FINAL FANTASY: POINT OF INTERSECTION
BOOK 1: THE APPROACHING STORM
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CHAPTER 9
DISCLAIMER: This chapter contains some fairly graphic scenes. Proceed at your own risk.
"Damn," Zell swore, "this really sucks…"
The blond martial artist clenched his fist as he gazed at the wreckage around him. Along the shores of Dollet, the shattered wrecks of the four SeeD gunships still burned, the acrid stenches of smoke and scorched metal filling Zell's nostrils along with the strong scent of brine from the restless waters of the sea. Anger began to build in him as he thought of what must have happened, as he remembered Xu's final desperate transmission.
Nearby stood Squall, expressionless as he surveyed the devastation in uneasy silence. He looked to Zell almost like the Squall of old, the moody and distant young man encased in a cold shell tougher than steel. And yet Rinoa, of all people, had somehow found a way to penetrate that shell. With her help, he had begun to trust other people again, to value the friendship of those around him. Now he was faced with losing not only Rinoa, but also his adopted sister, Ellone, on the very same day. Zell wondered if the strain would prove too much for his friend to handle.
Worry for both women gnawed at the blond martial artist relentlessly, but he knew it had to be far worse for Squall, who was much closer to them than Zell was. To him, Rinoa was a good friend, someone he'd fought alongside countless times during the war. Zell also prided himself on playing at least a small part in bringing her and Squall together, and as a result, he was always quick to defend the couple's relationship even as he marveled that it seemed to be working out so well.
Zell's memories of Ellone from the days in the orphanage were hazy at best, obscured by the passage of time and the intrusion of the guardian forces within his mind. But he did recall a kind face, comforting him sometimes after Seifer's ruthless taunting had left little Zell in tears. More often, though, he would see her spending time with Squall, the quiet boy who clung to her so closely and so fiercely as though his life depended upon her staying in close proximity to him.
It was no wonder, Zell thought, that his friend had shut everyone out of his life after Ellone had left the orphanage so abruptly.
Kicking the sand in frustration, Zell sighed irritably. "What now?"
"We meet up with three Garden personnel, as per Headmaster Cid's orders, then head over to the comm tower and find what survivors we can," Squall replied grimly.
"But, uh… how do we know who they are?" Zell asked.
Squall shrugged. "We'll know. Cid told us to meet them here on the beach, so whoever comes out here is bound to be our contact."
"Are you sure?" Quistis asked. "Perhaps we should go to the tower now. If there are survivors there, they may need medical attention."
Rubbing the bridge of his nose where his scar had once lain, Squall sighed. "Fine. If they don't come in five minutes, we'll go to the tower without them."
Zell nodded, still not quite able to get used to seeing Squall without his distinctive scar. From what his friend had told him and the others, Ellone had somehow healed the scar with her power the morning she had disappeared. The blond martial artist had never quite gotten to know Ellone that well since growing up and only vaguely understood what her power was capable of. He had experienced it himself during the war, when she had sent him with Squall and Quistis back into dreamlike visions of the past to help her change what had happened in that time.
They hadn't succeeded, and Zell had always felt a little bad about that, as though he had let Ellone down somehow. He knew, though, that she would never blame anyone for it. Indeed, she seemed to have accepted it with the same optimism that she did everything else in her life. But even Zell could see that she wasn't quite as happy as she made herself out to be. And now she might be gone forever, lost to the frigid snows of Trabia. Zell angrily tried to push the thought from his mind, to deny its inevitable truth, but it stubbornly refused to let go.
A glum sigh escaped Zell's lips as he waited impatiently for whomever it was they were supposed to meet. He, Squall, and Quistis had scoured what debris they could, searching for any sign that somebody might still be alive somehow. So far, however, they had found none, not even the bodies of the dead that should have still been in the wreckage of the ruined gunships. Even Zell knew that couldn't be right. Although he was not normally prone to premonition, he couldn't shake the sense of unease that had gripped him since first arriving here.
Shading his eyes from the morning sunlight that glinted across the tops of the waves crashing ceaselessly against the sand, Zell gazed up and down the shore but saw no one yet other than himself, Squall, and Quistis. Selphie and Irvine had stayed aboard the Ragnarok and would meet them at the tower to pick up any survivors that Zell and the others found there. The martial artist only hoped there were still survivors left for them to find.
Although here in Dollet it was almost midmorning, Zell couldn't help but feel it should have been much later in the day. He supposed it was just the aftereffects of the long flight from Trabia halfway across the world, where night was falling over the frozen plains. Nine hours cooped up in the Ragnarok had done him little good, and even flying the ship himself for a while to give Selphie a break hadn't entirely helped alleviate his restlessness. It was the waiting that Zell hated, the feeling of helplessness that while he had been confined within the Ragnarok's metal bulkheads thousands of feet in the air, his friends in Dollet were being injured, possibly even killed.
Zell angrily threw a few punches in the air, as though physically striking at the unease, the sense of wrongness about the mission, which plagued him. It was too quiet here, he thought. The only sounds the blond young man could hear were the crashing of the waves against the sand and the shrill calls of a few seagulls wheeling about. The city above and behind him lay eerily silent, and Zell realized that the Galbadian radicals must have deported the population somewhere when they had taken control.
The crunching of footsteps in the sand brought Zell abruptly out of his thoughts as he realized that the Garden personnel he and his friends were to meet must have finally arrived. He sensed Quistis stiffening beside him and turned to look in the direction she was staring, but for a moment, the glare of the sunlight blocked his view. When he did finally see who was coming, however, Zell clenched his fists tightly and felt his blood begin to boil within his veins.
"Well, well, well," sneered a voice Zell had hoped he would never hear again, "I should've guessed that Headmaster Cid would send you guys here to meet us."
"What the hell are you doing here, Seifer?" Zell growled, immediately bringing his fists up.
His longtime antagonist, flanked by his two inseparable companions Fujin and Raijin, ran a hand through his short-cropped blond hair and smirked sarcastically. "Nice to see some old friends. It's been a while, hasn't it, chicken-wuss?"
"Shut up!" Zell snapped.
"Care to make me?" the other man scoffed.
Zell clenched his fists tighter. "I will if I have to!"
"Enough!" Squall stepped between the two men, Quistis at his side. "We don't have time for this! Answer his question, Seifer."
It was Raijin who spoke first. "Cid sent us here from Balamb, ya know? To help ya get Rinoa and the rest of your people back."
"Cid sent you to help us?" Quistis asked, sharing disbelieving stares with Squall and Zell. "No wonder he never told us who we were to meet…"
"AFFIRMATIVE," Fujin confirmed, speaking as always in harsh, succinct tones. The gray-haired young woman stared impassively at Zell and the others with her good eye, the other covered by a patch of dark cloth. No one to Zell's knowledge had ever heard how she had lost her other eye, and Fujin herself had never been a talkative sort of person to begin with.
Zell narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "So why are you guys all of a sudden on our side, anyway?"
"The war's over, chicken-wuss, or had you forgotten?" Seifer shot back. "Anyway, me and the posse have been the headmaster's covert eyes in Galbadia since the end of the war. Why do you think we got off so easy after that tribunal he put us through?"
"Doesn't look like you did a very good job!" Zell snapped. "If you're really what you say you are, then where were you when our people were attacked last night? If you knew those Galbadians had a trap ready, why didn't ya say anything?"
Seifer bulled his way past Squall and grabbed Zell by the arm. "We didn't find out until Xu and the team were already here, chicken-wuss! By that time, the Galbadians were jamming all the communications channels. Nothing could get in or out."
"Then Xu's transmission must have slipped through at the last minute," Quistis observed, "and probably only barely, considering how garbled and broken up it was."
"Where are the Galbadians now?" Squall asked.
Seifer let go of Zell and backed up, squarely meeting his old rival's level gaze. "I don't know. We only just got here ourselves."
"Took your sweet time about it," Zell muttered darkly.
"Well excuse me if the trains aren't as fast as your spaceship, chicken-wuss," Seifer retorted coldly. "We got here as fast as we could."
The blond martial artist glared at the other man suspiciously. "Well, don't start thinkin' we're gonna trust you just yet, Seifer."
"Like I care," the former knight quipped snidely. "Just stay out of my way."
His eyes narrowing, Zell fought to keep himself composed. How he [i]hated[/i] this man! Seifer could always find a way to get under Zell's skin, had done it since they were both children in Edea's orphanage so long ago. No matter how hard he tried, Zell couldn't help reacting to his longtime antagonist's ceaseless jibes and taunting remarks, and the excitable young man hated himself sometimes because of it and wished he could learn to not let Seifer get to him so much.
Zell started to reply, but Squall shook his head. "Don't, Zell. He's not worth it."
Nodding, the martial artist sighed and took a step back, though he would have liked nothing better than to see how far he could push his fist through Seifer's smug face. Fitting payback, he supposed, for all those years of verbal torment he had endured. He doubted anyone would blame him, but maybe Squall was right. In any case, Zell knew that now was hardly the time to worry about it.
His blue-gray eyes glinting like chips of ice, Squall stared fiercely at his old rival. "Remember, Seifer, [i]I[/i] am in command here, and I expect you to follow my orders until this is over. Understood?"
"Yes, sir, Mr. Leader!" Seifer sneered, making a mocking salute as he did so. "So, how'd you manage to fix up that scar I gave ya?"
Squall grimaced, his hand going reflexively to his forehead to touch the scar that was no longer there. "It's none of your business, Seifer. Just forget about it."
"Why should I?" the other man asked, running a gloved hand over his own wound, a scar that mirrored the one that Squall had possessed before Ellone had so mysteriously healed it.
"It's not important right now," Squall replied coldly, "and even if it were, I wouldn't tell you anyway."
Seifer glared irritably at his rival. "Oh, I get it. You still think I'm the enemy, right? Well, you just watch out, Mr. Leader, 'cause I can give you another scar anytime I feel like it."
"Bring it, Seifer," Squall countered. "At least I can still look myself in the mirror every morning, with or without a scar."
Apparently, Squall's comment had somehow struck a nerve, because Seifer sighed angrily and turned away, his trademark gray trenchcoat swirling with the motion. Taking a step, he slowly looked back over his shoulder at Squall, his expression unreadable. Oddly enough, the antagonism seemed to have leaked out of him for the moment.
"Do whatever the hell you want," Seifer muttered quietly.
"Shouldn't we get going?" Quistis asked pointedly. "The longer you three stand there arguing, the less time any of our people alive in the comm tower may have. We need to get them out of there as quickly as we can and find out exactly what's going on."
Squall nodded in agreement. "Let's move, people. And keep an eye out, because those Galbadians may still be here somewhere."
Heading quickly with the others across the sand to the stone stairs leading up to the city, Zell suddenly paused in midstride. "Yo, guys… what's that smell?"
An unusual yet vaguely familiar odor hung in the air, a slight coppery tang mixed with a sickeningly sweet aroma Zell could not quite put a name to. Once again, he took in the odd silence around him, and a cold shiver started to work its way insidiously up his spine. Something was indeed very, very wrong here. Zell raised his fists cautiously, the softly creaking leather of his prized Ergheiz fighting gloves somewhat reassuring in the stillness.
He didn't need to glance at Squall to know that his friend must have been feeling a similar sense of unease. The silence lay heavily in the air, unbroken save for the ocean waves and the mournful calls of seagulls and a few other birds that Zell couldn't quite make out at the moment. He should been able to hear the normal hustle and bustle of city life, the blare of car horns, the murmur of conversation, and the brisk clopping of shoes on concrete, among other things.
Yet there was nothing. Nothing at all.
Reaching the top of the stairs, Quistis suddenly froze, the color draining from her face as she looked upon the city of Dollet. "Dear Hyne…"
Zell followed Quistis' shocked, wide-eyed gaze as he finally caught up to her, the others just behind him, and nearly choked when he saw what had so thoroughly paralyzed the blond instructor. Although he had always prided himself on having a strong stomach, Zell nevertheless felt his gorge rise as he slowly took in the horrific sight before him. The strange, sickly sweet smell he had detected earlier hung much more strongly in the air here, and he recognized it at last with a chill as the stench of death mingled with the coppery aftertaste of drying blood.
The streets of Dollet were filled with the dead.
Bodies lay everywhere, scattered in different poses like so many broken dolls. They were sprawled on the streets and wedged in doorways, slumped against walls, or hanging through shattered windows. Men, women, even children, had all been slaughtered, viciously torn apart until what was left was barely recognizable as human remains. Blood and worse soaked the concrete not ten yards from Zell's feet, and the walls and glass of the buildings were stained with crimson splatters. Flies swirled lazily above the mangled bodies, gorging themselves on the bloated corpses of soldiers and merchants, housewives and businessmen, infants and teenagers.
Zell fought desperately to keep his breakfast from suddenly resurfacing. "What… what the… what the hell happened here?"
"ATROCIOUS," Fujin gasped.
Quistis swallowed nervously. "Who could have possibly done this, Squall? And why?"
"We'll figure it out later," Squall ordered, staring grimly at the devastation, "but right now we have to get to the tower and find out if any of our people are still alive."
Seifer snorted derisively. "Doesn't look like it."
The young SeeD commander fixed his old rival with a dangerous stare. "We won't know until we get there, Seifer, so just keep your mouth shut."
Seifer took a threatening step toward him, but Raijin managed to grab his arm. "I wouldn't, Seifer, ya know? Bad idea, ya know?"
"TIMING, NOT GOOD," Fujin agreed.
"Fine," Seifer snarled, roughly shrugging off Raijin's grip and glaring angrily at Squall, "but don't think I'm gonna forget this."
Squall shrugged dismissively. "Whatever."
As they made their way cautiously through the city, Zell saw bodies everywhere, choking every street as though the people had run outside in a blind panic during the night only to find their killers waiting for them. Silence hung heavily in the air, and the place began to feel to Zell like a vast, mazelike tomb that might ensnare himself and his friends within its bloody web. He didn't understand how Squall could possibly be so calm, what with the hellish visions all around them, the blood-soaked streets and boulevards where people from all walks of life had been brutally massacred. Until last night, Dollet had been an occupied city controlled by the Galbadian radicals.
Only now, it was a city of the dead.
At one point, Zell lost his footing on a slick patch of blood in the middle of the main road he and the others had been following. Hoping and praying he wouldn't fall among the mangled bodies, he managed to catch himself on his hands and knees. Looking up, he saw to his horror that his face was only inches away from that of a young woman with wide, glassy eyes that stared at nothing. Zell shuddered as he realized that there was nothing left of the woman below her neck. Her long hair might have been blond once, before it had become so matted with drying blood.
Hauling himself to his feet, Zell hurried onward until he and the others had reached the massive stone bridge that connected the city proper to the mainland. More bodies lay here, mostly Galbadian military forces, and Zell guessed there must have been some sort of skirmish here between the radicals and their own people. Yet as with the wreckage of the gunships, none of the dead here were from the SeeD exam team. It didn't seem to make any sense, yet a sense of hope filled the blond man nonetheless. Maybe their people had gotten lucky and avoided any losses after all.
His gut instinct, however, told him otherwise.
As he and the others made their way across the bridge and up the slope towards the tower, Zell could see more Galbadian dead. Whatever the fate of the exam team, they had certainly made it costly for their opponents. Zell would have expected no less from his SeeD friends. They were part of the most elite and highly trained military force in the world and doubtless would not have gone down easily even hindered as they were by the unexpected failure of their magic and GF's.
The paved cobblestone path wound its way around the hillside until it opened onto a sheer cliff overlooking the communications tower, which sat on a wide shelf of rock several dozen feet below the trail that Zell and the others had been following. Ahead of them, the path continued onward, descending behind a high bluff until it curved out of sight. The martial artist crouched with his companions behind some shrubbery growing near the edge of the cliff and peered intently down at the tower.
"They've shut it down," Squall observed quietly.
Sure enough, Zell saw that his friend was right. The communications tower, control of which had been restored to the Dollet government shortly after the war, now sat dark and lifeless like a spent battery. The satellite apparatus had been deactivated, retracted back into its storage bay deep within the bowels of the tower's subterranean lower levels, and at the base of the structure, the double doors of the main entrance had been sealed shut. In front of the entrance, a few Galbadian radicals lay sprawled lifelessly on the ground amidst scattered splotches of drying blood.
Seifer grimaced. "Doesn't make any sense. Why go to the trouble of taking the damn tower if it wasn't gonna be used anyway?"
"To keep someone else from using it," Quistis answered softly. "It's the only possible explanation."
"But why would they just abandon it?" Zell muttered, idly scratching his tattooed left cheek.
Squall rose slowly to his feet and motioned the others to do the same. "I don't know, but I intend to find out. Let's get going."
Dusting off his blue denim shorts, Zell carefully made his way down the paved trail that looped its way around the bluff to where the deactivated communications tower stood mutely at the base of the cliff. The blond martial artist glanced warily about, peering into the shadows on either side of the facility, but saw nothing. A light breeze touched his face, ruffling his short spike of unruly blond hair as he caught up to Squall just yards away from the tower's entrance.
Zell sighed in frustration. "I don't like this, Squall. It's like, way too easy."
"I know," Squall agreed, "but we don't have much choice. We've got to get inside and see if anyone's still alive in there."
"And just how do you plan on doing that, Mr. Leader?" Seifer sneered.
Squall glanced evenly at his old rival. "Watch and learn."
Drawing his gunblade, Squall stepped up to the entry and slowly slid the weapon at a steep downward angle in between the sealed double doors. Once he had managed to insert the gunblade nearly up to the barrel, Squall motioned the others to stand back. Gripping the hilt firmly with both hands, he simultaneously thrust upwards and pulled the trigger.
Zell winced as the force of the small explosion threw the doors open, though the massive steel portals were no more than singed by the impact. As the ringing in his ears began to subside, Zell glanced apprehensively into the yawning black mouth that was the tower entrance. Murky shadows cloaked the interior of the facility in a darkness that was almost palpable.
Nodding to Quistis, who withdrew a flashlight from her belt and quickly flicked it on, Squall led the others inside. Zell followed, eyes alert for trouble and his fists held ready in front of him. The pale yellow beam from the flashlight didn't do much to illuminate the gloom, but in Zell's mind, it was vastly preferable to having no light at all. He could just barely make out the form of the main lift a few yards ahead, though without power it was practically useless.
"This is Commander Squall Leonhart of Balamb Garden!" Squall called out. "Is anyone in here?"
Zell suddenly felt his foot brush against something cold and stiff. Slowly, he glanced downward to find himself staring at another body, one of many that lay piled here in the tower's entry chamber. Like the unfortunate people of Dollet, many of these corpses seemed to have been ripped apart, impaled, gutted, or otherwise mangled. Others were burnt almost beyond recognition, the flesh blackened almost to the bone in some places. As he bent closer, Zell nearly choked.
These bodies were clad in SeeD uniforms.
"S-Squall…" was all he was able to get out, his eyes locked on those of his dead compatriots.
His friend nodded grimly. "I know."
"In her transmission, Xu mentioned some kind of some kind of monster," Quistis surmised, not quite able to keep her voice from trembling at the sight of the dead. "It may still be here, Squall."
"Looks damn dangerous to me," Seifer muttered.
Squall brought up his gunblade, his eyes smoldering. "I'm dangerous, too, and whoever's done this and taken Rinoa is going to find out that it's a very bad idea to piss me off."
The blond man smirked sarcastically. "Oh, they're in trouble now…"
"Fuck off, Seifer," Squall retorted. "You can't really talk much yourself, seems as how I beat the hell out you, what, four times was it?"
Seifer glared angrily. "So what now, Mr. Leader?"
"There should be—" Squall began, but a loud slam abruptly cut him off.
Zell whirled around, eyes wide. "Squall! The doors!"
The young SeeD commander spun about, leaping toward the entry just as the two massive double doors slid shut behind Raijin and Fujin, who had been the last to enter. They turned about, as surprised as everyone else, and Zell charged past them to slam his shoulder into the steel portals.
They refused even to budge, and he suddenly heard a scraping of metal on metal and realized that whoever had shut the doors had barred them as well. Squall's little trick with the gunblade wouldn't work this time. Pounding his fist angrily against the wall, Zell sighed in frustration.
They were trapped.