Disclaimer: I do not own FF8 or any of the characters from FF8.
AN: Okay, here's Chapter 6. Just to let everyone know, I'm not going to continue with the original story until this one is over =) Sorry if anyone is expecting the other story to be updated. The reason I'm doing this is 'cause the other story really CAN'T be continued until this one is over. You'll see why later ~_^ This story will also be as long if not longer than the other one.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 6: First Mission and First Friends
The unique 11 year training program used to produce Galbadia's best metasites was one of the best systems ever conceived. It has always proved to be head and shoulders above the Balamb Garden way of training metasites.
Luckily for us, our training program was totally secret. We knew there would be spies but so far, all of the spies were dispatched quickly and easily. All Balamb knew about our system was that it spanned 11 years. It started from the age of 5 if possible so that by the time the metasite is 16, it is ready for the battlefield as one of the main strikers.
Galbadia made no exceptions to this rule. It always spanned 11 years and all the metasites would go on their first mission three years after starting their training.
These missions were just small mercenary jobs such as destroying small bands of resistance groups or bandits in the area. They would always have real SeeDs in the back ready to jump in if the novices got in trouble. However, it was still dangerous and many times the new metasites would get seriously wounded. It was a real battle with very real results.
I had not listened to Ellone about finding friends and she was not happy about it. I usually just tried to stick with Seifer and his posse but it became quite hard since they always seemed to avoid me. Looking back, I see why. I was a year younger than them and sort of a loser, always looking up to Seifer. Seifer would sometimes politely tell me to go somewhere else, he was not mean, never mean. But he made it quite clear that him, Fujin, and Raijin preferred to be left alone.
I was also a shy kid. I didn't really want to seek out people and most people figured I was different from them and left me alone. So I drifted back into isolation and my training.
When I was eight, I was sent on my first mission. I was the perfect age.
I remember that morning clearly. I was well prepared. That was the first time I did my preparation routine and it definitely wouldn't be my last. I got up at 4 and sharpened my secondary blade and did the whole kit and kaboodle. My mission didn't start till 6 but I wanted to be sure I was ready even though Kiros told me I'd blow through it.
I met Kiros at 5 at breakfast and he lectured me one last time before my mission while I stuffed myself with bacon and eggs.
"Remember not to let your blade drop. You have a tendency of doing that and if you're not careful, it'll get you killed." he said.
"Yeah alright."
"Don't forget to salute your opponents even if they don't do the same. I want you to get into that habit. Always fight a man straight on, don't attack him from behind."
Kiros was very big on honor and I guess he sort of imposed that on me. To this day, I still salute my opponents and never attack a downed opponent or an opponent who isn't ready. They always have at least a millisecond's notice before I strike.
"And the last thing. The most important thing. I want you to listen to your commander's orders and follow them exactly. If your commander orders you to not do anything I tell you right now, then forget about all the things I just said. If your commander tells you to use a different style of fighting, do it. I just want you to know the importance of following orders." Kiros said.
That is another thing that rubbed off on me. I follow all directions to the letter and above everything else. I know now why Kiros wanted me to do that. Kiros was afraid. He was afraid because he knew that if I decided to rebel that I could not be stopped. Of course, at the time I had no idea that that was what he had in mind. I found that out much later.
"Okay, now go kick some ass." he said as he messed up my already disheveled brown hair.
I left Kiros and headed to the main gate where we were scheduled to meet. I made a quick check of the piece of paper on which I had written down the location of our meeting. Even though my metasite memory was superior, I always double checked.
The gate was empty. I could wait, I was early anyway. The gatekeeper looked up slightly from his newspaper and then returned to his reading. It was dark and strangely depressing but after 10 minutes I forgot about that. Instructors and commanders showed up closely followed by other students.
The leader was a man by the name of John Steiner. He was one of those guys who was a decent soldier but never good enough to get promoted. The job of organizing first missions belonged to him for the past 20 years. Well, he was damn good at it. Hell anybody would be damn good at something if they spent the last 20 years doing the same thing over and over again.
We were a group of about 10 students. Actually, it was 9. It was always 9 because for these missions, they always split the metasites into 3 groups of 3 and assigned different tasks to the different groups.
There were three transports waiting for us outside the gate and Steiner funneled us into our various groups. I ended up in Squad C along with a pretty, raven-haired girl and a tall guy with jet black hair.
We marched into the transport and took seats on either side. It would be a long ride there so the armored cars started moving immediately. A boy who looked to be about 16 sat in a big seat at the front of our little compartment. He had on a red and black uniform like ours but it had ornate markings along the red areas. It marked superiority.
"Morning cadets. I'm Commander Gerry Steele." he looked down at his notebook then looked up at us each in turn "You are Squall Leonhart, Emi Carrelo, and Zone Liger am I correct?" he gazed at each of us. And we nodded "On this mission, you will follow my orders and expected to perform them to the best of your abilities. Now we start on our briefing." he said.
Commander Steele pulled up a holographic projection of a street with buildings on either side. It was fairly simple, just blocks really but you could tell it was a street and buildings.
"Right, your mission is to find and kill a group of drug dealers in East Deling. They are all along Tron street in these dense buildings" he pointed to the blocks "your job is to go inside the buildings where there are gang members and take them out with any means necessary. Squad A is going to use metasite surveillance to detect the criminals and Squad B will keep them from getting out of the buildings. You have the most important job. Of course, you are the best out of the three Squadrons so it is expected that you do the most work. I want to remind you all that these gang members do have guns and long knives and are also notorious murderers of a number of innocent people. Killing them is permitted and dare I say, encouraged. They will be put on the death penalty if caught anyway. Any questions?"
I had none. I would probably have to kill that day and I knew it. The thought made me uncomfortable but I was exposed to the murder of my parents and thinking back to that event made me feel cold and ruthless.
The girl on our Squad, Emi Carrelo raised her hand.
"How many men are there?" she asked. She had a soft voice and it shook slightly as she spoke. But I could tell that she was trying to suppress her fear because she had a fiercely determined look on her face as if nothing would stop her. Her brown eyes had a fire in them which marked courage yet her features were so gentle and her movements so graceful that it created a curious contrast. I felt a small kick in my gut and felt slightly uncomfortable.
"We estimate that the entire gang is here and there are about fifty men." the commander answered.
I saw the determination waver a bit but she quickly hitched it back. I was having thoughts about it too, though I was sure mine were quite different from hers. Fifty men...that meant roughly 17 men for each of us...piece of cake.
The commander left us and sat up front with the driver. The girl turned to me and I quickly averted my gaze. "It's Squall right?" she asked.
"...Yeah" I said.
"I'm Emi, this is Zone."
I sort of gave a half-hearted nod. She was quite calm and friendly at such a moment. I had no clue how she could do that, I myself was totally focused at the task up ahead. I didn't want to screw it up even if the odds looked good for us.
"How old are you?" it was Zone's turn to talk.
"Eight" I said. He seemed like a quiet but friendly character as well.
"Oh really? So are we." he said.
"I've heard of you!" said Emi all of a sudden "I was trying to think of where I heard your name before! You're the one who bashed up that wall a couple of years ago right?" she asked
I nodded silently.
"Oh yeah, I remember too" said Zone "you used to be what Ward talked about to all his classes." he grinned
I raised one eyebrow questioningly.
"Yeah Ward was telling us all about you, the kid our age who could take on guys twice your size and age." he said.
"That's right. But lately he's been talking about the new kid, Seifer Almasy. He's supposedly really good and scored a perfect on his field test. I've never seen him before though." Emi said.
I had an urge to tell them about Seifer but I stopped myself. I just didn't feel like it. The damn shyness again. I merely nodded silently. Seifer actually DID score a perfect on his first mission. Of course he did it a year before I did and he told me all about it.
"You nervous Squall?" asked Zone.
"No not really. Are you?" I returned the question.
"Yeah sort of, FIFTY GUYS! That's quite a lot." he said.
"I think he was just bluffing." said Emi kind of hopefully. I looked at both of them and shrugged. There was no point sticking my two cents into the conversation.
"Well, good luck to all of us eh?" Zone pretended to do a toast with an invisible glass. I laughed a little along with Emi and we passed the rest of the car ride in relatively good terms. I was quite happy around the two people I had just met. I didn't think they were my caliber in terms of fighting skill but they were certainly nice people and not annoying.
It seemed all too soon when the transport started slowing down and grinding to a stop. Our lightened mood quickly turned to a darker more serious tone as Commander Steele entered our compartment again.
"Well, here we are. It's about a five minute walk down to Tron street but that's no problem. It's a pretty bad neighborhood so we didn't want to go all the way in. The other Squads should be on their way now. Just go there and watch them until Squad B's Captain tells you you can enter the buildings. Captain of your Squad is Squall, obey his orders while you're in there. Now just relax and go, I'll see you back here when the job is done. There are experienced metasites on hand to assist you should you get into trouble, so don't worry about it. Good luck." he said. And with that he opened the door.
The commander was right. It wasn't a good neighborhood. One look at it and I could see that the place would be a perfect hideout for drug dealers and gangsters. With our keen metasite sight we could see the sign saying "Tron St." down the main road. Not many people were around at the time, just some bums and a few prostitutes and most of them were asleep. The buildings were covered in graffiti and there wasn't a window left unbroken. The signs could barely be read anymore and the whole place stunk of corruption. Emi, Zone and I walked down feeling very out of place. I guess three 8 year olds don't exactly look like they belonged at a place like that.
I thought the main street was bad but once we turned the corner onto Tron, I understood why they didn't want to drop us off directly on the street. The road looked like it hadn't been cleaned in millions of years. Garbage piled up and crumpled under our shoes. I activated my metasite and saw Emi and Zone do the same thing. Once the armor was on me, everything seemed distant. The sense of nervousness and uncertainty melted away and I felt the familiar metasite confidence well up to take it's place.
"That must be the section blocked off" said Zone
I looked ahead and saw that some caution tape had been used to secure the area and a small knot of metasites inside the isolated square. I nodded.
"Squad A and B are up there" I stated the obvious.
As we drew closer I could see that the metasites just got engaged in battle. They were ducking behind various rocks and rubble avoiding a hail of machine gun fire spewing out of the windows of the buildings and in the alleys.
"Squad C! Quickly, they're inside the buildings!" an orange metasite said. I figured that was Squad B's leader and motioned for my team to enter the area.
Squad B had done a good job, there were dead and unconscious guys dressed in black lying around. It didn't look like any of them escaped. Emi passed by a dead gang member with his head crushed against a piece of cement and she shuddered.
"T-that's disgusting!"
I glanced at her and shrugged. I just pretended not to be sickened by it. In truth, I was just as disturbed by the sight. But unlike Emi, I understood what we had to do and was determined not to screw it up. I'd do whatever I had to do to complete the mission as well as I could.
The entrance to the first building was a good 100 meters away from us and it was also the range of the machine guns. I could see the bullets peppering the ground and snaking towards us.
"Break and regroup at the entrance. Emi, you go left and Zone can go right" I said.
I wasn't afraid. Bullets could only hurt metasites, it took a lot of bullets to kill us. But nevertheless we didn't want to get hit. Back then we could only dodge them and that's exactly what we did.
I broke into a run right for the entrance to the building. I could see each bullet as if it was moving in slow motion. No problem at all, machine guns were too predictable. I strafed left and right and kicked the door open with a swift dashing kick and was inside before Emi and Zone.
The building was a hotel. A very small hotel. Each floor contained only two rooms, one for each side and the first floor was a sort of reception/restaurant. It looked to be abandoned long ago since everything was broken almost beyond recognition. The door to the diner at the back burst open and a muscular guy in a black shirt and jeans came charging out. He was holding a Uzi.
"What the hell?!" he said. All he heard was the door opening and my guess is that he was checking out what just happened.
I drew Lionheart in half the time it took him to press the trigger to his gun and quickly raised the blade to his face and then to my own in typical saluting fashion. By that time he had fired his first bullet. I contorted my body and dodged the bullets as I closed the gap between the two of us. I used Lionheart and cut his gun in half. He cowered backwards and tripped against the leg of the receptionist's desk. I hesitated for a moment, I would take a man's life. Who knew if the guy had any kids? A wife? What would his parents think?
But I dispatched the thought and with difficulty plunged Lionheart into his face. Blood poured freely but it would not stick to my glowing blue particle blade. I heard footsteps at the doorway and saw Emi and Zone watching me with my metablade imbedded between the man's eyes.
Emi put her hands up to her face and closed her eyes. Zone put a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"This is a fight Emi. Put it out of your mind." he said.
The floor was covered in blood now. I removed my blade from the man's head and walked towards the stairs. It was funny because after my first kill, I felt differently. Instead of looking at Emi with sympathy, I saw her as weak. The sight of death didn't bother me anymore. I turned my head sideways so I saw Emi and Zone still standing by the doorway in my peripheral vision.
"Let's go" I said.
AN: A little bit longer than usual I guess. Lots of stuff to cover in this chapter. I quite enjoyed writing it. There's a bit of foreshadowing in it and a little more is revealed about Squall's character change ^_^ Shows that he's still human when he hesitates before killing. Hope you guys picked up on some more subtle hints =P Shout outs!
trekken46: Glad you liked Seifer ~_^ More will be revealed in time as to Seifer's whereabouts. I guess by now most of you reviewers will have noticed that this story has tons of holes to fill. Not to worry, everything will be clear in the end =)
Ari-Morrigan: Hehe as I said above, more will be revealed as the story progresses. And of course I can't resist adding a certain depth to this story hahaha I like thought provoking stories =P I hope you like Squall's first mission! I guess this chapter was quite a bit darker though lol
remote mine: Yay! You reviewed! =P Can't reveal where the rivalry between Squall and Seifer comes along cuz it'll spoil everything for you guys! Keep reading!
Selphie Tilmitt-Kinneas : Hahaha! Whoops! I guess that line came out wrong =P I meant it as Ellone treating Squall like she was his older sister lol maybe if I reworded it to "she treated me like an older sister WOULD" or something hahaha thanks for pointing that out though! Hope you like this chapter, if you catch any more mistakes just let me know!
Angefantasy: Can't resist myself hahaha just a little hint for you. Don't get ahead of yourself ~_^ You'll see why I say that later on hehe thanks for your comments, I appreciate them a lot. I think you'll find the ending of this story to be quite a surprise!
Etherealist: No problem! I'll probably just review the chapters as they come out if I have a chance to read them =P Seifer of course has to be strong to rival Squall! I'm trying to work on character development and relationships between the various people in Squall's life. Yes, when your hand is armored, putting the hand on the back helps absorb vibration hehe did some research for that =) Hope you like this chapter! Kay, that's about it. Thanks to all the reviewers! If you're reading the story and not reviewing then please try to put in a review! Alright, next chapter should be out around next week. Merry Christmas everybody!
AN: Okay, here's Chapter 6. Just to let everyone know, I'm not going to continue with the original story until this one is over =) Sorry if anyone is expecting the other story to be updated. The reason I'm doing this is 'cause the other story really CAN'T be continued until this one is over. You'll see why later ~_^ This story will also be as long if not longer than the other one.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 6: First Mission and First Friends
The unique 11 year training program used to produce Galbadia's best metasites was one of the best systems ever conceived. It has always proved to be head and shoulders above the Balamb Garden way of training metasites.
Luckily for us, our training program was totally secret. We knew there would be spies but so far, all of the spies were dispatched quickly and easily. All Balamb knew about our system was that it spanned 11 years. It started from the age of 5 if possible so that by the time the metasite is 16, it is ready for the battlefield as one of the main strikers.
Galbadia made no exceptions to this rule. It always spanned 11 years and all the metasites would go on their first mission three years after starting their training.
These missions were just small mercenary jobs such as destroying small bands of resistance groups or bandits in the area. They would always have real SeeDs in the back ready to jump in if the novices got in trouble. However, it was still dangerous and many times the new metasites would get seriously wounded. It was a real battle with very real results.
I had not listened to Ellone about finding friends and she was not happy about it. I usually just tried to stick with Seifer and his posse but it became quite hard since they always seemed to avoid me. Looking back, I see why. I was a year younger than them and sort of a loser, always looking up to Seifer. Seifer would sometimes politely tell me to go somewhere else, he was not mean, never mean. But he made it quite clear that him, Fujin, and Raijin preferred to be left alone.
I was also a shy kid. I didn't really want to seek out people and most people figured I was different from them and left me alone. So I drifted back into isolation and my training.
When I was eight, I was sent on my first mission. I was the perfect age.
I remember that morning clearly. I was well prepared. That was the first time I did my preparation routine and it definitely wouldn't be my last. I got up at 4 and sharpened my secondary blade and did the whole kit and kaboodle. My mission didn't start till 6 but I wanted to be sure I was ready even though Kiros told me I'd blow through it.
I met Kiros at 5 at breakfast and he lectured me one last time before my mission while I stuffed myself with bacon and eggs.
"Remember not to let your blade drop. You have a tendency of doing that and if you're not careful, it'll get you killed." he said.
"Yeah alright."
"Don't forget to salute your opponents even if they don't do the same. I want you to get into that habit. Always fight a man straight on, don't attack him from behind."
Kiros was very big on honor and I guess he sort of imposed that on me. To this day, I still salute my opponents and never attack a downed opponent or an opponent who isn't ready. They always have at least a millisecond's notice before I strike.
"And the last thing. The most important thing. I want you to listen to your commander's orders and follow them exactly. If your commander orders you to not do anything I tell you right now, then forget about all the things I just said. If your commander tells you to use a different style of fighting, do it. I just want you to know the importance of following orders." Kiros said.
That is another thing that rubbed off on me. I follow all directions to the letter and above everything else. I know now why Kiros wanted me to do that. Kiros was afraid. He was afraid because he knew that if I decided to rebel that I could not be stopped. Of course, at the time I had no idea that that was what he had in mind. I found that out much later.
"Okay, now go kick some ass." he said as he messed up my already disheveled brown hair.
I left Kiros and headed to the main gate where we were scheduled to meet. I made a quick check of the piece of paper on which I had written down the location of our meeting. Even though my metasite memory was superior, I always double checked.
The gate was empty. I could wait, I was early anyway. The gatekeeper looked up slightly from his newspaper and then returned to his reading. It was dark and strangely depressing but after 10 minutes I forgot about that. Instructors and commanders showed up closely followed by other students.
The leader was a man by the name of John Steiner. He was one of those guys who was a decent soldier but never good enough to get promoted. The job of organizing first missions belonged to him for the past 20 years. Well, he was damn good at it. Hell anybody would be damn good at something if they spent the last 20 years doing the same thing over and over again.
We were a group of about 10 students. Actually, it was 9. It was always 9 because for these missions, they always split the metasites into 3 groups of 3 and assigned different tasks to the different groups.
There were three transports waiting for us outside the gate and Steiner funneled us into our various groups. I ended up in Squad C along with a pretty, raven-haired girl and a tall guy with jet black hair.
We marched into the transport and took seats on either side. It would be a long ride there so the armored cars started moving immediately. A boy who looked to be about 16 sat in a big seat at the front of our little compartment. He had on a red and black uniform like ours but it had ornate markings along the red areas. It marked superiority.
"Morning cadets. I'm Commander Gerry Steele." he looked down at his notebook then looked up at us each in turn "You are Squall Leonhart, Emi Carrelo, and Zone Liger am I correct?" he gazed at each of us. And we nodded "On this mission, you will follow my orders and expected to perform them to the best of your abilities. Now we start on our briefing." he said.
Commander Steele pulled up a holographic projection of a street with buildings on either side. It was fairly simple, just blocks really but you could tell it was a street and buildings.
"Right, your mission is to find and kill a group of drug dealers in East Deling. They are all along Tron street in these dense buildings" he pointed to the blocks "your job is to go inside the buildings where there are gang members and take them out with any means necessary. Squad A is going to use metasite surveillance to detect the criminals and Squad B will keep them from getting out of the buildings. You have the most important job. Of course, you are the best out of the three Squadrons so it is expected that you do the most work. I want to remind you all that these gang members do have guns and long knives and are also notorious murderers of a number of innocent people. Killing them is permitted and dare I say, encouraged. They will be put on the death penalty if caught anyway. Any questions?"
I had none. I would probably have to kill that day and I knew it. The thought made me uncomfortable but I was exposed to the murder of my parents and thinking back to that event made me feel cold and ruthless.
The girl on our Squad, Emi Carrelo raised her hand.
"How many men are there?" she asked. She had a soft voice and it shook slightly as she spoke. But I could tell that she was trying to suppress her fear because she had a fiercely determined look on her face as if nothing would stop her. Her brown eyes had a fire in them which marked courage yet her features were so gentle and her movements so graceful that it created a curious contrast. I felt a small kick in my gut and felt slightly uncomfortable.
"We estimate that the entire gang is here and there are about fifty men." the commander answered.
I saw the determination waver a bit but she quickly hitched it back. I was having thoughts about it too, though I was sure mine were quite different from hers. Fifty men...that meant roughly 17 men for each of us...piece of cake.
The commander left us and sat up front with the driver. The girl turned to me and I quickly averted my gaze. "It's Squall right?" she asked.
"...Yeah" I said.
"I'm Emi, this is Zone."
I sort of gave a half-hearted nod. She was quite calm and friendly at such a moment. I had no clue how she could do that, I myself was totally focused at the task up ahead. I didn't want to screw it up even if the odds looked good for us.
"How old are you?" it was Zone's turn to talk.
"Eight" I said. He seemed like a quiet but friendly character as well.
"Oh really? So are we." he said.
"I've heard of you!" said Emi all of a sudden "I was trying to think of where I heard your name before! You're the one who bashed up that wall a couple of years ago right?" she asked
I nodded silently.
"Oh yeah, I remember too" said Zone "you used to be what Ward talked about to all his classes." he grinned
I raised one eyebrow questioningly.
"Yeah Ward was telling us all about you, the kid our age who could take on guys twice your size and age." he said.
"That's right. But lately he's been talking about the new kid, Seifer Almasy. He's supposedly really good and scored a perfect on his field test. I've never seen him before though." Emi said.
I had an urge to tell them about Seifer but I stopped myself. I just didn't feel like it. The damn shyness again. I merely nodded silently. Seifer actually DID score a perfect on his first mission. Of course he did it a year before I did and he told me all about it.
"You nervous Squall?" asked Zone.
"No not really. Are you?" I returned the question.
"Yeah sort of, FIFTY GUYS! That's quite a lot." he said.
"I think he was just bluffing." said Emi kind of hopefully. I looked at both of them and shrugged. There was no point sticking my two cents into the conversation.
"Well, good luck to all of us eh?" Zone pretended to do a toast with an invisible glass. I laughed a little along with Emi and we passed the rest of the car ride in relatively good terms. I was quite happy around the two people I had just met. I didn't think they were my caliber in terms of fighting skill but they were certainly nice people and not annoying.
It seemed all too soon when the transport started slowing down and grinding to a stop. Our lightened mood quickly turned to a darker more serious tone as Commander Steele entered our compartment again.
"Well, here we are. It's about a five minute walk down to Tron street but that's no problem. It's a pretty bad neighborhood so we didn't want to go all the way in. The other Squads should be on their way now. Just go there and watch them until Squad B's Captain tells you you can enter the buildings. Captain of your Squad is Squall, obey his orders while you're in there. Now just relax and go, I'll see you back here when the job is done. There are experienced metasites on hand to assist you should you get into trouble, so don't worry about it. Good luck." he said. And with that he opened the door.
The commander was right. It wasn't a good neighborhood. One look at it and I could see that the place would be a perfect hideout for drug dealers and gangsters. With our keen metasite sight we could see the sign saying "Tron St." down the main road. Not many people were around at the time, just some bums and a few prostitutes and most of them were asleep. The buildings were covered in graffiti and there wasn't a window left unbroken. The signs could barely be read anymore and the whole place stunk of corruption. Emi, Zone and I walked down feeling very out of place. I guess three 8 year olds don't exactly look like they belonged at a place like that.
I thought the main street was bad but once we turned the corner onto Tron, I understood why they didn't want to drop us off directly on the street. The road looked like it hadn't been cleaned in millions of years. Garbage piled up and crumpled under our shoes. I activated my metasite and saw Emi and Zone do the same thing. Once the armor was on me, everything seemed distant. The sense of nervousness and uncertainty melted away and I felt the familiar metasite confidence well up to take it's place.
"That must be the section blocked off" said Zone
I looked ahead and saw that some caution tape had been used to secure the area and a small knot of metasites inside the isolated square. I nodded.
"Squad A and B are up there" I stated the obvious.
As we drew closer I could see that the metasites just got engaged in battle. They were ducking behind various rocks and rubble avoiding a hail of machine gun fire spewing out of the windows of the buildings and in the alleys.
"Squad C! Quickly, they're inside the buildings!" an orange metasite said. I figured that was Squad B's leader and motioned for my team to enter the area.
Squad B had done a good job, there were dead and unconscious guys dressed in black lying around. It didn't look like any of them escaped. Emi passed by a dead gang member with his head crushed against a piece of cement and she shuddered.
"T-that's disgusting!"
I glanced at her and shrugged. I just pretended not to be sickened by it. In truth, I was just as disturbed by the sight. But unlike Emi, I understood what we had to do and was determined not to screw it up. I'd do whatever I had to do to complete the mission as well as I could.
The entrance to the first building was a good 100 meters away from us and it was also the range of the machine guns. I could see the bullets peppering the ground and snaking towards us.
"Break and regroup at the entrance. Emi, you go left and Zone can go right" I said.
I wasn't afraid. Bullets could only hurt metasites, it took a lot of bullets to kill us. But nevertheless we didn't want to get hit. Back then we could only dodge them and that's exactly what we did.
I broke into a run right for the entrance to the building. I could see each bullet as if it was moving in slow motion. No problem at all, machine guns were too predictable. I strafed left and right and kicked the door open with a swift dashing kick and was inside before Emi and Zone.
The building was a hotel. A very small hotel. Each floor contained only two rooms, one for each side and the first floor was a sort of reception/restaurant. It looked to be abandoned long ago since everything was broken almost beyond recognition. The door to the diner at the back burst open and a muscular guy in a black shirt and jeans came charging out. He was holding a Uzi.
"What the hell?!" he said. All he heard was the door opening and my guess is that he was checking out what just happened.
I drew Lionheart in half the time it took him to press the trigger to his gun and quickly raised the blade to his face and then to my own in typical saluting fashion. By that time he had fired his first bullet. I contorted my body and dodged the bullets as I closed the gap between the two of us. I used Lionheart and cut his gun in half. He cowered backwards and tripped against the leg of the receptionist's desk. I hesitated for a moment, I would take a man's life. Who knew if the guy had any kids? A wife? What would his parents think?
But I dispatched the thought and with difficulty plunged Lionheart into his face. Blood poured freely but it would not stick to my glowing blue particle blade. I heard footsteps at the doorway and saw Emi and Zone watching me with my metablade imbedded between the man's eyes.
Emi put her hands up to her face and closed her eyes. Zone put a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"This is a fight Emi. Put it out of your mind." he said.
The floor was covered in blood now. I removed my blade from the man's head and walked towards the stairs. It was funny because after my first kill, I felt differently. Instead of looking at Emi with sympathy, I saw her as weak. The sight of death didn't bother me anymore. I turned my head sideways so I saw Emi and Zone still standing by the doorway in my peripheral vision.
"Let's go" I said.
AN: A little bit longer than usual I guess. Lots of stuff to cover in this chapter. I quite enjoyed writing it. There's a bit of foreshadowing in it and a little more is revealed about Squall's character change ^_^ Shows that he's still human when he hesitates before killing. Hope you guys picked up on some more subtle hints =P Shout outs!
trekken46: Glad you liked Seifer ~_^ More will be revealed in time as to Seifer's whereabouts. I guess by now most of you reviewers will have noticed that this story has tons of holes to fill. Not to worry, everything will be clear in the end =)
Ari-Morrigan: Hehe as I said above, more will be revealed as the story progresses. And of course I can't resist adding a certain depth to this story hahaha I like thought provoking stories =P I hope you like Squall's first mission! I guess this chapter was quite a bit darker though lol
remote mine: Yay! You reviewed! =P Can't reveal where the rivalry between Squall and Seifer comes along cuz it'll spoil everything for you guys! Keep reading!
Selphie Tilmitt-Kinneas : Hahaha! Whoops! I guess that line came out wrong =P I meant it as Ellone treating Squall like she was his older sister lol maybe if I reworded it to "she treated me like an older sister WOULD" or something hahaha thanks for pointing that out though! Hope you like this chapter, if you catch any more mistakes just let me know!
Angefantasy: Can't resist myself hahaha just a little hint for you. Don't get ahead of yourself ~_^ You'll see why I say that later on hehe thanks for your comments, I appreciate them a lot. I think you'll find the ending of this story to be quite a surprise!
Etherealist: No problem! I'll probably just review the chapters as they come out if I have a chance to read them =P Seifer of course has to be strong to rival Squall! I'm trying to work on character development and relationships between the various people in Squall's life. Yes, when your hand is armored, putting the hand on the back helps absorb vibration hehe did some research for that =) Hope you like this chapter! Kay, that's about it. Thanks to all the reviewers! If you're reading the story and not reviewing then please try to put in a review! Alright, next chapter should be out around next week. Merry Christmas everybody!