering over her lips for the first time in days. Even the throbbing ache emanating from her temple, the sort of ache one might feel if they had just endured a tremendous blow from a shaft-like weapon, could not dampen her lifting mood.
Ellone would live yet… and so would she.
* * *
Okay, that's all out of the way for now! *Kicks Rinoa aside* Ahhh, that felt good. XD Like I said before, I'm sorry that it took so long to get this out, but uni has been keeping me extremely busy (my subjects this semester actually require me to do work, damn it =P), and I've recently been up to my armpits with oral presentations, in-class tests and three essays due literally one after the other… @___o;; My speeches are over, and my essays are due next week so methinks I'll have a bit more time to keep on writing! *nod* I've already started the next chapter, so that's a good sign at least… ^.^;;; Now then, a couple of words from our sponsor! (Looooong overdue words) O.O;;;
Aeris Deathscythe – Hey, thankyou for reviewing again! Lol, and I can see where you're coming from about the confuzzling, I have a tendency for my words to run away with me a lot of the time… O__o;;; ^.^;; I'll be trying to cut my sentences down in the future, it's important for essay writing too…! ;)
AmyAngel – thankyou for reviewing, and sorry about the cliffhanger! =P As you can see, Rinoa's gotten a good whack on the head through Squall, so I guess Karma works, eh? ;)
CTHSKI – I'll be trying to avoid cliffhangers in the future… but I can't promise that 100%! XD By now, Selphie's gotten all cleaned up and ready for another chapter, and I reckoned it was sorta fitting for Squall to have a windy limit since he's named after a storm! ;) *Either that or he had too much baked beans* XD XD Okay okay okay, too much information… O.O;;
The Almighty Pickle – Woohoo! Thankyou for reading the whole story, and I'm really glad you liked it! *cheers* Can't say I'm too fond of Squinoas either, though I just skirt around them… ;) and don't worry, I'll be keeping this up until the very end! *Swears*
Karla3 - *doink!* ^__^ Thankyou for the compliment, I'm glad you liked the last chapter, confuzzling and all! :D 'Hope to see you around!
Zero-Vision – Bless you, first groupie of mine! ^_~ *Raises a glass in a toast*
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Coming up next: What was going through Squall's mind as Rinoa swallowed him whole, and what awaits him and Selphie with arrival of a new day? Solo sdventuring sill be starting VERY soon! And remember – there will be a genre change to 'romance' with the next chapter! ^__^