AN: Yes, Squall's acting a little erratically *dodges glare 'o death* c'mon, he's torn between letting stuff happen and trying to change what he knows is going to happen, he's had a massive fight with his 'knight/bodyguard', and then learned that Ellone was in the hands of a branch of the Centra cult - the White SeeD. Of course he was going to do something he'd regret.

Book Three of the Sorcerer Arc ~ Battle Lines ~ Chapter Nine ~ Broken Secrets

The reports were good. Very good. Excellent in fact. As far as Timber, its resistance factions and its secret weapon - Rinoa - were concerned anyway. The Galbadian army had been driven back on all sides, suffering heavy losses. Quite what their thoughts were on the Malboros and Ruby Dragons, suddenly where they shouldn't have been, along with other high-level monsters and the Tree Guardians Rinoa had summoned, no one knew. Confusion and fear most likely.

Rinoa didn't care. She had her senses wide open, directing her monsters where she could feel the invasive minds of Galbadian soldiers most clearly. The Tree Guardians were there to pick up those she missed, acting independently of her commands now that they had been summoned and given the scent of the enemy. She was tiring fast, drawing most of her energy from the earth now, thankful that the powers inherited from Adel allowed her to augment her strength in such a way.

Her exhaustion was probably the reason she didn't sense Kylari until the sorceress was behind her, holding her in a vice-like grip, one hand on her shoulder, the other wrapped around her throat so that the razor-sharp nails grazed the skin. The raven-haired sorceress froze, able, through the skin contact, to sense Kylari's displeasure.

"I send the Galbadians against Dollet and Timber, whilst ~you~ were supposed to trail that traitor Edea." Kylari hissed, breath hot against Rinoa's ear. Vaguely she realised that Kylari had betrayed her, a faint memory of the other sorceress promising to help Timber stand against Galbadia's attack. But Kylari had sent Galbadia against Timber herself...

"You..." She choked on the words as Kylari's hand tightened, pressure on her windpipe making her breath rasp in and out, preventing words from being spoken.

"I said Timber would need powerful friends, not that I was one of them." Kylari murmured. "I warned you that Galbadia would seek to annex Timber once more, how else would I know if I didn't intend to send Galbadia against them?" The pressure at Rinoa's throat eased, but now it was emotion that prevented Rinoa from speaking. "I might have at least spared their lives had you not interfered, but now I must reassure the Galbadian fools, ~and~ teach you a lesson in obedience." There was the sensation of movement, the ground dropping away, and Rinoa realised that Kylari was flying, lifting her effortlessly into the sky, high above Timber, so that the entire area that Timber claimed as its own was visible. "You see, your disobedience cost me the last of my precious Kenthra. I think it's only fitting that your punishment is to watch all of your beloved Timber find oblivion."

Kylari's grip tightened once more, and Rinoa couldn't even scream as Timber was engulfed in an elemental maelstrom. When the last of the dust settled all that remained was a melted and charred expanse of wasteland, stark contrast to the lush green woodland that belonged to Galbadia and surrounded the remnants of Timber.

***

Kylari smirked down on the oblivious Galbadia Garden. Rinoa had been dealt with, the raven-haired sorceress now imprisoned in the tower on Centra, nothing left to her except to wait and act as a vessel in which Kylari could collect the powers of the world's sorceresses. Already she had taken two, a sorceress/priestess hiding in the Centra ruins - right under her nose, of all places to hide! - and a hermit oblivious to the troubles of the world on Cactuar Island. Rinoa already had the earth sorcery - and now also the holy and fire sorceries - and Kylari had the poison sorcery. Edea was, for the moment, safe in Esthar with her water sorcery, and the Trabian shamaness was safe with her ice sorcery amongst the nomadic tribes. Of the other powers, air and lightning, Kylari knew only that the so- called 'Card Queen' had the air sorcery and moved around all over the world with great frequency, and that the lightning sorceress was somewhere in Galbadia.

As the last group of SeeD cadets vanished inside the Garden, Kylari called her powers to her, reaching out to the two great statues at the Garden's entrance. Colour and life rippled through the two harpy-like creatures, a faint dusting of powdered stone drifting to the ground as they stretched their wings for the first time. Keeping her control of them tight, Kylari summoned them from their perches. They obediently rose, leathery wings beating against the air with rhythmic dull thumps.

A satisfied grin on her face, Kylari turned and headed for Galbadia's new capital, the two harpies her escort. President Tieren Deling was about to discover exactly the same thing as his father...

***

New Deling City, formerly known as Wilburn City, was a city still in turmoil. After Deling City's destruction, its population had nearly doubled with the influx of refugees, and when the government offices had set themselves up in a temporary headquarters, it hadn't really dawned on the original inhabitants that they were now Galbadia's capital city. That shock had lasted until General Caraway's assassination, and Tieren Deling's takeover of the government. His first act had been to declare war on Timber and Dollet, diverting the military's power away from himself, but also halting their aid efforts and the construction of housing for those who had been made homeless in the destruction of Deling. His second act had been to rename Wilburn City as New Deling City - demonstrating his inheritance of his father's lack of imagination. When he'd overheard two locals muttering about the change, he had ordered them to be arrested, and made it illegal to call the city by its old name. The locals who fell foul of the law were dispossessed, their property given to politicians whose support Deling needed in government.

After all that it had been through, the last thing New Deling needed was a confrontation between Tieren Deling and the sorceress who had, it was whispered, put him in power. The wiser residents, and a fair number of refugees, had sensibly and discretely vacated the area, heading for relatives elsewhere, or simply heading out into the wilderness, preferring their chances against the local monsters than against a sorceress's displeasure.

But Tieren Deling had neither the option nor the inclination to run. He, like his father before him, was convinced, as the President of Galbadia, that he was more powerful than a sorceress. Certainly, he had owed her a favour thanks to her intervention, in this case the assassination of Caraway, but that favour had been repaid by his attacks on Dollet and Timber. That Dollet had, for reasons still unclear, been destroyed before Galbadian troops got there, and that Timber had been annihilated thanks to the intervention of the sorceress, didn't matter. Had neither event occurred, Galbadian forces would still have prevailed. He had no doubts about that. On the other hand, unlike his father, he wasn't going to blindly trust that the sorceress would keep her end of the deal. He had learned ~something~ from his father's death.

The government had commandeered the largest and grandest of the houses in New Deling, turning the former occupant - actually the mayor of the city - and his family unceremoniously out onto the street. The key feature of the building, as far as Deling was concerned, was the enormous balcony overlooking the plaza - the perfect point for public appearances, or public confrontations. It was there that he chose to make his stand, and to await the sorceress's coming.

***

Kylari approved of the balcony where Tieren awaited her arrival, just as she approved of the large crowd that had gathered below. It was very hard to command a country whose people still believed their President was in power. Her harpies, as she commanded them, flew to nearby rooftops, unseen and unheard, to await her summons. Then she landed, appearing as if out of nowhere to stand before the President of the country that would soon be hers.

A hush swept across the crowd as her presence was noticed, silence falling like a blanket as they stilled, alert for the words that would be exchanged. She felt caught up in the fierce concentration, the attention of the crowd threatening to engulf her completely. It was addictive. It was, she realised, seeing a mirror of her feelings in Deling's eyes, why mortals craved control and power so much. The realisation broke the spell, and suddenly she was herself once more.

"Sorceress Kylari." Tieren Deling addressed her, clearly still enraptured by the crowd's focus. "To what do we owe this visit?" Kylari smirked and stretched, showing off her body to its best advantage, but also signalling to the waiting Harpies. They flew down and landed with loud screeches, sensing that the man before them was to be their victim.

"Were you really so naïve as to believe ~you~ were in power here?" She asked, clicking her tongue and shaking her head in mock chastisement. "You should have learned better from your father's example. Sorceresses do not pull strings from behind the throne, we ~are~ the throne." Deling, to her surprise, merely smiled slightly.

"Oh yes, I learned from my father's example." He clicked his fingers, and three sniper rifles barked a response into the silence of the evening. Only Kylari's sorceress speed saved her from the bullet. The two Harpies were not as quick, and crumpled to the floor, both shot neatly in the head. Kylari laughed, genuinely impressed despite herself.

"Not bad. I might even let you live as a reward for your courage. But did you really think I wouldn't bloody my own hands to kill you?" Deling's slight smile remained unchanged as he silently shook his head.

"That's why there are more snipers - you can't dodge every bullet." Kylari's amusement faded. The problem with humans, she was finding, was that they invariably had no backbone, or too much. They just didn't stop to think before pushing that extra step too far. Did they think that the harder they pushed the more impressed she would be?

"It doesn't work like that." She gestured, and lightning lit up the night, rooftop snipers suddenly finding themselves attracting the bolts with unerring accuracy. "You see, now I shall have to kill you. Otherwise some other heroic idiot might decide to try and kill me. I have better things to do with my time than killing would-be assassin after would-be assassin." She smirked as the smile finally left Tieren Deling's lips. "Besides, if I can hire an assassin to kill one President, what makes you think I won't hire another?" At her gesture, a single shot cracked through the twilight, striking Deling cleanly in the forehead.

As the former Galbadian President crumpled to the ground, Kylari stepped to the balcony, facing the shocked crowd below. They were malleable now, still in shock from the confrontation, open to suggestion and manipulation. How convenient, she mused, that the sorcerer had made such a mess in disposing of the White SeeD, saving her the job in the process.

"People of Galbadia, listen to me! There is a new threat to the world, a threat more potent than Ultemecia, and it is harboured within the ranks of the so-called mercenaries - SeeD!"

***

Not half an hour after Kylari's dramatic takeover of Galbadia's leadership, and her even more dramatic declaration that the world was under threat from a sorcerer within SeeD, straight out naming Squall as said sorcerer, Garden was enduring a deluge of questions and demands from various sources. Most of them, unsurprisingly, were from Galbadia, but as the news and rumours spread like wildfire, a few communications were seeping in from those in Fisherman's Horizon and Trabia. Esthar might have sent communications, but since their blockade prevented answers, there was little point - if they had even heard the news at all. The Shumi were clearly not taking sides either way, they had shut their doors, and were effectively out of the picture. And with all the destruction that had, one way and another, occurred, that meant Fisherman's Horizon, Trabia and Galbadia were the only places left to ask questions.

Still, the problem was not so much the questions, as the answers. Quistis sighed heavily. Squall, who really should have been there for her to ask advice - it was, after all, him they were asking about - was in the infirmary with Ellone, overseeing her treatment, but also, she suspected, hiding from everyone. She'd asked Seifer what was going on and had only received a non-committal grunt in response, making her wonder about the way the sorcerer and his knight were suddenly avoiding each other. None of that, though, told her how to answer the demands for Squall to show himself and answer the accusations being levelled at him. There was no way that they could deny he was a sorcerer, since the fact had been bound to come out sooner or later. It could however, she thought ruefully, have come out better than Kylari disclosing the way the White SeeD had been butchered.

Not that there was any evidence that Squall had been behind that. Which was, at the moment, her only available defence. There were no witnesses and no evidence that Squall had done anything to the White SeeD, and coupled with the fact that the White SeeD had been instrumental in defending Ellone when Ultemecia was hunting for her, there was no motive. Only nine people knew of the White SeeD's link to the Centra cult, and if Kylari revealed that, she would then have to face up to the Centra cult's purpose. Kylari couldn't afford for SeeD, and Squall especially, to appear human - which rushing off in a fury to rescue his sister from an uncertain fate at the hands of a fanatical cult would certainly do.

"How's it goin' Quis?" The blonde SeeD relaxed into her husband's embrace as Zell wrapped his arms around her shoulders from behind.

"I...don't know what to say." She admitted. "Squall should be dealing with these, not me." He hugged her closer, leaning to look over her shoulder at the contents of the desk. There was an unenviable stack of messages sitting in front of her, to which she had to reply as soon as possible. The worst of it was, Zell had just come from the communications room, where the printer was still doing overtime printing more messages off.

"Well then, I say we go corner Squall in the infirmary and tell him he can either do them there, or he can come up to his office and deal with them." Quistis' giggle was suddenly cut off by a soft gasp of realisation.

"Zell, does he even ~know~ about Kylari's announcement?" She felt Zell tense. "Oh Hyne. Who's going to tell him?" There was a sigh from her husband.

"Well, considering he and Seifer have fallen out..." Quistis twisted to stare at Zell, gaping in surprise. "Oh, you didn't know that..." She shook her head mutely. "It was the SeeD that started this all off...Garet, that clued me in. Apparently Seifer mentioned he was the last person Squall would want to see when he took the guy up to Squall's office." Quistis groaned, realisation sinking in.

"That means you or me." She felt Zell nod.

"I'll do it." Zell decided, leaning his weight on her shoulders to keep her sitting down. "He needs a short sharp shock to get him out of whatever mood he's in, and you can't deny that I'm the best at blunt." Quistis snorted in amusement. Best at blunt was one way to put it, only good at blunt was another. Not that he couldn't be subtle, but Zell's tendency to blurt out whatever he was thinking at the time did make subtle hard for him. Pressing a kiss to his wife's head, Zell made a show of squaring his shoulders and marching out of the door, hearing her chuckle behind him.

It was only when he was clear of the office that Zell allowed his fear to show. Squall had become more unpredictable than ever, and clearly more dangerous. There was no doubt that if the brunette did something, he would beat himself up about it forever, but now there was the niggling worry that ~something~ might actually happen. That was new, and that was scaring the hell out of Zell. But there was no going back now. It was him, or it was Quistis.

Taking a deep breath, Zell went to face the lion.

***

Under different circumstances, Dr Kadowaki might have succeeded in her attempts to turf Squall out of the infirmary, sorcerer SeeD Commander or not. However, with Ellone pleading that he be allowed to stay, and with Squall equally determined to stay, the doctor had reluctantly realised that either they both stayed in the infirmary, or they both went elsewhere. Thus, when Zell appeared with a pensive look on his face, Dr Kadowaki waved him into Ellone's room almost eagerly, recognising that the blond needed Squall for something. Zell, on his part, would have been just as happy if Dr Kadowaki had firmly told him that he couldn't go in.

Ellone was asleep, that much registered in Zell's mind before he felt the edge of a gunblade resting lightly at his throat.

"Sorry." He heaved a sigh of relief as Squall muttered the apology, taking Lionheart away from the blond's neck and sheathing it once more.

"Hyne Squall." Zell heard himself saying, mouth once again operating on auto-pilot. "You really think you're going to be attacked in here?" Somehow Squall's glare seemed lacking something. It wasn't quite as cold, as certain as it usually was. The effect was enhanced by the way Squall ran a hand through already ruffled brown hair.

"I don't know. I don't know anything anymore." The quiet admission rocked Zell's world to the core. Squall, fearless, determined Squall, was hesitant, uncertain and afraid. Zell licked his lips, uncertain - more now than before - how the brunette would take news of Kylari's declaration. Squall sighed heavily, and seemed to pull himself together once more. "What was it you wanted Zell?"

"Uh...Kylari's taken over Galbadia, and Timber's been destroyed." Squall's expression barely changed. Zell swallowed, briefly checking that his route to the door was unimpeded. "Kylari's told the world about you...and the White SeeD." Squall's eyes darkened, then just as suddenly lightened to their normal hue, the brunette letting out a soft sigh of resignation.

"It was bound to happen, sooner or later." He muttered, more to himself than Zell.

"The thing is," Zell continued, deciding that he might as well get everything out in the open whilst Squall didn't seem inclined to violence, "Quistis needs to know how to respond to all the demands and queries we're getting." Squall closed his eyes for a moment, then stood, leaning to press a hand against Ellone's forehead.

"Respond however you need to, Garden's safety is the key factor. You can even deny knowing until the White SeeD incident." Zell gaped.

"But...there's no evidence tying you to the White SeeD!" He exclaimed. Squall looked at him, just looked, but Zell found himself automatically taking a step towards the doorway.

"Me decet (1) - I deserve it." The brunette stated quietly. Turning back to Ellone, Squall gently picked her up, cradling her form against his chest. "You and Quistis are in charge of Garden now." Zell blinked as the brunette, for the second time in as many hours, vanished. Turning towards the door, he half expected Seifer to come charging in, but the older blond remained conspicuous in his absence. Shrugging, Zell decided to head back to Quistis. He had, after all, gotten her answers.

***

"...said we're in charge of Garden now." Zell's voice coming from Quistis's office attracted Seifer's attention. He'd been looking for either of the two, but finding them together was just as good.

"I wouldn't worry Chickenwuss." He announced, sauntering in without knocking. "He'll be back sooner or later." Quistis looked relieved, although Zell still looked uncertain.

"But, what he was saying..." Seifer rolled his eyes.

"Was completely unlike him. Right?" Zell nodded. "Don't worry. He'll brood for a while, put Ellone somewhere safe, with people he trusts, and then he'll be back." It felt weird, reassuring two people he'd normally be teasing.

"How can you be so sure Seifer?" That was Quistis, still asking the logical questions, still trying to find reassurance in logic when it was a pure faith thing.

"Because I'm still..."

AN: hehehe *smirks* well, ~something~ happened ;) RxR!! - no more chapters until at least one person reviews - which has already happened *grins* Everyone thank Rei the Wind Spirit and Storm Angel :) The story continues!

(1) Me decet - Latin, basically 'it is fitting for me' or, as Squall says after it, 'I deserve it'.