AN: Just what ~did~ happen when Seifer vanished? And what's going on with Squall?

Book Three of the Sorcerer Arc ~ Battle Lines ~ Chapter Eleven ~ A Hopeless War

The Trabian girl jumped slightly, the only indication that Carbuncle had returned from his errand. A shadow passed over her face, and she frowned worriedly.

"I...he wasn't successful." She admitted. "Someone pushed him away and hurt his feelings." Zell groaned and hid his face in his hands. Of all the messengers they were lumbered with, it had to be a temperamental one. Quistis frowned.

"Will he try again?" The cadet's gaze glazed over for a moment, and then she slowly shook her head.

"I don't think so. I can't even sense him now."

"Damn." Zell muttered after a long pause. "Now what do we do?"

"We could try waiting for a while, let Carbuncle calm down and then try again maybe?" Quistis glanced at the cadet, noticing as the girl shook her head slightly, frowning. "No?" The girl looked up, surprised.

"Uh, no. I just, kinda like a buzz in my mind." She twitched again. "Sorry. Guess maybe Carbuncle's not too happy?" Quistis and Zell exchanged glances. Angry GFs tended to sulk, but a buzz in the mind... Laguna had described the sensation of Squall's mind in his as 'sort of like a humming, buzz kinda thing...'.

The thought drifted through her mind just as it registered that the two SeeDs were worried.

***

The only warning they had was the way the cadet's eyes rolled back, showing only the whites, and then, just as suddenly, rolled forwards again. She looked sharply at them both, a familiar smirking frown on her face.

"Well, Instructor, Chickenwuss - what do you want?"

***

Zell, who had been leaning back in a chair, rocking back on two legs, promptly lost his balance, toppling over backwards with a loud crash. The smirk on the cadet's face deepened.

"Seifer?" Quistis asked, incredulously, echoed by Zell as he scrambled to his feet.

"The one and only." He answered, absently crossing the cadet's right leg over her left and folding her arms. "Now, what the hell do you want?" Zell gaped, mouth working silently. They hadn't really thought beyond actually contacting either Squall or Seifer.

"Report." Quistis finally decided. The cadet rolled her eyes, but Seifer deigned to comment.

"Squall teleported himself and Ellone to Esthar, and then dragged me along for the ride." That was the simple version of events anyway. There was no way in hell he was voluntarily mentioning that he had ended the sentence that he'd been in the middle of, nose to hook with a hat stand. Or the fact that, had Squall not spared him a moment's thought, he would've appeared, fully clothed, in the middle of Esthar's public baths.

"I ~knew~ you were in Esthar." Zell exclaimed, looking extremely pleased with himself.

"Yeah?" Seifer growled. "Then I'll inform the Estharian Comm. Tech. That you're the one to blame for the twice-hourly repeating message that we've told him to ignore." Zell swallowed, suddenly apprehensive. "And as for sending a GF ~directly~..." The cadet looked disgusted. "Who the hell had ~that~ priceless idea?"

"Um...me?" Zell responded tentatively. The cadet rolled her eyes again.

"Figures." Quistis frowned.

"Why did the GF get pushed away Seifer? Who blocked it?" The blonde found herself on the receiving end of a second-hand Almasy glare, which suddenly relented. Just as suddenly the cadet had uncrossed her legs and was standing, back to them, her arms still folded.

"Ellone committed suicide last night." The words struck them like a blow. "Apparently one of the White SeeD gave her a suicide pill, in case Kylari came for her and they couldn't stop her." As if Squall hadn't been beating himself up over their deaths already, now he had new cause to doubt whether they would actually have harmed her. "She left a note, something about the future demanding a sacrifice. Squall..." The cadet took a deep breath. "I think Squall knows what she was talking about."

"How's he coping?" Seifer didn't know whether to laugh or scream at the question, so he did neither, settling for anger instead.

"How the fuck do you think he's coping?" In typical Squall fashion really - he wasn't, but he was refusing to admit it. He's locked himself in his room, and is refusing to come out, whilst he systematically beats himself up over this - and everything else he thinks he's responsible for, Seifer thought, furiously. The cadet shrugged. "He'll brood and beat himself up for a while, and then he'll find something to fight until he feels she's been revenged. You know Squall."

"Yeah, we know Squall." Zell responded, taking a menacing step closer, a gesture lost on the cadet's back. "We're his ~friends~. Tell us the truth." The cadet turned, facing them at last, her angry countenance at odds with the tear trails on her cheeks.

"The truth?" Seifer hissed. "The truth is that he's completely isolated himself. The truth is that this is the last straw. The truth..." The cadet, who had been bristling with Seifer's anger, suddenly deflated, seeming smaller, weaker. "The truth is, I don't know if he can piece himself back together." Silence fell, Seifer's weighty admission too grave an indicator of the seriousness of the situation for even Zell to comment.

"We could... One of us could..." Quistis stumbled to a halt, not sure ~what~ they could do, but determined to make the offer. This time Seifer did laugh. A short, sarcastic bark of laughter that was in no way amused.

"Yeah, one of you could come out here. And do what? Even ~I~ can't get close to him."

"But, ~we're~ his friends. We fought with him against Ultemecia. We know what he's gone through - we went through it too." Zell argued stubbornly.

"His ~friends~." Seifer repeated, mocking. The cadet's face twisted into a snarl. "I'm his ~knight~, his ~lover~. You don't have a ~clue~ what Squall's gone through, what he's going through. Oh, Quistis might have a faint idea of how it feels to lose someone." The cadet glanced pointedly from Quistis to Zell, reminding them of how Squall had brought Zell's soul back. "But not permanently." He wasn't going to mention how Ellone had managed to manipulate both himself and Squall so that the brunette wouldn't realise she was dead until too late. Even so, he'd half killed himself trying to find her, bring her back as he had Zell, and only Seifer's forceful intervention had stopped the brunette from becoming permanently lost in the grey lands between life and death. An awkward silence fell, lingered, barely disturbed by the sound of Zell's feet as the blond shifted uncomfortably.

"Sorry." Zell finally muttered. Seifer snorted, the cadet tossing her head, and the spell was broken.

"So what was so urgent?" Somewhat subdued, Quistis gave him a brief rundown of events both official and unofficial.

"He's coming back, isn't he Seifer? You're both coming back." The cadet turned away, shrugging again.

"I...don't know. He might come back and you'll regret it. He might just give up again and decide that Esthar's as good a place as any to wait for the end. I don't know what he'll do - until he does it."

"But, he's planning ~something~, right?" The cadet winced, unseen, Zell's words reminding Seifer of the innocent question that had led to his and Squall's almighty argument only two days before. Zell waited, watching the cadet closely. Seifer didn't respond.

"Seifer?" Quistis queried gently. The cadet shuddered suddenly, looking around in confusion before turning, her expression one of sheer terror.

"W-what's going on? Everything just went black... How did I get over here?"

Seifer was gone.

***

Having calmed the Trabian cadet down long enough to discover that she remembered nothing of Seifer's possession, told her that, under the circumstances, she'd handled herself well and could expect an official graduation certificate in the next few days, and sent her back off to her classes, Quistis and Zell finally had a chance to stop and evaluate what they had learned.

Ellone was dead. Squall was ~not~ coping well, and Seifer was equally troubled.

Under the circumstances it was probably best that most of Garden had decided the two were off conducting top-secret negotiations with...someone. Zell, remembering Seifer's crack about the Estharian Comm. Tech., sent an order to the communications room telling them to cease the transmissions to Esthar regarding Squall and Seifer. And then... Then there was just the silence, and the silent wondering of what would happen now. Their leader was, effectively, gone. They had no real plans, no real idea about what they were doing, what they were fighting. There wasn't even a team out in the field, fighting whatever there was to fight, doing what they could to stop events from reaching their terrifying conclusion.

"The wind's getting up." Zell commented absently, needing something, anything to fill the silence. Quistis looked up from her observation of the carpet, seeing swag-bellied clouds scudding past. Rain maybe, or a thunderstorm sweeping in.

"It's been windy for days." She agreed, wondering if there was a big cyclone coming. How long since the last cyclone? Five, six years? They'd only just really started to recover from the chaos of Ultemecia. Hyne, it had to be six years. She wondered if they'd already started storm preparations in Balamb Town. Maybe they should send someone to check. But they hadn't had any warning from the weather radar, so maybe it was just a gale. It might have blown over come morning.

The silence fell again.

***

Kylari was happy. Almost all of Kylari was happy - which was a rare occurrence with five different personalities to appease. Of course, only three personalities were truly happy. Of the other two, one didn't care either way, and the other was most definitely disapproving. But that didn't matter. The majority of Kylari was happy, and most importantly, the dominant personality - Kylari - was happy. Happy enough, in fact, that she might even have described it as ecstatic.

The reason for Kylari's happiness was currently unconscious and cradled in the sorceress's arms. Another sorceress, dressed in the traditional garb of the nomadic tribes that roamed Galbadia. Long Wendigo hide robes, decorated with Cockatrice feathers and strings of Thrustaevis claws. Her hair was long and dark, streaked white with age and magic use. The headdress she had worn was long since gone, lost sometime during the fight against Kylari's forces and Kylari herself. Her fight hadn't been entirely futile, Kylari's right arm sporting a long burn where she hadn't managed to deflect a spear of lightning in time.

Kylari didn't care. She had won, and any pain from the burn was easily ignored. She'd felt so much worse in her past. A cruel smirk twisted her face as she flew through the wall of the Centra tower into the room where Rinoa awaited. The raven-haired sorceress, as she had started to do, began cursing immediately, attempting to free herself from the stone chair into which she had been partially absorbed. Her powers were locked safely inside the chair, and the tower itself, preventing Rinoa from attacking her captor, but also ensuring that she could not refuse the powers released when a sorceress died within the tower's confining walls.

Without ceremony, and forgoing her usual routine of torture, not even waking the unconscious sorceress, Kylari snapped the Galbadian's neck. Instantly the sorceress's corpse began to glow, her powers gathering together and leaving in a flood of electric sparks that were absorbed by Rinoa's vocally protesting form. The protests turned into a scream as the powers embedded themselves firmly in their new host, the raven-haired sorceress writhing in pain. Kylari sniggered and turned away, unconcerned at leaving her vessel alone. Rinoa was helpless, pathetic and weak despite all the power that she now contained. Her harsh, panting breaths were left behind as Kylari stepped back through the tower wall, flying easily to stand atop it. Clouds were gathering on the horizon, and though the air where she stood was still and dead, Kylari knew she would be flying against a headwind to leave. Fortunately that headwind would not become a serious hindrance until the very end, and then it wouldn't matter.

With a joyous cackle of mad laughter, Kylari took to the air once more. It was time to have some fun...

***

Edea woke with a start, alert to the presence of something, ~someone~, but not able to identify who or what. To her left Nida blinked wide, hazel eyes at her, sensing whatever she did, but likewise unable to put a name to it. After a long minute of inactivity, she began to relax, dismissing the sensation as the remnant of a dream. Nida, however, rose from his bed, still trailing a drip, and began pulling on clothes, easily removing the IV and its needle when it hampered his movements.

He only had his trousers on when the woman walked into the room, but instantly he was between the intruder - clearly ~not~ a doctor - and Edea, weaponless except for his bare hands and feet. The sorceress, for she could really be nothing else given her clothing and demeanour, stopped instantly and bowed deeply towards them both. Nida heard the icicles - which should have been impossible in Esthar's summer heat - chime softly against one another where they dangled from her headdress.

"Sorceress of water, cousin of sorcery, I give you greeting." Edea acknowledged her with a short nod, silently calling Nida to her side. "I am come to give you that which is mine to give. Do you accept?" Confused by the woman's mannerisms, and still groggy with sleep, Edea nodded again. The woman smiled broadly, then, to Edea and Nida's horror, pulled out a long knife, and before they could do anything to stop her, plunged it into her chest. She convulsed once, the smile never wavering, and died. Nida and Edea stared at her in horror, looking at each other briefly before the power gathering around the sorceress's body attracted their attention once more.

As the shards of icy power entered Edea's slim form, causing her to hiss in pain, both she and her knight wondered what had prompted the other sorceress's sacrifice...

***

"Ma'am! The Galbadian army has been sighted!" Xu closed her eyes and nodded, dismissing the messenger even as she fought for control and composure. In truth she'd been expecting Kylari to send someone, or something, after them, but she had expected the attack to come as they manoeuvred between Galbadia and Centra - literally between a rock and a hard place. Kylari, it seemed, had decided to be patient and annihilate two points of resistance in one, although FH could hardly be called a point of resistance.

Turning away from the window and her maudlin thoughts, Xu quickly ran through her mental list of orders once more, and then began to issue those that were the most important. The Garden itself was likely to be the last place the Galbadians managed to take - if the Garden didn't retreat out of their range. But the Garden retreating would be a last-ditch order, since it would mean abandoning anyone who didn't make it back onboard, in essence, whatever rearguard remained to ensure the Galbadians didn't get a secure foothold. Still, as the most strongly defended point, it made sense that all non-combatants were evacuated into Garden.

All SeeDs with explosives training were sent to lay mines and other obstacles in the path of the oncoming forces. It was their single blessing that, even though they couldn't destroy the bridge itself - Hyne alone knew what it was made of, but they'd ~tried~ destroying it and had barely managed to scratch the surface - the limited width meant the Galbadians couldn't use their greater numbers to any advantage. Not unless they brought out their flight suits. Those would give them a definite, albeit tenuous, advantage, especially with Garden lacking properly trained snipers.

Beyond assigning SeeDs to defensive positions - she was hoping they could just keep pounding away and hold the Galbadians back until they broke - there was little else she could do. Little else anyone could do. Until the Galbadians arrived.

***

The sounds of the fighting were distorted by the time they reached the observation deck and Xu, whipped by the wind into a frenzy of incomprehensible screams and shouts. She wasn't sure where it had all gone wrong, ~what~ had gone wrong. Even though she hadn't expected the Galbadians to walk blindly over the mines and traps, she'd hoped, counted on, the thin line of defenders just beyond holding up their attempts to clear the obstacles. She'd hoped to force the fight into a stalemate early on, leaving them able to concede ground if necessary, and minimising the casualties if it became necessary to retreat in the Garden.

But the Galbadians had just marched silently into the mines as if they weren't there. Oh, they had died in the process, died in their ranks - SeeDs knew how to set explosives for maximum effect - but they had just kept coming, marching over the remains of their fallen comrades as though they were just a normal part of the ground. And they had done it all without a sound, without a flinch. The SeeDs, however, stunned into immobility by the Galbadian behaviour, had been sitting ducks. ~They~ had screamed as the Galbadian attack cut them to pieces. There was no cover from the guns that shouldn't have gotten close enough to prove effective against Protect spells. And even then, the Galbadians ~had~ to be using anti-magic bullets to cause so much damage so easily.

Now the first of her main defensive lines were fighting for their lives against the inexorable advance of a seemingly endless army of unfeeling, uncaring Galbadian soldiers. And, despite their valiant efforts, it was not going well. The SeeDs couldn't help but be unnerved by the silence in which the Galbadians fought and died, and they seemed to be screaming and shouting as much to try and force their enemy to respond - make them more human, less intimidating - as they were screaming in their own pain, and shouting their own orders.

She'd called Balamb Garden ~and~ the Galbadia Garden Fleet, hoping against hope that they might be able to send aid, but both were beset by their own troubles. The Fleet had been attacked by the largest shoal of Sawfish they'd ever seen, and it was taking all their firepower to combat them. Balamb Garden was simultaneously attempting to deal with another, remarkably fortuitous - for the Galbadians anyway - swarm of monsters, T-Rexaurs in their case, whilst evacuating Balamb Town. Hyne only knew where Quistis was managing to stuff the civilians, Xu mused, remembering that Balamb was running at full capacity already.

There wasn't even the certainty that the Galbadians would pull back as the light started to fade - whenever that would be with the clouds already making the afternoon dull...

AN: Yes, Rinoa has a hell of a lot of power, and no knight, but she isn't crying blood tears - there is a reason for this, it will be revealed later ;) Uh, the Sawfish are inspired by the Corvette and Sword Dance monsters from FFVII (heh, I had to go look that up o.O). In my mind they're kind of skeletal, finless fish, but their heads and tails are fleshy... Bleh, maybe I'll do a sketch of one someday...