DISCLAIMER: I do not own FFX, FFX-2, FFVIII or any of the characters and locations affiliated with it. I do, however, own the story "Silver Wings", "Silver Wings 2: 1000 Confessions" and all references to dialogue not originated by Square-Enix.
PAINE OF SPIRA!!! DO NOT COPY MY STORIES!!
If anyone wants to post my stories anywhere else, please just ASK and then give me credit for writing it. Email akksgurl@yahoo.com with any requests.
Author's Notes: This chapter changes the end of FF8 but for those of you who have not seen the actual ending there may be spoilers.
I have received a few questions from people who haven't played Final Fantasy 8 yet and want a storyline explanation about the game. Therefore SPOILERS will be present in the following information.
BEGINNING OF SPOILER!!!
The main character of FF8 is Squall Leonhart who is a stoic and introverted 17 year old guy. His arch enemy is Seifer Almasy. In the opening sequence you see both men fighting and they wound each other with similar scars between the eyes. Then you find out that they both live in a military academy called Balamb Garden (there are several such Gardens all over their world) and they are training to become Balamb's elite force SeeD.
While on a routine SeeD mission (after becoming SeeDs, that is) Squall and his friends have their first "dream world" sequence in which they see a scene from the lives of three men, Laguna, Kiros, and Ward. The first scene involves Laguna and his major crush on a lounge singer named Julia. The second sequence involves him falling off of a cliff. The third involves his relationship with a woman named Raine. The last involves him being held prisoner in Esthar. (Although the game never comes right out and says it. It is pretty obvious that Julia is Rinoa's mother and Laguna/Raine are Squall's parents. Raine dies at some point – supposedly while having her child (Squall) – and this is why Laguna ends up in Esthar.)
To make a long story short, a sorceress named Edea comes on the scene and manipulates Seifer into joining her to fulfill his "romantic dream" of vanquishing evil and saving those in need. Throughout the story this "dream" of his becomes warped.
The player soon finds out that Edea is the wife of Balamb Garden's headmaster, Cid and that she ran the orphanage where Squall, Seifer, and his fellow fighters (excluding Rinoa) grew up. (The reason they don't remember her initially is truly ridiculous and I don't want to get into it. Haha! Just suffice it to say, they don't realize until around disk 3!!).
And just when you think there can't be any more twists, you find out that Edea isn't evil at all! She was being controlled by a sorceress from the future named Ultimecia. When the teens fight Edea for the last time (at the end of disk 2), Ultimecia flees Edea's body and possesses Rinoa turning her into a sorceress (and a coma as well) and sending Squall into a tailspin since he's madly in love with her. (Rinoa, not Ultimecia. Haha!).
Squall is desperate to save his lady love so he wants to find Ellone (whom he affectionately refers to as "Sis". (Whether she really is his sister or not is up to the player to decide. Laguna refers to Ellone's parents in one of the dream world sequences as both being dead although the popular consensus is that Raine is Ellone's mother and therefore Squall's half sister but one never knows. Ellone also refers to Laguna as "uncle" and if she's also Squall's half-sister…well, my head hurts just thinking about it. Haha!) "Sis" has the power to send people's consciousness into people in the past (AKA: The "dream world") and that was what she had been doing to Squall and his friends when they would witness episodes from Laguna's life. Squall wants to be transported back to save (or at least warn) Rinoa, but the problem is that Ellone can only do this for people she knows so Squall has to drag poor unconscious Rinoa to the space station that Ellone is in.
Of course, while he's chatting with Ellone, Ultimecia possesses Rinoa again and makes the girl leave the space station to release the carbon frozen Sorceress Adel who everybody fears. (It's explained later that Laguna became president of Esthar after he tricked Adel into the carbon freezing to save Esthar from the tyrannous sorceress). It's after this that Rinoa is in control of her own body again, but she's also left in space with little oxygen.
So what does Squall do??
You guessed it! He jumps into space too (only after Ellone manages to send him into Rinoa's past and we find out that she's had a thing for him for most of the game (not that it wasn't totally obvious anyway.) The two manage to get onto a spaceship that is just luckily floating around with fuel and everything (where is the crew, I wonder?!) but the catch is that they have to fight monsters and kill them according to their color. Once that is done there's this cute little scene between the two on the ship (*mush mush*)
The final battles are in the following order:
Raijin/Fujin (Seifer's friends – his "posse")
A robot
Seifer
Adel
A bunch of random sorceresses
A bunch of random "bosses"
Ultimecia
To fight Ultimecia, the group has to go through "time compression". To do that there must only be one sorceress in the present so they have to kill Adel, but before they can do that, Seifer tries to feed Rinoa to her! Adel joins with Rinoa and you have to fight her without hurting the captured heroine (and I use that world loosely. The girl is captured more times then you can count on one hand during this game!! She's like "Princess Toadstool" from Mario!! Haha)
Anyway, after Adel is beaten then time compression can start and the group makes their way toward Ultimecia. Then you fight her and the game is over…or is it?!
You think Squall is dead but if you watch through ALL the credits, you see him and Rinoa smooching at the end.
END OF SPOILER!!
Sorry if that sounded too much like a walkthrough then an explanation, but I hoped that helped those who were confused. I am going to be omitting and changing a few parts here and there (like, when Rinoa/Ultimecia remembers stuff it'll involve Sin, not Ultimecia. The versions that Tidus is with are the dream versions so they are dealing with Ultimecia.) This chapter, as stated above, changes the ending slightly. Well….it actually adds more after the final FMV (full motion video).
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SILVER WINGS 3: Back Into My Arms
by akksgurl
Chapter Six: Origin of Evil
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Dark and dreary days and nights had become home for her in the years that had passed since the sorceress Rinoa Heartilly's youth. This was why the dreary and dank atmosphere of the temple of Bevelle had appealed to her so much. She could hide in its many shadows and remain hidden away from prying eyes to continue with her plans.
Rinoa had never been one to believe in time travel or true and pure evil, but she did now. Tragedy – not just in the form of Sin – struck Rinoa and she had developed what the doctors called Multiple Personality Disorder. She still wasn't sure what that meant, in truth. Although she had another ego – Ultimecia – Rinoa was fully aware of what her other persona was doing and 99% of the time, it was precisely what Rinoa would have done if she had the nerve.
As an early form of fayth, sorceresses possess the same, if not slightly less, power then the charming children that created the dream world. Rinoa didn't know the place existed until Summoner Yuna defeated Sin and her guardian faded as the fayth stopped dreaming. It was then that Rinoa's – no, Ultimecia's – plan had started to formulate.
She wanted to end the pain that was no doubt devouring Yuna as well. Rinoa wanted to stop hurting. She still remembered the last few moments of her true sanity.
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The night was the most gorgeous one Rinoa Heartilly had remembered ever seeing. The stars shown brightly and the music from the party behind her made the night feel almost magical.
Glancing at the handsome man beside her, Rinoa smiled. It was a magical night. They had survived the first of what most believed would be many of Sin's attacks. They had survived being shot into space. Together, they had even survived her becoming a sorceress herself. That was how Rinoa always wanted them to be.
Together.
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"Irvy! Look at me!" Selphie Tilmitt shouted at her boyfriend, Irvine Kinneas as she jumped in front of the camcorder the young cowboy was holding.
"I am, darlin'." Replied Irvine as he casually moved the camera's focus over to a group of attractive SeeD females sitting at a table across the room. They waved at him flirtatiously and he waved back but Selphie's angry face in the camcorder stopped him from going to talk to them.
Selphie was jealous whenever her flirtatious boyfriend would speak to any other female. Irvine loved Selphie but the girl just didn't seem to understand that flirting was his nature. He was going to have to do something about that.
"Hey! Don't touch that!"
Selphie turned at the sound of Quistis Trepe, the 18 year old ex-Instructor turned SeeD, reprimanding one of the junior classmen who had lifted Irvine's rifle from the ground to look at it. Selphie ran over to the child and removed the gun from his hands, "That's loaded, honey. Don't touch." She said.
"Sef…" Irvine called in a hushed whisper, "Will ya look a' that."
Selphie turned and followed her boyfriend's line of vision. He was staring at something intently through the camcorder's lense and doing so with a smirk, no less. She glanced out onto the balcony and that's when she saw it.
Squall and Rinoa…kissing.
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Sam knew that just because he was a junior classmen, those SeeDs thought he couldn't handle a rifle. Stupid SeeDs…what did they know anyway? The group that had reprimanded him was now looking intently onto the balcony so he snuck behind them and grabbed the rifle before running into a corner just caddy-cornered from the balcony.
It was the coolest rifle Sam had ever seen in his life and he'd seen many. His father used to hunt before he died so Sam had grown up around guns, though he'd never actually handled one.
"Loaded…right!" whispered Sam as he looked through the viewer. He didn't believe that a SeeD would bring a loaded weapon to a dance. That would be the stupidest move ever. Sam laughed quietly and put his finger on the trigger.
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Squall's lips were soft and smooth as they caressed Rinoa's gently, almost hesitantly. Rinoa didn't ask but she figured this was probably one of Squall's first kisses – if not his actually first. Since he had been so introverted his entire life, she doubted he had much dating experience and instead of that being a turn off, she really liked it. It was because of that that she felt confident in their love.
She knew he loved her.
He pulled away slowly and looked into her eyes, "I love you." He whispered.
"I love you too."
"Rinny," he said to her. She loved the nickname he'd suddenly started using for her that day. No one else called her that and she'd never let them from this day forward. It was the nickname Squall had invented and therefore only Squall could use it. "You have no idea what you mean to me."
Rinoa smiled, "You mean the world to me too, Squall." She touched his face gently and ran her thumb over the scar that ran between his eyes courtesy of her ex, Seifer Almasy,
"Will you promise me something?"
"Anything."
"Will you always be here for me? I don't think I could survive it if I lost you."
Squall's blue eyes bore into her brown ones, "I promise that I will always be here for you. Nothing can take me away."
His lips reconnected with hers for a moment before she heard what sounded like a gunshot. Then a scream that sounded like Selphie.
Rinoa spun her head to the dance to see a deathly pale junior classmen holding Irvine's gun. She tried to push Squall up but he continued to lean against her, "Squall, we've got to see what's going on."
No response.
"Squall?"
No response.
Selphie, Irvine, Zell, and Quistis were suddenly on the balcony with her. Selphie looked like she was crying but Rinoa didn't know why. She tried to push up on Squall again but this time with more force. He seemed to stand for just a moment before he collapsed on the ground.
Looking at her hands, Rinoa saw blood and she started to shake. She was almost afraid of what she would find if she looked to the ground but her eyes were drawn there as if by their own desires.
The bullet looked as though it had gone straight through Squall's head. Blood was coming out of both sides of his skull. It must have happened fast because he still wore a slight smirk on his handsome features.
No words formed.
No shrieks sounded.
Rinoa stood frozen staring first at her hands and then at the man she loved lying crumbled in a heap on the floor. She felt Selphie and Quistis put their arms around her and vaguely saw Cid escort the child away. Zell and Irvine helped Dr. Kadowaki move Squall but Rinoa stayed where she was. She stayed staring at the last place Squall had been for a long while after they had moved him. The blood from his wound still lay on the balcony and as the tears finally started to flow, Rinoa noted that the red liquid formed what appeared to be a broken heart.
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All Rinoa wanted was to wipe away that memory and start fresh, but no matter where she looked she saw his eyes, cold and senseless. She could still see his blood on her hands, staining her. She had tried to move on. She had tried to live without him, but she couldn't. He was her world and he was gone and something inside her snapped.
When she had found out about the dream world, she knew exactly what she needed to do. When she had become a sorceress as a teenager, she had been so afraid that she had made him swear on his life that if she ever became out of control that he would kill her. She knew now that she was out of control, but he wasn't there. He couldn't fulfill his promise unless she went to him and that was precisely what she was going to do. Squall Leonhart was going to kill her, and Rinoa Heartilly would be watching from both sides.