Chapter 9: Things to do while stuck on Centra.
Squall choice to go the white SeeD Ship by himself, while everyone else took a look around the Centra region to pass time.
Zell and Irvine went to the nearest place, the Centra ruins.
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"Whoa, this place looks like a tornado hit." Irvine looked around at what used to be the front gate, surveying the scattered stones and ruined remains of what used to be a city. Well what wasn't incinerated or smashed in to a thousand pieces, as a matter of fact the only thing that remained was the castle.
A deep voice surrounded them entry.
'If thy seek my power, come to my throne.'
"That never gets old." Irvine looked around for the source of the voice, finding nothing but a stray Tonberry walking toward them.
(Anyone know what that was?) Zell asked,
'I don't know.' Carbuncle said.
'It was Odin.' Bahamut was the only one who knew anything about it.
(Odin? What is he talking about?)
'He wants to challenge us.'
"You think we should fight him?" Zell turned to Irvine, waiting for an answer before proceeding forward.
Irvine didn't see why not, it might be interesting. "Why not, how tough can he be?" He shrugged, looking down at the small Tonberry that was dangerously close with a knife in it's hand and a lantern in the other.
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Seiphie and Quistis headed for a small desert island (at Seiphie's request) called Cactuar island. Though it was still unsure that there were any Cactuar here among the desert. They hadn't found any yet.
"Hey! I was promised Cactuar! Where are they!" Seiphie shouted as loud as she could, waiting around for the empty response that followed.
"Hey, calm down. I'm sure well see a few soon, I don't know why you want to any." Quistis rubbed her head, she felt a headache coming on. So this is how Squall felt, interesting.
"Look! There's one!" Seiphie saw one just over the hill, it was close! So close! "Let's go!" She shouted, running up the sandy hill as fast as her legs would carry her, which was pretty fast. Quistis struggled to keep up, but the speed differences between them became very apparent when she realized that she was only half way up and Seiphie had already made it to the top of the sand dune.
"Whoa!" Seiphie shouted, sliding to a stop and jumping up and down fearlessly, anxious to continue on.
Quistis carried her self up the rest of the way, wanting to see what the excitement had been about , and when she saw it she and marveled at the site. "Is that even………possible?"
There it was, a huge Cactuar, at lest 200x it's normal size. The overly large Cactuar dug in to the ground, disappearing under a cloud of sand. The tunnels it dug could be seen from the surface, telling them where it was heading next. "Quick! After him!" Seiphie called out eagerly, pointing in the direction of the digging Cactuar.
"You can't be serious!" Quistis didn't seem so sure they wanted to find it, a giant Cactuar? An unnecessary risk "If you really want to see one up close then we can go find a regular sized one..." Seiphie wasn't even listening, the girl in question was already a good distance away from her. "Seiphie!"
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Zell and Irvine began searching the area, with only a 20 minute time limit given by Odin himself, though they didn't know why it was in effect. Just past the front gate a large statue of the sorceress and her knight stood, it was ironic when you think about it.
Just past that, was a rather thin stairway leading up to a large castle, it didn't look stable and with out support. But they decided to chance it and go up anyway, and they made it just find until they reached a point
Irvine came to a stop, almost enough for Zell to run into him. "Great, there's no way up!" The staircase was broken an disconnected, Irvine looked around for another way up.
'Zell, there's another way up' Carbuncle told him, seeing something he didn't.
(Where?)
'Those stairs, try going up them.'
Zell slipped past Irvine, narrowly avoiding falling while getting in front of him, then carefully climbing 3 more steps the weak passage, it seemed to be a miracle that he got this far out. And the fall from here to the ground seemed like miles.
Zell safely made it to the landing, looking around for another way. He saw nothing... (Alright Carbuncle, where do I go from here?)
'Look to the left'
Zell did so, turning his head to the left enough to see the gap between the landing and the castle court yard that lay past it. He saw nothing...until a new path emerged from nowhere, a stairway and railing colored in rainbows. "Whoa, that was unexpected."
With the new path before them Irvine and Zell proceeded up to the castle, formally the center of the Centra empire. They could see that it had been much larger at one time just by looking at the rubble on the ground and the broken edges of the castle, this place didn't seem safe. Past the two large wooden gates outside lay a circular room with an altar that had a large, squared stone laying in the center.
"What is this?" Irvine inquired, poking the stone questingly... A pattern on to top of it started to glow in a bright white light and the stone started to rise slowly upward, giving Irvine an idea.. "Hey, Elevator." Jumping on top of it before it got too far off the ground, then reaching back to pull Irvine up.
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"We'll never catch it like this!" Quistis stopped, lifting her hand to make it clear that she wouldn't run anymore.
Seiphie stopped, going back a few feet to return to Quistis, pouting. "Come on! We're almost there!" Seiphie pointed to the tunneling Cactuar not to far from them.
"We're going about this all wrong." Quistis sat down on the soft sand, panting heavily, watching two little Cactuars run past them that Seiphie didn't even seem to see.
"What do you mean?"
Quistis took one last deep breath, looking up at the brunet. "That Cactuar is going around in circles, all we have to do wait for it to come back around and we'll catch it."
"Oh, make sense." Seiphie had to agree that it did make more sense then chasing it around.
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A spiraling staircase on the side of weak structure lead to the throne room, but the door was locked.
"This just gets better and better doesn't it." Irvine sighed, tilting his hat downward.
"Ok, there has to be someway to get in. Right?" Zell wasn't sure that they went the right way.
Bahamut again saw something that Zell didn't. 'Look above you'
Zell did as Bahamut told him, looking up, and at first he saw nothing out of the ordinary. But looking closer he saw something was wrong, or just off. "Hmm.." He grabbed on to the ledge laying above the door, making his way up to a stone Gargoyle that rest there.
Irvine looked up questioningly, he didn't get it. "Zell, What are you doing?"
Zell lifted his hand to his chin, tilting his head thoughtfully as he stared at the stone figure. "Look, This thing is missing an eye."
"So."
"These eyes are diamonds, big ones."
Irvine thought on it for a second 'If the eyes are removable, it must be some kind of switch,' "Hey Zell, do you see the other one?"
Zell started to look around the ground for anything.
Irvine, after looking around on his level, caught a flash of something in the corner his eye that he immediately turned toward. 'What was that?' He lifted his hand to his eye, steeping back out of the glare shining on him. In the spot where he was stand, a small ray of light shined diagonally from the left, Irvine traced the ray to the roof, finding the source which was a shiny object was reflecting the light.
"Zell, It's on the roof, in that other statue." Irvine pointed to it, then volunteered to go and get it.
Zell gave him the other jewel, for conformation purposes, and waited behind where he was..
"Is just me Cerberus or do these things make you nervous." The demon made a sound that Irvine recognized as a 'What do you mean' or a 'what are you talking about' type of thing. "This." He indicated a prism railing that appeared when he went near the stairs.
(Odin's power surrounds this place, That is what your seeing.) It was interesting how the GF's voice projected because all three heads talked at the same time.
"Still kinda creepy." Irvine edged along the thin ledge at the end of the stairway, grabbing on to an old ladder that led to the top of the Ruin. "What is Odin anyway?"
(Odin represents death, that is power.)
"How do you know all of this?"
(I'm the one that granted him passage back in to the world of the living.)
Cerberus, guardian of the gates of hell. "Hmm………Make sense. But, can you really do that?" He got no answer for that question, Irvine figured that Cerberus had a past relationship with this Odin guy, he would have to if he did something like that.
After a long accent up a rather weak ladder, he was met by a stone gargoyle with one eye. Irvine slipped in the eye from the previous gargoyle before, hearing a small click. "huh?"
"Huh" Zell looked on as a torch by the edge of a nearby ledge lit up on it's on. The flames rose high, forming into 5 numbers. "What is that?"
Irvine removed both jewels, retreated down the ladder and back to Zell, giving him both diamonds. Zell placed them in to the sockets, which ignited the same torch again, revealing the same numbers, this time unlocking the door.
"Who built this place? I mean something important must be back here if they would make someone go through all of this." Irvine pondered, slowly advanced toward the door.
"Well let's go find out."
They opened the reinforced doors, revealing a red carpet on top of checkered tiled floors leading to a large throne, besides that the room was bare. Odin was waiting for them, his sword waiting by his side.
That sword, that really large sword, it was special, Carbuncle knew that... (Zell, that sword, they say it can cut anything in half. Watch out for it.) Carbuncle warned.
"I will lend my power to those that prove their strength to me. If you are weak, you shall parish."
Odin was tall, wearing thick armor with red eyes and black horns and oddly yellow skin. His horse, named after his sword, joined him in battle. Odin always fought with his horse, no matter how much of an inconvenience it would provide.
With sword in hand a lance on his back, he waited unmoving. Irvine carefully aimed, moving above the armor and hitting him with a head shot. Odin barely flinched. Zell moved quickly in feared retaliation from the sword, kicking off the armored horse and delivering a strong blow to Odin.
Odin only waited, not moving at all, no counter, nothing. "What is he doing?" Zell started to get nervous.
"I don't know, but I don't like it." Irvine loaded some Armor piercing ammo, blasting a whole in the thick armor Odin wore. Zell started to get edge, Odin was obviously messing around with them, the whole time he didn't so much as blink, the only moment made was by his horse breathing.
Zell began to get on edge in his usual over reaction of light panic, (Zell, calm down, I recognize this strategy. How much time is left on the time limit?) Bahamut asked.
'A little over 5 minutes.'
Bahamut knew what Odin was doing, too bad Zell hadn't figured it out. (If you don't prove your strength to him with in that time, He's going use that sword.)
'That shouldn't be to hard. Right?'
Zell signaled Irvine with a small nod, he responded with another nod.
Zell began to summon Bahamut, while Irvine cast haste on himself and Zell just before both of them faded as the large Dragon emerged through the ceiling. Bahamut dropped down, his wings spread wide to catch himself as he opening his mouth and inhaled to charge a visible white energy and firing a series of small rays around Odin. Each one unleashing an explosion to mark the land. In the mist of the explosion, Bahamut drew in more energy and then expelled it in a loud roar, sending down a powerful mega flare.
When the smoke cleared, Odin was still standing strong and unmoved... Irvine summoned Cerberus, who cast triple and Double on the two of them, using that Zell used the double in effect to cast Aura on both of them. Odin wanted strength, this was the best way to do it.
"Ready?" Zell asked, not bothering to look in Irvine's direction.
"Uh-huh." He replied, doing the same.
With limit break raging Zell ran at him, Jumping up and delivering strong kick to the face, it was like hitting a brick wall. Irvine pulled the trigger, firing a Pulse shot that broke threw Odin's armor in large patches and scorch marks. Zell leapt upward again, lifted his heel above his head, bring it down on Odin.
Irvine fired another round in to Odin, leavening behind a ray of excess energy. Zell jumped back, giving a round house kick, running up Odin's body giving a strong kick flip. Irvine fired another shot as Zell was coming down, who did another heel drop on Odin.
Irvine fired another round, while Zell delivered a blow threw the exposed armor of Odin's torso with his left fist, another with his right, and finishing with a powerful uppercut to his chin.
It seemed that nothing was working until Irvine fired his last shot as Zell threw his last punch, by some manner of careful aiming Irvine missed Zell. Odin grimaced in pain, lifting his hand to his chest.
Zell and Irvine looked at each other. "I think we won."
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"You sure that it will come up here?" Seiphie asked, sitting down on the ground and resting her elbow on her leg, laying her head in her hand.
"I'm not sure of anything." Quistis admitted, looking out in to the water from the relatively high ground.
Sure enough less then a minute later a large Cactuar popped out through the ground. But it had it's back turned, unable to see them coming. "Hey! You!" Seiphie jumped to her feet, looking up to at Cactuar that was much larger up close, about 4 stories high.
The green creature turned around, bending down to get a closer look at them as if it had never seen anything like them. "Hey!" Quistis said in a exclamatory manner. "That's a GF!"
When she said that, the Cactuar jumped, a large sweat drop fell down it's head, he'd been found out! Seiphie leaned forward with interest. "Really?"
Knowing it was inevitable, the Cactuar got ready to fight. He turned to the side, standing on one leg, arms lifting and falling in a mechanical motion. Which Seiphie found really funny. "Cool!"
The first thing they found out was it was fast, very fast. Second, it was hard to hit, nearly imposable. After the first few tries, Seiphie became frustrated. "Hey! Sit still!" She yelled, casting a slow spell to stop it from moving so much. It didn't work. Quistis tried a blind spell, nothing worked.
Cactuar stopped moving completely, becoming stiff, and letting his body fall to the ground. When the heavy cactus hit the sands everything under Seiphie and Quistis shot in to the air including the ground, they landing hard. "Aww! You asked for it!" Seiphie cast a Fiargea spell, sending an explosion of fire over it. Quistis cast a double spell on herself.
The Cactus leaned back on his other leg, sliding over to Quistis and stomping down on her. She countered, hitting it in the back with her whip as it retreated back to it's former position.
"OK! How About Lighting!" Seiphie shouted, casting a Thundaga spell causing a strong bolt of lighting to surround Jumbo Cactuar, breaking the ground around it and sending a strong electric current in to the Cactus.
Using Double, Quistis cast Haste on both of them, trying to even the speed up a little.
The Cactus tilted over a little in Quistis direction, flailing his arms wildly. Thin needles started to fly out in a completely unblockable or avoidable rain over her body. She immediately fell to the ground unconscious.
Seiphie worked quickly and use a Phoenix down on her.
The Cactuar tilted towards Seiphie, using 10,000 needles again but this time on her, sending the same torrent of needles that had taken down Quistis before on to her. As expected she was knocked unconscious.
Quistis rushed to use a life spell on her. "Not so cute anymore huh?" Quistis joked, noting how hard this Cactuar was to fight.
"Alright! No more Ms. Nice Seiphie. YOUR GOIN' DOWN!" Seiphie was compelled to roll up her sleeves when she found that she didn't have any, only further premising the golden aura of limit break.
Her mind became boggled, filling with random magic. One spell came through all of it.
"THE END!" She shouted, and everything went black and quiet. Just as quickly as it came, it passed in a blink of an eye.
The Cactuar stopped moving, completely stiff and falling to it's side. "Oh my goodness Seiphie how did you do that?" Quistis ran over to her, looking over the fallen creature in disbelief.
"I don't know." Seiphie smiled "It just happened."
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This ship looked familiar to him, but when Squall realized that he knew it should have, because it was the same one that took Ellone from the Garden. The White SeeD Ship.
When Squall arrived 2 men and a woman in all white suits were waiting for him, anticipating someone because of spotting the obvious back drop of Balamb Garden. So he introduced himself to them "My name is Squall. I'm a SeeD from Balamb Garden. I'd like to speak to your leader."
The man in the middle spoke up. "I'm in charge, state your business. Depending on what you say, we may ask you to leave immediately." He spoke sternly in clear, leaving no room for misinterpretation.
Squall thought about it for a second, asking reluctantly for his request "... I want to see Ellone."
"...?" The man seemed alarmed at this, that someone knew Ellone was here, but how? How could someone find out?
"I pose no threat." Squall said. "Edea told me that you would be here."
The White SeeD Leader looked at him questioningly "Edea...how...?"
"...Edea is no longer under Sorceress Ultimecia's control. She is now our ally." Squall already knew they knew the whole story, and it would have been really helpful if he had met them first. "So there's no reason for you to hide Ellone's whereabouts from us. We want to take Ellone back to protect her from Ultimecia."
The man was silent for a moment, but shook his head "... Thank you for coming... But we have no reason to believe you. Please leave." Just like that he dismissed him, walking away, and leaving the other two people to head for different parts of the ship.
Squall just stood their for a moment, looking around the ship from here.
(What are you going to do now?) Ifrit asked.
He was forgetting something...come on, think! 'Hmm………The letter, I forgot about that, I'd better give it to him.' He had to give it to them.
Ahead of him was an area where the deck was enclosed by an overlaying level was stairway, past that was a cabin along with three doorways. That's when he saw someone familiar, he couldn't believe it, it couldn't be... Zone and Watts.
"Wow! Long time no see, sir!" Watts greeted him, he was always polite.
"Whoa! Look who's here! Squall, how's it goin'?" Zone gave him a small wave as Watts shook his hand, they were happy to see him.
"Can't believe you're here! Everybody doin' good, sir?" Watts asked, adjusting his hat slightly as he spoke, still polite with the same smile.
Zone smirked, taking the liberty to tell his story since Squall clearly wanted to know, he could see it in the look on Squall's face. "After you guys left, the Galbadian buttheads came after us, and we barely escaped to this boat."
"I was sure we were goners, sir!" Watts's tone rose lightly, "Zone went nuts and was thinking about swimming across the sea to escape!"
"Hey, it was a plan." Zone defended, quickly shooting a remark back at Watts "All you were doing was whining like a big baby. 'We're gonna die, we're gonna die!' And look who jumped in first! You, you numbnuts!" Zone pointed out, running his hand threw his blue hair.
Squall rolled his eyes. '...I don't see how these wackos keep surviving.'
After seeing that Squall didn't want to hear them argue, Zone changed the subject "So, how's Rinoa? Where is she?"
Squall was quiet for a second, and Zone's face dropped, he immediately knew something was wrong "...Rinoa fought with us against Edea. For some reason, she went unconscious after the fight. She's resting in the Garden now. I don't know what happened, we couldn't protect her. I'm...I'm sorry." He looked away, his head downcast.
Zone was silent with astonishment, at first he didn't fully get the seriousness of what Squall had said to him. But as it started to sink in, Zone's fist clinched tighter and tighter, to the point his arms were trembling, his eyes narrowed and his loss of words cured. "YOU SON OF A BITCH! What did I say? What did I say, HUH? I told you to take care of her! That nothin' better happen to her! Scumbag! You pathetic lyin' scumbag!" Zone grabbed him by his shirt collar in a grip that cut off all his air supply, abruptly enough to send Squall off balance and falling forward, leaving his only support in Zone's hold on his clothing. Though it didn't seem like it, Zone was pretty strong when he was motivated.
This no doubt caught Squall off guard, he could only stare up at Zone with wide, shaky eyes.
Watts grabbed Zone by the shoulder and pulled him back, holding him as Squall fell on to his knees. "Zone! C'mon! Easy, sir! Easy." He coaxed. "She's not dead, they just dunno what's wrong with her, that's all." He glanced over at Squall. "Ain't that right, sir? Squall would never give up on her. Am I right, sir?" Watts tried to calm him down, gratefully it worked.
After catching his breath enough to speak, Squall tried to explain. "We came here to get Ellone because there's a new evil force after her. If we can get Ellone and Rinoa together, maybe...we can get Rinoa back."
Watts put on a cheery face as usual. "Really? See, Zone! I told you, sir! Rinoa's gonna be fine! She promised she would come back! We all have to free Timber together. Don't worry, sir!"
Zone sighed, taking a deep breath. " ...All right. But I'm gonna say it one more time, If something happens to Rinoa again, I swear…" He gave one last threaten look to Squall, a very threatening look that someone like Zone didn't seem capable of giving, before turning away.
Watts pointed him in to one of the rooms where the White SeeD leader was waiting.
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In the cabin Squall gave the man Edea's letter and he read it over "...This is Matron's writing. She really gave this to you?"
Squall smirked lightly. "You guys call her Matron too, huh?"
The man looked up reminiscently. "Yes." He nodded. "Ever since we were little."
"We were raised by Edea, too. It was difficult to fight against her, but we did. Fortunately, everything turned out well. Edea is no longer evil. She's back to her old self again...the kind Matron we remember."
The white SeeD Leader nodded again with a smile, giving him a salute. "Squall, thank you. We owe you and Balamb Garden much."
Squall mirrored a similar action back. "Even our salute is the same."
"So it says in the letter you're looking for Ellone... ...I'm sorry. Ellone's no longer here." He explained how Ellone was taken by Esthar.
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"Oh, man…" Nida sighed as Squall told him what happened, leaning against the throttle with light fatigue. "Xenophobic Esthar. That area's terrain is not really suited for flying the Garden."
"Anyway, set a course for Esthar." Squall instructed.
Nida sighed again nodding in agreement, ready for this day to be over so that he could go back to sleep. After he gave the order he headed for the infirmary to check on Rinoa.
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Zell and Irvine returned to the garden, just being picked up by Nida. The first thing Zell did was unjunction Carbuncle, keeping Bahamut with him.
Zell walked in to Dormitory hallway with Carbuncle on his shoulder and Irvine by his side.
"Seiphie!"
The found her with two headphones plugged in to an Mp3 player. The first headphones where on her head, the second set was on Cactuars, with an extra long cord. Both were dancing around in a similar fashion with Quistis looking on.
"Is that a Cactuar………?" Carbuncle jumped off, looking closer.
"You know, this doesn't surprise me." Irvine said, looking on.
"The sad thing is, the Cactuar dances better." Zell laughed, wishing he had a camera.
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Yay! I really like Cactuar, I like them as much as I like Moombas and Chocobos!
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