FINAL FANTASY: POINT OF INTERSECTION
BOOK 1: THE APPROACHING STORM


CHAPTER 2


Everywhere she looked, there were people. They scrambled hurriedly from one errand to another, crisscrossing the broad central courtyard of the rebuilt Trabia Garden, which rose above Ellone like a silent but beneficent giant. The flattened cylindrical structure was the smallest of the three Gardens that Cid and Edea Kramer had founded so many years ago.

It didn't take Ellone long to find the person she sought. Selphie Tilmitt, her flip of coppery hair starkly vivid in the gray afternoon light of the leaden, overcast sky, stood to the right of the circular stone fountain in the center of the courtyard. Dressed in a full SeeD instructor's uniform, Selphie was busily scribbling notes onto a clipboard as Elle walked up to her.

It looks like everything's coming together pretty well for tomorrow night, Elle greeted her, smiling a little. I guess I don't need to ask if you're excited.

The redheaded girl squealed excitedly. Hiya, Sis! Tomorrow night is gonna be so awesome! We're gonna pah-tay!

I can imagine. So, you're an instructor now, I hear?

Selphie nodded enthusiastically. Yep! About time, too! Quisty helped me get my instructor's license after she got hers reinstated. So now I'm teaching junior classmen all kinds of cool stuff about Garden and SeeD and all that.

How do you like it? Elle asked.

It's totally awesome! Maybe someday, I'll even have a fan club like Quisty does! Like the Sefies' or something, you know?

You've been teaching here, then, as well as helping with the reconstruction?

Selphie sighed, a little of her enthusiasm seeming to dwindle somehow. Yeah, that's what I've been doing since the war, but now that Trabia's rebuilt, I don't know if I wanna stay here, or or go back to Balamb. I know I could teach in either Garden, but I love both of em so much oh, I don't know what to do, Sis! I can't be in both places at once, but but I really, really wish I could

Elle patted the other girl's shoulder reassuringly. I'm sure you'll be able to figure something out, Selphie. I've never known you to let anything get you down for very long.

Thanks, Sis! Selphie exclaimed, her grin returning so swiftly that Elle wondered if it had ever left in the first place. I'll think of something, I just know it!

I don't doubt it, Elle replied, allowing herself a small smile at the other girl's enthusiasm.

Hey, why don't you let me show you around for a bit? I have to head over to the quad, anyway, so why don't you walk over there with me?

Elle nodded, grateful for the welcome distraction from her dark thoughts that Selphie so cheerfully provided. Nevertheless, the redheaded girl's exuberance couldn't push them away completely, and so Ellone's unease lingered, a weight in her mind and in her heart. She shivered, remembering how strangely Squall had looked at her when she had so inexplicably healed him. In that moment, her blood tingling intensely with a power she no longer knew or understood, Ellone had felt herself a stranger not only to Squall but also to herself.

A slight tug on her arm brought Elle from her thoughts as Selphie, her expression unusually solemn, beckoned her to follow. There's somethin' I wanna show you, Sis, before we go to the quad. It's over this way, kinda in the other direction, really, but it'll only take a minute or two.

The redheaded girl led Ellone down a paved concrete path that wound to the right of the Garden until it reached a broad, snowy clearing dotted here and there with a few tall evergreen trees that stood like mute sentries over the rows of gravestones that lined the area. Bouquets of flowers decorated most of the graves, and over one was draped an old leather jacket.

What is this place? Elle asked.

It's the Trabia Memorial, Selphie replied softly. Everyone who died in the missile attack is buried here. Before the reconstruction it was just a muddy field with a few old tree stumps, so when we began rebuilding, we planted new grass and put in the pines and firs to make it nicer for everyone who visited and so that the friends we lost wouldn't be forgotten.

I'm sure they would appreciate what you and the others have done, Selphie.

The other girl smiled sadly. Thanks. I used to know some of the people here, was friends with a bunch of em before they died. Y'know, it never really hit me until I came back here after the war that those buddies I lost were really and truly gone. I'm just glad Irvy was there with me to hold me together, cause it felt for a while like I was fallin' apart inside.

Elle gently laid a hand comfortingly on Selphie's shoulder. I know what that's like. While I was on the White SeeD ship for all those years, separated from all of you and from Uncle Laguna, from all the people I had ever loved, I felt much the same way.

There had been during those long years at sea many nights where Ellone had cried herself to sleep, her face buried in her pillows as tears had streamed unchecked down her face. Her exile had been of her own choice, however, for the protection of the loved ones she had left behind. She had long since lost track of the countless nights she had spent standing alone at the ship's rail, her nostrils filled with the strong scent of brine and her ears with the ceaseless, rhythmic lapping of the waves against the hull as she had stared silently out to sea.

In those long, lonely vigils under the starry skies, her heart aching terribly inside her despite the cheerful front that she had worn for the sake of the others aboard ship, Ellone had thought often of home, of Winhill and the orphanage, and of the life and family that had been taken from her. She had wished bitterly that things could have been different for her and for Squall and the others. In the midst of her sorrow, Ellone had resolved to someday make them different.

During the war, she had reached with her powers into the minds of Squall and his companions to try and change what had happened in the past, but without success. Yet the experience had not been completely fruitless, as through it Ellone had been able to see and remember how much she had been loved by those around her, by Raine and Uncle Laguna, by Cid and Edea and even Squall. With that realization, some of Ellone's bitterness had at last begun to fade.

It's a real mega bummer, isn't it? Selphie asked quietly, drawing Elle from her thoughts. But we both got over it, though.

Elle smiled a little and nodded her agreement as she and Selphie stood in silence for a minute out of respect for those whose graves lay before them. The two women then slowly walked back down the concrete path to the central courtyard, where the sounds of trickling water from the stone fountain mingled with the excited buzz of conversation as students and faculty alike scurried about in a state of nervous anticipation for tomorrow evening's events.

You know, I'm surprised Irvine isn't around, Elle remarked. He always did seem to like being with you.

Selphie grinned and nodded, her cheeks reddening slightly at the mention of the lanky, amorous young cowboy. He came up here to help me with the reconstruction after war, and um well, we've gotten together since then. I thought everyone knew by now.

I guess I've been a little out of touch, Elle mused, but I'm happy for you. I can't say it comes as any great surprise, though.

Nah, I guess not. I told him I wouldn't go out with him 'till he stopped lookin' at them naughty magazines he always used to collect. Poor guy was in agony for days, but he eventually did the right thing and got rid of 'em, actually burned 'em all right in front of me! Didn't take him long to kick that little habit, I can tell ya.

Good for you, Selphie! You know, you're really lucky to have someone, I mean

Hey, don't you worry, Sis, Selphie giggled, her green eyes dancing, I'm sure some cute guy's gonna come and sweep you right up off your feet! Just you wait and see!

Elle ran a hand self-consciously through her short brown hair. do you really think so?

I know so! He'll be tall, dark, and handsome, your very own knight in shining armor!

Sighing wistfully, Ellone couldn't suppress a slight blush of her own. She did want very much to have someone, a man with whom she could share her heart and her life, her hopes and her sorrows, her joys and her tears, her body and her soul. So many nights she had lain awake, wondering, dreaming, longing for someone to take away her loneliness, to love her and be loved by her. Except that no man, she knew, could or would ever love her that way. Her power, her curse, had seen to that.

Elle shook her head. I'd probably frighten him away because of well, you know

Though she was not a sorceress herself, Ellone knew she was feared as one because of her power. Very few people in her life had ever tried to see past her ability, to see her, to meet her. The person Ellone, the woman Ellone. The girl who loved curling up in her favorite chair with a good book, the girl who had once found a baby chocobo with a broken wing and nursed it back to health. She enjoyed looking up at the sky on a clear night and trying to count the stars, or finding shapes in the clouds on a sunny day while lying on her back in the grass and inhaling the sweet scents of wildflowers and greenery. Lounging dreamily in a hot bubble bath had become one of her most favorite pastimes, especially when she had one of her mushy romance novels to read while doing so.

Since the end of the war, Ellone had lived in Winhill, by herself, although Uncle Laguna had invited her more than once to stay in Esthar with him. Sometimes she visited, as she had been doing when he had asked her to take his place here in Trabia so he could finish handling the details of the negotiations with Headmaster Cid and the other officials. But she would never feel at home there. Too much had happened for that ever to occur, for it was by Esthar that she had been hunted and pursued her whole life. She had been a captive in that city when she was little, before Laguna had saved her, and she still shivered sometimes at the memories of that place and the things she had been forced to undergo, the experiments done to her as though she were no more than a lab rat.

There were times when she hated her ability, hated herself, because of the pain and loss she and others had suffered because of it. Her parents had been killed when she was only two years old because Esthar soldiers had arrived in Winhill to capture her for her power. Uncle Laguna had been unable to return to Winhill from Esthar after rescuing her from her captivity in Dr. Odine's laboratory and so had not been there with his wife Raine when she had died giving birth to their son, Squall. Because of Ellone's power, Dr. Odine had continued to search for her over the years, forcing her to leave the orphanage where she had lived with Squall and the others. Her sudden, reluctant departure had nearly destroyed her brother, with whom she had formed a close bond in those days.

It was her own power that had nearly allowed Sorceress Ultimecia to destroy the world and rule over all of time and space, a painful failure for which Ellone continued to blame herself. Ultimecia had been a sorceress from the distant future who through a machine constructed by Dr. Odine to emulate Ellone's ability had projected herself back in time to the present day and into the consciousness of Edea. Through Matron, the wicked future sorceress had attempted to exterminate all of SeeD in her quest to achieve time compression, which would have given her mastery over the very flow of time itself.

And Ellone's power had made it possible.

Any guy who doesn't want you because of that is crazy and doesn't deserve you, Selphie stated emphatically, but I just know you'll meet that special guy one day that'll love ya no matter what!

Thanks, Selphie. I I hope you're right.

The redheaded girl grinned. I am right, Sis! Trust me!

Elle nodded and followed Selphie across the courtyard and along another path that led around the other side of the Garden's exterior. As the two women walked, Selphie chatting animatedly about one thing or another, Elle's thoughts wandered back to her dark dreams and she shivered in spite of the thick winter coat she had borrowed earlier from Selphie.

A soft warbling sound brought Elle back to the present, and she looked up to see a yellow, feathered face staring back at her from inside a small corral. The chocobo's large eyes held hers for a moment, and from its broad beak issued another cheerful chirp. Elle reached over the fence and lightly scratched behind the large bird's ear, smiling fondly as she did so.

I didn't know you kept chocobos here, she asked Selphie, who had come to a stop beside her. I thought Garden used cars to get around.

Selphie shrugged. We caught and tamed a few after the war 'cause for a while our main road was all busted up and there aren't really many other roads up here to use. Besides, the chocobos can handle the terrain a lot better. The ground looks all flat when you're up flyin' overhead, but there's actually a lot of hills and drops and ridges and stuff, especially as ya go closer to the mountains.

do you think I can ride one? Elle asked, I've had a lot on my mind lately, and riding helps me clear my head sometimes.

Selphie thought a moment, and then grinned widely. Sure! I'll help ya get all set up. You can ride Starlight, there, if you want. She's pretty well trained.

Elle smiled at the bird again and nodded. I think I will.

Between the two of them, Ellone and Selphie managed to saddle Starlight and lead her out of the paddock and down a side path that led to a small gate in the high outer wall of the Garden complex. While Selphie unlocked and opened the gate, Elle swung herself into the saddle and fed the chocobo a few ghysal greens she had brought with her from the stable.

I won't be gone too long, I don't think, Elle mused, Just a few hours, if anyone asks.

Okay then! Have fun! I'd go with you, but I've still got lots of stuff to take care of over in the quad for tomorrow night.

Elle nodded as she walked Starlight through the gate. Just on the other side, she turned in the saddle to see Selphie waving cheerfully at her and smiling brightly. Elle returned the wave, then faced forward again as Selphie closed and locked the gate behind her. The clang of the lock echoed uneasily in Ellone's mind as she let Starlight trot briskly across the snow.

Oh, damn

Ellone sighed wearily. All around her, snow drifted down in a blinding sheen of white flurries that filled Starlight's tracks almost as quickly as the large bird made them. The storm had come seemingly from nowhere after Elle had been riding for a few hours, and though she looked nervously all around her, she could see no sign of either Trabia Garden or Balamb Garden. They might be and likely were out there, she knew, but with her visibility so limited by the falling snow, she had no idea where to find them.

The wind swirled and howled around her as she kept Starlight at a steady walk across the uneven ground. Elle had long since pulled up the hood of her coat, but even so the cold still stung at the tips of her ears as her breath steamed in the frigid air. She shivered a little as she clutched the reins, her fingers stiff with cold in spite of her woolen gloves.

As she rode, Elle wondered if she might not be going in circles, but she couldn't be certain. She silently berated herself for not being more prepared, for not heeding Squall's warning not to stray too far. If she didn't find her way back to Garden before nightfall—which wasn't all that far off, now that she thought about it—Elle knew she would be in serious trouble. The temperatures out here often plummeted drastically after dark to well below freezing.

A weight began to settle within Ellone's mind as she plodded on across the snow-covered landscape. At first, she thought it just another effect of the cold, but then a familiar, unsettling chill began to wrap itself around her heart with icy tendrils. She shuddered and began to tremble as fragments from her nightmares rose up in her mind.

The skies burn. Darkness swallows all. The Hand is reaching.

Elle's fingers tightened their grip on the reins as she tried to steady herself in the saddle. The chill, inhuman voices from her dreams echoed in her mind, and Ellone began to wonder if she were in fact going quite mad. As she sought to dispel that thought, a rather unsettling sensation began to worm its way into her gut. She couldn't quite put a finger on exactly what it was at first, but then with a shiver she suddenly understood all too well.

She was being watched.

Nervously, Elle looked around her, realizing for the first time that the snowstorm had slackened considerably and that she could actually see for some distance ahead now, although twilight was fast approaching. She saw nothing in the gathering gloom, however, except rugged hillsides and the occasional bits of stiff grass that poked stubbornly through the snow.

Swallowing her fear, Elle rode on in the direction she thought, she hoped, would lead her back to Garden. The sensation of unseen eyes following her every move spurred Ellone to bring Starlight into a trot as she continued to look nervously about her. Nothing revealed itself to her, yet the feeling that she was not alone out here, that something was following her, seemed to grow even stronger as she rode onward across the snow.

Night was falling fast. Ellone drew her coat tighter around her as the cold, both within and without, grew deeper and more insistent. Beneath her, Starlight's steps grew a little less certain as the bird grew fatigued. Though Elle had kept her mount at an easy pace the entire afternoon, she could feel Starlight's strength beginning to ebb as evening closed in.

So absorbed was Ellone in her thoughts that she almost missed seeing on a nearby ridge the dark, cloaked figure standing silhouetted by the day's last waning light. She cautiously slowed her mount, hoping the stranger above her was Squall or someone else from Garden out looking for her as she knew they must almost certainly be doing by now.

The chill in her heart, however, dispelled that idea almost immediately.

Starlight didn't need to be told twice to increase her speed as Ellone hurried away from the mysterious figure. More than once she looked back over her shoulder, sensing the stranger's feral, unseen gaze upon her, but each time she saw nothing. The wind seemed to whisper furtively around her, teasing her almost, mimicking the icy, hollow voices that whispered softly, maddeningly, through her mind in words she did not know, was not sure she wanted to know.

Ellone looked behind her again, and her heart jumped in her throat when she saw the stranger again, closer this time. It was following her, though in the near darkness Ellone couldn't see quite how at first. Then she heard the faint rustle of wings and with a shudder realized for the first time that her pursuer might not actually be human. Trying to ignore the cold aching in her bones, she faced forward again and pushed her chocobo to go faster, determined to outrun whatever was hunting her. She looked back once more, but the dark figure was nowhere to be seen.

Turning forward in the saddle, Ellone shrieked in terror.

In front of her rose the hunter, a dark, menacing presence cloaked and hooded as much in the gloom and shadows as in its voluminous black robes. Starlight reared, eyes wide as she let out a startled cry, and before Ellone could react, the bird bolted madly away at a dead run. She held on tightly as best she could, pulling at the reins and trying not to fall off. Trembling with fright, she felt the hunter's insidious presence following her relentlessly across the snowy hills.

Suddenly she was airborne, hurtling through empty space as Starlight tripped and lost her footing over the edge of a sudden drop. Ellone had time for a single startled cry before she slammed hard against the descending slope, and the sky and ground spun crazily as she tumbled and bounced painfully down the broken hillside. A particularly hard impact, accompanied by a sickening crack as her right arm broke, briefly sent her flying again before she finally smashed through the thick ice of a frozen lake that lay at the base of the hill.

Every part of her was pain. Her arm, her ribs, everything. The insistent throbbing in her left ankle told her clearly that she must have twisted it in the fall. Though every movement was agony, she fought and clawed her way desperately toward the surface. Her lungs burned fiercely as her the air within them rapidly diminished. In spite of her efforts, however, she was too far away. As her strength slackened, her struggling began to slow.

In the frigid waters of the lake, the cold consumed her utterly. It would be so easy to let go, to drift away into endless slumber here beneath the ice. Why struggle so? The frigid waters embraced her, numbing her sluggish thoughts. Ellone's eyelids grew heavy, so heavy that it was all she could do to keep them from sliding shut. Even the pain of her wounded body was beginning to fade now as she began to lose feeling in her arms and legs.

It isn't your time yet.

Another whisper in her mind, yet not dark like the others. A feminine voice, soft, melodious, with just a touch of girlishness. She knew that voice, had heard it before somewhere in the depths of her memory, yet neither name nor face could she put to it. Was this what it was like to die? Would other memories, known and unknown, float to the surface of her waning consciousness before she expired?

Maybe it's best this way, she thought. Everyone would be safer if I were gone

Didn't you hear me? It isn't your time yet. Now get up!

Sluggishly, she shook her head. No don't want to

That doesn't matter. What matters is that you are needed.

I'm needed? A spark of life began to slowly ignite within her breast.

Far more than you know. But you have to hurry. Use your power and wake up!

Ellone's eyes flew open as the voice's last command echoed faintly in her mind. Struggling weakly, she began to pull herself bit by bit towards the glittering surface of the water. The tingling in her blood intensified as her power surged, and though her lungs seemed ready to explode at any moment the little air within them seemed not to diminish at all. A soft sheen of white light encased her body, bringing a little warmth and feeling back into her extremities.

With a great gasp of the chill night air, Ellone at last breached the surface. Clinging to the ragged edge of the hole in the ice, she drew in great deep breaths of air and thought she had never tasted anything so sweet in her entire life. As the white aura of her power began to recede, she pulled herself shivering out of the water and lay tiredly on the frozen surface of the lake as all the pain she had nearly forgotten while submerged in the frigid water began to return.

The frigid, icy wind bit mercilessly at Ellone as she realized for the first time that she had somehow lost her coat in the fall. Shivering uncontrollably, her teeth chattering with the cold, she wondered if she had merely exchanged one form of death for another. She would never find shelter in time, and what little control she had possessed over her changing power while submerged in the freezing water had somehow slipped away again as she had pulled herself tiredly out onto the ice. Her dark pursuer wouldn't even have to bother killing her but could just let the cold do it instead.

At that last thought, Ellone looked back up the hillside, past where Starlight lay twitching feebly in a crumpled heap, to the top of rise. Standing there was the hunter, cloaked in shadow and hooded in gloom. Even from where she lay, Ellone could feel its malignant gaze upon her. A rasp of metal filled the air as the mysterious figure drew two long, slightly curved swords from scabbards hidden somewhere within its robes and began to move slowly and deliberately forward.

It was coming. For her.

Ellone could only watch in terror as with blinding, inhuman speed the hunter sliced its way through the fallen chocobo blocking its path. Blood and gore spattered grotesquely across the snow, yellow feathers suddenly filling the air as Starlight managed to give out one startled squawk that was cut off rather abruptly in a sudden, vicious blur of steel.

Her eyes wide, Ellone struggled desperately to crawl away across the ice as the hunter continued to advance relentlessly towards her. As it neared, she saw within the depths of its hood a stainless steel mask that bore no expression at all, that was utterly neutral. Somehow, this emptiness, this total lack of any visible emotion whatsoever, frightened Ellone even more than the brutal display of unholy strength and power she had just witnessed.

Yet what terrified her most were its eyes. Or rather, the dark, empty pits of blackness where its eyes should have been. They caught her and held her within their chill, dead gaze, seeming to stare into and shrivel her very soul so that it seemed she could hardly breathe. What little strength remained to her crumbled almost instantly to dust in the sight of those eyeless sockets that seemed to her like windows into utter nothingness. It was like staring into her own open grave.

Steel flashed, and she raised her good arm in a feeble attempt at defense. Lines of fire seemed to burn across her skin as the hunter savagely began to slash at her, and she screamed. Now it was her own blood that stained the snow in little crimson rivulets. She was going to die, she was dying already. A blade flashed above her, descending rapidly toward her neck.

The blow never landed.

Ellone's power suddenly seemed to explode within her, a surge so strong it was almost violent. Her body trembled and shook as white light seemed to engulf her in a ring of blazing fire that hurled the hunter back across the snow. Within the depths of the light, the tingling in Ellone's blood had become a raging torrent that seemed to burn fiercely within her veins.

Her surroundings melted away, and she knew no more.