All For One OLD

by Luna Manar

Facing oneself is not always easy, and sometimes the purest love takes on the form of our darkest nightmares. UNFINISHED

5. Dogs of War

V

Dogs of War

--

"Can you be forgiven?

What you see is all a dream

All I ask you is

'Are you still alive?'"

--

            The world had not seen blue sky in three years. It turned on its axis with the relentless perseverance of a wounded soldier, covered in the red of its own gore, ignoring the aching weariness, the festering wounds, the feverish heat that surrounded it and devoured it from the inside. What little sunlight did breach its diseased atmosphere served only to intensify the burning, slowly cooking the planet in its own juices. It was an embattled world dying, writhing through orbit, trudging steadily toward its final destiny. Soon enough, the sun would fail to pierce the aggravated ozone, and the land and sea would gasp their final breaths. The failing light cast lengthening shadows across the blood-choked world. The deepest of the darkness fell upon Balamb Garden.

            From the shadows came the wolves.

            They were creatures born of suffering and despair. Hairless, oily black flesh covered their gaunt forms, blood-red tongues lolling dryly between unnaturally sharp, chalk-white teeth. Ardent fury gleamed a pale violet within black, hollow expressions—sockets with no eyes but translucent, glassy bulbs. Sickle-shaped nails sprouted from powerful paws like hungry thorns. Cruel smiles yawned, products of nearly lipless mouths; the taut skin joined at a grotesquely askew angle just above the cheekbones as if someone had split the flesh with a razor.

            Demonic howls joined the chorus of battle sirens, tortured cries of joy signaling the hunt had begun.

            -Find the sorceress child,- demanded the sexless voice of their master. -Bring her to me!-

            One male wolf, alone in a corner, was larger than the others and a jewel among his brethren. His sleek coat of onyx black fur and a dark red crown of a mane melted flawlessly into the shade of a potted plant. He tilted his nose to the ceiling, seeking guidance from his god. The slick indigo sheen of his depthless eyes intensified with anticipation, but he was wise enough to be sure of his orders. And the Sorceress herself?

            -If you find her, kill her if you can. But Daedalus, do not waste time. All you encounter will resist you. Show no mercy.-

            Bowing his head in acquiescence, the wolf lord burst from the shadows of the hallway a moment later, startling two unfortunate teens—students, by their uniforms.

            There was no time to scream.

            He finished it quickly, knocking down the first student and tearing her throat out before she could utter so much as a startled cry. The second, a boy of the same age, attempted to pull him away from the dying girl, only to have his arms pass through the wolf as though it were not there. Daedalus twisted around at an impossible angle, snatching the boy's shoulder in very solid jaws and hurling him head-over-heels to the floor with the fluid skill of a seasoned wrestler. The boy managed a brief cry as the wolf's fangs tore loose of his flesh, a voice that was cut short when he hit the floor, breath knocked from his lungs.

            Those fangs made certain no other sound would ever be uttered from that throat.

            The wolf lord moved on, padding down the dormitory hallways, a dark whisper of death. Come forth, my brothers, he sang, the telepathic call echoing silently throughout the Garden, let the hunt begin! Be silent, strike quickly; accept no surrender!

            The answer came to him not in words, but a pervading wail from no specific direction, and at once was everywhere, filling every hallway, room and courtyard. Dozens of voices rose to his charge, and from the shadows, spawned by the darkness, leapt his pack, his army.

            They appeared not in any one place, but anywhere shadows were numerable. As Daedalus galloped through the corridors, here and there a single wolf or a pair would join in behind him, and together, black souls rejoicing, the pack moved, tireless. They saw not a man-made construction around them, but shadows of forgotten forests, wraiths of snowdrifts and spectral crags they had once thought of as home. When they hunted, all was as it had been in those days of legend. They ran together, one mind, one spirit, one entity.

            They ran together toward the central lobby of Balamb Garden. They left nothing living in their wake.

*

            Simon was growling.

            He did not fear the strange, yet familiar spirit hovering over his fallen mistress. He had never feared Squall. He had been angry at the ghost for changing without reason, but that was all. Even when Rinoa had shown her forgiveness, he'd been reluctant to release his grudge so simply. Now, however, all that was irrelevant.

            Squall was being a nuisance. Through Rinoa, Simon could sense the ghost's confusion, and the shepherd's ears pricked in alarm; if Squall did not stop thinking so loudly to himself, he would attract them. Simon could feel it; they were already here.

            It was too late to help Rinoa. She was exhausted, more exhausted than she had let on. The turmoil Squall had put her through, and the shock of so much magic cascading down around her from the spell that had darkened the sky had been too much. It would be minutes yet before she would awake.

Minutes, Simon knew, that could mean her death, if he did not protect her.

Without her, he was only a dog. But he was flesh and blood, and at least he could put that much between Rinoa and the shadowy abominations that stalked out of the shadows of the trees and underbrush.

The first hairless, grinning wolf rocketed from a patch of shrubs and lunged at the inert sorceress, wasting no time in its intent to kill. Simon reacted with lightning swiftness, with a running start, sprang over Rinoa and planted himself firmly between her and the fiend. Caught by surprise, the shadow wolf brought up fast, confused by Simon's sudden appearance and uncertain what to make of it.

Simon snarled and snapped at the wolf, making every attempt to convince it he was fully capable of doing it serious harm. For a moment, the creature seemed to buy the act. Then its friends arrived.

Four more wolves, all silent as the shadows that birthed them, stepped onto the cobbled path. Simon knew then his life was over, but he'd be damned before he'd go down without a fight. Strafing to his right, away from Rinoa, he snapped at the lead wolf, drawing the pack's attention. He heard the mournful howling begin in the distance, a signal to all the wolves infiltrating the Garden that the time for battle had come. These wolves joined the terrible song, their heads thrown back in unholy oneness, not fearing any vulnerability, for they had none. Even Simon knew they could only be harmed when caught by surprise, when an attack was unexpected and a wolf forgot its unity with its pack. Only magic had any effect on them in groups, and even then they were resistant to it. They always attacked in groups.

The lead wolf finished his song. His pack fell silent. They all stared at Simon with empty, soulless eyes.

Once more, they howled, but this time, it was at Simon.

Simon braced himself, preparing for what he knew would come next. The air around him seemed to thicken to a palpable goo, making breathing a strenuous labor. Space became heavier; he sensed himself being pulled inexorably toward the ground. Spots began to obscure the edges of his vision. He felt slightly dizzy. Still, he stood his ground, prepared to fight to the death in three times normal gravity.

One by one, his enemies—the humans called them demiwolves—attacked.

He met the charge of the first wolf, successfully grappling with it, keeping its razor-sharp teeth away from his throat. They landed instead in his shoulder. He did not yelp. To do so would show weakness, and the demiwolves fought harder when they sensed weakness. Twisting to try and avoid the jaws of two other dogs, he wrestled with the first, trying to push it to the ground so he could use the leverage to pull his shoulder free of its fangs. He ignored the remaining two wolves, which stood aside and continued the gravity-intensifying wail.

He countered the immortal wolves' mad rage with his own focused fervor. He maneuvered his main adversary to the ground, yanked his shoulder free, and spun, snapping, snarling like a demon himself, fighting to appear unaffected by the warped space around him while trying simultaneously to back out of the howling wolves' short range of influence. Get away from the heaviness. Lead the bad dogs away from Rinoa. That was all he thought.

The three demiwolves pounced on him again. He was unlucky; one of them bit his right back paw. He went down under a chaos of darkness and bloody fangs. His muzzle hit the ground three times harder than it should have, dazing him. He was vaguely aware of a throbbing pain in one tooth, but that was overwhelmed by the rending agony of three sets of fangs tearing greedily into his flesh.

A rush of hot wind wafted past him, singeing his fur, followed by an explosive force that nearly blew him back onto his feet. A blinding light, like the sun before the sky was red, forced him to close his eyes. The gravity field dropped. He was light as a feather. The demiwolves had momentarily scattered. His vision cleared. Stumbling only once, he got to his feet, holding his injured paw off the ground. He faced a semicircle of growling demiwolves. One of them was barely alive, half of its face burned away, the remnants of its left arm dangling uselessly at its side. Horribly, the beast continued to stand up, fleshless gums baring blackened fangs.

But the wolves no longer appeared at all interested in Simon. They were staring somewhere behind him, above him.

Simon crooked an ear at the sound of footfalls at his side. They were not Rinoa's light, airy steps, but softer, heavier. He was surprised to note they did not echo in the dome-shaped aviary.

Squall stepped in front of him. The demiwolves as one backed up. One whimpered and was instantly slaughtered by its packmate. The dead wolf faded away, melting into the ground until it was only a shadow. Like an ugly bruise, the shadow faded to purple, then green, and then was gone completely.

Four demiwolves remained, and they faced the silently advancing ghost as he were an angry mountain lion, not giving any ground, but unsure of their power to take any back.

If they were hoping for a standoff, or to intimidate him into retreat, they were disappointed.

*

Squall had never liked paramagic much. He was good at using it, but if he could kill his enemy with a gunblade and his own strength and skill, he would save his magic for more practical uses, like protecting himself against it.

Now he was thanking himself for conserving so much of it, and thanking the cloud for allowing him to retain his remembered stock through the transition into this haunted world. Watching Simon fight the demonic wolves, Squall had tried to help, figuring the worst that could happen was his magic wouldn't work at all.

Not only had the flare spell worked, it had apparently granted the shadowy creatures the ability to see him; an unexpected plus he might use to lure them away from Rinoa if he could not destroy them. Whatever they were, they'd proved impervious to Simon's teeth, which had seemed to pass through them without harming them.

Squall did not assume he himself was safe from them, ghost or no ghost. He too had been chilled by their howls, and there was a sense of unholy power about them, as if they were undead…or somehow worse, if it was possible. Something told him they were not, and so he decided not to try any life-giving magic on them in case it did them more help than harm. Instead he went with what he'd already proven to work; light and fire.

He hurled another flare at the first dog to attack him. This wolf caught the explosive spell squarely in the chest; the ensuing crest of piercing light and consuming heat neatly vaporized the wailing animal.

The remaining three wolves rushed past him, and with a curse Squall realized the first attack had been a distraction. He whirled to find the wounded Simon standing protectively over Rinoa's unconscious form, facing three fast-approaching adversaries. They're making a suicide run, Squall realized as he prepared and threw another flare. They'll kill Rinoa if it means they have to die to do it.

He was able to destroy two wolves before the last one—the one with the burned face—reached its destination, barreling forward despite its limp. Simon met the beast head-to-head, and to Squall's astonishment the wolf was forced back; suddenly, Simon's teeth were finding purchase. The two powerful dogs, both crippled from their wounds, scuffled in the dirt. Finally, an agonized yelp pierced the air.

Simon, torn, bleeding and minus his top-right canine, stood over the dead and quickly fading demiwolf. There was no blood on his muzzle that was not his own. The shadow beast, its neck broken, was gone in seconds.

Just long enough to cast one last, spiteful spell.

A nearby fir tree shivered as a thin arch of electricity jumped from the ceiling light fixtures and struck the dry branches. Sparks fell from the impact point, smoldering needles trailing smoke as they tumbled to the ground. The parched air fed newborn flames that quickly consumed the top of the tree. Falling branches ignited nearby ferns and dry ground nettle.

Squall tried to throw a water spell, only to find he had nothing to target. It was as though the fire was not there. Confused, he tried again, again with no results.

Frustrated, the fire spreading with frightful rapidity, he tried to think of a way to move Rinoa that did not require touching her. Though he'd been relieved to realize her collapse had been a result of exhaustion rather than any direct influence on Ultimecia's part, the effect was the same. At the rate the fire was growing, if the heat did not kill her soon, the smoke would. She was still senseless. There was no hope of waking her up in the next five minutes.

He heard a scraping sound and turned, fearing another regiment of dark wolves. That would be just his luck. But to his surprise (and slight embarrassment), while he'd been busy worrying, Simon had taken the liberty of grabbing Rinoa's collar in his teeth and was now dragging her toward the door. Having the use of only three out of four paws made the task exceptionally difficult, but Simon did not give up. Squall again attempted magic—first to try and heal Simon, then, when that did not work, to float Rinoa and ease the dog's burden. But as with the tree, neither spell had any effect. Puzzling and frustrating as it was, Squall could do nothing but stay with them and watch as the flames and smoke began to fill the glass enclosure. A window shattered somewhere, allowing at least some of the smoke to filter out and giving a vent for the flames to follow that was, thankfully, not in Rinoa's direction. But the time it bought was minimal. Squall was forced to content himself with making sure no other shadow wolves appeared to hinder Simon's slow progress toward the exit.

The smoke was soon so thick, Squall was hard-pressed to see anything at all, much less watch out for any marauding demons. He did not need to breathe, nor could he smell the smoke, but he was nevertheless overcome by a phantom urge to cough. At first he passed off the sensation as a psychological response to the sight of so much smoke, but it did not take long for him to realize that it was not he himself, but Rinoa who was having trouble breathing. She was still unconscious, but her body was already straining for adequate oxygen.

Simon's back bumped against something. Squall saw flames not ten feet away. His eyes widened as the dog nudged open the glass door.

Flames rushed forward to consume the sudden flow of fresh air. With a final epic heave, Simon yanked Rinoa through the door and free of the fire.

Squall could do nothing but follow them out into the open. Simon, his strength waning, dragged Rinoa a few dozen more feet and finally released her. Stained black with soot, panting and wheezing from smoke inhalation, he laid protectively across her inert form and began to bark hoarsely, over and over again, a peculiar, plaintive note to the sound.

Calling for help, Squall realized, a suspicion that was confirmed a moment later as five armed SeeDs came running, some looking as though they'd already seen a few battles in the past few moments.

With a flurry of efficient single-word commands and silent signals, the SeeDs carefully lifted Rinoa—and then Simon—and carried both the unconscious sorceress and her dog toward the Garden's central dome, signaling all along the way for other SeeDs to tend to the flaming aviary they left behind.

Having nowhere better to go and no inclination to leave Rinoa's side, Squall followed them all the way to the infirmary.

*

Commander Dane had been about to take his leave of the bridge under the pretense of using the facilities when the sky had darkened. The thought of checking on Rinoa—incognito, of course—left his mind, or at least stepped aside to allow more pressing matters to barge through to the front. Thankfully, his subordinates were either too preoccupied with the sudden crisis to remember his alleged business with the men's room, or they were kind enough not to question him about his supreme bladder control under fire.

Nida, on the other hand, felt quite ready to piss in his pants.

So this is how it all sums up, he thought through his internal panic as other bridge officers shouted warnings and epithets. It's the beginning of the end of the world, and I'm the pilot of a floating military school. Am I the only person who sees the sick humor in this whole situation? He heaved back on the rudder with a practiced arm, strong enough to drag the Garden to a short stop, but not so sharply as to throw every last person standing off their feet.

"Incoming!" Ary cried, turning and pointing to a multitude of dots gaining form on the aft horizon.

"Creepdrakes," warned the relief tactical officer, trying unsuccessfully to keep her voice from shaking.

"Come about!" ordered the commander.

"I should've been a quantum physicist," muttered Nida. He eyed the fast-approaching creepdrakes with contempt, obeyed Dane's orders with a calm deftness so genuine, he almost convinced himself he wasn't scared out of his mind. At least then I'd think I understood why everything goes to hell, and even if I didn't, I'd be too crazy to care. Anyone who messes with time is crazy, right?

The war sirens began to wail. Nida was finally unable to ignore the traffic jam of sheer and utter panic he'd been trying to keep at bay. Complacently wheeling the Garden about to face the oncoming air invasion, he firmly closed his lips around his clenched teeth. This is it, we're toast, look at allthosebastardshowCOULD it get any worse!

Of course, as always happened when Nida made the mistake of asking himself that question, things got worse. Much worse.

"Commander," announced the relief tactical, "word from the infirmary—no, the training cent—the quad…sir, demiwolves! They're everywhere!"

Even Nida's eyebrows raised at that one. The demiwolves only appeared when Ultimecia was very near. He dared a fearful glance over his shoulder.

The commander's face was grim. "Ary," he hailed, "turn on the lights. All of them."

"If I do that, we can't use the burn cannons—"

"Do it! Every last one. I want the Garden shining like a star."

Ary did not argue.

Nida stared bleakly at the nearing creepdrakes. It was a huge flight, larger than any he'd seen. He wondered if the Garden was ready to take them on. He wondered if he was ready. Yep, definitely should've been a soccer coach.

Commander Dane had the intercom. "Attention. This is Dane. Battle imminent! To your stations! All junior trainees, report to classrooms six and seven. A-squads alert, incoming enemy! Scramble! Scramble…"

*

Garden's response to the attack was instantaneous, efficient, and deadly.

            The SeeDs and demiwolves were no strangers to one another. They had fought for long years, and they knew each others' weaknesses like old rivals. The scores of demon dogs overrunning the hallways and springing from shadowed corners attacked everything in their path with lethal fervor. For a few moments following their surprise appearance, they appeared to be unstoppable apparitions.

            The whole of Garden knew better, and it was only a few moments the demiwolves retained the illusion of omnipotence. The SeeDs did not waste time on weapons. No wounds of the flesh would hurt or hinder the abyssal warriors of Ultimecia's dark legion.

            The aura and flash of magic showered every embattled room and hallway, clawing at shadows both mundane and supernatural. Demiwolves howled their battle cries and wailed their pains. The SeeD caught isolated from his fellows was instantly set upon from all sides; the wolf who found himself cornered was just as powerless. Either side took casualties, but the dead demiwolves did not bleed or leave behind bodies to discourage their comrades. Their enraptured souls returned to the servitude from whence they came; they were Ultimecia's flock, black sheep in wolf's clothing.

            He was their shepherd.

            He hung low in the red murk that obscured the sun. Anyone looking up from below would see him as nothing more than a roving spot of ghostly luminescence in the clouds, like the pale reflection of a searchlight.

            He scoured the Garden as diligently for a target, taking little notice of the insects of SeeD and demiwolf alike that scurried and clashed in plain sight of his deadly powers. He did not waste those powers smiting insignificant pests one by one. His instructions were contrary to such overzealous use of energy, and the location of his prey was far more important to him than a few random SeeDs. He had only three targets. Daedalus was busy taking care of one, possibly two of them now.

            This was the first of the final assaults. It would be both telling and intriguing to see how it played out. No doubt, Garden would fight back this first wave, but that had been planned for, and how many lives would suffer for it? He decided his respect for his enemy would be gauged by how long it took them to fall into despair. If they fought to the last, he would be most impressed. Most impressed indeed. He hoped they would. There was no greater pleasure than that of watching the mouse struggle in the trap until its inevitable, final throes. SeeD had proven to be quite a challenging rat.

            As he'd predicted, upon the creepdrakes' approach, hatches opened on either side of the besieged Garden. One at a time, streaks of pure white metal—bloodied blades in the gory sunlight—rocketed from the open bays. Like a swarm of angry hornets, they came about, bristling with the light of charging weapons, the lone reminders of Esthar's dead glory.

            The watcher in the clouds felt his spirit swell as he remembered that wondrous victory. Esthar's technology, so modeled after that of the ancient Centra, made the country mighty; but the souls of its residents were weak. The war Ultimecia had waged against them had been a battle of hearts and minds, a battleground upon which weapons of material power were useless. Notwithstanding their attempts to bring her down with fire and force, his mistress had turned their strength against them. She did not break Esthar's military defense; she did not even try.

She didn't need to. She broke the people, instead.

Her magic had twisted madness into the sturdiest of Estharian souls. Nightmares and delusions claimed the city, and within days of Ultimecia's psychological assault, Esthar had crumbled. She broke their minds, broke their hearts, and at last, their spirits as well. Without wills to guide their weapons, they were harmless.

It was their own weapons which had obliterated the nation of Esthar.

Ultimecia claimed the fallen capital as her own. Only the souls of the dead resided there, now, and they were hers to command and manipulate, an army of despair that grew stronger by the day. Though these spectral legions were useless as weapons in her crusade against the living, for disembodied spirits had no influence over the living world, they served their purpose just as well, fueling her power with their ethereal energies. Now the time had come for her to eradicate the last blade of resistance raised against her. Of the world's remaining nations, Galbadia was the last to fall. SeeD was the last army to contend with. Balamb Garden was all that remained of SeeD.

            So he swung lazily on wings of pale blue energy, watching, waiting. Below him began the opening number in a final dance with death. The dozens of fleet little fighters spawned from Balamb Garden's belly assumed formations and raced to meet the arrival of the creepdrakes. The cackling horde of shadowy, draconic forms shifted, and like a school of demonic piranhas converged on the leading formation of shining silver.

            But even as the watcher felt satisfaction at seeing the first of the Garden's Air Defense Force fall from the sky, something gave him pause, something he would not have expected would give him pause. It was just a cloud on the horizon, dark and forbidding as any thunderhead. However, it was out of place, and this bothered him. He was a master of weather, could control any formation in the sky, and for a cloud—any cloud—to be out of place, it must be a danger somehow. He sternly commanded the wayward cloud to dissipate. It refused. Or, more accurately, it utterly ignored him. His powers had no effect on the strange, distant mist. It was as if the cloud did not exist at all.

            Pondering this enigma, he decided to take the matter to his mistress. When his knowledge failed him, her word was his ultimatum.

            Invisible eyes closing to the unfolding mayhem below, the watcher returned to the void from whence he'd come, home to his only better, his only love. In parting, he called on one of his subordinates to take his place.

*

Squall braced himself as the Garden rocked from what might have been an impact, and twisted halfway around to stare out the infirmary window as something large rushed past. He didn't get a good look at it, though it might have been black, and he thought his eyes picked up the trailing end of a reptilian tail.

            He did not ask himself what was going on. He'd been in the middle of a melee too often to be confused by the chaos of war.

            The infirmary was so busy with medic crew, Squall was finding it difficult to tell which, if any of them, were in charge. He hadn't seen anyone resembling Dr. Kadowaki—in fact, he had not even looked for her, assuming that she, like most everyone he knew, was absent from this Garden.

He gave the infirmary one more cursory glance-over, taking note of who and what was where and why. Simon had been taken into a back room out of sight—and out of the way, Squall imagined—and Rinoa placed on one of many cots that lined the walls of a room that was quickly filling with injured soldiers. Her ailments were minor in comparison to many unfortunate patients; some were dragged in missing limbs, others had to be carried by their fellows because their bones had been crushed by a combination of demiwolf jaws and gravitational magic. The entrance to the infirmary was quickly developing a welcome mat of blood, as more victims were ushered along an identical path of pain to the waiting repository of flat beds and IV lines.

The medical crew was many times that of the Garden Squall had known, and the infirmary itself had been expanded; no longer a simple clinic designed for the likes of mild concussions, broken bones and sprained wrists, this was a well-oiled medical facility, complete with operation and recovery rooms. The Quad had been annexed to allow for more space; the infirmary was now large enough to handle dozens of patients.

It was becoming increasingly apparent to Squall that despite the apparent lack of change in décor, the similarities between the Garden he'd once known and the one he knew now were superficial at best. Balamb Garden of his memories (dreams? He wasn't certain anymore) was a fairly well-run military school campus that also served as a "base" for SeeD.

            This incarnation had ceased to be a paradise and was now a refuge, a fortress under attack. When the war sirens had sounded, it had erupted in an organized chaos of activity like a disturbed ant nest. SeeDs and cadets alike rushed about their duties with the practiced, even hands of battle-hardened veterans. Everyone, young and old, had a job, a purpose when war was upon them. There were no students in this predatory citadel, only soldiers.

This Garden nurtured no pansies. Its flowers had fangs.

Squall would have liked to be one of them now. He was used to assessing a situation, deciding on a course of action, and then executing whatever directive he deemed necessary for the circumstance. It was a requirement that all SeeDs be able to think and act quickly in a crisis. The problem with this crisis was that he was an agent of it, the catalyst, if not the cause. He knew how to conduct himself to implement a solution. He had no idea what to do now that he was part of the problem.

So he did nothing at all. He just watched. He hated every second of it.      

Aware of the bustle and sense of urgency surrounding him, but unable to affect any physically tangible object, Squall had plenty of opportunity to think, but no way to act. Again and again, he thought of what he might do had he believed his presence made an ounce of difference to the world. Again and again, he was stopped from taking any action by the fact it would make no difference at all. Over and over, the reality of his own ineffectuality washed over him, dealt him blow after blow until he felt certain he would crumple under the battering. He crouched by the slim platform of a bed Rinoa now occupied, not because he thought doing so would bring him any closer to her but because he simply hadn't the will to stand.

            This is hell, he thought angrily to himself as the floor bucked again. His unseen scowl tried, once again ineffectually, to penetrate the mind of the unconscious sorceress on the bed. For the first time he could remember, he didn't see Rinoa when he looked at her. He looked beyond her, as through an empty glass, seeing only fractured images and twisted memories through the opaque lens of her spirit.

He didn't know her. He didn't know how to know her anymore. Like this world, she was too far away, out of reach there on the table before him.

He shuddered, clutching his forehead in one tormented hand. This is what it means to feel hopeless. Always there, but not really, a world where no one believes in you, you want to cry out but you don't, what difference does it make shouting if no one can hear your voice! His hand balled to a fist, he wavered slightly, as if dizzy or weak, caught himself on the edge of the bed that held the Rinoa he didn't know. I can't take this… His mental dialogue trailed off, strangled by a new and cruel realization: I couldn't take this. I folded when I was faced with these odds. Without her, without hope…I broke. This is what drove me insane!

This has already happened!

Shaking, oblivious to everything but the overwhelming sensation in his dead heart that was not quite pain and not quite peace, just a cold, numb disquiet, Squall barely took note of the howls coming from somewhere nearby, beyond the infirmary walls.

And it's going to happen again…it will if I don't…

Do something. Do anything. But what could he do that would have any meaning in a world where he did not even exist?

The floor shuddered again, derailing his train of thought. This time the tremor was a familiar one, followed by the peculiar lifting sensation beneath his feet as the Garden raised itself out of the surf and over dry land. Beleaguered though they were, they had arrived at the Galbadian continent. Squall shot a glance out the window again, more to get his bearings than out of any care for the scene it framed.

He froze, unexpectedly transfixed. Flashbacks of a certain painting from Ultimecia's gallery flickered in his mind's eye, unwanted, but unavoidable. Numbly, Squall thought he could even recall the painting's name.

Ignus…

The archaic word for fire.

Outside, fire flashed in a red sky, strange craft Squall had never seen before—though they looked Estharian in construct—buzzed through the smoky air, chasing demonic shadows, like the silhouettes of dragons, living nightmares of some Ultimecian design. A ball of orange flame hung low, choking on the bloody atmosphere. But it was the ground below that drew his attention, and a mound of dusty earth that was growing in size as the Garden passed it. From this distance, it was hard to tell the size of the hill, but it had to be decently large to be so clearly visible.

Like a cancerous tumor, the mound swelled, and the earth around it began to crack. From the wounds bled fire.

A tortured, ear-piercing scream rattled the walls. So loud was the terrible noise that it was impossible to say from where it had originated. It hardly mattered; the chaos that followed in the wake of that scream was far more substantial than the scream itself.

Incorporeal though he was, even Squall blanched at the violent eruption of fire that burst from the sore of the earth, reflexively raising his arm to shield his face from the blazing debris that flew from the exploded fissure toward the passing Garden. Only a few small pieces struck the Garden's steel hide, the impacts ringing metallic and menacing. Molten fragments bounced harmlessly off the armored windows, but a few then fell to the yards and balconies of the lower levels—upon who or what, Squall did not care to imagine. Even if he had, he would not have been able to. He was too busy staring at the creature that had emerged from the flaming fissure. Below, a small volcano oozed the planet's fiery ichor, spitting flame and sulfur and ash, burning the already scarred and lifeless ground. From the lava floes emerged a huge, serpentine form, molten flesh black and cracked and glowing magma-red from within. Hot-coal eyes blazing with ardent rage, the bitter nightmare of a beast writhed and shrieked in mad, burning fury.

Squall's eyes narrowed. I should have known…

            It had been a passing curiosity he'd filed away for later, a question he'd planned to ask Rinoa at the earliest opportunity, then promptly forgotten. It had seemed important, but less so at the time than trying to patch relations with his sorceress. What had happened to the Guardian Forces? Now he knew. And, he thought resignedly, he should have seen it coming.

            Rising up out of the flames, spreading charred, tattered wings to the red sky, was the twisted phantom of what once had been Leviathan.

*

            Daedalus urged his army forward, through the painful glare of Garden's cheery lighting, toward the upper levels. He'd hounded the sorceress child's scent and followed it to this hallway.

They'd swept through the Garden's main floor like liquid, a black wave that frothed red. Nothing had challenged the dark tide of demon dogs and survived. Smaller packs harried the enemy throughout the Garden, distracting and confusing, that Daedalus might encounter less resistance on his hunt. Twenty wolves at his back, he paused on the landing just below level two, tipped his nose to the air and breathed.

            A large, hairless brute of a demiwolf padded to his side. Bloody tongue lolling, the creature's violet eyes glinted with wicked curiosity. Savoring the smell of fear, Leader?

            Daedalus snarled and met his subordinate's question with a token snap of his fangs. Fool. I would not postpone Her mandate for my own pleasures. The enemy is near. Haven't you noticed these stairs are strangely empty? They know we are coming. They are ready to meet us.

            Chastened, the lesser wolf lowered his head in submission to the Alpha. The light is bright, and the shadows few and pale. If they have a plan, we would be at a disadvantage.

            Daedalus flattened his black ears, but said nothing.

            I could go, and find another way, while you wait, the hairless wolf offered.

            No! Daedalus denied with a curl of his black lips. Only together are we many, he asserted, holding his head higher as he repeated a sacred mantra. The wolf who fights alone is few, and the few are weak. It is the destiny of the weak to die. We will fight as one, and together, we shall not falter.

            As if in answer to the hymn, an earsplitting shriek cut the air. The restless wolves shuffled and whined, laying their ears back. A sharp order of silence from Daedalus forbade any of them to howl at the acute noise.

            The firesnake rises! Exclaimed the big demiwolf by his side. What now, Daedalus?

Undisturbed, the Alpha wolf settled calmly on his haunches. When the scream had faded away into echoes, he turned a glowing stare on his bald and grinning counterpart.

We wait, he said.

*

            Through boiling air warped with heat and violence, the firesnake rose like a hungry flame while the sun took refuge behind a wounded and distant horizon. He was the brightest thing in the sky, glowing amber and red. His flesh, black as tar shot through with lava veins, snapped and popped, spitting tiny flares and spraying clouds of embers and ashes with every twitch of his serpentine body. The dry-kindling sound of his bones grinding against each other echoed through the brackish skies. His tormented, hissing screams joined the hellish chorus of war and death. He coiled angry patterns in his own fire, the misbegotten child of misery and Ultimecia's magic.

            He had no memory of what or who he had been before this life of sundering agony and burning hatred. He knew only that venting his rage upon the enemy brought momentary relief from the pain of his ever-cracking dry bones and offered some solace from the unquenchable anger. Floating mid-air in the twilight heat, he targeted the huge and comparatively cumbersome Garden only a few hundred meters away. He snorted a yellow cloud of sulfur. He was not allowed to incinerate the cold, ugly metal construction, at least not yet. Wreak havoc, was the edict from his master, but do not destroy.

The fleet of fighter ships, responding to the danger of his abrupt appearance, abandoned their war with the creepdrakes in favor of him, dozens of the swift craft converging on his position with weapons blazing.

            His narrow eyes flared white hot as he felt his power build. The ground far below began to sink, a cauldron heralding another imminent eruption. Jagged beak gaping in a ragged hiss, he  snaked slowly upward in preparation, a vertical wave rising on the thermals, stopping to hover level with the retreating Garden's upper floors. Once-graceful fins, now blackened and tattered, spread like skeletal wings. The serpent twisted his body into a fiery ampersand.
            He hardly felt the hundreds of energy blasts that cascaded over his face and wings. The energy was cool to him, like rain. Moments before, the shots might have startled him, forced him to deal with the pesky ships before he could concentrate on focusing his power. Their efforts came just a little too late; he was already charging, the growing thermal energy shining through the canopy of his cracked scales like the rays of a cursed sun.

            Even the Garden's bold fleet was mindful enough to pull out of their attack when Geoleviathan threw his head forward and screamed.

            The ground shifted, rippled and roared as a fault line broke, stone crashing against stone. The collision pushed up the dry rock, and a small crag of blasted earth rocketed skyward, dripping lava and scattering ash. The tip of the peak stopped just below the burning serpent, who screamed again. At his command, the ground at the base of the crag split, spitting fire and magma.

            One more scream, and the blood of the earth spilled out, as if an artery had been cut.

            Reveling in his power, the twisted Guardian guided the flow. He spread his smoldering wings to the sky; the rushing lava left the ground. Wings of liquid fire unfurled, rising like a tidal wave out of a molten surf. They crashed against the stern of Balamb Garden with as much ferocity and rushed under the golden halo to cook the air beneath, poisoning it with sulfur.

            Garden shuddered visibly and listed to one side; the floe had targeted the rudder and engines. Viscous lava oozed down the hull, leaving behind glowing, melting trails, or cooled and fell away, taking scraps of weakened metal with it. Clouds of unbreathable gas rolled over the lower levels, strangling the exposed yards and balconies. The Garden leaned a little further to the side as the aerial battle between the SeeD fighters and creepdrakes resumed around it with renewed intensity.

            His attack spent, the serpent paused, heavy breaths yellow with sulfur, smoke and dust cascading from his parched throat. The Garden had stopped its retreat and now appeared crippled, and he was overheating. It was the one vice of his inexhaustible power; if he expended too much energy at a time, he would meltdown, and destroy himself.

            The fighters seized the opportunity to strike at him. Once again breaking off the battle with the creepdrakes, they flocked en mass to the resting Guardian, though the enemy was not far behind, the more immediate concern of preventing the monster from recuperating pushing the lesser threat onto the back burner—which wasn't much cooler. The limping Garden was by no means defeated. Though one of its three engines smoked and a small portion of its golden circlet was damaged and blackened, it had not ceased fire upon the flitting creepdrakes, and with its allied fighters out of the way, there was no confusion to stay a well-trained gunner or arcane hand. Magic and fire from turrets of Estharian make trained on the retreating shadows and let fly with merciless abandon, felling dozens of the creatures in one pass. Noting their tactical mistake, the creepdrakes broke off their pursuit of the fighters and focused again on the Garden, leaving Geoleviathan to deal with the silver, blue and violet-hued gnats.

            The Guardian hissed menacingly at the approaching danger and stabbed his glowing beak at the first ship to reach him, swatting at another with his molten tail. He considered retiring from the melee, burying himself in the ground until he had the opportunity to cool…

            No!

            A sharp voice in his mind and a shank of pain in his brain made him tremble, banishing all thoughts of escape or surrender. No, he would simply have to pace himself, he supposed, avoid the little annoyances until he had a chance to use his power again, until he could breathe. In any case, remaining still would not do him any good. He had to move.

             With a screech of defiance at the flashing, flitting, stinging blue and violet lights dancing about him—just out of reach out in the absolute darkness beyond the glow of his body—the serpent slithered away from their fire, quickly picking up speed. The comparatively cold night air against his charred flesh bit him with its chill, but it served to cool his core. Shrieking at the ships and stabbing at them with his sword-like beak, he danced around and through them like water between shore rocks, striking some like the tide, slipping between others like sand. All the while, he edged away from the Garden, hoping they might think he'd forgotten about it, hoping they would forget he wasn't alone…

            When he'd reached the shore, he vanished in an explosion of vapor beneath the red surf, and in a few freezing, torturous moments, emerged again, black as night and prepared for his next assault.

*

            Garden, having just managed to right itself again, was ill-prepared for the massive projectile of molten flame that struck, once again, from behind. The vengeful meteor was hurled from the black sky of the ocean.

            They were lucky; the aim was off, and the blow was a glancing one, but Commander Dane held fast to the back of Ary's chair as the bridge rocked violently with the impact. A low roar, like the grinding of giant, rusted gears, prompted him to turn and stare at the wall behind him, as if he could see through it to examine the damage to the floating campus.

            "Idiots," he muttered, meaning the strike fleet.

            "Aft generator is out," Ary reported mechanically.

            "Well, crap," Nida exclaimed over his shoulder. "Ary, doesn't that one power the dorms?"

"And the primary school and the daycare rooms, that's right."

"Good night," said Nida, in earnest.

            Dane shot a frown at Ary. "Daycare?" His mind raced. Simone… "Contact the flight squad captains," he ordered after a brief, stricken silence, and continued to speak, his words coming faster, his voice getting louder with the urgency of his commands. "Bring half of them home to the creeps, and tell them to stay on task this time! Tell the other half to keep that snake busy, buy us some time if nothing else. And get that power rerouted. Nida, take the mic. Divert all odd-numbered SeeDs to level 2 and call Sheena to replace me. It's her call on the squadrons once she gets here. I'm going down to the daycare; I can be more help out there than I can in here. Do it!" He snapped when Ary turned to protest this last announcement.

            Confident his words had been heard and trusting the bridge crew to carry out his orders regardless of their own opinions on the issue, Commander Dane took the lift down, leaping the last six feet before it had reached the floor, and rushed across the room, almost cracking his elbows against elevator doors that wouldn't open fast enough. Once inside, he mashed the "2" button, muttering impatiently as the elevator seemed to crawl down its shaft.

            The Garden shook as if something huge had impacted it. The elevator swayed, thudding against the sides of the shaft, throwing Dane to the floor. Metal groaned. A warning light flashed on the control panel. Something large cracked against the bottom of the car. The lights winked out, and the elevator shrieked to a halt.

            Swearing savagely, Dane pushed himself to his knees and shook his head, trying to throw off his disorientation as the emergency lights clicked on, flooding the car with a weak orange glow.

            He raised his head to gaze into a pair of cold, colorless eyes.

            -Hello, Commander Dane,- greeted a resonant voice that seemed to come from all around. -We meet again. I have been sent to deliver a message to Garden.-

            *

            The battle with the thing-that-had-been-Leviathan was lost to Squall's eyes, but he could hear the shrieks and watched the people in the increasingly crowded infirmary thrown hither-thither as the Garden suffered the brunt of the creature's assaults. Some thoughtful medic stood by Rinoa's bedside, keeping her from falling, but Squall was too enraptured to feel any gratitude for the fellow's help. He leaned against the shaking wall, his knees bent, arms pressed flat against a surface he could not feel. Head tilted slightly back, he watched impassively as the world spun obliviously around him.

            His eyes, half-open and glazed, strayed to Rinoa. Over and over, he beat on the doors of her mind, begging her to open up, to acknowledge him. He received no answer but silence. She either could not hear him, or would not respond. But he kept trying, mechanically, holding no hope but giving no ground, dead and yet dying still, his soul withering a little more every time he cried out to be heard and the resounding silence in his heart insisted: Nobody's home.

            Sitting there, watching her, ignorant of the chaos surrounding him, he might have been content to let his resolve bleed away until he was hollow, let the torment leak out with his soul until there was no pain left to feel. But he did not let it go. He held onto the anguish, held onto the hell of his nonexistence. He coveted it now, for he knew that escaping the torment by giving into the numbness would only force on him a worse fate. It was the only torture he could think of that would surpass the pain of his ineffectuality. He'd known the truth of it the moment his hand had passed through Rinoa without touching her, without feeling, and she'd driven that truth home with the declaration that he could never, ever touch her or anyone else that way again.

            The only thing worse than this suffering was not being able to suffer, or feel anything at all. Not being able to hurt, or bleed, or die, and wanting to. Emotionless, and conscious of the fact. That was what happened to the other Squall. He'd sacrificed everything—even his soul—to save Rinoa and Simone. He was no longer capable of caring because he was truly dead inside.

            I'm not dead, this Squall repeated to himself, closing his eyes as the sound of a nearby explosion thundered through the walls. I'm still alive, and I don't want to give up everything. Not for Rinoa, not for Simone, or anyone else. Once you sacrifice it all, you have nothing left to surrender. You're useless. You're dead. I'm not dead. I'm still alive…still alive…still here, no matter what anyone else thinks. I'm still here. I'm not dead. I'm not dead!

            A loud bang echoed through the room. Something fell and shattered on the floor. Someone shouted.

'I'll stay right here.'

There was a scream.

            I'm not dead.

            An alien voice, a grunt, like a dog sneezing.

            Not dead yet.

"The sorceress! They're going for the sorceress!"

            Not yet.

            "Someone protect Rinoa!"

        Now!

            Blue eyes snapped open. At first they saw only darkness, but then the darkness moved, revealing it had shape and substance, and a wicked canine face turned to sneer fangedly, the cruel violet gaze widening in a sickeningly human expression of surprise.

            Die!

            As if obeying Squall's command of its own volition, the demiwolf who had been ready to leap upon Rinoa's unconscious form and render the cot her deathbed, itself fell to the floor and died, struck down by a death spell.

            Squall stood up, slowly. He narrowed cold eyes on the remaining trio of demiwolves forcing their way through the medics. The horrified SeeD personnel could do nothing to stop the creatures without risking collateral damage; any spell they possessed strong enough to take out a demiwolf could potentially kill a nearby patient as well, so packed was the infirmary with wounded.

            Squall smirked cruelly. They could do nothing. They were irrelevant. Ineffectual.

            Not me.

            He walked out into the narrow hall between the rows of beds. Stepping over the dead body of the helpful medic as if he could have tripped over it, he turned to face the wolves, raising his left hand to touch his brow with the tips of his fingers. The demiwolves saw him, and for a moment, they paused, each studying his strangely fearless expression with unease.

            Staring back at them with the concentrated look of one who is simply doing his job, Squall contemplated what would be the quickest, easiest way to dispatch the things. Apparently he was the only one in the room with the forbidden magic of Death. The options he toyed with now were practical, tactical ones; he hadn't much left of the spell. He could risk attempting to target all three at once, or try to hit them each individually. If even one spell failed, if even one of the dogs got past him, he wasn't certain he'd be fast enough to keep it from reaching Rinoa.

            In the split moments he had to decide, he turned the question over and over in his mind, examining the position of the dogs, their size, estimating how fast they could move. Not unlike the Lion he had once been, he sized them up, analyzing the best way to kill each. By the time the lead wolf overcame its trepidation and lunged for him, he was ready to act.

            He side-stepped the first wolf and aimed his hand at the one furthest away, throwing the spell. Die, he thought. The target died. He whirled on the lead, "decoy" wolf before it had a chance to turn around from its lunge. It, too, died without so much as a whisper.

            In turning, he'd put his back in the path of the last wolf, ready to let it pass through him and smite it from behind once it had. The demiwolf leaped. It crashed into him head-on. It knocked him over. They both went down in a tangle of startled limbs, paws and hands. To his shock, Squall felt the beast's jaws close on his left arm, felt the teeth penetrate and felt pain follow.

I'm not dead!

As the snarling wolf gnawed his arm, its fangs cut into his soul, shredding the fibers of his spirit as easily as they would have flesh. More stunned than injured, Squall froze, his arm holding his attacker at bay, staring dumbfounded into the beast's triumphant purple eyes.

Not...what am I?

            Then that wolf, too, fell dead, its jaws going slack and releasing Squall's arm as its soulless body slumped to the floor and melted away into a puddle of fading darkness.

            Petrified with shock, his torn arm still held out in front of him, Squall jerkily turned too look up over his shoulder at Rinoa, who sat on her cot, her finger pointed to the place where the wolf had once been. A deep and trembling sadness cowered in the deep dark of her gaze.

            I'm sorry I took so long to answer.

            Nida's voice over the intercom interrupted any further conversation.

            [All odd-numbered SeeDs report to level two! Blockade section six, primary education area. And hot-foot it, people, the power's out in there! Sheena, we need you up here, stat!]

            Rinoa's eyes widened. "Section six…Simone's daycare is in section six."

            Squall was staring at the inside corner of his jacket collar, where his identification number was printed in a clear, serif typeface: Student ID 41269.

Odd-numbered SeeDs.

"I've gotta get up there," he murmured tonelessly.

Rinoa was already on her feet, pushing away concerned medics without even looking at them, ignoring their confused questions about who she was talking to and demands that she should lay back down until she recovered. The people did not exist to her. At the moment, Squall was the only living being in the room, and she mentally beckoned to him. "I have to find Simon," she said. "We're going to need him."

Clutching his injured arm, not bothering to look at the wound to see if it bled, Squall followed her, passing through people and beds without thought or care, and the lack of opposition allowed him to catch up with her at the door. "Simon's hurt," he informed her simply, without feeling, as if he were telling her bricks were hard. He could not feel anything right now. There was too much to feel, too much to say, and there was no time to feel or say any of it. "He's in the back room. He got bitten by one of those things—"

"Demiwolves," Rinoa told him. "Ultimecia's minions."

"Yeah, I know."

Rinoa spared a very brief glance at him before she opened the door to the "vet room," as it was labeled. Having already anticipated Rinoa's arrival, Simon limped out the door the moment it was opened, his injured foot wrapped in a blue-taped bandage. Sneering, annoyed no one had taken the time to heal her dog, Rinoa stooped beside him and hurriedly pulled the wrap off. "Simon can take them as long as I help him," she muttered nervously as she dared to waste time and magic in healing her furry partner's bloody paw.

"How can they see me?" Squall asked, eyeing the gathering semicircle of SeeDs and medics around them. They all watched Rinoa silently, but seemed unwilling—afraid—to come any closer or say so much as a word to her.

"I don't know," she answered, unfazed by the audience. "They've never paid attention to you before."

Probably part of the bargain, Squall groused darkly to himself.

"What?" Rinoa looked quizzically up at him when she was done with Simon's paw, her eyebrows knit in a frown.

"Nothing," he lied. "I'll tell you later, if there is one. Let's get out of here."

Rinoa was in no position to object. In answer, she blinked. Before the bewildered eyes of the medical crew, She and her dog and the invisible person she'd been conversing with vanished from the infirmary.

            *

            Daedalus' regiment was ready to strike when the lights went out.

            They surged forward out of the stairwell the instant after the darkness fell. A wall of SeeDs stood ready to meet them, but their human eyes had been momentarily blinded by the sudden lack of light. Daedalus made the best of this advantage, slamming headlong into the first SeeD, knocking her backward several feet into a formation of her squad mates, two of which fell with her, cascading to the floor like bowling pins. The rest of the wolves struck with similarly deadly efficiency, toppling as many of the enemy as possible to the ground where they could be easily dealt with. Wasting no time, Daedalus pinned his first victim to the floor and bit into her throat, choking off her last shout—an order.

"Fire!"

Magical fire exploded in the hallway, all around, blinding, dangerous. Daedalus closed his eyes to the painful glare and maneuvered by sound and scent alone, grabbing unprotected arms or hands in his steel-trap jaws and dragging SeeD after SeeD to the floor to slaughter. He took a few hits from their magic, but he was a strong wolf and he weathered the pain and singed fur, pushing inexorably toward his singular goal: a closed door at the end of the hall. He slipped through their weapons without a scratch, disappearing into the deep shadows beyond the edges of the glow cast by the emergency lighting. He was soon joined by four of his brethren while the rest of the pack kept the SeeDs busy. War was all around them; a wolf yelped and fell burning to the floor just feet away. Daedalus ignored the whimpering of the dying creature and turned his attention to the big wolf he'd spoken to earlier. Keep to the walls as I do, and try not to be seen. If I am spotted, kill anyone who tries to get near me.

The big wolf pricked his ears in acknowledgment.

Guardedly, Daedalus slunk along the wall, toward the door. He could only remain unseen when he was in shadow. The shadows near the door were thin and he could not keep his entire body within them, and the flaring of magic all around threatened to expose him should someone look in his direction at just the right moment. He came to a halt at the end of the shadow. There was a ray of emergency lighting between where he stood and the door.

He tilted his nose up to the light. His violet eyes flashed. With a loud pop, the light blew out, the bulb exploding as the box that contained it was crushed under the pressure of Daedalus' magic. Shadow encompassed the door. Every nearby SeeD turned at the sound, and hurried to get to it before the wolves did, some at the cost of their lives. Daedalus was already there, his guards surrounding him, shielding him. He focused on the door, crouched before it as if ready to catch a bone it might throw. His eyes, burning alien and wide, took in the door's shape. In his mind, he saw great jaws close upon the unseen edges of the door and crush down. With a heavy groan, the door began to warp, stress lines streaking the metal. It was a heavy, armored door. In any other time or place, this would have seemed an odd feature for a daycare center.

Daedalus heard shouts and cries further down the hallway, and felt elation swell in his heart as his moment of triumph neared. His reinforcements had arrived. The SeeDs were now surrounded. Where there had been twenty-some demiwolves, now there were nearly fifty. A second ring of guardian wolves joined the first four in protecting him.

One final magical shove, and the doorway crumpled under Daedalus' grip, metal screeching in protest as it was folded double and yanked out of its frame. The door fell inward onto the floor of the lightless room beyond, and Daedalus rushed in, bounding up on top of the twisted lump of metal. His four companions followed him, fanning out at his sides as the rest of the pack kept the SeeDs away from their own door.

Daedalus' ears pricked, his head raised as his eyes scoured the room. The hair of his scruff bristled.

Leader, came the voice of the big wolf, no one is here.

Daedalus growled plaintively, taking a step forward, sniffing the air. They are here, he insisted firmly. We simply cannot see them. They are hiding. Quickly, spread out. We must find her before—

"NOW!" cried a muffled female voice.

All at once, five child-sized doors opened in the smilie-faced tree trunks painted on the brightly-colored walls. Half a dozen gleefully grinning young faces poked out of each door. A flurry of clicks followed the creaking of the doors.

Light. Terrible, piercing lances of bright, white light shot from the hands of the children, who raised their voices to a shrill wail, each doing his or her absolute best "ghost" impression.

"WooOooOooOooOooOooOooOoo!"

Some of them waved high-powered flashlights around, creating a confusing strobe effect, giving the wolves no permanent shadows in which to hide from the painful glare. The others wielded portable floodlights which they kept trained squarely on the dogs, who blanched and whined, closing their eyes and flattening their ears against the hideous glare and noise.

The sound and the light distracted the guard wolves outside the door. For a moment, some of them forgot their position, and fell to a well-aimed spell thrown from SeeD hands. One of Daedalus' four partners yelped and backed out of the room, its hairless tail tucked between its legs, and bumped into one of the door-sentries, startling both and resulting in their deaths; they were suddenly dragged away from the door. Sounds of vicious snarling could be heard, as though they fought. But neither wolf returned from the scuffle. The silhouette that appeared in their place did not belong to a wolf at all.

Daedalus and his remaining three chosen turned to face a red-eyed dog that was nearly as big as Daedalus himself.

"It's Simon!" A little girl's voice cried from one of the tree trunk doors. "He's come ta help us!"

Other small voices echoed the sentiment.

"Go Simon!"

"Get 'em Simon!"

"Beat up the bad dogs!"

"Sic 'em!"

Simon sicced 'em.

He rushed into the light, which reflected sheer and cold off the edges of pure, ice-white fur, lit up burning red, pupil-less eyes and shined off silver-white fangs. The children did not think his transformation strange. They had seen it before. They knew what he could do when he turned white.

Still crazed and half-blinded from the light, two of Daedalus' guardians rushed the oncoming dog, howling their gravity spells, and he moved in to meet their challenge. Their dark magic diffused over Simon's fur like water splattering against a brick wall. He burst from the dissipating darkness and hit the ground running, striking the first wolf low and making short work of it. The second did not last much longer against his slashing silver teeth.

The big wolf by Daedalus' side faced Simon with his leader. Daedalus, while pained by the light, had no intention of backing down, not when he was so close to his goal. He whispered a spell, encasing both himself and his loyal guardian in a shield of green—just in time for some SeeD who had managed to escape the fray in the hall to toss a ball of flame at him—a spell that was reflected directly back at its caster. Daedalus had the satisfaction of hearing the fool scream as he was seared by his own attack.

White moved first. Simon struck at the black wolf, who dodged him deftly, his partner attempting to get behind the white shepherd dog as Daedalus backed off and tried to lure him toward one corner of the room where the flashlights seemed to be having trouble reaching. Sandwiched between the two big wolves, Simon snapped at the hairless one that harried him, trying to get in a quick kill; anything less would give Daedalus the opportunity to attack.

He got his chance. The hairless one made a lunge too soon, and Simon was on him, had snapped the creature's neck in a matter of seconds, and was still able to turn and face Daedalus before the still-living demiwolf could make a lunge for him.

Daedalus was not there. He was already halfway across the room, arrowing for one of the tree trunk doors, heedless of the light that burned his eyes. Simon rushed to catch him. The children in the trees began to scream. Daedalus' attack snarl carried above their cries.

He slammed into a wall of solid blue energy.

One of the children's' caretakers, a woman in SeeD uniform, reached out an arm and pulled her half-dozen charges a few inches back from the door's opening as Daedalus, stunned and dazed from impacting the protective barrier, staggered to his feet, turning just in time to meet Simon head-on.

The two were an even match. A tempest of fur and fangs, the white shepherd dog and the black wolf tore at each other furiously, each landing blows but neither suffering from them; both combatants' wounds healed instantly upon being inflicted. Light versus shadow, they tumbled and wrestled through the beams of white and black, neither gaining or losing any ground. Simon's burning red eyes and Daedalus' of eerie violet left trails of afterimage in the air as the two spun and grappled.

The distant rumble of a giant engine starting up vibrated through the walls. There were cheers from the trees; the bright ceiling lights cascaded to life as power to section six was restored.

Daedalus closed his glowing eyes, unable to stand the glare any longer. He struggled to keep up with his adversary without having to see him. He wondered where the rest of his pack was and why they weren't helping him. Upon these doubts, he began to feel pain; his would were no longer closing. He heard footsteps, human footsteps, come through the doorway and start to run across the room—

The floor dropped out underneath him. Blessed darkness closed around him, and the world vanished. An edged voice, iced with disappointment, buzzed terrifyingly in his ears.

You have failed. Playtime is over. Kome home, Daedalus.

Then he was falling through the atmosphere.

                                    Falling…

                                                                                    Falling…

                                                                                                            Falling…

Burning.

*

When Daedalus disappeared, so, too, did all the demiwolves, as well as the creepdrakes and Geoleviathan. It was as though they'd been mirages, nothing more than terrible figments of the imagination, nightmares come to haunt the land of the wakeful.

Nightmares that killed.

Squall looked about at the carnage in the hallway. Dead and dying SeeDs—as well as some who were not SeeDs—lay strewn about the corridor. The floor, balustrade and walls were spray-painted with blood, accented with scorch marks. A doomed youth leaned against the wall in the corner, one hand trying desperately to keep his own guts from spilling onto the floor, the other clutched tightly in the comforting grasp of a trembling comrade who refused to allow his friend to die alone.

            When he does, Squall thought, remembering Rinoa's words, Ultimecia will steal his soul and use it to fuel her power. He watched with an empty heart as the youth's eyes glazed and closed forever. He wondered what it would be like to die believing that the only life, the only existence after death would be hell. He supposed he should know.

            He remembered a time he hadn't believed in an afterlife. He still didn't, not really. His perspective on the matter had simply changed, but his philosophy remained the same: The End meant the end. Then it was over. There was nothing after the end. That's what "The End" meant. What was questionable was whether or not there really was an end at all.

Standing in the gore bedecked hallway, amidst shattered lives and broken dreams, Squall was beginning to think that dying was a choice, rather than a fate. Though he did not breathe and could not touch, he was still here. He was here, standing beside Rinoa, staring into a ransacked daycare center as Simone escaped her caretakers and ran to hug her dog. He was here—feeling—because he'd chosen to be. The other Squall would have felt nothing at the image he witnessed. He wouldn't have felt sadness. He wouldn't have felt hope. He'd given up. He was dead.

Squall had once loathed the version of himself that had once haunted this reality. Now, he was beginning to understand what had driven him to his doom. What he couldn't understand, was why.

If I defied Ultimecia, why didn't he? Am I just kidding myself? I've only been here a day. Am I just as doomed?

Bleakly, he looked on as Rinoa hurried through the doorway and plucked Simone up, hugging her desperately, smudging soot on the little girl's face in the process. Simon was gradually shrinking, reverting to his normal coloration as Rinoa's magic wore off. He nosed Simone's feet, but she was too busy protesting getting her soot-stained face cleaned by her mother's nervous fingers. Squall thought it odd at first, that she did not cry, so close had she come to losing her child to the fangs of Ultimecia's demons. But then, why should she, he reasoned. She faced that danger every day. Stranger, then, that he, a SeeD who was used to the risk that came with facing mortal danger on a regular basis, thought he felt his throat tighten. If his body had been living, he imagined he would have been forced to look away to hide his eyes. Instead he was allowed to watch Rinoa reunite with Simone without fear of soul-betraying tears. He wasn't certain if this privilege was a privilege at all, or this reality's idea of a sick joke.

His face tilted in a bitter smirk. If his life as the Lion of the alleys had been a tragedy, it was not inconceivable that this could be a sort of divine comedy.

Squall dared to step into the room then, leaving the bloody hallway as a small army of medics and some helpful trainees rushed in to assist the wounded and count the dead. He stepped slowly over to the center of the room to stand behind Simon—who was being showered with affection by a number of grateful children—as Nida's voice announced over the intercom that all was clear; the enemy had vanished. Wherever they had gone, it appeared that, for the moment, they were not coming back. Of course, no one was to assume as much. SeeDs stayed at their posts. So Squall stood at his, in the middle of a room that was quickly filling with children and soldiers. It occurred to him that most of the children were probably orphans, thanks to Ultimecia's reign of terror. Amidst the strange collection of people, he stood with Rinoa, Simone, and a dog, not quite the nuclear family, but probably the closest thing this shattered world had left.

He looked at Simone, but his words were directed at her mother. "She all right?" He asked tonelessly.

Rinoa nodded, almost imperceptibly. She's fine…thanks to you.

Squall raised an eyebrow at this, but decided after a moment that she was right; if he had not interfered with the demiwolves, they would have killed Rinoa, and if she had died, Simone would likely be dead, as well. Or worse…

He remembered, suddenly, his arm, and took a moment to look at it as the SeeD who had been protecting the daycare emerged from the tree trunk door and came to speak with Rinoa and gather the children away from Simon, who was interested only in his family and doing his best to ignore the backward petting of small hands. Ignoring them all, Squall squinted at the torn leather of his jacket and the ragged rip in his unliving flesh beneath. The wound bled; not blood, but a flame-like energy that rose up and tapered off like liquid smoke. Squall watched in morbid fascination as thin tatters of his spirit, ember red and amber, drifted off into nothingness as if blown away by a gentle breeze. He sighed and let his arm down just as Rinoa, having finished her conversation with the SeeD, saw him. Her eyes widened when she caught sight of the glowing injury. Squall, your arm—!

Squall waved her concern away with his good arm, glancing around the room. "It'll heal. If you wanna talk, we'd better find another place to do it. Once the excitement dies down, people are gonna start noticing."

Wanting to protest the downplaying of his wound, Rinoa nevertheless thought better of it, and shifted Simone's weight in her arms as she tried to think of a suitable place to talk. She knew by the darkness in the windows that it was night out. She knew by the bodies outside and the demiwolves she and Squall had to fight through to reach the daycare—had to, because she was still exhausted and her transport spell had been slightly off—that it had been Ultimecia's dark magic which had overwhelmed her. She knew by Squall's strange, distant expression and attitude that there was something urgent on his mind, but each time she tried to read him, his thoughts were so jumbled she could not sort them out enough to make any sense of them. She did not know why she had soot on her face, arms and clothes, or even how she had gotten to the infirmary to begin with. One moment she'd been standing in the middle of the aviary. The next…

"Mom-my," Simone was hailing her impatiently. "Kin I get down now?" Apparently convinced that there was no more danger, she'd tired of clinging to her mother, and was now enviously eyeing a group of children playing a ball game under the watchful eye of two towering SeeDs.

Rinoa reluctantly put Simone down. "Stay with Simon," she told her firmly. "Understand?"

Simone nodded emphatically, grinning. "I stay with 'im." She pet the big dog with a small, awkward hand.

Tapping Simon on the head to get his attention, Rinoa pointed to the corner game. "Keep Simone," she commanded. "Stay." She and Squall both watched as the dog obediently herded Simone in the indicated direction. Rinoa made sure the overseeing SeeDs had seen the two before she dared to drag her eyes away. Even when she did, Squall noted it was only with profound effort. He followed her as she reluctantly started backing away toward the exit. I'm sorry, she offered when she saw him staring at her. I just…every time I leave her here, I wonder if it will be the last time… Then, resolutely, she made herself turn her back and walk in a straight line for the ravaged door, stepping around the cleanup crew who were busy moving the metal lump out of the way.

Squall followed her, reserving any answer until he knew where he was going. So much to say, no time—no place—to say it. He had to tell her about Simone. He had to warn her—

A thunderous bang echoed through the hallway the moment the two exited the daycare.

Instantly every living body in the vicinity took up battle positions, SeeDs blockading the door, others lining the walls and facing the source of the noise as it repeated, twice, again. It came from somewhere far down the hallway, Squall guessed from the level of reverberation. It was a hollow sound, too, as if someone had shot a round into a large metal tube.

He glanced at Rinoa, wondering if she planned on investigating the noise. She felt his curiosity and silently urged him to wait. He had no objection. He waited, staring down the empty corridor, prepared to scan any terrible beast that might come thundering toward them; he wanted to get a good look at one of Ultimecia's minions, see what they were made of. Maybe there was some advantage over them he could offer that everyone else had missed…

The noise sounded again, and again, and then what sounded like the squeak and screech of metal and rubber scraping against each other.

Squall scowled. He knew that sound. He'd heard it before. "Someone's forcing the elevator doors open," he said. He exchanged glances with Rinoa as shouts erupted down the hall. He was able to make out orders to hold fire, calls for a medic, and a name.

"Commander Dane!"

Squall started to say something to Rinoa, but the sorceress vanished before he could utter a word.

*

Balamb Garden was a large campus. It took almost two minutes for Squall to run half the circumference of the second floor.

He came upon the elevator walkway to find a small army of people blocking the path, huddled around something on the floor in front of the elevator doors. Squall passed through them because no one could stop him, knowing that Rinoa was in the center of the crowd, knowing also that Commander Dane was, as well.

Or at least, what was left of him. The man lay on the floor in a widening pool of blood, sprawled half-out, half-in the elevator doorway, which appeared to have been blasted open by some high-level spell. There was no car beyond the open door. It appeared Dane had climbed down the shaft, forced the doors, and, judging from the trail, dragged himself out onto the floor.

Dane was covered in slash wounds of every length and depth, each keen and straight as a paper-cut. It looked as if someone had taken a fine razor to the upper half of his body, strategically dissecting him to see what he looked like from the inside out. That someone had taken great care to keep him alive, too; no major arteries had been severed, no vital organs had been harmed. But they were all exposed for the world to see, the white of bone contrasting grotesquely with living red.

"I'm sorry," one of the SeeD medics was saying to Rinoa. "We've tried every spell he have, and nothing works. There was no way we could have known. They knocked out the elevator in that last wave—"

"Shut up!"

The woman quieted at the sorceress' enraged command. Everyone obeyed it. No one said a word, not even Squall. Slowly, he knelt on the other side of Dane's tortured body, lifting his eyes from the terrible sight to Rinoa.

She held her hands inches above Dane's ravaged body, unwilling to touch him but unable to stand away and watch him die. "He climbed down here," she murmured in a trembling voice, to Squall or to herself, "like this. Climbed half a level and then blew the door open…" She bit her lip as the commander drew a ragged breath, placed shaking fingertips on a wound on his arm, a wound that mirrored the placement of Squall's.

Squall followed the path of her hand, startled. Dane's blood was taking on an odd, orange-ish color; Squall could not force back a wince at the realization that something—a venom of some kind, perhaps—was causing the cells to separate from the plasma.

I can't help him, came Rinoa's voice in Squall's mind. The poison is too fast. I used up the last of my power bringing myself here. I couldn't even take you. I have nothing left, and Dane's going to die…because I was too weak. She began to shake uncontrollably, her eyes looking past the dying SeeD before her. Squall, I'm so tired, and used up. I can't even save my best friend. How am I supposed to save the world?

"Best friend?" Squall's expression was blank. "Dane?"

His tone goaded her into looking at him despite the spectators. Yes… Gingerly, afraid of causing Dane more pain, she slipped her fingers around the commander's tattered hand.

Squall had disliked Dane because of his interest in Rinoa. It hadn't occurred to him that she might be friends with the man. He'd almost laughed at the idea of Dane getting eaten alive by rexaurs. Somehow, the reality of his death wasn't half as appealing to Squall as the dream. Another dream become nightmare. He had a sudden, unwelcome flashback of the SeeD youth dying in the corner, and was vividly reminded of what servitude Rinoa had said awaited all the departed spirits of the world.

They're gone, he thought. I'm still here… He blinked once, slowly, capturing Rinoa's attention. I'm not…not dead.

Slowly, Squall held out his injured arm, over Dane, toward Rinoa, in offering. She looked at it for a moment, uncomprehending, then met his unwavering stare with her own. Her eyes questioned him.

He answered with a nod. "You'll be strong enough," he said. He did not move another inch. He offered his strength to her, to accept or deny. I lost a best friend, once…

She reached out and grasped at thin air. Her hand closed around solid energy. Squall's ethereal blood curled between her fingers, gripping her as if by its own accord, then vanishing into her.

The connection opened; Squall felt himself, his thoughts, pulled away from him, siphoned off with his blood. His vision blurred, and in another moment he saw only darkness, drifting color, and fell into the warm incoherence of dreamless sleep. The colors embraced him, and she was the only thing he knew.

I thought I had, too, a soft voice whispered to his heart, but maybe I was wrong.