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

You can now view the offical Point of Intersection poster graphic at - a real visual treat! ^_^

CHAPTER 10
DISCLAIMER: This chapter is not for the faint of heart, as it is much more graphic than the previous chapter. Proceed at your own risk.


Ever since she was a little girl, Quistis had been afraid of the dark.

She could remember from her days in the orphanage the little nightlight she had always kept by her bed to ward off the phantoms and monsters that she had once believed hid stealthily in the shadows waiting to devour her. There were times when bossy little Quisty had lain awake in the dead of night, cold sweat trickling between her shoulder blades. She would toss and turn and cast anxious glances at the black shapes in the gloom and not know what they were. Only the small, feeble yellow glow of her nightlight had kept the darkness at bay and allowed her to finally sleep.

Quistis would still even now wake up some nights shivering with a fear she couldn't quite explain or ignore. Although she had for the most part long ago outgrown her childhood dread of the darkness, the blond instructor still grew a little uneasy in places where light was scarce or nonexistent. She knew better than to let herself succumb to such disquiet, strong though it sometimes was, yet it had never completely faded, much to her frustration. Why should she still be afraid?

In the wan, pale luminescence of the flashlight, Quistis stared apprehensively at the torn and mangled bodies lying on the floor of the tower's entry chamber. All had died violently, burnt in the fiery destruction of the gunships, riddled with bullets, or savagely torn apart by something far worse. Swallowing heavily and casting anxious glances into the murky darkness surrounding her, Quistis wondered if there might not be some truth to her childhood fears after all.

"What happened here?" she wondered aloud.

Squall turned from where he had been examining the steel double doors alongside a visibly frustrated Zell. The martial artist stood with his fists clenched as he stared angrily at the sealed entry. He must have been feeling as chagrined as the rest of them. Quistis shook her head ruefully. At the moment, she felt like a first year cadet who had just blown an incredibly easy exam.

How could they have been so foolish? Yet as she thought about it, Quistis realized that it was hardly surprising. Their concern for their missing comrades had overridden nearly everything else in their minds. Squall was no doubt blaming himself for the loss of the exam team and his own group's entrapment. His moody temperament and distant gaze gave him away, at least to Quistis. She knew the young commander too well for him to hide much of anything from her. The pain in his eyes, though he tried to hide it, was obvious at least to her, but she knew he would die before admitting it.

As if his day hadn't already been bad enough.

Quistis felt for him, indeed worried for Rinoa and Ellone nearly as much as she was worrying for Squall. Rinoa had, in the years since the war, become one of her close friends. Although at first Quistis had thought her little more than a spoiled, naive rich girl, the events of the war and Rinoa's emergence as a sorceress had changed her. Though still bright and cheerful as always, Rinoa had perhaps grown up a little since the war's end. Quistis had fought alongside her, watched her come close to death more than once only to be saved at the last by Squall each time.

A not quite insignificant ember of jealousy still smoldered faintly within Quistis' breast. She had at one time developed feelings herself for Squall, but had possessed neither the courage nor self-confidence to admit them to him until it was too late. Rinoa had, quite unintentionally, ended any chance Quistis might have possessed. The blond instructor had for the most part let it go, however, accepting that Squall loved Rinoa alone. A bitter enough pill to swallow, Quistis knew, but then she was used to being alone.

Alone. Ellone. Since the end of the war with Ultimecia, Quistis had never really gotten to know the young woman she and the others had always known as Sis. Always busy with her job, she supposed. An instructor's life is one blur of motion after another, with sleep and food somewhere in between. She supposed she could have made time, yet neither she nor any of the rest of the old orphanage gang had ever gotten around to doing so, busy as they were with their own lives. Quistis sometimes thought herself lonely, but she wondered now how much more so Ellone must have often felt, bearing the stigma of her powers and having been hunted and pursued for most of her life.

Yet never could Quistis recall hearing Ellone lamenting her fate or laying any sort of blame for it. She had always seemed to accept what came as best she could and not let it sully her warm and sincere disposition. Quistis had always admired her for that, yet found that she herself sometimes lacked that same resilience. After Ellone had left the orphanage so long ago, Quistis had tried to take on the role of Sis, especially to Squall, in hopes of helping him and the others accept the loss of their beloved older sibling. Quistis sighed heavily. It had been hard enough for her and the others to cope with such a blow the first time, but now they were faced with losing Ellone, their Sis, once again.

Only this time, she might never come back.

The soft thudding of Squall's boots against the metal flooring roused Quistis from her uneasy thoughts as the young commander made his way slowly toward her. He kept his gunblade drawn, his eyes warily keeping watch on the shadows that closed in all about himself and the other members of the rescue team, and Quistis found her free hand drifting down to her hip to lightly touch the rough, tooled leather of the coiled whip hanging from her belt. Its familiar presence brought the blond instructor a small measure of reassurance within the gloom of the tower.

Quistis glanced uneasily at the corpses lying around her, trying not to linger too long on their blank, unseeing eyes. She recognized many of the dead, for they had been her own students or fellow SeeDs. Melora Wyndon, one of Quistis' brightest pupils, now lay in a tangled heap, half of her pale face missing and her brown, curly hair soaked with blood and brain matter. A ragged, gaping hole had been torn into the chest of Devyn Ulrich, a handsome young SeeD and avid Trepie, and the front of his uniform was stained with large crimson splotches. Despite her petite frame and unassuming appearance, little Andine Cahr had proven during her training to be an unexpectedly ferocious fighter, yet now her tortured body lay almost at Quistis' feet, all but severed at the waist as her eyes stared unseeing into the darkness.

As she surveyed the dead, seeing the mutilated yet terrifyingly familiar forms of her comrades, Quistis felt herself begin to tremble, and a hard lump began to build in her throat. To see so many of her students and colleagues, all so full of promise, brutally cut down like lambs in a slaughterhouse, was almost more than she could bear. The blond instructor started to take a deep breath to try and calm her frayed nerves, but as her gaze wandered towards the back of the chamber, Quistis suddenly let out a startled gasp.

She had found Xu.

One of the few close friends Quistis had come to know during her years at Garden, the SeeD lieutenant commander now lay lifelessly on her back in a wide pool of her own blood, her short auburn hair soaked and swirling limply about her ears in sodden strands. A series of reddish blots were splattered across her leg and abdomen where she must have been shot by the Galbadians before encountering whatever it was that had finally killed her.

Xu's throat had been cruelly ripped out, the torn jugular vein still leaking blood onto the floor, and one dead hand firmly grasped the shattered husk of a standard issue SeeD comlink device. The hand itself, however, lay several feet away from the rest of Xu's corpse, the dull white of bone clearly visible from the severed wrist. The expression frozen upon the young woman's face was one of abject terror, her mouth open in a horrified shriek of pain and her eyes wide with fear.

Quistis stared in disbelief, her body suddenly trembling everywhere at once. "X-Xu…? No! No, this can't be happening! It can't!"

She sank to her knees, hugging herself tightly as her blue eyes began to fill with tears. Her chest began to hitch, and although she berated herself angrily for her weakness, her grief nevertheless continued to express itself. Xu, why? Why did this have to happen? You should have listened to me! I tried to tell you before you left that something was wrong, but you wouldn't listen! Damn you, Xu! Why? Why did you have to go and get yourself killed? Why did you have to die?

Gradually, Quistis became aware that the others had joined her. Embarrassed at being seen in such a vulnerable state, she hurriedly wiped her eyes and tried to stand, but her legs seemed to have taken on the consistency of jelly. She slid back down, crouched dejectedly on her heels, and tried not to look at what was left of her friend.

Seeing the bodies of her students had been one thing, but finding Xu… Quistis had known deep in her heart that her friend was dead, but she had refused to admit it to herself. Even now, with Xu's tormented body lying scant yards away, Quistis shivered miserably and shook her head, unable to accept the loss of one of her oldest and closest friends.

She and Xu had often had lunch together in the Garden cafeteria, usually at one of the little tables by those large potted plants on the far side of the dining area. It had become sort of a routine for the two women over the years, where they would share a meal and talk about all sorts of different things, from their students, upcoming exams and missions, to even their personal lives, hopes, dreams, and relationships. Xu had become almost like a sister to Quistis, one of the few people the blond instructor had felt comfortable opening up to about virtually anything.

But now, she was gone.

After Squall had first been made the SeeD commander, Quistis and Xu had been put in charge of helping him in the running of the Garden and its affairs. Administrative details had still been handled by Headmaster Cid, but the two women had taken on the responsibilities of assigning duties, managing supplies, and helping the students. Squall had eventually given Xu the title of lieutenant commander, since she had pretty much become his second-in-command, and Quistis the title of lieutenant. Reinstated as an instructor, Quistis had been forced to split her time between her students and her duties as an officer, whereas Xu had been solely an officer.

Quistis swallowed heavily, wondering how she was going to tell Nida. The young Garden navigator had grown quite fond of Xu over the years, and Quistis knew that her friend had felt the same for him. Xu had told her as much, and it was one of the few times Quistis could ever recall seeing her blush. The memory brought a faint, rueful smile to the blond instructor's lips, though it faded soon enough. Xu and Nida had only just begun to see each other, but now…

"DAMMIT!!" A loud bang jerked Quistis from her thoughts, and she looked up to see Zell angrily slamming his fist into the wall before whirling around to face his gray-coated antagonist. "This… this sucks! It's all your fault, Seifer! If you had done your job, if you had tried just a little harder, Xu and the others would still be alive! They'd never have come here in the first place!"

Seifer stared icily at the blond martial artist. "I told you before, Zell! They got here before I could warn them what the Galbadians were up to! So just shut that big mouth of yours, chicken-wuss, and leave me the hell alone before I shut it for you!"

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?" Zell snarled, bringing his fists up.

"Cut it out you two!" Squall interjected, pushing the two men apart and glaring angrily at them. "That's an order! We don't have time for your pointless bickering! Understood?"

Zell nodded glumly and shook off Squall's grip while Seifer simply grunted and folded his arms over his chest. Quistis would never understand him. Ever since their days together in the orphanage, Seifer had tormented Zell relentlessly, and Squall too. She had always tried to break it up, but had often gotten an earful herself from Seifer as a result. What doubts and insecurities did he hide beneath his snide exterior that so drove him to bully those around him? Quistis had often wondered.

Squall knelt beside her for a moment, his bluish gray eyes staring grimly at what was left of Xu. "If it's anyone's fault, it's mine. I'm the SeeD commander, after all."

"Don't say that, Squall," Quistis protested, her voice unsteady from her grief. "You didn't know what would happen, no more than she did."

He sighed wearily. "I suppose…"

Quistis bowed her head, trying to blink back fresh tears. "We… we lost so many good people today… Devyn, Andine, Ronel, Melora… Xu… I should have been with them, but… but I… I…"

"Pull yourself together, Instructor," Squall told her quietly, but not unkindly. "There'll be time for tears later, alright? I need you right now."

Brushing the wetness from her cheeks with the back of her hand, Quistis nodded and rose unsteadily to her feet. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to remember how Xu had looked in life, with her shoulder length auburn hair and gentle smile that belied the gruff, no-nonsense officer persona she had often been forced to adopt for the sake of her duties. Holding tightly onto that image in her mind, Quistis sighed resolutely and looked once more into the murky shadows surrounding her, the sparsely illuminated gloom of harsh reality.

"What next, Squall?" she asked.

The young commander swept his gaze intently over the mangled bodies sprawled across the darkened chamber like so many broken dolls. "How many of our people do you see?"

Quistis carefully looked around, making a mental tally of the dead. "Twenty-two…. but weren't there supposed to be more?"

"The exam team originally had twenty-eight people assigned to it," Squall agreed, "so that means we have six people still unaccounted for."

"Five," Quistis corrected him, starting to feel a little like herself again. "We know from Xu's message that the Galbadians took Rinoa during the attack."

Squall nodded. "Alright, then. Five people are still missing, and whether they're alive or dead, we have to find them if we can. There's nothing we can do for Rin right now."

"So where do we start looking?" Zell wondered, peering into the gloom around him and scratching his head in puzzlement.

"I was saying, before the doors closed," Squall explained, "that there should be some stairs or a maintenance shaft of some kind around here that leads to the tower's lower levels. I think that's where the transmitter assembly is normally kept when it's not in use. If our missing people are still alive, they've probably been sealed down there somehow."

Quistis frowned in puzzlement. "But why? Most of our team was slaughtered. Why would they have been spared when everyone else was killed?"

"I don't know, but did you notice who's missing among the dead?" Squall replied.

At first, the blond instructor didn't understand what her friend was getting at, but then as she thought about it, she suddenly realized what he meant. "Only two squads were actually assigned to attack the tower directly, right? Rinoa's candidate squad, and a SeeD squad to provide support fire. But nobody from either of those two groups is here, are they?"

Squall shook his head. "No, and that's what worries me. Everyone on the exam team is dead except for them, and they were the first to get here. It doesn't make any sense…"

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Seifer grunted sourly. "Even if we do find those people, how the hell are we gonna get out of here?"

In response, Squall withdrew from his belt his own comlink and held it up for his friends to see. "Selphie and Irvine are still out there in the Ragnarok, remember? Communications are still being jammed, but I managed to get a short message through to Irvine. They're already on their way here."

"But what about the Galbadians that shut us in here in the first place?" Zell asked.

"The Ragnarok can take care of them easily enough," Squall replied. "Right now we need to find that maintenance shaft and see if the rest of our people are still alive."

With that, the group spread out in different directions around the chamber and began searching. Quistis made her way carefully along the far left wall, stepping gingerly over tangled arms or legs lying in her path, not all of which were attached to a body. Blood ran in messy smears and spots here and there along the cold steel, and Quistis did her best not to bring her hands too close as she tried to find the elusive entrance to the lower levels.

It was Raijin who eventually found it. "Hey, guys! It's over here, ya know?"

Quistis followed the others to the far side of the room, where a small, nondescript metal door stood closed at the back of a darkened alcove. Seifer pulled on the handle, and the door swung silently open to reveal a set of curved steps winding downwards into the darkness. Affixed to the wall nearby was a small sign that read "BASEMENT SUBLEVELS / SATELLITE ASSEMBLY."

"Looks like this is it," Seifer grimaced, drawing his own gunblade.
Squall stared grimly at the dark opening. "Seifer, Quistis, you're with me. Zell, you stay here with Fujin and Raijin. Keep an eye out in case the Galbadians try anything."

"I will," Zell replied, clenching his fists tightly as though he hoped the Galbadians did attack and give him an opportunity for payback. Quistis couldn't really say she wouldn't have wanted that chance herself were it to somehow arise. The terror-stricken expression on Xu's normally calm face would surely haunt her sleep for many nights to come.

Squall handed Zell his own flashlight. "If we're not back in an hour, then it's probably safe to say we won't be coming back at all. If that happens, go on and leave without us."

"Yo, Squall, don't say that!" Zell argued. "There's no way I'm gonna just abandon you guys!"

"You won't be," Squall countered, "because if we're not back by that time, then we're probably dead. Whatever killed our people may still be here somewhere."

Zell pounded his fist against the palm of his other hand. "If it is, we'll nail the bastard!"

Squall shook his head. "Your priority, if we don't return, is to get out of here alive and inform Headmaster Cid of the situation. We've lost enough people already, and I don't want you getting yourself killed trying to avenge us. Is that understood?"

"Yeah, yeah," the blond man muttered glumly.

Uncoiling her whip from her belt, Quistis nodded her readiness to Squall, and the young commander motioned for her and Seifer to follow him. The dark opening yawned blackly before them, and Quistis wondered how far down they would have to go. She felt her old fears rising up again, her childhood dread of the darkness, only now it seemed not quite so foolish anymore.

In this place, who knew what lay hidden within the murky, impenetrable shadows?

How long the descent lasted, Quistis couldn't say. It could have been minutes or hours or any amount of time in between, the eerie stillness broken only by the soft thuds of her footfalls as well as those of her two companions. Here in the stairwell, the putrid stench of death was less evident, the air somewhat cleaner, and Quistis breathed it in gratefully as she followed cautiously after Squall, with Seifer behind her silently bringing up the rear.

They reached landings at regular intervals, and each contained a door marked with a number indicating the sublevel. Many of the doors had been sealed shut with electronic locks, but with the power out they opened easily enough. Yet so far, every sublevel had been empty, and so Quistis and her two companions continued downward into the gloom. With each step, the darkness seemed to grow deeper, blacker, and more malignant, as though it were alive somehow. Quistis felt it beginning to press in on her almost as if it were a physical weight bearing her down.

Ahead of her, Squall came to a stop. "We're at the bottom."

In the wan glow of her flashlight, Quistis saw that he was right. The stairs at last came to an end just a few yards ahead, and at their base a small metal door stood tightly closed, the lights from the electronic lock panel beside it as darkened and dead as the rest of the tower. Imprinted in black letters upon the door's smooth metal surface were the words "SATELLITE ASSEMBLY - AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT."

On closer inspection, Quistis saw that the powerless lock panel had been scoured with a crude line of molten, stitched metal which held the door to its frame by the lock's edge, keeping the door securely in place. Squall grasped the handle and pulled with both hands, grunting with the exertion, but to no avail. He might as well have tried to rip the door off its hinges.

"Damn," he muttered.

Seifer smirked. "Let me show you how it's done, Leonhart."

Bringing up his arm, the blond young man concentrated his will, and Quistis knew from experience that he was preparing to cast a spell of some sort. Sweat beaded on his brow as he held his gloved hand out extended before him, palm outward and facing the door. Quistis and the others had each junctioned a GF before arriving in Dollet, and she supposed Seifer must have found one as well, for only with the GF's was the use of most magic possible.

Yet lately, Quistis had felt that faint presence in the back of her mind that was the essence of her GF grow strangely silent, as though cut off somehow. Normally, her GF communicated its thoughts to her from time to time, like an inner voice of some sort. Now, however, that voice had been muted. Shiva could no longer reach her.

Quistis had as yet said nothing, because Shiva herself had never been a very talkative GF in the first place. Entire months had sometimes gone by when the ice maiden had said little to her, unlike other GF's, such as Carbuncle and Cactuar, who chattered incessantly and whom Quistis had gratefully passed on to Selphie at the first opportunity. The blond instructor had never appreciated the silence of her own mind so much as when she had finally rid herself of the mindless, constant babbling of those two GF's.

But now, in the gloom of the tower, Quistis would almost have been glad to hear them. At least then, she would know for sure that the GF's were still there, sharing their power with her and not mysteriously vanished for some unknown reason. The blond instructor waited expectantly as Seifer struggled to cast his spell, but nothing happened.

"What the hell…?" he muttered sourly, still holding his arm outstretched.

Quistis frowned in puzzlement, then suddenly remembered something she had all but forgotten until now. "Wait a minute… Xu said in her message that for some reason, none of her people's magic was working and neither were the GF's…"

"Thanks for the timely report, Instructor," Seifer replied sarcastically, finally lowering his arm. "So now what do we do?"

At first, Quistis wasn't sure. She knew now beyond any doubt that Shiva's silence was more than just the ice maiden's typical reticence. Something had cut her off along with her power, and as Quistis began to fully realize the impact of that loss, she felt suddenly very vulnerable. The blond instructor started to understand at last how her companions on the exam team might have been so easily cut down, bereft of the strength and protection of the GF's upon which they had depended. And now she and her friends were in the same situation.

Suddenly an idea came to her. "I think I know a way…"

"What is it, Quistis?" Squall asked.

"My blue magic," she explained. "It isn't connected to the GF's, so it may still work."

From an early age, Quistis had possessed a talent for understanding and using the special powers of certain monsters. She hadn't really developed her abilities with blue magic, as enemy skills were more commonly known, until coming to Garden and training to be a SeeD, however, and it wasn't until the war with Ultimecia that Quistis had acquired most of the monster spells that she knew. They served a variety of functions, both offensive and defensive, though she had rarely used them outside of battle. Yet now, perhaps they might be of help.

Squall nodded. "It's worth a try."

Taking a deep breath, Quistis closed her eyes for a moment and concentrated, trying to decide which technique to use on the lock panel. Ray-Bomb and Micro Missile, while certainly explosive enough, possessed a substantial blast radius, and in this confined space that might prove damaging not only to the blue mage and her two companions, but also to anyone on the other side. She briefly considered using the Homing Laser, but its multiple beams had often proven difficult for her to aim with much accuracy. If it had been off even by a little, the searing laser might have cut through not only the door but also the people she and her friends were trying to save.

Ultimately, Quistis decided to take a more methodical approach. She had at one point learned a skill that she called Acid from one of the gaylas that inhabited much of the Trabia region, where the floating manta ray creatures had over time developed a technique in which they would spew a stream of highly corrosive fluid at their enemies. By studying these monsters and examining their acidic body fluids, Quistis had eventually learned to employ a similar technique, albeit with her hand and not her mouth.

The blond instructor drew in her will, focusing on the magical energies swirling within her body, and called upon them to aid her. Opening her eyes, she thrust her arm out before her, and a spray of greenish liquid shot forth from her outstretched fingers and spattered onto the lock panel. The caustic fluid ate hungrily at the metal, bubbling and frothing in a frenzy until smoke rose from the delicate circuitry housed within the panel and the lock clattered open.

Squall raised his gunblade, slowly opening the door to reveal inky blackness within. "Let's go."

Tightening her fingers over the handle of her whip, Quistis slowly followed after him into the gloom of the storage chamber. The beam of her flashlight did little to push the shadows aside, seeming actually to make them somehow deeper somehow. She glanced uneasily over her shoulder, suddenly feeling as though she were being watched, yet all she saw was Seifer's tall form behind her. He paid her little heed, his eyes intent on the darkness.

"Is anyone here?" Squall called out. "This is commander Squall Leonhart of Balamb Garden. If you can hear me, say something!"

To Quistis' surprise and relief, a voice answered him. "Squall! Sir, is that you?"

The voice was feminine, and as Quistis swept the flashlight through the darkened room, she at last saw who it was that had spoken. A young woman, perhaps her own age and clad in a SeeD uniform, rose to her feet from where she had been kneeling next to a wounded, sandy-haired man in a cadet's garb. Beneath the massive bulk of the deactivated satellite array, two SeeDs—one male, one female—and a young female cadet sat huddled close together.

Squall turned to the woman that had spoken. "Marticia! Is everyone here alright?"

"Yes, sir," the young woman nodded, saluting. "Just some cuts and Elias' broken arm. Nothing too serious, but… they took us by surprise, sir. The Galbadians, I mean."

In the wan glow of her flashlight, Quistis was able to get a better look at the girl. Marticia Gailey's blue eyes glittered like chips of ice, revealing little of whatever weariness must have lay within, and her long black hair had been pulled back into a ponytail. The dark strands were held together by a metal clasp forged into the shape of Griever, the legendary lion-like beast whose image also adorned the hilt of Squall's gunblade as well as his necklace and ring. From what Quistis had heard, the clasp had been a graduation gift from the SeeD commander to honor one of his best students. In one hand, Marticia grasped a gunblade forged of crimson steel, its keen edge jagged like tongues of fire. The aptly named Flame Sabre was her trademark weapon, and seldom was she found without it.

"What happened?" Quistis asked.

Marticia sighed grimly. "The whole thing was a setup, Instructor. Our mission was supposed to be a surprise attack, but the Galbadians knew all along that we were coming. Everything went as planned for us until my squad and Rinoa's reached the tower."

"That's when they sprang the trap," Squall surmised.

"Right," Marticia agreed. "Once we got inside, we found the Galbadians there waiting for us. We tried to fight them off for as long as we could, but somehow our magic and GF's weren't responding. I managed to radio Xu for backup, but she never came, at least not before we were taken down here. Where is she, sir? Where is everyone else?"

Quistis stared at her, glancing uneasily at Squall. How were they going to tell Marticia what had happened in the entry chamber? Suddenly, Quistis remembered that Dollet was the female SeeD's hometown. Or rather, it had been her hometown. The blond instructor struggled to find the right words to say, to even comprehend the horror of hearing what she was about to say.

Before she could speak, however, Seifer did it for her. "They're dead. All of 'em."

"What…?" Marticia's face paled, her blue eyes widening.

"There… there's no easy way to say this," Quistis explained. "Someone… something… slaughtered them… and the people of Dollet as well. I'm sorry…"

The young woman backed away, shaking her head in stubborn denial. "No… no, that can't be! I don't believe you! It… it's just not possible!"

"Gailey!" Squall's voice snapped like a whip. "You're a SeeD, now act like one! We need you to get your people together and follow us out of here. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir," Marticia replied, her expression now carefully neutral and revealing nothing of the turmoil that Quistis knew must have been raging within. "I'm sorry, sir. I was out of line."

The young commander nodded wearily. "It's alright, Marticia. I'd have probably reacted that way if I'd been told the same thing about Balamb or Garden. But when we get to the main level of the tower, it isn't going to be pretty. I need you to stay calm, no matter what you see."

Marticia saluted. "I'll try, sir. But... you know that I'm originally from Dollet. I… I have family here, sir… friends that I grew up with…"

"I know," he replied. "Now, can you tell me what happened to Rinoa?"

"She was—" Marticia began, but then suddenly a soft whisper of sound floated in the air. Like chill, macabre laughter it was, and Quistis' blood ran cold in her veins. She glanced around, but could see nothing in the murky shadows beyond the illumination of her flashlight. Beside her, Marticia brought up her gunblade along with Squall and Seifer, her expression fiercely determined, and the remainder of the exam team clustered together and exchanged nervous glances while readying their weapons.

Suddenly, Quistis became aware that dark forms, several dozen at least, were crawling from out of the top of the satellite array and across the ceiling and walls like insects. The black-skinned shapes were vaguely humanoid, with wickedly curved claws and long, pointed teeth like daggers, but wiry and hard to discern from the darkness in which they hid. They moved with amazing speed, flitting effortlessly through the blackness like ghosts, and Quistis barely had time to blink before they closed in.