Chapter 26: Diverging Paths

Zell ducked low, his chest nearly sweeping along the floor, the baton passing easily over his head. He rose, the brawler's right arm shooting up with shocking speed, the momentum and power behind his rising torso adding to the power behind the uppercut directly into the guard's chin. The prison guard was launched off his feet, hurled across Level Seven with all of Zell's strength.

The brawler ducked and weaved through a series of rifle-butts and swinging batons, seeming to dance among the quartet of remaining soldiers and their weapons. As they moved and struck, Zell's fists and forearms bobbed and thrust, blasting the wind out of one guard and hurling him away, before turning and launching a spinning roundhouse kick the smashed another soldier's helmet inward. Zell snapped a hand out around the dead man's arm, and tossed the body into the path of another guard, tripping the man up. The last guard swung hard at Zell with a double-handed grip on his baton, but Zell's hands weaved up into the swinging baton's path even as he stepped aside, turning the swing's power back on itself to flip the man over and drop him hard to the floor. A swift stomp onto the guard's windpipe finished the man off.

"There he is!" came a shout from the stairs, and Zell looked up to see what might have been an entire platoon of Galbadian prison guards and military police rushing down the stairs from Level Eight.

"Tch!" Zell muttered, turning and running around the perimeter of the central chasm of the prison, guards chasing after him. "Too many!" Bullets began to whiz and ricochet around Zell as he ran, and the brawler cursed the prison's security measures. Sometime during the brief battle with guards, someone had raised a wall-like barrier between the staircase leading down from Level Eight and the stairs descending to Six. A reasonable security measure to keep rioting prisoners in check, and one Zell was finding to be quite effective.

Bullets flew around the brawler as he ran, one managing to catch the SeeD in the shoulder and inflicting a painful wound. he didn't slow, however, but did look over his shoulder as he rounded the central hole. About ten or fifteen guards were in hot pursuit, rounding the bend after Zell, and the brawler noticed (to his annoyance) that the wall-like barrier was lowering to allow the remainder to run around the other end of the chasm and intercept him.

"Damn!" Zell cursed, knowing he wouldn't be able to escape without barreling through at least one, and more likely both, sets of guards. However, there were alternate ways around the guards, ways often only reserved for SeeDs. The brawler closed his eyes even while running around, and reached into his mind.

The guards rounding the hole ahead of Zell crashed to a halt as the air in front of them burned. From that fiery portal emerged a growling, burning, hell-spawned demon, glaring down at the pitiful mortal guards with its golden eyes.

Ifrit unleashed a shockwave of blasting fire, the searing heat throwing the awed and terrified soldiers off their feet, fires burning through their armor and uniforms, the metal of their helmets and body armor melting and twisting under the heat. Practically the entire group was blasted away by Ifrit's incandescent blast of fury.

As the Guardian Force roared in victory and returned through its burning portal, Zell leaped through the last embers of the fiery doorway and over the burned, blasted guards. he hit the floor running, and glanced over his shoulder at the pursuit force, which had stopped in the face of the spectacle of Ifirit and his inferno.

Zell should have been looking ahead, as the metal butt of a sub- machinegun clotheslined the brawler across his face, throwing him to the floor. Zell began to stand, only to find the barrel of that very sub- machinegun leveled at his face. The prison warden glared down at Zell, his uniform still smoking, doubtlessly scorched by Ifrit's fires.

"You bastard!" he roared, finger hovering over the trigger as he looked down at Zell. "DIE!" Zell flinched, closing his eyes as he expected the warden to fire, but was instead met by the sound of an impact overhead, followed by the sickening sound of bone crunching and a powerful explosion. The martial artist opened his eyes to see the warden's headless corpse splayed across the floor, and Squall standing behind the decapitated man.

"Squall!" Zell exclaimed, leaping up onto his knees and hugging Squall's waist in thanks for timely rescue. The standing SeeD looked down in confusion, and pushed down on the grateful brawler's head.

"Let go," he muttered through clenched teeth, then pushed again, before bopping Zell on the head with the butt of his gunblade. Zell did let go after that, and stood, somewhat embarrassed at how stupid he'd looked. Then, both SeeDs hit the deck as more gunfire flew over their heads.

"Shit, too many of them!" Zell muttered. "How the hell did you get here, anyway?"

"The arm," Squall replied. "I couldn't stop it as it rose past your level, so I jumped off."

"What about Quistis and Selphie?" Zell asked. Squall shrugged.

"Probably on the upper levels," he replied, then snatched up the warden's rifle. Squall poked it over the top of the metal railing and fired a series of blind shots, more to keep the guards' heads down than to do any real damage.

Squall thought he heard a grunt of pain, then and explosion, and the enemy gunfire slackened off noticeably. Squall risked poking his head over the top of the railing, wondering whether he's actually hit anything explosive, and saw another large detonation. Bodies and body parts flew wildly, and those guards still alive ducked behind the metal railing for cover.

Squall looked up, scanning the area, and spotted a familiar, trenchcoated form stepping down the staircase from Level Eight. irvine kept his Valiant leveled at the soldiers behind cover as he reached the foot of the stairs, and moments later, Quistis, Selphie, and Rinoa bounded down the stairs. Squall rose in a crouch, and rushed to meet the, Zell following. A million questions went though his mind as he approached, not understanding what she or Irvine were doing here.

"What-" he began to ask, but Rinoa cut him off.

"Sorry we're late," she explained, and the SeeD noticed for the first time that her arm was wounded. "We had some trouble getting in."

"Nothing I couldn't handle," Irvine replied with a grin, still keeping his weapon trained on the guards' positions. "We made it safely through, thanks to my escort."

"My father pulled some strings with the military, Rinoa explained. "He sent this guy to come and get me out, and only me!"

"I wasn't going to abandon you guys," Irvine quickly explained, his weapon twitching as he saw movement, but no clear target. "I needed to get Rinoa to a safe location, and then I was going to head back, under Garden's mandate, of course."

Squall nodded, recalling Garden Code Article Twenty-One, Line Four, which stated that in the event Garden personnel were captured, all available forces must be committed to their rescue.

During their conversation, the guards must have gotten more ambitious, as several men, having scattered across the chamber behind the covering railing, rose at once and began firing. Bullets struck the metal all around the group, and Irvine returned fire, his heavier .50 Action Express rounds mixing with the lighter fire from the guards' 9mm sub- machineguns. Two men fell, one's head blasted open while the other's right arm was nearly blown off. Others dove for cover, while yet more continued firing, realizing their firepower advantage.

Down below, Irvine spotted movement on the lower floors as more guards were moving up through the structure in pursuit. They didn't have much time.

"Squall!" Irvine called, and Squall moved next to him. "I'll hold them here as a rear guard," Irvine explained, firing another pair of shots, blasting another guard. a pair of bullets struck near the railing, and he ducked momentarily before popping back up with a pair of blasts.

"You guys head up top first, I'll keep them back," the sharpshooter explained.

"Top?" Squall asked. "That's where the exit is?"

"Bingo," Irvine replied. "Take everyone up there, I'll be a step behind you!"

"Not without me!" Selphie replied, and Squall looked to her, surprised. He was even more surprised to see Selphie's nunchaku strapped to her back. The diminutive SeeD instead sported an M4A1 carbine with a grenade launcher underneath the barrel. Squall was confused as to where Selphie had picked the weapon up, but she simply shrugged, nodding toward Irvine.

"He had a spare in his bag," she explained.

"My last weapon, too," Irvine added, firing again. "She gave me that look when she saw the grenade launcher."

Squall didn't bother asking any other questions; he knew Selphie was trained in demolitions and explosives, so she knew how to use the grenade launcher aspect, probably all too well.

"Okay, we'll open up the front door," Squall said, and turned back to Quistis, Zell and Rinoa. He nodded to them and pointed up the stairs, before taking the lead. The trio quickly fell into step behind Squall, even as Irvine and Selphie opened fire with their weapons, driving the Galbadians behind cover.

"Let's dance!" Irvine shouted, picking off another Galbadian soldier with a precision blast to the neck.

--------------------

Xu sat in the chair across from Cid Kramer, watching the Headmaster tap in a series of commands into his computer, before looking up at his trusted second-in-command. behind her stood two other high-ranking SeeDs, Jofey and Elain. All three of them were fully armed and ready for battle.

"It's done," Cid said. "The last of the train tickets has been purchased, and most of the SeeDs are already deployed." Xu nodded.

"How soon do you think it will be before NORG acts?" she asked, and Cid shrugged.

"NORG knows that Galbadia knows that Balamb SeeDs were behind the assassination," Cid said with a shake of his head. "He's going to try to cover his own ass." Xu sighed.

"Trent's warning came too late," Jofey said, and both Cid and Xu nodded.

"You know what NORG will do now," Cid stated. "He's afraid of Galbadia, and we've already gotten reports about the move against Galbadia Garden. Its only a matter of time now."

"Most of the SeeDs should be long out of Balamb before NORG even realizes you've dispersed them," Elain added. "With the fake IDs and training, they should be able to blend in well and hide from Galbadia." Cid nodded, and sat back in his chair, thinking.

"We'll need to prepare our defenses," the Headmaster said quickly. "We don't have much time, if the reports from Galbadia Garden are any indication. We'll need to get in touch with Trabia Garden, and coordinate defenses. Galbadia will strike hard and fast, and we need to be ready."

"But with most of the SeeDs gone, that will compromise our security," Xu objected, and Cid nodded.

"What's important now is SeeD itself, not Garden," he explained. "SeeD was brought up for the future, and for this conflict especially. We've scattered the SeeDs so that they can operate more effectively in small groups that are hard to find, as opposed to concentrated in one location."

"And to make sure they're beyond NORG's reach," Jofey added, and Cid nodded. The Headmaster sat forward, his brow furrowing and shoulders straightening. He no longer looked like the kind old grandfatherly figure he normally put out for the media and the cadets. No, Cid Kramer looked far more cunning and dangerous now, like a sheathed sword suddenly drawn.

"Its time," he said, and the three SeeDs nodded. "NORG has held too much control over Garden for too long. I will not risk letting that fat bastard ruin the only hope we have to defeat the Sorceress. Its time we made our move.

"Jofey, Elain," Cid explained, standing. The headmaster took a computer disk out of the computer and put it into a small data pad, then handed it to the SeeDs. "These are all of the cadets that I know will be loyal to us, as well as the few SeeDs we have remaining here in Garden. Round them up, and explain the defensive plan." The two SeeDs nodded and saluted, before leaving Cid's office.

"And me, sir?" Xu asked. Cid sighed, and nodded.

"Things will get ugly, Xu, if NORG begins to act before we're ready," Cid explained. "We'll need to keep whatever he rallies against us delayed as long as possible. I want you to go to the security station on Level Two and scramble all of the locks. Set the encryption code to 'Moombas rule the universe.' Do the same for the universal lock/unlocking codes."

"Moombas rule the universe?" Xu asked, confused by the sentence, and Cid nodded, a faint smile creeping onto his face.

"Trust me, NORG would never think of that as the code," Cid explained. "I also need you to disable the intercom so NORG will not be able to coordinate his forces. This won't hurt us, as the defense plan won't require communications between the different sectors and groups." Xu nodded and rose, standing eye to eye with Cid.

"Headmaster, what will you be doing?" she asked. Cid chuckled, and sat down in his chair.

"I'll be up here," he explained. "There's something in the archives I need to find from before the Garden was renovated from a Centra Shelter," he explained. "I need to find it - it may be the only hope we have of surviving a Galbadian attack." Xu nodded, but hesitated before leaving.

"Sir, I want to know," she began. Cid looked up from his monitor to his second-in-command. "You've dispatched all the SeeDs already, but what about Garden? If Galbadia attacks, we'll only have cadets, and maybe not even that many, depending on how many side with NORG. Why are you leaving Garden so vulnerable?"

Cid sighed, his shoulders sagging, before he stood and walked to the huge window in the back of his office. He clasped his hands behind his back as he looked down at the academy grounds, grounds that may soon know war.

"Garden exists for the future," Cid explained. "It was made for the express purpose of training SeeDs." Cid looked over his shoulder at Xu. "Right now, the SeeDs have been scattered to the winds. The SeeDs are Garden's true value; without them Garden is just a military academy. They are the future, and the only hope we have of preventing yet another Sorceress War." Cid looked back out to the grounds.

"The Garden is not necessary," he explained. "Not as long as the SeeDs are out there. It can be rebuilt, but the skills, the knowledge, the spirit of Garden can never be replenished if they are lost. Those exist within the SeeDs Garden has trained. If they are lost, the future is lost.

"I've left Garden as it is because I know that I do not need to defend it," Cid continued. "Garden now exists for only one purpose, and that is to be the anvil on which the Sorceress will beat her hammer."

"Garden is just a distraction?" Xu asked, and Cid nodded. The Headmaster looked up, his eyes scanning the inside of his office.

"Our only purpose now is to keep the Sorceress' eyes fixed on us," he explained. "We must keep her attention until the SeeDs are safely away. Garden is being left out as a sacrifice."

Xu listened to Cid's voice, hearing a faint sadness, and understood what Cid was meaning. After several long moments, the Headmaster turned to face her once again, and nodded.

"Xu, I'm counting on you," he said, and she nodded. Xu saluted the Headmaster once again and quickly exited the office.

--------------------

The grenade bounced down the stairs, and landed directly in front of one unfortunate prison guard. He opened his mouth to scream, but the panicked cry was swallowed by the roar from the fragmentation grenade that shredded the doomed man.

Irvine slid the door shut behind him, and locked it with a .50 Action Express key, sealing off Level Eleven from the levels below. Selphie, meanwhile, leaned over the metal railing at the center of the chamber and sent another grenade from the M4 down into the guards on the level below them. An explosion scattered them, killing one and maiming another, and the remainder opted to retreat. Selphie launched another grenade for good measure, and then turned back to Irvine.

"Whoo-hoo!" she shouted, and Irvine was still amazed by her enthusiasm. She had taken to the grenade launcher like a fish to water, wielding the weapon with surprising deftness and a somewhat scary enthusiasm, dropping grenades among the pursuing soldiers and guards with shocking accuracy. One wouldn't have expected such a small and seemingly innocent girl to be so deadly with explosives.

Irvine loved it.

Between Selphie's aggressive grenade-launching and Irvine's own explosive rounds and fragmentation grenades, the two had beaten back the pursuing guards, scattering them repeatedly and blowing apart any soldiers or guards ambitious enough to get close. Most of the soldiers, valuing their lives over a handful of extremely dangerous and well-armed prisoners and intruders, opted to get the hell away from the duo.

With Level Eleven secured, the sharpshooter and the deceptively dangerous girl ran upstairs, until they reached the same level as the torture chamber, just below the control room for this tower. They were surprised to hear the sounds of explosions and sizzling magic up above in the control room, and rushed upstairs, ready to enter the fray they were expecting.

Irvine went up first, and stopped immediately upon reaching the top of the stairs, watching the battle unfold. Well, it wasn't exactly a battle; most of the Galbadians were already dead or unconscious, scattered around the control room. Squall, Quistis, Rinoa, and Zell were crouched near the top of the staircase, watching as the two brother Guardian Forces, Sacred and Minotaur, rushed around the control room, smashing their maces down on hapless Galbadian soldiers and guards.

Sacred slapped one soldier away with a surprisingly powerful blow that hurled the man across the room, while the Minotaur rushed toward a pair of standing soldiers who desperately fired their rifles at the charging Guardian Force. The massive GF simply smiled in the face of the gunfire and swatted both men away with a single swipe of his spiked mace.

The few remaining soldiers were already retreating out through the bridge leading to Tower Three, and the Minotaur made sure they ran hard, chasing them all the way to the exit before stopping to let out a tremendous roar, just to keep the terrified soldiers cowed. Then the pair of Guardian Forces, their task finished, vanished like dissipating sand being blown away in the wind, leaving the control room empty.

Irvine whistled, awed by the destructive power the duo of GFs had inflicted. Between the two brothers, they had pretty much annihilated the control room, leaving the broken bodies of almost thirty soldiers and guards littering the chamber. A couple of corpses lay near the stairs, burned and sliced, likely soldiers that had wandered too close to the quartet waiting by the stairs.

Squall turned back to Irvine, who was still looking around in amazement, and nodded.

"Is our rear secured?" he asked, and the sharpshooter nodded. Selphie bounded up the stairs behind him, surveying the brutal carnage that the pair of GFs had inflicted.

"Wow," she commented, then smiled, holding up her rifle and its accompanying grenade launcher. "Don't worry about the lower levels! We've made sure the guards don't want to catch up with us!" Squall nodded again, understanding.

"Let's hurry up and get out of here before reinforcements come," Squall added, standing. The rest of the group nodded, needing no incentive to leave, and hurried outside the prison, using the door leading to Tower One. Squall was the first out of the door, the desert sun beating down on his head while hot, sandy air whistled through his hair. It had never felt better to be back under the sun.

Still, the pleasantness of being outside, breathing the free air once again, didn't stop Squall from surveying their surroundings. He found himself looking down to the desert sands far below, stretching across the landscape to the horizon, with only a single vehicle trail leading away. Now outside, he saw the truth behind the towers: each one was constructed like a giant screw, designed to burrow deep into the desert sands and bury the prisoners alive, to further keep them contained. it was quite impressive, he had to admit, as he led his team to Tower One. they quickly crossed the bridge and entered the controlling tower, stepping across the corpses of dozens of collapsed guards and soldiers.

"Elevator's over there, beyond the weapon detectors," Irvine added, leading the way. Squall glanced around the security room, seeing yet more collapsed corpses littering the area, and shook his head.

"You two fought your way past all of this?" he asked, and Irvine nodded.

"You should have seen us in action, too!" Irvine said, calling the elevator up. "it was like we blasted through the entire prison. And you should have seen Rinoa! Nothing stopped her." Squall glanced at Rinoa, who shrugged, somewhat uncomfortable.

"Irvine did most of the work," she replied with a shrug, but Squall shook his head.

"It's a good thing that both of you came back," he said, and the Zell, Quistis, and Selphie agreed, nodding their heads.

"We would have been goners without you two!" Zell stated as the elevator doors opened, and they entered.

Shortly afterward, they arrived in the vehicle garage at ground level, and stepped out. Irvine quickly led them to the car he had used, though he explained they didn't have enough space in the vehicle for everyone. Selphie remedied that problem, breaking into and hot-wiring another car (this one a yellow military vehicle, matching her dress color, coincidentally enough) Soon, the vehicle was driving away from the prison at full speed, Selphie taking the wheel of her stolen vehicle, with Irvine and Quistis riding, while Squall and Rinoa joined Zell in the more sedate gray vehicle Irvine had used.

Squall said nothing, he simply sat in the back, close to Rinoa, while Zell drove. He was very glad she and Irvine had come back, and she recounted their infiltration and the long, running gun battle that had raged throughout the complex as they had fought their way inside and linked up with Selphie and Quistis after he had jumped down off the arm.

Now, however, he knew that he had an even more important mission, because even throughout the entire escapade, Squall had not forgotten the critical piece of information Seifer had let slip: Garden was about to be bombed.

Shortly after they had left the prison, Squall saw that they were closing with a crossroads in the vehicle trail, next to a sizable boulder. He called for a halt from Zell, and he obliged, stopping the car at the crossroads. Selphie's vehicle, right behind theirs, joined them a second later.

"Why the stop?" Selphie called, bounding out of her vehicle. Squall looked around the group of his comrades, and frowned, not happy with telling them the news.

"Galbadia will be launching missiles at Garden," Squall explained, and the response from the group was immediate.

"Now damn way!" Zell shouted, his words matching the shocked and horrified expressions of the rest of the group. Squall nodded grimly. he glanced around, scanning the area, and spotted something on the horizon far to the north. Squall knew the general layout of the region and what important landmarks and structures were out here, and thus he was able to recognize the distant shape.

"That's the missile base," Squall stated, and began to turn back to his grou. "Our primary objective is to get back to Garden and warn the students to evacuate. There's a train depot south of here where we can steal a train to Timber. From there we'll-"

"Look!" Selphie exclaimed, and Squall spun, scanning the horizon.

White contrails reached up from the distant missile base, behind tiny black dots that ascended into the clear blue sky with extreme speed. Within moments the missiles were out of sight - flying north. Toward Trabia Garden, not Balamb.

"They're hitting Trabia first," Squall managed to say, his stomach sinking. Without access to an HD cable, they wouldn't be able to warn the students there . . . .

Behind him, Selphie sunk into the sand, her fists balling in helpless frustration.

"Miss . . . ." she muttered, shaking her head. "Please be a miss . . . ."

The group was silent for a long while, as the white contrails faded into the blue skies. Finally, Squall turned back, grim determination set on his face that immediately galavanized the rest of the team.

"We don't have much time," he explained. "If what I remember about Galbadian weapon technology is correct, the missile base will need several hours to launch its next strike. that won't give us enough time to warn Balamb Garden about the next strike, but it will give us time to act if we move quickly enough."

"We're goin' in, right?" Zell asked, and Squall nodded. Squall ticked off his fingers.

"We'll need two teams. One will infiltrate the missile base and hamper with the launch any way possible. The other will return to Garden to warn them about the strike."

"I'm on the missile base team!" Selphie shouted immediately, with surprising force. "I have to be! They attacked Trabia!" Squall looked at her, momentarily considering ordering her not to, but said nothing as he looked into her pained, enraged green eyes. Finally, Squall nodded.

"I'm with her," Irvine added quickly, surprising the group as well. "Trust me, no one knows Galbadian technology better than me," the sharpshooter added. "You're going to need a firearms expert in there as well. I'm the man to fit the bill." Squall nodded, and turned to Zell, who nodded immediately.

"Don't worry, I'm good for it," Zell said, slapping his fist into his palm. "Have to protect Garden! It's my only home!"

"Alright," Squall said with a nod. He turned to Quistis.

"Quistis, we still have an obligation to protect Rinoa," he explained quickly. "I'll need you to get Rinoa to Garden and warn them about the attack-"

Quistis shook her head, and Squall blinked in surprise. She waved him forward, and he stepped up to her. The rest of the team began to move in as well, but Squall waved them back.

"Squall, this is a suicide mission," she quickly explained. "You're going to go in yourself?"

"I have to," he replied. "Stopping the launch is more important. I have to-"

"No, Squall," Quistis replied. "The missile base team is expendable. The messenger team is much more important. The odds that the infiltration team will stop the launch is close to impossible. If we can't stop it-"

"We?" Squall asked. "You want to go in?"

"Under the circumstances, yes," Quistis said with a nod. "I'll lead the missile base team, you take Rinoa back into Garden and warn them."

"You can be the messenger just as easily," Squall replied, but Quistis shook her head.

"Squall, going into the missile base is almost suicide," she explained. "You're the best hope we have to defeat Edea and Seifer. You have to go back to Garden-"

"There won't be a Garden unless we stop the launch!" Squall growled.

"And we can stop it," Quistis assured him. "Squall, just once, trust me on this. I'll take care of the team inside the missile base. I know I can."

Squall opened his mouth to object, but stopped. In all honesty, he did trust Quistis to be able to lead effectively. He looked to her, and then around to the rest of his team, and then back to her. He recalled the night not so long ago where he had listened to Quistis open her heart on the balcony overlooking the Training Center. He remembered how, despite the mistrust that the Garden faculty had in Quistis' leadership, Squall still believed he could trust her.

How could he refuse to trust her now? Balamb meant as much to her as it did to him; she had as much a stake in this as he did. Under those circumstances, how could he deny her this? Her chance to prove herself?

Squall stepped away from Quistis, and nodded.

"Irvine, Selphie, Zell," he stated, then glanced to Quistis. "Quistis will be in operational command of this mission." The trio nodded in understanding. "However, this isn't like an ordinary operation. We're not performing this mission under Garden orders. We're acting under our own initiative to protect Garden."

"Cid always said he wanted us to act on our own," Zell commented. "I guess this is what he meant."

Squall nodded, and looked over the four SeeDs who he had worked beside in recent memory, a quartet he may never see again. The odds that the group would even survive the infiltration were negligible; in fact, the odds that they could even save Garden were questionable.

But still, wasn't trying better than nothing?

"Everyone, good luck," Squall stated, before saluting. The salute was mirrored by Selphie, Irvine, Zell, and Quistis, before the two groups took their separate ways.

Squall glanced over his shoulder a few minutes later as he drove Irvine's vehicle away, watching the departing Galbadian army vehicle driving north to the Galbadian missile base, and bided his departing comrades a silent farewell. He didn't want to believe they would never return, but something in his heart told the SeeD that if his comrades did succeed, they would not escape . . . .

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------------

Whee! Thus ends the prison arc, and now, onto the Garden civil war and the missile base mission! Yee-haw!

Future updates won't be quite as often as they have been, as there is something new I've been working on, a little something me and Xenogears have titled "Bittersweet Synthesis." Keep your eyes open for it, it should be up next weekend. Trust me, you won't be disappointed.