Chaos.
By Tonyo
Chaos, damned chaos, SeeD candidates, senior and junior classmen running around everywhere, chasing each other, usually with one or two faculty members closely behind, barking orders often with some sort of monster trailing them from the training centre.
Down the corridors from the dormitories, in the main concourse of the Garden complex, junior and senior classmen attacking each other with their swords, nunchakus, even bare fists in some cases. Watching the junior classmen getting sliced down with the swords, mutilated by Magic spells that they likely didn't know existed, defenceless. That was until I saw it.
Jumping into battle crippling as many foes as I could using non-lethal spells to stop them killing each other. It wouldn't take long to heal themselves and continue battling, but at least by taking these actions, I was delaying the inevitable.
Suffice to say, it didn't take long for the faculty members, dressed in their long burgundy robes, to catch up to me, and ask the inevitable question.
"Whose side are you on, Headmaster Cid's or the rightful Garden Master NORG's?"
I refused to answer. How was I meant to know? I'd never heard of this 'NORG' until the faculty member towering before me mentioned it.
"Answer me you useless child"
Still I refused to answer, instead slicing at the leg of the faculty with the custom made sword that I had crafted for my training, and quickly running away.
"After that brat!" he barked, and looking back, I found three senior classmen running after me, I just cleared my throat and continued running even as I knew they were catching up, surely I would run into somebody I knew soon?
After a relentless persuit around the huge concourse of the massive Garden, the seniors eventually caught up with me, but I had already prepared a little surprise for them, pulling a bottle from my belt with a label that simply read 'ZZZZZZZZ' I held it, studied it like it was about to save my life, well, strictly speaking it probably was. When the seniors gathered around me in a circle, all sporting knuckle-dusters, they echoed the Faculties words
"So, whose side are you on?"
I simply answered
"Mine" and threw the bottle at the floor, held my breath as the powder took its effect on the surrounding seniors, and again sprinted off.
Chuckling as I looked back at the three seniors I had just sent to the land of dreams, something rather unexpected drifted into my head, where in Hyne's name was I planning to go, I stood resting on my sword for a moment thinking of the best place to go and look for people who could help, when it hit me. Me and a few others had agreed a while back that if something bad were ever to happen to any one us, or the garden as a whole, we would meet up in the quads, under the fall, so that was the next plan, get to the quads, and seeming as I had just run around one quarter of the Garden core, with the dormitories being at the top, I would have to run another half of the way round, the real choosing was, which way would stop me from getting into anymore unwanted encounters?
I decided that it would be best if I ran via the main hall of the Garden. Perhaps having a few more encounters would be a good thing, and seeming as most people would probably be heading the same way as I it would probably be a chance to test my training against opponents that would fight back, as opposed to the many grats I had fought in the training centre. Dodge, run, dodge again and slice, it all seemed to easy. Had always wanted to head into the area where they keep the T-Rexaurs but the tales that I've heard about them just keep me away. I'd encountered one, but that was with me standing on one side of the electric fence and it standing on the other. It had some nifty spells so I took the opportunity to draw some of them, just in case I should ever need them for any reason.
Getting into the main hall, directly looking at Raijin and Fugin. Thought
'What the hell are they just standing there for?' but more importantly to stop running just in case I get busted for 'Seifers Favourite' – What he liked to call, 'Speeding'. Talking of Seifer, where was he, he usually didn't go anywhere without them. Heard he broke out of the disciplinary room about a fortnight ago. But not heard or seen anything of him since. Strange.
"Hey you!" The big man known as Raijin, shouted across "Come 'ere"
Reluctantly stepping towards the large muscular man with his Pole thrown over his shoulder and the massive beads around his neck, I glanced over at Fujin with her one eye, silver hair, and mostly blue top half, she just eyeballed me with the good eye.
"Who's side are you on? Y'know, Cids or NORG's?"
"To be brutally honest, I don't know, if I had some idea why everybody was fighting each other then I might pick a side" Raijin and Fujin glanced at each other and nodded before Fujin re-iterated Raijin's request, except cut down to one word in her typical style,
"…..SIDE….."
"I told you, I don't know, what about you"
"…..NEITHER….."
"Yeah, she's right y'know, were like you, 'cept we're with a side, he just isn't here,"
"Lemme guess Seifer?" I asked
"'Course, always have been, always will be y'know"
Ok, so Raijun saying y'know was getting annoying, but I could see where he was coming from, yet I daren't ask about Seifer's whereabouts because to be quite honest, other thoughts running through my head. But all those problems seemed to disappear when I saw 3 people running up the main hall towards the directory.
Squall, Zell and some other guy with what looked like a sawn-off double barrelled shotgun slung over his shoulder, clad in a long, skin colored trench-coat with matching trousers that seemed to get darker as they went down with pale diamonds around the knees. The trousers were belted up with a large brown belt with a stylish-looking gold buckle. Under the trench-coat he wore a blue vest covered by a gold medallion around his neck. And to top it all off, a worn looking cowboy hat that was the same color as the coat and trousers, with locks of blonde hair draping from either side.
My jaw simply dropped at the sight of Squall Leonhart. The man behind the legend, in the flesh! I just couldn't help but stand and stare for what seemed like an eternity as he ran up, clad in his signature black leather jacket with its white furry trims at the neck, the white muscle shirt, black leather gloves and matching black trousers with their ammo pouches and the accessory belts. I even got a glance at the silver necklace that draped around his neck, casually suspended on its long slide-chain.
He continued to run up, me watching, Gunblade raised ready to attack, stormy deep eyes seeking out anybody he knew when he spotted Raijun and Fujin and started running over. I dashed for the directory and hid behind it while the five of them talked, at least they weren't fighting which was a relief, in his proximity, I felt safe. Another thought came into my head, 'What if I never get to see this guy again?'- maybe it was a bit dramatic but I'd always wanted a picture. I reached into my pocket and got out a finger-sized stick, slid open a slot in its top, pointed it towards the group and pressed the red button on the top of the stick. It was a camera, of sorts. As I was putting it back into my pocket, I heard footsteps rapidly approaching me, and as I looked up, there he was, looking me dead in the eye, giving me the look that had scared so many people before me.
"Who's side are you on kid?" he asked
I sheepishly said, "Whatever side you are on, S..s…sir" (He was a SeeD after all)
"Fine, well do me a favour. If you see any other SeeDs, tell them to start evacuating Garden. There maybe Galbaldian missiles heading this way"
"Y…y…Sure" I replied and stood gripping the directory like it was going to safe my life (and no, it wasn't going to.)
After this short conversation, Squall, Zell and the new-guy ran up towards the lift to the second floor classrooms and training rooms and the third floor Administrative offices, Squall glanced back, and mouthed 'Go' to me. Zell simply looked back and gave me a thumbs up and the new-guy pulled the gun off his shoulder mouthed 'Pow' and gave the re-coil motion of his gun. That was my cue, I sped off as fast as I possibly could to the quads to where our friends had decided to meet if anything this bad were to happen. After-all, I now not only needed to find them, but I had a picture of Squall, Zell and the new guy, and Raijin's rather large posterior that I needed to get downloaded to a computer and printed off, fast, hopefully with Raijin's bottom cut out.
Passing the walkway off the main concourse that lead to the infirmary an extremely familiar sound of metal on metal distracted me. I looked towards the entrance to the infirmary to find two Juniors fully engaged in a duel, one already had a slice down his left arm which looked quite nasty, the other, a nice gouge where his knee met the other joints of his leg, but he was still standing on it, suffice to say the pain must have been excruciating but this obviously wasn't stopping him. In an attempt to stop the two students I reached for another bottle of my belt, again labelled 'ZZZZZZZ' and threw it over not even checking where it landed. I was in such a hurry. All I heard was a smash then the sounds of metal on metal ceased, I muttered a 'Good-shot' compliment to myself and quickly rushed on to the next walkway which would be my entry-point to the Quad.
Up to the said walkway, the trip was un-eventful but that was soon to change. Large, loud, steady footsteps, those of a hungry T-Rexaur were coming my way….Where from, I couldn't tell, I looked ahead, I looked behind, and then, I looked straight onto the walkway that I had to run across to get into the quad, and there it was, a T-Rexaur slowly walking its way up the walkway towards me, with two faculty members running at its heels. I muttered several obscenities under my breath as it approached and prepared myself for the worst. I know I said I wouldn't mind heading to the area in the training centre which they were kept in, but this wasn't exactly what I had in mind.
"You there, who's side are you on?" – faculty members…again,
Silence.
"WHOS SIDE?!?!"
"Which-ever side will keep that thing from eating me"
"Garden-master NORGS then?"
"Yeah, I guess so"
"Fine, go kill some of Cid's brats then"
Initially, I made it look like that I was hunting for people opposed to this 'NORGS' faction, that was until the faculty members and the Rexaur were out of sight. I was amazed at how easily they believed me, surely they must've been able to tell I was lying, but I suppose the idea of the Rexaur eating them was playing on their minds quite a bit…Anyway, I headed down the walkway into the quads to find it deserted, which was unusual, I was expecting to hear clangs of metal on metal, and the classic sound of knuckles on flesh, but, nothing except running water, near enough without thinking, I jumped straight off the walkway into the pool below. The water was freezing, and I was only here for one thing, so swam under the fall near the pool that I had just landed in to find 5 swords pointing at my face as I looked up
"Yeah, real good to see you too guys"
A/N: Total one shot fic, started off as a piece of English homework that I had to do, decided to stick it up on here too, R&R appreciated.